
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday 17 December 1999, and I would like once again to wish you a happy new year in the hope that you enjoyed a pleasant festive period.
Although, as you will have seen, the dreaded 'millennium bug' failed to materialise, still the people in a number of countries suffered a series of natural disasters that truly were dreadful.
You have requested a debate on this subject in the course of the next few days, during this part-session.
In the meantime, I should like to observe a minute' s silence, as a number of Members have requested, on behalf of all the victims concerned, particularly those of the terrible storms, in the various countries of the European Union.
Please rise, then, for this minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Madam President, on a point of order.
You will be aware from the press and television that there have been a number of bomb explosions and killings in Sri Lanka.
One of the people assassinated very recently in Sri Lanka was Mr Kumar Ponnambalam, who had visited the European Parliament just a few months ago.
Would it be appropriate for you, Madam President, to write a letter to the Sri Lankan President expressing Parliament's regret at his and the other violent deaths in Sri Lanka and urging her to do everything she possibly can to seek a peaceful reconciliation to a very difficult situation?
Yes, Mr Evans, I feel an initiative of the type you have just suggested would be entirely appropriate.
If the House agrees, I shall do as Mr Evans has suggested.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I would like your advice about Rule 143 concerning inadmissibility.
My question relates to something that will come up on Thursday and which I will then raise again.
The Cunha report on multiannual guidance programmes comes before Parliament on Thursday and contains a proposal in paragraph 6 that a form of quota penalties should be introduced for countries which fail to meet their fleet reduction targets annually.
It says that this should be done despite the principle of relative stability.
I believe that the principle of relative stability is a fundamental legal principle of the common fisheries policy and a proposal to subvert it would be legally inadmissible.
I want to know whether one can raise an objection of that kind to what is merely a report, not a legislative proposal, and whether that is something I can competently do on Thursday.
That is precisely the time when you may, if you wish, raise this question, i.e. on Thursday prior to the start of the presentation of the report.
Madam President, coinciding with this year' s first part-session of the European Parliament, a date has been set, unfortunately for next Thursday, in Texas in America, for the execution of a young 34 year-old man who has been sentenced to death. We shall call him Mr Hicks.
At the request of a French Member, Mr Zimeray, a petition has already been presented, which many people signed, including myself. However, I would ask you, in accordance with the line which is now constantly followed by the European Parliament and by the whole of the European Community, to make representations, using the weight of your prestigious office and the institution you represent, to the President and to the Governor of Texas, Mr Bush, who has the power to order a stay of execution and to reprieve the condemned person.
This is all in accordance with the principles that we have always upheld.
Thank you, Mr Segni, I shall do so gladly.
Indeed, it is quite in keeping with the positions this House has always adopted.
Madam President, I should like to draw your attention to a case in which this Parliament has consistently shown an interest.
It is the case of Alexander Nikitin.
All of us here are pleased that the courts have acquitted him and made it clear that in Russia, too, access to environmental information is a constitutional right.
Now, however, he is to go before the courts once more because the public prosecutor is appealing.
We know, and we have stated as much in very many resolutions indeed, including specifically during the last plenary part-session of last year, that this is not solely a legal case and that it is wrong for Alexander Nikitin to be accused of criminal activity and treason because of our involvement as the beneficiaries of his findings.
These findings form the basis of the European programmes to protect the Barents Sea, and that is why I would ask you to examine a draft letter setting out the most important facts and to make Parliament's position, as expressed in the resolutions which it has adopted, clear as far as Russia is concerned.
Yes, Mrs Schroedter, I shall be pleased to look into the facts of this case when I have received your letter.
Madam President, I would firstly like to compliment you on the fact that you have kept your word and that, during this first part-session of the new year, the number of television channels in our offices has indeed increased considerably.
But, Madam President, my personal request has not been met.
Although there are now two Finnish channels and one Portuguese one, there is still no Dutch channel, which is what I had requested because Dutch people here like to be able to follow the news too when we are sent to this place of exile every month.
I would therefore once more ask you to ensure that we get a Dutch channel as well.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I can tell you that this matter is on the agenda for the Quaestors' meeting on Wednesday.
It will, I hope, be examined in a positive light.
Mrs Lynne, you are quite right and I shall check whether this has actually not been done.
I shall also refer the matter to the College of Quaestors, and I am certain that they will be keen to ensure that we comply with the regulations we ourselves vote on.
Madam President, Mrs Díez González and I had tabled questions on certain opinions of the Vice-President, Mrs de Palacio, which appeared in a Spanish newspaper.
The competent services have not included them in the agenda on the grounds that they had been answered in a previous part-session.
I would ask that they reconsider, since this is not the case.
The questions answered previously referred to Mrs de Palacio' s intervention, on another occasion, and not to these comments which appeared in the ABC newspaper on 18 November.
Mr Berenguer Fuster, we shall check all this.
I admit that, at present, the matter seems to be somewhat confused.
We shall therefore look into it properly to ensure that everything is as it should be.
In any event, this question is not presently included among the requests for topical and urgent debate on Thursday.
Agenda
The next item is the verification of the final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 13 January pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
No amendments have been proposed relating to Monday and Tuesday.
Relating to Wednesday:
The Group of the Party of European Socialists requests that a Commission statement be included on its strategic objectives for the next five years and on the administrative reform of the Commission.
I would like Mr Barón Crespo, who made the request, to speak to propose it. That is, if he so wishes, of course.
Then we shall follow the usual procedure, hearing one speaker in favour and one against.
Madam President, the presentation of the Prodi Commission' s political programme for the whole legislature was initially a proposal by the Group of the Party of European Socialists which was unanimously approved by the Conference of Presidents in September and which was also explicitly accepted by President Prodi, who reiterated his commitment in his inaugural speech.
This commitment is important because the Commission is a body with a monopoly of initiative in accordance with the Treaties and, therefore, basically dictates this Parliament' s political and legislative activity for the next five years.
I would also like to point out, Madam President, that this Parliament voted to express its confidence in President Prodi during the previous legislature.
It did so again during this legislature, in July, and then, in September, it voted once more to approve the whole Commission.
There has therefore been enough time for the Commission to prepare its programme and for us to become familiar with it and explain it to our citizens.
To this end, I would like to remind you of the resolution of 15 September, which recommended that the proposal be presented as soon as possible.
The events of last week - which originated outside the Conference of Presidents, that Conference being used simply to corroborate and ratify decisions taken elsewhere - present us with a dilemma. Either the Commission is not ready to present this programme, in which case it should clarify it.
According to its President, it is in a position to do so.
Given that the Commission is represented by Vice-President de Palacio, I believe that, before voting, it would help if the Commission could let us know how ready it is to present this programme, as agreed. Alternatively, Parliament is not ready to examine this programme, as some appear to be suggesting.
In my opinion, this second hypothesis would imply the failure of Parliament in its duty as a Parliament, as well as introducing an original thesis, an unknown method which consists of making political groups aware, in writing, of a speech concerning the Commission' s programme a week earlier - and not a day earlier, as had been agreed - bearing in mind that the legislative programme will be discussed in February, so we could forego the debate, since on the next day our citizens will hear about it in the press and on the Internet and Parliament will no longer have to worry about it.
My Group believes that since a parliament is meant to listen, debate and reflect, there can be no justification whatsoever for this delay and we believe that, if the Commission is ready to do so, we still have time to re-establish the original agreement between Parliament and the Commission and proceed in a manner which fulfils our duty to our fellow citizens.
Therefore, the proposal of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and which you have mentioned, is that the Prodi Commission present its legislative programme on Wednesday, including its proposed administrative reform, because, otherwise, we could find ourselves in a paradoxical situation: on the pretext that there is no text, on the one hand, the President of the Commission would be denied his right to speak in this Parliament and, on the other hand, there would be a debate on a reform when Parliament had no prior knowledge of the texts on which it is based.
Therefore, Madam President, I would ask you to request that the Commission express its opinion on this issue and that we then proceed to the vote.
(Applause from the PSE Group)
Madam President, I would like to make it very clear that, above all, the Commission has absolute respect for the decisions of this Parliament and, amongst those, the decision establishing its agenda.
We therefore respect whatever Parliament may decide.
But I would also like to make it very clear that President Prodi made a commitment to this Parliament to introduce a new debate, as Mr Barón Crespo has reminded us, which would be in addition to the annual debate on the Commission' s legislative programme, on the broad areas of action for the next five years, that is to say, for this legislature.
Madam President, I would like to say that the agreement reached in September distinguished this debate from the annual presentation of the Commission' s legislative programme.
I would also like to say that the Commission is prepared and ready to hold this debate whenever it is convenient and that we were ready to do so this week as we had agreed originally, on the basis that it would be presented the day before in a speech to parliamentary groups.
Therefore, Madam President, I would like to repeat that the Commission has debated the action plan for the next five years and, when Parliament decides, - this week if that is the decision - we are prepared to come and explain the programme for the next five years and, next month, the programme for 2000, which is what we fully agreed upon.
I propose that we vote on the request of the Group of the Party of European Socialists that the Commission statement on its strategic objectives should be reinstated.
(Parliament rejected the request) President.
Still on the subject of Wednesday' s sitting, I have another proposal regarding the oral question on capital tax.
The PPE-DE Group is requesting that this item be taken off the agenda.
Is there a member who wishes to speak on behalf of this Group to propose this?
Madam President, I can hear a ripple of laughter from the Socialists. I was told that large sections of the Socialist Group were also keen to have this item taken off the agenda, because at the vote in the Conference of Presidents no vote was received from the working group of Members of the Socialist Group responsible for this matter.
I do not know whether this information is correct, but the PPE-DE Group would, in any case, be grateful if this item were removed because Parliament has addressed this issue several times already.
Decisions have also been adopted against a tax of this kind.
That is why my Group moves that this item be taken off the agenda.
Thank you, Mr Poettering.
We shall now hear Mr Wurtz speaking against this request.
Madam President, I would firstly like to point out Mr Poettering' s lack of logic.
He has just been preaching to the Group of the Party of European Socialists because they went back on a decision taken in a perfectly clear manner at the Conference of Presidents, and now he is doing just the same.
We discussed that matter and we were unanimous, with the exception of the PPE and ELDR Groups. As my fellow chairmen will recall, I even mentioned that it was not a matter of knowing whether one was for or against the Tobin tax, but of whether one dared to hear what the Commission and the Council thought of it.
It is not a lot to ask.
I therefore repeat the proposal that this oral question to the Commission and the Council should be retained so that we can find out, once and for all, the positions of these two bodies regarding the proposal which is relatively modest but which would give a clear message to public opinion, particularly after the tide of feeling generated by the failure of the Seattle Conference.
We shall proceed to vote on the PPE-DE Group' s request that the oral question regarding the capital tax be withdrawn from the agenda.
(Parliament rejected the request, with 164 votes for, 166 votes against and 7 abstentions)
Madam President, I would like to thank Mr Poettering for advertising this debate.
Thank you very much.
Madam President, has my vote been counted? I was unable to vote electronically, since I do not have a card.
My vote was "in favour" .
Ladies and gentlemen, once again, we see it is essential for Members to bring their voting cards along on a Monday.
Clearly there is a problem here.
That being the case, I shall have to make a decision.
I too forgot my card, and I would have voted against.
I therefore consider that the oral question may be kept on the agenda as per the vote.
This is the last time that we shall make allowances for Members who have forgotten their cards.
Let that be clearly noted and understood.
(Applause)The oral question will therefore remain on the agenda, and yes, your President is entitled to vote just as she is entitled to forget her voting card.
We shall continue with the other amendments to the agenda.
Madam President, in the earlier vote - and I will abide by your ruling on this matter - on the question of the strategic plan of the Commission I indicated that I would like to speak in advance of the vote on behalf of my Group.
That did not happen.
I would appreciate it if, on the close of this item of business, I might be allowed to give an explanation of vote on behalf of my Group.
This is an important matter.
It would be useful for the record of the House to state how people perceive what we have just done in the light of their own political analysis.
Madam President, I do not wish to reopen the debate, but I had also asked for the floor, to comment on Mr Barón Crespo's motion.
You did not call me either.
I regret this, but the vote has already been taken and the decision is made so let us leave the matter there.
I am terribly sorry, Mr Hänsch and Mr Cox. I did not see you asking to speak.
Even so, I think the positions are quite clear and they shall be entered in the Minutes.
When we adopt the Minutes for today' s sitting tomorrow, then any Members who think the positions have not been explained clearly enough may ask for amendments.
This seems to me to be a workable solution.
Of course, the Minutes for tomorrow' s sitting will take into account any additional explanations.
I think this is a better solution than proceeding now to extremely time-consuming explanations of votes.
Mr Cox, Mr Hänsch, would this be acceptable to you?
Madam President, if the vote records correctly how my Group voted I shall not, and cannot, object to that.
If your ruling is that I cannot give an explanation of vote, I accept that but with reservations.
We shall pay particular attention to the wording of the Minutes, as we always do, of course.
If they do not properly reflect the positions adopted, then we may correct them, if necessary.
(The order of business was adopted thus amended)
Safety advisers for the transport of dangerous goods
The next item is the report (A5-0105/1999) by Mr Koch, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the harmonisation of examination requirements for safety advisers for the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterways (C5-0208/1999 - 1998/0106(COD)).
Commissioner, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I can be quite frank in saying that I welcome the Council's common position on harmonising the training of safety advisers for the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterway.
Firstly, we needed to take action on a formal level in order to meet the requirements of Directive 96/35/EC, which obliges the Member States to appoint safety advisers and to organise the training, instruction and examination of these people but does not explain this explicitly.
Secondly, by adopting this directive we achieve a) an increase in safety when dangerous goods are both transported and transhipped; b) a reduction in distortions of competition resulting from wide variations in national training structures and training costs and c) equal opportunities for safety advisers on the European labour market.
Thirdly, this directive, as it currently stands in the common position, guarantees - in particular because it confines itself exclusively to minimum standards - a high degree of flexibility and modest regulation by the European Union; by adopting it we contribute to the Member States' bearing a high level of individual responsibility.
All of this is in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity and is therefore to be greatly welcomed.
Our amendments from the first reading have, I believe, been taken into account very satisfactorily.
They have either been accepted or transposed with no change in the substance, or they have been rejected because the corresponding European arrangements have not been included, for example a system of penalties for violations of the rules or a complex classification structure for related groups of questions.
The one unanimously adopted amendment of the Committee on Regional Policy and Transport, which concerns the timetable for implementing the directive, is something which I would urge you to support.
By not setting a specific date for the Member States to implement the directive and instead giving them a period of three months after its entry into force, we are introducing a flexibility clause which ensures that the directive will be implemented without delay.
I would urge you to endorse this.
Madam President, we cannot and must not accept the fact that we hear ever more frequently of accidents causing major damage on our roads, but also on our railways and waterways, not solely but at least partly because those involved do not take the transport of dangerous goods seriously enough or because - as a result of ignorance or a lack of training on the part of the drivers or others responsible for the various vehicles - a minor accident has all too often become a major disaster.
As an Austrian, I still have a vivid memory, as, I believe, we all do, of the catastrophe which cost so many human lives last year in the Tauern Tunnel, where subsequent work to rebuild the parts of the tunnel which had been destroyed in this fire continued for many months at huge expense.
The renovation project, which lasted for months, cut off this important route between the north and south of Europe.
The traffic which had to be diverted because of this stretched the patience of many thousands of people in the EU to the limit.
In fact, all hell broke loose in some municipalities in my province.
Prevention has to be our answer to disasters of this kind and this draft directive is an important step towards well-trained safety advisers being available, so that the right action is taken in good time.
All the same, we must not content ourselves with enacting European law to ensure greater safety.
We also need to follow this up and make sure that our rules are transposed by the Member States in good time and - even more importantly - we need to ensure that they are also applied afterwards.
Please let this not be yet another sector where we subsequently have to lament the lack of enforcement.
I should like to address one final point. We must not content ourselves with sealing another hole in the safety net and shutting our eyes to the fact that, where transport safety in Europe is concerned, there is still much more to be done.
In this context, I should like to make a request and ask the Commissioner responsible, who is with us here today, to table an appropriate text as soon as possible with a view to continuing to make it safer for traffic to transit tunnels in the future, so that we in Europe do not have to experience any more such disasters on this scale.
Madam President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Koch for his report which has, at its heart, the issue of transport safety.
The report looks at the issue of harmonising the examination requirements for safety advisors working in the areas of transportation of dangerous goods by road, rail and inland waterway.
I congratulate him on his excellent report.
Transport safety has sadly been in the news recently: the Paddington rail crash in London, the terrible rail crash in Norway, the two aviation crashes involving EU citizens and the natural disaster involving the Erika off Brittany - all within the last four months - remind us that transport safety can never be taken for granted and that those charged with protecting the public must be highly motivated and highly qualified.
The rapporteur has pointed out to the House that in its common position the Council has accepted six of Parliament's ten amendments put forward at first reading and that the substance of Parliament's other amendments has been retained.
My Group will therefore support the common position and looks forward to the enactment of the legislation which will provide us with yet another tool in our fight to make transport in the European Union as safe as possible.
When it comes to safety my Group will always support any initiatives to improve transport safety.
We still have a lot of work to do in this area as recent events have proved.
Madam President, I would like to make a few comments.
I would like, first of all, to thank the rapporteur for his exceptionally accurate and technical work on the report and, secondly, the Commission for the proposal it has submitted.
We are concerned here with the harmonisation of examination requirements but also, in fact, with minimum requirements.
This is a pity, in a sense.
Needless to say, safety on roads, railways and inland waterways is of key importance and, given the international nature of these types of transport, training for safety advisors should also be harmonised, therefore, as well as the requirements of the new ADR, for example, which is under way.
This is important, but so is enforcement and there are, of course, a number of reasons why we need to pay particular attention to this.
Just think of the road accidents which have occurred over recent years, for example in Belgium, the Netherlands and a number of other countries where lorries carrying dangerous goods continued to drive in foggy conditions when really they should have pulled off the road instead.
Or ships from Eastern Europe which moor adjacent to ships over here, with all the obvious risks that this entails.
Furthermore, it has transpired that research in the ports in Belgium, Finland, but also in Japan has shown that 50% of containers with partially dangerous cargo are not delivered correctly for shipment.
In short, the issue is an important one.
If we look at the situation where safety advisers are concerned, in a number of countries it is compulsory to employ such safety advisers in companies as from 1 January of this year.
There will be major problems with enforcing this rule at present, especially with smaller companies, as these cannot afford safety advisors.
These smaller companies either dispose of their cargo or mix it with other cargo, which causes problems.
It is therefore also being requested that ISO 9002 certificates possibly include the finer details of these activities in the form of annual reports and company analyses.
The work is done. All that remains is the business of enforcement.
I would like to mention one final point.
With regard to enforcement, proper agreements must also be concluded with the Eastern European countries because they will not enter into treaties which deal with this matter until 1 July 2001, that is to say in eighteen months' time.
This gives them a competitive edge for the interim period.
This is not in itself anything dreadful, but we should prioritise particularly the safety aspects for goods transported by road, rail and inland waterways and incorporate these, as part of the acquis communautaire, as soon as possible and present them to the acceding states.
Madam President, the importance of transport safety is highlighted on a regular basis in this Parliament and rightly so.
The ever increasing volume of goods passing through Europe entails all kinds of risks, known and unknown, for employees and the social environment.
Those having to deal with these risks should therefore meet stringent requirements.
The relevant standards which have been laid down in another Directive, 95/35/EC, seem sufficiently adequate to advise people in a responsible manner on the organisation of the transport of dangerous goods.
I am very pleased that agreement has also been reached with the Council on minimum standards regarding examinations, although I would have preferred it if uniform, set standards and modules had been established, so that certificates would be of equal value internationally.
This, however, does not seem feasible.
Finally, the amendment tabled by the rapporteur is perfectly logical and I can, therefore, give it my wholehearted support.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should first like to congratulate Mr Koch on his reports which, though technical, are nonetheless of very great significance for safety.
I should like to make just a few comments.
Firstly, I should like to ask the Commissioner - and I am convinced that my request will fall on fertile ground - to ensure that more attention is paid to the issue of safety, be it on the roads, on the waterways or at sea.
Considering that it is only today that we are dealing with a Commission proposal first made on 19 March 1998, even though Parliament responded relatively quickly, this time lag is a little too long.
This is not just the fault of the Commission, but I believe that we need to take action more quickly so as to achieve harmonisation in this area as well.
My second point has already been mentioned: it concerns the minimum standards.
In principle, I believe that in many cases where transport is concerned we should be working towards increased flexibility and country-specific rules.
However, when it comes to safety, I am rather sceptical because safety in Sweden, for example, is in principle no different from safety in Germany, Italy or Austria.
I can live with these minimum standards, but I would ask the Commission to monitor the situation very carefully.
Should flexibility of this kind result in there being inadequate rules in some countries then we should work towards greater harmonisation.
My third point has also been mentioned already.
As you know, like Mr Rack, I come from a transit country, where this issue plays a particularly important role.
We do not want to make the conditions of competition worse for some countries unilaterally and improve them for countries such as Austria or other transit countries.
But I believe that we should do all we can to keep the transport of dangerous goods to a minimum, in all countries, whether they are transit countries or not.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Koch, on his magnificent work and his positive cooperation with the Commission with regard to improving the texts and presenting this report and this proposal; in the end there is only one amendment on the requirements for the aptitude examination for safety advisers in the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterway.
We understand that it is important that the two institutions - Parliament and Commission - cooperate and work together and that the current cooperation with the Committee on Regional Policy, and in particular the transport group, is magnificent.
The common position includes practically all of the amendments accepted by the Commission and harmonises the minimum examination requirements for safety advisers and, at second reading, we can accept the amendment on the proposed date, which is much more realistic than the one originally suggested by the Commission, bearing in mind that we have now spent several years debating this question.
Very briefly, I would like to thank the various Members for their interventions and to tell you that safety is one of the Commission' s priorities in the field of transport.
As Mr Simpson has said very correctly, this is a process which we can never take for granted or regard as having come to an end.
The process of increasing safety margins and safety guarantees in transport is a process which must be improved day by day.
In this regard, I would also like to refer very briefly to the problems of the tunnels, which Messrs Rack and Swoboda have referred to, which, in the case of Austria, is doubtless a very sensitive issue, and great effort should be made to improve their safety.
In one of the worst accidents to have occurred recently, the goods being transported were not dangerous in themselves.
Margarine and a few kilos of paint which, in principle, do not present risks, led to a genuine disaster.
Therefore, we will have to see how the requirements guaranteeing the maximum degree of safety can be further improved.
Finally, I would like to say that we have to consider safety in all types of transport.
This week we will be holding a debate here on the safety of sea transport, in light of the Erika disaster, and in the course of this year we will have to discuss our objectives in terms of the safety of air transport.
But I would like to say that safety is a priority objective for the Commission.
As I will say in the debate on the Erika disaster, we do not wait until there is a disaster to deal with the question of safety, but we work on it even when there are no such circumstances, which simply serve to demonstrate the urgency for an effective response to this type of problem.
I would like to repeat my appreciation to all the speakers and especially to the rapporteur, Mr Koch.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Transport of dangerous goods by road
The next item is the report (A5-0104/1999) by Mr Koch, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 94/55/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road [COM(1999) 158 - C5-0004/1999 - 1999/0083(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road, which entered into force on 1 January 1997, contains a number of transitional provisions which are only valid for a limited period of time, the term of validity being linked to the completion of specific standardisation work by the CEN, that is the European Committee for Standardisation.
Delays in the CEN' s work are now making it difficult to apply this very directive.
In particular, annexes cannot be adapted to take account of technical and industrial developments.
I regret this since we are having to take action because others have not done their job.
In this respect, I accept this proposal to amend Directive 94/55/EC which has been tabled for discussion today.
Should the European Union fail to take action, then Member States would be obliged to amend their national legislation for a very brief period, until the CEN completes its work, which would cause unnecessary cost and uncertainty.
The amendment to the directive on today's agenda does not therefore affect the existing harmonisation of the transport of dangerous goods in the Community.
It merely prolongs transitional rules by postponing deadlines, deletes provisions which are no longer applicable, and lays down the procedures for a) carrying out the ad hoc transportation of dangerous goods and b) enacting less stringent national regulations, in particular for the transport of very small amounts of dangerous goods within strictly defined local areas.
The amendment to the directive is consequently in full accordance with the principle of subsidiarity; the Member States obtain more powers.
The Commission decides whether the Member States may impose certain rules of their own.
In so doing, it is supported by a committee of experts on the transport of dangerous goods under the regulatory procedure.
The procedures for the exercise of these implementing powers conferred on the Commission were laid down afresh in the Council Decision of June 1999.
The proposal to be discussed today, to amend the directive on the transport of dangerous goods by road, dates from May 1999, however, and could not therefore take account of the latest comitology procedure.
Two of the amendments tabled and adopted unanimously by the committee relate precisely to this amended comitology procedure.
We would like to ensure that there is a reference to this as early as the recitals and that the period within which the Council has to make a decision - which is not clearly worded - is set at a maximum of three months.
In addition, the need for greater transparency has been pointed out.
A further amendment allows the Member States to impose more stringent requirements, in particular for vacuum tanks, if work is done or goods are transported as a priority in temperatures well below -20ºC.
This is in the special interest of northern European regions.
A final amendment is intended to ensure that tanks and tankers put into service between 1 January 1997 and the entry into force of this directive may continue to be used provided that they have been constructed and maintained in accordance with it.
I do realise that this is only a small step towards increased transport safety, but I would ask you to endorse this report.
Mr President, colleagues, a happy new year and millennium to you all.
I am speaking for the first time in this plenary part-session, so this is quite exciting for me, a little like first love, although that did last longer than two minutes.
I would like to briefly comment on the Commission' s proposal to amend the directive on the transport of dangerous goods by road.
It is good that this directive should be established now, as, otherwise, Member States would have to amend their national acts for a very short time, a period of transition, which would again mean unnecessary costs and which would once more increase concern with regard to EU bureaucracy.
The Commission' s proposal, however, does not take account of all the facts, such as the cold climate that prevails in the northern regions.
Consequently, I have tabled some amendments to Mr Koch' s intrinsically excellent report, which have been adopted by our committee.
My amendments concern the frost-resistance ratings for tankers carrying these dangerous goods.
According to the Commission' s proposal -20ºC would have been sufficient.
On the shores of the Mediterranean, it is hard to imagine that in Lapland temperatures can fall considerably lower than that.
There is support for the EU in Lapland also, so let us remember them.
I have thus proposed that the frost rating be lowered to -40ºC.
This would be necessary to keep safety standards at the level they were in northern regions previously.
I hope my proposal will be taken into consideration in tomorrow' s vote.
Mr President, with your permission I should like to begin by expressing my admiration for the way in which you executed the quick changeover of the chairmanship just now during the debate. I thought that it was quite superb.
On the subject at hand, I think that the people of Europe must be able to be confident that the goods - however dangerous they are - which are transported on Europe's roads, railways, and so on are as safe as possible.
This directive is a contribution to this.
What we are doing today is essentially a nuisance.
The rapporteur, Mr Koch, to whom we express our thanks for the work which he has done on this, has already pointed out that basically everything could have been somewhat more advanced had it not been for the inactivity on the part of the CEN, which has been very dilatory in drawing up and adapting the directive.
That is why we can only hope - and we should resolve all of this this week - that, in 2001, we will finally have Community regulations for the transport of dangerous goods by road so that we have a degree of legal certainty here and also so that our roads are a good deal safer.
Mr President, the report we are discussing here does not, in itself, entail any major changes.
Most of the proposed amendments are of a purely technical nature.
It is nonetheless worth emphasising that, each time we make this type of decision, it is good from a broad environmental perspective and it is beneficial because it creates better prior conditions for exploiting the possibilities of the internal market.
Very large quantities of dangerous goods are transported around the EU, both on roads and railways and by sea.
This makes it necessary to have proper rules governing transport of this kind.
In area after area, we are now obtaining common minimum regulations for the Member States. This is extraordinarily positive, and there is cause to thank the rapporteur, Mr Koch, for the work he has put in on this issue.
This is also important where the prerequisites for the internal market are concerned.
If we are to get a common transport market genuinely up and running, it is important that we should not only have regulations but that these regulations should also, as far as possible, apply to every country.
I should like to conclude by commenting on a third matter which is also of significance, namely an amendment tabled by Member of Parliament, Mr Ari Vatanen.
In many ways, the prerequisites differ from one Member State to another.
By approving this amendment, we take account of the fact that it can be very cold in the northern parts of the European Union. This makes it necessary to also take account of the ways in which materials and packaging are affected by cold of this kind.
It is good that, in establishing the present regulations, we can also be flexible.
I hope that the Commission is able to accept the present amendment.
Mr President, I would like to thank not only Mr Koch, but also the Vice-President of the Commission for the clear and unambiguous way in which they have declared their support for safety in the transport sector and acknowledged it as a priority.
The reason Mr Koch produced his sound report was because the work in the CEN and within the United Nations Economic Commission was proceeding none too expeditiously.
I would like to ask the Vice-President if she is in a position to tell us today what the state of play is with regard to the efforts towards harmonisation being made by these two organisations, and whether the EU is in a position to hasten these harmonisation efforts, in accordance with principles that are as simple as possible.
For one thing is clear: even if we come to an excellent arrangement within the European Union, traffic does not stop at our borders, it goes beyond them.
Hence there is certainly every reason to introduce more far-reaching regional provisions.
If the Commissioner is unable to do so today then would she be prepared to inform the committee in writing of how matters stand and what stage negotiations between the CEN and the Economic Commission are at?
Mr President, I would once again like to congratulate Mr Koch on his magnificent work on this other report, which in a way supplements the debate which we held in October on rail transport.
We all regret that the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) has not been able, in the required time, to carry out the amendment of the provisions necessary for the required harmonisation within the European Union.
This debate and the amendment of the directive currently in force allow us to incorporate differentiating elements which demonstrate the diversity of this Europe of ours.
A moment ago, Mr Vatanen spoke to us of lower temperatures, not of 20 degrees below zero, but of 40 degrees below zero.
Of course, we accept that amendment - it is absolutely right - and I believe that we should incorporate specific circumstances which demonstrate the climatic diversity of the European Union, which sometimes take the form of specifics and of concrete requirements for the establishment of standards and characterisations of a technical nature.
I would like to say, with regard to Mr Swoboda' s comments on the activity of the CEN, that we are urging them to speed up their work as much as possible because it would be terrible if, despite the new deadline, we were to find ourselves after a year and a bit with the same difficulties because their work has not been concluded.
Lastly, Mr President, the basic problems justifying this amendment of the directive have been pointed out. We have referred to the delay by the CEN, the amendment of certain provisions, the consistency between the text of the directive and the content of the annexes and the need to for it to be more specific.
The Commission accepts all of the contributions of the parliamentary committee and the rapporteur, Mr Koch, which are contained in the various amendments, specifically four.
We therefore accept the four amendments which have been proposed.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Structural Funds - Cohesion Fund coordination
The next item is the report (A5-0108/1999) by Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission in the field of the Structural Funds and their coordination with the Cohesion Fund: guidelines for programmes in the period 2000-2006 [COM(1999)344 - C5-0122/1999 - 1999/2127(COS)].
Mr President, it is particularly pleasing for me to make my first speech in the European Parliament on what is regarded as the most important issue within that part of the United Kingdom that I represent in this Parliament, namely Wales.
A major part of Wales, as you know, has been granted Objective 1 status under the Structural Funds programme.
It is quite clear that many people within Wales are looking to the European Structural Funds programme to alleviate some of the great difficulties that we undoubtedly face.
We have seen poverty growing in Wales; and growing still further since 1997.
We have seen the gap between rich and poor widen.
We are looking, therefore, within the Structural Funds programme not just to see industrial restructuring but also to see a wider improvement in the whole of the economic base within the Principality.
What is, however, deeply damaging for us is the belief that in some way the granting of Structural Funds assistance is something that has been, in a sense, a success of the government.
It is sadly only a recognition of the very great difficulties that Wales faces.
That is why I want to highlight some of the issues that I believe the Commission must have at the forefront.
We look to the Commission to deal with points in relation to additionality.
We are dissatisfied with the fact that those figures seem to have been in some way hidden within UK figures.
We look to the Commission also to ensure that there is matched funding for projects.
We look to it to challenge the UK Government, to ensure that the private sector, which surely must be providing the major impetus for Structural Funds expenditure, is involved in the planning stage.
Finally, we ask that the Commission ensures that Structural Fund monies are spent in a way which is transparent.
Too much of what takes place within this Parliament is not transparent.
This is one area in which I believe the Commission can be a very great friend to Wales.
Mr President, our committee views these issues very differently and, to start, I will speak from the point of view of research.
We see it as a very positive sign that, in her own conclusions, the rapporteur has taken account of our committee' s proposal that the Cohesion Fund countries should broaden the research infrastructure by locating universities and colleges in such a way that they would serve those who live in undeveloped regions better than now and make it easier for educated people to remain in their home districts.
This will be possible with action on the part of governments, and such decentralisation of higher education will be an unquestionably useful policy in evening out development.
Another matter we would like to address, specifically from the point of view of industrial policy, is that we would have liked the Commission to pay more attention to the effects of services, electronic commerce and the growing use of the Internet, when they were planning the coordination of Structural Funds and Cohesion Funds.
Poverty and wealth used to depend more on means of livelihood.
The rich areas were those where there were jobs in industry, but today those areas might have become a burden, and they may well be poor, meaning we also have to invest in new sectors of industry such as electronic production, as I might call it, and the production of services, because they are the industries of the future.
In my opinion the committee drafting the report has not taken sufficient account of this, so on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I would draw the Commission' s attention to this issue.
Finally, as the committee representing energy, we would have liked the issue of support for renewable energy resources from Cohesion and Regional Development funds to have been emphasised still more, thus, through a process of coordination, increasing the use of renewables so that the scant funding resources in the energy programme might have been compensated by means of these more substantial sums.
Mr President, I would very much like to thank Mrs Schroedter for the work she has done on this and to explain to colleagues that I am speaking for my colleague, Mrs Flautre, who followed this for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs but who is unfortunately ill.
I would like to draw people's attention to Amendments Nos 1 and 2 which were agreed by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs but not accepted by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
These amendments deal with the social economy and the need to provide social risk capital and support financially local schemes to develop employment opportunities and strengthen social cohesion.
In the past, this Parliament has viewed the social economy as an important potential provider of employment.
These amendments also fit in with this Parliament's view that social exclusion is a serious issue needing constructive action.
We hope that those considering rejection of these amendments have very powerful reasons to offer to both Parliament and their citizens who are seeking employment.
In her report, Mrs Flautre also drew attention to an area where coordination is sorely lacking, yet desperately needed.
The Commission proposals refer to the four pillars of employment strategy and the five fields of action of the European Social Fund.
But the lack of specific guidelines here is particularly to be regretted, as the idea of linking Social Fund assistance to the employment strategy will be put into effect for the first time during the 2000-2006 programme.
It could be said that the omission gives the impression that the Commission too has no idea how to provide maximum coordination between European Social Fund assistance, which is subject to review after three and a half years, and the Member States' annual national plans for employment.
We hope that the Commission can reassure us that this was an oversight which is now being dealt with constructively.
Mr President, Commissioner, the proposal presented by the Commission, in accordance with its mandate, is a reasonable starting point for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I would like to point out, however, that this starting point indicates to us the challenges which face us: maintaining a population in rural areas, given the changes taking place in all types of economic activity owing to agriculture' s increasing lack of importance amongst the various sources of income for rural society.
This, as well as the deficiencies in the networks of infrastructures and services and a generally very low level of employment, which furthermore is seasonal and lacks diversity, exacerbates the exodus from rural areas.
The consequences do not inspire hope.
It is the young people who are disappearing, who are getting an education and finding work outside of the rural areas, all of which has an unfavourable effect on those areas.
This lack of infrastructure is also an obstacle to the establishment of companies and the creation of jobs.
We have to remember that rural areas represent almost four fifths of the territory of the European Union.
Agriculture only provides 5.5% of employment in the Union.
Furthermore, three quarters of our farm workers are part-time and require supplements to their incomes.
For this reason, one of the most important and essential objectives which we should set in the European Union is to make efforts to create new jobs in rural areas, outside of the agricultural sector, in sectors such as rural tourism, sport, culture, heritage conservation, the conversion of businesses, new technologies, services, etc.
However, even though the role of agriculture is not exclusive, it is still essential, not only to prevent economic and social disintegration and the creation of ghost towns, but also because farmers play a fundamental role in managing the land, in preserving biodiversity and in protecting the environment.
Therefore, we support the establishment of an agricultural and rural development policy which is consistent with the objectives we have set. We want rural areas, at the dawn of the 21st century, to be competitive and multi-functional, both with regard to agriculture and with regard to opening up to the diversity of non-agricultural activities.
It is important to prioritise general criteria for land planning and demographic equilibrium, and to bear in mind the conclusions of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the five fundamental issues, which have been only partly taken up by the Committee on Transport, Regional Policy and Tourism in its points 16 and 17.
In conclusion, I would ask the Commission to take these five points into account when establishing the conclusions on the four pillars because I believe that, for the European Union, maintaining the population in rural areas must be one of the priority objectives.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to begin by thanking Mrs Schroedter, the rapporteur, for her work. I think that this work has been carried out extremely well.
I would also like to thank her for her willingness to enter into dialogue with the other political groups when compromise formulas have needed to be reached in the face of this avalanche of amendments - and perhaps there are more of them than we expected - but which genuinely reflect the importance of the report we are now discussing.
We feel that it is important that the Commission takes account of the conclusions adopted by this Parliament, at least in spirit, because at this stage, it might seem as though what we are doing here is a useless exercise, and nothing but hot air.
The truth of the matter though is that we believe - and this is also shown in the way the conclusions have been drafted - that the Commission must take account of what is adopted by this Parliament, particularly in the face of an interim revision of these directives.
In our amendments, we have stated the importance of the necessary synergies being produced between the Structural Funds, the Cohesion Fund and Community initiatives, so that their application should be reflected, in the best and most profitable way, by the gradual elimination of disparities between regions and by the creation of jobs which are, when all is said and done, the two central purposes of the funds we are discussing.
In order to achieve a more rapid and efficient boost for attaining these objectives, we think that those who generate employment, the real entrepreneurs and those who really guarantee new sources of employment, that is, businesspeople, must participate in this initiative.
Small and medium-sized businesses, above all, need to take part in the distribution of these funds.
If they do not, if businesspeople feel marginalised, if entrepreneurs cannot take part, not only in managing but also in receiving these funds, we will have missed an opportunity to attain our objectives more rapidly.
Also, in order to attain our objectives, to overcome the disparities between regions and to seek out sources of employment, it is crucial to give our complete support to new technologies, to transport and communications networks and to renewable energies.
All of this must be done - I repeat - with the participation of private business, which, by uniting its efforts with those of public administrations, but complementing them, never obstructing or excluding them, will lead to the creation of wealth in society and of jobs.
Mr President, it is incumbent upon me to remind my colleague, Mr Evans, of why Wales actually achieved Objective 1 status.
It was because of the discredited policies of his own Conservative Party.
Let me also remind him that when his party leader, Mr Hague, was Secretary of State for Wales, he broke every rule in the book on additionality which led to a stern letter from Commissioner Wulf-Mathies regarding regulatory requirements.
I can tell you that the British Government is aware of its regulatory requirements on Objective 1 additionality.
I suggest Mr Evans goes back and reads the regulation.
My Group has made extensive amendments to both reports up for debate today.
I want to focus our minds on the essential role of the guidelines.
The objective is to provide a framework and tool to support and enhance economic regeneration, to get the most effective use of resources in the widest partnership and to put these regions back on the road to recovery and sustainable development so that eventually they come off the regional life-support machine.
It is important to identify the skills and potential of our regions in the hi-tech sector.
It is particularly important in the light of reports in the media that Europe is rapidly losing ground to the US in the hi-tech growth industries of the future.
The operation of the previous round of programmes is also very instructive in telling us what guidelines should not be about.
They should not be about creating additional layers of bureaucracy and red tape.
They should not be about shifting priorities and policies halfway through project development, resulting in inevitable delays and underspends, particularly in the light of the new budgetary requirement.
The implementation and operation of the guidelines cannot be left to the personal interpretation of one or other desk officer, either in the Commission or in the civil service.
There must be an internal coherence in the Commission directorate, while respecting the specific local and regional aspects of Commission programmes.
The conclusion is that we must make the case for guidelines to be broad, indicative and flexible to assist our programme managers and fund-users and to get the maximum potential out of our new fields of regeneration.
If we can inject a spirit of entrepreneurial activity into our poor and structurally weak regions we will eventually get them back onto the road of attracting substantial investor confidence, which will be the key to future success.
This is how we are going to judge the success of these guidelines: whether EU regional policy with a good, solid, enabling guideline, can open up new opportunities and allow our poor and structurally weak regions to play their full part in contributing to the growth and prosperity of the EU.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank Mrs Schroedter for an excellent report.
She has gone into the issue in some depth and in the committee debate she took account of many of the amendments that have been tabled regarding this report.
The rapporteur has also quite rightly stated that Parliament was not heard in time regarding the guidelines.
We are badly behind now in this matter.
Hopefully, the stands Parliament has taken will help, however, in the mid-term appraisal of the programmes and in their practical implementation.
For the time, the report grew too large when it was being debated.
It contained details and issues that had already been raised in previous reports.
At this stage it is more important to concentrate on assessing how we can use this process to steer Union regional policy, bearing in mind that the aim is to reduce regional inequality.
Our Group emphasises the importance of the principle of subsidiarity, the responsibility of Member States and the role of local players in drafting and implementing programmes.
It is especially important to get SMEs involved in the planning and implementation of programmes.
Our Group also considers it important to take greater account of remote and peripheral areas and wishes to increase interaction between towns and rural areas.
We oppose the excessive control the central administration of the Union and its Member States exercises and we are calling for a reduction in the bureaucracy that has taken root in the drafting and implementation of programmes.
Projects implemented with support from the Union have had their effect watered down all too often by slow decision making and complicated administrative processes.
Funds have often been granted for projects which have had no lasting benefit for the area concerned.
Projects have to be carried out more efficiently, more flexibly and they have to be made more productive.
While the report was being prepared, it was interesting to discuss the Union' s regional policy in general.
For us new members, it was the first time, and this was a very interesting process.
This report is very good and our Group supports it.
Mr President, Commissioner, as proof that this Parliament has not yet overcome its role as a consultative and subordinate institution, the excellent report by a fellow member of my Group, Elisabeth Schroedter, has not been able to reach plenary sitting because the plans for regional development for the period 2000-2006 for Objective 1 regions have been sitting in the Commission' s offices for several months.
Bearing this in mind, this House should, in any event, demand that, before the Community support frameworks for the period in question are approved, they be studied and submitted for debate in this Parliament, specifically in light of the guidelines that we have presented today. This is because we think that they are particularly able to create employment in the poorest and least-developed regions and we would thus contribute to reversing the harmful trends towards inequality that exist in European society and to the move towards a fairer Europe.
Mr President, we should not forget that the main, strategic objective of the Structural and Cohesion Funds and of their coordination is to achieve economic and social cohesion.
We are obliged to participate in drafting directives and also in assessing their results.
We are obliged to do so because we are the representatives of the citizens in a Europe of Citizens and not just in a Europe of States and of Regions.
We feel that the Funds are a necessary but insufficient condition for achieving economic and social cohesion.
We might be mistaken in using the gross domestic product per inhabitant as the sole indicator.
Some speakers have already mentioned unemployment and the fall in population.
We will have to study several indicators, which will enable us to see the current state of regional societies that are in a worse situation than others, and how they are evolving.
It is clear from some of the reports that have been presented to Parliament' s plenary sitting today that Europe' s 25 most prosperous regions enjoy a level of unemployment which is five times lower than in the 25 least prosperous regions.
This fact means that the European Parliament, the Commissioner and the Commission must act decisively and strategically.
I agree that the European Parliament did not have the opportunity - or that it was not given the opportunity, as we had reached the end of the parliamentary term - to discuss the directives.
I do not think, however, that this report has come too late.
We need to consider it together, so that the new Objective 1 programmes and the plans for regional development, which have been drafted before the directives come into force, can be submitted for revision and proper assessment.
We all agree that we should ask that, halfway through these programmes, when the assessment of the directives is made, Parliament should be given an equally influential role on the grounds that we are the citizens' representatives.
Our citizens cannot accept that the European Union takes decisions in a way that is, at least on the face of it, bureaucratic.
They need to see the political dimension working, to see that officials accept their responsibilities and that there is communication with the citizens.
This is what we are today asking the Commissioner for.
I would like to think that, given his previous experience as a regional President, he will agree to propose indicators, and a strategy, which will favour economic and social cohesion and not just productivity.
Mr President, I support the main proposals of the report concerning the administration of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund for the period 2000-2006 and the main recommendations of the report which include the following: there must always be an integrated approach to the spending of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds.
This means that there must be a comprehensive partnership between local authorities and national governments with regard to how these funds are to be spent.
Member States are urged to attach greater importance to integrated strategies for revitalising relations between towns and rural areas.
This latter point is of particular importance.
While urban renewal in our cities is very important we must always strike a balance in our policies between promoting rural development and improving the lives of city dwellers.
We do not want to build a Europe of cities alone.
The Structural Funds have played a key role in the development both of urban and rural parts of peripheral countries, mainly through the upgrading of roads, water treatment and related transport networks.
This process will continue in accordance with the financial spending guidelines laid down by the EU leaders at their Berlin Summit last year, which were supported by Parliament at its last May plenary part-session.
Key EU programmes between 1989, 1993, 1994 and 1999 have certainly helped to improve the economic competitiveness of peripheral countries and Objective 1 regions within Europe.
The key now is to consolidate and make permanent the progress made to date.
This would ensure that the peripheral countries and the ultraperipheral regions, the poorer regions in Europe, are in a position to operate successfully within the new euro currency zone, as well as within an ever-expanding internal market where the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital exist.
In conclusion, while key infrastructure projects have been supported by the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund, we should remember that the European Social Fund has played a very important role in helping the less well-off in our society.
The Social Fund has certainly improved our third-level institutions, financed our post-leaving certificate programmes and put in place comprehensive schemes to help combat youth and long-term unemployment, assist early school leavers and promote higher standards of adult literacy.
Mr President, on numerous occasions in the past I have disagreed with the rapporteur on her approach to regional policy issues. This time, however, I actually agree with her.
Whether or not this will encourage her to continue along the same path, I cannot say. Nevertheless, I would like to commend her on her work.
The second point I would like to make is that we would have preferred it if the guidelines had been added to the regulation in the form of an annex, as we and Mrs McCarthy, as rapporteurs for the general regulation, had asked.
Unfortunately, this did not happen. Mr Bernié is not to blame for this as it was a matter for the previous committee.
I am raising the issue just to reiterate Parliament' s position.
Thirdly, we broadly agree on the general guidelines provided they do not deviate from the comments we have made so far.
They are particularly beneficial to the Member States, and I would particularly like to draw your attention to the emphasis the Commission has placed on the issues of sustainable development, job creation and, more particularly, on equal opportunities and transport issues.
Personally, I at least am totally in favour of the guidelines.
As an islander, however, I would like to express my dissatisfaction at the lack of recognition of island development.
This is not the first time that this issue has not been given the consideration it deserves. This has been an ongoing concern for the five years that I have been a Member of this Parliament, and I have raised the issue time and time again.
Commissioner, we shall continue to raise the issue, as Article 158, paragraph 1, of the Treaty of Amsterdam provides for an integrated policy for islands.
Therefore, the Commission should address the issue once and for all.
The time has come to implement the programmes, and so Member States should also assume their responsibilities and do their jobs properly.
As for us in Parliament, I would like to remind you of the code of conduct between the Commission and Parliament which was signed in May.
I am absolutely certain that this code will be observed and that Parliament will keep abreast of all the developments and details concerning the implementation of the programmes.
Mr President, Commissioner, in this minute and a half I should like, first of all, to congratulate Mrs Schroedter.
I know many have already done so, but she has indeed earned our praise for being particularly open and attentive to proposals from all sides, and I think it is this openness which has given her report the quality we see today.
I share the regrets she expressed, namely that Parliament has become involved rather late in the day as regards these guidelines, since by now the procedure for negotiations with the states is so far advanced that I cannot see this report having any sort of immediate effect, which in my view is a pity.
Consequently, I feel we must look to the future and establish guidelines for the mid-term review in 2003, and thus have an influence on the second phase of programming set to follow 2003.
In brief, I would like to say that we are entering the period when we are called upon to manage the programming for 2000-2006, which must be no routine period for the good reason that we have two major challenges to face.
The first is the harmonisation of national development policies and regional development policies.
Subsidies are not enough to ensure development when infrastructure and public services are lacking.
We must ask ourselves a fundamental question: how can we ensure that Union policy interfaces with the subsidiary national policies for regional development?
The second challenge is that of enlargement which will, of course, have a considerable impact, both in budgetary and geographical terms.
These are two areas of action which I invite the Commissioner to set up and in which I would ask him to involve us.
Finally, in this time of natural disasters, I would just like to mention the issue of the use of Structural Funds.
As you know, it is up to each State to redistribute part of the total appropriation.
Europe should not be completely absent, as the states tend to want.
Public opinion and the press nowadays accuse us of being unavailable to give a response, even though we are going to be funding a large proportion of the national operations.
I think we should be capable of saying this loud and clear.
I also think we should ensure, or ask Member States to ensure, that there is some publicity given to European aid whenever it is used to repair damage caused by natural disasters or accidents.
Mr President, the priority given to financial and monetary criteria reinforces the increase in inequalities of every shape and form.
As far as French planning experts are concerned, for example, the most probable scenario today is that of the entrenchment of regional disparities within each country.
Well, the Structural Funds have helped to apply a brake to this process.
Our project of a Europe that aims to satisfy social needs envisages the convergence of living conditions towards the highest common denominator.
Its implementation would certainly require extending the scope of redistribution instruments such as the Structural Funds.
What we are proposing specifically is a unified capital tax, which would make it possible to boost the funds used to support the harmonisation of social protection systems and the reduction of working hours at European level.
The Commission, however, though bound to issue guidelines, does so only reluctantly and in a vague manner.
The report put forward today re-establishes its place in the political sphere.
It is one of the steps towards a policy of employment and sustainable development.
This is what persuades us to vote in favour of it.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent work.
Over the coming years, faced with the challenges of globalisation and eastward enlargement, Europe will, more than ever before, require appropriate detailed guidance on how to plan and revitalise its economy.
To this end, Europe as a whole, and each Member State individually, will have to make optimum use of all available resources and capacities, including the Structural Funds.
For this to be possible, what we need from the European Commission are not just good intentions, but clearer guidelines and a firm commitment to monitoring the way these resources are used by the Member States.
For example, in recent years Italy has had problems in utilising the Structural Funds, mainly because of excessive bureaucracy, insufficient information and a lack of involvement of economic and social operators at local level.
There are, therefore, two points to which I would like to draw the Commission' s attention.
Firstly, we need to make the best possible use of consultation as a means of ensuring proper coordination and participation by all local and regional operators in decision-making, precisely so that imbalances and inequalities can be avoided. Secondly, a genuine effort is required to make administrative procedures simpler and more transparent, since, they are all too often unnecessarily lengthy and complicated, to the point of hindering access to the Funds.
This is something about which European small and medium-sized businesses, in particular, tend to complain.
I will conclude, Mr President, by saying that the failure of the Commission' s communication to focus on territorial pacts and, especially, methods of combating unemployment among women and young people, is cause for serious concern.
Mr President, like my colleague Mr Evans, it is a particular pleasure to rise and make my first speech to this House on this very important issue, especially since I represent a part of the United Kingdom, the West Midlands, which has hitherto benefited from Objective 2 funding in particular.
But the report before the House tonight is a prime example of how, if we are not very careful, we can produce very grandiose-sounding ideas that lack the substance to make them relevant to the people who benefit directly from them.
The report itself is well-intentioned but, as so often when we deal with these issues, lacks clarity of purpose and a sound basis for operability.
That is why I and my Group are proposing three key amendments and additions to the text, not to take anything away from the proposal, but to make it more relevant to those whom it is there to guide.
I would like to explain our thinking here.
Firstly, we are concerned with the proper use of the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
Past experience dictates that, as the elected representatives of the European taxpayer, we should, and indeed must, demand financial probity and transparency in the disbursement and auditing of this money, hence our amendments and additions relate to achieving what are known as "value for money" indicators in the grant-giving process.
Next, we all too often see vast sums of money being spent on projects whose outcomes will necessarily be unclear at the start of the programme period.
But at the mid-way point or end of that period there is no effective way of terminating the project if it has not proved successful.
Our additions therefore call for the provision of practical enforceable exit strategies so that not only can we have the requisite insurance against ongoing costs which are often loaded onto the taxpayer, but we also avoid the well-rehearsed syndrome of throwing good money after bad.
Finally, we call for a change to the balance and method by which the funds are disbursed.
There should be greater involvement of the private sector which will introduce financial reality as a perspective within the funding equation.
Also the type of project funded needs to be shifted away from small-scale revenue-based projects, which are hard to monitor, towards capital schemes where, in the majority of cases, the benefits are there for all to see.
That way the much-trumpeted need for transparency in the use of these funds and the temptation to draw unnecessarily in the longer term on the local tax base in areas where such projects are located will be diminished and the European Parliament will show how seriously it takes the need for such reform.
If these changes to the report are supported by the House today, I believe that they will move us forward in the next phase of achieving the historic objectives which the funds were set up to bring about, namely to assist - in a financially sustainable manner - those deprived areas of the European Union which need to be brought up to a decent standard of living, not by giving a hand-out but by giving a "hand-up".
I urge the House to support these changes.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to commend the rapporteur on her report, which is a meticulous and substantive piece of work.
The European Union' s structural and cohesion policies are, without doubt, essential tools for creating the right conditions with a view to tackling and reducing the levels of economic and social disparity between the regions. Despite the steps taken thus far, these levels are still very high, and are unacceptably high as regards unemployment.
These policy objectives can only be achieved through their careful coordination and organisation on the basis of well thought-out and sensible guidelines.
Let us not forget that when these policies are effective, they also benefit European citizens by directly improving their quality of life.
Let us not forget either that greater consideration should be given to the islands and remote regions of the European Union because their geographical location is a hindrance to their economic and social development, unless of course the Commission is intending to build bridges or underwater tunnels linking them to the European mainland.
In closing, I would like to point out that the structural policies as a whole require greater flexibility so that they can adapt to changing circumstances and thereby respond to the new challenges and opportunities of the new millennium, for which we all hope for the best.
Mr President, Mrs Schroedter' s report undoubtedly contains several important observations, and I would like to congratulate her on that.
However, I feel that we should be a little more concerned about the actual direction and outcome of the Community' s regional policy.
Quite briefly, structural policy does not ease the problem of mass unemployment in any way, rather it aggravates it.
The agricultural economy and agricultural regions have been irreparably damaged by the existing regional policy, which has had dramatic consequences on employment levels in rural areas and on the living conditions of farmers, particularly in the South.
Regional disparities are becoming much more marked within the Member States.
If we examine the data presented in the sixth periodic report, we will see that the last decade has witnessed a proliferation of regional disparities.
Little consideration, if any at all, has been given to the great problems facing the island regions of the Union whose shortcomings as regards infrastrucutres structure, transport, communication and energy has resulted in their gradual depopulation.
The Union' s economic and social policy is just as much to blame for that as its regional policy.
A large section of the Union' s population has strongly condemned this policy for being dangerous and anti grass-roots.
Unfortunately, the new guidelines seem to be heading in the same direction and there are no signs that things will change once they have been implemented.
Mr President, I would like to say a few words in order to highlight two points made in these reports which are of fundamental strategic importance to the way we see the Union.
The first is the fundamental, central importance that we continue to give to the principle of economic and social cohesion.
We are concerned to hear news that the Commission is taking this objective less seriously.
We still feel that economic and social cohesion is one of the Union' s fundamental objectives.
Secondly, I agree with what has already been said on the issue of the islands and I would also like to bring the outermost regions to your attention.
In future, we would like to see greater ambition applied to the subject of the outermost regions such as, in my country, the islands of the Azores and Madeira.
I would like to ask if the Commission is able to enlighten us on the reasons for the delay in the Commission' s report on the outermost regions, which has been long awaited by Parliament?
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, not least for being willing to include in the report the suggestions we made.
Mr President, Commissioner, the guidelines are intended to help steer the Member States towards achieving the reform objectives contained in the programmes.
However, contrary to their claim to provide guidance, the Commission' s proposals in this respect are reminiscent to a far greater extent of a catalogue of possible measures within the scope of the various policy areas.
Nonetheless, their true purpose is to give direction and to set priorities.
I agree with the rapporteur that unfortunately the Commission document contains too little in the way of recommendations to the Member States on simplifying administration, and I support the calls for negotiations to concentrate on promoting a favourable climate for labour-intensive, small and medium-sized enterprises, on setting clear objectives for alternative sources of financing including provisions for risk capital and private financing, and on start-up help for companies including new information technologies and investment in innovative fields.
I am particularly in favour of a proposed amendment tabled by my Group to paragraph 10, to ensure an appropriate level of private sector involvement in the planning and implementation of the projects.
I should be very grateful, Mrs Schroedter, if you would actually include this proposed amendment in the part relating to subsidiarity in your positive deliberations.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, we upheld unanimously the criterion that it was of strategic importance and a matter of priority to support the interventions of the Structural and Cohesion Funds which are working for a better opportunity for jobs for the unemployed and for equality between men and women.
Unfortunately, the excellent Schroedter report did not take account of this criterion, despite the fact that there is considerable evidence to show - as we shall see later in the Berend report - how, in fact, these funds are providing splendid assistance to the most backward regions in order to bridge the gulf that separates them from Europe' s most highly-developed regions.
They are growing, but only in terms of GDP.
They are increasing in competitiveness but they are not all experiencing an increase in wealth because there is no increase in employment and there are still differences in employment opportunities between regions.
Commissioner, please read the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and treat it as a matter of priority, because this is our citizens' greatest problem.
Please take account, in strategic terms, in the revision and in the allocation of reserves, of employment needs, because this, fundamentally is what the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Funds require.
Mr President, it is important that the guidelines head in the right direction and that they guarantee the effectiveness of the programmes of the crucial seven-year period 2000-2006 so as to ensure sustainable development and job creation, particularly for women and young people, and ensure a balance is struck between economic and social policy and regional policy.
It is particularly important to address those serious issues concerning urban areas, employment in rural areas, aid to agricultural regions and equal development opportunities for the islands of the European Union and for the Greek islands which, of course, comprise half of the islands of the Union, as stipulated in Article 158 of the Treaty.
Cohesion policy needs to be strengthened further because a Europe which totally disregards the standard of living in its regions can neither be reliable or viable.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Social and economic situation and development of the regions of the Union
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0107/1999) by Mr Berend, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the sixth periodic report on the social and economic situation and development of the regions of the European Union [SEC(99)0066 - C5-0120/99 - 1999/2123(COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, this sixth periodic report on the social and economic situation and development of the regions of the European Union constitutes a milestone in the analysis of regional data and highlights the progress made in this area since the issue of the fifth periodic report.
I consider, however, that the mention of any real convergence of average regional development levels in Europe offers a somewhat over-simplified view of the situation and, unfortunately, this is often the message taken up in the press and in some speeches.
The Commission report generally relativises this observation, particularly when it refers to the social and economic situation of some regions of the Union in which I have a special interest, by which I mean the French overseas departments and, more generally, the most remote regions.
In this respect, I am pleased to see that the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has adopted one of my amendments calling on the Commission to devote a specific chapter in its next report on cohesion to the special case of the most remote regions and, more specifically, to consideration of the impact of the measures shortly to be adopted under new Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Finally, in my view, this sixth periodic report presents interesting arguments from the viewpoint of a real project for the balanced sustainable development of Europe, particularly when it outlines the importance of relations between the central areas of Europe and its more remote regions.
Even if the Commission is still reluctant to say so in too explicit a fashion, its periodic report demonstrates the urgent need to promote polycentric development of the Community area through the Union' s structural policies and within the scope of the approach initiated by the SEC.
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists in this Parliament agrees with the report that Mr Berend has just presented and congratulates the author, both on the quality of his conclusions and on his flexibility, which ensured that the different groups were able to incorporate amendments in committee.
It must be remembered that, currently, the European Union' s overall competitiveness is, in general terms, 81% of that of the United States of America and that this figure will only improve if the figure for our competitive units, that is the regions, also improves. Furthermore, this is at a time when technological development, economic globalisation and our problems, which are enlargement and the single currency, demand that the regions, as well as businesses and individuals, make more of an effort to be competitive.
The European Commission' s sixth report presents very valuable conclusions.
I shall summarise two of those highlighted by the rapporteur, one positive and one negative.
The first is that important advances have been made in regional and social cohesion throughout the Union and that the Community Funds have been a major, although not decisive, factor in reducing regional inequalities.
The negative conclusion is that the great effort made has been more efficient in harmonising the European regions' GDP and productivity than in harmonising its levels of unemployment.
It is therefore necessary to link structural financing more closely to job creation.
This, Commissioner, is the first commandment for the coming period.
Thus, Mr President, I ask my fellow Members to approve this report and I ask the Commission, as other speakers have done, to take good note of the conclusions of their sixth periodic report when they address the programming for the period 2000-2006.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work and for having taken due account of the proposed amendments while the committee was debating it.
The sixth periodical report gives a basis for assessing the implementation of the Union' s regional policy aims.
The report shows that growth has been uneven, despite all our efforts.
Very rapid growth is continuing in Central Europe.
The strongest regional centres also continue to grow faster than the general European average, whereas many southern European and northern areas are developing considerably more slowly.
We now require an in-depth analysis of why regional policy is not producing the desired result in all areas.
Is the reason bureaucracy or is it because insufficient notice has been taken of interregional differences, long distances, climates that are too cold or too hot, sparse populations and austere conditions? How can the Union respond to the challenges of global development in a way that the less developed areas can remain a part of that development?
It is also important to discover what the effects of Union enlargement will be on Structural Funds and the development of the Union' s more remote areas.
The Member States must also bear in mind their responsibility. Some Member States have been in breach of the principle of subsidiarity and cut national regional funds when regional aid coming via the Union has been increased.
This has chipped away at the results that regional policy has produced.
In the future, we must also develop indicators so that measures can be targeted at the right time at the right place.
For example, uncontrolled migration has not been given sufficient consideration.
In this connection, too, weight has to be given to the decisive importance of SMEs as employers and forces behind regional development.
It is absolutely essential that companies in areas developing more slowly adopt the latest technology and know-how.
Our Group is in favour of adopting this report.
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Union' s regional policy has, until now, not been able to interpret, in any significant way, the existing differences in our inhabitants' incomes.
We have a serious situation in which in the European Union today, there is a genuine link between unemployment and poverty, as demonstrated by the very worrying fact that unemployment has reached, on average, 23.7% in the regions worst affected, regions which also happen to be poor areas, whilst in the 25 regions with the lowest unemployment, corresponding to the richer areas, unemployment stands at just 4%.
Given this situation, the report approved by Parliament must highlight the need for measures that aim unequivocally to fight relative poverty and unemployment: measures such as the appropriate use of structural funds for these purposes, which are often misspent, with centralised state policies and the modernisation of telecommunication and communication systems, with the particular aim of integrating the least developed regions into the Trans-European rail Networks, which are due in 2007.
There should also be measures that respect and develop the resources and capabilities of these countries' agriculture and fisheries, which are often harmed by the European Union' s own insensitive policies, as well as the promotion of active policies to create jobs, particularly for women and young people. Only through the decisive application of this kind of measure will we be able to overcome social and regional inequality, which is not the historical product of inherent defects but of marginalisation and economic policies which have had harmful effects.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Berend' s report is precisely in line with the strategy determined by the European Commission inasmuch as the question of increasing competitiveness is brought right to the fore.
The overarching objectives of the structural funds such as job creation, boosting equality of opportunity, increasing the sustainability of employment and development, are only mentioned in passing.
This attitude appears to me to be unjustified. I would also ask that a great deal more emphasis be placed on these points in the seventh periodic report.
This does not mean that I do not see the need for competitiveness, particularly as I myself am an entrepreneur in an Objective 1 Region, that is in Brandenburg in the Federal Republic of Germany, and am only too aware of the problems and concerns of small and medium-sized enterprises.
It is absolutely crucial that parallel temporary measures be introduced in the Objective 1 Regions, that is to say job creation measures, special programmes for supporting employment opportunities for women and initiatives to help people set up their own business.
They are supported by appropriate European Union structural fund activities.
Supporting only the competitiveness of companies will never be able to compensate for the envisaged cohesion between economic and social development, simply because there is no basis for a self-supporting upturn in these Objective 1 Regions.
After all, the knowledge that economic development alone does not help to combat unemployment substantiates the fact than an increase of at least 3% in gross domestic product is needed to create any additional jobs at all.
Concentrating to the exclusion of all else on supply and demand-orientated economic policy is not the answer.
And those that do pursue such a policy must invest in expansion for the most part and, to a lesser extent, in rationalisation.
It is imperative for this to go hand in hand with a demand-orientated economic policy if we are to have any chance at all of improving the social situation in these areas.
The situation varies to an enormous degree throughout the regions.
In other words, what is needed is a number of accompanying measures if anything at all is to be accomplished there.
For example, these would be measures for vocational training, for further education, for re-integrating people who have already been excluded from the production process, for the flexibilisation of working time and working time arrangements, in order to bring about a definite improvement in the integration of personal and social aspects and perhaps also to promote employment opportunities for women again.
Mr President, my compliments to the rapporteur for his in-depth report.
The key goal of the structural funds is to strengthen social and economic cohesion between the regions within the European Union.
By stimulating a diversity of investments, the European Union is endeavouring to increase the GDP per capita and to boost employment.
From the sixth periodic report on the regions, one can draw the hesitant conclusion that these incentives do not always have the desired effect.
The efforts made in order to drive up the GDP per capita in Objective 1 regions do not always result in such an increase, not really a satisfying result over a period during which, certainly over the past couple of years, there has been economic growth.
As indicated by the rapporteur, the effects of the structural measures, on the other hand, are minimal as far as employment is concerned.
Some reservation about the effectiveness of Community aid is therefore called for.
Also, the observation that the disparities between regions within Member States sometimes even become more pronounced raises serious questions.
Mr President, it therefore seems worthwhile and necessary to focus attention on both national and regional authorities, especially in connection with boosting employment. It is, after all, they who have most knowledge about the regions which fall under their remit.
By allowing them to develop tailor-made plans for the relevant regions and, if necessary, tying this in with financial aid, a higher return can be achieved.
Surely this must be the ultimate goal.
I am therefore in favour of the Commission delegating the practical details and implementation of measures to the Member States and regions.
Following on from this, it is probably also more meaningful, with regard to the financial aid to regions, to give Member States more say anyway.
By shifting the criteria from the regions to the Member States, we can avoid a great deal of problems later on.
Finally, I would like to draw attention to the position of the Central and Eastern European countries.
The report shows that, in general, they are a long way behind EU countries, especially in terms of GDP per capita.
With the planned accession of a large number of these countries in the foreseeable future, it is a matter of urgency to review the current structural policy.
I would like to take this opportunity to follow the example of others and call on the Commission to submit proposals for reform sooner rather than later.
Mr President, Commissioner, following close scrutiny of this report one cannot escape the conclusion that it was possible to fulfil the stated objective of the structural policy only in part.
For example, whilst the disparities between the regions have increased rather than decreased, there has been a certain amount of convergence between the Member States themselves in this respect.
Equally, unemployment levels in the worst affected regions barely fell at all, indeed they rose in some cases.
I wonder why it is that the structural funds are not employed more efficiently.
Even the accumulation of money from the cohesion funds and the structural funds has failed to have the desired effect in all regions and countries.
Since it is the declared aim of all politicians throughout Europe to reduce unemployment, then one must pose the critical question as to whether the policy employed is the right one or whether it would not be more appropriate to boost the competitiveness of the regions by appropriate measures such as increased support for research and development, improvements in infrastructure and raising the level of training.
Genuine structural reforms and a competition-friendly taxation policy are the cornerstones of a successful economic base.
If we do not wish to stand accused of pursuing a cost-intensive structural policy that does nothing to improve the unemployment situation in the long term, then the measures drawn up so far must be analysed.
We will only be able to say that the structural policy of the Union has been a success when we manage to create a sufficient number of jobs and when there is a significant reduction in the unemployment rate.
Mr President, Commissioner, my thanks go to the rapporteur for handling this very important report, because developments in the social and economic situation will decide to what extent the citizens of Europe will judge that we have been successful in our work.
This issue, which has an impact on their everyday life, is a key issue as regards EU credibility.
It has to be conceded that the EU has already aided, I would say quite magnificently, the development of poor countries.
I remember what Portugal and Greece used to be like when I drove through those countries for the first time twenty-five years ago.
In this connection, French speakers would speak of a "coup de chapeau" : in other words, I take my hat off to the EU.
The EU really deserves such a gesture, but differences between rich and poor areas within countries are still too great.
What is the result? People react by voting with their feet and go where they can earn a crust.
Consequently, we have to build schools, hospitals, and the whole infrastructure for the same people in the same country many times over.
This is very costly and it also causes very great social problems.
Most people, however, would like to live in the area in which they were born and raised, if they were given the chance to, in other words, if there was work there.
We must give them this opportunity.
This is a moral obligation the EU and all of us have.
The solution, as I see it, lies in clearly encouraging entrepreneurship.
By entrepreneurship I do not simply mean the ownership of business, but creating will.
I mean the attitude where a person wants to get on in life, whether he or she is an employee, the owner of a business or an official.
What is a fair society? One in which someone from a modest background can get on in life so as to make life a little easier for his or her children.
In this way, positive development of the regions is also possible, because people will start business and will work if they are given the chance.
Finally, I would say that in this matter we should learn a lesson from America, where hard work is still in fashion and success is an indication of ability and not the object of envy, as it often is here in Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, as my time is limited, I shall get straight to the point.
Firstly, let me make a statement of fact: the fruits of growth are not distributed equitably within the Union.
The most remote regions, still hard hit by catastrophic unemployment rates, offer one example of this.
In Reunion, for example, the rate is 37%.
This is not a situation related to the economic climate, however; rather it is a structural problem, created by our remoteness, our insularity, in short, our own specific personality.
The principle of specific, exceptional treatment was envisaged in Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam in order to deal with such cases.
It only remains to put this principle into practice.
The Commission document expected to be ready in December 1999 was delayed until January, then February, and the initial thinking does not fill me with much optimism.
I therefore appeal formally to the Council and the Commission.
As regards taxation, state aid, the Structural Funds and defending our traditional products, practical measures characterised by daring and ambition must be planned as a matter of urgency.
If these do not materialise, then, unfortunately, convergence and cohesion will remain no more than words for us, and it is to be feared that the structural policy undertaken in our regions, despite the size of the amounts committed, will end in failure.
Mr President, as all the previous speakers have done, I should like in turn to thank Mr Berend and congratulate him on the quality of his report.
Just like the previous report, this extremely competent and precise analysis, the recommendations it supports and your own comments, ladies and gentlemen, shall prove useful to the Commission in general and to the Commissioner responsible for regional policy in particular at this time when we are involved with the programming of appropriations for 2000-2006.
I should also like to make a few comments, firstly, Mr Berend, regarding the assessment you have made of this sixth periodic report.
You pointed out the quality of the report and you even wrote, if I am not mistaken, that it marked a real improvement in comparison with previous reports.
On behalf of all the officials of the Commission and my predecessor, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, I must inform you that we were very alert to the evaluation made by this House and by yourself.
The Commission was certainly very anxious to ensure, Mr Berend, that this sixth periodic report should show that progress had been made and a threshold crossed in terms of the quality of the analysis submitted to you.
I am thinking in particular of the contents of chapter 2.1 of this report, where the Commission examined in greater detail the economic definitions of regional competitiveness and attempted to analyse the extent to which this competitiveness may be supported, improved and influenced by factors which some of you - Mr Markov, just now, and Mrs Raschhofer - stressed very forcefully.
I am thinking of technological research and development, infrastructure provision and quality, human resources potential, small and medium-sized businesses and direct investment from abroad.
So much for the quality.
I do not wish to spend time right now, Mr Berend, going into details regarding my opinion of the general points which your House has already endorsed.
Let me just itemise them: the first point concerns the usefulness of the conclusions of this report in drawing up the priorities of the new regional policy, particularly for the negotiation of programming documents with the Member States.
Secondly, partnership, a subject which a number of you stressed, the role of local and regional authorities, the private sector, both sides of industry, associations and local community action groups.
Regarding this problem of partnership, I shall be extremely attentive to ensuring that the terms of the Structural Funds regulations are applied properly.
Thirdly, the need to develop the employment side of growth, even though I am aware, as Mr van Dam just said, that the prime responsibility is that of the Member States, and that, when we speak of the responsibility of Member States, and indeed of the usefulness or effectiveness of this regional policy, we must clearly establish what sort of period we are working in.
Mr Fruteau stated just now that the fruits of growth were distributed inequitably.
Mr Fruteau, we at least need to recognise that there is growth, and that we are not working in a period of stagnation or recession, as has been the case in the past.
You will tell me that situations of growth or shortage do not affect everyone alike.
I agree with your analysis.
When there is growth, it must be better distributed, but a matter that is even more difficult and which more seriously affects the regions handicapped by their remoteness, be they the most remote or island regions, is the lack of growth which generally characterised the last two decades.
Fourthly, a point which Mrs Hedkvist Petersen stressed just now, the promotion of an equal opportunities policy for women and young people.
Fifthly, the importance and role of small and medium-sized businesses. Mr Vatanen expressed this most forcefully just now.
Finally, the positive effects on national administrations of the system of management of the Structural Funds, the motives of officials in managing these funds, even if it is occasionally complicated, and the importance of once again making improvements to the procedures for the evaluation, follow-up and supervision of the Commission.
In relation to this, I must inform the European Parliament of my intention to organise halfway through the year 2000 a seminar with national and regional authorities on this question of the evaluation of procedures for the exchange of good practice in the management of Structural Funds.
I should like to mention a few specific points.
Mr Berend, you expressed a wish that zoning should be implemented quickly.
Well, we are coming to an end of the zoning phase.
Tomorrow, the Commission is to decide on the matter for four more countries and very soon, I hope, it will be Italy' s turn.
You may therefore be satisfied on this point, since zoning will have been completed for all the countries affected by Objective 2.
Regarding the informal economy you mention in your report, I am well aware that the analysis and production of statistics on this subject are dependent on the reliability of data and, as Mr Cocilovo mentioned, there is clearly a problem with the reliability of this data.
To a certain extent, they are taken into account in the statistics on GDP and labour force surveys and, in any case, I wish to point out the efforts which Eurostat is making and shall continue to make in order to improve the quality of the statistics.
Mr Berend, you also mentioned, as did Mr Aparicio Sánchez, the lack of reform in the fisheries sector.
On this point which is of personal interest to me, let me remind you that the small scale of this sector - and this does not necessarily mean that it is an insignificant area - and its concentration in a limited number of regions do not make it easy to analyse in a regional context.
This type of sectoral analysis pertains rather to the practice and competence of the Directorate General for Fisheries, under Commissioner Fischler.
Nonetheless, I must assure you that the Commission will make every effort to include an analysis of this type in the second report on cohesion which, no doubt, will respond better to these concerns.
Several of you mentioned points which must be included in the second report on cohesion, and your rapporteur mentioned some of these.
I wish to assure you, firstly, that the merging of the periodic reports and the report on cohesion should not entail any loss of information or loss of interest as regards the content of the report on cohesion which is, as far as I am concerned, Mr Berend, an extremely important instrument, not only to provide information on what has been achieved in a transparent and rigorous manner, so that future guidelines may be examined or evaluated, but also to create a public debate involving the citizens of Europe and, furthermore, with the elected representatives, i.e. yourselves, on the subject of this regional policy and what might one day be a European regional planning policy.
In any event, I have taken note of your wish to see the following points included in the report: the definition, compilation and analysis of representative indicators for the region and for all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe; a chapter on the islands and most remote regions which several of you mentioned, particularly Mrs Sudre and Mr Fruteau; analyses on the competitiveness of the regions in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. This will constitute a great challenge to us all, for you and for the Commission, in the next few years.
And finally, there are the cross-border aspects. I shall endeavour to comply with your recommendations on all these points.
Finally, I should like to mention a few political conclusions which you are, in any case, familiar with, but whose main elements I should like to reiterate.
Ladies and gentlemen, considerable progress has been made on the road to real convergence, particularly for the four cohesion countries, but also frankly, Mr Pohjamo, for the Objective 2 regions which had suffered some delays in terms of development, especially regarding infrastructure.
This is my first point regarding the policy.
My second point regarding the policy is as follows: the Structural Funds have made, and continue to make, a significant contribution to the convergence process.
All the macroeconomic models we are working on show that, over the last decade, more than one third of the convergence achieved in the regions whose development is lagging behind would not have taken place without the Structural Funds.
I have, however, taken note, particularly with regard to the most remote regions, Mrs Sudre, Mr Fruteau, and Mr Nogueira Román too, that your observation is that there is still much to do - and this is my third point regarding the policy - in terms of improving employment take-up aspects, the fight against social exclusion, which is particularly serious and intolerable in many of our regions, and the integration of women and young people into the labour market.
Now to my fourth point regarding the policy; enlargement of the Union, the great political and humanist project of the coming years for our institutions, the major challenge, too, for the European policy on cohesion, a point which Mr van Dam highlighted.
I shall say that something is already taking shape in Berlin and in the financial instruments available to us which may be a policy on cohesion for the first countries who are going to join us.
I am thinking in particular of the pre-accession structural instrument, which I shall be responsible for implementing in the next few weeks.
You see, ladies and gentlemen, we have only just initiated the new programming and we are already considering together the impact of the Union' s enlargement on our structural policy.
This sixth periodic report which you assessed as positive on the whole, Mr Berend, is a good basis for our thinking, for us all and for myself.
I should therefore like to thank you most sincerely for your contribution to the thinking which we are already engaged in with regard to the forthcoming guidelines, as well as for the proper application of the guidelines for the period 2000-2006.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.25 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Thank you very much, Mr Cox.
I understand what you are saying.
We have taken note of this.
Mr President, concerning item 11 of the Minutes on the order of business, we agreed yesterday to have the Bourlanges report on today's agenda.
However, it was withdrawn from the Committee on Budgets last night without being discussed or voted on.
It therefore needs to be withdrawn from today's agenda.
Mr Wynn, that makes sense.
The report is hereby withdrawn from the agenda.
Mr President, regarding Mrs Lynne's comments yesterday about health and safety in this building, I presume she was talking about the drains because there is a dreadful smell of drains on the fifth floor in the Tower.
This needs to be looked into because it is clearly an indication that something is seriously wrong.
I do not want to drag up the issue of this building endlessly, but this is a serious problem.
Mrs Ahern, we have taken note of this.
I would ask you to bring this specific case, which has to do with the ventilators on a particular floor, to the attention of the Quaestors, who are, in fact, responsible for the matter.
We will also pass this on to our services, however.
Thank you very much.
(The Minutes were approved)
Reform of European competition policy
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0069/1999 by Mr von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission White Paper on modernisation of the rules implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the EC Treaty [COM(1999) 101 - C5-0105/1999 - 1999/2108(COS)];
A5-0078/1999 by Mr Rapkay, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the European Commission' s XXVIIIth Report on Competition Policy 1998 [SEK(1999) 743 - C5-0121/1999 - 1999/2124(COS)];
A5-0087/1999 by Mr Jonckheer, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the seventh survey on state aid in the European Union in the manufacturing and certain other sectors.
[COM(1999) 148 - C5-0107/1999 - 1999/2110(COS)] (Report 1995-1997);
A5-0073/1999 by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission Report on the implementation in 1998 of Commission Decision No. 2496/96/ECSC of 18 December 1996 establishing Community rules for State aid to the steel industry (Steel Aid Code).
[COM(1999) 94 - C5-0104/1999 - 1999/2107(COS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission' s White Paper on modernisation of the European competition rules has ignited intense and lively debate amongst interested members of the public.
The reactions from experts and persons affected range from complete rejection to unconditional support.
What is this White Paper, in fact, about?
The existing system of European competition rules was set up in the early years of the Community.
This system, which is based on a centralised application and approvals procedure, was certainly appropriate for the conditions prevailing at the time.
This procedure made a substantial contribution to the development of a European competition culture.
However, the framework conditions have fundamentally changed in the 40 years since it came into being.
The Community of 6 has enlarged to one of 15 and is set to undergo further enlargement to encompass 27 members.
But the system has hardly changed at all.
That is why there is an urgent need for reform, and no one takes issue with this in debate.
Nevertheless, certain critics are of the opinion that the Commission' s proposals go too far.
The Commission wants to abolish the application and approvals procedure and enhance the role of national authorities and courts in the implementation of the competition rules.
In other words, this would mean a transition from an authorisation system to one of legal exemption.
However, the prohibition principle, and this is important, is to be retained.
In principle, I take the view that we ought, when an authority accused of tending towards bureaucracy and centralism, submits a proposal for debureaucratisation and decentralisation, to at least give this serious consideration.
According to the Commission's proposal, it all revolves around competition-inhibiting agreements between enterprises and abuses of powerful positions.
However, the notification obligation, with respect to state aid and corporate concentrations, is to be retained.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs gave its blessing in principle to these proposals put forward by the Commission, with only one vote against and two abstentions.
However, it will only be possible to form a conclusive assessment once the currently awaited bills produced by the Commission are published.
Whilst I may endorse the Commission' s proposals in principle, still there are a number of points that warrant improvement, or at least clarification.
I would like to go into some of these points briefly.
Many critics of the White Paper maintain that decentralisation will jeopardise the consistent application of Community legislation. Not all national authorities, in particular the courts, are in a position as yet to fulfil the role the Commission has in mind for them when it comes to the application of the competition rules.
Firstly, in the course of the last few decades the national monopolies have familiarised themselves with the implementation of the competition rules to an adequate degree.
Secondly, the national courts will be empowered to implement Articles 81 (1), 82 and 86 in accordance with the current administration of justice.
Nonetheless, it is still extremely important for the Commission to support the national authorities and courts with group exemption regulations, guidelines and notices. Furthermore, cooperation between the national authorities and the Commission, as well as amongst the national authorities themselves, must be strengthened.
As far as the competence of the national courts is concerned, we recommend in this report that specialised courts be set up for dealing with monopolies law proceedings. These are already in existence in certain Member States and they have proved successful.
Entrepreneurs, for their part, fear a loss of legal certainty.
In order to guard against this, the enterprises should, in certain cases, continue to have the opportunity of being given prior clarification by the Commission. These are only a few, albeit central aspects that must be taken into account where the modernisation of the European competition rules is concerned.
That said, the process is still very much in its infancy.
Discussion will continue until such time as legislative proposals are eventually produced.
However, I am convinced of the fact that the White Paper has put us on the right path.
A European competition culture has come into being in the course of the last few decades. The decentralisation proposed by the Commission accords with the principle of subsidiarity, which has, in fact, now been firmly established in the Treaty.
This leads to increased implementation of the European competition rules at national and regional level, thereby making it possible for the European competition culture to be placed on a broader basis.
Finally, I would like to say that the competition policy reform we are introducing here is a necessity and that it is going to be absolutely necessary, in this context, to clarify that the European Union' s competition policy is an essential pre-requisite to the success of a social market economy. Both the Commission and Parliament must do more than they have done hitherto to get the message across that competition policy, competition between enterprises, and the fact that the European Commission is supervising this, are first and foremost matters which have the interests of the citizens at heart.
Mr President, Commissioner, today we are engaged in an important debate about the European Union' s competition policy.
We are debating a highly controversial modernisation proposal for European monopolies law, that is Mr von Wogau' s report, and it is far more controversial than the vote in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs may have given us reason to believe.
I want to make it quite clear that in this specific case I personally consider the Commission' s proposal to be wrong and feel that it remains to be seen as to whether we are truly justified in using the term "modernisation" to describe the content of Articles 81 and 82 of the White Paper, or whether in this case it would be more appropriate to use the expression "retrograde step" .
However, we are also discussing the aid report today and the general competition report for 1998, and my contribution to this joint debate relates to the latter.
But, of course, both the competition report and the aid report share common ground in this White Paper.
It is all about the need for modernisation and the future viability of the European competition policy.
On reading both Commission documents, one learns that 1998 was the year in which the modernisation proposals introduced in 1997 were pursued and even partially completed, which is something our own ongoing parliamentary work has taught us.
Allow me to make two fundamental comments at this juncture. As the competent authority, the Commission, with its logically consistent approach, has again and again served the cause of freedom of competition, not always to the delight of the Member States or enterprises concerned.
It should continue along this path.
But, Commissioner, none of this is to become less complicated in future - one only has to think of the challenges posed by the enlargement of the Union, the deepening of the internal market, technological progress, globalisation.
Indeed, it is not just about modernisation of Community law, more than anything it is about transparency of decisions taken in individual cases, about the possibility of decisions actually being able to implement decisions, for the European competition policy will be dependent on the population' s acceptance, together with that of the political bodies and enterprises concerned.
Only, without transparency there will be no acceptance, indeed there can be no modernisation without transparency.
The competition report 1998 is not a bad foundation for this but, in fact, there is nothing that could not be further improved upon.
Our motion will give you a great deal of food for thought, Commissioner, but there is one point that I would just like to go into now.
Transparency and accountability belong together.
I do not wish to call the distribution of competences between the Commission and Parliament into question.
The Commission is the executive and Parliament ought to have no desire whatsoever to take on this role, for the sake of its own independence; but Parliament is a supervisory body, and what better forum could there be in which to expound the reasoning behind one' s decisions than a democratically-elected Parliament, indeed an ongoing parliamentary discussion? Here too we should continue along the path we have chosen, strengthening and intensifying it.
There is one thing I would like to make quite clear though.
Parliament is a legislative body, but the fact that we have no more than the right of consultation in matters of competition law, of all things, is truly scandalous.
Therefore, I would urge the Council and the Intergovernmental Conference to introduce the codecision procedure into legislation in this area.
I expect the Commission to exploit every available opportunity for parliamentary cooperation and to involve Parliament in doubtful cases, even given the Treaty status quo.
I also expect the Commission to be pro-active in supporting us in our call for codecision in legislative procedures.
This will be a good test as to whether there is reasonable cooperation between the two institutions.
With all due respect for the principle of competition, competition is not, however, an end in itself.
Competition is an instrument and does not always produce ideal solutions.
At the end of the day, one of the fundamental tenets of economic theory is that the market is failing in many respects and anyone who takes issue with this is nothing more than an ideologue.
Competition should bring about balance in supply and demand and should provide for the optimum distribution of economic resources and facts. But optimum efficiency does not necessarily come about of its own accord.
Framework conditions are indispensable when it comes to preventing abuses, monopolies law being one example.
But on the whole, this only serves to prevent abuses; framework conditions alone cannot achieve socially legitimate goals in isolation.
Competition yes, restrictions in state aid where necessary and where possible.
However, since state aid forms the lion' s share of the competition report 1998 I would still like, regardless of Mr Jonckheer' s report, to say one more thing about it.
It is certainly possible, indeed it must be feasible for state aid to be given to small and medium-sized enterprises involved in research and development for the purpose of educating them in regional and environmental policy.
Indeed it must be permissible for state aid to be provided for such purposes, provided it does not lead to unacceptable distortion of competition.
This is precisely the area where it is even more important than it is in monopolies and mergers law for decisions to be comprehensible.
It is not just that we should pillory state aid; rather our approach must be one of drawing distinctions and we must assess the different types of state aid in accordance with the extent to which they help to achieve the above-mentioned objectives.
My last comment was intended not so much for the Commission as for the Members of the Group of the European People' s Party.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report which I have the opportunity to propose to you today is an opinion on the Commission' s Annual Report on the state aid in force within the European Union and for which the Community is authorised under Articles 87, 88 and 89 of the Treaties.
The Commission report is essentially a descriptive report detailing the development of state aid in the manufacturing sector and certain other sectors, according to various typologies, such as the method of financing and the objectives pursued.
Let me refer you to the explanatory statement for the quantitative aspects of the report and simply mention at this point that the annual level of state aid, on average, for the period under review, is in the order of EUR 95 billion, corresponding to a reduction in the order of 13 % in relation to the period 1993-1995, a reduction which is essentially due to a reduction in aid in the Federal Republic of Germany.
To put it plainly, the level of state aid declared, roughly speaking, is generally stable during the period under discussion and comes to approximately 1.2% of Community GDP or more or less the equivalent, coincidentally, of the Community budget for one year.
This being the case, there are considerable disparities between states, which may be measured in various ways, such as, for example, as a percentage of added value and per wage earner.
I think it is also interesting to add state aid and Community aid, which may be assimilated in some way into state aid.
This clearly shows that it is the four countries which benefit from the Cohesion Fund, among other things, which come at the top of the list.
This being the case, let me now come to the proposals made in the report.
We note, first of all, that the committee considers the data, as presented in the Commission' s annual report, to be in too aggregated a form to enable an in-depth evaluation of state aid policy which is simultaneously legitimate, sensitive to national interests and extensive in terms of compliance with the rules of competition, pursuant to the actual terms of the Treaty.
The Commission can only collate and analyse the data provided by the Member States.
It is therefore down to the states and regions to ensure the quality of the data provided, and our committee considers that additional efforts must be made in this respect.
It is in this spirit that our parliamentary committee for example, has championed the longstanding idea of a public register of state aid, accessible via the Internet.
Having better, more detailed information available, particularly with regard to the objectives pursued and the results recorded, must make it possible for the European Commission to itself proceed or to commission in a regular manner studies of the social and economic evaluation of national and regional state aid policies.
And insofar as such studies already exist, to publish more openly its own comments with regard to the objectives of the Treaties, which are not only to ensure the competitivity of the European economy, but also sustainable development and economic and social cohesion.
By stressing, primarily, the quality of the information provided, our debate in committee, and hence the report which it is my honour to present to you, avoided a simplistic response in the form of an a priori statement that the level of state aid was, in absolute terms, either too high or not high enough.
Most committee members have sought rather to find a balance between, on the one hand, the need to see that both states and businesses comply with the competition rules and, on the other hand, acknowledgement of the value of such aid with a view to contributing to the objectives of the Treaty, particularly, as I have said already, as regards sustainable development, research and development and economic and social cohesion.
This being the case, various amendments to the rapporteur' s initial draft report were adopted in committee, particularly highlighting the need for effective reimbursement of aid found to be illegal as well as the establishment of a league table of results.
Seven amendments have been retabled for this plenary sitting.
Most of them are an expression of the political differences among ourselves regarding the appropriateness and effectiveness of state aid, in view of the inadequacies, acknowledged or not, of private investment alone, the market failures or inadequacies of the market.
There is in particular one amendment, let me point out, concerning the energy sector, which, in my capacity as rapporteur, I see as particularly important.
I should like to conclude this presentation, Commissioner, by stressing two things: firstly, a concern of the members of the committee and, secondly, a demand of our committee.
The concern involves the pre-accession process for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in terms of competition policy and state aid.
This is undoubtedly a complex issue, and one where we should like to see the Commission informing us of the latest development in the matter, particularly in terms of the capacity of the economies involved in the accession process to comply with competition rules and, as far as state aid is concerned, the need, in all probability, to have specific rules on state aid used to assist restructuring of their sectors.
And finally, in conclusion, our demand regarding the future responsibilities of the European Parliament in the matters we are discussing, competition policy and state aid, in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference.
As you know, Commissioner, our report argues that the codecision procedure should apply in the case of basic legislation on state aid.
Mr President, Commissioner, my contribution to today' s debate concerns the steel aid code, that is the state aid in Europe granted in accordance with this code and which was assessed by the Commission.
There were a total of 27 cases in 1998 and the Commission submitted its own report on these.
The ECSC Treaty is due to expire shortly.
Hence, what we must focus on today is the question as to how state aid is to be managed in future.
The European Commission' s decisions, which feature in the report, are welcomed by the European Parliament, as is the decision to ask for the money back in specific cases, thus applying Article 88 of the ECSC Treaty.
The competitiveness of the European steel industry also forms the subject of the Commission' s most recent communication, which we have not yet debated in Parliament.
As in other sectors, the general ban on state aid according to Article 87 (1) of the EC Treaty also applies to the iron and steel industry.
According to this article, state aid is irreconcilable with the common market, in principle.
Exemptions are only permitted in precisely defined cases.
Under Article 88, the Commission is obliged to supervise state aid.
In 1998, the largest case concerned the supply of company capital totalling EUR 540 million to the PREUSSAG in Germany.
Furthermore, the Member States must give the Commission advance warning with regard to their intentions concerning state aid.
The rules pertaining to the steel industry were drawn up on 18 December 1996.
These stipulate that state aid can only be awarded to the steel industry in particular, precisely-defined cases i.e. those involving aid for research and development, aid for environmental protection, social security to ease the closure of steelworks and aid to help non-competitive enterprises cease trading altogether.
In addition, there is a special provision of up to EUR 50 million for Greece.
However, there were obviously problems with the practical administration of the steel aid code over the past few years that were not brought fully to bear in the report.
As far as Parliament is concerned, it is important for us to waste no time in getting down to a debate on the regulations that are to succeed this state aid code once it has expired.
There must be no watering-down of the existing principles underlying the steel aid code.
No one wants an unimpeded subsidy competition in Europe.
This would be to the considerable disadvantage of the internal market, regardless of the fact that the steel industry has undergone consolidation in the past few years.
Consequently, Parliament believes it is necessary for the steel aid code to be amended in the light of the industry' s claims about unequal treatment, and for the Commission to provide the Council with follow-up regulations.
We all know that so far the Council has dragged its feet with regard to follow-up regulations of this kind.
The reason for this is that people are under the impression that once the steel aid code expires, they will be able to do their own thing again without the inconvenience of the European Commission' s supervision.
We therefore demand that once the Treaty expires, steel aid must be regulated by a Council regulation according to Article 94, for that is the only way to create the necessary legal validity and clarity.
This is the only way to enforce the strict ban on all aid not covered by the code.
A Council regulation that is directly applicable law must also be observed by the regional governments.
What we need to avoid doing in the future is compromising competition conditions and disturbing the balance in the markets.
We also need to criticise the Commission' s practice of approving multiple aid packages for steel enterprises which in their view, do not fall within the categories of the code, even given the fact that the European Court of Justice approved this unequal treatment where certain individual decisions were concerned.
The Commission will be called upon, in a report that has yet to be compiled for the year 1999, to give a detailed explanation of its active role in the elaboration of restructuring plans and approved exemptions, thus enabling a proper assessment of the overall situation to be made.
Once the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has adopted the draft report unanimously with two abstentions, I would ask that we make full use of this opportunity, which we have ourselves created, in plenary sitting.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the internal market is not complete.
Subsidies, monopolies and barriers to competition are still impeding markets and development alike.
National governments provide subsidies and promise that this is the last time, but then it happens again.
Subsidies distort allocations, both within and between countries.
A successive phasing out of State aid is required, and more and more markets must be opened up to competition. This applies to those which have been turned into monopolies, both private and public.
Public monopolies are, more often than not, phased out reluctantly.
Increased competition and newly established organisations should be able to provide significant benefits in terms of welfare, including within the spheres of education, health care and social services.
Public monopolies must be replaced by competitive structures.
Europe must be modernised, made more entrepreneurial in spirit and adapted in such a way that it becomes a more competitive environment for consumers and companies.
Effective competition pushes prices down and raises standards of living.
It is precisely upon price levels that consumer policy has failed to focus sufficiently.
In fact, competition policy and consumer policy belong together.
The internal market is the basis for our work.
Its legislation is to apply equally to all, to large and small countries alike.
A systematic survey of the various national regulations is needed if barriers to competition are to be dismantled. The EU' s own regulations too may therefore need to be analysed.
The new model now being tested by the Commission ought not to lead to a process of nationalisation pure and simple which would undermine the established competition policy.
In order to be effective, it must be well anchored in the Member States' national authorities.
In six months' time, it may be appropriate to carry out an analysis of the outcome and also to look more closely at the new situation' s effects upon the Commission' s role.
The question of how best to make further progress has so far been solved through the idea of holding an inter-institutional congress which will open up an unbiased debate adopting a broad perspective and involving representatives of different interests.
This will provide the opportunity to establish new principles or to return to the more radical changes which have been discussed. There will also be the opportunity to find new common solutions and to analyse amendments from the committee debate.
The law must be correctly applied in matters of competition.
Wrongly applied competition policy may cause losses in the legal sphere and interfere with the right of ownership, which is an important and basic principle we should stand up for.
We have a quite exciting debate in front of us.
A conference where the issues are properly debated will make it possible to straighten out misunderstandings, at the same time as perhaps improving upon certain points.
Parliament and the Commission can together increase their efforts to achieve an effective competition policy and so create new opportunities and new resources for our citizens.
In fact, in my own constituency of Stockholm, we have many good local examples of increased supply and improved quality which have arisen precisely because of exposure to competition in areas which were previously total monopolies.
We would encourage a continuation of the open debate which has been strengthened in the course of consideration of the reports by Mr von Wogau and Mr Rapkay.
We hope that the legal points of view will also be accorded the importance which is only reasonable in a state based on the rule of law.
Mr President, as a new Member I am pleased to be able to make my maiden speech here today, even though there has been a delay.
I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs Mr von Wogau, Mr Langen, Mr Rapkay and Mr Jonckheer, as well as the Commission, for their excellent cooperation.
Competition is certainly fundamental to the social market economy and European competition policy is a success story; take the energy and telecommunications sectors, where there has been a demonstrable lowering of prices and improvement in quality of service.
All this is to the good of the consumer.
But we have now arrived at a point where we need to develop competition policy further.
The Commission has put forward a new White Paper on this containing two key points: dropping the obligation to notify and retrodisplacement of law enforcement.
Dropping the obligation to notify will mean less red tape and administration costs, at any rate.
At the same time, this change of system will also lead to more onus being placed on the individual in the business world, of course.
It will no longer simply be a case of submitting papers and having them approved; for one thing, each person will have to take responsibility themselves, and that is probably why there is unease about this in other quarters.
However I believe that we should use this opportunity for Europe to set down a marker for less red tape.
The second point relates to the retrodisplacement of law enforcement.
If we are to create a culture of law in Europe, then there is no doubt that the law must be applied not only by the Commission, by central bodies, but also by national authorities, by national courts.
We are not discussing the fact that although every EU law is only ever decided on centrally, it is precisely the adaptation phase where we will experience a lack of legal certainty.
It will certainly be necessary to develop an instrument for this in the anticipated legislative procedure that will enable enterprises to enjoy legal certainty and to have recourse to the Commission in this matter.
The way to a European monopolies commission must be kept clear, something that will certainly form a subject for future discussion.
But we need there to be more transparency in the competition policy.
Parliament must have more involvement and I also believe that if we were to introduce a register in which we could ascertain what state aid is being granted, then this would encourage the Member States to be more disciplined.
However, when it comes to what the future holds for competition, there are two issues dear to my heart.
One is subsidiarity.
We all hold the view that competition is vital to the economy and requires there to be efficiency, and I believe we should also permit competition in the regions.
Competition between the regions will certainly strengthen rather than weaken the European Union.
I would cite, by way of example, the issue of job creation schemes, savings banks and regional banks, and Gütesiegel.
Here, a region has, by its own efforts, created a means of marketing its own products. This own initiative must not be destroyed by European intervention.
I believe there is also a need to raise the de minimis regulation.
We should do everything within our power to force the regions into a situation where they have to compete with each other.
My second point relates to discussion about competition and the social market economy, although I am not going to talk about market failure just now.
I have already referred to the regional and savings bank sector, but I would just like to focus on a matter one hears again and again in certain quarters.
These days, someone who lives in an old people' s home is accommodated within the social field.
However, I could also regard them as a customer, and I believe we should enter into rather clear and timely discussion on the ways in which the social field, that is evolved structures, stifle competition.
Apart from that, I could refer to any customers, any sector, as customers, and thereby have a highly destructive effect on social fields.
To conclude, I would just like to say something on the principle of subsidiarity. I believe it to be of vital importance that where Member States allow regions and local authorities to raise taxes, they should continue to be able to do so and not be subject to across- the-board regulation by Europe.
Thank you very much, Mr Radwan.
I would like to congratulate you on what is referred to in German parliamentary-speak, inappropriately in your case, as a maiden speech.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am speaking on behalf of my fellow Member, Robert Goebbels, who is unable to attend due to a political commitment.
Within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the Jonckheer report has given rise to bitter controversy on the subject of the operation of the market.
A slim right-wing majority succeeded in removing any reference to market failures.
Even if the majority in this House were to adhere to this ultraliberal idea of a supposedly perfect market, it would not make any difference to the real world.
Economic relationships in the real world adequately demonstrate that eliminating all public intervention in the market does not in any way bring about perfect competition and the optimum distribution of resources.
While, since the dawn of time, the market has been the key forum for human interchange, it has never been perfect.
The market favours the short term and immediate profits.
On the market, the balance of power between supply and demand are generally to the detriment of the weakest parties, consumers and workers.
In order to function, the market needs rules.
The necessary and valuable spirit of initiative must be offset by a sense of responsibility towards society.
We European Socialists are in favour of a market economy with a social purpose.
The market is not an end in itself; it must help to improve the human condition.
The European Union or individual States must not take over from economic operators, but public authorities must define the rules and objectives which enable the economy to develop in a sustainable fashion.
Finally, aid can enable restructuring, offer training, save jobs and thus know-how.
The main objective of the Union' s competition policy cannot be to reduce the overall level of aid.
This aid must be aligned with the objectives of the Union, particularly economic and social cohesion, sustainable development and research.
The Commission must track down the illegal aid and the aid which actually hinders the internal market.
It would be a serious mistake to eliminate all public aid.
The Internet is not a product of the market, but the result of research financed by the American army.
The World Wide Web, which has enabled the meteoric development of the information society, was developed by CERN in Geneva, once again with public aid.
The German Government' s intervention to save the Holzmann group was criticised as an unjustifiable constraint upon the market economy.
President Duisenberg even attempted to attribute the weakness, the entirely relative weakness of the euro in relation to the dollar to this state interventionism.
I did not hear Mr Duisenberg criticising the intervention of the American monetary authorities to save the hedge fund, LTCM.
Wishing to save 60 000 jobs is, apparently, a sin against the market, but saving capital does not seem to present any problem for the advocates of the free market.
Public monies are used in order to repair the damage caused by international speculation, as was the case in Mexico, Asia and Brazil.
Human labour, on the other hand, is considered to be a simple factor in the equation.
We Socialists reject the liberals' naïve optimism on this point.
We want a true culture of competition in Europe.
The state hand must still be clearly seen to regulate the market and the Commission must act as judge.
Mr President, Commissioner, I want to begin by thanking Mr Rapkay for a good report and constructive cooperation.
I want to thank you, Commissioner Monti, for your outstanding cooperation and I want to tell you that, as we enter the new millennium, you have an especially important role.
It is your job to tidy up the mess left by national governments. These may well have grand visions when it comes to competition policy, but their capacity to wreak havoc seems boundless.
Let me mention the latest examples we have seen: Holzmann, a company which receives considerable aid from the German Government; sawmills in former East Germany; and, especially, aid to shipyards.
These are three areas in which many Danish companies are experiencing major problems and are being squeezed out of their markets.
I want to say to Mr Poos that I very much agree with Mr Duisenberg that these examples show that some EU Member States are not in a position to restructure their economies and, to that extent, are helping to undermine the value of the euro.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has tabled 80 amendments in the committee, all concerning state aid.
These are amendments which we believe will lead to transparency and openness, which is very important with a view to making the internal market work.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues on the committee for supporting the amendments tabled by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
As I say, our amendments concern transparency, and I should like to emphasise the amendment which urges the Commission to propose uniform criteria and conditions for the type of state aids we consider to be lawful, specifically in order to ensure that companies can predict what their situation will be.
Another issue is that of what we are to do when state aid is declared unlawful.
How do we ensure that unlawful state aid is paid back? At present, there are no common rules in this area, and we vigorously urge the Commission to make a point of harmonising the rules on repayment.
This is the way forward if we are to ensure uniform conditions of competition.
Finally, we propose keeping both a register, as mentioned by a number of my fellow MEPs, and also a scoreboard showing where the Member States at present stand with regard to state aid.
You have shown us the way, Mr Monti, with the single market scoreboard.
It was this which inspired us to propose the same thing with regard to state aid.
I very much hope that you, Commissioner Monti, will support these amendments, and I look forward to your comments and to finding out where you stand on this matter.
To conclude, I want to welcome the Commission' s XVIIIth Report on Competition Policy, on which, once again, a good deal of work has been done.
But, as I have already mentioned, our overriding objectives ought still to be those of transparency and openness.
There is still a need to tighten up in the areas mentioned, and there is therefore good reason for continuing to work resolutely towards solving the problems concerning the lack of transparency and openness in the area of state aid.
This is especially necessary in relation to the forthcoming enlargement of the Union, and I should like to thank Mr Jonckheer who, in his report, has considered very thoroughly the problems associated with enlargement and with ensuring that the applicant countries are able to meet our criteria, as well as with ensuring common conditions of competition.
As Liberals and Greens, we clearly have different opinions on how the world should look, but we are well on the way to agreement as to our objectives, and we shall try to find reasonable solutions to our problems.
Mr President, Commissioner, there are just two questions which must be answered. Are state aid to business or inter-company agreements legitimate in a market economy, and who must supervise these exceptions to the absolute rules of the market economy?
Regarding the first point, we say quite clearly that, in order to take into consideration the requirements of sustainable development which the European Union has endorsed, it is essential that, in some instances, there is state aid to businesses, be it in the form of tax exemptions, special taxation or even direct aid.
It is also legitimate for there to be inter-company agreements and voluntary restraint agreements, since all these agreements make it possible to reduce the detrimental effects of competition on social or ecological requirements.
So our clear response is that, yes, such aid and such agreements are legitimate, but we say that every single one of these agreements must be expressly justified.
The von Wogau report proposes referring supervision of the legitimacy of individual cases to national level.
We feel this is relatively dangerous, but all the same we shall vote in favour of it because we recognise that the Commission cannot do everything.
We demand that the greatest possible transparency should be in place and that greater powers of investigation be granted to the Commission in order to check the legitimacy of such exceptions after the fact.
Mr President, once again we are debating the European Union' s competition policy.
But let us stop to consider the circumstances in which this debate is taking place and the conclusions to which it should bring us.
The overriding features of today' s economy are massive mergers and acquisitions involving huge companies with a market monopoly and the emergence of frighteningly powerful multinational groups. Should we not be discussing this issue?
We need a competition policy which can and will introduce controls on the activities of these private-sector monopolies. Certain sectors of European industry, such as the shipbuilding industry, air transport and the steel industry, which have been hard hit by existing competition policy, have suffered tremendously.
They have lost their status, and a significant slice of the world market and hundreds of thousands of workers have been made redundant.
When will we debate that? The scandalous concentration of power in sectors of strategic importance is giving speculative multinational groups economies the size of entire states, and Member States of the Union at that.
And yet, we keep on weakening the public sector and we are ready and willing to tighten competition policy yet further by qualifying public procurement contracts placed with public-sector corporations as state aid.
At the same time, unemployment is spiralling as a result of the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Workers are facing a massive attack on their employment and social rights.
Consumers see their standard of living being eroded, poverty spreading and the public sector and production base in most countries in the Union being dismantled and dissolved in the name of unadulterated and catastrophic competition, in the name of the absolute market economy and the promotion of the monopolistic interests of big business.
We consider the competition policy to be responsible for all this and are totally opposed to it.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the course of this pivotal year, prior to the changeover to the single currency, the Commission has deployed every effort to ensure the birth of the euro in a favourable environment.
The competition policy has, as far as these resources permitted, contributed to this event.
For our part, we remain staunchly opposed to the single currency which, far from bringing us the advantages and flexibility of a shared currency, imprisons us in an artificial straitjacket, which has been imposed on the peoples of Europe.
Having said that, governing means planning. It also means being responsible and, in this new context which has been forced upon us, competition law naturally has an essential role to play.
In this area, the Commission has given priority to a number of routes of action: acting on the structure of markets by actively combating anti-competitive practices, by refocusing its departments' supervisory activities only upon matters with a manifest Community interest and by affirming its intention to modernise competition law.
As regards state aid, it is essential to ensure that regulations are not made more complex, and the introduction of a public register, where all aid would be recorded, does not seem advisable to us since this onerous commitment would quite naturally run counter to the attempts to simplify bureaucratic constraints.
Finally, on the subject of modernising the implementation of Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty, we do not think that decentralised application would necessarily be going in the right direction.
The Commission is, in fact, retaining not only the power to take matters out of the jurisdiction of national authorities, but clearly obliging the national jurisdictions to avoid disputing the decisions of the Commission at all.
National states would thus become the secular arm of the Commission regarding observance of the application of rules which they do not control.
In conclusion, I would say that while some measures are heading in the right direction, we shall of course remain vigilant in order to prevent the snowballing of Federalism which, if it were realised, would be to the detriment of Europe and the sovereignty of the states.
Mr President, Commissioner, we have a basically positive view of the Commission' s White Paper on competition, particularly as regards the abolition of the system of notification and authorisation, but we are also puzzled by several things.
First of all, there is a risk that the decentralisation of powers, though necessary in many ways, will cause an abnormal increase in competition-related initiatives, and that some people will be tempted to use competition law, not as a means to be resorted to when all else fails, of ensuring the smooth and predictable functioning of the markets, but for the purposes of as an instrument for economic and industrial policy, planning and interference with the natural workings of the markets themselves, or even for protectionist purposes.
In this respect, we should heed the words of von Eieck, and doubtless also those of the great Italian liberal Bruno Leoni, who warned precisely against the risks of an abnormal increase in anti-competition policies.
State interference in the economy is, even today, still to blame for the most serious hindrances placed in the way of the market, competition and freedom of choice for European users and consumers.
There is State aid for businesses - we have already discussed this, there is still a strong public presence in the economy - it is estimated that the Italian Treasury controls 15% of stock exchange capitalisation; governments and central banks place obstacles in the way of mergers and acquisitions; and there has been much talk in recent weeks about Vodafone' s bid for Mannesmann and the bailout of Holzmann.
Finally, Commissioner, we cannot forget that large sections of the economy are still firmly in the hands of the state, ranging from state television, which is funded on a mandatory basis by the taxpayer, and the Post Office, to some compulsory insurance schemes, including health and social welfare systems, which are managed by inefficient state monopolies which leave no-one but the wealthy user with any other option.
Commissioner, I am quite familiar with the constraints imposed by the Treaties, but I believe that, it must be emphasised once again that the European economy is finding it hard to compete with the American economy, especially because of insufficiently open markets and a lack of genuine competition.
What is being done may well be very important, but it is still not sufficient.
Mr President, we are holding a special debate: on competition policy and state aid, the government' s right and left hand, so to speak.
Whilst the EMU criteria are forcing Member States to curb expenditure, the high level of state aid to industry has so far remained in place.
This is understandable, because it is highly likely that Member States which start to cut back on state aid will cause companies to leave, with adverse effects on employment.
But, at the same time, this is not understandable because bad management and non-viable jobs should not be funded by taxpayers' money.
In principle, only horizontal regulations are permissible because they do not distort, or hardly distort, competition.
The rapporteur' s Amendments Nos 6 and 7, therefore, deserve our support.
Amendments Nos 1 and 5 make reference to the phenomenon of market failure because the market instrument in itself does not result in the ideal society.
Vulnerable people find themselves hardest hit.
Market forces must be employed in a sophisticated manner to do full justice to the responsibility of citizens and companies.
If this comes to nothing, then the government has to step in.
The Commission' s White Paper on modernising competition policy seems more like a discussion paper.
The plea in favour of decentralisation in order to lighten the load within the Directorate-General on Competition is a kind gesture, but the way in which the Commission would like to carry this through would lead to the judiciary being stretched. This would be at the expense of legal certainty within industry.
Does the pressure of work within the Commission really decrease when national judges are required to report to the Commission? What is the Council' s opinion on this and is the Commissioner prepared to completely reconsider these points?
Mr President, I would like, in beginning my speech regarding the White Paper, to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau.
The fact that the Group of the Party of European Socialists is very much in agreement with your report is clearly demonstrated by the fact that only one amendment has been presented during this procedure.
We are, therefore, in agreement with the report, Commissioner, as well as the broad outlines of the White Paper.
Since the Treaty entered into force, Community law on competition has been one of the tenets of Community policy.
After almost forty years of being in force, these rules were beginning to show signs of exhaustion.
For this reason, modernisation was essential.
That modernisation came to be particularly necessary for five reasons.
Firstly, the authorisation system; secondly, decentralised application; thirdly, procedural rules; fourthly, judicial application; and fifthly and finally, excessive red tape.
The system of individual approvals needed urgent reform, as was unanimously requested by specialised companies, academics and lawyers.
I have not attended a single forum of specialists in competition law which has not requested a change to the system.
A system, such as the current one, which is capable of making so few decisions, be they approvals or prohibitions, is something less than a valid system.
National competition authorities were able to apply Articles 81(1) and 82 for some time.
However, they could not apply Article 81(3), which, to a certain extent, prevented the coherent application of Article 81(1).
You will know that there are currently two preliminary issues before the Court of Justice, both brought by German courts, which question the feasibility of applying 81(1) without being able to apply 81(3).
A reform of this point was therefore also necessary.
The procedure in the field of competition is basically contained in Regulation 1762.
The voices in favour of its amendment were unanimous.
The fact that it did not establish a genuine procedure, that it did not establish time limits, that it did not regulate access for interested parties to the files, or that the right to defence was not properly recognised, were factors which led to the unanimous demand for reform.
The Court of Justice accepted some time ago that Community competition law could be applied by the legal bodies of the Member States and in 1994, the Commission published a communication on this subject.
It was therefore necessary to facilitate this approach.
One of the most frequent criticisms of Community competition law is its excessive red tape.
As a consequence of the continental legal tradition, consideration of whether certain agreements are anti-competitive or not depends more on an analysis of their clauses than on their effects on the market.
It was therefore necessary to introduce an economic analysis.
The White Paper intends to resolve these problems and we therefore support these proposals.
It is also true that we note certain deficiencies which have come to light in the report.
Amongst these, firstly, is the fact that, despite trying to modernise Articles 81 and 82, Article 81 and not Article 82 carries exclusive weight.
At the moment, with inter-company agreements and the privatisation of monopolies preserving dominant positions and even consolidating them, the combating of abusive conduct is becoming particularly important.
Secondly, Regulation 1762 must be repealed and replaced with a new regulation.
For these reasons, we are going to vote in favour of the report.
However, if some of the amendments are accepted, particularly those presented by the PPE-DE Group, we would consider the report to be stripped of its value and to have become an inconsistent document, lacking in rigour and, in that event, we would reconsider our support.
Mr President, amongst the various issues being dealt with in this joint debate, I would like to comment on the one mentioned by Mr Berenguer, that is to say, the modernisation of competition policy, which is the subject of the Commission' s White Paper.
Frankly, I believe that this modernisation has been satisfactory.
Through his management, Commissioner Monti achieves good results, as did his predecessor and, clearly, he has established a guarantee which, in parallel with the creation and development of the European internal market, has been capable of establishing the corresponding corrective measures so that the market economy within the Union may work adequately, without the distortions which we economists know may arise when the market is enlarged, as has happened in the European Union since 1993.
If it functions well, if we are satisfied, if the Commission has basically acted correctly, why the need for the modification? Various arguments have been presented in its favour.
Mr Berenguer made a very accurate analysis, justifying the need and the relevant reforms for improving the dynamics of competition, but my concern is to ensure that the standards and criteria which will be applied through the corresponding administrations in the Member States, are truly identical in all regions.
Because, if this is not the case, we will be faced with the paradox that the Commission itself will introduce elements of unfair competition into the functioning of the European internal market.
In that event we would not have moved forward, but rather backwards, in the application of competition policy in the Union.
Mr President, I would like firstly to express my appreciation to the Commission for the improvement represented by the XXVIIIth report on competition policy in the Union, when compared to previous reports.
I would also like to highlight the work carried out by the rapporteur, Mr Rapkay, who has dissected this dense and comprehensive text in such a concise way.
I would also like to fully support his comments on the need to allow the regions - such as the Basque Country, which I represent - a margin for action, by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity.
Nevertheless, I cannot forget the numerous criticisms, both from Member States and from market operators, which, given the broad margin for manoeuvre and discretion enjoyed by the Commission in its evaluation of specific cases, maintain that they suffer from legal insecurity in the absence of clear rules allowing interested parties to anticipate the position of the authorities and thereby make feasible requests for aid aimed at the promotion of economic activity and employment, the planning of company mergers etc.
The only guarantee has been to seek prior favourable approval, through individual cases, which will take more than six or eight months to resolve, an excessively long period, which simply leads to problems of a lack of flexibility, affecting the generation of wealth and employment.
I therefore believe that something is missing and I suggest that we establish more regulations, lay down clear rules, which will benefit all of us: businesspeople, investors, workers and the citizens in general.
Mr President, I would like to stress that, in an age of significant technological changes - just look at what is happening in the information technology sector and other sectors such as energy and transport - safeguarding competition will be of fundamental importance for our future.
From the point of view of economic growth, and therefore of increasing employment and wealth, safeguarding a competition policy in the Member States is becoming a crucial factor, and one that is certainly very important for our future.
This is why I give this report my full support.
Recently, I have noticed that the Commission has been working hard to ensure that this principal is respected in a proper and effective manner, precisely in order to safeguard market flexibility, both for products and for services.
I would emphasise that this is going to be extremely important for our future, for Europe' s economy, and, above all, for the protection of our wealth and technological development in Europe in general.
Mr President, for British Conservatives the efficient and uniform application of European competition policy is at the core of achieving an effective single market across the whole of the European Union.
It therefore follows that any proposal which suggests major reform of the machinery for competition policy enforcement must be closely and carefully examined.
The truth is that the single market is not yet complete.
During my six months as a Member of this Parliament, I have become acutely aware of the determination of many Members to drive forward what is described as the European project.
We daily hear the need to promote a wider and deeper Europe.
But all this, in effect, is so much rhetoric when we look at the national, regional and local obstacles which continue to block the operation of a true European single market.
That is the context in which I want to consider the Commission's proposals.
I should like to make it clear that we have the greatest confidence in and respect for Commissioner Monti. We look to him as the man to root out cartels.
But he would recognise that, as for everybody else, we have to consider his particular proposals and subject them to rigorous examination.
That is something that has been done by our rapporteur on the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Mr von Wogau.
I want to congratulate him, sadly in his absence, for the thorough and rigorous way in which he has undertaken the preparation of his report - and also for putting up with my being such a thorn in his side!
He mentioned earlier that the report was carried with a significant majority but not with my support.
So although I may not share his conclusions, I believe he has illustrated in his report many of the issues which the Commission must address.
The first is the potential for renationalisation of competition policy.
I know that the Commission is set against this, but the potential exists.
I remain worried about the capacity of national courts and the capacity of the national competition authorities.
I remain worried about the whole operation of the judicial process.
I asked Commissioner Monti the other day what happens if he proves to be wrong and there is an effective renationalisation.
Mr von Wogau said we can look to the European Court.
Well, we in Britain are looking to the European Court at the moment. We find that the European Court is not able to provide us with interim measures in a certain dispute that we have with France at the moment, in which we have the support of the Commission.
Unless anybody thinks that this is merely a nationalistic point, in the Factortame case, in which the British Government was the defendant, it took ten years for the European Court to give a ruling.
So, judicially, something needs to be done.
I ask the Commission what can be done to speed up implementation in this particular area.
In relation to legal certainty, I endorse the point made by Mrs Thyssen.
It is important that business has legal certainty.
I mentioned this again to Commissioner Monti recently. He said we must not always be carried along by lawyers.
I must declare an interest as a lawyer but also as a former competition minister in the United Kingdom.
We all have, as it were, our histories to live with, but it is important that business has legal certainty.
I would also ask the Commission whether an analysis has been undertaken of the implications of this change for business: a cost-benefit analysis of the sort that is now becoming so much more European policy.
I know there has been an analysis of the implications for the Commission of the change.
We have been told how, currently, people's time is being wasted and that the changes, therefore, could be beneficial.
But I really feel that, in the circumstances, we want to know what the implications would be for business.
Finally, we, as British Conservatives, are looking for a change in direction, towards the development of an independent competition authority.
I would like to hear what Commissioner Monti has to say about that.
Mr President, the European Union' s competition policy has been of central importance since European integration began.
It is an integral part of the tension, inherent in the very concept of European integration, between solidarity and cooperation between Member States, with a view to creating a better and more efficient environment for the people and the economy, and competition, which should provide incentives to improve the competitiveness and future viability of the European Union as an entity.
It is therefore with some justification that competition policy is one of the most important policies.
We can be proud of a European competition culture, for it is this that will make the social market economy a reality.
We can be proud of monopolies and mergers supervision.
However, we must be vigilant in the face of global operators, against whom nation-states are no longer able to impose limits.
That is why we should bear in mind what was said by the French writer Vivienne Forestier, who described the state of the world in terms of the economy' s reign of terror.
Society is surrendering itself to the economy.
That is precisely what we do not want in the European Union.
We are aware that in this age of strategic alliances and millennium mergers - in 1998 USD 2 400 billion was paid out in connection with take-overs - restrictive practices are being held in check, not just by our own rules but also by bilateral cooperation with the USA or Japan, or others, until we get the international competition law we so badly need.
European competition policy, as we very often forget, is not just important for fair competition as such, but also for prices, growth and employment, and hence for the public.
In common with the other Members, I call for Parliament to have codecision rights where competition law is concerned.
It is essential that this long overdue step be taken.
It is also important to underline the connection between competition policy and consumer protection.
I welcome the fact that Commissioner Monti wants to make progress in this area in the dialogue with the European Parliament, as he does in the dialogue with non-governmental organisations, consumer protection associations and the public.
Greater transparency will also help to achieve public acceptance of decisions relating to competition policy.
Then it is possible to understand that, for example, lower electricity and telecommunications prices are due to European competition policy, and Brussels should not be pilloried when aid decisions are taken which are, of course, bound to cause problems at a particular moment in time or in a local context.
It is particularly important for there to be clarity in relation to competition rules in view of EU enlargement.
Emphasis must also be placed on the fact that a state aid policy - and the Jonckheer report makes this very clear - must continue to afford each state the freedom to define and organise the tasks of the public sector and ownership structures on an independent basis.
At the same time, it must be made clear that aid can serve a useful purpose, with a view to offsetting the deficiencies of the market and furthering Community objectives.
A word on the White Paper: the revision of Articles 81 and 82 represents a change of direction in monopolies policy.
I am opposed to this, unlike the majority of this House and indeed the majority of my own group, because I believe that, in competition policy terms, the directly applicable exception system is in every sense inferior to a system of prohibition unless certain conditions are met, and I believe there is a threat of renationalisation.
The system currently in force creates transparency, affords enterprises legal certainty and has, without a shadow of a doubt, led to discipline and acted as a deterrent on account of the notification requirement.
The problem of overwork highlighted by the Commission is not a sufficient reason for making radical changes to the legal system.
Indeed, it is debatable whether this could be carried through at all without amending the Treaty.
Mr President, I am very glad that Mrs Randzio-Plath mentioned the very important context of our debate because up until now no other speaker has done so.
The advent of the euro at the beginning of last year unleashed enormous competitive forces within European business which are being met by a merger wave of quite unprecedented proportions.
For example, the figures for last year now show that the total value of mergers in the European area was EUR 1.4 trillion, which is seven times the level of merger activity at the peak of the last European merger boom in 1990.
This poses enormous challenges for competition policy, which I hope it will be able to meet because, for certain, many of those mergers are going to be designed to protect profit margins of the businesses from competition rather than merely to enhance productivity and make those businesses able to operate on a bigger scale.
Commissioner Monti and his colleagues have a tremendous challenge ahead of them and our worries in the ELDR Group are that there should be no weakening in the thrust of competition policy either in the examination of mergers or the monitoring of restrictive practices.
Delegation to national authorities is all very well but we would emphasise what Mr von Wogau said in his report on the need for regular monitoring of national authorities to ensure that there is no slippage in the European element, and, particularly would ask the Commissioner to reassure us that there would be random checks on that.
Mr President, in the limited time I have, I would like to express my support for the work carried out by all the rapporteurs and my agreement with many of the things which have been said here, in particular by Mr Jonckheer, who criticised the excessive gathering of information and the lack of transparency and socio-economic balance in the granting of aid.
I also agree with the criticism that no emphasis has been put on the implementation of Article 82, especially when we are witnessing abusive conduct in a context of market concentration.
As a Member for the Basque Country, I would like to express my total support for the implementation measures for fair competition in the market.
I say this in case there is any doubt about the criticisms which we have directed at the Commission in general, and Mr Monti, in particular, for its persecution of the incentives to Basque companies and the fact that it considers them to be state aid.
Our discrepancy stems from the fact that the Commission continues to misunderstand the character of the general system and the co-responsibility of our arrangement which gives our Basque fiscal rules the same nature, foundation and aim as the rules of the Member States of the Union, and that they are applied in a general way to all tax-payers who, by virtue of points which fall under an external system of law, are subject to those rules.
Mr President, Commissioner, competition is exactly what we need.
We need competition if there is the least unemployment, for a smooth-running healthcare system, for social justice, for high social standards, and, of course, we also need - these are competition criteria to do with the economy - business management competition so as to achieve highest-quality products, equal market access conditions for all enterprises, and environmentally-friendly products.
In other words, we must succeed in linking the competition criteria that are necessary to the economy with those relating to managerial economics.
I often have the impression, unlike the country I come from - former East Germany - where economic competitiveness is prized above all else and competitiveness relating to managerial economics is disregarded, that very often the reverse is the case; society thinks almost exclusively in terms of managerial economics.
I say that as an entrepreneur who has a vested interest in this.
But a system cannot function in this way: it will only work if the two aspects go hand in hand.
I will give you an example: the European Union was right to support the Grönitz steelworks in Brandenburg, although out of 5 000 jobs only 700 remained.
But these are competitive jobs, for this steelworks is now the number two tool steel manufacturer in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Anyone who would jeopardise production at this steelworks on principle, by demanding the return of the aid that was granted at the time, would not just place the steelworks itself in jeopardy but also one of the region' s employers that small and medium-sized enterprises are, of course, dependent on too.
It goes without saying that that is not what the European Union' s competition policy is designed to achieve.
If we want there to be competition then we must establish this link between the requirements of the national economy and the pre-requisites of managerial economics.
Indeed that is the only way to build up regional economic circulation in the under-developed regions that will protect people' s social welfare and boost purchasing power.
To that end, we must also make it our business to take more account of demand-orientated economic policy as opposed to one focusing heavily on supply.
Mr President, ever since I was elected to this Parliament in 1994 I have never witnessed a report which had such anti-Irish sentiments and overtones as the Jonckheer report which we are debating today.
I would like to quote verbatim from the report: "State aid per capita is highest in Italy, Germany and Ireland.
Ireland clearly is in the lead when national and Community regional and social funds are put together."
I believe that the rapporteur is simply playing with figures.
I find it difficult to understand how he can index regional and social funds into this mathematical equation.
I should like to remind the Member that the European Union has agreed to the new regional aid guidelines for the period 2000 plus.
This was merely an extension of the policy objectives to complete the internal market within Europe.
Regional disparities must be overcome if the internal market is to succeed and prosper.
I welcome the fact that grant aid of 40% and a top-up of 15% for SMEs for fixed investment will be permitted for companies setting up in Objective 1 regions in Europe post-2000.
I remind Mr Jonckheer that Irish companies or foreign companies in Ireland still have to cross two sea masses to reach the mainland European marketplace.
No other Member State is at such a disadvantage.
Mr President, the monopolies' ban is the key element of functioning competition order in Europe.
The Commission deemed the practical administration relating to the monitoring of the monopolies' ban to be unsatisfactory, something I would wholeheartedly agree with.
But opinion differs as to the solution.
The Commission' s proposal does not formally deviate from the monopolies ban but the upshot of this proposal is a transition from a ban with permit reservation to a permit with ban reservation.
In other words, we are making the transition from the principle of banning to that of misuse.
Both I and other MEPs utterly reject such a drastic change of system.
I do not accept that a practical transposition problem should give rise to changing the law.
We would be changing the law to make it executable again, which is something I consider to be unacceptable.
The Commission is giving up its monopoly on exemptions.
Competition restrictions are to be automatically exempted against the background of this planned system of legal exemption, insofar as the provisions of Article 81(3) of the Treaty on European Union allow.
The requirement to lodge applications in Brussels will be dropped; in other words, the Commission will be completely in the dark in future.
This is unacceptable to my mind.
The Commission' s programme is to be supplemented by enhanced follow-up supervision of the national authorities and Member States' courts.
But if this takes place in the course of renationalisation then what we will have here is a patchwork quilt of competition policy.
This is unacceptable in my view.
It would weaken a key element of European policy.
The change of system in European monopolies law that the European Commission is contemplating is high risk as far as competition policy is concerned.
There are enough other options in the present system to safeguard open markets and free competition.
In any case, the Commission' s proposal refers back to old proposals that were put forward as long ago as the fifties and sixties. There was no majority for this at the time.
Since France laid a huge amount of emphasis on legal exemption at the time, it was damaged by concessions in agricultural policy.
Forty years on, this proposal has again been placed on the table and I am certain that it will create room for manoeuvre for the monopolies, to the detriment of Europe' s consumers.
I consider this to be unacceptable.
Mr President, in this important debate on competition, I am speaking this morning with particular reference to Mr Langen' s document on the Steel Aid Code.
As the Court of Justice recognised in 1996, the steel industry is particularly sensitive to competition-related disturbances.
Indeed, several years ago, this was the conclusion of a report that I compiled on the strengths and weaknesses of the European steel sector.
This is why it was justifiable to set up a system of aid to this sector with the aim of ensuring the survival of successful businesses, even if this was in contradiction of Article 4 of the ECSC Treaty.
This indeed, is the aim of the sixth Steel Aid Code, but at the same time it is important to avoid any infringement of the conditions of competition and any serious disturbance of the markets, hence the importance of regulating such aid.
It is therefore necessary to continue to limit state aid for research, development, environmental protection and cases of company closure.
In the same category of ideas, it is essential that Member States fulfil their obligation to be accountable to the Commission for the aid granted to their steel companies.
The Commission suggests shorter deadlines. I agree with this request.
Like the rapporteur, while I am pleased with the Commission report, nonetheless I deplore the fact that it does not cover all aspects of the aid.
Although the Steel Aid Code is expressed in a very clear way, the Commission has authorised granting steel companies aid which is not covered by the categories stipulated by the Code.
In the interests of equality, either the Code must be applied or it must be modified.
Finally, and in conclusion, Mr President, with the expiry of the ECSC Treaty, the regulations will have to be reviewed since I think that the aid system will have to continue beyond 2002, and in that case I am in favour of a Council regulation which will ensure security in this area.
We therefore await, and I await, the European Commission' s proposals on this matter.
Mr President, I am also going to refer to the report by Mr Langen, which concerns aid to the steel industry.
I agree with the rapporteur on two issues. Firstly, I agree on the need to guarantee equal conditions for aid to all Member States and, secondly, on the need for transparency with regard to this aid.
We agree with the rapporteur regarding his criticism of the fact that, despite the rules laid down in the sixth Steel Aid Code, the Commission has frequently authorised aid to companies which do not correspond to the categories in that Code.
However, the thing that worries us most, Mr President, is the decrease in prices, by 30%, owing to imports.
The reason for this decrease is unfair competition from South Korea and Taiwan, in the case of steel, as a result of their different working conditions and conditions governing aid.
Orders in the steel industry and the ship-building industry - we also spoke about this a while ago - have decreased drastically, resulting in a loss of jobs.
I live in a region where the ship-building industry now has very serious problems: Asturias.
With global markets, we need global employment laws and global subsidies.
I know this is difficult to achieve now, but if we do not achieve fair employment laws for all workers, here and elsewhere, and we do not secure equitable subsidies for all countries, here and elsewhere, it will be difficult to preserve jobs in Europe and outside it.
Mr President, Commissioner, Director-General, I would particularly like to emphasise the following in relation to the von Wogau report: I welcome the Commission' s open-minded endeavours to initiate debate on the hitherto strict procedural rules, and to propose practical reform measures.
I congratulate the rapporteur Karl von Wogau, who takes up the theme but also makes quite plain his demand for clarification, indicates the accompanying measures that need to be taken, and pulls no punches when it comes to the problems currently under discussion.
The White Paper and the report are contributions made at the beginning of a necessary process of reflection, discussion, and reform which has yet to be concluded because there are still a few questions posed by ourselves, the judiciary, the Member States, and above all the SMEs concerned, that need to be clarified.
Competition policy must continue to be accorded central importance and will not be renationalised because this would jeopardise the internal market and Europe as a business location in a global economy.
However, it must be "europeanised" taking into account the principle of subsidiarity.
I also welcome, therefore, the fact that responsibility is to fall to the individual, without the Commission giving up any of its responsibility.
In practice, only 9 cases were rejected, 94% of the cases that the Commission had to process were not dealt with formally but by means of unpublished, non-legally binding administrative communications or on account of the expiry of deadlines, which clearly shows that the work of the Commission is subject to time-related, staffing and financial limitations in this age of globalisation and EU enlargement
To conclude, I would like to tell you what I am expecting from this reform: fair competition and equal competition conditions, legal certainty for all enterprises, consistent application of competition policy, procedural simplification according to the principle of the one-stop-shop, coordination of the national - and to me, independent - competition authorities, close cooperation between the national authorities and courts and the Commission, along with a clear distribution of competences between national authorities and courts in the application of European competition and monopolies law, and I expect the Commission to concentrate on what is most crucial in the fulfilment of its tasks as the supreme guardian of the European competition policies.
I am in suspense as to how the discussions, which were broadly based, will be incorporated in the first legislative proposal.
The Commission report confirms that, with the exception of Germany, state aid to businesses is increasing.
The Commission finds this worrying only from the point of view of the conditions of competition.
As far as we are concerned, we look at things from the point of view of the interests of the working classes.
Society gains nothing from these massive transfers of public funds to private business.
Take, for example, the car manufacturing sector, where subsidies and state aid of various sorts have increased by 24% during the reference period.
With what aim? Not to save jobs.
All these firms have gone ahead with job cuts and even redundancies.
Not to improve working conditions, for in increasing production with fewer workers, working conditions are made worse.
Did these firms need state aid to survive? No, car manufacturers have been making colossal profits for years.
State aid is not only counterproductive because, as the Jonckheer report acknowledges, it gives rise to subsidy hunting with firms relocating from one country to another, but it is unacceptable because it allocates public monies to the enrichment of a handful of private shareholders.
It is because the richest people are being favoured everywhere with state money that throughout Europe social protection is being reduced, public services are being abandoned, hospitals are being closed.
In voting against the Jonckheer report, I wish to assert the need for another policy, to wit, ceasing all aid to private firms and utilising the money thereby saved to develop public services and recruit staff.
Mr President, today' s debate is extremely important because the principle of competition has probably been the cornerstone of the internal market.
In accordance with the principle of competition, the legislation has implemented Articles 85 to 94, competition policy in the strict sense, and the revision of all state aid and tax provisions which may affect competition.
Firstly, fiscal provisions of an indirect nature and recently, thanks to Commissioner Monti, there have been direct provisions, the code of good conduct in particular.
This has worked fairly well, but, as in the famous film Casablanca 'time goes by' and we must adapt the legislation we have been applying until now to the new circumstances.
In this respect I have observed a significant consensus in all the interventions.
Firstly, it is necessary, in drawing up the legislation, to produce clear and complete rules.
It is probably horrendous, especially in this particular raft of legislation, that there are confused rules, regulatory vacuums and rules that only lay down undefined legal concepts. This is all the worse - as is the case with the second part of this reform - when responsibility for implementing the legislation lies with national authorities.
Thirdly, it seems to me important that the Commission should play a role in resisting the temptation to create independent agencies which would distort the very essence of the Commission, in order to guarantee uniform application by international bodies.
Fourthly, and lastly - and this has already been mentioned - the international legal order has changed.
We have seen this in the aborted Seattle Conference and we are now seeing it in the bilateral conferences with different regions or countries of the world.
The principle of competition must now be universal in its application.
We must monitor compliance with environmental standards, employment standards, in order to prevent dumping in this area, and we must ensure scrupulous respect for property rights and the revision of state aid, which in many industries - as has already been said - distorts competition and destroys jobs within our own territory. To sum up, we should apply similar conditions that will prevent aid, internal distortions by other countries, from being transferred to the international arena, in other words, through trickery.
Mr President, Commissioner Monti, there is much that is good in Mr Jonckheer' s report on state aid for manufacturing industry and certain other sectors.
First of all the report reveals Parliament' s single-minded determination to reduce state aid to ensure that the internal market functions flawlessly.
Many of the report' s conclusions, however, are cause for concern, at least for our group.
For example, the fact that the amount and level of state aid calculated on a per capita basis vary considerably from Member State to Member State reveals the need for surveys such as this.
Aid that is based on the self-seeking ambitions of a nation gives companies unfair advantages, thus distorting competition and leading to an ineffective, uneconomic division of Europe' s meagre resources.
The form the aid takes is important.
Forms of state aid that require an effort from the beneficiary are to be supported.
For example, state guarantees, on which the Commission has just publicised its position, must naturally be considered state aid, but they are, in my opinion, a better option than granting aid directly to companies.
The report on competition policy further stresses the Commission' s confidence in hard and fast rules instead of putting the emphasis on economic arguments regarding efficiency, which affects competitiveness.
The European economy will never achieve the level of competitiveness desired if we do not show we trust in the markets.
If competition policy is to be made subordinate to the aims of social and environmental policy, real efficiency and economic growth will remain just a dream.
Competition policy has to be seen as part of the whole of the economy and it must be assessed with reference to trade policy and non-material rights: we should not just be emphasising its social dimension.
The aims of social policy can be best realised through stronger economic growth, not by making compromises with regard to decisions on competition policy.
Mr Rapkay' s report also emphasises the importance of the international dimension with regard to competition law.
In my opinion, it would be good if we could achieve consensus at the international level regarding certain basic principles of competition law.
Aiming instead at harmonised minimum standards will easily lead to a situation where we leap over the lowest hurdle and end up with the lowest common denominator, which will water down all the aims of competition policy.
Mr President, Mr Monti, the reform of competition rules calls for a commitment by the European Union, not only in the light and as a consequence of changes which have taken place through the years, but also with a forward-looking view to the Union' s enlargement.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau, for his commitment and I welcome his thoughts.
Moreover, I would like to say that I appreciate the remarks and observations that Professor Tesauro, Chairman of the Italian Competition Authority, sent me, and which I am sure Mr Monti will take into due account with a strong sense of collaboration.
Our real concern is undoubtedly to initiate further liberalisation of the market, and, above all, to achieve consistency between the different national markets. As things stand, there are considerable differences between them which come to the fore if we compare the English, Italian and French markets.
There is a large degree of state protectionism in the French market which is not found in the English market and is only present to an extremely limited extent in Italy.
Another issue concerns the economies of countries involved in enlargement, which may run the risk of remaining assisted economies for ever more if provision is not made for gradual adjustment.
In my opinion, we should also create a threshold below which two significant components which characterise our economic structure should be placed: small and medium-sized businesses, which bind the European economy together, and social protection, which Europe has always guaranteed to the weakest parts of the economy.
Safeguarding the social function of the market is what makes the difference between free trade, pure and simple, and a system for improving people' s quality of life.
A point to consider regarding the new rules concerns the economy of the outermost regions and islands, all of which must be protected.
We ought therefore to consider creating two focal points of an external market by instigating profitable relations with Russia and the Mediterranean countries, precisely so that their economies become less peripheral.
I hope - and I thank Mr Monti for this - that the new rules will reflect as many aspects of economic policy as possible and that their social function will be guaranteed.
Mr President, competition is at the heart of the European internal market policy and is also its driving force.
A free and open market can only exist by the grace of competition, marked by clear, uniform rules.
In his report, Karl von Wogau manages to capture this very well.
But Europe is changing.
The economies are growing, we are enlarging to 25-30 Member States.
The European Commission will become overburdened if it pursues its current policy.
It is therefore necessary to modernise competition policy.
This is not in question.
Having said this, I still have concerns about the proposed decentralisation.
How will the Commission, as keeper of the Treaties, guarantee that decisions are taken uniformly in matters of competition in London, Palermo, Helsinki and, soon, Budapest and Ankara? This is necessary if legal inequality is to be prevented, and issues of competition will gravitate towards the court where the most lenient judgements are given.
It is not enough to say that, in the Member States, there is already 40 years' worth of experience.
In the Netherlands, the competition authority is still in its infancy.
This country has a very small market which, unfortunately, is often at the same time defined as the relevant market.
This in contrast to Germany, where a very experienced Kartellamt is exercising its powers within a gigantic market.
The European Commission' s belief that, in all quarters of the Union, legislation will, almost as a matter of course, be interpreted in the same way, is what, within catholic circles, we term "foolhardy," and this is not allowed.
Uniformity needs to be worked on.
Think of specialist, national courts with the option of direct appeal to a special competition court at the European Court.
This special court in Luxembourg is necessary in order to build up broad expertise.
Moreover, due to the immense economic and social interests involved, we cannot afford to wait for a judgement to be pronounced two years after the event, as is now quite normal.
What is the Commissioner' s opinion of this?
I would like to finish off by making an important point for small and medium-sized businesses.
In order to grant small and medium-sized companies greater security, the European Commission itself needs to draw up an exemption regulation for small and medium-sized businesses so that, alongside vertical exemptions, horizontal exemptions will also be possible.
Through cooperation, small, independent firms must be able to stand up to the large chains.
It cannot be the aim of European competition policy to make life impossible for small businesses.
Moreover, regarding these small businesses, we will have to consider whether it would not be better to apply a system with a prior warning built in, the yellow card, instead of an immediate red card, which will be a large fine and will threaten the company' s very existence.
Mr President, being the last to speak gives me the privilege, Commissioner, of telling you that the majority of this House supports your initiative and has expressed a total, and, I believe, justified, confidence in you at the helm of this boat.
But we all want to be oarsmen on it. We all belong on the same boat and want to row with you.
I therefore believe it to be absolutely necessary to establish an interinstitutional dialogue so that we might reach a good conclusion and put all the finishing touches to this essential reform.
The many ideas which have been expressed here could be put into three broad categories.
Firstly, there is the concern that some have expressed, in particular Mrs Randzio-Plath, President of the Committee on Economic Affairs, of whether this new system of legal exception is absolutely compatible with the Treaty.
I share that concern and I believe that this issue should be addressed.
Secondly, we have the issue of companies' legal certainty.
It is true, Commissioner, that the Commission is not a machine for manufacturing legal certainty.
We all agree on this.
But it is nonetheless true - and this has been repeated from all sections of this House - that the European industrial fabric is composed of small and medium-sized businesses, and that the Commission often plays the role of auctoritas, of legitimising the nature of the internal market.
On this point I will give my opinion on something which Mr Karas said.
There have only been nine rejections.
But here I would like to call on my experience as a lawyer.
How often has a lawyer with two companies and one project, in the face of a Commission guideline given ex ante, changed that project in order for it to comply with the competition rules!
This is therefore an aspect to be considered.
Thirdly, we have the problem of the uniform application of Community law.
In this respect, the excellent speech by Mrs Thyssen cannot be improved upon.
I believe that biodiversity is good, as is cultural diversity, but not diversity in the application of the law with regard to the essential core of the internal market, that is to say, competition law.
Here improvements should be made.
Only in certain countries, Germany for example, is there specialised jurisdiction.
Perhaps this is a promising avenue to explore, but we must also explore others.
What we cannot do, Commissioner - and I would like to end on this note - is to give way, and give ammunition, to those who regard the European institutions as the property of the great and the good, of the rich, and not of the citizen, or the small and medium business, which, in the worst case scenario - which will never become reality because the requisite measures will be applied to prevent it - will result in courts which make disparate judgements, very late, with no real possibility of control apart from what the French call "le parcours du combatant", that is to say, after Lord knows how many years, when the Court in Luxembourg passes judgement, a Court which we know to be inundated at the moment.
Commissioner, it is impossible to overstate the importance of this reform. It transcends competition, it transcends the cohesion of the internal market.
I believe that it profoundly affects the meaning of European integration, the meaning of the legitimacy of European integration.
Therefore, Commissioner, we are relying on this interinstitutional dialogue to put the finishing touches to a reform which we are all hoping for and which we believe will lead us to a successful conclusion under your direction and with our cooperation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I heartily congratulate the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the entire European Parliament for the great deal of interest shown in competition-related subjects.
In my opinion, Mr President, this joint debate fully bears this out.
We have heard some very thorough observations which both concern the philosophy of economic policy and are important for the institutional order.
Our common aim is to reform and strengthen competition policy, a pillar of the social market economy and of European construction.
The guiding thread running through all the aspects of the reform of competition policy, which we shall have the opportunity to address together, aims to ensure more effective protection of competition, reduce the bureaucratic burden weighing down businesses and take decision-making processes closer to the European people.
I, personally, would sincerely like to thank Mr von Wogau for his commitment in examining the dossier on the White Paper and for the quality of his report.
I would like to divide the considerations raised during this debate on the von Wogau report into four groups. I do not consider these considerations to be criticisms of the Commission, but, on the contrary, fundamental contributions, since justified concerns have been expressed that we both want to overcome.
The groups are: the efficiency of the rules, the risk of renationalisation, consistent application of the rules and legal certainty. I will take these very quickly one at a time.
Efficiency: I am convinced that this reform will strengthen the protection of competition within the single market rather than weaken it.
The current notification instrument, ladies and gentlemen, no longer allows us to reach this objective because it does not guarantee that the Commission is properly informed about the most serious restrictions - I would remind you that, in 35 years, there have only been nine cases in which the Commission has decided on prohibition following notification in the absence of a complaint - nor does it guarantee transparency or provide real legal certainty for businesses which, in the majority of cases, receive a simple comfort letter.
The proposed system will improve the protection of competition, primarily because it will allow the Commission to concentrate its action on the most serious restrictions, also because it will involve national and competition authorities to a greater degree in stamping out infringements, and lastly in that it will allow victims of infringements to have direct recourse to national judges, whose mission is to protect the rights of individuals.
The question of renationalisation: first of all, although it is not really necessary, I would like to point out and stress, several times if I may, that the White Paper does not affect mergers or State aid in the slightest - we are not looking for devolution in these areas - but that, as far as Regulation 17 is concerned, there is a risk of renationalisation.
Of course we have pondered this issue, and we are still studying it extremely carefully, and this is also thanks to the concerns you have voiced.
At the end of the day, I honestly do not believe that this fear is justified.
The Commission proposal accords the Commission a central role in establishing guidelines on competition policy.
The reform does not entail any reduction in the Commission' s activities, but requires them to focus on the most important dossiers.
The reform will lead to a gradual development - I stress this because I was particularly taken with this term, used by Mrs Randzio-Plath, and, moreover, I fully agree with it - of European competition culture.
So, the reform will lead to the various national competition cultures being transplanted and taking root in the European competition culture - where today various small plants thrive, and they are certainly not all the same.
The fifteen sets of national provisions will gradually be abandoned, permitting greater use of Community law, which a higher number of protagonists will be able to apply.
Allow me to emphasise that this is communitisation, not renationalisation, of competition law.
The question of consistent application: the risk of inconsistent application of competition rules must be borne in mind, but I do not believe that it should be exaggerated.
As with many other provisions of the Treaty, Articles 81(1) and 82 have, after all, been applied for decades by national authorities and judges, and I do not feel that this has created serious problems.
In a directly applicable exception system, consistency will depend firstly on the degree of clarity of the material rules.
The Commission will make every effort to define the legislative framework, both through general provisions and through its decision-making practice.
Secondly, we will need to set efficient mechanisms in place to prevent disputes, and the White Paper sets out mechanisms for information and consultation.
In this respect, I would like to say something about the excellent idea put forward by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen and Mr Huhne of monitoring implementation.
This then is the idea of monitoring implementation. I must say that I find this a very good idea that we will probably take up.
Though we have a high respect for the work of national competition authorities and so on, it is evident that we will watch very carefully how EC law is applied by national authorities and courts.
That is why the Commission wants to keep the right to withdraw a case from a national competition authority in the event of incorrect application.
This goes at least some way towards alleviating your concerns, Mrs Peijs.
Concerning Mr Evans' point regarding the implications for businesses, it is important that the cost-benefit analysis should be seriously conducted.
The purpose of publishing the White Paper is, after all, to collect comments from businesses as well as from other sources.
We have received many excellent observations and contributions which give us the material to make a cost-benefit assessment for business.
We will examine all that material carefully before making a legislative proposal for a new regulation.
There is one point about the impact for firms which is of great importance. This was raised by Mrs Thyssen, Mrs Peijs and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi: the issue of SMEs.
Many speakers have underlined this.
The Commission is paying particular attention to legal certainty for SMEs.
We are proposing a system which considerably improves legal certainty for SMEs.
Why? Is this simply a political gesture?
No. In the system we propose reforming our substantive rules in such a way that most SMEs will be covered by block exemption regulations, as in the field of vertical restraints.
Most SMEs have in fact less than 30% of the market share.
We have a de minimis notice which contains a declaration that since SMEs are not involved in market dominance they are not normally subject to the strict prohibition under Article 81(1).
We are working on further block exemptions and guidelines which will all take into account the particular situation of SMEs, and our White Paper on modernisation will also improve the situation of SMEs, first by eliminating the bureaucracy resulting from the present notification system, and secondly, by making Article 81(3) directly applicable, which will benefit SMEs in particular.
The fourth group is legal certainty.
Mr Evans, legal certainty is, of course - and I am the first to acknowledge this - important for businesses, not just for the legal professions, although the latter do play an extremely important role in the construction of Europe.
Legal certainty is important for businesses: this is a subject, the importance of which the Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, emphasised in her last intervention - and I am very grateful to her for the way she always takes the widest interest in subjects regarding the single market, including, in this case, competition.
I am convinced that this proposal will increase legal certainty for businesses for three reasons: by virtue of the direct effect of Article 81(3), it will permit authorisation, without a prior decision, of all restrictive competition agreements which meet the exemption conditions; it will create the opportunity to help businesses in the event of doubts over interpretation through the publication of reasoned opinions; it will be accompanied by exemption regulations and guidelines which will clarify the rules and ensure certainty.
(FR) Mrs Thyssen also referred to the matter of legal privilege for company lawyers.
Let me simply remind you that the Court of Justice pronounced a ruling on this in 1982, as you know better than I. This ruling remains valid and there is nothing to justify any reconsideration thereof.
The White Paper requires only a single aspect of the issue to be re-examined: the exchange of confidential information.
The guarantees which companies must be given are currently under discussion.
(IT) I shall now quickly turn, Mr President, to Mr Rapkay' s report, and I would like to thank him sincerely for the quality of his work and for the broad endorsement given to the Commission' s XXVIIIth Annual Report on Competition Policy.
We share the same basic views but the Rapkay report lays emphasis on several points that we shall need to consider very carefully.
I will mention only two, in order to be brief.
The first is greater transparency.
Parliament knows how important we all consider the question of transparency in competition policy, as I did right from the moment I had my hearing, on 1 September, in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
As regards the international aspect of competition policy, I can confirm, Mr Rapkay, that the Commission is willing to provide Parliament with a report on this subject, to which Mrs Randzio-Plath has also drawn our attention. We have very satisfactory bilateral relations with the relevant American, Canadian and Japanese authorities as regards competition policy, and we are working to ensure that competition is treated as a separate topic within the World Trade Organisation.
Mr Jonckheer, I would like to thank you just as warmly for your report on the seventh survey on State aid in the European Union.
I will not talk about codecision here, but this certainly does not mean I do not consider it important.
It has major institutional implications which obviously go beyond the specific area of competition; I am therefore not qualified to give an opinion, and this is obviously a matter for the broader context of the Intergovernmental Conference.
With regard to your suggestions, Mr Jonckheer, you already know that my staff, who, although short-handed as usual, are fortunately highly qualified, are working hard to produce the register of State aids and the State aids 'scoreboard' .
I am awaiting with great interest the results of the eighth survey, which, according to the scheduled timeframe, should be being drawn up by the staff now, in January, and for adoption by the Commission in March 2000, to see whether the latest trends are confirmed.
Mr Jonckheer, Mrs Thyssen and Mr Gemelli raised the issue of the state of preparation of the candidate countries in terms of competition in general and of State aid.
I can only say very briefly, that we are actively working with them on a practical level: they are making preparations, they now all have competition laws and are setting up the relevant authorities.
I can also say, in respect of your concerns on energy and especially on the environment - which, as you know, I share - that we are concluding the review of the organisation of environmental State aid.
In connection with the issue of State aid, I would also like to take up one of the points raised by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, among others regarding repayment of illegal aid.
In April 1999, the Commission adopted new Rules of Procedure which introduced specific rules on repayment.
In the near future - and I can assure you of this - you will see just how seriously we mean to take these rules.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Langen warmly for his report, which, although geared more towards a specific sector, is a valuable contribution.
I would like to say that, as we know, the Commission report on State aid to the steel industry does not include individual decisions made under the exception procedure, pursuant to Article 95 of the ECSC Treaty, but addresses decisions which are not covered by the code on aid for the steel sector.
In respect of future provisions on aid for the steel sector, which will come into force in July 2002, we will ensure that strict discipline continues to be applied, and the industry itself now agrees on the need for this.
When we have finalised our proposal on the new rules and decided on the most suitable legal form, I will be happy to present our viewpoint to you.
So, Mr President, I will walk away from this debate, for which I am very grateful to Parliament, in the knowledge that we have the European Parliament' s intellectual and political support, which appears to come from all sides of the House, for competition policy, its basic appreciation for the work the Commission is carrying out and its confidence in our ability to continue to deliver in the future.
I am especially grateful for all of this. We will continue the interinstitutional dialogue opened with the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs, and, at a more general level, with Parliament.
In this regard, I liked your term, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi: we must all pull together, preferably in the same direction.
Competition is not an end in itself, as Mr Rapkay rightly pointed out, but it plays an extremely important role in European integration.
As Mr von Wogau said at the start of the debate, at the end of the day competition is not an abstract concept: it is in the public interest and forms the basis of the social market economy.
I would also like to say that competition policy will play a valuable social, as well as economic, role in the European integration process, as it has done in the past.
Thank you, Commissioner Monti.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Protection under criminal law of the Union's financial interests
The next item is the report (A5-0002/2000) by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, containing Parliament' s recommendations to the Commission on introducing protection under criminal law of the Union' s financial interests.
Mr President, I am happy to take the floor in the debate on this report and I congratulate Mrs Theato.
I believe that this is a report for which cooperation between committees has worked very well, and the result, which we have received today, is moderate and thoughtful in a very delicate area. This moderation and thoughtfulness is particularly necessary in the implementation of Article 280(4).
If we had to give a prize for the article which was most difficult to understand, least clear and most confused - however you like to put it - the competition would be very hard fought.
The Treaty is a collection of complex articles. However, this one would undoubtedly be one of the firm favourites to win such a prize.
At the same time, it is an especially delicate issue because it deals with the protection of the Community' s financial interests, as Mrs Theato has explained very well.
We are all aware - and this Parliament has been the steadfast champion in this respect - of the need to protect the financial interests of the Community. But be careful.
As the French say, "ne jettons pas le bébé avec l'eau du bain" [let us not throw the baby out with the bath water], that is to say, in the protection of the Community' s financial interests, we must respect, on the one hand - as Mrs Theato has said - the competences of the Member States, but also other matters which affect the citizens, which affect the essential guarantees.
The conclusions of the Theato report safeguard them perfectly.
Therefore, in my capacity as president of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and, of course, as an MEP, I hope that a large majority of this House will support this report and that it will be well implemented by the Commission.
Mr President, this, as Mrs Theato said, is a critical report.
It is a report that has been proposed by the Committee on Budgetary Control and it is an own-initiative report.
One of the reasons why we were very keen to bring this forward was because, whether we like it or not, the European Union has a reputation for fraud and mismanagement.
It is sometimes exaggerated but there it is.
We need to do something about it.
Some of the measures we have put in place in the past have not been honoured by some of the Member States - and let us not forget that the Member States are responsible for implementing about 80% of the EU budget.
A lot of them have not signed up to or not ratified the Convention on the Protection of Financial Interests, and therefore it was clear that something more radical needed to be done.
We need to take this responsibility seriously.
We need to be able to prosecute people who commit fraud against the European Union.
The question is: who prosecutes?
That is where we really get into difficulty.
Whose responsibility is it when you are dealing with a body that crosses so many frontiers?
We need also to be sensitive to the concerns of Member States.
The proposal to set up a European public prosecutor service is a very sensitive one.
We are all aware that an all-out federal approach and a situation where a European judicial authority takes precedence over the national judicial authorities is a step too far for some people.
But the discussion needs to begin and we are therefore calling on the IGC to start discussions.
Of most importance to Parliament, as the guardian of the budget of the European Union, is how to deal with people who work within the European Union institutions.
At a time when we are looking at the whole reform process it is critical that we send the right signal.
People need to understand that if they commit fraud they will be prosecuted, and that is not the case at the moment.
The whole question as to whether we have the legal authority to do this has been outlined by Mrs Palacio.
I should like to make clear that my group is going to propose an amendment deleting the detail of how the Commission should tackle this question.
We are aware that it is a delicate debate.
We know that the Commission may perhaps need the scope to negotiate a situation which would be acceptable to all parties.
Can I just make it clear that we have no commitment to a corpus juris here, no commitment to a federal European public prosecutor.
But there is a definite commitment to change the status quo which is totally unacceptable.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mrs Theato on her report.
I think it is a first-class report which will, for the most part, be supported by my group.
I just have the distinct feeling that she would have preferred to take it a little further at this stage.
Judging from the discussions held over the past five or six months, this could well be the case.
We all know that, in 1995, it was agreed that the Union' s financial interests should be given better protection under criminal law.
But the Member States failed to cooperate.
This is just a political fact about which little can be done at present, I think.
It is now possible, on the basis of Article 280 of the Treaty, that the Commission will take new initiatives, and I would like to suggest to the Commission that it do this at the earliest opportunity.
Unlike the previous speaker, who has now disappeared, my group is strongly in favour of a European Public Prosecutor.
My colleague Jan-Kees Wiebenga, will undoubtedly take this point further because he has already published a report on the same subject matter.
I think what we need is, at European level, to come up with exact definitions of fraud and irregularity as quickly as possible.
I myself have been involved in the committee of inquiry on transit traffic.
One of the major problems in this area was that if you do something wrong, especially when it comes to revenue of the European Union, then this will be termed an irregularity in one country and a crime in another.
This, I thought, is no longer permissible, certainly not at the moment.
I would like to make one general point on politics.
Whatever we may say about the European elections, the low turnout is a fact.
We can improve on this by punishing crime in Europe quickly, and this must be done at European level.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur.
Mrs Theato' s report may help to restore confidence in European institutions.
I believe that is something we are all desperately in need of, bearing in mind the results of the last European elections and of the level of turnout.
Yet, every year we have the same problem.
The Court of Auditors publishes its report, which criticises the Member States on account of various incidences of fraud.
So far, however, the European institutions have not had sufficient means at their disposal to take vigorous action here, to ensure that implementation actually takes place and that matters are remedied.
It is precisely this process that undermines confidence every year.
I believe that Mrs Theato' s report and her proposal can help to reverse this very process and to make clear that the European institutions take steps to ensure that European money is employed in a targeted manner and that no fraud is perpetrated here.
It is important that after the first step, which has already been taken, i.e. forming OLAF from UCLAF - an independent institution - we now take the second step and create a legal framework for OLAF, in order that OLAF too might operate within a secure legal framework.
We will need the European Public Prosecutor' s Office for this, which will see to it that there are clear legal guarantees, also for suspects.
Having said all that, I must say that unfortunately, my group will not be voting for your report as a united front.
I hope that the debate will convince a few more people.
Unfortunately, however, people still have too many misgivings to the effect that this will be the kind of European institution that undermines subsidiarity.
But I will do what I can to see that Mrs Theato' s report receives more support.
Mr President, we are basically in favour of the resolution that has been tabled, even if we think that this can only be interpreted as an invitation by Parliament to the Council to amend the Treaties, so that effective protection under criminal law of the Union' s financial interests can be guaranteed.
The establishment of a European Public Prosecutor' s Office and the definition of offences common to all countries of the Union is doubtless a good idea, but it is impossible to consider putting this into practice without having first introduced a European legal system.
Indeed, we are talking about criminal law, the area where resistance that national States put up to communitisation is, and will be, fierce.
Indeed, it is unthinkable that we could put in place substantial and procedural legal regulations solely for one sector - that of the protection of financial interests - without first having created a European legal system.
Reading the precise and comprehensive explanations in the Theato report makes you realise just how many problems still need to be resolved and what these problems are.
In any case, this idea must be encouraged, and it will doubtless be during this attempt to protect financial interests that we realise that we need to include a Community corpus iuris in the Treaties.
On behalf of my group, but also personally, I hope that the vital financial spirit of the Union will pave the way for the creation of a European legal system which respects citizens' rights and guarantees, which is to say a legal system that will raise guarantees to the acceptable levels hitherto unseen in many States.
Therefore, on behalf of my group, I would like to say that we support the Theato report; I nevertheless think that this is essentially a subject that should be included on the IGC agenda.
Mr President, Mrs Theato' s report on the protection of the European Union' s financial interests proposes centralising criminal proceedings by initially creating a European Public Prosecutor.
This proposal is radically opposed to the spirit of the current system in which the criminal law and criminal proceedings that lie at the heart of the national legal systems must come under the sovereignty of each nation and lie within the exclusive competence of each state.
But the idea of a European Public Prosecutor, on the other hand, aims in the long term to confine the national states to a subordinate role in these matters.
Moreover, this proposal is liable to set off a chain reaction of totally unforeseen reforms.
According to the Theato report, the European Public Prosecutor is needed, in particular, in order to better support the inquiries of the anti-fraud office, OLAF.
At the same time, however, we see from the van Hulten report under discussion today that the European Public Prosecutor should in turn be supervised by a European Union court.
In this way, a small European reform may hide a medium-sized one, and a medium-sized one may hide a large one.
Not to mention that the large one may hide a gigantic one, as the very next thing we will see is a proposal for a European criminal law and then, why not a European Minister of Justice, supervised by an extension of the powers of the European Parliament?
I therefore feel we must carefully consider the balance of power that we are in danger of upsetting if we put forward this type of reform, which appears to be quite specific.
In the final analysis, we feel that proposals such as the proposal for a European Public Prosecutor demonstrate an inability to conceive of a Europe in anything other than a centralised and hierarchical form, organised around a superstate.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group, on the other hand, wishes to see a polycentric Europe with nations linked in a network.
And such a network could take the form of improved coordination between national public prosecution authorities, for example, and the creation, if necessary, of national teams specialising in offences involving Community finances.
So the legal framework, Mr President, is already in place. It is fine, in principle.
It need only be fine-tuned.
Mr President, Mrs Theato is proposing institutional revolution for a twofold reason.
Public opinion, although indifferent to 20 million unemployed and thousands of mad cows, is now supposed to be worried about the fraud endangering financial interests and these two reasons are supposed to justify a twofold solution: a European criminal code with crimes against the Community and a European Prosecutor-General.
Mrs Theato probably forgot to include a European prison now that we have the FBI, the European police, in the form of OLAF.
All this would be established by two regulations, one for the Public Prosecutor and another for the criminal code. The regulations would be adopted pursuant to Article 280 of the Treaty, i.e. based on secondary law, whose characteristic feature is that it makes any sort of secondary shift of emphasis possible.
And indeed there is a twofold shift.
Firstly, the classic Eurofederalist ideological shift, a single market, a single VAT, a single diplomatic service, a single army and now a single criminal code and a single public prosecutor.
All this to combat fraud worth less than EUR 1 billion, while disregarding the tens of billions of euros lost due to the Generalised System of Preferences, free trade areas, customs presents to Chiquita and the billions lost to the fourth resource, GDP, as a result of the budgetary rationing pact.
Next we have the Puritan shift: the Teutonic Europe of the North, the Europe of the Lutherans, Calvinists and Quakers, wishes to inflict its moral order on us.
Basically, the more we lose our grip on morals, the more we tighten our grip on our wallet.
Mr President, it is essential for there to be effective protection under criminal law of the financial interests of the European Union, more so these days than there used to be.
The fraud and corruption scandals of the past have had a profoundly damaging effect on the confidence of Europe' s citizens.
The credibility of the efforts we make here in Parliament to employ our finances properly stands and falls with the efforts we make to deal with such scandals and prevent them from arising in the future.
This does not just mean administrative changes but also structural changes; in other words we must create instruments which are actually capable of affording protection under criminal law.
The Intergovernmental Conference 2000 will provide the appropriate forum for discussing this.
Now it is, of course, possible to take the view that criminal law and criminal proceedings law are intrinsically matters pertaining to the law of the Member States and it is quite unthinkable that they should be governed by the principle of subsidiarity.
There is no doubt that I myself am one of the advocates of this principle and one of those who oppose any further extension of competences at European level.
When it comes to the demands made on the Intergovernmental Conference agenda, it is the call for there to be clear delimitation of competences that should take centre stage.
Now that is not a contradiction, since the demand for an instrument of criminal law and criminal proceedings law, as detailed in Recommendations I and II of the report, is actually about taking action in the EU' s own interests, which, as far as that goes, does not damage the legal interests of the Member States; on the contrary, it protects them, at least indirectly.
The compatibility with the various national systems of law, as confirmed by experts, shows that criminal law is another area where Europe has a great deal in common, for example where the significance of the offences we have been discussing here is concerned.
Taking these aspects into account, I consider it appropriate that we create a framework of this kind, as proposed, and I also consider it necessary to the further development of OLAF.
Mr President, will a European Public Prosecutor be able to abolish football fraud involving EU funds? I do not believe so.
On the other hand, we can go a long way using the existing tools.
An alternative to the European Public Prosecutor could be Eurojust, as proposed at the last Summit.
In the way it is structured, Eurojust should correspond to Europol and support investigations into crimes.
It is just such practical cooperation there is a need for.
OLAF, Europol and the Treaty on Extradition and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters should be used fully and, when the Fraud Convention from 1995 is at long last ratified in the Member States, we can also achieve a lot with this.
I nonetheless agree with the rapporteur that it is quite unacceptable that most Member States should still not have ratified this Agreement.
It is simply too bad, and I can well understand why people are becoming impatient and demanding that we have a common European Public Prosecutor' s Office instead.
However, it would be quite a mammoth task to establish such an Office.
It is, after all, only the most serious crimes which would have consequences under criminal law.
Ninety per cent of cases would be disciplinary matters concerning negligence or incompetence.
Instead, there is a need for proper internal control and the ability to sack people more easily.
We should alter the staff regulations and disciplinary procedures and, especially, change our practice.
At the moment, Article 52 of the staff regulations concerning dismissal on the grounds of gross negligence is never used.
Should we not make a point of cleaning up our own act and putting our own house in order before we plunge into constructing grand new institutions!
Mr President, we all want to do something about combating European fraud.
But the question is now: is the European Union doing anything about it as well?
The answer to this is that we know very little about this.
The Tampere Summit was about combating crime.
Everyone was supposedly pleased about it but, in reality, we have made little progress.
There is no European anti-fraud legislation in force because the Member States, as was stated before, have not ratified the treaty texts submitted.
So a great deal has to be done in this area.
And what exactly should be done?
Two things, and Mrs Theato' s report clearly spells these out. Firstly, the same penalty clauses regarding European fraud must apply in all Member States of the European Union.
So, unification in this small area.
Secondly, we should indeed set up a European Public Prosecutor' s Office with two tasks, firstly to assist the national public prosecutors, helping bring criminal proceedings in European fraud cases and, secondly, to supervise Europol and OLAF in a judicial sense because these are two criminal investigation services which can operate at the moment without any judicial supervision.
The European Public Prosecutor' s Office is nothing to be afraid of. I feel there is a lot of scaremongering going on.
It is, in fact, something very positive.
Just like Europol. Europol, involving police cooperation, does not rank above the national police forces, but is there for the purpose of exchanging information between police forces.
This is exactly the task which a small, limited, European Public Prosecutor' s Office should carry out, not just at the criminal investigation stage, but also at the prosecution stage.
Parliament supports this.
The Committee of Wise Men supports this.
I urge the Council of Ministers and the European Commission to do the same.
Mr President, I want to concentrate on the issue of corpus juris.
I would very much like to support what Mrs Morgan said on this issue.
Corpus juris is something that was set up without any kind of public debate or public participation.
The idea of a European Public Prosecutor on the continental inquisitorial model with overriding jurisdiction throughout EU territories would have a major impact on the traditional systems both in Ireland and the UK.
The idea of a single criminal code and the European Public Prosecutor is something which Member States have a right to be informed about.
Indeed when the plan was initially drawn up they said it would be restricted to cases of fraud against the EU budget.
But when corpus juris was actually launched in 1977 in San Sebastian - to a very select audience of 140 jurists, with no media invited - the President of the European Parliament at the time, Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, said that he considered it embryonic and that the intention was to extend EU competence in criminal matters to all areas of criminal activity.
We need a public debate on this.
We need the Member States and the citizens in the Member States to be properly informed.
The issue of the threat to the traditional legal system in Ireland and the UK needs to be addressed.
There needs to be much more openness and transparency on this issue than there has been to date.
It is unacceptable that something like this has been foisted on the Member States of the EU without any proper public debate.
Mr President, on behalf of the Italian Radical Members, I abstained on this text in the Committee on Budgetary Control, because I share the concerns that have been voiced, in such an authoritative way, by the representative of another legal culture which is certainly important: common law.
With this text we are undoubtedly forcing the issue, since we believe that there are points that must be resolved and it is important for Community fraud to be curbed, to be crushed.
Nevertheless, the way in which our committee intends to see this text through, with the drive and stubborn desire of its Chair, Mrs Theato, will not be without its critics.
Another major criticism of the text concerns secondary law.
Article 280 of the Treaty allows the Council to pinpoint the appropriate instruments to curb fraud.
Nevertheless, we are left feeling slightly perplexed that they envisage an institution which will mean higher quality, without immediately planning how to deal with the repercussions of this. That is to say, they are neglecting the area of defence and therefore the possibility for the prosecution and the defence to work together effectively within such an important legal system.
We wanted to express our perplexity as regards these points by abstaining in committee.
Mr President, we need to speak our minds on this subject in the European Parliament, during the plenary sittings and in the committees, even if it is obvious that the debate must take into account the world of the culture, the legal culture and the places where institutional issues are addressed.
We find ourselves dealing with some very serious events, which in the past seemed to be the norm.
Today, something has changed, at least in terms of mechanisms, and especially as regards monitoring, but we are still not satisfied, particularly if debates are held in competent fora that go as far as to discuss a European Public Prosecutor, crimes, fraud, the misappropriation of funds and the disclosure of confidential information pertaining to one' s office at European level.
I feel that we must clearly safeguard the Community' s interests, its image and its relationship with taxpayers, who are an indispensable and essential part of Community life.
For this reason, it is right to look at the issue of safeguarding common interests, and to establish better links with legal systems within the individual States.
In this respect, we are faced with the most sensitive issue: what role would a European Public Prosecutor play in relations with the individual national communities and their domestic legal systems? This issue needs to be explored further in both cultural and practical terms.
Today, we run the risk of adding a new institution to the already numerous and varied institutions which exist within each country.
Mr President, I would very much just like to add to two particular points.
Firstly, I would not wish to take up the philosophical issues of subsidiarity and the sovereignty of Member States, although I am very much in favour of having such a debate, for my regular viewing of British television programmes has shown me what the national politicians are conjuring up there in the way of threats posed by the continent to the home-grown legal system.
Sometimes it is worthy of satire and merits discussion, but I digress.
The point I want to make relates to Mrs Theato' s report.
I believe that as far as the judicial difficulties are concerned that we are facing here - and the European Union evidently has only very limited room for manoeuvre when it comes to making these offences litigable as European criminal offences - we have become embroiled in legalities.
I am referring to Recommendations 1 and 2. After all, there is no longer mention of a European Public Prosecutor, rather, for legal reasons it has now become an independent, European authority, or "body" to quote Mrs Theato.
We obviously have difficulties there with regard to the legal basis.
We also face difficulties with regard to offences.
Nothing has changed there.
As has always been the case, there are offences that transcend European offences, as it were, or at least there is the potential for them to do so, and these might include money-laundering, receiving stolen goods, and forming a criminal organisation.
As far as that is concerned, I believe there are judicial uncertainties that need to be overcome.
What Parliament needs to do as a matter of urgency though - and this is why we intend to vote for recital 1 without these recommendations - is to send out a clear political signal to the Commission and Council that we want to see a clear legislative act put an end to this disorderly state of affairs.
Mr President, for years, Parliament has called for specific and uniform protection under criminal law of the Union' s financial interests.
Frustration inevitably sets in when we see the weakness of the Convention (and of the protocols relating to this protection) which, five years after being signed, has still not been ratified and has still not come into force.
On the other hand, more pro-active attempts, such as OLAF, which is currently operating, have not allayed legitimate concerns about the system of guarantees for individual rights.
The proposals in Mrs Theato' s report seek to encourage the Commission to present a substantive legislative measure on the protection, under criminal law, of our financial interests, which would criminalise certain activity, specifically fraud against the Community budget. These proposals represent a serious attempt to establish a new and ever more urgently-needed uniform criminal law for the whole Community.
At the same time they call for the existence of an independent body to coordinate and monitor the thoroughness of investigations by OLAF, without harming the administration of justice by each Member State and under the supervision of the European Court of Justice.
Finally, following on from what was agreed in Tampere, the report restates the need for a European Public Prosecutor. This issue has been brought once again to the fore by Commissioner Vitorino' s timely decision to ask the IGC to include in its agenda the creation of this new role, which everyone considers vital.
We should approve this report because it highlights the need to maintain efficient legal control over our institutions, by protecting the Union' s financial system with a substantive and procedural European law which is capable of maintaining the credibility of the Community' s economic life.
Nevertheless, it raises some very basic questions.
Is there currently a sufficient legal basis for justifying, in legal terms, the creation of a specifically Community-wide criminal law which, although it might be called subsidiary, will always clash with the practice, and in certain areas, with the traditional, separate criminal law of the Member States? As there are doubts, would it not be more advisable, from a political point of view, to put the reform of the legal system on the IGC agenda, and incorporate these proposals into the more general reform of the Union' s legal system along the lines of what is being requested for the European Public Prosecutor?
Surely these subjects will be of the greatest relevance to a revision of the treaties which will contribute to the stability of the area of freedom, security and justice?
Mr President, the EU is now exposed to tough scrutiny.
Confidence in the European Union has been seriously damaged.
To remedy this, vigorous efforts are required.
We therefore welcome increased resources for OLAF so that we can investigate any suspicions more efficiently.
At the same time, we think it is obvious that those who commit crimes against the EU must be able to be held accountable in an effective way.
It is unfortunate that the convention for protecting the Union' s financial interests has been put into effect in so few Member States.
We therefore think it only right that the Commission should have the task of tabling proposals entailing the further development of the already existing legal framework.
On the other hand, I am not convinced that making the process more efficient in this way requires common European legislation or centralisation of the fight against crime.
In the present situation, I am therefore sceptical about the idea of a European prosecutor, which it is scarcely possible to implement within the framework of the present treaty.
We have more confidence in Eurojust, where prosecutors from the individual nations cooperate.
The major problem is not that no measures are being taken against crimes committed against the Union but, rather, that these are committed so often and far too seldom discovered.
The challenge for the Commission and for ourselves is, however, to find the right mix.
The mismanagement and examples of fraud which occur ought not to lead to our ending up in an old-fashioned hierarchical bureaucracy which, through an exaggerated supervision of detail, prevents the development of a modern administration.
We therefore welcome the aggressive approach of Mr van Hulten' s report.
The main idea ought to be that each administration takes responsibility for its own supervision.
Our experience of modern administration tells us that openness, decentralisation of responsibility and qualified evaluation are often as effective as detailed bureaucratic supervision.
The major challenge is, therefore, to create a modern and efficient administration without compromising on supervision and the rule of law.
This requires staff training, more modern recruitment methods and, above all, openness and public control.
Being able to scrutinise the administration effectively is the best protection against irregularities.
Thank you, Commissioner Schreyer.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
VOTE
That is quite right, Mr Heaton-Harris. I put the matter to a vote by a show of hands because none of the groups had requested voting by roll call.
You know that voting by roll call or electronic checking only takes place if Members of the House request it.
In this particular case, I can assure you there was a large majority in favour of the directive which we have just voted on.
Mr President, I was not referring to that particular vote but to votes in general.
It is obvious that some presidents do not look at the hands, so to speak, but go straight to the electronic voting system.
I was wondering whether this is the correct procedure.
I know it takes longer, but should we not always have a show of hands first?
Mr President, as far as the second reading is concerned, the Commission can only accept one proposed amendment put forward by Parliament.
The Commission hereby adopts this amendment and accepts it.
(The President declared the common position approved (as amended))
Report (A5-0104/1999) by Mr Koch, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 94/55/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road (COM(1999)0158 - C5-0004/1999 - 1999/0083(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0108/1999) by Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission in the field of the Structural Funds and their coordination with the Cohesion Fund: guidelines for programmes in the period 2000-2006 (COM(1999)0344 - C5-0122/1999 - 1999/2127(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0107/1999) by Mr Berend, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Sixth Periodic Report on the Social and Economic Situation and Development of the Regions of the European Union (SEC(1999)0066 - C5-0120/1999 - 1999/2123(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0069/1999) by Mr von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission White Paper on modernisation of the rules implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the EC Treaty (COM(1999)0101 - C5-0105/1999 - 1999/2108(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0078/1999) by Mr Rapkay, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the European Commission' s XXVIIIth Report on Competition Policy (1998) (SEC(1999)0743 - C5-0121/1999 - 1999/2124(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0087/1999) by Mr Jonckheer, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the seventh survey on state aid in the European Union in the manufacturing and certain other sectors (COM(1999)148 - C5-0107/1999 - 1999/2110(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0073/1999) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission Report on the implementation in 1998 of Commission Decision No 2496/96/ECSC of 18 December 1996 establishing Community rules for State aid to the steel industry (Steel Aid Code) (COM(1999)94 - C5-0104/1999 - 1999/2107(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE- Own resources
. (FR) The European Union is apparently financed through four own resources.
The European budget is effectively sourced from VAT and on the basis of GDP, especially now that the Community preference system has been abandoned and the multiplication of free trade areas has put paid to customs duties and the common agricultural levy, which had already been cut back drastically by the Generalised System of Preferences.
Since then, Community VAT fraud and distortions in the calculation of GDP, the taxable basis for the fourth resource, have had a perceptible effect on the yield and justice of Community resources.
Since then, of course, this Europe with pretensions to federalism is now more than ever financed like the commonplace intergovernmental organisation it actually is, but which it refuses to see itself as.
This can be clearly seen in the regulation before us. It shows a concern with the accounting involving own resources, the process of making them available or with the monitoring of declared amounts made available to the Commission.
Furthermore, the new Advisory Committee that has been created is made up of representatives of the taxpaying Member States.
This is a long way from offshoots such as the "Community criminal code" , the "European Public Prosecutor" or a European police force, with OLAF.
There is as yet no federal European tax.
All the same, a Europe with 25 members will be wanting a European tax on income, if not on profits, or the tax on CO2 to finance the budget for 2025.
Koch Report (A5-0105/1999)
- (FR) It is with great satisfaction that I welcome this report on improved harmonisation in the training of safety advisers for the transport of dangerous goods.
In recent years, the transportation of dangerous goods nationally and internationally has increased considerably, increasing the risk of accidents.
Some of these risks were due to an inadequate awareness of the risks inherent in such transportation.
It therefore proved necessary, in the context of establishing the internal market, to adopt some measures intended to ensure better risk prevention.
Directive 96/35/EC was a response to this requirement.
Firms involved in the transport of dangerous goods and in the loading and unloading operations related to such transportation have been obliged, quite rightly, to comply with regulations regarding risk prevention, whether road, rail or inland waterway transport is involved.
In order to facilitate achieving this objective, Directive 96/35/EC provided for the appointment of safety advisers for dangerous goods who would have appropriate professional training.
This professional training would be targeted at awareness of the terms of the legislation, regulations and administrative conditions applicable to such transport.
While this represented significant progress at the time, the lack of specific terms governing the harmonisation of examination requirements proved to be a problem.
It therefore seemed essential to make good this omission in order to achieve the standardised, high-level training of safety advisers, but also in order to avoid any disparities between the costs of training, with a concomitant effect on competition between the firms of different Member Sates.
The Commission proposal seeks to ensure that the training of safety advisers is standardised.
It outlines the minimum content of examinations and defines the role of the authorising body as well as the requirements demanded of the examining bodies.
Parliament voted in favour of this text. It did, however, table a number of amendments, most of which were adopted in the Council' s common position, particularly regarding the need to draw up a questionnaire and statements on the authorisation of some document in the context of the 'specification of the examination arrangements proposed by the examination body' .
In order to be realistic, I further support postponing the date for the application of these conditions until three months after the directive itself comes into force.
I shall conclude by emphasising that harmonising the professional qualifications of advisers will contribute to improving the quality of the service in the interest of users, to minimising the risks of accident likely to cause damage to the environment as well as significant damage liable to be harmful to any person who may come into contact with dangerous goods.
Koch Report (A5-0104/1999)
Last October I expressed my views on the Hatzidakis report on the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
The views I shall express today are not far removed from those I had then.
Essentially, my opinion is as follows: I deplore the fact that, in a field as crucial as the transport of dangerous goods, we keep putting off the adoption of harmonised standards to the detriment of human beings and the environment.
I shall point out that a directive on the approximation of Member State legislation on the transport of dangerous goods by road came into force on 1 January 1997.
This included a number of interim conditions valid until 1 January 1999.
This is the time when we should have expressed our opinion of the Commission proposal to put an end to the derogations.
In line with the usual procedure, it is the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) which puts forward standards in this area, and they are then integrated in to the European Agreement concerning the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Road signed in Geneva in 1957 (known generally as ADR), applicable throughout Europe, whose terms and conditions form the basis for the legislation applicable within the EU.
The CEN has been unable to complete its work in the time allotted.
Consequently, the Commission proposal under discussion today is intended to amend the directive in order to provide a short-term solution to these problems, rather than to put an end to the transitional arrangements, as should have been the case!
This is exactly what happened in the case of transport of such goods by rail, except for the fact that a time limit had been decided.
Right now we do not have the slightest idea as to when the CEN will be in a position to put forward practical proposals.
Until then, there is really no point in Member States amending their national regulations.
The report also accepts that some flexibility may be adopted, and grants States the option of adopting or applying alternative standards.
They may, therefore, continue to enforce their own standards regarding certain types of pressure vessel used for transportation, where there are no applicable European standards.
They may also adopt alternative conditions for transportation of a local nature and for ad hoc transportation.
In offering this explanation of my vote, therefore, I wished to express my deep dissatisfaction and my deep concern.
Schroedter Report (A5-0108/1999)
Mr President, I wanted to press home my explanation of vote by this oral explanation following on from the Schroedter report with regard to regional development.
I would urge both the Member States and the Commission to give sufficient consideration to the huge disparities in wealth which continue to exist between the different regions in Europe.
Not only the difference in income per capita but, above all, large disparities in employment continue to give cause for concern.
Despite the fact that the Community, through the structural funds among others, injects considerable sums into combating the disparities between regional development opportunities in Europe, these disparities continue to exist.
I therefore wonder whether the Community should not have a more drastic change of tack and, based on very strict evaluations, change its course and change its objectives in such a way as to make it possible to combat the disparities in wealth and employment more effectively.
Mr President, in relation to the Schroedter report, I am aware, and have had it confirmed to me by Mr Barnier, that the rules on additionality concerning Structural Funds apply only at the level of Member States and do not apply in a transitive and transparent way inside Member States in favour of self-governing regions such as Wales or Scotland.
I regard that as a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.
I hope we can revisit this issue at a later time.
I want it to be clear that though I voted in favour of the report, I have this important reservation.
- The Schroedter report speaks of the need to promote partnerships with regard to the spending of EU Structural Funds in Europe for the period 2000-2006.
I believe that this is particularly important as EU Structural Funds are always spent in a manner which maximises the economic development of different regions when local and regional authorities are involved in the decision-making process for the spending of such funds.
As a Member of the European Parliament for the constituency of Leinster, I have always supported the need for the implementation of bottom-up schemes supported by national EU funds.
I believe that the Irish Government and the European Commission and different EU governments cannot alone decide on specific spending priorities.
I believe that local authorities and groups from the private and voluntary sector should be fully involved in the decision-making process for the spending of European Structural Funds.
For example, we have seen the success of the Leader I and Leader II schemes in Ireland in terms of the jobs which have been created through the administration of these programmes in rural parts of Ireland and within Europe.
The Leader III scheme is set to be implemented some time later this year.
The Leader programme at its core affords an opportunity for public, private and voluntary groups to pool their collective talents so as to create long-term and sustainable jobs in small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas.
This is a classic example of how the partnership concept operates and such schemes must be supported in its broadest remit.
The European Peace and Reconciliation Fund has also been a success in creating jobs in border counties in Ireland.
Once again, there is active participation from groups from the private, public and voluntary sectors which suggest how best particular funding can be spent so as to help different local job creation projects within this region.
During the next round of EU Structural Funds 2000-2006, other EU initiatives such as "Equal" and "Urban" will be operating.
These initiatives must also involve the participation of local authorities and local communities in an effort to identify where best European Structural Funds should be spent.
The rapporteur refers to the need to implement an integrated approach to new EU Structural Fund plans and programmes. They must promote a decentralised, efficient and comprehensive partnership based on the skills and commitment of all sectors in regional and local authorities.
This is very sensible because key economic and social difficulties in our country cannot be overcome unless there is key integration between national, European and local funding.
. (FR) This report takes us back to the question of why we even have a regional policy.
In order to reduce disparities between regions, of course.
But more especially because, even though at first sight the European market guarantees us improved functioning of the economy, it may also be a source of inequality.
Jacques Delors was accustomed to saying that the market was short-sighted and hence the political need to reduce disparities.
It is precisely this phenomenon of solidarity which lies behind the European social model, which we are all in favour of, and which gave rise to the idea of economic and social cohesion.
This is a real political objective, alongside economic and monetary affairs, drawn up in collaboration with Member States, regions and local communities, with the Commission itself responsible for issuing guidelines in order to show Member States what direction to take in order to achieve the objectives required in the context of programming.
This is why I shall support this report, despite regretting the fact that, for timetabling reasons, the European Parliament was only consulted at a very late date on the guidelines intended to assist Member States, regions and local communities in the programming of Objectives 1, 2 and 3.
Moreover, I would also urge this House to take into consideration the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, adding a whole raft of thoughts on key areas such as combating social exclusion, support for the social economy and the implementation of the employment strategy.
Mrs Schroedter' s report marks a further step towards the transparency and effectiveness of structural aid.
It highlights the increasing vital role of all the parties involved, chiefly those involved at a local level, who are the only ones able to define specific requirements and social problems, hence our determination to ensure that the partnerships to be established are true partnerships, which are decentralised and involve all the agents concerned.
This is the reason for the request which we are putting forward again to establish a management unit for structural assistance in the Member States, which would coordinate the implementation and administration of aid.
In order to do so, the monitoring committees must be opened to include Members of the European Parliament, associations and industrialists concerned by the projects and also civil society.
These guidelines represent a step towards the improved effectiveness of Community structural aid.
Amended again as such by the Schroedter report, they are a step in the right direction.
They also call for a general debate on the future of the cohesion policy after 2006, but that is another subject.
In the meantime, let us support this first step.
- This report calls for drastic cuts in the level of illegal state aid dished out by some Member States.
Although I wholeheartedly support this aim, I would much rather see such aid eliminated altogether.
In my mind, illegal state aid amounts to little more than state-sponsored social dumping.
We all oppose social dumping when perpetrated by fat cat industry, we must also oppose it when perpetrated by governments.
If we are to have an effective single market that makes European industry globally competitive and generates wealth and employment for all Europeans, then we must have a level playing field.
Illegal state aid, by contrast, destroys competitive companies and creates unemployment.
There are, of course, cases when state aid can be necessary and legitimate, for example helping companies restructure.
In all such cases, however, strict criteria must be met and prior approval from the European Commission gained.
Whether we are talking about beef to France or about backhanders to industry, EU Member States must not be allowed to flout the law.
I enthusiastically support the report's proposal to publish a "scoreboard" showing the amount of state aid per Member State.
Countries that claim to be at the heart of Europe but which systematically break its rules should be named and shamed and their hypocrisy revealed.
Member States cannot be allowed to proclaim European solidarity in public while trying to undermine the single market in private.
I take some mild encouragement from the fact that levels of state aid to industry in Europe appear to be falling.
Much remains to be done, however, and I call on the Commission to be far tougher in exposing the subsidy junkies of Europe.
.
(PT) The Commission' s main instruments for overcoming regional disparities are the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. It is therefore crucial that the European Parliament drafts its broad indicative guidelines without threatening the principle of subsidiarity, given that establishing the development strategy for each country falls to the respective Member States.
Unfortunately, the European Commission has already moved ahead with its guidelines and Parliament' s position on the programmes for 2000-2006 does not carry much weight.
It is nevertheless important to reiterate the need for the main priority of these funds to be the development of the countries and regions with the greatest problems and of the outermost regions, of which the Portuguese regions of the Azores and Madeira are examples. This must be done with the objective of achieving economic and social cohesion.
The truth is though, that the Commission' s guidelines do not fully meet these objectives.
On the other hand, it is crucial that there are precise indications and sufficient funds in areas such as creating decent jobs - with rights - effectively promoting equality in law and opportunity, and supporting the social economy and solidarity. There must also be support for rural development, for small and medium-sized enterprises, for improving the quality of life of urban populations in deprived areas, specifically in the field of social housing, with a view to achieving sustainable urban development.
.
(IT) While Article 158 of the EC Treaty aims to promote the harmonious development of all of the Communities, we must say that the goal of eliminating disparities is still a long way from being fulfilled, or rather in some cases, as with Italy' s Objective 1 zones, paradoxically, disparities are being exacerbated, particularly because of the continuing weak approach of the structural apparatus to Community procedures and the persistent muddle of procedures; despite the changes to the rules, the Community structures have not yet been streamlined.
In the first place, if administrative procedures are not simplified, it will be hard to attain Community objectives on reform, with a view to greater efficiency and concentration.
In this respect, the Commission document has shortcomings, as it makes no recommendation to the Member States to simplify procedures and national legislation for the presentation and examination of projects by the national authorities, and for their funding, execution and monitoring.
SMEs, micro-enterprises and craft businesses in particular are still "weak operators" , given that it is precisely for them that the regulatory and administrative constraints imposed by some Member States, including Italy, are major obstacles to accessing Structural Funds.
A considerable stumbling block is the fact that the regions and other operators find it impossible and are incapable of making plans in time.
In view of this, in accordance with the decision on the 97/99 guidelines (Howitts report), the Commission should have consulted Parliament in time. In fact, it found a sort of convenient excuse in the shortening of the programming stage in the Member States, and it published the guidelines back in July 1999, even before the new Parliament had taken up its legislative duties, thereby preventing Parliament itself from having any influence on the current content of the guidelines.
This is why the mid-term review, provided for under Article 42 of Regulation 1260/99, will be of considerable importance.
In general, the current guidelines cannot be considered as clear or transparent.
They merely touch on the - nevertheless important - issue of the possibility of assessing the progress made in relation to verifiable objectives which are completely consonant with the strategies followed in Community policies, and they do not pay enough attention to the implications of enlargement, so much so that they do not contain specific provisions or clarifications as regards either regional and national authorities, or candidate countries.
That said, the differing approach adopted in the guidelines, which are not geared to geographical objectives, but rather to policy areas, can be considered as positive.
While in theory this may meet the need for concentration and therefore the efficiency of interventions, we cannot help wondering whether the current situation of the Objective 1 zones allows, in practice, a policy of integrated interventions, for which an operational instrument to coordinate the appropriations is necessary.
We could then, theoretically, also support the Commission' s call for a management unit for structural assistance in the Member States, with the task of coordinating the implementation and administration of structural assistance there,provided that this unit does not become a centralising instrument at supranational level, but guarantees real help for those zones - and I stress this once again - which, owing to a whole string of converging negative factors, have not yet harnessed Structural Funds to sufficient levels, with the result that replacing the geographical objective with policy areas could, in fact, amount to a negative intervention.
The guidelines, as adopted by the Commission, are very limited because, instead of meeting the aim of providing guidance, they are providing a shopping list of possible measures, a shopping list which, as it fails to set priorities in ascending order, could even put the Member States on the wrong track by guiding them towards a series of proposals that is at odds with the desired concentration.
We could say that, in this state of affairs, we have once again missed the opportunity to really strengthen sustainable urban development by ring-fencing ever-increasing urbanisation and, hence the destruction of the countryside.
There has been no appropriate assessment of the importance of the global grant instrument, which could prove to be extremely useful in redressing the balance between urban and rural zones and, moreover, would accord proper status to local bodies which, being independent, could bring about the conditions for territorial development more quickly, and make a practical contribution to the efforts to reform the Structural Funds and to achieve the objectives of efficiency, concentration and administrative reform.
Rural areas must truly be seen as a resource which should be increasingly invested in, by encouraging young people to remain in rural areas in order to prevent their economic and social disintegration.
It is now a fact that in order to attain this goal, rural areas need to see the creation of new jobs, which are no longer solely connected with agriculture, in the traditional sense - although this sector is important for the protection of the environment and the preservation of biodiversity - but also, for instance, in rural tourism, sport and cultural activities, environmental projects, SMEs, services, and so on.
A genuine flaw in the guidelines are specific guidelines for the orchestration of coordination between the ESF and employment strategy. The fact that this coordination is being put into effect for the first time during the 2000-2006 programme period implies that the Member States really do need "guidelines".
I must also stress that once again the Commission is, in fact, skirting the issue of practical action on equal opportunities.
In conclusion, the document is not particularly satisfactory, and in some aspects is disappointing.
Berend Report (A5-0107/1999)
. (PT) We basically agree with the assessment and the thoughts put forward by the rapporteur concerning the sixth periodic report on the social and economic situation and development of the regions of the European Union.
We shall therefore confine ourselves to highlighting a few issues.
Firstly, and as the Commission itself states, it must be understood that the great improvement seen by some of the poorest regions in their per capita GDP between 1991 and 1996 was largely due to the inclusion of the new German Länder in calculating the Community average from 1991 onwards. This obviously caused a slight reduction in the Union' s per capita GDP level.
We also feel that it is particularly important to state that the recovery seen in some regions - where it did actually take place - was accompanied only to a limited extent by growth in employment. This consequently imposes the need for new development strategies, with a considerably greater level of attention needing to be paid to this area.
This situation shows that it would be a mistake to leave adopting measures for promoting employment to the exclusive internal control of the Member States, which is what the report proposes.
Finally, but no less importantly, I would like to refer to the rapporteur' s proposal that, in future, this type of report should also include, amongst other issues, an analysis of the way cohesion is developing between the regions within each State.
The huge variety of situations and the varying development seen from region to region within the same State mean that there is a need for an in-depth assessment of this issue. This kind of assessment would enable us to allow and guarantee corrections to regional (and other) policies with a view also to guaranteeing internal cohesion within each Member State.
. (FR) The Berend report gives us an interesting analysis of the situation and economic development of the regions of the European Union.
Nonetheless, the French members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group feels it cannot approve some of the statements made therein.
Paragraph 26, for example, "Draws attention to the special need to consolidate the budget as a prerequisite for the success of economic and monetary union and the enlargement of the Union" .
At a time when, in order to fulfil the convergence criteria, Member States are forced to undergo a strict budgetary slimming regime, one that would be perfectly justified if they undertook it of their own initiative, the federalists are displaying an astonishing pecuniary gluttony.
As an admission of the failure of the cohesion policy and EMU, the lack of results is put down to the lack of money, with everyone competing in eloquence to demand more and more appropriations without anyone asking questions about the effectiveness of the money spent.
What can one say about a budgetary procedure which involves setting objectives for expenditure rather than a ceiling on expenditure and trying at all costs to find projects in order to spend the approved appropriations, rather than allocating the appropriations to existing projects? Expenditure becomes an end in itself, evidence of the success of a programme.
The statistics published by the European Commission in its sixth report do however show, as Mr Berend pointed out, the limitations of the policy being implemented:
The relative weight of the most wealthy regions of the European Union was strengthened between 1986 et 1996, testifying to a concentration of wealth, jobs and activity in certain areas: Hamburg, Brussels, Antwerp, Luxembourg, the Paris region, Darmstadt, Oberbayern, Bremen, Vienna, Karlsruhe and Emilia-Romagna.
Quite the opposite of what the rapporteur stated, the establishment of economic and monetary union should exacerbate the exodus of population from the most outlying, the most rural and the least populated regions in favour of the central axes of the Union (the Benelux countries, North West Germany, Northern Italy, the Parisian region, etc).
The poorest regions are gradually making good their underdevelopment.
In 1986, the average of the 10 poorest regions amounted to 41% of the overall Community GNP.
In 1996 it was 50%.
Progress is particularly marked in Portugal and Ireland.
In fact, if the rich are ever more wealthy and the extremely poor are less poor, then it seems that the middle-range regions, covered by Objective 2, are experiencing an occasionally significant downturn in their GNP, and a worsening of the employment situation.
This phenomenon is particularly marked in France: the GNP of the Champagne-Ardennes region, which it is my honour to represent, has gone from 105% to 94% of the Community average, that of the Loire region has dropped from 95% to 91%, and that of the Auvergne from 89% to 83%.
This is a generalised tendency, sparing neither the Rhône-Alpes, nor Alsace.
It has been confirmed in Sweden and Finland, countries where unemployment has in fact increased to a worrying degree over the last few years, as in many regions of the United Kingdom.
It may therefore seem strange that, when the Structural Funds were reformed, Objective 2, dedicated to industrial and rural areas undergoing economic restructuring, should have been sacrificed in favour of Objectives 1 and 3. For the period 1999-2006, the total appropriation for this Objective will be ECU 22.5 billion, a figure more or less identical to that for the period 1994-1999.
The rural regions eligible under Objective 5b will be included among the main victims of this situation: in France, 27% of the populations eligible for Structural Funds are going to lose their eligibility at the end of the transition period, a figure which is occasionally much larger in some regions such as the Loire region, Alsace or Lower Normandy, political strongholds of the right-wing that were the victims of the petty political vote chasing of the left-wing coalition government.
Based as it is on such choices, it is to be doubted whether regional policy can contribute to harmonious regional planning within the Member States of the European Union.
von Wogau Report (A5-0069/1999)
. (FR) Considering the employment situation in the Community and the European Union' s declared ambition to steadfastly attack unemployment, the analysis of mergers carried out by the Commission should take elements other than competition into consideration.
As an example I would give the restructuring of ABB Alsthom Power. A sizeable delegation of employees of this firm from throughout Europe is visiting Strasbourg today.
The management of ABB Alsthom Power, following a merger carried out in June 1999, announced restructuring where there is already the prospect of layoffs in a number of countries.
This damaging situation for employment raises many questions, particularly regarding the information given to the European Works Council, in existence since 1996.
It suggests that the Community directive on European Works Councils must be updated and strengthened.
It also requires the monitoring of mergers taking employment, the environment and consumers into consideration.
Since the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs did not go far enough in this respect, I abstained.
.
(PT) By proposing to apply the principle of subsidiarity in Community competition policy, the Commission is devolving to national authorities and courts the responsibility to take decisions and deal with abuses of dominant positions in relation to company agreements which create market distortion. Issues of mergers and state aid however, still remain within the notification system.
The position that has now been adopted aims to create more rapid ways of applying competition policy, moving towards applying Community law in national courts rather than at the European Court of Justice, and even aims at having specialised courts.
This partial renationalisation of competition policy could involve higher costs for Member States.
On the other hand, as the rapporteur points out, in the name of competition policy, public monopolies are often exchanged for private monopolies, with the privatisation of important industries and public companies, as has happened in Portugal, with harmful consequences for the country and its workers.
- (FR) The Commission' s White Paper on the modernisation of the rules implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the EC Treaty (now 81 and 82) certainly does not propose any "renationalisation" of competition policy, as some Members of the European Parliament fear.
But it does, at least, make it possible to anticipate some rather interesting options for development of the European Union.
In fact, taking note of the congestion of its services due to the prior notification system of state agreements likely to cause distortions in trade, and afraid of seeing the number of notifications increase yet further with the arrival of new Member States, the Commission is proposing to do away with the prior notification system of such agreements, and to apply competition rules at Member State level in a more decentralised fashion.
The most remarkable thing, in my view, is the message conveyed by this proposal: that the Commission is anticipating the consequences of enlargement and realising that this necessarily, and virtually automatically, requires reform of the centralised system.
Admittedly, this reform is one of increasing flexibility rather than dismantling.
Indeed, the White Paper envisages that the Commission will retain the supervision and central direction of the new system.
Moreover, the von Wogau report, which the European Parliament has just voted on, supports it in so doing.
But at the same time, one can clearly see that the upheaval caused by enlargement may lead to Community competences being limited and subsidiarity being extended.
It is a quite different Europe which is taking shape in the long term.
Is this not, indeed, what is so distressing to some Socialist Members of the European Parliament? The German Social Democrats voted against the von Wogau report because, in their view, it might break up European policy on competition, which is to say, in plain terms, attacking the standardising superstate.
Curiously, a number of employers agreed with them, preferring the European "one-stop" system, which they consider to be more economical and more stable legally.
Indeed, this is one advantage of the present system.
But, on the other hand, the wider view must also be taken, namely that the initial decentralisation which has been begun today may, in the long term, lead to greater freedom to take the requirements of each country into account, and this will be of benefit to everyone.
Rapkay Report (A5-0078/1999)
The Members of Parliament from the Lutte Ouvrière Party shall not be voting in favour of these reports on European competition policy.
Competition is a war which has major concerns fighting each other, which constantly takes the form of layoffs, factory closures, not to mention extensive waste of production capacity.
We see a further example of this with the planned layoffs in Europe proposed by the corporation ABB Alsthom Power.
Eighteen million unemployed and 50 million poor people within the European Union, despite its being one of the wealthiest regions in the world: these are the results of this competition which the European institutions intend to promote.
The Commission' s declared intention to regulate the conditions of competition on the European market is ridiculous, for the only law which competition respects is the law of the jungle where the most powerful squash or devour the weakest elements.
This is repulsive most of all in social terms.
The European Commission' s report is a blunt demonstration of the fact that the Union institutions have no interest in anything except the major capitalist corporations who are engaged in this economic warfare and have no interest in the victims this causes.
There is nothing to prevent the spread of unemployment, nothing to protect employees, nothing to prevent the major concerns driving part of the population into poverty simply to make their shareholders richer still!
We acknowledge that this report does have one good point - it shows that the working class majority in society can expect nothing from the European institutions in terms of safeguarding their living conditions, and still less of improving them.
- (FR) In voting against this report, we are acting as spokespersons for all the men and women who in Seattle and throughout Europe expressed their rejection of a world reduced to strict commercial logic.
We are voting against this report on behalf of the development of public services, in memory of the victims of the Paddington rail disaster, killed not by fate but by an absurd determination to have competition where there should instead be regulations.
This report is essentially a primitive text with no inspiration other than the law of the jungle, for it is not competition that can solve the problems facing humanity at this turn of the century.
Whether it is a matter of the balance of the biosphere, culture or cooperation with the third world, excessive competition is a factor increasing regression and insecurity.
Do you imagine that the 18 million unemployed people in Europe are victims of too reticent an application of this competition policy? We are convinced that the opposite is true, and we do not think that state aid is by definition excessive.
Excessive in comparison with what iron rule, what criteria of efficiency?
Finally, after Seattle, do you really think you can advocate increasing the role of the WTO? Only the legal advisers to multinationals could demonstrate such stubbornness.
Jonckheer Report (A5-0087/1999)
I am pleased to see the quality of the seventh report on state aid within the EU, and to see that it will henceforth be an annual report, and also that the Directorate-General for Competition will be making information, both general and specific, publicly accessible via its website.
I am happy with the rapporteur' s treatment of state aid and I congratulate him on this.
There is too often a tendency to criticise state aid harshly as a measure causing distortion in competition.
Admittedly, an effective competition policy is a prerequisite for the proper operation of the internal market and of economic and monetary union.
However, as the rapporteur pointed out, such aid is occasionally essential and may, in addition to enabling the survival of a specific firm, make it possible to contribute to sustainable development (Article 6 of the Treaty), services of general economic interest (Article 16) and economic and social cohesion (Article 158).
Clearly though, it must be monitored, a task which falls to the European Commission.
The aid which Union Member States allocate each year to the sectors under consideration reached a total of EUR 95 billion in the period 1995-1997, including 40% allocated to the manufacturing sector.
This aid is considerably less than the previous period, 1993-1995 (a 13% drop in the total amount and a drop from 3.8% to 2.6% in the amount of aid to the manufacturing sector).
This downturn in aid is chiefly due to the reduction in aid granted to the new German Länder.
Like the rapporteur, I deplore the fact that the figures given in the report do not cover all state aid.
The European Commission must make good these omissions as soon as possible.
It must also cooperate with the Member States in order to improve the quality of data in good time, which is to say in time for the ninth report.
I think it would be a good idea if the Commission published a register specifying the amount of state aid per Member State.
I also deplore the fact that the European Parliament has been totally excluded from the Advisory Committee on State Aid.
In order to compensate for this situation, the European Commission should be obliged to make regular reports to us.
I shall conclude with one aspect of the use of state aid which I feel is particularly dangerous: the matter of aid resulting in businesses relocating from one Member State to another, with the risk of subsidy hunting which makes no contribution to the shared objectives of the EU.
This is why I should like to see the next report on state aid include some assessment of the effect of such aid on employment, industry and craft businesses in the beneficiary countries.
Langen Report (A5-0073/1999)
In the important debate on competition this morning, I expressed my views on Mr Langen' s report on the implementation in 1998 of the sixth Steel Aid Code.
Just as the Court of Justice recognised in its order of 3 May 1996, the iron and steel industry is particularly sensitive to disturbances to its competitive operation.
Establishing a system of aids to this sector intended to ensure the survival of successful firms was therefore justifiable, even though Article 4(c), of the ECSC Treaty prohibited any sort of state aid to the steel industry.
This, indeed, is the purpose of the sixth Steel Aid Code.
At the same time, it is, of course, essential to avoid any disturbance of competition conditions or of the markets, hence the importance of regulating such aid.
It is therefore essential to continue to restrict state aid to research and development, environmental protection and aid granted in the event of plant closure.
In the same way, it is vital for Member States to fulfil their obligation to report to the Commission on the aid granted to their steel undertakings, as stipulated under Article 7 of the Steel Aid Code.
The Commission suggests that Member States submit their reports within a time limit of two months following the end of each six-month period or, at least, annually, without the need for reminders.
Like the rapporteur, I am pleased with the Commission report, but I did deplore the fact that the report did not cover every aspect of the aid.
Although the Steel Aid Code is expressed in a very clear way, the Commission has, on a number of occasions, authorised aid for the steel industry even though such aid did not fall within the categories set out in the code.
In the interests of equality, there are grounds to either apply the Steel Aid Code strictly or modify the Code if the Commission wishes to authorise types of aid other than those legally acceptable at the moment.
Finally, we have the problem of the consequences of the expiry of the ECSC Treaty.
The aid system must effectively be continued beyond 2002.
My feeling in this respect is that only a Council Regulation can provide the necessary legal certainty and ensure an official ban on any aid not covered by the code.
For all these reasons I voted in favour of the Langen report, and I now await the Commission' s response to our requests and demands.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.05 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Oil slick off the French coast
The next item is the Commission statement on the oil slick off the French coast.
Mrs de Palacio will open the debate on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, I shall be speaking on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, but also as an elected representative for Brittany, and I am therefore directly concerned and shocked by these events.
Together with Mrs Grossetête and the PPE-DE Group, we tabled a motion for a resolution. I am pleased to see that we have today arrived at a compromise motion.
The Erika shipwreck is a truly European issue, firstly because it is disfiguring and polluting some of the most beautiful beaches in Europe, with extremely serious consequences for tourism, people who earn their living from the sea and environmentalists, and also because the underlying issue is the regulation and monitoring which ought naturally to be on a European scale.
A disaster of this scale could almost certainly not have occurred along the American coastline, and why?
Because the Americans managed to learn their lesson from the Exxon Valdez disaster and in 1990 to draw up the Oil Pollution Act, which makes the parties concerned aware of their responsibilities, as it makes it possible to hold the charterer liable, and is more restrictive, and, more especially, more carefully monitored thanks to various regulations and, in particular, the existence of the American coastguard.
If, I repeat, we had had regulations of this type, then this disaster would surely not have occurred.
This is why we think that the applicable legislation must be reviewed, particularly the 1992 protocol which has exempted the shipowners, in this case the oil tanker charterer, from any liability.
Well, if the charterer is exonerated, then of course he is less concerned with the inspections which oil companies are responsible for.
The regulations must therefore be reviewed, and I thank you, Commissioner, for highlighting the inadequate features of current European regulations.
Moreover, as you said, monitoring must above all be stepped up: that of the flag state, that of the classification societies. You told us that RINA was an Italian classification register recognised by the Commission.
What are the conditions for this recognition? What guarantees are there of its reliability?
You are going to commission a fact-finding mission. We await the outcome with great interest.
Inspections by the maritime authorities and supervision within European ports must also be tightened up.
There is a Paris Memorandum in existence, let me remind you, which stipulates a minimum for inspection, that is, one in four of the vessels putting into European ports must be inspected by the maritime authorities of the country concerned.
This obligation is not respected either in France or in many other European countries. Why not?
What conclusions has the Commission already drawn or what conclusions is it going to draw? I also think it essential to step up the level of inspection that the charterer is responsible for, in this case, the oil company.
If the charterer' s liability entails a financial commitment, then doubtless the inspection will be enforced to a greater extent.
Finally, we need some coordination of national maritime authorities in order to achieve some sort of European facility comparable to the coastguards who supervise the coasts of the United States.
Mr President, every time there is a disaster of this kind people say it must never happen again.
In reality we can never stop accidents happening at sea, but it is incumbent upon us all to learn the lessons whenever an incident of this kind takes place and apply those lessons to reduce risks in future.
The "Erika" incident was serious especially for the people of Brittany most closely affected, but it was devastating for the wildlife of much of Europe.
Some say that it is the worst accident that has ever befallen the bird life of this part of Europe.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds believes that as many as 400,000 birds, perhaps mainly guillemots, may have died.
The pictures many of us will have seen of oil-soaked birds being put down by veterinary officials were both distressing and tragic.
We all want the highest standards for ships whatever flag they may be flying.
We need to enforce the regulations and ensure that the "polluter pays" principle is applied so that financial penalties and some incentives are used to put pressure on both ship operators and oil companies to ensure that best practice is introduced.
I agree with every word the Commissioner said in her remarks, but the question is, how long will it take to ensure that measures are introduced to deal with the problem in the way she proposes?
As a politician she needs to remind her officials how difficult it would be were she to have to come back to this Parliament in a year, were a similar incident, just as devastating, to take place, if some of the measures she has proposed today were simply still remaining as fine words and she had not had the chance to put them into practice.
The thought of an incident of this kind occurring in the near future should concentrate her mind and the minds of her officials wonderfully.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have brought you a small gift. Here is a cake of oil sent by someone living on the French island of Noirmoutier who wrote to me as follows: "With every tide, the beach is covered with heavy fuel oil which has leaked out of the Erika.
With every tide, the volunteers, members of the armed forces and firemen remove great pancakes of this thick, sticky, black tar.
When will we see a return to cleanliness and the end of this devastating accident?"
Indeed this disaster involving the Erika, like that of the Russian vessel in Turkey, moreover, is unacceptable and intolerable at a time when the ultimate hi-tech technology is available.
It is all the more unacceptable for such a thing to occur twenty years after the Amoco Cadiz disaster, despite our saying at the time and many times since, "Never again!"
It is, of course, the responsibility of policies, and therefore our responsibility, to guarantee the safety of sea transport.
We absolutely have to guarantee our citizens that a disaster of this type will never happen again.
But, listening to you, Commissioner, we are somewhat frustrated because anyone already involved in these matters knows that in 1992, I believe, the Commission and Parliament drew up a very interesting text which already contained all the proposals included in the resolution drawn up by the transport committee.
Indeed, we must say and keep saying that the Erika is one disaster too many.
This is why it is essential, as a matter of urgency, for the European Union to undertake a radical review of its directives on sea transport to make them more restrictive and to establish clear and specific regulations determining the responsibilities of the owners of the cargoes.
We should be aware, for example, that Shell and British Petroleum refused to use the Erika to transport their oil.
Why, in these circumstances, is the liability of Total as charterer not recognised? Your proposals must also include making double hulls mandatory and enforcing observance, at last, of the ban on degassing at sea.
A European inspection body must be established which can monitor the condition of vessels effectively and efficiently.
In addition, it is also essential for the European Union to undertake to reform the IMO, as a matter of urgency.
What point is there in issuing restrictive directives if, once they are at sea, most vessels do just what they wish?
Finally, a compassionate thought for all the volunteers, nature lovers and bird lovers, who spontaneously and generously are coming through to the aid of the oil-covered birds, organising rescue operation with the means available.
I can testify to this remarkable work.
You are no doubt aware that approximately 200 000 birds are going to die as a result of this oil slick, which is a major ecological disaster, practically unprecedented in scale.
In relation to this, you are no doubt also aware how difficult it is nowadays to preserve natural species as well as natural spaces.
And, on this subject, Commissioner, you did not mention how the Commission intends to contribute to the restoration of the natural environment and the natural habitats.
Once again, there will be no clearly defined party responsible.
In the meantime, it is nature that is taking the rap, as always.
Mr President, my group asked that this debate be set up in order to provide Parliament with an opportunity to express its solidarity with the people directly affected by this ecological disaster, affected both in terms of their economic activities and in terms of their attachment to their natural environment.
Let me, in this connection, welcome the presence in the visitors' gallery of Mrs Javette-Le Besque, spokesperson for the oil slick action group "Marée noire" , made up of men and women from the French department of Morbihan.
Many volunteers from France and other European countries have expressed their solidarity by lending a hand to the victims in the field.
As the European Parliament, we can express our solidarity primarily by taking action in order to ensure the immediate release of emergency aid to the families affected by the oil slick and, at the same time, demanding tightening up of the quality criteria, on the European and international scale, of the regulations and standards governing the safety of sea transport, stipulating much more frequent inspection and sanctions that are a far greater deterrent to offenders.
Our proposals are particularly concerned with the age of oil tankers.
Among those inspected and found to be in contravention of regulations last year, 15 were at least 20 years old and some were 30 and more.
This is no longer tolerable.
Next, we have flags of convenience.
According to the International Transport Federation, over 40% of the ships wrecked in 1998 were sailing under flags of convenience, the symbol of profit and the exploitation of human beings at the expense of safety.
This is no longer tolerable.
Finally, there is the lack of transparency.
Everything is done to make the lines of responsibility, the identity of the owners and real decision-makers as impenetrable as possible.
This is no longer tolerable.
In all these respects we must ensure real, significant change, including setting a time limit for the switch to new standards, including the mandatory double hull, on pain of being banned from the ports or the territorial waters of Member States.
We must also ensure increased strictness both in issuing sea-worthiness certificates and in monitoring the condition and the maintenance of vessels.
Finally we must ensure that all the parties responsible for disasters contribute to repairing the damage caused.
I am thinking specifically of Total-Fina in the present instance.
This is an approach, Mr President, which the European Union can develop with regard to the International Maritime Organisation.
In so doing, it will have proved its usefulness to public opinion which, in this instance, is awaiting clear, tangible action.
Mr President, Commissioner, as a Member for the French Atlantic coast, for Vendée, I should first like to express the disgust of the people who are the victims of the Erika oil slick in the face of these disasters, caused not by a natural disaster such as the hurricane which has also just struck us, but by a crime.
In this emergency, in this ordeal, we have seen a magnificent display of solidarity: local solidarity, national solidarity, and intergovernmental solidarity.
What the stricken populations are waiting for now, those who have lost everything, particularly among those who made their living from the sea and from tourism, those people whose businesses have been compromised for several years to come, is not for the polluters to repair the damage they have caused, but for the gears to now be set in motion to ensure that their present misfortune serves to prevent similar crimes affecting other people in future.
Quite clearly, we are now paying the price for our lack of concern.
Because our states, with the blessing of the Community, did not deem it useful to have its own commercial fleet and allowed meticulous shipbuilding know-how to disappear, we no longer have access to the clear traceability of vessels and we can see veritable coffin ships navigating our waters under flags of convenience, drifting according to the short-term interests of the multinationals.
It is absolutely essential to put an end to this floodtide of irresponsibility, irresponsible charterers, untraceable shipowners and lenient certification companies.
So today we find ourselves in a state of utter confusion.
Obviously, such matters should be handled at world level, but the current international regulations of the IMO are far from adequate and are far too loose, and neither our own countries nor the Community have tried determinedly to make them stricter, despite previous disasters.
Admittedly, there is the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, IOPCF, but it waters down the issue of liability and sets its ceiling at a quite inadequate level, which must be reviewed.
The question of flags of convenience must be reviewed within the IMO. It is up to the Members States and the Community to take the necessary initiatives to achieve this.
Let me remind you that the Erika was sailing under a flag of convenience, that of a state applying for membership of the European Union.
In addition, there are Community directives, but they are seldom applied, if at all, due to the insufficient number of national inspectors.
This omission must be remedied as a matter of urgency.
A directive on maritime safety has been in preparation for many years, but it is making very slow progress.
The Commission is displaying intolerable inertia and unacceptable shortcomings.
The date when the Commission is supposed to present its communication devoted to this key issue is put off time and again. It is now scheduled for July.
This must be brought forward.
The terms of the regulations to be enforced must be particularly clear and strict.
I shall mention three issues that our group feels are priorities.
Firstly, the liability of owners of oil cargoes must be clearly established and the victims of pollution incidents must be able to claim on this liability unequivocally.
The best form of prevention we can offer for the future is the sure knowledge we can offer charterers that they will be heavily penalised in civil, criminal and financial terms if they are not extremely vigilant regarding the matter of the safety of the vessels they select.
Secondly, the requirement of the double hull as a condition for access to Community waters must be enforced as soon as possible and cease to be put off indefinitely.
Thirdly, a strict age limit on vessels to be given access to Community waters must be established in the near future.
This could be of a maximum of 15 years of age.
If we do not obtain a framework of Community regulations which is sufficiently clear, strict and trenchant, then those Member States that wish to do so must be allowed to take the necessary steps to protect their people and their territory, in the same way that the United States succeeded in learning the lessons of the Exxon Valdez disaster by making double hulls compulsory and banning all vessels more than 20 years old from their waters.
Thus, the Erika was refused access to American waters.
If the European Community had done the same, a great disaster would have been avoided.
Let us ensure, Mr President, Commissioner, that this time we really do learn the lesson, even after the media hype and the shock of this House have died down.
Mr President, Torrey Canyon, Olympic Bravery, Haven, Amoco Cadiz, Gino, Tanio, so many names we remember with horror.
And now the Erika.
Whose turn is next? Twenty one years after Amoco Cadiz, this umpteenth oil slick, the seventh since 1967, shows the irresponsibility of our successive rulers.
The Atlantic West Coast once again is paying a high price for their inability to react, for their capitulation to the multinationals.
It is hard to understand why the French and the Europeans allow something which the Americans refuse to accept, and why Europe, normally so quick to pass environmental legislation, has chosen to overlook the matter of maritime safety.
And this is the result.
The Erika, a vessel flying a Maltese flag, a floating rust bucket, classed amongst the most dangerous type of oil tankers, has contaminated more than 400 km of our coastline, a case of pollution even worse than that caused by the Amoco Cadiz.
As an elected representative for the Loire-Atlantique region, unfortunately, I can testify to this.
There is nothing natural about these recurring disasters, they are the result of fate.
They are the result of human thoughtlessness.
What we have here is an ecological disaster.
Only the people cut off from the harsh reality of the grass roots could have any doubt about that.
It is also an economic disaster for all the people who make their living from the sea and from tourism, fishermen, oyster farmers, shellfish farmers, people who make a living from the salt marshes, shopkeepers, etc.
The Erika disaster must be the last in the series.
First of all, we must shed some light on this shipwreck.
Why do we not appoint a parliamentary committee of inquiry or get Members of Parliament involved in the team of experts which has just been announced by the Commission? Next, as a matter of urgency, we muss pass legislation, firstly, regarding identification of the exact characteristics of goods transported.
In fact, according to the experts, the oil the Erika was carrying was supposed to sink to the bottom and should never have reached the coast.
We know what actually happened.
Next, reliable technical inspection must be established like the technical inspection compulsory in France for vehicles more than five years old.
We must regulate the use of flags of convenience, make double hulls mandatory for the transport of polluting or dangerous materials, work on technological innovations in order to be able to process or recover hydrocarbons at sea.
This would be a minimum requirement, I believe, on the dawn of the third millennium.
Non-compliant vessels must be denied access to European waters, the responsibility of polluters, shipowners or charterers must be determined in line with the principle of the "polluter pays" , maritime supervision must be strengthened to prevent any degassing, thorough and reliable inspection of tankers must be required, an appropriate "natural disasters" budget line must be re-established for Member States and, in the meantime, Community aid released on an exceptional basis and the French departments affected by the disaster should be made eligible for Structural Funds.
I have also tabled a resolution on this subject on behalf of the EDD Group.
Mr President, in the course of the last few years there has been a succession of serious tanker disasters world-wide and the countermeasures taken have either been ineffective or not worth mentioning.
It is particularly bad this time, not least because it has affected a major European State; an incident which could happen again at any time.
We urgently require a directive if we are to reduce these risks.
The 15 clearly do not suffice.
These guarantee - making no claim to be exhaustive - a minimum of 3 things. No tanker or freighter fit only for the scrap heap must ever put into any harbour within the European Union again.
All those involved, including the transport agent, are responsible for any ensuing damage, and these individuals are to provide satisfactory assurances.
This is the only way of affording the victims the opportunity to make their claims for compensation.
However, we must aim higher in the long-term, let there be no mistake about that.
In other words, we need real cost-effectiveness for our entire energy supply system.
Mr President, may I start by saying that I would like to thank Commissioner Palacio very much for her clear, adequate and, at the same time, very firm response.
Many thanks for this.
This also means that, in any case, I have a great deal of respect for the briefing note which she sent on 10 January but also for the action points which she announced today.
The Erika disaster shows that when sound traffic and transport regulations are lacking at international and European level, nature and the environment come off second-best.
The damage suffered, also in ecological terms, cannot be expressed in money.
Hence also this joint debate involving transport and environmental management Members.
During the Christmas break, when the Dutch media received attention for the Erika disaster, I had a look, just out of interest, on the Internet to see what arrangements were, in fact, already in place for the purpose of taking relevant measures, especially after Premier Jospin had said that Europe should do more.
What I learned is that, actually, there is sufficient legislation in place but the problem is the lack of supervision.
Could I highlight a few points which have also been touched upon by the Commissioner?
First of all, the port-state control, according to which 25% of all ships require inspection.
I think that this 25% should not only be enforced but that it should also be ensured that more inspections take place.
So this 25% should be increased.
Furthermore, if a ship is no longer seaworthy, not only should the facts be examined, but a legal system should be introduced which states or recommends that the vessel should no longer be used.
But this is not in place.
Mr President, I would welcome some action in this area.
Finally, as far as the technical requirements for ships are concerned, some Members have already mentioned just now that, since 1999 in the United States, ships should in any case be double-hulled.
In my opinion, we should look further into this point, and I also think that the Marpol Treaty, which comes into effect in 2001, should be looked at very closely.
Mr President, I would like to take a brief, critical look at the accession negotiations with Malta and would like to express my gratitude to, and admiration for, the many NGOs that have at least rolled up their sleeves in order to save animals.
Mr President, we have already had this discussion so many times in the past.
We have achieved nothing so far, and we have been unable to reach agreement within the European Union.
That is why I will only believe that there is any point to having this debate today if what we are all saying today, and what the Commissioner has announced here, actually leads to legislation being produced; in other words, if you all go and say to your Heads of Government and Ministers: "you must push this through in the Council of Ministers" .
Allow me to say first that what we are talking about is an environmental catastrophe, which also impacts on the economy and threatens livelihoods.
So what are we to do now? I have no intention of talking about past events; rather I want to look to the future.
What are we to do now? I will tell you a few things we should do.
Of course, we need double-hulled vessels.
That goes without saying, but it is something that will only work through in the medium and long term.
So what do we need to happen immediately? We need technical testing of ships, that is obligatory technical testing every two years, and no ship to be operated without the accompanying certificate.
We need this at European level and internationally; we need something like a TÜV, an organisation that undertakes technical testing of motor vehicles in Germany, which is compulsory every two years.
If you do not have a certificate then you are not allowed to operate the vehicle.
This is what we need for ships.
Thirdly, we need to carry out checks on these safety and insurance certificates in the ports, that is in every port of the European Union.
Any failure to produce these certificates must lead to the ship being laid up and prohibited from leaving the port, regardless of all the port charges.
We must reach agreement here, in all the European Union' s ports, from Marseilles, through to Rotterdam, to Wilhelmshaven, Cuxhaven, and wherever ships drop anchor.
Fourthly, we need the shipowner to bear liability, and not just to the tune of a derisory USD 12 million, but to the value of at least USD 400 million, to be covered per insurance certificate.
We also need the country whose flag the ship flies to bear liability.
We need to be sure that if need be, the country whose flag the ship is flying will accept liability.
This would be a marvellous exercise in supervision!
I can assure you that those countries awarding flags would then take great care to avoid having to accept liability.
In the fifth place, we need there to be a guarantee that these demands will apply to all ships using the ports and waterways of the European Union, and incidentally, that includes the candidate countries.
Last but not least, we need a long memory, for the issue of legislation will crop up on the agenda more frequently in the near future. Environmental standards will be a recurring theme.
I would not like to have someone coming and saying that these requirements will lead to job losses in the ports.
The unions will have something to say as will industry.
A long memory will serve us well, ladies and gentlemen.
I am looking at all those of you who have not exactly been at the forefront of the environmental movement.
Just you go home and say: " we have not concerned ourselves with standards to date" .
We need to have a long memory when it comes to the demands being made in the ports.
We need to have a long memory when we say: " for once we are united, at last as far as port charges and requirements are concerned, and will not play one off against the other in the European Union."
If we succeed in this then perhaps we will be better off in a few years' time!
Mr President, Mrs Roth-Behrendt expressed very many of my own thoughts.
We have now obtained a first-rate enumeration of a variety of measures.
But how do we make use of the sense of crisis to which this ecological disaster has led?
I would compare the situation with an earlier generation' s introduction of the Plimsoll line, a marking which was introduced to prevent insurance fraud involving inferior vessels.
Where is the sense of crisis which generations before us had? I consider that what we should adopt is the form of certification that Mrs Roth-Behrendt speaks about, the identification in the form of green marks on tankers which certain harbours in Europe have brought up for discussion.
We must also critically examine the classification societies.
I do not think that we can accept their procedures.
We need independent procedures and procedures involving public control.
Finally, I want to say that, when my country provides environmental aid to shipowners who wish to improve the quality of the environment, there are units within the Commission who regard this as prohibited aid to shipyards.
Within the Commission, the one hand does not know what the other hand is doing.
It is not an acceptable procedure that measures to improve the environment, which are in keeping with the Commission' s guidelines, cannot be taken because these are considered to constitute prohibited aid to shipyards.
Mr President, we shall vote in favour of the GUE/NGL Group resolution because it denounces Total-Fina' s responsibility in this ecological disaster and I endorse the proposal that flags of convenience and the use of superannuated vessels should be prohibited, or that double hulls should be mandatory for oil tankers.
I shall only add that it would be the least that Total could do to compensate for the direct and indirect damage caused by the oil slick.
How can we stop similar disasters occurring in future if we do not institute draconian measures against the major oil corporations, and indeed many others who, in order to make more profit, take the risk of making the world uninhabitable?
How is it possible not to be outraged when a bank refuses to divulge the names of the Erika' s owners on the grounds of professional confidentiality, without governments reacting? The crux of the problem is that all governments, and indeed all the European institutions, acknowledge the right of major corporations such as Total-Fina and its ilk to maximise profits whether it be harmful to their employees or to the environment.
They accept the professional confidentiality of business and banks, even though this same confidentiality serves to conceal what are essentially criminal actions.
In these circumstances, even the best resolutions will remain little more than appeals to principle which are powerless to limit the great corporations' capacity to cause damage.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Erika sank near my home and is still there, with 20 000 tonnes in its hold, the fate of which we are waiting to discover. It could have sunk anywhere.
It happened to sink there, and Brittany, where I come from, should not apologise for the fact that geography has made it a peninsula, and the result is that it is often forced to clear up after shipwrecks.
My first thoughts are for the 26 Indian sailors, who were saved but of whom nothing has been said.
There could have been deaths in this disaster and safety at sea means, above all, men' s lives.
By now they are far away.
It is a miracle that they were saved.
So we are now experiencing the same thing that happened 20 years ago with the Amoco Cadiz; a wreck on the North coast, a wreck on the South coast, a wreck on the West coast. Things could well continue in the same way.
Commissioner, as time is very short, I would like to pick out the seven points which we feel, and you have already mentioned some of them, are essential to work on: double-hulled vessels in our waters as soon as possible and the strictest possible state control of ports.
In particular, we must ensure that classification societies are compelled to make their reports public, as currently, we do not have access to them.
Then, sanctions must be harmonised between the 15 Member States; they should not be different, but the same throughout the Union.
We must be tougher on vessels flying flags of convenience, not because they are necessarily bad boats, but because amongst these boats there are many bad ones.
We must improve information on all of the world' s ships, but provision has already been made for this.
We must also target those responsible and take a tougher line with them.
With regard to this matter, I would like to know who owns the Erika, because the idea of a legal person under our law is one thing, but there are always real shareholders in the background.
Where are the Erika' s owners? Perhaps they are in lovely villas by lovely beaches, getting a nice tan.
We would like to know their names and their faces.
Finally, there must be improvements in the training of crews.
In our society there is no such thing as zero-risk, but we must at least ensure the greatest possible levels of safety.
Mr President, I welcome the statement from the Commissioner.
Having spent a lot of time at sea myself I am well aware of the sea's power and destructive force, which make a proper design and maintenance of ships and boats essential.
I would like to express my sympathy with all those who are dealing with the consequences of the breaking up and sinking of the oil tanker Erika.
This has been an environmental disaster as well as a deplorable waste of resources.
It should be noted that the oil industry, through the International Oil Pollution Compensation Funds, regards itself as liable under the 1969 Convention and its 1992 Protocol, for over 90% of the estimated cost of this incident, or some USD 170 million.
This suggests to me that we should also look to the shipowners, to the flag state and the inspection authorities to shoulder their share of the responsibility.
However, before we rush in with a whole raft of new measures and new regulations, let us look carefully at the existing arrangements to be sure that they are being properly implemented.
Better to heed calls to amend and improve existing legislation than to embark on new proposals.
In that context I support calls to strengthen port state control to ensure full and effective inspection.
I support calls to ensure that the classification societies effectively monitor vessels' structural conditions and are held accountable for their actions.
Calls for design improvements in hull construction, especially double-hulled vessels, are sensible but take time to be implemented throughout the fleet.
They are no substitute for rigorous regular inspection.
Mr President, I would like to thank my Socialist colleagues, mainly in the committees on transport and the environment, who have not forgotten that this disaster also affects the fishing industry.
Because, as well as the irreparable damage to the environment, the damage to the ecosystem and losses in the tourist industry, the oil slick dealt a huge blow to the fishing industry, to the conservation of marine resources, and the damaged coast lines will take years to recover.
It is no accident, Commissioner, that the affected areas are always those European regions which are least developed, those which eke out a meagre existence from tourism and fishing and which, in the majority of cases, do not have any other resources.
These are the same areas, Commissioner, which already have to put up with the disrespectful activities of certain shipowners who empty the bilges of their vessels off their coasts, without any control whatsoever.
I come from a region, Galicia, which has suffered similar accidents in the past.
Brittany and Galicia, two European 'Lands Ends' , fall constant prey to the irresponsibility of those who prefer not to comply with safety regulations and transport crude oil in vessels which in themselves constitute potential oil slicks.
I therefore believe that it is necessary to act in two ways.
On the one hand, by asking the Commission, within the scope of aid to the fishing industry, to implement special measures to compensate for the effects of this catastrophe on the industry in the areas affected, and also by asking them to demand, of international bodies and of themselves, tight controls on ships which sail under flags of convenience.
In this regard, the current process of negotiations on Malta' s accession to the European Union must be used to ensure that this country rigorously monitors the oil tankers which sail under its flag.
On the other hand, prevention is essential.
Portugal is a country which has clearly demonstrated its sensitivity to issues relating to the sea.
I would ask the Portuguese Presidency to study the possibility of implementing a complete strategy for the prevention of maritime accidents at European level, using all the means at our disposal - technological, structural and socio-economic - to prevent a disaster such as this from happening again in the future.
Lastly, Mr President, I would like to highlight the work carried out by the volunteers and local authorities, who reminded me of old times when, as the then Mayoress, I lived through similar situations.
We must thank those who, while defenceless and lacking in resources, have battled courageously against the grave effects that this disaster has had on coastal regions, the marine ecosystem and European fishing stocks.
Mr President, as chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, I should like to congratulate the Commission, and in particular Commissioner Loyola de Palacio, for her reaction to this incident, which has really shaken the whole of Europe.
We, as the Committee on Transport, are prepared to discuss the Commission communication on the question of safety at sea and, of course, we are likewise prepared to discuss, at a later date, the legal implications of this communication.
In addition, I should like to make a number of comments:
First, the Commission was right to concentrate its investigation on the liability of RINA, the Italian shipping register, because we need to know if Community law was applied.
That should be the starting point for our efforts.
Secondly, apart from the shipowners' liability, it would be a good idea in such cases to examine the liability of the charterers, for example the oil companies which are also responsible for causing ecological disasters like this and, of course, for restoring the damage.
Once we have done that, our reaction to the ecological disaster is fully justified.
However, this should not lead us to accuse the whole merchant marine, which is an important sector of the economy, covering as it does 1/3 of transport requirements, which is why our reaction needs to be measured: strict, but correct.
I have no objection to examining an amendment making Community law stricter but, as other members have stressed, we need to start with application, because there is already a legal framework at European Union level and we must not lose sight of that fact.
This legal framework is fairly advanced, at least if you compare it with what is happening at worldwide level and the Member States, under the supervision of the Commission, should endeavour to ensure that Community law is actually applied.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that the unfortunate incident involving the Erika should in fact, as others have said this afternoon, constitute a decisive watershed which will see the end to this type of accident in the European Union where, since 1967, there have been seventeen accidents involving large oil tankers; more than one every two years.
The economic and social damage, which we have spoken about today, in terms of the loss of jobs and fishing and tourist resources, is so great that they fully justify decisive and thorough action on the part of the Community institutions.
Commissioner, I would also like to thank you for the speedy response of your department to this event and the measures which are being adopted and implemented.
I trust that these measures will, in a few months, give rise to a clear and convincing legal instrument - a directive, possibly - which will put an end, once and for all, to these 21st Century pirates, who deprive us all of the wealth and beauty of the sea.
I would like to comment on one of the measures to be taken, which was mentioned by the Commissioner and some of my colleagues.
I am referring to the double hull, which consists of two layers of steel, with containers divided into two tanks.
Commissioner, there are many experts who consider that the double hull is not sufficiently safe and propose the so-called 'ecological hull' in which case, in the event of an accident, the seawater penetrates the containers and, as a result of pressure, the oil is transferred to other tanks.
Commissioner, I believe that it is time to opt for the safest technically possible measures.
It is therefore not sufficient to merely reproduce the legislation in force in other countries.
I believe that we can and must improve the existing legislation in this regard.
Any cost-benefit analysis which truly takes into account all the harm occasioned to persons and the environment by these accidents, is bound to support this approach.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that first we should all congratulate ourselves on the procedure that has been adopted and which will lead us, after each of our respective political groups has rallied together and expressed its feelings, finally to produce a joint resolution.
I think that given the dramatic circumstances, and as a matter of principle, it would be ill-advised and inappropriate to hold several votes.
On the other hand, Parliament is issuing a resolution in one vote, for which we can see the agreement amongst the various speakers who have preceded me. I think that this is an opportunity to put parliamentary pressure on the doubts or evasions of a few governments and I think that we are providing the Commission with a powerful political act for the preparation of a European maritime area.
I think that it is quite obvious, and this is the first conclusion that can be drawn from the Erika disaster, that public opinion would find it hard to understand that we regulate chocolate but do not regulate maritime transport.
Public opinion would find it hard to understand that we talk about a common judicial area, common airspace, a common rail area and a single market, but not a common maritime area.
I therefore believe that this is a project which must be opened up with the absolute will to see it followed through and followed through in concrete terms.
The Commissioner has suggested three main chapters which need to be drafted and brought into line with our legislation, in which we can set standards.
I have also noted, to my great satisfaction, that even the groups advocating greater national sovereignty, or the eurosceptic groups are calling for Europe to regulate, and I think that this is in fact the right level to take action.
We sometimes regulate things which could, by and large, remain subsidiary.
In this area we must respond to public opinion.
This is extremely important and everyone should feel concerned because we are, when all is said and done, on the global scale merely a peninsula.
Therefore, once our legislation has been brought into line, we must follow this up immediately with appropriate law. We must also put in place systematic controls and finally apply the 'polluter pays' principle of responsibility which is, of course, supposed to be a deterrent.
I have almost finished and I would like to say that I have personally requested a public hearing of the Committee on Transport, which would enable us to provide an immediate follow-up to the Erika case and to suggest possible future considerations.
I hope that all political groups will support us in our request for a public hearing.
Mr President, the oil tanker Erika, the ownership of which is veiled by accommodation addresses on Malta and probably in Italy and Greece and which was hired by Total-Fina for the transport of oil, foundered off the Breton coastline, with disastrous consequences.
The implications for the environment and for the flora and fauna of the European maritime environment are enormous.
The cause of the disaster must be sought in the weakened structure of the oil tanker.
So people are doubtful about the safety of ships which carry dangerous or polluting goods.
The International Maritime Organisation has issued international rules in this connection.
States can carry out port inspections.
In Europe, legislation is stricter and it is compulsory to inspect 25% of the incoming vessels according to the port-state control directive.
However, it seems that none of the Member States meets this figure due to a lack of inspectors. It is clear that there is no lack of legislation.
In my opinion, the Commissioner is quite right.
Where the scheme falters is in the enforcement of existing legislation.
But how are we now going to enforce this if there is indeed a lack of inspectors, esteemed European Commission?
Can the Commission provide an assurance that Directive 93/75 concerning minimum requirements for vessels bound for or leaving Community ports and carrying dangerous or polluting goods will be implemented correctly in all Member States? Should its implementation not be more strictly monitored?
Would it not be beneficial, in the short term, following the Rotterdam model, to inspect according to a points system in which, for example, account is taken of the ship' s age, whether it is single or double-hulled or whether it sails under a flag of convenience.
In short, to give priority to older sub-standard ships over ships which meet all quality requirements.
The Erika was built at a Japanese shipyard and is single-hulled. There are four more sister ships in service at present.
Construction of this type of ship was halted at the time because the risk of rusting was especially high.
Some of them also sail under the Maltese flag. Are we waiting for the next accident to happen?
Would sanctions not be appropriate, as the Commissioner stated, for the classification society? RINA is currently the talk of the town.
Malta is entering the accession negotiations.
In my opinion, the European Union can only accept Malta if it is guaranteed that the Maltese flag will sail without an accident in future.
I would be grateful if you could be disciplined since we are running out of time, and this delay is going to limit the time available for Questions to the Commission.
Mr President, just before I went down into the Chamber, I received an e-mail with a quite emotional description from a Swedish woman who had chosen to spend New Year' s Eve on the French coast in Brittany instead of staying at home and celebrating with her relatives.
Like many other hundreds of volunteers, she had seen the destruction, washed birds and cleaned up after the people responsible who were not to be found on the coast on those evenings and nights when they really should have been required to be there.
Like so many others, I too wonder where the people responsible are.
Where are the shipowners and those who order the shipments when these disasters occur? Perhaps it might be time for us to begin to consider establishing a common environmental authority which could deal with this type of crime.
This is not the first time we have seen oil slicks, whether intentional or unintentional.
(The President cut the speaker off)
I would like to thank Mrs Grossetête and her colleagues for bringing this motion before Parliament.
The environmental disaster of the sinking of the Erika off Brittany and the spillage of 10 000 tonnes of oil has been widely reported in the British media.
Although Britain and France have had their differences recently, I can assure you that there is considerable sympathy in my country for all those affected.
TV pictures of the damage done to your coastline and wildlife, in particular birds and the already dwindling fish stocks, have brought back memories of similar British disasters, such as the Torrey Canyon in 1967, and have prompted many British volunteers to help.
I salute these joint efforts to repair the damage.
This is clearly a problem for all EU coastlines which will require imaginative solutions.
Instead of allowing the costs of these disasters to fall on the communities most affected and insurance markets such as Lloyds of London, we must develop new technologies to retrieve from the sea much more than 10% of the lost oil.
There is currently little financial incentive for this when the insurance market picks up the tab.
Ultimately, the polluter must pay.
In addition we must build on the Council directive dealing with enforcement of international standards for ship safety and pollution prevention by ensuring that the inspection goal of 25% of ships calling at EU ports is met and that a high standard of inspection is delivered.
Moreover, although I am not opposed to shipowners registering their vessels in their country of choice, I believe there is a need for stricter application of international regulations.
Rather than banning flags of convenience, which would violate the right of every sovereign state to have a merchant fleet, under the 1995 EU directive on port state control, national maritime authorities must impose more effective sanctions on flag states which fail to carry out their international treaty obligations.
I sincerely hope that, particularly during the French presidency later this year, the Commission and the Council will look carefully at all these options, and I heartily commend this resolution to Parliament.
Mr President, firstly I would like to express my very sincere thanks, not only for the initiatives of the different groups, of Mrs Grossetête and the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats, but also for the initiatives of Mr Wurtz and the Confederal Group of the United Left/Nordic Green Left, who proposed this debate, which has led to a positive and important discussion.
Before the end of March, I propose to present a communication in which I will possibly present legislative texts, that is to say, amendments of specific directives so that discussions may begin in the Council and in Parliament.
I would like to tell you that, in fact, it is not just an environmental problem - it is a very important environmental problem - but it is also a very important social problem.
There are men and women who depend on fishing, gathering shellfish and the service or tourist industries in these coastal areas.
They are environmentally sensitive areas, but they are also sensitive from the point of view of social development and territorial equilibrium.
And therefore we must take the utmost care to prevent the recurrence of a similar situation.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt said that nothing had ever been done.
In fact, I believe that things have been done by the Commission, but there is still more to do.
This was demonstrated by the Americans who, after the Exxon Valdez disaster, within one year, adopted enormously rigorous and tough legislation, which threatens, as I said earlier, to divert ships unacceptable to American ports towards Europe.
In Europe, after the Amoco Cadiz, or the Urquiola on the Spanish coast, in 1976, or the Torrey Canyon, in the same year, or the many other cases there have been, we really began to legislate after 1994 and 1995, particularly in the last few years.
During these years, the emphasis has mainly been on the safety of passenger transport.
That is the reality.
In my opinion, we now have to make a significant and urgent effort to confront new problems, also deriving from American legislation, which emphasise the safety of the transport of dangerous goods in the maritime sector.
I have referred to a series of issues which I will lay out in more detail, if you wish, in an appearance before a special committee on this matter, or when I present the actual initiatives in the coming months.
My intention is - and I insist - for us to begin discussions after the end of March, also coinciding with the Council of Ministers, and, of course, before the end of the six-month period of the Portuguese Presidency, for us to have texts to discuss.
Flags of convenience are one problem, but are not the only one.
The Romanian flag is not a flag of convenience but, nevertheless, that country has an extremely high number of incidences at inspections; more than the countries with flags of convenience.
Malta and Cyprus have asked to join the Community.
We must be demanding on this issue and we are negotiating to this end.
This will oblige us to reconsider the registers in the European Union, and to deal with the notorious problem, which will no doubt arise again, of the aim of a Community register.
I believe that this will be difficult but, in any event, we should carry out a review of the registers of the European Union countries.
As for the inspections, very much a key question, the first thing we have to consider is how the current legislation has worked, as Mr Hatzidakis has said.
We already have legislation.
According to the information which the Commission services have given me, this legislation is not adequately applied in many Member States due to a lack of personnel, means and inspectors.
The problem is not that only 25% are inspected, but rather how we select, how we find, the ships which constitute the highest risk, through the age of the ships and the risk history of the flags.
Unfortunately, the 25% often consists of flags which are expected to fulfil the requirements: in this way inspections are quicker and the work is carried out more easily.
Therefore, more than making amendments, we will have to implement measures to control what is already being done, apart from some supplementary requirements with regard to reviews, especially in relation to the age of the different vessels.
And that is why we have SOLAS (the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea) and MARPOL (the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships), two conventions of the International Maritime Organisation which will eventually have to be made mandatory in all Member States of the Union and whose application will have to be monitored.
With regard to the question of Union inspectors, I believe that the principle of subsidiarity justifies the idea that these inspections be carried out by the Member States, which does not mean that the Commission does not have to ensure that the States carry out their duty adequately.
Lastly, I would like to stress the issue of liability.
Not only in terms of maximum sums insured, which I believe should be similar to those in the United States.
We have set a figure of USD 180 million; in the United States they are talking about USD 1 billion as a maximum ceiling for covering claims payments.
I believe we have to increase the current amount so as to move closer to levels in the United States, but that we also have to reconsider the sums insured on vessels and, therefore, the liability of shipowners, and also to hold liable those who charter ships, which is to say the owners of the cargo.
Unless we require that the owners of the cargo be held liable, we will never, in my opinion, resolve these problems.
I will end now. I will not expand further.
We will have the opportunity to do so on other occasions.
But, obviously, as some speakers have said - and I thank all of you for your totally positive and relevant interventions - we cannot allow a situation where, within one, two or three years, we have to say once again that we have not done what we should have done.
As for me, I can say, after having debated it in the College of Commissioners, that the Commission is prepared to present the necessary legislative measures, amendments and directives to Parliament and the Council, in order to equip ourselves with the greatest possible level of safety.
The political will of this Parliament is required - and I can see that I can count on this - as well as that of the Council of Ministers.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
We have taken good note of your intentions.
I have received 8 motions for resolution, in accordance with Rule 37(2), to close the present Commission statement.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 p.m.
Storms in Europe
The next item is the Commission statement on the storms in Europe.
Mr Barnier has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
Commissioner, I would like to thank you for the ideas you have put forward, particularly on the very specific proposals concerning the people affected and who are expecting a lot from the European Union, in terms of the help that we can offer them.
In the days immediately following this terrible storm I wrote to you myself with a request for you to ask the French authorities to redraw the boundaries of Objective 2 so that all areas devastated by the storms in France and elsewhere could benefit from Objective 2.
I think that you must have done so, because you have not mentioned it.
In fact, we all know that anyone who does not live within the perimeter of an Objective 2 region will find it all but impossible to obtain aid.
We should therefore put this situation right immediately.
You also know that this will not only be a short-term problem, but also a medium and long-term one.
Let me explain.
I was in the region of Lorraine at the time of this terrible storm which destroyed around 20% of deciduous forest.
Indeed, for some 'forestry' districts, which have lost 20% of their trees, this represents a huge loss.
We know, for example, that it takes between 150 and 200 years for a tree to reach maturity, so the loss these towns will suffer will not be spread over one, two or five years, but over many more.
The towns concerned estimate that it will be spread over 40 years.
I think that consequently it will be extremely difficult indeed to compensate these rural towns through subsidies for losses in their financial revenues.
I think that this is something which we should continually bear in mind so that we do not lose sight of it in our various policies.
It is true that the problem of the forestry sector is an extremely complex one.
Indeed, you spoke of releasing funds for timber storage on the grounds that its price must not depreciate.
On the other hand, districts which have not been affected by the storms will also suffer, as the National Forestry Office has decided to freeze cuts in forestation for four years.
Those districts which have not suffered losses will therefore see their incomes decrease in any case.
I am telling you all of this to illustrate how complex the problem is, and I thank the Commission once again for extending their analysis of this situation as far as it could.
I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that, although there has indeed been an economic disaster, the real ecological catastrophes are still to come.
As you yourself said, Commissioner, these disasters or storms do not always have natural causes, and we think that these are the first signs of climate change.
We should therefore review our policies in order to take account of this fact.
Mr President, everyone who has travelled here by car, train or aeroplane, has been able to see the extent of the damage, particularly in France, caused by hurricanes of a completely unprecedented violence which struck Europe at the end of last month.
What can the Members of the European Parliament do when faced with such a widespread disaster? Firstly, I would like to pay tribute to the mayors and local representatives who, on a daily basis, have had to reassure their constituents, organise volunteers and cooperate with the public services.
They have earned the confidence of their fellow-citizens. Next, I would like to thank the emergency services and the armed forces of the Union' s Member States who, in a fine example of intergovernmental cooperation, came to support the efforts of their French colleagues.
I would also like to consider the paradoxical situation we have with regard to emergency aid.
If this disaster had taken place in Guatemala or Turkey, we could have immediately used the Community budget to help the victims, but in our own countries nothing of the kind is possible because there is no suitable budget line with which to do so.
We must also ask the Commission not to prevent local authorities and individual States from coming to the assistance of businesses affected by the disaster by applying Community competition rules too strictly.
I am thinking in particular here of fish and shellfish companies, which have been particularly badly hit.
As you said, Commissioner, we must ensure that there is compensation for the forced cessation in activity and that appeals can be made to FIFG for investments that have been totally wiped out.
Beyond this, I think that implementing MAGPs in a mechanical way will no longer be appropriate in the coastal regions that have been affected.
I therefore ask the Commission to stop doing so and, on the contrary, to help those who make their living from the sea to proceed to new investments, which they urgently need.
Mr President, the storms which devastated France during the night between 26 and 27 December have caused, as has been said, 90 deaths and damage to a value of FF 75 billion, i.e. EUR 11 billion.
Almost three weeks after the disaster, several thousand people were still without electricity and telephones, 500 000 hectares of forestry land, or 100 million cubic metres of forest, have been ruined, and our historical heritage has also been affected, as the sad example of the park at the Palace of Versailles demonstrates.
It seems quite natural that given such a disaster, national and European solidarity should go to the help of the devastated regions and those people who have been worst affected.
As the previous speakers have said, and as you said, Commissioner, in response to my fellow Member, Mr Martinez, with regard to another tragedy, the floods in November in the Southwest of France, you have certainly noted these disasters with concern, but all you are doing is pointing out that the budget line for emergency appropriations for natural disasters has been discontinued, which has resulted in this shocking paradox. This paradox, pointed out by the previous speaker, is that it is easier, a great deal easier, to offer help to victims of natural disasters outside the Union than within it.
We know full well that what you are doing, Commissioner, and that is, limiting yourself to giving us the hypothetical and remote possibility of benefiting from the Structural Funds of the new Objective 2 or from the provisional Objectives 2 or 5b.
These are the terms of the written answer you gave Mr Martinez on 11 January 2000. I can show you a copy if you wish.
We would understand completely if you were not able to say anything else given the irresponsible attitude not only of the Commission, but also of this Parliament, and if you cannot do anything because there is no legal or financial framework for doing so.
But for pity' s sake, and I am not saying this to you in an aggressive way, please do not present appropriations which have previously been earmarked under an unrelated regional policy as aid for victims of the storms.
As a matter of urgency, therefore, we must restore, within the framework of a supplementary budget, the budget line which was allocated to us for natural disasters.
We must use the Berlin Summit aid appropriations and we must change the forestry policy implemented in most countries in the Union. That, however, is another problem altogether.
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe has undergone a tough ordeal at the start of this millennium.
I would first like to express my heartfelt condolences to the families in mourning as a result of the appalling weather conditions that devastated Europe in December.
These storms were an unprecedented ecological disaster for our forests.
I hope you do not mind if I make particular mention of the forests in my region, Lorraine, which have suffered enormous destruction.
I would like to congratulate the regional authorities, the volunteers and the public services on the fantastic way in which they rallied round but, unfortunately, their troubles are not yet over.
It is Europe's duty to support them and thereby complement the efforts of the governments of Member States affected by the disaster.
I welcome Mr Barnier' s statement and I also welcome the measures which the Commission has announced.
I am certainly not forgetting the economic dimension of this matter, as the timber industry has been devastated and a whole population is suffering the tragic effects of this.
The Community action programme for civil protection, established by a Council decision on 9 December, was launched on 1 January 2000.
I ask Member States to grasp this opportunity. This programme must work at full capacity.
Although it may have been effective in certain areas - and I do not doubt the sincerity of Commissioner Barnier' s words - unfortunately it is still in its infancy when it comes to forestry.
Our priority, as we wait for Community-level funds to be freed up, is for material aid in terms of partnership exchanges between Member States.
It is therefore a matter of urgency to improve forest roads, and to repair them as quickly as possible.
Lending forestry equipment and making personnel qualified in forestry management available are also covered by this measure.
Our next challenge will be to prevent the occurrence of phytosanitary problems which could result from having to abandon large amounts of wood in the forest, and from the pollution of ground water through having to store such large quantities of wood.
Finally, it is essential that we slow down the logging of standing wood, in order to give priority to the purchase of windfalls.
These timber sales should be supported by strong media coverage in Member States.
This aid for gathering timber is, of course, only the first stage of an aid package, which will take the form of aid for reforestation and aid for the development of rural areas.
I ask the Commission to incorporate this into a study of how the situation should be managed now that the emergency is over.
This is a very sad opportunity for Europe to renew its forestry heritage in line with the role that this plays in wildlife and nature conservation and in our economies.
It is therefore a time for solidarity and cooperation between Member States in the face of an ecological and economic calamity.
If this solidarity is to have been worthwhile, it is up to Europe to propose priority actions for safeguarding the timber industry.
Hurricane "Lothar" should prompt us not to abide solely by the principle of undertaking repairs once the damage is done - something which is discussed at a very superficial level here -, but to switch to the precautionary principle, under the terms of which potential perpetrators are brought to book too.
Current programmes must be accelerated.
For example, as they stand, the Commission' s programmes will preclude us from meeting our obligations under Kyoto.
The trade in emissions rights is immoral to my mind and rather than solving the problem, it shelves it.
The entire taxation system must be given an environmental perspective in the medium term.
We must work more rapidly towards achieving the targets stipulated in the White Paper for renewable energy sources, as this would bring about a massive reduction in greenhouse gases.
The new Commission has not put forward nearly enough on this subject, and what it has put forward is woefully inadequate!
Commissioner, Mr President, Lothar was a quite ordinary name hitherto.
However, it has now achieved notoriety.
The hurricane of the same name swept across Europe claiming numerous victims, mainly in France and Germany, but also in Switzerland, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake.
The wind triumphed over electricity pylons, roofs, traffic signs and, ultimately over the forest.
We have heard that in a short space of time the storm left us with approximately 120 million cubic metres of solid timber, and this is only an estimate.
I have listened to you very attentively Commissioner, and welcome with open arms the fact that you are intending to go and see for yourself the effects the catastrophe has had in France and in Germany.
If Mrs Schreyer is to visit the Black Forest sometime in the next few days, then any one farmer might ask her how the Commission and Europe would be able to help him as an individual.
What would you say to the forestry manager if his enterprise happened not to be in an Objective 2 region, or in a 5b region? What answer will the Commission give, when it is on the scene, when you tell the forestry worker that we support road construction and dam-building, and we want to rebuild our cultural heritage and create tourist attractions etc.?
All this is well-intentioned advice. However, I come from an area in Northern Germany where the forestry industry predominates and I can tell you that we are already feeling the effects of the immense damage.
The thinning-out we need is not being attended to; the forests are not being tended to the requisite degree.
What we need the Commission to do as a matter of urgency is to approve national aid, so as to avoid the competition issue being raised again at a later date.
Mr President, Commissioner, permit me, first of all, to make reference to two facts.
Firstly, at the beginning of 1999, NATO, with the participation of most Member States of the European Union, flattened Kosovo with bombs in the name of freedom.
We are now endeavouring, at huge cost, to get the country back on its feet again and help its people, and rightly so.
Secondly, at the end of 1999 unbelievable storms raged bringing death and destruction to vast tracts of the EU.
The Commission in Brussels responded to the victims' cries for help with a shrugging of shoulders.
"We do not have the wherewithal for that," they said.
This is wrong!
And no one can comprehend this attitude. Certainly those who fear for their livelihood are at a complete loss.
The citizens of the European Union expect solidarity, also from within this Community.
I say they have a right to solidarity.
Indeed the European Parliament must make it its business to uphold this right in hours of need.
I urge the Commission not to keep having to be asked and to provide assistance for the victims of the storms.
It knows the ins and outs of aid provision better than any local organisation or authority.
I call upon you, ladies and gentlemen, to support me in bringing home to the Commission the fact that what most Brussels offices are lacking is not so much the wherewithal for providing aid as the good will.
Permit me one further comment.
Although it was less evident in the case of the consequences of the storm, the tanker disaster off the French coast has made it very clear that we need to give the Commission a helping hand on another matter.
The European Union needs rules governing environmental liability as a matter of urgency.
We can no longer tolerate a situation where the general public has to foot the bill for damage that has often been caused by individuals involved in criminal machinations.
We must make the perpetrators liable for all manner of damage done to our environment.
Then, for example, people will think twice before transporting oil in a tanker that is about to fall apart.
When, in 1994, over five years ago that is, I joined the Legal Affairs Committee in this Parliament, I became rapporteur for the environmental liability dossier.
To this day I am still awaiting an initiative from the Commission, which will actually enable me to start work.
It is a scandalous state of affairs that must be ended with all haste, and I hope that February does not see this dossier being postponed yet again!
Mr President, Commissioner, the storms that took place at the turn of the millennium should galvanise us into thinking about certain problems.
It has become clear that mankind continues to be unable to avoid natural disasters. There have always been natural disasters and there always will be.
Of course, there is a need for solidarity here.
There is certainly a need for European civil protection, and the EU budget must also provide for a budget line covering natural disasters.
But, most importantly, it is only ever man that makes the mistakes as far as the nature-mankind relationship is concerned - despite the fact that the same mistakes have often been made down through the centuries - and never nature, for nature cannot make mistakes.
The extent of the damage caused on this occasion was determined by the population density, the type of infrastructure, and, of course, the many monocultures, if we are talking forests.
Of course, I am in favour of providing assistance where we can.
But when it comes to aid, we ought to bear in mind that perhaps in future, more emphasis should be placed on laying electricity and telephone cabling underground.
We must take account of smaller cycles and plant stable mixed woodland when undertaking reforestation, rather than monocultures.
The most important subject for discussion in this context is the climate.
To this day, we in Europe remain in the privileged position of having the Gulf Stream, and the Gulf Stream still does its stuff.
America and south-east Asia are having a much worse time of it as far as climate and storms go.
We are fortunate in having the Gulf Stream.
But in common with others, we too are having to endure the greenhouse effect. This is partly the work of human hand, as difficult as it is to demonstrate climate change using calculations.
We must take more account of the guidelines produced at the Kyoto environmental conference.
We must reduce CO2 emissions, employ renewable energies, and generally make enquiries, in this connection, as to how the forests of Europe are faring.
Mr President, I think we should firstly express our sorrow for the victims.
This is an irreparable loss.
Secondly, we welcome the solidarity between the French departments and citizens, and the solidarity of other countries with France, which is the country worst affected.
As I have little time, Mr President, I would like to touch upon two elements of our resolution.
I believe that the first one was implicitly recognised by the Commissioner in his speech when he wondered whether these catastrophes are natural or not.
That is to say that experts are ever more convinced that climate change and human activities, in general terms, are linked to the increase seen in natural disasters in recent years.
In fact, over the last decade, the temperature has risen more than in the rest of the century.
Therefore Europe must be clearly committed to the Kyoto Protocol and make specific proposals.
Secondly, I was rapporteur for civil protection in Europe and I completely agree with the Commissioner' s proposal to create a European civil protection body.
Furthermore, we should utilise an extraordinary budget line, since this is an extraordinarily catastrophic situation.
First of all, we would like to express sympathy with all the families and communities that lost members in this terrible tragedy.
It is really the loss of life that makes this particular disaster an extraordinary one by European standards.
It is regrettable that we do not have any instrument with which to give assistance in situations like this.
I want to thank the Commissioner for his comprehensive statement on the subject and his suggestion that we might indeed organise ourselves at European level to give assistance to Member States and regions that have tragedies like this.
That is important.
The other thing we should remember is that we did have a budget line in the past. It was very small.
It was not able to do very much but it was repeatedly abused by Members of this House proposing action when the disasters were not even major.
Officials and ministers from Member States were coming to Brussels, whispering with the Commission and getting a few euros and making a political point by bringing aid back to their constituencies.
So there was not much sympathy for this budget line when it was abolished.
I think we should reinstate this budget line.
When we had the earthquake in Greece, which was a big disaster, the Community had no instrument with which to offer its sympathy or solidarity to the Greeks.
The same when the floods came in France and the same again now.
These are major disasters, we should have an instrument, we do not have it.
We should reinstate that instrument and we should make the rules tight so that only in situations where grave disasters occur will we call up this particular instrument.
We can save it from year to year and ensure that when something major happens we have an instrument to deal with it.
We did not have it so bad in Ireland this time although we have had many serious wind storms on the Atlantic.
We had floods in Ireland also and I want to express my sympathy with the people in Ireland who suffered from these.
Ladies and gentlemen, none of us must forget what has taken place.
It is true that there was a joint decision by the Council and Parliament seeking to discontinue emergency lines. It is also true that there is a lot of European money around.
Commissioner Barnier has pointed out that oyster farming and agriculture would be eligible under Article 30 of the regulation concerning rural development, forestry would be eligible under Article 33, companies would be eligible under exemptions from the competition law stated in Article 87(2) of the Treaty and public facilities would be eligible under the Structural Funds.
It is nevertheless the case that not a penny more than what was allocated before the storm will now be freed up to demonstrate practical, active solidarity.
It is nothing more than the States playing at taking from Peter in order to give to Paul.
This is inadequate, and I am personally delighted that Mr Barnier has stated an idea close to my heart and which, moreover, I expressed when I told the press in Bordeaux what I am hoping for, and that is the establishment of a reinforced policy of European civil security.
If the European citizenship that we all want to see is to come into being, if the mandate that our President, Mrs Fontaine has staked on a closer relationship between the Union and Europe' s citizens is to be effective, our citizens must be able to feel that we are acting with some urgency.
I therefore believe that a European civil protection force, real civil relief blue helmets, who would go to areas in difficulty within the Union, as we currently have no emergency procedure, but also outside the Union if needs be, in Venezuela or anywhere else, is something that we should hope to see.
I would like to tell Commissioner Barnier that in me he has an active ally for this idea which strikes me as noble and truly European in spirit.
Mr President, Commissioner, when we compare the frequency with which storms occur in other parts of the world with our own situation, we see that Europe gets off relatively lightly.
Nevertheless, the storms that took place in the last week of December showed us what the consequences can be and that there are major problems in store for us.
Anyone travelling to Strasbourg by car or by rail would have been able to see for themselves that storms raged in Alsace as well.
I would therefore like to extend my sympathy to all those citizens in the regions where the storms raged so furiously, and at the same time, from my position here in this Chamber, point to how important it is to support these regions and people.
Each and every one of us knows that any other region of Europe could meet with just such a fate tomorrow.
What we need to do now is to deal with the fallen timber as swiftly as possible. For it is common knowledge that we could have an even greater disaster on our hands if the fallen timber were to be left in the forests too long.
For instance, it should be pointed out that fallen timber provides the best breeding ground for the bark beetle' s larvae, and we are not yet in a position to assess the repercussions this will have.
That is why it is absolutely essential to deal with the fallen timber before the warmer weather arrives.
Decades will have gone by before we are able to determine the true extent of the damage sustained by the forestry industry. For we all know how long it takes a tree to grow.
The calculations are in decades rather than years.
In addition, I would like to point out that the forestry industry is certainly not just about timber production, for barrier woodland and woodland that acts as a shield against avalanches also constitute an important factor in certain regions.
I am therefore very proud to say that the skilled Austrian forestry workers are also prepared.....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I extend our deepest sympathy to all of those who were affected by the storms.
Sometimes within the Community we do not actually have an awareness of what is happening in other countries.
We had very little coverage in Ireland of the tanker that sank.
I was asked to highlight the result of the storms in Ireland.
We had high winds and unprecedented, prolonged rainfall which, adding to existing difficulties, resulted in thousands of acres being submerged, sometimes, in up to 15 feet of water.
We experienced the human misery of flooded homes and farms, no sanitation, no drinking water and the environmental disasters of E.coli-infected water.
I talked with farmers whose ewes were aborting their lambs due to drinking the infected water.
Natural habitats were destroyed.
So I ask that Ireland be remembered in this particular case.
I thank the Commissioner and support him very much in his European protection force.
Mr President, Commissioner, I second all those who expressed their solidarity with the storm victims.
I would just like to point again to the impact on the forestry industry throughout Europe.
For the storms will have major implications for the forestry industry in all areas of Europe, and I believe we need, in the long-term, to give thought to how problems of this kind are to be dealt with in future.
We certainly do not want market organisation for forests, but maybe we should set up a system, perhaps in conjunction with the private insurance sector, which will make it possible to mitigate the implications for the victims in some way.
Unfortunately, we can expect there to be repeat performances of this kind of major disaster in the future.
As has already been mentioned here, there are indications - no proof, but clear indications - that the increase in storms world-wide has to do with the climate catastrophe.
Of course, the scientists do not all see eye to eye on this yet, but the majority of them are fairly convinced that if we continue to emit greenhouse gases as we are doing, these storms will, of course, hit us much harder still at the dawn of this new century.
I believe now is the right time for us to think back once again to a proposal put forward in this Chamber by a former fellow MEP of ours, Tom Spencer.
He suggested that rather than giving storms the names of men or women, we should name them after the perpetrators of the greenhouse effect - he proposed the oil companies at the time.
However, an exception should certainly be made in the case of Shell and BP, for they have changed policy and do not just base their sales on fossil fuels which are damaging to the climate, rather they also invest in forms of energy that have future viability.
We must be aware of this connection; I do not support those who make sweeping statements to the effect that the greenhouse effect is to blame for this storm, but one thing we can be relatively certain of is that we have reason to fear further catastrophes if we do not soon alter our course!
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken at noon on Thursday.
Food safety
The next item is the communication on food safety and a statement by the Commission.
Mr President, I am very pleased to take this first available opportunity of outlining to Parliament the main lines of the Commission's White Paper on food safety, adopted on Wednesday last, 12 January, in association with my colleague, Mr Liikanen.
At my hearing last September, I promised speedy delivery of this White Paper.
I am happy that we have been able to deliver so quickly.
The White Paper represents three to four months of intensive work since the new Commission was appointed last September.
It takes on board the extensive consultations of the past couple of years since the Commission's Green Paper on food law was published.
Equally it reflects our experiences of recent food alerts in such areas as dioxin and sludge, as well as the BSE crisis.
The White Paper also reflects the concerns of this Parliament which you have outlined to both President Prodi and myself on the numerous occasions we have debated food safety in this House since the Commission was appointed.
I do not need to remind you that consumer confidence in Europe's food safety regime has been badly affected by the crises and alerts of recent years and months.
The Commission is fully committed to restoring that confidence by putting in place the most up-to-date and effective food safety regime in the world.
When I launched the White Paper last week I said that the shopping trolley is one of the most potent weapons on the face of the earth.
The most discerning decisions are made by the consumers of Europe.
If their confidence is damaged this is reflected in shopping decisions. This in turn has a dramatic effect on farmers, producers and industry generally.
In an industry worth some EUR 600 billion annually, even a slight dip in confidence levels can have significant effects.
Between the agro-food sector and the farming sector there are over 10 million employees.
High levels of confidence are necessary to boost job numbers and competitiveness.
This crisis of confidence has also had the unfortunate but inevitable effect of eroding the trust of consumers in the systems and institutions at national and European level that should monitor and assure the highest standards of food safety.
In saying all of this, I would like to make it clear that Europe nevertheless has one of the best food industries in the world and also one of the safest food control systems.
The challenge is to make the system the very best.
The overall objective therefore of the White Paper on food safety is to put in place the necessary legislation and structures that will guarantee the highest possible level of health protection for consumers arising from the consumption of food.
We are setting out a challenging and ambitious agenda for change.
The Commission will need the full support of Parliament if we are to achieve our ambitions on schedule.
We will also need the fullest support from the Council and other key stakeholders.
The White Paper on food safety outlines a comprehensive range of actions needed to complement and modernise existing EU food legislation.
All of these measures are designed to make it more coherent, understandable and flexible.
We want to promote better enforcement of that legislation and to provide greater transparency to consumers.
The detailed action plan on food safety in the White Paper sets a precise timetable for action over the next three years.
Over 80 measures are envisaged.
Our objective is to put in place a coherent and up-to-date body of food law by the end of 2002.
We are also envisaging the establishment of a European food authority by 2002 as an essential complement to the new food safety regime.
This idea will be the focus of much scrutiny and debate.
It has already attracted much comment, including reactions from Members of Parliament.
The chapter of the White Paper devoted to the establishment of a European food authority is clearly designed to elicit views and comments.
We are seeking views by the end of April on what we envisage.
I will return to this process of consultation in a few moments.
The Commission believes that major structural change is required in our system of food safety to ensure the twin objectives of assuring the highest standard of food safety and restoring consumer confidence.
Why should a European food authority be an essential part of that structure of change? The first key concern is independence.
Key stakeholders, including consumers, are seeking a system that is independent and perceived to be independent of all vested interests.
We must also ensure excellence and transparency.
We have made a lot of progress over the past couple of years since the reformed system of scientific advice was adopted as a consequence of the BSE crisis.
However, the Commission believes that we must go further.
We must create a permanent and truly independent, excellent and transparent system of risk assessment.
The key task of the authority will be risk assessment in the area of food safety.
We envisage that the work of the existing five Scientific Committees devoted to food safety will be transferred to the authority.
They may not be transferred in their present form or structure - this is an issue on which we will elicit views before making our definitive proposals on the authority's establishment.
However, if we were merely to propose a simple moving of deckchairs, this would clearly not be enough.
As the White Paper makes clear, the new authority must be a value-added structure.
I am of the view that the existing system of scientific advice needs to be strengthened.
Within the authority I envisage much stronger scientific and other support for the independent scientists.
I am also envisaging that the authority will be much more proactive than our current regime - anticipate rather than react, identify issues before they become crises.
This proactive approach should become the hallmark of the authority.
To be proactive the White Paper identifies a number of new areas that would be embraced by the authority. These include a comprehensive information gathering and surveillance function, the coordination of scientific information in the EU, and building up strong networks with food safety agencies and bodies in Member States.
As part of its remit we also envisage the authority operating an enhanced rapid alert system for food and feed concerns.
The Commission has decided that it is neither appropriate nor feasible to devolve risk management power to the authority.
We believe that decisions in the risk management area should properly remain the preserve of the Commission, Parliament and Council.
I make no apology for this approach; I firmly believe that it is the correct one.
Certainly there are those who would argue that we should give law-making powers to such an authority.
I do not accept those views and reject them with some degree of passion.
It was only last year that the Treaty was amended to give Parliament a much greater role in the legislative process.
To give such a role to an authority at this stage would be, in my view, a retrograde step and represent a dilution of democratic accountability.
I will be very interested to hear the views of Parliament itself in relation to this matter.
There are also those who argue that the Commission could effectively ignore the advice of the new authority. I also reject this line of argument.
How could a Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection reject or ignore well-founded independent scientific advice in relation to food safety?
Would this be in the interests of Europe's citizens? In my view, most definitely not unless such rejection of the scientific arguments were soundly based, rationally argued and fully justified.
It seems difficult to envisage such a situation evolving.
I can assure you here today that the Commission, in exercising its risk management functions, will fully take account of the scientific advice of the authority.
I have already said that the authority will be charged with developing networks with national food safety agencies and bodies in the Member States. This is a major task.
We must develop greater certainty in the science that underpins food safety in the European Union.
The authority must become the authoritative source of scientific advice and information on food safety issues.
This situation will not come about by the very creation of the authority but will evolve over time as confidence is gained in the authority itself.
I do not believe we can be prescriptive in the area of science and advice based on science.
However, with the evolution of dynamic networks with national scientific bodies and agencies, the authority will become pre-eminent on the European stage.
I am also anxious to hear the views of Parliament in this regard.
As an integral part of a value-added structure, the White Paper proposes that the authority would have a major role in risk communication: to disseminate complex scientific information in a consumer-friendly way; to be the obvious and indispensable port of call for the most up-to-the-minute data on risk; to be highly visible; to tell the good news story about food; to be proactive.
The White Paper also contains very important proposals in respect of controls.
This is a hugely important component of the system of checks and balances to ensure that Member States and operators are complying with Community legislation.
I want to see a genuine internal market operating in the control arena.
In this context we are also proposing to strengthen significantly the control function carried out by the food and veterinary office located in Dublin.
This revised Community framework would have three core elements: operational criteria set up at Community level, Community control guidelines, and enhanced administrative cooperation in the development and operation of control.
As part of our proposals in this area - which I expect to bring forward at the end of this year - I will be examining whether additional powers in addition to infringement procedures need to be given to the Commission.
These could include withholding Community financial support or recouping funding already committed to a Member State.
These proposals must be seen as part of our mission to have the highest food safety standards in the world, boost consumer confidence and increase markets for farmers and producers in the Union.
In addition to the proposals for a new European food authority and an enhanced control system at Community-level, the White Paper proposes an action plan with a wide range of measures to improve and bring coherence to the Community's legislation, covering all aspects of food products from farm to table.
It sets out over 80 separate actions that are envisaged over the period ahead and intends to close identified loopholes in current legislation.
The new legal framework will cover animal feed, animal health and welfare, hygiene, contaminants and residues, novel food, additives, flavourings, packaging and irradiation.
It will include a proposal on general food law which will embody the principles of food safety such as responsibility of feed manufacturers, farmers and food operators, traceability of feed, food and ingredients, proper risk analysis through, for instance, risk assessment - that is, scientific advice and information analysis - risk management - that is, regulation and control - risk communication, and application of the precautionary principle if and when appropriate.
As regards the precautionary principle, I might add that the Commission is currently finalising a communication which I expect to be adopted very soon.
I look forward to having a useful exchange of views this afternoon with the Members of Parliament who would clearly have preferred to do this last week if there had been an appropriate parliamentary forum available.
However, having regard to my contacts with the presidents of the relevant committees, I recognise that this was not feasible.
But I know too that we will have many further opportunities in the coming months to consider the White Paper's proposals on the authority.
We now have a number of months to have the necessary debate on the Commission's ideas on the White Paper on the establishment of a European food authority.
Parliament will have a key part to play in this debate. Parliament played a crucial role in Europe's response to the BSE crisis.
It has especially active since then in bringing citizens' concerns about food safety issues to the fore.
I expect that Parliament's contribution to the debate on the authority can be as incisive and constructive.
While we have a number of months to the end of April to debate the issue and garner our views, I recognise fully that this is also a very tight timeframe.
I would therefore ask Parliament to make appropriate arrangements to ensure that its views can be formulated as quickly as possible.
It is essential that the Commission should have the benefit of Parliament's contribution to the shaping of what would be a key component of raising consumer health protection to a new plane and thereby restoring consumer confidence in the European Union's food safety regime.
The European food authority will be a key ingredient in the EU's food safety regime in the years ahead.
It is essential that we get the mix right.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his statement.
I would like to welcome the division of labour that you have made and that food management will remain the responsibility of the European institutions, including the Commission and Parliament.
That is very much the right approach.
But there is one word that I have not heard you mention here tonight.
I hope that we can thrash this out.
We need a body of food law, as you have said, and we need to agree this together.
It is very important that we include liability in that process.
That is the one word I am talking about.
The problem so far is that taxpayers paid when something went wrong.
That cannot continue.
When we have a crisis we have to clearly identify in advance that if there is a problem, those responsible are liable.
Mr President, it is a very worthwhile White Paper and you will not hear a word from me on the food safety authority. My questions relate to the positive list for animal feed.
You are unclear about this in your White Paper. What is your schedule, how long will it take you to produce a positive list?
When will the same requirements be applied to animal feed and the production thereof as apply to the production of food and the monitoring thereof?
The final part of my question is as follows: when will BSE testing be binding in all Member States? That is another point, i.e. the question of obligation, which you were somewhat unclear on in your White Paper.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your statement.
I think the lines that you have set up regarding the Food Safety Authority are a recognition of reality.
The Member States would not accept a regulatory agency, so there is not very much point in your proposing one.
Some sectors of the food industry clearly need better regulation and that is clear on the issue of feed and animal feedingstuffs.
However, as chairman of a committee which looks as though it will be concerning itself almost entirely with food over the next three years, I have to ask: if Europe has the safest food control system, as you have said, why do we need 24 new directives and regulations and 20 new amending directives?
Secondly, will this not compound the problem of over-regulation from Brussels and under-implementation in the Member States? We look forward to a fruitful dialogue with you on this.
Regarding enlargement: what plans does the Commission have to involve the applicant states in debates on these new laws, given that the Commission clearly expects the laws envisaged in the White Paper to form part of the acquis communautaire by 2003?
Commissioner, the ignorance of certain Member States has landed us in a major food crisis here in Europe, and I am afraid that once more I have cause to be angry at the fact that again no Members of the Council are in attendance, and that on the day that you present your interesting report.
What I would very much like you to tell me is how you intend to guarantee that a new authority of this kind, whatever name it goes by, will be given influence over the Council, who in this authority will have the say in matters, and who will issue orders.
Of course, we are not in a position to dictate anything in terms of content, but I would insist on Parliament retaining the rights accorded it under Maastricht and Amsterdam, and even extending them.
I very much fear that we are to have yet another authority that flies through Europe anonymously like a satellite; an authority of this kind would be anathema to me and I hope it does not come to that.
I also welcome the White Paper.
But do you envisage that the Food Safety Agency will have enough teeth to prevent something like the beef war that we have had and France's refusal to lift the ban? You mentioned the Commission being able to withhold grants and subsidies from countries who are acting in the way that France is acting.
Would you also propose that the Commission could give interim payments for instance, similar to the one that the British farmers are asking for at the moment?
Mr President, you said during last week' s information session that it was your view that any future EU food agency should not be located on the periphery, but you did not mention what that periphery was.
For example, the work of the EU unit located in Dublin has shown that physical distance is no barrier these days to communication and having an effective influence on matters.
It has been suggested that the most important tasks of a future food authority will be to gather, publish and coordinate data, make recommendations for improved food safety, and - as you said - collect scientific data and popularise that information for consumers.
All this will be managed with the help of modern technology in any area of the European Union.
I would ask you on what you base your ideas for a location?
In relation to the makeup of the authority: first of all it will employ in-house scientists who will liaise with and consult with scientists who are experts in the particular field that is being considered at any particular time.
In addition to that, the food safety authority will have a board.
You will notice in the White Paper that we have not been specific about the makeup of that board.
This is an issue which I expect will be discussed between Parliament and the Commission over the next few weeks and months.
I envisage that the board's membership will be made up from stakeholders or representatives of stakeholders.
Its function will have to be set out in detail in the proposal I will bring to the Commission in September.
We have not done that yet but it will be done in September.
I do not expect that the board will have any function in directing the scientists how to do their work.
That would erode the independence of the scientific advice.
But it would have an overall remit, particularly, for instance, in requesting the authority to investigate particular areas requiring research.
Mr Florenz asks whether Parliament will have a say in that.
That is an issue for consideration and discussion.
There may be a number of views on that.
Some may take the view that it would be inappropriate for Parliament or Members of Parliament - or indeed Parliament nominees - to be members of the board.
Others may take the view that it would be a valuable exercise if Parliament, through nominees or even MEPs themselves, were able to have an opportunity to discuss what issues should be investigated.
It is an issue for consideration but it has not been ruled out.
Mr Florenz also raised the question of anonymity.
I am happy that he raised it because it is particularly important for this authority to have a high profile.
It must be visible.
It must be known.
Consumers in the European Union must know of the existence of the food authority.
The CEO of the authority would be somebody who typically would be known, who might appear regularly on television talking about issues relating to food, particularly in relation to the good news stories surrounding food in relation to nutrition, diet and such issues, so that if another food crisis comes along consumers will be aware of the existence of the authority.
They will be aware that they have heard from the authority before under other circumstances and hopefully will have some bedrock of confidence already built up in the pronouncements from the authority.
It is fundamentally essential therefore that the authority is not anonymous.
It must be visible.
I will do everything I can to promote that high profile role for the authority.
Mrs Lynne asks whether the authority will have sufficient teeth.
I suspect that the question is focused on the issue of where the competence of the authority begins and ends and where the competence and authority of food safety agencies in Member States begin and end.
There would have to be an interaction at scientific level.
Quite clearly it is undesirable to have situations develop whereby scientists working for, or advising, the food safety authority at Community level may be in disagreement with some scientific opinion at Member State level.
That is an undesirable situation, we do not want that situation in the future.
There are a number of things that undermine consumer confidence - lack of information is one.
But information which includes a fundamental disagreement between scientists on core issues relating to food safety is also an issue of serious concern.
We must attempt to avoid that and establish the structures so as to ensure that there is a proper dissemination of information between scientists, that there is full consultation and discussion and that the authority at Community level has the opportunity and is mandated to seek the advice and opinion of independent scientists in all Member States and indeed maybe even beyond, where experts are to be found elsewhere.
Over time, as I said a moment ago, not only will the profile of the authority be raised but its expertise, its moral authority will be increased and enhanced over a period of time so that its views are accepted and not challenged.
This situation can be achieved over a period of time.
You cannot legislate for consumer confidence. It is something that is earned over a period of time.
However, the Commission will have the possibility of seeing that the opinions of the Authority on scientific matters are enforced by way of passing legislation which is the function of the Commission, Parliament and Council.
I realise that this is a somewhat time-consuming exercise but, nonetheless, the establishment of legislation arising out of the opinions of the Authority is - I believe - the way forward.
Any failure to comply with legislation is a matter that can be dealt with in the courts in the normal way.
One of the issues that we may have to address over time is the question of the speed of response in such circumstance.
I hope to see if something can be put in place to get us a faster response from the court process.
In relation to grants and subsidies: yes, consideration has been given to that issue.
It will require the advice of legal services and that will be sought, particularly bearing in mind that it may provide a speedy response to a failure to comply with Community law pending a court ruling.
In relation to Mrs Lynne's question on interim payments: that is a matter that might very well be addressed by Parliament as it relates to budget issues.
Mrs Myller then asked me about the location of the Authority.
No decision has been taken in relation to that other than to say that it is more likely that the Authority will be located centrally rather than on the periphery.
I recognise that the FEO is located in Dublin and, although I come from that part of the world myself, I have to accept that it is not the centre of Europe!
But the FVO is in quite a different situation from the Food Safety Authority.
The FVO is made up of independent scientists and vets and so on who travel from some location where there is an airport - quite clearly we have an airport in Dublin.
The Food Safety Authority's situation is quite different.
It has to be close to the Commission because of the need for interaction between the scientists involved in the Food Safety Authority and those of us who are involved in the initiation of legislation.
An important part of the communication between the two institutions will obviously be to ensure that those of us who are involved in the drafting of legislation understand clearly and perfectly what it is the scientists mean, what problems they have identified, what legislation is necessary to deal with the issues they raise.
Equally, the scientists will wish to have some input into the legal process or the policy-making process or the law-drafting process, to ensure that the legislation meets the ills that they have identified.
It seems to me desirable for an authority of this type to be centrally located.
Scientists will be employed in-house but it will also be necessary to liaise with scientists on a consultative basis and, in those circumstances, as scientists will have to travel, it is probably better that they move to a central location, once again where the parliamentary structures and the Commission and Council are based.
That is my judgement at the moment.
It may be a matter for discussion here and elsewhere and I will listen to any suggestions that are made but my preliminary conclusion is that this Authority should be located centrally rather than on the periphery.
Colleagues, I am in a very difficult position because I cannot change the agenda.
I would suggest to you to take this matter up with your political groups and raise it in the Conference of Presidents.
If you feel that these sessions after a Commission statement are important, I would suggest that we require more time than the half-hour that is allocated to them.
On this occasion we have had six minutes of questions from the floor of the House and we have had 29 minutes of response by the Commissioner, and his statement.
As you can see, half-an-hour is not really anything like enough time for such a session.
I hope you might discuss this in your political groups so that we can have a better structured session with the Commission on such future occasions.
That concludes the debate.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0003/2000). We will examine questions to the Commission.
We will dedicate approximately one hour and fifteen minutes to Question Time.
We will cut back our time a little because the interpreters are working today in continuous session.
Mr Purvis has the floor for a procedural motion.
I object to the fact that we are cutting back the time for Question Time; it is one of the few occasions when backbenchers have a chance to get their time on the floor and I do ask you to extend it to one and a half hours as is on the agenda.
That is the agenda and I think that we should stick to the agenda.
The fact is that the agenda said that we would begin at 5.30 p.m., and you can see the clock.
I hope that we do not go on into the evening session in any event.
First Part
Question No 28 by (H-0781/99):
Subject: Construction of nuclear plant in earthquake-prone Turkey The two recent earthquakes in Turkey registering more than 7 on the Richter scale raise tremendous doubts about Turkey's persistence with the construction of costly nuclear reactors at Akkuyu, while energy reserves produced by the Atatürk dams are exported to third countries and the EU spends a slice of its budget on repairing the damage wrought by the earthquakes.
Turkey's nuclear plans ? which ignore the risks to the population and ecosystems of Turkey and the surrounding region ? prompt the suspicion that there are underlying plans previously determined by Turkey's political and military leaders to acquire nuclear technology enabling them to build nuclear weapons, as evidenced by their attempts to buy reactors of Canadian origin of the type acquired by India and Pakistan.
What steps will the Commission take to prevent nuclear accidents and the proliferation of nuclear weapons in a country that wishes to join the EU but spends enormous amounts on nuclear programmes while receiving financial aid from the EU budget?
Mr Verheugen has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
The Commission is following with interest the planned construction of a nuclear power plant in Akkuyu, Turkey and recognises the importance of ensuring that the construction of the new plant follows the highest internationally accepted nuclear safety standards.
According to our information, the decision on the selection of a bidder has not been taken yet.
The Commission acknowledges the fact that Turkey has signed and ratified the convention on nuclear safety and recognises that the responsibility for granting licences and regulating the siting, construction, commissioning, operation and decommissioning of nuclear power plants in Turkey rests entirely with the Turkish Atomic Energy Authority.
The Commission does not have a mandate to impose any limits on decisions taken by any country in terms of energy production, including the nuclear option.
As Commissioner Wallström indicated during the hearings in the European Parliament in September 1999, the Commission will bring up the issue of nuclear safety and radiation protection in any relevant meeting with the Turkish Government in the future and I am happy to inform you that I will have a meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister in a couple of days and will certainly raise the issue.
In particular, the Commission is aware of the public concerns about the recorded seismic activity in the area of the Ecemis fault line located in the vicinity of the proposed plant site.
According to information received from the International Atomic Agency, the design of the plant takes into account the possibility of earthquakes stronger than any ever recorded in the area and particularly more than ten times stronger than the one registered in June 1998 in Adana.
Large design margins are being provided in order to ensure safe operation of the plant according to the environmental conditions of the site.
The Commission is also aware of concern about the possible intention of using the plant to produce weapons-grade material.
It acknowledges the fact that Turkey has signed and ratified the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and has subsequently concluded a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Thank you for your reply.
I should like to make the following points: Turkey is now a candidate country.
This plan is designed to increase its energy potential by 2%.
At the same time, it also wishes to acquire Cadou type reactors from Canada, which we now know have already been used for nuclear weapons in Pakistan and India.
In this sense, there is therefore a serious risk that some idiot will decide that the new geopolitical balance of power in the Caucasus calls for a nearby country with weapons grade nuclear technology.
So much for the political aspect.
Now to the technical aspect.
The safety factor in this type of project, and I am speaking as an engineer, has nothing to do with increasing safety levels in relation to the risk of collapse by a factor of ten or twenty.
In cases such as this, where there is uncertainty, simulators are used.
However, we cannot used simulators in cases relating to nuclear energy.
In this sense, all high seismic risk areas must be excluded a priori for nuclear installations such as this.
Therefore, and given that the relationship between the European Union and the Commission and Turkey has now changed, it would be a good idea if Turkey discussed certain matters relating both to the safety of the area in general and the peaceful development of Turkey within the European Union.
A couple of weeks ago we had a debate in Parliament on the nuclear safety issue with special regard to the candidate countries.
I have explained the position of the Commission.
You have to accept the fact that there is no acquis communautaire on nuclear safety.
So what we did was use political means to convince some candidate countries that we have to have decommissioning plans for some reactors that are considered not to be upgradable.
In the case of Turkey it is different.
The plant is not yet there.
I have already said that Turkey is part of the NPT and of the Convention on Nuclear Safety.
If we see in the development of that nuclear power plant that there are concerns about safety we will discuss it with Turkey.
If the conclusion is that Turkey is planning to build a nuclear power plant that does not meet normal European safety standards is concerned then we would do the same as we did with Lithuania, Slovakia and Bulgaria.
Mr President, the Commissioner said that Turkey has signed the non-proliferation treaty, it has signed the nuclear safety treaties: why should there be any doubt at all but that Turkey's nuclear plant should not be just as safe as any in the Community, and would the Commissioner be prepared to take a rather more robust position with Mr Souladakis on this matter?
I think it is the right of a Member of Parliament to raise his own concerns and fears.
I do not have these concerns.
I believe that Turkey completely recognises the standards and the criteria of the convention on nuclear safety and the non-proliferation treaty, but there is no doubt that there are concerns in the public in Europe and I think it is quite right to discuss them here in Parliament.
Question No 29 by (H-0786/99):
Subject: Depleted uranium weapons Has the Commission conducted any studies of the potential effects upon EU states of transboundary pollution arising from the use of depleted uranium weapons in the Kosovan conflict? If not, why not?
Mrs Wallström has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
Thank you, Mr Bowe, for your question.
The European Commission has monitored the environmental effects of the conflict from the beginning of the NATO action.
As early as last June the Commission financed a first study. It was carried out by the regional environment centre for central and eastern Europe and concluded that there had been no large-scale ecological catastrophe.
None of the subsequent evidence or analysis has overturned that original assessment.
The Commission has also been closely associated with the production of the recent report published by the United Nations environment programme - Balkan Task Force.
This is the most detailed and comprehensive report to date on the environmental effects of the Kosovo conflict and I recommend it to those who have not yet studied it.
The use of depleted uranium weapons was one of the many issues considered and this report is now widely available also on the Net.
The Balkan Task Force was hampered by the fact that little or no information was available on the actual use of these weapons during the conflict.
No indications of contamination were found in Kosovo during the BTF fact-finding mission.
However, this does not exclude the possibility that areas in Kosovo are contaminated by depleted uranium.
From a desk assessment coupled with a fact-finding mission the report concludes that the risks, if any, are limited to an area around the target.
Future actions will take place within the stability pact for south-eastern Europe.
A special regional environmental reconstruction plan is also being developed. It will form the framework for emergency assistance for combating war damage if such action should be needed.
First of all, Mr President, can I thank the Commissioner for that very useful response.
Clearly the Commission has given some consideration to this problem and I am pleased that these reports which have been produced so far have looked carefully at the issue.
But I would like to point out that the concern with depleted uranium weapons is about the way in which they are used.
This uranium becomes air-borne, is inhaled and could now be effectively carried by members of the population in Kosovo with rather more long-term effects than it has been possible to establish so far.
This seems to be the pattern of events that has emerged after the use of depleted uranium weapons in the Gulf war.
I would therefore ask the Commission if it would wish to consider continuation of monitoring and for what length of time they might consider monitoring in future to see the long-term effects, not just of depleted uranium weapons but of some of the other effects on the environment that we do know have occurred at least in a localised way within Kosovo?
How long will you continue to monitor the effects of these weapons?
Thank you, Mr Bowe, for that question.
We have to state again that there is still no confirmation that depleted uranium was used in the conflict and no depleted uranium has been detected in the clean-up of Kosovo.
But those symptoms and those problems that you mentioned could be there and that could be the effect of the use of depleted uranium.
That is also mentioned in the report.
No transboundary effects have been detected and most of the weapons will have been used on the territory of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The problem is that the current political isolation of the country means that access to this area is restricted.
A big responsibility rests with the United Nations because they are addressed with this report, so they have to take responsibility.
But through this regional and environmental reconstruction plan we can continue the monitoring and the assistance we can give and that is, for the time being, the kind of frame we can use for the work of the European Union.
It is important to follow up and it gives the Member States, as well as the United Nations and the Commission, something to think about when it is a matter concerning military secrets and their effects on the environment.
It also has a long-term effect on thinking when it comes to the use of these sorts of weapons.
Mr President, Commissioner, in a few months' time, hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers will again head for the Adriatic Coast to spend their summer holiday.
We know from media reports that bombs and weapons were dumped just off the coast.
Are you able to confirm that holidaymakers will be able to swim safely in the Adriatic this summer, and are there any measures in the pipeline for ascertaining what the dangers might be in this respect?
I wish I could give guarantees for many things but unfortunately I am not able to.
We make our judgements from reports like this and the missions we send to check on things like this.
That is what we rely on when we advise people on what to do.
What we have seen is that war affects the environment in the long term and is dangerous.
In the environmental field we have just passed a directive on marine pollution. That also includes bullets and weapons and so on and it is an early warning system.
Unfortunately we are not able to give guarantees and we can only continue to monitor and try to do the clean-up exercise.
I wanted to ask the Commissioner whether it is true that soldiers of the NATO armed forces now stationed in that region undergo special controls against nuclear radiation and that the same measures are not applied to civilians living in the area?
I cannot answer that question.
When it comes to medical checks and so on, I do not have all the information needed to give a proper answer.
What we know from the environmental side is what I have already mentioned, that there is now an environmental reconstruction plan, but when it comes to medical check-ups I do not have the information about that.
Of course I can go back and see whether we can find the necessary information.
Question No 30 by (H-0793/99):
Subject: Appointment of a European Union envoy for Tibet In 1998 the Tibetan Government in exile received over 4000 Tibetans who escaped over the Himalayan mountains seeking freedom and refuge at risk of life and limb.
Many of the refugees had been severely frost-bitten and many had died along the way.
The Tibet Intergroup is very concerned about the worsening situation in Tibet and it is clear that the current policy of the European Union has proved inadequate to address the grave human rights abuses faced by Tibetans daily in Tibet.
The Tibet Intergroup, therefore, gravely concerned about the continuing human rights abuses in Tibet and supporting the Dalai Lama?s proposal for dialogue with the Chinese Government to resolve the situation in Tibet, calls on the Commission to appoint a Special Envoy for Tibet to address the concerns of the European Union and to help bring the Tibetan and Chinese authorities together for dialogue.
When will the Commission appoint a Special Envoy for Tibet?
Mr Patten has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
The concerns expressed by the European Parliament about Tibet are widely shared.
I have long believed in the need to set out our views on human rights issues, including Tibet, firmly and candidly to the Chinese authorities.
The European Union did that at the European Union­China Summit in Peking last month where we pressed the Chinese on a number of human rights issues, including Tibet.
We again urged the Chinese to begin a dialogue with the Dalai Lama. I urge the Chinese again to do so.
We will continue to raise Tibet with the Chinese authorities.
We are also doing a number of other things: in the European Union-China human rights dialogue, we have focused on a number of practical steps, including sending experts on assignment to Tibet, planning development assistance programmes and activities focusing on health, education and training for Tibetans.
The appointment of an EU special envoy for Tibet would be primarily a matter for the Council to decide and Parliament might care to take the issue up directly with them.
But for my part, I am not sure that it would add much practical value to our efforts.
It would be unlikely to have much impact on the Chinese authorities and we already have effective channels of communication with the Tibetan community in exile.
I am also keen to guard against an exponential growth in the number of special envoys, however worthy the cause.
Mr President, Mr Patten, of course, you are very well-qualified to comment on account of the time you spent in China, and you are well aware of how hard the Tibetans are trying to initiate a debate, something which has always been blocked hitherto.
However, if your response was to be that we should turn to "Mr CFSP" , that is, to Mr Solana, then I fear that this would constitute a one-sided approach to an external policy matter.
Your approach, which I am very much in favour of, since it is a coherent one, takes its inspiration from the issue of human rights; I wholeheartedly agree that we must embrace the cause of human rights.
Imprisonment, torture, the mutilation of young women and so on and so forth, are definitely issues that we could discuss ad infinitum.
If we cut down here and say that the Council now shares responsibility for this, then I fear that these human rights issues will not be given the attention they deserve.
The possibility of stressing the importance of business and trade in the first place, but also making very sure that we include human rights in the equation, would be a step we should take in tandem with the European Commission, rather than saying that it is a matter for the Council.
Let me make clear to the honourable Member what the position is.
I stated nothing but the truth when I said that the appointment of special envoys was a matter for the Council.
As it happens, we deal with the budgetary consequences, the Council makes the appointment.
Some may think that the budgetary point should be looked at in due course.
Putting that on one side, because that is the situation, it does not mean that we do not have a view and a competence in human rights issues.
I am very much hoping in the next few months that the Commission will be able to produce a communication on human rights pointing out, among other things, that there is no disjunction whatsoever between a regard for human rights in China or other places in the world and the trading and commercial interests and other interests of the European Union.
I have long believed that we should all recognise that countries where it is best to do business are countries that treat their own citizens most decently - everywhere in the world.
I repeat that we have made our position known to the Chinese on Tibet.
During the few months that I have been a Commissioner that has happened twice, first of all in New York at our meeting with Minister Tang and most recently at the meeting in Peking and we will continue to make that concern manifest.
If I can make a literary commendation to the honourable Member, who I recognise is interested in these subjects, I recommend to him a book published just before Christmas written by Isabel Hilton, the distinguished journalist, on the problems of Tibet.
Mr President, I would like to start my additional question with the Tibetan greeting, which betokens peace and happiness.
We are not just talking about human rights and the environment where Tibet is concerned, rather it is about a unique cultural heritage that is also able to communicate important values such as peace, serenity, compassion - as the Dalai Lama would say - to us Europeans.
The question before us now is what can the Commission do to provide more practical support for his Holiness, the Dalai Lama' s, proposal for a peaceful solution to the Tibet affair?
I would point out that doing nothing will be the death of Tibetan culture and will mean the end of the Tibetan people.
I have much sympathy with what the honourable Member has said about cultural heritage and about the Buddhist tradition.
Like the honourable Member I have read the autobiography of the Dalai Lama.
It is an extremely moving account, not just of his responsibilities in and towards Tibet but also of his spiritual views as well.
The Commission, like others, has urged dialogue.
The Dalai Lama has made it clear that peaceful dialogue is what he wishes.
I wish that the Chinese authorities had responded consistently and positively to that overture from the Dalai Lama.
At or around the time of President Clinton's visit to China, the President of the People's Republic of China gave the impression that dialogue was on the agenda.
It would be very beneficial, not just for Tibet and for all those who believe in peace and stability in Asia, but it would also be greatly to the credit of the Government of the People's Republic of China if they were to respond to those attempts to begin a dialogue.
Question No 31 by (H-0795/99):
Subject: Commission's rejection of legislation on proper administration in the EU According to newspaper reports, the Commission has rejected the proposal by EU Ombudsman Jacob Söderman for a citizens? right to proper administration in the EU.
Although the Commission has itself approved the idea of legislation on proper administration, it has not now accepted a detailed proposal that has been made, but has decided to issue a whole set of additional guidelines on improving service.
Are these reports accurate?
What is the reason for the Commission?s acting in this way, and how can it explain the resultant discrepancy between its words and its actions on the reform of EU administration? Does the Commission consider that what has happened is compatible with the five-point programme agreed between Parliament and the Commission in September, and is it prepared to submit a detailed proposal for legislation on proper administration in a form which allows Parliament to express an opinion on it?
Mr Patten has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
The newspaper reports that the honourable Member made reference to seem to me to be misleading and inaccurate.
In November 1999 the Commission approved at first reading a code of good administrative behaviour to be incorporated into its Rules of Procedure.
At the moment the Commission is consulting its staff representatives on the document, a process which will be finalised in the forthcoming weeks.
The Commission will then adopt the code at second reading.
It should be noted that the new Commission gave an immediate follow-up to the European Ombudsman decision of 28 July 1999 in his own-initiative inquiry related to the code.
The Commission would like to stress in particular that, in the drafting of the code, it has taken on board all the draft recommendations of the European Ombudsman.
The code will be a document exclusively dealing with the relations of the Commission's administration with the public.
It will be adopted through a legally-binding Commission decision to be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities.
The document has been drawn up taking full account of the provisions contained in the draft prepared by the European Ombudsman's office.
According to the related provisions in the Treaties the responsible legislator for establishing its Rules of Procedure is the Commission itself.
However, it goes without saying that the Commission adheres to the principle of regular political dialogue with the European Parliament on all aspects of administrative reform.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner. However, I would still like to ask when this code will finally come into force, bearing in mind that it has been on the agenda since 1997.
The newspaper reports were misleading.
I do not think there is any difference between us and the Ombudsman.
There is a question about the legislative base on which we have taken the best advice and I think we are soundly placed on that.
I want to repeat that honourable Members, like the honourable Member who asked the question, who take a particular interest in this issue, will want to have a dialogue about it.
It is extremely important and I recognise the concern of the honourable Member.
I want to thank the Commission for what I perceive as a very positive answer.
For safety' s sake, I should like to have confirmation that it really is the case that, where the Commission and good administration are concerned, there is no part of Jacob Söderman' s proposal which the Commission thinks is unacceptable.
Is it true that the contents of all parts of the proposal will be approved?
Let me read what it says in my brief - and as it is in my brief it must be true!
"I would like to stress again that the Commission has accepted all the Ombudsman's recommendations contained in his draft recommendations of July 1999".
Both documents, that is the Commission's document and the Ombudsman's draft, cover largely the same ground.
The only substantial question that has arisen is the legislative basis.
I can go into that in detail if the honourable Member would like but there is no doubt that we are on all fours with the Ombudsman on this important issue.
We will be happy to incorporate Mr Patten' s notes into the bibliography, as another bedside book for the Members to bear in mind.
As the author is not present, Question No 32 lapses.
I apologise to Mr Vitorino for this parliamentary discourtesy. I am sorry.
According to the Rules of Procedure, you are not required to reply.
I wish you a good evening.
Second Part
Questions to Mr Nielson, who is replaced by Mr Patten
Questions 33 and 34 of Questions to the Commission were intended for Mr Nielson.
Mr Nielson cannot be present today since he is in South Africa.
I must tell you that the Vice-President of the Commission, Mrs Loyola de Palacio, has sent me a kind letter giving me all sorts of explanations and informing me that Mr Patten will reply to the questions.
Question No 33 by (H-0829/99):
Subject: 'Mainstreaming' in EU aid policy In 1995 the Council drew up guidelines for integrating the equal opportunities dimension ('mainstreaming') into the full range of EU aid policy.
The guidelines call for all staff working in the development sector to receive continuous training in 'gender mainstreaming' but in recent years only around 50 people have been trained and there is still no compulsory training in the subject within the Directorate-General for Development.
'Mainstreaming' means taking account of equality between women and men as an integral part of all forms of development policy, strategy and measures.
To achieve that, the Council's guidelines must be implemented in their entirety.
Current staff must receive compulsory training in equal opportunities and 1-2 days' training in such issues should form an essential part of the Directorate-General for Development's introductory courses for new staff.
Is the Commission prepared to take such measures?
Can I first of all emphasise how sorry my colleague, Mr Nielson, was that he could not be here but the honourable Members who are concerned about these development questions will know how important his mission is, trying to ensure that our agreement with South Africa survives.
The Commission is prepared to look at the possibility of making an introduction to gender and development, part of the so-called induction courses for new staff, something that has been done already but not, I admit, on a regular basis.
The training of staff moving to the delegations in the different regions is another entry point.
The training then would be automatically performed without being compulsory.
We also aim to include training in these issues in the basic training that our officials receive in project cycle management.
As far as possible, we want to see this sort of training automatically built into programmes at the outset, instead of having to be tackled separately and later.
My own view as a former development minister is that these issues should be mainstreamed themselves and tackled at the heart of training and not turned into a sort of optional add-on.
The quest for equality should permeate the work of the Directorate-General for Development at all levels. It is not to be brought in as a "sort of optional add-on" .
This must naturally lead to a reformulation of development goals and strategies, together with a transformation of institutions and processes so that both women' s and men' s priorities and needs are better reflected.
In addition, measures must be taken to combat differences on the grounds of gender.
Equality must permeate not only projects and programmes but also all overarching goals, action plans and strategies.
It would appear that we are in agreement about this.
However, responsibility for ensuring that due attention is given to equality lies with departmental and unit managers.
If the latter do not have the required professional competence, then nothing will happen and gender mainstreaming will no longer be a priority.
Extremely few members of the Directorate-General for Development, that is to say unit managers and more senior managers, have taken part in the gender courses that have been organised.
Only one manager has participated in gender training, and for half a day.
That is naturally unacceptable.
What is the Commission prepared to do to ensure that unit managers and more senior managers go through the necessary gender training? Gender has in fact been included in the compulsory introductory course for new employees, but then with only one to two hours devoted to it on each course.
This limited training element has, however, been removed from all introductory courses which have taken place in recent times.
As I point out in my question, one to two days, and not one to two hours, need to be devoted to the subject.
My question is this: is the Commission really prepared to comply with the adopted guidelines for gender mainstreaming at the Directorate-General for Development?
Well I certainly take gender mainstreaming seriously and so does my colleague Commissioner Nielson.
I must not go on about books, but I have just been reading the book by David Landis Barnhill on what makes some countries prosperous and some countries less prosperous and it is interesting to see there the importance that he attaches to gender issues, in the economic prosperity and political stability of societies, going back millennia.
Secondly, in my view, while the training that we are talking about should not be compulsory - after all there is no compulsory training on anything in the Commission - it should be essential.
And, since it should be essential, I would hope that everybody would make certain that they had adequate gender training.
That goes for everybody at whatever level of seniority.
It is not something which more senior officials can deem appropriate for their juniors but think that they are too grown-up or too senior to receive themselves.
Thirdly, one of the best approaches to this issue is to integrate gender as an important and cross-cutting issue into the most popular courses for development officials and above all perhaps for the project cycle management course which is key to good management of projects on the ground.
So I sympathise very much with what the honourable Member has said.
I hope the approach that we are following both demonstrates practicality and the imperative of giving this the attention which it deserves.
Question No 34 by (H-0831/99):
Subject: Aid for Central Asia What development aid and what humanitarian aid does the Commission grant to the countries of Central Asia, and what is its assessment of the impact of this aid?
Questions to Mrs Diamantopoulou
Since 1991, the Community has provided significant financial support to the New Independent States including the countries of central Asia.
The major part of European Union aid has been provided under the TACIS programme.
In 1998 and 1999 Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan received technical assistance of EUR 75 million.
This assistance has delivered benefits in all sectors, in particular agriculture, infrastructure development, the private economy and the strengthening of institutions.
Security considerations have prevented Tajikistan from benefiting fully from TACIS but a rehabilitation programme of EUR 7.2 million has been in place in 1998 and 1999.
In addition to national programmes, the European Union has supported important regional actions in the energy, transport and environmental sectors.
Food security programmes in central Asia began in 1996, following two previous years when the European Union provided food aid in kind.
These programmes have benefited Kyrgyzstan and to a more limited extent, Tajikistan.
Funding for NGO programmes in Tajikistan amounted to EUR 7.42 million in 1998 and 1999.
Over the same period, Kyrgyzstan received EUR 17 million.
Since 1993 the Commission's European Community Humanitarian Office, ECHO, has been active in supporting the most vulnerable groups and sectors in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
In 1998 and 1999 EUR 3.8 million was granted to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan received over EUR 35 million, mainly for food, medical supplies, water and sanitation.
Frequent monitoring and situation assessments have shown that European Union assistance is contributing to the stability of these countries and therefore the ongoing peace process.
Mr President, Commissioner, there is a risk of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea becoming the Balkans of the 21st Century.
That is why it is imperative to stabilise the two major states of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in particular.
That is why I would like to ask you what you are actually able to do within your own sphere of competence, how the negotiations with regard to the partnership agreement with these two countries are going, that is, with regard to political relations that is.
Of course, that falls within your remit; my next question falls within Mr Nielson' s remit in that it concerns environmental cooperation, in particular matters pertaining to water and the problems surrounding the cotton monocultures, which are the cause of great aridity.
We were able, at the Istanbul Summit a couple of weeks ago, to meet and have discussions with some of the Central Asian republics. I am very anxious that we should strengthen our relationship with them.
I can send the honourable Member, if he would like, a detailed breakdown of exactly where we stand on the negotiation of partnership and cooperation agreements with each of the Central Asian republics.
Obviously everyone will hope that his prediction of what may happen in the future is on the gloomy side.
But I have no doubt at all that he is right to point to the strategic importance of Central Asia.
I have heard the honourable Member talk in the past about the Caucasus as well.
He is absolutely right to say that a Union which talks about conflict prevention should be looking at what it can do in these particular areas to ensure that there is not the sort of conflict in the future which has caused so much devastation in the Balkans and which has cost us a great deal more than we might have had to spend otherwise, had we taken more pre-emptive measures if those had been possible.
So the honourable Member's remarks about the strategic importance of these regions are extremely well made.
We are contributing to programmes in the region which have some ecological impact.
Our food programmes are directly related to structural reforms in agriculture as well as poverty alleviation.
Those programmes themselves are intended to ensure that agriculture has a more soundly based position in those societies and does not consist simply of raping the land.
There is an ecological aspect which we should continue to give priority to.
We also take good note of the fact that the Member who has asked the question has applauded the Commissioner' s answer. This is not the usual state of affairs.
And furthermore the Commissioner has not quoted from his bibliography this time.
Thank you very much, Mr Patten, for your interventions today.
As far as Mr Papayannakis' question is concerned, in the 1999 Action Plan for Employment, the Commission proposed certain recommendations for Greece with a view to improving the efficiency of the Action Plan for Employment.
The most important recommendations related to the need to improve efforts to reform public sector services, where problems exist, improve the statistical monitoring system and apply preventive policies in accordance with guidelines 1 and 2 of the Action Plan for Employment.
The Greek Government introduced two specific programmes in 1999 as part of its employment policy: "Yes to Work" and "Back to Work" .
We do not yet have the final results of these programmes and cannot yet tell if the quantitative objectives were achieved.
The Greek Government acknowledges the problem of its being unable to record human resources entering and leaving work and is therefore committed, firstly, to restructuring public sector employment services in Greece, secondly, to setting up efficient employment promotion centres - this programme has already started but has not yet been completed - and, thirdly, to introducing a system of electronic employment cards and using suitable IT systems to monitor all these policies.
In the new programme submitted for the period from 2000 to 2006, which is being financed from the Social Fund, both the resources and the policies should be used, with the Commission' s support, to implement the objectives which I referred to earlier.
The Commission will keep a close watch on the Greek Government in order to ensure that it honours the commitments which it has made.
Thank you, Commissioner for your reply.
However, our current situation is as follows: at 11.3%, we have the second highest unemployment in Europe, which was not previously the case, we have the biggest increase in unemployment, we spend less than anyone else on the unemployed, i.e. less than 1% of GDP, while other countries, such as France, Belgium and Germany spend 3-4%, and it is not clear how the money received from the Social Fund has been used, inter alia, to combat unemployment.
You tell me that you, as the Commission, have made recommendations. I understand and welcome that and I hope that the recommendations will be adhered to.
However, my question for a very long time has been this: what happened with previous policies? Did anyone find work?
How many people found work? If you cannot tell us for this year, then last year and the year before.
What has been done about training? Is the purpose of the famous training centres to provide jobs for instructors or trainees?
Do we have any figures? In other words, do we have ways of checking what is happening with this government policy in Greece?
Mr Papayannakis, the only answer I can give you is that the Greek Government does indeed need to step up efforts to introduce computerised statistical records and to set up structures so that the programmes implemented have the quantitative results which you mentioned, and so that monitoring can be carried out and used as a basis for formulating policies.
Greece has seen an increase in the employment rate and, as far as I can see, an increase in productivity.
The action which the Commission can take relates to the specific guidelines.
As you know, there are 22 guidelines on which each country is evaluated.
They concern access to training, the ratio of men to women with access to training, and special action for the long-term unemployed.
The Commission will endeavour, for all these specific guidelines, to quantify the data and to obtain specific information based on the implementation of the new Community framework for 2000 to 2006.
Question No 36 by (H-0782/99):
Subject: Danish early retirement pension scheme Will the Commission state whether the Danish early retirement pension scheme has been approved in its entirety and whether there are disagreements between Denmark and the Commission in other areas of social policy?
The Danish pension scheme, the Efterløn, only allows people resident in Denmark and people who have completed the required period of employment in Denmark to retire.
Some workers have complained to the European Commission because they do not have the right to retire.
The Danish authorities do not consider that they are obliged under Community law to pay this compensation to workers taking early retirement who do not meet the conditions required under Danish law.
It should be noted that the current regulation on social security systems does not at present refer to the question of early retirement and the Commission has proposed certain amendments to the regulation which are, however, still pending before the Council.
There is, as yet, no European Court case law on Efterløn, but it could validly be argued that the residence requirement is incompatible with general clauses now in force banning discrimination on the grounds of nationality.
The Commission services set up a procedure for joint meetings and discussions with the Danish Government with a view to finding a common language and a common approach.
The last meeting on the subject was held in November 1999 and we are waiting for the Commission services' final proposals on whether or not infringement proceedings will be instituted against Denmark.
I noticed that the Commissioner did not give a direct answer to the question of whether the Danish early retirement pension scheme as a whole has been approved by the Commission, but it was indirectly apparent that the answer was that it has not been.
I should like to ask the Commissioner expressly to confirm that the scheme has not been approved by the Commission.
The Commissioner also more than hinted, of course, that a lot of consideration was being given to bringing the whole issue of the Danish early retirement pension scheme before the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, specifically on the grounds that the scheme actually discriminates against non-Danish wage earners who are unable to fulfil the conditions, due to the fact that they have not been in paid work for the period required under the Danish system.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if she can provide any approximate deadlines in connection with this matter, for it is a problem which needs clarification in the context of the Danish socio-political debate.
So I should be grateful if the Commissioner could enlarge upon this question.
Honourable Member, I should just like to stress that both Denmark and numerous other Member States are having problems interpreting the directives and transposing them into national law.
This is one such case and discussions are under way between the Danish Government and the Commission in order to find the best possible solution to the matter, to the benefit of the workers who meet the requirements and who, as things stand, have a right to this pension.
Briefly, just to follow on from that last point, I invite the Commission to make it absolutely clear that the Commission's objections, such as they are, would not in any way infringe the rights of Danish nationals to benefit from this scheme, but simply that the Commission has a concern, which it has the right to have under Community law, to ensure that the scheme applies to all EU citizens who qualify.
I think that the answer is brief and clear.
Of course it is as you say.
There will be no problem with Danish nationals within Denmark, that is not where the problem lies.
The problem is with Danish nationals or other nationals residing outside Denmark.
Question No 37 by (H-0791/99):
Subject: Working time directive Can the Commission say what action it proposes taking to ensure a level of protection, equivalent to that provided by the 1993 working time directive, for non-consultant hospital doctors, who were excluded from that directive and again from the proposal for a Council amending directive (COM(98)0662-C4-0715/98 - 98/0318(SYN))?
A proposal has been drafted for a directive to amend the directive on the working time of non-consultant hospital doctors.
The content of the proposal concerns the average 48-hour working week of doctors, with the possibility, following negotiation, of increasing it to 54 hours.
The Council, Commission and Parliament are all agreed on the content but there is disagreement on the transitional period for implementing the directive.
Parliament has proposed 4 years, the Commission 7 and the Council 13.
This proposal is still being discussed by the Council and Parliament on the basis of the codecision procedure.
Although there is this disagreement, I should stress that all three institutions agree on the content and that every effort is being made to find a common approach to this particularly important and sensitive question which concerns an exceptionally large number of working doctors throughout Europe.
Question No 38 by (H-0805/99):
Subject: Measures to advance gender equality One of the working groups of Commissioners announced by President Prodi has as its objective the promotion of measures to advance gender equality (gender mainstreaming).
Which Commissioners are members of this group? How many meetings of the group have been held to date?
What concrete measures have been discussed?
This question covers several individual matters.
It refers to the special Commission working group dealing with questions of equality.
The Commissioners taking part are President Prodi, Vice-President Kinnock, Mr Reding and myself.
The meetings of the working group are open and the first meeting was held on 11 January 2000.
Three serious issues were discussed: the first was the first discussion on the fifth programme for women, of which I gave an initial evaluation, the second issue was the report by Mr Busquin on the investigation into the participation of women in research and science, and the third involved Mr Kinnock, who reported to the working group on efforts being made to take account of the gender equality dimension in the overall reforms currently taking place in the Community.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for your reply, although I regret the fact that this working group has taken so long to meet, since this matter is of the greatest importance.
We trusted this Commission, from the outset, to begin work on all issues relating to greater equality for men and women.
I hope that, in the future, things will change and meetings will become frequent, because there are many issues which require the attention of the Commission in order to speed up and conclude, as quickly as possible, those measures which will promote greater equality between men and women.
Mrs Avilés-Perea, that was an exhortation rather than a question.
But if the Commissioner wishes to offer doctrine or good intentions ...
Allow me to say just one word. I agree that the working group should have met earlier but at least, once it did, important decisions were taken straight away.
Question No 39 by (H-0807/99):
Subject: Community EQUAL initiative On 13 October 1999, the Commission adopted the Community's EQUAL initiative, the aim of which is transnational cooperation to find and develop new means of combating discrimination and inequalities in the labour market with the focus on asylum-seekers.
Under this umbrella, each Member State is to submit proposals in the form of a Community initiative programme for that particular country.
What criteria will the Commission use to approve or reject the Member States' programmes?
Which Community body will control the funding of the steering group and the monitoring committee and verify that the programme is carried out exactly and correctly?
The European Social Fund contribution for the period 2000-2006 will total 2 487 billion euro. As the EQUAL initiative is a joint funding venture with the Member States, what will Greece's contribution amount to?
The EQUAL initiative is not restricted to certain groups of people.
Its purpose is to combat discrimination in the workplace.
The decision on this initiative was taken in Berlin, where it was decided to take account of professional groups of asylum seekers and to include them in its action.
This is an important aspect of this initiative.
The Community initiative programme in each Member State must comply with the regulation. This is the same as the Social Fund regulation, i.e. EQUAL comes under the Social Fund regulation.
It has been submitted to Parliament and we expect Parliament' s opinion next month.
I should like to stress that the EQUAL initiative satisfies national requirements and national plans defined in accordance with agreed European strategy.
The Member States, i.e. the national governments, have primary responsibility for setting up the joint agencies, submitting proposals, selecting the proposals which the programmes will implement and carrying out primary control.
Within the European Commission, the Directorate-General for Employment is responsible for implementation, while financial control is the responsibility of the Directorate-General for Financial Control, the Anti-Fraud Office and the European Court of Auditors.
The last question concerns the amount granted.
Greece has been granted ECU 98 million.
The contribution commitment is 80%, rising to an 85% contribution from the initiative for the island regions, especially the remote Greek islands, and a contribution by Greece of 15%.
Mr President, I feel that the guidelines for the Community EQUAL initiative, especially the four actions described in it, will result both in complicated bureaucracy and, paradoxically, a non-transparent structure.
For example, one wonders how a development partnership will prove its cooperative spirit or its representative capacity, as required by action 2 in paragraph 33 of the guidelines.
At the same time, the obligation to engage in transnational cooperation, the complicated demands of the plan and the implementation of a development partnership inevitably require large structures, as these are the only structures which can meet such demands.
However, this contradicts the stated aim of the general objectives for decentralised action plans at the level of local authorities and rural areas.
However, at the same time, participation by those actually discriminated against, such as asylum seekers, immigrants and so on, is rendered impossible or merely symbolic.
Finally, if you consider the overall amount, which is on the small side, - EUR 2.8 billion for 15 Member States - and how ambitious the objectives are, I am afraid that all we shall succeed in doing is to prove that unemployment is a bad thing.
First let me say that it would be a great help to us, now that we have reached the stage where this is being processed by Parliament, if you could make specific proposals which we could take into account.
Secondly, I have to say that the aim of the EQUAL initiative is not to reduce unemployment, it cannot possibly deal with the issue of reducing unemployment, or to support an increase in employment.
That is the job of the European Strategy for Employment and the Social Fund, which have huge sums of money and exceptionally large resources at their disposal, especially for countries like Greece.
The EQUAL initiative has a specific mission.
To encourage, to assist promotion, to create statistics, to create studies and agencies to support those sections of the population which suffer discrimination.
So what we are looking for is cooperation between local groups, between local authorities and between countries in order to exchange experiences; that is mainly what we are looking for, and for experience to be transferred from one country to another so that it can be emulated.
This is the philosophy behind the initiative; the budget is commensurate with it and our aim is for development agencies, non-governmental organisations and local authorities to be involved as much as possible, so that it can get as close to the people as possible.
Question No 40 by (H-0808/99):
Subject: Article 13 TEU and Employment The draft Commission Directive establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation gives exemption to religious organisations (Art. 4.2).
Could the Commission please tell Parliament the circumstances and the groups within Article 13 (TEU) likely to be effected by such an exemption?
A month ago, the Commission submitted a proposal on equal treatment in employment, as prescribed in the Treaty, in order to implement Article 13.
The ban on discrimination is the rule in the package of directives and programmes which we submitted.
At the Commission' s proposal and after approximately two years of consultation with social agencies, Member States and the European Parliament, a number of exceptions have been made.
These exceptions relate to professions which must be exercised by persons with a genuine professional qualification.
Allow me to give you a specific example to illustrate this.
In a religious school, it is logical for an exemption to be requested and accepted in order to ensure that the teacher is of the faith to which the religious school in question belongs.
That is the sort of exemption we are talking about.
Clearly this is not a general exemption and the different approach which allow Member States to introduce special provisions are only justified in the case of this special professional qualification.
This is a perverse interpretation of ending discrimination.
For instance, religious schools could quite properly say to a Roman Catholic for example: we do not want to employ you because you are a gay man or because you are a lesbian.
Here we have from the Commission a reinforcement of a hierarchy of oppression.
Surely what we should be doing, and I hope you will agree, Commissioner, is engaging the person to do the job on the basis of their capability, and we should not enshrine such bigotry and prejudice, no matter how sincerely held.
I must stress that this exemption is not a refusal of work for any reason, be it the reason which you mentioned, sexual orientation, ethnic discrimination or any other reason.
It allows a choice to be made only where special qualifications are needed which relate directly to the activity in question.
In other words, it is positive discrimination.
In the example which you mentioned, it is only logical that the teacher in a Catholic school should be Catholic.
That is the only form of exemption which is acceptable.
Question No 41 by (H-0813/99):
Subject: Promoting jobs for women in severely less-favoured regions Given the enormous difficulties in obtaining work which women face in certain severely less-favoured regions, and given that these women very seldom have any resources to draw on, in terms of either finance, entrepreneurial or cooperative traditions or even training facilities, living as they do in rural districts where 80% of the population is on the poverty line, what measures or actions are planned to help these women overcome the hurdle of their social environment? Does the Commission intend to put forward lowest common denominator policies which will properly reflect the admittedly extreme but nonetheless real-life situation of these women, or will their plight once again be overlooked by the new employment policies?
Obviously, the cohesion policy exists for less-favoured regions and cooperation and joint action by the Structural Funds, the Social Fund and the Agricultural Fund exist for the cohesion policy.
I should point out that the funds available for regions with problems account for one third of the total budget.
The aim of these regional policies, which, of course, are implemented under the jointly agreed European guidelines in each Member State, i.e. each Member State is responsible for implementing this programme, is to increase opportunities for work for both men and women.
I should point out that 70% of funding for the period 2000-2006, i.e. EUR 195 billion, will go to the less-favoured regions of Europe.
With particular reference now to the question of access by women to the opportunities which are created, I would like to say, first, that there is, via the Social Fund, an entire equal opportunities pillar which the Member States must implement, i.e. special policies for women which must use Social Fund resources.
Secondly, the LEADER initiative currently being studied gives special priority to development strategies which aim to give special support to women in small enterprises in the agricultural sector and in rural tourism, with a view to increasing the involvement of women in agricultural regions.
Commissioner, thank you for giving me a well-intentioned answer, which has been rigorous and well-argued.
However, I can assure you that we do not, with the existing measures - which you have referred to - reach these severely less-favoured regions.
They are areas where there is much need and we have to put them on an equal footing with those areas where we work in cooperation, where almost none exists.
Therefore, my question is whether you could examine the possibility that some of the policies on microcredits, which have brought results in cooperation, could be applied to those women in severely less-favoured regions, who have the odds stacked against them.
I am very familiar with the programmes which you refer to.
I can assure you that we are not reaching the areas where there is most need.
With these forecasts of the structural policy - which I know very well - and the forecasts of LEADER and rural development, we will not promote, as we should, employment amongst women in the severely less-favoured regions.
I would therefore ask you to study the possibility of applying microcredit policies.
The Commissioner accepts and takes good note of Mrs Izquierdo Rojo' s intervention.
Question No 42 by (H-0817/99):
Subject: Commission's plans for presentation of a new social action programme It is important that the Commission present as soon as possible a new social action programme, setting out a specific plan with a timetable for implementation for both the legislative work in the area of social security and initiatives for framework agreements in the context of the 'social dialogue'.
Can the Commission say what its precise intentions are regarding the presentation of a new social action programme?
We estimate that the Commission' s new social action programme for the next five years will be ready at the end of this summer.
In order to complete the programme and be able to present it, we first need to complete our consultations with Parliament, the social partners and non-governmental organisations.
These discussions have already started, but we will need to take account of the results in Lisbon.
The Lisbon European Council is trying to take a new approach to the question of social exclusion and the link between social exclusion and the information society, economic policy and reforms.
These results will be most important in shaping the Commission' s social programme.
I have already told the European Parliament that a joint meeting will be held in April between Parliament and the Commission, after the Lisbon conference, so that all aspects can be discussed and the social programme for 2000-2006 can finally be drafted.
Clearly, any future social action programme should take account of developments, for example within information technology, and, in time, become a modern social action programme.
But can you also provide confirmation concerning the matter I raise in my question, namely that the programme will be designed in such a way that we shall obtain a concrete timetable for the various types of legislation in the social sphere which the Commission is planning, as well as for those initiatives which the Commission is planning with regard to dialogue between the two sides of industry?
We need to see which concrete alternatives the Commission will adopt during the coming period and which initiatives it will take for the purpose of reaching agreements.
Firstly, I agree with you entirely. Account will be taken of the information society; that was something which I too mentioned.
Social exclusion, the programme for women, the efforts we are making in the social protection area, everything needs to be looked at now in the light of the new reality of the information society.
Secondly, there will obviously be timetables for the initiatives within which systematic monitoring will also have to be implemented.
Where I cannot commit myself is on your reference to legislative work in the social security area which, as you know, is not included in the articles of the Treaty and there is no legal basis for social security questions in the Treaty.
Since the author is not present, Question No 43 lapses.
Question No 44 by (H-0819/99):
Subject: Opportunities of the disabled to take advantage of freedom of movement within the EU Under Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, it should be possible for all EU citizens to take advantage of freedom of movement within the Union.
However, for people with various kinds of physical disability who are in need of special transport and personal assistance, freedom of movement is still highly restricted.
What measures is the Commission taking to facilitate opportunities for the disabled in this area?
On 26 November 1999, the European Commission approved a package of measures to combat discrimination.
As far as the package in question and people with special needs are concerned, there is a directive which concentrates on combating discrimination, especially in the workplace.
The European Commission believes that this initiative to combat discrimination will help to increase the level of employment of people with special needs and, in the end, to promote the freedom of movement of these persons.
Of course, it is particularly important for people with special needs to have access to means of transport, services and all types of installation if they are to exercise their right to freedom of movement.
The European Commission has approved a proposal for a directive on special arrangements in buses, coaches and other vehicles, so that people with special needs with mobility problems and people using wheelchairs have access to them.
In addition, you should know that, on 4 June 1998, the Council approved the recommendation for a pan-European type of parking permit to be introduced for people with special needs, the aim of which is to help them travel in all Member States with a common permit so that they can take advantage of all organised parking areas throughout Europe.
I would thank the Commissioner for her answer.
My question in the first place concerns the opportunities the disabled have to take advantage of freedom of movement in Europe.
It is quite an expensive business if you are to travel from Gothenburg to somewhere else in Europe on holiday or on a study visit if you are in a wheelchair and also need to have a personal assistant or carer with you in order to manage.
I am grateful for the fact that the Commission has adopted an action plan.
It is of course a prerequisite, however, that there be financial resources and means of actually crossing the borders physically if you have a disability.
It would be interesting to hear whether the Commission is also prepared to set aside financial resources for those who have disabilities, so that they too might venture further out into the world than merely to where their wheelchairs take them.
I referred to the directive which the Commission has proposed on compulsory arrangements for means of public transport, so that people with special needs can use them.
It has not yet been passed by the Council; it is at the consultation stage.
I think that a strategic decision of this sort can be taken at European level.
I think it is exceptionally difficult for us to specialise in aid programmes for personal transport.
That is dealt with either under special programmes in education, for young people, for women and for exchanges or must be a matter for national policy.
Question No 45 by (H-0006/00):
Subject: Compliance with Directive 96/71/EC concerning the posting of workers The posting of workers directive has still not been implemented in Denmark, even though the deadline has passed.
The draft legislation before the Folketing does not contain any rules governing rights of employed persons under collective agreements.
Pursuant to Article 3(8) of the Directive, terms and conditions of employment must be in keeping with the 'collective agreements which have been concluded by the most representative employers' and labour organisations at national level and which are applied throughout national territory'.
However, such use of an agreement outside its specific scope cannot be imposed on the two sides of industry without a legal basis.
There are therefore two possible solutions: either the Directive is inapplicable in Denmark, or Denmark is required by the Directive to introduce universally applicable agreements.
Can the Commission confirm that the Directive concerning the posting of workers is inapplicable in Denmark as far as 'collective agreements ... declared universally applicable' (cf.
Article 3(1)) are concerned, given that such universally applicable agreements do not exist under Danish law? If not, will it explain how the Directive is to be complied with in this area?
The European Union posting of workers directive stipulates that the compulsory rules concerning the terms and conditions of employment applicable in the host country must also apply to workers posted to that country.
What it says it that one of two things may apply, i.e. either the legislation in the host country or the collective agreements which have been declared to be the rules universally applicable to a specific sector.
Because Denmark does not have a system for declaring collective agreements to be universally applicable rules, provision must be made in the implementing legislation so that, apart from current conditions of employment stipulated in legislation, the hours in universally applicable collective agreements, concluded by the most representative organisations, also apply to posted workers.
In other words, to put it simply, Denmark has a choice: it can either introduce legislation or it can use the legislative process to choose a collective agreement and legally activate it.
Discussions are being held between the European Commission and Denmark, and Denmark is expected to notify the Commission of the transposition of this directive into its national legislation.
The deadline by which it had to answer the Commission' s questions expired on 6 December 1999 and we have not received a reply.
We are waiting to see what the next move will be.
Thank you for a very clear answer, the gist of which - if the interpretation is correct - is that the posting of workers directive entails an obligation on the part of the Danish state to establish a system of universally applicable agreements.
It is a very clear answer, but it is also an answer, may I point out, which puts Danish organisations, the Danish Government and the Danish Parliament in a very, very difficult situation politically, for it is a well-known fact that there are a number of basic problems associated with the relationship between the Danish model, which is based quite obviously upon collective agreements, and the Continental model, which presupposes legislation.
The disagreement and the correspondence to which you refer, Commissioner, concern, first and foremost, another directive, namely the working time directive, but now we can foresee another letter of formal notice and further Treaty infringement proceedings looming because the Danish Government does not intend, or has expressly stated that it does not wish, to implement legislation and establish universally applicable agreements.
Firstly, no attempt is being made to change the system in Denmark or in any other country.
As I said earlier, there are always problems interpreting the directives of the European Commission both because they have a very general framework and because systems are very different from one country to another.
As far as your question is concerned, this problem does not only apply to Denmark.
It is not only Denmark which has matters pending.
Five countries have transposed this into national legislation and the rest are at the discussion stage.
What now needs to be done, and this was the reason for the consultations and discussions between the Commission and the Danish Government, and with other governments, is to find the best way forward, so that something which is decided at European level by all the Member States, and which constitutes a general framework, can also include workers posted to Denmark from other countries.
And this is the direction in which we expect the Danish and the other nine governments to move.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for your dedication.
You have fulfilled your objective for today, which is to answer all the questions.
We congratulate you.
Since the time allocated to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions 46 to 68 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.50 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
1997 discharge
The next item is the report (A5-0004/2000) by Mrs van der Laan, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1997 financial year (Section I - Parliament, II - Council, III - Commission, IV - Court of Justice and V - Court of Auditors) [SEC(1998) 520 - C4-0350/1998, SEC(1998) 522 - C4-0351/1998, SEC(1998) 519 - C4-0352/1999]
The Commissioner, Mrs Schreyer, is not here yet, but I hope, and expect, that she will arrive in the next few minutes.
Nevertheless, I recommend that we start, in the hope that the Commissioner will be able to follow the debate, and particularly the rapporteur' s speech, from her office, if that is where she still is.
Mr President, I am sure that Mrs Schreyer must have a very good reason for not being here because her absence would be inexcusable otherwise.
I would like to start by thanking my colleagues for their cooperation on this report, it would not be what it is today without that spirit of cooperation.
Mr President, early last year, the 1997 discharge was postponed because this Parliament could not possibly grant discharge to a resigning Commission which could not enter into any commitments for the future.
In its resolution, this Parliament stated that discharge could not be granted until we had received serious, far-reaching proposals for reform from the new European Commission.
This report, therefore, appears at a crucial time, on the eve of Mr Kinnock' s reforms.
It is an excellent opportunity for this Parliament to introduce far-reaching reforms to these plans.
In the period leading up to this, it already appeared, on the basis of the initial drafts, that the Commission had made very important pledges.
We asked for a whistle-blower' s regulation, and this is now in place.
Parliament wanted financial inspection and audit functions to be separated. This has now been done.
Parliament requires a code of conduct for Commissioners and Cabinets. This is in place too.
Parliament asked the Commission to waive its excessive privileges. It did this as well.
The Commission has also entered into commitments to cooperate with Parliament in terms of SEM 2000.
Fundamental changes will also be considered for the technical assistance offices.
These are sound, first steps which illustrate that, if this Parliament so wishes, changes are not only possible but can also be translated into action quickly.
We want more than that, however.
The Commission should now produce an ambitious and far-reaching reform programme.
This is not only necessary for proper public administration, it is a conditio sine qua non of regaining the trust of the European citizen.
We now demand from the European Commission clear pledges concerning the following points.
Firstly, Parliament must have complete access to all Commission documents.
This, however, presupposes that we set up an internal scheme quickly in order to be able to guarantee the confidentiality of sensitive documents.
In the context of providing information, I would like to draw the Commission' s attention to the fact that we are very concerned about the present draft plans on public access to documents.
If the current draft is correct, then this is a huge step backwards in comparison to today.
We must put an end to the situation in which financially powerful organisations with representation in Brussels are able to access information whilst the ordinary citizen is not.
Neither can we tolerate a situation in which a public body holds the copyright to public documents.
We would also like a clear job description for each European official so that an official with conscientious objections can more easily object to tasks which are unethical or unlawful.
Furthermore, it should be the case that, if the Court of Auditors detects a mistake not just one year but two years running, the management should be held responsible for it, and this will have an effect on chances of promotion.
Ultimately, we also need to achieve better cooperation, of course, between the European Court of Auditors and its national counterparts.
This Parliament has also asked the Commission to give an initial outline of the external aid policy reforms on 31 March of this year.
It should no longer be the case that, although Europe is an economic power, we have no political influence because, when the chips are down, we cannot offer effective aid to areas which desperately need it.
I would quote Gaza as an example.
It is unacceptable that the Commission completed the construction of a hospital in 1996 and that, as yet, it has been left unused.
Mr President, since 1996, the discharge has acquired a heavy, political significance.
It is one of the most powerful weapons Parliament has and must therefore be deployed with care.
This is why we will most probably grant the discharge tomorrow.
However, we are not surrendering this weapon without placing a time bomb in its place.
Indeed, the 1999 discharge will not be given until all financial irregularities highlighted by the Court of Auditors have been cleared up.
Finally, this discharge report is naturally addressed to the Commission.
But this does not detract from the fact that the European Parliament should also put its own house in order.
As long as we have no status, we are not credible as a force for reforming the Union.
The reforms of the European institutions are necessary in order to be able to continue Europe' s development process.
We cannot have a decisive and fair Europe unless it is also open and democratic.
All institutions must now join forces in order to work together towards building this type of Europe.
Mr President, the Committee on Industry decided to go ahead and draw up a report on the discharge for 1997 although we were not specifically asked to do so.
We went ahead because we felt we should start this Parliament in the way in which we mean to go on, that is, by making sure that we take good care of taxpayers' money in Europe.
During the course of our work on this report it became clear that there are persistent problems in the spending areas under the control of our budget.
They were not unique to 1997 and two strands seem to run through them.
The first is a tendency for the Commission to embark on very ambitious programmes, particularly in third countries, without sufficient assessment of the practicalities of implementation and proper resourcing.
The second involves serious managerial shortcomings in the Commission, in particular in relation to coordination across departments and management of external contracts.
I know that all the Institutions bear some responsibility for the increasing workload of the Commission and for some of the lack of resources.
That cannot excuse everything that we came across.
Citizens of Europe expect the European institutions to be properly managed and they are right to do so.
That is why I want to echo the comments from my colleague about the importance of the reform process which has been promised to the people of Europe by Mr Prodi and Mr Kinnock.
From what I have seen of the reform process, it looks good.
I saw some of Mr Kinnock's papers today, I heard some of what he had to say.
I have every confidence that if we and the politicians of Europe support him we will see the kind of reform we need.
But we need that reform process.
Many of the general points raised in our committee's report have been covered in Mrs van der Laan's report.
It is an excellent report and we should all congratulate her on it.
It seems to hit on all the right points without just being like some of the old reports, a series of details.
It groups them together and that is very important.
There are two issues I would like to draw your attention to.
One is nuclear safety in Eastern Europe.
We have to get this right.
The Committee of Independent Experts said the Commission was not managing this properly.
We have to remedy that.
The second point is about scrutiny mechanisms.
We need from the Commission material we can use to help us scrutinise spending.
We need proper information, given in a proper way and we all have to take this whole process a lot more seriously than in the past. It has been seen as a bureaucratic process to be done as quickly as possible in as little time as possible.
I hope colleagues in this House will support the grounds for discharge for 1997 and, at the same time, that the Commission will push ahead with the reform process which is long overdue.
Only in this way can we create a new culture in the Commission and at the same time get public confidence restored.
Mr President, I am sure the Commission will be relieved to hear that the 97 discharge is unlikely to have the same impact as the 96 discharge which, as you are all so very well aware, led to the forced resignation of the Santer Commission.
The Socialist Group will be voting to grant discharge.
I am sure you will be relieved to hear that as well.
But that is not to say that we are satisfied, and that everything in the garden is rosy.
It is clear that a radical overhaul of the Commission is long overdue.
It indicates, however, that we acknowledge that steps are being made in the right direction.
I just want to outline some of the issues that we, as Socialists, have put down as amendments.
We hope these will be carried because they are important in the way that they will impact on future reform.
First of all, the immunity of officials: this should be lifted if and when requested by a national prosecutor.
We need to make it much easier to prosecute officials who are guilty of fraud and corruption.
It is critical to note that the Commission has too often failed to act on the reforms recommended by the Court of Auditors.
The Court's report is there for a reason, our response to it is there for a reason and it is important that it is followed through.
I have just heard now that an audit progress board is going to be set up by the Commission.
Even if we hear nothing else, we know that is going in the right direction in terms of the reforms that we want to see.
Too often we have put forward recommendations and they have not been acted upon even though you have said very often that you will act on them.
We want to see that follow-through to a much greater extent in future.
The other issue is access to confidential documents.
We have had problems in the past in terms of our responsibility in carrying out discharge because we have not had access to the documents we should have had.
We understand that we also have a responsibility here, that if we are given documents we must ensure that confidential documents will indeed be kept confidential.
We have put down an amendment to that effect.
One issue which is referred to in the van der Laan report is the whole question of the Gaza hospital.
The situation there is totally unacceptable.
We will not put up with it for much longer and we are looking for immediate action on that issue.
I would like to congratulate Lousewies van der Laan.
I do not usually bother congratulating people but I think she has produced a very cogent report and deserves our thanks.
Mr President, Commissioner, if we are honest, we find ourselves in a somewhat unusual situation.
We are discussing last year' s discharge, but also the Commission' s responsibility.
I would like to raise the problems which are still piled up high on our desks.
The assessment of whether or not the discharge will be granted also depends to some extent on where the emphasis is placed.
It is about a Commission which is no more.
There is now a new Commission.
Then it is logical to grant discharge, because how can the current Commissioner be blamed where 1997 is concerned?
The problems remain and this gives rise to doubts.
We have to take a decision now regarding the Commission' s good intentions, but there is still no structural outline for these good intentions.
Mr Kinnock will present his proposal next month.
We are all very much anticipating this, but the facts are still missing at this time when we already have to decide whether or not to grant discharge.
It is clearly a dilemma with which the rapporteur has also struggled.
This dilemma stretches beyond the areas which I have already listed.
Take, for example, the pledges made by the Commission.
They look good in themselves.
I have read a few documents written by Mr Kinnock and we have every confidence in them.
But I will give two examples from which it is not as evident that the good intentions which the Commission has now expressed will lead to a good outcome: the public nature and confidentiality of documents.
The previous speaker already said something about this.
A document is circulating at the moment - not at a low level, but at a high level within the Commission - which, instead of enhancing the public nature of documents, is having the opposite effect.
This is an illustration of empty pledges not necessarily leading to good results.
This also applies to whistle-blowers.
Mr Kinnock has also devoted some fine-sounding phrases to this subject but, at the same time, it is entirely unclear, at this moment when we have to make a decision, what, for example, happens with whistle-blowers who want to get something off their chest and cannot do this internally but who want to address the outside world - the press or Parliament.
We have still not had a response to crucial questions of this type.
So there is doubt as to whether these pledges of the Commission contain enough substance at this crucial time when decisions need to be made.
This also applies, for example, to the very real projects which the Committee on Industry has introduced.
In my opinion, the Commission and Mr Kinnock should come with good intentions and with sound plans on personnel policy and financial management, but each Commissioner who is now responsible for an area which has had serious shortcomings in the past should come with sound plans in order to improve the situation and not with general, empty proposals.
At the moment, our group still feels sympathy for, and patience with, the Commission because it cannot be held responsible for a large proportion of the mistakes made in the past, but this patience has a limit.
Clear progress must be visible.
At present, we trust that the Commission will produce these sound proposals, but it is not a foregone conclusion that it will do so.
Finally, Mr President, the 1996 discharge was the beginning of the end of the last Commission.
I express the hope that - in fact, I urge the present Commission to ensure that - the 1997 discharge is the beginning of a true reform of financial policy by the Commission. Otherwise this discharge will not have been of any value.
In assessing the question of whether or not to grant the Commission discharge, the decision must be based upon what actually occurred during the financial year concerned, in this case in the course of 1997.
In our Group, we find it hard to see how the financial administration for 1997 was in any crucial way better than that for 1996.
In that year, we voted against granting discharge.
As a result, we shall vote against granting discharge for 1997, too.
We think that this picture of ours is confirmed by the examination carried out by the Court of Auditors.
It is both good and necessary that reforms have been promised.
So far, the promises which have been made are still, however, to be fulfilled, especially where transparency is concerned.
We are therefore going to vote in favour of the demands for reforms which are presented in the resolution, but against the granting of discharge.
Mr President, first of all, I have only positive comments to make on Mrs Van der Laan' s very expert work on this report.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group cannot vote for approving the accounts for 1997.
The report on so-called discharge contains a comprehensive and extremely critical survey of the accounts.
We support these critical remarks, and I must therefore state that it would seem quite absurd, against this background, to vote in favour of approving the accounts.
It has not been possible for the Court of Auditors to issue an auditor' s statement to the effect that the arrangements covered by the accounts are lawful, and we should regard it as extremely problematic if we, as Members of this Parliament, were to vote in favour of accounts without having any guarantee of the legality of the arrangements concerned.
The majority have made their approval of the accounts conditional upon the new Commission' s implementing a series of reforms, so as to ensure that what we are familiar with from the previous Commission' s period of office is not repeated.
Again, I must say that we are concerned here with an extremely unfortunate confusion of the old Commission' s accountability for 1997 and the new Commission' s accountability for the future.
We do not think that the new Commission, under any circumstances, could incur liability for the past.
We think it is wrong to talk about the Commission' s liability as an institution.
The mistakes up until 1999 are attributable to those who had responsibility at that time, and we still have no way of knowing whether the new Commission can do any better.
By means of this extraordinary procedure, Parliament is stopping itself from placing liability for the arrangements in 1997 squarely where it belongs, namely with the previous Commission.
It was the 1996 accounts which led to the downfall of the previous Commission, and the 1997 accounts are just as incriminating.
There is no reason why, against this background, we should agree to grant discharge.
As far as the decision to balance the accounts is concerned, we shall abstain from voting, and where, finally, the motion for a resolution is concerned, we shall attach most importance to the many correct instructions contained in this and vote in favour of it.
Mr President, the decision relating to discharge for the 1997 financial year was postponed because the erstwhile Commission, to whom it was to be granted, had stepped down before the appointed time and was only continuing in office in a caretaker capacity.
Mrs van der Laan' s report - on which she has lavished a great deal of hard work, and for which we are indebted to her - proposes that we should grant discharge to the Commission for 1997.
One might ask how it is that the current Commission is to receive the discharge for its predecessor' s budgetary management - Mr Camre just mentioned this - particularly as the discharge for the previous year, 1996, was denied.
That is just the way things are, however.
In taking over the mandate, the new Commission has to assume responsibility not just for the achievements of the past but also for the mistakes made.
Since, on account of the college system, discharge can only be granted to the Commission as a whole or, alternatively, denied or postponed, it is no longer of any consequence that four former Commissioners who belonged to the previous Commission that has yet to be discharged, crop up again as Members of this body.
This question ought to have been asked when the new Commission was appointed.
If Parliament votes in favour of the Committee on Budgetary Control' s proposal this week and grants discharge, then the Commission must not take this to be a blank cheque.
For it is the third section of Mrs van der Laan' s report that is the most important, to my mind, namely the motion for a resolution.
The comments contained within, under eight headings, are an integral part of the discharge, the implementation of which forms the basis of our decision.
In the course of the discharge procedure for the coming years - that for 1998 is already under way - Parliament will have to examine, as a matter of urgency, whether or not it was too quick to bestow premature praise on the Commission for 1997.
We will be in a position to judge just as soon as the Commission presents its reform programme.
We will be able to use the discharge procedure for 1998 to check whether efficiency, transparency and accountability, and likewise a sincere willingness to provide information, are being displayed vis-à-vis the discharge authority.
Mr President, we all recall that Parliament decided to postpone the discharge for the 1997 financial year pending commitments from the new European Commission regarding internal reform.
In response to this the Commission has entered into various commitments and has certainly adopted many reform measures.
It is fair to say that the new President, Mr Prodi, and his team are certainly committed to implementing the financial control requirements as laid down by this Parliament.
However, the reform of the European Commission must now be taken in the context of the debate that is going to take place in the run-up to the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference and the reform of various EU policies and initiatives.
Existing EU treaties will be amended so as to ensure, for example, that the enlargement process can succeed.
I have no doubt further reform of EU institutions will be analysed in this debate.
But from the perspective of small Member States it is important that, as the European Commission is reformed, it must be done in a way that ensures that small Member States continue to have representation on the Commission.
Mr President, the Commission is now to obtain its discharge for 1997, but in reality it does not deserve it.
1997 was a matter for the old Commission and, therefore, the new Commission does not think that it can accept liability.
It is true that implementation of the Budget for 1997 fell within the old Commission' s remit.
The new Commission has, on the other hand, undertaken to carry out a cleaning up exercise following former scandals, and I must admit that I am not impressed at all.
The old mindset which involved sweeping things under the carpet and protecting one' s friends unfortunately still exists.
There are some who think that it is more in our interests to let bygones be bygones and make a fresh start.
I do not, however, think we can make a fresh start if we do not tidy things up properly.
I am referring here especially to the earlier scandals involving ECHO.
I am very indignant about the fact that it is so difficult to get any documents handed over on this matter.
I am the rapporteur for ECHO on the Committee on Budgetary Control, and I shall have a lot of difficulty carrying out my work if the Commission will not give me the necessary information.
From the outside, it looks as if the Commission has something to hide. My investigations also unfortunately suggest that this could be the case.
The Commission is not putting all its cards on the table and is in that way repeating ancient practice on the part of the Commission.
It was this practice which led to the Commission' s downfall.
I can therefore fully support the demand to give Parliament unconditional right of access to documents. Otherwise, we cannot carry out our work.
Thank you, Commissioner Schreyer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Response to Second Report of Committee of Independent Experts
The next item is the report (A5-0001/2000) by Mr van Hulten, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on action to be taken on the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts on reform of the Commission.
Mr President, this time last year the European Parliament set up a committee of independent experts chaired by Mr Middelhoek to investigate allegations of fraud, nepotism and corruption in the European Commission.
On 15 March the committee published its first report concluding that: "It is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility".
Within a few hours of the presentation of the report President Santer announced the resignation of his entire team.
The resignation marked the end of a bitter struggle between an increasingly confident Parliament and a European Commission mired in allegations of scandal.
Since then the Brussels landscape has changed beyond recognition; a new, reinvigorated Parliament has been elected and a new Commission confirmed in office.
Speaking in this House on 21 July President-designate Prodi undertook to take full account of the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts on Commission reform, which contains 90 detailed recommendations and which we are debating today.
The new Commission has already taken important steps to move away from the way it used to function.
A code of conduct for Commissioners and their private offices has been adopted.
In a symbolic but significant gesture Commissioners have voluntarily renounced their entitlement to the tax-free purchase of alcohol, tobacco, petrol and consumer goods.
New rules have been drawn up and implemented governing the appointment of senior officials.
The number of departments has been reduced.
The Commission, in my opinion, has shown a clear and unprecedented commitment to change and for this they are to be congratulated.
The overall aim of the reforms must be to create a strong, honest European public administration equipped to carry out its tasks in an effective and efficient manner; an administration in which officials are provided with the means to carry out their tasks and are held fully accountable at all levels; an administration that recognises and rewards merit and encourages officials to develop their full potential.
In order to achieve this, action is required in four areas.
First, financial management and control within the Commission must be improved.
One of the main problems is the lack of a functioning system of financial control.
The Commission's DGs must be made fully responsible for their own expenditure, including financial control.
A new independent audit system service must be set up.
DGs must publish their own annual accounts so as to enable a clear identification of problem areas and set annual targets for reducing fraud and irregularities.
In return for this greater degree of autonomy, managers must be made fully and personally responsible for their actions.
It is clear that the transition to such a new system will take time.
Changes to the Financial Regulation will be required and Parliament must have its say on those changes.
But while the Commission must ensure that it respects the Treaty and the Financial Regulation in the transitional phase, this must not be an excuse for inertia.
Urgent change is required today.
Second, the fight against fraud, mismanagement and nepotism must be strengthened, firstly by creating a culture in which they cannot thrive. This requires a clear example to be set by Commissioners and senior staff as well as adequate training and secondly, by reinforcing the existing mechanisms for dealing with fraud.
OLAF, the Commission agency set up earlier this year must be placed under the direction of an independent European public prosecutor whose job will be to prepare for prosecution by national criminal courts, criminal offences committed against the financial interests of the Union by Members and officials of the European institutions.
A proposal can be made, a proposal should be made, on the basis of Article 280 of the Treaty, by the middle of this year.
Third, standards in European public life must be upheld.
The political crisis which led to the downfall of the Commission earlier this year clearly demonstrated the need for unambiguous and enforceable rules of conduct.
A number of codes have since been introduced. They must be assessed by Parliament and should be made legally binding.
The European institutions should follow the example of a number of countries, most notably the United Kingdom, and institute a committee for standards in public life, with a mandate to give advice on professional ethics and rules of conduct in the European institutions.
Whistle-blowers who act in good faith must be protected.
At the end of last year Mr Kinnock announced new measures for the protection of whistle-blowers.
They must be implemented without delay.
Although such measures can never be an alternative for good management, they must be an escape valve when something goes wrong.
Crucially, reforms must not be limited to the Commission.
Parliament must consider itself the need for improvements to its internal rules, administrative procedures and management practices.
Finally, the Commission's human resource policy must be modernised. It is clearly no longer suited to the requirements of a modern, multinational organisation.
The social dialogue has often acted as a brake on reform and its overhaul is long overdue.
A career with the European institutions must become more attractive.
Too many young, new officials are leaving their jobs after just a few years.
Merit must be recognised and rewarded, specific skills training should be a sine qua non for promotion to a higher grade.
The promotions procedure must be made fairer and more transparent.
Last but not least the pay and benefits package must be reviewed.
It must become more flexible and more responsible to labour market conditions.
It must be rid of some of its more outdated elements; and it must deal with the legitimate concerns of the general public who cannot understand why European civil servants should be paid an expatriation allowance indefinitely in a Europe of open borders, or pay a level of taxes that is often well below that of Member States.
Commissioner Kinnock will, tomorrow, present his communication on reform.
This communication must contain a clear timetable.
With a new Commission and a new Parliament up and running the momentum for reform is now as strong as it ever has been and probably ever will be.
Enlargement of the Union is just a few years away.
Now is the time for Europe to put its own house in order; to instil in its institutions - as the independent experts might have said - a sense of responsibility.
In June of last year Europe's voters gave a clear signal that they are fed up with endless stories about mismanagement and nepotism.
There is a very simple way to deal with those stories. Let us get rid of mismanagement and nepotism.
Mr President, I do not want to be misunderstood - I sincerely hope this does not happen - and I should therefore like to start by saying that I am, of course, in favour of combating fraud and firmly support the appropriate, necessary reforms.
This is not a straightforward issue and calls for a much more wide-ranging analysis, but I shall restrict myself to raising only a few points, in order to make people more aware, if possible, of what we are talking about.
All the experts can provide information and news, formulate opinions and give advice, but, they have no political or elective responsibility, and rightly so.
I nevertheless believe that politicians should look into what can be gleaned from an expert report and what cannot be taken en masse in a spirit which, on some occasions, I have felt in the past and still feel to be self-destructive.
I believe - and I shall only pick up on a few ideas - that Parliament alone, and no one else, can exert an influence over its Members. If this were not the case, the European Parliament' s authority and representativeness would be seriously undermined in the coming years, and this institution would not move forward, as it should.
It is just as important for no-one to be able to or have to refuse the European Parliament or its committees any documentation.
Members of Parliament must possess the qualities of morality, discipline and discretion over delegated issues innately, and these certainly cannot be imposed on them by anyone else.
I would point out that there is no European legal system, but that a different legal system exists in each Member State.
We run the risk of delegating issues relating to the same offences which will then be punished in different ways.
I agree that an investigation system should be introduced, but I am also absolutely convinced that we must recognise the right to equal respect for dignity and, in any case, the equal need for the right to a defence.
I am opposed to European Community officials being accused of criminal acts at the drop of a hat: whistle-blowing is a method that has no place in the third millennium.
In conclusion, Mr President, Parliament must introduce a principle of democracy: we must implement reforms which allow Parliament to grow and expand its powers, not go into reverse.
This debate on the van Hulten report brings to a close one of the most traumatic periods for the European institutions since their creation in 1957.
The refusal of the European Parliament to grant discharge and the definitive refusal for the 1996 budget; the motion of censure tabled in this House a year ago for differing reasons; and the first report of the Committee of Independent Experts on the reform of the Commission which led to the mass resignation of the Commission itself, are now part of European folklore.
Those of us involved in these historic events are well aware that none of the upheaval would have been caused had we not acted with parliamentary power to press for changes in the way in which the Commission operated.
Remember that the Council of Ministers, absent again this evening from our debate, approved the 1997 discharge - not the 1996 - on the very day the Commission itself resigned on 15 March.
Now we come to the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts which we already had the opportunity to welcome and briefly debate last September.
Our greatest concern in the EPP is to ensure that public confidence in the European Commission is restored.
Further steps to build a strong Europe will be to no avail if the European peoples perceive that there is no adequate system of democratic accountability for over-zealous officials.
Under no circumstances will we concede ground which we have won over the past few months, which we believe to be in the interests of openness and transparency.
We are therefore concerned to see the flurry of Commission announcements in recent weeks by Commissioner Kinnock suggesting policy proposals of various kinds to be put in a White Paper shortly.
While conveying a desire to proceed rapidly, it also gives the impression that the Commission is in transmission rather than listening mode.
Our concern is strengthened if the rumour reported a few days ago is true - namely that the Commission wants to limit severely the access of Parliament to information.
This was, after all, one of the causes of the downfall of the last Commission.
Have the lessons not been learnt?
The knowledge that the framework relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission still remain to be negotiated led to our disagreement with the rapporteur when we debated his report in committee.
We could, in no way, agree with his view that it would be demeaning for Parliament to set out detailed instructions as to what we wanted the Commission to take up in its reform package.
The less precise, Mr van Hulten, we are in our resolutions, the more room it gives the Commission and your former colleagues in the Council to do what they like.
We believe the vast number of recommendations of the Wise Men' s report should be implemented.
We have, as the EPP-ED group, submitted all the recommendations of the Wise Men' s report in committee and many of them have now been put into the report, entirely changing the nature of the van Hulten report in committee.
We have resubmitted a few amendments which fell in committee, in particular, our desire to see the codes of conduct revised specifically to include the reference to merit and managerial capacity which you, Commissioner, accepted - when we had our hearings last September - should be included in these codes of conduct, particularly when considering appointments and promotion.
Looking to the future, we know that we are at the beginning of a long process of continuing reform in the European Commission.
We want in particular to see the hard-working and highly competent norm for Commission officials acknowledged in the outside world - a reputation that has been darkened by the inappropriate conduct of a few individuals.
Commissioner, you will be aware from your presence in the last Commission why the crisis occurred.
In a nutshell: there were programmes being run for which there were insufficient staff resources available.
We urge you to take the opportunity to establish the real staffing needs of the Commission based on the essential activities for which it is responsible.
Our position was made very clear on this topic in the 2000 budget.
We will be vigilant over the next five years to ensure the reforms now being suggested are fully implemented and will support efforts made to modernise institutions.
But, equally, we will not hesitate to withdraw our support financially or otherwise should steps be taken which do not correspond to the openness promised by Commission President Romano Prodi prior to his nomination.
Let us hope that we can avoid institutional upheavals by having an ongoing dialogue which assumes from the outset that Parliament will be an equal partner in deciding the outcome of Commission reform.
Mr President, I must start by apologising that I cannot be nearly as dramatic as Mr Elles in my presentation.
Can I first thank Mr van Hulten for this report.
It is an excellent report.
It would have been wrong for Parliament to have put in willy nilly every single recommendation that came from an external body because Parliament should have its own opinion on these issues.
It is right for us to have a focused report which is what Mr van Hulten has produced.
Can I invite Mr Elles not to put the cart before the horse.
Yes, a lot of things were lost by the Socialists but they have not been won in plenary yet, and may I warn him that may not be the case tomorrow.
I should like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for all his efforts so far.
He has been clear that his commitment has been to produce a radical change.
Central to this is the attempt to produce and engender responsibility.
It is clear that this needs to be developed at all levels and it needs to recognise the needs of each level within the Commission.
It is clear that we need to see a change in the Financial Regulation. That is important.
We need to stop people passing the buck from one to another.
Where failure is occurring within the Commission we need to hold people responsible.
We need to be assured that consistent under-performance must lead to dismissal.
This is natural elsewhere but it seems to be an extremely radical suggestion when it is put to the Commission.
We cannot continue with a situation where incompetence, mismanagement and fraud are costing the European taxpayers money and providing them with a poor service.
I will give you one example of this.
In the 1998 Court of Auditors report an exchange rate miscalculation in relation to Italian wine cost the taxpayers of Europe GBP 8 to 10 million.
It is clear that is not acceptable.
What happened to the person who was responsible for that miscalculation? We need a system which provides incentives and promotion and we need to see this promotion based on merit.
We recognise that most of the officials within the Commission are extremely hard-working.
But we also recognise that some of the practices are outdated.
We look forward to reading the full Commission proposal on reform and we look forward to working out the detail alongside the Commission because, unlike what Mr Elles has just said, the Commissioner has made a commitment to discuss it with Parliament between now and 1 March.
We also need to recognise that people who live in glasshouses should not throw stones.
The European Parliament has not exactly been clean in its approach to things throughout its history.
We have a long way to go before we are perfect ourselves.
Our own staff policy is outdated.
Some of our working practices need radical reform.
I hope that the European Parliament will be hanging onto the coattails of the Commission in this reform process.
We recognise the proposals on activity-based budgeting.
We recognise that means discipline on the part of Commission officials and we recognise also that we have a responsibility within Parliament on discipline when we talk about negative priorities.
Finally, can I say that the Commission needs to work on its relationships with the public.
European taxpayers need to be re-assured.
The fate of the Commission, of the whole European Union, rests on delivery of this reform.
That is the key issue, delivery of these proposals.
Mr President, I would like to start by extending my compliments to the rapporteur, Mr van Hulten, on his first report.
I very much admire him for keeping his spirits up at a time when he was inundated with so many amendments.
I think that the report drawn up by the Wise Men has been useful and I think that it is also useful for this Parliament - as already stated by Mrs Morgan - that we ourselves should ask for expertise from outside for once to see how our administration is run.
We have submitted an amendment to this effect.
From the many points made by Mr van Hulten in his report, I would like to highlight a few, not necessarily in order of importance but just randomly.
Firstly, I think that the Commission should pay much more attention to the proper storage of documents. The Commission' s records leave a great deal to be desired.
We noticed this when we had to investigate the Flechard affair, which, as it happens, has still not been sorted out.
Curiously, very important documents had gone missing from the cabinets, even from those of the President and of various Directorates-General, and this is clearly something which should not happen.
If Parliament want to carry out proper inspections, these documents must be available, and I would like to know what the Commission intends to do to improve this situation.
I would also like to say a few words about ex post financial control.
This has also been partly dealt with in the van Hulten report.
I think it would be useful if we were to give report figures per category and per sector on how the budget is implemented.
The general impression at present is that anything budget-related within Europe is bad.
It is clear that, over the past couple of years, we have noticed an upward trend in agriculture and a downward one in structural expenditure.
Is this possible? I would like to suggest to the Commission that it prescribe a deadline by which the reforms have to be carried out.
If we admit new Member States then we need to put our own House in order first.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mr van Hulten.
It is his first report here in plenary.
This is worth a compliment although I regret, of course, that he did not expound it in his own mother tongue.
It is a report which came about with difficulty and may well be too late.
In my opinion, this is mainly down to the wrangling between the two major groups within our Committee on Budgetary Control.
Let us be honest.
The second report of the Wise Men arrived in September.
We are now four months down the line.
Meanwhile, Mr van Hulten has been inundated with amendments, more than 100 amendments in the first round.
He went back to work, rewrote his report and took into account the very many suggestions, but had to face nearly another 100 amendments in the second round.
My fear is that all of this has contributed to a report which is too detailed, too extensive and too late.
Moreover, I have been informed that the Commission has approved a report - today of all days - on the reform of the Commission which will be distributed for further consultation to the various institutions and also to our Parliament, I hope.
Might Mr Kinnock be able to throw some light on the matter this evening?
Mr van Hulten, my Group of the Greens and regionalists will support the attempts in tomorrow afternoon' s plenary meeting to embellish this report.
After all, it makes no sense to copy the many sound recommendations made by the Committee of Wise Men word for word in your report.
So tomorrow, if we vote against some amendments or against specific paragraphs, this is certainly not on account of their content but rather to render your report as a whole more readable.
In any case, it should be clear that my group, of course, fully backs the recommendations made by the Committee of Wise Men.
In any event, I look forward to the document which was approved by the Commission today.
I also look forward to the White Paper which will be available in February.
I have to inform you, Commissioner, that both the report of the Wise Men and that of Mr van Hulten will become gauges for our group, gauges which should make it clear to us whether we can have confidence in the Prodi Commission or not.
I would like to end on the following point.
Just as the White Paper on food safety was approved last week and released to public opinion with a clear deadline stated, we would request the same in connection with the new White Paper on the reform of the Commission.
I think that there is a need for this, as public opinion is looking for change and, in any event, my group would like to see a clear change by the end of 2002.
Mr President, this report is positive but, actually, we need more than this.
Fraud, mismanagement and nepotism do not come from nowhere.
They are most likely to occur if there is little democratic control on cash flow.
Via the structural funds, a great deal of the European budget is being pumped around the system.
This is only useful as long as there is a sense of solidarity where rich Member States contribute to both the revenue and development of poorer Member States.
But there is also funding which is being pumped via Brussels back to the same rich Member States.
Districts and regional authorities consider this as their own money but they can only get their hands on this by investing vast amounts of money and manpower in lobbying and negotiating.
After each incident of improper use of this money, and certainly after fraud, the call for stricter control is more pronounced.
Even the strictest control cannot solve this problem.
It will, at best, lead to more bureaucracy and less room for local democracy and for people to get involved in choosing and developing projects.
It would be preferable if national governments channelled this money directly to their local governments without a European detour.
In the next couple of years, we will need to think about the possibility of replacing structural funds by an equalisation fund which is limited to budgetary aid for Member States or their constituent regions with a low income per capita of the population.
This is probably the only way to achieve less fraud, less overheads, more transparency and more democracy.
Mr President, a year has not yet passed, but it is already clear that Parliament is going to evaluate the first and second reports differently.
The first report was widely publicised, formally debated and used - just like the controversy and news leaks which preceded it - to make mincemeat, first of the President of the Commission, and then of the majority of the European Commissioners, even though they had no connection with fraud, mismanagement or nepotism.
Reading now what happened then, not even a year ago, it becomes clear that that first report was intended to do anything but serve the cause of truth or reform, as is maintained today, so much so that this second report - which, on the other hand, could have provided much more salient points - was commissioned with the precise mandate not to address specific cases, since there is no intention to follow up the offences detailed in this report.
It is of no concern to the major groups in Parliament, nor to the majority of the trade unions, who are busy discussing the defence of European public administration, but, in practice, are occupied with the corporate protection of their own members, putting the wide powers afforded to them to dubious use.
Trade union representatives sit on the Disciplinary Board and the Staff Regulations Committee, thereby making it impossible to remove disloyal officials and preserving the Staff Regulations in their fossilised state.
Incomprehensibly, trade union representatives are also members of committees on competition, and I would not be surprised if union members were already members of OLAF, thereby placing this institution which should, at least formally, guarantee its impartiality, at great risk.
I therefore understand why we are meeting at this time, which is usually set aside for other activities and not for debates, discussions and the exchange of information.
Mr President, when it comes to putting its own house in order, the European Commission is in a Catch-22 situation.
There is enormous pressure of expectation following the events that led to the resignation of the previous Commission.
I sometimes have the impression that the more radical the proposals made here in this Chamber sound, the more applause they receive.
There again, it is simply not possible to change situations once and for all with a few strokes of the pen, and the problems begin as soon as we have to start talking about implementation and getting down to brass tacks.
This may explain why we experienced more difficulties than anticipated in the Committee on Budgetary Control as regards this issue.
Nevertheless, the outcome is now on the table and there for all to see, and I would expressly like to thank Mr van Hulten for the work he has done on this report.
Provided this report is not watered-down yet again by the adoption of amendments, it will afford us the opportunity to make clear and unambiguous demands of the Commission on a number of crucial points.
Allow me to start with the most important demand.
We do not want financial control to be abolished.
The financial controller should still be able to make checks before funding commitments or payments are made, not in every case, but wherever uncertainties or risks arise.
The Commission is sending out the wrong signals here, by renaming the Directorate-General for Financial Control as the Directorate-General for Audits, for example.
It may well be easy enough to change the Commission' s organisation chart but it is a different matter when it comes to the legal texts, particularly those relating to budgetary discipline.
I do not have exact figures, but the Community' s budgetary discipline and the associated implementing provisions apply to almost 100 different areas of responsibility of the financial controller, to his or her independence and the tasks assigned to this office.
This cannot be ignored or evaded, certainly not on account of soft law, as was once suggested at a meeting of our Committee.
Irrespective of such legal considerations, it would be an unforgivable mistake, under the circumstances, to scrap financial control in the traditional sense at the very moment when those responsible for such matters in the Commission are, at long last, no longer out on a limb but set to become part of a chain of functioning supervisory and investigatory mechanisms.
As we see it, there will be a dovetailing of three mechanisms in the future: a system of independent prior approval by the financial controller, concomitant and follow-up control by the internal audit service - also known as the audit service - which has yet to be set up, and finally, there will be the targeted tracking-down of irregularities by OLAF, the new anti-fraud office.
It is to be welcomed that Mr van Hulten' s report makes the connection between all three areas and also makes it clear as to where the crucial shortcomings lie, which must be tackled.
A few salient points: the disciplinary procedures are not taking effect, especially when it comes to calling officials to account for their misdemeanours, including those of a financial nature.
There is a large grey area and a great lack of clarity where criminal sanctions are concerned, and it is precisely in this area that the announcements made by the Commission are rather vague.
I can only emphasise that these are the really hard nuts that finally need to be cracked.
Mr President, firstly I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to my colleague, Mr van Hulten.
It is a good feeling to be able to say that he is from our delegation and I am, I think, entitled to feel a little proud of him.
I would in any case like to congratulate him on his report.
Mr President, the Commission' s resignation has also created a culture of fear amongst many officials within the hierarchy and large bureaucracy.
The call to make a cultural U-turn and embrace a culture of responsibility seems to me a very fundamental one.
I have witnessed from close up within the Development Committee how thousands of projects stagnate and how sometimes up to 80% of the money is not spent. Sometimes, an enormous reservoir of money is created, not because it is not desperately needed, not because there are no sound proposals, but because the whole system has collapsed.
A lack of responsibility, too much ex ante, not enough ex post and, as a result, far too little in the way of a culture of real effective spending.
It would be marvellous if this report were to give the green light to result-oriented spending of this kind, with all the work organised on that basis.
When the Commission' s first draft report soon becomes the official report on 1 March, I very much hope that our input here will help ensure that we will actually witness this change.
Without any doubt, this will then be a service, Mr President, to the European public and, by means of the results we produce, we will also regain and re-acquire something which we have ostensibly lost over the past couple of years.
This is the best support we can give to European democracy.
If, in this way, we can move away from the culture of the fifties and cross over into the next century, we are witnessing a very special moment indeed.
Mr President, first of all, congratulations to Michiel van Hulten for his first report.
It was a baptism of fire but we have a saying in the Netherlands appropriate for this occasion: in at the deep end and you will swim in no time.
Mr van Hulten, I think you deserve a medal for your efforts.
There are two points which, in my opinion, deserve special attention on the part of the ELDR.
Firstly, there is the Commissioners' individual responsibility.
This must be regulated during the IGC.
However, we should not like this important issue to end up entirely in the hands of the Council and we have, therefore, submitted an amendment in which we ask whether an interinstitutional agreement could be reached between the Commission and Parliament in order to ensure that we have a kind of fall-back position and are not placing our fate completely in the hands of the Council.
Secondly, as already mentioned by my colleague, Mr Mulder, the ELDR is of the opinion that the European Parliament should also be investigated by independent experts.
This will contribute hugely towards re-establishing the confidence of the European citizens in this institution.
We at the European Parliament cannot be a credible counterpart to this reformed Commission as long as we do not search our hearts and put our own House in order as well.
Only when all European institutions are reformed will we have the open, democratic and decisive Europe which our citizens now finally deserve.
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mr van Hulten on this first piece of work which he is presenting to the House.
I am sure that it will serve, amongst other things, to make his second report more flexible and for him to step up efforts to find a consensus amongst the groups.
At this stage, there can be no delay in the process of reforming the Commission, demanded by our citizens.
This Parliament has often heard the desire to reform the Commission expressed, even by its Presidents.
It now appears that this desire is more serious.
After the resignation of a Commission and after a Committee of Experts has listed an almost endless number of deficiencies, it makes sense that Mr Prodi should have promised, on 14 September, to present this Parliament with a complete plan for reform by February.
This Parliament anxiously awaits this complete reform programme.
The report that we are debating today intends to give political force to many of the recommendations of the Committee of Experts commissioned by this Parliament.
Mr Prodi said he would act anyway, that he preferred to get things right, but that fear of not getting things right would not prevent him from acting.
We therefore ask that his programme be a bold one and, if it is, I can assure him that he will have the support of this House in the reform process.
We want a strong Commission, which can act in an independent and neutral manner, but with political sense.
Commissioners should not be considered senior officials but rather politicians in office.
Therefore, the report allows them to be members of political parties and to be members of political bodies affiliated to their parties.
Perhaps the reference to the posts is imprecise.
I do not know your exact view in this respect, Mr Kinnock, but it is clear that we want Commissioners who are politically strong and politically committed.
We want a structure which allows every Euro to be spent effectively, and our accounts demonstrate that this is not happening at present.
Therefore, Commissioner, we ask Mr Prodi to present us with a bold programme, and he will find that he has problems with those bodies who feel that their status quo is under threat, but not with this Parliament, which expects profound and daring changes.
Mr President, the Santer Commission came to grief because financial control failed all down the line.
Therefore, the future of this new Commission will depend in no small measure on the extent to which reforms are swiftly undertaken here and financial control is back in working order.
As far as this is concerned, a number of people have already referred to the fact that the Commission intends to drastically improve and consolidate its follow-up checks and that these checks should be carried out on a completely independent basis, with no sweeping of matters under the carpet in future.
Naturally, this is only to be welcomed.
What I do not understand is why this has to come at a price, as it were, that is, of having to dispense with independent - and I stress, independent - prior approval.
Up until now, the Commission' s payments could only be made when the authorising officer signed the appropriate order and the financial controller gave his approval in the form of a visa.
And so it is the "two key" principle that applies here.
A single key is to suffice in future.
The financial controller is no longer to make advance checks, if all goes to plan as regards the reforms currently under discussion within the Commission.
If you will pardon me for saying so, Mr Kinnock, what you are proposing is a little like abolishing the police because they were unable to prevent crimes.
What we really need to focus on, however, is making the checks more effective.
This could be achieved by no longer insisting, in future, that the financial controllers furnish every single payment transaction with their approval stamp.
It is precisely those who feel the need to control everything that end up controlling nothing at all.
Therefore, in future, prior approval should take place in a targeted manner, that is, only in cases of uncertainty or risk.
The officials responsible for financial control should be deployed on a decentralised basis, that is, in the operational Directorates-General, amongst those of their colleagues that spend the money, so that they are immediately available when problems arise and so as to render the checks less ponderous and time-consuming.
However, the financial controllers must work independently.
That is the crucial difference between our plans and those of the Commission, when it talks in terms of decentralisation.
It is obviously the Commission' s intention to make the financial control officials subordinate to the individual Directorates-General, but this is precisely what we do not want.
Surely we have learnt this much from the events surrounding the Leonardo affair, when the internal examiners in the relevant Directorate-General issued warnings, but these were neither heeded nor passed on.
Therefore, independence is prerequisite for effective checks.
That is the position which a clear majority of the Committee on Budgetary Control subscribes to.
Indeed, the new Commission has now declared itself in favour of follow-up checks having this independence, and so would it not make sense for a system of prior approval to enjoy such independence as well?
I believe we should set the seal on this point at tomorrow' s vote.
Mrs Theato has already expressed as much and I am only too willing to support her in this regard.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr van Hulten for his report and to say that I voted for it.
So I refer to the things I do not agree with.
I do not agree with the paragraphs in relation to Parliament.
This report is about the Commission.
Parliament is a separate subject.
There is no need for us to bring Parliament into the discussion on the Commission.
In addition to that, there is the question of duty-free.
That was a stick used to beat the Commission by the duty-free lobbies who resented the fact that the Commission abolished duty-free in airports.
It is not worthy of being brought into this report either.
Most of the report is about financial control.
That is reasonable because it comes from the Budgetary Control Committee. But we should not create the impression that vast amounts of European resources are being put at risk by carelessness in the European Commission.
After all, it is only 1% of GDP, by comparison with national spending.
We have had all that before but some people in this Parliament are young and do not seem to understand how small the financial resources of the European Union are and that 80% of these resources are spent by the Member States.
So carelessness within the Commission in the spending of money is not likely to put at risk vast quantities of money.
We should get it into perspective. It is important to remember that.
The business of the European Commission is very little about spending money.
They have very little of it. They have a much wider responsibility.
That wider responsibility concerns the management of the environment, food safety, foreign trade, the internal market and so many other responsibilities we have given them without the resources to deal with them.
I am not one of the people who agrees that there is a vast lack of trust.
If there is, we have generated it in this House in the past year.
I have been here for 20 years and found absolute trust between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
We have had our problems and we recognised difficulties but there was not a situation where this bureaucratic Commission was mistrusted, doubted and feared by the citizens of the European Union because they were mismanaging our affairs.
That is a gross exaggeration of what the difficulties were.
This Commission should not have to live forever in the shadow of the mistakes that caused the resignation of the Commission that went before it.
While there were problems - and we have to resolve them in view of enlargement, for instance - we sometimes take the negative side too far.
Mr President, I should very much like to thank the rapporteur for his splendid report.
I hope that the Commission will use it in its reform work.
The process of reform has been going on for some time, and something like a state of emergency seems to prevail in the Commission.
The Commission' s administration simply does not function particularly well.
Naturally, there are good, capable employees in the Commission, and they are in the majority.
But we need radical reform.
There is too little action and too much unnecessary bureaucracy.
People should have clearly-defined powers to take decisions for which they should also be accountable.
The Financial Regulation should be amended.
We agree that we should have better control of the finances.
It is just a question of how.
The Commission and the Committee of Independent Experts are in favour of completely doing away with ex ante financial control.
We should be careful about this. We should retain some form of ex ante financial control.
It is not enough simply to carry out spot checks once the money has been spent.
This would allow too many anomalous projects to slip through.
Instead, we should be reforming and decentralising control.
The Commission does not have enough staff.
As Members of the European Parliament, we must have the courage to explain to our governments and people back home that the Commission' s staff resources are not at all adequate for the tasks which have been assigned to it.
And the Commission should be able to refuse new tasks if it does not also get the extra staff it needs.
The staffing system is too rigid.
There should be a more frequent rotation of employees, especially at the top of the hierarchy.
It should also be much easier to sack inefficient and incompetent employees.
I am therefore very pleased that the disciplinary procedure is to be reformed.
After all, the very bad experiences so far with disciplinary proceedings show all too clearly how necessary it is that we carry out reforms.
Mr President, Commissioners, first of all, I cannot help but reflect upon the fact that this is, on the whole, a Dutch-British-Scandinavian debate where the speakers are concerned.
Perhaps this is a little worrying.
I hope, like so many others, that the state of emergency in relations between the Commission and Parliament is on the way to being resolved.
We must get away from the idea that we are rushing to put out a fire in one corner, only then to have to rush again to put out the next one.
As Mr Blak said, we must instead establish a system with clear roles.
First of all, we need tough regulations, which can be implemented.
Codes of conduct and ethical committees are not enough.
There need to be tough rules stating, among other things, what may be decentralised, what may be outsourced and what is independent.
I find it a little worrying that people are clamouring for independence in this debate without defining what it is in relation to which there is to be independence and without defining what right of decision-making is to be exercised.
What we need, then, are basic administrative regulations for the EU, for its institutions and for the EU in its relations with the Member States.
These are what are missing.
We have asked for a Public Prosecutor' s Office and criminal law, but we also need administrative law for the EU.
We should make a good deal of progress if the Commission were to adopt, as binding regulations, the ombudsman' s proposal of a code of conduct for good administrative practice.
The van Hulten report is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.
Secondly, we must also clarify our own auditing roles.
The Court of Auditors is to monitor the extent to which actions are incompatible with the regulations, but it should not examine the expediency of a particular action.
It is the European Parliament which is to carry out the political evaluation.
We do not hunt down criminals. That is OLAF' s job.
Tell me what national parliament, for example, is handed all preliminary investigation documents.
Obstinate as I am, I also want to say that the regulations governing public access to official records must be clearly better than the draft which has been circulating on the Internet. Otherwise, we shall not get anywhere in this fight.
Mr President, I would like to extend a warm thank you to the rapporteur for his report.
I am pleased that I can address him now in Dutch, now that Mr Van den Berg has just done so. Otherwise I probably would have felt slightly guilty about this.
I would like to say that this report represents a huge improvement, also with its amendments.
I am from the Social Committee and rapporteurs on our committee are always proud to receive 100 amendments because then they know that they have tabled an interesting topic.
I think that this is also the case here, but I think it would be a bit over the top to spend too much time talking about these 100 amendments.
I would also point out that our coordinator on the Budgetary Control Committee is Mr Pomés Ruiz, who is Spanish and has hence made a major contribution to this debate from a Spanish perspective.
Mr President, one of the key aspects which have been mentioned is, to my mind, the rapporteur' s proposal for the standing committee on standards in public administration.
A very important proposal indeed.
I am only very surprised that the Socialist group would like to subordinate this proposal to one tabled by Mrs Morgan, because she wants to scrap it altogether.
I cannot fully grasp the underlying rationale.
On the one hand, we receive all kinds of words of praise for the rapporteur but, at the same time, Mrs Morgan wants to pursue a sort of scorched earth policy on this point and on other key points as well, as a result of which, in fact, the entire content of this report vanishes.
I do not know whether this is to appease Mr Kinnock, but I happen to know Mr Kinnock.
He is happy to hear what our demands are and is quite prepared to be flexible if he considers it necessary.
In my opinion, such a far-reaching scorched earth policy is really unnecessary.
Finally, the issue of officials.
Actually, I do not entirely share Mr Haarder' s view.
I do agree that the section on officials has, in fact, been completed totally inadequately.
First of all, the importance of a public service in general is not at all emphasised.
Secondly, all kinds of proposals are nevertheless being mooted, and we have to ask ourselves whether these are terribly appropriate and whether they would lead to improvement.
For example, we are currently looking into TAOs. This is a key point but, at the same time, we want to abolish temporary staff at the Commission.
These two considerations are diametrically opposed to each other, and I really fail to grasp how such a proposal can end up on the table.
Mr President, ever since Plato' s 'Republic' , the Western world has regularly been tempted to replace government by the people with government by experts.
Our Parliament first asked experts to help it evaluate the performance of the European Commission and they took advantage of this invitation to determine, themselves, what its future should be.
In this second report, the experts have gone a step further and criticised some of the political groups in Parliament, which may have hesitated to remove the European Commission from office, since they shared the political affiliations of some of its members. The experts think that this problem will be resolved by banning the Commissioners from belonging to political groups.
According to the experts, Parliament should no longer have the power to supervise the European Commission. This task should be taken over by a committee which will guarantee high standards in public life, and this should be a standing committee, not elected, presumably made up of another group of experts.
In this, their second report, the experts tell us that Italy is financed by the Cohesion Fund, that the ERDF and the Social Fund represent two-thirds of the Structural Funds and that the principles of additionality and complementarity in the Structural Funds come to the same thing. They tell us that the farming lobby is forcing us to finance rural development through the EAGGF-Guarantee and that the principle of partnership only applies to the Commission and to the Member States.
This lesson in wisdom is 100% ideology and 0% knowledge.
This will not help us to reform the European institutions whilst fully respecting democratic institutions.
The van Hulten report started out as a brilliant one and I would like to pay deep and sincere tribute here to what Mr van Hulten achieved.
Unfortunately, it was then changed, and changed for the worse, which turned it into a document which in fact, proposes something that we cannot accept.
Mr President, Mr van Hulten, your work is worthy of being qualified as enterprising, arduous and complex, and I believe this is important in a first report.
Please therefore accept what I am about to say as being criticism made in the spirit of honest debate, and I believe that in this way our debate here today will be richer.
This report seems to me to be redundant, long-winded, confused and lacking in accuracy in the terms used.
Perhaps 'redundant' is the most serious epithet, and you are not responsible for this. It is the responsibility of this Parliament.
That is to say, if this Parliament commissions a Committee of Experts - and I am not going to repeat what Mr Casaca has said, but I agree with him to a large extent - to analyse a problem, where is the sense in indulging in the medieval tradition of criticising the critics and so on, ad infinitum.
Clearly we are awaiting this reform from the Commission, we are awaiting the proposals which the Commission is going to make to us and this Parliament will have to express its opinion on them.
Meanwhile, we have to offer the Commission a vote of confidence.
'Long-winded' .
I am not going to mention the length of this report.
I do not know if it breaks the record for all the resolutions presented here, but, for this type of resolution it certainly does.
I do not believe that there has ever been a resolution - and in this Parliament we certainly produce complex resolutions - which has had paragraphs of more than 16 lines without a single full stop.
It is also 'confusing' .
I am not going to return to what has been said about the analysis of questions concerning Parliament.
That should be the subject of another report and we will have to carry one out and consider that issue, but not in this report.
And finally, Mr President, frankly, I am not going to give examples, but there are many cases in which legal language is used with an alarming lack of accuracy.
Therefore - in summary - I await, and many of us await, your report, Commissioner Kinnock, so that we can really express our opinion on it, which is the duty of this Parliament.
Mr President, the scope and highly detailed nature of the proposals for necessary reform measures show just how important these reforms are.
When one considers the events that have set these endeavours in motion though, it is only too clear as to why there is a need for them.
Hopes and expectations were raised higher still by the strong messages sent out by Commissioners Prodi and Kinnock in plenary and in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The concept of transparency stands out in the report.
Securing this is a major priority.
The importance of smooth-running, comprehensible work cannot possibly be emphasised enough.
This is not just about bureaucratic reform, however; rather, it is about showing good will towards the citizens.
We must win back their faith in EU politics.
The citizens demand rapid and open access to the institutions and call for EU provisions to be comprehensible to them.
This is what enables them to understand what is going on. They want to see the politics of success and believe that this is how any politically mature citizen could expect to be served
Whether or not the reforms succeed depends, to a very large extent, on the Commission' s own initiative.
However, it annoyed me when I heard today that the Commission is now saying that it only wishes to discuss the interim report with Parliament on an informal basis.
However, Mr Kinnock, your presentation to the Committee on Budgetary Control this coming Tuesday must not just be a one-way street; rather, as Parliamentarians, we want, and must, play a part in this and it also goes against my understanding of politics when I find that yet another press conference has taken place this week, before we have had chance to carefully discuss the submission in the competent Committee on Budgetary Control.
I believe, Mr Kinnock, that notwithstanding all the success achieved on a personal level, the Commission still has quite a lot to do to satisfy our justifiably high expectations.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.15 p.m.)
Middle East peace process (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the Council and Commission statements on the Middle East peace process.
Mr President, Commissioner Patten has our understanding.
I would like to tell him that communications with Madrid are usually more fluid and, therefore, I hope to see him there soon.
The statements we have heard today on the Middle East peace process are very opportune at the moment because of the hurried tour which Minister Gama - whose absence from this debate I also regret - has made of the region, accompanied by other Council representatives.
The tone of the news in the media on the recent events in the area could lead us to take a pessimistic view of the situation.
I honestly believe that an evaluation of this type would not be in accordance with the reality of that situation. In this sense, I share Commissioner Patten' s positive attitude.
Let me explain: it is true that the Israeli Government has delayed the third hand-over of West Bank territory to the Palestinian authorities.
It is also true, however, that, since the signing of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreements, 39% of the territory of the West Bank has been handed over to the Palestinian National Authority, together with two thirds of the Gaza Strip and, more importantly, this agreement has so far been scrupulously complied with, since, under the terms laid down in Sharm el-Sheikh, the Israeli Government has the right to delay that handover.
This is naturally on the condition that the delay does not exceed three weeks, as Prime Minister Barak has promised.
On the other hand, the decision to delay the second round of talks, initiated in Shepherdstown by the Syrian Arab Republic, is undoubtedly significant, but I am convinced that the hopes which were raised on 3 January in that town will not be dashed.
Mr President, the fact that the different groups in this Parliament are tabling a motion for a resolution, in this ever controversial debate, which is the result of a broad consensus, seems to me to demonstrate the clear political will to decisively support open peace processes.
I would therefore like, equally firmly, to express our rejection of the use of violence to resolve differences, which are still no doubt profound, between the parties.
In my judgement, this constitutes a guarantee to both sides, both from a political and a financial point of view, of the commitment they can expect from the European Union in terms of its contribution to the cost of the peace which we all long for.
It is clear to everyone that this is essential to guaranteeing security in the area and to cooperating in the development which is needed to heal the serious social differences which exist.
But this also serves to make a claim, on the part of the European Union, for a degree of political participation in the process which is consistent with its economic contribution - we do not have aspirations to be bankers - and which will be suitably visible to the public.
There is absolutely no doubt that the forthcoming trip by the President of the European Parliament to the region will contribute to this.
Mr President, I want to thank Commissioner Patten for his detailed account.
I should like to say that I agree with the tone which Galeote Quecedo' s speech set here.
We in Parliament strongly support the Middle East peace process. It is, of course, a peace process which is finally under way.
If we think of how the process was looking a year ago, the difference between then and now is like that between night and day, despite difficulties and delays.
I want to emphasise four points.
First of all, the Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement contains, as everyone knows, a concrete timetable for the implementation of Israel' s commitments. This applies both to the interim agreement and to the Hebron and Wye Agreements.
While the negotiations on the final peace settlement have begun, I think it is important to keep the two processes apart.
A lack of progress in the final status negotiations should not jeopardise implementation of the three above-mentioned interim agreements.
What we need to look out for in this context is how matters develop in connection with the harbours in Gaza, the northern transit route between Gaza and the West Bank, further releases of political prisoners and implementation of the financial commitments.
The second point relates to Syria. There, the border question is obviously central.
How negotiations are proceeding there, we still do not know. What is important, however, is that they have begun.
An important question in this context is the future distribution of water.
As things are at present, the Golan Heights account for between a third and a sixth of Israel's water supply.
The third aspect is the peace negotiations in Syria which are closely linked to the issue of Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon.
According to UNIFIL, there are now concrete signs that Israel is preparing to withdraw, which is something we welcome.
There too, of course, outstanding matters in dispute are the water problem and the situation of the Lebanese Palestinian refugees.
My last point concerns the future Palestinian State. This may be proclaimed in the course of this year, with or without Israel' s support.
The Barak government has given to understand that it intends to conclude a peace agreement with a state as the other party.
Even if negotiations are not completed by September of this year, there is nothing in the relevant treaties to prevent a Palestinian state from being proclaimed after that date.
In this context, it is important for those of us who support the idea of a Palestinian state that the latter should be as Commissioner Patten said, namely a state subject to public control, and that it should be a democratic state.
This is something to which we all want to contribute.
Mr President, I would like to refer, firstly and above all, to the joint resolution which will be laid down to round off this debate. My Group has made a contribution to this resolution and, needless to say, approves of it.
More specifically, however, I would like to express our delight at the fact that, after such a long time, Israel and Syria are on speaking terms again to resolve their differences of opinion.
The recent negotiations are already an important step towards a permanent peace in the Middle East.
It is, therefore, regrettable that these peace talks have been suspended for the time being.
Indeed, both parties will need to make huge efforts.
Lasting peace in the region can only be achieved by means of an agreement which guarantees the security of the Israeli borders, as well as Syria' s integrity.
It is also necessary to initiate permanent diplomatic relations and to establish constant dialogue.
In addition to the bilateral meetings with Syria, I hope that Israel will also enter into negotiations with Lebanon within the foreseeable future and that, in the framework of economic and regional cooperation, a multilateral approach will appear possible.
Nevertheless, it is still regrettable that the European Union, one of the most important financial donors, is still unable to play a major political role in the peace process.
This peace process in the Middle East is one of the priorities of the European Union' s common foreign and security policy.
This is where Mr Solana, the High Representative to the Council, could come into his own.
The Commission and Member States also have to be encouraged to support projects which can help develop understanding and partnership between the different nations in the region.
I should also draw your attention to the significance of the Barcelona process which should have a beneficial impact on regional cooperation.
In this respect, we support Libya' s participation, provided that it recognises human rights, renounces support for terrorists and fully supports the peace process.
There are still, needless to say, many unresolved problems and unanswered questions, also involving the Palestinians.
Everyone knows that the peace process is a protracted and difficult affair but we are convinced that, with the necessary trust, perseverance and indispensable political will, our common goal, namely a peaceful and prosperous Middle East, will be achieved.
Mr President, it is pleasing that, despite certain delays and problems, the peace negotiations are going on both between Israel and Palestine and between Israel and Syria. The moment of truth is approaching.
Is Israel prepared to comply with the UN' s resolutions and, in exchange for peace and security, hand back the Arab areas which were conquered in 1967? Will Israel let Palestinian refugees return or be given compensation?
Will Israel share Jerusalem and the water of the River Jordan?
Will a free Palestine be a truly democratic state and, therefore, reliable as a partner in peace? Will Syria fully accept Israel' s existence and introduce democracy and the rule of law?
The fact that the main responsibility for the peace process lies with the occupying country, Israel, does not prevent the Arab partners from also having a considerable share of the responsibility.
Peace in the Middle East concerns us all, however. It is therefore good that the EU should act as a godparent to the Palestinian state.
Against this background, I want to conclude with a remarkable story from Sweden where an international Intergovernmental Conference on Hitler' s extermination of the Jews is being held, which is obviously a welcome initiative.
Of 47 states invited from all corners of the world, not one of them, however, is an Arab state included in the EU' s Barcelona process.
This has been interpreted as indicating that the Arab attitude towards Israel should be regarded by Europeans as being similar to the Nazis' anti-Semitism, which of course is completely incorrect.
The Arab world' s criticism of Israel has been founded upon the same sort of anti-colonialism as, for example, Algeria' s fight for freedom against France.
But today, Egypt, Jordan and Palestine have peace treaties with Israel.
I therefore wonder whether Commissioner Patten does not agree with me that it would have been only right and proper to have invited at least one Arab state to the holocaust conference in Stockholm.
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Patten very much for the awareness he has demonstrated of the difficulties inherent in the peace process and the challenge that the European Union is taking on to bring it to completion.
It is high time there was peace in the Middle East.
It is time to end the era which began with the Balfour declaration in 1917 and the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.
It is time there were secure borders and political, social and economic rights in every country in this region, and that human rights were recognised and upheld in Syria, Palestine, Israel and everywhere else.
This is an exercise in sovereignty, and in democracy for each population and every individual, but to this end it is vital for all parties in the conflict to have the courage to strive for peace and rights, and to recognise the other as its partner and not as its subject to whom concessions must be given.
I refer principally to the Palestine-Israel question, but the same also applies to the territories which have been occupied in the Golan since 1967 and in southern Lebanon since 1982.
Israel has to accept its responsibilities, withdraw from the occupied territories and share its water resources but, at the same time, it has to be sure that it will be safe and able to live in peace in terms of economic and political relations with all the countries in the area.
However, Israel is not the only country concerned with security.
The same goes for the other countries, especially for the Palestinians, who are still living under military occupation and whose land even today is still confiscated in areas B and C, despite the Oslo Agreement and subsequent agreements.
Between the period when the Oslo Agreement was signed and 17 October 1999, 174 000 dunams of land were confiscated, 8 462 of which have been taken under Mr Barak' s Government. Trees have been uprooted, houses are still being demolished and, above all, water supplies have been reduced or refused, especially in East Jerusalem, while the settlements continue and are growing constantly.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that with the election of the new government, positive steps have been taken: negotiations, at least, have resumed.
But in the Middle East, there can be no stable and lasting peace if the Palestinians do not have their own state, if they cannot move freely within their own territory.
All the international community has to do is implement Resolutions 332, 248, 245 and 194.
We are concerned by the deferment of the building of relations with Syria, as well as Mr Barak' s decision to postpone the withdrawal of the Israeli army and the Sharm el­-Sheikh agreements.
We feel it is extremely important for the European Union to play a political role in negotiations which matches its economic aid.
We cannot be content with a role backstage. We must be leading protagonists while staying off a collision course with the United States, as Minister Gama said.
Mr President, firstly my thanks and appreciation to Commissioner Patten for his comments here today, particularly in relation to the role of the European Union in the peace process, and for reaffirming that our role is not only that of "banker" for the entire operation.
I was deeply disappointed at the news this week that the peace talks between Israel and Syria had been suspended.
I very much hope that a compromise can be reached to overcome this so that the peace negotiations can be resumed at a very early date.
Nevertheless, we cannot deny that some positive political progress has been made in the Middle East of late.
The fact that the Syrian Foreign Minister and the Israeli Prime Minister were recently sitting around the same table in America for the first time in their respective histories is an indication that old hatreds and animosities can be overcome.
Political leaders must show real courage to put in place a framework which can lead to an overall peace settlement within the Middle East.
I know that if agreement can be reached between Syria and Israel, the Israeli Prime Minister will still face real opposition to any new agreement with Syria in any future referendum.
The settlers at the Golan Heights will demand to be compensated and there will have to be guarantees of security.
If Syria would be willing to offer concessions on the security question then the prospects of a successful resolution to the Israel/Syria question might be promising.
On the issue of Palestine, I recognise that there are still some difficulties with regard to the implementation of some aspects of the Wye Agreement.
The key problem areas at the moment include the difficulties of redeployment, as well as the transfer of territories.
The low level of releases of Palestinian prisoners and the fact that the Israeli Government appears to intend halting implementation of building permits already granted, as well as not approving new ones, pose further obstacles.
These issues have clearly been holding up progress on the permanent status negotiations, although, I believe, these talks will not be held up indefinitely.
At present, the main difficulty in approaching the negotiations seems to be that the Palestinians are insisting that the border issue must be agreed upon first, while the Israeli Government says that it should be settled only if a solution is reached on the issue of settlements and security.
Currently, both sides seem to have accepted that nothing will be agreed until everything is agreed.
In conclusion, while other countries in the Middle East have had reservations about the overall direction of the peace process, now that the Syrian Government has been brought into the peace process, Egypt and other countries in the region are willing to move forward.
I sincerely hope that, in the interests of improving the safety and quality of life of the people living in the Middle East, all the key protagonists will move forward quickly, in the very near future, so as to reach an overall agreement on all the key matters which need to be resolved.
Mr President, the various motions for resolutions tabled in Parliament more or less represent the situation in the Middle East.
There are those who are in favour of new agreements between Israel and Syria, but only a few focus on the real problem at the heart of the Middle East issue.
Indeed, the time has come to resolve a central problem for global stability.
The time has come for Israel to fulfil its promises of old and definitively withdraw from the occupied territories, at last recognising once and for all the authority of Palestine, whose resumed diplomatic activity will have a secure future while it is under the wise leadership of Yasser Arafat.
It is equally important not to lose sight of the Iraq question, which no one discusses anymore, thereby relegating the problems of millions of women, elderly people and children, the victims of an embargo as arrogant as it is wicked, to oblivion.
I do not know what Syria and Israel will want or be able to do in reality, but I do know that our institution can do a lot and it is time that it attached the same importance to peoples' lives as it does to the ballasts of the cold, colourless, artificial neon bulbs in our lamps, which can illuminate houses but not the world in the third millennium.
Mr President, the Israeli author, Amos Oz, managed to capture very aptly the icy atmosphere at the negotiating table between the Israelis and Syrians recently.
He was under the impression that the Syrians thought that, in exchange for the Golan Heights, all they had to do was to fax the Israelis a receipt.
Oz' s impression is also echoed in the Israeli press.
It contrasts Prime Minister Barak' s personal peace efforts and the distant attitude, even physical absence, of the strong man of Damascus, President Assad, at the negotiations in the United States.
Surely Assad would be Barak' s ideal negotiating partner and not the Foreign Affairs Minister.
And the Israelis were certainly not impressed by the discourteous behaviour of Minister Farouk al-Shara in Shepherdstown.
His behaviour towards Prime Minister Ehud Barak was plainly insulting.
But why pay attention to such detail as basic diplomatic niceties in the face of a tough negotiation process over territory? Well, the Syrians are quite possibly cutting off their nose to spite their face.
At the end of the day, Israeli voters can still express an opinion on the return of the Golan.
All the resolutions submitted express the sincere wish for greater European involvement in the peace process.
It is, however, very much in doubt whether Brussels can make available the billions of dollars which the Israeli and Syrian authorities require from their peace patron, the United States, not to mention the heavy, equally costly, security guarantees in case of an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan.
I would like to finish off by asking the European Council and Commission a question.
How accurate are the press reports which state that the Portuguese Presidency has already pledged troops as a peacekeeping force in the Golan?
Mr President, the truth is that the news of the indefinite suspension or delay of the talks between Syria and Israel is not good news, but nor is it good news that the day before yesterday there was another bomb attack which injured 16 people.
It is clear that, for once, the United States has not been able to secure progress on the restarting of these negotiations, and it is true that the obstacles are difficult to overcome: the Syrians wish to regain sovereignty and jurisdiction over the Golan Heights and re-establish the borders which existed before 4 June 1967, while the Israelis wish, since they consider that it suits their situation better, to have the borders which were set in 1923.
The suspension of the talks between Syria and Israel is not the only delay affecting the peace process in the Middle East.
The application of the framework agreement between the Palestinian authorities and Israel is also suspended at the moment.
After the talks which took place the day before yesterday between the Israeli Prime Minister and the Leader of the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli Prime Minister requested a delay of two months as from 13 February, the deadline for the implementation of the framework agreement on the situation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
What can the European Union do in these circumstances?
Unfortunately, very little.
It naturally has to support these negotiations, sponsored by the United States; contacts have to be increased; the presence of the European Union envoy, Ambassador Moratinos, who has fulfilled his mission with great diligence and efficiency, within the powers of the European Union, is positive.
But none of this hides the fact that there is a certain sense of impotence, because when the negotiators from each side fly back to the United States this weekend, we will have to remember that, for every 100 dollars spent on the peace process in the region, 60 are contributed by the European Union.
When we consider that a conference will soon be held in Moscow, it becomes clear that the European Union' s presence in this peace process is somewhat pitiful.
I would like to insist to the Portuguese Presidency that we must play a greater role, that it is time to take over and to secure greater participation for the European Union in this process.
I hope that the forthcoming visit by the President of the European Parliament to the region, as well as the presidents of the relevant interparliamentary delegations, will begin an era of greater initiative and a greater presence for the European Union in this complicated and difficult peace process.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Patten, I should like to thank you for your statements, especially Commissioner Patten, whose analysis I fully share and I shall not, therefore, repeat any of his ideas.
I should just like to make three comments which Commissioner Patten will perhaps see as similar but which, for various reasons, a Member can formulate more openly.
First, I believe that we can welcome the agreement between Israel and the Palestinian authorities.
But we have enough agreements now: Oslo, Wye Plantation, Sharm el-Sheikh.
We have enough agreements; they just need to be implemented.
However, in this regard I share Mr Salafranca' s scepticism when he says that there has been bad news from Israel this week, namely that the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum cannot be implemented within the set timeframe.
My second point concerns the resumption of negotiations between Syria and Israel. I consider this to be very encouraging news.
But we have also learned this week that Mr Barak will not be travelling to Washington and that the negotiations cannot therefore be continued.
I should like to make it quite clear: if the Golan Heights are returned to Syria, the problem in this region will be solved.
On the question of the referendum which various Members have referred to: we must consider if a referendum always needs to be held in order to honour obligations under international law and under the law of nations.
In Germany, there would probably be dancing in the streets if we were to say that we were holding a referendum on payments to the European Union and we shall pay if the German people are prepared to pay.
That would be a similar situation.
My third and last point concerns the role of the European Union.
I should really like to stress the excellent role which Mr Moratinos' special mission has played in the region and the funding which we have provided there, Commissioner Patten.
You know that you will always have our support here in Parliament, and that includes your proposal, and we shall be behind you when the time comes to finance it.
But we must also play a political role and Mr Moratinos cannot play that role in this region on his own; the Presidency of the Council must take action, the EU High Representative for common foreign and security policy must travel to the region and we must do as the Russians did and invite the protagonists of the peace process ourselves.
Then we will have played the role which is commensurate with our participation and our contribution.
Mr President, Commissioner Patten, the recent peace talks begun in the USA between Israel and Syria mark a turning point in the history of the Middle East. It has taken fifty years to reach this point, which will involve some particularly difficult negotiations.
There will be no meeting today in Shepherdstown but we must hope, as Mr Patten said just now, that this postponement of the negotiations due to Syrian requirements will only represent one more step on the road to a peace agreement which will change the face of the Middle East.
This hope is contained in our motion for a resolution. We hope for a fair and balanced agreement based on respect for sovereignties and the right to live securely within safe and recognised borders.
All the foreign troops, including therefore the Syrian forces, must withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with Resolution 520 of the United Nations Security Council.
Dare we hope for an Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon by July 2000, the date promised by Ehud Barak? Dare we hope for a dual peace agreement between Israel and its neighbours to the north?
We really hope and believe so.
Never have the parties been so determined.
One fundamental point to be stressed is the balance which must be expressed in the message from Europe and which must exist between the people. There must also be a political balance between the participants in the negotiations.
Following the attack in Hadera on Monday, we must repeat our condemnation of any form of terrorism.
In terms of balance, or should I say imbalance, I must add that it is to be regretted that Europe is still playing a minor political role in resolving this conflict.
At midday, Mr Gama referred to the financial and commercial support provided by Europe to the region.
Despite everything, we are being forced to recognise that the resumption of the peace process is largely due to the work of Washington.
Like other Arab countries before them, the Syrians chose the Americans to sponsor the negotiations.
This was the choice also made by Israel where Europe suffers from a partisan public image, and this is a fact, not a judgement.
This is now the opportunity to reiterate to Mr Patten, Mr Solana and Mr Moratinos how much we are relying on their efforts to include Europe in the search for a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Although it is difficult for Europe to speak with one voice about the peace process, it can and must speak in the same spirit of confidence and solidarity.
The next item is questions to the Council (B5-0040/99) and the Commission (B5-0041/99), on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the 1999 annual debate on the area of freedom, security and justice (Article 39 of the TEU).
Mr President, Members of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, without wishing to compete with the Ministers as regards emotions, I have to say that I am not moved, rather I am disturbed to have two personal friends in the presidency for the first time, and I just hope that this fact will not alter the separation of powers which is essential for the proper functioning of the Union!
I would also like to thank Mrs Terrón i Cusí for having asked the question which has given rise to the first annual debate of this parliamentary term on the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice, and to thank all the Members who, in their various committees, have actively participated in preparing this annual debate.
I would also like to thank the representatives of the national parliaments and of civil society.
In this first speech, I would like to share with Parliament the Commission' s view of the most important events in 1999.
I believe that I can say with conviction and also with satisfaction that 1999 was both a turning point and a year of consolidation by the Union on issues of freedom, security and justice.
It has already been mentioned that the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force in May and this Parliament stated that the most far-reaching innovation in this Treaty was its recognition of the need to establish an area of freedom, security and justice.
At the same time, it also represents a quantum leap in qualitative terms, and a logical and vital step in the development of the Union, in the wake of the establishment of the internal market, the introduction of the single currency and the launching of a common foreign and security policy.
This project is not so much a project of the institutions as a project of the citizens of our common Union.
And it will therefore be necessary to guarantee genuine freedom of movement to all citizens residing in the territory of the European Union, recognising that this is only meaningful if it is rooted in a secure base, with solid foundations in an effective judicial system to which everyone can have easy access, on equal terms, and in which our citizens can have real confidence.
The Union' s commitment to establishing an area of freedom, security and justice was confirmed at Tampere.
I would like to emphasise the strong political message sent out by the European Council, reaffirming the importance that the Heads of State and Government of the Union attached to a fundamental project, together with various political guidelines and priorities which will turn this area into a reality, following a progressive strategy, within a time-frame of five years, and that, above all, the three components of this area should be in balance: freedom, security and justice.
1999 was also marked by the German Presidency' s initiative to draw up a European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I believe that at the present stage in the European Union' s development, it would be appropriate to bring together the fundamental rights in force at European Union level in a charter, so as to make them as visible and accessible as possible to our citizens.
As I have already said on a number of occasions, I am in favour - the Commission is in favour - of drawing up a charter which would reflect, on the broadest basis possible and as part of a dynamic process, the common constitutional traditions of the Member States and the general principles of Community law, rather than being a mere statement of the lowest common denominator.
In my capacity as a representative of the Commission, I will ensure that the charter and the actions stemming from it represent an affirmation of a Union based on a set of fundamental rights which are an integral part of Europe' s common heritage.
That is the only way in which we can help to restore the legitimacy of the project of an enlarged European Union in the eyes of every European citizen, an enlarged Europe based on respect for rights and freedoms, with a guarantee of personal safety and safety of property and with effective legal protection, in other words, a Union rooted in the political values which underpin contemporary democracies.
I must not overlook the fact that 1999 marked the beginning of the 1999-2004 parliamentary term of the European Parliament, that it was the year in which the new Commission took up its duties and, as a consequence, the year in which a Commissioner solely responsible for the areas of justice and home affairs assumed his responsibilities.
In addition to these events, I would like to remind Parliament of some items that were approved in 1999.
In the field of immigration, borders and asylum, the Commission presented a proposal for a regulation on setting up the Eurodac database, and a proposal for a directive on conditions for admitting third country nationals into Member States of the European Union with a view to reuniting families, as part of a vigorous policy of integrating legal residents in the territory of the European Union.
We also presented a communication on common procedures concerning asylum and a recommendation for a decision authorising the Commission to open negotiations with Iceland and Norway on an agreement designed to extend the rules applied by the Member States of the European Union under the Dublin Convention to those two countries.
The Commission made an active contribution to the work of the High Level Group on Asylum and Migration, and ultimately, in December, it presented a proposal aimed at establishing a European refugee fund.
In the field of judicial cooperation, the Commission presented proposals for regulations aimed at the "communitisation" of certain conventions. These were the convention on judicial cooperation and the enforcement of judgements in civil and commercial matters (Brussels I), the convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters (Brussels II), and a third convention concerning the service of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters.
In 1999, we also presented a communication on victims of crime in the European Union, which led to discussions that were given greater impetus at Tampere. This communication called for minimum standards for protecting the victims of crime, in particular as regards their access to justice and their rights to compensation, including the cost of justice.
We also presented a proposal for a decision on combating fraud and forgery of non-cash means of payment.
In the field of European Union legislation on combating financial crime, the Commission presented a proposal for an amended directive on money laundering.
In 1999, Europol took up its duties and we in the Commission, echoing the Portuguese Presidency' s statement today, sincerely hope that as we enter a new era in justice and home affairs and discussions start on the implementation of new powers attributed to Europol under the Treaty of Amsterdam, there will also be a discussion of democratic control and of the links between Europol and the relevant judicial institutions, and in particular Eurojust.
In 1999, the Commission also presented its contribution towards a European action plan to combat drugs, which underpins the strategy approved by the Helsinki European Council.
This list of actions, which is not exhaustive, should, here today, in the presence of the Council Presidency and of the Members of this House, help to make it clear that, while 1999 was a year of consolidation for EU action in this key area, it also - I very much hope - represented the start of a new phase, marked by the desire to speed up the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
For this reason, 2000 will no doubt be a year for testing how the EU' s institutions respond to our citizens' demands for guaranteed freedom of movement, with respect for their rights and guarantees of security and stability though appropriate judicial protection.
In other words, 2000 will be a test of the political will to take Amsterdam seriously and to help to build the foundations for an enlarged political Union for the next decade - a test for the Council, for Parliament and for the Commission.
As I have already said, the Commission is aware of its own responsibilities and it is accordingly putting the finishing touches to an initial proposal for a scoreboard so that the institutions and other interested parties can assess the progress made in implementing the required measures and in complying with the deadlines set down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, in the Vienna action plan and in the conclusions of the Tampere European Council.
This scoreboard will not just be a mere instrument of legislative planning. It will also, and above all, be an instrument for increasing transparency and increasing the accountability of all the European Union' s institutions towards the public.
It is for the public, therefore, that we are developing the area of freedom, security and justice.
The progress made will not be due to the Commission nor to the Council, nor even to the European Parliament, but to a combination of European institutions and to the Member States themselves, in as much as - as has already been pointed out here - specific tasks on the scoreboard will be entrusted to the Member States under the principle of subsidiarity.
In the coming weeks, I shall be making a tour of capitals to sound out the opinions of the various ministers for justice and home affairs.
I hope to have a debate with the European Parliament and with civil society on this scoreboard project.
And we hope, during the Portuguese Presidency, to present the final version to the Justice and Home Affairs Council, taking account of the soundings that I have just mentioned.
It is my intention that this scoreboard should become an instrument providing political and strategic guidance to all the institutions, and that it should also be an instrument for public scrutiny.
For this reason, and I believe that this is a challenge we are all facing, I recognise the need to develop a communication strategy which will allow us to make the real added value which the Union brings to daily life accessible and visible to the public at large - in areas which are essential for citizenship, for legality and, ultimately, for democracy itself.
In addition to the scoreboard, I would like to anticipate the following initiatives that the Commission intends to present during 2000 - and I would like to emphasise that I am delighted the Portuguese Presidency is treating progress in the area of freedom, security and justice as a priority in its work programme.
I hope that in conjunction with the Portuguese Presidency it will be possible to achieve a clear spirit of interinstitutional cooperation, which is also the political message of Tampere, and that this spirit of interinstitutional cooperation will be carried forward by subsequent presidencies.
Regarding immigration and asylum, the Commission intends to present proposals for creating a Community instrument on the temporary protection of refugees; to initiate an analysis of criteria and conditions for improving implementation of the Dublin Convention and consideration of a possible change in its legal basis, in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam; to continue the debate on the basis of the communication already published concerning standards for a common asylum process throughout the Union; and to present proposals with a view to preparing legislation on the granting of residence permits to victims of trafficking in human beings who cooperate with judicial action against networks of traffickers.
I also intend to contribute to the process of clarifying the role of action plans as part of the work of the High Level Group on Asylum and Migration, and to make progress in adapting Community agreements in the field of readmission by including standard clauses.
Furthermore, on the subject of crossing the external borders of Member States, which is a central issue regarding the free movement of persons, I shall, in the next few days, be presenting a proposal for a regulation updating the list of third countries whose nationals are required to hold visas for crossing the external borders.
Turning to judicial cooperation, in addition to an initiative on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations, I sincerely hope that it will be possible to present to the Council a proposal for minimum standards ensuring an appropriate level of legal aid in cross-border proceedings.
I also intend to continue discussions on the preparation of specific common procedural rules for simplifying and speeding up cross-border judicial proceedings relating to small commercial and consumer claims, alimony claims and non-contested claims.
As a follow-up to the Tampere and Helsinki conclusions, the Commission will be presenting its contribution to the preparation of a European Union strategy to combat organised crime.
We will be organising and supporting actions including, in particular, the debate on the need for a legislative programme on implementing mutual recognition of judicial decisions in criminal matters.
The Commission also intends to present specific measures in the field of crime prevention, so as to encourage exchanges of best practice in this area, and in particular the prevention of urban and juvenile delinquency; we further intend to present a legal basis for a programme financed by the Community for this purpose.
The Commission will also support the presidency' s efforts to clarify the judicial framework and the framework for police and judicial administrative cooperation in the fight against money laundering, an eminently cross-pillar issue.
The Commission will fulfil the remit given to it at Tampere to present proposals for approving definitions, criminal charges and common sanctions in the field of trafficking in human beings, economic exploitation of immigrants, and sexual exploitation of woman and children, with special emphasis on combating the use of new means of communication, notably the Internet, for distributing child pornography.
We are also preparing a communication to instigate a debate on means of ensuring greater security in the information and knowledge society and in combating computer crime.
The year 2000 also marks the start of the implementation of the European Union Drugs Strategy 2000-2004.
In this field the Commission, in conjunction with the Portuguese Presidency and the European Parliament, will give its full support to the Interinstitutional Conference to be held on drugs in February.
With regard to Schengen, without wishing to trespass on the territory of the Council, or more precisely the incorporation of the Schengen acquis into the Community framework, I would like to stress, on the topical subject of restoring border controls, that the Commission wishes to reiterate its willingness to ensure greater control of the application of Article 2(2) of the Schengen Convention in order to reinforce its authority.
The recent restoring of certain internal border controls leads me to believe that we need a detailed analysis of the conditions for adopting a legislative instrument based on Article 62 of the Treaty.
As was emphasised at Tampere, and as part of our preparations for the Feira European Council in June 2000, we will have to prepare a summary of the implications of the new external dimension of justice and home affairs with a view to adopting cross-pillar policy strategies, which strengthen the links between the Union' s internal and external policies in this field and help to uphold the Union' s position on the world stage.
Nevertheless, I must make it clear that all these actions will, of course, have to take into account the principles agreed at the Helsinki European Council concerning applicant countries, so that those applicants can cooperate and also be associated as quickly as possible with this project of creating an area of freedom, security and justice.
Furthermore, it is important to remember that 2000 will see the start of the justice and home affairs negotiations with the first group of applicant countries and I anticipate that we will be in a position to make substantial progress in preparing the negotiating dossiers on the second group with which it was agreed to open accession negotiations at Helsinki.
Lastly, I would like to state once again that the Commission intends to be in the pole position in presenting proposals for implementing the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I hope that the Commission and the Council can reach agreement on their respective roles in exercising their right to initiatives and in carrying forward the legislative process itself.
As I have told Parliament, the task before us is immense and ambitious, and the Commission needs to have the necessary human resources to respond to this challenge.
We hope that we can count on the support of Parliament, and - why not say it - of the Council to secure these resources and to achieve these objectives, so that the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice becomes a reality as soon as possible, thus allowing us all to contribute, in a spirit of interinstitutional cooperation, to the realisation of this project, which is, without a doubt, the "jewel in the crown" of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mr President, having devoted itself over the last 40 years to establishing a common internal market, the House now faces the major new task of creating an area of freedom, security and justice, a task which we will only be able to master successfully if all the institutions of the Union work together towards this ambitious goal with mutual respect and consideration for each other' s competence.
Commissioner Vitorino, although I would describe cooperation with you as harmonious and profitable, words have often failed me in the past when faced with the conduct which the Council has demonstrated towards us.
It looked, as Mr Schulz once aptly said in committee, as if the Council understood the area of freedom, security and justice to mean an area in which the Council has free rein, security from Parliament and the right to do and order as it will.
Minister Gomes, I have, of course, heard what you have said and I hope that cooperation will clearly improve in this respect during the Portuguese Presidency.
I should like to raise three points which for us, as Members of the PPE Group, must be focal points when such an area is created.
First: a common asylum law must be created and the burden of absorbing refugees must be distributed.
The Council must start by at long last ensuring that EURODAC is adopted in order to create the basic requirement for classifying asylum seekers.
As far as a European asylum law is concerned, a start was in fact made at Vienna and Tampere. Unfortunately, however, it has highlighted the difficulties rather than proposing solutions.
I therefore call on the Council representatives to look beyond their national boundaries and bring about a uniform asylum procedure for the whole Union.
Similarly, it cannot be right for just a few Member States willing to provide help to bear the entire burden of refugee misery on our continent.
Agreement on burden sharing must therefore be at the top of the agenda.
Secondly: the introduction of a Europe-wide fight against organised crime, including by Europol and Eurojust.
The planned introduction of Eurojust is one of our significant successes from Tampere and must now be implemented forthwith.
We welcome the fact that Europol has finally been able to start work.
However, the Council should also bear in mind that, if we are to improve the effectiveness of the fight against crime, we do not only need to widen Europol' s remit, as decided at Tampere; we also need to increase the number of officers and extend its remit to operational activities.
We are not just calling for more control, and more control over Europol; our motto here is "Less is sometimes more!"
With most of Europol employees currently engaged in self-control for the purposes of data protection laws and questions being asked by 15 national parliaments, we may have a great deal of control, but it is inefficient control.
We want less confusing control and more parliamentary control by the European Parliament, without hampering the work of Europol.
At the same time, we support the establishment of a European police academy as suggested in Tampere as a step in the right direction.
Thirdly: the extension to Parliament' s rights in this context.
If the establishment of such an area, in which the Union can also intervene in the basic rights of the citizens, is only decided by diplomats and bureaucrats, while the elected representatives of Europe are reduced to following developments like a rabbit watching a snake, then this area will not gain the acceptance of the citizens.
There is therefore an urgent need to grant Parliament codecision rights in this respect and, as we have already said, to strengthen the principle of democratic control.
We want an area of freedom, security and justice for the citizens of Europe, not against them.
I warmly welcome the fact that the Portuguese Presidency is making justice and home affairs one of its top priorities or jewels in the crown.
I was also encouraged by Commissioner Patten' s comments this morning about a rapid reaction fund for security crises.
Perhaps that will end scandals like the failure of states to deploy in Kosovo the police they promised.
I just want to highlight three areas among many where we need quick progress.
The first is asylum.
It is essential to establish a single European system, but one based on fairness, full respect for the Geneva Convention and decent reception conditions, including an end to routine detention.
Decisions on asylum should take months - not years.
The second area is that of freedom: freedom to move and reside wherever one wishes in the Union; freedom of information; freedom to vote for all who have European citizenship - and that includes not just Member State citizens but third country nationals.
Let our citizens know that our common policies in justice and home affairs are about freedom, not just about repression.
The last area I want to mention is convergence of civil and criminal justice systems.
Eurosceptics claim that this is a threat to sovereignty, the end of the nation-state, and so on.
But the case of the suspect wanted for questioning in connection with the murders of three women in France, including British student, Isabel Peake, who was thrown off a train, shows why we need mutual recognition.
Arrested and released in Madrid, he is now being extradited after arrest in Lisbon.
Whatever the Eurosceptics say, it is in all our interests to get cooperation in such matters.
Finally, as has already been said, it is essential, and I hope that the IGC will cover this, to move to codecision with the European Parliament in these areas, with democratic and judicial scrutiny.
Mr President, all I can say about 1999 is this: how wonderful to feel the Portuguese summer after the Finnish winter.
I hope that it works out.
The Tampere Summit was certainly an important milestone in 1999 for Europe, and for the area of freedom, security and justice in particular.
Numerous questions are still outstanding. Answers are still awaited.
Since Tampere, there has been an imbalance between positive action and mere declarations of intent.
Regulations on nationality and the integration of people from third countries are still outstanding.
On the other hand, quite specific action has been called for on the subject of safety of life.
The creation of a Charter of Fundamental Rights will be one of the important projects in the immediate future.
However, it is difficult to predict what the content of this charter will be and how it will be implemented legally when you think of the people who are not currently citizens of the Union.
The Europol agreement has now officially entered into force.
In Tampere, the question of granting operational powers was discussed.
We continue to demand a review of the agreement in order to incorporate better parliamentary and judicial control.
The agreement also attracts criticism with regard to EURODAC.
Parliament has amended the contractual text.
Care must be taken to ensure that the Council complies with Parliament' s modus operandi.
Unfortunately, no initiatives have yet materialised regarding other matters and we still await them.
Europe as an area of freedom, security and justice has so far been an area with no clear regulation in important sectors.
And yet we owe this to the citizens of Europe.
Having listened to the justice and home affairs ministers, I am optimistic and I am assuming that we will succeed in the next six months.
Mr President, Commissioner, the oral question tabled by Mrs Terrón i Cusí shows that this House is taking a firm stance. Indeed, six months after the election of this new Parliament, we should now be able to send a firm political message to the people of Europe.
I believe that the Portuguese Presidency can contribute positively to this.
We are all aware of the enormous expectations of our people with regard to freedom, security and justice, particularly social justice.
Yet their lack of interest and involvement and sometimes even their distaste for all things political requires us to take specific action to tackle their problems.
This is the sine qua non condition for reconciling the popular and political spheres.
For Europe to become the symbol of peace and fraternity, we need a bold and generous policy to come to the aid of the most disadvantaged.
A proper plan for fighting unemployment must be established for this is the scourge which is allowing the rise of racism, xenophobia, nationalism and extreme-right racist movements.
We should remember that the most disadvantaged include immigrants and refugees.
The virtually systematic conditions of detention and the criminalisation of asylum-seekers are no longer acceptable.
All asylum-seekers must be entitled to a fair hearing and an appeal with suspensory effect.
Last week, and somewhat by chance, I witnessed, at Roissy airport, a scene of rare violence in which two young women, admittedly illegal immigrants, were being returned to Conakry.
They were treated like the worst criminals.
They were stripped naked and dragged along the floor by their hair, surrounded by a horde of state security police.
The Portuguese Presidency must put an end to this type of barbaric behaviour.
Our role should be to accompany, reassure and assist those who are fleeing dictatorships.
The Commission has proposed creating a European fund for refugees to which Parliament was favourably disposed.
Instead of all this waffling about the budget granted to this fund, we could take the decision to set this up.
The Presidency and the Council can realise what was incomprehensibly rejected in Tampere, even though this summit provided an important basis.
Likewise, we cannot simply record the rise in xenophobic feelings in Europe and the increasingly common discrimination without taking wide-ranging action. The laws against racism must be harmonised.
What direction do you intend to give to Article 13 of the EC Treaty? What do you intend to do to promote equal treatment in wages for men and women?
How do you aim to eradicate homophobia, racism and sexism? We must take the best from each of our countries.
When six European countries have granted the right to vote, the President of this House can venture to extend this right to vote, and eligibility to participate in the municipal and European elections, to all people from outside the Community who have lived in Europe for more than five years.
The regularisation of illegal immigrants in certain countries, including your own, must act as an example to others. These illegal immigrants nowadays constitute a plethora of vulnerable people at the mercy of slum landlords, an oppressed workforce subject to economic exploitation, rendering them modern-day slaves.
In more general terms, this Presidency must start to change the behaviour and interaction of our people with minority groups and immigrants.
Immigration is too often a synonym for insecurity and violence and purely repressive responses.
How do you intend to make our people understand that, today like always, immigration is a source of social and cultural wealth with a role which is, and will remain, essential in the context of population? What action do you intend to take to enhance the place of immigrants in our society and to guarantee proper protection for asylum-seekers?
Mr President, there is a great lack of transparency in the area of security, freedom and justice.
The European Union is an economic powerhouse but we are not in a position to pontificate when it comes to our treatment of refugees.
The level of racism in our society is terrifying.
Ireland, for generations, sent her sons and daughters to places of safety throughout the world, but now when the Celtic tiger is providing wealth and prosperity beyond our expectations, we are showing a very ugly side to our character.
Racism in Ireland is endemic.
It has been a relative shock to our political leaders to find we must now take a share of the refugees that have been coming into the European Union for a long time.
We are coming from behind in dealing with the issue and the government is doing its utmost to catch up.
There is a willingness but fear pervades, and to assuage this fear we must find political and religious leadership not only in Ireland but throughout the European Union.
Mr President, we take note that the excuse-making, reticent Presidency, which, in recent months, has prevented us from holding a debate such as the one we have been able to hold today, has come to an end.
I totally agree with Mr von Boetticher and Mr Schulz' s remarks, and truly believe that the European Parliament and the Court of Justice need to be more involved in the area of freedom, security and justice, without having to derogate from their own powers.
Nevertheless, to avoid the customary circus, which every six months has us indiscriminately attacking the Presidency of the Council, maybe Parliament should find the courage to undertake incisive political action so that the next Intergovernmental Conference will decide to increase codecision with immediate effect and not wait for another five years.
The two identical-sounding questions which are under discussion are, of course, underpinned by a mantra of the kind which, in recent years, has increasingly transformed politics into a type of ideology - fine-sounding, but pernicious.
And our current EU mantra is AFSJ: Area for Freedom, Security and Justice.
Behind this lies another ambition on the part of the Commission and of the Council and of the overwhelming majority of this House, namely to introduce such an area.
And who is not in favour of security, freedom and justice? The problem is just that this is not something the EU can introduce by means of legislative decrees and other supranational resolutions.
Freedom, security and justice are the root system of any society, reflecting its history, corporate experience and political development.
A system of this kind is not something the EU can introduce without society' s sustaining damage as a result.
But it is precisely here that we find the real rationale behind the mantra concerning security, freedom and justice.
The agenda is not designed to secure justice for the citizen.
That is already secured by means of the various national legal systems.
The agenda is designed to transfer vital parts of society' s criminal law, policy on crime and administration of justice to the EU' s control.
It is concerned with increased integration which, as part of a duplicitous package, involves increased repression and control.
You just have to think of all the resolutions concerning Fort Europa, Schengen, Eurodac etc.
Any democrat can spot two key problems.
First of all, the initiatives which have been planned are completely unrealistic.
How is it envisaged that the EU' s institutions, which are already stretched well beyond their capacity, can bring the ambitious projects concerned to fruition? Think of last year' s deadly criticism of the Commission' s lack of propriety, ethics and accountability.
It also, of course, finds indirect expression in the question.
But, secondly, the projects will put a strain on, indeed will be injurious to, the national democracies.
As long as the EU revolved around the internal market, only the body was being attacked.
Now, it is the soul.
Mr President, today the people of Northern Ireland see a strange irony.
We had Commissioner Patten speaking in this House in defence of freedom, security and justice and yet his report before the British House of Commons this afternoon, which has been accepted, will do away with the Royal Ulster Constabulary and its reserves and put the people of Northern Ireland of both religious sections into the hands of the terrorists.
The IRA terrorists have not given up any of their weapons, nor have the loyalist terrorists, yet the police are being forced into a position where they will not have the power to resist the terrorist community.
Let me just look at the figures from the day that the agreement was signed.
In 1998, we had 55 murders.
In 1999, we had 7 murders and that does not include the Omagh bomb where 29 were killed and 300 injured.
Between 1998 and 1999, loyalists assaulted and shot 123 people, while republicans assaulted and shot 93 people.
Charges brought against loyalists in 1999 totalled 193, while those against republicans totalled 97.
Since January 2000, there have been six shootings by loyalists and two by republicans, loyalists have been involved in six serious assaults, one leading to another murder, while republicans have engaged in five serious assaults.
Mr President, that situation cannot continue and needs remedying.
Mr President, the Treaty of Amsterdam has set an important objective for the Union.
This is a task which all MEPs, the Council and the Commission must take on during this legislature: the creation, as has been said already, of an area of freedom, security and justice.
The Tampere Council, the motor and architect of this objective, has proposed certain goals, but five years, the time scale laid down for the implementation of Chapter IV of the Treaty, is too long to wait for the urgent solution which some problems require.
My first point is that Parliament must not be excluded from the important decisions to be taken in this area and that its participation in the decision-making process must be guaranteed, especially with regard to this project which affects the citizens, as the Commissioner has explained very well.
My second point is that we must make rapid progress in the adoption of a common asylum system, adopting common procedural rules and, above all, putting an end to the current confusion between migration for political reasons and migration for economic reasons.
The recent laws on aliens adopted in my country, Spain, and in Belgium, are a reminder that there is an urgent need for the communitisation of immigration policy.
My third and final point relates to the external activities of the Union in the field of immigration and asylum.
We must not and cannot give the impression that the Union exclusively wishes to defend itself from an avalanche of refugees and economic migrants.
We must opt for a policy of cooperating in the development of our neighbouring countries in the East and the Mediterranean area, but we must do so with rigour, with economic means and in close collaboration with public institutions, which must cooperate in the protection of those citizens whose most basic rights are violated or who wish to emigrate in order to meet their most essential needs.
Finally, in relation to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the citizens of Europe need to have a vision of citizenship.
The Euro, employment, even security, are not enough.
They need a 'European soul' , as a distinguished Spanish professor once said.
Mr President, unlike some of the previous speakers, I want to go back to the words of our Portuguese ministers and Mr Vitorino.
This trio's words were like music to our ears as Mr Ceyhun has said.
As with all music it needs to be a fine tune and properly orchestrated.
Many of us of here are very optimistic about the next six months.
The tune that will be played will be one that the people of Europe will be listening to and they will want to hear the right sort of tune.
As described this afternoon it will go a long way towards drowning out some of the unpleasant tunes we heard during the European election and over the last few months.
The Amsterdam Treaty and the Tampere Council built on this project for an area of freedom, security and justice in the European Union.
One area though is extremely important, and this House must be involved in it: namely scrutiny.
There is so much legislation - and I very much welcome the Portuguese programme that was outlined to us last week - but we need to be absolutely sure that it is scrutinised, that the people in this Parliament and the members of the national parliaments and the citizens of Europe are aware of everything involved in it.
And we must make certain that the details are applicable, appropriate and relevant to the different countries.
I should like to draw attention to some of the aspects of the resolutions before us this afternoon, one or two of which were referred to earlier on.
I welcome the movement towards the recognition of judicial systems in the various countries and the cooperation on crime.
That is an area that European citizens will respond to and will be happy about.
But the Commission and Council must know that there are many people in this House who have reservations about the Eurodac system, for example.
We accept the predominant role of the Council in this, but there are reservations and I am sure that the Council will listen to the words coming from the elected parliamentarians here when they go through it in more detail.
Mr Schulz said earlier on that he was not certain about the definition of 'scoreboard' .
Anyone who is English or British or follows cricket knows what a scoreboard is.
A scoreboard tells people the score; it has to be up-to-date and it has to be clear and visible.
I am sure that Commissioner Vitorino will make certain that is so.
At the end of six months I hope that the music is still playing and that the European people are still listening.
Mr President, I would like to welcome the President-in-Office and his colleague from the Justice Ministry, Mr Costa, and to thank them for the welcome they gave my committee in Lisbon last week and the constructive meetings we enjoyed.
Amsterdam and Tampere have given us much work to do together, as the excellent draft resolution by Mrs Terrón today shows.
I would like to make three brief points.
The first is that we need a mature dialogue between the Council and the European Parliament.
It is barely six months since Amsterdam imposed a duty on our two organisations to work together; we have been sizing each other up, we have had a few minor spats, but we need to work effectively together.
Let us stop the shadow-boxing.
Let us drop the elaborate charades and let us respect the duties that the Treaties impose on us and the timescales allowed for full democratic debate.
Involve us please in your discussions on both policy and process.
Let us not pretend that national parliaments are able to exercise effective democratic control of government activities in this area.
My second point is that we need a properly resourced Commission.
We have established a new Directorate-General, yet it has only 70 people all told.
There is an agreement to double this number, but I understand that, so far, not a single new person has arrived.
We are setting the Commission a massive task, not least in the drawing up of the scoreboard.
The Council and Parliament must work together to provide the resources that the Commission needs.
Finally, on the content of the debate, I welcome the fact that the presidency has put the area of freedom, security and justice at the top of its agenda.
All good things come in threes, especially in our policy area.
Two hundred years ago it was liberty, equality and fraternity, and things went along very well until the governments of the left raised equality above the others.
Now it is freedom, security and justice, and I hope that the current governments of the left will heed the words of Commissioner Vitorino and resist the temptation to elevate security, important as it is, above the equally important needs of freedom and justice.
Although the main achievements in the construction of an area of freedom, security and justice should be mentioned, we must remember that there is still room for progress.
The role of the Court of Justice is still too limited and communitisation is incomplete.
The unilateral decision by Belgium to re-establish border controls is a clear illustration of this.
The decision to establish a Charter of Fundamental Rights is to be welcomed but it is difficult to predict whether its content and legal scope will be restrictive or symbolic, including all people, whatever their nationality, or excluding some.
The total lack of progress in European citizenship and the political rights of all European residents is to be regretted.
Although action plans established by the high-level working group aim to limit migratory flows in the future, these plans do nothing to improve human rights, civil liberties and the economic situation in the countries concerned.
We know that readmission clauses are included in the cooperation and association agreements.
Yet these represent a serious threat to the principle of 'non-refoulement' [no turning back].
Furthermore, it should be noted that these provisions were adopted within the Council by a procedure without debate and without consulting Parliament.
However, the main concern remains ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I would like to join my colleagues in welcoming the representatives of the Council as well as the Commissioner.
I thank them for their statements to the House.
Rather than go back over the areas that have already been covered I would like to deal with one specific topic: the question of drugs and how we tackle the pervasiveness of the drug culture in our societies.
I look to the Portuguese Presidency in particular to build on some of the tremendous work which was done by the Finnish Presidency in bringing forward coordinated plans and action between the Member States.
We already have, on the international side, plans in place to combat drug trafficking, money laundering and so on.
But to bring it down to a more human level: to give assistance to those people who are trying to come off drugs, and give them proper controls and proper mechanisms for rehabilitation; secondly, to coordinate amongst the police forces and the judiciary with regard to common penalties and common laws; thirdly, to undertake an information and awareness campaign for young people; and once and for all to put an end to these very dangerous words of "normalisation" and "harm reduction" and show that any weakening of our resolve in making sure that drugs are not legalised must be for the good of all our people.
Mr President, I would like to use the few seconds of speaking time to which I am entitled to point out, or remind, the representative of the Commission that, in Belgium, the government is currently pursuing a policy under which thousands and possibly tens of thousands of illegal aliens are being legalised and are to receive permanent right of residence, right to be reunited with their families, etc.
This is a Belgian government measure which flies in the face of the Schengen Treaty.
I lodged a written complaint on the same subject to Commissioner Vitorino on 23 December.
I would ask him to take this complaint into consideration and inform me, within the foreseeable future, of the steps the Commission will take to penalise this violation of the Schengen Treaty by the Belgian State, in accordance with Article 226 of the Treaty.
Mr President, Ministers, Commissioner, the 1999 harvest of decisions was indeed rich, so much so that it became difficult to gather, i.e. to put those decisions into practice.
I refer in particular to the Council and to the inertia of the Member States in implementing the decisions they had jointly made.
However, the past year was positively marked by some momentous decisions, such as the decision to begin implementing the Treaty of Amsterdam, the decision to incorporate the Schengen Agreement into the Community pillar, and the decision of the Cologne Council to create a Charter of Fundamental Rights and the decision of the Extraordinary European Council in Tampere to bind the Member States to common directions, priorities and goals with a view to creating a common area of freedom, security and justice.
Without wishing to ignore the progress which has been made, we, the European Parliament, would like to draw your attention to the unwillingness on the part of the Council to implement these decisions in many areas, as well as its lack of common vision and, in particular, the lack of transparency and cooperation with the European Parliament.
From what I have said, it must be obvious to you that the European Parliament is not prepared to simply play the role of observer. Neither will it stop raising vital issues.
For example, how much progress are you willing to make and what measures, legislative or otherwise, will you be taking to combat the scourge of trafficking in human beings, child pornography on the Internet, drugs, and organised crime? Do you intend to press for a common policy for asylum and immigration?
How do you intend to go about integrating immigrants into the Community, reuniting them with their families and recognising their rights and duties on an equal footing with those of the citizens of Europe? In light of this new international demographic class portrayed by experts at the UN, is it not about time you abandoned your traditional, conservative views on refugees and immigrants?
I have great expectations for the Portuguese Presidency.
Mr President, I welcome much, indeed most, of what has been said in this debate.
But I want to add a word of caution.
We risk having not too few charters of rights in this Community, but too many: national, European Union and European Convention; not too few tribunals having the final say about our rights but possibly too many - there is the Court across the river there, there is the Court in Luxembourg.
There are also courts in Karlsruhe, London, Lisbon, Dublin and Edinburgh.
We must make sure that what we do makes clear sense.
We must not generate a confusion and conflict of jurisdictions about rights, for that would be the enemy of freedom, justice and security.
We need, in short, to have and to sustain the highest possible common standards and to find ways of securing these.
But we must look always to subsidiarity.
Like everybody in this House, I want freedom, justice and security.
I do not want to see these degenerate into over-centralisation, chaos and confusion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would very quickly like to make one point. Various Members raised questions about the Portuguese Presidency.
The President of Parliament has made us aware of the very limited time at our disposal, and my colleague, the Minister for Justice, and I therefore propose to reply objectively to all the questions put here at the parliamentary committee meeting which we shall be attending next week.
(Sustained applause)
Thank you, Minister.
The debate is closed.
Mr President, I am grateful for the Council' s oral, and also written, reply.
Their efficiency has been truly remarkable.
I will save a few seconds because I wanted to propose to the Council that we continue the debate at the next meeting of the Committee on Citizens' Rights and Freedoms, Justice and Home Affairs.
Then we will have the opportunity to comment on these replies and to express our concerns to the Commission as well.
Personally, I am pleased with some of the replies, for example, in relation to issues as sensitive as Schengen and the Europol Convention, which we hope will be reviewed, and I am pleased with the words of the Minister for Justice with regard to trying to bring them under the jurisdiction of the judicial authorities.
I also hope that the same is done in relation to parliamentary control.
Representatives of the Council, within the next month we are going to table a motion for a resolution in this Parliament.
I am sure that, with the willingness that you have shown today, the first thing you will do, in this new climate of understanding between us, will be to take account of the motion for a resolution which we will submit to you.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0003/2000). We will examine questions to the Council.
Question No 1 by (H-0780/99):
Subject: Construction of nuclear plant in earthquake-prone Turkey The two recent earthquakes in Turkey registering more than 7 on the Richter scale raise tremendous doubts about Turkey's persistence with the construction of costly nuclear reactors at Akkuyu, while energy reserves produced by the Atatürk dams are exported to third countries and the EU spends a slice of its budget on repairing the damage wrought by the earthquakes.
Turkey's nuclear plans B which ignore the risks to the population and ecosystems of Turkey and the surrounding region B prompt the suspicion that there are underlying plans previously determined by Turkey's political and military leaders to acquire nuclear technology enabling them to build nuclear weapons, as evidenced by their attempts to buy reactors of Canadian origin of the type acquired by India and Pakistan.
What steps will the Council take to prevent nuclear accidents and the proliferation of nuclear weapons in a country that wishes to join the EU but spends enormous amounts on nuclear programmes while receiving financial aid from the EU budget?
Mr President, the Council wishes to point out that Turkey is a signatory to the Convention on Nuclear Safety, the objectives of which should allay the fears expressed by Mr Souladakis.
The aim of this convention, which came into force on 24 October 1996, is precisely to achieve and maintain a high standard of nuclear safety at world level by means of national measures and through international cooperation.
It further aims to ensure that nuclear installations are equipped with continuing protection against potential radiological risks, so as to protect individuals, society at large and the environment against the harmful effects of the ionising radiation that can be emitted by such installations.
The convention, as you will be aware, also covers the prevention of accidents which have radiological effects and the limitation of such effects when incidents of this kind occur.
I would also like to remind Members that, as a candidate for membership of the European Union, Turkey will - and this is a pre-accession condition, which is an important point - sooner or later, as part of its own pre-accession strategy, have to adopt a set of policies geared towards adopting the entire acquis communautaire in good time, and including therefore all provisions already in force on nuclear safety.
Thank you for your answer.
However, I would just like to add the following.
Turkey is only looking to increase its energy potential by 2% with this unit.
Nevertheless, rumour has it that it plans to buy Candu reactors of the type acquired by Pakistan and India which were used for nuclear weapons.
In this respect, the issue requires closer examination, because the sensitive situation in the Caucasus region could heighten people' s suspicions.
My second point concerns the safety of these plants.
In areas of high seismic risk, it is not enough just to have secure, earthquake-proof buildings. Speaking as an engineer, I can tell you that we carry out tests to investigate the effects of certain risk factors in extreme circumstances.
However, we cannot carry out tests on nuclear plants which are in operation; it is just not possible.
With this in mind, it goes without saying that nuclear plants a priori should not be built in areas prone to earthquakes.
In this respect, and because Turkey is situated on the periphery of the European Union, we should be helping it to become a more secure, peaceful and cooperative country.
That is our role and this is the point of my question.
I recognise the relevance of the arguments that Mr Souladakis has put forward.
This is, of course, a highly sensitive issue.
Furthermore, it will be evident that this is a matter that does not only affect Turkey, in view of that country' s proximity to the existing territory of the European Union. It also affects other states neighbouring the EU with which we maintain relations.
We understand your concerns and will certainly take account of them, particularly during the discussions that we will be having with Turkey to define that country' s own pre-accession strategy agenda.
This question will naturally be one of our key concerns, and the European Commission will not fail to take this into account.
Thank you, Mr President and thank you President-in-Office of the Council.
I am sure the President-in-Office of the Council is a very nice man and is very kind to his wife and his children and his dog.
However, forgive me if I am a little sceptical of the reply you have just given me.
I do not believe that the statements made within the Council and the votes are available to the public immediately.
Will you please therefore undertake, before the next plenary in February, to write and tell me where I can find this information on behalf of the public, immediately the Council has passed legislation, rather than waiting for it to come out weeks later on a press release list.
Will you write to me before the next plenary with that information?
Mr Newton Dunn, I would first like to say that I do not appreciate the kind of personal comments with which you started your second question, and I would be grateful if you could refrain from making such comments in future.
With regard to what you were saying, it makes me think that the criticism levelled at the Council, apart from being formulated in a very specific way of which we also take note, does not actually refer to the opacity, shall we say, of the legislative process, but rather almost to an excess of transparency.
However, I would like to say, Mr Newton Dunn, that the results of this kind of process for transparency are quite obvious to us and we consider them to be unquestionable.
We have no problem, Mr Newton Dunn, in repeating this information to you in writing, but we will not be able to go any further than what has been said here, because that meets the requirements of the Treaty exactly.
We therefore consider that the General Secretariat of the Council is at present making available to the public all essential information regarding the Council' s functions as a legislative body.
I do not consider that the Council tried to answer my question. I did not ask what the Council thought of the proposal which the Commission has still not tabled.
Instead, my question concerns the interpretation in principle of Article 255 of the Treaty of Amsterdam. Does this permit legislation also to be passed concerning national laws on transparency and not only in connection with the three institutions of the European Union referred to there?
I should like to have an answer to that question. Does the Council consider that, on the basis of Article 255 of the Treaty, national legislation on transparency can be regulated, that is to say legislation not relating to the EU' s institutions?
Mr Sjöstedt, the answer that I gave was the only answer possible.
Nevertheless, I would like to say that any interpretation of Article 255 of the Treaty must also be linked to the principle of subsidiarity.
At the moment, there are no concrete proposals which would allow us to make adjustments under this Article, and unless there is such a proposal, we cannot move forward on this matter.
In any event, Article 255 does not, at first sight, allow work to be done on any basis that could affect the principle of subsidiarity.
I am, up to a point, concerned about how the Council will fight for the principles contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam and whose purpose is to ensure that citizens have a better opportunity to participate in the decision-making process.
How is this to be done when, at the same time, the Commission' s proposal - which has been leaked, so the general public is aware of it - says that employees' freedom of thought comes before transparency and that it is not possible to have access to working documents, reports, drafts etc? Does not the Council' s representative think that this makes it difficult to participate in the democratic decision-making process?
Mrs Frahm, the question that you raised is extremely important and we discussed it at great length during the last Intergovernmental Conference.
I would like to say that transparency does not only apply from the Community institutions "outwards" , it also applies between the institutions.
By this I mean that there are aspects of the form and procedure of the Community institutions' workings which are not accessible to the other institutions, and not only as regards the Commission' s relationship with Parliament, but also as regards the Commission' s relationship with the Council.
As a matter of fact, at the last conference, this issue was raised and discussed on several occasions.
The European Parliament will have the opportunity to take part in the preparatory group for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
The matter is still open.
Genuine transparency of the institutions' workings and the way they are presented throughout Europe is an extremely important issue and one which, in my opinion, needs to be studied again, particularly in the context of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
We have no doubts about this and we think that the Members taking part in this preparatory group will have an opportunity to raise this issue again.
I believe that the Commission' s proposal should make provision for greater transparency in terms of the way the various institutions function, but I think that there is always room for improvement in this matter.
For our part, we are prepared to study any proposals made in this area.
It is a very important question indeed which Jonas Sjöstedt and others have asked.
We have a principle of transparency in Sweden which strengthens democracy and ensures that there is a worthwhile dialogue between citizens, decision makers and authorities.
We are very anxious indeed that the EU, too, should move in this direction, and this is also stated in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
One or two years ago, Parliament adopted a report by Mrs Lööw which is extremely important in this context.
The report warned that the forthcoming process would lead to restrictions upon the transparency of the Member States.
We can now see that there is perhaps some reason for this warning from Parliament.
I want to ask the Council if it understands this warning, in view of what we have now seen in the working documents from the Commission.
I listened very carefully to what Mr Seixas da Costa had to say on transparency and the Intergovernmental Conference.
My concern is, if I have understood Mr Seixas da Costa correctly on the interesting points he made as regards transparency and the IGC, whether the Portuguese Presidency will take on the commitment to tackle the issue of widening the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference.
After all, examining the issue of transparency in the ways the institutions operate should never be hidden away under any old heading or confined to some lobby or other - though I know full well the importance of these lobbies.
It should have its own heading in the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference, which would mean widening the agenda.
Mr Dimitrakopoulos, transparency is naturally an issue of concern to the institutions.
This Intergovernmental Conference will, at the outset, concentrate on improving the way the institutions operate, particularly taking account of the desire we all share for them specifically to become more democratic, more transparent and more efficient.
All of this must nevertheless be done whilst respecting a broad framework - that of the overall acceptability of any solutions we may devise to achieve these three aims.
It is obvious that transparency will be a permanent fixture on the European agenda and it will, of course, feature on the agenda of this Intergovernmental Conference.
I can assure you that this is an issue which the Portuguese Presidency will keep before the Member States and the representatives of the preparatory group for the conference.
It must therefore be able to count on the support of the Members of the European Parliament, who will surely rally behind this proposal.
We will then see, at ministerial level, how we can follow this up.
It should nevertheless be noted that we have just concluded the Treaty of Amsterdam, which was approved last May, and that there is a raft of implementing measures on transparency which are still in progress. The question is whether it is premature or not to start a new initiative on the subject of transparency.
My feeling is that, in spite of everything, this issue will always have to be on the agenda, because the public is clearly concerned about it, and because it is linked with the need to make the European institutions accountable to the public.
As far as we are concerned, they will be.
We shall try to achieve a consensus on this matter.
Question No 5 by (H-0785/99):
Subject: Proposal for a regulation laying down the total admissible catches for specific fish populations for the year 2000, and the case of anchovies in particular The latest reports from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea indicate that the current level of anchovy stocks in ICES zone VIII is critical.
Have the Council of Fisheries Ministers and the Commission assessed the impact of transferring the Portuguese quota for ICES zones XI and X and CECAF zone 34.1.1 to France (5000 metric tonnes per year overfishing) on the ICES zone VIII anchovy stocks and their responsibility for the current situation of the anchovy stocks and the possible social and economic impact on this fisheries sector in the future?
Does the Council believe that it is permissible to consolidate future overfishing which violates the originally established TAC of 33 000 metric tonnes per year, given the current evidence for the critical state of anchovy stocks?
What measures does the Council intend to adopt, and when, with a view to taking proper account of the critical state of anchovy stocks, the aforesaid quota transfer and the principle of relative stability?
Mr President, the Portuguese Presidency is extremely anxious to give a comprehensive answer to this question, particularly because it broaches an issue which concerns Portugal in a positive way, and I shall explain how.
The Council is aware of the critical level of anchovy stocks in the Bay of Biscay to which Mr Ortuondo Larrea refers.
Nevertheless, at the last Fisheries Council of 1999, held on 16 and 17 December, the Member States involved in this area of fishing, namely France, Spain and Portugal, considered that applying the precautionary principle which sets a TAC reduced from 5 000 tonnes to 2 000 tonnes, as the Commission proposed, was excessively cautious.
A compromise solution was therefore reached in order to achieve a balance between the need to reduce the biological risks, that is the species of fish being affected, and the socio-economic problems caused by fishing limits. This was achieved by fixing the TAC at an intermediate level of 16 000 tonnes instead of the 33 000 set in 1999.
It was also stipulated that this would be revised in the light of new scientific information on preserving species, of which we hope to see examples in the first six months of this year.
As for the Southern stocks of anchovy in ICES zone IX, the TAC was fixed at 10 000 tonnes for the whole of 2000 as opposed to 13 000 tonnes in 1999.
Fishing quota transfers between Portugal and France were reduced proportionally from 5 008 tonnes in 1999 to 3 000 tonnes in 2000, for fishing in French waters.
I would like to state that this transfer will not increase the pressure of fishing on anchovy stocks overall, over the whole Community fishing area. In accordance with the principle of relative stability, 90% of stocks of anchovy in the Bay of Biscay are allocated to Spain and only 10% to France.
Without this transfer from Portuguese waters, the level of the Bay of Biscay TAC would have to be multiplied by ten in order to grant adequate catches to France.
That is why I think that this is quite positive from Portugal' s point of view.
This situation would obviously be even more damaging to the level of stocks than the risk referred to by Mr Ortuondo Larrea, which we also understand.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I must say that your comments have not satisfied me at all.
I understand that Portugal is affected by this.
However, it seems to go against all reason and intelligence that 80% of the anchovies, which, until 1995, were being fished in the Portuguese fishing grounds, through an agreement between that Member State - Portugal - and France, should now be fished in the Bay of Biscay and that the Council of Ministers wishes to maintain that this has no effect on the anchovy stocks in the Bay of Biscay or the Cantabrian Sea.
It has been shown, as we have been claiming since 1995, that this move is appalling, and, if Portugal and France wish to reach an agreement, that is fine by us, but these anchovies should be fished in Portuguese fishing grounds and not in the Bay of Biscay.
Today, scientific studies show that the anchovy population in the Bay of Biscay is in danger of extinction, and now there will be measures to restrict the amount of anchovy which can be fished in that Bay.
I do not know if you are aware, representatives of the Council of Ministers, of your responsibility over these last few years, and in 2000 as well, for the plight of the families who live on anchovy fishing in the north of the Iberian Peninsular.
I would like to say, Mr Ortuondo Larrea, that in its judgement of 5 October 1999, the European Court of Justice ruled that this transfer, which was approved, was in accordance with the principles laid down in Council Regulation 37/60/92 and, specifically, with its Article 9(1), which stipulates that Member States may exchange all or part of the fishing rights that they have been allocated.
The Court also stated that the principle of relative stability had not been violated since the anchovy quota allocated to Spain in zone VIII had been maintained at 90% and France' s at 10%.
Apart from this, Mr Ortuondo Larrea, the Court is of the opinion that the transfer effected between Portugal and France does not violate the principle of exploiting living sea and freshwater resources in a rational and responsible way, on the grounds that the fishing pressure in zones VIII and IX neither increases nor adversely affects the overall quota of these resources allocated to Spain.
Accordingly, Mr Ortuondo Larrea, the Council reiterates its opinion that without this transfer, greater account would be taken of France' s possibilities for anchovy fishing in the Bay of Biscay.
The Council therefore reiterates its opinion that fishing pressure would be greater and more damaging to population numbers than the solution which was eventually chosen.
In concrete terms, 3 000 tonnes represent 57.5% of Portugal' s fishing opportunities in 2000 against 5 008 tonnes or 73.9% in 1999.
These numbers represent, in our opinion and in the opinion of the Council, a real improvement in terms of conservation in comparison with the level of 80% laid down in Council Regulation 685/95.
Question No 6 by (H-0788/99):
Subject: Measures to combat the continuing ethnic cleansing of Serbs and Romanies in Kosovo On 2 December 1999, NATO's Defence Ministers made a strong appeal for an end to the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's minority communities.
In its resolution referring to specific atrocities committed against Serbs and Romanies, Parliament also vigorously condemns the continuing violence against the Serb population and calls on the leaders of the Kosovo Albanians to fully respect UN Resolution 1244.
The resolution also stresses that previous persecution of the Albanians cannot constitute a pretext for killings, abductions, detentions, intimidation, arson, looting, destruction of property and the taking-over of houses etc.
In the light of the above, will the Council reconsider the funding for the reconstruction of Kosovo, as requested by Parliament? What other practical measures will it take to put a stop to ethnic cleansing?
Mr Alavanos, I would like to say that I have the greatest sympathy for the concern underlying the issue you have raised.
We genuinely share your concerns about the threatening situation which exists in Kosovo for ethnic minorities, for both the Serb and Romany populations, and the incidents of discrimination, harassment and intimidation which continue to take place in that region.
The Council has always stressed the need to seek prosecution of all those who have perpetrated such acts and of those who continue to perpetrate such acts.
The Council once again reiterated the need, in its December conclusions, to fully implement Security Council resolution 12/99 and has consistently supported Bernard Kouchner' s efforts to implement measures to guarantee effective protection of minorities in the region and, in particular, to guarantee that measures facilitating the preservation of the region' s multi-ethnic make-up are effectively implemented.
In our contacts with senior political figures amongst the Kosovo Albanians, we have stressed - and the Portuguese Prime Minister did this very recently - that persecution of the Serb population, the Romany population and other ethnic groups is totally unacceptable.
It will not be tolerated, and must stop immediately.
It has been communicated explicitly and repeatedly to Kosovar leaders that international support will depend to a large extent on the way non-Albanian minorities are treated.
I think that this is an extremely important point: this sense of conditionality, which underlies the European Union' s position, is being maintained by the Council and will continue to be maintained.
We have fully supported the efforts of the United Nations mission and the international security forces in Kosovo to prevent further outbreaks of violence against minorities and to protect the populations under threat.
KFOR and the UNMIC police consider one of their two main tasks to be preventing any form of maltreatment on the grounds of a person' s ethnic origin.
The Council therefore expressed its satisfaction, in its December conclusions, at the substantial contributions announced by the European Commission, which will indirectly assist in returning the situation to normal, together with similar contributions made by Member States.
Nevertheless, Mr Alavanos, the Council is also aware that the total amount of resources made available to the appropriate international organisations in Kosovo does not match the desired amount, in terms of what the various Member States have been able to raise, and this has limited the real ability of these organisations to act on the ground.
We shall nevertheless continue to devote all our attention to this problem because the entire credibility of the authorities and of the organisations representing Albanians in the region also depends on the ability of these organisations to prove themselves capable of implementing measures which will guarantee the region' s multi-ethnic nature.
I would like to thank Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
I believe - as I think we all do - that Portugal, its former president, Mr Soares, and its government, maintained a cautious and middle-of-the-road stance during the bombings in the Balkans.
Today' s political statement on this issue was very positive indeed, and one which I welcome.
However, there is some concern over the lack of progress made despite the good and honest intentions expressed by the European Union.
Unfortunately, we have recently witnessed the eradication of Serb, Romany, Turkish, and Croatian minorities in Kosovo and we are now wondering what will happen next.
The United Nation' s, and Mr Kouchner' s, mission in Kosovo ended in failure.
This failure is illustrated by the fact that after an entire war that was waged to put an end to ethnic cleansing, we now have ethnic cleansing from the opposite side.
And so I would like to repeat my question as to whether the Council intends to take more specific action to debate these issues with Mr Kouchner, who has a major responsibility for the situation in Kosovo today.
Mr Alavanos, I cannot agree with what you just said in your last sentence on Mr Kouchner' s responsibilities, and I would like to make two very important points here.
The structure being implemented in Kosovo is under the auspices of the United Nations.
It is a structure to which the European Union has given as much support as it can and to which the countries of the European Union have contributed in various ways.
There is one thing, however, that we cannot deny, and that is that Mr Kouchner' s efforts to return Kosovo' s internal situation to normal have been extremely positive. This is undeniable, even if you - or indeed we - consider that some of the results of these efforts, for reasons beyond Mr Kouchner' s control, have not been as effective as we would all have liked them to be.
I have one last point to make, which is about the European Union' s responsibility and, specifically, in this case, about possible action by the Council in this matter, and the responsibility of the international community, which has overall responsibility for the situation in Kosovo.
Therefore, the responsibility of the European Union has to be seen in a certain context.
It is the international community, and specifically the United Nations, which should be held responsible for implementing Resolution 12/99 and, in particular, for the thinking behind this resolution and for the compatibility of this resolution with reality.
These are questions which we should all be asking, but the forum for putting these questions is the United Nations.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I heartily welcome the fact that you have said that you wish to improve structures, in the aim of improving the credibility of the authorities.
I think that we need to consider how we can best present this to the general public.
The question which I therefore ask myself is this: has in fact a start been made on how we can promote the media in this area, how we can train journalists and how we can improve information to the public on peaceful coexistence?
We have endeavoured to provide material help.
We have tried to defend peace by taking military action.
What is the situation now as regards efforts to include psychological criteria in this crisis area and provide the best possible support here?
Mr Rübig, as I said, I understand your concerns very well.
I think that, at the moment, particularly in the last few months, there have been some positive developments in terms of the resources that will be available to Mr Kouchner, in order for him to be able to do his job efficiently.
I heard Mr Kouchner speak at the Council of Europe ministerial meeting on this issue, and I think that many of the concerns he expressed then about the lack of resources needed to overcome some of the problems have now been addressed. In other words, he has been given these resources.
There are two fundamental questions in particular.
Firstly, an increase in police numbers would be an important factor in guaranteeing the safety of the civilian population and, in particular, in protecting certain sections of the civilian population. Secondly, an increase in appropriations would allow some officials who have important roles in the administrative and operational process in Kosovo to be kept on.
The issue which we should all raise, and I did so myself, in a diplomatic way, a while ago, concerns the very substance of Security Council Resolution 12/99.
I know that this is an extremely delicate issue, but we should all be questioning the logic behind this resolution and its chances of being implemented.
We advocate that it should be implemented in its entirety.
Nevertheless, we must look at this resolution, and this is also something that the United Nations Security Council will probably have to do sooner or later. We will have to do so because, as has happened in the past in other contexts and in other strategically important situations across the world, we must be in a position to assess a certain kind of process, and a certain kind of logic and balance - which were in fact the logic and the balance which led to this resolution being approved - should be maintained in future.
What we have to do, and we in the European Union are already doing it, is to guarantee Mr Kouchner all the necessary resources, and you are right, Mr Rübig, we have a duty to our citizens to explain to them regularly and openly whether or not these resources are being properly used.
We in the Council will be trying to provide information on this matter during the Portuguese Presidency.
Mr Seixas da Costa, I totally agree with you.
The problem is not Mr Kouchner but the legal basis on which he is working, namely Resolution 1244.
Having said this, the EU' s responsibility, which is both yours and ours, is to try and move beyond the provisional nature of Resolution 1244 and devise a future scenario for the whole region.
It is the failure to define this scenario which is causing or encouraging the excesses, accidents and assassinations mentioned by Mr Alavanos.
Does the Council intend to raise the question of the definitive status of Kosovo? If so, does it intend to do so within a general redefinition of the region, avoiding as far as possible the multiplication of micro-States, as has tended to happen elsewhere, and reuniting the parties, in this case Kosovo and Albania?
Since the author is not present, Question No 7 lapses.
Question No 8 by (H-0796/99):
Subject: New INTERREG Initiative In point 1 of Annex 2 to its draft Communication on INTERREG entitled: Promotion of urban, rural and coastal development, the Commission authorises for the renovation and development of historic urban centres using a joint cross-border strategy.
However, housing is specifically excluded.
Given the fact that there are many houses in rural areas which are of historic interest, including small cottages, and, given the need, for a variety of reasons, to maintain rural populations and to attract people to rural areas, does not the Council agree that these objectives could be assisted if housing projects were funded in the areas covered by INTERREG?
Mr President, the Council and, I think, the Portuguese Presidency in particular, are extremely aware of the importance of the problems Mr Gallagher' s question raises and I would like to say that we have always paid the utmost attention to Community policies for the development of rural areas.
I would like to point out that in May 1999 we adopted a new system for supporting rural development which was the fourth Community reference framework for sustainable rural development. This was, as you know, one of the changes made during the Agenda 2000 negotiations and it changes the way in which agricultural issues are dealt with at Community level.
Through the European Agricultural Guarantee and Guidance Fund, the EAGGF, this Community support framework is designed to help reverse the trend of abandoning rural areas, an issue you are quite right to raise.
On the other hand, the European Regional Development Fund, the ERDF, also contributes as part of its role to promoting social and economic cohesion, by redressing the main regional imbalances and encouraging rural areas to take part in development and conversion.
In this regard, we should bear in mind that the ERDF also contributes to promoting sustainable rural development and to creating sustainable employment in rural areas.
This combination of instruments enables us to implement a policy of rural development which today, furthermore, is one of the ways in which the common agricultural policy - in one of its dimensions - and regional policy also, have developed and changed.
We think that this is one of the most fundamental issues within the concept of multifunctionality which is now associated with changes in the common agricultural policy, and the EAGGF, of course, has a crucial role to play in this.
Question No 9 by (H-0798/99):
Subject: Farming and the Portuguese Presidency Will the Council outline the priorities of the Portuguese Presidency for the next six months as regards the common agricultural policy and indicate the steps it feels are necessary to boost consumer confidence in the agricultural sectors and products adversely affected by recent health scares?
Your question on the common agricultural policy is one which we take very seriously and which should always be considered in this House' s discussions, because in the future we are likely to discuss this issue at great length.
During the Portuguese Presidency, we will be continuing discussions on the CAP, by adapting some of the common market organisations with a view to developing the Union' s rural areas in an appropriate way and guaranteeing an improvement in farmers' incomes, paying particular attention to measures which could have an impact on small family-run farms.
On the other hand, the Portuguese Presidency will continue, if and when the new WTO round begins within its term of office, which is by no means guaranteed, to ensure that the presence of Community production on international markets is strengthened. It will also continue to ensure a greater balance between exported Community farm products and preserving the multifunctional European agriculture to which I have just referred.
The Portuguese Presidency also attaches importance to reinforcing food safety policy and I think that the Portuguese Foreign Minister and President-in-Office already referred to this aspect this morning.
We think that the role of food safety, specifically in terms of everything linked to public health, is one of our presidency' s essential tasks.
It is therefore one of the priorities of our programme.
We shall be developing it in four parallel schemes, in the Agriculture Council, the Health Council, the Consumer Affairs Council and the Internal Market Council.
At the Santa Maria da Feira European Council meeting in June, the Portuguese Presidency will present a report on this issue specifically in the light of the information the Commission presented in its White Paper a few days ago.
We think that the task we now have of establishing a European agency is crucial in order to give credibility to the single market, to stabilise confidence in this market, to break down some of the tensions between Member States in this area and even - it has to be said - to give the European Union a common approach for its dealings with third countries in areas of food safety.
This is what we shall be trying to achieve during the Portuguese Presidency and we hope, at the end of it, to be able to present the result of our efforts to this House.
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I am sure that he is aware of the very serious threat to the European model which is based on family farming, mainly those farmers involved in beef and sheepmeat production who are now expected to sell their produce at or below production costs.
I would like to ask what new steps the Council can take to safeguard their interests in the forthcoming world trade talks, in particular, against the ranch and factory-style production of the USA and New Zealand where economies of scale make competitive family farming for European farmers extremely difficult and where, of course, European standards of food safety do not apply.
I completely understand your concerns, and I feel that there is a need for effort and a certain degree of consistency within the European Union itself on this issue.
We also have to think of the consequences, especially in terms of financing and compensating farmers.
Nevertheless, as you know, this issue is now in the hands of the European Commission and it will have to take this further.
The Council' s ability to intervene in this matter is strictly limited.
Mr President, I too would like to welcome the President-in-Office to the Chamber.
But I do not think he answered my question with regard specifically to tackling homelessness and housing and whether the Portuguese Presidency would be willing to meet the non-governmental organisations actively involved in this field.
I appreciate and fully support his point on the need for multiple policies and a multi-disciplinary approach and also the need to combat the underlying causes of exclusion which can lead to homelessness and include the problem of drug dependency.
My specific question concerns the problem of homelessness and whether a new presidency could take a new initiative to try to overcome some of the difficulties the President-in-Office alluded to with regard to support at intergovernmental level.
I feel this is one area where Europe can play a very active role, even if only in providing the conduit for exchange of experience and best practice among the Member States.
Mr Crowley, with regard to the presidency' s scope for supporting actions by non-governmental organisations, particularly those which attempt to resolve the problems faced by the homeless, I would like to say that such initiatives are welcome, and we are very much open to the possibility of supporting them.
We have worked closely with Portuguese NGOs and with some initiatives they have proposed within the framework of the Portuguese Presidency, which we are combining with the wide range of concerns underpinning our whole programme.
We have no specific, concrete initiatives in this area but that does not mean that we are closed to the idea that an initiative proposed to us by NGOs in this area might be considered during our presidency.
It should be pointed out that this can only be done within the Council' s scope for action.
Any aspect of this which may impinge on the Commission' s right of initiative will obviously have to be done through the Commission itself.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have talked a lot about the future, about what the Commission will do, and what the Presidency will do in Lisbon, etc.
However, you also said something which I find particularly frightening.
You said that in Lisbon you intend to discuss more dynamic and competitive development.
I am beginning to feel a little worried because this may lead, partially at least, to exclusion.
I do not see how you could, with the views that you hold, provide any answers.
What I asked and what I am once again asking is the following: what are the views of the Portuguese Presidency on, for example, the appeals made by the network to combat poverty and exclusion, the division of work and social security, the implementation of tax policies, particularly for speculative capital, and the policy of redistributing wealth? I would like an answer as to whether or not the Portuguese Presidency intends to do something about these matters.
You must understand that a presidency' s ability to reverse global social or economic trends during its six months in office is actually quite limited.
I think that it is also obvious that our ability to act is linked to the Commission' s own scope for intervening, through its right of initiative.
I have spoken about the Special European Council and about Portugal' s initiative in convening it, and I have spoken about the future, because there are two complementary ways of seeing the issue of social exclusion.
One of them is the series of measures which must be adopted immediately in order to deal with the specific effects of social exclusion. The second is to create internationally competitive conditions, which will enable us to improve the economic fabric of the European Union, and this will have positive knock-on effects on the problems of social exclusion.
The Portuguese Presidency does not have a magic wand with which it can, in six months, resolve problems that have always existed.
It is prepared to act on proposals by the Commission in any area for which there is Community competence.
It also has the opportunity and the desire to promote the whole raft of measures which may be presented, specifically by non-governmental organisations, but also through the intergovernmental collaboration which is traditional in these matters.
We should, however, also bear in mind, Mr Papayannakis, that we cannot act in an area which will have such a big financial impact, armed only with the measures a presidency can propose in the space of six months.
We therefore think that all the measures we have highlighted in terms of long-term strategies, regardless of the fact that we know that in the long term, some of the homeless may be dead, will help us to guarantee sustainable policies in the European Union.
We will try to move these strategies forward as much as possible during our presidency.
Question No 12 by (H-0801/99):
Subject: Portuguese Presidency and development policy Will the President-in-Office of the Council make a statement on the priorities of the Portuguese Presidency with regard to development policy, the Convention of Lomé and tackling famine situations?
I would like to thank the presidency for the comprehensive answer to my question, and indeed the Minister who spoke to the Committee on Development last week in Brussels outlining the position.
But there are some questions still outstanding.
There does not seem to be any emphasis on the fight against AIDS in the programme.
The situation of AIDS in Africa now is so serious that more people are dying of AIDS than are dying in conflict.
I hope that the Minister will take some time to pursue that particular issue.
Medicines are available in the United States but the United States is not making them cheap enough for the people in Africa.
I should like to ask the Minister what precisely he is doing about the situation that is developing in Ethiopia where there is drought, where the crops have failed, and where, in six months' time, we will inevitably be back to the situation as it was some years ago in Ethiopia with famine and people dying in their thousands.
At the same time, there is a war going on between Eritrea and Ethiopia and the armaments industry in Europe is not short in sending guns, after which we will send the bread.
First of all, Mr Andrews, you must understand that I do not agree with your interpretation of my colleague' s speech during the meeting of the Committee on Development.
There is no contradiction between our two positions, quite the opposite.
Unless we wish to act like megalomaniacs, we cannot in the course of one presidency perform an exhaustive inventory of all possible and imaginary situations relating to all the enormous issues we face, particularly in the area of external relations.
As you can understand, it would be easy to do so.
All we would have to do is get a directory of development and put all the items in our programme, one after the other.
We are sufficiently responsible to realise that we should only include those which we will be able to manage during the term of our Presidency and - we should always be aware of this - within governments' ability to act and within the scope of the Council.
We must understand that there are limitations on what we can achieve, particularly in terms of managing national indicative programmes.
You have mentioned Ethiopia, which falls within the scope of national indicative programmes, but there are, as you know, several Community actions to combat AIDS, and in this respect, you are right, and the United States will probably not do any better.
Indeed, in terms of development aid policy, I think that Europe has absolutely nothing to worry about for the simple reason that our behaviour in this area compares very favourably with that of the United States.
Your question switched to the subject of arms, a broader policy issue which I do not think falls within the scope of this question but which the Council will, of course, address in the future, if it sees fit and if it decides to put it in a specific context.
Is the Council aware of the social problems caused by the export of food by the EU to developing countries at prices below the cost of production? Does the presidency intend to do anything about this?
Since the author is not present, Question No 13 lapses.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council, and I would personally like to welcome him and the Portuguese Presidency.
Please allow me to remark on how well-versed and well-informed he is on European affairs.
Unfortunately, in my case, he did not provide what I would call a satisfactory answer.
Since the Council recognises the fact that culture is a major economic asset, it should, in my view, demonstrate this in practice.
Saying that the cultural dimension is governed by the principle of subsidiarity and that it is therefore national governments who are responsible is, I am afraid, just an excuse.
My question, which has not been answered, is why, when the European Parliament is looking to increase appropriations to fund cultural programmes within the European Union, the Council and the Commission are cutting back on appropriations and at times cutting them out altogether.
This is a true example of the Council' s indifference towards culture, despite its assurances to the contrary that it is a matter to which it attaches great importance.
I would therefore like to ask the Council if it is prepared henceforth to support culture with the same readiness as it supported bananas, hops, cows and Indian hemp.
Mr Marinos, we are not adopting a purely economic approach to managing the Portuguese Presidency, and therefore, the cultural dimension is, I am sure you will appreciate, one of our main concerns.
These cultural dimensions, however, almost always have their own economic dimension in turn, that is the level of resources which can be called on specifically to provide aid for cultural initiatives.
This is a dimension which it is difficult to go beyond within the framework of the European Union, and especially within the framework of the Council.
For our part, we shall be attempting to strengthen and consolidate the European position on cultural goods and services and on activities in this sphere, because we believe that this is an identifying feature which is crucial to the Union' s image and to the Union' s own particular identity.
This is, and will continue to be, connected with developments within the World Trade Organisation.
As you know, both we and the Council have addressed this issue appropriately. In specific terms, we have been able to find a common language in terms of the mandate given to the Commission for the next round of WTO negotiations, at which this will be a central issue.
Nevertheless, I would like to add that with regard to cultural policy, and in particular the audiovisual dimension, the Portuguese Presidency will be paying very close attention to extending and enriching European audiovisual policy by adopting a Media-Plus programme which could go some way towards allaying Europe' s main fears.
We also intend to initiate a new debate, a more innovative one, on the issue of Europe' s film heritage, given that this must be one of the most important factors in the development of a European cultural identity and of a European audiovisual economy.
The Presidency will also concentrate on discussions about creating a digital television system in Europe, which will be the subject of a conference that we shall be organising during the Portuguese Presidency, in conjunction with the Commission, in February 2000.
But, Mr Marinos, in the EU context, culture is an issue which is repeatedly raised in connection with IGC agendas.
If, by chance, it were possible to agree to include the cultural dimension in what has been called the fifth negotiating box of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, then this could be suggested, both by Member States, and by the Members of the European Parliament taking part in the preparatory group.
Of course, if consensus could be reached on this issue at the Intergovernmental Conference, there might eventually be progress.
It remains to be seen whether or not there is a consensus on this.
We will soon see, and for our part, we will bear in mind any suggestions on this issue.
Mr President, I join others in wishing Portugal every good wish for a successful presidency.
I notice that you said this particular issue was not currently on your agenda for the next IGC but if some people wished it, you would consider it.
Well, I, and my fellow 35 British Conservative MEPs wish it and would like you to please consider it.
I appreciate that it is a provocative question.
It is meant to provoke because there is a very serious issue here that some countries do not hold EU law in the respect which it deserves.
We have to find some way of putting pressure on such countries to do just that so we can reconnect with our citizens.
I cannot think of a better way to do it.
Can you?
The issue is whether the European dimension will become stronger or weaker as a result of being specifically integrated into the Treaties.
This is an issue which, as you will understand, will have to be addressed at IGC level and is an issue that only a Special European Council can authorise the Portuguese Presidency to pursue, because this kind of issue falls outside the institutional framework in which the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference will take place.
Intergovernmental Conferences are a kind of event in themselves and could also be a type of Christmas tree.
It is therefore not out of the question that these issues, which crop up again and again, and which are passed from one conference to another, may be addressed.
The problem facing us at the moment is whether there is currently a consensus within the European Union on this issue being included, particularly bearing in mind that if one such issue is included, other issues of a similar nature will probably be added to the conference' s agenda.
Mr Dimitrakopoulos has the floor for a procedural motion.
I would ask him to be brief.
Mr President, I understand that I have to do this very quickly.
I liked what Mr Seixas da Costa said about Father Christmas.
In Spain they say a letter to the three kings.
I simply wish to remind you that the European Parliament has already sent a letter to the three kings through its reports.
Now the Presidency and the Council have to bring the presents which we have asked them for in our letter to the three kings.
As I suspected, it was not exactly a procedural motion, but more a closing of the debate.
We thank Mr Seixas da Costa, but he can also write his letter to the three kings.
I would merely say that the festive issue which Mr Dimitrakopoulos has raised is an extremely important one.
The problem is that in this case Father Christmas has to follow orders and therefore he can only give presents when he is authorised by others to do so.
It is not the Portuguese Presidency' s job to hand out the presents that everyone wants, especially those that the European Parliament is asking for.
After this interesting exchange of opinions, and in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, I would like to tell you that Questions Nos 17 to 27 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes questions to the Council.
Capital tax
The next item is the joint debate on:
the oral question (B5-0004/2000) by Mr Désir and others, to the Council, on the Council position on the idea of a capital tax
the oral question (B5-0005/2000) by Mr Désir and others, to the Commission, on the Commission position on the idea of a capital tax.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, during the Asian crisis in 1997, as with those which hit Mexico in 1995 or the EMS in 1993, everyone could see the damage caused to the economies of entire countries by financial speculation, particularly currency speculation.
Between EUR 1 500 and 2 000 billion are traded every day on the financial markets. In three or four days, this can equal the total figure of annual global production, or global GDP, of approximately EUR 6 000 billion.
The bulk of these financial transactions are purely speculative and do not involve any trade in goods or investments.
Yet the erratic movement of these massive sums of capital can, in a few hours, cause the collapse of a currency or the economy of a country, plunging its whole population into recession.
In view of this situation, renewed interest has been expressed in the proposal by James Tobin, winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, to create a tax on currency transactions. The rate of this would be very low so that it did not affect trade in goods or investments, but it would act as a light brake on the wheels of speculation, thereby checking the multiplication of short-term transactions.
Note that this proposed tax, which seems to be producing strong emotions in some people, would be the lowest tax in the world and the lowest in the history of global taxation. Yet it would represent the recapture of the areas seized from democracy by the financial sphere.
One reason for the acceptance of this proposal, and of the campaigns by NGOs such as ATTAC, SOLIDAR or others which have popularised this proposal, is that it would release resources which could be allocated to development programmes in the poorest countries, in areas such as education or health.
It could act as a kind of asset redistribution in a world where there is both increasing wealth and increasing poverty.
Many personalities and institutions have come out in favour of this tax such as the Brazilian President, Fernando Cardoso, the Finnish Government, the Canadian Parliament last March and also Lionel Jospin in 1995.
This question has been debated in several national parliaments of the EU.
The common response has been that this tax could not be applied solely at national level and that the right platform for tackling this is the European Union. This is the reason for the oral question to the Council and Commission which we have tabled with 37 other Members.
I am delighted with the compromise motion for a resolution which we have reached with the GUE/NGL, Greens/EFA, ELDR and PSE Groups. This motion asks the Commission to present a report to Parliament within six months on the feasibility of this tax.
It also asks for an examination of the pressures and financial sanctions which could be applied against countries which encourage tax evasion or which maintain tax havens. One of the most common objections is that such a tax would be too complex, but this could be said of any tax.
If this argument had been accepted in the past, then no taxes would ever have been created.
The motion also asks that a position document, drawn up by the Commission and Council, should be submitted before the next annual meeting of the IMF.
The European Union must take the initiative and must also, as demanded in the motion, propose this initiative to the G7 because it is primarily a political question.
If the Union takes the initiative, this will have a ratchet effect because this debate is occurring all over the world, including in the USA and Japan. A desire is being expressed everywhere with increasing force that the world should not be ruled by traders but by the people, their parliaments, their governments and their democratic institutions.
Europe must play a role in this new international regulation and I am extremely happy that today, with this debate and this motion, this question is now on the agenda of European construction.
Madam President, I do not have a great deal to add on this subject.
The Council has not yet discussed the possibility of introducing a tax on movements of capital as Professor Tobin suggested.
This is a creative initiative, which we know has been welcomed by different industries across the world and by various sides in European politics, but the Commission has not yet put forward any proposal or initiative on this issue.
As it falls to the Commission to propose any such initiative, the Council has not yet been able to adopt a position on this issue.
Madam President, the revenue basis of the Tobin tax is said to be made up of very short-term exchange transactions.
Such transactions, according to the argument, bear very little relation to fundamental economic variables.
This has also just been underlined by Mr Désir.
Therefore, according to proponents, such as Mr Désir, an internationally applied Tobin tax would, in principle, reduce speculative transactions and, hence, the volatility of exchange rates, which would lead to an improvement in economic prosperity.
Taking into account the considerable volume of short-term financial streams, even a low nominal Tobin tax would yield respectable sums of tax revenue.
In reality, the motive underlying the increased interest in the Tobin tax and other sources of international finance in the mid-nineties was non-economic.
Indeed, it was fuelled by the potential of this tax to generate income for international, public programmes at a time when demand for such funds was rising quickly and funding was increasingly harder to come by.
The Commission recently observed renewed interest in a global tax, such as the Tobin tax, as a means of achieving socially responsible globalisation, so to speak.
Mr Désir too has mentioned this growing interest on all sides.
But if the Tobin tax were to be applied unilaterally in order to prevent attacks on a specific currency, then this tax could not be effective and it could harm the internal financial market.
Put more strongly, in the long term it is possible that for large numbers of funds, the Tobin tax will be evaded by shifting foreign exchange rate transactions to off-shore tax havens.
In that case, the tax could lead to a net loss of total economic prosperity.
So the Tobin tax can only be effective if there is a sufficient number of industrialised countries which are prepared to participate.
Finally, even if the Tobin tax is designed to curb speculations with currencies, there is still the risk that even non-speculative streams would be affected, and that is not the intention.
For the reasons set out above, I cannot see a good reason for introducing a European Tobin tax.
At any rate, the Commission is against any attempt to restrict capital movement within the European Union.
In more direct terms, to the extent that this measure could be deemed an indirect restriction on capital streams, this would contravene the Treaty of Rome.
The correct speculative approach, it seems to me, is to remove the real causes which lead to financial chaos, rather than attempting to suppress its symptoms by introducing obstacles to the operation of the markets.
Madam President, Commissioner, I should like once again to say a few words on the modus operandi and the ideological tactics behind this oral question.
Also because I know how many social democrats in this House share our criticism, and not just the economic and financial policy experts.
We know what the problem is: instability on the markets as the result of speculation.
But the people asking the question need to know that not every instance of instability, as the Commissioner has just so impressively told us, is the result of speculation.
The Tobin tax would not have been able to prevent the crises in the EEA in 1992 and 1993 or the crises in the south-east Asian currencies in 1997.
The initiators of this question do not propose a solution; instead they are calling for a new burden, they are calling for more bureaucracy, for a measure which runs counter to the market mechanisms and they are taking up plenary' s time with an intergroup opinion which excludes the competent parliamentary committee, contrary to several resolutions by Parliament.
In my view, and I say this quite clearly, the question is ideologically motivated rather than solution-focused.
I consider this to be the wrong way forward for several reasons.
Why do we reject the Tobin tax and consider it so questionable? First, and the Commissioner has also confirmed this, because it places a heavy burden on the capital markets.
Even a small tax would have serious repercussions on the capital markets, because this sort of speculation tax would reduce the profitability of investments considerably.
In addition, this sort of measure would also seriously hamper the development of the financial markets and would stand in the way of the principle of the free movement of capital, which is one of the central tenets of the internal market.
Secondly, speculative capital is extremely difficult to identify.
Thirdly, unless they are introduced in all countries at the same time, tax measures are easy to circumvent because there are otherwise too many loopholes.
Fourthly, technically speaking, this measure is highly impracticable and will result in a great deal of bureaucracy and administration and be impossible to control.
The measure which we should be taking is part of the resolution before us here today.
We need stronger banking supervision.
We need to clarify the liability for transactions.
We need a framework of regulations at international level.
We need to examine national laws in order to check that they comply with the rules of the Basle committee and how the dissemination of these rules can be stepped up.
I have a serious problem with one of the central points of this resolution which we cannot accept as it stands.
I refer to point 9.
Having listened to the Commissioner just now, we know that the Commission' s knowledge of the facts will result in a 'no' to the Tobin tax.
If the knowledge of the facts and this debate and the arguments are as we say, and I think that they are right, then to take up another six months of the Commission' s time and occasion uncertainty on the financial and capital markets would be irresponsible.
The capital markets do not want uncertainty from us, they want clarity; which is why we reject point 9 and call for a split vote.
Madam President, the debate on a tax on short-term financial actions is not a new one.
We have been discussing the Tobin tax proposal for twenty years and yet the question is still topical because we need really concrete and honest answers based on careful studies.
We need to know just how desirable and feasible a tax on short-term transactions really is.
This question has now entered a different dimension, a dimension in which USD 1 500 billion roam the world twenty-four hours a day looking for attractive investments, no more than 3% of which have anything to do with the real economy.
We are concerned about stability on the financial markets, not for the sake of the financial markets, but because this has to do with own growth, our own investments and our own jobs in the European Union.
We must ask what instruments we can use in order to create the order here which has been missing in the past.
We have done everything to help liberalise financial transactions, but so far we have had no working set of rules, as we have learned from the bitter lessons of the repercussions of the Asian and Latin American crises.
It is therefore high time that we thought both about supervisory regulations and about transparency on the financial markets and their information.
It is important that we know who the actors are and what their credit rating is.
We must also ask if there is not a need for fiscal justice.
At a time when the tax burden on the work factor is increasing throughout Europe and internationally, we must consider how we can achieve efficient taxation of investment income and that includes the question of how to tax short-term financial transactions.
I think that we really do need a careful report and conclusions from the Commission, so that we as the European Parliament can see if we need to ensure that the European Union achieves real international solidarity with the USA and Japan in making the economy and the financial markets more stable and secure.
This is the intention behind the question and we must then follow the ordinary procedures of reports from committees and plenary debate in order to reach a balanced and really forward-looking proposal.
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I must express my surprise at this debate on the international movement of capital and its possible taxation which, although it does not mention it in the text, appears to be an attempt to revive, as the introduction has done, the issue of the tax proposed some years ago by Mr Tobin, which our Group opposed, clearly and totally, during the last legislature, with a series of arguments clearly and coherently expressed by our President, Mr Cox.
I will have to repeat these arguments, modestly, in this intervention, because the same issue has arisen once again.
We do not agree with this type of tax because its application, in the event that it could happen, would not achieve the aims which Mr Tobin presented at the time and which the Left in this House wishes to revive.
Firstly, there is no evidence that the tax on international capital movements could reduce the dangers of volatility and instability in the international markets.
On the contrary, since it is certain that not all countries would accept it, we would open the way to speculation and fraud and that really would create volatility, instability, insecurity, opacity and unfair competition in the field of financial services operating on an international level.
Furthermore, the idea of obtaining resources to apply them to the more economically needy countries presents such complexity, when we consider their application in practice, that it appears simply impossible.
This is a false debate whose aim is purely political, and has no basis or technical viability.
Furthermore - since we are in this European Parliament - if we have still not managed the slightest agreement with regard to the package of fiscal measures proposed by the Commission within the European Union, how can we expect to achieve a fiscal agreement on an international level? I suppose that the first thing they say will be, 'let us see whether you are capable of reaching a fiscal agreement within the Union' .
However, the Liberal Group has not wanted to close the door to a new analysis of this issue and, therefore, we have accepted a joint motion for a resolution proposing that a study be carried out on the possibility and suitability of imposing this tax on certain areas of international capital movements.
I am sure that this study - if carried out objectively, with knowledge of the financial markets and their mechanisms on an international level - will show that it is neither suitable nor possible, not only in terms of its application, but also as a means of achieving the proposed objectives.
In itself, globalisation is positive.
The economy has never grown so much nor favoured so many countries on a global level.
This is due to progressive opening up and greater freedom in the international trade in goods and services and also a greater capacity for adequate movement of capital.
Any analysis of economic development in recent years, if objective, will show, through the figures, that they have no political colour or orientation.
As I have said, we are not opposed to such a study.
We will support the motion for a resolution in support of this study, but we simply insist that, as this motion for a resolution points out, it is by means of liberalisation and opening up at an international level that we will achieve economic progress, both on the level of states and on a general level.
Madam President, Commissioner, the problem does not lie in the ideology of the debate but in its political nature.
As Mrs Randzio-Plath said, we must remember that the reason why certain Members want to revive this question is because of the recent international financial crises and their economic, social and environmental consequences which have been felt by all in some countries.
The main objective of this debate is to look at the instruments available to the international community for stabilising the international financial and monetary system.
In this respect, Mr Bolkestein, the motion for a resolution cannot be separated from the issue of the Tobin tax.
If you look carefully, this proposed tax on capital is just one of several instruments aimed at forcing international investors to behave responsibly on the financial markets.
Secondly, the motion does not say that we want a solely European initiative.
This is why we explicitly refer to the autumn session of the International Monetary Fund so that the European Union, in other words the Commission and also the Council, can decide how it will defend the opportunity to stabilise the international financial and monetary system and introduce international taxation.
There should be no confusion in this debate. As environmentalists, we do not want an excuse for a motion.
Although a study produced by the Commission would doubtless be interesting, we do not need another to add to those already available.
We do need to obtain, from the Commission and the Council, in other words from each of the governments forming the Union, a clear, positive or negative, political stance. They must indicate whether they are ready to defend, within competent public bodies such as the International Monetary Fund in the first instance, the appropriateness of such a tax within the other instruments needed to stabilise the international monetary system.
As for the argument that this initiative would increase uncertainty, very short-term capital movements are specifically intended to play on uncertainty and to bet on changes between currencies or various short-term financial assets.
This argument is therefore not relevant.
I will not go into the basic issue any further for everyone has their arguments.
However, I would highlight not only paragraph 9 of the motion, but also paragraph 10.
We clearly expect a political stance to be taken with a very firm deadline of the preparations for the autumn session of the International Monetary Fund. We therefore demand, if this motion is adopted tomorrow, that the Commission and Council appear before Parliament to tell us what positions they will take on this occasion.
Madam President, my Group is extremely delighted that this debate is taking place today, particularly as we have spared no effort along with Members of other groups to bring this about.
Obviously we all have different approaches which is demonstrated by our debate and the motions for a resolution tabled at the beginning.
Having said this, our Group is pleased about the step forward which the compromise motion represents. This invites the Commission to present a report within six months.
The European Parliament can play its role by taking the initiative, even if it does so timidly, on this subject. However, I agree with the previous speaker that, if paragraph 9 were challenged, this motion would clearly lose its substance.
This debate concerns a vital question which increasing numbers of people are legitimately raising. What are the respective places of people and finance in today' s economy?
USD 1 800 billion is the volume of money moved every day in the world' s currency markets. This represents over a quarter of the annual global volume of trade in goods and services.
By putting finance at the helm, this has reinforced the demands of profitability and toughened the operating conditions everywhere.
It has led to a growth in mergers, acquisitions and company restructuring and to gigantic sums being raised with increasing frequency on the financial markets.
Unemployment and pressure on employees worldwide is increasing.
Openings and real growth are being hampered and the sudden influx or withdrawal of speculative capital is threatening the economies of many countries, to the point of collapse, as in Asia, Russia and Brazil.
Faced with this neoliberal globalisation dominated by the financial markets, demand, as our motion recognises, is developing from a different idea of the world in which common law stipulates a duty of solidarity in an increasingly interdependent world.
No one can ignore the challenge to civilisation posed by the lack of nearly one billion jobs and the need to make unprecedented efforts in terms of development and access to information.
In this respect, all ideas deserve to be considered, including the Tobin tax which is important, just like other forms of transaction which may be envisaged.
This tax could help to check speculation without penalising the activities of the real economy. It could release new resources for investment in people and, at a time when the UNDP estimates the sum needed to eradicate poverty to be USD 40 billion per year, it could allow access for everyone to drinking water and satisfy health needs.
When the debate on the ability of politics to influence economics goes global, the establishment of this tax could become one of the symbols of the political desire to recapture the democratic areas seized by the international financial operators.
The Commissioner has said that a minimum number of industrialised countries would be needed to achieve this.
I would point out that the European Union is composed of a large number of industrialised countries and, like Mr Désir and several other speakers, I feel that the European Union which we are forming can take the initiative in this respect.
In any case, the European Parliament would be honoured to take up the call of the people to control the world in order to achieve a sense of well-being for everyone.
Madam President, I too am delighted that we are having this debate. I only regret that it has been so long in coming.
We know that each generation has, over the course of time, blindly bought into what could be called a dominant ideology. This is a set of prejudices accepted as such due to a general conformism, but whose dramatic nature can be seen by subsequent generations.
Free trade and the constant worship of globalisation are now the dominant ideology or, rather, the big mistake of our fin de siècle. This ideology is as dangerous as the former ideology of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the corridors of the Kremlin or, before that, the certainty, elevated to the status of a dogma, that the earth was flat.
Our world is now dominated by a single logic or, I could say, a single god of money at work instead of people at work.
With a figure for trade in goods and services of FRF 36 000 billion only being equal to the product of four days' speculation, the financial bubble owes very little to the productive activity of individuals.
It is self-perpetuating in a world of ever higher bids which constantly denies the humanity of man, the rich as much as the poor. Yet it is the latter who, at the end of the day, are excluded from the majority of the world' s decision-making centres for these are monopolised by a tiny minority referred to recently, and very aptly, by Jean-Pierre Chevènement as the globalised élites.
It was natural that these élites would exclude any political concerns from their field of manoeuvre, thus protecting themselves from any democratic control and basically managing to be both illegitimate and irresponsible.
However, the people are fighting back, as demonstrated by their reaction during the incredible Seattle Summit. The leaders of the world, headed unfortunately by the European Commission, rushed forward submissively, hoping that their docility at the feet of the master of the world, Mr Clinton, would be enough to ensure them the scraps from the table.
Yet they reckoned without the salutary reaction of the nobodies, both individuals and States. This reaction was more organised than previously, due in France particularly to the magnificent ATTAC network which is fighting with increasing support to limit free trade in general and to establish taxation of international financial transactions in particular.
The creation of this taxation, of either the Tobin type or the more realistic type proposed by Professor Lauré, could prove to be politically opportune, at least due to its symbolism rather than its low rate. This is because it would basically mean that politics was regaining a foothold in an area from which it has been excluded by operators whose profits are proportional to the degree of resignation of States.
Madam President, although some of the aims of the Tobin tax are fairly worthy of support, introducing the tax exclusively within the territory of the European Union, as the first area of the world to do so, would sound the death knell for the European currency markets.
If the world' s other important currency trading areas were to be excluded from the Tobin tax, the fact that tax was liable to be paid in Europe would lead to currency dealing moving to those areas.
This has already been made clear a number times in this debate.
It is not enough that all the world' s industrialised countries should be included in the scheme, as then currency trading would move to tax havens outside that group of countries.
There should therefore be a universal application: it is not enough that the G7 countries or the other industrialised countries are involved.
On the other hand, it would be so difficult to bring the scheme into force everywhere in the world at precisely the same time - and personally speaking, I do not believe we can achieve this - that the Tobin tax dream might as well be buried.
Furthermore, although there might be international consensus on the introduction of the scheme, the question would remain regarding how the tax revenue would be distributed.
The world' s currency dealing centres will hardly agree to the tax revenue being used, for example, for a variety of well-meaning, UN-backed purposes throughout the world without a considerable amount of the revenue remaining with them.
With regard to the Tobin tax as a means of preventing future currency crises, it has to be realised that the causes of a currency being overvalued cannot be averted through taxation.
For that reason, as Mr Karas also said, we should give more attention to the policies that lead to a certain currency being overvalued in relation to its actual potential value.
This again would require measures to regulate the exportation and importation of capital; otherwise it would not be possible to focus on policies in this way.
Although it seems a reasonable scheme, the Tobin tax is not without its problems, even if there should be agreement as to its implementation, which I do not believe there will.
It has to be remembered that money at present is first and foremost information, and that the global economy will, in the future, rotate more and more on the basis of information and intellectual capital.
For that reason, the uninterrupted flow of assets in massive volumes between the world' s financial centres is not merely speculative activity, which has nothing to do with the real economy.
If this 'feedback' mechanism, which gives users the opportunity to make choices, were hampered by measures such as the Tobin tax, mistaken decisions might be made that turned out to be so costly in terms of the economic consequences that the tax would never be able to make up for it.
Hence, as Mr Karas has stated to his credit, our Group is resolutely opposed to the introduction of the Tobin tax.
Madam President, I speak as someone who is in support of a tax on speculative capital movements across currency borders.
It seems to me blindingly self-evident that some action is necessary.
In the last 30 years, the volume of currency transactions has increased by 83 times: firstly, total global reserves of all central banks barely amounts to one day of foreign exchange trading; secondly, annual global trade in real goods and services equals just three-and-a-half days of foreign exchange markets out of 350, that is, 1% of capital movements are for trade in goods and services and 99% are for speculation.
The size, unpredictability and irrationality of the global foreign exchange markets have made it harder and harder to manage national and regional economies.
Computer-controlled selling programmes turned a random blip into an avalanche, burying jobs, lives and industries across the globe.
The only arguments against it are: firstly, it would impair the efficiency of the foreign exchange market - a little fanciful in light of the financial feeding frenzies we have seen that have destroyed jobs throughout the world, in East Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Mr Chirac has described those who engage in this as the Aids virus of the world economy.
What is necessary is to throw some sand into the wheels of the currency speculators, stockbrokers and option traders.
Of course, this cannot be done in one country; it cannot be done within the single currency area, but it could be done at international level with global cooperation.
Europe, Japan and the US - the euro, the yen and the dollar, would constitute, in my opinion, such a block.
I am disappointed in the EPP.
I thought at least they read the resolutions they were going to vote on.
Yes, I am in favour of such a tax, but it is not what we are going to vote on tomorrow.
What we are going to vote on tomorrow is to ask the Commission to study the matter, to look at what steps and what conditions would be necessary for the introduction of such a tax.
Equally I understand the Commissioner failing to endorse such a tax, but I cannot understand why he failed to have the courage to welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the truth of his position by a study of the issue.
There is nothing so closed as a closed mind.
The tax has the support of 47% of the people in the UK, according to a recent survey by War on Want.
In France it has had enormous resonance, particularly when linked to a demand to use the proceeds to help the Third World out of its debt and poverty.
This issue can no longer be ignored by Parliament, the Council or the Commission.
There is now a weight of public opinion demanding an answer more sophisticated than: "It has not been done before".
In the new millennium, with new global problems requiring new global solutions, they need to give good arguments why it cannot be done now, rather than why it has not been done in the past.
Madam President, Commissioner, a compromise resolution on the usefulness of a tax on international financial flows would constitute a first step towards the essential amendment of many international rules.
I have two or three points to make in this respect.
One of the main demands of the demonstrators in Seattle was, rightly, the establishment of this type of tax, and this is not by chance.
The proposal of this tax today sends out a strong signal from the rich European countries proving that they want to move away from the culture of egoism.
Everyone feels that this kind of joint tax is a virtuous measure which does not prevent trade but is aimed primarily at speculation and its perverse effects. The Members on the right should note this.
It symbolises the need for solidarity with the countries of the south, particularly those in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific which questioned us extensively on this subject in Seattle.
In order to fully achieve its objective, the money supply released by such a tax must be redistributed among the poorest countries.
This is how we can give sense and morality to the commercial rules and show solidarity with the people of the south.
Madam President, we cannot just keep repeating the number which several previous speakers have quoted; we must also mention the fact, Commissioner, that 80% of these huge, daily foreign exchange sales have an investment term of no more than eight days.
We cannot maintain a situation in which investments and the creation of jobs are less lucrative than short-term sales of foreign currency and shares. We cannot maintain a situation in which we allow ourselves to destroy the opportunity to take political action.
We cannot maintain a situation in which income from non-economic activities increases more and more quickly. It has been demonstrated in Germany that income from monetary assets has almost doubled from 7.6% of overall economic income since Tobin developed his idea.
We cannot maintain a situation in which the poorest countries of the world are most exposed to the speculative arguments surrounding short-term currency fluctuations.
Nor do I believe that this is impracticable.
Why should it not be possible for the G7 countries, the other EU Member States, China, Singapore and Switzerland to come to an agreement on the introduction of the Tobin tax? There must be an overriding economic interest.
Why should it be impracticable, and it can be differentiated, to impose this tax on spot foreign exchange transactions, all the so-called cash transactions, currency futures and options?
Why should it be impracticable to set this tax at a rate which does not jeopardise the long-term investments needed by the economy but which finally makes short-term and speculative investments unattractive. Numerous very difficult questions are bound to arise, but the only real problem which I can see so far is one of political will and the St. Florian principle of shifting responsibility from one agency to another which has now taken hold.
Madam President, we are not asking for more bureaucracy, as Mr Karas put it just a few minutes ago.
We are looking for solutions.
Of course capital markets need clarity - that is actually the idea.
The Tobin tax will bring some transparency to a very obscure question.
"The more progress is made towards trade liberalisation, the more rules are needed", as Commissioner Lamy said during the Millennium Round in Seattle.
He recognised that the combined impact of the single market and the single currency that characterise the process of the European Union's construction is intimately linked to a huge amount of new regulations.
Now that financing is readily available across national boundaries without any difficulty the same approach will obviously be strictly necessary, all the more so as we consider that an enormous amount every single day is employed in speculative transactions.
We citizens of the world cannot afford the current rate of speculation.
To continue would be economic suicide.
Honourable Members, Commissioner, it is often said that Europe has succeeded in stabilising the economic sector, but this is only true if we confine ourselves purely to the public sector.
If we look at the private sector, however, we will find not only that this fabled 'financial stability' has been unsuccessful but that we are most probably sitting on a volcano ready to erupt at any moment.
The debt burdens of the private sector and the corresponding excessive inflation of Stock Exchange securities, the two main market stability indicators, have, for some time, been at danger levels, as the Commission report on the economic situation in Europe clearly illustrates.
The fact that the public accepts such rates and does not just abandon all financial activities in a panic can be explained by overambitious expectations over future gains.
Speculative activities are growing beyond measure and are, in turn, generating profits which will eventually prove to be merely fictitious.
Over-optimism will give way to disappointment and fear, which, in turn, will result in a stock market and economic crisis.
The danger is too great for us to ignore.
We ought to face it regardless of how difficult it may seem.
Modern economic science has provided an exceptional instrument with the Tobin proposal and others, which we will be able to use if we have the political will to make a start.
That is what we are lacking, Commissioner: the political will to make a start in tackling speculation.
No longer should there be a place in democracy for the worship of, or for this fatalist approach towards, market forces as adopted by the liberals - and I am sorry that Mr Gasòliba I Böhm has left - as this will only lead to its ruin.
Madam President, Mr Bolkestein, the ignorance surrounding this debate is unbelievable.
We needed a Greek Member to finally tell us what this Tobin tax means.
You reject it flatly because you do not understand the first thing about it.
That the Right opposes taxes is quite understandable, except that they should never have been allowed to spirit their millions, or rather billions, into Switzerland.
We all know that!
But now I call on you, in all consciousness, to help put a stop to speculative financial transactions and undermining long-term projects with long-term capital.
It has never been done in south-east Asia, it has never been done in Europe, and I can understand why Mr Karas from Austria has left the chamber, given Austria' s financial record.
They are all tarred with the same dirty brush!
We need a Tobin tax to give us a fiscal instrument with which we can intervene.
Madam President, I am totally appalled by the Commission' s, i.e. Mr Bolkestein' s, political ignorance!
He should perhaps use his position on the Tobin tax to ask himself why he is here at all!
Madam President, let us indeed tax money speculation: it does not produce anything new.
The tax would be targeted at the right place: at the speculators.
Who is going to defend these speculators, when nurses and teachers are paying top rates of tax? Article 73 c of the Treaty establishing the European Union provides scope for taxation on transactions.
Those who oppose taxation on currency dealing are in favour of those tax-recycling centres, the tax havens, of which there are 62 in all.
The Union should make a tax pact, which any countries could initially be party to.
The low rate Tobin tax would not cause tax-recycling problems.
It is strange to claim that if everyone is not included it would be impossible to bring into effect.
The European Union was founded through the efforts of just a few countries, and you see how we are today.
The truth is the greatest problem is a political one: they do not want to tax capital, but raise personal taxation instead.
In the end tax would politicise the global, undemocratic system of financial power.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must challenge the monopoly the world' s speculative elite have on planning the world' s economy by remaining outside the tax system.
I have received four motions for a resolution, tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, unfortunately I do not have your mastery of the French language. But I would be obliged if Mr Bolkestein would just listen for a minute, which I think he cannot do at the same time as talking to Mrs Randzio-Plath.
Could you please draw his attention to the fact that I have something to say to him? Monsieur Bolkestein, je veux vous dire quelque chose!
Unfortunately, my Dutch is not as good as yours.
But I would rather like to say something else to you.
Parliament is not taking the initiative and supporting a Tobin type tax just to annoy the Commission.
We want to examine the possibility of introducing a Tobin tax.
It will be just one of several instruments and hopefully you will be on our side in this.
From a political point of view, I always fret when people say, we neither need, want nor can we achieve these things!
It is not your job, it is our job to decide on that. It also has something to do with the newly awoken self-consciousness of this Parliament.
I just want to discuss it with you, no more and no less.
We can do so without going off at other tangents.
I respect you as a serious Commissioner who wants to take his work seriously.
Please respect us as Members of Parliament who want to take our work seriously, and that includes the Tobin tax!
Madam President, an omission appears to have been made. In the list of tabled motions for a resolution which you have just read out, no mention is made of the compromise motion tabled jointly by the PSE, ELDR, GUE/NGL and Greens/EFA Groups and by Mrs Kuntz and Mr Coûteaux.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
Mr President, I simply wanted to pass on some news. There was a terrorist attack this morning in Madrid.
Someone planted a car bomb and one person has died.
On behalf of my Group, I once again condemn these terrorist acts.
Thank you, Mrs Fraga Estévez.
We had heard about this regrettable incident.
Unfortunately, the terrorist murderers are once again punishing Spanish society. I note your comments with particular keenness, as you may expect, given that I too am Spanish.
(The Minutes were approved)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 21 January 2000.
Madam President, allow me to remind you that tomorrow will be the second anniversary of the Cermis tragedy.
Two years ago, in Cavalese in Italy, an American aeroplane from the Aviano NATO base cut through the cables of a cable car during a low-flying exercise which exceeded safe limits, causing the deaths of more than 20 Europeans.
Since then, the victims' families, who have not had the consolation of justice, since the pilot responsible has not faced criminal charges, have been awaiting solicitous financial compensation from the United States at the very least.
I therefore appeal to the President of this House and the President of the Commission for them to stand surety for immediate compensation from the U.S. authorities, and this is in order to uphold the rights of the victims' families.
Mrs Angelilli, thank you.
I have taken note of your comment.
Agenda
The next item is the order of business.
Following a request to this effect, which I have received from a number of political groups, and following the meeting of the Conference of Presidents which has just been held, I propose that we add to the agenda a one and a half hour debate on a topical and urgent subject of major importance, pursuant to Rule 50 of our Rules of Procedure, on the subject of the European Union' s reaction with regard to the talks in Austria on forming a government.
If you decide to add this debate to the agenda, it will be introduced by speeches from Mr Seixas da Costa, President-in-Office of the Council, and Mr Romano Prodi, President of the Commission.
Is there anyone who wishes to speak in favour of this proposal?
Is there anyone who wishes to speak against this proposal?
Madam President, I shall speak against this proposal on the grounds of a principle which I consider absolutely vital with regard to observance of the Treaties, and with particular regard to Article 7 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Madam President, until now we believed that the European Union was, according to the Treaty of Rome and the Treaty of Paris founding the European Communities, and subsequently the Union, an association of free, independent, sovereign states.
Even though many developments cast doubt on this, we did believe, in spite of everything, that this was the case and, more recently, reference was made, albeit half-heartedly, to the principle of subsidiarity.
Well, patently, if we do open this debate today, Madam President, as you are requesting and as the Conference of Presidents is requesting, on the basis of Rule 50, we shall then be opening up a fearsome breach in the principle of the freedom and sovereignty of the national states and the free constitution of democratically elected governments, enabling some other majority in this Parliament, at some future time, to claim the right to interfere in the formation of a government even though it has assumed power on the basis of free, regular, peaceful and democratic elections within a Member State.
If you ratify ...
Mr Gollnisch, excuse me, you have one minute.
I know that you always take particular care to ensure that the Rules of Procedure are observed.
Madam President, I thought I had three minutes. Do forgive me.
If you ratify this development, then you are ratifying the development of the Union into a body which violates the sovereignty and the freedom of the Member States, and we should then have no option but to withdraw from such a Union.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Talks in Austria on forming a government
The next item is the debate on the talks in Austria on forming a government.
I shall immediately give the floor to Mr Seixas da Costa, President-in-Office of the Council.
Madam President, today we have an appointment with hypocrisy.
Here we have a Council which has managed to flout the treaty and employ a method completely unrelated to Articles 6 and 7 which make it possible to condemn a State in the event of a serious and persistent breach.
In the event there is absolutely no serious and persistent breach in Austria.
There are risks, as we are all aware, but in the event there is absolutely no serious and persistent breach.
If we were to apply the criteria of Articles 6 and 7 or the Copenhagen criteria to the European Union, then, most certainly, this European Union could not become a member, although the countries of Eastern Europe are required to meet them.
And if we were to speak of serious and persistent breaches, then perhaps we could mention some Member States, such as Italy and France, first and third, respectively, in the list of countries condemned by the Council of Europe and the Strasbourg court.
We could mention, my Belgian friends, Belgium and the Dutroux case, the dozens upon dozens of children kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered by leading personalities in this country, where inquiries are bogged down, making no headway.
We could, if one third of the Members of Parliament so requested, require that the Council and the Commission look into the matter.
We could ask ourselves why the Austrians are rejecting 10 years, 13 years of party politics which has made one country - Austria - corrupt and rotten, just as it is now corrupting countries such as Italy, Belgium and other European Union Member States.
We might well wonder why 76% of Belgian citizens have no faith in the justice system in their country or why 56% of French citizens have no confidence in their country' s system of justice, and 53% of Italian citizens have absolutely no confidence in Italian justice...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madame President, my group, the EDD, and especially my party, are very concerned by this debate.
We cannot, and we do not, support in any way the sentiments and politics of Herr Haider and we deplore his references to the Third Reich.
We also, however, deplore the fact that your Parliament should consider interfering in the policies of an elected government of any country, especially one which is part of the European Union.
My party at home are certainly not racists, but we do not accept the rule or interference of the European Union very well.
Are you going to interfere with Great Britain' s Parliament if we are elected?
Madame President, the people of Austria have spoken by electing Herr Haider to their Parliament.
I believe they gave him 28% of the vote so there is going to be a coalition government.
Your Parliament, may I suggest, Madame President, should wait to see if the party of Haider has an effect on the policies of that country.
Then, and only then, might you consider if human rights are affected.
Your Parliament may consider measures appropriate to counter that situation and then, Madame President and only then, may your Parliament consider interfering in the constitutional affairs of a country of the European Union.
Madam President, this is an historic moment, as it is now, at last, quite clear to us all that the European Union has gradually developed into a community of values.
We see this, now that the government of one Member State is being joined by a party which, as is known, does not respect all these values.
I would also like to say that the position of the fourteen states emanating from the Council was justified, as in a way this is also a matter of the composition of the government of the European Union, meaning this is also a matter for the Council and not merely an internal affair of Austria' s.
As Members of Parliament, we must pay particular attention to the fact that the work begun to establish fundamental rights is more important than ever.
It is more important than ever that respect for, and non-violation of, human values and the rights of minorities, including the rights of all those who live within the territory of the European Union, form an essential component in the rule of law principle of the EU, and, for this reason, the Charter of Fundamental Rights must be made legally binding.
It must not be allowed to remain a mere declaration.
As important is the fact that Austria' s forces of democracy should be given support, as none of us wishes to isolate the country.
We know that most Austrians respect these values.
They have also shown how they feel: not all the demonstrations have taken place outside Austria.
Doubtless there are also a lot of protest voters on the scene that have wanted a change in Austrian policy for a long time.
I believe Parliament should support these forces of democracy.
I also appeal to the Austrian President, that he might yet look into all the possibilities for forming a government made up of democratic forces.
Madam President, I would simply like to stress the value of the attitude that the leader of our group, Francis Wurtz, reminded us of just now.
I welcome the statements by the Presidency of the Council and the position of the 14 countries which have rejected official contact with an Austrian Government that includes Jörg Haider' s party.
The fact that we are stressing this is all the more important because, as you know, we essentially disagree with the policies made by Europe, with its economic and social policies, its democratic deficit and the Member States' involvement in the terrible war in the Balkans.
Our normal disagreement further emphasises our appreciation today: this is extraordinary because the danger of a resurgence of an irrational, neo-nazi element in Europe is extraordinary.
This danger does not concern Austria, it concerns Europe.
We are talking about us, not Austria.
We know the social causes which contribute, along with unemployment and instability, to fuelling tendencies towards this; we know the accompanying cultural causes - xenophobia, racism - but with the inability and unwillingness of these extreme right-wing groups to settle accounts with nazism, we cannot fail to point out the possibility of an explosive mixture being created in Europe.
Not only the Alpine region, but all our countries are involved: the conditions are being created whereby democracy and European civilisation may once again come under threat.
The position taken by the presidency has shown that it is aware of this tragedy for civilisation.
Europe is showing that it has not forgotten Auschwitz; Europe is coming face to face with the suffering of the past.
Now, though, it should follow through with its actions, and the first to follow through should be the Commission, which, however, has been obscure and weak on this, making the value of the presidency' s position even more apparent.
This is the change we must impose on the Commission' s action.
Madam President, we are debating an extremely serious issue.
We are debating nothing less than the presence in a Member State' s government of a political force whose doctrine and principles are incompatible with the conceptual and moral bases of the Union enshrined in its founding Treaties.
A simple reading of chapter 4, article 1 of the Austrian Freedom Party' s manifesto is enough to make any democratic conscience shudder.
The view that ethnicity is the defining factor of a nation and the claim that one ethnic group has superiority over others, as is written here, revives old ghosts of the century which we have just left behind, which some historians have described as the century of horrors; horrors which the unacceptable philosophy behind Mr Haider' s manifesto has stirred up once again, to our amazement.
Of course Austria is a sovereign nation and of course we must respect the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a Member State.
However, that is not the problem.
The question is whether the Union can remain indifferent to the formation of a government in a Member State which includes such a party.
Our answer to this crucial question is no.
Leaving aside strategic and tactical considerations, leaving aside possible exonerations based on other people' s behaviour and above and beyond party and electoral interests, the Spanish delegation of the People' s Group of this Parliament, in full agreement with the Spanish People' s Party and the Spanish Government, clearly expresses its full agreement with the statement of 31 January by the Portuguese Presidency of the Council. We agree with its substance, its tone and its scope.
(Applause)
Konrad Adenauer once said - and he knew what he was saying - that the surest way to pacify a tiger was to allow it to devour you.
History is a compendium of events which could have been avoided.
Therefore, Madam President, the Union and the Assembly must send an unequivocal message, rejecting of the tiger of intolerance, xenophobia and totalitarianism, so as not to add one more mistake to the long list of abdications, renunciations and opportunism which mark Europe' s past and for which we have paid such a heavy price.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, the European Union was built upon the idea 'never again' , meaning never again do we want to see xenophobia, concentration camps, anti-Semitism, heightened nationalism or war.
The one and only significance of the European Union is the will to transcend the atrocious history of the twentieth century which gave the coup de grâce to any ideal of humanism within the heart of Europe, and which is still highly topical today.
It is not true to say that, when a government forms an alliance with neo-Fascists somewhere in Europe, this is merely a question of national sovereignty. For this Union of ours is not a grouping of neighbouring nation states who are simply coming to mutual arrangements to improve their collective circumstances.
It is a Community that is destined to exist, in which, when the main thing is under threat, when values are under threat, all democrats must bend over backwards to find solutions to ensure that the mistakes of the past are never made again.
Let us learn the lessons of the past.
In the thirties, when Adolf Hitler was democratically elected, although with a minority, many people thought that it was not as bad as all that and, Mr Poettering, in France, a number of men and women, on the right wing but perhaps of other political persuasions too, thought, 'Better Hitler in France than the Front Populaire.'
They put their own petty squabbles first, and the rest is history.
We must make a rapid, strong and united response.
I would have liked to hear your discussion with the Austrian President, Mr Poettering. We are well aware that he is very embarrassed today at the dirty deal that government has done in forming such an alliance.
So our response must be rapid and strong.
Of course, the Treaty provides us with a barrier when things become intolerable; I was almost going to say 'irreparable' .
History has taught us that Fascists start to blow hot and cold: using heated words first, in populist, xenophobic speeches, and then cool words in order to make themselves acceptable to institutions and to infiltrate them gradually, poisoning them, until the day they start to take action.
And when that day comes, it is too late.
So our Treaty has made provision for barriers for the time when it is too late, but we are not at that point: today we have to take steps to ensure that we do not get to that point.
We must therefore find a political solution.
I support the Council proposals in this, while deploring a certain lack of strength, a certain spinelessness, on the part of the Commission which will, however, have to be vigilant on a day-by-day basis, with determination over time, since Fascists count on the spinelessness of democracy, they count on time to wear us down and they hope to impose their views in the end.
Our response must be rapid.
If today we do not staunchly support the Council, then history will judge us, saying that we achieved the political equivalent of the Munich Agreement.
Madam President, I am pleased about the fact that, in Austria, the will of the large majority of the people is being respected and that this formation of government constitutes, in my eyes, a huge victory for democracy.
Let there be no doubt about it: we decline with thanks a Europe which develops into a kind of "big brother" and which keeps watch over left-wing political correctness in one Member State or another in a Stalinist way and using Stalinist methods.
European democracy and Austrian democracy should not receive any lessons from anybody and certainly not from a Belgian Government that embraces corrupt parties financed by arms dealers and that appointed the leader of such a corrupt party, which was condemned by the court, to the post of European Commissioner.
Today, we thank the Austrian people for this democratic triumph which is important to all nations within Europe and to anyone who feels particularly strongly about freedom and freedom of speech.
Madam President, Representative of the Council, Commissioner, a week ago, the big international Holocaust Conference ended in Stockholm.
Its aim was to combat the forgetfulness and the evil in today' s society which takes the form of xenophobia and neo-nazism.
It would be an insult to the idea behind this conference and to the whole of the international community to invite, at this time, into the institutions of the EU, a xenophobic party which flirts with Nazi ideas.
Secondly, I want to say that we must be consistent in our own behaviour and in our evaluations.
We demand of the candidate States and of the countries with which the EU cooperates under the Lomé Agreement that they should respect human rights and show tolerance towards their neighbours.
We must do the same as far as we ourselves are concerned.
That is why we are reacting against this carry-on in Austria.
It is not acceptable to continue as if nothing had happened.
We are at a watershed in the history of the European Union.
The Union is not only an economic community but also a community of values, something which we take seriously. Something has happened.
The European Union is in the process of finding its soul and getting some steel in its spine.
Madam President, we the Belgian Christian Democrats are concerned as, fortunately, are a great many other Members too.
The coalition which is being created in one of the Member States is clearly an Austrian affair but undoubtedly has a European dimension too.
Because what is it that unites us in Europe?
Surely it is the values and principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights, more than anything.
The Austrian Freedom Party leader, Mr Haider, has repeatedly repudiated these values.
He also repudiates the basic forms of diplomatic politeness.
He is a dangerous man.
The Christian Democratic parties in my country have made up their minds a long time ago and they stick to their decision to listen to the protests of extreme-right voters but never to negotiate with extreme-right leaders.
Values should take precedence over power.
We deplore, therefore, what is happening in Austria.
In fact, we were shaken by it. We are extremely disappointed.
As a last resort, we would ask the ÖVP to look into alternatives.
We keep reminding them about Article 6 of the Treaty.
We continue to fight against the trivialisation of the extreme right.
If, despite this, the coalition goes ahead, we would urge the ÖVP party members to ensure that the principles and values which underlie European integration are observed in political programmes, both in word and deed.
Madam President, Austria awaits a heavy responsibility.
Madam President, they say, where I come from, 'it' s three times for a Welshman' , and three times, as I think you will discover in the course of that debate, I signified my desire to respond very briefly to what has been an excellent, and on several occasions, a moving debate.
First of all, could I express my thanks on behalf of President Prodi and my colleagues in the Commission for the support and understanding offered by several Members of the House to the position taken by the Commission in the statement that we made yesterday.
I must respond also to the fact, of course, that there were references during the debate - and I use some of the words employed - to the ambiguity, the complacency and the fragility of the Commission' s opinion.
I am duty- bound to say to this House, there is no ambiguity or fragility or complacency in the opinion offered, or indeed the action taken, by the Commission on this issue.
We made explicit reference yesterday morning in our statement, as did the President this afternoon, to the fact that we share the concern demonstrated by fourteen Member States in their statement on Monday.
Secondly, we said, in very specific terms, that we will work closely with all Member States in examining the situation as it develops in Austria.
Thirdly, we expressed, in very explicit terms, that we will uphold without fear or favour the values and the provisions of Article 6 of the Treaty; and that we will take our part under Article 7 of the Treaty in ensuring that those values of liberty and democracy and fundamental freedoms are upheld.
There is no complacency, no fragility and no ambiguity about any of that at all.
And, when I say that the Commission took that view, I include my dear colleague Franz Fischler, who is from Austria; and who, once again, demonstrated his integrity and his independence as a Member of the European Commission, under oath, in being part of that statement that we made yesterday morning.
Anyone, therefore, who invites Franz Fischler to his house to somehow account for the fact that his nationality is Austrian, should examine their own motives in the context of a debate, which has been necessarily shadowed by references to xenophobia and even more lethal evils in this world.
I say that in friendship and honour to my friend and colleague, Franz Fischler.
Could I also say, Madam President, that the understanding of the presidency, the Portuguese presidency, for our position, was absolutely demonstrated in the clearest terms by Mr Da Costa when he said, and I quote him, that 'Portugal and the other Member States want to ensure that the working of the Community machine is not affected by the current situation' .
That surely is in everyone' s interests.
In order to ensure that the Treaty is upheld and that we sustain what was described as the Community machine, we are following the course of action which was set down in our statement yesterday.
We will continue to do that, Madam President, without fear or favour.
That is our duty.
It is also a matter of conviction.
My final point is this.
We understand the context of this essential debate.
There are several people here who like myself for many years past have become familiar with Herr Haider' s offensive statements, the xenophobia of many of his policy elements and the strategy that he has developed of alternating aggressive statements with apologies, sometimes on successive days.
We understand that, and we recall too the sometimes short and selective memory that he has of Nazism.
And, when we recall that, like many others on all sides of this House, my and my colleagues' instincts are naturally aroused.
However, the Commission has to act on the basis of values and law and not only on the basis of instinct.
And that is why we came to the conclusion we reached yesterday morning.
That is why we sustain that conclusion as we continue to uphold the values and the law.
Without fragility, without complacency, without ambiguity, but in the service of the whole Union and every Member State of the Union and its people.
We will continue to do that with energy and with consistency and as Mr Cox said in the debate, 'necessarily with acute vigilance' .
I wonder, since Mr Da Costa has been listening to these remarks from the back of the Chamber, whether Mr Kinnock could confirm that the Commission supports the view explicitly stated by Mr Da Costa today and in the recent statement by the Presidency on behalf of the heads of government.
Does the Commission support the Council?
Madam President, when the Commission said yesterday morning that it notes the views expressed as a joint statement by fourteen Member States and shares the concern that gave rise to that view, I think it can be taken for granted that since yesterday morning, as soon as the Commission could discuss the issue, it has had a view consistent with that of fourteen of the Member States.
Thank you, Commissioner Kinnock.
I think that we have just had a great political debate, equal to the situation and to what could be expected of it.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
The debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
Recourse to the precautionary principle
The next item is the Commission statement on recourse to the precautionary principle.
I want to start by saying that I am pleased to be presenting this communication on the use of the precautionary principle, and it has been written together with David Byrne and Erkki Liikanen.
The precautionary principle is not a new concept.
It has been used by the Community for some time now in a range of policy areas, environmental, human, animal and plant health; and it is explicitly mentioned in the environmental provisions of the EC Treaty since Maastricht.
It also appears in a range of international texts, for example, the Rio Declaration and most recently the Bio-Safety Protocol.
The essence of the precautionary principle is clear.
It involves taking action in a given policy area when the science is not clear, but where there are reasonable grounds for concern that the potential risks are big enough to require action.
However, the use of the precautionary principle has been increasingly in the spotlight in recent years.
Events such as the BSE and dioxin crisis have stimulated a growing public debate about the circumstances in which precautionary action is justified and necessary.
In view of this growing interest, the Commission therefore considered that it would be useful to present a communication to set out its position on the use of the precautionary principle.
The basic aim of the communication is twofold. To explain in a clear and coherent way how the Commission applies, and intends to apply, the precautionary principle in its management of risk and to set out guidelines for its application based on reasoned and coherent principles.
We also hope that the communication will help to build a better common understanding of how to manage risks and to dispel fears that the precautionary principle might be used in an arbitrary way or as a disguised form of trade protectionism.
The Commission' s starting point in applying the precautionary principle is the need to ensure a high level of protection in the fields of environmental, human, animal and plant health.
Of course, this objective cannot be used to justify irrational or arbitrary measures, but it does mean that action can still be taken even in situations where the science is unclear.
As such, while the precautionary principle does not involve the politicisation of science, as some have alleged, it does take us to the crossroads between science and politics.
The initial decision to apply the precautionary principle depends largely on the level of protection sought and the level of risk that decision-makers are prepared to accept for society.
It is therefore political by nature.
However, the measures that may subsequently be taken must obviously comply with the general principles applicable to risk management and the guidelines for applying the precautionary principle are therefore the key element of the paper.
Measures taken must be proportional to the chosen level of protection - that is, we do not use the sledgehammer to crack a nut.
They must be non-discriminatory in their application, that is measures should not differentiate on the basis of geographical origin.
And they must be consistent with similar measures already taken.
For example, if one product has been approved, similar products should also be approved.
Measures are based on an examination of the potential benefits and costs of action or lack of action; that is, the measures should be cost-effective and subject to review in the light of new scientific data and be clear about who is responsible for producing the scientific evidence necessary for a more comprehensive risk assessment, that is the burden of proof.
All these elements have to apply cumulatively.
It is also important to bear in mind that there are a wide range of measures, which can be taken in applying the precautionary principle. For example, a research programme, public information campaigns, recommendations and so on.
Applying the precautionary principle does not, therefore, automatically imply a ban.
This communication does not pretend to be the final word on this issue; however, it is the first time that the Commission has presented a structured presentation of the principle and its operational use.
By setting out in some detail how the Commission applies, and intends to apply, the precautionary principle, we hope to be able to clarify the situation at Community level and to contribute to the ongoing debate at European and international level.
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you very much for your statement.
I have three short questions, the first being as follows.
We have been awaiting a common communication from the Commission on the precautionary principle for a very long time now and it was anything but clear in the past as to whether the Commission speaks with one voice.
Does the document you have presented here today also accord with the opinion of your colleagues the Commissioners for Industry, Foreign Trade, Competition and the Internal Market? I am sure that your answer to this will be "yes" but I would be grateful if you could tell me if these gentlemen are also aware as to what the consequences of this will be?
My next question, Mrs Wallström, is when will you begin to apply this principle to legislation; to legislation pertaining to chemicals or other sectors, for example?
Lastly, will we be able to recognise when this principle has been applied in legislation? In other words, will each proposal contain an additional sheet stating that checks have been made as to the application of the precautionary principle and the following conclusion has been reached?
. Thank you very much, Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, for these questions.
Of course, this is shared by the whole Commission.
This is a common communication which was written by the three of us, David Byrne, Erkki Liikanen and myself, but it has been passed unanimously in the Commission today.
It received strong support from the rest of the Commissioners and it has been through an interservice consultation in the whole of the Commission.
So we have really worked through this document and I am sure that they are all able to describe the guidelines and the principles as laid down in this document.
Yes, I would say we already use this way of working with different, difficult issues like a new chemical strategy for example.
And, I am sure that we will also mention it explicitly when we work with this principle.
We have just recently had a case of using the precautionary principle when it came to ban phthalates in soft PVC toys; and of course, we apply it in several different environmental areas.
It has been mainly used in the environmental field, but, of course also when it comes to human health.
So, we will try to be very clear about how and when to use it.
Mr President, Commissioner, regarding the relationship between science, on the one hand, and applying the precautionary principle on the other, the communication states that invoking that precautionary principle always requires a political decision if there is a lack of scientific evidence.
Needless to say, this accords science a great deal of power.
We might ask ourselves, what kind of scientists will supply this documentation and what do they stand for?
The communication also states that the precautionary principle can be applied, provided there is a sufficient recognised minority of scientists. I would like to ask, what is, then, the definition of a recognised minority?
How would you describe this? What establishes a recognised minority?
If a political decision is involved, I would also like to ask: who takes this political decision? The Commission?
The Council?
And to what extent will the European Parliament be able to play a role in this?
What is the role of the scientific committees? What, also, will be the role of the food authorities which you are about to set up?
Finally, will this whole decision-making process be carried out in a transparent, public way? These are my three questions.
. Yes, Mr President, that is true.
There were many and difficult issues and not always crystal clear, but I will try to answer some questions.
Who will take the decision, who are the decision-makers? Well, that depends on who the legislators are.
This is part of risk management. They have to look at, for example, the concerns of people in relation to a special issue, and they have to judge from what is known about the scientific evidence in a certain case.
However, it is true that it does not need a big majority of the scientific community to be able to use the precautionary principle.
It can be used on evidence from a minority or where science is incomplete.
That is, of course, where you strike a balance between this principle as a political tool and science.
It is not always easy to describe exactly how this process is done, but there is no question of changing the scientific base.
We use the experts to get as much scientific information and facts as possible before we take a decision; and that should also be done in the future.
You have to see this as a tool for risk management.
You have to decide whether you want to put people in danger, for example, or if you want to protect the environment; and you have to look at the science that is available.
You have to assess all that and evaluate the science.
Then you decide to take a measure or not, to take action or not.
So, there is no answer to all your questions but this does not change the system of the scientists that we use today or the system of experts that we use today.
Mr President, I have a question concerning an actual, concrete case in which it should be possible to apply the precautionary principle.
It is about brominated flame retardants.
It is a fact that these substances are now being discovered. There are increased concentrations of them in both people and the environment.
There are many people who maintain that they entail major risks, while others question how large the risks involved in these substances really are.
Recently, both Sweden and Denmark urged the Commission in the Council of Ministers to take the initiative and ban brominated flame retardants.
I am wondering, therefore, if you are preparing such a ban and if it would not fit in very well with your approach to the precautionary principle itself to come up with such an initiative.
. (SV) Mr President, thank you very much, Mr Sjöstedt, for this question.
The issue of brominated flame retardants is an important one. It was raised quite recently in the Environment Council by a number of ministers who want the Commission to look at what basis there might be for a ban and at what might need to be done.
We are in the process of looking into this question and assessing what knowledge we have today and what it is possible to do.
Allow me to remind you, however, that use of the precautionary principle does not need to be synonymous with there being a total ban.
There may be a series of different measures which can be taken. It ought not, therefore, to be immediately interpreted as a ban.
Where brominated flame retardants are concerned, there may eventually be a ban, but it is important to say that the precautionary principle permits the whole spectrum of political measures and initiatives to be taken.
This issue is extremely topical.
The Commission is to do its job and give proper attention to the issue before we come back with an assessment of what needs to be done.
You said that the precautionary principle should not be used as a disguised trade barrier.
Is the understanding of this point the same on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean? I think we are going to have problems particularly with hormone-treated beef and genetically modified crops.
Will the Americans take the same view of this point as we do?
. (SV) Mr President, I am pleased to be able to tell you that, in Montreal, we have just signed a protocol concerning bio-safety.
We succeeded there in agreeing, at an international forum, as to the definition of the precautionary principle.
I consider it to be a breakthrough that we succeeded in concluding this protocol.
I believe it will set the trend for future discussions concerning the precautionary principle.
We are going to be able to use this as an example of how the precautionary principle is to be interpreted.
It is, moreover, also accepted as an important and effective tool.
Mr President, I have two questions.
I shall try to be very brief indeed.
The first question concerns the implementation of the precautionary principle.
As I have understood it, there has been a certain lack of clarity in some respects as to how this is to be understood.
Is it the case that a risk assessment is firstly to be carried out, including a cost-benefit analysis?
In that case, I am rather concerned, because the idea was really that a cost-benefit analysis should not be used as a tool for deciding whether the precautionary principle should be introduced. Instead, the precautionary principle should come first.
My second question concerns the burden of proof.
I remember Margot Wallström being introduced as Commissioner in the Committee.
At that time, she was talking about the desire for a reversed burden of proof. In other words, a product' s manufacturer is to demonstrate whether or not the product is hazardous.
I want to know whether this also applies in the document which the Commission has presented now.
. (SV) Thank you, Mrs Schörling.
These are two important questions, and it is good that I should be given the opportunity to clarify them.
No, one must not begin by carrying out a cost-benefit analysis. Instead, the latter should be based upon an assessment of what it is we know, of what science has to tell us and of how we should view the product concerned in the light of the risks we judge there to exist for the environment or for the health of human beings or animals.
When, on the other hand, the decision has been made to take a certain measure, the one chosen ought to be cost-effective so that there is in fact no resort to measures which are wholly unreasonable given their degree of effectiveness.
It is not, therefore, the case that one must begin with a cost-benefit analysis.
The second question concerns the reversed burden of proof.
It is perfectly correct that we need to apply this in certain cases.
I have used chemical strategy as a good example of an area in which we need to do this.
There, however, we are concerned with that particular area, whereas it may be said that the present communication concerning the precautionary principle is horizontal in the sense that it concerns the full range of specific technical areas that are of political concern.
Therefore, the issues of the reversed burden of proof and of what the burden of proof is to look like are not especially discussed in this context. Instead, it is a question of political decision-making and of the bases for this.
It is, however, perfectly correct that, when it comes, for example, to chemicals, we must ensure that we obtain a reversed burden of proof.
Mr President, I believe that the precautionary principle needs to be quite radical in order to work, otherwise we shall always be confused by all the different interpretations possible.
I will give an example: a fungicide has been proven to cause babies to be born blind.
It is therefore a teratogenic substance.
Very well, it is a fungicide, it kills off mould.
This teratogenicity has been demonstrated by just one English laboratory, perhaps because it is the only one that has carried out tests.
Now, in my opinion, given that this is such a serious risk to health, the precautionary principle lays down that this product should immediately be taken off the market, which New Zealand has done, for example.
So I want to put this question to you. When human health is at stake, or there is the possibility that human health will be seriously affected, should we not perhaps carry out a cost-benefit analysis?
The cost of a baby being born blind is too high; there are no benefits that can compensate for this.
In short, Commissioner, I would therefore like to know whether in this case, the precautionary principle as you understand it, would in any case, require the product to be taken off the market, until such time as another laboratory provides evidence to the contrary.
. (SV) Mr President, no one wants more than I do to see a situation in which we are able to apply the precautionary principle in such a way that it is seen as radically protecting people' s health and the environment.
Obviously, I cannot adopt a stance on this special case and on the particular product which has been mentioned here, but I shall go directly back and see what I can obtain in the way of information about this particular case.
The truth, of course, is that a great many Member States, and no doubt other nations too, have taken measures to protect their populations' health which amount to using the precautionary principle, even if it has not always been called that.
Naturally, it is not in the first place a question of cost; there can in fact be an enormous cost to society if the decision to take a particular measure is avoided.
Nor must it be a case of sitting and calculating the value of a human life over and against the cost of taking a particular measure.
I think, however, it is quite obvious that when it is eventually time to decide upon a particular step to be taken, it is often the case that there are many different courses of action to choose between.
In those circumstances, consideration should be given to what is likely to produce the best result.
I cannot forbear telling you about an occasion when the expression cost-effective was used by people whom one cannot perhaps imagine using it, namely when I was on a visit to Africa.
At a hospice for AIDS patients, I met two Irish Catholic nuns who were caring for dying AIDS patients.
They were the first to say that, each day, they must think about doing what is most cost-effective because resources had to suffice for their poor patients there. We must be very careful about how we use resources.
I believe we can learn something from this. We must, of course, always ensure that we use our resources in the most effective manner and in such a way that they provide the broadest possible help.
As is also explained in the present communication, it is not therefore correct that one must first begin with some sort of cost-benefit analysis.
Consideration should be given to what science is offering in the way of knowledge, and this should be used as an important political tool for protecting the environment and people' s health.
Mr President, it is a rare honour to be given a second opportunity to ask questions!
Commissioner, I would like to come back again to my first question, when I asked about the other Commissioners, for it may have sounded as though I was in jest.
Indeed you responded in kind, as I knew you would do.
I would like to draw your attention to something Mr Goodwill asked, that is to the connections we make between the precautionary principle and the world beyond the European Union.
I have good reason for asking this.
As you rightly said, the precautionary principle is needed in precisely those areas where, as yet, there is no scientific evidence.
How can we ensure that we will not be laying ourselves open to attack at any time, for example by our partners in the USA, on account of the bio safety protocol not being adequate to their purposes?
How can we be sure that those of your colleagues responsible for industrial policy and foreign trade policy, will not, as they did on the last few occasions with your predecessors, keep pulling the carpet from underneath you? That is exactly what it is all about, otherwise we might as well not bother talking about the precautionary principle here, Commissioner!
Mr President, I think it is extremely important to point to the present communication' s guidelines for using the precautionary principle as a way of repudiating assertions to the effect that we always want to use the principle for protectionist reasons.
I am certain that we are going to have more conflicts, for example with the United States.
We should not be so naïve as to think otherwise.
Ever since we signed this protocol in Montreal, we nonetheless have international recognition and a common definition written into a protocol dealing with the environment, health and trade. This constitutes a good example, therefore.
We should be in no doubt that conflicts may arise in the future too, but we can now show that we do not use the precautionary principle arbitrarily.
We now have a number of guidelines for using the precautionary principle, and we have increased support among our respective peoples for using it, something which is clearly established in the present communication.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The focus on the political precautionary principle means that we have being discussing it for almost two hours and this topic is now being viewed, so to speak, as more than an ordinary aspect of administration, even though, as we have been able to establish from the interventions, questions and replies, it is a topic which we believe to be of considerable importance.
The debate is closed.
Intergovernmental Conference
The next item is the report (A5-0018/2000) by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the convening of the Intergovernmental Conference [14094/1999 - C5-0341/1999 - 1999/0825(CNS)].
Mr President, I will begin by thanking the Portuguese Presidency and the Commission for all our recent very useful contacts.
Let me also once more thank my co-rapporteur Mr Leinen for our excellent collaboration.
The Intergovernmental Conference that is about to begin is important, both in a general sense and more particularly in view of the imminent enlargement.
The work of the Conference will determine the structure and method based on which Europe will be functioning in the twentieth century.
For the European Union of the future to be able to function more effectively, more democratically and with complete transparency, clearly what we need is an extensive and in-depth reform of the institutions and the way they work.
The first and substantive prerequisite for achieving that reform is the agenda based on which the Intergovernmental Conference is to begin its work.
From the decisions made at the Helsinki Summit, it emerges that the agenda agreed there is unsatisfactory and does not guarantee the essential and substantive changes required for creating a more functional Europe, one that is more effective, more democratic and more transparent.
This is because the Helsinki agenda is limited to consideration only of the three issues that relate in a fragmentary way to the structure and operation of just two of the European Union' s institutional bodies.
I will not repeat which ones, because everyone knows.
My conclusion is justified on the one hand by the constant and sometimes very insistent demands of the peoples of Europe and on the other hand by the huge scale of the great enterprise in which the European Union is already involved, namely enlargement.
Granted this, the new Intergovernmental Conference must not fail to include in its agenda issues which, properly addressed, would ensure the correct operation of all and not just some of the European Union' s institutions.
Just as it also must not fail to include everyday issues which, for that very reason, are highly visible to the European public.
In its numerous debates and its reports so far the European Parliament has openly supported the convening of the Intergovernmental Conference.
At the same time, however, I am asking for it to include issues that improve and complement the reform, I repeat, of all the institutional bodies as well as issues that are of direct concern and interest to the European public such as health, energy, culture, transport and even tourism.
Whether or not the agenda will ultimately be widened is still the subject of debate and on this point I would like to extol the political conduct of the Portuguese Presidency, which has repeatedly made a commitment to the European Parliament to make the necessary efforts towards that end.
All the same, whether or not more issues will be considered must in no way diminish the importance attributed by every Member State to the Intergovernmental Conference.
This is because the institutional framework within which Europe will operate in the future is a foundation of European integration and is therefore a matter of the greatest national importance for every one of the Union' s Member States.
In light of what I have said, I ask Parliament to approve the opinion which Mr Leinen and I have put before you, so that on 14 February, the work of the Intergovernmental Conference can begin and our two representatives, Mr Brok and Mr Tsatsos, can proceed with the difficult task that awaits them with the European Parliament' s backing.
The same applies to the Commission and I would again like to thank Commissioner Barnier for his collaboration with the European Parliament and for the very constructive proposals he put before us.
Mr President, the Group of the European People' s Party was not satisfied with the conclusions of the European Council in Helsinki.
It seemed to us that the agenda lacked content, because our group was thinking in terms of the Treaty and, specifically, the protocol on the Union' s institutions.
In Helsinki, the governments approved the idea that, as long as the European Union consists of fewer than 21 States, a minimal reform would be sufficient. With more than 21, a deeper reform would become necessary.
The European Council in Helsinki itself approved enlargement involving 13 new Member States.
It is therefore inconsistent to open accession negotiations with 13 countries while contemplating a minimal reform.
We are therefore thinking in terms of the Treaty and we want the agenda of the next Intergovernmental Conference to allow for a deeper reform of the Union.
Having said this, Mr President, this Parliament is holding this debate today because we did not want to delay the start of the Conference.
In theory, we could have done so.
We could have voted on the 17th of this month and the Conference would not have been able to start on the 14th.
However, we did not want to do this because we wish to send a clear political signal to the governments and the candidate countries that we want this reform to take place, precisely in order to facilitate enlargement.
Mr President, I am very happy to be able to say this to the Portuguese Presidency because it has earned great respect in this Assembly.
The Portuguese Presidency shares many of this Parliament' s aspirations and has committed itself to doing everything it can to ensure that the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference is widened to include other essential issues.
Mr President, I would like to point out that this aspiration on the part of the European Parliament is not an aspiration to gain benefits for the European Parliament itself.
However, the European Parliament will be reinforced politically by the Treaty resulting from this Intergovernmental Conference.
This is for one very simple reason: according to the agreements made in Helsinki, this Intergovernmental Conference will lead to issues, which are currently decided unanimously, being decided by a qualified majority.
Therefore, the number of issues decided by a qualified majority will increase.
It is already established within the Community acquis that those legislative issues which are decided by a qualified majority are also subject to codecision with Parliament.
Therefore, since the qualified majority will be extended, there will also be more codecision with Parliament.
However, this Parliament would not be fulfilling its role as a supranational European institution if it did not consider the political design of the Union.
That it is what we are doing.
We believe that, in the political design of the Union, other issues need to be dealt with.
These include, amongst others, the incorporation into the Treaty of security and defence issues, which have made much progress recently, but which must be incorporated into the Treaty.
Of course there is also the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and work began on its wording yesterday, which I believe has started very positively.
We are going to work seriously to ensure that the Europeans come to see being European as an advantage and that European citizens have certain fundamental rights which are connected to the Union' s institutions.
Therefore, Mr President, our proposals, which we will specify in another report, together with the proposals of the Commission, which has produced an excellent document - and I am happy to be able to say this here to Mr Barnier - are going to be used as conference documents.
We will talk about this on another day.
Today we must give the green light to this conference, and, for its part, the Group of the European People' s Party, Mr President, is ready to give that green light.
Mr President, for the Socialist Group I can say we will be supporting the draft opinion put forward by the rapporteurs on behalf of the Constitutional Affairs Committee.
We are giving a positive opinion on the convening of the IGC precisely because we have been impressed by the attitude of the Portuguese Presidency which has taken on board our request that the agenda of the IGC be widened.
The Amsterdam leftovers is not a very good term, because they are very important subjects in themselves.
Let us call them the first three subjects of the IGC.
These first three subjects are very important but they are subjects which were explored in detail by our Member States during the last IGC.
They did not quite reach a conclusion on them but they certainly do not need nine months of further study.
They need a political deal.
It is more a question of nine minutes, perhaps nine hours if it is difficult, locked away together in a room to reach a solution on these subjects, not nine months.
In those circumstances it would be silly not to widen the agenda.
There are other issues that should fruitfully be looked at, especially before such a large widening of the Union to so many new countries.
Nobody is asking for a Christmas tree.
Nobody is asking for an IGC of the Maastricht style with a hundred or more subjects being debated.
However, there are six, seven, eight, nine perhaps, subjects which it would be very appropriate and useful to address.
There is time.
Remember the IGC that led to the Single European Act.
It lasted only five months.
The IGC that led to the enormous Maastricht Treaty lasted a year.
Only the Amsterdam Treaty lasted a year and a half and that was because everyone knew you had to wait for the results of the British election if you were going to have any outcome from that IGC so that was a different reason.
A year is ample time to address a large number of issues and it should certainly be enough to address the few crucial points that we wish to be added to the agenda.
I am pleased to see that the Commission shares our view.
The Commission has just published its opinion and it has done exactly what Parliament asked of it - to bring forward a comprehensive proposal complete with actual draft treaty articles.
I thank the Commission for doing that even if, of course, I do not agree with everything the Commission said.
I think there are some gaps in what they have put forward.
Nonetheless the Commission has provided a service and I pay tribute to Commissioner Barnier who is here with us today for doing that.
They have laid out for the public to see some of the crucial issues that we are going to have to address in this IGC.
That is all to the good.
The Parliament, the Council presidency and the Commission are pulling in the same direction for a wider agenda.
I wish you every success, President of the Council, in making sure that the European Council agrees to this agenda and that on Valentine' s Day when you start off the IGC it will be under good auspices and you will bring it to a good conclusion, also when the French Presidency takes over, by the end of this year.
We should no longer be worried that the agenda for the IGC will be restricted.
That is one of the political conclusions that we must draw from the grave decision of 14 Member States yesterday virtually to freeze relations with a partner.
It makes it impossible for those same Member States, at the IGC, to fail to give operational meaning to the protection and advancement of fundamental rights.
It is already strange within the convention that is drafting the charter to see representatives of some Member States, especially Britain and France, seeking to argue that a mandatory charter would somehow be an infringement of national sovereignty.
It is vital that the IGC prepares the way to accept the installation of a fundamental rights regime within the Treaty. One part of this is to improve the access of the citizen to the Court.
Another is for the Union itself to sign up to the European Convention. Another is clearly for national parliaments and national political parties to find a reinforced role that they can play inside European Union affairs and to share the shouldering of responsibility to build European parliamentary democracy.
My group strongly welcomes the IGC and will be contributing to this Treaty reform process to the maximum possible extent.
Mr President, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance believes that the European Parliament' s decision to rush headlong into giving its opinion on the Intergovernmental Conference undermines the political significance of the request for talks with the Council, and in the end, makes it rather irrelevant.
We would have preferred to have had greater clarification of the agenda and more guarantees on the method before giving our opinion, and frankly, we did not appreciate the discourtesy the Portuguese Presidency showed towards the European Parliament by scheduling the start of the Intergovernmental Conference for Saint Valentine' s day, the first day of the Strasbourg part-session.
Moreover, given that this opinion is quite important, we can still vote for it, and indeed, the majority of our group will be voting for it.
I nevertheless wish to stress the fact that it is quite distressing to see the lack of real interest in this reform.
The events in Austria make it crystal clear that we need a body or structure for democracy in Europe and we need to establish principles which provide bases all the Member States.
It is also distressing to think that the initiative taken against Austria is actually the result of an agreement between governments and that, in any case, the European Union and its institutions would not have had the means or the consensus to allow them to act, and to prevent and rectify the course of events.
We must take action on this at the Intergovernmental Conference, and I firmly hope that this opinion, that was given reluctantly, will not mean that the European Parliament ceases to exert pressure on the Council and the Member States to make sure that this Intergovernmental Conference is not merely a technical exercise, but rouses the passions that we saw a few hours ago in Parliament.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, to my mind, it cannot be said often or loud enough that what the Council has adopted in the way of an agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference is completely unacceptable politically and I would add that I consider it to be nothing short of disgraceful.
After all, we find ourselves in a situation of historic importance, that is to say, we are negotiating or are on the point of taking up negotiations with 12 States, and together we have reached a stage at which closer European integration may be a reality in the not too distant future.
How, though, is the Union to be enlarged if we do not do the job properly now, i.e. before enlargement takes place? That is why we as a group are in favour of the Intergovernmental Conference.
We consider it to be indispensable and urgently needed and hope that it actually comes up with the goods that will enable us to carry out enlargement of the European Union in the not too distant future.
My group, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, noted with satisfaction that the Council Presidency is far from happy with the current state of affairs.
You can therefore rest assured that the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left is committed to seeing that the Union gets on with the tasks in hand.
What we are talking about is nothing more and nothing less than the future of Europe, and, in particular, a Europe that the citizens truly regard as being theirs, because they are instrumental in shaping it and because the cares and concerns, the problems and issues they face on a daily basis are also taken seriously by politicians.
The politics of closed doors and private discussions; all that must be consigned to the past once and for all.
That is why we need transparency.
I believe it falls to you, as President-in-Office of the Council, to see to it that the train does not keep rolling on as before, leaving the people behind on the platforms as if they were ignorant as to the content of the treaties.
We believe it is imperative not just to make every available effort to provide the citizens with comprehensive information on how the Intergovernmental Conference is going, and its outcome, rather they must be directly involved in the overall reform process to a far greater extent.
We also take the view that the political decision-makers must at long last change the habit of a life-time and ask the citizens in referenda, once the Intergovernmental Conference is over, whether or not they go along with the way in which Europe is to continue to develop in the future.
In this way, Europe would truly belong to the citizens and the Union would acquire an entirely new quality of democratic legitimacy.
There is another central issue relating to democracy that I would like to make clear reference to.
As a member of the convention that has now taken up its work on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, I wish to make the following point clear: neither my group nor I are content with making a solemn announcement about the Charter.
After all, what will the citizens say if we make a solemn announcement about rights to them but they are unable to take legal action in respect of these rights as individuals?
No, to my mind this would only serve to deepen the credibility crisis facing the Union.
The poor turnout at the European elections really should have been warning enough for everyone.
What we need are visible rights for each and every citizen; the Charter of Fundamental Rights must be made legally binding for all the citizens of the Union.
Together we should work towards this goal in the interests of the citizens, and what I expect to come out of the Intergovernmental Conference is that the relevant Cologne decision will be revised here at the end of the year.
Of course, we are also talking about effectiveness of decisions and functioning institutions in a Union of 27 plus Member States.
We will not achieve this just by undertaking a mini reform, as the Council has resolved to do, and that is why all institutions must come under scrutiny.
We need bold change and, at the same time, we must take care to give the greatest possible attention to equal rights for the major and small States.
This is something I would stress, particularly with my being an MEP for one of the major Member States.
I would like to thank the Commission for the proposals they have put forward and I am certain that comprehensive discussions with the citizens will ensue here in the European Parliament, on all the issues you have raised.
There is one final issue I would like to raise.
Parliament' s opinion expressly demands amendments to the Treaty in the area of economic policy.
It is indeed the case that globalisation of national economies, but above all the introduction of the euro and the associated stability pact have led to a situation where we need to do more than analyse decision-making processes. What we need most of all is to have the courage to undertake a critical examination of the Union' s policies to date.
It is all about creating a socially just Europe. A socially just Europe is still highly topical, for what we need to do as a matter of priority is place the fight against mass unemployment and poverty firmly at the centre of the Union' s policies.
Hence, to my mind, that includes having the courage to amend Article 4 of the EC Treaty, which defines the Union in traditional neoliberal style as an open market economy with free competition. The same applies to Article 105, in my view, for the European Central Bank must at last be given the political task as enshrined in the Treaty, of using its monetary policy to promote sustained growth and employment.
Mr President, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group considers that the agenda for the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, as set by the Helsinki Council, i.e. focussing strictly on the issue of decision making in an enlarged Europe, must be adhered to.
It must be adhered to in the interests of the fast, effective work of the conference, prior to enlargement.
This is why we cannot subscribe to either the opinion of the European Parliament or indeed to that of the Commission, which both wish to widen this agenda far too much and, what is more, widen it in the wrong direction, i.e. moving towards centralisation and an ever tighter European system.
Our group has therefore tabled a raft of amendments which, when taken together, form a real alternative resolution.
In them we say that the forthcoming IGC must look into a decision-making system that pays greater attention to national sovereignty.
We deplore the fact that the Commission, in its opinion of 26 January, limits itself to following the routine path of a standardised Europe enlarging towards the East, a centralised superstate operating on the basis of majority decisions.
The federalists imagine that they are thereby going to create unity through constraint, but this is a totally superficial concept.
Quite the opposite, in an enlarged Europe, Mr President, the standardisation imposed by the improper use of majority decisions can lead only to the whole thing exploding.
Furthermore, the centralised European system, as we can see it developing today and as we can foresee it by extrapolation, erodes nations and, in eroding nations, erodes the national patriotism which forms the basis of our will to defend ourselves.
The Europe which results from this is not stronger but weaker, as it no longer knows what it is or what it is defending.
This is why we have always said that enlargement was possible only if the diversity and freedom of the peoples of Europe was clearly recognised, i.e. by adopting flexibility founded upon the respect of national sovereignty.
We are delighted today to see the progress this idea has enjoyed in certain circles, one which are still, unfortunately, outside the European Parliament and the Commission.
A flexible Europe, is a Europe which respects its national democracies, which relies on the support of its nations, its national patriotisms, instead of continually persecuting them.
It is this that gives us the determination to defend ourselves against external threats, not the constraining, convoluted decision making procedures which the Commission thought it could propose at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Italian Radicals and I would like to say to the President of the Council that he has seen what Parliament' s opinion is.
It is no coincidence that the last intervention is the only one that was completely opposed to further European integration. I say this without being the slightest bit ironical about the highly respectable position of Mr Berthu and his group, but it is no coincidence that the European Council' s decision is supported by those who are, after all, in Parliament because - and this is a highly respectable position - they are fighting against further integration.
This is the message that Parliament is sending to the Council.
I hope that the Portuguese Presidency - and I add my compliments to those already offered - can convey Parliament' s message and convey the result of our mediation work on Saint Valentine' s day.
In any case, tomorrow we shall vote against the IGC agenda.
This message must be very clear; this is how we explain the way we shall vote tomorrow.
We shall give an opinion - which is technically and legally necessary - on convening the IGC on 14 February, but we shall give an unfavourable opinion of its content.
Just consider the facts: we looked at Austria a while ago, but we can also look at the stock markets, Mr President: given that the euro, that great undertaking, has fallen 16% against the dollar in a year, then perhaps, I will not say a government, but a good head of a family should ask himself whether one can conceivably tell the citizens that the only subjects open to negotiation are the number of Commissioners or similar issues.
There is clearly a more ambitious goal.
We Radicals have tabled amendments which we are submitting to the House in order to consolidate this text, and for example, to request - just for the sake of mentioning Articles 6 and 7 - that the very minimum be done, i.e., that the European Parliament should also be involved in drawing up the European Constitution and that a proposal be made for the European Parliament to adopt the amendments to the Treaty.
We know that there are other topics: for example, many Members have subscribed, along with us, to the issue of the seat of the institutions, an issue that we believe should be considered at least at IGC level.
In conclusion, I hope that the message that we give tomorrow will be strong and wide-ranging for once, so that thanks also to the efforts of the Portuguese Presidency, this agenda will be revised. Otherwise, the challenge really would be lost, not just for the present but also for many years to come.
Mr President, the President of the Commission was not being quite honest when he talked last week about the Intergovernmental Conference.
He said that there would always be unanimity on social questions but, in the Commission' s draft, plans are quite explicitly being made for majority decision-making on issues relating to social security and on taxes connected with the internal market.
This means that it will be possible for major parts of the social systems in the Member States to be changed by a majority in Brussels, even if a unanimous French National Assembly, a British House of Commons and a Dutch Lower House should be against this.
And, in this regard, you are going to the heart of democracy as it relates to distribution policy and people' s social conditions, which are what voters wish to influence when they go to the polls.
These are matters which we ourselves shall no longer be able to decide upon as voters and no longer be able to change on election day.
Brussels knows best.
Mr Prodi also announced greater transparency, but his draft regulation signals a clear backward step, and that is not only my assessment, but also that of the European Ombudsman.
Today, the Commission is obliged, on a case-by-case basis, to weigh considerations of confidentiality against people' s demands for, and expectation of, transparency and, if the Commission' s regulation is adopted, the Commission will be entitled to lock away whole categories of documents without having to give them specific consideration.
There is also the desire to create a legal entitlement to confidentiality and to lock away documents of a kind which are at present publicly available in a range of Member States.
Under the banner of "progress towards transparency" , a range of documents is being locked away from the general public.
It is, of course, thoroughly Orwellian.
I want to ask Mr Prodi never more to comment on a proposal here in the House which is not, at the same time, available for critical scrutiny by the public.
Mr Prodi secured positive comments for a proposal which would otherwise have been met with criticism, for the new draft regulation presents as progress the fact that it will now be possible to grant right of access to documents in the Commission' s possession. There follows, however, a long, long list of exceptions, and there is legal entitlement to confidentiality in regard to those exceptions.
The French text contains the word "refuse" and the English text the word "shall" , which means that the Commission is to keep secret such information as is today available to the public, for example in my own country.
In addition, we have a flexible clause concerning the efficiency of the negotiations and of the institutions, which may be used for any purposes whatsoever. It is therefore ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Portuguese Council Presidency' s account has given me the distinct impression that we are approaching this Intergovernmental Conference with well-considered ideas and a high degree of openness.
We as a European Parliament will use these opportunities to see that our issues are given the attention they deserve.
The preparations the Commission has made so far are on the right track, although they do not go far enough if the European Parliament' s motions are anything to go by.
There is more to be said on that score.
It is crucially important for this Intergovernmental Conference to score a hat trick; that of the power to act, democratic legitimacy and transparency.
In the end, it is only by having these three things in place that we will be able to achieve acceptance amongst the citizens.
At the same time of course, we need to create the power to act in order to facilitate the enlargement of the European Union.
If we have been having a different debate here in this Chamber today then that only goes to show how important this is.
The European Union must also have the power to act in the event of a government electing to impose a total blockade.
This is an important sign that majority voting is a crucial pre-requisite to the European Union' s being able to function come what may.
This is particularly important where enlargement is concerned, and legislation and in relation to treaties, which entail changes being made to legislation.
Of course we also want to extend the European Parliament' s corresponding powers in this area.
In addition, we as a European Parliament are going to have to take action in relation to Economic and Monetary Union, for there is a lack of supervision in this area.
The Finance Ministers behave as if they were in an intergovernmental meeting, when in the Ecofin Council and in the Euro 11 Council, which is an unacceptable way to go on.
Unlike Mrs Kaufmann, I am not in favour of extending supervision over the European Central Bank as I am an advocate of independence for the European Central Bank.
However, there must be an appropriate level of supervision on the political side.
Furthermore, the tripartite relationship of Commission, Council and Parliament must be restored to the sphere of foreign and security policy, where hitherto the Council was in sole charge far more than should have been the case, especially in relation to the crudely fashioned crisis management measures, for which the Commission alone has responsibility.
The overall plan failed to do justice to any of this.
We must examine whether any changes are needed to this end which would fall within the scope of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Portuguese Presidency has agreed to initiate deliberations on this matter, perhaps to extend the mandate.
There is another point I would just like to draw your attention to.
The debates we are having these days, on a certain European country' s government, for example, show, do they not, that we must place the spiritual, moral, constitutional, community and common welfare-orientated leanings of the European Union on a firm footing, and that legally binding fundamental rights must also be incorporated into the Treaty for the same reason, as this will be a crucial stabilising factor.
I would urge those who are still very hesitant in this respect to consider whether now is not the time to make this connection and perhaps pluck up the courage we need to make suitable progress in matters of fundamental rights.
The European Union needs few, if any, new instruments, and it does not need any new competences.
What it does need are instruments that will enable it to put its competences into practice.
For this reason, we must ensure that the instruments have the effect of enabling us to carry out, on behalf of the citizens, the tasks we have already formally been set in the Treaty.
In my view, that is the most important issue this Intergovernmental Conference has to concentrate its energies on.
If we succeed in making progress here, then we will also be ready for the historic task of enlarging the European Union.
This is the crux of the matter.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am confident that this will be tackled in a suitably positive manner under your tutelage.
, chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
(IT) Mr President-in-Office, on listening to the various interventions, you have understood that in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and also among the leaders of Parliament' s political groups, the decision prevailed - although not without some disagreement - to put our faith in the Portuguese Presidency, instead of creating more difficulties by postponing the start of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I can assure you that it was not easy to achieve this, last week in the Committee I chair, but we eventually decided to back the Portuguese Presidency and we would like to win this wager.
You spoke to us about the start of your tour around the various capital cities and told us about the difficulties that some governments have in reaching a consensus in their own countries, and therefore in their parliaments.
I would like you to bear in mind that yesterday we had a very worthwhile day of discussions and dialogue with the representatives of the 15 national parliaments, which were represented by competent and exacting delegations.
The aim was not to draw conclusions - it was impossible to draw any - but the debate was certainly very encouraging.
We need to be careful and be sure that national governments try to convince their respective parliaments to ratify solutions that correspond to the Union' s requirements for growth and that they do not hide behind supposed resistance put up by the parliaments to avoid signing appropriate conclusions at the Intergovernmental Conference table.
However, we shall intensify our collaboration and our dialogue with the national parliaments for the entire duration of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Yesterday, we also discussed the Commission, represented by Commissioner Barnier, who gave its opinion.
This effort was appreciated, even if different views were later expressed as regards the proposals, and moreover, Mr President-in-Office, you also expressed different views.
Nevertheless, we must stress that many people are aware, as they were yesterday too, of the risk that enlargement could compromise the original plan for the construction of a political Europe, a risk that was, moreover, indicated in an interview that surely escaped no one' s attention, owing to the authority of the person being interviewed - Jacques Delors.
We must, therefore, ensure that at the Intergovernmental Conference we discuss how to consolidate the democratic bases of the Union and how to strengthen - and this has been discussed in the House even today, with regard to the situation in Austria - the system of principles, values and rights underpinning the Union and the role of the political institutions of the Union, with regard, among other things, to running the economy.
We are counting on the Portuguese Presidency, we are counting on ourselves and we are counting on the Commission so that we can hold constructive and decisive debates on all of this at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, only a strengthened Europe can cope with enlargement.
Only a strengthened Europe is immune to political opportunists who exploit dissatisfaction.
That is why sweeping reforms are necessary and, hence, a widened IGC agenda.
The Finnish Presidency only listened to minimalist governments and, unfortunately, turned a deaf ear to this Parliament.
Portugal should not take a leaf out its predecessor' s book.
It is of the utmost importance that the European Parliament and the Commission join forces for this IGC.
In many ways, they share the same interests and the same insights.
An essential component of this joint effort should, in any case, be this Parliament' s right of assent to the forthcoming changes to the Treaty.
Of all priorities, this one is the most pressing.
What is the Commission' s verdict on this?
It also means that our Parliament President and the two representatives should be able to take part on an equal political footing and, therefore, not only within the working party, but also at the same political level as the Commission.
There is no reason whatsoever why representatives directly elected by citizens should be involved in talks at a lower level than the Commission.
Not only do we owe the sweeping reforms to the new Member States, but we owe them to ourselves.
If we allow Europe to be watered down as a result of enlargement, we will drown in our own political quagmire.
Mr President, there are days when I really cannot understand this Parliament. It seems to take a masochistic pleasure in self-mutilation.
After having restricted, on its own initiative, its participation in the IGC to two minor seats, Parliament is now giving up the right to add to the agenda for this IGC.
The fact is, whether through weakness or foolishness - nothing to be proud of either way, you will admit - in rushing to give its opinion, Parliament is giving up the only lever which the Treaty accords it, i.e. demanding a complete IGC agenda as a prerequisite before declaring its opinion.
Why do we have to vote on this opinion tomorrow, 3 February, as a matter of urgency, when we could wait, in a position of strength, until the opening of the Strasbourg part-session on 14 February, and thus force an agenda that is complete, and therefore consistent, on the Council.
A good dose of hypocrisy is needed to overlook our weakness today.
Hypocrisy to be regretted bitterly, in our resolution, that the agenda for the IGC is not equal to the issues, since in our haste, with blameworthy naivety, we are stopping ourselves forcing through this more ambitious agenda.
If there is a democratic deficit at the end of this IGC, then I say that the political groups which so wanted this haste will be accountable for this.
Whether we want it or not, since Parliament itself is going to extinguish the only spotlight capable of shedding a little light on the debates, the venue for decisions is now going to move to the 15 Member States of the Union.
I therefore invite the Members of Parliament who form the great majority, those who last November ruled that the future of Europe was deserving of debates that went far wider than the Amsterdam leftovers, to take up their pilgrims' staffs and go and convince their own governments that this IGC must be extended, since this is permitted according to the resolution of the Helsinki Council.
Because of the situation in Austria, this is a dark day for Europe.
It makes us realise that the victory of democracy is never definitive, and that we have to work to convince and keep on convincing.
In order to assert our fundamental values, they need to be laid down in writing, as a matter of urgency, and, beyond this IGC, I believe we owe Europe a constitution.
Mr President, the draft resolution we are now discussing requires, precisely as before, that the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference should have a broad agenda involving radical reforms of the institutions.
The forthcoming enlargement of the Union is used as an argument for this.
I am convinced that this is an error of judgement. A federal and centralist EU which intervenes more and more in the government of the Member States is in actual fact less well placed for enlargement.
A flexible EU which concentrates on fewer but important areas and which respects national differences and national democracy has a better chance of embracing a significantly greater number of countries.
Paragraph D of the draft resolution requires a more coordinated and more open economic policy at EU level.
It is not, however, possible to talk about this without at the same time talking about monetary union.
This text says nothing about the major democratic and political problems involving monetary union and the European Central Bank. This is untenable.
If there is a desire to make the EU more democratic, the whole construction of EMU must be reconsidered.
The Central Bank must be placed under political control so that the direction to be taken by monetary policy may be governed by political objectives such as high employment and prosperity. Public control of the Central Bank must be improved if this is to become possible.
The rigid and unsuccessful monetarism of the Stability Pact must be re-examined and discarded so that we might have a uniform policy which has prosperity as its primary objective.
Article 56 of the Treaty, prohibiting currency speculation or any interference in the free movement of capital, must be removed so that damaging currency speculation may be checked by means of political control.
In the majority of EU countries, there are now governments dominated by social democrats.
It is remarkable that, now they have the opportunity to do so, none of them is demanding any change in the direction taken by monetary union.
It also, of course, damages credibility when it is stated that monetary union could constitute a counterbalance to globalised capital.
The resolution requires the European Parliament to have increased influence over the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is, however, important to emphasise that the Intergovernmental Conference is and will remain a conference of the Member States.
It is the Member States' parliaments, or people voting in referenda, who are to direct the development of the Treaty.
It is therefore out of the question that the European Parliament should be given any formal influence over the negotiation process or over ratification.
Mr President, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has proposed an essentially positive text, which I shall vote for, even if I personally had proposed a lot of amendments to broaden it.
Nevertheless, the events of the last few days show that all those who had made basic criticisms of the way enlargement and the revision of the Treaties have been planned were right.
The Union cannot be enlarged to 28 without addressing the matter of whether Europe has certain joint principles and values, whether it comes down to an economic free trade area, or whether, on the other hand, it has a greater ambition: the desire to be a supranational union, in ways that have yet to be defined, that wants to blaze a trail for civilisation and democracy in the world.
This is what is and was meant by the call for a European Constitution.
The amendment of the Treaties was, however, limited to a review of some internal rules, which was necessary and important, but did not answer the fundamental question: what is Europe, what are its common principles and therefore, its objectives and limitations?
However, politics exacts its revenge, and having been thrown out of the window by a debate on a limited agenda, it comes back in, as a matter of fact, through a door, and through the front door in the case of Austria, since a party is entering the Austrian Government which seems to represent a return to intolerance, xenophobia and forms of racism.
And it is not a question of links with the past; it is a question of prospects for the future, and nothing could be more wrong than the right and left taking a divided stand on this.
I belong to a world, the world of Liberal Catholics, which is not left-wing but which holds as dear as anyone else the values of tolerance and common European values, and will have nothing to do with policies that reject these values.
The Council has done well to lay open this subject to Europe and to the world and if we do not set down these values in a Charter of Fundamental Rights, in a European Constitution, then we shall construct a Europe without a solid, lasting base.
Commissioner Barnier, I know - at least I think I know - that you and the representatives of the Portuguese Presidency share these values: make the most of the chances you were given by the December Conference to include these subjects and principles, because this is the only way we will build a lasting Europe.
Mr President, I am in the happy position of being able to refer to a couple of striking contributions from a small group of Nordic sceptics and opponents of the drastic and growing integration process which, looked long and hard at, threatens the whole of democratic Europe.
I am thinking of the contributions from Mr Bonde and Mr Sjöstedt who point out that the present contribution contains a string of relatively unconscious but undoubtedly rational initiatives dictated by the desire for power and pointing in the direction of a centralist and federalist EU.
They rightly included the problem with monetary union and centralist government and presented a number of alternative democratic principles.
I might add that all rational political campaigning in my own country, Denmark, takes it for granted that, when we enlarge the circle of EU countries to include the envisaged huge number of new Member States and when we in that way extend the breadth of the Union, we cannot at the same time pursue further integration in depth, that is to say engage in a more intensive qualitative integration towards a United States of Europe.
However, that is precisely what is happening.
With every single geographical extension to the area covered by the EU, we have seen how extensions in breadth have been followed by intensive extensions in depth, and that is precisely what the draft resolution from the Committee is contemplating, especially in paragraph 7 which says that there should be more thorough integration in depth.
In the light of developments in recent days, it might well be asked what we really are to do about these intergovernmental conferences and treaty amendments when government leaders - in reality the European Council of Ministers - make decisions in relation to an independent Member State entailing intervention in that Member State' s democratic process.
You can think what you like about Mr Haider, and I personally consider him to be a very dangerous politician, but you cannot just intervene in an independent and friendly country' s democratic process.
When we hold intergovernmental conferences and consider changes to the Treaty, we must take into account the fact that the EU is developing all the time, sometimes in contravention of the Treaty, as we have just seen.
I welcome Commissioner Barnier and the Portuguese Presidency here this afternoon.
On 14 February, we will see the launch of the IGC which is to be completed by the end of 2000.
This is a big task but it can be done.
I think it is generally agreed here this afternoon across all groups that the Helsinki agenda will not be sufficient to cover the necessary reform to prepare Europe for enlargement.
In other words we need to go further than what has been referred to as the important "Amsterdam leftovers" .
These include the extension of qualified voting - in my country we accept that but not to areas of taxation - the re-weighting of voting in Council to favour larger states and the number of Commissioners in an enlarged Europe.
In relation to the latter point, Ireland wants to maintain the right to nominate a full and equal Member of the Commission irrespective of the number of Member States joining.
We are prepared to consider re-weighting the votes in the Council of Ministers, provided that the larger Member States are willing to agree to every Member State having a full and equal Member of the Commission.
I feel I speak for many smaller countries when I make that particular point.
At the IGC, we would also need a debate on the possible divisions of the Treaties into two - into a policy area and an area on the Constitution.
We would accept the division of the Treaties providing it would not limit the control the smaller Member States had in the re-negotiation of the whole policy area of the Treaty.
In other words, if we are not represented fully in the Commission we will not have an input into policy discussions.
So we are watching that entire point extremely carefully.
We look forward to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and to seeing its contents.
The Treaty of Amsterdam, Mr President, has set the number of European Parliament Members at 700 and a debate is needed in this Parliament on how that number will be distributed among the enlarged Europe.
Mr President, I warmly recommend a vote in favour of the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen resolution, which clearly expresses both our disappointment at the inadequacy of the agenda and our wish that the Intergovernmental Conference should take place as soon as possible.
In any case, this emerges from the favourable schedule we decided upon.
I think that, under the present rules of the Treaties, the European Parliament would have little to gain from a policy of confrontation.
On the contrary, we should concentrate on working out persuasive proposals on the necessary reforms, in collaboration with the Commission whose own proposals are worthy of note.
We must use dialogue at every political level, including of course dialogue with the national parliaments.
That way, we will create a climate of cooperation which will be positive for the quality of the reforms.
Parliament' s representatives at the Intergovernmental Conference must make it clear to those with whom they will be negotiating that, with the Union' s institutional changes, we are faced with responsibility for the constitutional development of the Union.
They must therefore realise that such issues cannot be decided on the rationale of bargaining alone.
The issues to be dealt with at this Intergovernmental Conference are exceptionally sensitive.
It may be easy to come up with solutions, but what matters is how well those solutions will stand up in the long term.
I will mention two point that may create tension.
One is the balance which has so far been maintained between large and small countries.
Europe is not, nor can it become a classic federal state.
The solutions we opt for must be consistent with the fundamental rationale of the European Union, which is a union of states and peoples.
The other area of conflict is more difficult.
Owing to the imminent increase in membership, the bodies of the future European Union must become more effective.
This means that they must function more simply and more rapidly.
By its very nature, however, the European Union is, and will remain, a complex and convoluted multi-governmental institution.
Possibilities for faster and more simple operation do exist.
Of course they do, but they are not unlimited.
If the limits are exceeded because of a one-sided quest for effectiveness, then the legitimising basis of the European Union will suffer.
I am, however, optimistic.
Mr President, the Intergovernmental Conference mandate needs to be widened.
The most important issue with regard to this is internal differentiation within the Union.
It is unfortunate that there has been no serious consideration thus far here in Parliament of the issue of internal differentiation within the Union, which will, however, be necessary if the Union is to enlarge as planned.
The Commission' s former president, Jacques Delors, has once again publicly raised the issue of a European Confederation.
He has also said that the countries in the vanguard of integration should be able to proceed faster and that they should have their own institutions, for the sake of clarity.
The Commission' s current President, Mr Prodi, and the High Representative, Mr Solana, have put forward ideas along the same lines.
Last November, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party adopted a position on internal differentiation within the Union when it proposed a system of concentric rings for Europe: the onion skin model.
In the next resolution on the IGC, Parliament must take a long and hard look at the questions of differentiation and flexibility.
Both enlargement and the achievements of integration will come under threat unless we can create a system of concentric rings, as proposed by the Group of the European Liberal Democrats and Reform Party.
My colleagues, Mrs Frassoni and Mr Onesta have already spoken, somewhat sceptically, about some aspects of the matter in hand.
I wish to add a voice of concern on the topic of subsidiarity, not just between Union and Member States but between Member States and their own internally self-governing regions.
This has been given inadequate attention and there are many things to be concerned about.
May I particularly draw attention to one of the implications of enlargement in respect of this Parliament.
A ceiling of 700 has been prescribed as the maximum that Parliament can safely become and remain a deliberative assembly.
If you apply the existing principle of digressive proportionality, six seats for every state and then one more seat for every half a million inhabitants, you already have the situation where Luxembourg with 367,000 people has more Members in this Chamber than Wales, which is a partly self-governing region of the United Kingdom.
Scotland, with a population of 5 million, has eight seats in this House at the moment; Denmark and Finland, with the same population, have sixteen.
Now what is going to happen if we retain a ceiling of 700, bring in 26% more population over time, and then adopt the Commission' s, I think ill-considered, proposition, that there should be a European list of candidates.
What will happen to a place like Scotland, which I represent here? It will become totally invisible!
Members of this House should not in these circumstances be in the least surprised that in these discussions, people in Scotland and other such countries are asking whether enlargement should not also take the form of admitting new Member States from within existing ones.
A growing body of opinion in Scotland holds that view.
Mr President, to say that the European Union is at a crossroads is no doubt nothing new. It has been said many times.
This time, however, it is true.
We have established the single currency - which is extremely positive - and we are facing enlargement. The question is if we will undertake enlargement whether we are prepared or not.
Will we enlarge with or without deep reform? That is the debate, and this question must be addressed in any discussion of the Intergovernmental Conference, its agenda or its method.
It is clear that the Council, for the moment, has not opted for enlarging with deep reforms in place.
That puts enlargement in danger.
It jeopardises any prospect of political union and, of course, it is difficult for the public to understand.
The Council must realise that, if we want the future of the European Union to involve a form of enlargement built on firm foundations, the next Intergovernmental Conference must go much further.
The Council is consulting us and Parliament is giving its opinion.
We want an Intergovernmental Conference, but not this one.
Must there be an IGC?
Of course there must, but not this type of Intergovernmental Conference.
The agenda must go much further. We must be much more daring with regard to the issues dealt with in the IGC and we must be much more transparent and much more democratic.
Being much more democratic means greater participation by the European Parliament and allowing the Commission to exercise even more - yes, more - its ability to take the initiative.
We must clearly set firm objectives.
The functionalist approach is over, for better or for worse.
The functionalist approach has brought us to this point.
Have we achieved results? Yes, but the point is to make a qualitative leap and, speaking in political terms, this, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, means convincing the other Community partners that to fall short would be the worst thing we could do at the moment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen of the House, at this stage, following this debate which I have listened to most attentively and with great interest, I should like to make a few comments in addition to the guidelines and the statements which it has been my honour to present to you in the course of recent weeks in the company of President Prodi.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the report which they produced after extremely thorough and meticulous work, your two rapporteurs, Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, proposed that Parliament should adopt a formal opinion pursuant to Article 48 of the Treaty and thus, if this opinion were adopted, the Intergovernmental Conference could effectively start on 14 February, as suggested by the Portuguese Presidency.
As far as we are concerned, after producing the opinion expected from the Commission, according to this same Article 48 of the Treaty, we are pleased that the conference can thus begin earlier than anticipated.
We know, I know myself, that the weeks we have before us will be useful to us.
I would just like to make a few comments, after reading the draft opinion and after listening to the speakers on behalf of the various groups.
Firstly, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission understands the anxiety expressed by a number of you with regard to the scope of the conference agenda.
I understand this anxiety, this fear that the agenda may be too limited, and yet I feel, as I said to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs on returning from Helsinki, that we can work on the basis of this Helsinki mandate.
Indeed, it is in this spirit and in the framework of this mandate, which the Commission framed for its own opinion, but using all the terms thereof, plus everything between the lines.
We have not restricted ourselves to the three so-called leftovers, which is, in any case, an incorrect label.
I do not like the term 'leftovers' any more than Richard Corbett does.
It gives the impression that they are three minor or insignificant subjects whereas in fact they are three extremely serious and important subjects, and difficult, so difficult that we did not have sufficient political courage collectively at Amsterdam to deal with them in depth.
As far as we are concerned - I am responding to Mr Seguro who expressed concerns about this just now - we have not restricted ourselves to these three subjects, even though I do consider them as priorities, and consider that they must be dealt with now.
They are the first but they are not the only subjects, Mr Seguro, that the conference must deal with.
We have dealt with other subjects and we have mentioned our idea that other subjects may be dealt with in this conference, if the Portuguese Presidency firstly, and then the French Presidency, so wish, in view of the serious nature of the present juncture prior to enlargement.
We are ready for it, whether it is a matter of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, on which work has started, the CFSP and the consequences for the institutions of the current defence policy negotiations, or an extremely difficult subject on which we are continuing to work: reorganisation of the Treaties.
I have heard many comments on the Commission' s opinion, which mentioned all these subjects and dealt with many of them in depth, with specific indications of new draft articles, but no one has said that we were going beyond the Helsinki mandate.
This proves that it is possible to go into issues in depth while respecting this mandate, by using the terms laid down in the mandate and all the openings which it offers.
As regards the participation of the European Parliament in the conference proceedings, I think that Mr Seixas da Costa will agree with me, on the basis of our shared experience, in saying that you would be wrong to disregard the level of the reflection and negotiating group in which your two representatives, Professor Tsatsos and Mr Brok, are going to be working.
Of course, the final trade-offs will be made, as in any institutional negotiations, and I think this is no bad thing, at Council level, especially at the level of the Council of Heads of State and Government, who hold the key to the success of this conference in their hands.
Let me point out, in passing, that the Commission President, Mr Prodi, is also a Council member, and he has every intention of making use of this position and this role, alongside the Heads of State and Government, particularly during the final period.
However, these Council proceedings must be carefully prepared.
This preparatory work, this fine-tuning, must not be omitted, ladies and gentlemen of the House. I know from my own experience in Amsterdam that it is extremely important and useful, and that it will not just be limited to technical details.
I think that all of us, the personal representatives of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, your two representatives, and myself, as a representative of the Commission, will be going into matters in detail, but it will be afterwards, at a different level, one in which we will also be participating, that the last trade-offs must be made.
Throughout this conference, ladies and gentlemen, it is not only the status of the negotiators which is important, but the quality of what they will be saying.
And once again I should like to point out in this House, in view of my own experience prior to Amsterdam, that whatever the ambiguity or weakness of the status acknowledged to the two representatives of the European Parliament, prior to Amsterdam, the quality of what Mrs Guigou and Mr Brok said counted for a lot in these negotiations.
I am sure that the situation will be just the same and, as far as I am concerned, in my current position, I shall ensure that the contributions of your two representatives are listened to and respected throughout these negotiations.
I am sure that in this way the European Parliament will not be just an observer at these negotiations any more than the Commission will be.
We now await, therefore, with great interest, ladies and gentlemen of the House, your next opinion, in which you will specify Parliament' s priorities and practical proposals for these negotiations.
It is extremely important that the two European institutions involved in these negotiations, the Commission on the one hand and Parliament on the other, alongside the Council members, explain clearly to the citizens of the Union continually, every day, what the issues of this conference are and what responses we advocate in our capacity as European institutions responsible for ensuring both the proper operation of this enlarged Union and the common interest.
In the coming months, ladies and gentlemen of the House, the Commission will therefore be working in close cooperation, on good terms, with your two representatives, Professor Tsatsos and Mr Elmar Brok, in order to reconcile our points of view, if need be.
Quite probably, our points of view and our positions will not always be the same. There will probably be differences of opinion, that would be only normal.
The important thing is that we are consistent, and I have been committed to working towards this consistency ever since I accepted the position of Commissioner.
Our concern and our ambition, therefore, on a large number of subjects, is to be on the same wavelength and to carry these negotiations forward successfully.
This will not be a matter of chance, since, let me repeat, I feel we have the same ambitions for these negotiations and that together we see it as a moment of truth for the European Union.
Finally, I should like to make three additional comments, quite briefly, Mr President.
Firstly, to congratulate and thank Mr Napolitano, the chairman, and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs for the extremely original major initiative which it took yesterday in bringing together the competent representatives of national parliaments, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Commission for an initial joint debate.
Such dialogue between the national parliaments, the European Parliament and ourselves is extremely important.
I have said, furthermore, that I would play my part by visiting each of the national parliaments.
Tomorrow, I shall be in London.
In a fortnight' s time, I shall be in Berlin.
In three weeks' time, I shall be in Paris, and I shall continue this dialogue in one capital after another.
I feel this initiative you have taken is extremely positive, and I should like to thank you for taking it.
My second brief comment is to thank the Portuguese Presidency, particularly Mr Seixas da Costa, for his proactive approach.
Indeed, the comments which have just been made express a proactive attitude and a concern which match his own: the Portuguese Presidency cannot be just an interim presidency.
It will have to initiate these negotiations.
We are well aware that they cannot be completed within these six months and that it will have to hand over to the French Presidency, in the hope that a conclusion can be reached before the end of the year 2000.
Not only that a conclusion can be reached, but that a successful conclusion can be reached, which is not necessarily the same thing.
Concluding negotiations is not the same as concluding them successfully.
The handover will have been made, but the conditions in which the handover is going to be made, by yourself, Mr President, and by the Portuguese Presidency, are going to be extremely important, as is the nature of this handover.
It is all the work which is going to be carried out together, under your guidance particularly, in the course of these few months, which is extremely important.
We have great confidence in the Portuguese Presidency' s ability to bring this task to a successful conclusion, and indeed great expectations thereof.
Portugal is a small country, but being a small country is no reason why one may not have great ambitions.
After having heard Prime Minister Guterres, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and yourself, I have confidence in the ambition of the Portuguese Presidency and the extremely proactive way in which it will conduct these negotiations.
It can count on the partnership of the Commission over the next few months.
Finally, let me repeat, we shall have a very great effort to make in order to popularise the topics of these negotiations.
These are difficult subjects, subjects relating to institutional policy and mechanisms which are not always easy to explain.
All the more reason for Members of the European Parliament, Ministers, Commissioners to devote a little time to explaining matters to the citizens, to public debate.
As far as the Commission is concerned, it will, ladies and gentlemen, be taking initiatives to inaugurate and orchestrate this public debate.
Cross-border services
- (DE) Mr President, Commissioner, firstly I would like to apologise for being a little hoarse today, but we Austrian MEPs have had a lot of explaining and talking to do.
I would first like to say how indebted I am to the Commission for seizing the initiative, and for the two draft directives we are discussing here today.
It has thereby succeeded in closing two serious loopholes in the internal market which are of great significance to the European economy and to 5 million third-country nationals in the European Union who are here as workers or on a self-employed basis.
The current state of play - and we would do well to remind ourselves of this again - is that there are in fact judgements from the European Court of Justice relating to employees, I refer in particular to those relating to the Rush Portuguesa case and that of van der Elst. These have, in fact, clarified that the freedom to provide services must allow for third-country nationals to be taken on as employees of cross-border services and this without having to obtain work permits.
However, the European Court of Justice did not make specific reference to the issue of visa requirements and conditions of residence and consequently the Member States were unable to clarify this issue.
Furthermore, not all Member States have abided by the Court of Justice' s verdicts with regards to the lapsing of the work permit requirement, and they still have a multiplicity of unacceptable barriers in place in respect of cross-border services; barriers that are often impossible to overcome, especially for the smaller companies.
The situation as far as self-employed people are concerned is that current Community invested legal rights do not afford third-country nationals the right to provide cross-border services.
There is no doubt that we need a legislative act here.
Both draft directives seek to facilitate the freedom to provide services for EU enterprises.
It is not about establishing original rights for third-country nationals modelled on freedom of movement. All provisions, i.e. issues relating to entry into the EU and to the law pertaining to residence rights, should be regarded as ancillary to this freedom to provide services.
I, together with the European Parliament' s Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, are therefore of the opinion that the Commission has chosen the right legal bases and that the opposite view, as expressed in the report produced by the Council' s Legal Service, is inappropriate.
Consequently, I do not see that there is any real obstacle to the Council' s being able to move matters on quickly as far as these two draft directives are concerned.
I also believe that Parliament' s proposed amendments should make it easier for the Council to adopt the directives as opposed to the Commission' s proposal.
Many of our amendments relate back to concerns that were also voiced in the Council, and we are attempting to reconcile these concerns with the task that falls to us by dint of extant law and economic good sense.
When it comes to acceptance by the Council, I can only urge the Commission to adopt as many of the amendments adopted by Parliament as possible, even if some of them deviate substantially from the original Commission proposals.
I am absolutely convinced that it will be easier for us to achieve consensus in the Council on this basis.
Turning now to the most important of our proposed amendments, one of the essential differences is that, in place of a "service provision card plus notification for each individual contract" system, provision is no longer made for being able to request the previous notification from the receiving state for each individual contract.
This system appears to us to be unsuitable in practical terms.
However, in order to compensate for this, all possible obstacles must be removed before the service provision card is issued, and as the Commission' s proposal would have it, more stringent conditions must be satisfied before a service provision card is issued.
An individual is required to be in authorised employment and to have the right of residence and insurance protection, not just at the time of issue of the card but throughout its period of validity and for three months thereafter.
This should serve as a guarantee for the receiving state that the employee or self-employed person will return to the sending state once the contract is completed and that they will be covered under insurance law in the event of illness or accident.
Likewise, the situation with regard to right of entry and residence rights should be clarified before the service provision card is issued, namely under the terms of an opposition procedure.
What we are proposing is that it should not just be a case of having to apply for the EU service provision card for all Member States, rather one should also have the option of applying for it for individual Member States.
I believe this system is also more suited to practical needs.
I would hope that the same holds true for the proposal to reduce the minimum period of duration for a first posting to three months, and to be flexible in adapting the period of validity of the service provision card to the duration of the first posting.
However, we stand by our view that the maximum period of validity for the service provision card should be 12 months.
When it comes to self-employed persons, in addition to the amendments already described, we propose that the domicile criteria should be made more stringent, and that we should make provision for the possibility of countering any abuse in the way of bogus self-employment.
I would also just like to go into those of the proposed amendments that go beyond the proposed amendments put forward by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Of course I would add that I continue to support this committee' s amendments, which they adopted unanimously.
I have even submitted four amendments on behalf of my group that largely relate to the correct way of quoting Council decisions.
I must say I have received extremely contradictory statements from Parliament' s services as to exactly how these Council decisions should be quoted; whether or not one should use the number or date alone, or both, and how extensively to quote from them.
Two amendments were cancelled by the services because the content has supposedly already been given consideration to in the report.
I withdraw the two other amendments - that is Amendment No 18 to the report on self-employed persons and Amendment No 21 on employed persons.
I can only urge the Conference of Presidents to reach agreement as quickly as possible on the correct way to proceed in matters of comitology, i.e. the correct way to quote.
This would make our rapporteur' s life considerably easier in the future.
There is also a proposed amendment to both of Mrs De Palacio' s reports.
Unfortunately I have to say that I am unable to support this proposed amendment because it in fact changes the substance of the outcome that we in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market resolved on unanimously, and I would like to stand by this outcome, which we arrived at together after lengthy discussions.
On a final note, I would like to thank all those in the Committee who supported me in compiling these reports, which were far from easy to produce.
I would like to single Mr Wieland out for special mention, for he has the dubious honour of being the shadow rapporteur and was involved to a far greater extent than is customary in the drawing up of this report, contributing excellent and constructive ideas; and this without being in a position to receive the plaudits awarded a rapporteur. That is why he deserves special mention!
. (NL) Mr President, I am pleased I have been given the opportunity to make a few introductory remarks at the end of rapporteur Mrs Berger' s speech, after which I will, of course, listen with all due attention to the next speakers.
If you allow me, Mr President, I would like to go into the different amendments in more detail at the end of the debate.
May I say how the Commission welcomes the European Parliament' s support for the two proposals on the freedom to provide services and on third-country employees, the topic of the debate.
I am extremely grateful for the work that Mrs Berger has put into these proposals which are politically sensitive and which constitute a legislative challenge.
I would also thank Mrs Palacio most warmly for her major contribution as chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
The Commission particularly welcomes the suggestions made by Parliament for a more efficient procedure for the issue of service provision cards.
If the opportunity is created to apply for service provision cards for one or more, or all, Member States, the procedure would be more flexible still.
The Commission also supports the proposed flexible period of validity of the card.
However, I do not consider a three-month period of employment to be sufficient to prove that an employee is resident in a Member State.
The Commission also agrees with a provision for cases in which the contract of employment between the service provider and his employer is terminated at short notice.
An efficient procedure for issuing cards implies that companies which provide cross-border services can also exercise their rights in concrete terms on the basis of the internal market.
It seems over the top to us for other Member States to be given the option of systematically carrying out inspections systematically with a view to safeguarding public order before they issue cards.
Indeed, it should be possible for a third-country subject who has legal status in a Member State to be admitted to other Member States too.
That does not prevent these Member States from taking public-order measures within the framework of the proposed duty of notification.
Neither does the Commission accept the proposal that legal status in a Member State should be valid three months after the card has expired.
Following completion of the service, it is not acceptable for the third-country subject in question to remain any longer in the Member State in which the service is provided.
That is why the Commission supports Mrs Palacio' s Amendment No 22 in both respects.
As far as the second proposal is concerned, the Commission appreciates the wish that it should be clear what is meant by someone who is self-employed and would therefore like to resolve this issue in the amended proposal.
These are a few introductory remarks concerning the key amendments.
I hope that, at the end of the debate, when all the speakers have contributed, I will once again be given the opportunity to elaborate upon the different amendments.
Mr President, tomorrow will see a large majority within the PPE Group vote in favour of the amendments put forward by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, as well as the amended version.
I propose to confine my comments to two areas.
Firstly there is the question as to what this directive is actually designed to achieve, that is achieve in the real sense.
There is the fact that we have to take the interests of the economy and also of the individual into account.
My comments start from the premise that we are talking about an upright individual in gainful employment.
Then there are the interests of the Member States, which, being on the receiving end, may have to start from the premise of a worst case scenario.
If we are going to abide by the one extreme, that is the interests of the Member States, then we certainly have every reason to make the hurdles that have to be cleared in applying for this card relatively high.
There is also an argument for introducing early notification obligations as well as having this card.
If I were to go to the other extreme, as few hurdles as possible that is, then I would run the risk of failing to produce any legislation whatsoever in the course of this procedure because the Member States would not sign up to this directive.
I would therefore end up with a situation where a directive on the service provision card might well be in place, but with the hurdles facing the business world being so high, in reality no one would apply for the card.
Alternatively, I might have no directive at all.
Neither outcome would be satisfactory.
Perhaps this is also why, as is rumoured to be the case, the Council has become bogged down in its negotiations on this as well.
We have been trying to reach a happy compromise between one interest - that of public order - and the other, that of finding the easiest possible solution.
We want to arrive at a solution where certain hurdles are created vis-à-vis the business world, but once these have been overcome, implementation is as easy as it possibly could be.
Therefore we want applications for the service provision card to be for one or more Member States.
If a company in France says that it has an employee who has to work in Denmark on a permanent basis, and only in Denmark, then it certainly ought only to be possible to apply for this card for Denmark.
Accordingly, the bureaucratic hurdles that have to be overcome would be lower in this instance.
In return for this, however, we want early notification obligations to be discontinued, rather it should just be a matter of the employee taking the justification for the posting to the other Member State along with them, and this might take the form of the contract forming the basis for his/her posting.
Consequently, I too have to say that I am in favour of the amendments put forward by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Perhaps there was a certain amount of residual misunderstanding on the part of the Commission.
We want to achieve a completely flexible solution.
If a particular Member State was to declare that it had suddenly run into problems because the individual concerned had committed a theft and the card was for their country, then this particular Member State would be able to revoke this card, as it were, for the reasons cited in this directive, which is altogether a flexible and intelligent solution.
Allow me just to go very briefly into a second matter.
Most of those who have been working on the directive to date have been lawyers.
We all know that there are still various parts of the Treaty, some of them very old, which are still referred to as EC.
We are aware that this directive is founded on EC law and not on EU law.
However, before the elections we - the Council, the Commission, Parliament, the press, unions and companies that is - worked towards making the Europe we have today more comprehensible to the citizens.
We have expected the citizens to take on board the transition from EEC to EC to EU.
They have now got to grips with "EU" .
We would be doing neither ourselves nor the citizens any favours if we were to christen the product we are proposing to deliver "EC service provision card" and not "EU service provision card" .
It is the world of the EU that the citizens are interested in, this is the one that counts in their eyes.
I would urge the Council and the Commission to move in this direction.
Mr President it is later than any of us thought it would be when we were planning for this session so I shall be very brief indeed.
One of the reasons why we are late is because we spent time earlier today rightly stating the rooted opposition of this Parliament to any form of xenophobia or racism.
This directive is, of course, not in itself directly about that.
It is about attending to the needs of the internal market, creating flexibility and behaving in a reasonable and flexible way to enable the employment of third country persons both as employees and self-employed.
That is in itself also about avoiding being unduly restrictive towards the stranger simply because he or she is a stranger.
We welcome that, and because we think it makes a sensible and proper provision, we will support the most liberal version which we understand to be consistent with the law.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would firstly like to highlight the excellent work carried out by Mrs Berger and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market generally, which has incorporated innovative ideas into this directive, which I hope will be approved by the Commission and the Council.
Nevertheless, I have tabled an amendment.
Mrs Berger, in your Amendment No 2 to Recital 6, you mention legal security.
The first point on which we disagree is the duration of three months for the residency permit, since all that does is create legal insecurity.
You rightly raise the concern, also expressed by Mr Wieland, at the possibility of workers disappearing into thin air when their work permits expire, but I think that we would be making this even more likely by bringing in a three month permit.
If the validity of the service provision card expires on a certain date, it must end on that date.
Legal security requires this.
On the other hand, with regard to point d of Amendment No 10, which refers to the first directive, you suggest that, for reasons of public security or public order regulations, a Member State may reject the validity of the card.
There are already some ex ante controls laid down in article 4 of the directive.
It makes no sense for any worker within the Schengen area, since he or she will already have undergone a screening process in order to enter the first Member State, and the second Member State would be justified in rejecting ex ante the entry of that worker into its territory.
It therefore makes no sense to maintain that legal insecurity.
In the case of a non-Schengen state, in the last paragraph of Amendment No 22, that possibility is contemplated, and is perfectly expressed, and I believe this provides greater legal security.
The discretional power of the State, which you propose in point e of your Amendment No 10, seems to me to be inconsistent with the rest of your excellent report.
I would therefore ask Members to examine my amendment carefully, and I hope that tomorrow we will achieve a result.
On the face of it these two proposals appear to be implementing certain procedural changes to facilitate freedom of movement across Europe and to give effect to the recent court cases Mrs Berger referred to in her opening remarks.
However, in the case of the United Kingdom, we believe they go further than that in a manner which is unacceptable.
Partly this is substance and partly it is in respect of the legal base in regard to the special position of the United Kingdom.
Under the arrangements contained in the Treaties, the United Kingdom retains its border controls.
Under the system proposed in these pieces of legislation, third country nationals wishing to move to the UK under the procedures described, will do so by virtue of the service provision card issued by another Member State, thereby by-passing UK border controls.
If there is to be a change to the present United Kingdom border arrangements, that change should be made by the United Kingdom Government and the United Kingdom Parliament and not en passant by the European legislative process.
For that reason, we shall vote against both these proposals.
Mr President, Commissioner, first and foremost I would like to extend warm thanks to the rapporteur and to Mr Wieland for the efforts they have expended in summing up the various proposed amendments and interests in this report in such a balanced manner.
These two proposals contribute considerably to the implementation of one of the four key principles of the internal market for the freedom to provide services.
The new regulation for cross-border services will doubtless improve both the functioning of the internal market and the competitiveness and power to act of enterprises.
The strict basic conditions attached to the issue of the EU service provision card - and I am with Mr Wieland on this - are essential, for they will serve to prevent abuses such as illegal entry and bogus contracts.
Why do I think we need the directive so much? Three reasons and they are as follows: on account of the economic importance of third-country workers in the EU, in the interests of the competitiveness of enterprises and the proper functioning of the internal market.
Therefore, whilst I welcome the strict basic conditions, I would also call for the controls that are to be implemented by the Member States to be made as effective and simple as possible.
My last question relates to something people constantly approach me about and is therefore addressed to the Commission.
Will the directive prejudice the accession negotiations? How is Article 1 to be interpreted and explained in your view, as this will have important implications, notably for the accession negotiations and for our country, which shares common borders with so many applicant countries?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, businesspeople have so far had to live with the fact that two of the key freedoms, namely the free movement of people and services, did not apply to them.
Indeed, they were still subject to endless bureaucratic immigration procedures of the Member States where a service had to be provided.
There are approximately thirteen million third-country subjects who reside within European territory.
I assume that, although the exact number of businesspeople included in this figure is not known, their number will most definitely not be low.
So, up to now, their access to the entire territory of the Union has not been regulated by Community legislation.
The aim of the two present proposals for a directive is to promote the free movement of services within the internal market by means of introducing the EU service provision card.
It seems important, in this respect, to underline that the service provision card will be issued in a flexible manner, namely within five days of a simple declaration' s having been submitted to a Member State where the service will be provided; and that, also to prevent misuse, this document will have a restricted period of validity which will not be automatically extended.
I have also paid close attention to the concerns raised by the Commissioner.
Having also studied the amendments submitted, I concluded that we can go along with these concerns to a large extent and that this will be reflected in our voting behaviour tomorrow.
May I, to finish off, thank Mrs Berger for the great care she has taken in studying the different amendments and for having, in that way, added an important degree of meaning to her report?
I think that, with this report, we are, once again, one step closer to the realisation of the internal market.
Mr President, thank you very much for the opportunity you are giving me to go into the different amendments in more detail.
In the course of my speech, I would also like to address Lord Inglewood regarding the remark he has just made.
Regarding the first proposal on third-country employees, the Commission is prepared to adopt Amendments Nos 2, 11, 12, 15, 16 and 22.
Amendments Nos 7 and 8 are acceptable too, provided the situation of posting is established in the Member State in which the service provider is established.
The Commission also agrees with Amendment No 11, except for the proposed period of previous employment of only three months, as I explained just now.
We also welcome Amendment No 13 insofar as, as a result of this, the card' s area of applicability is extended from one Member State to all Member States.
In terms of comitology, Amendments Nos 14 and 21 also apply in part, insofar as the rights of Parliament are concerned.
I regret that the Commission has found Amendment No 10 to be unacceptable as far as the three-month period and the role of the Member State in which the service is provided are concerned.
In this respect, the Commission supports Amendment No 22, as I have already mentioned.
The other amendments are unacceptable.
Personally, I am rather in favour of the term "EU service provision card" which is proposed in Amendment No 1, but the Treaty of Amsterdam does not allow this.
As Amendment No 18 refers to Directive 96/71 concerning the minimum wage which is already in force, no change is necessary.
Acceptance of Amendment No 17 by the Commission would mean that a simple duty of notification would apply if no valid card is issued.
Surely this is contrary to interests of public order within the Member States.
Amendment No 19 is also unacceptable, given my thoughts on Amendment No 10.
The Commission has the same opinion of similar amendments to the second proposal.
I would like to add that Amendment No 10 to that proposal is wholly acceptable.
As far as Amendment No 15 on the definition of the term "self-employed" is concerned, the Commission will, as I have already remarked, provide an adequate solution to accommodate the objections lodged.
I would now like to move on to Lord Inglewood' s remark.
He referred to United Kingdom border controls and I would like to say to him that Member States, and this includes the United Kingdom, are under no obligation at all to abolish or change controls at the existing borders.
This applies, as already stated, to the United Kingdom and it also applies to Belgium, where it was recently of relevance.
With regard to the remark made by Mr Karas, I am under the impression that he is talking about the possibility of people from Poland being used as employees in his country.
The Commission would like to propose finding a solution to this problem which would then apply to all companies based in the European Union which employ staff from non-EU countries.
The question is, furthermore, one of whether the two cases should be treated in the same way.
In my opinion, this is an issue which belongs to the debate on the enlargement of the European Union and perhaps not to the present debate.
On behalf of the Commission, I would be more than happy to make myself available to Mr Karas in case he would like further information on this genuinely important point.
I will keep myself free in this connection.
Finally, I would like to thank Parliament for the very constructive debate on the key aspects of these proposals and, in particular, of course, the rapporteur, Mrs Berger.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Bolkestein.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Court of First Instance
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on a report, which, on reading it, gives the impression of simply confirming and accepting the Council' s draft decision.
However, this report is based on long and effective work which has already produced certain results, such as the incorporation into the Finnish Presidency' s document of 7 December 1999 of the commitment to widen the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference to include a study of the future modification of the organisation, composition and competences of the Community Courts.
For this reason, I would like to express my appreciation for the work carried out by Vice-President Marinho.
Mr President, the reform of the Community judicial system has become an essential requirement if, in the future, we intend justice to be done within reasonable time scales, and if, in the future, the European Union wishes to have a judicial system which is equal to the political project which we have embarked upon.
Today - and I must say this with pride and satisfaction - this Parliament has had a good opportunity to demonstrate the extent to which we Europeans believe that the European political project is much more than just an internal market, and that it is based much more on principles than on economic interests.
Behind these principles, Mr President, lies the justice system.
However, justice delayed is justice denied, and we must reflect on this notion.
The working document prepared by the Court itself contains alarming information.
For this reason, the draft reform, which has been drawn up by the rapporteur, Vice-President Marinho, is to be welcomed.
It is true that it is a stopgap solution, but we must rely on stopgap solutions because, at the moment - as he himself has pointed out - we cannot expect a broad reform of the system from the Intergovernmental Conference.
We have to offer solutions which, while provisional, help to provide a faster and more effective system of justice.
I would like to make two observations during this intervention, which stem from the report itself, given this Parliament' s obligation, in accordance with the Treaty, to produce a very succinct report, which does not go into depth.
These are two of Vice-President Marinho' s ideas and, I believe, they are seconded by the whole of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
The first is that greater resources should be given to judges of first instance, and that they should be given one more référendaire.
The second is that the translation services of the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice should be separated.
At the moment, the Court of First Instance has to wait a very long time for its judgements to be translated.
According to the Treaty, one of the founding principles of this Community is linguistic and cultural plurality and there is no question of our overlooking the possibility of something as important as being able to read a judgement in our own language.
Since we are talking about the Intergovernmental Conference, let us consider just two points.
The first concerns this Parliament.
I believe that it is well worth insisting that we wish to participate more with regard to the Court of Justice, even in the appointment of judges.
Above all, we wish to see an extension of the competences of the Court of Justice, hand in hand with its capacity to fulfil its obligations, in other words, its resources.
We wish to see its competences extended, especially within Chapter IV of the Treaty of the European Community and with regard to Chapter VI of the Treaty on European Union and also a review of certain possible options, certain clear limitations of protection in these areas which are of extraordinary importance to our citizens.
And I refer once again to the declarations which we have heard in recent days.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and welcome the contents of this report. It has caused me to reflect on two problems which have come to me recently in my own constituency.
Both concern cases with decisions pending before the Court of Justice.
The first relates to a large suspension bridge and whether or not tolls on it should be subject to VAT.
The decision could have huge implications for our local economy.
Secondly there is a lady within thirteen weeks of retirement who is desperate for news of a decision that will affect seriously her financial circumstances in old age.
These are just two examples of real life problems behind delays in Europe' s system of justice.
Delays in justice can mean personal difficulties and even tragedy.
This is not to say that all of our own national systems of justice are perfect, but all too often they may be waiting for a preliminary ruling from the European Court.
Amongst the statistics there is a worrying upward trend in the time taken to deal with preliminary references.
This should not be taken as a criticism of the Court or of its staff, rather of the Court' s structure and its lack of resources in a growing European Union.
The proposals in this report are very welcome as an interim palliative, but Europe is a legal construction, its courts are central to its proper functioning.
In the face of coming enlargement the IGC must deal with fundamental reform and restructuring of the court system.
Otherwise we will all, as elected representatives, be faced with more and more clamour from our citizens who are not getting access to quick and effective justice.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for this excellent report.
I also fully endorse his findings, in which, in particular, he suggests increasing the number of consultants for judges at the Court of First Instance and providing the latter with its own translation service.
In point of fact, I consider this to be necessary because we heard, following the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market' s visit to Luxembourg, that it is of course inevitable, a God-given fact as it were, that the Court of Justice should take precedence over the Court of First Instance when it comes to using the joint translation service, and so more often than not, important cases handled by the Court of First Instance cannot be given the attention they deserve.
However I also believe that the reforms must go further than those we are to adopt here.
For example, I believe it is worth considering making the Court of First Instance that of Last Instance, if applicable, and making this a final competence, in those spheres where benches of the Court, which resemble courts, pass judgement at a preliminary stage - I need only mention the keyword Alicante or whatever the plans are for European civil service law.
I am also aware that we are probably also going to have to do something about the European Commission' s inclination to renationalise competition decisions and transfer them back to national level.
It seems to me that we need to give this some thought, as these cases will no longer fall to the Court of First Instance of course but to the Court of Justice as draft decisions.
We need to consider how we will deal with situations of this kind.
Where possible, one should also have the opportunity to present draft decisions in competition cases to the specialist chamber within the Court of First Instance.
In addition, we must consider whether it is right and proper - and we have already had cases in which MEPs, not to mention groups, lodged a complaint against the European Parliament - for the Court of First Instance to be responsible for such cases, when in fact matters of a constitutional nature are affected and it makes more sense for such matters to be brought before the Court of Justice than before the Court of First Instance.
On a final note, I too believe that OLAF requires monitoring under rule of law.
As things stand, OLAF is in a vacuum and can do as it pleases.
It is essential for OLAF to be monitored by a court. The only court that could reasonably do so would be the Court of First Instance.
That would be another way of spurring the reform process on.
Mr President, I would like to begin by joining those who congratulated the rapporteur on this work.
The European Union is a system based on law.
It must therefore have a system of courts to enforce that law.
Furthermore, if the courts cannot deal appropriately and expeditiously with the legal workload placed on them, what happens, as Madame Palacio Vallelersundi has already pointed out, is that justice delayed becomes, as we know, justice denied.
The evidence of the court is that that is happening now and it points to steps which can be taken now to alleviate the problem.
However, as Mr Marinho has pointed out, more is necessary, but that has to wait for the IGC,
In my own country, mythology tells of the teeming hordes of faceless Brussels bureaucrats but it never mentions the number of European judges.
There are less than three dozen at the apex of the European judicial order - hardly an overload given the responsibility of their tasks at the heart of the European legal system.
The extent of their importance can be seen in the political implications of the delay in resolving the outstanding Anglo/French dispute over British beef which has caused such anger in my country and such frustration with the workings of the Union' s disputes resolution procedures.
This has been compounded, so some who advise me believe, by the Rules of Procedure in the French courts which make it well nigh impossible for non-French nationals to proceed against the French Government.
Certainly it is perceived de facto to be impossible.
This contrasts most unfavourably with the United Kingdom courts where Spanish fishermen successfully brought an action against the United Kingdom Government in circumstances which were very comparable.
What is happening in France, Mr President, appears prima facie to be a case of discrimination against other EU nationals on grounds of nationality and as such to be in breach of the Treaties.
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner, who was kind enough to make some comments about my remarks in the previous debate, to look into this and to report back to Parliament and to me their findings.
I would be grateful if the Commissioner could confirm in his final remarks that he will do this.
Mr President, on behalf of Commission President, Mr Prodi, I would like to respond as follows.
The Commission has taken note of the position adopted today by the European Parliament regarding the request made by the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance. The purport of this request is, on the one hand, to transfer the assessment of certain appeals to the Court of First Instance, such appeals currently being within the exclusive scope of the Court of Justice and, on the other hand, to increase the number of judges at the Court of First Instance.
May I add that, on behalf of the Commission, I listened with great interest to the pleas which have been made just now and that I have a great deal of sympathy for the unease which underlies these pleas.
The unease is justified.
It has been said more than once: justice delayed is justice denied.
The Commission sympathises with these considerations.
In the light of this sympathy, I would like to continue my response as follows.
As your Parliament is aware, the Commission is convinced that, without fundamental reform, the Community judicial bodies run the risk - in the short term - of no longer being able to carry out their task within reasonable deadlines.
Consequently, the Commission has asked for the advice of a group of experts regarding the entirety of the reforms which could be implemented in order to enable the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance to maintain the quality and coherence of their administration of justice in forthcoming decades.
The Commission is aware of the request made by the Court of First Instance to increase its number of judges, but at the moment, the former is of the opinion that the proposed transfer of competence should be seen in the light of the study which I have just mentioned.
In other words, once this study is complete, the Commission will issue its opinion as soon as possible.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
Exceptional financial aid to Kosovo
The next item is the report (A5-0022/2000) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision providing exceptional Community financial assistance to Kosovo (COM(99)0598 - C5-0045/00 - 1999/0240(CNS)).
I have been informed that the rapporteur has been delayed for several minutes.
I propose that we start the debate immediately.
He will join us and speak as soon as he arrives.
I therefore give the floor immediately to Mr Bourlanges, in his capacity as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
Mr President, this is an important and urgent matter, and Parliament is complying with a request from the Commission to come to a decision quickly, because today, you must realise, men and women are dying in Kosovo quite simply because the temperature is 25 degrees below zero, these people are doing a great deal of work to ensure a minimum of maintenance and they have not been paid.
An urgent request has been referred to us, and we approve it.
We have been asked for EUR 35 million.
We agree that it may be granted and we call on the Commission to be extremely vigilant in ensuring, once the decision has been taken, that the amounts are set aside and paid as quickly as possible.
We are talking about macrofinancial aid. There are reactions to this in some quarters since it does not comply with the liberal canons of beauty which stipulate that there must be no financial intervention in order support an administration.
This is not our opinion.
Our opinion is that it is vital to contribute to setting up an administration in Kosovo and that it is by no means absurd to contribute directly to the payment of public employees in this region.
Indeed that is something extremely useful that we could have done in Russia throughout the 1990s to prevent the disintegration of that state.
The second important problem is that we have been asked for payments, the donors have made commitments and, obviously, we are the only ones actually paying.
The other parties are not paying.
We wish to see an end to this one-sided situation regarding requests for financial aid.
We would like the Commission to make commitments on the amendments we are proposing in regard to this.
We would like to link the granting of all aid to the availability of the amounts due from the other donors.
This is not in order to limit or be stingy with our financial contribution to Kosovo but, quite the contrary, to ensure that our contribution is being matched by the contributions of other donors.
From that point of view, the proposed facility is a two-phase aid facility and the second tranche must be released as soon as the donors have made clear their interest.
Finally, we have three questions for the Commission in this regard. Firstly, we need the Commission to give us, on a regular basis, the list and the amounts that other donors contribute.
When we come to pay, we want to know what the others are paying.
Secondly, we wish to see an exact progress report on the invitations to tender and the schedule for their implementation.
During the budgetary procedure we were told that the funds for Kosovo must be voted on as a matter of urgency yet, according to our information, no invitation to tender has been published or initiated to date.
This is serious, since it holds up the whole process of reconstruction in Kosovo.
Finally, and this follows on from what I have just said, we would like the Commission to inform the Committee on Budgets on a very regular basis, monthly, regarding progress on payments made.
We have Commission documents which speak of firm commitments.
It is not firm commitments that we need, just plain commitments would suffice, and we need to know what has actually been paid and, more especially, what has not been paid.
Kosovo has suffered far too much from delays in payment.
Mr President, if we are going to discuss Kosovo today, as we have done many times before, then we should also start by taking stock of what has actually already been done in Kosovo, or of whether in fact anything has been done at all.
What I mean to say is that a few small steps have already been made along the path to normality, and it would be nice if they could at least be listed in the course of such a debate.
As of 9 February, there will be something known as the Kosovo Transitional Council, which will comprise representatives of the political parties, the minorities and civil society, and which is intended to be a quasi interim parliament.
This is a positive move and we welcome it, but I believe we need to equip the individuals concerned with an instrument and with strategy planning for what they are actually going to have to prepare, for elections are planned for the autumn.
No one really knows what these elections are to lead to and what kind of parliament is to be formed as a result.
No one knows what kind of authority this parliament is going to have vis-à-vis UNMIK.
In other words, there are quite a few imponderables that we are not being informed about and that others are presumably unable to get to grips with properly either.
Of all people, it is the Albanians, who are now being integrated into the transitional council, who ought in fact to have a little more idea as to what is in store for them.
In addition to financial outlay and reconstruction work, urgent attention must also be given to restoring the coexistence of Serbs, Albanians and other minorities - not forgetting the Roma of course - in this country, so that at some point in the near future, on the road to coexistence, it will hopefully be possible for some form of reconciliation to take place.
I would like to list again the things that have actually already been accomplished and that we can be pleased about.
Administration-wise there are now 34 tax inspectors. That is excellent news!
There too, people are being encouraged to pay their taxes, for it will not do in the long-term for everyone just to depend on handouts from the EU and from other donors; some of the money for these activities must come from their own resources.
It should also be noted that of the 19 departments, 4 already have administrative leadership, which represents an improvement on the situation there hitherto.
There is something else that we are keen to develop and this is very important for a state under the rule of law.
We have 130 judges and public prosecutors, who have now been sworn in, and who are ready to take up their work of dispensing justice, with a view to enriching the culture of tolerance there a little, and to at least being able to track criminals down and then secure convictions.
Another positive development I would like to remind you of is the fact that the old UCK is now bound up in the reconstruction of the country.
I believe that is a good thing
I wholly endorse what the Committee on Budgets had to say on financing and believe that we should remind the Commission that it really must press other donors to at long last pay their way.
The EU Commission cannot pay for everything.
It is responsible for reconstruction down there and for the Fourth Pillar, but it cannot constantly be called upon to pay Mr Kouchner' s outstanding bills.
One could do so once or twice, but I feel that the UN donors should contribute to this as well, for there is a very large hole, as yet unfilled, that we are unable to fill.
We have a huge task in reconstruction and we will be judged according to how we fulfil it.
Mr President, I would like to offer a few explanations.
In a debate, there is always the danger that we will repeat much of what has already been said.
However, I would like to concentrate on two points.
Firstly, I would like to make it very clear that the Union is the main contributor to aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
I would like to point out to Mrs Albright that what we have read recently in the press is true, and that figures do not lie.
Let us make this clear, however much some people may not wish to believe it.
The Union has decided to assist with a further EUR 35 million in additional macrofinancial aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo, on the basis of an IMF report which estimates that a further EUR 115 million is needed for that reconstruction.
I would like to say to Mrs Pack that I am in complete agreement with her when she says that the Commission should insist that other contributors fulfil their commitments.
I would also like to express my concern - which is very considerable - at the statement by some Ministers at the last Ecofin that says that it should be a priority of the Portuguese Presidency not to alter, in any circumstances, the financial perspectives agreed in Berlin.
This calls into question the agreement which Parliament reached, with great difficulty, with the Council in December, according to which, when the Commission presents a multiannual programme for reconstruction, the financial perspectives would be reviewed where necessary.
I would like to appeal to those Ministers not to cast doubt upon that agreement which was really very difficult to reach.
I would like to ask the Commission - and I am glad that Commissioner Solbes is here with us this evening - to present us in time with this multiannual finance programme, with the corresponding report, requested by Parliament, so that it may be taken into account when the preliminary draft of the next budget is drawn up, as we have been promised.
Lastly, I would like to insist that, although we have agreed to EUR 35 million now, we know that this is a stopgap solution and that it is not enough, and we should therefore reach an agreement as soon as possible on the multiannual reconstruction programme for Kosovo, which is so badly needed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, please excuse my late arrival, but this other political issue is still on the agenda today, more is the pity.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy would advise you to release the EUR 35 million, and this piece of advice is given because this money can truly benefit those in need.
The things that have given us cause for criticism are not so serious as to stop us wanting to help the people there.
However, this does not mean that we will forget the criticism in the process.
Of course we would be a lot further on in our procedure if the Council administration had not forgotten to inform the European Parliament in good time and to provide it with official documents.
Only then would we have been able to conduct proper and searching discussions.
I urge the administration to see to it that this does not happen in future. It is only because there are people in need that we are prepared to overlook this.
However, we must be sure to introduce certain conditions here.
One condition is that money should be given to those who will make sensible use of it and not to those who might use it for pursuing other aims.
In other words, we should ensure that the money falls to Mr Kouchner' s sphere of competence and not to other spheres.
Secondly, even if the Commission and the Council adopt a different position on this because they see real problems there, we believe that the other donors must also fulfil the obligations they have entered into.
This mission is being conducted under the auspices of the United Nations and we cannot have a situation where the European Union is the only one to fulfil its obligations.
It is no less incumbent on the other donor countries to fulfil their obligations within this timeframe, in the interests of the persons affected.
This brings me onto the point that in future we are going to have to concern ourselves much more intensively with this issue in general terms, that is to say, not just with this specific project but with overall developments in south-east Europe, and with the aid delivered there.
This is another example of the fact that the European Union is prepared to help and to give money but the political leadership lacks coherence.
We have so many coordinators, who, in turn, are responsible to so many employers, that we will soon have to employ a coordinator for the coordinators.
Perhaps it would be better, however, if the positions of responsibility within the European Union and the other institutions from the OSCE to the United Nations, were to get together some time to introduce a uniform, coordinated procedure and to examine how we can be of real assistance to the people there.
I know that the Commission is thinking seriously about how to achieve this, but if the European Union is doing the most work out there, then it should also be given the leadership, and bring coherence to the situation, so that we can be of real assistance to the people.
It makes no sense at all for the various international institutions and associations to be engaged in competition amongst themselves rather than investing all their energies in helping the people on the ground!
Bearing in mind that the conference of donors for the stability pact is constantly being postponed - it is now set for the end of March - that no one knows which projects are actually in the pipeline, that one cannot tell how things can actually be implemented, and there is a steady stream of new press conferences, this does not appear to be the way to restore peace and reconciliation amongst peoples to this region of Europe!
Accordingly, we would like to take this opportunity to urge the Commission and Council Presidency to seize this political initiative, so as to avoid us landing in such a desperate situation again and having to restore our solvency at the end of a month.
Rather, we must use this initiative to establish a long-term aid strategy for this country, and I hope that in the process, you will fulfil your political obligations at long last and not allow things to continue as they have been doing for the past few months.
Mr President, when the Alliance intervened in Kosovo its objective was to re-establish conditions in this province which would enable those who wished to do so to stay there or return, with respect for their own heritage and their own culture.
If the Alliance is still active in that region, it is with the same objective.
The day before yesterday I was pleased to hear an interview given by the KFOR commander showing how much better matters in connection with this in Kosovo were starting to be, particularly as regards security, crime levels had been restored to an acceptable level.
Those representing Europe who are active at the grass roots level in pursuing this objective, and I am thinking in particular of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, are on the verge of despondency precisely because, since matters are improving, there is less talk of Kosovo and the urgent nature of the aid which is needed there is becoming less apparent.
We must work to ensure that, in this province and indeed throughout the Balkans generally, the rule of shopkeepers follows the rule of the warlords.
It is true that economic aid is, in this respect, certainly an essential element to the scope of action afforded those people active at the grass roots level.
Let me reiterate the comment which Doris Pack has just made and stress that we, the Members of the European Parliament, must fulfil our own obligations in this regard, while ensuring, of course, that we are not the only ones to do so.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to extend warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Brok, for his report.
If the Council had worked as quickly as Mr Brok then we would certainly be a great deal further on.
The Council' s failings in this respect are a source of much regret.
The rapporteur and the report are right to start from the premise that we should, and must, provide help swiftly, however it is also right to start from the premise that we will not provide help indefinitely or at random.
I would particularly like to draw your attention to Amendment No 5 at this point, which clearly emphasises that it is only possible, and permissible, to use the funds from the special financial aid to finance those Kosovan budgetary requirements arising from public or semi-public, communal and other authorities and institutions, which are controlled either directly or indirectly by UNMIK. Commissioner, it must be made clear that we support UNMIK and the institutions set up by the United Nations, in particular Pillar 4 of course, and it will not do for us to support the parallel structures that have formed in Kosovo and are still in place.
What is to be done with this money? I would like to highlight the issue of human rights.
The West fought for human rights in Kosovo and what is happening there today?
We were able to put a stop to the mass expulsion campaign carried out by the Serbs but almost every day insupportable things happen: people are killed, people are prevented from living there or are prevented from living their lives as they see fit.
Every single day there are attacks on Serbs, on the Roma, on Bosnians, but attacks are also still carried out on Albanians.
I was in fact shocked to read in the report, assuming this is true, how an Albanian doctor, who was working in the hospital in the Serbian quarter of Mitrovica under what must have been great difficulties, ultimately had to give up helping his kinsmen in this hospital because there were constant threats on his life.
These are events and situations that cannot be tolerated.
I hear - whether it is true or not I do not know - that the Serbs are even continuing to operate a mine in the Serbian sector of Kosovo.
There are, at the very least, rumours that Serbian militias are up to their old tricks again.
It is irrelevant, as far as I am concerned, as to whether it is Serbs, Roma, Bosnians or Albanians who are threatened or killed in Kosovo.
It is also irrelevant, in my view, as to who is working towards separation and division in Kosovo.
What is all-important, to my mind, is that the bodies we are financing should achieve what we want them to achieve, a multi-ethnic Kosovo that is, a Kosovo where people can live together.
We need more police officers, as we have nowhere near enough.
We need an independent judiciary - this would certainly be difficult to establish -, we also need funds for the office of High Commissioner for Human Rights.
All of this needs to happen, and quickly too.
If we do not provide rapid assistance then the situation will deteriorate and new conflicts and crisis situations may arise.
That is why I believe that we were right to take action quickly, to recognise the urgency of the situation and make funds available.
Only, now we want to see this translate into deeds and we also want to see success in Kosovo, and I would urge the Commission to see that these funds are put to good use, notably for building up the police force and for establishing the judiciary.
. (ES) Mr President, I would like firstly to thank the Members, and especially the rapporteur, for the speed with which they have dealt with this issue.
This will no doubt allow us to release the funds for Kosovo quickly and deal with the concerns which both Mr Swoboda and Mrs Pack have mentioned.
I think I have seen three types of fundamental concern in tonight' s debate.
Firstly, although much progress has been made, and we could mention customs administration, bank administration or tax administration, it is true that we must continue to move forward. However, in moving forward, what should we be financing?
This is the first point on which there is a certain amount of disagreement.
In some of your amendments you propose that we limit further the type of bodies which can be provided with Union funds, for example, Amendments Nos 3 and 5.
In our view, however, in both respects, greater room for manoeuvre should be left to the administration of the United Nations which, on the ground, is more aware of the reality than we are.
We believe that to prejudge, at the moment, where resources should be directed, would create more practical difficulties.
In short, we should put our faith in those parties who, in these areas, are better equipped than us to make certain decisions.
The second concern which I notice that many of you share - it was first expressed by Mr Bourlanges, but others have repeated it - refers to the situation regarding the other donors.
Is the Commission making an excessive effort while others are failing to cooperate? Some of the amendments in your report pose this question.
For example, Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 4.
I would say to Mr Bourlanges and to those who have raised this issue, that this is not the fundamental problem, although we recognise it totally.
The fundamental problem is that, at the moment, the distribution of the burden amongst the different donors has been established in the statements of the High Level Steering Group, but it is also true that they have no legal status. This is simply a political commitment.
That is the reason why, while accepting its spirit, we would ask that Amendment No 1 be worded differently - and we have sent a note to Mr Brok in this respect - so that it does not imply conditionality in the provision of Community resources.
I would say the same about Amendment No 2, which we would also accept with a slight modification, since the idea seems to us to be basically correct.
Amendment No 4 is of a similar nature.
On this specific point, we can perhaps offer Mr Bourlanges greater satisfaction.
We have already spoken to the Council so that it might include a Commission statement in its decision, establishing this element of conditionality.
With regard to the second contribution, what we propose is that the exact amount and the date for the implementation of the second stage should be decided in accordance with the external financial needs of Kosovo and the contributions of other bilateral donors.
In other words, we should not establish conditionality, or we believe that it is more effective not to establish conditionality from the start, but, nevertheless, we should establish it with regard to the possible liberalisation of the second stage.
In this way, we would have no problem in acting immediately. We would not create problems for the Kosovar people, but, on the other hand, we would force the other donors to make their financial contribution in the way that we are doing.
A third problem has been raised by Mrs Dührkop with regard to the multiannual programmes.
I would remind you that these projects are multiannual.
The programmes clearly have to take the annual budgetary contributions into account.
Lastly, I would like to make some observations on the requests for additional information which have been addressed to us.
On the one hand, we have been asked to provide Parliament with information regarding the progress of invitations to tender and, in this respect, I can tell you that the Commission was last week able to provide Parliament' s Committee on Budgets with the latest statement of contracts and payments carried out since the task force was sent into action in Kosovo.
The Commission can commit itself to regularly informing Parliament of the invitations to tender which are published.
We also wish to see these publicised on the Internet, so that there may be maximum transparency with regard to this specific point.
A second point which I would like to comment on is the remaining information which may be of importance to Parliament with regard to the provision of macroeconomic assistance.
In this respect I would like to tell you that the Commission is prepared to keep the chairmen of the various committees involved in this area regularly informed, on a confidential basis, if the nature of the information provided requires confidentiality, on the different schemes being implemented for macroeconomic assistance.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, and I hope that, with the final decision of the Council, we can release these funds and make a positive contribution to maintaining the considerable effort being made in Kosovo by different parties, so that we might achieve that situation of greater coexistence and peace which we all wish to see.
Mr President, I am pleased to see the convergence of viewpoints there is between Parliament, particularly the Committee on Budgets, and the Commission, and we can assure you that, for our part, we shall always be there to assist the Commission in the performance of its duties.
I do, however, have one small concern, when I hear the Commissioner on the subject of the commitments made by their services in the Committee on Budgets.
There was a clear agreement, good or bad I will not say, but there was a contract. There was a clear understanding between the Commission services and the Committee on Budgets that there was agreement on Amendments 4 and 7, i.e. on the idea of linking the mobilisation, the implementation, of the second tranche of macrofinancial aid to the condition that donors should first have fulfilled their relative obligations in terms of payment.
But, if I understand what Mr Solbes Mira says correctly, then this undertaking was only a tentative one.
Commissioner, an agreement is an agreement.
Can you confirm the agreement made by your services in the Committee on Budgets, yes or no? Or are you going to drop this proviso, thus breaking the undertaking made to us?
No, Mr Bourlanges, I think it is a substantive problem.
The problem is how in practical terms to implement the compromise which we accepted.
What I proposed to you, and what I still say, is that the Commission will make a statement, in the Council Decision, something like this:
The exact amount and timing of implementation of the second tranche will be decided in due course taking into account developments in Kosovo' s external financing needs and contributions from other bilateral donors.
With this, we believe that we are totally in line with what we agreed.
I am simply asking the Commission to come and inform the Committee on Budgets before implementing the second tranche.
I agree, absolutely. We shall do so.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
ALTENER
The next item is the report (A5-0011/2000) by Mr Langen, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council decision adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community - Altener (C5-0333/1999 - 1997/0370(COD))
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Langen - although he is not actually here - for the work he has done to carry through the programme both in Parliament and in the Council.
The project has been long and problematic.
In future too, there will be a need to invest heavily in research into the use of renewable energy sources.
Although there is much that is good about the new directive, it is nonetheless not without its defects. One example is the use of peat.
Peat cannot be classified as belonging in the same group as fossil fuels.
If peat cannot be classified directly as a renewable, non-fossil energy source, it must form its own class, especially as far as the issue of environmental taxation is concerned.
It is not right that peat should be judged according to the same criteria as, for example, coal.
The development of renewable energy sources is a partial solution to ending the Union' s dependence on imported energy.
Research is particularly essential with regard also to the EU' s next round of enlargement.
Dependence on imported energy affects worst of all many Eastern European countries, whose economic structure is still suffering from the dependence created in the times of the Soviet Union on Russian energy.
The EU must adhere to the Kyoto Protocol on climate. We are all concerned about the environment and our children' s future.
The share that renewable energy sources have in total energy production must be increased, but it has to be done in a rational manner.
We have to remember that our basic energy production cannot be based on renewables for a long time to come.
For that we need a form of energy production that does not harm the climate: nuclear energy.
Mr President, on behalf of the PSE Group, I welcome the fact that we have reached an end result in the conciliation procedure for the ALTENER II Programme.
Firstly, however, I would like to extend warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Langen, for the truly excellent work he has done on this report.
I would also like to thank the leader of the delegation in the Conciliation Committee, Mr Provan. For as Mr Langen said just now, we certainly had a tough fight on our hands in the Conciliation Committee.
However, we can see today that the conciliation end result quite clearly bears the trademark of the European Parliament throughout.
Mr Langen mentioned that a series of Parliament' s demands and points it had to make relating to content were adopted and - as has already been mentioned - we were almost able to meet the Council halfway on even the most contentious point, that of the financing for this multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community.
This is not satisfactory - I would like to make that quite clear.
However, we agreed to this compromise because it was important to us to enable this programme to be launched very soon indeed.
For in the course of the next few years, the proportion of renewable energy sources is to double, accounting for at least 12% of energy consumption.
This is the European Union' s declared aim. That being the case, since ALTENER is the only EU programme to have the exclusive aim of promoting renewable energy sources, it will certainly be have a key role.
In the first place, this new five-year programme will entail extending the actions in the ALTENER I programme.
This will include extending the exchange of information and expertise between operators in the renewable energy sources sector, developing local and regional energy agencies, and establishing new networks for approving financial support, to name but a few examples.
To my mind though, what is particularly important about the ALTENER II programme are the new actions for relieving market saturation by renewable energies and those for implementing, supporting and monitoring the Community strategy and the Community action plan.
We now have available to us a working paper from the Commission' s services on a breakthrough campaign, which is in fact a crucial element of this Community strategy.
It contains plans for financial support for all the main renewable energy sources sectors.
It is very important for this ALTENER programme to go hand in hand with this campaign and to support it.
The overall investment costs for this campaign are estimated to be approximately EUR 30 billion.
75%-80% of this is to come from private sources, and this will be supplemented by public funds from the Member States and from the regions.
In this respect, the ALTENER programme will be able to create new incentives and smooth the way for investment, and help us to realise our ambition, in the interests of environmental protection, the economy and creating new jobs.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank Mr Langen for his excellent work in this important matter.
The conclusion reached regarding conciliation with regard to the Altener programme as put forward by the Conciliation Committee is, after all the difficult phases it has been through, at least satisfactory.
Most of Parliament' s amendments have been taken into account and the fact that the programme has seen its total funding rise to EUR 77 million must be seen as positive.
The Union has ambitious goals with regard to increasing the use of renewable energy.
There is very little in the way of appropriations to meet these targets, however.
The appropriations are needed for pilot projects, research, information exchange and also to cultivate more positive attitudes towards the use of renewable energy.
The main responsibility for increasing the use of renewables is to be borne by the Member States.
This programme will hopefully encourage Member States to act with greater determination to increase the use of renewable energy.
However, in the future, the Union will also have to increase its own input in promoting the use of renewable energy and ensuring that renewable energy is launched without obstacles on the market.
Promoting the use of renewables is especially important for the environment.
The Union cannot achieve its environmental goals unless the use of renewables is actively stepped up.
Renewable energy sources lower dependency on imported energy and their increased use boosts competitiveness.
Europe will also be able to achieve a leading position in the industry that supplies equipment needed for the exploitation of renewable energy.
We should also remember that the use of renewable energy sources has a positive impact on regional development and employment.
May I also venture to raise the matter of peat?
Peat is not mentioned in the list of renewable energy sources.
However, it is important, at least in Finland, as a sustainably used, slowly renewable energy source.
I hope that in the future it can be included in the list of renewables.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance are pleased with the agreement which has been found, and their thanks go to all those who negotiated so well in favour of an amendment which the Greens were almost the authors of.
It is interesting for me, as a new Member of Parliament, to see that the budget provides for hundreds of millions of euros annually for tobacco cultivation.
This is a limited sector of the economy which creates hardly any jobs and is not competitive on the world scale.
In contrast with that, I see the amounts allocated for renewable energies, which are not only an ecological element but which look set to undergo considerable economic expansion.
Seeing the market share that small countries such as Denmark have been capable of acquiring in this field, because they were the first ones to develop that area, gives one food for thought, I feel, and I think that in the long term it will ultimately be necessary to actually increase the budgets for renewable energies.
One last word regarding the programme. I think it very important for renewable energies to be firmly established in the regions so that they can develop in the long term and so that they can contribute to the economy and to job creation there.
In order to ensure that at least 50% of the energy mix comes from renewable energy sources, it is not enough to deal with a few hot spots that will be more profitable in the short term.
Mr President, may I commence by complimenting Mr Langen on his work.
The activities of the ALTENER programme will promote renewable energy sources and I believe that such programmes merit financial support at the developmental stage as they offer enormous commercial potential in the future.
For this reason, I am particularly pleased to see the monies focussed on projects by small and medium-sized enterprises.
The internationally agreed objectives for reducing emissions cannot be achieved by these programmes alone.
In this regard, it must be remembered that energy policy remains within the national remit.
It is imperative that national governments lend their full support to improving energy efficiency and developing renewables.
I am pleased that Ireland has recently announced that it is going to spend £125 million on the development of an environmentally sustainable energy sector.
I would hope that the contribution of ALTENER would lead to more initiatives.
As the final text rightly states, actions such as these can play a role in reducing regional disparities.
I can vouch that I have already received significant interest in the ALTENER programme from my own constituency of Leinster, a significant portion of which falls within Ireland' s only Objective I region.
I support all efforts to close the gap in economic development in infrastructural provisions, including the energy sector.
In short, we face a major challenge in meeting our commitments on limiting greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector under the Kyoto Protocol, while at the same time promoting growth in our economies.
ALTENER will make a valuable contribution to the combined efforts of the Member States.
Mr President, Mr Langen, ladies and gentlemen, as our rapporteur mentioned, we are coming to the end of a long and difficult process of conciliation with the Council on the ALTENER programme.
Mr Langen mentioned that the implementation budget proposed by the Council was initially FF 74 million, whereas the Commission proposed 81.1 million, a figure which the European Parliament supported.
An initial conciliation meeting was not successful, because the Council would not at that time accept an increase of EUR 1.9 million.
We could not agree with a proposal like this, which challenged the authority of the European Parliament.
A second round of conciliation achieved an increase of EUR 1.1 million in order to reach this compromise figure of 77 million.
In spite of an increase of 3 million in relation to the initial proposal, personally, once again I deplore the fact that the funds allocated do not match up to the ambitions expressed and that the concern to save money displayed by the Council in this situation is in rude contrast to its declarations in favour of the safety of the energy supply, job creation and environmental protection, challenges that are just as significant which we must face up to.
In fact, renewable energies unquestionably provide a way of achieving these objectives.
However, in spite of the reservations I am expressing on the paucity of the financial allocation, I personally support the compromise, by virtue of the programme' s content, to which the European Parliament made an active contribution as, following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, this sector become subject to codecision.
It is practically certain that, with the raft of proposed measures and actions, it should be possible to approach the objective of a 12% renewable energy share by 2010, doubling the current rate, as long as the appropriations including state appropriations are made available.
This programme, together with the SAVE II programme, integrating the environmental aspect into energy policy, establishes a foundation for a real Community strategy to achieve clean energy while reducing our dependence.
And, in conclusion, Mr President, let me also insist upon the fact that, in addition to the measures proposed, there are also legislative measures and, most especially, adequate budget allocations to back up these political initiatives.
And I shall end, of course, by congratulating Mr Langen, our rapporteur, on his work, as well as all the members of the committee and of the Conciliation Committee.
. (ES) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I wish to express my satisfaction with the agreement reached on the ALTENER II programme in the Conciliation Committee and associate myself with the comments of the different speakers and, of course, point out that this agreement will allow the ALTENER programme to be incorporated soon into the framework energy programme.
All of this will provide greater coordination, transparency and efficiency in our energy programmes, into which we will also have to incorporate the SAVE programme, which we will be discussing soon.
I would like to say that the work carried out during this time by Parliament has been of a high quality, and I therefore congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Langen and also all the various speakers who have spoken both in committee and here in plenary.
Obviously, there have been arguments, we had to go to conciliation, as the rapporteur and Mr Caudron reminded us a moment ago, since at the first meeting no result was achieved, and there had to be a second meeting, despite the fact that the figures were not excessive.
However, I believe that in the end we have reached a reasonable agreement, which, like all agreements, is perhaps not perfect, but which, I believe, allows us to push ahead with the projects with which we were dealing.
I would therefore like once again to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Langen, on his work, to thank the speakers and, of course, to acknowledge the actions of Vice-President Provan throughout the conciliation procedure, who contributed efficiently to the achievement of a positive result.
I would also like to recognise the reasonable and flexible action of the Council.
SAVE
The next item is the report (A5-0010/2000) by Mrs Ahern, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European and Council decision adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of energy efficiency - SAVE (C5-0334/1999 - 1997/0371(COD)).
Madam President, I would like to thank the Council and Commission for a useful and thorough conciliation procedure and one that was good-tempered all round, which is not always the case.
I am happy to say that I can regard the end result of conciliation as very satisfactory for Parliament as the joint text has incorporated all its amendments either in full or in a re-worded form.
The financial amount finally allocated to the programme is also a considerable improvement on the Council' s proposal at second reading which we found completely unacceptable and we have made quite a lot of progress there.
I therefore propose that this House agree to adopt the proposals on SAVE and the conclusion at the conciliation at third reading.
I would like to remind the House that at second reading Parliament adopted this report containing eight amendments, including a re-instatement of the Commission' s original budget.
The Commission accepted five of the proposed amendments including the budgetary allocation and I thank the Commission for their continued support on the budget during the conciliation procedure as what the Council had proposed was unacceptable.
During the procedure, agreement was reached on the studies and actions to devise, implement, complement and assess the Community measures.
Compromise wordings were agreed for five other amendments including legislative and non-legislative measures and the inclusion of local energy centres and, very importantly, the energy audit systems in the review of progress on energy efficiency.
I hope that you will all agree that this is important progress.
The issue of the financial envelope was staunchly defended by Parliament in the face of the Council' s very meagre opening offer.
In the event we had to have several meetings before the Council finally increased this to a substantial amount.
We got an increase of 2 million on their starting figure which was a decisive increase which I can recommend to you and which the Commission confirmed that it could implement the programmes under.
This was an important consideration for us.
I would like to say however that it is, and has always been, a very modest budget and therefore the funding for this programme is more symbolic than real.
Funding for energy saving still comes primarily from the Member States. We have to bear that in mind when approving this programme.
If there is more symbolism than reality in what we can achieve at Community level, this is a pity because there is a lot of enthusiasm at local level for action, including Community actions, on energy saving.
Where the Community can step in is to put the local activators in touch with each other so that they can actually not re-invent the wheel in every region.
We have an important part to play in the Community in the European Union in this regard.
SAVE is the only Community-wide programme dedicated to promoting the rational use of energy.
It focuses on non-technical elements, helping to build energy efficiency infrastructure, and the purpose of the programme is to create an environment in which investments and energy efficiency will be promoted.
Here we need to realise that there is also a market opportunity in industry for energy savings.
We have heard a lot about difficulties of competition in renewable energies but energy efficiency saves money for business, saves money all round in fact and therefore it should be non-problematical.
It is something that we can all support.
I have to say, like motherhood, although we all support it, sometimes we do very little substantially and concretely to help the mothers or the people engaged in energy-saving.
We could do rather more, considering that we have made great commitments in reducing CO2 and greenhouse gases and to reduce dependence on energy imports.
We are not taking the kind of action that the citizens want to see.
We are not making the connection so that the citizens can actually do something concretely either at home or in their offices or in industry to support action against global climate change.
If we could communicate this it would be a very interesting thing to do.
I would like once again to thank all who helped in this conciliation process.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would once again like to thank Mrs Ahern for her work as rapporteur on this proposal, since she has contributed, in collaboration with the other Members, to the achievement of a very reasonable final result, which in some respects even improves on the proposals of the Commission itself and, of course, on what, from a budgetary point of view, the Council had initially accepted.
As Mrs Ahern has explained very well, the budgets of both the SAVE programme and the ALTENER programme, are basically symbolic budgets, since the burden is shouldered by the countries, the States of the Union, the regions or even, in some cases, the local authorities.
However, despite the fact that the volume is relatively small, it is nevertheless symbolically important that there is a common desire throughout the Community as a whole to support this type of action, which contributes to our genuine compliance with the Kyoto commitments. This action also contributes to achieving greater diversification in terms of our energy sources, greater safety in our energy supplies and, in the case of SAVE, to reducing consumption and increasing efficiency in the use of energy, thereby contributing to achieving the objectives set.
Furthermore, behind these programmes, that is to say, the SAVE programme, which concerns greater efficiency and energy savings, and the Altener programme, which concerns renewable energy, there lies an extremely important technological challenge, which, from an economic point of view, may offer significant opportunities to industry and also for the creation of jobs in our countries and therefore in the Union as a whole.
With regard to the parliamentary procedure, I would like once again to thank all of those who have acted and spoken, especially the rapporteur, because the majority of Parliament' s amendments have been incorporated into the proposal accepted by the Council, in this case practically all of them, although with some modifications. I would also like to express my gratitude because an improvement on the initial offer of funds has been achieved.
This improvement has been achieved with fresh funds, as we said at the time, and it has been achieved while safeguarding this Parliament' s prerogatives and competences.
From the point of view of the Commission, in this interinstitutional game, I believe that this is important and I am very happy to highlight it.
I would like once again to thank all the speakers, and also, especially, the Vice-President, Mr Provan, for his magnificent work throughout this debate, particularly during the conciliation procedure, as well as the chairman of the Committee on Industry and, also, above all, the rapporteur, Mrs Ahern, and all the Members who have participated in this work.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
CULTURE 2000
The next item is the report (A5-0009/2000) by Mr Graça Moura, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a single financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation ('Culture 2000') (C5-0327/1999 - 1998/0169(COD)).
Madam President, I actually feel that we ought not to have continued discussing this because we said everything there was to say in the last debate.
Unfortunately, there has been no change in the way that the Council always talks about culture but fails to allocate any money for it.
We have the feeling, and are in fact convinced, that the Member States would be more than happy to withdraw the things they wrote in 1992 in the Treaty of Maastricht. For no one is very keen to spend money on culture.
Sadly that is the case and we must face facts.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, who really has chipped away tirelessly at this monumental task, in conjunction with the Commissioner of course.
We simply had to take on board the fact that whilst we actually attained our goal in terms of content, of course the same could not be said of the financial aspect.
One seems powerless in a dialogue of this kind, where the other party actually has to reach a unanimous decision.
What kind of horse-trading system is this?
Certainly not a fair one! There are always people who are in a position to reject everything and there we are on the other side, begging for a little more money for culture.
It is downright scandalous what goes on!
It is an awful sort of horse-trading, based on unequal positions!
Nevertheless, we are pleased that this programme has turned out in the way that we wanted it to.
It lives up to the expectations the citizens have of us.
We will support small and medium-sized events, not the large ones, and we will afford individual citizens and also the smaller operators easier access.
I believe that the fact that Culture and, fittingly, Education and Youth now fall within the same Commissioner' s remit, will also serve to guarantee more synergy between these three programmes, which are certainly worthwhile programmes for the citizens of the European Union.
If one puts all the money together and creates synergy then one can be a tiny bit satisfied, but then only a tiny bit.
It is my hope that we will be able to achieve a lot of synergy with a little money.
Madam President, I agree with the fine words with which the rapporteur began his intervention and I must add that, during the conciliation procedure, I was personally a little disappointed with the Council.
On the one hand, it continued to refuse to accept the term "European cultural policy" or other similar terms, even undervaluing the terms of the Treaty, and it defines "Culture 2000" simply as an instrument for cultural cooperation and no more.
On the other hand, it has shown complete intransigence with regard to the funds requested by this Parliament, which were minimal anyway.
Incidentally, this last point would be unfair to fourteen Members of the Council, since it was just one, the Netherlands, which was responsible for that intransigence.
It has once again been demonstrated that conciliation is incompatible with the demand for unanimity in the Council.
This demand makes conciliation almost impossible and even affects the dignity of the parliamentary institution.
However, Madam President, these considerations must not hide the fact that the joint text which we will vote on tomorrow, and which the Socialists will vote in favour of, will put in place one of the European Union' s most important programmes.
By taking action in the field of culture, we are directly contributing to the construction of a European soul, especially given the fact that the sub-programmes which make up "Culture 2000" are superb.
In recent years, these have been amongst the programmes most eagerly accepted by the youngest and most dynamic citizens of the European Union.
Lastly, I would like to mention the profoundly human impression I have formed of the rapporteur, Mr Graça Moura: his knowledge, his sense of balance, his intellectual qualities, make him, in my opinion, the best possible rapporteur this report could have had.
Congratulations!
Finally, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Reding, Vice-President Imbeni and Mr Gargani, chairman of the Committee on Culture, for the firm and intelligent position which, each within his own role, they have maintained during the entire conciliation process.
Madam President, Commissioner, rapporteur, I would like to start by thanking Mr Graça Moura most warmly for the tremendous efforts he has put into the discussion of this Culture 2000 programme.
It has been said before, and we have discussed this between ourselves on various occasions, that culture is, of course, extremely important as an area unto itself - I would like to stress this once again - but also as the instrument par excellence for furthering the European idea. It is also of great importance to citizens.
We should, above all, not lose sight of this.
The impetus given to the European idea by this programme is having an enormous impact, especially on small linguistic areas such as the Netherlands which not only has national potential, but is also relying on support from the programme, mainly from a language point of view.
Today, we have arrived at the end of a long road.
I would nonetheless like, as others have done, to touch upon the procedure, which is unclear and, above all, unwanted.
Codecision and unanimity do not go hand in hand.
They are like a snake biting its own tail.
There is little room for negotiation if one of the parties states beforehand: anything is open for discussion, as long as the budget stays fixed.
As it happens - and I would like to add this for the sake of the Netherlands - negotiations on this matter have taken place at an earlier stage.
The result is 30% growth, so we are not completely dissatisfied with the result.
Of course, it is always better to make more funding available more quickly - and I for one will always advocate this - but I do think that this programme opens up good opportunities for quite a few programmes.
I would like to stress that culture is not only funded from this particular pot.
Culture does not only fall under the banner of culture but also under that of all kinds of other areas.
A great deal of money for culture is also set aside in the Structural Funds, and this is something which we should definitely consider and bear in mind.
Fortunately, I am on the Committee on Regional Policy.
So I myself will make sure that this aspect receives due attention.
I think that we have also opted in favour of allowing the budget to be of an adequate size because, if it happens to be cancelled, then surely this does not benefit the citizen.
I have always given the rapporteur my backing in this respect.
However, I do think that it is necessary, as he always states too, that, in the next IGC, changes will be made to codecision, when unanimity will no longer be necessary.
We are very positive about the many improvements which have been made: no more mega-projects, room for cultural networks, and sufficient attention to promoting reading, translating and translation companies.
This is especially important to smaller linguistic areas. I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and also Mrs Reding for Culture 2000.
All that remains for me to say is: time to get down to business.
Madam President, all that I wanted to say has been covered by those fellow Members who spoke before me and I think there is unanimity among the groups in the European Parliament and among those of us on the Committee on Culture.
I too must say that I will be voting for this joint text for a Council and European Parliament decision with a very heavy heart.
Not because our delegation, our rapporteur and the chairman Mr Gargani did not work exceptionally well - they worked very hard indeed - and not because I have any strong objection to Commissioner Reding' s attitude - I think that, given the framework she was operating in, her attitude was particularly positive - but because of the negative and unacceptable position adopted by the Council.
It is shameful!
That figure of EUR 167 million for so many years is a disgrace for the European Union!
When we are compelled literally to humiliate theatre groups, young musicians, pioneering activities in the arts, writers, to humiliate them and send them packing with a slap on the back and thirty rejection slips in such a way that they begin to perceive Europe as something foreign, something opposed, contrary and hostile to any effort towards cultural creativity - an area in which the European Union should make its presence felt because our mission is not just the euro, not just enlargement, nor geostrategic expedients, but also to encourage culture to flower in this affair of European Unification - then this is indeed a sorry way to end.
So long as we continue to have unanimity, so long as yesterday the Dutch Government was able to impose those EUR 167 million as an ultimatum and so long as a government with Mr Haider will soon be telling us what cultural activities we can pursue, we will never progress.
That is why it is very important for the Intergovernmental Conference to take important decisions and to cut free so that the European Parliament' s efforts to create a meaningful cultural impetus within the European area may be rid of this constraint by all the governments.
Madam President, I absolutely agree with the rapporteur' s analysis and I would also like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Culture, Mr Gargani, for his praiseworthy work in a mediation process that was also, considerably difficult.
Of course, we felt the need to simplify and consolidate the previous programmes, but everyone hoped that the Culture programme could help to promote, for example, the unique features of each cultural sector, even - and I could say especially - of the unique features of less well-known sectors.
We hope that this, at the least, will come about during the evaluation process.
We sincerely believe in the validity of cultural action, among other things in terms of making a contribution to the social, as well as economic, development of a people.
And a fully-fledged Europe can compete with the rest of the world and fully rediscover its roots, highlight its common cultural heritage and enhance and restore dignity to cultural and linguistic islands that until now were less well-known.
As for the important educational task which the European Union must carry out as regards culture, one of the programme' s most obvious limitations is the level of funding - we have heard this several times - which censures the fact that the Council at least - certainly not the Commissioner - is not completely aware of the importance of cultural action: the document which prioritises the economic factor over social integration also bears witness to this.
The overall growth of the European Union and the awareness of being European citizens: this is why we believe that the Culture 2000 programme, albeit with a scarcity of funds, can make a considerable contribution to this great common goal.
Madam President, I will add to the unanimity of the evening and say that I support the adoption of Culture 2000 and add my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Graça Moura, who took over from our former colleague Nana Mouskouri.
Both of them have done a first-class job.
Alongside the debate we had earlier on in the day, culture may not seem that important, but it is; and we have to be careful in the European Parliament not to allow the urgent to get in the way of the important.
Why do I say that culture is important? Well in simple economic terms, Europe' s culture adds to genuine prosperity.
Where would Europe' s tourism industry be without the richness of our culture? But, more importantly than that, cultural activities are what make mankind civilised.
Culture is at the root of our democratic beliefs; and an uncultured society is not going to sustain tolerance and freedom and democracy.
Cultural diversity is important, and it is under threat.
However, it is not under threat from Europe.
Many people in my country say they see British culture being under threat, for example, from Portugal, from Germany, from Finland, for heaven' s sake.
We do drink port wine, and we do like German beer, and we even use Finnish saunas, but it is not from Europe that culture is under threat.
What I do see right across Europe is people drinking Coca Cola, eating hamburgers, wearing baseball caps, watching Hollywood films and often doing all this at the same time.
Now I do not believe that protectionism and regulation is the way of defending Europe' s culture, but I do believe in lending a helping hand when we can.
That is what Culture 2000 is about.
So, I say to the Council of Ministers: Keep this programme genuinely under review. Are we doing enough?
And, I say to Madame Reding, thank you for the support and the help you have given so far, keep up the good work, we are on your side.
Madam President, I too would like to warmly thank the rapporteur, Graa Moura, and Commissioner Reding, for their contribution to the creation of this programme.
The Culture 2000 programme was finalised at the end of last year as a result of conciliation between Parliament and the Council.
The outcome can be considered reasonable, when we take into account the fact that the adoption of the programme called for a unanimous decision to be made in the Council.
We have to hope that at the forthcoming IGC we will also end up with qualified majority decisions in the area of culture.
It is really strange that legislation that adheres to the codecision procedure when it is being debated requires unanimity for it to be passed in the Council.
The framework programme on culture is replacing the present Kaleidoscope, Ariane and Raphael programmes. When implementation of the programme begins, I hope in particular that the scope it offers for literature and the translation of books can be utilised to the full.
I believe and hope that, despite the assault on us all of the new technology, literature will maintain its status. We need the depth of spirit that literature provides in the midst of a culture that has a short attention span and is inclined towards the superficial.
Literature likewise plays an important part in the way it transmits our cultural heritage, increases mutual familiarity and preserves linguistic wealth and the diversity of tongues.
In this connection, I am very glad to say that soon after the Socrates and Culture 2000 programmes get under way officially at the meeting of the Council of Ministers in March in Lisbon, the country holding the presidency of the EU is to organise a conference to discuss the situation of public libraries.
I hope that this conference will also encourage the Commission to take the issue of libraries into active consideration in the fifth framework programme in respect of the information society.
Madam President, Commissioner, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, somehow or other, today' s agenda has come full circle.
We have had a great deal to say today about Europe as a community of values, about tolerance, human dignity, human rights, a positive approach to the enlargement process, transparency and respect for each other.
Youth, education and cultural policies are important tools for creating these values, for giving the citizens confidence in the European Union and making it credible in their eyes.
The funding approved by the Council for the cultural programme does not do justice to the importance of cultural and educational policy and of this programme to the European Union' s goals. Cultural activity creates identity.
Cultural activity is an expression of individuality, of an individual' s own personality; it builds relationships and communicates.
We want a colourful Europe. We want a Europe based on the principle of diversity within unity.
We want people to understand and learn to appreciate differences.
That is why we spoke in favour of breaking down the budget, the allocation of funds that is, into the different types of measure.
That is why we opposed concentrating heavily on large networks and network structures, because we want to promote the small and medium-sized entities and activities performed by individuals; because we want to see thousands of flowers bloom.
I would like to second what the previous speaker had to say.
There is a contradiction in terms - unanimity principle, codecision procedure, and Conciliation Committee - and it is one we must resolve if we want to strengthen, and not further weaken the principles of cultural policy that are to create a European consciousness.
Madam President, as we have heard, all the groups have a common political enemy in the Council.
It is not by chance that the Committee on Culture' s decisions are constantly ending up in the conciliation procedure, for one or other Member State in the Council always holds culture hostage to other interests.
In this way, the unanimity principle has shown itself to be a blockading instrument of the first order.
The battle for a workable compromise lasted almost two years, and now, at long last, the European Parliament can give the go-ahead.
The Council could not be moved, not even when the precursor programmes Kaleidoscope, Ariane and Raphael finished.
A pilot programme was called for to bridge the gap.
This showed up the weaknesses of the European Union' s cultural policy activities once again.
The political fight over funding and programme structuring is out of all proportion to the volume of support.
Out of 410 applications in 1999 only 55 projects with a low overall volume of EUR 6.07 million could be considered.
The Council was not prepared in the case of this particular programme to accommodate Parliament to the tune of even a single euro!
And so the moderate sum of 167 million will stand until 2004.
That is the same as a single, medium-sized, German opera house' s expenditure over the same period, when here in Europe this sum has been earmarked for 29 countries over a period of five years!
There is a blatant discrepancy here!
And so we are going to have to be content, albeit very grudgingly, with the fact that we have at least managed to achieve something in terms of content. Previous speakers have already kindly pointed this out.
We can only hope that it will, after all, be possible to persuade the Council to have a change of heart one day.
Perhaps the Council will come to understand that cultural activities do the European Union good, not harm!
Cultural cooperation - and this was also mentioned earlier - truly creates identity, far more so than any transport directive, however important it might be.
Providing support for culture meets with wide-spread acceptance, and this certainly cannot be said of all policy decisions.
What, may I ask, is the Council afraid of?
Madam President, whoever has the honour, like myself, to chair the Committee on Culture, cannot fail to agree with the comments from various Members and can but congratulate the rapporteur, and Commissioner Reding, with whom he worked and who, even during the conciliation process, had difficult moments and opposed the Council - you have heard this said by everyone.
I have noticed how the principle of a necessary culture at European organisational level has been firmly asserted, but there are few opportunities to address all the requests that the European States will make.
I shall simply stress my own personal complaint because, in the end, we did not manage to adopt a review clause.
However, Mrs Reding was certainly receptive and farsighted, and personally undertook to review the issue and carry out a comprehensive assessment within a few years, and therefore to change the situation.
The cultural programmes launched in years past - Kaleidoscope, Ariane and Raphael - are being replaced by a single programme, Culture 2000, where - and I must stress this here very forcefully - the rapporteur censures a position which should give the European Parliament cause for reflection - as someone said this afternoon - but which still underlines the huge importance of being part of a vast community where cultural interpretation is a democratic factor.
This is not rhetoric, but the new embodiment of a modern liberalism which unites the European States and constitutes a turning point for the European Parliament and the Commission.
We agree with this approach and despite the lack of funds, this evening' s result will serve to greatly boost this strategy and this opportunity for Europe, which will then give rise to an economic factor and a growth factor; culture then, and an institutional aspect, the basis for structuring a vast community, a prerequisite for economic growth, and not the complete opposite, as Europe, in its cultural habits, has perhaps been used to viewing things in the past.
Man and culture are priorities, and culture can result in economic growth.
Let us contemplate this result, derive satisfaction from it and grant ourselves a licence to fully embrace this worthwhile strategy.
Madam President, may I first thank Mr Graça Moura for weaving his way through the rather tough textiles and fibres that have made up this conciliation tapestry.
It seems to me when entering the conciliation process for Culture 2000, having a poet to lead us in our endeavours is entirely appropriate.
Again, because these conciliations are not entirely straight forward, we have to thank Vice-President Imbeni for his exemplary negotiating skills in the convoluted field of ensuring that cultural expenditure is wisely deployed and given to us in our Community.
The fundamental question, it seems to me, that faces this Parliament, the Commission and the Council is: What is Europe?
What does it mean and what does Europe give us over and above the parameters of our national boundaries?
Europe is its people, its history and now its collectivity; but the reason why Culture 2000 is so important to us is for this: I will wager that when we ask the question - 'What is Europe?' - we answer it by saying, 'It is our art, it is our literature and it is our heritage.'
That is what Culture 2000 represents.
It represents the possibility of sustaining a European identity in the twenty-first century, an identity which eschews the echoes of division, of war, of poverty, of opportunity, of poverty dans la realité.
And more than this - and this is more prosaic, Madam President, it means that we have the ability to learn from previous policy initiatives by putting them into action in new programmes that are comprehensive, that are cross-cutting and that benefit our creative industries to the extent that they now require.
It promotes mobility, and it opens the doors of culture to the socially disadvantaged and excluded.
My only regret is that in promoting this programme we do not have sufficient money to match our aspirations and ensure our ability to deliver.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have now come to the end of a long road.
Following the conciliation stage, our institutions can now formally adopt the new 'Culture 2000' framework programme.
We shall thus, in the course of the next five years, have a tool perfectly suited to developing clear, well-structured and, I am sure, successful measures in order to promote the cultural sector.
It is with great satisfaction that I today welcome this 'happy ending' in this House, and I thank you for it.
I wish to thank everyone in this Parliament who worked to achieve this successful outcome to the conciliation process.
I should like to express especial thanks to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, particularly to its rapporteur, Mr Graça Moura, its chairman, Mr Gargani, the European Parliament delegation and the leaders of the political groups, the Conciliation Committee and its chairman, Mr Imbeni.
They all made a vital constructive and balanced contribution.
Throughout the negotiations, they were of great help and it must be said that the difficult and occasionally tiresome negotiations were nonetheless completed in record time.
We now have a framework programme, the first of its type for the cultural sector, and this programme makes it possible for us to plan our action from a new perspective and to work to promote culture in a more comprehensive, but also more thorough and detailed manner.
I would like to express my delight, with you, at this pleasing outcome. In spite of a budget situation which does not match up to our ambitions, these results will now enable us to approach the future positively and I would like to pick up on what Mr Gargani has just said, that the Commission made a statement regarding a mid-term assessment.
It stated that on the occasion of the report it must draw up in accordance with Article 7 of the European Parliament and Council decision, it would carry out an assessment of the results of the programme, and this assessment will also cover the financial resources in the context of the Community financial perspectives.
If need be, the report shall contain a proposal to amend the decision, and this should be achieved by 30 June 2002.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a formal commitment, not just words on paper.
All this must lead us to intensify our action in favour of developing a common cultural area, within which our cultures can flourish further in all their unique features, in all their diversity, but may also be mutually enriched and the other citizens of Europe may participate fully in them.
It is thanks, too, to Parliament' s action, preferring a number of small-scale measures to be carried out close to the citizens' cultural roots rather than vast measures on a spectacular scale.
This is going to lead us to make 'Culture 2000' the programme of the citizen.
The increased participation of our citizens is something I hope and pray for. I would like this participation to be as extensive and productive as possible and I undertake to work to ensure that in the course of the five years covered by the programme it becomes a tangible reality.
I know that you, as Members of Parliament, in your own regions and countries, are all going to work together with the programme participants so that all these small flowers, as one Member of Parliament said, go to make a vast multicoloured carpet.
I should like this programme to become a practical reality and for culture to be not only a factor of enrichment for our citizens, both in personal as well as in social and economic terms, but a right which it is our job to assert, and also the hallmark of rediscovered interaction within the Union.
This is what our European 'Culture 2000' programme offers.
It does not compete with the cultural policies implemented in the various Member States.
Such policies are necessary, and I would like to see them developed further.
It simply adds to them, complements them, building a bridge between the various cultures of our various countries.
I feel therefore that extending and enriching European citizens' participation in culture is a crucial task, one which justifies the efforts we make to achieve it, and this is the yardstick against which we must measure the success of our programme and of our Union.
A number of Members of Parliament have quite rightly raised this point. If the Union is purely an economic union, then it is a stillborn project.
However, if it is a union of culture, civilisation and participation, then it becomes a living thing.
This is the foundation, ladies and gentlemen, which I intend to develop, and I shall take the following five areas into special consideration: firstly, providing creative people with opportunities of an innovative nature to allow their talent to find the support it deserves in our programme.
Secondly, encouraging exchanges, mobility and training in the cultural sector.
Thirdly, promoting cooperation between cultural operators.
Fourthly, increasing audiences for culture, with particular emphasis on attracting young people to culture and, fifthly, protecting the common cultural heritage on the European scale as well as the history of the peoples of Europe, and making them better known.
The new programme will, I am sure, in terms of its structure and organisation based on transparency, efficiency and balance, prove to be an instrument as successful as it is essential to our measures.
Madam President, I reiterate my thanks to Parliament for its support and for, once again, having shown the importance it attaches to culture in the context of the Union.
I am certain that it will not be disappointed, having given us its support, and I personally undertake to keep Parliament informed, as things progress, of the various phases of the implementation of our measures and the measures of our citizens, which I hope will be great measures for the future of the Union.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I think we can also thank the rapporteur once again.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
(The sitting was closed at 9.55 p.m.)
End-of-life vehicles
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0006/2000), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of the European Parliament and Council Directive on end-of-life vehicles [8095/1/1999 - C5-0180/1999 - 1997/0194(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Florenz)
Mr President, nine million cars are shredded and scrapped every year in Europe.
Even though they can no longer be driven, these nine million cars may still be traded and moved across borders; and not just intra-Community borders, but also those outside the Union.
It is therefore only right that the European Union should draw up Community rules on how these nine million vehicles every year are to be recycled and processed.
We believe that the directive has a few weaknesses that we in the House should work on to produce a directive which is genuinely ground-breaking.
We therefore have a number of amendments.
I personally believe that the scope of the directive goes beyond its objective.
I do not think it is necessary for classic cars to be part of the directive.
Nor do I think that motorcycles should be included, as the distinctive culture of recycling within the motorcycle industry obviates the need for a European directive in this area.
I am not looking for such rigidly high recycling quotas when it comes to special-purpose vehicles either.
I want special-purpose vehicles such as ambulances to have high recovery quotas. This is my main concern in this matter.
In my opinion, the directive solidly regulates the matter of accountability for how a car is disposed of in Europe.
This can be left as the Commission has proposed with the Member States ensuring the appropriate collection points for draining cars. This will involve, for example, disposing of more than 32 million lots of used oil, removing break fluid, etc.
An important part of this directive is the issue of what to do with used parts. What should we do with the shredded products?
We should not overlook the fact that, although quotas are an important point in recycling and recovery, they are by no means the only point.
Do not forget that, in the case of cars, 80% of environmental impact comes through driving, 1% through recovery and 19% through construction.
Quotas are not, therefore, the only parameter in the matter of environmental compatibility, just one of many.
Of course we need to aim high, but quotas must not become an end in themselves.
We must understand that the bigger picture is important when it comes to the environmental impact of cars.
I am far keener to see us move away from today's car, weighing 1,400 kg and driving an average of 200,000 km, to a future car capable of driving the same distance but weighing just 1,000 kg. This would at least mean 400 kg times 200,000 km less transportation.
This would represent real environmental progress because it would lead to a large reduction in CO2 which, if I have rightly understood the Kyoto Protocol, is the important factor.
We therefore consider that, in future, vehicles which clearly and effectively use lightweight construction methods will produce less CO2 and should receive preferential treatment in their combustion quotas.
It should not be for each Member State, but for you and your staff, Commissioner, to decide whether these lightweight construction vehicles (and there is also talk of 3-litre vehicles) should receive preferential treatment.
We think they should.
May I say something about costs.
Some say that all the costs should be borne by the manufacturers; that this is only right and in the very best interests of the consumer.
However, this can be seriously questioned as the manufacturers will pass on all the costs to consumers and acquire for themselves a state-sanctioned monopoly on recycling.
I can only warn you against consenting to this.
There are amendments which propose splitting the costs fifty-fifty between the manufacturer and the buyer of a new car.
The money from this pool, system, or however you want to picture it, would mean that from 2006 all vehicles in circulation could be taken in without cost to the last holder.
This too is a particular desire of my group.
Our proposal to split the costs has a crucial advantage, namely that we won't be an immediate candidate for the Court of Justice when the directive is adopted.
The car industry is concerned about and half expecting repercussions, which is a serious problem which we must address accordingly.
This is why I propose splitting the costs between the first holder and the manufacturer.
As for a ban on certain materials: of course we need one!
A car has dangerous components which we must ban long-term.
This means that we need a pressure instrument.
The Commission has put forward various proposals which are too stringent and we have come up with some alternatives.
There are a number of sound amendments.
This Parliament has been given more authority, so let us use it!
Let us have the courage to put together a ground-breaking directive.
A directive which we put together just for the sake of it would not be worthy of this House.
I ask for your support.
Mr President, I almost feel like saying, "Phew" , now that we have at last come to the second reading on this directive which has given us so much work, and which has clearly also given a great deal of work to the rapporteur, Mr Florenz.
I do not consider this directive to be at all satisfactory since it does not answer the real question over what is going to be done with vehicles which have already been abandoned and which, today, can only be removed at local authority expense, i.e. the taxpayers' expense.
The principle of 'polluter pays' is not being applied.
Vehicles already abandoned have also been abandoned by Community legislation, in that they are not taken into consideration either in the texts on emissions or in this text on end-of-life vehicles.
The only merit of this directive is that it looks to the future.
It has not, however, been possible to solve the problem of vehicles currently being used but which are already old and which cost far more to recycle.
On the other hand, we can be fairly confident for the future because we know the efforts that car manufacturers are prepared to make in order to find (a) materials that are easier to recycle and (b) to set up recycling industries.
I should also like to stress the need to maintain a flexible approach to recycling, reuse and incineration, as far as the new particularly light materials are concerned which make it possible to reduce vehicle consumption and therefore emissions.
This is a problem of compatibility between our directives on end-of-life vehicles and the former directives, including the one on auto-oil, which we voted on a few years ago.
We must therefore congratulate the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on having the wisdom, in order to make things perfectly clear, to reintroduce the clause making an exception of the vintage cars which are part of our industrial and cultural heritage.
In conclusion, let me say that this directive is not ambitious enough to solve the problems of present car numbers and it is rather hypocritical with regard to the fate reserved for the wrecks which still clutter our forests, lakes and gardens.
Once again, the principle of 'polluter pays' is not being applied. The taxpayer is still footing the bill.
Mr President, Commissioner, reading the leaflets which have been distributed in recent weeks, one would think that we were talking about the ultimate environmental catastrophe or the death of the car industry in Europe.
Neither is correct.
We simply must realise that the directive on the table is a sound directive.
It means ecological progress for Europe, and we can be proud of ourselves if we succeed in enacting it and setting it in motion.
All the same, there is one point on which we are in conflict.
In the grand scheme of the directive, it is perhaps a minor point, but nevertheless a disputed one.
It concerns the issue of recycling costs.
Here we find ourselves fundamentally at odds with last year's debate in the Council when freedom from costs for the last owner and the issue of financing were lumped together and a question mark placed over whether the last owner should really be free from costs.
Last February in this House we unambiguously decided (and we Social Democrats are sticking to this) that the matter of freedom from costs for the last owner is not open to question!
So who will pay for the vehicles which are to be disposed of? For us this is straightforward: in the case of new vehicles it should be the manufacturer since this will also compel manufacturers to design and build recyclable cars.
And what about vehicles which are already on the road?
Let us look at an example. Rover in Great Britain, if they were responsible for all end-of-life cars, would actually be responsible for 5.8 million cars within the European Union and would immediately have to set aside EUR 250 million against recycling costs, whereas a manufacturer from Korea building similar cars would only have to shell out peanuts, as a representative of Deutsche Bank put it.
Such distortions in competition are not about environmental protection; they simply affect investment potential and the jobs of those building cars in Europe.
Consequently, for end-of-life vehicles we propose setting up a fund to cover the costs of recycling end-of-life vehicles in order to safeguard the principle of freedom from costs.
I can understand it when colleagues from countries which do not build cars advocate that manufacturers should pay the full whack and that they are not interested in the problem of distortions in competition when it comes to setting aside funds.
However, I would ask these colleagues to show solidarity with the more than 2 million people who make a living from building cars in Europe, so that these jobs can be secured in the future.
I am in favour of stringent environmental requirements, as you know from the auto-oil programme and the debate on exhaust emissions, but I believe that they should be the same for everyone!
Mr President, Commissioner, I think we need this directive.
Firstly, because it clearly stipulates the environmental objectives.
Secondly, because it can promote recycling, which is important.
Thirdly, because it sets out a clear procedure to combat pollution caused by heavy metals.
This is also an important point.
The directive affords a European framework, also to Member States who already have systems in place and who wish to continue to use these.
So, first of all, we need to keep the recycling percentages at their present level. This will, of course, provide the necessary incentive for technological innovation and for identifying ways of dealing with materials that we do not as yet know how to dispose of.
Secondly, we need to retain the details as they are included in the common position.
As from 2006, therefore, all vehicles should be handed in at no cost to their last owners.
Needless to say, this is most definitely an essential point which should not be changed in any way.
Is this too much of a burden? There is, however, one thing we should not overlook.
The directive applies to complete cars, that is to say cars with none of the essential components missing.
According to the experts, few of these complete cars are of no value.
After all, recycling and the re-use of components form part of a sector which is not necessarily loss-making. Quite the reverse, in fact.
At present, there is a whole raft of companies which make a living out of them, and a decent one at that.
This directive encourages the whole of this sector.
It is a sector which comprises small and medium-sized businesses.
Since, in this case, transport costs are high, a system will have to be introduced which will need to be very much decentralised, because transporting an end-of-life vehicle over a distance of more than 100 km is not a profitable activity.
I think it is a good thing that this directive does not need to apply to historic vehicles, and I think we ought to add this provision to it.
I think, therefore, that vintage cars ought to be exempt.
Also, it is a good thing that we should clearly lay the burden of responsibility with the manufacturer.
That is a basic principle which we must uphold.
As manufacturers are responsible for the design, they can give a great deal of consideration to the environment at the conception phase.
We must also insist that the cost is borne wholly or largely by the manufacturer, as stipulated in the common position.
I find this a well-balanced formula which does not preclude a number of other things. I think we need to retain it.
This is why our group will remain as close to the common position as possible and will not alter its essence.
After all, we are all aware how difficult it was within the Council to bring this common position about, and that it was a very difficult balancing act to reach this common position.
In my opinion, we should not jeopardise that common position, because it is a directive which we desperately need for environmental reasons.
I would ask you to support this common position.
Our group will, at any rate, do this as far as possible - for environmental reasons and because we have this directive which is well-balanced and encompasses a whole range of issues and difficulties including, for example, the way in which the costs are to be distributed.
Mr President, we need to take an important decision today. Does this European Parliament support the ecological principle of manufacturer' s liability, that is to say that cars, once they have reached the end of their lives, are the responsibility of the car manufacturer?
No, according to the Christian Democrats in Amendment No. 38: car manufacturers and car drivers should split the cost 50/50.
It is evident from the packaging directive in which this 50/50 compromise is included that this does not work.
Packaging still accounts for a mountain of rubbish in Europe and is a burden upon the environment.
Some of the socialists under the direction of Mr Bernd Lange say: yes, we approve of this principle but we need not implement it until 2010 or 2012 according to Amendment No 45.
The common position stipulates 2006.
According to the group of the Greens, this gives the car industry ample time to make the necessary preparations.
I would therefore urge my colleagues not to support Amendment No 38 of the Christian Democrats and Amendment No 45 of some of the socialists.
If car manufacturers need to bear the cost of recycling their cars, they will design these cars in such a way that they can be re-used more easily and more cheaply.
The problem of plastic and PVC will then no longer exist in cars and these products will be replaced by plant-based bioplastic.
This is ultimately cheaper, also for the consumer.
For twenty years, the majority within Parliament has attempted to make European environmental policy greener.
Today, this green position is being threatened under pressure from, in particular, the German and French car industries.
That is why I urge you to vote against Amendments Nos 38 and 45.
We, the Green Group, by and large support the common position.
Mr President, the waste from end-of-life vehicles is one of our really major environmental problems in terms both of the quantity of waste and of emissions of environmentally hazardous substances.
We in the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left therefore want as comprehensive and consistent a set of regulations as is humanly possible in this area.
With this directive, we have the chance to take a big step forward, but this presupposes that the Council' s position is not torn to shreds and weakened in Parliament' s reading of it.
If they were adopted, many of the amendments which have been tabled would considerably weaken the directive.
This applies, above all, to amendments from the Group of the European People' s Party but also, unfortunately, to some of the amendments from Mr Lange, as I see it.
It is easy to see that the car industry in certain countries, for example in Germany, went in for some pretty tough lobbying before the present directive was adopted.
For ourselves, it is crucial that the following principles should apply.
The polluter should pay.
This means that it is the manufacturer which should take full responsibility, financial as well as otherwise, for recycling vehicles.
There must be rules governing existing vehicles too.
Where this aspect is concerned, we cannot accept any weakening of the Council' s position regarding the date from which the regulations are to come into force.
There should be no falling-off in the percentages concerned or in the requirements for recycling vehicles from particular years, and it is important to limit the use of dangerous substances such as lead.
We shall vote against any amendments which run counter to these considerations.
If those amendments were adopted which would considerably weaken the directive, this would be very detrimental, not only from an environmental point of view but also for the European Parliament' s credibility on environmental issues.
Reference was made earlier on in the debate to the fact that some thought should be given to the millions of people who work in the car industry in various countries and to those countries which have large car industries, for example my own country, Sweden.
I was myself a car worker before I was elected.
I believe I am one of the few members of this Parliament to have stood beside a production line and assembled cars.
I think that very tough demands should be made of the car industry. These would, of course, be to the advantage of modern, progressive car manufacturers who think in environmentally friendly terms.
It is precisely this type of car industry which we should be encouraging in the European Union.
Mr President, I am very pleased that environmental protection is now a priority for this Parliament, as indeed it is for the citizens of Europe.
There is no doubt that abandoned cars represent a serious threat to the visual and physical environment.
Our citizens expect us in this regard to protect their interests.
Each year, there are between 8 and 9 million vehicles scrapped within the European Union.
This in itself generates a large amount of waste.
Car manufacturers, the suppliers of materials and equipment manufacturers must make an effort to limit the use of hazardous substances and therefore must ensure at the design stage that recycled materials can be used in the manufacture of cars.
We know that in the Netherlands there are authorised treatment centres in place to collect end-of-life vehicles and this process should be extended across the length and breadth of the European Union.
From an Irish perspective, I know that the Irish Department of the Environment is already having consultations with motor industry representatives to ensure that appropriate collection centres are put in place in Ireland in the near future to deal with end-of-life vehicles.
I see no reason why licensing arrangements cannot be organised across Europe for collection centres to scrap the 8 to 9 million vehicles which are disposed of within the European Union on an annual basis.
Car manufacturers will have to provide information on the rate of re-use, recycling and recovery of used cars which will be achieved in the coming years.
In accordance with new provisions included in the Amsterdam Treaty all the 370 million consumers within the European Union have a right to consumer-related information.
I believe EU consumers will support those car manufacturers that incorporate the most environmentally-friendly practices in the coming year.
My final point is that the regulations and the legislation must take into account the special position of the vintage car sector throughout the European Community because of its role in relation to the social sector and its environmental and economic considerations.
Mr President, the directive on end-of-life vehicles is certainly a milestone in the improvement of the environment in Europe.
I also think that a great effort has been made to arrive at intelligent recycling of materials, a reduction of polluting waste and the promotion of technological innovation.
In this regard, we are certainly on the right track, but as some Members have already stressed, the real issue here is the possibility that manufacturers' responsibility will become a shared responsibility.
I would like to say that in Italy, considerable headway has been made in this sector; we are perhaps the first in Europe to have regulations encouraging us to take end-of-life vehicles off the market, but in our country the average age of cars on the road is rather high, and we therefore have serious concerns over the problems that this directive could entail for the market.
We need to conduct a serious analysis of the matter.
In Italy, we have begun to withdraw and recycle around 80% of old cars, but there is a market problem which could trigger a crisis - in terms of unemployment given that in Italy industry often resorts to lay-offs and redundancies - and cause problems for workers in different parts of Italy.
We must therefore try to reconcile the two requirements - Parliament is sometimes a little extremist, adopting positions that are either extremely pro-green or extremely anti-green - and, all things considered, find a way to combine the effort made by Mr Florenz and that of other Members, who are trying to reconcile the two positions as best as possible.
These worthwhile amendments are the outcome of this; I think that we will be able to arrive at a solution to the problem, that is, to reconcile environmental requirements with market and labour requirements.
Mr President, this directive deals with the comparatively small but growing problem of abandoned cars and the question of a more structured disposal of all cars at the end of their life.
To that extent, it might be thought desirable, even if it is not a matter of urgent necessity.
The key questions now are who pays the EUR 262 per car for the 9 million cars that are disposed of each year?
Who pays for the collection, the dismantling, the disposal and so on? And should the directive be retrospective to cover every car that has ever been made?
The proposal from the Council, the common position, is that manufacturers should pay the lot.
That would mean billions of pounds or euros for each of the major companies in each of the countries of the European Union. That cost would inevitably be passed on to the price and hence to the buyers of new cars.
Because European car manufactures have been operating here for many, many more decades than companies from Japan, Korea and elsewhere, that would be a much greater burden on the older European companies and a competitive gift to their competitors from elsewhere.
I commend Mr Florenz, Mr Lange and others who have sought from both sides of the party divide a compromise based on shared costs.
I also commend to you the amendment standing in my name and colleagues from Germany, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Sweden and Britain, to remove the retrospective nature of this measure.
Retrospective law is bad law, it is unfair law and often it is unworkable law.
Most democratic parliaments in the free world reject it on principle unless there is overwhelming public interest, which clearly there is not in this case.
That is why I have called for a roll-call vote on this.
We can see who is prepared to vote for a retrospection which is of doubtful legality, which would be a costly burden to every future car buyer and a devastating blow for the European car industry.
Mr President, once again I would like to briefly outline the economic issues involved in this directive, and reaffirm my support for the amendments tabled by my colleague, Bernd Lange.
These amendments actually have the advantage - and I should like to stress this - of reconciling environmental constraints and economic imperatives.
The Council' s common position was to say that car manufacturers should bear all, or a significant part, of the costs of recovery and recycling.
But, as Mr Lange so rightly said, this solution is totally unfair to European car manufacturers.
Coming from a country which does have a car manufacturing industry, I can tell you that it is not possible, retroactively, to impose on them the total financial costs for all vehicles of their makes currently on the road, i.e. effectively making them bear the costs arising from 80% of the total number of cars in Europe.
This solution is unacceptable because these car manufacturers have not had the opportunity to build the environmental demands we are making of them today into their manufacturing procedures and their manufacturing costs.
The common position puts European car manufacturers in a disadvantageous position in relation to manufacturers which have just come to the European market.
Of course, we are not here to defend a particular national interest or a particular industrial lobby. We are here to build a Europe that is competitive on the world market and to safeguard jobs in economic sectors where we are actually competitive.
This is why, I urge you to support the amendments tabled by Bernd Lange. These amendments will be supported by the Group of the Party of European Socialists since they effectively reconcile all the interests involved - economic interests and environmental constraints - while granting Member States the freedom to select the means to implement these constraints, since these amendments envisage that the systems in place in the Members States, and some of them work perfectly well, will be able to continue to operate.
Mr President, Commissioner, the proposed directive on end-of-life vehicles before us today aims firstly to guarantee a high level of environmental protection in the Union, but also to safeguard the proper operation of the internal market in this sector.
Let me briefly say that historic and vintage vehicles must, of course, be exempt from the scope of this directive.
Cars are also part of our cultural heritage. I think we would all agree on that.
Having said that, one of the stumbling blocks concerns Article 12, i.e. the date on which the directive will come into force.
Parliament' s proposed solution of 18 months following the directive' s entry into force, for new vehicles, is not terribly realistic.
The European car population amounts to several tens of millions of cars which will have to be recovered even though they were not designed for recycling.
The common position was more feasible since it envisaged 2006 for vehicles already on the road.
This would, furthermore, make it possible to allow firms time to make funds available to meet these additional expenses.
Like my group, I shall therefore support this aspect the common position which, I feel, offers a balanced compromise between constraints upon firms and essential advances in environmental protection.
Mr President, the European Parliament is today facing an important decision.
Will we give our backing to forward-looking environmental and consumer protection or, as the amendments of Florenz, Lange and others cause me to fear, will we allow ourselves to become a servant of the German car industry? The credibility of Parliament as a champion of environmental protection is at stake.
It would be shameful to say the least if the European Parliament were to draw back from the professions the governments of the 14 Member States and the European Commission have been making concerning manufacturer responsibility and environmental protection!
The intention of Florenz and Lange in their amendments is obvious: to sabotage the directive!
The proposed shared responsibility would undermine the polluter pays principle and detract from product innovation.
In setting up numerous hurdles their sole aim is to hamper an efficient ecological material flow policy and by going down the road of type approvals they seek to delay the implementation of the directives by 12 years or more.
This is totally unacceptable.
I therefore appeal to the German delegates in particular to prevent major political damage occurring today!
The red-green federal government has not exactly covered itself with glory in the debate on the End-of-life Vehicles Directive.
Do not continue in this vein!
The whinging about competitive disadvantages is laughable if it only concerns competitive disadvantages sustained by the German car industry.
Start representing your people and not just your car manufacturers!
Vote in favour of environmental and consumer protection and for innovation in the car and recycling industry!
Mr President, this directive has been under discussion since 1997.
It is high time that we reached an agreement.
Since I more or less share the views of my colleague, Mr Sjöstedt and the representative of the Greens, Mr de Roo, I am not going to use the two minutes allotted to me, and I will highlight just two issues.
Firstly, and this is perhaps the basic point of the proposal, the idea, which goes hand in hand with recycling and the use of waste, that we should use materials which will subsequently cause less pollution.
Another point is that waste should not be incinerated or crushed, not only in the case of lead, cadmium and mercury, but also in the case of waste which contains PVC.
Parliament is currently discussing this issue in another context.
The other question is who should bear the cost.
I agree with previous speakers who have said that the polluter should pay, and this proposal expresses that idea very well.
Producers must pay - although we all know that the consumer will ultimately suffer the consequences of this - and they must take responsibility for the costs before 2006, as some of the amendments propose.
We are more in agreement with the amendment proposed at first reading.
It is also important to set percentages and a date for vehicles to be composed of recyclable materials.
I believe that this proposal relies on very long deadlines.
Lastly, Mr President, I believe we should favour the creation of small and medium-sized businesses which, if subject to rigorous approval and duly authorised, can promote the creation of jobs in this very important area, preventing the emergence of monopolies by large companies.
Mr President, today the European Parliament must face up to real responsibilities.
We have to work out what we are going to do with the millions of vehicles we abandon each year.
In some of our Member States, voluntary environmental agreements have already been signed to ensure that our ditches, canals and fields are not filled with these ugly and dangerous wrecks, inhabited occasionally by an alarmed farmyard chicken.
I come, of course, from a country that is proud of its car industry and of its commercial success both in Europe and in third countries. I can gauge its importance for my country' s international reputation.
I know of the proactive attitude of the European car manufacturing industry which has set up an extensive research programme to outline a national information system for dismantling end-of-life vehicles.
I am aware of the difficulties the Council experienced in finding a compromise.
That is why, today, we must be understanding alchemists, concerned for our environment.
This will either be the century of waste management or it will not.
As far as I am concerned, at least, the principle of 'polluter pays' must be applied.
The car industry, increasingly more respectful of the environment, has, I am sure, anticipated this kind of increasing awareness.
Indeed it is accepting its responsibilities.
It is the Member States, however, who will have to implement this directive, and let us beware of going into too much detail because the industrial traditions, the demolition and crushing sectors vary according to whether you are in Italy or in Finland.
I am opposed to making the car owners liable.
The men and women on the move throughout Europe pay for their car and their catalytic converter, pay their national taxes and the tax on fuel and are therefore already paying a high price for their magnificent machine and their freedom of movement.
It would certainly be unwise for my fellow Members in the major groups of the federalist tendency to seek to make the European Parliament unpopular in this way by creating a liability shared between the owner and the manufacturer.
How, furthermore, can a fund be created which will pay for vehicle recycling and manage operations within Europe. Who is to pay for recycling the car I bought in France if I register it in Belgium?
Which national fund will pay for my end-of-life vehicle?
Let us beware, too, of worrying the world of business with the legal uncertainty of an unacceptable retroactive application. It is not our intention to start a punitive legislative campaign here today, but to continue on our present course, advocating sustainable development.
Mr President, most of the time, the European Parliament, spearheaded by environment committees, does its very best to make a critical assessment of the proposals submitted by the European Commission or the Council, so as to improve on them from an environmental point of view.
Now, a sound common position submitted by the Council is in danger of being changed for the worse from an environmental point of view here in Parliament.
Every year, we discard a huge amount of cars which contain many dangerous substances.
This is why it is important to prevent waste materials.
We should also aim for minimum quantities of heavy metals, as well as of other dangerous substances and materials.
In addition, car manufacturers need to produce and build these cars in such a way as to facilitate simple dismantling and re-use.
What is left of the stripped vehicle also requires to be processed adequately.
I therefore welcome with open arms the percentage levels for re-use and recycling which have been proposed by the Council.
These days, the complete dismantling of end-of-life vehicles is economically viable.
This means that we move away from shredding.
The prescribed objectives are most certainly viable and, in the Netherlands, a value of 86% recycling has now already been achieved.
The best way of achieving proper collection is to ensure that the last holder and/or owner can deliver the car to an authorised treatment facility without any cost.
The processing cost can then be incorporated in the price of new cars.
The proposals made by a few MEPs impact greatly on this system.
The so-called shared liability is very cumbersome and does not stimulate innovation.
If the system of delivering cars to treatment facilities without any cost is applied, it will also transpire that the cost of processing will come down considerably.
Finally, this directive should enter into force at the earliest opportunity.
A laborious conciliation procedure would entail an unnecessary delay, at the expense of the environment.
Why cannot we just be satisfied with the common position currently tabled? If we are, then all that remains for us to do is to congratulate the Council on the result achieved.
Mr President, I hold Mr Florenz in high esteem. He has delivered excellent work under pressure both from his colleagues and from the car industry.
Add to this the fact that he had to do this from his green approach and, against that background, find a compromise. That was not easy.
Overall, I am not dissatisfied with the present common position and certainly not with the philosophy underlying that common position. I would like to comment on two things.
Firstly, vintage cars and motorbikes.
These should indeed be excluded from the directive. Secondly, the controversial question as to who bears the responsibility for taking back cars.
I do not wish to alter the text of the common position in any way.
The manufacturer is and should be liable and the last holder and/or owner must be able to hand back the car without any cost.
In my opinion, there is too much initial hesitation.
The car lobby has led too many people up the garden path.
I would also like to mention that experience has nonetheless taught us that the processing cost is in fact passed on.
These costs are not very high.
In the Member State where I come from, you are talking about 150 Guilders per car.
If you charge this from day one, you can process the old cars straight away.
A very large industry might then emerge which would ensure that scrapyards, which used to be a common feature in our Member States, would then disappear.
I do not wish to make any changes to this particular aspect of the compromise.
I think it would be a good thing if we were to approve the present legislation together as soon as possible.
This is positive because, in that way, the nine million cars which are introduced each year onto European roads will actually be processed appropriately, and this will benefit us all.
Mr President, the present directive is important in so far as it helps prevent our being faced with hazardous waste from end-of-life vehicles and in so far as it promotes the re-use and recycling of materials from scrapped cars.
I therefore think it is crucial for the environment that the ban on using poisonous heavy metals should be fully implemented and that we should not reduce manufacturers' liability.
If we do reduce it, we remove from manufacturers the incentive to design and produce cars which give rise to less waste.
The common position, which was arrived at with great difficulty in the Council, which the Commission has endorsed and which was also maintained in Parliament' s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, complies fully with the environmental requirements. I therefore find it incomprehensible and very curious to see amendments from members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, the objectives of which are to weaken the environmental requirements and significantly reduce car manufacturers' liability.
If these amendments are adopted, I think that we shall cause Parliament seriously to lose credibility on environmental issues.
So far, we here in Parliament have been positive catalysts for environmental protection but now, if the amendments proposed by Mr Florenz and Mr Lange are adopted, we are to become a negative factor for the environment in Europe.
What is more, if we reduce manufacturers' liability on this issue, this will also have serious consequences for subsequent matters in other areas, for example the forthcoming directive on scrap from computers and other electronic equipment.
I would therefore recommend to Members of Parliament that we cut across party lines and vote against all the amendments to the common position which would weaken environmental standards and reduce manufacturers' liability.
We shall then be able to achieve an environmentally respectable result.
Mr President, this excellent directive will end the dumping of old cars, encourage recycling, and above all encourage manufacturers to design cars which can easily be recycled.
Now who should pay the costs?
Whatever system is adopted, ultimately the cost will be passed on to the consumer.
The best way of achieving our environmental objectives is to make the manufacturers our instrument both for collecting the money and for disposing and recycling of the cars.
The manufacturers have tricked Mr Florenz and Mr Lange into tabling amendments here which seriously weaken these proposals.
Do not be fooled by the car manufacturers!
If you want the full benefits of this directive use your vote to throw out these amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, this debate is not a technical debate, contrary to what we may think.
It has become eminently political.
Yesterday we honoured our institution with a political debate.
Today, if 314 Members of Parliament yield to the strength of the lobbying of some car manufacturers, we should be doing ourselves dishonour.
In expecting consumers to bear half the cost of the recovery of end-of-life vehicles, as Amendment No 38 stipulates, even though the common position states that all recovery costs should be borne by the manufacturer, Parliament would, for the first time, not be acting as the defender of the rights of the consumers and citizens of Europe, it would be turning into mere sounding box for different lobbies.
We cannot accept this.
It would be a precedent which would open the door to all sorts of pressure in many other areas.
It would also be the first time that the European Parliament would be weakening a Council position, whereas usually we are complaining that their position is not strong enough.
The free recovery system, for example, for old vehicles and raising the percentage to be recycled will increase recycling activities and the number of jobs this generates accordingly.
Thus, for the consumer, for the environment and for the new jobs to be created in recycling, the Council' s common position definitely must not be amended. It is, as it stands, perfectly acceptable.
Mr President, like so many others here today, I believe this is a good measure.
This is a useful measure and it is one which we all need.
Most of the technical issues have been resolved.
There are some details to be finalised but most of the technical issues have been resolved.
We have arrived at the final question.
In the first reading debate it was only the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee which asked this question and it was only myself as the draftsman of the opinion of that committee who posed that question in Parliament.
That is quite simply: Who pays?
The Council common position reached a reasonable compromise in that the manufacturers should pay a significant part of the cost, not all of it as Mr Bowis has mistakenly said.
In fact perhaps as little, the lawyers tell us, as 20% or one-fifth of the cost.
That is not unreasonable.
If you look at the UK consumer for example, who buys a Rover, as Mr Lange has indicated or for that matter any other make of car in the UK and who has for years been paying excessive prices for those cars, over and above comparable prices in other parts of Europe, why should they pay? They have paid already.
Why should the very same people as taxpayers or as future car buyers, pay again to dispose of the vehicle that the manufacturer has made the profit from? I cannot accept that.
There are amendments here today that are proposing that should be the case.
I cannot accept it and I will not vote for it.
The responsibility for these cars lies with the manufacturer. It is the manufacturer who has to provide the infrastructure and provide a reasonable part of the cost of disposal.
The common position does not preclude the possibility of contributions being made by government.
The common position is a reasonable compromise.
Some of the amendments today are totally unreasonable in that they take away completely the responsibility from the car manufacturer of paying a little if any of the cost of disposal of cars on the road.
I cannot accept that and on behalf of the taxpayers and the consumers of Europe I am voting against those amendments.
Mr President, there is agreement that we must give some thought as to how we in Europe will properly deal with end-of-life cars, although in this instance the Council has not provided a model for a suitable European environment policy.
It is disgraceful the way in which the German Presidency handled this matter.
Firstly, Herr Trittin, the Environment Minister, was not in tune with his colleagues in the Cabinet, then Chancellor Schröder blundered in like a bull in a china shop, having no expert knowledge of this process.
Mind you, even the Resolution of the Finnish Council Presidency in June was not the best result that could have been done achieved.
There are certain weaknesses, the greatest of which, in my opinion, is that not enough consideration is being given to the situation of small businesses; after all, the car industry is more than just large companies.
It is in the area of supply that small business plays an important role and we must not fail to also take account of the interests of those employed in small and medium-sized enterprises.
For there are considerably more than two million people employed in this sector.
The plight of small businesses is also addressed by numerous amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and also the amendments in question from our group to Article 5 concerning costs.
The common position is also no great shakes from an environmental viewpoint.
It fails to take in the bigger picture and when my fellow delegate from the Greens says that this is the first time that the European Parliament has toned down a common position, I really must object, because quite simply, it is not environmentally meaningful to restrict the use of modern, low-consumption cars such as the 3-litre car, which contain a great deal of plastic, by means of rigid, high recycling quotas!
Consequently, we must support an amendment which at least permits exceptions in the case of particularly economical cars.
The objections of the industry in this matter are certainly not without foundation.
However, the arguments of the plastics and car industries would be more persuasive if a commitment were to be given to reducing CO2 levels in Europe in other sectors besides these.
Mr President, we are indeed now in a very rare situation: those who wish to uphold environmental values will take the side of the Council in their common position.
In contrast to what the previous speaker said, I can say I am really proud that a common position was achieved during the Finnish Presidency to uphold environmental values.
If we slide away from the common position and try to divide the recycling costs, we will be creating a loophole: we will not have created a rational, clear system in which the division of responsibilities is in order.
That is why, in my opinion, the manufacturer must take the greatest share of the responsibility.
Only then will we find an adequate solution to the problem, taking into consideration the fact too that the manufacturer should be encouraged to make vehicles whose parts can be recycled at the smallest possible cost in the future.
Mr President, there are two issues of principle in the Council' s draft directive.
The first concerns the manufacturer' s unrestricted liability to take back end-of-life vehicles.
There is the risk of creating a monopoly within the car dismantling trade.
This particularly applies in areas within the EU where distances are great and where a lot of small companies are involved in dismantling vehicles.
I believe that, quite apart from the nature of the issue concerned, the EU' s directives should not treat small companies within the Union unfairly.
Unrestricted liability on the part of manufacturers would also be in danger of creating a situation in which the market for used car parts disappears, for manufacturers would have a greater responsibility to sell new parts.
Yet the trade in used car parts is important, especially for those who collect and renovate older vehicles.
The principle of unrestricted liability on the part of manufacturers is also dubious in terms of the principles governing the market economy.
It should be possible for changes to be made to companies and for the latter to be sold and wound up.
They should be able to establish themselves in new markets, but also to leave old markets.
To bind manufacturers by means of a liability which can extend very far back in time ill accords with a flexible market economy designed to promote development.
The second principle in the Council' s common position is the retroactive element in the draft directive.
It conflicts with established economic and legal principles retroactively to impose upon a manufacturer financial liability for its product. To do so also changes the owner' s liability retroactively.
Over the years, a consumer may have altered the product in a number of ways.
Every country within the EU now has rules governing the scrapping of cars. Some may be better than others, and some worse.
In anticipation of this EU directive' s being implemented, EU countries ought however to be individually liable for scrapping vehicles in the best way possible so that the retroactive element in the EU legislation is not applied.
This does not conflict with a financing model involving the building up of funds.
Mr President, everyone agrees with the obvious environmental and industrial importance of the instrument in question.
The common position offers an acceptable compromise but its rather delicate and precarious nature somewhat restricts the opportunities for improvement, and puts the whole directive at risk.
I therefore maintain that Parliament cannot force the issue and it would be paradoxical for it to do so in the context of redefining the environmental scope of the instrument.
I would remind you that car manufacturers have admitted that they can live with the directive; the costs are not excessive: recycling a car costs less than 1% of the price of a new car.
Moreover, the manufacturers will not be financially accountable until 2006, when a good number of the existing vehicles will no longer be on the market.
As for the remaining vehicles, we could nevertheless provide for some means of sharing costs, as is proposed in Amendments Nos 44 and 45 by Mr Lange, the only ones that seem compatible with the balancing of the common position and with the trials underway in some countries, and we should therefore support them.
Mr President, this is an extremely bad directive.
First of all, as my colleague Mr Bowis has pointed out, it is retrospective and that is wrong in principle.
Secondly, it dumps huge costs on the European motor industry which would damage competitiveness and damage employment.
In this Parliament we constantly talk about the need to promote employment and jobs in Europe and yet we constantly pass measures which will have the effect of reducing employment.
I suggest to you that the directive is bad in another respect, which has not been examined well enough in this debate.
It is like so much European legislation. It is far too prescriptive.
It sets in stone one particular model of recycling.
The production line was invented about a hundred years ago, I believe, by Henry Ford and what we are proposing to do here is to create a sort of nineteenth century production line in reverse - to dismantle vehicles, to take the pieces apart and seek to recycle them.
One thing we should stop and think about is the fact that there is a very uncertain market for recycled plastic bumpers of cars.
The plastics industry for the most part does not want to take these things back and cannot economically do so.
There is already a very successful industry out there which is shredding cars, recovering metals and recovering energy by the incineration of the non-metallic parts.
This is a very environmentally reasonable approach.
It is just as good environmentally to burn old plastic as to burn new oil for energy recovery.
This method of disposal of cars carries no cost and so would eliminate the whole issue of who pays because the "dead" car would actually have a small value going into the recycling and reclamation process.
I would oppose this directive on the basis that it is too prescriptive, it ignores what is actually going on in the car recycling market at the moment and it sets in stone methods which are not necessarily the best environmentally, and are certainly very damaging economically.
Mr President, the common position is sound, but it is up to Parliament to improve the common position on end-of-life vehicles.
The Social-Democratic Group has submitted a few important proposals for improvement over the past couple of days.
I would especially draw your attention to Amendment No 45, in which a choice is made in favour of laying the cost of disassembly and recycling at the door of the manufacturer, for new cars at any rate.
Consequently, consideration will also be given to recycling during the conception phase and production.
For the cars currently on the road, it would be reasonable to share the cost, for example by setting up a fund such as that in the Netherlands.
The common position stipulates that manufacturers should not only bear the cost, they should also take back end-of-life vehicles.
This is a big problem in my opinion.
I urge that car manufacturers should most definitely not be given the task of organising the dismantling and recycling of vehicles, as they would gain an excessive hold over the second-hand components market. They would then determine their own prices.
Anyone who has been in an old car knows that this is to the detriment of the consumer and the amateur mechanic.
The European consumer organisation, which has asked us to support the common position on this point, is to my mind letting the consumer down.
A second argument for keeping the dismantling of cars out of the manufacturers' clutches is the cost of transport.
If car manufacturers all set up their own dismantling companies, this will necessitate transporting end-of-life vehicles over long distances.
This is environmentally unfriendly but also expensive and does not benefit the consumer either.
I would therefore appreciate your support for Amendment No 45.
Mr President, the proposal we are discussing has a huge amount of advantages, mainly in the interests of preventing waste and encouraging re-use, the recovery and recycling of components and the recovery of materials, etc.
I think we have tabled a sound proposal.
The main thread of the discussion is about whether or not the manufacturer, the vendor, or whoever, should take the end-of-life vehicle back without any cost.
I will only give the example of my own country to illustrate how this system functions there without any problems.
We have reached an agreement with all the parties involved. These include car manufacturers, second-hand car dealers, the federation of the car industry, the metal processing firms, shredding firms and the government.
An environmental policy agreement has been signed on a voluntary basis.
The car industry - and Belgium produces a great many cars- did not have any problem with that.
Belgians can deliver their cars back to the vendor without any cost.
In connection with this, we have noticed how - quite contrary to what has been said here to the effect that the scheme would be to the detriment of employment - a number of small businesses have taken the recycling of materials to heart and are doing very well.
Some businesses have become hi-tech businesses, because they managed to recycle certain materials, even materials which are not yet included in the directive.
So this means that we are developing a new sector and new employment and doing the environment a huge favour into the bargain.
I am in favour of collection free of charge.
It worked for us. Why would it not work elsewhere?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for an interesting debate in which many important arguments have been presented.
Would you be so kind as to bear with me for a few minutes.
Allow me briefly to comment on some of the assumptions and principles behind the present directive.
Allow me also to begin by commenting on and responding to a couple of the most important arguments in this debate.
First of all, I think I should repeat some of the basic facts which Mr Florenz and others have already mentioned.
What we are discussing here is the fact that close on ten million cars are scrapped every year in the European Union, resulting in approximately as many millions of tons of waste. This means that almost ten million tons of waste are created by these cars, and approximately seven per cent of the latter are abandoned out in the open.
Moreover, they constitute environmentally hazardous substances of the worst kind.
Approximately ten per cent of lead production is to be found in cars, but also cadmium, chromium, mercury and other very dangerous substances.
This is something you already know, but I would nonetheless also repeat it for the benefit of those who are listening.
Cars are one of the fastest growing sources of waste we have in Europe.
We know that waste from cars exists and we know how we ought to be dealing with it, and there is no excuse for not taking action.
The present directive has three aims. First of all, we want to stop heavy metals from being used in the manufacture of new cars.
Secondly, we want to establish the fact that the manufacturer is liable.
We can no longer take care of these matters at the end of a product' s life-cycle. Instead, we should avoid creating so much waste.
We should see to it that we recycle as much as possible of the various contents of a product.
Thirdly, we wish to achieve the recycling objectives specified in the present directive.
These are the three most important aims of the directive. This is, of course, because it is a waste of resources for us not to ensure that materials in cars are recycled.
It is, above all, the manufacturer' s resources we are wasting if we do not get to grips with a car' s life-cycle.
Two important questions have arisen in this regard. Yes, there are in fact more than two questions, but I want to mention just two of the most important.
First of all: who should pay? And secondly: are we reducing the European car industry' s competitiveness by means of the present proposal?
The first question, then, is about who should pay.
The directive states that the polluter should pay and that the cost is to be borne mainly by the manufacturer in accordance with the principles to be found in the EU' s treaty concerning the manufacturer' s liability. It is nonetheless clear that the cost will be borne jointly by manufacturers and consumers.
We have calculated that the cost of recycling cars does not constitute more than one per cent of the price of a new car. Do we imagine, then, that the cost would disappear if we were not to adopt this directive?
No. Clearly, we shall all have to bear the cost of serious damage to the environment, but it will be very much greater.
Moreover, the cost will have to be borne in the future. The cost will not therefore disappear, but now we are clarifying whose liability it is and how the cost is to be distributed.
Are we therefore talking about a car industry in crisis? Is it an unprofitable industry which we are discussing and which we really have to help by not imposing more taxes upon it?
Is it the case that the car industry definitely cannot afford these? Is it the case that the motives behind the proposed measures are in actual fact concerned with reducing the competitiveness of the European car industry?
No, of course not. It is quite the opposite.
Do you believe that consumer demand for environmentally friendly cars and more fuel-efficient cars is going to decline in the future? What kind of requirements do you think our children and grandchildren and future legislators are going to make of cars?
Naturally, that they should be environmentally friendly, that they should be recyclable, that they should be fuel-efficient and that they should not pollute our environment. It is, of course, only in this way that we can create a future for the car industry.
We must create forms of motive power which are not damaging to health and which are of such a kind that we can deal with the relevant waste, recycle materials and compete by means of environmentally friendly and fuel-efficient cars.
The fact that we have a European car industry which has already made great strides more than properly compensates for the fact that there are, in fact, a good many cars on European roads for which they must take responsibility.
The cost is not insurmountable; nor is the task an impossible one.
If we develop motive power of the kind I have described, I am quite certain that market forces and commercial interests in the car industry will ensure that mechanisms develop for dealing with both the cost and the workload. These will consist of everything from insurance to sensible and effective scrapping and recycling systems.
The industry itself will ensure that these systems are introduced in Europe.
They will not represent an insurmountable cost for the European car industry.
They will instead help industry to be in the vanguard of eventually producing environmentally friendly and more fuel-efficient cars. We must do this for the sake of the environment.
The costs will not disappear.
Nor will the waste disappear.
But, otherwise, we must all of us, as taxpayers or citizens, foot the bill.
What is more, the costs will be higher the longer we wait before taking action.
That is what I should like to say by way of introduction.
I also want to comment on the question as to whether there is to be any retroactive legislation.
If we assume that, on average, a car has a life of eleven years, do Members, indeed does anyone, believe that we should wait for eleven years before we get to grips with this problem? Do you think that, when we legislate about chemicals, we should say that we are ignoring those chemicals which are already on the market and that we are legislating only for what is to be produced in the future?
Clearly, we must consider the problem which exists here and now and the challenge presented by the existing range of cars. It is still not an insurmountable problem.
We can deal with it.
We already have an infrastructure. We have what we require in order to deal with end-of-life cars.
I naturally hope that the result of today' s vote will be a good one.
If I have not already done so, I would also thank Mr Karl-Heinz Florenz for the hard work he has put into this proposal on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. In fact, it is in many respects pioneering work when it comes to re-use and manufacturer' s liability.
I believe it will have very positive and noticeable effects on the environment.
We cannot continue to close our eyes to these matters.
As I have said, we have both the knowledge and the resources to cope with these issues.
After the first reading in the European Parliament in 1999, the Commission' s proposal ended up in an awkward political situation in the Council.
However, we obtained a well-balanced common position in July during the Finnish Presidency.
Now, we must ensure that the present legislative process is concluded successfully.
A total of 48 amendments have been tabled.
The Commission can adopt 10 amendments in their entirety.
Three amendments can be partially approved, and one can be approved in principle.
Certain amendments concern improvements to the Commission' s proposal which we adopted as early as at the first reading or else they reintroduce into the directive such parts of the original proposal as the Council has removed.
This applies to Amendment No 5, excluding section 1; 8 and 9, section 1; 10 and 12, section 3; 15, 16, 20, 22, 24 and 25.
These amendments can all be approved.
Amendments Nos 6 and 21 are new; the Commission can approve these.
The Commission can also approve Amendment No 26 with certain editorial changes.
I want to emphasise that a number of the other amendments affecting the proposal' s basic components involve a considerable watering-down of the level of environmental protection aimed at by the common position.
They cannot therefore be approved.
Parliament has traditionally made a major contribution to strengthening environmental legislation in Europe.
It would amaze and depress me if it were not to do so today.
I am very concerned about certain amendments from Parliament which bring the absolutely basic pillars of the present proposal into question.
These concern, for example, the phasing-out of heavy metals, manufacturer' s liability and the requirement for recycling.
I want to deal with these amendments on a group-by-group basis.
Amendments Nos 4, 11, 12, 13, 28, 30, 32, 37, 42 and 48 concern the phasing-out of heavy metals.
Amendment No 12 involves a delay of at least ten years in bringing the provision into force.
Amendments Nos 13, 28, 32, 37, 42 and 48 involve introducing unnecessary conditions and exceptions. This would mean that the process of replacing dangerous substances would be implemented more slowly.
Amendments Nos 4, 11 and 30 mean that heavy metals have to be separated from the waste before recycling.
The Commission considers that the type of phasing-out proposed in the common position is easier to apply from a technical point of view.
Amendments Nos 17, 18, 27, 34, 36, 38, 44 and 45 relate to the manufacturer' s liability.
The compromise reached by the Council is fair but fragile.
The Commission does not consider that the amendments would improve the balance without, at the same time, creating tensions.
I regret the confusion which arose recently due to internal documents from the Commission being wrongly used, so creating uncertainty about the Commission' s attitude to the issue.
I want to emphasise that, as early as 1997, the Commission proposed a special clause concerning manufacturer' s liability and that the Commission entirely supports the common position. This does not impose disproportionate costs upon manufacturers.
Far from it.
Amendments Nos 39, 40, 46 and 47 concern quantified objectives.
The high level of protection aimed at by the common position would be very much undermined if the recycling objective for the year 2006 were removed.
These amendments would also make the objectives awkward to deal with and difficult to supervise.
Allow me also - listen carefully to what I am saying now, because I have heard this reiterated in the debate - allow me to comment on the issue of vintage and "cherished" cars as mentioned in Amendments Nos 3, 7, and 9, section 2, and 35.
Such vehicles are not covered by the definition of waste and are not therefore included under the directive.
So, whatever has been stated in this regard, vintage cars and motorcycles are not included under the directive.
We do not consider that Amendments Nos 2 and 14 add anything to the directive.
Amendment No 23 involves the Commission' s having to adopt quality standards for reusable components. This is not covered by the directive.
An ad hoc directive should therefore be demanded from the European Parliament and the Council.
Amendments Nos 29, 31 and 41 water down the requirements concerning the dismantling of vehicles.
There is a danger of Amendments Nos 31 and 41 reducing the chances of recycling plastic, tyres and glass.
Finally, the Commission cannot approve Amendments Nos 1 and 33 for reasons to do with legal clarity; nor Amendment No 19, which the Commission considers to be unnecessary at this stage.
Furthermore, Amendment No 43 does not fall within the directive' s area of applicability.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Vote
Madam President, as you know, the reason we are voting this report today rather than last week is because of the numerous and serious translation errors, particularly in the French version.
You have received a letter of complaint from me about the number of mistakes in this report and in other reports with which I have had dealings recently.
There is an error which has still not been corrected and that is on Amendment No 4.
In the English version we refer to pharmaceutical and scientific organisations. In the French version that becomes 'entreprises pharmaceutiques et organisations scientifiques' .
Could you please make sure that French-speaking Members of this House know that the word entreprises is not correct.
It should not be in the amendment. And, again, I urge you, Madam President, to look at the standard of translation that we are receiving currently.
Madame McNally, in general, I am myself rather concerned at the increasing number of problems we are having with the translations.
I shall consult the parliamentary services to see how we can find a solution.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0011/2000) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council decision adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community - Altener (C5-0333/1999 - 1997/0370(COD))
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Report (A5-0010/2000) by Mrs Ahern, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European and Council decision adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of energy efficiency - SAVE (C5-0334/1999 - 1997/0371(COD))
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Report (A5-0009/2000) by Mr Graça Moura, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a single financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation ('Culture 2000') (C5-0327/1999 - 1998/0169(COD))
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0006/2000), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on end-of-life vehicles (8095/1/1999 - C5-0180/1999 - 1997/0194(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Florenz)
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0007/2000) by Mr Berger, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the posting of workers who are third-country nationals for the provision of cross-border services (COM(1999)0003 - C5-0095/1999 - 1999/0012(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0012/2000) by Mr Berger, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a Council directive extending the freedom to provide cross-border services to third-country nationals established within the Community (COM(99)0003 - C5-0050/2000 - 1999/0013(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0003/2000) by Mr Marinho, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on
I. the draft Council decision amending Decision 88/591/ECSC, EEC, Euratom establishing a Court of First Instance of the European Communities (5713/1999 - C5-0020/1999 - 1999/0803(CNS))
and
II. the draft Council decision amending Decision 88/591/ECSC, EEC, Euratom establishing a Court of First Instance of the European Communities (9614/1999 - C5-0167/1999 - 1999/0805(CNS))
(In successive votes, Parliament adopted both legislative resolutions)
Report (A5-0022/2000) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision providing exceptional Community financial assistance to Kosovo (COM(99)0598 - C5-0045/2000 - 1999/0240(CNS))
Madam President, I would simply like to point out that during the procedure, we were not allowed either to table or, consequently, adopt amendments in the Committee.
I do not know whether this is in order, and I would therefore ask you to verify the accuracy of the procedure which was followed before this report reached the House.
I have taken note of your comment, Mr Speroni.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0018/2000) by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the convening of the Intergovernmental Conference (14094/1999 - C5-0341/1999 - 1999/0825(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on the negotiations to form a government in Austria
Madam President, we simply have a few translation problems in this area too.
We consider the English version to be the original text.
To give you an example, in both paragraphs 4 and 5 of the Dutch and German versions, the equivalents of the English words: "in so far as" have been omitted.
This is why I would ask you to consider the English version as the original version.
Thank you, Mr van Velzen.
In response I shall say the same thing I said to Mrs McNally just now.
I am very concerned about these translation problems which, unfortunately, we seem to be having increasingly, and I can assure you that we shall look into the matter very seriously indeed.
In any case, the authoritative version is always, of course, the original language version.
Madam President, the Socialist Group proposes the following oral amendment.
I shall read it in English, which is the original language of the resolution.
"Condemns Mr Haider for his insults towards certain EU Member States and their leaders in the last few days in statements, which Foreign Minister Schüssel has failed to condemn."
(More than twelve Members of Parliament rise to their feet) (Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
McNally Report (A5-0082/1999)
- (FR) I am pleased to see the excellent report on the communication from the Commission entitled 'Women and Science' .
In this document, the Commission proposes to stimulate debate with a view to promoting the increased participation of women in research in Europe. This objective deserves our total support.
Expenditure on research and technology actually forms a sizeable part of the budget of the European Union, after agriculture and the Structural Funds.
The various framework programmes have enabled not only high quality scientific work to take place but also innovative cooperation between researchers in various Member States.
Relatively few women, however, are active in scientific disciplines despite the excellent results they achieve in their studies.
It is unacceptable for women to continue to be underrepresented.
I am therefore delighted to see the proposals of the European Commission.
The Commission document sets out to focus on the initiatives to be taken at Community level, especially through the fifth framework programme for research and technical development, which is quite obviously something I approve of.
The goal for the years to come is to increase women' s participation to achieve a rate of 40% female participation in the Marie Curie grants, in consultative assemblies and in evaluation panels for the whole of the fifth framework programme for research and technical development.
In order to do so, it will be necessary to improve discussion and the sharing of experience among the various Member States, to set up a coordinating body to implement a 'Women and Science' monitoring system within the fifth framework programme for research and technical development, specially responsible for gathering and disseminating statistics collected in the implementation of the framework programme for research and technical development regarding the rate of women' s participation in research activities.
Furthermore, like the rapporteur, I think that studies must be undertaken to analyse the reasons for the gap between the number of women with science degrees and the number of women who manage to have a career in these fields.
Improved analysis of the obstacles facing women will make it possible to develop a strategy to eliminate those obstacles.
We will have to enlist the support of the many existing networks of women scientists and to obtain their assistance in framing a joint research policy.
The European Parliament will continue to carefully monitor the implementation of the fifth framework programme for research and technical development as regards the promotion of women and to come up with ideas for the course of the fifth framework programme for research and technical development.
We must incorporate the gender factor in science, research and all other European Union policies, in order to put an end to the structural discrimination which prevents women competing on equal terms in the labour market.
In its communication "Women and Science" , the European Commission informs us of its good intentions of enlisting the support of women to enrich research in Europe.
This is very good, and we are pleased to see it.
The fact is there are too few women involved in research work in the European Union.
We know that we can change this situation, in which women are underrepresented in the science sector, only by means of a policy of educational guidance which will systematically encourage a greater range of career choices for girls and, when they have obtained their degrees, by means of positive measures at the professional level.
Having said this, some of our fellow Members clearly have qualms because the report by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities which we have voted on contains one point which may lead to confusion and is interpreted by some as a quota stipulating that there must be 40% female participating in research in Europe.
This is patently not the case, since such a quota would not be realistic.
Indeed the report does not mention the time limit for this quota to be achieved.
To set my fellow Members' minds at ease and to reassure them, I have tabled an amendment to the resolution in which we simply take note of the fact that the Commission, in its communication, undertakes to make significant efforts to increase women' s participation in Community research programmes, which is, after all, a praiseworthy goal.
And why should we not note that the Commission' s communication stipulates specifically that it considers a 40% minimum level to be a crucial goal for women' s participation at all levels in the implementation and management of research programmes?
It is not a quota!
It is a perfectly legitimate declaration of intent from the Commission, insofar as it concerns its own programmes and not those of Member States.
The latter would be well advised, however, to follow the good example of the Commission, for once, and make the same efforts in their own research programmes. People must realise this!
I am pleased to see that the debate on Mrs McNally' s report with a view to increasing and facilitating women' s participation in professions in research and science, met with a fairly wide consensus.
On this subject, any improvement in bringing the concept of equal opportunities to bear in everyday reality is indeed desirable, and I can only welcome the implementation of a policy which would contribute towards satisfying the legitimate aspirations of women: to enjoy equal access to scientific study, to obtain positions of responsibility truly in line with their results and competence, and to have accompanying measures drawn up rapidly, enabling them to reconcile their family life and their career.
This necessary realistic and pragmatic policy, however, which will have to be associated with the elimination of the practical obstacles identified as unquestionable factors in this inequality must, as far as we are concerned, necessarily be based on the idea of complementarity, which is the only one capable of justifying a proactive policy on the subject.
Our thinking and our future actions must focus on respecting these values, which truly respect gender differences, not on some postulated sexual equality, which has its own intrinsic contradictions.
In any event there are no grounds for resorting to the easy option of a quantitative policy, based on the use of quotas, contrary to the idea of citizenship which the Members of Parliament in the UEN Group set great store by, and whose probable consequences would be the opposite of the effect apparently sought by Mrs McNally' s report, namely women' s participation in careers in science and research in proportion with their merit.
By having the opportunity to show their true merit, by eliminating as far as possible the barriers associated to the specifics of their condition as women, and not in the context of a conflict in which women seem to be attacking male privilege, women will demonstrate the benefits to be gained by facilitating a situation where their professional careers may flourish. In this way they will succeed in altering balances which are still not in their favour.
Since the European Parliament chose to vote on a text that expressly resorted to the quota policy which my report for an opinion had attempted to denounce in no uncertain terms, and in spite of the general approach which I approve for the most part, I can do no other than abstain from the vote on Mrs McNally' s report.
Second reading of the Florenz report (A5-0006/2000)
Madam President, today in the second reading we have voted on the amendments to the Directive on end-of-life vehicles.
I have rejected the entire directive, not least because Amendment No 34 to Article 12 and the amendments to Article 5/4 have not received an adequate majority here in the House.
I come from a country which manufactures 50% of the cars in the EU and it is precisely the free collection of end-of-life cars which is so financially onerous and unacceptable.
Here, in my opinion, the labour market is also considerably burdened by the costs arising to these companies.
This cannot be a good thing in a European Union where we are ever mindful of employment.
I consider that this is a serious defect and that, in principle, it does not befit our legal system.
In my opinion, this directive is unacceptable for this reason.
Madam President, I would like to comment on the Florenz report.
I think that the vote has shown that although the common position of the Council has been toned down, the major groups here (and above all the German delegates of the major groups) have not, thank God, succeeded in destroying the heart of the directive, namely manufacturer responsibility.
Unfortunately, there has been a toning down of the effective ecological material flow policy, i.e. through the obligatory risk assessment of materials whose harmful effect on health has been known for years.
We know that lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium present high toxic and health risks and numerous Community directives have succeeded in restricting their usage without any risk assessment being made.
Here, unfortunately, the European Parliament has bowed to the interests of industry.
I am nevertheless extremely pleased that there was no majority for the amendments of Florenz, Lange and others who have actually sought to lever out manufacturer responsibility and make consumers solely responsible for the cost of environmentally compatible disposal of end-of-life vehicles.
I found this to be an extremely shameful attempt and I am pleased that it failed, that the attempt by one large government and the delegates of a large Member State did not gain a majority, by which I mean the attempt to dominate the voting process of the European Parliament on grounds of the interests of its national industries.
Madam President, although I too have spent most of my life in fast cars, I agree with my colleague, Mr Florenz, that the directive on scrapping cars must make it clear that vintage cars are not included.
These splendid cars do not constitute waste.
That is why I voted in favour of the amendments.
Neither can we fix what the age for a vintage car should be as there are very great differences from one country' s statutes to another' s.
In this way vehicles of historic value can be preserved for future generations.
We cannot forget old car enthusiasts either, of whom there are more than 50 000 in Finland alone.
They are involved in low-profile work of valuable cultural importance.
- (SV) The parliamentary process concerning this question has been confusing, to say the least.
Before the vote at the plenary sitting, new amendments have been tabled such as have already been voted down by the Committee. In the divided situation which has now arisen, we therefore consider that the Council' s wordings are the best.
We need a directive in this area, and we also therefore want to avoid a complicated conciliation procedure.
The directive concerning end-of-life vehicles will stand as an example for future legislation.
It is therefore important that the manufacturer' s liability should be clear. This should not in any way be jeopardised.
Today, Parliament is examining, for the last time, this text on 'end-of-life' vehicles and what is to be done with them: their destruction, a commendable intention with regard to our environment.
There are, however, two considerations which must certainly be dealt with within this text.
First of all, who is to bear the financial costs of this destruction?
We must all ensure that it is not always the same person, i.e. the vehicle owner, who pays. He or she already pays enough in taxes for this vehicle, which is a bottomless pit in financial terms.
We have recently had cause to talk about the 'polluter pays' principle. We should apply this principle rationally and calmly, correctly targeted and without ideology.
Another essential point that must be included in this text is the express exclusion of vintage vehicles from its scope.
One might make the claim that there is no need to state it explicitly in writing because it is an obvious point, but I feel that it is a point that should be made in writing because there is every interest in adopting clear texts.
So let us vote for these amendments in order to preserve these gems of the automobile industry.
These old vehicles are testimony to a culture and a passion which should be recognised and respected by Europe, if we are not to water down each of our specific identities.
There is no lack of examples amongst European texts, and we all know how much debate and argument is caused by a lack of clarity and precision.
I only need to mention the case of Directives 79/409 and 92/43.
The precise wording of texts provides a guarantee and legal certainty for those people who will have to apply or live by these texts on a daily basis.
It is not the job of the MEP to generate litigation or legal proceedings for judges in any arena. That would not be fulfilling our mission.
On the contrary, we must adopt crystal-clear texts in order to limit legal disputes.
. (NL) That the Florenz report has caused such a stir has been proven by the powerful lobby machine which has been set in motion by both industry and the environmental movement.
I regret that the manufacturers have harangued the European Parliament and the Council with a whole ream of arguments which either cut no ice or were simply false.
I dare say this because I took the trouble to go into the field and collect information from, among others, scrapyards which already recycle car components successfully.
They made it clear to me that the arguments concerning lack of safety, for example, are nonsense.
The car lobby was unsuccessful today and I am pleased about that.
The directive remains in place.
I expect that we will achieve an excellent result in the reconciliation and that the efforts to achieve a better living environment will triumph over unreasonable industrial requirements.
- My party opposed this measure and the proposed amendments.
There are few things more certain in life than taxes, death and pollution.
However, there is also nothing more certain than EU environmental directives which have laudable intentions but which actually fail to achieve their stated objectives.
When it comes to pollution, like sin, we are all against it, but from there it is a far cry from believing that just because a measure is proposed against this evil it is necessarily good.
In fact, this directive, like so many others addressing environmental issues, is not good.
As is so often the case, it merely provides yet another massive bureaucratic structure to control a problem, which will only serve to create more jobs for officials, and cost the motor industries and consumers a great deal of money.
The one thing it will not do is solve the problem - it is a massive sledgehammer to miss a nut.
No one, not least my party, could begin to disagree that recycling should be encouraged, but the best way to achieve that is to work with the market, not to create another bureaucratic monstrosity.
Thus, a more appropriate way to encourage recycling is to tax manufacturers who do not increase the amounts of recoverable material in their vehicles, to encourage private sector recycling companies, through a package of tax incentives and assistance on complying with environmental requirements, and to incentivise the use of recycled materials.
Of course, these are areas where the EU does not have any jurisdiction and nor should it have such jurisdiction.
However, in the absence of these powers, it should not seek to substitute a less effective measure.
Instead, it should leave Member States to develop their own systems, and avoid the tendency to interfere where it is not wanted and can do no good.
Berger Report (A5-0007/2000)
This proposal for a directive attempts to establish conditions for the posting of workers who are third-country nationals, for the provision of cross-border services.
Third-country nationals with a permanent right of residence in one Member State do not enjoy the right to freedom of movement within the European Union. Until now, the restrictions on the freedom of movement within the Union of non-Community workers have been very harsh.
It is therefore a positive step that the movement of workers within the European Union is being made easier, even when they are nationals of third countries.
Nevertheless, the proposal for a directive merely aims to allow them to move to another Member State when they are posted there by an employer based in their country of normal residence. This means that their scope for movement is limited to the duration of their posting and only to the Member State to which they were posted.
This means that this proposal' s fundamental aim is not to resolve the problem of the restricted movement of these workers, but merely to improve the position of the companies providing services.
On the other hand, for the sake of simplifying procedures some highly debatable amendments have been included in the Berger report, one example of which is the establishment of a common information service for cards issued by a body in any Member State.
Berger Report (A5-0007/2000) and Berger Report (A5-0012/2000)
It is with the greatest satisfaction that I welcome the two proposals for directives intended to facilitate the freedom of movement of workers who are nationals of a third country while facilitating the freedom of movement of services.
Basically, these proposals introduce the EU service provision card which will in future enable almost 5 million third country nationals legally resident in a European Union Member State to provide services in other Member States, a phenomenon currently obstructed by problems such as the need to obtain visas and work permits.
The first proposal for a directive will authorise businesses established in a Member State which employ workers who are third country nationals to assign such employees to another Member State on a temporary basis to provide services there.
According to the terms of the directive, the employer would be simply required to request a service provision card for each employee concerned.
Logically, in order to be given such a card, the employee must be legally resident in a Member States and must be covered by a social security scheme.
The second proposal grants the same rights to self-employed workers who are third country nationals.
While, basically, I subscribe to the European Commission proposals, nonetheless there are some conditions which may lead to confusion.
That is why I am voting in favour of the amendments tabled by the rapporteur.
This will make it possible to clarify the terms and thus prevent any misreading!
Other amendments are intended to simplify the administrative procedures, for example by authorising Member States to designate a single authority responsible for issuing cards.
I feel an amendment of this type is essential to prevent the sort of administrative unwieldiness which too often acts as a brake on the proper application of new conditions.
I can, therefore, only be delighted at the adoption of these directives thus amended.
We could not really tolerate much longer a situation in which people legally resident within the European Union had to face so many problems.
This goes against the fundamental principle of non-discrimination enshrined in the founding treaties of this Union.
Marinho Report (A5-0003/2000):
We have serious reservations about the Council' s proposed amendments.
How can we talk of increasing the sphere of competence of the Court of First Instance when we know that we need to increase the number of judges in that Court because it is overstretched?
The first measure would in fact cancel out the effects of the latter.
Some people will say that perfection is not a realistic aim, but a brief look at the background should make our reservations more understandable to them:
On 1 January 1995, the Council went back on the decision to increase the number of judges laid down in Article 17 of the Accession Treaty of 24 June 1994.
In May 1995, during the preparatory phase of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the CFI, concerned about the persistent increase in the volume of cases, was already insisting on the need to take measures 'without which the Court would soon cease to be able to fully satisfy the principle of the proper administration of justice and to fulfil its assigned role ... in conditions likely to compromise the protection of parties subject to trial.'
So what was done at Amsterdam? In that respect, nothing.
On the contrary, extending the Community' s legal competence within the framework of the third pillar has increased the burden.
You will agree, furthermore, that the texts adopted by this House always call for Community jurisdiction, and that includes for the Charter of Fundamental Rights which is currently being drawn up.
The increase in the number of CFI judges from 15 to 21 and the opportunity it has recently been accorded to have a single judge rule on specific cases are not real solutions but mere decoys, grudgingly granted, which we have become aware of after the fact.
Consequently, these proposals do not live up to the issues at stake. They represent a downward spiral which in the long term would require the number of judges to be increased to several hundred.
We cannot agree to this, since such a sidelong shift towards a Europe of the Judges is detrimental to the proper exercise of democracy in our States.
The time has come, we feel, for in-depth consideration of how to put the Community system of jurisdiction in order and to guarantee a fitting quality of justice.
This question cannot be dealt with separately from the current thinking on the hierarchy of norms and the better application of the principle of subsidiarity.
Is the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference not the ideal opportunity for this?
Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen Report (A5-0018/2000)
- (SV) The most important task of the approaching Intergovernmental Conference is to reform the EU before the accession of the new Member States.
We therefore, of course, support the European Parliament' s now giving the formal go-ahead to the Intergovernmental Conference.
We nonetheless consider that the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference should be limited to questions which have to be resolved if it is to be possible for enlargement to take place.
We also argued this in November 1999, and we would therefore refer to our explanation of vote of 18 November 1999.
. (FR) In the opinion which it has just adopted on the convening of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, the European Parliament calls for a "constitutional process to be launched" .
This determination to override nations with a legally supranational text is also expressed in the first meetings of the body responsible for drawing up the so-called Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is really a closet constitution.
It is expressed again in the unbelievable excess perpetrated by the European Parliament which today in its vote on a resolution wished to cancel out the result of the free elections in Austria.
The same determination to reduce nations to the level of mere administrative regions is also evident on every page of the opinion issued by the Commission for the Intergovernmental Conference.
The key idea involves making qualified majority voting the general rule while modifying the content of this qualified majority to make it a double simple majority, of States and peoples, in order to increase the Commission' s room for manoeuvre and reduce that of the minority States.
Incidentally, the French will probably be interested to learn that the Commission is asking for Article 67 of the Amsterdam Treaty to be amended in order to establish majority voting and codecision with the European Parliament.
People will remember that this article, dealing with the transfer of immigration policy to the Community level, stipulated that for five years decisions would still be taken by unanimous vote in the Council and thereafter the Council would assess a potential opportunity to amend the system.
In France, both in the National Assembly and in the Senate, when this was being ratified, many members of the French parliament were reassured to hear that, in any case, the Council would remain free to choose and could retain unanimous decision-making.
Well, today, the same Minister of European Affairs who drew up the Treaty of Amsterdam, who has, in the meantime, become a European Commissioner, Mr Barnier, proposes to decide, at the forthcoming IGC, that the Council will operate in these areas by majority decision.
This is the type of mechanism we are continually subjected to when playing the game of European integration with the Brussels institutions.
The French must be made aware not only that the purpose of all these operations is to eliminate their country as a responsible centre for decision making, but that furthermore every means will be used to extract their consent.
If they yield, they are lost.
For it is their very means of defence which are being eliminated one by one.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the report on the convening of the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is crucial for us that it should be possible for this Intergovernmental Conference to be concluded before the end of the year 2000 so that there are no remaining formalities, such as the weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers and the composition of the Commission and the European Parliament, which place obstacles in the way of the enlargement of the EU.
We were therefore also very satisfied with the decisions which were taken on this issue at the Helsinki Summit in December.
An unduly ambitious extension to the agenda at the present time would risk delaying the enlargement process. That is something we do not want to see, and we have therefore voted against any such extension.
We nonetheless very much agree with our colleagues that there is a need for transparency in connection with the Intergovernmental Conference so that people are clear as to how the work is proceeding.
. (SV) We are pleased that a limited agenda has been established for the Intergovernmental Conference at the Helsinki Conference.
Possible future Member States ought to be involved in, and have an influence upon, the shaping of the EU of the future.
The elections to the European Parliament in 1999 showed perfectly clearly that the people of Europe do not fall in with the notion of an ever more federalist EU centred upon Brussels.
With the convening of the forthcoming IGC, the process of European Union is topical once again.
Once again the discussion is going to be monopolised by the Heads of State and Government.
In other words, fifteen people are going to have discussions and decide, behind closed doors, on the fate of more than 350 million individuals.
It is therefore easy to understand the public' s lack of interest, given the construction of Europe which is going on behind their back and in areas which are not really of concern to them.
In fact, one only need look at the agenda of the IGC: the institutions, enlargement and European defence.
The fact is that the prime concerns are the strengthening of executive power, the development of closer relations with liberalism in the countries of Eastern Europe and the relaunch of the militarisation of Europe, particularly by increasing military budgets.
Social Europe, used as a foil by the EU, has simply been eliminated from the agenda.
All this does is to legitimise the development, on the European scale, of resistance movements anxious to bring in a social charter which would harmonise workers' main claims towards the highest common denominator.
This is why I am voting against the report.
I voted for the resolution to adopt an opinion is in favour of convening the IGC. I did so because it sums up the philosophy of the Portuguese Presidency, which is supported by a broad majority in Parliament, of opening up the IGC agenda beyond issues strictly related to redressing the balance of power between Member States, large and small, as was originally stated when the Helsinki Council was convened.
Unfortunately, in the issues covered by the resolutions on future subjects for revisions to the Treaty on European Union, nothing has so far been stated about the need to review Article 7, which deals with suspending a State in the event of a serious and persistent violation of the "founding" principles of the Union, as laid down in Article 6.
As the present crisis involving Austria has demonstrated, the Union has the right to protect itself.
Nevertheless, the legal mechanisms that exist in the Treaty are weak, difficult to apply politically and legally, do not define the powers of the institutions and do not guarantee fair legal treatment for processes of major importance. Suspending a state is just such a process, and is to be condemned.
I therefore think that this issue should be included as a matter of urgency in the IGC agenda, and in itself this justifies a thorough revision of the Treaties.
We feel that at present the central issues about convening an Intergovernmental Conference to amend the Treaties are far more important than the controversy taking place here about the size of the agenda. They are also more important than the controversy over the appropriateness or otherwise of formulating proposals for new issues to be covered, and more important than the controversy over the extent of Parliament' s participation in it.
We feel that these issues result from the IGC' s appropriateness and its objectives, as well as from the matters which will inevitably be discussed there.
We have doubts concerning the appropriateness of the IGC because we fear that the objectives actually being addressed may be far removed from the changes required to allow for the enlargement envisaged.
This relates in particular to the intended agenda, particularly as regards the Amsterdam leftovers, which suggests that unacceptable inner cabinets will be created in the future. This also identifies areas relating to the second and third pillars, which tend to be reflected in an undesirable militarisation of the European Union.
These are some of the basic reasons why we do not agree with the aims of the motion for a resolution now before us.
- The European Parliamentary Labour Party has abstained on the final vote on the Leinen Dimitrakopoulos Report.
The text is overambitious, and Britain' s Labour MEPs believe that the IGC should primarily deal with the "Amsterdam left-overs" in order to prepare for enlargement, and not expand far beyond these.
There is currently a great deal of work under way in terms of reform and this must be the priority for the moment to allow consolidation and strengthening of the EU institutions.
Expansion of the agenda and drastic revision of the treaties would bring with it a risk of de-stabilisation.
The key factor in this text as it has been amended, is the call for a Charter of Fundamental Rights to be incorporated into the treaties.
In our view, this would bring with it a complex legislative burden, and it would be preferable to have a political and declaratory charter which explains to citizens what their existing rights are.
Our priorities (i.e. the "left-overs" ) must be:
the number and responsibilities of Commissioners
weighting of votes in the Council
extension of QMV in areas where it will benefit the UK and Europe (but not Treaty change, defence matters, border controls or taxation), and extension of codecision wherever QMV is extended
Beyond this, we have concerns that the "flexibility" or enhanced cooperation suggestion is not appropriate at present.
The provisions of Amsterdam are largely untested and allowing more scope for opt-outs could weaken the EU at the time when enlargement is being considered and applicant countries are being asked to sign up to single market and other European legislation.
- (SV) In order to be able to influence developments, the European Parliament must adopt a more constructive attitude towards the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference than emerges from the present resolution, which displays far too much disappointment and negativity about the decision which the European Council made in Helsinki in December 1999.
The European Parliament and its Committee on Constitutional Affairs ought instead to have been more specific and concentrated on just a few points in addition to the Council decision in Helsinki, so stating what it considered to be the most pressing matters for discussion, including the question of establishing a public prosecutor to deal with crimes against the institutions of the European Union and their financial interests.
We Swedish Christian Democrats also oppose any threats which have been made to delay the enlargement of the EU to the east if the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference is not extended very considerably to include subjects in addition to those left over from the Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam in 1997.
The most important task of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference is to reform the EU before the accession of the new Member States.
I therefore, of course, support the European Parliament' s now giving the formal go-ahead to the Intergovernmental Conference.
I nonetheless consider that the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference should be limited to questions which have to be resolved if it is to be possible for the enlargement to take place.
I also refer to my explanation of vote of 18 November 1999 which clarifies my attitude towards supranationalism and common defence.
Joint resolution on Austria
Madam President, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group did not associate itself with the joint PPE/DE-PSE resolution on the political situation in Austria following the formation in that country of a coalition government between the conservatives and Jörg Haider' s Freedom Party.
This PPE/DE-PSE resolution commends the initiative taken by fourteen Member States to apply pressure to Austria by organising a sort of diplomatic boycott.
What we find most shocking is the fact that this joint intervention claims the authority of the Treaty, as if this stated somewhere that henceforth the free and democratic expression of a people could be cancelled by the will of the heads of government of neighbouring countries who in fact, in this instance, have carefully refrained from consulting their own peoples.
Whatever Jörg Haider' s verbal excesses, which we of course deplore, the Austrians have made a democratic choice, and we must respect this.
In our opinion, it is clear that the left wing in the European Parliament, in association with the Austrian left wing which was defeated in the electoral arena, have mounted a petty political campaign resorting to the memory of a sinister but fortunately bygone period.
Although comparing Haider to Hitler is a concept without any credibility whatsoever, it has nonetheless partly achieved its purpose in unsettling some PPE/DE Members of Parliament.
But, going beyond this petty political operation, what the majority in the European Parliament is afraid of most of all is that the threat to the left-right cohabitation in Austria, which caused political life to stagnate and rot, may soon spread to the European system of co-management which is producing equally appalling results.
In order to prevent this threat to the system, it is ready to do anything, including overruling the outcome of free elections, including setting up a thought police, including establishing a new form of totalitarianism.
Madam President, on behalf of the Members of Parliament who represent the Front national, the Vlaams Blok and the Movimento sociale italiano, I should like to ask the question: in this outrageous interference in internal Austrian affairs which the European Union has undertaken in contravention of general international law, in contravention of the Treaties, in contravention of morality, who is pulling the strings? Is this hysteria spontaneous?
Is it the product of mere foolishness or, more probably, of a deliberate strategy, which is the same throughout the world? Who is imposing their will on the nations of Europe, daring to stop them choosing their own fate?
Underground networks?
The government of the United States, or of Israel?
Or their Socialist back-up troops who, in this House, have the cheek to thrust their values down our throats?
What, then, are the values of these Socialists who feathered their electoral nest in the last century by painting the idea of greater social justice in glowing colours for the benefit of the underprivileged, and who today are nothing more than the party of protected civil servants, full-time union officials and state capitalism?
What are the values of the Belgian Socialist Party, which only goes from paedophilia scandals to corruption scandals, via Vandam and Agusta?
What are the values of the French Socialist Party, which extorted money from all the town councils under its thumb in the Urba, Sages and Graco scandals? The party led by François Mitterrand, decorated with the emblem of Marshal Pétain' s Vichy government, the party whose leading lights have just been caught red-handed once again, living a life of luxury on the public funds embezzled from the students' mutual insurance company.
I shall not even mention the instances of corruption in the Italian Socialist Party, because it does not do to kick a man when he is down, still less when he is dead and gone.
I shall, however, mention the Spanish Socialist Party which has just formed an alliance with the butchers of Albacete and which settled its accounts with Basque nationalists by hiring contract killers.
I shall also mention the German Socialist Party which dares to preach to us about the second world war, when it is international socialist in the way that its peers were National Socialists, still goose-stepping, the party of the Waffen SS...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, I had a major problem with this resolution.
Finally, I abstained on the vote for a number of reasons.
I was in sympathy with the EDD Group amendment, talking about rejecting the interference of the EU in the formation of governments of Members States but I had to abstain because it just followed on the condemnation of xenophobia, racism, etc. and I felt that it might be misinterpreted.
However, I do wonder about the wisdom of this.
Firstly, there is the question of trying to combat intolerance with intolerance and the long-term consequences of that.
I also wonder about the wisdom of the EU and its reaction to the formation of the government in Austria and how that is going to affect public opinion there.
At the moment it seems that the Haider Party is getting more support rather than less from the opposition by outside governments.
Even America has now said that it is considering breaking off diplomatic relations.
We wonder if this is actually feeding the flames of xenophobia and the parties and people that support it.
I really think that people should be extremely cautious.
If you want to combat xenophobia and racism, and I believe that we should, we need to look at the root causes.
We need to look at the people who vote for these parties, and understand why this situation arises.
It is not a situation that most people in this Parliament want, but we need to be careful about the approach we take, so that we do not in the end up with the opposite of what we are trying to achieve.
Madam President, I strongly refute any statement, demonstration or feeling of xenophobia or racism.
I passionately defend Europe' s heritage of human rights and the rule of law.
I disagree, however, for this very reason, with the senseless actions taken by the Presidency - the Portuguese Presidency unfortunately - which have resulted in a real institutional blunder on behalf of the other fourteen States.
This is not the way to fight extremism.
It may even be a way of doing extremism a great deal of good.
The torrent of confusion and rash actions that has been unleashed over Austria has blown things out of all proportion. It has caused considerable distress to decent citizens and evokes risks that had previously not even been considered.
There is an irreconcilable contradiction between positions adopted in the name of human rights and the rule of law, but which at the same time attack the fundamental rights of the Austrians and ride roughshod over the basic tenets of the rule of law, in this case the standards laid down in the Treaties.
What are we actually seeking to achieve in embarking on an Intergovernmental Conference?
A Europe of 27 States or a Europe of 14, or even fewer? We support Europe, a Europe which does honour to all the actions that have brought us to this point, a Europe which respects the Treaties and the law and a Europe which needs Austria.
This needs to be said!
Madam President, I am delighted and proud that this Parliament has, by an enormous majority, condemned the formation of the coalition in Austria incorporating Mr Haider' s Freedom Party.
Mr Haider has demonstrated, over the past years by both words and deeds, that he deserves to be excluded from normal democratic discourse.
Not only has he admired Adolf Hitler, praised the Waffen SS, and refused to condemn a terrorist bombing that killed four Roma, but also in Carinthia has been a member of the regional government.
He has led efforts to end provision for Austria' s Slovene-speaking minority and assistance to immigrants.
Some have said it is not right for us to interfere in Austrian politics.
They are wrong.
European Union Treaties make it incumbent on us to protect fundamental rights.
Some have said we have to accept the results of democratic elections.
However, democratic elections do not make democrats of those who have threatened democracy.
There is the tragic monument of the Holocaust, the death of 6 million Jews, to those who argued the same case with respect to Germany in the 1930s.
However, we should not condemn Mr Haider for ambition.
Leopards do not change their spots.
The real culprits are Austria' s Christian Democrat acting as Judas goats to resurrect a threat to Europe that we thought had died Berlin in 1945.
Madam President, we have just passed a resolution which condemns the racist and xenophobic record of Jörg Haider' s Freedom Party in Austria, which has welcomed action by our governments to cut off political relations with any government of which he is part, and which sends our support to anti-racist groups within the democratic majority of the Austrian people.
We warn that this coalition, if it is formed today, unacceptably legitimises the extreme right, directly in contradiction with the principles of peace and reconciliation, which bring us together in this European Union.
These are the values which we ask of others who seek to join us.
This European Parliament requires the European Commission to be vigilant of any racist action in Austria, and threatens to suspend Austria from membership of the European Union if this happens.
I am proud to support such a resolution.
Though our proposal to withdraw political invitations to any Austrian government representative to this European Parliament has not carried today, I give notice that we will further this proposal to ensure that any action within the powers of this European Parliament to combat the return of neo-Nazis to government in Europe can and will be taken.
I shall take the floor very briefly, Madam President.
I respect Parliament' s wish, as it has been expressed, but I must also say that the self-determination of peoples cannot be called into question, even by the European Parliament.
The document is unfair both to Austrian Members of the European Parliament, and to members of the Austrian national parliament, and it smacks slightly of jealousy and political interests, but also of business.
I do not believe that these signals will change the citizens' indifference to Europe.
The Austrian extreme right has been gifted an unwarranted present.
I very much welcome the position taken by the Italian Radicals; and I say this while making a clear historic and material distinction between Italian liberals and Austrian liberals.
I have for many years, in word and deed, been committed to the anti-fascist struggle and the struggles for equal rights and against xenophobia.
However, recent events - firstly, what were really threats by the Council of Ministers, then Mr Prodi' s threats against the Austrian Commissioner and, finally, the present decision - are things I cannot support.
I have not been able to vote in favour of the present decision even though I agree with many of its premises.
What we have here, first and foremost, is an incredibly ominous mixture of power, arrogance and impotence on the part of the European Union.
Not only do these decisions conflict with the Treaty and apportion to the institutions of the Union more power than that to which they are entitled but, worst of all, their effect will be counter-productive.
They will not weaken Mr Haider and the FPÖ.
On the contrary, they will strengthen them.
We shall obtain the very opposite of what we want.
That is not how you combat racism and a swing to the right.
. (DA) The Left' s Members of the European Parliament attach importance to the fact that, with today' s decision, Parliament has NOT supported the fourteen prime ministers' diplomatic sanctions against Austria.
The Left' s Members of Parliament therefore supported the Liberal decision' s powerful rejection of any form of xenophobia in Austria or elsewhere.
We attach crucial importance to applying, if necessary, the new provisions under Article 7 of the Amsterdam Treaty so that a country which, by its actions, infringes fundamental citizens' rights by means of discrimination and such like will have its voting rights in the EU' s Council of Ministers removed.
- (EL) The Freedom Party' s participation in the Austrian Government is a dangerous development for the European Union' s political future.
It is a 'Trojan horse' which is unfortunately reappearing in Europe larger than ever since the Second World War.
The European Parliament and the Union' s governments must politically isolate a government that includes admirers of Nazism and advocates of xenophobia.
The European Union bears a large measure of responsibility - and along with it the two dominant political movements, the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats - because, by their dogmatic adherence to the harsh financial policies of EMU, their dislocation of the welfare state and their deification of uncontrolled competition, they have pushed broad strata of society to the limits and made it possible for right-wing extremists of the Haider type to recruit support for their neo-Nazi ways.
In view of the fact that the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament do not permit us to table our own resolution condemning Haider' s party, as well as all the parties throughout Europe which disseminate racist slander and which are xenophobic and hostile to immigrant workers, we voted in favour of the compromise resolution. We did so even though we did not agree with some of its recitals or terms, in order to show our solidarity with all those in Austria itself who are opposing the Austrian extreme right and its demagoguery.
Our vote in no way constitutes an endorsement of the signatories to this compromise resolution, their present policy or their future attitude should the threat of the extreme right become more serious.
Some of these parties, despite declaring themselves to be republican and democratic, adopt the demagoguery of the extreme right, either out of connivance or as a vote-winning ploy, if only in openly and hypocritically blaming the immigrant workers in our countries for unemployment, and generally making their lives more difficult.
More generally, those signatories who take part in or have taken part in government in the various States of the European Union must take their share of responsibility in the influence which the extreme right has managed to gain since their policy, devoted exclusively to the interests of big business, has not included taking action likely to eradicate unemployment and the poverty it engenders, and has thus facilitated the xenophobic demagoguery of the extreme right.
This week we heard the first political cry of the new-born Europe.
By staunchly and speedily denouncing the participation of Jörg Haider' s xenophobic and anti-European party in the Austrian government, a situation without precedent since the second world war, the European Union has come into its political birthright and has confirmed that it is not merely an economic and financial Community, a large market, a "Europe of shopkeepers" .
It is a part of its future which is at stake right now, part of its very essence, its heart and soul.
The European Parliament was the first to speak up.
The appeal by the European Socialists, on the initiative of Olivier Duhamel, raised awareness and enabled there to be a firm and immediate political response to this unheard of and intolerable situation.
A firm attitude which the 14 European States have demonstrated unanimously and promptly, through Mr Guterres, by condemning the risk of the Austrian political situation getting out of control.
This courageous stance turns a new page in the construction of Europe.
A return to the roots, at last, for a Community built on the basis of the determination to turn our backs on a past history marred by hatred and exclusion and of adherence to the humanist values of openness and tolerance.
Europe has managed to stand up to condemn unacceptable events.
However, as it lacks the legal instruments to support this political will, since the sanctions stipulated under Article 7 of the Treaties are virtually impossible to apply, will it be able to keep its head high in the face of the threat of the systematic blocking of its entire institutional structure?
The whole credibility of Europe is at stake today, before we invite the recent and still vulnerable democracies of the former eastern bloc to join us tomorrow.
From now on Europe must put its words into action if it wishes to show the world the scope of its rediscovered ambition.
At this time when we are voting on a joint resolution against the inclusion of neo-Nazis in the government of a European Union Member State, I must express my regrets regarding a compromise text which is particularly lacking in backbone.
I am voting in favour of it because it is inconceivable that the European Parliament, after its excellent political debate yesterday, should not adopt a stance on this matter.
Personally, however, I shall continue to fight against the extreme right, to urge people to sign a petition to demand measures which may go as far as the exclusion of Austria, and to organise a major public demonstration in Lille on Saturday at 3 p.m.
Fascism and neo-Nazism are cancers!
The foul monster has been reawakened!
For me there is no question of allowing them to develop and to flourish without fighting with all our might.
Europe was born out of a desire for peace, freedom and tolerance.
There is no question of it allowing xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic ministers to be tolerated at within it.
Do not count on me to keep quiet, without doing or saying anything.
In yesterday' s debate in the European Parliament some Members of this Parliament expressed worry that we were interfering in the internal affairs of a Member State.
Such a concern is misplaced.
The European Parliament has never been slow to comment on developments in Member States with which they disagree.
We have condemned Basque and Irish terrorism.
We have opposed racism and the infringement of the rights of minorities.
It is our responsibility as a parliament, particularly as the democratically elected voice of the European Union, to comment on current political developments in Austria which are in conflict with the policies of this parliament.
By commenting and making our views known we are not preventing any party in Austria from forming a coalition government.
We are nonetheless, as is our right as well as our responsibility, telling them that if they go ahead then there are consequences arising from such a decision and in fact we are warning them beforehand.
Others would argue that we should suspend judgement until we see the detail of such an agreement.
Such a view is not only a political cop-out, it is positively dangerous.
In reaching an agreement with Jörg Haider and his party, the Austrian Christian Democrats would at a stroke be confirming political respectability on right wing extremism and also giving them access to power - both of which they will utilise as a launching pad for even greater electoral success.
That is why the European Union must make its position clear regarding the current situation in Austria.
- (SV) We have voted in favour of the common resolution in order to express our solidarity with all those who are exposed to xenophobia and racism.
We have also voted in favour of the resolution in protest against the detestable politics that Jörg Haider stands for.
We are nonetheless very critical of the methods which the 14 Member States have employed on this issue.
The resolution makes no clear reference to respect for the Member States' national identities and constitutional traditions in accordance with Article 6 of the Treaty.
What is also missing is a paragraph concerning the EU' s shared responsibility for the social and political developments in Europe and Austria which have been among the prior conditions for Mr Haider' s electoral success.
Today, as previously in the history of Europe, right-wing extremism is the result of insecure social and economic conditions of life.
The policy of cut-backs which has followed in the wake of adjusting to EMU has promoted the successes of right-wing extremism.
A radical policy to promote security and justice in each country is the best guarantee of democratic development in Europe.
- (DE) I am making this statement on behalf of the CSU.
It is intolerable that the EU should involve itself in the formation of the government in a Member State.
It has no right to do so.
Instead of prematurely condemning the FPÖ and the Austrian Government which is being formed, there should first be a critical examination and assessment of the governmental declaration and the party programme and policies of the coalition.
Only after such critical appraisal of the future policies of the parties involved in the coalition discussions can a decision be made as to whether this government is contrary to the democratic spirit of Europe.
This does not mean that we sympathise with Haider.
The CSU European delegates have no sympathy whatsoever with the leader of the FPÖ.
However, as politicians we must ask the question why 27% of the Austrian population voted for a party such as the FPÖ at the elections in October 1999.
We must concern ourselves with the reasons for this and try to deal with the reasons behind such results.
Only by tackling the arguments and policies of the FPÖ can we prevent a radicalisation of Austrian politics.
However, the resolution of the European Parliament does not question the reasons for the outcome of the Austrian vote and offers no options for resolving the problem.
For these reasons the CSU European delegates are against this resolution.
"He knew what those jubilant crowds did not know but could have learned from books: that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city."
It is with these phrases that Albert Camus, at the close of the long allegorical novel describing the difficult fight of the citizens of the town of Oran against the plague, reminds us, at the close of the Second World War, that the fight against Nazism, "the brown plague" as it was termed at the time, could not enjoy a definitive victory.
That because racial hatred, xenophobic violence, fear and rejection of what is different, have deep roots in all that is basest in humanity, they may re-emerge at any moment and take over any group of human beings.
In this light, the events we are seeing in Austria must be seen as tragic.
For the first time since the Second World War, a party which is openly pro-Nazi, racist and xenophobic has gained access to power in a European country.
Confronted with this threat, which carries with it the negation of the very idea which lies at the heart of the construction of Europe, nothing must deter us: not the legal quibbling about what the treaty does or does not permit, not the legitimate questions about the right to intervene, not the derisory respect for formal democracy, and, above all, not the feeling of powerlessness which grips us in the face of an event which we reject with all the force of our convictions but which we are powerless to control.
As the representative for a French overseas department, the island of Réunion, a land of racial and ethnic intermixing, where the population has been forged in the course of the last three centuries by the successive contributions of Europeans, blacks from Africa or Madagascar, enlisted men from India or Pakistan, or even Chinese, every day I experience the profound truth of the remark by Saint-Exupéry, "In being different to me, you are not doing me harm, brother, but enriching me!"
This human diversity is our main sources of wealth, and this is the reason why it is my duty to track down and to condemn anything which may be harmful to it, wherever it may exist.
For all these reasons I voted most decidedly in favour of the resolution before this House on the formation of the government in Austria.
Jörg Haider' s rise to power, with the inauguration of a conservative right-wing and FPÖ coalition government, is a sign of the terrible revival in Europe of a monster to which liberalism has given birth.
The success of the Austrian Freedom Party owes as much to the endorsement of respectability provided by the Austrian right wing and social democrats as to the policy of the latter, whose social disasters paved the way for extreme right-wing populism.
The resolution stipulates possible diplomatic means to isolate the new government politically without even mentioning the root causes of the resurgence of Fascism.
It can be explained by the feeling of helplessness of the people who are the victims of the ideology of mighty Mammon and by the choice of the ruling classes to promote strong government in order to take their policies of austerity and deregulation ever further.
In order to oppose the xenophobic statements of an apprentice dictator who is nostalgic for the Third Reich, we must take every opportunity we can to express our solidarity with the Austrians opposed to Fascism.
This is why we are voting in favour of this resolution in spite of its hypocritical references to a 'European democratic model' which bears more resemblance to a fortress which tracks downs, expels and imprisons immigrants without the proper papers, when it is not opening files on teenagers.
- (DE) I have just voted against the motion for a resolution on the situation in Austria in view of a possible government being formed between the ÖVP and the FPÖ.
I consider the casting of Jörg Haider as "Europe's scapegoat" (or even worse, neo-Nazi and Super Racist) to be counterproductive.
Of course I, in no way, agree with the publicised statements of this right-wing populist and fully condemn xenophobia and any downplaying of the Hitler regime.
However, I fear that a purely emotional reaction by Europe to the events in Austria will only multiply Haider's adherents.
The EU must not do him an invaluable PR service.
The strength of the FPÖ can be traced back to the weakness of the previous government and in this the Austrian socialists must bear the main responsibility.
It was only after they unsuccessfully solicited the FPÖ to tolerate a minority government and, obviously in vain, offered the Freedom Party ministerial posts, that the SPÖ begin its massive campaign against Haider.
It turned its threatened loss of power into an "heroic battle for the preservation of values" and an imminent, pure-and-simple "decision between democracy and non-democracy" .
This is a smear on the voters in my neighbouring country which I cannot condone.
We German Christian Democrats used another strategy in the battle against extremists and clearly disassociated ourselves from them.
We revealed the hollowness of the republicans who were nationalistic, xenophobic and anti-minority.
Today the republicans are no longer represented in most local parliaments.
The German approach is no guarantee that this radical movement will not grow again.
It cannot be copied arbitrarily since each Member State has its own specific conditions.
The ÖVP (Austrian People's Party), whose presence at European level we have also come to take for granted, is daring to attempt a coalition for the sake of governability in Austria.
It can only succeed if agreements are made which are solidly based on compliance with democratic principles.
The Council has become prematurely involved without waiting for the results of the coalition negotiations or a programme of government.
This condemnation is as unacceptable as the threatened breaking off of official contacts with the Austrian Republic.
Sound democracy means being alert and not blind in one eye.
We must take up a reasoned offensive against radicals on both the right and the left.
I would have liked to see the same outrage in Europe when the socialists were prepared to make common cause with the successors to the misanthropic and persecutory regime in the DDR.
In the meantime, they have been forming governments in German federal states.
I fully support the statements made by Commissioner Prodi in today's session. He spoke of the task of not isolating Member States but of doing everything to unite them in common European values.
- (FR) I voted against the joint resolution on the situation in Austria.
Austria is a free, independent and sovereign country.
Consequently, neither the Council, the Commission nor the European Parliament has the right to interfere in the internal administration of a Member State.
The Austrian elections were held in a free, proper and democratic manner.
Any interference by the European institutions in this country is therefore unacceptable; it is in violation of the European Treaty (Article 7 of the Treaty of Amsterdam).
Nevertheless, these same institutions showed no reluctance to accept Turkey as a candidate for membership of the European Union, despite its well-known human rights violations.
Nothing of this nature has yet occurred in Austria.
This precedent, created on the initiative of the Portuguese Presidency, is a worrying one as far as the future of the European Union is concerned. On the one hand, the political excommunication of Austria only demonstrates the worrying influence of conformist thought.
On the other hand, if tomorrow the governments of European Union Member States must first receive not the confidence of the nation but the endorsement of supranational bodies, then the very principle of democracy will be destroyed.
In such circumstances will it even be worth having elections?
This is not the way to create the conditions for the nations of Europe to live together in harmony and to be able to cooperate to achieve a shared future.
- (FR) The vote which has just taken place in this Chamber is a historic one for it is the first time we have ever debated the internal political situation of one of our Member States with such anxiety.
I believe there are circumstances when the question of principles and institutional regulations is obliterated.
I urge the Council and the Council Presidency to continue to protect the fundamental values of the Union.
I urge the Commission to be less cautious.
In this resolution, Parliament is assuming its responsibilities.
Having said that, in my opinion, the resolution adopted today is the absolute minimum, the very least we could do.
Personally I argued in favour of a rather harder line, and I supported Amendments Nos 1, 4, 6, 7 and 8, as well as the oral amendment tabled by the Socialist Group.
In fact I consider it essential for the Council to accept only purely technical relations with the representatives of an Austrian Government which includes members of the Austrian Freedom Party.
Including Jörg Haider' s party in a coalition government makes the presence of the extreme right an everyday fact of life in Europe, and sets an extremely dangerous precedent which may generate a serious aftermath in other Union Member States or in candidate countries.
The Austrian People' s Party must accept some historical responsibility for this.
It is our fundamental values which are at stake here. As the democratically elected representatives of the European people, we have no choice.
We must reject what is unacceptable, as our constituents demand.
Because, when the spectre of barbarism resurfaces, failure to oppose is tantamount to capitulation.
I abstained in the vote on adopting the resolution.
I condemn Jörg Haider' s racist and xenophobic policy.
However, I cannot accept that an EU body should intervene politically in the internal policy of one Member State.
I cannot therefore accept paragraph 4 in the joint resolution, and I cannot vote in favour of the resolution, even though it would be a vote against the extreme right.
- (SV) Obviously, the political leaders of Europe have a right and a duty to react against Mr Haider and his party.
The political leaders of Europe are entitled to express their view of political developments in another Member State, just as a prime minister can express his opinion about racist politicians in a local authority.
Finland' s experience, however, is that integration, rather than isolation, is the better way of combating antidemocratic forces.
I therefore voted against paragraph 2 of the resolution, which presupposes that all parties have respect for human rights.
The EU Presidency' s "common reaction" against the formation of the government in Austria is legally unjustified.
The treaties do not authorise this reaction by the 14 Member States.
Nor should we isolate the forces in Austria which wish to work for human rights.
Despite these objections of mine to the Council' s action and despite my view that it is better to work for integration than to employ isolating tactics, it was important to show clearly where the European Parliament stands on questions of racism, which is why I voted in favour of the resolution at the final vote.
That concludes the vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.25 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 3 February 2000.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the sitting on Thursday 3 February have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
I can see from your reaction that many of the Members of Parliament have not received the Minutes and clearly you cannot approve Minutes which you have not seen.
I therefore propose to submit the Minutes for your approval tomorrow morning, since obviously you do not have them and I must apologise for this.
I shall therefore postpone the approval of the Minutes.
Madam President, on a point of order.
The BBC this morning reported that a British Member of this House, holding a senior position within his delegation, continues to offer strategic advice to private clients, but does not state in the Register of Interests who these clients are.
The people of Europe have a right to expect their representatives to keep the public interest separate from private profit, but they can only be sure that this is being done in all cases if the information is both publicly available and easily accessible.
Madam President, since these matters are currently being considered by the Quaestors, may I ask you to use your influence both to ensure that the Register of Interests is brought up to date and modified to cover instances of this kind and, above all, to ensure that the Register is not only available for inspection by this House, but is also published on the Internet?
Thank you, Mr Davies.
I shall look into this matter with the College of Quaestors.
Madam President, I rise under Rule 9 of the Rules of Procedure of this House and allude to the same point raised by Mr Davies about the very serious allegations made on BBC radio this morning.
I would welcome an assurance from you that you will order an investigation to ensure that the two Members who were named in this particular BBC interview are not running their companies from this Parliament or from parliamentary offices, because that would be a very serious matter indeed.
In the past the British Conservatives' double standards have brought the United Kingdom' s House of Commons into disrepute, and there is a very real danger that such behaviour would have a similar impact on this Parliament.
Thank you, Mr Murphy.
As I informed Mr Davies, I promise to look into this matter this very evening with the quaestors.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I have already written to you on a number of occasions concerning how points of order are raised in the House.
I wonder on what point of order Mr Davies was speaking.
Why did he not mention the fact that one of his own Liberal colleagues also has a consultancy that is under investigation by the BBC? Is this House going to let its agenda be determined by scurrilous reports on a programme which bases its news items on lies, or is it going to get down to serious work and address the challenges facing Europe?
Gentlemen, obviously the quaestors who look into this matter are not going to be basing their assessment just on information from radio programmes.
They will look into the matter thoroughly.
Madam President, I believe I am expressing the feeling of a great number of Members of Parliament in most of the political groups when I say that the message which the President of the Commission sent to the new Austrian Chancellor a week ago created some unease.
Was it in fact necessary in this message to specifically offer his best wishes for success, or to say, "I am sure that you will demonstrate the same commitment as shown by your predecessors to liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms" , or indeed that he awaited productive and constructive cooperation? This is why, Madam President, I should like to see Mr Prodi clarify tomorrow exactly what significance he meant to give these words, so that nobody, absolutely nobody, can use this message, which is unusual and unwise, to say the least, to contribute, and that includes counter to the intentions of Mr Prodi, towards making the dangerous political operation taking place in Austria a commonplace.
Thank you, Mr Wurtz.
I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, not to start a debate at this point. This was just a procedural motion.
Let me remind you, Mr Wurtz, that we shall be seeing Mr Prodi tomorrow. He is going to make a statement on the Commission' s programme.
Naturally you will be perfectly free to ask him questions in the speeches you make following this statement, just as Mr Prodi will be perfectly free to answer you.
I suggest that you clarify this matter at that time, if you so wish and if Mr Prodi agrees.
Madam President, it is with great regret that I have to trouble you yet again with an issue that I have raised here twice before.
I have already told you on a number of occasions that we, on behalf of the Dutch contingency, would like a Dutch television channel.
There are now 28 channels here in this Parliament, including two Greek, one Portuguese, one Finnish and one Belgian, but still no Dutch, and as many as seven English, six German and six French.
I was promised back in September that there would be a Dutch channel by January.
It is now February and we are still waiting.
I would ask you once again to work on this.
I wonder what kind of mediaeval bureaucracy is at work here preventing a Dutch channel from being transmitted by satellite.
Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, let me say how disappointed I am, because I personally thought this problem had been resolved long ago.
I have clearly received your series of messages on this subject and I believe that Mrs Banotti has an answer for you.
I shall therefore, with your permission, give the floor to Mrs Banotti to reply to you under the procedural motion.
Madam President, as my dear friend Elly will know, I will do anything to make her and my Dutch colleagues happy.
I would like to assure you as quaestor in charge of this issue that we have had technical discussions about the various channels on television and radio, and I have already started mailing colleagues in this connection.
If it is of any comfort to her, the Irish have not got their channel yet either.
There seem to be intractable technical problems but we are definitely working on it.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify this.
I am not so sure that our Dutch Members will be reassured on the grounds that the Irish Members too are unable to receive a national channel.
I think we must do what we can to see that all Members can receive their own national channel.
Thank you, Mrs Banotti, and also the other quaestors for your effort to achieve this.
Madam President, I should like to tell Mr Wurtz that the Commission' s doctrine is not the Brezhnev doctrine of limited sovereignty and that, until proved otherwise, we are not in the situation where Articles 6 and 7 would be applicable.
Austria, therefore, is perfectly entitled to form its government and the President of the Commission is perfectly entitled, and even duty bound, to offer Austria his best wishes.
Mr Wurtz should perhaps remember that not so long ago other members of his party, the French Communist mayors, were sending bulldozers against immigrant hostels in France.
Agenda
The next item is the final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents, pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
a) Sittings from 14 to 18 February 2000 in Strasbourg Relating to Wednesday:
President.
In view of the fact that no Council representative is able to attend on Wednesday evening, a number of groups - the Group of the European People' s Party, the Group of the Party of European Socialists, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left - requested that the Council statement on the Cyprus question and Mr Brok' s report on the pre-accession strategy for Cyprus and Malta were dealt with during the joint debate and that these two items plus Mr Swoboda' s report were brought forward in the agenda.
This would then give us, for Wednesday' s sitting, the two Council statements on the coherence of Union policies with development policy and on the UN 'Human Rights' sitting, followed by the joint debate on Cyprus and then the reports by Mr Swoboda, Mr Corrie, Mrs Frassoni and Mr Knörr Borràs.
Is there anyone who wishes to speak on behalf of these groups in favour of this proposal?
Since no one wishes to speak, I shall put this proposal to the vote.
(Parliament gave its assent)Relating to Thursday:
President.
I have received several proposed amendments relating to the topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
On the subject of human rights, I have received two proposals for additions: one from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party for an item entitled 'Cambodia' and the other from the Group of the Greens, for an item entitled 'Pinochet' .
As you know, we can only include five items in the 'Human Rights' section.
According to the list given in the final version of the agenda, there are already four items.
We can therefore table only one additional item.
Who wishes to speak on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party to propose the addition of an item on Cambodia?
Madam President, it is remarkable that the European Parliament has not yet adopted a position on the possible release of Mr Pinochet, despite the fact that international arrest warrants have already been issued.
Since the Belgian Government' s appeal to a higher court was declared admissible last week and since the decision has essentially not yet been taken, it is important for Parliament to at last give out a strong message, a message which should signify that nobody can escape a just trial.
It is inconceivable that the European Parliament, which quite rightly pays so much attention to respecting human rights, should fail to adopt a clear stance on this.
Madam President, this matter is far too serious to be dealt with by means of an urgent procedure at this time.
Firstly, the European Parliament has already expressed its opinion on the subject of General Pinochet, but, furthermore, there are certain questions to be borne in mind.
The first is that this matter is sub judice in several European countries, and I would like to remind Members that there is still no European judicial area nor a European legal system.
We are in favour of the International Criminal Court, but it does not yet exist.
Secondly, there is currently a democratically elected government in Chile, led by Ricardo Núñez, whose first declaration was that all those who have committed this type of crime must face justice, and I would remind you that the Chilean justice system, which is independent, is currently examining 60 complaints lodged against General Pinochet, concerning his crimes against humanity.
I believe that this is a serious issue which we are obliged to follow up, but it should not be dealt with by means of urgent procedure.
We believe that justice should be done in this case, but this is not the most appropriate procedure.
(Parliament rejected the proposal) President.
We now come to the third proposal which is for 'Environmental disasters in the waters of the Danube' , a proposal tabled by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
Is there a Member who wishes to speak in favour of this proposal?
Madam President, the agenda has been rearranged so many times that I would simply ask the Chamber to support the present proposal.
It is not a very time-consuming matter, but it is extremely important that it should get through Parliament now and that there should be no delays. It is in fact about protecting the euro against counterfeiting, which is an extremely urgent matter.
We have tried to drive this proposal through. I should therefore be very grateful indeed if the Chamber could support it.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Relating to Friday: President.
Relating to Friday, on Friday morning we have an oral question on postal services and the Group of the Party of European Socialists is requesting that the motions for resolutions should be put to the vote immediately after the debate and not in Brussels, as envisaged in the final version of the draft agenda.
Is there a Member who wishes to speak on behalf of the PSE Group in favour of this proposal?
Madam President, with apologies to my friend, Enrique Barón Crespo, I should like to speak against this proposal.
I am surprised it has even been made, because we came to an agreement following an exchange in the Conference of Presidents.
I think that your proposal, Madam President, to keep the debate and the vote separate, with the debate on Friday and the vote at a later date, is a reasonable one.
The reason is as follows: this issue concerns no less than 1 800 000 employees within the European Union.
We already have a directive. It is not an old one, it was issued in 1997.
Deciding upon future policy lines, with a view to a new directive, rather hastily, without having had time to consult the trade unions or have discussions with all the social partners, I feel, runs counter to the spirit we wish to inject into the debate on matters which directly involve the social operators.
I propose, therefore, that we should keep the arrangements as per the agenda, with the debate on Friday and the vote at a later date.
Madam President, I clearly owe Mr Wurtz an explanation, and I am going give this explanation before the whole House.
We had reached this agreement on principle in the Conference of Presidents.
At the time, I did not know that Commissioner Bolkestein was going to appear next week before the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism to discuss this matter. My group has debated this matter and considers that, given the current situation of the whole process of market integration and deregulation in such a sensitive area, it is appropriate that Parliament makes an initial statement, regardless of any action it may take in the future, so that Commissioner Bolkestein may take good note and in order to guide next week' s debate.
Madam President, I should simply like to ask Mr Wurtz to take a second look at what this is about.
It has nothing to do with any disputes on the substance; it is just about the following question: when will the Commission - having already had a year and a half to do this - finally be in a position to table the directive? Our sole intention in tabling the motion is to ensure that the deadlines which were promised are now finally adhered to, and it is therefore important that we act as quickly as possible.
That is why I should like to support the Social Democrats' request to hold the vote on Friday.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Madam President, as you know the Cederschiöld report has been taken off Thursday' s agenda. That ought to mean that we have more time on Thursday.
Since we will be very pressed for time in the topical and urgent debate, in view of the many matters to be addressed in an hour and a half, I simply wanted to ask whether the sessional services might not check to see whether we could have an extra half an hour for the topical and urgent debate so that there is sufficient speaking time.
In general the way in which sittings have been managed in recent weeks seems to me to have been very chaotic.
Last Thursday speaking times were extremely tight and then suddenly we had between one and one-and-a-half hours when there was nothing on the agenda and we had to wait for the vote.
On Friday of this week we have one single item on the agenda.
That is absolutely absurd.
I really should like to ask that a review be carried out of the way in which sittings are managed.
This sounds perfectly feasible. We shall therefore see if we can extend the urgent debate by a half hour, considering the withdrawal of Mrs Cederschiöld' s report.
This is all I am talking about here, just that.
Madam President, I would like to talk about an item on the agenda for Wednesday, which you have not yet announced.
I understand that there is no argument about the fact that the Council declaration, on the next sitting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, is not going to include the declaration on the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, and that this declaration has been proposed for the plenary part-session in March, so that it may be delivered in a solemn and formal way.
I understand that there is agreement on this issue.
Madam President, this afternoon, in this Chamber, reference was made to a series of reports on the BBC Today programme this morning, which claimed that certain of my colleagues were running personal lobbying companies or somehow misusing their position as Members of this House.
These are serious allegations.
They are completely untrue, malicious, politically biased and were broadcast in the full knowledge of their falsehood.
We are taking legal advice.
My colleagues' register of interests is complete.
If we find that any Member of this House or their employees collaborated with the BBC in this farrago we will expose them to the opprobrium of this House.
Quite, we agree absolutely.
b) Sittings of 1 and 2 March 2000 in Brussels
Sustainable urban development - rural development - EQUAL initiative
The next item is the joint debate on the four following reports:
Report (A5-0026/2000) by Mrs McCarthy, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Communication from the Commission to the Member States laying down guidelines for a Community initiative concerning economic and social regeneration of cities and of neighbourhoods in crisis in order to promote sustainable urban development (URBAN) (COM(1999) 477 - C5-0242/1999 - 1999/2177(COS));
Report (A5-0028/2000) by Mr Decourrière, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Communication from the Commission to the Member States laying down guidelines for a Community initiative concerning trans-European cooperation intended to encourage harmonious and balanced development of the European territory (INTERREG) (COM(1999) 479 - C5­0243/1999 - 1999/2178(COS));
Report (A5-0024/2000) by Mr Procacci, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the draft communication from the Commission to the Member States laying down guidelines for the Community initiative for rural development (LEADER+) (COM(1999) 475 - C5­0259/1999 - 1999/2185(COS));
Report (A5-0034/2000) by Mr Stenzel, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the draft communication from the Commission to the Member States establishing the guidelines for Community Initiative Programmes (CIPs) for which the Member States are invited to submit proposals for support under the EQUAL initiative (COM(1999) 476 - C5-0260/1999 - 1999/2186(COS))
Since Mrs McCarthy' s flight has been delayed slightly, I propose that we hear from Mr Decourrière first.
. (FR) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners and members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, I was given the task of drawing up the European Parliament' s report on the Community Initiative Programme INTERREG III.
Upon referral to committee, we examined over a hundred amendments and, so far, 17 amendments, some of which have already been presented in committee, have once again been tabled.
Before discussing the content of the resolution, I should like to inform you of the elements which I took account of and which guided my work as rapporteur.
First of all, I would like to remind you of the function of the INTERREG Community initiative, founded on the principle of transnationality and innovation.
This programme constitutes a driving force for development on the European scale.
INTERREG is one of the four Community initiatives scheduled for the period 2000-2006, and is the one with the largest budget for implementation, i.e. EUR 4.875 billion as opposed to EUR 3.604 billion at the present time.
The INTERREG initiative, created in 1990, is built upon the wish to make the regions of Europe ready for a 'Europe without frontiers' in the context of establishing the great single market.
At the time of the reform of the Structural Funds in 1994 and 1996, the INTERREG CIP has incorporated new strands contributing to the development of trans-European transport and energy distribution networks.
These programmes promoted cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation within the European Union by encouraging balanced development of the Community area.
The INTERREG III programme, for which we have before us today the guidelines issued by the European Commission, pursuant to the terms of European Community Regulation No 1260 de 1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds, continues these measures.
It is based on three strands. strand A organises cross-border cooperation between regional and local authorities in border regions, at both internal and external borders of the European Union, on the basis of joint cross-border development strategies which Member States' local and regional authorities are responsible for implementing. strand B governs transnational cooperation between national, regional and local authorities in various Member States or applicant countries regarding regional development, transport networks and the environment.
Member States, i.e. national authorities, are responsible for implementing this strand. Finally, strand C organises interregional cooperation between different regions of the Member States or third countries to exchange experience under strands A and B and cooperate in the fields of research and technological development, subject to consultation with the European Commission which is responsible for its implementation.
The new INTERREG programme, in the form in which we have received it, takes into consideration the needs engendered by enlargement to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe and to island regions and most remote regions.
The Commission proposes redistributing the INTERREG funding as follows: between 50 and 80% for strand A, 6% for strand C, and the remainder for strand B, i.e. from 14 up to a maximum of 44%.
The European Commission draws up the list of eligible regions for strand A and strand B. It bases its assessment principally on the map of regions eligible during the previous programming period.
The most remote regions may benefit from support under strand B. The Commission draws up a list of priority areas and eligible measures which for strand A is not comprehensive, but is comprehensive for strand B. The Commission reserves the option to, at a later date, put forward topics it considers important to the exchange of experience and strengthened cooperation between regions, for strand C.
The adoption procedure for the programmes is established by the general regulations on Structural Funds.
Proposals are drawn up by Member States and are submitted for approval to the European Commission, which checks their conformity with the general guidelines, adopted.
These proposals must include a number of elements, an overview of the cross-border or transnational priorities and strategies, a description of the measures necessary to their implementation and an indicative financial plan.
I belong to the great majority of Members of Parliament who voted in favour of continuing the INTERREG Community Initiative Programme.
I regret that Parliament was not informed about the appraisal of the previous programme, which would have enabled the new measures implemented to reach optimum efficiency, but I acknowledge that this was not an easy operation.
I also regret the fact that we had an extremely short period to work in, as the text was examined in parliamentary committee on 24 November last year and then on 26 January. I further regret the fact that neither the regions, nor the representative regional organisations were involved in framing the programme.
In promoting cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation, this cross-disciplinary instrument is the very incarnation of a regional policy on the European scale intended to encourage harmonious and balanced development of the Community territory.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the conference on rural development held in Cork from 7 to 9 November 1996 set rural development as one of the European Union' s priorities since it is essential in order to maintain the existence and continued development of agriculture, to provide farmers with an environment containing the necessary infrastructure and services, and to ensure greater respect for the environment and a better quality of life, diversification and job creation.
An integrated development policy for all rural areas in the European Union is therefore needed, consisting of the following elements: an integrated, multi-sectoral approach, simplification of administrative procedures, improvement of the partnership between European institutions and national and local actors and protection of the environment.
In its 1998 policy paper, Agenda 2000, the Commission set out two key principles on which rural development policy should be based: the recognition of the multifunctionality of agriculture and the need for an integrated strategy for developing rural areas.
The first principle means creating a new 'pact' between farmers and society, making the farmer 'steward of the countryside' and ensuring that society is prepared to pay for the environmental services needed to safeguard the countryside' s recreation value.
The second principle is based on the fact that nowadays many of the job opportunities in rural areas are outside the traditional agricultural sector, so that a complete development programme which integrates rural development policies with agricultural sector policies needs to be implemented. In this way rural development is becoming a pillar of the CAP.
The LEADER Community initiative was launched in 1991 to promote a new bottom-up approach to rural development and to diversify measures by adapting them to local needs.
The following objectives were set: improving the development potential of rural areas by calling upon local initiative; promoting the acquisition of knowledge in the rural development sector; disseminating this knowledge to other rural areas.
LEADER I applied to the rural areas covered by Structural Fund Objectives 1 and 5b, and 217 local action groups participated in it, with financing of EUR 1 155 million.
LEADER II (1994-1999), for which a total evaluation has, unfortunately, not yet been completed, had a wider scope than LEADER I: there were probably over 800 beneficiaries and the sums allocated, after reallocation of resources, probably amounted to over EUR 4 000 million.
In October 1999, following the success of LEADER I and LEADER II, the Commission decided to extend the initiative.
For the 2000-2006 period provision has been made, unfortunately, only for a total contribution of EUR 2 020 million, and an indicative allocation for each Member State has been set.
LEADER+ differs from the previous stages in that all rural areas will be eligible. It is also more ambitious, and better geared to the challenges which rural areas will have to meet.
The main changes are as follows: all rural areas will be eligible to benefit from LEADER+; the selection criteria for local measures will be more rigorous; integrated local development plans will be introduced as priority themes, such as the use of information technology, improving the quality of life, and adding value to local products.
I therefore approve of the continuation of the initiative because, as I was saying, it emphasises the innovative development strategies and because it is more ambitious, even though there is still the need to make the criteria by which areas qualify as rural more flexible so as not to penalise rural areas with high or low population densities.
I believe the networking system to be vital for the exchange of information and skills and for the implementation of joint projects between different areas of the Union and I repeat that in order to be fully successful it must exploit inter alia measures already in existence, such as the Carrefours.
I share the Commission' s preference for the use of global grants while urging, however, that the accounting requirements of national and regional authorities should be precisely and painstakingly defined.
I regret the delay with which LEADER, as was the case with the other three initiatives, was presented to Parliament and for the knock-on delay this entailed for the whole procedure.
Finally, I am concerned by the paucity of the amount allocated, if you consider, in addition, that this time the programme is available to all the countries of the Union and will be implemented for a year longer than the previous LEADER II.
I would like to thank the Commission services for their helpfulness and cooperation, and I would like to thank my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture for the contribution they have made through their amendments.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my report on EQUAL takes the form of an opinion delivered as part of the process of consultation on a new Community initiative, whose objective is to promote transnational cooperation and through it new methods of combating all forms of discrimination and inequalities in connection with the labour market.
The report was a major undertaking because it also incorporates opinions from four further committees - from the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
This Community initiative succeeds the two forerunner programmes ADAPT and EMPLOYMENT and has a much smaller budget of around EUR 2.8 billion.
The initiative adopts a completely new approach, which is to develop innovative employment models within transnational geographical or sectoral development partnerships.
The intention is clear: targeted projects are to be developed at transnational level, projects which are based on the employment policy guidelines of employability, entrepreneurship, adaptability and equal opportunities.
This objective is very much to be welcomed and also meets with a broad consensus in this House.
In addition, EQUAL should feed into the National Action Plans for employment and its implementation should be able to be monitored through these Action Plans.
It is an important Community initiative which, together with the three other initiatives, URBAN, LEADER and INTERREG, is financed out of the Structural Funds.
In my report I have tried to reduce excessive administrative expenditure and to build greater openness and flexibility into the system of development partnerships.
I consider technical support to be necessary but, given the problems with the former TAOs, no new TAOs should be set up without Parliament' s approval so as to prevent political responsibility from being passed down to the technical assistance level.
Nevertheless, technical assistance is necessary.
Particular attention is also paid to the dissemination of results and learning from each other by identifying best practice, with special emphasis on mainstreaming.
I have endeavoured to secure the widest possible support for the report. This has meant a reduction in the number of amendments - from over 100 in committee to 22 for the plenary - which has also created numerous opportunities for compromises.
A compromise has now also been reached on the issue of asylum seekers.
However, in this context, Madam President, to allow us to work out the details, I should like to request that the vote on the EQUAL report be held not tomorrow but on Wednesday.
I believe that it is important for the Community initiative to be able to begin on time and therefore for the report to receive overwhelming support so that the Commission is also obliged to take into consideration the constructive proposals made by the European Parliament, because Parliament put the appropriations for EQUAL in the reserve precisely so as to ensure that Members' ideas were also reflected in this Community initiative.
In this connection, the European Parliament is also justified in insisting that it should be possible to amend the thematic priorities only after a further hearing in Parliament.
EQUAL should live up to its name, and this is my firm intention. It should provide equal opportunities for all those at a disadvantage in the European Union.
It should prevent society from splintering.
It should prevent exclusion from being part of everyday life. Everyone should be given the opportunity to benefit here from a common initiative regardless of their age, gender or origin.
That is my intention and I would ask the House to give this report overwhelming support!
Madam President, it is in itself an achievement that we are having this debate on the new URBAN Community initiative and it is an achievement that I am here tonight because Air France cancelled my flight at 2.10 p.m. but I am here!
Just a year ago when the Commission produced its proposals around Agenda 2000 it axed the URBAN initiative.
Yet we as politicians knew that there was a groundswell of support for continuing this initiative into the year 2000.
Parliament, therefore, can take credit for a successful lobbying campaign to put URBAN back on the agenda and get the Commission and Council to make a U-turn.
Urban policy has always been at the forefront of EU policy.
In my Member State, for example, we are developing a strategic approach in a White Paper and an urban government taskforce is looking at the problems of urban communities.
With eight out of ten people in Europe living in urban areas, it is right that we help our most deprived communities to tackle the all too familiar problems of deprivation, social exclusion, joblessness, crime, drug dependency and all the problems that are associated with that.
For example, in my own region, in Manchester, the URBAN Community initiative has been a tremendous success.
URBAN funds have been invested in one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the UK, in Moss Side.
The Millennium Youth Park project is helping to get young people re-engaged in regenerating their own community and in addition to support for small businesses and social policy we are beginning to see a turnaround of a very deprived urban community.
The work of this URBAN agenda was then taken out to the wider community with an active communication and publicity campaign in local supermarkets and famous British pubs.
This is the kind of good practice we would like to see extended across the EU in terms of communication and publicity.
As regards the specific guidelines governing the initiative, they are broadly defined to give scope for local and regional diversity.
We agree that they ought to be indicative in nature, allowing the maximum flexibility to ensure that we target specific programmes.
In committee we are not in favour of reducing the number to 50.
We are in favour of reduction overall but we believe that the arbitrary number of 50 is not the key factor.
Instead, we should go for good-quality projects that can act as a catalyst to effect change and renewal, to attract inward investment in terms of loans and venture capital and to achieve a multiplier effect.
The Member States should therefore be able to propose a reasonable number of areas within the financial ceiling of their allocations.
In the designation of local URBAN programmes we need to make good use of local indicators and statistics on deprivation and health to enable us to more effectively target the most affected areas.
In the UK the local index of deprivation is a very good example of a widely used standard and statistic to help determine not only EU but national and regional assistance programmes.
This needs to be acknowledged as a tool and resource in addition to the EU criteria.
I would ask you to take on board local indicators to help us do that.
Our most deprived urban neighbourhoods face a plethora of problems: high unemployment and often very low-paid precarious employment, poverty and social exclusion.
Often these problems are compounded by poor health and housing stock and a culture of drug dependency.
We therefore have unstable communities which are infiltrated with crime, drug-dealing and gangs.
This is all too familiar in many of our urban areas.
All these complex problems undermine the quality of life for our urban residents, yet we have the potential in these areas to create growth and prosperity.
That is why again, in my report, I have asked that action under the URBAN Programme should not merely provide a single solution to a single problem: these areas do not have single, "mono" problems.
Instead, communities in urban areas should be encouraged to present integrated action plans to tackle their specific urban problems, using EU resources as a value added to local actions.
I would like to see those actions extended to cover health and anti-discrimination, as provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Community initiative means community involvement.
Some of the most active and committed proponents and agents of change in our urban areas are local residents.
We need to encourage them to participate in designing and delivering projects for these programmes.
The time-scale therefore proposed by the Commission is very ambitious.
It is better to have quality projects with the active participation of community groups than to have projects delivered on time but without local participation.
The Commission must of course provide full disclosure and transparency concerning the selection criteria used for the new urban initiatives but it must also disclose the consultancy networks which are being used to deliver the exchange of good practice.
This is important in the interests of transparency and the overall effectiveness of networks.
Finally, I should like to emphasise that in order to address the problems facing the post-industrial city we require local participation.
We need to deploy the energies of the unemployed, the underused skills of youth and the experience of age to tackle these problems.
We shall thereby be able to replace poverty, dependency and alienation with equity, initiative and participation.
This will help us to restore the credibility of the EU and the confidence of citizens that Europe can deliver local action to solve local problems.
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(IT) Mr President, as the rapporteur, Mrs McCarthy, has already pointed out, we can certainly consider URBAN a success for the European Parliament with regard to the debate held last year on the reform of the regulations.
As we have heard, the objective of URBAN is the promotion of innovative strategies to promote economic and social regeneration in urban areas, bearing in mind that 80% of the population of Europe lives in cities.
Creating a functioning urban environment in terms of social policy requires a policy of long-term job creation, action to combat poverty, measures to assist low-income groups and old people, facilities for children, racial and ethnic integration, better opportunities for participation, a targeted public health policy including measures to prevent drug abuse and concerted crime prevention measures.
The Communication from the Commission takes account of the need to adopt approaches combining a range of economic, social, and infrastructural measures.
However, we must remember that, in addition to URBAN, a number of other Community instruments are also available in the social sector: innovative actions under Article 6 of the ESF regulation, pilot projects, particularly the new preparatory action for local commitment to employment that has just been introduced by the European Parliament under the 2000 budget and the EQUAL and INTERREG initiatives and mainstream ESF activities.
As the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs stressed in its opinion, the Commission must therefore recognise the need to exploit synergies in this context while avoiding duplication of multiple funding.
While, on the one hand, we believe that steering committees should ensure that the various projects are coherent and complementary, we would on the other hand urge the Commission to reinforce exchanges of information and coordination between the departments involved.
Not only is this coordination essential but, as we stated in our opinion, exchanges and the dissemination of expertise and good practice must also be essential.
Mr President, the importance of this initiative is increasing constantly as economic and social problems in Europe' s cities intensify and the public feels more and more out of touch with the administration of its city or neighbourhood.
That situation will be compounded by social reclassifications resulting from European Union enlargement, and we must therefore make provision for the economic regeneration and social cohesion of our cities.
Addressing those problems is all the more urgent in view of the marked spread of cities into the surrounding areas and in view of the cities' historical and cultural role.
However, in order for such an effort to succeed it is necessary to secure the commitment and participation of the public as a whole and to enlist the support of the less active social groups and the groups particularly affected by the economic and social crisis.
Here, we wish to stress the need for the balanced involvement of women, and the agencies that represent them, in planning and implementing the URBAN initiative programmes.
As the Committee on Equal Opportunities, we also stress the need to finance infrastructures that will facilitate professional activity by women, mainly by harmonising their professional and family commitments, and more generally infrastructures that promote solidarity between the generations, social solidarity.
Effective implementation of this initiative could have a cumulative result because it could inspire similar action at regional and local levels, thus increasing its political importance still further since women need to feel the effects of European policy in their day-to-day life in real terms.
Mr President, our committee welcomed the priorities proposed by the Commission for the URBAN programme of better integration of local communities and ethnic minorities and improved security and crime prevention.
In committee we thought that it was necessary for the economic and social regeneration of urban areas to go hand-in-hand with the creation of an atmosphere of tolerance towards minorities and therefore for measures designed to reduce racism and xenophobia to be an integral part of programmes to be funded by URBAN.
We considered that increasing public confidence by combating everyday urban crime was one of the central tasks of urban regeneration.
Our committee noted that innovative and effective action to combat and prevent crime at local level would require a whole array of measures including the incorporation of crime prevention in town planning, action to prevent juvenile delinquency, the reintegration of offenders, and models for effective local cooperation between the various parties involved, for example the police, the courts and social services.
We adopted our recommendation unanimously in the committee because we felt that it was particularly important to continue URBAN - which in the past has been implemented successfully - because, as we see it, programmes of this kind are the only way in which we in the European Union will succeed in ensuring that in the long term all those who live in the European Union enjoy peaceful coexistence.
For this reason we very much welcome programmes of this kind.
I should like to comment on the concerns which the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has with regard to the largest of the four Community initiatives, INTERREG III.
It must also be possible to a considerable extent for social measures to receive support under INTERREG III.
In the light of the fact that 50% of unemployment in the Union is essentially structural and given the particular sensitivity of the situation in the border regions - I need only refer to the possibility of unwelcome migration - this is not only reasonable but imperative.
The measures eligible for funding listed in Annex II of strand A do also seem encouraging in this respect.
In reality, however, the Commission communication does not contain a single provision for the Member States with these integrated approaches for social and employment policy aspects.
I should therefore like to draw your attention in particular to the inclusion of increased numbers of vocational training measures, especially in areas with high levels of long-term and youth unemployment.
Employment policy measures should also be eligible for funding under strand B, especially for the applicant countries as part of the pre-accession strategy.
In general where the employment policy measures are concerned it would seem to me to be necessary for appointments to the joint cooperation committee to be made on a regional basis - because the local expertise required for these specific purposes is only available at regional level - so as to avoid these measures becoming too abstract and therefore proving disappointing.
The fact that administrative expenditure on INTERREG III is - in my opinion - still excessive is something which we can and indeed always must criticise, although it almost seems to me as though this is unavoidable with the Commission' s support programmes.
However, I should like to point out that it is precisely here that this is fatal.
It is precisely where employment policy is concerned that we should work towards measures which are as simplified as possible so that the social dimension of the EU is once again given the importance which it deserves.
Mr President, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism considered, amongst other things, the report on LEADER+ and, as a result, agreed to support the process of decentralisation in the management of actions, believing that that process could be effective on two conditions: that local action groups represent the general interests of the local community, and that Commission control mechanisms are utilised to prevent local and regional political authorities from using LEADER+ resources to support civil groups and organisations which are related to those authorities.
We ask for a guarantee that the decision-making bodies for the projects are represented equally by three elements: political representatives and public administrations, companies and economic operators, and social operators, including unions and non-governmental organisations.
We would particularly like to stress that there must be balanced representation between men and women in all of these bodies.
We would also like to stress that the main objective is the promotion of strategies for sustainable development, whose positive effects would extend to a broader geographical area than the local community itself, and we therefore feel it is appropriate for the projects to be integrated into the development programmes, included in Objectives 1 and 2, and into the regional planning of the regions and countries in which they are located.
We are pleased that all the rural areas of the Union may be involved in LEADER+, but we believe that it is necessary to concentrate Community resources in the less-favoured regions in order to facilitate the process of socio-economic cohesion within the Union, and that state governments should not divert these resources towards objectives other than cohesion.
The Committee believes that projects financed under action 1 should place value on the potential of endogenous development, in particular based on local traditions, techniques and practices, on specific production and on the management of sustainable energy.
The Committee supports the Commission proposal to concentrate actions in small selected areas and believes that, given the dispersed nature of many rural inhabited locations, the minimum demographic ceiling for the selection of a project should be reduced to 10 000 inhabitants.
We believe it is necessary to coordinate the development objectives and management mechanisms of actions 2 and 3, financed by LEADER, with those of other actions financed by other Community programmes relating to interregional and international cooperation and partnership, such as INTERREG, SAPAR, PHARE, TACIS and MEDA, in the same areas.
Mr President, Mrs Stenzel, ladies and gentlemen, before addressing the EQUAL report itself, I should like to make a point of principle in connection with the employment guidelines on which the report is based.
The basic objectives of an EU-wide employment policy are laid down in the guidelines and include employability, entrepreneurship and adaptability.
These objectives are obviously intended to make employees as useful and usable as possible to the economy.
However, the aim of an approach which really sought to reduce discrimination effectively and in the long term would have to be people' s self-determination.
Only then does it stop being a question of economic usability and start being about people having equal rights to shape their own lives.
Mrs Stenzel' s report has, however, turned out very well, at least where the prescribed guidelines are concerned.
All asylum seekers and refugees are to be included explicitly in the programmes, although this should be self-evident. Nevertheless the Conservatives voted against this in the committee.
I would ask them the following questions: does your policy seek to marginalise people?
What is the idea behind preventing people from working when they wish to do so? Does this not stand in stark contradiction to the guideline on employability?
It is also worth mentioning that this is a mainstreaming programme, because there remains a shortcoming in the report.
Particular emphasis is given to the point that women' s opportunities on the labour market ought to be improved and that to achieve this more crèches should be built.
Anyone who lets men happily climb the career ladder and worries only about childcare places without fighting against the way in which the work of reproduction is shared out unevenly has not - and unfortunately that includes women - understood the concept of mainstreaming!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism adopted this opinion on the EQUAL report at its concluding discussion with no votes against and one abstention.
I am deliberately stating this at the beginning of my intervention to make it clear that there is in fact an alternative view to that of the committee responsible, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
This cross-group support for the opinion is explained by the conclusions, which are devoted to the question of how issues related to regional policy, transport and tourism can be combined with action to combat all forms of discrimination and inequalities in connection with the labour market.
The members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism of course also identify a number of areas of the Commission proposal which they would criticise: firstly, for example, the insufficient thematic guidelines laid down for the development partnership activities; secondly, the fact that strict selection criteria for evaluating the project proposals will only be drawn up only at a later stage by the Commission and thirdly, the fear of excessive administrative and technical expenditure on project management by the Commission and the technical assistance bodies.
That is why a ceiling needs to be set for administrative expenditure.
The committee based its conclusions on these critical comments.
We attached particular importance to linking the creation of new jobs for disadvantaged and excluded people in the social sector, in tourism and in small and medium-sized enterprises with promoting the establishment of new small and medium-sized businesses bearing in mind the necessary economic structural change.
Dovetailing the activities under the Community initiative with the European employment initiatives is an essential requirement and a crucial prerequisite for attaining the objectives of the EQUAL programme.
We fully support the innovative approach towards setting up development partnerships and organising the exchange of experience at European level as an integral part of the EQUAL programme.
The specific target of deriving European added value brings the regional cooperation up to European level while retaining the cooperation of the various regional operators.
This is a good approach and that is why we have also supported it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteurs, who have managed to produce excellent reports in just a short time.
However, criticism has been voiced within my group over the timing of the preparatory work of the committee.
The reports are late, and, in addition, they were very hastily discussed by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
A good opportunity to discuss the results, good practices and shortcomings of the earlier programmes was therefore lost.
Our group is keen to stress the importance of cross-border activity under the INTERREG programme and especially cooperation focusing on areas outside the European Union.
Such important areas include the Balkans and the Adriatic region, but, in my opinion, we should not ignore cooperation with Russia either.
Our group would once again like to raise the issue of the practical monitoring of funds and emphasise the importance of better coordination of the INTERREG, TACIS, ISPA and PHARE programmes.
This coordination is at present lacking, and the Commission has not as yet made any precise proposals to improve it.
We here in Parliament are waiting for the Commission to give the committee a more detailed explanation of the issue as soon as possible.
It is of decisive importance to get local business, organisations and other players involved in the practical implementation of programmes.
Experience shows that projects of cooperation need better planning and closer monitoring and need to be generally more successful.
Projects have often remained half-finished, and their efficiency has been drained by administration and bureaucracy.
We also have to demand that our partners in cooperation be committed to projects and fulfil their share of the agreement.
Our group is reviewing a few amendments that were rejected by the committee.
I would like to mention here again the URBAN report, in which the rapporteur, in the explanatory statements, has dealt admirably with the issue of the minimum sum of EUR 500 per inhabitant as per the Commission' s guidelines.
It will not work as an automatic target, but must be applied in the target area according to prevailing conditions.
This is such an important matter for consideration that firm conclusions have to drawn.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, INTERREG is one of the most European of all the Structural Funds.
Here, projects covering only one region or one country will not receive support; they will have to cover neighbouring regions in two or more countries.
Unfortunately this is only true for part of the money, that is only for the borders within the EU.
But it is precisely the regions on borders with third countries which need an operational instrument to foster cross-border cooperation.
The regulation pretends that there is one, but there is not.
The fact is that the Commission has not amended the regulation for years, although Parliament has been calling for it to do so for some time.
The practical consequence for these regions in the immediate future is that support for border areas will again be downgraded.
Since 1996, Parliament has been calling for a joint fund to be created for cooperation with third countries in order to resolve difficulties.
Nothing has happened!
The difficulties are once again being allowed to persist, to the detriment of the regions concerned.
Parliament is here renewing its call for an improvement and for cross-border cooperation, and we look forward to a joint fund being created and to the regulation being amended once more in cooperation with the other Commissioners.
We want a Europe for the people and not a Europe of paper-pushers!
Mr President, a third of EU money is invested in funds for all kinds of development causes.
According to my group, this is excellent if, as a result of this, deprivation within regions, towns and population groups is eliminated or if health and the environment improved.
That is a question of solidarity and progress.
But dishing out increasing amounts of money is no guarantee for improved spending.
The local councils and regions where the money ends up have since gained practical experience. They find it is extremely difficult to spend the money on their most needy causes.
Anything related to economic growth and infrastructure usually scores quite highly, but social goals and environmental causes often cannot count on approval.
Since there is great uncertainty surrounding the way in which rules are interpreted, local councils and regions have now started to enlist the services of expensive bureaux.
The task of these experts is to gauge to what extent European Commission officials would be prepared to approve plans.
In some cases, I get the impression that it is not about solidarity or alleviating the most desperate problems, but about propaganda and upholding vested interests in exchange for the European Union' s blessing.
It seems that the key goal there has become the construction and painting of propaganda panels advertising the fact that such and such a project has been co-financed by the European Union.
Too much money is wasted on propaganda and investigation bureaux, consultation and control, and a great deal of money ends up back in the country where it was collected in the first place.
After the planned accession of new Member States with their 100 million inhabitants, the prosperity level of which is at one third or two thirds of the average level of the current EU Member States, this squandering will generate even more protest.
In the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, the Confederal Group of the European United Left was in agreement with the draftsman of the opinion, Mr Nogueira Román, on LEADER.
He was right to point out that it is not a good idea to share out this funding between all rural areas.
If there is a choice between investing in innovation projects or injecting most of the funding into bringing on deprived areas, we would opt for the latter as this does the most to benefit equality.
After all, innovation in areas that have already grown prosperous is paying dividends even now and taking place without European funding.
A second point where we need to focus our attention is the possibility of nepotism and abuse of power within regional and local councils.
The emphasis is on local groups in which the authorities, non-profit-making organisations and profit-making companies join forces.
The discussion has centred on the allocation formula to be applied.
In this respect, one of the variants considered is reminiscent of the Dutch polder model, the structurally planned cooperation between government, trade unions and employers' organisations.
Let us not forget that elections for local councils and regional parliaments are held so as to represent the entire population.
So, really, these bodies should already provide for a balance, and take into account the wishes of the union movement and environmental movement in the process.
My group welcomes the fact that the union movement and environmental movement are expressly given their own roles to play, as their input in society is important in our view.
This could prevent local governments that are functioning in a short-sighted or insufficiently democratic way from neglecting their duty of input from the very start.
But the fact that we now fear abuse of power and nepotism indicates that, unfortunately, democracy is not fully functioning yet.
One of the objections is that, due to the restricted role of the elected bodies, businesses gain more influence.
As long as the economy does not weigh up the needs of all in a democratic way but is more concerned with making a profit for the benefit of a few, it is questionable as to whether democracy functions better under the rule of employers than under the rule of local councils.
We believe in 'one man, one vote' more than 'one share, one vote' .
Mr President, there are economic frontiers within the European Union, and the internal market with the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is fully operating at this time.
But for the internal market to work effectively and for the single European currency to be a success it is important that all regions within Europe, of which there are over 100, can economically compete within this very challenging environment.
Some areas within the European Union are economically very strong and heavily exceed the average income per capita.
There are poor regions within the Union which need to be given European assistance to improve the fabric of their economies so that they can compete within the European Union structure.
That is why, when we look at the EU Financial Perspective between 1989 and 1993, and 1994 and 1999, we find such a large proportion of the EU budget was put aside for the administration of the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund.
There are twin problems that still remain for many regions in Europe: firstly, the lack of adequate infrastructure in terms of road, water treatment facilities and related transport networks; secondly, the need to put in place initiatives to combat youth and long-term unemployment, which is a constant social problem in many urban and rural parts of Europe.
There must always be a commitment to ensuring that we do not only build a Europe of the cities alone.
We need to ensure that job creation initiatives are in place to promote employment opportunities in the small- and medium-sized enterprise sector in rural parts of Europe as well.
The core aspects of this debate this evening relate to the operation of the EU initiative programmes, namely, the new INTERREG III initiative, EQUAL and the LEADER+ scheme.
Between these three programmes there must be a clear demonstration of the commitment of the EU to promoting cross-border development, combating the problems of long-term unemployment and supporting rural development schemes.
Mr President, quite a few towns and cities within the European Union have to contend with deprivation.
The Member States do not always have sufficient means at their disposal to address this deprivation adequately.
This is why it is useful for the European Union to continue to support the Member States and, if necessary, give additional support under URBAN.
Over the next seven years, the Commission' s proposals concerning URBAN will entail a reduction in both the Community budget and the number of areas standing to benefit.
In common with Mrs McCarthy, I have to note that the number of areas has been drastically reduced.
It is desirable for Member States to have a certain amount of freedom to determine the number of projects themselves within the confines of a certain budget.
As far as the budget is concerned, as already stated, URBAN is there to support and complement national policy.
In order to generate extra means if necessary, I think it is entirely logical to turn first to the Member States and private investors.
Consequently, we cannot support Amendment No 2 of the Greens, as borne out in the committee meeting.
In addition, I am of the opinion that funding for a town or neighbourhood, especially where Community contributions are concerned, should incentivise.
Structural support is said to cause subsidy-dependence. We would then be overreaching ourselves.
I would like to finish off by making a general comment on INTERREG.
In my opinion, funding for cross-border initiatives should only be provided if it is actually required by the regions.
When projects are implemented, it is also important that they do not contravene general Community legislation.
According to the report issued by the Court of Auditors on the year 1998, this is not an imagined risk.
Hence our amendment in order to prevent contradictions between general policy and actual projects.
Before I begin I will take the liberty of expressing my consternation at the way in which Austria has been prejudged by 14 Council representatives.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as part of the reform of the Structural Funds the Community initiatives are being pruned to a total of four.
I welcome the continuation of INTERREG and the priority which it has been accorded.
However, the delayed presentation of the draft guidelines has caused a number of problems.
The regions have not been sufficiently involved in the preparation of the guidelines, although this demand was often made in the debate about the reform of the Structural Funds.
There is no direct transition between INTERREG II and III, the practical consequences of which are uncertainty in terms of planning and gaps in funding.
That is a shame because it threatens perfectly sensible projects.
When INTERREG is implemented, it will need to be coordinated and synchronised with the other financial instruments concerned.
This is particularly important in order to increase the efficiency of the funds deployed.
However, problems will arise in particular from the fact that under PHARE, for example, funds are managed on an annual basis and allocation of appropriations is project-related, whereas INTERREG funds are multiannual and are allocated on a measures-related basis.
This will cause practical problems in the future, and I hope that despite this it will be possible to implement INTERREG effectively.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Community initiative LEADER proved itself to be an effective instrument to initiate innovative developments and pilot projects both within and outside rural areas.
The preservation of this Community initiative in particular, in the form of a new version - LEADER+ - is therefore greatly to be welcomed.
The new LEADER+ programme now covers all rural areas in the European Union, which will open up greater possibilities for potential projects.
It is important for there to be coordination between LEADER+ and the other support initiatives in the European Union, but coordination with other national support schemes is also just as important.
Overlap between support schemes must be avoided and at the same time it must also be possible to exploit any synergistic effects.
In this context the aim of stepping up networking between eligible zones under LEADER is very welcome.
Agriculture is one of the cornerstones of the rural environment and it must be possible for it to have a part in the LEADER initiative. In the same way, through the LEADER initiative, structural change in agriculture can be supported by creating new jobs in rural areas.
Attention must be paid in the LEADER+ programme to all the sectors of the economy in rural areas; only a combined effort will reap an optimal result.
LEADER must now move into the implementation phase.
The operational programmes need to be approved as quickly as possible by the Commission, which implies practical and efficient administration of applications and completion of the application approval process as quickly as possible.
Five months are provided for this. That seems to me to be rather too long.
Efforts should be made here to achieve shorter times.
Because anyone who develops a project and has it ready will also want to start implementing it as soon as possible.
Despite all the delight over the reworking of this Community initiative LEADER+, I do still have one further concern. In its proposal the Commission called for an observatory for the LEADER+ programme without going into detail on how this proposal would be implemented.
For me this raises the following questions: who will work there?
How will these people be selected?
Where, above all, will the required money come from, and where should this observatory be located? I do think, though, that the LEADER+ programme has not got a penny to spare on additional administrative tasks, which in the normal course of events would have to be carried out by the Commission in any case.
In addition, experience from other fields where observatories have been set up shows that, apart from rather dubiously creating jobs, they are not of any great benefit.
I would therefore call on the Commission to fulfil its monitoring duties directly itself and to do all it can to ensure that LEADER+ programmes run smoothly.
Assessment and publication are part of this, and it has of course assumed responsibility for these in the past.
Mr President, the majority of the borders, which have divided Europe for centuries, were artificially created, separating single geographic spaces and creating serious disparities in terms of balanced development and cohesion.
Our internal borders, or what remains of them, no longer cause wars, but they do continue to generate economic backwardness, social barriers and a lack of cultural communication between the peoples of Europe.
The Community' s institutions are obliged to work towards overcoming these border scars, which contradict the spirit of European unity.
The economic and social cohesion which we propose is based, by means of the INTERREG initiative, on territorial cohesion and on the integration of border areas and the outermost regions of our continent.
INTERREG has always been at the heart of a genuine Community policy for regional planning and a truly polycentric notion of our European territory.
Although the European Parliament supports this initiative, our only regret is that we have to approve a resolution on it before we have seen any evaluation of INTERREG II. However, we are aware that we must not delay this third version further, since otherwise we would be jeopardising the success of various projects and the continuity of the projects which are currently underway.
The success of INTERREG is clear and that is the opinion of the local, regional and national authorities which have participated in the cofinanced projects. The people who have participated in this initiative have learnt the importance of learning together, of innovation, of sharing projects and good practices and of understanding and tolerating each other.
There are many interesting questions relating to it, the monitoring centre, the principle of concentration etc. However, I would like to concentrate on the management bodies.
We must create joint, interregional and transnational management bodies, in which all local and regional authorities, as well as economic and social operators, play an active role.
There must not be any repetition of cases of parallel projects on both sides of a border.
We must create a cross-border culture, and to this end we must be innovative with regard to administrative cooperation, imaginatively overcoming existing barriers and overcoming the difficulties posed by the differing levels of competence in each Member State, in each region and each municipality.
A project must never fail to be implemented as a result of difficulties in communication.
During debates in committee, we have also pointed out the difficulties involved in coordinating INTERREG with other annual or biannual financial instruments, such as MEDA, TACIS or PHARE.
This Parliament' s motion for a resolution has been very attentive to these difficulties, making proposals capable of solving them to the Commission and setting reasonable deadlines for making the necessary changes.
Mr President, my reason for wanting to contribute to this debate is because the URBAN initiative, in Ireland in particular, has been quite successful and I am keen that the European Union make a further contribution in that area.
It is a sad fact that there are many hundreds, if not thousands, of communities in the European Union suffering very severe poverty and disadvantage.
Even in Member States and cities that are extremely wealthy we have large numbers of people living in ghettos, in situations where there are inadequate facilities, where schooling is very poor, where the physical infrastructure is under-developed and where drugs and other phenomena are rife.
It seems to me that in order for the European Union to demonstrate that it has a role in helping the citizens of the European Union it must give assistance to Member States to demonstrate that the Union works for these citizens and their families.
The programme has been extremely successful in Ireland, as indeed I know it has been successful in other countries.
It was quite slow in getting off the ground there, but it was slow because it was necessary to have the local people themselves develop these programmes.
It is important that they use their initiative and their own local expertise in developing this initiative.
It would be very easy to have these programmes developed quickly and on time if you brought in outside professional experts but that would undermine the whole purpose of the URBAN programme.
I should like to make one further point before I conclude: we should insist where this money is being allocated and where this programme is being developed that it be done in the context of a serious URBAN development policy.
This, unfortunately, is not the case in Ireland.
I applaud the innovative approach of the EQUAL programme and the aim of integrating discriminated groups into the labour market.
The development partnerships are a very clever idea, even though they are experimental.
I have two major concerns, however, about the development partnerships.
They should be accessible to smaller groups, accessible for them to be able to devise, implement and monitor the programmes.
We need to have a wide element of flexibility within the programme.
I have also expressed concern in the past about the use of simple language and not using jargon, so that it becomes accessible to everyone.
I am glad to see that this was accepted into the report, but I cannot agree with Amendment No 9 because that amendment really is not expressed in simple language at all.
My second concern was that some discriminated groups have specific problems, for example, disabled people' s access to the workplace.
Projects should also specifically address this problem.
These concerns must be looked at while setting up the programmes.
I certainly intend to do that with organisations and groups in my constituency in the West Midlands.
I now turn to the controversial issue of asylum-seekers and refugees.
Although I am not in favour of those refugees who have been refused refugee status and threatened with repatriation, having access to EQUAL, I would support the possibility of access for all other asylum-seekers and refugees.
It is only fair and right for them to be able to access EQUAL in the same way as everyone else.
Thank you, Mr President. Ladies and gentlemen, with the LEADER report, rural development is very much to the fore.
This does not happen all that often and it is gratifying, especially as the LEADER programmes have been key elements in the Union' s rural development policy.
It must be pointed out that these programmes have not only been instrumental in structuring regional planning, but have also been vital instruments for economic and social cohesion in often vulnerable areas such as, for example, areas experiencing depopulation.
It must be stressed that in order to become eligible under the LEADER programme, local operators have combined forces, debated and prepared projects.
These programmes have, therefore, been important channels for participative democracy, the rationale of the citizen for Europe.
So, the concept for LEADER+ should retain all the positive aspects of previous programmes.
One urgent question is therefore raised: why, when this programme has been successfully run for ten years, is LEADER+ still classed as experimental?
Are there so many other European schemes which can boast 800 specific original experiments which were particularly successful? For how much longer is the Commission going to leave LEADER at the experimental stage instead of bringing it online as part of the general concept of mainstreaming of rural development?
Moreover, I wonder at the reduced guidelines to which the Commission wishes to restrict LEADER+.
At a time when, Commissioner, after Seattle, we Europeans are fighting on the grounds of multifunctionality in rural development projects, why should we confine ourselves to a few limited criteria with resources that are far from sufficient? As an ecologist, let met tell you that the precautionary principle and sustainable development require much more diversified and many-sided approaches.
In this connection, the Commission is proposing to limit yet further the cooperation actions of local action groups to only candidate countries.
A better solution would be, as indeed the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism suggests, strengthened coordination between LEADER+ and the Community cooperation and partnership programmes, such as INTERREG, PHARE, SAPARD or MEDA.
The fact is, showing solidarity with Eastern Europe, is all very well, but it is not enough.
The tradition which has already been established by the previous programmes with the countries of the south, particularly the countries around the Mediterranean, must not be abandoned.
Therefore, once more, we can stress that what the area of agriculture and rural development really needs is codecision. Codecision would give us effective means to progress programmes of this type, which require cooperation and cross-disciplinary application.
Mr President, I have a few very brief comments.
We are debating the planning phase and guidelines for the four Community initiatives without access to any substantive and complete appraisal of the previous period.
This is not very good at all.
Programmes and objectives usually turn out to be far too ambitious and their results are not always satisfactory, while the lack of transparency and complexity of the plans often allow considerable scope for mismanagement and even fraud.
The Community initiatives we are debating could play a positive part subject to certain preconditions.
They must, however, not be subordinated to the objectives and aspirations of a more generally negative economic and social policy, but must develop their own self-sufficient role.
For example, adapting EQUAL to the objectives of employability and the flexibilisation of labour relations transforms this initiative into a new version of local employment contracts.
Extending the LEADER initiative to every area in the Union entails the risk of marginalising deprived areas even more, to the benefit of more developed areas.
The INTERREG initiative must include eligible areas with special emphasis on border areas, islands and both mountain and non-mountain areas, such as the prefecture of Arta in Greece, whose omission from Annex I of the Commission' s communication is ill-considered.
Mr President, rural development has been identified by this Parliament and the Commission as a priority policy area, and I would like to welcome here today the Commissioner responsible, Commissioner Fischler.
Our response to rural decline has come late in the day, but I suppose better late than never.
Family farming is now recognised as central to the European agricultural model and is an objective to be addressed, certainly within the time-scale of Agenda 2000.
In my view the next five years will decide the future of thousands of marginal family farms.
It behoves all of us to do everything possible to ensure their survival.
As the Commissioner knows, farming alone will not be sufficient to ensure the sustainability of rural communities.
For this reason we need the coordination of all policy areas capable of impacting positively on rural development.
In this regard LEADER has established itself as an effective development initiative.
It provides the opportunity for local communities to identify their development potential and become actively involved in addressing those problems.
The voluntary participation of people in development programmes is something that is not always fully appreciated.
Yet, through LEADER, there can be no doubting its effectiveness as an integral part of broader EU and national policy.
In conclusion, while welcoming Commission approval for LEADER+, I am concerned about the time delay between the ending of LEADER II and the commencement of the new programme.
I urge you to look seriously at this problem.
A break in continuity will have serious consequences for the programme and certainly a disruptive effect on voluntary and professional workers.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, having read the Commission communication on the INTERREG III initiative, and pointing out that I took part in the vote on Mr Decourrière' s report within the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, I should like not only to expressly reiterate our agreement in principle with the initiative as presented and, particularly in the context of INTERREG III B, with the Commission' s recognition of activities contributing to the restoration of landscapes run down due the level of prices in the agricultural sector, a sector in which many associations, especially cynegetic, are already making enormous investments in my own country.
I should also like to give my considered support to the comments of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, particularly and primarily in deploring the failure to integrate the most remote regions into strand A of the programme or in commenting upon the lack of precision in the selection criteria for the implementation methods for strand III C and, finally, in requesting that Members of the European Parliament should be involved in the European Observatory for cross-border, transregional and interregional cooperation.
I should further like to express major reservations with regard to the exaggerated tendency which, in the Commission communication with reference to INTERREG III and III B, involves associating environmental protection exclusively with the development of Natura 2000, which I think is often an excessively abstract means of safeguarding ecosystems, from which users are in danger of being excluded or severely restricted.
Finally, if the Commission and the relevant Councils of Ministers permit, I should like to stress that the Members of the European Parliament should be given more information on the procedures relating to the implementation of the INTERREG projects and, beyond that, of similar initiatives.
It would be even better if they were involved to a greater extent in the processes of framing and implementing the programmes concerned, otherwise it will be difficult to determine and defend their role in relation to the local and national authorities and even the citizens.
Mr President, first of all, I would like thank the rapporteur of the EQUAL report, Mrs Stenzel, very warmly for all the efforts she has made to master this very complex subject matter on behalf of all of us.
EQUAL is a very difficult programme because it attempts to combine so many old programmes and yet aims to view them in a different light, doing so with less money than was available in the previous funds.
This is an arduous task.
Only, the number of people affected by these programmes has not really dropped.
This is why it is so hard to strike a balance, not only between the different countries or the different components, but especially between the different groups listed in the programme, and in fact this is what has preoccupied us to date.
Comments are made here and there to the effect that one group should get more funding than another.
I, for my part, have focused on the position of the handicapped and the elderly within the framework of the programme, and I have to say that their position could well have been overlooked altogether if it had not been for the European Parliament devoting special attention to them.
Although a few other groups have been mentioned, it is the Member States, in particular, which are on the lookout.
For example, I know of one Member State that would like to use a large proportion of the entire programme for one component, namely refugees.
I would, therefore, ask the Commissioner to ensure that a balance is struck between these different groups.
It should not be the case that one Member State, under the pretext of calling on the subsidiarity principle, can decide that all funding should go to one group.
I think that this will have to be monitored closely because otherwise we will end up in that situation against which Mr Meijer has warned us so vehemently, to wit, that vested interests will emerge and that people will think that the money is theirs to spend.
This is not the case!
It has to be redistributed time and again.
It should be used for innovative projects and it should not completely disappear into the Finance Minister' s treasury funds.
That is not the intention and that is an important point that we need to bear in mind here.
I believe that the remaining problems that we have faced within this Parliament, and which in large part stem from the fact that it is so difficult to strike the right balance, can be solved.
As far as the Commission is concerned, I hope it will be able to join in the compromise that is being concluded here in this Parliament, mainly with a view to reaching a balance.
I would just like to underline this - the situation is, of course, a little precarious - Parliament has, for the sake of convenience and safety, placed the EQUAL programme on the back burner for the time being, so that Parliament has yet to be persuaded of the way the funds are to be distributed.
I believe that this is actually a good thing.
The position of Parliament in this whole procedure is somewhat unclear.
The Rules of Procedure do not shed any more light on the matter and that is exactly why this back burner is extremely useful.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the INTERREG initiative promotes efforts to achieve economic and social cohesion in the European Union.
However, I should like to stress INTERREG' s particular importance for the Balkan area, where political developments and hostilities over the past few years have had major economic repercussions for neighbouring countries and especially for my own country, Greece, which is the only Member State on that long-suffering peninsula.
For Greece, for the neighbouring countries Italy and Austria, but also for Europe as a whole, the social and economic restoration of the Balkans, bringing political stability, is a vitally important matter.
So far, some Balkan countries have received aid from the PHARE and Obnova programmes, while others have not.
During the new programme period, in view of enlargement and bearing in mind that funding has been provided for from new financial instruments and regulations, such as ISPA and Sapard, it is considered absolutely essential to coordinate the funding of all three strands of INTERREG with other financial aid to third countries.
Accordingly, we welcome the related references in Chapter 7 of the European Commission' s proposed general guidelines for INTERREG.
The efforts to coordinate the planning and so make it more effective must extend to all the programmes equally, and I say that because in the MEDA programme during the last period some problems arose which have to be overcome, so that we can have equal treatment for all the third countries participating in that programme.
I should like to end by saying that the planning of the new inter-state cooperation zones has taken no account of the Mediterranean' s geographical peculiarities, which would justify the creation of a special zone for coastal and island regions.
We therefore ask the Commission to pay special attention to the issue of maritime and island cooperation when zone planning next comes up for review.
I end by stressing the need for the European Union to persist with such initiatives, which strive to eliminate inequalities between our regions, and to foster their harmonious development.
And since this is St. Valentine' s day, as a former Mayor of a regional city, I propose that we should all declare our love for all the European regions which need that love.
Mr President, I want to talk about the EQUAL report, especially the issue of the policy on refugees.
Last week, we had a very impassioned discussion about the formation of the Austrian Government.
Today, we are already discussing the Austrian coalition government' s policy on refugees because Mrs Stenzel, who is the author of the EQUAL report, of course represents Austria' s governing conservative party and its policy.
The most startling aspect of her original report was that she wanted to limit aid to the small group of refugees covered by the Geneva Convention, that is to say so-called quota refugees or UN refugees.
In actual fact, it is the other refugees, namely those outside the quota and those not covered by UN aid, who need aid the most.
The Committee rejected this discriminatory proposal and decided that all refugees should have a place on the EQUAL programme on identical conditions.
Some members of the Committee, however, supported Mrs Stenzel' s proposal and wordings.
As I see it, this means that Mr Haider' s politics are already casting their shadow over this Parliament.
It is therefore crucially important that the Chamber should be as emphatic as it possibly can be in establishing the fact that all refugees are to have a place on the EQUAL programme.
I want, finally, to say that I had certain misgivings last week when we discussed the formation of the Austrian Government but, when it comes to discussing and criticising its policy on refugees, I have no misgivings.
I hope that the Chamber will be just as committed this time.
Mr President, during the last EU Financial Perspective from 1994 to 1999, when there were 13 different initiatives in operation, the INTERREG II cross-border programme was an important initiative.
The fact that the next round of Structural Funds 2000-2006 includes the INTERREG initiative is I believe, a very clear indication of the importance which is attached to it by national EU Member States.
The INTERREG I programme between 1989 and 1993 and the INTERREG II programme between 1994 and 1999 have proved an absolute success in terms of bridging closer social and economic development between bordering Member States.
Coming from the border counties in the north-west of Ireland, I have seen over the years the important role which INTERREG I and II have played and I am delighted to welcome INTERREG III.
The Commission is allocating 67 million pounds towards the INTERREG III programme, which will be spent on continuing the development of cross-border economic projects between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The European Union has played a key role in developing the border county region in Ireland over the years.
The European Union is the single largest contributor, with 80 million pounds to the International Fund for Ireland.
The European Union contributes 75% of the Peace and Reconciliation programme.
All in all, INTERREG, the International Fund for Ireland and the Peace and Reconciliation programme have all played an important role in the developing peace process.
Mr President, I am taking the floor to speak about INTERREG, but I shall confine myself to a few criticisms, which will clearly also enable me to keep to my speaking time.
We have all spoken favourably of this programme' s confirmation and of the extension of the sectors it covers to include the field of transnational and interregional cooperation, in addition to cross-border cooperation.
However, this does not blind us to the fact that the majority of resources - 50-80% - will be reserved for cross-border cooperation, for INTERREG IIIA. Therefore, we still think the decision to consolidate the current areas of cooperation in this strand, regarding the selection of eligible regions, is wrong and contradictory.
We hope that the Commission will want to look into this and acknowledge Parliament' s position in practical terms, and not just with a formal tribute.
Cross-border cooperation continues almost exclusively to be an issue concerning landlocked areas and, where exceptions have been made for maritime areas, their selection is not transparent and they often suffer from compensation from other Community policies.
This discrimination is much more serious for islands that have a regional status that can only be linked to areas of an exclusively maritime nature.
This is in line with ongoing discrimination, which ignores Article 158 of the Treaty on island regions with regard to cohesion policies.
More serious still is the fact that this is occurring while ignoring the new situation associated with the approach that has been adopted towards the enlargement process for the inclusion of regions such as Malta.
This has given rise to the proposals we are making to at least extend the regions eligible to include the NUTS III Sicilian provinces which have a frontier with Malta and to include all the regions of the Adriatic which share a frontier with Balkan regions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to express the satisfaction I have in noting that the most remote regions, including the French overseas departments, have received some attention in connection with the INTERREG III initiative, opening up new perspectives for their cooperation with other countries in their geographical area, even though it is true that more could have been expected, particularly with regard to access to the various strands.
For a long time, probably a survival of our colonial heritage, our regions have fixed their attention on the European mainland, ignoring and even scorning their closest neighbours.
That time is now past.
Our regions have become aware of belonging to an environment that they are connected to, not only in geographical terms but also in terms of their culture and the history of their peoples, hence the intensely expressed aspiration to become more deeply rooted in this environment.
This increased awareness does not, however, affect identity alone.
It is fostered by a fair appraisal of our assets.
So, for example, the island of Réunion is located on a trade axis between the countries of southern Africa and those of south-east Asia. It cannot afford to remain outside the regional alliances being forged in this area, lest it miss out on a historic opportunity, and the same applies to our regions in the Caribbean.
At last we are convinced that our young people may start to see an end to the tragic unemployment, the source of so much despair, if we can export to neighbouring countries the know-how which we have gained thanks to the operation of the European structural funds.
INTERREG appropriations may be used to make our regions into veritable European Union bridgeheads into these geographical areas, giving it worldwide scope.
I am counting on the Commission, and specifically on you, Commissioner, to allocate adequate resources for effective action.
Mr President, Commissioners, I greatly welcome the possibilities for increased trans-European cooperation under INTERREG, but my concern is that the proposal offers fewer opportunities in this respect for maritime than for other areas.
I understand the Commission' s own concern that distance may prove detrimental to effective cooperation.
Nonetheless, there are many maritime areas between which links are already established.
Various local authorities around the North Sea provide a prime example of this.
INTERREG could well allow enhancement of such cooperation.
In consequence, I seek some small adjustments to the guidelines to provide a little more flexibility and to accommodate the ways in which the interests of maritime areas can fall between strand A and strand B. These adjustments include clarifying the possibilities for cooperation between maritime areas and permitting greater development of practical and visible projects, particularly those of an infrastructural kind.
Such measures will put maritime and insular areas on an equal footing with other areas of the EU.
I hope for their adoption.
Mr President, our group welcomes the horizontal thrust of the EQUAL initiative so that, if you are a British Muslim physically disabled in some way you no longer have to chose which category of discrimination you belong to as a target group: you can use your expertise and experience to solve problems, rather than being defined as the problem.
There is a lot of expertise within the relevant organisations which deserves to be shared.
We also welcome the recognition of the need for evaluation and the dissemination of best practice for the tightening up of the transnational level.
We are concerned, therefore, as others have said, at the number of amendments which seek to exclude even further some of society' s most excluded, by aiming for a very narrow definition of "refugee".
My group will not be supporting those amendments.
We are also concerned at the number of amendments which, in seeking to introduce greater flexibility, run the risk perhaps of obscuring responsibility for the management of the EQUAL initiative.
Mr President, I am very pleased to see URBAN orientated towards a more integrated approach which attempts to solve interrelated problems.
Yet, there is some risk of dilution of effort. If we pursue too many objectives, our overall effectiveness suffers.
Of course, every instance of a deprived urban area is a separate case.
But there is a common factor, a hard core, comprising unemployment, the resignation or withdrawal of public services and the disappearance of small and medium-sized enterprises, both commercial and other kinds.
I would wish URBAN to be orientated mainly towards providing answers to those causes of urban deprivation.
For this, of course, central policy must interact and be coordinated with development policy, so that the latter too can be reorientated and can work synergistically with the objectives of any URBAN programmes implemented in our countries, and so that it is not just using them as an alibi for its own shortcomings.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I shall confine my observations to Mr Decourrière' s report.
The INTERREG Community Initiative Programme is an extremely important tool in terms of the development and regional planning of European territory, most particularly with reference to effectively taking into account the relationship between the centre of the European Union and its outlying regions.
INTERREG must, therefore, be an instrument promoting territorial cohesion throughout the Union if we do not wish to see a two- or even three-speed European territory.
It is obvious to me that the regional and local authorities, and their representative bodies, the Committee of the Regions and, of course, the European Parliament should have been involved in the clearest way possible and at the earliest possible opportunity framing this programme.
Indeed, I am forced to observe that this was not the case when the Commission drew up its communication, published on 13 October last year.
Even though I approve of the general guidelines of INTERREG III, I feel it is extremely important to ensure better coordination between this programme, financed by the ERDF, and the other external cooperation funds, including in particular the European Development Fund, intended for ACP countries.
In this connection, I should like to thank the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism for adopting one of my amendments adding the EDF to the list of these funds.
The most remote regions, particularly the four French overseas departments, must be able to coordinate INTERREG III and the EDF in order to fund, in turn, cooperation projects with their ACP neighbours in their respective geographical areas.
Furthermore, I would ask the Commission to please reconsider the limited opportunities that have been offered to the most remote and island regions according to the guidelines put forward in the communication.
It is essential for these regions to be able to benefit fully from INTERREG III, just like all the other regions in the Union, especially now that the REGIS programme dedicated to such isolated regions has been dropped.
Finally, in conclusion, I would like to express my regret at the low level of funding allocated to strand C, for interregional cooperation, even though the added value this offers the Community is undeniable.
Mr President, my starting point is the EQUAL report and equality between men and women, although I must admit that it is sometimes hard to talk about this issue, which has a feeling of déjà vu about it when you are my age, in any case.
Unfortunately, it is necessary to point out again that we do not have equality.
A breakthrough in this regard may perhaps lead to changes in other areas, however.
For me, equality certainly does not mean that both parties to a marriage work the whole time and hand the children over to a nanny, alias an immigrant who has not had the opportunity to obtain another job.
If that is the case, we have not progressed one little bit since pagan times.
No, equality means that we all participate in both working life and family life.
Unfortunately, developments are not moving in that direction.
On the contrary.
I think, therefore, that paragraph 7 contains something very central, i.e. that EQUAL will be used as a testing ground for developing and promoting new ways of delivering employment policies.
One can only hope that it succeeds.
I should just like to say, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, that if I am not here when the Commission responds - not that I have asked any specific questions, but I should nonetheless hope that the Commission has been paying attention - then that is because the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities is meeting to discuss women in the decision-making process at the same time as the present debate is going on.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, those who work on rural areas know that, of the programmes which the European Union has managed, the LEADER programme, both LEADER I and LEADER II, is one of its success stories, and I hope that the same will be true of LEADER+.
One of the reasons why it has been so successful is that the basic concept of the LEADER programmes aroused substantial interest in activities amongst the population concerned.
I am glad that LEADER+ is to remain true to this underlying concept.
There is a problem, however, which we need to address together.
Because LEADER is a kind of workshop with a bottom-up approach, a huge number of ideas have come to fruition in recent years through LEADER I and II which of course at some point will no longer be brand new or as successful as they once were. And because of the programme' s success and its basic approach they will of course at some point then be dropped from LEADER.
That is why, where the good LEADER projects are concerned, we need to ensure that those which have proved to be outstanding are not suddenly discontinued; instead the ideas which have proved to be worthwhile need at some stage to be transferred into the standard programmes as a reliable, positive component of our support to rural areas.
Of course this is also the basic idea. It is to take new ideas and try them out in LEADER, with the participants on the ground, with the local organisations on the ground, with many non-governmental organisations, with the churches, with all those who have helped actually to get new ideas up and running in rural communities.
Here we must ensure that the good schemes, those which are really excellent, are then somehow transferred into rural development policy to safeguard the future of this laudable work.
My request to the Commission is that it should make sure that the organisations and sections of the population which get involved really are accepted. There should be no attempt to have one or other organisation, which is just being formed with a view to contributing a new idea and is not yet so well known, pushed a little on to the sidelines, say because of official local or regional policy.
Have faith in the successful results which LEADER has had so far.
At the beginning it is sometimes a little like chasing a rainbow if we say that a plan is too idealistic.
And then when the work and the action start something emerges which the official policy, including ourselves at this level, could never have imagined would suddenly have developed so well.
That was the charm of LEADER, and that should please not be lost!
Mr President, I welcome the EQUAL initiative and the report which highlights the need to distinguish between actions to combat discrimination against women and actions to combat discrimination against minority groups.
Women are not a minority and often suffer double discrimination as members of minority groups as well as because of their gender.
This is why specific action for women is needed, as well as mainstreaming.
The report addresses this and proposes integrating action to achieve equality between women and men in all aspects of work; it also recognises the importance of working with local and regional bodies which are those closest to the people to help ensure that all project results are mainstreamed.
The involvement of voluntary and community groups will also be an essential ingredient of the EQUAL initiative and the projects.
The development partnerships within the thematic fields, which are referred to in Amendment No. 22, would enable even the smaller organisations to play a part in the EQUAL initiative.
My group will be supporting Amendment No. 22.
Mr President, the report under discussion in the House today is doubtless of great importance.
In addition to the objectives it is working towards, the strong point of the Community initiative INTERREG for the 2000-2006 programming period lies in its added value from the viewpoint of what is now the imminent enlargement of the European Union to include new Eastern European and Mediterranean countries.
In my opinion, it is precisely in anticipation of this deadline that the European Union should strive to reduce disparities between regions and put an end to the isolation of border areas.
Indeed, these areas - and it is right to stress this - have an important role to play as an interface with the applicant countries that are going to join the Union.
It is precisely with this in mind that I tabled some amendments which I consider to be of the utmost importance, and that the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has subsequently taken up.
They call for the areas eligible for cross-border cooperation to be extended to all regions of the Adriatic, as well as to the Sicilian provinces which have a frontier with Malta - an applicant country - which, inexplicably, are not currently included in strand A, Annex 1.
I am confident that Commissioner Barnier and the President of the European Commission will duly consider Parliament' s position on the matter, in accordance with the Code of Conduct.
There are fundamental advantages for the whole of Europe for it to promote cooperation with the applicant countries and to support border regions.
Finally, it is to be hoped that greater coordination will be sought between the INTERREG initiative and the existing Community programmes, which are significant for external policy, as a vector for greater integration and for the joint drafting of programmes.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, LEADER I was an outright success due, in particular, to the great flexibility of the administrative management between the Commission and the local operators.
It is, I think, regrettable that the Commission could not make a similar assessment of LEADER II, regarding the quality of the projects, the quantity of appropriations spent and, most especially, the demotivation of some local operators in the face of the administrative and financial unwieldiness they encountered.
I am pleased to see, however, that under LEADER+, new resources have been allocated to helping rural territories to develop their potential and to implement the objectives of local and sustainable development.
I feel it is important to put special emphasis on trying out new ways to raise the profile of the natural and cultural heritage and to strengthen the economic environment, in order to promote employment.
The time is now right, I think, to consider including the exchange of positive development experience in the scope of transnational cooperation.
It is interesting to note that all rural areas may be eligible for LEADER II.
Nonetheless, if the opportunity for Member States to determine the areas, within the scope of this initiative, remains available, then the Commission will have to ensure a certain focusing of resources and prioritise projects in the less prosperous areas.
There must, of course, be transparency regarding the selection criteria for projects and local action groups.
I also feel there are grounds for ensuring, in particular, that the financial channels of States or local authorities are not behind the delays in payment which may have caused some LAGs to become bankrupt under LEADER II.
Mr President, as a Member from one of the outermost regions, I must point out that this is a very special afternoon as far as regional policy is concerned, because of the debate on two Community initiatives, URBAN and INTERREG.
I would like to remind you that these initiatives are aimed, firstly, in the case of URBAN, at improving the quality of life of the citizens who live in the poorer parts of various European cities, and, in the case of INTERREG, at facilitating cohesion and recognising the diversity and potential of the regions of the European Union, particularly by including the outermost regions in strands B and C.
Like the rapporteur, we deplore the fact that it has been excluded from strand IIIA.
With regard to INTERREG, we are very happy that there is a reference to the creation of a European monitoring centre concerned with cooperation.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs, particularly Mr Decourrière, for his sensitivity towards the regions and for accepting our amendments.
I hope that the Commissioner will accept the proposal which we are making.
Mr President, with regard to the various initiatives which we are analysing this afternoon, I would like to concentrate strictly on one of them, that is, the URBAN programme.
It is a fact that we are debating this programme today because the European Parliament insisted that this initiative should be maintained.
The Commission proposed removing it and other initiatives, but Parliament' s proposal and the sensitivity of the Commission itself at the time led to the URBAN initiative being retained.
I believe that we should be pleased about this.
But what were the Commission' s arguments, from Commissioner Monika Wulf-Mathies and Director-General Eneko Landaburu in particular, for eliminating the URBAN programme? Its argument was one of priority.
The urban question is so important that we cannot tighten our belts and undervalue it with a programme which has such a small budget.
Today the programme is in place and therefore I believe we have achieved something important, that distinguishing mark of the European Union called the URBAN programme.
However, I would like to address Commissioner Barnier and support the argument of Commissioner Wulf-Mathies and the Director-General, because I think they were absolutely right.
The urban dimension must be incorporated much more deeply in all the structural funds.
The amount of budget required by our cities - where 80% of the European population live and which increasingly represent both the best and the worst of what we have in Europe, I believe, clearly indicates that the European dimension should be taken into account and that this URBAN programme should not be used as an excuse not to analyse in detail, not to prioritise and, therefore, not to introduce an infinitely greater budgetary contribution into programmes which affect the cities, by means of European funds.
Therefore, I do not believe I need to restate the number of factors which demand this investment in urban areas, factors which are on the agenda, and I would like to say to the Commissioner that we hope he will be sensitive in this respect.
In welcoming the cross-sectoral approach embodied in the new EQUAL initiative, it is crucial that the programme addresses the distinct forms of discrimination which militate against disabled people in particular: physical barriers in the workplace affecting those with limited mobility, visual information systems which exclude blind workers, working systems which effectively close the door on people with learning difficulties or with mental health problems.
Organisations of disabled people and disabled people' s non-disabled representatives must have a proper interest at every stage of decision-making.
That is why this Parliament has put forward paragraphs 10 and 15 of the resolution, to ensure that Member States cannot ignore any one target group.
Disabled people have too often been left off the list.
Because disabled people do not form one homogenous group - for example many deaf people see themselves as a linguistic minority denied respect for their own language and culture - it is necessary as stated in paragraph 9 to enable some partnerships to be defined which are specific to a particular disability or other group.
EQUAL remains crucial also to regions like my own, in the east of England, outside the principal funds of Objective I. We have had an extra incentive to take up Community initiative funding and an excellent record in response.
Former ADAPT projects range from the CORE project, which has developed new supply chains for the car industry in Bedfordshire, to projects to raise standards in small businesses in Hertfordshire in Essex.
We have seen the NOW project helping 70 women to return to work in Suffolk, many of whom were able to come and share the results of their experience directly with us at the European Parliament in Brussels.
EQUAL remains important to us because it is precisely in relatively more prosperous regions that lower-skilled jobs are being shed, which can be an important first destination for those discriminated against in the labour market.
Finally, a word on INTERREG.
It really is quite nonsensical that partnerships set up in 1994 are being rolled over now to the exclusion of new inter-regional links.
During this period the ports of Great Yarmouth and Harwich on the Essex-Suffolk-Norfolk coast have launched significant new transportation and economic links with partners in the Netherlands.
I urge Parliament to support our Amendment No 2, which would ensure flexibility so as to include new areas, particularly on maritime borders.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for the information of the House, Mr President, I should like to make a clarification.
Chancellor Schüssel' s government will maintain the refugee policy of the former social democratic government led by Chancellor Klima.
There is no change in refugee policy in Austria!
Rural areas make up over 80% of the EU' s territory and 25% of the population live in them.
As a farmer and Member of Parliament, I have always endeavoured not to look at agriculture in isolation but to see rural areas as a whole.
I attach particular importance to adopting an integrated approach towards rural development because I am convinced that only cooperation linking up all people from all walks of life in rural areas will permit them to be active and attractive places to live for everyone; I refer, in short, to the multifunctionality of rural areas.
I should like to welcome in particular the new LEADER+ programme because of its comprehensive nature.
In the future it will be possible to have programmes not only in the individual zones eligible for structural aid but in all the regions of the EU.
This across-the-board approach is sensible because the programmes for rural development are also structured in this way.
In the future, funding will no longer come from three funds but from the EAGGF Guidance section alone.
It will therefore be necessary to increase the quality of the programmes because the EAGGF is supposed to be an effective financial instrument.
Greater precision in the selection process will lead to greater effectiveness, because the money should not be squandered recklessly.
In addition, I should particularly like to emphasise the point which offers an approach towards creating an integrated and environmentally friendly development strategy.
There is great potential for future job creation in rural areas here and we must exploit this if we wish to offer fresh prospects to people living in the countryside.
That is why policy for rural areas is more than a policy just for farmers.
LEADER+ should supplement already existing programmes, avoid overlaps and duplication of financing and thus contribute to a process of development which is as comprehensive as possible.
In this way, LEADER+ can, together with the programmes under Regulation (EC) No 1257/99, consolidate the second pillar of the CAP even more effectively and produce the best possible benefits for the whole of the countryside.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not always proud of the fuss that goes on here in Parliament, but the URBAN programme is one of the best examples of our work: it was created following an initiative in Parliament.
The Commission would have abolished URBAN, but this time Parliament drew the longer straw.
It is good that URBAN is to continue, as it has had good results at local level.
The problems in Europe' s urban areas are getting worse; fortunately, we now have consensus with the Commission.
The majority of the population of Europe live in cities, and their problems are among the most pressing within the context of regional policy and very complex matters in themselves.
There is an immense risk of exclusion.
In many cities in France and England there are now slums, breeding grounds for many sorts of problems.
None of us wants South American type favelas in Europe.
We have to act now, before it is too late.
Our cities are also of decisive importance for Europe' s economy.
We always come back to the same basic problem in Europe: our economy does not support the individual sufficiently, nor is it sufficiently dynamic.
The economy has to be strong for us to be able to attend to the problems of our fellow-citizens and our environment.
This is not policy; it is life' s simple logic.
It is good that spending has become focused, as otherwise the buckshot gets scattered to the four winds.
Now we have to concentrate on solving problems in small and middle-size towns and cities, as they do not have enough resources.
In this way we will also be able to speed up matters in surrounding rural areas; it is often forgotten that urban and rural problems in fact go hand in hand.
The basis for all this is that we should be encouraging individual innovation and entrepreneurship, as group action begun by the individual will help revitalise an area internally.
Granting funds without an economy that can stand on its own two feet is like carrying water to fill up a dry well: there will be enough to drink for a while, but tomorrow the well will be dry again.
Mr President, with the implementation of INTERREG III, European cooperation policy is entering a new phase.
Our attention is no longer focused exclusively on internal borders but also on external ones.
In the context of globalisation and cultural openness which characterise the current situation, the European Union needs instruments that will allow it to strengthen its links and communication channels with neighbouring regions, particularly in Eastern and Southern Europe.
The Union' s borders must no longer be an obstacle to balanced development, but - on the contrary - an opportunity, a bridge to more fruitful cooperation.
By means of amendments adopted in committee, Parliament has tried to supplement the Commission' s work, by including new elements in the list of areas targeted for aid, and in particular external border areas and maritime border areas in Southern Europe.
In its draft guidelines, the Commission acknowledges that these borders require greater attention than they did in the past. This is on account of the process of enlargement to the east and that of greater integration with the Mediterranean countries.
As President Prodi too mentioned when outlining the strategic objectives for the period 2000-2005, boosting the Barcelona process is a priority for the Union, and the INTERREG III initiative will be able to make its contribution to the pursuit of this strategic objective.
In congratulating the rapporteur on his excellent work, we can but hope that the Commission will duly take into consideration the proposals Parliament has put forward, in accordance with the commitments made under the Code of Conduct on the implementation of structural policies, and that it will confirm, with fitting amendments, the transformation of this Community initiative from a mere instrument for internal redistribution to an opportunity to boost and enhance relations with neighbouring countries.
Mr President, from this year until the year 2006 around EUR 200 billion is available for the Structural Funds, but only 5¾ % is set aside for the Community initiatives, INTERREG, LEADER, URBAN and EQUAL.
That is a reduction of 3¾ % compared with the previous CIs.
No more than EUR 2.8 billion is provided for EQUAL, as Mrs Stenzel' s balanced report makes clear.
This makes the large number of amendments and far too long a wish list of possible tasks all the more astonishing.
How are priorities supposed to be set here?
There is agreement on the principle that marginalisation, discrimination and inequalities on the labour market should be reduced.
Transnational strategies are intended to make it possible for disadvantaged groups to have access to jobs.
I have no sympathy for amendments once again backing the TAOs. Criticism of the previous Commission' s work was particularly severe, legitimately so, with regard to these Technical Assistance Offices.
Our Committee on Employment and Social Affairs was, after all, in overall charge of analysing considerable shortcomings and failures to carry out checks in cases related to LEONARDO.
The Commission cannot therefore be relieved of direct responsibility or the task of carrying out inspections under EQUAL either.
It can only approve Member States' proposals if they fulfil all the criteria: firstly, integration through sectoral and geographical development partnerships, whereby the employment policy guidelines need to be taken into account; secondly, the systematic involvement of the operators concerned - the local, regional and national authorities, training institutions, universities, NGOs, the two sides of industry and the private sector - with the aim of creating a durable partnership, and thirdly, methods and models of indisputably innovative character.
The Commission must therefore be the guarantor of the strategic framework for promoting ability to work and quality of work, of the assessment of results and of the effective communication of best practices.
Only then will it be possible for the desired multiplier effect to be achieved.
Mr President, I want to refer to the Commission proposals on the budget line to promote the CAP.
On 26 October 1999 the European Commission adopted a proposal to ensure that a legal basis is given to the budget line informing the public about the CAP.
This proposal will remove the current budget line B2-5122 and create a new budget heading B1-382.
Actions which promote understanding between young farmers and the EU and also create stronger links with EU candidate countries and the outside world are important.
Therefore I am putting forward these amendments to Parliament to give its support to the contributions of this type of programme.
Given the need to encourage young farmers to continue in farming it is vitally important that they are well-informed about developments in the common agricultural policy.
Informing and training young farmers at European level is vitally important.
I would ask you to support that part of the available budget should be concentrated on the development of knowledge amongst European young farmers.
Regarding information and training, in the past this budget line has been allocated for information, communication and training.
But the Commission is now proposing that training should no longer be included.
I feel that training should be included where it provides relevant information at European level about the CAP.
Such European training is one element in ensuring that young farmers have the necessary knowledge of the CAP to make sound business decisions for the future.
Therefore I am putting forward three amendments.
I would urge Parliament to support them.
Mr President, I am taking the floor to express my opinion, drawn from my experience of municipal administration, that the URBAN projects should, or rather must, have a threefold purpose: firstly, to promote the restoration of infrastructure and historic, old and perhaps dilapidated areas of cities.
Secondly, to promote and stimulate economic activity and social life within these historic centres, within these old quarters of our cities.
There is little point in having streets which are now wonderfully lit, with new pavements, with newly paved road surfaces, all whitewashed and beautiful, if we are not able to fill them with activity and, therefore, employment.
I would like to make it clear that it is not just a question of finance or aid to the different social operators, but rather also of selecting those projects which are aimed at employment, or to put it another way, projects which will tend to favour the creation and promotion of jobs.
Thirdly - and perhaps this should be the first objective - the projects should principally be aimed at the complete rehabilitation of people and families, because man is not made for the law, but rather law is made for man.
These areas of our cities are often home to single-parent families, elderly people who receive a pension and no longer carry out productive activity, and families facing difficulties; sometimes they are families which have broken down and which are excluded from mainstream society.
These people live in areas which should benefit from these projects.
If we have success in this threefold sense, I believe that these families, these people, these European citizens, will believe more in Europe, and this seems to me to be very important because, ultimately, the cities will increasingly come to play a leading role in European life.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is an exceptionally fortunate circumstance that we are debating the EQUAL initiative in the European Parliament just at this time.
Recently, because of political developments in Austria, there is growing unease within Europe. Political demonstrations are taking place as well as political dialogue.
It is worth stressing that both Parliament and the Commission must put forward specific policies.
We need specific proposals, both for legislation and for action programmes associated with the fight against discrimination and the formation of free and fair societies.
So I will make brief mention of the package against discrimination and take this opportunity to ask the competent parliamentary committees to appoint their rapporteurs so that we can move ahead with the anti-discrimination package as soon as possible.
I now come to the EQUAL initiative, which is, of course, based on Article 13.
The EQUAL initiative relates to all forms of discrimination within the meaning of Article 13, namely the fight against discrimination based on race, gender, age, and special needs.
I would particularly like to congratulate Mrs Stenzel, because her effort to reach agreement on the EQUAL initiative has proved exceptionally difficult and complex, both because some of the committees involved view the issue in a different light and because it is a very sensitive political issue.
The first comment, which has been made by many others too, is whether women should be mentioned separately.
I agree that Article 13 contains something we have expressed our disagreement about, but that is how the Treaty stands right now and among the categories of types of discrimination, discrimination on the grounds of gender holds equal place.
So on the basis of the Treaty as it stands today, the EQUAL initiative is structured in that way.
I would like to remind you, however, that there is a special axis for the employment strategy which relates to women and that a special programme is being prepared, the fifth programme for equality between men and women.
I have classified the issues raised by the honourable Members into four groups.
Firstly, the enlargement of the thematic areas.
As in employment strategy, there are four thematic areas: employability, entrepreneurship, adaptability and equal opportunities, and we agree that those thematic areas should be enlarged in line with the European Parliament' s proposals.
To answer the concern whether there is a risk that a country might concentrate all the funds on one of the categories suffering discrimination, I will say that the initiative states clearly that the Member States must submit one thematic category for each group that is suffering discrimination.
The second subject is flexibility and simplification.
I agree with Mr Leinen that the wording of the initiative is indeed very difficult and hard to understand.
That is why the services are already trying to revise the text, simplify its structure and make its wording easier to grasp.
As regards the subject of flexibility, we propose development partnerships and cooperation both at the geographical level where different kinds of groups would cooperate in a specific geographical area to combat discrimination in the workplace, and at the thematic level where, for example, cooperation could take place in a specific economic sector.
This would allow Member States great flexibility to tailor development cooperation to their own particular needs.
Of course, a prerequisite for that is cooperation between the Member States, and a network which will assist the exchange of experience.
Finally, I would like to mention technical assistance.
We are trying to arrange that there will be four categories for which funding is available.
First, funding for preparation; second, implementation; third, mutual cooperation to ensure the exchange of experience, and fourth, technical assistance.
Since there has been great involvement and concern about how technical assistance is to be provided, we must say that external offices will be used.
As Mr Barnier too pointed out, it is impossible for all the work previously done by external collaborators to be done now by the Commission' s staff.
The aim at national and European level is to establish large action groups by tender, with a full description of the project for which external assistance is to be requested. We would expect from each technical office a full description of the product so that the work can be monitored and appraised.
I want to stress that it is extremely important to promote this specific initiative as quickly as possible, both for reasons of political timing and because we believe that it is important that it should begin as planned, in other words, we must be absolutely ready by the end of 2000.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I shall convey your wish that the rapporteurs should be quickly appointed for the files you mentioned to my colleagues in the Bureau and to the appropriate committees.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.40 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the two previous sittings
The Minutes of the sittings of Thursday 3 February and Monday 14 February have been distributed.
The Minutes of 3 February were originally distributed in Brussels so perhaps this is why some Members did not receive them.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Thank you, Mr Medina Ortega.
I too wholeheartedly regret this situation.
Would you be so kind as to write to me so that I have proof with which to tackle the competent authorities of both Air France and the French Government? This situation really cannot continue and we must therefore protest most strongly.
Madam President, I had the same experience as Mr Medina Ortega yesterday.
I feel that the French authorities - which have the honour of housing the European Parliament in Strasbourg - should be aware of their responsibility to ensure adequate connections with all the capitals of the Union.
Absolutely, Mr Napolitano. Thank you.
Madam President, off the subject of aeroplane delays, I wish to apologise for the absence yesterday of my colleague in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, Caroline Lucas, who is a British Member.
She could not be here because she was arrested yesterday morning during an anti-nuclear demonstration in Glasgow.
Although her identity was noted and her position as a Member of the European Parliament was very apparent, she was still held in custody all day.
I regard this as absolutely unacceptable and would ask you to contact the British authorities in order to ensure that this does not happen again and that Mrs Lucas receives an apology. I have written to you in this respect together with my colleague, Mrs Hautala.
Thank you, Mr Lannoye.
I have received your letter and have already contacted the British Permanent Representative.
Madam President, I should like to make a request in connection with today' s vote which I started to make yesterday during the debate on the EQUAL report.
I should like the vote on the Community EQUAL initiative to be postponed because we need a bit more time to negotiate an important point.
I am optimistic and quite relaxed and confident about the vote; we shall gain broad support for this opinion on EQUAL.
We just need a bit more time to work out the details on the asylum question and I would therefore request that the vote be postponed from this morning.
Madam President, to follow on from the point that Mr Lannoye made: Mrs Lucas was arrested just outside Glasgow for protesting against the Trident base at Faslane.
I have a lot of sympathy with that protest.
I have, however, no sympathy for Mrs Lucas trying to hide behind her Parliamentary immunity.
I have also been arrested for protesting at Faslane. I did not hide behind any immunity.
I took the punishment that came to me. Mrs Lucas should do the same.
Madam President, I would like to comment on the request Mrs Stenzel has made to postpone the vote on the Community initiative EQUAL until tomorrow.
In fact, this initiative was the subject of a very lively debate in committee, and, given that it is a major Commission proposal, which refers to the agreements we reached last year, I consider it admissible.
We agree with Mrs Stenzel that the request to postpone the vote is admissible in the interests of achieving the greatest possible agreement between the groups, so that Parliament can express its position on this initiative with the broadest majority possible.
Does anyone want to speak against Mrs Stenzel' s request, as supported by Mrs Ghilardotti?
If not, then we will proceed to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request)
Madam President, under Rule 29(4) you should be kept informed by political groups of any Members who have joined a new political group or who have left a political group.
Have you received any notification of any Members leaving the Group of the European People's Party or does the Austrian People's Party continue to sit in that political group?
Mr Corbett, I have not received any notification.
Agenda
With regard to the agenda for Thursday, following a request made yesterday in plenary, I propose extending the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance by half an hour to 6.00 p.m. when the vote will take place.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Commission's strategic objectives and legislative programme
The next item is the joint debate on the Commission statements on its strategic objectives for the coming five years and the annual legislative programme for 2000.
I therefore immediately give the floor to the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a five-year programme is an extremely important undertaking, and this is why I preferred that you be given the unabridged text of the speech, which is available in four languages.
To respect my speaking time, I will confine myself to referring only to the broad outlines of my programme: a programme for the dawning of a new legislature and a new century, when it is right and proper to see Europe in a broader perspective, a Europe which is currently in a paradoxical situation.
Let us remember that for half a century, Europe has provided us with peace, security and freedom and a united Europe has also contributed to giving us a period of unprecedented prosperity.
We are now seeing the beginning of a strong recovery, which it appears may even be sustainable for a good while yet if we are prudent with our policies. This recovery is the logical consequence of the efforts we have made, but it comes at a price: it follows the restructuring of public accounts in European countries, which have kept inflation under control with a policy wisely intended to control costs and increase productivity in a Europe that has begun a vigorous restructuring of its own industries, banks and public services, even though this process is not yet complete and still has a long way to go.
Nevertheless, despite these aspects, European citizens are disappointed and concerned: by unemployment which is not falling quickly enough; by a Europe trailing behind in technology, and seemingly falling even further behind, and in particular a scientific sector which is starting to lag a long way behind too; by the European institutions which appear distant and do not seem to be in step with the times, starting with the Commission itself.
The crisis in the Commission was, in fact, a crucial point in the relationship between Europe and its citizens, and the low turnout at the European elections was a worrying indication of this.
Even stronger still, however, is the sense of insecurity, the feeling of being unprepared in a new world that is moving forwards, a world which is completely changing, where globalisation will even end up changing our points of reference.
This is not the first time this has happened: Europe was once confronted with a similar transformation, an explosion of its markets, a change in its points of reference and a different view of the world.
I am referring to the sixteenth century when the discovery of America turned everything upside down.
Some countries - such as France and Spain - managed to meet the challenge, giving rise to great nation States; other countries - such as Italy - did not meet this challenge and lost all the headway that they had accumulated during the first part of that millennium: headway in science, technology, economic progress, defence structures and military organisation, philosophy and literature.
Today, Europe is facing a similar challenge, and we know that, just as history has been unforgiving in the past, it will not be forgiving in the present.
In this context of wholesale change, and in order to prevent our nation States vanishing again, in the wake of globalisation which is creating hitherto unprecedented scales and challenges, Europe needs to be economically strong, because globalisation demands unity, because every day we hear news of new agreements at world level and news of changes at European level too.
But more vital still is a Europe that feels strong in the political arena.
In years past, the single market and the single currency have been the pivotal point of our actions, the mainstay of European life.
Today, the new frontiers of European integration are political frontiers: common foreign and security policy, justice and internal security, and - to a lesser extent - the crucial question of the fundamental political values on which our coexistence is based.
The Commission has therefore adopted the strategic programme for 2000-2005, a programme that was immediately sent to the European Parliament and with which you are already familiar, so I will not go into detail about it now.
Some of you may find it lacks detail, but no political structure sets out detailed five-year programmes.
This is the European Union, not the Soviet Union.
Our programme highlights the major points of reference, the major areas for action: firstly, the development of new forms of governance for Europe; secondly, extension and enlargement of the area of peace, freedom, and security; thirdly, the launch of a new stage in the growth of the economy; fourthly, safeguarding and improving quality of life.
These will be our major guidelines for action over the next five years.
With regard to the first area - new forms of governance for Europe - you already know that the Commission has undertaken to produce a White Paper and not a full legislative text since, in the light of major issues which are changing the structure of the way we interact, the Commission is first of all preparing for a debate; we will subsequently discuss the content with you; this will give rise to a policy document, and finally, a legislative document.
This is an effective, transparent way to proceed and involve all the European institutions and the citizens of Europe.
This White Paper is a response to the challenges that enlargement is forcing on us, an enlargement that is forcing us to rethink the workings of all our institutions, rethink our very policies - all our policies - and above all rethink what we must continue to do at Union level when the Member States number 25 or 30, and what will be the best thing to do at individual State level, at regional level and at local government level.
But it is not only enlargement that is urging us towards this rethink: as I said a few moments ago, it is also economic and political globalisation itself.
We must govern Europe in such a way as to make us more efficient, to bring us closer to the citizens and to encourage everyone to get involved, starting with the important issue of the involvement of women.
One of the main differences in the comparison made recently between Europe and the United States was not so much job mobility or risk capital, as women' s involvement in economic life, an issue that has much more prominence in the United States than in Europe.
This is a field where Europe has, nevertheless, always been in the vanguard. We therefore need to reflect on this at length and with an open mind, and all the institutions - Commission, Parliament, Council - will have to consider their own roles and their own policies.
We shall therefore get straight back to work on this White Paper, although in order to finish it, we shall have to wait for the results of the Intergovernmental Conference, and it will therefore not be ready until spring 2001.
It will not be a philosophical Paper, but a practical Paper, full of focused proposals.
We - the Commission - are the first to know that we must have a total rethink, and we shall therefore do two things: we are, and will continue to be, fully committed to internal reform, and we shall rethink our policies in detail.
I have asked all the Commissioners - and I shall ask them once again in a still more analytical way - to pinpoint all the activities that we can forgo.
The Commission must define what its fundamental activities are, what it must concentrate on and shed its non-essential activities, thereby freeing up new resources and ensuring a more correct and co-operative relationship with individual countries, regions and local communities.
So we shall be freeing up new resources, but - I fear, and I want to state this before Parliament - the time will come when these new resources that we are already freeing up will, in turn, be insufficient in terms of allowing us to address our new tasks: I am thinking of enlargement, the new sector of justice and home affairs, health issues and environmental matters.
When that time comes, when we have used up all our resources, I shall not hesitate to come here before you to request further resources, but what I am saying now is that if we are not given these necessary resources, we shall have to refuse to take on any new duties because the available resources will not be commensurate with the new tasks that we will be taking on.
As for internal reform, you well know how committed my Commission has been to this since day one.
I know full well that we will not be able to achieve any political objective if the Commission does not undertake vigorous and comprehensive internal reform, if it does not become more efficient, if it does not increase efficiency in all sectors, starting with the sector in which the worst backlogs have built up in the past - external aid.
Providing aid rapidly, when it is needed, saves human lives; in many cases providing it late is worse than not providing it at all.
When I speak about external aid, my thoughts immediately turn to the Balkans. There is cause for hope thanks to the commitment of our workers on the ground, an extraordinary commitment given our organisational problems.
My thoughts also turn to Bernard Kouchner' s efforts, of the stability pact that we all vigorously support with total dedication, but I also think of new events, such as Croatia, where the situation has changed in a few weeks: the European institutions immediately opened the way to dialogue with this country and received the news knowing full well that the only way to resolve not only Bosnia' s problems, but more particularly Serbia' s problems is to throw a curtain of democracy around Serbia.
This is the new element that we must help to bring to the Balkans.
We must increase our efficiency in this area. We must reopen the Danube to boats.
It is contradictory to offer aid to Romania and Bulgaria yet leave these countries unable to harness their greatest resource.
We must decontaminate the river and, in view of this, over the next few days the Commissioner responsible for the environment will be putting forward specific plans to monitor this serious problem.
We have done a lot in the Balkans: the new European Reconstruction Agency for Kosovo, the Balkans Task Force and new regulations to speed up procedures.
Nevertheless, we definitely have to do more.
We must liberalise trade within the region and between the region and the European Union; we must contribute to building infrastructural links that will end its centuries-old isolation; we must intensify efforts to build a democratic, pluralist society in these countries with institutions, public structures, police forces and a structured civil society, but, above all, we must press these countries to work together in the context of a united region, as regards both politics and the economy.
If we do not do this, we shall have failed in our duty.
Remember that the Marshall Plan was not effective simply because of the scale of its resources: it was even more effective because it made us Europeans work together towards a new horizon; it gave us a fresh outlook in terms of our politics and our economy.
This is what we need to do for the Balkans.
Europe must prove - in the Balkans and the rest of the world - its ability to extend the area of security, peace and freedom and its ability to take a leading role on the international stage.
We are clearly, once again, returning to enlargement, which must be put into practice in tandem with the extension of the area of security, peace and freedom.
We have made many promises in this regard, but I believe we shall succeed in keeping our promises even though we have a very delicate path to tread.
Indeed, enlargement, which will be with us for our five years in office and beyond - I am referring to the aspirations of applicant countries - must hinge on concrete, objective criteria, and also on reassuring public opinion in the countries involved and, to an even greater degree, public opinion in our own Member States.
There will be friendship, calm, openness but also a certain strictness in the enlargement process.
I repeat: we must reassure public opinion in those countries that wish to join but we need to provide public opinion in our own Member States with even greater reassurance.
Our responsibilities do not stop at enlargement, or at the Balkans.
There are certain other key issues: relations with Ukraine, relations with Russia, relations with neighbouring countries and more importantly, the important question of relations with the southern Mediterranean which will be a crucial point for European history, and for security and peace in Europe for future generations. In this regard, we have a responsibility towards the whole of Africa.
In recent times, Africa has raised hopes and has received offers of help, but nothing tangible has yet been achieved. In recent years in Africa, we have not seen a shift from totalitarian regimes to democracy, but quite the contrary - a shift from democracy to totalitarian regimes.
Africa is, for us, a worrying topic for discussion. We therefore have another duty at international level, which has already been proposed by the Commissioner responsible for trade: the undertaking to relaunch the Millennium Round and to take on some fundamental problems affecting the poorest countries, not just in terms of writing off debts, but also via the unilateral opening-up to trade with the poorest countries in the world, with a great deal of willingness on our part, which we had already proposed prior to Seattle but which we could not put into practice.
We need to provide alternative answers, otherwise episodes such as those seen in Seattle will be repeated over and over and will come to hamper one of Europe' s positive roles in history.
All over the world, Europe' s actions must be guided by a deep respect for the principles of freedom and respect for the rights of individuals and minorities.
We should remember that we, the European Union, are a union of minorities: we are all a minority within Europe.
There are concerns even within the Fifteen, concerns which may even surface again in the next decade.
I am referring to the situation in Austria, where the Commission has remained true to its role, being duty-bound to work towards the cohesion of the Union, but also the unwavering guardian of the Treaties, ready to punish every minor breach of the principles of democracy, law and respect for minorities.
Some people have criticised me over the congratulatory message I sent to Chancellor Schüssel.
My message to you is: do not take the necessary and proper courtesies of form to mean that I have been less firm in the content.
Reread the letter: The reference to the fundamental values of the Union is taken - and this is more than mere coincidence - from Article 6 of the Treaty, I repeat, Article 6 of the Treaty.
I would also ask you whether you believe that any other European head of government has ever been reminded of these principles by the Commission when they were elected. This is what we wish to do: maintain our role as a supranational structure, maintain the role conferred on us by the Treaties, but also be unwavering on principles and make judgements based on facts.
Last November, the Commission tabled a proposal for an anti-racism directive.
I would ask the Council to adopt it swiftly and I would ask Parliament to help us with this action which will further strengthen the fundamental bases of our social cohesion.
I will quickly conclude by mentioning the last two points of our programme: the economy and quality of life.
I have already talked about the economy: we well know which basic ingredients will set Europe on the path towards a lasting recovery which will in turn create more jobs.
We must continue to keep inflation under control, proceed with liberalisation, ensure more competition, encourage the dissemination of information technology and all new technologies; push forward with science, and push back scientific boundaries, and develop an appetite for being at the cutting edge of science.
The forthcoming Lisbon Summit on these issues - dissemination of technology, employment - will be a decisive summit.
It has taken four years for us to be in a position to hold a summit of this kind.
We are at last holding it and cannot let this opportunity slip through our fingers.
Finally, our last commitment is to improve quality of life.
We have opened this chapter with the White Paper on Food Safety: we now need to make significant headway in the environment sector.
The Erika oil slick and the contamination of the Danube demonstrates the pressing need for European scale intervention to safeguard the environment.
The time has come to discuss, and then establish, a body for emergency civil protection in Europe.
All too often we find ourselves calling for this after a disaster has occurred.
I think it would be appropriate to begin thinking about these things before disasters happen.
These are the challenges that we - the Commission but also all the other European institutions - are facing. How will we judge, ladies and gentlemen, Madam President, the five years of our mandate?
How are we going to assess the results of these five years? I do not know, but one benchmark we could certainly use is the challenge we must take up together.
Let us take a very simple parameter: turnout at the next European elections.
If it is higher than at the previous elections, it will mean that we have successfully met our challenge.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with all these major political challenges, but precisely because of the recovery that is now underway, we are also faced with major opportunities.
This, ladies and gentlemen, could be the decade of Europe.
Indeed, I would say that this must be the decade of Europe.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to welcome the presentation of, and the first ever debate on, the Commission' s programme for government - the word President Prodi is so fond of; as I am -for the whole legislature.
Firstly, this is welcome because it explains, to our fellow citizens, what we are intending to do and what we are already doing. We must also express our regret at the current situation and try to improve on it for the future.
We have taken almost eleven months - President Prodi was nominated at the Berlin Summit in March last year - to establish a legislative programme. This is not entirely President Prodi' s fault.
We are recovering from a crisis. However, I believe that, in the future, it would be appropriate for the investiture of the next Commission to coincide with the presentation of a legislative programme.
We are breaking new ground and doing so in complex circumstances.
President Prodi began his speech by talking of a paradoxical situation, a paradox in the European Union and also throughout the world: we are at the dawn of a new secular millennium, dominated by the web of the Internet and the sorcery of biotechnological advance, and we are living through a genuine change of epoch. However, to focus on the European Union as it is today, and on the subject of government and governance - a word which, at least in Spanish, brings to mind the previous name of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, although it may be an appropriate word anyway -, the most important thing is that the European Union be provided with a good government, and, since President Prodi always defends his home town, Bologna, I would advise him to go to Siena for a while and see something which we all understand: the frescos of Ambrogio Lorenzetti, which speak of bon governo [good government] and mal governo [bad government].
What we need here is good government, Madam President.
Since we are recovering from a very complex crisis, we must try to enhance our institutions and give them substance.
I would like to remind the House of something which we often forget, and that is that the investiture of the Prodi Commission, last September, received wide support. In our opinion, this demonstrates that the majority of us are in favour of progress and in favour of Europe.
I would like to point out that, within this broad consensus, there were some Groups which said that the majority of Parliament should form an opposition to the majority of the Council.
It is precisely this which, in a sense, is hindering the important process of developing codecision within the legislative programme.
I am pointing this out because I believe that our support for the Commission also has to lead to continuity in the work carried out throughout the legislature.
On the other hand, we are witnessing the birth of a political Europe, which entails a collection of shared values which we all agree upon, and a European Union at the service of the citizens.
With regard to the events of recent days, I would like to say - and I am saying this on the day, and the week, that the Intergovernmental Conference is starting - we have to place far more value and fundamental emphasis upon the charter on fundamental rights which, given what we have said about the Austrian crisis, I believe should be fully included in the Treaties.
I have absolutely no doubt about this and I believe it is an essential point.
In this regard, Madam President, I would like to say that we should remain aware and watch our language.
Last week, the new Minister for Finance of the Austrian coalition described the Austrian Parliament as a farce and a theatre.
Those of us who have had to live under a dictatorship know of the existence of dictatorships with cardboard governments.
There can be no democracy without a living parliament.
I believe that this type of language is extremely dangerous and I would like to condemn it here and now.
With regard to the four great priorities which President Prodi systematically refers to and with regard to his analysis of the challenges facing us, I would say that we are very much in agreement.
Nevertheless, I would point out to the Commission that, as far as the Socialist Group is concerned, there has been a change of priorities.
We understand that the first priority is the economic and social agenda, which also includes what is known as 'quality of life' priorities, that is to say, the rights of citizens as consumers and as people, in relation to those questions which we always talk about, but never give sufficient priority to, that is, the European social model and its adaptation to the new circumstances, consumer rights, respect for the environment and sustainable development.
When speaking of the commitment to full employment, we have to bear in mind that, these days, full employment does not mean what it meant in the era of Beveridge at the end of the Second World War, that is to say, employment for the male head of the household.
We must argue for equality of the sexes, the famous 'gender mainstreaming' , which is one of the least developed questions in the Prodi Commission' s programme.
This means prioritising sex equality, the adaptation of the social model and, above all, an unequivocal fight against populism whenever our economic and social cohesion is under threat. This must also be a main priority in the work of the Commission.
It must be complemented with a forthright fight against racism and intolerance so that we may come to recognise, in practice, the evolution of a Union which has become a magnet for the rest of the world and an immigration zone, given its prosperity and seasonal demographics.
I believe that this is the first objective for us to pursue.
In this respect I would also add another element, which is economic government, given the single currency, and I believe this is inescapable. This is another question on which the Commission must make progress.
With regard to the ambitious objectives and, above all, the Commission' s important step of adopting this broadening of the process of negotiation and integration, I would like - and my Group would like - more clarification in relation to the revision of Agenda 2000.
Does the Commission think that there will be never be any revision? The issue of taxation also seems to us to be absolutely essential.
With regard to governance in general, I believe it might be worth thinking in theoretical terms.
I would like to remind you of one thing: it is dangerous to rethink the entire governance of the European Union from here.
I would be clearly in favour of subsidiarity. If we are capable of defining what our area of governance is, I think that would be very positive.
In all other areas, I believe that subsidiarity is also relevant to this discussion. Not only should the Commission discuss this, but also our states, our parliaments and our civil society.
Madam President, I would like to refer briefly to the last objective, which seems to us to be absolutely fundamental: the stabilisation of the continent and the strengthening of the Europe' s role in the world.
It appears that there is agreement and support with regard to the prioritisation of South-East Europe, with regard to enlargement and - as I have said already - with regard to the process of integration and the strengthening of the Euro-Mediterranean programme and our ability to prevent conflicts, as well as an issue which we seldom talk about; the North-South challenge.
We must not forget Africa, a continent which has been forsaken, not only by God, but also by Europe, nor our important contribution to cooperating with development.
Lastly, an issue for which we are increasingly responsible, as the world' s foremost economic and commercial power, that is, Europe' s voice in the world, which does not simply mean adopting an active approach to the Millennium Round. It means the reform of the United Nations and the international financial institutions, for which Europe has an enormous responsibility.
Above all, Madam President - and here I will end - we must be able to express this in plain language, clearly, by changing to some extent the jargon which we use, because we cannot ask the Europeans, who are living through profound changes, to take part and show enthusiasm towards us if we continue to use a form of language which they find completely inaccessible.
This is a fundamental way to increase and strengthen their confidence in us. I hope this will be demonstrated when we hold the next European elections.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, I greatly admire the openness with which you admit that the European Union must change fundamentally.
You gave consideration to important questions of principle in your programme.
I believe that the public will start to show more interest in politics if we can tackle the major issues alongside the day-to-day ones.
At the same time, however, it has to be said that, unfortunately, your programme reminds me in many ways of a party manifesto.
There are a lot of good intentions in it, but it very much lacks concrete proposals concerning how this can all be achieved. As in any other party manifesto, it is full of contradictions.
I would like to take this opportunity to help you recognise them.
First let me speak about the economy and social development.
We have to be able to think hard about how we can coordinate the aim of competitiveness with the aim of full employment; that is what was mentioned in your programme.
Should we at long last be drafting convergence criteria, in which - as you in fact hint at in this programme - the aim would be that unemployment in no Member State should be higher than, say, the three most successful countries in this matter?
Ecological tax reform is what my group would like to stress the importance of, because we can only create employment and sustainable development by changing our taxation structure. But, unfortunately, as we all know, this is an area where the European Union is totally unable to act.
Do please raise this issue at the intergovernmental conference.
The EU can only achieve authority in the fact that it focuses on tasks that individual countries cannot attend to alone.
In this respect, Parliament will definitely defend, along with yourselves, the importance of supranational decision-making.
One contradiction within your programme relates to globalisation.
I think it is very creditable that you should mention the concept of 'global administration' , as others too have said here.
However, please learn from the events of Seattle: we have to be able to combine the freedom in world trade, on the one hand, with all those values of human importance that we wish to defend, on the other.
You must embark on a dialogue with the international community.
Do please try to make the international organisations democratic.
The European Union could be critically important in a process in which the United Nations and the WTO really do become subject to democratic monitoring.
We can submit motions for this together with you.
Finally, I consider it a very positive sign that you speak so often about the civil society, although, unfortunately, this is another contradiction.
You ought to also be able to draw conclusions at the IGC.
We have to table motions proposing that our citizens might really have a direct impact on decision-making.
What you just said is absolutely true: people want more engaged democracy.
In my opinion, this is the only way if we want to gain the approval of the people with regard to Europe and their interest in Europe too.
Madam President, my group was one of those which wanted to have a document allowing an exchange of views on the Commission' s strategic objectives within the group before this debate, instead of being reduced to an on-the-spot reaction in plenary.
The main merit of the text of this communication is therefore the fact that it exists.
We are also pleased to see certain statements and intentions which it contains and which Mr Prodi has just underlined and, in some cases, usefully clarified.
The current globalisation process is - and I quote - 'exclusive rather than inclusive and has widened the inequalities' . The European Union' s objective must therefore be to help define new ground rules within the Union and in international relations.
Clearly, many citizens are 'disenchanted and anxious' about the lack of real and lasting solutions to basic problems, such as unemployment and social exclusion, which affect our very existence. This must be one of our absolute priorities.
We do need to rethink many aspects of current Community policy if the important and difficult project of enlargement is to be a success.
We also need 'distinctive strategic partnerships' with our neighbours to the south and east in order to achieve stability and peace.
There are plenty of areas for serious discussion.
We will carefully study the planned White Papers and will participate constructively in the work begun or promised.
It is in this spirit that I have three criticisms to make. These must be taken into account if we are truly to shape the new Europe, as proclaimed ambitiously by the title of the Commission document and Mr Prodi' s speech and do so in reality not rhetoric.
The first and most serious criticism concerns the Commission' s propensity for rather grandiloquent self-satisfaction with regard to the European Union and for a cursory and even condescending view of our partners.
The perfect illustration of this crippling flaw lies in the opening sentence of the Commission communication.
This talks of the European Union as 'living proof that peace, stability, freedom and prosperity can be brought to a continent' and as a model showing the world the way forward. It concludes that 'our neighbours have the chance to join this prosperity, and we have a golden opportunity to enable them to do so' .
A more balanced and more rigorous diagnosis would be welcome in my view.
Similarly, the idea that the euro has fostered a consensus on wage moderation is not really borne out by the repeated nervous orders issued by the European Central Bank to the trade unions which are deemed to be too demanding.
My second criticism follows on from the first.
This extreme difficulty in seeing the contradictions of the current situation and, where necessary, confronting these is seriously limiting the will, duly confirmed by Mr Prodi, to grant public demands.
For example, at least in the countries which I know well, I doubt that the intention, repeated three or four times in the Commission document, to reform 'Europe' s social protection, health care and pension systems ...in a climate of more cautious public spending' will meet the needs of those whose confidence we apparently want to win back.
My third criticism stems from the first two. The weakness of the analysis and the obstacles to the necessary changes have resulted in a project whose scope is severely limited by an overabundance of generalisations, a rather indecisive approach and therefore a lack of impetus.
But all is not lost.
This is a starting point and we have five years to succeed, provided that the political will exists and is expressed with sufficient force and clarity.
My group is fully intent on helping with this work.
Madam President, reforming and democratising the institutions of the European Union are central to the historic and moral challenge of the enlargement process.
This was the opening statement of Commission President, Prodi, when he presented the strategic objectives of the European Commission for the next five years.
We await the White Paper on the governance of the European Union dealing with the issue of balance between Member States' governments and the European Union institutions which is to be published this summer.
On this specific point I think it is important that we address the reform of the internal decision-making procedures of the Commission.
The Commission, in its proposals to the forthcoming intergovernmental conference, has indicated that its preference lies in seeing smaller Member States lose their automatic right to nominate a member of the European Commission.
This is a scenario whereby the European Union has a membership of over 25 Member States.
I do not want to see a two-tier European Union built.
I believe this would fly in the face of the spirit and objective of the Treaty of Rome and all subsequent treaties.
There must be equality in terms of national representation within the Commission and within all the other European institutions.
I would like to remind those who seek to eliminate the right of small Member States to nominate a European Commissioner that the United States of America gives smaller states the same recognition as larger states in the United States Senate.
More or less each of the 50 states in the US has two elected positions in the United States Senate, regardless of its population.
Any future reforms of the European Union treaties will require a referendum to be held in my country.
It would be very difficult for those who propose a 'yes' vote in any such future treaty to win the support of the Irish people if we lose our right to have our nominee to the European Commission.
Undoubtedly, reform of the European Council is also going to be included in this White Paper on the governance of the European Union which will be published this summer.
Once again there are special areas of policy-making which should be left to the domain of the national Member States.
I do not believe that there is broad support in Europe for the introduction of qualified majority voting on taxation, justice and home affairs, and foreign affairs at European Union level.
At present, under Article 99 of the Treaty of Rome, decisions taken at EU level concerning tax changes must be by unanimity.
I believe that this proposal should remain, as a common European taxation code would diminish rather than enhance the workings of the European Union.
I support the enlargement of the European Union.
I support institutional changes so as to ensure that enlargement of the Union takes place in a streamlined and structured manner.
However, we must remember that the public opinion of 370 million people in the European Union is a vital factor in changing the EU treaties.
Changes should not be brought about too quickly and cannot be too sweeping, otherwise public opinion will make ratification of any future European Union treaty very difficult indeed.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of the Italian Radical Members.
President of the Commission, a short while ago you said that no political structure sets out five-year plans.
This is true, if we think of Russia' s plans in the thirties, but at the start of your mandate, a few months ago, you yourself announced at the Conference of Presidents that you would, however, be presenting a legislative programme, or rather, the major policy lines of the European government of which you are head and in the running of which we are engaged today.
So, whether this is to be a government programme or a potential programme, the breakdown of the document you distributed to us and of the accompanying speech is not much more than a list of good intentions, or rather a list of issues on the table. It does not, however, give us the impression that the Commission is taking a clear position on any of these points, but that it is just doing the European Commission' s duty.
In this House, in the past, large-scale debates have taken place on major strategic options which the Commission, under its power of initiative, launched, not as experiments, but as proposals which then made varying degrees of progress, but in any case did contribute to the integration and development of the European Union.
In this case, Mr Prodi, we certainly have a kind of "Ten Commandments" : a whole raft of issues are listed, but if I may say so, we are left with the impression that the Commission is afraid to make any decision regarding what needs to be done about any of these points.
There was only one point that you really stressed - too much in my opinion - and that was that it looks almost as if the highest priority task that you are setting yourself is to cease "unnecessary" activities.
We should be careful, though, Mr Prodi, because we had a crisis of confidence in the previous Commission and backed this Commission - at least a parliamentary majority backed this Commission - precisely because, first and foremost, the reform of the Commission would bring consolidation, a new identity and a new awareness of being guided by a firm hand.
Let us consider the scenario whereby the Commission, not believing itself to be equal to the task, wishes, or proposes to shed, for example, its powers to implement common policies, which it is nevertheless accorded by the Treaty. What do we expect from a government in any case?
What do we ask of this structure - the European Community - which is, so to speak, ambiguous and unique? It is right for joint resources to be controlled supranationally and not to be delegated to the Member States or the TAOs, as has been the case in the past.
It seems that you are proposing the same old menu, but with more unsatisfactory implications, restricting the Commission, so you say, to the task of drawing up a few White Papers, as you proposed.
My fear - even if you shake your head, Mr Prodi - is that this will translate into what some countries have thought for years, that the Commission should be a simple secretariat for the Council of Ministers.
If this is the role that the Commission intends to play over the next five years, we federalists are convinced, we are certain that this is not the right path to take and we shall send for you and judge what the Commission intends to do in this regard.
The reform is important but, if it aggravates the situation, reduces or weakens the supranational powers of the Commission, then the structure of European integration, as planned by the founding fathers for the European Commission, will be at risk.
As for the other points, Mr Prodi, I will take economic and social policy as an example: the European social model is certainly experiencing a major crisis and it is certainly not coincidental that unemployment tops the list of problems that none of our policies has managed to resolve, but it is not certain that it can be resolved by going through a list of problems that we have discussed in the past, without having a clear idea or proposal which takes note of the fact that Europe contains economies that are growing at some of the most sustainable rates and that it is not by chance that these are the economies which have made labour market flexibility and enterprise their prime objective.
If we continue to get bogged down with proposals that have given extremely poor results so far, I do not know what we or the Commission will be able to do.
The same goes for enlargement as an end in itself, without it being linked to a reform to make the European Union and its structures much more efficient, and to proposals that the Commission could have made at the IGC.
Mr Prodi, there is one positive thing that I would like to say to you, perhaps contrary to the opinion of some Members, regarding the telegram that you sent to the Austrian Government.
We approve of your position on this: you did well not to isolate that country any further.
In any case, we shall see what specific steps transpire when the time comes for practical action.
Mr Prodi, I repeat that this is, in our opinion, a slightly short-sighted view.
Above all, it lacks drive in the sectors I have mentioned, for example, as regards the Balkans.
Can we really continue to leave the Balkans out of the enlargement process, disregarding the fact that Croatia, Macedonia and other countries also have the right to a place in this House that is open to all?
Madam President, Mr Prodi, I should like to applaud your proposal for a radical decentralisation of the Union' s activities and ask why, then, you are proposing a legislative programme which would lead to centralisation.
I remember your predecessor' s speech five years ago.
Like yourself, he promised "less and better" , but Mr Santer finished up by having delivered "much more and much worse" , and I do not believe that you, either, can deliver the goods you promise.
You talk about decentralisation but practise centralisation.
The legislative programme is, in fact, a litany of subjects over which the people are to be deprived of influence and in connection with which, Mr Prodi, you are to take influence away from the people, even on social questions.
You talk about greater transparency, but produce proposals which would lead to documents which, at present, are available for public inspection being locked away.
Your Commission consists of the only 20 people in the EU who can propose that the quantity of legislation should be reduced.
Local politicians cannot do that, once legislation has been passed in Brussels.
The legislative programme from the Commission ought at least, therefore, to be accompanied by as long a list of tasks which are to be referred back to the Member States and to the processes of popular democracy.
Otherwise, the number of laws produced in Brussels will just keep on growing.
We have passed 10 000 laws and as many amendments, and the applicant States have had 26 000 documents sent to them which, as debated by the Polish parliament, fill 140 000 sides of paper.
Even by this stage, that is already too many by far.
Brussels should make decisions on fewer matters and hand over more decisions to the people, the regions and the Member States. The only decisions which should remain with Brussels are those concerning cross-border issues which the national parliaments can no longer legislate on effectively.
What is more, the work carried out in Brussels should be of a much higher quality and be completely transparent, so that people might at least have some small sense of owning the process, now that Mr Prodi and his predecessor have taken their autonomy away from them.
I should also just like to draw Mr Dell' Alba' s attention to what the founding fathers of the European Union dreamed of. Take a look at Jean Monet' s memoirs.
What he envisaged was what he called a small, practical secretariat. That is not what Mr Prodi is President of today.
Madam President, this morning the Commission President, Mr Prodi, has set out ambitious goals for the European Union for the next five years, laudable aims indeed, to make a strong and effective European presence felt in the world: succeeding with enlargement, meeting the challenge of selling e-Europe, introducing better principles of governance.
We accept that Europeans, particularly the younger generation, need to be given a broad perspective of where Europe will be in the years ahead.
But how are we to succeed when the resources available are limited and the credibility of our institutions is not very high? We need to match this vision with reality.
Here there are three elements I would like to contribute.
Firstly, we need a successful European economy.
We must ensure that unemployment rates continue to go down across Europe, confirm the trend in privatisation and deregulation, encourage the insertion of information technology and knowledge of the Internet, show that e-Europe is a good initiative.
But we must avoid lurching back into the old-style regulation, stifling individual initiative and enterprise.
We must not fear globalisation, but we must also make sure that we understand its political impact in the network society.
Without a successful European economy we cannot meet the challenges ahead, particularly of enlargement.
Secondly, we need to ensure that we legislate only when necessary - subsidiarity.
Doing less but better - a central plank of the last Commission - needs to be the aim of this Commission too.
We will be looking at this closely when we come to the annual programmes of proposed legislation.
Mr Bonde was right to say that there is this image of doing less better and then suddenly we see an annual programme for the year 2000 of 500 proposals and recommendations, which seems to go in a different direction.
We must establish priorities and make sure there is value for money in each of these programmes.
Lastly, we need to ensure that there is proper, genuine reform of the European Commission.
Yes, the Commission - guardian of the Treaties - is meant to be an independent body, but it also has to be accountable to European citizens through our Parliament.
The information problem, which Mr Bonde just referred to, is treated like a straw in the wind, with the Commission seeming to restrict information to us, as citizens and as parliamentarians, although we have the right to it under the Treaties.
The Commission is not in fact today a European government.
The Commission does not reflect the majority in this particular Parliament.
We in Parliament have a major role to play in the shaping of governance in Europe.
This governance therefore needs to be a sensitive governance so that we can actually work together and understand that each of the institutions in the European Union, has its relevant role to play.
Therefore we need to have credibility, coherence and confidence that in working together we can restore the image of the European Union to our citizens.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, I fully support the thinking of the proposals made by my colleague, Mrs Hautala, on the Commission' s strategic objectives for the coming five years.
I myself want to refer to a subject which has not been mentioned but which is on the agenda, namely the Commission' s work programme for 2000.
I am aware of the limitations of the exercise given that we have to work within the current Treaty and are therefore restricted by its operational rules.
I am thinking in this respect of the important issue of taxation which I am not, however, going to talk about.
Rather, I want to start by welcoming certain proposals which you have made in this programme for 2000.
These include all the proposals on food safety which are ambitious and important and those on maritime safety which are particularly important given the two oil slicks which have affected the coast of Brittany and Turkey.
The Commission should react quickly in this respect.
However, on other issues the proposals could be more ambitious and faster acting.
I have some positive suggestions to make, particularly on the social area, the environment and the follow-up to Seattle.
Firstly, you have said that the citizens of Europe must be reconciled with the institutions. This is self-evident and it is therefore essential to find out their main concerns.
For example, in the social area, it is not enough to announce a communication on a programme of social action.
We must move faster.
You must submit a new social action programme to us by the end of the year.
The issue of company closures and mass redundancies is one which has been and still is very firmly in the news.
We are working on the basis of a directive whose limitations have been clearly demonstrated. I therefore propose that this should be reviewed in order to produce a directive which is more effective in protecting employment and also in imposing penalties on those who do not comply.
On the environment, you have announced a proposal for a decision on a sixth action programme on the environment.
This is all very well but it seems that the text to be proposed will not contain any specific objectives or a timetable for implementation. Perhaps you can correct me on this.
I personally feel that it is essential to have precise objectives and a proper timetable for implementation.
In terms of civil liability for the environment, it is right that we finally have a White Paper. However, Parliament did ask for a legislative initiative six years ago.
The White Paper clearly foreshadows this legislation but for when? You must realise that this process needs to be accelerated.
Finally, after Kyoto, we should be able to rapidly produce precise proposals.
Finally, on the subject of the WTO, the idea of relaunching a new global round is not necessarily bad. However, in the first place, the Commission should make proposals on changing the operational rules of the WTO.
The Commission has a role both within the EU and throughout the world.
The European Union must therefore instigate a re-evaluation of the WTO' s operation which must lead to precise proposals being made on its rules.
Madam President, you spoke about fundamental political values, and one of the fundamental political values, even more important than democracy, is respect for others.
We therefore feel that you acted correctly in sending a message and that perhaps those who protested about it are still feeling the effects of Bolshevism or Nazism. Democracy means dialogue with others and making others realise when they are wrong, but also listening to their explanations.
Enlargement - and Alleanza Nazionale has been repeating this for ten years in this House - must not mean dilution, that is, it must not entail more risks.
The applicant countries' hopes are at least as important as the hopes of our current fellow citizens, who are beginning to feel bitterly disappointed by the way Europe works, as it is not resolving the most serious problems.
We therefore need to be strict in the enlargement process and respect those agreements which - should it be necessary - need to be redrafted with regard to certain fundamental issues such as the environmental disaster that has occurred in Romania, reaching as far as Belgrade, but above all, the continuing spread of apathy as regards major security issues.
Even today, we do not have definite answers regarding the monitoring of the nuclear power stations in the eastern republics.
We therefore need resources available to spend before proceeding to enlargement, so that we can at last establish a European monitoring body responsible for monitoring quality of life and living conditions, with the aim of creating a new world where such tragedies will no longer occur.
I would also like to say a few words on Africa, Madam President.
The third and fourth worlds have been abandoned: just one dollar, one and a half euro would be enough to save a great many children.
Europe, which is so democratic, so progressive, does not speak out or take these tragic problems on board, while half of Africa is dying of Aids and other diseases.
One final remark regarding the Internet and globalisation.
Globalisation of the economy must not be reduced to product and quality certification, just as the globalisation of politics must not come to mean levelling of values or dampening of hopes and enthusiasm.
The peoples which do not participate and gradually grow more distant will leave the way open for an oligarchy that will take power and leave control in the hands of a few.
As for the Internet, Europe has finally found the courage to say that we need rules.
On a personal note, please allow me at this time to congratulate the pirates who, by acting the way they are, are forcing the world to reflect on the only system which is currently unregulated.
We live in a world of rules and regulations: let us regulate the Internet too and give our fellow citizens rules and hope for the future.
Madam President, as a Padanian taxpayer, I have already experienced the vice-like grip of the taxman and former Prime Minister of Italy, Mr Prodi, since Padania is liable to Italy for its taxes as well.
Listening to him just now, I was concerned when he mentioned new resources, something that readily translates as additional taxation, in view, inter alia, of enlargement, that is the entry of new States into the Union.
But why do they not buy their own entrance ticket? My Padanian electorate who, thanks to Mr Prodi, have already paid what in Italy is known as the European tax - repaid only in part - have absolutely no intention, thanks once again to Mr Prodi, of paying another tax for someone else.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Members of the Commission, five months after its coming into office, the Commission committed to paper the direction in which it aims to steer the European Union.
The ensuing document is both ambitious and bombastic.
Is it not rather melodramatic to say that "the world looks up to Europe" ? Moreover, Europe as a continent is a great deal more than just the fifteen EU Member States.
It is not rather ambitious to ensure peace, democracy and human rights in the whole of Europe, no less?
I am particularly intrigued by how the Commission considers bringing this about.
Does "the European integration model as a rich source for global administration" imply the export of a large-scale perspective and concentration of power? According to the Commission, external policy can succeed, provided everyone knows exactly who is in charge!
So who is this then? The Commission as a whole, its President perhaps, the Council?
You stated that the new European government requires strong institutions, while the Commission wants to focus at the same time on its core tasks.
We could not agree more with the latter.
It is high time that institutions restricted their scope to actual cross-border issues and stopped decking out the European cart with powers which they are taking away from national authorities.
The document mentions common values on different occasions.
Unfortunately, I find the reference to the relevant standards to be lacking.
This raises the question as to what these standards and values are based on.
I am convinced that the Bible, God' s word, is the only pure source of proper standards and real values.
In the tradition of our continent, this realisation is an important one which merits recognition.
Madam President, in the opinion of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, the most important task of the Commission and the whole Union in the coming years is the successful realisation of enlargement.
The Commission must carry on negotiations that are a decisive attempt to have each applicant country join the Union as soon as possible.
On the other hand, we have to see to it that none of the achievements or aims of integration that have been stated thus far are watered down.
To avoid this the European Liberal Democrats have expressed the hope that the Intergovernmental Conference will consider the various models of differentiated integration and create a concentric Union, in which there is a federal core and a less integrated outer ring.
It is clear that the subject of the internal differentiation of the Union will be raised at the IGC. The subject needs to be discussed without prejudice.
A technical improvement in the flexibility system will not be enough: we also have to raise the issue of developing our institutions for the countries in the vanguard as proposed by Jacques Delors, for example.
In this way, a decision-making system can be created that is more effective, clearer, more open and more democratic.
I hope that the Commission will make its own proposal concerning how the expanding Union might implement its institutional and other differentiation.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, your inspiring speech, Mr Prodi, has quite won me over.
It raises expectations, but it can also lead to disappointment.
This is connected to what Mr Van Velzen was just saying, about the difference between words and deeds.
The enlargement of the Union is inspired by our wish for peace, security and stability.
You are looking to reassure the acceding countries, as well as European opinion.
But these days, we are witnessing the exact reverse before our very eyes.
We have noted increasing levels of apprehension and disquiet, even within regions where unemployment is quite low and prosperity very high.
We need to make our citizens feel at home, according to Mr Swoboda, and I agree.
This is a place where we share the same values and where each and one of us also have our own task and responsibility.
This is probably linked to the standards mentioned by Mr Van Dam, namely subsidiarity.
It is necessary to have a clear division of responsibility among all levels of authority and to be partners, rather than competitors when it comes to policy.
It is also necessary to exercise authority as closely as possible to the citizens, where it can be exercised with due transparency and can be monitored by the citizens themselves.
That will require a new political culture, not only in words, but also in practice, which will take into consideration the reality of Member States and regions.
Regions which, culturally and economically, sometimes match the interest of some Member States.
The new Europe should not only expand horizontally, but also vertically, by living by our values in practice and by developing a democratic structure of a real community.
This is what the Commission will be judged on.
Madam President, the Commission is today presenting its strategic objectives for 2000-2005. These are contained in an extremely general document in which all the problems have been glossed over to prevent any conflict.
So, in the first part on the new forms of European governance, the words 'federalism' and 'superstate' are not mentioned at all.
Yet these are the main themes in any discussion of strong European institutions in which only day-to-day tasks of execution are decentralised and a collective vision is promoted within an indistinct whole. In this scenario the governments and national parliaments are merged with the regional and even local authorities and with the civil society, all of which are described, with no form of hierarchy, as 'integral elements of European governance' .
These ambiguities mask many misunderstandings, primarily about our values.
It is not enough to claim to adhere to democracy in order to be a democrat.
It must clearly be accepted that the people should be free to make their decisions at the level which best combines the objective conditions of an immediate, fair and transparent democratic debate, namely at national level in the main.
Yet the whole of the Commission communication is based on the opposite theory. In this theory, on the pretext of ensuring the best protection for peoples, their margin of independent choice should be increasingly limited by new regulations, new policies or new, restrictive legal structures such as the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This Charter is really misnamed because it will actually reduce these rights.
In the Union for a Europe of Nations Group our principles are rather different.
Clearly we want to defend the countries of Europe but we also want to respect the autonomy of nations.
This is not impossible.
We must move away from the outmoded federalist schemes promoted by those whose every idea on European matters comes from the Memoires of Jean Monnet.
Instead, we must open the European institutions to the modern world by creating a flexible dynamic which respects nations.
This is the keynote idea on the new governance which we would have liked to have seen in your communication, Mr Prodi, but which is unfortunately not there.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, you claim to be shaping a new Europe yet you are lacking one basic element: confidence.
The confidence of millions of Europeans cannot be won without being worthy of this.
And how could you be worthy of this after the mad cow scandal and the resignation of the Santer Commission for corruption? You are responsible for millions of unemployed and for millions living in poverty, insecurity and increasing misery because of your ultra-trade-oriented and ultra-liberal policies and because of the forced march towards the single currency.
You wanted and have obtained the abolition of internal borders. Consequently, you have opened Europe up to an explosion in crime and insecurity and to a flood of uncontrolled immigration.
You are now proposing to give all decision-making power to a handful of officials. The Member States, local authorities and NGOs will simply become enforcers of decisions handed down from above, all on an equal footing in their submission to Brussels.
Not once does your twelve-page document mention the national parliaments even though they comprise the elected representatives of the people.
Clearly, they have no role to play in your strategy.
You dare not even call a spade a spade, but instead hide behind pseudo-trendy language by using the term 'governance' for what is nothing more than federal, autocratic, centralised government.
Having tried for many years to persuade us by talking of shared sovereignty, you are now revealing your ultimate goal. You intend to trade in all European sovereignty, whether national or collective, for a world government in which you do not even expect to obtain a dominant position.
Finally, you are daring to condemn and penalise the free and democratic vote of millions of Austrians, or are allowing this to happen, just because the result does not suit you.
Yet at the same time you are supporting Communist China and trading with countries which have openly violated human rights for decades.
Members of this House are today speaking out against a telegram from Mr Prodi to Chancellor Schüssel which, quite obviously, is not a demonstration of sympathy but rather a political manoeuvre.
Your sabre-rattling fools no one because, as you know perfectly well, whether you like it or not, you need Austria in order to reform the Treaties and harmonise savings tax.
You will cynically and hypocritically use Austria as a convenient threat to further strip the Member States of any real powers in the construction of the European Union.
Your Commissioners are clearly not solely responsible for this.
The governments which, through spinelessness or ideology, support you are also responsible.
Brussels is not all of us, as you claim. It is all of you.
Tell the truth for once. You could not care less what the people of Europe want.
They are free to choose only between your brave new world and denouncement.
It is over ten years since the collapse of the Soviet Union and yet your projects contain a strong hint of the gulags and mollifying moralism.
We were among the small number who denounced the communist dictatorship.
We are and will remain among those fighting against Europeanist dictatorship. We call on all the people of Europe to resist your monstrous projects.
The salvation of European democracies is with nation states. Europe' s salvation lies in the cooperation of the nations of Europe.
(Limited applause)
President Prodi, today you have presented the Commission' s five-year programme, and it has many objectives that we endorse. It is a programme based on real-life situations and issues, and it is therefore right to put concrete measures aside for the moment and focus on the major issues.
In my view, Mr Prodi, judging from the text and the document that you had sent to us, one subject that is very important to both of us has been given secondary importance, and that is solidarity, not so much at international level as at internal level.
The Archbishop of Milan, Monsignor Carlo Maria Martini, is calling upon all politicians, in particular those like you and me, President Prodi, for whom the cultural and historic principle behind their presence in politics is the principle of the active involvement of Catholics in politics, to reconsider a development process, which, in addition to economic profit, takes the marginalised and those left behind by society very much into account.
It is of the utmost importance to address the issue of those who cannot keep up, one which reminds us of how difficult and complicated it is to establish progress indicators and how inadequate it is to use the parameter of per capita income alone.
It also reminds us of the need for a new growth model, one that is firmly rooted in the culture of the Catholics who are involved in social problems, who see, in the civil community and the social interaction that that must be encouraged and facilitated among the public, the most natural instruments for building solidarity.
The fundamental element for the development of each person - his freedom, which comes before economic gain - is thus enhanced.
This social freedom, which becomes manifest in initiatives favouring the poor, gives excellent results in terms of social justice and stability.
Mr President, public institutions must not accept only the economic criterion.
They must focus on service to people and commitment to achieving freedom for each individual, without forgetting, naturally, that all this cannot and must not conflict with the need to create business, to invest and risk, and in an ordered and focused system, entrepreneurs are able to make a substantial contribution to social growth solidarity.
In the age of globalisation, which we do want to facilitate with a framework of specific rules that will provide guarantees to the economic operators and consumers, the European Commission cannot forget solidarity, and must call for its implementation through the use of all of man' s spiritual resources in his relations with his fellow man.
Our heritage has taught us that politics must have a heart.
We hope that the White Paper and the actions of you and your Commission will put this into practice.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, 'Shaping the new Europe' is an ambitious objective both for the Commission and for us all.
Our ambitions and our work will be followed not only by people in our own countries, but also by many people outside Europe and the European Union.
What sort of impression will an interested public, as well as the rest of the world, have of this five-year programme? My reply would be: a new start, a clear agenda for reform which confirms that the Union in the 2000s will not stop at being an economic community but will become a community that can be trusted and that we take seriously.
The Commission is correct in stating that the Union intends to develop and safeguard the welfare state in an age of globalisation. It foresees a just and more effective Europe that also recognises its responsibilities beyond its own borders out of solidarity and enlightened self-interest.
Consequently, we see poverty and exclusion as the greatest enemies of peace and freedom.
I concur with what other members of my political group have said and I commend the tone of your document. However, there are two omissions which need to be addressed in our future work.
The first concerns women, gender and women's rights.
You talked about how women can help in increasing production and growth.
That is important, but equality is not only necessary for productivity, but also to make our societies more democratic.
It is therefore noticeable that 'equality', 'gender' and 'women' are barely mentioned in 'Shaping the New Europe'. You mentioned 'women' in your speech, but they are not referred to in the context of the strategic goals.
Is that because mainstreaming is already so widespread in the Commission that there is no need to mention women?
What other explanation could there be for omitting women? The EU must not take on a masculine persona.
My other question concerns Africa, which is the only continent not mentioned in 'Shaping the New Europe'.
Africa has the largest number of refugees in the world, the most overall poverty and a debilitating AIDS epidemic.
I know that Commissioner Nielson and some of the other Commissioners are doing a fine job, but the rest of the Commission also needs to focus more clearly on that continent, partly by including it among its strategic goals.
Finally, I welcome the Commission's statement and the fact that this says for the first time that the EU is prepared unilaterally to introduce measures to make it easier for developing countries to gain access to our markets.
I would merely ask when this is likely to take effect.
Madam President, President of the Commission, this is a vital document for the future and fate of Europe.
However, out of all the points, two specifically require our attention, and they are closely linked: peace and stability within Europe and outside Europe.
It is a question of objectives that must be pursued as a priority.
For some time, we have all agreed on this notion, but we must also clearly affirm that these objectives will not be achieved without enlargement, even if this comes at a price.
Today, we have been called on to choose, for the forthcoming decades, between a Europe that might be less prosperous but a beacon of peace and civilisation for the whole planet and a Europe that might be more wealthy, but where there is uncertainty over what the future might bring.
These goals will be more easily obtainable only if the Intergovernmental Conference, which will draw to a close within the year, results in constitutional reform, providing the Commission with real and adequate powers so that it will no longer merely implement Council decisions or Parliament' s codecisions but will have to perform the role of a real European government.
The first supporter of this reform should be Parliament itself, if it really wants to increase its role of interpreting the will of the Europeans and acquire the centrality which is part of a genuinely democratic and firmly integrated Union.
Moreover, it will only be possible to give the Commission responsibility for the tasks it takes on according to the actual powers it will be accorded.
Without these prospects that we have outlined, Europe would, once again, have no future.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, we are pleased about the overall intention of the objectives announced which are in line with the challenges which Europe must overcome.
I note that you consider the fall of the Berlin wall to be the crucial factor of the end of the century.
This event must underpin enlargement.
Rather than using the word 'enlargement' , I want to talk of reunification which has much greater political significance.
Your idea is to concentrate your activities on the core tasks. This is one of the goals of your reform.
In essence this means applying the principle of subsidiarity.
Precise application of this principle can only reinforce the actions taken and give our citizens a clear view of each level of competence.
However, saying is one thing and doing is another!
You must therefore fight against the tendency of all institutions to try and increase their powers.
I will therefore judge you on your deeds.
In the meantime, I approve and encourage this clearly expressed desire in your communication.
However, I must make two essential points.
These concern the simplification and application of Community law. In 1998, 123 referrals were made to the Court of Justice for non-application or non-transposition and 25% of environmental directives were not applied or transposed.
Recent events have shown us that these regulations are essential.
Community law must not go unapplied because it is too complex or too pedantic.
The Union must not make this mistake and I therefore regret the fact that your communication does not go into more detail on this.
You are being realistic when you say that the welfare state can no longer provide adequate responses to the problems facing us, including unemployment.
Nevertheless, I regret that a clear alternative has not been proposed.
The emphasis should have been placed on the rejection of any policy of handouts and instead on the development of initiative and responsibility.
You have not highlighted the ageing of our population which will fundamentally alter the structure of our society, not only economically but also in terms of public health.
This is a silent revolution and in this respect I expected more from your communication.
Finally, you do highlight European research as being at the heart of our future.
Yet you do not indicate the resources you intend to implement to achieve this.
Also, ethical principles are at the heart of this research but your communication says nothing about these.
If you want to better inform the people, you should start by strengthening liaison with this House, as we are the representatives of the citizens.
Madam President, we can only endorse the general guidelines of the five-year programme and of the programme for 2000, set out with so much enthusiasm by President Prodi this morning.
In the two documents, strong emphasis is placed on the need to define new forms of European governance and, to this end, to introduce a new agenda for the Commission, establishing more stringent priorities in the pursuit of the goal of full employment, through more efficient coordination of the economic and social policies of the States, and, primarily - allow me to stress this - of the nations that have joined the monetary union and which must be enabled to become the first example of closer cooperation.
To this end, I shall confine myself to stressing, out of all the choices available, the importance of three priority decisions which should, in the drawing-up of action programmes for the government of the Union, be the basis for both the Commission' s agenda and the actions of the European Union in the coming months.
Firstly, the promotion of and participation in the drafting of joint plans for the creation of an integrated services network in the transport and energy sectors, with the backing of the European Investment Bank.
Secondly, the approval of investments - where the parameters are binding when drawing up action programmes on employment - to be made in individual countries via Community projects in the priority sectors of research, innovation and training.
I feel that these parameters - particularly those of a qualitative nature, resulting from investments in continuous training, refresher courses, adaptability and retraining of older workers - are considerably more significant and binding owing to their lasting effects over the medium term than the simple drawing up of annual quantitative objectives, that are always debatable, regarding new employment or employment cuts.
If, among other things, as the programme of the Portuguese Presidency stresses as well, the Commission could promote a new phase of social dialogue, focusing on an agreed strategy of socialisation and diffusion of knowledge, in other words, a strategy for employability and the definition of its rules, this would allow us to take a step towards having employees participate in the informed and consensual management of the restructuring and reemployment processes.
Thirdly, I do not think that the decrease in the number of the working population, owing to the ageing of the population, is unavoidable and inevitable for the European Union. This is not just because of the existence of margins which would permit an increase in the number of working women and immigration, but because we need to be determined in reversing the widespread trend of early retirements from the job market, and direct the coordinated reform of social welfare systems, certainly not towards large reductions in future pension payments but towards the active use of people' s increased life expectancy and towards a longer working life.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, you have come here today, Mr Prodi, in a very reformist and ambitious mood.
I welcome you and your ambition. Ambition will be needed, given the mammoth task which awaits us.
In order to make these reforms, however, and in order to make progress with the 2001 legislative programme, we must be very sure, not only of the strengths of the reformer himself, but also of the opinions of others.
You say that you will not hesitate to come to this House to request more resources for the Commission, but the Commission must be aware that we are walking on thin financial ice.
We have 1.27% of the Community' s GDP. Not a euro more or a euro less.
It will not be us who refuse these new resources. You should ask the Council.
These financial perspectives are adjusted to within a millimetre.
In order to finance the stability plan for the Balkans, we will have to negotiate a significant revision of Category 4, and you must remember the enormous difficulties we have had in approving the 2000 budget.
I would remind you that this Group, the PPE-DE, does not like to finance new political initiatives at the expense of existing ones.
The political priorities must be set by this House and the MEPs.
Do not believe for one moment that your proposed reform of the budget will disguise the limitations of the Community financial system.
It is all very well for us, by mutual consensus, to make an effort in terms of budgetary rationalisation, but you must be very aware that the lack of resources, the absence of financial autonomy and the poor execution of the budget, continue to be urgent issues which must be resolved.
We therefore wonder whether the Commission has the political will to resolve them.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, in my view, this strategy paper has two clear weaknesses.
There is no point in drawing up a new economic and social agenda if you have not even finished the old one.
I am thinking of transport policy and regional policy.
You have excellent Commissioners for both issues in Mrs Palacio and Mr Barnier, yet still you attach too little importance to these areas. And do you know why?
Just look at transport policy; clearly it is crucial for this policy to be drawn up as a economically and ecologically sensible policy before the accession of other countries.
I would be grateful if the President of the Commission would listen to what I have to say, although of course he has no obligation to do so. Let me give you three examples.
First: we need reasonable deregulation of the railway sector because we want to shift freight from the roads to the railways. That makes sense from an economic and an ecological point of view.
Without deregulation we will not make any headway with a reasonable transport policy.
The same applies to European air traffic control.
Our citizens cannot understand that we are deregulating air traffic, but leaving 15 different sectors in the skies which are under national control, which have an adverse economic impact on the airlines and which pollute the environment. You still have not finished that agenda.
Commissioner, far too little is said in your paper about regional policy.
Economic and social cohesion in the EU is a fundamental task of this Community.
If we fail to complete it, citizens in less favoured regions will dread enlargement.
We must show them that we intend to use the next five years to help them join the rich regions by promoting the less favoured regions using reasonable means.
Then they too will be prepared to really support enlargement and help to achieve it.
Mr President of the Commission, if we do not manage to create true solidarity between the rich and the poor regions, then this Union will be all the poorer and it will not meet with the approval of the people.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, the fact that we are formulating new programmes does not mean that we should neglect those older programmes which are at implementation stage.
From that standpoint, it is useful that the Commission' s work programme comes back to the issues of Agenda 2000, the common agricultural policy, which includes fishing, and secondly, the activities of the structural funds.
I hope this reference means that the reorganisation of the Commission currently in progress will not damage the mechanism for monitoring and implementing Agenda 2000.
The Agenda 2000 issues are, of course, ones that relate to your third and fourth strategic objectives, the economic and social Agenda and a better quality of life.
What your texts do not make apparent is the extent to which these major, high-minded objectives are compatible with the resources that the Commission intends to deploy.
I do not necessarily mean financial resources.
The implementation of Agenda 2000 in the agricultural sector does not ultimately require more money.
There must also be savings.
But what we need is the analytical resources: these issues require the investment of more intellectual capital.
This is because it is essential to achieve two things: the European model of multifunctionality in agriculture must be secured, and this must be done in a way which facilitates the liberalisation of world trade in agricultural products, mainly to the benefit of developing countries.
It is not easy to combine those aims.
There is no obvious way.
There may well be contradictions between the two objectives and there is nothing to show that the Commission has pointed out those contradictions and how it proposes to deal with them.
As regards the other aspect of Agenda, the aspect of cohesion and regional development, there we do indeed have great achievements to point to, but there are still less developed regions, particularly island regions, to which more attention should be paid.
As for fishing, there is nothing in your programme to tell us that the predatory exploitation of fishing grounds, which has gone as far as to wipe out entire species of fish, will certainly prove fruitful in the future.
Perhaps these issues should be approached with greater attention and a greater esprit de finesse.
Madam President, I want to start by reinforcing the caution that has been expressed by many colleagues here in addressing this five-year plan.
In setting very ambitious long-term goals we must not take our eyes away from the present.
That was a point made very forcibly by the leader of my group, Mr Poettering, in his opening address.
The Union must not take on a whole range of new tasks without the basic foundation for a successful European economy being in place.
That foundation is clearly the single market.
How strongly is the single market established at the moment? I want to remind Mr Prodi, and his colleagues who are still here, of the findings of the Commission' s own survey among 3000 European businesses.
Nearly 40% of businesses in this survey are still reporting additional costs to render products or services compatible with national specifications.
This is the Commission' s own survey.
These are the classic symptoms of continued obstruction by national governments - bureaucratic red-tape blocking market entry.
The Commission' s programme shows a disturbing complacency about the completion of the internal market.
We have to keep the pressure up in all areas by removing further barriers, intensifying pressure on Member States who fail to implement single market measures and, of course, extending into crucial new areas like financial services.
Only on the strong foundation of the single market will the agenda of enlargement be successfully achieved.
An enlarged Europe must build on the existing strengths of the Union.
The single market extending across that enlarged Union is going to be a colossal achievement.
I conclude by saying, on behalf of all my Conservative colleagues - and we are the second largest national delegation in this Parliament - that we pledge our full support to the Commission and to Mr Prodi in achieving this historic task.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, at the time of our vote on your appointment we invited you to come here today.
The serious business is therefore now going to start as we are to vote on your programme.
From your speech I will concentrate on what you have called the new governance, which you will use as a tool for reconciliation with our fellow citizens.
Yet this new governance simply means how the institutions and our public authorities operate, if we agree that the European Union must be a public authority.
The interlinking of the EU institutions, the responsibilities of the Member States and the local and regional authorities is all very well. Yet is this really how we will reconcile the people and European construction?
Is this really how we will answer the fundamental questions which are not so much about 'who does what' but more 'what are we doing together' ? It is these questions which cause concern among our fellow citizens.
In your speech you mentioned the challenges of globalisation and enlargement which await us. I would add to these the future of our social model.
This is why I and my group are so firmly insisting on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The reason our timetable includes the drafting of this Charter is because we are at a key point in our history. Our Union needs to redefine the values on which it is based, both within its current borders and also with a view to the imminent enlargements which we earnestly desire, but not under just any conditions.
Our people expect more Europe, but not just any Europe.
They are expecting us not to fall in with globalisation but rather, on the basis of our social model, to be able to organise globalisation.
In this respect I must say that, in terms of your commitment to a political union, to which we are favourable, this cannot be achieved unless it is based on our social model, on our originality and our capacity to better regulate the business of this world.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, I should like to start with a quote: "The Commission will continue to work towards establishing a European Charter of Fundamental Rights and draw up proposals to bring about an ambitious programme.
The Commission is planning in particular to develop a genuine European policy on asylum and immigration. It wishes to boost judicial assistance and cooperation and to develop an effective approach to the fight against all forms of crime" .
That is the entire programme for the next five years on the question of internal security, freedom, citizens' rights and judicial cooperation.
A paper this short is a farce.
A farce because we know and appreciate the work of Commissioner Vitorino and what we have here on paper is a blatant contradiction to how things actually stand.
A paper such as this is no basis for a scoreboard.
It has been extolled and celebrated as a huge achievement and I am all for it; we need a basis for a scoreboard.
We here in Parliament want to hold a serious discussion about the future development in this policy area on the basis of a programme.
What we are looking for are minimum standards in asylum procedures so that refugees can be given help quickly, and those who are not fleeing know where they stand.
We want instruments to prevent abuse.
We want to develop a Community immigration policy which takes account of the Member States' capacity to absorb immigrants and we need to extend the operational powers of EUROPOL, for example, so that specific steps can be taken to combat organised crime.
We debate these issues intensively and seriously and we should be entitled to expect likewise from the Commission, even where it is merely submitting a paper.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, I rise to speak on the subject of the World Trade Organisation, on which there is a broad convergence of views between the Commission documents and the positions of the Socialist Group. This is not the case in other areas, as has already been pointed out.
We share these views because we are in favour of world trade, but we want this trade to be conducted according to common standards, common rules which would regulate world trade with one aim in mind. This aim is that trade should benefit development, and particularly harmonious development in which the values of citizenship do not only apply to the world' s most dynamic and competitive regions.
On the other hand, what does this statement tell us about principles? This regulation and these standards have brought an increased volume of trade for the World Trade Organisation, in other words, increased wealth, but when we look at how this wealth is distributed, we see, unfortunately, that the gulf between the world' s richest countries and blocks and the poorest and least developed countries continues to increase.
It is therefore quite legitimate and even imperative that we ask ourselves, what purpose do the current common standards and rules serve?
What good are the current way in which we negotiate and the way in which the World Trade Organisation works, if they cause trade to increase on the one hand, but on the other, they create problems and above all cause this gulf between rich and poor countries to grow?
That is why we said that we were in favour of the strategy that the Commission outlined here for the Seattle negotiations and for later ones.
We are certainly in favour of this strategic vision but we need to be brave and ambitious.
We need to be demanding and ensure that social rights, environmental rights and consumer protection are incorporated into the forthcoming negotiations.
Most importantly though, we must have a brave and ambitious long-term vision for reform, not just of the WTO but also of the ILO, the United Nations and above all, of the financial institutions, specifically the IMF and the World Bank.
We must be brave and not only see some aspects of globalisation. We must be brave enough to have more of an overview of this process, so that wealth does not only benefit the most highly-developed blocks and countries, but that there is also harmonious change and development in every region in the world.
Madam President, I would also like to welcome the Commission' s initiative of presenting us with a report on its strategic objectives for the next five years, although I hope that it intends, in subsequent documents, to avoid the excess of generalisations and the vagueness of the text which we are examining today.
Having said this, Madam President, I am prepared, once again, to be a voice crying in the wilderness as a result of the absence of a fishing policy.
It is really surprising that the Commission does not treat the revision of one of its common policies as a strategic objective for the coming years, in view of the reform which must take place in 2002.
There is no doubt whatsoever that this revision process will be the most important thing to affect the fishing industry for many years.
However, it seems that the Commission does not share this view, although it is the Commission which is obliged to present the Council and Parliament with a report on the functioning of the common fisheries policy over the last decade before the end of 2001, and it is on this basis that the Council will have to make the appropriate decisions with regard to its modification.
In fact, the revision process has already begun for many bodies and institutions, such as the European Parliament, which in 1998 already issued and adopted a report pointing out all the current problems and deficiencies of the common fisheries policy.
We have often asked for a basic timetable for this revision and we have received no reply.
Less than two years is not much time if we bear in mind also that the fishing policy is anomalous with regard to the internal market regulations and that such anomalies should be resolved within the framework of this reform process.
Therefore, Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, I would ask that this issue, which is of vital importance to a very significant industry within the European Union, be taken into account in this strategy and these strategic objectives for the next five years.
Madam President, I should like to add my congratulations to Commissioner Prodi's programme.
I particularly welcome his recognition of this virtuous circle of having sustained growth: the information society in an expanding European market with the addition of a fully functioning single currency which will give us the opportunity to genuinely promote prosperity, innovation enterprise, the entrepreneurial spirit and yes - most importantly of all - extra-high value sustainable jobs for our European citizens.
I have one observation, not a criticism, to make regarding Commissioner Prodi's statement this morning and that is that it was a little weak on the actual content of economic policy.
We must not take anything for granted in terms of how we get the European economy restructured.
After all, what is social justice if it is without full employment? Full employment is the best way to generate social justice for our citizens.
This is a key priority for us to focus on.
I should like to welcome one or two initiatives that have already come from the Commission which will help us: in particular Commissioner Liikanen's commitment to having an innovative knowledge-driven economy.
Yes, e-Europe will be the future for us because it will help us create new prosperity and new jobs.
I welcome the Commission initiatives now and in the past to support our small and medium-sized enterprises and I would like to congratulate our Portuguese Presidency for its initiative on having a charter for micro-businesses.
That is important and something that can be developed through the Lisbon Summit.
I also welcome Commissioner Busquin's idea to have a common research area for the whole of the European Union.
Again, this is a way that we can help create better opportunities for jobs and for prosperity.
You said in your summary, Commissioner Prodi, that liberalisation, competitiveness, keeping inflation low, innovation, science and technology are central for the future success of the European economy and creating jobs.
I very much agree with you on that, but we can take nothing for granted.
There is still more we have to do, and the Lisbon Summit will become part of that.
So with those remarks I would like to congratulate you on the programme and wish it every success.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, I should like to focus on two points which are not mentioned in your programme.
To me, this Commission strategy paper for the next five years reads like a scientific paper on the European Union or a declaration of principle.
Unfortunately, it does not give the impression of being a real political strategy on the part of the Commission.
As the spokesperson for cultural and training policy for my group, I would have expected more in the way of agenda from an Italian President of the Commission.
The Commission gives no soul to Europe.
Culture and training simply do not exist in this paper, despite the fact that we need to create a real area of training and culture in Europe.
Just a few main points.
I am talking about the integration of the policies of the culture industry in this area of training and culture; they create jobs.
I am talking about the introduction of cultural mainstreaming in all policy areas, about consolidating and improving the European dimension of training and education syllabuses and about networking training and education policies in Europe especially lifelong learning.
Mr President of the Commission, it is the new millennium and you made no mention whatsoever of the audio-visual area of Europe.
Nor was any mention made of information policy and communications catering to the needs of our citizens.
It seems to me that something is missing from this programme.
Truly European citizenship depends on our creating a real, visible area of training and culture.
Declarations of principle are not enough.
We need an agenda which can be translated into political action by the Commission on an ongoing basis in the way in which I have just described.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, how would you take stock of your policy and work programme, what would your benchmark be, if you had to make direct choices? You have the fine, charming idea that the outcome and the benchmark for your policy and for your five-year programme will be the result of the elections, or rather the turnout at the next European elections.
When I think that I have to explain your work programme week in, week out to my constituents, not in the rarefied atmosphere of this House, but on the street, then I ask myself, what can I say?
Mr Prodi, what can I say; what is there that is new?
There is nothing new in your work programme.
You have taken 12 pages for five years and 18 pages for one year' s work programme.
Does that give me hope for the year 2000? No, it does not!
In your work programme for 2000 you state something quite clever.
You say that environmental considerations must be integrated into all other policy areas.
Have you done so, Mr Prodi; have you even read your work programme for the year? No, you have not done so.
You have not integrated environmental policy into enlargement, despite the fact that it will be one of the fundamental problems of enlargement.
Nor have you integrated it into economic policy, competition or the internal market.
You have not integrated it anywhere.
You have tacked a few components together but you have no overall structure.
You said earlier in your speech that a disaster such as that of the Danube is an example of the need for an emergency structure; no, Mr Prodi, we need, at long last, to start transposing legislation and ensuring that legislation is monitored.
You say in your five-year programme that the people of the European Union rightly expect food standards to be higher and better foodstuffs legislation.
Mr Prodi, you do not know what you are talking about.
The foodstuffs legislation in the European Union is the most ambitious in the world.
Where it falls short, what is missing, is transposition in the Member States and monitoring.
It is time you took your job seriously, it is time for you, as President of the Commission, to box the Member States on the ears and force them to do their work and fulfil their duties.
It is no good spending time on hobbies when there is a day' s work to be done.
That is what we expect of you in the next five years.
. (ES) Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, as chairman of this Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries, Mr Prodi, you are not making things easy for me at all.
I feel duty bound to publicly denounce the fact that fishing is absent from the programme which you have presented to us.
The next five years of the Prodi Commission - as you solemnly announce in the first of your conclusions - will mean great change.
I hope that this change will not mean an even greater marginalisation of fishing, since the silence of your programme, with regard to fishing, is deafening.
Not a single line, nor a single word, refers to fishing or the CFP.
I am not asking for details or specific points, but I believe that a mention was required.
How could you completely ignore a common - I repeat; common - policy with such an economic, social and regional impact, and which therefore affects the economic and social cohesion of Europe? This is all the more serious, if that is possible - as others have said - bearing in mind that your Commission, Mr Prodi, has to carry out nothing less than a revision or reform of the current common fisheries policy, which you are legally required to do in 2002.
Does the Commission intend to do nothing - at least it has announced nothing - about this reform in 2000 either? What message can we send to the fishermen of Europe, and their families, and the fishing industries, both the extractive and processing and marketing industries, and the related and secondary industries which depend on fishing in so many European ports, in so many European regions, in most cases peripheral regions, who rightly demand that this problem be dealt with as a priority?
You have made an explicit reference to the CAP for the coming years, but you have not done so for the CFP, with regard to the double adaptation of the internal market which is necessary to prevent exceptions - as has already been said - and in a global context, in the context of globalisation.
This House has expressed its opinion on the first issue and it will also do so on the second.
I would therefore ask you, Mr Prodi, to make an explicit reference to this problem in your reply today.
Our parliamentary Group will table an amendment in this respect and we expect a positive message from you.
Mr President of the Commission, this is indeed an historic moment for Parliament, a five-year programme following the crisis of the Commission.
On behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to focus on the point of internal reform.
We wholeheartedly support the programme as it is now laid down in a consultative document and which is also included in the programme of Vice-President, Mr Kinnock, on behalf of the Commission.
We consider it to be of utmost importance that, in terms of financial control, personnel management and bureaucratic short-cuts, we can expect swift lines of policy and a more effective bureaucracy, for the benefit of the citizen.
At the same time, we are aware that this is a massive programme and that, during the overhaul in the next couple of years, it will be necessary to keep the actual results coming in, as before.
Much like in the Netherlands, where, at a given point, women woke up to the fact that, by referring to European legislation, they could improve their status in terms of social security, this is now also the case for scores of other citizens.
They want to see results.
Democracy, transparency and clarity always lead to results, citizens value results and this is what the Commission is judged on.
This is exactly the point which Mr Swoboda and also other Members made: fear of modernisation, globalisation, and the individual losing his own sense of safety and security.
This can be prevented if a European social model is drawn up and if results are achieved in all these concrete areas.
I would therefore strongly advocate internal reform which delivers fast and concrete results at a social level. This gives the citizen a sense of recognition, here in Europe and elsewhere.
Because this citizen - one in five globally - still has no access to elementary social provisions, such as education and health care.
These are really the people who deserve our solidarity.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, I have read and re-read the Commission' s document setting out the strategic objectives for its term in office.
I am delighted that it is being discussed in Parliament, but I also note the compromises and the omissions in it.
The Commission makes only a passing reference to economic and social cohesion, to solidarity between Member States and to the European Union' s regional policy.
And this is true even when it addresses the issue of enlargement.
Are reducing the disparities between levels of development and the consequent promotion of real convergence objectives that we have already achieved?
Certainly not! At the same time, it was rightly pointed out that Europe must evaluate its role as a joint partner with developing countries, and strengthen its activities designed for fighting poverty.
This document leaves out issues which clearly should have been included.
I think the fact that the Commission does not address the issue of cohesion is extremely serious.
It plays down one of the Treaties' principles - that of economic and social cohesion - which must inform all of the European institutions' policies and measures. It seems to ignore the fact that various European regions are still considerably less advanced than others.
It also forgets that enlargement means that we must get regional policy right. Unless we achieve real convergence, the cohesion of the European Union itself will be at risk.
We should take into consideration the sixth periodic report on the situation of the regions in the European Union, for which the Commission is responsible.
This report confirms that whereas an average level of development is given a rating of 100, the ten so-called "strongest" regions reached an average of 158, and the ten so-called "weakest" regions reached a figure of around 50.
You may draw your own conclusions.
50 is exactly the level of development of my own region, the Azores, one of the regions defined in the Treaties as ultra-peripheral.
I am waiting for the Commission' s report on the ultra-peripheral regions, which the Council decided should be drawn up by December 1999.
I shall finish by restating my conviction that without economic and social cohesion, there will be no cohesion at all, only disunity.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, Europe needs a strong Commission.
As intended by the Treaties and the will of the people, the Commission is the driving force of European construction which is like a rock of Sisyphus which we have to push back up to the summit again together after each round of enlargement. We therefore need a strong Commission but one which relies on the support of a parliament.
This House is therefore your ally but not one which is too accommodating. You must therefore listen to our opinions, one or two of which I wish to express in my brief speech.
Firstly, Mr President, although your two predecessors concentrated on developing an internal market and establishing the single currency, it has been left to you to develop this whole value of citizenship which is at the heart of European construction.
You must not allow yourself to be distracted by the sole issue of enlargement, however important this may be.
You must go further, towards reconciling the people with Europe, in particular those people who are falling victim to economic, social and, probably, in the future, technological divisions.
The promotion of scientific development and new technologies and access for all to these technologies will not be provided by the market or competition.
The latter will also not ensure the social proximity and effectiveness of the main community services of health, education, transport, communications, water and whatever else.
Your action programme and your objectives are reserved, even silent, specifically on the stimulation of public investment which is needed. This is also the case with the consolidation and financing of the main public and general interest services.
This is an absolute priority if you are to reconcile Europe with the people and ensure that the people choose Europe rather than Jörg Haider.
Madam President, the Commission was correct to make food safety one of its top priorities.
The recent dioxin scare in Belgium, prior to that the BSE crisis in Britain, and the continuing controversy over the safety of genetically-modified foods, have all contributed to undermining consumer confidence in the safety of the food they eat.
If the Commission can indeed restore confidence in the food production chain it will simultaneously restore confidence in the European Union institutions themselves and demonstrate their ability to protect the rights of EU citizens.
I therefore welcome the fact that the issue of food safety, public health and consumer confidence features prominently in the Commission's work programme for 2000.
However, I was disappointed with the nature of the proposal for the establishment of a European food authority in the recent White Paper.
In its present form, what is being proposed is more like an advisory agency to the Commission rather than an independent body that would have decision- and law-making powers more similar to those of the US Food and Drug Administration, which has already established credibility in this particular field.
Furthermore, future legislation must address the modus operandi of the relationship between the European food authority and the authorities of national Member States, for example the food safety authority in Ireland.
This body, for example, alongside the recently established cross-border body in Ireland for food safety, is already doing good work.
It would be a tragedy if their efforts were to be undermined by deficiencies in EU legislation.
My fear is that such deficiencies in EU legislation could lead to turf wars between national and EU bodies, who should be working together rather than against one another.
That is something we must guard against.
Madam President, the presentation by President Prodi today has necessarily been a fairly broad brush affair.
We will be looking for the detail year by year, for example in the social action programme to be unveiled this year.
We will also be looking at this from the perspective of social and employment policy, and will be applying a number of tests.
We will be looking at the extent to which we can create an equilateral policy triangle combining economic policy, employment policy and social policy.
At the moment, social policy is trailing well behind economic and employment policy.
Within the employment strategy we will look for a deepening and broadening of the strategy following the review under the Portuguese presidency and within the framework being proposed by the Portuguese Presidency.
Within the social dimension we will be looking for a deepening of the internal market with a social aspect.
The spate of mergers, takeovers and transfers that we are experiencing with the deepening of the market means that we must act to update the matrix of information and consultation directives that we have adopted in the past; but we must also complement them with the new general framework of information and consultation and an updating of the works council directive.
We also need a code of corporate conduct to make sure that companies in fact work in partnership with their workers in the management of change.
That is the successful way to manage change, and I hope the Commission will act to make sure that is put into place.
Finally, with the emergence, the resurgence, of the xenophobic Right within the European Union I hope that our institutions together will do their utmost to give reality to Article 6 by using Article 13 to combat discrimination, and Article 137 to combat exclusion.
We need to move that agenda forward with great urgency now.
The aspirations are fine, President Prodi, we want those aspirations to be matched by action.
Madam President, I hope that it is a good omen that there are still a few i's left for me to dot.
Mr Prodi, you set great store in your reform efforts on introducing a forward-looking employment policy throughout Europe.
However, for the economic sector which I represent, i.e. fisheries, this means change.
We need to break away from planned economy subsidies in favour of a liberal policy which fosters personal responsibility.
We must reduce protective tariffs in order to safeguard effective capacity utilisation in undertakings in the processing industry.
What it comes down to is the competitiveness of the European economy on the world market and the existence of thousands of jobs in the processing industry and offshore fishing.
However, I am sure that I do not need to remind you of the importance of a branch of the economy which is both an economic and a social factor, which affects not only Germany but all the coastal regions of Europe.
Plus, this branch of the economy is one of the few sectors in which Europe has fully integrated powers to decide and act, which is why we expect to be given a right of codecision here too.
This has since been unanimously approved.
The fisheries policy is due for review in a few months' time, i.e. at the beginning of the year 2000.
So it is somewhat upsetting that there is not so much as a mention of this branch of the economy is this paper.
I hope that this is a misunderstanding.
Please, Mr Prodi, stand by your word and implement your promises.
Madam President, many of the speakers from the Socialist Group have already identified key areas where there are gaps in the Commission' s statement.
However, we have acknowledged that this is an innovative and very welcome initiative by the Commission.
One area that I want to focus on, in addition to those already identified, is that of cultural diversity in Europe.
The introduction to this statement acknowledges under the quality of life section that it is important.
But there is nothing in the statement which indicates that the Commission intends to take any steps to deal with the issue of cultural diversity.
If we are to ensure that we defeat the fear-mongers amongst us - those seeking power on the backs of anxious citizens - then we must seriously address the question of how we can live together and how we can dismantle the negative stereotypes that we have of each other, both within the present European Union and among those who seek to join us and, indeed, among those in other parts of Europe and the world who want to come and live and work in Europe.
Unless we address these issues, unless we dismantle these negative stereotypes, unless we take what is best from our various cultures and languages and protect and expand it and ensure that we are serious about having a diverse Europe, we will fail.
Those who are currently coming to the fore in Europe based on fear will win the day.
I am seriously concerned that unless the Commission recognises that this is an important aspect of how we will create a cohesive Europe, we will make progress on the economic front, on the employment front and even on the issue of foreign and security policy, but our citizens will still remain fearful because they will fear the unknown and they will fear those they do not understand.
If we do not take steps to deal with that, we will fail ultimately.
Thank you, Mr De Rossa.
Before giving the floor again to the President of the Commission, I must tell you that I have received, pursuant to Rule 37, seven motions for resolutions to conclude the debate.
Welcome
Mr President, I also rise on a point of order.
Are there any rules or regulations that govern demonstrations within the building of this Parliament, outside the doors of the Hemicycle, to ensure that MEPs are free to come into this Hemicycle to discharge their mandate? If there are such rules, who has the responsibility for enforcing them and what are they doing to discharge that responsibility?
Mr President, I would like to take up the matter of the statute for assistants, which we have always considered to be a priority, and inform you that - as the Italian delegation of the group - in response to the invitation from the group leader, Mr Barón Crespo, we have forwarded the contracts that we drew up with the assistants to the Quaestors.
I think that we need to make a tangible gesture in order to get a solution to this problem underway.
I would therefore like to call on the Presidency of Parliament to consider that it might be appropriate for the Presidency itself to invite the Members to do likewise.
Mr President, first of all let me say that I am in full support of a statute for assistants.
Yesterday when I arrived in Parliament I was handed a document relating to a proposed demonstration by the assistants outside the doors of Parliament.
As all colleagues will know - and many of you have approached me over the last six months - all exhibitions and such like are filtered first of all through the Comart committee of Parliament.
To give a non-contentious example, no commercial exhibitions can be held here in Parliament for obvious reasons.
Following a letter I received yesterday, I immediately informed the assistants that we would propose that they be allowed to hold a meeting or demonstration, probably in the near future and possibly in the next month.
But all exhibitions must be carried out in a way that do not interfere with the orderly running of Parliament.
I signed a letter yesterday afternoon, in the meeting of the Bureau of Parliament, in which the assistants were informed of this.
But I am also told that they were informed verbally of this decision by the Committee of Chairmen of Groups last Thursday, so they were fully aware of the decision.
There is no problem with them telling us the way they feel, there is no problem with a possible meeting during Parliament's next part-session.
But there was some misunderstanding, for they did receive a letter from somebody else that they felt gave them permission.
But all exhibitions are in fact looked at first by the so-called Comart committee.
As you can see we have many exhibitions around Parliament, whether they be about different countries or whatever.
This is not an attempt to either censor or go against the very real and justifiable principle that we should have a statute for assistants.
Thank you, Mrs Banotti.
I think your intervention may clarify various points that were raised.
We shall now proceed to the vote.1
VOTE
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Spanish delegation of the European People' s Party, the delegation of the Spanish People' s Party, with regard to Mrs Terrón i Cusí' s resolution on the area of freedom, security and justice.
There have been some votes where we have not followed the guidelines of the Group of the European People' s Party, and we have voted in favour of the Terrón i Cusí resolution, which we consider on the whole to be excellent.
However, we have voted against paragraphs 2 and 6, because they seem to us to be legally incorrect.
On the other hand, we have voted in favour of Recital J which, in fact, is in line with what I, as draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms, proposed to that Committee, with a view to the Intergovernmental Conference.
We have also voted in favour of paragraph 13.
An appropriate statute and the right of movement and settlement for residents of non-EU countries is something which the Spanish People' s Party has been advocating for some time.
For similar reasons, we have voted in favour of paragraph 14 which, with the oral amendment, dealt with certain very justifiable concerns about the question of subsidiarity, since political rights, not just voting in local elections, but political rights in general terms, form part of the sovereignty of Member States.
Given the oral amendment, we felt we could vote in favour and that is what we have done.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democratic Members of the European Parliament have chosen to vote in favour of the proposed resolution, but are at the same time aware of the fact that certain areas clash with the reservation Denmark has in the legal sphere - a reservation which the Danish delegation in the Group of the Party of European Socialists naturally wishes to respect.
This report which I voted against is less concerned with human rights than with 'communitisation' or the consolidation of Fortress Europe.
The supposed progress achieved in 1999 and mentioned by the report only occurred in the Dublin Conventions and Schengen Agreements and a further action plan from Tampere which all restrict the rights of immigrants.
In terms of human rights, this is a backward step.
Europe is continuing to expel nationals arriving from countries regarded as dangerous by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Yet some applicant countries in central and eastern Europe are taking in gypsy refugees expelled en masse from Belgium.
Kosovo Albanians and Serb deserters are being refused refugee status, whereas Pinochet is calmly escaping prosecution.
The Europe of Schengen clearly finds it much easier to hound the persecuted from the south than dictators, even though the UN estimates that we will need 159 million immigrants to maintain a stable population between now and the year 2025.
Europe should regularise the situation of all its illegal immigrants and grant them right of asylum and the right to vote in all elections. Only then can we talk in this House about an area of freedom and justice.
McCarthy report (A5-0026/2000)
Mr President, I would firstly like to point out that I was Mayor of Bilbao during the nineties, which gave me the opportunity to present one of the first urban pilot projects to be subsidised by the Commission.
Our experience with that pilot project in Bilbao led us to four conclusions: firstly, that Europe must maintain an urban policy and therefore, far from reducing the EUR 900 million for the last five year period to EUR 700 million for this five year period, the funding of this project should be increased. This should be done, for example - and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has proposed this - by reinvesting, in URBAN projects, that portion of the Structural Funds which each Member State has not spent within the time scales laid down for that purpose.
Secondly, when deciding which areas must be subsidised, we must concentrate efforts on integrated projects.
Disparate actions are not effective.
We have to select locations by prioritising those which are most impoverished and needy, in accordance with the objectives set, that is to say, the social, economic, environmental and democratic management dimensions, as well as the relationship between them.
Thirdly, we have to bear in mind the synergies generated by other Community programmes, as well as the opportunities for sustainable development in the location or region in question.
Finally, we have to put our trust in, and support, the institutions which are closest to the citizens, that is, the local councils and bodies.
They have more first-hand knowledge of social needs. They have more involvement in the problems and, furthermore, they know how to conceive projects and implement them effectively without weighing them down with bureaucracy, and thereby achieve better results.
Lastly, in today' s vote on our four amendments, two have been approved and the other two rejected.
This has obliged us to abstain from the final vote, because we do not understand how we can ignore the environmental question when deciding which projects must be financed and we do not understand how we can reject the idea that each Member State can dedicate, to URBAN projects, that portion of the Structural Funds which it has not spent in accordance with Community programmes.
Mr President, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism had an in-depth discussion on the URBAN initiative which produced many ideas.
As the smallest Community initiative in existence, we therefore proposed an increase in its funding through an amendment which was rejected.
We regret this as there was actually money left over from the Structural Funds in some countries which could really have helped with pilot projects. We should remember that it is these URBAN projects which specifically allow a truly urban policy to be established.
The Commission should also pay attention to coherence between the various policies which are in place. It should make URBAN projects coherent with future projects in budget lines entitled 'sustainable urban policy' .
Finally, there is currently still no European urban policy within the European Union. Perhaps this point could be developed in the context of reorganisation and the Intergovernmental Conference so that the European Union finally has a true urban policy.
Mr President, I would like to point out that I voted for this report on sustainable urban development, known as URBAN.
As with all other Community initiatives, this is very positive.
Europe is making its presence felt at a time when we are doing something for all the citizens of Europe and not simply for the development of an individual State, whichever one it may be.
URBAN is designed to find solutions to urban decay, and this is something of great concern to the elderly and therefore of great concern to the Pensioners' Party.
There can be no worse situation than that of an elderly person living in a city.
I hope that this Community initiative will help serve as an example on how to resolve the problems faced by the elderly in cities.
. (DA) The Left' s five Members of the European Parliament have chosen to support LEADER+, the EQUAL initiative and INTERREG, but not URBAN.
At a forthcoming review of these programmes, it ought to be established that the EU' s efforts are to be concentrated upon cross-border tasks and adapted to the possible enlargement of the EU.
.
(DA) We have voted in favour of the report on the communication from the Commission concerning the guidelines for a Community initiative relating to the economic and social regeneration of cities and neighbourhoods in crisis and designed to promote sustainable development (URBAN).
Basically, we are opposed to programmes and structural funds of this type but, since the vote only concerns how - and not to what extent - these resources are to be used, we have confined ourselves to assessing the contents and think, in general, that the proposal for regenerating neighbourhoods in crisis contains some sensible observations, as well as some good suggestions and criteria for the relevant projects.
This report contains general points on what is referred to as the urban regeneration strategy for town centres and neighbourhoods affected by the crisis in the capitalist economy and its consequences, i.e. increasing unemployment, exclusion and delinquency.
It underlines the fact that, in order to ensure sustainable urban development, an urban policy must be implemented which does not leave out the main victims of the economic crisis, namely the unemployed, immigrants, refugees, women and the socially excluded.
However, nothing is said about the causes of this crisis and those responsible for it.
At best this report simply corrects certain aspects and effects of the crisis. Yet only scandalously limited resources are available for this work.
As the report itself indicates, the funds allocated to the URBAN II programme for the 2000-2006 period are approximately 30% less than those in the previous period, which were already low, at EUR 900 million. Added to this is the fact that only about fifty projects are considered for the whole of Europe which is pathetic when practically all European city districts, both suburban and inner city, are affected.
This is why we will vote individually in favour of the specific measures planned to help certain social categories which are most disadvantaged but will abstain on the report itself in order to denounce the fact that in the main it consists of pious hopes financed on the cheap.
- (FR) Mrs McCarthy, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased that the URBAN Community Initiative is being continued as this aims to support the social and economic conversion of cities and neighbourhoods in crisis, all with a view to achieving sustainable urban development.
With some 80% of the population of Europe living in an urban area, cities are at the forefront of economic, social and cultural change in Europe.
At the same time, the social and economic problems facing European society are more pronounced in urban areas.
Many European cities are divided into neighbourhoods characterised by high-added-value activities and high-income residents and other districts characterised by low incomes, high unemployment, substandard and overcrowded housing and high levels of welfare dependency.
The concentration of economic and social problems in certain urban areas calls for targeted intervention taking full account of the complexity of the problems involved.
This is why the European Parliament successfully called for the URBAN Community Initiative or CIP to be extended during the reform of the Structural Funds.
The success of URBAN during the 1994-1999 programming period is indisputable.
The results are clear in terms of the improvement of the quality of life in the target areas.
This CIP has encouraged the development of best practice models in the economic, social and environmental sectors.
It has also had the distinction of strengthening the role of local authorities, the non-governmental sector and local communities and of supporting new partnership approaches to urban regeneration.
The new initiative will continue to pursue these goals by reinforcing them, while particularly promoting equal opportunities between men and women and integrating socially marginalised and disadvantaged groups.
We can therefore welcome its adoption.
We must, however, admit that in financial terms we cannot proclaim a victory!
The total appropriation allocated is not up to the challenge.
The amount for the 1994-1999 period was EUR 900 million and will be EUR 700 million for the 2000-2006 period. This represents a drop of 30%!
This reduction in funding has led to a reduction in the number of programmes in the new URBAN initiative.
The chosen threshold of 50 projects seems too low.
It needs to be increased to reflect regional and local factors whilst maintaining financial awards to the Member States.
In view of this concentration on a limited number of projects, the publication and dissemination of the results of the new URBAN Community Initiative will perhaps be particularly important to achieve a multiplier effect.
The McCarthy report on the URBAN Community Initiative gives us an opportunity to reflect on the appropriateness of Community intervention in urban matters.
The situation of certain urban areas is alarming, with the social distress taking the form of unemployment, misery and crime.
Drug dealing in particular fuels insecurity and delinquency.
Faced with these social challenges, the effectiveness of the Structural Funds is still in doubt.
Subsidiarity should make us realise that the state, exercising its governing functions, and local authorities are the bodies most able to intervene appropriately. The state can ensure public safety and the local authorities can help disadvantaged people.
Although we welcome the determination to create a system of exchanges between successful enterprises, the problems specific to each urban area cannot be dealt with in the same way.
The URBAN Community Initiative is helping to achieve the European Union' s desire to communitise urban policy.
It would be more appropriate for the EU to concentrate its financial efforts on pre-existing European policies.
Clearly some people are profiting from the opportunity to indulge in another budget bidding race which is particularly mistimed when the convergence criteria for EMU are imposing a very strict slimming regime on the national budgets.
Mrs McCarthy is therefore suggesting an increase in the funds allocated to URBAN and the promotion of this Community initiative through a costly communication campaign extolling the benefits of a federal Europe.
We should remember that the effectiveness of expenditure is not measured by the volume of funding allocated to the project. In fact, the beneficiaries of too many and too high subsidies will eventually just take these for granted.
The aim must not be to help the people but to make them take responsibility.
Finally, the report specifically highlights actions in favour of ethnic or sociological minorities.
We can only condemn a policy on minorities which is inevitably dangerous for social cohesion.
On one hand, this policy encourages the integration of immigrants where it should favour their assimilation into the culture of the host country. This would prevent the development of ethnic ghettos which are nothing more than urban powder kegs.
On the other hand, it manipulates the principle of positive discrimination. This is a politically correct fancy which can be just as harmful, as shown by the US precedent.
For all these reasons, the French delegation of the UEN Group could not approve the McCarthy report.
Decourrière report (A5-0028/2000)
Mr President, the INTERREG programme is particularly close to our hearts.
Like many of my colleagues, I am pleased that the European Parliament was able to safeguard this initiative.
As I live in the Sarre-Lor-Lux Sud region of Belgium, I am well aware that the regions are where Europe is being created. They are where we live the European experience on a daily basis and where the people make European construction come alive.
These projects must therefore be properly taken into account and must integrate sustainable development.
Why am I stressing this point? The answer is quite simply because the projects currently being submitted are still too often damaging to the environment due to the way they are submitted.
For example, to accept new roads is to accept new pollution within the European Union. This goes totally against the policies which we are proposing to fight greenhouse gas emissions, for example.
I would also ask the Commission to ensure that the environmental pillar of the EU' s policy is integrated into the projects submitted and that the goal of reducing CO2 for example forms an experimental added value in the projects proposed.
I am particularly thinking in this respect of certain infrastructures which are under construction.
We know that some Member States are still wavering, for example, between rail and road for routes through vulnerable areas such as the Pyrenees, as in the Aspe valley.
However, I am also thinking of my own region where my government is still debating whether to route the railway or to build a second motorway, the A32.
In this respect too, I would ask the Commission to be particularly attentive about ensuring that there is real cohesion between the various policies, specifically in the INTERREG programmes which are being submitted.
Mr President, I voted for the Decourrière report on the Community initiative INTERREG, mainly because of the reply Commissioner Barnier gave to some Members who took the floor and asked for this programme to make greater reference to border regions with maritime frontiers. I voted for it, not just because I was born in a coastal town, Genoa, but above all because the frontiers of regions bordered by the sea are frontiers too.
These frontiers stretch as far as African states and the Middle East: we must take greater account of the fact that it is also important to develop coastal regions in every part of Europe.
As an MEP from a border region, I welcome this third INTERREG initiative with great interest.
We can never talk enough about the difficulties experienced in the past by maritime and landlocked border regions which have been cut off economically, socially and culturally.
Due to the existence of these borders, they have become peripheral areas within the countries to which they belong. This has too often led the national authorities to neglect these regions in national policy.
This is why the INTERREG Community Initiative was launched in 1990.
This programme was designed to encourage cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation and to promote balanced development of the Community territory in order to enhance economic and social cohesion in the Union.
INTERREG serves principally to fund Community schemes to develop SMEs, education and training, cultural exchanges, action to combat health problems, the protection and improvement of the environment, energy, transport and telecommunications networks.
I must stress that interregional cooperation significantly encourages the involvement of local and regional authorities in the process of European integration.
More active participation by these authorities in Community initiatives should be promoted, bearing in mind that in many cases they have a very limited capacity for cooperation because of the different legal frameworks and different levels of development on either side of the border.
In cross-border cooperation, greater emphasis must be placed on improving the conditions for the economic activity of the small and medium-sized undertakings which are the job creators.
In the same respect, given that structural unemployment is responsible for 50% of all unemployment, the INTERREG funds made available must be sufficient to supplement national measures promoting employment.
Obstacles too often caused by double taxation and social protection are preventing, braking or hindering cross-border mobility.
I hope that the projects included within the programmes can help to provide solutions to these problems and to implement in practical terms the principle of free movement of workers which is in a bad way in my region!
INTERREG resources must also contribute to the development of a European research area.
Finally, and in particular, expectations in the regions about this initiative are high given that small towns not eligible for Objective 2 funding are hoping to obtain compensation through INTERREG!
The challenges are therefore immense. The integration of the border regions will be an essential element in the development of a future European regional development policy!
I hope everyone, like Mr Decourrière, whom I congratulate, will realise this!
- (FR) The INTERREG Community Initiative is just one element of an ill-fated European regional policy.
This apparently generous policy, officially intended to help problem regions, is a fool' s bargain for French taxpayers.
France contributes 17% of the European budget yet will receive only 8% of the regional Structural Funds.
Between 1994 and 1999, our regions annually received an average of FF 15.4 billion but will receive only FF 14.7 billion between 2000 and 2006.
My region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais will be particularly affected with French Hainaut losing the aid paid to Objective 1 regions.
This loss is unjustified in a region whose main activities have been ruined by free-trade Europe.
The European regional policy also reinforces the centralism of Brussels with which the regional authorities are invited to negotiate directly on the use of the Structural Funds.
This is a Europe of regions in which the regions, which are weaker than the nation states, will easily submit to Brussels.
The INTERREG initiative, launched in 1990 to prepare the border regions for a Europe without borders and therefore without nations, sits comfortably within this philosophy.
However, Mr Decourrière does show some common sense by denouncing the failings of the Brussels technocrats. These failings will result in particular in the late implementation of INTERREG III and therefore in financial losses for the regions in receipt of aid.
We also agree with the rapporteur about asking for more attention to be paid to small and medium-sized undertakings and, of course, about refusing to use outside service providers. These are the procedures which caused the corruption scandal in the previous Commission.
However, these isolated elements which make sense and for which we voted, in no way remedy the Eurofederalist philosophy which characterises the Community initiatives, particularly INTERREG.
This is why the National Front voted against the report.
The European Parliament has delivered an opinion on the Commission guidelines for the INTERREG Community Initiative concerning cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation.
I want to defend an amendment tabled by my group on the maritime aspect of this Community initiative.
This does not involve the concerns about the future of the Atlantic Arc but rather the need to integrate the principle of maritime borders into strand A on cross-border cooperation.
In the Commission guidelines, few maritime areas are eligible for INTERREG IIIA.
The amendments to the Decourrière report aim to make INTERREG more maritime-oriented.
This is an important development which must be supported as it is the future of the EU which is at stake.
I am aware of the Commission' s reluctance on this subject as it announced during the symposium on the presentation of INTERREG III last November.
However, I must point out that preventing the recognition of maritime borders amounts to denying the existence of an area which has great potential for projects and innovation.
One example of this is the 'Celtic' area which encompasses the territories of Brittany in France, Cornwall and Devon in the United Kingdom and Cork and Waterford in Ireland. This is an area whose locally-based economy is characterised by dependence on the fishing industry and the importance of the agri-foodstuffs sector.
It also has excellent cultural and relational links, through twinnings for example. INTERREG III, strand A, would allow the regions in this area to advance a number of structural projects needed to develop small and medium-sized undertakings and to promote research and technical development through knowledge transfer.
The European Commission should therefore be able to participate in the construction of port and airport infrastructure to provide links between regions.
This policy would have important economic consequences for the fishing industry in Brittany in that catches could be unloaded at Irish advance bases in order to then be transported to the Breton agri-foodstuffs industry.
The integration of the maritime border into strand A would finally allow the western periphery to be recognised as a unique and important economic area which is confronted by the 'continentalisation' of the European Union.
This would show respect for these peripheral areas which are rather concerned about enlargement to the east.
The maritime world has great potential.
We therefore must not leave it out of innovative and pilot Community programmes which will allow the new geographical and economic map of Europe to be defined.
. (DA) The European project began as a partnership between States.
This partnership has ensured peace and stability in our part of Europe for over 50 years.
As a result of the economic and political success in our part of the world, of which the EU is just one proof, and in view of the ever greater proliferation of our Western values, competition on the world market has grown considerably within the last few decades.
The EU should be prepared to meet that competition.
We can only do that by intensifying co-operation within the Community.
It should not be about greater integration of the EU countries in the form of a federation but about using our economic potential across national borders.
It is about co-operating on joint projects and about unifying forces on all sides.
A programme such as INTERREG is there precisely to support regional development projects across national borders, projects which make it possible to build centres of economic growth at European level which will be able to take up the challenge from our competitors on a global scale.
I therefore welcome the continuation of the programme.
. (FR) Mr Decourrière' s report is not without merit: at the end of a clear and comprehensive presentation of the INTERREG initiative and its role in opening up border regions, it comes out in favour of SMEs in paragraph 16.
I and my colleague Dominique Souchet, who is well versed in this matter, have tabled five amendments highlighting the role of SMEs and craft trades within the framework of INTERREG, the importance of cooperation between undertakings and the need to involve economic and social partners in the design and implementation of the programmes and I welcome the fact that these amendments were adopted unanimously.
Nonetheless, the French delegation in our group was unable to accept the fact that the Commission and the federalist faction have diverted the INTERREG initiative from its original purpose in order to detract still further from the political role of the nations.
We have no intention of giving Brussels the job of regulating regional planning in the Member States, as suggested in recital of the report.
We only ask one thing of the Commission: that it confine itself to ensuring that the implementation of joint policies does not upset the balance of regional planning in our territories.
The destructive effects of the CAP and EMU on the balance between regions, especially on the vitality of the more rural, the more remote and the least populated regions, is proof positive of the fact that such ambitions are not a sinecure, far from it.
We are therefore unable to approve the development of strand IIIC of the Community initiative encouraging interregional cooperation under the responsibility of the Commission and sidelining the Member States.
This infatuation with strand IIIC is all the stranger in that the rapporteur himself acknowledges in his explanatory statement that 'the draft guidelines do not provide any indication of possible fields of co-operation' (p.17) and that 'the responsibilities are diffuse and vague' (p.18).
Calling under these circumstances, as he does in paragraph 20, for the budget for this strand to be increased is another example of the irresponsible and ideological outbidding tactics which are customary in this House.
Lastly, there is the desire expressed both in the Commission document and Mr Decourrière' s report of using INTERREG for peace and reconstruction in the Balkans: I do not think that the Structural Funds should be used to repair the damage which the Americans inflicted on Serbia during bombardments which were as criminal as they were ineffectual.
It is up to Washington, not us, to assume responsibility for a conflict which was triggered merely to serve its interests.
The French delegation in our group is therefore unable to support the Decourrière report and will choose to abstain during the final vote.
Procacci report (A5-0025/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Procacci report on rural development, not only because I endorse the major policy lines of the LEADER programme, but also because it complements the URBAN programme, which I spoke about earlier.
Just as elderly people in cities are very isolated, so the elderly are fast becoming the sole inhabitants of rural areas because young people are moving to the cities: they are drawn by the bright lights, and the pubs, and the countryside and rural areas are being emptied.
I therefore believe that it is very important for everyone to back this European Union plan and for it to be further developed.
- (PT) Although this Community initiative, LEADER +, follows on from previous initiatives, it has some unique features.
One of these of course is the reduction by around one half in appropriations made available even though they will cover a longer period.
Nevertheless, new objectives have been included, specifically the financing of the Nature Network 2000, for which all rural regions will be eligible.
In spite of the fact that this Community initiative is aimed at rural development, it does not address the issues of agriculture and agricultural production in a consistent way, and this is unacceptable.
Without agriculture, the rural world will disappear. This means that any strategy for rural development must be based on agriculture' s internal potential while at the same time developing as many other activities as possible in order to prevent the desertification of the rural world.
This is why we considered it essential to improve the report by means of our proposals deliberately to include agricultural activity and farmers in the strategy for rural development and to request more appropriations in order not to threaten the survival of the programme in those rural regions which were covered before. We also want to ensure that the new programme continues to prioritise the less-favoured regions.
Our position on LEADER is a product of our more general assessment of the EU' s overall agricultural policy.
Both LEADER 1 and LEADER 2, which were implemented in the 1990s, were ingredients of the new CAP that emerged after its review in 1992 and, along with other respective measures, they constituted the so-termed second pillar of the EU' s rural development policy.
Their real aim was to moderate and disguise the new CAP' s disastrous consequences and the disorientation of small and medium-scale farmers, and not to develop the rural areas or retain the agricultural population therein as was hypocritically declared in their objectives.
This is proved by the fact that in the areas where those initiatives were implemented, farming incomes and employment decreased rapidly, which resulted in their depopulation.
A characteristic example is Greece, which as an Objective 1 country was included as a whole in the LEADER Community initiatives, and where the average annual reduction in employment in the farming sector reached approximately 2.3%, while between 1994 and 1999 farming incomes decreased by 15.2%.
We think LEADER + will be even more ineffectual than LEADER 1 and LEADER 2, for the following reasons.
The real aims of LEADER + are the same as those of LEADERs 1 and 2, in other words to moderate and disguise the negative consequences of the CAP to be implemented in the context of Agenda 2000 and the WTO.
The present CAP, however, is worse than its predecessor and it also starts from a worse basis, granted that the 1992 CAP review and the GATT agreement in 1995 have created serious problems and impasses for the agricultural economy.
The selection criteria and the activities that are subsidised under LEADER do, in the best case, moderate some partial problems of the countryside, which are of secondary importance, but in the worst case they degenerate into expenditure for the sake of public relations and pandering to conscience.
In no case, however, are they programmes for the integrated development of the selected areas and they do not create permanent jobs in the countryside because most of the activities there are not productive in nature.
The actual appropriations available for LEADER + compared with LEADER 2 are smaller despite their increase by 15% (from EUR 1 775 million for LEADER 2 to EUR 2 020 million for LEADER +).
This is because the 15% increase is nominal and not real, granted that average yearly inflation in the Community during those years was approximately 2%.
LEADER + will last a year longer than LEADER 2.
LEADER + can cover all the regions of the EU, while LEADER 2 covered only the Objective 1 regions and some Objective 5b and 6 regions.
We must point out, however, that even if the actual appropriations available for LEADER + were increased, the Community initiative would still be ineffectual because such programmes cannot compensate for or blunt the anti-farming nature of the CAP that will be implemented in the context of 'Agenda 2000' and the WTO. The real outcome of such programmes is to act as a cover-up, to lead people off the scent and to salve consciences.
We disagree with many of the report' s views.
Once more, we point to the negative changes of the CAP (1992 - Agenda 2000).
We do not think LEADER + will contribute substantively towards solving the countryside' s problems, which are characterised by the decline of farming, which was and should remain the countryside' s basic social and economic branch.
For our part, we will tell the farmers about the expediency of these programmes.
We will make every effort to improve them as much as possible and prevent them from being wasted, and most important of all, we will try to foster the struggle of farmers against the disastrous CAP which is disinheriting them and leading them towards economic decline and the desertion of the countryside.
Unless this CAP is overthrown, no programme can ensure the survival of small and medium-scale farmers and the social and economic regeneration of the countryside.
All the Members in the Union for a Europe of Nations Group voted in favour of almost the whole of the Procacci report on the LEADER + Community Initiative.
However, we amended the draft report adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in order to clarify certain points which will make this Community initiative more effective.
In particular we felt it was necessary to simplify the administrative and financial procedures which proved to be too cumbersome and slow in the LEADER II initiative.
It was also essential to ensure that better account is taken of the development priorities of local operators and that the benefit of LEADER + funds is not limited solely to agricultural regions with a low population density.
Amendment No 10 which I tabled on behalf of my group refers to the concept of 'economic and social cohesion' rather than 'regional development' as the European Union does not have any recognised competence in this area.
Amendment No 11 replaces 'government or municipal officials' with 'government officials' .
Although local action groups should consist of a balanced and representative selection of partners drawn from the different socio-economic sectors of the territory concerned, government officials must be involved at decision-making level, whether they come from the municipalities, departments, regions or national governments.
The rapporteur' s phrasing was therefore too limiting.
Amendment No 12 responds to the expectations of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism of this House.
It specifies the necessary coordination between LEADER + and Community cooperation and partnership programmes such as INTERREG, PHARE, Sapard or MEDA.
In the territory of Member States of the European Union, applicant countries or Member States of EFTA, there may be interrelations between the various Community initiatives.
The real priority for the European continent is to establish an operational level within a European framework and not a global framework as proposed by the rapporteur.
The creation of organisations similar to the LAGs may be usefully encouraged by the European Union, provided that the corresponding costs are borne by the various partners.
In essence, we are, of course, in favour of this LEADER + Community Initiative.
The conference on rural development held in Cork from 7 to 9 November 1996 set rural development as one of the European Union' s priorities since it is essential to preserve the integrity of our agriculture and the whole rural fabric, including infrastructure, public and private services and so on.
In this context, in committee we regretted the paltry funding allotted to rural development and supported the amendments calling for an increased budget for this Community initiative so that it matches the previous LEADER I and LEADER II initiatives.
The budget allocated to LEADER + for a period of seven years is half that allocated to LEADER II for a period of six years.
This is unacceptable given the importance of rural development and the consequences for farmers of the fall in prices and aid specified in the reform of the CAP following the Berlin agreements.
Finally, among the priority parameters to be introduced at European level to enable local involvement, particular attention must be paid to the quality and originality of projects which have already been implemented by LAGs within the LEADER II initiative, but which could not be concluded due to the timetable and weight of the management mechanisms specified.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Additives in feedingstuffs
The next item is the report (A5-0015/2000) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 70/524/EEC concerning additives in feedingstuffs (COM(1999) 388 - C5-0134/1999 - 1999/0168(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, does regulating additives in feedingstuffs come under competition or consumer policy?
As far the Commission and the Legal Affairs Committee are concerned, it comes under competition.
Of course we have to take account of the competitiveness of the feedingstuffs industry by harmonising provisions for substances authorised before and after 1988.
We want to prevent the prices of feedingstuffs from rising and Mr Doyle' s proposed Amendments Nos 4 and 5 therefore deserve our support.
However, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has said in his report, this is first and foremost a consumer policy matter.
Food safety must take absolute priority over feedingstuffs in all our discussions.
When we talk of transparency in the food chain, that applies from the hayfork to the table fork and consumer protection therefore logically starts with feedingstuffs.
The antibiotics, growth promoters and genetically-modified organisms mixed in with feedingstuffs end up in the human food chain.
The dioxin scandal brought home to us that we have to get out of this mess once and for all and regulating additives in feedingstuffs is a step in the right direction.
According to Article 152 of the EC Treaty, we are obliged to obviate sources of danger to human health, whereby the accent is clearly on sources.
Consequently, we must cut off the supply of the original source of danger, i.e. harmful additives in feedingstuffs.
Otherwise, in my view, we are beavering away at the symptoms, but not the causes.
People are especially wary of GMOs.
We must confront increasing public awareness of GMOs by regulating their use in feedingstuffs accordingly.
First, if an additive consists of or contains genetically-modified organisms, then it should only be authorised if it poses no risk to human health or the environment.
Secondly, it makes sense to issue provisions for genetically-modified feedingstuff additives similar to the regulations in seed marketing legislation, as the rapporteur has said.
And thirdly, if we are to have a transparent consumer policy, we need to label genetically-modified feedingstuffs.
A clear declaration on feedingstuffs will allow double freedom of choice, both for the party using the feedingstuff and the subsequent consumer.
Responsible citizens should, in my view, have a choice.
We all talk of scandalised citizens who have lost confidence in food safety.
By regulating additives in feedingstuffs consistently, we can help significantly to restore confidence.
I too, therefore, can hardly wait to hear what you have to say to our proposed amendments.
Consequently, we too shall also vote to reserve our right to refer the proposal back to committee if need be.
Mr President, this proposal to amend the 1970 directive on additives in feedingstuffs is the first in a whole series of proposals on the subject of feedingstuffs.
In other words, we shall be discussing other proposals here in Parliament over the next few months.
That this subject is of paramount importance is borne out by the huge public attention which the dioxin, antibiotic, sludge and other scandals have attracted.
In other words, this is an important facet of public health protection, which is why we believe that Article 152 should be taken as the legal base, not Article 37, as proposed by the Commission.
The amendment which the Commission has proposed, namely equal treatment for additives authorised before or after 31 December 1987, is uncontested and has our full support.
However, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has voted unanimously on some important amendments to the Commission proposal.
The regulation proposed by the Commission conceals the danger of creating a marketing monopoly for certain additives.
Only companies which obtained the original authorisation will have the right to apply and companies which obtained authorisation at a later date will be excluded.
This sort of monopoly, which could lead, for example, to an increase in the price of feedingstuffs, should be prevented by granting provisional authorisation to all companies which had marketed a specific substance by 1 April 1998.
This would then apply until the re-assessment procedure has been completed.
The most important amendment to the Commission proposal is the inclusion, as recommended by the rapporteur, of genetically-modified organisms in the directive on additives, taking the compromise negotiated between Parliament and the Commission on authorisation for GMOs outside the scope of the release directive as the starting point.
This already gives us a basis for the authorisation of GMOs.
It is therefore only logical that we make provision for genetically modified feedingstuff additives in this case, just as we have in regulations already passed in other areas, such as forest reproductive material, to mention just one example.
The labelling of genetically-modified additives is particularly important in this respect.
On the one hand, it enables farmers to make an informed decision as to whether or not they wish to use such feedingstuffs and, on the other hand, it enables consumers to avoid foodstuffs produced using GMOs.
Finally, our group should like once again to thank the rapporteur, who has gone to a great deal of trouble.
I think that we can all hardly wait to hear Mr Byrne' s reply.
Mr President, the report deals mainly with formalities, in other words, the manner in which additives will be authorised. It is less concerned with the types of additives and how they work.
I should like to take this opportunity to stress how important it is that, in future, all the directives are dealt with under Article 152, since both food safety and environmental issues require a coherent policy and a comprehensive overview.
We cannot carry on as we have done up until now, that is to say dealing with each detail on its own, often only after the harm has already been done.
The rapporteur places the emphasis on the testing and labelling of GMOs in feed additives.
However, I should like once again to raise the issue of antibiotics.
Certainly, five of the nine antibiotics that were originally permitted in animal feed have now been banned. It is nevertheless extremely important to ban the remaining four, both in the interests of human health and for the sake of the animals themselves.
We now know that resistance to antibiotics poses a very serious threat to people's health, particularly in the case of small children.
A number of Member States are already able to show conclusively that improper practices in connection with the keeping of livestock are totally unnecessary.
Several countries phased out antibiotics in animal feedingstuffs a long time ago and others are in the process of successfully doing the same.
We talk a great deal about the precautionary principle but, in the case of antibiotics, it has long since been forgotten.
However, there is another environmental principle at stake, namely the exchange principle.
I should like to say a few words about coccidiostats.
They are a zootechnical product which is not totally necessary.
There is a substitute, which is used to vaccinate chickens.
Although it is a little more expensive, it does not harm the environment.
Coccidiostats now accompany the manure that is spread on the fields. In that way, they end up in our water supplies which, as we all know, are our most vital resource.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report on additives in animal feedingstuffs concerns the technical and economic problem of restoring the competitive balance between different additives in feedingstuffs and between producers of these additives.
Yet after the serious dioxin crisis which affected Belgium and other European countries last summer we cannot just view this issue in terms of competition.
You may recall, even though this passed virtually unnoticed by the general public, that the Commission' s scientific experts discovered industrial residues of dioxin-loaded chemical lime in the pulp of citrus fruit imported from Brazil.
We must therefore closely examine all the elements of the chain involved in the manufacture of feedingstuffs for production animals.
Incidentally, it is ironic that the problem is much less serious for the feedingstuffs of our dogs, cats and other domestic animals.
Is it because of cut-throat and globalised competition that industrialists have allowed this sector to become a way of recycling all the waste from the agri-foodstuffs industry?
Such a serious issue cannot be limited to a technical debate, even though it is the directive itself which limits the authorisation of antibiotics and other growth promoters.
The precautions which we are preparing to take in respect of feedingstuffs must also be applied to the food for the very farm animals which reach our plates.
As forcefully underlined by this report, labelling is an absolute necessity so that each farmer on his holding is aware of all the ingredients in the feed which he is giving his livestock.
He must also know whether his bag of protein granules includes GMOs as these components could represent a risk to public health.
In any case, the precautionary principle requires these products to be clearly traceable at all stages of their marketing.
However, before labelling we need clear rules.
Straight questions must be asked about the real end-use of animal meal, for example.
Although we are looking at all the problems caused by these products in ethical and health terms, it is their use which must be questioned today.
In this respect, the chapter of the White Paper on food safety which deals with feedingstuffs must serve as a working basis for going beyond mere commercial questions.
The Commission has on many occasions used the farm-to-table example which our colleague in the PPE Group has just underlined.
This is a good idea but it must be made to be meaningful and, to do this, the problems linked to animals and those linked to consumer health must be dealt with at the same time.
This is why it is essential to approve Amendment No 2 to Recital 4 which avoids the risks of the monopoly which would arise if companies which were the first to be authorised to place an additive on the market were to remain the only ones able to continue marketing it during the re-evaluation procedure.
Also, Amendments Nos 4 and 5 to the new Article 2a must be approved as these will ensure that genetically modified additives are clearly identified as such, thus allowing users to make fully informed decisions.
Mr President, because of the availability of high-technology additives in the feedingstuffs industry, detailed information on their use is needed from the actors, and as we know there are a lot of them, so that we can put a stop to practices which infringe Community law.
This directive on additives in feedingstuffs cannot achieve this on its own.
Other directives will follow and I believe that the Committee on Agriculture is well placed to deal with them.
Up the point at which meat, milk, bread and other products are sold over the shop counter, feedingstuffs and additives are structured, mixed, blended, cut and transported several times.
The fight by feedingstuff manufacturers to gain maximum market shares causes a lot of problems, just as it does in the foodstuffs industry.
The negative consequences are well known, the positive ones less so.
I am firmly convinced that the most sensible way of protecting the health of European citizens in the ecological chain is through the production of feedingstuffs in the region for the region.
However, more work is needed on this.
Mr President, may I commence by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on his report.
It reflects the views and concerns of all EU citizens in the area of food safety and quality.
The events of the past couple of years have certainly created an awareness and concern about the real threat to food safety and public health.
The swift action taken by this Parliament must be seen by all citizens as their greatest guarantee for the future, for you have set an agenda on food quality to which Member States must conform.
But even in this crucial area of administration, Parliament reflects its commitment to subsidiarity by encouraging Member States to take on and to face up to their responsibility.
In Agenda 2000, we have in my view prioritised policies that are of direct concern to citizens: food safety, water quality, environmental protection and rural development.
If we pursue this agenda with commitment and diligence, the early years of the new millennium will be a milestone in the implementation of policies that are people-focused and very much reflect community needs.
I welcome in particular the proposed new and strict authorisation procedures for additives in animal feeds.
Those found in breach of them must be dealt with severely.
I compliment the new Commissioner responsible for food safety, Mr Byrne.
He has an onerous undertaking but he has responded quickly and effectively to the requirements of this House, as well as to the concern of consumers.
I am particularly pleased that my own country, Ireland, is to the forefront in the implementation of new food regulations based on the principle of traceability.
This will make the island of Ireland the centre of excellence in the future for food production.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work. I am particularly pleased about the unanimity shown on this issue within the group.
It is therefore specified that, through the adoption of a regulation, the Commission will replace the existing authorisations with authorisations linked to the person responsible for putting the additives into circulation. This will occur at the same time for all the additives in question.
A coherent legal framework must be re-established.
As of October 1999 the Commission proposed introducing a legal basis into Directive 70/524/EEC for the replacement of the authorisations.
However, we must ensure that competition distortions are not created, as highlighted by Mr Kindermann and Mrs Auroi.
Genetically modified additives must also be clearly identified in feedingstuffs in order to allow the end-consumer to choose food without GMO components or based on GMO components and to guarantee this.
The consumer must remain free to make a fully informed decision.
This proposal has no financial consequences for the Community budget.
There must therefore be total transparency for producers and consumers in the area of food safety.
I am sure that the Commission can accept the report which, as you know, was approved unanimously in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr President, we have said in this House time and again since the BSE crisis that feedingstuffs are one of the first and most important factors in safe food production and in consumer health and protection.
We therefore welcome the Commission' s proposal on additives in feedingstuffs.
The Committee on behalf of which I am speaking, namely the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, decided in December, on the assumption that the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture would draft such a good report, that we could waive our opinion.
Nevertheless, I should like to say a few words on the report and express a view on a number of points.
First, perhaps, I should say something on the question of the legal base.
Even if we have new Rules of Procedure in Parliament, and it may well be that, with such an ambitious chairman in the Committee on Agriculture, problems of legislative competence will arise more and more frequently between the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment, one thing is always crystal clear for me in this sort of conflict: cohesion in this Parliament is crucial and the legal basis of a question is crucial as far as I am concerned.
Therefore, and I must address this comment to you Mr Byrne, I reject your choice of legal basis.
If it is merely a hand-me-down legal basis taken over from previous directives, then it is a mistake to keep it.
The Treaty of Amsterdam states quite clearly that, where people' s health is concerned, Article 152 is the correct legal base, and may I say to our own Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market that it is simply not good enough to look at the Commission' s proposal and say, there is nothing in it about health and consumer protection, so it has nothing to do with health and consumer protection.
My group, as Mr Kindermann has already said, will therefore vote tomorrow to change the legal base and I hope that other groups in this House will do likewise.
Mr Byrne, I ask you to accept and agree to the change of legal basis for the sake of transparency and good cooperation.
If we do not change it and we follow the Legal Affairs Committee, we shall be opening the floodgates to manipulation.
The Commission would be able to determine the choice of legal basis by excluding any reference to health policy and we would suddenly find ourselves up against an Article 37.
Allow me to comment briefly on two other points. First, genetically modified micro-organisms in feedingstuffs.
We cannot just refer to vertical legislation and say that at some point we will need another law.
We do not have another law at the moment, and until we do, we must deal with genetically-modified micro-organisms as and when we pass legislation; we must include them as an add-on and insist that they be labelled.
The rapporteur has done just that and that is a good sign.
I say now, as I have said on numerous occasions in the past: yes, I too would like the Commission to propose a positive list which we can then debate and deal with in this House, but we do at least need a starting point for a positive list of additives in feedingstuffs.
It is equally important to have strict hygiene requirements for the manufacture of additives and for proper controls to be carried out in the Member States.
There are serious shortcomings in both areas and we have a great deal of work to do yet.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
This is an issue that we will no doubt be reconsidering on a number of occasions in the future.
What has happened in recent years has brought to our attention the tremendous problems facing not only to the producers of food but also the consumers.
We must strike a balance between them.
We must resolve this issue, because it is important that consumers should regain confidence in the food they eat.
One way to achieve this is to have total transparency as far as food labelling is concerned.
GMOs are the new challenge facing us.
This is something that people are very worried about and quite rightly so: I myself share these concerns.
But I think we should not allow our concerns about GMOs to overshadow our concerns about growth promoters used in animal feed or antibiotics used in compound feed.
Indeed, we should not allow GMOs to obscure the fact that meat and bonemeal are still included in animal feeds in many countries in Europe.
One factor behind these developments that has been referred to in this debate is competition - competition between Member States on the cost of the production of food.
These are all areas in which we have to ensure a level playing field: food must be of the same standard in all Member States.
We have had the dioxin scare, BSE and many other problems.
The main problem is a financial one, namely who bears the cost?
The problem is that the cost is not shared equally between the consumer and the producer: the producer has been forced to bear all the cost.
We need an equitable distribution of the extra cost that has been incurred.
We must also ensure that the food that is imported into the European Union meets the standards within the European Union.
If we do not maintain those standards for imported food then we are going to encounter greater difficulties in the future.
. I should first like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and its rapporteur, the committee chairman, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for examining the Commission's proposal.
The Commission proposal is, as some of you have said, rather technical.
Nonetheless it has a relatively simple objective: to harmonise procedures governing the authorisation of feed additives.
At present there is a difference in treatment between authorisations, depending on whether applications were submitted before or after 1 January 1988.
The purpose of the Commission's proposal is to harmonise procedures to ensure that no such difference exists.
The scope of the proposed amendment is therefore very limited.
Five amendments have been presented by Parliament.
I regret that the Commission is not in a position to accept these amendments, despite the fact that I am fully aware of the views and commitment of Parliament, the Agricultural Committee and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on these issues.
I shall deal with each of the individual amendments separately.
The first amendment proposes to change the legal base of the proposal by replacing Article 37 with Article 152.
I would simply point out that the Commission proposal makes no reference to health or consumer protection.
The proposed amendment is technical and cannot be interpreted as having as its primary objective the protection of public health.
I note that Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market also accepts that Article 37 is the appropriate legal base.
I remind Parliament that in Article 152 the primary objective is the protection of health.
I commend to you the arguments set out in the letter from the Legal Affairs Committee which sets out the position, in my view, with precision, clarity and commendable brevity.
Amendments Nos 2 and 3 go much further than the Commission proposal since they aim to introduce additional provisions on genetically modified additives.
I am the first to accept that GMOs are a very important issue.
I also accept and acknowledge that a number of initiatives to update EU legislation in the field of GMOs are necessary.
However, this technical amendment is not the correct instrument to introduce such initiatives.
The Commission is of the view that it is premature to amend the rules currently laid down by Directive 70/524 on genetically modified additives at this stage.
Instead it is appropriate to await developments in relation to the common position on the amendment to Directive 90/220, which is currently in second reading in Parliament.
The Commission envisages going much further than is currently proposed by Parliament in its amendments.
I can also assure Parliament that I will ensure that the pertinent provisions of Directive 90/220 are included in the proposal for a recasting of Directive 70/524 that the Commission has proposed in the White Paper on food safety to present to Parliament before July 2001.
I can also assure Parliament that all observations made here today will be fully taken into account.
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 are also unacceptable because they give undue preference to copy products by granting them authorisation to be placed into circulation even before an application for authorisation has been submitted.
The Commission insists on first evaluating such applications as to their safety and efficacy before giving authorisations. I can only ask you again to bear in mind the technical nature of the Commission proposal and to wait for the substantive proposal for a new directive on additives in feedingstuffs to address wider issues.
I should just like to deal with some of the specific issues that were raised during the debate.
First of all, regarding the observations made by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, I wish to assure him that we will change the procedure for authorisation of GMO additives in the Additives Directive 70/524, and not in the Novel Feed Directive.
This is a directive that deals more specifically with raw materials rather than with additives.
The text taken by Parliament is from the Directive which was adopted in 1998.
But the vertical legislation in Directive 90/220 on how to carry out the environmental risk assessment of GMOs has changed since then and is still changing.
It is before Parliament for second reading.
It is my belief that we should await the final outcome of Directive 90/220 and in particular, Article 11.
Reference was also made to the question of whether this proposal could give rise to the risk of the establishment of monopolies.
Mr Kindermann and Mrs Auroi made reference to this.
There are just a few points I should like to make on that issue.
First of all, this matter has been in the pipeline since 1993, so it has not really been sprung on any other commodity producers.
Indeed any such applicants can still apply in respect of their particular product.
I should also stress that the Commission has never approved any application for an authorisation for GMOs to be included in additives.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt made reference to the question of the appropriate legal base, whether it should be Article 37 or Article 152.
I again refer to what I said earlier in relation to this and assure her and the House that it would be entirely inappropriate for the Commission to seek to justify any measure based on Article 37 merely by excluding from the provision any reference to public health.
This is an issue that has been looked at on at least two separate occasions by the European Court of Justice, which has laid down the legal criteria for situations such as this where the appropriate legal base has to be properly taken into account when putting forward legislation.
The jurisprudence of the Court appears to be quite clear in relation to this.
As an overall comment to the suggested amendments here, particularly in relation to the legal base issue, it would be inappropriate, in my opinion, to change the legal base to Article 152 in these circumstances, as it would be very likely to fall foul of the objective criteria that have been laid down by the Court.
A number of you made reference - Mr Nicholson in particular - to the issue surrounding labelling.
Directive 70/524 foresees the issue of labelling in the genetic modification of additives.
It is already included now: "indication of the particular characteristics due to the manufacturing products".
So this issue will be addressed.
That formula enabled us to oblige applicants to put on the label the fact that genetic modification techniques have been used in the product, the subject matter of the application.
Mr President, allow me to ask the Commissioner one more question.
First allow me to point out, Commissioner Byrne, that the European Parliament has no right of legislative initiative.
But we do reserve the right, when you propose to amend a directive or a regulation, to look at the whole regulation and not just the part which you have singled out.
Nonetheless, we have confined ourselves in our proposed amendments to bringing the text into line with that of other directives and we have disregarded the question of content.
For example, you did not go into antibiotics.
We are therefore talking about harmonising the legal provisions in the individual directives.
My question, Commissioner Byrne is this: the UN conference in Montreal decided that genetically-modified organisms must be labelled for international trade.
Do you really believe that, if we could, Parliament would permit labelling to be left off feedingstuff additives within the European Union?
Commissioner Byrne, it appears that you want to engage in a test of strength with Parliament.
We negotiated the seed marketing legislation for two years.
I look forward to the next round.
. I would stress that no GMOs have been approved under this directive; it applies only to additives.
I would also say in relation to the questions surrounding labelling that this is a complex issue.
It is being addressed and will be addressed in a comprehensive way, particularly in Directive 90/220.
This issue is before Parliament at the moment and there will be other directives dealing it, which will also come under the legal base of Article 152 which gives Parliament full competence in the areas of codecision.
I would assure Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf that it is by no means my intention or wish to have any clash or test of strength with Parliament on this issue.
It is my intention, as it has always been, to work in cooperation with Parliament, to ensure that the results we achieve are the very best results.
The best way of dealing with this issue is through the draft legislation before Parliament at the moment, as well as the legislation in the pipeline, rather than in this technical document and in circumstances where the questions that are set out and to be debated in Directive 90/220 may not be fully taken into account.
It is best to wait for that debate which, I understand, will take place fairly soon.
All of these matters will be addressed in that legislation.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Parliament has taken due note of your comments.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Scrapie
The next item is the report (A5-0023/2000) by Mr Böge, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 91/68/EC as regards scrapie (COM(1998) 623 - C4-0026/1999 - 1998/0324(COD)).
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Böge' s report on measures to prevent TSE diseases is based on the proposals of the European Parliament' s temporary BSE Committee.
Mr Böge was responsible for some invaluable work on this committee, and it is a relief to see that the job of monitoring the work of the BSE Committee in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has fallen to him: he is the one with the experience.
I would have liked my speech to be part of a discussion that would have also treated the second part of the Commission' s proposal.
I do not think it appropriate to have to conduct in part the same discussion when Mrs Roth-Behrendt' s report from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is featured in the plenary session.
In the previous speech Mrs Schierhuber said that scrapies is an insidious disease.
It is indeed.
For me as a Finn, and a member who has been active in matters concerning agriculture and the health and transportation of animals, it is most important that those EU states where TSEs do not occur at all will in the future too be guaranteed the right to inspect as fully as is necessary the transportation of live animals.
I wish to stress how important it is for us to remain free of disease.
The possibility, if necessary, of having additional inspections of animals in these areas is not a question of artificial protectionism or the restriction of freedom of movement, as there really is justification for it.
The inspections must be seen as being fair and cost-effective action to promote the wellbeing of animals and prevent increased expenditure for the EU.
On behalf of the European Liberal Democrats, we can support the Commission' s proposal on Mr Böge' s report, but in the forthcoming debate on Mrs Roth-Behrendt' s report we must look again at the position of those countries where TSEs do not occur.
Mr President, I too would like to offer my congratulations to the rapporteur.
There is no doubt that Mr Böge and the rapporteur for the Committee on the Environment are now tremendous experts in this field.
It is very good that they are continuing to monitor this issue on behalf of Parliament because it is extremely important.
Regardless of the many other concerns we may have, BSE has given us a terrible legacy that has to be dealt with and resolved.
It is quite clear that the incidence of scrapie in sheep has been a contributing factor to the overall problem.
I welcome the legal base being set and the comprehensive way the new rules will, I hope, address this situation.
We must ensure that nothing can enter the food chain or the animal compound feed to allow what we have experienced in the past to happen again in the future.
No-one would want to see what happened to farmers with BSE happen ever again.
We have to bring in the most stringent rules and we have to make them work.
It is extremely important both for the producer and the consumer that we restore confidence and the only way we can do it is by rigorously tackling the problem and resolving it.
BSE has certainly not gone away.
You can see it in different countries.
I do not want to point the finger at any particular country, but many countries are now facing similar problems to those we have had in the United Kingdom.
It will be there for some time to come.
We have to ensure that the whole system of traceability, of following the animal from birth until slaughter and right through the whole food chain, is part of that confidence-building mechanism.
If we are not able to achieve that then we will have tremendous trouble in the future.
Finally, I have certainly believed for a long time, coming from an agricultural background myself, that if we had fed the animals the proper food and if the animal feedstuffs had been made up of the proper compounds we would never have had BSE in the first place.
It was never the responsibility of the farmer, it was the food compounders who caused this problem and we have to ensure that it never happens again.
. Mr President, I am pleased to have been given this opportunity to discuss a subject where there is good cooperation between Parliament and the Commission, namely combating TSEs.
I should also like to thank Mr Böge for his work on this issue.
Considerable progress has been made on our proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation under Article 152 of the Treaty on the prevention and control of TSEs.
This proposal addresses all TSE risk in all animals at all stages of the production chain.
I am here today to listen to your opinions on the first step in this process of establishing a truly comprehensive Community system for the control of these diseases.
I have proposed in the proposal at hand to delete all currently existing Community rules on scrapie in sheep and goats and to transpose them to the framework proposal for a regulation.
The detailed rules would then follow in that framework proposal.
I have been informed that you welcome this initiative, as appears from your contributions this afternoon, to formulate a single text.
I am looking forward to discussing any further improvements you might wish to suggest under the framework proposal for the legislation, especially after the reference made by Mrs Roth-Behrendt to her own report and opinion on this issue.
I look forward to receipt of that document, which will be taken into account in all further considerations in relation to this issue.
Finally, I would say this in relation to the observation about including legislation in annexes and the observation that we must achieve an effective balance between Parliament having a full say and yet at the same time our having speedy resolutions, speedy legislation and speedy amendments to existing legislation.
In the months I have been Commissioner and observed the way legislation goes through the system, I can see that much work needs to be done on this issue so that we can all achieve what we seek to achieve, that is, the translation of policy into legislation.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Community policy in the field of water
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0027/2000) on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council directive on establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy (9085/3/1999 - C5-0209/1999 - 1997/0067(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Lienemann).
- (FR) Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, water will be one of the main environmental and world issues of the twenty-first century.
Climate change, global resources, river quality and groundwater aquifer quality are major challenges which threaten our common future.
We will either be able to restore water quality to suit the planet' s ecosystem or we will experience a whole range of adverse events which will threaten the development of certain regions, the living conditions of the inhabitants of other regions and even, more fundamentally, the global balance.
To support this statement, I would point to an excellent report drafted by our colleague, Mário Soares, in the international bodies on the state of the seas and oceans.
When talking about climate change, we have rightly referred to the greenhouse effect and the state of the atmosphere.
Yet we also know that the deterioration of the oceans will significantly destabilise whole areas of our planet.
Europe must therefore lead by example to some extent, both because it must promote a certain development model and because it is itself facing serious problems of pollution and deterioration of its waters, including its groundwater, surface waters and seas.
Furthermore, Europe has signed international conventions, in particular the OSPAR Convention in which it made certain commitments.
In this it said that in a few years' time we must have stopped dumping pollution and halted the increase of pollution and we must have reached a near zero level of toxic and dangerous substances.
Despite having signed these international agreements, this directive and the specific policies in the field reveal that Europe cannot achieve the objectives set or must defer these for so long that the very credibility of its signature of these international conventions is threatened.
This is why in the debate on the framework directive on water policy, the European Parliament has since the first reading demanded coherence between the framework directive and the international objectives, particularly with regard to respect for OSPAR. This convergence must be effective and specific and must commit us to action.
The European Union' s water policy is not starting from zero.
Many directives have already been adopted. Furthermore, the Commission wants to make these directives more understandable and more compatible with each other and to give them clearer objectives.
The preparation of this framework directive is therefore prompted by a desire for rationalisation.
However, at first reading this House insisted that the current directive should not only be compatible with the commitments made, like OSPAR, but should allow us to reverse the course of affairs.
For despite these directives and frequent declarations about the effort which must be made in terms of water protection, when we look at the state of the environment in Europe we can see that the objectives have not been achieved.
In many cases the situation has deteriorated and we therefore cannot settle for just rationalisation of the texts.
We must set objectives which are equal to the challenges facing us.
Yet we do not have much time.
We could, as the Commission has proposed, accept these overlong deadlines which the Commission and the Council have extended even further. Yet if we do, we will not only have a credibility problem with the general public, but these efforts will be postponed until tomorrow and then tomorrow they will be deferred again.
It is clear that in this event the objectives will never be achieved.
I am stressing this point because, when disasters are being reported daily in the news, we cannot just keep on saying for the umpteenth time that Europe did not act when it should have done. Then, in our haste, we act as if we will solve the problems which we refused to tackle properly at the appropriate time.
The current example of the Danube and the pollution from Rumania shows very clearly that if we fail to establish a new method of economic development, clear requirements, controls and precise measures concerning the state of our rivers, this type of incident will not only occur again but will do so increasingly over time.
It is also clear that if we do nothing, our agriculture will continue to develop in a very unbalanced manner.
Even now, the rivers in Brittany are eutrophying and this is damaging tourism.
To conclude, the issues are clear at this second reading.
Do we or do we not want standards compatible with OSPAR, in other words to get dangerous substances down to zero?
Do we want to shorten the deadlines proposed by the Council for this directive? Do we want to have a pricing policy which enables all public and private participants to clean up and save water?
Do we seriously want to respond to the hopes of our peoples? The majority of the amendments approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection meet these objectives.
I hope they will be supported by this House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Lienemann has just painted a very drastic picture of how important water and air are to us, especially as the very source of life for human beings.
The problem is one of both water quality and water resources, of which there is not a plentiful supply everywhere in Europe, especially in very dry regions.
I am sorry that Commissioner Wallström, who is responsible in this area, cannot be here now because this is, after all, a very, very important directive on which the Commission has been working for a long time, and water protection legislation, which we are debating now at second reading, affects all the citizens of the European Union as well as all the people in countries wishing to join, who will have to comply with EU legislation once they accede.
We have been working on this subject for ten years and a comprehensive approach was only made possible as the result of a hearing arranged and held by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy in 1994.
A great deal of work has been carried out between then and this second reading by numerous Members of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers.
We reduced the 243 proposed amendments in the Environment Committee to 77, but another 30 have been added.
You see, there are numerous matters of concern here and they are all very different.
Some want tighter legislation, some want more clarification, others want to serve national interests.
Even within my group, the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, there were, of course, differences of opinion.
Our line is to work towards realistic objectives and practicable solutions.
In this sense, the proposed amendments tabled by me and other members on behalf of the group represent an improvement on the demands set out in the common position.
Some proposed amendments which we support should strengthen the European Parliament' s negotiating position in the forthcoming conciliation with the Council of Ministers.
We obviously reject all unrealistic demands which affect the European Parliament' s credibility.
For me, that includes the zero demand, i.e. the demand for zero inputs up to 2020.
That would sound the death knell for every agricultural and many industrial undertakings.
I should like to stress quite particularly here that we have already made considerable progress under current national and European water protection laws, however imperfect they are and however little they are complied with in the Member States.
I only need to remind you that we again have salmon in the Rhine, which would have been unthinkable 20 years ago and that salmon are due to be released this spring in the Elbe, which was particularly polluted.
That does not mean that we do not still have huge efforts to make in order to improve water protection yet further and maintain the quality of water and ground water and this will doubtless cost a great deal of money.
Farmers have voiced a number of concerns over the past few days.
You can only farm if you have an adequate supply of clean water.
The line followed by our group for the negotiations with the Council of Ministers will allow an acceptable solution to be found for farmers too.
I am horrified that both Members of Parliament and the public have been misled by false arguments in this difficult and sometimes highly technical matter.
I therefore extend my special thanks to my colleagues in the group who helped us find compromises.
I also extend my special thanks to our rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann, for all her work and her cooperative attitude, even if we have agreed to differ on certain points.
And I also thank the representatives of the European Commission, who stood by with advice and expert help at all times.
If the representatives of the Council of Ministers take an equally constructive approach, then I have no doubt that together we shall find an even better solution to the problem of water protection in Europe under the conciliation procedure.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Lienemann on the excellent work which she has presented and on her efforts in terms of overcoming the differences between us with regard to water.
The framework directive on water is a necessary initiative.
Nevertheless, given that the idea of solidarity is central to the process of European construction, this directive must take into account the fact that water resources should be seen as a factor in social cohesion.
Nobody doubts that water is a resource of interest to all of us.
However, in Spain and the other southern countries, which have an unusual climate, the management of water resources require political action in order to rationalise their use and other cooperative measures.
Therefore, we believe that this framework directive should advocate a use of water which allows us to overcome territorial imbalances and, to this end, I ask that you support Amendment No 95, which has been presented by our group.
We wish to ensure that Article 1 of the directive promotes the sustainable, efficient, fair and considerate use of water.
I am now going to briefly discuss the main issues on which the Spanish Socialist delegation differs somewhat from certain positions which have been expressed here.
One example is water transfers.
We would prefer the future framework directive not to subject the implementation of transfers to Community supervision.
We consider that, given the hydrological characteristics of Spain, where transfers of a structural nature are carried out, the authorities of the country should make decisions with regard to its own resources, and these decisions should, of course, always be taken in accordance with the quest for cohesion and the rational use of water.
With regard to one of the most controversial points of our debate, the application of tariffs, the Spanish Socialists have been arguing, in accordance with the principle that the polluter should pay, that the directive should propose policies on accessible prices for all levels of consumption.
In Spain, a policy of full recuperation of water costs would clearly not have the same effect as in the countries of the centre and north of Europe.
The Spanish would see an increase in the price of water for its different uses, owing to the scarcity of water resources and the internalisation of the environmental costs which will have to be met within the framework of the provisions of the directive.
We have therefore always argued for a progressive system of recuperation of costs. This system should take good account of social, environmental and economic effects, and its implementation should be modulated in accordance with differing geographical and climatic conditions.
We want to build a Europe with a sustainable and healthy environment.
However, an environmental Europe cannot, in any circumstances, be built at different speeds, but must be built from a point of view of solidarity.
Mr President, the ecological disaster in the Danube reminds us of how closely linked all the countries of Europe are and how important water is to us all.
Discharges from chemical factories in my own constituency in the north-west of England will end up on the beaches of mainland Europe.
This brings home the connections which bind us together.
This framework directive is intended to paint the broad brushstrokes of the policy for the next decades and there has been much panic over the details.
It is important for us to remember that this is a framework.
These brushstrokes are indeed very broad.
It is easy for individual countries, for individual sectors of industry, to escape the effects which have been painted to us in recent days.
There are many opportunities to hide.
The reality is that the details of this legislation will be set out in daughter directives in months and years to come.
That is the time to debate some of these problems of detail.
The broad principles are surely ones we should be able to accept - the broad principles that we wish to reduce hazardous waste leaking into the groundwater, the broad principles that we should be aiming to ensure that chemicals, which we all need in society in all circumstances, should not be finding their way into our water system.
There is a chemical factory in the north-west which wrote to me to say that we must vote against this legislation.
I would have to ask them what chemicals they are putting into the water supply at the moment and why they are not broadcasting to all the residents in that area exactly what they are doing.
This is something that they prefer to avoid doing.
The principle also concerns water charging.
The basic understanding which many of us now share is that we need to introduce environmental taxation to encourage conservation, to use the carrot-and-stick approach to make best use of our assets so that we do not add to the pollution or loss of a valuable resource like water.
I want to refer to the political position here.
The common position has weakened the stand taken by Parliament at first reading.
Some of the NGOs would say that the directive as now framed is worse than useless.
It is a retrograde step.
This is an opportunity for us to improve the situation.
We need to get ourselves into a position of conciliation.
We have seen vote after vote lost.
Measure after measure has come out of the Environment Committee.
We have failed to achieve a qualified majority.
Our attempt to improve the environment of Europe has failed.
We need to get into that conciliation position.
We need, at the end of the day, to ensure that we end up with a sensible, balanced policy of real improvements at a reasonable cost.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as long as nearly thirty years ago, the European Commission made attempts to draw up a European water policy.
A hundred and twenty-nine chemical substances had to be regulated.
Eventually, standards were drawn up for only a dozen or so substances.
The unanimity principle was at the root of this debacle.
Some seven years ago, it still looked like the European water policy was going to be sacrificed on the altar of subsidiarity.
The conservative government leaders Messrs Major and Kohl decided in a cosy fireside chat at the Edinburgh Summit that it was totally unnecessary for the Spanish to receive drinking water supplies which were as good as those of the Germans or English.
This sentiment is partly reflected in the common position which came about under British Socialist Presidency.
That position is like holey cheese, or to keep it the sphere of water, as leaky as a sieve.
It explains the ground swell of amendments which were tabled by the Committee on the Environment: nearly one hundred amendments for the second reading.
This is unusual, but most of these amendments are desperately needed to plug the holes.
The dangerous chemical substances constitute a big leak.
The chemical industry and, unfortunately, the European Commission and the Council of Ministers too want to draft a separate risk analysis for each dangerous substance.
This is very time-consuming, and, more importantly, there is no acceptable level of pollution for dangerous chemical substances.
Only the background level of the ocean is acceptable. This is what is meant by the term "close-to-zero" .
The Commission already has a list of 32 priority substances, many of which have a hormone-deregulating effect.
These are so-called endocrine disrupters and cause, even in extremely minimal quantities, changes in the gender of animals and even humans, as is more and more being ascertained by scientists.
This is why it is so important that the European Parliament declares itself openly in favour of the OSPAR objective of close-to-zero by the year 2020.
I would like to mention two substances from the Commission' s list: mercury and tributyl, abbreviated to TBT.
On the bottom of the Wadden Sea, the values of mercury and TBT are higher than the OSPAR value, to wit, ten and one thousand times, respectively.
The chemical industry and society as a whole have to learn to replace these dangerous chemical substances by harmless substitutes, and if this is impossible, to apply them in closed systems.
For the substance TBT, this means that it can no longer be used as an anti-fouling substance.
A sound alternative would be to clean the ship' s sides mechanically.
I would like to finish off by expressing the hope that the European Parliament will pick up once again its green image and will argue in favour of the close-to-zero option for dangerous chemical and hormone-deregulating substances by the year 2020.
Mr President, the European Parliament has a crucial role to play in the development of the Water Directive.
The Council's common position is totally inadequate in a number of areas.
Therefore, our task is to make the requirements in the directive tighter and more concrete.
As members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, we regarded certain principles as particularly important when we adopted a position on the different proposals.
Firstly, we think that the time-frame for implementing the proposed measures should be shorter than that proposed by the Council. We therefore support the proposal to reduce the time allotted for implementing different parts of the directive.
Secondly, I should like the phasing out of noxious materials to be carried out consistently.
There should be no initial delay to allow new evaluation criteria to be developed before the measures are implemented.
The legislation should also have written into it the fact that the international conventions, such as the OSPAR Convention must be respected.
Thirdly, we should like a clear statement regarding the pricing policy.
This means that the basic principle must be that the price should represent the real cost of the water used.
Nowadays, taxpayers often have to subsidise industry and farming.
The obvious point of departure for legislation should be that polluters or consumers pay, although exemptions would be permitted in extreme cases.
Fourthly, we should like exemptions from the rules on water status to be kept to a minimum and clearly defined.
Fifthly, the protection of groundwater status and measures against persistent pollution of the groundwater should be transparent and clear.
Against that background, our group is able to vote in favour of most of the amendments tabled by Mrs Lienemann, the rapporteur, as adopted in committee.
We should like to see the scope of a couple of points extended.
We will therefore vote for the Greens' Amendments Nos 102, 103 and 104, which we consider to be improvements on the present position.
As regards pricing policy, there are sometimes extreme cases which may require derogations from the principles laid down in the report.
My own view is that the options for allowing derogations had already been given proper attention in Amendment No 43, tabled by the committee and been even more clearly set out in the Greens' Amendment No 105.
I cannot see any need for other derogations besides those specified in the two amendments just mentioned.
However, some people in our political group think otherwise.
Consequently, Amendment No 107, on the same question, has been tabled by one section of our group only.
On the whole, I welcome the committee's proposals set out in Mrs Lienemann's report and think they could provide a good basis for a hard-won compromise.
Mr President, every satellite photo proves that we do indeed live on the blue planet, yet the abundance of water is an illusion.
The recent disaster on the Danube serves as a reminder that our rivers are the lifelines of our planet and that pollution does not respect borders.
Water is a renewable but limited natural resource.
It becomes scarcer when it is mismanaged and when the geographical and climatic conditions are unfavourable.
In the EU, this is a crucial issue in the Mediterranean region and also in other European countries where we are witnessing the gradual drying of wet areas.
The increase in vulnerable areas, both wet and dry, inequalities between countries, inequalities between different regions within countries and unusual climatic, economic, geographical and geological events are all the evidence we need.
However, these must not lead to competition distortions within the Community.
We have therefore tabled amendments to highlight the importance of the special relationship between agriculture and water, given that water is an essential factor in the occupation and development of the land.
Agricultural needs are clearly much greater in the south and this specific point must be taken into account in the framework directive.
It is not only in the Member States that solutions to these problems are being sought. Last October in Turin, the countries in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership bluntly demanded a Marshall plan for water for the south coast of the Mediterranean.
We are not, fortunately, at this point.
However, we are in Europe experiencing droughts and desertification in certain regions and also floods, which the directive underlines.
For example, France, the Rhine valley and central Europe recently suffered flooding.
We need this framework directive as an essential element of a sustainable development policy which must make the various uses of water compatible with each other.
Yet we also need to integrate the protection and conservation of biodiversity into this new management of water.
The water issue will definitely not be settled today.
In fact, the problems of enlargement and climate change will offer new prospects.
Mr President, it is very likely that, during this century, good-quality water will be of even more strategic importance than oil.
This is enough reason to thank Mrs Lienemann for the efforts she has made to obtain sound surface water.
It seems rather complicated to attain a proper European legislative framework.
With the framework directive on water policy, we are hoping to end the fragmentation of the EU' s water legislation.
But that has not dismissed us from the task of drawing up an extensive and complicated directive which will require great care in its implementation from the executive bodies.
More specifically, the possibilities for adopting a specific policy by Member States and water boards, which have been set up thanks to the catchment basin approach, need to be maximised.
The key goals remain the prevention from further pollution of ground and surface water, the protection of eco systems, the promotion of the sustainable use of water, the control of floods and droughts and the termination of discharging dangerous substances into surface water.
As far as the discharge of these dangerous substances is concerned, I am of the opinion that the Councils' objectives lack both commitment and ambition.
The Committee on the Environment' s present proposal to reduce discharges to close-to-zero is, in my view, to be welcomed and worthy of emulation.
However, a great deal of attention must be paid to its viability.
Consideration must then be given to natural background emissions which cannot be influenced, as well as diffused emissions which are difficult to control, and which pollute the water quite substantially.
Mr President, we need to get used to the idea in the 21st century that we have to show water a completely new respect.
In the 20th century, water was merely a free evacuation and disposal system for poisonous substances, special waste, chemicals and so on.
And we can already see the consequences!
We need to rethink and recognise that water is our most important asset and that our responsibility towards it goes far beyond the present generation.
The directive must be negotiated accordingly and our citizens must be able to understand what we or rather what the Commission is planning here.
In the final analysis, water protection is not just a social question, it is a decisive social question, which is why the polluter pays principle must be applied more rigorously as otherwise we all bear the consequences.
Given the advanced state of pollution of water resources, it is important not just to maintain the status quo but to ensure during the vote tomorrow that we achieve genuine quality improvements.
Mr President, it must be some six years ago now that Mr Karl-Heinz Florenz, assisted by Mrs Ursula Schleicher, put in a request and managed to overhaul the water policy in its entirety.
It is not an easy topic and, in my opinion, the efforts made by Mrs Lienemann are very laudable indeed.
The decision-making process concerning this framework directive on water has reached a crucial stage.
The topic has been brought under the codecision procedure and as a result, we have been able to draft important, more stringent legislation as early on as at first reading.
In fact, the common position which was issued at the end of last year was already a major improvement on the original proposal.
It is also very hard to adopt policy in this respect because the discrepancies are so huge.
I would also address the Spanish Member in this respect: in the North of Europe, we often face floods, but also polluted water, from industry, whilst the problem facing the Members in the South is often related to transporting water over long distances, simply to supply drinking water or water for agriculture.
I would like to enter into the two elements of this topic in more detail.
I would first of all like to focus on quality. The Netherlands is significantly affected by the European water policy.
A very important component, to wit, one third of our drinking water, is extracted from surface water in the Netherlands.
The Netherlands is located downstream, in a delta, which means that the quality of the surface water which heads our way is of key importance.
Another important point of discussion is the standardisation of water quality.
In a number of amendments, the proposed standards and especially the OSPAR standard for 2020 are called into question.
Although I understand that, according to some, this standard is unclear or that it cannot be defended judicially, I do believe that we have to support it because we could then provide more precise standards in a conciliation procedure.
I would now like to say a few words on quantity management. In his poem "Herinneringen aan Holland" [ "Reminiscing about Holland" ], a famous Dutch poet mentioned water too, which, with its never-ending trail of destruction, was feared and respected.
In 1953, we suffered an enormous flood at a time when we were able to play a pioneering role in terms of dam technology.
When our rivers flooded in 1990, we established that installing artificial works upstream affects the water-storage capacity downstream and can cause a great deal of damage.
This means that in terms of quantity management too, we need to put in considerable effort to ensure that life upstream and downstream is not affected by it.
Mr President, I too would like to start by congratulating Mrs Lienemann on her excellent work.
Water is a basic necessity of life and a fundamental right.
Everyone should have clean water at their disposal but the availability and good quality of water is not so self-evident, as many have experienced in Southern Europe and are experiencing now in the Danube countries too.
Water is often a source of conflict between countries and peoples.
This is why it is important that water becomes subject to international coordination.
We need to recognise that water is a joint liability.
Cooperation within a catchment basin must be self-evident.
Too little operational capacity upstream or, in fact, excessive use, can cause problems downstream.
Coordination is the key word here.
The problem of water is becoming increasingly topical.
Changes in the climate and minor rises in temperature have a direct impact on precipitation.
Some areas are becoming drier, whilst many are becoming wetter.
It is time for action.
In March, the Second World Water Forum will be held in The Hague.
This Forum stands for a worldwide vision.
This vision must translate into regional action plans for sustainable water management and water control.
The time for action is upon us.
The European Parliament must now opt for a sustainable water policy as a starting point and remain realistic at the same time.
But we should not lower our standards too much either.
The common position is not ambitious enough.
This is why it is necessary to refer to previous international agreements, or the OSPAR objectives.
We need to aim for dangerous substances to be phased out by 2020.
This has been agreed for the marine environment and it is obvious that this agreement will also apply to other waters too.
The OSPAR objectives are now being drawn up.
A list has been compiled, containing 400 substances which produce clear risks for the environment.
It is both technically and economically possible to reduce the emission of these substances to virtually zero and we need to opt for this once again.
Needless to say, the directive also needs to be binding.
Countries downstream must be able to count on the fact that countries upstream meet the quality objectives.
Quality has a price, but pollution could well have a much higher price tag in future.
Mr President, Commissioner, my compliments to Mrs Lienemann on her excellent work on the Water Directive.
I should like to remind you that the very serious environmental problems facing us today in the shape of climate change, the depletion of primeval forests and overfishing, constantly affect our common and vital but, in some ways, unowned resources.
We should also recognise that, in Europe, our fresh water sources may be said to be on the borderline between being owned by everyone and by no-one.
It is therefore strategically important that responsibility for water is established.
It is also important for the different watercourses to be kept together and managed as the totality they in fact are, irrespective of who owns one section or another of a common watercourse.
Ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a directive does indeed, as many speakers have already said, represent an historic chance to simplify and improve the jumble of piecemeal EU regulations and directives and achieve a high level of environmental protection in Europe.
However, I have the impression that the policy in the water framework directive is geared towards deregulation and renationalisation.
I also hope that the vote will not be a washout and that will depend on what I see as two quite fundamental points.
First OSPAR. We know that the Commission proposal does not go far enough; unfortunately this also applies to the proposal by the Committee on the Environment.
Merely pulling proposals out of the air is not enough.
What we need is a completely legally binding objective for OSPAR.
Only then will we manage to achieve legal clarity and, more importantly, objectives which are enforceable under the law.
Anything else will fall short of the mark and will not help to prevent ecological disasters, such as those which have just come to light in Romania and Hungary, from happening to us.
I find it unfortunate that national governments are not prepared to stand up for legally binding protection, despite having agreed internationally on OSPAR.
But I think that this is exactly what we have to make up for here in Parliament, in order to demonstrate that we will not allow the credibility of our policy to be lost or compromised.
It is also important to reinforce the polluter pays principle because prices must speak the ecological truth.
We must not bow down before the agricultural or chemical industry lobbyists; on the contrary, we must use our vote to promote and express that fact that we want the polluter pays principle and, hence, cost-covering prices.
Water is our most important resource and we must use our vote to ensure that the incentives and pressure are there to really comply with the OSPAR convention.
With closed production circuits this is possible; anything else would water down the directive.
Let us grab our chance.
Mr President, in the small amount of time allotted to me, I would like to welcome the Mrs Lienemann' s report and remind the House of three principles, to which all other principles must be subordinate, which are clearly expressed in the rapporteur' s amendments: water is not a commercial product, but the property of all the peoples of the Union; the ultimate objective is to eliminate all pollutants in surface water and groundwater, and to inform the public so that it can participate in the recuperation of water and not use water excessively given that it is such a precious commodity.
I know that this directive may have problems, given the differing situations of the various countries of the Union, as has already been mentioned.
The situation in the north is different from that in the south, and different from the situation in those countries which have the problem of desert areas.
I understand this.
However, there are some amendments which attempt to help the countries of the south, specifically Amendment No 43 which, with regard to the recuperation of costs, also indicates that Member States must take into account the social and environmental conditions of the countries when it comes to decision making.
There are also difficulties with the issue of transfers.
In my country - I live in the north of Spain -, there is a considerable difference between the north and the south, and difficulties arise when we have to transfer water from one place to another.
However, Mrs Lienemann' s report also says that the river basins receiving the transferred water must save and protect their water.
I know that this is a difficult report and that the differing situations of countries cause difficulties, but we must move forward with a framework directive which will prevent a repetition of what is happening on the Danube and what happened in Doñana.
We cannot allow our European water to be polluted, Mr President, and we must produce a directive which will strengthen the political will of governments to preserve the resource of water, which is so precious to all of us.
Mr President, my compliments to the rapporteur on a splendid report.
As an Irish Member of the European Parliament, coming from a country which has large reserves of rich water, I support the vast majority of the proposals included in this directive.
However, I would now like to look at the areas of difference between Parliament's Committee on the Environment and the Council.
The latter has already brought forward its common position on this matter.
According to the Council the objective of achieving good surface water status should be secured no later than 16 years after the directive enters into force, whereas Parliament's Committee on the Environment would like to see this deadline shortened to ten years.
I see no reason why European Union Member States cannot work to implement the key provisions of this directive in as short a time as possible.
I now turn to the amendments to be tabled before Parliament tomorrow concerning the principle of the recovery of cost of water usage.
The Council in its common position states that the European Union governments must take account of the principle of recovery of the cost of water usage.
No specific target date for the implementation of this principle was included in the common position.
Amendment No 43 seeks to ensure that by the year 2010 water pricing policies in Europe must provide adequate incentives to use water efficiently.
Moreover, an adequate contribution from different economic sectors, broken down into industrial, household and agricultural sectors, must ensure that this policy is implemented.
Unless these amendments are supported tomorrow a strong message will be sent out that metering and water rates should be implemented for households right across the European Union states.
This is politically impractical from an Irish perspective, as indeed it would be from the perspective of other EU Member States such as Portugal, Greece and Spain.
Mr President, I want first of all to say thank you to Mrs Lienemann for her report.
It is here and now that we decide to what extent the EU countries are to work effectively for a cleaner aquatic environment in the years to come.
We can do this by, as a Parliament, amending the Council' s common position and showing the way forward in working for a cleaner environment.
In its unaltered form, the present directive could, in fact, have very unfortunate and long-term consequences for the environment and for our drinking water.
It would be to send out the wrong signals both to European industry and to the European people.
It is crucial to adhere to a limit upon total discharges of chemicals into our waters.
The directive quite obviously provides too extended a time frame within which time is to be spent measuring every single one of the approximately 100,000 chemicals in circulation.
We cannot afford to wait.
In this connection, I would ask Parliament to support Amendment No 108, in which the words "water pollution caused by individual pollutants" are replaced by "prevention of water pollution through the continuous reduction in discharges" .
We cannot delay environmental work by going into inordinate detail rather than working on reducing total discharges of hazardous substances into the environment.
The EU' s Ministers for the Environment must therefore stand by their affiliation to the OSPAR Convention, which now already defines what is hazardous to the environment.
This Convention should be our guide in working for the clean environment which we owe to ourselves and, not least, to our descendants.
Mr President, it is difficult to summarise the areas covered by such a large and complex directive.
The Treaty of Amsterdam reiterates the priority criteria for prevention, for the implementation of the 'polluter pays' principle and for sustainable development through an environmental impact assessment.
Clearly, the importance of recognising the economic value of ecological factors in setting prices and making operators accountable through the adoption of incentives for non-polluting systems, seems unquestionable in the light of events that characterise the relationship between economic development and the protection of our environmental heritage, particularly our water resources.
This situation is loudly echoed in many sectors of the economy, and especially in the agricultural sector.
The concept of good agricultural practice has been introduced in amongst the complexity of the current relationships between agriculture, environment and water resources, and between positive and negative effects, and amongst the wide range of local realities and production systems and so on. This concept indicates which agricultural production method to use in order to satisfy the Community expectation of an environmental protection of water resources that surpasses basic standards, along with the subsequent costs and reductions in income.
The obligation to develop and consolidate a strategy for integration derives from this notion, with the aim of keeping the management of water resources at the heart of the sustainable economic production model in the light of current conditions.
We must not, with this in mind, pursue a strategy of separating the objective of preventing a deterioration in the state of surface water and groundwater from the objectives of protecting, improving and restoring their quality, as this would create a superfluous hierarchy of priorities detrimental to the overall functioning of interventions and specific measures that target a combined approach and the use of the best available techniques.
As regards eliminating the pollution generated by dangerous substances in the aquatic environment, an optimum approach should provide a regulation at both national and Community levels, which enables clearer identification of the various classes of bodies of water polluted as a result of human production activities.
Finally, we need to set up a system which prepares an objective list of potentially dangerous substances, using the increased information available on their chemical, physical and biological properties, in such a way as to create an integrated model for intervention at a range of strategic levels in order to protect our water heritage, which is fundamental to us all.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if we are to take the principle of sustainability enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam seriously, then our long-term objective must be to achieve zero inputs in our water because we need to safeguard water so that future generations do not pay the price for our water consumption.
We can achieve this long-term objective by developing measures with demanding standards.
In this respect, I fully support the amendments proposed by Mrs Lienemann to develop a reasonable approach using quality standards so that we can eventually say that, when people use water, they are not consuming it but maintaining present stocks.
This directive contains a number of very positive elements which are worth highlighting.
First there is wide information for and involvement by the public, a rarity in a European directive.
Secondly, there is compulsory cooperation.
I am glad a holistic approach to water is being taken here and that authorities in the individual national states and beyond the borders of the national states are at last obliged to work together and ensure that water is of a high quality.
Thirdly, I should like to address the question of the timetable.
I am firmly convinced that we need a strict, tight timetable in order to work towards our long-term objective.
Compare it with what happens in December.
We all know in December that Christmas Eve falls on 24th December and we start buying presents.
But what would we do if we knew in December that Christmas was in thirty years' time.
We all know what we would do, which is why we need a tight timetable for our water policy.
I emphatically support the rapporteur' s proposals and think that we need a tight timetable for all areas of the directive, from the list of measures to the question of employment measures.
Mr President, the purpose of the present objective ought to be to ensure that the Member States work together to protect groundwater, drinking water and surface water and that the level of protection corresponds to existing EU environmental legislation.
May I take this opportunity to remind you that previous resolutions concerning the Nitrates Directive have still not been implemented in all Member States, in spite of the fact that there is a common EU resolution.
The present proposal tightens up the protection of the aquatic environment in a number of ways which exceed our current environmental objectives.
It is proposed that a target should be achieved for concentrations in the aquatic environment which is close to the background values for naturally occurring substances and close to zero for humanly produced synthetic substances.
This cannot be done, and it also, in any case, goes against nature.
Adopting this report would have serious consequences for agriculture in the EU if concentrations of, for example, phosphorus and nitrogen could not exceed the background values for these substances in the aquatic environment and if a limit of zero were to be established for pesticides in the aquatic environment.
European agriculture would not, for example, be able to grow bread grain with a high enough protein content for it to be used for making bread.
As a result, agricultural production would move to other countries outside the EU, with consequent high socio-economic and employment costs.
I cannot vote in favour of the sections in the Water Framework Directive which deal with these states of affairs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, water is a precious raw material.
Millions of people do not even have clean water - a absolute necessity for survival - at their disposal.
It should, therefore, not surprise us that water is the cause of wars.
The capitalist world too sends out its pawns in order to gain maximum control over water reservoirs.
General interest or solidarity often do not come into the equation.
Europe is therefore facing an arduous task; that of combining a Community water policy which is fragmented in terms of objectives and means into more coherent framework legislation.
I have to admit that in Flanders, where I come from, we still have a long way to go too.
We were recently rapped on the knuckles by the Commission regarding this matter.
Anyone with any sense would like to see this framework directive used as a big stick for those pursuing policies who are now failing in some way.
The common position is in this respect a farce, a document with no strings attached and a true affront in the light of the OSPAR agreements.
The period of implementation can even be extended up to 34 years.
By then, my children will be older than I am now.
You have to admit: this is a joke.
Tomorrow, we might opt in favour of a weak and permissive framework which ruins the future of our children. Either we opt for the amendments of my group, of the rapporteur or the Committee on the Environment.
I would like to finish off with this observation. In the past couple of months, we have witnessed a great deal of lobbying in Belgium.
What was remarkable about this dossier was the enormous pressure from the Council of Ministers.
In our own country, this pressure was exerted by both Flemish and Wallonian Environment administrations.
They have opted for the weak common position in favour of our Parliament' s more drastic positioning.
I really do wonder whether this is an approach of which the green Environment Ministers in my country are aware.
Ladies and gentlemen, fine words are no longer sufficient.
We need to change tack completely.
During the vote tomorrow, we can make it clear that Europe is drafting a responsible and future-orientated water policy.
This can only benefit our credibility.
The debate is suspended and will resume at 9 p.m.
The dialogue on Europe - institutional reform
The next item is the Commission communication - The dialogue on Europe - institutional reform: the issues at stake.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is discussing this issue right now but it will be very surprising if its work is completed today. I am basically here to speak to you, as indicated by your agenda, on a new initiative which the Commission is proposing as just one of its responses to the major challenge of institutional reform.
This reform must involve all the actors in European construction, with yourselves as MEPs at the forefront but also myself as a Commissioner, the Council ministers and national MPs. It must also involve the officials who work in our various institutions and who are committed to and motivated by this European construction.
This morning, in the lengthy debate which I attended with Mr Prodi, many of you mentioned the lack of democracy and remoteness of the European institutions.
Yet it is not just a question of who does what, as one of you said very clearly and forcefully.
Ensuring that our citizens understand who does what in our various institutions is the very least we can do.
We must also now explain what we are doing together and what we want to do together in the future, particularly with the countries which will be joining us.
We too are concerned about this lack of democracy, and the Commission has therefore decided to launch the 'Dialogue on Europe' in order to play its part in this direct contact with the people. This initiative will be launched on the day after the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference.
During the IGC I will have the honour of representing the Commission together with Mr Prodi and of working closely with your two representatives, Mr Brok and Mr Tsatsos.
All the Commissioners have undertaken to use some of their time when they go to any country or region, and not just their own, which in my case happens three or four times a month, to engage in direct dialogue with the public, and not just with the élite or those in power whom we meet as a matter of course. We also plan to establish direct contacts in universities, schools and factories, to meet the people, answer their questions and listen to them.
In this way we will play our part, as will you, in making the necessary effort and meeting the urgent obligation to reduce the democratic deficit and the remoteness of our citizens from what we do.
We hope to conduct this initiative in cooperation with the Member States and in conjunction with the European Parliament.
We will produce a regular summary of this initiative so that public opinion can be measured and we can adjust or reorient the work.
We also hope to conduct this initiative in consultation with the national parliaments, local elected representatives, non-governmental organisations, socio-professional organisations and the media.
Opinion multipliers, political groups and parties, MEPs and national MPs, elected representatives, as I have just said, local authorities or national parliaments, the Committee of the Regions, the Economic and Social Committee, organisations stemming from civil society and university and education circles will all be involved.
Need I remind you that the European Parliament itself took the initiative on 1 February? I must again thank Mr Napolitano for organising an initial working meeting with the representatives of the national parliaments who are, of course, the representatives of the people in each Member State.
The Commission will propose that the Member States become involved in this exercise either as part of ad hoc cooperation or a more structured partnership.
We are setting up a media plan and close contacts with the European Union Presidency and the European Parliament.
I have indicated the conditions under which the Commissioners will play their part through public meetings and visits.
We want to encourage debate among the people.
Without presuming to lecture you - God forbid - or even advise you, may I just point out that, when it was my honour to be Minister for European Affairs in my own country, I saw the need to establish a direct dialogue with the people? Each week, when engaging in this dialogue in each region, I realised that there was a real need for the European Union to have a face.
I therefore took a European Commissioner, and not just the French ones, or ambassadors posted in Paris or MEPs to engage in this dialogue each week. This made me realise that people had many intelligent questions and that they needed to be respected, listened to and informed.
So this is what we are going to do. We will have a budget of approximately EUR 4 million for 2000 which you will hopefully approve.
Financing from the 2001 budget must also be negotiated as we want this initiative not just to be an experiment but to last throughout both 2000 and 2001. It will therefore be ongoing throughout the negotiation of the Intergovernmental Conference and the ratification process.
We will launch this dialogue on 8 March in Brussels in the presence of 700 young Commission stagiaires.
Your President, Mrs Fontaine, has agreed to take part with Mr Prodi and several Commissioners in this initial dialogue. I can assure you that, whenever a Commissioner intends to engage in dialogue, the most immediately available MEPs will also be able to take part in order to give their point of view and explain the work and role of the European Parliament.
That is all I have to say for the moment.
I welcome any questions, suggestions or proposals from the Members present.
Colleagues, you know the rules.
You are expected to ask questions, not necessarily make lengthy statements.
You have one minute each in which to ask your question.
Mr President, I think I also speak for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs that I chair, in expressing my appreciation of this Commission initiative.
Moreover, this initiative is consistent with recommendations made by Parliament itself in its resolution of 18 November.
I have also heard Commissioner Barnier' s clarification of relations and links with the European Parliament during the implementation of this programme.
If I may make a suggestion, Commissioner Barnier, would it be possible for the communication to say something more on this subject, in addition to the straightforward and slightly clinical phrase which indicates that it will be carried out in conjunction with the European Parliament?
It would be helpful to stress this convergence of intentions and efforts because I can see a particular problem with coordination, specifically between the Commission initiative - which certainly does not only address members of national parliaments, but also members of national parliaments - and our committee' s programme. Following the working meeting of 1 February, which Commissioner Barnier referred to and which benefited from the weighty contribution of the Commission, the committee intends to take stock of developments at the Intergovernmental Conference at all of its meetings.
We therefore hope to benefit from the capable and consistent participation of members of national parliaments at all of our meetings, and this will be a channel which will ably supplement the ones in the Commission' s initiative.
Thank you, Mr Napolitano. I can confirm that our proposal is completely within the spirit of the resolution of 18 November.
I also want at this stage to say that I was able to propose this initiative to the Commission thanks to the cooperation and understanding of my colleague, Viviane Reding. This initiative was also established in conjunction with Günter Verheugen as it involves all the major challenges of enlargement, both its opportunities and risks, and of institutional reform.
These challenges must be explained to our citizens who are concerned about them and questioning them.
I understand your concern, Mr Napolitano, and an interinstitutional working group will be set up. Its first meeting should take place in March.
I will ensure that we go further than the rather dry terms of the Commission' s text and it will certainly be more a question of sharing the work than working in liaison with each other. I will also ensure that over the next two years we can coordinate the initiatives taken by yourselves and ourselves which will be separate but joint.
You realise that making a success of this dialogue means work for everyone concerned.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is music to my ears to hear you use the word 'citizen' so often.
We are increasingly concerned in this House about public opinion. The fear of public opinion is a rather paternalistic concept but our House is what it is and we must do what we can with it.
In terms of the IGC issue, I have a specific question for you. I believe that the Court of Justice in Luxembourg is currently looking very closely at the important issue of the fight against fraud and OLAF.
As you know, there are problems which not only concern this House but also the European officials who are also European citizens.
Given the urgency surrounding this issue, has the Commission considered the possibility of completely changing the structure of the anti-fraud office by moving to a solution which would entail the fight against fraud, in the Member States and in the European institutions, coming under the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice?
Mr Dupuis, first of all I attach a great deal of importance in my public life to the word 'citizen' .
It is one of the most wonderful words in a democracy and must be used.
We will conduct this dialogue with our citizens, including the most disadvantaged and those isolated from decision-making or information centres.
With regard to the IGC and this issue of the fight against fraud, and specifically fraud against the Community budget and interests, we have retained the idea in our proposals of creating a new and specific post of a European public prosecutor. We have done this in the spirit of this House' s work and perhaps by going down the same road.
This public prosecutor would have the authority, recognised by the EU Treaty and therefore by the Member States, to investigate thoroughly any case threatening the Community budget and interests.
We can clearly and almost clinically see that legal cooperation is now no longer enough to fight against this fraud whether it originates from inside or outside the Community.
This is why we have proposed the creation of a European public prosecutor who could, having investigated a case from start to finish, then have this investigated and ruled on by the most appropriate national court.
In reply to your second point on the Court of Justice, we have not yet established our position on the Court of Justice because we were waiting for the Dur report which was published a few days ago.
The Commission, as I have promised, will complete its proposals on the IGC opinion about the legal system and the Court of Justice within the next few weeks.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the day before yesterday, there was a leading news item in the most popular Danish news programme, which I would ask you to comment on.
The story went that an official in the Commission had apparently told an Austrian businessman that, because he was Austrian, he would possibly be excluded from being able to participate in a scientific development project together with businesses in other countries, including Denmark.
I would ask you to confirm that, if an official has said that an Austrian company is in some way excluded from participating in joint development projects, then this official has got the wrong end of the stick, and that, if he has not said this, then there is no story.
Will you confirm what is the case?
Mr Haarder, to my knowledge no official has been authorised to say such a thing.
My personal opinion is that it would be wrong and unfair to penalise the Austrian people, businesses and employees because of concerns prompted by the establishment in Austria of a new government coalition.
Therefore, subject to verification which I or someone else will give immediately after this sitting, I can confirm what you have just said, that the Commission has never said or authorised anything of this sort.
Generally speaking, there are other lessons to be learnt from what is happening in Austria.
I have myself suggested various possible responses to this challenge which serves to remind us all once more what we have been doing together since 1957.
This is an economic community, of course, but it is also, primarily, a community of values. This is why we are drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights which will more widely and more clearly protect our citizens on an individual basis.
This is why we have Article 13 of the EC Treaty on discrimination which we proposed, in our opinion of 26 January even before the Austrian crisis, should be applied after the IGC by qualified majority rather than by unanimity.
This is why I personally have an idea to supplement Article 7 of the EU Treaty with a new paragraph which would give the democratic warning or monitoring procedure a legal basis.
Finally, this is why we have public debate.
The only way to eliminate misconceived ideas is to offer alternatives, which brings me back to the subject of our discussion.
I firmly believe in the democratic force and value of debate, particularly to fight against demagoguery.
Commissioner Barnier, you laid great stress in your statement on the importance of dialogue with the citizens of Europe.
With reference to the IGC, as you know, under the Helsinki decisions the Portuguese Presidency was given the specific entitlement to add to the agenda of the IGC during the course of the IGC.
Clearly, Parliament has its own representatives present, Mr Brok and Mr Tsatsos.
But would you, Commissioner, also be in a position to give an undertaking that if and when the agenda is enlarged by the Council you would report this to Parliament so that we could discuss it amongst ourselves and indeed with you, with the intention of continuing that dialogue with the citizens on which you have laid such stress?
Mr Beazley, my answer is clearly yes but that is no surprise.
Mr Napolitano, the chairman, and many other members of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and even more MEPs in this House know that, on behalf of the Commission, I will be available to tell you how things are going as they happen throughout these negotiations, in a spirit of transparency.
I will perhaps say this differently from Mr Tsatsos and Mr Brok who are your direct representatives but it is also probable that, in many cases, we will say this together.
It is very important that these negotiations is not secretive with the European Parliament or the national parliaments which, when all said and done, will have their opinions to give and their positions to take in the ratification process.
This is why I congratulate Mr Napolitano' s initiative for regular joint consultation between the national parliaments of the Fifteen and the European Parliament.
Having said that, the duty of transparency and debate starts here with regard to the reform of the institutions.
I will therefore be available whenever you want in order to inform you of our positions and the progress being made in these negotiations throughout this year.
Mr President, firstly I would like to compliment the Commission on its approach.
I think it is extremely useful to open up the communication channels with the citizen at an early stage. This did not really happen for the Treaty of Amsterdam or the Treaty of Maastricht and this has only led to a great deal of mistrust.
I have two questions. Firstly, you mentioned that you will start a two-way dialogue with the citizens and I am already making a start with the 700 placement students at the European Commission.
Do you intend to address the citizens via the media as well, that is to say via the television and Internet?
My second question is of a critical nature. The European Commission has just issued a proposal on transparency.
If I compare this with the transparency proposal which pertains to legislation in the Netherlands, then the European model is vastly overshadowed by the Dutch model, and that proposal has met with a lot of criticism in the Netherlands.
My question is really: how do you intend to organise transparency with regard to the IGC, because the present directive is not a good example of this.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, given that we are talking about ensuring transparency in the IGC, it is clear how business will be conducted and the negotiations are starting right now.
The group of representatives is currently meeting in Brussels and I will try to join them as soon as possible.
The documents will in the main be open working documents.
Although the negotiation sessions which will take place throughout the year between ministers and the European Council will not be open to the media, I am committed, as I must be at this stage, to ensuring this transparency and reporting in the most appropriate arenas on these negotiations and the Commission' s viewpoint.
I can confirm, and thank you for having asked me about this, that we will use all the most modern means, television in particular, to broadcast our public debates in each country and even across Europe.
We will open an Internet forum and create permanent discussion forums.
The Commissioners will undertake to respond rapidly to any questions raised.
These are the modern means to be used.
However, I believe we must also make the effort to get as close as possible to the people.
Although this may be a rather Utopian ideal, I want a Commissioner, when he can, an MEP, a minister to attend public debates in all the regions of Europe.
I have evidence that this is possible.
The majority of you hold these debates in your constituencies and regions.
Although this may seem rather egotistical, I want the Commission, in the minds of the people, to have a face and for those people forming the Commission to be able to meet our citizens as often as possible.
Mr President, I welcome Mr Barnier' s commitment to go to the regions, both to explain and to listen to what citizens have to say.
I would like to invite him to my own region of Yorkshire, a major European region that is a full participant in the single European market and a major recipient of European structural funding.
He can come with both the hats that he wears as a Commissioner.
I would like to ask him how vigorous the Commission will be in this information campaign?
In some Member States it is not just a matter of providing information to a public that is not as well informed as it might be.
That is certainly important but it is also a question of combating the misinformation that is put around by a very active anti-European movement and anti-European organisations that exist.
The Commission will have to be very vigorous in the responses that it puts out to some of the comments that it will be receiving as part of the campaign.
Mr Corbett, thank you for your comments.
I willingly accept your invitation. If I have understood you correctly, you want me, when I come to Yorkshire, to talk not only about the reform of the European institutions but also the Structural Funds.
I can perform this dual task.
I forgot to mention my intention to go before the national parliaments, as I have already done, not only by meeting their representatives here but by going to see them in situ.
Ten days ago I was in Westminster, so you can see, Mr Corbett, that I am not afraid of the difficulties.
Next week I will go to the Bundestag in Berlin.
I have already appeared before the French Senate.
Therefore, throughout this debate, whenever I can, I will go directly to see the national parliaments too.
With regard to the dialogue with our citizens, it is not a question of propaganda or marketing, nor even of communication.
I want this dialogue to be a real dialogue. So, after a short film objectively explaining the challenges of institutional reform, those in the public gallery can participate in an open discussion.
I will say again that we are going to conduct this dialogue initiative through specific cooperation or a more structured partnership with the Member States. I sincerely hope, with your support, that the governments of the Fifteen will participate in this dialogue initiative in the manner which they consider most appropriate.
Mr President, I should like to join Mr Barnier' s study group with the 700 trainees so that he has some people to discuss matters with.
It is not much fun, of course, having to discuss transparency and intergovernmental conferences with yourself.
In connection with the Intergovernmental Conference, Mr Barnier said, during his presentation in Parliament, that social policy was not to be subject to majority decision-making but, when I look at page 63, I see that rights of travel and of residence - that is to say, the Residence Directives - ,combating discrimination, the whole of social security and the renewal of Regulation No 1408 and, with a few exceptions, of arrangements in the socio-political sphere are to be subject to qualified majority voting.
Is not Mr Barnier nervous about penetrating the inner workings of the Member States' election processes? It is, of course, these issues which people go to the polls about and which lead to new majorities in the Folketing and other parliaments.
Can such matters be controlled from Brussels? Is this an element in the radical decentralisation which Mr Prodi talked about this morning?
I was very glad to learn last week that the Commission is giving close attention over a number of years to the concept of subsidiarity and its reference, not merely to relations between the Union and Member States, but also the Union, the Member States, regions and cities.
I hope that in his pursuit of dialogue around the regions of Europe, Commissioner Barnier will expand upon that thought and learn from what he hears.
Commissioner, I want to go back to one of your previous answers. In this you mentioned what I would refer to as the possibilities of protecting the EU Treaty against any risks of deviation and, in particular, the variation of penalties which may be imposed on a Member State, pursuant to Article 7, for the violation of fundamental freedoms.
Do you believe that these proposals, or proposals of this type, form part of the mandate of the IGC as defined in Helsinki? I do not think so.
Are you not afraid that such penalties might get out of hand and serve to punish not violations of human rights but simple differences of opinion, unpopular opinions or deviations from the dominant European thinking?
Yes, Mr Bonde, we will be starting this debate with 700 young people in Brussels who are going to be working in the institutions and with the Commission. I believe that it will be good to start this dialogue with young people who are motivated.
In terms of social protection, I can confirm that we have made proposals about qualified majority or unanimous voting but these are regardless of ideology.
In your country, Mr Bonde, like everywhere else, I believe people are keen for the internal market to work properly under the fairest conditions of competition and movement of goods and people.
This will therefore be our rule.
We are proposing that decisions on certain policies or measures involving taxation or social protection and social security should be taken by qualified majority voting when there is a direct link with the proper operation of the internal market. Our proposal is not general or systematic.
I am well aware of the sensitivity of these taxation and social protection issues.
I do not believe that all the national systems of social protection should be made identical.
This has never been the case. We are simply trying to ensure, in a Europe with 30 or 27 Member States, the best conditions for the operation of the internal market without one country being able to block the other 26 or 27.
Mr MacCormick, I agree that this dialogue must reach beyond the national capitals.
It must get as close as possible to the people, where they live and where they have their roots. If I said anything different I would be contradicting myself as Commissioner for Regional Policy which is one of the most specific and most visible policies for increasing employment and improving the quality of life of people in their regions.
You will often hear me say that this policy does not just have one main objective of achieving cohesion and solidarity between the regions but that it is intended in addition to help people, where they live, to preserve their roots, traditions, soul and identity.
We will therefore conduct this dialogue with the towns and regions.
Mr Berthu, the Helsinki mandate is clear and we are working within this.
It specifies that we must deal firstly and as a priority with the three basic issues which were left out in Amsterdam.
It also adds related institutional questions and issues which may be included in the negotiations depending on the Portuguese and French presidencies.
The Commission is acting correctly if, on a particular point, it believes it must add to its opinion which covers many institutional questions. I am not yet sure that we will do this on Article 7.
However, if we do, this will not be solely in response or as a reaction to an economic situation which is sufficiently serious that the fourteen governments of the Union must mobilise together to give their response. We will also do this with regard for the future in general.
We will use all the means available to permanently strengthen the community of values which we have been building together since the founding of the Union in 1957, and even before that, on the rubble of the Second World War.
Everything which can be done will be useful. I am sure that you and I, Mr Berthu, can at least agree on this.
Thank you, Commissioner.
You have answered the questions precisely and also opened the dialogue for Europe that you referred to.
You have set a very good example of time-keeping today.
That concludes the debate.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0009/2000). We will examine questions to the Commission.
First part
Question No 36 by (H-0025/00):
Subject: High infant mortality in Kosovo According to the latest UN data received from the World Health Organisation, Kosovo has the highest rate of infant mortality in Europe; almost 50% of babies born prematurely die, while the war has produced a steep rise in miscarriages and children who manage to go to term are smaller than the norm.
In the context of the humanitarian aid provided by the Union and the efforts of its envoy Bernard Kouchner, will the Commission say what measures have been taken to safeguard the women of Kosovo's right to motherhood and the health of pregnant women, women in childbirth and babies?
Mr President, the Commission is conscious of the very difficult situation concerning health and health facilities in Kosovo, not just for pregnant women but across the board.
This results both from the recent conflict and from the years of neglect and lack of maintenance that preceded it.
The statistics quoted on child mortality speak for themselves and are wholly unacceptable.
However, the situation is hardly better for other parts of the population.
The Commission' s response has been as follows: firstly, the health sector has been a significant beneficiary of ECHO funding.
ECHO is currently focusing on the provision of medical supplies and emergency health care, on support to institutions as well as vaccination.
However, efforts are increasingly oriented towards the establishment of a self-sufficient healthcare system in the province.
UNMIK has already taken a significant role in this field.
Secondly, under the reconstruction programme, urgent intervention at the hospital in Mitrovica has already been initiated with a EUR 1 million rehabilitation programme.
Progress is slow due to the tense relations between the ethnic groups of this divided city.
However, the Commission is maintaining its efforts with the support of UNMIK for this project.
We hope that one day it may become a symbol promoting the benefits of ethnic reconciliation.
Under the European Community' s damage assessment, estimated costs of the reconstruction of healthcare facilities and provision of equipment to dispensaries and health houses amount to EUR 4 million.
The Commission is now turning to the programming of 2000 funds.
We expect to dedicate a considerable sum to improving the healthcare system.
The emphasis will be on long-term reforms covering health financing as well as training and procurement.
Work is already under way with UNMIK to determine an appropriate contribution from the Commission to this enterprise.
Commissioner, this morning President Prodi, among others, stressed that the Balkans are testing our ability to act effectively, the very credibility of the European Union is on trial, and the gap between words and deeds must finally be closed.
Commissioner, do you really think that the facts we have about high infant mortality in Kosovo - the highest in Europe - and more generally the picture of human misery and destruction that prevails in Kosovo, are not already damaging our credibility and casting doubt on our ability to live up to our promises? Besides, Commissioner, is so-called humanitarian military intervention justified by the present picture of human destruction in Kosovo?
Do you think that so much inaction is excusable when, on the continent of Europe itself, the right to life is at risk?
I do not think that our reconstruction agency or the task force before it, which have been working incredibly hard in Kosovo, would regard it as an adequate description of their labours to suggest that they had been standing idly by.
I am sure the honourable Member did not mean that.
Of course, she is entirely correct in saying that the Union' s credibility is on the line with what happens, not just in Kosovo but in the Balkans as a whole.
I am very concerned that the assistance we provide should arrive expeditiously and in a way which can maximise our assistance.
I would just make two points about the situation in Kosovo which we are addressing as enthusiastically as we can along WHO lines.
First of all, I am sure that the honourable Member recognises that over the period of the 1990s the government in Belgrade underfunded the health service in Kosovo, and many Albanians found that they were not really receiving any health care at all.
As a result of that, a parallel health care system was put in place through the Mother Teresa Society.
So what we are dealing with is not just the consequences of conflict but the consequences of years of neglect and chronic under-investment.
Secondly, and I am sure that the honourable Member recognises this as well, some of the tragic stories to come out of Kosovo in recent weeks have not been about child mortalities during carriage of a baby, but child mortality after a healthy baby has been born.
Those were cases in which women who during the hostilities, or before the hostilities, tragically killed their own children.
We are dealing with a horrific story in Kosovo.
We have to work as well as we can in the health care field and in others to restore something approaching civilised standards and civilised behaviour, but it is not going to be easy.
Commissioner, I would like to thank you for your response to the Member' s first question and the supplementary question.
However, I still have some contacts in Kosovo who have informed me that food packages which are distributed by ECHO, among others, are often of inferior quality.
In some cases, there have been incidents of food containing insects and such like. Are you aware of this?
Are you prepared to act upon it? This is my first additional question.
My second question pertains to the reconstruction of the hospital in Mitrovica.
You are perhaps aware that this hospital is located in the Northern part of the city and that, given the tense situation, Albanian Kosovars do not have any access to this section at all.
What does the Commission intend to do in order to ensure that Albanian Kosovars too can get to hospital?
On the first question, I am going myself to Kosovo at the beginning of next month for another visit and I will certainly look into the allegation made by the honourable Member about the ECHO food package.
I have not heard that suggestion before, but it is an important point and I will certainly investigate it when I am there.
Secondly, I do understand exactly what the honourable Member is saying about Mitrovica.
I was in Mitrovica a couple of months ago, I saw the situation there for myself.
I had discussions with municipal leaders from both communities, including the leader of the Albanian side who had himself in the past been a doctor and was generally recognised for the medical work he had done during the hostilities and subsequently.
So I know the very serious problems that exist in that hospital and I can assure the honourable Member that we will be doing all that we can to see that adequate health facilities are available for everybody in Kosovo, whatever ethnic group they come from.
The particular difficulties in Mitrovica - for example, it is not just a question of Albanian patients having difficulty getting to hospital, Albanian staff have had difficulty working there - are particularly acute problems.
We will try to address them, but it is not easy.
Question No 37 by (H-0029/00):
Subject: Turkish blockade of Armenia Given that the European Union is actively promoting social, economic and political relations with Armenia through the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed on 12 October 1999, what steps is the Commission taking to persuade the Turkish Government to lift the economic blockade of Armenia?
The Commission supports any effort aimed at the settlement of the disputes between Turkey and Armenia and regrets that there has not yet been any normalisation of relations between these two countries.
In the present political circumstances it is however unrealistic to imagine that the border between Armenia and Turkey, as well as the one between Armenia and Azerbaijan could be opened without settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Mr President, the Commission will be holding negotiations in the future on the accession of Turkey to the European Union.
Will it make it a condition that negotiations can only start if the blockade is lifted because, in the final analysis, we are all neighbours and we want to cultivate positive neighbourly relations inside the European Union?
My question therefore is this: will the Commission make this one of the conditions in order to improve future discussions?
The key issue is to support the efforts of the OSCE Minsk group to find a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and we stand ready to help in any way we can.
We have also been substantial contributors of development assistance under the TACIS programme to Armenia.
Let me relate my answer specifically to the question of Turkish accession to the European Union.
The situation of Turkey's relations with its neighbours will, as the honourable Member asks, be closely examined in the framework of the pre-accession strategy.
As stated in Agenda 2000 - and I quote: "Enlargement should not mean importing border conflicts".
That statement could not be much clearer.
But I repeat that the most important contribution we can make is to try to assist in the resolution of that conflict which has had such harmful economic and humanitarian results.
Question No 38 by (H-0040/00):
Subject: Implications for human rights of the construction of the Ilisu Dam in Turkey Given that Turkey has recently been granted applicant country status, what is the Commission's view of the implications for human rights of the construction of the Ilisu Dam, given the massive displacement of the Kurdish and the other people of the region that will result?
The Commission has no information regarding the impact of the construction of the Ilisu Dam on the population of the region.
We will, however, consider raising the matter with the Turkish authorities, together with other issues concerning regional development policies in the framework of the new pre-accession strategy for Turkey.
I have a related point.
It concerns the implications of the dam on access to fresh water in the region as a whole.
As you know, the dam will limit the supply of fresh water to Syria and to Iraq in particular.
Given the extreme volatility of this region and given the very real concerns of many commentators that we will see an increased incidence of conflict, of so-called "water wars", in the coming decades, what is the Commission's view about the potential destabilisation, both in Turkey and in the wider region, that will be caused by this dam? Can you say whether you will indeed raise this point as well?
We will certainly raise the point made by the honourable Member.
We have heard anxieties expressed on that point and I will ensure it is taken up.
There have also been considerable anxieties expressed about the potential danger to the archaeological heritage in the area.
We will raise that, too, in the representations we make.
A number of other hydro-electric schemes planned over the last 30 years in Turkey have raised matters of concern, such as the effect on displaced farmers.
On the whole those seem to have been dealt with relatively satisfactorily and I hope that the same can be true of this project which - just to make the point clear - is not a project in which the Commission is participating in any form.
We thank Mr Patten for having replied on behalf of the Commission.
Question No 39 by (H-0036/00):
Subject: Drafting of Charter of Fundamental Rights The general public welcomes the fact that a Charter of Fundamental Rights is to be drawn up. It is also to be hoped that it will meet the challenges of Europe in the 21st century.
What are the Commission's views on the substance of the Charter?
What type of rights will the Charter set out (economic, social and cultural)? Which citizens will it cover (those of the European Union or the citizens of all European countries with a view to enlargement?
Will it cover immigrants etc.?)
Will it set out established social rights in the European Union or will it set a broader agenda?
What means will the Charter use to ensure that it clearly guarantees equality between the sexes? What are the Commission's views on incorporating the Charter into the Treaty on European Union?
Commissioner, it is quite significant that at the beginning of this new century people in Europe, men and women, are being called upon to redefine their rights and obligations.
We hope that this important Cologne Council decision will become a reality.
Globalisation on the one hand and enlargement on the other, make it urgently necessary to define those rights.
Seattle is a real source of concern in that context and we hope that the European Council in Nice will not be a wasted meeting.
But if we are to secure the public' s participation in this new planning, we would like to learn what plan the European bodies and specifically the Commission are proposing as the social and democratic model of Europe in the twenty-first century.
I listened to your general guidelines and I would like to ask you what is the position of children, as entities in their own right, in the Commission' s plans for the new model of society in the twenty-first century.
Mr President, Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, in my opinion, and as Mr Prodi said this morning, the drawing up of the Charter is an exercise with great political significance. This is because it shows that the Union places the fundamental rights of citizens at the top of the political concerns for the future of our common project.
In this context, the criteria by which these rights are to be chosen must be clearly indicated.
The essential criterion is the rights of citizens with regard to the European institutions, as contained in the European project enshrined in the Treaties of the European Union.
I understand your concern about the rights of children.
Many elements of our work, and particularly of my work as Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, involve protecting the rights of children.
This is an area in which the principle of subsidiarity applies fully.
Each Member State is principally responsible for defining its responsibilities towards children.
As for the EU' s responsibility, the rights of children must be recognised in the Charter according to the areas in which the Union can give added value to the promotion of the social and economic situation and even the citizenship, in its broadest sense, of children.
I hope we can meet the challenge which the honourable Member has posed for the Commission and the whole Convention.
Mr President, I have had the privilege of hearing the Commissioner a number of times on this issue and I very much agree with his approach.
However, I should like to ask a slightly different question.
We have just heard Commissioner Barnier say that he is anxious to communicate better with the people and to aim the information policy of the Commission towards the major issues that the Community is dealing with this year.
Would the Commissioner argue for some of the information budget of the Commission to be put towards informing and consulting the citizens on this issue of a Citizens Charter? It is very important that the people feel engaged in this process.
I know that the Convention itself will do much in this area but it does not have the resources that the Commission has.
Will the Commission look at using its information budget to ensure people are engaged in this debate?
It is the policy of the Commission to promote an open and wide debate on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, not only with non-governmental organisations but also with the citizens in a project as far-reaching as the Charter is.
I can assure you that the Commission will do its best to promote the debate on the future Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We can achieve the best of both worlds by having a clear text, a text that can be easily read by the citizens, and at the same time a text that can be used as a legal instrument.
There is no contradiction between the two.
The challenge we have is to bring them together in the final version of the Charter.
I am very glad to know that I can count on your support here.
Question No 40 by (H-0095/00):
Subject: Articles 6.1, 7.1 and 7.2 of the Treaty on European Union Article 6.1 of the Treaty states that the Union is based on principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
It is clear from statements over the past years that Jörg Haider and the Freedom Party do not respect human rights and fundamental freedoms with respect to third country nationals and minority groups living in Austria.
Therefore, will the Commission state when they intend to propose under Article 7.1 that there is 'the existence of a serious and persistent breach by a Member State of the principles mentioned in Article 6.1.' , and urge the Council acting by qualified majority to suspend certain rights deriving from the application of this Treaty to Austria including the voting rights of the representative of Austria in the Council?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin my answer by reminding you of the position adopted by the Commission with regard to the formation of the new Austrian Government. This was reiterated this morning in President Romano Prodi' s speech on that government which includes Ministers from Jörg Haider' s Freedom Party.
I am referring ,of course, to the statement made by the Commission on 1 February 2000, the basic elements of which I would like to restate.
The Commission confirmed then, as it does today, that it shares the concerns underlying the Portuguese Presidency' s statement of 1 February 2000.
These concerns are legitimate and there are good reasons for them.
There is no need for me to remind you of Jörg Haider' s political bias and of his many xenophobic and racist public statements, which are also anti-European.
The fact that an openly extremist, racist and xenophobic party can reach power in a Member State of the European Union will inevitably be a source of concern to the other States that are taking part in the European project. The European Commission is certainly not indifferent to the matter either.
Secondly, the Commission reiterated and reiterates again its commitment to continue fulfilling its duty as guardian of the Treaties, specifically with regard to Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union.
One of the most important innovations provided by the Treaty of Amsterdam was to clarify the basic principles which represent the shared heritage of the Member States. Another innovation was the establishment of a mechanism which would monitor whether these principles are being fulfilled, and which would react if any of them were violated.
The Commission thereby gave a practical demonstration of its commitment to one of the essential pillars: that of the rule of law.
This principle means that the Commission must act within the limits laid down by the Treaties and it is in this context that the statement of 1 February was made.
The Commission is not a State. It cannot and must not act as if it were one.
In order to give a precise answer to your question, Mr Ford, I must remind you that in order for the mechanism established by Article 7.1 of the Treaty on European Union to be applied, there must be proof of the existence and I quote, of a "serious and persistent breach by a Member State of the principles mentioned in Article 6."
I repeat, a "serious and persistent breach" is the condition necessary for the Commission to be able to propose to the Council that measures be adopted against a Member State.
I think that it is obvious that conditions have not been met which would apply to the current situation in Austria.
As a matter of fact I think that I am right in saying that we all hope that these conditions of a serious and persistent breach of human rights and of democracy are never fulfilled, either in Austria or in any other Member State.
I would like to assure you of my personal commitment and of that of the Commission, as stated once again by President Prodi this morning, to doing everything to ensure that we do not have to apply the mechanism stated in Article 7.
I would also like to assure you though that we will not hesitate to apply it should it prove necessary.
The values at stake are too central, too fundamental for us to accept dithering or compromises.
Individuals and governments should be judged by what they do rather than by what they say. In Austria' s case, the statements are contradictory to say the least.
On the one hand, any of us could pick up on a whole cluster of inflammatory remarks by the leader of the Freedom Party.
On the other hand, the new Austrian Government' s programme reaffirms its commitment to defend democracy and human rights.
We will soon have our first opportunity, and an excellent opportunity it will be, to see which one of these two faces of the Freedom Party is the real one.
I am referring to the position the Austrian Government will adopt at the Council with regard to the Commission' s proposals for the establishment of an action programme to combat discrimination and for two directives.
One applies to the principle of treating people equally, without differentiating on the grounds of race or ethnic origin. The other proposal will provide protection at work against discrimination on the grounds of ethnic or racial origin, religion, handicap or sexual persuasion.
These are significant texts, adopted in accordance with Article 13 of the Treaty, which gave the Community jurisdiction to fight discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnic origin, sex etc.
Lastly, I would like to assure you, Mr Ford, that the Commission will remain vigilant and will not fail to act in accordance with its responsibilities, should it prove necessary.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply to my question.
But is Commissioner Vitorino aware, not only of Mr Haider's and the Freedom Party's words, but also of their deeds? Mr Haider has actually been in government in the southern province of Carinthia where he has led a racist and xenophobic campaign against the Slovene-speaking minority in that region who are Austrian citizens, where he has attempted to abolish dual language education and where there has been clear discrimination against the Roma and immigrant communities.
Could the Commissioner answer two questions. Firstly he talked about verification.
Can he tell us how that verification will take place and who will do it?
Secondly, does he not agree that were the current government, at a national level, to pursue the kind of policies that Mr Haider and the Freedom Party have pursued at regional level, then there clearly would be a breach of Article 6(1) of the Treaty with regard to fundamental freedom and human rights and it would be incumbent upon the Commission to take the necessary action? We are not talking about words here.
We are talking about deeds by the Freedom Party and Mr Haider.
It is quite clear to me that it is the responsibility of the Commission to closely monitor the evolution of the situation in the Member States according to the procedures and standards that are enshrined in Article 6 and justify the use of Article 7 of the Treaty.
Therefore I am fully confident that the Commission will be able to follow very closely the evolution of the situation in Austria, as in any other Member State.
If any concrete case of persistent violation of human rights perpetrated by the government of one Member State occurs, we will be entirely capable to react and to act accordingly.
I also rely not only on the cooperation of the Members of the European Parliament, but also on the cooperation of non-governmental organisations, which have always made an important contribution to the anti-discrimination policy of the Commission.
Regarding the situation in Carinthia, we need to look at this in detail.
The honourable Member raised the question.
The protection of ethnic minorities and of minorities that speak a specific language is an element of the programme and of the two directives that the Commission has put before the Council.
We should not only focus this debate on the Austrian question.
That question calls for reflection, for debate and, if necessary, for action.
I sincerely hope that all Member States will take the opportunity of this action plan and these two directives that the Commission has presented to the Council to reiterate in clear and concrete terms their approval for the action plan and for the directives and their commitment to fight against discrimination, racism and xenophobia wherever it might occur.
Thank you very much, Mr Vitorino, for your valuable contribution to this Question Time.
Second part
Questions to Mrs Wallström
Question No 41 by (H-0021/00):
Subject: Surplus electrical and electronic equipment Each year the European Union has to deal with a growing volume of surplus electrical and electronic equipment (6 million tonnes' worth in 1998), mainly on account of the speed with which such equipment becomes obsolescent.
The environmental problems stemming from the incineration and the dumping of such waste are mainly attributable to the presence of hazardous substances (lead, cadmium, mercury, hexavalent chrome, PVC and halogenated flame retarders).
A preliminary draft directive intended to regulate the management of such waste has been through three successive versions, the most recent of which dates from July 1999.
Can the Commission account for the lengthy gestation of this draft, which should in theory have emerged in its final form in 1998? Is it true that the US Government is disputing most of the provisions of the current draft and is even threatening to appeal to the World Trade Organisation (for infringement of Article XI of the GATT and Article 2(2) of the Agreement on technical obstacles to trade) if it is adopted?
The Commission agrees with MEPs that the current method of dumping electrical and electronic waste is causing major environmental problems.
Consequently, the Commission decided to prepare a proposal on the subject and, since 1997, has been involved in discussions with the parties concerned.
The outcome of the discussions, as well as of the in-depth investigations which are being carried out in this area, are now being examined by the Commission.
Some parts of the proposal have been criticised, among them the phasing out of some heavy metals and brominated flame retardants, as well as the application of the principle of making manufacturers responsible for the disposal of electrical and electronic waste.
The United States' delegation to the European Union is concerned about certain points in the last consultation paper, inter alia the phasing out of the materials already mentioned, as well as certain questions arising from the principle of manufacturers' responsibility for the disposal of electrical and electronic waste.
The main argument put forward by the United States in this context is that the present provisions are, they say, incompatible with international trade law.
The Commission is currently carefully reviewing the United States' arguments.
I should just like to add that my intention is that the Commission should be able to present a proposal on the dumping of electrical and electronic waste before Easter.
My question specifically concerned the reaction of the US Government to the text of the preliminary draft.
There have in fact been three preliminary draft texts with the last one, to my knowledge, dating from July 1999.
Is this the text which you will be submitting, or an amendment to the original version? Version 3 is already much weaker than Version 2 following the comments of US industry as relayed by the US Government.
I note in particular that when you talk about the international law with which the text would not be compatible, you are referring in fact to the rules of the World Trade Organisation.
The arguments of the US Government concern the fact that a future ban on the presence of dangerous substances in electrical and electronic waste would be contrary to the WTO rules.
This worries me because this means that, when adopting texts, we are going to be continually threatened by attack from the World Trade Organisation. This will fundamentally weaken European environmental legislation and particularly this proposal.
Thank you for the follow-up question.
It is important for me to have a chance to answer it.
It is clear that in a process such as this, where we are discussing the disposal of a considerable stream of both electrical and electronic waste in Europe, there is an on-going dialogue between the different parties concerned.
The dialogue has been fruitful and has led to our preparing a proposal.
Parts of it have been strengthened, but other parts may well contain too many compromises.
We are still in the process of preparing a text, and the dialogue with the relevant parties will continue up until the last moment.
I do not think that the intervention of the United States should push us in a direction that would lead to our taking insufficient account of environmental considerations.
I strongly oppose using the WTO and trade rules as a pretext for preventing the EU from introducing radical environmental standards. I start from the assumption that we should in fact introduce these.
However, I do want to listen to all the points of view.
For example, I recently met representatives of the electronics industry who put forward suggestions - including practical ones - for improving our own proposal.
However, I totally reject any suggestion that I would allow the United States to determine the shape of our directive.
In fact, I believe that we should be showing the way, an intention that will also characterise the final proposal.
Question No 42 by (H-0026/00):
Subject: Gender and environment Practically all the contributors involved in the Rio and Kyoto processes - individual organisations, civic action groups, governments, the World Bank, the UN and relief organisations - believed that women should take a greater part in decision-making on the environment.
More women in decision-making positions on various environmental bodies would extend the predominantly male terms of reference beyond business alone to embrace social justice as well.
Is the Commission prepared to adopt an action plan to increase the active participation of women in decision-making in the environmental field?
In 1988, the Commission introduced an action plan to promote equal opportunities for women and men.
Through the current programme, which covers the period 1997 to 2000, we are endeavouring to encourage a workplace culture in which the value of both men and women is integrated and where gender-specific needs are taken into consideration.
One of the programme's aims is to develop and supervise methods, strategies and measures for promoting gender equality in the decision-making process and in positions of responsibility.
Within the framework of the action plan, each individual directorate general is to prepare its own programme of measures.
One of the goals of those programmes is to increase the number of women in managerial positions.
The new Commission's own objective is to double the number of women managers before the end of its term of office.
The same line is being pursued with particular vigour in the Directorate-General for the Environment, where nearly 60 per cent of directors and 20 per cent of unit heads are women.
Our policy is to encourage the recruitment of women to administrative posts in order to create a reserve of suitable candidates for future promotion to managerial positions.
Currently, women hold 24.5 per cent of our A-grade posts, and we hope the number will increase steadily.
Moreover, we are trying hard to attract qualified women to participate in our consultation groups.
As regards our external partners, all we can do is set them a good example and encourage their efforts to democratise their decision-making processes.
With respect to the general principle of incorporating a perspective of equality, as you know, this principle is included in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Article 3 of the Treaty states that, in all the activities referred to in this Article, the Community shall aim to eliminate inequalities, and to promote equality, between women and men.
The Commission gives its full support to the efforts being made in this area and is continuing its investigations into whether specific measures can be implemented in the environmental field.
I should, of course, like to take this opportunity to say that I appreciate the role played by the European Parliament' s Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, particularly its chair.
I should just like to recall that, during the lengthy process of approving the present Commission, every Commissioner was questioned by the Women' s Committee on how they would tackle the issue of equality within their own particular field.
We shall be monitoring each Commissioner carefully, so the other Commissioners have now been forewarned.
Thank you for your reply. I interpret it as saying that you agree that what is needed is an action plan to enable more women to take part in specific environmental fields.
I should also like to point out that the Beijing Declaration emphasises the importance of having the institutional capacity to introduce a perspective of equality into all environmental programmes.
Environmental agencies often do not have the required knowledge or procedures for incorporating such a perspective into their daily work.
I naturally want to know whether the Commissioner is willing to incorporate the idea of equality into environmental policy and programmes. This is a crucial goal.
In order for all policies to be similarly permeated by the concept of equality, it is especially important that people in key posts should have the basic knowledge required.
.
(SV) My understanding of mainstreaming is, of course, that this should characterise everything we do.
In the action plan prepared by my Directorate-General, issues of equality play a very important role.
For example, I am prepared to give seminars on leadership or other subjects myself to encourage women to take on further tasks within the Commission.
If we are to be able to motivate everybody, I believe it is extremely important for this message to be sent all the way from the top down or, if you prefer, from the bottom up.
My impression of environment-related work, broadly speaking, is that in many instances it is dominated by women.
This state of affairs must be encouraged so that women have a chance to secure managerial posts or reach high-ranking positions in the environmental field.
I should like to make it plain that our programme reflects that intention, but there is certainly room for improvement.
I have some experience in drawing up plans and following them up. I hope that this will be of benefit.
Question No 43 by (H-0045/00):
Subject: The Boyne Estuary and the Drogheda Port Company The Boyne Estuary is designated a Special Protection Area (SPA) under the Wild Birds Directive and is under consideration for designation as a Special Area of Conservation under the Habitats Directive, as it is an area of international importance.
However, the Department of the Marine, Louth County Council and Drogheda Corporation have allowed the development of a new port in the SPA and even the elimination of a mudflat at Stegrennan recently added to the SPA specifically at the Commission's insistence.
What is more, a very large warehouse has been constructed, in respect of which it is proving difficult to secure access to the planning permission and other infrastructures are planned by the Drogheda Corporation.
How can the Commission ensure that this sort of development financed through the Structural Funds does not conflict with the nature conservation needs of the area? Is the Commission ready to suspend funding completely, pending a review of the development plans of the area?
The Commission is aware of the construction of the harbour, but we know nothing about the warehouse or the rest of the infrastructure mentioned by the honourable Member.
The harbour construction project is receiving support from the Structural Funds and chiefly involves dredging the river Boyne Estuary and depositing the mud on the mudflats at Stegrennan.
The Boyne Estuary is designated a special protection area under the Wild Birds Directive.
That means that any development that takes place in or near the Boyne Estuary and that is likely to affect the special protection area must take account of the protection criteria for the area laid down in the Community' s Habitats Directive.
Since 1998, the Commission has received a number of complaints alleging that the harbour will damage the mudflats at Stegrennan, which are now designated a part of the special protection area, and that the relevant protection criteria have not been observed.
After investigating these complaints between 1998 and the beginning of 1999 - during which time the project did not receive support from the Structural Funds - the Commission became convinced, in the summer of 1999, that the relevant protection criteria had been observed during the building of the harbour. An in-depth environmental impact assessment had been carried out.
The most serious harm caused by the project, the damage to the Stegrennan mudflats, was only to be temporary, and the developers were liable for completely restoring the mudflats.
At the Commission's suggestion, the mudflats at Stegrennan were formally included in the Boyne Estuary special protection area, from which they had previously been excluded.
Furthermore, to compensate for the negative effects on the bird populations caused by the temporary disappearance of the mudflats, the intention was that other habitats in the estuary should be improved.
However, since last summer the measure just mentioned has been in dispute.
Firstly, the Irish authorities withdrew their earlier commitment to carry out improvements.
They then renewed their commitment after an Irish non-governmental organisation began a legal challenge in the Irish courts.
However, the new commitment included some minor changes which, in turn, led to a further complaint.
In view of the fact that the Irish authorities have undertaken to make compensatory improvements and that other issues have already been resolved, the Commission will not, for the present, propose that financial support from the Structural Funds should be suspended.
However, it wishes to discuss the question of compensatory measures with respect to improved habitats with the Irish authorities, particularly in the light of the continuing legal challenge in the Irish courts.
- I do not quite understand what the Commissioner said.
The mudflat at Stregrennan, which was made a special protection area at the request of the Commission, has been completely destroyed at this stage.
It is clear that the activities that have taken place there are in clear breach of EU directives.
You say there will be no further funding.
I would like to know whether you are going to stop completely the funding at this stage until there is a proper investigation. If not, why not?
If you are, when exactly are you going to do it? Is it correct and proper that the department which owns the company is also the authority which issues the licence, and also the authority which basically takes the money from the EU and gives it to a company that it owns 100%?
Is this right and proper?
What is your opinion on that? Any EU funding for the project must be stopped because it is in clear breach of EU directives.
Even the area designated by the Commissioners as a special protection area has been destroyed. Compensation afterwards is not going to make up for the damage that was done.
The first legal challenge followed the start of work on the port of development in early autumn 1999 without the compensatory habitat improvements being in place.
As a result, the Irish authorities agreed to reinstate the cord grass removal but this time by direct mechanical means.
The use of mechanical means led to a further legal challenge - that is what I referred to also in my first answer - based on the argument that mechanical removal would damage the underlying mudflats and would cause the ecologically-harmful spread of cord grass in the estuary.
There is to date no conclusive outcome to this legal challenge.
The adoption of the necessary compensatory measures is a matter for the national authorities, and does not require prior Commission approval.
The Commission' s role is to make sure that the standards required by the Birds Directive are fully met, and clearly there would be a problem with compensatory measures which were themselves damaging.
In this case, the Commission proposes to seek further clarification from the Irish authorities on the up-to-date position on the compensatory measures and possible problems with the mechanical removal of cord grass.
We are not at the moment ready to propose to stop the financing from the Structural Funds.
Mr President, sadly, the specific case raised by Mrs McKenna is not an isolated one.
There are other examples of conservation in special scientific areas being damaged as a result of EU funding.
Will the Commission consider issuing instructions to all Member States saying that, if in future it discovers that European environmental directives have been breached or proper environmental assessment has not been carried out, it will not only stop future funding but will withdraw the funding already granted, in other words, reclaim the money from the Member States? It is only such action which will discourage this practice in the future.
. (SV) This is a very important question.
As MEPs are well aware, in the course of last year a joint text was issued by our predecessors in the Commission, Ritt Bjerregaard and Monika Wulf-Mathies concerning the relationship between the Structural Funds, money from the Structural Funds and protection under the Habitats and Birds Directives.
The message contained in the joint text is still valid.
We cannot hand out money with one hand and, with the other, take countries to court, where they may well be fined.
It is therefore important that there be a coordination strategy.
The result may, of course, be some difficult questions of priorities.
In my view, the most important consequence, however, is that countries should do some careful thinking and, above all, make sure they send in their lists of Natura 2000 sites. Then we will be in a position to carry out methodical monitoring and follow-up procedures.
In that respect, Ireland falls short, like other Member States, but we hope that the pressure we are exerting will produce results.
I should just like to point out once again that the joint text still holds good.
The Rules of Procedure do not allow this.
You will have to discuss this outside the Chamber.
Questions to Mr Barnier
Question No 44 by (H-0020/00):
Subject: Partnership arrangements and the third community support framework for Greece The recent Regulation (EC) 1260/1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds places greater emphasis than the previous regulation on stronger partnership, involving the regional and local authorities and other public bodies, the economic and social partners and all other relevant bodies not only in the preparation but also in the funding, monitoring and assessment of the measures taken.
However, local authorities have repeatedly expressed the view that 'partnership' arrangements under the new CSF for Greece have remained unchanged and are singularly lacking in substance.
Has the Greek Government introduced any changes so as to extend the scope of partnership arrangements to the local authorities and other representative bodies? In what way have the local authorities be given a greater say in the preparation and administration of the third CSF and what steps will the Commission take to ensure greater participation by the 'partners' in all measures taken under the new CSF?
May I quickly add something to the answer given just now by Mrs Wallström to Mr Martin?
This was a joint letter between our two predecessors and I consider, as the successor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies, that this letter is still valid. I will actively endeavour with Mrs Wallström to verify the compatibility of the projects financed by the Structural Funds with the EU environmental directives and policies.
I am also saying this as a former environment minister.
Turning now to the question posed by Mr Alavanos, who I hope will pardon me for this brief diversion onto another subject, the Commission has been monitoring and will continue to monitor, during the preparation of the new programming period, the application of the partnership principle.
The involvement of regional and local authorities in the Community' s action is, as you know, one of the essential elements of the new post-Berlin Structural Funds Regulation.
With regard to the specific application of this partnership principle within the next Community support framework for Greece, the Commission has noted that the public authorities were largely involved during the preparation of the Greek regional development plan for the 2000-2006 period.
Mr Alavanos knows that I have been to Greece twice under the quite tragic circumstances of the earthquake disaster. During these visits, I held discussions with the Greek Government and raised this concern about the correct implementation of the partnership objective and requirement.
As for subsequent phases, in other words the preparation of national and regional programmes, it is not enough for this objective to be taken into account at national and theoretical level. It must also be specifically included in the programmes establishing the CSF at national, regional and local level.
As for the monitoring and management of these programmes, I have not yet received the national provisions proposed by the Greek Government pursuant to Article 8 of the new Regulation.
In the current negotiations on this third Community support framework, I have asked for the provisions on the partnership principle to be fully respected, with regard to both regional and local authorities and to non-governmental organisations and associations.
Within the third CSF, this principle must specifically lead to the participation of all these partners in the monitoring committee.
This is all I can say.
I thank the Commissioner, and do not at all question his intentions and interventions, which adopted a positive line.
However, things are really quite different.
The operation of the Community Support Framework is ruled by a centralising hand and indeed at this time we are experiencing state, government and party delirium as regards the European Union' s funding.
I cannot show you the television programmes here but I can show you the Greek newspapers from a few weeks before the elections.
In the Sunday papers all over Greece: the Ministry of Public Works concerning the structural fund: the Minister' s work; the Ministry of Agriculture: the Minister' s work - just a few weeks before the elections - the Ministry of Telecommunications: the work of the Minister for Telecommunications; the Ministry of Education: the work of the Minister for Education and a photograph of the Minister; the Ministry of Employment: the work of the Minister for Employment, a photograph of the Minister and a photograph of the State Secretary, and behind them all the symbols of the Community Support Framework.
There are only a few weeks to go before the elections.
This is both propaganda by the party and propaganda by the candidates, financed by the European Union, the CSF.
My question to the Commissioner is this: what is to be done?
Will the Commission remain silent?
Will it discuss the matter? Will it bring it up with the Greek Government or will we persist with the pathological situation we had with the previous Commission?
Mr Alavanos, I see that you have thrown to your left all the documents which you have just cited.
Would you let me have these documents so that I can read them, after I have had them translated? I can then determine what they contain in terms of information and communication, which I can only welcome as the Commissioner for Regional Policy, and what is propaganda.
Then if it is really necessary for me to do this, I will make comments or recommendations to the Greek Government.
I would therefore be very pleased if you could pass me these documents or I will come and get them from you later on.
Having said that, I thought your question related more to the partnership issue.
Further to your questions on the pre-electoral period, I can only repeat my intention that local and regional authorities should be involved together with non-governmental organisations.
I can only quote what is contained in the general Structural Funds Regulation which specifies that the Commission will work with the governments of the Member States.
It is therefore the Greek Government which is my primary partner.
Subsequently, if I need to ensure that this partnership is disseminated and decentralised, then I will do this.
I cannot do other than work with the Greek Government.
I think that my colleague Mr Alavanos will be giving all these particulars to the Commissioner so that he may be aware of them, because this really is propaganda and not just some way of promoting Community programmes.
However, turning to the substance, I should like to ask the Commissioner to bear in mind the following: that for all national and regional programmes, Greece is regarded as a region which expresses itself - at the level of its partnership relations with the European Union - via its central administration, its central government.
From that point of view, neither local governments and much less non-governmental organisations, for example the farming cooperatives which would be interested in further development of the farming sector, have any involvement in the formulation of proposals for the third Community Support Framework, nor have they had any involvement in the previous CSFs.
What can the Commission do about that?
Mr Theonas, I can only repeat what I said to Mr Alavanos.
I will monitor this situation very closely. If necessary, within and pursuant to the Structural Funds Regulation, I will make comments on the use made, not of Structural Funds which are not yet committed, but of the negotiations prior to the allocation of these Structural Funds.
However, I am obliged to respect the national authority with which I must conduct these negotiations.
Having said this, I will look at the situation objectively.
As for the rest, if you have any recommendations or suggestions on the involvement of a particular structure - I think you spoke of a cooperative structure - I am ready and willing, on the basis of suggestions from MEPs - you will be acting within your role and I within mine - to relay these suggestions, provided that they respect the spirit and letter of the Structural Funds Regulation.
Why would I not say that we have noticed in previous years, on the part of the Greek Government, some shortcomings in the application of the new Regulation and the previous regulation in terms of involving representatives of civil society? I am saying this objectively and when a problem or shortcoming is noted, this must be remedied.
I will therefore monitor this in the implementation of the new Community support framework.
Question No 45 by (H-0041/00):
Subject: Structural Fund financing of research in the civil nuclear technology field Can the Commission confirm that in the last Structural Fund programming period, 1994-1999, no assistance was granted to research in the nuclear fusion or fission areas? Can it also undertake to rule out any measures providing financing for research of this type during the negotiations in progress with the Member States on the plans and programmes for the new 2000-2006 period?
What role will aid from the Structural Funds play, on the other hand, in the promotion of renewable energy? Can we expect that Structural Fund financing relating to energy policy will focus on the promotion of regional, renewable energy sources?
Will the Structural Funds also finance the large-scale energy transmission networks?
On Mrs Isler Béguin' s first point I must remind her that the improvement of the scientific basis and technical capacities of the regions in order to increase their competitiveness was one of the Community' s priorities during the previous programming period.
The support allocated by the Structural Funds for technological cohesion, or research and technical developments, within the Community support frameworks for that period is estimated at approximately EUR 7.5 billion.
This is about 6% of the whole Community contribution.
With regard to your specific concern, I can say that, as in the previous period, the Commission does not intend to directly finance through the Structural Funds research and technical development in the area of nuclear fusion or fission.
However, it is still the responsibility of the Member States' management authorities to select the projects to be implemented within these CSFs.
Consequently, even though this is not a Community priority, a Member State can decide to finance research and development projects in the civil nuclear technology area, provided that these projects contribute to regional development. The Commission does not have to be systematically informed of these.
On your second point of renewable energy which, as you know, is of great interest to me, the Commission' s approach is given in the document on the Structural Funds and their coordination with the Cohesion Funds.
These Funds specify that investments in the renewable energy sector must be encouraged where they favour the development of local resources, where they contribute to reducing dependency on energy imports and where they create jobs at local level.
I was able to verify this, for example, during a visit I made to the Azores in Portugal a few days ago with regard to a natural source of renewable energy.
The Structural Funds contribution which has enabled greater penetration of the renewable energy market was also underlined in the campaign to promote renewable energy sources launched by the Transport and Energy Department.
Finally, on large-scale energy transmission networks, the guidelines also provide for financial participation from the Funds to develop these networks where this helps to reduce dependency on an external supplier or to combat the effects of isolation.
This is particularly valid for the region of the Azores which I have just mentioned and also for all most remote regions. It is also valid for certain regions handicapped by their isolation due to mountains, for example.
Commissioner, thank you for your answer. However, I asked this question because we are rightly concerned that the report on the third framework programme for research contains a project entitled 'International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor' .
This project amounts to several billion ecus and areas eligible for Structural Funds, such as those listed in Objective 1, might welcome this type of installation.
We would like to know whether the Commission would be likely to finance this type of project in terms of the installation of this research site rather than directly in the specific 'nuclear research' context.
You did not fully answer the last part of my question on large-scale energy transmission networks.
Could you please give an answer on this issue?
You are concerned about whether the Structural Funds will be used to finance the installation of nuclear plants anywhere. Quite simply there is no question of this.
I said that the selection of projects remains the responsibility of the Member States pursuant to the Structural Funds Regulation.
As a result, the Commission services are not systematically informed of all projects selected.
However, you are right to question me as this is your task, as mine is to answer you.
As has happened in the past, the Member States are required to provide answers when the Commission questions them or asks for clarification.
I will therefore step beyond the confidence usually shared between Member States and the Commission and I will find out exactly what is happening on this specific point.
The Member State or States concerned will then be required to answer me and I will send you this answer as soon as possible.
I thought I had answered your question on large-scale energy transmission networks.
The energy situation varies widely from region to region in the European Union. Assistance from the Structural Funds could be justified in certain cases and for certain regions, particularly in the case where the connection to basic energy networks is still underdeveloped.
This is the only answer I can give you on the link between large-scale energy transmission networks and the Structural Funds.
Question No 46 by (H-0052/00):
Subject: Structural Funds and additionality In the light of the Commission's recent helpful response to my priority Written Question about Structural Funds and additionality, I wish to ask whether the Commission has any plans to seek amendment of the rules concerning additionality.
In particular, would the Commission look favourably on a change in the rules to ensure that additionality operates not only at the level of Member States but also within Member States, with regard to budgetary provisions between central government and internally autonomous regions or countries?
Mr MacCormick, the Commission has no plans to amend the rules concerning additionality which were stipulated, for the 2000-2006 period, in Article 11 of the general Regulation on the Funds.
As in the past, these rules state that the additionality principle applies to the relationship between the Structural Funds and all development expenditure of the Member State.
In this respect, it must be stressed that it is the expenditure financed by the Structural Funds which must be additional.
The cofinancing provided by the Member State does not need to be additional to its existing expenditure.
Provided that the Member State does not reduce all its own expenditure, the Structural Funds are added to the national expenditure and the principle of additionality is therefore respected.
As for the budgetary provisions within the Member States, between central government and internal autonomous regions or countries, these are determined according to exclusively national considerations and are therefore not affected by additionality within the meaning defined in the rules.
Please excuse this very legal answer.
However, after verification it is precisely in this legal manner and specifically according to the post-Berlin Structural Funds Regulation that we must define and read the additionality principle.
- I am grateful for a clear answer though naturally a little disappointed by its content.
We are left with Article 11(1) which says that the appropriations of the funds may not replace public or other equivalent structural expenditure by the Member States.
Very well: that is to be the unchanging rule.
Does section 11(1) conceivably authorise the following practice.
When an autonomous region's or country's funding from European structural funds increases, the state makes a concomitant reduction in central funding to that region, so that the total funding package available matches a formula set nationally without regard to the quantum of structural funds granted by the Union. Is that really authorised?
Unfortunately I do not have time to go into depth on this issue. If Mr MacCormick would be satisfied with my partial agreement with his reasoning, I will give him a full answer in writing by restating the legal bases of both Article 11 in general and Article 11(1) in particular.
I am aware of the Member' s competence on these matters.
I also know the particular problems in your constituency in Scotland where disputes and discussions are occurring on these subjects.
However, on a general level, I would say that in all cases it is the Structural Funds expenditure which must be additional. This is how, provided that the Member State does not reduce all its own expenditure, the Structural Funds can be added to the national expenditure and we can consider that the additionality principle is respected.
I will go further in the written answer which I have promised in order to set things out more objectively and precisely.
- Additionality is a major issue too in Wales, which I represent.
Just last week it was one of the issues that brought about a vote of no-confidence and the resignation of the First Secretary of the National Assembly of Wales.
As recently as 1991 and 1992 the Commission won a battle with the UK over additionality, at that time linked to the RECHAR funding.
This led to an agreement being signed whereby the UK Government agreed to introduce procedures to ensure that EU spending reached the areas for which is was intended and was actually additional.
And yet we still have these problems in Wales and in Scotland.
Could the Commission look at this particular situation in relation to the agreement that was signed with the UK Government?
I take this to mean that the debate of which I was aware in Scotland is also occurring in Wales.
I will verify this point and, if you wish, I will give you a written answer at the same time as the one I have promised to Mr MacCormick.
Question No 47 by (H-0088/00):
Subject: Amount which Andalusia will receive from the Structural Funds for the 2000-2006 period According to the Commission' s estimates and on the basis of the criteria established at the Berlin Summit (which include per capita GDP, the unemployment rate and the population census updated in accordance with the 1996 register of inhabitants), what amount is to be allocated to Andalusia from the Structural Funds for the 2000-2006 period?
Questions to Mr Bolkestein
Mr President, I will try to be brief in answering the Member' s question. The regional development plan submitted by the Spanish authorities on 29 October does not indicate how the Community funds will be allocated among the Spanish Objective 1 regions and therefore what your region of Andalusia will receive.
As I did not fully understand the plan, I contacted the Minister for Economic and Financial Affairs, Mr Rato, in a letter of 14 December which I have here, to ask him for more information on the document submitted.
In the coming weeks, the Commission will start negotiations with the Spanish authorities with a view to drawing up the Community support framework for the new period of 2000-2006. During these meetings I can assure you that the Commission will obtain the clarifications required on the regional allocation.
Therefore, if you wish, as soon as I have this information by sector and region, I will personally send you the information on Andalusia.
Mr Commissioner, the problem is that when Mr Aznar comes to the European Union to receive money for all the people of Andalusia, he counts all of them, but when he goes to the Andalusia Council to pay for services, he fails to notice 400 000 Andalusians, and this is very serious, because 400 000 children are the equivalent to the whole of Strasbourg or a city larger than Granada, full of children.
This question is very important and I would like to know - since this is a kind of 'baby fraud' - whether the Commissioner will see to it that these funds are not taken away from the Andalusians, so that the funds which the European Union are going to pay to Andalusia, based on the census, will take into account these 400 000 children which Aznar does not count when it comes to providing them with schools and services.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I would ask all of you - and do not take this as a warning - to deal with strictly Community matters.
I know that these are very important issues in Spain and there are differing viewpoints. I would point out to the Commissioner that Mr Aznar is the President of the Spanish Government.
You may answer the question.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I hear that you have a strong voice. I hope it is loud enough to be heard in Madrid for I realise that what you have said was not strictly intended for me.
I have given you my answer.
I am keen that the Structural Funds, particularly those in Objective 1, are allocated where needed.
We have criteria which are applied and we know roughly what each of the regions of Europe should or could receive.
I can only say that I must discuss these matters with the national authorities and government of each country. I am not avoiding the issue but I must abide by the general Regulation.
It is the responsibility of these authorities and governments to allocate the funds as objectively and fairly as possible.
I need to know about this allocation, however, and this is why I said that I could not answer today.
As I did not have an answer, I wrote to the Minister for Economic and Financial Affairs on 14 December.
I am about to lose patience at not having received an answer from him but I will send you this when I get it.
I regret that the Commissioner has once again become involved in an imaginative and, in this case, passionate intervention.
I would like to remind all of you that Spain is about to hold elections, and in fact there are just 25 days left before the elections.
It should be of comfort to the Commissioner that these elections will take place in 25 days time, since after that he will probably not have to deal with this type of question again.
I do believe it is important to say that Andalusia is going to receive 50% more within the Community support framework and that Spain also holds the record for the use of the Structural Funds, which means that the distribution is based strictly on the implementing regulations and is decentralised by means of the regional development plans and different Community support frameworks.
Lastly I would like to ask the Commissioner a specific question: Do you consider it necessary to change the implementing regulations for the Structural Funds or do you consider the current distribution criteria to be acceptable?
This is a fascinating debate which I realise is not totally Community-related.
Having said this, we must accept that elections are always taking place in the countries of the European Union.
I am pleased that the Structural Funds are the subject of discussions in Greece and Spain.
We were talking a short while ago in this House about debates involving our citizens, about public debates.
The more we talk about Europe and what Europe is doing for daily life, even when we disagree, the better this will be, provided that we talk about this objectively.
I am not going to give an opinion on any amendment to the Structural Funds Regulation.
This Regulation was adopted just last year in Berlin and I will be applying it for the next seven years.
We will talk about this issue during the cohesion report which I regard as an important time for making an assessment with and before this House and for outlining future prospects.
The time will come at the beginning of next year for any amendments to be highlighted.
For the time being, please let me apply the Regulation which has not yet been applied as it was only approved in Berlin.
This is all I can say today.
Thank you very much for your replies, Mr Barnier.
Questions Nos 48 to 50 will be replied to in writing.
Question No 51 by (H-0049/00):
Subject: New premises for the OHIM At present the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (OHIM) is still operating from the same temporary premises, even though its new building was opened in June 1999.
In view of this unusual situation, will the Commission say why the OHIM has not yet moved to its new premises?
The honourable Member asked a question on this topic in November 1999 and I would like to refer him to the answer given at the time.
Furthermore, I have asked the president of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market, that is to say the Office in Alicante, to comment further on this new question and I can, as a result, inform the honourable Member as follows, on behalf of the Office:
The Office is not yet ready to move into the new building.
Unfortunately, a number of deadlines have been exceeded.
A number of technical provisions need to be made, such as the installation of a computer network, archives, a canteen and furniture.
The OHIM is now in the process of arranging this and is expecting to move into the new premises by June.
During the previous question, we were discussing electoral issues.
I believe that this issue is relevant to my question. Commissioner, you were not present at the extraordinarily named 'official opening' of the headquarters of the OHIM on 9 June, in the middle of an election campaign in Spain leading up to both the European elections and the local and regional elections.
If you had been there, I am sure you would have been ashamed.
The President of the Commission and some secretaries were present.
In the middle of an election campaign, a series of authorities, all of them run by the party in government, made clearly electioneering speeches which, furthermore, were broadcast live on television.
It was bizarre to see the President of the Region of Valencia praising the work of the Spanish Government, as well as his own work, although it was irrelevant to that event.
The opening of a building which was not finished, in the middle of an election campaign, which eight months after the opening can still not be occupied, makes the Spanish Government look ridiculous.
I am not worried that the Spanish Government should look foolish, because at the end of the day it was their responsibility, but it does worry me that the Commission should look foolish by endorsing, through its presence, this absurd event.
I would therefore like to ask you, Mr Commissioner: does it seem normal to you that an unfinished building should be opened during an election campaign? Does it seem normal to you that the Commission should attend such an absurd event organised by the Spanish Government?
It does not fall within my remit to make statements about internal political situations within one Member State or another.
As such, I would prefer to withhold any comment on the situation which Mr Berenguer has just described.
I have to confess that I fail to comprehend why a certain opening ceremony was held in Spain.
What I can say is that I hope that this building will now be occupied as soon as possible.
May I also add that I hope to be in Alicante myself at the end of May to speak at a conference.
I hope that this building will then be occupied.
I would like to point out to the Commissioner that it is not an electoral question.
As members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, we have followed the creation of that institution and it is clear that it was established for electioneering reasons.
A year later, it is still not functioning, which means that the Commission spent money on a false opening.
We should ask ourselves to what extent this spending of funds was justified.
I would like to reiterate that the Commission is unconcerned with the underlying motivation of Member State actions.
It is, however, interested in official statements and actions.
We do not intend to go in the direction of what is termed in French un procès d'intention.
We are concerned with public official actions and events, rather than any possible underlying motivation.
This is why I find it also difficult to meet Mr Medina halfway and respond to his question.
Once again, the Commission does not speculate why something is happening earlier or later than planned. It only appreciates that a building for this Office is opened and occupied as soon as possible.
Also, the Commission does not engage itself in finding out whether certain expenditure was real or virtual.
As far as I am concerned, all expenditure is real.
And any remaining skeletons, I intend to leave them in the cupboard.
As the author is not present, Question No 52 lapses.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 53 and 54 will be taken together.
Question No 53 by (H-0057/00):
Subject: Swedish derogation regarding the import of alcoholic beverages At present, Sweden has a derogation until 2004 allowing restrictions on alcoholic beverage imports.
The Swedish Government and a large percentage of the Swedish people want the derogation to be extended on public health grounds.
What is the Commission's position on the Swedish derogation concerning these imports?
Question No 54 by (H-0117/00):
Subject: Alcohol monopoly and the internal market What action does the Commission intend to take in order to prevent the extension of the State alcohol monopoly apparently being planned by Sweden, and the associated import restrictions, and to ensure that the rules of the single market are applied?
I would like to answer these two questions as follows.
When Sweden joined the European Union, it was allowed to retain quantitative restrictions on alcoholic beverages which travellers can bring into the country from other Member States.
This derogation from the principle of the free movement of goods lapses on 30 June of this year.
Sweden now wants to extend this measure by another five years, as this would be necessary to protect public health.
My position on this is clear. Sweden has now had sufficient time - since its accession to the Union - to adapt its policies to a situation where such import restrictions do not exist.
I cannot see a reason, therefore, why a further extension for this measure should be proposed.
European citizens have the right to buy goods for their own use, including taxes, in any Member Sate and to take them to another Member Sate without having to subject these goods to controls and without possibly having to pay another set of taxes on them.
That is a basic principle governing the internal market and derogations from this principle must be exceptions and must be limited in time.
We want to guarantee that Swedish citizens too can enjoy the benefits of the internal market, just like other citizens of the European Union.
This certainly does not mean that I do not share the concern in Sweden surrounding the possible health problems which can be caused by alcohol abuse.
A recent study, carried out by Professor Lindgren of the University of Lund, however, has shown that abolishing the restrictions would not lead to a higher alcohol consumption in Sweden.
I have already had a chance to discuss my position with Mr Ringholm, the Swedish Finance Minister on two occasions.
I also discussed this matter with the Swedish parliamentary Finance committee last week. It is now up to the Swedish government to take the necessary measures.
Thank you for your reply.
I should just like to apologise for the error in my question to the Commission. Instead of 2004, it should, of course, be 1 July 2000.
I have some sympathy with the Commission's standpoint that derogations should only be granted occasionally.
Such a rule is only normal.
Nevertheless, I should like to ask two questions: Are you thinking of embarking upon continued discussions with the Swedish Government about extending the derogations, for example for as long as Denmark and Finland have derogations?
My second question concerns the whole policy on alcohol.
This may, of course, be seen as an issue concerning the internal market, but also as a public health matter for the whole EU.
What are the respective roles of alcohol policy and public health considerations in the Commission's work? A Europe-wide policy on alcohol is not just an issue concerning the internal market.
It also has important implications for public health. If we had considered these aspects in their overall context, then it might have been easier to carry on a dialogue with Sweden.
May I thank Mr Andersson for the supplement to his first question and may I answer that question as follows?
Firstly, Finland and Denmark are subject to exemptions to the basic rule of the free movement of goods until 2003.
These countries are in the process of taking measures in preparation of free access of alcoholic products in the year 2003.
However, in the case of Sweden, the situation is different.
In 1995, a five-year derogation period was decided upon, which is now lapsing.
I have as yet not heard any arguments on the basis of which the Commission would need to extend this period.
Secondly, the Swedish Government is being consulted all the way.
I can inform Mr Andersson that I will leave for Stockholm on Monday, 6 March, in order to talk to Minister Ringholm, to members of the Swedish parliament, and, if necessary, also to the Prime Minister or other ministers, in order to continue discussions on this matter. I am fully aware that emotions are running high in the political arena in Sweden regarding this issue.
Thirdly, I understand very well that the health aspect of this matter is naturally important.
I would repeat at this juncture what Professor Lindgren of Lund University has stated, namely that whatever happens in terms of import restrictions, the consumption of alcohol will remain the same.
The question is then, of course, where does the volume of alcohol originate from which is not imported by travellers?
The answer is that this is smuggled into the country or made by the Swedes themselves, and as Mr Andersson knows, this is an extremely dangerous and unhealthy activity.
Well now, Mr Andersson seems to think that the health situation will improve if we restrict the import of alcohol.
But in that case, not only Sweden, but all EU countries, should then be subject to a total ban on alcohol.
We can cast our minds back to a similar situation in the United States.
Mr Andersson will be familiar with what was termed then 'prohibition' .
He will also be aware of the effects the ban had on Mafia activity within the United States, where, eventually, prohibition was withdrawn.
All this means that we need to protect health, of course, but not by banning alcohol, because that does not work.
Mr President, the question at issue is the income from the Swedish alcohol monopoly and when the Swedish Government says that it must cover health costs, then this is proof of a distortion of competition because other countries must cover their health costs themselves, with no alcohol monopoly at their disposal.
My question refers to whether you too know of studies which state that a moderate intake of good quality alcohol such as Franconian wine or Bavarian beer is good for you and would therefore also be good for the Swedish budget.
I gather that Mr Posselt has hinted at the fiscal aspects of this matter.
I also happen to know that the high tax on alcohol products in Sweden goes back to the year 1638 and that since then, the sale of alcohol products has accounted for a significant portion of the state' s tax revenue.
As is known, this has led to a state monopoly in Sweden which, in itself, is at odds with Union legislation.
As to the healing effect of alcohol - to which, I believe, Mr Posselt also made reference - I could not agree more with him: I think that a good bottle of wine can be extremely good for your health and is also socially extremely pleasant, and perhaps Mr Posselt, Mr Andersson and myself could meet in the bar of this Parliament one of these days to share an aquavit.
Mr President, I listened with interest to the Commissioner's reply about the need to apply the laws of the single market.
I wonder whether he can say whether he considers his reply to be compatible with the failure by the Commission to take the French Government to the European Court of Justice on the application of France's Loi et Vin, which effectively prevents single market rules applying to the sale of alcohol products in France?
Can we now expect the European Commission to take action against the French Republic before the European Court of Justice?
I should like to reply very briefly to the question raised by the honourable Member, since this matter is now under active consideration by the Commission.
The Commission has to take a decision on whether the matter is closed or whether it should refer it to the European Court of Justice.
My reply is perhaps not satisfactory right now, but I would like to assure the honourable Member that the Commission will take that decision within a matter of weeks.
I ask for the Member's understanding for this small delay in the Commission's decision.
Commissioner, do you have any reason, on public health grounds, for a difference in the taxation rates on, for example, Scotch whisky or French Bordeaux wine or even my colleague's Bavarian beer? Can you envisage applying an alcohol - equivalent basis for taxation in Europe?
The matter of excise taxes, to which the honourable Member is referring, is the prerogative of the Member State concerned.
The Commission has no instruments to enforce any particular decrease or increase in excise taxes on alcoholic products or on any other products.
Towards the end of this year the Commission will submit a report on the differences in excise taxes between Member States.
It will no doubt engage in a discussion both with Parliament and the Council on this state of affairs, which indicates that there are quite a lot of differences in excise rates between Member States.
For example - I believe the honourable Member referred to this - no excise taxes are applied on wine in France, whereas they are applied in the United Kingdom.
That leads to a distortion of the internal market because wine is smuggled from France to the United Kingdom.
The question specifically refers to the relation between excise taxes and the alcohol content of the goods subject to excise tax.
The Commission has no means of influence here.
In the case of Sweden, the instrument of excise taxes is indeed used to reduce the consumption of alcohol.
Although this leads to a disparity in excise taxes between Sweden and other Member States of the Union - and that by itself increases cross-border smuggling of alcoholic products - it is a legitimate instrument to decrease the consumption of alcohol.
There is ,of course, elasticity of demand, in this case a price elasticity of demand.
I am not sure exactly what it is, but it is not zero, therefore it must have some effect.
My question would have been almost exactly the one raised by Mr Purvis, but I would like to press the point further.
Granted, as you say, that excise duties lie within the prerogative of Member States, nevertheless the use of that prerogative in a way which is unfairly discriminatory against producers in one part of the Community versus others might still conflict with the single market principle.
For example, if we take what Mr Purvis and I would be thinking of, the malt whisky producing parts of the Highlands - a very peripheral part of Europe, very hard-pressed, a whole farming community as well as a distilling community dependent upon it - a general practice of taxing the alcohol in Scotch whisky, Dutch gin or Danish aquavit more than the alcohol in beer or the alcohol in wine, seems to me to be discriminatory and a discriminatory use of something which is admittedly within the prerogative of the Member States.
May I assure Mr MacCormick and other Members of this Parliament that the present situation where excise taxes differ between Member States is indeed something which is not conducive to the proper functioning of the internal market.
We need not restrict ourselves to alcoholic products.
If one looks at petrol, for example, one sees that excise taxes in Germany are different from those of Holland, and consequently Dutch motorists cross the border and fill up their tanks in Germany.
That is indeed distortion of the internal market.
If I had my way, I would wave a magic wand and equalise excise taxes across Europe.
As a result, smuggling would no longer take place except if products were intrinsically more expensive in one Member State than another.
But I do not have a magic wand and I do not have my way.
This is an area of unanimity, as Mr MacCormick knows, and unless all Member States agree on the equalisation of excise taxes, it will not happen.
Once again, towards the end of this year, the Commission will forward a report on the state of affairs on excise taxes, and I am obviously available for any discussion with Parliament on that report.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Today we will take note of what you say and have a glass or two of Alsace wine, although we do not know how much tax is put on it, but I suppose it is a lot.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions 55 to 114 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.30 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Community policy in the field of water (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the recommendation for second reading of the Community action in the field of water policy.
Mr President, the situation regarding fresh water in Europe is not as serious as in other parts of the world but, in general terms, it is a fact that the demand for water has continued to grow and its quality has continued to decrease.
To this we must add the water pollution problems which afflict the potential new Member States in the East.
In fact, a reservoir containing cyanide has just burst its banks in Romania, threatening aquifers which supply the population of Yugoslavia.
I understand that Mrs Wallström, whose presence here tonight I appreciate, is going to visit the area.
I believe that no country, no government and, of course, no member of this Parliament can fail to recognise the need for this directive in order to end the current fragmentation of water policy and facilitate the implementation of a programme of specific measures for each river basin.
The development of this directive has been difficult and complex, involving diverse interests and divided opinions.
I have no doubt that the rapporteur for this legislature, Mrs Lienemann, has made great efforts and shown great dedication in reconciling positions, and has succeeded to a large extent.
However, it is almost impossible to understand and correctly assess all the different situations and expectations.
I come from a country whose southern half is on the Mediterranean and the availability of water historically depends on the whims of an unpredictable climate and a difficult terrain.
The Mediterranean region has had to fight for its development by trying to overcome this adversity, century after century, year after year, day after day, and is still doing so today.
Therefore, it seems essential to us that the directive complies, in practice, with the obligation laid down in article 164 of the Treaty on the need for Community legislation to take account of the diversity of its regions.
In accordance with this principle, the Spanish delegation of the European People' s Party will oppose Amendments Nos 4 (Recital 21), 13 and 49 (Article 11(d)), since they imply a serious limitation in an area of management exclusive to the Member States, that is, the regulation of water resources.
It would be very difficult for the Community to determine the conditions for the regulation of water in the different regions, given the different internal balances which are always in play and which require profound knowledge of the different areas and the relevant interests.
We also reject the amendments which aim to incorporate the integral cost of water for 2010.
We must clearly set water prices which promote its efficient use but which, at the same time, safeguard the competitivity of the producing industries in the less-favoured regions and do not hinder their legitimate development.
I would lastly like to refer to the amendments on dangerous substances which establish that we must achieve a zero, or close to zero, degree of pollution.
In no field of human activity have we ever discovered a zero degree of pollution.
We will be doing a general disservice to the objectives of this important directive if we are not able to provide it with the necessary flexibility and adaptability to guarantee compliance with its provisions.
I hope that, once again, this House will vote with a sense of reality and respect for the principle of subsidiarity, seeking a suitable balance between the environmental objectives and economic and social considerations, the three essential elements in achieving the sustainable development which we all wish to see so much.
Mr President, Commissioner, this is a very important directive.
Its aim is to improve the quality of water and the reliability of the water supply and sewage systems.
The public must have a right to clean water.
It is important not only for the environment but also for public health.
I am not speaking so much for myself, as I happen to be one of those few lucky people in Europe who can drink water directly from their own lake at home.
We must make sure that we get started quickly with the programme to improve water quality.
Action must get under way immediately.
We cannot afford to waste time.
It is important that the timetable is an ambitious one.
In my opinion, the timetable is not too ambitious if we believe that by 2020 we will no longer allow impurities in water and we aim at zero level quantities of impurities and toxic matter by then.
It is a question of doing what is technically possible; obviously it is not possible to do anymore, but we must be sufficiently ambitious.
I would like to comment on one issue, which was spoken about earlier.
I believe the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has restricted too tightly the debate on the transfer of water.
This is not merely a problem for Spain; it is one for the Nordic countries, and I sincerely hope that we can rely on national solutions in these matters, when they are better for the environment and the economy than what is proposed in the directive.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, congratulations, Mrs Lienemann on an excellent piece of work.
Water and air surround us everywhere.
We share them with everyone on this earth.
Water is a prerequisite for human life. And there are more and more of us in the world.
Mrs Schleicher intimated earlier today that clean water was an unrealistic goal.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
It is unrealistic to go on causing the quality of our water to deteriorate and so, too, the conditions for life.
It is especially unrealistic in regard to agriculture which is most dependent upon a clean natural environment and unpolluted resources.
I would therefore appeal to Members of Parliament to appreciate that tough demands for a clean environment are a sign of long-term realism of the highest order.
Mr President, we - myself included - support the report by Mrs Lienemann, the targets it sets and the directive under discussion.
However, we should look a little more closely at some points.
For example, a major problem in my country is the diversion of rivers and the consumption of water from lakes, which people try to justify by pseudo-developmental arguments, and which, of course, are a great risk to ground waters, water tables and surface waters.
I therefore think that regardless of whether we finally conclude who should decide whether such diversions take place, the specifications common to us all must be very stringent.
But the key issue is, in my opinion, planning how to restore water tables, the natural flow of rivers and the natural content of lakes, which must be carried out within the ten year period we have in mind.
I think such projects ought to be eligible for funding, because, at the end of the day, that restoration may well prove to be a first-rate development policy.
Mr President, here we have what is basically a good measure.
It sets out achievable standards based on subsidiarity principles and the water basin management.
Its aim of good-quality water for drinking, for wildlife, the environment and economic purposes is right.
The prevention of pollution and water deterioration has to be right as well as the ability to manage water in times of drought and flood.
We have three outstanding problems. The first is the transfer of water between basin areas.
That is a matter which affects my colleagues from Spain, Ireland and the United Kingdom.
Amendments Nos 4.
49 and 87 would not be acceptable because they would restrict the ability of a country to move water from where it is in supply to where it is needed, be that arid areas or urban areas.
Secondly, we have to have realistic targets, but targets nevertheless.
Looking at Amendment No 7, for example, which calls for the complete elimination of naturally occurring substances, you can see that some of the targets set are unrealistic.
Also, some of the targets which are set at close to zero - in English, that is quite a meaningless term.
We need to look very carefully at those.
The concept of continuing reduction as in Amendment No 58 is much better.
Thirdly, I raise the problem faced by Scotch whisky.
Scotch whisky - especially malt whisky, which is the best - requires water extraction which is used in some quantity and then returned to the water stream.
Some of it ends up in the bottle and is drunk.
We must make sure that Amendments Nos 49 and 87 leave the deletion exemption so that whisky can continue to be drunk in "high quality", which means it must use good, Scottish peat water.
That is my third request - that we look carefully at these measures before passing this measure as a whole.
Mr President, first of all, we want to denounce the fathomless hypocrisy of those who claim to be concerned about the environment and water, but whose criminal activities such as the attacks against Yugoslavia, aside from leaving thousands dead and wounded, have also brought about huge ecological disasters for water resources too, making them not only unusable but even extremely hazardous.
Turning to the report, we believe that implementing the principle that the cost of water services should be recoverable must never result in additional taxation of the economically weakest strata, or even in the annihilation of small and medium-scale farmers because of the prohibitive cost of water for irrigation.
We also wish to point out that especially in areas with acute drought problems such as my own country, and especially on the islands, funding must be provided for infrastructure for the saving of water, by increasing not its cost but its quantity. This should mainly be carried out by collecting the rainwater that now goes to waste, running off into the sea and eroding the soil, with all the problems that creates.
In that spirit, we support Amendment No 107 by Mr Marset Campos.
River waters must also be used more effectively so as to preserve life in areas that suffer chronic drought.
Finally, as regards the Council' s allegation, which the Commission echoes, that there is no need for many specific references and explanations because they are covered by the examples given in the directive or contained elsewhere therein, this is chicanery.
Its purpose is to preserve a semi-transparent field of action, which during the directive' s first implementation period will allow critical choices to be finalised to the benefit of big business.
Mr President, first and foremost, I want to say that protection of the aquatic environment, both surface water and groundwater, is probably one of our most important duties of all.
That is not only because it is about guaranteeing sufficient water resources but also because it is, to a large degree, about safeguarding water resources against pollution so that we can also have clean drinking water in the future.
We are all entitled to clean drinking water.
I should like to express my great appreciation of Mrs Lienemann' s work on this matter.
It has been a huge task, and I should like to express my support for all of Mrs Lienemann' s amendments. These are all improvements to the common position.
Moreover, I shall only highlight the most important ones.
First and foremost, I think it is important that we should establish some clear objectives concerning the condition we should have achieved for our water within a period of no more than 10 years.
I also think it is important that we should put pressure on the Member States to devise the necessary action programmes more quickly than is proposed in the common position.
And, finally, I want to say that I think that the tighter arrangements which are being introduced in regard to payment schemes and pricing are quite proper if we, as consumers, are to be given an incentive to use water resources efficiently and, at the same time, obtain arrangements which can promote the achievement of those environmental goals about which, I believe, there is broad agreement.
In this regard, too, I think that the 2010 deadline is appropriate.
Finally, I want to say that I attach great importance to making a start on phasing out discharges, emissions and leaks of hazardous materials and to the fact that we can do this gradually but, at the same time, be set a target, namely the year 2020 by which time we should hopefully have reduced such emissions to zero.
If this cannot be adopted as the objective, then I am naturally prepared to support the proposal to the effect that we should have achieved levels very close to zero by the year 2020.
I think that Mrs Lienemann' s proposal is a good basis for further negotiations with the Council.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for some excellent work in drafting this important directive.
The second reading of the framework directive on the issue of water is most timely; the shocking news of the environmental catastrophe in Romania must feature in today' s discussions and also more generally when we ponder the environmental dimension of Union enlargement.
First of all we have to find and call to account those who are guilty of the act.
The cyanide and heavy metals in the rivers are gruesome examples of how environmental negligence may ruin the waterways for decades to come.
The event proves that in some countries applying for EU membership the environmental norms and environmental thinking are still light years behind the EU.
The Union ought to reassess how aid for environmental projects can be allocated in a better way in support of a sustainable policy on water.
With regard to the proposal for the directive it is worrying that the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy do not take sufficient account of the importance of unpolluted surface waters to increase the occurrence of clean, natural groundwater.
In Finland surface waters are very clean.
The production of so-called artificial groundwater is an ecological means of filtering a clean supply of fresh surface water through to the groundwater reserves.
The process does not require a chemical sewage plant.
The directive must not be allowed to endanger this work.
Deviating from the Council' s common position, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is also attempting to restrict further the facilities for the transfer of water.
This would cause problems for those countries where reserves of water are unevenly distributed.
The ecologically sustainable transfer of water must not be restricted by Union acts.
The work should, of course, be regulated and subject to license in the future too, but the same rules cannot apply to, for example, Finland and Greece, which suffers from drought.
Mr President, Commissioner, water is a precious natural asset, a vital necessity, and it is our duty to protect it.
I think it essential to have a framework directive on water policy in the European Union, which will be the basic legal instrument for improving the quality and proper management of water resources, and I congratulate the rapporteur on her attempt to address this thorny issue and take due account of all the points of view.
I must say, however, that, there are discrepancies between the countries in the north and south concerning water, and that is why the matter cannot be dealt with in the same way.
There are parts of Europe with an inherent shortage of water, and that should be taken into account by this directive.
In recent years, climate change has compelled Mediterranean countries to face serious problems of flooding or lack of rain.
We agree with the common position but we also accept several of the amendments tabled, whose aim is to improve it.
However, we cannot accept amendments such as those that refer to the issue of costing water, granted that in my country a high proportion of the users are farmers.
In addition, amendments which ban the transfer of water from one hydrological basin to another would condemn many areas in my country to water shortage.
The issue of eliminating hazardous substances ought, I think, to be made more realistic so that we can achieve it.
As for the time scale demanded for the directive' s implementation, it must be borne in mind that there are countries where creating the infrastructure for this directive' s implementation will take time and considerable resources.
In spite of these remarks however, I believe our common objective of sustainable use of water resources can be maintained.
Mr President, Commissioner, the measures contained in this directive range from drafting water management plans, comprehensive information and hearing rights, and close cooperation between the Member States, to combating water pollution caused by individual pollutants.
And considering how long this Chamber has been trying to introduce a framework directive of this kind, I am pleased to be present here today, and I would like to congratulate Mrs Lienemann on being in the happy position of presenting this report to us.
However, it is also extremely important to me to point something out that many people actually take for granted.
I would still like to highlight this point though: this directive does not constitute any kind of legal basis for diverting water from a Member State' s territory against its will.
And by way of reaffirming this once again, I have introduced an amendment - gratifyingly with the support of a large number of Members - and I would be very pleased if Parliament would endorse my proposed amendment tomorrow.
It is all about making it clear that water - and this is not the first time this has been mentioned today - is no ordinary commodity but a resource which belongs to the individual EU Member States and which must be protected and treated with the respect due to it.
I am aware, and the previous speaker highlighted this, that there are States in the European Union that have problems with water.
I believe that every one of us, in every country, could improve the way in which we manage our water and could make use of it in a cleaner way.
This applies to every country.
But only when each country has done its utmost to conserve its water resources, when literally everything has been done that could have been done in our own countries, only then, in my view, should it be necessary to start thinking in terms of harmonising water usage.
Mr President, Commissioner, we should be pleased that this directive has already reached second reading.
However, I must say that I am not over-pleased because I believe that this directive is not of great quality, it is going to be very difficult to implement and has many shortcomings.
Firstly, I believe that this directive is excessively tough, simplistic and reductionist.
In many cases other existing directives on water have not been complied with and governments and the Commission have often not imposed discipline as they should have done, although I know that this is not pleasant.
It is not a question of having much tougher regulations, because in many cases the problems concern management.
It is not a question of exercising the relevant competences and not referring the big problems of the water systems to the legislative, the complications of which we are all well aware of.
This is a reductionist directive. We cannot lump countries with navigable rivers together with countries which lack water, where great cracks open up in the ground through a lack of water and which see temperatures of 55ºC or 60ºC in the sun.
I say this because the ball does not need to be in our court. This issue is in the hands of the governments and the Commission.
In the same way, this damage and these tragedies which are happening, as in Romania, are not the problem of the legislative, but of the executive and of the governments.
Furthermore, it is not a fair directive because it ignores the large uninhabited areas, climatic diversity, desert areas and arid areas.
That is how the common position has been worded.
The same can be said with regard to transfers.
Transfers are an example of the distribution of wealth, of solidarity between peoples and territories, because unfortunately the Earth is not perfect and some areas have more and some have less.
Lastly, I am highly critical of the fact that the directive is not accompanied by a study of its impact.
It is very easy for us to demand that others assess its impact but, on environmental questions, we should demand it of ourselves and consider how many people, how many farmers, could be ruined by having to pay the costs.
Some kind of study has been done which has not even been read, and I believe we should carry out impact studies by way of good political practice, rather than just laying down doctrine.
Mr President, through the consolidation of existing directives this framework directive establishes the basic principle of a sustainable water policy in the European Union.
It is a framework for the protection and management of our water - surface, ground, transitional and coastal - through the establishment of river basin districts at national and, in our case in Ireland, cross-border level.
Ireland is very supportive of the common position and many of the European Parliament amendments.
A 25-year roll-out for legislation, for example, is hardly acceptable.
We have no difficulty with the "polluter pays" principle in relation to the recovery of costs on water usage at industrial, commercial and agricultural level.
However, I feel very strongly that as water is life and access to clean drinking water is a basic human right, this directive must allow for a basic domestic water provision free of charge, a quota per household for drinking, cooking and sanitation.
We must of course pay for wastage and luxury use at domestic level and the recovery of costs can be balanced accordingly.
The introduction of water meters is viewed with great suspicion in Ireland where we have had no domestic water charges and hence no meters since 1977.
Meters could be viewed as a very important tool in water management by the new river basin districts, to help the elimination of water wastage and for the proper planning of future requirements.
The whole purpose of this directive is to promote sustainable use of water in the EU.
Water is a scarce and precious natural resource.
Ideally, I would like Amendment No 45 to fall tomorrow so that the common position on Article 9 would hold on water charges.
That would allow for subsidiarity on a cost policy for water charges, with each Member States drawing up its own scheme, so long as the principles of this directive on incentives for sustainable and efficient use of water are fully protected.
If Amendment No 45 does not fall, I will have to move an oral amendment tomorrow to ensure that Member States may grant exemptions to the provisions of this article in order to allow a basic level of water use for domestic purposes before contributions to the recovery of cost of water services.
All legislation must be enforceable and be based on the general principle of political acceptance.
I believe that access to clean drinking water without charge is a basic human right in the developed as well as the developing world.
Mr President, Commissioner, at this point in the debate I am going to insist on certain aspects which, from an agronomic point of view, and since I come from a southern country, I consider to be absolutely essential to this directive.
These include, for example, costs and transfers.
With regard to costs, I would like clarification of what costs we are talking about. Are we talking about the distribution and sourcing of water?
Are we talking about the quality of the distribution networks?
Are we talking about the nature of the works required to provide water services?
Or are we talking about large-scale hydraulic works and reservoirs? All these costs added together would be horrendous and would have repercussions for the agricultural sector.
Transfers are defined as the transfer of surface water between different territorial areas.
Is the Commissioner aware that our country has one of the oldest systems of transfers in Europe? They already existed in ancient times: they had them in Roman times, although on a smaller scale.
One of the most significant transfers - the Tajo-Segura transfer - which has been in use for many years, almost 30 years, has an allowance of 658 hm3 per year.
The largest volume transferred in one year has been 453 and the average volume over twenty years has been over 200.
We cannot be accused of bad management.
Is the Commissioner aware that, of this 263 hm3, we used 25 for irrigation on the left bank of the Levante, 30 for water supplies in the area of the Júcar, 7 for supplies in the southern area of the Júcar and the rest in the Segura, equally divided between supplies and irrigation? We are not doing a bad job of management.
We cannot be prohibited from carrying out transfers when our economy and the development of our regions depend on it.
I will not tackle the issue of quality and the best available technologies, because I believe that we will return to a discussion of this directive.
Take good note: in this diverse Europe, which we are building in a spirit of mutual cooperation, we have to find diverse solutions, not single solutions.
I therefore appeal to the common sense of the Commission, the Council and this House so that, when voting, they do not impose uniformity on the different countries of Europe in areas where subsidiarity is required.
Commissioner, Andalusia is not Lapland.
I would like to hear the Commissioner's view on Amendment No 45.
I may have missed it in the list she gave out.
. I accept that.
Thank you, Mrs Wallström.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 p.m.
Financial instrument for the environment (LIFE)
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0014/2000), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Regulation on a financial instrument for the environment (LIFE) (Rapporteur: Mrs Lienemann).
rapporteur. (FR) Mr President, we have already had the opportunity, at the first reading, to examine this report and I was given to believe in committee that there was a broad consensus within this House.
LIFE is the only budget line for direct assistance for the environment in the Community budget, and one cannot help but note that it does not live up to our ambitions since the amounts allocated to it have been stagnating for years. Despite the enlargement which has already taken place, when we renewed the first LIFE programme to move on to the second, despite enlargement, the level of appropriations remained the same.
And then we see that, increasingly, the regions, the various operators, businesses, associations, are submitting LIFE projects, both for LIFE-NATURE and LIFE-ENVIRONMENT, projects that are of excellent quality, which following technical assessment by all the competent committees are unanimously found to be worthy of European Union support, but we still cannot fund them, for lack of budget appropriations.
It must also be mentioned that this budget experiences a rate of consumption of appropriations which is quite exceptional within the Community budget.
Patently we have here an instrument that is appropriate for the policies which we wish to implement.
I would stress the LIFE-NATURE strand in particular.
We are well aware that, in the European Union, a whole raft of directives such as the directive on habitats and the directive on migratory birds encounter problems in implementation. With LIFE-NATURE we should be able to support policies which demonstrate the feasibility, the validity of the objectives of these directives, and their capacity to be implemented.
And, for want of appropriations, we lose this legitimacy and allow the idea that these European directives of ours are not reasonable and are not applicable to develop.
And so the debates taking place today focus on two major issues: firstly, comitology, an ongoing debate within this House, but Parliament wished to implement policies settled rather by management committees or advisory committees which give the Commission some flexibility and which do not give the Council too much scope to obstruct and have their intergovernmental philosophy prevail over the Community philosophy which we are here to stand up for within the European Parliament.
But we have these comitology debates with regard to most of the European Union' s financial programmes and instruments.
I would say that in my opinion - and the experiences we have had in the past tend to show this - that reconciling opinions on comitology is rather easier than reconciling opinions on the budget.
Let me point out that Parliament is asking for 850 million ecus in appropriations, not a vast sum in the Community budget, and that the current proposals are for 613 million ecus.
I feel, at any rate, that for the ultimate application of LIFE, at least, there would be some way for the Union to make a significant budgetary gesture in favour of the environment.
Let me conclude with the matter of our institutions' way of working.
This is the essence of how I understand the situation: we are being told that it is essential for us to reach a conclusion quickly, that, basically, the Members of Parliament should drop their claims, particularly claims on the budget, for if we do not soon, in line with the codecision procedure, get around to establishing the framework of the regulations for LIFE, then its implementation for the year 2000 is going to suffer a delay, and in the meantime the NGOs and the operators at grass roots level are waiting for our appropriations.
I would, however, like to point out that the Council has plenty of time to formulate its ideas and that it is submitting its proposals to us only a few months before the fateful date.
As for us, we our bound by the terms of the texts: a maximum of four months.
We meet our deadlines and afterwards we are told that we should hold on and that in order to be reasonable we must go along with the position of the others, because in the codecision procedure there is just not enough time.
I think Parliament often protests about this method, not to point the finger at any specific party within the Council, and I certainly would not want the Portuguese Presidency to feel responsible for this state of affairs, since, the truth is, it is something of a tradition, which the Council has kept going for a long time.
But I should like to stress the fact that, on this issue of the environment, the budget issue is a central one and Parliament cannot yield to the blackmail which requires it to be the only reasonable party in the deal.
I therefore hope, firstly, that our fellow Members will support us in the conciliation - but votes on this area are always very much in agreement - but also that the Council and the Commission will manage to listen to us and that we shall each take a step towards the other.
Mr President, it is true that we are in open disagreement on some of the choices made by the Council and the Commission, and I will refer to this later on.
It is equally true, however, that we should begin by saying that this regulation is better than those covering LIFE I and LIFE II.
It is better firstly because the framework proposal made LIFE I more rigorous, more transparent and more rational.
Secondly, it is better because the common position includes some fundamental recommendations, which were advocated by the European Parliament at first reading. Specifically, these are: to promote employment as a factor to be taken into consideration when selecting candidate projects, and to reduce the environmental impact of products at every stage from production to recycling and elimination.
This is one of the aims that LIFE-Environment must achieve. Thirdly, the fact that the common position has for the first time introduced upgrading and planning for coastal areas as one of LIFE-Environment' s priorities is an extremely positive step.
In spite of all its virtues though, LIFE III' s regulation fails in what is obviously the most important aspect of determining a financial instrument' s impact, which is its budget.
By persisting with their proposal of EUR 613 million as a reference amount for 2000 - 2004, and by refusing to accept the European Parliament' s proposal of EUR 850 million, the Commission and the Council are taking a decision which we do not feel is based on the same criteria of rationality and justice that they introduced, and rightly so, for other measures in LIFE III.
We want the Commission and the Council to know that we will not give up trying to provide LIFE with the budget it deserves and which best guarantees the environmental results that we are seeking to achieve with this kind of instrument.
We have four very straightforward arguments which we feel justify our choice.
Firstly, LIFE is the only direct financial instrument which is designed to promote environmental policy within the European Union.
There is no other such policy.
Secondly, LIFE is an instrument that has already produced good results, and has enabled innovative methods and techniques to be developed and has an excellent rate of implementation.
Thirdly, the LIFE budget has been reduced in real terms has not kept up with the enormous dynamism and creativity of demand.
Fourthly, as Parliament ascribes so much value to LIFE, it has allocated ever-greater appropriations to this project in its annual budget. This means that approving the proposal put forward by the Council and by the Commission would represent an unacceptable reversal of this trend.
Our concern does not centre purely on the budgetary issue, however.
Climate change and water policy are subjects that are of great concern to the European public and which have deserved considerable attention from this House.
We therefore feel it is crucial that as Amendments Nos 5 and 6 seek to establish as objectives which LIFE-Environment should achieve a plan for the sustainable management of ground water and surface water, as well as for reducing greenhouse gases, they should be adopted.
Lastly, I would like to congratulate Mrs Lienemann on her report and to take the opportunity to say to her that we will be voting in favour of her amendments on comitology even though, as was made clear in the Committee on the Environment, we would prefer LIFE to have been monitored by an advisory committee, we do want to contribute to allowing the solution proposed by the Council to be accepted as quite frankly, it was worse.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, LIFE is the European Union' s most important instrument and indeed its only financial instrument dedicated exclusively to the environment.
That explains why this instrument must live up to our ambitions, ambitions for which, of course, there is a price.
Obviously, the basic item for discussion with the Council will be the allocation for LIFE III.
The common position stipulates a total appropriation of EUR 613 million for the period 2000-2004. This is not enough.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is in favour of increasing this amount to EUR 850 million.
We therefore support Mrs Lienemann' s amendment which observes that the allocation for LIFE was not increased when the Union was last enlarged, without even mentioning the next batch of new arrivals.
The amount that we are asking for is no great mountain of useless expenditure.
Quite the opposite, it is still fairly modest in relation to the requirements to be funded.
A drop in the ocean, I might say, in comparison with Europe' s structural policies.
The environment is still the poor relation in the European budget, even though it is primarily an investment.
An investment in natural resources, of course, but also in employment, since it has been demonstrated that an active environmental policy generated new jobs, as shown particularly by the great success of LIFE, a success with NGOs, businesses, local authorities and third countries.
More than one third of the 8,500 requests received meet the required conditions and it has been possible to cofinance approximately 1,300 projects between 1992 and 1998.
A success which Parliament wishes and intends to see perpetuated, and this is why we also support amendment 14 outlining the fourth phase of the LIFE project.
In matters of the environment, investment and ambition come in a variety of forms, and indeed must come in a variety of forms in the long term.
This is the price of the future of generations to come.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am probably going to repeat things my fellow Members have said but I believe that, as far as the Council is concerned, the thing is to repeat over and over what we think of LIFE.
I shall therefore reiterate that, as the rapporteur has already said quite clearly, LIFE is the only specific financial instrument for the implementation of the European Union' s policy on the environment.
This instrument is absolutely essential since it provides the impetus for truly innovative actions in favour of nature and the environment in Europe, which are adopted and expanded upon by the Member States.
This financial instrument is, furthermore, deliberately democratic since it is accessible to both governmental and non-governmental organisations.
That is why, ladies and gentlemen, I would urge you not to vote in favour of the amendments which have no appreciation of the spirit of LIFE.
Through the associations, then, LIFE is a facility that can be used by the European citizen directly, and for the benefit of actions in the interest of the community.
Several million NGO members - millions, I say - recognise in LIFE the Union' s determination to build up an ambitious policy in favour of our natural heritage.
LIFE is, moreover, the fundamental instrument of the Natura 2000 network in Europe into which the Member States have put a lot, pursuant to Community directives on the habitats of rare and endangered fauna and flora and on migratory birds, and which makes it possible to set up the protection of sites of high biological value in our States.
I should like to say that those who run down this policy in their own States bear the responsibility for obstructing European nature conservation policies.
This is a pity because everyone within this Chamber knows that LIFE is a financial instrument which is not sufficient to carry out the projects submitted by Member States, a good many of which are turned down due to lack of funds.
Let us not forget that, to date, LIFE amounts to only EUR 100 million per annum, i.e. scarcely 0.1% of the budget of the European Union.
For the record, the budget for agriculture, which has a real impact on the environment, amounts, as we all know, to EUR 37 billion.
Against this background, my group thinks it essential to increase the allocation to LIFE and unreservedly supports Mrs Lienemann' s proposal to increase the budget to EUR 850 million, since we know, and I think it bears saying, how high the expectations of our fellow citizens on environmental matters are and how excessively cautious and unacceptable the Council' s compromise regarding the budget for LIFE is, especially as the LIFE programmes show exceptional implementation rates and have demonstrated the extent to which they made it possible to bring about new environmental practice.
The first sustainable development projects are unquestionably those.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Lienemann on the report she has carried out, and also the Commission - why not? - because this report, this position, generally improves on the texts in force.
Furthermore, it contains more acceptable systematics and is clearer and more transparent.
I would also like to congratulate the services of the Commission, since the evaluation, control and monitoring of the LIFE programme provide a reasonable guarantee with regard to the selection and execution of projects.
However, I would like to insist on certain points.
Firstly, its continuity, which, in principle, I am not questioning.
Secondly, the financial contributions.
Sadly, only 7.2% of the projects requested receive funds.
Of the EUR 1 919 million requested, only EUR 784 million have been granted.
Now the financial statement shows only EUR 613 million to cover more countries and competences.
Parliament has proposed EUR 850 million, but the document repeats the initial proposal of EUR 613 million.
Commissioner, our environmental commitments are increasing in all areas, while the only financial instrument exclusively dedicated to the environment is decreasing. Is this not a contradiction?
Let us not demand from others what we are not prepared to give ourselves? Why do we all go on about the environment and are then not prepared to pay for it amongst all of us, but rather expect the usual people, the ones who live there all year, to pay for it and maintain it?
Commissioner, we must be consistent.
The cost of maintaining the environment, which we all enjoy, must be met by all of us, and the LIFE programme is the only financial instrument aimed exclusively at the environment and whose projects have generally been effective.
Mr President, LIFE has been the principal instrument available to the Community since 1992 for supporting and developing environmental policy, both within the Community and in the surrounding third countries.
On the basis of the experience gained over the past eight years, an attempt is being made to increase the effectiveness of action on behalf of the environment in the third development phase of that financial instrument.
The funding of activities for the implementation, adaptation and development of Community policy in the environment sector and the incorporation of the environment in other policies, particularly ones that contribute towards sustainable development, are central elements of the regulation we are to vote upon.
An important element of LIFE-Nature, which mainly concerns the realisation of the Natura 2000 network, is the introduction of a multinational approach to formulating plans for international projects and activities, so as to avoid the fragmentation of biotopes and to offer better protection of biodiversity.
In the second, LIFE-Environment strand, which is more concerned with projects involving small and medium-sized enterprises and local government agencies, the incorporation of the environment in other policies is expressed very clearly indeed.
As regards the financing package for the implementation of LIFE over the next five years, I wholeheartedly support the increase from EUR 613 million to EUR 850 million proposed by the rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann.
Unless the necessary means are secured to pursue environmental protection, there is no point on the one hand in continuing to raise the environmental awareness achieved in recent years, and on the other hand in incorporating the environmental dimension in other policies.
Besides, we cannot remain indifferent towards the increased challenges in areas around the Union or towards addressing very acute environmental protection problems in the applicant countries.
What has happened over the past few days with the pollution of the Danube and its tributary has been instructive.
Consequently, I consider that support for environmental action under the LIFE financial instrument will help to further Community policy in the environmental sector and can contribute substantially to fulfilling the Community' s mission of achieving a high level of environmental protection and improvement.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mrs Lienemann on her sensitive approach towards the environment, ably demonstrated in the two reports we have discussed this evening.
Two minutes is certainly not long enough to deal with such an important topic.
So I will simply appeal to the Commissioner to undertake full responsibility for such an important issue.
For five years, I have been the representative of the Committee on the Environment in a regional organisation, which assuredly does not have Parliament' s broad perspective.
The environment is in a parlous state.
Like a number of previous speakers, I, too, wish to consider the economic problem and the problem of finding funding for projects, which, in my view, should be incorporated into the pubic domain.
As regards funding, EUR 613 million is not enough.
Even EUR 850 million is not enough.
At the end of August 1999, I took part in a meeting of the Committee of the Environment in which it was said that EUR 2 million, or ITL 4 000 billion, should go towards eliminating or, at any rate, reducing smoking.
However, the environment constitutes a far bigger and more serious problem than smoking.
EUR 850 million - assuming that such a figure is actually agreed - believe me, is not enough, in practical terms, to allow any type of project to be carried out.
In many areas the parks which are a fundamental element in the LIFE programme have been established.
But creating parks with very limited financial resources, without any system of signs is inefficient and ineffectual.
I would therefore ask Parliament and the Commission to give the matter their full attention.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ever since the beginning of 1999, discussions have taken place between the institutions on the subject of the proposed regulation for a third stage for the instrument for the environment known as LIFE.
I would again thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and Mrs Lienemann for the good and constructive co-operation we have had on this matter.
As a result of this, I can confirm that the Commission wholly or in principle approves nine of the fourteen amendments which have been adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
The Commission welcomes, above all, Amendments Nos 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13, which apply to the Committee procedures.
In these cases, Parliament has fully taken account of the objections which the Commission had to the common position.
The Commission can, in principle, also approve Amendment No 4 which ought, however, to be introduced into another place in the text.
With regard to Amendments Nos 5 and 6, I want to emphasise that projects for the sustainable exploitation of groundwater and surface water, together with projects for reducing forms of air pollution which contribute to the greenhouse effect, are to a large degree covered by LIFE.
The Commission nonetheless considers that, if this is stated separately, then that is to go against the original decision to have the proposal focus on just a few priority areas.
There is also a risk of overlap with other Community programmes such as the Fifth Framework Programme for Research, Technical Development and Demonstration.
The present programme' s key measures - water quality, tomorrow' s city and innovative products and processes - to a certain degree cover the same questions.
Where the question of the budget is concerned, I am pleased about the confidence shown by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Amendment No 12 requires a larger budget than that stated in the common position.
I am also convinced that LIFE has great potential.
This instrument could finance good projects with a higher amount of money than that quoted in the proposed budget.
The amount quoted in Amendment No 12 does not, however, tally with the budget set on the basis of Agenda 2000.
Allow me also to add that, if the budget is increased, greater demands are obviously going to be made upon the Directorate-General for the Environment if an increased number of projects are going to be dealt with.
Account will also have to be taken of other programmes where decisions are to be made within the framework of the joint decision-making procedure.
At this stage, the Commission is keeping to the amount which has been set in the common position.
With regard to Amendment No 3, which we did not approve at first reading, I want to emphasise that each programme has its own objectives, conditions under which it may be applied for and costs which make it eligible for aid.
It is therefore meaningless, and often impossible, directly to transfer projects from LIFE to other instruments.
If other sources of finance were to be investigated for each project, more resources would, moreover, be required than are available in the present situation.
Now that the Commission has to consider carefully what resources are required for each activity, this is an example of the kind of activity we ought to avoid: one that is inessential but demanding in terms of resources.
Nor can the Commission approve Amendment No 14, which is contrary to the Commission' s right of initiative.
With regard to the discussion concerning the deadline, I want to say that the final date for beginning to implement LIFE - 31 March 2000, as set in the common position - must now be moved forward.
The date will be fixed as soon as the present regulation has been adopted.
Finally, I want to repeat that I am convinced that LIFE will be an effective instrument in support of development and the implementation of the Community' s environmental policy.
Parliament has contributed greatly to improving this instrument.
I am convinced that you share my wish that it should be possible to adopt the regulation as soon as possible, especially in view of the fact that there are great expectations in the Member States and in other countries, especially among the applicant States which are now being given the opportunity to participate in LIFE.
Thank you, Mrs Wallström.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Modernising social protection
The next item is the report (A5-0033/2000), by Mr Andersson on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the communication from the Commission on a concerted strategy for modernising social protection [COM(1999) 347 - C5-0253/1999 - 1999/2182(COS)].
Mr President, the issue of social security systems is an important one. This is a natural consequence of cooperation within the EU.
The basis is monetary cooperation, which has since been followed up by macro-economic cooperation and cooperation on employment policy.
It is now a natural consequence to move on to social security systems.
These areas are mutually dependent upon one another.
Economic stability is a reason for growth and can provide high employment. It also provides the opportunity to develop welfare provision.
But the reverse is also the case: a well-developed policy on social security can contribute to high employment and to increased growth.
In other words, social security is a factor of production.
Social security systems differ from one EU country to another.
This is largely due to historical factors.
We are now faced with a number of common challenges, however; demographic development, for example, which has to do not only with the increase in the number of elderly people but also with the lower birth rate.
The labour market is also changing.
Women are venturing into the labour market in ever greater numbers.
Another challenge is presented by technical development.
We must meet these challenges together.
The Commission' s communication recommends that experience should be more widely shared, a high-level group formed and benchmarking introduced.
What is more, the report on social security should be published annually and examined in conjunction with the report on employment.
This is good, but it is not enough.
We propose a procedure like the Luxembourg process.
Clear guidelines and indicators are required. At the same time, the Member States are to formulate the relevant methods in national action plans.
We are creating a common model, but retaining the principle of subsidiarity.
This social convergence is a process which will continue for a long period.
Parliament must therefore be involved in the work - not by being part of the high-level group, but by enabling parliamentary representatives to track the work of the latter and come up with proposals as to how the process is to be carried on.
Like the work on employment, the Commission' s proposal is founded upon four pillars.
These are: to make the systems employment-friendly; to make the pensions systems sustainable in the long term; to promote social integration; and to guarantee sustainable, high-quality health and medical care.
All this is important.
In our report, we have highlighted the importance of combating poverty within the EU and of finding indicators as soon as possible so that we can make progress in this area.
Equality has no pillar of its own.
There, it is mainstreaming which applies.
All four pillars should reflect aspects of equality.
This is something we have borne in mind.
We are submitting a wide range of proposals to the effect, for example, that there should be a transition to individualised social security systems; that parental leave should involve entitlement to benefits under the social security systems; that there should be better opportunities to combine family and working life; and that the basic old-age pension should guarantee a decent standard of living.
These proposals favour women especially.
Parallel to this European strategy of social convergence, a concrete plan for legislative work in the social sphere is required, together with proposals for framework agreements in the context of the dialogue between employers and employees, accompanied by a concrete timetable.
We expect the Commission to present this as part of its proposal for a social action programme.
Social convergence is also needed before the enlargement of the Union, partly in order to strengthen the social model and partly to combat the risk of social dumping.
The Commission ought to consider devising a special action programme concerning social policy in connection with enlargement.
We have had a constructive discussion in the Committee.
We had a lot of amendments, but succeeded in agreeing upon a report.
Now, the amendments which are to be voted on at the plenary sitting have been reduced in number to only fifteen.
This indicates that we have a broad consensus.
A number of these amendments have come back from the Committee reading, and these I shall reject.
I shall also reject those amendments which have been tabled by the Technical Group of Independent Members, because I do not think that these add anything to the report.
On the other hand, my group will applaud Amendment No 14 from the group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party. I think this proposal is a good one.
Certainly, it resembles Amendment No 1, but Amendment No 14 is better.
Finally, I want to say that the EU is not only concerned with cooperation on trade.
The EU is also a union for employment and social justice.
In creating a citizens' Europe, social policy has an important role to play.
By means of this report, Parliament wishes to make its contribution to reinforcing the social dimension of European society.
We hope that the Council and the Commission will take this contribution seriously and include it in future social policy.
The Lisbon Summit will provide an excellent opportunity to present a strategy of this kind.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Andersson, very warmly on his report on modernising social protection which is now under discussion.
In the capacity of coordinator of the European People' s Party in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I am very pleased with the compromise which was reached and which Mr Andersson put so much effort into.
I am also delighted that he based the report on a report which was written by myself as rapporteur under the previous Parliament and has partly followed the gist of this old report.
The goal of the Commission' s notification of June 1999, on which the Andersson report is based, is to reinforce cooperation between the Member States and the EU in terms of social protection.
Key sub-goals are: promoting employment and ensuring that work secures a fixed income; secondly, safeguarding old-age pensions and making these affordable; thirdly, promoting social integration and fourthly, guaranteeing affordable, first-rate health protection.
Gender-related aspects must feature prominently in all these goals.
I believe that congratulations are also in order for the Commission with regard to this notification, for these four points are, in fact, to a very large number of EU citizens extremely important - if not the most important points which merit further thought.
The Commission' s communication is an important strategic document for bringing about European social convergence.
Macro-economic policy, employment policy and social policy all affect each other and this is why they should be brought more closely together.
The Commission has recognised this interrelatedness.
It is our intention to bring about an integrated social strategy which is, of course, underpinned by a sound macro-economic strategy and a sound employment strategy.
These aspects are very much interconnected.
It is, therefore, surprising that this topic has, to date, not been incorporated in a strategy and this is why the Commission' s notification constitutes a break-through in a way.
It brings me great joy to witness that the Council now seems to accept this break-through and also wants to bring it to the fore in Lisbon.
We should, of course, not get overly excited about it.
It marks the beginning, rather than the end, of a process.
Some people have wondered whether our demands are too low or whether there should be more dialogue.
But it is extremely significant for the process to be set in motion.
The issues involved are extremely important but the systems in the European Union are quite different from one another.
The challenges are different.
The levels of employment are different and this is why it is very important to set the ball rolling gently but to make steady progress nonetheless.
In this way, we will be able to meet a number of huge challenges.
The majority within my group is of the opinion that something like this needs to happen.
The funny thing about the Andersson report is that it does not get bogged down with too many details of how everything should take shape; from this perspective it is not a pie-in-the-sky report.
It is a report which tries to give direction.
There are, however, one or two aspects about which I have doubts as to whether or not we are being too specific.
I think that a number of MEPs will make reference to this.
But that does not take away from the fact that the report' s importance mainly lies in the fact that we are developing a strategy and that there is a reasonable chance that it can make a significant contribution in Lisbon.
I believe that if it were to be adopted in Lisbon in this way, Lisbon will turn out to be a success.
If it is not adopted, Lisbon will not add much to what has already been said in the past.
As far as this is concerned, the report, albeit a component, may well be the key component of Lisbon, because it is really innovative, while many other things are merely a rumination of what has been said before.
All in all, I am indebted to the rapporteur and the Committee for this report.
I hope that Europe, in terms of social protection, will make a step forward, taking into account subsidiarity, for without subsidiarity, this would not be possible.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, like my fellow MEP, Bartho Pronk, please allow me to thank the Commission for this communication and, in particular, to congratulate our rapporteur for the work he has put into this report.
Commissioner, the fact that this report is no longer controversial within Parliament does not mean that it has lost any of its crucial importance.
There have been times within this Parliament when such discussions on social security were actually quite awkward.
It is also a timely discussion - as Mr Pronk said just a moment ago - at a time when preparations are in full swing for the Lisbon Summit, which intends to find out how we can put economic growth, employment and social cohesion on the agenda in Europe via the Information Society.
Within my group, it speaks for itself that social protection forms an important part of this social cohesion and should thus also be added to the agenda in Lisbon.
My group is pleased that the Social Affairs Council gave the go-ahead for a better cooperation strategy as early on as the end of last year and that, in fact, a group of high-ranking officials has already been commissioned to submit to the Council an initial report by June 2000.
However, we, the Parliament and, in particular, the group of the Social Democrats, want Lisbon to go one step further now.
It is of great importance that, in our fellow MEP' s report, this European Parliament advocates a true European strategy of social convergence, based on what provisions have been made for employment via the so-called Luxembourg strategy, that is to say it should encompass common goals, guidelines, national action plans and performance evaluations.
We believe that this course of action is ambitious, yet achievable.
Needless to say, it is clear that harmonisation of social security is not viable at European level.
The financial and organisational systems vary too greatly for this, and this is also an important reason why social protection has only just been put on the European agenda, and why, in fact, scenarios such as Danny Peters' thirteenth Member State or the European social snake have scarcely got off the ground.
But this new course of action is very exciting.
The employment strategy has proved that it can function well and social convergence is also necessary, for our social security systems are facing the same challenges, and in an EMU era, social security systems would otherwise threaten to fall prey to social competition.
But let me make one thing clear on behalf of my group: social convergence strategies should not be an alternative to social legislation.
They can merely serve as an extremely useful complement to what we are developing and expecting from the Commission in terms of social legislation.
I think that it also a good thing if, moreover, the European Parliament tried to convince the Council to substantiate the common strategy as early on as in Lisbon and to launch an annual procedure to reduce poverty levels no later than at the beginning of 2001.
I am pleased about the fact that the European Parliament supports my group' s idea and we hope, Commissioner, that we can also count on your support.
Finally, we urge the European Parliament, both sides of industry and social NGOs to be closely involved in this process.
The success of this strategy hinges on a broad and democratic base and we hope that we can count on your support.
Mr President, the four chief objectives which the EU countries' governments endorsed in November of last year and which were mentioned earlier here today were as follows: that care should be taken to ensure that it is worthwhile working and guaranteeing oneself a secure income; that pensions should be guaranteed and pension arrangements made sustainable; that social integration should be promoted; and that sustainable, high-quality health care should be guaranteed.
These are four goals which have been worded in such broad terms that everyone must be able to support them.
Having a group of high-ranking officials as the focal point for the pooling of experience and for the coordination and evaluation of the ways in which social and labour market policies are being developed is also something we can all benefit from.
The Commission' s communication, which we are discussing today and which was put by for a decision by the Council in November, is a well-balanced report on how we can obtain a more professional debate and more knowledge of the challenges faced by the Member States in the field of social policy over the next few years when we have ageing populations and are experiencing the effects of the enlargement of the Union.
We now already have major social problems and major social costs to find from the public budgets, which is a problem for many Member States.
If reforms are not got under way, we are in danger of eroding the economic basis of social policy, and a strong and competitive economy is now undoubtedly the most secure basis for effective social security.
It is therefore only reasonable to put these subjects on the agenda.
In the debate about coordination of social policy in the EU, we often use the expression social convergence.
As liberals, we can support this concept when it means that we in the EU are to establish broad common objectives with which the individual countries then seek to comply by means of their own national social policies.
It is not, therefore, about harmonisation but about common objectives.
It is, of course, a fact that the EU countries have different ways of organising social policy.
We have different traditions and there are differences in culture and, in spite of there being many points of similarity, there are also major differences between one country and another in the nature and extent of the social problems concerned. It is therefore important to emphasise that social policy is a national concern.
National policy is, of course, subject to a number of common parameters. That is the case with minimum social entitlements, which are established by treaty.
It is true in regard to guaranteeing the free movement of labour without loss of social entitlements. It applies to the fact of our having to coordinate our economies; and it applies in the case of economic cooperation.
So coordination and cooperation are facts of life.
But convergence should be about goals, not means.
I should also like to thank the rapporteur, Jan Andersson, for his report and for his very constructive contribution to the attempt to reconcile different positions and to secure support for his report.
I can support the report, but there are a few points which are not completely to my taste.
I do not agree with the requirement that the Commission should intervene in regard to what is referred to as unfair competition between social and tax systems, if interference of this kind is to be used to stem the tide of new thinking and to restrict development and the process of making our social systems more efficient, or else to prevent a reduction in the unduly high tax burden in many EU countries.
I am sceptical about the detailed regulations that might result from the Commission' s having to deal with the scope and quality of child care and care of the elderly, and I am sceptical about the value of a common poverty threshold.
Dialogue and the coordination of social policy are to be commended, but we should not lump all nations together as if they were the same.
There should be room for a multiplicity of solutions.
Mr President, Commissioner, with regard to the strategy which has been set out here on modernising social security, I would like to point out some positive things as well as raise some questions that have come up for me.
I feel positive about the movement which is very gradually taking place in the dossier. This seems to be a good thing and useful.
I also feel positive about the essence of the communication, namely the strategic approach.
We therefore hope that the four objectives which are mentioned in it can reasonably be achieved.
We would also underline the importance of the way in which the strategy is handled.
On the one hand, it would be useful to have guidelines and a process styled on Luxembourg, but we also think it is important, as is already mentioned by Mrs Van Lancker, that guidelines are drafted to accommodate less typical work scenarios, such as sole traders, etc.
We nonetheless foresee two problems for which solutions will need to be found.
The first problem is that concerning the downward adjustment of social security, which, we hope, will be replaced by high-level convergence.
I can illustrate this with examples from a study which was carried out recently by the Dutch trade union movement into social security reforms within the European Union.
It appears from this study that adjustments are rife but most of these adjustments, in fact, the majority of them, appear to be downward adjustments, the remainder being improvements.
The lion' s share of these adjustments pertains to pension plans: eleven restrictions and two improvements.
In the case of unemployment benefits, we came across six restrictions and five improvements.
The reasons for adjustments are, for example, to improve employment, reduce social security expenditure, but are also due to policy competition and EMU criteria.
Policy competition mainly occurs in the northern countries. The highest level of stability and even improvement of social security can be found in the southern countries.
All in all, both sides of industry only have a limited role to play in the process as a whole.
This is nothing to write home about and means that the convergence strategy must focus on the best approaches.
To use a figure of speech, cappuccino is not always good for us.
Mr President, I would, in turn, like to congratulate both the Commission, for making another step in the convergence process with regard to social security, and the rapporteur for the sound report he has compiled.
The European Union' s policy encompasses social policy in addition to economic and employment policy.
So far, social policy has remained limited in terms of set-up and resources.
But under the influence of the free movement of employees, of the internal market and of the euro, the labour markets are actually beginning to become integrated.
This has undeniable repercussions on social protection which is tied in with labour to a large extent.
Cross-border workers, employees on secondment and migrating employees, as well as job-seekers, students on placement and other students, experience hindrances in exercising the right of free movement. This is due to a lack of coordination and a lack of convergence in terms of social protection.
In fact, the same phenomenon occurs in tax law.
In order to combat distortion of competition and prevent dumping, the Commission has, in my opinion, developed a well-balanced approach which steers a midcourse between harmonisation and non-intervention.
On the one hand, binding and enforceable rules apply to equal pay or additional old-age pensions and on the other hand, programmes are used to offer incentives with regard to non-discrimination or social exclusion.
Based on a number of recommendations, reports and communications, the Commission has made another step in the convergence process by setting out objectives and by setting up a working party of high-ranking officials.
Both proposals have already been accepted by the Council and it is thus a matter of endorsing this approach in order to be able to make an assessment in time, with knowledge of all facts and/or in order to establish to what extent and in what way social protection should be reorganised in the European Union.
Indeed, expansion, globalisation, a sharp increase in the ageing population, individualisation and changes in family situations render such reorganisation inevitable.
Denying that such shifts take place is tantamount to surrendering social protection.
With regard to eurosceptics and nationalists, I would say that social protection within the boundaries of a Member State is not social and offers no protection. Indeed, if social protection were to be phased out as a result of competition, this would also harm social protection as a production factor.
And less social protection means less purchasing power, fewer healthy employees and fewer happy employees.
In respect of the super-Europeans, I would say that European social protection is neither attainable nor desirable.
The discrepancies between the Member States are too immense in terms of provisions, rightful claimants, revenue or benefits, etc.
It is thus impossible to bring all States into line.
The path which the Commission is walking is, in fact, obvious.
It has the advantage of clarity, and it can collect data and exchange experiences in order to agree on objectives and finely tune solid, comparative indicators and put forward recommendations.
I endorse this view.
I will give my support to the Commission and I hope that Lisbon will take us a step forward in this matter.
Mr President, Mr Andersson' s report contains a lot that is of interest.
Unfortunately, what is most interesting is that the report, which purports to be concerned with a combined strategy for modernising social policy, instead proposes an extension of traditional social policy and more supranationalism in the social sphere.
Social policy needs to be renewed in order to reduce unemployment in the Member States.
Even though the socialists, now that there are so many social democratic governments, talk much less about unemployment than they used to, the unemployment in question is still high, and this in spite of the trade boom.
Something must be done so that unemployment does not turn the so-called European model into a parody.
Social policy must facilitate employment, creating incentives for employers and employees to, respectively, provide and accept jobs.
Mr Andersson' s report demands social convergence, that is to say that systems should be increasingly standardised within and throughout the EU.
The EU should apparently adopt what are called real convergence criteria, which would be binding and of real effect.
Mr Andersson also wants to see efficient and ambitious tax coordination, that is to say supranationalism in the fiscal sphere.
The EU should also, on the basis of a uniform definition of poverty thresholds, table recommendations concerning what is called the minimum acceptable subsistence level in the Member States.
The EU should devise guidelines governing the quality of the job opportunities which are to be created, whatever that may mean.
It is certainly not going to be possible to reduce unemployment with all these additional regulations and forms of interference.
Those structural problems which make unemployment higher in Europe than in the United States will become even greater. There is no need at all for supranationalism in this area.
The Member States can devise their own systems in the social sphere, each within the framework of its economic resources and political preferences. It is most especially important not to create unnecessary problems before the enlargement of the EU.
Mr Andersson thinks that the less wealthy Eastern countries should be reminded that social convergence is to apply to them too.
It is obvious, however, that these countries, impoverished within a Communist economic system, cannot cope with a social policy like, for example, Sweden' s.
Talk of minimum regulations and poverty thresholds is meaningless to the present Member States and unreasonable as far as less wealthy applicant States are concerned.
Mr President, as others have done, I should also like to congratulate Mr Andersson for the report he has produced.
He has done a great deal of work on behalf of Parliament in producing a wide-ranging consensus on what is, by any definition, a thorny issue, not just in this Parliament but in virtually every Member State.
I also welcome the Commission's communication.
It was slow in coming but well worth waiting for.
It could be a landmark in the development of a social Europe, providing we take it seriously and do not allow individual Member States to baulk at the steps that must be taken to implement it.
We can, and must, take the unique European social model we have and reform it to fit the twenty-first century, a century which is globalising fast.
I am afraid the proposals that are being put forward by Mr Herman Schmid will not deal with that globalising world.
To be successful we have to ensure that our economic policy, our employment policy and our social protection policy in its broadest sense, are integrated and that we deal with them as a whole.
We have to ensure that our ECOFIN ministers and our employment ministers acknowledge that social affairs ministers have a contribution to make to the establishment of a society in Europe which is creative, has initiative and which will provide a high quality of life for all of our citizens.
This is not an option for us any more. It is an imperative.
European citizens will not settle for any less than a quality of life which befits them as human beings.
We do not want the US model - a model which has spectacularly failed to create the employment that is necessary to provide a decent quality of life.
What it has done is increase dramatically the number of working poor in the United States.
That is not what we want to do in Europe.
We have the traditions of solidarity in Europe and we have the experience of a better way of doing things.
But we have to grasp the tools to do that.
I therefore urge that we not only implement the high-level group as proposed by the Commission but also go further and have a Luxembourg-type process so that we have an integrated approach to this issue of social protection.
Mr President, Commissioner, this is one of the social areas to which the European Union ought to pay much more attention.
Macroeconomic policies, the stability pact and the criteria for nominal convergence have put a brake on modernising social protection which would improve the quality of people' s lives, specifically by means of a significant increase in pensions and pension schemes, particularly of the minimum pensions, and through fighting social exclusion.
This situation is particularly serious in countries such as Portugal where the minimum pensions and pension schemes are barely more than half of the minimum national wage which in turn, is the lowest in the whole of Europe.
Therefore, while the Commission does not accept the need to amend its macroeconomic policies to create more jobs of quality, with employee rights, which is a fundamental basis for maintaining and modernising a solid, public social protection system, we harbour serious doubts as to its position.
Although the Andersson report has gathered some positive proposals, including some that we put forward ourselves, we are still critical of some of the bases for the Commission' s proposal and we still have concerns about the strategy for modernising social protection.
Mr President, in my previous life I ran two manufacturing businesses, one in the United Kingdom and one in the Netherlands.
As the UK business grew, we invested in more people, as the Dutch business grew we invested in more machinery.
The simple reason for this was that social costs in the Netherlands were just too high in comparison.
I am in favour of social protection, I am in favour of the original Commission document, but I do not want to see people priced out of jobs because social protection costs become unrealistically high.
That is why in committee I proposed some form of business impact assessment, so that costs and risks to jobs could be taken into account, and the EPP-DE Group supported this amendment.
But I must record that other groups, led by the PSE Group, guided by my countryman, Stephen Hughes, voted this out.
I accept that Mr Andersson's report is very well-intentioned, and I respect him for the work he has done, but in my view the way the report defines and promotes social convergence would drive social costs higher throughout the EU.
This would put more jobs at risk and also put at risk the credibility of this House by showing how remote we are from the real world.
I therefore urge this House to reject the full report and let the original Commission proposal, which was very well-balanced, stand unamended.
Mr President, we are unable to vote for this report.
The European Union should actually place social issues at the heart of the building of Europe.
Social rights should determine economic choices, and not the other way around.
This is why, when it comes to social protection, we are opposed to schemes copied from the Luxembourg process which run counter to this rationale: broad economic guidelines, then convergence criteria and, finally, social issues, dealt with as the last resort.
The European Union should proclaim one general principle, to wit, that the social rights acquired in Member States may not be restricted.
Any Community intervention should aim to complement and to harmonise existing guarantees according to the highest common denominator.
In order to strengthen the funding of social security systems, we need a policy of general wage increase, the establishment of a minimum legal wage in each Member State.
In order to fight poverty, entitlement to an income and to employment are inalienable rights.
Finally, in order to avoid health being treated in any way as a commodity, the European Union should declare itself clearly opposed to pension funds and to a situation where private insurance companies have access to the health system.
I sincerely hope, in conclusion, that social Europe cannot be satisfied with mere words and pious hopes.
For millions of people the situation is too tragic for that.
Mr President, Commissioner, the aim of developing a coordinated strategy for modernising social protection in the European Union is certainly an admirable one. Just as the launching of a European convergence strategy on employment and labour market policies at the Luxembourg Summit was commendable.
The labour market and social protection are, in fact, two sides of the same coin, that require harmonised policies and rules.
If the labour market functions by means of certain levels of employment, flexibility and salary discipline, then it is impossible for the welfare state and social protection not to function, and vice versa.
Until recently, the European countries fixed, it could be said in an autarkic way, the rules governing the functioning and financing of the two markets.
Budgetary and exchange rate policies were responsible for maintaining internal and external stability.
With the Maastricht Treaty and the single currency, budgetary discipline became tighter and recourse to devaluation ceased as a means of endeavouring to restore marginal competitiveness.
The structural and economic differences of the various countries cannot, therefore, be rebalanced through budget deficits and trade.
That being the case, in the absence of complete labour mobility inside the Union, and without a redistributive fiscal policy at federal level, it is left to the labour markets and welfare systems to provide what degree of flexibility there is to remedy both structural and economic disequilibria, the so-called exogenous asymmetric shocks.
And therein lies the paradox.
Political and monetary convergence in Europe unavoidably entails convergence of the respective rules of the game in the labour market and welfare systems. But, at the same time, the single currency and the absence of labour mobility, as well as of a redistributive fiscal policy, force us into a situation of non-convergence in terms of salaries and welfare, in order to compensate for the differences in marginal productivity at national and regional levels.
Hypocrisy and fine-sounding words such as convergence, benchmarking, modernisation and concerted action are not going to extricate us from those contradictions.
Either the European Union becomes a genuine federal state with a genuine redistribution of resources, genuine free movement of workers and therefore - but only at that point - common labour and welfare regimes, or it would be better not to deceive and be deceived by hopeless paths to convergence which sound impressive but which, in reality, only cause harm, above all to the most vulnerable.
That is something we would do well to recognise.
Mr President, unlike several of those who have spoken in today' s debate, I am inclined to endorse the Andersson report, one of the reasons for this being that I can see clear differences between the report and the Commission' s communications.
In particular, I am referring to the fact that this report - and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this - defends the European social model' s approach, which is one based on solidarity.
I would like to highlight the clear positions adopted against social dumping, together with the right to a basic level of social security, the goal of social convergence, and, in particular, the quite specific points that have been made about equal opportunities for women being the primary objectives of this social policy.
I can certainly see that it has its shortcomings in failing to undertake a sufficiently rigorous analysis of macroeconomic policy within the European Union, and it is this policy which stands in the way of the aforementioned solidarity-based revival of the European social state, model.
All in all, though, I deem this report to be worthwhile.
Mr President, I have taken the floor in order to reaffirm the need for the modernisation of social protection, which is much more then simply one more step in the construction of Europe.
This message is contained in the excellent report by Mr Andersson.
Europe, the European Union, although it is very strong in economic and political terms, will remain shaky, weak and limited, perhaps inadequate, if we are not able to strengthen it from a social point of view.
I believe that the latter means the possibility of employment for those who require it, but also decisive action in support of the socially disadvantaged.
Bearing in mind that everybody has the right to social protection and a minimum guaranteed social income, I believe that we must not forget about those people who were not born in the European Union.
Let us not forget that, in 1999, 717,000 people came here to compensate for our low birth rate.
In social terms, it is therefore absolutely essential that we have an immigration policy with a social conscience, as President Gutierres recently stated in Spain.
We must be very aware of the situation of those people whose prospects of finding work are threatened or reduced by economic changes, mergers, take-overs, new technologies etc.
What is required here is a training policy to qualify and prepare people for new jobs, for those who already have a job and for those who need a second opportunity, because sometimes, as the title of the film states, the postman always rings twice.
In my humble opinion, it is the responsibility of all European, national and regional governments to ensure that he rings on more than one occasion.
It seems to me, Commissioner, that the Commission has the responsibility to promote and coordinate these opportunities.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Andersson on his really excellent work, which is the reason why there is broader agreement, and I also thank the Members of Parliament involved for their contribution.
I would like to make a number of comments about what has been said.
First, I must stress that the debate about social protection issues began several years ago among the European bodies and since 1995 there has been the first statement entitled: "The future of social protection" and there have been statements from the European Parliament, those of Mrs Weiler and Mr Pronk.
Today, we have the statement by Mr Andersson.
I believe we have made considerable progress since we are now talking about the modernisation of social protection.
The second point is that we must bear in mind the legal basis by virtue of which the European Commission can operate.
You know very well that the Treaty provides no legal basis for policies at European level, but there is the agreement expressed at the last Council, there is agreement that work should begin on coordination and the exchange of experience, as well as the exchange of successful programmes between the Member States.
The third observation is that as regards the four issues on which the specific statement focuses, which relate to paid work, the sustainability of pension systems, social convergence and lastly quality in health care, there is a horizontal approach to the issue of women because in each of these categories - as the speakers said - there are special problems relating to women and those problems should in many cases be addressed by separate policies.
The next point concerns the specific action we have undertaken.
As you know, a high-level group has already been set up by the Portuguese Presidency, which will present its first report to the Summit Conference in June.
The Portuguese Presidency has focused on two things: sustainable pension systems and social accession.
I believe that the proposal for a corresponding group at Parliamentary level is very positive and can contribute towards our progress to the next step after approval of the said high-level group.
Concerning some remarks about the role of social protection systems, the cost of social protection and the part played by those systems in the competitiveness of the Member States, I should like to say that in Europe policies strive to combine competitiveness and social cohesion.
Of course, we must take due note of the issue of competitiveness, but social protection too must be planned in a way that makes it a factor of economic growth and employment.
I think the statement' s content makes this clear.
Ladies and gentlemen, the aim is that in the next year, and after a unanimous decision by the Council, we should progress to a first level of coordination, exchange of views, listing of social problems and creation of a data base for the better coordination of policies.
As many of the speakers have said, I believe a first important step has been taken.
Already at the Intergovernmental Conference, social policy issues are being addressed more broadly and I believe we are in a new phase, in which social policy will, to a large extent, become a European policy.
Thank you, Mrs Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
WIPO treaty
The next item is the recommendation (A5-0008/2000) by Mrs Cederschiöld, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the approval, on behalf of the European Community, of the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty [COM(1998) 249 - C5-0222/1999 - 1998/0141 (AVC)].
Mr President, we are now taking a stance on an important issue, an international agreement, which may influence the prospects for prosperity of many Member States.
In my own country, Sweden, one of our biggest export industries is affected, namely the music and sound recording industry.
It is about artists' entitlement to copyright or to protection for their artistic products.
It is about the WCT (World Copyright Treaty) and the WPPT (World Performance and Phonograms Treaty).
Without protection under intellectual property law, creativity is inhibited and financial incentives obstructed.
Forgeries are big business. It is estimated that, in Europe alone, income of EUR 4.5 billion is lost because of piracy.
The problem affects a lot of jobs in the entertainment industry.
This is an historic agreement because the EU is the contracting party.
This is the case, in spite of the fact that it is not the EU, but only the Member States, which belong to the organisation.
There exists a special clause which requires Parliament' s assent in two cases.
With regard to the present agreement, both these conditions are fulfilled.
A new institution is being created, an assembly which, in the future, will monitor the agreement and its consequences.
The agreement also concerns questions dealt with in accordance with the co-decision-making procedure.
Parliament must therefore give its assent, because the agreement concerns its sphere of competence.
The future will show whether it is right, by means of this new parliamentary assembly, to reduce the Commission' s powers regarding these issues.
Parliament cannot, in any case, at present do anything about the matter.
The agreement complements the Berne Convention in regard to literary works.
It creates international legal protection in connection with distribution, sale, rental, public reproduction and the making available of works.
It also creates protection for software and databases.
There are problems regarding the term "author" .
For example, it has not been defined.
Another issue, which is somewhat problematic, is that of intermediate storage. This too has not been solved.
It is dealt with by means of a general clause which does not provide any definition.
If no definitions are provided in questions such as this, it can lead to their being dealt with differently around the world, with no uniformity of approach. That would not be a good thing.
The question of arbitration procedures is still to be resolved, too.
Parliament cannot change these details.
We can only say yes or no to the agreement as it stands. Yes or no to an agreement which contains deficiencies.
Both myself, as rapporteur, and the committee think we ought to say yes.
We have here an agreement which, in spite of its defects, constitutes a significant step forward for the issue of copyright.
We have of course discussed at length whether Parliament and whether the EU should have powers in regard to patents under intellectual property law.
I think they should have.
However, there is still no Community legislation in the areas of patent law and protection of designs, and there needs to be.
A European patent is in the offing, and that is a good thing.
Now, the Union and the Member States are combining to take the first steps in the area of intellectual property law.
It is good for us that we have the power to do this, in spite of the fact that we are not completely satisfied.
In that way, we can act as a model for the applicant States.
We have a direct financial interest in these issues being settled before enlargement.
I want to thank the Commission for its efforts in this area and for the cooperation with the Commission' s officials, which has been quite excellent.
Finally, I also want to thank this Chamber for being so good as to listen to these words at this late hour.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Cederschiöld, on her very serious work.
She has clearly identified the problems created by the approval of the World Intellectual Property Organisation' s treaties.
Their approval is undoubtedly an historic occasion because for the first time the European Union is participating as a contracting party in an international treaty that governs the field of intellectual property.
It is a fact that the road has been a long one, mainly because of the legal problem that arose in connection with the extent to which the Community could be considered to have absolute competence in matters of intellectual property.
The problem has been overcome.
Today we are asked to give our assent in effect to two treaties: the treaty on intellectual property and the treaty on interpretations, performances and phonograms.
As regards the first of these, it seems to provide an effective solution for the long-standing demands by the creators of artistic and literary works, while at the same time creating a framework of protection in relation to issues such as distribution, rental and the presentation of their works to the public.
As regards the second treaty on performances and phonograms, it must be stressed that for the first time an international treaty signed by the Community as well recognises exclusive rights for performers, interpreters and artists for reproduction, distribution and rental to the public, and the right to fair remuneration for radio broadcasts.
In that context a noteworthy and important step forward is the treaty' s treatment of the right of reproduction.
Even though, as the Commission says, the texts of the treaties do not contain special provisions to regulate all the respective issues raised by technological development, it can nevertheless be said that within the legislative framework created, performing or interpreting artists enjoy broader protection than that accorded by the Treaty of Rome or even by the Community directives.
Interpreting Article 7 of the Treaty, we can conclude that the application of protection for reproduction does not only mean protection for the reproduction of the interpretations or performances themselves as such that are embodied in recordings, but also protection against copying, whether in whole or in part and whether permanent or temporary, and protection against any other form of production.
It would be appropriate, however, for us also to mention some points which should be at the focus of future WIPO work or the work of other diplomatic conferences.
First, there is the right of distribution as referred to in Article 8(1).
The option accorded to States by the next paragraph of the same article to regulate the exhaustion of the above right is dangerous and is one of the Treaty' s most negative points, since there is nothing to prevent States from enacting special conditions for the exhaustion of the right, a thing that would be to the disadvantage of artists.
As regards rental rights, on interpretation of Article 9, we can conclude that the exclusive right of rental belongs to artists, interpreters or performers, only if this is laid down by national legislation. I think this conflicts with Article 13.
To conclude, I want to say that ratification of these treaties opens a horizon for property rights.
In the 21st century, the century of knowledge and the invisible economy, intellectual property will be the dominant form of property and will, in many cases, be more important than traditional property.
We are at the dawn of an age in which new legislation will be created, where the right to utilise intellectual property will clash head on with the public interest in terms of its dissemination and exploitation by the public at large.
Mr President, I should like to thank our rapporteur for this excellent report which, nonetheless, concludes that, as a Community, our accession to these two WIPO treaties must not boil down to a mere institutional development, however important that may be, i.e. the opportunity for the European Community and the WIPO Assembly to work together.
This ratification is also necessary in the light of the enlargement of Europe.
However, an objective is emerging behind this issue of Community accession, one I find as yet too theoretical but one that some Member States, nonetheless, find too offensive.
This is the affirmation of a European cultural policy. In this connection, I expect our three institutions, Parliament, the Commission and the Council, to be in agreement.
Cultural policy means, in particular, defending the role of the arts, recognising the role of authors and setting high cultural standards.
In addition, at a time when Europe faces the task of defining a new policy on copyright and neighbouring rights, there is an urgent need - as has just been pointed out several times - to define and redefine what exactly an author is.
Our definitions are still too vague and new technologies now make it essential for us to clarify them.
Mr President, Commissioner, the adoption of the WIPO agreements was a very positive step in the direction of the global information society.
The agreements crystallise the decades-old legacy of copyright, and they represent a precisely considered and balanced solution for the regulation of copyright and neighbouring rights.
The entry into force of the treaties and their final form is, however, in addition to this recommendation, dependent on implementation by the parties themselves.
In the United States the WIPO Treaty has already entered into force, having been enacted into law by means of the Digital Millennium Corporate Act and there they have managed to retain the delicate balance of the Treaty by means of this legislation.
The EU too must proceed in its legislative work in accordance with what is agreed in the WIPO.
It is worrying that the position adopted by the previous Parliament does not support this balanced WIPO system.
The opinion on the copyright directive at first reading was very distorted, and, furthermore, the balance is moving in a harmful direction from the point of view of Europeans.
The recommendations that have been made will not improve the status of culture in Europe, on the contrary.
Parliament' s amendments would mainly improve opportunities for the media enterprises that are well established in the market to move their old, in excess of 80% market share to a new environment with rigid, excessive copyright regulations.
I am not now speaking of Charlotte Cederschiöld' s recommendation, which is an excellent paper, but of the matters of copyright that the previous Parliament discussed.
On one point of detail, I would like to thank Mrs Cederschiöld for having clarified, for example, the concept of so-called temporary copies in her opinion.
There is no consciously adopted position in the WIPO Treaty on temporary copies.
If these, which technically speaking are copies, were covered by the protection in force it would make the transfer of information - as the recommendation quite rightly states - expensive and complicated for no good reason.
It would be as if the deliveryman had to pay a copyright fee whenever he carried a book to be read by the purchaser.
The real benefit of culture is that art and knowledge can be transferred safely and easily from the artist directly to the user, the consumer.
The new operational environment is, above all, a huge opportunity to create and spread culture in a different way than ever before.
It is essential that the interests of all parties are taken into account.
Parliament has tried to take account of this in its own recommendation.
.
(NL) Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur on the work that she has carried out.
The Commission is under the impression that she has worked fast and effectively.
This is important. It befits the Commission to express its gratitude towards the rapporteur.
I would like to present the Commission' s conclusion to you without any further ado: it agrees with the conclusions of the draft recommendation and, therefore, with ratification by this Parliament.
I would like to stress the importance of both Treaties.
Both the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty constitute progress in the international protection of copyright and neighbouring rights and are, as such, a considerable improvement on the Berne Convention and the Treaty of Rome.
Both Treaties contribute towards a high level of protection for works and other matters, but offer the public access to the contents of these via electronic networks.
The two Treaties explicitly permit the Community to become a party to the Treaties and to play an important role in managing them.
Consequently, approval of the Treaties by the Community is of major importance, because it illustrates that the Community sets great store by intellectual property rights.
In addition, assent leads to more widespread international recognition of the European Union' s role in terms of copyright.
At international level, there is a great deal of support for treaties entering into force more swiftly. These have now been ratified by twelve or thirteen WIPO Member States, including the United States.
The entry into force of treaties largely depends on the European Union, because thirty ratification acts are required in order for treaties to enter into effect, and these acts that are signed by the European Union and the Member States, including associated countries, are of vital importance in order to reach this number.
The developing countries, too, expect the European Union to bring about ratification swiftly because this would give a strong signal worldwide.
In this context, Parliament has already played a key role in the discussions on the draft directive on copyright in the Information Society, which led to the approval of the Barzanti report in February 1999.
This directive is the necessary counterpart of the proposed decision and largely embraces the key principles of the WIPO Treaties.
The European Parliament must now follow once again the exceptional assent procedure of Article 300(3).
It is vitally important to give the correct signal to the outside world, in the form of this recommendation.
In a nutshell, I would like to reiterate the Commission' s conclusion here: it supports the draft recommendation and hopes that it will be of key importance to anyone with an interest in intellectual property.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.55 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I was booked on the same flight and I am rather embarrassed to admit that the airline was KLM, our national airline company. I hope that next time, also if any other airline company is involved, things will run more smoothly.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I would just like to draw your attention to something that concerns today' s agenda.
We decided on Monday that the Council' s statement on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Geneva Convention was to be postponed.
I would just like to clarify that we will only be talking about the other items on this agenda today, and not about the Geneva Convention.
This item has been postponed until the next part-session in March. It was erroneously included in today' s agenda.
Mr Swoboda, I can confirm what you have just said and there is, in fact, a printing error.
The document that has been distributed contains inaccuracies, because the decision has been taken to postpone the debate.
Mr President, I just want to say that, as I was walking in this morning, I noticed two people smoking outside the Hemicycle.
The smell is absolutely disgusting!
Can you please do something about it?
I cannot do anything about it myself, but you are quite right. We need a quick way of educating people, including those who do not obey the rules decided upon in this House.
Regarding the problems caused by air travel delays, perhaps everybody who has had difficulty reaching Strasbourg for the present part-session should form a small group - although I am not sure that it will be small - to discuss the precise nature of the problems encountered.
Coherence of EU policies with development
The next item is the statement by the Council and the Commission on the coherence of EU policies with development.
. Let me start by saying something about the successfully concluded negotiations between the EU and ACP countries.
I would like to remark that it was a very positive experience taking part in those negotiations.
I saw Member States working as a team, which was indeed a wonderful experience.
There was also deep satisfaction on both sides when this was over, not just because it was over, but because we all knew that we had achieved something together, the EU and the 71 ACP countries.
That is something that the world needs and is a very good signal in the framework of the whole discussion of globalisation.
I shall outline some of the major innovations in the new agreement.
We explicitly address corruption; we establish a framework for dealing with the problem of immigration for the first time ever.
We promote participatory approaches, we ensure the consultation of civil society on the reforms and policies to be supported by the EU.
We refocus development policies on poverty reduction strategies.
We base the allocation of funds not only on an assessment of each country's needs, but also of its policy performance.
We create an investment facility to support the development of the private sector.
We rationalise instruments and introduce a new system of rolling programming, allowing the Community and the beneficiary country to regularly adjust their cooperation programme.
We decentralise administrative and, in some cases, financial responsibilities to local level with the aim of making cooperation more effective.
We improve the policy framework for trade and investment development.
We enhance cooperation in all areas important to trade, including new issues such as labour standards and the linkages between environment and trade.
After Seattle I am sure you will appreciate the significance of these agreements.
Let me turn to some of the more important points.
Firstly the agreement on political issues.
The new agreement will entail a firm commitment on both sides to good governance as a fundamental and positive element of the partnership, a subject for regular dialogue in an area which enjoys active Community support.
Secondly, a new procedure has been drawn up for cases of violations of human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law.
In comparison with the current procedure, the new one puts more emphasis on the responsibility of the state concerned and allows for greater flexibility in the consultation process, with a view to conducting an effective dialogue leading to measures to be taken to redress the situation.
In cases of special urgency involving serious violations of one of these essential elements, measures will be taken immediately and the other party will be notified.
Thirdly, the EU and the ACP have also agreed on a new specific procedure to be launched in serious cases of corruption.
This is a real innovation, both in the EU/ACP context and in international relations in general.
This procedure will be applied, not only in cases of corruption involving EDF money, but also more widely in any country where the EC is financially involved and where corruption constitutes an obstacle to development.
It is thus not confined to EC activities.
This is a very important aspect, taking into account the fundability of public finances.
By adopting such a provision in the partnership agreement, the EU and the ACP States are together sending a clear and positive signal that will doubtless be appreciated by European taxpayers and hopefully also by European investors.
Another new theme in the ACP-EU agreement is migration.
We have reached a balanced agreement on cooperation in this area.
This new dimension to the partnership agreement reflects the guidelines espoused by the EU in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam and with the conclusions of the European Council in Tampere in Finland in October 1999.
The European Union undertakes to develop and implement an immigration and asylum policy founded on the principle of partnership with the originating countries and regions.
The agreement concluded with the ACP countries paves the way for new initiatives, in particular on the rights of third country citizens within the EU, and measures facilitating their integration.
We also agreed on provisions to address questions related to illegal immigration.
The EU and the ACP states will initiate the process aimed ultimately at defining, within a framework to be negotiated with each and every ACP country, the ways and means of repatriating immigrants illegally present on the territories of each party.
This also covers persons from third countries and stateless persons.
These very innovative approaches provide a good opportunity to improve governance.
The agreement also offers a good framework to underpin the mutually reinforcing effects of trade cooperation and development aid.
We have agreed on a process to establish new trading arrangements that will pursue trade liberalisation between the parties and to formulate provisions on trade-related matters.
We have met the concerns of the ACP states as far as the time-frame of the trade negotiations is concerned.
Negotiations will start no later than 2002.
This two-year preparatory period will be used to strengthen regional integration processes and the ACP countries' capacity to conduct trade negotiations.
A six-year period is programmed for these negotiations.
We will take account of the economic and social constraints of the ACP countries in two ways: firstly, through human and social development policies to accompany economic and trade reforms and, secondly, by helping the ACP states to become active players in the international economic and trade system through capacity-building and cooperation in multilateral forums.
This approach will lead us to a fully WTO compatible regime.
Economic operators will be more inclined to establish closer relations with their ACP partners.
Domestic and foreign investment will grow and more know-how and technology will be transferred, all of which will boost the ACP countries' competitiveness and ease their gradual integration into the world economy.
In addition, the agreements with the EU will act as an anchor.
They will lock in the economic reforms, just as national and economic reforms will be stabilised by both parties' commitments under the agreements.
The rationale behind this new approach is also based on the idea that open trade policies combined with social development policies will lead to economic growth and poverty reduction.
Another important aspect is the improvement of the EU' s trade regime for all least-developed countries, 39 of which are actually in the ACP group.
This process will take place in the coming five years so that, by 2005, the LDCs' exporters will have free access for essentially all their products on the EU market.
As regards the volume of the next EDF, the EU has made its financial proposal.
It is based on the principle of reconciling the need to maintain a substantial amount of financial resources in a period of limited official development assistance budgets with the need to make Community aid more effective.
Today about EUR 9.5 billion of previous EDF resources are uncommitted.
The EU is committed to mobilising these remaining balances, plus the new EDF resources, over a seven-year period, that is to say, before the entry into force of the next financial protocol.
This will enable the Community to substantially increase annual flows of commitments and payments during this period.
We are thus not moving into a period in the coming years of reduced activity, we are moving into a period of increased activity.
Such a commitment entails an in-depth reform of procedures and implementation modalities on both sides.
There is a very real link between the reform process in the Commission as such, and our ability to deliver on the ground which is the basis of the deal with the ACP countries.
Turning to our development policy, I would say that the global context has changed drastically.
The marginalisation of many economies, increased poverty in the world, the need for better management of environmental interdependence, the destabilising effects of migration and the worrying consequences of armed conflicts and pandemic diseases are all major concerns.
It is within this changing global framework that we have to position ourselves.
Fortunately evaluations of EC aid give us a meaningful tool to improve what we are doing and also hopefully to meet the challenges I have just mentioned.
To focus on the input coming from the evaluations, I would mention the following problems: the objections of Community policy are too numerous and too vague and this adversely affects coherence.
This is due to the complexity of our own structures, but also to very real inconsistencies between sector policies and interests in the Member States.
The Commission has an aid system that is too complex and fragmented in terms of instruments, procedures and institutional mechanisms.
Often policies are more determined by the instruments available, than by policy objectives and clearly-defined priorities.
Human resources are too thin in relation to the volume of aid that we are supposed to manage.
On average, to manage $US 10 million of aid there are 2.9 staff at the Commission, compared with 4.3 at the World Bank and between 4 and 9 in major Member States.
This is a real problem: there are too many different financial instruments, each with its own characteristics and in particular a series of different budget headings.
This is difficult to reconcile with the needs of an effective management system.
In order to face and solve these problems the Community needs to engage in an effective dialogue with Member States and Parliament.
It is absolutely crucial that we tackle the coherence issue in a realistic and pragmatic way, which means holding the debate in the appropriate institutional framework, that is, the Council and Parliament.
The lack of concerted action among the 15 Member States themselves and between them and the Community also needs to be addressed.
By focusing the Community's development policy on internationally agreed targets and strategies we will pave the way for better complementarity with the Member States.
This is very much the line also just presented by Minister Amado.
When we talk policies nowadays, we engage in a process of convergence. This is part of the solution.
We are in the process of formulating new policy guidelines and we need to identify priority areas for Community action.
Everything has become more and more complex.
This is also true of development cooperation.
No single donor is in a position to address the whole spectrum of themes, ranging from macro-economic issues to the regulatory framework or from sectoral policies to a variety of new cross-cutting themes such as gender, environment, good governance and institutional reforms.
It is important to find flexible mechanisms that accommodate a division of labour according to the expertise and capacity of the various donors in each developing country.
This should be done at Member State level and should lead to the formulation of sector policies for Community action.
This is where we want to go.
To identify the EC's priority areas of support, account has to be taken of the Community's specific features in relation to the Member States and to international institutions.
I will mention just a few: our ability to combine development policy with trade policy and to ensure synergies between aid and economic cooperation; our neutrality and defence of overall Community interests; the fact that we represent a critical mass and are able to do relatively large jobs compared to what individual Member States can normally do.
Also, our presence on the ground: basically, I find the biggest value we represent is the very fact that being a successful regional cooperation endeavour ourselves, we are seen as a neutral, welcome partner for this experiment world-wide - something which nobody else can claim to be.
It is vital to make Community policy more effective and to develop a more operational strategic framework.
It is this dual challenge that the Commission has to take up, by framing in the months ahead a proposal for a general policy statement.
We will launch a broad and open consultation process in order to get the views of all the different parties interested.
I see the process not quite but almost as important as the content and we will put all our resources into participating actively and we invite everybody to participate.
Parallel to this we have also embarked on the process of improving coherence and clarifying and bringing to the surface and into the open the real or imaginary problems we are having in this respect.
This will be an ongoing process which I see as a kind of continued quality control effort and I invite Parliament to participate in this ongoing effort to improve the coherence of what we are doing.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, following the same line as Mrs Maij-Weggen, I believe that we have a number of representatives here who all feel passionate about contributing to this debate.
The topic touches the very core of the European Union.
Let me begin by specifying precisely what we are debating.
Article 178, Title XX of the consolidated Treaties of the European Union reads as follows: "The Community shall take account of the objectives referred to in Article 177 in the policies that it implements which are likely to affect developing countries" .
What are the objectives which each EU policy needs to take into account? Article 177 specifies these objectives as "sustainable economic and social development of the developing countries, and more particularly the most disadvantaged among them" , the "smooth and gradual integration of the developing countries into the world economy and the campaign against poverty in the developing countries" .
Mr President, these are no arbitrary objectives. These are articles, statutory articles, which form part of the European acquis established by law with which the European institutions and Member States must comply.
Every statutory article should, of course, not just be judged on its regularity, but also on the importance of its contents.
I am of the opinion - and luckily I am not alone in this - that the principle of policy coherence is essential to every government which aims to be a credible servant of its citizens.
The interests of the citizens are only served by a credible and reliable government.
This is important if the government wants to gain the trust of society, and also important from the point of view of effectiveness, for coherence is required in order to use the restricted means efficiently.
We should not make reality out to be more rose-tinted than it really is.
Reality is obstinate.
It is up to the government to deal with this fact in a transparent and open manner, without any backhandedness.
The government is obliged to show up any of its dilemmas, and to show where, when and why, problems occur with coherence of policy, rather than sweeping it all under the carpet.
What we are talking about here today is not an issue which can be toyed with at leisure. Poverty in the third world is a harrowing problem that demands urgent attention.
It is only natural that we in Parliament guard the interests of our citizens, but it is also in the interest of our citizens to live in a stable, international environment, in which the goal of human safety is pursued.
This is a moral interest, a safety interest and is, ultimately, even in the interest of our economy.
In whose interest is it really if European taxpayers' money is used to support economic development in Namibia, and if, at the same time, the economic activity of poor cattle farmers in the same country is drastically undercut by rigorous export subsidies, financed by the same tax payers? We are all acting as if this is not really happening, but we all know that it is.
It is not our task as MEPs to adopt an ostrich policy and bury our heads in the sand.
The general interest of policy coherence is, therefore, a responsibility of the Commission as a whole, of the Council, and of the European Parliament.
This responsibility cannot only be borne by the Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, however much we like to see him or hear him talk, or by the Development Council or the parliamentary Committee on Development and Cooperation.
What we need here is an integral approach.
After the lucid and closely reasoned explanation of this approach presented by both Mr Amado and Mr Nielson, I would like to note that we are very much looking forward to the proposals, not only by Mr Nielson, but by the entire Commission, in order to make the policy coherent as a whole.
This is why we urge the Commission, in this sharp and clear resolution, to develop specific instruments.
We need to pinpoint, and draw up an inventory of, the problem areas for coherence.
We need to make it evident which problems we are solving and which we have not yet solved.
This is why I advocate a monitoring centre for coherence which makes this apparent.
This is why we need to set up inter-service task groups in the Commission, in the Council and in Parliament which can police the attainment of coherence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if our neighbour' s roof is leaking, we can lend him pots and pans to collect the water, but it is, of course, more effective to help him plug the leak in the roof.
The crisis in last year' s Commission has been solved today, but the Commission must now produce a policy in which we get full support for a coherent approach, which, no doubt, the entire Parliament will soon demand in the resolution.
I would wish the Commissioner all the best in his battle within the Commission and wish Mr Amado the same within the Council.
Mr President, I feel that this debate is particularly timely and appropriate, not just because development is in general an important issue, but because it is also a topical one.
Seattle was a failure, and north-south relations were in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons.
The meeting held in that North American city demonstrated that globalisation is having seriously unbalanced and negative effects on poorer countries.
The Tenth United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is being held right now in Bangkok, and is suffering the consequences of that failure.
In the meantime, however, as has already been mentioned, the negotiations on the future of the Lomé Convention have been concluded.
This goes to show just how topical this subject is.
We could also add to the list the next EU-OAU summit which it has finally been agreed to hold in Cairo in April.
However, I would also like to add that any analysis, no matter how superficial, inevitably leads us to the conclusion that something - or even a great deal - is amiss with north-south relations, including those between the European Union and the less developed countries.
You only have to realise that the category of "least developed countries" has grown from 25 to 48 countries over the last 30 years, and now represents 13% of the world' s population, yet this category only accounts for 0.4% of world exports and 0.6% of world imports or be aware of the unfortunate fact that official development aid from rich countries has fallen by around 23% since 1990.
Furthermore, the recent Community budget cuts in this area, for the present financial year, are part of this trend, as well as sending an undesirable and misguided political message.
Michel Camdessus, a fair man who is still director of the International Monetary Fund, said in his speech at the opening of the UNCTAD conference, and I am now quoting, that the international community gives with one hand and takes away with the other. He was of course talking about the aid granted by developed countries to less developed countries.
It may seem ironic that this statement should come from someone in his position, but he did indeed say this, and I heard it with my own ears.
This comment certainly seems to me to reflect the current situation, and I accordingly wish to stress that it is vital to rethink north-south relations and break the mould. In particular, we need to reconsider the role of the European Union in this area, as I am certain that one of the Union' s strategic objectives must be to promote a new and more equitable world order.
It is therefore essential to review the present process of globalisation, bearing in mind the underlying approach and dominant interests on which it is based, and to consider the enormous and damaging effect that it is having on the less developed countries, particularly in this context.
A new agreement has been reached with the ACP countries.
This is a positive development in itself, especially given the pressures to terminate it and the fact that various Member States did not wish it to continue.
We will have an opportunity in due course to consider the exact terms of this agreement in greater depth, but meanwhile there is no doubt that the European negotiators were more timid and failed to live up to the proposals that we formulated at the appropriate time, even if the new agreement does include some new and innovative points.
Certain politically important aspects of the new partnership agreement will have contributed to these.
This was without a doubt the result of a complex negotiating process in which both parties made major concessions, and this is certainly true of the European Union, especially in the field of good governance and trade.
But it was above all the result of a stronger ACP group, which obviously found new courage following the events in Seattle.
I particularly wish to stress that a new way of looking at these issues seems to be emerging, especially as regards trade, and it is certainly necessary to tackle this area.
Lastly, we need to go further in our development aid policies towards developing countries.
I have in mind budgetary and financing aspects, indebtedness, assistance in sensitive areas such as food safety, humanitarian, educational and health-related issues, and also fields such as the environment, investment and access to information and new technologies. This also applies to the sphere of trade, where we need to ensure real coherence between development policies and other Community policies, and also between both types of policy and corresponding policies originating in the Member States.
We cannot simply forge ahead with something that in the past has shown itself to be inappropriate and wrong-headed.
Mr President, having listened to the Council and the Commission today, I just had to look at my agenda.
Yes, it does say: 'Coherence of different Union policies with development policy' .
But we have not heard a single word on this subject, and I find that deeply embarrassing.
We have been waiting for a report on coherence for years.
It ought to have been here in writing today and, after having heard Mr Nielson' s speech, I can well imagine that he is up against a lot of powerful opposition in the Commission.
I know that the Commissioner himself has some strong and extremely reasonable opinions on coherence, and these are what I should like to have heard expressed here today.
Because the joint motion for a resolution proposes a range of effective mechanisms for ensuring coherence, I shall use the very short time allotted to me here just to mention one more such mechanism, namely obliging the Commission to carry out an evaluation of new, relevant legislation from this aspect.
I also want to focus on the catastrophic effect the EU' s common agricultural policy has had on developing countries: dumping of beef in Sahel and South Africa, tomato purée in West Africa and milk powder in Jamaica.
The examples are, I hope, all well known. In any case, they are known all too well to the producers in the ACP countries who are affected by these measures and who have to destroy their products because they cannot compete with EU-subsidised products.
European taxpayers contribute EUR 40 billion per year in support of agriculture in the EU.
This is money which is helping to impede the development of the agricultural sector in the developing countries, which accounts for 69% of the total work force there compared with 1.7% in the EU.
Add to this the fact that the agricultural sector accounts for 34% of the developing countries' gross national product, compared with 5.3% in the EU.
There is neither coherence nor human decency here.
Why will neither the Council nor the Commission admit the fact?
Mr President, how policy decisions are arrived at is surely fundamental.
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and his Foreign Secretary yesterday made statements on their policy in regard to the voting system within the Council.
They pointed out that the UK, France and Germany far exceed the other countries of the European Union at present in terms of population.
They then drew the conclusion that population size should be reflected in the voting system and that the United Kingdom would not surrender its veto.
Is the Council discussing this issue?
Is it prepared to maintain a democratic veto based on population strengths or is it still moving towards a simple majority vote of Council members, rather than a vote reflecting the population in Europe which they democratically represent? Have the UK representatives indicated to the Council their decision and proposal and what, if any, consideration has been given to it?
As this voting matter is vital to the democratic future of this Union, surely it should receive priority consideration.
How decisions are made is all-important.
co-president of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly. Mr President, I thank the Council and the Commission for their statements this morning, but I will concentrate on coherence policy because that is what the agenda says we are talking about.
Much as I agree with the requirement to hold a debate on the coherence of different Union policies and development policy, I question whether today is the time to be holding it.
However, the Council statement gave me hope for the future.
It is quite obvious to me, as someone who specialises in development policy, that there are many areas where lack of coherence is dramatically affecting developing nations.
I will give some examples shortly.
However, I remind this House that, back in June 1997, a Council resolution acknowledged the fact that there is a serious lack of coherence in some of the EU policies in relation to its development cooperation policy.
This was followed by a request from the Council to the Commission to provide an annual report, the first of which was to be discussed in 1998.
We still await the first report, and that is why I believe this debate was premature, as the Commission had little to say on coherence this morning.
The areas identified by the Council are specific areas where policy coherence is particularly important, such as peace-building, conflict prevention and resolution, food security, fisheries and immigration.
Some of these issues have been discussed in depth.
I personally feel that issues such as peace-building and conflict prevention and resolution are very much the domain of African Heads of State, with capacity support from the European Union and the OAU acting as arbiter.
The issues that are really affected by lack of coherence are in areas such agriculture, trade, environment and biodiversity, but herein lies the real problem: these are the highly sensitive areas of policy within the European Union as a whole and in this Parliament in particular.
Members of this House will have differing views, even within the same political parties, depending on (a) which country they come from or (b) which committee they sit on.
There are areas of coherence I would like to see as a member of the Committee on Development that would probably horrify some of the members of the Committee on Agriculture or Committee on Fisheries.
As a lack of coherence, one can cite as Mrs Sandbæk did, the exporting of milk products to Jamaica at prices far below production costs there which has almost ruined the Jamaican dairy industry.
We have beef exported to southern Africa, to Namibia and South Africa, which then sell their indigenous beef to Swaziland, so that Swaziland can fill its export quota back to the European Union.
Remember too, some countries blocked an agreement with South African trade for four years.
If we simply import raw materials from these developing countries, rather than allowing them the add-on value of producing their finished articles in their own country, we deny them the very poverty-eradication that we have set as our top principle in helping developing nations.
I am not surprised the Commission is having trouble producing a basic document for discussion on sustainable and social development.
There is a natural resistance in the developing world to anything that would lower standards of living and create further unemployment.
I wish the Commission well in its task of producing that basic document.
Mr President, this morning' s debate is very important.
I therefore thank the Commission and the Council for having made a statement on the coherence of Community policies in relation to development, because this demonstrates a will to make policy in this area more effective.
However, if we are simply carrying out a diagnosis of the incoherences in our policy, we will end up totally frustrated and, furthermore, the result will be negative.
As with the systems of forces which are studied in basic physics, it makes no sense to implement policies which will cancel each other out.
The result of this absurd game is not zero, but rather a minus number, as a consequence of the material, financial and human resources thrown away in a pointless enterprise.
With regard to policy, this minus number is multiplied by the number of results which are not achieved each time one measure cancels out the intended effect of another.
In today' s globalised world, this fact is all the more obvious.
There are no boundaries for Community policies.
I am therefore glad that the Commission and the Council are once again taking an interest in the coherence of Community policies, and that, together with complementarity between national and Community policies and coordination between the services of the Commission, they intend to shape the policy on cooperation in accordance with the development of the European Union.
Both the Commission and the Portuguese Presidency of the Council state, in their respective working programmes, that they wish to give coherence to those policies which have a very important impact on the developing countries, but they do not specify concrete measures aimed at introducing this coherence.
Both institutions identify the most important areas where this idea should be applied.
For example, the Commission, in its long term guidelines, says that the objective of sustainable development must be based on a strong sense of solidarity, supported by a commercial policy which takes common interests into account.
The Commission is addressing a very important area, that is, commercial policy.
However, this Parliament wishes to add policies to aid development, agriculture, fisheries policy, immigration, our position in international financial institutions, the common foreign and security policy and aid for structural reform.
The Council - and Mr Luis Amado has said this this morning - has spoken on different occasions of the need for coherence - the last time, it is true, being in November 1999, and also on other occasions, such as the Development Councils of May 1999 and June 1997 - but with no concrete results.
Since the Development Council is in agreement with what he says - and this is very significant - there is little we can say, as some previous speakers have pointed out.
However, as Parliament, we wish to propose - as others have said and as the resolution states - the creation of an inter-service working group consisting of the people responsible for all the policies mentioned and the establishment of a monitoring centre for the coherence of the different Community policies, which is capable of anticipating the effects of each policy on the developing countries and amongst themselves.
What we really want, however, is to be realists and not hide away from the fact that the achievement of these objectives of coordination, complementarity and, the most complex one, which we are discussing at the moment, coherence, will require a more developed policy than the one we currently have in the European Union.
Let us hope - and we do hope - to be guided by the winds of change created by the Intergovernmental Conference, the reform of the Commission - which will also affect the development services -, this new legislature and the prospects for enlargement, to perfect a more coherent political union.
We therefore hope that the Commission, in the report it is going to present to us on global policy, will also address the question of coherence as an integral element in the efficient use of Community resources and the specific management of public interests.
Mr President, I too should like to thank the Council and the Commission for their reports and, in common with others, express my regret at the fact that coherence policy has not been given more prominence.
But we who sit here in Parliament do not doubt for a second what the reason is.
I should therefore like to discuss something more general and begin with a couple of, in my view, useful figures.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, real per capita income in the world' s richest countries was three times higher than in the poorest countries.
In 1900 it was ten times higher and in the year 2000 it is 60 times higher.
And there is no sign of this trend' s being reversed.
On the contrary, it looks as if we have entered an exponential curve which is widening the gap still further.
This is shown by the following figures: the income gap between the richest and poorest fifths was 30:1 in 1960, 60:1 in 1990 and 74:1 in 1997.
These figures are from before the Internet revolution took off.
In other words, there will have to be a quantum leap in development policy if the rich countries, including the EU countries, are not to surround themselves with barriers to prevent immigration on a massive scale.
In a global village, major discrepancies in the world will not, in the longer term, be tolerated by the poorest section of the village.
At some time or another, there will be a revolt, and it will be fully justified.
I would therefore urge the Council' s Presidency to set the promised debate in motion as quickly as possible and, above all, to conclude it in such a way that we all of us, including the people of Europe, realise what globalisation means and understand that a central element will have to be radical changes in the nature and the level of the development aid we provide.
The EU on average is far from providing the pledged 0.7%.
It may well be that others are worse, but that does not place us in any better a light.
Above all, however, we should give the countries concerned the opportunity to trade with us.
As far as I could hear - but I may have missed something - the President-in-Office of the Council did not mention the word "trade" at all.
I would just say to the Commissioner that I hope his proposal will be successfully adopted by the Commission and the Member States.
I would also ask the Commissioner to give some concrete examples of sectoral interests which are holding matters up, not only in the Commission but also in the Member States.
I should also like to say that, in my view, what would be most effective would be for Parliament to call for proposals from, respectively, the Development Council and the Commissioner for Development. In that way, we should perhaps have a basis for discussion, instead of receiving proposals from all the governments and from all over the Commission, which is scarcely likely to produce results.
I shall conclude with a few words about the Internet revolution.
As Commissioner Liikanen keeps saying on his travels, we have a head start here in Europe in the area of mobile telecommunications.
Let us use this not only for the benefit of our own populations but also for that of the developing countries.
This technology can facilitate that necessary quantum leap forward in development policy to which I referred and, in this connection, the EU can set the agenda, leave its mark on development and honour its global responsibilities.
Mr President, "The EU' s development cooperation leaves a great deal to be desired" .
This is just a quote from a newspaper article which appeared last week, commenting on the Union' s development policy.
This is not new.
Ever since we have attempted to do something about development cooperation, its effectiveness and quality have been called into question.
Hope of improvement threatens to be nipped in the bud if the Commission keeps refusing to look into the mirror.
Why was the critical report on the coherence of development policy not disseminated externally?
One of the major conclusions of this report concerned the European policy' s internal conflict.
In terms of trade and agriculture, in particular, the European policy is in conflict with the development policy.
We seem unable to make a serious contribution to the development of the least developed countries.
This has everything to do with the difference of opinion which exists among various countries within the Union regarding development cooperation.
We should no longer view development cooperation as an instrument of external and foreign relations, but as a policy in its own right.
I advocate transparent, joint and efficient development policy.
As long as the European approach to the development issue creates more inefficiency and wastes more money, it remains appropriate to apportion a larger role to the Member States.
Finally, I would like to ask the Commission to send the document I referred to to the European Parliament as soon as possible, so that we can help think of possible solutions in a constructive way.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that this is an appropriate initiative and that it makes very good sense.
As various Members have already commented, we often encounter situations where there is an enormous contradiction between our intentions in terms of development and cooperation policy and the damage we inflict with our other sectoral policies, whose objectives run counter to development in those countries.
And we are not just talking about the concrete impact of our common policies, tourism, the environment, agriculture, fisheries and industry. We are talking in general terms - and this is more serious - about contradictions between our economic and trade policies and our defence policies.
So there is a whole raft of contradictions.
In my opinion, these contradictions are not all that serious in terms of Community policies.
They are, if anything, more serious as regards certain objectives and industries in some Member States.
We have to be aware of this.
We often adopt resolutions on peace processes in other parts of the world, as was recently the case with Indonesia, when we protested at the top of our voices only to discover subsequently that some European countries had been supplying them with arms and military equipment.
For me, these are the most serious contradictions in all this, more serious than the contradictions inherent in any incompatibility between sectoral policies.
We obviously know that, even within any one country, there are always contradictions between various policies.
That is a fact of life.
And we must also be aware that there will be contradictions between the various Community policies, in this case development policy.
We have to be aware that these contradictions exist and that we need to minimise them.
The underlying reason for presenting this resolution is that the objective of minimising these contradictions is a fair and wise one.
I believe that it is both proper and fitting to set up a centre for monitoring this coherence between Community policies and development and cooperation policy, and that this monitoring centre' s sphere of activity should not be limited just to Community policies, but should also cover Member States' actions and policies, including the actions of economic groups, which I think are also important.
This monitoring centre should draw up an annual report on developments in these policies and on their impact and interaction.
I have left to the end a question that I regard as fundamental and which I think needs to be noted and approved by this House.
Our objective of minimising contradictions between development and cooperation policy and other policies has to be a valid objective, not merely within the European Union, but also at world level, given the increasing globalisation of the economy.
If we want fair world trade we will have to gain acceptance for this principle during the next WTO round of multilateral negotiations, because it would be contradictory if the European Union imposed a rigid but fair discipline on itself, only for the United States and the other major powers to do the opposite and to take advantage of our restraint.
That is why I consider it to be essential - and fair - for these principles to be established at the next WTO round.
Mr President, the Director-General of the DG for Development has said that to produce a report on coherence of EU policies with development policies, before this spring' s paper on development policy itself, is like putting the cart before the horse.
Never mind that the Commission' s requirement to produce an annual report, set out clearly in the Council resolution, has produced only one "non-paper" , the real problem here is that at the time of rising world poverty this particular horse is climbing uphill and the cart of other EU policies is so heavy that development policy is actually being pulled slowly backwards.
Time after time development policy is forgotten or is an afterthought when the major policies of this European Union are considered.
Take the new chocolate directive, which shows that EU countries spend more on chocolate every year than on development aid.
There has been no proper development assessment of this directive which the producer countries, 90% of which are our ACP partners, estimate could cut incomes to cacao farmers by at least 15%.
Take the fishing agreements, where we recognise the unsustainability of current fishing practices within the EU waters.
We are, at the same time, negotiating joint ventures allowing increased access for Europe' s large-scale fishing vessels in developing country waters at the expense of 190 million small-scale fish workers in those countries world-wide.
Take the trade agreements.
As Mr Nielson said this morning with regard to Lomé, preferential access is only for "essentially all the products of the least-developed countries" .
In other words, when EU commercial interests are concerned, poverty considerations go out of the window.
In the stance that we took at Seattle, why such a silence on the EU' s failure to implement the trade concessions for developing countries already agreed in the GATT, including for the crucial textile sector?
On the common agricultural policy, the biggest culprit - no development impact assessment of the Agenda 2000 CAP reforms.
Everyone now knows of the scandal of the export refund scheme which dumped 54 000 tonnes of excess subsidised beef on West African markets, slashing prices for local cattle farmers by half.
Today beef stocks stand at 300 000 tonnes.
Who will be next, quite literally, for the chop?
I welcome Mr Amadeus' statement this morning, which acknowledged the difficulties of non-budgetisation of the EDF, which called for a more active role for the Development Council and which called for development priorities to be central to the EU' s emerging common foreign and security policy.
I welcome too the Council declaration of 1992, its resolution of 1997 and successive changes in the Treaty of European Union.
Action simply has not been taken.
That is why we want annual reports, we want an annual inter-service group and we want a complaints procedure, to make sure action is actually taken.
I ask Mr Nielson, in his summing-up, to directly address those points in the resolution.
Mr President, I would like to restrict my contribution to the link between development cooperation and agriculture.
Over the past couple of years, a considerable share of the funds has been channelled towards the development of agriculture and cattle breeding in the developing countries and, more especially, the Lomé countries.
The results are certainly not what we expected.
What could be the cause of this?
I think that the cause should first and foremost be sought in the lack of clear agricultural policy in the various developing countries, barring a few exceptions.
I think that the Commission could do a great deal there to help this develop.
No farmer, anywhere in the world, will produce something if prices are too low.
The governments in the developing countries are always faced with a difficult dilemma: whom should they support, the farmers or the people in the large cities who want cheap food?
This fine balance must be struck in conjunction with the Commission, and not by the Commission on its own. In most countries where the Commission is active, development aid is also granted by the Member States themselves.
It should not be the case that the policy of the Member States contravenes that of the Commission.
It is up to the Commission' s delegations in the developing countries to assume a leading role in the development of this political dialogue and to ensure that all countries follow this line of approach.
Special attention is also required for the costs of the means of production.
Far too often, artificial fertiliser, veterinary medication and a host of other items are provided to farmers free of charge.
Once the project comes to an end after five years, the policy of free gifts also ends.
I think, therefore, that the cost element should be built in right from the outset in the policy of all projects, and as far as I know, this is not the case by any stretch of the imagination.
Finally, I wonder whether the funds could not be put to better use.
Every year, I notice in the budget of the Commission and in the European Development Fund, that they are far behind in spending the funds.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, we are in actual fact holding a debate amongst the converted, which is a pity.
We should really talk about coherence in the development policy in the presence of Mr Prodi, for example, who has missed a great chance right from the outset, for he has allowed the development cooperation policy to fragment over three Commissioners - and this is better than four, I have to admit - but this does not really make for a coherent policy.
We also note that, as before, there are still various DGs which stifle this policy with often very conflicting procedures and arguments.
The President-in-Office of the Council came up with a good suggestion, namely to budget the European Development Fund.
Parliament would, of course, welcome this with open arms. If this were possible, it would be a huge, historic victory.
Since Amsterdam, three terms have taken centre stage: complementarity, coordination and cohesion.
I believe that very little has been achieved in these three fields.
If a request is made for a report on the progress made on cohesion, if a request is made at all, then drafting such a report cannot be very difficult, unless one simply admits that there is no cohesion at all.
I would prefer it if a report were to be written on the present lack of cohesion, and if a systematic strategy were to be developed to reach a certain level of cohesion, for it is a long way off yet.
One thing shocked me in the speech of the President-in-Office of the Council.
He stated: "Contradictions in policy can lead to balance."
It is indeed the case that what one hand gives can be taken away by the other hand, and vice versa.
But this leads to status-quo and self-deceit, and globalisation as a whole has so far only led to changes, indeed, but changes which have only made poverty worse.
This is supposed to be our priority, would you believe.
I know that we do a great deal of good, but let us start with this very essential aspect.
Mr President, we have already noted that there is no report from the Commission, but I intend to discuss three matters in the light of the objectives which the Council presented in its 1997 opinion.
The first is concerned with conflict resolution.
For many years, I have tried, through the Council and the Commission, to find out why none of the institutions is actively participating in, and working for, conflict resolution in the Western Sahara, which is occupied by Morocco.
The UN has a peace plan.
We ought to seize this opportunity and bring the last colonial episode in Africa to an end.
I also want to take up the subject of migration.
I am anxious about the new stipulations in the partnership agreement with the ACP countries, which might make it easier to expel immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees on flimsier grounds.
I really also want to see the EU pioneer patents on living organisms.
We now know that at least one person in the world dies of hunger every four seconds.
Three quarters of those who die are children under five years of age.
This is not because of a lack of food, but because of what we have talked a lot about today, namely increasing poverty.
Food safety and the guarantee of biological diversity must take precedence over commercial interests.
I believe that patents on living organisms are designed only to control the global food supply, specifically for commercial purposes and for no other reason.
I also want to see something about women in the report I hope the Commission will produce.
Women appear to be completely absent from all areas, especially development policy when, of course, we are not in reality absent at all.
Mr President, the debate we are holding today strongly underlines the need to discuss development policy in much broader terms than are involved in simply measuring the flow of aid.
The level of aid is naturally important, and the level of aid contributed by the rich countries as a whole ought to be increased.
This ought to be done with, in particular, a view to combating poverty and through investing in the development of capacity.
However, the level of aid is only one of many instruments which significantly influence the development of poor countries.
A number of colleagues have today pointed to areas in addition to aid which are important and where contrasts and conflicts between different policy areas are very serious indeed.
The latter include trade, agricultural and fisheries policies.
Other important areas are, of course, the flow of private investments, cooperation on research and technology and the way in which the welfare state deals with, and finances solutions to, a variety of global problems which affect us all.
These problems include questions of climate, health issues, biodiversity etc, and the problems are clearly exacerbated by globalisation, that is to say the new economy which is developing.
In this economy, the connection between different policy areas is that much more marked.
In my opinion, what we are discussing here today is partly the EU' s contribution to the debate about the opportunities and risks of globalisation and about the rules there must be in order to give poor countries a decent chance.
The report, or survey, which Mrs Maij-Weggen has demanded, showing how the various policy areas fit together and what the aforementioned conflicts appear to be, is naturally quite crucial.
I cannot help but wonder why the Commission has not done more.
The Commission is new and has to be given time, but the absence of such a survey suggests that there are powerful tensions within the Commission.
I can only hope that Mr Nielsen will be successful in the forthcoming discussions within the Commission.
In addition to a report of this kind, I should like to see a more positive analysis which could be ongoing in character.
An analysis of this kind should look not only at the flow of aid but also give comprehensive consideration to all the different types of aid and transfers of resources which influence poor countries.
These include technology, trade, cooperation in the field of research etc.
It should be an extremely constructive contribution to the debate we are conducting.
Finally, Parliament recommends, in paragraph 6 of the draft resolution, that a working party should be established in order to bring about coherence.
I believe it is only a coincidence, but the Commissioner for the Environment is also, of course, to participate in this group.
Let us hope that the debate in which we are now engaged will prove to have been a watershed.
Policy so far has been characterised far too much by a process of giving with the one hand and taking away with the other.
There are a lot of people who will be watching further developments with great interest.
Mr President, the Seattle demonstrators argued that free trade is bad for the less- and least-developed countries, it is purely a rich country selfish interest.
Yet we might consider the rate of economic progress and the rate of eliminating poverty in countries such as India and Tanzania over the 40 or 50 years since they became independent.
There the theory went that protectionism and state intervention would preserve jobs, allow industry to adjust gradually and without pain.
It did not work; poverty became worse than ever.
The medicine may not taste too good in the short term, but opening one' s economy to competition at home and abroad forces optimal application of resources and leads to a higher standard and quality of life in the not so longer term.
Is that not the lesson of the European Union itself and of the single market in particular? As Mr Nielson said, this is a fine example to those countries and regions aspiring to greater prosperity.
Yet preaching the benefits of free trade to the developing countries is not enough.
We also have to practise what we preach in our own accessibility for imports from these countries. Parliament' s resolution on the WTO negotiations advocated a free import policy by the EU.
Eliminating all remaining barriers to imports, tariff barriers and quotas and, just as important, non-tariff barriers, such as Mrs Maij-Weggen mentioned in her speech - eliminating these barriers would do more than any amount of development aid to secure for developing countries the economic progress which both we and they desire.
It is quite clear that a lack of coherence of development policy with trade policy diminishes our development efforts and must also diminish the political regard of the developing countries for Europe and our fine words.
Mr President, in the last couple of days we have heard fine words about the need for greater coherence, coordination and effectiveness in the external aid programmes of the Community and of the Member States.
There is one relatively small area of activity with enormous public visibility which would be a litmus test of the Union' s ability to match words with action.
I am referring to the continuing tragedy of anti-personnel landmines which present an obstacle to so many development programmes, to post-conflict reconstruction, and which ruin the lives of many of the most vulnerable in some of the poorest parts of the world, particularly in developing countries.
Over recent years the Community has spent some EUR 200 million in mine clearance, assistance to victims and related activities.
The Member States have spent similar amounts.
But there is still enormous inefficiency and a lack of will to implement a strategy agreed with other members of the international community to overcome the anti-personnel landmine problem within a finite time span.
Mr Nielson identified the problems of lack of concerted action and the need for better complementarity with Member States.
This has been talked about for years.
The Commission needs to carry out internal organisational changes, strengthen the coherence and effectiveness of its actions, ideally with a properly resourced central mine action policy cell.
It would also need more rapid contractual and implementation procedures and an enhanced multiannual budget line and much improved management of its programmes.
A proper stock-taking of the effectiveness of mine action programmes needs to take place in each of the countries seriously afflicted by landmines.
It seems to me that the landmine issue encapsulates so many of the organisational, procedural, financial management and operational difficulties which have afflicted the Commission and the Union.
Are these afflictions of the past, or will we find that in this relatively compact and limited area the European Union is still unable to meet its aspirations?
Mr President, Commissioner Nielson, the conclusion of the new ACP-EU Convention is an important step towards greater coherence.
And it is to be welcomed that criteria such as human rights, democracy, rule of law, and good governance are more firmly anchored in this new treaty than they were previously, and that earlier colonial relations no longer shape most of our relations to quite the same extent, rather, we now set greater store by these political criteria in this respect. For these are prerequisite to any development.
If these criteria are not adhered to, then development does not stand a chance
The same goes for Cuba, Mr Modrow.
I welcome the fact that Cuba is getting closer to joining this process. But for this to happen, there are also going to have to be a few changes in Cuba.
After all, we are all familiar with the reports from Amnesty International.
It may well be that you, having belonged to one of the last Communist dictatorships, view the situation somewhat differently to the majority of people in this Chamber, and that you have problems where good governance is concerned.
Nonetheless, these are important criteria for the European Union.
There is a second issue I would like to raise.
We are discussing coherence here.
Many speakers have cited examples of the extent to which the various policies are not coherent.
In my view, however, the development policy itself needs to be more coherent too.
There is no coherence because there is still no effective coordination with the Member States and there are some projects being carried out by the Member States and the European Union in the developing countries which are very much at odds with one another.
Nor is there coherence vis-à-vis the European taxpayer when we draft a development policy which is accommodated in the Union' s budget but the EDF remains outside it.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, if in future you succeed in making this EUR 13.5 billion subject to the supervision of the parliamentary Committee on Budgetary Control, and to bodies such as OLAF, then I believe you will raise the level of acceptability.
This, to my mind, is also something that we should call upon the Intergovernmental Conference to do, i.e. establish the EDF firmly in the budget of the European Union.
Mr President, we certainly must concede that, on balance, this text is full of good intentions, but we did not vote in favour of it in committee, nor shall we do so in plenary. We had two reasons for this, both of which gave rise to amendments which I should like to explain here very briefly.
First, the Committee on Development and Cooperation advocates the communitisation of the EDF; clearly that is misguided.
In our view, cooperation is, and should remain, an intergovernmental exercise.
With Europe preparing to enlarge, communitising the EDF would make it easy to hide a lack of commitment behind the screen of the Community budget, quite apart from the fact that we would be wasting a fruitful and promising opportunity of associating our southern partners with our cooperation policy.
Lastly, the Commission has, in the recent past, had trouble managing the funds for development and humanitarian aid transparently, as Mrs Maes has just reminded us so opportunely.
Why should we add to them?
Secondly, we find it most regrettable that Mr Corrie' s report should mention the trade and development agreement with South Africa because, in the final analysis, this report is typical of the amateur diplomacy to which the European Commission is taking ever more frequent recourse.
It is perfectly astounding that the Union could have negotiated an agreement on behalf of the Member States in which a fundamental section is quite simply left blank.
And let me say in passing, it is even more astonishing that the Council allowed it to.
As a result, we are now in the absurd position of negotiating from a position of weakness on vital aspects such as wine and agricultural production within the framework of an agreement which we have already signed.
The part of this agreement which blocks negotiations could mean that the Union ends up paying producers to stop producing sherry, port and a whole host of products which are purely and simply copies under international commercial law. Imagine the potential cost of such a precedent.
It is proof, as if we still needed it, of the fact that immature diplomacy, which defends no interests, unless of course they are individual interests, and is caught between the dogma of free trade and pressure groups and more or less friendly NGOs, is not just inefficient, it is positively dangerous.
Finally, a word on the general thinking behind the Corrie report.
Nowadays, let us face it, the Joint Assembly is seen as an obstacle to free international trade by the dogmatisers in Geneva and Washington.
It was a chance to reiterate that our original and exemplary mode of cooperation with the southern countries should be developed and strengthened.
The Corrie report missed this chance and we must, regrettably, punish it for losing so much.
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(PT) Mr President, by way of both a conclusion and a summary, I would like to highlight three key aspects of this debate.
First of all, many speakers stressed that globalisation accentuates regional imbalances and social inequality, and increases poverty. This suggests that something must be done, failing which tensions will be aggravated and conflicts jeopardising international peace and stability will arise or worsen.
Secondly, it will be important to approach development policies from a different angle in this context, taking advantage of their capacity for correcting imbalances and reducing inequality.
I believe that the importance that everyone has attached to the European Union' s role in international development policies is significant.
Everyone recognises, indeed this was the theme of today' s debate, that, if the European Union is to play a more active and leading role in development policies at world level, it will have no choice but to enhance the coherence of its own various development-related policies.
I note that some speakers also emphasised that responsibility for coherence in EU policies is not a matter for the Council, for the Commission or for Parliament alone.
Quite the contrary - it will have to be the subject of a concerted effort in terms of discussion and legislative and institutional preparation, be it on the part of the Commission or of the Council, or even on the part of the European Parliament itself, and some Members have in fact already suggested that a monitoring centre or a working party could be established to monitor the impact of various policies in the specific area of development.
Finally, I would like to emphasise that it is also important - and this is one of the priorities of the Portuguese Presidency' s programme - to note the view that it is necessary to recognise the value of development in the European Union' s policies, and in particular in the context of its foreign policy.
We believe that this is absolutely vital, failing which we will be unable to take any consistent action as regards the coherence of policies, and we cannot do this without giving development policies their rightful place as an instrument for upholding the principles and values underpinning Europe' s status in the international system.
For this reason it may be necessary, as I have stressed, to change the model and move away from the post-colonial model towards a more European approach to development policies.
In this respect I believe - and some speakers here have also commented on this - that the adoption of the new convention, which succeeds the Lomé Convention, is an important instrument of renewal, and represents a new approach to a partnership with such an important group of countries from the south at a time of considerable instability in the international negotiating process, as demonstrated by the first negotiating round in Seattle.
. I sense some degree of frustration in many of the contributions to this debate.
I have given you a statement on behalf of the Commission which I think provides a useful background to this discussion.
We will furnish more detailed material relating directly to all the issues concerning coherence.
This discussion is not new.
We are currently working on it in the Commission and when that work is done I will report on it, as many have been asking if it will be possible to see the report on coherence.
I have no doubt that as a result of the increasing political attention attached to these problems - something which has clearly been reflected in the debate today - it will be easier for the Commission and the DG on Development to bring coherence to the forefront of our working agenda.
This also calls for the introduction of further new mechanisms in the Commission system which may very well include, as suggested by some of the political groups in Parliament, the setting up of a special intra-service working group and the establishment of a kind of coherence watch in the Commission.
I have read - and heard in the debate - that coherence is being used as some kind of a miracle formula that takes care of everything.
I think it is important to keep it as a relatively clearly defined discipline of trying to reduce inconsistencies where they really exist, and we certainly do have them.
Much of this has to do with real disagreement between sector interests in each and every Member State, as has been very honestly said here in this House: people more or less identify with their spheres of interest, and all this is legitimate.
I would, however, warn against the illusion that incoherence is the product of some kind of a mechanical deficiency in the system.
This exists, but it is only a small part of what we are discussing.
The major part of it has to do with well known established differences of interest between sexes and so on, and this is the problem.
Mr Mulder mentioned that no farmer will start producing anything if the price is too low.
This is true in our part of the world, but our partners and beneficiaries in Africa have a slightly different perspective.
They farm, not just for a living, but in order to live, and this makes a difference.
Subsistence farming is not based on price calculations, it is based on the hope of rain in the next season.
This does not apply to all farming in developing countries but to the poverty-focusing which we need to deliver better than so far.
From that perspective, what I am saying here is of deep relevance.
Other issues have been mentioned: cattle-farming in Namibia, tomatoes and milk powder in the Caribbean.
We should not be too masochistic.
There is a limit to how useful that is.
All these cases are characterised by the fact that they have been taken care of.
The intervention prices have been regulated, and the problems we had with beef in Western Africa and in Namibia were actually solved by reducing the intervention support.
These are real problems, but they have all been dealt with.
As regards the issue of cacao, chocolate: I repeat that the 5% has to do with creating a basis for a living in the neighbouring countries.
What we are talking about here are the local nuts which are as important to the people collecting them and making a living out of them in Burkina Faso as coconuts for farmers in Ghana.
This is not a clear case of incoherence, it is more a case of a competition between suppliers.
What was mentioned concerning sugar in the Caribbean is more complicated.
In the Overseas Countries and Territories Framework the accumulation of some of these trade aspects represents a complicated problem, but it may be that what we are talking about here has more to do with promoting the interests of some European companies than with generating income in the Caribbean.
In any case, this is a matter which we are currently dealing with.
I am committed to try to create a balance in all these issues and I would mention the achievement of the trade development and cooperation agreement with South Africa.
In all modesty, I would claim that this is something that documents that the Commission is willing to walk or fly the extra mile in order to ensure coherence between the perspective of development cooperation and the perspective of trade interests.
We certainly have done our share to solve that problem, and I sincerely hope that we now will have a soft landing and a peaceful implementation in the forthcoming years of that agreement.
Finally, I thank you again for this debate.
We will come back again with material on these issues, because these problems, in one way or another, are here to stay, simply because development cooperation represents basically doing something in the world that is different from taking care of traditionally-defined trade interests, etc.
We have to reconcile those different approaches.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled in accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 p.m.
Next session of UN Human Rights Commission
The next item is the statement by the Council on EU priorities for the next session of the UN Human Rights Commission on 20 March 2000.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten.
We will now interrupt the debate on the joint statement concerning the next session of the UN Human Rights Commission and proceed to the vote.
Welcome
I am delighted to welcome a delegation of the Hong Kong Legislative Council to Parliament.
(Loud applause)
VOTE
.
As Mrs Wallström explained during yesterday's debate, the Commission is able to accept the following amendments: Amendments Nos 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 13.
The Commission can also accept Amendment No 4 in principle.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3, 5, 6, 12, 14, 18 and 16.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0023/2000) by Mr Böge, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 91/68/EEC as regards scrapie (COM(1998) 623 - C4-0026/1999 - 1998/0324(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Recommendation (A5-0008/2000) by Ms Cederschiöld, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on the proposal for a Council decision on the approval, on behalf of the European Community, of the WIPO Copyright Treaty and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (11221/1999 - COM(1998) 249 - C5 - 0222/1999 - 1998/0141 (AVC))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0015/2000) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 70/524/EEC concerning additives in feedingstuffs (COM(1999) 388 - C5-0134/1999 - 1999/0168(CNS))
Before the final vote:
. (DE) Mr President, following this vote, I would like to ask the competent Commissioner, Mr Byrne, if, now that he has seen how much support there is in this Chamber, he is prepared to adopt the proposed amendments?
. I regret to say that I believe that the thought-out position I advanced yesterday is the correct position.
The comprehensive approach that the Commission intends to adopt on this issue will be brought forward as soon as possible under Article 152 where Parliament will have a codecision function.
That is the appropriate way of dealing with this.
Mr President, in accordance with Article 69 (2), I call for referral back to committee. The reason is that this concerns the approximation of a legal effect measure, as proposed by the Commission.
We have accepted this but have proposed further approximations of the legal effect measures that affect this directive, in particular the adoption of a text - which has been approved by the Commission overall - for the use and labelling of genetically modified organisms.
We take the view that this should form part of this approximation at this time, but the Commission will not adopt this.
I believe that, in accordance with Article 69 (2), we must endeavour to enter into discussion with the Commission, and I would therefore urge my fellow MEPs to decide in favour of referral back to committee.
(Parliament decided to refer the report back to committee)
Report (A5-0034/2000) by Ms Stenzel, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the draft communication from the Commission to the Member States establishing the guidelines for Community Initiative Programmes (CIPs) for which the Member States are invited to submit proposals for support under the EQUAL initiative (COM(1999) 476 - C5-0260/1999 - 1999/2186(COS))
Before the vote:
Mr President, permit me to say quite publicly to Mrs Stenzel, who is a member of the ÖVP executive, that many MEPs are horrified that you have entered into a coalition with Haider, and that we wish to denounce you for doing so!
(Applause from the left. Heckling from the right)
. (DE) Mr Cohn-Bendit, I do not think that the European Parliament has any business intervening to such a huge extent in a country' s domestic politics, in the way that you are doing.
I can speak for my party, which championed Austria' s membership of the European Union in the early days.
As a political force, we serve to guarantee that Austria will continue to embrace European values.
I refuse to allow myself to be ostracised for internal and party political reasons!
This does not reflect the truth of the situation but is pure propaganda.
I utterly reject this!
(Loud, sustained applause from the centre and from the right, protests from the left)
Welcome
This is perhaps an appropriate moment to welcome to the official gallery, a delegation of four members of the Moroccan parliament, led by Mr Brahim Rachidi, Deputy Speaker of the Chamber of Representatives.
We are honoured by the visit of this delegation which is taking place shortly before the entry into force on 1 March 2000 of the Association Agreement between Morocco and the European Union.
On this historic occasion we welcome these developments in our relations and the prospects for closer ties between our two parliaments.
It is in this spirit that the delegation for relations with the Maghreb countries will be visiting Morocco on 20 to 22 March.
I hope the delegation has an excellent visit to Strasbourg.
(Loud applause)
VOTE (continuation)
. As regards the Commission's position with respect to the amendments tabled by Parliament I wish to confirm what my colleague stated during the debate in this House on Tuesday, 15 February.
In particular, the Commission can accept in full Amendments Nos 6, 16, 21, 28, 31, 33, 34, 44, 45, 46, 48, 52, 53, 65, 67, 68, 75, 76, 78, 80, 84, 85, 88 and 102.
The Commission can accept in part Amendments Nos 8, 18, 27, 29, 42, 43, 47, 54, 60, 62, 93, 94, 104 and 105.
The Commission can accept in principle Amendments Nos 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 14, 17, 20, 22, 24, 25, 26, 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 50, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 69, 73, 79, 86, 89, 96, 99, 106 and 108.
But the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 4, 9, 11, 13, 15, 19, 23, 39, 40, 41, 49, 51, 59, 61, 64, 66, 70, 71, 72, 74, 77, 83, 87, 90, 91, 92, 95, 97, 98, 81(rev.), 100, 101, 103 and 107.
Thank you for your attention.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0033/2000) by Mr Andersson, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the communication from the Commission on a concerted strategy for modernising social protection (COM(1999) 347 - C5-0253/1999 - 1999/2182(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)President.
That concludes the vote
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE- Lienemann report (A5-0014/2000)
. (FR) I welcome the quality and the ambition of this report on LIFE.
I shall briefly remind you that LIFE is a financial instrument used to support environmental policies within the European Union and also in third countries, whether they be neighbouring countries around the Mediterranean, countries around the Baltic Sea or applicant countries.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has proposed many amendments which have, for the most part, been retained in the common position adopted by the Council.
As far as the third phase of LIFE (2000-2004) is concerned, the instrument is to be divided into three sections, LIFE-Nature (47% of the resources), LIFE-Environment (47%) and LIFE-Third Countries (6%).
In my opinion, the most important amendments concern the following:
LIFE' s contribution to sustainable development within the Community and also to the development of Community policy in the field of the environment, particularly regarding the integration of the environment into other policies, as well as to the implementation and updating of legislation relating to the environment;
Improving the efficiency, transparency and methodology of procedures for the implementation of LIFE, procedures for information and the dissemination of such information to the public, and procedures for cooperation between recipients;
The objectives of LIFE: this must have as its main objective sustainable urban development, in close association with the pilot projects carried out under the URBAN initiative, on which I have had the opportunity to speak elsewhere;
The contribution that the projects supported by LIFE make to the sustainability of social and economic activities, and thus job creation.
I consider it crucial that the LIFE instrument should remain open to the participation of candidate countries from central and eastern Europe.
The other candidate countries (e.g. Cyprus, Turkey, Malta) my also take part in LIFE when agreements permitting such participation are signed with these countries.
The stumbling block in the negotiations with the Council lies, of course, in the amount of the total appropriation allocated for the third phase of the LIFE programme (2000-2004).
The Commission proposal, ratified by the Council, is for EUR 613 million, whilst the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection considers that the budget should be EUR 850 million.
I support Mrs Lienemann' s firm stance.
The financial allocation has not in fact been upgraded since the programme was created, even when the membership of the EC was increased to fifteen Member States following enlargement.
If the report is adopted in plenary session, then conciliation proceedings will have to be opened, in accordance with the codecision procedure, in order to solve the problem of the amount of appropriations earmarked for the programme.
This type of procedure is common practice since the programmes or legislative measures are too often allocated budgets which do not live up to their ambitions!
Böge report (A5-0023/2000)
. (FR) As an MEP and, more importantly, as a consumer, I welcome the European Commission' s proposal as a step in the direction of enhanced food safety within the European Union.
This proposal has two objectives: first, to amend the 1991 Council Directive on animal health conditions by removing the provisions on scrapie and, secondly, to introduce a new regulation establishing rules for preventing and combating transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) or BSE-type diseases affecting sheep and other animal species.
What is interesting abut this new legislation is that a specific legal basis is being created in order to combat scrapie.
What is even more satisfactory is that this was one of our main demands in our follow-up report on the mad cow crisis.
I also consider it essential, for the sake of coherence, that existing legislation on scrapie, which is limited to the trade in ovine and caprine animals, should be incorporated in a single and complete set of new rules on TSE affecting all animals throughout the European Union, rules designed to prevent the consumption of foodstuffs or feedingstuffs.
These rules are all the more welcome in that doubts still persist as regards scrapie.
A number of scientific hypotheses maintain that scrapie developed into BSE in cows and therefore caused the BSE epidemic.
Even if this proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation to prevent and combat certain TSE needs to be made more accurate and more effective, especially as regards detecting and fighting scrapie, it is still a notable improvement.
It is a pledge to European citizens, who have voiced their concern, as regards European food policy, on many occasions.
The European Parliament has relayed their concerns and they have been heard.
As a result of the debates on the principle of precaution, traceability, responsibility and transparency, the European Commission has presented a White Paper on food safety.
This White Paper sets out several areas of concern and proposes the creation of an independent European Food Authority as part of a European strategy to restore consumer confidence.
It is up to us, as responsible Europeans, to prove that the single market and the free movement of goods and food safety are not mutually exclusive.
Cederschiöld report (A5-0008/2000)
Mr President, I voted for this initiative to amend the copyright legislation because I believe it is one of the most important sectors within the remit of the European Parliament.
In my view, products of the mind are far more valuable than tangible products, namely, those that can be seen and touched.
The fruits of the intellect and science, which are intangible, are of inestimable importance. Therefore, the European Community should be more energetic in providing practical encouragement, not just through upholding patents but through concessions and other forms of support for scientists who are striving, through the knowledge and experience they have acquired, to give future generations something better than that which they have today.
.
(DA) We oppose, on principle, the European Community' s entering into treaties on copyright law on behalf of the Member States.
We are nonetheless aware that we are concerned here with a sharing of powers between the Member States and the Community. At the same time, we appreciate the fact that the WIPO treaties are a significant step forward in the direction of guaranteeing the rights of distributors and practising artists.
We are therefore voting in favour of the recommendation.
- (DE) The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance abstained from the vote on this matter because, in the plenary debate of the previous day, Commissioner Bolkestein did not respond to any of my questions regarding EU accession to the WIPO Treaties.
In institutional terms, there has been no clarification of what role the EP is to play in the further development of the WIPO Treaties.
In addition, there is a clear tendency, in matters of international jurisdiction, more and more often to obtain a pure EU jurisdiction.
When it is, then, still not clear to what extent the EP can participate in the decision-making processes, the question of legitimacy arises.
Moreover, the concept of 'author' is not defined in the Treaties.
In this regard, too, the Commission has not answered the question as to what definition it wishes to base its discussions on, and whether it wishes to settle foreseeable conflicts by imposing its own definition of the law on others.
One of the trickiest aspects is the public interest: will ratifying and applying WIPO lead to the privatisation of culture?
And, finally, the matter of the relationship between TRIPs and WIPO must be clarified. Regarding this, too, there has been only silence by way of a response from the Commission.
If nothing helpful is forthcoming in the course of a parliamentary debate planned for clarification and orientation, then we must at least abstain from voting.
Graefe zu Baringdorf (A5-0015/2000)
.
(PT) Food safety issues are in the spotlight following the BSE and dioxin scandals.
GMOs are still the subject of great uncertainty, both in terms of their environmental impact and of their effects on human and animal health.
The precautionary principle must therefore apply in the absence of scientific certainty.
The use of biotechnology needs to be studied in greater depth and not just "packaged" for immediate sale to boost the profits of a few multinationals in this sector.
The profit motive is very much behind the present food safety crises.
This is the context that the rapporteur finds himself working in, making a legal link between the issue of GMOs and feedingstuffs, and noting that the latter "shall be authorised only if ... safe for human health and the environment" .
Furthermore, he considers that "genetically modified additives shall be clearly identified as such on any label or any document, official or otherwise, which is affixed to or accompanies the additive" .
This will facilitate greater control and traceability of such additives and guarantee the consumer' s freedom of choice.
In view of the Montreal Protocol on Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), I welcome the fact that the rapporteur has included these issues in his report, and I have therefore voted in favour of it.
Stenzel report (A5-0034/2000)
Mr President, I would very briefly like to give an explanation of vote, on behalf of the PPE Group on the EQUAL report. We have followed a nominal list which was identical to that which we had agreed upon beforehand with the Socialist Group.
The Socialist Group has now changed its mind and this is why the report is not as clear as it would have been.
This is why we are abstaining.
We want to ensure that the EQUAL report, which is very important for refugees, the elderly, the handicapped and women, simply goes ahead. It is regrettable that, due to the procedure, the report has received such unfavourable attention in this plenary session.
I am convinced that the rapporteur' s nationality has played a certain role, which should not be of relevance in this Parliament. This is actually in conflict with European values and certainly with the parliamentary values which are referred to so often in this Parliament.
These were our reasons for abstaining from the vote on this report.
We want EQUAL to go ahead.
We assent to the main thrust of it, but we deplore the procedure and especially the fact that some groups have exploited this procedure to their advantage.
Mr President, as the representative of the Pensioners' Party in the European Parliament, I abstained in the vote on the EQUAL initiative because, although it provides more support than in the past for projects aimed at combating age discrimination, its proposals are not sufficiently trenchant or specific.
I also abstained for another reason. I think the time has come for the European institutions to stop experimenting and trying to establish best practices for doing what we should do and begin to give European citizens some firm indication regarding what Europe wants Europe to be.
The time has come for concrete measures and for putting theory into practice.
.
(DA) We have voted in favour of the report on the communication from the Commission concerning the guidelines for EU initiative programmes (CIP).
Basically, we are opposed to programmes and structural funds of this type but, since the vote is only concerned with how - and not to what extent - these resources are to be used, we have simply adopted a position on the issue.
We think it is important to guarantee equal opportunities for the groups discussed in the report.
.
(FR) We did not vote against this report insofar as it contains a number of correct general principles such as the need to combat racism in the workplace and reduce inequalities between the sexes on the job market.
Nor did we vote for it because it is all too vague, all too pie in the sky.
And yet, in the chapter on aid and training for refugees, the report marks a step backwards from the initial text by stipulating that they no longer apply to refugees as such but to "refugees within the meaning of the Geneva Convention" .
This restriction is inadmissible at a time when countless refugees throughout Europe are in a drastic situation, with no protection, forced to work on the black market, and to hide, while so-called democratic governments and state police forces hunt them down.
The first thing we need to do in this area is to give these stateless people the legal means to live a decent life and be able to work without being relegated to the status of pariahs, the victims of unscrupulous employers and multiple forms of administrative and police harassment, the main form of which is having to live in permanent fear of expulsion.
. I voted in favour of Mrs Stenzel' s report on the EQUAL initiative as I believe that it is essential to continue the work begun under the previous NOW, HORIZON, YOUTHSTART and INTEGRA strands of the ADAPT and EMPLOYMENT initiatives.
The lessons we have learned under these actions must be built on.
EQUAL stands for "equality" .
It must be seen to deliver.
I welcome the proposed concentration on promoting new ways of combating discrimination and any form of inequality in the labour market.
I also favour the desire to move away from an out-dated format and to bring partners together in search of innovative ways to tackle unemployment.
There must be flexibility.
I deeply regret that only limited funds are available for this initiative.
In the last programming period 9% of Structural Funds were available for Community initiatives.
The figure is now 5.35%.
This means that funds must be used to achieve maximum effect and information on successful partnerships must be widely and rapidly disseminated.
The Employment and Social Affairs Committee adopted several of the amendments I put forward, concerning for example, the emphasis on access to start-up capital, how to exploit new business opportunities in cities, towns and rural areas and the criticism that under the previous initiatives there was inadequate participation by business.
This often meant that good projects did not lead to real job opportunities.
The positive experience of innovative actions of small promoters was jeopardised by their distance from the policy process.
I also stressed the need for prevention.
The involvement of the social partners also needs to be highlighted.
There must be flexibility and the administrative burden must be reduced as a priority.
There must be flexibility also for countries with small budgets.
While there are some aspects of the report which I believe would be better dealt with in a different way, overall I believe the report offers a flexible and sensible approach and should be supported.
.
(PT) The Commission intends to use the Community initiative EQUAL to replace the Community EMPLOYMENT and ADAPT initiatives and various subprogrammes in these areas, such as NOW, on new opportunities for women, HORIZON, for disabled persons, YOUTHSTART, for promoting the labour market integration of young people, and INTEGRA, for groups threatened with exclusion. Unfortunately, this involves a significant reduction in appropriations.
Accordingly, the Commission will use this initiative to develop what it considers to be new ways of fighting discrimination and inequality of all kinds in the labour market, based on the four pillars of the employment policy guidelines.
This is a great deal to build on such fragile foundations.
However, in order to give this new approach some chance of success, the Commission should have opted for a less complicated proposal, a more simple and direct one, involving the NGOs from the outset, so that partnerships could develop in a balanced way.
The Commission did not do that.
We hope that it will at least revisit the aspects that we have mentioned.
. (FR) We welcome the fact that the European Parliament is continuing its initiatives to fight discrimination and inequality, and the four areas included in the EQUAL programme - employability, entrepreneurship, adaptability and equal opportunities for men and women - would appear to be genuinely relevant.
However, this report, although probably inspired by the best intentions, occasionally takes a direction which I feel is highly dangerous in that it tends to erase notions of citizenship and legality and turns a multiplicity of exceptions into the common law on which the Community approach is based.
Even if one cannot but applaud the decision to adopt specific measures to eradicate all forms of discrimination on the labour market, which might affect asylum seekers whom life has already, by definition, treated badly, we still need to keep a legal conception of this notion: to put it plainly, where there is every reason to help asylum seekers who follow the correct procedure and are duly recognised as such, the same does not apply to the numerous categories listed in the report, namely applicants, those under temporary protection and those denied refugee status and threatened with repatriation, for whom the report makes provision for identical assistance.
There is a risk that the so-called aid measures provided for in the report will spread insidiously and with disastrous results: asylum seekers, of course, plus asylum seekers under temporary protection while their applications are being processed and asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected and who are threatened with expulsion should all, according to the report, be able to benefit from this set of measures, whereas their very status - after all, what is an asylum seeker who has been refused refugee status and who is threatened with expulsion if not an illegal immigrant - should, at least for the last category, exclude them from a policy to integrate them into a Community which does not acknowledge their presence in its midst as legal or legitimate.
Whether we like it or not, a signal of this sort would be a fearful invitation to immigrants who, merely by applying for refugee status, irrespective of whether or not it is granted, would be able to qualify for a range of aid measures designed to help them integrate permanently into the labour market, in a general climate of shortage, in which the legal population, both foreign and indigenous, is cruelly aware of the problem of unemployment.
Consequently, despite its general approach, which cannot but be endorsed, I am unable to support a report which contains in it the seed of a new attack on the concepts of citizenship and republican legitimacy which I hold so dear.
Lieneman report (A5-0027/2000)
Mr President, some of us in Parliament will remember the successful film, "Cocoon", in which some elderly people drank a special kind of water that made them young again.
In my view, it is, therefore, immensely important to exercise extreme vigilance over the water we all drink and, consequently, to study and approve the provisions referred to here.
For that reason, I approved these measures, but I should also like to express the hope that there will be particularly rigorous monitoring of water purity at the point where it enters our houses, to ensure that it is of the highest level.
In the measures that have been adopted, I note that support for people who purify their water in their own homes has been omitted. I trust that this will be remedied in the future.
Apart from Amendment No 76, which was an error, since I intended to vote in favour, the rest of my votes can be explained by means of the following fictional situation:
Supposed draft environmental directive: "European Parliament and Council Directive establishing the obligation to maintain, during winter, a temperature of no less than eighteen degrees centigrade in the streets, squares and parks of the cities of Europe ".
Guidelines of the Directive: a) each city shall provide the means, in terms of energy and technology, sufficient for this objective to be achieved by 2012; b) the full costs shall be passed on to the inhabitants of each city by means of electricity prices.
Opinion of an MEP from the north of Europe: "This Directive would be unfair since, for example, the cost for an inhabitant of Stockholm would be two hundred times greater than the cost for an inhabitant of Naples ".
Opinion of an MEP from the south of Europe: "Nevertheless, this is a question of competitivity and equality of conditions".
(End of fiction).
In explaining my vote, I must say that it is positive that there is a Community directive on water, but I believe that environmental dogma will not lead to the construction of Europe, but will lead to legislative caricature.
We cannot give equal treatment to countries which suffer from floods and droughts, such as the Mediterranean countries, and countries with northern levels of rainfall.
Furthermore, it would show a lack of solidarity to make transfers of water, between different river basins, practically impossible in the future.
Once more we must remember that we are undergoing a continental project for political union.
. (FR) Drinking, eating, washing, farming - water irrigates each act of our daily life and we treat it, wrongly, as an unfailing and inexhaustible resource.
A simple gesture such as turning on a tap seems to bring water straight from the source.
But the source is threatening to run dry.
Scientific studies are now no more than a formality: water will be the main resource at stake in years to come, starting tomorrow.
But tomorrow will be too late.
We have to lay down the rules of play today, before we all lose.
In adopting the water directive on Wednesday 15 February, the European Parliament confirmed its wish to protect surface water, coastal wasters, inland waters and groundwater.
Europe now has a framework which will allow it to prevent any deterioration in the quality of water, promote its sustainable use, protect eco-systems, help fight floods and droughts and eliminate the disposal of dangerous substances.
We have thrown water a life-belt.
. (FR) It is with the greatest satisfaction that I welcome this ambitious proposal for a framework directive on water policy.
The ecological disaster on the banks of the Danube is a reminder, as if we needed one, that all too often human negligence jeopardises natural resources such as water.
The objective of this proposal for a directive, which dates back to 1997, is to put an end to the fragmentation of previous water legislation and protect surface water, coastal waters, inland waters and groundwater.
It provides a framework within which we can prevent any further deterioration, protect ecosystems, promote sustainable water use, help to fight floods and drought and gradually eliminate the disposal of dangerous substances.
Specific directives will then be adopted within this framework.
The procedure involved in drafting this text was lengthy.
The proposal for a directive was amended twice, first in 1997 and then in 1998.
A technical working party made up of Council and Parliament representatives met in January 1999 to try and reconcile the positions of the two institutions.
However, the Committee on the Environment has tabled numerous amendments, most of which I support.
As far as the timetable and objectives are concerned, the Council' s objective is to achieve good quality surface water within 16 years of the entry into force of the directive, while the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy wants this reduced to 10 years.
The committee is also calling for an end to discharges or leaks of dangerous substances by 2020, the final objective being to achieve zero input by 2020.
The Council hopes to achieve good quality groundwater within 16 years, but the Commission wants no further deterioration in the chemical status of groundwater so that good quality groundwater can be achieved in 10 years.
All the standards and all the objectives relating to protected zones should be achieved within 10 years, not 16.
I must say that I support these reduced deadlines, especially as provision is made for derogations.
As far as costs are concerned, I approve the proposal whereby Member States will have to ensure by 2010 that water pricing policies provide incentives for more sensible use of water resources.
I likewise expect the European Commission to make a clear declaration undertaking to submit a proposal to ensure that water pricing policies reflect the environmental costs and the costs in terms of resources by 2012.
I will close by quoting one of the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, which needs no further comment: "Water is not a commercial product like any other but, rather, a heritage which belongs to the peoples of the European Union and which must be protected, defended and treated as such" .
. I wish to put on the official record my concerns with the Lienemann report and also the reasons for my vote.
We have all agreed on the need to put in place proper controls for the protection of our water supplies and also for the users of water.
There is much to be praised in the approach to the problem suggested by the rapporteur.
However, the question of taxation or charges for the use of water is a matter which, under the rules of subsidiarity, should be left to the Member States for decision.
In my belief it is incorrect to use such a crude tool as a common European charge for this issue.
In Ireland all the major users of water, commercial, industrial and agricultural, already pay for their use of water.
This is a decision of national and local government, and this is where all future decisions should be retained.
These are the main reasons for my vote.
. The European Union is currently in the process of adopting new EU water legislation to update and to establish a long-term strategy to ensure the supply of clean drinking water and the protection of existing water resources including rivers and coastal waters.
I support the objectives of this community action in the field of water policy.
However, I do not support the proposal that domestic water users be charged for water used.
Water, in this context, is a commercial commodity.
It is an essential to life itself and people must have free access to sufficient supplies for normal daily life.
We see it as positive that an attempt is being made to reverse the trend towards water degradation, which is most alarming and which governments all too often tend to sweep under the carpet.
We all know that water is a commodity without which mankind cannot live and that it is imperative that its quality should be preserved.
But it is also essential to bear in mind that the various elements of water policy cannot be separated, and that action on this aspect will affect all the others.
The "physico-chemical and ecological quality of water" was highlighted during the debate and in the proposals, and the adverse effects of other aspects was, at best, touched upon marginally.
It is essential to be aware of the widely varying situations in different Member States, such as specific climatic conditions, water regimes and fluctuations in them over the year, the social, economic and ecological effects of applying standards, and also of the failure to do so.
It was because of our concern about these issues that we disagreed with some of the proposals put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, and in particular those relating to an excessively restrictive timetable and to the scant attention paid to social and agricultural aspects, which are very important for a country like Portugal, which suffers from water shortage problems and also inadequate socio-economic development.
But we also believe that, in many cases, the proposals put forward by the Commission and the Council represent too much of a step backwards, which is why we would like to see a vote balanced between the various requirements in the proposals presented to us.
. (FR) We are disappointed by the Council' s common position on this proposal for a framework directive.
It is minimalist on a number of points, especially with regard to the dates of entry into force of far too many provisions and the number of, and conditions for, implementing the derogations.
However, the main problem is with the definition of the objective which the European Union wishes to pursue with this text.
The objective is of course to create, first and foremost, a clear general framework which will allow the law in this area to be simplified.
However the Union should be seeking, beyond that, to improve the quality of both surface and groundwater.
Public health and the supply of drinking water are at stake, as are biological quality and diversity and the conservation of rural areas and species.
From this point of view, the common position is weak.
I should like to see our Parliament defend a more ambitious position than the Council' s position, but I should also like that position to be equally credible.
The "zero input" and "zero pollution" requirement, including for substances naturally present in water, is not realistic.
I am not one of those MEPs who thinks that it is essential to adopt "extremist" amendments at second reading with the sole aim of gaining room for manoeuvre in preparation for negotiations with the Council of Ministers.
On the contrary, I object to this systematically applied strategy.
It damages Parliament.
Our messages to our citizens and to the Council are muddled and lack credibility.
Overly strict, unrealistic environmental objectives will not be applied because they are unattainable.
Is that the message we want to send out?
There is one other specific point which is dear to me: Member States should be able, if they so wish, to set up trans-national water transfers.
This type of project complies with the principle of regional cohesion and solidarity, which we have always defended, and, as such, should enjoy the widespread support of the European Union in the context of the promotion of trans-European networks and regional policy (through the Structural Funds).
I would like to remind the House that we adopted an own initiative report on the technical feasibility of trans-European water networks two years ago and I would be most obliged if the European Commission could shortly tell Parliament what action it has taken on that report.
. (ES) We have seen a report concerned with water quality in Europe transformed into an instrument of commercial war.
We all agree that ensuring water quality is a hugely important objective, above all, given the adverse effects of developing a model of accelerated industrial growth on the natural environment.
It is clear that this model' s logic of private profit has been harmful, and therefore the 'polluter pays' principle is a suitable way of dealing with these consequences.
However, apart from these principles, there is the consideration that water, as a common resource, cannot be subjected to the rules of the market.
Surprisingly, I imagine with the best of intentions, this ecological objective has become an instrument of commercial war by making consumers, and especially the agricultural sector, responsible for the price of installations and the procedures for ensuring water quality.
In fact, water becomes simply one more product subject to the laws of the market.
This means that the neoliberal model now reigns in the field of water.
By failing to distinguish countries and regions where water is abundant, and is therefore not a problem, from regions where drought and low rainfall make it a scarce commodity, stifling the chances of any economic and social development, we are perverting the ecological principle and turning it into a weapon.
In the same way it is somewhat ironic that we are hindering the possibility of sharing this commodity, which is scarce in some areas, while regions where there is abundant water are giving advice on austerity with regard to its use, to those who live in drought areas.
As a result of this lack of sensitivity and solidarity, my vote has been consistent with what I have said, as an MEP from one of the dry Mediterranean agricultural regions - although one with prospects - namely, the Region of Murcia.
. On behalf of the European Parliament Labour Party, I wish to indicate that while we have supported the major part of the Lienemann report, we have certain reservations.
The timetable set in the report of 2020 is unrealistic and impracticable, but the timetable set by the Council of 2034 is too far in the distance.
We believe therefore that conciliation will set a more realistic date.
We have voted against Amendments Nos 25 and 72 which would require the achievement of minimal anthroprogenic pollution in all groundwater.
We believe this requirement is unrealistic in view of the very high cost and extremely long timescales involved in restoration to a near pristine standard.
The foregoing is the reason for our vote.
.
(FR) Water is a renewable but limited natural resource and needs to be properly managed.
The framework directive on water policy will become the cornerstone of Community policy in this area.
It has clear, ambitious objectives.
We share them.
It sets environmental parameters close to zero.
But we feel that it would be wiser not to set unrealistic deadlines which neither our governments nor our industries will be able to meet.
We need a timetable, by all means, but a more gradual timetable.
The legal obligation to achieve a zero input situation, i.e. to stop discharges within 20 years, would in fact mean a ban on all identified substances.
Such provisions may well cause serious problems in cross-border areas and in candidate countries, thereby complicating enlargement.
I should like, naturally, to refer to a specific sector to which I am very closely attached, i.e. agriculture, the main water-consuming sector. Agriculture must accept its share of 'polluter pays' charges, and has in fact already started to do so, but account must also be taken of its special characteristics and constraints, especially in arid regions.
As regards the amendments concerning radioactive substances, I am of course in favour of controls, but the question arises of the legal basis, which comes under the Euratom Treaty.
Andersson report (A5-0033/2000)
The Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities has not been able to vote in favour of the Andersson report.
This does, of course, contain a number of good observations. For example, it is acknowledged on page 15 of the explanatory statement that "the different levels of development and traditions in the field of social security in the Member States make it impossible to bring about uniform harmonisation of the Member States' social security systems" .
Now, the concept of "uniform harmonisation" is one of those muddled expressions which totally obfuscates the integration process in question.
It is also true, as it states in the explanatory statement, that harmonisation could be damaging as "it might place greater demands on weaker Member States at the same time as competitive considerations might exert pressure on more socially developed countries to cut back on social security.
No-one would benefit from this type of harmonisation" .
The situation, however, is that a social model is being established whose real purpose is harmonisation, and uniform harmonisation into the bargain.
Paragraph D points out that "the Union may provide added value by adoption of proper binding and effective convergence criteria" , and the report goes on to emphasise that the development of this convergence process is to be promoted by means of joint talks between the Ecofin Council and the Social Affairs and Employment Councils. Finally, paragraph 7 emphasises that "the social convergence process must be accompanied by an effective and ambitious fiscal coordination" .
And, in this regard, we approach the heart of the matter.
This project, with its social harmonisation, does not constitute social policy.
Instead, it is an extension to the EU' s EMU project, which is of quite special interest to the three countries which remain outside EMU and can rescue themselves from the sinking ship, namely Great Britain, Sweden and Denmark. It is therefore important for us to emphasise that we cannot support a proposal whose essential rationale is to extend the EMU project.
) Mr President, I voted for the Council's strategy for modernising social protection because, in my view, it constitutes a step towards the establishment of European social and pensions legislation, although it does not actually go the whole way.
I was sorry to hear what was said in the previous explanation of vote, since I believe that, in essence, the report aims to provide much better protection for the elderly, despite the fact that, as we all know, the governments of the 15 Member States would like to reduce pensions to the minimum.
I hope that Parliament will soon have the authority to legislate on pensions.
The elderly are waiting for the European Parliament to make it possible for them to live more comfortably and with greater dignity than they do now.
The countries who have made less progress in this field should attain the same level as the countries within the European Union that guarantee better social protection.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted today in favour of the report by our Swedish Social Democratic colleague, Jan Andersson, on the Commission' s communication concerning a coordinated strategy for modernising social security.
The starting point for the Commission' s communication is the implementation of EMU which, with its demand for stability and growth, creates the basis for the Member States' being able to maintain their social security arrangements.
The report states that modernisation does not mean a reduction in the level of social protection but, rather, better use of available resources.
We also notice that, according to the explanatory statement, modernisation does not mean harmonisation of social security arrangements, either, and that harmonisation might be downright damaging as it might place greater demands on weaker Member States at the same time that competitive considerations might exert pressure on others to cut back.
No-one would benefit from this situation.
Both in the communication from the Commission and in the report by Mr Andersson, it is emphasised that it is the Member States which have responsibility for and, therefore, also determine the content of, social security arrangements.
Cooperation on these matters within the framework of the EU should create added value, based on the exchange of experiences and the reciprocal evaluation of the way in which policies are developing, the aim being to define best practice.
.
(SV) We consider that the report contains many practical proposals, which we support, but we are very critical of the convergence approach which permeates the report.
In particular, we oppose the sections which deal with fiscal harmonisation and with the Commission' s becoming involved in telling the Member States what to do (see, for example, paragraph 7).
We wish to emphasise that the sphere of social and social security policy should chiefly be the domain of the Member States, even if the enlargement of the EU requires a greater degree of coordination than there has been in the past.
. (FR) The current difficulties faced by our social security systems derive mainly from a shortage of income as the result of unemployment, poverty and an ageing population rather than from excessive spending.
The policies of the European Union also have much to answer for in this situation.
Of course we need to modernise these systems.
In France, in particular, we need to stop making labour alone fund medical insurance and pensions.
We also need to reform archaic management methods which create injustices, chaos and waste.
More importantly, we need a family policy to promote demographic growth and an economic, monetary and fiscal policy to promote growth and reconquer the internal market so that we can create jobs.
The Commission and the Andersson report are not proposing a social policy; they are giving Brussels exorbitant decision-making powers as regards funding, i.e. as regards the organisation and the provision of social protection services in the countries of Europe, which is why we voted against this text.
Social protection should be an expression, first and foremost, of national solidarity and it comes first and foremost, exclusively in fact, under the jurisdiction of the nation state.
Social protection should be based on the principle of national and Community preferences.
Otherwise it is merely the financial processing, at the expense and to the detriment of European citizens, of the intolerable social situations which result from immigration.
. (SV) We have abstained from voting for Jan Andersson' s report on a coordinated strategy for modernising social security.
We are basically well disposed towards the European Union.
As Swedish Liberals, we see European integration as an opportunity to find solutions to cross-border problems such as the environment, trade, movement across borders, human rights and conflict management.
In these areas, Europe' s democracies have a chance to show the world that cooperation leads to peace and increased prosperity.
We also believe in the principle of subsidiarity whereby decisions are to be taken as close as possible to those they affect.
That is why we are actively pursuing the issue of a constitution for the European Union where the distribution of responsibilities is clear for all to see.
It must be perfectly clear to all citizens that the EU will only become involved in those issues it is best qualified to deal with, which is to say cross-border issues.
All other questions ought to be dealt with at local, regional or national levels.
Social policy is an example of an area in which the EU ought only to have limited powers, except where it is a question of freedom of movement for people within the Union.
Each Member State ought to have full responsibility for, and the right autonomously to decide upon, its social security systems.
Health care, child care and care of the elderly are clear examples of areas which are not obviously transnational.
The same applies to labour market policy.
We do not believe that common European legislation in these areas is a solution to the problems involved in designing systems of social security.
For us, it is important that the EU should instead concentrate on just a few areas in which it can really be of use.
That does not, however, prevent the Member States from cooperating and exchanging ideas in the social sphere.
Equality and social security are issues which are traditionally high on our Liberal agenda.
We wholeheartedly support, at national level, many of the ideas presented in Mr Andersson' s report.
.
(IT) The report gives a clear impression that the concerted strategy for modernising social protection in Europe will be accompanied by an analogous process of cohesion. We therefore view it with interest and hope and commend its intentions.
Numerous policies have already gone in this direction, albeit laboriously, and many more still need to do so before Europe, in terms of subsidiarity, is seen as one house, not only by its own people, but also by those in the candidate countries.
Moreover, the European welfare systems have always played a constructive role in the social and democratic development of each nation. Consequently, if such systems are to continue to sustain development in the future, in light of the economic and employment changes taking place, as well as the requirements of society, modernisation is absolutely essential.
There are three main aspects that need to be highlighted. The first is that economic policy, employment and social protection should be strictly interdependent in a way that is directly proportional.
The second concerns the management of welfare systems and those who operate them.
Nowadays, it is becoming more commonplace, as well as efficient, to operate complementary and integrated protection schemes.
But, in our view, that does not mean that the role of the public authority should be reduced, either as regards the universality or, we hope, the quality of the basic social protection provided.
It is, to a large extent, a principle of justice that imbues both health and pension schemes as well as social assistance, where, in particular, strategic coordination by the public authority is essential, even though it has been modernised.
The third aspect concerns the principle of subsidiarity that underpins the European Union.
Today, a common strategy for social protection is sadly lacking, and the current systems are, in the main, run according to the actions and unity of purpose of individual Member States.
Therefore, any modernisation process has to take account of economic, employment and social protection differences between the various countries, whether Member States or candidate countries.
What is required is that those responsible for the modernisation process, which continues to be closely linked to the promotion of social cohesion despite the underlying differences, should have the will and the know-how to ensure that changes are for the better and not for the worse.
It is, after all, a matter of civilisation, progress and common dignity for the present European Union and a future enlarged community.
.
(SV) The basic values common to the Member States of the European Union are based upon democracy, human freedoms and rights, and a social market economy.
These values must be given expression in the form of solidarity with the weaker groups in our society and in the world around us.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, it is the Member States themselves which devise their own social security systems.
Inhabitants of countries in the European Union ought, nonetheless, to be able to benefit from a minimum network of social protection, irrespective of which country they live in.
The report seeks "effective and ambitious fiscal coordination" , without going on to define more specifically what this means.
As we see it, such a position constitutes unduly large interference in national fiscal policy and cannot, therefore, be supported.
We are therefore voting against paragraph 7 of the report.
The report emphasises the social dimension of European cooperation, which is something to be welcomed.
It is nonetheless important to clarify what role the EU is to play, and not to play, with regard to social security.
Clarification of this kind is missing from the report, which is unfortunate.
.
(EL) On reading the Commission' s statement on social protection, which is animated by so many good intentions, one wonders whether its authors and the working people in Europe are living on the same continent and in the same social reality.
One also wonders whether this 'coordinated modernisation strategy' is not just another misrepresentation of the coordinated and headlong attack on social protection and security and on the acquired rights of working people.
We agree with many of the rapporteur' s remarks but do not at all share his optimism about the Commission' s and the Council' s intentions and plans concerning social protection.
The general lines of the implemented economic policy, the Stability Pact and the strict convergence programmes, which are a constant menace to employment and which promote employability and the flexibilisation of labour relations, and the organisation of labour, along with Commission and the ESF decisions relating to salary and wage restraint, and the insistence upon austere budgetary discipline and upon achieving much-vaunted monetary stability at all costs, leave no doubt about the new strategy' s objectives and aspirations.
Its sole purpose is to pave the way and create the right conditions for cutting public expenditure on social security, and for flexibilising social protection itself.
When social security has repeatedly, and in the words of many influential people, been characterised as a 'cost' and an 'obstacle' to greater competitiveness and when ways are being sought to transfer that cost from companies to working people - always, of course, on the pretext that this will create jobs - it would surprise us if the existing model of market economy without accountability, with its dismal monetary-economic approach to everything and total dependence on monopolistic interests, were to take under its protection the fundamental right of the citizens to social protection and care.
Clearly, what is being attempted is to move away from organised systems of social security under state control, towards systems based on private insurance agencies, which will generate new profits for capital and place even greater burdens on working people, who besides the higher cost, will 'enjoy' even more degraded social provisions.
The fostering of illicit competition between public and private social security systems and between the systems of the Member States is not only unjustifiable, but, on the contrary, makes manifest the political expediencies and intolerable pressures imposed upon social security systems to weaken or even do away with them, to the benefit of the private sector and the law of profit.
It is well known that the level and quality of employment determines the quality of social security systems.
So how is it possible to speak about healthy and economically sustainable social security systems when we are faced with the millions of unemployed, impoverished and marginalised people, the 'working poor' of part-time employment, and working conditions that are dissociated from the policies implemented?
Social security and protection are among the greatest acquisitions of working people in Europe, and were achieved after many years of battling against the aspirations of big business, and by the constant expression of the solidarity that characterises working people.
Today, in the Europe of unemployment and underemployment, it is urgently necessary to establish broader social protection and to extend the rights of working people, but this demands a different system of economic and social development, which the EU cannot possibly create, because of its nature and character.
On the basis of these views, we wish to express our categorical opposition to the 'modernisation' of the social protection system that the Commission statement is promoting, and to make it clear that we cannot vote in favour of the report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs which is under discussion.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.55 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Next session of UN Human Rights Commission (continuation)
The next item is the debate on the Council declaration on the establishing of the EU priorities for the next session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (20 March 2000), including the situation in China.
Mr President, I regret the absence of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council.
This is a Council declaration, and I believe that it would perhaps have been useful for them to have been present for the rest of the debate.
I think it is worth reminding you that the inclusion of this item on the agenda clearly reflects the need, which has been expressed by all the political Groups, for Parliament to hold a debate before the next meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, so that it may express its opinion on such a sensitive issue, one which is so dear to this House.
Following the statement of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council and the Commission, I believe we can all agree that the current situation with regard to human rights is far removed from what we would all like to see.
At a European Union level we must recognise that the situation is not completely satisfactory, since, for example, although the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is a common instrument in all Member States, not all subsequent protocols have been ratified or signed by all of them.
Another clear drawback in this area is the fact that the European Union itself is not a signatory to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, with all the additional disadvantages that this situation entails.
I hope that these problems can be tackled and dealt with in the context of the current discussion of the European Union Charter on Fundamental Rights.
With regard to foreign affairs, I believe that the majority of points which we have included in the resolution accurately illustrate the real situation and hardly invite optimism, Mr President. Issues such as the abolition of the death penalty, the torture which still goes on in many supposedly democratic countries or the situation of minorities in many parts of the world, demand a clear, visible and effective response from the European Union.
In my opinion, this resolution contains a series of essential points, but I would like to stress one in particular, that is, the need for greater coordination between the European Union and the United Nations.
Mr President, in a world such as this, which is increasingly dominated by the phenomenon of globalisation, and not only in the economic field, our responses, in order to be effective, must be concerted and coordinated.
In order to make our actions effective, we must implement a type of coordination in practice which does not exist at present.
This Parliament therefore advocates the principle that we need to participate in the Commission on Human Rights and other international fora which deal with these issues and, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, this Parliament would like to be able to participate in this type of meeting as soon as possible.
Soon, in May, the European Commission intends to present a communication on the development of the role of human rights and democratisation in the Union' s external relations.
I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission to take good note of this need for coordination, which I have just mentioned, and to seek new formulas which will strengthen the role played by the European Union in the field of human rights and, in particular, by this Parliament, especially from the point of view of coherence, recognising the good will of those third countries which accept the inclusion of the democratic clause.
I believe that this should be applied to all areas, in particular also the budgetary area.
Lastly, I must recognise the important contributions made by civil society in this area, as well as the often underestimated role of the numerous non-governmental organisations who act on the ground.
The Union must make every effort to provide all the necessary support for them to carry out their important work.
Mr President, Commissioners, when this House is called upon to debate human rights it is taking a chance, if you will, that is reinforced by the conditions that prevail when we are called upon to discuss such a crucial issue.
The absence of the Council, as well as of the majority of MEPs, shows just how great the divide is between our noble, elevated and worthy formal statements and the concrete reality in terms of our day-to-day policies when it comes to human rights.
I believe that, as a beginning, Parliament is called upon to use the opportunity provided by the Geneva session to narrow that divide. It should adopt an approach that is not just a statement of principle but is an acknowledgement of the true situation and possibly even a pledge of support.
We must get away from the situation where we are only aware of human rights when they hit the headlines or abuses are being punished.
The role of Parliament is to meet the issue of human rights head on, particularly at the level of prevention.
In that sense, we need to be able to export a culture based on legality and respect for the law.
It seems to me that we have finally reached the end of a long period during which a whole raft of treaties appeared and were duly signed.
Nowadays, there are many, perhaps too many, treaties on human rights. If those treaties remain mere expressions, they are no more than useless depositories of people's thoughts.
The time has come to move on to a new and crucial phase, namely a phase in which the provisions of the treaties are applied on a daily and binding basis, although we ought not forget that some basic treaties are still to be transposed. I refer to the Rome Conference and the fact that 14 of the 15 Member States of the Union have still not ratified the treaty establishing an International Criminal Court.
In my view, we should be evaluating and modifying some of the political instruments we use to measure the status of human rights globally.
We have often employed instruments which, at the formal level, make us feel comfortable, but which, in terms of practical results, are totally ineffectual. By that I mean the use, and often abuse, of embargoes during recent years, and the over-cautious application of the clause allowing suspension of the agreements between the European Union and third countries, where there have been human rights violations.
In particular, we should be updating the areas where human rights need to be safeguarded.
Globalisation could easily come to be regarded as a harmful process.
Many countries are currently questioning the principle of the universality of human rights. The belief is widespread that many human rights, including the right to life, contradicted as it is by the death penalty, depend on certain variables, while globalisation, which often has a negative connotation, is in danger of becoming the catch-all for rights, actions and policies everywhere in the world.
We should therefore do what is necessary to update the areas in which we can intervene, with renewed strength, to safeguard human rights. In that context I would mention the following: social rights, workers' rights, quality of work, the need to ensure respect, where necessary, for all the criteria laid down by the International Labour Organisation, the right to tolerance and to respect - a right to which all minorities are entitled, particularly within the European Union.
I would also mention the right to develop. It is the right of all peoples who, in turn, are the sum of countless individuals each one of whom has the right to develop and to a future that, most importantly, is full of hope and personal growth, within each individual society.
All those aspects should be part of a rationale, a discourse and a contribution which the European Union should bring to human rights.
I hope that Parliament's participation in the Geneva session turns out to be more than just a token presence and that its representatives do more than just listen to and give evidence. First and foremost they should use the occasion to affirm that we regard the aspects I have just mentioned as central to the identity of the European Union and of the European nation, and that we also uphold the principle of the universality of human rights that transcends time and place.
That is what we hope for and is the cordial message that we are sending our governments, even if it goes against their interests.
Mr President, one of the saving features of this Parliament is that here we practise a consistent and active human rights policy: the flag flies high, as Mrs Malmström put it.
At the same time, however, we shut our eyes to the Union' s own problems: to the violence, inequality, and fourth world reality, which is part of everyday life in the EU.
It is absolutely right that we pay serious attention to the violations of human rights that are to be the subject of talks in Geneva.
The rhetoric that we use, however, often smacks of smugness, verging on the sort of narcissism we associate with human rights attitudes in North America.
It is nothing less than hypocritical to condemn the flagrant violation of human rights that occurs in non-EU countries if we are not prepared to extend a helping hand to those genuine refugees and asylum-seekers, whose position is now becoming more difficult in the EU.
Let us, in particular, focus attention on the re-admission clauses, which present a threat to the Geneva Convention and which should be blocked.
Unless we can maintain high standards of human rights with respect to refugees and asylum-seekers, we are not worthy of those European values which make up the European identity, as Vaclav Havel said here today, and among which he particularly mentioned respect for human rights and solidarity.
I worked for many years on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and it was really moving to see how a nation in such difficult circumstances was reaching out for a more open, European-style, pluralistic democratic society.
I fear that we are now moving in the opposite direction, towards European exclusiveness and apartheid.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in my view, the question which needs to be raised in Geneva this year is certainly not the death penalty.
We have already had three resolutions on the death penalty approved in Geneva.
We failed at the General Assembly last year on a fallacious pretext, I refer to article 2.7, which we are otherwise happy to adopt for all other texts.
The question of the death penalty should therefore be raised at this year' s General Assembly, certainly not at the Geneva session.
As Mr Patten said, and I would like to thank him for the positions which he defended, the crucial point is China.
Unfortunately, the positions taken by the Commission and the Council, or at least the presidency, are more than just a hair' s breadth apart; this is serious, especially in the light of the Council' s macho position on Austria.
In my view, as far as China is concerned, and knowing that the European Union' s policy towards China has been a total failure, allegedly constructive dialogue has got us nowhere or, worse, it has given the Chinese new pretexts for increasing repression and for strengthening religious repression and the repression of freedoms (as Mrs Wallström has said with regard to the Internet) in all sectors, in Tibet, in inland Mongolia, in eastern Turkistan.
There is regression in every sector of Chinese civil society.
It is a fact: China is the major threat, the major threat to us, the threat which we must confront, the threat to peace.
It is the antithesis of democracy and you know as well as I that the Chinese, the Chinese leadership, is Communist first and Chinese second.
China likes doublespeak.
Until we have a firm position, we will achieve nothing with the Chinese authorities.
I think we need to seize the opportunity.
We need to associate ourselves with the American initiative.
We need to table a strong text and that text needs to be adopted.
We need to work.
The Fifteen need to start work right now, with all the members of the United Nations; we need, at long last, to issue a firm condemnation and then use that as a basis to gain a negotiating position.
Mr President, I would like to try to put a different perspective to this.
As you know, on Monday an unmanned spacecraft went into orbit around a peanut-shaped asteroid called Eros which is not very far from earth.
Photographs show us that there is no life on the asteroid, but much further out in our galaxy, the Milky Way, there are about 300 billion stars, many with planets.
Beyond the Milky Way there are 300 billion other galaxies with countless stars and planets.
It is probable, therefore, that there is a lot of life out there, and much of it much more advanced than we are.
Bearing in mind that the first television programmes from earth are now 50 light years out into space way beyond the nearest stars, I invite you to imagine with me what life out there in the stars thinks of us as they look at us.
What do they see? They see a beautiful planet, teeming with life, but they see its atmosphere being polluted and warming up.
They see forests being cut down and deserts spreading.
Of the living creatures, they can see many animals that are treated cruelly, rare ones becoming extinct for ever.
How do they see the currently dominant species - that is us? Well, they see the planet's resources being unevenly spread.
They see land being fought over, medicine for disease but not in the parts of the world where it is most wanted, books for schools - but not at all in the least-developed areas of our world, 50% of the world's population never making a telephone call in their whole life.
What do they see about the relationships between human beings? They see us killing each other.
They see us restricting each other's liberties.
They see a never-ending series of local wars.
They see some of our children drafted into the army as soldiers, or treated as prostitutes or slaves.
They see unequal treatment of men and women, of people of different ages, of minorities, of people of different coloured skins, of races, of beliefs, of immigrants, even neighbours.
We all know the picture.
The UN Convention on Human Rights 50 years ago was an attempt to correct this.
We should salute it - and I think we do.
Only in Europe are human rights enforceable in law.
Here in the European Parliament some of the Members do not want the Charter of Rights, which is being discussed at the moment, to become enforceable in law.
I say: shame on them!
Human rights should be enforceable in law in every country of the world.
That is the goal which we have to work towards.
Much, as Commissioner Patten said, remains to be done.
Finally, if you asked me: What if there is no life out there among the stars, what if we are alone? - which is an equally awe-inspiring thought - I would say: Do not you think we have a responsibility too to make our children behave properly, before letting them go out to populate other planets?
Mr President, human rights are universal, indivisible, interrelated and interwoven.
This well-known phrase, which is taken from the conclusions of the UN World Conference on human rights of 1993, is known off by heart by many. That is positive.
But what about the human rights policy within the EU itself? Does it reflect this vision of coherence?
In fact, does the European Union have a human rights policy? This question does not challenge the efforts made by the Member States who wish to bring their viewpoints on foreign policy into line and to display a united front against violations of human rights elsewhere, for example in China.
No, Mr President, I am talking about the lack of human rights policy within the European Union itself.
A new government has come into power in Austria, comprising a political party which has sent out a message of racism and intolerance vis-à-vis minorities.
Human rights, which the EU embraces, are thus under threat, but the reactions to these events have brought to light the fact that there is no coherent framework in which an appropriate reaction can be formulated.
The widely quoted Article 7 of the Treaty, which provides for the repeal of membership rights from a Member State where serious and continuous violations against human rights have been established, is, of course, only a kill or cure remedy, an ultimum remedium, which, in the case of Austria, can only be quoted in the absence of anything more effective, and by way of warning.
There is, therefore a need for a fully-fledged human rights policy for and by the European Union, a policy which promotes and enforces human rights within the EU itself.
Such policy should comprise various components.
Firstly: a regulatory framework is needed, which spells out very clearly the rights which the EU intends to secure for its citizens.
A start is now being made on the drafting of such a charter, but we can no longer put off the question of legal status and the strategic significance of this document or pass it on to learned professional jurists.
This is a political question which, in the short term, requires an answer from the IGC and this Parliament.
Secondly: a range of instruments has to be developed which allow for a flexible response and which do not force us into a situation where we need to choose between a kill or cure remedy or a complete stab in the dark.
The following spring to mind in this respect: the systematic collation of documentation and information, professional forms of observation, the development of information campaigns, the use of cash to support democratic forces in the country concerned, a more creative deployment of the resources which are available through multilateral diplomacy, such as organised dialogue and fact finding missions and such like.
Thirdly: it will need to be made clear for each of the EU institutions where the responsibility for human rights policy lies within the European Union and what the tasks and competences are that this entails.
The Commission and the Council will each have to decide for themselves what these might be.
This Parliament is excluded from this, for our Rules of Procedure stipulate that the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs carries this responsibility.
But I am somewhat surprised that the resolution which should bring this debate on human rights to a conclusion has been prepared in the foreign sector of this Parliament and that the aforementioned Committee, of which I form part, has not been involved in this.
Mr President, this Parliament is fragmented and divided.
For the sake of our credibility, we will have to speak with one voice when it comes to human rights and not act as if human rights within the EU are different from human rights elsewhere in the world.
I think that this will benefit our credibility in the UN Human Rights Committee.
Mr President, what will it take to make the debate on human rights something other than what it is today: an ideological instrument which helps to enslave peoples rather than free individuals? We must start by going beyond man, who is not the master of the universe, to the source of all genuine rights and civilised values, without which the eternal claim to rights always ends in tyranny and bloodshed.
We need, in the ancient and mediaeval tradition of Europe, to go back to the natural order of the universe, i.e. to the Creation, and beyond that still further, to the Creator' s intention.
Then we shall see that the rights of the child are only respected within a proper family, the rights of workers are only respected in the intermediary bodies which we have recently destroyed and that citizens' rights are only respected within sovereign states.
Secondly, the doctrine of human rights must no longer be exploited, as it is today, as an instrument of ideological warfare in the hands of a cast which claims the right to decree unilaterally who is to be the arbiter of human rights and who is to be deprived of those rights, thereby denying the legitimacy and, if need be, the freedom of those whom the party line has deemed politically incorrect.
'No freedom for the enemies of freedom' was what the advocates of the revolutionary Terror were saying two centuries ago, the advocates of the revolution which proved, alas, to be the mother of all modern totalitarian regimes.
No human rights for the enemies of human rights is what the acolytes of the new world order are saying today, the new world order which reigns almost unchallenged in financial circles, in international institutions, in the media and cultural networks, and in educational institutions, to mention but a few.
What is left, for example, of the right of Austrians to choose their own destiny, if that choice is dictated on their behalf by those who decide what should or should not be done and if their duly and legally elected leaders are received in an insulting manner, as they were recently by you in Portugal, Mr President of the Council.
I do not know if he is still present and can hear me.
What is left of the human rights of those who sympathise with the Vlaamsblok, one of the most important parties in the Flemish region, if tomorrow the Belgian Parliament adopts the implausible, indecent and ignominious bill tabled by its main political rivals, the Volksunie, which seeks quite simply to abolish the party? What is left of the right to engage in a critical study of history when authors and publishers are persecuted, as the young historian Jean Plantin was just yesterday before the Court of Appeal, in my home town of Lyon - he was the subject of an absurd, arrogant and offensive closing speech by the public prosecutor Jean-Olivier Viout, the smug expression of straitjacketed thinking and intellectual conformism?
It is a strange concept of human rights when peaceful patriotism is fraudulently equated with aggressive nationalism, when legitimate protests against immigration policies are equated with I do not know what form of xenophobia and the vital defence of identities is equated with racism.
What of the human rights of the millions of French people who voted for the National Front and who are deprived of any political representation and vilified daily, as they were on Monday on the television channels of the state to which they are required to pay taxes, when the simple expression of justifiably exasperated views by one of our colleagues, Mr Le Pen, is used as a pretext for iniquitous condemnation, in violation of the law and in violation of all notions of justice, fairness and morals, and when attempts are made, in violation of the clearest legislation, to deprive this representative of millions of our fellow citizens of the mandate which he has been given by their vote, not received as a favour from the government.
In a word, I shall believe your talk about human rights in Europe, fellow Members, when you acknowledge that your political opponents have the same rights as you allow yourselves.
I shall believe your talk about human rights in China when you name the real cause of the problem, i.e. Communism.
Listen to the resounding voice of Solzhenitsyn in his letter to the Americans, in which he says that the main cause of the weakness of Western society is excessive pandering to legal individualism, an individualism which, far from allowing people to flourish, paves the way for future dictatorship, in fact the worst kind of dictatorship, because those whom it enslaves are not even aware of their terrible servitude.
Mr President, the principle of universal human rights is undoubtedly one of the most important political legacies of the 20th century.
The holocaust, fifty years ago, led to the need to lay down a number of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Since the end of the cold war, compliance with human rights has also become a condition for international cooperation.
Leaders violating these principles now face international criticism, sanctions and are even brought to trial, such as ex-dictators like Mr Pinochet have experienced.
These developments are encouraging but do not detract from the fact that the situation of human rights in the world remains very disquieting.
Especially in situations of war, civilians are given less consideration all the time.
It seems contradictory.
Never before in history has humanitarian right been so well developed.
Never before have so many international treaties been ratified by so many countries.
Yet the most basic rules of conduct are being flouted on a massive scale and there are more civilian victims than there were a century ago.
Women are systematically raped.
Children are conscripted by force and deployed in battle.
Excesses are no longer the exception, they have unfortunately become the rule.
This applies today to no fewer than thirty conflicts worldwide.
Too late, too selective and too fragmented: this is how one could describe the human rights policy of the international community.
First of all, the policy comes too late.
Both in Rwanda and Kosovo, the UN, despite the many warnings, appeared to be overtaken by events and stood by as a helpless observer of the massacres, as President Havel pointed out this afternoon.
Fifty years later, we are still unable to prevent genocide.
We should therefore direct more attention to monitoring and conflict prevention as a matter of urgency.
Control of the arms trade and improved media control are essential in this.
The human rights policy is also too selective.
The months of NATO bombardments of Kosovo and the mediation attempts in the Middle East are in stark contrast to international apathy with regard to the conflicts in Africa.
I cannot shake off the impression that, when it comes to human rights, despite all the rhetoric, Africa does not feature on top of the agenda of the Portuguese Presidency.
This is something which I very much regret.
The impression that Africans get, namely that they are inferior world citizens, is not unfounded.
I would like to warn against a blurring of standards in the assessment of human rights situations in Africa, where violations are viewed as a necessary evil.
But above all, the human rights policy is too fragmented.
We are unable to draft a common strategy within the international communities or Europe.
Take Sudan.
The international community is sending conflicting messages to this country.
Britain has re-opened its embassy in Khartoum.
Canada has invited the Sudanese for peace talks.
Europe puts the rebels in the South under pressure to negotiate and at the same time, Americans isolate the regime and support the rebels at military level.
There is a need for more coordination, more exchange of information and a more coherent approach whereby any raised bids are avoided.
Only then can we follow in the footsteps of the founders of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Mr President, I would like to start with the fact that if words could solve the problems we could all pack up and go home.
But unfortunately, as we speak today in the safety of this Chamber, human rights abuses are occurring throughout the free world.
Sometimes the more we speak, the less we hear - motions: words; conventions: words; treaties: words - if we are not careful, words themselves become a substitute for real action.
Words framed in inclusive and liberating documents become treaties and conventions which are often paraded as a testimony to a country's respect for and adherence to human rights.
Yet words spoken, written or signed are not in themselves enough.
Look at the signatories to the conventions on human rights and minorities and then compare the treatment received by such minorities, groups and individuals - the list is shameful and shaming.
Can anyone argue with any persuasiveness that women are treated equally and fairly, that children have human rights or that people are not discriminated against because of their religion, belief, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, opinion, political affiliation etc? The defamation of minorities in newspapers and other media fuels discrimination.
Even within the EU citizens still suffer human rights violations and a breach of our conventions.
Every day in the press misinformation and misrepresentation are used to deny some minorities equality before the law and to denigrate ethnic minorities.
Quite frankly a hierarchy of oppression has been created.
And so long as people do not have equality before the law, this inequality will lead to discrimination and human rights will be eroded.
In our enlargement process in the EU we have rightly placed the emphasis on human rights and the protection of minorities.
We must not waiver in that commitment.
But we must also hold up the mirror to ourselves and recognise our own inadequacies.
Yes, conventions have been signed, but action is needed.
I would recommend to you ongoing audits of human rights practices, eternal vigilance, not just outside our borders but within.
That is why I would welcome an annual Member State report from each individual state which would have to record any charges against it and the action taken.
Because what happens in each Member State happens to every single one of us.
What happens in another part of the world affects us.
Pinochet in Chile is as relevant as Haider in Austria.
Human rights and civil liberties are inextricably linked.
Human rights do not exist in isolation, they are connected to our development policies, our economic policies, our home affairs policies, indeed they are at the very heart of our democratic functions.
I would repeat what Mr Patten said: we must engage, we must inform, educate and thereby effect real and lasting change.
Mr President, "Europe stands for ideals, values and principles.
We must emphasise Europe' s spiritual history.
Together, we must re-establish the values which unite Europe.
Spiritual values have been disseminated from Europe throughout the globe.
We must live with our consciences."
These were the words spoken three hours ago in this Chamber by the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel.
In an extraordinarily edifying speech, characterised by wisdom, historical knowledge, an understanding of the human heart and insight into Europe' s spiritual and Christian heritage, he pointed to sources of inspiration for our work on human justice and human dignity.
We should be grateful that there are Heads of State like Vaclav Havel in our Europe.
I wish to discuss two matters.
First of all, civil society.
Vaclav Havel stated that, in Eastern Europe, the Communist regimes methodically destroyed civil society: national movements, churches and the independent trade unions.
The same is happening in China in connection with the Falun Gong movement and with the Catholic and Protestant churches.
It is happening with Buddhism in Tibet.
We must never forget to defend civil society.
I also want to mention the death penalty.
Like my own country, Sweden, the EU bases its view of human beings upon the equal, unique and inviolable value of every human.
On the basis of this principle, human beings should always have the chance to redeem themselves.
Try telling that to the governments of the United States, Russia and China.
Mr President, President-in-Office, Commissioner, I believe the approach of EU Member States at Geneva should be to prioritise the situations in Kosovo, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone and China.
In relation to China, we should not be dissuaded from raising the issue simply because discussions on it may be blocked.
However, it is imperative that the EU speaks and acts as one, and threats of trade sanctions should strengthen rather than weaken our resolve.
However, if full expression is to be given to the decisions which may eventually be taken at Geneva, then the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights must be provided with the necessary resources.
The financial resources of the United Nations are spread very thinly and because of this many crucial programmes are dependent on voluntary contributions to keep them afloat.
Resources are also needed for promoting practical cooperation and human rights, strategic planning, the establishment of priorities and strengthening communications between the donor community and member states of the United Nations.
To this end the High Commissioner recently launched an annual appeal for USD 53 million to enable her office to carry out these tasks.
The European Union and its Member States should take the lead in providing a significant portion of these funds.
In so doing, we would not only embarrass the United States into shouldering its responsibilities in relation to UN funding, but we would also demonstrate that our commitment to defending human rights is more than simply empty rhetoric.
Mr President, this debate is mainly concerned with the preparations for the forthcoming annual UN Human Rights Convention and the Commission' s and Council' s efforts in this respect.
I would first of all like to say that I am very pleased with the contributions made by Mr Patten and the Minister, and I welcome the fact that both China and Cuba are on the agenda.
Cuba is the last stronghold of dictatorship in South America and we must be mindful of this, with all due sympathy to Cuba.
It is a dictatorship and hence not a democracy.
I would, during my two minutes, like to draw attention to two countries which are close to my heart.
The first country is Indonesia.
We are naturally delighted that Indonesia is under new rule and that Mr Wahid and Mrs Sukarnoputri are the new President and Vice-President.
We are also pleased that the situation in Timor is slowly moving in the right direction.
But I can report that in the Moluccas, an area just north of Timor, the violence is still not under control.
This has claimed thousands of lives over the past two years.
Tens of thousands of people are on the run.
The situation is badly managed.
I know that tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, an important programme will be shown on Dutch television, in which an appeal will be made for observers. This is with the sole purpose of monitoring what exactly is going on, so that at least a record can be made, not least for the future, for human rights committees, of what has been happening.
My urgent request, which has been echoed many times in resolutions, is the following: could you not confer so that observers can be sent to the Moluccas? Surely thousands of people killed, thousands wounded and tens of thousands on the run is enough.
My second country - I will be brief as Mr Patten knows this country very well - is Burma.
Surely we cannot just keep silent about Burma.
I have the feeling that that country is gradually being relegated to oblivion.
For ten years now, the elected President of that country has been under house arrest.
And for ten years now, its parliament has been out of action.
Numerous MPs have been killed or have fled the country and only a few are left in Burma.
There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in Thailand and India from Burma and yet it seems that that country is no longer given any attention.
In my opinion, Burma should be put back on the agenda, too, certainly in the wake of Indonesia' s U-turn.
Surely we cannot tolerate the fact that Mrs Aung San Sui Kyi feels completely left in the lurch, even by Europe.
My request is, in fact, to put this country back on the top of the agenda.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, economic clout cannot be the only factor that determines the European Union' s status in the world.
One of the EU' s distinguishing features is our systematic approach to human rights, as exercised both within the Union and by our partners.
The European Parliament has been at the forefront of the battle to promote and defend human rights, and it has succeeded in overcoming the limits imposed by self-interest and "national interests" , which are sometimes reflected in the positions adopted by the Member States and even by other European Union institutions.
We can therefore safely say, for example, that the European Parliament has never allowed the situation in East Timor to be forgotten, which could have been the greatest obstacle to finding an equitable solution for its people, who always opposed occupation by Indonesia.
By the same token we have recently opposed arms sales to Indonesia, a stance that the Council unfortunately did not take into account.
But it is not just a question of preventing or putting a stop to sickening instances of aggression perpetrated by individuals or institutions against those in a weaker position.
It is vital that when violations are committed, the perpetrators should not be able to act with impunity, whoever or wherever they may be - in Indonesia or Angola, in Cuba, China or Burma, whether the perpetrators are civilians or soldiers, humble foot-soldier or general or even a minister.
Justice needs to be done in Indonesia.
Justice needs to be done in East Timor.
President Wahid needs our support to cope with the difficult situation he is faced with.
The specific reference in this resolution to East Timor, on the initiative of the PPE Group, is a timely one.
Someone must be held to account for the events that took place there, some of which I saw with my own eyes as a representative of this House; they cannot go unpunished.
It is impossible to talk about East Timor without mentioning the tens of thousands of Timorese refugees living on Indonesian soil in inhumane conditions, under the control of Indonesian soldiers and militias, and being used as bargaining chips.
This is an intolerable situation which must cease as a matter of urgency.
.
(PT) Mr President, I would like to make a few very brief comments on behalf of the Council presidency, and first to remind you that the work done by the presidency is above all about coordination and about seeking common positions on initiatives that the fifteen Member States are to approve in the Council.
Our experience of previous sessions of the Human Rights Commission suggests - precisely by virtue of this coordinating role played by successive presidencies - that the European Union is very much able to uphold its status as a body with its own policy within the Commission, and it is important to maintain this.
I would also like to say that the European Parliament' s participation in the preparatory work is important in establishing coherent European Union positions on various different issues, and that the presidency therefore naturally welcomes all the various suggestions and in particular all the contributions made through the resolutions which have been presented.
I would also like to stress, as many Members have highlighted, that human rights policy is at the heart of Europe' s identity and that respect for human rights should be seen as a fundamental principle for international cooperation by the European Union.
Hence the need for the most coherent European human rights policy possible, which of course means that we need to adopt clear and unambiguous positions where we consider a state of affairs to be unacceptable, and I have in mind, in particular, the references that many Members have made to China.
But we have also duly noted the concerns expressed by many other Members about other countries, notably Indonesia, East Timor, the Moluccas and Burma.
I could not conclude without mentioning Mr Van Hecke' s speech in particular, in which he referred to the human rights situation in Africa and to the role and priorities of the Portuguese Presidency, and questioned the sincerity of the priority we are giving to relations with the European Union.
I would simply like to say that the Portuguese Presidency has, in these two short months, organised the first Development Council, admittedly an informal one, whose agenda was rightly dominated by EU-Africa relations. Indeed it was this subject which led the development ministers of the fifteen Member States to meet in Lisbon for discussions specifically on the new era these relations have entered.
Furthermore, I cannot stress enough the significance of our having concluded important negotiations on the new convention to succeed the Lomé Convention, and the fact that, following extremely complex and difficult negotiations, we have succeeded in organising - or making preparations for the organisation of - the first EU-Africa Summit.
For all these reasons I thought it essential to reply directly to Mr Van Hecke' s question on this issue.
. Mr President, this has been a very useful debate.
One or two speeches have referred to specific issues which we are well advised to think about very carefully.
For example, Mrs Maij-Weggen referred to both Indonesia and Burma and made some important points about both those countries and the human rights situation there.
What I would like to focus on very briefly are one or two themes which ran through our debate.
One of the very first speakers, Mr Wuori, spoke of the remarks made earlier today by Mr Havel.
It was a remarkable speech and I hope that Mr Gollnisch, who is no longer able to be with us, was able to hear that speech as well.
I also hope that, if there is any life in outer space, as has been speculated by Mr Newton Dunn, it was tuned in to Mr Havel' s speech as well.
Mr Havel reminded us that the Union is not just about markets, about GDP growth, it is a Union of values that is reflected in the Treaties and is reflected in our obligations in the whole area of external assistance, reflected quite specifically in what we are charged to do.
How do we implement what the Treaties say in all those words about development assistance programmes?
One or two honourable Members, Mr Ferber and Mr Cushnahan, spoke about the gap between rhetoric and reality.
Mr Cashman said, which is right in a sense, that words are no substitute for real action.
Of course, words can make a bit of a difference, a point that was made by Mrs Malmström.
She said that she had received a letter from the Chinese Ambassador, a very amiable and highly intelligent representative and servant of his country, to tell her that she was wrong and the European Parliament was wrong in its attitude on human rights in China.
I think after her speech she will receive a cascade of letters from the Chinese authorities.
She will be able to fill a filing cabinet with letters about what is claimed to be the real situation in China.
I think she was reflecting the views of many non-governmental organisations, many people who admire Chinese civilisation but are concerned about what is happening in China today.
Of course it is entirely right that we have to look at action, and the very first speech by Mr Salafranca mentioned two issues apart from Geneva which represent actions, one of which is of course made possible by the generosity of the European Parliament on behalf of the European taxpayer - that is the budget that we are able to spend on human rights activities - about EUR 100 million that is spent through programmes, for which I am responsible, mainly going to non-governmental organisations to promote human rights and to promote democratisation.
We will want to share with Parliament, as vicars say, our views on how that spending programme to support human rights can be best focused and best targeted in the years ahead.
There is also the question which was referred to by Mr Salafranca, who I am sorry is unable to be with us at the end of this brief but useful debate.
There is also the question of our overall policy on human rights and the relationship between human rights and foreign policy.
I want to remind Parliament that the Commission will be publishing, before the middle of the year, a comprehensive, intellectual case for placing human rights at the heart of the development of the common foreign and security policy.
It is immensely important, and if I had not thought that already, having listened to the remarkable speech by Mr Havel earlier in the day I would have certainly come to that conclusion.
It has been a useful debate.
I hope we can have further debates like this.
I hope we can have, in particular, debates about some of the ways in which we translate these good intentions into practice on the ground where it matters, where people are still being tortured, where people are still being raped and are still being denied the sort of civil rights that this House takes for granted, as I do.
I have received 7 motions for resolution, pursuant to Rule 37(2), to close the present statement.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
Cyprus and Malta
The next item is the joint debate on:
the Council statement on the position of the European Union on developments concerning Cyprus;
the report (A4-0029/2000) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the implementation of operations in the framework of the pre-accession strategy for Cyprus and Malta [COM(1999)0535 - C5-0308/1999 - 1999/0199(CNS)].
Mr Seixas da Costa has the floor on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, I would like to present to you certain information about the re-opening of the intra-Cyprus negotiations and recent developments in this area.
I think it will be obvious to everyone that the events in Helsinki at the end of last year and the new era in relations between the European Union and Turkey have created a new backdrop, at Community level, which we cannot ignore when it comes to relations between the two Cypriot communities.
At the beginning of December 1999, the first round of negotiations were held in New York, after an interruption of several years in negotiations between the Cypriot communities in the north and south of the island.
These negotiations took the form of indirect discussions mediated by the UN special representative, Álvaro de Soto.
A further round was held in January this year, starting on 31 January, and a third round is scheduled to start on 23 May in New York. There is a possibility, which has not yet been absolutely confirmed, that continuous and direct discussions may take place, with work continuing until September this year.
These discussions essentially cover four areas: security, the structure of government, territorial adjustments and issues relating to refugees and compensation, as a result of the situation following the partition of the island.
However, agreement has also been reached on the possibility of including other issues, and the representative of the northern part of the island, Rauf Denktash, has suggested three new topics: sovereignty, confidence-building measures and the issue of lifting the embargo on products from the north of the island.
The discussions held so far have essentially resulted in two developments. The first is the possibility of opening up a direct information channel between the European Union and the north of the island, without this necessarily signifying recognition of this part of the island as a legal personality at international level, but as a means of facilitating adoption of the acquis communautaire with a view to eventual accession of the whole island, if a solution can, in the meantime, be found to the broader problem of the partition of the island.
The second development which we regard as important is the statement made by the Secretary-General of the United Nations at the end of the first day' s discussions to the effect that an overall settlement of the situation would involve recognition of the specific situation of the north of the island.
This is the position of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and it will therefore have to form part of our future analysis.
Certain expectations exist about the third round of negotiations, in view of the proposed scenarios being prepared with the involvement of representatives of the United States and the United Kingdom, in particular in the areas of security and the constitutional structure, which it is envisaged will be presented at this round through the good offices of the representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. This will take place after the election in the north of the island scheduled for 18 April.
Furthermore, the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union has decided, following the example of previous presidencies, to appoint a representative to establish contacts with the various parties involved in this issue.
This representative has already contacted all these parties and has, in close cooperation with the representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, been monitoring and assisting with the work of the various rounds.
In particular, we intend that the European Union should maintain a constant profile on this issue, and of course all the more so since Cyprus is a candidate for membership of the European Union with negotiations at a fairly advanced stage. This naturally raises certain expectations and means that the role of the European Union is of some relevance in this context.
The approach that we have been following in these discussions, and our participation in them, essentially turns on taking advantage of a certain desire to alleviate the tensions that exist, based on a conviction - which appears to be widely shared - that it is necessary to continue to negotiate, and that continuing negotiations and maintaining their impetus also give rise to hopes that a definitive solution can be found.
There is also another important aspect which I referred to at the beginning of my statement, and this relates to Turkey' s role in helping the north of the island to prepare for accession.
We believe that it is not only necessary to read the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council with some care and attention, but that we should also take advantage of the willingness of the Turkish authorities to help to resolve this situation.
I was able to talk to Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit about this issue when I visited Ankara myself, and although we are aware of the difficulties and sensitivity associated with Turkey' s particular approach to this question, I believe that there is a window of opportunity that we must not miss.
This window of opportunity involves combining various factors, one of which - and let us be frank about this - is the nature of the relationship between Turkey and the European Union.
This is key as regards the future of this issue.
On the other hand, we think it is important - and this is also linked with the way in which the European Union relates to the heart of this matter - that an exchange of information between the Commission and the Cypriots in the north of the island should be encouraged. This would not, let me make this quite clear, imply any kind of formal recognition.
Nevertheless, we believe, and I think this is also how the Commission sees things, that the whole process of approximation with the acquis communautaire with a view to overall integration of the island in the European Union through accession at some point in the future implies involving the communities in the north of the island as soon as possible. It may also give the European Union access to data enabling it to justify accession, as part of its efforts to assess accession conditions.
Furthermore, this means that we in the Council - and I think that Parliament will join us in this - should encourage the Commission' s involvement in this undertaking.
It is essential for us to send the Commission a message of confidence about its role in this area.
Lastly, I believe - and this is also the presidency' s intention - that we should continue to cooperate actively with the United Nations, given the skilful, intelligent and capable way in which the Secretary-General, and the UN organisation in general, have conducted these discussions, and in particular the way they have endeavoured to help to harmonise the two parties' positions.
As I said at the beginning, the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council last December have had a visible impact on the way the positions of the various parties to this process have developed.
The Nicosia Government has expressed its satisfaction with the Helsinki conclusions, which open up the way to accession to the European Union without solving the partition of the island beforehand.
Nevertheless, I have to say that the same authorities have expressed their concern about the pressure they may come under to resolve the issues raised by partition, which will evidently imply some concessions.
This is related to developments in the sphere of displaced people and the possibility of a new arrangement regarding displaced people should a different solution be found for the island.
On the other hand, the Turkish Cypriots fear - and there is no point in trying to conceal this - that Turkey' s application for membership of the European Union may lead to greater flexibility in Ankara' s position on this.
I believe that, despite the fears that may be felt by the two communities on the island, these points, which could be viewed in a negative light by the authorities on both sides, may in the end justify hopes of an ultimate solution.
It is very clear that this solution will involve one of the most important aspects of relations in this area at present, which is the extremely positive trend in relations between Athens and Ankara and the very important part played in these relations by the Greek Foreign Minister, Giorgios Papandreou, and the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ismail Cem.
We believe that this has created the framework for a positive outcome.
As far as we, the Council presidency, are concerned, we will continue to follow these developments very closely, and we will certainly cooperate with the Secretary-General and his personal representative on this matter.
We will make the Community institutions aware of what we are able to do, and what is possible in general, as regards coordination, not just at political level but also as regards what the Commission itself can achieve in terms of its scope for managing the accession process.
In particular, we will make known the flexibility that both parties have demonstrated on this issue.
Mr President, we have listened to the statements by the Council and the Commission and I would like to make the following observations.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I appreciate the sensitivity with which you are addressing the issue and your effort to establish contact with the Turkish Cypriot side, but perhaps it would be more clear and more correct if the vocabulary you use did not leave one suspecting that you might be attempting some kind of indirect recognition, even though you stressed that this is not the case.
For example, I would not refer to the government of Nicosia.
It is the Cypriot Government, Mr President-in-Office, not the government of Nicosia.
That government has proposed a way in which the Turkish Cypriot side can take part, and I think it would be right for the Council and the Commission to urge the Turkish Cypriot side to take part institutionally in the framework of the negotiations conducted by the Republic of Cyprus.
On the other hand, the way that the issue of the end of the protocols and the pre-accession strategy has been addressed so far creates some doubts for us.
I cannot understand why the two small countries must be treated differently, nor why a clash was necessary between the institutional bodies. Nor can I understand the pressure applied by Parliament to include the funds in Chapter 7 for the pre-accession strategy.
How can the whole of the European Union treat, in this way, two small countries situated on its periphery? Not only are they countries which the European Union needs, but they are also countries which are fully qualified to operate within the Union and are already considered capable of participating in economic and monetary union.
As the Commissioner said, and I agree with him, it is a matter of political decision.
This is a small political decision which would bring major benefits, especially in helping the two communities effectively to constitute one state, to achieve effective rapprochement - because the two communities were once close - and for the Republic of Cyprus, genuinely, to be rid of occupying forces.
Mr President, we are required under the advisory procedure to debate a proposal for a Council regulation on the implementation of operations within the framework of the pre-accession strategy for Cyprus and Malta.
This proposal is similar to the proposal submitted for other candidate countries and, once it is implemented, will replace the financial protocols which have now expired.
Pre-accession instruments are designed to provide technical and financial support for efforts by candidate countries to meet the demands of the Community acquis.
The Commission' s analysis has in fact shown that, although classified as high income countries by the World Bank, Cyprus and Malta have the same difficulties as the CEECs in transposing Community law due to their lack of administrative and judicial capacity.
It was pointed out, during the discussion of Mr Brok' s excellent report in committee, that both countries can also benefit from the MEDA budget line for horizontal projects of regional interest.
I would be grateful if the Commissioner could explicitly confirm that.
As far as Cyprus is concerned, part of the technical and financial aid provided for in the instruments will be used to bring the Greek and Turkish communities closer together and solve the problem of the partition of the island once and for all.
The declarations made on the Cyprus question by the Council and the Commission were therefore most opportune and I should like to thank the President of the Council and Commissioner Verheugen.
Since 4 July 1990, when Cyprus applied to join the EU, the European Parliament has passed numerous resolutions calling for a political solution in accordance with international law and the relevant resolutions of the Security Council of the United Nations.
In April 1999, Parliament again reiterated its position that the accession of Cyprus should benefit the whole island, and help towards a political solution, but that accession should not be dependent upon such a solution.
In other words, accession should not be held hostage to a political solution.
The two processes are separate processes.
This unequivocal position on the part of the European Parliament gave rise to a certain degree of controversy.
We must therefore welcome the fact that the Helsinki European Council put an end to the speculation and stated in its conclusions, and I quote, that "If no settlement has been reached by the completion of accession negotiations, the Council' s decision on accession will be made without the above being a precondition" .
The position is clear and we must now hope that the improved climate surrounding relations between the European Union and Turkey and between Greece and Turkey will bear favourably on the Turkish Cypriot community and that it will withdraw its refusal to send representatives to the accession negotiations.
The presence of these representatives will not prejudge the final political solution in any way whatsoever.
On the contrary, it will allow the interests of all concerned to be highlighted as and when Cyprus joins the European Union and prepares for a turning point in its history.
Mr President, I want to say that I share the other rapporteurs' delight at the fact that better opportunities are now to be glimpsed for making further progress in Cyprus in the light of the improvement in relations between Turkey and the EU and between Turkey and Greece.
However, I also think that we in the EU should be making a constructive contribution.
I also think - as has already been mentioned - that there are certain problems with the financing arrangements, which we must solve.
There is, of course, the question of pre-accession aid, and this belongs in category seven.
Last year, Parliament made an exception by agreeing that this expenditure should be placed in category four, and the two applicant States are not therefore being treated on an equal footing with the applicant States from Central and Eastern Europe, as they, in fact, should be, according to the declarations from the Helsinki Summit.
Resources should therefore be set aside from category seven, where a review of the financial perspectives must be carried out.
This is the crux of the matter.
The main point is that the money for Cyprus' s and Malta' s pre-accession aid should come from category seven and that there should be a review of the financial perspectives for, if the Council does not endorse this view, it is in reality acting in conflict with its own decisions in Helsinki in December.
With regard to the amount which is quoted in the Brok report (EUR 130 million), I also want to say, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, that we must negotiate our way towards finding a sum of money.
The most important thing is that a multi-annual programme be guaranteed, and in the correct category, so that it might be possible to begin making plans where Cyprus and Malta are concerned.
Mr President, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance support the decision adopted by the European Council in Helsinki according to which the resolution of the conflict cannot be a prior condition for the accession of Cyprus to the European Union.
We should continue to exert strong pressure on the Government of Cyprus, but one section of the population cannot blackmail the wish of the majority. Besides, we have strong doubts as to how representative the government is of that part of the island is.
It is clear that the window of opportunity mentioned by the presidency should be exploited to the full.
But we are also convinced that, despite improved relations between the Turkish and Greek populations, it is not enough.
The conflict in Cyprus will only be resolved through improved relations between the two communities with a view to establishing a federation in the - we hope - not too distant future.
In particular, we should be working towards establishing genuine freedom of movement and resolving the problems of demilitarising and disarming the island.
The European Union should be taking a more decisive role that goes further than merely providing financial support, although that is important, by promoting and guaranteeing reconciliation between the two communities through the setting up of fora and confidence-building programmes.
I must say that Alex Langer's presence here in the European Parliament is sadly missed. His efforts to build peace should serve as an example, to all of us, on how peaceful coexistence can be achieved.
Mr President, the reference to dialogue between the two Cypriot communities under the aegis of the UNO reminds us of the fact that, 26 years after the invasion of the island by the Turkish army, nearly 40% of the territory is still occupied by 35 000 soldiers, heavy weaponry is still being used and over 50 000 colonists are still present, in total violation of the resolutions by the Security Council of the United Nations on this matter.
What can the European Union do, without interfering in internal affairs in Cyprus, to promote a fair and viable solution to this drastic problem in a country which has been associated with the European Community for nearly 30 years and which is due to join the Union within the next few years?
I have listened to the somewhat equivocal talk and silences on the part of the Council which, in my view, need clarifying.
I think that we need, first and foremost, to bear the main point of reference for any international community in such cases in mind, i.e. the resolutions of the United Nations.
The Security Council feels that the solution to the Cypriot problem should be sought within the framework of a two-zone, twin-community federation, in other words a single state, as Mr Verheugen mentioned, consisting of two local administrations elected by the two communities.
Cyprus should be one sovereign state, with a single international personality and single citizenship and this state should be demilitarised.
The international community has thus indicated that it rejects any act accomplished by force.
Secondly, the European Union stands to gain, in my view, by minimising the scope for interpretation of the position laid down by the Helsinki European Council.
The solution to the Cypriot problem cannot be a precondition to Cyprus' s accession to the Union, as Mr Poos has reminded us.
If it were, Turkey would have a sort of right of veto over the accession of Cyprus to the European Union, which is, of course, unacceptable.
Thirdly, we must not, in turn, allow the position taken by the Helsinki European Council to temper our efforts to resolve the Cypriot question before Cyprus joins the Union.
From this point of view, the other decision taken at Helsinki, namely to grant Turkey candidate status, gives the Fifteen new responsibilities as well as new possibilities and its dialogue with Ankara can and, in my view, should, include a determination to ensure that Turkey demonstrates a constructive attitude towards dialogue between the two Cypriot communities which respects international law and which will ultimately lead to a united Cyprus and peace in the eastern Mediterranean.
Mr President, there is a general consensus of opinion that financial aid to Cyprus and Malta is important.
The big question, however, is from what budget heading should this aid be financed?
The Council and Commission have suggested deleting the protocols under category 4.
This is in line with the budget order issued by Parliament in December last.
The rapporteur is now making reference to this and proposes classing Cyprus and Malta under category 7.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has even suggested postponing approval of the Brok report until the Council agrees to increase the financial ceilings for category 7.
This is an extremely risky strategy.
In fact, the financial protocols cannot go ahead without a vote in Parliament.
Cyprus and Malta will thus become the victims of a political game between the Council and Parliament regarding the height of the ceilings.
Moreover, what is the real significance of financial ceilings if they are increased for every new action? I would therefore advocate that the EUR 15 million in category 4 be dropped, in line with the Commission' s proposal.
A multiannual budget of the Commission later on in the year, may give a decisive answer regarding credits for the coming years.
Mr President, all over the world work is being done to resolve long-standing conflicts and bring together communities divided by history and by old tribal enmities and hatreds.
Now is the time to devote our time and energy to aiding Cypriots from both sides of the "green line" in finding a solution to a conflict which has lasted for far too long.
We all know that special care is needed to ensure that Cyprus is brought successfully into the European Union, and the decisions taken at Helsinki give an added dimension to this debate, with the acceptance of Turkey as a candidate country.
I hope that the decisions taken at Helsinki lead to progress on the Cyprus issue.
I hope this signals a new era of hope for Cyprus.
I hope that Turkey begins to play a constructive role in the Cyprus issue.
I am delighted to hear the words of support from the Council and the Commission for the UN and the work it is doing in encouraging proximity talks between the two communities to encourage reconciliation and the rebuilding of trust between the two communities in Cyprus.
I very much welcome the Commission's support for that bizonal, bicommunal, federal Cyprus for which the UN has campaigned for so long and which both the Greek Cypriot side and the Turkish Cypriot side should be working hard to bring about.
I welcome the renewed warmth in relations between the Greek Government and the Turkish Government.
I hope that has an encouraging effect on the Cyprus talks.
I hope that the accession money available to assist Cyprus is used partly to promote that reconciliation and rebuilding of trust and that both sides of the divided communities in Cyprus accept and use that money in the spirit in which it is given.
We all, throughout the European institutions - in Parliament, the Council and the Commission - should be doing our best to aid Cyprus in its quest to reach a peaceful solution which brings together these two communities which have been divided for too many years.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Verheugen, the regulation on accession aid is not exactly an advertisement for coherent work on the part of the Commission.
Rather, the way in which these aid measures have been cobbled together smacks of amateurism to me. This applies both in terms of the substance and the financial aspect.
In my view, it will hardly enable us to present the accession activities conducted by the Union to the citizens of Cyprus and Malta as evidence of the fact that it is worth their while joining.
As Vaclav Havel rightly said today, the European Union will be judged on its political qualities according to what it can do for the individual.
As far as the citizens are concerned, it is what a regulation can do for them that matters.
We will not exactly win any awards with this regulation as far as that is concerned.
It is makeshift and contains heteronomous paragraphs, which is no way to set a shining example.
The quality of an aid package is assessed according to the following criteria: is it decentralised, is it transparent, is it accessible to the citizens and does it work?
Nonetheless, as far as the divided island of Cyprus is concerned, overall, this pre-accession strategy is bound up with a major political challenge.
In my view, it is the task of the European Union to employ all instruments, including this one, so as to contribute towards resolving the conflict on the island by political means.
I must take this opportunity to say that it is precisely the amendment submitted by the European Parliament that is so important to me in this respect.
Both the Commission and the Council have been making very optimistic speeches here today as well.
I am delighted that we are all heading in the same direction in this respect.
I believe it would truly be preferable to secure a peaceful resolution to the problems in Cyprus before admitting this country to the European Union.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the view of the Greek Communist Party is that the main problem of Cyprus is not its accession to the European Union but the occupation of 40% of its territory by Turkey, which has continued for 26 years.
Regardless of the national origin of each Cypriot, the future of the Cypriot people must involve the unity of that small country.
The only acceptable solution that guarantees the future, that leaves no room for foreign interventions, like those that led to all the problems of the last fifty years, is a unified and federal Cyprus in accordance with the resolutions of the UN' s Security Council.
The key to solving the Cyprus problem is in the hands of the Turkish Government, which supports and encourages the intransigence of the Turkish Cypriot leader Raouf Denktaº.
For its part, the European Union, with its hypocritical professions of interest in freedom and human rights, has never been moved by the drama of the Cypriot people, by the problem of Greek and Turkish Cypriot refugees, by the enforced change of the population composition in the north of Cyprus, or by the wholesale settlement of colonists by Turkey in the occupied areas.
Even in this Chamber, the Council' s representative referred to the north of Cyprus and not to the occupied territories.
The recent Helsinki decision to grant Turkey accession country status, even though it has made not the slightest concession over the issue of its occupation of Cyprus, for example, by reducing its military presence there or giving back Ammokhostos, is clearly encouraging Turkey' s intransigence.
It is not by chance that, immediately after Helsinki, the Turkish Prime Minister, Bulent Ecevit, stated that the Cyprus issue had been resolved in 1974.
Encouraging Turkish intransigence certainly does not help to bring the two communities closer together in the intimate talks under the aegis of the UN Secretary General.
On their course towards accession, the people of Cyprus have already lost a great deal, but stand to lose even more.
The application of the acquis communautaire has created serious problems for the Cypriot economy, especially in agriculture. It entails the liquidation of the public sector, and it dislocates and destroys the developed system of social solidarity that exists in Cyprus.
Mr President, I beg your pardon, but the French interpreter made a small error, on the most sensitive word in the debate, during the translation of what Mr Alyssandrakis just said.
I just want to ensure that there is no ambiguity.
Mr Alyssandrakis was translated as saying "the confederate solution would be best" .
Obviously, he said "the federal solution would be best" .
It is a most important point and needs to be clarified, Mr President.
Thank you very much for the clarification Mr Wurtz.
Mr President, Malta and Cyprus are very different from the countries of mainland Europe.
The Maltese in particular have been very good at surviving in hostile geographical and geopolitical environments.
Their success has relied in great part on their enterprise, their dynamism and their flexibility.
Malta has vibrant light and heavy industry, growing financial services, good agriculture, magnificent tourism and an amazing range of employment opportunities, all of this on an island virtually barren of natural resources.
I am certain, therefore, that an island such as Malta, with its population of 340 000 cannot accommodate the rigidities of the economic and legal structures of the mainland which has a population a thousand times greater.
Thus, when I look at this proposed instrument I do not see a measure to bring two peoples into the fold of Mother Europe.
The situation is more akin to a black hole in space, sucking in masses so powerfully that not even light escapes.
We should not be bribing these island peoples to cooperate in their own destruction, giving them money to absorb laws which are as alien to their culture as a black hole is to Mother Earth.
The EU should leave Cyprus and Malta alone.
It seems to me that the only people in Malta that want this are the political class, and I shall be keeping my fingers crossed that once again the Maltese people are the winners.
Mr President, this is one of the few occasions when, from what the speakers have said in this Parliament, from all sides of the House, there is clearly the greatest convergence of views on the Cyprus issue and, of course, on the pre-accession process for Cyprus and Malta.
This means that we are all aware of the political dimension of the Cyprus problem.
At the same time, however, it means that both the Council and the Commission have a very strong mandate, so that the strength of opinion expressed by all the European parties, and all the peoples, can empower their political ability to address the problem.
Helsinki was an historic event, an historic turning-point and an historic new reference point.
If, for any reason, the balance achieved there should be considered by some to be a point of departure for new negotiations anywhere else, if some people destabilise this totality of facts and equilibrium by their attitude, they will be making a tragic mistake.
Conditions are ripe.
What is needed from the European Commission, the Council and everyone else, is a quiet determination, a quiet determination to continue the accession negotiations on both Cyprus and Malta without guile, granted that in the last analysis they are the most mature of all the countries seeking accession, so that this determination can act as a signal to anyone whose view may differ from the view we all agree about.
To this end, the Brok report is a good instrument and it is really a bit distressing that, because this is a joint debate, it is politically overshadowed by the political position of the Council and the Commission and we cannot therefore say more about this good report.
In any event, the outcome is in your hands.
The outcome is in our hands to the extent that we are providing you with decisions, to the extent that we are providing you with options.
Now, as regards the Brok report, Cyprus and Malta are the last of the Mediterranean islands, and, unless I am mistaken, the last islands anywhere in Europe which have not acceded to the European Union.
This has a certain semiological value because the Mediterranean and its islands - and I too come from an island - are the area which most of those who come from northern Europe for their summer holidays get to see, as well as the people who live there.
From that standpoint, Aphrodite' s island, as Cyprus is known, and the pirates' island, as we islanders say of Malta with great affection, are two jewels which should be welcomed into the European Union without delay.
They have healthy economies, high-level economic relations, and in the final analysis they constitute a testing ground for the European Union' s political will.
In conclusion, since I do not think I need to say much, given the unanimity that exists here, I just want to make one brief remark to the President-in-Office. I think that there are some peculiarities in his position.
I hope there has been an interpretation error, and that he will clarify the matter in his follow-up speech.
. (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have listened to your comments very carefully, and in particular to the rather emotional comments about Cyprus, especially in defence of the present legal situation in Cyprus, which the European Union specifically acknowledges by recognising the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
Mr Wurtz, in no way can it be said that the Council is maintaining an ambiguous silence about this issue: the Council assumes total responsibility for its interpretation of the situation in Cyprus.
Moreover, it was this situation and this interpretation which led the Council to take the decision it took in Luxembourg at the end of 1997, when it decided to take the first steps in the accession process for the Republic of Cyprus to join the European Union.
I hope that honourable Members will realise that, regardless of the more or less emotional statements made about issues of this kind, the day-to-day reality of international negotiations normally forces governments to adopt a somewhat more flexible stance - and when I say governments I mean all governments.
In fact we need more emotional statements to remind us that all these issues have a human side.
But we also need to be aware that it is by virtue of rational political stances, and flexibility in negotiations, that we are able to find solutions to the major disputes which have ultimately led to many tragedies in history.
Regardless of who is to blame - and we are not here to apportion blame, the relevant United Nations resolutions in this area are clear enough - I believe that we should take advantage of the opportunities that the new situation is opening up, in more of a rational way and less of an emotional one.
The European Council in Helsinki had the courage to take certain decisions, and I believe that various aspects of these decisions have already recognised the real value of these opportunities which, as I said at the beginning of my first speech, represent a window of opportunity.
We will not achieve concrete results during this stage of negotiations, which is a delicate and sensitive phase, by exploiting tensions.
No, we should continue to make progress by working discreetly to support the special representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations with his remit.
The European Union' s position on this is crystal clear, and I do not think it is worthwhile second-guessing particular phrases in the Council' s conclusions or in any other statement.
We do not play at political correctness in this House: we are concerned with fairness at international level and with concrete statements on this issue consistently defined by the Council over a period of time, and which the European Commission has also followed carefully, attentively and pragmatically.
So when we talk now about the need to involve the Northern Cyprus community in exchanges of information, particularly with a view to the eventual accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union, we need to be aware that we are trying to find practical formulas that will enable us to overcome the obstacles standing in the way of a political solution.
We are not trying to deceive anyone and we are in no way trying to use practical solutions to create a model implying political recognition.
I believe that, over time, the Council of the European Union has clearly demonstrated that this is not how it sees this issue.
Decisions have been taken by the Council with a great sense of responsibility.
We believe that Helsinki was very clear in this respect.
The authorities of the Republic of Cyprus itself have clearly recognised that our relations with them regarding their accession to the European Union have been positive.
There is no point in second-guessing or trying to second-guess our intentions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you all very much indeed for this debate, which all in all I have found to be encouraging and supportive, and it has also shown that there is a great deal of support in this House for the policy of the Member States and that of the Commission.
However, I would be more than pleased to elucidate a few points as requested.
I will turn firstly to matters pertaining to headings 4 and 7. It is quite simple: a special heading, namely, the famous heading 7, was created in Berlin, as part of the large Agenda 2000 package, for the applicant countries of Eastern and Central Europe, which are currently undergoing a process of transformation, and for these countries alone.
Malta, Cyprus and Turkey were not provided for at this stage.
Mrs Schroedter described this as a lack of coherence.
She ought perhaps to take some time to ask the erstwhile President-in-Office of the Council, who is not exactly a stranger to you, how this presumed lack of coherence has come about.
I have had a little to do with this too.
I do not believe this to be the case.
The reason for this decision was, rather, that we wanted to have a special instrument for the Eastern and Central European States which, like Malta and Cyprus, are involved in the accession process, but under different conditions.
Nevertheless, I have said that I understand the arguments that people have been putting forward here and the Commission will endeavour to take account of these aspirations, but since this is all about Agenda 2000 and the Financial Perspective, we will not be able to do this without amending this Financial Perspective.
Hitherto this has been out of the question of course.
By way of clarification: if we transfer it across from heading 4 to heading 7 then this will have no effect on the overall balance of the budget.
If we do this, then heading 7 would be increased accordingly but heading 4 would be decreased by the same amount.
The idea that heading 7 could be added to in this way and heading 4 left alone, is not workable.
Parliament is no more able than anyone else to spend money that it has not got, at least not until we have a printing machine installed in the basement that we can use to print euro notes!
As for the peace process in Cyprus and how it is linked with the accession negotiations, I would reiterate that there has always been a direct connection between the two.
The Commission and the Council have long endeavoured to encourage the two communities in Cyprus to undertake joint projects.
So far, as you know, this has proved unsuccessful, and I have been asked if there have been any signs to the contrary.
Mrs Rothe, I would put it this way: I am convinced that there has been a distinct improvement in the framework conditions for reaching agreements of this kind.
I do not have confirmation of this at present, and nor do I expect it, since we have not yet held direct talks.
These will take place at a later date.
The framework conditions have changed in that the Helsinki decisions made a whole range of things possible that were not possible hitherto, and, above all, in that the political strategies employed by the parties concerned have changed beyond recognition.
I have always believed that the old line - i.e. not to admit Cyprus under any circumstances until the political conflict has been resolved - has a weak point in that it does not provide the Turkish community on Cyprus with a convincing incentive to properly involve themselves, for, with this strategy, the Turkish community would not need to do anything but sit back and wait.
There would then be no question of Cyprus acceding to the Union.
As matters stand, Turkey has to take seriously the fact that there is a risk of Cyprus being integrated into the European Union, and this would provide opportunities for prosperity and security for the Greek community whilst the Turkish community, whose level of prosperity is already far lower, would fall even further behind.
Therefore, it is my firm belief that, since Helsinki, there has been far greater incentive to link the accession process with the resolution of the conflict.
Indeed that was the idea behind it.
After only a few weeks, Mrs Rothe, it is still too early to deliver a verdict on this, but in any case, I have no grounds for assuming that the new line will fail.
As yet, we have no grounds for saying that we will actually succeed, but one thing I can say quite clearly is that the conditions that need to be in place for us to take a step forwards have improved considerably.
Finally, of course, the Cyprus question has a role in the discussions with Turkey.
I met the Turkish Foreign Minister in Brussels a few weeks ago and naturally I asked if Turkey could take a positive and constructive stance in relation to this issue.
I would just make one point: we cannot be 100% sure - I am not at any rate - that one only has to press a button in Ankara to set the wheels in motion in Cyprus.
It is very far from being that simple, rather we are going to have to make concentrated efforts, during talks with both communities, to encourage them to reach an understanding.
That is what we intend to do: the necessary measures and programmes are in place.
I must make it clear to you that we need this financial regulation, the one that has yet to be decided on here, before we can even get started.
The financial regulation is the legal framework we need to tackle the priorities established under the terms of the accession partnerships with Malta and Cyprus.
I cannot start anything while there is no regulation in place, because I lack the legal basis for doing so.
If the lamented lack of coherence should happen to have something to do with this point, then I am bound to say that this regulation is a legal framework and nothing more than that.
This legal framework is fleshed out in the priorities set by the accession partnerships that were adopted by the Commission and the Council last year and are now being implemented in the corresponding programmes and project management.
On the contrary, I would say that, although many areas of European policy leave something to be desired in terms of coherence, in this instance I would claim, on behalf of the Commission and the Council, that we have developed a very clear, transparent and coherent policy.
. (DE) Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, now that the Commissioner has explained to us, in an extremely coherent manner, that the erstwhile President-in-Office of the Council and his Minister of State for Europe bore responsibility for the lack of coherence, perhaps you could help the Commissioner and ourselves, so as to enable us to take this decision.
It would be helpful if you could give a positive answer to my questions on the Financial Perspective up until 2004 and on heading B7, or if you could at least confirm that the Portuguese Council Presidency intends to make efforts of this kind to make good the aforementioned lack of coherence, which is something the Commissioner will also seek to achieve on the part of the Commission.
. (PT) Mr President, I am sure that the issue raised by my friend Elmar Brok will be considered by the Council.
I feel that the criticism made of the previous presidency is not appropriate.
I believe that the work done by the previous presidency in defining the financial outlook was excellent, regardless of who was involved in that work.
In any case, the question that this raises is an important one and the Council will not fail to support the proposals that the Commission has presented in this respect.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as I understood it, Mr Brok was actually referring to an earlier presidency still.
Mr President, I asked Commissioner Verheugen a specific question about the financing instrument MEDA but he has not provided an answer.
I would urge him to do so for his answer will determine the way in which we decide to vote on the various proposed amendments we have before us.
Forgive me Mr Poos.
There was a lack of clarity at precisely the point at which you put the question to me.
This is how matters stand with regard to MEDA: Malta and Cyprus can take part in the national programmes, but not in the country-specific ones, because the incomes are too high.
Thank you very much Commissioner Verheugen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0009/2000). We will examine questions to the Council.
Question No 1 by (H-0022/00):
Subject: Controlling access to Community waters for oil tankers In connection with the accident involving the oil tanker ERIKA off the French coast, which produced a large oil slick, what steps does the Council intend to take to control access to Community waters for tankers flying flags of convenience which do not meet Community safety standards?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 24 January the Council considered the consequences of the accident the previous month involving the oil tanker Erika.
At that time, bearing in mind the strength of public feeling about the disastrous consequences of this accident, the Council made known its concerns about the safety of oil tankers and the environmental protection that should go hand in hand with it.
The Council was fully aware of issues of this kind and of the need to take additional measures in this field.
It emphasised the importance of the Council taking new measures within a Community framework and in the context of its own work with international organisations.
As you know, as currently framed, Community legislation requires port authorities to carry out inspections on board all foreign vessels, including those flying flags of convenience, and to detain them if they do not comply with international standards.
There is a directive dating from 1995 on this subject.
With regard to the future, the Council noted that work within the Commission should shortly lead to the publication of a communication on the safety of oil tankers and of new proposals to strengthen controls, together with provisions on the qualifications of inspecting agencies.
There are also plans for a requirement to strengthen the actual structure of oil tankers visiting Community ports.
These dossiers will be progressed by the Transport Council and I can therefore assure you, on behalf of the Council, that we will not fail to give the highest priority to the proposals, which there is every indication the Commission is due to present in this area, which we regard as being a vital part of environmental protection.
This House will of course also be invited to give its views on these proposals, given that these are matters subject to the codecision procedure.
I am pleased that the Council is considering this question.
The President of the Council comes from a country, Portugal, which is directly at risk from just this type of situation.
If we stretched our imaginations, we could envisage a situation where, between now and next summer, an oil tanker may run aground under similar circumstances off the Algarve, wreck the Portuguese summer tourist industry, with a bit of luck the sea currents would carry the pollution towards the island of Madeira - because they move in that direction - and furthermore, wreck tourism in the Canary Islands as well.
Does the President of the Council not think that we should stop talking and implement tough measures in this area, bearing in mind that we now have the means to control this type of oil tanker on the high seas?
Of course, the story of the Erika seems comical.
A French-owned ship, under a Maltese flag of convenience, an Indian crew, a sea-worthiness certificate issued by Italy, in Sicily, with the last inspection carried out in Bulgaria, I think.
The ship was sinking and the captain realised that it was sinking and that it was not even going to make it to the next port.
This kind of situation should not be allowed.
The damage to your country, Mr President, and to mine, Spain, could be horrendous.
Mr Medina Ortega, I naturally share your concerns and I can assure you that a coastal country like my own, the country currently holding the presidency, is naturally very concerned about this issue, all the more so as it does not have any oil tankers of its own.
However, we have to work within the existing legislative framework. That legislative framework is the 1995 directive, which has a set of regulations with a degree of flexibility which should perhaps be implemented more rigorously.
In this area we have to work with the world as it is, and that means reacting in accordance with the facts of the situation.
In view of the seriousness of such situations, we can congratulate ourselves on the fact that the authorities have at least reacted and undertaken to examine the legislative provisions already existing in this field.
The Commission' s intentions in this area are positive, as it intends to reinforce the application of the 1995 directive.
The Council is minded to give priority to this area, within the Transport Council, and we intend to follow this up as quickly as possible.
We also hope that the European Parliament will be able to examine this issue with equal promptness when it comes before this House under the codecision procedure.
Mr President, in Kotka, in Finland, there is currently a vessel carrying chemicals, which is sailing under a flag of convenience.
The vessel is anchored outside the port, as the condition it is in is a safety hazard for the port and the surrounding areas, and because it cannot be inspected properly, as there is no one who will pay.
Would it be possible for the EU to create a standardised inspection system that would also guarantee payment, out of Community funds, for the inspection of ships that fly a flag of convenience and cannot themselves pay the cost?
- (PT) Mrs Korhola, as you will understand, I do not at the moment have the information I need to give you a concrete reply.
The information that I have is to do with the 1995 directive, which does not include any provisions of that kind.
However, the Council will certainly let you have a concrete reply on the options available for acting in the case you have mentioned.
Question No 2 by (H-0024/00):
Subject: High infant mortality levels in Kosovo According to the most recent UN information forwarded to the World Health Organisation, Kosovo has the highest rate of infant mortality in Europe. About 50% of premature babies do not survive and the war has resulted in a massive increase in the number of miscarriages.
Even babies born when due tend to be underdeveloped. In view of the humanitarian aid being given by the European Union and the efforts being made by the head of the interim administration, Mr Bernard Kouchner, what measures will the Council take to defend the rights of the women of Kosovo to motherhood and to protect the health of pregnant women, women in confinement and new-born children?
Mr President, Mrs Karamanou' s question is an extremely serious one, and I would not wish to conceal that fact.
We are perfectly aware of the difficult and dramatic humanitarian situation in Kosovo and of the problem of displaced people in that region - and I mean people who originate from Kosovo - and of the particular effect of this on child health and on mortality rates.
I think it is well known that the European Union has made a clear contribution to the humanitarian aid effort being made by the international community.
As you know, the European Community has contributed a total of EUR 378 million for the province of Kosovo alone, and this has to be seen in conjunction with the contributions made by Member States at national level.
This contribution covers various projects in the fields of health and health systems and of water purification.
Furthermore, as you know, the European Union makes a contribution to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, which came to EUR 66.3 million in 1999.
I think that Mrs Karamanou is aware that, because of the need for division of labour between the international donors, the task of restoring health care in Kosovo has been entrusted to the World Health Organisation.
The reports produced by the WHO indicate that it is fully aware of the alarming infant mortality situation, and it has focused its efforts on improving basic conditions in maternity and general hospitals.
Nevertheless, we are aware that this situation is far from a satisfactory solution and that there are widespread repercussions in other areas of health care, apart from child health.
This is not just a technical situation, it is a political situation, and it goes hand in hand with the need to solve the political situation, because there are aspects to this, and we may as well be open about this, which are associated with the international community' s inability up to now to make a multi-ethnic society function in Kosovo, with tragic effects on attempts to improve health care in that region.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I thank you for your answer which supplements what Commissioner Patten said yesterday on the subject.
Yet, the sum of EUR 378 million you mentioned had been given in 1999, was proved by the facts to be quite insufficient to create even rudimentary civilised conditions in Kosovo, especially where the provision of health services is concerned.
Mr President-in-Office, do you not think that the very fact of increased child mortality is an abomination for the continent of Europe, a shameful thing, which should motivate us all, so that the aid we provide becomes more effective and more generous?
Of course, the situation was not idyllic, even before the bombardments, anything but, I should say. However, since NATO' s intervention, there has been a very clear deterioration in the natural and human environment.
So, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, is it not a moral obligation that we should try to create civilised conditions for the long-suffering inhabitants of Kosovo, and above all, keep our promises to them?
Mrs Karamanou, I recognise the fact that all the efforts that have been made in Kosovo in this field have not been enough.
I do not think that any of us has the least doubt about that.
I do not want to link this question with your comments about the period "before" and "after" NATO' s intervention, as we will probably touch on that issue at another point during this Question Time.
Nevertheless, I would like to say that the European Union is aware that the resources it has devoted to Kosovo reflect the financial limitations it has to work within.
We have to remember that we share responsibility in that region with the international community.
The European Union has a certain responsibility in view of that particular role, but we cannot undertake to rapidly rebuild structures that were, as you have said yourself, Mrs Karamanou, not the best before the military action in Kosovo.
What is more, I do not believe, Mrs Karamanou, that the military action in Kosovo resulted in such a significant destruction of public health facilities as to have had a direct impact on the current situation.
The present position is more dramatic in terms of displaced populations, and in terms of a whole raft of economic factors and of the level of satisfaction with basic health facilities resulting from the overall breakdown in organisational structures in Kosovo' s administration.
This is the basic issue underlying the present situation as a whole.
And if we cannot solve the political problem, which must be done in accordance with the relevant United Nations resolution, then we will not solve the problem of child health, nor the various other problems faced by this region.
I would like to widen the debate and include the situation in Mitrovica.
In cooperation with Europe, the international community rebuilt the hospital there too, but it is located in the northern part of the city, thus prohibiting access to Albanian Kosovars.
This means that medical aid is still denied to the Albanian Kosovars.
This is also happening elsewhere in the country, causing tension between the Albanian Kosovars and Serbs, making for a situation where nobody trusts anybody anymore and where Albanians do not want to be looked after by Serbs and vice versa.
I understand very well what you are saying and you are right: the European Union should work in a wider context of international cooperation.
But where will you place the emphasis? What will you do to ensure that Albanian Kosovars too can be cared for in a hospital, including that in Mitrovica?
Mr Staes, the situation in Mitrovica is well known.
This is a very special situation with a degree of inter-ethnic tension which fortunately is not matched with such severity in others parts of Kosovo.
I perfectly understand Mr Staes' s concerns.
Nevertheless, I would like to say that Bernard Kouchner' s work in this area has aimed to comply with the objectives of the relevant United Nations resolution, in an attempt to create multi-ethnic facilities which can serve the various communities, including the various aspects of the administration.
I believe that we should not jump to conclusions here about who is responsible, because there are various protagonists involved.
The situation in Mitrovica is appalling, and involves very special tensions, and I believe that the measures taken over the last few hours to create safe conditions in that area are to be welcomed.
Nevertheless, I have to say that, regrettably, we do not have the police resources - and this is connected with the Member States' contributions - to guarantee the follow-up action we proposed to the military action, that is to say the establishment of inter-ethnic coordination mechanisms guaranteeing adequate safety for the various communities, and, in particular, access to hospitals.
Question No 3 by (H-0027/00):
Subject: Indictment of NATO before War Crimes Tribunal Human rights organisations, such as the US Human Rights Watch, have already collected significant evidence of NATO crimes in connection with the bombing of Kosovo and Serbia with a view to bringing a case before the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
On the basis of this evidence, some of which has already been lodged with the Tribunal, NATO is accused of 'serious violations of international humanitarian law' and 'wilful murder'.
Does the Council consider that such accusations should be put before the War Crimes Tribunal for a thorough judicial investigation? In the event of a judicial inquiry into the accusations against NATO, what will be done in respect of the High Representative for the CFSP, who was NATO Secretary-General during the crisis?
Is there any procedure for suspending him from office until the judicial investigation into the accusations has been completed?
Mr President, Mr Alavanos' question naturally gives us food for thought on a wide range of issues.
The Council has already, on various occasions, stated its conviction that the severe measures taken by NATO were both necessary and justified to deal with extremist and irresponsible actions involving clear violations of the United Nations Security Council resolutions.
I am aware that there may be different views about NATO' s action and the legitimacy of that action.
Everyone is free to hold such views.
In my own country, the various parliamentary groups had differing views on this matter.
That was how it was.
In any case, the Council' s position is clear in that it considers that the objective of the air campaign carried out by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was to put an end to the humanitarian disaster in Kosovo caused by the Belgrade regime.
This objective was fully and formally expressed in the statement adopted by the General Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 8 April.
I must say that these NATO measures were not taken lightly and were only carried out as a last resort when it became evident that all avenues for reaching a negotiated solution had been exhausted and that the Belgrade authorities were concentrating their forces in order to expel the Kosovo Albanians from their land.
I am sure you are aware, Mr Alavanos, that, during her recent visit to NATO headquarters, Prosecutor Del Ponte stressed that the International Tribunal was obliged to examine all accusations presented to it, including those made against NATO, in particular by pacifist groups from Canada.
This compulsory examination was to be carried out in line with accusations submitted.
In any case, I have with me a statement made by Prosecutor Del Ponte according to which NATO is not at present under any investigation by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and there is no formal inquiry process concerning NATO' s actions in the Kosovo conflict.
All information received during the past six months, either from individuals or from groups requesting an investigation of NATO' s actions during the Kosovo conflict, have been recorded by the Prosecutor.
Any other information will of course be analysed by the Prosecutor, who will in due course decide whether or not there is cause for action.
Until that time Prosecutor Del Ponte has decided not to examine any of the accusations of criminality made against NATO.
I thank the President-in-Office but I do not agree with him that the purpose of NATO' s intervention was to stop a humanitarian disaster, because we have a humanitarian disaster in Kosovo today, we have the hell of Milosevic, followed by the hell of the KLA and the NATO forces.
If the President-in-Office has noticed, almost half the questions he has had to answer today relate to Kosovo.
Despite this, he too accepted that the inquisition procedure of the War Crimes Tribunal against NATO after applications by Canadian and other pacifist organisations is an open question.
My question, which the President-in-Office did not answer, is this: if this inquisition procedure begins, in which the main or, if you will, one of the main people interrogated and probably found guilty will be Mr Solana, who is today the High Representative of the European Union' s Common Foreign and Security Policy, should it not be, if that happens, if the General Prosecutor of the Tribunal is determined to begin the process, that Mr Solana' s status is suspended at least until it is shown that his hands are clean?
Mr Alavanos, if an action of this kind should be brought against NATO and if this action were to be brought against Mr Javier Solana personally, we would have to bear in mind that Mr Javier Solana held one post at that time and is holding a different one today.
The duties that he exercises today have nothing whatsoever to do with the duties that he exercised during his time as Secretary-General of NATO.
In the absence of any corresponding indication from any international judicial body which could justify any personal accusation against Mr Javier Solana - and there is no sign of this whatsoever - the European Union will not of course make any statement at all on this matter.
Mr President, I believe Mr Alavanos is getting NATO and Mr Milosevic mixed up.
Mr Milosevic should be appearing before the war crimes tribunal and we should be awarding NATO the Sakharov prize. But I have a quite different question for the Council.
How do matters stand in Kosovo with regard to the rebuilding of the administration, the judiciary and, most importantly of all, the police force? You mentioned before that we are on the brink of catastrophe there and nothing is being done.
Rapid action is called for!
First of all, I would like to say that I agree with the priorities you have identified concerning personal responsibility, Mr Posselt.
With regard to the judicial structure in Kosovo, we have already heard Mr Kouchner, on various occasions, describe the enormous difficulties he is experiencing in setting up administrative machinery and a judicial structure.
As you know, the first steps were taken some months ago.
We are all aware of the difficulties, and particularly the financial difficulties, that Mr Kouchner is facing in setting up this administrative machinery, and, in particular, we are aware of the special difficulty involved in recruiting police so as to ensure day-to-day public safety.
This is a responsibility that the European Union takes very seriously, Mr Posselt, and I would like to mention that, at the General Affairs Council held on Monday, this issue was repeatedly stressed when we were discussing Kosovo.
Statements were made and pressure was brought to bear on the various Member States who have undertaken to make police resources available to honour their commitments.
Some Member States are taking refuge in the fact that they have provided military forces and that they cannot send the police forces, to which they committed themselves, as quickly as they would like.
We are certainly very much aware that this factor is seriously compromising Mr Kouchner' s work and the normalisation of administrative structures in Kosovo, especially as regards judicial structures and police cover.
This is having unfortunate and obvious effects on the scope for controlling inter-ethnic coordination, and we are all conscious that, if measures are not taken in the short term, we may end up with situations involving the kind of tensions that we witnessed just a few hours ago, and that these tensions may be mirrored in other areas of Kosovo.
This is obviously a question which really has to be seen in a NATO context, but, as the European Union shares NATO' s view of these issues, it is not difficult for us to associate ourselves with this.
I would like to make this clear on behalf of the Council, so that there can be no doubt.
Mr Marset Campos, you will be aware, first of all, of how difficult it is to select targets during a military operation, particularly an air-based one, and you will also be aware that there is a category of targets that, whilst they are not military targets as such, are infrastructure targets selected with a view to hindering the smooth running of the military machine.
We are of course entering a grey area here, and you may say, Mr Marset Campos, that these are civilian targets, such as bridges and road and rail infrastructure, whilst others will tell me that they are military targets, because they are targets which support military structures in aggressive campaigns such as those carried out by Mr Milosevic' s forces in Kosovo.
So we do not see eye to eye on how we view certain targets.
Unfortunately, and as everyone recognised during the military action in Kosovo, there were civilian sectors, and in particular infrastructural sectors directly affecting the general public, and even inhabited areas, which were directly affected by NATO air attacks.
This is generally recognised and this happens in all wars, and the Kosovo war was not a clean war, nor a model war, but a war based on the art of the possible.
And, above all, it was a necessary war, and it was not only about what was possible, it was necessary to put an end to an absolutely unacceptable form of aggression which was utterly rejected by the entire international community.
Mr Marset Campos, regardless of how we may see things with hindsight - and it is easy to see things with the benefit of hindsight, if you take no action yourself - I believe that, if we look at what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and at the impunity that the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina led to, and the continuation of that impunity, then we might perhaps see the NATO military action in Kosovo in a somewhat less catastrophic light.
Question No 4 by (H-0028/00):
Subject: Turkish blockade of Armenia Given that the European Union is actively promoting social, economic and political relations with Armenia through the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, signed on 12 October 1999, what steps is the Council taking to persuade the Turkish Government to lift the economic blockade of Armenia?
Has the time come for the Turkish Government to lift the economic blockade of Armenia?
Mr President, I would like to thank the Representative of the Council Presidency for his answer.
Nevertheless, I am a little disappointed that this is viewed from a bilateral angle first and foremost when, ultimately, there is in fact a major tripartite relationship.
We provide partnership funding and there are cooperation agreements in place, in order to help Armenia, and still the aid cannot come into play because Turkey has imposed an economic blockade, and so many things cannot get through to the Armenians at all.
We are negotiating with Turkey as to the possibility of its acceding to the Union and so it is in the interests of all of us that every state that wishes to become a Member should cultivate friendly relations with its neighbours.
Can you not exert greater influence over Turkey, so as to enable there to be peaceful developments in this region, and so as to enable Armenians themselves to develop in the way they need to for there to be progress on the cooperation front?
- (PT) Mrs Schleicher, you are quite right to say that we should use our relationship with Turkey to ensure that that country can play a constructive role in this situation and, particularly, that it becomes part of the solution rather than part of the problem.
We feel that precisely because Turkey has embarked on a new type of relationship with the European Union, and also because Turkey now has to respond to the European Union' s positions on common foreign and security policy issues, we will, to be frank, be testing Turkey' s will as regards the European Union' s priorities in its foreign relations.
Our relationship with Armenia, as evinced by the agreement we signed with that country last year, is of course one element in these foreign relations.
We also feel that, if Turkey wishes to move towards sharing the fundamental values of the European Union and the general framework of the European Union' s relations, regardless of whatever special bilateral conditions may apply to its own relations with any other country, it must in general act in accordance with the basic standards demonstrated by the European Union in its foreign relations.
We are, moreover, convinced that this issue will be one of the priorities of the bilateral relations between the European Union and Turkey in the near future.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 5 and 6 will be taken together.
Question No 5 by (H-0031/00):
Subject: Worsening situation in Kosovo In Kosovo, the genocide of Serbs and other non-Albanian ethnic groups is continuing and worsening to the extent that Mr Bernard Kouchner himself recently announced that the political situation and the level of security in the area were far from satisfactory.
Accusations are also being made of failure to implement UN Directive 1244 since, on the one hand, its provisions concerning guarantees for all the inhabitants of Kosovo are being disregarded and on the other, encouragement is being given to extremist breakaway groups, culminating in the appointment of the former KLA leader H. Thaci as 'interim prime minister' of Kosovo and the designation of the KLA as the 'Kosovo protection force'.
What steps will the Council take in view of the above in order to ensure compliance with UN decisions and, in particular, resolution 1244 and prevent the secession of the province of Kosovo from Serbia?
Question No 6 by (H-0122/00):
Subject: Ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Kosovo Since the end of the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO and the EU aimed at preventing the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians by Serbia, and since the arrival of KFOR on 12 June 1999, 200 000 Serbs living in Kosovo have been expelled and 768 murdered, constituting ethnic cleansing on a larger scale than that carried out by the Serbs themselves.
During the last few days we have seen Serbs murdered by Kosovar Albanian Mafia-type groups, also with impunity.
What decision will the Council adopt to put an end, once and for all, to this ethnic cleansing and to guarantee respect for the human rights of the whole population of Kosovo, irrespective of race or creed?
I thank the Minister for his response, but I would also like to point out that, statistically, there is now more violence in Kosovo than there was before the NATO bombing.
It is worrying that the bombing has aggravated the situation, and we should recognise that it was a mistake on the part of NATO and the European Union to take such action.
I agree with what the Minister very rightly said about the culpability of Belgrade, but we should also remember that the secret services of the USA, Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom have been supplying arms and money to the KLA, a mafia, which has contributed to the problems in the area.
We are therefore all to blame.
I would like to ask him a supplementary question in a wider context.
Do you not think that it would be beneficial to lift the embargo on Serbia in order to normalise the area economically and also to benefit Kosovo as a province of Serbia?
Mr President, I am no friend of Milosevic or his government.
Nevertheless I have the gravest doubts about the legitimacy of Nato's action against Yugoslavia over Kosovo, both in terms of the lack of authority from the UN Security Council and because it could have been avoided by not imposing unacceptable terms on Serbia's sovereignty at Rambouillet.
The current situation in Kosovo, which is now ethnically cleansed of Serbs and Roma, speaks for itself.
Should Nato not at the very least acknowledge fault for its deliberate targeting of the Belgrade TV tower and killing over 20 civilian journalists, which remains a severe moral blemish on the conduct of the war and now opens the embarrassment of a possible indictment for war crimes against our Western leaders?
Mr Tannock, with regard to the position adopted by the European Union, we do not have selective interpretations and analyses of what were military objectives, and in particular of the initiatives taken against certain types of infrastructure that were propping up Mr Milosevic' s political system and acting as propaganda for him.
I cannot therefore tell you whether we agreed or not on a specific action carried out by NATO, but it was part of an overall plan with which we do agree.
Some of these actions might have been questionable, and some were regarded as unfortunate by NATO itself, but others were justified for tactical reasons, with the aim of preventing Mr Milosevic from continuing his propaganda campaign within the former Yugoslavia.
In any event, I, on behalf of the Council, do not wish to make a value judgement about any specific military action carried out by NATO.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, since I know the history of the Balkans, I should like to remind you that, for many decades, the peoples of Yugoslavia lived in peace.
Destabilisation began around ten years ago with the break-up of Yugoslavia, in which the European Union played a decisive part.
Yugoslavia' s crime was that it was the only Balkan country that did not ask to become a member either of NATO or of the European Union.
So whatever remained standing after the air attacks is now being destroyed by the supposedly disarmed KLA, under the very nose of KFOR, whose role as an occupying force is becoming increasingly apparent.
Every day, new crimes come to light against non-Albanian speakers and against the cultural heritage of Kosovo, and there are hundreds of violations of the UN' s Resolution 1244.
In my opinion, the best thing the Council could do would be to cease occupying that part of Yugoslavia and search for a solution acceptable to all sides, with respect for the various national characteristics in the area and especially respect for the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of another, independent country.
I respect your understanding and knowledge of the Balkan region, Mr Alyssandrakis, but I find it difficult, quite frankly, to understand how respecting the characteristics of the region can, in terms of political stability, be a solution to the problem. If we look at the democratic stability of the region, it could perhaps be said that it was the break-up of Yugoslavia that caused the current situation, but let us not get involved in interpreting an international development.
Nevertheless, I would like to say that Yugoslavia was what it was, in the sense that the state managed to harmonise some of its people' s ethnic differences to a degree.
It must be pointed out that it did this at a time when its political framework was far from ideal in terms of being democratically representative.
The division of Yugoslavia is probably a historical fact that we shall have to accept, regardless of the mistakes that may have been made along the way.
We do not feel that withdrawing international forces now would be any kind of solution.
Quite the contrary, it would be a solution leading to calamity.
Mr President, I was a little disappointed with the answer given by the President-in-Office to my colleague.
It is very important, if we stress that Europe is to be a Europe of values, that we do not go down the road of saying that means justify ends.
If civilian targets were targeted and destroyed, killing civilians is illegal by anyone's standards.
It should not be defended even by those of us who deeply deplore the Milosevic regime.
That, however, is not my question.
My question is about political prisoners held in Serbia now.
There are, I believe, around 5 000 Kosovar political prisoners held in Serbia at the moment. My question to the President-in-Office is twofold.
Firstly, is the Council fully aware of and concerned about the fate of these prisoners? Secondly, what does it propose to do about them?
Mr MacCormick, first of all, I would like to answer your comments.
I did not defend attacks on civilians.
What I said and what I explained in a previous answer is that there are civilian targets linked with structures which are objects for military action, and you know as well as I do that some military actions not only go for military targets, but also for civilian targets and structures which are connected with military action.
What is a legitimate target is obviously a grey area.
As I said, we are not making value judgements about specific actions.
We are making an overall value judgement about NATO' s action, and this overall value judgement is positive. We agree with the general view of NATO' s action.
With regard to political prisoners in Serbia, Mr MacCormick, it is obvious that, when I say that in Serbia today Mr Milosevic is not acting in accordance with the rules of a decent society at international level, I am referring specifically, not just to the way he acts towards his fellow citizens. I am also referring to the way Mr Milosevic treats political prisoners, and the way he attacks democratic rights and the opposition' s rights of access to the media, and to his attacks on the facilities that should be granted to non-governmental organisations, particularly those protecting human rights.
In spite of everything, all this represents only one of many kinds of highly pernicious action perpetrated by Mr Milosevic on Yugoslavian society, and the European Union is of course inevitably concerned about this situation.
This is precisely why the European Union is maintaining all its sanctions until Yugoslavia' s behaviour on the international stage reflects the values that we have to defend.
Question No 7 by (H-0035/00):
Subject: Drafting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights The general public welcomes the fact that a Charter of Fundamental Rights is to be drawn up. It is also to be hoped that it will meet the challenges of Europe in the 21st century.
What are the Council's views on the substance of the Charter?
What type of rights will the Charter set out (economic, social and cultural)? Which citizens will it cover (those of the European Union or the citizens of all European countries with a view to enlargement?
Will it cover immigrants etc.?)?
Will it set out established social rights in the European Union or will it set a broader agenda? What means will the Charter use to ensure that it clearly guarantees equality between the sexes?
What are the Council's views on incorporating the Charter into the Treaty on European Union?
I thank the President-in-Office for the concerns and certainties he has expressed about the progress of the work.
You will understand, Mr President-in-Office, that there was a point to my question, because the Council is a political body of the European Union and the citizens of Europe, men and women, want to know how it views the democratic and social model of Europe in the twenty-first century.
As a supplementary question, I should like to ask you whether, as the Portuguese Presidency, you have made provision for the rights of children, as such, to be included in future deliberations and the rights to be incorporated in the Charter.
As I said, Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, we are not in control of the procedure for drawing up the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This procedure falls within the competence of the members of the group, and the matter will only be submitted to the Council if and when consensus is reached on the terms of this charter.
I would nevertheless like to say, with regard to the rights of the child, that we consider this to be an extremely topical issue, particularly for the Council of Europe and in view of the existence of a set of relevant international texts to which we have signed up.
This matter should form part of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This will certainly be the guideline that my government for one will advocate for the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Furthermore, we will see if we can do this for a range of other proposals that we have on this issue.
I do not know whether these proposals will meet with a favourable reception or not.
I presume, however, that this is not a particularly controversial matter and we think that it would simply involve bringing together the currently agreed corpus of rights, which even the most elementary justice would suggest should be included in the charter and be shared by the Union as a whole.
I would remind Members that, according to the guidelines for these sittings, questions must be concise and be worded in a way which will allow a brief answer.
You know that there is a Parliamentary delegation chaired by Mr Méndez de Vigo and a Committee on Constitutional Affairs where these issues can be debated at great length.
I therefore ask that both questions and answers be very brief.
Otherwise, we would be in a way undermining the whole process of drawing up the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I am sure that the President-in-Office of the Council is prepared to answer everything, but I must ensure that this sitting consists of questions and answers.
Mr Rübig has the floor.
Mr President, fourteen Member States have imposed bilateral sanctions on another Member State, because a democratically elected government was formed there.
Both parties were once part of the government. So far there have been no infringements of the law.
Are preventive sanctions reconcilable with the Charter of Human Rights?
Would a right of veto on the part of the President-in-Office of the Council, in respect of the formation of national governments, be reconcilable with the Charter of Fundamental Rights? Is the call for violent demonstrations reconcilable with the Charter of Fundamental Rights?
Mr Rübig, as President-in-Office, I cannot give you an answer for the simple reason that the statement by the Portuguese Prime Minister on behalf of the fourteen Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the European Union was adopted bilaterally and not by him in his capacity as President-in-Office of the Council of the European Union.
Nevertheless, I would like to say that the various preventive actions taken on a strictly bilateral basis by these Member States was actually a set of actions of what I would call preventive political action at diplomatic level. We feel that they were perfectly justified and seemed to be reasonable in the face of the actions and personalities of a party which, although it has become part of a European Union government, does not strike us as being able to guarantee that it can meet the Union' s aims.
I do not wish to dwell on this subject on behalf of the Council presidency, because my government intervened at the request of, and in conjunction with, fourteen Member States and not in its presidency capacity.
Mr President, I have the honour of being a member of the Convention drafting the Charter so I am not going to ask the presidency to speculate on the contents or whether it thinks the Convention should be declaratory or whether it should have judicial force.
What I would like to know is what will happen to the draft Charter that the Convention draws up?
Will the Council treat it as a document that it has to accept as it stands, or will the Council feel free to amend that document? Will the Council say just simply yes or no to it or will it be in a position to actually then redraft that draft Charter?
- (PT) The answer is neither yes nor no.
I do not know, Mr Martin. It will depend on the decision taken by the Council.
Question No 8 by (H-0042/00):
Subject: Granting of export credit guarantees and its implications for the construction of the Ilisu Dam in Turkey The G8 meeting in Cologne called on the OECD to set up a process for the establishment of common standards for the granting of export credits.
These can be used to distort competition and support questionable projects.
Will the EU take the lead in advancing this process? The need was demonstrated recently by the statement from the British Government that it is 'minded to grant' an export credit licence to a company involved in the construction of the Ilisu Dam in Turkey.
The World Bank has decided not to fund the project, which will displace 20 000 Kurds, potentially limit the fresh water supply to Syria and Iraq and cause ecological damage.
What is the Council's view of the involvement of European governments and companies in this project?
The process of agreeing these common standards may have started as long ago as 1978 but clearly the fact that the British Government appears to be going ahead with a massively environmentally damaging project suggests that it has not been very successful so far.
I wonder if you would answer a question concerning investment by EU companies in the EU applicant countries.
I ask this because of the issue of coherence, the subject of this morning' s discussion.
On the one hand we ask applicant countries to take on board the environmental acquis and yet, at the very same time, the EU Member States are supporting and encouraging investment in those countries which is itself hugely environmentally damaging.
Can you say whether or not the specific issue of investment in applicant countries has featured in any of the discussions to date to which you have been referring?
- (PT) Mrs Lucas, I was not present at the debate you are referring to.
I would like to say that the Council will only be able to respond to that part of your question in writing, at a later date.
Question No 9 by (H-0044/00):
Subject: Environmental problems caused by the Drogheda Port Company development project, and the role of the Court of Auditors A major conflict between environmental conservation and structural development interests has arisen in the area of the Boyne Estuary, Ireland, following a development project of the Drogheda Port Company.
The affected area is designated a Special Protection Area (SPA) under the Wild Birds Directive and is under consideration for a Special Area of Conservation under the Habitats Directive, as it is an area of international importance.
Many local and European associations have strongly criticised the project.
Similar cases occur in other regions of the Union, where EU development funding conflicts with environmental unsustainability of the beneficiary measures.
Is not the Council of the opinion that the Court of Auditors should be given more resources in order to investigate or review similar development measures where environmental conflicts arise? What kind of measures does the Council plan to take in order to strengthen the review and evaluation powers of the European institutions in similar cases?
. (PT) In response to your question, Mrs McKenna, I would first of all like to highlight the fact that the role of the Court of Auditors was laid down in the Treaty establishing the European Community.
In accordance with Article 246 of the Treaty, the auditing of accounts is carried out by the Court of Auditors which, to this end, studies the accounts of all revenue and expenditure of the Community as well as the regularity and the legality of the underlying transactions. The Court also guarantees proper financial management.
This is indeed also stipulated in Article 248.
The Court of Auditors, therefore, already has all the instruments necessary to carry out its role.
With regard to your suggestion for increasing the Court' s resources, the Council considers that all of the Union' s institutions have, under the Community budget, the necessary financial means for them to be able to properly carry out their respective remits.
In some cases, it would probably be desirable for their financial resources to be increased, but there are budgetary restraints of which I am sure you are aware.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that the Budget of the European Union is approved by common agreement between the Council and this Parliament.
The Council therefore, has no means of changing the role conferred on the Court of Auditors by the Treaty.
If extra resources were given to the Court of Auditors it would be money well spent, because it would ensure that EU funding was not going to something that conflicted with environmental concerns.
For years the Council has been blocking the strategic development impact assessment of plans and programmes.
I would ask you, now that you are President of the Council, will you push forward with this extremely important proposal.
Secondly, as there is no mention of Structural Funds in the current draft could you ensure that this would be put back in?
I would like to know what you could do about this as President-in-Office of the Council at the moment because it is the Council that has been blocking this for a long time.
It is extremely important.
If the Court of Auditors were able to assess regularly the potential conflicts between environmental concerns and structural development, it would be very important because the Court of Auditors could do an extremely good job.
Their reports are extremely detailed and very important.
This is the way to ensure that such conflicts are avoided in the future.
- (PT) Mrs McKenna, a large part of the problem you have raised relates to issues which are the responsibility of the Commission.
It is therefore the Commission that must ensure that certain development projects comply with relevant environmental provisions.
The Commission will have to provide specific answers to these questions.
I do not think that I can give a more complete answer on the specific case that you quoted.
Question No 10 by (H-0053/00):
Subject: Statute for Members of the European Parliament The Council and Parliament are going to try to reach agreement on a Statute for the Members of the European Parliament.
One of the matters to be settled is whether Members are to receive equal pay, and where they are to pay tax.
According to media reports the Portuguese Presidency considers that all Members should pay the same tax, to the EU.
This is in conflict with the view taken by some Member States who wish to have the right to tax their Members in their home countries.
Will the Portuguese Presidency clarify its position on this matter?
. (PT) The Portuguese Presidency is particularly interested in this issue, as I suppose that this is the first time a presidency has made resolving the problem of a Statute for Members of the European Parliament a priority in its programme.
The Portuguese Presidency made reaching an agreement on this statute one of its priorities, as furthermore, did the President of the European Parliament, when she stated this at the Helsinki European Council.
We are therefore in perfect and total agreement in our concern to achieve a positive outcome on this matter.
We are therefore taking advantage of this political will in an attempt to define the outlines of a compromise, and we have already begun work on this matter.
It is worth pointing out once more that this compromise will require the unanimous support of the Council, in accordance with Article 190, and the assent of this Parliament, to which it falls to approve this statute.
The Presidency has engaged in intensive discussions with a range of Members of this Parliament and with the group to which Parliament entrusted the task of negotiating with the Council.
I myself had an opportunity to meet this group, for the first time, in parallel with the January part-session, and I am trying to arrange to do so again soon in order to continue these discussions.
These discussions have also recommenced more intensively in the relevant bodies of the Council, and I think that I can say, in a spirit of openness and greater flexibility, and because we all recognise the importance that this has, particularly for the general public, that drawing up this statute is a vital factor in ensuring both the dignity of the functions of Members of the European Parliament and the necessary transparency and good management of public funds.
With regard more specifically to your question, I would like to highlight the fact that it only makes sense to have a new statute if it represents progress in comparison with the current situation and if it ensures that holders of identical posts are as far as possible treated in the same way.
This has, from the outset, been the position of the Portuguese Presidency.
Nevertheless, our role as mediator means that we must take account of all current attitudes in the Council and I am sure you are aware, Mr Sjöstedt, that the tax issue poses problems for certain delegations.
As this is the case, whatever solution is found, I think that it will have to respect both democratic law and be acceptable to all Member States, regardless of their national positions on the matter.
What I can promise with regard to this issue is that the presidency has the utmost commitment to working, for as long as it is involved with this matter, in an atmosphere of total transparency and openness towards Members of the European Parliament. We will also make the utmost effort with members of the Council, particularly with those who had most difficulty in accepting the proposal suggested last year, so as to reach a reasonable compromise solution, and one which would at the same time guarantee the dignity appropriate for a statute for the members of this House.
Mr President, I would thank the Council of Ministers for its answer.
I want to ask two follow-up questions connected with the taxation of ourselves as parliamentarians.
My basic view is that one ought to pay tax in the country in which one lives, in which one' s family lives and in which one benefits from public services.
I intended to ask the presidency if there really is an argument for saying that we should not pay tax in our own countries just as other people do. Is there any argument for our being given a special privilege just because we are parliamentarians?
That is my first question.
My second question is about whether the Portuguese Presidency can accept a solution which involves the tax issue' s being solved in different ways for Members of different nationalities, or whether you want a solution which is identical for members of all nationalities.
- (PT) Without wishing to show any lack of respect towards this House and particularly because of the respect that your questions deserve, I would rather not answer the questions you have raised immediately.
We are in the midst of rather sensitive negotiations. This sensitivity is reflected in the way in which the Presidency of the Council of the European Union expresses itself in a specific context in relation to particular situations.
This has an impact of course, because it is read by other members of the Council.
At this stage in the discussion, please forgive me if I cannot give a direct answer to the specific questions that have been put to me. I would ask that we be judged on our results, when we endeavour to reach a more concrete solution in the near future.
I will be happy to come back to Parliament to respond to and clarify the problems which may conceivably occur if a result is not reached, or to congratulate all of you if this result is achieved.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council, after his few hours working in this Chamber with these Members of the European Parliament, whether he has come to any assessment of what they are worth in terms of pay?
Mr Purvis, as this discussion of salaries in the European Parliament does not relate exclusively to your country and even affects my country, I have a precise idea of what the salaries of the Members of the European Parliament are worth.
I am therefore perfectly aware of this problem.
Mr President, I want to thank you for your answer.
I want to ask a follow-up question which bears some resemblance to the one Mr Sjöstedt asked. We both come from Sweden.
In our country, we pay our tax in the form of local taxes because the services concerned are local. We have extensive services, too.
We have problems stemming from the lack of confidence in politicians and, not least, in European politicians here in Parliament.
How do you think that public confidence in ourselves as politicians would be affected if a situation were to arise in which we obtained the right to use services where we live - education, health care etc - but, at the same time, did not pay any tax and did not contribute? How do you think a system like that would affect people' s confidence in ourselves as politicians?
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I do not know whether you are obliged to answer this question since it is really a philosophical question.
However, if you wish to enter into the realms of philosophy, go ahead!
. Mr President, I have no desire to enter into the realms of philosophy.
These are fundamental issues which concern the very shape of the Statute for Members and of its role in the context of political society.
I do not want to enter into this type of discussion because I think that it might, to use a French expression, préjuger the Portuguese Presidency' s views in the course of the negotiations in which it is involved on the Statute for Members.
I would ask you to allow me to refrain from commenting on this matter.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 11 to 35 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Address by Mr Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic
Mr President, allow me, on behalf of the European Parliament, to extend our warmest thanks for the clear message which you have brought and of which the members have already shown their appreciation.
Thank you. You are right to remind us that a national identity is perfectly compatible with a European identity.
And you have used your personal experience to show us that your European identity was not decreed; it was a spontaneous and natural move.
I have taken note of your words; this is something which we all feel very deeply.
We find you faithful to the principles which have always guided you, which have always guided your actions; your attachment to fundamental values.
You reminded us of your speech in 1994, which you yourself qualify as slightly provocative, but there is such a thing as creative utopia and we have been able to gauge together how far we have come.
And you very opportunely highlighted the role of the civil society, the importance of the civil society, not just in the candidate countries, but in all the countries in the European Union, in restoring our citizens' confidence, in restoring confidence in the social solidarity which we need.
To summarise, perhaps what struck me most in your speech; above all, you wished to remind us that, beyond its economic aspects, the task of constructing Europe is a spiritual one.
We of course look forward most keenly to continuing this task with you.
Thank you, Mr President.
(The formal sitting was closed at 12.40 p.m.)
ACP-EU Joint Assembly
The next item is the annual report (A5-0032/2000) by Mr Corrie, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the results of the activities of the ACS-EU Joint Assembly in 1999.
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating Mr Corrie on his excellent and comprehensive report.
Our approach to development policy must always be based on respect for human rights and the fight against poverty.
But there is a crass contradiction between fighting poverty and the cuts in development aid appropriations in many Member States and in the EU.
With regard to financing, we must look to the future and provide the Joint Assembly with additional funds so that, for instance, we can send delegations to the ACP states to oversee electoral processes, at their invitation.
In future, the EU must take a far more multilateral approach when it agrees development projects and, furthermore, must coordinate more closely with the individual states in order to improve efficiency and use the funding more effectively.
An example here could be the field of education, which will deserve and need special support in the ACP states in future.
For instance, the very rapidly growing educational and technological potential of the Internet offers entirely new means of helping the developing countries, which at present still have modest resources, to move towards a global approach, as opposed to globalisation.
I see it as a future task of the EU to contribute in this way to the establishment of small and medium-sized enterprises in the ACP states, which can promote self-help.
An example here is the problem in Nigeria, which imports industrial finished products from all over the world and then has to spend substantial resources on product maintenance by foreign workers.
One way forward to promote the setting up of SMEs could be to train the Nigerian population adequately.
It will be easier to take account of the developing countries' very diverse problems, and EU aid could be prepared and implemented in a more targeted manner if, as the report makes quite clear, we take the urgently needed step of optimising our working methods, by introducing the proposed regional assemblies.
Thank you, Mr Zimmerling: If I am informed correctly, this is the first time you are addressing this House.
Congratulations on your maiden speech: It went really well.
Mr President, it cannot be repeated often enough: since 1975, the Lomé Convention has constituted an important pillar of European development cooperation and has a pilot role to play in many respects.
Based as it is on the principle of partnership and equality, and on parliamentary control by the Joint Assembly, it is an example to the world.
Most appropriately, given that this year we are celebrating 25 years of cooperation under Lomé, we will shortly be signing a new and more advanced partnership agreement, which also upgrades the Joint Assembly into a genuine parliamentary assembly on both sides.
So I do not want to look back only to the year 1999. The rapporteur, Mr Corrie, has already done so most expertly.
Much of what concerns us today is the outcome of fundamental processes of transformation in all parts of the world since the late 1980s.
They also had strong repercussions in the developing countries.
The after-shocks can still be felt.
ACP cooperation is a dynamic process.
The content of the agreements has progressed steadily between Lomé I and Lomé VI.
At the same time the number of partner states has increased considerably, now standing at 71.
All those involved were particularly moved by the enlargement to Namibia and South Africa.
Cuba has just knocked at the door, and, if Cuba is also accepted into the ACP-EU community, that will be a momentous step and will bring in its wake processes of change in Cuba itself.
So ACP cooperation remains very exciting, and not only because of the new emphases introduced in the new Convention.
Fighting poverty and promoting sustained economic, cultural and social development are important objectives in the endeavour to build up democratic societies, based on respect for human rights, in the ACP states.
That also means strengthening the democratic institutions.
The history of the Joint Assembly provides impressive evidence of a positive trend in that direction.
In the past, the representatives of the ACP countries tended to be government members, government officials or ambassadors; but today at least three quarters of the ACP delegates are elected members of parliament.
We ought to throw a big party when the figure reaches 100% in the near future, which is indeed what the new Convention is aiming at.
Unfortunately there is far too little appreciation of the steady advance of processes of democratisation which, unlike the various crises that arise, largely pass unnoticed.
One special aspect of multilateral cooperation with the ACP states is regional cooperation and integration.
There is one wish on the European Parliament' s long wish list that will be fulfilled: as we have already heard, the Joint Assembly will soon also be able to hold regional assemblies.
Enhanced regional cooperation can help prevent the outbreak of conflicts based on ethnic, economic, social or religious factors, i.e. have a preventive effect.
For the same reason the European Parliament has always called for civil society to be involved in the decision-making processes and in cooperation management, and emphasised the importance of decentralised cooperation.
The enhanced contacts between the Joint Assembly and the social partners provided for in the new Convention are another step in the right direction.
But I am a little sad that the European Development Fund has still not been incorporated in the Community budget.
I hope it does not take another 25 years before we finally achieve that too.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Corrie on his report.
The Lomé Convention has been an expression of a real partnership between the EU and the ACP countries for over 25 years.
That it has continued at all in the face of overwhelming pressure against it from many quarters, including the WTO, is a triumph of sorts.
But of course the new Convention must be measured not by the fact that it exists but by the extent to which it can contribute to the EU commitment to poverty eradication and the achievement of the international development targets.
Measured by this yardstick there are a number of serious shortcomings in the new arrangements.
For example, the agreement is particularly disappointing for those ACP countries suffering from short-term fluctuations in export earnings.
During a marathon negotiating session in December a compromise was reached which provided that, in respect of least-developed, landlocked and island states, assistance would be provided in the event of a minimum 2% loss of export earnings rather than the level of 10% for the other ACP states.
But at the final negotiating session the EU claimed that it had never actually agreed to the inclusion of islands and landlocked states among those which would qualify for the support on the basis of the 2% threshold.
This change has been devastating for the Windward Islands in particular which may be the only ACP state which will actually lose massively from the new arrangements.
This seems a particularly perverse outcome since the Windward Islands are one of the smallest and most vulnerable of the ACP states and they are now going to have to pay the highest price for this new Lomé arrangement.
Meanwhile, on the trade side, pressure from the WTO to ensure that any Lomé Convention is WTO-compatible has meant that there is a huge momentum behind the idea of the so-called regional economic partnership arrangements or free-trade agreements.
Non-least-developed countries are likely to face considerable pressure to accept these arrangements.
Yet it is quite clear that even after a transitional period a number of countries will simply be unable to open their markets yet to the chill winds of free trade without wrecking their own domestic economy.
We therefore need to be particularly vigilant to ensure that genuine options are open to those countries which are not yet ready for free-trade arrangements.
We need to ensure that strategies for promoting regional integration within the ACP are pursued in their own right.
Finally, during any new trade round the EU and the ACP states should press jointly for a reform of GATT Article 24 in order to explicitly provide regional non-reciprocal trade agreements between structurally and economically dissimilar groups of countries.
The Lomé Convention is a unique partnership; but if it is to be truly effective it needs to extend beyond the discussions within the context of Lomé and involve a participation of the WTO and a partnership in all other international negotiating fora.
Mr President, what I want to do in this debate is condemn the fate reserved for the poor countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
People have the gall to say they benefit from the Lomé Convention, but even looking at trading relations alone, the Lomé Convention has done nothing to protect those countries; their already feeble share in trade with Europe has been halved.
That reflects the growth of inequality between EU and ACP countries.
The Lomé Convention essentially benefits a few large industrial or financial conglomerates, which continue to pillage those countries and perpetuate their economic dependence, notably on the former colonial powers.
When it comes to so-called development aid, given that underdevelopment in the majority of these countries is getting worse rather than better, development is clearly not what the aid is for, even when it is not just a disguised export subsidy for European manufacturers.
The aid is primarily a windfall for incumbent regimes, and the poor majority does not benefit at all.
Even if it were properly redirected this aid would not be enough to finance the most basic infrastructure for health care, education or drinking water supply.
For some years now the great powers have been reducing the amount of this already derisory aid, and it is the height of cynicism when this is done on the pretext of human rights violations or corruption.
After all, who protects these deeply corrupt regimes, if not the governments of the rich countries?
They turn a blind eye to the masters of corruption, the big groups controlling oil, water supply, or public works. They could clamp down on them since their head offices are here in Europe.
The debate about either extending the Lomé Convention with its quotas and protectionism, or, instead, gradually winding down the special relationship between the European Union and the ACP countries in the name of free trade, is a warped debate between two ways of perpetuating the pillage and impoverishment of those countries.
I protest against an ignoble and inhuman organisation which literally condemns hundreds of millions of human beings to a wretched death to enrich a minority.
A mere fraction of the fantastic wealth accumulated by the big groups could lift these poor countries out of extreme poverty, but, until we have the courage to take on those big capitalist groups, we are just covering up the real problems.
Mr President, I want to thank the Co-President of the Joint ACP-EU Assembly, Mr Corrie. It was no easy task to draw up a report on a complicated forum like the ACP-EU Assembly.
In this speech, I will confine myself to addressing certain points I consider fundamental.
I believe the European Parliament should call for the Assembly to become truly parliamentary, urging all ACP countries to send members of their national parliaments as their representatives, so as to strengthen their own democratic fabric.
My next contribution to the debate is to turn my attention to globalisation and the WTO, which is seen by the ACP countries as an enormous danger to their development.
I do believe the ACP countries need a transition period, but they also need support in the context of the new logic of regionalisation of aid, not only in agriculture and fisheries, but also in the exploitation of mineral and underground resources, some of which are being exploited, with slim economic returns to the ACP countries themselves.
Thirdly, the European Parliament - through a joint working group within the Joint Assembly - must make a major effort to achieve stability in ACP countries' budgets through the selection of budgetary items to permit economic and, above all, social development, and by monitoring income and fiscal policies in force in the ACP countries.
We must put the people of the ACP countries first in our relationship with their rulers, who need to be fully aware that development aid from the European Union is intended for the people and not for the oligarchies that handle all the internal and external resources in some countries.
Fourthly, and finally, the prevention of inter-ethnic conflicts between States must be our constant concern and to some extent this can be achieved either through a strong and authoritative diplomatic offensive or with the proposals I have set out.
Mr President, I agree with the positive evaluation Mrs Junker has just made and I want to add that Mr Corrie has started his term as Co-President of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly with effective and impartial work deserving of our full appreciation.
I shall restrict my speech to one particular act which took place a few days ago, partly as a consequence of events alluded to in the report we are debating here.
I refer to Cuba' s expression of intent, of 2 February, to become a full member of the ACP group of countries.
A Cuban delegation attended the last meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in Nassau, and Vice-Chancellor Dalmau spoke in the plenary session, engaging in a lively debate, and afterwards held conversations with many of us.
Following Nassau, a delegation from Parliament led by Mr Corrie and the Chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, Joaquín Miranda, visited Havana and a series of very illuminating exchanges of opinion took place.
It is my impression that this mission from the European Parliament was the final push which convinced our Cuban friends that the time had come to move forward on mechanisms of cooperation with the European Union.
We are witnessing events of great political significance and I hope that we in the European Parliament can promote the appropriate favourable view and a generous attitude on the part of the Union, so that Cuba' s aspirations can meet with a positive response as soon as possible.
That is important, for at least three reasons.
First, it is important for Cuba, to bring its people development and prosperity and finally break the United States blockade, which has been repeatedly condemned by the European Parliament and the United Nations.
Secondly, we must bear in mind that Cuba' s application has the support of all the ACP countries.
If the European Union responds positively to the recommendation of our associates, we will be proving our respect and consideration for those associates and this will have positive effects on the whole framework of our cooperation with them.
Nor can we ignore the value of such a decision in demonstrating the consistency and autonomy of the European Union and the fact that it does not bow to pressure from any quarter.
By accepting Cuba into the ACP community we will be demonstrating that our Europe is not involved in the shameful process of 'playing but not paying' , and that, when we get indignant about absurdities like the Helms-Burton Act, we are not being hypocritical but are ready to act and take all the consequences.
The ACP-EU Joint Assembly meets again in a few weeks time and I am sure this subject will be dealt with there.
Ideally the European Parliament' s representatives should be able to support Cuba' s intent at those proceedings, as our parliamentary colleagues from the ACP countries will no doubt be doing.
Of course, Cuba must meet all the standard conditions, just like any other member.
The Cubans know that and I am sure they accept it.
It must also be made clear that Cuba is not going to be asked for more than has been asked of our other partners.
Cuba' s wish to join is welcome and Cuba will be welcome in our circle.
I say that wholeheartedly, but also with the deep conviction that, just as the blockade has produced nothing but poverty and, as a consequence of that, extreme tension and a hardening of the Cuban position, the integration we are supporting here, and the prosperity it will produce, will translate into the détente and openness we all seek and from which all of us, especially the Cuban people, will benefit.
Mr President, I also want to begin by thanking and congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Corrie, for an excellent report which I think very well describes and summarises the work which has been done in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in the course of 1999.
I do not have very long in which to speak, and I really only want to take up two questions.
The first is about the fight against poverty, which I think is becoming an embarrassment both for the EU and the Member States.
In spite of the fact that, both in the Treaty and at the UN' s meetings in Rio and Copenhagen, there was an undertaking to work to eradicate poverty in the world, the budget for development aid is, in actual fact, being cut back, when the express desire was that exactly the opposite should happen.
We must put a stop to this trend.
We must begin by writing off debts.
We must follow up words with action.
I should like us to take a leading role in this work.
My second question concerns the fact that, in many contexts, we talk about the ACP countries having to learn the principles of democracy.
Paragraphs 2 and 3 of the resolution demand, within the context of the new agreement, that working methods should be developed and optimised.
The ACP countries are to be urged to allow a whole range of political opinions to come up for discussion.
I think that is a very good idea indeed, and I fully subscribe to it.
However, we must also ask ourselves about our own democratic arrangements.
How do these operate within the European Parliament' s delegation to the ACP-EU' s Joint Assembly? In contrast to how things are done here in the European Parliament and in Parliament' s committees, where rapporteurs are nominated and appointed to produce reports, there are no regulations whatsoever applied within this delegation to the Joint Assembly.
The two large groups share all the reports and consultative documents etc between themselves.
In order to change this undemocratic arrangement, we, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, have tabled Amendment No 6 in which we request that the rapporteurs appointed to produce reports and consultative documents, together with the members of working parties, should be appointed in accordance with clear, democratic rules.
In this context, account ought to be taken of the smaller groups, and consideration given to introducing more representative arrangements.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly, I too would like to congratulate Mr Corrie on the quality of his report, which appropriately reflects the tenor of the debates in the Joint Assembly he so effectively co-chaired.
The eradication of poverty was central to our work and many speakers highlighted the need to preserve an essential tool for achieving that ambitious aim, to whit, preferential agreements between the European Union and the ACP countries within the framework of the Lomé Conventions.
The challenge was immense.
Globalisation, free trade, and the hegemony of the WTO with its internationalist philosophy, were imperilling the very essence of the North-South dialogue.
So we can only applaud the conclusion of a new partnership agreement for development, and personally I am convinced that the work of the last Joint Assembly did have a decisive influence on breaking the deadlock in the negotiations, as did the new climate created by the events at Seattle.
However, while I welcome the renewal of the agreements, what I find most interesting is the new wind blowing through our relationships and finding expression in the balanced nature of the negotiations now drawing to a close.
The European Union seems to me to have finally emerged from the old paternalist, or frankly neo-colonialist, logic where those giving aid are all too eager to start giving lessons, following a formula our friend Michel Rocard is so keen on.
The Union has finally accepted the idea that dialogue cannot be genuine or effective unless it is the expression of a contract which respects the dignity of the partners.
By refusing to allow the idea of good governance to become a tool, in the hands of technocrats, for imposing new sets of conditions, the European Union is demonstrating wisdom and modesty.
We have spent two centuries laying the foundations of a democracy whose fragility is constantly brought home to us by events.
What right have we to try to impose our model on people whose history, values and identity are sometimes so profoundly different from our own?
Personally, I prefer the willingness that is clearly flagged up in these agreements to extend the partnership to new agents - local authorities, non-governmental organisations - which seems to me to represent the only possible way the people of these countries can progressively achieve ownership cooperation.
In short, this is the only way they can emerge from humiliating and childlike dependence on aid and take responsibility for themselves, the proof of success.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly, I too would like to congratulate Mr Corrie on the accuracy and rigour of the summary in his report.
The European Parliament' s opinion on the activities of the ACP-European Union Joint Assembly has always had a major impact, undeniably contributing to a consistent policy and role for the European Union in development and cooperation.
The important role of the increasingly parliamentary Joint Assembly in strengthening relations between the European Union and the ACP countries needs to be stressed.
In view of this positive action, there is every advantage to be gained from according the Joint Assembly a budget compatible with improving the quality of its work.
We back the rapporteur' s proposal to introduce regional parliamentary assemblies, under the aegis of the Joint Assembly, in the six regions of the Convention: the Caribbean, the Pacific and four African regions.
These regional assemblies would monitor action in their respective areas.
Poverty has been the common denominator of all the debates in the Joint Assembly and its eradication is the priority for the European Union' s development policy.
In line with the resolution at the Nassau meeting, we must concentrate on meeting the poverty reduction targets agreed by the international community.
Consistency and action are needed.
The next Lomé Convention must specify the investment in education and stimulate regional cooperation and the participation of local bodies.
The participation of local bodies is absolutely essential.
In a wider context, the priorities, as I see it, are to convert poor countries' debt into programmes for poverty eradication and sustainable development, as well as control of fraud and corruption.
We need to make progress with concrete and consistent action.
People in the poor countries are beginning to despair.
I call on the Commission to act on the rapid accession of East Timor to the Lomé Convention as one means, amongst others, of promoting the eradication of poverty and accelerating its economic, cultural and social development, in order to strengthen its internal democratisation.
Finally, I must congratulate the Council Presidency on the coming Europe-Africa Summit and call on all the participants to contribute to solid practical action to promote the development of peace, democracy and the eradication of poverty in the underdeveloped countries of Africa.
. (DA) Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report and also to thank the Joint Assembly for its work in 1999.
I am also delighted to be able to confirm that I shall be participating in the Joint Assembly' s next meeting, which takes place in March in Nigeria.
The Commission is pleased to see the Joint Assembly playing a larger role, especially in connection with promoting a more extensive political dialogue with our partners in development.
The Commission agrees with the rapporteur that combating poverty continues to be the central objective for development policy and will always play a key role.
In order to be able to develop, the countries concerned must, however, become actively involved in the global economic system.
With regard to trade with our partners in development, the Commission is quite prepared to guarantee that any new arrangement will take account of the ACP countries' special economic and social limitations.
Mrs Lucas mentioned that the Stabex and Sysmin system ought to be continued with.
I do not agree.
That system has proved itself to be inappropriate because it is, in actual fact, of use only to relatively few of the 71 countries concerned.
It operates too slowly, and it therefore stands to reason that the developing countries should have said yes to the new system of the future, because this will operate more flexibly.
Regarding the future accession of countries such as East Timor to the Lomé Convention, I can only repeat what I recently said to the European Parliament' s Committee on Development and Cooperation, namely, that the door is open.
It is the applicants themselves who are to decide whether they want to knock on the door.
Once they have done so, we shall adopt a position on the matter.
With regard to Cuba' s application for accession to the Lomé Convention, the Commission notes that, according to their recent declaration, the ACP States support Cuba' s application.
The EU has always called for a constructive attitude to be adopted towards Cuba, as outlined in the EU' s common position, but it has to be recognised that the discussions will be complex.
With regard to the Côte d' Ivoire, I can inform you that the whole of the EUR 28 million has been paid back in accordance with what was agreed following examination of the financial irregularities.
With regard to financing the European Development Fund by an amount in excess of the budget, I can say that this is being considered.
For its part, the Commission supports this, but we cannot at this point produce new reports on the whys and wherefores.
Concerning Article 366A, I can say that, during the negotiations for a new partnership agreement, a new procedure was established for dealing with instances where human rights and the principles of democracy and the rule of law are infringed.
It is now the case, following adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty, that Parliament wishes, on the basis of Article 300, to be kept fully informed of all decisions, and the Commission will continue to take account of Parliament' s decisions on this subject.
There are no plans to follow the procedure involving concurrent statements in Parliament in connection with such decisions.
This would in fact demand a change to the recently adopted Amsterdam Treaty.
Finally, I would refer to the South Africa agreement, which the rapporteur also touched upon.
In this regard, I am simply pleased - delighted, in fact - here this evening, as a conclusion to this debate, to be able, very appropriately, to inform you that South Africa' s President has today said yes to the solution which the EU' s Council of Foreign Ministers last Monday agreed unanimously to propose with regard to the outstanding problems regarding South Africa.
So the "Grappa War" is over.
Peace has broken out, and we can now look forward to cooperation with South Africa in accordance with the common dreams and values which ought to have underpinned the whole business from the start.
I think this rather nicely puts the finishing touches to a debate which has, on the whole, been quite positive, and I would repeat my thanks to the rapporteur and to Parliament for the cooperation which has gone into our relations with the Third World on precisely the work in question.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Stabilisation and association agreement with FYROM
The next item is the report (A5-0031/2000) by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the recommendation for a Council Decision authorising the Commission to negotiate a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with FYROM (SEC(1999)1279 - C5-0166/1999 -1999/2121(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner Patten, today we are discussing a country that really has suffered hard times, a country that is, however, moving in a very promising direction, thanks to its own efforts and resolve and certainly also thanks to the support of the international community.
So if the European Union, the Council and the Commission are proposing - and I assume that Parliament will support that proposal tomorrow - the first stabilisation and association agreement in south-eastern Europe, in the Balkan region - I am quite happy to use that term - it is primarily in gratitude for or acknowledgement of the fact that FYROM itself has worked its way into a good position, in economic and, of course, mainly in political terms, in face of the war in the neighbouring region and also in relation to its own minority.
For it is no small thing to have a minority of 33% or even 35% in one' s own country.
That country and its politicians - no doubt with some differences here and there - have always done very good work, and we should recognise that.
The Commission is proposing that we should conclude an agreement jointly with the Council.
Let me make a few comments on aspects on which views may differ somewhat, although, even in this regard, I want to strongly emphasise and acknowledge Commissioner Patten' s activities and interest in relation to FYROM and the region as a whole.
Firstly, there is the regional approach. I believe that if it is understood properly, the regional approach is both important and necessary.
There has to be a willingness to cooperate.
Provided it is not seen as some kind of constraint but as a willingness to cooperate, as an opportunity that each country should grasp, then this is the right approach.
The problem is that, when we look at FYROM, we can see how very difficult it is to cooperate economically with some neighbouring countries, such as Kosovo and Albania, or to cooperate politically with, for instance, Yugoslavia.
On the other hand, cooperation with Bulgaria, and in particular with Greece, has made good progress and I think we should acknowledge that too.
In this context, the European Union must consider, as it began to do early this week, how to include the neighbouring Yugoslavia in regional cooperation in spite of everything, i.e. without taking back any of our criticism of this terrible regime.
Tomorrow morning I will therefore table an amendment urging that we concentrate the sanctions on the regime itself while easing them somewhat for the people and for the economy in a spirit of economic cooperation.
In that regard allow me to say, since I come from a country through which the Danube flows, that I am grateful that the Commission, i.e. Commissioner Patten and also Vice-President Palacio, with whom I was recently in Budapest, is considering opening the Danube to shipping again. That would provide for a modicum of economic recovery in this region too, which, of course, would be of particular importance to Romania.
In my view, this regional approach, provided it is understood correctly, i.e. as a method of contributing to economic recovery in the region itself, is in fact the right one to adopt.
As I said, it must not be perceived as a constraint nor must it be set as a precondition.
Secondly, let me say quite clearly and plainly that we want to open the way to and offer FYROM accession to the European Union.
In our view, it would be an illusion to think there was any point in FYROM applying for accession right now, but it would also be wrong to delay discussing it until some later date.
FYROM wants to be told here and now that, in principle, accession will be possible when the time is right.
This country is afraid it will be in a sense sidelined.
It sees, in the whole readjustment of aid instruments, a risk that it will no longer be the last carriage of a train heading towards Europe but that this train will continue through Europe while leaving FYROM on a siding.
I think Commissioner Patten understands that too. So I very strongly urge him to make it clear in the appropriate talks.
Thirdly, I believe that, so far at least, FYROM has shown that it is capable of using the various instruments properly.
Even though there will of course be readjustments here, FYROM will continue to show that many of the tasks that are still being dealt with in Brussels today can in future be handled in Skopje, in the country itself.
I hope that the honourable Members will agree to support these proposals as a sign of goodwill towards FYROM.
Mr President, since the start of the Yugoslav wars, the Republic of Macedonia - I prefer to use this abbreviation - has behaved as a constructive peace-keeper.
We would remind you of the proposals made by the governments of Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina at the time, which had non-violent liberalisation and a non-violent separation from the Yugoslav federal structure in view.
As you can see, our Macedonian friends have always played a very positive role and it is for this reason that it should be pointed out at this stage that Macedonia is not just a pawn in our so-called strive towards stability, but actually took the initiative.
The former President, Mr Gligorov, can take special credit for this, and the current President too has already adopted the profile of President of all Macedonian citizens, so much so that the European Union should only be grateful to have him as interlocutor in the Balkans.
Despite the obvious reasons for any internal tension, both population groups have struck a reasonable modus vivendi and the outlook for reaching a sound solution to the remaining problems is good.
It was, in fact, in Macedonia that I heard at the time about the Roma population actually not having too bad a time there.
I was unaccustomed to hearing this type of comment about the Roma in Europe.
With regard to the problems afflicting Macedonia, higher education for the Albanian-speaking citizens deserves our special attention.
Accessible higher education, with which you have a certain affinity, is an important instrument in the emancipation of population groups. I am speaking from personal experience as someone who attended the Protestant university in Amsterdam.
I might never have studied otherwise.
Such an affinity and this type of higher education is also important in the development of the constitutional state and for the aptly termed mainstream society which needs to be strengthened in countries like this.
The agreement with Macedonia should partly compensate for the damage which this country incurred following the boycott we instituted against Serbia, which is at no cost to us but costs Serbia' s neighbouring states all the more.
It would be beneficial if we could reorganise this, especially vis-à-vis the neighbouring states.
It is only fair that we should regulate aid to Macedonia properly now.
We are therefore quite prepared to support the liberals' amendment to keep aid independent from the donor states' interests, for we need to give industry in Macedonia and the region the best possible opportunities with the aid money available for reconstruction.
I am more than happy to include Bulgaria and Romania in this, as it seems to me a tactical and psychological error only to talk about the five countries of former Yugoslavia, plus Albania.
It is important to us that the economies in the region can stand on their own two feet again, which can quite easily be done with the aid money.
The agreement with Macedonia should be seen as a door opening to the European Union, allowing this country to join, even though this will not be the case in the foreseeable future.
In the meantime, we constantly need to start from the premise in our policy that it is desirable for Macedonian legislation to resemble that of the Member States, and our policy should reflect this, even in the naming of aid programmes for Macedonia.
I would quote the PHARE programme as an example.
Mr President, the name of the republic is still a problem on account of the Greek sensitivities surrounding it.
I assume that the Member States will feel increasingly freer to use the name in their own language which fits the republic.
If certain countries wish to use the words "former Yugoslavia" , then that is their business; others need not feel obliged to copy them.
It will not do to keep us under constant pressure.
Hence my support for the sound report by Mr Swoboda; we have come to expect nothing less of him, and hence also my words of appreciation for the respected Republic of Macedonia.
Mr President, let me begin by expressing my personal appreciation of the quality of Mr Swoboda' s work as rapporteur.
Today we are expressing a positive opinion on the opening of negotiations for a stabilisation and association agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Macedonia.
We do so in the awareness that this decision, the very first relating to that area, is actually set in the context of an entirely new phase of our relations with the Balkans.
This new phase, or rather policy, identifies the prospect of integrating the region into Europe as the only option for settling its conflicts peacefully.
Our agreement to the negotiations, as set out in the rapporteur' s explanatory statement, is born of the conviction that it is right for Union policy to combine both a regional dimension and a more precise assessment of efforts made and results achieved by individual countries in moving towards the acquis communautaire.
This is the dual objective which I believe should be pursued.
On the one hand, we must maintain programmes on, for example, infrastructure, preparations - still premature - for free trade, and encouragement of economic and commercial cooperation between the countries in the area, and on the other, it is now appropriate to create a model of closer integration with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as an example of the policy.
And there are several reasons why our opinion can only be positive.
As we were able to ascertain during our missions to Skopje, there has been considerable progress in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as regards the economy, movement towards democracy and - an area which is difficult and contentious enough in the Balkans - multi-ethnic coexistence.
On the other hand, the price Macedonia has been paying for the war in neighbouring Kosovo is very high, both in terms of logistic availability of NATO forces and in terms of reduced exports to Northern Europe.
I conclude, Mr President, by affirming that this progress is indeed difficult, fragile, and uncertain and it calls for constant vigilance on our part during the various stages of close and precise inspection that have long been advocated.
Mr President, Commissioner, I rise to express the warmth and optimism with which the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party welcomes the start of negotiations with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
We are extremely hopeful that, along the lines set out by the rapporteur, Mr Swoboda, this agreement can represent an example to be rapidly extended to the other countries, especially Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Kosovo and, as soon as possible, Serbia.
We are convinced a rapid start to these negotiations and their speedy conclusion is the only way to achieve peace in the region - peace which did not automatically come with the end of the Kosovo war - thus avoiding the recurrence of further disintegration and a return to chaos and violence, with all the consequences of that in terms of continental, if not world, instability.
If the maintenance of peace and security is the basic motivation of the current courageous process of enlargement of the Union to the countries of Eastern Europe, that motivation must be present even more strongly in relations with Albania and the countries of former Yugoslavia.
And that means decisively pursuing the kind of parallel enlargement to south-east Europe that the agreements we are discussing represent.
It is in that quasi-provocative spirit that we have presented an amendment suggesting the transfer of responsibility for south-east Europe from Foreign Affairs to Enlargement.
Very rapid and direct involvement of south-east Europe in the life of the European institutions has also led us to suggest that a limited number of observers invited from the national parliaments should be accepted into the European Parliament, and that staff from those countries could work in the Court of Justice and the Commission.
But if the development in the region of a more democratic society and largely market-based economy is to be encouraged, we are convinced that immediate and concrete steps must be taken to intensify the struggle against corruption and to make international aid more effective for reconstruction and development.
With this in mind, we have presented some amendments which I hope Parliament will accept. First, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia should be offered a customs tariff equal to zero for their exports to the European Union and compensation for the progressive reduction of customs duties applied by Macedonia to European products, on condition that the principle of joint customs control at the frontiers of Macedonia is accepted.
Secondly, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia should be encouraged, with adequate financial support, to gradually link its currency to the euro as the first step towards the Europeanisation of the whole Macedonian economy, with the additional aim of eliminating any possible corruption in the banking system.
Thirdly, world aid and assistance coming into the region, and hence into Macedonia as well, should be clearly multilateral, and should not subject the beneficiary country to direct obligations towards the donor country.
Mr President, Commissioner, we hope the agreement can achieve all its objectives but we cannot delude ourselves that peace, stability and prosperity in south-east Europe can be achieved without dealing with the very wide-ranging problems we are trying to eliminate. I am referring to the future constitutional state of Kosovo, the need to involve Serbia in the region' s reconciliation process and - why not? - new discussions on relations between the European Union, NATO and the UN, in the light of the new balance that needs to be found between humanitarian intervention and state sovereignty, which I think calls for a change in the existing UN Charter.
Mr President, Commissioner, the war in Kosovo has knocked everything off balance.
This is certainly true for the relations between the European Union and the western Balkans.
Since then, expectations have been high. This applies to them and us.
This is true on their part because - whether we like it or not - they are asking us for direct aid and they are wondering what Europe wants from them at the end of the day? Is there any prospect of membership?
This is very much on their minds.
But here too, within the European Union, expectations are high.
If we do things properly, this may well be a first taster of a genuine common foreign and security policy.
Will the Union manage to display a united front and develop a common policy, for the first time, concerning such a difficult regulation? It also remains to be seen whether the European Union has learnt any lessons from the bad experiences in Bosnia when it comes to providing aid and the slightly better experiences in Kosovo.
Can we, based on the experiences in Macedonia and in four other countries, improve on this?
Against this background of extremely high expectations, I do not think that I am exaggerating if I say that this first step, namely the stability and association agreement with Macedonia, is vitally important.
This is not the Union' s only contribution.
The debate on the Stability Pact, the debate on the CARA programme and the financing arrangements in the short term are all pending.
We are now dealing with the stabilisation and association agreements, that is to say a medium-term issue.
This is why I think that this first agreement with Macedonia is so crucial, because it serves as a model.
I am convinced that the four other countries are wondering what is going to happen. What does the European Union intend to do with Macedonia?
Will it do the same to us? This first step is so important because of this model function.
Macedonia also serves as a model for another reason.
The rapporteur has already hinted at this in no uncertain terms, namely, the issue of interethnic relations.
There is no need to paint too much of an idealistic picture.
During the presidential elections, it appeared that things were not running too smoothly, but compared to the rest of the region, Macedonia could serve as a model.
We would gain a great deal if we managed to export this model to the rest of the western Balkans with the help of the Macedonians.
This model function also applies to regional cooperation.
I could not agree more with the rapporteur: a balance must be struck between promoting regional cooperation on the one hand and maintaining the openness towards Bulgaria and Greece, and not cutting them off on the other.
Mr President, Commissioner, if we manage this first step successfully, we will have gained a great deal.
If we mess it up, then we will have lost a great deal more.
Mr President, let me begin by saying that I have no problem with approving this very sound report in principle.
I just want to point to one issue which in my view is not considered in the report and which raises a major problem in relation to Macedonia and the effectiveness of EU financial and other support.
I am referring to the sanctions against Yugoslavia.
Do not misunderstand me: I too believe that we need to take effective action against the Milosevic regime.
But firstly, these sanctions have a far-reaching and adverse impact on many of the neighbouring states too, including Macedonia, which find themselves in an extremely difficult economic situation as it is.
Secondly, the entire population of Yugoslavia is being held accountable for the actions of Milosevic and his circle, which is wrong on humanitarian grounds and politically counterproductive.
So I believe that we should take today' s debate as an opportunity to call for a rapid end to the policy of sanctions, as stated in Amendment No 10.
Mr President, we did not need to witness the end the Kosovo conflict to reach the conclusion that, after various wars in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, with their untold negative effects on the stability of the Balkans, a global and durable strategy for the whole region is needed, aimed at guaranteeing peace and stability in south-east Europe.
This strategy, which took shape in the Stability Pact adopted on 10 June 1999 in Cologne, considers south-east Europe as a whole, but simultaneously recognises the diversity and unequal development of the various countries that compose the region.
The European Union' s contribution under the Stability Pact, now converted into what is called the "stabilisation and association process" , represents a development in the regional concept the European Community drew up in 1996 for the five countries of the region: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania. Its most significant aspect was the establishment of political and economic conditions intended to support the implementation of the Dayton peace agreement, and it should therefore contribute to regional stability.
So establishing relations between the European Union and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on a completely new basis, and offering that country the prospect of full integration into the structures of the European Union through the mechanism of the stabilisation and association process, constitutes an important contribution to stability in the Balkans.
The assumption is that the countries are prepared to accept a certain set of conditions.
The expectation is that we send them a politically relevant signal that it is possible for them to join us one day, maintaining respect for their sovereignty of course.
We are not deluding ourselves by believing that, once agreement is obtained, the mandate we are giving the Commission today could constitute a first major step towards peace and stability in that long-suffering region, where the people have already shown they have the right to seek membership of our area of freedom and development.
They have suffered enough, first under the Soviet yoke and then from the high price they paid for being forced to become part of the communist bloc.
The evidence is that the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is politically and economically capable of establishing new contractual relations with the European Union, going beyond the cooperation agreement in force since 1 June 1998, which in practice targets respect for the acquis communautaire, especially in key areas of the internal market.
It is true that the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia still has a long way to go, but, given the political and economic reforms already made in the context of the cooperation agreement, and with transitional periods accepted for certain domains, the country will be able to fulfil the conditions for a stabilisation and association agreement.
We share the view that its development is a factor for stability in the region, we approve the terms of the negotiating mandate as proposed, emphasising that what is involved is a bilateral agreement with the European Union, and we agree with the rapporteur when he stresses that this is the first concrete application of an integrated long term strategy for south-east Europe, and that the issue is how the Balkans can be structured in the long term in order to guarantee peace and stability.
The various references made to regional cooperation with the neighbouring countries in fact become politically relevant in this context. This agreement can and must become an example to the other countries in the region.
That is why it is so important. The point is that underlying this whole process is an effective political will on the part of the European Union to draw closer to these countries.
We are aware that some of them are already undergoing processes of democratic stabilisation, that others still need to affirm the democratic authority of their governments, and that equilibrium in others depends on the military presence in the zone, but they are all countries which now know that, once they have overcome their difficulties, a bridge is available to provide an effective link with the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am not going to join in the unanimous chorus from my fellow Members.
I think this report is a small masterpiece of hypocrisy.
Paragraph 5 holds up this agreement as an example.
We know there are 13 applicant countries, from Lithuania to Turkey, and just one black hole in Europe, the Balkans, but because these countries are denied the opportunity to become applicants, we want to make them believe that this agreement is a miracle.
Paragraph 11 indicates that symbolic measures can replace the shared political outlook represented by applicant status.
But this is not just a masterpiece of hypocrisy, it is also an aberration, because, if negotiations begin tomorrow, this agreement will be signed in a year and will come into force in three years.
And I defy you to imagine that there will not be membership applications in due form from Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia, amongst the Balkan countries, three years hence.
A few days ago Mr Racan announced that Croatia' s formal membership application would be presented at the end of 2000.
There are bound to be other applications and this great work, this fine intellectual architecture, will crumble, left behind by events just as we have been left behind by everything that has been happening in the former Yugoslavia for the past 20 years.
This would not be so serious if this region of Europe were not so beset by the problems we are all aware of, problems which are being addressed, but which have not yet been resolved, by the new government of Macedonia. There are the problems of coexistence between the Macedonian majority and the Albanian minority, the connected problems of Kosovo, the notorious economic problems, the problems of being neighbour to a particularly developed mafia in Serbia, and then there is the problem of the Greek veto which must be condemned for what it is.
After nearly 10 years, Greece continues to prevent this country being called by its own name, and I hope the interpreters have not used the term FYROM when I have been saying Macedonia.
It is absolutely absurd. Apart from anything else it is offensive, in my opinion, to the Greek MEPs and the citizens of Greece.
This question needs to be resolved urgently.
Finally, by happy chance, a letter from Mr Georgievski, President of Macedonia to Mr Fischler, dated 8 March, has come into my hands. In it, referring to Article O, now Article 49 of the Treaty, he asks if Macedonia can join the European Union.
Why has the Council not informed us of this? Why has the Commission not informed us of this formal request from Macedonia?
Mr President, Commissioner, the Balkans are not purely a dark cave, politically speaking.
The decidedly positive developments in the Republic of Macedonia over the past critical years speak for themselves.
The gruesome escalation of ethnic violence in neighbouring Kosovo did not reach its territory.
Paradoxically, but truly, the war in Kosovo Polje generated exactly the opposite effect: the perilous gap of confidence between the Macedonian majority and the Albanian minority became decidedly smaller.
From the point of view of the Macedonian majority, the Albanian minority behaved loyally towards the common state during the international explosion of the Kosovo conflict.
In the eyes of the Albanian minority, the Macedonians and the Macedonian state have more than met their neighbourly obligations in respect of Kosovo' s Albanian majority who were persecuted to the extreme.
This remarkable upshot of the Kosovar war negotiations can therefore justifiably be seen as the internal, political establishment of the Republic of Macedonia the second time round.
Mr Swoboda' s well-balanced and laudable report fits in with this unexpected and delightful upshot on a very practical level.
In brief, the European Union knows what to do in Macedonia: to help this local port of refuge - recently used by scores of war refugees - to fulfil its role properly as a catalyst for the planned Stability Pact in the Balkans.
Mr President, I too would like to compliment Mr Swoboda on his report.
I think it is a good thing that so many of us are expressing support for the approach he has adopted in it.
The report tackles stability in the region in a structural manner. This is also the purpose of the pending agreement with the Republic of Macedonia which we are debating today.
Although the actual implementation of the Stability Pact has not yet started, the Commission has already developed the new instrument, entitled the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.
This marks the beginning of the treaty-based stabilising process for the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
These countries do not yet qualify for a pre-accession agreement.
The present agreement is a kind of pre-pre-agreement, but with a view to joining in future.
The instrument of joining countries together by means of active treaties is excellent, provided that the agreements stipulated in them are implemented dynamically, so that the required stabilisation can actually be attained.
Macedonia remains a potential minefield and has a history to match.
It does, however, have the ambition to break free from this image.
This requires internal stability.
The new government would like to tackle this matter and the agreement could be an agenda for reforms, including a direct role and equality for the Albanian minority.
More than anything, the country needs peace and quiet now, in order to put its internal house in order and to find the road to greater prosperity.
We, the social democrats, would urge the opposition to back these ideas.
They need to help support the much-praised Macedonian model.
But the country also - and especially - needs external stability.
What is the point of having internal stability if the surrounding environment is unstable? This stability is required in the relations with Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Albania and Bulgaria.
The region should recognise that Macedonia exists and that it will continue to exist.
External stability also means open borders and regional cooperation.
Minorities and majorities need to be given room for human and cultural exchange.
Macedonia' s stability is very much linked with the developments in the neighbouring countries.
The Kosovo problem is well-known and the international community is present there on a massive scale.
It seems that the Albania factor is being underestimated.
The Union considers it untimely to reach a stability and association agreement with this country. But what then instead?
It is the very argument to conclude an agreement with Macedonia and not yet with Albania that cause us so much concern, so much so that a passive stance from the Union vis-à-vis Albania is really not acceptable.
What does the Commission intend to do regarding this issue? Yugoslavia is just as much a weak link in the stability process and, as such, a threat to Macedonia' s stability.
We need to wait and see what happens there.
The mood in Belgrade is becoming less predictable by the day.
We, however, second the Council' s decision to give the sanctions a different focus.
In this way, at least a serious attempt is being made to give the opposition, which is preparing for a new round of demonstrations, a shot in the arm.
What else will the Union undertake in this respect if the demand from the opposition - bringing forward elections - is met? What else can we do to support this opposition?
Mr President, Commissioner, Kosovo was hopefully the last occasion on which international law could be interpreted as saying that dictators could persecute minorities in the most repellent way on the grounds that "it is happening within their own nation" .
When the USA and NATO and, finally, also the EU, reacted, it was already late, in fact very late.
A great deal of suffering could have been avoided if the EU, among others, has acted earlier and more decisively.
We, the European Union, therefore have a special responsibility to help, support and rebuild the Balkans now.
Our absolute objective must be to create the prior conditions for all countries in south-east Europe to be integrated with other countries in the EU - economically, politically and in terms of trade.
Fertile soil for the growth of democracy in this war-ravaged part of Europe is best provided through trade and economic integration.
We Liberals are prepared to go a long way and to do so quickly, just as Paolo Costa reported.
It is therefore with great satisfaction that we welcome the proposal that is now being made for a stabilisation and association agreement with Macedonia, and we thank Mr Swoboda for a very good report.
Macedonia deserves our support, especially in view of the self-sacrificial, disinterested work which the people and leaders of Macedonia undertook during the Kosovo war.
Now that Macedonia is prising itself loose from the crushing embrace of Communism and nationalism, it is our duty to act and provide support in no uncertain terms.
We should do exactly the same for the other countries in the Balkans.
This is an urgent duty for the EU.
Mr President, allow me in this context to remind MEPs - especially in view of a discussion earlier this evening - of the fact that the man who is mainly responsible for war, human degradation, murder and driving innocent people from their homes is still governing what remains of Yugoslavia, namely Serbia.
The man who is accused of genocide and who ought to be brought before the war crimes tribunal in the Hague still goes free.
I am talking about Milosevic.
As long as Milosevic is still there and Serbia is not pursuing a democratic path, Serbia constitutes a constant threat to peace throughout the Balkans, including in Macedonia.
Mr President, the agreement being promoted will be the first application of the Stability Pact in south-eastern Europe,
Its terms, which the Swoboda report accepts, are certainly not directed towards peace, but towards greater political and economic dominance of the country, and towards controlling its natural wealth, overexploiting its workforce and continuing to use that country as a springboard against the countries and peoples in the area who are resisting the new order.
All this, in exchange for the promise of future accession to the European Union.
The report accepts these attitudes along with the more general policy of the European Union on south-eastern Europe.
It is characteristic that the report congratulates FYROM on the constructive stance it maintained during the NATO attack, eulogises its pacifist role because it allowed its territory to be used as a base for NATO forces, but, of course, remains silent about the indignation of its people, which was manifested by mass demonstrations during the NATO bombardments.
Finally, because we consider that both the stability pact and the stabilisation and association process the European Union is implementing in countries in that area, will create new problems there, new tribulations for their peoples, and will reinforce the dominant role of the American and European imperialists, we will be voting against the report in an expression of our solidarity with the people of FYROM.
Mr President, Commissioner, one of the most basic aims of the European Union' s stability and association agreement with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is to establish stability and peace in the area, and this, of course, presupposes developing and maintaining good neighbourly relations between the countries involved.
I shall not bother you with details of the problem concerning the name FYROM, which as you must know, is the subject of a difference of opinion with Greece and of negotiations between the two countries lasting over four years, under the aegis of the Secretary General of the UN in the context of related Security Council resolutions, but also the conventional obligation of the respective parties pursuant to Article 5 of the so-termed Intermediate Agreement of 1995.
I do, however, think it appropriate to say that, at the forthcoming negotiations and with the conclusion of the association agreement, the European side must point out to the Skopje government the need for it to show appropriate constructive political will, so that it may contribute positively to a successful outcome of the talks in New York.
I should like to hope that such an appeal from Europe, with parallel emphasis on the difficulties that any further indecision would create for completing and implementing the association agreement, would be duly heeded and appraised accordingly by the Skopje government, so that it can respond appropriately, on the one hand, to Greece' s demonstrably conciliatory attitude concerning the specific issue, and, on the other hand, to the more general practical, declared intention and disposition of all the partners in the European Union, including Greece, to facilitate and support FYROM' s progress towards a United Europe.
Mr President, this is because I do not think that the harmonious day to day relations, contacts and communication between FYROM and Greece that have actually been achieved at both bipartite and multipartite level, and this mainly thanks to the practical arrangements of the intermediate agreement, I repeat, I do not think these sufficiently cover the conditions and criteria of good neighbourliness necessary, inter alia, for negotiating and concluding an association agreement.
On the contrary, I think that this demand can only be considered satisfied by a de jure full normalisation of FYROM' s relations with all its neighbours.
That, combined with the essential improvement of certain aspects of the internal situation in that country, in the area of minorities and democratic institutions, would round off the image of political maturity which FYROM has, in fact, presented in other respects and which has made our European family welcome closer relations with it.
Mr President, the agreement we are debating today, as analysed by Mr Swoboda, which I hope we will adopt tomorrow, constitutes the second politically positive step, after the stability pact for the area.
There is another small step, which is related to the recent partial lifting of the embargo decided by our 15 governments for Yugoslavia.
For about 10 years, the situation in the area has been fluid.
Both as an historical period and, in particular, as a political period, 10 years is a very long time.
Under those conditions, then, there has been a real failure.
In that sense, the agreement we will be voting on tomorrow, which contributes towards stability in the area, is de facto a move in the right direction.
In essence, FYROM is a miniature version of the former Yugoslavia, regardless of where one or another minority holds supremacy.
From that standpoint, the fact that so far it has resisted any influences from its wider environment is a very positive element and under no circumstances should any of us, any State, any policy or any view, impel that small republic towards external, disruptive movements in an effort to solve other problems, granted - let it be noted - that it has institutions which it can build upon still further and so become a real democracy.
In that area, there have been various policies from time to time, and what the European Union should guard against is the risk that, for ultimately superficial reasons, it may help to create banana republics elsewhere.
We must be sure that, in seeking allies in the area, we must not always choose anyone who offers.
We must choose those which are moderate, which have breadth of vision and which have a perception of peace and stability in the area.
I hope and wish, and am indeed certain, that the European Union, with maturity and with the measures it has begun to adopt, will little by little construct, in the wider area, the necessary environment which it needs itself.
Let us not deceive ourselves: a Europe, one part of which is being held back because of frictions, misinterpretations and conflicts, and because of nationalistic clashes, will never be a Europe that has brought its own house to the level it wants.
In any event, speaking now as a Greek, I want to tell some of the speakers I listened to earlier that much of what was said is fixated on other times and places.
They have quite failed to grasp the new conditions created in the area; the new and positive conditions which have been created, in very many cases on Greece' s initiative.
You should know that the country which cooperates most with FYROM and has the best relations with it, in the entire area, is Greece, and this has contributed greatly to the stability of the area.
I say this just so that we know where we stand.
Mr President, I found what Mr Souladakis said much more sensible than the statements by other colleagues from his Member State.
So I must say quite plainly that anyone who tries to tie the agreement with Macedonia to resolving the issue of the country' s name, as he does, will not only find Macedonia itself against him but all the other EU Member States too.
Let me also say quite openly that he is thereby doing huge damage to his own country' s interests.
It is in our interest to see stability and peace in the Balkans, and there is a chance of that, although the Stability Pact is in danger of becoming a stillborn entity.
I hope that is not the case, but the risk is there.
That is precisely why it is so urgent for the EU to take a bilateral approach to the individual states and for us to open up definite prospects of EU membership for Macedonia.
So I welcome Mr Swoboda' s excellent report, especially paragraph 12, which quite clearly maps out a European, an EU, prospect for Macedonia.
Without indulging in any illusions, I believe that is important, it has to happen.
We know it cannot happen overnight, but a definite statement to the effect that Macedonia is quite clearly a European country and therefore has the right to be a member of the European Union is a most important, confidence-building measure.
In my view, this is a unique opportunity to strengthen a democracy that has not only established a unique multi-ethnic government in this region but is also strengthening the autonomy of the local authorities, reforming the judicial and economic systems, and doing so under the most difficult conditions, in the aftermath of nationalism, Communism and war.
A few years ago, I had the privilege of inviting the current President and Prime Minister here as private individuals.
At the time they were still finding it very difficult to build on their various contacts here.
I am very happy to see they have kept the promise they made at the time: to build up a profoundly European democracy.
We must thank them for playing this important role in moving towards peace, stability and democracy, at a very critical time last year, as I said, and at a strategically crucial point.
So we are not just the donors here, we were also the recipients, and we owe it to the Macedonians to thank them for fulfilling a crucial European mission at that time.
That is why it is important to negotiate and ratify the agreement promptly, rapidly to upgrade the EU representation to official delegation status, for our Commissioner to visit Macedonia very soon, as I hear he will, and for us to open up a definite prospect of EU membership for this country, as the Swoboda report does.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
Agreement on comitology
The next item is the report (A5-0021/2000) by Mrs Frassoni, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the agreement between the European Parliament and the Commission on the implementation of the new Council decision of 28 June 1999 on comitology (1999/468/EC).
. (IT) Mr President, the approval of this agreement with the Commission on procedures for implementing the Council decision on comitology marks the end of a saga which has kept Parliament busy for two years, along with a few enthusiasts scattered among the various institutions of the Union, whom many people do not hesitate to call masochists.
Until 1993, the way the Commission exercised its executive powers, and in particular the mysterious and even suspect committee arrangements, was creating conflict and mistrust between the institutions, and threatening to have serious consequences on the legislative procedure.
That is why, in accordance with Declaration No 31, annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Union institutions have undertaken a complex task of negotiation and consultation, resulting in the new Council decision, which revises the old system quite substantially, although we are not entirely satisfied with it.
In particular, the decision outlines a form of parliamentary control whereby Parliament can sound the alarm if an implementing measure, deriving from an act adopted under the codecision procedure, oversteps the implementing powers delegated to the Commission.
During the protracted interinstitutional negotiations - which saw Parliament actively involved, thanks to the work of the rapporteur, Adelaide Aglietta - it was understood that the European Parliament and Commission would conclude an interinstitutional agreement on the procedures for implementing certain aspects of the new decision.
On the one hand, certain points which the Council did not intend to incorporate into the decision were to be made explicit and, on the other, the system for providing information about implementing measures and monitoring them was to be organised more precisely.
During the trialogue held on 6 October 1999 in Strasbourg, the Presidents of the European Parliament and the Commission approved the idea of concluding this agreement soon.
We believe we have respected that commitment, and indeed this was made relatively easy by the climate of trust and mutual respect evident throughout the negotiations with the Commission.
Essentially, the agreement deals with two points: one is the right of the European Parliament to be informed, which is the sine qua non for the genuine exercise of its right to intervene pursuant to Article 8 of the decision.
Hitherto, such information had been supplied on paper and unsystematically, and was of no use to our services; and indeed this was often the fault of Parliament itself.
From now on, the information will be provided by means of an electronic system called CIRCA, to which the European Parliament will have access. This represents a real innovation, not only for us, but also - I am sure - for the Commission.
The other point is that Article 8 of the Council decision does not specify either the method by which the European Parliament is to sound the alarm, or the time limit within which it must exercise its restricted power of control.
Paragraphs 6 and 7 of the agreement confirm that, as a general rule, the European Parliament will adopt its resolution, stating its reasons, at a plenary sitting and has one month to exercise its right of intervention before the Commission adopts the draft implementing measure.
But we all realise that it is not always possible to wait a month before implementing a measure.
Therefore, the agreement contains explicit provisions on urgent procedure, including possible action by the committee responsible.
I want to end by stressing that we cannot assess whether this is a good agreement or not, we must wait and see how it works in practice.
The European Parliament needs to acquire the resources, which it currently lacks, to ensure efficient monitoring of implementing measures, and the Commission must accept that some of its practices need reorganising to provide proper information to Parliament and ensure that control can be effective.
Finally, it needs to be borne in mind that - whatever happens - the real solution to the problems of comitology for the European Parliament is still to change the procedure for implementing legislation laid down in the Treaties, and gradually to dismantle the committees whose existence represents an anomaly that severely restricts the Commission' s executive power and may prejudice the European Parliament' s legislative powers.
Mr President, comitology is a concept most people do not know how to handle and hardly anyone knows what it means.
It makes them think of secret societies and conspiracies, which is the way things used to be.
In fact, it implies nothing other than fixing the procedures for the exercise of the implementing powers conferred on the Commission.
The procedures for exercising these implementing powers take the form of a limited number of committee procedures.
Up until the Amsterdam Treaty, there were about 20 variations of these committee procedures, which created neither clarity in the implementation of legislation nor transparency for the citizens.
On the contrary, for a long time even the European Parliament was not informed.
For the European Parliament, the first step in the struggle for more transparency in this jungle of committees was to be informed, at least, of all that the European Commission intended to regulate in the context of these various committees.
Agreement was reached in 1988 in the form of an exchange of letters between Lord Plumb and Mr Delors.
A further step towards transparency and the involvement of the European Parliament came with what is known as the modus vivendi of 20 September 1994, which granted Parliament the right not only to be informed but also to intervene in certain cases.
It also gave it the possibility of scrutiny.
With the Amsterdam Treaty, the situation improved decidedly when the number of committee procedures was drastically reduced - as the European Parliament had long wanted - to three procedures, the administrative procedure, the regulatory procedure and the advisory procedure.
Now, following the Amsterdam Treaty, the rights of information and control granted to the European Parliament in the past need to be enshrined anew in an interinstitutional agreement.
Mrs Frassoni, our rapporteur, has done very careful work and identified the questions that have to be clarified in the context of that interinstitutional agreement and the administrative procedures that may have to be changed within Parliament.
A key problem is the time factor.
When the European Parliament is informed, it generally has to adopt a position within the very short timeframe of four weeks, should it so wish.
In matters relating to the health and safety of the people of the European Union, the European Commission, as guardian of the Treaties and the only institution with the right of initiative, must be in a position to react very rapidly, if necessary within a few hours or days.
Nevertheless, the European Parliament must retain the right to be informed and where appropriate also to react.
Our rapporteur identifies very useful solutions to these difficulties, which I and my group can only support in full.
I just have one more request.
In the German version, paragraph 2 of the resolution has been translated rather misleadingly and I urgently ask for clarification, which I would also like to see in the printed version later.
In my view, instead of "weitergeführt werden müssen" the wording should be "erhalten bleiben müssen" .
The German version is not very clear here.
I would ask for that to be checked again.
For the rest, I warmly thank our rapporteur.
It is a difficult subject and I hope we have managed to make it somewhat easier to deal with now.
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on her report.
I must add that it is a welcome change to see Mrs Frassoni in such a conciliatory mood and willing to reach compromises with the other institutions.
When it comes to the IGC, she is one of what the French call "les pures et dures" : no compromise, no deals with the other institutions; we would rather see the whole thing blocked than compromise our positions.
Yet here she is willing to accept the steps forward that have been achieved, which are far from matching Parliament' s original position on the issue of comitology.
Let us remember what is at stake here.
Parliament had four main criticisms of the comitology system as it existed prior to the new Council decision supplemented by this interinstitutional agreement.
Firstly, the whole system is obscure.
It is not transparent with hundreds of committees meeting with secret agendas and nobody knowing who is on the committees.
Here is a real step forward, in the new system that has been agreed.
We are to know who is on each committee.
We are to know when they meet.
We are to get the agendas.
We are to get the documents that are sent to them.
The whole system will be more open and transparent - if still rather complex.
So that is at least a step forward.
Our second criticism is that the system was very restrictive of the Commission.
We adopt legislation in the European Union. We expect the Commission to implement it.
And then we have a system designed to hinder the Commission and make it more difficult - especially what was called the "contre-filet" system, under which the Council could block the Commission by a simple majority even when the Council was not capable of finding an alternative to the implementing measure concerned.
Here too there is at least some progress.
The Council will no longer be able to block implementing measures indefinitely beyond the three-month period unless it has a qualified majority to block it, in other words, unless there is substantial opposition among the Member States represented in the Council.
That is a more reasonable system. That, too, is a step forward.
But on our other two criticisms, we are less satisfied.
The first criticism is of the system whereby the Commission is monitored, scrutinised, controlled if you like, only by a committee appointed by Member States or the Council not by Parliament.
The legislative authority, Council and Parliament, should be equal.
We confer implementing powers on the Commission, but then it is only a Council or Member State appointed body that can blow the whistle and say no to the Commission and stop the implementing measure.
Parliament has no equivalent power.
True, we are now given the beginning of such a power in this new system.
We are to receive all the draft implementing measures forwarded to a committee at the same time as it is sent to the committee.
We will have the chance to scrutinise, to debate, to question.
But we will only have the right to formally challenge the Commission if we think it has gone beyond the delegation that we have given to the Commission in the legislation.
In other words, we can challenge the measure for being ultra-vires but not on its content.
And in a democracy, Parliament should be able to challenge the content.
Not that we do so every week.
We are not seeking to immerse ourselves in implementing decisions, but it is a democratic safeguard that we should be able to do so on those few occasions when it really would be necessary.
That is lacking in this new system, or at least is only there in embryonic form.
Finally, our fourth criticism is that if an implementing measure is blocked through the comitology system it is referred back, not to both branches of the legislative authority, but to the Council alone, which has the right possibly to take an alternative measure.
That is not correct.
Both branches adopt the legislation - Council and Parliament - that confers implementing powers on the Commission.
If such implementing measures are referred back, it should be to both branches, not to one branch alone.
Overall we have a system which has made some progress.
The supplementary aspects that arise from the interinstitutional agreement with the Commission are welcome, but that could not change the basic decision of the Council.
Even here, we have renounced voluntarily - because this did not happen automatically - the Plumb-Delors agreement as part of the overall compromise.
We have been willing to relinquish the provisions in that.
We shall have to be very vigilant on what used to be covered by that agreement and is not fully covered by the new decision.
We must be very vigilant.
So it is a step forward.
My group reluctantly accepts it as a step forward.
We are not as enthusiastic about compromising as Mrs Frassoni.
We recognise that there are limitations and the issue will no doubt come back in a few years' time.
If we want a Union that is democratic and transparent to the fullest degree we will have to revisit this subject.
Mr President, first I want to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Frassoni, for her work.
It is never easy working on comitology.
Mrs Schleicher referred to a kind of committee magic, something we have long talked about.
Certainly the process has always been very complex, as a result of historical decisions, and these must eventually be rationalised.
In my opinion, the agreement reached between Commission and Parliament is a clear rationalisation of the process.
From our point of view, it satisfies the fundamental interests of Parliament.
Mr Corbett set out Parliament' s concerns.
He says some of them have been satisfied and others have not.
I would say the ones the Commission was able to satisfy have been satisfied.
Mr Corbett is raising issues the Council decision does not cover, and unfortunately we can go no further on those.
So how far have we come? There is no doubt that we have reached a fundamental point, highlighted by Mrs Frassoni, given that we now have an automatic information system.
This will facilitate two activities Parliament is especially interested in.
One is knowing how the committees operate, about their composition, agendas, descriptions, and so on, and the other is the right of scrutiny over actual decisions.
I think this is a good agreement.
It is a good agreement which undoubtedly improves the transparency of the process.
From here on things are going to be easier.
But the agreement we are reaching today should not be regarded as a backward step compared with the Plumb/Delors Agreement.
Mr Corbett referred to that, but the new model is certainly much more complex, different because the situation is now different, and, in our opinion, much more coherent.
We have made a start, and we hope the work will produce some excellent results.
We think there are other positive advances too.
To a certain extent we have gone beyond agreements which are already dated and, by realigning old procedures with the new situation, we aim to clear up everything still outstanding from the past.
From the Commission' s point of view, our conclusion is that this is a good agreement, and we want to thank the Members of Parliament who worked on it - especially Mrs Frassoni.
We hope that this new climate means we have achieved the result we were seeking, which is greater transparency and better information about the decisions of the Commission as an executive.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Solbes Mira.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure
The next item is the report (A5-0013/2000) by Mr Knörr Borràs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on a proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 3605/93 on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community (COM(1999) 444 - C5-0174/1999 - 1999/0196(CNS))
Mr President, I am also pleased to welcome the Spanish Commissioner, Mr Solbes Mira, whom I have congratulated more than once, inside and outside this Parliament, on the excellent work he did in Spain on the subject of European convergence.
The proposal for an amendment to this regulation on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure, annexed to the Treaty of Maastricht, raises fundamental issues concerning the switch to the 1995 European system of accounts, which, as you know, replaced the previous System of Accounts adopted in 1979, and in particular the emergence of new financial product categories, consistency in the calculation of the ratios of government deficit to gross domestic product on the basis of ESA 95 and, finally, recognising the importance of calculating interest expenditure and the consistency of the latter with this new methodology.
In our view, the main purpose of the proposal for a regulation is to update the definitions and the assessments of some of the economic operations involved in the calculation of deficits, as reflected in the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Treaty of Maastricht, which lays down the maximum percentages which the government deficit must not exceed as a ratio of GDP at market prices in the various Member States.
To date, the Member States have calculated this GDP in accordance with the criteria laid down in ESA 79.
The most recent estimate of the deficit was submitted in September 1999 and it relates to the 1998 financial year.
Therefore, if the regulation is adopted, the estimate which is due to appear in March 2000, the first estimate of the deficit for the 1999 accounting year, will be made using the new system.
We know the Member States have done their duty - if I can use that expression - doing their calculations and preparing their national accounts in line with ESA 95, and they have already published their corresponding estimates.
In addition to incorporating a new methodology, this has meant making slight changes to most accounting aggregates and operations, on account of the aforesaid methodological changes, and also the improved statistical information included in the estimates.
These changes may of course alter the government deficits in terms of the Member States' national accounting.
I will now describe, very briefly, the five areas where the most important changes may occur.
First, the adjustments to the scope of what is meant by 'government institutional sector' under ESA 95. This is important, since government deficit means the deficit accumulated by all forms of government.
The non-availability of precise criteria for the definition of government deficit would produce distortions in the estimates of the Member States' government deficits.
Secondly, the deficit - or, if applicable, the surplus - means the ESA 95 government sector' s net borrowing requirement or lending ability respectively
Thirdly, government investment means the gross fixed capital formation of the general government sector, as defined in ESA 95.
Fourthly, government debt is defined in accordance with ESA 95, as are the flows or interest stemming from assets/liabilities.
Fifthly and finally, the aggregate to which government debt will relate will be gross domestic product at current market prices, estimated in accordance with the 1995 European System of Accounts' definitions.
To summarise, I consider that this proposal constitutes a satisfactory adaptation of the criteria laid down in the 1995 European System of Accounts, and I therefore approve it in full, as did the committee.
Mr President, Commissioner, let me say at the outset that my group welcomes this proposal because it makes the basic statistical data for an economic and monetary union directed at stability and real growth more harmonised, directly comparable and more accurate.
We have already heard about the various aspects involved.
What I think is crucial is that henceforth the statistical data will be more reliable and comparable.
We need that because the various European Union bodies and all the Member States within monetary union have to be able to depend on one another.
It is important to adjust the procedure for two reasons.
Firstly, for the single market.
It is most important quite generally in a single market to have reliable and directly comparable data and statistics so as to give an accurate picture of the situation and development trends.
Secondly, for economic and monetary union.
The regulation dating from 1993 on the application of the Protocol must be brought into harmony with the methodology of the European system of accounts at national and regional level.
That is vitally important to the accurate and reliable calculation of deficits.
This adjustment will make it possible to estimate the deficits and debts in the Member States more precisely.
These technical changes will have a very real impact on the actual position of the countries, since the data will automatically be amended in line with the public deficit.
I also welcome the fact that the estimates of the deficits for the 1999 financial year that are due to be published in March 2000 are already based on the new ESA, i.e. the analysis is based on consolidated aggregates that are economically relevant.
Let me also briefly use this debate as an opportunity to urge all the governments and political parties to do their utmost to ensure that this procedure never has to be initiated for an excessive deficit.
It is good that the procedure exists.
We need it because it lends our criteria the necessary seriousness and credibility.
The citizens ask what happens if the criteria are not met. Thanks to these procedures and other measures we can prove that we are taking the criteria and ourselves seriously.
Another important point is that we must do all we can, not just to prevent excessive deficits, but also to further reduce public deficits.
I know what I am talking about and I will conclude by telling you why I am so glad we are holding this debate!
We are currently holding a debate in my own country on whether the former minister for finance actually gave us accurate information on the deficit.
In my country, Austria, new elections had to be held in 1995 in order to meet the Maastricht criteria and persuade our political partner to rethink his approach.
I must also tell you that in the year 2000, when there is so much talk about us, the coalition talks with the SPÖ failed - and unfortunately so - because the Socialist Party brought down the negotiated austerity and consolidation programme.
That is a prime reason why the new government had to be formed in Austria; for the Austrian People' s Party, the ÖVP, wants to continue to act as guarantor of economic stability. The ÖVP wants to ensure that we continue to meet the Maastricht criteria and reduce the public deficit, as we have agreed here.
Mr President, the beauty of statistical data is that it is not only reliable but also comparable.
This is of great importance, especially in the light of European unification and the completion of the internal market.
This is why this report is also so politically charged: a report, by the way, on which we would like to congratulate the rapporteur warmly.
It also inspires a few political comments.
The Stability Pact is a given in Europe.
All countries participating in the euro have committed themselves, in the medium term, to striving towards a budget which is either balanced or shows up a slight surplus.
This, of course, does not mean that, if the economic climate is less than favourable, the budget could not fluctuate up or down slightly.
It means that, in the long and medium term, there should be a balance or surplus.
The stronger the position of the participating countries, the stronger the euro will be.
As a result, the three percent standard will rarely be exceeded, not even in a bad economic climate. This is the theory behind it, anyway.
We have always been of the opinion that these criteria should be stringently met.
That is of great importance in order to turn the EMU into a success, now and in the future.
Strict compliance with the Stability Pact can thus contribute to a culture of stability within all EMU Member States.
Various Member States have taken one-off measures to be able to meet the criteria.
We are of the opinion that the Member States' budget policy should be strictly supervised, to ensure that the measures continue to be taken in the spirit of the prescribed criteria at all times.
A drop in standards should not be allowed.
We are also of the opinion that a further reduction in the burden and reducing the national debt should be prioritised.
Indeed, we still have not managed to stop passing on the burden to future generations.
. (ES) Mr President, many thanks, first of all, to the rapporteur for his splendid work.
It was a subject which called for a large dose of technical skill and I think Mr Knörr has handled it with great precision and professionalism.
I would not presume to be able to summarise the content of our proposal better than he has done; I would just like to add one small point: in addition to adaptation to ESA 95, there are two small technical changes which Mr Knörr knows all about, relating to interest and the valuation of debt in foreign currency.
I just mention that to complete the view of the process.
Secondly, I would like to thank Mr Knörr for his speediness.
He has done really good work in a very short time.
This is an important subject for certain references which we have heard subsequently.
What we are seeking with this legislation is not to make the statistics reliable and comparable - they already are - but to make them more reliable and more comparable.
Obviously, the fact that Parliament has taken its decision so quickly will mean that the March figures can already be calculated on the basis of these new criteria.
That being so, I believe the final result will be better.
The figures will be more reliable and more comparable and I think the concerns some Members have raised about compliance with the stability pact can be better addressed.
This regulation is purely instrumental.
It does deal with the substance of the problem some of you have raised.
But we do need to think about how we deal with the substance of the problem.
The stability pact is in place and we will continue to press ahead with monitoring compliance by the various Member States, despite the fact that the results are clearly positive in all the Member States where we have analysed the position as regards the stability of the government deficit.
But we see no reason to lower our guard.
We must press on in that direction because we know it is vital.
So, once again - and finally - I want to thank you for your help in allowing us to measure stability with greater technical certainty and better comparability.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Solbes Mira.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
Increasing penal sanctions against counterfeiting of the euro
The next item is the report (A5-0020/2000) by Mrs Cederschiöld, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on a draft Framework Decision of the Council on increasing protection by penal sanctions against counterfeiting in connection with the introduction of the euro (5116/1999 - C5-0332/1999 - 1999/0821(CNS)).
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(SV) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen (all the more welcome for being so few in number), one might have thought that it was an unimportant subject which was to be discussed at this hour, but that is not the case.
It is a definite and concrete issue. It is about our common currency.
How many people here know that this currency is being counterfeited and that we have a quite unacceptable state of affairs? We cannot permit our common currency to become weaker through its being counterfeited.
The ECB, ECOFIN, Europol, OLAF and the Commissioner responsible for legal questions have therefore realised that common countermeasures must be taken quickly in order to close the loopholes left by the legislation.
It is easy to forget that it will be possible to exchange the old currencies for twenty years after the new currency has been introduced.
It is therefore important to include these currencies too in the section of the present programme of measures which deals with penal sanctions. This is something which Parliament has said it wants to see added.
The Council ought to have given Parliament the stipulated three-month period within which to consider, too, the last document produced on this matter, but we are all aware of how urgent it is to have these measures put safely in place.
Because the issue is to be decided upon in March in the Council, Parliament has cause to adopt a position on the proposal now, so that the Member States have time also to take due account of Parliament' s points of view in the decision which has to be made in March.
Any country which began to make difficulties would incur a responsibility for the currency, and that country would be accountable, both morally and economically, if its actions were to contribute to a delay.
A country which acted in that way would bring a lot of ill will upon itself.
On 1 January 2002 the euro will be in circulation.
The whole of the Union must have the same protection, a type of protection which prohibits counterfeiting, not only of currencies in circulation but also of currencies which will be in circulation.
It is important that, in time, there should be a more or less similar-looking form of protection under criminal law in all countries.
The Commission has proposed measures aimed at providing information, together with penal sanctions, preventive measures and the pooling of experience. These measures do, in fact, entail a certain necessary harmonisation in as much as the lowest acceptable maximum penalty for currency counterfeiting is to be eight years' imprisonment.
Trading with counterfeit currencies and the possession of counterfeiting equipment will also become criminal offences.
Quite simply, we are to have a minimum level for the maximum penalty.
The denominations of the euro are well known.
Modern computer equipment can be used to cause a very great deal of damage if we do not protect ourselves.
Parliament has tabled a number of amendments to the present proposal, for example in regard to jurisdiction, the idea being that a person may only be prosecuted and sentenced in the one country for the same crime.
There are also proposed sanctions against companies which are involved in counterfeiting, this being a measure which we would encourage.
The new applicant States are also encouraged to adapt to these regulations.
It has taken two years for the Council and the Commission to produce this proposal.
It is essential that the decision should now be taken in March.
To delay, or perhaps even risk damage to the euro, would be indefensible.
It would also be a betrayal of the people who will be handling the new, unfamiliar notes.
In particular, it is believed that counterfeiters will turn their attention to countries outside the euro zone, where people are less familiar with the new currency.
The protective measures cover these countries too, and the views expressed by these countries have carried a lot of weight.
The present proposal is therefore staunchly inclusive and reciprocal in character, accepting responsibility for a variety of interests in a way which imposes obligations upon others.
The Council must now convene in March and make the relevant decision.
Thank you for listening.
Thank you, too, those who contributed to this matter' s being dealt with swiftly. I am thinking in particular of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Mr President, first I want to compliment the rapporteur, Charlotte Cederschiöld, on drawing up this report, which is an excellent point of departure for increasing protection by penal sanctions against counterfeiting in connection with the introduction of the euro.
The euro will enter into circulation on 1 January 2002 and will become one of the world' s most important reserve currencies.
Due to its importance on a world scale, the euro will be particularly exposed to the risk of counterfeiting and forgery.
This draft decision therefore lays down a set of minimum standards intended to harmonise criminal law in this field and make its application by each Member State simpler and more effective.
It also provides for the euro to be protected even prior to its circulation, which will fill a gap in legislation in some Member States.
I expressly support the rapporteur as regards the need to extend this protection to national currencies which can continue to be exchanged after they have been withdrawn from circulation.
This means that every Member State must guarantee the establishment of effective, adequate penal sanctions, which act as a deterrent against the offences covered by the draft framework decision.
As to the proposal to establish a maximum custodial sentence of not less than eight years, I do not think that this will raise any problems as far as my country is concerned, even though the maximum sentence for counterfeiting under its criminal code is currently five years in prison, as it has already expressed willingness to make this amendment.
I also call on those few Member States still harbouring reservations to resolve them so that a decision can rapidly be reached on this matter, for the reasons our rapporteur set out earlier when she called for this to be done.
Mr President, this draft framework decision represents the first time a common proposal on crime has been put forward, with legislation to be applied by all fifteen Member States at the same time.
We are therefore making progress towards the aim of developing and confirming the status of the European Union as an area of freedom, security and justice, as expressed at Tampere.
Mr President, I need not repeat what the rapporteur said or the points Mr Coelho made. All that is indeed very true and correct.
It is easy to counterfeit the euro.
We are going through a dangerous transitional phase in which a phenomenon has appeared in criminal law that is perhaps unique in monetary history.
It is that a currency that does not even exist yet, that is not in circulation, but exists only as bank deposit money, can nevertheless be counterfeited already. Yet because that currency is not yet in circulation as such, counterfeiting euros does not at present constitute a criminal offence.
It is a highly complex problem.
If we do not act promptly - as Mrs Cederschiöld rightly said - anyone can produce a few counterfeit euros now and possibly not be prosecuted for subsequently putting them into circulation.
Let me say in passing that this may seem an attractive prospect for a number of people.
So what is the European Union doing about it?
It is doing a number of things that are right, as Mrs Cederschiöld has described; but, in the context of these things she described, Parliament must look not so much at the content of the framework decision, not so much at the report drawn up by Mrs Cederschiöld, but more at the procedures that are being applied.
The manner in which the Council, which is by far the most undemocratic institution in Europe, consulted the European Parliament makes a mockery of the concept of democracy.
We received a text for consultation which the Council had been working on for a very long time, incidentally with only partial success - I will come to that in a moment.
Now the European Parliament is supposed to state its position on this complex, difficult and, at times, contradictory Council document in the space of three months.
It is only thanks to the immense efforts of Mrs Cederschiöld and to Parliament' s decision not to stand by its democratic right to conduct its advisory procedure over an adequate period of time and to have all the documents available in all the languages, that we have now managed to give our position by the date set by the Council, so that the decision scheduled for March can indeed be taken.
On a subject as important as counterfeiting and protection against counterfeiting and harmonising the necessary criminal law provisions we cannot really work at the ridiculous pace the Council is demanding of us.
So let me state quite clearly here, on behalf of my group, that we discussed at length with Mrs Cederschiöld whether it is reasonable to work like this.
We concluded that it is not, but given the importance of the issue we nonetheless agreed to accept this procedure.
This framework decision does without any doubt represent some progress.
Only, as Mrs Cederschiöld pointed out, in the end it does not fully achieve the legal certainty the Council wanted because various shortcomings have not been dealt with. They relate to the minimum rules we are seeking to establish, the minimum rules relating to a punishable offence and in particular the application of the same criminal law norms in all Member States, including those that have not yet introduced the euro but where it could theoretically be counterfeited.
One reason they have not been dealt with is that as ever the leopard cannot change its spots, i.e. in the case of this framework decision, which specifically relates to judicial cooperation, the Council once again prefers to adhere to the level of government cooperation.
That is why, and I quote, this framework decision "is confined to supplementing the provisions of the International Convention of 20 April 1929 for the suppression of counterfeiting and its Protocol" , i.e. the provisions of a timeworn international convention that is a good 71 years old.
That means that the legal basis we are now seeking to establish to protect the euro does not derive from Community legislation, as it should, but merely takes the form of provisions supplementing an international convention dating back 71 years.
I leave it to the assembled company in this Chamber to decide whether that can be the future of a European Union based on judicial cooperation.
Thank you for your attention during our night sitting together.
Mr President, the launch of the euro could well be a heaven-sent opportunity for counterfeiters.
The fact is people are suddenly going to lose all their currency references, and that means they will be at serious risk of easily accepting forged euros because they are not very familiar with the genuine article.
So the Council is naturally worried and is seeking to establish sanctions, primarily criminal, applicable in all the countries of Europe, against offences of this kind.
No doubt the Council could have been satisfied with a simple resolution recommending that Member States adopt national legislation to that effect.
That is what I would have preferred, personally.
But, probably through lack of confidence in the zeal of certain members, the Council has preferred to implement a legal instrument which is more binding at European level: a framework decision.
Now that is where the difficulties begin, because criminal law comes under national sovereignty and the Treaty of Maastricht contains no specific provision covering this situation for the euro - so as not to frighten the voters by over-egging the pudding.
The draft framework decision before us today tries to cover up this lacuna by referring to Articles 31 and 34(2)(b) of the Treaty.
However, I find these passports inadequate.
Article 31 only envisages minimum common rules for criminal acts in certain cases, specifically restricted to organised crime, terrorism and drug trafficking.
Counterfeiting is not on the list.
Article 34, a product of the Treaty of Amsterdam, only lays down the new form of a framework decision, and clearly this only applies to the existing powers of the European Union.
So we come back to the previous problem.
In other words, the Council has not succeeded in giving this text a credible legal basis.
In a way, this is deferred punishment for its lack of honesty, at the time, in presenting the Maastricht Treaty to the voters.
I would also like to make a more general point.
Not so long ago we were dealing with one or more reports on questions of principle relating to the euro in virtually every part-session.
But there has been nothing for a year.
Just a few little technical reports like this one on counterfeiting.
The Commission' s communication on its strategic objectives for 2000-2005, which we have debated this week, contained absolutely nothing on this vast subject, except the reminder, in a single line, that the euro coins and notes are due to come into circulation on 1 January 2002.
However, there are many underlying problems yet to be resolved.
Let us mention, for example, the disturbing lack of public interest, the definition of monetary policy objectives abusively reduced to the mere fight against inflation, the strange coupling of monetary federalism to a lack budgetary or fiscal federalism, the status of the present applicant countries, when they become members, vis-à-vis the euro zone, the confused reaction of the international markets to this currency with no homogeneous popular foundation, and so on.
Do I also need to mention that investors who sold dollars to buy euros have lost 20% since 1 January 1999, 40% if they bought bonds, and no less than 55% if they sold yen to buy euros? Mr President, for those unfortunate investors even real euros are false money.
These are gigantic problems but they seem to be taboo here.
I should like to take over the baton from the previous speaker.
There are a number of questions of principle which are demanding solutions, because the point of departure is, of course, that the regulation of criminal law is a national concern.
Criminal law is part of each individual nation' s own cultural tradition, and it is very difficult to arrive at common definitions of what is to be understood by these basic legal concepts.
I appreciate Mrs Cederschiöld' s work, and my point of departure will be her search - in connection with the Tampere Summit - for common definitions and common regulations regarding what is punishable and what common sanctions can be applied.
She would like to devise these sanctions jointly so as to arrive at a coherent criminal justice system for offences which have particular relevance for the EU.
But the problem is that there is no legal basis for this, and with good reason, because the regulation of criminal law belongs to the sphere of national jurisdiction.
In that context, I want to ask the following question of the Commission' s and the Council' s representatives: is the legal basis which has been invoked adequate? In my view, it is clearly in conflict with, and far exceeds the scope of, Article 34, paragraph 2, point b where a legal basis is established for so-called framework decisions which are binding upon the Member States in regard to the desired objectives, but in which it is left to the national authorities to determine the form and methods of implementation.
What of course characterises the present draft framework decision is the fact that the Member States' obligations are laid down in detail. There is no freedom of choice regarding methods and implementation.
In my view, this exceeds the parameters of the legal basis.
I should like an answer from the Commission and the Council, for I consider it obvious that Article 31 does not supply the relevant legal basis.
Mr President, Commissioner, let me begin by warmly congratulating and thanking the rapporteur and pointing out that, in her report, she does not just welcome the draft framework decision but also proposes a few changes, which have been referred to by various speakers but which we cannot discuss in detail now, to supplement and improve the text.
It is crucially important to continue the success story of the euro and we must make every effort not to spoil this success story or put it at risk by taking inadequate measures to prevent counterfeiting - and we are well aware of the initial attempts that are being made.
We have all noted that the conversion phase will bring uncertainty and risks with it.
So, in addition to the efforts to combat counterfeiting, to ensure the sound implementation of the provisions, the planned information campaign will of course play a key role and here we still have serious work to do.
We are also concerned with the question of cooperation.
We need to define the precise responsibilities of the ECB, the national central banks, the Commission and Europol pertaining to all matters relating to counterfeiting of the euro.
I also think we should perhaps consider setting up an interinstitutional or EU body in charge of coordinating the cooperation work.
In the same context, we could establish an early warning system functioning round the clock, together with a common information system for the rapid exchange of data between the responsible authorities.
Aside from the report, which we welcome, many questions have arisen that still need to be resolved.
I hope the debate we are holding here will bring some clarification.
Mr President, Mrs Cederschiöld, ladies and gentlemen, how safe is the euro? That is, after all, a question the people often ask.
And that question will of course become increasingly pressing with the approach of 1 January 2002, the date when they will have euros in their pockets.
For the safety of the euro is not just a matter of the stability and external value of the currency but, in fact, also of protecting the euro against counterfeiting.
That too is a concern of the people, for, as has rightly been said, this will be a new currency for them, new in terms of how it looks and also how it is used.
Of course all the citizens of the EU Member States will also be faced with the novelty of a currency that is valid over such a wider area, and even beyond Europe, as a reserve currency.
They will need time to get used to that too.
So it is clearly necessary to ask what the EU is doing to protect the euro against counterfeiting.
And that is what we are discussing at this late hour.
This really is a subject that is close to the citizen, so it is a pity it is being debated at such a late hour.
But that cannot be helped.
Of course, the European Central Bank has been looking into the matter for a very long time.
After all, it is responsible for technical measures to protect against counterfeiting.
As has also been pointed out, in summer 1998 the Commission submitted a communication listing a very wide variety of areas where measures need to be taken, such as information, further training - an important area, cooperation between the euro-states and of course even beyond them, and measures under criminal law.
That is what this framework decision is about.
Mrs Cederschiöld, let me offer you sincere thanks on behalf of the Commission and, above all, let me also thank Parliament for being prepared to give its position in the space of such a short time.
I certainly appreciate that.
The framework decision aims to ensure that the Member States apply the same definition of counterfeiting offences.
Of course the first condition for uniform action is always to have uniform definitions and, as was emphasised, what we are basically trying to do is to ensure that the euro is protected even before it is physically introduced.
Naturally, the Commission is also glad that the European Parliament' s prompt decision - and I hope the vote will be in favour - means the framework decision can enter into force very rapidly now, so that we can begin to transpose it.
For the Commission has been asked to report, as it will in the first half of next year, on the progress in transposing it in the Member States, on whether the serious nature of this issue is being matched by serious action.
It has been pointed out that this framework decision is in fact a decision in the area of criminal law.
In that respect we must recognise this innovation, this step, even if, as Mr Schulz just pointed out, simply supplementing a rather old convention is not really a particularly bold step.
In reply to the question whether the Commission considers that the framework decision has an adequate legal basis under the Treaty, the Commission believes that the right basis is being applied here.
The framework decision will, however, have to be supplemented by other legal acts in future.
The Commission will submit a proposal for a regulation on cooperation between all the responsible authorities and on cooperation with Europol.
That proposal will establish a duty to cooperate, and a duty on the part of the national authorities to notify Europol of cases of counterfeiting and to present any confiscated counterfeit money to the European Central Bank for identification and classification, so that effective measures can then be taken.
On the question of coordinating the various measures, since early 1998, the Commission, followed now by OLAF, has been working with experts on the subject from the Member States, the European Central Bank and Europol on means of effectively combating counterfeiting of the euro in advance.
As Mr Karas just pointed out, a few weeks ago the Commission submitted a proposal for an information campaign on the euro, to which it proposed allocating as much as EUR 32 million.
That is a volume of funding that can be put to very effective use, a large amount; and of course the information campaign will also focus very strongly on protecting the euro against counterfeiting.
I believe that this debate shortly before midnight will also teach a salutary lesson to all those counterfeiters who believe their hour has come, because they think the EU is no longer awake at this late hour!
Thank you very much, Commissioner Schreyer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.)
Resumption of the sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I should like make a comment in connection with a meeting held last night by various Members of Parliament from all groups.
The purpose of the meeting, which was attended by several Vice-Presidents and Quaestors, together with the architects who designed this building, was to discuss how we could improve our working conditions.
We discovered during the meeting that the lovely white curtain behind you, Mr President, in fact conceals a huge window which, if the curtain were drawn back, would afford a wonderful view over the river.
We were told that the curtain was closed so that you would not have your back to the light and to improve the lighting during debates.
But what is to prevent us, before the sitting is opened or when you close the sitting, opening the curtains and enjoying the apparently magnificent view behind you?
I am more than happy for our House to be illuminated by the brilliance of our debates but a little real sunlight on our bubble of democracy from time to time would not come amiss.
I think it would be a nice idea if you could discuss opening this curtain from time to time with the ushers.
Thank you very much Mr Onesta, I am grateful for any suggestions that will make our Chamber more conducive to human comfort.
I would propose that we carry on in the normal way for the time being.
In the meantime, I will have someone check as to whether it would be a simple matter, technically speaking.
If so, then we will have a trial run for half an hour and see how it looks when the President sits with his back to the light!
UCITS
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(SV) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is my hope that Parliament is prepared now to make a decision to extend and strengthen the financial market in Europe.
As a new Member of the European Parliament, it has been very interesting and instructive for me to be given responsibility for this important matter.
I should especially like to thank my colleagues on the committee for their willingness to find compromises; the President and the Bureau for lending a sensitive ear to this complex issue; the Commission, and especially the Commissioner, for being such worthwhile contacts; the Council; and also the division responsible for servicing the committee, for its selfless work.
There was a good deal of agreement within the committee, apart from on a matter which, too, I hope it will be possible to solve.
The issue of UCITS may appear difficult, technical and a political minefield.
I believe that some people do not even know what UCITS stands for.
Allow me, however, to state very clearly that this is a question which really does affect the citizens of Europe in so far as it relates to how their savings are administered, what options there are available, how competition operates between countries in regard to different forms of savings, savers' demand for security, and the opportunities Europe' s citizens have to save wisely for their old age.
It is a question of weighing demands for liberalisation in the interests of a better market and higher yield against investors' need for protection and security.
In the course of the 1980s, most markets in Europe underwent drastic deregulation. As a result, the national money and bond markets in particular developed very quickly over a period of a few years.
Collective investment undertakings became an alternative to saving with a bank.
In my own country, more than 60 per cent of Swedes save with a variety of funds.
The security afforded by this type of saving is attributable to the broad range of investment vehicles in which the funds are placed.
The capital and securities market has continued to be developed.
The current Directive on UCITS has become antiquated and outdated.
New types of funds have been introduced in the various Member States which are not permitted to market their units in other Member States.
Obviously, this inhibits competition and innovation and restricts the public' s range of savings options.
The Commission' s proposal with which we are dealing today is in two parts.
The first concerns the product, that is to say the funds.
The other concerns the collective investment undertakings.
The main purpose of the first proposal is to extend the investment opportunities of collective investment undertakings by allowing them to invest in units in other collective investment undertakings, for example units in funds, standardised options and futures contracts and deposits in credit institutions and in certain types of money market instruments.
Special risk-spreading rules are proposed in respect of such investments, involving both quantitative and qualitative criteria.
In addition, the Commission' s proposal puts forward special risk-spreading rules for funds whose aim is to replicate a particular stock index, a so-called index fund.
The committee wishes to make the requirements in relation to the Commission' s proposal more stringent.
To guarantee transparency and prudence, investments in non-harmonised funds should only be allowed on condition that qualitative criteria, for example a transparency requirement and investor protection, are introduced.
In addition, quantitative criteria (risk exposure) should be introduced.
Moving on now, then, to the point where there is (or, I hope, was) a lack of agreement, namely OTC derivatives.
The Commission' s proposal makes a distinction between derivatives dealt in on regulated markets and derivative instruments not dealt in on regulated markets (so-called OTC derivatives).
The Commission' s proposal takes it as read that OTC derivatives are not one of the general types of investment that UCITS deal in, but that they should only be used to achieve efficient portfolio management and to hedge exchange-rate risks.
In recent years, the derivatives market has grown very rapidly in almost all the Member States.
It is therefore important that regulation of derivatives is flexible so that the market is not tied down ahead of future developments.
The definitions 'standardised futures contracts' and 'standardised options' should therefore be combined to form a new definition, 'financial derivative instruments' , which also covers OTC derivatives. Investment in OTC derivatives, however, should only be allowed on condition that both quantitative and qualitative criteria are introduced.
They are very important in this case. They must be introduced to guarantee the protection of investors.
The Commission' s second proposal focuses on the bodies which manage UCITS, that is to say management companies.
The rules for management companies, for example the conditions for starting up and conducting business, are brought into line with the existing rules and regulations.
A crucial point is that rules are proposed for so-called simplified prospectuses.
Relevant information must be given to prospective unit-holders in a fund in a language which is readily understandable to investors in the host country.
In this regard, too, the committee is prepared to go further than the Commission.
A question which has also been discussed in the committee is that of the capital contribution to be required from management companies.
There are different views on this.
One of the most important things, for me, personally, is that the common regulations should not cause smaller companies to go under.
During the months that I have been working on this report, one very clear demand has emerged, both from industry and from those who represent the consumer.
The current situation is not good.
Both savers and the industry need modernised regulations for the whole of Europe.
I believe that today' s proposal strikes a good balance between liberalisation of the market and the desire for effective protection for investors.
I just want to conclude by saying that a number of Members of Parliament think that the present proposal goes too far, while others think that I am not sufficiently liberal.
To them I just want to say, as the English expression goes, 'You can' t have it all.'
. Mr President, at the outset I wish to place on the official record of the House my thanks for the tremendous work undertaken by Mr Schmidt, our rapporteur.
I was in fact the surrogate father of these reports during the previous Parliament.
We failed over the last six years to get any compromise or agreement with regard to this matter.
In a short space of time Mr Schmidt has managed to bring it forward to this final stage within Parliament.
I thank him for that.
As the draftsperson for the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, I also wish to place on record my thanks to the secretariat of both the Legal Affairs Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee for their cooperation on this matter.
I am speaking today wearing a number of hats: firstly, as the surrogate father of this report; secondly, as the draftsperson of the opinion; and most importantly, as one who sees the tremendous advantages which can be gained for the European Union from a harmonised system of UCITS investment to ensure that monies presently being earned in Europe but invested outside the European Union and not put to the benefit of the Union economy can be retained within the economy for the creation of entrepreneurship, employment and also for guaranteeing future pension rights.
There is little disagreement amongst Members with regard to the first proposal.
It puts into place a certain number of controls and mechanisms to ensure that we can have this kind of harmonised regulatory authorities.
However, it is in relation to the second proposal that there is most concern.
I have a number of ideas which should be put across.
Firstly, the idea of an EU passport for management companies is to be welcomed; and the home-state approval rule is also to be welcomed.
However, instead of imposing a new regime, we could have used the Investment Services Directive as the analogy for this regime.
It seems unusual that we failed to grasp that opportunity.
Many Members have been working on the basis of trying to protect their own countries' national interests rather than improving the overall system for Europe.
We will have to revisit this issue again in the near future.
I call on Members to ensure by their votes today or that we can put Europe on a sound footing for the short term, if not for the long term.
Mr President, I must firstly thank the rapporteur, Mr Schmidt, my colleague, Mr Goebbels, and Mrs Villiers and Mrs Lulling from my Group. Despite their differing opinions on some points, they have consistently worked in an extremely constructive manner.
As indicated by the rapporteur, we are discussing probably one of the most important issues that we will ever have to discuss in this Parliament.
Collective investment undertakings have for some time been the primary savings vehicle through which millions of ordinary citizens, without any specialist knowledge, have invested their life savings.
This is the main reason why we must proceed with liberalisation, albeit in a prudent manner.
I say this because the failure of a bank is a problem for which any government can find a solution.
However, the failure and suspension of payments of this type of undertaking would create a political, social and personal problem with incalculable consequences.
There is also a second reason why prudence is needed in the regulation of these undertakings. I believe in a social market economy based on a successful market operating subject to certain rules intended to guarantee the general interest.
Specifically, at the moment, this means the protection of investors.
This basic principle of liberalisation, increased competition and greater investment opportunities, together with prudence to ensure the protection which investors deserve, has determined and inspired my Group' s position on most of the controversial points which have arisen.
Firstly, there is the problem of investment in non-harmonised undertakings falling outside this directive.
It is clear that by extending the proposal under discussion, the options and the range of investments in undertakings for collective investments, those undertakings which remain outside the rules will be obliged to invest in high-risk funds.
It would be wrong to allow the regulated and protected undertakings to invest in other undertakings involved in such risky investments.
Secondly, the problem of derivatives is one which has created the most divisions, both within my Group and between the groups.
We have achieved a compromise solution.
Everyone accepts that investments in derivatives must be legally limited in order to prevent a harmonised fund losing all its assets due to an investment in high-risk products.
It is clear that this risk is greater when the investment is in derivatives not dealt in on a regulated market, namely the famous OTC derivatives.
We have achieved an acceptable compromise solution on this, or so we believe, which I welcome.
As this issue will be returning to this House at some stage, I must highlight the working method used between the Commission and this Parliament.
The texts before us today are old and were already old when they reached this House. This was because they were substantially amended during the Finnish Presidency.
We are therefore faced with two options. We can either return the proposals to the Commission for the latter to present a harmonised text or we can continue the current process.
This second option has won the day and I am pleased about this. However, in the future I hope that the coordination between these two institutions and the Council can be improved so that our work is more understandable and more productive.
Mr President, our objective in setting a framework for unit trusts and other UCTIS is to secure the highest possible safe return for our savers, which is why I want to address the issue of derivatives in my remarks today.
I firmly believe that the prudent use of derivatives can help fund secure, safer, higher returns.
Despite their image of danger, derivatives are usually used by asset managers as insurance.
A contract that, for example, pays a substantial sum if, say, the NASDAQ or the CAC 40 share index falls, causes an extra payment by the investor if the NASDAQ or the CAC 40 share index rises.
Is this speculative? Not at all.
Imagine you have spent some months building up a portfolio of shares in companies in which you are confident: they have good management, good prospects and they are good investments.
Then you become worried that the whole stock market is going to collapse, as it did in 1987.
You have the option of selling off everything and getting into cash, but that would be to waste your research into the winners.
It would also incur all the transaction costs of selling your shares and then buying them again after the fall.
The solution is to take out a derivative which pays off if the NASDAQ or CAC 40 falls.
But even with a tailor-made derivative or OTC derivative which would be cheaper, perhaps insuring you against a relative fall in your portfolio against the index, you would still have the portfolio and the shares, but you would have protected yourself against the risks of a collapse.
In exchange, you might also have given up some of the upside of the markets.
In this case, which is perhaps the most common use of derivatives by asset managers, you reduce your potential reward but you also reduce your potential risk.
That is a desirable development in a soundly managed fund.
History demonstrates that investors benefit from a liberal and light-handed approach to regulation.
Heavy-handedness - a prescription of how private sector managers should invest and where they should invest - will merely reduce returns to savers.
Pension funds which suffered from rules on where they could and could not invest, as required by of our government bonds, made returns of 5.2% a year, barely half the 9.5% annual returns made by free funds between 1984 and 1996.
These are of course the returns after deducting all losses.
Do not confuse a real concern for the interests of investors with a populist fear of the new and the innovative and liberal approach that pays off.
This is what we should be concerned about here today.
Mr President, the report presented to us today seeks to complete the free movement of financial investments in Europe, including the most sophisticated forms of investment.
We do not, in principle, oppose this industry.
However, unlike Mr Christopher Huhne, we feel that a continent which has proved incapable of controlling its oil industry properly should not overly deregulate an industry which may, in time, provoke the same type of crisis.
We shall therefore vote cautiously on all amendments limiting recourse to excessively derivative instruments and we shall vote in favour of all amendments which limit the excessive concentration of assets within a single financial group.
But we make no bones about the fact that we shall vote against the text as a whole.
We shall also vote in the future against any proposals to deregulate the financial markets and we call on all the other political groups to do likewise until such time as taxation on investment income is finally harmonised.
For years certain countries, including Great Britain, have been blocking harmonisation and turning their financial centres into tax havens.
They even reject the strict minimum, i.e. the Monti package proposed by the Commission in Brussels.
This attitude is turning Europe into a machine which exempts investment income from tax and shifts the whole tax burden to commercial income, with all the social and even moral consequences which that implies.
We must put an end to this.
By blocking the demands of the financial industry, the European Parliament has the means to ensure that countries which have been turned into tax havens end up with their back against the wall.
Mr President, the 1985 directive introduced a sort of European visa for certain types of UCITS which could be marketed throughout the Union.
Since then, the capital market and transferable securities have not just continued to evolve; thanks to unbridled financial globalisation, they have exploded exponentially and without restraint.
This brings us to the two proposals for directives.
The second proposal, on which the report is excellent, does not require any particular comment.
It aims to strengthen consumer protection and security.
It is a step in the right direction, even if one wonders why in heaven, with what right and with what respect for our citizens, we are further bolstering the monopoly of the English language in all documents distributed throughout Europe.
That is the thrust of an amendment which we have tabled; it favours all the languages of the Community and our agreement to the second directive will depend on it.
The same cannot be said of the first proposal.
We might have been able to agree to the original text insofar as it was informed by a legitimate concern to update current legislation.
However, we are unable to agree to the text of the report, although I welcome the work carried out by Mr Schmidt, for several reasons.
First, it leans too far towards products based on indexes which have no bearing on the real economy; derivatives which will help to swell the financial bubble which Mr Lipietz referred to just now.
Secondly, like him, I think that we should not promote excessive concentration in funds which, in the final analysis, will prove to be a Trojan horse for American pension funds.
There is, of course, no reciprocity in favour of European UCITS.
We shall also vote against the abolition of the facility for the Member States to increase to 35% ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, this is a vital issue for Europe.
A Europe that faces an impending pensions time bomb must take every step to encourage saving and maximise the return that the people of Europe can obtain on their savings.
I welcome many of the developments which Mr Schmidt' s report brings us.
UCITS are a success story within the European Union.
They are a safe product, traded cross-border.
But it is time for the legislation to be updated.
Mr Schmidt has done an excellent job here.
It is no secret that I would have much preferred Mr Schmidt' s report not to have been altered so much as it passed through Parliament.
But I appeal to this House to take a balanced and common-sense approach on this issue.
The radical step taken by this report is to allow UCITS to use over-the-counter derivatives.
I appeal to everyone here to evaluate the products which will be used by UCITS.
We are not talking about the use of derivatives for speculation.
We are talking about the use of derivatives to reduce risk and to increase the returns on the savings of ordinary Europeans.
Mr Schmidt is to be applauded for having obtained the support of Parliament for over-the-counter derivatives.
We must not be afraid to go forward, to react to changes in the market.
Yes, we need to continue to ensure that UCITS provide a balanced and protected product for consumers.
The report gives very adequate protection for consumers.
But a number of the amendments go too far in restricting the use of over-the-counter derivatives.
I feel these derivatives will be an addition to the portfolio of unit trusts, which can only help individual people around Europe obtain a high return on their savings.
I salute Mr Schmidt.
Thank you very much Mr Kuckelkorn.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have an update for you on the curtain and window situation.
If we open this curtain, then we will find that there is a partition wall behind it which cannot just be removed straight away.
We will therefore have to defer this experiment until the next plenary sitting.
However, I will make sure that we have a go then and see how the land lies.
Mr President, the UCITS directive has been an enormous success since it entered into force on 1 October 1989, mainly thanks to the excellent protection which it offers investors.
The directive and the reputation which UCITS enjoy with investors have allowed the investment fund industry to multiply its assets in the European Union fivefold.
There has been a strong increase in cross-border marketing of investments within the European Union and the directive itself is used as a model for legislation throughout the world.
However, the directive is ten years old and, now that the markets have developed and more and more sophisticated financial products are available, it is somewhat outdated.
The Commission proposals being debated here will give it the face-lift it needs.
I share some of the concerns expressed here, especially by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, but this face-lift would be even more successful if the funds which simply reproduce a stock exchange index, and which are therefore managed either passively or not at all, and the funds which use an index as a benchmark for an actively-managed fund were treated in the same way, if only to allow medium-sized undertakings listed on the stock exchange but not included in the stock exchange index better access to the capital market.
In addition, investors often have better protection with an actively-managed fund.
My Amendment No 47 is therefore a warning for amateurs.
As far as the proposal for a new provision limiting investments in the same group to 15% is concerned, I would like to stress that, apart from the fact that this limit is too low, the text does not define the concept of a group. This concept does not exist under European law because it is impossible to implement and equally impossible to control in practice.
I shall therefore vote against this proposed amendment.
To conclude, Mr President, allow me to remind the House that the directive needs a makeover which will make UCITS even more attractive, but it does not need to be strapped into a European corset which will squeeze the life out of it.
Mr President, Commissioner, the proposal for a directive now under discussion brings with it several welcome reforms to the current legal provisions.
The preparatory work has largely consisted of a viable balance between increasing the efficacy and growth of the European investment markets and preserving a sufficient level of protection for consumers who buy fund units.
The greater the trust consumers have in investment market operations, the more consumers will be prepared to invest on the open market.
And the more consumers invest, the brighter the prospects will be in the European business money markets.
It is quite clear that when businesses can more easily have access to their own capital-based finances their financial structure will be more firmly based, and, thus, opportunities for growth and investment will also improve.
Whether or not the money will come onto the equity market in the form of direct investment or via UCITS is not relevant here.
Although in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs we were very much in agreement with the aims of the legislative amendment, the debate we had was not the easiest one.
For me personally at least, difficulties were caused by the directive' s technical division into two different proposals, which certainly did not make it easier to familiarise oneself with this very difficult technical subject.
However, I would like to express my position with regard to a few detailed proposals.
Firstly, I am very satisfied that the proposal for a directive as a whole increases the scope of investment funds for targeting capital at different instruments.
As regards derivatives, I consider the position adopted by the committee justified - unlike Mrs Randzio-Plath, for example.
The directive should not treat over-the-counter derivatives differently from standard derivatives because they are used in many Member States and were also used before.
With regard to Article 5g of the other proposal for a directive, the so-called Article on Delegation, I think the Commission' s original proposal on rules concerning authorisation was better than the one now approved in the committee, so I would support some of Mrs Villiers' amendments to this point.
Mr President, I see two problems with this morning' s debate.
Firstly, when I came to this Parliament many years ago I was told that if you had a difficult job you gave it to a Liberal.
Now I have been told that if you have a difficult debate you know you are in trouble if half the Luxembourg Members are in the Chamber at one time - and they are.
Firstly, I welcome proposal No 1.
It simplifies things and brings things up to date.
I think many of the British Members will be voting against a large number of the amendments in the report.
We support the Schmidt report on proposal No 1, but we regret the fact that the directive sets a lot of quantity limits that restrict the ability to spread risks.
We believe that a more liberal market is the best way forward.
Secondly, we consider proposal No 2 to be very confused.
It is difficult to understand, and we think the Commission would be well advised to look at it again.
If further regulation is needed, we feel that it could be better achieved by other means than those proposed in the directive.
In particular, we disagree with the proposal on capital requirements because if they are put too high they could actually drive some businesses out of the industry altogether.
We ask the Commission to look again at these proposals.
Finally, we would urge Members to vote in particular against Amendment No 41 on capital requirements, because we feel that this would be very bad for the industry.
Mr President, money does not smell, as the Romans would say.
The important thing is for money to generate more money.
This is the only opportunity that we have to see to it that the interests of economists converge with those of people who want to earn money and have their mind set on dollars, like Disney' s Scrooge McDuck, who has dollar signs for eyes, except in this case the symbol is that of the euro.
In this we are combining the interests of these citizens with the interests of pensioners who want to live life in tranquillity.
For example, my brother-in-law, who lives in Rome, started drawing his pension a year ago and every day since - from seven in the morning when he wakes until midnight - he has checked the TV screen to see how the pensions funds and the securities in which he has invested are performing.
Pensioners will, in the future - as is already happening - have enormous sums of money at their disposal.
Indeed, whilst the young are penniless, the elderly have accumulated money and, since they are keen to turn it to good advantage, harbour great hopes for this directive.
If national governments had in their hearts - as the European Union has in its heart with this directive - the proliferation of money earned during the course of a working life, the pensions time bomb would already have been defused.
You too, in your role, Commissioner Bolkestein, have a very great responsibility for the future of the elderly and of pensioners, a future that I hope will improve once we have finalised this directive, by which I mean very soon, as has been proposed by Mrs Villiers and Mrs Kauppi.
. (NL) Mr President, could I first of all express my heartfelt thanks to rapporteur, Mr Olle Schmidt, and the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which has principal authority, as well as the rapporteur, Mr Brian Crowley and the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, whom I would like to thank for their thorough and important work on the refinement and extension of the proposals.
Since the approval of Directive 85/611, the investment funds sector has undergone lengthy development and it is now important to modernise the rules.
The aim of the new proposals is to maintain the highest level of protection for the benefit of investors, which is an essential precondition for market integration resulting from the launch of the euro.
Since the average European family puts its savings in investment funds, the proposals contain provisions on prudent management - and I would like to underline this - prudent management as far as investment policy and risk-spreading are concerned.
The two proposals form a coherent whole.
The first proposal extends the number of instruments in which an 'undertaking for collective investment in transferable securities' (UCITS) can invest.
As already remarked in this session, UCITS are key players within the modern capital markets.
Their presence offers the opportunity to a larger number of ordinary investors to participate in these markets, in which the principle of risk-spreading is taken into consideration, protected by appropriate supervision.
Since diverse types of investment are permitted, private investors can also benefit from all the advantages of new investment techniques.
The second proposal expands the role which these important intermediary organisations can play within the EU capital markets in terms of developing the investment funds sector.
By allowing branches to be set up and certain services to be provided on a cross-border basis, these organisations will at long last be able to apply the freedoms of the Treaty of Rome, which they have been denied for all these years.
The Commission welcomes many of the clarifications proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs with open arms and will adopt a large number of its ideas.
The Commission will adopt Amendments Nos - and I am now referring to the most recent numbering - 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 19 and 21 for the first proposal, and 23, 28 and 32 for the second proposal, since these are really very useful clarifications and improvements.
I also value the ideas put forward in Amendments Nos 1, 10, 11, 14, 18 and 20, although the wording needs to be adapted.
I also endorse the rationale underlying the general maximum percentage of the counterparty risk in Amendments Nos 17, 36 and 45.
I can also accept the idea in the second proposed paragraph of Amendment No 47.
All the amendments I have listed so far pertain to the first proposal.
As far as the second proposal is concerned, the ideas of Amendments Nos 24, 25, 29, 30, 41 and some parts of 27, which contain sensible suggestions, can be adopted, again formulated appropriately.
The Commission has suggested adopting the content of these, with certain changes in the wording.
Moreover, I have taken note of the request made by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to codify the entire text, once it has been approved - Amendment No 7 of the first proposal and Amendment No 22 of the second proposal.
The Commission is in favour of codification and will, in the foreseeable future, once the proposals have been approved and subject to its right of initiative, concentrate its efforts on drafting a codified version.
However, I cannot accept the wording of the consideration as it stands.
The Commission is also of the opinion that a number of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs would fundamentally change the content of the first proposal.
This is why the Commission regrets that it is unable to accept the following amendments to the first proposal:
Amendment No 8 because the proposed, general reference to assets 'covered by this directive' , instead of the more precise reference to assets 'mentioned in Article 19 of this Directive' , hinders implementation.
This Amendment could also lead to different interpretations in the Member States, which might well look for similar instruments in other articles of the directive.
Amendment No 16 jeopardises the protection of investors because a blocked security deposit with a third party custodian is a contradiction in terms.
Neither are securities lending transactions via securities clearing houses or exchanges - as opposed to the purchase and sale of securities - automatically covered by these institutions.
We cannot, therefore, adopt the proposed Amendment for this reason.
Amendment No 42 relates to a provision which was not changed by the proposal and which has not caused any problems since the implementation of the directive.
I therefore cannot see any reason why Article 22, paragraph 3 should be omitted and reject the amendment for this reason.
Amendment No 44 cannot be accepted because, if it is prescribed that non-harmonised funds are subject to rules which have been 'imposed by the directive' concerning lending, borrowing, selling from an uncovered position and the third party custodian, this will indeed lead to a situation where very few funds, for example Swiss funds, would be eligible for investment.
This goes against the Commission' s intention to widen the scope of investments, and the wording thereof could contravene GATS agreements.
Amendment No 47 is unacceptable as far as the proposed changes to the first paragraph of Article 22a are concerned, because this proposal completely clashes with the spreading rules of Article 22, especially when the UCITS are obliged to indicate a point of reference in their prospectuses, as discussed in the Council.
The key issue regarding the first proposal, however, is Parliament' s amendment which allows the use of over-the-counter instruments for general investment purposes.
The Commission points out that, according to the national legislation of some Member States, the use of OTC derivatives for general investment purposes is already authorised.
However, the Commission will be suspending its position, given the intrinsically high risks of these investments compared to the more traditional financial instruments.
I believe that OTC instruments could lead to problems, because they are not liquid, the price is difficult to estimate and they entail uncovered counterparty risks.
It seems inconsistent to opt for an extremely prudent approach with regard to investments as non-harmonised funds or deposits and, at the same time, freely to allow investments in clearly more risky OTC instruments.
By rejecting the rapporteur' s Amendment No 39, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has aligned itself with the Council.
The upshot of this amendment by Parliament would be that funds are allowed, in theory, to invest in OTC instruments and to trade the rights of participation in their funds across the entire internal market.
In practice, access to other EU markets for these theoretically harmonised funds which invest in OTC instruments can be blocked by applying different national legislative frameworks and protective measures against OTC investments.
This would contravene the fact that EU legislation applies to all funds which invest in OTC instruments.
Given this possibly negative effect on the internal market and the risks inherent in OTC instruments, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 12, 15, 37, 38, 39, 43, 46 and 48 and parts of Amendments Nos 17, 36 and 45 which pertain to OTC instruments.
As far as the second proposal is concerned, I already mentioned that the Commission will take into consideration many amendments.
Despite this, there are some amendments which the Commission cannot adopt: Amendment No 26, which does not seem to observe the order in which licences are granted and activities start; parts of Amendment No 27, especially the part where the prevention of conflicts of interests is deleted, the delegation of tasks is restricted to components of management decisions and the general decision-taking of Member States concerning delegation is repealed; Amendment No 31 because the Commission is of the opinion that the application of Article 44 of the directive in unchanged form has proved adequate for the trading in rights of participation in UCITS.
The application of the provisions of the directive concerning the performance of services in the field of investments in securities, better known as ISD, is therefore unnecessary and could lead to difficulties or confusion.
Amendment No 33 is ambiguous regarding 'the language' of the guest member state, especially when there are various official languages, and it is questionable what will be gained from translations in two other languages.
Amendment No 34 is unacceptable because a simple deletion of the reference to pension funds can create ambiguity as to whether or not a management company can carry out these activities.
I think that pension funds could also benefit from this possibility, provided that management companies are not lumped together with pension funds, but may only carry out part of the management per delegation.
Amendment No 35 cannot be accepted because legally, it cannot command any authority.
Management companies which are denied access to a Member State would need to re-incorporate as a different legal entity in order to be permitted in another Member State.
Amendments Nos 49, 50 and 51, which share the same basis, are not acceptable because they make substantial changes to the consistent approach of the Commission regarding the regulations of third party delegation, and do not offer sufficient security to the competent authorities and investors.
I would like to finish off by commenting on the remarks made by a few Members this morning and, Mr President, with your permission, I will do this in English.
First of all, regarding the remarks of Mr Crowley, who asked whether the second proposal could not simply consist in taking over a pure ISD approach; the objections of the Commission to that proposal would be the following: such an approach would pose difficulties which would arise from two different authorisations which may even involve different authorities and non-consistent sets of rules; moreover there would be no provisions whatsoever on conflicts of interest.
For example, a management company might be doing underwriting business and, if not able to sell, it would put the securities in the fund it would manage, or else there might be difficulties in which order business should be executed if the management company did brokering business.
Furthermore the proposal put forward by Mr Crowley would require a change of the ISD which at present - as I am sure he already knows - does not cover collective management business.
Lastly, his proposal would not give any passport to management companies which do not want to render ISD activities.
As regards the question put by Mr Huhne, his reference in the intervention he made this morning is to hedging operations.
But hedging operations are already allowed in the existing Article 21(1) of Directive 611/85 on UCITS.
So what Mr Huhne wants is already possible.
A question has been put by Mrs Villiers who referred to enhancing portfolio management.
That is also something which is allowed under present legislation.
I refer to the same Article 21 I referred to in relation to Mr Huhne' s question.
In her question Mrs Kauppi asks why the Commission has prepared a package of measures distributed in two separate proposals.
The reason is that the first proposal focuses essentially on the product, while the second proposal focuses essentially on the service provider, and on prospectuses for UCITS.
The separation of these two proposals which deal with two different sets of problems would facilitate the negotiating process in the Council.
The Commission has not only to listen to Parliament and take into account parliamentary proposals but, as is well-known, must also deal with the Council.
That is the reason why the Commission has put forward these two separate proposals.
Lastly, Mr Balfe has complained that there are, in his opinion, too many limits in the whole proposal the Commission has put forward.
It seems to us that these limits are justified: firstly, by the need to diversify investments; secondly, because of the vulnerability to the need to reimburse investment at any time; thirdly, in order to avoid an inordinate influence over the investment funds.
These are the reasons why the Commission believes, because of the prudence that has to be exercised in this field, that these various limits are necessary.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Mutual assistance in criminal matters between the Member States
The next item is the report (A5-0019/2000) by Mr Di Pietro on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms, and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the draft Council Act establishing the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between the Member States of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in letters dated 3 August 1999 and 3 December 1999, the Council called on the European Parliament, pursuant to Article 39 of the Treaty, to deliver its opinion on a draft convention between the Member States aimed at guaranteeing improved mutual assistance in criminal matters.
It is thus, as you can see, a very important draft, that will effectively serve to provide the Member States of the Union with a more comprehensive and consistent instrument for mutual assistance.
In actual fact, there are still certain differences of opinion within the Council over the type of convention, and over certain provisions contained therein.
Some of these differences have already been ironed out, but others persist.
The spirit of the proposal is nevertheless to equip those responsible for applying the law - primarily the judiciary, but also the citizens concerned - with a valid operational instrument to fight crime, which respects fundamental guarantees as regards defence and general principles of human rights.
It is for this reason that, despite the many omissions in the text, the provisions set out therein could - and I say could, Mr President - be accepted on condition that they are suitably amended in order to ensure they can be implemented by those responsible for applying the law and are acceptable to the citizens.
The Commission has proposed various amendments to this end, all of which aim to systematically restructure the Council proposal by suggesting a series of technical adjustments that will render the text harmonious and consistent as regards the amendments proposed. The amendments can be summarised as follows: they place greater emphasis on fundamental rights of defence, introduce a range of technical modifications needed to make a whole series of obscure and inconsistent passages more comprehensible, and delete the section relating to the remote interception of telecommunications, an area which still requires not only increased technical awareness but also acceptance on the part of the governments of the various Member States of the Union.
The proposal, as formulated by the Council and subsequently amended by the Commission, provides for a convention based on three titles: the first lays down guidelines for ensuring the consistency of procedures and formalities for letters rogatory; the second lists a whole series of specific requests for mutual assistance and defines the formalities and procedures which must be followed in relation to these specific types of mutual assistance; the third and last provides for and codifies the procedures via which telephone conversations conducted by citizens in a State other than the one instigating proceedings can and must be intercepted.
Mr President, international cooperation is certainly needed in order to tackle both cross-border crime and crimes which are committed in one State, but the evidence for which is to be found in another.
It is nevertheless necessary to reach agreement as soon as possible on a new convention which will also take other, even more delicate issues into account: the whole issue of double jeopardy, that of specialities, and that of the credibility of one Member State of the Union in respect of the judicial authorities of other Member States of the Union.
These are thus extremely important questions, which we hope that the Council will see fit to take up when formulating a new opinion.
As regards other aspects of this subject, Mr President, I would refer you to my written report.
- (ES) Mr President, I want to start by saying that I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party which I represent on this issue.
I should like to draw attention to the fact that the Council is not present today.
By contrast, I welcome the attentive presence of Commissioner Vitorino, as has consistently been the case since his appointment. This leads me to another point.
This House has only prepared one report on this Convention. It was in fact consulted on a text which was not the text being worked on by the Council and which did not contain points which had already been agreed.
I condemn this, as well as the Council' s absence.
These are serious matters on which this House must act.
We are about to advance into new territory where attitudes and symbols are of great significance.
A political community is reflected in the justice which it hands out.
This is why this report is so important.
It represents a step towards the area of freedom, security and, particularly, justice to which we all aspire.
It is also an important step towards European natural justice. This will be built on mutual confidence between the Member States and their respective legal systems and on the confidence of the European people in any European court.
It will also be built on scrupulous respect for fundamental rights and freedoms and on the guarantee of fair trials in particular.
It is in this respect that this House has significantly - and in my opinion rightly - altered the balance proposed by the Council by firmly and decidedly supporting a reinforcement of these guarantees of fair trials in all the amendments.
Mr President, as the rapporteur said, this House has concentrated on the particular issue of phone tapping in order to remove this from the Convention.
On behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, I have tabled an amendment to the motion for a resolution which asks the Council to produce a text on this issue as soon as possible.
The regulation of phone tapping in the Council document was incomplete and therefore inadequate.
Yet a lack of regulation is also inappropriate and may lead to abuses in the telecommunications field. In fact, we are aware that these are already happening widely.
The other point which I must highlight and on which we have also worked extensively is the use of video conferencing with regard to accused persons.
Again on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, I have asked the Council to produce a convention as soon as possible in order to clarify and supplement the regulation of this issue, which is frankly unsatisfactory.
Apart from a few exceptions, the Members of the Group of the European People' s Party will vote in favour of the committee' s amendments, and of course our own.
Mr President, it is our opinion that one facet of the construction of Europe hinges on the construction of a common judicial system, for the Europe that we want to build, which comprises administrative law, civil law, both substantive and procedural, and criminal law, both substantive and procedural.
The Convention on Mutual Assistance and Criminal Matters, which we are examining today, is but a stitch in the great fabric of the corpus iuris of Europe, which has its natural foundation in fundamental human rights and freedoms.
Thus it is that legal cooperation and cooperation on criminal matters must also strictly respect fundamental rights, principles which lie at very root of our culture and our civilisation: I am thinking of fair trials, and more particularly of the rights of the defence, of the impartiality and integrity of judges, of the length of legal proceedings, for which my country, Italy, unfortunately has the worst record in terms of the number of sentences handed down, of the cases pending before the European Court of Human Rights.
Restrictions on fundamental rights cannot and must not be applied to the field of law unless they are justified in that they are associated with an actual or presumed violation of criminal law.
The report that the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights has substantially amended with regard to its original formula, taking up many of the amendments we have presented, still leaves room for a certain confusion, in relation to the way in which the interception of telecommunications and video conferences are to be regulated.
The news received in recent weeks on the way in which modern technologies facilitate interceptions mean that greater attention must be paid to this issue: we would not want our reality to be even more harsh and troubled than the dark scenes depicted by Orwell.
This is only the beginning of a great project in the field of law, which should advance hand in hand with the growth the type of Europe we want to see.
Mr President, committee amendments and political group amendments may be tabled in plenary, but not amendments from individual Members.
Mr Schulz should be aware of this.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I fully understand the frustration of Mr Di Pietro who, in a short space of time, has had to carry out an extraordinary amount of work in order to be able to submit this report to us today.
Crime in the European Union has increased to such an extent that we cannot and must not content ourselves any longer with a step-by-step approach of mutual legal assistance in criminal affairs.
The European Parliament is certainly not to blame for this.
It is the governments of the Member States who have restricted the amount of leeway to this degree.
As a result, the European Parliament is faced with an almost impossible task.
One has to content oneself with the idea that all means, however slight, must be seized upon in order to set up better legal assistance.
By way of paradox, I could say that it would be best if as little as possible was said about this report, for the clearer we make it that only very small steps are being taken, the more the world of crime will gloat and the more the acute imbalance between organised crime and the desperate lack of judicial cooperation will become obvious.
I would therefore make an urgent appeal to the Council of Ministers to finally face reality, that is to say the fact that crime is developing faster than the law.
The goal is, after all, to provide the judicial bodies - magistrates, in the first place, but also the citizens involved - with the instruments to fight crime without prejudice to the fundamental guarantees of defence and the general principles of human rights.
If not, we will be fighting a running battle.
I therefore advocate further harmonisation of criminal law in the EU Member States in the first instance.
In my opinion, this is the only way to fight crime effectively across all Member States.
As long as this harmonisation has not been achieved, however, we need to be consistent if we want to bring about mutual legal assistance.
To this end, I had submitted an amendment stipulating that legal assistance can only be granted in the event of criminal prosecution instituted by the authorities based on facts which are punishable according to the national law of the petitioning party and the Member State petitioned.
The content of my amendment is, in fact, echoed in Amendment No 43, which also stipulates this condition of accrual.
This condition of accrual is essential since, in my opinion, the principle of nulla poena sine lege, legality in criminal law, must be observed.
As such, any request for legal assistance concerning a hypothetical action which is not a crime in the petitioned Member State contravenes this principle of legality and thus the fundamental principles of justice in the petitioned Member State.
Hence, it is extremely important that this condition of accrual be adopted.
Finally, I would like to reiterate that Mr Di Pietro has, in my opinion, delivered sterling work by submitting a report which, within the limitations, offers all possible guarantees for safeguarding individual human rights and fundamental freedoms.
If, however, we would like to give European citizens a greater sense of security, we need to step up our efforts in the field of judicial cooperation.
Mr President, my Group is delighted about the fact that an agreement will be reached to regulate the day-to-day practice of mutual assistance in legal affairs.
The aim of regulations is to define the reciprocal rights and duties of States or citizens or those applicable in the relationship between citizens and government.
The present proposal is complex, because it deals with agreements between Member States but has far-reaching consequences for the citizen-government relationship.
It is precisely in the field of legal protection that the Council' s proposal leaves a great deal to be desired.
In the words of rapporteur Mr Di Pietro, the proposal even contains colossal shortcomings.
Thanks to the agreement, it is possible to create a chain of legal assistance requests, whereby each link represents authorities and criminal law systems of different Member States.
The chain is arranged in such a way as to ensure that it cannot fall as a whole within the competence of one court.
Additional measures are hence required, such as the obligation on the part of criminal investigators to give evidence in every criminal case in which their material is used.
The fact that the Council' s proposal rides roughshod over the principle of proportionality is also hard to deal with for my Group.
There are certainly no restrictions in its scope.
As such, the agreement applies not only to fighting serious crimes and organised crime.
In fact, it is not written anywhere that it is restricted to criminal law.
It is, therefore, conceivable that the European Union will soon be taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut and that the rights of the citizen will vanish in the dust.
Mr President, the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters that we are examining today contains the minimum requirements for efficient and rapid cooperation between the various judicial or investigative bodies concerned.
It pertains, among other things, to notifications, information exchanges, the temporary transfer of detainees, the restitution of property, testimonies via video conferences, investigative activities and 'undercover' activities, and the interception of telephone calls.
This is the bare minimum on which an agreement can be reached, and it should immediately be said that if any amendments, such as Amendments Nos 32 or 81, or the revised Amendments Nos 70 or 71, were to be passed, the whole convention would be reduced to an exchange of notifications or information and at this point should simply be scrapped, and we would vote against it.
I hope that the common sense of our fellow MEPs in the other groups will lead them to reject these amendments.
The fact that the convention has not been turned into a framework agreement also constitutes a defeat for this Parliament.
As Commissioner Vitorino will have noted in all the various speeches, the need has emerged to draw up a framework of common rules, which is to say that we cannot continue in this manner, with this disparate agenda, with these piecemeal agreements which relate to diverse sectors such as that of investigation.
What is, on the other hand, absolutely necessary is to have a bare minimum of set rules that are valid within the Community, and which clearly provide as many additional safeguards as possible, and will also provide guarantees with a view to enlargement.
My thoughts turn to what may become of this Community, of these conventions and judicial relations if, for example, a fascist country such as Turkey became a member of the Union. It would truly perplex me.
We need a corpus iuris - as everyone has said - and common rules, especially procedural ones, which guarantee the rule of common law throughout the Community.
It is clear that this is primarily an issue for the IGC and one that addresses an aspiration to which this Parliament can only make a limited contribution in as much as everything depends on the Council and the Commission.
I believe that this first half of the year, in which we have a Commissioner from Portugal and Portuguese Presidency of the Council, provides an excellent opportunity to give an initial spur to this shared aspiration.
It is precisely for this reason that we are in favour of adopting Amendments Nos 78 and 79, which already prefigure a minimum of set rules on interceptions and on video conferences.
On the one hand, we eagerly await the successful outcome of this vote, precisely so that this convention - which, I repeat, already sets minimum rules - is not stripped of all meaning, while on the other hand we are also looking forward to any form of proposal that may arrive from the Commission with a view to definitively putting into effect this minimum Community law.
Mr President, confronted with the burgeoning phenomenon of organised crime at international level, the Member States must surely cooperate with one another as much as possible. Indeed, they must set in place the institutional conditions needed to launch a tangible and efficient cooperation process in the field of law - a process that must nevertheless cover all the stages needed to prevent the untimely impositions that are detrimental to legitimate national prescriptions in the field of justice, over which Member States have sovereign powers, and above all to prevent impositions that result in riding roughshod over basic civil rights.
We must therefore proceed with caution with regard to a document like the one from the Council which, as the rapporteur himself has underlined, now claims, after years of discussion, to have found a universal solution in the space of a few months.
Furthermore - and I agree with the assessment made by Mr Di Pietro - the Council' s text would appear to be overladen with contradictions, inconsistent propositions and omissions. It is clear that the justice sector, more than any other, cannot be handled in an inconsistent or contradictory manner.
It is the opinion of our Group that even the report, considered as a whole, would be the subject of much debate, notwithstanding the incorporation of certain corrective amendments that take into account the safeguarding of personal liberty and respect for national sovereignties.
The report contains arguments that are too disparate, which do not link together smoothly, and everything thus hinges on approximations.
We will, in conclusion, vote against this report, while stressing that the Europe to which we aspire is a Europe of rights and guarantees: rights and guarantees that call for gradual and responsible discussion, as well as very serious examination.
We must first establish general rules and institutional certainties. Only then will we be able to institute actual conventions.
Mr President, on behalf of the Members of Parliament on the Bonino List, I intend to confirm the position that we adopted in the Committee on Civil Liberties and am thus also announcing our vote on their behalf. It is a vote against this report, or more precisely a vote against the convention on which the report is based.
I would nevertheless like to thank the rapporteur and congratulate him on his work. He listened very closely to our arguments at the committee stage, and particularly those on the issue of respecting the rights of the defence, both at national level and at the level of cooperation on criminal law as part of European mutual assistance.
The committee and the rapporteur have incorporated nine of the eleven amendments that we presented, and these centred precisely on the rights of the defence.
This spurs us to maintain that the European Parliament would have done sterling work in guaranteeing that civil rights and freedoms were safeguarded, if this were a lawmaking parliament and if we were, as part of this procedure, in fact co-legislators - which we are not.
This is the problem, and it is for this reason that we are critical of the position adopted by the Council, which is one we find completely unsatisfactory.
This is a task that has lasted three years, and on which we have been consulted, so to speak, as a matter of course, when this issue, as has already been stressed, comprises highly important formal and substantive facets, which called for a range of assessments, consultations, concerted actions and codecisions.
It would seem to us that the Council has taken the various issues - those of legitimate interceptions, the rights of the defence, the rights of detainees and of the authorities legally empowered to request mutual assistance - a little too lightly.
We should have requested and rejected the first version of the convention, and then requested another: the majority on the committee did not want this and it is for this reason that we will vote against it, even if we hope that the amendments, which nevertheless improve the text, can be incorporated by the Council - we doubt that they will be, but hope all the same that they are.
In my Group, there are undoubtedly different views of Mr Di Pietro' s report.
I agree that it is - as has been said - a good and competent piece of work, which has been carried out under difficult conditions.
The Danish Members of the Group cannot vote in favour of the proposal but will, on the contrary, be supporting a number of amendments, especially those tabled by the Greens.
There are two reasons why we are saying no.
Firstly, these are immensely complicated and very sensitive legal questions which are at issue and, to my mind, the proposal entails some risks to legal certainty, which have not been fully realised.
This is in itself sufficient reason for us to deny our support.
The other main reason, however, is that, even though we are concerned here with a Convention (and therefore with international cooperation), there is no doubt about the trend expressed in the proposal.
And the trend is towards creating, in the longer term, a common European area of jurisdiction, common EU criminal law and common EU administration of justice.
We would warn against that trend.
We have this AFSJ mantra - Area of Freedom, Security and Justice - the full enormity of which lies in its establishment of EU systems which will play havoc with existing legal traditions relating to these sensitive and important questions which are overwhelmingly national in character.
Mr President, I too agree that the convention that we are examining is but a small step - and still too small a step - towards the construction of the common area of freedom, security and justice which Europe will hopefully one day become.
It is today an area for the free movement of goods and persons, in which there are no frontiers to crime, but in which significant barriers still exist to those whose duty it is to combat crime.
A small step - I say - but nonetheless a welcome one, for which the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has quite correctly wanted to prescribe further restrictions and guarantees in the name of the defence of the fundamental rights of the individual that are in force in the Member States and in the Union itself, even if these are not yet enshrined in a European Union charter of rights, which we hope will soon come into being: just restrictions and guarantees because, unfortunately, existing rights are, in practice, not always respected by every public authority in every Member State.
Certain isolated passages in the Commission' s proposal perhaps err on the side of caution, as is the case when it is maintained that the detainee accused should be given the choice of whether to accept or refuse temporary transfer to another Member State of the Union for the purposes of preliminary enquiries.
I personally find it unacceptable, for example, for Mr Pinochet to be given the option to move to Spain for a confrontation.
Or when it is maintained that the witness or expert witness - and not simply the defendant - should have a counsel at their side during examination via a video or telephone link.
These are nevertheless minor flaws, which the rapporteur did not want and which - I hope - will be remedied when this Chamber comes to vote.
The rapporteur has made laudable efforts, which should not go unnoted and for which I would like to thank him.
The overall result is remarkable and I hope that the Council will fully take it into account.
There is, as has already been said, one point still to resolved, which is also the most delicate one: it concerns article 18 of the convention, which relates to the interception of communications originating in one Member State, but which are directly performed by another Member State, without the assistance being requested of the State in which the interception is being carried out, something which is now possible thanks to the latest technology.
This is a highly controversial issue as it constitutes a potential source of abuse.
It could be maintained that in overall terms the legislation proposed is better than nothing, but to the Commission it nevertheless appeared insufficient and far from reassuring.
It thus merits further reflection which, at a time in which the ambivalent reports on ECHELON are evoking shades of Big Brother, should probably go into greater detail on the means and methods to be used, on the one hand, to safeguard the rights of the individual, and on the other hand to facilitate an effective but at the same time correct and legitimate suppression of crime.
The objective is thus to achieve, as closely as possible, a fine balance between the fight against organised crime and respect for personal freedoms and the dignity of the individual: an objective which now specifically applies not only to the Member States, but also to the Union, which is aspiring to become a common area of freedom, justice and security.
This is a distant goal, but is one that can be attained in stages.
The most important thing will be the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States, but for now let us content ourselves with this small step forward, as it is a step in the right direction.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent explanatory statement.
It points out some of the serious flaws in this proposal.
The lack of clarity of language is inevitably going to lead to legal uncertainty.
Legal certainty is something that is essential in such crucial matters.
Because of shoddy drafting the Convention can be interpreted very widely, and it ignores the strict conditions which interception is supposed to be subject to under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Article 18 allows interception in another Member State without its involvement.
Not only should this be deleted, the whole interception title should be scrapped.
An initiative of the FBI drew up the user requirements which form the basis of the current legislation.
The Council proposal containing those requirements, ENFOPOL 98 was approved by this Parliament last May in the Schmid report.
Now we are being asked to provide the legal base for such interception, and it is the combination of these two documents that should be looked at.
The requirements propose to allow the authorities access to the facilities of all service providers, that is, telephones, mobile phones, Internet, etc.; and given the current extremely shoddy drafting, this is open to abuse.
I would also like to ask: given that the user requirements specify that the police has access to all service providers without exception, does this include Parliament' s in-house service?
Are we adopting rules that will allow the police access to our own systems on very, very shoddy grounds? Furthermore, in this proposal there is no threshold for serious offences.
This leaves it wide open to abuse.
Again as regards the reversal of the burden of proof, something which is recognised in international, fundamental law, the presumption of innocence is essential.
That is not guaranteed.
Neither the preamble nor the body of the text takes proper account of the rights of the defence, a basic principle of international fundamental rights.
This issue is extremely serious.
We are very concerned about the direction we are taking here without proper public debate within the national parliaments or elsewhere and without the involvement of civil liberties organisations throughout Europe which are extremely concerned about these developments.
Mr President, I am neither a member of the Legal Affairs Committee nor a lawyer, but like almost all of us, I understand the need for this Single Economic Area of Europe to have its parallel in a single area of freedom, security and justice.
In that sense, the issues of judicial cooperation in matters of criminal law are important.
What did I understand on reading the related texts? That it is dangerous to rely on the provisions made by the Council.
The many contradictions and conflicting views over what Europe is and the many different legal systems could not only lead to confusion and inefficiency but also create dangerous situations.
For example, the situation proposed by Article 18, to which many speakers have drawn attention, where each country, each large country if you will, each country with the technical ability, can enter another country and monitor its telecommunications without even securing the second country' s approval.
In my opinion, the Legal Affairs Committee and the rapporteur Mr Di Pietro have produced some very interesting work.
It is a pity that this very well constructed explanatory statement by Mr Di Pietro could not be conveyed in the telegrammatic five minutes he had here today.
Nevertheless, it is a move towards protecting the rights of countries, defendants and citizens, a path which I think must be pursued much more completely and much more boldly.
I should like, however, to draw your attention to the fact that all this is taking place in a framework in which there is confusion and a schizophrenic attitude about criminal law.
A child, a student or a pupil who smokes hashish in one country is dealt with in an educational way, while in another country he is treated as a criminal and locked up in the universities of crime constituted by the corrective system and the prisons.
How can there be any cooperation on criminal matters on that basis? For that reason, in conclusion, I believe we should do something, particularly in the area of harmonisation of laws, not those relating to organised criminal activity, but those concerning punishable activities by the people which are more in the nature of social phenomena.
On behalf of the TDI Group, I should like to take the opportunity afforded by Judge Di Pietro' s report on mutual assistance in criminal matters to refer to a case which is a tragic illustration of the way crime is eroding security in Europe.
On 14 December 1999, a five year-old boy called Clément was found in a sleeping-car on the Calais-Ventimiglia train, crying for his mother who was taking him to visit his sick grandmother.
Corinne Caillaux, who had probably been raped, was found with her throat cut and covered in stab wounds in the lavatories on the train.
The presumed killer, Sid Ahmed Rezala, is also strongly suspected of having murdered the British student Isabel Peake, who was raped and thrown out of the train taking her to see her parents, and another young woman, Émilie Bazin, who was found dead in Amiens under a pile of coal in the building where he lived.
Rezala should never have been in France. He arrived from Algeria at a time when, according to the authorities, immigration had been stopped and there was no reason for him to come.
He should never have stayed in France, having been reported to the transport police more than 40 times for offences, which should have been enough for him to be expelled back to his home country.
He should never have been free because 14 charges of theft, violence and rape had been brought against him, one of which was for the rape of a minor.
He should never have been able to escape from France, but the officers pursuing him had no jurisdiction and European frontiers have more holes than a sieve.
He should never have arrived in Spain, where he mugged a woman at knifepoint and yet was immediately released by the Spanish authorities.
Today, thanks to the complex networks of sexual deviants, he is in Portugal.
Portugal refuses to extradite him on the grounds that he would face a longer prison sentence in France than that provided for in the Portuguese penal code.
I should like to ask the Portuguese minister, the President-in-Office of the Council, to put a stop to this scandal at once.
I should like to ask the House to wake up, at long last, to the appalling situation of the victims of policies for which the establishment, not the yobs, bears full responsibility.
Mr President, this agreement deals with a sensitive issue: cooperation in the field of criminal law.
It is therefore understandable that the Council finds it difficult to agree.
Successful application of this agreement by the Member States requires unanimity within the Council.
Only a broadly based agreement makes any sense in practice.
This, however, does not mean that the Council can work on this anonymously.
Quite the reverse, in fact.
The Council' s proposal must comply with legislation of the national Member States in the field of criminal law.
The wish to reach a unanimous decision can lead to compromises which do not stand this test.
Careful parliamentary scrutiny by the European Parliament but, above all, by the national parliaments, is therefore of key importance.
Mr Di Pietro' s proposal to omit the current Article 18 regarding intercepting telecommunications, amongst other things, is understandable, although very strict.
The text of Article 18 is ambiguous: he is restricting the activities of the intelligence services but seems to allow interception activities by a Member State in another Member State without the latter' s prior authorisation.
In this way, Member States would make themselves very vulnerable and it is doubtful as to whether there are sufficient guarantees to protect the State where interception occurs and the citizens within that State.
Proposed additions, such as repeated references to the ECHR, the rights of the counsel for the defence and of the defendant and the failure of Member States to implement the ECHR, add too much unnecessary information to the text of the agreement.
I am aware of the problems but I think that these could have been clarified by means of one single change in the text.
The Dutch Members of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities will, however, despite hesitation, not withhold their support for the Di Pietro report in the final vote.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report is very important not only in terms of its content but also because it represents an initial step towards the establishment of better relations in judicial cooperation.
This clearly only applies to relations at national level as nothing is mentioned about the much-discussed European citizenship.
On one hand judicial measures fall outside the Community dimension yet on the other we have the free movement of people from which criminals are also benefiting.
Pursuant to Article 29 of the EU Treaty, the Union' s objective is 'to provide citizens with a high level of safety within an area of freedom, security and justice by developing common action among the Member States in the fields of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters and by preventing and combating racism and xenophobia' .
The creation of Europol represents one step towards achieving this objective. However, we must take the next step, which is to reinforce judicial cooperation in criminal matters in order to gradually establish a genuine European judicial area consistent with the objective of creating an area of freedom, security and justice.
This draft convention therefore aims to complete and facilitate the application, at Member State level, of pre-existing conventions on other legal areas. The intention is to improve judicial cooperation in criminal matters through rapid and effective legal assistance while still fully respecting the fundamental rights of the defence and the general principles of human rights enshrined in the national law of the Member States and in the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is this concern for basic rights, freedoms and guarantees which has led us to support the deletion from the text of the phone tapping proposals. We recommend that the Council prepare a separate legal instrument to resolve this issue.
As for videoconferencing, more precise regulations must be established so that the rights of the defence and guarantees of fair trials are safeguarded.
The procedural aspect of the legal system must be respected by defending the rights...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, legislating in criminal matters is often countered, wrongly, with arguments of individual freedom and security.
Is one secure when freedoms are no longer guaranteed? Is one free when security is no longer assured?
Modern criminal law revolves around the quest for a balance, a dialogue between security and freedom.
And this dialogue is open-ended; it adapts to the demands of the day.
Nowadays, certain forms of crime are cross-border crimes and it is, of course, in the interests of the Member States to improve cooperation so that they can crack down on them.
But the Council' s draft leaves a lot to be desired and attracts criticism on several counts.
First, the form: the draft convention is vague in the extreme, and this is totally incompatible with the objective of legal certainty in a modern society.
It is not just a question of style.
We are taking about criminal law here and criminal law has to be interpreted by the letter.
Then the content: the Council draft fudges the obvious difficulty caused by widely differing legal systems, varying practices and a total lack of legal public service standards in certain Member States of the Union.
It makes provision in article 9 for prisoners held in custody to be transferred from one state to another despite the fact that guarantees differ.
I should like to stress this point because it is paramount.
We must not forget that several tens of thousands of people are currently held in custody in the European Union without having stood trial and that, in some states, custody is abused and used as a means of extorting confessions.
It is nothing less than legal torture.
Other European countries, on the other hand, do not accept confession as sufficient proof of guilt.
It is this diversity in our criminal policies which we have to address and legislating properly means looking for genuine legal convergence criteria and facing up to the reality of prisons in Europe, which are often overcrowded places outside the law which are a disgrace to the conception we have of ourselves.
Mr President, as you know, all of our countries abolished the death penalty years ago, but with nearly a thousand suicides a year in our prisons, they have not really abolished it?
Mr President, co-operation in the field of law is without doubt essential in free market Europe, but it must hinge on the strictest respect for those principles which lie at the very heart of our civilisation: the fundamental human rights and freedoms, laid down in the European Convention on the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
We can but thank the parliamentary committees, which have - via the introduction of numerous amendments - made far-reaching modifications aimed at providing guarantees to a report which, in its initial format, we did not find at all convincing.
I turn to Mr Schulz in confirming that we always submit amendments not on a personal basis or for personal motives, but in connection with general political concerns.
If it is then a question of listing the areas investigated or researching these, they can be found with the rapporteurs, among them the author of the report on this convention.
I thus believe that Mr Schulz could have spared himself the effort of making certain remarks.
As I have said, numerous amendments have been incorporated which guarantee the rights of the defence - I am thinking here of the obligation for interceptions to be requested by a judge - or the prohibition on holding both an investigative and a judicial mandate as part of a joint investigation team.
In brief, this Parliament wanted the convention to apply solely to criminal matters; the restrictions on freedom and on fundamental rights set out in the convention can but be limited to criminal matters.
We need hard and fast rules.
The Council has behaved in an unseemly manner, changing tack in mid-course, and is nowhere to be seen.
We would, on the other hand, like to thank Commissioner Vitorino for attending the debate held in this Chamber.
As I have said, we need hard and fast rules if we are to have fair trials in Europe - without intrusion from interceptions, without the illicit use of video conferences - because we in Europe should no longer have trials run by magistrates who play politics rather than administer justice, and because punishment should be meted out to the real perpetrators of crime and not to innocent people who someone finds inconvenient.
VOTE
Mr Goebbels, I am sorry, but I think you are jumping the gun; Amendment No 37 is an oral amendment proposing that the words 'with a high rating base on a recognised rating scale' be moved.
You were asking for the place to be changed.
Madam President, my apologies, I was looking at Amendment No 36, which logically precedes Amendment No 37.
But, you are right, we are discussing Amendment No 37 and here too we have a similar problem.
It is not the establishments but the instruments which should have a high rating.
The text therefore reads: 'instruments with a high rating base on a recognised rating scale are subject to reliable and verifiable valuation' .
My apologies once again for my mistake.
Are there any objections to this oral amendment?
(Parliament adopted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions in two separate votes)
Madam President, I asked for the floor before the sitting started in order to say something solely intended for you as President of this House. We have a procedure for visits to be made to this House to report on certain situations.
I do respect and agree with this procedure, as I also agree with the freedom of expression for everyone. However, for the second time in a fortnight these visits have been used to attack individuals, political parties, including my own, and institutions.
I feel that this behaviour, particularly in your presence, is unacceptable and totally repugnant, especially when we are on the point of an electoral campaign.
Therefore, particularly out of respect for you, I must say that I do not approve of this type of behaviour and in fact totally reject this.
I was told that this was a personal response.
Note will be taken of it in the Minutes.
Madam President, particularly out of respect for you, for myself and for this House, I did not want to explicitly refer to the issue in question. However, as a Member of this House, as general secretary of a party in the Basque Country and as an ordinary citizen of Spain, I will do so now because of the extremely serious accusations made against individuals and against parties like my own, which has a long democratic tradition, and which has scrupulously respected and defended human rights for many years.
Madam President, I want to express my concern that this clear defence by Mr Knörr Borràs of human rights apparently does not prevent his government from cooperating in Parliament with a political group which not only does not condemn, but collaborates with and encourages, violence against people and property.
I see that Mr Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso is asking to take the floor on the same subject.
We are not going to enter into a debate now.
I shall give you the floor for any points of order after the vote.
Report (A5-0029/2000) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the implementation of operations in the framework of the pre-accession strategy for Cyprus and Malta (COM(1999) 535 - C5-0308/1999 - 1999/0199(CNS))
Relating to Amendments Nos 22 and 24
In other words, our rapporteur is proposing an oral amendment to add a recital reading: 'Whereas Malta and Cyprus will participate...'
(Parliament adopted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0013/2000) by Mr Knörr Borràs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 3605/93 on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community (COM(1999) 444 - C5-0174/1999 - 1999/0196(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0020/2000) by Mrs Cederschiöld, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Draft Framework Decision on increasing protection by penal sanctions against counterfeiting in connection with the introduction of the euro (5116/1999 - C5-0332/1999 - 1999/0821(CNS))
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0019/2000) by Mr Di Pietro, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the draft Council Act establishing the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between the Member States of the European Union (9636/1999 - C5-0091/1999 and SN 5060/1999 - C5-0331/1999 - 1999/0809(CNS))
Before the vote
Madam President, I want to condemn the absence of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council.
On Third Pillar matters such as these conventions which are so important for the construction of an area of freedom, security and justice, it is unacceptable for the Presidency-in-Office of the Council to be absent.
I also want to mention the translation problems, of which I will give just one example, as we do not have much time.
Correct translation is vital in this subject as it involves very precise legal concepts.
Amendment No 83 in Italian, which is the original version, states that 'il minore deve essere assistito da una persona di sua fiducia o da un perito o legale esterno' .
The term 'legale esterno' has been translated into French as 'avocat neutre' . I have no idea what an 'avocat neutre' is.
It rather seems like a contradiction in terms.
However, in the Spanish version the 'abogado' has disappeared completely.
Madam President, you have said several times that this is a very serious problem.
The lawyer-linguists should work very carefully to ensure that a reasonable version is produced.
Quite, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, this is not the first time and it is indeed most worrying.
We shall address this problem and check all the translations.
Quite, I am well aware that their absence is highly irregular and I shall be most happy to pass this on.
Relating to Amendment No 31
Madam President, in the phrase which reads 'Where consent to the transfer is required from the person concerned' , the words 'under the national law of the requesting or requested Member State' should be added after 'Where' .
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, in the heat of the moment I forgot to mention that, in my report on the excessive deficit procedure, the last paragraph of the explanatory statement contains a mistake in the Spanish version. An 's' has been omitted and instead of reading 'la propuesta nos parece correcta' , it reads 'la propuesta no parece correcta' which is completely the contrary.
I just wanted to correct this.
Proposal for a resolution (B5-0132/2000) by Mrs Bonino and others, on behalf of the TDI Group, on the Commission communication on the strategic objectives for the next five years
(Parliament rejected the proposal for a resolution)
Proposal for a resolution (B5-0136/2000) by Mr Queiro, Mrs Muscardini and Mr Berthu, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the Commission' s strategic objectives for 2000-2005
(Parliament rejected the proposal for a resolution)
Proposal for a resolution (B5-0142/2000) by Messrs Mrs Hautala, Mr Lannoye and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the strategic objectives for 2000-2005
(Parliament rejected the proposal for a resolution)
Proposal for a joint resolution on the Commission' s 5 year Strategic Programme
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Proposal for a joint resolution on coherence of different Union policies
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Proposal for a resolution (B5-0125/2000) by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the TDI Group, on the UN Commission on human rights
(Parliament rejected the proposal for a resolution)
Madam President, I did not want to disturb you a minute ago during the vote.
But I did notice a drop in alertness and when we debated the amendments of our Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, you mentioned the Greens on their own in every instance.
We are a group of unity in diversity.
We want to bring this across in Parliament.
I would ask you to use the full name of our Group.
. (DE) Madam President, I have an oral amendment which is in fact a clarification, because the passage concerned has been formulated differently in various translations.
I hope the person who tabled the amendment will agree to this.
The second sentence should read: '.., weshalb diese Hilfen' (which is why we have this aid), then 'ohne Bedingungen und' (unconditionally and) should be deleted, and it continues as follows: 'ohne Abhängigkeit von reziproken Anweisungen von seiten des Geberlandes gewährt werden müssen' . (and therefore that the aid must not be dependent on the reciprocal orders from the donor countries).
This clarification would certainly meet with our approval.
Are there any objections to the inclusion of this oral amendment?
(Parliament agreed to the oral amendment) - Relating to Amendment No 9
I just wanted to make it clear - as it has been translated differently here - that we always use the official name FYROM.
Madam President, I would like, with reference to this report, to underline the problem of translation: reference should be made to the French or Italian version, since the text adopted by this Parliament will also be the authoritative one for the Commission.
We have encountered several problems in some of the other languages, but have not been able to check all of these, and I would thus urge you to be mindful of problems of this type.
Madam President, I voted in favour of the Schmidt report on the regulation of investments in transferable securities because, as I stated in this Chamber this morning, I consider it very important that the monies of the citizens of the European Union be put to good use. The vast majority of these citizens are elderly people and pensioners, who want a peaceful retirement and who, after the problems encountered during the course of their working lives, have at last found financial peace of mind.
The regulation of investments in transferable securities, the vast majority of which are made by elderly pensioners, is thus a major step forward for the European Union.
Report by Olle Schmidt (A5-0025/2000)
.
(SV) Olle Schmidt' s report is an improvement on the Commission' s proposal.
I am not opposed to updating the common minimum regulations enabling a collective investment undertaking to obtain a so-called EU passport.
However, I do not consider it would be appropriate to do this before all Member States have approved Commissioner Monti' s proposal for minimum taxes on capital.
In its present form, the report will contribute to further liberalisation of the capital markets, in spite of the fact that what is most important is to restrain them.
Like the whole of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I have therefore voted against the proposal to amend Directive No 1 and have abstained from voting on the proposal to amend Directive No 2.
Brok report (A5-0029/2000)
Madam President, there has recently been much talk of the importance of enlarging the European Union.
We have before us Malta and Cyprus, which are two States keen to become members.
Given that the complexity of the procedures has been greatly reduced, I voted in favour not only because this measure addresses the need for cohesion between these applicant States and the Union, but also because I believe that this should be taken as an invitation from Parliament to the Council and the Commission to ensure that Cyprus and Malta become fully-fledged members of the European Union as swiftly as possible.
. (FR) It is with great satisfaction that I welcome this report on the pre-accession strategy for Cyprus and Malta, whose accession is vital to the future of the European Union in the Mediterranean.
The aim of this proposal for a regulation is to set up the first programme to implement the strategy for Cyprus and Malta, starting in the year 2000 and lasting for five years (2000-2004).
The proposal therefore aims to facilitate harmonisation of their legislation with the acquis communautaire and the correct application of the acquis communautaire.
This new move follows on from the step taken at the Helsinki European Council last December, when it was decided that Malta had made sufficient progress to warrant opening bilateral conferences in February 2000, i.e. by the end of this month, in order to commence negotiations on the conditions of accession to the Union and the adjustments required.
As far as Cyprus is concerned, although the Council stated that a political settlement would facilitate the accession of Cyprus to the European Union. It also stated that its decision on accession would be made without the above being a precondition, which I welcome.
I have, in fact, always thought that insisting on a settlement of the present situation, in which one-third of this republic' s territory is occupied by Turkey, before starting negotiations with Cyprus was quite unfair.
On a more general note, it is true that the socio-economic situation in these two countries is far better than in other candidate countries.
However, they have received technical assistance and financial aid from the European Union in order to transpose the acquis communautaire.
Until 1999, this technical assistance and financial aid was provided under the fourth financial protocols (B7-4011).
Both countries also qualify for financial aid under the MEDA programme (B7-4012).
During the first and second readings of the 2000 budget, the European Parliament stressed that the new 'pre-accession' heading (B7-0), proposed by the Commission in the preliminary draft budget, should not be limited to the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe and should also be extended to Malta and Cyprus.
However, because of the Council' s refusal to negotiate a review of the ceiling set for heading 7 (pre-accession) in the Financial Perspectives, the European Parliament agreed, by way of exception, and I stress that it was by way of exception, that this expenditure should be financed under heading 4 (external action) of the Financial Perspectives for the year 2000.
At the same time, the European Parliament created a new heading: 'pre-accession strategy for Mediterranean countries' (B7-04), under which two new articles were created for the pre-accession strategy for Malta and Cyprus pending the Commission' s presentation, following the Helsinki European Council, of the necessary legal bases and a review of the ceiling for heading 7 of the Financial Perspectives.
This proposal for a regulation is supposed to be one of these legal bases!
. I welcome Mr Brok' s report supporting with amendments the Commission' s proposals seeking to prepare Cyprus and Malta for EU membership.
The package will grant around Euro 15 million in total for the two countries in the current year.
It is, however, regrettable that the Commission has eschewed multiannual financing and decided instead to allocate funds on a yearly basis. This is bound to have an impact on the ability of Malta and Cyprus to plan spending.
The funding will provide technical and financial support to enable the two islands to meet the requirements of the Community 'acquis' .
Given the already advanced state of these two countries, compared to other applicants, this should easily allow them to be 'technically and administratively' ready for membership at the end of the 5-year programme.
Cederschiöld report (A5-0020/2000)
. (FR) As a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs during the last parliamentary term, I welcome the adoption of this framework decision on increasing protection for our single currency.
The Union should use every means at its disposal to guard against counterfeiting.
Consumers and traders are still not familiar with the euro and it would be easy for counterfeit money to be passed in supermarkets, bureaux de change and banks and not be noticed straight away.
And the fact that coins are to have a national design on one side will make them even harder to identify.
The European information centres, which are already playing a vital role in raising public awareness of the single currency, should step up their campaigns to raise public awareness of counterfeiting.
On another level, we must ensure that Community and national institutions cooperate and implement an information system to collect and exchange information on counterfeiting.
As far as criminal sanctions are concerned, measures are needed to guarantee protection for the euro from the outset and this is the purpose of the draft framework decision on increasing protection by criminal sanctions against counterfeiting presented by the European Parliament.
The purpose of the framework decision is to supplement the provisions of the International Convention for the Suppression of Counterfeiting Currency of 20 April 1929 and to facilitate its application by the Member States.
Each Member State must take the necessary measures to ensure that the offences set out in the framework decision are punishable.
These offences must be punishable even if they relate to banknotes and coins denominated in euros but not yet issued and if they are committed before 1 January 2002.
This is a basic element of the decision.
I cannot but support the rapporteur in deploring the fact that the present national currencies from which the euro is to take over are not protected.
We must bear in mind that national currencies could continue to change hands for another 20 years!
They should therefore be protected by criminal sanctions against counterfeiting once they have been withdrawn from circulation.
It would also appear to be in the Union' s interest for all Member States to help protect the euro, especially Sweden, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Greece, which will not be introducing the euro on 1 January 2002.
Although this framework decision is a step in the right direction, it confines itself to increasing criminal sanctions by harmonising substantive criminal law in the form of minimum standards.
There is still no uniform criminal legislation on counterfeiting and there are 15 different national systems.
That brings us back to the more general need to approximate criminal law called for by the European Council in Tampere.
.
(DA) Mrs Cederschiöld' s report reflects an extremely peculiar form of logic. The EU introduces a common currency.
The risk of counterfeiting increases. Counterfeiting of the euro is perceived as an offence against the entire EU; the punishment must therefore be the same in each Member State.
The harmonisation of criminal law or the introduction of minimum legal standards should not be legitimised against the background of problems of one' s own creation but from considerations of reason and necessity.
There is nothing to indicate that the Member States' legal principles, legal traditions and carefully tailored legal systems should be lost for reasons to do with an already familiar offence such as counterfeiting. Nor, in the light of the international convention of 20 April 1929, can there be any confusion as to which country should deal with any criminal cases.
We are therefore voting against the report and strongly urge the abandonment of the idea of harmonising criminal law on such flimsy grounds. Instead, the focus should be upon preventing the real problem.
. I welcome this proposal to protect the Euro against forgers.
When the notes and coins come into circulation after 1 January 2002, everything possible must be done to ensure maximum confidence in the Euro.
Di Pietro report (A5-0019/2000)
Madam President, as the representative of the Pensioners' Party, there have been many occasions on which I have stated, at the committee stage, that the European Union must intervene in regulating the lives of the elderly, and in the measures and rules on pensions, as is already the case, in coordination.
Similarly, as concerns the field of justice and criminal law, which we have discussed today, I believe not only that the different criminal law, juridical and administrative legislative systems should be coordinated, but also that we must at last formulate common standards: an offence committed in Italy must also be viewed as an offence in Great Britain, Spain or elsewhere.
I believe that we, the Parliament of the European Union, who are the elected representatives of the citizens, must give sharper impetus to ensuring that the European Union provides for the regulation of every facet of the lives of its citizens, including that of justice, and that of pensions.
. Commissioner Prodi pointed out that 'Africa is our responsibility' and not apparently that of the USA and other major countries.
I worked in Africa 30 years ago, and it was poor and underdeveloped but the problems are now more catastrophic.
Two million people died of AIDS in Africa last year, approximately 200 000 died in wars.
In Zambia 25% of teachers have died of AIDS.
In some countries children had a better chance of basic education and health care twenty years ago than they have today.
Our policies in Africa lack coherence.
There is huge duplication of effort.
Furthermore, the cloud of debt remains an obstacle to real development.
It is patently clear that Africa has become the forgotten continent.
. (FR) In its communication on its strategic objectives for 2000-2005, the Commission repeats that Europe needs to become a 'global actor' capable of speaking with a strong voice in the world.
What should this global actor' s objective be? Doubtless our citizens would say something along the lines of 'to defend the countries of Europe better' , since that is the traditional and primordial purpose of political associations.
And yet this phrase is nowhere to be seen.
All we find are vague phrases about 'strategic partnerships' and the new prospects for trade which the complete integration of Europe would apparently bring with it.
The omission of this principal objective is highly revealing.
It demonstrates one of the main flaws in the European Union, a little-known, almost always implicit flaw, but one which goes a long way towards explaining our citizens' loss of interest.
There is a highly revealing passage on this point in the work programme for the year 2000 attached to the strategic guidelines.
Addressing the fundamental question of relations with the United States, the Commission mentions just one priority: 'we will endeavour to reduce and eliminate as far as possible the disputes in transatlantic trade' (page 4).
While we are on the subject, where one would expect a firm declaration of intent to defend European interests in the numerous trade conflicts under way, one merely finds the desire to eliminate conflict, which hardly sounds like determination on the part of the Commission to fight its corner.
How strange that the Commission should lose its instinct for self-preservation just as Europe is integrating. I think there are three reasons for this: 1) in their endeavour to transcend the nation states, the European institutions have lost touch with the people and, in losing touch with the people, they have become putty in the hands of foreign interests; 2) having lost touch with the people, the men and women working in these institutions have started to become used to reasoning not as the sole champions of the people, but as international officials in charge of regulating a global system; 3) integration may afford economies of scale and productivity gains; but it also causes far more to be lost because, when it breaks nations, it breaks subtle expressions of solidarity and, with them, the willingness to present a united front.
. (FR) I share the overriding sense of deep and keen dissatisfaction expressed during the debate.
I do, of course, understand the constraints of the moment and I am prepared to entertain the idea of the risk of failure....
However, experience has taught me that, in politics, modest ambitions are never the key to success!
I shall not keep saying that I am disappointed, because you need to hope in order to be disappointed.... and I have had no hope since the investiture debate.
As for the future, given that the Commission has shown itself incapable of taking action against fascism in Austria, I am convinced that blocking measures to liberalise the single market is the only way of administering a salutary electric shock treatment to the heart of all the countries in the Union.
- (IT) On behalf of the Italian Communists, I would like to express great dissatisfaction at the contents of the document, which was expected to define the strategic guidelines for Europe up until the year 2005.
Employment: for many years now, the connection between economic growth and an increase in employment has not been borne out by reality, and yet, despite the fact that it has been proved to be useless, the same recipe is being put forward again as a solution to the acute problem of unemployment.
And yet our President is a fine economist.
Pensions: The document states that, 'Member States must remain responsible for modernising social protection systems' , and yet the Commission itself intervened in the case of Italy, repeatedly calling for swift changes to the pension system to reduce rights and decrease pension payments.
And yet President Prodi himself gave firm guidance to the Italian Government during those years and is therefore aware of the nature and extent of the sacrifices demanded of our fellow citizens and which they made in order to sign up to the euro, and he is aware of the major role played by Italy in European development.
For this very reason, we cannot agree to cut pensions further.
There is an agreement on this issue which provides for a review in 2001 and this must not take place one moment sooner.
What is more, the relevant cost dynamic is completely under control.
I would therefore ask the Commission to please refrain from taking this unacceptable ideological approach and making such declarations which create instability and uncertainty among the citizens.
I referred to the case of Italy, not only because the President is very familiar with it, but because Community statistics (Eurostat) themselves reveal that not only has Italy' s welfare expenditure - currently 25.9% - been below the Community average (28.2%) since 1990, but that it has also been well below that of countries considered to be doing well, such as Germany (29.9%) and France (30.8%).
Europe' s role: we first need to emphasise that Europe rejects war as an instrument for resolving international conflict: only then can we talk of the 'military' role of the Union.
Agriculture and health: we see the issue differently from the Commission: in our view there are no consumers: there are only citizens who want to eat healthy food - products which are not designed for competitiveness but health, quality and respect for the environment. Moreover, these are factors which create employment.
. (FR) The proposed action and programme presented by Mr Prodi are vague in the extreme and the social question is missing yet again.
In fact, the word seems to have been banished from the Commission' s vocabulary, whereas liberal and American references abound.
Mr Prodi reverts to the contested concept of 'governance' ; contested because it favours state intervention over a proper working democracy and refers to the notion as defined by the IMF, whose ideological agenda is predicated solely on liberalism and monetarism.
The shift in meaning is not just semantic...
The only logical thing to do on reading this document is to pursue the mass market and generalised deregulation and forget about the realignment of European policy which our citizens hoped for.
Mr Prodi talks solely of 'mechanisms' and 'structures' and fails to set out a single balanced project which responds to the aspirations of our people.
Enlargement appears to be an end in itself, but unless decisions are made on a social policy, a common value and an institution to strengthen the cohesion and democratisation of the Union, the Europe bequeathed to us at the end of Mr Prodi' s presidency may well be a simple common market area within the context of generalised globalisation, rather than the community of destiny which we hope for.
Finally, Mr Prodi' s complacency towards the Austrian Government in the name of an exaggerated sense of protocol (which in no way obliges him to send a message of congratulations) would in itself warrant a vote of no confidence.
.
(FR) The European Union is flaunting its unbridled expansionist ambitions.
The Commission' s objective for the next five years is to become a 'global actor' by showing 'genuine leadership on the world stage' .
The nature of the EU has not changed.
Since the beginning it has served the interests of a few dozen large financial and industrial groups and their pressure groups.
But the Prodi Commission now wants to transform the EU so that it can apply for joint global governance with the United States, which it also sees as its future competitor and rival.
This new imperial policy advocates reorganising European and national institutions, strengthening the power of the state, increasing competition, establishing a European army and redistributing financial resources.
Even daring to refer to the defence of a 'European social model' is a shamefaced lie because the more the EU combats the United States, the more it becomes its clone.
We shall vote against these objectives, because we are fighting against this policy both in Parliament and on the streets.
A European charter of fundamental rights would be the only ray of light in this policy but, yet again, there is no provision for the people of Europe themselves to be able to address and decide on this democratically.
We abstained from the vote on the motion for a resolution for the following reasons.
Firstly, the motion does not condemn clearly enough the vagueness of the priorities and commitments indicated in the Commission' s programme.
Secondly, in terms of the definition of priorities for the next five years, we consider that the main question to be considered by the Commission is its role in interinstitutional relations within the EU which neither the programme nor the motion mention.
In our opinion, the Commission' s role in the near future will be dependent on some of the European political initiative being returned by the governments of the Member States following the Santer Commission scandal.
This is very positive as this is how the national parliaments, on which the governments depend, will continue to show that their democratic mandate is indispensable to European construction.
The truth is that the European Parliament is still failing to gain the confidence and interest of national public opinion which is determined not to think about Europe, as demonstrated by the low turnout in the recent elections.
The mechanisms used in the cooperation between the governments of the Member States must therefore be reinforced and made more coherent, more transparent and more democratic.
We welcome the efforts of Mr Prodi to improve the public image of the Commission and the need for the latter to agree with this House and the Council.
However, the priority should be to reform the governmental cooperation mechanisms, particularly by creating a Council of Ministers for Europe which, by itself and in coordination with the other European institutions, can assume the responsibility for transforming the political decisions of the European Councils into specific actions.
Corrie report (A5-0032/2000)
Madam President, the work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly was coloured in 1999 by growing concern about the sustainability of the cooperation models derived from the Lomé Conventions.
Back in 1994, the Joint Assembly passed an initial resolution, in which our fellow Member Dominique Souchet was closely involved, expressing its alarm at the foreseeable consequences of the Uruguay Round, which contradicted the very principle of Community preference which was fundamental to this cooperation.
These fears have been taking shape over the last two years and the banana row is the clearest expression of them.
The developing countries are asked to fall into line with the liberalisation of trade, despite their vulnerable economies.
Although Mr Corrie' s report roundly condemns this situation and reaffirms the Joint Assembly' s attachment to the Lomé model, he fails to highlight properly a second problem which, to tell the truth, is also the result of the free-trade error, namely the incoherence of the regional trade agreements signed by the European Union.
The cooperation agreement with South Africa is a prime example.
The Council approved the agreement negotiated by the Commission despite the fact that a basic section, namely agriculture, had not been finalised.
As Paul-Marie Coûteaux rightly said in his intervention yesterday and in his proposed amendments, one wonders exactly what political coherence this blank cheque represents.
It is most worrying, especially as a similar agreement with Mexico appears to be taking shape.
Nor is it possible to support the rapporteur' s call for the European Development Fund to be merged with the Community budget.
We want to maintain the clear commitment and the responsibility of each Member State, which is made possible by its intergovernmental nature.
Alas, there have been far too many instances of collective aid for which no-one feels responsible being derailed and we do not want to extend this disastrous system to the EDF.
Madam President, I welcome Mr Corrie' s report as a balanced assessment of the work the Assembly has carried out over the last year.
The report comes just after agreement has been reached on the renewal of the existing Lomé Convention, which expires at the end of this month.
The new agreement provides for a development budget of EUR 13.5 billion over the next seven years.
It is vital that this money is used to benefit the poorest groups and individuals within the ACP countries.
Strenuous efforts must be made to root out corruption and waste.
Civil society must be involved in the planning and implementation of these projects.
The decision to include a clause obliging ACP countries to take back illegal immigrants entering Europe is worrying and will have to be implemented with extreme sensitivity.
I hope that before the end of this new Lomé Convention we will be able to welcome Cuba as a full member.
. The joint United Nations programme on AIDS estimated that by the end of 1998, there was a total of 33.4 million people in the world living with the HIV infection.
Over 95% of all HIV infected individuals live in the developing countries and sub-Saharan Africa is the worst affected region in the world.
While only around 10% of the world' s population live in sub-Saharan Africa, 70% of all people who became infected with the AIDS virus in 1998 live there.
80% of the 13.9 million AIDS related deaths in the world have taken place in this region.
The AIDS problem in Africa is not only a private or public health issue but a development one.
The effects of the AIDS pandemic mean that any progress in development matters in the sub-Saharan region is being neutralised or reversed.
From the data which I am referring to today, it is evident that this disease is taking a disproportionate toll on the developing countries least capable of responding to its wide-ranging impact.
It is clear that the spread of AIDS in the sub-Saharan African Continent is linked to poverty.
AIDS treatments that may cost $18 000 per annum for one person are obviously not affordable by countries whose annual health budget may be less than $5 per capita.
It is incumbent on the European Union and the United Nations to address what is a social and fatal problem in a comprehensive and strategic manner.
We must primarily ensure that the basic needs of the poorest people in the countries most affected by the AIDS disease are fully met.
These countries include Ethiopia, Lesotho, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
Prevention education should begin early in the primary school curriculum in these countries.
Appropriate messages about the health effects of AIDS must be delivered to primary school children by teachers who are comfortable with the information that they are trying to communicate.
Health facilities and staff of NGOs need to be supported and resourced to deal effectively and appropriately with patients.
It is essential that these groups are able to obtain the limited resources they require to be effective.
At a more central level, there is a need for more effective co-ordination between government donors, international NGOs, indigenous NGOs and private sector initiatives so that scarce resources are not wasted.
Already weak economies are being further weakened in Africa by the AIDS virus.
Already stretched resources are being further stretched.
50% or more of hospital beds are now occupied by someone suffering with an AIDS related disease in the countries where AIDS figures are highest.
On a separate matter altogether, I would like to support Cuba' s membership as an ACP country within the framework of the new Lomé Convention which will shortly be agreed between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
I know that this is somewhat controversial, particularly, because of the attitude of the United States Government towards the Castro regime.
However, on this occasion, the European Union will be insisting on introducing political criteria into the Lomé Convention Accord.
Good governance criteria broadly covering questions of refugees, corruption, human rights and democracy will be part of the finalised accord between the European Union and all countries signing the Lomé Convention from Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific region.
. (FR) The Lomé Convention, on which the entire structure of relations between the European Union and the 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries rests, is still the most efficient and ambitious development tool in north-south relations.
After years of 'good and loyal service' it is still the main symbol of efforts by the European Union to promote development and improve the lot of the poorest countries.
It is the humane face of Europe...
And the merit of Mr Corrie' s report is that it highlights the value of this original, proactive development instrument, together with the work carried out by the Joint Assembly.
Especially as the vulnerable architecture of this ambitious structure has been threatened.
The partnership between the European Union and the ACP was negotiated in the difficult time of the changeover to the new millennium.
I am delighted that reason and generosity triumphed over the difficulties, opening new prospects for this partnership.
Now, more than 30 years after the inauguration of an unprecedented partnership between north and south, the tool which has proven its worth and served its time needs to be adapted in order to meet new challenges.
Which is why the new 20-year agreement due to be signed in Fiji on 31 May represents more than the simple renewal of the Conventions regulating relations between Europe and the ACP.
It should seal their revival.
It brilliantly illustrates the political dimension of a partnership which constitutes the only forum for dialogue and political exchange within north-south relations.
At a time when the Joint Assembly is opening its doors ever wider to the elected representatives from parliaments in the ACP, this dimension must not only be preserved; above all, it must be encouraged.
The Joint Assembly also represents the tribunal before which the countries of Europe and the developing countries defend their common interests.
After the debacle in Seattle, our duty from now on is to adopt a concerted position and ensure that the rules of world trade develop and are used to fight poverty.
The partnership is here to stay and the way is clear for it to be modernised.
First, by promoting a trend towards regional meetings of the Joint Assembly, as recommended in the Corrie report, thereby enabling working methods to be adapted to the new types of cooperation envisaged (regional economic partnership agreements).
Then, by gearing actions to micro-projects and making them accessible to the civil society in the southern countries and, finally, by calling for enlargement and the rapid accession of Cuba, which all the ACP called for at Nassau and which has now made a formal application.
But we must also preserve the original spirit of the Lomé Convention, which has enabled relations between the European Union and the ACP to become what they are today: a real partnership based on fairness and mutual respect.
. (FR) A few days after the demonstrations in Seattle, the ministers of the European Union imposed an agreement compatible with the rules of the WTO on the ACP, i.e. their former colonies.
Apart from reducing the volume of exports from these countries to the Community market, what we term 'development aid' to the ACP has fallen constantly, from 70% of total European Union aid in 1986 to 30% in 1998.
The European Union prefers to send its funds to Eastern Europe, the former USSR and Asia, where there is greater opportunity for profit.
The ACP-EU agreements make a mockery of democratic principles and the fight against corruption, by sparing those who are responsible: when will sanctions and controls be imposed on Total-Elf, which is supplying those responsible for the civil war in the Congo? Or on Shell?
Although the market is presented as the only rule which applies to ACP-EU relations, the European Union also plans to police immigration, as article 13 hints, in order to justify the policy of the European states against illegal immigrants.
We do not accept this agreement, which deprives people of the wherewithal to build societies which are independent of the European multinationals and banks.
. Mr President, I am full of praise at the sterling efforts of MEPs --some of my Labour colleagues among them - on the ACP-EU Joint Assembly and their efforts towards securing a new Lomé Agreement, which will benefit some of the poorest countries in the world.
Few of my constituents will probably be aware that the EU is the biggest foreign aid donor in the world.
While others may have the biggest rockets, the EU has the deepest pockets.
This is something that the EU can rightly be proud of, and I think we should shout it from the rooftops more often.
The Labour Government' s record in Britain is also a proud one.
Clare Short, MP, is one of the few Cabinet-level Ministers for international development in the world and, as such, can take her case to the very heart of government.
Gordon Brown, MP, meanwhile, has led international efforts to relieve crippling levels of Third World debt and ensured that Labour' s campaign to reduce poverty does not end at the English Channel.
Whether through the minimum wage in Manchester or debt relief in Durban, Labour' s aim of poverty reduction remains the same.
There is still much to be done, however.
The next great challenge is to re-launch the new round of world trade negotiations that failed to take off last December in Seattle.
It must be a 'development round' , in which developing countries, effectively excluded from previous rounds, are fully included.
For the best way to reduce world poverty is to help developing countries help themselves.
Developing countries want trade not aid, a help up not a hand-out.
And the best way to help developing countries help themselves is to open up world markets to allow them to sell their products.
In this way, the power of globalisation can be harnessed for the good, to benefit the poor not just the wealthy, the many not just the few.
Thus, whether through the New Deal in Newcastle or fair trade in Freetown, Labour' s aim of opportunity for all remains the same.
Swoboda report (A5-0031/2000)
.
(EL) The EU' s Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in the form of a joint agreement as established by Article 310 of the EU Treaty, can contribute to the stabilisation and development of that Balkan republic.
In parallel, it can benefit from substantial financial support via the PHARE programme.
However, the EU' s present policy in the Balkans is fragmentary, inconsistent and schizophrenic in nature.
There are different types of agreements or relations or lack of relations - going even as far as the embargo on Yugoslavia - which result in a fragmented and ineffectual approach.
There is no sense of regionality for the Balkans, which would include everyone without exceptions or vindictiveness.
Finally, intervention by the European Union to solve the problem of FYROM' s name - which is unfortunately becoming a long drawn out problem and could make an already tense situation even more fraught - and to respond more energetically towards negotiating FYROM' s principles within a reasonable time scale, is necessary and useful.
.
(FR) The Commission' s stated desire to strengthen relations between the European Union and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and to grant this country the prospect of full integration into the Community would appear to respond to a primary concern: a political entity which respects nations and their sovereignty could no longer postpone sending a signal to these states in south-east Europe which history has shown no consideration for since the end of the Second World War.
Having been crushed beneath the heel of triumphant Communism, this region has not stopped paying the price for the collapse of the Soviet system since the beginning of the 1990s.
And yet, under these difficult conditions, especially since the military intervention in the Balkans by NATO, some of these genuinely European countries have demonstrated a sense of responsibility which entitles them to aspire to join the Community.
In this sense, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is both an exemplary and a symbolic case.
Exemplary because it proves that the Balkan countries are not at the mercy of fate and that those of them which so wish are already in a position to meet the standard requirements imposed by the European Union in stability and association agreements.
Symbolic because it reflects well on the Fifteen' s project to see the birth of a policy which is common to the five countries in the region (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, FYROM and Albania) and which would make economic and political stability a pressing and urgent requirement.
The UEN Group is all the more in favour of sending this signal to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia because it leaves plenty of room for the independence and sovereignty of the states. A satisfactory solution cannot be found in the Balkans without a strong policy of cooperation between the states concerned; but nor can there be any question of blocking their process of integration because one of them is considered unworthy of such promotion.
The Union is simply doing its job when it seeks through its cooperation policy to encourage nations to espouse a platform of common values with it, of which democracy and civil liberty are the cornerstone.
It is not its job to subrogate to people in their choices or, failing that, reinvent a new variation on a 'sense of history' which perceives self-determination as a one-way street.
The Community construction only makes sense if it creates positive discriminations alone, and the UEN Group hopes that this signal to FYROM and specific action in its wake will help us make a sustainable contribution to the development and peaceful coexistence of the nation states in this fully-paid up part of Europe.
Frassoni Report (A5-0021/2000)
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mrs Monica Frassoni' s report, according to which the European Parliament is to accept the agreement entered into with the Commission about the implementing provisions for the Council' s decision of 28 June 1999 concerning comitology.
In all matters, we attach importance to the fact that there should be the greatest possible transparency in connection with the decision-making procedures involved in EU cooperation, for example with a view to guaranteeing the necessary democratic control.
Through the agreement, the European Parliament will automatically be sent the relevant material in connection with decisions made in accordance with the rules under Article 251 of the Treaty.
We should also like to see this arrangement extended to other areas in which, following the agreement, the European Parliament' s relevant committees will be sent material when they ask for it.
With the approval of this agreement, we have not achieved the final goal of transparency and democratic control where the comitology procedures are concerned. However, it constitutes real progress in the right direction, which is something we do not wish to obstruct.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.23 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Company restructuring in Europe
The next item is the Commission statement - Company restructuring in Europe.
. Mr President, industrial change, which can be gradual or sudden, is driven by new technologies, worldwide competition or consumer preferences.
It has economic implications and an impact on employment and social cohesion, but it also provides major new opportunities when anticipated, prepared for and managed.
The acceleration of technological progress and the increasing competitive pressure of globalising markets are pushing companies to rapidly adapt their production and company structures.
Companies must be able to anticipate and identify at an early stage what they need to do to ensure the continuity of their activities. Sometimes this calls for mergers of activities.
The Commission is acutely aware of this situation and of the need for people to feel basic security in difficult times of change.
We are convinced that the cornerstone of successful adaptation to change is dialogue at all levels and with full and transparent information as its basis.
We have had in the recent past different experiences and approaches on how to deal with large-scale operations of corporate restructuring, often affecting the lives of large numbers of European people.
In some cases these operations were prepared well in advance, fully involving workers' representatives, with due care being taken to search for the least damaging solutions.
Where necessary, workers likely to be affected were prepared through employability measures to face the challenge of sudden unemployment.
In other cases these operations were launched and implemented with less care and concern for those affected.
On every occasion, and as recently as last October in this House, the Commission has highlighted the following basic positions.
Firstly, decisions on corporate restructuring remain the prerogative as well as the responsibility of management.
This means that, when contemplating actions likely to lead to serious social consequences, job losses for example, companies should always actively search for and choose the least negative and least damaging solution.
Secondly, when dismissals prove to be inevitable, the utmost must be done to reinforce the employability of those concerned.
This requires anticipation, timely preparation and careful management of these processes.
Thirdly, nothing can justify the absence of timely, effective and comprehensive information and consultation of the workers' and employees' representatives before such operations are launched or publicly announced.
Worker involvement is always, and particularly in the event of corporate restructuring, not only a basic right but a necessary precondition for the social acceptance of such operations.
In the end it is also a decisive factor of their success, as no collectivity can survive and prosper without trust, dialogue, partnership and solidarity between its different components.
These basic ideas meet with a wide consensus in Europe.
This is what intelligent restructuring is about.
It is more and more rare to see companies embark on damaging restructuring operations ignoring these fundamental concerns, as unfortunately was sometimes the case in the past.
We have built a wide range of instruments which meet these concerns in recent years in the European Union.
We have set minimum requirements at European level, which all Member States and all companies must observe when contemplating job losses, especially when they are massive, or preparing other decisions likely to affect workers.
The collective redundancies and transfers of undertakings directive and the European works council directive constitute our legal framework, protecting the workers' rights and ensuring fair standards in the field of information and consultation at national and transnational level respectively.
As regards the national and/or local level of employee involvement, the Commission wishes to underline again the need for proper information and consultation of employees' representatives before any redundancies are decided or implemented, as provided for in the collective redundancies directive and in other national provisions.
I wish to recall that it is, in principle, up to national courts to deal with possible violations of these rules, if and when they are brought before them by national representatives.
However, even when existing rules or arrangements are formally respected this does not mean that management' s attitude is socially irreprehensible.
In fact, the Commission has argued for some time now that the rules we have established are not sufficient to deal with the challenges of today.
In a world characterised by permanent change and in the context of high levels of unemployment, the rules in force seem to us to be outdated as they do not allow or promote the key ideas behind our employment strategy and our approach to change, anticipation, risk prevention and employability.
That is why in November 1998 the Commission presented a proposal for a directive on worker information and consultation which has since then received your strong support.
We thank you for that.
Unfortunately, the other branch of the legislative power, the Council, has not yet - more than one year after the presentation of the proposal - begun working on it.
I hope that this debate contributes to reminding Member States of the importance and urgent nature of this initiative.
We have recently heard from the Portuguese Presidency that a serious debate on this proposal will soon be launched.
The forthcoming French Presidency also seems willing to give this dossier the high priority it deserves.
The Commission sincerely hopes that Parliament and the Council quickly finalise this important dossier which constitutes, in our view, the most effective answer to the concerns raised by cases such as the ones which brought us here today.
As for the transnational level of employee involvement there is some indication that at least in one case the companies may have breached transnational information and consultation agreements which they had concluded with their European workforce.
They may have at least exploited some ambiguity in the legal and contractual framework in force.
The Commission will contact the relevant national authorities to check this.
In any case, I wish to say to those who believe that their rights in that respect were ignored that adequate means of enforcement and redress are available to them, notably through relevant national jurisdictional instances.
The Commission is aware of your request to proceed immediately with a revision of the European Works Council Directive.
As recognised in the report, which we will adopt in the forthcoming weeks, we accept that the directive contains some loopholes.
Nevertheless, as my colleague, Commissioner Diamantopoulou has already underlined on other occasions, when deciding whether or not to revise the directive immediately, different considerations must be taken into account.
First, any revision of the directive would have little immediate effect on existing agreements, unless the fundamental principle of respecting the autonomy of the negotiating parties no longer applies.
Secondly, an immediate revision would make things much more complicated as regards progress in respect of the other pending dossiers in this field like European company statutes and the national information and consultation proposal.
The successful outcome of these other dossiers could greatly facilitate the subsequent revision of the EWC Directive and even provide some degree of a solution to the problems identified above.
That is why we tend to consider that it might be more appropriate in this context to proceed with the revision of the European Works Council Directive only after the conclusion of those two dossiers and following a more complete evaluation of the application of the directive.
Action is not limited to legislation.
To encourage and support dialogue as the cornerstone of the successful adaptation to change the Commission is also developing the recommendations of the Lillehammer Report by preparing the setting up of a European observatory on industrial change.
We are also developing another suggestion of that expert group, the Managing Change Report.
Let me finish by addressing some of the other concerns expressed in the draft resolution submitted to this House.
As for the enforcement of the links between competition policy and social policy, let me remind you that there is a provision in the merger regulation which enables workers' representatives to be heard by the Commission in the framework of the relevant procedure.
Generally speaking, we recognise the need for proper consideration to be given in different instances to all aspects surrounding these kinds of operations, including their effects in terms of employment.
As an example of this I mention that public authorities, notably the Commission, have already taken measures through guidelines on national regional aid that came into force on 1 January this year so as to ensure that public funding remains associated with the recipients of regional aid and consequently with the jobs attached to the investment.
To this end all regional aid is made conditional on the maintenance of the investment in question for a minimum period of five years.
The same provision was included in the Structural Funds Regulation which means that it applies to all investments cofinanced by the structural funds.
Social cohesion and the interplay of policies at EU-level is the focus of the forthcoming Lisbon Summit.
I know we will be coming back to these issues again in the future to see how we can best make sure our policies are adapted and reformed to underpin economic and social progress in Europe.
Thank you very much Commissioner.
Mr Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso, I understand you have a point of order.
If it is a personal statement, would you be prepared to wait until the end of this debate, at which stage I would be happy to call you?
Mr President, the problem is one of public honour in this Parliament, it is not a personal statement.
This morning, the President of Parliament, Mrs Nicole Fontaine, repeatedly refused to allow me to make a point of order.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Madam President has shown this inadmissible behaviour towards me.
In doing so, Madam President has breached Rule 142 that states that points of order shall take precedence over all other requests to speak.
She has also breached Rule 122 that gives the right to all the Members of this House to make observations, observations which in this case refute the remarks made by another deputy, Mr Vidal-Quadras.
This partisan behaviour of our President should be criticised most firmly.
I will willingly accept Madam President' s apologies any time.
Thank you for your statement.
We will certainly make sure that the President is informed of your statement.
I can assure you that as far as I am aware the President never likes to have a debate on issues in the middle of a vote.
Therefore the House was probably quite willing to go ahead at that stage.
But thank you for your remarks.
Mr President, I welcome Commissioner Liikanen' s words, and I am contributing to the debate - we are all contributing to the debate - because, although the subject is broad in scope, it also concerns a specific fact.
The subject in question is of great political and social importance.
Free enterprise, free movement and free competition are essential pillars of the political and economic structure of the European Union.
Company restructuring is part of the principle of free determination of investments, and must therefore be defended.
However, all too often we witness events which are in stark contrast with these principles.
Today, we are witnessing one of these cases, which, on the surface, may seem to be of minor importance and affect only the specific industry, but which, if it is allowed to pass without an authoritative intervention by the European Union, will become an unwritten rule which will cause problems for many of the Member States and the Union as a whole.
An American company - Goodyear - with production sites in Italy, Germany and England, is reviewing its production and relocation, justifiably, in its own view.
However, it seems to be doing it without observing the relevant Community legislation, for it is certainly not giving reasonable notice to employees or heeding the obligation to render an account of their use of Italian and European public finances.
In Italy, Commissioner Liikanen, Goodyear is not carrying out restructuring but closing a plant whose production covers 14% of the market and which Goodyear itself defined as, 'having the most highly-skilled workforce of all its plants' , a plant which was opened with a total of EUR 85 million of European capital.
No notice was given of the closure, and no intention was shown of discussing the fate of the plant or its workers, despite the fact that the public funds invested in that plant make it much more public than private.
It would be a serious matter if every non-European company were to learn to use Europe as a bus where you do not have to pay for the ticket, you do not have to pay for cooperation, you benefit from using the facility and you leave without being accountable to anyone.
Europe has to guarantee every sort of freedom, including freedom to use one' s own money for the purposes of one' s own freedom and not to let others use it at will, others who make demands and then, when the break is made, refuse even to discuss the terms of the break, despite the fact that this is a break which has been declared unilaterally.
Just now, Commissioner Liikanen was talking of restructuring which must not be uninformed.
Sadly, in this case, he has not taken into account those who are affected and seems not to have considered those carrying out the restructuring.
I would also like to point out to Commissioner Liikanen that it is not easy to take a matter to a national court.
Of course, it is always possible, but when jobs have been lost and factories closed down, the idea of going to Court when proceedings are as lengthy as they are in Italy is not very reassuring.
Commissioner Liikanen, we expect an authoritative intervention.
As Parliament, we are, of course, expecting to be able to contribute to the resolution you mentioned - we are ready and waiting - but we expect an authoritative intervention on this, which can on no account be allowed to reach its conclusion and be forgotten, as has almost happened already.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for the second time within the space of four months, we find ourselves debating the restructuring of companies in Europe.
This is - as it was the first time round - sparked off by the reorganisation of large companies, which is linked to a drop in employment.
I would like to make it quite clear that the Liberal Group is against any political interference in companies, in terms of both finance and management.
Our task is to draft legislation and to monitor to ensure that it is observed.
It appears that Goodyear in Italy received Italian and European subsidies to the tune of approximately EUR 40 million.
The company went under despite this.
This goes to show that jobs cannot be bought.
The market is a law unto itself.
As such, state aid costs the government twice: first in subsidies and then in unemployment benefit.
Surely this cannot be the role of your, my and the citizens' tax money?
All this, of course, does not mean that our Group does not share the concern of the Italian Members regarding the effects of the closure on the region concerned.
My Group is also opposed in principle to the naming of specific companies in this resolution, for two reasons: firstly because this creates selective responsibility.
A company is pilloried one day and not the next.
Why should this be the case? Michelin caused a great stir.
But I did not hear a squeak when Nissan and IBM were discussed, where, similarly, a great number of European employees were involved.
Secondly, this is not fair towards employees of other companies where reorganisations also take place and where it hurts too.
My Group has signed a joint resolution with EPP and UEN, in which, however, we made it clear right from the outset that we are against the naming of company names.
This is why the Liberal Group will vote against paragraph 8 and the second section of paragraph 9.
If these paragraphs are nonetheless adopted, my Group will abstain from the final vote.
I do hope that this will not be necessary.
Mr President, the Portuguese Presidency and the Commission' s strategic objectives for 2000-2005 both talk of full employment for which two essential conditions are required.
The first is to create new jobs for young people entering the labour market and the second is not to lose jobs.
Yet the current situation in Europe provides us with clear examples of how jobs are being destroyed, particularly, and most seriously, by companies which are making huge profits.
In the past, workers were asked to show their solidarity with companies in order to ensure their survival. Now the companies are making huge profits but are also making workers redundant.
Examples have been given in Spain of Michelin and ABB-Alsthom and my colleagues will give examples for Italy.
There is also another hidden way of making workers redundant, as practised for example in Spain by the Ericsson company under the term 'externalising' . Note that sensitive words like 'redundancy' are not used.
Externalising services by subcontracting these to contract companies results in stable and permanent jobs being turned into precarious jobs without union or social rights.
This is just an underhand way of making workers redundant.
Commissioner, if the European institutions really believe in what they say about full employment, they must take clear steps to secure this.
They must revise the directives in order to guarantee the participation of workers in these negotiations. They must revise the directive on collective redundancies, reduce the working day, link European subsidies to a clear commitment to maintain employment and include social and labour clauses in the international agreements signed by the European Union.
Mr President, sadly, once again, Parliament is having to discuss the restructuring of companies in Europe.
Yet again, workers are likely to lose their jobs.
This time, I am referring to the workers of the company Goodyear in Cisterna di Latina.
As has already been pointed out, in one month' s time, 600 people and as many families could be deprived of their sole source of income.
Despite the commitment they have shown to the company and despite their high level of professionalism - which has made the Cisterna plant one of the most productive in Europe - these workers are likely to be removed from the production cycle, while Goodyear, after years of benefiting from state and European subsidies, is totally free to walk out.
I do not think this is at all fair, either to the workers at the Cisterna plant or to all those Italian and European citizens whose taxes have, albeit indirectly, enabled Goodyear to benefit from the state aids I have just mentioned.
The European Commission and the Council must, at last, assume all the necessary responsibilities, both with regard to the adoption of a common position on the information and consultation of workers and with regard to Community and national aid, which must only be granted to companies who undertake to establish long-term agreements to protect jobs.
Today, we ask the Commission to start by protecting the workers at Goodyear in Cisterna, and therefore to put as much pressure as possible on the company for it to come to an agreement as soon as possible, thereby ensuring the continued existence and operation of the Cisterna plant.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would also like to remind the House that there is very little time available, and therefore that any measure - including those already cited by the Commission in its introductory report - which we adopt must have an immediate, timely effect.
Mr President, Commissioner, as far as restructuring goes, there is no doubt that European companies must adapt so that they are better placed to face new challenges or go under.
We are well aware of this current economic context and that the purpose of restructuring is to rationalise corporate management.
Although it is laudable from an economic point of view to make structural changes in order to be more competitive and win market shares, this approach may be reprehensible if it is made at the request of financiers, often shareholders, with the sole unavowed aim of increasing the financial standing of the company in order to raise profits which they can then withdraw from the company.
The various recent announcements referred to by previous speakers, be they by Michelin or Goodyear, are symptomatic in this respect.
Rationalised management and improved profits should, in my view, serve the company and hence its employees first and foremost, and any financial benefits should follow.
However, what we witnessing today is the phenomenon of concentration and corporate regrouping and relocation, with all the familiar consequences, both on the quality of products and at the social level, especially in terms of unemployment, difficult working conditions and increased flexibility: consequences which have a drastic effect at the human level, especially on the family unit.
There is a very real risk of seeing a two-headed monster emerge on this planet, with poor countries providing the labour and rich countries providing the capital.
Surely Europe should act as a safeguard, maintaining a certain equilibrium between increased profitability and social welfare? We must not forget that it is human resources which make a company function at its base and guarantee it good results.
Finally, allow me to remind you that the third letter of the EDD Group to which I belong stands for 'difference' .
Europe has a duty to make its voice heard as an alternative to savage restructuring for profit at all costs. Without doubt, the voice of difference in this monotonous flood of restructuring.
Mr President, last month in the UK, in a region that neighbours mine, the Michelin Group announced significant redundancies at its Stoke-on-Trent plant due to company restructuring and increasing global competitiveness in the world market for tyres.
I, like all Members present, am saddened by this loss of jobs.
Equally, I am saddened by the announcement made by Goodyear that has prompted this resolution.
But I doubt very much indeed whether a European works council would have been able to change this company' s decision.
This House is very good at producing resolutions and legislation and we sometimes, in this institution, forget that Europe cannot survive alone.
We need multinational companies to base their businesses within our continent.
In my few months here, I have found it astonishing that whilst we all talk about the need to encourage businesses to grow within the EU, nearly every resolution we pass actually encourages businesses to leave.
In our last plenary part-session in Brussels we voted on the end-of-life vehicles directive and managed to make the legislation retrospective, adding huge costs for the European motor manufacturers that they could not have predicted.
Two days later, Toyota, which employs several thousand people in my region, stated that this directive would not only increase the cost of cars but could well also mean redundancies in their Derbyshire plant.
In a world where surely less regulation is the key, we in this House seem to believe that we can add more regulation and costs on business and that they will stay within the European Union, untempted by other locations elsewhere where there are fewer burdens.
We MEPs speak often about SMEs and have now come up with a unique way of creating them.
Take a large successful business, add European regulations, and within months you have created a small one.
Perhaps before we criticise anybody outside this place we should take a good look at ourselves and what we do here.
Mr President, I will not use my speaking time by going into the individual cases debated here today.
In this respect, I share Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel' s view that we cannot talk about these in detail.
But maybe next time, we ought to discuss CORUS, the merger which has now taken place between our Nederlandse Hoogovens and British Steel.
I would like to place this discussion in a somewhat wider context and examine the link between policy in the field of company mergers within the European Union and policy in other fields.
In this light, I am pleased that Mr Liikanen is present and we do not only have to hold this discussion, where the interests of employees are concerned, with Mrs Diamantopoulou but we can involve the Commissioners who are active in other fields.
I would also like to advocate coherence in the Commission' s policy from these different vantage points, unlike my predecessor, who holds the belief that there is no need for rules.
We need to gain an insight into what companies are like now.
At present, we are witnessing a number of large mergers between companies which originate in an Anglo-Saxon tradition and companies with a Rhineland tradition.
What remains of the concept of what a company should be like now is naturally very relevant: whether it is merely the property and toy of shareholders, or whether it is a more broadly based stakeholder society, which is meant to guarantee continuity for staff, consumers, suppliers and the local population and has, in addition, a social function.
As such, I would like to ask these various Commission directorates and these various Commissioners to provide a wider vision regarding corporate governments.
I think that it would also fit in well with the plans which have been presented over the past couple of days on good government in Europe, as company policy forms part of this.
The government is talking to trade union and Goodyear delegates in Italy as well, in an endeavour to find a solution to the closure policy unilaterally adopted by the North American multinational in Cisterna di Latina, an area of Central Italy which has already been affected by other restructuring operations.
The closure means the direct or indirect loss of more than a thousand jobs and hundreds of families being abandoned to insecurity and sudden poverty.
The Goodyear workers are putting up a magnificent fight, in the knowledge that they are defending not only their own interests but the interests of the Goodyear workers in the different European countries as well, and there are many of them: France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, Luxembourg and Slovenia.
Today, a small delegation of workers is here with us in the gallery, anxious to find out what their future will be, what solidarity the European Union will offer them and what policy it will adopt to prevent the multinationals acting solely and exclusively in the interest of their own market and profits.
The European Union, in all of its aspects, must use all of its powers to resolve this and other disputes.
Mr President, earlier this week President Prodi announced that one of the Commission' s strategic objectives for the next five years would be to aim for full employment.
He acknowledged that 15 million Europeans are currently looking for work and that unemployment is the main source of poverty and social exclusion.
What is more, the Portuguese Presidency sees the fight against unemployment as top priority.
Yet, all too often these political priorities are invisible in everyday policies.
The Commission' s decision to allow the ABB-Alsthom merger to go ahead is a case in point.
The new company has announced its intention to initiate a restructuring plan with the aim of making savings.
This global restructuring plan could lead to the loss of up to 12 000 jobs.
In my region of the UK in particular the employment consequences of this merger have been severe as a result of ABB-Alsthom having announced that it was cutting 270 jobs in Britain with 95 jobs being lost in Stafford and 112 in Rugby.
The company' s failure to inform the works council about the proposals for the merger is particularly worrying.
It is especially important in the case of large international companies where decisions are taken far from the employee.
Point 17 of the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers stresses the need for consultation, adding that this shall apply especially in companies having establishments in two or more Member States.
I do not think it is simply a matter of a Community charter.
EU legislation on this issue could not be clearer.
The Commission would do well in this sort of situation to make its decisions not simply on the basis of whether a merger will distort competition but also on the basis of the social and economic consequences.
We need more joined-up policy making on these issues.
What we also need urgently is an impact assessment study on the effect of merger in every situation.
This is the only way of respecting Article 127 of the Treaty.
I welcome the statement made by Commissioner Liikanen, but I also look for the support of this Parliament to ensure that the legislation which we have passed on workers' rights is implemented rigorously and to ensure that impact assessments on the workforce for proposed mergers are undertaken as a matter of course.
I have received seven motions for resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken later this evening.
The sitting was suspended at 3.50 p.m. and resumed at 4.05 p.m.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Racist and xenophobic incidents in El Ejido (Spain)
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0149/2000 by Mr Galeote Quecedo and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on outbreaks of racism and xenophobia in the El Ejido area in Spain;
B5-0159/2000 by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm and Mr Sánchez García, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on racist and xenophobic incidents in El Ejido (Spain);
B5-0162/2000 by Mrs Díez González and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the outbursts of racism and xenophobia in El Ejido (Spain);
B5-0169/2000 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on outbursts of xenophobia in El Ejido (Spain);
B5-0175/2000 by Mr Bautista Ojeda and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on xenophobia-related incidents in El Ejido (Spain).
Mr President, I am reassured by the fact that the first three speakers in this debate are intimate with this situation given our African origin.
I must firstly congratulate the groups in this House on the high degree of consensus achieved in the motion for a resolution. I am aware of the efforts made by Members to avoid using an issue such as this for electoral purposes.
Secondly, I must also assert my total conviction that neither Spain nor Andalusia is xenophobic or racist. Of course this does not mean that I do not totally condemn the violence used by individuals or groups who deserve to be prosecuted firmly and rigorously by the law, and by the law alone.
We should be tackling the issue of immigration in a comprehensive and rigorous manner.
These events, which are unfortunately overshadowing the political decisions in this area, confirm without doubt that the development of the Tampere Agreements and Title IV of the EC Treaty must be an urgent priority.
Today' s problems cannot be solved in five years.
They will take a long time, as we are finding out.
The legislation of the Member States must be brought into line with the agreements of the governments in Tampere, as paragraph 7 of the motion states.
Legal immigrants must be integrated socially without any excuses or delays.
Furthermore, the labour market must be organised realistically so that jobs held by third country nationals are subject to labour legislation on wages, social security and social protection in terms of equality. This will eradicate the labour exploitation and markets in marginalised people, which are resulting in the events condemned by the motion, and which are the real basis of the current social problem.
Solidarity, dialogue and agreements between local, regional, national and European institutions and employers, unions and the immigrant communities themselves, whose countries of origin must also undoubtedly assume some responsibility, are essential.
Collaboration with the countries of origin on this issue is vital. In this respect, the action plans approved by the High Level Group and the Tampere European Council must be allocated a budget.
Specifically, I must stress in this debate the plan for Morocco. This is a country with which the European Union has an effective relationship and common interests and which should take particular priority in mutual cooperation and collaboration.
Finally, this House must tackle the phenomenon of immigration with sufficient calm to avoid increasing tension in a debate which must go much further than the appropriate words and condemnations prompted by such behaviour.
This is a very important social debate in the creation of a European area in which the right to freedom, security and justice will be recognised in the future Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Mr President, Commissioner, whenever a serious social problem occurs, it always has a political basis. This is true of the disgraceful events which have recently occurred in El Ejido.
The proof of this lies in the fact that the groups in this House have reacted and tabled several motions for resolutions.
We all regret the deaths which have occurred and the violent and disproportionate reactions against the immigrant workers.
We all, I believe, agree in our condemnation of the xenophobia and racism which was apparent in certain actions.
These events certainly have their origin in, among other factors, the absence of a clear immigration policy allowing the affected communities to live together respectfully and peacefully.
We hope that the events in El Ejido will serve as a lesson to everyone and will not be repeated.
Yet it is not enough to regret the situation.
We do not want Africa to become our cross, in fact quite the contrary.
We must therefore act.
I should like to highlight certain measures which we are trying to introduce in another European region affected by immigration - the Canary Islands.
Firstly we are creating a network of reception centres for minors.
Secondly we are conducting a programme of social integration.
Thirdly we are carrying out education programmes on tolerance and respect.
Finally we are producing a census of immigrants.
I hope that these measures will help towards ensuring compliance with the Tampere Agreements on immigration and the new Spanish Act on aliens. In particular they must ensure that people arriving in Europe do not lose their dignity.
Mr President, last week, in the Andalusian town of El Ejido, we saw scenes which were inappropriate to the European Union in the year 2000.
This was acknowledged by the Commission President, Romano Prodi, on 9 February when he confirmed that what had occurred in El Ejido went against the very principles of the European Union.
These events have caused us great pain and shame and have awoken our fears given the extreme racism, xenophobia and intolerance demonstrated.
It is incomprehensible that ways of coexisting and ensuring mutual respect cannot be found between two communities which are mutually beneficial.
The only way to prevent these events happening again, in a place where there are large communities of immigrant workers, is through social integration. This requires a firm economic, political and social commitment from the competent authorities.
We are all immigrants.
For generations human beings have not always remained within the borders of one nation state but have constantly migrated.
Geographical mobility is not an invention of the twentieth century and neither are its economic and work-related causes.
We are all immigrants, if not ourselves personally, then through one of our relations or ancestors.
However, instead of producing these events which we are condemning, migration must generate social, cultural and economic enrichment.
What happened in El Ejido is unfortunately not exclusive to this one town of the European Union.
We must therefore firstly condemn clearly and emphatically the brutal racist and xenophobic outbursts of certain inhabitants of El Ejido against immigrant workers in the area. A whole community should not have been held responsible, criminalised and attacked for one regrettable but isolated incident.
Secondly, all the authorities must act immediately. Coordination between them is the key to combating this type of xenophobia and racism.
In particular, local authorities and mayors have a direct responsibility to prevent any demonstration of racism or xenophobia, especially when this involves violent and aggressive acts against people and their property.
These authorities must also help to achieve difficult agreements between the parties involved and must not hinder these, as has happened with the mayor in question.
Thirdly, the political parties must assume direct responsibility for the political actions of their public officials. They must prevent any individual action or declaration which is contrary to the principles and values of coexistence and tolerance expressed by the European Union.
Finally, the European Union must be responsible for monitoring the application of its principles.
It must prevent any racist or xenophobic demonstrations in its territory and support and collaborate with national, regional and local authorities and non-governmental organisations and associations in the application of these principles. This must occur within a framework of constant action to combat racism and xenophobia and to encourage the integration of all immigrants resident in the EU.
Mr President, initially our Group did not fully understand the need to table this motion for a resolution on events which seemed to be a local phenomenon.
However, the incidents in El Ejido are a symptom of a phenomenon which is present throughout Europe and which deserves our full attention.
We thought we had eradicated the terror of intolerance which racism had unleashed in Europe. Yet, over the years, social disintegration in Europe has been combining with an increase in migration from surrounding countries and increased awareness of human rights to develop into this climate of racism and intolerance.
This is why what seemed to be a local and isolated phenomenon in El Ejido is actually a worrying symptom which is coinciding with the emergence of parties like Haider' s.
This House therefore proposes the adoption of urgent measures encompassing all the relevant factors and to be applied immediately. We must ensure respect for human rights, tolerance and multiculturalism and we must obtain an increase in budgets and action lines for social and health issues.
In this respect we must not forget that the original victim' s attacker was suffering from a mental illness for which he had been inadequately treated.
The current difficulties must also be taken into account so that this town can adopt the necessary measures, as indicated previously.
Finally, as our Nobel Prize Winner, José Saramago, has said, we are all in each other and as Jesus Christ said, although Saramago disagreed with this, we should not just love one another, more importantly, we should respect one another.
Mr President, Commissioner, Andalusia is one of the most tolerant and multiracial regions of the European Union.
Since time immemorial it has welcomed all those who have decided to move there and regarded them as Andalusians from day one, whether or not they were born in our region. Therefore, as an MEP, but primarily as an Andalusian, I can feel only sadness, repugnance and condemnation for the xenophobic and racist events which have occurred and which are foreign to this tolerant community.
Yet a worrying situation is apparent.
All decisions which are or are not taken and all agreements which are or are not negotiated by the Community institutions with regard to the economy of the principal sectors in disadvantaged areas like Andalusia may indirectly lead to these serious incidents. I am referring, for example, to the lack of agreement with Morocco and to the lack of solutions for the fishing industry, part of whose fleet is moored in Almería.
I am also referring to the erratic management of the import scheme for fruit and vegetables by the EU which is dominating relations between Almería and Morocco. I am also referring to the immigration policy of the regions, Member States and European Union which, due to actions or omissions, is leading to a few territories like Almería having to support this migratory pressure from north-west Africa on their own.
All these factors have unfortunately been accumulating over time and are now allowing those who are cruel, intolerant, racist and destructive, of which all our countries have some examples, but thankfully a minority, to light the fuse of xenophobia.
Anyone, whether European or not, who lives and works in Andalusia, is an Andalusian and deserves our consideration and respect. The EU can and must speak out.
For you, the south is Andalusia but for us Andalusians it is Africa.
We must therefore ensure that the EU provides every possible resource so that the economy of the south can prosper and enable a society to develop with more tolerance and respect for one another. This has not been achieved with the solutions proposed to date which have quite simply been based on looking the other way.
Mr President, Commissioner, I speak from experience acquired during many visits to El Ejido over the years. I was therefore aware how the situation was developing.
Here in the European Parliament, as in many other institutions, we have watched this situation with concern and were beside ourselves when we heard what had happened. This is because we felt the problem to be ours, as it was.
In El Ejido there is a serious social problem, problems of integration and employment and also a grave problem of public safety which acted as the detonator.
These events have also acted as a wake-up call to our consciences.
Here in this House, in Spain and in many other countries, we have all fixed on El Ejido. Yet what we do and say here and the concern we express will really serve no purpose unless this leads to the adoption of a much more determined attitude to finding out what is really happening, not only in El Ejido, but in many other places where this type of problem may be occurring at any given moment.
We all agree in our condemnation of intolerance and we also agree that we must look forward. We will not find the guilty parties in this House or in many other places.
Those responsible for what happened in El Ejido are a minority who set out to satisfy their desire for vengeance on the immigrants. We must bear in mind that vengeance is not a solution.
These problems can only be solved by close cooperation between all the authorities in order to achieve social integration and respect for all working there. This therefore requires a determined fight against illegal immigration and profound respect for the rights of immigrant workers who are legally working in El Ejido and throughout Europe.
Mr President, this resolution expresses solidarity with the democratic forces in Spain fighting for human rights.
All the Spanish democrats wounded by what is happening in their country have our full and complete support.
It was not only immigrants who were the victims of atrocities; the democratic system in Spain has been held up to ridicule, despite having demonstrated its tremendous capacity to evolve over the last 20 years.
Employers would be lost without immigrants.
Working conditions are so hard and so deplorable that no Spaniard will accept them.
Low wages, the lack of housing - some are living in cardboard huts - the lack of access to social services and the de facto system of apartheid are abominable and unacceptable and are not worthy of the respect which every human being deserves.
What happened at El Ejido is the result of inadmissible racist and xenophobic practices in Europe today.
For four days, the immigrants were collectively hounded.
Women and children were beaten.
Fleeing from all quarters, hundreds of immigrants took refuge on a hill on the outskirts of the town.
We are right to blacklist Haider' s Austria; but we cannot allow little local Haiders to practice policies of racial exclusion and merciless economic domination.
What happened in Spain could happen in any country in the Union if we are not careful.
We all have a duty to put our own house in order.
I support this proposal for a resolution, especially the points which refer to the application of Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, and point 11 of this resolution establishing a link between the Structural Funds allocated and the fight against exclusion.
It would be to our credit were the European Parliament to roundly condemn these events and support all proposals tabled in order to ensure that the rights of immigrants in Spain and throughout the Union are respected.
Mr President, since the signature of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Union has had responsibility for combating racism and xenophobia.
Two types of measure are required for this purpose. The first should seek the integration of people of non-European origin and the other should aim to organise immigration.
With regard to the first, the Commission has sent us a series of proposals, contained in two directives and an action plan, which aim to apply the following decision taken by the Heads of State and Government in Tampere. This states that 'The European Union must ensure fair treatment of third country nationals who reside legally on the territory of its Member States.
A more vigorous integration policy should aim at granting them rights and obligations comparable to those of EU citizens' . This is totally contrary to what we have seen and found recently in El Ejido where there are irregularities, labour exploitation and indecent living conditions, which have been condemned in the past.
I hope for prompt implementation of the measures to achieve integration. I also hope that the governments which produced such wonderful words in Tampere, including Spain, will work diligently to apply these.
I have less hope about the development of an effective and fair European policy in accordance with the statement made by the Council on immigration.
The only proposal which has been made is for the directive on family reunification. This is a key issue, as we have seen recently in the media that there are many men on their own in El Ejido.
Yet we do not know whether this has been accepted by the governments. Outside the Community arena, some governments are making efforts to renew their immigration policies.
This is occurring in my country, despite the government, the party in power being the only one which does not like the new law on aliens.
The objective of combating racism and xenophobia, explained in the Treaties, should be the objective of all European institutions and politicians.
On 28 February 1998 the European political parties, including the Spanish Popular Party, signed the Charter of European Political Parties for a Non-Racist Society.
This requires coherent behaviour, yet local leaders of the Popular Party are throwing more fuel on the raging fire and boycotting the attempts of other institutions to put this out.
The party to which the Mayor of El Ejido belongs should, according to the commitments signed in this Charter, act forcefully.
It is only, as stated by Mr Hernández Mollar, through unity, responsibility and firmness that El Ejido, Spain and Europe will be able to overcome these events of which we are deeply ashamed.
Mr President, one cannot but feel disgust and indignation at the scenes of lynching, no less, of Moroccan day labourers which took place in El Ejido.
We do not the extent to which far-right commandos were to blame and how far the common people stupid enough to follow these commandos were to blame.
We wish to assure these Moroccan workers that they have our full support - as if being exploited by unscrupulous employers were not enough, they have to suffer this type of aggression.
And if the aggressors include working-class people, all we can say to them is that, in acting in this way, they are digging their own graves.
In waging war against people who are as poor as they are, they are only doing their own exploiters a favour and preparing a future of oppression for themselves.
But there are some who bear even more responsibility than the thugs who wielded the iron bars and knives: those who spread racist and xenophobic slander, those who indulge in anti-immigration demagoguery in Spain, Austria, France or elsewhere, sometimes even here in this House, are no better than those who take this stupid, reactionary demagoguery at face value.
The lynch mob and their extreme right-wing mentors are the mortal enemies not only of the workers, but of society as a whole.
. I would like to begin by congratulating the honourable Member on the way in which he introduced this extremely important debate.
I want to make it clear at the outset that the Commission unreservedly condemns the dreadful acts of violence at El Ejido against the immigrant workers of the region.
We express our support for the families and friends of the victims.
President Prodi and Commissioner Diamantopoulou have both issued separate statements.
Naturally I completely endorse what they have said.
It was especially moving to hear the remarks from Members of Parliament who come from the region about what has happened, uncharacteristically, in a part of Spain that I know reasonably well.
Racist and xenophobic acts are wholly unacceptable within our Community, wherever they take place.
They fly in the face of the very principles on which - as Mr Havel said yesterday - the European Union was founded: principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights.
Of course progress has been made in recent years but we still have to work together towards a climate of tolerance in which racism and xenophobia are regarded as completely beyond the pale, completely unacceptable, while at the same time we deal very robustly with incidents such as the ones we are discussing this afternoon.
We need, in our judgement, to focus on a package of measures including: first, the introduction of effective, anti-discrimination legislation at Union level; second, implementation of a common immigration policy with regard to the nationals of non-Member States to promote, in practical terms, the integration of the immigrant population in Member States' societies; third, the introduction of measures to combat social exclusion.
The European Union has already laid the basis for Community legislation on combating discrimination on the grounds of race.
The insertion of Article 13, which was referred to during the debate, dealing with non-discrimination in the Treaty establishing the European Community, is one of the most significant changes of the last revision of the Treaties.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force the Commission has presented a package of proposals for the implementation of Article 13 including, in particular, a proposal for a directive on the application of the principle of equal treatment regardless of race or ethnic origin.
This proposal is under examination by the Council and the European Parliament.
The Commission hopes very much that this stage will soon be complete.
The conclusions of the Tampere special European Council, as Mr Hernandez Mollar said, clearly illustrated the will of the Heads of State and Government as regards the introduction of a common policy on immigration and the principles on which it should be based, with particular emphasis on the Union' s policy on the respect and promotion of the rights of migrants.
At Tampere the Heads of State and Government also emphasised the importance of approximating national legislation on conditions for admission and residence of third country nationals based on a shared assessment of the economic and demographic developments in the Member States as well as the situation in the countries of origin.
The European Council also considered it important to step up the prevention of illegal immigration.
Its objective here is to secure the rights of victims of criminal networks organising illegal immigration, with particular reference to the rights of women and children.
Those who organise illegal immigration should be prosecuted with the utmost vigour.
The word that is used about them in Chinese society is 'snake-heads' .
It seems to me a fitting description of them.
Let me also draw attention to the work on drawing up a European Union charter on fundamental rights, which has now reached the drafting stage.
Those rights are, by definition, universal.
The charter will extend to third country nationals in Member States even though certain rights will be reserved to nationals of Member States of the Union.
The El Ejido incidents were shocking, as several Members have said in their speeches.
But trying to take something positive from them, I hope they will spur us on to translate our aspirations about tolerance, fairness and freedom into real and effective policies that will help to transform the lives of all those families and individuals in the European Union who cry out for our understanding and our help and who deserve it, not at some indefinite moment in the future, but here today.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, Commissioner, we have not signed this compromise motion for a resolution for two reasons.
First, because Mr Sakellariou, who is known for his openness and tolerance and whom I shall not quote, vehemently vetoed it in a bid to set himself up as your moral defender.
I have no doubt, and I am sure that you have no doubt, that this is a major new contribution on his part to the fight against racism and intolerance.
The other reason is that this text does not, unfortunately, go very far.
I think that it manages, through a series of clever devices, to carefully avoid addressing the central issue, i.e. the final status of Kosovo.
I doubt that any of you still believe that Kosovo can one day become part of Yugoslavia.
I also doubt that any of you can believe that Milosevic could resist for very long if the international community eventually resolved the question of the final status of Kosovo.
I also doubt that any of you think that, as things stand, it is not in Milosevic' s interest to pull out all the stops and destabilise Kosovo, as he is doing and as we have seen.
Finally, I do not think that any of you believe that the present status quo will bring minimum stability and hence minimum development to Kosovo.
I also noted a mistake in the compromise motion for a resolution, which you no doubt overlooked.
You condemn the first direct attack on the KFOR troops.
I would not want you to be birds of ill omen, but I fear that, by failing to confront the real issue, you will end up being just that and I shall hold you entirely responsible for what may happen.
On the contrary, I think it is our duty to call on the Commission and the Council, which unfortunately is not present, to insist that the United Nations consider the question of the final status of Kosovo, of the multiplicity of micro-states in the region, of what happens post-Dayton and, finally, the question of real stability which can allow democracy to be built up in these countries and give the European Union a policy in this region.
Finally, I would stress that we have been asking the Council and the Commission since July to take forceful action to secure the release of the 3 000 Kosovar prisoners and Mrs Brovina, Mr Jurti and Mr Hoti.
I note that the Union is preparing to lift certain sanctions and that we have not seen even one of these prisoners released in exchange.
Why not?
Mr President, what is happening in Mitrovica in Kosovo is appalling and reprehensible.
Violence begets violence, and revenge begets revenge.
The police forces which have been sent out do not have the manpower to stop what is going on.
The Chief Commissioner of Police, Svend Frederiksen, has expressed his desperation at the fact that he constantly has to make do with less than half the manpower which was agreed.
He has fewer than 2 000 officers, and it was agreed that there should be nearly 5 000.
The police force should be large enough for it to be a visible presence, so that people can believe that it is in a position to stop atrocities. It should also be large enough to be able to clear up crimes and punish those who are guilty of them.
Otherwise, there is a danger of people taking the law into their own hands. It is therefore also important that local officers should be trained, and the idea was, in fact, that 2 000 to 3 000 officers should be trained.
However, there are still fewer than 200 trained police officers to contribute to clearing up crime.
A year ago, we did of course see what happens when agreements and resolutions which have been made are not followed up. I was in Kosovo on 27 October 1998 when the Serbs withdrew.
The agreement was that 1 800 OSCE observers should arrive to guarantee the peace. After a month, however, there was still only a handful of observers.
By Christmas, there were perhaps 100 and, by the spring, still only a fraction of the force it had been agreed should come was, in fact, in place.
Atrocities were not even being recorded. Then the war came, and the observers were withdrawn.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner: can you not in fact do anything to stop us repeating our follies here in Europe?
Can you not guarantee increasing the police presence to 5 000 officers and training local officers, who would naturally find it easier to clear up crimes than would officers from abroad?
I might also ask: when do you anticipate that they will be in place?
And when is more responsibility to be transferred to local democratic authorities?
I mention this last issue because it is the solution we should be embracing as quickly as possible if peace is to have any chance at all.
All who are in contact with real life in Kosovo share the same opinion: it is a tragic, desperate situation where there is a democratic void and no possibility of the different ethnic groups living peacefully side by side. Mitrovica is a tragic example of this.
Before military intervention by NATO, Milosevic' s policy for Kosovo was certainly to be condemned, and the demands of the non-violent forces of the Rugovo era for the Kosovar regions to be autonomous were justified.
But NATO' s decision for military intervention and the KLA' s support for the armed forces had a devastating effect and have reduced Kosovo to a colony, as well as destroying civil infrastructures in Serbia.
Today, Kosovo has no adequate strategy for protecting minority groups, and these include not only Serbs and Roma, but also moderate Albanians who still believe in the possibility of peaceful coexistence and are persecuted by the extremists in power.
It is useless to talk of the Roma houses which have been burnt down and the thousands upon thousands of new refugees and the refugees from Krajina, who are now living, barricaded in, in Kosovo, abandoned by the UNHCR, which itself has been abandoned by the donors, while the emergency is still of dramatic proportions.
In the joint resolution, we ask the Council and the Member States to double their efforts to ensure respect for minority groups and to work towards the creation of democratic structures, giving a voice to all those forces which still believe in peaceful coexistence.
In this sense, I am in agreement with Mr Sakellariou' s proposals.
Another subject being discussed is the release of the Albanians held in prisons, particularly Flora Brovina, a woman of extraordinary humanity whom I met, together with the Women in Black of Belgrade, during joint attempts to build bridges between women from different ethnic groups.
Flora defended herself, and asked Serbs and Albanians to shake hands.
Flora Brovina' s husband is the guest of Serbian women in Belgrade.
This is a sign of hope, the hope that it possible to act differently even in Serbia.
It is not true that Flora Brovina has been abandoned. She might well have been abandoned by the large institutions, but we, who worked in Kosovo and Serbia for many years, are doing our utmost to campaign for her release.
I believe that the European Union must do likewise.
The embargo on Serbia must be lifted and Serbia must, in turn, release its political prisoners.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to fully endorse Mrs Pack' s very emotionally-charged contribution.
What she has said here is completely justified.
There is not one truth in Kosovo, there are several.
I refuse to accept that we can now talk about a genocide in reverse - that is bending the truth.
I completely concur with the draft resolution which is before us.
We condemn all violence over there and that is what we need to do, but we cannot talk about genocide in reverse.
Needless to say, the situation in Mitrovica is very dangerous and we all know why.
There are also important economic interests at stake and the whole tragedy surrounding the Trepca mines also plays its part.
We have already talked about the fate of the political prisoners.
There is a great deal of pain, a lot of suffering in Kosovo.
The people are holding demonstrations, they are sending us e-mails.
They ask us where their children are, their sons. We need to be able to go back with a proper answer.
The case of Flora Brovina is just one of many.
We are right to include this in the draft resolution, but there are hundreds, even thousands of Flora Brovinas out there.
I would ask the Commission and the absent Council at long last to do something for these political prisoners.
The fact that they are locked up in Serbia also fuels the unrest and violence in Kosovo.
Mr President, in the present joint draft resolution, paragraph 10 urges the Council and Member States - rightly so - to double their efforts so as to make the necessary manpower and resources available for the UN police units.
This request is fully in line with the vision held by the Special Representative of the UN in Kosovo, Mr Bernard Kouchner.
In order to fulfil his mission to restore and maintain public order in Kosovo, he needs, by his own reckoning, at least 6 000 foreign police officers.
The UN, however, have pledged to dispatch a police force of 4 800.
To date, however, Mr Kouchner only has about 2 000 police troops at his disposal.
Moreover, half of this group is from the United States and Germany.
It is logical that the Special Representative of the UN in Kosovo is extremely dissatisfied with this situation, especially in the light of the endemic ethnic violence in the region.
What is disconcerting, however, is Mr Kouchner' s sharp criticism levelled at the French Government these days.
Paris is leaving its fellow-countryman completely in the cold with a handful of policemen, not more than 37, in the crisis region.
For this hardly honourable position, Mr Kouchner blames none other than the Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Chevènement.
According to Mr Kouchner, the Minister is said to have hindered the efforts of the French police officials on ideological grounds.
I would ask the Council and the Commission to look into these serious allegations carefully and inform the European Parliament of the outcome.
Press freedom in Angola
Mr President, I do not intend to repeat the premise put forward earlier for fear of being accused of improper publicity.
On the question of Angola, I think that we would achieve an initial result if we had a resolution at long last.
It would be the first in a long time.
So I welcome it as such.
I think that the European Union and the western world in general has had Mr Savimbi in their crossfire for some time now, with no discrimination whatsoever, but corruption is now so rife in Mr Dos Santos' s regime that even his long-standing friends are starting to find it hard to pretend not to see anything.
So I think that we urgently need to get to the point where we can pass a general political resolution in which we can get to the heart of the matter, especially the worrying things which we are discussing, particularly logistics support for the information services by the United States and Great Britain, generalised corruption in the regime linked to multinational oil companies and numerous other extremely 'spicy' matters which we need to go into.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has rightly led the way in promoting human rights in the European Union.
Clearly, governments are often more sensitive to the interests of realpolitik and to commercial, geostrategic or economic interests.
We have established requirements for the countries which want to join our Union and we must also establish requirements for the countries which we support, because we believe in democracy and its values.
A free press and informed public opinion are the heart and soul of a democracy.
There can be no democracy without freedom of information and without free and informed public opinion.
Yet the latter cannot exist without free and unrestricted social communication which itself cannot exist when journalists are persecuted, detained, threatened or put under pressure.
We rightfully condemned the behaviour of UNITA which threatened the peace process in Angola and we used our authority to invite the two sides to stop the war and embrace peace. Rightfully and with the full weight of our authority, we condemn the persecution and threats against journalists and we call on the Government of Angola to ensure the conditions of freedom which are essential to the vital work of journalists in a democratic country and society.
Mr President, how much longer can we continue our cooperation with Angola? Human rights are being violated consistently and have been for a long period of time, not only by UNITA, but also by the government itself.
The legal proceedings against the journalists fly in the face of every legal principle.
The Angolan Government must immediately authorise a substantial UN presence which can mediate and can report on human rights.
Additionally, European observers will need to be admitted to the trials against the journalists.
Europe, as a major donor, has so far remained too passive with regard to Angola.
If the Angolan Government continues to refuse to cooperate, measures will need to be taken.
Without national reconciliation, reconciliation with Europe is not possible.
This being the case, Angola will unfortunately remain a very rough diamond.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I fully support the motion for a resolution being discussed by this House. The repression of both Angolan and foreign journalists in Angola is scandalous and so serious that we cannot let it pass without comment.
However, this motion is inadequate as it actually starts from the principle that Angola enjoys rule of law and is only imposing certain restrictions on journalists and restraining them.
Yet this is not the situation.
Angola does not enjoy rule of law. It is a repressive dictatorship.
It is at war, and a bloody war at that, which is dragging on and on.
The prevalent theory that the enemy must be crushed and physically eliminated to achieve peace is not one which we can accept.
The repeated appeals made by the Angolan church and, for example, by Mr Mandela and Mr Mbeki, for new negotiations to try and achieve peace must be supported by this House.
As another Member said, we must have a general debate on Angola and not just on the situation of certain journalists suffering repression in this country.
For example, I have today received information directly from Rafael Marques, whose situation we are discussing, according to which two correspondents from Portuguese television have been imprisoned in Angola.
These cases keep occurring.
Yet the worst part is that there is no way out of the situation in Angola.
The silence of the major powers and our own silence are questionable and are benefiting a regime of corruption, violence and war.
I must draw attention to the fact that the war in Angola is spreading to other parts of Africa.
It is impacting on the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and on the situations in Namibia and Zambia. It is now also affecting the situation in Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe has just lost the referendum precisely because he has sent troops to the Congo to prop up Laurent Kabila who is beyond salvation.
There are two sides in Angola or rather two armed groups.
The first is the MPLA, which controls the oil profits. The second is the armed band of Mr Savimbi, which controls the diamond profits.
It is oil and diamonds which are financing the continuation of the war which, as has been said, is terrible. It has displaced millions of people and caused them to go hungry.
It has led to a critical and tragic situation in Angola.
This war must be stopped.
The authority of this House could play an important part if we were to have a major debate on the Angolan situation and also on the whole of southern Africa.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the motion for a resolution before us today is important because of its subject and the desire to protect the rule of law and press freedom.
It is also very important because of the broad consensus which has finally been reached after some heated discussions behind the scenes.
The problem considered by the motion is a major one but, as has already been touched upon, could be regarded as minor in light of the even greater problem of the general situation in Angola which is experiencing a terrible humanitarian disaster.
This situation, as in neighbouring former Zaire, is like a festering wound in which it is not clear who is infecting whom.
As Mr Soares just said, a truly terrible situation is developing in Angola and in other countries in the region.
This was appropriately described a few weeks ago as the First World War of Africa, given the involvement of certain countries in others.
This is a major issue because the Angolan State and authorities must assume their responsibilities.
The international community and the European Union must spell this out very clearly.
These journalists are professionals who are trying to inform the public in their country and denounce the corruption existing in this regime, for which they are being persecuted.
It is clear that such a scenario will never allow peace to be established in Angola.
We have experienced this in our own national and European history. People can only enjoy lasting peace if they are living in a free and pluralist society where everyone is mutually tolerant.
The cause of these journalists is therefore one which we must embrace, although bearing in mind that the problem goes much wider and much deeper and is much more terrible.
Like a previous speaker, I also fully support the appeals which have been made.
We must, some time soon, find the courage to tackle the whole Angolan problem more broadly and more vigorously.
In recent years, the behaviour of UNITA has merited our reservations and criticisms but this cannot be used to excuse the Angolan State for having established a disastrous war economy with widespread corruption resulting in the continued suffering of its people.
We must establish dialogue with other forces in Angola, be attentive to the appeals of the Angolan church and encourage the emergence of other national institutions, national reconciliation and new cultural and political forces not engaged in war. These can then eventually free this country and this people from the armed fate which they have been experiencing for decades.
The people of Angola deserve better.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems as if the world is turned upside down.
Journalists are sent to prison for simply speaking the truth, whilst soldiers who are supposedly fighting each other exchange smuggled goods in the bar in the evening.
This is Angola' s reality.
We are now expressing our horror concerning this war.
Three million victims, two million driven from their homes within the country' s borders, hundreds of thousands driven away across its borders, including women and children.
This is a war which transcends its borders. It is not just UNITA which is to blame.
The government too is responsible for this continuing violence. This is why we insist that the journalists - more than 20 were imprisoned last year - keep speaking their minds.
We would, at the same time, like to insist on other things.
We want the UN embargo, which is supposed to prevent a large proportion of arms and ammunition from being flown across to UNITA airports, to stop.
But what do these sanctions mean? It is the western world itself which is partly to blame.
It is we, our own people, who keep the war going over there.
The so-called civilised world should hang its head in shame.
This is also the case for the so-called statutory government which is just as guilty, because if this journalist has accused the President himself of deriving benefit from this civil war, then all he is doing is voicing what the entire world knows already and which is being passed on to every tribal district across Africa.
Mr President, we are partly to blame for this war.
We should stop financing this regime and we should certainly stop supplying arms for the war.
Mr President, the facts are well-known.
On 24 December, the Angolan court sentenced a correspondent of the Portuguese paper, Expresso, to a year' s imprisonment and a fine of USD 20 000.
The journalist had brought to light a corruption scandal in the President' s cabinet.
The trial took place behind closed doors and the defendant was only allowed one witness.
Another journalist was threatened with his life during a parliamentary debate last month by a member of parliament of the MPLA government party.
These are only two examples of a trend in Angola to silence any government critics.
Over the past year, more than twenty journalists have been arrested for alleged slander or criminal offences against state security.
Their only crime was to criticise what human rights organisations have been denouncing all along, namely the large-scale corruption and disappearance of hundreds of millions of dollars, paid by the oil companies to the Angolan Government.
Even the British Minister, Peter Hain, conceded this recently. We should ensure that the oil revenue is not used merely to finance the war or to line the pockets of prominent members of government, he told President Dos Santos last month.
But, at the same time, we note that Great Britain and also Portugal are continuing to channel military aid to the government.
There is indeed a great deal of hypocrisy regarding Angola.
On the basis of a report, the human rights organisation Global Witness concluded that the western world is turning a blind eye to the activities of Dos Santos because it is fishing for lucrative oil contracts.
I would like to challenge Portugal to deliver proof to the contrary, by making commercial interests subservient to human rights, to which so much lip service is being paid.
In my opinion, Angola is a test case.
We should, at any rate, judge the Portuguese Presidency on its actions and not on its words.
Native Americans in the US - Dineh
Mr President, the American leaders do not seem to have learnt a great deal from the criticism of how they treated the Indians and other indigenous peoples.
We have to admit that our European sense of responsibility is no more developed in this respect.
Once again, an indigenous people' s right of existence is being threatened.
Once again, the individuality, dignity and health of a people are being sacrificed to the higher economic interest.
Once again, we are losing a piece of our planet' s cultural and ecological heritage, despite the many treaties and resolutions on human rights, on the protection of minorities, rights of indigenous peoples, etc., which have already been ratified.
If tradition and culture have to make way for economic imperatives at all, we should at least give sufficient attention to the reception and reintegration of the peoples concerned.
But if we are to believe the environmental movements, even this is vain hope.
There are hardly any reintegration programmes for people who have been relocated to the so-called New Lands.
It very much remains to be seen whether these New Lands will be safe in terms of public health.
It is of key importance that the American authorities provide greater clarity regarding the way in which they are trying to offer these families a dignified alternative in keeping with a traditional way of life.
It is also important that a debate is held where the long-term effects of mining in this region are discussed and weighed up in economic, ecological and social terms.
The credibility of the industrialised north is at stake.
Indeed, what right do we have to demand of developing countries that they give their minorities a voice, that they protect their valuable natural areas and that they respect human rights, if it transpires that we are unable to meet these demands in our own countries?
Mr President, as Mr Van Hecke rightly pointed out, this is about human rights and about the rights of indigenous peoples, and Parliament must speak up, especially vis-à-vis good friends, and the United States is a good friend.
This is about the repression of a minority which unfortunately goes back a long time.
It is up to the European Parliament to protect vulnerable people.
So we need to do this.
This is also about respecting a culture, a language, a way of life and a people' s religion, a vulnerable culture which has nearly disappeared.
It is important to point this out.
This is why it is necessary - and Mr Van Hecke has already mentioned this, and this is also what we clearly ask for in our resolution - that the role of mining in this vulnerable desert area is reassessed.
We have just approved the water directive here in Parliament.
The water which these people need to exist is under threat because the groundwater strata there are being drilled by a mining company, and this is why the traditional way of life of the people who live there is being threatened.
The forced relocation scheme must be stopped unconditionally.
People should no longer be forced to move.
Over the past 25 years, no less than 25 000 people have been forced to move and this must stop.
If people need to move at all, they need to be given a viable alternative.
This is not the case here.
The area where the people in question are now being taken - and this is also the reason for this resolution - is a polluted area which is economically not suitable.
This is why I think that we as European Parliament need to ask the American authorities in any case to suspend the relocation scheme under discussion and, if necessary, abandon the scheme altogether.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is my maiden speech and I am delivering it with a great deal of pleasure and conviction as the topic is human rights.
In terms of human rights, Europe has a very eventful past and this is why we have become to some extent the cradle of these human rights.
We need to continue to stand up for these rights, especially in our own Member States and societies, but also elsewhere.
As Mr Sterckx said, we certainly need to do this vis-à-vis the United States which, after all, is close to us in terms of democratic values.
The treatment of the Native Americans in many respects flies in the face of the most fundamental human rights.
The account of the Dineh Indians is telling.
With the discovery and, certainly, the exploitation of black gold - and, later on, uranium and oil - all possible means were used to remove these people from their land and to send them to regions with few prospects other than poverty, hardship and contamination.
The area in Arizona which is to be the New Land for the Dineh Indians was hit in 1979 by the worst nuclear disaster in US history.
It is now the intention to send the last 4 000 Dineh Indians to this land.
The fight of these Indians is being backed by more than 250 NGOs and, thanks to the efforts of the Belgian 'Mother Earth' organisation, we are being kept informed of this situation.
This too is characteristic of American society, which hears little about it.
They get het up about wars and genocide on other continents, but wrongly keep quiet about the genocide taking place in their own country.
Today, the Dineh Indians are facing their final fight for their right to land, for their right to dignity and, above all, for their right to their way of life.
There are few of them left and they are up against a very powerful, economic adversary.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I endorse the many comments which have been made by the previous speakers, but I would like to emphasise a few things.
The Dineh people belong to the North-American Navajo Indians.
They are facing expulsion and have been fighting a battle of survival for dozens of years.
They have been living in harrowing living conditions for years.
The deprived conditions in which they are living at the moment is forcing them to compromise against their better judgement under the financial and economic pressure exercised by the coal industries.
The Relocation Act, which was introduced in 1974 and aims to re-distribute the land of the Navajo reservation, authorised the relocation of the peoples.
This relocation is, of course, unacceptable because human rights are being violated in economic, social and cultural terms.
The Dineh Indians are being moved like pawns and, in that way, lose not only their past and the land which is so extremely important to them - the land of their forefathers - but also any prospect of work and sources of income.
The Relocation Act was pushed through in Congress by a group representing the coal mining industry.
Congress never questioned where the people living in the area would have to move to or how relocation would impact on their lives.
The population was not allowed any input.
This resembles a kind of trade in human beings.
The relocation scheme was implemented and the Dineh people were moved to an area contaminated by uranium.
After the collapse of the dam in New Mexico in 1979, which resulted in the spill of 370 000 cubic metres of radioactive water and eleven hundred tonnes of pure uranium, this place is one of the world' s most contaminated areas.
The United States administration, the coal industry and all of us need to acquit ourselves of our responsibility and provide a sound alternative: either the soil is cleaned or the Dineh Indians are allocated a proper place where provision is made for all kinds of support, be it in the psychological, social, cultural or budgetary field.
It is high time we respected the rights of the Indians.
This is why we ask you to vote for this resolution: we in Europe should not be intimidated by American interests which are being pushed by financial, religious and industrial groups.
So let us contact the United States now!
Madam President, despite the protests by the international press, we still do not know the fate of Mr Andrey Babitsky, the courageous Russian journalist who has worked intensively to ensure free and independent information on the ordeal of the civilian population of Chechnya and the destruction of the city of Grozny.
Among the contradictions in the accounts that have been given, there has also been an attempt to reassure international public opinion over Mr Babitsky' s fate, by confirming the theory that there was an exchange of prisoners with Chechen fighters which, inter alia, if this did actually take place, would constitute a breach of international law, which certainly does not provide for the involvement of civilians in such circumstances.
Nevertheless, we now have more precise information: we know that the acting Russian President himself, Mr Vladimir Putin, asked Russian special services to safeguard Andrey Babitsky' s life and freedom.
This is an admission that confirms all our concerns and makes Parliament' s position on the case all the more appropriate, as it calls for a concurrent explanation of other cases of journalists who have disappeared in the Chechen region during the conflict and the safeguarding of media coverage of a conflict that has reached unacceptable levels of violence.
Moreover, we are asking the Russian authorities to provide immediate clarification of conditions in the so-called detention centres, and remind them that those responsible for any arbitrary detention, maltreatment or killing of civilians are laying themselves open to accusations of crimes against humanity.
We would ask the Council and the Commission for clear and prompt action and a political initiative which does not overlook the issue of human rights.
Mr President, in terms of human rights, there is of course a great deal amiss in Chechnya.
We have received reports from human rights organisations saying that Russian soldiers killed and apparently even executed citizens - I am talking about old men and women - in Grozny.
Citizens are believed to have been burnt alive in air-raid shelters.
We insist that these violations of human rights are investigated.
Despite the pledges made, violations in, for example, Alfanyurt have still not been investigated.
International government organisations and non-governmental organisations must be allowed access, and the Union' s general Council decided on 6 December 1999 to send representatives from the Member States to Ingushetia to study the humanitarian situation there. I am, to say the least, curious to know how they are getting on.
The fate of Andrey Babitsky, the correspondent in Grozny of Radio Liberty, who was arrested by Russian troops, is a dramatic example of Russian policy.
It contravenes Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of 1949 and is a flagrant violation of the freedom of the press.
We want information from the Russian authorities as to Mr Babitsky' s whereabouts and his state of health.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the tragic case of the courageous Russian journalist Andrey Babitsky illustrates once again the depth of the democratic crisis into which Russia has sunk.
The entire Federation is allowing itself to be taken in by the war propaganda.
A warlord has become President and he has even been described as a reformer in some western quarters.
Journalists, on the other hand, who are simply going about their work in Russia, i.e. endeavouring to produce reports which are as objective as possible, are being treated like criminals.
The Russian Government appears to have lost its fundamental understanding of what democracy is about and truth appears to have become a threat in its eyes.
I can only reiterate my appeal to the Council and the Commission to stick to the rules.
It is simply not possible for a country to have normal economic relations with the EU if it does not recognise democratic principles.
Mr President, what sort of government hands over one of its own citizens to people whom it itself describes as 'terrorists' and 'bandits' ? Without any hesitation, the Russian Minister for Internal Affairs, Vladimir Rushailo, earlier this week confirmed the answer to this revealing question.
The victim of this exchange is said to be the 35-year-old war correspondent of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Andrey Babitsky.
I am using the phrase 'is said to be' on purpose, because official Chechen sources are still denying that they would have exchanged Mr Babitsky for a number of Russian prisoners of war.
In the meantime, the highest Russian authorities are casting a veil of secrecy over the mysterious disappearance of this courageous journalist.
For example, Acting President Vladimir Putin gave an assurance last Monday that he had ordered the country' s security services to bring the missing reporter back to Moscow safely.
Russia' s new strong man, however, added a rather puzzling comment to this welcome declaration: 'As far as I am aware, Mr Babitsky already feels free.'
This distressing ambiguity on the part of the Kremlin is not really surprising.
The facts are clear.
Andrey Babitsky was an unwanted busybody in Mr Putin' s 'anti-terrorist' operation in Chechnya.
Hence his disappearance of over one month.
In any case, the Babitsky affair warrants one conclusion: the leaders in Moscow cannot possibly maintain that hostage-taking and trading in defenceless citizens is a specifically Chechen crime.
This resolution is already the fourth in a row within a short space of time in connection with the Chechen tragedy.
Nor is it a mere luxury.
Indeed, it is in line with some thirty Russian media bodies which yesterday distributed a special issue on Andrey Babitsky free of charge.
Cambodia
Mr President, it became known this week that two prominent Cambodian opposition papers have been threatened with closure because they are reported to have insulted the king and prime minister.
These papers actively support the opposition politician, Mr Sam Rengie.
Legal proceedings have been initiated against Sam Rengie himself in order to lift his parliamentary immunity so that he can be brought to trial for treason.
In his millennium speech, he dared to raise the fact that it should become clear what the procedure would be for appointing the successor to King Sihanouk in the event of his death.
In March of last year, a member of Sam Rengie' s party was killed by a group of men in military uniform in the province of Kandal.
In September, two members of the party were arrested because they were reported to have been involved in a rocket attack on the prime minister.
This is notably the only party in Cambodia which has no military arm.
In October, a member of parliament belonging to the same party was abducted by uniformed men and not released until the ransom was paid.
The pattern of intimidation is clear.
There is more going on in Cambodia: prisoners are being tortured, the army and police are involved in the trade in women and children, and people are held on remand to an excessive degree.
All this is happening on a daily basis.
Even more serious is the government' s refusal to bring the leaders of the Khmer Rouge before an international tribunal.
It is true, the civil war in Cambodia is over and political tension has eased.
The way in which the political opposition is now being treated, however, gives us cause for great concern and, if it carries on like this, it is bound to impact on the Union' s relations with Cambodia.
Mr President, there is a new doctrine taking shape in international law, according to which no country can treat its citizens or the people living within its territory in any way it likes, and the sovereignty of the state can no longer prevent outside intervention when there are gross violations of human rights, not even when the government is legally or even democratically elected.
Living examples of this have been the Pinochet-Ugarten case, Kosovo and, in milder form in our own Union, the debate surrounding the government decision in Austria.
This is what is at stake now in Cambodia unless the leaders of the previous oppressive regime are bought to justice.
At the same time, the struggle against impunity is under threat.
The situation should also remind us all that the ratification of the Treaty for an International Criminal Court has been shamefully slow.
Thank you very much Commissioner Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.00 p.m.
Danube environmental disaster
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0164/2000 by Mr Leinen on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists,
B5-0167/2000 by Mr Maaten and Mrs Thors on behalf of the Group of the European Democrat and Reform Party,
B5-0168/2000 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Grossetête on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats,
B5-0173/2000 by Mr Papayannakis and Mr Sjöstedt on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left,
B5-0179/2000 by Mrs Schroedter and others on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
on the environmental disaster caused by cyanide leaking from a Romanian goldmine into the Lepos, Somes, Tisza and Danube Rivers.
Mr President, we debated the framework directive on water this week, and the disaster in Romania has demonstrated once again how very seriously we need to take the protection of water.
This disaster has raised a number of important issues which concern us as a European Union.
We are delighted with the pledge that EU aid will be used to clean the rivers, and at least as important is the reinforcement of environmental awareness both in Romania and, more generally, in Central and Eastern Europe.
We therefore welcome Commissioner Wallström' s brief visit, for it can contribute to this awareness.
After all, this is a candidate country we are talking about, and this disaster is in addition to the existing concern about whether all candidate countries will comply with the EU environmental rules in time.
The polluter ought to pay.
I wonder whether the European Union can recoup this kind of cost from the environmental cowboys who appear in the so-called 'Wild East' , making use of the inadequate environmental legislation in place.
I would be in favour of its doing so.
Mr President, when the Doñana disaster occurred, the non-governmental organisation, the World Wide Fund for Nature, gave us a report on the number of reservoirs of this type in Europe.
The number is huge. They are an ecological time bomb and affect the drinking water supply, ecological wealth and economic future of surrounding areas.
I visited Doñana after the spill and saw how agriculture, fishing and the lives of people in the surrounding area were enormously compromised.
I therefore believe that the European Union must, to start with, carry out an analysis of the situation of these reservoirs and compile a precise record of the number of these in Europe.
We must bring these reservoirs under Community law and the directives on waste and we must use the precautionary principle to ensure that this type of event does not happen again.
If we do not, we will be permanently endangering the ecological wealth of our continent.
Mr President, this disaster at the mine in Romania affects a large hydrogeological area with rivers and watercourses in Romania, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria, The fact that 100 000 m3 of cyanide-poisoned water and large quantities of heavy metals have leaked out into the ecosystem is going to have appalling consequences for people in the area for a very long time to come, as well as for animal and plant life, agriculture, the tourist industry, biodiversity and the whole of the ecosystem.
It is incomprehensible that an accident of this kind could have happened at all today.
Is a substance as poisonous as cyanide really to be used in the mining industry and in the production of metals? The answer, of course, is an emphatic no.
There must be no more manufacture or use of cyanide.
I assume, therefore, that the EU will take the initiative and see to it that there is a total, worldwide ban on the manufacture and use of that substance. It has already been banned in most EU countries for a long time now.
That an accident like this can happen at all is therefore an extremely shameful state of affairs.
I have been informed that the Commissioner for the Environment, Margot Wallström, has travelled from Strasbourg to Romania in order to see for herself, on the spot, what has happened.
My Group assumes that Margot Wallström will promise to provide aid to those communities which have been affected: economic aid, support in terms of environmental expertise and help in connection with the massive cleaning-up operation which is required.
This highlights the need for something which we in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance have been demanding for an extremely long time, namely a rapid reaction force offering protection to civilians in the event of major environmental and industrial catastrophes of this type.
It also sheds light upon the low level of environmental requirements in some of the applicant States.
We must demand that there should be no exceptions which could jeopardise people' s health and the ecosystems.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTE
Mr President, I abstained from voting on company restructuring because, after hoping that the Community would intervene on company restructuring, I would like to specifically remind the House that it is indeed true that a thousand people have been left jobless, deprived of the chance to continue working but, if the States had not delayed the official pensionable age - of at least 200 000 people in Italy, who are therefore continuing to work and who would otherwise have freed up 200 000 jobs if the laws which delayed their pensionable age by five years had not intervened - we would not now be looking at a figure of one thousand people unemployed: there would now be a thousand employed workers, albeit in another firm, but they would nevertheless have had a job.
.
(FR) The only reason we voted for the PSE-Verts/ALE-GUE/NGL compromise motion for a resolution is because this resolution allowed us to condemn the decision by the Goodyear-Dunlop management to close its factory in Italy.
However, the measures set out in this resolution are derisory in terms of combating the policy of the major industrial groups which are shedding jobs and exacerbating unemployment.
Moreover, it is all just words, because the Socialist governments, which are now in a majority in Europe, are just as incapable of taking action to prevent redundancies as right-wing governments.
The real problem is not finding a legal way of slightly complicating redundancy procedures, but banning them.
The only way of stopping the diabolical machine which produces capital gains on the one side and unemployment on the other is to ban redundancies in all large companies which are in profit, on pain of compulsory purchase, and to publish the accounts of large companies and subject them to the scrutiny of the workers and the general public.
Society must have the means of enforcing its own agenda on large companies and their owners. The first item on that agenda is the eradication of unemployment.
The sums needed to create useful jobs in public services and finance the distribution of work among everyone, without cutting wages, must be taken from the profits of large companies.
It is far more important for the majority of society than the waste involved in financial operations or the scandalous enrichment of a minority of large shareholders.
.
(SV) I cannot support the present resolution because, in paragraph 8, an individual factory in Italy is singled out with the express wish that precisely this establishment should remain in place, while the current management is being advised to try to sell the factory to a European tyre manufacturer.
It is not the European Parliament' s business to express an opinion on which factories in the European Union' s 15 Member States are to remain in place and which are to be shut down; to expand their work forces or reduce them; stay in the same location or else move; be sold or not be sold; and, in the case of those which are to be sold, to comment on whether they are to be sold to companies within or outside Europe.
Ultimately, it is a question of different spheres of authority, where the European Parliament and its Members do not have any legal means of changing the current corporate decision or do not even have a particularly deep knowledge of the situation in the factory as it stands.
The Swedish Christian Democrats would emphasise the value of the European Union' s and the European Parliament' s concentrating on their basic tasks and not undermining the value of their actions in these areas by also acting in areas outside their jurisdiction.
Tourism and employment
The next item is the report (A5­0030/2000) by Mr Viceconte, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission: 'Enhancing tourism' s potential for employment - follow-up to the conclusions and recommendations of the High Level Group on Tourism and Employment' [COM(1999)0205 - C5-0112/1999 - 1999/2115(COS)].
, rapporteur. (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, despite the European Union' s delay and indecision with regard to the introduction of a fully-fledged Community policy on tourism, increasing attention is being paid to tourism as a sector capable of generating new jobs.
One of the reasons for the Community' s interest is the structural flexibility of this sector of the employment market, which explains its attractiveness for women and young people, to whom it often offers their first experience of employment.
The importance of the tourist industry and its impact on employment - although everyone is now aware of this - is nevertheless based more on personal experience rather than on verifiable statistical data.
The fact that, due to the absence of sufficiently reliable and scientific statistical data, the tourist industry is in effect an unknown quantity has greatly limited the prospects of pursuing a consistent policy in this area and creating employment on a wider scale.
It would be appropriate, therefore, to begin by summarising the impact of tourism on the lives of Union citizens and the desirability, in both economic and social terms, of promoting the European tourist industry.
Firstly, I would remind you that the tourist industry is one of the infrastructures which any advanced society must have. Without it, institutions, business and the world of work could not function.
Tourism must therefore be thought of as the whole range of goods and services required by individuals moving from their habitual place of residence and thus confers mobility, the characteristic feature of contemporary society.
The term 'tourism' must no longer be solely perceived as synonymous with sun, sea and holidays, which has the effect of reducing the interest taken in the subject at institutional level.
Secondly, I would like to explode a myth, taking as a starting point an apparent paradox, which is clearly highlighted by Eurostat figures: the main international tourist countries are not those traditionally regarded as tourist destinations, but on the contrary the most advanced nations, whose quality of life is one of their main attractions and most heavily promoted features.
Clearly, the importance of tourism for the economy of regions traditionally regarded as tourist destinations, southern regions for example, is very different, and should be studied carefully.
It is an obvious truth, and one that is measurable by other economic and social indicators, that thanks to tourism, many Mediterranean regions have undergone a radical change for the better in their economic and social system and the way of life of their inhabitants, and achieved a drastic reduction in the numbers emigrating.
Social growth has occurred only in those areas where the tourist market has given rise to the development of all the activities required to meet the needs of visiting tourists, thus creating an entire productive system.
In such cases, there is a measurable increase in employment as a result of the growth in tourist numbers, thus establishing a virtuous circle of growth in the local economy.
This reminds us that tourism cannot be regarded as the poor countries' petroleum industry, because it requires huge investment in structures, infrastructures, entrepreneurship, professional expertise, social services and training; that the tourist industry is essential for the equilibrium of many regions as it provides a direct source of employment and a market for all local productive activities: agriculture, small firms in the industrial and craft sector, transport, services, retail sector, training, etc; that the development of the Community' s tourist industry is closely linked to its sustainability with regard to the Community objectives; that the varied geography and historical, cultural and environmental heritage must be protected and exploited.
In my opinion, the European Union can, in compliance with the principle of subsidiarity, supplement the action of the Member States and contribute to consolidating the potential of tourism by means of certain measures, such as the adoption of a specific legal basis for tourism policy in the Treaties; the adoption of mechanisms within the programmes and projects set up under its regional policies and other policies of the Union, with a view to promoting tourism in all its forms: rural, environmental, cultural, conference-based, spa-related and sports-related tourism, and also tourism focusing on senior citizens, research and training; the amendment of Directive 95/57/EC on the collection of statistical information in the field of tourism; the cofinancing of projects to set up new transport services and infrastructures; the cofinancing of pilot schemes involving benchmarking and the exchange of experiences.
These and other specific measures included in my report can, in my view, lend added value to the actions that the competent national and regional authorities should foster, in order to promote tourism and create new jobs, starting with the adoption of positive fiscal measures to assist small and medium-sized firms, particularly by reducing the burden of charges on labour.
Mr President, Commissioner, before I explain to you the position of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, I would like to share with you three basic factors which, in my opinion, determine the present and future of European tourism in an international environment.
In Europe today, the tourism market contributes 5.5% of the gross national product and occupies a rather significant proportion of the workforce, approximately 6%.
Those figures are incomparably higher for some countries.
To grasp the importance of tourism for some parts of Europe, it is worth pointing out that in my own country, Greece, a country that attracts tourists, over the past four decades, during which the farming population has clearly aged and the population is over-concentrated in the major urban centres, the only areas which have retained populations of low average age or to which young people have returned are ones where tourism has developed.
It is therefore clear that besides being a matter of general economic interest for Europe, tourism is a priority for the economic and social participation of the European Union' s regions.
Another factor is that the world market is growing explosively.
The forecast is for ten billion tourists in 2010, but unfortunately for Europe there is a reverse trend.
Europe' s share of the increase is falling drastically each year to the benefit of Asia, the Far East and America.
You see, the world tourism market is influenced every day and directly by the liberalisation of transport, its reduced cost, and competition from new centres of tourism outside Europe.
Furthermore, 90% of businesses active in tourism are small or medium-sized, the very enterprises which form the living cells of our social and economic tissue, which are called upon to tackle the new obstacles and respond positively to the challenges of this global development.
As the rapporteur said, this becomes particularly important when tourism is appreciated as a unitary productive system because of its ability to absorb large quantities of agricultural and industrial products, services and transport and to create a significant amount of added value.
Here, then, I want to point out that international competition is tough and, if we are to overcome it positively, we must together envision and share a long-term strategy.
We must take very serious note of the need to upgrade the human resources engaged in tourism, so that tourism will be able to respond to the new technological challenges of our age.
Today, nobody can ignore the fact that new digital technologies and systems, with Internet at the sharp end, mobile telephones and digital television, are bringing about radical changes in tourism as a whole and its respective structures and operational models.
The introduction of these new technologies is not a threat, but a new opportunity for our tourism because it offers the potential to provide new and innovative tourism products and services, which our tourism needs for an ever-lengthening tourism season, so that it can attract new customers and offer new and alternative forms of tourism.
The new technologies also make it possible to open new markets in traditionally undervalued, non tourist areas, which could develop to become centres of tourism and attract substantial investments.
To this new labour market there must be a response in the programmes of tourism schools and training programmes for company staff, including programmes for training the unemployed and their re-introduction to work.
The Committee on Women' s Rights paid particular attention to the issue of education, because according to official figures women account for 53% of those engaged in tourism services, and in parallel, they form a majority among the working people most easily affected by social and economic change.
We must not forget that people working in tourism, especially women, encounter particular problems such as seasonal work, the need to renew contracts from one year to the next, social protection, lack of interest in continuing education, and reduced possibilities for development.
We therefore ask the European Commission for special measures and to adopt the principle of equal opportunities in all tourism programmes and programmes for company development.
Mr President, I would like to begin with some words of optimism, which came to us in the form of the High-Level Group communication of October 1998, the first page of which said that by the end of the next decade, it would be possible to create between 2 200 000 e 3 300 000 new jobs in tourism activities in the Union. In addition, it said that this would only happen if the right conditions were created.
The Commission and Parliament are called upon to answer two questions: what are the right conditions and what is the role of the European Union on this? The Commission and Parliament can help us understand, in the first place, exactly what we are dealing with, because even the term 'tourism' , as was, moreover, pointed out in the Viceconte report, is still an ambiguous term, a kind of variable that depends on latitude, climate, a range of opportunities, and a series of background factors; it can be synonymous with holidays or it can be a true area of production, income, wealth and employment.
There is a shortage of facts: we have no information on the economic impact, which still remains a complete mystery.
We have criteria for the gathering and interpretation of statistics which are totally at odds with each other, despite what was said in a 1995 directive by the Commission and Parliament.
With the aim of working out a strategy, it is vital to have a reading of these facts which harmonious and as strict as possible, so that we truly make tourism capable of creating jobs.
This does not follow automatically: often in the past a great deal of wealth has been accumulated thanks to the promotion of the tourist industry, without this being matched by an increase in employment.
There is no legal basis, and we feel that this is currently the major obstacle to any intervention in the tourism sector.
A legal basis translates into the ability to formulate strategies, to coordinate and to programme, all vital factors for making European Union tourism competitive with other markets.
A legal basis would mean we would avoid having to draw on the Structural Funds, as was the case in the past, to obtain some loose change. Moreover, only minimal amounts were made available to us: we should bear in mind that the Commission communication indicated amounts totalling EUR 4 700 000 000 over the last five years, which corresponds to the cost of building 400 kilometres of motorway.
There is no opportunity to send a strong message to the Member States: recognising the legal basis of tourism would allow the States to acknowledge one of the European Union' s competences which at the moment, is only exercised in fits and starts.
We fully endorse the Community measures which were recommended in the Commission communication: advantageous taxation, that is, fiscal measures that offer conditions that are truly competitive in this market to the production sector - 95% of which, I would point out, is made up of small and medium-sized businesses, which is equivalent to 2 million small and medium-sized businesses in the European tourism sector; it awards special attention to vocational qualifications in the European Union, and therefore to investing in training; finally, it undertakes to make the job market transparent.
The tourism market is by definition a flexible market; we do not want this flexibility to be seen in a solely negative light, with seasonal work being misinterpreted as illegal work: remember that 50% of employment, especially in southern countries of the European Union, is done on the black economy.
We feel that the European Union and the Commission needs to make a strong commitment to sustainable tourism, which means having a strategy that is compatible with the environment, after the excesses of recent years when private wealth often did not correspond to high levels of employment.
First and foremost, we need to compete in terms of quality.
Finally, we consider that tourism can, in addition to being a growth factor, be a factor for democracy, and in this regard we are asking the Commission for a clear, conscious commitment.
Mr President, there are three points I wish to address.
The first is the inclusion of a legal base in the Treaty.
This is something I favour, but currently as part of a minority in my own Group.
We are all fully conscious of the importance of tourism, both to local economies and as a factor of European integration.
The problem for some of us, however, is the lack of specification of the extent of the legal base and of just how it would relate to considerations of subsidiarity.
Second, there are similar issues related to the establishment of a multiannual programme for tourism.
The resolution contains many excellent ideas for the promotion of different types of tourism and for its increasing professionalism.
At the same time the Commission is currently concerned about confining itself to core tasks.
The question has to be asked whether some of the activities suggested in the resolution might not put more pressure on its resources than is desirable.
Third, there are several references in the resolution to permanent employment.
Of course the promotion of this is desirable and permanent employment need not necessarily mean full-time employment.
But there will always be people who are looking for seasonal employment.
Students are an obvious example.
We have some concern that the resolution does not give enough consideration to them and to ways in which their interests could receive specific protection.
Thus, while complimenting Mr Viceconte on his report and finding a great deal in the resolution to commend, we shall be asking for a number of split votes to allow these concerns to be addressed.
Mr President, I too believe that tourism has a very important role to play, not just in our European regions, but throughout the world, because it is a great asset when it comes to economic and social development.
But it is also a very vulnerable sector, as we recently saw with the oil slick.
A flourishing tourist sector can be totally wiped out by an ecological disaster such as an oil slick.
When it comes to tourism, we can no longer do what we like where we like.
There are huge reserves; certain zones, rural zones, so-called zones lagging behind but which still have unspoilt nature and untouched natural habitats, are listed as having good potential for what we call eco-tourism or green tourism.
This could be developed and provide a large number of new jobs.
But these regions need to take real account of positive and negative experiences in other tourist sectors.
We must not kill the goose that lays the golden egg of tourism.
Tourism must be environmentally friendly if it is to continue to be an asset in the future.
I can think of many mountain regions which are continually spoilt in order to develop a tourist sector.
We have stopped counting the damage and destruction in natural habitats and mountain zones.
I should also like to refer to the darker side of tourism, the tourism exported from the Member States of the European Union. I am referring to sex tourism.
I know that action is being taken against this so-called tourism elsewhere, but we must remember the European Union' s responsibility at this level.
Under no circumstances can we, as responsible politicians, allow what is currently happening to continue, with young girls practically bought in the countries of the East and coming here to be abused on the cheap.
Finally, I should like to refer to the tourism which gives citizens contact with the outside world and democracy.
I am thinking in particular of countries such as Cuba which are isolated but I know, because I have travelled there extensively, that the Cubans who come into contact with tourists can learn something of the outside world, obtain different information and pass on different information.
For all these reasons, I think that reforming the Treaties would allow the huge tourist question, which is an important asset for the whole planet, to be properly integrated.
Mr President, during the most recent meeting of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, I was pleasantly surprised.
The opinion of Mr Sánchez García, addressed to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, contained a remark regarding the IGC.
The draftsman of the opinion held the view that there was no need for a legal foundation for tourism in the Treaty.
This was in contrast to the majority opinion held in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
Having heard many Members who share the view expressed in the opinion, this was a real relief.
Unfortunately, his text has not survived the vote.
It does, however, support my view that I am not, apparently, the only one who cannot agree with the majority opinion.
This brings me to the content of the report.
An important aspect of the tourism industry is employment and potential employment.
Especially in the southern Member States, the tourist industry is a major source of income.
From this vantage point, there is every reason for the government to formulate stimulating measures and a stimulating policy.
The seasonal nature of tourism and the employment fluctuations that this entails also deserve attention.
I am surprised, however, at the fact that many want to achieve this by means of Community policy. This is not desirable, either from the point of view of tourism itself or the stimulation of employment.
The discrepancies between the different regions can often be traced back to cultural or historical factors.
Within these regions, a huge range of problems have their part to play.
It is obvious that mainly local and regional - and, therefore, to a lesser extent national - authorities are best placed to assess the situation and draft appropriate policy.
For this reason, I cannot therefore endorse the transfer of powers to European level.
In addition, employment policy in general is also a factor.
Here too, the structure of the economy differs for each Member State, and the ways in which the current status has been achieved are diverse.
It will not do for one type of policy, probably with many exceptions and adaptations, to be applied.
This would mean that the EU would unjustly be removing tasks from Member States and that the Brussels bureaucracy would be intervening unnecessarily.
It is preferable for Member States to take measures to stimulate employment themselves.
Their expertise, is, of course, superior to that of the Commission.
This is why I am very hesitant when it comes to formulating Community measures to promote employment.
Even in the tourism industry.
It would really be a nuisance if Parliament were to attempt to achieve this unofficially by extending its powers.
Mr President, you will understand that we cannot assent to the present resolution as it stands.
First of all I should like to thank Mr Viceconte for all the work that he has done on this report.
It is a very extensive report.
We greatly welcome it, just as we welcomed the original report that it was based on, the report of the high-level working group which was set up by the European Commission.
I hope that the Commission will not forget that.
Having set it up, I hope the Commission actually makes use of it and therefore does not just allow it to sit around in the corridors and gather dust.
Tourism is basically small businesses and therefore a very fertile area for job creation.
As has already been said in this debate, three million potential new jobs within the next ten years is something well worth going for.
Europe can no longer refuse to give the recognition - both political and in terms of policy-making - that the fastest growing sector of its economy deserves because of its economic and social position.
We need a more dynamic vision based on tourism' s contribution to job creation.
We must recognise a sector that is predominantly engaged in cross-border activity and therefore deserves a European policy with a stimulating, innovative and proactive approach to sustainable business development.
I know the Commissioner is very keen on information technology.
He has convinced me of that.
But his portfolio of information technology and tourism actually go very well together.
There are several reasons why the tourism industry is an ideal test-bed, therefore, for integrating job creation strategies.
Let us look at some of these reasons.
The importance to the economy of tourism and its growth potential is obviously one.
Various sectors of the population are employed by the tourism industry, particularly the more vulnerable groups, such as young people, women and the unskilled.
I am not saying that we do not need to raise the skills within the sector - of course we do - but let us get the jobs established first.
The availability of unskilled, temporary and seasonal work is very important in some of the economic areas of the Community.
Tourism contributes to regional development - in rural areas that are maybe trying to diversify - and tourism contributes to urban areas that aim to raise the profile of their own cultural heritage.
If we take all these aspects together we have the potential of really doing something in Europe and maybe extending the tourism season by staggering holidays right across Europe.
We must not lose sight of the fact that with enlargement we have the potential to increase the number of visitors who come to Europe' s shores to see some of the traditional cultural heritage that has not been opened up to the world for quite a number of years - in fact, about forty years.
We are losing market share.
I believe we have to do something to make ourselves more competitive.
I hope you will help us.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are addressing a very important sector that directly involves over 10 million jobs in the European Union and helps the more or less disadvantaged, island and remote areas to stand on their own feet.
And of course, tourism creates more jobs and contributes to the stimulation of employment, especially among society' s more sensitive sections: women and young people.
In view of all this, I think it is a serious contradiction that there is no European policy on tourism.
The lack of any legal base makes it impossible to adopt measures relating to the sector.
The occasional application of Article 308 - formerly Article 235 - which requires unanimity, has prevented the adoption of a programme even of only EUR 8 million for five years and 15 Member States.
The measures taken from time to time in the past have been fragmentary and therefore ineffective, and such provisions as have been made were dictated by parallel policies such as consumer protection, environmental policy, transport policy, taxation policy, etc., which very often are not only no help to tourism but on the contrary make it more difficult, since their introduction has usually entailed costs for the tourism industry without regard to its ability to bear them or its incentives to cope with them.
With sorrow, I stress that in the context of restructuring the Commission' s services, tourism is dealt with by a section, not even a directorate, within the Directorate-General for 'Enterprise' .
But we must support our tourism!
In our view, the axes which could create a basis for its support are: the addition of material capital for tourism in the new review which will also constitute a legal base for the sector, the framing of a Community tourism policy to support the sector without disturbing the operation of the tourism market, coordination of the tourism policy with other, parallel Community policies which affect it directly or indirectly, a study of the sector, and the adoption of medium and long-term measures to enhance the competitiveness of tourism as a product.
Mr President, Commissioner, since the issue of employment has been raised, I want to recall another issue which is also very serious, namely the bankruptcies among Tour Operators and their consequences mainly for hotels, which are small or medium enterprises lacking the necessary organisation and access to information that would indicate to them whether or not their contractual partners are trustworthy.
Clearly it is impossible to adopt measures at the national level.
In contrast, at European level it would be possible to look into measures for improving the relations between hotels and Tour Operators, for example a regulation of such relations, the promotion of a special bankruptcy fund, etc., in collaboration with representatives from the two branches.
In the past, the Commission had requested quantitative records of the losses incurred by companies because of such bankruptcies, so that it could form an opinion, and asked the European confederations of hotel-and-restaurant owners and tourist agencies, HOTREC and ECTAA, to work out and draw up a regulation to govern the relations between them.
Since then, however, there has been no progress.
There must therefore be measures to improve the quality and competitiveness of Europe' s tourism and, to the extent of the possible, safeguard the operation of companies.
Such measures must also aim to promote rational use of natural and cultural assets and of the tourism infrastructure, so contributing to the balanced and sustainable development of tourism.
I will end by congratulating Mr Viceconte and, as one who comes from Crete, a tourist area, I ask that we should always view tourism not only in terms of pleasant holidays but as a primary job creator in a Europe which needs those jobs.
Mr President, Commissioner, the new attitude adopted recently by the Commission on this important economic activity is striking to those of us who, in recent years, have kept an eye on tourism and its place in the Community framework.
We all know that this change of heart is basically due to the close cause-effect relationship between tourism and employment. It is also due to the recognition by the European Union, since the 1997 conference on these issues, of the enormous potential, represented by tourism, for employment.
In this respect the Commission communication before us today is opportune, as is the report by Mr Viceconte whom I congratulate.
This report contains 34 conclusions, including 15 calls to the Commission to adopt specific measures and actions without forgetting the environmental dimension and cultural protection, particularly in outermost and island regions. It also contains four calls to the Member States which highlight the need to coordinate actions with the regional authorities and the establishment of measures favourable to tourist-oriented SMEs, particularly in the tax sector and in access to financial instruments.
These would encourage the growth of employment in sectors which use labour intensively, such as the tourist sector.
Finally, once this legal basis to which many of us aspire has been established so that a common tourism policy can be developed, we must be realistic and prepare a strategy on tourism and its relationship with employment, as proposed by the Commission with the support of this House. In this strategy, young people and women, training and quality and the new information society must receive preferential attention.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to start by thanking Mr Viceconte for his report, which has drawn our attention to a sector which is all too often underestimated.
Tourism is a social, economic and cultural phenomenon which affects most European citizens, either as the recipients or the providers of a wide variety of services.
Every year, nearly 200 million Europeans leave their homes for a short time in order to travel, usually to other countries in Europe.
Moreover, Europe is still the main destination for tourists from third countries, even though it faces increasingly stiff competition and an increasingly diversified and attractive range of products.
Since the Treaties contain no specific legal basis for a real Community tourism policy, the European Union must help to improve and encourage cooperation in this sector, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, in order to take practical advantage of the potential which tourism offers in terms of employment.
Vocational training and a mobile workforce are important tools in the strategy to fight unemployment in Europe especially, as far as tourist service providers are concerned, in meeting multicultural demands and ensuring that services are tailored to customers.
Employment in the tourism sector is often highly seasonal and precarious, thereby hampering its sustainable development.
It is therefore even more urgent that we acquire and disseminate managerial and technological skills in order to promote new means of production and a supply of tourism which reflects market developments as closely as possible.
As the report notes, the adoption by the Member States of tax incentives for SMEs in order to reduce labour costs would be an excellent way of promoting growth in employment in labour-intensive sectors and, consequently, in the tourism sector.
This sector of activity is also a deciding factor in the economic and social development of less favoured regions, especially the most remote and island regions, which have undisputed assets in this area.
Let us not forget that, in the most remote regions, tourism is the most important industry in terms of income.
The income and employment generated by tourism help enormously in reducing imbalances and encouraging their economies to converge with the average rate of growth in the Community.
In addition, tourism can promote a certain cultural and economic rapprochement, insofar as it makes us more aware of other European cultures and thus helps respect for European ways of life to develop.
It goes without saying, therefore, that tourism, developed rationally in the long term, should represent a sustainable source of income for local economies, while safeguarding and enhancing the value of the rural, cultural, historical and environmental heritage.
I should like to close by stressing the essential role which the European Union should play in promoting new forms of tourism in new places which will allow continental Europeans to discover the most far-flung destinations in Europe, namely the most remote regions.
Mr President, we are having a major debate on a text of very little substance. The basic document is really no more than a Commission communication which embraces the conclusions and recommendations of a high level group on tourism and employment.
Not only is there very little substance but this is also a rather old document dating from 28 April 1999 which therefore makes it nearly a year old.
This document stems from the previous Commission. It is undoubtedly the result of work carried out by Commissioner Papoutsis throughout his term of office and which culminated in the Luxembourg summit and his failed Philoxenia programme.
I believe this is the first debate in this House with the new Commission and a new Commissioner, Mr Liikanen, who is of course listening very closely to what we are discussing.
I would take this opportunity to ask him a couple of questions directly.
Firstly, the governments made a commitment at the Maastricht Conference of 1992 to include a legal basis for this issue in the Treaties. This commitment was not fulfilled in the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997 and is therefore outstanding.
Yet there is a Council resolution from last June on tourism and employment. What expectations does the Commissioner have that the new Intergovernmental Conference which is starting will include this aspect?
My second question is much more direct and perhaps more awkward.
Bearing in mind the failed efforts of the last decade, as highlighted by Mr Koch, does Commissioner Liikanen believe that he can do something during his term of office to ensure that the Community dimension of tourism becomes a proper policy, given the importance that all the previous speakers have given to tourism in terms of employment? Will the Commission present new initiatives in order to see whether, through the constant efforts of the Commission and Parliament, we can gradually convince the Council to do something on this issue?
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Viceconte, who spoke at such length on the tangible possibility, for the fifteen Member States of the Union, of creating jobs by way of a sensible policy, a sensible European Union initiative in this field.
This very afternoon we have had a debate on workers who suddenly find themselves unemployed. We now hope to be able to solve these problems.
Tourism is an activity that falls decidedly and fundamentally within the competence of the European Union.
All the European States are known throughout the world for being tourist magnets envied by all, including the United States of America, which we spoke about this afternoon with regard to the native Americans.
I would like to stress one point in the Viceconte report which I welcome and particularly support, and which I would like the House and the Commission to reflect on before giving a favourable response.
It regards tourism for senior citizens.
I usually see Commissioner Diamantopoulou desperately tearing her hair out, bit by bit, because the elderly live too long, leading to problems with pension payments.
However, in this case, the fact that we are living longer means that there are more senior citizens.
Unfortunately not all, but many of them travel the world to see its marvels and to discover and learn more about it: Italians want to see what the English are like, the Greeks want to see what the Turks are like and the French want to see their Italian cousins.
Tourism brings the peoples of the fifteen States and of the entire world closer together, and of course, it leads to peace and understanding.
This kind of tourism, which is undertaken mainly by large numbers of senior citizens, is just as important.
This type of tourism must be promoted and supported because it allows people to work in tourist destinations, not just during the summer when we go swimming in the sea, for example, but also during winter when we go to take the air.
Senior citizens are always on holiday, all year round, from 1 January through to 31 December because they do not work and do not have just one month off during the year.
Unfortunately, this is not true of them all, but this is why I am calling on the Commission to follow up on the Viceconte report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on the one hand we have heard predictions to the effect that by the year 2007, tourism will have created an additional 1.84 million jobs.
On the other hand, we are aware that in practically all developed countries there is a lack of manpower in the tourism sector, which cannot be completely overcome, even in times of high unemployment.
This contradiction applies when we talk in terms of the tourism labour market having two sides to it.
On the one hand, tourism provides jobs in regions where there is a severe shortage of other jobs in trade, industry and agriculture, or the number of jobs is declining; it offers employment opportunities to those population groups who cannot find work in other sectors on account of a lack of qualifications, or technical and global developments, and, in particular, tourism enables many young people to get a foot on the ladder of working life.
As such, the tourism sector offers employment policy a ray of hope.
However, we can also see that there are many lamentable disadvantages to working in this sector: long working days and large amounts of overtime, work at weekends, on public holidays and during the holiday season, none of which are conducive to people spending quality time with their families. Add to this seasonal unemployment, physically demanding workloads on account of unhealthy working conditions and times of peak demand, and a lack of promotion prospects.
We should focus exclusively on all the tensions at work here, leaving no stone unturned.
In my country, Austria, tourism and the leisure industry are of central importance to the national economy, contributing as they do to income and job security, as well as to the balance of payments. In 1998 alone, total income from tourism and leisure activities was 450 billion Schilling.
The net product share of the overall sector was around 13%.
I would therefore like to extend sincere thanks to all those who work in tourism, as well as all those who work to conserve nature, culture and recreational areas.
I would urge that we exploit the possibilities of working time arrangements with a view to shortening periods of unemployment, and that we undertake a subtly differentiated analysis of the labour market in the tourism sector.
We need a European marketing strategy, bearing in mind the competition we face from other continents.
In the course of our deliberations we must also analyse price structuring, as a result of which it is cheaper to fly to America these days than it is to fly from Vienna to Brussels. Training has been mentioned and a great deal else besides, but there is still a great deal to do if we are to provide a really firm basis for this growth industry and ensure that this is what it continues to be.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.40 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, yesterday' s Minutes will naturally indicate interventions referring to the so-called 'Strasbourg Declaration" which intends to implicate the European Parliament in certain considerations which would literally lead to the conclusion that I am a Nazi.
This declaration - which, as I have said, implicates the European Parliament, although no such declaration was put before this Parliament - is a completely unacceptable form of manipulation.
I thank the President, Mrs Fontaine, who just yesterday expressed her opinion by refuting the implication of this House.
Mr President, as well as discrediting the PNV, Eusko Alkartasuna and the democratic government of the Basque Country - who have the kind of attitude which, in the case of Ireland, deserved the Nobel prize - by calling them Nazis, the declaration insults representatives of the European citizens - as in my case: I represent a section of Galician society - by saying that we are more dangerous than the Nazis, and insults groups which are clearly democratic, with decades of history, in an unacceptable and crazy way, which I would like to condemn here and now.
I would like these words to be heard, because the European Parliament cannot be implicated in this way in a crazy declaration which I consider to be totally unacceptable.
Thank you, Mr Nogueira, for your explanation.
I would remind you that questions on the Minutes should refer to the Minutes.
In any event, for those Members who not aware of the President' s position, I will read the official communication and it will thereby appear in today' s Minutes:
"On 17 February, Mrs Nicole Fontaine, President of the European Parliament, received as guests, at their request, the representatives of the Forum d' Ermua.
The Spanish Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament were represented.
Following this interview, the representatives of this Forum presented her with a text entitled "Strasbourg Declaration" . The President wishes to specify that under no circumstances does she sanction the terms of this "declaration" .
Strasbourg, 17 February" .
I therefore believe that the issue is totally cleared up.
Mr President, I would like to request a correction to the Minutes regarding the vote on Amendment No 5 of the Swoboda report.
Please note that Mr Michel Raymond, Mr Jean Saint-Josse and I voted against this amendment.
We take note and this will appear in the Minutes.
Mr President, this is not exactly a point of order but concerns a communication we have before us today, namely that the Conference of Presidents open to Members, which was scheduled for 23 February, has now been cancelled.
We should consider on principle whether there is any point at all in holding these kinds of meetings.
I have the feeling they are just another compulsory exercise we have to perform.
We can just as easily find out what happened from the newspapers.
That would be more productive and I do not like seeing the various committee agendas that are already overloaded being cut again and again because of this kind of show-piece.
So I think we should consider simply abolishing these meetings once and for all.
Mr Bösch, I take note of your observation but, clearly, we hold this type of Conference of Presidents, open to all MEPs at the original request of the MEPs, so that they may participate in some of them.
Surely we should be more selective.
In any event, the Bureau will consider your suggestion.
(The Minutes were approved)
VOTE
Mr President, we should like to request that the last sentence of Amendment No 2 which reads: 'also calls on the Member States to promote tourism for the elderly' be incorporated into Paragraph 25, which deals specifically with social tourism, after: 'tourism for organised social groups...'.
We think its inclusion there would be both more appropriate and more effective.
Mr President, the subsidiarity principle is one of the fundamental principles underlying cooperation in the European Union.
It is high time it was properly evaluated and that a system was set up which clearly identifies the EU's areas of competence.
A criticism which is often levelled at the EU and which, to some extent, is justified is that it is involved in far too many areas.
One such area is tourism which, by its very nature, is very much a national concern.
In so far as tourism falls within the political domain, it should be at national, regional and local level.
Tourism is a major source of employment and has a role to play as regards the EU's financial support for less well-off regions.
Even in that respect, any cooperation should, however, be carried out according to the subsidiarity principle.
Because tourism can also have a harmful impact on the environment, there needs to be a strategy for damage limitation.
However, such a strategy should come within the framework of environmental policy.
The report laments the lack of a legal basis for a policy on tourism.
However, the Swedish Christian Democrats would oppose any such development as we believe that tourism is a matter with which the European Union should only be marginally concerned.
.
(DA) Tourism is a significant source of international understanding and an important part of the labour market, which ought to be promoted and encouraged.
It is of inestimable importance that people in Europe, as well as in the rest of the world, should have the opportunity to experience each other' s ways of ordering their lives and their societies.
Policy on tourism is not, however, something which ought to be planned and decided upon by the European Parliament or by the EU as a whole.
I am therefore voting against the proposal.
Mr President, before we begin our discussion, as an Italian MEP - and I believe I also speak on behalf of all Italian MEPs - I should like to condemn the position taken yesterday by the German Chancellor, who interfered in Italian internal affairs, when he threatened that Europe would intervene if any neo-fascists became members of the government.
Fortunately, the Italian Government and the President of the Republic intervened, and today the Italian Ambassador to Germany will also speak on the subject, to call on the German Chancellor not to interfere in Italian internal affairs, in so far as there are no neo-fascist candidates for government office.
We would like to thank the President of the Republic, as well as the Government and all the politicians who spoke and we too, in this House, would also call on the German Chancellor not to intervene in Italian internal affairs.
Mr Tajani will accept that it is a little difficult to understand the relationship between his intervention and the points of order, but I understand his political meaning.
We will proceed to the debate itself and Mr Monti will take the floor on behalf of the Commission.
European postal services
The next item is the debate on the oral question (B5-0010/2000) tabled by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, to the Commission, on European postal services.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal on further gradual and controlled liberalisation of postal services has been delayed mainly because of the reorganisation and reallocation of duties within the Commission and the fact that the new Commission needs to re-examine the issues involved.
With regard to Parliament's various resolutions on the postal sector, my colleague, Commissioner Bolkestein, has already responded to some of the main points at the hearings which Parliament held last year.
Furthermore, as regards consultations with Parliament, Commissioner Bolkestein will meet the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism next Monday.
The studies were sent to the committee and to the MEPs who requested them, in September 1999 and are, in any case, still available.
They can also be consulted on the Commission's Internet website.
I am sure Commissioner Bolkestein will listen carefully to all Parliament's comments.
The Commission is firmly convinced of the need to prepare a new proposal on developing the postal sector.
Furthermore, the submission of a proposal is a legal obligation.
I can confirm that it is Commissioner Bolkestein' s firm intention to present a proposal to the Commission by the middle of the year, to be forwarded to Parliament and the Council.
The date set for completing the next phase, which the Commission intends to keep to, is 1 January 2003.
The proposal will take account of the studies and, in particular, the need to maintain a universal service, to develop efficient safeguards for consumers, to create a climate favourable to new jobs and to solve any problems relating to competition.
The role of liberalisation in modernising and improving postal services throughout the Union with the help of new technologies will be examined in order to identify potential benefits for the industry as a whole.
The proposal, when it is put forward, will take account of the points of view of Member States, Parliament, users, universal service providers and their competitors and by other interested parties, all of whom have been involved in an in-depth consultation process.
The aim is to ensure that the internal market in postal services functions smoothly in the interests of consumers and businesses throughout the European Union.
Mr Markov, in five or six minutes time, you will be allowed a few minutes to speak.
I would be grateful if you would not interrupt other Members.
Mr President, there is a mystery.
What happened to the Postal Services Directive that was passed on 15 December 1997? There has been a deafening silence from the Commission during the period between then and now.
I am sorry it is Commissioner Monti who is here today. I am very fond of him.
He is one of the more diligent and hard working commissioners.
It is a pity I cannot say the same for some of his other colleagues.
There has, over this period, been no real progress on the Postal Services Directive.
Commissioner Monti stated that part of the reason for this was the organisation and reallocation of duties.
That has only happened recently.
For over a year the old Commission could have done some work on this.
We really have not progressed very far.
However, since Commissioner Monti is here, I would like him to take a message back to Commissioner Bolkestein telling him what the Postal Services Directive was about.
It was about gradual liberalisation; it was about a guaranteed universal service at an affordable price; it was about direct mail and cross-border mail remaining in the reserved sector.
These issues were fundamental in that report and they should be fundamental in any forthcoming directive.
The postal service is not just for Christmas. It is for life.
In the area in Scotland I come from it is much more than just a postal service. It is about keeping communities together.
The postal service is also the bus service.
The postal service is also the social service. The postal service is also the doctor.
If we allow the postal services to drift into complete privatisation then we will lose all that and many of our local communities - we were voting earlier on tourism - will lose their tourist trade. We will cut them off.
The postal services are important.
That message must be taken back from here today. The Commission must listen to it.
Mr President, we are in favour of liberalising the Union' s postal services.
This should first of all stand for better service.
This is the intention and it must be the ultimate goal.
Liberalisation began because there was doubt regarding the structure of the postal services and the value of a monopoly.
Is a monopoly flexible enough in a market where the customer' s requirements and the market situation can change very rapidly, because, for example, the use of electronic data carriers has increased dramatically? The question is, therefore: what are the demands that a monopoly or part of a service which is governed by a monopoly needs to meet?
Most Member States have been putting the brakes on, and I am pleased to note that, in my country, the new government has at long last completed something which should have been done a long time ago, and that the Belgian postal services and the Belgian government are now taking measures to ensure that the postal services are ready - at least partly ready - by 2003 to be able to stand up to the competition.
As you can see, as a new MEP, I am trying to get to grips with the dossier and I must admit that I have great difficulty doing so.
I have found a number of studies which were commissioned by the European Commission at the time, and I am also coming across documents from Post-Europe which claims that these studies are inaccurate and that the basis on which these were carried out is incorrect.
I think that the Commission could have been more pro-active on this score and could have also provided us with the studies which it had promised to give us and which we had requested.
As far as I know, that has still not happened.
I would therefore ask you, Commissioner, to help me in my task as a new Member.
Like Mr Miller, I would welcome an explanation from you regarding the implementation of the 1997 directive within the next couple of months or weeks or, if at all possible, within the next couple of days.
My second point concerns the universal provision of services. What is happening on this score, how much does it cost, how does it work, how do you intend to organise it and what proposals do you have?
I would welcome more concrete information on this. Apparently, the postal service is a very strong lobby and rightly so.
There are hundreds of thousands of people who earn their living at the Post Office.
Moreover - and Mr Miller has already pointed this out - it will surely not be the end of the world if the postman no longer comes round, even in my country, however densely populated it may be.
But in Belgium too, there are a great number of people, older people for example, who only see one other person in the day and that is the postman.
We should not overlook this fact: postal service is about more than just ferrying around letters and parcels.
The postal service is also extremely important to companies.
A study has shown that 90% of the postal traffic is between companies and only 10% between individuals.
What exactly do you intend to liberalise? I would like more information on this, because the key question is how you can better serve the customer using the existing services.
There are postal companies which have a monopoly and are doing a reasonably good job.
We need to protect this type of arrangement and denounce other things.
Mr President, Commissioner, this morning on French national radio, I heard that liberalisation of the French postal service was now only a matter of days or hours away and that it was irreparable, like the developments with our neighbours in Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.
This concerns us deeply and that is why we requested this debate today.
The Commission is committed to a universal postal service, as the European Parliament has shown on several occasions, the postal service is actually, as some speakers have already mentioned, a key factor in social and territorial cohesion.
In this connection I should like to ask one of our Swedish MEPs for an opinion of the study which has been carried out and which shows that in fact in the most remote areas of Sweden the postal service was rather poor in terms of distribution.
That is not the sort of postal service that we want.
The economic value of the postal service was recognised by the Treaty of Amsterdam and we consider that it goes far beyond the distribution of mail.
It is the service which remains closest to the citizens and which we call a 'public service' , which makes it possible for everyone resident within European territory to receive the service, and this entitlement must remain an acquired right, an acquis communautaire.
The matter of the European Union' s recognition of a high-quality postal service, available to all, remains valid today, and we are increasingly concerned.
That is why today we are asking not to have any nasty surprises in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism come Monday.
Let us point out that Parliament' s positions were clearly defined and that the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance supported them.
This resolution of 14 January 1999 required that, prior to undertaking any liberalisation of this key sector, involving 1.7 million employees after all, the Commission should provide impact studies for this liberalisation.
Well, we are not convinced that the studies currently available make it possible to implement this liberalisation right now and we are concerned because it is well known that liberalisation without impact studies would cause thousands of job losses, something we certainly do not want.
We value our public service, our universal postal service, because we know, and here too we are acting as representatives of the citizens, that the citizens value this service and the Commission undertook, during Mr Bolkestein' s hearing, to maintain this universal service throughout the European Union.
I shall not repeat all the various statements he made at his hearing, I think we all still remember them.
We further maintain that we are waiting for this proper evaluation before any definitive decision, as stipulated in the directive and the revision of the 1997 directive.
We shall not accept a date for the liberalisation of all activities in the postal sector until the Commission has offered us a guarantee that the universal service will be integrated into this directive and that the public postal service will be maintained in the States which consider this service essential to the citizen.
Mr President, I share the view that we need to make more progress from the point of view of efficiency and the analysis of the cost-effectiveness of the services offered.
But as an entrepreneur myself, I really cannot understand why it is always assumed this can only be done under the headings of "privatisation" and "liberalisation"!
Or perhaps people are not concerned with creating the same conditions of access to the postal services for all, but are thinking only of the capital employment conditions for companies in large conglomerations.
Members should however represent all the citizens, which means it is their duty to think not in terms of business management but in terms of the national economy.
In practice that means the following for the postal services: firstly, priority must be given to employment.
I have nothing against liberalisation and privatisation, but the premises must be right.
Secondly, we must guarantee that the citizens are not faced with reduced postal services.
Examples in Germany and Sweden show that this certainly is a risk.
Mr Stenmarck, Sweden is the only country in which prices rose far higher after liberalisation than in all the other Member States of the European Union.
So that is another potential effect and one that we must prevent.
Thirdly, it is vital to have, first of all, a universal postal service at an affordable price for all citizens, wherever they may be; secondly, to have a uniform price for all Member States; and thirdly, to have daily mail deliveries and collections on working days.
On the question of the cost-effectiveness of the various postage weights, it is worth considering further price cuts; but that is what the postal administration itself is saying.
We do not have to adhere to a weight of over 300g when the analysis shows that we need to ensure a minimum weight of 150g to make it at all worthwhile.
In that respect I believe it was right and important to hold this debate today, to make Mr Bolkestein aware of Parliament' s position and allow him to take certain aspects into account from the outset.
Mr President, the 1997 directive, issued on 21 January 1998, which undertook the partial liberalisation of postal services in Europe, envisaged a revision at a later date, in a rather convoluted manner, indeed, since it was to be dealt with in a Commission proposal by the end of 1998, then decided by 1 January 2000, to come into force finally by 1 January 2003.
Well, for the time being, the revision has not got off the starting block.
The two initial phases were not observed which, logically, ought to compromise the third.
My first question is this: surely the scheduled time limits were too short in any case? Apparently, they were.
It is really not possible to see how the Commission could by the end of 1998, as stipulated by Article 7 of the directive, have evaluated the effects of a text which came into force in February of the same year.
Moreover, the Commission was also not able to provide the implementation report which, according to Article 23, it was to submit by 31 December 2000.
Should we complain about this delay? We do not think so.
If the Commission actually did have convincing evidence in support of taking liberalisation forwards, no one doubts that it would present it without delay.
For its part, the European Parliament, which had fought hard to ensure that the 1997 directive was balanced and respected the requirements of a universal public service, is rather satisfied to see that the compromise it obtained then is proving to be tenable.
In these circumstances, it is quite reasonable for this House to express concern today, asking an oral question which urges the Commission to show the definite and unquestionable feasibility studies which to date no one has seen.
What are the scenarios for development and the potential risks? The main risk is that the Commission, without adequate justification, might upset the balance which exists now by proposing to go swiftly on to a second phase of liberalisation which would, in some countries, throw off balance the funding of the universal postal service, making it unmanageable.
Today, following the 1997 compromise, Member States can give public monopolies responsibility for the postal service involving mail and parcels whose distribution cost is less than five times the basic tariff, with a weight of less than 350 grammes.
It may be supposed, for example, as Commissioner Bolkestein gave us to understand during his hearing on 6 September last year, that the Commission might propose reducing these limits to 50 grams and two and a half times the basic tariff.
This solution would not, in our opinion, be a fair one and indeed the Commission would have no irrefutable figures to support it.
But, unfortunately, we are aware since Seattle that the Commission has no need of a proper assessment of the previous stage before proposing that we go rapidly on to the next stage.
The second scenario, which we prefer: to defer the revision and maintain the current situation until such time as we do actually have a proper, detailed objective study of the effects of the 1997 directive.
In saying that, we are not seeking to protect monopolies whose pernicious effects we are already familiar with, but we wish to be certain that it is possible to combine the gradual evolution of the organisations with maintaining the key principles of public service.
Finally, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group wonders if the idea of foisting unified management rules on the postal services of the fifteen Member States might not be, essentially, flawed.
In France, for example, the unequal distribution of the population over a vast territorial area makes the obligation to provide a public service absolutely indispensable in mail distribution if one wishes to maintain the equality of citizens and social cohesion.
But other countries, in other situations, may have alternative analyses.
In our opinion, each one must be free to make its own organisational choices.
In fact, Article 86 of the EC Treaty, formerly Article 90, stipulates that services of general economic interest are subject to the rules on competition only insofar as the application of such rules does not obstruct the performance of the particular tasks assigned to them. But who defines these tasks?
Who established the limit beyond which this public service mission is compromised? Our answer is clear: it is not the Commission nor even the Council or the European Parliament, but the people of each Member State by democratic procedures.
To wish to proceed in any other way would be to distort the spirit of our institutions.
Mr President, we are currently in the first phase of transposition of Directive 97/67/CE on postal services and I am terribly afraid that a new phase of liberalisation might be reflected in a significant reduction in the public service offered.
During Mr Bolkestein' s hearing, my colleague Véronique Mathieu asked for an undertaking "that any new proposals, once these are known, should be the subject of impact studies to determine the implications of this liberalisation programme before these provisions are adopted." What has become of it?
Do we have the results of this impact study? As you know, we members of the EDD Group, are in favour, along with others, of rural life, maintaining employment, and social cohesion in rural areas, a cohesion reinforced by high quality universal public service.
Most assuredly I would like to be able to say that the examples I observe every day in my own country and in my own region, a very rural one, convince me that we can safely proceed to a new phase of liberalisation.
Unfortunately, this is not the case and currently, by merging the start of the application of the European directive and the application of the 35-hour law, which is purely French, but also by changing the working time criteria, such as the 1 700 objects per hour to be handled per workstation as opposed to 1 400, as previously, in our rural areas we can observe either a reduction in public opening hours or a threat that some post offices will be closed.
This is already an intolerable withdrawal of the public service.
I have here the local paper for my municipality, which reads, "The manager of the post office wishes to inform the local population that as of 3 January 2000" - you can see how topical this is - "the last collection will take place at 3.45 p.m. instead of at 4.30 p.m. as at present."
So you can appreciate why I am afraid of a phase of extensive liberalisation, and a package of measures which will entail a new wave of depopulation.
As you know, in our country, each village has its own local post office or at least a post box, with a collection every day.
The postman is not just a simple mail distribution operative but also the only social link with the local residents.
So he delivers money too, and sometimes even medicines, thus making it possible for isolated elderly people to be supported in living at home.
If postal services are liberalised in a poorly regulated way, more post offices will be closed, in the name of this infamous profitability, which is often the cause of rural regression.
Once again, Europe is distancing itself from its poorest and most vulnerable inhabitants.
They will be told that they are too expensive, without drawing any comparison with other social services such as police and health services but also sports and cultural services, where lack of profitability is scarcely admitted in urban areas.
Everyone is free to choose their lifestyle.
They should be able to do so without compromising their equal opportunities and equal treatment.
In sport the saying goes, "Do not change a winning team."
Why should we wish to change a system which is satisfactory? The universal service will be able to fulfil its social mission only if it retains an area of monopoly enabling it to balance its budget.
We cannot afford to make a mistake, for we know for a fact that we shall not be able to turn the clock back and that in the event of an imbalance, the firm will know how to tackle it: jobs will be lost, services will be reduced, the dead wood will be removed and we already know which areas will be considered dead wood.
We are told we should change the limit from 350 grammes to 150 grammes, or even 50 grammes.
So be it.
But the 200 grammes that make up the difference will be seized upon by many private and therefore profitable bodies.
So, once again, why not leave things as they are and allow the public service to fund itself and to guarantee the annual excess cost of its operations in the public interest, valued in France, by Senator Larcher, as it happens, at FF 8 billion?
If revenue is lost, then public interest operations will be revised and cut, and again it is in rural areas that the most swingeing cuts will be made.
What we should do now, I feel, is wait, particularly until we know the economic and social impact of one phase of liberalisation before taking the risk of destabilising an entire section of our universal public service, which many of our fellow citizens still value highly.
Mr President, I am one of those who agree that it is appropriate that this particular service should be regulated at European level.
If people are to be free to provide services across borders it is only fair and reasonable that we should have European regulations to govern it.
In Ireland some services are provided by companies from outside Ireland, for example, English companies certainly operate there.
But this directive has never been transposed into national law.
It is the job of the Commission to ensure that national governments take account of their legal obligations under European law and transpose European directives.
That has not been done in Ireland although a certain liberalisation has taken place and has not been impeded by the national government.
A small segment of our market has been taken over by private operators.
But the need for common legislation is underlined by the fact that in the Netherlands they have liberalised, in Germany they have not, yet German companies which enjoy the protection of national law seek to take market share in the Netherlands.
This is another example of the importance of moving forward with common legislation and ensuring that it is put into effect throughout the Union.
I come from a rural area.
I support the principle of liberalising and the right of everybody to compete and I recognise the benefits that common regulation and liberalisation has brought over the years.
For example it has enabled us to fly from peripheral parts of the European Union to the centre for a fraction of the cost of 20 years ago.
I remember when people came into this House lobbying us in the national interest not to allow this liberalisation.
We allowed it and the result is that our young people can travel and broaden their education.
Our older people, even though on social welfare, can enjoy the benefits of travel.
So liberalisation has taken a lot of parasites off our back in many areas and enabled many people to enjoy higher standards of living.
On the other hand this is not a free market without limits and if you come from a rural area you recognise that some services in the free market situation cannot and will not be provided.
So, the Commission, in bringing forward their new proposals, must remember those sparsely populated rural areas and not put anything in this legislation which will deprive those areas of the opportunities of having those services.
In rural areas, for many years, even before the Irish Free State came into existence, we sometimes had this service of a post office.
Today, it is probably the only public service in many remote areas and people are concerned that European legislation will eventually make it difficult to maintain it.
I want to underline the fact that the existing legislation protects rather than threatens the right of every citizen in every remote area to have this service.
But complaints are made by private individuals about social welfare being paid in the post offices in Ireland.
I want the Commission to recognise that this is a necessary social service. It should go hand in hand with our postal services in rural areas.
We must implement what the directive insists on, that the postal service is available to everybody.
Mr President, Commissioner, besides the fact that the postal services doubtless play an extremely important part in providing employment, they are very helpful in the effort to achieve the cohesion we all want so much and which is a basic reason for the European Union' s existence.
As is known, the Commission should already, before the end of 1998, have tabled new proposals for a revision of the Postal Services Directive 97/67, guaranteeing the continued provision of a universal service, securing its economic viability, and regulating the gradual liberalisation of the postal services market while taking into account the consequences of this for all those involved, including postal workers and customers.
To that end, the Commission has commissioned studies on the cost of universal services, the consequences of liberalising cross-border mail and direct mail, the consequences of reducing weight and cost limits in the reserved sector, the consequences of liberalising the other phases of the postal process, excluding distribution, and an overall appraisal of the results of those studies.
Mr President, we are therefore wondering, and we ask the Commission - although, of course, Mr Bolkestein is not here, but Mr Monti is a man of many parts and I think he may have a view on this: should those studies not examine the economic and social impact of the various liberalisation scenarios envisaged on each, and I repeat, on each one of the European Union' s Member States? The postal services in Greece, Great Britain, the Netherlands or Belgium are, of course, all different.
With liberalisation, how will it be possible for the universal postal service to be funded and to operate correctly in a country such as my own, Greece, with its particular geographical features and its numerous, small but inhabited islands? How can a universal service provider in my country survive with the liberalisation of cross-border mail which amounts to approximately 25%, as opposed to less than 5% in other countries?
How are we to deal with the transfer of the national post office' s business abroad?
We have just heard Mr McCartin on the subject. It will most certainly be necessary, we say, because of the technological developments that simplify this transfer and thereby make it more profitable, to determine the further gradual and controlled liberalisation by setting weight and price limits.
But what will those limits be? Are we naively to grant 'freelance' enterprises the right to operate selectively and therefore circumvent the weight limit very easily since the content of letters cannot, of course, be checked?
In any event, we ask the Commission to lay its cards on the table and put forward its proposals, having examined the ultimate foreseeable development of the matter from every aspect and for all the Member States.
It is self-evident that liberalisation is not an end in itself, but only a means towards improving services.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the planned liberalisation of the traditional national postal services raises the inevitable question as to what the postal services will consider their core business to be in the future. In other words, what will the postal services be prepared to do themselves, what will they want to do together in international cooperation and what will they no longer provide?
This question should be answered in light of the fact that the age-old monopoly has de facto been undermined by all kinds of courier companies and by technological developments, such as fax and e-mail.
But then again, the central theme of the liberalisation of the postal services is employment.
Past experiences have sufficiently shown that early retirement schemes and voluntary redundancy schemes often have an undesired effect.
I would remind you of the fact that the Belgian telephone company had to recall employees who had been sent into retirement in order to prevent too much know-how and expertise from disappearing from the company.
Once again, the point of discussion in the liberalisation of the postal services will no doubt be a reduction in the workforce.
One should, however, be very aware of the fact that if people are encouraged to apply for voluntary redundancy, the company will primarily lose those people who already work under pressure or who can easily find employment elsewhere, in other words, they are often the people which the company in question needs.
In my opinion, it would be a sign of well-thought-out human resource management if the Commission were to share a number of these concerns, so as to ensure that a sensitive sector such as the postal service is liberalised with minimum impact on social conditions.
Mr President, postal services and post offices seem to be very topical in Parliament at the moment and rightly so, given their importance.
Only last week, in the UK parliament at Westminster the newly-elected MP from our European Free Alliance partners, Plaid Cymru, the party of Wales, made his maiden speech on that subject.
The Scottish parliament too recently had a debate with particular reference to the role which post offices, especially in rural areas, play in service provision and the sustainability of rural communities.
Liberalisation is not the only potential threat to post office services.
Post office outlets in Scotland, as we have heard, handle much more than just mail delivery.
Traditionally they have been used by governments and some local authorities as an agency for the payment of state pensions and other benefits as well as a local collection centre for house rents, local taxes and so on.
But as the modernisation of public financial systems leads to more and more electronic cash movements straight to and from bank accounts, so the viability of rural post offices is being threatened.
If a rural post office closes, usually with the only local shop attached, then a major threat to community sustainability and to social inclusion can result.
Instead of allowing post office outlets to be undermined by liberalisation or by the modernisation of systems, governments, and the Commission too, should be encouraging and supporting the extensive network of post office outlets and viewing these as an asset which can be built upon, providing public information and services from a location which is convenient for residents.
Mr President, the task of the post office is to ensure that, every day, the post is delivered everywhere, be it in the city or in remote, rural areas, at the same tariff.
For 150 years, the postal services have been a public affair and, as such, just like public transport and the power supply, a core task of the national governments.
Such recognisable and useful core tasks give the electorate a reason to vote.
They are much less interested in a government which takes no interest in these affairs.
I once heard a Christian Democratic politician make the following comment in a Dutch village: "The postal service belongs to us all; taking it away from us is tantamount to theft" .
The existing postal companies no longer fall under democratic control and room is being made for competitors.
The newcomers are only interested in those parts of the work that generate high profits at low cost and low prices.
They can be the cheapest for a while only by means of a drop in quality for their customers and employees.
Such companies have always been around, but they used to be banned, whereas these days they are being heralded as progress.
The end result will be that existing companies will also be forced into bad practices.
They will get their workforce to do more work at lower wages.
They will often do fewer home deliveries, charge more for retaining post during the holidays, close down a large number of the post office branches and, ultimately, the tariffs for the individual will sharply increase, at which point the only parties which will stand to benefit from this type of practice will be companies which conclude collective agreements at a lower tariff.
It is time we stopped this trend.
A fault confessed is half redressed.
We are better off with one democratically controlled monopoly than the waste and chaos brought on by competition which cannot be controlled.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, postal services, just like any European public service, contribute to the social cohesion of Community territory under the terms of Article 16 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
By equalising tariffs, i.e. treating citizens and economic operators on a basis of strict equality with regard to the cost of the service, by meeting the obligation to provide a universal service, while complying with the requirement for quality of service, postal services reflect the concern which we must have to ensure equality between different regions and the people resident in them.
They also play a major role in maintaining links between people.
As has been pointed out here on many occasions, is the postman not in fact the last point of contact in depopulated districts or divided communities, whether these are areas that are isolated geographically or the problem districts in our towns and cities? Let me cite the example of the initiative of the French postal service, which decided, for instance, to make interpreters and writers available to the public in post offices in problem urban areas.
Without even mentioning the jobs in related sectors, European public postal services today employ one and a half million operatives whose futures are clearly threatened by the spectre of radical, untrammelled liberalisation.
The European Parliament was confident of reconciling openness to competition with the obligation to provide a universal service in a manner which safeguards jobs.
We may congratulate ourselves on this, but we intend that this should continue and this is the reason why one can only deplore the fact that the European Parliament is today being excluded from the main decision-making process which will determine the fate of the postal sector in Europe.
Indeed it is regrettable that to date - as the resolution we are debating points out - the Commission has not taken account of the resolution of 14 January 1999.
That resolution called for the European Parliament to be involved in drawing up the planned measures and urged that the reliability of impact studies regarding liberalisation should be improved.
These impact studies are necessary in order to assess the effects of any untrammelled liberalisation, not just on the economic organisation of the market, but also in terms of its human and social aspects.
The delays in the Commission' s work will inevitably have a knock-on effect on the proposed timetable and the deadline of 2003 must certainly be called into question.
By defining a sector reserved for public postal services, on the basis of weight and price limits, the postal service directive would clear the way for controlled liberalisation in phases.
The sudden reduction of these limits poses a threat to the balance between the obligation to provide a public service and economic viability for postal services.
Against a background of globalisation, where the rationale of profitability and profit is coming increasingly into conflict with the wish to achieve both a balance between regions and social cohesion, we must here, as a matter of urgency, reiterate our commitment to European public service, whether it be, today, the postal service or, tomorrow, the rail service or, the day after that, the health service.
Mr President, I rise as other Scottish Members of this House, representatives of Scotland, to protest against anything that lead to a decline in the quality of rural life in remote parts.
The postal service and the post office are a vital feature of life in rural communities throughout Europe and not least in Scotland.
It would be a disaster if action were deliberately, or even inadvertently, taken which had the effect of damaging that.
I do not believe that it is anybody' s intention to do so.
I do not believe that the Commission has set out to make war upon the islands of Scotland or Greece.
But they might accidentally do great damage.
The point is to determine at what speed and by what methods the gradual liberalisation of the postal services should take place.
If too low a limit were set for the continuing monopoly right of the postal service, it would become uneconomical to maintain in the outlying areas universality of service at what would remain an affordable rate.
The critical thing is to balance universality and affordability.
The message that is coming very clearly from all sides of the House to the Commission today is that the Commission should tread warily.
The Commission should not, for example, take a stepwise jump from 350 grammes to, as some have suggested, as low as 50 grammes.
On the contrary, it should proceed cautiously.
I imagine anything less than 150 grammes would be extremely unwise in these circumstances.
The solidarity and cohesion of people all over Europe depend on the thought that you can post a letter anywhere and it will be delivered anywhere else, at an affordable stamp price.
Stand by universality and affordability!
Mr President, the only way to guarantee a high-quality universal postal service is to keep this as a public service.
A universal service offering high-quality postal services at affordable prices throughout the country forms the basis for the operation of the whole postal system and must lead to a uniform nationwide tariff.
This service must therefore be kept public.
This is the only way to guarantee that the network, from collection to distribution, will be a comprehensive network which cannot be broken up or used only in part and according to the convenience of postal service operators.
However, further to the directive on common rules for Community postal services, the Commission has undertaken studies which have not been forwarded to the European Parliament. We are therefore unaware of the impacts of the directive' s application on either the level of service provided to the people or the current European postal operators in terms of both economics and employment.
In our opinion, the whole process of applying this directive must therefore be halted, including its timetable.
Any change to the current situation must be preceded by a rigorous study of its various implications, with the objective always being to guarantee a high-quality public service and to retain the current public operators and existing jobs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to support this proposal on principle while asking right at the outset whether the previous speaker' s statement that on the one hand we need an innovative and highly effective and competitive service while on the other hand this service should be a public service, is not a contradiction in terms.
I think ours is a different approach!
European policy has liberalised monopoly markets - energy, telecommunications and air transport - and the target, the focus, was always the consumer.
The aim was simply to offer a better service and also to put the emphasis on the user in liberalising the postal services.
I think the consumer can decide for himself and define in advance what he needs.
He does not need a government to do so, or a parliament, nor does he need a Commission to do so!
The postal market is limping along behind and, sadly, we have wasted valuable time here.
I believe we should give the postal service a chance to adapt to new trends.
I am thinking here of the very sound words of Mr Rübig, who also talked about e-commerce.
That will develop very quickly and present the various undertakings in our society with new challenges; we will have to adapt very flexibly and rapidly to these challenges.
I believe a liberalised market will speed up this process more than a less liberalised market.
It also offers some prospect of conveying a positive picture of European policy.
We should seize that opportunity, for the citizen keeps asking, why do we have Europe? These are areas where the citizen can see and understand the benefit of Europe.
I am glad Mr Monti, the Commissioner for competition, is here today in person, for he is pursuing an excellent policy.
And here I want to turn to an area where in my view - and this is a point also made in this debate - Parliament and the Commission must consider where to draw limits to competition.
We are in favour of competition as a component of the social market economy, and of course we are also in favour of it because we want this economic system to be as successful as possible.
Yet I believe that, as this debate has shown, we have to discuss the limits to competition in some areas.
So I would ask you to give an impetus in that direction, together with Parliament.
I have mentioned the example of social services before: nowadays we can reduce everything to attracting the customer, including the pensioner in an old people' s home, and the question is whether we want to subject all that to competition, whether that is the right course.
I believe we should use this legislative term to determine the limits, the positive aspects of competition.
For competition is not an end in itself; it is there to serve of the citizen, the consumer, which is why we should consider the areas in which we do not want it.
Mr President, liberalising postal services could increase competitiveness in the postal sector and guarantee cheaper and more flexible services for the public; it could also address the challenges brought by modern technology.
I emphasise the word 'could' , and that is if it is done well and with care.
Wrongly done, the threatening images that have been described here will certainly become a reality.
Social problems will increase, interregional disparities will grow, and competition will occur only in those areas where the economy is strongest, areas where there are more people and, especially, more businesses.
On the other hand, the losers will be the remote areas and their inhabitants, and the people that will not benefit from the new services.
Before we decide whether to liberalise postal services, there should be much more discussion about how we can make the present services more flexible and more customer-friendly, and how funding systems can facilitate the investments called for by the new technology.
I think this policy has been reasonably successful in Finland, as testified by the present public system.
I think, however, that common rules have to be applied to this sector, so that we do not find ourselves at some stage somewhere out in the Wild West, or even the Wild East.
We need rules in common based on equality and the principle of a public service.
Mr President, a precise assessment of the effects of the first directive is the least we can ask for when approaching the future of the public postal service.
It would be obscene to wish to settle the fate of hundreds of thousands of postal workers, millions of service users, in a great rush.
But, despite the unfavourable opinion of ten European postal services, a form of unacknowledged privatisation is brewing in the corridors of the Commission.
By lowering the price/weight threshold reserved for public postal services and by liberalising mailshots or cross-border post, the second directive may offer the most profitable sectors to the competitive sector.
Postal services may then keep whatever does not whet the appetite of the private operators.
Whether total or partial, privatisation will only make an already dismal situation worse.
Just the example of the privatisation of British rail services should suffice to prove the extent to which opting for maximum profit is antipathetic to maintaining a socially useful service.
Instead of fighting amongst themselves, public postal services should cooperate, take staff on and guarantee decent, stable working conditions, while meeting the needs of service users in terms of both post delivery and savings bank services.
Mr President, today' s debate comes under the sign of the snail, not because I ate such excellent snails here in Strasbourg yesterday but because the snail is a symbol of slow progress.
One example of this slow progress is the way the Commission is proceeding.
This study is taking far too long and we feel it is important to speed up the pace at last.
I am most grateful to the Commissioner for his plain talking today and I would ask the Commission to force the pace now.
Today' s debate makes it quite clear that Parliament wants more emphasis on speed, not speed at the expense of quality, but then slowness alone does not mean quality either.
This brings me to my second point, namely the snail as symbol of our postal services.
What has happened over the past 200 years is that the time it takes for a letter to go from Munich to Brussels has increased fivefold.
Letters to Strasbourg arrive there a bit sooner, but it still takes far too long.
That means that since the days of mail-coaches and taxis, we have seen a steady decline in the quality of services.
It may be true, as was said here, that today we have new possibilities, e.g. electronic possibilities such as e-mail, but on the other hand we must realise that as ever the ordinary letter continues to play a very, very important role and that, in particular, young families, the elderly and many others continue to rely very heavily on conventional mail.
So I believe that in relation to conventional mail we must do what Mr Radwan described in such excellent terms, namely encourage competition on the one hand and on the other, define the limits.
But what we have often seen in recent years was the very opposite!
By embarking on the kind of pseudo and partial privatisations we have also witnessed in Germany, we have combined the drawbacks of the state monopoly with the drawbacks of privatisation, which is really not the purpose of the whole exercise!
Some speakers have referred to the social importance of the postman. Let me add to that, the importance of the post offices.
They have referred to rural and sparsely populated areas.
I come from Munich, a very densely populated urban conglomeration, but we have the same problem there.
One urban district post office after another is being closed down.
We have a disproportionately large number of old people in these large cities, who are becoming increasingly lonely with the decline in the number of retail shops.
That is why we must define certain minimum standards here too and realise that it is important to provide the necessary services for the people.
For if there is only one letter box left in the inner city of Munich where the mail is collected again in the evening, that reflects a rapid decline in quality, while at the same time prices are sometimes rising, which is something else we must note.
So, yes to liberalisation, but let us also think about the limits to liberalisation, rapidly create reasonable conditions in Europe and submit the appropriate study to the Commission.
I would hope that in future the symbol of European postal policy will no longer be the snail but that our post will finally be dispatched post-haste.
That is a term that harks back to the time when the post was still the symbol of speed.
Like Mr Radwan, I am glad that Commissioner Monti is here rather than Commissioner Bolkestein because I believe that he can explain to us certain aspects relating to competition.
I do not know if Mr Monti is aware of the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Communities of last week, 10 February, which recognised the possibility of the German postal service being in a dominant position as a result of its holding a postal monopoly.
Competition policy will no doubt have to be applied to this sector before the coming liberalisation - before 1 January 2003 - because at the moment the tendency is to divert mail via countries with lower postage rates.
This has consequences for free competition between the different postal administrations.
In the event that liberalisation is brought about throughout the European Union, what consequences would that have for free competition? For the moment, it appears that, in the only country where liberalisation has taken place - Sweden - there has been a 59% increase in the price of postal services.
We do not know what will happen in each of the countries where liberalisation is going to take place.
It is likely that postal liberalisation will lead to greater cost differences between countries, which will no doubt have implications for competition, which will not only affect the cost of the postal service but also the establishment of installations.
For example, there are currently companies which set up in Holland because the postal charges are lower than in Germany and the same may happen in the future.
I therefore wonder whether the Commission' s package on postal liberalisation will include the preservation of free competition, because it is very possible that - as has happened in most sectors in the Community today - it will lead to concentrations of large companies which will cancel out the benefits of this theoretical liberalisation.
At the moment, in services which are not theoretically liberalised - as is the case with national postal services - there is a basic form of liberalisation, which is agreed within the framework of the Universal Postal Union, allowing for lower tariffs.
In a service which is theoretically liberalised, free competition may disappear as a result of the concentration of the service amongst large companies abusing their dominant position, agreements between companies and other similar circumstances.
I would therefore advise Commissioner Monti to deal with the issue of postal liberalisation, taking strict account of free competition, because I believe that this will probably become a very worrying issue in the future.
My prediction is that the liberalised postal services will probably be much less competitive than the current public postal services.
Mr President, the postal service is not a normal service provider like a hairdresser' s or a fitness centre.
For us in Finland, a sparsely populated country, a visit to the post office is a social event.
In the world of networking, the mail service is the most democratic of all networks.
It creates and maintains interpersonal relationships.
The common market in postal services will be created on the terms of the marketeers.
For us in the north it will mean that the EU will be destroying the social infrastructure.
Commissioner Monti, the principle of competition cannot be applied to interpersonal relationships: postal services must be improved, not run down.
Only a public mail service can guarantee that information technology is within everyone' s reach in society.
The post office is democracy.
It is better suited to handling such matters than telecommunications companies.
Telecommunications costs have risen as a consequence of companies being bought and sold and marketing costs accounting for more than 50% of companies' turnover.
Democratic investments have to be made to preserve a democratic post office.
It is particularly appropriate that Mr Monti is responding to this debate because the great conundrum with postal services is how to square an open market and free and fair competition with providing a service which is universally available to all, even in the remotest and least inhabited region of the European Union.
In the hills and glens of Scotland and the rural borders and central belt, on the beautiful but fragile islands of the Hebrides, Orkney and Shetland, there is real concern at possibly losing this essential service.
Yet we all know that service quality can only improve if postal services, like all service industries, are given the financial and management freedom of the private sector and the spur of open, even international, competition.
I would suggest that there is a solution.
It is already employed widely in the transport sector. Air routes, ferry routes, train routes, bus routes, within and to these remoter areas are put out to tender.
The bidder who offers to provide the specific service at a specific quality level and at the lowest subsidy level gets the contract.
Let us call this a negative tender franchise.
This permits desirable competition in providing these services under a publicly-supported but fully transparent franchise system.
Why could not mail collection and delivery in a certain region be put to negative tender in this manner? The lowest subsidy would win the franchise for a certain period of time.
Why could not the sub-post office in a remote village also be put out to this sort of negative tender? It would therefore be up to the appropriate democratically accountable government body, local, regional or national - probably under overall EU supervision - to set the service criteria and the financial resources for meeting this particular social purpose.
Otherwise the postal services can be left to all the demands and constraints of the marketplace.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is no coincidence that I am the fifth Member of this House from Scotland to rise to speak in this debate.
That is a measure of the importance to us of our postal services.
Scotland as a country is larger than some Member States.
It has many remote mainland communities accessible only by road, sometimes served poorly by public transport, sometimes not at all.
Such communities rely for their survival on having local facilities, such as a school, a post office and a shop.
It is on the last two that the elderly, in particular, depend. Often they are located together, each service being made more viable by the existence of the other.
Scotland also has many island communities, some of which can be reached by air but most of which depend on sea ferries.
It has been calculated that the actual cost of carrying a letter from Edinburgh to the Central Highlands is about ten times that of carrying the same letter across London. And it is about four times the postage cost actually charged.
The more remote the community, the greater the difference becomes.
That is the measure of the problem.
It is not to oppose liberalisation to ask that it be done in a way that takes account of these factors and allows the continuation of a universal and affordable postal service.
It is for all our remote and island communities, no matter where in the European Union they are situated, and not just for the people of Scotland, that I ask you to preserve the vital lifeline that their postal services provide.
. Mr President, I consider it a privilege that I am replacing my colleague, Commissioner Bolkestein, on the occasion of such a high-quality debate on postal services.
I will try to respond to the debate on the basis of information provided by Commissioner Bolkestein.
May I repeat that on Monday he will be available to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism of Parliament.
Some Members, like Mr Stenmarck, complain that there have been delays with the new proposal.
Others believe that it is not so bad after all, if there is a slight pause after the first step of liberalisation.
This is, for example, the position expressed by Mr Berthu.
The Commission' s position is that the new proposal was delayed mainly owing to the internal problems of the Commission, of which I am sure Parliament is not totally unaware.
But we feel that there is a legal obligation for a proposal to be made.
It is Commissioner Bolkestein' s intention to present such a proposal to the Commission for adoption in the first half of this year.
The scheduled date of 1 January 2003 for implementation of the next steps remains feasible.
The proposal will take account of the studies undertaken and in particular look at such issues as universal service, to which I will come back in a second.
As regards the existing directive and its implementation, most Member States have taken the necessary legal measures to transpose the directive.
A number of problems exist as regards the structure of the regulator and its independence.
The implementation deadline for the Member States is January 2003.
Further liberalisation will occur afterwards.
In some areas competition is already taking place, as in the parcels sector and in the express services.
The quality of services has, generally speaking, improved, in particular in regard to cross-border activity.
The quality of services, which is so relevant to consumers, was a main concern of all speakers, some of whom, like Mr Rübig, were very explicit on this point.
The experiences in countries where liberalisation is more advanced such as Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands, prove that when liberalisation takes place in an orderly way, the quality of service may be raised as a result of higher-quality service requirements imposed by the national regulations and their follow-up.
So this is not a selling-out of the service and of its quality.
Frequently liberalisation leads to guaranteed standards and the on-going standardisation of the measurement of the quality of service also contributes, as these standards will better reflect actual performance.
This will allow for meaningful bench-marking and improved customer orientation by the incumbent operator as a result of the combined pressure by regulators, competitors and customers.
We can see in the incumbent operators, in public post offices, a change of culture that I believe nobody can consider negative if the current trend towards concentrating on customers' needs continues.
The concerns expressed in this Parliament this morning by honourable Members will be at the core of the activity of my colleague and of the Commission as a whole in the preparation of the further proposal.
That proposal will fully take into account the need to ensure universality of service, the development of efficient safeguards for consumers, and the creation of a climate which would be favourable to new jobs - not to fewer jobs - in the framework of a progressive, gradual evolution.
The issue of universal service was mentioned by Mrs Isler Béguin, by Mr Miller, whom I thank for his personal message, and by many others.
We are all aware of the extremely important aspect of social and structural cohesion, especially in the sparsely populated rural areas, one of which has been particularly strongly and overwhelmingly represented in the debate this morning.
We believe that the universal service is a pillar and I am sure that my colleague will be able to provide reassurances to the appropriate parliamentary committee.
Mrs Gillig, but others like Mr Markov and Mr Ésclope, voiced concerns about employment.
Experience in other sectors show a sort of U-curve pattern: a phase of reduction in employment starts just before liberalisation takes place, as, of course, the incumbent prepares itself to be competitive; then a second phase of steady employment, as new jobs in newcomer operators balance further potential employment reductions; finally, a third phase of net job creation, both in the incumbent and new operators as the benefits of liberalisation reach users and the market develops more quickly.
In the postal sector the first phase is already in progress, as the universal service providers have embarked on a process of modernisation.
The new technologies and logistics rather than the process of postal liberalisation are the most important factors impacting on employment.
On the availability of the studies, - a point raised by Mr Staes and others - copies of each of the studies were handed to Parliament in September 1999.
They have all been available on the Commission' s Internet website since August 1999 and the Commission is willing to provide copies to anybody who is interested.
The studies have been the object of some criticism, especially on the part of the public postal services.
I am aware that all the studies launched experienced difficulty in collecting adequate data.
This was no surprise, since the universal service operators do not always have the systems in place for detailed letter collection.
Does that not say a lot about management ability? No single methodology for accessing the cost and financing of the universal service is accepted by all the parties.
Nevertheless, Mr Bolkestein is convinced that the studies undertaken provide enough clarity and precision to form the basis of the decision-making process.
I finally come to three interventions about a subject I am supposed to know better than postal services, that is competition.
Mr Purvis, I found your methodologically provocative remark about the tender interesting and certainly worth exploring.
Mr Medina Ortega, I am as convinced as you are that we must be even more vigilant after liberalisation, because we do not want the disappearance of public monopolies to give rise, through unchecked concentration, to private operators.
This applies both to the post and other sectors.
If I can provide one example of this sort of vigilance, it is the case of Deutsche Post where, following complaints and an action before the court, the Commission initiated a formal state aid procedure in July.
We have just received the reply of the German Government to the observations made.
The state aid procedure covers the question of cross-subsidisation between monopoly letter services and commercial business parcel activities as well as the financing of Deutsche Post' s numerous recent acquisitions.
I will not go into the details due to lack of time, but this is perhaps one illustration of the fact that the Commission does not stop its work as liberalisation progresses.
In a sense this is where its work begins.
Finally, Mr Radwan, of course, there should be limits to competition and there are limits to competition.
In particular, if we take the issue of competition and services of general interest, where a Member State defines a mission of public service, it is important to quantify the costs for discharging that mission and state aids that compensate for those costs are certainly not a violation of competition.
I would slightly disagree with the terminology you used when you said, Mr Radwan, that it is time for the needs of citizens to be taken into account rather than exclusively the need for competition.
That concept I reject firmly, because competition is there for the citizens, and for them alone.
Most companies hate competition.
Competition is run and managed in the interest of the citizens, their economic interest and for their liberty.
The examples of liberalisation and competition in air transport and in telephony services in Europe show that citizens have benefited from this.
I can only say again that Commissioner Bolkestein will be able to address all the concerns on Monday, in the appropriate committee, more competently and in much more detail.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Pursuant to Rule 42(5), I have received a motion for a resolution to close the present debate.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution) EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
We voted in favour of the resolution because we received a request to this effect from a French postal service trade union which was looking to obtain, in the event of a favourable vote, an additional time frame in which to defend employees.
This does not mean that we approve the entire contents, which are too vague and which leave out the main concern.
The policy undertaken by the European institutions and by national governments, especially the French government, is a retrograde policy, counter to the interests of both the service users, i.e. the great majority of the population, and the postal service workers.
Postal services must continue to be public services.
All people, regardless of their location or social status, must have access to the postal service on an equal footing and subject to the same conditions.
In organising the public service no consideration must be given to the idea of profitability, and private firms must not be authorised to amass private profits by carrying off the most profitable public service activities.
Consequently, the post office and its equivalents in the various countries of Europe must keep their monopoly of this service.
In order to ensure that we have proper postal services on the European Union level, it is essential to put an end to the policy of closing down local post offices, reducing the number of deliveries and overworking postal staff.
The post office and, more generally, all public services must, on the other hand, recruit additional staff.
Such jobs are unquestionably useful, and creating an adequate number of them would reduce unemployment in Europe.
Mr President, personally I voted in favour of this resolution, because the essential thing is that the European Parliament should discuss the postal service and we should get away from the current ambiguous situation.
If we dismantle the public service, this would be very serious, and we wish to know what are the Commission' s intentions.
Saying that the client will receive a better service at a lower cost is patently inaccurate.
People who live a long way from civilisation will clearly not receive a better service or else they will then have to pay a great deal and some of them will not be in a position to do so.
Postal services do not provide simply a postal delivery service but also a social service.
Occasionally for some people the postman is the only person they see all day.
We can salute them, these postmen who, whatever the weather, sometimes walk for miles to be able to offer this service to everyone.
Dismantling the postal service, the local communication service, would be a serious mistake and we would be unable to maintain the principle of the equality of all citizens.
Profitability at all costs means going against fraternity and against social cohesion.
Mr President, I voted for the resolution and should like to explain my motives.
Several speakers mentioned that the only person with whom many elderly people have any contact is the postman, particularly in mountain communities.
I wholeheartedly agree.
However, it also seems to me that the pensions of many elderly people are being reduced as a result of national budget constraints.
In my own country, Italy, there are some 200 000 postal workers who cost the state approximately ITL 50 million a year per capita, or EUR 25 000, that is, a total cost of around EUR 5 million.
Liberalisation of postal services would mean that the state could give each pensioner an extra ITL 10 million a year so that a million pensioners would see their pensions doubled.
That should amply compensate them for forgoing their contact with the postman.
Mr President, I voted in favour of the resolution on European postal services with all the more satisfaction since it reiterates once again the position I have always defended in this House, which is the need for a high quality universal service, particularly ensuring this service in the least populated regions and rural regions, and there are some even in my small country, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
In these regions but also in some districts of towns and cities, as Mr Posselt explained so clearly, post offices and postmen have an almost socio-cultural role, I might say, which goes beyond merely delivering mail.
I know that this service is unprofitable.
It would perhaps be less costly to make a fax or email available to isolated houses or villages.
In principle, I am in favour of abolishing public sector monopolies, whether in water, gas, electricity, telephone, satellite, cable or any other services.
Nonetheless, liberalisation, which has a lot to offer to the consumer in terms of the price and the quality of the service, especially in the telephone sector, must cease as soon as the service provided becomes inadequate or disappears, when the firms profiting from liberalisation are not making money.
If they cannot be obliged to provide what the state monopoly was able to guarantee, particularly thanks to its obligation to provide a universal service, then the public service must be protected.
I feel we can still afford to maintain a postal service, even if our post offices operate like businesses.
They clearly have to make some effort so that they are no longer described as snail mail even if they cannot attain the speed of email.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.10 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 18 February 2000.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, on 22 February, ETA struck again in a brutal attack in Spain with the murder of Fernando Buesa Blanco, the General Secretary of the Socialist Party of Vizcaya and the spokesman of the Socialist Party of the Basque Parliament, and Jorge Díez Elorza, his bodyguard.
The same day, I conveyed my own and the European Parliament' s deepest sympathy and sincere condolences to the victims' families.
These men paid with their lives for their commitment to democracy.
I utterly condemn this act of barbarism that is unworthy of any civilised society.
The rule of law and the respect of rights and fundamental freedoms are the principles on which the European Union is based.
Terrorism, whatever form it takes, is unacceptable.
In expressing the hope that these men will be the last victims of ETA, I call on this organisation finally to cease resorting to violence and to use the democratic channels that exist in Spain.
I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to observe one minute' s silence in memory of Fernando Buesa Blanco and Jorge Díez Elorza.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I want to thank you for your statement last Tuesday and for your words today in memory of Fernando Buesa Blanco.
He was a member of the Basque regional parliament, spokesman for the Socialist Party in that parliament and also a former vice-president of the Basque regional government.
Madam President, the best tribute that my Group and this House can pay to Fernando Buesa is to take on board his vision, as a European, of the Basque Country, Spain and Europe.
The following is a translated extract from his autobiography. 'We are in Europe.
Anyone of my age - I am 54 - can remember their grandparents' era and their parents' era and, of course, is living in the current era. We can also see into the era in which our children will live.
In my grandparents' time, it took several days to travel from Vitoria to Seville.
Now you can go from Vitoria to Copenhagen in 2 or 3 hours by plane.
Today, at the end of the 20th century, a single market is operating in Europe in which we will soon be using a single currency.
We can now travel much more easily than our grandparents could within Spain or even within the Basque Country.
We are building a vast European area which will firstly be linked economically and then politically.
This process may take a long time but it is unstoppable and, what is more, desirable.
The public still regard this as being a long way off but it is very real and should serve to make us question certain aspects of our current situation.
In a debate within the Socialist Party on the Irish process, someone said: "In the end, the key to the Irish solution was that everyone involved had the following thought: does it really matter whether we are Irish or British? Everyone can be what they want to be because, if Ireland and Britain are both in the European Union, there is no point in killing each other for being Irish or British.
What difference does it make if the national level is no longer going to function?"
We in the Basque Country could ask ourselves the same question.
Does it really matter if we are Basque or Spanish or European? We have talked a lot about what it is to be Basque, but a Basque today dresses like a Dane and reads the same things as a British person.
If life is going to be lived on a much more global basis, as is already happening, and our children will therefore be living in the Europe which we are creating, why are we killing each other for being Basque or Spanish?'
Fernando Buesa also said the following, which everyone in Ireland has probably thought. 'If we are killing each other for no reason - and this was happening in Ireland because there were paramilitary groups on all sides - we should be resolutely asking ourselves this question in the Basque Country too.
What difference does it make to be Basque? Surely it is all the same thing.
You can be what you want to be. If, in the future, economics and politics and vital decisions for each country are dealt with in the European arena, there is no point killing or dying for being Basque or Spanish' .
May he rest in peace.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, I want to express our most profound feeling of solidarity with the families of Fernando Buesa, an elected representative of the Basque people, and Jorge Díez, a member of the Basque police force. We also naturally want to express our solidarity with the whole of the Basque Socialist Party.
In recent times, in this House, we have sadly had to discuss the various faces of extremism in Europe.
It does not matter what banner these come under because, in the end, they are all different expressions of the same thing.
Faced with these, we democrats cannot resign ourselves to the peace of the dead.
On the contrary, we must take strength from knowing that the only social division which exists in the Basque Country is the abyss which separates those who kill, and those who support and express understanding for the latter, from the vast majority of the Basque people who simply want to live in peace and freedom.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, I would like to express our sorrow for the victims and our rejection of terrorism and those who defend it.
For the friends and relatives of the victims this is a human tragedy and for their political families it is a political tragedy, but I feel that we are also witnessing a cultural tragedy, in that the culture of death and of violence is constantly gaining ground against the culture of respect for others, democracy and democratic life.
So, Madam President, maybe we should consider taking some action if we want our sorrow and our rejection of terrorism to have any actual significance.
Why does Parliament not meet in all the countries of the European Union and show that it rejects terrorism? Let us make ourselves heard!
We are not just confined to Brussels or Strasbourg.
Let us all go back to our respective nations and shout from the rooftops that our belief in democracy and our indignation are not just words, but a demonstration of our actual political commitment.
Just three months ago I took the floor in this House to congratulate the Irish and British people on their success in reaching the Northern Ireland settlement, as many other colleagues did.
In Northern Ireland in the last thirty years too many people have been killed and injured - too many families shattered.
So far, unfortunately, in Spain and France, just the opposite has been happening as regards the on-going conflict in the Basque country.
We, Euskal Herritarrok, are convinced that a definitive solution to the present struggle can only be found through an open process of dialogue and negotiation with no limited agenda.
Before 20 January last, during nineteen months, the only killing we witnessed in the Kingdom of Spain was that of José Luis Geresta, member of ETA, in March 1999.
In spite of that and the arrests made by the Spanish and French police, including arrests of ETA negotiators with the Spanish government' s agreement, ETA honoured its unilateral ceasefire.
Then, last November, before the ceasefire was over, the Spanish Government spokesman, Mr Piqué, declared that his government had done and would in the future do everything possible to hinder present moves towards a political solution in the Basque country.
We, Euskal Herritarrok, have regretted many times the loss of human lives.
We share with all the Basque citizens the sufferings of our people.
We are committed to dialogue and ready to work together with all those eager to find a democratic settlement for the Basque country.
Twenty years have passed since the Northern Ireland question was first raised in this Parliament.
May I ask: Quousque tandem - Noiz arte?
Thank you, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, I should like to assure you of my empathy and sincere respect.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
We are about to discuss the subject of reforming the Commission and you will recall, Madam President, that at the beginning of the last session, I raised with you the question of whether, in the interests of openness and transparency, the Members' register of interests could be made more available to the public by being published on the Internet.
You promised Parliament you would raise this subject with the Quaestors that very evening.
I wonder if you are now in a position to confirm to Parliament that the Quaestors have agreed in principle that the register should be published on the Internet and, if so, whether you will personally set them a deadline - perhaps 1 April - for doing so.
I can tell you, Mr Davies, that the Bureau has adopted the principle of publishing the Members' register of financial interests on the Internet and the Quaestors are studying in great detail the problems and the legal questions that it may involve.
But we shall have a decision very soon.
(The Minutes were adopted)
Reforming the Commission
The next item is the Commission statement on Reforming the European Commission.
I shall give the floor straight away to the President, Mr Romano Prodi.
Thank you, Commissioner Kinnock.
We shall now move on to Question Time.
Madam President, the Commission proposals include the waiver of immunity of officials.
Recently, the immunity of a former Commissioner was lifted and proceedings are currently pending before a judge in Brussels on the basis that Brussels is the seat of the Community institutions.
Yet these institutions have other seats and, given that the Community' s actions affect the whole Community territory, there are in fact thousands of courts which could judge officials, Commissioners and so on.
Is the Commission aware that, in order to lift immunity, it would be necessary to adopt a new legal instrument to regulate the procedure for holding Commission officials accountable, including former and current Commissioners?
There is effective legal precaution.
In the particular case that the honourable Member has in mind, not only did the Commission easily and quickly come to a decision to waive the immunity of a former Commissioner, but the former Commissioner herself advised the Commission of her desire that the immunity should be lifted.
I can see the complexities that concern the honourable Member, but I say to him that in the last five years there have been ten cases in which there have been requests from national legal authorities for the immunity of 26 officials to be lifted, and every single one of those requests has been met, and met with alacrity.
I think that the House can therefore be confident that not only are the civil rights of individuals who may be accused or required to produce evidence safeguarded, but so is the interest of the properly constituted legal bodies of every Member State in seeking to get information, or the right to interview or investigate anybody associated with the Commission.
As the Parliament' s rapporteur on the staff elements of your report, Mr Kinnock, I very much welcome the fact that we are now starting the process, and if I may say to all colleagues here, we have a very important task to do, which will be absolutely central to the future of the Commission and its effectiveness.
And I make the point, before I move to my questions, that what happens concerning the Staff Regulations in the Commission has a fundamental role on our responsibility also as employers of staff because, of course, the European Parliament staff operate under the same conditions.
That will form part of the work that we will have to do and I sure that all of you today will want to engage in that process.
Now there were two points I wanted to pick up with Mr Kinnock, if I may.
The first one concerns the timescale of these important reforms.
Mr Prodi said in his very important opening statement that he had identified severe problems in the Commission about low morale and low motivation, and clearly that is a major concern.
Big expectations are built up for these reforms both within the Commission and outside.
And if we are to move forward, I suggest to you that the reforms on the personnel side, early evidence of change of culture, empowerment and motivation of staff have to happen sooner rather than later.
And if we look at the original proposals - and I suspect that we will see the same in the new ones - it was not until 2002 that we were going to complete overall reform of the Staff Regulations.
Indeed, it was not until 2001 that some of the key elements of appraisal were going to be introduced.
I suggest that is too long, and we really must move forward much more quickly than that.
The second point that I want to make concerns information technology.
Have you really taken into account the changes in staff structure that new information technology will bring about, because those will be fundamental in the new direction of these reforms.
On the second part of Mr Harbour' s question, he will see in the course of this year how with greater precision we will be showing how the application more extensively of information technology will facilitate change, not only in terms of the working practices and conditions of the staff but in the operation of the Commission, as the President briefly outlined in his statement.
Could I thank Mr Harbour for the energetic commitment that he has shown to the issue on which he is rapporteur and respond to him by saying that we firmly believe that the morale, the motivation and the professional commitment of Commission officials, which is already very strong, will be enhanced by the introduction of comprehensive training, the allocation of responsibility, the upgrading of management and a number of other changes which we will be introducing.
Cultures are products of structures and systems, and the structures and systems have become old.
By renovating those structures and systems, in some cases very radically, we will assist the people of the Commission who are strongly committed to the European ideal and have high quality of capability to release talents and manifest themselves as never before.
I would like to make one last point in answer to Mr Harbour.
I share his impatience to secure the full implementation of the mechanisms of reform and change practices.
I wish I could honestly say to him that we will be compiling and providing in the form of proposals communications before 2001 and certainly be putting them into effect before 2002, but he will be aware there are legally required consultation procedures and periods which we must respect.
I do not use those as an excuse.
We indeed take huge encouragement from the very positive and constructive response offered in the consultation over the last month and I believe therefore that although there may be a slight delay in the compilation and application of reforms, these reforms will nevertheless be strengthened by the extent of understanding and commitment that will be produced by the consultation which we will undertake assiduously.
I would like everything to happen much more quickly.
It is better to do it absolutely properly.
Madam President, we admire Mr Kinnock' s vision and sense of realism.
For he is holding up visions of a well-oiled and effective administration and is, at the same time, drawing our attention to the difficulties which will arise and which can already be anticipated.
Mr Prodi has pointed out that he would like to give up a few of his responsibilities.
We will therefore need to focus on policy priorities first.
I think it is more important to bring into focus what we want to achieve before we give up responsibilities, because I can imagine we could meet with a great deal of protest otherwise.
Enlargement - that is enlargement of the Union - is one of the key challenges in this context.
I would also like to point out that when it comes to keeping the peace, it will require a much greater effort to get a great many more people on board.
We must resolutely switch from our present, rather bureaucratic approach which we are all familiar with - it pervades our development cooperation for example - to a cooperation for peace.
Could Mr Kinnock say what timeframe he is expecting the Council and Parliament to come up with for these priorities?
I am grateful to Mrs Maes for not only the comments that she has made now but the sustained commitment that she has shown to change ever since she came into this House.
Can I assure her that our attitude is not guided by any motivation to farm out.
We are concentrating on core tasks and we are concentrating on priorities, not in order to evade any obligations but to absolutely guarantee that we can totally fulfil the central obligations that we have.
One of those obligations very clearly - and I am at one with Mrs Maes in this - is in the preparation for effective, smooth, calm enlargement that will work to the mutual benefit both of the people of the incoming countries and of the citizens of the current Union.
One of the reasons for having to ensure that we focus very strongly and sharply on our priorities is to be able to guarantee that we can fulfil that absolutely critical role of being the agents of enlargement to maximum effect.
Can I say to her that the mechanisms that we are going to introduce of strategic planning and programming facilitated by activity-based management may sound to be immensely dry and completely bereft of any idealism.
Since I was brought up to believe that the victory of ideals needs to be organised, I may be able to make an appeal to her to understand and support our mechanistic view of this because it is for the great and central purposes of the Union and its enlargement.
I hope that, in terms of the degree of cooperation and partnership that we can enjoy in all aspects of this policy with the Council and with Parliament, not only will we get rapid implementation of policy development in the most effective way, but that we will be able to do it by coordination at the right time which will produce the maximum benefit for the Union.
I do believe that reform with all it implies, including the new mechanisms, will very strongly facilitate changes of that kind.
I would like to take the opportunity firstly to congratulate the Commission on unanimously bringing forward this timely and substantial White Paper with the accompanying action plan and I think when the President of the Commission described his Vice-President as acting with intelligence, enthusiasm and energy that indeed that is a fair and valid description with regard to this procedure.
Two questions if I may.
We anticipate, if I understand correctly, a report in September on core activities.
Will that already begin to impact possibly in some form of amendment to the budget exercise which the Parliament will have to close in the last quarter of this year in respect of the budget for 2001 and can you already say whether the Commission anticipates such a procedure?
Secondly, on the question of ex ante and ex post auditing and procedures, do I understand correctly - and I have not had the opportunity to wade into the detail of the paper - that the unanimous decision of the Commission is indeed to empower the Directorates-General to liberate them from the ex ante visae system but to put in their place a strong ex post and independent and centralised audit system? If that is the case I can say at least that after prolonged and at times engaging discussion each way in my own Group, I believe that if we have demanded in this House as we have done that we have responsibility at each level in the Commission, its necessary counterpart is that we free people up to be managers.
Let the managers manage.
I want to thank Mr Cox and indeed his group for the way in which several Members have strongly engaged themselves and interested themselves in the detail of reform which can sometimes be rather trying but is always, as he indicated, worthwhile.
So far as the September communication is concerned, it is unprecedented.
It will not be just one of the screenings that the Commission has periodically undertaken but a very thorough and sharp review within Directorates-General and across the Commission for which we have established a mechanism for reviewing the demands on us and the means that we have to meet those demands.
It is conceivable therefore - I cannot say with absolute certainty at this stage - that at that stage in the budgetary procedure and in the cycle in which Parliament is engaged we may have to - I emphasise very strongly the conditional - we may have to come to Parliament with some conclusions and discuss the possibility of revision.
That is a sensible forecast to make, it is not an ambition that we have but it is a possibility that we may have to entertain.
Can I thank Mr Cox for underlining the virtue of following absolutely the recommendation of the Committee of Independent Experts and introducing a system which will end definitely with the revision of the financial regulation and the end of centralised ex ante control.
I would emphasise, too, that the intention is not only to liberate the personnel of the Commission - that is certainly an objective - but it is simultaneously to "responsibilise" - it is an appalling word but we all know what it means.
In undertaking such a development in our organisation I am certain that we can match or even advance upon the success and increase in job motivation which has come as a consequence of similar developments in several administrations, both in the public sector and in the private sector, in the last decade or so.
I think that the end of the centralised system will certainly not result in any relaxation of effective financial control but will increase its effectiveness and its relationship to operational tasks.
Financial control will be absolutely secured, both because of the way in which we will introduce the changes, and because we will introduce a completely professional, independent internal audit service.
As I said earlier, our ambition is total security for money and value for money.
We are also interested in value for the people who work for us.
The changes in financial management and control will greatly enhance the possibility of doing all of that.
I am also grateful, at the risk of being repetitive, to Mrs Theato for the consistent attention that she has given to these matters and indeed the way in which, if she will allow me to say so, she played midwife to many of the changes which we are now contemplating.
I hope that she will come to take pride in the child for which she has at least part parentage.
First of all, I am not sure if I got the interpretation properly, but I do not think it would be possible for someone as expert as Mrs Theato to talk about the abolition of independent financial control.
There is a degree of independence obviously allocated to the current Financial Controller by the financial regulation.
However, because of the mixture of roles of both financial management and control, and audit under the present terms, it is very difficult to think of this as an uncompromised role, no matter how great the integrity of the person actually holding it.
So, the changes that we seek to make - as I say consistent with the very strong and clear recommendations of the Committee of Independent Experts - are not negative in any way at all.
Coherence, consistency and universally good standards in a decentralised system of financial control are guaranteed by a series of measures.
One is to ensure high quality training, another is to ensure that no Directorate-General can take over financial control responsibilities unless and until the auditor service is absolutely certain of the robustness of the system, another is the establishment of a central financial service, as honourable Members will see from the White Paper, to ensure that those standards are set and supervised, and there is also the additional belt and braces and boilersuit approach of having an effective and independent internal audit service.
I will not go into all the details in the course of a parliamentary answer of this kind but I am certain that on examination Mrs Theato will be able to see that in the details of the White Paper, there are very strong assurances.
There will also be evidence of the fact that we have taken heed of the representations made in this House particularly in the Committee on Budgetary Control, and that is significant in respect of the use of ex ante visas in Directorates-General.
If that is felt in a Directorate-General to be a relevant and effective way of enhancing financial control, the ex ante system can be used.
Naturally, there are diverse requirements across the Commission depending on the number and nature of the financial transactions in which particular Directorates-General have to engage.
Account is taken of that too in the White Paper but where there is a desire and a demonstrated need for the use of such a system, it most certainly can be used.
Lastly on transition, I share the reservations of Mrs Theato over so-called "soft law" .
We have had this discussion before and she knows I make a distinction between various forms of codes which can have a very positive effect and eventually be turned into what I suppose we could call "hard law" .
But, on this issue, I do not see any room for soft law which is why in the transition period there will be total adherence to the current financial regulation until that law is changed by due democratic process in this House and in the Council.
There are absolute assurances of that and provisions made for it in the White Paper.
In addition, however, and very importantly, because it is a transition period, there will be training, there will be advice, there will be support, there will be assurances. The new head of the audit unit will be in place by 1 May and with that and an accumulation of other assurances I think that we can be as certain as human beings can be that there will be a totally secure system even during the period of transition.
Two other points I must make, because this is an essential question central to reform.
The first one is that people feel - for reasons I well understand - that in that transition there is a danger either of irresponsibility or of inertia.
Irresponsibility because the feeling exists in some quarters that there will not be sufficient control and discipline.
I completely reject that simply because of the standards of Commission officials, the responsibility of directors-general and the assurances that we have built into the system.
Inertia would only be born of anxiety and we are doing everything we can in terms of support and training to diminish the possibility of that occurring.
Lastly, the system we currently have - as the Committee of Independent Experts asserted very strongly - is now unsustainable.
Indeed the Court of Auditors has called it fiction.
Change will have to come in any case, change would imply a transition period because there is no possibility of any system being invented that could enable us to move from one Friday to the next Monday from one system to another.
In so far as it is at all possible with all of the advice at our disposal and all of the design capability that we have, I am certain that we have installed, or that we will install on the basis of our proposals, a system that will provide the Union, its taxpayers and this House with complete security.
Madam President, great importance has been attached to the reform process, which deserves to be acknowledged, although this may be somewhat premature.
My question is this: there is a need for reform, due not least to the accession of new countries, and thus to the enlargement of the Union.
How can we - the Commission, Parliament and also the national parliaments of the applicant countries - meet this challenge more effectively, taking into account the ideas and considerations of the applicant countries? The delegations are actively engaged - as am I in my delegation for relations with the Czech Republic - but it is clear that there is often a pronounced schoolmasterish tone to our dealings with one another.
How can the reform process help make the relationship and cooperation between the European Parliament, the national parliaments and also the Commission, and the work they perform together, more effective?
I am grateful to the honourable Member for underlining the fact that, apart from its own inherent merits, reform will be made necessary by accession, the enlargements, and particularly the kind of enlargements that our Union will shortly be engaging in.
It is essential that we have that reform, both for the sake of the current Union, and certainly to facilitate accessions.
In the course of the coming years I will be continuing the practice I have already started, together with several of my Commission colleagues obviously, of very profound discussions with the administrations of the incoming new Member States.
We are doing it in order to try to explain in the fullest terms the system into which they will be entering.
I would also like to see the enrichment of the training effort undertaken both by current Member States and by the Union generally to ensure that as new officials come in to the Commission and officials and administrators in the Member States have to deal with the realities, the complex realities of membership of the Union and the single market, it will be difficult to see the joins.
That is the level of sophistication and provision I would like to see.
All I can do now is to promise to strive for it.
Can I start by wishing the Commissioner a very happy St David' s Day.
Thank you for the presentation.
It is important that the Commission never loses sight of the fact that the reform process will be a complete waste of time unless it reconnects with the European public.
That really has to be the sharp focus the whole time.
It has to give a service to them and certainly the recommendations on cutting down on payment delays I am sure will be very welcome, but the other major complaint we get from the people we represent is paperwork.
Excessive paperwork.
Is there a reference to cutting down paperwork and bureaucracy for applicants to European funding whilst ensuring financial control? That is a clear complaint that we get.
That needs to be addressed.
The other question I would like to ask is on the audit progress committee.
This, of course, is welcome, but it is essential it include a reference to the monitoring of recommendations that come from the European Parliament within our discharge procedure.
Will you be adding that into your audit progress committee' s work? Finally, the Socialist Group agrees with activity-based budgeting and with responsibilisation and you will be judged, as Mr Prodi says, by your actions, not your words.
The mission of reconnecting with the European public is critical as Mrs Morgan says and that can only be done on the basis of action not words.
I say that with some deference in the European Parliament where there are so many experts in words, but we will try to lead by example.
As far as excessive paper is concerned, the dilemma is spelt out by Mrs Morgan.
We detest the excess of paper, but given the requirements that we have to check and re-check and double check in order to guarantee effective financial control, sometimes the requirements of administration, which some call bureaucracy, are unavoidable.
In order however to strip back those obligations to their minimum, we are not just talking about it; we will be appointing in the very near future a deputy secretary-general, an additional deputy secretary-general with the specific mandate and mission of identifying best practices and spreading them throughout the Commission and of ensuring a radical reduction in the procedures which generate so much paper, so much bureaucracy and I must say so much frustration, not only for the citizens and businesses of the Union but for the people who work for the Commission too.
We shall certainly strive in order to do that and I think that the effect over the next few years will start to become apparent.
One of our difficulties is always going to be of course that the better we are at reform, the less anybody is going to know about it so we will be relying on our friends and partners in the European Parliament to explain with their customary generosity the full efforts being made by the Commission to properly serve the people of Europe.
I know I can rely on everyone here.
That concludes Question Time.
I should like to thank President Prodi and Commissioner Kinnock.
Statement by the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy
The next item is the statement by the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Please give a very warm welcome to Mr Javier Solana to whom I shall hand over without further delay.
Thank you very much indeed, Mr Solana. I shall now give the floor to Mr Poettering, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
Thank you, Mr Poettering.
Mr Poettering, it goes without saying that Commissioner Patten' s participation in this debate is most opportune, and we have agreed that I will allow him to speak when he so wishes.
Commissioner, would you like to speak now or a little later?
(The Commissioner indicated that he would speak later) Very well, thank you.
Madam President, Commissioner Patten, Mr Javier Solana, usted no es una persona loca, todo lo contrario (you are not mad, quite the opposite).
We are delighted about the rapid progress which has been made following the Helsinki Summit. We know that you have an important role in this.
I am also very pleased that you have mentioned Mozambique today, and in this context, and that a major humanitarian effort can be made using the resources in question.
We cannot, of course, talk about foreign policy without mentioning Chechnya.
My friend Jacques Poos will be talking about this on behalf of my Group.
I want to concentrate on Kosovo.
It is now quite clear that the situation in Kosovo shows that a lasting solution to the crisis there cannot be provided by military means.
The KFOR forces have made, and are making, an invaluable contribution, but tanks and fire trenches cannot deal with political problems and ethnic conflicts in the longer term.
It has now reached the point where the Pentagon has prohibited American forces from returning to northern Mitrovica. They have now been replaced by robust Danish, Finnish and Swedish troops.
It is easy to despair in the face of the violence and the hatred, but it is important for the sake of Kosovo, the Balkans and Europe that we do not fail.
Through the Stability Pact, we have taken major steps which place us under an obligation.
This is therefore a test of credibility for the Union' s common foreign and security policy.
At the moment, there is a huge shortage of suitable personnel in Kosovo.
Last autumn, we already heard Mr Bernard Kouchner call for a civilian police force.
I am now delighted to hear that, this weekend, Mr Javier Solana is to call the interior ministers together to discuss the question of policing.
I hope that this discussion will, in the first place, concentrate upon Kosovo so that the desperate situation there might be remedied.
When it comes to the Balkans and Kosovo, I also hope that the Council will comply with Parliament' s and, as I understand it, also the Commission' s demands for a multiannual budget for operations in Kosovo.
The situation in Kosovo has taught us a lot, for example that we should provide ourselves with a military capacity for crisis management, an idea which has already been translated into practical action.
Another, at least as important, lesson of our experience, however, is that it is better to prevent a crisis than to have to take emergency action subsequently.
Therefore, the EU must also have an independent, credible conflict-prevention capacity.
On behalf of the Commission, Commissioner Patten has taken a number of praiseworthy initiatives in this direction.
I am thinking of the proposal to set up a rapid reaction facility and a rapid reaction force for non-military operations and to introduce headline goals for non-military operations, together with a Commission Crisis Centre.
My last question to Mr Solana is this: what concrete preparations are being made for conflict prevention of this kind? How have these been organised by Mr Solana' s office and how has the initiative been coordinated with the Commission?
Mr President, Mr Solana, you have the full support and confidence of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, but we would remind you of the huge responsibility which now rests upon your shoulders.
I am thinking partly of the forthcoming and important humanitarian, peace-keeping and peace-making tasks.
But I am also thinking of the responsibility you now have for ensuring that the new European cooperation on defence does not give rise to any kind of split between NATO and the EU or between the United States and Europe.
Such a split would only delight the despots and rogue States which threaten freedom and human rights.
I believe you heard the concerns which some members of the American Congress expressed last week here in Parliament.
You must lay these concerns to rest for, as you yourself have said, when we are able to present a united transatlantic front, we are in a position to do something.
When we are divided, we are weakened, and the suffering of the oppressed is prolonged.
So, maintain as close contact as possible with our American allies and do not forget Norway, Turkey and Canada, either.
You also share a heavy degree of responsibility for ensuring that we do not end up as paper tigers.
As George Robertson has said so often, we have two million soldiers but could not even put 40 000 soldiers into Kosovo.
It may have been our weakness and lack of credibility which led to the war.
Diplomatic pressure is only successful when it is backed up by credible economic and military threats.
Everything else is wishful thinking.
That is why the Member States must either authorise more expenditure or rearrange their priorities in favour of modern mobile units so that our soldiers are protected by the best equipment.
We are therefore delighted about the decisions which were taken last Monday in Sintra.
The third heavy burden on your shoulders is the responsibility for ensuring parliamentary scrutiny.
This should be exercised first and foremost in the Member States.
No soldier can, of course, be despatched without the approval of the relevant national parliament.
It is therefore wrong for people to talk about a European army.
It will be a force comprised of various national units.
What is new is that it will be well prepared and able to act quickly under effective common leadership and using modern equipment.
However, there is, of course, also room for a certain amount of parliamentary scrutiny and control by the European Parliament.
As someone who both speaks and listens, we are glad to see you as a frequent guest both here in plenary and in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
Finally, I should like to join you in expressing my pleasure at the incredible unity and speed with which this new form of cooperation is being set in motion.
Yesterday, a few of us met the Portuguese Defence Minister.
He was just as pleased and pleasantly surprised as yourself at the fact that it had been possible to agree about so much.
Bear in mind that there are also non-aligned countries at the negotiating table.
We share your delight, as long as we do not race ahead so quickly that transatlantic cooperation is impaired.
There is one thing I shall again finally emphasise: that the purpose of all this is, of course, that we should acquire such credibility when we exercise economic and military pressure that military force is not used at all.
That is the purpose of all this, and it is therefore also important that you should cooperate with Mr Patten, for it is military, economic and diplomatic pressure which together will put a stop to atrocities in neighbouring countries.
Mr President, Mr Solana, we are very uneasy about replying to you because, in our view, you are responsible for an area that does not really exist.
We believe that poor old Europe can only speak with one voice to say nothing or, and this is possibly more serious, that it can only resolve its diplomatic contradictions by simply tagging along with American politics.
In the lyrical mode of illusion and evasion that they are so fond of, at Sintra, the Fifteen decided to equip themselves with an action force that is 'pretentiously' called autonomous.
Now, the Union can certainly call the body an 'action force' even though for the moment it is only the mobilisation of a few funds and the mustering - on paper - of men, weapons and logistics.
But to believe that this muddle can be autonomous is another matter altogether.
What interests will this so-called force defend, in view of the fact that the countries of Europe do not have the same interests?
Let us just consider for a moment. What is the basis of armed action?
It is the defence of a territory, the protection of a country and in general of interests considered to be vital? Just what is an army in the absence of a home country, in the absence of territory - because Europe is incapable of clearly defining its borders - and in the absence of clearly identified vital interests, which the Fifteen have, for good reason, never dared to discuss.
In short, what purpose can an armed force have in the absence of any policy?
We fall back on a kind of ersatz army based on humanitarian rights, a kind of army in the service of vague ideas, of an ideal, the dangers of which have many times been shown in history.
A foreign policy presupposes that one has a clear definition of oneself and of one' s own interests.
But the CFSP will never be anything else other than a cover for the national interests that already manage to dominate the system.
Who cannot see that in this case we are dealing with the twosome formed by London and Berlin, escorted by their respective henchmen, and who have no concept of their own diplomacy as being distinct from that of Washington, seeing themselves at best as bit-part players.
Mr Solana, you yourself are a perfect illustration of this, as it were, structural complicity, passing smoothly from NATO to the CFSP as if they were one and the same. Of course, in reality, they are the same thing.
It is still the old imperial service.
It is not without some amusement that we have seen you, in your pathetic rivalry with Mr Patten, present this delightful and most charming argument: one day you told a German newspaper, "I am the one that the Americans phone up" .
You might have added, Mr Solana, 'to give me their instructions' , because that is what we see, in fact.
In the case of the Balkans, just like everywhere else, one day the United States wants us to destroy the place and the next day they are asking us to rebuild it.
Yes, Jean-Claude Martinez was indeed right to interrupt you, Daniel Cohn-Bendit. In every case, it is follow-my-leader syndrome.
Do you think I am going over the top?
Every day the news brings more proof of our subservience.
Echelon is one of many examples of this, giving an image of Europe that is quite different to the one we like to envisage here.
The experts speak of a cultural problem, I think they might be right!
On behalf of the combined European right, I must say to you, Mr Solana, as High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, we do not have confidence in you.
You say that you are against war, but as Secretary-General of NATO you started a war.
A war of aggression, slavishly carrying out American military policy, in a sphere that was not that of the North Atlantic Treaty, against a state that had never been a member, that was not threatening any international borders and in violation of the rules of international law that establish the principle of non-interference as well as those governing the declaration of war.
Today, even Mr Cohn-Bendit - and that is saying something - can gauge the results of the disastrous policy that he so wished for.
We also have several questions to ask you that show our concern, that is the least one can say.
First of all, in your view, does the common foreign and security policy aim to protect the security of the Member States of the Union, as one might think, or do you recognise their right to intervene anywhere in the world?
Secondly, if you do recognise this right, then what standards of international law and political morality are you going to base your decisions on? I can already hear your reply: humanitarian standards.
In Kosovo, it was for humanitarian reasons that we systematically destroyed all the civilian infrastructure in Serbia.
When the US killed 2 000 people in Panama, it was not to impose their politics, it was to combat drug trafficking.
When they landed in Somalia, before having to withdraw in disarray, it was not to guarantee their takeover of the oil route, it was to restore hope.
'Restore hope' , do you remember? In a nutshell, can you not see that nowadays all these evil deeds are committed for humanitarian reasons.
Finally, you spoke about using the great resources of crisis management.
Not to make war, of course, but to protect peace.
But these are always the words that those who conduct preventative wars use to justify their actions.
Can you assure us that there will not be a preventative war against any State you care to mention, particularly those which, in their elections, do not ratify the policy adopted by the other Member States of the Union?
Mr Solana, these questions convey our concern.
You say that you are against war, but you would not be the first warmonger to swear that.
May God spare us the disastrous consequences of the bombastic principles that you have just put forward.
Mr President, it goes without saying that the development of a European security and defence identity will have a huge impact on the three countries which joined NATO last year: Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary.
As candidate countries of the European Union, they therefore wish to fully participate in this interesting initiative from the very beginning, that is to say as of now.
This request, however, was not honoured by the Council at its Helsinki Summit at the end of last year.
In the Finnish capital only vague pledges were made regarding consultation and cooperation.
This is why I would like to ask the High Representative, Mr Solana, to what extent Prague, Warsaw and Budapest are, or will be, involved in European military crisis management plans.
Given Poland' s rather critical stance, this question is all the more pressing.
Its reservation is captured in the following, rather blunt wording: avoid American isolationism and European separatism.
As one might expect, the Polish Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Bronislaw Geremek, has expressed this concern in more diplomatic terms: "The development of a European defence identity should not be at the expense of NATO' s unity.
If anything, the European defence identity should serve to strengthen NATO" .
We all very much share this opinion.
Minister Geremek is certainly not the only leader among the new NATO Members from central and eastern Europe who feels excluded from this crucial process today.
The Czech Defence Minister, for example, shares this opinion.
In the autumn of last year, the latter stated: "Security within Europe is not divisible. It cannot be restricted to a small number of countries, with others only being allowed to observe or execute decisions" .
These opinions add substance to my question addressed to Mr Solana.
Poles only need five words for this: nothing about us without us!
What do the current EU Member States intend to do about this fair request submitted by candidate countries?
Mr President, I too welcome the presence of the High Representative and his availability to answer Members' questions this time round. On his first appearance in November this was not possible, although this was not Mr Solana' s fault.
It should be acknowledged, however, that he noted down and undertook to answer as quickly as possible the questions asked by Members.
We should also acknowledge the efforts which Mr Solana is making towards achieving a more effective, visible and coherent Common Foreign and Security Policy for the European Union.
In this respect, I agree with the previous speakers about the need to have a comprehensive policy which includes not only military elements but also civilian, diplomatic, humanitarian and police elements, to which Mr Solana referred.
The Portuguese presidency has made great progress in establishing a series of provisional or interim bodies.
In record time it has organised this Informal Meeting of Defence Ministers and has highlighted a whole series of milestones on the long road towards this Common Foreign and Security Policy.
One of these milestones was the meeting in Sintra which I would like to ask Mr Solana about.
This meeting was based on two documents, one being a British document on the Headline Goals and the other a document on the permanent military bodies of the European Union.
Mr Solana, would you be prepared, at your next appearance before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, to explain at length to the committee members the content of these documents discussed at the summit? I should like to ask Mr Patten and, through you, the President-in-Office to also attend and answer the same question.
Secondly, to what extent do you support the comments and statements made by the French Defence Minister that the Member States had to allocate 0.7% of GDP to defence expenditure? I would like to hear your opinion.
Do you share this view or do you feel a more significant contribution is needed from the Member States in this respect?
Thirdly, what assessment would you make of the 'Crisex 2000' exercises which have just ended in which, for the first time, the European Union took part in a series of initiatives with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation?
Fourthly and finally, if the Member States asked for this, would you be prepared to chair the Political and Security Committee? In this way you could contribute all your experience as Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers, High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary-General of the Western European Union and a former Secretary-General of NATO.
Mr Solana, as the rapporteur of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, I shall limit my speech to those subjects.
You have, Mr Solana, heard the force of the criticisms made by the Members of Parliament who do not accept the appalling situations in Kosovo, Chechnya and elsewhere.
For my part, I do not wish to give up hope.
And today, as far as you are concerned, I acknowledge your efforts to build a European security and defence policy that is worthy of the name and which has not hitherto existed.
Indeed, we are still a long way from having achieved the desired objective, in any case, the objective that I wish to achieve.
But I do give you credit for your intense work, the number of meetings held, your efforts to create a rapid intervention force, your specific efforts to prevent crises, to manage them or stop them through civilian means and, if necessary, by military means.
I should like to take advantage of your presence here today to ask you two questions of the "what is to be done" variety.
The first concerns the forthcoming European Councils in June and December, without counting the extraordinary Council meeting in Lisbon.
What are the main priorities that you hope to achieve at the next summit meetings? And finally, what do you most need at these next summits?
My second question is different, although it is not unconnected with the previous one.
It concerns the next IGC.
Do you not think that the agenda of the IGC should include the question of European security and defence policy in order to supplement the treaties, if it appeared that, as the texts of the treaties stand at the moment, they do not allow for a real defence policy to be established? I believe that the Italian President of the Council mentioned this point at your meeting on 24 February.
Can you tell us your position on this subject?
Mr President, Bosnia and Kosovo have shaken Europe.
At long last, the European Union realises that it cannot afford to always give the Americans the political and military initiative.
The decision to set up our own peace force is excellent.
However, if Europe wants to take military action at crucial times, the Treaty must include a flexibility clause.
Mr Solana can play an important role in this. He is not stupid.
Certainly not!
He is a driven man, a competent man.
But the question remains as to whether this accumulation of responsibilities exceeds even his level of competence.
In addition to being Secretary-General of the Council, Mr Solana is also Secretary-General of the WEU, as well as High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
He also heads the Unity Policy Planning and the New Early Warning Unit.
One wonders whether he gets any time to sleep, Mr President.
From a democratic point of view, I actually find this accumulation of responsibilities unacceptable. This is exacerbated by the fact that Mr Solana is, of course, not a democratically elected politician, but a high official who is not accountable to any parliament.
His position threatens to eclipse that of Commissioner Patten, as has been illustrated again today, in fact.
It appears that, as European security and defence policy takes shape, the Commission and Parliament are increasingly being left out in the cold. This too is unacceptable in my view.
Naturally, every attempt should be made to make European policy more efficient, but this should not lead to unwished-for concentrations of power.
Mr Solana must keep Europe awake without nodding off himself.
Mr President, peace is the European Union' s very raison d' être.
I am pleased about the fact that Commissioner Patten and Mr Solana have already underlined this repeatedly.
We have also opted for a common and joint development along the road of democracy, cultural diversity and tolerance. But look at us now!
We are observing the misery in Chechnya in a position of powerlessness, and regard the wars in Africa with indifference, despite the fact that we have close ties with so many of these countries, given that they are ex-colonies. Some of them are our ACP partners.
The war is an extension of degenerated underdevelopment.
In Kosovo, we stepped in with military means, having been unable to prevent the war in ex-Yugoslavia.
We are now unable to guide the peace.
This is why Europe is not credible as a Union.
I do not believe, Mr Solana, that we can restore this credibility by military means.
As representatives from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, we all come from nations and regions which have never gone out to war with foreign countries, but we always needed to fight those who came to oppress us.
We are very sceptical about your current plans to form a military capability in the short term.
This is not because we are against European defence, but European defence can and may only be the outcome of a sound, democratically-based decision process in respect of foreign affairs.
At the moment, Europe does not have a foreign policy to speak of.
I can hardly believe that we will ever achieve this at intergovernmental level.
In my opinion, it is far too easy to sit down with the military and gather up all the military equipment, which are such nice toys, after all.
I am very sceptical about the fact that Commissioner Patten cannot inform us in an equally credible way that he has drafted a prevention plan to stave off further degeneration, underdevelopment and conflicts in Europe and outside.
Because our borders do not stop at the Mediterranean Sea.
Mr President, allow me to start with the conquest of Kosovo.
It is obvious since the NATO bombing stopped eight months ago that the purpose of the bombing was not to stop ethnic cleansing, not to promote peace and order but to drive a wedge even further into Yugoslavia, to change the borders and to promote the New Order.
Today, we are turning a blind eye to the involvement of NATO occupation forces in the savage ethnic cleansing of the Serbs and non-Albanian speaking minorities.
All the signs point towards a second round of attacks on Yugoslavia and this is confirmed by the KLA attacks on Serbs in Mitrovica, the attempt to annex three towns in southern Serbia to Kosovo, the promotion of the independence of Kosovo, the fact that two thousand men have been channelled into Kosovo via Greece, despite the objections of the Greek people and, at the same time, intense efforts by NATO and the European Union to overturn the legitimate government of Yugoslavia.
On the other hand, despite his declarations on humanity and peace, it is clear from what Mr Solana has told us that, according to the Helsinki resolutions, we intend to set up a terrorist army, starting with 60 000 men, in order to strike at anyone who raises their head above the parapet.
Mr Solana has confirmed our view that, in a militarised European Union, NATO will have the upper hand.
That is why this job went to Mr Solana, the Secretary-General of NATO, who is also guilty of the crimes committed against Yugoslavia; the right man for the right job, against whom charges have been filed, calling for him to be tried as a war criminal.
Commissioner, Mr Solana, there is no doubt that you are acting quickly and forcefully and that you have made great progress in certain areas.
I wonder, and here I do not entirely agree with the positive interpretations of a number of press bodies and fellow Members, about the direction in which we are going.
I think that contrary to the great process of Economic and Monetary Union, which was an integrated process within the Community structures, today, unfortunately, the common foreign and security policy is entirely an intergovernmental procedure.
My first question, Mr Solana and Commissioner, is to establish whether, together, you have framed strategies that will, at least gradually, lead to the creation of a process that integrates the common foreign and security policy within the Community process.
We have taken fifteen years to achieve Economic and Monetary Union.
We can take fifteen years for the defence and security policy and foreign policy, but the process must be clear.
I also believe that we should not underestimate, and this is a question that I put to you, the stranglehold and the force of the lobbies of the foreign ministries.
We know the strength that they have acquired over these forty years of building the Community.
Today, they would have everything to lose from the communitarisation of foreign policy, and I believe that they are working with that in mind.
Finally, with regard to Kosovo - Mr Cohn-Bendit was right to emphasise this point - I believe that it is urgent that the European Union raise the question of the status of Kosovo.
Without this status, there will only be instability, murders, provocation by Belgrade and it is a matter of urgency that the European Union should come to a decision on this matter.
Finally, I should like to thank Mr Poettering because I believe that the Belgian initiatives, as we say in common parlance, are getting a bit much.
I think many Member States among the fourteen other Member States would have many reasons not to cooperate in European Union meetings on justice, for example.
Four years after the arrest of Mr Dutroux and his associates, we have still not had a trial, and we still do not know what is happening.
As far as tourism is concerned, there will be many people in these fourteen Member States who could consider discouraging parents of young children from taking holidays in Belgium, for example.
So the time has come and I would ask Mr Solana and Mr Patten to tell Mr Michel that perhaps he is going a bit too far and that finally it may backfire on him, which is what I hope will happen.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to warmly congratulate Mr Solana on this first day of March, for a number of frameworks have been put in place today which have a bearing on European security and defence policy.
But I do wonder what his own view is on this.
According to the documents, cooperation with the High Representative was fruitful.
You said yourself just now that you talked to them over lunch. You have to admit, it would be a rather odd if you were not on speaking terms with them and if there was a lack of cooperation between you and the new frameworks.
But do you not regret the fact that you do not preside over them yourself and are not their leading light? I - and I believe many with me in Parliament - would like you to be the driving force behind them and would not want you to run the risk of being sidelined to some extent.
Over the past couple of months, High Representative Solana and Commissioner Patten have, during discussions, among other things, with members of the NATO Assembly, tried to separate the defence policies of the EU and NATO.
One gets the impression in fact that they both think that the Petersberg tasks are ideally suited for inclusion in the EU defence policy in due course.
The Treaties also point in that direction, although they allow for a more general defence policy which ties in more with the traditional line of thought of incorporating our policy into a European pillar.
We would then have a voice in NATO through this European pillar.
Actually, I hear less and less about this.
I am under the impression that the European Union has pared its ambitions down to the Petersberg tasks, with Mr Patten taking responsibility for civil affairs, which would include a police and diplomatic corps capable of being swiftly deployed, about which he has talked with enthusiasm, and rightly so, and Mr Solana taking care of the deployment of military troops and military equipment. It seems evident that they would do this in joint cooperation, which would work very well.
But is there not more to it than that?
I cannot shake off the impression that in terms of defence policy, NATO' s role is actually very much emphasised with regard to collective defence. The European pillar does not really function any more as such.
Europe is not venturing beyond the Petersberg tasks. Is this actually how we want things done?
Moreover, whilst there may be talk of integrating the Western European Union into the European Union, there is no longer any mention of Article V, which is, of course, of direct concern to us.
Article V touches upon the wider defence tasks and not just Petersberg.
Will it be omitted?
At the same time, an appeal has also been made in broad terms to increase the defence budgets.
I think that this is to be welcomed, but this appeal does not really distinguish very clearly between Petersberg tasks and wider, collective defence tasks.
I wonder how this will develop.
I would like to ask both gentlemen how they view the long-term future.
Is it necessary to give further attention to this during the IGC or will the Treaties inevitably set the ball rolling?
I am pleased that this has opened a few matters up in relation to defence policy.
I do wonder, if Turkey were to bring in a brigade, would we also have to grant it codecision rights concerning that policy? The fabric of Turkey' s government contains a few Haider-type personalities.
That would seem odd to me. Secondly, the Baltic States are also knocking on our door.
Will they also take part in our defence policy? It is a very interesting position to be in, to say the least.
High Representative, you have efficiently drawn our attention to the progress we made in this field between Amsterdam and Helsinki and to certain decisions which have already been taken since Helsinki, such as the establishment of the three committees and, of course, the decision to provide for the deployment of a 50-60 000-strong military force.
However, this increase in pace accentuates the lack of coordination between these decisions and the on-going Intergovernmental Conference even further.
I believe that we will have to reach a compromise in this area between those who, rightly, are pushing for the communitisation of this policy and those who think that such advances should be the responsibility of the Intergovernmental Conference.
A word of warning to the latter: this policy needs substantial democratic legitimisation.
We are aware of the importance of public opinion when we intervene in matters of foreign and security policy, and I would therefore ask you, in general terms, of course, whether you feel that the reform could tackle any of the following issues: the new, two-level Commission-High Representative structure; a clear, practical distinction between civilian and military crisis management.
At this stage, this could include, for example, collaboration between the Commission and the Political Committee, the consolidation of Community responsibility for non-military crisis management, the creation of a Council of Ministers for Defence, coordination of the Treaty on European Union, the NATO Charter and the WEU, the legal personality of the European Union, reinforced cooperation in this area as well, parliamentary control and, lastly, financing.
Do you think that any of these issues could be included, at least in the agenda of the current Conference?
Mr Solana, I am sitting quite close to you, close enough to see your face.
I think that you have aged, your face is quite lined.
It pains me to look at you and I despair on listening to you; that applies both to what you say about games with little soldiers, as Mrs Maes just put it, and what you do not say.
You bear a huge responsibility because the pretext of ethnic cleansing is being used to spill blood in another bout of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and yet you have stood up here, while blood is being spilled in Kosovo, and you have not said a word about it.
You are Spanish; you are from a large country, Mr Solana.
Spain and Franco were not one and the same.
Spain maintained its unity, it kept the Basque country and Andalucia and Catalonia and it did well to do so, because no one identified Spain with Franco and no one played around with Spain' s unity in the name of a Fascist dictator.
Today, you are identifying Yugoslavia with Milosevic and you are playing with Voivodina, with Montenegro and with southern Serbia. It is you who has created this mess.
Which is why, unless they are accompanied by clear political solutions which respect borders and autonomy and all the democratic guarantees, all these plans on paper will lead to new blood-letting in the Balkans.
Mr Solana, the war in Kosovo and the continuing crisis, have served to reveal a European public opinion that is aware that defending the fundamental values that gave rise to the European Union, throughout the world, should no longer continue to rest solely on the shoulders of the President of the United States of America and that the time has come to share the burden, which our American friends have constantly been demanding since Europe became a world economic power.
Over the last year, the Member States of the Union have, naturally, decided to implement specific measures designed to strengthen the operational capability of their armed forces and the informal summit in Sintra, held the day before yesterday in your presence, has just confirmed the main trends.
I have two questions on this subject to which your knowledge of the subjects concerned and the parties involved should make it possible to provide enlightening replies for our further debates and our work.
The first question concerns the training of this rapid intervention force of 60 000 men, which, as you have said, is likely to be deployed to perform peace-keeping and peace-building missions and be capable of maintaining them on a long-term basis, if necessary.
For the information of our colleagues, I must say here that the corresponding contingents should be divided into three parts: one third to prepare the mission, one third to carry it out and one third for rehabilitation, following often difficult ordeals for personnel and equipment.
This explains why the initial figures given in the press, setting the volume of the forces to be built up at around 200 000 men, is close to reality, which has certainly surprised the uninitiated.
My first question, Mr Solana, will be simple and more direct, perhaps, than those of my colleagues who have spoken before me.
You know the French proverb, 'Nothing for nothing' .
Do you really think that the governments of the Union are prepared to pay the corresponding price at a time when many of them, apparently at least, have decided to continue to reap what ten years ago were called the peace dividends.
My second question is of a more technical nature, but it is important for the responsibilities of the Atlantic Alliance and the Western European Union to be transferred to the European Union as harmoniously as possible. You have told us, in this regard, that three committees are being set up, a political committee and a security committee, which started up today, and a military committee.
You then spoke of their relations with the third country members of the Atlantic Alliance or associate members of the Western European Union but which are not members of the European Union.
In the operation of the temporary institutions, whose establishment has just been decided, can you tell us, Mr Solana, what status you intend to confer on the members of the Alliance and on the associate States of the WEU which, I repeat, are not yet members of the European Union?
Could they, for example, have a place, at least as observers, in the different political and security committees or in the military committee? You know that they are concerned about the risk of being isolated and I should like to say that I understand their wish to participate with you in bringing this to a successful conclusion.
Mr President, Secretary-General, as you can tell, the Members of this House have listened with great interest to your information on the result of the Informal Meeting of Defence Ministers in Sintra and its significance in the European integration process in terms of security and defence.
Thank you too for sharing with us your telephone conversation with Mr Gil-Robles.
However, in terms of foreign policy, I am not sure whether we can advance at the rate needed to meet requirements, as some Members have said this afternoon, without ignoring the problems which you are coming up against.
I will give you an example. During the recent trip by the President of the European Parliament to the Middle East, which you mentioned, the various conflicting parties were in agreement about asking for a more active presence from the European Union in the on-going peace process in the region.
Do you believe that representatives of Community institutions and Member State governments are acting with the coordination and balance required of those who, like us, hope to mediate between two opposing parties?
This House is rather doubtful about this and I am not sure whether you share this doubt.
In this respect, as you will know, the European Parliament is working on an initiative to form a common diplomatic corps of the Community. This is clearly not intended to replace the diplomatic services of the Member States but to complement these and possibly improve their coordination.
Could you give us an initial reaction to this initiative, without compromising the more detailed reaction which you may be able to give us in the Foreign Affairs Committee?
Mr Solana, it has been said many times in this House that prevention is better than cure.
Of course it is, but there is no reason why Europe cannot equip itself with the means to intervene when prevention proves unsuccessful.
In any case, it is prevention that I would like to discuss today.
War is threatening to break out again in the Gulf.
As you know, the Iraqi Government has refused to abide by United Nations Resolution 1284, and this is likely to lead, within the next six or seven weeks, to a refusal to issue entrance visas to the committee monitoring the destruction of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
If this happens, the United States' Government and the British Government have given it to be understood that they will resort to military intervention.
A visit to Iraq and meetings with the Iraqi leaders and leading figures, particularly Mr Tarek Aziz, convinced me that there is actually a possibility of persuading the Iraqi Government to cooperate in enforcing Resolution 1284.
However, the responsible authorities of the Western countries need to make it clear that, once the mission of the United Nations committee has been successfully completed, the embargo will be lifted and normal trade relations will be able to be resumed.
I would like to know what you and Europe are doing, Mr Solana, or what you intend to do in the near future, to stave off this threat of war. Today, we have the chance to prevent it; tomorrow it may be too late.
I would also like to know whether, in this context, it would not be possible to do something to induce the Iraqi Government to take a humanitarian step and to release some information regarding the 615 missing Kuwaitis, or to set them free if this is within their power.
As we sit here, hundreds of thousands of people are in enormous peril from the floods in Mozambique.
This has not just happened.
The flooding has been going for weeks, and yet only now it seems there is an assessment of need.
The level of practical assistance from the Community and from the Member States has been pathetic.
For a long time, many of us have sounded a warning that the European Union was spending too much time on its potentially damaging and essentially political project of establishing military decision-making structures, when instead it should have been concentrating its efforts on the improvement of its civil instruments, particularly for humanitarian intervention.
I acknowledge Mr Patten' s efforts in this direction, but what a pity that the governments of the Member States had not devoted as much time to sorting out their capacity for disaster relief and humanitarian assistance as they have in the dangerous business of creating military structures that will ultimately duplicate and undermine those of NATO.
Of course, there is a relationship between military resources and humanitarian assistance, and there are serious military deficiencies in the armed forces of many European countries.
These are of long standing, but are being addressed already within NATO.
I have not yet heard a convincing security-policy explanation of why the European Union needs to establish autonomous, decision-making capabilities for the use of military forces outside of the NATO structures unless it is to create bodies which will rival NATO.
After all, the EU Member States are either full members of NATO or sit around the Euro Atlantic Partnership Council table.
NATO is largely European.
Finally, Mr Solana, I would just like to ask you what point there is in having the much heralded policy planning and early warning cell in the Council Secretariat if still we are taken by surprise by yet another humanitarian catastrophe.
Mr President, High Representative, Commissioner, with regard to the war in Chechnya, we have all noted the particularly restrained and almost accommodating reaction of the international community in general and of the European Union in particular.
Now, what has happened and what is still happening in Chechnya is similar to genocide.
How else can we describe the complete annihilation of a regional capital of 400 000 inhabitants, the unremitting and inordinate bombing of towns, villages and districts where, in amongst the whole of the civilian population, there are perhaps a handful of Chechen fighters?
How should we describe the sinister filtration camps, which are comparable to concentration camps, in which the population is suffering the most dreadful humiliation and from which able-bodied men between 15 and 65 years old rarely get out alive?
How can we describe the rapes, the looting, the deliberate fires, the deportations, which are called "cleansing" , that recall the worst episodes of the Middle Ages in Europe?
And what can we say about the leaden shroud that is crashing down on Russian and international journalists and with the banishment of the humanitarian organisations and any international commission of inquiry at the sites of the massacres? If that is realpolitik, if we really do not have any means, Mr Solana, as High Representative of the CFSP, and Commissioner, I put this question to you both, let us at least use the means that we do have, namely, the aid programmes to Russia.
The war in Chechnya proves, if proof were necessary, that the duty or the right to intervene stops at the borders of the great powers.
Let us therefore ensure that in future any euro spent in the Russian Federation is spent to alleviate the suffering of the people who are the victims of war, to the exclusion of any other objective.
Mr High Representative, you have spoken to us of the progress made to date in relation to the decisions taken at Helsinki.
Some of us here are passionately in favour of creating a distinctly European security organisation to defend peace in the world.
Of course we recognise the role of the Security Council, as the Helsinki resolutions clearly state, in maintaining international peace and security.
However, we note that you have said nothing to us about the fact that the role of the Security Council, as referred to at Helsinki, was contested recently.
The point is: does the political will exist to grant real administrative autonomy to this mechanism, which will cover the entire spectrum of Petersberg decisions? What about the infrastructures?
Is there some sort of provision which will allow the system as a whole to have this administrative autonomy?
Secondly, what will happen to the European defence industry which, after all, comes under the more general activities relating to this system?
Will current programmes continue to be implemented?
Finally, if the Treaty needs to be amended, how do you think this amendment will be implemented, following the report to be submitted in Feira? How will it be incorporated into the more general procedure for amending the institutional framework of the Treaty and how do you think this will fit in with the possibility of a system of qualified majority voting?
Has any thought been given to the matter?
Has it been discussed?
And to what extent has collaboration between you and the relevant Commissioner brought about concrete results and created some sort of framework strategy as to how you and the Commissioner hope this system will prove truly efficient?
Mr President, I seem to recall from my study of European history, that the 1809 Convention of Sintra was a controversial peace agreement which probably lengthened rather than shortened the Napoleonic wars and nearly cost the Duke of Wellington his job.
I hope this is not an omen for this Sintra Agreement.
That said, I would like to congratulate the high representative on the progress that has been made so far.
But it has to be admitted that much of what he said is the progress in institutional matters, and the real test of the European defence identity will be in its ability to produce capability and capacity, rather than nicely formulated institutions.
And, to that end, I am not clear as to the extent to which we have progressed on developing heavy lift capacity to be able to get these 60 000 troops into operation, or what progress we have made on autonomous intelligence capacity, particularly given the American statements that they are not giving intelligence to Europeans until they can deal with security.
We have all heard some of the tales emanating from the Council of Ministers building in Brussels.
To what extent are we going to get some form of convergence on defence expenditure, because some Member States spend considerably more than others.
And indeed, some Member States are not geared for mobility.
They are very static in their military forces, and unsuitable for this sort of warfare.
Can I perhaps also turn to Mr Patten as well and ask, in terms of the conflict prevention work we are going to be doing, to what extent will it be possible for us to look at long-term conflict-causing situations such as environmental degradation and shortage of water and then incorporate them into mainstream EU policies, particularly in development, because there is no point trying to rapidly respond to something we have had years to put right.
And finally, can I also endorse Mrs Schroedter' s comments that we do need to have a Parliamentary dimension in this defence development.
We cannot leave it simply to governments.
I strongly support the decisions taken at Sintra.
They constitute a significant step towards establishing an effective European Security and Defence Policy.
The creation of the interim structures and the plans that are now being put into place to provide the military capacity for achieving EU policy objectives are positive steps in the right direction.
The recognition that the 60 000 strong military force will be involved in both peacemaking and peacekeeping is also appropriate.
However, while all these developments are indeed welcome, I would like to address a matter which I have raised in this House on previous occasions.
I am anxious to know how effective the EU' s policy planning and early warning unit has been.
While Commissioner Patten' s statement later this evening on the unfolding tragedy in Mozambique will be opportune, I would like to know if the policy planning and early warning unit provided advance information.
Would the High Representative be prepared to say to what extent this unit, which has been strongly supported by the committee of which I and Mr Titley are members, assisted in providing early information, analysis and an indication of the policy planning options open to yourselves? I would also like to support Mr Titley' s comments on an effective role for the Parliament in this whole area.
If we are to realise our ambitions in the field of foreign policy, then effective anticipation and preparation for all sorts of crises, particularly humanitarian ones, are essential prerequisites.
When Mr Solana last spoke to this Parliament I was highly critical of the fact that he hardly mentioned at all the idea of conflict prevention; and today we have him mentioning quite a lot about conflict prevention, but no proposal whatsoever about taking it on board on a serious way.
We have a lot of proud talk about 60 000 troops being prepared in 60 days to be available for a whole year, but we currently have crises in Europe and on the borders of Europe and elsewhere which this Union is failing abjectly to deal with.
What we need are 60 000 civilian policemen and women in order to try and deal with these situations.
We have not heard any information from Mr Solana about what leverage is going to be used in relation to Russia and Chechnya.
We have not heard anything from Mr Solana about what diplomatic intervention he or the European Union is making in a serious way - serious diplomatic interventions - to stop the slaughter in Chechnya.
We have large gaps in what we are arguing for, in principle, in relation to human rights.
We mustered the capacity to intervene in relation to Kosovo, and we are now making a complete mess of Kosovo by failing to put adequate resources and staff and people in there to deal with a situation and demonstrating our inability to deal significantly with conflict prevention.
So, I would ask Mr Solana to explain to this House the position of the European Union in relation to Chechnya.
What are we going to do seriously to bring that appalling situation to an end? We have levers we can use with Russia if we choose to use them, but we are choosing not to use them.
Mr President, High Representative, Commissioner, I have two questions for you, Mr Solana. How, with credibility, are you going to be able to continue promoting closer cooperation on defence and military issues if the Member States are not prepared to comply with common commitments?
Meetings are all very well, but it is the result that counts. I also wonder what kind of plans you have to induce governments to ensure that a force of 60 000 troops becomes a reality and not merely figures on a piece of paper.
If we look around, the reality is that the CFSP is in danger of becoming nothing more than talk. Take, for example, Germany' s defence savings.
These are not only of concern to the defence minister, Mr Scharping. Instead, they also affect the whole of Europe.
In my own country, Sweden, the objective, and the commitment towards playing our part, is to supply 2 500 men for EU operations.
In the present situation, the national defence can only supply approximately 1 500 men, due to reduced defence spending.
If we translate this number into figures for the EU countries as a whole, which is not an unreasonable thing to do if no review is to take place, we shall not have 60 000 men but, at best, 35 000 to 40 000 by the year 2003.
My second question concerns the following matter. Some weeks ago, you were evidently misquoted in the German-speaking media, whereupon your press service put out a statement correcting matters.
I should like, however, to know the background to this, namely whether, as High Representative, you have been toying at all with the idea of giving Austria special treatment in the context of your assignment and, if so, on whose mandate and with how much leeway.
It has been a very long session of questions.
I tend to think that maybe Mr Van den Bos is right that I would need the capacity of the angels to answer so many questions in such a short period of time, but I will try.
I will try to do it and I am going to answer one by one all the questions that have been put to me, even if the Member who has put the question is no longer here or tired because of the long session, because they had more important things to do than to listen.
But let me start with the first.
To Mr Poettering I would like to say that we are not trying to duplicate anything.
That question has been put by many Members of the Parliament.
We are not trying to duplicate anything.
We are trying to do as much as possible so that the European Union has capabilities to act in case of need and at the same time the global security of the European Union, of the countries that belong to our alliance, will be maintained and will be secure.
We are not in the business of creating a European Army.
If anybody answered that, he is wrong.
We are not in the business of creating a European Army.
We are in the business of creating capabilities that, put together in case of need, can avoid tragedies such as those we have recently experienced.
It is very important to be talking about prevention.
It is very important.
I can tell you, and you know, that prevention capabilities exist already in the Union. We do not have to invent them.
They exist already. Is ECHO not a preventative agency?
Is our capability to act diplomatically not a preventative capability? What we did not have at all was the possibility of acting at the other extreme of the spectrum of crisis management.
The European Union is going to be, at the end of the day, the most important group of countries able to face problems related to crisis matters, from the humanitarian crises to force deployment.
In Mozambique if it is necessary, or in the countries of Europe if it is necessary.
In a very few days Eurocorps built up by European countries is going to be deployed to Kosovo not to walk around, but to prevent people from killing one another.
And I would like to tell my friend Mr Cohn-Bendit that at this very moment,
45 000 soldiers from our country - not from any other country - the majority from our country - are deployed in Kosovo - to do what?
To prevent people from killing one another.
Do you think really that because we deploy soldiers, we are going change the minds of people who have been suffering for centuries? Do you imagine for a moment that because we deploy soldiers, the souls and the minds of people are going to change.
How many centuries will it take to change the mentality of countries which have been fighting against one another morally, psychologically, even physically for years?
Do you really think that by deploying troops on the ground, the minds of people are going to change?
Soldiers can prevent people from killing one another, but they cannot guarantee that people will love each other.
It would be fantastic, but really for me the most important gift would be to be able to deploy European forces to make people love each other where they were killing each other.
Unfortunately, even with the capacities I have, even with the number of jobs that I supposedly have, even with the little sleep that I get, it is impossible to do that.
But let me also tell you something. Even if we deployed policemen, as you have demanded, this would not completely solve the problem.
Do you honestly think that in Mitrovica policemen from UN countries would solve the problem?
We need, at this point, still to have a deployment of military personnel and then in other places, of course, we need policemen.
But do governments have the capacity to deploy policemen at the rate that is required.
We are trying very hard, but it is very difficult to do this.
Military personnel in our countries are waiting for a crisis.
Policemen in our countries are working 24 hours a day, and for governments it is difficult sometimes to find the appropriate police force to be deployed.
We do not need unarmed policemen or traffic policemen.
We need something very different, to serve as an interface between military and police and that is a very difficult profile which that does not exist in many countries. Those countries that do have this are deploying them and I feel they are doing what they can.
As you know, Mr Patten and I are working very, very hard to deploy, or to make or convince countries to deploy as many policemen as possible.
Now, Mr Haarder asked about the risk of a rift between the European Union and NATO.
I do not think there is a risk.
I think we can do something which is compatible and would be beneficial for everybody. For us as Europeans, it would represent a link.
I do not see why we should become estranged or split or damage the capacity that we have to continue working together. But then again, we are not trying to create a European army.
To explain to you the whole foreign policy of the European Union in the fifty minutes that you have given me would be an almost impossible task.
Instead I wanted to share with you the latest step which I think has been very important in the last three months, and I think I have the obligation to tell you all that.
Now, do we need a sort of civilian corps to be deployed?
The people who are there already with their white uniforms, the white uniforms of the European Union have been deployed in Bosnia for many, many years and are now deployed in Kosovo.
The person in charge of the UN is a European and a good man, Mr Bernard Kouchner, who is doing a lot.
This is another manner in which Europeans are committed to the peace in Kosovo.
I have not talked especially about the Middle East, but you know we can spend hours talking about that. Let me say two things only.
The Troika visited the Middle East at the beginning of the year. It visited all the countries of the region and got a clear picture of what is going on there.
Unfortunately, at this very moment the Syrian track is still not moving although there is some possibility that in the near future it may. As you know, the Palestinian track is in difficulty at this very moment.
If there is some light, some progress might be made but at this point I have no good news to report to you.
The European Union, the European countries are doing their best to continue cooperating in the peace process and offering to help all parties when it is required in order to implement the agreements that will be reached.
That help will be needed.
At that time, we will have to come here to argue for help, because probably in the budget that we have now in the European Union, we do not have money to tackle the problems that it may be necessary to tackle if the agreement, a just agreement, is reached in the region.
Many questions have been asked about what I think about the IGC, security, defence, etc. I do not know how to answer that question.
As you know, the IGC has a structure with a limited agenda.
I have the impression that as time goes by the agenda will be enlarged, but that is probably an impression that I had, an impression that probably you share with me, but I am not in the position to make an affirmation or to state that.
It is something that we will see evolving as time goes by.
Let me answer the specific questions about the statement that has been made by the Minister for Defence of France about 0.7. He never said 0.7 with reference to expenditure on defence.
He was referring, if I understood properly, to research including military research. I think this is an objective that the countries have to decide if they want to do it or not.
With regard to the documents of Sintra which are being finalised, the document which the political committee is working on, I do not have the authority to share it with you at this point, but without any doubt it will be shared with you.
I will be more than happy to cooperate concerning the political committee in times of crises in the future.
In reply to the question about Article V, we have two article Vs as you know. One Article V for those countries that belong to the alliance and the other Article V for the countries that belong to the WEU.
The WEU is going to transfer its assets to the European Union, or certain parts.
It still is not clear what is going to happen to Article V itself. As you know, there are countries in the European Union which are not ready and they will not accept a transfer of Article V, Brussels article, into the European Union framework and therefore we cannot do it.
If you want to include defence in the IGC it probably will not be possible to go so far as to incorporate Article V of the Brussels Treaty into the IGC.
How far will foreign policy be brought under the Community framework in the coming years?
I do not know. You are asking the question to the wrong person - I do not know.
I have various ideas about that, but it will be the Intergovernmental Conference and, by definition, the countries, the governments who take the decisions; and therefore I have my own ideas but I am sure that is not interesting for you to know my own ideas.
It is much more important to see what the country has done.
To Mr Morillon I would like to answer a few questions.
I know that he has been an expert on these questions for the many, many years that he has been dealing with them.
I would like to say that as regards the status of those countries which are not members of the European Union but which are members of the alliance and eventually will be members of the European Union, we would like to get them involved.
To get them involved upstream before a decision is taken for an operation and downstream when the decision has been taken and if they want to participate in the crisis management operation, then we treat them as equals with the same rights and the same obligations that the other countries have.
Mr Galeote Quecedo asked about the diplomatic corps in the European Union.
Well this is something that a lot of people are thinking about. I do not think that it will take place tomorrow.
After the conversation we have had with the Commission it is a good idea to move in that direction but we are a long way off from a diplomatic corps as such.
Cooperation, helping as much as possible, is possible, but to go in that direction to the end, unfortunately is a distant vision at this time.
There were several questions about the stability pact.
The stability pact is going to figure high on the agenda in late March of the first financial conference in which projects are going to be discussed. It is working well and I very much hope that it will be a great success for the countries of the region and also for the European Union.
The European Union is not the only contributor but without any doubt it is a major contributor.
I fought against dictatorship for many years, I suffered a lot, I have been in jail and I am very, very proud to be here to defend the European Union, the democratic Parliament and to tell you that we are prepared to deploy forces not to make war but to make peace.
You know very well that Helsinki took a very important decision, a very important decision concerning Chechnya.
The Prime Ministers and Heads of Government took an important decision.
We were the only group of countries that took a decision like that.
We decided not only on words but also on deeds and two important decisions were taken concerning trade and humanitarian aid. That was done and is continuing to be done
Tomorrow and the day after Chris Patten and myself will have a meeting with Mr Ivanov and the Presidency of course, in Lisbon.
We will have again a meeting with the United States the following day and then we will have a trilateral meeting, the United States and European Union and Russia together in which, as you can imagine, the number one item on the agenda is going to be Chechnya.
We are doing what we can. We have not stopped putting all the pressure upon them because we are very much aware of the crisis that will ensue, not only for today but for tomorrow, if, at the end of the day, Russia evolves in a direction that is no good for anybody.
We want to have a solid bilateral relationship with Russia.
It is very important for Europe, but we want to have that with a Russia that understands that certain things cannot be done. That is what we have been saying, that is what has guided our actions from the very beginning and I think as you look at the position that Mr Patten and I have maintained from the very beginning, you can look in the records and see that what we are saying - what I am saying now, is the truth.
There are probably many more questions that were asked.
Let me end - I do not want to take up your time any longer - by saying that I am ready to come here whenever you want but I would prefer, if it is possible, to have sessions in which we concentrate on some topics and develop them to the fullest, because if not, we have so many topics, so many issues that it is very difficult to really treat them in depth.
I am prepared to do it - you know that from me and I am really ready to do it whenever is necessary.
At this very moment, I wanted to share with you one important thing.
Helsinki was in December and our Prime Ministers and our Heads of State asked us to do something very important for the first time. To have capabilities and make an effort for crisis management even for the military.
I am proud to tell you that two months after that we have started and we are moving in the right direction.
I think that the Members of the Parliament, as representatives of our citizens should be proud of that.
I am very grateful to have this opportunity of contributing to the debate on the statement made by the High Representative.
I will not detain the Parliament for long but perhaps I could make one or two points and begin, which is sometimes rather dangerous in any Parliament, by drawing attention to the relationship between rhetoric and reality.
Mrs Pack did that in her remarks and anywhere that she is prepared to blaze a trail I think the rest of us should be courageous enough to follow.
I would just like to say a word or two myself on that particular subject.
I spoke last week at the extremely interesting session that was organised between members of the NATO parliamentary assembly and Members of this Parliament.
Many of you were there on that occasion and I think that it is fair to say that you could have cut the scepticism with a knife among many of the NATO parliamentary delegates when we spoke about Europe' s ambitions in the area of CFSP.
This was particularly true with some of the American delegates who were there but one or two of the others as well.
As I said in my remarks, I felt when I was speaking to some of them that they did not know whether to laugh or to cry and it is a reminder to all of us of the tests we have set ourselves and the tests which it is imperative that we meet over the coming months and years and in that context the High Representative' s remarks today were extremely encouraging.
We have come a remarkably long way in a remarkably short time, but there is still a very considerable distance to travel and over the next few months and years we are going to find ourselves, for example, facing up to difficult questions about resources.
Many people will argue that of course all that is required in Europe is for us to make better use of our existing resources but I suspect there will be a growing debate in our own countries in the Member States about whether that really is enough, about whether that is going to secure the sort of security policy which we wish to be more responsible for in our own Union.
I would just like to say a word about the non-military aspects of our security policy, of conflict prevention and crisis management.
Rightly, the concentration today has been on the military side but we have not forgotten about the non-military side either and Mozambique reminds us of the importance of remembering that.
We will be bringing forward to the Council before Lisbon our proposals on a rapid reaction facility so that we can provide assistance where it is required, not in months or years, but in days or weeks.
We are establishing a Commission crisis centre as the operational interface with the situation centre in the high representative' s policy unit.
Additionally, and this is for me the most important area of all, an area where we are breaking new ground, we will, soon after we have put forward our proposals on a rapid reaction facility, be bringing forward proposals as well on non-military headline goals.
It is, I repeat, breaking new ground but it is very important that we do it for a number of reasons and policing in Kosovo, policing elsewhere, is the most dramatic and obvious example.
It is not just the sort of policing that we identify with community policemen on the street corner.
I grew up as a kid hoping I would be allowed to stay up on Saturday evenings in order to see a television programme about a community policeman called Dixon of Dock Green.
I have just been writing a report before I came to this job, and writing a very good report, just to respond to my honourable friend, on policing in part of my own country.
I remember talking about community policing to some American police experts and saying 'What in your view is the ideal community police officer' and the reply was 'a black grandmother' .
But that sort of approach to policing alas is not what is required in Kosovo.
We have armed forces, we have all got experience of training community police officers.
What is actually needed in those circumstances is something between the armed forces and community policing.
We need somebody who has the ability to detect crime but who also has an enhanced ability to deal with really difficult public order situations as well.
That is the sort of thing that we have to develop in the European Union and we have to face up to the fact that there are resource consequences.
So again, rhetoric and reality.
Now Mr Titley referred to conflict prevention in the broadest sense and asked what intellectual contribution we were going to make to this debate.
One thing I would advise him to do is to listen to Radio 4 at the end of March to the first Reith lecture where he will hear the Commissioner for External Relations giving an extremely moving and convincing lecture on this whole subject.
But perhaps I could just say one or two things this afternoon.
I think there is an umbilical cord between neglecting human rights, between neglecting habeas corpus, between neglecting all the usual rules of good governance, between tyranny and between environmental degradation.
All those things come together.
We talk about the complexities of our eco-system but there is an eco-system of values and political institutions which is just as important and absolutely crucial if we are going to make life better for people in countries like Mozambique and make life better for people rather closer to home in the Balkans as well.
So, in the coming months, we will be producing communications from the Commission, for example, which have a direct bearing on the whole question of preventing conflict or managing crises.
We will be producing a communication shortly on an issue which this Parliament feels passionately about, that is, how we can ensure that election observation is conducted as comprehensively and sensibly as possible without diminishing the integrity of the institutions which do it.
We will be producing a communication on anti-personnel landmines, actually the use of sensor equipment.
The work that has been done in dealing with landmines has been a success story in Mozambique.
They have managed to clear tracks from the villages to the wells, they have managed to clear tracks from villages to the primary schools.
What does one suppose has been the consequence of all that flooding over the last few days, moving those anti-personnel mines around? We are again going to have to go through the same sort of exercise.
What we have to be looking at is the way an issue like that connects with our policies elsewhere.
We have to be looking at what we do with the stocks of anti-personnel landmines in Ukraine, in Moldova, the ecological consequences of dealing with those stocks, the financial consequences of dealing with those stocks, the political consequences of dealing with those stocks.
So the point I want to make is that all these things are intimately related.
We have all the instruments, we have all the instruments that we require but we have to pull them together much more effectively than we have in the past and that is the challenge which the High Representative and I face in the next four or five years.
Now, I hope that in facing those challenges we will have support which consists of adequate resources as well as spectacular rhetoric.
We all know that there are a number of reasons for the development of a common foreign and security policy and I will tell you three of them - Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo.
Those are three reasons for a common foreign and security policy and we will be tested on how successful a common foreign and security policy we develop above all by how we handle things in the Balkans and do not lose sight of the fact that there are quite a few of our critics, quite a few American politicians, quite a few senators and congressmen who say 'How can we possibly take you seriously in developing a common foreign and security policy when you cannot even handle problems on your own back doorstep?' .
So the big test for us is going to be in the Balkans.
I hope that all those heads of government, all those prominent politicians in our Member States who promised the earth in the Balkans, who promised Marshall plans and who make all the other promises in the Balkans will be around when the budgetary authority decides how much we have got to spend in the Balkans.
I would very much hope that we can all live on a planet which is also inhabited by the European Council, the General Affairs Council and Ecofin.
All on the same political planet together and making sure that there is some harmony between what we promised the world and what we can actually deliver.
In the last few months in this job I have heard promises that we will do more in Latin America, I have heard promises that if there is a Middle East peace settlement, we will be there to pay for it.
I have heard promises that we will establish a stability pact in the southern Caucuses.
I have heard promises that we will secure democracy in Indonesia by giving more assistance to Indonesia
Where is the beef? And that is not a contribution to any recent political controversy.
That is the question that we have to address again and again in the coming weeks and months in my view.
One reason why I am so passionately keen on carrying through an effective reform of our external assistance programmes is that I do not want to continue to be put in the situation where whenever one puts a question like that about the gulf between rhetoric and reality, the response is 'Oh but we know you are not running things efficiently, we know that you have not spent all your commitments, we know there is some money in your back pocket' .
I want us to be in a position in which we can say: 'It is not like that any more.
We are running things as efficiently and competently as we can' .
So, Member States, we think that it is time that common foreign and security policy had a bridge between Council conclusions, between yards of communiqués and what we can actually deliver on the ground and I think that if we can achieve that the job of the High Representative will have been made a lot easier and the conditions of life for an awful lot of people around the world will have been made a lot better.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten.
I would also like to thank you for allowing us to sample your British sense of humour in the course of our dealings with this very difficult issue, for it makes things a little more interesting.
Women in the decision-making process
The next item is the declarations by the Council and the Commission on women in the decision-making process.
Mr President, two centuries ago, during the French Revolution, a very famous woman, Olympe de Gouges, was executed and proclaimed mad because she had supported equal rights for men and women.
Two centuries later, we have achieved a great deal in Europe.
The last century was marked by three periods.
The first period was a period of institutional change, change in the legislative framework and huge constitutional victories in all the Member States as a result of the fight by the women' s movement, as a result of major decisions by progressive parties and as the result of action by enlightened men and women.
This was followed by a second period, in which the worth of female models was recognised.
There were women everywhere.
Prime ministers, members of parliament, ministers, in the professional arena, doctors, lawyers, pilots, generals.
We are now in a third period: in this third period, the composition of the bodies which wield political and economic power needs to be changed.
The composition, or rather the change in composition, will also bring about changes in policies - policies which need to take account of the merits and experience of both sexes.
Ladies and gentlemen, the first few months of the new millennium have been marked by two important events: the first was the election of the President of Finland, Mrs Halïnen.
For the first time in Finland, the women candidates outnumbered the men.
And a woman was elected.
The second event took place in France, which passed a law on the equal representation of men and women as a result of the declaration made in April 1999 at the 'Women and Men in Power' conference, at which the ministers responsible undertook to implement specific measures and policies to change the power ratio.
We must congratulate Prime Minister Jospin for ratifying this commitment in the clearest and most categorical manner.
A great deal has been said and numerous policies have been implemented in the Member States.
But the figures tell the true story.
And the figures still give Europe cause for concern.
24% of members of government are women and there are an average of 22% in parliament, although this fluctuates from 6% in some Member States to as many as 40% in others.
The number of women on committees who wield power and frame policies is very small.
Even in countries such as Germany and Belgium, which have specific legal commitments on the representation of the two sexes, the involvement of women on various committees is no more than 18%.
What we need, therefore, is to promote specific policies.
We need a policy mix which includes long-term political commitments, as in Sweden and Finland; they now have governments in which women account for 56% and 44% of members respectively.
We need organisation and statistical monitoring.
We need controls and suitable structures which reflect the culture, mentality and specific problems of each area.
And, of course, these policies need a budget, they need to be given financial teeth.
Increasing the number of women or, as the French prime minister put it, increasing the influence of women in the decision-making centres, is the best way of renewing the policy, of reshaping the approach to the question, of injecting political thought with new ideas and new experience: the new ideas and experience which women can inject by reason of the different way in which they live and grow up.
The recent initiative by the Finnish presidency to develop indicators recording and reflecting the representation of women in the decision-making centres is extremely important.
These indicators include national parliaments, regional councils and town councils and give a complete picture of the degree of representation of women in every Member State.
I think that creating and supporting statistics is a very important political issue and that the facility to set targets, compare performances and bolster our efforts is an important political tool.
The programme which I shall present for the fifth women' s programme includes a similar initiative for systematic monitoring.
Although legislative measures and institutional intervention by Member States have been effective as far as the decision-making centres of the parties in power is concerned, the same cannot be said for the private sector.
My contacts with large European and multinational companies in Europe have brought tragic results to light.
There are companies at European level which employ thousands of workers, sometimes hundreds of thousands of workers throughout the world and yet fewer than 2% of the directors and managers are women.
Nor must we underestimate the representation of women in economic decision-making centres.
Here too, specific efforts will be made of course; naturally they cannot be of a legislative nature, but they can operate on the basis of an exchange of best practices; in all cases, my initial contact with the chairmen and directors of these large companies has had positive results.
As you know, Europe is endeavouring to solve the problem from within.
A decision has already been taken on quotas of 40% for each sex on all teams and on all research and technological development programmes.
It was approved by the House in May 1999, when the need for women in research and technology was stressed.
We in the Commission are obliged to set a specific and clear example and all the Commissioners are working together, as can be seen from the reform of the Commission, to achieve 40% representation of women on all the committees of the European Commission.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are often objections, crypto-progressive objections, as to whether there should be a binding undertaking on the representation of women at the centres of power.
No one ever asks in a federal state if all the members of the federation should have their say.
And at the level of the European Union, the question of whether the 15 Member States need to be represented on every committee will never be asked.
Why then is it curious and why do we have reservations when it comes to a legislative commitment on the representation of half the population.
I should like to be absolutely categorical.
There should be no reservation, no reservation whatsoever about a legislative commitment on the representation of women at the centres of power.
(Applause)
Women make up half the population, half the strength of the planet.
Excluding women from the centres of power means, first, democratic failure and, secondly, under-exploitation of human resources.
We face a unique challenge and the time is ripe for combining economic and political expediency with respect for basic democratic principles.
I am optimistic that we shall succeed.
The bet before us is a bet with time.
Future generations of women must not be sidelined.
If need be, we must use all possible means to force the situation.
(Applause)
Mr President, firstly I must thank Mrs Belém Roseira for taking part in this debate and for her interesting speech on the subject.
I must also thank the Commissioner for being here and for her words.
The various political groups generally agree on the easily verifiable observation that women are under-represented in the decision-making process, in both the political and the economic and social spheres.
Nobody nowadays disputes that women should participate in political life, in the parties and in the institutions but it is not easy to agree on how this participation should be achieved.
The equality between men and women which most affects the lives of women and therefore society in general is equality in work. This involves both equality in accessing work, which implies equality in training, and equal pay for the same work, so often defended and yet far from being achieved.
We are convinced that the participation of women in the decision-making process will be beneficial to society as a whole.
Women always have a different viewpoint from men. This serves to enrich and complete the picture of the best solutions to the problems in daily life which people like us, who are dedicated to active politics, undertake to solve.
The difficulty lies in finding the right solution to allow women to have a greater presence in positions of responsibility and therefore in decision making.
In some countries of the European Union a compulsory quota formula has been adopted which immediately produces a more equal presence of women.
However, this is not always the best solution as there are not always enough women ready to enter a difficult and competitive world which they regard as essentially masculine because it has traditionally been reserved for men.
Women are not participating in political parties and in the working and social world at a level of fifty per cent.
The real percentage is much lower and it is this participation at the grassroots which we must promote in order to ensure a greater presence of women.
There must also be a clear and real will to allow more women, who are ready and able, to assume responsibilities and commitments in political life and therefore in the decision-making process.
There is no clear agreement within the PPE-DE Group in support of the compulsory quota system.
Some Members have even come out against this.
Personally, I would not want to feel like a quota, to think that I was in a particular job because I was a woman.
This is a feeling which men will never have and it is an important difference.
Mr President, I should also like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner for good speeches on their part which I think provide hope for real optimism, especially given the will and commitment radiated by both women.
I think it was an excellent example the Commissioner gave when she said that no one would have dreamed of having a situation in which the fifteen countries of the European Union were not equally represented but that it was a different matter when it came to equal representation for women.
It could hardly have been made more abundantly clear, what we are concerned with here.
I do hope that the Commissioner will have the necessary perseverance to also produce the necessary reforms within the Commission - but then, of course, she is young and full of energy.
I am convinced that it will be hard work, when all is said and done.
If the Commissioner asks for support from Parliament, she can in any case count upon the support of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
We have a very strong interest in seeing equality introduced to the Commission and in seeing the necessary basis for decision making secured so that the Commissioner can implement her views on equality.
I would say to the Portuguese minister that I completely agree with her that what is at issue here is the fact that you cannot obtain equal rights without equal power.
That is absolutely crucial.
It should also be remembered, however, that no one voluntarily relinquishes power, and that applies to both men and women.
Men have never wished to surrender positions of power when they had them, but there are also very few women who have been willing to give up their positions of power, and I am thinking here, in particular, of positions of power in relation to children.
Moreover, I would also say that this may also be one of the reasons why there are so few men here today.
Inevitably, we should like, for the same reasons of power politics, to be allowed to have this debate more or less to ourselves.
What I want to emphasise by saying this is that it is a matter of both sides' surrendering power.
The Commissioner emphasised that what is needed is a very broadly-based political mix, and she specifically mentioned Finland and Sweden.
Just for the record, I would say that she might well also have mentioned Denmark.
And I say that, of course, because I come from Denmark.
In fact, 45% of the Danish government is made up of women, and that is, in reality, a touch more than in Finland.
We still do not have a female president but, on the other hand, we have a queen, and that must no doubt, in certain contexts, amount to the same thing.
I should like to broach some of the points the Commissioner mentioned, notably the question of financial resources.
It is crucial we accept that there is a price to pay if women are to have equality in the short term.
In the short term, we also need to invest in making sure that children are properly cared for and, of course, also properly educated.
The issue is therefore one of appropriate structures.
One might well wonder if traditional industrial culture has been a particularly good thing, and I am therefore very happy that the Portuguese ministers are to participate very actively in the Lisbon Summit, which is, of course, to be partly concerned with IT developments.
I think that this field offers some quite distinctive opportunities for women, specifically because it is characterised by flat, rather than hierarchical, structures.
In Denmark, we have, in any case, seen developments to suggest that quite a lot of women entrepreneurs are on the way up.
There are two points which have not been seriously mentioned and which I should just like to mention here finally.
The first is the issue of the media' s influence.
I think it is very important that we should investigate what kind of stereotypes the media establish.
Do we have a special problem in this regard? I have to say that I do not know the precise answer to that question.
I have a suspicion that this is the case, but I am not certain.
The second point is the enlargement of the Union.
I think it very important that we should emphasise straight away that a number of demands are to be made in connection with enlargement as well, specifically that the new Member States should arrange to be represented by both men and women so that in that way they are improving the status of women in the countries concerned.
I would also like to thank the Minister and the Commissioner for their statements and I agree with the Commissioner' s statement; it is time that fine words were translated into action.
We all know to what extent women are under-represented in decision making at all levels because we have the statistics and they speak for themselves.
I agree that accurate statistics too are essential because it is only when we see the figures changing that we will know we are beginning to overcome the problems.
It is systematic monitoring which will reveal this.
Mainstreaming is a long-term commitment and process.
In the meantime, we need positive action and this means the use of quotas and other measures.
We can learn from the successes mentioned, not only by looking at the actual numbers of women that were elected, but the effect that has had on the nature of government to illustrate that everyone benefits from a truly representative system.
I am pleased to say that in Wales, which I represent, 40% of our national assembly members are women as the result of positive action by the political parties but, on the other hand, we have only 4 women MPs from Wales in the House of Commons which is only 10% of the total; so statements of principle, of support in principle, are not enough because they have not worked.
If we believe in the principle of equal representation of women and men in decision making we need to commit ourselves to the actions that are necessary to make it happen.
Mr President, the place of women in politics is an important matter that is worthy of more than our trying to outbid each other in terms of political correctness.
Undoubtedly there are too few women involved in politics.
It is not absolutely certain that the predominance of men in the party machinery alone is responsible.
In France, 95% of elected representatives are town councillors.
The vast majority of them are not members of any party.
In the authorities of the French departments, the leading French party is that of independent elected representatives, in right-wing or left-wing categories.
In order to be elected as a local councillor, you just have to want to be elected.
But access to national responsibilities often depends upon the introduction to politics provided by such local mandates.
Our Group wants to encourage the fair representation of men and women in the institutions of the European Union.
That is why we reject the policy of quotas and positive discrimination, whether it is in favour of women or supposed social minorities.
The policy of minorities, while neglecting the deep-seated unity of the human family, to establish superficial divisions, is a dangerous threat to the cohesion of the social fabric and the equilibrium of our democratic system.
On the one hand, if we establish quotas for women, why do we also not create quotas according to age or ethnic group, quotas of Catholics, of workers, of those who wear glasses.
The establishment of social quotas in favour of the very smallest categories would be no more ludicrous than establishing quotas of women.
With such a philosophy it would no longer be necessary to organise elections or administrative competitions.
It would be sufficient to determine the composition of the ministries and assemblies by means of a statistical calculation.
The policy of quotas can only increase the disaffection of the voters with regard to politics by once again giving them the feeling that everything takes place behind their backs.
On the other hand, such a policy shows a deep contempt for women.
A woman must not attain political or administrative responsibilities automatically thanks to the implementation of the quota but by having her own merits and skills recognised.
Ladies, have you so little pride that you would be prepared to hold a ministerial office or wear the sash of an elected representative by virtue of the mathematical odds of the quota? Women deserve more than a quota.
It is by reviving the principle of meritocracy that we shall improve in quantity and quality the presence of women in the decision-making process in quantity and quality.
I would like to thank the Minister and the Commissioner for their speeches and for committing themselves before the European Parliament on the crucial matter we are discussing today.
The presence of women in decision-making bodies, in particular, is a question of democracy.
All citizens, both men and women, should be able to see, to feel that they are genuinely represented by those they have elected and those who rule.
If we consider the fact that more than half the population is made up of women but that that there are many more men than women present in these decision-making bodies, it is clear that we are still far from true democracy. However, it is also a question of political agendas.
In addition to making up the majority of the population, women are also the most dynamic element in society: it is women who have made the greatest contribution to the creation of new enterprises in Europe in recent years; a greater percentage of young women obtain irregular work contracts than men, and in many of our regions, they are the main feature of the innovation, training, performance and flexibility development model.
Out of a sample of women who work in and around Milan, where I live, 90% said that they do not have enough time to do all they need to in a day.
Women work an average of 60 hours a week, which is 20 hours longer than men.
The price paid by women for following their desire to be protagonists in all spheres is that they never have enough time.
If this is true, and it is, any appropriate policy which aims to find positive solutions to these problems must start from this point.
Laws, programmes and interventions must be implemented which are well-constructed, coordinated and audacious, in order to encourage the formation of new cultural, economic, social, institutional and political ruling classes whose modernity is characterised by the involvement of women.
Much has been achieved on many issues in Europe, but we are still far from resolving the question of equal representation.
I agree with the Commissioner that it is time for the European political sphere - the entire European political sphere - to represent women and men on an equal footing, and for decisive action to be taken in this matter.
Mr President, before I came here for today' s sitting, I was watching Finnish television.
In Finland, an honorary company of the Finnish army was saluting the new President of the Republic, with the words "Good morning, Madam President."
You perhaps know that, in Finland, the president is not just the leading public figure or political leader, but she is also commander-in-chief of the armed forces, so this was quite an interesting and historic occasion.
During the Finnish presidential term, a report was produced that reveals an image of the whole decision-making process, and, on the basis of this report, I hope that the Commissioner proposes legally binding ways of improving the position of women in decision making.
I urge you all, women of the Right, to listen to Mrs Lulling, because she told us why quotas were needed and, if any of us has sufficient experience of political life, it is she.
Finally, I would like to say that it is now essential that we also raise this issue at the Intergovernmental Conference.
I appeal to you, ladies and gentlemen, not to vote in favour of the proposal tomorrow to moderate the contents of point 4, to prevent gender democracy from being discussed at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, despite the progress made in terms of legislation and despite the complaints that we all utter from time to time on the subject of sexual inequality and sexual discrimination, the causes of these practices are still present in the amendments that have been tabled to this resolution.
This means that we need to amend policies in various areas if we are to guarantee that women can participate on equal terms in the decision-making process.
We know that this area is proving more difficult to resolve, both because women still bear the main responsibilities in family life and because there is still prejudice and personal interest standing in the way of genuine participation by women in various areas which involve greater responsibility.
The truth is that the scant participation of women in centres of political representation and decision making demonstrates a democratic deficit which is incompatible with genuine democracy.
It is therefore essential for the various directives on equality to be complied with and for the Council, the Commission and each Member State strictly to respect the commitments they have made, particularly at the Beijing Conference.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I am a right-wing Member of Parliament but I have the same battles as my colleagues in supporting and assisting fellow citizens in my country to gain power and access to decision-making posts, which should be feasible not only in the political arena but clearly also in all sectors of society.
Quite simply, I would say that there are several ways in which to attain positions of power and I am particularly against the system of quotas, because I believe it is especially contemptuous of women and I come from a country where parity has just been achieved.
It is quite logical, it is consistent!
It should have existed for a long time because women represent more than half of society and it seems quite clear to me that it is natural for them to represent at least 50%, if not more, of those within decision-making bodies and, inter alia, in the political arena.
So, there should be no positive discrimination to include women.
Woman are capable of getting themselves included because they are pragmatic and full of common sense.
When I see that we are asking for training for women in politics, I want to say - no, definitely not.
Let us impose training for male and female candidates in politics - but why especially compel women to undergo training? That simply amounts to acknowledging their inferiority.
But I do know that we have never felt inferior to men, particularly in politics.
So I believe that we are conducting this battle to assist our fellow countrywomen to achieve decision-making power, to gain responsible posts in the political arena, but I believe that it will only be achieved if we completely change the way people think.
We shall all have to be sufficiently strong to force our political leaders to voluntarily impose women' s participation in the political decision-making process.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, "Women are half of heaven" , a successful man once said.
But when it comes to important decisions and priorities, there is a lack of women' s voices.
Women, who constitute more than half of the population, are heavily under-represented within political, economic and social fields.
That is unacceptable in a democracy.
Where equality is concerned, the gulf between the actual and the ideal is nowhere more apparent than in the area of decision making.
If we are to achieve a balance, a concrete action plan with a definite timetable is required.
An important part of such a plan would be a benchmarking system to guarantee women' s full participation in power structures and decision making.
I am therefore delighted that the Commissioner is well disposed towards a system of this kind.
I propose that the EU' s objectives for women in the area of decision making should be based upon the averaged-out achievements of the three most successful Member States within each area, with the Member States each submitting a report annually which will then have to be evaluated.
Women are the foremost victims of human rights abuses such as rape, sexual offences, domestic violence and the trade in women, but they are under-represented on the legal and legislative bodies which pronounce upon these crimes.
The latter are consequently accorded low priority, and the perpetrators are often not prosecuted.
Women are the prime victims of armed conflicts but are under-represented in peace-keeping efforts, conflict resolution and reconstruction work.
In the resolution, we therefore urge the Member States to increase the proportion of women involved in all aspects of conflict resolution and peace-keeping.
The call for women' s participation in decision making on an equal footing with men is not only a demand for social justice and democracy; it is also essential if women' s experience and knowledge are to be utilised to the full.
Not to use women' s talents in decision making is an unacceptable waste.
Women should not only be "half of heaven" but should also be entitled to take their share of responsibility for decisions which affect our entire planet.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner Diamantopoulou on the excellent speeches they have made today.
We have high hopes for what you will achieve.
We are at the start of a millennium and a century which we hope will be decisive for women and for their opportunity to occupy decision-making positions.
We want this opportunity to bring substantial changes to our lives in society at large, we want democracy to be synonymous with equality between men and women, and we do not want women to be excluded socially or economically as is still happening today.
Furthermore, we want values that women consider important, such as peace, fraternity, equality, justice, security and environmental protection, to be the guiding spirit for life in the European Union and, if possible, throughout the world.
In order to achieve this, women must be given the opportunity to combat the inertia of a society which has, until now, been essentially imbued with masculine values.
We know from our own experience that freedom and the ability to decide are not given freely but must be fought for.
Let us continue to fight and ensure that this century brings us victory: not over men, not over anyone, but the victory of equality between men and women.
We therefore cannot afford to miss any more opportunities, and the great challenge confronting all Europeans now, and particularly women, concerns the new economy and the new information technologies.
The Lisbon Summit to be held at the end of this month is very much geared towards women.
The rate of employment in Europe, which is much lower than in the United States and Japan, must be increased.
We must therefore have many more women in work, and working in the new jobs in which the EU has a shortfall.
I would therefore like to ask the Council and the Commission what proposals they will be presenting at the forthcoming Lisbon Summit to ensure that the new economy and the new Europe we want to build will definitely include equality between men and women.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council for their solid recommendations and, above all, for their proposals.
Because it has been said that men do not usually get involved in discussions on women' s rights, I thought I might contribute the views of a contemporary politician and intellectual, Francis Fukuyama, to today' s debate.
In an article entitled "If women ruled the world" , he maintains that if women were more involved in politics, the world would certainly not be so wedded to violence.
Athena, the goddess of wisdom and war, may have been a female model in Ancient Greece, but the influence exercised by women today can act as a catalyst to stop militarisation and promote peace.
There are, therefore, serious grounds, over and above justice between the sexes, for distributing public offices and political and economic power fairly and evenly between men and women.
Women devote their entire lives to the endeavour to protect life and the environment through dialogue, reconciliation, an understanding of different views and resolving differences by peaceful means.
These female virtues can offer an alternative to today' s culture of violence and institute a new political culture and a fairer and more prosperous society for everyone.
That is why the Intergovernmental Conference must introduce into the Treaty the principle of balanced representation of women and men in all the institutions of the European Union and in all democratic institutions and political decision-making centres throughout the Community.
Mr President, why do women need their rightful share in political decision making? And how should we achieve this?
We all agree on the fact that it needs to be done and why it is necessary. It is a demand for simple justice and for democracy and, as such, a condition for political legitimacy.
But if we look into how to achieve this, the opinions are greatly divided.
Is it sufficient to provide information and training and to create practical conditions or should we give preferential treatment, much like the quota system for the electoral lists of the political parties? And is it then up to the state, in other words the legislative, to impose such measures on political parties?
Or should we even consider a system in which 50% of seats are reserved for women in elected bodies?
This discussion, which is being held in some parts of Europe and here too under the French banner of parité, touches the very core of democracy, and is also about the political significance which we are prepared to accord to being a woman.
In my opinion, the political battle should be fought at a political concept level rather than at a gender level.
I am a great fan of voluntary quotas on electoral lists, without which, in fact, I would not be here today.
Like Mrs Van Lancker, I am a product of such a measure.
In my opinion, though, the state should not and must not use coercion to interfere in the internal affairs of political parties, at the risk of jeopardising democracy itself.
In other words, the means which we employ to give women their rightful place within the political democracy should not lead to a system of gender apartheid.
We would, in this way, violate democracy.
. (PT) Mr President, I am grateful for the liveliness of the debate on this issue, the ways in which it has been addressed and the positions adopted on it in this House.
Members were prepared to discuss rather than simply raise questions and we have heard some valuable insights into the topic being discussed.
We have all recognised that if democracy is to be strengthened, it is crucial for women to have greater decision-making powers and to participate more in the decision-making process.
This was universally acknowledged.
The differences of opinion were about how this objective can be achieved.
When quotas were being discussed, I had the impression that in certain statements made by women Members, the quotas themselves were the objective, and as such, should therefore be opposed.
To my mind, quotas will - as was stated here, moreover - be merely a provisional instrument.
I can tell you what happened in Portugal last year when a law on quotas for party lists was discussed.
This government bill was rejected by our parliament, and all our political leaders stated that quotas were unnecessary because, of course, women and their skills were essential in strengthening the democratic process, so in the imminent elections the lists would reflect the need to take advantage of women' s skills.
The lists were published, the elections were held, Parliament was convened and only one group, the Greens, which has just two women MPs, fulfilled the commitment that they had all given, and exceeded it at that.
This is the reality of the situation.
I do not think that anyone in this House feels that quotas are a positive thing, but they are perhaps a necessary stage in the process, not because men do not acknowledge women' s competence, but because positions that women deserve to hold have, for a long time, been occupied by men.
Furthermore, it is difficult to take people off the final lists in cases where a certain personal fondness may be involved.
This is one problem.
Another problem is the fact that women are not generally interested in participating in politics.
Women obviously find it hard to be interested in taking part in politics as they have much less time available to them than men and as the organisation of the political parties, which is thoroughly male-oriented, serves as an excuse for time continuing to mean different things for men and women.
If a political party holds a meeting in the evening and the man cannot go home because he has to attend as he is a member of the party' s executive, that is seen as a good reason for the man not to go home to play his part in the household chores, which are also his responsibility.
Therefore, until there is a change in this idea of sharing, sharing the responsibilities that the right to have a family implies, obviously nothing will change in terms of women being able to participate in the political process.
Indeed, we are still suffering from problems whose causes we have not yet resolved.
However, in order to find these solutions, we need measures for positive action which contribute to them.
One woman Member of this Parliament said that this problem must not become a battle of the sexes. I too agree that it should not be a question of war between men and women, because thinking men and women who are genuine democrats agree that we would be justified in considering that the present situation does not reflect a genuine, representative democracy.
I therefore fail to understand what the problem with quotas is, given that in principle, they will only be used as an instrument in countries where women are under-represented and where these draft laws have been approved in parliaments where, by definition, men are in the majority. If they approve these laws, it is because this process is about consensus, not imposition, nor is it a battle of the sexes.
So I think that all this needs to be studied and debated.
We need to know whether it is worth continuing to wait for decades until this process resolves itself naturally by means of an increase in the numbers of women in higher education, at universities, and in their economic and social power. This might finally happen unaided in approximately the third millennium.
Or perhaps, on the other hand, we are already in a position today, thanks to the use of procedures such as benchmarking and statistical information gathering, for assessing how positive the results are in terms of good practice, and we have what we need to build the very thing we all claim to believe in: a democratic and pluralist society based on balanced participation by men and women.
These measures for positive and balanced action respecting people' s dignity must be adopted in various areas.
At the moment, we are not taking advantage of women' s dignity, usefulness, competence, their vision of the world, their knowledge, their ways of being, knowing and acting, and these qualities are being completely wasted across all social, institutional, economic and political processes.
The presidency is therefore extremely keen to support initiatives designed to radically change this situation, even if it has to use transitional instruments which have already proved to be the only way to achieve the objective of balanced representation in decision-making processes.
The presidency is extremely anxious and entirely committed to support these methods, not as objectives in themselves but as a means to an end. Today, figures are available which show us the reality, which reveal the enormous disparities in this area between the various countries that constitute the EU and we are therefore fully briefed about the situation.
It seems to be a universally acknowledged fact that greater involvement of women is essential.
Instruments are available to us which can provide a more balanced division of tasks between men and women, so that they can reconcile their private and professional lives.
We must therefore make use of whatever instruments for positive action we may need in order to change the current state of affairs.
Thank you, Mrs Diamantopoulou.
I have received a motion for a resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
Floods in Mozambique
The next item is the Commission statement on flooding in Mozambique.
Mr Patten has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
The Commission is following with very great concern, as I know all honourable Members will be, the emergency situation in Mozambique.
The continuing torrential rains throughout the southern African region aggravated by the Cyclone Eline have led to the displacement of large numbers of people and there has been considerable damage to housing and infrastructure.
About 800 000 people appear to have been affected by the floods, about 300 000 are in urgent need of food and other types of humanitarian assistance.
Several people have lost their lives, many have disappeared, many have been injured.
The government of Mozambique has appealed for humanitarian aid from third countries.
The international community including the United States of America, Switzerland, South Africa, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands have to date provided substantial assistance.
My colleague Poul Nielson is literally on his way to Mozambique this afternoon and evening together with the Portuguese Secretary of State to assess the situation on the ground.
Mr Nielson will be happy to report back to Parliament on the findings of his mission.
Just before I say a word about the assistance which has been given by ECHO so far, perhaps I can be allowed to make three rather personal remarks.
First of all, from 1986 to 1989, I was an overseas development minister and I formed a particular attachment to the people of Mozambique.
They were bravely dealing then with huge environmental and political problems, with the problems of poverty and the consequences of a bloody war.
If ever a country deserved help from aid donors it was Mozambique.
Secondly, that feeling has been confirmed by the real efforts which Mozambique has made in the last few years to build a strong and prosperous economy and a stable society.
Thirdly, we spent much of this afternoon in this Chamber discussing conflict prevention, how one could prevent crises happening or how one could respond to crises more effectively.
We talked about the importance of the Commission developing a series of headline goals for non-military actions related to crises and, if I may say so, if ever there was a case where that is relevant, it is the disaster which has overwhelmed Mozambique.
Let me turn to the assistance provided so far.
Last week ECHO decided to allocate EUR 1 million for flood relief, of which 600 000 will be dispersed through the Spanish Red Cross and 150 000 through MSF Luxembourg, for operations in Mozambique and EUR 250 000 to Botswana through the German Red Cross.
These NGOs will address the most urgent need which is to move people in danger to more secure areas as well as providing health care, water and sanitation.
ECHO is currently preparing a second decision for a further EUR 2 million This decision will be implemented through UNICEF, Action Contre La Faim, COSV, Nuova Frontera and Vireaid pending, of course, the reception and examination of their final proposals.
These NGOs will be concentrating on the areas of water and sanitation, provision of shelter, plastic sheeting, jerry cans, blankets, those sorts of things.
They will be concentrating on the reinstallation of displaced people, on the further prevention of outbreaks of malaria, cholera and other communicable diseases, on the provision of supplementary food to malnourished and children at risk, on the provision of seeds and tools, on food security, on the rehabilitation of essential animal health structures and on the training of village livestock promoters.
A third decision will be considered in the light of the mission of Commissioner Nielson.
The Commission is also preparing a medium-term Community response combining NGO co-financing with European Development Fund operations to help Mozambique to respond to the crisis situation in re-establishing the rapid pace of growth that Mozambique had worked so hard to achieve.
It is envisaged that this response would link the current phase of emergency through to re-construction within a three to four years time horizon.
At times like this we are all aware of how much more we need to do to prevent disasters and to deal expeditiously with the disasters that we are not able to prevent.
I am not sure that I can add very much at this stage to the analysis of what went wrong and what we can do better but obviously we must learn any lessons that are required from this terrible calamity.
I repeat, Commissioner Nielson will be happy to report to Parliament when he returns from Mozambique and the scene of the disaster.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mozambique is a young African country which has made heroic efforts to recover from the underdevelopment resulting from two decades of civil war and to adapt to democracy.
The credit for Mozambique' s success story must be shared equally by its government, by the opposition, but above all, by the people of Mozambique.
There is a risk, however, that all the effort that has been made in recent years, after all the problems with the peace agreements, with which we are all familiar, will have been wasted as a result of the natural forces that have been unleashed on Mozambique over the last few weeks.
The current figures reaching us on the extent of the disaster are terrifying, as the Commissioner has already said: around one million people homeless and more than one hundred thousand on top of roofs or trees, waiting for a helicopter to come and save them.
There have already been hundreds of deaths.
The EU and some of its Member States, including my own, have provided emergency financial aid, perhaps a little later than they should have, but they have done so, as have the United States and various countries in the region, particularly South Africa.
It is now obvious that the main priority is for rescue helicopters, followed immediately by food aid and other emergency humanitarian aid.
Although these floods began three weeks ago, the whole world has finally begun to wake up to the dire straits Mozambique currently finds itself in: there are thousands of people whose lives are hanging by a thread and who will soon die unless we arrange transport, particularly air transport, to get them out of the situation they are in.
This is undoubtedly the greatest priority at the moment: search and rescue transport and emergency humanitarian aid, including food aid.
I would like to emphasise, however, that the EU and the rest of the world must not limit their aid to Mozambique to the emergency that we are now discussing.
We must be aware of the aftermath of the floods.
It is therefore now becoming urgent for us to start considering how we can find financial resources to rebuild the infrastructure that has been destroyed and without which Mozambique cannot continue on the path towards development on which it set out a few years ago in such a promising way.
Rebuilding infrastructure is crucial, because otherwise there can be no development. It is also time for some creditor countries to think about writing off or reducing Mozambique' s debts.
If nothing is done now, we will be letting all the effort that we have made in the past to help Mozambique in its development go to waste.
I therefore hope that the visit by Commissioner Nielson and representatives of the Portuguese presidency this week will enable us to treat this extremely important issue with the seriousness it deserves.
Mr President, it has already been said that, after a war which engulfed the country in misery, Mozambique is now facing a natural disaster of terrifying proportions.
Although it is currently impossible to calculate how many people have died, we do know that around 80 000 are in imminent danger of drowning and 300 000 have lost their homes and crops.
They urgently need aid such as food, water and shelter in order to survive.
This immediate need will subsequently be replaced by a requirement for medicine to prevent epidemics, which have apparently already broken out, and aid for reconstruction.
However, the aid needed now is difficult to get through, despite the efforts of the NGOs, because the roads, bridges and railway lines are damaged.
Helicopters are therefore needed.
Apparently there are only five at the moment to rescue about 80 000 people from trees.
The machinery mobilising the aid is too slow.
The PSE Group of this House has suggested that preventing natural disasters, including preventing conflicts, is the best way of avoiding situations like the one now being suffered by the people of Mozambique.
I must remind you in particular of the efforts of Mr Rocard during the previous term.
The European Commission responded in 1994 by setting up a disaster preparedness programme known as DIPECHO. This was intended to be proactive and, using a regional approach, to prevent disasters or at least to minimise their effects on the population.
However, Africa is surprisingly not included in the DIPECHO plans.
Mozambique, which is now suffering a foreseeable disaster, just as the famine now threatening in Ethiopia was foreseeable, is excluded from these plans.
The DIPECHO agenda includes south-east Asia, Central America and the Caribbean.
This is reasonable and we support this, but we have to ask the Commissioner, why not Africa?
The PSE Group has always supported the Commission' s humanitarian aid policy.
We have always supported ECHO, its policies and its actions, even some which have been disputed by certain bodies. We believe that solidarity must be the distinctive feature of the EU' s external action.
In view of all this, we also believe the time has come to demand a redoubled effort by the Commission and the Member States, on behalf of those who are now drowning in Mozambique.
The EUR 1 million which has so far been made available is completely inadequate in view of the needs which have been assessed by the Mozambican Government at 65 million dollars.
The time has also come to demand greater efficiency.
We hope that the debate at the beginning of this afternoon, the Commissioner' s knowledge of the situation in Mozambique and the visit by Mr Nielson will lead to a major effort being made by all sides to help Mozambique.
Mr President, the situation in Mozambique is of the greatest urgency.
Each day, each hour of delay costs many lives.
There are only a few helicopters available to save tens of thousands of victims.
The water levels continue to rise.
Starvation and epidemics seem inevitable.
It is as if the whole world is looking on, helplessly.
The question is whether the Commission has reacted with sufficient alertness.
I must admit that I have my doubts about this.
Commissioner Nielson is flying out today.
In European terms, this may be swift action, but given the emergency in Mozambique, this is probably very late.
Unlike a number of Member States, the European Union has promised only very limited aid so far. What options does the Commission have, to offer effective help fast?
What could emergency and reconstruction aid consist of?
Can Commissioner Patten update us on the international coordination so far? Why was it not possible to come to the rescue with a larger number of helicopters sooner?
The international community could also help Mozambique in an act of generosity by cancelling its debts, not only because the country has adopted a relatively sound policy, but especially because the extent of human suffering makes this absolutely essential.
Mr President, all the reports and pictures reaching us bear witness to the scale of the tragedy afflicting Mozambique.
There are thousands and thousands of displaced persons, a large number of dead, a lack of food and drinking water, and homes and crops have been destroyed.
And this is happening in a country which, because it is one of the poorest in the world, does not have the minimal essential resources to help those affected as quickly as necessary.
It is therefore vital for the EU and its Member States to intervene in a way which will enable us to provide this country and its people with rapid and exceptional help.
We know that because of the dramatic nature of the situation, representatives of the Portuguese Presidency and Commissioner Nielson left today for Mozambique.
We are pleased about this development, but what is more crucial than their presence is that they should guarantee that a short and medium-term action plan will be adopted and implemented immediately. This should be done in conjunction with the Mozambican government and this plan must be able to secure the aid that the situation requires.
Furthermore, it was precisely for this reason, and also because I am convinced that what we really need now is urgent and exceptional action, that I spoke today to Commissioner Nielson - just before he left - in my capacity as Chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation. I asked him to join us, as soon as he returns, to inform us about how the situation is developing and particularly about the emergency measures which the EU has already taken, and those which we are going to take.
Thousands upon thousands of human lives are in danger at the moment, and only international solidarity can save them.
I would like to think that the EU is up to the task of providing the people of Mozambique with what they expect from us.
Mr President, I would like to begin by emphasising, first of all, the timing and the topicality of this debate on the devastating floods in Mozambique.
Indeed, these floods and appalling weather have resulted in many thousands of people losing their homes and all of their possessions, people who cannot return to their homes after the storms, purely and simply because their homes and their belongings no longer exist.
They are no longer there, having been swept away in the torrents.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there remains, however, one immediate problem: the need to provide help for all Mozambicans who have been afflicted, many of whose lives are in danger, in their flooded villages, hoping that they will be rescued.
Most of these people can only be saved by aircraft, especially helicopters, of which it is clear that too few are in action.
As the President of Mozambique, Joaquim Chissano, remarked in a dramatic appeal, each passing day may mean death for many Mozambicans.
The EU must therefore mobilise resources immediately and effectively, in terms of quantity as well as quality, and it must employ the most rapid and appropriate means of achieving this.
We must do this not only in line with basic humanitarian principles and out of solidarity, but also - and quickly - because we know that Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world.
This means that its resources for coping with the tragedy and then setting about reconstruction are practically non-existent.
We are also under an obligation to help because of another fact, the fact that Mozambique is one of the few African countries to have used democratic means to recover from the bloody civil war by which it was consumed for several years after it gained independence.
It is true that Mozambique' s democracy is still far from perfect, as shown by the way in which the results of the recent presidential elections were contested and doubts were cast upon them.
But given this situation, which is so tragic for the people of Mozambique, we must not fail to provide an effective and appropriate response to the appeals of Mozambique' s leaders, both those in the government and those in opposition, who, out of a sense of responsibility, have resisted from resorting to violence again as a means of solving their problems.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to add my voice to all those who have already spoken in order to draw this House' s attention - which was not really necessary, but it had to be done - to the appalling tragedy unfolding in Mozambique.
I have some figures here, which I believe are the most up-to-date ones available. More than three hundred people have already died, six hundred and fifty thousand have become displaced, two million four hundred thousand people have been cut off, with eighty-five thousand needing to be evacuated, some of whom are in treetops, others on roofs.
As has already been said, helicopters are the priority and it is equally important that there is no delay in providing this humanitarian aid. Otherwise, apart from the tragedy created by the floods, the next tragedy will arise: that of a lack of aid to the people, who will die of hunger and disease and who will die in the floods.
This would be a real tragedy and one which would weigh heavily on the conscience of us all.
The Commissioner said a while ago that he had emotional ties with Mozambique, as I have myself, and that he therefore understands the whole tragic situation taking place and what is at stake.
I hope that the mission by Commissioner Nielson and the Portuguese State Secretary will provide the information that this House needs in order to understand the current situation, and what the most urgent needs are, so that we can help the people of Mozambique, who genuinely deserve our help, in their struggle for development.
.
Could I thank Commissioner Patten for coming here at short notice to respond to our wish to debate this very critical issue and as others have said, the television pictures that we have seen of the stricken Limpopo valley in Mozambique are absolutely heartbreaking.
Children have lost parents, families are bereft, hopeless, helpless and they have lost absolutely everything.
But of course, as others have said, this whole thing was predicted and predictable and the slow and very inadequate, woefully slow and woefully inadequate response is something that should dictate now that we actually do invest seriously in disaster preparedness.
There is a case as the Commissioner mentioned for the implementation of a rapid response facility and rapid response force in situations like this to deal with crises such as we have there because we simply did not have the strategies or the logistical preparations in place.
This morning there were seven helicopters and of course those helicopters are only working in the Gaza region.
The Save river has huge flooding problems as well but no one has even been there yet.
85% of the work is within an hour of Maputo so we really have no idea what the extent of the problem is.
Also I would like to say Commissioner that European citizens want to know exactly what ECHO is doing.
Most of us here would not wish to boast about EUR 3 million.
We need far more and I hope that the Commissioner will come back with those promises and also with an initiative to coordinate some of the efforts there.
Clearly also we need to see a massive airlift.
As you say tons of food, water purification equipment, tents, blankets.
Are we really prepared for the next relief and rehabilitation stage which you mention because that again will demand massive resources.
Are we ready to pay for those resources? Mozambique is, of course, one of the poorest countries in the world, but one of Africa' s great success stories with its work on economic growth, on poverty reduction, on democracy in spite, of course, of massive debt pressures.
Mozambique is a wonderful example but now likely to suffer enormous hardship as a result of what they have endured.
How badly the disaster sets Mozambique back is what we should be looking at now and that depends on the sheer quality and quantity of international relief for that stricken country.
Thank you, Mrs Kinnock.
Mr Nogueira, we note your interest and concern about this subject but your Group is not down to speak and I must abide by the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
Union Economy (1999)
The next item is the report (A5-0041/2000) by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission document 'The EU Economy 1999 Review' [C5-0081/2000 - 2000/2046(COS)].
The report of the Commission presents an assessment of the current economic position of the European economy which it finds promising, especially in terms of the recent recovery of economic growth expected to lead to a reduction of unemployment to 8% by the year 2001.
This picture in the opinion of your rapporteur has to be set against a background of sluggishness, of growth of only 1.9% per year throughout the 1990s, despite instances of higher growth rates during that decade which we were, however, unable to consolidate.
It would follow that if we do not wish the same old failures of the past to reassert themselves, we must use the current window of opportunity of improved economic performance in order to launch a new policy of transition into self-sustained higher growth levels in our economy.
This is the challenge.
Faced with this challenge the Commission recommended essentially that our economic policy merely should prolong our past stance which limits itself to setting right the monetary and fiscal fundamentals of the economy while for the rest putting faith in the markets to work their miracle without any further intervention by conscious social agents.
In Europe, in your rapporteur' s opinion, this is exactly the attitude that has served us badly over past years, not just once but repeatedly.
Such an attitude has downside risks which I understand the ECOFIN Council is currently discussing.
These risks involve a correction in the US economy and the future trend in oil prices and in long-term EU interest rates.
Should any of these risks materialise in a negative fashion, what will be our response - more laissez faire or shall we have prepared ourselves better than in the last downturn?
It has been my proposal that Parliament must recommend an activist economic policy consisting of two main parts.
One is to adopt the Commission' s own excellent, outstanding econometric analysis, and ask the Council to transform it into a programme of action involving certain interconnected quantifiable targets of levels of investment growth and employment that would make our commitment to a policy of full employment operational and credible.
A central plank of such a programme should be the raising of the level of investment of capital formation from 19%, to which it has fallen over the decade, to at least 23-24% of GDP, both in the private and in the public sector.
To allow the public sector to take the necessary significant lead in investment policy, the Council would indeed have to sacrifice some of its most sacred cows.
It would need to revise its negative attitude towards the big infrastructure programmes of trans-European networks, which have been gathering dust in the drawers for rather too long, to allow them to be financed on an adequate scale by means of European Community bonds and to accept an interpretation of the concept of budget deficits which would allow governments to borrow for purposes of investment without falling foul of the restrictions of the stability pact.
This was the first pillar of my recommendation.
The second pillar consisted of embracing a large number of structural reforms, privatisation, de-regulation proposals, as well as suggestions facilitating the transition to a knowledge-based economy which, as we know, constitutes the backbone of the proposals of the presidency for the Lisbon Summit.
It has been repeatedly stated by expert opinion that the programme of structural reforms combined with an expansionary programme of investment and growth is capable of pulling the European economy out of its state of inertia while one-sided policies are condemned to fail.
Unfortunately my colleagues of the People' s Party aided and abetted by the Liberals in the Economic Affairs Committee found my approach unacceptable.
I am glad that at least after five years of insistence they have found the target of full employment acceptable but I must say that simply referring to full employment without proposing a concrete programme towards achieving the targets smacks too much of lip service and is too unconvincing to serve as the political message of optimism that people expect from us, have been expecting from us rather too long.
It is certainly not my task to judge other people' s alliances but if the People' s Party and the Liberals are so desperate to cement their alliance, let them at least propose something positive, something that has a chance of working, not repeat the same tired old platitudes, ideas that have so singularly failed us in the past, nor oppose other people' s concrete efforts just for the sake of opposing them.
I believe that the political message of this Parliament should consist of something more original than a mere rehash of the neo-classical economic mantra.
Something more robust than a call to surrender to the fatalities of the market economy, something more decent than opposing dutiful aims but denying them the means of their realisation.
The report which has come to you from the Economic Committee sins in all these respects.
Unless it is restored in its original form by Parliament, accepting the amendments retabled by the Socialist Group, I must take the unusual but inevitable course of asking my Socialist colleagues and indeed anybody who believes that Parliament should speak a meaningful language to vote against the report that bears my name but that is no longer mine either in thinking or in conscience.
Mr President, Mr Katiforis' passion and conviction have prevented him from carrying out the usual task of a rapporteur in plenary which is to defend his report.
Instead he has defended his own position which was not the one approved in committee.
We clearly have different views, one of which is that we believe the development of the European economy can be regarded with confidence.
Yesterday, when speaking to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Commissioner Solbes specifically indicated that the prospects for this year and next for the European economy are excellent.
Moreover, several countries were mentioned whose problem is what to do with the public surplus.
They are having to choose, for example, between reducing taxes or reducing the public deficit, but clearly avoiding any price rises, or - so there is no misunderstanding - creating a special reserve for future situations in which welfare may be needed, given the EU' s population growth.
We are inclined to believe that a solid basis exists for this economic growth in the Union, now and in the coming years. It must be taken into account that we have an open, globalised and very competitive economy.
In order to reach and even overtake the leading position of the United States of America, we must avoid interventionism, as proposed initially by Mr Katiforis, and also excessive intervention by the public authorities in the construction of certain infrastructures.
Furthermore, the Member States refused to contribute more funds when we discussed Agenda 2000 which means that there will be little available over the next few years at Union level.
However, we must stress the need to continue developing the construction of the European internal market which still has some serious flaws.
There are still sectors such as air transport, energy and telecommunications in which, if we compare our unit cost with that of the USA or other countries which are equally competitive at international level, the cost supported by our companies is very high.
This report contains information which shows that in order to create a new company the bureaucratic cost in the USA is EUR 500 and in the European Union, on average, it is EUR 1 600.
We therefore still have too much bureaucracy and intervention.
It is only by complying with the essential agreements established with the programmes following on from the stability pact and by developing a market with less obstacles at all levels that we will reach the levels of competitiveness required by the European Union.
Mr President, the passion that the previous speakers have acknowledged in Mr Katiforis, in my view, only served to call on the European Parliament to respond to the hope of dozens of millions of unemployed people, social outcasts and those living a precarious existence in our European Union.
This is the objective, in respect of which he called upon the European Parliament: give hope to the people of Europe.
There is indeed economic recovery, but it only marginally reduces unemployment in Europe.
The votes of the PPE-DE and the Liberals have very considerably diminished, and even reversed, the meaning of his message.
That is why we did not vote in favour of the report as amended by them, despite our efforts, and we shall not vote for it as it stands at the moment.
What are the minimum conditions under which we would vote for this report?
First of all, the affirmation that there is room for a Europe of growth, but a Europe of sustainable growth, that particularly respects the commitments of the European Union at the conferences in Kyoto and Buenos Aires.
There is an enormous amount of work to be done to keep to our commitments by the fateful year 2008, by which time we shall have to return to 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
A tremendous amount of work remains to be done in the field of transport, energy saving and even in substituting travel by communication via the Internet.
Secondly, even the growth rate of 3 or 4%, something we consider eminently feasible, will not be sufficient to reduce unemployment if we do not improve the job content of this growth.
And we should say so very clearly, it will involve more savings on services, more third systems, more reductions in average working hours, whatever methods we adopt to achieve these things.
Thirdly, we fully agree that it is necessary to reform labour relations in Europe, but that clearly means for us that we must protect and enrich the human capital.
The lesson learned from the European experience is that where wages are lowest, where the salary ratio is the most flexible, unemployment is the highest and where wages are highest, where the social relations are the best regulated, the unemployment rate is the lowest.
Mr President, I think that this policy will engender not hope, but deep disappointment in European workers.
The vote adopted by our committee proves that it is not only the European Commission, ECOFIN and the Central Bank, but also the European Parliament which advocates and stands for an acutely neo-liberal economic and social policy which has already eroded the living and working conditions of workers and the wider working classes in the Member States of the European Union.
Our committee emphatically rejected any attempt on the part of the rapporteur to use his report to introduce a different dimension into the debate on the economic situation in the European Union and to send the Commission and the Council the sort of message which the European Parliament should send out as the parliamentary body elected by the people of the European Union.
Even the positive contribution of the international financial institutions and high-level experts, who gave the benefit of their concerns and ideas, failed miserably to muster any support.
With this vote, the European Parliament has accepted serious liability towards the people who elected it, by supporting an extreme neo-liberal economic and social policy; a policy which promotes the privatisation of absolutely everything, categorically opposes any form of public sector, overturns workers' employment, wage, social and insurance rights, imposes a policy of budgetary austerity which is acutely anti-social and unpopular and acts on behalf of employers by asking workers to become more attractive and employable if they want to find a job.
Our Group categorically condemns this perception and, in this sense, does not intend to support this resolution.
It will be voting against it.
Mr President, the report presented by the Commission on the Union Economy in 1999 appears to us to be mostly utter waffle as it scarcely shows why our performance remains hopelessly below the potential that the immense human resources of Europe should allow.
Indeed, it is good to note that the forecast of 3% growth for the year 2000, which could have seemed rather bold when the Commission announced it in November 1999, now has a serious chance of being achieved, even in the context of continued inflation, since the peak of 2% for the euro zone in January, nevertheless remains quite minor compared with the past.
But we have the impression that this growth, sustained firstly by the performance of the United States, and then by the productivity gains of the new economy, by the new information and communication technologies, is driven by the general world situation, even despite our handicaps.
We are well aware of these handicaps, which must be remedied urgently - the structural inflexibility, the excessive mandatory levies.
But let us not forget that there is another one, a new handicap, with the single currency.
In fact, the unification of monetary policies and the gradual alignment of other policies imposes additional inflexibility on the different countries in the euro zone by making them behave in ways that are not necessarily suited to their structures and to their respective economic circumstances.
This unification is considered to be positive by the Commission' s report.
But, in reality, we can no longer rule out the fact that it will lead to a less than optimum global situation.
If you add the strangeness of a single currency that is not built upon a State, itself based upon a people, you can easily explain what remains a great mystery in Brussels, the markets' suspicion of the euro.
Indeed, it was possible to welcome the weakness of the single currency initially in 1999, as it favoured growth in an unexpected way, but you cannot for ever hide the fact that it is, in fact, symptomatic of bad policies and bad operating conditions.
Mr President, the present draft resolution is controversial. Given the topic it covers, this is hardly surprising.
It is, after all, a fact that economists agree to disagree on most things, especially where the future is concerned.
The carefree appeal made by the rapporteur for higher economic growth seems an attractive way of fighting high unemployment, but it is, in fact, a short-term policy.
Even if he advocates sustainable growth, sustainability does not come into it.
Given the environmental and demographic developments, if anything, we ought to encourage Member States to pursue a selective economic growth policy.
More investments, production and consumption only generate short-lived prosperity.
The use of energy and scarce raw materials should be drastically reduced
Other priorities are the repayment of high public debt and restructuring pension schemes.
If Member States do not do anything about this, there will be even fewer means for care, education and other important public amenities in the future.
An appeal in favour of a more pro-active government policy comes across as very odd.
It does not take into account the latest Eurostat reports regarding rising inflation which, at 2%, is now at its maximum permitted level.
If, despite this, there is a desire to increase public spending, then those who go down this path will find that it is not long before the European Central Bank raises interest rates again.
What the government can then achieve in the way of job creation will be cancelled out by the unfavourable developments for small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular.
High unemployment in the European Union concerns all of us, especially now that the downward trend does not seem to be persisting.
Promoting employment, however, is a long-winded affair and comes under structural policy.
Member States, in particular, should adopt an effective policy.
In order to achieve this, they must be given the necessary leeway.
Rigidity by imposing social convergence criteria and other Community guidelines certainly does not create the necessary jobs.
However, shifting the tax burden from labour to the use of raw materials and minerals is precisely what we need by way of a lasting contribution.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague Giorgos Katiforis on the report he presented to us.
Not the report he presented to us here today, but the one he presented to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, because politically speaking, these are two completely different reports.
In very general terms, we could call the first report a left-wing one, as it addresses social issues as well as economic ones.
The report we have before us now and which Mr Katiforis is reluctant to defend - and I think that he is right in this - is a hybrid report, from which the main conclusions have been removed, and is based on social concerns.
What did Mr Katiforis actually propose and what has been taken out of the report? He proposed an ambitious report, based on an optimistic Europe, which sought to establish quantified targets for the results it was seeking to achieve.
And Europe has indeed achieved progress by means of quantified targets.
Why, for example, was the proposal to increase Europe' s active population to 75% of the total population removed, when we currently have levels of around 60%? An active population of 60% is very low compared with that of Japan or the United States and we cannot match those countries' levels of production with such a low rate of employment.
We therefore need to augment our rate of employment with jobs that are competitive.
As has been advocated for the Lisbon Summit, we must prepare our workforce for the new technologies by giving them scientific training.
We also need investment to grow at a faster rate.
We are all familiar with the idea advocated by Mr von Wogau, according to which what we need is a flexible workforce.
I would like to counter this with the example of Portugal, where employment laws are not flexible, and where unemployment stands at less than 5% - and has been steadily decreasing over the last few years - because investment is increasing, with Community support of course, at a rate considerably higher than the Community average.
What we want, therefore, is for Europe to enjoy economic growth, but also be prepared to address social issues.
Mr President, like many others, I want to thank Mr Katiforis for an interesting report.
When I read the report and see the picture of the EU' s economy that is described there, I think it is quite a worrying picture.
Investment levels are too low, unemployment is still too high and there is insufficient growth.
It is not, therefore, perhaps so strange that the euro is continuing to lose ground to other currencies, in spite of rumours to the effect that the European Central Bank is purchasing the euro on the quiet in order to support it.
The rapporteur observes that stability is not an end in itself, which is something I agree with.
There is far too much talk about stability, convergence and coordination and far too little about the factors which give rise to innovation and development.
As far as I am concerned, EMU cooperation looms ponderously large as a colossus which will have difficulty keeping afloat in the present swelling economy.
My conclusions about this differ completely, however, from those of the previous speaker.
I believe we have to place our confidence in human resources, partly through a macro-economic policy which creates demand and potential new jobs and partly - and perhaps above all - by relying upon measures in the workplace such as training, democratisation and good social conditions.
In this context, I can, in fact, see the EMU project' s main weakness, for it is true that you cannot act like Superman and raise the European economies from above.
Instead, you have to mobilise working people and the people out there in the Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have the feeling that some of the previous speakers have not read the 1999 annual report on the Union economy in its entirety and have made a conscious decision not to listen to my Group' s spokesman, Karl von Wogau, for the document that we are debating today, and which has had a report written on it, points to the fact that the introduction of the euro has been a success.
It points to the problems experienced in 1999, when, notwithstanding the problems, there was currency and price stability, increased employment, the beginnings of a period of upturn, and it was possible to make a start on reducing unemployment.
In terms of outlook, the document points to an upswing, to long-term prospects and the measures required to achieve this, which Karl von Wogau then proceeded to enlarge upon.
I am pleased that the debate we have been having here has been a tough one, for it underlines the fact that there are various approaches to economic policy.
We want to continue along the successful European path to growth and employment and a functioning internal market, to hasten our progress and supplement this with the necessary measures.
The left-wing of this House does not want to continue along this path, rather it makes dramatic statements such as: what we need is state intervention, not the extension and consolidation of the market economy.
State intervention has always led to a high level of debt, and a higher level of debt has always damaged growth and employment, as well as social justice.
That is what the debate we are having is all about, on the subject of which I have this to say to you: we need more freedom and less state intervention.
It is sound framework conditions and not state intervention that enables enterprises to create growth and employment.
Mr President, the economic situation of the European Union from the viewpoint of the workers is eighteen million unemployed people, it is the generalisation of insecurity, of low wages, of deteriorating working conditions.
The Commission has the cynicism to consider wage restraint as a positive factor, whereas in France alone, over three million workers receive a salary that is close to the poverty line and they barely survive any better than the other three million people kept unemployed by an insane economy.
But you never speak of restraining the income of shareholders that is infinitely higher from the outset and which increases shockingly every year.
What you have as a result are all these major trusts that cut jobs while their profits are high, and which often make staff redundant simply to make their share price rise on the stock market.
Eleven thousand job losses at Hoechst and Rhone-Poulenc, twenty two thousand at Unilever, ten thousand at ABB/Alsthom Power, not to mention all the others.
The economic growth on which you pride yourself only benefits a fortunate minority, the owners and shareholders of the large industrial and banking groups.
But beware of the backlash from the workers and the unemployed, who we keep telling that everything is getting better and better while they find that their lives are not improving but, on the contrary, are getting worse.
This is the key ideological struggle for Europe facing us.
This debate, I think, has summed it up.
The key political divide has been very obviously stated this evening, and it is no surprise that this issue has polarised the debate in a House which is known for its consensus and its carve-out politics, and I am delighted to see this difference of opinion made so clear, because this report is a radical one.
This report is a wake-up call to Europe.
This report recommends radical measures, which in essence will make it easier to employ people.
It is as simple as that.
The reason why we have such crippling unemployment rates in Europe is that it is too difficult in many cases to employ people because of the red tape and the regulation and the inflexibility of the labour markets.
This is the only way to go forward, because the real way to deliver social justice in Europe - and after all that is what we are all here to do - is to deliver prosperity and opportunities and jobs.
This report signals very clearly the most effective way to do that, because Europe has to wake up.
It cannot create jobs just by government spending.
It cannot create jobs by legislating to cut working hours, as if jobs were a cake that you carve up and divide between people.
The real world simply does not work like that.
And if Europe wants to be left behind, left behind to stagnation and to unemployment and to statism and to corporatism, than yes, vote against this report tomorrow.
But if you want Europe to go forward and to start delivering to the people of Europe, then I would call upon you all to give your support to this report, because it will deliver those jobs, and it will deliver those opportunities, and it is the only way to do so.
Mr President, the original version of the Giorgos Katiforis report had the great merit of making strong recommendations, based on the precise observations of the Commission report on the economic situation in Europe, for a European Union strategy capable of giving continuity and stability to the sustainable development prospects emerging this year for all the countries of our continent.
These recommendations concerned the need for effective coordination of the Union' s economic policies and the need to overcome the way that economic policy is managed separately from social policy, which has hitherto been a serious barrier to the definition of a coherent strategy for fighting unemployment and moving towards full employment.
It is this absence of management of the European economy which is responsible, my dear Mr von Wogau, for the fall of the euro.
The report also contained recommendations concerning the creation of a European research area and the promotion in all countries of the Union of converging measures on research, lifelong learning and employability which would overcome any sort of unfair competition between the States in the field of taxation.
Lastly, the recommendations also incorporated an updated version of the proposals in President Delors' White Paper on the promotion of a European project for the development of a common network of infrastructures and services.
These recommendations, which, for the most part, are consistent with the guidelines in the Portuguese presidency' s work programme and which will therefore be discussed at the Lisbon Summit, have been rejected or distorted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of this Parliament, by a majority which only managed to achieve a fragile unity in its rejection of the idea of a European Union which is founded on the convergence of national policies and not just on the grouping together of markets.
Mr President, this Parliament, which has shown itself to be highly Europeanist so many times, must, on this occasion, show that it can express a majority vote for a political union of Europe which is capable of dealing with market weak spots and failures.
Mr President, Mr Katiforis' s report is exciting.
In its original form, it points the way towards a renewed economic policy which aims at something more than merely tightening up and balancing the economy.
Now, finally, the EU' s position is, of course, such that we can achieve high growth and seriously take up the fight against unemployment without jeopardising objectives such as price stability and a balanced budget.
It is therefore sad that, in committee, the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party should have voted down the proposals which take the fight against unemployment seriously.
The debate and vote here in plenary ought to correct this.
It is nonetheless gratifying that we should have united behind some of the strategically important proposals, namely that the Union' s economic policy ought to prioritise investments, partly in order to involve all the Union' s citizens in the information society, something which can also be of major significance from an economic point of view.
I am also thinking of the importance of strengthening the applicant States' links with trans-European networks in the shape of both physical forms of transport and IT infrastructure.
This is important for growth but also in order to avoid gulfs developing between people, both within the EU and between the EU and the applicant States.
The applicant States ought not merely to tag along behind but, instead, share the EU' s ambition of becoming a world leader in the communications field.
Society needs, therefore, to take responsibility for the rapid and vigorous expansion of a modern IT infrastructure which also reaches small companies, poor regions and ordinary citizens.
We have that opportunity right now. Let us grasp it.
Mr President, the advantage of speaking at the end of such a debate is that you can react to what has been said before.
I would like to say that I strongly disagree with Mrs Villiers' view that this is such an interesting debate.
I think that the European Parliament is doing itself absolutely no favours by thinking only in terms of old categories and churning out old political concepts and visions.
It would have been much better if we had actually made the effort to reach compromises and to develop a common vision.
I think that, in this way, the European Parliament is excluding itself from the discussion at the very moment that an extremely interesting development is taking place in the European Union where a very wide, socio-economic agenda is being drawn up much more clearly.
The Portuguese presidency has submitted a wide agenda of this kind for the extra summit in Lisbon.
The Commission has done this in its five-year plan by listing one of the four priorities.
The Commission document too, which is being drafted for the summit in Lisbon, takes precisely such a wide approach which covers different areas.
I think that in adopting this wide socio-economic approach, the European Union is taking exactly the right line, not least because that is the economic entity on the basis of which policy is drafted.
In this light, I think that the European Parliament' s role will be limited in Lisbon, but also in the forum in June for which we might have an invitation, but are unsure as to the input we can have.
Are we going to have nothing more to report than the fact that we are still stuck in a mould of old political contradictions?
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(ES) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I must thank this House for its serious and detailed work.
There is no doubt that the hearings of experts and the debates in committee have provided us with additional high-quality information.
There is also no doubt that, throughout the debate this afternoon, we have heard differing opinions about the possible policies.
However, I believe that there are also some elements of consensus.
We all agree that the current economic conjuncture is good.
We also agree about trying to further and benefit from this situation in order to improve conditions and about aiming for a definite improvement in employment.
I will briefly comment on these issues before concentrating on the last point which I regard as the essential issue in today' s debate.
Yesterday, as some of you have noted, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs referred to the improvement in the economic situation in Europe.
We currently believe that this improvement, which we highlighted in the perspectives in November, may lead to even better results than initially forecast.
Employment is growing at a good rate.
Despite yesterday' s figures, we certainly consider that the fact that inflation was around 2% in December shows that this is an issue which must be pursued. However, the rate of underlying inflation demonstrates that the inflationist tendencies are due to certain very specific elements such as the rise in oil prices and exchange rate developments.
When we submitted our report, we referred to the risks posed by growth.
We basically highlighted the possibility of encountering difficulties in terms of growth in the USA, and therefore in other parts of the world, and of a sudden rise in inflation.
This latter issue may be particularly significant if it causes cost-push inflation. This is why we are continuing to talk about the need for a wages policy compatible with the definitions of inflation which we want to establish.
Parliament' s analysis has highlighted another issue which is the development of risk in the stock markets.
The Commission regards this as significant although we do not believe that this is the basic problem.
Anyway, we currently have some excellent opportunities to do more.
We all agree that, after a decade of very weak growth and intolerable unemployment, certain action must be taken.
We need public and private investment.
Our levels of research and development are too low compared with our competitors and our low level of employment reflects, among other factors, the imbalances in our labour market.
Our aim must therefore be to make this reactivation of the economy long-lasting with strong growth and job creation.
The latter element continues to be the Commission' s fundamental objective, as we indicated in the Prodi document submitted for your debate at the Lisbon Summit, in that we are aiming for full employment in the medium term.
What policy should we use to achieve these objectives? In our opinion, the Union' s economy is reactivating but we still have idle production capacity, not only in terms of physical capital but also new sources of jobs.
The policy mix to be applied should specifically allow this capacity to be fully absorbed.
We must define a macro-economic policy which aids growth.
This is not an expansionist policy in the sense of growth for growth' s sake.
It is simply a budgetary policy which can be coherent with price stability but which also allows us to have an appropriate monetary policy which contributes to growth.
This policy mix will undoubtedly be good for investment and will lead to growth.
The EU' s potential for growth must pay particular attention to certain factors, on most of which I believe we agree with Parliament' s analysis.
Firstly, private investment must be assisted.
The Union must help to promote the spirit of enterprise and to generate employment in this way, but without forgetting public investment.
This has been the major victim in recent years and any improvements in public finances must lead to improvements in public investment. However, this must be carried out with respect for our tax consolidation commitments.
Our main support in the future must be for research and development and human capital.
These are two of the principal challenges for the Lisbon Summit.
It is essential that we tackle these challenges with quantified objectives and specific definitions. This will ultimately allow us to achieve our goal of clear improvements in productivity, thus enabling our society to grow, together with a rise in employment which will go some way towards making up the ground lost in recent years.
This is the policy which the Commission has defended and will continue to defend in Lisbon.
Common fisheries policy
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0038/2000 by Mrs Attwooll, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing a Community framework for the collection and management of the fisheries data needed to conduct the common fisheries policy (COM(1999) 541 - C5-0302/1999 - 1999/0218(CNS));
A5-0037/2000 by Mrs Attwooll, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council decision on a financial contribution from the Community towards the expenditure incurred by the Member States in collecting data, and for financing studies and pilot projects for carrying out the common fisheries policy (COM(1999) 551 - C5-0303/1999 - 1999/0224(CNS)).
The proposals for a Council regulation on the collection and management of fisheries data and for a Council decision on a financial contribution in this respect are both very welcome.
So is a joint debate on them since each can only be fully understood in the light of the other.
I understand that they have been some five years in their gestation.
With the review of the common fisheries policy due in 2002, it is important that swift progress is now made.
To take first the proposal for the Council regulation, this makes provision for Member States to collect a wider range of data relating to fisheries than required under previous regulations.
Both biological and economic information are included.
The proposal also makes provision for Member States to produce such data in aggregated form.
Exactly which new data are to be collected and what is to be aggregated from these and existing data will be specified by an implementing regulation.
The implementing regulation will establish a minimum Community programme and an extended Community programme.
It appears that these programmes will not cover the whole range of potential data but will be selective, for example, by type of fish stock.
The proposal for the Council decision allows for the making of the financial contribution by the Community to Member States engaged in the collection and management of data.
It also allows the Commission itself to finance studies and pilot projects.
The only apparent sanction for Member States that do not completely fulfil the requirements of the minimum programme under the regulation is that they will not be eligible for any financial assistance in respect to the extended programme.
Two major areas of concern about the proposal were considered by the Committee.
The first relates to the degree of involvement of the Commission.
The original proposal simply allowed for the information being gathered to be transmitted to international organisations.
The Commission would only receive a copy of any such transmissions if it requested one.
Since, however, the Community is funding the exercise, it was felt appropriate for it to see a direct return on its investment.
Thus, Amendment No 6, while maintaining the freedom of Member States to transmit the data to international organisations, requires that it also be sent annually to the Commission.
This change is taken in conjunction with Amendments Nos 1, 4 and 7.
Amendment No 1 clarifies the point that, although the data are to be scientifically based, they are being collected for wider decision-making purposes.
Amendment No 4 makes it clear that the object of the exercise is the evaluation of fisheries resources generally.
Amendment No 7 calls on the Commission to report annually on the use it has made of the data collected under the regulation.
It is also designed to give greater momentum to the process with earlier and more frequent reporting back by the Commission on the progress of the data collection programme as a whole.
The other area of concern related to the range of data to be collected under the regulation.
First, in respect to economic data, Amendment No 2 makes two changes.
One attempts to ensure that the data sought are no more detailed than necessary to serve the objective being pursued.
The other replaces a reference to income from sales and other revenue, subsidies, interest received, etc., with a reference simply to volume of sales.
It is considered that without these changes undesirably high costs in the collection of data could be incurred in Member States and that there could also be serious problems of confidentiality.
In conjunction with these changes, Amendment No 5 deletes a reference to accounting headings accordingly.
Secondly, in respect to the environmental data, the original proposal speaks only of biological and economic information.
The Commission has, however, made it clear that it intends itself to engage in studies and pilot projects of a wider environmental kind.
It has also made it clear that it may wish to extend the range of data being collected by Member States at a later stage.
Amendment No 3 brings into the ambit of the current regulation data of the kind needed to monitor changes in aquatic ecosystems.
This will certainly facilitate the introduction of a new regulation concerning environmental data and may even render this unnecessary.
It should be stressed that the Amendment does not in any way require the Commission to include the collection of such data either under the minimum or the extended programmes it establishes. It merely permits the Commission to do so should it so wish.
As already stated the proposal for the Council decision falls into two parts.
The first is concerned with financing the Member States in implementing the Community programmes.
The second is to allow the Commission itself to finance pilot studies and projects.
There are some minor amendments: Amendment No 2 aims to ensure that the financial contribution to Member States can cover not only the costs of collection of data but also those of its management, compilation, aggregation, etc.
Amendments Nos 3 and 6 aim to smooth the timescale given that Member States will have to wait until the implementing regulation is in place to know what the programmes actually involve; and also to bring the timescale into line with the dates and the regulation.
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 aim to ensure that financial information is forwarded continuously to the budgetary authority.
More significantly, under Amendment No 1, the Fisheries Committee accepts the recommendation of the Budgets Committee that the funding should be placed under heading 1(b) rather than heading 3 of the Financial Perspective.
Although in its preliminary draft budget the Commission entered the appropriations under heading 3 'Internal Policies' , Parliament created a new budget line B1-500 to finance the measures under discussion.
This provides a safeguard to ensure that the necessary resources will continue to be available.
) Mr President, I believe we totally agree with Mrs Attwooll' s statement at the beginning of her excellent report that these two Commission proposals, intended to shed more light on the scientific and socio-economic situation of the fisheries sector, come at a critical time.
The proposed exhaustive collection of data and the appropriate management of this data will be very valuable in helping to tackle the revision of the common fisheries policy in a more rigorous manner.
This will only be true, of course, if the data can actually be obtained because, as rightly pointed out by our rapporteur, the Commission' s proposal does not establish any element of compulsion on the Member States.
The sending of data is completely voluntary and failure to do so will only mean that certain financial assistance, which is not very significant anyway, will not be received.
In view of our experience of the submission of data in the fisheries sector, as evidenced by the reports on compliance with the MAGPs, I believe that instead of obtaining a full picture of the situation in the sector, we will end up with total confusion. For example, some Member States will provide scientific data but not employment data while others will provide data on employment but none on the situation of resources, according to whether they can or want to obtain and send this data.
I am very much afraid that some will prefer to receive no financing rather than reveal their poor management. This has already been seen in cases where the sending of this data was compulsory, as with the MAGPs.
In view of this problem, which seems to me to be the most serious, the Fisheries Committee report improves the proposal in certain important points, particularly with the rapporteur' s suggestion of more reasonable submission deadlines and the request for monitoring by the Commission.
My Group has included two reasonable requests.
The first is that data originating from studies and samples should be used as a source of data whose collection could otherwise be interminable. The second is that the requirement for data referring strictly to the taxation of enterprises should be removed from the Commission' s proposal, bearing in mind that this tax data does not come within the Community competence.
As a result, this report is very satisfactory and, on behalf of my Group, I therefore ask for its approval.
I wish at the outset to congratulate Mrs Attwooll on the preparation and presentation of her report.
I welcome the establishment of a Community framework for the collection and management of fisheries data which I believe is absolutely essential if we are to properly assess the level of stocks of the various species of fish.
It is important, of course, that the data is both of a biological and economic nature and the information to be provided from the various Member States must be standardised across the Community and, as stated by the rapporteur in her report, must be in compliance with international provisions.
I welcome the availability of funding for national programmes, even taking into consideration provisions concerning the minimum programmes to be met.
I agree with the proposals that information provided to international organisations should also be made available to the Commission. Otherwise the purpose of collecting and collating data would be defeated and if the information is not available then the precautionary approach would continue.
Sound, factual information is in the best interests of the industry.
I believe that the streamlined information to be made available will be of major benefit and importance to the decision makers and to their advisers and will go some way to ensure a more sustainable fishery that will continue to provide jobs in parts of the Union where there is no alternative source of employment.
I am pleased to confirm that in my country they are working to ensure that the detailed practicalities, the logistics and utilisation of information are developed in the best interests of the resource of the industry and decision makers and our Group has no difficulty in supporting these reports.
Mr President, behind the report, which is an honest one, by Mrs Attwooll, which we shall vote for, we see the European fisheries policy. It is not easy to manage because clearly in an open sea, which is immense and without borders, it is not easy to manage fish on the move.
We are trying to manage a policy of catches and in so doing we are creating injustice. It is indeed a good idea to wish to prevent the depletion of fragile resources, but what is the point if Europe restricts its catches and world catches increase?
What is the point of banning European drift nets in the île d' Yeu or elsewhere, if Japan, Korea and Tunisia use them and land fish here which we are not allowed to catch? What is the point of destroying the French fishing fleet, at Sète or elsewhere, for example, if every year France has to spend two billion euros on importing fish caught and landed, while our fishermen are not allowed to catch it.
What is more, the movement of fish is like CO2 or like capital, it is not European, but world-wide.
Brussels, which wanted to do away with nations on the pretext that they were unsuited to the task, now in turn finds itself unsuited to managing a resource which itself is an international asset.
Together with Mrs Attwooll, I am in favour of collecting scientific data, and of fair and accurate checks, on condition that they do not vary according to the severity or the laxness of the administrations. I am in favour of enlightened management by marine scientists, like Professor Aubert, or others, that will make it possible to discover that the basic problems are not so much to do with industrial fishing - although it plays a serious and negative part - but more to do with plankton, the large underwater hot mass or cold mass rivers, which have a much greater effect than human influence.
But to enlighten the decision makers, let us practise honest science, without the ulterior motive of having the European Union finance excuses to destroy our fishing boats.
For if we must preserve the shoals of fish, we must also preserve the ports and the fishermen.
Instead of always following behind the United States, in Seattle, in Kosovo, in Iraq, perhaps the Europe of Brussels could suggest, over and above the international fishing organisations that exist in the North Atlantic, in the Pacific, over and above the regulation of tuna, cod or other things, that Europe should take the initiative and organise an international conference on fishing, a kind of Montego Bay of the fisheries resources which would be held between Peruvians, Japanese, Canadians, Russians, Europeans, and we could manage the fisheries resources scientifically as an asset common to humanity.
That would be good internationalism as opposed to the bad internationalism, as practised with the free exchange areas and other false friends of the OECD.
Mr President, Commissioner, to be able to adopt a credible fisheries policy, the Commission needs comprehensive and reliable data on fish stocks and fisheries fleets at its disposal.
The Commission relies on the Member States for the collation of this data.
A Community framework for the collation of this data adds some structure and improves accessibility for the purpose of scientific evaluation.
The question, however, is whether or not the Member States would be prepared, under this new regime, to make the necessary data available at the requested time. Effective sanctions and/or incentives, which aim to encourage Member States to adopt a more serious approach, are lacking from the Commission' s proposal.
Moreover, can we rely sufficiently on this information? How reliable is fishing data, as long as there are still large amounts of fish being caught illegally, as British fisherman David Cox recently admitted in Fishing News?
And what should we make of the data on fleet capacity? Further to the Court of Auditor' s criticism, in January this Parliament adopted my amendment to the Cunha report with a large majority.
The amendment requests independent verification of fleet capacity data.
I would like to know from the Commission how it has processed this recommendation, which is also endorsed by the Advisory Committee.
Finally, radical decisions are sometimes mainly based on opinions presented by biologists.
We therefore have everything to gain from improving the accuracy of biological predictions, for example by certifying the drafting of these opinions.
Furthermore, the Commission must provide sufficient financial means for the inspection of stock levels.
It is also recommended that more use be made of the expertise and experience gathered by fishermen when biological opinions are drafted.
The Northern Ireland fishing industry has received many hard blows from this Union.
They have seen their own waters plundered by others while they have had to put up their own boats and desist from fishing.
The recent decisions on the cod quota for the Irish Sea is yet another hard blow which could well prove to be a mortal blow to the Northern Ireland fishing industry.
I see the Commissioner smiling but I speak with the authority of all the political parties in Northern Ireland, a diverse crowd but all agreed on this one issue.
The European Union needs to recognise that when such drastic decisions are taken against conflicting scientific evidence submitted by the fishermen themselves, which have been totally rejected out of hand, for the conservation of their own fish stocks, then serious trouble can only result when these men are not heard.
At a recent visit in Brussels these fishermen' s representatives, duly accredited, travelled from Northern Ireland and they were threatened with expulsion from the meeting when they sought to argue a case that they had very well prepared. That is scandalous, their case ought to be heard.
It should be put on record, and I want to put it on record today.
I sat in the meeting where the scientists told us that haddock would soon be extinct in the Irish Sea and at that very time haddock had a special, spectacular increase of breeding in the Irish Sea so the scientists can be wrong.
As I have said all the Northern Ireland parties are united on this issue and those responsible for this cod quota regulation should reconsider this decision which can only spell not conservation for the fish but ruination to Northern Ireland fisheries which will affect all the fisheries of this Union.
Mr President, Mrs Attwooll' s reports are extremely important as indeed is the prospect of having as much data as possible on the fisheries sectors of the Member States. This is particularly true given that the Commission must soon prepare a report on the revision of the common fisheries policy in the year 2002.
However, the fact that the updating and sending of data are purely optional and that this involves a very wide range of data and sectors may distort the final objective of the Commission' s proposal. This has happened, as previously mentioned, with the MAGPs.
These have seriously prejudiced the countries which have strictly complied with them and provided the corresponding data to the Commission, compared with other countries which have failed to comply or simply not provided the data.
It should be pointed out that not all the Member States have the same amount of data.
Some have different sectors and, in view of the volume of data to be sent, could be prejudiced compared with those which have a smaller volume of data, if the same deadlines are set.
These deadlines for submission must therefore be staggered accordingly.
Much of this data is confidential, as has also been mentioned, which could affect the competitiveness of the sectors involved and their enterprises.
We must therefore act very carefully in this area and guarantee the confidentiality of this data.
Some of the data is also irrelevant such as that referring to the taxation of enterprises.
Finally, Mr President, as I must be brief given the time constraints, I must congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Attwooll, on the important work which she has carried out within our committee.
I too want to congratulate Mrs Attwooll and say that I agree with most of what she said.
I regard it as a weakness in the proposal that reporting is not mandatory in all Member States.
I cannot understand the proposal to make a regulation out of which it is possible for some Member States to slip without any penalty and I cannot understand either that within a European Union where we are only 50% self-sufficient in fish for our domestic needs that there is any highly sensitive information, that by making the reports that are necessary that the national interest or the regional interest of some states or fishing communities is going to be put at risk.
In view of the coming review of the policy in 2002 it is important that we have all possible information, economic as well as biological.
In the past somebody said to me I have been defending the decisions the Commission makes.
It is not very easy in coastal areas anywhere in the Union to defend the European Union in the whole area of fisheries, but I have been defending them on the grounds that decisions are made on properly based scientific knowledge.
I am informed when I take a closer look that the information is in fact quite higgledy-piggledy with bits coming from here and there and no clear, proper economic and biological picture emerging.
If we do not have this picture then it will not be possible to make reasonable decisions in two years' time about the future of the policy.
It is not easy, indeed I could speak for everybody in my constituency that live in the coastal areas too and say that they are agreed on one thing, that the European Union is the source of all their problems and all their difficulties.
Well, I do not agree with them but I think if we do not base our information and our decisions on good scientific information, and if there is not an equal obligation on everyone to give it, then we will have bad decisions.
Mr President, Commissioner, no one could dispute the usefulness of implementing the qualitative and quantitative data on the fishing industry, particularly in view of the reform of the CFP in 2002.
We are also of the opinion that Community funds should be set aside to fund these activities.
A common fisheries policy must coordinate as well as possible the requirements for conservation of species and resource management with economic and market requirements.
To this end, more extensive, compatible, uniform data is required, and we expect this to provide us with more general information on the Union' s fishing industry if properly collected and interpreted.
However, we also expect there to be greater awareness and appreciation of the peculiarities, differences, varying situations and traditions of the fishing industries, and that they will not be disregarded, penalised or even eliminated due to the misinterpretation of the concept of harmonisation of fisheries policies, as has sometimes occurred in the past.
A case in point is the Mediterranean, including my country' s fishing industry.
After years of the CFP for the Mediterranean restricting itself to trade regulations and company aid, Regulation 1626 at last introduced a responsible fisheries policy, with measures protecting vulnerable fishery resources in order to ensure sustainable exploitation.
This is a worthy objective, the implementation of which, however, has sometimes revealed an ignorance of the biological characteristics of Mediterranean species of fish.
A subsequent regulation, Regulation 1448, adopted, not by chance, in 1999, permitted certain exemptions, in particular for special cases.
The time period will elapse on 31 May next, to be precise, when the Commission will present a proposal.
We hope that the presentation of the proposal will take into account the fact that this fishing system is vitally important for the economy of huge Italian coastal areas and that the scientific data hitherto collected demonstrate that, from the point of view of biological implications, resources are, to some extent, sustainable.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Combating certain fish diseases
The next item is the report A5-0036/2000 by Mr Hudghton, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 93/53/EEC introducing minimum Community measures for the control of certain fish diseases (COM(1999) - C5-0168/1999 - 1999/0191 (CNS)).
Infectious salmon anaemia is a contagious viral disease which was first recorded in Norway in 1984, then in Canada in 1986 and first found in European Union territory in May 1998 in Scotland.
Although the virus has been found in other species, the disease itself is so far confined to salmon.
The virus is known not to survive above 25o Celsius and scientists have therefore agreed that no threat to human health exists; it simply cannot survive in warm-blooded creatures.
The Scottish salmon-farming industry is the biggest in the EU, spread throughout some of Europe' s most peripheral communities.
It sustains some 6 500 jobs and generates around EUR 800 million annually.
It is obvious therefore that this issue is especially important to Scotland but it is vitally important to all parts of Europe that the disease be brought under control and, if possible, eradicated.
The current directive prohibits the use of vaccination and requires that all fish in an affected farm be slaughtered whether affected by the disease or not.
The intention in adopting the current regime was to eradicate ISA and to do so as quickly as possible.
The reality is that the compulsory slaughter policy has failed even to contain, let alone eradicate ISA, and while failing to deliver its objectives, the present rule has had a devastating economic effect on the industry with no compensation being paid and no possibility of commercial insurance.
The proposed changes are twofold: the first would permit the use of vaccination as a weapon in this battle.
This is a necessary change and should be accompanied by a commitment at European level to instigate and fund research into developing an effective vaccine.
The second proposed change would permit a phased withdrawal of fish from affected farms, working to a plan based on the severity of the problem in any particular farm.
This approach has been used very effectively in Norway where new reports of ISA are down to a handful of cases a year having peaked at some 80-90 cases per year in the early 1990s.
I therefore support the Commission' s proposed changes and I am calling for their urgent adoption and implementation.
I also highlight the issue of compensation and call for the amendment of Council Decision 90/424/EEC by specifically including ISA in its appended list of diseases, thereby enabling compensation to be paid at 50% Commission, 50% Member State.
I thank colleagues in the Fisheries Committee for their overwhelming vote in support of my report and I in particular thank my Scottish colleagues in the committee for their input to this whole process.
I am opposing Amendments 7 to 13 which were decisively rejected by the Fisheries Committee.
Most of their content is either unnecessary or already referred to in my text.
In particular, I have drawn attention to the need to study the extent and effect of interaction between farmed and wild salmon, the need to investigate the source of ISA and the need to test more widely for the virus in wild stocks.
These amendments by the Green component of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group are designed to provide justification for Amendment 13.
This amendment is completely unacceptable and inappropriate as it seeks not only to retain the requirement for immediate compulsory slaughter of all fish but also to prevent any fish, whether diseased or not, from an affected farm from being sold and I must emphasise that under current policy no diseased fish are sold.
There is no proposal to change that and under the proposed new regime there is no question of diseased fish being sold.
Amendments 7 to 13 simply fail to take account of the reality as evidenced by the starkly contrasting statistics from Scotland and from Norway.
In Scotland we have endured a draconian regime which has failed to achieve its objective.
In Norway, with their much longer experience, compulsory, 100% culling was abandoned some years ago and a range of measures have led there to a dramatically improved situation.
It is in all of our interests to ensure that in Scotland too we contain ISA and prevent its further spread.
Last week saw the publication in Scotland of a report by a joint government and industry working group on ISA.
This comprehensive document takes account of a wide range of possible risks and recommends action to combat them in areas such as site-to-site transmission, security measures to curtail escapes, treatment of waste and effluent, methods of detection and diagnosis, farrowing and rotation, disinfection of equipment and many, many more.
Some can and will be implemented immediately by local authorities using existing powers, others will be incorporated into codes of practice.
All will be beneficial, not just in relation to ISA but in achieving better standards in aquaculture generally where required.
Your votes, colleagues, in favour of my report in full, as endorsed by the Fisheries Committee, will be a very important part of a wider ISA control package based on the reality of Scotland' s situation and the lessons learned from the success of others.
I congratulate Mr Hudghton and fully support his report and would urge the honourable Members of Parliament to do likewise.
As he said, fish farming is a critically significant source of employment in remote parts of rural Scotland and at a time when the rural areas of Scotland are suffering their worst recession in over a hundred years, the aquaculture industry provides an essential boost to the rural economy on which many thousands of direct and indirect jobs depend.
Now, as he said, in excess of 85 000 tons of Salmon is now produced in Scottish fish farms in an industry which generates more than EUR 800 million annually.
Regrettably, although ISA was first detected in Scotland only two years ago, it has now spread to 29 farms directly and around 240 other farms are affected in some way or another.
Wild salmon, trout and eels have been found to carry the virus which now seems to be endemic even in the wider marine environment.
But I must say that despite the scare-mongering of the Greens, it has to be emphasised that ISA cannot under any circumstances be transmitted to humans, and I must repeat what Mr Hudghton said, that the virus cannot survive above 25o - which is human body temperature - it is a virus of a cold-water species.
It can, nevertheless, in the affected fish, lead to severe weight loss and early death in its advanced stages and it therefore has had a serious economic impact on the whole Scottish aquaculture sector costing the industry around EUR 60 to 70 million in losses arising from the mandatory premature culling and other eradication measures.
So this report, Mr President, provides an encouraging range of proposals for improving the way in which the authorities in the UK and elsewhere should respond to the disease.
By recommending the introduction of a method of containment and gradual culling, similar to the system used successfully in Norway, the rapporteur seeks to introduce a more flexible approach to the disease which will provide confidence, not least to the insurance sector who have hitherto shied clear of providing any form of cover due to the insistence on a policy of compulsory slaughter.
By recommending the research, development and ultimate use of vaccination to control and eradicate ISA, the rapporteur also provides comfort to the pharmaceutical industry who have hitherto had no incentive to invest in the development of a vaccine.
So I thoroughly recommend and hope that the Parliament will support this excellent report.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Hudghton, also for this report.
Scottish salmon farming is the biggest in the European Union and accommodates 90% of the British aquacultural industry.
The industry is located in some of Europe' s most peripheral communities providing an economic lifeline to those communities.
In recent research it is estimated that the industry is worth EUR 800 million per annum and 6 500 jobs rely on its existence.
I believe that this report gives a clear method for dealing with Infectious Salmon Anaemia which is both practical, realistic and also achievable.
The example of Norway demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach.
As for the amendments, I oppose the amendments tabled by Mr Hudghton' s Green colleagues, that is numbers 7 to 13, not because I do not care about the risks to human health but because, according to scientific evidence, the virus does not survive beyond 25o Celsius and according to medical evidence, human beings at that temperature are dead.
There is a saying that the dead tell no tales and I am sure they do not eat fish but I do and I look forward to the implementation of this report.
I too would like to compliment Mr Hudghton on his report and to endorse his additions to the original proposal in relation both to the matter of compensation and encouragement of vaccine development.
I too agree that Amendments 7 to 13 are unfortunate, indeed Amendment 13 would not merely negate the intended effects of the proposal but actually would make the situation even more difficult than under current rules.
This is not though to deny the importance of environmental considerations in relation to fish farming.
Mr Hudghton has already referred to the final report of the UK joint government industry working group on ISA and the measures there are of relevance for fish farming wherever it happens, not just in farms affected by ISA.
Secondly, looking forward to the motion for a resolution on the Katiforis report later this evening, paragraph 28 is of particular importance.
This calls on the Commission and Member States to step up the adoption of measures to combat the possible negative effects of aquaculture on the marine environment.
Thirdly, referring to the earlier discussion on the collection of fisheries data, I very much hope that the Commission will engage in projects and studies looking at aquaculture in the environmental context but I believe that is the way forward in relation to the environment, not the way that is suggested in Amendments 7 to 13, and I hope honourable Members will reject them.
Mr President, I do not agree with this chorus of satisfaction expressed by my colleagues, who are delighted about the relaxing of a directive that respects the principle of precaution and which takes measures to protect consumers' health.
This infectious salmon disease is caused by an orthomixomicrovirus which breaks down the blood of salmon, causing death.
It spreads very easily through mucus in saline water, etc.
Under the 1993 directive, not only the diseased fish can be culled but also the farmed fish where individuals are affected, exactly like the case when one cow is sick in a herd and the whole herd is culled according to the principle of precaution.
What we currently propose is to relax this directive, so that we do not cull all the fish, but only the fish that are found to be diseased.
For the others, well, we would have time to see what would happen, according to local circumstances.
I think it is a very serious matter that we act in this way.
I would particularly draw my colleagues' attention to this fact as we cannot make do with saying that a temperature of 27º has every advantage for the human race and that, consequently, there is no risk to men.
What about women? Nobody has undertaken any studies on human tissue in that regard.
There is also a risk to the environment, because we know that there is an incubation period in salmon and that, consequently, if they are eaten, they can be carriers of this virus and present a risk.
There is another risk to the environment as well, because this disease is transmitted to wild fish, as we have seen.
For this reason, together with my colleague, Patricia McKenna, we have tabled amendments against the proposals made by the Commission.
Mr Pietrasanta explained why we support some aspects of the Commission' s proposal, in particular support for development of a vaccine and compensation for farmers who are forced to slaughter their fish, but were not at all happy with the idea of changes to the slaughter policy.
Now people have said here that Norway has done a better job of controlling the epidemic of ISA and that the proposed change will bring us more in line with the Norwegian approach, but it must be said that there is more than just one difference between the Norwegian policy and that of the Community.
This is a Community policy which will effect Ireland as well - where I am from - should similar unfortunate events occur.
There are other differences that exist in the policy for inspections of disease, fallowing periods, restriction on movement of contaminated fish and materials and others.
Before we jump to copy the slaughter policy of the Norwegians, we should try these other things first to see if we can mitigate the disaster.
And people have spoken in the past about BSE.
For many years the Greens were calling for the BSE issue to be addressed.
Had it been at that time, you could have actually saved an awful lot of farmers and the EU a huge amount of money.
So it also has to do with environmental protection.
The protection of the farmers themselves and the protection of public health.
I would like to thank Mr Hudghton for his excellent report on ISA and for broadly supporting the measures proposed by the Commission and also for the contributions from each of the speakers this evening.
The Commission proposal aims to ensure a more pragmatic approach towards controlling a disease that has the potential to cause important losses in salmon farms.
However, this cannot be allowed to compromise our objective of reducing and possibility eliminating ISA.
Nor can it be done, if the proposal involves a threat to public health.
The environmental implications must also be taken very seriously.
I am advised that ISA is considered non-pathogenic for humans and mammals.
The disease exists since 1984 and there is no report of it affecting human health or mammals.
The virus harms cold-blooded animals.
It does not replicate at temperatures above 25º centigrade and would, if present in fish for human consumption, be inactivated when ingested.
In no way, however, can diseased fish be used for human consumption.
As an extra precaution, I am validating this advice to our scientific committee.
During the debate, a number of important issues linked to our disease-control strategy have been raised including compensation.
I deeply regret the losses suffered by the Scottish salmon industry.
You may know that with effect from 15 January 2000, under the new financial instrument for fisheries guidance, Member States may encourage eradication of diseases in aquaculture.
The Commission' s services are drawing up implementing rules in order to ensure the practical application of this instrument.
Council Decision 90/424 constitutes another instrument for Community financial support in case of disease outbreaks.
I must emphasise, however, that there are serious constraints.
Budgetary resources are very limited and priorities with other diseases have to be set.
So further thought is necessary.
I regret therefore that I am not at present in a position to accept amendments that refer to compensation through Decision 90/424.
This is in particular the case for Amendments Nos 3 and 5.
I agree, however, with the statement in Amendment No 2 saying that no compensation has been made payable to salmon farmers.
I am not able to comment on the availability of commercial insurance.
The Commission included in its proposal a possibility for vaccination of salmon.
The intention of this proposal is to introduce a tool for combating the disease in emergency situations.
I believe a vaccine should not be used for preventative purposes as suggested in Amendment No 4.
Experience in other areas has shown that preventative vaccination has the adverse affect of creating healthy virus carriers.
Those could perpetuate an infection.
I therefore am not able to accept Amendment No 4.
You also referred to the need for further scientific research on the nature of the disease.
I agree that such research is needed and I understand this is at present being organised in the United Kingdom.
I will follow very closely the results of this research and take it fully into account in future legislative proposals.
It must be further examined whether and how scientific research in other parts of the Community must be organised.
In this context I am happy to partly accept Amendment No 1, taking into account, however, that scientific investigations are not done by the Commission but that the Commission relies on results of investigations carried out in the Member States.
I also can partly accept the part of Amendment No 6 saying that Directive 93/53 should be amended as a result of scientific and technical evidence.
As I pointed out earlier, the available scientific evidence is that ISA is not a threat to health.
I can therefore agree to Amendment No 10 with the proviso that the words, and I quote, "of the highest possible standard" are replaced by "are safe" .
With regard to the environmental impact, it is a well-known phenomenon that while stocks have fallen during the last decades several reasons have been advanced to explain these reductions: pollution, over-fishing, changes in climate, etc.
It cannot at present be excluded that ISA has an impact on wild stock.
Fish escapes from aquaculture premises have been reported in the past and the virus has been found in wild stocks.
In this context, a number of scientific questions that can only be resolved through further research remain open.
It is for that reason that a careful approach towards the control of ISA is needed.
Diseased fish should not remain in the farms and I am prepared to look into the matter so as to avoid unnecessary shedding of a virus into the environment.
For that purpose, I propose to amend our initial proposal to provide that rural programmes established by the competent authority must be approved by the Commission.
This is to avoid excessive withdrawal periods.
I also propose to provide that the withdrawal of fish displaying clinical signs of disease should be immediate.
The procedures for setting additional control measures that already exist in Community legislation will be used to establish withdrawal schemes based on the state of health of the fish in order to minimise a possible environmental impact.
Bearing this in mind, I can agree to accept Amendment Nos 7 and 8 with a minor change to the latter.
I am also very sympathetic towards Amendment No 9, but I believe that it can be better formulated so as to join, at the same time, environmental concerns and disease control and eradication strategies.
I do not feel in a position to accept Amendments Nos 12 and 13.
It is my feeling that these amendments aim to achieve a zero risk.
I believe this objective is very difficult to achieve without closing down the fish farming sector concerned.
I look forward to Parliament' s own views on these amendments and will take careful note if you believe that such an approach is the best way forward.
I can partly accept Amendment No 11.
Finally, I would like to emphasise that we continue to strive to maintain a high level of health protection in accordance with our obligations under the Treaty.
I believe that measures that are proportionate to that objective is the way forward.
We remain committed to eradicating the disease, an objective that will be beneficial for both the environment and the salmon-farming sector.
I hope that in accepting our proposal the European Parliament acknowledges our commitment and I would be very grateful for that.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Byrne.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Protection of juvenile marine organisms
The next item is the report A5-0035/2000 by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending for the fourth time Regulation (EC) No 1626/94 laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources in the Mediterranean and for the fourth time Regulation (EC) No 850/98 for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms (COM(1999) 552 - C5-0040/2000 - 1999/0222(CNS)).
The proposal before us as outlined in the introduction is a very important one.
By now, my colleagues in the Fisheries Committee and indeed in the Parliament will be well aware of our commitment to technical conservation measures which are based on sound technical advice.
The body charged with giving this advice based on sound scientific data is the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna.
This intergovernmental fishery organisation of which the European Union is a member is responsible for the conservation of tuna and tuna-like species in the Atlantic and the adjacent seas including the Mediterranean.
This body was established back in March 1969 and is formally obliged to meet biannually, however the norm is that it meets annually and takes its decisions on the basis of scientific advice.
The body then makes recommendations with a view to maintaining stocks.
This body has four standing committees comprised of national experts dealing with research and statistics, finances and administration, compliance and conservation and management measures.
They have also four panels dealing with tropical tuna, with temperate tuna, the north and temperate tuna south and other species.
These panels are powered to initiate regulatory measures on species covered by the convention.
Proposals made by the panels are then presented to the Commission and the Commission in turn makes recommendations to the contracting parties.
These conditions are binding, however contracting parties may lodge objections within a six-month period.
The European Union is a contracting party and is obliged to embody such recommendations in Community law.
At a ICCAT meeting in November 1998 in Santiago de Compostela, changes were recommended to the rules relating to the landing of the minimum size of bluefin tuna.
ICCAT also made recommendations in 1974, 1994 and 1996.
As of now, it is illegal to land or sell bluefin of zero age and that of course is - in weight terms - less than 1.8 kilos.
At its recent meeting in November 1998, the ICCAT standing committee on research and statistics was asked to perform a new assessment of the western Atlantic and eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin tuna populations.
The information provided would then assist the organisation in considering developing and improving stock rebuilding plans.
It was agreed that the SCRS should present a study at the 1998 meeting.
It was intended that this meeting be presented with various possible recovery options with a view to maximising sustainable yields by taking into account alternatives or possible levels of recruitment and mixing of stocks.
It was intended that the study should indicate monthly closures to purse seine, in order that the closures would be effective for the conservation of bluefin stock.
Following all of the research, the meeting agreed to a selective closure rather than a general prohibition of fishing for tuna in the Mediterranean with purse seine during the period 1 August to 31 August.
It is important to protect the tuna fishery for future generations.
Bluefin tuna is the world' s most expensive fish fetching up to EUR 90 000 per ton at the auctions in Tokyo and, of course, the indication of the importance of the Mediterranean tuna is that it accounts for 70 percent of global landings in the region of 30 000 tons.
80 percent of it was landed by purse seine.
The Mediterranean is an important spawning area for bluefin tuna so therefore it is important that the necessary measures be taken to enhance the protection of juveniles.
The minimum size must be respected and technical measures must be implemented if we are to eliminate the zero age.
The measures agreed in November 1998 are binding since 21 June, I repeat 21 June 1999, months before the communication was forwarded to the Parliament' s Fisheries Committee and 9 months almost to the date.
Now I believe, Commissioner, this is not good enough and that in the future we must learn and that reports must be submitted to the Parliament' s Fisheries Committee before decisions are taken, otherwise then we are nothing further than a rubber stamp and I know that is not the intention of the Commission or the Commissioner but let us learn from mistakes of the past.
Mr President, this proposal aims to incorporate into Community law an ICCAT recommendation from 1998 which should have been binding from June 1999, but which only reached this House at the end of last year.
The Commission' s legislative delay on certain issues should not surprise us, but for the fact that this is a recommendation from one of the most important international fisheries organisations on the protection of such a threatened resource as tuna.
The Mediterranean, particularly in some zones, is an extremely important spawning area for the bluefin tuna which is of enormous commercial value.
This is why ICCAT recommended this closed zone in the Adriatic and toughened the conditions for catching zero-age fish.
As rightly said by the rapporteur, both measures are totally and fully justified which is why we have no alternative but to ask for their approval.
However, I also agree with Mr Gallagher who felt bound to indicate his frustration at the tardiness of the Commission in getting into gear and transforming the recommendations into Community law.
We are, for example, still waiting for the proposal for a regulation on banning the import of bluefin tuna from Honduras and Belize. The recommendation for this dates from 1996.
Apparently, according to my information, the Fisheries Directorate-General sent a note last January to the Trade Directorate-General which is still on the preparatory work.
Four years to apply this ban on imports from countries known to favour flags of convenience is absolutely unacceptable.
We have listened to the Commission' s explanations about the long internal process involved in transposing legislation. This has simply left us with an image of an exasperating bureaucracy.
Yet I have my doubts about the only proposal currently on the table to improve this process which would involve doing away with the Council and Parliament procedure.
It is clear that we must find a solution to this problem, either at the time of the Commission report on regional fisheries organisations or, if possible, before then.
I do not suppose that anybody in this House would object to the principle of protecting juveniles of marine organisms. Indeed, it is often stated that one of the general objectives of the common fisheries policy shall be to protect and conserve living marine aquatic resources.
All laudable stuff. There can also be no doubt that bluefin tuna is of enormous environmental and financial significance.
As a king sport fisherman myself, I would love to see the days of the 1930s come back when anglers from the port of Scarborough in Yorkshire caught bluefin tuna weighing up to 830 pounds.
I do not know what the metric equivalent is.
So I support the findings of ICCAT and I support the principle of intergovernmental cooperation on environmental issues.
My concern though with this debate is that we are fiddling whilst Rome burns.
The common fisheries policy is not working.
For all of the high-minded talk about conservation, the reality is that the quota system is directly leading to an environmental disaster.
In mixed fisheries, you cannot discriminate.
The sheer volume of fish that are thrown back dead also means that any improvement in fisheries data is meaningless.
From a UK perspective there is also a deep-seated political objection to the CFP.
Many people now feel if this is federalism you can keep it.
Let me illustrate this with a topical example.
In February, Commission Regulation 394/2000 designed to protect Irish Sea cod stocks was issued.
It means that in Fleetwood, 30 inshore boats are tied up until the end of April.
The scientists and the fishermen both agree that something has to be done.
However, more than a dozen large Belgian beam trawlers have been granted a derogation from this regulation so the vessels that caused the very problem in the first place are carrying on fishing whilst it is a criminal offence for the UK fleet to do so.
The CFP does not assist in conservation and is angering the British public to the point where we demand to re-establish control over our own territorial waters.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Gallagher' s report on the fourth amendment of the Regulation on technical measures was not amended in our committee. It was actually approved unanimously for which I congratulate the rapporteur.
This also shows that our committee is in total agreement when it comes to supporting measures which aim to protect species, such as tuna in this case.
These decisions must be defended by the Commission in ICCAT. This is why our committee asked to be consulted in advance and to be represented at the meetings as an observer in order to ensure greater and better control and to reinforce the European Parliament' s role.
Mr Fischler, I am delighted that the Commission responded favourably to our request in the last and constructive debate which we had on this issue and has asked to attend our next meeting this month to inform us about the future preparatory ICCAT meeting.
Our rapporteur' s criticisms on this point have also therefore been heeded.
I must highlight the part of the report which states that, in 1975, with regard to the size of bluefin tuna, a minimum limit of 6.4 kg with a 15% tolerance in the number of fish was recommended for the entire Atlantic.
However, according to the SCRS study, the regulation establishing the 6.4 kg minimum has been poorly enforced in the East Atlantic and Mediterranean fisheries.
The WWF reports that, according to Italian, French and Spanish customs authorities, illegal bluefin fishing and landings of small fish are on the increase.
I cannot and do not want to go any further as we are pushed for time.
However, I must again congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Gallagher.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Fishing and the environment (Bergen 13-14 March 1997): 2nd report
The next item is the report (A5-0016/2000) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the second report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of the "statement of conclusions from the intermediate ministerial meeting on the integration of fisheries and environmental issues, 13-14 March in Bergen" (COM(1999) 270 - C5-0156/1999 - 1999/2150 (COS)).
Mr President, Mr Fischler, my report concerns the vital integration of environmental and fisheries issues, as discussed at the ministerial meeting in Bergen.
This integration has always been a priority for me as we would be doing the fisheries and fishermen of the future a disservice if we did not emphasise the need for conservation of resources and responsible fisheries in general.
To fail in this respect would mean food for today but hunger for tomorrow, not just for our fishermen and the people of Europe but, more seriously, for humanity as a whole.
The common fisheries policy is theoretically very demanding and very strict in this respect, perhaps more so than most people, both Europeans and non-Europeans, would believe.
I have therefore asked the European Commission to produce a publication which lists all the measures of the common fisheries policy aimed at conserving and protecting resources. This will serve to publicise our protectionist actions.
We have also asked Parliament' s own DG IV to prepare a systematic study of these measures for the Committee on Fisheries.
The revision of the common fisheries policy in 2002 is the biggest time-limited challenge facing us. We must completely overhaul, modernise or, if you prefer, update this policy in its entirety.
I would stress that the whole of the CFP must be revised, particularly the part on the protection of fish stocks.
This is the basis of my request to the European Commission and the services of this House.
I do not believe that the state of stocks and the current scandalous system of discards are a good example of the policy' s effectiveness which must therefore, in my opinion, be significantly improved.
I do not want to and cannot go into too much detail, Mr President, given the time constraints and also the interpreters' fees.
However, I will just remind you that the meeting in Bergen showed very significantly that a proper policy on the sea must be created.
The President-in-Office informed our committee that the current Portuguese presidency intended the CFP to be regarded as a policy for ensuring the sustainability of our resources. This must be our objective in Europe and throughout the world.
In this respect, important Community initiatives arose from Bergen which have always been supported by our committee. These are aimed at re-establishing the breeding biomass, reducing and adapting fishing effort to resources, protecting juveniles, species and their habitats and adopting technical measures aimed at selective and responsible fisheries.
These initiatives, together with effective systems of control, are the key aspects for the future of fisheries.
However, we do not have to resort to extreme solutions, as Mr Katiforis initially suggested in his draft report.
I am referring to this now because I will not have time to speak later on.
I must point out in this respect that it was the numerous amendments tabled and approved in our committee and the flexibility shown by Mr Katiforis which enabled his report to be approved by our committee.
Coincidence or fate has worked to bring together in this part-session both my report and Mr Katiforis' s report on fisheries and the environment. The oral question from our committee on the extremely serious consequences for fisheries of the accident involving the tanker Erika will also be considered tomorrow.
Maritime transport, industrial and urban pollution and waste also have negative effects on fisheries whose problems do not just come from overfishing.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Fisheries management and nature conservation in the marine environment
The next item is the report A5-0017/2000 by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and European Parliament: Fisheries management and nature conservation in the marine environment (COM(1999) 363 - C5-0176/1999 - 1999/2155 (COS)).
The problems for resource management and environmental protection in the fishery sector have been considered by this House many times in the past.
This particular communication from the Commission forms part of the Commission' s overall strategy of improving the integration of environmental considerations into other Community policies.
The overall strategy of the Commission is to direct fisheries activities towards both economically and environmentally sustainable levels through management of the scarce resource in such a manner as to prevent its exhaustion through over-exploitation and/or environmental degradation.
The alternative to successful management is the economic decline of the fisheries industry as stocks dwindle and demand for fish products is increasingly met by imports.
I understand I have been described in a Spanish newspaper as an enemy of the fishing industry because I have said such things.
Of course, I am only an enemy of the fishing industry as much as anybody who recommends to some people not to saw off the branch on which they are sitting.
This is an unwise policy.
In particular, the communication calls for control of fisheries pressure to benefit commercial stocks and marine aqua systems, improved measures for nature conservation in the marine environment, in the graded management of coastal areas, improved training, information transparency and a greater contribution from scientific research to fisheries management.
All of the above priorities will be pursued equally at both the Community level and in the various international fora in which the Community participates.
They should also be pursued in the context of the bilateral and multilateral agreements which the Community negotiates.
Whilst the communication reveals the Commission' s worthy intentions in this field, it is also revealing as to what activity is lacking and where management and control improvements can be made.
One can quote from the communication.
Over-exploitation is so severe in Community fisheries that the scientific authorities have recommended rapid reductions of the exploitation levels of up to 40 percent.
That appeared in the communication published last July.
Since then, the Fisheries Council meeting of 16 December decided on drastic reductions in the total allowable catches for certain species such as cod and anchovy which were in the region of 25 percent for cod and 43 percent for anchovy for the year 2000.
Furthermore, the Commission adopted an emergency regulation for a recovery plan for Irish Sea cod, effectively calling a halt to cod fishing in the Irish Sea between 14 February and 13 April due to the crisis in the species.
These are examples of the fishery sector facing severe problems due to over-exploitation.
What can be done to alleviate the damage done to fishing communities? The first consideration must be to recognise that Community legislation must be reinforced and control mechanism procedures enhanced.
Secondly, the principles of such Community legislation should also be extended to international agreements to which the Community is a party.
Thirdly, the European Union should undertake to enhance its monitoring and prevention of extensive pollution prevalent in Community waters and which is harmful to marine life including fishery resources.
More controls would be placed to prevent oil spillages such as that of the Erika in the Bay of Biscay and also deliberate dumping of waste oils.
Recognition should also be given to the pressures which the delicate marine aqua system faces from urbanisation of coastal areas.
Such pressures are greatest in Europe.
In this context one can also mention the problems of discards of unwanted catches, fishing gear which destroys the seabed and the destruction of natural habitats by over intensive aquacultures.
A quota management system such as that existing in New Zealand since 1986 is one possible alternative.
Under this system, and given the total allowable catch for a species, a market is created for individual quotas for fishing rights within a certain area which the rightholders can trade amongst themselves, fish themselves or lease the rights to other fishermen for a certain time.
The property right that has been created in such a system is the right to fish - not the fish themselves.
Such a market organisation can reap better long-term prospects for the fishing industry.
At present dear colleagues, we can never be fully informed about the vast ecosystem that is the sea, nor about the multitude of factors which affect the stock of resources in this aqua system.
However, we should never blind ourselves to scientific research, we should never cease to gather information, we should never cease to explore improvements in existing systems and, if necessary, we should at least consider policy changes.
The fishery sectors in Europe face serious problems and I am a great supporter of the fishery sector.
I therefore call upon the Commission and the Council to find the information, the political will to provide genuine long-term solutions for fishing communities and not depend upon short-termism.
I recommend the report to the House.
The Environment Committee is generally pleased with the Commission' s communication and we are also pleased that the Fisheries Committee adopted all our amendments.
It is now widely accepted that fishing has effects on marine environment which are much more wide-ranging and pervasive than simple capture of target species with a little bit of by-catch.
We welcome the intention of the Commission to integrate environmental protection into other policies of the EU including the common fisheries policy.
After all, the treaties have stipulated since 1992 that the precautionary principle and environmental protection should be integrated into Community policies.
But as has been pointed out, the adoption of a rigorous definition of the precautionary principle is crucial.
This is because it is all very easy to pay lip service to the idea and then to continue with business as usual.
The UN Fish Stocks Agreement of 1995 would serve as a very good model in this regard.
One aspect that was missing from the communication though is the aspect of surveillance and control.
All the good policies and regulations in the world will not lead to conservation without an effective system to ensure that the rules are respected.
Control is a Member State competence and the Council has recently adopted a list of serious infringements aimed at coordinating to some extent the severity with which similar violations are viewed in different countries.
This is a good step forward, but as the Commission and the Fisheries Committee continually point out, much improvement is needed in the control programmes of all Member States.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report.
Mr President, fishing is an extremely important economic activity which involves major investment. Most of its jobs are provided under fairly tough conditions throughout entire Community regions.
However, some people' s view of the fisheries sector can be extremely simplistic, ranging from mere folklore to the insult of regarding fishermen as insensitive pirates and predators.
I regret to say that this report, due to its link with the environment, seems to have provided an occasion for those with this type of view to introduce their own particular misconceptions.
If Mr Katiforis' s report had been approved in its initial wording, none of the members of the Committee on Fisheries could have gone into any fishing region again without fear of being lynched.
The relationship between fisheries and marine ecosystems is obvious.
Yet it is very wide-ranging and involves many other factors including pollution and maritime transport.
To blame fishermen alone for environmental damage is both unfair and wrong.
Our committee avoided embarrassing itself by making a series of amendments of which I tabled 14, many of which were accepted by the rapporteur for which I thank him sincerely.
Just when we thought the discussions had ended, a number of diverse amendments have been tabled in plenary which I ask you to vote against unreservedly.
According to these, for example, the meagre fisheries budget should have to finance artistic heritage or encourage tourism at sea.
Others, like Amendment No 4, which request financing for biological closures, also demonstrate a lack of understanding of fisheries regulations by requesting measures which are already in force, although admittedly there is room for improvement in these.
I therefore ask you to reject the four amendments tabled so that we can close this chapter on fisheries and the environment with the thought which came up in the committee' s debate. These two areas are closely related and they suffer the effects of the same environmental attacks.
As I have said many times before, the fisheries sector is more a victim than the cause of damage to the marine ecosystem and tomorrow we will be able to confirm this in the debate on the Erika.
Mr President, Mr Katiforis' s report has the virtue of having brought life, debate and controversy to a communication in which the European Commission limits itself to listing a series of good intentions, although recognising its inability to put these into practice.
Mr Katiforis has certainly not lacked the courage to set out the measures which, in his opinion, could help to improve and conserve the natural resources of the sea.
Yet I must say that I disagree with many of his proposals because I am with those who believe that it is not just resources which are important in the fisheries sector but also the human beings who have been carrying out this activity for centuries.
I agree with the rapporteur that the European fisheries and environmental policies should be better coordinated.
However, what we are basically missing is the political courage and determination of the Commission and the Member States to take decisions and apply the current regulations.
Maritime transport, employment and energy should be integrated together with fisheries and the environment.
As for the Structural Funds, certain examples could be mentioned but I will leave this for another day.
The European Parliament is aware of the limited resources and the need for responsible fisheries.
The Commission and Member States should be meticulous in respecting the TACs and the quotas fixed in accordance with objective scientific criteria. The same yardstick should be used for everyone.
As Mr Katiforis says, discards are a waste of resources which we cannot accept.
Twenty million tonnes of unwanted catches are being thrown back.
The fleet must therefore use increasingly selective fishing gear.
This House has already indicated its opposition to driftnets and yet it is evident that certain countries are not only not respecting the undertaking to eliminate these nets but are increasing the number of vessels using these or simply not providing data given the passiveness of the national and Community authorities.
We socialists consider that to defend the common fisheries policy is to defend a regulated and controlled fisheries sector.
It is therefore essential that the Commission launches an information campaign on the CFP with this message.
Without a common fisheries policy there can only be lack of control, damage to the environment and an unsustainable economic activity.
Mr President, I very much appreciate this report by Mr Katiforis on fisheries management and nature conservation in the marine environment.
Let us not forget that fish are at the very basis of our food chain and that the first 'environmental' disaster, Minamata disease, occurred in 1958 in Japan owing to the fact that fish were polluted by mercury.
We should therefore very carefully monitor pollution from industrial activity, but also from domestic activity.
I do not believe that ejecting emissions at sea, and particularly in a closed environment like the Mediterranean, when we want to clean up purification plants, is a good way to clean up water.
We should pay particular attention to telluric pollution, to development, to the urbanisation of coastal areas, etc.
But we should also think about restoring the environment and, for example, solving the problems associated with caulerpa taxifolia, and the areas of posidonia that are disappearing and which must therefore be protected.
They say that if you want something done, it is best to do it yourself and so the users of the sea, the fishermen, must be very attentive.
It will certainly be necessary to reduce the amount of fish caught and the elimination of the surplus capacity between 30 and 40%, as proposed by the Commission, has been very greatly watered down by the Council, to between 5 and 10%.
It will also be necessary to undertake selective fishing and, together with my colleague, Nol Mamre, who is also a former Member of the European Parliament, we would request a moratorium on the use of deep-sea trawlers in Community waters in the Bay of Biscay, to the south of the 47th parallel north, because we have had enough of seeing dolphins being washed up and dying on our beaches, particularly at the moment.
So we must practise selective fishing.
Aquaculture should also be monitored.
Read Mr Katiforis' s report again, in which he says that in Scotland, for example, 17 000 salmon are infected by the disease that I just mentioned, and impact upon the environment.
Let us therefore take great care with work in a closed environment.
The Council of Europe is coming before the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on 22 March to speak about the research work that must be undertaken, particularly in the marine environment and, more precisely, the scientific and economic challenges of exploiting the oceans.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you to come and take part in this discussion.
Mr President, first of all, I am pleased that the Katiforis report takes into consideration the multitude of factors responsible for the deterioration of the marine environment: pollution, unsupervised fishing, drilling platforms and pressure from the increasing use of coastal areas for urban development are potential sources of widescale damage to the environment in both coastal areas and offshore, and fishing is also a victim of this situation.
There is therefore a need for an in-depth analysis of the relationship between fishing and the environment.
The use of selective fishing gear which reduces incidental unwanted catches and limits the throwing of unwanted fish back into the sea is certainly essential, as is a reduction of the pressure from the fishing industry offshore, as well as in coastal waters.
A reduction in the fishing capacity and in pressure from the fishing industry on fish stocks is not necessarily compatible with maintaining an outdated fleet and would limit modernisation.
In addition to providing more appropriate conditions of safety and hygiene, the use of more modern vessels could also contribute to reducing certain major factors.
Moreover, it is important to uphold the concept that it is not possible to make a surface categorisation of entire fishing sections as more environmentally friendly: in reality, in some cases, small-scale fishing has less of an impact on the environment and natural resources.
I am also pleased that the report takes into consideration the possibility of starting a campaign for informing fishermen and consumers of the risks of exploiting fishing resources, and I also welcome the Commission' s request to propose the institution of a European award to be given to different categories of the industry and to all those who provide services and advice regarding responsible behaviour, in order to further the sustainable management of fish stocks and the conservation of marine life.
Mr President, as a member of the Verts/ALE Group, but also as a Member of this Parliament for Galicia, I propose to use this intervention to enlarge upon two issues. I shall, of course, be brief.
Firstly, fishery production and the conservation of marine life and resources are two sides of the same coin.
Shipowners and fishermen from the countries most active in fishing are more concerned than anyone about respecting their means of living, for without it, the future of this sector cannot be guaranteed.
Secondly, it is true that a policy of preserving the marine environment must be practised both in Community seas and in international waters or those belonging to third countries.
This particularly applies, however, to our own coastal waters.
Given this context, I would like to tell you about something that happened a few days ago.
I discovered that the EU is using ERDF resources to finance the construction of a wharf in Vilagarcia, in Galicia, for storing chemical and hydrocarbon products, on a site which will only employ three workers. This contravenes the EC environmental impact directive in relation to an estuary such as Arousa, where 26 000 people earn a living from the seafood industry.
Can I first of all congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report.
Conservation is something that I hear on many occasions and a lot of people pay lip service to it.
A lot of people are all in favour of it until it arrives on their own doorstep.
It is all very well to talk about conservation and I agree with it totally.
But at the end of the day one has got to strike the balance between those who are dependent on their life and their livelihood from the sea and those who are making the laws which govern who may or may not fish and where, when and how they may fish in any particular waters within the European Union.
Commissioner Fischler, of course, knows me from a long time back and I have written to him on BSE and many other issues in agriculture but now that he is responsible for fisheries I am going to have to berate him on fisheries, along with his lusty colleagues, because one of the areas that has been most affected has been my region and the fishermen of Northern Ireland.
In actual fact they have had a moratorium imposed upon them without any recompense, without any real negotiation or discussion.
It has been imposed upon them that they cannot fish for about an 11 to 12 week period.
Now we all accept that there is a problem in conservation and a problem of stocks, but what I am really saying to you Commissioner, and I have said this to you in the Fisheries Committee and I will say it to you again: There is a wide divide between Brussels and the working fishermen.
It does not matter whether you come from Galicia, it does not matter whether you are from Northern Ireland or whether you are from Scotland.
That chasm exists and we in Brussels have not been able to cross that divide.
And we have got to take on board the views of the fishermen.
We have got to take on board the concerns of the fishermen and we have got to work closely with them and I hope that you, as the Commissioner responsible for fisheries, will recognise that divide and will try and work as closely as you possibly can to ensure that all sides are brought together and their views are taken on board.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Bankruptcy procedures
The next item is the report A5-0039/2000 by Mr Lechner, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the initiative of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Republic of Finland, with a view to the adoption of a Council regulation on insolvency proceedings (9178/1999 - C5-0069/1999 - 1999/0806(CNS)).
Mr President, I think we all agree that a European legal area must be created.
We also all agree that there should be harmonisation in a field that is marked by the great disparity of our legal systems and, what is more, concepts.
The very word bankruptcy, the legal concept of bankruptcy, does not cover the same accounting concept in each of the Member States of the Union.
We therefore all agree on the established facts, and the draft regulation and the report are going in the right direction.
If I may, however, just make a few comments on the method.
When you observe - and you cannot fail to do so - the disparity in the legal systems and concepts, and the fact that we wish to improve coordination, I believe that there are three ways in which we can proceed.
The first is to establish equivalence, saying: in the final analysis, bankruptcy in France is the same thing as bankruptcy in England or in Germany.
The second way is to recreate a law ex nihilo, that is to say, to harmonise the systems and completely overhaul all the concepts and legal systems in each of the Member States.
That is not the route that has been taken.
The third route that has been taken is in the end to superimpose above the existing systems, which are not touched, a real embryo of Community law of collective procedures and procedures for companies in difficulty.
This is a good thing, moreover, and the result has probably exceeded what the authors had hoped for.
But at this stage I should like to make an observation, which is not technical, but more philosophical and taken from practice.
It is that bankruptcy is experienced within the European Union, in the majority of States, as an absolutely definitive event for the person it affects.
And I believe that it is our responsibility, in an ever more rapidly moving economy, where everyone must have a real opportunity, to give people the chance of running a commercial enterprise, and a second and a third chance, if necessary.
Today, in many Member States, that is not possible.
One of the reasons that explains the difference in competitiveness between the European area, for example and the United States, is precisely this ability of bouncing back that exists on the other side of the Atlantic and that we just do not have here.
I believe that since we have gone that far and we are continuing along that path, which is the route of creating a collective procedure for regulating this type of legal standard in the European Union, we should bear in mind that it should not become the allegorical figure of the guillotine.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe, in fact, that it is more by luck than skill that there have not so far been any disasters due to the absence of the rules mentioned by the previous speakers.
When we deal with the positive side of the single market and create a common internal market, we must also deal with the darker side, namely bankruptcies.
I consider that we are experiencing an historic moment in this regard.
I congratulate the rapporteur for having so quickly progressed further with his report.
I am, moreover, proud that my own country has been involved in tabling this regulation which we now hope will swiftly be adopted by the Council.
I think it is an important step we are taking, even if each of the national systems is not especially influenced by it.
To the rapporteur' s regret, I must unfortunately point out that our Group cannot support Amendment No 3 because we consider that it restricts creditors' legal position and impairs their legal protection.
With regard to Amendment No 6, we tabled a similar amendment in the negotiations in committee.
I am a little surprised that you in the Group of the Party of European Socialists did not support it then.
We shall now support your Amendment No 6, but I wonder why you did not support our own amendment in committee.
I also hope that we produce some insight in this context and that we shall be able to compare which procedures are quickest and best in the various countries.
. (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, the Commission wishes to emphasise above all that the draft regulation being debated this evening is merely an amendment of the 1995 Convention on insolvency proceedings.
As you all know, this convention was the result of many years of discussion, which was often difficult and often laborious, and that for this very reason, it represents a compromise between unitary and territorial principles, that is to say, the structural principles of the different legal insolvency proceedings in each of our Member States.
Because we are aware that the developing global economic situation, and particularly the single market, can force businesses to resort more frequently to insolvency proceedings, which often take the form of cross-border proceedings, the Union itself is fully justified in equipping itself with the binding legal instruments it needs to ensure that insolvency proceedings are carried out according to a set of common structural principles, thus ensuring that they are carried out swiftly.
For better or for worse, the fact that businesses become insolvent will become an increasingly common occurrence in our daily economic life.
It will furthermore be a factor in renewing the very fabric of business, which must not be hindered by the existence of slow bureaucratic procedures or by obstacles that prolong the agony of businesses that are no longer viable.
This is why it is important to try to find a legal frame of reference which can adapt to the new requirements of a global economy.
It was not the Commission that presented the present proposal for a regulation but two Member States, Germany and Finland, by means of a joint initiative under the right of initiative which Member States share with the Commission on such issues.
The Commission considers that this regulation makes no substantive amendment to the text of the Convention.
As far back as 1981, the Commission had already stated its position in favour of clearly adopting the principle of unitary insolvency proceedings.
Furthermore, this view was accepted in the Commission' s proposals on a parallel procedure concerning the liquidation of businesses.
The 1995 Convention, on the other hand, authorises the filing of secondary proceedings, thereby creating situations which are exceptions to the general rule that the Commission would like to see accepted.
Following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Commission would therefore have preferred that a new text be adopted, one which would specifically enshrine the principle of unitary proceedings.
Nevertheless, I do not think that this is the time to call into question the agreement obtained in the 1995 Convention which was, moreover, based on a timescale for negotiations of approximately thirty years.
Consequently, the Commission has refrained from presenting an amendment. Instead, it has limited itself to focusing its opinions on institutional issues.
The Commission feels, for this reason too, that it should not present a modified proposal for amendments to the regulation, but I would nevertheless like to convey to you the Commission' s opinions on the amendments under discussion.
The Commission therefore accepts Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5 proposed by the rapporteur, Mr Lechner.
On the other hand, it does not accept Amendment No 4.
Indeed, the Commission feels that Parliament should instead support Amendment No 4 by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, which would allow the annexes to the regulation to be modified by the Commission, assisted by a regulatory committee, in accordance with the on-going procedure of Article 5 of Decision 1999/468/EC.
Therefore, with regard to the amendments proposed by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 3 and 4.
On the other hand, it does not accept Amendments Nos 1 and 2, on the idea of "centre of the debtor' s main interests" .
With regard to the centre of main interests of a company or of a legal person, this idea is clearly defined in Article 3.
In all other cases that have not been specifically addressed, we feel that the reference made in Recital 13 should be sufficient.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Vitorino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.05 a.m.)
Shipwreck of the Erika
The next item is the oral question (B5-0011/2000) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, to the Commission, on the shipwreck of the Erika.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I want to warmly thank Mr Fischler for being here today.
Our President told us yesterday that the Commissioner would be unable to attend today due to prior commitments.
He must have reconsidered and, in so doing, has, as usual, shown great respect for this House. I thank him for this.
On behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, I must highlight our concerns about the shipwreck of the tanker Erika.
There are two political reasons why our committee and myself as its chairman must speak out about this issue.
Firstly, we must show the Commission, the Council and the Member States that this House cannot and will not forget about this serious incident.
Secondly, we must focus today on one specific aspect of this terrible environmental disaster, namely its effect on the fisheries and aquaculture sectors in the affected regions.
The epilogue to this disaster must surely be the urgent adoption of measures to minimise the damage and to prevent this happening again in the future.
Enough regrets and thoughts have been expressed about this event.
We must now get down to adopting measures, Commissioner.
Firstly, efficient controls are needed in Community waters and ports in order to ensure safety in maritime transport, particularly where oil and dangerous goods are involved.
The construction of these vessels, the use of double hulls, their age, their control by classification companies, insurance, the creation of databases containing all relevant information, Community cooperation and coordination, the reinforcement of control by inspectors and the liability of carriers and owners of cargoes are all issues which must be tackled. Who better than the European Commission to make serious proposals for European harmonisation in these areas?
Flags of convenience must also be specifically monitored and regulated in maritime transport, particularly as they do so much damage to the fisheries which we have taken to calling 'responsible fisheries' .
Access into Community waters of vessels flying flags of convenience which do not meet Community safety standards must be controlled.
We expect concrete action from the European Commission. The fisheries and aquaculture sectors in the affected areas of Brittany and the Vendée are particularly important, well-developed and prestigious.
The European Commission must therefore publicise the damage caused and its assessment of this damage. It must also indicate all the specific measures, including political, economic, social and financial measures, which it intends to adopt in order to minimise the damage and compensate the fishermen and industries which have been dramatically affected overnight.
How can consumer confidence in products from this area be regained?
How can those affected be compensated? This is a very serious problem which the European Union, as an economic, commercial, industrial and fishing power, must tackle.
We must get to work and lead the way in these issues which are damaging our environment and destroying industries and occupations.
We must adopt preventative measures which can stop disasters like this from happening in the future.
This is the essence of my oral question on behalf of all the members of the Committee on Fisheries.
We hope to hear specific proposals from the Commission, with plenty of action and no more regrets.
This House will today approve a very important and appropriate joint motion for a resolution tabled by several groups.
Mr President, the shipwreck of the Erika off the coast of Brittany on 12 December caused an oil slick whose effects on the environment will be felt for years.
In addition to destroying natural resources, this accident has had a serious impact on certain economic sectors, particularly those dependent on fisheries.
With 20 000 tonnes of crude oil left in the holds of the sunken vessel, the situation could still deteriorate.
The consequences of this accident have been disastrous for the aquaculture and ostreiculture sectors which were defenceless against the pollution that could not be prevented from coming ashore.
These consequences not only stem from the pollution which occurred immediately after the accident but also the subsequent loss of market share and the rejection by the consumer of a fully guaranteed product which is now affected by the pollution itself.
The regions affected are outlying ones with an unstable economic balance. They have been profoundly affected by this oil slick which, unfortunately, is not an isolated event.
The main resources of these and neighbouring regions are those granted by nature, which is nowadays too often being punished by man' s activities.
These events could be prevented with more care and control by the public authorities.
Prevention is better than cure or so the saying goes.
Surely the budget would agree, as prevention is much cheaper than the cost of disasters like these.
Mr Fischler says that he always comes to the House when asked.
Yet on the issue of the Erika he has given the impression, perhaps not to us but certainly to the inhabitants of Brittany and the Vendée, that, as the Fisheries Commissioner, he is not always available or, at best, available only on a part-time basis.
As this House indicated in its first resolution on 20 January, the needs of the severely affected fisheries, ostreiculture and tourism industries must be taken into account.
We therefore now call upon the Commission to urgently adopt measures to help the fisheries sector by means of special funds.
Galicia and Brittany now have the common ground of having suffered from oil slicks.
We cannot understand how it is that experiences like the Urquiola or Amoco Cadiz have not served to reinforce legislation on maritime transport in terms of both controlling safety in the movement of dangerous goods and flags of convenience.
Please let this be the last disaster of its type and let us learn all possible lessons from this.
We must urgently amend our legislation and close the loopholes which keep allowing these terrible disasters to happen.
The polluter pays principle is both necessary and appropriate.
It is time that polluters started to pay because, up to now, it has been those affected and taxpayers who have paid, and they have not just paid but cleaned up the affected areas as well.
I am therefore delighted at Mr Fischler' s response, particularly his recognition of the need to apply retroactive measures and to give a rapid response to the applications submitted.
On behalf of the PSE Group, I want to send a message of solidarity to those affected, to the fishermen, farmers and businesspeople who enable the products of the sea to be regularly brought to market.
My message of solidarity also goes out to the mayors and politicians, to the volunteers who have worked to clean the affected areas and to all those who deserve our full support.
I wish to put two questions to the Commissioner.
Parliament has passed a resolution calling for the polluter pays principle to be applied in this instance and for both the shipowners and the owners of the cargo to be liable.
The question for the Commissioner is really whether these principles can actually be applied and whether we will get any money by way of compensation from these people.
The second point relates to the future and the publication of the Commission' s White Paper on environmental liability which is designed to ensure that the polluter pays principle applies in future and to ensure that we are better able to enforce European environmental legislation properly.
It is recognised in that White Paper that liability is only effective where the polluter can be identified, where the damage can be quantified and where a clear causal connection can be made between the two.
The Erika incident could not illustrate the point more clearly because it sums up exactly what that White Paper is seeking to address.
This question really would therefore seem to be a perfect measure of how to deal with problems of this kind in future.
The proposed directive provides for strict liability for damage caused by EU-regulated dangerous activities and my concern, and perhaps the Commissioner can deal with this, is whether or not the environmental liability paper will be able to deal with problems of the type of Erika in future.
Will it really address the concern or will, in practice, in the case of maritime accidents involving ships on the high seas, the polluter once again escape from having to pay for the damage they cause.
Mr President, our sympathy and our solidarity go out to those people and regions stricken by the disaster, but good intentions are not enough, there must be compensation for the damage and losses covering both the restoration of the environment and the shellfish farms and fishing equipment.
We are pleased to hear the Commissioner announce the urgent need to act and to offer compensation, and for this to be backdated.
We also deplore the excessively lax application of vessel inspection, and we are in favour of creating a European coast guard authority, and also, in particular, of introducing more binding regulations and making double hulls mandatory.
We further deplore the system of flags of convenience with regard to both merchant vessels and fishing boats.
Finally, we were shocked to learn that the cargo was extremely carcinogenic, with a polyaromatic hydrocarbon content of more than 1 000 parts per million.
This means that the 15 000 tonnes of cargo released into the sea include 15 tonnes of highly toxic products.
This is not acceptable.
We only found out too late and, as a result, medical inspection must be provided, paying special attention to the volunteers who dedicated themselves to restoring the environment.
Finally, we think it absolutely essential to pay particular attention to preventing such risks, as well as to scientific research work in order to avoid and eliminate damage.
A great many proposals have been made which warrant investigation.
Solutions cannot be found at the last minute, when the disaster is already in progress.
Consequently, the bulk of the action must be taken beforehand.
Mr President, over two months after the wreck of the Erika, pollution of the coasts, which have already been cleaned once, is still continuing.
While reiterating my solidarity with all the victims of this, I should like to salute the dedication of the workers, professionals and volunteers, who are still involved in cleaning the polluted beaches.
Thanks to the grass-roots involvement, which this House furthered by organising a debate and adopting a resolution on 20 January, an initial raft of measures has been announced.
The French Government has initiated a discussion and made proposals to strengthen maritime safety, particularly by fighting against the phenomenon of flags of convenience and by implementing much more extensive inspection.
The lessons of this latest oil slick must be learnt in full, and decisions must be taken speedily at Community level to prevent coffin ships sailing off our shores or berthing in our ports, to make double hulls mandatory for the transportation of pollutants, and to strengthen standards for safety and inspection.
We must also demand that the parties truly responsible be made to pay the costs incurred due to the pollution.
So, yes, Total Fina must provide the financial resources to contribute to the repair of ecological, economic and social damage and to compensate the people affected by the disaster.
The French State has released funds for compensating damage.
I feel, however, that the European Union has so far not actually come up with any expression of Community solidarity at the requisite level.
So, yes, appropriations must be released at Community level to support the cleaning of the contaminated coastlines, to assist the organisations which went into action to save oil-covered birds, and to contribute towards getting the affected businesses back on their feet.
Specific compensation should be provided for the fishermen and shellfish farmers who have suffered considerable loss of income and who face having to invest considerable sums in order to repair everything and regain consumer confidence.
I was pleased to hear the statement which Commissioner Fischler has just made, and I take careful note of the commitments he made before this House.
I should also like to say that my Group shall remain vigilant and committed, in collaboration with the grass-roots action groups, to ensuring that the parties affected receive compensation as soon as possible and that legislation is strengthened at every level, supported by realistic penalties in the event of non-compliance.
Mr President, the reason why it is important to return to the subject of the oil slick, two and a half months after the wreck of the Erika, is because the extent of the economic, social and ecological disaster affecting our Atlantic coastline is, in fact, far greater than the first assessments gave us to understand.
Cakes of tar are still washing in along 500 km of the Atlantic coastline on a daily basis.
Curiously, the exact composition of the cargo has still not been clarified.
The ecological disaster is a major one, possibly unprecedented in scale.
Large-scale degassing proliferates and the 16 000 tonnes of tar remaining in the wreck at a depth of 120 m present a major risk of fresh pollution.
All workers in the fishing, fish farming and aquaculture sectors have already been hit hard.
The chief victims today are the shellfish farmers who were once the most successful producers in Europe.
The frontline victims are the producers or freight forwarders banned in the Vendée and Loire-Atlantique regions.
Some of them have already lost several years' worth of harvests, but the 50% to 80% slump in sales is affecting all the harbours on the Atlantic coastline, and even those in the Channel and North Sea.
As regards fishing proper, passive gear fishing is currently the hardest hit.
After shellfish, the slump is now affecting crustacean sales.
The many fishing days lost affect the entire industry and, above all, the future of fishery products, an area in which prices had seen something of a turnaround in very recent years, now hangs entirely on consumer reaction and we are starting to see signs, unfortunately, of initial disenchantment.
The two principle resources of the Atlantic shore, fishing and tourism, both closely interrelated, have both been seriously affected.
There is a danger that the season will be lost, resulting in an extremely serious crisis by the end of the year.
The fact that Parliament is presenting a new resolution, one to which our Group has made a significant contribution, is therefore perfectly justifiable.
It emphasises a number of points deemed crucial at grass roots level.
The first point is that the polluter must accept his liability in full.
Our resolution calls for two principles to be applied: the first is the 'polluter cleans' principle, since it is unacceptable that the cleaning of coasts polluted by hydrocarbon cargoes should be borne by the local authorities, i.e. the taxpayers, i.e. the victims, and not the cargo owner.
The second principle is the 'polluter pays' principle.
According to our resolution, the polluter' s liability must extend to fishing, fish farming and aquaculture industries and businesses.
This is essential. It means that the polluter cannot claim to limit the amount of compensation for victims in line with the ceiling set by FIPOL, which is to say, by the goodwill of the major oil companies.
If the FIPOL ceiling is insufficient, and it has clearly been underestimated, then it must be raised.
Our resolution calls for this.
If the increase is not enough then the polluter should pay the balance.
It would be particularly unfair to have an oil company, whose profits this year amount to FRF 10 billion, refusing to give 100% compensation to its own victims, the great majority of whom are small businesses and employees.
Commissioner, the stricken people await tangible expressions of solidarity at European level.
Our resolution calls upon the Commission to take the necessary steps to assist in repairing the damage caused in the fishing industry affected by the consequences of the disaster.
Maritime Europe and the CFP must today demonstrate that, in addition to imposing constraints on fishermen, it is not unfamiliar with the concept of solidarity.
The European Union must also participate in the restoration of the wetland and coastal environments affected, whose biological value is important to the Union as a whole.
Mr Fischler has just told us that he would welcome France' s requests. I am pleased to hear it.
We must act as a catalyst in this crucial issue of maritime pollution.
Twenty years after the Amoco Cadiz disaster laxness and irresponsibility still reign supreme in Europe in matters of maritime safety, resulting in yet more oil slicks.
This time, we must not let inertia win the day.
A basis for maritime safety must be drawn up speedily, respecting the principle of subsidiarity, and we must at long last put an end to this downward spiral of widespread irresponsibility.
Mr President, the economy of the western Atlantic coastline has been devastated, polluted by oil from the Erika.
Fishermen, oyster farmers, shellfish farmers, workers in the tourist industry, and local and regional authorities are growing impatient while waiting for aid and for someone to deal with the time-bomb which the apparently still leaking wreck represents.
Having withdrawn the budget line for 'natural disasters affecting Member States' with such poor timing, Europe has a duty to respond, firstly in the name of solidarity but also because it shares responsibility in this umpteenth oil slick disaster.
European citizens find it hard to understand why Europe accepts conditions which the Americans refuse and why Europe, normally so quick to pass environmental legislation, has until now blocked any measures to do with maritime safety.
Europe must pass legislation at the earliest possible opportunity and investigate the matter of this wreck thoroughly, but, in the meantime, the Commission must, as a matter of urgency, harness European funds to aid the businesses affected in order to deal with the wreck, clean up the coastline, increase the capacity of waste storage facilities, ensure that waste is processed or recycled, and set up a research programme into the recovery of oil spilt at sea.
Finally, the Commission must reintroduce an appropriate budget line for 'natural disasters involving Member States' , and make the regions affected eligible for Structural Funds.
What is the Commission' s view of these proposals?
What decisions has the Commission already taken and what decisions does it plan to take? How did the Commission follow up the resolution which the European Parliament adopted on 20 January 2000?
We have not, thus far, seen any practical action whatsoever.
Mr President, echoing the thoughts of a number of Members, I should like to tell you that, two and a half months after the wreck, the situation remains particularly critical and every day the scale of the disaster becomes even more apparent.
There are two aspects, the first being the environmental angle.
The wreck still contains 16 000 tonnes of heavy gas oil which is leaking and, in addition to these leaks, unfortunately, last week we observed and counted 35 acts of ecological piracy, 35 degassing operations, disgracefully aggravating this already catastrophic situation.
Mrs de Palacio expressed her views at length regarding this issue and I feel she set to work without waiting for an element which today is absolutely essential, a draft European maritime law, following a draft directive on the maritime transportation of dangerous goods.
From this point of view, this fits in with the wish of the French to see their presidency characterised by regulations which work towards increasing safety.
The secondary impact, however, is proving to be on the economy, the primary impact being environmental and only the second economic, as many Members have stated.
Shellfish farming, fishing, oyster farming and fish farming are today seriously affected, for the effects of the oil slick have been compounded by the storm damage affecting many areas.
Unfortunately, these sectors have been devastated: they have first to rebuild and then, perhaps the most difficult thing, to regain consumer confidence.
Confronted with this situation, the inhabitants of Brittany, the Vendée and Charente, as well as the forestry workers in other regions, await a signal from the European Union.
We cannot claim that rapprochement with the citizens is the touchstone of this legislative period if, at the same time, we hold our tongues and do not offer practical responses in the face of phenomena of this magnitude.
I took very careful note of Commissioner Fischler' s remarks, perhaps the most practical suggestions we have heard to date.
There have been many declarations of sympathy and solidarity, and many announcements, admittedly, but now it is time for expectations to be met with a tangible display of European solidarity.
The Erika oil spill is one of a catalogue of disasters that have taken place in recent years in Community waters, including the Braer spill off Shetland and the Sea Empress off Wales.
These spills, in addition to causing irreparable ecological damage, have devastated local industries.
In the case of the Erika, the local fishing and aquaculture industries have suffered a bitter blow and it is important not just to look at the harmful effects that are apparent today but also to look ahead at the long-term detrimental effects of oil pollution.
Effective compensation is essential.
It is time that shipping safety within the Community was tightened up and that greater controls were introduced, including bringing an end to the use of flags of convenience which is also increasingly resorted to in the fisheries sector.
The companies responsible, the ship and the cargo owners must pay up for their negligence.
The current compensation funds are inadequately funded and this was all too apparent in the case of the Braer disaster where the Shetland Islands fishing industry was inadequately compensated for their losses.
We must learn from past experience and make sure that the industries affected by the Braer spill can be rebuilt.
Mr President, today, once again, it is necessary to discuss the Erika disaster, two and a half months after it occurred, because its tragic consequences are far from over.
Now we must continue both to apply pressure, together with citizens' organisations, to ensure that Total pays the full costs for everything destroyed due to its unbridled pursuit for profits, and also to make a firm commitment to ensuring that this type of disaster never happens again.
Even though the joint motion for a resolution is an interesting one, it does not tackle the subject of flags of convenience, a problem which must be both condemned and resolved as a matter of urgency if we are to contribute to the principle of preventing maritime disasters.
It is actually not so much a matter of improving safety checks on these flags of convenience, as stipulated in the resolution, as actually working right now to eliminate their existence.
This is the only solution to ensure that seafarers' living and working conditions are satisfactory, that they are covered by effective legislation and social protection, and that fishing operations and the environment are respected.
Parliament adopts a resolution after every maritime disaster.
Generally it puts forward positive technical measures, some of which are adopted in directives.
If they were applied, they would in fact serve to counter the idea of cutting costs to the minimum, a policy which is maintained through flags of convenience.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the capacity of rapporteur for the directive on port reception facilities, one of whose objectives is the prevention of marine pollution, I would like to make a few observations which occurred to me on matters which, to my mind, were not sufficiently dealt with at the Green Shipping Conference in Hamburg which everyone attended.
It was stated at this conference that disasters account for 5% to 10% of oil pollution.
This may be very concentrated and create many problems, but it is industry which is responsible for 60% of pollution.
And, by way of an indication, 10% is caused by natural pollution.
What I would like to propose within the framework not so much of technical improvements, better inspection or improved legislation (which, I admit, are all necessary) but, rather, within the framework of socially responsible management, is a kind of round-table conference comprising those involved in, and affected by, the pollution of the seas with oil.
I would like to advocate this.
I want to thank Commissioner Fischler for his answer to the oral question tabled by our committee. He has given us some important information.
The Commissioners who appear before this House armed with specific and important information are always to be thanked.
With regard to the specific case of the Erika, measures are being taken and action is being coordinated with the French authorities.
Our main concern has been that we do not end up discussing this type of event again. Preventative measures are the answer to the question of what can we do.
It has been said that the Commission will meet to adopt a range of technical and legal measures.
This is the right way to go.
These measures are very welcome and the Committee on Fisheries will monitor these very closely so that we do not have to spend more time in this House regretting such disasters.
I have received 5 motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 42(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
EC-Israel trade agreement
The next item is the oral question (B5-0012/2000) by Mrs Morgantini and others, to the Commission, on the irregular application of the EC-Israel trade agreement.
What we are about to discuss is really very simple: the respect, application and monitoring of the agreements subscribed to by the European Union, and compliance with the Treaties and international standards to which it adheres.
It is very simple, but in this world the simplest things are very often the hardest things to achieve.
The goal of my colleagues who joined me in tabling this question to the Commission is this: the correct application of the EC-Israel trade agreement, which - we not only have reason to believe but, together with several Member States, have concrete proof - is being blatantly violated by Israel.
At the same time, we also have reason to believe that the Commission is failing to attend to one of its primary functions: guardianship of the Community Treaties.
I refer to Article 38 of the territorial requirement which restricts the scope to the territory of the State of Israel and thus does not grant special customs arrangements for products coming from the territories which were occupied by Israeli armed forces in June 1967 and upon which, in breach of all the international rules, from the fourth Geneva Convention onwards, the different Israeli governments have built settlements, confiscating Palestinian land and water and installing their own people.
This is not the first time that the Commission and Parliament have tackled this issue: I will only cite here the Commission' s report to the Council and Parliament, published in May 1998, which did not accept Israel' s refusal to apply the protocol of the rules of origin as laid down in Article 38.
In spite of this, the Commission was not able to induce Israel to respect these agreements, and only gave vague responses to parliamentary questions, maintaining that it was difficult to obtain reliable proof of the provenance of products, although it has consistently, and quite rightly, made the legal obligations imposed by the agreement clear to Israel.
In order to make it easier for the Commission and the Member States to get hold of reliable evidence, an Israeli peace movement published a list of companies established in the settlements, and a Palestinian NGO prepared and presented the customs services of the various Member States with unequivocal proof attesting to the State of origin of a range of products coming from the occupied territories and traded on domestic Community markets.
I will mention but a few, which are produced in the Golan Heights and the occupied territories: wine and other products.
This is a time of peace in Palestine and Israel: right now the credibility and observance of the legal effect of treaties and agreements is important if the European Union and Parliament want to play an active political role.
Israel can be certain that Europe is in favour of its security and stability, but it cannot ask us to be party to such grave violations.
The Palestinians know that the European Union is in favour of the consolidation of their State and their rights, but they have no proof of this.
Peace cannot be founded on the violation of rights - Israelis such as the soldier Igal Moshe, who refused to go to the Lebanon four days ago and who is now in prison, are proof of this; Palestinians who still want peace, despite the fact that their houses have been levelled and that, 50 years on, they are still refugees, are proof of this; above all, respect for ourselves and for the democratic principles which we have laid down for ourselves demand it.
Allow me to say, however, on a more practical level, that, for the same Member States and the Union, this also concerns the loss of economic resources taken from European citizens in violation of human and economic rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the questions you put to the Commission, Mrs Morgantini, concern possible illegal exports to the European Community from Israeli settlements or from the occupied territories benefiting from preferential treatment, and which therefore cast doubt on whether the rules on preferential origin are being properly applied.
I shall try to provide you with the additional information you are now seeking on this matter.
First of all, with regard to the lack of clarity in the agreement, I can confirm that the provisional agreement between the EC and Israel on trade and related matters specifies that it applies to the territory of the Member States of the European Community and, I quote, "the territory of Israel" .
The EC consequently takes the view that there is absolutely no lack of clarity about the specifications given in his written answer by Commissioner Patten when he said, and I quote in the original English:
"... as already explained in the communication, Israeli settlements or occupied territories cannot be considered by the Community as part of Israeli territory for implementation of the EC-Israel agreement.
This issue is highly sensitive, in as far as it relates to the broader question of borders, to Israelis and Palestinians alike".
We have repeatedly stated this position to the Israeli authorities at every official meeting between the Commission and the relevant Israeli minister, the most recent of which was held on 21 January. On that occasion, the Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, attended a meeting with Romano Prodi, the President of the Commission, and with Commissioner Patten.
It was furthermore widely known, as you have just said, Mrs Morgantini, that Israel' s interpretation of the territory to which the agreement applies does not match our own.
The Commission believes, however, that our interpretation is completely unambiguous.
Hence, the relevance of your second question on the effectiveness of the verification system.
The procedure for verifying the origin of products enables us to determine if a product may be benefiting from the right to preferential treatment, even if there is no cooperation on the part of the third country involved in determining the product' s origin.
In our written answer to you, the Commission mentioned simplifying the procedure for determining the origins of a product. Of course, this does not mean that this alone will solve the problem or, in other words, that simplifying this procedure would automatically lead to a clearer indication of the product' s origin.
As long as the customs services of the various Member States identify consignments which may not have originated in Israel, and as long as this is done by the national customs authorities, the Commission, for its part, will - to the extent that it is empowered to do so - maintain its dialogue with the Israeli authorities. In so doing, it will seek to ensure that the protocol on the rules of origin is properly applied in accordance with the only interpretation which the Commission can accept.
In the event that these initiatives, which are currently under way, do not enable the origin of a product to be determined, the Commission may have to look at the possibility of calling a meeting of the Customs Cooperation Committee, in which the differences of opinion on verification procedures in this kind of agreement could be resolved.
With regard to the new measures, the Commission has, at official meetings with the Israeli authorities, discussed in great detail the issue of the application of the agreement, for which there are clearly defined procedures.
In January of this year, the Israeli authorities suggested setting up a tripartite working group comprising representatives of the Palestinian authorities, of the Israeli Government and of the Commission. The aim of this working group would be to find mutually acceptable solutions for the transition period, without prejudice to the final outcome of the discussions currently taking place.
Nor would they contravene the agreements which will remain in force until a final agreement is reached.
President Arafat accepted this proposal at a meeting on 24 January with Commissioner Patten. The Commission is therefore seeking to confirm to both the Israeli Government and the Palestinian authorities that we are willing to accept this proposal, which we feel will allay the concerns that you have raised here, Mrs Morgantini.
Mr President, the difficulties faced by the peace process in the Middle East are well known. As for the political obstacles to be tackled, these are all too apparent.
The weight of the political problem is in fact so great that it could discourage us when considering an obstacle such as the incorrect application of this trade agreement, which in principle is only a legal problem.
Some might therefore consider it reasonable to argue that, since the irregular exports to Europe from the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are not regarded as a priority political problem, these should be halted until a final peace agreement is achieved.
However, I believe that the repeated failure to comply with previously concluded legal agreements, combined with the accumulated frustration at non-compliances in other areas, could become a political issue which might prejudice the peace process itself.
Specifically and regrettably, in a conflict like the Israeli or Palestinian conflict, everything ends up being politicised if appropriate measures are not taken in time to prevent this happening.
In this respect, the answer given by Mr Prodi, at the beginning of his trip to the Middle East just two days ago, to a journalist' s question on this issue, is nonsense.
He said that this issue was not on the agenda as this only concerned political issues.
Frankly, I believe that the Commission must act if it is proven that preferential access to Community markets is being gained by products originating from these settlements.
As the Commission itself states and international law determines, these settlements are not part of the territory of the State of Israel. The fact that Europe is basing its actions on international law in its relations with the parties to the peace process can only benefit Israel.
Finally, I want to ask the Commission, which I am sure intends to apply the current agreement, if it has planned any special additional effort or mechanism to make this application more effective in this particular case.
Mr President, Commissioner, since the signing of the Oslo Agreements in 1995, Israeli-Palestinian relations have entered a new phase, which should lead to a fair and lasting peace between partners which respect each other.
The Union has played an invaluable part in this process, in its capacity as the primary source of economic aid to the region.
The main reason for the problems of implementing trade agreements between the European Union and Israel, as has already been said, is the intractable problem of frontiers.
The Israeli interpretation is not the same as the Union' s, as the Commissioner mentioned.
At all events, it is a process currently under negotiation, a difficult one, but one that we all wish to see succeed.
This is essentially a political process and the Union would be ill advised to look for a merely technical solution which would only be temporary, given the lack of legal frontiers between the two States.
The settlement process must proceed by the only possible avenue, i.e. that of dialogue.
A tripartite working group, comprising Palestinian and Israeli specialists as well as those of the Commission, should thus be set up.
In this context, we may hope that the parties involved will manage to settle their differences and establish a creative solution for this transitional period.
As was the case in Europe fifty years ago, the social and economic development of the Middle East is an essential condition for peace.
We therefore have some expertise to bring to bear on the subject and we are particularly well placed to gauge the extent of what has already been achieved.
Hopefully the Israelis and Palestinians will demonstrate the same optimistic faith in goodwill.
Mr President, Commissioner, the peace process in the Middle East is an extremely delicate matter.
It will only be possible for the exact borders of the state of Israel, the only democracy in that region, to be universally recognised once these negotiations have proved to be a success.
The trade agreement between the European Union and Israel, which equally fails to define the territory of the state of Israel, should be implemented against this background.
In addition, there is a significant connection between the economic activities within Israel and those on Palestinian territory.
With this in mind, the Paris Protocol to the Oslo agreements also provides for a customs "envelope" comprising the state of Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
Furthermore, the Commission and said parties have agreed to set up a joint working party to discuss issues concerning products' countries of origin.
The Palestinian economy in particular is said to suffer under unilateral EU measures.
Potential investors in this area have already indicated that they would withdraw if joint ventures were no longer given preference.
Mr President, in general terms this House shares the concern expressed in Mrs Morgantini' s question.
Commissioner Vitorino has clarified the Commission' s position and, in my opinion, has responded adequately to the concerns raised here.
However, I feel that we should not leave the matter there. Starting from this previous statement, the lines of agreement could be extended on the basis of the privileged information which Mrs Morgantini and myself were able to obtain when we accompanied the President of this House on a tour of the area.
Firstly, despite the current difficulties which we saw for ourselves in situ, we must repeat our support for the direct dialogue between the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Authority which is producing a fair, stable and definitive peace agreement.
Secondly, it is in the interests of both parties to ensure the economic development of the region and to take decisive action to reduce the serious imbalances in the distribution of wealth in the area.
Thirdly and finally, perhaps the Commission could bear in mind the usefulness of participating in the work of a tripartite working group, naturally involving the European Union, to guarantee compliance with trade agreements and to ensure progress in the assistance offered by the European Union to all the parties concerned.
I have to say that I am satisfied with Commissioner Vitorino' s response: I feel that, on the whole, his speech did respond to the points raised in the question.
I agree that we must emphasise the importance, for the European Union and therefore, from an executive point of view, for the Commission, of encouraging tripartite activities, particularly as regards levels of economic/financial and scientific cooperation. In this way, our financial involvement could be converted rather more often into a more significant political presence in the Middle East.
This, in my opinion, is the lesson to be learned from such a long-drawn-out affair.
With regard to the subject under discussion, I have just heard Mr Galeote and Mr Menéndez del Valle refer, respectively, to the visit of our President and that of President Prodi to Israel and other countries in the Middle East.
I feel that the two Presidents were right not to include this point in their agendas: there is a time and place for everything and, of course, the priorities are different at different levels.
I feel that it was right for the two highest representatives of Parliament and the Commission to tackle the most sensitive issues of the peace process which, as we are aware, is still running into difficulties.
We need to lend this peace process our full support, and our concern over the issues described in the question put by Mrs Morgantini is not preconceived, nor is it indicative of a negative attitude towards any of the parties concerned. We are being cruel to be kind.
We are being strict with our friend, the Israeli Government, to prevent repetition of these illegal occurrences and irregularities, as they are damaging to everyone involved. Seen in this perspective, this initiative should also be viewed as positive, and as an initiative intended to further the Middle East peace process.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is true that the present trade agreement between Israel and the EC is ambiguous.
It is also very difficult to establish the origin of the products in question.
I can therefore only concur that it is desirable for some light to be shed on the matter soon.
There are, nonetheless, a number of other important factors which we need to take into consideration. Indeed, we are all agreed that the recent revival of the peace negotiations must be encouraged and not hampered.
Israel and the Palestinians are currently involved in intense negotiations concerning their future borders.
Any attempt by anyone, including by any third party, to define - let alone impose - the territorial area to be adopted for trading purposes is therefore premature.
In my opinion, it seems preferable to await the findings of the tripartite working group, to be convened on the initiative of Israel, the European Commission and also the Palestinians for the purpose of examining the origin rules.
I am pleased that the Commissioner shares this view.
Hopefully, this working party will find a temporary solution to the problem within the existing legal framework without jeopardising the peace process.
For this peace process deserves absolute priority, and we in the European Community and in Europe should not put any obstacle whatsoever in the way of this process.
There seems to be remarkable consensus in the House today but I would like to make a few points.
Here in the Parliament trade in the Middle East has always been a political flashpoint.
We are major donors but we have, unfortunately been marginalised in terms of policy and political influence for too long in the Middle East and we can contribute positively, as many speakers have said today, just as we did in the case of Northern Ireland.
We are major consumers of goods from both Israel and the occupied territories, indeed trade is probably our main political strength in the area and ensuring the promotion of the rule of law is our best political asset as we seek to contribute to the peace settlement.
Borders are being shut down, sometimes arbitrarily, and sometimes following a terrorist attack.
On one of my many visits to the area, I have seen flowers and strawberries rotting, lying in the streets of Gaza and being eaten by the donkeys while their Palestinian producers look on helplessly in despair.
But it is not just an issue of closed borders.
Goods do flow freely from these territories, goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.
We have an international agreement and it is being transgressed.
It is our responsibility to ensure that the terms of the agreement are respected and upheld by all.
Under the circumstances, when Israel does not clearly discharge its duty to apply the origin rules and the territorial clause of the agreement as it should, the Commission is encouraging Member States to resort to the import verification procedures which can be dilatory and evasive.
Israeli customs can be given a very long time, up to ten months, to reply to any queries and the import verification procedure can be totally unproductive.
We should be requiring deposits on all goods imported from Israel until we are able to ensure that Israel will stop abusing the agreement.
I have a couple of questions, Commissioner.
Has the Commission received from any Member States' customs services documents certified by Israeli customs that represent specific settlement locations in the occupied territories falling within the scope of the agreement? Has it directly asked the Israeli officials responsible whether its customs service applies the territorial clause so as to exclude the occupied territories from the agreement and has it determined that Israel correctly understands and interprets that territorial clause?
And is the Commission aware whether they apply that territorial clause correctly or not?
Finally, the Commission has already stated that action to uphold international agreements with the EU, and I am quoting, "does not represent a sanction against Israel but demands correct implementation of existing agreements freely entered into by the parties" .
In short, Commissioner, this is not an issue which should be treated as a matter for peace-process-related political debate.
It is, in fact, an international agreement and a trade agreement.
Could I just finally express my great hopes for the peace process in that area - a part of the world that so desperately needs it - so that it can re-group and re-form and help its millions of under-privileged and poverty-stricken citizens.
Mr President, it is universally recognised that rules must be observed. It is also universally recognised that our partners must also be made to observe the same rules.
Everyone understands that there is concern about this today, but I would not like our demand to be regarded as selectively applicable.
Nor would I like our oral question to be perceived as an indictment.
Our demand is not selectively applicable and the Commission should therefore regard this as a suggestion to look into the use of Community funds in regions around Israel.
And because the Commission' s investigation is not, and must not be perceived as, an indictment, I should like to mention two points which are central to the balance of our approach.
Firstly, anyone familiar with the region knows that the future of the Palestinian economy is intimately linked to the economic cooperation agreement with Israel.
The Oslo protocol envisages an integrated customs authority to encompass both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Anything liable to separate the two economies would have a serious effect on cooperation between Israel and Palestine, including joint ventures, Palestinian sub-contractors and exporters.
Secondly, nowhere in the agreements between Israel and the European Union are the frontiers of the State of Israel defined.
The negotiations in progress between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are specifically concerned with defining these frontiers.
Any attempt on the part of the European Union to impose its own idea of the territorial limits of the State of Israel would be, at the very least, lacking in tact and detrimental to these talks and to the idea of the role which we feel Europe should have in this region.
I support the cautious approach which the Commissioner has taken and is taking in this matter, firstly because this is not a simple issue.
It is complicated; it is always difficult to determine the origin of any goods and where they come from.
No less so in the Middle East because there you have a situation where there are many joint ventures between Israel and Palestinians, where produce in some cases is partly manufactured in the Palestinian area and in the State of Israel and these developments are good things, they augur well for the future because if trade is being done in this way in the Middle East, then that will be the bedrock of any peace agreement.
Therefore, because it is not an easy and simple issue, we have to be cautious and we have to be careful.
The second reason why the Commission is right to proceed in this way is that if the European Union wishes to play a part in the area in securing peace then it must be seen to be fair and evenhanded.
It would not be fair and evenhanded to rush into a decision without letting the talks and the groups that it is meeting determine what the situation is, both in terms of the area of the State of Israel relating to the trade agreement and, as I say, in relation to the goods and where they come from at the same time.
There is I think one final reason why the Commission should be supported.
We are at a delicate stage in relation to the peace agreement.
You have a government in Israel which wants peace and wants to secure peace and if you proceed in a rash and rapid way then you could jeopardise the success of that peace agreement.
You cannot cherrypick in negotiations, this is part of an overall settlement of some extremely complicated issues and I think the Commission is absolutely right to let these things flow through carefully in the hope that by doing so we can secure what all of us want and that is a secure and just and durable peace in the Middle East.
Mr President, it is, of course, unacceptable for breaches of our trade agreement with Israel to be concealed or tolerated.
By giving de facto preferential treatment to products from the occupied settlements under the trade agreement with Israel, the EU is contravening two important principles of international law. It is contravening both the fourth Geneva Convention from 1949 and international norms in force concerning the unilateral incorporation of occupied territories.
Because the world' s and the EU' s respect for these two international principles forms the basis for the peace process which has been instituted, violations of these principles undermine the very basis of the peace process.
The EU must now choose between basing its relations with Israel and Palestine on the standards of international law, thereby strengthening the basis of the peace process, and showing disdain for international law.
The choice ought to be simple.
International law prescribes that trade agreements should be established with countries and regions which we recognise and not with disputed territories.
Customs duties must be claimed back, and the EU' s Member States and Israel must respect the trade agreement' s rules concerning strict monitoring of the way in which products are labelled to show their country of origin.
The Commission must guarantee that these things will be done.
Commissioner Vitorino' s contribution offered some hope that they would be.
The peace process in the Middle East must be given a chance.
It can only be founded upon international law. It is the EU' s responsibility to contribute to this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank all of you who have taken part in this debate for the excellent, valuable contributions you have made, as we are addressing an issue which is undoubtedly very sensitive politically speaking.
If the Commission is able to draw any conclusions from this debate, I would say that it seems to us that in broad terms Parliament is looking favourably on the strategy that the Commission has followed to address this issue. It is true that this strategy may be cautious, but it is also quite unambiguous.
The Commission is aware of how politically sensitive this subject is and does not doubt for a minute that progress towards finding real solutions for the proper application of this trade agreement is closely linked to the development of the Middle East peace process.
The Commission is also aware that the political importance attributed to the peace process by the European Union is reflected in Parliament and in the Commission, as has been said here by various Members and is a result of the recent visit to the region by President Nicole Fontaine as well as President Romano Prodi' s very recent visit last week.
We are therefore fully aware of the fact that we are at a very delicate stage in the peace process, which must not be endangered by positions that would result from blindly applying legal rules, because applying the law requires that we should endeavour to find a solution on which all parties can agree.
The truth of the situation is that the approach adopted by the Commission on this subject is to seek to obtain the support and agreement of all parties involved in the process.
In response to various Members' questions, I therefore think that the proposal put forward by the Israeli authorities, which is to set up a tripartite working group to consider the implications of this transition period in applying the trade agreement, which has already been accepted by the Palestinian authorities, deserves not only our acceptance, but also a statement of our confidence that through this kind of dialogue, through this kind of mutual vigilance over the correct application of the trade agreement, we will be able to achieve positive results in the interests of the population of the region.
And what the population of the region is interested in, above all, is peace, and their own economic prosperity.
Lastly, I would like to say that we feel this approach remains true to the principles and the values of the agreement, which we feel is sufficiently clear in legal terms. We are also convinced that we are taking positive steps to create an atmosphere of mutual trust which is always the best basis on which to build peace, because the Middle East has no alternative but to achieve peaceful coexistence between all of the peoples living there.
Commissioner, I recognise the delicacy of the issue at the moment but I did ask you a couple of specific questions.
I recognise that you are probably not in a position to answer them this morning, but I hope very much that you will send me answers when you have them, as soon as possible please, relating to the actual, technical implementation of the agreements in relation to goods.
Thank you very much, Mrs Banotti.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.40 a.m. for the vote and resumed at 11 a.m.)
VOTE
Thank you very much.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0041/2000) by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission document on the EU economy: 1999 review (C5-0081/2000 - 2000/2046(COS))
Paragraph 3:
Mr President, I think there is a mistranslation in the Swedish text. It would have been a turn-up for the books if the European Left had expressed its concern about a possible increase in taxes on income from capital.
In fact, we voted as we wished to do, but there was a mistranslation in the Swedish text, and I wish this to be noted.
We are assured that all language versions correspond to the original version.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0016/2000) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the second report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of the "statement of conclusions from the intermediate ministerial meeting on the integration of fisheries and environmental issues, 13-14 March 1997 in Bergen" (COM(1999) 270 - C5-0156/1999 -1999/2150(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0017/2000) by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and European Parliament: Fisheries management and nature conservation in the marine environment (COM(1999) 363 - C5-0176/1999)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution (B5-0181/2000) on the shipwreck of the .
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
President.
That concludes the vote.
- Attwooll report (A5-0038/2000)
We know that the Commission is going to reform the common fisheries policy shortly.
This proposal for a Council Regulation is the first in a series which will make it possible to draw up this reform.
The collection and management of the fisheries data is needed to conduct the common fisheries policy.
This data must be reliable, drawn up independently and accepted by all the operators in the industry, politicians and those individuals responsible for the application of this CFP.
The text of the proposal for a Regulation has been amended quite extensively in the Committee on Fisheries.
All the members of our Group voted in favour of these amendments, both in committee and in Parliament.
Amendment No 1 serves to clarify the text considerably.
Specifically, the data collected must not be intended for purely scientific use.
Scientists must process this data and pass it on to the relevant political decision-making authorities.
It is, however, crucial for the data collection method to be carried out in a scientifically justified manner.
Amendment No 2 amends the initial Commission proposal.
What the Commission proposal suggests is drawing up extremely detailed studies of individual vessels and individual businesses.
In addition to the extremely high cost of such a proposal, the cumbersome nature of its management may cause some administrations to use its complexities as a pretext not to provide the information in due time and may give rise to a certain feeling of suspicion among the people working in the sector if they have onerous additional bureaucratic constraints foisted upon them in this way.
Regarding the second part of this amendment, it is important that job losses in the industry are counted and identified much more clearly.
Let us not forget that in the administration of a common fisheries policy the statistical analysis used must include the social aspect.
Amendment No 3 makes it possible to add an important aspect: the collection of environmental data.
The value of this can be gauged from the particularly serious effects caused by failing to take data of this type into account, for example, in the case of the decision on the prohibition of drift gillnets, which is totally unjustifiable from the environmental standpoint, since they are one of the most selective types of fishing gear that exist.
If this environmental dimension were not incorporated into the management of data, then the Commission would be able unilaterally, just as it pleases, to prohibit the use of any particular type of fishing gear.
Amendment No 4 specifies the obligation upon scientists to process all the data and pass it on to the relevant authorities, including national and regional authorities, in order to contribute to the decision-making process.
Amendment No 5 serves to mitigate the Commission proposal.
Effectively, the information requested from the authorities must be reasonable in order to allow an operational overview of fishing activities without compromising essential rights to confidentiality, for example, in fiscal matters, where the Community has no jurisdiction.
Amendment No 6 is intended to tighten up the Commission' s participation in the inspection procedure.
It is essential that all the data is sent on an annual basis and that the Commission should produce regular reports of the aggregated results.
Finally, Amendment No 7 requires the Commission to produce a report by the end of the year 2001.
In fact, because the reform of the common fisheries policy is scheduled for 2002, it is essential that all the political participants should be given the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the information which will form the basis of the Commission proposal.
Hudghton report (A5-0036/2000)
- (FR) The amendment to the directive as presented by the Commission is an important one since it deals with a specific disease, i.e. infectious salmon anaemia, a contagious viral disease.
It is a water-borne virus and is transmitted via organic substances such as blood, faecal matter, mucus, etc.
There is no scientific proof of the possibility of vertical transmission of the disease through roe.
It is, however, recognised that other species such as trout, eels or herring, may be carriers of the virus without being affected by it.
The disease was detected in Norway in 1984 and also in Canada (1996).
The virus does not survive at a temperature of more than 26º C, and is therefore not dangerous to humans.
The disease chiefly affects the Scottish salmon industry.
It was detected in this region in May 1998.
Today, 240 salmon farms are affected by ISA.
It is therefore essential to contain this disease and prevent it spreading to all the aquacultural establishments in the various Member Sates of the European Union.
The Council proposal envisages setting up a system for the gradual elimination of fish affected by the disease and also a vaccination plan.
We can only declare ourselves in favour of the proposed plan for the gradual elimination of affected fish.
The fish farms concerned must be assisted in 'cleaning up' the infected site and preventing the disease from spreading through the commercial transport of live fish.
As regards vaccination, we should remember that the initial directive prohibited the use of vaccines against ISA.
The Commission' s new proposal would authorise the use of vaccines, but it is important to point out that so far, no vaccine has actually been found.
The usefulness of this proposal is limited, to say the least, certainly in the short term.
Canada does have a vaccine with a 76% success rate.
Since the Canadian strain differs from the European strain, this vaccine cannot be used in its present state, but may be used as the starting point for the development of a vaccine against the European strain.
It is therefore crucial for the Commission to earmark sufficient funding to support the development of an effective vaccine against the European strain of ISA.
Resolution on women in decision making (B5-0180/2000)
My Group abstained in the resolution on women in decision making, much to our regret.
But even greater is our regret that we still need such resolutions.
In 1994, the Green Group was the first group in this Parliament to have a majority of women in it, the Greens were the first group to have a woman secretary-general in Dominique Voinet, now the French Environment Minister, and the German Greens were the first political party to operate gender parity in order to redress the overall under-representation of women in political institutions.
This lead has since been followed by a number of parties and it cannot be said that the electorate have risen in protest to condemn such parties for their actions.
Nor have the electorate felt themselves manipulated by such quotas.
The resolution makes clear there is a need for a proportional system that gives form to women' s representation and that all political parties must take action. We look forward to that.
We have sympathy with those who argue that people should be selected on their merits; they should be.
Our culture should allow for a balance between the sexes and people should be able to develop their talents wherever they lie, but our culture and values at the moment do not reflect that belief.
Prejudice and stereotyping are widespread and is it any wonder that people who come from minority groups whether black, gay, physically handicapped or whatever face discrimination and unfair treatment when a majority group, women, also face such discrimination.
That is why our Group supports positive action and only when women are fairly represented in positions of decision making will men also be fairly represented.
We might also then develop a culture where your paid and unpaid work, your pay packet, your parental leave and your pension are not determined by your sex.
As International Women' s Day rapidly approaches, I would like to reiterate my support for the action undertaken within the Institutions and the Member States with a view to promoting women' s access to positions of responsibility, particularly in politics.
That is why I shall most decidedly be voting in favour of the text of this resolution which urges us to take more proactive measures to combat the residual discrimination preventing women occupying their rightful place in our society!
Since 1995, promoting women in the decision-making process has been one of the priority areas of the European Union action programme for equal opportunities, and is included among the commitments reiterated both by the Union institutions and by the Member States when they discuss equality between men and women.
Nonetheless, even though progress has been made in recent years thanks to strategies such as mainstreaming and complementary schemes such as positive action, they are still too few in number to be satisfactory.
Under-representation of women in politics, for example, continues to be the norm.
The importance of enabling greater numbers of women to become involved in politics is, however, recognised.
Only women are in a position to come up with policies likely to change structures which have been developed by men for men.
For, whether in politics or in the labour market, structural discrimination is the main problem facing women.
It is thus up to the European political parties to make themselves more accessible to women.
Moreover, Article 191 of the Treaty (ex Article 138a) stresses, political parties are, I quote, "important as a factor for integration within the Union" .
This article goes on to state that "they contribute to forming a European awareness and to expressing the political will of the citizens of the Union" .
A condition of this type may have no legal value, but it is nonetheless of great symbolic value.
It gives political parties an important role in building a democratic Europe.
This may, for example, involve implementing positive action and promoting parity within our political parties.
In the 1999 European elections some parties did put forward lists with men and women equally represented.
This is an example of good practice which should be applied more widely.
I do not know if there is some cause-and-effect at work here, but the fact is that the proportion of female Members in the European Parliament went from 25.7% in 1994 to 29.9% in 1999.
Moreover, this Parliament has had a woman president since the 1999 elections.
I shall conclude by repeating the conclusions of the conference organised by the Commission in April 1999 entitled "Women and men in power" .
Equality between men and women is not a problem that affects women alone, but one that affects our entire society!
- Some progress has been made recently in increasing the number of women present in decision-making bodies around the Union.
In our own Institution, 30% of elected representatives are now women, including the President of the European Parliament itself.
Finland too has just elected a female President.
On average, one quarter of Member State governments are composed of women and a little over one fifth of their parliaments.
This is still far from satisfactory, especially given that the figures vary enormously between Member States where the Nordic countries experience a much higher female representation in positions of responsibility and decision making.
This situation has more to do with attitude and respect for the quality and abilities of women' s contributions to society than fixed quotas.
My Group does not favour the use of quotas in general since, in the long run, they can be counterproductive and even undermine the cause they aim to support.
Nevertheless, we recognise that the experience in all Member Sates is not the same and some recourse to such measures may be justified, as a temporary remedy, to rebalance female representation where women are grossly under-represented.
We were able to support the resolution on women in decision making, adopted with a view to commemorating International Women' s Day on 8 March, which has incorporated ten Liberal Group amendments and softened the reference to quotas in line with the approach outlined above.
- (FR) Women suffer increasingly from inequality since they are the victims of the sexist discrimination which can take an overt form (violence, rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence, etc.) but also a more insidious one.
This oppression is based upon a sexual and social division of labour which values men' s work more than women' s.
Wages are not equal, women' s work is still perceived as 'stop-gap' work and, more generally, female employees do not have access to the same positions of responsibility as men.
What is more, women bear the main responsibility for family matters.
Women must be entitled to full time employment on an equal footing with men.
Mandatory legislation must be adopted in order to encourage equality in the workplace.
States must develop a public service offering childcare for working mothers.
Finally, in order to enable everyone, men and women, to become involved in public life, working hours must be drastically reduced.
We need real equality between men and women in political, economic and social life.
We are opposed to the idea that the biological differences between men and women should give rise to two different world views and two different value systems.
Women have the right to be involved in the decision-making process as 'individuals' and not as token females.
- I, together with my colleagues in the British Conservative delegation, am totally committed to the need to have more women playing a full and active part in public life.
We share in all expressions of regret that there remains inequality and gender discrimination and especially under-representation of women in politics.
However, we are not convinced that one form of discrimination should be countered with another form of discrimination, namely the introduction of quotas to guarantee women elected places.
I feel this especially keenly as only on Tuesday evening of this week my 27-year-old daughter, Caroline, was selected as the prospective Conservative candidate for the Southampton Itchen constituency in the United Kingdom.
She achieved this position totally on her own merit and in open competition against all-comers.
We should not adopt a position that in any way detracts from the position of the increasing number of women who are demonstrating that without fear or favour they can earn their place in public life.
For this reason members of my delegation have supported much of the resolution but we registered our opposition to those calls for positive discrimination in favour of women, which we think is the wrong way to make progress, is itself demeaning to women and distorts the democratic process and we have therefore abstained in the final vote.
Katiforis report (A5-0041/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Katiforis report on the European Union economy in 1999 to toe the group line, and also because it reveals an extremely serious deficiency which I hope it will contribute to eliminating during the next few years.
However, the report does not fully explain, or rather it does not explain at all, that the economies of the States of the Union also and, above all, depend on the way in which pension contributions paid by workers are used.
The report does not mention the fact - although this will have to be specified in the future - that over the last forty years, the governments of all the Member States have squandered and dissipated the capital entrusted to them by workers for their pensions.
And so we now have no resources left to pay pensions.
We need a completely different system.
These leaders must resign. They do not deserve the loyalty of the elderly of today, nor the young people of today, nor the elderly of 2100, 2200 and so forth.
- (FR) I shall begin, first of all, by warmly congratulating Mr Katiforis on the audacity of his proposals!
I shall continue by deploring the excessively cautious approach of the right wing in the European Parliament which, by adopting a whole raft of amendments, has robbed my colleague' s work of its substance!
This report, let me remind you, is based on the Commission' s annual economic report for 1999, the first of these to be published under the euro system, which, consequently, is more concerned with the single European economy than with a series of national economies.
The European Parliament had the option to take this opportunity to put forward imaginative and 'proactive' proposals, according to the rapporteur' s own description, with a view to giving European Union economic activities a new orientation.
One observation is unavoidable: Europe has unparalleled potential for economic and social progress which, for reasons that still partly escape us, remains largely unexploited, hence the highly interesting suggestions made in the initial report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to regenerate economic activity by setting ambitious goals (an employment rate of 75%, an upturn in growth, etc.) and by setting aside sufficient resources to achieve this.
The initial proposals suggested that the Council in particular should bring in measures with a view to ensuring full employment which would still be consistent with price stability and the budgetary balance of the entire economic cycle.
It is not in fact a matter, as some would have us believe, of challenging the policy of stability we adopted some years ago.
Some measures, particularly on tax, must be adopted to encourage private and public investment.
We must get the programme of Trans-European Networks, as proposed in 1994, back on track, we must initiate a major research and development programme in order to ensure that investments necessarily have an innovative content.
Why do we think that investment should not be used as an instrument for managing demand but should rather be practised for its own sake?
We must encourage better management of working time and the dissemination of policies of good practice within Member States in order to increase levels of employability, particularly among the most disadvantaged sectors of the working population.
Some measures such as retraining, in the form of lifelong training, seem particularly relevant. These must be an integral part of the on-going institutional transformation which must support the transition to a knowledge-based economy.
A proposal of this type brings us back into line with the thinking adopted for the Special Summit on employment which is to take place in Lisbon in March.
All of these measures, which are too proactive in the eyes of some of those on the right, have, of course, been brushed aside.
I must condemn this!
An amendment referring to taxation on speculative capital transfers also suffered the same fate.
. (PT) We regret the fact that the first draft report presented by the rapporteur was rejected in committee, as it had some positive aspects to it, specifically its references to the need to increase public investment and investment in job creation in order to achieve 75% employment.
We have therefore voted against the report in its present form, as all the amendments we tabled were rejected. I would like to highlight the following:
the importance of public investment for sustained economic growth based on economic recovery, by stimulating internal demand and concentrating public investment in areas which would have a positive effect on the economy in general, such as building and maintaining infrastructures, urban renewal, vocational training, education and health;
promotion of demand within the Community, through greater public investment and salary increases relating to increased productivity, as a means of achieving greater economic growth, which is essential if we are to achieve our objective of full employment;
the creation of support mechanisms for SME associations as a way of improving the competitiveness of SMEs and their level of organisation, as they can provide support services to association members, such as centralised credit, information and legal support services.
- (FR) Our position is determined by the nature of our project for Europe.
We are in favour of a Europe which gives absolute priority to satisfying the needs of all men and women, particularly the unemployed, in such a way that they enjoy a decent existence; the reduction of working hours combined with mandatory recruitment, without flexibility; wage increases in line with productivity; fiscal reform harmonising upwards the taxation of unearned income; a Tobin tax to discourage financial speculation and, finally, the implementation of a planned energy saving programme.
Such a policy should bring the overcautious monetarism of the ECB into perspective and should break with the neo-liberal principles of privatisation and undermining social protection.
The resolution turns its back on such an approach.
Quite the contrary, it awards full marks to the policy of stabilisation which has created only unemployment and poverty and which, through its obsession with monetarism, is in danger of stifling rather than supporting the current upturn in the economy.
The free-marketeering Right' s rejection of the proposed amendments leads us, therefore, to vote against the resolution.
- (SV) We have chosen to abstain in the vote on Amendment 4 to the Katiforis report on the EU Economy (1999).
Our basic attitude is that competition between different national tax systems is not always a bad thing and that the Member States should, as far as possible, retain their right of decision making in this area.
At national level, we are exceptionally keen that taxes on business and labour should be reduced towards the levels which prevail in our competitors' countries, but an issue such as that should be decided by the Swedish Parliament and not by the European Parliament.
Through a situation in which different countries seek different solutions concerning tax and welfare policy, the opportunity is provided to adapt policy to the characteristic features of the individual nations and to test out different forms of social security systems.
Tax harmonisation at European level should only take place in exceptional cases, for example in the cases of certain environmental taxes and taxes on capital.
Even if we agree that a certain degree of tax harmonisation is necessary if the internal market is to function properly, Amendment No 4 is altogether too far-reaching and undifferentiated when it comes to this issue.
Joint resolution on the shipwreck of the (RC B5-0181/2000)
Mr President, we voted in favour of the resolution on the wreck of the Erika out of solidarity with the victims of this ecological disaster.
We do, however, deplore the indecisive nature of the resolution.
Confining oneself to deploring the disaster and expressing sympathy for its victims without applying some restraining measures in order to oblige Total to make good all the direct and indirect consequences of the pollution for which it is entirely responsible is tantamount to doing nothing.
It is disgusting to see Total leaving the reparation of the damage it caused to volunteers and local authorities.
It is equally disgusting to see the State releasing funds, inadequate funds moreover, which represent nothing more than a backdoor subsidy to this firm and its criminal dealings.
Confining oneself to discussing merely the issue of flags of convenience is dodging the main issue.
Whatever the flag of convenience used by Total, the oil company responsible is widely known and represented in all the countries of the European Union and the authorities concerned could, if they were so inclined, seize all of its assets until the company makes payment.
We feel we must condemn, above all, this economy in which, in order to make extra profits, a firm can ruin a region with pollution in the same way that it can ruin a region by closing factories.
Mr President, partly on behalf of the Breton partner of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, the Union Democratique Brétonne (UDB), I am asking for an effective policy to prevent further disasters of the kind involving the Erika.
Legislation and controls should not only be tightened up but also applied to the letter.
It was made painfully clear that a number of players need to be removed from the pitch in order to ensure that the Erika was the last unseaworthy ship to pollute the Breton coast.
This is the seventh time that Brittany is having to deal with an oil slick since the Torrey Canyon shipwreck.
No other region in the world has had to pay such a high price for the transport of polluting or dangerous substances by sea.
Together with our friends from the UDB, I would argue in favour of two important guidelines relating to the complete overhaul of the world' s merchant navy and the protection of the Breton coast (proposals also to be found in the draft resolution which has just been approved).
At EU level we would like to see one single piece of legislation drawn up for shipping, encompassing all its technical, commercial, social and environmental aspects.
Without exception, the risky practices of flags of convenience must be banned in the ports and waters of the fifteen Member States and thirteen applicant States.
Secondly, together with the UDB, we would argue in favour of establishing coastguard services and appointing maritime inspectors to work under the direct supervision of the relevant shipping areas and monitor the strict observance of European legislation.
The draft resolution which we have approved contains provisions to this effect, and our Group has therefore given it its full backing.
- (FR) I welcome the adoption by a virtually unanimous vote of the House of the resolution on the effects of the oil slick caused by the Erika. Our Group made a great contribution to drafting this resolution.
It takes far better account than our previous resolution of the extent of the disaster, which every day seems to get far worse than anticipated on first analysis and is becoming more exacting, clearer and more urgent.
At this stage it is still difficult to assess the total damage caused to all the fishing, fish farming and aquaculture sectors.
We do already know, however, that it will be extensive.
Every day, further pollution increases the toll.
The degradation does not affect just business turnover but also valuable parts of our heritage.
The effect upon the brand image of seafood products is hard to calculate today.
It is also essential to include the damage suffered by businesses both upstream and downstream (the fish trade, service providers, tourism, etc.) and the overall costs incurred by the authorities in eliminating pollution and restoring the reputation of the tourist industry.
Fishing and tourism, as the two chief resources in most of the regions on our Atlantic coastline, have therefore both been hard hit.
Hence the need to clearly stipulate, as our resolution does, the principle of 'polluter cleans' and the principle of 'polluter pays' .
It is in fact the job of the polluters to pay the costs for cleaning the areas suffering as a result of their actions, and for the restoration of the ecological balance damaged by their actions.
Regarding the compensation system, the citizens are anxious because FIPOL' s initial compensation payments to victims have been limited to 25%.
This is just scandalous.
Quite obviously all victims should receive 100% compensation.
It would be quite unthinkable to insist that victims should bear any part of the costs of the damages they have suffered due to the incompetence of a polluter.
Our resolution further welcomes the initiatives taken by a number of local authorities, such as the French department of Vendée, to draw up a precise assessment of the state of the coast prior to the arrival of the first waves of the oil slick. This procedure should be adopted as a model, since it will make it possible to expedite the compensation of victims, be they private individuals or public authorities.
Finally, our resolution clearly stipulates that it is absolutely essential, in matters of maritime safety, to break out of this downward spiral of widespread irresponsibility, this pernicious system of mutual paralysis wherein States dump responsibility onto the Union, and the Union dumps it on the States, and in the end, the polluters are the only winners.
Everyone must play their own part.
The Commission, which, for once, has not followed the lead of the Americans even though it might have been beneficial in this case, should establish a basis for maritime safety at the earliest possible opportunity.
This basis must include minimum conditions for access to Community waters and ports with regard to the age and characteristics of vessels; a general principle of environmental responsibility making it possible to determine the liability of the various operators, and particularly that of the charterer, and to impose heavy penalties.
The Commission should ensure the coordination of information. It should not be afraid to confront the lax attitude of some major ports or major shipowners, and should make the issue of flags of convenience a central concern in the negotiations with Malta and Cyprus.
Let me remind you that the Erika was registered in Valletta.
All the same, States must clearly not shift their own essential responsibility onto the Union: the safety of all concerned is conditional upon the standards and effectiveness of inspection by the port State (and the resources made available for this).
We must, and shall, remain particularly vigilant in the months to come in order to ensure that the victims who bear none of the responsibility whatsoever for this disaster receive compensation in full from the polluter, and to ensure that this time we do in fact learn the lessons from the oil slick in terms of maritime safety, so that polluters are deterred once and for all from gambling with the lives of our coastal populations.
The most effective form of prevention is to ensure that any potential polluter is made liable to extremely heavy financial penalties.
Katiforis report (A5-0017/2000)
We agree that the fishing industry has the most to gain from promoting respect for the marine environment.
We must nevertheless bear in mind that there are many factors that contribute to damaging marine areas, such as contamination and pollution by oil tankers and other maritime transport, industrial activity, the pressure of human activity on coastal waters and, of course, uncontrolled fishing activity.
It is worth emphasising, however, that small-scale coastal fishing is a good example of how fishing activity can be combined with sustainable development that does not threaten the marine environment.
We feel that it is possible to create a fisheries management policy based on conserving the marine environment which is compatible with the interests of fishing communities.
But in order for this to happen, we must specifically take account of the fact that there is a correlation between income from fishing and an increase in fishing effort.
It is therefore necessary to adopt measures under the common fisheries policy and to provide appropriate financial resources to guarantee the income of those who depend entirely on fishing for their livelihood, such as fishermen, particularly at times when fishing activity is suspended or reduced.
Hence the importance of our amendments, which sought to achieve this.
- (FR) The Commission communication lists a series of objectives and proposals reporting the need to continue the efforts undertaken in the field of inspection and supervision, to adopt new technical measures under the heading of the selectivity of fishing techniques, monitoring the application of legislation in force, etc.
In its communication, however, at the same time the Commission specifies that it is not in a position to ensure that this legislation is complied with.
The fact is that there is no lack of existing measures and appropriate means. The Commission has a whole arsenal of restrictive conditions, measures and decisions (at both international and Community level) already in force in the fisheries and marine environment protection sectors.
Effectiveness and excessive regulation are not compatible.
It should be remembered that people working in maritime sectors are willing to apply Community legislation on condition that it is applied equitably in all the Member States, that it is both acceptable and applicable in technical terms, and has a proper scientific foundation.
I find it unacceptable that one of the officials of the European Commission in the Committee on Fisheries should have dared to state in public that the financial resources awarded by the Commission to some scientific bodies should give it the right to have control over their conclusions.
This is an extremely serious abuse: obviously the Commission must not assume any right whatsoever to direct the scientists' conclusions in order to be able to apply the policy it deems suitable, taking only its own interests into account.
As regards reducing the pressure exerted by fishing upon resources, it is important to emphasise the international nature of this obligation.
What real point would there be in reducing our European fishing fleet if, at the same time, third countries were going to continue to deplete fisheries resources? Moreover, it must be observed that the development of the globalisation of trade has the effect of considerably reducing the effectiveness of inspection and supervision of fishing activities.
Transhipment has become common practice and frequently fish products from one Member State which cannot be sold within the Union due to exceeding the TAC are sold as imported products or as originating from another Member State.
The latter occurs very frequently in businesses whose capital came from a Member State other than the flag State of the fishing vessel (this is actually a way of concealing 'quota-hopping' ).
Food safety with regard to seafood is also of prime importance.
It is essential to safeguard the positive image of seafood products and to prevent unsafe food being sold in the European Union.
The members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group shall therefore be voting against this report which does not go into details of the deficiencies of the Commission communication and increases Natura 2000 constraints upon the fisheries sector.
That concludes the vote.
Adjournment of the session
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 2 March 2000.
Madam President, this is actually about an event which has taken place since the last sitting, a hearing held by the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.
There was a grave danger of this House's reputation being damaged.
You see, it emerged that during the plenary part-sessions there is a significant rise in prostitution in the area, in Strasbourg.
I would cordially request that you look into this matter with the Strasbourg authorities and investigate whether criminal activity is at work here, and whether it is linked to trafficking in women and forced prostitution.
I think that we need, as a matter of urgency, to send out a clear message to public opinion that we are doing something about this and I believe that the European Parliament cannot be indifferent to what is reported in public about what goes on on the fringes of plenary part-sessions.
Thank you, Mrs Gröner.
I would like to say that I was, like yourself, extremely shocked to hear this and immediately wrote to the Mayor of Strasbourg in order to get to the bottom of this issue.
I fully agree with your remarks and have even been proactive in responding to your wishes.
I will, of course, keep you updated on the reply that Mr Ries is bound to send me.
We get bad news in these points of order very often, but I have very good news for our Dutch colleagues.
They now have two television channels.
(Applause and laughter) The Quaestors are working hard on their behalf and we are waiting for the Finnish television channel.
We have two German channels as well, so happy viewing everybody.
I hope you enjoy it.
I am absolutely delighted, Mrs Banotti, and think that the Members concerned should thank our Quaestors wholeheartedly.
Madam President, I would simply like to add to what Mrs Gröner has said.
We have indeed learned that during the plenary sessions in Brussels and Strasbourg - Strasbourg is not the only place this happens - there was a massive influx of prostitutes, and in particular young women from Eastern Europe.
You will be aware that terrible things happen to these women, that they are tortured and their families threatened.
It is not only in Strasbourg that this happens.
I believe that we should all sit down and discuss this, that this Parliament should denounce this state of affairs and above all that it should play a full part in eradicating such modern-day slavery.
Thank you, Mrs Roure, for this additional information.
We will assess the situation when in Brussels too, and then see what should be done.
Madam President, on behalf of the entire Dutch contingent, I would like to extend warm thanks to Mrs Banotti for all the efforts she has made to ensure that we now have two Dutch television channels.
Madam President, I would like to talk about a quite different matter, which concerns Iran.
There has been a dialogue between the various political groups, both at the Conference of Presidents and elsewhere, and would like, during the plenary part-session, to urge you to write to the President of the Republic of Iran, Mr Khatami, regarding the fate of five students who were arrested in July 1999 and who are still in prison, one of whom has been sentenced to death.
I feel that it would be an appropriate gesture on your part, as the President of this Parliament, to appeal to President Khatami to, at the very least, suspend the death sentence passed on this Iranian student.
Thank you, Mr Jonckheer.
I will happily comply with your request.
Madam President, I do not think that Mrs Banotti should be cock-a-hoop today because she has laid on two Dutch TV channels.
It would have been better if she had obtained channels in all languages.
I hope we shall be getting a Danish channel next time.
Thank you, Mr Blak.
As you can see, Mrs Banotti, you still have your work cut out for you.
Madam President, I have learnt a new code of conduct here in the European Parliament, where one always has to express one' s thanks.
I too would like to say thank you for the fact that here we can watch a Finnish television channel.
I would like to say thank you for the fact that there was sound the last time I tried it, and I would like to say thank you for the fact that today too there is sound, but back home we also have a picture.
I hope that we will also be getting a picture on the Finnish language television channel and not just the sound.
Then I would like to say thank you for the fact that we have got cold water in the taps.
Back home we also have hot water, but at least it is good to have some water.
Thank you, Mr Seppänen.
Special European Council (23-24 March 2000 in Lisbon)
The next items are the Council and Commission statements on the Special European Council in Lisbon, which is to be held on 23 and 24 March.
It is my great pleasure to give the floor to the Prime Minster, António Guterres.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Antonio Guterres, and immediately give the floor to Mr Romano Prodi, President of the Commission.
I would like to thank the President of the Commission, and immediately give the floor to Mr Suominen, who will speak on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Prime Minister Guterres, President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, I have to say that we are mainly in agreement with those ideas which Mr Guterres and Mr Prodi have put forward here.
On behalf of my group, I would like to congratulate Portugal, as the country holding the presidency, on organising the European Council in Lisbon, and we obviously wish you every success in your endeavours.
I would like to raise a few issues from our perspective.
As far as the prosperity of the citizens of the Union is concerned the most important task is to try to maintain sustainable economic growth in the area, all the time seeing to it that there is an increase in regional equality with respect to prosperity and that more and more people are able to earn a satisfactory income from their work without having to resort to social benefits.
The processes which have been put in place, by common agreement, to improve levels of employment, boost economic renewal and increase social cohesion within the territory of the Union are extremely important.
It is only right that the meeting in Lisbon at the end of the month should stop to consider where we are exactly.
Despite the diverse nature of these processes, they must have one common purpose: to improve people' s quality of life in the Union.
We do not need new organisations, new working parties or new fora to achieve this objective, however.
The tools are surely known to all.
Often, however, national considerations, and sometimes ideological resistance also, mean that these tools do not get used.
The most important task now is to remove the barriers to creating a real European home market as quickly as possible, instead of continuing to manoeuvre, in many sectors, within a framework of fifteen separate home markets.
When the idea of the single market was launched with some vigour in the 1980s, we could still move towards our destination at the speed of a local steam locomotive, figuratively speaking.
Now, with the rapid advent of electronic commerce, and with the speed at which we process and utilise transfers of data reaching new levels, we need to move at Mika Häkkinen Formula 1 speed at the very least.
We must, however, be sure that the engine does not give out before the decision makers get to the finishing line.
How can we imagine being able to create the world' s most competitive economic area unless we venture to free up competition within the area? The opening up of competition that has already been agreed for the telecommunications industry, as with the energy sector also, will create new, much-needed jobs and bring down prices for both industry and consumers.
Similarly, removing restrictions for small and middle-sized industries - whether they have to do with complex bureaucratic procedures, the acquisition of venture capital or questions of taxation - is a vital step on the path to improved competitiveness and prosperity.
Global competitiveness also includes the notion of a reasonable level of tax harmonisation and the modernisation of our social system so that at least the countries in the Union with high rates of taxation can reduce those rates, which restrict employment.
A basis for all this is created through education and training, and research, however.
It is quite right to strive to create an information infrastructure quickly, which private individuals, schools and businesses can all as easily be a part of at reasonable or even no expense.
We have to consider in particular the future creation and maintenance of resources in promising sectors in terms of employment.
These are obviously information technology, electronic commerce, tourism, and, for example, services for the elderly, as our populations are undeniably ageing all the time.
There are two issues that must be emphasised both by us and the Commission and the Council, and we must always draw attention to them.
These tasks are still mainly the responsibility of the Member States - whether it is the issue of education and training, and research, increased competition or removing barriers to entrepreneurship.
Coordination is natural in many sectors - within the framework of the tasks of the Union also - to avoid overlapping, but healthy, honest competition is still more important than coordination, including in many non-commercial sectors.
Benchmarking and best practice, which the Commission recommends, calls for a large measure of Europe-wide transparency in those fields where industrial secrecy does not apply.
The Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats would like to emphasise that its ambition is to develop a social, or, as they say these days, an eco-social market economy, which takes account of the welfare of all sections of society, as well as the environment.
In the achievement of our goal we wish to stress the importance of the European model of society, and, at the same time, the notion that it cannot be a rigid, stagnant system, one based on advantages gained in society, but it must be one that develops as society changes.
The modernisation of the European social model and its increased effectiveness are as important for our competitiveness as the corresponding modernisation of the economy.
Work must be the most sensible way of improving the welfare of families, but if it really is not possible, we have in place society' s safety net to prevent exclusion.
A certain change in working methods is in danger of becoming a social problem for the positive development of human relations: telecommunications, the Internet, the terminals at which we work, and television, which already seems like a venerable, ancient medium, are threatening to give the relationship between man and machine a key role in society.
The most important issue, however, is developing mature interpersonal relationships in the family, at work, in society and in international relations.
As the importance of education is being stressed we have to make our youth aware of that early on in their development.
The Commission refers, appropriately in my opinion, to deficits that hinder the growth of employment in the Union.
We might mention the skills deficit as one example.
In a Union that has fifteen million unemployed there is now a shortage of labour to the tune of around one million workers in industries that are suffering from a skills deficit.
Some are suggesting importing a trained elite into the Union area.
I would ask whether this would be fair to countries less developed than ours, as this would create a brain drain for them. The UN, on the other hand, has referred to the fact that in a few years' time there will be a shortfall of 40 million workers as a result of demographic change.
It will be difficult to conduct a sober policy, one that produces results only very slowly, which must be implemented here and now, if we are presenting the citizens of Europe with such a picture of the future as this, while they themselves fear for their jobs.
Mr Prime Minister, we would like to believe, along with you and the Portuguese Presidency, that Europe should be built as a civilisation whose economic and social prosperity is founded on the cultivation of knowledge, cultural diversity and cohesion, and which plays an active role in promoting a world order that is more balanced, more peaceful, and less fragmented.
We would also like to believe, along with yourselves, that there is generally a clear awareness that the scale of the changes that must be envisaged in terms of the qualifications needed to address the new technological challenges facing companies itself brings with it the inherent risk of creating new mechanisms for social exclusion, to cite you once more.
We would like to believe this, but we cannot.
Why? Because we know that the new economy will, of course, foster the emergence of new jobs for creative staff, for IT staff.
We can see the feverish way in which the potential for investors has snowballed and the phenomenon of 'start-ups' has developed, but we are also aware of the staff turnover that typifies call centres due to the dreadful working conditions that reign in these new temples of Taylorism, which employ hundreds of thousands of people.
We know that over half the jobs currently being created in the European Union are precarious, temporary or perforce part-time, and as a result provide the employee with neither the conditions for self-reliance nor, very often, an income that offers them a decent standard of living.
We know that new technologies do not, in themselves, generate greater democracy, but simply greater collective and personal autonomy for those citizens who are better integrated into mainstream society.
We know that the privatisation of public services poses a threat to social, regional and local cohesion, and we also know that the Commission is proposing to accelerate this process.
We know that UNICE has, on behalf of the employers, publicly shown its colours in the preparatory documents for the European business summit to be held in Brussels in June: the public authorities are requested to remove all social, regulatory and fiscal barriers to the development of business and to invest massively in shoring up demand.
Lastly, we know that anyone who claims to meet the needs of the citizens must first ensure their total involvement in public policy decisions.
We know all of this.
But we have read and heard nothing as regards the incorporation of the recommendation of the high-level group of experts, whose opinion it is that the unqualified economic success of the information society depends on this society being fuelled by the real needs of its citizens, rather than by the demands of market forces in the hi-tech sector.
We have heard nothing about support being provided to all practical trials involving the public-minded use of new information technologies by the general public, nor about the role of associations for learning and information being promoted for all sectors of society.
We have heard nothing about the possibility of public funds being freed up to promote innovation in the field of products and services liable to improve the quality of life for all.
We have heard nothing about the universal telecommunications service being redefined in order to make it possible for everyone to access the Internet under the best possible technical conditions and at affordable rates.
In short, we have heard nothing to suggest that the citizen will be anything more than a customer.
We have heard nothing to suggest that, over and above the positive and clearly-stated objective of eradicating child poverty, personal autonomy would be enhanced, in each Member State, by the setting of decent minimum wages, which are an integral part of a genuine strategy to end social exclusion.
We have heard nothing to suggest that the objective of full employment would cover support for local and regional initiatives, the underground sector of the mutually-supportive economy, the practical and coordinated reduction of working times, or that this objective would tally with strict requirements as regards the quality and durability of these jobs.
We have heard nothing to suggest that opting for sustainable development would be a guiding factor in long-awaited growth.
We can find nothing in the document from the Portuguese Presidency, nor in the Commission' s strategic guidelines for 2000, that reveals the slightest trace of a legislative programme in the field of social policy, be this to bolster the rights of employees threatened with redundancy or to prevent social dumping.
We can but share the concern of the Council and the Commission to see the European Union, after the single market and after the euro, finally equipping itself with a political project that is accessible to all its citizens, but the new governance of which you are - in my opinion unfairly - priding yourselves lacks the democratic and participatory ambition to which nascent European civil society aspires.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office and Prime Minister of Portugal, the current situation in the Union and in most of the Member States is bound to raise legitimate concerns, in spite of the overall economic recovery.
The rate of unemployment has stayed relatively high, long-term unemployment is growing steadily worse and levels of employment are extremely low.
To add to this, there is an increasing lack of job security which makes matters even worse. All this reflects a social situation in which women and young people are being particularly badly hit, and which is dramatically highlighted by the approximately 50 million people excluded from society.
On the eve of the Special Council dedicated to this problem, the basic question being asked is whether there is the political will to change this situation or whether, on the other hand, what we have is merely another ineffective initiative to add to the list of plans, strategies and summits in the past that have already been devoted to this issue and none of which has resulted in real change.
It is our opinion that it is not only necessary to change this state of affairs, but that it is also possible to do so.
It is necessary because employment, and I mean quality employment with employee rights, is a fundamental right of every human being.
It is possible if we attack the real causes, which we feel are inseparable from the drift towards neo-liberalism, which has been shaping underlying trends, specifically in the macroeconomic field. This theory, whose exponents have given priority to the Stability Pact and to the nominal convergence criteria, and who have consequently sidelined social cohesion, generally goes hand in hand with a complete deregulation of employment, with incentives for privatisation, mergers and delocalisation, which as a rule, create unemployment, and with highly restrictive budgetary policies at Community and national level.
We are therefore now witnessing a clear consolidation of the basic core of Thatcherite tendencies, even if they are attenuated by aid measures.
Today, they are no longer so much being promoted in line with much vaunted conservative principles, as on the grounds of so-called globalising pragmatism and in the name of competitiveness, which has been elevated to godlike status.
An appeal for the coordination of social policies or an insistence on a society based on innovation and knowledge or on information technology will therefore not be enough, however important they may be.
It is crucial for us to abandon this monetarist and anti-social approach and put humans at the heart of our priorities and policies.
My Group, which attaches particular importance to social issues, met in Lisbon last week in view of the forthcoming Special Council, precisely in order to examine and discuss this issue.
We had an opportunity to listen to and hold discussions with workers' representatives and with union leaders from Portugal and other parts of Europe.
In particular, we met representatives from ABB, from Michelin and also the organisers of job marches.
We reached joint conclusions on 14 points, of which we will officially inform the Presidency.
Basically, as far as we are concerned, we need to adopt macroeconomic political measures which are based on stimulating demand, on public investment and on respect for improved public services. These measures should be geared towards full employment and guarantee a rate of employment of around 75% by 2010.
We must ensure a redistribution of profit towards labour, ensure that speculative movements of capital are taxed, we must combat tax evasion and fraud, and curb mergers and delocalisation, particularly when they involve redundancies. We must move ahead with reductions in working hours without reducing wages and without downgrading the quality of jobs, and we must reconsider the EU' s Financial Perspectives, give clear support to small and medium-sized enterprises, firmly commit ourselves to an improved education system and more and better professional training and end the discrimination that mainly affects women and young people.
We will examine and judge the results of the Lisbon Summit in the light of these factors and in the light of our ability to establish concrete, properly quantified and timetabled objectives in this key area.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission. no one could possibly obejct to re-establishing the conditions for full employment, triggering a dynamic for growth, or pushing the nations of Europe to the forefront of the world economy.
But we must surely oppose some of your policies, some of your principles, and a certain economic fundamentalism.
The treaties have already awarded you far too many powers and far too much scope for action in the field of trade and the economy, with the disastrous consequences which are evident in all areas, and can be ascribed to your ultra-liberal and internationalist policies.
You declare yourselves to be concerned at the fate of the millions of poor and unemployed whose situation your policies have in fact done much to create.
Unfortunately, nothing is changing and nothing is going to change.
You intend to pour oil on the fire and apply the same ill-advised methods and the same economic principles to areas which have, until now, escaped your grasp: education, wage policy, direct taxation, employment law, social protection, social assistance.
The most extraordinary thing in all this is that this socially regressive policy has in the main been implemented by left wing governments of varying hues - pink, red, green - who advocate social justice during electoral campaigns, but orchestrate widespread social decline once in power.
I must at this point stress our conviction that there can be no social policy nor full employment policy without national and European preferences, and without protecting our markets from fierce international competition.
It is our obligation to put Europeans first when it comes to employment, social protection, policies relating to the family, and retirement policy.
Your globalisation of the economy is neither necessary nor inevitable.
This globalisation has been forcibly imposed by the only superpower to have survived the cold war and by multinational companies which are becoming economic superpowers in their own right and who can subjugate to their economic will states, nations and peoples who are quite unable to protect themselves.
You are thus acting as accomplices in this process.
You are facilitating it, collaborating with it, and are in fact orchestrating, despite your declared intentions, the disintegration of our social welfare systems, precariousness, and social decline.
The European social model runs the risk of not being able to cater for this globalisation of the economy, especially in its current form which operates with no regard for specific social issues nor the specific national characteristics of individual States.
Your ultra-liberal headlong rush is thus surely not the solution to social problems, precariousness or employment problems faced by tens of millions of European citizens.
Mr President, the Lisbon Summit will produce a further string of fine words to dazzle us with.
The words will be welcome, but the basic problem is that we have an Economic and Monetary Union which attaches more importance to fighting inflation than to promoting employment.
The Central Bank has said that price rises should always be kept below 2%.
The Stability Pact says that the budget deficit must be no more than 1% in ordinary years.
There is no requirement that unemployment should be below 5% or - better still - below 2 or 1%. It is public consumption and the price of money which definitely must not rise.
You might think that a country would wish to limit unemployment by means of public investment, but that is prohibited.
It is more important to stick to the holy cow of monetary policy than to find jobs for the unemployed.
I, on the other hand, think it is more important to take account of families' finances and to ensure that dad comes home with a wage packet instead of a redundancy notice. So too did the Danish Government which came to power in 1993.
In 1992 we had 9.2% unemployment, both in Denmark and in the eleven countries of the good old EU.
Between 1992 and 1998, unemployment in Denmark fell to 5.1%.
In the EU, it increased to 10.9%.
In Denmark, we have had combined growth of 20%, compared with 10% in the EU.
If the Danish Government had acted in the same way under the present dispensation, it would have been downright illegal and unconstitutional because the budget deficit was 3.9% at that time.
Now, Denmark also has an actual budget surplus because those who exchanged their redundancy notices for wage packets also began to pay tax instead of drawing benefit.
I believe that the EU' s prime ministers ought to study the Danish example when they meet for their tête-à-tête on the economy in Lisbon.
We need a change to the EMU Treaty instead of a further string of fine words directed at the unemployed.
My group hopes that Danish voters will decide to keep the Danish krone when they take part in the referendum on membership of EMU on 28 September of this year.
Mr President-in-Office, I listened to your speech with great interest and it is obvious that in overall terms, no one here today could fail to agree with what you have said.
You have made statements of intent, which correspond to the vision we all share of the problems of jobs and of Europe in general.
From this point of view, we must also think about one of the objectives for the Lisbon Summit that you mentioned, namely combating the political deficit in Europe.
It is precisely because I think that if we continue to do nothing but make broad statements of this kind, we will find it hard to overcome this political deficit, that I would like to ask you a few specific questions in order to try to understand what policy will be implemented under your presidency after the Lisbon Summit.
My first question, which is a very direct one, is about an institutional issue which we now have the opportunity to discuss with you for the first time as President-in-Office of the European Council.
This concerns the most serious political problem we have had to face in recent times - the problem of Austria.
The question that I would like to ask very clearly is this: are you representing 14 EU countries here or 15? This is a perfectly sensible question because as President-in-Office of the European Union, you have worked and acted as the spokesperson for bilateral decisions between states.
From this point of view, this question is perfectly sensible and requires the clearest possible answer.
I think that in institutional terms, it is an extremely serious matter that we are moving towards replacing collegiate decisions, which the European Union is bound to observe under the Treaty, by means of bilateral decisions between governments.
I am not talking about the causes of the Austrian issue. I am talking about the serious precedent that we might be setting if today we replace the collegiate procedure stipulated in the Treaties by means of bilateral decisions, in this case aimed at one particular country, because tomorrow we might adopt the same approach towards a different country or countries.
That is my first question.
My second question is about the Employment Summit.
I firmly believed, particularly because I attended the discussions on including the employment problem on the Council agenda, and on the European Union agenda, that the original idea of the Employment Summit was to combat the problems, not of the new knowledge-based economy, but of the old European economy, the problems of unemployment in factories, dockyards, iron and steelworks, and that these were the employment problems which were originally due to be on the Employment Summit agenda.
It is therefore perfectly reasonable to raise the question of whether, when we talk about the problems of the new knowledge-based economy and of the new digital economy, which, as far as I know have created unemployment rather than employment in Europe, we are not replacing an inability to deal with the problems of unemployment in the present by what has largely been - and still is today - empty rhetoric about the problems of employment in the future...
No one understands better than us the crucial role that the Internet, the digital economy and the knowledge-based economy have to play, but these issues were not what the Employment Summit was originally intended for.
Mr President-in-Office, you concluded on a vaguely ideological note, which is fair enough.
If this is the Social Democrats' policy for the economy of the future, then I would like to remind you that one of the most serious problems of the Internet economy and Europe' s lagging behind is the lack of entrepreneurial spirit in the education system, in the behaviour of governments and in the way the institutions function.
This is what we must counter if we are to guarantee the knowledge-based economy of the future.
Mr President-in-Office, first of all, I would like to welcome you to the European Parliament, particularly as your presence here symbolises what the Chairman of the Group of the Party of European Socialists has already referred to. By that I mean the political symbolism of the fact that during your tour of the capitals, you have also come to listen to the European Parliament.
This is not the first time during the Portuguese Presidency that there has been a different and politically stimulating relationship between the Council and Parliament, but this is a significant gesture which, as my friend and colleague Mr Barón Crespo noted, we were delighted to note.
Our position is clear: we support the Portuguese Government' s initiative.
We support it because it is a serious initiative and because of its substance, both in terms of strategic objectives and in terms of other objectives with which we agree.
Furthermore, the way in which this European Council is being prepared is a good illustration of this.
Firstly, there is the seriousness and depth of the document presented in January.
Then, there are the various preparatory conferences and the contributions that both business and union leaders are making towards this summit.
In particular, there is the latest contribution to research that was made at the recent meeting which brought together Nobel Prize winners and Ministers for Science and Technology.
This shows that the Portuguese Government is preparing for this Summit seriously and is paying a great deal of attention to its substance.
However, we also support the initiative relating to the summit' s main objective, which has already been mentioned. We do so because for the first time, it is not only putting the issue of employment and social issues at the centre of the European debate but is once again suggesting that "achieving the objective of full employment" is in the realm of the possible.
For years, many people have said this was impossible, that in modern society it would never again be possible.
My congratulations, Mr President-in-Office, for making this issue topical once again without rejecting social cohesion and values which we hold to be fundamental, because they are not only at the heart of the founding project of the EU, but they are at the heart of our civilisation and, above all, of our understanding of the need for solidarity between all Europeans.
Something that we said here in January and that I would like to repeat is that we must not be satisfied with this strategic objective being the priority of one presidency, a priority for just six months.
We challenge the Council and the Commission once again to include it, not as a priority for six months, but as a goal for the EU, as important as the goal of enlarging or deepening the European Union.
Only in this way will it be able to match the degree of seriousness with which the presidency is preparing this Special Summit.
I congratulate you, Mr President-in-Office.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I should like to express my delight at the fact that a bullish agenda has been set for the issues of employment and economic development at the Lisbon Summit.
It is an agenda which emphasises that it is a strong and dynamic economy and increased competitiveness which will secure the objective of higher employment in the EU.
The fact that the EU lags so far behind the United States with regard to research, job creation and the development of new technology gives pause for thought.
A joint effort is needed to strengthen research and development, including research in connection with information technology, and there is a need to strengthen the internal market and to create the necessary conditions for receiving the full benefits from the new technology and for developing trade via the Internet.
It is right to focus upon access to, and use of, the Internet by public officials and by the education system and to create what has been called "the learning society" .
It is also only right to concentrate upon access to venture capital and otherwise to reinforce the position of small and medium-sized businesses.
In its discussion paper for the Summit, the Commission set quantified objectives for developments in the field of employment, including women' s employment, and for the fight against unemployment.
In the same paper, the Commission also set the objective of mitigating the problems connected with poverty in Europe over the next ten years.
I think it is only right to place the emphasis on common objectives, for countries' actual policies in this area will, and should, be different from one another.
Some EU countries - mentioning no names - are struggling with high youth unemployment. In other countries - for example, in my own country, Denmark - youth unemployment is very low.
Indeed, there is an outright struggle between employers and educational institutions to attract young people. There are differences between the countries when it comes to problems, systems, culture and tradition, and there should therefore be differences in the methods chosen in order to achieve the common goals of increased employment and reduced social exclusion.
With the exchange of experiences and ideas as part of the Luxembourg process, employment policy is designed in such a way as to ensure that this will, in fact, be the case.
Even if the problems we are facing over the next few years regarding both employment and social policy have a long list of features in common and therefore also constitute common challenges, it is as individual nations that we must solve some of these problems. However, it is also very important that countries should not work at cross purposes when solving the social problems in question but, on the contrary, that they should cooperate and provide each other with inspiration.
I would say that it is important that we should aim to achieve common objectives, but that it is also important that individual countries should retain their responsibility for, and sovereignty in, establishing social and employment policy and that we should have a certain degree of competition between systems so as to ensure that social and employment policy is shaped in a progressive and dynamic way.
Mr President, as representative of Flanders and on behalf of - what I would call - the nation regions, embodied in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I was touched by your appeal for a powerful European approach, where the fifteen Member States do not try to gain power but where the power of cooperation increases.
You pointed out that there are fifteen different public opinions, but, in fact, there are many more than that.
There are, after all, huge differences within the Member States.
Coming from Belgium, I do not need to point out that there is a difference of opinion between Flanders and Wallonia, or between former East and West Germany?
Furthermore, our public opinion threatens to become polarised as a result of globalisation.
Where there used to be a discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots, there are now those who can keep up as opposed to those who cannot or those who drop out of society.
This is a very serious risk.
In Europe, everyone should be able to keep up.
Every region should be able to keep up and everyone must be able to take part in the knowledge-based society.
More so than in the past, Europe will need to be able to draw on the realities of these regions so that their strengths can be applied in the best possible way for creative purposes and for a more realistic employment policy.
We have had to establish that, despite the many investments being made in structural funds, the unemployment figures still vary greatly.
I would therefore advocate networking regions, more so than a Europe in which each Member State stands on its own dignity.
Mr President, Mr Guterres, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, it is pleasing to hear the Commission and the Portuguese Presidency declaring full employment to be an aim of European policy.
I agree that this should be so, but to be successful in the future a model of full employment requires, above all, professional and socially secure jobs.
We need to structure the economy and the world of work in such a way that gainful employment becomes worthwhile.
You are relying mainly on further deregulation in the internal market, on the Internet revolution and on e-commerce and e-business to be job machines.
This policy will not allow you to keep your promise of full employment.
Economic reforms such as the liberalisation of the internal energy market have led to stiff competition and numerous mergers.
This has cost jobs and the trend is continuing.
As early as the mid-nineties, Mr Bangemann promised a huge increase in jobs due to the information society.
The result is sobering.
The growth in media, mobile radio communication and software was not able to compensate for the job losses in the telecommunications sector and in the electronics industry, and for the rationalisation resulting from the introduction of information technology in other sectors of the economy.
When I see that many companies engaged in e-commerce admittedly have huge market capitalisation, but that their actual business is constantly making losses, this does not necessarily make me feel any more optimistic.
E-commerce and e-business certainly have a great future.
But their contribution to employment growth is overstated almost religiously by their proponents.
That is why I believe that we need a different policy mix for a new policy of full employment.
That means, firstly, greater easing of monetary policy, a budgetary policy designed to strengthen investment in expansion and in the future, and a wages policy geared to productivity, so as to stimulate internal European demand and generate more jobs.
Secondly, it means a strategy to make drastic cuts in working time and redistribute work between men and women.
Thirdly, it means more state support for employment in ecologically sound sectors of the economy and a suitably future-oriented innovation policy linked in particular to boosting small and medium-sized enterprises.
Fourthly, this is about an emancipatory labour market policy.
This entails rejecting low-wage-sector strategies and work requirement models for unskilled jobs, because only a broad-based training initiative will allow us to produce a sufficient pool of qualified workers for the knowledge society, and to deliver environmentally efficient, social and cultural services.
If we do not go down this path then we will undermine our future prosperity, our competitiveness, our economic productivity and the social cohesion of society.
Mr President, the European leaders will be primarily addressing three key issues when they meet in Portugal later this month.
Firstly, they will examine how best the European Union should equip itself to accommodate the broader effects of trade globalisation.
Secondly, a closer examination will take place as to what initiatives should be implemented to avoid and combat social exclusion in our society.
Thirdly, the leaders will bring forward new programmes to guarantee that the European Union is a leader across all elements of the changing and evolving information technology markets.
The world is becoming a smaller place in terms of market access and the term "global village" is not out of place.
However, the arrival of globalisation will not and must not mean absolute and free market access for all products and services operating at this time.
It is clear that each country has different priorities in terms of the different economic sectors it wishes to protect.
That is clear from the completed Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations and will be evident in the World Trade Organisation talks which will be taking place over the next three years.
From the perspective of the European Union it is important that the deal secured by our leaders in Berlin last year, and endorsed by Parliament in terms of the future administration of the CAP for the period 2000-2006, is not reopened in any shape or form.
Moreover, initiatives to promote cultural and linguistic diversity in Europe must continue to receive support.
We must not build a Europe of the haves and the have-nots.
The European Union as an economic entity is very strong but there are still large-scale social problems which need to be addressed in a structured manner.
We must continue to put in place comprehensive training programmes for the youth and long-term unemployed in both urban and rural areas within Europe.
The European Social Fund and national governments must continue to finance drug rehabilitation programmes, to promote higher standards of adult literacy and to work against early school-leaving.
Mr President, a well-functioning labour market which strikes a sustainable balance between supply and demand is a widely cherished desire.
It is therefore understandable that long-term, high unemployment within the European Union is high on the agenda of the European Summit in Lisbon. But it is questionable whether it is justified to elevate employment policy to European policy in this way.
Despite satisfactory economic growth, the drop in unemployment is stagnating.
A number of Member States with high economic growth are facing an overstrained labour market and rising inflation.
Other Member States are experiencing limited growth, widespread unemployment and fixed prices.
Specific instruments, such as interest rates and the exchange rate, are no longer at our disposal.
The fact that Member States are at different stages within the economic cycle nonetheless requires measures specific to each Member State.
Is the Council acting upon this? And if so, what measures does the Council Presidency have in mind?
No one is expecting labour-intensive industries to flourish within an overstrained labour market. But is this reflected in the policy?
Has a decision been made in favour of selective growth in such policy? And are people prepared to allow the areas suffering high unemployment to benefit from this growth in labour-intensive industries?
If the Lisbon Summit is serious about fighting unemployment, then we will need more than generic measures.
It is important to take the work where unemployment is at its highest. It is a gamble to expect that the unemployed will go where the work is, especially in the case of cross-border labour migration.
This may result in the further depopulation of certain disadvantaged areas.
Mr President, with the launch of the common currency, we have not made life any easier for ourselves by abandoning monetary, economic instruments specific to Member States in order to control the economic cycle. I can imagine that Great Britain, Sweden and Denmark will think twice before embarking on the euro adventure.
It is therefore essential to reach sound, sustainable agreements at the employment summit in order to stamp out the evil of unemployment, obviously taking into account the principle of subsidiarity, because at the end of the day, it is in the individual Member States that the problems need to be tackled.
Mr President, I would like to extend warm thanks to Prime Minister Guterres for his account and the clarity of this account. My main question relating to this is, what is actually new?
Of course, we have in place macro-economic cooperation, the so-called Cologne process, and we have a process for employment, the Luxembourg process. What will this Summit actually add to this?
What is new, of course, is social protection.
This, in fact, has hardly been dealt with at Summit level and is, in my opinion, a very important topic of discussion.
I think that it is easy to identify the lessons which can be drawn from the Luxembourg process and to declare them applicable to social protection.
I do wonder why public health cannot be mentioned in this respect.
It is, after all, a key element of social protection which is rather in crisis and which, in fact, costs a great deal of money and is essential to a great number of people. However, apparently, the Council is not ready to discuss it at this stage.
Mr Barón has caused me some concern by saying that the programme which your are presenting, Mr President, is in fact a socio-democratic programme.
I went over your speech again in my mind and I think, in actual fact, that it contained one point which had a strong socio-economic bias.
It was the point in which the macro-economy is arranged such that it will lead to employment.
It is, of course, a fact that a sound macro-economic policy will automatically result in an improvement in the employment situation.
We have experienced this.
But on the other hand, the sound rule of macro-economics should not be misused by pinning it down too much.
Indeed, you will then end up in a situation which a great many economies under socio-economic and socio-democratic rule have experienced - and are still experiencing - where eventually, employment becomes the victim of bad macro-economic policy.
This should not happen.
I do hope, therefore, that the Prime Minister does not suggest abolishing the macro-economic policy which we have pursued over the past couple of years and which has been very successful - or at least changing it such that it is no longer effective.
Finally, Mr President, I have a problem with the Portuguese Presidency' s documents and also to some extent, but less so, with the Commission' s documents.
It is their defensive nature.
We have a few countries in Europe, including Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland, which rivalled the United States in terms of sound performance in the field of employment.
So it is possible for Europeans to match this.
There are other countries which appeared far less capable of doing this.
It is then far more sensible to find out why some countries or regions are doing so very badly, rather than saying that we are underperforming compared to the United States.
I think that, overall, this is not the case at all, especially if we take into account the fact that the internal market has only been in operation since 1 January 1993, which is a relatively short time.
Mr President, Prime Minister Guterres has been most convincing.
The proposals made by the presidency mark a clean break from the usual Community jargon.
The citizens of Europe do not want a theological debate, they want to see tangible action.
According to Professor Fitousi, the most serious deficit currently threatening European society is the deficit of the future.
Many of our fellow citizens are fearful of a future that been starkly portrayed to them for the past two decades.
The most minor of accidents is depicted as an irreparable ecological disaster.
Science is often demonised, with the result that fewer and fewer young people choose to study science.
People are asked to be flexible, and to embark on the breakneck quest for productivity.
Europe has indeed become highly productive, and would not otherwise be the world' s leading exporter.
Nevertheless, the predominant rhetoric always centres on wage restraint.
According to current dogma, salary increases must remain well below increases in productivity, or inflation will rise again.
It would seem that the exorbitant profits made in the casino that is the international finance market have no impact on inflation.
I am not making the case against stability policies nor against necessary structural reforms.
The completion of the internal market, and the surplus of transparency, and thus of competition, stimulated by the euro mean that a good many adjustments will have to be made.
New technologies will change the shape of a good many professions.
Electronic commerce will cut out many middlemen.
Most people would be willing to accept these changes were it not for the fact that the only prospects they are being offered are ever increased precariousness and ever reduced social protection.
Europe currently has everything it needs to re-establish sustainable growth, which is yet another reason for associating a more ambitious social goal to our economic and monetary objectives.
The Union has always succeeded when it has set itself hard and fast objectives.
The internal market, Economic and Monetary Union and the criteria relating to this, and the action plans which emerged from the Luxembourg summit have yielded tangible results.
The idea is to go one step further, to set joint growth objectives that lead towards full employment and the creation of a code of European social law....
(The President cut the speaker off) I still have many points I would like to make.
Mr President, we place our trust in you.
Mr President, I should like to thank Prime Minister Guterres for his very committed speech.
I too regard globalisation and the rapid changes that are under way as the major challenges, and I also think that they will only succeed if the people of the countries concerned are involved.
I was therefore very pleased with the Commission' s document for the Lisbon Summit with its two main messages.
The first of these - I am tempted to say - is the usual stuff about the economy, but the second, and rather more important, is that we should reinforce the European social model by investing in people.
The main message is that the individual should be at the centre of the EU' s policies.
I completely agree with this main message and I also agree with what was said about social cohesion, but I should like to warn against the idea that cohesion of that kind can be created by riding roughshod over the individual countries in an attempt to create uniformity.
We have our own approach in Denmark, as Jens-Peter Bonde emphasised, and other countries have theirs, as has also been mentioned.
What is crucial is that the individual Member States and the EU should respect the fact that there can be different methods of solving the problems concerned.
I therefore hope that, in future, matters will not be negotiated in such a way that Denmark will be forced to use its veto in connection with the intergovernmental conference and discussion of the social systems.
I hope, rather, that we shall have negotiations in which each country is accorded equal status and thus arrive at results we call all support.
Another reason why I am saying this is that we ought to have something on the agenda in addition to comparisons with the United States.
We must never for a moment forget that our greatest task in Europe is a healing one. By that I mean we must not lose sight of the development perspective.
I want to end by saying that social cohesion is to be created both in the individual countries and in Europe as a whole, but that this will not be achieved if the individual countries do not continue to be cohesive within themselves for many years to come.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am particularly concerned about the information and knowledge society which is supposed to be promoted during the Portuguese Presidency.
Anyone who, at a time of mergers and rationalisation, wheels out the jobs argument to legitimise new technology needs above all to be clear about one thing: a just distribution of all the forms of work necessary to society can never be brought about by new technology alone.
To achieve that, we first need an initiative to redistribute work by radically cutting working time and sharing out the work of reproduction differently.
These proposals are not new but they are becoming more topical. Why?
Because so far the debate on the information society has completely ignored the fact that only an elite with good technical training benefits from it!
To prevent a repeat of the promise of prosperity for all thanks to technology, but without any change to social structures, we need a debate on power and the distribution of resources.
Or have industrialisation, nuclear power and biotechnology led to greater justice in the past?
One important point is unfortunately missing completely from the debate, despite the fact that this House is otherwise so fond of consumer protection and mentions it so often.
The right to data protection does not appear in the Euro Paper nor is it part of the current debate on e-commerce.
I wonder what has happened to it!
Or has the evidence recently supplied of the 'Echelon' global bugging system already been forgotten?
If we wish to remain credible in developing a European Charter of Fundamental Rights then the fundamental right to privacy must of course be included in each of our individual programmes, in particular where new technologies are concerned.
Mr President, I think it is extremely commendable that the Portuguese programme places such emphasis upon combating unemployment and that the objective is to banish all unemployment.
Nonetheless, there remains an imbalance in the programme about which I am concerned and which I want to talk about. The emphasis upon the knowledge - or information - society in this programme, as in the different national programmes of which we are aware, does in fact lead to a concentration upon innovators, entrepreneurs, new companies and new industries.
Education is to be put in order, a fiscal policy devised and venture capital arranged. In fact, everything possible is to be done to provide the innovators with everything on a plate.
My own experience of these industries, however, is that they are managing really rather well.
In many cases, they have far too much capital, and in many cases they are spoiled.
I have seen IT companies which are unbelievably spoiled.
I think that resources should instead be invested in trying to prevent a split in society, a division of society into two sectors: the new economy and the old.
Above all, integration mechanisms should be created.
Perhaps what is most important of all is to create an infrastructure of such a kind that the industries which are not undergoing expansion have the chance to keep up and that population groups on the periphery can be involved.
I therefore think there should be investment in computers for primary schools, broadband communications for sparsely populated areas, technology libraries for the public and a public sector which should not be impoverished but, rather, reinforced.
Mr President, the agenda for the Lisbon Council, which is to be held on 23 and 24 Match, is liable to induce dizziness.
One sees references, albeit only in chapter headings, to the Europe of innovation and knowledge, structural reforms, competitiveness, the European social model, employment, social cohesion, macroeconomic policies and sustainable growth.
It is not surprising, given all this, that the numerous contributions made by the presidency of the Commission and by the Member States tend, for the moment, to be spread too thin.
This exercise could end in one of two quite different ways - either enabling the vast exchange of stimulating ideas, which each party would then attempt to apply at national level, with the possibility of joint initiatives in the new field of electronic trade - and this would not, at the end of the day, be such a bad scenario - or with the Council setting its heart on parading results in terms of the transfer of skills to Europe, which would entail increased centralisation and bureaucracy, which is to say exactly the opposite of what is required.
Reading the preparatory documents gives rise to certain fears in this regard.
These documents state that - please excuse the jargon, but it is not of my own making - there must be greater convergence between the Cologne process on the coordination of macroeconomic policies, the Cardiff process on structural reforms and the Luxembourg process on the coordination of employment policies, and a collateral enrichment of the content of the employment pact and of the multilateral monitoring of budgetary policies.
But how can we guarantee greater convergence of all these vastly different processes? The conclusion of the document issued by the presidency on 12 January holds the key.
We must revise the broad guidelines of our economic policies - which at present only have the status of an annual recommendation from the Council to the Member States - with a view to amplifying their scope and above all, consolidating their status as a 'framework document' .
It would appear that here one should take the word 'framework' as having the dual meaning of 'synthesis' and 'obligation' .
Mr President, are we not, with these blanket documents, going down the path of reinventing the broad strategic guidelines? One may well wonder, particularly after reading the French contribution, which crowns them with interventionism, proposing that a whole range of national policies be coordinated in Brussels, such as those on employment, social protection and SMEs, and accompanying them with a vast array of statistical indicators, for which monitoring will have to be arranged.
Centralised guidance of this nature would result in further infringements of subsidiarity, increased standardisation of details, and a more restrictive coordination imposed on countries whose circumstances differ, which is to say, eventually, in new inflexibilities which would exacerbate the inelasticity of the single currency.
In our opinion, the aim of the Lisbon Council should in fact be to iron out these inflexibilities, to promote flexibility and the ability to adjust, and to exchange positive national experiences with a view to fostering the creativity that can only flourish when peoples are given freedom of choice.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, in the speeches which we have heard a noble aim has been mentioned, that of we Europeans becoming competitive with the United States, of developing ourselves into equal partners with the United States.
If we consider our gross national product, that ought actually to be possible.
If, on the other hand, we look, for example, at the issue of filling top posts - when it is a question of finding a new Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund - and see how the Europeans behave towards the Americans, then without a doubt we are still a very long way from this equal partnership.
We now need to ask ourselves why this is the case.
Of course there are sectors of the business world, including the new media, in which we occupy leading positions.
Here I need only mention mobile telephones.
We have banned them here in the Chamber, rightly, because they are instruments of torment.
At the same time, however, they also make life much easier for many people because they create jobs.
And in Europe we are world leaders in this field. Why?
We are world leaders because we managed to adopt a common set of European rules; early on we decided on a common European standard which today has become a world standard.
This means that if we in Europe get our act together in good time then we will also be competitive in this field of new technologies.
Where then do Europe's shortcomings actually lie? I believe, Mr President-in-Office, that we cannot eliminate the shortcomings by setting up more observatories as is planned at present.
I believe that these observatories create a handful of jobs for officials, but that they do not create any jobs in small and medium-sized enterprises.
We in Europe are deficient where training is concerned.
This is shown by the fact that where the new media are concerned we are having to import from countries outside Europe.
Europe lacks, as has already been stated, entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial spirit.
There are too few young people who are willing to take the risk of being self-employed.
The way in which we structure our work and the way in which work is organised is not flexible enough.
Establishing additional rigid rules - such as, for example, introducing a rigid 35-hour week in France - can, I admit, create jobs in the short term, but I am convinced that in the long term it damages our competitiveness and thus destroys jobs.
In Europe we are also still a long way from a common domestic market.
We have 15 domestic markets and a common European internal market.
For electronic commerce we need common, clear, European rules.
We need a European patent at a reasonable price; we do not have that yet either.
This European patent is so expensive that it is not competitive with other patents.
We need the European company legislation, and not least we need to adapt our social security systems to the new reality of a common Europe, because this too forms the basis of what we call the social model, namely a social market economy for Europe.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Gutíerrez for his speech tonight and also for his Lisbon initiative, which is very important to us.
If we are honest, we must admit that it has been a very long road from Luxembourg to Lisbon, and that really now we are looking for concrete achievements, for something to genuinely come out of this Lisbon Summit.
We have a lot of Europeans in the gallery here with us this evening and I wonder what they make of our discussion here this evening.
I would like them to take away with them this evening the idea that the institutions of the European Union are now embarked upon a genuine process, which will lead to full employment once again in the European Union.
There are many challenges involved with creating that full employment.
Some of those challenges will be very difficult to overcome, but the important thing is that we have to turn the rhetoric of what we have been saying for many, many years - about full employment, about a socially inclusive society, about a society that is based on innovation and knowledge - into reality.
This is the great challenge, the great importance of Lisbon.
I just want to dwell on one or two key aspects that will help us realise that goal of turning rhetoric into reality.
Firstly, there is the commitment to having genuine benchmarks, a genuine process of peer review, to the setting of targets, of genuine targets that we can achieve, to governments agreeing to embark upon what is quite a brave process of saying: 'yes, we will allow ourselves to be marked against each other, we will allow ourselves to be marked against the rest of the world' .
That really is a brave decision, because some Member States will clearly find themselves towards the bottom of the league table, which is something nobody likes.
But this is important if we are to have a genuine achievable outcome from this Lisbon Summit rather than perhaps setting off down another road - a road which I know Prime Minister Gutíerrez does not want to embark on, because he actually wants to see something achieved in the process of the Lisbon Summit.
There are other areas that we must look at.
One of these is the challenge of creating an e-Europe which involves all its citizens and does not leave anybody on the wayside.
Another is the process of actually having a genuine single market - which we still do not yet have - and skills training that will be the key to delivering that innovative and knowledge-driven society.
There are tough choices, but once again in the gallery here tonight, I would like those people listening to this debate to take away with them the belief that we are going to actually have a society based on full employment, that the road to Lisbon will be the end of our journey, and that some concrete results will actually come out of it.
I welcome the new strategic goal of making Europe the most dynamic and competitive area.
Who could challenge such an ambition? I have to say, however, that dynamism and entrepreneurship as well as social cohesion are a very ambitious target, not to mention the creative tension between those two objectives.
I hope that we will achieve them, but I sound a warning note.
I note another ambitious objective of playing a proactive role in organising cyberspace.
I cannot help thinking this is more a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted!
I welcome the emphasis on bolstering research and development in Europe, on developing content industries and on speeding up broad-band networks with all that is involved as part of working towards a knowledge society.
Actually, I would prefer to call it an information economy because it is the economy aspect which is the most important.
We live in the time of IDEA - the Internet digital electronic age.
That sums up what we are trying to achieve on the e-side, the electronic side, of life.
But I welcome the fact that this summit is aiming also at a wider emphasis on reforms of our economies in Europe to improve competitiveness and innovation.
That must be right.
We cannot just focus on the new economy.
We must pay attention to the old.
I look forward to hearing more detail about the European Charter for micro-enterprises - that should be very interesting when it comes forward.
One of the priorities which has been identified under the Cardiff process is to improve the sensitivity of the financial markets to the value of intangible investments and investments in knowledge.
That has been achieved possibly beyond the wildest dreams of people a few months ago.
It can be seen in the phenomenal growth in the stock markets of Europe in the value of dot.com companies and just recently in the major changes in the composition of the FTSE 100 index in London.
I cannot help thinking however that although these values have gone sky high and we may expect the bubble to burst, nevertheless the underlying structural change in our economies is here to stay.
Mr President-in-Office, you have made us in the European Parliament eager to leave for Lisbon already.
All of us can only hope that the Special Summit is able to live up to the high expectations which people have of it.
Because, as you have already stressed, we do not need one more process after another, one procedure after another; rather we need action by which the people of the European Union can measure the benefits and added value of what the European Union does.
That is also why you have rightly drawn together employment, economic reform, growth and social cohesion and made them issues for top-level action.
It is important for all players in the governments and in the Commission to be pulling in the same direction towards full employment.
Then it will also be possible to convince all economic policy-makers of the need to conform to agreed behaviour, which so far they unfortunately still have not yet done.
Europe need lament neither over the success of the US economy nor over the strong dollar if it does not learn any lessons for itself from it.
Reforms of financial services, services capital and labour markets are certainly useful and necessary.
But they alone will not give growth the stimulus it needs to enable long-lasting growth, effectively generating jobs, to be organised at a high level.
We were forced to experience this several times in the nineties.
An average productivity increase of 2% requires a growth rate of 3.5% for full employment to be able to be achieved within ten years.
This scenario has moved into the foreseeable future.
That is why full employment actually needs to be right at the top of the agenda.
We need to set a growth target of at least 3%.
The aim of full employment cannot be achieved by economic policy alone.
The Europe of innovation and the information society also need to be commandeered to reach this target.
We are a long way from it today.
We must also recognise that we need another type of economic and financial policy.
It is simply unacceptable for shareholders or directors of plcs to be the only ones who decide on jobs, the economy and share prices.
When 13-year-old school children play on the computer after school at restructuring their parents' share portfolios, then this has more to do with toy casinos than with responsibility.
I think that the Special Summit in Lisbon will herald responsible economic planning in the European Union.
Mr President, Prime Minister, President of the Commission, the Portuguese Presidency has presented an ambitious programme for the Special Summit.
Congratulations!
I also welcome the support which Portugal is receiving from the Commission, not least through the communication which seeks to develop the Community into an information society for everyone.
The comment made by the Christian Democrat Prime Minister, Jean Claude Juncker, at the employment summit in Luxembourg in 1997 also applies to the Lisbon Summit. He said that it must not be a literary convention, referring to the numerous non-binding declarations made at many summits.
In adopting the Luxembourg Process the Heads of State and Government achieved tangible successes.
Since 1997, however, the really significant results have failed to materialise.
So far, the Cologne Employment Pact has not been able to be invested with sufficient content.
In addition, the macroeconomic dialogue lacks the participation of the European Parliament as an equal partner.
Yes, some aspects of the Luxembourg employment policy guidelines have not been applied rigorously enough by the Member States, in particular, for example, in the field of lifelong learning, as the 1999 Joint Employment Report noted.
In information technology, in particular, some European countries lack qualified workers, as Mr Suominen emphasised.
Rather than 'importing' them from third countries, it is better to invest accordingly in vocational training and further education, to invest in human capital.
This is the most effective way of reducing unemployment.
The most important objective of the Summit must be achieved as quickly as possible, and that is to improve the competitiveness of the European economy.
In this context the Ciampi Group also mentions the European company statute.
It puts the loss to the economy of not having a statute of this kind at EUR 30 billion a year.
We do not want the basic unrefined European company model.
We need this European company to come supplied with minimum standards of worker participation.
Our social policy goal is not of course the basic unrefined model of the market economy either, but a social market economy built on the European model.
We should also judge the success of the Lisbon Summit on the contribution it makes to achieving this goal.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, do you know how Archimedes expounded his theory of the lever? He would say, 'Give me a fulcrum and I will lift the world.'
In Lisbon you will clearly be trying to lift the world or, in any case, our world, the world of Europe.
As for the lever, you have described all the appropriate mechanisms in your exhilarating proposal, which is exciting in so many respects.
That simply leaves the fulcrum.
The fulcrum is provided by resources.
You find yourself before a House some of whose Members can still remember what I will refer to as the 'White Paper' syndrome, which is to say the remarkable initiative instigated by Jacques Delors that was torn to shreds by the 'accountants' at ECOFIN.
We would not want the same misfortune to befall you now, as the programme that you have presented to us is so exhilarating that it could energise Europe and provide it with the future alluded to by Mr Goebbels.
Nevertheless, you will have to have the means at your disposal, means which, I fear, you are somewhat lacking at present.
It is thus up to you to create them.
The straitjacket of Agenda 2000 will not provide you with the requisite means.
You will thus have to encourage your colleagues to see to it that the proposals you make to us are going to be financed.
Just one example - and it is one of the mechanisms central to your proposals - is that of the information and knowledge society.
It is clear - and you explained this very well - that the social divide is a fundamental problem that we must eradicate.
There is no need to add to this what I will call the digital divide.
Indeed, to whom will you offer this information and knowledge society? To an increasingly aged or ageing population, to a population which, despite everything, is still poor, and to a population which is becoming, alas, less and less well educated.
You will thus have to adopt a bottom-up approach if you do not want this knowledge society to amount to little more than the pursuit of profits by a number of successful and necessary new firms.
This is not your objective.
Unfortunately, there is one component missing from the mechanism that you have envisaged.
I refer to the public services. The public services have played a key role throughout the entire existence of our European social model.
It is true that the era of monopolies is past and that the Commission has initiated a process of liberalisation, of introducing competition into some public sectors in order to modernise them and improve their efficiency.
But we cannot stop there.
We must now define more clearly, within the context of competition and the information society, the principal public service roles of tomorrow as applicable to public undertakings and to private companies in this sector.
What is needed, in this regard, are stronger measures, which do not yet feature in the Commission' s work programme, but to which you could give some impetus. This, it seems to me, would send out an extremely important signal.
Lastly, this knowledge society hinges on research and development and I would like to applaud, at this juncture, the Commission initiative that aims to create a European research area.
Mr President, the Commission and Parliament will nevertheless have need of the Council in order to secure the requisite resources to create this European research area.
The framework programme will not suffice, it will have to be boosted, and its broad guidelines modified.
This is a major task, but we are relying on you to see it through.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, you have spoken, Mr President, of a political deficit.
I believe that the proposals you will put forward in Lisbon, which should help to merge these infamous broad economic policy guidelines, these 'Employment' guidelines, to form guidelines for the European policy on growth and employment, mark a step in the right direction.
They are a tool for political decision making.
And yet they incorporate institutional measures whose influence we will be able to assess in the medium term.
They will bolster the role of the European Council in the decision-making process.
What we are doing here has certain implications.
Let us assess its impact on the set of decisions that we will take when we have to discuss the reform of the General Affairs Council.
And then, underlying this decision-making process at European level, there is another crusade to be fought, and one which each of us must embark upon within our own Member States, since it is pointless laying down fine policy guidelines if the budgetary discussions that we enter into within our Member States fail to accommodate these guidelines.
It is up to each and every one of us to work on this.
One can but welcome the ambitious objective which you have set, within the ten-year strategy you propose, of lifting the taboo on the notion of full employment in the European Union, and of providing us with the means to do so by setting a quantified target of 3% growth.
But over and above that, as regards your objective of a knowledge economy, Claude Desama has just spoken of the contribution that public services can make to attaining this objective, although I myself would stress the importance of a strategy for lifelong learning.
This calls for hard and fast objectives, but we are aware that these will not be attainable unless we base our proposals on genuine social dialogue, and I feel that we must also move forward in this respect.
Lastly, a final word on social cohesion.
I am pleased to hear you stress this, since we do not want a society which swaps innovation for social cohesion.
But we do not feel that social exclusion can be eradicated in a piecemeal fashion.
It is a global project, and while the notion of target groups may constitute a staging point, it cannot provide a solution to all our problems in terms of poverty and social exclusion.
We know that this requires a proactive approach and that we can count on your determination.
We will offer you our support in Lisbon in laying down new guidelines for the European Union' s economic policy.
Mr President, along with my colleagues, I would like to welcome the very clear document that the Portuguese Presidency has given us today.
I want to emphasise what I believe is the real challenge which will face you and your colleagues when you sit down at the end of this month to discuss the presidency's proposal: namely how to change our whole attitude and thinking about entrepreneurship, about encouraging people to go out and start the new businesses that we now acknowledge are the engines of the new economy.
It is sad for Europe that it has actually needed the stimulus of the "knowledge economy" to realise what has been clear for the last decade or more, that our economy is not adequately geared towards encouraging those small entrepreneurs to come into the market, to take the risk to set up new businesses.
But it is not just the risk-takers who need to be encouraged.
It is everybody who is in a job working in an organisation.
In the new economy we want to give those people the opportunities to start businesses themselves; to go and work for the new growing businesses; to have more control over their working lives; to truly achieve their potential.
Think how many people are working in large companies, not using all their skills, trapped in large organisations, worried about moving because they cannot take their pensions with them, concerned not least about unemployment.
One of the keys to mobilising this type of risk-taking is to move towards such full employment that people feel they can take that personal risk.
However, I would conclude by asking: which is going to come first?
Can we really achieve that full employment without unleashing that entrepreneurial talent? If we wait for that to happen, I fear the great objectives you have set before us will not be achieved.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is, I think, thanks to your and the Commission' s commitment that the Lisbon Summit can finally prove to be an ambitious and social summit where the European social model is at long last seen as a new driving force behind European integration and where full employment can become a concrete goal.
But if Lisbon wants to become the summit of these political ambitions, it must also take on board methodology.
I would like to draw your attention to three points, in particular, which seem essential to me if this summit wants to succeed as a major social summit.
Firstly, the method should be such that the employment strategy and the new coordination procedure for social security do not become subservient to a macro-economic policy whose only aim is stability.
To me, Mr President-in-Office, this is a clear message that the Social Affairs Council must have as much clout as the ECOFIN Council and that political power must remain in the hands of the European Council itself.
Secondly, I would very much like to second your commitment to lay down clear objectives, regarding both economic growth and the level of employment.
But I would like to add that, if Lisbon wants to become a real social summit, we must also be able to spell out our plans to modernise and reinforce social security.
Here, too, we need standards of excellence and a Luxembourg process.
Finally, I support the European Commission' s intent to formulate an ambitious European poverty standard and to drastically reduce poverty within a ten-year period.
I think it is important to formulate an objective in this respect, Mr President-in-Office, that is to say to challenge all Member States to stamp out social exclusion of all citizens in our society, not only children, but also their parents and the elderly.
I wish the President-in-Office all the best in the pursuit of his ambitions.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, the Special European Council in Lisbon on employment, economic reform and social cohesion is to pursue, as you have told us, an objective which is ambitious, very ambitious, at the risk of disappointing our fellow citizens, conscious as they are that decreeing full employment and the eradication of poverty in Europe cannot, in itself, ensure that this objective is attained.
But, when all is said and done, this summit will have a major benefit - that of outlining, in the wake of Cardiff and Luxembourg, a political desire for greater social cohesion, particularly as regards the 57 million people who are living in a state of poverty within the Union, including single mothers, large families and children, and whose numbers will in the future be swelled by other outcasts from society, specifically those people who will not have access to new areas of knowledge, since this will engender new social imbalances.
It would thus be appropriate to implement an economic and social policy which is firmly geared towards the future, in order to prevent the emergence of a digital gulf between the 'info-rich' and the 'info-poor' , which is to say, as one speaker has just put it, a digital divide.
It is for this reason that, while I feel that new technologies constitute a tremendous vector for socially-inclusive growth, they will only be so if they are taught from an early age, in that by 2010 fifty per cent of all jobs will be in sectors directly linked to information technologies.
I recommend that Lisbon Summit take three decisions in this regard: firstly, on a strategy for lifelong learning, with the establishing of an agenda for eradicating child poverty, both financial and intellectual impoverishment; secondly, on preparing European society for the European research area; thirdly, on implementing a working methodology and coordination procedure which is open and based on our social and economic policies, and is accompanied by concerted assessment of our national plans.
Mr President, there is an idea in the Portuguese Presidency's statement which I like very much.
This idea is the notion that the strength of our European economy is rooted in the capabilities, imagination and creativity - quite simply in the knowledge - of the people in the European economic process.
If we are to take this seriously, however, if the intention is for this really to become a political programme, then no additional justification is required for a policy of social inclusion, because participation in society would in itself be the strongest productive force in our shared economy.
If that is the case, Mr President-in-Office, then we urgently need common objectives.
We need firm targets, the attainment of which it is possible to measure, in terms of both quality and quantity, for increasing employment rates, as for example was also recently proposed by the Commission.
We need firm, joint, realistic targets for reducing the unemployment rate, as for example was also recently proposed by the Commission, to 4% in 2010.
No longer must it be acceptable for the ECOFIN ministers to allow each other to celebrate consolidation successes at home while responsibility for the massive unemployment in Europe remains shrouded in mystery.
I wish you much strength, pledge Parliament's support and assure you that this Parliament will have more to say on the issues of economic and employment policy in the future, as the people of Europe also expect.
That would give you another ally for your policy.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, it is gratifying and encouraging to hear this House speak of a new strategic objective for the next decade. This objective consists of creating a European Union which, on the world stage, forms a more dynamic and competitive economic and social area, based on new technologies, innovation and knowledge, so that we are capable of increasing levels of economic growth, with more, and better, jobs and greater social cohesion.
It is clear that we must redefine the role of Europe in the world economy, creating a competitive Europe, opening the way to new and better jobs and organising this process with an appropriate strategy for social cohesion. The central role of employment and social policy, in the creation of this new society, is based on two factors.
On the one hand we have economic efficiency, since, in this new technological context, the quality of human resources is essential. On the other hand, we have social equality, because, despite the economic upturn which we are witnessing, we still have an enormous degree of social inequality.
Unemployment, social exclusion and the danger of future imbalance in the social security systems, are problems which are exacerbated by the unavoidable challenges of globalisation, an ageing population, technological changes, demographic slowdown and the increasing incorporation of women in the workplace.
Europe needs to achieve full employment.
This full employment should be adapted to the society taking shape, with greater possibilities for its men and women.
European citizens must believe in this project and this state of affairs. They must not see it as something abstract which we only speak about in Brussels or Strasbourg.
We are asking right now for a transition to a new society, to an economy based on innovation, and on the information and knowledge-based society.
We must learn quickly, create new practices more suited to the new society and invest in technological change, but we must never forget the people or the institutions.
Lisbon will be a step forward and we must achieve a renewal of the European social model because that is the only way we can achieve greater employment and, at the same time, greater social cohesion. To this end, we must concentrate on a series of priority issues.
We must improve the effectiveness of active employment policies.
We must strengthen the synergies between adaptability, education and lifelong training.
We must increase employment in the sector consisting of services which facilitate business initiative and reduce the administrative burden on small- and medium-sized enterprises, reducing non-wage costs. Lastly, we have to promote the integration of general equal opportunities policies for all men and women, with particular stress on aspects which help to reconcile professional life with family life.
All of this has to be done thinking of the European citizen.
It has to be done thinking of the men and women who live and work daily in our countries.
The Special Lisbon Summit must fundamentally reaffirm, for the European citizen, the notion that the European Union still believes in the idea of a society which favours inclusion and social cohesion.
Mr President, the Portuguese Presidency should be praised for focusing the debate on issues which although not new, are being addressed in an innovative way, with ambitious objectives, beginning with the urgent need to face up to the competition, which is marked by constant technological innovation and democratisation. In doing this, we must be aware that the technological development of the United States has come about because of extremely dynamic private initiatives, as well as because of their arms industry and a certain degree of protectionism.
We must also look at the case of Japan because it holds lessons for Europe in terms of the organisation of work and the role of the state, of businesses and of the workers themselves in business objectives.
We must take what is useful from these two models, such as entrepreneurial skills and the organisation of work, whilst preserving the best of what Europe has to offer in the form of a social model appropriate for a post-industrial economy.
The fact is that Europe needs to have 32 million more people in work if it is to match the United States' employment rate.
It needs to increase employment amongst women, to integrate marginalised groups, to strengthen social cohesion, a problem that the Structural Funds have so far not been able to resolve, and to integrate 5 million very long-term unemployed, many of whom lost their jobs as a result of industrial restructuring.
We also need new qualifications, as we know that access to technology does not necessarily guarantee high-quality jobs and entrepreneurial initiative.
We need a greater sense of responsibility and greater participation from our social partners - new actors, as the Pintassilgo report calls them - so that we can implement employment agreements and achieve competitiveness in business.
We need to solve the problems of poverty and we need a social model which is suited to these new conditions.
Mr President-in-Office, your proposal is a very ambitious one, although we know that its implementation does not depend on you, but on the 15 Member States.
If I may refer to the Austrian situation, I would very much like that country to be one of the states which will be putting your proposal into practice.
If Austria does this, however, it will be lying to and duping the very people who voted for one of the parties in its government.
I hope that it does just that!
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, we often hear it said by our neighbours, at all levels of expertise or debate, that we live in a globalised world.
However, it is not so common to hear people speak of what Europe' s role should be in this context of the information society, globalisation and technology.
It seems to me, Mr President, that this is probably the case because we Europeans see Europe as somewhat removed from our more immediate concerns and interests.
The prime concern of the European citizens, after health, is probably employment.
Within this concern, employment is linked to competitiveness.
All of this will lead us to the need to define the role of Europe in the world economy, of Europe as a competitive platform - and I stress 'competitive' - opening the way to new and better jobs, higher quality jobs from the point of view, of course, of guaranteeing social cohesion.
Social risks, social breakdown, unemployment, social exclusion, imbalances in the social security systems, are unavoidable challenges presented by globalisation, technological change and an ageing population.
We therefore have to re-establish conditions of full employment, employment adapted to the society which is taking shape, which we are all building.
This requires the creation of a dynamic of growth which guarantees, for the whole of the European Union, an average annual rate of growth of 3% at least.
I therefore think it is necessary to stimulate a culture of dynamism and business initiative and a strengthening of social cohesion.
All of this is absolutely essential. We need technological change and institutional reform.
While it is necessary to learn more quickly from good practices, it is also necessary to create suitable new practices and be innovative in the field of political methodology.
Of course, today' s Europe has organised institutional procedures for developing these policies, to create an economy, and above all a society, based on innovation and knowledge, by means of a European policy on the information and knowledge-based society, the construction of an educational society on a European scale and the development of a European area of science and technology open to the world.
Finally, Mr President, we have to guarantee a combination of policies which promote growth and employment, guarantee macroeconomic security and the consolidation of the euro; which promote growth and the transition towards a society and economy of innovation and knowledge.
Through policies and structural reform, at the service of the citizens, we will create a Europe which is closer to us and, of course, a Europe which is stronger.
Mr President, I would like to endorse all compliments for the Portuguese Presidency' s ambitions with this special summit.
The intention to achieve actual coordination of the socio-economic policy across the board appeals to me a great deal.
I would like to draw your attention to three specific points.
The first point concerns corporate governance.
The Portuguese Presidency has put the social dimension of innovation very firmly on the agenda, but I think that this dimension is still too far removed from the intentions to promote new activity.
In my opinion, this social dimension should, in fact, be brought into this new European company, whether this is a large multinational or a small booming ICT company.
In this light, I would like to reopen the debate on corporate governance to discuss the wider concept of the company as stakeholders society, including the role of both sides of industry and all parties involved.
On the last page of the president' s document, I noticed the intention to set up an observatory for industrial change.
I can foresee a large role for such an observatory and I would, therefore, like to see a pro-active approach to dealing with it, and I would call on UNICE, the organisation of European employers, in particular, to show more commitment and some more enthusiasm.
It disturbed me that their documents for this summit mainly contain wish lists vis-à-vis the authorities but they do not emphasise their own commitment and their role at all. In my opinion, you do not get something for nothing.
Their cooperation in these activities should also be outlined.
Another point which I would like to touch upon briefly is tax coordination, as I do not think I have sufficient time for three points.
The presidency has mentioned the sensitive issue of company tax and has admitted that there is a considerable impasse in the Monti package regarding this issue.
I would like to make another appeal for a broad analysis of the developments in the field of company tax, especially vis-à-vis the Commission, and with regard to the Member States, I would like to suggest that such a Luxembourg process be considered because when I read the report, I can see examples of best practices which could be adopted.
So I would ask that this point be given due attention too.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, there has already been a great deal of discussion, and I hope that I will not repeat any of what has gone before.
I would, however, like to thank the Portuguese Presidency most heartily for the document presented and for the excellent address given by the President-in-Office of the Council.
As President Guterres reminded us, it is true that we do not intend to introduce new processes in Lisbon, but rather to combine those decided upon in Luxembourg, Cardiff and Cologne.
However, this is the first time in many years that a strategic objective has been put forward, and I feel that it is extremely important: to transform the Union into an economic area based on innovation and knowledge, in order to boost economic growth, achieve full employment in proper jobs and bring about social cohesion.
Last year, the Commission carried out a study which revealed that, if we do not make radical changes to the qualification and professional training systems, by the year 2010, the skills of 80% of those currently in employment will be outdated, and this will exacerbate existing inequalities and open up new gulfs. The answer is lifelong learning and a large-scale investment in technical skills and knowledge.
The amount of research - another strategic sector - which is carried out in the Member States of Europe must also increase.
We must take a qualitative step forwards and move on from framework programmes to a European research area and a common research policy. This is innovation, and not just structural, technological innovation but also innovation in the field of procedures and methods.
As Mr Van Lancker has already said, the "Social Affairs" Council must have the same status as the ECOFIN Council.
Social dialogue must then be consolidated as a fundamental means of reaching a consensus on the implementation of the necessary changes.
Lisbon must be remembered, not only for its excellent preparatory document, but as a Summit which, at the start of the new millennium, will mark a significant turnaround for economic growth, employment and social cohesion in Europe.
- (PT) Mr President-in-Office, I would like to congratulate you on having persuaded Europe that the modernisation of the economy and social cohesion are concepts that can be mutually compatible.
The preparations for the Lisbon Summit have demonstrated that people in Europe are not working hard enough and that if we want to be the most dynamic region in the world, we not only have to work harder, but we will have to do this with more information at our disposal, combined with an ability to use that information.
If we are to increase the rate of employment and fund our social security systems, we will have to have a longer working life and, above all, we will have to have more and better trained women in work.
We therefore hope that this Lisbon Summit will help to change the present model of female employment.
I would like to ask you, Mr President, if you envisage this summit yielding conclusions which will enable specific, timetabled measures to be adopted so that there are not only more women in the world of work, but above all, in the new knowledge economy?
Thank you very much, Mr President of the Commission, thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office, for your notable contributions to an interesting and important debate.
I have received six motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.15 p.m. and resumed at 9. p.m.)
Before we resume the sitting I should like to make a comment which I always make at night sittings, but since faces change there are many people here who are not yet familiar with this.
I should like to request that you contribute to the sitting's reaching a speedy conclusion by keeping to the speaking times.
There are three reasons for this.
The first is the old party rule: the later the evening, the more rowdy the guests. That does not apply to the plenary.
The second is that the people sitting behind the glass screens - the interpreters - also want to go home.
The third reason is that, as well as the interpreters, there are many others behind the scenes who have to work until the end of the sitting to ensure that, for example, the Minutes are ready for tomorrow.
So please, keep to the speaking times and we will make good progress!
Environmental dimension in the development process
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0051/2000) by Mr Wijkman, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on measures to promote the full integration of the environmental dimension in the development process of developing countries (12485/1/1999 - C5-0013/2000 - 1999/0020(COD)).
rapporteur. (SV) Mr President, ever since the Brundtland report of 1987, it has been clear that a policy which emphasises only economic growth cannot be sustained in the longer term.
The challenge for us all consists in integrating social and environmental considerations.
This means, for instance, that environmental considerations cannot be seen as a sectoral issue but that the possible negative environmental impact of production, transport, construction, etc. must be clarified at the planning stage and minimised through a variety of measures.
The Rio Conference involved preparing an action programme which, on a sector-by-sector basis, points out the most important problem areas in this context and states how protection of the environment and of natural resources is to be ensured.
In spite of the fact that this is a document of several hundred pages, it is a programme which, in general, is well put together.
If further progress is to be made towards the necessary level of integration, an appropriate method has to be developed.
Indicators also need to be selected so as to be able to keep abreast of what is under way in terms of developing know-how, pilot projects etc.
This type of work has been going on for many years in many of the OECD countries.
It could be given higher priority, but it is in fact under way.
Matters are organised rather less well in the majority of developing countries.
There, there is a lack of both knowledge and resources to facilitate the integration of environmental considerations, together with the preventive approach which is the very essence of the decisions taken in Rio.
In this context, aid can play an important role.
As aid donors, we have, on the whole, a major responsibility for ensuring that we transfer knowledge and techniques that are sustainable, that is to say which do not entail severe damage to the environment and to natural resources.
The proposed regulation we are discussing today is aimed at ensuring that, in providing aid, the EU fully and completely integrates the environmental dimension into its activities.
In the longer term, the objective is, of course, for this type of integration, or mainstreaming as it is called, to take place quite automatically, that is to say without special budget appropriations or programmes.
So far, there remains, however, a lot to be done in terms of developing methods.
In particular, knowledge and skills within both the Commission and the recipient countries must be increased.
I was responsible for the preparations for this second reading.
My work has, of course, been very much based upon experiences from the first reading and upon the preparatory work for that reading.
On that occasion, Parliament tabled a large number of amendments, of which approximately a third have been accepted by the Council ahead of this second reading.
Analysing the situation, I identified three or four principal points where I think we in Parliament ought to try to amend the Council proposal.
The most important of these issues are firstly, the size of the budget, the way in which activities are directed and the way in which the rules are to be interpreted, that is to say they should relate not only to developing countries' activities but also, of course, shape our own activities within the EU.
That does not mean that other questions raised at first reading are not important. What it does mean, however, is that we ought to concentrate on those which are most important.
We ought also, in the interests of reaching agreement with the Council, to see to it that we, as far as possible, relinquish what is of less importance.
I am delighted to note that, following the informal discussions which have taken place, it has been possible considerably to increase the amount of the budget, namely from the proposed figure of just over EUR 50 million to just over EUR 90 million.
This is something we ought to support, a fact which also emerges from Amendment No 11.
Regarding the period of applicability of this regulation, I believe that there is no reason to commit ourselves now once and for all.
I think that the Council' s proposal is acceptable because an evaluation will take place within four or five years.
This question will then, at all events, return to Parliament.
Finally, I want to mention a question on which there have been, and remain, a variety of views.
This concerns the committee procedure, that is to say how actual implementation of this regulation will look.
Where this is concerned, I take the view that we should try to get away from an arrangement whereby the Member States themselves are directly involved in determining the fine detail of implementation.
They should be involved, and determine the framework and rules, but leave it to the Commission to implement the actual project.
In this connection, we have proposed, in the course of the examination of this proposal, a so-called split comitology procedure, which could be used to excellent effect.
I hope that the vote will ensure that this will also become Parliament' s proposal.
Might I just ask for one more thing?
The fact is, we shall need further consultations.
I would therefore propose without further ado that the vote could take place on Wednesday.
Mr President, this is a particularly important regulation given that it can no longer be said that 'we are destroying the environment' - we have done this for long enough already - instead it is now almost true to say that 'the environment is destroying us' !
It is now our task to counteract this.
In the industrialised countries, significant initiatives are being taken to preserve and protect the environment.
In the developing countries, however, intensive work still needs to be done on designing appropriate policies, strategies and projects to prevent further destruction and to care for the environment.
Measures need to be implemented which, for instance, take account of the consequences of developing countries being integrated into the global economy.
Nigeria can once again serve as an example here, as oil drilling there is causing commensurate environmental damage.
Here too, education and training measures need to be supported in order, in the end, to help people to help themselves.
The content of the regulation must therefore be supported in full, although the budget proposed by the Council is not sufficient by far.
That is why I should like to ask all colleagues to vote in favour, in particular, of Amendment No 11, so that at least reasonable financial provision is made, even if this falls well below the amount for previous initiatives and is still only around EUR 13 million a year.
Even at this early stage a considerable increase needs to be considered for when the Treaty or the regulation is revised.
Mr President, while much progress remains to be made, it is true that the European Union has always pursued a policy of cooperation and development in respect of developing countries, and I believe that the environmental dimension must be incorporated into this policy and expanded upon.
Indeed, the notion of sustainable development takes on real meaning in such countries, and more particularly in the very poorest of them, since these are the countries which most often experience large-scale disasters, including the natural disasters which have recently become increasingly common.
Much has indeed been said of pollution and the effects of pollution, but this proliferation of natural disasters was evident in Central America and Venezuela at the end of last year, and can now be seen in Mozambique and Madagascar.
These disasters are in fact the result of extreme climatic changes with which we should be quite familiar, since they are precipitated by human activities, notably those of developed countries.
The greenhouse effect and deforestation also have a considerable impact.
As regards this regulation on the environmental dimension in the development process in developing countries, the Council has broadly taken up the amendments that we presented and voted upon at first reading.
From this perspective we cannot fail to be satisfied.
I would nevertheless like to stress one point that the Council has overlooked - inadvertently, I believe and hope - but which is absolutely fundamental: coordination between European operators and local partners, which is to say local NGOs, grass-roots communities and people with a time-honoured understanding of how to harness biological diversity.
No programme can be truly effective unless it is conducted in close collaboration with the communities concerned.
One last point: should we be successful in setting up steering committees, I believe it would be necessary to re-emphasise the importance of establishing a complaint procedure which is open to civil society in developing countries with regard to measures that run counter to legitimate concerns in the field of social welfare.
Mr President, the key to the development of the less developed countries is that they should have the chance themselves to participate in their own development programmes by identifying the problems themselves and seeking solutions to them.
Whenever I have been involved in development work I have observed that this approach has, thankfully, over the past few years been taking the place of the old paternalistic aid-oriented ideology, where the so-called developed countries thought development was a matter of transferring our way of life to the less developed countries.
The new paradigm for development cooperation stresses the notion of partnership, in which the so-called donor of aid is a consulting party.
It must allow scope for the countries concerned to determine for themselves what their problems are, and let them draw up a plan to improve the situation and find a solution themselves.
The most important task aid agencies have is to make themselves unnecessary, all the while ensuring that the work is leading to local action and prosperity.
My colleague, Mr Wijkman, has produced a good report in this respect, one that emphasises this paradigm that is the only successful and morally tenable one.
However, at present, this approach is being applied scandalously badly by the EU as far as scientific and technological projects are concerned.
The EU' s framework programmes do not extend to developing countries.
In other words, our North African partners, for example, cannot become involved in scientific and technological projects concerning the environment.
Nothing is actually preventing them from doing research but there are simply no facilities for financing projects, as the developing countries do not have access to the consortia as a party applying for funds.
But why not? It has been made easier for Eastern Europe to participate.
The matter is even harder to appreciate, when we think of how much we are affected by the problems of desertification in North Africa and the problems that are associated with the Mediterranean area.
We must give more responsibility, by way of funding, to local researchers to be able to create development that will be of benefit to the local community and leave the job to them when the financiers have left.
We must ensure that no project can be established without input from local researchers.
Hopefully we are reaching the conclusion of a process that started a year ago under the previous Parliament.
Apart from the importance of the topic itself, this regulation and the accompanying tropical forests regulation represent the first regulations concerning development cooperation to be considered under codecision.
So for many of us this is an interesting learning experience.
The previous regulation expired at the end of 1999.
Since the beginning of this year, the Commission has been unable to make any new financial commitments on these budget lines.
This places the Commission and Europe in an increasingly difficult situation.
Hence our desire to conclude the process of adoption in the near future.
In this context, we have supported the informal negotiations between the Council presidency and the parliamentary rapporteur so as to arrive at a proposal which could be accepted by both parties.
The main areas of difference have been on the financial reference amounts, on comitology and on the duration of the regulation.
I would like to comment briefly on each of these issues.
On the financial reference amount, briefly, we accept the compromise proposals put forward under Amendment No 11.
Comitology:
Our position has been to advocate an advisory rather than management procedure for the management of the regulation in accordance with Council Decision 1999/468/EC of 28 June 1999 which states: "The management procedure should be followed as regards management measures such as those relating to the application of the common agricultural and common fisheries policies; also the implementation of programmes with substantial budgetary implications".
In our view, the programme to be funded under the regulation does not represent substantial budgetary implications and hence does not merit a management procedure, an advisory procedure being more appropriate.
However, in view of the Council's views on this matter and in order to avoid conciliation, we support the compromise proposal put forward by Parliament for a split comitology procedure whereby decisions on strategic guidelines for the actions to be financed would be subject to a management procedure while project approval for the limited number of projects over EUR 2 million would be subject to an advisory procedure.
Hence the Commission supports, in principle, Amendment No 16 but prefers the wording of Amendments Nos 19, 20 and 21.
Concerning the duration of the regulation, our position has been to support an unlimited duration subject to periodic revision following evaluations.
However we are aware that if unlimited duration were to be approved here, this would lead inevitably to a conciliation process.
In this context we consider that the duration of seven years, proposed by the Council, is adequate and hence, in the interest of avoiding conciliation, we do not support Amendment No 18, which places an unlimited duration on the regulation.
The final important issue common to both this regulation and the forest regulation are the amendments concerning bank guarantees.
We concur with the view of Parliament that the Commission should not place bureaucratic barriers to the access of some NGOs to financing from Community funds.
For this reason the Commission took a decision in July 1999 only to require bank guarantees for advance payments of over EUR 1 million.
Hence the problem has, to a large extent, been resolved.
Furthermore the Commission considers that such matters are best addressed in a horizontal manner rather than through specific regulations.
For these reasons the Commission does not support the proposed Amendment No 10 on bank guarantees.
The remaining amendments of the environment regulation can be placed in two categories: on the one hand, amendments which consist of reformulating elements of the scope of the proposed act or its means of intervention; and on the other hand, amendments concerning the management of the actions to be financed, in particular financial aspects. With regard to these two types of amendments, the position of the Commission is as follows.
With the aim of finding a compromise solution which would make it possible to avoid conciliation the Commission could support Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, although it considers that they bring little added value to the text overall.
Careful reading of the joint position will show that most of the concerns behind these amendments have been taken into consideration but following the structure of the regulation.
The second type of amendments pose more problems to the Commission which therefore does not support them: Amendment No 9 - coordination with the local partners, as formulated in the report - is not supported by the Commission, not because of disagreement with the principle, but because the article in question is framed in the context of the Treaty which only refers to coordination with Member States.
Amendment No 12 proposes the raising of the threshold for submission of projects for consideration by the Council from EUR 2 million to EUR 5 million.
Given that most projects are already under EUR 2 million this amendment is considered not relevant.
Furthermore we are concerned that its adoption would lead to a conciliation process.
Therefore the Commission does not support it.
The amendments on procurement and access to the markets - Amendments Nos 13 and 14 - would mean a departure from standard and carefully agreed formulations.
In any event, as with bank guarantees, the Commission does not consider it appropriate that such issues be addressed through special provisions in specific regulations but rather in a horizontal manner.
We oppose Amendment No 15, concerning the creation of an environmental monitoring union, as this is in our opinion a question of internal Commission organisation which should not be addressed through a regulation.
Such a unit is, in fact, already operational although we intend to strengthen it further.
Lastly, we do not support Amendment No 17 as it does not conform to the usual rules or formulation of regulations and is considered to be redundant.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
If the rapporteur wishes the vote to be postponed I would ask him to request this at voting time.
Our services say that it is possible to do so then.
Conservation and sustainable forest management
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0043/2000) by Mr Bouwman, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism ...
(Mr Bouwman interrupted the President.)
Bouwman.
(DE) Mr President, I think you are mistaken!
There is another report first.
I would be happy to speak now, but there is another report first.
President.
Thank you very much, Mr Bouwman. I knew right at the beginning of the debate that there was a reason why I was so pleased to see you here in the House.
Please forgive me. My files have got in rather a muddle.
That does happen from time to time in the hectic activity of the night sitting.
Forget what I have said so far.
We will start again.
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0048/2000) by Mr Fernández Martín, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on measures to promote the conservation and sustainable management of tropical forests and other forests in developing countries (12487/1/1999 - C5-0014/2000 - 1999/0015(COD)).
Mr President, as Commissioner Nielson has already stated, this debate marks the inauguration of the new competences of the Committee on Development and Cooperation in the field of codecision.
The aim of the regulation under discussion today is to establish measures designed to promote the conservation and sustainable management of tropical forests in developing countries, in order to guarantee the funding necessary to maintain and make progress with the actions and projects which have been under way for this purpose since the adoption of Regulation 3062, valid until December 1999.
This is the financial instrument by means of which the Union can fulfil the obligations arising from the Agreement on biodiversity, the Framework Agreement on climate change and the Agreement on the fight against desertification.
All these agreements indicate that developing countries must be supported in the search for solutions to the problem of their forest resources.
Between 1990 and 1995, over 56 million hectares of forest, distributed unevenly in various parts of the world, were lost but, without a doubt, this particularly affected developing countries as a result of the increased amount of land used for agricultural purposes, the construction of infrastructures, or due to natural disasters and fires.
We are therefore facing a problem of the first magnitude, not only for developing countries, but also for the whole planet and all the living beings that inhabit it, a problem that Parliament has already spoken about at first reading at the end of the previous legislature on 5 May 1999.
Since then, a long, and sometimes difficult, negotiation process has been taking place within the Council, which did not reach a common position until December 1999, and between the Council, the Commission and Parliament itself, in search of the necessary consensus. All this took place under the restrictions caused by the approval of a budget which imposed limitations in various respects, and in particular the need to allocate funding to implement the special plan for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
At first reading, Parliament approved a total of 34 amendments of which the Council, in its common position, has totally or partially taken up 18.
Of the remaining 16, some, and in particular Amendments Nos 5 and 6, are no longer relevant following the interinstitutional agreement on the 2000 budget.
The debate and negotiations that we have held with the Council and the Commission have focused on three topics: the budget, dates and comitology.
The rapporteur particularly wishes to highlight the hard work and flexibility shown by all concerned in the search for a consensus on the budget, so that, from an initial figure of EUR 9 million from the B7-6201 line, which implied a total of EUR 73 million for the whole period, we have reached an agreement that implies the provision of EUR 249 million for the next seven years as a whole, starting with the EUR 30 million already stipulated in the budget for the year 2000.
Based on this budgetary agreement, which includes an agreement on dates, the differences have focused on aspects of comitology derived from the historic positions of Parliament and the Council itself that, with a view to the future, in my opinion - and not to insist on the problems made manifest in Mr Wijkman's intervention - I believe that they should be revised in an interinstitutional agreement in order to speed up the parliamentary legislative procedure and make it more efficient.
Finally, I wish to request the support of the House with regard to Amendments Nos 1, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 12, and a negative vote for the others, which, if successful, would break the agreement reached during the discussions with the Commission and the Council, which would oblige the whole negotiating process to begin again, paralyse some of the actions and projects under way and undoubtedly cause serious problems in the policy of conservation and rehabilitation of the tropical forests that we are trying to develop.
Mr President, I should like to say that I agree with many of the points made in the report by the previous speaker and rapporteur, Mr Fernández Martín.
Above all, as with all budget lines, it is very important to discuss the funding these budget lines represent.
As with the previous report, I am not happy that the duration is limited, but the very many projects put at risk are a good reason to reach an agreement with the Council as quickly as possible.
Just as with Mr Wijkman's report, I agree with the rapporteur on the split comitology, meaning that the strategic guidelines will be decided under a management procedure while there will be an advisory committee for project implementation.
One point which is of really fundamental importance to me is made in various amendments - for example, Amendments Nos 2 and 4 - which emphasise the active participation of forest peoples and the indigenous population.
I believe that this is an absolutely fundamental point, especially when we are talking about the sustainable management of tropical forests and other forests in developing countries.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Martín, you have certainly described very clearly what your report is all about.
Thank you for that.
But we also all know only too well that not all projects are as successful as we would like them to be.
This makes it all the more important, in our view, for both the people concerned on the spot and local groups to be involved, as early as the preliminary planning stage, in decisions such as how projects are to be organised, so as to ensure that these projects - which of course we wish to fund - are sustainable from an ecological and social, but also cultural, point of view.
It is not always the case - and we are aware of this too - that the interests of local people are respected; instead they are often subordinated and sacrificed to the economic interests of particular groups, such as for example multinational logging companies.
There is a lot that I could say about Brazil in this context, about how interests of this kind are represented there, because one thing is clear: the issue of whether tropical forests can be used sustainably at all, without their being permanently damaged in the process, is still not satisfactorily settled.
It is precisely here that there should be no cut in the Commission and the Council's contributions, because that would almost certainly be counterproductive.
This is because if the forests continue to be damaged to the same extent as they have been up until now, the local people will be the first to suffer and then we will all suffer throughout the whole world, because dramatic changes in climate can of course already be identified.
It is also very important for us now for the projects to be able to continue to run without interruption.
The demands we are making of the Council are not after all demands which we have plucked out of thin air, and I believe that it ought to be possible through skilful negotiation to secure something here, because the conditions are not after all impossible to meet.
Otherwise we can only endorse Mr Fernández Martín's report; the comments made by Mrs Scheele and others are also a perfect reflection of our own thoughts.
Thank you very much for this generous gift to my colleagues.
Mr President, the state of tropical forests is worrying on two counts, as the impoverishment of the forest is not only quantitative but also qualitative in nature.
The biodiversity of our planet is at stake.
The Commission has thus acted appropriately in proposing a new Council regulation on tropical forests and I fully subscribe to the thrust of the amendments proposed by the rapporteur, the pinpoint relevance of whose work I salute.
He has identified some valid points, certain aspects of which I would like to examine more closely.
It would seem to me absolutely essential to reflect on the scope of the regulation.
Firstly, programmes must be more closely targeted at the rehabilitation of tropical forests.
The Council regulation of 1995 perhaps focused in too exclusive a manner on the protection of tropical forests and not sufficiently closely on the harnessing of their productive potential.
Besides this, future Community actions must take into consideration every facet of sustainable forest management.
This implies respect for the indigenous peoples who depend on forest ecosystems.
One should never overlook the fact that there are major obstacles to the indispensable involvement of these vulnerable communities: the forest areas in question are often the scene of unrest and conflict or suffer from the adverse impact of tourism, which all too often is held up as a miracle cure, and of local laws on forests which are hardly ever enforced, even where they actually exist.
There are, of course, forests in which there are no production activities of any type, but there are also forests that continue to fulfil an economic function.
This is the case with our own forests within the European Union, and I would ask my fellow Members what Community aid was provided for European forests after they were decimated by the storm that raged last December? We must without doubt take up the challenges laid down in this report, but must also institute a genuine Community policy on conservation and sustainable management.
I hardly need to emphasise the importance of tropical forests at a global level given their influence on climate patterns, the large proportion of the world's biodiversity that is contained within them and of course their importance to the livelihoods of millions in developing countries - fuel wood being an obvious example.
For these and other reasons, Europe's citizens rightly expect the Community to support actions to conserve and sustainably manage tropical forests.
I say tropical forests, but in fact a new feature of this regulation compared to the previous one is that the scope of the regulation now covers all developing countries and hence now includes countries such as South Africa, China and the Mediterranean and Middle East regions.
The regulation also makes specific reference to the needs of indigenous and forest-dependent people and the need for gender considerations to be taken into account.
We have just discussed the environment regulation and the comments I made then on a number of horizontal issues are also largely applicable to the forest regulation.
For this reason, I will be brief.
With reference to the amendments listed in the Fernández Martín report, the Commission's position on the main horizontal issues is as follows.
Financial reference account: the Commission accepts the compromise figure of EUR 249 million over seven years proposed in Amendment No 9.
Comitology - the Commission supports in principle Amendment No 11 but prefers the wording of Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 15.
The amendments propose a split comitology arrangement with annual guidelines and priorities being subject to a management procedure while Council would examine projects over EUR 2 million under an advisory procedure.
Duration of the regulation: in order to avoid conciliation, the Commission's position is not to support Amendment No 12, which places an unlimited duration on the regulations.
In our view the seven-year duration proposed by Council represents an acceptable compromise.
Bank guarantees: the Commission does not support Amendment No 8 concerning bank guarantees for reasons outlined earlier.
We are against special provisions being made in specific budget lines as this goes against our common objective, namely, to simplify and unify administrative procedures.
Furthermore, following a Commission decision in 1999, we consider that the issue has been largely resolved.
Concerning the other amendments, our position is as follows.
The Commission welcomes and supports Amendments Nos 7 and 10.
Amendment No 4 is considered acceptable.
We do not support Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 6 as we consider that the concepts have been taken into account elsewhere in the regulation following the first reading.
Hence, in the interest of clear and concise legislation, we would prefer that these amendments be dropped.
Amendment No 1 is not supported as in our opinion it brings little added value.
Given the Council's negative position on this amendment, the Commission would favour it also being dropped.
Finally, we do not support Amendment No 5 as the term 'serious doubts' is considered to be too subjective, making it very difficult to implement the regulation.
Furthermore, the objective of this amendment, namely, to avoid projects with negative social, cultural or economic or environmental effects, is addressed in Article 4 (5) on impact assessments.
Thank you, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Ship-generated waste and cargo residues
Now, Mr Jarzembowski, is the great moment!
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0043/2000) by Mr Bouwman, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council directive on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are debating a directive which is extremely - I repeat extremely - rigorous.
We have been discussing the Erika disaster here for the past couple of weeks.
A whole ream of new measures on double hulls, inspection, the inspection of inspectorates, etc are being conceived in the short term.
Disasters of this kind account for no more than 3% of oil pollution at sea.
Normal shipping operations account for double this amount.
Not only that.
If we consider our beaches, for example in the Netherlands - but also in other countries - 49% of the rubbish washed up on the shore comes directly from the sea.
Only 15% is due to tourism and a large proportion is even unaccountable for, although that, of course, must originate from somewhere.
In short, this directive is essential because the economic damage is significant and because the quality of the habitats for birds, fish, etc., which is so vital, is deteriorating.
In other words, this affects our own habitat.
I do not need to say any more concerning the motives underlying this directive.
I will only have positive things to say to the Commission about the quality of the directive.
There was nonetheless a whole raft of amendments at first reading which has been completely endorsed by Parliament.
I believe there were eighteen in total, a large proportion of which have been adopted, with a number of less important ones having been rejected.
These will re-emerge in some shape or form.
I would mainly like to home in on one very important point.
We all share the view throughout the Union that something needs to be done when the seas are polluted.
I would once again refer to the Erika, but there are also other examples.
We are also agreed that the polluter-pays principle must apply.
The present report contains an amendment which states that the full range of cost recovery systems should not be admitted within the European Union because some cost recovery systems for port reception facilities do not do justice to what is needed to keep our environment clean.
There is no financial incentive.
Let me illustrate this quite clearly.
In the southern Member States, to all intents and purposes, a direct costing principle applies, which means that the polluters who deliver their waste to port do pay whereas the polluters who do not deliver their waste to port, still pollute but do not pay.
Northern countries apply a system in which this financial element is handled in a different way.
Everyone pays, whether they dump their waste in the sea or dispose of it elsewhere.
In addition, there is some kind of financial incentive that contributes in some way or other to ensuring that this waste is disposed of.
Experience and scientific research has shown that this seems to work.
This is one of the reasons why Parliament is tenacious on this point. The Commission, too, on whose behalf I am talking, persists in applying a percentage of indirect costs which must be included in the port dues.
This is, in fact, what we are opting for.
If the percentage is 90%, so be it.
It could also be 75%, but there should at least be a minimum level, which should be quite inflexible.
Otherwise we will fall back into a variety of systems and it will be years - in a manner of speaking - before we learn from the lesson we have actually already been taught.
I would therefore like to assure everyone that this is why it is sensible to opt for a system in which indirect costs are somehow absorbed in port dues.
If you read the Commission' s proposal, a country could fall to 0.01% of indirect costs if it so wishes.
I fear that this will be opted for in practice.
This will also be the key point of discussion for the foreseeable future.
There is a whole raft of other factors involved and we have reached agreement on a great many of them.
I do believe that somehow we will make it.
But this is the crux of the matter and I wanted to draw everyone' s attention to it.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to stress that we had a good debate at the two readings.
May I thank the rapporteur, Mr Bouwman, very much for taking on this dossier and for elucidating it so well.
We are after all at one with the Council on three points.
Firstly, proper port reception facilities for ship-generated waste have to be constructed at every European port unless it already has them.
They must therefore be provided.
Secondly, all ships, regardless of the flag they fly, have to dispose of their waste.
Thirdly, the costs must be borne by the ship.
We agree on these points.
In fact, together we want to put a system in place so as to avoid there being financial incentives to dump waste into the sea.
Firstly, we wish to protect flora and fauna and secondly, there are a large number of coastlines along which, on the one hand, tourists enjoy themselves and on the other jobs are to be created.
That means that we want to have an effective system.
So where do we differ from the Council, apart from on minor details such as the fact that we wish to exempt museum ships from the bureaucratic rules and that we are a little stricter where large fishing vessels and recreational craft are concerned? The really decisive difference is the issue of how the disposal costs are charged to the ship.
Mr Bouwman has, of course, already explained this.
There are two precedents. The first is in the Baltic Sea area, and this is not the experience of an individual state but the experience of the entire Baltic Sea area, and it says that if a large proportion of the disposal costs is covered by the general port dues then there is obviously no incentive to dispose of the ship-generated waste at sea.
Surely if people have already paid the disposal costs then they will actually dispose of the waste in port.
The other system is the pure polluter-pays principle: anyone who lands ship-generated waste has to pay extra for doing so.
This second system has proved to be ineffective, otherwise why would the Mediterranean Sea be so dirty? Why would the North Sea be so dirty?
Because for lack of adequate controls the polluter-pays principle does not work! That is why a broad majority of the committee - not a large majority; the representatives of the minority view will be speaking shortly - said, as Parliament as a whole did in the first reading, without any dispute, that the 'no-special-fee' system was the best system because it, as it were, offers ships a financial incentive not to dump their muck into the water when they are at sea but to dispose of it in proper port reception facilities.
That is the decisive issue.
We are prepared to reach an agreement with the Council.
But so far the Council has rejected any serious agreement with us.
That is why I call on the House to support our amendment whereby a significant proportion - up to 90% - of the costs have to be covered by the general port dues.
This would give us the opportunity to reach an agreement with the Council in the conciliation procedure, whether it be on 75% or whatever.
That is also why I would make the following request of the Commission: Madam Vice-President, think carefully about which side you stand on!
I believe that in the interests of protecting the environment and of a permanently thriving tourist industry in many countries of our Community it is better to have an effective system.
For these reasons support our 'no-special-fee' system.
Perhaps then we will reach a reasonable compromise with the Council in the conciliation procedure.
Mr President, I am pleased that you are the one chairing this debate because I know that as a Bavarian you always offer a sympathetic ear where ports and maritime matters are concerned, and I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bouwman, for the work which he has done and also for cooperating with us in the run-up to tomorrow's vote.
There are a few points at stake tomorrow.
Firstly, we know that the ship is the most environmentally friendly mode of transport for carrying passengers and goods.
At the same time we know that ships make a hefty contribution to polluting the sea with rubbish, cargo residues and oily slime.
The fuel used by ships happens to be heavy oil and we know that this heavy oil leaves a residue of between 1% and 3% as oily slime, which is typically discharged into the sea.
I think that we agree that ships have to dispose of waste and residues in port.
It follows - and in fact there is no other logical conclusion - that the cardinal rule for clean seas is that it must no longer be worthwhile for waste to be disposed of illegally on the high seas.
This is what this is about, and a majority of us have said as much in debates here.
In January we had a very thorough debate with you, Commissioner, on the consequences of the Erika disaster.
On this occasion we once again drew together all the points on ship safety and clean seas.
And this directive on port reception facilities for cargo residues is, of course, also about the question of how to make our seas cleaner.
Just for information, we know that 70 000 m3 of detritus is illegally discharged into the North Sea alone every year and, conversely, we know that at present a maximum of 5% to 10% of ships obey the rules and dispose of their waste in port.
This scandal is not acceptable in the eyes of the Council either.
The Council is after all also saying that all ports must have appropriate port reception facilities available and must be equipped with them.
The conflict now is ultimately over the issue of how payments will be made. In its first reading, Parliament said by a large majority that the ships must make a significant contribution, of at least 90%.
And therein lies the difference with the Council, which is saying that a contribution has to be made.
But a contribution might also only mean half a euro and in this case God knows this would be too little.
Nothing would change.
There would be no financial pressure on ships to obey the rules.
What is needed is a standard waste disposal fee for all ships irrespective of how much they actually use the disposal facilities, meaning that the financial incentive to dispose of waste at sea has to be removed, which - as has already been explained here today - was possible in the Baltic Sea through the HELCOM Agreement and the 'no-special-fee' system.
If it can be done there it must also be possible for it to work for the remaining European seas, because this is not only about the environment: it is about clean waters, it even has consequences for tourism and - the decisive point - alongside the environmental issue it is also about fair competition.
The same conditions must apply to all ships in port and only if Parliament, the Council and the Commission create these conditions together will this fair competition be restored for ports and ships.
I think that this is also about the credibility of the Union and, in particular, Parliament.
I think that people are tired of seeing the hypocrisy of Europe and of ministers each time that there is a catastrophe, as we saw of course with 'Erika' .
Oil comes onto the beaches and then politicians and ministers appear and try to clear it up themselves with a tiny little bucket, but when a fortnight later a robust directive is up for debate they have forgotten yesterday's fine words.
We will not be able to rule out accidents altogether, but we can take optimal precautions.
This consistent directive is an important step towards doing this.
I also hope that our liberal colleagues will perhaps reconsider before tomorrow whether they might not - including for reasons of parliamentary identity - join us once again as they did in the first and also in the second reading, because we will then be going into the conciliation procedure anyway and there we will have to see how much ground the Council can give.
I believe - for environmental and competition reasons as well as on the basis of the decisions made two months ago, in January - that we should adopt these amendments tomorrow, in the form in which we debated them in the committee, with a broad majority.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, congratulations on your report.
You have said so yourself just now: we desperately need this directive.
It is a sound directive.
Ports must be equipped with reception facilities.
Inspection is on its way, at long last.
Member States must also impose sanctions when these rules are broken.
This is very important.
This is good for the environment.
Investments are already being made, in anticipation of the directive. For example, in Antwerp, very near to where I live, a huge installation is being built which was not there before.
As such, this directive is already coming into effect in a sense.
There is one point, as already highlighted by Mr Jarzembowski, where we do not see eye to eye.
How do we charge the fees? We are all agreed on the polluter pays principle.
But should he pay an automatic full amount or a huge amount in port dues, or do we opt for a flexible arrangement, as is being proposed by the Council. Where is the best financial incentive, to use your words?
I have sounded out a number of people on this subject.
The opinions are divided.
Habits, apparently, are also divided. In fact, ports in one and the same region apply different standards and percentages.
There are also ports which change percentages at the last minute, if I may say so.
I believe that as such, it is probably better if we in Parliament do not pin ourselves down on a fixed percentage.
A flexible system under these conditions, as you said so yourself, should make up a substantial part of the costs.
0.01 is clearly not a substantial part.
It should also have an encouraging effect, as a flexible part is left open for people who operate on an environmentally-friendly basis, provided that the Commission keeps a close eye on this whole process and checks whether the system works.
If the objectives of the directive cannot be achieved, we would expect the Commission to intervene, act, suggest changes and ensure that the system does work.
Fellow MEPs, we must rescue this directive and keep it come what may.
I hope that we will not jeopardise the entire directive on account of a too principled stance on one point.
Mr President, it is not so long ago that many held the view that waste would disappear if you dumped it in the sea or shot it into space.
These days, we know that waste has a habit of reappearing, often in a more harmful form.
Large-scale pollution of the sea and the destruction of the animal life caused by shipwrecked tankers always attracts a great deal of attention.
Far less attention is given to the fact that seas are polluted on a daily basis by regular merchant navy ships and recreational yachts.
It is high time that we laid down a comprehensive regulation which is easy to monitor and which ensures that shipping waste is collected and processed at ports in an environmentally-friendly manner.
We can benefit from practical experience gained in ports such as my home town, Rotterdam.
The question is, of course, raised as to whether rules can have an adverse effect on smaller vessels.
Historic museum ships and ships which, proportionately, call at many ports over a short distance have to pay more often as a result.
I am under the impression that the rapporteur has sought the best possible solution and has listened carefully to the comments.
Other solutions would probably have a less favourable effect on environmental protection, and my group can assent to this report on that basis.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I too should like to thank Mr Bouwman for his efforts to broker a consensus of opinion within the committee.
No absolute consensus was found but that' s politics for you.
Regardless of how matters stand or what the final version of the report will be, and whatever the agreement reached between the Council and Parliament, it is bound to be an improvement on the previous situation.
Waste management facilities are to be built in ports and I believe this directive will definitely help considerably in limiting marine pollution.
It is now evident, particularly from this debate, that there is a bone of contention here.
There are clearly two systems: one in the North Sea, the 'no special fee' system, and the system in operation in all other ports, whereby ships are charged according to their use of port facilities.
I can understand my fellow Members' concern that many unscrupulous masters will discharge waste at sea in order to avoid paying fees, but I would like to say that there is another side to the coin.
The other side to the coin is that ports in Member States in the Mediterranean area, such as my own country, Greece, will face particularly stiff competition from ports in neighbouring non-EU countries as, of course, nothing will prevent masters of ships sailing through the Mediterranean from docking at Turkish or North-African ports so as to avoid paying the objectively high fees which are to apply in Community ports, irrespective of use of facilities.
I would like to say that we have made some progress here.
Let us hold on to the progress which we have made with this directive, namely the provision for a charging system based on certain objective criteria.
I do not think that forcing the systems to converge, aside from problems with the principle of subsidiarity, will achieve the results we are hoping for, because there will always be ways of getting around the system, ways which are harmful to the environment.
Mr President, every day five million items of solid waste are thrown overboard from ships.
This rubbish drifts across the seas and ends up on beaches, severely damaging the environment and marine life.
As a result one million birds and a hundred thousand marine mammals and sea turtles are killed each year.
The MARPOL Convention aims to prevent pollution from ships but legislation is clearly necessary to ensure the convention is enforced.
That is why this directive is so important and why tonight I am pleased to welcome the progress that has been made in Council to reach a common position which will force ships to dispose of their waste at port reception facilities.
I also commend the work of the rapporteur, whose commitment reflects the strength of feeling within our committee to tackling this particular problem and a strong desire amongst parliamentarians of all parties to call a halt to this environmentally disastrous practice.
I particularly welcome his strong support for the proposal that, in the interests of improving pollution prevention and avoiding distortions of competition, the environmental requirements should apply to all ships irrespective of the flag they fly and adequate waste reception facilities be made available in all ports throughout the Community.
An area where British Labour Members take issue with the rapporteur is the way in which the polluter-pays principle is to be applied.
The principle is one we strongly support but we believe it can be more effectively enforced if Member States retain the power to establish their own charging systems appropriate to their own circumstances.
For example, in the UK the system by which a ship pays the waste collector each time it uses waste facilities, without the port getting involved, works well.
It is based on a consensus which has been forged by all the players, including the ports and environmental groups like RSPB and the World Wildlife Fund.
However, we share the rapporteur's concern that different charging systems should not lead to greater risk of maritime pollution.
That is why we back the Council proposal to strengthen the review clause to ensure the impact of the directive is monitored regularly.
Mr President, anyone who has witnessed the environmental consequences of the Erika disaster cannot reasonably vote against a report, the aim of which is to ensure that ship-generated waste oil is taken care of.
This is an extraordinarily important report.
It should be emphasised, in this context, that it is not mainly legislation that is missing.
All EU countries have signed the so-called MARPOL Convention, and the Baltic countries have also signed the Helsinki Convention.
The aim of both is to prevent discharges into the sea. It is a question, rather, of increasing access to port reception facilities and of creating the motivation also to use these.
The Baltic is affected every year by a great many oil spills of greatly varying sizes. In Swedish waters alone, there are hundreds of these each year.
The Baltic is also more vulnerable from an environmental point of view than many other seas.
It is in this perspective that, with today' s decision, we are seeing the beginnings of a solution to which, in the very end, all the countries around the Baltic will contribute, including the applicant States of Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
This is, as I see it, a sphere in which we have everything to gain by cooperating across national borders.
We can never in a million years solve Europe' s environmental problems alone.
Finally, a word in the ear of those who, for financial reasons, are still hesitant: think what the alternative cost of cleaning up our seas would be.
There will come a time when we shall be able to meet imperatives of this kind.
We shall then be grateful if we have done everything in our power to prevent oil spills.
Mr President, I would like to state briefly that I do not believe that anyone doubts the need for a directive to tackle this problem, which is a serious problem not only for Europe, but for all seas world-wide, and that urgent and effective measures are therefore necessary.
I would like to make it clear that there is a series of principles which are universal, and with which we are therefore in complete agreement.
First, every port must be equipped with the necessary facilities for the treatment of waste.
Secondly, polluters must pay, naturally.
I agree that there may be discrepancies in exceptions regarding the type of ship or devices for measuring the length of ships.
However, what cannot happen is a battle leading to a distortion in competition between the different ports, where we find ourselves with a series of theoretically environmental measures on the protection of the coast or the sea, leading to a distortion in competition between the different ports.
It is therefore on this issue that effective measures must be adopted because, if we are unable to adopt a suitable solution, then this directive will end in outright failure.
And the only outcome will be that some ports are advantaged and others disadvantaged, all due to fine words on the environment leading to a competitive war between ports.
The logical solution, for example, would be to establish the principle of a single tariff for all European ports, a tariff that is exactly the same, that would not give rise to any type of distortion in competition, or similar measures.
Any decision that, for example, enables the Member States to grant subsidies to the different ports, would end up distorting competition and would ultimately be ineffective.
Mr President, I share your love of the sea, and your love of diving and sailing, and I sincerely believe that all those present are concerned about how we can guarantee clean seas for current and future generations.
I believe that the work we are discussing today is a great step forward.
In this respect, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Bouwman, and the whole of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism for their painstaking work throughout the discussion and throughout the negotiation of this initiative.
As you know, the Commission is extremely concerned about marine pollution.
I hope that I will shortly be able to provide you with a preliminary package of measures with the aim of monitoring the safety of oil tankers more effectively, measures that I hope we will be able to go on with, specifically making the most of the dramatic sinking of the Erika, a dramatic event which could mean that on this occasion we are able to overcome certain very specific interests that will undoubtedly be affected by the measures I shall be proposing in the near future.
However, while it is certain that accidents lead to tremendous problems and disasters, the reality is that most spillages result, not from accidents, but simply from the regular cleaning out of the holds of certain ships, which is obviously a totally reprehensible act.
In this respect, I believe that the legislation intended by this directive covers various aspects relating to the delivery of waste to ports.
It obliges all Community ports to be equipped with appropriate reception facilities for waste, and to guarantee the planning of their management, which will be supervised by the authorities of the Member States.
Furthermore, it obliges ships to deliver all ship-generated waste to the port, except where the ship has a sufficient storage capacity to enable it to arrive at the next stage, the next port.
It also obliges ships to notify the port that they are going to deliver waste prior to their arrival in the port, and to pay the cost of the reception facilities.
And this is where the problem lies.
As various speakers have already pointed out, this is where the positions of Parliament and the Commission differ fundamentally.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to ask that in this matter, also taking into account the fact that the Commission is going to support Amendment No 16 by Mr Sterckx - I will refer to the rest of the amendments later - you accept the initial draft.
It is true that we are not specifying what percentage will have to be paid by the ships arriving at the port.
It is true that we are leaving a margin of flexibility for the Member States, but it is also certain that, theoretically, 0.01, although it is a contribution, is not necessarily a significant contribution.
Perhaps we could incorporate the word "significant" into the text instead of setting a fixed percentage.
I would suggest a solution of this type, incorporating Amendment No 16 by Mr Sterckx, which means that there is a revision process which enables us, if necessary, to introduce a fixed percentage if we see that the Member States are not making any progress with regard to this distribution and that this excess of flexibility makes this directive ineffective.
But I would try, first of all, to take this step forward, making the position more flexible with the possibility of revising it.
Apart from this, I would like to state that we consider the suggestions being made to be very positive and that, therefore, we could incorporate into the text of the directive, with some rewording that would enable coherence with current Community and international texts to be guaranteed, as well as coherence with the rest of the directive, amendments such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.
That is, we are talking about practically all of the amendments and, in fact, the one we cannot accept - and I regret it, but I have already explained the reasons - is Amendment No 6.
I could go on, but the two reasons have already been stated.
We are all working towards the same goal.
The only difference of opinion is over how best to achieve this goal.
I would ask for support for a more positive position, supplemented - I insist - with Amendment No 16 by Mr Sterckx, which would provide us with the necessary guarantees.
In this respect, I would suggest that, instead of "by a percentage", the word "significant" could be incorporated if necessary, to make it obvious that we are not talking about 1% or 5% or 10%, but about a substantial figure.
Many thanks, Mr President.
I would like to reiterate my appreciation to the rapporteur and the rest of the Committee.
Thank you, Madam Vice-President.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Technical roadside inspection of commercial vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0040/2000) by Mr Piecyk, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the Community.
Mr President, Commissioner, there comes a time when you have to - what a shame, she is not listening when people speak, that is not good!
A good Commissioner should listen!
Can that be deducted from the time?
Commissioner, I actually wanted to address a minor comment to you, which applies both to this report and to the preceding one.
There comes a time when you have to come to a decision, because post-Amsterdam the conciliation procedure is the great good.
Parliament is obviously always pleased when the Commission fights at Parliament's side as its partner and does not necessarily rush obediently to the Council's cause.
I do not believe that this is necessary here.
I wanted actually to relate this comment to the report before us.
The President has read out a very laborious title.
Mr President, with your permission I will simply talk about lorry inspections; that would be understood both in Regensburg and in Lübeck, and perhaps the Commission might also perhaps manage to use somewhat shorter titles.
I think that we simply cannot do enough for road traffic safety.
There is a consensus on that.
This directive on lorry inspections should quite simply make a contribution to this.
We are seeing a slight fall in the number of those killed and injured on the roads.
Nevertheless - and regrettably - where the accidents involve lorries the numbers of those both killed and injured are rising.
The causes are often precisely technical defects.
We must not sit back and accept this.
After all, a lorry does around 150 000 kilometres a year.
This is an inconceivably high number compared with a private car.
When it is under a strain of this kind, maximum technical roadworthiness is required in the interests of road safety, environmental protection and not least equitable competition.
Because a fleet of lorries in a poor state of technical repair should certainly not have a competitive advantage, and conversely no haulier should be punished if he keeps his lorries in optimal technical condition.
Now Europeans are obviously not so well behaved that they can manage without checks.
This directive tries to cater for this problem by introducing a graduated inspection procedure until the vehicle is taken out of service.
There has been a high measure of agreement between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, apart from on one problem and that is penalties.
In its common position, the Council makes no mention of any arrangements.
This is obviously nonsense because if I am going to carry out inspections there have to be penalties which I can use as a threat in borderline cases.
Then the Council said - and these might not be its exact words - that the penalties would be directed at the Member States.
No, penalties should be directed at hauliers, lorry-owners and drivers.
That is why - as discussed in the committee - I have now tabled an amendment to Amendment No 2 which contains no reference to the concept of 'harmonisation' .
I have done this in the knowledge that the Council is going some way to accommodate us and that we in turn can also then accommodate the Council, because this directive, in my view, is a logical step forwards.
Nevertheless - and the Council has to be aware of this - it is of course sensible that the Member States should have to reach an agreement, sooner or later, amongst themselves in the Council about these controls and the penalties threatened, because it would be ridiculous if for example offences carried almost a prison sentence in Finland and only a small fine in a southern country, or vice versa.
That would not make any sense. Neither is it very European.
That is why, on the procedure, I should like to say once more that Amendment No 3 replaces Amendment No 2 which was adopted by the committee.
It ought therefore to be put to the vote first tomorrow.
If the Bureau, which will be chairing the vote tomorrow, could be informed of this I would be very grateful.
Then we would not have any procedural problems with this.
So, put Amendment No 3 to the vote first.
It would then replace Amendment No 2.
This is what was discussed in the committee, and then we could have this system very quickly and not work towards a costly conciliation procedure for the sake of a solution which is in principle sensible.
Mr President, everything has been said.
Allow me simply to offer the Vice-President a helping hand so that she might support Amendment No 3 - which replaces No 2 - after all.
In this room there are sometimes Members who say that of course it is sensible to standardise the vehicle inspections in terms of how rigorous and how comprehensive they are.
But when it comes to penalties and the word 'harmonisation' a good many people in this room give a start - on the left and on the right of this House, both those higher up and those lower down.
That is why I think that this Amendment No 3 which Mr Piecyk has drafted as rapporteur is excellent.
He has completely avoided the word 'harmonisation' .
But he has said what this is all about.
He has said that it cannot be right, if a commercial vehicle, a bus carrying passengers, is used when it does not comply with safety regulations - constituting danger to life and limb - for this to be regarded as a minor offence in one country while it meets with severe punishment in another.
Given the danger to the passengers and also other drivers this would, however, be necessary.
That is why this is not about the question of whether we are in favour of subsidiarity or centralism.
It is about the fact that it is unacceptable for us to have the common aim of road safety, but for some governments to say: well, from the point of view of penalties we regard road safety offences as being on a par with disobeying a sign to keep off the grass, while others give it the correct weighting.
The first principle, Madam Vice-President, is for us all to attach the same degree of importance to the need to improve road safety.
The second argument is that there must be no distortions of competition in the Community.
There are definitely examples of lorries from another Member State being subjected to particularly stringent controls, having tough penalties imposed, being detained, and so on in one country while in another country the authorities could not care less. This lies at the heart of the difference between Parliament's views and the common position.
We certainly believe that where the penalties - which will remain within national competence - are concerned, the Member States ought to try to reach an agreement by asking themselves the following questions: what degree of importance do I attach to danger caused by road traffic? And how am I to ensure that there is fair competition within the Community in an internal market?
That is why, Madam Vice-President, after a certain party's election victory in a large federal state you would make my evening complete if you were to say: we can accept the rapporteur's Amendment No 3!
Could I begin by thanking the rapporteur for his work on this very important dossier, and by congratulating the Commissioner and the Commission for bringing forward this proposal.
We are all very aware that one of the priorities of the Portuguese Presidency, quite rightly, is to tackle the scandalous position regarding road safety in the European Union.
I know they are familiar figures, but 43 000 citizens are killed each and every year.
That is the equivalent to a medium-sized town being wiped off the face of the earth every year.
We therefore welcome this initiative as a means of at least trying to ensure the heavy goods vehicles are as safe as is possible and comply with Community legislation.
Lorry traffic on EU roads is growing both in numbers and in size and we think there are three reasons why this proposal is so important.
Firstly, the safety argument that we have already heard about.
Secondly, the fair competition argument that my colleague Mr Jarzembowski has already referred to - the need to create a level playing field throughout the Community.
Thirdly, there are also the environmental benefits - the possibility of ensuring quieter and less polluting vehicles.
There is clearly a need for EU-wide random checks, and the UK - my own Member State - has already been applying such a system with very positive results.
This proposal will inevitably be bad news for cowboy operators, but as well as being bad news for them, it is going to be good news for all other road users, particularly the vast majority of lorry drivers, owners and operators who are conscientious about the quality, safety and environmental standards of their vehicles.
I welcome this initiative and I hope it can be put into effect as soon as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, reforming the directive on annual inspections of commercial vehicles is both urgent and vital.
The rapporteur has adopted a perfectly good position in this issue, in the final analysis.
Drivers of commercial vehicles run up thousands of kilometres every year, and the roadworthiness of the vehicles cannot be monitored adequately by means of mere annual inspections.
Roadside spot checks are also necessary because heavy goods vehicles from non-member countries often enter the area of the Union in bad condition, presenting a serious risk to safety.
The newly reviewed directive will do a lot to improve road safety if its provisions are complied with properly and penalties can be imposed for breaches, penalties that are effective, along the right lines and which will serve as a warning.
The directive will be more efficacious if the Member States can negotiate a harmonised system of penalties.
This should not, however, slow down the prompt implementation of the directive.
Justification for the prompt reform of the directive is provided by something that happened recently in Finland.
The police and the vehicle inspection authorities were conducting a spot check of sixty-two heavy goods vehicles in eastern Finland recently.
The drivers of thirty-three of them received fines, and sixteen received a warning.
Three vehicles were prohibited from continuing their journey.
Only thirteen were in fully acceptable condition.
A considerable number of the vehicles in bad condition were from non-member countries.
The worst case was a Polish truck with no brakes in the drawing vehicle, a poorly secured load, and a trailer whose brakes were badly leaking.
Everyone can imagine what sort of safety hazard such a lorry would be on roads covered in snow and ice.
Our group supports Amendment No 3 and hopes the new version of the directive will come into force promptly.
Mr President, Commissioners, many complimentary phrases have been used to describe this directive and I would like to thank Mr Piecyk, but because some developments are of an interim nature, I would like to add a few comments.
After the directive was discussed in the Commission, I recently asked the Commissioner about non-EU drivers driving within the EU and making use of the way people, drivers, in particular, are inspected during the technical inspections of cars.
What is happening in effect is the following: drivers who do not have an employment permit in an EU Member State and who do not have a work contract in the third country benefit from the situation in that they drive a car which is registered in a particular country and which subsequently passes all inspections without a hitch, but do so outside the country where they are registered and where they carry out their activities.
It is precisely in those countries that employment permits and work contracts are not checked up on.
In other words, I would like to argue against directly including this option in the directive, but I would at any rate recommend further exploration of this option as a secondary matter in order to find a solution to this problem.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, safety on our roads is of great concern to us all.
Given the ever increasing volume of traffic on Europe's roads I am at pains to emphasise the need for vehicles to meet the highest possible technical roadworthiness standards, but also the need to take environmental aspects into account.
Although - and I should like to say this most emphatically - it is also necessary, if the directive is not only to pay lip service to these ideals, for it to be applied by the Member States and invested with appropriate penalties.
The best directive will be ineffective in everyday life if it does not provide any penalties for non-compliance or violations.
I therefore support the amendments providing for guilty parties to be punished, because the operation of motor vehicles, which in principle presents a risk and entails a potential danger to people, must be supervised properly and with the necessary care and expertise.
In any case we must prevent this from being dealt with thoughtlessly, precisely because this is about a directive which provides for rules not only for heavy goods vehicles but also for commercial vehicles carrying people.
Time and again we are all severely shaken when there are major accidents which are due purely to technical defects.
Because of this I am glad that the report is not actually controversial and that Parliament is once again proving to be the driving force in the debate about traffic safety on Europe's roads.
My particular thanks go to all those who work with such dedication in this field in the committee, in the Commission and in the Council.
Mr President, Commissioner de Palacio, the purpose of the proposal the Commission made in 1998 is to replace the directive concerning annual inspections of commercial vehicles.
The motion proposes the introduction of spot checks, as vehicles have to be deemed roadworthy between tests too.
These spot tests may be carried out at the roadside, at ports and harbours or where trucks are parked.
This is, then, a matter of improving road safety in the EU, which is vital.
The damage caused by lorries in traffic accidents is, more often than not, considerable and the state of vehicles is very patchy in different parts of Europe, so pan-European legislation and strict compliance with it will be of benefit to each and every person on the road.
A major cause of concern in the European Union area is the poor state of the trucks coming from Eastern Europe. They need to be dealt with strictly.
Being from East Karelia, I know that even if they had one light and the wheel brakes on one side working, it would be something.
The Council' s common position will improve road safety considerably, and the directive should enter into force as soon as possible.
In establishing penal systems, however, it is important to realise that penalties must on no account be targeted at the Member State, but the driver or company involved.
Enlightenment is a good thing, but, unfortunately, only proper penalties have an effect on hypocrites.
Road safety is a serious matter.
I recall a tragic accident in Helsinki a few weeks ago in which a wheel that had come off a lorry killed a small child.
We can never assume too much responsibility when it comes to human life.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, and the corresponding parliamentary committee for the work carried out.
It is certain that the rapporteur is entirely correct in saying that the title is very long.
The simplest thing is to talk about the inspection of lorries, which is what we are really discussing, and perhaps we should all think about not only putting the technical title in some of our regulations, but also, in brackets, the colloquial title or one that is more readily comprehensible to our citizens, a matter which I shall transmit to the services and which we shall consider with a view to the future.
However, on the subject of the proposal, it clearly concerns the roadside inspection of commercial vehicles, both passenger and goods vehicles, with the aim of increasing safety and protecting the environment with regard to road transport within the Community.
It is undoubtedly intended to create a structure for the quality of maintenance of commercial vehicles in circulation in the Community, and would discourage operators and managers who try to achieve a competitive advantage by using vehicles in an inadequate state of repair.
The proposal requires that the Member States supplement the annual technical inspection by carrying out spot checks in proportion to the fleet of commercial vehicles in circulation annually on their roads.
These inspections may be carried out by the roadside, in ports and in other places where vehicles park, or, as is more frequent in the case of public service vehicles, on the operator's premises.
In fact, several States already apply this type of inspection, the so-called 'roadside inspections' , in the manner laid down in the directive, that is, in a somewhat unexpected manner.
This may in fact be the best way to effectively monitor the state of the vehicles in circulation on our roads.
I would like to say that the Commission is aware that Parliament is concerned that this proposal might lead to discrimination against certain transport contractors, or lorries from certain countries or even certain makes of vehicle, and that the intention of the principal recommendation of the rapporteur is for the fines imposed on operators by the Member States to be harmonised as a condition of application of the directive.
We share this concern, but we consider that Amendment No 2 is too drastic and, in this respect, we would support Amendment No 3 which encompasses the spirit we are all aiming for, and which, at the same time, offers the necessary flexibility.
We also accept Amendment No 1, and I would like to refer to what Mr Bouwman said.
In fact, we are tremendously concerned by the fact that vehicles are being driven in the Union by drivers from third countries, and in particular from candidate countries, who do not have work contracts that conform to Community standards, or the standards of any Community country, but simply obey the standards of these third countries, which are often candidates for accession, or sometimes do not even conform to these standards as the corresponding inspections are not carried out by the said third countries.
I have therefore written to all the Ministers for Transport of the fifteen countries of the Union to instigate a discussion on the subject, and also to ask for a report on what the situation is in their countries regarding this type of case, and what positive suggestions they can submit so that we can find a solution to this problem, which concerns us greatly, and which could have negative consequences for road safety, which has to be our main concern, and for fair competition, which is also important to us at the Commission.
To this end, I hope that we can deal with these matters at the next Transport Council at the end of this month, as well as, as Mr Watts has said, all aspects of road safety in general since the Portuguese Presidency proposes this as one of the key matters of its Presidency.
On the basis that great progress has been made in the past few years, I believe that a great deal still remains to be done, as the death of 42 000 - 43 000 European citizens on the roads is too high a figure and there is still an effort to be made.
But I would like to say that, with regard to the problem of drivers from third countries, I hope that before the end of the month we shall have a response, and we shall, in any case, handle this within the Council.
And, in response to some questions or initiatives, I shall be able to reply here in Parliament, either during the plenary session or in committee, and, if not, I hope in any case that we shall shortly be able to make a concrete proposal that enables us, truly and effectively, to combat this type of abuse.
Once again, I would like to reiterate my appreciation of the quality of work carried out, not only by the rapporteur, but by the committee as a whole.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Closing of the session
I declare the 1999-2000 session closed.
(The sitting was closed at 10.41 p.m.)
Opening of the session
I declare resumed the 2000-2001 session of the European Parliament.
Agenda
Mr President, the second item on this morning' s agenda is the recommendation for second reading on cocoa and chocolate products, for which I am the rapporteur.
Quite by accident I learnt yesterday, at 8.30 p.m., that the vote was to take place at noon today.
It was however initially scheduled, I thought, for noon tomorrow.
I have therefore been caught completely off guard by this, and have not even had the chance to draw up the lists of votes and to see whether there are any roll-calls or not.
You know as well as I do that this matter is quite controversial and well reported in the media.
I have been a Member of this Parliament for ten years and I have always been given notice, in my capacity as rapporteur, of any changes to the order of voting.
I should prefer for this vote to be held tomorrow. It would suit me, personally, and I do not think anyone would have any objection, since it is a relatively brief vote.
Mr President, we do not have anything against postponing the vote.
However, I insist on the other scheduled votes, particularly those on the Lisbon Summit, going ahead tomorrow.
We have nothing against postponement, with this proviso.
The competent services have informed me that tomorrow' s list of subjects will be rather lengthy.
Mr President, like Mr Lannoye, late last night I too was faced with the fact that the vote on my report at second reading is planned for 12.00 p.m.
The groups have emphatically asked me to urge you not to let the vote take place at 12.00 p.m. but tomorrow instead, as they have not had the chance to apply for split and roll-call votes.
After all, it came as a complete surprise that the vote was planned for 12.00 p.m.
I would therefore ask, also on behalf of many others, to postpone the vote until tomorrow.
Mr Blokland, the officials of the competent services have informed me that your report will automatically be put to the vote tomorrow.
I now ask the House whether it agrees to postpone the vote on the Lannoye report until tomorrow.
If we are all in agreement, that is what the arrangement will be.
Annual legislative programme (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the European Commission' s annual legislative programme for the year 2000.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the year 2000 must and will be a decisive year for Europe.
In our debate on the five-year plan, we established that this year would mark the dawn of the "decade of Europe" , and it will therefore be a decisive year for the Commission.
The explanation of the five-year plan provided us with the general reference framework and we have already set out the Commission' s Work Programme for the five-year term.
In fact, within the space of the month which has passed since that debate, we have already started to take practical steps and have set off along the long road to enlargement to include the various applicant countries.
This is a huge, wide-reaching, extremely important operation, and I would like to stress to the House that the Commission has put a great deal of work into it.
There has been acknowledgement of my strong commitment to enlargement from various quarters, but the Commission' s commitment to allaying the fears of public opinion regarding this project has also been recognised.
I would like to stress before the House that this is a solemn, important undertaking, which is not intended to put back enlargement, but to make enlargement possible in genuine, realistic, tangible terms.
If we do not do this, we will reach a point where enlargement is no longer possible, whereas it is the current Commission' s main task for its five-year term of office.
We have started to implement the five-year plan with regard to the other two points to which we had committed ourselves as well: the modernisation of the Commission and preparation for the Intergovernmental Conference.
Today, we are taking a different, more analytical approach to the debate, and the criticisms which were levelled at me during the last debate, which was only a general debate, were justified, as the five-year plan was too general.
Today, you have before you an analytical, very comprehensive document, which is how the five-year plan should be.
It is a specific plan of action, an extremely detailed document, which indicates the competent service, procedures, date of adoption, type of instrument and type of paper for each of the Commission' s initiatives, and the legal basis proposed for it.
It outlines all the stages necessary for these decisions to become reality.
Of course, and I am not saying this because I am here, in the presence of Parliament, but because it seems particularly important, we have placed particular emphasis on Parliament' s responsibilities in the codecision procedure.
We have published the whole of this plan on the Internet, not to follow the trend - which is not a trend, but a major cultural development - but in order to make the plan available to all the citizens, so that they are able to hold it in their hands and use it as reference.
Nowadays, there are no secret or private plans. This is a plan which can be used as a benchmark.
Let us now look at the major points of this plan.
The underlying intention is to provide answers to the specific problems of the citizens.
This is an annual programme, and it therefore needs to be detailed. We have touched on all the major points, including the environment, health, energy, transport and consumer protection, in addition to the major issue of justice.
Let us ponder this last point for a moment.
Basically, the European citizens want justice in order to be able to live their daily lives in safety.
I took this into consideration when I was talking about enlargement, because it is really very important for us to be aware of the overall picture.
The Commission will put forward practical security proposals for increased coordination between Europe' s police forces and for a common action to fight crime, because we have major problems to deal with, including some new ones. There are fresh racial tensions, minority issues and basic problems of peaceful coexistence, and we must safeguard this coexistence, protect and regulate it.
Therefore, this year, we are going to develop efficient measures governing emigration and the right to asylum.
We will present tangible proposals on these matters during the course of this year.
The line we are taking is very clear.
We must combine openness, tolerance and hospitality with security and we will therefore also propose measures to increase the mutual recognition of civil and commercial law judgements.
The area of justice is essential if the internal market is to function properly.
Without an area of justice, the internal market is merely theoretical and not a fully functional instrument.
We will submit a scoreboard in order to take stock of our progress in this and other fields, a bona fide chart showing the results we have achieved as well as the problem areas. We were requested to implement such a system in Tampere and undertook to do so, and the Common Area of Justice is therefore one of the fundamental objectives.
The environment is one of the most serious issues we have to deal with: every year, fresh problems arise which almost outweigh our successes.
Our task is tantamount to a labour of Sisyphus.
We must make every possible effort, because if we do not salvage our environmental policy and do so dramatically, it will be almost impossible to make up the lost ground. We have adopted a White Paper on environmental liability containing the strategy for achieving the goals set in Kyoto on the reduction of emissions; we must now work on the general legal framework for the environment as a whole and on the legal framework governing genetically modified organisms.
We must also present an overall framework and a strategy for the European chemical industry, or our endeavours will indeed be fruitless.
Another area which I would like to mention as an example of the detailed nature of our plan, is an issue which is very closely related to the environment: fisheries and the exploitation of natural resources.
We must set up a programme for reducing the number of fishing boats, as there is no longer a balance between catches and natural breeding.
We must re-establish this balance and protect the environment, while, at the same time, we have a binding obligation towards those whose livelihood depends on fishing, and they are concentrated in some of the least industrialised areas in Europe. We will also make every effort to conclude the agreement with Morocco, and we will have to simplify European fisheries legislation, as the existence of 20 or so different regulations is creating disorder and does not ensure that that balance which we were discussing is maintained.
Our point of reference for the environment is the 2002 Rio +10 Conference, which will take place ten years after the Rio Conference, and at this conference we must have tangible results to present.
Energy is a particularly important topic at this time, as I feel that Europe must increasingly make itself heard on matters of energy. After enlargement, we will be the largest consumers of energy in the world.
We therefore undertake to present a document on the different energy sources, intended to safeguard resources.
With regard to transport, we are committed to creating a single European Airspace.
Vice-President Loyola de Palacio is making tangible progress in this area, and the framework will be complete in a few months' time. There is also the matter of the safety of maritime, as well as air transport, which is related to the issue of the environment and is of primary importance.
The last point covers consumer rights and health.
The priority in terms of consumer rights is the safety of products and services.
The citizens need clearer legislation in order to be protected against such dangers as misleading advertising.
In this field the citizens do have the absolute right to be made completely aware of all the aspects of the product they are buying.
We have prepared a health strategy, and we are going to adopt an action plan on health which will, of course, be related to the food safety programme which we discussed a short while ago. 2000 is the year which will see the completion of the proposal for the European Food Agency: we have already seen the White Paper and the autumn will bring the law which will implement this latest initiative.
To this must be added other proposals on animal welfare which are currently being drawn up and which has featured prominently in the debates which have taken place over recent months.
These are the lines of reasoning behind the annual legislative programme.
They differ from the reference framework of the five-year plan in that they are very detailed and tangible.
I could, of course, give other examples in other areas, but the underlying features are a precise agenda, timeframes and responsible action.
This is, so to speak, our daily turnover, the delivery of the products we have promised to the European citizens.
In fact, these matters are of close relevance to all of our lives, and this is why Parliament' s role is absolutely crucial.
Your role is to bridge the great divide between the institutions and the European citizens, and we must work together in order to be able to give the citizens quick, clear, tangible answers. The other day, we closed the debate with the statement that the measure of our success will be the number of European citizens who vote in the next European elections.
I feel that the tangible measures I have touched on today are building up the citizens' confidence in their government and fostering our relationship with them.
Thank you for your cooperation thus far. I invite you to double your efforts so that we can provide the tangible solutions which everyone expects from us.
Mr President, my Group would like to welcome the annual legislative programme.
However, we have some concerns about the process.
I came to this procedure as a relatively new Member of this House. It was with some incredulity that I found myself faced with these various draft resolutions from each of the groups, all of them very much resembling shopping lists of differing lengths and ingredients.
Indeed, to carry the metaphor further and using the English usage, if we were going to make a meal from these it would be rather long and rather indigestible.
I understand that it has been the normal tradition to obediently produce these lists.
Now, I am not particularly radical or revolutionary, but it seemed to my colleagues that this process lacked something, especially at a time when we are trying to reconnect Europe with its citizens, when we want them to be clear about what we are doing here.
There has been much talk about concentrating on core tasks and of achieving better quality of European legislation rather than more quantity.
All this sits rather uneasily with endless lists.
With this in mind, we produced a one-page resolution highlighting key areas.
However, this has not reached the compromise resolution, so we wish now to put down a clear marker for the future about how this process should be conducted.
We should like to suggest that, since this is a very important process and moment in our legislative cycle, and to enable the Commission and Parliament to approach it in a constructive way, the annual state of the Union address could be combined with a resolution from Parliament on key political priorities and then go to the committees for more detailed debate.
This would get away from the shopping-list approach and give more political focus.
It would allow Parliament to participate fully in the process, not just by swapping shopping lists with you.
It is because we want to give more purpose and prominence to this procedure that the ELDR intends not to sign the current eight-page list - not because we object to the contents, but because we think this is in danger of becoming an annual ritual performance without substance and real meaning.
What we would like to do is catch the imagination of Europe's citizens.
Mr President, I shall not repeat the general criticism we expressed during the previous sitting of Parliament regarding the orientations of the European Commission' s work.
The programme submitted to us for this year is generous, to say the least.
It contains some positive elements and some less positive elements.
I should like to draw attention to one area that I feel is rather deficient, the area of social policy.
This would not be too serious if significant progress had been made during the five previous years, but this is not the case.
Indeed, in terms of social policy, the Commission and Parliament have the opportunity to promote many things.
According to the terms of Chapter I of Title 11 of the Treaty, in particular, I am thinking specifically of problems to do with working conditions and improving the working environment.
Regarding, in particular, the health and safety of workers, we are now governed by the terms of a directive dating from 1989.
In my opinion and in the opinion of my Group, this directive is due for re-evaluation, particularly in the light of a significant study published in 1997 by the Dublin Foundation.
This shows a general decline in working conditions in a number of important sectors. This needs looking into and I would like to see the Commission investigate the matter thoroughly and assess what needs to be amended in this directive in order to improve the situation.
I shall not go into these in depth. I would now like to take a few moments to examine the process itself, in connection with the legislative programme, i.e. the tabling of the programme and the execution of the programme.
In this respect, I should like to make two firm requests on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance. I should have liked to present these as demands from Parliament but it is enough, today, for them to be firm requests.
Firstly, when a European Parliament resolution has been adopted, particularly within the framework of a Parliament initiative, it would seem to me to be democratic for the Commission to follow up this type of request properly within a reasonable time period.
For example, in the environmental field, we have a White Paper on civil liability in environmental matters.
This is an important step forwards, but let me remind you all the same that this White Paper is the follow-up to a Parliament resolution adopted in 1994, that is to say, six years ago.
And after the White Paper we shall probably have to wait a long time before we have the directive.
This shows just how slow the procedure is and, in order to give reasons for this slowness, I feel it would be important to have an interim report.
My second point: when a legislative proposal is announced within the legislative programme and is not achieved by the end of the current year, then we should know the reasons why.
Let me give one example of this.
Today, a proposal for a directive on electrical and electronic waste has been announced.
This proposal has already been put forward several times, but has never been tabled.
We know that this is due to pressure from the American Government which is threatening to start proceedings within the WTO, but it would be appropriate, fair and democratic if the Commission were to explain to us just what was going on behind the scenes and why it is dragging its feet before tabling this directive.
President Prodi, allow me to express my apprehension and alarm at the line taken in the Work Programme for 2000, a year which you described as a decisive year, and not only because of the lack of genuinely innovative proposals contained therein.
No, what gives real cause for concern is the semi-ideological approach of this Work Programme, its self-subordinating, unquestioning adoption of the American model, that introverted, robotic model of development which disturbs the sleep even of insiders such as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan.
This programme is devoid of any autonomous vision of the Europe of today and tomorrow, making no contrast between the two, and it is impervious, if not blind, to elements which are reawakening the conscience of many of your European colleagues: seminal events such as those in Seattle, which you are appear to be determined to see repeated at all costs, or the repeated arrogant vetoes imposed by Executive Board on the candidates for the Managing Directorship of the International Monetary Fund, which have collapsed only in the past few hours under European pressure for the appointment of Mr Horst Köhler.
Faced with the American steamroller, you commit yourself to doing your utmost to subdue and eliminate transatlantic disputes, in the name of a hypothetical partnership between the global superpower and a Europe afflicted with lack of vision, purposefully induced by incessant lobbying from quarters such as the RT.
I do not have time to dwell on the other elusive, moderate - too moderate - features of your programme: the environment, health, justice, transport, security, the reckless enlargement of the Union which provoked criticism from your predecessor, Jacques Delors, the development of the on-line economy, which is one of the many universal remedies for unemployment, and the protection of citizen consumers rather than consumer citizens.
President Prodi, a friendly word of advice.
We live in 'the best of all possible worlds' : threatening clouds of stars and stripes are filling the skies of Europe.
In the words of Charles de Gaulle to General Leclerc, when he had just liberated this beautiful city of Strasbourg: Mr Prodi, préparez votre défense, c'est la défense de l'Europe.
Mr President, I welcome the broad thrust of the proposals published by the Commission in its annual legislative programme for the year 2000.
The most important issues that will be addressed this year will be the reform of the EU decision-making procedures, so that the enlargement process can take place in a streamlined and structured manner.
I support the enlargement of the Union, but such a process cannot take place until key EU institutions, including the Commission, the Council, and of course Parliament, reform their internal decision-making operations.
As a Member of the Parliament from the constituency of Connaught Ulster in Ireland, a peripheral part of this Union, I strongly believe in real and tangible representation for smaller Member States within the EU structures.
At present, the five larger Member States have two posts within the European Commission and there is one each for the smaller Member States.
Whatever the reform, it is vitally important that smaller Member States retain their right to nominate a Member of the Commission.
Undoubtedly, the European Council, representing the fifteen governments, will have to reform its structures.
From an Irish perspective, I strongly believe that Member State governments must have a veto over tax changes at EU level.
No changes at present can be agreed at EU level concerning tax policies without the unanimous support of all EU Member States.
I believe this is an important right, which should be left in the domain of national Member States.
In my own country, the tax regime is quite innovative in many ways.
The tax burden on middle and lower income workers has been steadily reduced, while sensible tax breaks have been given to encourage business enterprises.
This cannot be said of many of the other Member States.
Any proposal to give the European Council the power of qualified majority voting on justice and home affairs would be, I believe, very unwise.
In conclusion, can I say that I am very pleased that the President has, this morning, referred to fisheries.
He said he believes it is lagging behind - that real progress must be made in the year 2002, because fisheries are established in areas where there is no alternative source of employment.
Of course we want to ensure by the year 2002 that the countries that suffered most when the common fisheries policy was put in place in 1983 will in future receive a fair and equitable share of the resources.
In conclusion, can I say that on a broader level it is important that the European Union, as an economic entity, does not fall behind in the global search for e-commerce opportunities.
The Commission must support educational and training programmes, to ensure that business structures take account of the opportunities which can be secured from the Internet and e-commerce in general.
An information technology revolution is certainly upon us. We cannot be passengers when these changes take place.
We must be leaders of our business communities and of our educational institutions, so that information technology initiatives are incorporated into all key social and economic sectors of our society.
Mr President, Mr Prodi' s Commission will not last for five years because people will not, in the longer term, put up with detailed regulation from Brussels.
It is perhaps difficult to know who is going to provide the salutary shock, and when.
That is often the case with historical new departures.
Coincidences play their part and minor matters can suddenly loom large because small things come to symbolise what is fundamental.
The fundamental paradox is that the Union identifies itself as being more and more democratic, at the same time as democracy is being quite systematically cut back in our countries.
One day, the voters will echo the remark of the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen' s tale, 'The Emperor' s New Clothes' , 'Yes, but he is not wearing anything' . Last month, Mr Prodi talked of a radical decentralisation of the Union' s activities.
In contrast, the five-year plan involves radical centralisation, through which responsibility for new legislative areas - of which there are many - will pass from the national and regional parliaments of the Member States to Mr Prodi' s Commission in Brussels, with legislation being adopted on the basis of 62 out of 87 votes in the Council.
It is Orwellian to a T. Under the heading of 'decentralisation' , centralisation is taking place.
Under the heading of 'democracy' , democracy is being dismantled.
Under the heading of 'greater transparency' , the Commission is proposing an arrangement through which documents that are at present available for public inspection will be locked away.
When he took up office, Mr Prodi solemnly promised - before our Group and here in the House - a completely new approach to transparency.
We were to be able to have access to any document, once the Commission had given it to others.
The elected representatives of the people would no longer be the last to be informed.
We should no longer have to sit in the committee rooms looking at the students from the Permanent Representations, in possession of documents to which we ourselves have no access.
We should no longer have to tolerate a situation in which the employers in the European Union or the farming industry' s COPA can consult documents which we ourselves cannot obtain.
It is fundamental to a democracy that the executive should serve the electorate and the electorate' s representatives.
In the EU, the legislature has been transferred to the executive.
The elected representatives of the people are awarded monopolies on power, while fundamental documents from the decision-making process are kept secret.
At the Conference of the Presidents, we decided to summon the ombudsman and Mr Prodi to a discussion concerning transparency.
I hope that Mr Prodi will say: 'I am sorry, I was not aware that my officials were doing the opposite of what I had promised.
I stand by my words. Here is my signature to the transparency that was promised' .
Thank you, if there is, in fact, anything to say thank-you for.
Mr President, dismayed as I am by the fact that 14 Member States have prejudged Austria, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission to extend its ambitious programme on account of the unfair treatment Austria has been subjected to.
I would particularly like to thank Mr Poettering for what he had to say in this connection.
In the run-up to the Intergovernmental Conference, special emphasis is being placed on the European Union' s ability to function, which is in every sense pre-requisite to the success of the European unification process.
However, in refusing to talk - albeit only bilaterally - and thereby causing a breakdown in communication, the 14 EU partner States are putting this self-same "ability to function" at great risk.
The Commission must not stand idly by in a situation of this kind.
It has a duty to see to it that the solidarity enshrined in the Treaties is upheld.
With this in mind, I would ask you, President Prodi, to get personally involved in setting up a crisis meeting between the Heads of Government of Austria and the 14 EU partner States, so as to bring about détente and normalisation of relations.
In acknowledgement of my responsibility as a parliamentarian, I myself sent a letter to this effect to all the Heads of Government yesterday.
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, for his work programme.
I concur with the remarks made that there should be more focus, but also that it should be better tailored to the five-year plan.
It seems as if we are talking about two different documents.
The first chapter of the work programme is entitled: "Europe, its neighbours and the world" and rightly so.
I have permission to quote one of the first sentences from this chapter: "the Union must be active on the regional and world stage."
But in order to be able to play this role, it is vital to develop a practical form of cooperation between the Council' s High Representative, Mr Solana, the Commission and the European Parliament in order to strengthen democratic control and democratic accountability.
In our opinion, it is also essential that the Commission' s role be reinforced in the field of foreign policy.
We want to project a much stronger, united front as far as this European foreign policy is concerned.
But the instruments involved are also an important factor.
They help in the analysis of non-military crises and help us to act on them quickly.
If we look at Mozambique, for example, how long have we had to wait before real action could be taken?
This is about very concrete issues, such as transport capacity.
To this end, we need swifter coordination within the European Union.
Take the enormous cattle losses Mongolia has suffered.
We know that there are funds available in TACIS and ECHO within the European Union.
But why are we not helping out? This is because there are too many bureaucratic hurdles.
The EU' s overseas dealings will need to be better tuned to our need for a stronger, future European foreign policy.
In short, operational implementation is central.
Relations with Russia are of vital importance.
We find ourselves in a situation in which we cannot afford to fall behind the Council of Europe, which has levelled criticism at Russia concerning its Chechnya policy. It is extremely depressing to note that freedom of press is still not guaranteed in Russia.
We had invited the journalist, Mr Babitsky, to visit us next Thursday, but this was vetoed by the Russian authorities. I hope that the European Commission too, will protest in the strongest terms to the Russian authorities.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, when a parliament discusses legislative priorities then everything becomes a priority.
As far as I am concerned, the top priorities are: employment - and, consequently, economic growth - and quality of life - and therefore environmental protection, food safety and consumer rights.
I should now like to make a few comments on economic and social matters.
One of the Commission' s initiatives, which deserves a high priority, is the e-Europe initiative.
Yesterday we discussed the Lisbon Summit for the economic and social revival of Europe.
Shared objectives for growth in order to enable us to move towards full employment are something I have hoped and prayed for.
Full employment does not mean the total absence of any form of unemployment.
There will always be some cyclical unemployment, with workers looking to change jobs, young people entering the labour market.
But full employment will be restored when there are no longer any long-term unemployed and when every young person is offered at least one training course within at least six months of entering the job market.
It is possible if we invest to a greater extent in what Mr Guterres yesterday called 'human capital' , i.e. basic education plus, most importantly, lifelong training.
In this context, the e-Europe initiative comes at just the right moment.
In future, the computer-related content of jobs is going to be increasingly marked, but we have a lack of workers qualified in this area, as do the United States.
That is why the American Senate has made available a quota of almost 500 000 visas for a period of four years, reserved for highly qualified immigrant workers.
What we should be doing is educating our own intelligent young people and keeping them in Europe.
A Commission document has just shown that half of the young people who pursue postgraduate studies in the United States go on to stay there.
In order to keep our brainpower, to attract the best brains and to train them further, we must make massive investments in research and development.
The only two European countries who invest a greater share of their GDP in research and development than the United States, i.e. Finland and Sweden, are also the only two European countries who are able to compete on equal terms with the Americans in terms of communication technologies. Surely this provides the rest of Europe with an example to be followed?
In Lisbon, should we not establish a sort of technological convergence criterion requiring Member States, for example, within a five year period, to move towards a rate of expenditure on research and development equivalent to at least 2.5% of their GDP? This is still less than the level currently attained by the United States?
In this connection, I should also like to applaud Commissioner Philippe Busquin' s initiative to create a European research area.
Improved living conditions, employment and the quality of employment will continue to be intimately linked to our ability to make European research more dynamic.
Along the same lines, a proper European patent, the development of venture capital and support for young businesses are also of crucial importance.
Last night President Prodi reiterated my expression regarding Europe' s lack of future prospects.
I am afraid that he misunderstood what I meant to say: I did not accuse the Portuguese Presidency or the Commission of lacking insight, but I did stress the fear of the future experienced by many of our fellow citizens in this radically changing world.
We all know that we are living through a paradigm shift with the advent of the information society and the development society.
But, in a world where 1.5 billion people are still living without electricity, providing every citizen in the world with access to the Internet society is not going to be achieved in the immediate future.
The most significant challenge for the human race is to avoid the separation between information-rich countries and information-poor countries, to prevent the advent of societies where, in the felicitous phrase coined by my friend, Claude Desama, the digital divide will be the new social divide.
The annual legislative programme is the most concrete manifestation of the European Commission's key constitutional and political power, namely the exclusive right of initiative.
Such power must at all times be rigorously justified and clearly explained.
Yet this year's work programme, as in all previous years, does not provide detailed justification for each of the multitude of new measures proposed.
A 15-page general summary does not exactly do justice to the 500 initiatives cited in the annex.
In future, the ELDR will therefore insist that there is clear justification for, and specialised parliamentary debate on, all measures announced in the work programme.
In particular, we will be looking for evidence that each new proposal has been properly tested against the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and we will be looking for sector-specific debates in the European Parliament's own specialised committees.
In other words, it is now high time for a comprehensive overhaul of the somewhat antiquated way in which this crucial programming document is developed and debated in future.
Mr President, I would like to thank the President of the Commission for giving us two speeches within the space of 24 hours.
Last night he clearly pointed out that we have the prospect of a successful European economy ahead of us for the next two or three years and quite clearly, if we have unexpectedly higher-than-normal growth, then that will help us in the endeavours of this annual legislative programme.
The Commission President's speech this morning raises three concerns in my mind.
The first relates to subsidiarity, where we feel strongly in our group, as the Liberals have just said, that we need to have a test for every single proposal put forward to show that it is in the European interest.
Subsidiarity must be seen to apply: it must be clear that we are not legislating where it is not necessary to do so.
The second concern relates to budgets.
Given the higher growth rate than was predicted in the financial perspectives, which are based on 2.5% growth, we can see our way forward to taking slightly different measures on budgets than we would otherwise have done.
On behalf of my group I would like to caution the Commission not to go ahead at this stage with shifting agricultural expenditure from category 1 to category 4.
In Britain in particular we have a farming industry which is in desperate straits and wants to see some assistance given to certain sectors of agriculture: shifting money for agriculture from one part of the budget to another at this stage would be to give them a wrong message.
Lastly, a word of caution about the question of information.
This is what bedevilled the relationship between our Parliament and the previous Commission: the fact that we, under the Treaties, have access and the right of access to all information in principle.
It looks as if we are running into difficulties with our framework agreement.
I therefore stress that, if we want to have the Commission and Parliament working together, we have to be able to come up with a solution to this problem as soon as possible and not to have limitations on documents which are available to citizens.
As Mr Bonde rightly pointed out, we should have a European Union where there is a free flow of information from the bureaucracy to all our citizens.
Mr President of the Commission, when you entered upon your duties, you said that the Commission would be characterised by openness. A lot of other people have also said that here today.
But what is the situation now?
Why are the Commission' s press conferences no longer being broadcast directly via satellite television so that everyone in all parts of Europe can follow what is happening? I hope that Mr Prodi is listening.
Regarding your letter to Mrs Fontaine about the ombudsman, Mr Prodi, do you consider that the ombudsman is bound by any principle of loyal cooperation between the institutions? Where, in that case, do you find a legal basis for this view, and do you believe that such a principle can suppress the ombudsman' s right to express himself freely in the press?
I also want to provide the following piece of information about your letter to the Wall Street Journal, in which you refer to a seminar in April on openness as proof that the regulation concerned has been prepared openly. That seminar was, in fact, organised by the European Federation of Journalists and by MEPs Lööw, Thors, Hautala and others, but the proposal which was discussed there had nothing to do with the current proposal, which has been prepared very much in secret.
The main question, however, is that of whether the principle of loyal cooperation should take precedence over the right to express oneself.
Where is the basis for a principle in accordance with which you could suppress this right and make such demands upon the ombudsman?
Mr President, the report you have presented is ambitious and complex, and I will only touch on a few points.
One: I cannot be other than content with your decision to start focusing on the Mediterranean, both because of the contribution to the Middle East peace process and because it will salvage and strengthen the historical and political ties which unite the countries of Southern Europe.
We consider that, with the implementation of the geo-political processes, the Mediterranean border is just important as eastward enlargement, which both Parliament and the Commission are working on.
Two: the internal market.
Working in the European Parliament, we can see that harmonisation of the existing legislation on civil law is essential.
In all probability, we ought to start work in the field of administrative law as well.
Moreover, every day, we become more aware of the need for a common legal system coordinating the different legal systems of the Member States.
Three: the preparatory documents. I can only add my voice to the requests to limit the use of preparatory documents, which are presented several times by several different people in the European Parliament.
Despite the fact that they do, on the whole, make for a more in-depth debate, green papers, white papers and statements also have complex, problematic side-effects, as, more often than not, they prolong legislative action in matters in which timing is absolutely essential.
Lastly: the Commission' s Work Programme seems to overlook two sectors which are in need of particular attention from the European institutions, especially in the light of the developments constantly taking place in e-commerce.
I feel that the Commission should submit proposals on the out-of-court settlement of disputes over on-line contracts and on amendments to the Directive on distance contracts, in order to provide increasingly effective consumer protection.
Mr President, with regard to fishing, I am not going to go into the details of the Commission' s legislative proposals.
However, I would like to hear a clear commitment from the Commission that it will seek a solution for the speedy transposition into Community law of the recommendations of the regional and international fishing organisations.
Mr President, in the last plenary part-session, regarding the Gallagher report on the recommendations of the ICCAT on bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, we had the opportunity to debate this issue of Commission delays, which are becoming a very serious problem. Although these recommendations will become binding on a particular date, their absence in Community legislation means that the fleet is not complying with the measures and may lead to the initiation of infringement proceedings against the European Union.
Delays in transposition are an endemic problem in the Commission.
For example, we have been waiting since 1996 for the incorporation into Community legislation of the ban on landings from Honduras and Belize, or, for example, since 1998 for the control of the fishing capacity for albacore tuna in Community waters.
The Commission is always accusing Member States of not transposing its decisions and directives into their national legislation, while it is doing exactly the same thing on an international level.
It is clear that the proposal presented by the Commission on the communication on the reform of international organisations, with a view to speeding up the process, tries to separate the legislative processes both of Parliament and of the Council.
From the point of view of this institution, there are serious doubts as to whether this is the best way to resolve this problem.
I hope that President Prodi will now commit himself to resolving this problem once and for all, and that, in any event, Parliament will always be connected with the legislative procedure for incorporating the recommendations of international fishing organisations into Community legislation.
Mr President, yesterday, after the intervention of the President-in-Office of the Council, which had painted an optimistic picture of Community development, the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, took the precaution of pointing out that the economic development we are experiencing presented the enormous difficulty that it was accompanied by an increase in the social marginalisation suffered by the European Community.
Mr Schulz has just referred to this phenomenon, speaking on behalf of the Socialists, because we are currently running the risk that, as a consequence of the liberalisation of the Community economy within the framework of the globalisation of the world economy, we may see a situation of greater social differences and the disappearance of the European social model, which we are so proud of.
Mr President, the previous Commission worked under the motto "do less in order to do better" , as opposed to the supposedly active approach of the Delors Commission.
As we know, it is a question of quality rather than quantity, which was also mentioned by both Mr Schulz and Mr Swoboda, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group.
The question is in which direction this Commission is heading.
I hope that this Prodi Commission is not one which does less in order to do it better, but rather one which does what has to be done.
While the Delors Commission took us from the Single European Act to the Union Treaty and an extensive enlargement of the European Community, I hope that the Prodi Commission will be the Commission of a social Europe, the Commission which ensures that economic development does not go hand in hand with social discrimination, but rather with social progress.
To this end, I hope that the Commission will bear in mind the points of view being expressed in the European Parliament.
As the President of the Commission knows, the current Union Treaty provides for a sort of relationship between the European Parliament and the Commission, whereby, although responsibility for legislative initiative lies with the Commission, it must take account of the positions of Parliament in drawing up legislation.
In this respect, I would like to refer to the codification of Community law.
At the moment, Community law is an impenetrable jungle, absolutely incomprehensible to the citizens of the Community, including those whose profession involves the exercise of the law.
Until now, Community law has developed on the basis of a form of casuistry similar to that of the medieval legislators, and we therefore lack any kind of system, specifically with regard to civil law, competition and the protection of consumers and intellectual property.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to remind you of a text which is mentioned in the Commission communication.
It is point 2(3) on the statute of the outermost regions, which is to be implemented by the Commission.
Today the Commission is to speak of the first document in this field, and I hope that, in doing so, it will take account of the requirements of these outermost regions of the Community.
Mr President, the President of the Commission will not be surprised if I speak to him about the internal market.
So as not to repeat what has already been said, in particular what has been said by Mr Fiori, who I agree with, I will refer to another central point of the debate, i.e. the reform of the Commission.
What has the reform of the Commission to do with the internal market? The answer is a lot.
Mr President of the Commission, on reading your White Paper on the reform of the Commission, it is clearly apparent that the guiding principle, the philosophy behind this reform, is something very vague which we cannot accept in this Parliament.
This guiding principle is mainly the protection of the Community' s financial interests.
That is clearly of concern to all of us, but it is only a starting point.
From there on, the Commission must begin to work, and must fulfil its obligations in accordance with the Treaty.
Allow me to give you an example, since the speaking time allotted to me does not give me much opportunity to expand on this idea.
Let us consider the intended reform of the infringement procedure. What is the intention there?
It is simply to administrate the existing resources on each level, instead of hearing this Parliament' s demand that we should create a genuine administrative procedural law for ensuring legal certainty, which is necessary from the point of view of the European citizen, that is to say, from the point of view of the people who may have recourse to this infringement procedure.
It is simply said that this administrative procedural law will not be created, but rather demands will be selected.
How can this be? How can these things be selected in a purely arbitrary way.
From the point of view of this Parliament, this type of arrangement cannot be allowed. We understand that the Commission has to be reformed.
We agree with the objectives of this reform.
However, it should not lead to the abandonment of the great momentum of European construction, for the sake of protecting the Community' s financial interests, however important we may all agree that that is. The Treaty obliges the Commission, primarily, to provide that momentum.
Thank you, Mr Prodi, for your presentation and your documentation.
Congratulations on using the Internet for the general public - a very good idea.
I will start with trade.
We agree with you that we need a rules-based trading system.
It is essential.
Seattle failed because the United States, in particular, appeared unable to grasp the legitimacy of policies such as environmental protection, the preservation of rural communities through the common agricultural policy, animal welfare, health concerns and social rights.
It displayed incredible insensitivity to the legitimate concerns of the developing world and, frankly, the developing world has little so far to thank the WTO for.
We expect the European Union to continue negotiations, maintaining our strong positions on all these issues and using our links with countries in the developing world to ensure that the next round is a fair round.
Please, can we have detailed proposals in the next three months about how this will happen.
Innovation and knowledge - very appropriate for a new century.
How much innovation has taken place in the Commission, or indeed in the Parliament may I say? We had a White Paper on innovation some years ago - what has happened since?
One thing I would like to say very strongly is that we are very concerned in follow-up, not simply in excellent communications, which we welcome, but in follow-up, follow-up, follow-up!!!!
We have under way the Fifth Research Framework Programme - what has happened to what was learned in the Fourth? What is the dissemination for the new ideas, the new products, the new comparisons of socio-economic systems?
Follow-up again, please.
We welcome incidentally the formation of a European research area which you and Commissioner Busquin have put forward.
This is an excellent way in which to begin the century.
I welcome the forthcoming communication on enterprise, but I hope that past work will also be looked at before we go ahead with more.
I will now use a tremendous cliché truism - 'our greatest resource in the European Union is our people'.
Is it not shameful that large Member States like my own and Germany cannot supply the number of people skilled in information technology?
Is it not disgraceful that they are having to attract people from countries where those skills are needed? It is a disgrace and I hope that you will take it up when you look at legislation.
A further shocking waste of resources, Commissioner, is that women in technical, scientific and information technology fields are squandering their skills.
I hope there will be a follow-up to the Science White Paper.
Mr President, the internal reform of the Commission has begun.
We welcome that!
This is not the first attempt to turn the Commission into a world-class public service, but we, Mr Prodi, wish to believe in the sincerity and resolve of your promise to this House.
For the moment we have a series of measures and a White Paper.
You are examining it with the members of the Council and with the civil service unions and finally, this Parliament will offer its support and will cooperate with you in this great objective of making the European Commission the best administration in the world.
Go for it!
However, I would like to point out one fault in the document. It lacks an analysis of the reasons for the failure of the previous system, and Mr Kinnock should have carried it out because he is an expert in the field, having worked in the Commission for five years.
For example, there previously were punitive measures or measures for assessing the merits of the civil servants, but, Mr Prodi, they were not used.
The officials responsible, including the Commissioners, did not make use of these measures, of these recourses which existed before.
Now that we are establishing new measures, how do we know they will be used? Only you know the answer to this secret.
The lack of motivation amongst excellent civil servants is serious.
We must take action and the example should come from above.
The reform of the Commission, Mr Prodi, should not only protect the financial interests of the Community.
Far more resources are lost through an ineffective and unmotivated administration.
Furthermore, we also have to accept that officials who take responsibility and risks may make mistakes.
You said in your speech that you prefer to make mistakes rather than fail to act.
Go for it, Mr Prodi.
Your task must be an historic task.
You are not the first to try it.
We hope that you succeed.
Mr President, it is interesting that Mr Prodi has presented today a work programme; however, our agenda says that we are having a debate on a legislative programme.
Looking at it from the point of view of social and employment policy we certainly do not have a legislative programme before us.
In fact we have not had a legislative programme for several years now.
What we have had instead is a process of consolidation and the development of certain convergence processes such as that developed and launched at Luxembourg.
We welcome the Luxembourg procedure.
We hope it will be deepened, strengthened and extended to other areas such as convergence in social protection.
But does that mean that we have done the job in terms of legislation in the social area? I think not.
There are a number of areas where we need to update and modernise the social legislation we have adopted in the past.
With the deepening and strengthening of the internal market and globalisation we are seeing an increasing number of mergers, take-overs and transfers within the European Union.
That, to me, says that we need to look back at the whole framework of legislation we developed largely in the 1970s in this area - on transfers, collective redundancies, insolvency, and latterly on works councils.
We need to modernise and strengthen that legislation, not in order to stop globalisation or the deepening of the internal market - of course not - but in order to make sure that we manage the changes these things bring, through a spirit of partnership in all of our workplaces, large and small, within the European Union.
That means that we need to pursue with vigour the general framework on information and consultation at work.
In the health and safety field as well, there is a need to update and modernise the legislation we adopted in the past: the pregnant women at work directive, five years overdue for review; the noise directive of 1986, ten years overdue for review; a number of directives that need to be radically updated and modernised.
But is it just about updating? No.
We do not need any new great raft of social legislation, but there are areas that have not been addressed.
We have outstanding promises for legislation on homeworking, on teleworking; we have the yawning gap of social security in atypical work that has been outstanding for almost a decade now; we have the promise of a specific directive on muscular-skeletal injuries outstanding from the last medium-term Social Action Programme.
There are other areas.
I had a woman come to see me recently, called Mrs Angela Elliot Mathis, working for Lucent Technologies.
She was head-hunted into the company at a very high level to work as a senior manager and a board member.
She had worked in a range of European countries for high technology companies.
Thirteen months into the job she was dismissed without notice and without reason.
She still has no reason for the dismissal.
The remarkable thing is that she has no protection in either Belgian law - she was working in Belgium - or European law.
Without that sort of protection people will not take the opportunity to live, move and work wherever they can within the European Union.
These are the gaps we need to plug.
Let us do it in the new medium-term Social Action Programme.
Mr President, I want to highlight the areas of the work programme which affect directly the work of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
With regard to regional policy, my group would like to see the Commission ensure the full application of the partnership principle at all levels of programming of the Structural Funds.
We, along with other groups in this Parliament, are still waiting for the Commission to present a proposal laying down the practical arrangements for the implementation of the code of conduct that would facilitate cooperation and proper scrutiny.
When, Mr President, will the Commission go further on spatial planning and submit new proposals to develop the decision taken at the informal Council meetings, notably at Potsdam and Tampere?
Regarding transport and tourism, I and my group welcome the proposals reinforcing transport safety although we need more concrete proposals on road safety and in particular, the issue of blood-alcohol levels and speed limits.
I also welcome the ongoing commitment to the Galileo project and the review of the TENs strategy, especially with its highlight on the railway sector, a sector which we believe to be very important indeed.
However, I have to say to you that my group deplores the fact that several dossiers at this moment are blocked in Council.
We also want progress on both the working time directive and the slot allocation at airport directive, as well as measures to end the misery in air traffic control delays in Europe at this moment.
We are also concerned, President Prodi, at the lack of proposals concerning the tourism sector, a sector in which so many of our citizens work.
I regret that transport issues do not appear to have been taken seriously into account in the enlargement chapter and would encourage the Commission to present proposals to ensure better coordination between structural actions and instruments and the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
I also want to insist that Parliament' s views and wishes on postal services, often stated in this chamber, are taken fully into account in any new proposals.
Whilst I am grateful to Mr Prodi for outlining the Commission' s work programme this morning, I have to say that in the areas of regional policy, transport and tourism, the programme is more notable for what is missing than for what is in it, and I would hope that over the next year we could put those matters right.
Mr President, I should like to address the Commission in order to express my wish that the year 2000 should enable us to make progress in the general direction of coherence, particularly in the field of agriculture.
The fact is, if the European Union intends to fight for alternative rules for international trade, if it is to defend the European farm model, then it must acknowledge that there is still a lot to be done in order to put its political decisions into practice.
In the banana case, for example, we have not so far been able to reconcile the interests of our producers, those in the ACP countries, with the demands of the WTO. Why not?
Quite simply because the WTO, according to the Marrakech model, does not permit this, or permits it only with extreme difficulty.
So why, after so often declaring that the WTO must incorporate social and environmental regulatory mechanisms, and that the European Union intends to guarantee advantages for LDCs, does the Commission still adhere exclusively to the prospect of market liberalisation in this sector?
Since Seattle has challenged the inadequacies of existing WTO agreements, I would argue strenuously in favour of the Union handling this issue in accordance with the rules which we intend to see predominate in international trade.
I would make the same call for coherence in another area, the management of the pigmeat crisis.
You will be aware that, as a result of this crisis, which has now lasted for more than two years, many independent producers find that they have been relegated to being mere casual workers for firms or other large-scale producers.
This is a situation which runs totally counter to our European farm model which is based on a multiplicity of diversified and multifunctional family farms.
Here too, Mr Prodi, I would like to sound the alarm, and I would call upon the Commission to put forward new measures which are properly suited to managing this type of crisis, in addition, obviously, to what you are already proposing, i.e. a solidarity fund.
My final point concerns the preparation of the budget for 2001.
Admittedly, the budget lines for agriculture may be examined in order to reflect the need to show solidarity with the Balkans. This is true.
We should, however, pay attention to meeting the commitments made in Berlin regarding the CAP and, more especially, to retaining adequate safety margins in order, in particular, to confront the crises which are damaging the fabric of agricultural and rural life.
Can I take this opportunity to welcome the programme in the context of the five-year strategic plan.
I particularly wanted to congratulate President Prodi on emphasising the issue of governance in the overall planning process.
The Economist last week was rather scathing about the importance that was attached to this issue, but we have a huge challenge ahead in attacking the institutional architecture that we need to create for the 21st century - an architecture that has to be commensurate with our responsibilities and our position in the world.
The outbursts in Seattle and Davos for instance were not just about the issues - they were very much about a populace and a citizenry trying to engage with a new set of institutions and being not quite sure of how to do so.
Therefore, opening up the invisible cities of decision-making in Europe to the citizenry is absolutely vital.
Can I welcome the annual programme in particular because there was one omission from the five-year plan.
That was the whole area of education, youth and culture which did not make an appearance at all.
The volume of programmes dedicated to this in the annual programme lends a suitable importance to those areas because they can provide us with the solid basis that we will need in order to be able to face the challenges we are now presented with.
In moulding a greater Europe we have a significant challenge, but mobility in Europe - student mobility for instance - is still very low.
Only 2% outside the old Erasmus programme of students are actually mobile in Europe, which is not something upon which we can build a new economy at all.
We are entering the new technological age, and again can I congratulate the Commission and also the Portuguese Presidency on the work that it has done to usher in the technological and informational age.
Again, we need a programme of education that matches the best practice across the whole of Europe.
We cannot develop a whole series of initiatives based on, for instance, small businesses or health on-line or whatever without educating people to be literate in those technologies.
This means perhaps looking again at all our educational programmes to see that they match the programmes we are particularly enthusiastic about.
Can I just, in finishing, say that we will have started four new programmes by the end of this year - Media, Culture 2000, Youth and Socrates.
I hope that we will evaluate the work that was done in the previous programmes to ensure that these are not just another new layer but are actually a new beginning for the programmes that can present us with an educated European citizenry.
Mr President, I must object in the strongest possible terms to the proposal, within this legislative programme, to reduce the agricultural budget by EUR 300 million for the purpose of rebuilding Kosovo.
While I have every sympathy with the need to rebuild Kosovo, and while I understand fully that the CAP accounts for almost half of the entire expenditure of the EU, I nevertheless object to the agricultural budget being regarded as a well from which water can be drawn each time another department develops a thirst.
I know a guarantee has been given that the removal of this sum from the budget will not affect any of the financial obligations entered into by the Commission within the framework of the CAP, but I just do not believe it.
I do not accept that this will simply be a one-off event.
When farmers in my own constituency of Scotland are suffering their worst recession in more than 100 years, how can I explain to them that this EUR 300 million would be better off spent on Kosovo? When farmers are going bankrupt every day in the UK, when the level of suicides amongst farmers and farm-workers has reached unprecedented levels, when the economy of rural Britain is in spiral decline, how can I explain to them that EUR 300 million would be better off spent in Kosovo?
In such circumstances, it would be mad to slash the budget to this extent. We should be spending more to alleviate this crisis rather than contemplating spending less.
I urge honourable Members, when we come to vote on this issue, to vote against this proposal.
Mr President, I should like to return to the subject of the annual legislative programme, after that digression on the European budget.
I should like just to address one particular subject, which is the issue of what has happened to the initiatives that Parliament took under Article 192 of the EC Treaty.
As Mr Prodi knows, this new article added to the Treaty by the Maastricht Treaty gave Parliament the right to request the Commission to submit legislative proposals.
The last Parliament exercised this new responsibility on six occasions, but only once did it lead to a legislative proposal being brought forward by the Commission in response to our request, namely the proposals originating in the report of my colleague, Mr Rothley, on insurance for people using their vehicles in other Member States.
That is a very good example, but what happened to the other five? It seems that the Commission has not responded.
There is no obligation on the Commission to respond, but we would expect the Commission, in a spirit of cooperation with Parliament, to look at these proposals carefully and to respond in most cases.
One out of six is simply not good enough.
We now have an Intergovernmental Conference looking at the Treaties again.
Following the addition of this article to the Treaty at Maastricht we did not press the Amsterdam IGC to give Parliament a full right of initiative which would enable us to submit a proposal to the Council without going through the Commission.
We were happy with the compromise that Article 192 represented, but if this compromise is felt not to be working, and if it is not seen to be satisfactory from Parliament's point of view, there will inevitably be pressure for the Treaty to be amended to give Parliament a full right of initiative, something the Commission does not want because it sets great store by its monopoly of the right of initiative.
I say to the Commission, if you do not want that article to be amended further then you must take your responsibilities under the existing article more seriously.
I would urge the Commission in future, when Parliament makes a legislative proposal in this way, to take it up, at least in the majority of cases if not in all of them.
Mr President, the Commission has submitted a promising work programme for the year 2000. We cannot do other than give this programme our full backing.
However, there are also some unfortunate gaps in it.
There is one gap in particular I would like to discuss; it is one Mr Jarzembowski touched on just before.
I do not see the work programme make any mention whatsoever of tourism.
We are talking about one of the most important branches of industry here, both within the EU and beyond its borders.
We have long been promised measures for this sector.
It requires improvement as a matter of urgency, but nothing is happening.
But the Commission has other important tasks to perform besides those of a legislative nature.
As Mr Poettering has already mentioned today, it also has a pivotal role as guardian of the treaties.
With that in mind, the Commission - I say this in view of the occasion - has taken upon itself the task of monitoring the activities of one Member State in particular very closely.
As a citizen of the country in question, I do not object to this modus operandi.
Nor will my homeland have a problem with subjecting itself to European scrutiny in matters of human rights, the rights of foreign nationals, and anti-racist policy.
On the contrary, we have shown in the past that our country has one of the best records on all these points, and we intend to keep it that way.
If the Commission is to be the guardian of the treaties then please, Mr Prodi, be thorough in your work.
The behaviour of "the Fourteen" , or at least of some members of this coterie, can infringe Community law too, and in recent days and weeks, Community law has been infringed on a number of points, for example over the Cultural Capital 2000 issue, school exchange programmes in the Union, and other matters.
I have "and so on and so forth" written down here, but I hope that things do not continue in this vein.
Hence I urge the Commission to uphold its role as guardian of the treaties in these matters too, and to remain vigilant.
Mr President, I put an extremely topical and extremely precise question to the President of the Commission about his view of the relationship between freedom of expression and responsibility for cooperating loyally with the institutions.
Unfortunately, I did not receive any answer to this question.
It is a question which is being debated everywhere in Europe at the moment, and we should be extremely interested to hear his view. No, not this time either!
Thank you very much, Mrs Thors.
The President of the Commission has given his answer and we must now continue the debate.
I have received five motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Cocoa and chocolate products
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0047/2000), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to cocoa and chocolate products intended for human consumption (9947/1/1999 - C5-0252/1999 - 1996/0112(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Lannoye).
Mr President, I think it useful to remind you that we voted on this proposed directive relating to cocoa and chocolate products at first reading in October 1997.
In fact, therefore, the Council of Ministers has taken a great deal of time to reach an agreement on its common position, since it was not until October 1999 that this common position was available.
It has taken two years, and I feel that opinion, and indeed the opinion of this House, has been overcome by weariness in relation to this matter, to the extent that a number of Members of Parliament - I should make it clear that this is the majority view within the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection - consider that this is a balanced compromise.
The common position is a balanced compromise and we should seek not to change it too much!
Personally, I find that it was Parliament' s vote at first reading that resulted in a balanced compromise, and I am deeply sorry that the European Commission did not in any way support Parliament' s position in its negotiations within the Council.
At no time did the Commission take up Parliament' s amendments and indeed, during the debate within the Committee on the Environment, the Commission once again declared itself in favour of not changing this common position and, to put it plainly, of rejecting all the amendments.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has, however, adopted two important amendments. I welcome these even though, in my opinion, they do not go far enough.
To tell the truth, I feel that this is not an acceptable compromise and that the use of vegetable fats has been made an acceptable commonplace while not giving consumers sufficient information, ignoring the problem of the analysis method' s lack of reliability, removing subsidiarity and complying with the requirements of multinational chocolate manufacturers, while ignoring the concerns of small specialist chocolate-makers and SMEs, consumer rights and the future of the millions of farmers involved in cocoa production.
I am thinking in particular of the cocoa producers of West Africa, numbering more than ten million, whose future has clearly been compromised.
Why should I say that when there is a proposed annex in the common position which appears to answer the problem?
It is true that there is an annex restricting the list of permitted vegetable fats to six substances, which include shea nut butter, which is a product gathered in some poor countries of Africa, such as Mali and Burkina Faso.
Unfortunately, this restriction does not provide any guarantees for the future.
Firstly, it is in fact possible to manufacture cocoa butter substitutes without shea nuts, and I have no doubt that such solutions are being investigated on the grounds of the cost and reliability of the product.
Secondly, there are industrial processes, involving chemical or genetic engineering methods, which make it possible to obtain cocoa-butter equivalents, using a low-cost base material which is one of the six permitted, i.e. industrially-produced palm oil with a market price ten times less than that of cocoa butter.
By setting the shea nut producers, who deserve our consideration, against the cocoa-producers, the proponents of vegetable fats, with the support of the European Commission, and I deplore this utterly, are concealing what I hold to be the undeniable reality, which is that the only parties to gain from the entry into force of the text proposed by the Council in its current form are the multinational chocolate manufacturers, whose aim is to increase their profits by favouring cheap vegetable fats and intensifying the pressure to reduce cocoa prices.
I therefore think that a number of amendments tabled on the initiative of Members from various political groups, particularly Mrs Thomas-Mauro, Mrs Ries or Mrs Isler Béguin, are intended to re-establish the position which Parliament adopted at first reading and to give added value to the text.
Let me cite, in particular, the compulsory identification of any vegetable fat content on the front of the product; the requirement for preliminary validation of a reliable analysis method; the principle of subsidiarity, which was removed by the Council even though it had been proposed by the Commission from the outset, the rejection of methods of genetic engineering and chemical methods - I would point out that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is in favour of rejecting the use of genetic engineering - and, finally, last but not least, a proposal for a serious impact study, which will not be carried out long after the directive comes into force but rather as soon as it comes into force, on the socio-economic situation of the cocoa-producing countries who are likely to be the first victims of this legislation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that this is an approach which is in line with what we voted on two years ago.
Admittedly, it conflicts with the Council' s common position, but I believe that Parliament' s role is to play a full part in the codecision process and not to bow down before the decisions of the Council, even if they are the product of a very long gestation period of two years.
Mr President, chocolate was the topic of a stormy debate at first reading.
This was justified and not without results.
Justified because the original proposal focused exclusively on the internal market.
The Commission only took a passing interest in the quality of the product and had no consideration whatsoever for the ethical and legal obligations we have towards developing countries.
The discussion was not without results either.
Upon serious analysis of the common position, it has to be said that democracy works.
We did not sit passively on the fence, muttering under our breath, but took a pro-active approach in tabling amendments.
Should we assent to other legislation? Fine, if that is what is to be done, but could we do so on our terms, please.
We only wanted tropical fats; the common position provides an exhaustive list of them.
We wanted double labelling, the common position has given it to us, only it would have been preferable to have the additional designation on the front of the packaging.
We wanted an impact study. We are getting one, two and a half years after the directive has entered into force.
We wanted the Commission to draft an amendment proposal, if need be.
Well now, the Commission will need to do so and we can then amend it again if necessary.
We did not want comitology for essential amendments.
We are getting codecision.
And we asked for more precise measuring methods; in my opinion, the Ispra research institute has acquitted itself of this task quite admirably.
Many of us in this House were displeased with the Commission proposal.
We were unable to ban fats other than cocoa, but we managed to condition their use in such a way that developing countries are actually finding the present text to be acceptable and that quality chocolate containing cocoa only can be distinguished from other chocolate.
Mr President, as shadow rapporteur for the PPE-DE Group, I am proud of the fact that virtually all amendments from first reading, which have impacted so heavily on the common position, are the product of our own hands.
As such, no more amendments have been submitted on behalf of the PPE-DE, but some of my colleagues will support amendments submitted by others, especially since it is our amendments from first reading which are being copied.
Even if none of the amendments survive, the result is still worth seeing.
I would like to finish off with the following thought.
In the debate on chocolate, the word ethics was used more than once.
To me, ethical behaviour also implies that, if this House scored a victory, we should be able to say so and underline this.
If a victory is achieved, one should be able to enjoy it too. Perhaps we ought to learn to do this one day.
Mr President, it has taken us twenty-five years to come to the point of a common position which represents a real compromise.
I want to pay tribute to Mr Lannoye. He is a parliamentarian of considerable skill, and he has argued his case throughout with force and conviction.
But he undervalues his own contribution to this debate, because it is what he has done and others have done that have led us to a position which can be fairly regarded as a compromise.
Those who deny that and say that we are still in the position of total obstruction, are really admitting - as those are who wish in the vote tomorrow to reject the common position - that they do not want this directive at all.
They do not want to see the addition of vegetable fats anywhere, in any Member State, in any form, for anything called chocolate.
That is not a position which either the majority of the Member States or the majority of consumers in the European Union would accept for one minute, and I want to use my brief time to argue the contrary case.
If we move on from harmonisation at nought-percent vegetable fat, which has always been in the campaigning argument, we move to a position where we ask for safeguards for consumers, for the primary producers, and essentially for the standards that we set ourselves in the European Union.
The amendments that came before the Environment Committee, with the exception of the few that were passed, were wrecking amendments.
They were designed to postpone, for the lifetime of this Parliament and the lifetime of this Commission, any resolution of this issue, and that is not acceptable.
They called for impact studies to come into force before the directive itself can take effect or all manner of additional labelling over and beyond the double labelling on the packet which is provided here for the consumers.
My Group supports the common position with some exceptions, and they will all make themselves heard in this debate.
We believe that this is good for consumers. They get a wider choice of product and separate and distinctive labelling.
It is good for the manufacturers of all the vegetable fats and I include cocoa butter in this.
Cocoa butter is the predominant component of all forms of chocolate, as it will continue to be, also for those who have produced the natural vegetable fats, a specific list which can only be altered with the advice and consent of this Parliament.
If I came from Burkina Faso or Mali or one of the countries that produced beurre de karité and I was told that the women' s cooperatives who collect the shea nuts that are a substantial part of their exports to Europe, will be banned or put at risk because they are seen to be stooges of the multinationals, I would be very angry indeed.
The last point that I have time to make is to the producers of quality chocolate by the specialised methods we see in Belgium and some other areas.
Quality argues for itself.
You can have additional labelling if you want.
People like me will continue to eat it, but we want people to have the widest choice of all the products which will expand the import of cocoa and added vegetable fats into the European Union.
Mr President, the average citizen who hears about this debate on the chocolate directive will lick their lips at the thought of feasting on all kinds of delicacies.
After all, chocolate is also considered a stimulant, unfortunately.
Even as a new member of this Parliament, I am feeling the strain of the lengthy discussions on this topic and I cannot shake off the impression that chocolate has generated anything but a pleasurable experience in this Parliament.
This agony will come to an end today.
There are many interested parties in this discussion: the cocoa producers, the producers of vegetable fats, non-governmental organisations, chocolate producers and many more.
They are all interesting in their own way, but most interesting of all is the consumer, in my opinion.
The most important principle is that of the consumer' s freedom of choice. We politicians need to show some prudence in this respect.
After all, there is no accounting for taste.
The European Parliament cannot and should not prescribe a harmonised euro taste.
As far as we are concerned, there is no need for warnings in flashing neon letters on the front of chocolate packaging.
After all, chocolate is not exactly a product like cigarettes.
There are, of course, other interests which need to be taken into consideration.
For example, we need to be aware of the precarious situation of the countries where the ingredients for chocolate originate.
Prudence is called for once again. After all, there are conflicting interests involved.
The countries that Ivory Coast exports cocoa to also import other competing ingredients from countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso.
The Council' s common position as it is now before us attempts to accommodate all these interests.
We feel that it is lacking in one or two areas.
The best that can be said of this compromise is that none of the parties involved have been indulged completely.
There are no winners, but there are no losers either.
Most members of the Liberal Group can tolerate this precarious balance.
We therefore support the common position and believe that the directive should be adopted as soon as possible.
Let us proceed with the order of the day and put chocolate to its intended use, namely enjoyment.
Mr President, Commissioner, since we cannot reject the directive on chocolate which is, as it stands, unacceptable, Parliament is duty bound, at the very least, to improve it.
In the first place, we must ask ourselves what is the relevance of this directive which is going to change the definition of chocolate.
The European Parliament must be aware that the Codex Alimentarius, which dictates the composition of chocolate internationally, stipulates that it is made from cocoa butter.
What right, then, has the European Union, with regard to the food traditions of some Member States who incorrectly describe products including vegetable fats other than cocoa butter as 'chocolate' , to enforce a change in the very definition of what chocolate is?
In authorising the addition of 5% of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter today, the European Parliament is opening the way to many other impostures.
What is there to stop us, in future, describing oil to which palm oil has been added as olive oil?
In the second place, if the text of the common position goes unchanged, then consumers will be needing a magnifying glass in order to examine the composition of chocolate products.
This is really why I am urging my fellow Members to vote in favour of the amendments which will enable consumers, at the very first glance, to distinguish real chocolate from chocolate made with vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
Finally, as producing countries, already aware that cocoa prices are today at rock bottom, we are in danger of making them collapse completely, if we adopt this position.
In order to avoid chaos in producing countries, the European Parliament must demand an impact study on the export situation.
I therefore call upon you to support all the amendments presented by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Mr President, Commissioner, as all chocolate-lovers know, proper chocolate is made from cocoa butter.
The addition of any other fats spoils the flavour.
Indeed the 1973 directive, which prohibited the use of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter, was intended to safeguard this quality.
With the inclusion of new countries in the European Union, some derogations to this strict ban came to be granted.
Harmonisation was essential in the name of the free movement of goods.
The Commission then had the choice of setting the European standard at the maximum quality level and extending the ban to all Member States but, under pressure from multinational companies wishing to reduce their production costs, in April 1996 the Commission proposed a directive authorising the addition of a minimum level of vegetable fats.
At first reading, Parliament got involved in a dangerous procedure of accepting the directive subject to certain conditions.
The Council leapt into the breach, adopting its common position, which recognises the designation 'chocolate' even for products with other vegetable fats added.
Once again we see the concept of profits for the few triumph over quality for all.
At second reading, however, the European Parliament can thwart this directive which would have serious implications if it were applied.
Both consumers and small specialist chocolate-makers would suffer a reduction in quality and standards would be reduced to the lowest level.
ACP cocoa-producing countries would experience a considerable reduction in their market and their income.
This would involve more than USD 300 million for the Ivory Coast alone.
To say that they are extremely worried is an understatement.
Out of concern for the interests of consumers and the ACP countries, the great majority of my Group is in favour of banning the use of vegetable fats in order to safeguard the authenticity and the quality of real chocolate.
We have therefore tabled a motion to reject the Council' s common position.
The small specialist chocolate-makers came to warn Members of Parliament at January' s part-session in Strasbourg.
So, I ask all the Members who declared their solidarity with them to support our motion.
Mr President, consumer protection is our prime concern.
The issue of the directive on the production and sale of chocolate is thus just as important.
The European Union must lead the way in simplification, confidence, authenticity and respect for differences.
Since 1973, European legislation has stipulated that the designation 'chocolate' must be given to products containing only cocoa and cocoa butter.
Some Member States have enjoyed a derogation from this law since acceding to the Union.
That is fine, let everyone have their own chocolate bar in their own home.
In a shop in my own home town, in Reims, I wish to be able to purchase a bar of chocolate produced according to the gastronomic traditions of my own country, without having to inspect the product on all sides and to put my glasses on in order to check its quality.
This labelling frenzy is admittedly necessary since there has been a loss in confidence, but, ladies and gentlemen, if you give up a specific definition of chocolate, then at least do so clearly and openly.
I therefore urge you to support Amendments Nos 29 and 18.
Tastes are certainly culturally conditioned.
If you yield to the compromise, then a foodstuff will be admitted into our territory which is described as 'chocolate' but which is not chocolate, as far as we are concerned.
We are defending the concept of authentic chocolate.
Cocoa butter is the very essence of chocolate. Let us respect the guarantee of flavour that it offers.
It is not enough to publish a White Paper on food safety in order to reassure consumers.
It is not up to the small specialists and the small-sized businesses to invent a way to promote their know-how or to identify their special features with a label indicating, for example, 'pure chocolate' or 'pure cocoa butter' .
We are condemning an entire sector of specialists and SMEs if we accept any other definition of chocolate.
Today' s vote is a symbolic one.
We must prioritise information for consumers and the interests of African cocoa-producing countries, associated to Europe under the Lomé Convention.
Surely scheduling an economic impact study years after the application of a directive belongs to the realm of the absurd?
In order to appease the multinationals, consumers would have their lives made more complicated as labelling would become more creative and reassuring, small specialist chocolate makers would have to establish a 'quality chocolate' label, cocoa-exporting countries would have to adapt... and you dare to speak to us of a Europe that is close to the citizens, that is generous, transparent and respectful of cultural differences!
We want none of your compromise chocolate, we are too familiar already with the Federalist recipe.
'Entente culinaire' between peoples is a difficult issue, it reflects our differences in too clear and practical a manner, and does not work towards all-out harmonisation.
You should know, ladies and gentlemen, that making Europe tasteless will not contribute to its popularity.
Mr President, for centuries, cows have eaten grass and chocolate has been made from cocoa.
Then, a few years ago, Great Britain, which gave the world meat served with jam, hooligans and Adam Smith, started to feed cows on cadavers and to manufacture chocolate without cocoa.
These aberrations should have remained confined to the British Isles, but doing away with borders within Europe has allowed adulterated chocolate to move freely, to the extent that today, in seven out of our fifteen countries, without being aware of it, consumers are swallowing chocolate that has been tampered with, and that includes Mr Haider' s Austria which, in that respect, has something in common with Mr Guterres' Portugal.
In order to reassure us, we are told that the imitation cocoa is restricted to six tropical products: illipe from Borneo, butter from shea nuts - which are also used to manufacture aircraft engine oil - etc.
As we go from directives to amendments, however, these six products become seven, eight, nine, up to and including soya, oilseed rape and GMOs.
We are also told that the cocoa fraud will be limited to 5% to begin with, then to 10%, not to mention that no check will ever be carried out, in the same way that, for example, the boxes of Chiquita bananas are not checked, which are supposed to weigh eighteen kilograms and in fact weigh twenty.
The checks are pointless in any case, as we are told that the margin of error is 1%, whereas scientists tell us that it is in fact 40%.
We are told above all to 'eat and drink without fear, you are protected by the label' .
Yet the label is a deception in graphic terms because it is illegible and a hypocrisy in scientific terms because the mention of 'palm oil' , for example, is drowned among the list of ingredients.
Just as in the case of port we are not told 'South African counterfeit' , for cocoa we are not told 'counterfeit' .
Then, lacking arguments to justify the chocolate fraud, the multinationals say, 'You must accept 5%, or there will be wholesale fraud.' What then?
All you have to do is call the product 'shea-late' if it is made from shea nuts, or 'soya-late' if it is made from soya, but not 'chocolate' .
The 388 000 tonnes of French chocolate, for example, must be made from cocoa, and the French turnover of FRF 19 billion, for example, must be earned honestly by small specialists.
It is a legal obligation with regard to the Ivory Coast and African farmers.
We are linked by the Lomé convention and by the convention on commodities which the European Union has signed, with reference to cocoa.
It is also a financial obligation. If we do not fulfil it, then we shall be forced to compensate for the losses in these countries under the Stabex system.
It is an obligation in terms of health and food safety, since the substitutes for cocoa, such as Brazil nuts, may cause immunological reactions.
Finally, it is a question of honesty, of morality.
Let us put an end to this widespread dishonesty, where you begin with a product incorrectly described as chocolate and you end with a Commission incorrectly described as European, whose members are Americanically-modified organisms and whose standard is a flag of convenience concealing a globalist cargo.
Mr President, Commissioner, genetically modified organisms and mad cow disease were not enough to temper the enthusiasm of those involved in food manipulation.
Humans are continuing to play the sorcerer' s apprentice, juggling with food safety.
Here, courtesy of industrial lobbying, we have chocolate with added vegetable fats.
Its cocoa content is going to be reduced by 15% but it is still going to be entitled to the designation 'chocolate' .
This is the crux of the problem.
There is a clear lack of transparency, and yet we distinguish butter from margarine.
There will perhaps be a discreet entry, in small letters on the back of the package, indicating its new composition.
There will be deterioration in the quality, of course, but also in the flavour, and the goods are clearly not what they are represented as being.
This is unfair competition, with this ersatz, pseudo-chocolate being sold cheaper than pure chocolate manufactured by craftsmen with proper respect for authenticity, ethics and tradition.
It offers the prospect of large profits, however, for the multinationals, who have been working behind the scenes for around fifteen years to achieve their ends, i.e. having the derogations granted, on the occasion of a number of countries' joining the Union, extended to become the general rule.
On the other hand, it represents a cause for concern among small specialist chocolate-makers and also developing countries which are cocoa producers, whose compensation is being seriously considered.
Finally, there is one major problem, while today we know how to detect vegetable fats in chocolate, we are still incapable of identifying and quantifying them.
There is, therefore, no traceability and the door is open to all sorts of abuses.
As far as we are concerned, the use of the designation 'chocolate' should be prohibited for any product which contains ingredients other than sugar and cocoa.
We must not mislead the consumer by giving the name 'chocolate' to just anything.
Europe must not become an accomplice in cheating, in the manipulation of food, at a time when food safety is becoming one of its priorities.
Europe must not adopt the lowest possible standards. It must ensure the quality of food products and consumer health.
In the light of these principles, we are unable to endorse the aims of this directive.
Rejecting it would represent a strong message to our citizens and a responsible attitude adopted by Parliament.
This is the thrust of our amendment. If not, when will we see wine made without grapes and butter without cream?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the common position on the chocolate directive is about a directive - and I quote the chocolate industry lobby verbatim for the occasion - which creates a truly unified market for chocolate products whilst upholding the national chocolate traditions. The directive also offers comprehensive information to the consumer and safeguards the interests of the developing countries.
But is this actually true?
I will start with the information for the consumer.
The Commission has freely admitted that there is no foolproof detection method.
The margin of error is 2%.
At 5%, this is even 50% more. This seems to be unacceptable to me.
Furthermore, inspection depends on the type of chocolate and the information which the producer wishes to provide.
We are not taking ourselves and the consumer, in particular, seriously if we introduce a directive which we cannot monitor adequately.
I would now like to comment on the third-world interests. It concerns me greatly that both those for and against the common position keep bringing up the same arguments.
Those "for" claim that the common position will benefit the third-world counties while those "against" say that more than 1 million farmers in western Africa stand to suffer from it as a result.
Which is it and which will it be? Is it really asking too much to want to check what the effects of this directive will be on, for example, export and the sustainable development of cocoa-producing countries?
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, I really need to get something else off my chest.
Rightly or wrongly, it is said that this Parliament should not accept any amendments at the risk of jeopardising this delicate compromise.
Well, if that is the case and if that is an argument, I suggest we pack our bags and go home now.
Each common position always strikes a delicate balance between national interests, environmental conditions and social considerations.
The European Parliament must have its input in this dossier and ensure that the common position is amended on a number of points and becomes a directive which benefits the consumer and the third world alike.
Mr President, one of the joys of spending time in Belgium and France is the pleasure of these countries' chocolate.
It is wonderful, but millions of people in Europe also enjoy the British product.
None of them come to any harm in the process.
Whatever its content they are happy to call this product chocolate.
It is insulting for us to play semantic games about the definition of this word.
The citizens we represent are not fools.
They can tell the difference between different varieties of chocolate and they have to be allowed to decide for themselves.
I have no doubt that this compromise will help the overall market increase.
The harsh fact is that none of us, Belgians, French or British, are paying the cocoa growers a fair price for their efforts and the contrast between our enjoyment of this luxury product and their poverty is shameful.
Mr President, on the present issue I represent a minority of the members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
I consider that there is really no need for this directive and that it is unnecessary.
I think it is absolutely excellent that we should have different rules about chocolate in different Member States.
In this area there is no need for harmonisation at EU level. Instead, the previous system can be retained.
If there is in fact to be harmonisation, which is what the Council of Ministers appears to have opted for, I think it is better to allow content of up to five per cent of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
In that way, you can still have both sorts of chocolate and choose which you want to buy according to personal taste or national tradition.
The alternative, that is to say of prohibiting other vegetable fats, means also prohibiting a large quantity of chocolate products which people like and are used to eating.
I think that is completely unnecessary.
What is, however, important is that chocolate should be clearly labelled, which is something I think has been provided for in the proposal, and that consumers should be able to choose which products they in fact want to purchase and eat.
Nor is it certain that the Third World, all in all, would benefit from other vegetable fats being prohibited as added ingredients.
For one thing, other tropical fats such as shea butter would be treated unfairly, and certain countries would in that way suffer. For another, the total market for chocolate products would probably decrease and thereby also, perhaps, the level of consumption of cocoa butter.
My conclusion is that I should ideally like to see the old arrangement maintained, with different rules in different countries.
However, since that is no longer possible, I think that the common position is acceptable.
Mr President, in many ways, I think that we are about to end up with a good compromise on the directive relating to cocoa and chocolate products, thanks especially to Mr Paul Lannoye' s efforts.
I am very much in favour of clear labelling.
It means proper information for consumers and, because a number of countries have so far only been familiar with chocolate in which cocoa butter is used as vegetable fat, it may be relevant for consumers in these countries to learn that another vegetable fat has been used.
On the other hand, I do not think that it can, or ought to be, implied that chocolate in which, for example, shea nuts are used as vegetable fat is necessarily of poorer quality than chocolate in which the vegetable fat used is cocoa butter.
There are absolutely no objective criteria for saying that, and the Council is quite rightly leaving it to consumers to judge the quality.
We must not forget that shea nuts are just as essential to the countries which export them as cocoa is to the cocoa-exporting countries.
Any future investigation of the effects of the present directive upon developing countries' exports ought therefore also to include both cocoa and shea nuts.
What, for me, is most important of all is that there must be no enzymatic or genetic modifications to the vegetable fat in chocolate.
A ban of this kind is the only means through which we can give developing countries a guarantee that they can go on at all exporting the goods which they produce by natural means.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is a known fact that chocolate made from pure cocoa butter induces a state of euphoria.
The same cannot be said for this directive which we had absolutely no need of.
Nor, surely, can it be said of this chocolate adulterated with vegetable fats recommended by the Council, which unfortunately did not follow the European Parliament' s recommendations at first reading.
Indeed there would be a great deal to say about the attitude of some delegations within the Council.
Today' s consumer has had enough of being deceived.
What is the Council putting forward to solve the problem? A tiny piece of difficult-to-read information, hidden on the back of the product wrapper.
This is not what we are asking for.
The consumer will not be able to make an informed choice.
We want the information to be obviously and clearly displayed on the front side of the product wrapper.
This is what we achieved in the European Parliament at first reading.
We know that the cost of the fats capable of replacing cocoa is much less. That is why big industry is so much in favour of them.
Making things cheaper and cheaper: what image of Europe does that present?
No matter nowadays what the consumer wants, what the consumer' s preferences are, no matter the fact that public opinion wants ever greater transparency!
Who today can claim to be able to monitor this infamous 5% of vegetable fats which would replace the pure cocoa butter? Nobody.
So what is to be done? Let us, fortunately, trust our SMEs, the small specialist chocolate-makers, who are going to have to work on a quality label.
This is what the consumer wants.
And let us, most especially, support our rapporteur, Mr Lannoye.
Thank you very much, Mrs Grossetête.
Welcome
Cocoa and chocolate products (continuation)
Mr President, Mr De Croo, after debating for 25 years, we are gathered here once again to discuss chocolate, such a polemical debate for such a sweet subject.
We are talking about harmonisation, the harmonisation of tastes, of habits and, almost, of cultures.
In short, chocolate is a dividing factor and the divisions are neither ideological nor even national, whatever some parties might think.
What makes defending cocoa-producing countries an ideological matter, I ask you?
It is an ethical matter.
In terms of the social aspect, we are talking about millions of families who make their living from cocoa production. We have made formal commitments to them.
So what is the reason for this time limit? Sixty-six months to carry out a study of the impact of this directive, such a time period is enough to cause irreparable damage to the export structures of these countries.
The potential impact must be investigated in advance, that is clear.
Moreover, if we must have harmonisation, for a consumer that is ever more demanding about the quality of what he eats and who, incidentally, has asked for nothing and has absolutely nothing to gain in this matter, in my view, the absolute minimum would be to limit the quality label or any other label of excellence to 100% cacao chocolate, real chocolate.
Any other sort of harmonisation would mean lowering standards and that is not the sort of Europe that the consumer wants.
Mr President, rules make sense if their purpose is to protect people against the power of money, against health risks and against poverty.
If the European Union lays down rules governing the production of chocolate, then these should be geared to protecting the cocoa farmers in the third world, especially in Africa.
Rules are also important to protect consumers against genetic modification and against the addition of unexpected substances.
Lastly, rules are important to protect expertise and craftsmanship within Europe.
What is now threatening to happen is at complete odds with this. Should free trade be granted absolute priority?
This may fit in rather well with the development currently taking place within the European Union. A social-democratic and christian-democratic project is being developed to put protective measures in place within a highly liberalised economy in which anything goes, and which promotes competition and considers the consumer' s freedom of choice to be sacrosanct.
The price to be paid for this, by African farmers in particular, is too high.
I value the attempts made by Mr Lannoye to keep these negative developments within bounds, but it would be better still to continue to offer full protection against the processing of other products and cocoa butter.
Mr President, 25 years' discussion of the great existential issues surrounding chocolate and what it is and is not makes the European Union as an institution look slightly ridiculous.
The present debate has perhaps given me, as a war child, a certain insight into how things were when the peoples of Europe were killing each other for values symbolised by rather more important things than chocolate.
After all, this is not a product which is a threat to people' s health.
Neither Scandinavian, Belgian nor British chocolate is dangerous.
It is not a product which affects the environment to any great degree.
The whole issue is therefore somewhat ridiculous.
As for the developing countries, I want to say that, if Britons, Scandinavians and others are not allowed to eat the chocolate they ate as children, they would certainly eat marshmallows or jelly babies instead on a Saturday evening. Where is the benefit in that for the Third World?
Mr President, we are in no position, here in the European Parliament, to state that one type of chocolate is better or worse than another. Nor can we say that one kind tastes better and another worse.
Rather, we shall leave it to the individual consumer to judge which kind tastes best and is of the highest quality.
Consumer choice is the basic principle of the market economy and, as politicians, we should not be instrumental in running a kind of nanny State.
Malta' s former prime minister, Dom Mintoff, attempted during the 1970s to reduce chocolate imports and to alter the way in which chocolate was consumed by tourists and by his own people.
With Chinese help, a chocolate factory was built on the island, but consumers did not like the locally produced chocolate and chocolate consumption fell.
If we direct developments in such a way as to create a situation in which there is only the one tradition of chocolate manufacture within the EU, cocoa-producing countries will be in danger of losing out since there would be a great risk of total chocolate consumption within the EU appreciably decreasing.
Let us not, therefore, make the same mistake as Dom Mintoff.
The proposal that information about the contents of certain forms of chocolate should be provided on the front of the packaging is discriminatory and completely unjustified.
It would be more like the kind of warning you find on cigarette packets.
The chocolate war has been raging within the EU for 25 years.
It has made ourselves as politicians and the EU as an institution look faintly ridiculous.
In the future EU, too, and within a society characterised by diversity, there must be room for two traditions of chocolate manufacture.
We now have the opportunity to bring the 25 year-old European chocolate war to an honourable end for all the parties concerned.
We ought therefore to adhere precisely to the common position.
Mr President, I am Belgian and I am not opposed to the common position.
If the chocolate which I love so much were to be at risk or if the tradition of Belgian chocolate manufacturers were to be in danger, then I would, of course, be opposed to it.
I bought some chocolate here in Strasbourg this morning and the French sales assistant explained to me quite clearly what exactly I was buying.
The designation on the front of the product states: Prestige noir intense 72% cacao and in gold lettering, which, in France, is quite something, chocolat belge.
So I know what I bought.
In my opinion, the pending directive will make it even easier for producers of quality chocolate to set themselves clearly apart from the others if they so wish.
I do concur with the rapporteur on one point.
The producers of cocoa beans, namely the small farmers in the poor third-world countries, are vulnerable.
We need to keep a close eye on them and this is why I am in favour of a study being carried out by the Commission on the effects of the directive, no more than two years after the introduction of this directive.
So let us now deal with this matter once and for all and ensure that everyone can eat the chocolate they fancy and that a real internal market can be established for chocolate.
Mr President, the common position on cocoa and chocolate products is the result of long and involved discussions.
It constitutes a delicate compromise which was difficult to achieve but which is well-balanced.
Through the common position, the free movement of cocoa and chocolate products was introduced, but with strict conditions governing production and consumer information.
It is permitted to add vegetable fat other than cocoa butter to the minimum quantity of cocoa required in accordance with the Directive, but no more than five per cent.
Only those substances listed in the annex may be used.
They are all of tropical origin and produced in ACP countries.
The presence of these substances must be indicated separately but in the same area of the packaging as the product name and list of ingredients.
Consumers will then be able to choose and to distinguish these products from those which are manufactured exclusively from cocoa.
These conditions and restrictions, which are not linked to health issues, are the fulcrum of the common position.
The common position also provides answers to the questions and concerns of consumers, of cocoa-producing countries and of countries which produce chocolate, with or without vegetable fats.
Any change would seriously upset the balance of the agreement which the Council has agreed upon and would be doomed to fail.
Parliament' s recommendation on second reading contains two amendments.
The first amendment reiterates the Commission' s policy, and this can be approved.
The second really does not belong in a separate Directive because releases of genetically modified organisms onto the European market must be handled in a uniform and comprehensive way, which is what happens within the framework of the provisions governing the voluntary spread of genetically modified organisms in the environment and in the regulation concerning new foods and new food ingredients.
The second amendment may nonetheless be approved in principle. There must be a more thorough examination of the consequences of these amendments against the background of the World Trade Organisation' s pronouncements and the Montreal protocol.
The other amendments, which were rejected by the Commission' s Directorate-General for the Environment, concern questions of special significance to the balance of the common position and cannot therefore be approved.
The common position involves a real compromise and is a clear advance on the legislation currently applicable. This hails back to the 1970s and is very incomplete, especially when it comes to labelling and consumer information.
To summarise, it is only Amendments Nos 1 and 2 which may be approved, and this for the aforesaid reasons.
Ladies and gentlemen, I understand the political, institutional and compassionate motives behind these speeches.
I shall now give the floor to Mr Pacheco Pereira, who has asked to speak, but then I think we should stop because it would not be right to start a debate on a subject which, although important, was not on the agenda.
In future, I will keep you informed of the decisions taken, or not taken, by our President, and of the activities for which she gives the go-ahead on your behalf.
- (PT) Mr President, I share the objections of the Members who have just spoken about the unacceptability of a government such as that of Angola, which has for many years waged a civil war in that country and which has been accused by various organisations across the world of being corrupt, daring to attack the freedom of speech of a Member of the European Parliament who rightly criticised the abuse of human rights in Angola.
I would also like to make it quite clear, however, that as regards the European institutions, this is not only a matter of ensuring that the European Parliament issues a protest and a repudiation.
It would be useful if the Council, whose President is currently the Portuguese Prime Minister, could respond with equal vehemence to the criticism made of a Portuguese Member of this House, and did not maintain the equivocal stance that it has adopted concerning the offence that the Angolan Government has caused to that Member of this House, as well as to the institutions of the European Union.
This House therefore clearly repudiates Angola' s attitude and hopes that the EU Council Presidency will also clearly voice this repudiation and will not remain silent in the face of these accusations.
I would like to thank Mr Queiró, Mr Seguro and Mr Pacheco Pereira for their speeches.
Our President will make sure that the official representatives of Angola are informed of this protest and will pass on the request which just been made to the President-in-Office of the Council, so that the Council and its President-in-Office also take some initiative in reaction to these unspeakable attacks.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Vote
Just to repeat what my colleague, Poul Nielson, stated yesterday, the Commission's position on the amendments is as follows.
The Commission supports Amendment No 11, in principle, and supports the following amendments: Amendments Nos 4, 7, 9, 10, 13, 14 and 15.
The Commission does not support the following amendments: Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 12.
(Parliament approved the common position (as amended))
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0043/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council directive on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues [11195/1/1999 - C5-0251/1999 - 1998/0249(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Bouwman)
Amendment No 6:
Mr President, I just wanted to point out what repercussions a split vote would have.
Normally, it is customary in parliamentary circles to vote on the most in-depth proposal first and then to move on to the less in-depth.
Due to this split vote, we are now voting on the least in-depth first and are working our way up to the most in-depth.
Since I am fairly new to this Parliament, I do not know how to deal with this, but I would at least recommend anyone who cares about the environment and who is in favour of the polluter pays principle, to vote for both split components.
(Parliament approved the common position (as amended))
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0040/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles circulating in the Community [111287/1/1999 - C5-0323/1999 - 1998/0097(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Piecyk)
(Parliament approved the common position (as amended))
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE- Recommendation for second reading of the Fernández Martín report (A5-0048/2000)
Mr President, I voted in favour of the common-sense considerations on the ecological disaster which threatens our planet if current developments continue.
These concerns are, however, drowned out in a hotchpotch of irresolute declarations.
Neither the Brussels Commission nor the European Parliament have any desire to act or even clearly name the parties responsible for these disastrous ecological developments.
The European institutions confine themselves to pious hopes for the protection of the tropical forest, for example, while the major trusts of the wood industry, who are the industrial butchers of forests in any number of countries in south-east Asia or in Africa, foist their activities on the local populations. We know full well who they are.
In a number of poor countries, of course, it is the population which is destroying the forests by clearing trees, either to find a minimum income, or to clear the way and gain access to land that they could not otherwise access.
But to claim to incorporate the environmental aspect into the development process is pure hypocrisy when the ruling classes of rich countries are in fact blocking the poor countries' path to development and are maintaining the majority of their populations in poverty.
. (FR) The text of the report before us today fulfils the need to conserve tropical forests.
The European Union and its Member States in fact have some responsibility for the conservation of an ecosystem which is essential to the environmental balance of the entire planet.
This responsibility is a historical one, primarily, and is related to the commitments made by Member States to the countries where the bulk of the tropical forest is located.
These historic links and expert knowledge must be made to serve the conservation of this ecosystem.
Our responsibility also stems from our status as consumers: many consumer products in Europe come from these regions and generally have an adverse impact on the forest.
Finally, the European Union actually includes large areas of tropical forest within the territory of its Member States, particularly France.
The department of French Guyana, in particular, is almost entirely covered by this type of vegetation.
In particular, the important thing is to enable real development in these areas, while respecting the culture and traditions of the inhabitants, without setting them in stone in a purely passive ecological conservation mode.
The European Union can make a contribution in this field if it can manage to coordinate efforts and know-how without seeking to control or foist a single strategy on Member States.
We have therefore backed the amendments of the PPE-DE, which support the flexibility necessary for the whole system.
Recommendation for second reading of the Bouwman report (A5-0043/2000)
The recent wreck of the Erika oil tanker off the coast of Brittany increased the awareness among the general public of the problem, among others, of 'degassing' , the illegal discharge of waste oils, detritus or other waste associated with vessel cargoes, which some unscrupulous ship' s captains undertake while at sea.
Although the breaches in the wreck had officially been sealed, oil slicks in fact continued to wash up on the shores, showing that either new leaks had appeared or that vessels passing through the vicinity were taking advantage of the situation to empty their tanks, or, probably, that both these things were occurring at the same time.
In the jungle of maritime transport, such behaviour is, unfortunately, frequently encountered.
It helps to make refuse sites of our seas and beaches, and to jeopardise the ecological balance of the marine environment.
Just today, in fact, the European Parliament is examining, at second reading, a proposed directive which has been under discussion for two years, which draws the implications of the 1973 Marpol International Convention, ratified by all Member States, to the Community level.
This convention makes it compulsory for vessels to dispose of their waste while in the port of call, in the port waste-disposal installations intended for the purpose, and, in return, requires the signatory states to construct appropriate installations.
We can only applaud the proposed European directive which would make it possible to apply these principles.
At the same time, however, we wish to ask the important question, which is: what is to become of the inspections?
The proposal envisages that vessels docking in a Community port may leave again only on presentation of certificates proving that the vessel' s waste and cargo residues have indeed been disposed of in the appropriate installations. But what about vessels from outside the Community?
Will they also be asked for certificates? And how will vessels that pass through our waters without docking into port be inspected?
We think that, to begin with, access to Member State ports should be banned for vessels which do not present such certificates, even if they are from outside the Community.
Furthermore, the Member States, who, under the directive, are to make the commitment to step up in-port inspections, must also undertake to intensify their systems for inspections at sea.
We know only too well the pressure of competition in maritime transport.
There is no point in adopting conventions or directives if they are subsequently to remain dead letters for lack of inspection resources.
- (FR) The report on which we are called to vote today is indicative of the position which the European Parliament wishes to adopt in the debate on maritime safety, brought to the fore once more by the tragic wreck of the Erika.
Let me remind you that the proposed directive which we are discussing today is intended to improve the availability and the use of port waste-disposal facilities for operational waste and cargo residues.
It is totally in keeping with the 73/78 Marpol Convention (Prevention of Pollution from Ships), while concentrating more particularly on the waste-disposal facilities in ports.
It forms part of the overall Community strategy for waste management and requires all ports to provide appropriate waste-disposal facilities, adequate for the needs of vessels.
Today we face maritime pollution problems, which we must tackle head-on by adopting bold measures.
The fact is, as the rapporteur points out, that regulations already exist, but they are not observed.
The system generally applied is the one governed by the 'polluter pays' principle, a principle which is outstanding in terms of its inefficiency!
This is why we need to find an alternative. Such an alternative is offered to us in an amendment which I supported.
The amendment seeks to establish a system of charges which all vessels would have to pay systematically each time they dock in a port, whether or not they make use of the waste disposal facilities.
These charges would be used to finance the relevant installations up to 90%.
This system would inevitably encourage vessels to dispose of their operational waste and cargo residues in port rather than degassing at sea, a deplorable practice which is commonplace nowadays.
Everyone knows that some vessels even took advantage of the pollution caused by the wreck of the Erika to discharge their waste at sea. This is absolutely scandalous and intolerable.
There are, however, examples of good practice, because the countries around the Baltic Sea have already been operating in this way since 1998.
I am well aware of the fact that this would cause upheaval in the organisation of the ports of many Member States and would entail additional costs for vessels.
But this is no more than the price which must be paid in order to guarantee the cleanliness of the marine environment, especially since the directive envisages that it should be possible to identify the vessels which cause less pollution and to offer them reduced rates? This system seems a fair one to me, and I therefore voted in favour of it.
- (FR) This proposed directive is most welcome within the European Union.
It forms part of the overall Community strategy for the reduction of marine pollution and for waste management and requires all Union ports, including yachting marinas, to provide appropriate waste-disposal facilities suited to the requirements of vessels.
International regulations were already in existence, since the Marpol Convention imposes binding international regulations upon all vessels, according to which all discharges at sea are prohibited.
The real problem, however, is the application and observance of these standards!
The fine 'polluter pays' principle, so dear to many Member States, including my own, is far from being complied with!
The Erika disaster is testimony to this unfortunate state of affairs, as are the thirty-nine instances of degassing which went unpunished in the space of a single week!
This is why the European Parliament and its Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, confirming the outcome of the first reading in the previous legislative period, have proposed that every vessel entering a Member State port should bear 90% of the costs of waste disposal and management, regardless of the actual use made of the facilities.
We feel that this is the only realistic and fair way to prevent the illegal dumping of waste at sea.
If the port facilities were in fact financed (at a high level) only by the vessels actually using them, then there would be grounds for fearing that many vessels would avoid these charges, since dumping waste at sea would prove less costly.
Moreover, we wish to set the level for mandatory inspection at 25% of all vessels.
On the eve of the French Presidency of the European Union, this is the position which the French Socialists are preparing to champion.
All I can do is urge this House to do as much.
It is a political fight, in which our role, is it not, is to wage this campaign, even if it does lead use to make ambitious political decisions which occasionally go further than those of our own governments, and which are always far-reaching and positive?
- (FR) It is not possible to ignore, today, the fortuitous coincidence of the second reading of this proposed directive against maritime pollution with the topical news of the tragic wreck of the Erika.
Admittedly, this text does not discuss accidental pollution, but we know full well that the implications of illegal degassing at sea are no less serious, even if it is a more insidious phenomenon.
In the last week of February, 39 instances of illegal degassing were identified in the vicinity of the wreck of the Erika alone.
Such practices are intolerable, but they are difficult to monitor, particularly at night or in foggy weather.
The proposed directive and the amendment proposing to establish a standard charging scheme for vessels in ports, in all European ports, in order to finance the processing of shipboard waste, tackle the problem on two fronts: they force the ports to set up the facilities and the organisation to handle the shipboard operational waste, either under direct state control or by subcontracting to specialised competent operators, and, more importantly, they deter vessels from evading their obligation to dispose of waste since they will have to pay the price in any case.
It is, however, essential to ensure that, as far as possible, this universal charge is shared across the board and is supported by national or European financial arrangements to enable smaller ports to gain access to waste processing services without their economic viability and thus their continuity suffering unduly.
Subject to this condition, then, what this directive proposes is Europe' s initial model response to the legitimate feeling aroused due to the pollution caused by the wreck of the Erika.
To some extent, it marks the official acknowledgement and establishment of a European maritime area subject to shared regulations.
- (FR) The Council must already have debated at length on the subject of this directive on port facilities for disposing of vessels' operational waste, but its final text respected the principles of stepping up the protection of the marine environment while taking account of the real situation in each of the Member States, without disrupting national practices, and this is not true of the text of the report which has just been presented to us.
A State such as France has already in fact implemented the terms of the Marpol Convention by guaranteeing that each port has top quality waste disposal and processing facilities, operated by private companies, which invoice the shipowner directly according to the type and nature of the waste. Reducing the costs for use by vessels deemed to be 'ecological' is therefore only natural.
This solution, which benefits the more environmentally friendly vessels, would seem to be much fairer than an arbitrary reduction in favour of the vessels labelled as 'ecological' , (and what would be the criteria for this?) or a standard contribution for the use of the facilities applied indiscriminately: we therefore refuse to replace a charging system based on the nature of the waste with a blind charging policy based on the volume of vessels, regardless of their level of risk to the environment.
It must also be said that 'clearing ballast' at sea is unfortunately to a very great extent exempt from the charging system. Only inspections at sea and more frequent inspections of vessels docking in ports would be likely to reduce the amount of dumping at sea.
For all these reasons the UEN Group, recalling its agreement with the Council' s common position, is now opposing the text of this report which has twisted the principles of the common position.
The report urges Member States most strongly to face up to their responsibilities in full by implementing as soon as possible the inspection measures which, backed up by a system of penalties along the 'polluter pays/polluter cleans' principle, would perhaps make it possible to prevent the recurrence of disasters such as the one which, recently, so scandalously disfigured the French coastline.
Recommendation for second reading of the Piecyk report (A5-0040/2000)
- (FR) The European Parliament has today expressed its opinion of the proposed directive on the technical roadside inspection of the roadworthiness of commercial vehicles.
It is indeed essential to improve the level of safety and to mitigate the environmental impact of these vehicles, the volume of which is constantly increasing.
Setting up random mandatory roadside inspections in order to check their state of repair throughout the year is a pertinent idea, provided that it can be implemented effectively.
This proposed directive would be an extremely useful complement to the efforts undertaken in towns and cities, especially in the form of urban transport plans, particularly in the conurbation around Rouen, which is crossed by 5 000 commercial vehicles daily.
It is also important, as a matter of urgency, to consider having recourse to alternative means of transport for goods (waterways, railways, etc.) and to consider developing clean vehicles.
These are the reasons why, ladies and gentlemen, I supported the proposed directive on the technical roadside inspection of commercial vehicles today.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
The next item is the report (A5-0064/2000) by Mr Duff and Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the drafting of a European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights.
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(IT) Madam President, the European Parliament is at last about to vote on the report, which has taken a great deal of time to prepare, on the drafting of the European Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights, and I hope that the patient work of the rapporteurs will be rewarded in this Chamber.
What I mean to say is that I hope that the damaging amendments made by those who see in the drafting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights an attack on democracy, no less, will be rejected.
And yet most of these rights already exist in the European Union as they are present in the Treaties, in the European Convention on Human Rights, in the institutional traditions common to the Member States and in the international conventions to which they all subscribe.
What is there to fear in a Charter of Fundamental Rights? This is only the formal ratification, the coherent expression of those sacrosanct individual rights, without which democracy would be reduced to a kingdom where the force of numerical strength reigns and the authorities may do as they please.
The European Union means the peaceful, supportive coexistence of different peoples and cultures, based on its tradition of respect for the rights of individuals.
The Charter will become a catalogue of shared principles which define Europe' s identity before the world, an identity which is not based on blood ties, ethnic origin or national allegiance, but, indeed, on common values.
In the careful recognition of common rights, there will have to be acknowledgement of those fundamental social rights which are intrinsically no different from the other, more obvious rights, such as the right of freedom to join a trade union, the right to fundamental health and safety in the workplace and training rights, which have never been so essential for growth, employment and competitiveness in the global market as they are now.
There will have to be acknowledgement of the political rights of citizens and the human rights of every individual person. Fundamental rights will have to be defined in the face of fresh hazards.
A catalogue of fundamental rights which are recognised as binding by the European institutions also sets out the duty of the citizens to respect them.
The European Union is a civil, legal area of freedom, which is not just economic freedom but also freedom of security and justice, in a huge territory which, in the past, has been the site of repeated bloodshed.
The site of clashes between opposing armies throughout the whole of the first half of the century, Europe is now on the way to becoming a guarantee of peace and freedom from fear and want.
This is how we must see the Charter of Fundamental Rights. There is no reason for anyone to be afraid when the prevalence of rights over force is enshrined in the law.
Madam President, Europe is founded upon fundamental rights.
So is the American Constitution, namely upon our fundamental European rights and the ideas of John Locke and the French Revolution.
American citizens can demand our European rights in their own courts, something which has provided them with empowerment, self-assurance and a pride in themselves.
Fundamental rights can create identity and citizenship.
They can also help individuals to take advantage of opportunities which are now arising in Europe through freedom of movement, the euro and information technology, that is to say the opportunities which are emerging in the new economy.
The assets we have as Europeans in the form of cultural differences are easier to maintain and to accept if citizens know that they can claim their rights throughout the Union. Quite simply, freedom of movement demands a basis of guaranteed, fundamental rights.
Enlargement of the Union without guaranteed rights could even turn into a fiasco and delay our economic development.
A binding Charter is an indispensable requirement and a necessary part of a much-needed constitution.
I want to warn against joining the Council of Europe' s convention, especially if this step were not to be combined with a binding Charter.
These complications ought to be studied more closely.
I hope that we are to have a modernised version of the wording of Article 6 of the Council of Europe' s convention in which our already existing rights are listed in a summarised and concentrated form, with modern biotechnology and data protection added.
The Charter should be easy to communicate to citizens and be clear to them.
It should not be divided into two or contain a whole lot of references.
The Charter must be binding and embrace the European institutions.
It cannot be fair for citizens to be left without protection against abuses by institutions resembling police forces, such as OLAF and Europol.
This project will give rise to more powerful European individuals.
Madam President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I will mainly focus on the issue of social fundamental rights.
Social fundamental rights form part and parcel of traditional fundamental rights.
For example, what use is the right to freedom of expression to someone who, owing to poverty and unemployment, suffers complete social exclusion?
There are social fundamental rights which, by their very nature, are identical to and, as such, simply form part of, the traditional civil freedom rights.
There is, for example, the right of organisation and association which can be extended to the right of free negotiations on working conditions and the right of conducting collective action.
These rights should therefore be included in the first part of the charter.
In the case of other social fundamental rights, there should be a link between the way fundamental rights are worded and the effects thereof on the individual.
These fundamental rights are thus often described as instruction standards which are implemented by authorities in social legislation. These are, however, no less essential to the charter as basic elements.
Quite often, this category of fundamental rights keenly shows up the misconceptions people have as to this charter' s significance at European level.
The first misconception is that the EU charter will replace national guarantees for fundamental rights protection, as if, in future, individuals would need to call on the European Union and the European Court rather than their own authorities and courts, and as if fundamental rights on work, housing or social security would all of a sudden become European matters.
This is not the case at all. No more so, in actual fact, than is the guarantee of freedom of expression or a fair hearing.
The purpose of the charter is to incorporate these fundamental rights in the European institutions and European policy.
This is, in fact, a reaction to a second common misconception.
It is not the case that the charter would only contain rights for which the European Union would be the first authorised port of call.
Even where the Union has no authority at all, policy measures which may be taken by or on behalf of the European Union can still infringe fundamental rights.
Accordingly, fundamental rights which cannot be guaranteed at EU level but can be violated by the Union, belong in the charter.
I would also like to comment on international treaties with regard to social fundamental rights.
The opinion of the Social Committee lists a few of these treaties: the Council of Europe' s European social charter and the ILO' s and UN' s core Convention.
In Amendment No 22 to the Duff/Voggenhuber report, I argued that a reference to the ECHR should be placed in Article 6 of the Treaty of the Union, and that a reference to the to the ESC should be placed in the ILO' s and the United Nations' core Conventions.
Another amendment, regarding a more far-reaching alternative, Amendment No 23, stipulates that the ECHR, as well these social international standards should be acceded to.
I would like to make one last remark regarding the necessity to establish a broad social basis and to enter into a dialogue with social organisations, even after completion of the charter.
We will need to conduct this general discussion then too.
Madam President, I would like, above all, to congratulate all the rapporteurs on the quality of their work.
They have successfully stated the importance of this matter for the European Parliament, Europe and its citizens.
The aim of this report is to give our fellow Members, who are members of the Convention, a clear and specific mandate detailing the expectations of the European Parliament and to give our fellow citizens clear evidence of our commitment to ensuring that their fundamental rights are properly respected by the institutions of the Union.
The area of competence of the Committee on Petitions justifies its interest in the framing of the charter.
The large numbers of petitions which it receives make it possible to assess the citizens' perception of the Union and the rights they expect it to protect.
The opinion of the Committee on Petitions is intended to bring to light the aspirations expressed by the Europeans who refer their cases to Parliament in matters of non-observance of rights granted by the European Union.
The petitioners who write to us display a stubborn and unfailing conviction that they are entitled to a whole series of rights, thereby giving the impression that the European citizen is convinced that the Union actually already has a formal constitution wherein all these rights are enshrined, thus anticipating the decisions of the convention.
So our opinion stresses two key points which the rapporteurs, moreover, seem to share.
Firstly, the necessary visibility of the charter as a point of reference for the citizens. This necessitates clear and concise drafting within a single, comprehensible text.
Secondly, the binding force of this charter, which is achieved when it is possible to defend the recognised rights in the law court.
The natural outcome of this determination is the inclusion of the future charter among the Treaties.
In conclusion, let me say that it is necessary to make a qualitative leap in the protection of fundamental rights.
This report must be a unanimous message from Parliament to ensure that the Council and the Convention respond to the expectations of petitioners.
Madam President, no doubt the Council would like to hear the opinion of the political Groups, which seems to me to be very healthy.
Madam President, we are holding this debate at exactly the right time.
The convention which is drafting the Charter on Fundamental Rights has begun its work and I believe that we are already doing so at cruise speed.
We are dealing with the content involving civil and political rights, and then we will deal with citizenship rights and economic and social rights.
It is therefore important for this Parliament to establish a mandate for the members of the delegation representing it and also to establish - and this seems to me to be essential - which political objectives this Parliament will pursue by means of this Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The representative of the Committee on Petitions is right to point out that the citizens often ask us what this Charter of Fundamental Rights is for.
Fundamental rights are recognised in our constitutions.
The Member States of the European Union respect fundamental rights.
There is a Rome Convention, upheld by the Court in Strasbourg, which is the ultimate guarantee in the event of a violation.
So what is this Charter for? I believe that Parliament should send a very clear message: the Charter of Fundamental Rights is a supplement to these rights guaranteed in the constitutions.
Being European has an added positive effect.
By means of this Charter we intend to bind the European institutions to a bill of fundamental rights and to bind the Member States to those same rights in their transposition and application of Community law.
This is the political message which we must send.
Being European is a positive thing. It adds to what we already have as national citizens.
The report which we are debating today and voting on tomorrow also seems to explain very clearly what the political objectives of this Parliament are.
We do not wish the Charter to be a mere declaration.
We do not believe that a declaration is sufficient.
We want the Charter to be incorporated into the Treaties precisely because we want the citizens to have more rights and guarantees.
Whether or not the Charter is incorporated into the Treaty clearly depends on the work which the convention is able to carry out.
It will depend on whether the work is useful and can be incorporated into the Treaties.
However, it seems to me essential that Parliament bears this objective in mind with regard to the drawing up of the Charter.
It is also important to state, as this report does, that absolutely no harm will be done to the protection of fundamental rights as laid down in existing provisions.
There will be no double use of the Convention of Strasbourg. We should make this very clear.
I repeat that what we want is to provide the European citizens with a supplementary guarantee when it comes to the application of Community law.
I believe that, by affirming the indivisibility of fundamental rights, as this resolution does, or affirming their innovative nature, we are taking positive steps towards an improvement in the living conditions of the European citizens.
Madam President, I would like to end by whole-heartedly congratulating both the rapporteurs and the draftsmen of opinions.
It is a matter of form in this Parliament to congratulate them, but I would like to do so from a political point of view and on behalf of my Group, because I believe that Messrs Duff and Voggenhuber, and all the draftsmen of opinions, have been able to provide the political response required by Parliament at the moment.
I therefore hope, Madam President, that tomorrow' s vote will support the rapporteurs' good work with a massive vote in favour of this report.
Madam President, Representative of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the exercise we are involved in today comes just in time and, every day, current events remind us how urgent this European Union charter is.
This is the background against which we are working.
A European Union charter: this clearly means that the charter is addressed to each and every one of our fellow citizens, admittedly, but also to persons resident in or visiting the Union.
That is important to note.
It is important at a time when the European Union is experiencing upheaval at its very centre. It is important, too, and we would like to see this mentioned in the text that we are to vote upon tomorrow, at a time when we are involved in enlarging the Union to include countries for which the respect of fundamental rights is a significant question.
It is important, finally, at a time when we consider - and we should like to specify this in the text that we shall be voting upon tomorrow - that the Union has passed the stage of economic integration and has clearly undertaken a process of political and social integration. The charter must contribute to this.
The resolution on which we shall be voting tomorrow is certainly not intended to give a binding mandate to our fellow Members, myself included, in the context of the convention, since we have already commenced work.
It is intended, rather, to say what Parliament expects of the convention.
To this end, I should like to stress two points.
In the first place, what do we expect to obtain from this exercise? Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, if the objective were to assemble a convention, original in form and composition, as we have today, in order merely to come up with an announcement of a text bearing the signatures of the presidents of the three institutions, then I think we would be on the wrong track.
We want more than this. It is in this spirit that we are working within the convention, both in terms of the timetable and the form.
My second point is to do with its content.
Our resolution does not say much with regard to content, but Parliament has already had, on at least three occasions, the opportunity to state what it expected from a charter on fundamental rights.
This was not the purpose of today' s discussion, but it is worth highlighting three points.
Firstly, if we have put together such a unique body only to codify the existing law to the letter, then I believe it was not worth planning this new body.
Secondly, if the convention must confine itself to regurgitating all or part of the European Convention on Human Rights in order to void the question of whether or not the Union should adhere to it of all meaning, then I believe once again that we would be on the wrong track.
Thirdly, it seems to me that, with regard to the content, we have here the opportunity to restate, at Union level, a number of commitments that each Member State endorses, but which we must confirm on behalf of the European Union as such, recognising a number of rights, particularly in the economic and social sector.
Let me state here the extent of the difficulty of the mandate given us at Cologne, acknowledging social rights which would be nothing more than goals.
But, these specifically are the issues involved in the work which will be carried out within the convention and, on behalf of my Group, I wish to state the importance we shall accord the charter' s content in terms of such questions.
In this spirit, I fully support the proposal which Ieke van den Burg has just made: if the Union is questioning its adherence to the European Convention on Human Rights, then it must also question its adherence to the European Social Charter.
Finally, I think that the European Parliament will be on the right track for the charter to be ready, in terms of both content and timetable, to be integrated during the French Presidency.
It would enable fundamental rights to be recognised in due form, and given the place they deserve in our internal legal system, a system which today is observed with a great deal of attention by citizens within the European Union, certainly, but also by the countries who wish to join the Union.
Madam President, the need for a binding charter is more a political than a legal issue, but this does not detract from its significance.
Fundamental rights are of secondary importance in treaties these days. If they are included at all, this is done so in a completely chaotic format.
This is unacceptable, certainly if Europe professes to be a Community of values.
Therefore the charter must guarantee the citizen protection against the breaches of increasingly widening supra-national legislation.
The ECHR should apply as a minimum standard with specific European Union rights added to it.
Needless to say, we need to do everything possible to leave national constitutions intact as much as possible but it cannot be ruled out that it will affect these constitutions.
After all, the charter must be able to form the basis for new fundamental rights if so necessitated by social developments.
Finally, Madam President, it is essential for the European Union to accede to the European Convention on Human Rights, for Strasbourg must become stronger, not weaker.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Charter of Fundamental Rights must be an essential stage in the construction of Europe.
We must provide ourselves with the means to make it the founding element of European identity, allowing Europe to make the qualitative leap it needs in order to feel that it really does exist.
In this context, I should like to join my fellow Members in pointing out the need to ensure that this charter is of a binding nature, for the citizens would find it hard to understand the European Union working on defining fundamental rights if it was not then possible to guarantee them in law.
Fundamental rights, and let me stress this word, fundamental rights can be no less than mandatory. If they are not, then the whole construction of Europe would lose its fundamental nature in the opinion of many people.
The future charter must be included among the Treaties and this must be achieved on the occasion of the next IGC, probably the last with the current fifteen countries.
France, the self-proclaimed home of human rights, must absolutely take advantage of its presidency during the second half of 2000 in order to table this amendment of the Treaties.
This is a formal request which we are making to the French Government.
There are, however, two points that I would like to mention here.
Firstly, I should like to stress the need for the charter to develop the concept of European citizenship due to residence.
More than ever, it is essential to avoid the coexistence in Europe of distinct classes of people enjoying distinct rights.
For example, how acceptable is it that an Algerian who has worked and paid taxes in France for thirty years may not vote in local elections whilst a European resident for six months in another European country can take part? This charter must make every effort to develop our definition of European citizenship based on the idea of residence.
The rights that we are defining, if they are to be fundamental, must be applicable to everyone.
Secondly, I should like to stress the urgent need to include effective protection for personal data held on computer within the scope of the charter.
Last month, the European Parliament in fact adopted an amendment asking for a Committee on Information Technology and European Liberties to be set up. Well, this cannot truly exist unless it is based on a solid legal standard.
The charter must therefore ensure that it defines the limits of the content of files, the means permitted for data retrieval, and access methods.
Moreover, at a time when certain communication systems, certain spying systems, are prohibited, we must guarantee citizens' rights with regard to the new European bodies which are being developed, and guarantee the rights of the citizen by means of parliamentary monitoring, but also consumer rights with regard to the new Internet marketing techniques.
This is a major issue for the guaranteeing of fundamental freedoms in the twenty-first century.
Madam President, my speech is going to be rather different to that of the previous speakers, since I should like to demonstrate that the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the Citizens of the European Union, as outlined in the European Parliament report by Duff and Voggenhuber, would in fact be a charter that restricted fundamental rights even more.
This report in fact proposes including the citizens' rights which have until now been determined at national level in a standard, detailed and binding European charter, whose application would be monitored and hence interpreted by the European Court of Justice.
I should point out, before going on, that I am not sure that all the other participants representing the Heads of State or Government and the national parliaments within the body established by the Cologne Council to prepare a preliminary draft charter are in fact in agreement with this position of the European Parliament.
So, for the time being, what I am about to say applies only to the Duff/Voggenhuber report.
Obviously, as far as those who promote the charter are concerned, defending fundamental rights which are already adequately protected in Europe at present, whatever they may say, is nothing but a pretext to conceal another, purely ideological, objective, which is to establish the beginnings of a European constitution, the crowning achievement of a superstate, even though the majority of the peoples of Europe do not want either of these.
And how right they are, for this detailed, mandatory charter, which would give standardised definitions of citizens' rights for the whole of Europe, would impose a rigid legal framework enclosing each nation in regulations which were not entirely its own.
There are three reasons for our claiming that the charter, as envisaged, would curtail the rights of citizens.
Firstly, on the pretext of defending citizens better, it would distance them from the place where their rights are defined. It would weaken the control that they currently have over it.
It would end in a situation where a nation could no longer amend the rights of its own citizens without obtaining the agreement of fourteen other nations, a suffocating formula, ill-suited to the nature and the interests of Europe, as I explained in the minority opinion appended to the report.
Next, the charter would provide a new pretext for the frenzied standardisation of citizens' rights in Europe.
Indeed I am astounded that governments are prepared to allow this to happen.
Have they not learnt the lessons of the past? Do they really wish, taking the example of the French Government, to have to face twenty problems such as the case of the hunters all at the same time?
Finally, this charter would tend to circumvent the rights of communities, primarily the national community, which are rights that are extremely dear to the citizens, since it is within this circle that the most realistic and most legitimate democracy is expressed.
Here we are at the heart of what we have called the process of reducing rights. This process would, moreover, go much farther than one might think, for a whole series of beggars and minorities have started to come out of the woodwork, clearly understanding that if the charter is standardised and binding, as well as adopted under the dubious conditions of so-called European democracy, it may in years to come represent the weak link in the chain of democracy.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group therefore considers that the charter, if it must exist, should be extremely brief and should present only the essential values, the fundamental principles of the countries of Europe, in the form of a political declaration.
It is perfectly feasible to imagine, as of the end of the year, candidate countries signing up to this charter in order to demonstrate their inclusion in the circle of European values.
If so, adhesion to the charter could be shared by both existing members and future members.
One thing is certain, Madam President, at all costs we must avoid foisting a standardised and binding text on the nations of Europe, lest we create the post-national society which Mr Duff has just been hoping and praying for. This would be perceived as an attack on national democracies' freedom of choice.
Every country must continue to be able to choose its regulations freely in accordance with its own culture and development.
We would like the Intergovernmental Conference, which is just starting, to keep the essential principle of respect for national democracies continually in mind.
Madam President, on behalf of the Lega Nord, for which I am a representative to this House, I would like to express my delight at the fact that the European Charter of Fundamental Rights is, at last, being drawn up.
I like to remember that, right here, in France, a couple of centuries ago, the first moves were made to define these rights, and only in North America, during the same period, were these rights actually given expression, apart from in the works of philosophers and academics, in legal documents such as the State Constitutions.
Now then, the European Union does, in effect, seem to be a little behind, but we can make up time by using this vessel.
I am referring to it as a vessel because it is obviously still only a framework.
We do not, as yet, know what we will put inside it. The report does, of course, contain some of the main points, but we will have to decide upon the definitive text later on.
This Charter is important because, although we do have other conventions and treaties, human rights are always under threat, even within the Union.
For example, I am thinking of the attempt to eliminate or cut down on the appeal procedures in lawsuits in Italy. I am thinking of the right to free elections which loses its meaning when, for example, the citizens of a country of the Union vote in a certain way, and vote freely, and then see their country penalised as a result of the outcome of the elections.
The right of citizens to vote for whomsoever they choose should be respected indiscriminately for all people at all times, without sabotaging the governments and countries which emerge as a result of these elections.
Then there is not just the question of citizens' rights: the rights of communities need to be better defined, as do the rights of peoples, those peoples which are under threat, on the one hand, from globalisation, which wants to standardise everything, and, on the other hand, from a return to a single, centralist, oppressive nation-state.
In our opinion, however, we should be moving towards a Europe of peoples, peoples whose identity is not necessarily defined according to the present form of the Member States.
In particular, certain rules of some of the penal codes should be altered, such as article 141 of the Italian Penal Code, which goes so far as to punish acts of secession with life imprisonment.
I am not necessarily advocating secession, but I am claiming the right for anyone who might want to do so to be able to take action, in a peaceful and non-violent manner, of course, to uphold and apply this right which is sanctioned by the UN Charter, sanctioned by the Helsinki Final Act and, I hope, despite certain penal rules, will also be sanctioned by the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Madam President, as the low turnout during the most recent elections has shown, "Europe" as a concept does not mean a great deal to its citizens.
We cannot change this by giving citizens a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Citizens need to see that the European institutions are actually acting in their interests and are not just out to increasing their own power.
If this happens, confidence among people will grow more than could ever be achieved by many a fine declaration or charter.
We do not share the presumption that a comprehensive charter can be drafted which comprises all current fundamental rights.
Such a document cannot be drafted, not now or in future, and this ambition is certainly not a task of the European Union.
What we should aim for within the Union is cooperation based on respect for the separate identities of peoples and states.
Fundamental rights must be secured where they can be protected as effectively as possible and where they can be embedded in the social fabric, that is to say within the Member States.
It is also vital that the ECHR' s external supervisory role in the protection of fundamental rights remains intact. Equally, the authority of the Court in Strasbourg over this whole procedure should remain unaffected.
A legally binding charter will inevitably affect fundamental rights provisions in Member States and will undermine the role and the authority of the ECHR and the Court in Strasbourg.
If a charter were to be drafted nonetheless, we would strongly urge that this only apply to the institutions of the Union.
It should only include articles which can give a meaningful message to these European institutions.
Vague instruction standards or rights in policy areas, where the Union has no authority, must be omitted.
Finally, fundamental rights are based on human dignity.
The true value of human life, however, will never be fully understood if we lose sight of God, the Creator of all things, including man.
Mr President, dismayed as I am by the fact that 14 Member States have prejudged Austria, I regard the proposed Charter of Fundamental Rights as an opportunity to bring the European Union closer to the people.
I therefore welcome it.
In drawing up this Charter, the Union wishes to demonstrate its respect for the rights of the people and to show that it cares about the welfare of the individual.
At the same time, however, the impression has been created in the public arena that the European Union does not even respect the fundamental right - as it were - of an individual State to form a government with sovereign power.
Likewise, the impression has been created that 14 Member States have failed to play by the rules they themselves adopted, and have violated their obligations towards solidarity.
I would ask you this: how is a Union of the Member States that adopts sanctions out of prejudice, without giving the parties concerned a fair hearing and with no legal basis, to satisfy people that it intends to do more than just pay lip-service to fundamental rights?
The decision taken by the 14 has done great damage to the perception that the citizens of the European Union have of Europe. And I believe it is very doubtful indeed as to whether this damage can be made good by a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Mr President, for years now, the European Parliament and our group have been asking for a proper description of fundamental rights of the European citizens in the European treaties.
The request was made at the time of the Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In this connection, I would also remind you of the report which I had the privilege of writing in conjunction with Mrs Dury in preparation for the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This question was raised in that document too.
In fact, it was in this document that we achieved our first successes, for our anti-discrimination clause was used in the Treaty of Amsterdam virtually verbatim.
Later on, at the Cologne Summit, Parliament' s wider request was also honoured.
A meeting was proposed for the purpose of producing a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European citizen.
The question which concerns us today, more than anything is: what should this charter contain and what legal force should it have?
As far as the latter is concerned, I would like to express my unequivocal support in favour of including a charter in the treaties and in favour of a charter which can be enforced on behalf of citizens upon the European courts.
We should not produce empty shells; our citizens would see through them straight away anyway.
As far as the content is concerned, the charter must tie in with the existing conventions, such as the Council of Europe' s European Convention for the protection of human rights.
In fact, in my opinion, the Union should sign up to that Convention without delay.
The charter should at least deal with the citizens' fundamental rights, the political rights, the social rights and, in my opinion, the rights of minorities too, and it should form a supplement to what we already have.
It should not duplicate what is already there.
New threats, in particular, will need to be anticipated, such as in the field of information and biotechnology, and in the protection of the environment, of which man forms part.
Mr President, the rights of minorities appear to constitute one of the most difficult areas in the charter and because this has been and will be one of Europe' s key problems, I would argue in favour of including fundamental rights of minorities in the charter.
I will probably submit a text on this matter myself.
But the most important fact, Mr President, is that the charter will be given legal force, that it will be included in the Treaty and that our citizens will be reassured that the European Union will take its fundamental rights seriously too, and will want to defend them up to the highest level.
Mr President, I would just like to say a few words on the question of the incorporation of the Charter into the Treaties.
The European Parliament declared itself fully in favour of this move, convinced that this is the way to guarantee the legal status of the Charter and to consolidate the protection of rights at a legal level as well, awarding jurisdiction to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The governments, and, on their behalf, the Council of Cologne, left the question open.
They left a question mark over whether and how to incorporate the Charter into the Treaties.
We feel that the Intergovernmental Conference is our opportunity to resolve this question, and this opportunity must not be passed up.
There are, so to speak, two parallel operations.
It is the responsibility of the Convention to prepare the draft Charter in time for the Intergovernmental Conference to be able to decide whether to incorporate it into the Treaties.
In this regard, I would like to warn the representative of the Council, the Portuguese Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that the Intergovernmental Conference should already be starting to prepare for this eventuality.
If the Charter is ready in time, the Intergovernmental Conference will have to define the procedures for its incorporation into the Treaty.
As we are all aware, from the European Parliament' s perspective, this should represent a step towards the constitutionalisation of the Union.
I am quite aware that the term 'constitutionalisation' has come to be viewed with some suspicion recently, and that people are afraid to use it, or at least, prefer to avoid using it.
From time to time I find myself in difficulties, because the parliamentary committee of which I am Chairman has changed its name from the 'Committee on Institutional Affairs' to the 'Committee on Constitutional Affairs' .
And yet I feel that this is the right way for us to go and that it does not in any way mean promoting that concept we all fear of a European superstate.
Nothing can undermine the value of the national constitutions, in the same way that, according to the Treaties, European citizenship does not replace national citizenship, but incorporates it.
The governments did something very courageous when they gave the go-ahead for the preparation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in Cologne, and now they should not have any regrets.
They should not turn back, but should exploit their decision to the full.
Ladies and gentlemen, human rights are a constitutional issue.
The incorporation of the Charter of Rights into the Treaties is the logical result of the decision taken in Cologne, which was taken for the benefit of the citizens, that they might have a part in the construction of Europe and fully identify with the plans for the Union, its principles, its values and its institutions.
Mr President, I should like to express my substantial agreement with the point just made by Mr Napolitano.
It is, when you think of it, odd to suppose that great institutions of this kind could be thought capable of existing without some constitution.
Manifestly we do exist and therefore manifestly we already have some kind of a constitution.
The question is: do we have an adequate constitution and what kind of constitution do we want?
To say we need a constitution is not to say that the European Union should have the constitution of a state, for the Union is not a state and is not about to become one.
We all therefore agree that there should be proper recognition of rights within the Union and that this should be binding on the organs and institutions of the Union.
The EU organs and institutions can exercise far too much power to permit them that power without the proper control which a Charter of Rights would imply.
There is however one risk.
One of the great success stories of Europe is the way in which the European Court of Justice, especially when other institutions were blocked, succeeded in building the concept of Europe as a Community under the law.
If we create a Charter of Rights that overloads the Court of Justice, that has everybody beating a path every week to Luxembourg, we will destroy the purpose.
We must ensure that the main avenue for protecting rights is in the national courts and in a supervisory jurisdiction as exercised at European level.
If we do not succeed in that, we will fail in everything.
The conventions are, of course, concerned with the relationship between States and citizens and, since the EU is not a State, the fact that the EU increasingly behaves like, and is acquiring the powers of, a State is a problem.
In that way, a loophole has appeared in connection with fundamental rights, and this loophole should, of course, be closed.
In our eagerness to make things right, we are, however, in danger of doing a lot of damage. The EU is faced with a number of choices.
Are we to secure our own rights? Are we exclusively to look after ourselves and our own?
Or are we to reinforce human rights throughout Europe? The EU must not start competing with the existing authorities for resolving disputes, such as the Court of Human Rights here in Strasbourg.
That would, of course, weaken the latter and damage the situation regarding human rights throughout Europe.
In my view, the EU' s Court of Justice should therefore be kept away from the project concerning fundamental rights.
Instead, the EU ought to take Strasbourg' s judgements seriously and demand that present and future Member States ratify the European Convention on Human Rights, the ILO conventions and the essential UN conventions, as well as having economic and tariff agreements depend upon the parties adhering to these conventions.
In that way, the EU would reinforce the existing conventions, and that is something there is a need for.
I would like to join with my colleagues in congratulating the two rapporteurs despite the fact that I do not agree with everything that they have set down and suggested.
At the same time, they have been given an impossible task to try and square a circle that cannot be squared.
In the brief time that I have, I would like to concentrate on one specific point which the previous speaker has mentioned, as indeed have other speakers.
That is the potential conflict which could arise between this Charter and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Let us not forget that each Member State has ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, has incorporated it into its own national law and is bound by the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Over the last 50 years, the European Convention, with the decisions of the Court, has grown and evolved to accommodate new rights, new entitlements and new freedoms that have developed with society.
Also, in case Members do not know it, under a strict legal interpretation any EU legislation supersedes any constitutional provision or any other national legislative provision in any one of the Member States.
Therefore, if this Charter were to be incorporated into the Treaties, it would supersede the European Convention on Human Rights, it would supersede any national constitutional provisions and would also supersede any national legislative provisions.
Therefore, whilst it is important that each of us must stand up for the inalienable freedoms and rights enjoyed by each individual citizen, as well as by groups of citizens, I think there is a better way to deal with this problem than through a Charter, namely through the incorporation of the Convention into European Union law and its enforcement at national Member State level.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with this proposed charter and some other reports which this House will be debating tomorrow morning, we have now entered a new period of European construction, the 'Dadaist' period of European construction, which scorns reality and perpetually seeks moral justification for itself.
The fact is, you refute the transcendental and the sublime because you confuse moralism with morality - indeed, Goethe, as you know, said that moralism was the opposite of morality - and legalism with law.
Please understand that we are not challenging the existence of human rights.
We are saying that they should be taken into consideration among other rights, and that it is all of these rights which must contribute to the general interest, for it is general interest that is the primordial rule of political action, not the zeitgeist, the showbiz society, the mediagoguery, or weakness raised up as a system.
Indeed, human rights are no more than an object, a pretext, which the speakers here - like the pseudo-artist Duchamp - generally make a mockery of.
It is a pretext, when the very title of the proposed charter speaks of the fundamental rights 'of' the European Union instead of fundamental rights 'within' the European Union.
What you are trying to create is a precursor for a constitution that is impossible to find because in fact you have reached a dead end and you know perfectly well that the construction of Europe has turned into an unbelievable preachifying mass of texts and declarations.
Forgetting the people, social democrats hide, shamefaced, behind human rights and furtive liberals turn into social democrats.
But the people take note of these recantations and will, one day, reject them, or indeed the Western world will come to an end.
Mr President, the question we have heard several times in the course of this debate is this: what exactly is the point of this Charter of Human Rights, when there is already one, and even several universal conventions on human rights and a European Convention on Human Rights, and human rights are included in the constitutions of all the Member States, those of the candidate countries and, generally, in the constitutions of all countries, even those who do not respect human rights?
It certainly is not useful, as has been claimed previously, in terms of improving or strengthening human rights within the construction of Europe.
No, and we should pay tribute to Mrs Berès for having just now clearly given direction to a debate which marks a key turning point in the history of the construction of Europe, the transition from an economic and commercial Europe to a political and institutional Europe.
Of course, the Charter of Human Rights is the first step in this direction, but, as with everything which characterises the construction of Europe, the approach is indirect, concealed, tortuous and, I might even say, 'Jesuitical' .
The question of a constitution and its contents is not asked, but instead the question of a charter of human rights which is obviously the precursor for a constitution, it being understood that the precursor will eventually give rise to a constitution proper and then, possible, to a State.
The interesting thing about this approach - and here again I must pay tribute to Mrs Berès for her clear-sightedness and honesty, even if, as she knows, I totally disagree with her conclusions - is that it tends to determine what will be the principles of the European communities, or of the community of human beings living within the European Union.
When Mrs Berès speaks of the rights being applied not only to citizens but also to visiting and resident aliens, she is tackling a matter which, I feel, is probably going to be developed in the texts already submitted and to be submitted in future to this House, to wit, what will be the basis of the rights which will govern the European Union?
Is it to be citizenship in the way that we traditionally understand it, with rights which characterise in a specific way the people belonging to a given community? Or is it to be rights extended to parties other than citizens proper, with a shift, or at least the start of a shift, from democracy based on citizenship towards democracy based on the equal treatment of individuals resident, whether long-term residents or visitors, on European Union territories.
I feel that this is a problem which as yet we can only see the premises of, but, in my view, it is absolutely essential to see the premises in order to be able subsequently to follow the thread.
Mr President, while I congratulate the rapporteurs on their work I fear that, as the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so it is with this Charter.
The nations of Europe can be proud of their record on human rights; however, have they needed charters? Britain led the world in the battle to abolish slavery, but the only Charter - actually so called - which we have ever had in Britain was signed at Runnymede by King John in 1215.
Of course, there are exceptions, exceptions so serious that Europe has a responsibility to do what it can to ensure that the inhumanities and atrocities of the past are never repeated.
But does this Charter add to what we already have? Does it add to or replace the Convention on Human Rights to which all EU Member States and applicant states are signatories, or does it just add another judicial forum, leaving lawyers with the happy and profitable choice between the European Court and the Court of Human Rights?
Why not a simple declaration of human rights under Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty without the need for a charter for litigation? Can fundamental rights properly be protected by a court which is already overstretched and frequently arrives at its judgments long after the events which it is judging?
Does this Charter simply aim to be an expensive distributor of compensation in the dreadful fullness of time?
Ensuring fundamental human rights is the best of intentions, but a charter for litigation and bureaucracy is surely another road to another hell.
Mr President, why do we need such a Charter? It clearly is not, as Mr Berthu has said, in order to create a European super-state but more, as Mrs Berès has said, to make it clear to today's citizens and tomorrow's citizens that what we are in now is a Community of values: values based on democracy, freedom, equality, solidarity and respect for diversity, values - and I stress this to Mrs Garaud - that unite Europeans across frontiers, from the north, the south, the east and the west of the Community.
The big question is not whether we need such a Charter but what status it should have.
Some have argued that the Charter should simply gather together in a readable form all the rights that currently exist within the European Union.
This would be a valuable exercise: there is clearly a problem of awareness of people's rights.
Many citizens do not know the rights that exist today.
A document clearly laying out such rights, and making it clear where and how these rights could be exercised, would be valuable.
But if that was all we were doing in the Convention then we should have left it to a team of academics, who frankly could have done it better than a group of 60 politicians.
I believe we have a team of 60 politicians working on the Convention because it is our duty to identify gaps in existing rights, to identify weaknesses in existing structures and to show the political will to correct those weaknesses.
So the Charter must fill in any gaps in existing rights, and it must be binding on the institutions of the European Union.
However, it is clear that not all rights will be equal, at least in the way they are implemented.
The rights need to be in two categories.
There needs to be a list of rights which will be directly upheld by the courts, but there also needs to be another list of general rights which the Community institutions and others will have to take into account when drafting policies; some in the Court, some simply as background forming a valuable basis when we are taking other decisions.
What is clear, and what unites most people in this Chamber who want such a Charter, is that it must be in the Treaties.
If it is to impact on the citizen it must appear in the Treaties of the European Union.
Mr President, I would particularly like to thank the rapporteurs and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs for having adopted a position in favour of the EU becoming a party to the Council of Europe' s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
I hope that this position will be retained in tomorrow' s sitting, as it will be vitally important if we wish to avoid confusion with the many various schemes in respect of fundamental rights.
I would like to raise the issue of reinforcing the political rights of citizens with the help of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
In my view, there has not to date been so much discussion on the subject.
If, however, we were to examine what a citizen of the European Union today can actually do, how much he or she can influence the decision-making process, we would see that there are not so many opportunities to do so. Citizens can mainly stand as candidates in elections and vote in another EU country.
But why should we not establish some new institutions and instruments, by means of this Charter, enabling citizens to have a real influence?
Why, for example, could we not take up the notion that a certain number of citizens - let us say from three different EU countries - could formulate a citizens' initiative that then could be channelled though the European Parliament? Why can we not look to the future and see that it will be ever more important for our citizens to be able to take part directly in decision-making in other ways too?
I think it would be natural for this to form part of the Charter and very little has been said about this so far.
During this past century, Europe has experienced two terrible wars, immeasurable tragedies, but, at the same time, it has witnessed unrestrainable civil, cultural and social progress.
The working masses fought, and achieved and consolidated positive results which protected their rights, and which, at the same time, played a decisive role in the development of democracy.
It is a bitter surprise to find that there is no specific, explicit reference in this document to those social rights which are, in actual fact, the most important part of the immense democratic process which became established in Europe during the course of the century.
I am referring to essential rights, without which democracy is not true democracy: freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and of association and so on are the basic framework of democracy, but within that framework and from that framework must emerge a healthy, solid structure which is a perfect combination of freedom and justice.
First and foremost, a document such as this cannot fail to include a specific, indisputable reference to the right to work.
It cannot and must not be without this reference.
Yes, social rights are mentioned, but they should be clearly and practically defined: the right to work, the right to health, the right to education, the right to housing, to a pension, the right, that is, to life, to a life where all have equal opportunities, according to those principles of liberté [freedom] and égalité [equality] which have played such a major part in our extensive history.
For this reason, therefore, I ask Parliament to approve the small number of explicit amendments tabled by Mr Kaufmann and myself on this subject.
- (PT) Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, the only really fundamental thing about the idea of a Charter of Fundamental Rights for the Union is an attempt, under the guise of appearing to be generous, to take a step towards the so-called constitutionalisation of the Treaties, or even more directly, towards a European constitution for a European State.
For this reason, we are against it.
We are not questioning the content of such a charter.
We come from a country whose constitution contains one of the most extensive enumerations of fundamental rights anywhere.
We also belong to a party that was forged in the struggle for democracy, and one of whose greatest concerns has always been the steadfast promotion of human rights.
We oppose the charter, however, because in the idea behind it, we detect a kind of Trojan horse for federalism, a political trap which would entail other serious political and legal consequences for the Member States and peoples of Europe.
We do not think that it would be correct, and certainly not appropriate, to impair and disturb the balance of the Treaties at present.
On the contrary, the times and challenges we are currently facing mean that it is more important than ever to promote the Treaties and follow the precise, secure routes mapped out by the founding fathers which have brought us this far.
There is a very simple reason why the European Union does not need a Charter of Fundamental Rights: it does not have a fundamental rights problem.
The Europe to which we belong is even, to a certain extent, the cradle of the culture of fundamental rights.
As there is no problem, the charter is not a solution and as the charter will solve nothing, it is therefore a problem in itself.
Firstly, because it would divide us in a cause in which we should be united.
Secondly, because it would give rise to an overlapping and potentially disruptive conflict with the protection afforded by the European Convention on Human Rights, under the tried and tested institutional framework of the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights.
This is not a plus, but a minus.
The appropriate setting in which to enshrine fundamental rights is the constitutional law of each nation state.
The appropriate setting for achieving international legal harmonisation and solid advances in the international protection of human rights is the agreements and conventions ratified by the Member States in as wide a geographical area as possible. In other words, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and, in Europe, the European Convention.
We need to work within these extensive international frameworks if we are really to make the protection of rights already recognised by Member States more effective internationally, instead of following a route that will restrict us because it runs counter to the main feature of the culture of fundamental rights: its universality.
If the EU really does want to take symbolic steps in this field, it needs to go down a different path. That would involve including all human rights agreements and conventions already ratified by the 15 Member States in the list of international texts referred to in Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union.
This would ensure that they were clearly incorporated into the acquis communautaire.
That would be a real step forward. This charter is the wrong answer to a problem that does not even exist and is therefore an additional problem which we feel we can do without.
Mr President, "the creation of an ever closer Union among the peoples of Europe and the maintenance and development of the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice are based on general and absolute respect for human dignity, which is unique to each person, yet common to all, and inviolable."
So reads Item B in the motion for a resolution we have before us.
I consider it to be great progress that the European Parliament has specified and established a view of human beings which is deeply rooted in Europe' s history, culture, popular movements and spiritual traditions.
I am therefore pleased that my amendment concerning human dignity - unique to each person, yet common to all and inviolable - obtained support in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, for we must establish a common view of human beings as the effective basis for the EU' s urgent, global fight against the death penalty, its struggle on the side of life and also its fight against torture, against the sex trade and against sexual exploitation.
In our capacity as citizens, we have freedoms and rights, but we also have responsibilities.
I therefore welcome the fact that responsibilities have been incorporated in accordance with my wording in Item E.
I would also remind you of Amendments Nos 24 and 25 which the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats have submitted and which will be voted on tomorrow.
By way of conclusion, I want to discuss the fact that, in November 1999, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities in the European Parliament made a statement to the effect that the family does not have any special rights but only individual rights.
This statement totally conflicts with the UN' s and the Council of Europe' s fundamental human rights charters concerning the rights of the family.
Mr President, it is not often that one has cause to simply feel glad about something in the all too ponderous run of things in the European Parliament.
However, the report by Duff and Voggenhuber has given us cause for this today.
I would particularly like to take this opportunity to highlight how doggedly they have pursued their goal.
All too often one has the feeling in this House, that notwithstanding all verbal declarations, the superior might and advantages enjoyed by the Council and the Commission prevail, and all too often, this is where the interests of national parties and governments win through as well.
Duff and Voggenhuber, on the other hand, think of themselves as true European Parliamentarians whose task it is to further the interests of Europe as a whole.
And so tomorrow, we will be able to adopt a report, which is based on the premise that naturally the European Parliament, and not the national governments, would be responsible for instituting the fundamental rights of the European Union.
This Charter will only meet the needs of the citizens of Europe under two provisos. Firstly, it must be given substance, and secondly, it must be made binding in law.
However, it is stunningly disappointing to note how the Convention, which has been specifically set up for this purpose, is high on competences but very low in courage.
And so really, this report could also be viewed as an appeal to the Convention that goes like this: 'Dare to do something at long last! Dare to include innovations in the Charter, particularly those in the sphere of information and biotechnology, but also where equal rights for women and environmental protection are concerned.
Dare to do more than just spend time in the glass palace of Parliament talking about the people of Europe - get out there and involve them! And dare to adopt the standards on international labour law set by the International Labour Organisation.'
The Charter is precisely the instrument we need to give Europe a soul, and it could help create a common identity. Why is it that EU governments are so quick off the mark when it comes to pushing through economic reforms but so hesitant when it comes to political rights?
Do you not realise that Europe as we know it will fall apart if we put all our efforts into bringing on the economy and do not do anything to promote political fundamental rights? Conscious of my position as an Austrian, I would therefore like to make the following appeal to the national governments: 'wake up, it is in your own interests to give fundamental rights a chance!
With this in mind, I hope the report in question achieves an overwhelming majority in plenary tomorrow.
I should like to say that a Charter of Fundamental Rights is both welcome and essential, provided it does not fall into the following three traps.
The first trap is that it may just become just another public relations exercise - and we have seen many of them from the European Union, in employment for instance - which has no legal basis, which is not binding and which will therefore not allow citizens to enforce their rights through the courts.
The second danger is that it may give the European Union an excuse to continue not being legally bound by basic decisions or regulations of international bodies, such as the European Convention on Human Rights or the various decisions of the International Labour Organisation.
The third danger is that it may become a general Charter containing a loose set of average values, a mechanism for subverting the advanced human rights which have been acquired in various countries.
For example, if a particular country has the right to free education, then any general reference to the right to education in a European Union Charter could be the first step towards subverting that right.
Provided the Charter deals with these three traps, provided it addresses social rights in a serious manner, provided it is open to the new issues raised by the Internet, new technologies, etc., and provided it applies to all persons living in Europe, then it may represent a positive contribution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, fundamental rights, citizens, freedom and human rights have a long tradition in Europe.
Fundamental rights of the modern age have their origins in the Magna Carta Libertatum of 1215, the Petition of Rights of 1628, the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, the Bill of Rights of 1689 and, lastly, the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen during the French Revolution.
The fact that fundamental rights have come to be guaranteed under constitutional law over the past 200 years is largely down to the impact these universal documents of fundamental rights have had.
It is now the task of twenty-first century Europe to combine the existing fundamental rights in the Member States and those aspects that apply to Europe.
The fundamental rights such as freedom of worship, freedom to meet and form associations, for example, are sacrosanct and inalienable rights to freedom from state intervention.
Applied to Europe this means that a European Charter of Fundamental Rights must protect the citizens of the European Union against the interference and intervention of European institutions in the fundamental rights of the citizens.
Furthermore, our group hopes that a written European catalogue of fundamental rights will put European integration on a firmer legal-ethical footing and help to create greater transparency and clarity for the citizens.
Our group deems it particularly important that the European Charter should neither replace nor infringe Member States' own provisions on fundamental rights.
There has been heated discussion over the call for the European Union to sign up to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms drawn up by the Council of Europe in 1950.
The Council of Europe' s Convention is now 50 years old.
Our group opposes the Union' s signing up to the Convention, not just because the existing European treaties do not permit this but, in particular, because we need our own catalogue of fundamental rights for the European Union, that is, one that reflects the convictions and beliefs we hold today.
At the same time, however, this means that we must confine ourselves to the traditional fundamental rights and avoid extending the scope to social and economic fundamental rights, which are not legally enforceable at European level.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs for the comprehensive work they have done, and hope that the deliberations of the European Parliament find their way into the Convention' s discussions on the elaboration of fundamental rights.
Mr President, the rapporteurs Duff and Voggenhuber, as well as the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, have done some sterling work.
The report itself is sound because it conveys the key messages without going so far as to anticipate the work of the fundamental rights convention.
I therefore nurture the hope that tomorrow in plenary sitting, this report will be adopted in the form we in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights drafted it in.
However there is one point which I would like to be amended. I have tabled an amendment to this effect on behalf of my group.
It concerns the question, raised repeatedly today, as to whether the European Union should sign up to the European Convention on Human Rights. This was an important goal in the past.
It was an important and appropriate goal in the past precisely because there was no intention, at that stage, to create our own, autonomous catalogue of fundamental rights at European Union level; viewed in this light, it was far better to have that, as a second-best solution, than nothing at all.
But that is not the path we want Europe to go down in the future, and nor should it.
With all due respect for the Human Rights Convention, we need more!
We need our own Charter that provides our own answers to the questions raised by the age we live in. It must balance traditional, liberal rights with an adequate set of economic rights as well as offer effective solutions to issues pertaining to the social rights of citizens of the European Union and to the need to guarantee them a basic standard of social protection..
The European Convention on Human Rights does not fulfil this task.
It is not in a position to do so because it came into being in the 50s, when political and social conditions were completely different.
Seen in this light, it is time for all of us to call for constructive work to commence on our own Charter.
We call upon the Convention on Fundamental Rights, the 62 politicians that David Martin mentioned, to take up this task.
Let us support them in this.
Mr President, the lawful object of the Charter of Rights is to protect the legitimate rights, expectations and aspirations of the citizen against the oppressive behaviour of government, business or other citizens; and it is, of course, right that people should be thus safeguarded in respect of the European institutions and their activities.
However, having said that, the crucial matter is not the existence of a Charter but the proper safeguarding of the citizen, and the means by which the citizen achieves such protection today vary from Member State to Member State.
In view of the Community' s normal legislative practice, I am somewhat surprised that it was not felt that this should be achieved by going with the grain of the established legal and administrative mechanisms of each Member State.
In other words, policy should be implemented along the lines of a directive rather than a regulation.
For example, I was speaking recently with some very senior judges in Germany who were clear, on the basis of the history and traditions of their country, that these matters should be contained in a justiciable charter.
But my own country has a very different tradition in this respect, as our own Prime Minister has made clear, and it is not part of the United Kingdom' s tradition to safeguard the citizen in this way.
We do it differently and no less effectively.
I think it is very relevant that the present socialist United Kingdom government is committed to ensuring that the Charter is non-justiciable and does not extend beyond existing rights to those not currently contained in the treaties.
Mr President, for those countries which have a long tradition of directly, legally binding charters, a development of the kind proposed is not dramatic.
But for those which do not, it is a very radical step; and in the meantime, I will keep a very close watch on the United Kingdom and what it may say and do about all this.
Mr President, we get the impression from some of the discussions on the subject of the Charter of Fundamental Rights that the family is becoming a politically incorrect concept in the European Union, so eager are some groups to dispense with the word.
The UN Declaration of Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Council of Europe' s Social Charter and the European Parliament' s resolution on the declaration fundamental rights and freedoms clearly conclude that there is a special need to protect the family.
Unfortunately, not everyone sees the matter in this way, and, in my opinion, we can see an unnecessary conflict between the rights of women and those of families, which people try to accommodate by rejecting the family instead of seeking a radically new and egalitarian European policy on the family.
This means that family values in society are falling into the wrong, or at least biased, hands.
The new right is getting hold of them and using them to capture the moral high ground.
That is why the theme is tiresome to so many.
However, I believe that it would be a big mistake for the European Parliament to approve of this sort of trend.
Families are firmly connected with the European notion of society.
Like many others, the Christian Democrats want a society where freedom and responsibility meet halfway.
I see it as a family society because it is difficult to learn about joint responsibility and solidarity if it is not learnt in a small, close-knit community.
Society may be just, but it cannot ever love.
Its bosom is too cold and its arm too short.
Nevertheless, it is this very love that is a requirement for the healthy development of the individual.
And a progressive Charter of Fundamental Rights will be of no use to Europe if the members of its society have no wish to respect them.
Social development with that end in sight still takes place in the family.
There can thus be no people' s Europe without a family-oriented Europe.
Families need recognition, encouragement, freedom of action and protection from social tyranny just the same as individuals do.
Family rights and protection that have been provided for in legislation elsewhere in this respect should be reproduced in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It is clear that there is a great fear among many people, particularly the people who elected me, that this Charter will override national constitutions, in particular as regards the support and protection of fundamental institutions such as family, marriage and the protection of life, born and unborn.
It is good to remember that Europe has shared a common position throughout its history regarding the importance of supporting and protecting family and marriage.
This is enshrined in all our constitutions as well as the constitutions of those accession countries joining the European Union in enlargement.
I can show you the constitutions of post-communist states in which the family and marriage is protected.
I welcome the reference in our Charter to family life.
Part 1 of Article 9 states: "Everyone shall have the right to found a family".
It says it is inspired by Article 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights which states "men and women of marriageable age have the right to marry and found a family according to national laws".
Society recognises marriage not on moral grounds but because it recognises on a rational basis the stability it affords society socially and economically as well as securing future generations.
In the interests of best practice - and whilst it is increasingly difficult to define family and we need great sensitivity and compassion in this area - we should not throw away the traditional family unit as the fundamental unit we strive towards, indeed we should uphold it.
Point 3 of Article 9 states, "the Union shall ensure the protection of children".
It suggests we could add "in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child".
I support this, but I would strongly suggest that we incorporate into the wording of point 3 that first and foremost, the Union will support the family as the primary and natural educator and protector of the child as is their duty.
The Union should only step into a primary role where the family is unable to fulfil its duty.
As it states in the Convention, "the family as the fundamental group of society and natural environment for the growth and wellbeing of its members, particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance to fully assume its responsibility within the Community".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the current presidency of the European Union believes that the plan to establish a Charter of Fundamental Rights is an extremely important step in creating a Community of values which will act as a focus for taking the process of political union further.
Many people are wondering how far we can go in this process of establishing a standard set of values and principles in this way, which would guarantee every citizen within the Union a set of rights that would strengthen their sense of belonging to an area with a shared civilisation.
A question that has already been asked here today is what makes us want to join together and to transcend our enormous diversity by creating an entity which will unite us all.
This is the key question as regards European identity, and it goes to the very root of why we are also joined together here, in this great home - the European Union.
Over the decades, and having survived all kinds of traumas and crises, we have established a way of life based on the values of liberty, democracy and respect for the rule of law.
For many years, a potential model based on the culture of freedom that we enjoyed in some countries in Europe was held up to those who lived in other parts of Europe. This culture is in fact part of a tradition of tolerance which has been cultivated in this continent and which now, in turn, is at the heart of the European project itself.
The ascendancy of these ideas and the end of the totalitarian era which marked certain European societies has created a new situation to which we must respond.
In our opinion, this is a question of responsibility and also of consistency.
The enlargement of the European Union to cover new countries, which is an ethical imperative and an essential strategy for stability and peace in our continent, will unite us with states which have very diverse political cultures and which, in many cases, have young and untried institutions and structures.
Both for these states and for those among them that are fighting for fundamental principles that will structure their contemporary societies, it is becoming important for these principles to be incorporated into a body of Community legislation to which they will remain linked after accession.
Do not think, however, that this idea of a charter or a body of principles is merely a type of safeguard mechanism in the face of new Member States, that is to say a kind of defence against other countries.
This is not the case, and that is not the purpose of all this.
Recent events have demonstrated that what we hold to be stable and permanent within our own countries, within the Community of Fifteen, may, in certain circumstances, turn out to be much less helpful than we might hope in terms of addressing problems that are often quite simple, but in other cases revive old ghosts.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights is nevertheless not intended to act as a substitute for the constitutional guarantees that we all enjoy in our own countries.
We must dispose of this myth - which has been regularly used as a weapon to attack the Charter of Fundamental Rights - so that we can stop it being used as an excuse by those who seek refuge in subsidiarity in order not to shoulder their responsibilities as European citizens.
No, we intend to provide something which will bring added value, a kind of additional guarantee, which would function as an instrument of the new European citizenship.
Here, Mr President, we must overcome certain problems which the debate within the Convention is beginning to run into and which I think it will face even more frequently in the future.
I would like to emphasise that in making these comments, I am speaking on behalf of the Council and not necessarily on behalf of my own country, which has adopted a rather, shall we say, ambitious position on this matter.
The first issue regards jurisdiction. It concerns the need to guarantee complete compatibility between the two relevant legal systems, which could find themselves in conflict with one another in this process.
This is a real problem and one of which we should all be aware.
We cannot run the risk that when this charter comes into force a new area of legal uncertainty will be created.
We are embarking upon an exercise designed to make our citizens' rights more transparent - not to ensnare them in a web of legal contradictions that could prove to be a source of confusion.
This also brings us to the issue, which has surfaced once again following Amsterdam, of the Union possibly signing up to the European Convention on Human Rights.
The second issue is how we define the people this Charter is designed to protect, in other words, are we talking about those citizens who have a Community nationality, or are we aiming at those people who happen to be living in the Community area? This is a fundamental question.
We will have to accept the consequences whichever answer we opt for, and all the more so given that many of us genuinely feel that the institutions and the institutions alone are the real object of this new Charter.
The third question, and a crucial one, is the body of rights. How far do we intend to go?
Are we to be content with a body of basic principles, a kind of lowest common denominator in academic European terms, or should reach out to more ambitious territory, and deal with the modern aspects of today' s European Union? It seems that today' s public is capable of calling for an area enshrined within the Union, and covering not just their economic and social rights but also the new rights that have been presented as part of modern citizenship.
How far is the Union prepared to go?
Lastly, my fourth question, which is perhaps the most important one. This is a debate in which some people are clearly advocating a text which is merely a declaration of intent, a piece of political rhetoric.
But unless it is binding, will any Charter of Fundamental Rights be anything more than a mere statement of principles, without any real value? If we create a Charter of Fundamental Rights which is merely a declaration of intent, will we not simply be taking refuge behind an issue which may be politically correct, but which does not reflect to the essence of the European Union as it is today?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, things have moved on and we cannot ignore this. This presidency believes that this clearly justifies the in-depth work that is needed on a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
What I mean, of course, is that with the Treaty of Amsterdam we launched an ambitious project to establish a greater European area of freedom, security and justice.
At the Tampere Special European Council, the European Commission and the Member States initiated a process of improving the structures for internal security, in order to provide stability in the daily lives of the general public, by guaranteeing to effectively combat organised crime and drug trafficking and to address other public order issues.
As part of this European effort, it is becoming essential to ensure that all of this action, that is any future action that we may take in this area, relates to a very clear body of principles, capable of providing the public with clear and transparent legal protection.
This is also why we feel - and we said so in Cologne when the idea of a Charter of Fundamental Rights was approved at the European Council - that this Charter is a vital element, central to the Union' s future.
Unless our principles are reinforced in this way, unless the Union provides itself with an ethical pillar which gives it credibility in the eyes of the general public - a pillar which, in fact can also serve as a model and a point of reference for its external relations - we run the risk of being derailed as a result of extending our policies and watering down our values.
On this subject, I should like to mention the issue of the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is obvious that the issue of incorporating the Charter of Fundamental Rights is a crucial factor for the whole credibility of the ICG.
From the outset, the Portuguese Presidency has made its attitude quite clear: it is important to ensure that the agenda of the IGC should not simply be a kind of discussion of the division and management of power in an enlarged Union.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights is, in this context, and this is how we shall view it until the end of our Presidency, a vital element in producing a more balanced result at this conference, which will in fact also cover other issues, notably the issue of defence and security.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is for all of these reasons that the Council is taking a special interest in the resolution that this Parliament has just adopted on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and will continue to attach the greatest importance to this resolution.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Vitorino.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Additional Commission contribution to the IGC
The next item is the Commission communication "Additional Commission contribution to the IGC on institutional reform: qualified majority for taxation and social security aspects of the internal market".
Mr President, firstly I would like to welcome the Commission's approach in general to the IGC.
The fact that we are getting this rolling presentation of more detailed explanations of issues is very helpful.
Secondly, I agree with the Commission that this is indeed an extremely delicate issue.
Taxation and social security get to what Mrs Thatcher used to call the nooks and crannies of everyday life.
It is something that affects Member States and their people in a very sensitive way and we have to be careful before the Community moves into these fields.
From what I hear, the Commission has got it more or less right and I would like to put a couple of questions for the sake of clarity.
It is right to say where the Member States have already accepted a Community competence, in other words where we have already passed a measure, then QMV should apply to adjust that measure.
That makes absolute sense.
What I was not clear about was when he talked about other measures where it was necessary to make the single market work. How will that be defined?
It sounds fine but how do you define a measure that is essential to make the single market work? That is a matter of intense debate.
Similarly, the issue of harmonisation against coordination: one man's coordination can be another's harmonisation and we need clear definitions of what is coordination and what is harmonisation if this is to work.
I wish him well in this area because it is an area in which we need a breakthrough.
But it is not going to be easy to get an agreement and I would like to see the document in detail before passing judgement on what the Commissioner said this afternoon.
Thank you, Mr Martin, for your assessment. I understand that it is related to the detailed analysis that you will make of the Commission text.
The text will, as soon as it has been adopted - as is now the case - be made available towards the end of the afternoon.
I took careful note of the reference you made to Mrs Thatcher and I appreciate the concern you feel, in the light of your own country' s particular sensitivity in this matter, in stressing that we must adopt a pragmatic approach.
Just now, ladies and gentlemen, I expressed my concern in this document, and in the discussions we will be having, to avoid ideology, to keep to a precise approach.
This is what I said in the course of one of my presentation sessions in one of the national parliaments - your own parliament in Westminster, Mr Martin - and I think I made myself understood. Indeed I believe that this is the right approach.
So let me repeat that our watchword was to say that qualified majority should be extended to everything that directly affected the operation of the internal market and which might compromise its proper operation in an enlarged Europe.
We have, of course, worked on the three instruments which I mentioned, coordination, minimum requirements and harmonisation, treating harmonisation as the additional stage.
Further to this general answer, with thanks for your remarks, I shall be attentive to your criticisms or your proposals when you have had time to peruse this document.
Mr President, I believe it is absolutely right to comment that we do not need additional competences where taxation is concerned, but what we do need to do, in my view, is consider how we can develop the various topics more effectively.
To quote but one example: the country of origin principle in matters of VAT.
Would it not be possible to start by making adjustments to the current VAT systems, so that harmonisation systems can be implemented more efficiently at European level? Or another example: double taxation, which causes so many problems.
My question is this: will the Commission' s work programme include a schedule for this, or how do you intend to proceed?
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for your comments.
I do not understand your assertion that there will be no transfer of powers.
If you are increasing qualified majority voting and therefore taking away the national veto, you are effectively transferring powers from the nation state to the European institutions.
I am also very uncomfortable with your statement that you would only seek harmonisation of tax in areas "linked to the single market" because we know that, if that phrase is interpreted liberally - as the European institutions are inclined to do - practically everything can be said to be linked to the single market.
Are you aware, Sir, that the leader of the British Conservative Party has said that we have reached the limits of European integration? Are you aware of recent public opinion surveys showing that the British people are opposed to the transfer of further powers from the nation state to Brussels, and how will you take those facts into account?
Commissioner, I should like to pick up on a point which you made in your speech.
You said that wherever we require unanimity, we shall retain unanimity, and wherever qualified majority voting is required, we shall use qualified majority voting.
We all know of course that the European Parliament takes the clear view that qualified majority voting must apply as the rule and unanimity as the exception.
If we forego this practice, then we also forego the subsequent promotion of the European Parliament to colegislator on all future legislative issues requiring a qualified majority.
In other words, wherever we maintain unanimity, Parliament will not have the legitimate, democratic, important role which it will have in all cases requiring a qualified majority, cases which, as far as Parliament is concerned, and because of the democratic way in which it functions, should be the general rule.
Mr Rübig, in answering I shall focus on the matter of VAT.
You ask me about the Commission' s work programme and I had said, as a precaution, that we had not discussed this matter today, that the Commission had established its work programme and that the Commissioners directly concerned would be coming to address you at the proper time.
Nonetheless, you have asked me, broadly speaking, whether the great VAT modernisation project might be adopted with your proposals by qualified majority?
I must answer that it depends what you mean by 'great VAT modernisation project' .
More specifically, if you are thinking of the changeover from the transitional arrangements for levying VAT to the final arrangements, which would involve changing the points of taxation, we have clearly indicated that this matter would in any case be decided by unanimous decision, and I can confirm this.
As regards modernisation of the system in the light of recent economic developments, and I am thinking in particular of all the implications of globalisation, liberalisation and e-commerce, this is a question that you should ask Mr Bolkestein.
Jointly with the Member States, we are currently identifying what should go into this package.
A meeting was held on 2 March but, frankly, I think it is rather too early to be able to give you any further details.
However, I have now spoken about updating the VAT system, which means that I can now turn to Mr Helmer and say that I am well aware that these are sensitive issues, I am well aware of the importance accorded to taxation, in the name of national sovereignty, and to the matter of voting upon taxes and, in particular, upon the rates of taxation. After all, I did have a seat in the parliament of my own country for twenty-two years.
I should merely like to use the force of my conviction together with you, certainly, and if possible also with the negotiators and Mr Tsatsos and Mr Brok, to say to the States which are reluctant and more sensitive than others on this subject, 'Please pay careful attention before rejecting the application of qualified majority voting to proposals which the Commission has made in a reasonable manner.'
We are talking about the proper operation of the internal market, and about the success of this internal market and all the countries involved in it, because it is in the interests of all the countries of the Union.
But what will happen in a much enlarged Europe, where disparities are even greater than they are at present in social terms and budgetary matters? This is why we recommend an extremely thorough, and I might almost say clinical analysis of these matters, in the interests of the internal market.
Finally, I would like to thank Professor Tsatsos for having mentioned the connection between these proposals and the role of the European Parliament.
Since I have been given the opportunity, let me confirm that one of the Commission proposals is to associate codecision directly to all measures decided by qualified majority as soon as legislative measures are involved.
It is evident that in these matters affecting the internal market and its proper operation - social security or taxation - there are legitimate grounds for the European Parliament to express its opinion and adopt a position.
Professor, we shall have further opportunities to state this and to try to convince the other negotiators of this throughout the coming months.
Mr President, Commissioner Barnier, I am extremely pleased that the Commission has produced this initiative.
It is clear that there is a need for harmonisation of taxation policy within the internal market and the currency union.
Those who deny this call the future of the internal market into question.
You talked specifically about VAT but I did not hear you mention two other taxes that have long been the subject of discussion, i.e. tax on interest and company tax.
These are clearly two basic taxes that we are going to have to harmonise in some way.
I do not know if you included this under tax evasion; it does not feature in your document at any rate.
Could you comment on this?
Mr President, I have to say that I am most impressed by the principles which the Commissioner has set out.
If we can limit these changes to the rules on qualified majority voting in connection with the operation of the single market to minimum provisions and to practice developed by the Court of Justice, I believe, in fact, that it may well be possible to implement these changes with the approval of all the countries, which is of course incredibly important.
At the same time, I have to conclude that, if the Commission wants to adhere to these three good principles, then it must, at some point or another, disagree with the note which the Presidency has submitted.
The Presidency has, of course, tabled the proposal that qualified majority voting should also apply to those areas dealt with in Article 137, paragraph 3, subparagraph 3, concerning the defence of employees' and employers' interests, and in Article 137, paragraph.
3, subparagraph 2, concerning the cancellation of contracts of employment.
I have difficulty in seeing what the justification is for this on the basis of the three principles which have been laid down and which have been emphasised by the Commission.
In the light of this, may I conclude that the Commissioner does not wish to comply with the Presidency' s note on these proposals?
Commissioner, you are proceeding with the utmost caution, and that is an approach which I support.
With reference to the argument of subsidiarity, I should simply like to tell you that, in my opinion, it is also important to put forward the argument of citizenship in fiscal matters.
After fifty years of building Europe, it is unacceptable that the citizens of Europe should not be equal in the eyes of the law simply due to their being classed as resident or non-resident.
The concept of citizenship is common property, on behalf of which we must move beyond failures such as Helsinki.
I have three specific questions that I would like to ask you:
My first question is this: do you anticipate that the instrument you are proposing might be applicable to the integration of financial markets and the requisite tax regulation thereof?
My second question is: does the instrument that you are proposing in the area of environmental taxation provide for qualified majority voting?
My third question is: would the instrument you are proposing enable the Council to put an end, by qualified majority decision, to the tax havens which exist within the European Union?
Thank you, Commissioner, for your statement.
I am sure that none of us here will object to fraud and tax evasion being tackled but I must say that it is necessary to maintain the confidence of citizens in the Union, and I think that many Member State governments will be wishing to look very carefully at any extension of QMV before agreeing to it.
It does strike very much at the heart of what is perceived as the national ability to conduct one's affairs.
I am thinking in particular of things such as the withholding tax, which it would have been quite unacceptable to have subjected to a QMV regime.
I hope those points will be borne in mind when you look at the practicality of getting the package through.
We are very happy to combat fraud and tax evasion and to improve social security legislation, but there are some points where there will be difficulty in convincing all the Member States to follow.
Commissioner, I have some very simple questions for you, which require just a 'yes' or 'no' answer in each case.
Can you guarantee that the Commission will not seek, under any circumstances, to use qualified majority voting to impose the withholding tax? Can you give the same guarantee in relation to the proposed tax on aircraft fuel, which was discussed in ECOFIN this week, and can you give the same guarantee in relation to corporation tax in the European Union?
Are there any circumstances where the Commission would seek to use qualified majority voting on any of those issues?
Can you guarantee that the Commission will not use qualified majority voting on any of those issues?
Mr President, I can imagine that according to some Members, the citizens are sensitive to European intervention in tax and social matters.
I can tell you that in my country, many citizens lie awake at night, worrying about the fact that Europe leaves social and tax matters well alone on account of this unanimity.
This is why I would like to direct two specific questions to the Commissioner.
First of all, citizens who are very badly affected by non-intervention are mainly those who wish to enjoy free movement and, more specifically, cross-border workers.
Dossiers concerning the coordination of social security, expansion into third countries, supplementary social security systems have all been on the Council' s table for years, untouched.
Could the Commissioner tell me if the present issue is also affected by qualified majority voting? Secondly, I would like to fall in with the Members who have asked whether the packages regarding the "Prima Rollo Group" , which are on the table, would be subject to qualified majority voting, as referred to by the Commissioner.
I should like to answer a number of you collectively, particularly on what we might term the tax package.
Mr Leinen discussed this, as did Mr Baltas and, just now, Mrs Van Lancker.
Let me make one preliminary remark. The purpose of this speech is not, let me repeat, to foreshadow the conditions for the execution of the Commission' s work programme.
In order to facilitate the task of reforming the institutions, we wish to distinguish the everyday administration of policies (the normal work of the Commission, and we have regular meetings on the subject) from the reform in the context of the accession of thirteen new Member States.
Obviously, the Monti package is related to the proper operation of the internal market.
This is why Mr Monti, a few months ago, and now my fellow Commissioner, Frits Bolkestein, continue to make it a political priority.
I hope that all these efforts will produce a result before the conclusion of this IGC, before the ratification which will follow the Treaty of Nice, and that we shall have this tax package at our disposal, in the interest of the proper operation of the internal market, before any amendments to the Treaty may be ratified.
Mrs Thorning-Schmidt and a number of you, including Mrs Van Lancker, mentioned the social matters which are extremely important, particularly with regard to third country nationals.
We do wish to include them as beneficiaries of social policy (Articles 42 and 137, which are to be subject to qualified majority voting).
Once again, regardless of ideological considerations, we have reordered the paragraphs of the new Article 137 in order to subject to qualified majority voting everything which affects, from our objective point of view, the proper operation of the internal market: social security and protection of workers, worker protection in the event of cancellation of the work contract, collective representation and defence of the interests of workers, including codetermination, working conditions for third country nationals legally resident on Community territory, and financial contributions for the promotion of employment and job creation without prejudice to the terms of the Social Fund.
The recent history of the development of the European Union shows that, in Maastricht, we were aware that creating the single currency would require improved coordination of social measures at European level, but, at the time, we had not yet achieved it.
In Amsterdam, as I remember specifically, since I was one of the negotiators of the Treaty almost up to the end, we expanded the definition of the objectives of social policy within the Treaty and the Community was granted its own areas of competence, complementary to those of the Member States.
In Nice, prior to the great enlargement, I would ask you, please, to see this text as anticipating events.
As we exist right now, we could continue to operate more or less and to live together, but that is not what it is all about.
We should form a Community, and I do not feel that we can subsequently come back to this sensitive issue if we do not resolve it now. As I said, we must form a Community of 27 or 28 Member States, despite the much greater disparities.
We wish to ensure that the Community has effective means to support this restructuring at Community level.
We therefore propose that it should be possible to adopt these minimum requirements by qualified majority vote, and not by unanimity, in all the areas I have mentioned.
Finally, I should like to tell Mr Jonckheer that, for all sorts of reasons, I absolutely agree with him on the matter of citizenship.
I should like to assure him that, with regard to tax provisions in matters of the environment (many of which are directly connected with the operation of the internal market in addition to citizens' welfare and quality of life), we are well aware that these issues entail the risk of distortions of competition, which would moreover be exacerbated by enlargement, and we therefore propose that in fact all measures for taxation in matters of the environment should be decided by qualified majority.
I am aware that my answers are necessarily incomplete given the time available.
Mr Bolkestein, Mrs Diamantopoulou and myself will have the opportunity to address you again in future.
We wish to initiate this debate, and to fuel and feed it on the basis of these proposals, as I undertook, in order to facilitate to some extent, the difficult negotiations within the Intergovernmental Conference.
But, in the final analysis, as we all know, what we need is the political will.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0201/2000). We will examine questions to the Commission.
First Part
Question No 39 by (H-0174/00):
Subject: Consideration of the international legal status of the waters of the Western Sahara On 4 November 1999 Mr Fischler' s head of office wrote a letter to Mr Pierre Galland, who had taken an interest in the effects of the EU-Morocco fisheries agreements on the Western Sahara self-determination process.
Given the EU' s support for UN resolutions on the Western Sahara and the concern generated by the ambiguous content of the letter sent to Mr Galland, does the Commission not think that, as a matter of urgency and in agreement with the Council, it should officially consult the UN Secretary-General regarding a legal definition of the Western Sahara' s waters based on international law? It should be borne in mind that the territory in question is engaged in a process of self-determination and the negotiations on fisheries agreements should therefore not lead to any misunderstanding regarding the EU' s attitude towards the territory' s future, nor should its inhabitants' rights be infringed.
The Commission confirms the position expressed by the chef de cabinet of the Commissioner for Agriculture and Fisheries on 11 January in response to a letter from Mr Galland on behalf of the coordination committee of the Sahrawi support organisation.
That position recalled that the fisheries agreement which expired in November 1999 applied to Morocco's fishing zone which is defined as waters over which Morocco has sovereignty or jurisdiction.
This definition does not in any way affect the status of Western Sahara and its coastal waters.
This is a matter which falls under international law, and in particular various UN resolutions, and the responsibility of the UN Secretary-General, whose efforts to find a just, equitable and durable solution have been consistently supported by the European Union.
I would like to start by thanking the Commissioner for his kind answer, although I find it to be completely insufficient.
The letter which I referred to in my question was very unclear as to the European Commission' s conception of the coastal waters of the Western Sahara.
However, you have expressed it with extreme clarity?.
There is no doubt that the Kingdom of Morocco is currently occupying the Western Sahara and this territory is currently undergoing a process of self-determination.
However, according to international law, it should be considered that Morocco has control over that territory, although it in no way has sovereignty over it.
If it cannot have sovereignty over the territory, neither can it have sovereignty over its coastal waters.
This would prejudice the future of those waters, given the possibility that the planned referendum on self-determination will support the independence of that territory.
What situation would the Government of the Western Sahara then be in with regard to the waters which it would have the sovereign duty to administrate?
I agree absolutely that we should reach a fisheries agreement with Morocco which is favourable to the interests of the European Union fishing fleet, in particular the Spanish fishing industry.
But I believe this is not contradictory, on the contrary, with a legitimate interpretation of international law which I ask to be done formally.
Does the Commission commit itself to formally consulting the Secretary-General of the United Nations? Yes or no, Commissioner?
I have many regrets in life and one of them is that I am not a lawyer, so if the honourable gentleman will excuse a scriptural reference, I tip toe on these waters with some nervousness!
But I understand that international law is quite clear and that the question of territorial waters is directly related to the question of the sovereignty of a territory itself.
That is a question which is being considered at the moment in the context of the referendum and of the UN Secretary-General's initiative.
As I am sure the honourable gentleman knows, we strongly support that initiative and if there is any way that we can assist the UN Secretary-General, then we would certainly want to do so.
That also goes, of course, for his special representative.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 40 and 113 will be taken together, at the request of the Commission.
Question No 40 by (H-0241/00):
Subject: Landmines In a recent statement in the UN General Assembly the Council Presidency stated that the EU remains the main contributor to de-mining programmes worldwide.
However, people in the field complain about the limited role the EU is playing and the confused nature of EU funding for de-mining.
Could the Commission provide me with a breakdown of the funding provided by the EU for all activities relating to anti-personnel mines? How much money goes into mine action programmes and how much into R&D in de-mining technology?
Could the Commission draft an annual report on its APM policy to eliminate the existing lack of clarity?
Could the Commission tell me what progress is being made with regard to introducing a regulation on anti-personnel mines, which would provide a legal base for these activities and bring them together within a single transparent framework?
Question No 113 by (H-0251/00):
Subject: EU action to combat mines Will the wide range of action programmes to combat mines have to be financed solely from budget line B7-661, which is now more justified than ever?
What provisions will be taken to ensure that NGOs enjoy effective access to Union funding?
With reference to the conditions making aid conditional on accession to and compliance with the Treaty of Ottawa, what criteria and procedures will be used for the implementation of EU actions to ensure that, in the field, some vulnerable communities are not victimised twice?
I hope you will excuse me that in answering the questions together, I take slightly longer.
I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity to reply to Mr van den Bos on anti-personnel mines today.
I will also take this opportunity to respond to Madame Carlotti' s question.
The Commissioners today adopted a communication and a draft regulation on European Union action against mines with the aim of achieving better coherence, greater effectiveness and more visibility in the very considerable activities in this area in which we are already involved.
In doing this, we are responding to and building on the initiative of Parliament to create a specific budget line for mine action.
Anti-personnel mines create appalling casualties in many of the poorest parts of the world.
But they are not only a constant and treacherous threat to life and limb.
They are obstacles to economic development and to the implementation of a range of Community programmes in support of reconstruction, rehabilitation and development.
That is why the Union is already involved extensively in mine action across the globe and why we were so active in the negotiation and conclusion of the Ottawa Convention on the prohibition and destruction of anti-personnel mines which entered into force a year ago.
Over the past eight years, European Community support for mine action has exceeded EUR 180 million.
We have intervened in all corners of the world.
We have supported action by national authorities, international organisations, and not least NGOs.
We have contributed to de-mining and mine destruction as well as to victim assistance and research into new de-mining technology.
But until now, we have not had a coherent overall approach to our mine action.
To take full advantage of the diversity of our instruments and funding mechanisms, we must make sure that we have a framework in which we can formulate the necessary horizontal guidelines and priorities in order to ensure effectiveness and consistency in what we do.
The funding of mine action from the geographic programmes and their budget lines will continue.
Mine clearance and other forms of mine action are often a preliminary step to any sensible development programme.
Therefore they should form part of national or regional reconstruction and rehabilitation plans.
The new regulation and the special budget line will support and complement the geographic line by providing the overall policy framework and by functioning as a general reserve and a source for funding for international programmes.
The resources available for EU mine actions should remain at least at the same level in real terms as we have achieved over the last few years, that is about EUR 30 million a year.
Regular programmes for mine clearance and destruction under our new policy should principally benefit countries which have subscribed to the Ottawa Convention.
But we must also be ready to provide exceptional assistance to mine victims at their homes or when they have been displaced, even when they have the misfortune to find themselves in a non-signatory country.
Finally, the European Union is recognised as one of the leading contributors to mine action within the international community.
The entry into force of the Ottawa Convention a year ago provided us with a forceful new instrument and a set of ambitious targets for the years to come.
We have signed up to the objective of eliminating all landmines worldwide in ten to fifteen years.
That will require determination, consistency and perseverance.
With the funding and coordinating mechanism under the new regulation and communication, we are well placed to take on that challenge.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply which I find extremely satisfactory.
It indicates the Commission' s high level of commitment to this issue.
I only have one additional question, which is whether the Commissioner would submit to us an annual report on the Commission' s actions in this field?
- The new regulation provides for the Commission to submit an annual report to the Council and to Parliament on its actions the previous year by 30 April of the following year.
A breakdown of the mine-action funding per country by the European Union from 1992 to 1999, as well as for projects in the last year, is attached to the communication and we will continue to provide that sort of financial information as well.
Can I say how grateful we are to the honourable Member, and to other members of this House, for their encouragement and support and for the leadership they have shown in this issue, which is of enormous importance as, alas, we continue to discover.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for this comprehensive answer. Might I ask you to clarify one point?
If the justification for budget line B7-661 were increased, what measures could be taken in order guarantee effective NGO access to Union funding?
One thing that we obviously need to do is to advertise very clearly what is available.
We have taken a website that will enable us, I hope, to inform the NGO community and others more clearly about what is available.
We intend establishing a multi-annual work plan.
We will refer to that on our website.
I hope, therefore, that NGOs will feel involved in what we are doing.
We depend a great deal on their active support and understanding.
I should like to mention one other area which is of concern to them, even though they are not always so directly involved in it, namely the whole area of research, on which we spent EUR 17 million out of more than EUR 40 million in the last full year in 1998.
But overall I can assure the honourable Member that we will be involving NGOs as much as possible.
They have a great deal to contribute to this important work.
Question No 41 by (H-0212/00):
Subject: 'Dialogue on Europe' initiative The President of the Commission intends to launch this initiative on 8 March 2000.
The Commission's communication on the subject implies that the intention is to explain the consequences of the IGC 2000 to the public opinion of the Fifteen.
Since this initiative falls under the PRINCE programme for providing information to the citizens of Europe, does the Commission intend to include the Charter of Fundamental Rights as one of the main themes of this initiative?
Mr President, in agreement with the European Parliament, the Commission has taken the initiative of instigating what we are calling the 'Dialogue on Europe' which is intended to raise awareness regarding the issues involved in institutional reform in the context of the enlargement of the Union.
The Commission considers that all the institutional matters liable to have a connection with the work of the Intergovernmental Conference should in fact come within the scope of the debate which has been initiated.
This also, therefore, applies, and this is my answer to your question, to the matter of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of citizens.
In complete agreement with Mr Vitorino, I can assure you of the Commission' s determination, in close collaboration with Parliament and your representatives, both at the Intergovernmental Conference and in the convention for negotiation of the charter, to promote dialogue on all current thinking on the future of the Union.
This dialogue on Europe will be developed with all national and regional institutions, but also with opinion formers, the media and organisations in civil society.
This is completely justified given the actual purpose of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the Commission for its reply. I am satisfied with it for two reasons.
Firstly, it links the Charter of Fundamental Rights with the Intergovernmental Conference, which is the political objective of this Parliament expressed in the report by Messrs Duff and Voggenhuber. Secondly, because it is going to include it within this campaign.
Furthermore, I was very pleased with Mr Lamy' s reply - which was inevitable, given that Mr Lamy knows these issues very well - concerning the decentralisation of the information campaign.
I believe that this is an important objective because, if we want to reach the people, we have no choice but to go to where they are and, therefore, the decentralisation of the campaign is a priority task.
As on other occasions, such as the Intergovernmental Conference of 1996, this Parliament must offer the Commission its support in order to monitor information activities.
I am pleased to hear the Commissioner's comments on the Charter.
I would like to push him to give details about the nature of the campaign.
Last Wednesday we had a very successful launch of the European information campaign involving Commissioners and Members of the European Parliament.
I would like the Commissioner to reassure me that, when the campaign is decentralised, information offices in the Member States will involve Members of the European Parliament in the information campaign as a matter of course.
After all, it is the MEPs who are supposed to represent the citizens.
We are at least as well-placed as the Commission to engage in that dialogue with the citizens.
The answer to Mr Martin' s question is 'yes' , and I can include Mr Barnier and Mr Vitorino in that.
The Commission does intend to involve Members of the European Parliament at grass roots level in the Dialogue on Europe initiative.
Indeed, no later than this evening there is to be a coordination meeting between the Commission administration and that of the European Parliament in order to determine the practicalities of the approach to be adopted.
The simple answer, Mr President, is 'yes' .
Question No 42 by (H-0215/00):
Subject: Environmental threats facing Europe The recent leak of cyanogen into the river Danube has revealed the existence of hidden environmental threats which could imperil the whole of Europe, while a report by the European Environment Agency predicts that during the first decade of the 21st century the production of paper, glass and plastic waste will increase by 40 to 60%, emissions of cadmium and mercury will rise by 20 to 30%, and waste management will place a strain on the environment with heavy metals, gases and other toxic substances combining to create the 'greenhouse effect' and generate air and water pollution.
On the basis of the information provided in the report, how does the Commission intend to react, what policies will it pursue and what measures will it take to safeguard Europe from the environmental threats it faces?
Mr Fischler will reply on behalf of Mrs Wallström.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for his answer.
Of course, the European Parliament appreciates the Commission' s efforts to promote Community policy on environmental protection and, especially, its efforts to incorporate the environmental dimension into all policies, i.e. mainstreaming.
However, since you mention the problem of the pollution of the Danube, I should like to ask a supplementary question: you are obviously well aware of the recent accusations by the Romanian Minister for the Environment, Mrs Lilian Mara, who maintains, and many of us share this view, that the ecological damage caused to the Danube by the NATO bombings is far worse than the damage caused by the recent leak of cyanogen.
As we all know, the bombings destroyed bridges, oil refineries and chemical factories, which damaged the ecology of all the areas along the Danube.
I would like to hear your views on the matter, Commissioner: do you intend to take action for the economic, ecological and cultural restoration of the areas which were damaged?
Mr President, Mrs Karamanou, firstly, as I am sure you are aware, my colleague Mrs Wallström paid a visit to Romania and Hungary and was able to get an idea of the scale of the disaster at first hand.
She also reached agreement with the competent ministers of these countries on setting up a task force to handle these issues.
The key issues to be addressed by this international task force have already been established.
As far as the financial aspect is concerned, the Commission is in the process of looking into which funds could be made available for an emergency aid package.
In addition, the PHARE and ISPA programmes are of course available in principle, which brings us to the question - to be answered in conjunction with the States concerned - as to how much money could be employed from these two funds.
Commissioner, I am convinced that the Committee on Budgets will be delighted to read this information as soon as they are provided with it.
Question No 43 by (H-0242/00):
Subject: Concern over the memorandum on nuclear safety at the Kozloduy plant in Bulgaria Despite the constructive step represented by the signing of the memorandum between the Commission and Bulgaria on nuclear safety at the Kozloduy plant and the opening of accession negotiations with Bulgaria, there is legitimate concern over the agreed procedure for decommissioning the four unsafe reactors at Kozloduy, as the procedure is not in line with the Union's position or Bulgaria's commitments in the agreement it has signed with the Nuclear Safety Account.
What decisions have been taken regarding the definitive closure of units 1 and 2 by the end of 2002 and what steps have been taken to conclude an agreement on the definitive closure of units 3 and 4 earlier than 2006, as called for in the agreed memorandum?
Will the Commission use the opportunities and means available to it in the context of its partnership with Bulgaria to bring about the definitive closure of units 1 to 4 at Kozloduy, and in what way?
Is the setting of a date for the decommissioning of reactors 3 and 4 - as referred to in a letter of 17 February from the President of the Commission, Professor Prodi, to the author of this question - a condition of granting financial aid to Bulgaria?
What was the outcome of the meeting held on 4 February between the Commission and the Bulgarian authorities and what is the joint working party working towards?
Second Part
Commissioner, thank you for your answer.
However, I also have a number of queries because, during your hearing before Parliament' s Committee on the Environment and here today, you talked of decommissioning nuclear reactors which, as we all know, are extremely dangerous, as quickly as possible.
And not just these reactors, but also the reactors in Slovakia and Lithuania.
Of course, I appreciate that there are certain difficulties involved in closing them down immediately, but is that the earliest possible date? I just wonder because, although you set a specific date for units 1 and 2, saying that they would be closed down before the end of 2002 - which in my view is quite a long way off because, as you know, we are afraid of an accident in any one of the four reactors, which would be disastrous both for Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people, as well as for neighbouring Greece and Europe too, since, as you know, these installations are very dangerous - what is stopping you from setting a date for the closure of reactors 3 and 4?
And why are you keeping them open until 2006, or even longer as you will no doubt turn round and tell us in the future?
Mr Trakatellis, opinion is extremely divided as to how unsafe the reactors 3 and 4 actually are.
I was very surprised to learn that I was openly criticised by some Member States following the conclusion of the agreement in Bulgaria, because this agreement was said to be too hard on Bulgaria and to go far too far, and because safety standards at these power stations were said not to be as bad as the Commission was claiming.
Now it is up to me who I believe.
I believe the reports that were compiled at the outset, and I still maintain that we must abide by the principle of risk avoidance in this case.
On the other hand, I must ask you to bear in mind that the decision on whether to go for the nuclear option in energy production is the sovereign right of each and every State.
The Commission is no more able than Parliament or the Council to forbid any country in the world from using nuclear energy, or to force them to shut down reactors without delay.
All we can do is put a package together, as we have done in Lithuania and Slovakia, and, just recently in Bulgaria too, that enables the country in question to deal with the economic and financial consequences of shutdown operations of this kind, and their impact on society and infrastructure.
It must be left to the country concerned to determine how to implement the objectives set as quickly as possible.
All I can say is that this is what proved to be attainable during negotiations, which I headed myself part of the time.
If we had tried to achieve more, then we would have failed to reach agreement and ended up with no shutdown dates whatsoever.
You can always do one of two things in such cases: either accept the attainable or maintain a very intransigent attitude, which may, at the end of the day, salve your conscience on the environmental policy front, but will leave you empty-handed.
As a matter of fact, I believe we achieved a particularly positive outcome in Bulgaria, in view of the extremely difficult situation there.
I would like to point something else out to you, somewhat circuitously, but you will soon see why.
As far as the shutdown dates for blocks 3and 4 are concerned, it says in the text that this will be decided on in 2002. So that is quite some way off the shutdown date we had mind.
As the Commission understands it, this shutdown will take place by latest - and I repeat, latest - 2006, which is also stated in the text.
The fact that the Bulgarian government signed this text without questioning this, has a certain political significance.
That is all I can say on the matter, but I think you know what I am driving at.
Questions to Mr Lamy
Question No 44 by (H-0206/00):
Subject: Trade preference for least developed countries Precisely what damage in specific European sectors is Commissioner Lamy seeking to avoid in his commitment to waive all EU quotas and export tariffs on 'essentially' all products and services from the world' s least developed countries (LLDCs) rather than waiving them in their entirety? As LLDCs account for less than 0.5% of world trade, will he reconsider his reservations in this respect?
What timetable does he propose for the implementation of this measure?
The European Community initiative intended to offer free access to the markets of industrialised countries, and the most advanced developing countries, to essentially all products of the least developed countries, was launched as part of the process which led to the Seattle Conference.
The initiative was drawn up immediately after the Singapore Conference, when the Council invited the Commission to make proposals in favour of the least developed countries, both for immediate action and additional medium-term action.
In its conclusions dating from June 1997, the Council made reference to the expression: 'essentially all the products of LLDCs' .
Regarding the immediate measures, in the GSP regulation at the end of 1998, the Community established, for all least developed countries, a system equivalent to that of the Lomé Convention, as the Council had requested.
In 1999, as part of the post-Lomé negotiations, the Council, among other things, specified what it intended to do regarding market access for LLDCs and decided that the Community should, in the year 2000, commence a process which, by the end of the multilateral trade negotiations and by the year 2005 at the latest, will enable free access for essentially all LLDC products, based on the trade system existing under the Lomé Convention.
The difference between all and essentially all products affects, as we well know, a number of specific agricultural products.
This is the mandate which the Commission was given and therefore, naturally, we must respect it.
My own services are currently preparing proposals which will be presented to the Council when they are completely ready.
At the same time, the Community, in its 'least developed countries' initiative within the framework of the WTO, seeks to associate other commercial partners to this market opening policy of ours, which would consist of exempting essentially all the products of LLDCs from duties and quotas.
This initiative is intended, if I may say so, to kick-start our own proposal which, combined with what we can achieve with other parties, would enable the least developed countries to sell their products, in virtually total freedom, on a large number of markets other than our own.
I am thinking particularly of the markets of the developed countries: the United States, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.
I am also thinking, possibly, of a number of emerging countries, already industrialised.
At the moment I am making great efforts to move forward this initiative which we have included in the rescue package which we are working on in Geneva.
That is the state of play at the present time.
As the questioner indicates, we should ask whether the restriction associated with the expression 'essentially all products' may be retained for very much longer as soon as we consider granting these countries total access to our markets.
As far as the Community is concerned, following the signature of a new agreement with the ACP countries which no longer includes the obligation to offer equal access for all ACP countries, we could in fact start thinking about more extensive liberalisation of access to our markets in favour of the least developed countries.
I should not, however, wish to start thinking about this until our present initiative regarding essentially all products has reached a sufficiently advanced and credible stage, following talks with our commercial partners, to be able to move on to the next stage.
I should specify, finally, that access to the market is not the only requirement for countries that, occasionally, do not have a sufficient export capacity for internal reasons, be they distribution, logistical or transportation capacities.
It is therefore necessary to look at what is termed 'capacity building' , i.e. technical assistance measures to be implemented in order to ensure that this access is tangible and not just theoretical.
This is the response I wished to give to this question which looks to the future.
I am grateful to Commissioner Lamy for his answer, as far as it went.
I certainly agree with what he said in the last part of his answer about the need for capacity-building in the least developed countries as well as, perhaps the need for asymmetrical measures, resulting in a certain level of protection for their markets that we do not seek to enjoy in return.
But my main concern in asking the question - and I do not feel this has been fully dealt with - is over this matter of exactly what "essential products" means.
Commissioner Lamy talks about certain agricultural products, but it has been precisely the protectionism of the common agricultural policy that has most offended developing countries and which has held back development for many of those countries in terms of agricultural production.
What more specific comments can he make about which sectors and which products will be concerned, and for how long? That is the sort of message we want to hear.
I wonder whether it would not be a better step forward, in terms both of winning the confidence of the developing countries and of acting as an example to other trading partners, for us, as Europe, to say: "now is the time; we are going to offer this now.
We do not want to wait for five years; let others follow our example".
There are two parts to my answer to this question.
Firstly, I think I gave a clear answer to your question when I said that the difference between 'all' and 'essentially all' affected only a really very limited number of agricultural products.
I am thinking particularly of sugar which can effectively constitute an additional resource for several of these countries.
You know that the Community, and in this case the Commission, has considered the idea of a complete review of conditions in the sugar industry.
These are matters to which we shall no doubt return.
But that is something that only we need concern ourselves with.
Regarding the more comprehensive initiative that we have undertaken, I would like to try to convince you that at this stage it is more important, as far as these least developed countries are concerned, that the Community should persuade the United States, Japan and a number of developed countries to follow our initiative because, in terms of real export capacity, this initiative opens up a market to them which is, roughly, twice or three times larger than our own.
In terms of our priorities, then, Mr Howitt, and in terms of efficiency, I feel that, given the choice of either eliminating the difference between 'essentially all' and 'all' , a problem which I acknowledge must be solved one day, and considerably increasing the size of the market opened for 'essentially all' products, duty free and quota free, we are on the right track if we work, in the first place, on expanding the market.
Thereafter we will be able to start to think, as you wish, on the approach we might adopt with the Member States, who sometimes show some reluctance, and a European Parliament which will also have to be convinced, when the time comes, that we should go on to the second stage.
Question No 45 by (H-0208/00):
Subject: China's accession to the WTO In keeping with the Commission's opinion on the IGC, would the Commission agree that the accession of China to the WTO represents a sufficiently important agreement to justify invoking the assent procedure of this Parliament?
Will the Commission agree to submit the agreement on China's WTO accession to this Parliament's assent even if the IGC has not yet been concluded?
Mr Clegg, the Commission acknowledges that the agreement on China' s accession to the WTO is an extremely important decision.
It is, moreover, exactly the type of agreement which would be submitted to Parliament' s assent if the Commission' s proposals to the Intergovernmental Conference were accepted by the Member States.
The fact remains, however, that at this stage they are no more than proposals and the Commission cannot contravene the regulations in force under the Treaty establishing the Communities, nor can it anticipate the decisions which the Member States will take at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Let me remind Mr Clegg, if necessary, that, in consideration of its service-related aspects, the agreement on China' s accession would in any case be subject, in principle, to the consultation procedure envisaged under Article 300. This would mean that Parliament should have the opportunity, pursuant to Article 300, to declare its opinion on this agreement.
Obviously, in the normal course of things, it is up to the Council to consult the European Parliament.
This is the legal and institutional answer to your question, Mr Clegg.
With regard to more practical aspects, let me restate my determination to try to find some way, together with the European Parliament, to have Parliament play an active part in these negotiations.
I have said this on several occasions, and I feel it is important in terms of relations between the Commission and Parliament and also in terms of the effectiveness and capacity of the negotiator in this type of case.
I am therefore perfectly willing, as always, to discuss this matter in somewhat greater depth with the relevant parliamentary committee.
Thank you very much for that reply.
Let me reiterate my appreciation that the Commission and Parliament are, for the first time, speaking with one voice on changes to Parliament's role in important trade agreements.
I just want to ask you a non-legal and institutional question: if we look, for instance, at the decision which was taken to submit the Uruguay Round conclusions to the assent of this Parliament, there were some legal questions relating to the institutional and budgetary implications of the Agreement, but the decision was fundamentally a political recognition that this was an agreement of such importance that the strict boundaries of what was then Article 113 could, so to speak, be overstepped, thus allowing the Agreement to be submitted to Parliament's assent.
My own view is that the accession of China to the WTO, whilst perhaps not quite as eye-catching as a multilateral agreement, is just as important to the future global trade regime, and that a similarly political position might therefore be taken by both Parliament and the Commission.
I would urge you to do so. I would ask you what you think we could do together to promote this type of action.
Like you, Mr Clegg, I believe that China' s accession to the WTO, whenever it takes place, is a matter of crucial importance.
Having said that, I feel that the comparison you make with the Uruguay Round is not totally justified.
At the time of the Uruguay Round, particularly when the mechanism for the settlement of disputes was being set in place, there was a institutional shift in the international legal order which justified assent, specifically with regard to an unequivocal reading of the Treaties.
As regards China, legally speaking this is the procedure for the accession of a country to the WTO, and it is proceeding according to a relatively appropriate and familiar route, one which, for the time being, has not given rise to any disputes.
I suppose, then, that the Council will be reluctant to require assent because the Council is not in the habit of going much further than is required by the Treaties in terms of consultation with Parliament.
The important thing, from our mutual point of view, is that, when the time comes, we can, either in committee or in plenary session, have a debate on the conditions which, I hope, will be those we have agreed with the People' s Republic of China, and that this will be completely transparent.
Personally, I am perfectly willing to take part in this. I know, when the time comes, that questions of a rather more political nature will be asked.
That is perfectly normal, I feel, and I look forward to it.
Mr President, Commissioner, I suppose our parliamentary members should be satisfied with the consultation procedure at this stage, although I myself agree with Mr Clegg that it should have been possible - to touch briefly on legal matters - to invoke the assent procedure by now.
My question, however, concerns concrete matters and the substance of this agreement.
When talks between the EU and China commenced, we MEPs were told that there would really not be any great problems, as approximately 80% of the EU objectives were contained in the outcome of the negotiations between the United States and China.
Now, however, it would seem that the rest, the remaining 20%, are so problematic, that time is passing by and the talks have already ended in deadlock on many occasions.
I would like to ask whether it is a question of the Chinese not being prepared to accord us the same negotiating status as they did the US representatives or why we should not be able to achieve consensus on the remaining - the tail end - 20%.
This is a good question.
I remember using this expression, contrasting 80% and 20%.
It was intended to offer an explanation of the fact that a good deal of the work has already been done because, thanks to the most favoured nation clause, we inherit everything that the previous negotiator has achieved.
That still leaves 20%, however, and for a very simple reason.
In bilateral negotiations, each party tries to focus on the areas where he is least competitive, since it is understood that the rest will be left to the others.
That is why, in a number of subject areas, the United States have signed a bilateral agreement with the Chinese which is of benefit to us but which, on several points, is not as favourable as if we had negotiated it ourselves.
That is the first reason.
What we have to do as far as possible, and I am making every effort to achieve this, is to ensure that what is generally a good deal between the Americans and the Chinese is also a good deal for Europeans.
So we are left with this remaining 20%, and it is only 20%, but, as you know, in negotiations the last few percentage points make all the difference, and this is where we are now.
There is another, more technical reason, involving some subtle points.
Although the designations are fairly similar, there may be very different tariff items.
Let me take the example of spirits. Bourbon and gin are not handled in the same way as whisky and cognac.
Even though all spirits are ostensibly the same, there are cases where tariff items are not the same.
These are more technical considerations, but they show that all these aspects must be looked into and negotiated in detail.
It is not quite over yet.
I mentioned that I would be going to Beijing during the last week in March in order to attempt to resolve what I feel are real difficulties in these negotiations.
These concern the political section with regard to which the Chinese authorities have expressed a number of reservations.
My mandate at present is to attempt to overcome these reservations, and I shall make every effort to do so.
Thank you very much, Mr Lamy.
The time allotted to Mr Lamy has fully elapsed.
Question No 46 will therefore be replied to in writing.
Questions to Mr Fischler
Since the author is not present, Question No 47 lapses.
Question No 48 by (H-0173/00):
Subject: Cost to agriculture of EU enlargement On the basis of the most recent studies and estimates, what cost will the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union place on agriculture and what will be the impact thereof?
Although I have signed this question, as an elected representative, I must say that I am not really its author.
As the Commissioner can imagine, the question is posed by farmers, in the European countryside, who are wondering, at this stage, whether they, their income and their Community aid, will have to pay the price of enlargement.
The Commissioner has not been explicit.
However, his services, the Commission, and some of us MEPs, all know that there are studies and estimates covering this issue.
The Commissioner is, at times, the master of side-stepping the question, with all the skill of a bullfighter, and failing to provide an answer.
However, the Commission, if it wants the countryside to support its positions, must clear the fog, and be explicit.
Therefore, I would ask the Commission, if it does not want to talk of its data and studies - which exist - at least to calm this real fear of the farmers and reply as to whether the cost of enlargement will be met at the expense of the farmers' income and, furthermore, whether he can guarantee that it will not have an effect on Community aid.
Mr President, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I believe it should not come as news to you that farmers' revenue does not just consist of subsidies, rather they must earn most of it on the market.
Therefore the comparison you have just drawn is inappropriate to my mind.
Secondly, these are two completely different questions.
In your question, which I answered, you asked what enlargement will cost.
The question as to whether the Common Agricultural Policy will be amended in the course of enlargement, is an entirely different matter.
All I can tell you today is that the CAP that was adopted in Berlin for the next seven years, still holds good.
In addition, a financial perspective was adopted in Berlin, i.e. we decided how much money we could spend.
You raised the idea of studies: the first studies were made several years back, and we sent these to Parliament.
We are in the process of carrying out new studies and as soon as we have the results, we will be more than happy to make them available to you.
Question No 49 by (H-0187/00):
Subject: Community initiative LEADER 2000-2006 The Community initiative LEADER was planned as a pilot programme to enable the Commission to introduce innovations in development practices in sensitive agricultural regions.
According to the conclusions of the first two programmes, LEADER has operated differently in each country, depending on the varying extent to which state and regional bodies have been involved.
Since state and local administrations are preparing their proposals for the 2000-2006 period, will the Commission say what has been the take-up rate of the first two programmes by Greece, and how does it rate the success of the two previous LEADER programmes in the case of Greece?
Question No 50 by (H-0190/00):
Subject: Balance between fisheries agreements in the North and South The Fisheries Council of October 1997 analysed the imbalance between fisheries agreements in the North and South, given that shipowners fishing under agreements with countries of the South are increasingly required to co-finance the agreements, which are free of charge for shipowners in the case of the North.
It also analysed the fact that agreements with northern countries are under-utilised, despite the interest shown by other Member States in making use of these fishing opportunities.
The Council therefore asked the Commission to consider decisions allowing quotas to be transferred from one Member State to another and to examine by what means the financial costs of agreements should be 'equitably shared, on a non-discriminatory basis,' between the Community and shipowners.
Can the Commission say what studies it has carried out on the possibility of transferring quotas and what the outcome was? What decisions have been taken to balance the financial cost of agreements with the North and South?
What is the Commission's assessment of the above-mentioned imbalances between these two types of agreement?
I have asked a question because I previously consulted a series of decisions taken by the Council of Ministers in 1997 on certain guidelines for fisheries agreements and, as far as I can see, they have not yet been complied with in the European Union.
I do not wish to have an argument with the Commissioner, but I simply wish to know whether, following the guidelines laid down at the time, on the next renewal of the fisheries agreement with Greenland - where we all know that fishing quotas are not used or are under-used - the fleets which do not have access at the moment to this agreement, will be offered the possibility of using those quotas which are not used or which are under-used.
I actually referred to this at the beginning of my answer.
It is certainly a problem, for although the Commission shares your view in principle, Mrs Fraga Estévez, that under-utilised quotas should be transferable, we still lack the necessary arrangements for doing so, because the Member States will not give their consent.
You mentioned the Council.
That is why we must overcome this problem.
But I do not believe that we can solve the problem by paying fees for fishing quotas under a new agreement with Greenland.
That is no way to solve the problem.
We must draw a distinction.
"Yes" to sharing out non-utilised quotas and a mechanism for doing so, but we should not start introducing licence fees where we do not have to pay for the quotas.
There is little point in doing that in our view.
Question No 51 by (H-0195/00):
Subject: Compatibility of special export aid with Community law Following the devastation caused by the storm which struck western Europe in December 1999, the forestry sector is in a particularly serious plight.
In response to the urgent need for stocks of fallen timber to be disposed of, the French Government has, amongst other measures, decided to grant 50 French francs per tonne in order to subsidise the transportation of timber intended for export to other EU Member States.
Under the Community's competition rules (and, in particular, the Community preference requirement), such aid is rightly prohibited except when it is intended to remedy a situation which may be regarded as exceptional.
Hence, Article 92(2)(b) of the EC Treaty states that 'aid to make good the damage caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences' shall be compatible with the common market.
Is the export aid which has been made available by the French Government compatible with Article 92?
If so, could such aid be extended to cover timber exports to third countries?
If so, what are the criteria used by the Commission in order to determine the amount of timber eligible for such aid? For how long will the aid be available and what is the cost involved?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago, the Commission had dealings with the French Government over the state aid that France wishes to grant the forestry industry for the purpose of repairing the tremendous damage caused by the storms of December last year.
The notification from the French Government includes a measure intended to facilitate the transportation of wood from the affected regions.
However, the notifications make no reference whatsoever to where the wood is destined for, in particular, they do not indicate whether it is to be exported to other Member States or to third countries.
Understandably, therefore, the Commission has asked the French Government for additional information.
Since the Commission has not yet received all the additional information it requested, it is not in a position at this stage to give a definite answer to the question as to whether such measures are compatible with Community law.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to clarify his answer.
Obviously such aid is already officially provided for in the countries of the Community.
Instead, the question concerns countries outside the territory of the Community, and may be expressed thus: will we, or will we not, have the possibility of obtaining a derogation in terms of the tonnage, costs or time limits with regard to wood exports, in consideration of the quite exceptional nature of this storm? My question clearly concerned exports outside the common market, outside the Union.
So as to make it absolutely clear: wood is an industrial commodity under Community law and it stands to reason that export aid, of the kind for which provision is made in agriculture, for example, should not be permitted under any circumstances where the export of wood is concerned.
We can only apply existing Community law in such cases. Provision is made, under Article 87 of this Community law, for damage - and I repeat, damage - which is the direct consequence of a disaster, to be made good.
In other words, firstly there has to be evidence of damage, and secondly, a direct link has to be established.
You must also consider the following: if we were to entertain such an idea - after all, the price of wood is not just down in the French forestry industry, for the disaster has brought it down throughout the Community - then every other Member State would be within their rights to come and ask us to approve export aid.
This would be a clear distortion of the market.
Yes, Mr President, the Commission received the communications from the Member States with the applications for preventive distillation, on 24 February.
On the same day, a proposal was submitted to the administrative committee for wine marketing to the effect that the preventive distillation volume should be increased from 10 to 12 million hectolitres.
In fact this proposal met with the approval of a majority of the management committee.
That being the case, it will be possible to fulfil all the contracts concluded in the Member States.
The only exception in this respect is Spain, where, in view of the high number of applications, the take-up rate, if I can put it this way, was 98% rather than 100%.
This meant that Germany' s original allocation of 148 000 hectolitres could be increased to 468 000 hectolitres.
That is what the contracts concluded in Germany amounted to in total.
The amended regulation on preventive distillation will be published in the Official Journal in the near future and will be made retrospective to 24 February.
Commissioner, in view of the enormous wine harvest, which yielded 140 million hectolitres, and in view of the wine market regulations that are to enter into force this year, has the Commission had any more thoughts - this being the last year when we will have this option - about using obligatory distillation as a means of relieving pressure on the market, or does the Commission not take the view that this would be the subject of a further instrument?
Mr President, Mr Langen, firstly, if we can give consideration to all the applications submitted by Germany and nearly all the applications submitted by the other Member States regardless, then this would suggest to me to that the balance has largely been restored to the wine market.
I take the view - particularly in the light of the fact that we want to achieve a significant reduction in obligatory distillation - that we should not create the impression that we are now back-pedalling.
Question No 61 by (H-0156/00):
Subject: Reopening of the railway line between Oloron and Canfranc The Commission has told the Spanish press (9 February 2000, EFE press agency) that it is aware of the need for a railway in the Pyrenees and that the Spanish Government wishes to see the Oloron-Canfranc (Vallée d'Aspe) railway line reopened on the French side.
The Commission has also confirmed that if the two countries in question agree, it will support the inclusion of the line in the trans-European rail network when the guidelines for that network are next revised.
However, should the Commission not take the first step and encourage the two Member States concerned to apply the policy of shifting traffic from road to rail and persuade them to seek an agreement on the reopening of the line? What immediate action does the Commission intend to take in order to expedite such an agreement?
With regard to your question on the reopening of the railway line between Oloron and Canfranc, we must study the land-based and sea-based alternatives which may help to alleviate the situation of traffic congestion at the two eastern and western extremes of the Pyrenees.
In fact, these two extremes of the Pyrenees are suffering from saturation since they are the only real land links of any capacity between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of the European continent.
We in the Commission have expressed our support for the analysis of a new rail crossing in the central part of the Pyrenees and we have supported various initiatives in the region through the granting of subsidies for different studies analysing the possibilities.
Furthermore, as you know very well, Spain and France have set up a monitoring centre for traffic in the Pyrenees in order to seek the most suitable solution to the problem facing them.
In any event, the final decision in this respect is the responsibility of the Member States.
With regard to the Trans-European Networks we cannot include anything which is not supported by the Member States.
Meanwhile, I would like to tell you that the Commission will take account of the results of the work of the monitoring centre for traffic in the Pyrenees when reviewing the Trans-European Network and we hope that this review will be ready before August.
Thank you, Commissioner, but what I would have liked to know is what the Commission is actually doing to ensure, specifically, that the Member States construct a proper railroad in the Somport Valley.
Today, the works on the road route are already under way.
We are right, therefore, to ask questions about the future.
Personally, I am afraid that provision will be made for a little tourist train just to, perhaps, keep the ecologists happy, and that will be all.
Studies have been carried out, however, such as the Gretab study, to cite but one, which show that in fact the railroad route via the Somport-Pau-Canfranc-Jaca pass would enable a volume of heavy goods traffic equal to that currently using the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
What we would in fact like to see, therefore, and what I would have liked to know, following Mr Lamoureux' s proposals within the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, to the effect that the European Union was really going to prioritise rail, is what do you actually propose to do in real terms in order to ensure that Member States also make this a priority?
Mrs Isler Béguin, I would like to say that we are trying to convince the Member States on the basis of the conversations and opinions which they express to us on the different issues and the studies which they send us.
However, as you well know, we clearly have problems with one of the countries involved with regard to the railway between Oloron and Canfranc.
There is no doubt that crossing the great mountain ranges of the European Union is a problem.
For this reason, in 1999, the Commission subsidised a study observing the flow of through land goods and interchanges in sensitive areas, namely the Pyrenees and the Alps, because they have similar problems.
Furthermore, we intend to produce a communication on this subject - on the Pyrenees and the Alps - before the end of the year, proposing concrete solutions.
However, the concrete solutions must clearly be accepted by the Member States.
The conclusions of this study that we are carrying out will also be taken into account in the revision of the guidelines on the Trans-European Networks and, furthermore, the INTERREG II programme has also financed general studies on the suitability and viability of a future central crossing in the Pyrenees, adapted to heavy goods transport.
Having said all this, and as I have made very clear in some of my appearances, I believe that we must make an enormous effort to develop goods transport by rail.
We face a level of demand which is clearly not going to be resolved by means of an increase in roads and we need to study a better use of the rail infrastructures, which is an alternative which is not only much more appropriate from an environmental point of view, but furthermore, they are an alternative which allow us to use some existing infrastructures.
In other cases, such as the specific case we are talking about, we must put the infrastructures in order, but of course we are prepared to speak to the Member States - and we are doing so - to see if we can persuade the two countries involved to finally accept a project of this type which will allow for a central crossing in the Pyrenees.
Madam Vice-President of the Commission, I would like to know firstly whether it is true that one country is causing difficulties, secondly, which country this is and thirdly, what type of difficulty it is causing.
I would also like to know, since you have mentioned it, when the Commission communication on the report on the Alps and the Pyrenees will be made available?
Since you have asked, the state which has opposed it until now is France.
It is clearly the countries of the Iberian peninsular which have the greatest interest here.
This does not only affect Spain, as the bordering country, but it also affects road traffic to Portugal, given that the Pyrenees pose such an obstacle.
The communication on sensitive areas basically tackles the issue of how to combine two elements: the environmental demands of the Pyrenees and the Alps and the need to facilitate the movement of goods and people.
As I have already said, we intend to present the communication before the end of the year, and we also intend to analyse, not only the particular issues affecting the sensitive areas, but also the possible concrete solutions in the field of more suitable infrastructures, funding, use and safety.
Safety aspects are also important, given the use of extensive tunnels.
Question No 62 by (H-0163/00):
Subject: Blood/alcohol limits for drivers Since 1988, the Commission has been advocating Community legislation concerning maximum blood alcohol limits for drivers.
In 1997, the Commission stated that it was necessary, to reduce the number of road casualties and increase road safety.
At present, the limits vary widely within Europe, from 0.8 in some countries down to 0.2 in Sweden.
Sweden' s experience has been very encouraging; a low limit has increased road safety.
The EU is at present adopting legislation to promote mobility and road safety.
Why is the Commission reluctant to submit a proposal concerning maximum blood/alcohol limits for drivers, even though this would reduce the number of road deaths?
As everyone knows, the excessive consumption of alcohol is the cause of many of our road accidents.
The European Union has supported, and the Commission considers important, a limitation on general levels of alcohol in the blood, specifically to guarantee that appropriate limits are not exceeded.
The Commission considers the suitable limit to be, in general, around 0.5 mg per mille, which in certain cases, new drivers, for example, could possibly be reduced, at least for a specific time period, and thereby make it even more restrictive.
I must point out however that, although the Commission intends to express this type of guideline, it will do so by means of a recommendation.
Given the principle of subsidiarity, we do not consider it appropriate for us to propose a directive setting this limit on alcohol levels, but rather we should produce a recommendation to the Member States on this issue.
Alcohol constitutes the second greatest danger to health in the EU according to a report on health produced by a high-level working party.
Alcohol is also the greatest contributory cause of accidents on European roads and a very important contributory cause of the most serious accidents.
I find it extremely commendable that the Commission too considers that blood alcohol levels must be kept low among drivers, for safety and alcohol do not go together.
We know from the experience of countries which have low upper limits that this is a way of reducing the number of deaths and serious accidents.
I should also like to put a following question to the Commissioner.
Why should it be impossible to issue a directive covering this area when the majority of countries now have an upper limit of 0.5 per mille and only a few have a limit in excess of 0.5 per mille?
As you have pointed out very well, the number of deaths on European roads caused by excessive alcohol consumption has risen to 10 000.
Most countries apply a level of 0.5 mg.
The 0.8 mg limit is only in force in Ireland, Luxembourg, Italy and the United Kingdom, and only Sweden has a limit below 0.5 mg.
We are going to present a communication on road safety, which you in this Parliament will receive shortly, and recommend a maximum limit of 0.5 mg.
We consider that legislation should be reserved for cases where it is absolutely necessary to legislate.
Since there are very few states with a limit greater than 0.5 mg, we consider that his recommendation will be sufficient to persuade the relevant states to harmonise their own laws.
We believe that subsidiarity and the recommendation will be sufficient for the alcohol level in the various states to be set at 0.5 mg or less than 0.5 mg.
As we are talking about blood-alcohol levels I wonder if the Commissioner, in her recommendation is also going to be looking at the broader issue of drugs?
This is an important issue that is often left out when we are talking about driving.
Will this ever be put into the recommendation?
The problem is obviously that drugs produce states which clearly limit drivers' response capacities.
The problem with drugs is that, while in some countries their consumption is subject to criminal prosecution, in others it is not and, therefore, given this differing treatment, we cannot, at least for the moment, make any progress in this field.
However, this issue worries me, as it worries you, and I would like to see whether, within the new fields of action and specifically within the new areas of communitised policies, we can make more progress in this respect.
Lastly, I must add that, in the case of drugs, control is more difficult, since the control systems are not so automatic nor so immediate as they are in the case of alcohol levels.
Question No 63 by (H-0164/00):
Subject: Verona-Munich railway link The project for a new Verona-Munich through railway line has been under discussion for years.
Traffic on the Verona-Munich route is increasing, yet only one third of the capacity of the existing railway line is being used.
The way to reduce the air and noise pollution caused by long-distance lorries would be to switch all heavy through traffic from road to rail.
To achieve this, motorway tolls for goods vehicles must be increased and a fast and efficient railway line must be provided.
If a new line is built, care must be taken to select the option that has the least damaging impact on the environment.
As the infrastructure is supposed to last for hundreds of years, it is essential to find the best solution.
It appears that the Commission favours the Brenner base tunnel project.
Why does the Commission not intend to reconsider the alternative ATT3 project put forward by the engineers Trojer and Kauer? Has the Commission studied the potential environmental impact of the various projects for a Verona-Munich rail link?
Can the Commission finance a further study of the question of the transport of goods via the Brenner?
The project for a railway line between Munich and Verona, agreed by the Italian, Austrian and German Governments in 1994, is included in the Trans-European Transport Network and foresees the construction of a high speed network with combined goods transport.
In principle, it largely follows the route of the current conventional line.
The proposal of the ATT 3 project, which is well known to the Commission, deviates from the route established in the guidelines of the Trans-European Network.
I must say that the preparatory and construction measures have always been based on the agreed lines, and that to deviate from that initial approach would cause a significant delay in the development of the project itself.
As well as the ATT 3 proposal, which is of interest to the honourable Member, the Commission has received another series of alternative proposals and considers, based on technical, economic and environmental evaluations by the Member States involved, that the so-called base tunnel, work on which is under way, offers a series of advantages when compared to other alternative routes.
I must also say that a significant proportion of the economic aid already granted is directly related to the environmental aspects of the project, and that we are going to continue to support the Brenner project economically and especially the technical design of the section of the base tunnel which is about to be started.
Obviously, in any of these activities, the environmental impact, bearing in mind that this is a sensitive area, as I pointed out a moment ago when speaking of the Pyrenees problem, is one of the key elements in determining the specific project and in monitoring the carrying out of that project.
Mr President, one thing I would just ask you to bear in mind about this, is that owing to the noise pollution, a high-speed train has quite an impact along those stretches of the track that do not run under the mountain of course, and I would ask the Commissioner to consider this: why should it not be possible to make the breakthrough we need, and which will solve the problem between Munich and Verona in the long-term, with something along the lines of the Brenner base tunnel? After all, it would not be too difficult to transfer all the through heavy goods traffic to rail and bring it through the mountain, thereby solving the problem once and for all.
All we need is a ban on transiting heavy goods traffic.
This would relieve pressure on the Brenner motorway, which is under great strain and also causing a few problems of a socio-political nature, and would also free it up for private vehicles and local heavy goods traffic.
Amongst other things, in order to ban heavy transport, the first thing we need is an alternative route for heavy transport.
The truth is that there is currently no such alternative.
Therefore, the first thing we have to do is suitably develop the corresponding routes.
Of course, all of this is linked to our society and its development.
However, I believe that we cannot limit that development; which does not mean that we do not have to make every possible effort to ensure that this development respects the environment as far as possible, with the least possible effect on that environment, especially in sensitive areas such as the Alps and the Pyrenees.
Mr President, I would expressly like to thank the Commissioner for the great sensitivity she has shown so far in her handling of the Brenner traffic and Brenner base tunnel issues, and I particularly appreciate the fact that mention has repeatedly been made of the need to give special consideration to the environmental implications.
I would point out that the alternative project ATT3 - and I would like to thank Commissioner Kinnock and the chairman, Mr Coleman, for their efforts here - has been examined closely and in great detail by the Commission over the past two years, and I have also received a written report on this.
I would just like to add that the question from Mr Messner goes like this: "in the event that a new installation is to be built, the project that is the most and least environmentally friendly is to be examined" .
It is completely beyond me as to why anyone should ask the Commission to make sure that something is as harmful to the environment as it possibly could be.
This is all about people living in a sensitive area who must be protected.
The fact that this request came from the Greens makes it all the more baffling, and it should be thrown out for this reason.
The Brenner project is one of 14 projects involving trans-European transport connections and, of course, the Commission will continue to support this project, although, at the end of the day, it is the Member States which must develop it.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 64 to 114 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.25 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Eco-label
The next item is the recommendation for second reading on behalf of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on a revised Community eco-label award scheme (C5-0223/1999 - 1996/0312(COD)).
Mr President, as you just said, this is the second reading for the directive on the awarding of the eco-label.
The European eco-label is, it has to be said, a product of the internal market.
Its function, partly in response to the increasing flow of products across borders, is to label products and services which have a high level of environmental compatibility.
Its function, on the one hand, is to provide information to consumers from one country to the next and, on the other, to increase awareness within industry and among citizens to recognise and promote environmental issues.
And this is of major importance when it comes to the daily shopping trip.
I am of the opinion that the meaningfulness of a European label which is tailored to the European internal market is beyond dispute.
However, it is often a long road from the conception of a good idea to its practical implementation.
This is precisely the case with the eco-label whose main claim to fame at present is, unfortunately, its virtual anonymity in most States.
I think that only a very small minority of citizens have ever actually seen it and for this reason my report has paid greatest attention to the wholly inadequate preparations for the label.
What are the weaknesses in the current eco-label regulation which have given rise to today' s unsatisfactory situation? I think that a key problem lies in the cost structure of the label.
The test procedures which companies and their products must go through in order to obtain the label are long and costly.
We are therefore advocating that the stipulation of testing requirements should look to keep test costs to an absolute minimum, although this must obviously not be misinterpreted as a qualitative watering down of testing requirements.
As well as the cost of test procedures, the on-going fees which must be paid to the European eco-label system are also highly significant.
Here, too, we envisage a reduction in costs for SMEs, firms in developing countries and enterprises involved in other aspects of European or international environmental legislation.
In this regard, I should cite, for example, EMAS and ISO 14001.
In addition to a reduction in costs for certain enterprises, the report also envisages a maximum fee.
In this we are following the example of almost all the national labelling systems, which also have this ceiling.
The purpose of this approach is to make the labelling system equally attractive to large consumer goods manufacturers and service providers.
Let me make something perfectly clear at this point: this is not a present to the large multinationals, as is being mooted in some quarters, but an important step towards the label exerting a wide influence in the long term.
We must also clearly understand that without a certain amount of financial impetus for the European label we will not make any headway.
In my opinion, we should take on the responsibility for this financing.
Another important point in this second reading is the regulation of the relationship between the national eco-label and the European equivalent.
At first reading we were still advocating the gradual abolition of national labels in favour of the European eco-label; it is not without good reason that we have abandoned this position.
In some States national labels are well established and enjoy public recognition.
This is the case, for example, as regards the Nordic Swan in Scandinavia and the Blue Angel in Germany.
In my estimation it would be nonsensical and contrary to the spirit of subsidiarity to abolish these proven labels in favour of an as yet unestablished European label.
Our approach should be different.
We must ensure that the co-existence of national and European labels is coordinated and in this regard the working plan provided for in the common position, which we have supplemented in various respects, but which I think will meet with approval, is extremely important.
The eco-label regulation treads the fine line between economic and ecological interests, one group wanting above all to enforce stringent environmental requirements, the other with an eye on the marketing aspect of the label.
Both groups, however, have one thing in common: they want the eco-label to succeed.
I believe that the regulation which we are considering today has found a solid compromise between the interests of all the groups involved and I am convinced that the constructive proposals of our House will also be acceptable to the Council and make for a highly successful European eco-label.
Mr President, Commissioner, a speaker in this House yesterday expressed the view that economic globalisation is not an incontrovertible necessity but the evil outworking of a few multinationals.
Whilst I found this observation quite persuasive, it is, of course, dangerous and misleading because nothing which we are currently doing in Europe in terms of the economy or the environment can be seen in isolation from potential global developments.
And it goes without saying that this also applies to the awarding of an environmental label in the European Union.
Take the failed WTO negotiations in Seattle, which have opened our eyes as to the difficulty Europe faces in making itself heard by third countries when it comes to its progressive social and environmental standards.
If we re-commit today to awarding a European environmental label, we must also consider that this will send a clear signal to third countries that it will be present on our products in developing countries and, of course, that others can and will follow suit.
The environmental label must and will signal to third countries a whole range of important environmental concepts: that adverse effects on the environment can be reduced in the manufacture of certain product groups; that common goals for environmentally friendly consumption should be promoted; and that the relevant international standards must be observed.
Economic globalisation has already made it possible for developing countries to share in the prosperity of rich countries and will continue to do so in the future.
However, one thing must be made clear from the outset, and the common position before us does just that: the same rules must apply for all states.
If the production plants in a country are required to meet the criteria for the environmental label, then this applies to all the production plants where the product in question is manufactured.
If we can achieve this, then we will have globalised an important environmental principle.
Mr President, the present proposal reinforces, improves upon and tightens up on the voluntary eco-labelling system which has existed in the EU since 1992 and which has not, unfortunately, been as successful as had been hoped.
We know from the Nordic Swan and the German Blue Angel that the eco-labelling of products is an extremely significant and powerful tool for getting consumers to change their purchasing behaviour and to shop in an environmentally friendly way. That is, of course, what we all want, namely to be able to shop in an environmentally friendly way and so influence producers and the development of society in ways which favour ecologically more sustainable products and services.
I think that the Council' s position is fairly commendable, and I am also satisfied with the amendments from the committee and from Mr Schnellhardt.
I consider, however, that the proposal needs to be reinforced in certain ways, above all when it comes to the role played by consumer and environmental groups and the co-existence of different eco-labelling systems.
Those who argue the case for having only the one eco-labelling system are making a big mistake, I believe.
I am totally convinced that, wherever there are well-functioning eco-labelling systems, it will be possible also to introduce the EU flower that much more easily and more quickly.
It is about getting the consumer to look for and to choose eco-labelled products.
Once purchasing behaviour has been altered, it is extremely simple.
The key to success lies, to a very large degree, in the credibility of the environmental and consumer groups and in the good opinion in which these are held.
If these groups are involved in the right way, eco-labelling will also develop very much more quickly.
If you would allow me to make a point of order...
Mr President, the proposal we are now debating for a revised Community programme for awarding the eco-label has been significantly amended since the Commission' s original proposal.
It has also been altered a great deal since its first reading by the European Parliament.
Happily, all these changes are, on the whole, improvements.
Those of us in the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left believe that we have obtained a relatively good hearing for the views we already held at the first reading.
For us, the following principles were important when we assessed the proposal in the course of the journey. First of all, this common eco-label should not replace or get in the way of national eco-labels which are, in fact, at present functioning significantly better than the EU flower symbol when one considers both the number of labelled products and the extent to which consumers are familiar with the various labels.
It is therefore especially important that the idea of prohibiting national eco-labels has been abandoned.
I also believe it is important to realise that there is nothing to prevent the existence of parallel eco-labels.
In Scandinavia, which perhaps has what is at present the most efficient eco-labelling system, there are now already a number of eco-labels complementing, and operating fairly well alongside, each other.
Secondly, we want the environmental movement to have a decisive influence over both the awarding of labels and the criteria for receiving them.
Our experience shows that the labels would, in that way, be given greater credibility.
Moreover, this system functions excellently where it has been introduced.
We are therefore especially pleased that the idea of a more commercial form of organisation has been abandoned.
I also think it is good that the idea of a graded eco-label has been done away with.
It is easier just to have the picture of a flower.
A graded system, like the one that existed originally, would probably cause more hassle than it would be worth in terms of additional information provided.
We are also pleased that the proposal is to cover the service sector, too.
All in all, we think that the common position and the amendments which have been submitted, including the amendments from the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, make this into quite a good report.
Mr President, whilst recently at my sister-in-law's house, I noticed that she had a container of "eco-friendly" washing-up liquid.
When I congratulated her on this, she looked rather guilty and admitted that the green bottle now contained normal detergent, as the alternative product was not only more expensive but needed four times as much and even then it did not get the dishes clean; by refilling the container, she could both do the washing up effectively and impress eco-warrior friends.
The moral of this story is, of course, that to compete in the mainstream market, eco-products must give a performance close to their alternatives.
Only then can these products move out of the niche market they already have and into the mainstream.
The eco-label should not be associated with mediocrity.
The German Blue Angel and the Nordic Swan have led the way in eco-labelling.
To scrap these successful schemes now would be to throw away the baby with the bath water.
In the long term, I can see the merits of the single European eco-label, but this must not be imposed on those with existing schemes.
A single scheme has advantages for business: for example, only one registration fee and inspection, standardised packaging, and advantages for consumers who will not be confused by a plethora of labels.
Eco-labelling is moving on from forest products and detergents to computers and household appliances, but why stop there?
Services such as tourism and clean taxes could register.
In addition, groups of similar small business could possibly cooperate and register together.
In the United Kingdom, we have a flourishing ethical financial services sector, offering savings and pensions which invest from a green perspective.
These should not only qualify for an eco-label, but be allowed to sell their products without hindrance throughout the EU in a single financial services market.
Mr President, first of all, I wish, of course, to thank the European Parliament' s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, in particular the two rapporteurs, Mr Schnellhardt and Mr Poggiolini, for the very constructive work which has been carried out in reviewing the regulation on eco-labelling.
The proposal for a revised Community programme for awarding the eco-label is mainly aimed at making the programme more effective and more open and at improving the methods used. It ought to make the programme more attractive to manufacturers, distributors and consumers.
In particular, the proposal accords greater responsibility to the bodies responsible for eco-labelling and to various interest groups when it comes to establishing ecological criteria.
The Commission considers that these objectives will be fulfilled thanks to cooperation with, and interest on the part of, the European Parliament and the Council.
I believe that the relationship between the Community' s eco-labelling programme and the national eco-labelling programmes is better and more clearly defined in the current proposal.
The proposal also reinforces the interested parties' role and participation.
This applies, in particular, to various interest groups and to the environmental bodies dedicated to eco-labelling.
Their participation is crucial if the present voluntary instrument is to be favoured and made more widely available in the correct way.
It is one of the few European instruments which will, in fact, be able to play a key role in supporting sustainable consumption.
With regard to the amendments tabled by the European Parliament, the Commission considers that these have helped improve the exposition of the regulation.
With regard to Amendments Nos 1, 4 and 8, which propose active participation on the part of environmental and consumer organisations, the Commission shares the view that their support and participation is crucial if eco-labelling is to be balanced and credible. We are therefore able to accept these amendments.
With regard to Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 7, which relate to certain aspects of cooperation and coordination with national eco-labelling programmes, the Commission is convinced that common supporting activities are important, particularly with a view to making the Community' s eco-labelling better known.
We are therefore able to approve these amendments, too. Amendment No 5 proposes four ways of making the fee structure more flexible and easier for those who apply to be accepted.
The Commission supports this overarching objective.
After all, eco-labelling is, of course, voluntary, and the fees ought not to be so high that those who make the most effort in the interests of the environment are prevented from applying for the eco-label.
Amendment No 6 concerns fee reductions for small and medium-sized companies, as well as developing countries, and emphasises that these should be appreciable.
The Commission is able to support this amendment, too.
To summarise, the Commission is therefore able to approve all the amendments.
Mr President, I wanted earlier on, as I concluded my previous speech, to make a point of order to which I should like to alert the President and the Bureau.
Before the vote tomorrow, it needs to be made clear that certain amendments to the present report have not been translated.
They are only to be found in English.
This applies, for example, to Amendments 7 and 8. These are only available in English, which is totally unacceptable.
If we are to be able to vote on this report, these amendments need at least to be read out before they are voted on.
That was the first point.
The second concerns, for example, the work programme for environmental strategy...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Thank you very much for pointing out the position regarding amendments.
The services are looking at this and I hope that they will be ready in time for tomorrow.
We cannot allow the debate to continue because we are running out of time.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your contribution.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Incineration of waste
The next item is the recommendation for a second reading on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the incineration of waste (C5-0274/1999 - 1998/0289(COD)).
On Amendments Nos 36 and 37, which have been distributed, I am shown as the joint mover of the motion.
I discovered this yesterday evening and notified DG1 of the fact this morning.
DG1 acknowledged that a mistake had been made by the translation service.
I then asked for this to be corrected.
DG1 refused, saying that they did not have the time.
I should like to say that I think this is completely unacceptable.
They have had more than 12 hours in which to correct the amendments concerned.
I feel very put out that these have been made publicly available with wrong information about who the movers of the motion are.
It is a question, then, of Amendments Nos 36 and 37, of which I am not the joint mover of the motion.
Thank you very much for pointing that out.
We will try and make sure it is corrected by tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I would like to thank the Members for their fruitful cooperation.
As a result of this, we have been able to table various amendments in a joint effort and reach agreement on a number of issues.
This is illustrated by the compromise we reached on the scope of the directive.
I would also like to thank the European Commission for providing the information and technical advice, which was extremely helpful.
In a civilised society, it is to be expected that waste should be processed in an effective and environmentally responsible manner.
In the European Community, this will increasingly be done by incinerating waste and recycling energy.
This process will obviously need to be closely monitored for emissions of dangerous substances.
Once we have reached a point where, in order to counter the adverse effects on the environment, dangerous and organic waste, in particular, is no longer dumped, incineration should then inevitably deliver environmental benefits.
By tightening up emission standards, a balance was struck at first reading between what is viable over a period of about five to seven years and what is necessary from an environmental point of view.
The emission values currently proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are a reasonable compromise.
It should, however, be noted that stricter requirements are already in place in a number of Member States.
It is one thing to prescribe sound environmental standards but quite another to comply with these.
Compliance requires adequate control which, in turn, requires proper monitoring.
Just imagine a situation in which we laid down excellent standards for emissions of dangerous substances such as dioxins but, on the other hand, left the way open for exemptions from all kinds of monitoring obligations.
We would then run the risk of not, on balance, making any progress, and the quality of air would not improve.
In addition, we also need to avoid a situation where it becomes clear there are long-term health risks for a reason which may not be immediately obvious, namely that the emission of harmful substances is not measured.
We cannot justify the occurrence of illnesses, such as cancer or blood diseases, which we have not prevented because there was no obligation to measure the emission of harmful substances by incineration plants.
Mr Florenz was among those who were right to point out that clear measuring regulations are vital.
I expect, therefore, that we will be joining forces in order to put a sound monitoring process in place.
As far as the scope of the directive is concerned, I am pleased to say that, thanks to good mutual cooperation, we have reached an acceptable wording.
However, we need to bear in mind that, with this draft, we have deviated a long way from the first reading, in view of the fact that only untreated timber was then regarded as an acceptable exception.
Regarding the definition of coincineration plant, it is unfortunate that we were unable to reach agreement on this beforehand.
After many discussions involving various Members and the European Commission, a simple solution, which may well be acceptable, has been found in the form of Amendment No 43.
If waste were used as a replacement raw material, such as in the recycling of glass, the relevant process would fall outside the scope of the directive.
If, on the other hand, only part of the waste were to be used as a replacement raw material, then this process would fall within the directive' s scope.
As for the recycling of energy, I would like to point out that, in November of last year, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the integration of environmental concerns into energy policy, in which it was requested that special attention be given to the application and development of the best methods for energy recycling.
Consequently, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has made a recommendation that energy recycling by means of combined electricity/heat production should also apply to the incineration of waste.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has asked for ammonia levels to be measured.
It is wrong, however, that the standards for ammonia should not apply to all installations.
Accordingly, I have, for reasons of consistency, proposed an ammonia standard for cement kilns and for ordinary waste incinerators.
As far as the continuous sampling of dioxins is concerned, this appears to be quite feasible.
Belgium has started to use such a measuring technique in the wake of its dioxin crisis.
A cumulative sample is taken for a one-month period. After this period, this sample is measured and the result gives a good indication of the levels of dioxin emitted during that month.
Needless to say, this is a more effective monitoring method than the random measurement method used twice a year.
According to experts, the costs are not higher since the measurement of cumulative samples is far cheaper.
As such, the cost of the equipment for continuous sampling is recouped within the space of a few years.
At first reading, considerable improvements were made to the Commission proposal thanks to a great deal of support.
It was at that stage that expectations were raised amongst the citizens.
I strongly urge MEPs to meet these expectations.
A consistent approach taken by the European Parliament will benefit our credibility amongst the citizens, especially those citizens living in the vicinity of plants which incinerate or co-incinerate waste.
Mr President, Commissioner, we feel that this directive is far from satisfactory because it involves a combination of two texts, one on the incineration of dangerous waste and the other on the incineration of non-dangerous waste.
This raises problems for us at several phases of the incineration process: the reception, processing and handling of the waste.
One might well ask what was the point of combining these two matters.
We can find the answer in Mr Blokland' s report, which is violently opposed to the coincineration industry.
Paradoxically, however, by the same token, the rapporteur is in favour of mixing dangerous and non-dangerous waste.
What is the advantage of this for the environment?
Our Group has no wish to favour either type of industry, since both are extremely useful to waste management in Europe.
The practices of each Member State must be taken into consideration, while maintaining the existing industrial balance and investigating how the environment can be better protected.
This is what the common position proposes.
Priority must be given to the emission limits for the most harmful substances, i.e. NOx, dioxins and furanes.
Moreover, the common position suggests an NOx limit value for the incineration of dangerous waste for the year 2007. Such a thing does not yet currently exist.
As regards dioxins and furanes, the limit values have now been made mandatory for all types of waste.
Until now, they applied only to non-dangerous waste.
It is therefore unfortunate that the Blokland report is putting unrealistic solutions forward when it is known that a good many directives on waste management are not yet applied or are not properly applied by Member States.
If one wishes to go too far, one becomes counter-productive.
It is completely unrealistic to wish to review the limit values of this directive every three years, if one considers the considerable investment that the industry would have to make.
What the industry needs is legal certainty and reasonable time periods.
The real problem is that in Europe we do not have a proper definition of what waste is, resulting in ongoing confusion when we have to revise a text on waste or to present new proposals.
Commissioner, waste management in Europe must undergo complete reform as a matter of urgency.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Blokland on this report.
We know that waste incineration is a very difficult and highly technical area, but I think that a creditable piece of work has been done in connection with this report.
Unlike Mrs Grossetête, I think that the common position and Mr Blokland' s report will, as a matter of fact, make a significant environmental contribution in connection with waste incineration, whether we are talking about hazardous or non-hazardous waste.
I believe that we are, in this way, obtaining a good tool for preventing and limiting environmental damage in connection with waste incineration and for preventing and limiting the associated risks to human health.
Moreover, there are also some good resources which are being put to use.
I shall certainly support the demand that proper waste planning be carried out, with waste being duly sorted, so that we have a situation in which waste incineration is linked to the EU' s combined waste legislation, with the incineration problem correctly placed in the waste hierarchy.
I also think it is good that we should now be told very precisely which plants are covered by these rules and also which types of waste are thus exempt from them.
Regarding the very difficult question of defining coincineration plant, including cement factories - in connection with the handling of which there has been some quite aggressive lobbying - I want to say that I think we can support Amendment No 43, which I think defines the common position well.
Finally, there is the absolutely crucial point about establishing emission limits in relation to air and water - whether we are talking about heavy metals or dust, ammonia, dioxin, sulphur dioxide or other hazardous substances.
I think that defensible levels have been identified in this connection, and a reasonable balance has been struck between incineration plants proper and the combined plants.
It is a balance that I hope will be maintained, including during the vote tomorrow here in the plenary sitting.
Again in contrast to Mrs Grossetête, I want, moreover, to say that the levels set here for emissions are realistic. They are technologically feasible and they are, in actual fact, already being applied in a number of the Member States.
The existing plants which do not at present fulfil the requirements are also to be given a good few years in which to be adapted to the new requirements laid down here.
I hope therefore that, by means of the vote tomorrow, we can make our contribution to solving the health and environmental problems involved in waste incineration so that the enormous quantities of waste which we produce every single day do not cause more serious health problems or greater damage to the environment than is absolutely necessary.
Mr President, Mr Blokland has carried out an enormous task.
This subject is incredibly involved.
Moreover, the lobbyists have been something else.
I should never have believed that there were so many of them concerned about waste in Europe.
You might have thought it was gold rather than waste they were talking about.
One never knows, but it perhaps bodes well for the future that a recycling industry is developing which possesses such competence and power in terms of financial resources and personnel.
Obviously, the EU must create a sustainable system for protecting air, land and water. This is a common commitment and a common responsibility.
It clearly ought, too, to be regulated at European Union level.
But is this the right level at which to produce such very detailed technical descriptions as this Directive is attempting to produce?
Ought it not, rather, to be the case that decisions should be made on permitted emission levels for various substances, on the measurement systems and on how the measurements are to be carried out and that, subsequently, the principle of subsidiarity should be applied? It is true that, when it comes to the ways in which waste is dealt with and is co-incinerated using large quantities of biomass fuels, there are really quite enormous differences between northern Scandinavia (where the transport routes are also long) and the densely populated areas of Central Europe where the problem is, quite literally, more one of waste incineration and of refuse collection and disposal than of, for example, generating combined power and heat.
I should like us at some point, but not now, to debate the opportunities for creating framework legislation in this area.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Blokland on this report which will set Europe-wide standards for incineration, including for the first time emission standards for dioxins and furanes; this should lead to more competition between different methods of waste disposal, and as a result help bring to an end the transport of hazardous waste across Europe in search of the cheapest waste operators.
With the predicted increase in incineration, it is vital that overall EU legislation on waste disposal and on air quality is consistent and comprehensive.
We must look at the whole hierarchy.
Incineration may increase as stricter controls are put on landfill, but it does not go hand in hand with recycling and environmentally friendly waste-disposal methods.
Building new incinerators is a costly and long-term venture which in turn has to have a long-term return for the investors, so it would be in their interests for waste to continue to be burned.
This means that there is a danger of over capacity which will lead to encouraging incineration for reasons of profit, rather than encouraging the reduction, recycling and safe treatment of waste, which is our goal.
This Parliament must protect the health and quality of life of the people that we represent.
There is no safe threshold for dioxin emissions and more research is being done on the effects of micro-particles on human health and the environment.
So we have to ensure that there is frequent testing and monitoring, that regular and detailed information is made available to the public, and that real action is taken against breaches of the rules.
Measuring emissions twice a year may give an early indication of what is happening in an incineration plant and in the air that the local community is breathing. Measuring once every two years would not do that.
So we must set the highest possible standards and not make exceptions which will weaken this very important legislation.
Mr President, you cannot dispose of waste by dumping it in the sea, shooting it into space, or by simply incinerating it.
It has a habit of reappearing, often in a more harmful form.
Incineration can be the cause of illnesses, air pollution, climatic change and a rise in the sea level.
A great deal of waste is incinerated these days, but not, in fact, by these expensive installations equipped with flue-gas cleaning devices.
These installations are not being brought up to date.
In fact, they are closed down if it appears that it is cheaper to co-incinerate waste in the cement industry and in electricity plants.
This is why it is important that incineration should cost the same across the board and meet the same high environmental requirements.
It is a fact that left and right do not often see eye to eye on many issues - rightly and understandably so - both within and outside this Parliament, as they represent opposing interests and visions of groups in our society.
This issue, however, should form an exception.
Anyone, rich or poor, must be able to breathe, remain healthy and keep their feet dry.
Only a reckless short-term vision and the pursuit of quick profits can explain why attempts are still being made to weaken this directive.
Amendments of this kind reduce the directive to rules for those who would poison us and threaten the world with another flood.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left therefore supports the proposals made by Mr Blokland and hopes that destructive amendments will be withdrawn or rejected.
Mr President, waste management is now central to achieving the highest standards of environmental protection.
Regrettably, our consumer society is contributing to an increasing volume of domestic waste and there is also growing concern in relation to industrial waste.
Thankfully there is now an awareness among citizens of the importance of protecting the natural environment, and in my view the social and economic climate is conducive to achieving this objective.
In previous debates I referred to the need to reduce waste: here the manufacturers of food and consumer goods have an important role to play, particularly in relation to packaging in its various forms and the importance of using products compatible with recycling, which is of course my preferred option.
We are all conscious of the need to reduce the volume of waste now disposed of in landfill sites and every effort must be made to find more environmentally friendly alternatives.
In my view, we will not be able in the foreseeable future to totally eliminate landfill sites but we must not only reduce, on an ongoing basis, the volume of material going to landfill but must also be more selective as regards the materials disposed of.
While incineration is getting a lot of adverse publicity, and recent planning decisions in Ireland have certainly raised the crucial question of the location of incinerators, it is difficult to envisage a complete programme of waste disposal without incineration, particularly in relation to toxic waste, and in this regard consideration must be given to finding locations where the facility will not impact badly on the natural environment.
Finally, Mr President, it is obvious we need further informed debates in helping to allay the citizens' concern on the health aspect of incineration, a matter which has been addressed through extensive research carried out in various Member States and through the experience gained in the many state-of-the-art facilities now in operation throughout Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur for his work.
The recommendation for second reading before us is an extremely important legislative resolution, not just for the environment but also for the economy of the European Union.
This can be seen from the many letters which we receive from environmental associations and from the economic sector, not least of course the cement industry, but also many others such as the wood-processing industry, the paper industry, the metalworking industry and so on.
I think that we must regard both sets of arguments as important, those of the environmental associations and also those of industry, because industry has also put forward arguments from a genuinely environmental viewpoint and not just from an economic viewpoint.
We should treat this seriously.
Not all amendments which are probably well intentioned from the environmental viewpoint are necessarily an improvement on the current situation.
I think this can be seen from some of the amendments which were put forward in committee with regard to coincineration and which now reappear as amendments in plenary.
We cannot in any way guarantee that in restricting coincineration we will actually achieve what we want environmentally.
Above all we want to save fossil fuels.
If we set up the hurdles wrong here, then we will not achieve the right environmental objective.
For this reason, our Group rejects the amendments which have been resubmitted by Mr Blokland, the Greens and others.
However, I think that there are still some amendments decided on in committee which we can support in good conscience in order to improve the common position.
For example, I tabled a motion in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy relating to NOx emitted during coincineration which, at least for new installations, is somewhat more ambitious than the Council' s proposals.
I think it is realistic and, as the industry in question is saying the same, albeit with its hand in front of its mouth, we should be altogether more positive.
I think, therefore, that we are on the right track in accepting much of what has been decided in the committee, but certainly nothing which goes any further.
Mr President, unusually tonight I am not speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group, largely because I have some particularly strong views about this directive.
I do believe that Mr Blokland has produced the wrong report at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.
It is not so long ago that we addressed this issue and produced a set of rules that were appropriate to the situation, and which Mr Blokland was seen to be happy with at the time and did not complain about.
Given a task to do, Mr Blokland has produced a new and revised report that has certainly exceeded anything that we have done before.
We cannot say that it is all wrong.
Indeed there are many sensible proposals put forward in areas where the technology makes it possible to advance.
But quite frankly we cannot expect, having already given industry one set of rules to implement only a year or two ago, to hand them a completely new set of rules so quickly.
We have to expect that it will take time to implement this report.
Mr Blokland has also exceeded in many ways the brief he was given.
In particular, the scope of this proposal goes far further than previous directives and brings into its legislative fold a great many processes which require separate legislation, and need to be separately regulated because they are inherently different from the simple process of combustion.
If one is being kind to this directive one could describe it as being good in parts, like the curate's egg.
Unfortunately, this is going to give environment policy a bad name.
We should not be constantly re-regulating incinerators.
We should be seeking ways to avoid incineration in the first place.
Parliament's objective in waste management strategy is not to constantly tighten rules on existing incinerating plant, it is to change the role of waste management, to change the type of waste management that we do.
We would be much better concentrating our efforts in the next few years on recycling, re-use and other methods of reducing the waste heap. If we do not, we will very soon find ourselves back with this problem again.
Mr President, I certainly agree with Mr Bowe's final summary.
Although the common position places firm controls on permitted emissions from waste incinerators, I know that whenever proposals to build such an incinerator are made in my country, people rise in protest, they distrust the operator's claims and I have a degree of sympathy with them.
So I and many of my colleagues will be backing most of Mr Blokland's amendments because we want the highest possible standards.
I have no problem at all if these prove technically difficult to achieve - no problem, because Britain has a shameful record of having the lowest household waste recycling in Europe and great room for improvement.
Many of us believe that any government in our country will encourage the construction of waste incinerators as an alternative to encouraging the alternatives.
It would be a case of "throw it on the furnace" and putting it out of sight and out of mind which to my mind is a false approach.
We have to concentrate on reducing waste, recycling what is left and leaving incinerators as a last resort.
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Blokland for his report which strives to improve the Commission's proposal, and the authors of the other amendments which do so as well.
But incineration has to be considered as a last resort and - as has been said already - waste reduction, re-use and recycling are the main things we should be striving for.
I just wonder about Mr Bowe's statement about the need to reduce, recycle and re-use waste.
Will his position remain the same when he is debating the packaging directive? It will be interesting to see if he sticks to his principles there.
The only thing incineration does, as Mrs Evans has said, is to encourage the need for more waste.
It will not be economically viable if you do not have enough waste to keep the incinerators going.
We also must remember that waste does not disappear.
It is turned into dioxins and also toxic ash - what will you do with that? In Ireland, some operators are proposing using it in building materials.
What will be the long-term consequences of that? In Ireland, regardless of what my colleague Mr Hyland said, we have an appalling record on waste management.
We have one of the highest landfill records in Europe.
Now it seems the government are moving from landfill to incineration and it is being presented as the green option.
They say: "We are turning waste into energy - isn't that wonderful?" when in actual fact they are trying to hoodwink the public into believing that this is something that is ecologically sound.
The recent court case in Ireland which decided against the siting of an incinerator in an agricultural area was extremely important.
It is very important that we get our act right, that we look first and foremost at waste management.
For any government to propose that incineration should be introduced instead of landfill is completely misguided.
We have to look at the root causes of why the waste is there in the first place.
Mr President, the amendments by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy underline generally the high levels of environmental protection, and for that reason many of these amendments are acceptable.
There are differing infrastructures for the treatment and incineration of waste in different countries, however, and, as a result, the same provisions are not in fact the same for everyone.
In Finland and some other countries the sorting of waste in close proximity to where it originates is very advanced.
Thus, we do not incinerate mixed waste, as they do in certain countries.
The incineration of mixed waste is bad environmental policy.
Sorted waste can be incinerated effectively together with other fuels in a so-called coincineration process.
The amendments by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy unjustifiably lump together the incineration of mixed waste with parallel incineration.
That might have an adverse effect, as a result of its indirect economic impact, on levels of environmental protection in the countries that sort waste.
For that reason, Amendments Nos 14, 17, 18 and 27 should not be adopted.
Finally, I would like say that the cement industry lobby should not be put in a competitive position that is better than that enjoyed by the hazardous waste disposal plants.
Mr President, I find myself in agreement with Mrs Grossetête and Mrs Paulsen and - rather alarmingly for both of us - with Mr Bowe.
But I want to make a particular point in relation to an alarm which has been raised in the United Kingdom by the agricultural sector literally in the last few days.
A number of United Kingdom MEPs have been contacted by farming interests, who are very worried that the incineration directive will apply to all on-farm incinerators in the United Kingdom.
There are said to be several thousand of these, and the full effect of applying the controls outlined in the directive would be to put up the costs for each incinerator to operate by an estimated £200 000.
Typically, such incinerators deal with animal waste from the agriculture sector and with the disposal of empty pesticide containers at a rate of less than 50 kg an hour.
Both processes satisfy the criteria of best practicable environmental option and are accepted by environmental inspectors in the United Kingdom.
No exception has been moved for these under Article 2(2) and the closure of incinerators following the entry into force of the directive would pose enormous problems of cost and of disposal of animal waste for UK farmers.
My question to the Commissioner, which I hope that she will able to answer when she comes, is this: since we have not moved an exception to take account of these on-farm incinerators, is this the first time the European Commission has heard of this difficulty? Have they received any representations from United Kingdom ministers?
Can the Commissioner say when an opportunity for revising the directive to introduce these exceptions - supposing Parliament would ever agree to them - might arise, and does it feel that such an exception for animal waste and for the burning of empty pesticide containers in on-farm incinerators would in fact be likely to gain acceptance?
I have given the Commissioner notice of these questions.
Mr President, the treatment of waste and the whole policy on waste is becoming an ever more important part of EU environmental policy.
To be able to act sensibly and correctly we have to bear in mind something that has already been spoken of here, which is to say the waste hierarchy: the prevention of waste, recycling, the exploitation of its energy-producing potential through incineration, and its final treatment.
The Commission' s proposal is not a total response to this idea, and is rather based on the notion that everything must and can be burnt.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy added the necessary amendments to promote the waste hierarchy to its common position in its second reading, and I hope that these points of view will also be adopted in tomorrow' s vote.
I also hope there is support for the proposal that was very much endorsed by the Committee to facilitate the incineration of waste produced by the paper and cellulose industry at the production site.
This waste is an important energy source not only for the industrial plants themselves but also for the surrounding community.
As the waste hierarchy is implemented in very many different ways in different Member States and in most countries they burn both hazardous and non-hazardous waste in the same incinerator, very strict rules are required.
However, in those countries where the recycling of waste is reasonably well established, such as Finland, and where they know what is being incinerated where, tighter controls will not improve the state of the environment; on the contrary, it might make it worse, as the incineration of waste will be prevented in small incineration plants and transportation will increase.
But, as regards impurities in the air, it would be necessary that exceptions to the strict standards would only apply when the party incinerating the waste can truly demonstrate that no more emissions are being released into the air than what the licensing conditions allow.
Mr President, the directive on the incineration of waste is well intended but I think those responsible for preparing it have gone into too much detail.
I am mainly worried about the so-called coincineration of waste.
Sorted community waste and, for example, the fibrous pulp sludge that is produced in forest industry processes serve as good fuel supplements for many heating plants.
The draft, however, calls for ongoing, expensive, to some extent impossible, and environmentally unnecessary monitoring of plants that are engaged in harmless coincineration.
The end result will run counter to the original aim: non-hazardous sorted waste, which is a valid form of fuel for heating plants, will have to be driven to a landfill site to add to methane emissions or it will have to be transported hundreds of kilometres to large incinerators, all the while polluting the environment.
There are many amendments in the report that are problematic.
I think the matter should either go back to the Committee or the Council' s common position, at least its main features, should be adhered to.
Mr President, honourable Members, efforts to set limits for pollutants produced by waste incineration and to introduce specific control procedures are indeed a positive step.
It is unacceptable for pollution to be transferred from the air into water and the ground.
The directive makes some headway in that direction.
Nevertheless, the problems inherent in waste incineration still remain, since it is the actual burning process which produces toxic substances, including dioxins.
This applies even more to domestic waste which contains negligible quantities of toxic substances before it is burned.
Treating dangerous and non-dangerous waste in the same way therefore exacerbates the problem.
What is more, the cost of installing and operating incineration units is far higher than the cost of mechanical recycling or sanitary landfill.
In a nutshell, the legislative proposal under discussion will not solve the problems inherent in incineration as a waste management method.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Blokland for this report; he has had a very hard job to do.
Drafting environmental legislation for the whole of Europe is a demanding task, as circumstances in Member States differ enormously.
I myself come from a country where we have already opted for a policy that corresponds amazingly closely to the EU strategy on waste.
Only Finland has already embarked on perfectly feasible practices, as you have heard this evening.
Therefore, it is tiresome to see that the same mechanisms that are needed to guide those countries that have been lax in their attention to the matter of waste disposal, are forcing the more advanced countries to take a step backwards.
This should not be happening.
Mrs Paulsen, was right: this is exactly where compliance with the principle of subsidiarity is needed.
If more stringent requirements regarding emissions are being illogically imposed on the use of waste as fuel than for other fuels, fuels classified as waste will cease to be used.
There are no alternative proposed uses for waste: it would be deposited in landfill sites.
That will add to the formation of methane, as a result of putrefaction of organic waste, and the greenhouse phenomenon.
This holds true especially for the incineration of harmless sludge produced by the paper and cellulose industry.
It is important that Parliament amends the proposal for the directive in this respect in accordance with the Committee' s amendment.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy adopted some proposals that, if realised, would make it harder to practise ecologically justified coincineration.
For example, the limit values for emissions for fuel that is not waste in coincineration are required to be the same as for waste as fuel, even though the same material may be incinerated and give off higher levels of emissions, under EU legislation.
Another example is the call for the ongoing monitoring of the ammonia content of gas from chimneys.
That will add substantially to the costs of monitoring with no benefit to the environment, as the monitoring obligations have not just been imposed on those plants where ammonia emissions are generally produced.
Investments that do not bring a value added element with regard to the environment mean less investments that are of benefit to the environment.
Mr President, Mr Blokland, ladies and gentlemen, waste management is a complex task.
This is confirmed yet again by our discussions and the particularly powerful lobbying.
I therefore approve of the European Union' s approach which is to adopt an overall strategy in relation to this major environmental and health issue.
Nonetheless, personally speaking, I have always been rather worried to see the incineration of dangerous and non-dangerous waste dealt with in the same legislation, and I expressed my opinion on this point at first reading.
The majority decided in favour of coincineration.
My opinion is that today we must fight to prevent the emission standards for dangerous waste being relaxed.
The volume of waste to be incinerated is going to be significantly increased.
The figure of 31 million tonnes in 1990 has been mentioned. This year we are talking about close to 60 million tonnes, and waste incineration generates, as everyone has mentioned, the emission of particularly dangerous substances into the atmosphere and soil.
The debate has focused on coincineration.
I find the maximum standard of 40% excessive, but I should like more especially to stress, just briefly, the fact that the increasingly widespread use of dangerous waste in coincineration units is liable to lead us to accept the production of this type of waste, with a particularly high risk of hearing, tomorrow, that serious investment has been made with a view to constructing coincineration units. They therefore now have to be made to run profitably, leading to an increase in the volume of dangerous substances transported, with all the risks that this entails.
In conclusion, while mentioning that penalties must be applied in cases of non-compliance and perhaps also that support should be provided for the authorities modifying their household waste incinerators to comply with the standards, it is still essential to stress that our top priority is, and must continue to be, avoiding the creation of this type of waste and recycling as much as possible.
Mr President, we all know that disposing of waste in an environmentally friendly manner and utilising its energy by means of the latest technology is a requirement of our time and wholly appropriate.
The directive on the incineration of waste contains important starting points for introducing compulsory high environmental standards throughout the European Union which have already been in place in some Member States for a number of years.
And this is important and necessary.
The aim of the directive is to establish emission levels which ensure harmless and environmentally friendly incineration of both dangerous and non-dangerous waste in incineration and coincineration plants without presenting any risk to human health.
People are sensitised today and have fears of a high level of air pollution and the illnesses which can result and so the policy must also create completely clear framework conditions to limit the risk.
Nevertheless, I must say that Mr Blokland is proposing some regulations and stringent conditions for the directive which go way beyond the objective.
The operating conditions for incineration plants, as proposed in Amendment No 11, are neither appropriate to the objective nor practicable but, quite simply, superfluous.
Science and practice have shown for some time now that such a measure does not prevent high emissions of hydrogen chlorides and dioxins.
In practice, Amendment No 11 would also mean that many halogenated substances, for example PVC, which frequently occurs in mixed domestic waste, would be excluded from incineration in waste incineration plants.
A further point is to ensure that the directive does not give rise to any protected markets.
Industries which use coincineration plants in their production process have, for many years, successfully concerned themselves with achieving high air purity standards in incineration.
Many companies are also dependent on the use of waste to retain competitiveness and jobs.
Millions have already been spent on measures to reduce energy consumption.
In my opinion, we should not disregard these efforts ....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I should like to make two brief points which may well be relevant should this go to conciliation, as I suspect it will.
The first is the impact of this directive on the existing specialist toxic waste incineration industry.
These incinerators have to adhere to higher standards than the coincineration plants.
My concern is that the high calorific value waste will be cherry-picked for coincineration and this in turn will push up the cost of the specialist toxic waste incinerators which will mean that they will have to actually buy in fuel in many instances to achieve the high temperatures which are required to destroy things like dioxin.
We need the specialist toxic waste incinerators.
There are only three at the moment in the United Kingdom.
If we had fewer of these plants, it would mean that hazardous waste might well have to be transported for large distances, which is not acceptable for both political and practical environment reasons, and it would also push up the cost of incinerating this toxic waste.
The second point I would make is to underline the point made by Dr Jackson.
I come from a region in the United Kingdom with the highest density of pigs.
Now traditionally fallen stock has been disposed of by burial on the farm, but with these very large units this is just not a practical way of disposal, so many of the units have installed their own incinerators - small incinerators using less than 50 kg per hour.
If these incinerators are not used, people may well have to go back to burial.
I think this mix-up has been due to a misunderstanding between the Department of the Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture in Britain, who thought there were only sixty incinerators of this type when in fact there are several thousand.
This problem also applies to hunt kennels which feed fallen stock, and dispose of offal and - bizarrely - to pet crematoria, although I understand that human crematoria are not covered as dead people are not classified as waste.
In conciliation could I ask you to make allowance for these farmers who have invested in cleaning up the environment by installing incinerators, and for whom the cost would be excessive should they not be able to continue.
Mr President, first and foremost, I want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Blokland for the considerable commitment he has shown and for his well prepared recommendation for second reading.
Together with the Council' s determination to arrive quickly at a common position, the report has helped with the efficient reading of the Commission' s proposal.
The proposed directive on waste incineration goes to the heart of environmental legislation: the protection of public health.
The proposal will help reduce dioxin emissions from incineration by 90 per cent.
As from 2005, when the directive begins to apply to existing plant, dioxin emissions from incinerators will be insignificant.
Together with the directive on waste deposition, the directive on waste incineration will put a stop to methods of treating waste which do not take account of future generations' needs and interests.
Both directives constitute a firm basis for the sustainable treatment of the waste hierarchy, with improved preventative measures, better recycling and environmentally safe deposition of waste.
I should like to remind you that there already exists a directive on a waste hierarchy.
It is therefore obvious that, in this case, it is recycling that one should attempt, in the first place, to regulate.
Unfortunately, Mr Bowe, it has been 11 years since the technical requirements in these directives were last reviewed.
43 amendments have been tabled.
Of these, the Commission is able to approve eight in full, five in part and three in principle.
The following amendments are aimed at clarifying the Commission' s proposal.
The Commission is able to approve them in part, in principle or in full: 4, in principle, with the exception of the last section; 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11, but only the elucidation of the two seconds; 12 and 14, second section; 17 in principle, but not the requirement continually to measure the levels of ammonia and mercury; 18, first section; 19, 22, and 24 in principle; 25: the figure of 500 milligrams for nitric oxides in new plant, together with the proposed new paragraph at the end; 27 in principle, together with Amendment No 43.
The Commission is not able to approve the first section of Amendment No 14.
If the word "untreated" were to be deleted, it would no longer be possible to use mixed household waste in co-incinerators, something which would also apply to waste which had undergone extensive pre-treatment.
The second section of this amendment is, in principle, acceptable.
By introducing an explanation of the word "untreated" , the paragraph can be made less ambiguous.
The European Parliament' s Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 7, which are aimed at introducing provisions concerning the treatment of waste, cannot, for reasons of principle, be approved.
The Commission' s proposal is aimed at introducing limits for emissions and at establishing operative conditions for all waste incinerated or co-incinerated, and this should not influence the legislation concerning the treatment of waste.
The Commission is not able to approve Amendments 5 and 15 which are designed to introduce links to standards of air and water quality.
Legislation of this kind already exists or is at present being prepared, for example the directives concerning air quality and coordinated measures to prevent and limit pollution, together with the proposed framework directive concerning water.
The amendments would involve the provisions in these acts being duplicated or becoming more ambiguous.
Amendments Nos 3, 16, 30 and 33-35 are not compatible with the directive' s structure and cannot therefore be approved.
There has been a certain amount of confusion concerning Amendment No 13 where a number of language versions have been changed but not the English language version.
This amendment cannot, however, be adopted by the Commission.
Articles 12 and 15 of the proposal concern access to information and reporting.
They are now worded in such a way as to guarantee that all players have access to the information they require.
The Commission therefore considers that Amendments Nos 20 and 21 are unnecessary.
Amendments Nos 36-39 are designed to tighten up the requirements with regard to measurements.
The Commission is not able to accept these because they would place an additional burden upon those responsible and because no justification of their real value can be provided.
Finally, Annexes II, IV and V are, as you know, the heart of the Directive, establishing the limits for emissions in the cases of coincineration and incineration.
As I have already mentioned, the Commission accepts the proposed limit of 500 milligrams for nitric oxides in new cement kilns. This is also justified from the point of view of cost-income analysis.
Any further amendment for the purpose of making the limits stricter or of removing from certain plants the right to be regarded as exceptions would threaten the delicate balance achieved in the common position.
The Commission cannot therefore accept Amendments Nos 23, 26, 28, 29, 31, 32 40, 41 and 42.
With regard to Mrs Jackson' s question about the incineration of dead animals on farms, I would provide the following clarification. The incineration of dead animals is not included under the directive, and this in accordance with the exceptions defined in Article 2.2.
As I have noted previously, the Commission accepts parts of Amendment No 4, which refers to Directive 74/442 and which indirectly makes it possible to exclude the incineration of infected animals on farms.
We consequently accept this principle.
The Commission is to investigate the possibility of extending the exception concerning radioactive waste also to include exceptions such as infected dead animals.
I understand that there is a debate going on in Great Britain, and perhaps in other places too, concerning the incineration of, for example, empty packages of insecticide etc.
It is not, of course, the intention that these should be incinerated. That sounds dangerous.
Nor does it sound as if one should be burning them at home in one' s backyard.
I do not want to exclude our needing to review how the exceptions are to be worded once we have obtained more information and know exactly what types of plant are concerned.
There was a certain amount of confusion because we at first believed that we were concerned here with dead animals and infected dead animals, of which we thought exceptions should be made.
My understanding from the interpretation was that the incineration of dead animals is not covered by this directive under the terms of Article 2(2).
I am looking at Article 2(2) and I cannot see that exclusion set out there.
It talks about vegetable waste and vegetable waste does not cover dead animals.
However, I will get clarification from the Commissioner personally.
Infectious animal waste is not covered by the scope of this directive in its common position form because it is covered by Directive 90/667.
The adoption of Amendment No 4 to Article 2(2) might give the Commission the chance to revise the text so as to include a specific exclusion for infectious animal waste.
As things stand all other animal waste is covered by Article 2(2)(a)(v) of the directive and Directive 90/667.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Ozone in ambient air
The next item is the report(A5-0062/2000) drawn up by Mr Davies on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on a proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive relating to ozone in ambient air (COM (1999) 125 - C5 - 0047/1999 - 1999/0067 (COD)).
Mr President, given the importance of the directive on national emission ceilings to this report on a proposal for a daughter directive, it is a little surprising that the order of debate is as it is, because without reduction in the key trans-boundary pollutants we are not going to reduce ozone.
This report sets national targets for ozone levels and proposes action plans for dealing with local problems of exceedance.
To save time I am going to assume that the respiratory and other health problems associated with ozone are understood, and that every Member of this House will want to reduce them.
The disputes between us will be about costs and time-scales, and perhaps also about the accuracy of the Commission's methodology and the achievability of the targets it has set in this directive.
Let me deal directly with the Commission's core proposal, the setting of a target for 2010 of 120 mg per cubic metre for ozone, not to be exceeded on more than 20 days per year.
Commission proposals for environmental improvements need to be both ambitious and realistic.
These proposals are certainly ambitious but many governments dispute whether they are politically realistic, and having just come from a difficult - albeit ultimately successful - group meeting of my own, I know that many Members have doubts.
In particular, representatives of the Mediterranean countries point out problems resulting from the strong sunlight they enjoy.
I point out that the Commission's methodology has taken full account of this but I look at their faces and still see a degree of scepticism.
I did wonder some months ago whether to table amendments, which would suggest a less ambitious outcome, but which would perhaps be more acceptable to Member States.
But the Commission's 120 mg target is in line with World Health Organisation proposals, and who am I to suggest that they should be challenged?
The number of days of exceedance could easily be adjusted, but that is something to negotiate only when necessary.
It is a good target and, if it is at all possible, then it should be retained.
The position I have taken in preparing this report is to say that those who want tougher targets than the Commission has proposed should have their views rejected.
But equally it would be wrong for us to water down the draft directive.
That is why I am sorry to see amendments tabled which reflect the Industry Committee's position.
It seems to have been overlooked by many that these amendments, if carried, would leave the European Union in a much weaker position with regard to ozone targets than is enjoyed by the United States of America.
We are aware of growing problems of ozone across Europe, but if we are not even prepared to match the standards being set by the USA, one of our great commercial rivals, this would indeed be a great shame and a sorry reflection on our commitment to environmental improvement.
I ask Parliament to support my proposals, to give its backing to the Commissioner and to let her play her part in negotiating a common position which is both ambitious and politically realistic.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to put forward the proposal of the Industry Committee which was adopted by 40 votes to 4 and which deals with target values in particular.
There is absolutely no doubt that in tightening up or adopting the ozone directive we must find a reasonable compromise between the justifiable demand for improved air quality and the possibility for European economy and society to reasonably adapt in particularly polluted regions.
For this reason, unlike the Environment Committee which has responsibility in this matter, we have not taken on board the proposals of the Commission wholesale, but have modified them.
I know that the experts at the Commission will vigorously oppose this, but we think that we can propose a compromise given that the guide value of 180 µg/m3 is not disputed, nor indeed the critical value of 240, only the target value.
We would like to propose for this a 30-year programme which, although based on the WHO value of 120 µg/m3, provides for a phased reduction in the number of days on which this value may be exceeded: 40 days in 2010, 20 days in 2020 (which is the Commission' s target for 2010) and no days in 2030.
This is a concern in particular for the warmer regions of Europe, namely coastal regions, which have to cope with a particularly high external ozone penetration.
I think we have put forward a reasonable compromise here.
In any case, we are prepared to compromise with the Commission, particularly as we assume that only this type of compromise will also find approval in the Council.
For this reason we are venturing to re-introduce this proposal on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, even though it was marginally defeated in the Environment Committee.
We hope that you will consent to it.
Mr President, Commissioner, I agree that the most important difficulty with this directive is the diversity of criteria with regard to the establishment of target levels and time-scales for the reduction of the ozone concentrations in the atmosphere: the famous items 2 and 3 of annex 1.
We in the Group of the European People' s Party consider it necessary to support the main lines set in the Commission' s proposal, especially with regard to target levels, which coincide with the guidelines of the World Health Organisation on air quality and which establish the permissible concentrations of ozone at 120 µg/m3.
Nevertheless, it seems to us to be inadvisable to accept the amendments which make 2010 the time limit, the only one in the short term, and set 2020 as the time limit for long term objectives.
In this respect, we think it is essential to allow for greater flexibility with regard to the periods of adaptation to the said target levels, given the real difficulty of controlling ozone concentrations when setting figures purely on the basis of the existence of previous data, as is constantly seen in certain climatic conditions, especially, as has just been mentioned, in the Mediterranean countries.
Our Group therefore vigorously defends Amendments Nos 26 and 28, which establish a progressive and realistic achievement of the proposed objectives, by means of a progressive scale according to the number of days in a year the target levels can be exceeded.
However, we consider very positive the amendments on the countries which are candidates for accession to the European Union, so that they may participate as soon as possible in the achievement of the Union' s objectives - and we congratulate Mrs Davies on this initiative - and it also seems important to us that the action plans are of a local nature and that the possibilities for reducing ozone concentrations are studied on a case by case basis.
I believe that a vote in favour of the amendments proposed by the European People' s Party is a vote for progress in the control and monitoring of one of the most serious pollutants to date, initiating, in a decisive and homogenous way, in all the Member States, actions for its elimination as a threat to the health of persons and ecosystems, without deluding ourselves as to the real possibilities of completely eradicating it in the short term.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank Mr Chris Davies for this report.
Adoption of the Commission' s proposal and of Mr Davies's report will mean a considerable improvement in air quality for Europe's citizens.
I think there are two crucial points here.
The first is that the WHO' s guidelines should be adhered to.
I think that this would be an important step towards preventing serious illnesses and premature deaths, especially among particularly vulnerable sectors of the population, including children.
The second thing I think is very important is that specific dates should be set, both for when in 2010 we are to achieve the provisional targets and for when in 2020 we are to attain the long-term objectives.
I think that setting dates is very important to our also in actual fact attaining the objectives.
In addition, I should like to make a couple of remarks on the amendments inspired by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and which are intended to weaken the Commission' s initiative by allowing much greater exceedances of the WHO's recommendations and by significantly delaying efforts to achieve the targets set by the WHO.
The amendments would not only impair the Commission' s proposal but also constitute a deterioration and retrograde step in relation to the situation of which we are now, in fact, aware in Europe. As Mr Davies also mentioned, standards are, in actual fact, lower than those in the United States.
I do not know how one can call the proposals a happy medium or compromise, as Mr Langen did a moment ago.
I think they are completely incomprehensible and irresponsible.
They would involve serious health and environmental consequences for the people of Europe, together with a bill for Europe' s health services to the tune of billions.
I would therefore very much recommend that we support the Commission' s proposal, together with Mr Davies' report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mr Davies on his excellent report. I would also like to thank the European Commission for its sound green proposals.
Back in July 1995, Strasbourg was labouring under ozone smog.
On the initiative of the Green Group, the European Parliament then adopted a resolution to halve the ozone standard stipulated in the 1992 directive.
The European Commission' s proposal has made a lot of headway in this direction.
Ozone smog is still on the increase.
It is now even permeating the southern European skies during the winter months.
It has paralysed the traffic in northern Italy over the past couple of weeks and, during the summer months, countries such as Denmark and Sweden also suffer with ozone smog.
Ozone smog is now to be found everywhere in Europe.
Ozone is always an aggressive substance. There are no safe ozone levels, despite what the World Health Organisation claims.
This is why the Green Group proposes allowing just fifteen exceedances of critical loads per annum.
This number is slightly lower than the proposal made by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
My group can also support the twenty exceedances proposed by the Committee.
However, it cannot back the proposal made by the Christian Democrats and UNICE Employers' Union of forty such incidents per annum.
This is far too many and thirty years is a ridiculous time limit, given the fact that the problem is taking on such proportions.
In order to reach this strict ozone standard, the NOx emissions from traffic, in particular, and the emission of volatile organic substances will need to go down drastically.
This is the topic of Mrs Myller' s report.
In the case of an ozone alert, we also need to be able to take short-term action.
The Dutch Government makes so many concessions to the transport lobby that it fails to realise this.
For my group, the car is no sacred cow.
Mr President, I too wish to thank Mr Davies for the report he has prepared.
It is an extremely important report, especially from a health perspective.
Seen from an environmental point of view, it is also intimately linked to the next subject, namely Mrs Myller' s report.
I am convinced that these two reports together provide a sound basis for positive developments in Europe in the fields of health and the environment.
During the short time I have in which to speak, I should like to try to scotch some of the flourishing myths which exist with regard to the ozone issue.
This especially applies to the situation in southern Europe.
The climate in southern Europe is often used as a reason for, or explanation of, the high levels of ozone which are often to be found in the summertime.
It is true that climates with long periods of high pressure increase the presence of ozone.
At the same time, research shows that the reasons why ozone affects cities such as Barcelona, Athens and Milan and many of the tourist resorts along the coast must be sought elsewhere.
The reasons have to be sought in traffic levels, in industrial processes and in energy production.
It is also these matters which we can influence by means of the Directives concerned.
It is therefore something of a pity that the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy should have such a detached attitude towards the present Directive and only see it in a perspective which favours industry.
Instead, we ought to see what happens when the limits set by the WHO are constantly exceeded and when people (both residents and tourists) are constantly exposed to a danger to their health.
We know that the risks are greatest for people who are in the open air a great deal, especially children.
We know that exceedance of ozone limits directly affects children' s lung capacity.
The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy ought to consider this when the present directive is voted upon tomorrow.
Mr President, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy for their support of the Commission' s proposal and draft report.
Within the European Union, we have achieved a certain amount of success when it comes to improving air quality.
Nonetheless, ozone still constitutes one of the most serious environmental problems.
On more than 60 days every summer in a number of locations in Central and Southern Europe, ozone levels exceed the target values set by the World Health Organisation.
The Fifth Environmental Action Programme established the long-term objective of ensuring that these limits were not in fact exceeded.
If we are to be able to solve this problem, we need to take measures with clearly defined subsidiary objectives.
The Commission' s proposal therefore for the first time establishes clear limits upon ozone levels which, as far as possible, are to be attained by no later than the year 2010.
The target value in terms of protecting people' s health means that the WHO' s guidelines must not be exceeded on more than 20 days per year.
Programmes for reducing emissions are necessary in those cases where the target values are not attained.
The directive on national emission ceilings, which is the next point on the agenda, will lead to improvements in ozone levels so that the target values in question might for the most part be attained.
The proposal is nonetheless a clear expression of the political will that exists to attain the long-term objectives in the directive, too.
Attaining the World Health Organisation' s target values is only the first step.
In reviewing the Directive in the year 2004, we must therefore analyse how and when we can achieve the long-term objective.
The Commission is able wholly to approve Amendments Nos 3, 4, 6, 7, 13, 14 and 15.
Amendment No 5, section two, is also acceptable in view of the fact that the Member States have to prepare emission reduction programmes before they can implement them.
With regard to Amendment No 9, the Commission is also able to approve some of the changes in their entirety and the majority of them in principle.
We approve those changes relating to short-term measures which are to be implemented in each zone in which the threshold value is exceeded.
We also agree that the Member States should inform the public as to whether they intend to prepare and implement short-term action plans and, if so, in what ways, and that they should also inform them as to how often such measures have been taken.
We believe it is necessary for this information to be reported to the Commission. However, that issue is more at home in Article 10.
We cannot, however, accept that short-term measures should only be taken at local level.
Nor do we believe that the Member States should be enjoined to analyse whether short-term measures are an effective tool in each individual case and in each individual place where the threshold value has been exceeded.
The Commission is able to approve the principles behind Amendments 10 and 11.
We are going to redraft subparagraph 1c in order to take account of the idea behind the last section of Amendment No 9 and Amendments Nos 10 and 11.
Amendment No 12 can be approved in principle.
The Commission believes that progress by the Member States ought to be presented in a form which permits direct comparisons between countries, if that is possible in practice.
The principle in Amendment No 16 is also acceptable.
The Commission agrees that climate changes ought to be emphasised.
This ought, however, to be done in a broader perspective and not only in relation to changes in fuel consumption.
Amendment No 2 advocates coordination between Member States and Applicant States.
This can in principle be approved, but some rewording is required if misinterpretations are to be avoided.
We cannot, however, approve Amendment No 1.
Even if the Commission agrees that it is important to involve the Applicant States, there is no reason for reiterating this in a directive aimed at the Member States.
Nor is Amendment No 8 acceptable when it comes to predictions of exceedances of information thresholds. The use of prognosis models is specified as a prerequisite of thresholds for alerting the public, something which would make the way in which the public is informed or alerted less reliable.
This is an issue on which practical considerations and the possibility of practical implementation must be taken into account.
Finally, we must reject the first and third sections of Amendment No 5, together with Amendments Nos 17 and 18. In the present situation, we quite simply do not have enough information available to be able to predict when the long-term objective of not exceeding the World Health Organisation' s guidelines can be attained.
In addition, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 28.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken at 12 noon tomorrow.
Atmospheric pollutants
The next item is the report (A5-0063/2000) by Mrs Myller on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on national emission ceilings for certain atmospheric pollutants (COM(1999) 125 - C5-0047/1999 - 1999/0067(COD)).
Mr President, the European Union has ambitious goals for the environment, which were set forth, for example, in the Fifth Environmental Action Programme and the acidification strategy presented in 1997.
These programmes stated as their aim the protection of people and nature from the adverse effects of air pollution, meaning that critical ceilings in respect of nature and people would not be exceeded.
The Commission' s proposal for a directive on national emission ceilings is an important step in achieving the aims the Union set itself: to protect its citizens from the adverse effects of air pollutants.
The legacy of past decades is going to take some time to put right, however. We are still not even aware of all the technical potential for ridding ourselves of sources of emissions entirely.
For this reason, it is reasonable to proceed in stages, as the Commission has proposed.
The first stage is the Interim Environmental Objectives to be achieved by 2010, which means cutting health-threatening ozone loads by two-thirds by that year.
We cannot be satisfied with just this, however, as, after this target has been met, there will still be too many areas where pollution counts exceed levels that are dangerous to people and nature.
Owing to this, I have recommended in my report a long-term goal, in addition to the interim one, and a final target for 2020.
In that way, we would finally be able to reach a point where critical levels and loads are not exceeded and everyone will be protected effectively from all known health effects of air pollution.
In this connection I would like to draw your attention to my amendment, in which, owing to a translation error, there is a wrong word in your copy of the document.
In place of 'reached' it should say 'exceeded' .
I hope that this will be sorted out before tomorrow' s vote.
How, then, do we achieve a situation in which air pollution does not exceed tolerance levels for humans and for nature? The Commission' s proposal sets limit values for each Member State with regard to certain kinds of interrelated emissions, which cause acidification, increased ozone in the inner atmosphere and soil eutrophication.
Dealing with these problems and the emissions that cause them together has proved to be the most cost-effective way of tackling the causes of air pollution and bringing it under control.
The biggest disagreements in the implementation of the directive relate to the limit values, i.e., the emission ceiling set for each country.
The UN Economic Commission for Europe has also examined the objectives for reductions in the same sources of emissions as in the proposal for a directive now under discussion, and, as a result of these talks, the so-called Gothenburg Protocol was signed.
There is a clear difference between this proposal and the Commission' s.
If we were to accept the ceilings in the Gothenburg Protocol, we would never reach the targets that the Union has set itself regarding air pollution.
Comparing the differences between the Gothenburg Protocol and the Commission' s proposal with regard to the effects on health, the annual reduction levels proposed by the Commission would save the lives of as many as four thousand people a year in Europe.
Although it is beyond dispute that the ambitious targets set for the environment have been found to be an essential ingredient in people' s health and safety, there have been pleas for lower ceilings, on the basis that cleaner air costs too much for industry and communities.
It has to be said, however, that there is very considerable exaggeration with regard to the costs involved.
If, on the other hand, we calculate the benefits that better air quality will bring to people and the natural environment, as well as to buildings, we see that the economic benefits are four times greater than the costs.
We still have to work on the proposal for the directive so that, for example, the situation with regard to the applicant countries and those questions too that relate to the EU' s neighbouring regions can be better taken into account.
Mr President, the industry committee, after much discussion and serious consideration, is overwhelmingly opposed to the Commission's proposed ceilings, and this is across all groups and nationalities.
The UN ECE ceilings were agreed by all our Member States, by the applicant countries and globally, in a protocol signed at Gothenburg as recently as November 1999.
Why did the Commission come up with these even stricter and substantially more expensive ceilings only one month later? I understand that the groups, the whole Parliament, are split on this issue, between supporters of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and supporters of the industry committee's line.
Members of Parliament should be aware of the serious implications for our industries and agriculture, for our competitiveness, for jobs and - yes - for people and our constituents if the Commission proposal wins through.
The industry committee urges this House to vote in favour of the amendments which are tabled in my name and in the name of Mr Bowe.
These are the amendments passed by the industry committee.
The UN ceilings are quite ambitious enough for us to reach our internationally agreed targets in reasonable time.
The industry committee wishes to see these limits fully and properly implemented across the European Union and globally.
The Commission can then concentrate on ensuring this occurs, on perfecting the models that are used and perhaps come up with new proposals in two or three years' time on the basis of much more convincing arguments regarding the relevant costs and benefits.
Support the Purvis amendments and the United Nations Gothenburg table of national emission ceilings.
Mr President, it has become universally acknowledged that environmental pollution, and certainly air pollution, are cross-border issues par excellence.
The present draft directive on national emission ceilings tackles the key culprits where atmospheric pollution is concerned.
It contains maximum emission levels for substances which are responsible for acidification, ozone forming in the troposphere and the eutrophication of soil.
As the topic is reasonably technical, I will only single out the salient points on behalf of myself and my group.
The directive' s key goal is to reduce the emission levels of said substances to below the critical levels and, hence, pollution.
These goals must be met by 2010, with an interim assessment of the national programmes in 2006.
The most important - and you have heard so yourself just now - and most talked about component of the proposal is, of course, the table which specifies the permitted annual emission levels for each country.
The fact that, at UN level, 36 countries, including 15 EU Member States, recently agreed on less strict standards for the same substances played an important role in the discussion.
There are now Members who urge that this table, i.e. the European Commission' s table, be replaced by the UN' s so-called Gothenburg table, which permits a higher ceiling.
Mr President, I have to admit that this line of argument is rather weak.
Indeed, UN agreements are always less ambitious due to the fact that it is difficult for the situation in rich, prosperous and hence often more polluting countries to be lumped together with the situation in the developing world.
Moreover, it is incorrect that the European ceilings were established after completion of the UN negotiations.
Examining the proposal and the argumentation - as I assume other Members have done - I notice that, at the time when the European ceilings were being stipulated, the UN protocol was still being negotiated.
Add this to the fact that the environmental effects of SO2, NOx and the volatile organic substances, in particular, directly affect our own continent, I - and the majority in our group, I think - can go along with the Commission proposal regarding these substances.
Mr President, I do have another problem, namely that concerning ammonia.
The Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats would like to see the present ceiling adjusted.
Looking at the nitrate directive, I notice that hardly any Member State meets the standard specified.
It seems to me completely unfeasible to go beyond the Gothenburg standard.
In addition, the effects of ammonia emissions are partly local and, as such, a lower threshold seems acceptable.
On behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, I have tabled an amendment which, where ammonia is concerned, is based on the lower Gothenburg standard and defers definitively setting the ceiling until the year 2006.
The reason for this is that I hope that, by then, the effects of the implementation and the pending European legislation on nitrate will be able to give us better indications.
I would like to conclude by making the following comment: legislation on ceilings is, in actual fact, the counterpart of legislation on large furnaces, for which I also happen to be rapporteur.
We completed the first reading even before last year' s elections.
The Council of Ministers, however, is still putting a spanner in the works.
Could we be informed on the progress made?
As a final remark, I would like to thank Mrs Myller, the rapporteur.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Myller for her report and her ambitious treatment of the directive proposed by the Commission.
Even if the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy appears rather as if it had been caught napping and has only just woken up, the fact may, at all events, be conveyed that the problem of acidification is scarcely a new issue. Instead, it has been with us for as long as industrialisation - for 100 years.
Research into the question has been going on for 30 years.
None of us ought to be in any doubt about what the sources of acidification are, nor about what we should be doing regarding this issue.
Some accuse the Commission' s proposal, and also the report, as being excessive and far too costly to implement and say that the calculations that have been made are utopian.
This is, however, wrong because we know that the Member States themselves have contributed to the report which serves as a basis for the whole directive.
There is more justification for criticising the fact that we have not included the energy scenario we have emphasised elsewhere, for example in the Kyoto protocol, and which involves burning fewer fossil fuels in order also to solve the climate problems we are facing.
With all due respect to the Gothenburg protocol - and despite the fact that it has taken its name from my home town - I have to say that it is, in fact, just not on to compare this with the directive which we have to take a decision on tomorrow.
One might well wonder why the Commission' s directive appears only a month later, rather like a punishment directed against this UN directive, but that has to do, of course, with nothing other than our own sluggishness in dealing with the issue.
If we had been a little quicker off the mark, the present directive would have been on the table - signed, sealed and delivered - long before the so-called Gothenburg Protocol.
The word "impossible" has been used about the directive. I should like to say, however, that what is impossible is the situation which we have at present.
The impossibility lies, therefore, not in the directive but in the current situation.
Mr President, my congratulations to Mrs Myller who I know has thought long and hard about this report.
It seems to me that the debate comes down to this: do we believe that the Gothenburg Protocol was the best Member States can realistically achieve? I recognise that the Commission and environmental groups believe that in practice much more can be delivered but nonetheless some Member States have committed themselves to significant reductions in air pollution - though that is certainly not true of all of them.
Some Member States seem to have gone into the negotiations with a few calculations on the back of an envelope and refused to compromise in any way to set themselves any realistic targets.
Others have not even used the same methodology, the same basis of calculation as others.
So the protocol in many ways is a nonsense.
It can give us no confidence whatsoever.
It is a messy political compromise and nothing more.
I do not know how much more the Commissioner can achieve but we should be seeking reductions in air pollution and we should be giving her our support in her efforts to negotiate them.
We should support this report and give her our backing.
Mr President, Mrs Myller has produced an excellent report, and our group too thinks we should go at lot further than the Gothenburg Protocol on this.
In all probability, drafting this directive was like a national auction, and the end result is very modest when we think what the real challenges are.
But, in any case, it is important that the European Parliament should now defend at least that policy which the Commission has chosen.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance proposes that even stricter goals should be set for 2010 than the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has recommended.
We want to emphasise that an integrated strategy must be adopted to reduce emissions.
We have to remember that, in any case, we have the implementation of the Kyoto commitments ahead of us, which will mean insisting on more efficient use of energy and simply using less of it.
So, in our opinion, this directive must take into consideration that added benefit is to be had from an integrated strategy as regards implementing its objectives.
We are very satisfied that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy included issues of shipping and air traffic within the scope of this directive, and we are convinced that the benefits to be gained from adhering to an integrated strategy are enormous.
Mr President, in order to meet the objectives for air emission levels prescribed in the Fifth Environmental Action Programme, we need this directive on emission ceilings more than anything.
If we want to combat acidification, manure pollution and smog formation, we need to reduce the emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, ammonia and volatile organic substances.
The Council' s conclusions concerning the EU acidification strategy have raised expectations which now have to be given substance.
This could even be done in a cost-effective way, as is evident from the explanatory note to the Commission proposal.
We all know by now that six months ago, higher emission levels were agreed at Gothenburg within a UN context.
These values, however, are the result of a political compromise between states, and the results of the model used by the Commission have been overlooked.
This model is sound and the results are well founded.
Also in view of the fact that, with these emission ceilings, the objectives of the EU' s Fifth Environmental Action Programme still cannot be met, a relaxation of the values is unjustified.
The first step towards achieving the emission ceilings is undoubtedly a dynamic implementation and enforcement of existing directives, such as the Auto-oil programme.
In addition, we need to lay down new legislation in this field as soon as possible.
In this connection, I would once more urge the Council to produce a common position on large furnaces as a matter of urgency.
Finally, additional policy, for example in the field of volatile solvents used in paints and varnishes, as well as in car spraying, will continue to be necessary.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly I too would like to thank the rapporteur.
Now to the issues: it is obvious that there are differing opinions in this House on whether the proposal of the European Commission is too ambitious.
Many are saying that it cannot be implemented using current technology or only at an exorbitant cost.
The Commission itself says that the proposal can be implemented cost effectively.
I find it interesting that the European Commission is assuming in this that energy consumption in the European Union will increase by 8% in the coming years and that there will be no change in the proportions of energy forms used and therefore no reduction in the proportion of fossil fuels.
In my opinion this is not ambitious; if anything, the opposite.
We in this House have always agreed that we must reduce the proportion of fossil fuels and that we must save energy.
If we do not achieve this, then this is a declaration of environmental bankruptcy.
If the perceptions of the European Commission as regards this basic assumption become reality, then there is no need for us to talk any further in this House about climate protection.
We must increase energy efficiency, improve energy saving and promote regenerative energies whilst, at the same time, recognising that nuclear energy produces neither CO2 nor SO2 nor NH3, volatile organic compounds or NOx.
If we are honest about it, I think that the two ideas are not mutually incompatible and for this reason I would also like to expressly oppose certain Member States demanding exemptions under the directive if they renounce nuclear energy.
This cannot happen within the context of collective environmental responsibility.
All the same, I would like once again to stress the fact that the Commission proposal is not too ambitious, but if anything a little too unambitious.
I will support it tomorrow in the vote and I hope that the majority of the House will do the same.
Mr President, I certainly welcome this report and I gave it a lot of support in the Environment Committee.
I creates a proper framework in which we can work in the long term to reduce emissions.
The vast majority of the amendments I can support.
There are one or two that went through that I have some doubts about, particularly Amendment No 7, which I cannot see as being environmental at all, or as contributing to the overall attempt to reduce the amount of ozone-depleting substances at ground level anywhere in the Union.
I want to come to the issue which Mr Davies has addressed, namely, where we should start from.
With what targets are we to start?
Mr President, a series of quite practical and well-argued and debated figures were arrived at just before Christmas at Gothenburg under the UN/ECE protocol, and it seems to me that is the logical place to start.
It would not to my mind be the right place to finish, but it certainly would be the right place to start and it is the reason why I was convinced when I was there in the debate in the Industry Committee, as none of my colleagues from the Environment Committee were, that it was the right place to start.
It seems to me that the Commission figures are aspirational.
Yes, we could go there - we should be trying to go there, but I do not think we should be starting there.
We should be starting with the UN/ECE figures, with the Gothenburg protocol and revising them as is proposed by Mrs Myller in her report.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have, of course, nothing against the principle of the directive.
It is an important instrument for future environmental policy.
The Member States are given a clearer brief.
They know what they should be aiming for.
Upon examination of the table with the different ceilings for each Member State, however, I get the impression that there are double standards.
I note that, for example, my country, Belgium, has to meet the maximum possible level, rather than the economically viable level, but that, at the same time, areas in its vicinity which are just as polluted as my country can pursue a much laxer policy.
That is because a large country can use its better regions to offset its bad practices. A small country is not in a position to do this.
I shall give you an example.
From your statistics and maps, it appears that in northern France, which is just as polluting and polluted as Belgium, matters can be processed at a lower level.
According to your calculations, the implementation of this directive costs each Belgian EUR 103 per annum, compared to EUR 15 for each person in France, including northern France. That is eight times less.
This is partly due to the fact that we are a small country and we are surrounded by polluters.
One per cent of the GDP per annum is too much of a strain for my country. I would therefore ask you to give me your backing for Amendments Nos 16 and 17, in which I request that the Belgian Government be given the chance to re-evaluate the situation based on the annual reports.
Mr President, the biggest environmental problem in my own country is the acidification of land, forests, lakes and watercourses.
Acidification leads to the death, or reduced growth, of forests and causes fish to die and fewer plants to grow.
Acidified water also releases heavy metals which constitute a health problem.
The countryside in the Nordic countries is particularly vulnerable to acidification because these countries are largely lacking in means to protect themselves against it.
Acidification occurs due to acid rain, caused by air polluting emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels.
In Sweden and Finland, we have taken extensive measures in order to reduce national levels of air pollution.
We are making major efforts to add lime to lakes and wetlands.
We are, for the most part, complying with the emission targets proposed in the now current directive.
However, more than 80 per cent of the acid rain over our country comes from air pollution not in our own countries but in other West European countries.
We are therefore appealing for your help.
Many North Europeans believe that it is only through environmental cooperation with other EU countries that our problems with acidification can be solved.
To the members of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy I want to say that the UN resolution in accordance with the Gothenburg Protocol is far from being adequate.
I am convinced that the EU can be better than the UN at solving the environmental problems in Europe. The proposed EU directive against air pollution can, in fact, constitute an important step towards combating the acidification of the countryside, mainly in the northern area of the EU.
In addition, significant reductions in the percentages of unhealthy ground-level ozone, mainly in big cities in the southern part of the EU, can at the same time be attained.
We ought therefore to have a common interest in applauding the present EU draft directive.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a fair wind is blowing the way of the environment and the European Parliament welcomes this.
Indeed, by virtue of an unusually fortunate coincidence, directives on waste incineration, on limit values for national emissions of certain atmospheric pollutants, and ozone in ambient air all feature on today' s agenda.
Previously, atmospheric pollution used to be associated with roads and traffic.
Today, however, on a large scale, it refers to the whole world, and on a small scale, it even means the house we live in.
In short, it means our whole ecosystem, and action must be taken.
Setting emission limits for the four main pollutants is a sure way to help to reduce pollution, combat acidification and limit the harmful effects of these pollutants on human health and on plant life.
In its proposal for a directive, the European Commission proposes quantified national emission ceilings, which must be met by 2010 for the four pollutants I have just mentioned.
Furthermore, it estimates the costs for each Member State of complying with these limits.
I think that this is a good strategy.
Mrs Myller' s excellent report makes a lucid evaluation of the European Commission' s proposal and considers it to be balanced; the report also seeks to strengthen the proposal in some areas.
In particular, the committee approved a compulsory review of the directive by 2004, which will enable there to be a review of the limit values stipulated and measures adopted to ensure that these limit values are respected.
All of this seems quite reasonable.
Nevertheless, I must ask a question here.
Why should we not allow a Member State to prove that it is being treated particularly unfairly because of the way the directive is implemented, as a result, for example, of its geographical situation and its climate and the fact that these leave it at a major disadvantage? Would this not be wise?
The EU system for combating atmospheric pollution is thus being extended, strengthened and refined.
EU environmental policy is becoming more and more the environmental policy of each Member State, with obvious advantages for all Europe' s citizens.
Mr President, Commissioner, the emission ceilings in the Commission' s proposal are very ambitious, more so than those agreed in the UN Economic Commission for Europe under the so-called Gothenburg Protocol, and so they should be.
For my own part, I am ready to endorse the compromise prepared by the PPE-DE Group in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, according to which we shall comply with the Commission' s proposal except with regard to the area of ammonia emissions, as the proposal will not cause great problems for my own country, Finland, or our neighbour, Sweden, as has become evident on many occasions in this discussion.
However, I also understand those views that advocate electing the ceilings proposed under the Gothenburg Protocol.
However the voting goes tomorrow, I believe the Commission should continuously monitor developments in all Member States, and promote action to help industry to make the necessary changes.
It is important that the environmental objectives are achieved as cost-effectively as possible throughout the whole Community.
Air quality in Europe has improved considerably in recent years.
Emission levels have decreased significantly, at least in the energy sector, in transport and in industry.
In recent years, there have been more and more EU acts in the area of the environment and new targets have been set for industry.
I think it is something of a problem that the targets are repeatedly changed before any proper assessment has been made of the effects, in practice, on the environment and the costs to industry of the legislative measures that have been adopted.
Before further obligations are imposed it is important to ensure that the action that has already been agreed is implemented in the Member States in every respect.
These two goals are not, in my opinion, mutually exclusive.
Finally, I believe there should be international agreements on ceilings for emissions for shipping and aircraft, and, at this stage, they should not fall within the scope of the directive.
Regarding long-term goals, I am of the opinion that there should be no strict deadline, but that Member States should endeavour, in accordance with their own goals, to meet the norms by the time stipulated or earlier.
Mr President, honourable Members of Parliament, we have made great strides in tackling acidification and also pollution in recent years.
I hope that this proposal will be another important step in this direction and that is why I especially want to thank the rapporteur Mrs Myller for her valuable work.
The Gothenburg Protocol is a step forward. However, it is nowhere near enough.
The protocol goes only halfway towards the goal for acidification already agreed by Parliament and the Council.
A substantial number of people will die early if we do not adopt the measures proposed by the Commission.
The protocol is the result of a process in which there is too little pressure on the reluctant to do what they should.
We cannot let this deflect the Community from agreed goals.
The costs of the Commission's proposal must be kept in perspective, even on the Commission's highly pessimistic estimate which would not take full account of Kyoto or non-technical solutions.
They amount to only 0.08% of Community GDP in the year 2010.
Member States will have to do some of the things that will let them meet proposed emissions ceilings more cheaply if they are to live up to their Kyoto commitments.
Saying that the ceilings are too difficult is dangerously close to ignoring Kyoto.
Let me now turn to the amendments.
The Commission can accept fully Amendments Nos 3, 8, 9, 13, 19 and 21.
The Commission can accept in part the principle underlying Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
We will draft a recital which does not appear to restrict the Commission's right of initiative, for inclusion in our amended proposal.
We will also include a reference in Article 9 of the directive in order to make the new recital operational.
It follows that the Commission does not accept Amendment No 27.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to leave as much flexibility as possible to Member States, but we cannot rule out further Community action if this would help Member States to meet emission ceilings more cost-effectively.
The Commission can also accept in part Amendment No 11 which would make further changes to Article 9.
We agree that review of the legislation should take account of aircraft emissions, further emission reductions in regions bordering on the Community, measures taken in applicant countries and transport factors.
The Commission cannot however agree to bring forward the dates for reports to Parliament and Council.
In 2003 the Commission will have almost no data from Member States on which to report and base any decisions.
The Commission will not know in 2011 whether or not ceilings were met in 2010 because of the time that must be allowed for Member States to compile inventories.
We accept in part the principles underlying Amendment No 12.
We will therefore redraft Article 9(3) to incorporate much of the material in the proposed amendment.
The Commission accepts the principles of Amendment No 23.
The reference to countries outside the UN/ECE process must be restricted to those who have supplied data and whose emissions are relevant to pollution in the Community.
The Commission accepts Amendments Nos 24, 25 and 26 in principle, and will also take them into account when it redrafts Article 9 as part of its amended proposal.
The Commission has a great deal of sympathy with the concerns underlying Amendments Nos 16 and 17.
Allowance should be made for the fact that smaller Member States have less room to spread the load.
However we are dealing here with transboundary pollution, so the Commission considers that adjustments to ceilings for individual Member States can only be made as part of a general review of ceilings.
We will therefore propose a new recital and changes to Article 9, which will ensure that effects on smaller Member States are properly taken into account on review.
The Commission can accept that part of Amendment No 20 that would insert "an appropriate" into Recital 9.
We do not accept the remainder of Amendment No 20.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 15, 28, 29 and 32.
They seek to replace emission ceilings that are designed to meet the agreed Community target for acidification, and to protect our citizens' health, with the emission ceilings in the Gothenburg Protocol.
Gothenburg ceilings fall far short of what is needed as has already been said.
The Commission considers that, if Member States take seriously the Kyoto commitments, the emission ceilings that it has proposed will not be difficult to implement.
We may well be able to go further by 2010, but this is something that can only be decided when we know how Member States will meet their Kyoto targets.
We cannot therefore accept Amendment No 31.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments No 4 and 14: under the principle of subsidiarity it is for Member States, not the Commission, to determine penalties for breaches of national legislation.
Furthermore, Amendment No 14 seeks to restrict the Commission's discretion under the Treaty to decide when to bring infringement proceedings.
Amendments Nos 5, 18 and 30 are also unacceptable.
The Commission is committed to pursuing long-term objectives for protection of the environment and human health, but we simply do not have enough information today to predict when long-term objectives might be reached.
The Commission must reject Amendment No 6.
Emissions from international maritime traffic and cruising aircraft cannot be wholly controlled by individual Member States, nor even by Community action, and cannot therefore be included in national emission ceilings.
Action where appropriate must be taken in the International Maritime Organisation or the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
Last week, the IMO agreed to a proposal from the Community to declare the North Sea a sulphur dioxide control area.
The Commission will examine whether further such proposals should be made to the IMO, and whether international action is also needed on aircraft emissions.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 7.
It is based on a misleading comparison with the solvents directive, where processes may involve high temperatures.
Non-volatile organic compounds are automatically excluded from the definition of "volatile organic compound" in these proposals since they are not found in the air in ambient conditions and do not contribute to ozone formation.
The proposed definition is identical in the Gothenburg Protocol.
We must maintain technical consistency.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 10.
It would remove an essential obligation for Member States regularly to update emission inventories.
Finally, Mr President, we do not accept Amendment No 22.
The Commission's proposed wording on the key issue of public information is in line with agreements on the first two air quality daughter directives.
Finally, I should like to answer Mrs Oomen-Ruijten because she asked about the proposals on large combustion plants.
The answer is that the Council failed to reach a common position in December and the Commission is supporting the Portuguese presidency in its effort to make progress in parallel with the progress on this proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Environmental legislation
The next item is the joint debate on two oral questions to the Commission on structural fund programmes in the Member States and national implementation of EU environmental laws (B5 - 0014/2000 and B5 0208/2000).
Mr President, I would like, on behalf of the committee, to move at least one of the oral questions.
First of all, I sympathise with the Commissioner's desire to get better implementation of European Union law.
That is something which the committee as a whole is keen to see.
I want to quote from an article in the United Kingdom Sunday Telegraph this last Sunday.
The opening paragraph is "The European Commission has told Britain that it will lose up to 200 million pounds in grants for poorer regions unless it implements European Union laws to protect birds and their habitats".
I would like to know if the Commission is making these threats and, if it is, whether it feels that it has an entitlement to do so.
That is a question which my German colleagues who are moving the other question want to follow up.
The Environment Committee is very interested in finding ways of incorporating environmental considerations into other policies.
The question is: is this a constitutionally viable way of doing that?
What we are exploring here tonight in this crowded House is the question of linkage.
Linkage, in other words, using the threat of the withdrawal or withholding of funds to try to get better implementation of legislation in what may sometimes be a rather unconnected sector but in this case is quite a closely connected sector, is one that from time to time European Members of Parliament look at and then veer away from when they realise that it might affect the regions that they represent.
That is something which we find reflected in the views not only of some of the German Members here tonight but also in some of my British colleagues.
We need to ask to what extent the European Commission is prepared to use the provisions of Articles 12 and 41 of the general regulation on the structural funds to delay granting money where there is inadequate information on the impact of the projects which have applied for the money on the environment.
At its worst, we want to avoid the possibility that the aims of the structural funds and the European Union's concern to protect its natural habitats may collide.
For instance, you may want to build a motorway across one part of the European Union in order to spend structural fund money and bring jobs to that part of the Union, but should you not be careful if that motorway is being driven through what should have been designated a protected site by the national government?
Such possibilities have arisen in the past, especially in relation to major infrastructure projects.
We want to avoid that, but we believe that such collisions could result form the failure of the Member States to implement the habitats directive and the birds directive also, and in particular to submit to the Commission by as early as June 1995 a list of sites potentially of Community importance, either as hosting natural habitat types or representing the habitats of animal and plant species of Community importance.
We must ask: without such information, how can the Commission be certain that structural fund projects, which are usually large, will not damage sites potentially of European Union-wide importance?
Future generations will not forgive us if we allow irreplaceable habitats to be destroyed, whose preservation we actually voted for eight years ago when we adopted our report on the habitats directive and then again in 1997 with the changes to the annex of the directive.
The fault lies with those Member States which have failed to observe the directive, and that includes my own.
If doubt hangs over their entitlement to structural funds, that is the fault of national governments.
That doubt has now fallen over the position of the United Kingdom and its entitlement to Structural Funds because the United Kingdom government has not fully implemented or complied with the provisions of the habitats directive.
It is in the power of the United Kingdom government, the German government and other national governments to remove that threat by complying with the habitats and birds directive.
In the United Kingdom, structural funding for counties such as Cornwall, which I represent and which has recently been granted Objective 1 status, faces a twin threat from government indolence on this directive and from government incompetence and meanness.
Even if the European Commission uses its best efforts in the United Kingdom there is no guarantee that the scrooge-like United Kingdom Chancellor will find matching funding.
Mr President, the FFH directive is an issue which has concerned us for some time now and we are currently experiencing a few teething problems.
However, to begin let me say the following: the FFH directive is an important directive and creates a new climate in Europe for the protection of nature, the environment and birds.
I would not want to change or spare anything in achieving this.
I also find it encouraging that the Commission is consequently taking care that EU legislation is being implemented.
All the same, in the case of the FFH directive the question arises as to whether the legislation which we have adopted is actually implementable and I can see obvious weak points.
As I see it, the FFH directive is an instance where the legislation is not matched to the feasibilities of the regions.
I see a problem in the various legal interpretations in the Member States due to the partially unclear definitions in the EU legislation, whilst, on the other hand, there is a lack of strong subsidiary aspects and approaches.
Revision of the FFH directive, including the current difficulties in implementation, should not, I think be excluded.
Alongside this general criticism of the FFH directive, however, I also see a particular problem with the amalgamation of the EU environmental and structural policies.
Article 12 of the structural funds regulation adopted on 21 June 1999 provides for the possibility of sanctions in the event of violations in the following areas: implementation of environmental legislation, breaches of public contracts and failure to observe equality between men and women.
To date, the Commission has only threatened sanctions in the case of the FFH directive.
Does it also intend to initiate sanction mechanisms in the other areas? In my opinion, this is a very problematic course of action.
The EU has a quite different means of enforcing sanctions, i.e. the European Court of Justice.
The possible cutting or withholding of money from the Structural Fund is a form of sanction whose effect on the regions concerned cannot just be disregarded. What will happen with projects which are already under way and what will happen, above all, in those cases where a region does not receive any money from the Structural Fund?
What sanctions will the Commission then impose for non-implementation of EU environment law? That the Commission is also totally unsure is shown by the fact that it initially wanted to include the entire state in the sanctions, then only a region, as you pointed out to Environment Minister Trittin, Commissioner.
I would ask that we make this point absolutely clear here.
Mr President, hearing the debate unfold and watching my colleagues and the clock, I am not sure what I want any more: protected areas for fauna, flora and habitats or protected areas for ecologically minded delegates.
At the moment, I am more interested in protected areas for delegates, but that is another matter.
Our question to you, Commissioner, has another purpose.
I would have liked to hear your answer first, but you have chosen to speak at the end of the debate.
We are discussing something here of which most know the history.
The fauna-flora-habitats legislation should have been implemented by 1994 - it is now the year 2000.
The European Union list of the relevant nature conservation sites should have been ready in 1998 - it is now the year 2000.
The Member States should have notified the Commission of their sites by 1995 - it is now the year 2000.
Many Member States, including my own, did not do as required.
Germany, for example, implemented the legislation in 1998 instead of 1994 - only four years late.
But what does it matter?!
As a result, the European Union list is obviously not ready.
And how could it be? Many Member States and many regions have not announced their sites.
Now Mr Schnellhardt has even suggested that perhaps we made a mistake with the fauna-flora-habitats directive.
Perhaps, Mr Schnellhardt, you are right that it wasn' t totally practical, it wasn' t perfect, it wasn' t quite right.
Unfortunately, however, it is not the procedure in the European Union that if you don' t like a piece of legislation you don' t bother observing it.
If that were the case, then there would also be areas and matters which you and I would not like. But we do have this unfortunate system in the European Union - what you call legal certainty.
We do have this unfortunate system - it is what you call legislation, which has been adopted in this European Parliament with the consent of the Member States. It must be observed!
It might perhaps be a bit too strict and too legalistic, but that' s the way it is: we are living in a European Union with a legal system.
Mr Jarzembowski is the one who supports this most of all because he comes from Hamburg which is one of the few regions of Germany to be nominated, along with Berlin, my own area, although as city states we have it particularly easy, I think I can say with some justification.
However, I do not want to pass sentence on Mr Schnellhardt, who comes from one of the new federal states who do not have things quite so good.
That is an internal German problem which we will resolve at another time and in another place in the House.
Today, Mr President, we are talking about the fact that Europe is losing its countryside and about the fact that Europe must observe legal certainty.
I shall come to my final point: Commissioner, it you do not succeed in going to the European Court of Justice and bringing to account those Member States which are not properly implementing legislation, you will lose your authority and your legitimacy.
You must do it!
If you think the legislation is no good, let us revise it.
If you think it is sound, go to the European Court of Justice, and be quick about it!
Mr President, it is a pleasure to face the Commissioner for the fifth time today at this unearthly hour.
I congratulate her for her efforts in trying to make sure that the habitats directive and associated directives are properly implemented.
I wish her well.
I have heard that some in the Commission believe that they have managed to squeeze more out of Member States in the past six months than they had in the previous six years.
If that is the case then it is good news indeed.
But the Commissioner is riding between two horses: one seeks to protect endangered species, the other seeks to assist the poorest parts of Europe.
In fact, it is a position in which I too find myself to some extent.
Some simple questions: how long is the Commissioner prepared to perform this balancing act?
Just how much must Member States do to meet her requirements? Is she really prepared to tell people such as those whom I represent in Merseyside and the North-West of England that they must lose Structural Funds because their governments have failed to comply with the habitats directive?
That is the balance I suppose.
Fundamentally and finally, is she prepared to compromise to find solutions, if the undertakings being given by government or the work being undertaken by governments takes longer than we would wish? For example, if a Minister goes down on his knees, cut his wrists and writes a pledge in letters of blood that he will deliver the habitats directive in full within an agreed timetable, is she prepared to assist the region and provide structural funding in such circumstances?
- The question on how the Structural Funds respect our environmental legislation is a critical one and I appreciate the interest expressed in this matter by Mrs Jackson, Mr Poettering and Mrs Schnellhardt.
We had a discussion on this subject in the Commission meeting today particularly as regards the link to the habitats and the birds directives.
The main principle is clear: the actions cofinanced under the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund should contribute to the protection and improvement of the environment in the European Union.
This is confirmed in the new regulatory framework for the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund and in the Commission's related guidelines.
We should remember that both the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds finance important investments into environmental infrastructure such as waste water treatment facilities or waste management systems.
Let me make one thing clear first to avoid misunderstandings.
The general regulation on the Structural Funds states that 'operations financed must be in conformity with the provisions of the Treaty, with instruments adopted under it and with Community policies and actions' .
Contrary to the suggestion in one of the oral questions, this does not represent a new obligation on the Member States.
In fact, it is based closely on the previous framework regulation on the Structural Funds for the programming period 1994-1999.
The Structural Funds Regulation has been approved by the Member States and the Council.
With regard to protection of sites under the habitats and birds directives, it is important that we do not give money to measures which adversely affect sites deserving protection - paying out money with one hand and maybe fining a Member State with the other hand.
This is what we confirmed in the Commission this afternoon, and Michel Barnier will set out our decisions in a letter to the Member States in a few days.
In this regard, the Commission intends to use all the possibilities offered by the new regulatory framework for the Cohesion and Structural Funds.
In following up the letter sent to Member States by Commissioners Wulf-Mathies and Bjerregaard on June 23 1999, the Commission will insist that, in the programming documents for the period 2000-2006, there must be a firm and irrevocable commitment guaranteeing that the programmes are consistent with the protection of sites under Natura 2000.
Member States will be required to notify sites if they have not already done so within an agreed timetable, and to guarantee formally that they will not undertake action leading to the deterioration of potential Natura 2000 sites.
The Commission will then use all the means at its disposal to ensure that commitments entered into the programming documents are fully respected.
It intends to monitor the situation in the Member States, including the use of on-the-spot checks.
The Commission's representative in the monitoring committee for each programme will also seek to ensure that Member States' obligations with regard to Natura 2000 are fully respected.
In addition, should a Member State not honour its commitment to provide the lists under the habitats and birds directives within the timeframe set in the programming documents, the Commission will take immediate action.
This includes in particular excepting specific situations and with respect to the principle of proportionality - possible recourse to the provisions of the Structural or Cohesion Fund regulations in relation to the suspension of payments.
Of course, all this is in addition to the ongoing infringement procedures against a number of Member States for their failure to implement these directives.
In summing up, what we decided in Commission today is that we will insist that Member States send us their Natura 2000 lists: they should already have been sent, as has been stated many years ago.
We will use the means at our disposal to ensure that they honour the commitments that they have entered into.
Without the lists neither the Member States nor the Commission can ensure that we protect important nature sites when carrying out Structural Fund operations, for the simple reason that we do not know where these sites are.
One more word on the habitats directive.
The Commission does not agree that there is a lack of clarity in this directive.
The directive is intended to establish a frame of reference which, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, leaves the detailed implementation to the Member States.
While the Commission has no plans to revise the directive, its services are ready to provide guidance to the Member States on its implementation and we are finally starting to move on this.
The only sites which the Commission takes into account under the habitats directive are those put forward by the authorities in the Member States.
So-called shadow lists can only help in efforts to identify sites inside the Member States.
At Community level, they can contribute to scientific reference material in the creation of inventories of natural habitats and existing species.
Thank you for clarifying that matter, but we are still rather distressed at the statement you have just made because we were under the impression that the previous Commission was working on the simple principle of 'no lists, no funds' .
You are now going back on that principle; you are going back to the Member States to ask them to provide the lists.
They are seriously late.
They have completely failed to meet the requirements of the European directives.
So, today, it is still not clear to us whether you intend to utilise the technical, legal and political means available to you in order to enforce European directives.
As a result, I can see the Member States laughing their socks off at this new position because, in the final analysis, once again they have gained a little more time and it is nature conservation which is going to suffer.
From reading the various reports of the European Union, and the European Environment Agency, it is clear that environmental damage is still continuing.
The question I am asking, then, is as follows: today, when accepting the draft Community support framework for Portugal, did you demand the list of protected sites under the terms of the directives?
Mr President, my first report as an MEP was on precisely the same topic as that which we are discussing here today: the environment and the Structural Funds.
And, of course, I came to the basic conclusion that projects financed by the Structural Funds should not, under any circumstances, damage the environment of the Member States and, to that end, greater consideration should be given to the environmental dimension at all levels when programming and implementing the relevant Union policies.
I still believe this today; our main objective must always be sustainable development, i.e. development which respects and promotes the environment.
Therefore, Parliament should take this line and call on the Commission, in its vote, to implement the Structural Fund programmes in a way which takes account of Community environmental legislation, particularly with regard to directives on the preservation of natural habitats and wild birds.
At the same time, however, we should avoid over-reacting. We should not suspend all the programmes or refuse to approve any of them just because we cannot guarantee that the odd regulation will be upheld.
This reminds me of a Greek proverb: you cannot chop off your head just because you have tooth ache.
I am not suggesting that we contravene legislation.
Rather, I am suggesting that we go ahead and implement the programmes and, at the same time, monitor the implementation of legislation and ensure that the Commission keeps Parliament informed.
It is important to remember that very important measures and projects are financed under the Structural Funds in the most problematic countries and regions of the Union, countries and regions which desperately need help in their endeavours to develop and converge with the more developed Member States.
We should also bear in mind, Mr President, that measures promoting the environment are often financed by the Structural Funds.
If we were to suspend all the programmes without exception for the reason given by a number of speakers here, we would be doing our environment more harm than good.
Mr President, there is no disagreement on the fact that we want to comply with this piece of legislation.
I was surprised to see you quoted in my press as threatening to cut off European funding.
I consider that to be a disproportionate action for what we are trying to achieve.
You will know that in the case of the UK, at a moderation seminar, the Commission agreed a timetable to allow for review and inclusion of additional sites.
In Paris a timetable was set to allow for a revised list to be presented in July with another moderation in October 2000.
We are determined, after years of foot-dragging by the previous Conservative Government - Mrs Jackson's party - to meet our requirements in the UK, in good faith, to follow the proper legal and proper consultation to ensure this directive is complied with.
This process is ongoing and I have no reason to believe that any plans submitted for regional funding breached the EU habitats and wild bird directives at this stage.
Therefore, I fail to understand or accept the linkage that is trying to be established through this resolution.
But let us be clear.
Any refusal by the Commission to approve the programme - for example, in Merseyside - thus undermining £2 billion worth of investment, or any other Objective I area, including Cornwall, involving 5 million people in the UK, would actually breach - you said this Commissioner - the well-established Commission principle of proportionality, namely the obligation to pursue the least restrictive way of ensuring compliance with EU legislation - in this case the habitats and wild bird directive.
We therefore need to have a balanced relationship between means and ends.
In the final analysis any breach of EU legislation must actually go the European Court of Justice.
I cannot accept that such a balance means the cutting off of vital lifelines of EU funds to the poorest and neediest regions.
Commissioner Barnier probably said to you today, Commissioner Wallström, that all European programmes should be able to start without undue delay because it can be extremely difficult to make up for lost time later on.
I therefore ask the Commissioner to take collective responsibility for ensuring that Structural Fund programmes are implemented in time.
That is your responsibility as a member of the college.
Unlike the last speaker I would like to congratulate you, Commissioner, on your threat to cut off European funding.
It should not just be an idle threat.
You should carry it out if Member States do not act responsibly.
I come from a Member State which benefits from European funding but I am appalled at its track record on the implementation of the wild birds directive, on the habitats directive and many other directives.
We are, per capita, the worst country as regards complaints.
It is about time the European Commission took action and decided that if you are not willing to abide by the rules then the funding has to be cut off.
If this affects my own country, then so be it.
Member States have to comply with European regulations.
Former commissioners wrote to the Irish Government saying: "If you do not have on your list habitat areas to be protected then when you put in your national plan how are we going to assess whether it is in compliance with European directives?" You must stick to that.
If Member States are not willing to comply with the directives, cut off the funding.
I would support you one hundred percent.
- (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are too many projects and programmes funded by the EU that do not comply with the objectives of sustainable development and nature conservation required by the Treaties and by secondary legislation.
It is easy to demonstrate this: on the one hand, we allocate almost half of our resources to agriculture, but we nevertheless continue to fund an intensive form of farming designed to achieve high levels of productivity, whatever the cost, ignoring the support available for organic farming and extensive farming.
On the other hand, we spend a third of our resources on the Structural Funds, but the projects funded under those funds are the first to contravene directives on habitats.
Portugal is a perfect example of what I have just been talking about, and as it is a perfect example, it merits a thorough explanation.
In Portugal there is not only no definitive list of protected sites of Community importance for inclusion in the Natura 2000 network, but even though it is compulsory, there are no plans, rules or mechanisms for the management and protection of sites that have already been selected.
In other words, the Portuguese sites that already form part of the Natura 2000 network are completely at the mercy of unscrupulous groups of financiers and construction companies, because of the lack of instruments to protect them.
The most serious case is that of the tourist development that has been approved for the Abano area of the Sintra-Cascais national park, and I call on the Commission to intervene in this as a matter of urgency.
In Portugal, however, it is the state itself that is currently preparing to carry out projects, some of which are being funded by the Structural Funds, for sites which have been or will be classified by the EU as part of the Natura 2000 network.
Unfortunately, what is happening in Portugal is not unique - it is merely a good example.
I therefore hope that the Commission will bring its legal authority to bear and refuse to approve any funding for the third Community support framework until Member States send in their lists for the Natura 2000 network.
Mr President, what is at stake in this debate is whether the EU's commitment to sustainable development in theory, actually means something in practice, whether when push comes to shove, we are prepared to make some very difficult decisions.
Sustainable development is supposed to be about integrating economic development with environmental concerns.
That is what the EU has signed up to in countless treaties from the Rio Earth Summit onwards.
That is what Article 6 of our own EC Treaty obliges us to do - to integrate those policies.
At the heart of this debate is the issue of economic development coming right up against environmental constraints.
We are going to be increasingly faced with hard decisions on this.
It will be a very good test of what our commitment to sustainable development really means.
At a recent plenary session, we talked a lot about coherence in EU policies.
Members from all over this House were rightly emphasising how important policy coherence is, yet here we have an outstanding example of policy incoherence.
That is why the Greens are supporting very strongly this resolution from the Environment Committee.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have listened to your address very carefully, but I have not fully understood it.
I will read the communication from the Commission very carefully, but perhaps you can help me to understand matters.
Are you of the opinion that the Commission can block entire approvals for plans, or is it just payment of funds for individual projects? That was not at all clear.
Let me say two or three things.
Firstly, I think that Community law must be seen as a whole.
Community law provides that if a Member State fails to implement legislation, or implements it incorrectly, the State will be brought to justice.
You should do that!
You should not try to achieve through the back door, through the non-payment of money, what you are unable to achieve through legal action and orderly process.
This is something which I do not think is quite right.
If you are saying that Member States are contravening Community law, breaching Community law, then bring these Member States to justice!
But to fail to do this in favour of the back-door approach of trying to stop the payment of money in order to indirectly force the hand of the Member States is something that I quite simply consider to be wrong and even cowardly!
Secondly, Commissioner, the Structural Funds are not given out to damage the countryside.
They are given out to create jobs and to kick-start the regions.
We must not therefore, in order to achieve another objective, obstruct or abandon the original aim of supporting disadvantaged areas.
What is more, it should not be the case that one Commissioner sets himself up as some sort of Supreme Commissioner who can then dictate to the other.
None of us want anything for the environment to be left undone.
But it isn' t on, Mr President, Commissioner, that regions might suffer because Member States are failing in their duties!
Here too we must watch out!
- (PT) Mr President, following the words of my colleagues which prove how necessary the resolution we are discussing actually is, I should like to use my speaking time to condemn two particularly damaging cases which affect my country, Galicia, but which could equally be taking place in other European countries.
In Pontevedra, practically within the city limits, and occupying a particularly sought-after location by the sea, the huge industrial chemicals complex built by the public companies ENCE and ELNOSA, which produce cellulose pulp and chlorine, is contaminating water and air with the connivance of the Galician and Spanish authorities and in spite of the continuing protests of the local population.
In Vila Garcia de Arousa, repositories have been installed in a wharf financed by the ERDF to hold 80 000 cubic metres of hydrocarbons, which pose a serious threat to fishing and related activities which provide jobs for 18 000 people, if these hydrocarbons are handled on a regular basis or if accidents with transporting vessels occur.
Mr President, I believe the issue of ensuring integrated and correct implementation of the Community' s environmental policy is perhaps the greatest challenge facing the Member States today.
Unfortunately, however, the requirements of environmental policy are not being respected and are not being properly incorporated when programmes and projects are formulated and approved in the Member States.
The problem is in fact much worse; in addition to the fact that environmental legislation is being contravened in projects and programmes which have received Community approval and funding, it is also being contravened during the implementation of projects and programmes in receipt of private or national funding.
I should just like to draw your attention to paragraph b and point 3 and 8 of the resolution which takes account of precisely this issue.
It is absurd for EU environmental legislation not to be applied or respected for all projects in the Member States, irrespective of whether they require Community or some other type of funding.
We should make it quite clear to countries which contravene environmental legislation that the Commission, which is the guardian of primary and secondary Community law, will ensure that the environment is not damaged when projects are constructed.
This flagrant violation of our basic environmental laws must not be allowed to continue.
We need, once and for all, to come out and say what is happening in the Member States, because transparency, courage and the truth are the best policy.
And the truth is that the directives for the Natura 2000 network have been inadequately implemented both in my country and in other Member States.
For example, despite the fact that the Maliakos Gulf and the wetlands of the Sperkhios river have been designated as conservation areas under the Natura 2000 network, there are proposals to bridge the Maliakos Gulf, in violation of Community law, despite the fact that an alternative solution could be found.
I therefore insist and we call on the Commission to ensure that EU environmental legislation is properly implemented and respected in all projects and, if need be, to take recourse to the European Court, as another speaker has suggested, and propose huge fines and take a strict line.
Mr President, I cannot resist starting by saying it is well-known that my Irish colleague across the way lives in the capital city of Dublin where these sites will not be troubling her too much.
Having said that I support the thrust of what is before us here today and the ability of the Commission to use as a carrot-and-stick approach the Structural Funds to encourage in perhaps the most effective way recalcitrant Member States such as Ireland, to get their house in order in relation to the Natura 2000 sites.
No Member State has fully met the requirements of the habitats directive, for example, let alone met them within the legally-binding timetable.
Commission procedures are under way against nearly every Member State - 12 Member States in fact - under the habitats directive at the moment.
Twelve European countries are before the European Court.
The wild birds directive is little better with 13 countries currently facing a legal challenge for failure to comply with the directive 20 years after it was agreed.
It looks as if there are six countries currently at risk for delays or rejections of proposals for the use of Structural Funds, including my own, the UK, certain German Länder, France, Sweden and Belgium.
Only last December I raised this issue in the Irish Senate and cited all the various directives - mainly environmental directives - we had failed to transpose within the timetable or years after the deadline for transposition had taken place.
Constitutional challenge is often quoted in Ireland as one of our reasons.
Indeed our written constitution with protection for property rights has proved very difficult for the government to get over many of the issues in relation to designation of sites.
But with the principle of proportionality well respected, proposals to use the structural funds in this regard will help countries like Ireland to focus on what they actually need to do.
In this regard I have proposed tomorrow two amendments to item 2 and item 3, adding a word: "to ensure that EU-funded programmes do not cause 'unauthorised' damage or destruction to actual or potential protected sites".
Perhaps you will take those on board in items 2 and 3 of the motion.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make a few final comments.
This is not about the implementation of the habitats directive.
Remember that the directive is not an effort directive, it is a result directive.
This is about meeting our obligations under the Structural Funds regulation and without these lists we cannot ensure that we protect important natural sites during Structural Funds operations.
That is what this is about.
If for example in a country which we have discussed today there are 40 projects currently under way that would affect sites to be protected, how can we check that if we have not got the lists? It is the obligation of the Commission to ensure that these sites are protected.
So does this mean that we will not approve the operational programmes to answer your question? We are reasonable.
We do not want to delay the process of approving the operational programmes under the Structural Funds but the programmes must include a firm commitment by the Member State that they will send us their list by a certain point in time.
That is a clear timetable.
If they do not do so, we will launch the procedure for suspending payments without delay.
That is the decision we have taken today.
To make it very clear also to Mrs Isler Beguin that means that what was written in the common letter by Mrs Bjerregaard and Mrs Wulf-Mathies is still valid.
We have to understand that this is an opportunity for us to live up to our obligations under the regulations for the Structural Funds.
This will be a very important tool.
Of course, we hope that this will not be necessary because the Member States will provide us with their lists.
That is what we have to hope for and maybe pray for too.
I have received one motion for resolution pursuant to Rule 40 (5).
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12.09 a.m.)
Mrs Maes, the issue you have raised will be studied by the Presidency and the Conference of Presidents immediately.
50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention - humanitarian law
The next item is the Council statement on the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention - humanitarian law.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, just a few months ago we marked the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions on the protection of victims of armed conflicts.
Fifty years ago, 63 countries signed the four conventions and two protocols which still provide a basis for international humanitarian rights today.
It is worth remembering that these international legal instruments were established during the period immediately after the Second World War and at that time reflected the major concerns felt at international level following the devastating effects of that conflict.
Events since that time have demonstrated that those who considered it essential to strengthen the rights of individuals in war zones, including civilians and military personnel not directly involved in the conflict, were totally justified.
A new code of ethics has accordingly come to be applied to the actions of parties to conflicts, in terms of strengthening the dignity of human life, which has increasingly become enshrined in international law in various other areas.
Unfortunately, in reality, it has become evident that the binding nature of the conventions and the way in which they are enforced by no means meet the requirements of the situations in which they are intended to provide protection.
We are still continuing to witness acts of war marked by barbarism and a total denial of the rights of civilians and of military personnel outside combat zones. The behaviour of many states and many parties to armed conflicts fails to reflect any principles whatsoever and is characterised by an "end justifies the means" approach.
And it is not unusual for civilians to be the particular target of military action, either in the form of terrorism or as an instrument of political pressure.
On the other hand, the unusual nature of certain conflicts, in particular those fought on a civil war footing, is increasingly being taken as an excuse for more serious crimes which are often carried out under cover of a shortage of information to the outside world and a kind of scorched earth policy intended to secure victory at all costs, and even at the cost of genocide.
In cases of this kind, acts affecting more vulnerable social groups take on a particular importance and are even more shocking. Such indefensible acts ultimately expose children and the elderly to all kinds of inhumane actions, so that they are today the main victims of certain types of conflict, and sometimes even seem to be singled out to set an example.
The question of humanitarian organisations comes in here too, as their scope for action is frequently affected by the intolerable behaviour of certain parties to conflicts who are cynically trying to win time to seal their victories or to take retaliatory action affecting populations at risk.
It is important to carry on strengthening these organisations' freedom of action and the protection of humanitarian workers.
In this context, I would particularly like to draw attention to the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose reports demonstrate that specific action is needed to improve the way in which the Geneva Conventions are applied.
And if it were not for the media and the new role they now play in spreading awareness of conflicts - not to mention these conflicts power to shock and mobilise the international community - the situation that we are witnessing today in certain war zones would be even worse and the level of impunity would be even greater.
Mr President, the European Union, which advocates and practises a set of values which we are proud to say is at the forefront of the international community, has been emphasising the vital importance of observing the Geneva Conventions.
In the context of its external relations, the Union promotes these values and seeks to implement them at all times through its political actions.
We are therefore alert to any risk of weakening the principles that unite us in this area, and we have always denounced any violations through our common foreign and security policy.
In such cases we seek to use the instruments available to us to exert pressure in a timely and effective way.
We are aware that in many cases we have not achieved everything we might wish, but we firmly intend to continue in future with the same determination.
Mr President, despite the gravity and the frequency of human rights violations that the Geneva Conventions and their protocols attempt to prevent, I do believe that the new millennium gives us some cause for hope.
This hope is primarily founded on gradually establishing an international set of values which means that it is already becoming difficult to take refuge behind spurious criteria such as cultural differences and national traits.
Although it is a slow process, there can be no doubt that we are already on the way to establishing this new international set of values and that the process of information globalisation is assisting in this and helping it to take root in our societies' collective consciousness.
Our citizens need to take this process on board in order to establish a mechanism for reacting to actions which show a lack of respect for the fundamental principles which should nowadays be regarded as our common heritage.
In creating international tribunals like those now dealing with the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, we have taken a step forward in making life more difficult for people who encourage acts which infringe the values of the Geneva Conventions.
These people must start to realise that the world is no longer a place where impunity is the rule.
If we can get this message across, we will certainly be helping to strengthen human rights and to give the principles which the Geneva Conventions and their protocols aim to protect the credibility and effectiveness that they need.
I congratulate the President for domestic reasons.
I would now like to speak, on behalf of the Socialist Group, in this debate which follows what we consider to be a satisfactory statement from the Council on the Geneva Convention. I will begin with an initial comment explaining the reasons why my Group tabled a resolution on this same subject during the last session of Parliament in 1999.
This resolution was never debated for reasons which we will not go into here.
It seems to us highly appropriate to speak in the European Parliament of regulations which have enriched humanity' s legal heritage and we should take every opportunity to recall and strengthen the validity of those instruments given the protection they offer and the rights they safeguard.
Another reason for adopting a resolution such as the one we are tabling is the fact that much of the work of the European institutions is aimed at finding balance and equality, and these are concepts which are almost completely incompatible with armed conflict.
The main victims of conflicts - children, women and the population in general - are the first to be threatened and to suffer and we must make their protection one of the priority objectives of our action.
The more we do to prevent violations of international humanitarian law, the more we remind other states - by means of all the opportunities which our foreign relations offer us - of the need to ratify and respect the Geneva Convention and the more we will be doing to protect these weakest groups.
The more suffering we prevent, the less action we will then have to take to repair the great damage caused by war.
What more can be done therefore to increase compliance with international humanitarian law and thus limit the suffering of the victims? For example, we can spread the knowledge of this law, particularly throughout society itself, amongst young people, within mass organisations and also in the armed forces and security services.
Above all, we must, through education, instil a passion for peace amongst our citizens.
In this respect, the European Union must be a prime agent for peace, but it must also provide strong support for the efforts of those organisations which the international community has entrusted with the responsibility of protecting the victims of conflicts and defending their rights.
Amongst these organisations, we should highlight the International Committee of the Red Cross.
All the institutions of the European Union must decisively support the work of the ICRC, because their role is quite simply indispensable.
Lastly, I do not consider it acceptable to say, as the Commission did in its response to my question a couple of months ago, that it does not have the competences nor the resources for actions aimed at promoting international humanitarian law, thereby demonstrating that its approach is basically bureaucratic and that its sensitivities are very different from those expressed by the Council in reply to another question in which I expressed a concern of this type. It is also different from the sensitivity demonstrated today by the Council in its intervention.
In this area, the institutions of the European Union - including the Commission of course - have a generic responsibility, because this is a question of spreading and promoting essential values which, furthermore, are the same as those which underpin our European project.
For all these reasons, Mr President, I ask you to support the resolution tabled, which contains all the main elements of the proposal presented by the Socialist Group at the end of last year.
Mr President, 12 August 1949 is a day which the ancient Romans would have said should be marked with a red stone.
It signified a great step forward for mankind - and yet in the fifty years since, although our own half-continent has lived in peace, more people have died in armed conflict than died in the whole of World War II.
We have failed to spread the lessons and values learned from that conflict.
Too often our own Member States have been parties to conflict, either through the production and sales of weapons, through the production and distribution of landmines or through the temptation - in the words of a great Victorian statesman in my country - to prefer their wars to be fought at a distance and wherever possible in the name of God.
We have failed to educate against the glorification of combat in our own communities.
We have failed to educate against the problems and the scourge of racism and xenophobia.
Yet, thanks to global communications, we have a constant reminder now on our television screens of the terrible effects of man's inhumanity to man, and of course to woman and child.
We have seen recently in the former Yugoslavia, and now in Chechnya, the terrible effects of armed conflict and we see, furthermore, the effect of governments' efforts to suppress independent media comment on such conflicts, and the development towards totalitarian government.
If the European Union is to become a community of values - if we are to play a true role in the new global governance, then we need to be promoting the values of the Geneva Conventions not only to our own soldiers and security forces, but also to people in our civilian societies.
We need to be pushing for the creation of a permanent international criminal court and urging our own Member States to sign and ratify the Convention.
We need to be working hard to combat racism and xenophobia.
Liberal Democrats in this House are proud that three of the authors of today's reports, Mrs Malmström, Mrs Haarder and Baroness Ludford have grappled with these issues and given the House these reports today.
We live in hope that the twentieth century, which Europe has soaked in blood, can give way to a twenty-first century in which the power, the genius and the enthusiasm of humankind can be applied to the construction of a more just, peaceful and sustainable world.
Mr President, I am in sincere agreement with what was said in the previous speech.
Yesterday, we were talking about a Charter of Fundamental Rights; today we are speaking of human rights.
Yesterday, in one excellent speech, someone said that we have a moral obligation to defend and develop democracy and human rights.
What this moral obligation actually entails and the extent of our efforts and commitment will, however, come to light in the context of that wretched reality represented by wars and armed conflicts.
Over the last century, these have totally changed in nature.
Humanitarian law is that yardstick by which we can show whether that moral obligation is just some kind of rhetorical stimulus for us or something that leads to deeds and action.
Today we are hearing the case of Albin Kurti, of Kosovo.
The Geneva Conventions are a vital part of this minimum level of action.
We also have to ensure that both the Ottawa Convention against Land Mines and the Charter for an International Criminal Court are ratified.
Mr President, in response to a question put to him during a radio interview on 20 January last, the Russian Ambassador to Paris declared that what the Russians were doing in Chechnya was fighting terrorism and that Europe and the whole world would subsequently thank Russia, when they understood the issue.
Personally, I cannot see any reason why the European Parliament should be thanking Russia.
On the contrary, I feel that it is necessary for Parliament to condemn Russia more emphatically and clearly than before, and that not only the Community institutions, but also the national governments should join us in doing so.
It was with sadness and regret that I learned of the feeble, unconvincing protest at Russia' s treatment of Chechnya and subsequent embrace and encouragement given to Mr Putin by Tony Blair, a man held in high esteem throughout the world, during his official visit to Moscow a few days ago.
At a time when we are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of a great landmark in humanitarian international law, the Geneva Convention, we cannot ignore that fact that all the points of the Geneva Convention are being violated on our doorstep, even though the Russians may say that this is not a state of war but a state of emergency.
Mr President, a European delegation returning from Chechnya a few days ago reported terrible sights.
If we genuinely want our action to have any effect, we must send a delegation from the European Parliament to Chechnya and the governments must undertake to abide by paragraph 6 of the Resolution, which we may shortly be voting on, in which Parliament calls upon the Council to ensure that cooperation with third countries is dependent upon reports on their application of human rights.
We must ask for some consistency between the countries of Europe if we want to make a genuine stand for human rights.
Speaking today on the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention on the protection of human rights, both during and in the aftermath of war, I deeply regret finding myself in the difficult position of having to say that this Convention' s downfall has come about on the continent of Europe itself.
Everything which has taken place in the Balkans in recent years, to use the words of a leading Greek poet, 'without caution, without shame' , has been in a bid to correct one wrong with myriad other wrongs and has simply turned this Convention into a well-turned piece of literature with no teeth.
We recently witnessed a huge humanitarian disaster brought about by a supposedly humanitarian intervention.
We saw a huge wave of refugees and, at the same time, we watched hospitals and embassies being bombed and unarmed civilians becoming the war targets, while the Balkan peninsular will pay the price and suffer the painful consequences of the ecological disaster caused by the bombings for years to come.
As for the second section of the Convention, and in particular Articles 13 and 14, which refer to protection from the effects of war for the wounded, the sick, the aged, children and expectant mothers, here it really is worth pausing to consider Kosovo and the findings of the relevant UN report.
Nearly 50% of infants born prematurely die.
The children being born are underdeveloped due to malnutrition.
There has been a dramatic increase in the number of abortions.
Women are dying due to a lack of rudimentary medical care in clinics which have no electricity, heating or water.
The best way, therefore, of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention is to strengthen the democratic and political facets of the Union, so that it can play a more decisive role on the international stage and solve any differences using peaceful means which respect human rights and, more importantly, respect everything set out in this truly wonderful Geneva Convention.
Mr President, the symbol of the Red Cross/Red Crescent movement brings hope to battlefields worldwide.
Perhaps I could be allowed a special reason for celebrating these conventions, as one of my family members founded the British Red Cross movement.
Article 1(b) of the relevant Convention forbids the taking of hostages.
Article 23 of the Universal Islamic Declaration of Human Rights says that no one shall be forced to leave the country of his residence or be arbitrarily deported therefrom.
Millions of people are suffering worldwide.
Speakers today, from Graham Watson onwards, have made those points earlier.
But let us think just of a few people in order to bring home the horror and suffering.
We recall that on 20 August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait in a unilateral act of aggression that was universally condemned.
Nine years later, more than 600 prisoners of war are unreleased and unaccounted for by Iraq.
Iraq is a formidable enemy.
UNSCOM has destroyed 38 000 chemical weapons munitions, 690 tonnes of chemical weapons agents, 3 000 tonnes of precursor chemicals, 48 Scud missiles and a biological weapons factory designed to produce up to 50 000 litres of anthrax, botulism toxin and other agents.
Her strength and power for evil purposes is matched only by her determination not to find the missing prisoners.
After nine years she has only provided information sufficient to close three files.
This afternoon, when we debate Iraq, do not forget the missing Kuwaiti prisoners of war.
Do not lift economic sanctions while their fate remains uncertain.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, members of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I can only applaud the Council' s presence in this debate.
I echo without hesitation the encouraging words which the President-in-Office has just spoken. However, I need to get something off my chest.
Maybe the President-in-Office of the Council is not aware that this is not the first time we have debated humanitarian law in this Parliament. We actually hold a topical debate every Thursday afternoon, which, unfortunately, is poorly attended by the Council.
This, I deeply regret.
However, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to use this opportunity to bring to your attention once more the fate of the Kosovar prisoners in Serbian prisons.
Parliament has brought the fate of these prisoners to the public' s attention three times since our appointment in July and has also asked the Council to act in this matter.
The situation in Kosovo has got considerably worse, not least because the Albanians are concerned about the fate of their fellow countrymen in Serbian prisons.
The situation in Serbia is becoming more and more absurd.
Last Monday, the Albanian student leader, Albin Kurti, was sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment, simply because he had organised first-aid courses after the bombardments.
This was considered helping the UCK!
Surely this is too absurd for words!
Meanwhile, the population remains very concerned about the fate of those in prison.
There are reports of torture.
The Milosevic regime is also stepping up the repression of Serbia' s own opposition.
Mr President-in-Office, could I ask you once more to act upon the resolutions which this Parliament has adopted three times and may I ask you what you intend to do?
Mr President, President of the Council, I welcome the statement of the Council this morning and while I endorse the sentiments expressed by the President, we should ask the question: what are the EU and its Member States doing to give expression to these laudable principles? I agree with Mr Martínez when he stressed the importance of providing adequate protection and support for victims.
However we must also take action to ensure that there are fewer victims in the future.
The one sure way to achieve this is to send a clear message to those who are guilty of crimes against humanity that they will be brought to justice for their evil deeds.
The tribunals in which those guilty of atrocities in the Balkans are currently on trial send one clear message.
Furthermore, although it ended in something of a fiasco, the Pinochet case in the UK had positive aspects to it.
The groundbreaking ruling by the House of Lords illustrates one way in which concerned countries can demonstrate to those that commit crimes against humanity that there will be no hiding place for them.
However welcome some of these developments may be, more needs to be done.
They must be built upon and the establishment of the International Criminal Court was a significant development in the field of human rights.
However, it will symbolise little more than a statement of platitudes and empty rhetoric unless its Statute comes into force.
Ratification by sixty Member States is required to achieve this and of the seven that have done so I regret to say that only one is from the EU, namely Italy.
I would say to the Council and I would say to the presidency this morning: if you want to ensure that those who commit violations of humanitarian law are brought to justice; if you want to send a clear message; if you want to prevent more victims in the future, you should use your presidency to start a campaign at least among EU Member States.
They must ratify the Rome Statute and you should use whatever influence you have elsewhere in the world to achieve that magic target of sixty to ensure that the statute of the International Criminal Court comes into force.
- (DA) Mr President, I completely support the Council' s statement to the effect that the Geneva Conventions have been a very important stage in the development of humanitarian legislation.
I also agree that the conventions are just as necessary today as they were 50 years ago.
Allow me to take this opportunity to express my full recognition of the major humanitarian work which the International Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations carry out in regard both to spreading knowledge of the humanitarian principles as expressed in the Geneva Conventions and to providing aid to war victims throughout the world. In my view, there are at present two main problems connected with the Geneva Conventions.
First of all, there is a gulf between the principles and their observance and, secondly, there are crucial states of affairs which are not covered by the conventions.
Allow me to illustrate the constantly widening gulf that exists between, on the one hand, the principles contained in the conventions and, on the other hand, current observance of these by pointing out that, in conflicts in the course of the last decade, 10 times as many civilians have been killed as soldiers.
That is essentially the reverse of the situation during the First World War.
The widening gulf between principles and practice is due, in my opinion, to the fact that the character of wars has changed during the last 50 years.
More and more wars are fought under conditions of anarchy in which there are no stable structures and in which the areas hit by war are not controlled by any government.
The world has also witnessed a growing number of wars in which weapons have deliberately been aimed at civilians and the purpose of which has been to annihilate specific groups in society.
In these situations, humanitarian aid to victims is naturally unwelcome, and this leaves the world in a terrible dilemma.
The second problem is that the Geneva Conventions do not adequately deal with the activities of those who intervene for humanitarian reasons.
Even though the Geneva Conventions contain provisions concerning the right to provide humanitarian aid in crisis situations, it is also laid down that this right requires the consent of the government in the country concerned.
This is especially the case if it is a question of internal conflicts.
The principle of humanitarian access or the international community' s right to protect, and provide aid to, those in distress if a State is unable - or unwilling - to do so itself is not, therefore, being universally applied.
This is a serious breach of the humanitarian principle and is, in some cases, a fatal shortcoming which is responsible for many war victims.
It was precisely this question of providing normal access to humanitarian organisations that was the focal point of my visit to Chechnya at the beginning of February.
In my view, the question of to what extent circumstances require a revision of the Geneva Conventions, and what form this should take, is now an important one.
I believe we have two options which are not mutually exclusive.
The first is to change the conventions so that they are better placed to tackle complex contemporary crises, for example by establishing the right to provide humanitarian aid to those in need.
The other option is to ensure that the humanitarian principles established in the Geneva Conventions are in actual fact observed, for example, by improving the mechanisms for enforcing them.
The first option - that of reconsidering the content of the conventions in order to close all the loopholes - is a complicated and risky option: complicated because the way in which war is conducted is constantly changing, and risky because the possibility cannot be excluded that, as a result of opening the conventions to renegotiation, no new agreement might be reached.
But allow me to say clearly that I am wholeheartedly in favour of establishing the principle of humanitarian access in all situations and of reinforcing the right of those in distress to receive humanitarian aid.
With regard to the other option - that of securing better observance of the existing principles - I think that prosecuting offenders is one of the most promising options to be pursued.
The obligation upon States to proceed against war criminals is established in the Geneva Conventions, but that is clearly not enough.
I therefore wholeheartedly support the demand for prompt ratification of the statute of the International Criminal Court.
This demand has also been put forward here today.
On behalf of the Commission, I want to give my support to the view that we ought to work together on bringing this task to a satisfactory conclusion and turning it into legal reality.
Thank you very much, Mr Nielson.
I have received 4 motions for resolutions in accordance with Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
Human rights, racism, xenophobia and antisemitism
The next item is the joint debate on:
the annual report (A5-0060/2000) by Mrs Malmström, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on international human rights and European Union human rights policy [11350/1999 - C5-0265/1999 - 1999/2002(INI)];
the annual report (A5-0050/2000) by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on respect for human rights in the European Union (1998-1999) [11350/1999 - C5-0265/1999 - 1999/2001(INI)];
the report (A5-0049/2000) by Mrs Ludford, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on countering racism and xenophobia in the European Union [COM(1999) 268 C5-0310/1999 + C5-0015/2000 - 1999/2205(COS)];
the report (A5-0055/2000) by Mr Belder, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission: "Countering racism, xenophobia and antisemitism in the candidate countries" [COM(1999) 256 C5-0094/1999 - 1999/2099(COS)].
Mr President, it has now been 50 years since we adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
After the horrors of the Second World War, many surely felt a strong sense of hope for a better world and a more humane future.
Unfortunately, these hopes have, in many respects, been dashed.
A large proportion of the world's population is still living under oppression, with many deprived of their basic rights.
We read daily of gross violations of human rights on grounds of gender, religion, ethnic origin, political views, sexual orientation etc.
The European Community was formed in order to prevent the atrocities of the Second World War from occurring again.
The EC became more than just an economic union; it became an important common value-system based precisely on the respect for human rights.
Both internal work and foreign policy rest on this principle.
The European Parliament has always considered the promotion of these rights to be one of its most important tasks.
This work has become even more important as time has gone by.
No one can fail to appreciate the commitment found, for example, in this House.
In many respects, the EU has a good policy on human rights but, unfortunately, it is much too 'straggly' and incoherent.
The EU is therefore in desperate need of a coordinated, strategic and consistent policy in this area.
The Council's report that came out in October last year was a good first step.
This was a welcome report which Parliament had waited many years for, and which we hope to see more of.
It is important, but it contains several deficiencies and needs to be supplemented.
In my opinion some of these deficiencies are linked to structural barriers and precisely this lack of a common strategy within the EU in the area of human rights.
We need increased coordination, not just between the institutions of the EU, but also between the EU and the Member States.
Human rights must be integrated into the EU's activities naturally: in aid, in trade, in economic, cultural and political cooperation.
We need a consistent policy that is credible and predictable.
The EU must speak with one voice and give consistent signals to the countries that violate human rights.
There must be no doubt about what the EU stands for.
Certain basic rights are universal.
Violations of these can therefore never be excused on grounds of religion, culture or tradition.
Serious violations, which are specified in international conventions cannot - must not - be treated as internal matters.
Therefore, I want to encourage the Council to draw up a strategy for improving the work and making it better defined and hopefully more successful.
A few suggestions that may be included in such a strategy are, for example, that the Council could develop its own human rights indicators that could be used in connection with trade agreements.
These clauses can be used constructively, but they need to be more closely defined with respect to application, implementation and sanctions.
We could also form an advisory group containing representatives from the different EU institutions.
They could meet on a regular basis to discuss the promotion of human rights in the short and long term.
There ought to be experts in the EU's delegations in third countries.
We must work more systematically to collect and evaluate data, information and background material.
We need an early warning system for violations of human rights.
We also need a web site where we can present the work being done with regard to human rights, showing, for example, who is doing what and what results have been achieved.
The web site could also contain links to different organisations.
I would also like to say a few words about women's rights, an issue that I have chosen as a special theme in the report.
The Commission declared 1999 to be the year for combating violence against women.
It was a praiseworthy initiative, but the campaign was discreet to say the least.
We need long-term work, not occasional campaigns.
Women's rights are being systematically violated throughout the world.
Reports abound on violence in the home, rapes, ritual violence and maltreatment in prisons.
During the 1990s, rape was used systematically as an act of war in many armed conflicts.
This can now be a matter for examination in the International Criminal Court.
Rape is at present the world's most common crime of violence.
Reports from the UN claim that, every year, more women die from the effects of violence in the home than as a result of traffic accidents, malaria, cancer or war put together.
The trade in women and children is increasing at an alarming rate.
In certain countries, the governments are employing a pure apartheid policy against women.
Thousands of young women suffer genital mutilation every day.
Violence against women is a global issue which needs to be high on the international agenda and which must assume a central place in EU policy making, particularly in relations with offending countries.
The issue must be dealt with in diplomatic relations and raised with the candidate countries in the course of the negotiations relating to the enlargement of the EU.
The countries of the EU must ratify the report of the proceedings of the International Criminal Court as soon as possible so that it can start work.
The EU can play an important part when it comes to encouraging countries to ratify different international conventions for the protection of human rights.
Allow me to conclude by saying that the reports that will be discussed after mine show that there are also violations of human rights within the EU.
Obviously we need to deal with this.
If we want to be credible internally, we also need to have a sound policy externally.
Mr President, this report builds on previous excellent work in the European Parliament and other EU institutions.
Its starting point is the European Year Against Racism 1997 but the context has moved on significantly.
I very much welcome the positioning of the fight against race discrimination firmly in a human rights context by placing it in this joint debate because that is very much the approach taken in this report.
The first theme highlighted is that in the last year we have established two facts in law and in practice.
The first is the legal competence of the European Union to fight racism.
The second is the fact that race discrimination is a breach of a fundamental right and European Union law.
This is reflected in the confirmation through the accession process, not least the Commission communication on which Mr Belder has reported, and I congratulate him, that respect for racial equality and minority rights falls within the Copenhagen criteria.
Could I just say as an aside that the ELDR amendments to Mr Belder' s report amplify rather than conflict with his report and were tabled because, unfortunately, the Citizens Rights Committee opinion was not voted on in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
The second theme emphasised in my report is to positively welcome diversity as a source of social vitality, economic prosperity and international influence.
European identity is not a homogenous white culture and it can, and must, expand to encompass the experience and culture of minority communities.
Thirdly my report notes that racial prejudice and discrimination poisons our whole society, including for white people.
Surveys show that racism has increased and there is an increase in racist violence and support for extremist parties.
On the other hand there is also progress, however bumpy, and some regions and cities in Europe are becoming at ease with a multi-racial and multi-cultural way of life.
I would cite London, which I represent, as the multi-racial capital of Europe.
Certainly I believe we need to talk a lot about racism and diversity and identity, not sideline the issues or talk in code.
Some may find the language in my report blunt and it is certainly intended to be clear and unambiguous.
This report stresses a rights-based approach and particularly welcomes the prospect of EU anti-discrimination legislation based on Article 13 and other legal measures such as enhanced rights for third country nationals.
But that cannot be the end of the story and there are measures proposed in the field of education, media and politics, and justice in policing, immigration and asylum policy, which would be aimed to back up the implementation of legislation.
Could I just address three aspects which I understand caused some difficulty for some Members of the EPP-ED Group. The first is the mention of Austria and the entry of Haider' s party into government and recalling the Parliament' s decision in February.
I have to say that it would be perverse to discuss the European Union' s strengthened response to racism without referring to recent developments which have been a landmark in establishing that the European Union is a community of values based on respect for human rights.
The second area where there are apparently EPP-ED hesitations is regarding enhanced rights for legally resident third country nationals of which there are around 20 million in the Union.
My understanding is that there is nothing in this report that the EPP has not been able to accept in the past.
The third area which I understand creates some problems for the EPP-ED Group is the belief that this report breaches subsidiarity by mentioning matters like education and policing.
But as I said in opening, the combination of Articles 6 and 7, Article 13 and Article 29 of the Treaties have established that the combating of race discrimination is an objective and a competence of the European Union including the area of policing.
There are a few of the EPP-ED amendments which I can accept although it is perhaps a pity that they did not make more input at committee stage.
Could I appeal to Members of that group to deal with their points of disagreement by making explanations of vote.
I believe this report will get majority support here in plenary.
It was adopted by a large majority in committee and some of the supporters of the Conservatives and Christian Democrats may not appreciate their failure to be part of that majority.
Could I just finally say that I can accept some of the amendments from the Green Group and the GUE, particularly the one which I welcome to replace the term "holocaust" by "Shoah" .
There is some confusion from the GUE Group about the purpose of ethnic monitoring which is simply to collect statistics on the progress of ethnic minorities so as to be a basis for future policy.
It is not in order to identify discrimination and I hope they will understand if I reject their amendments on that.
I hope very much that the report will get a large majority when it is voted on later.
Mr President, racism, xenophobia and antisemitism are completely incompatible with the European Union' s political principles.
Please allow me to make a direct reference. These evil and harmful human phenomena are also completely at odds with the Bible.
Indeed, the word of God repeatedly and emphatically speaks of hospitality and mercifulness to strangers, as well as true charity as a consequence of our love for God, the Creator of all mankind.
Meanwhile, the day-to-day reality is disappointing.
Racism, xenophobia and antisemitism are realities in Eastern and Western Europe alike.
However, this situation should not lead to debilitating mutual recriminations or imputations.
Quite the opposite, in fact: a common social threat requires a common, political effort.
Hence the expediency of the Commission' s communication in May last year and the present report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
The European Parliament sets great store by countering racism, xenophobia and antisemitism in the candidate countries, as is evident from the report and opinions.
This kind of attention also requires us to look into our own hearts.
Mrs Ludford' s report bears witness to this.
Indeed, the European Union' s moral standards for newcomers apply just as much to the Member States themselves.
With regard to manifestations of racism, xenophobia and antisemitism, the Member States are by no means holier than thou.
In fact, extreme-right movements from Western Europe are looking to establish contact with like-minded people in Central and Eastern Europe and are fanning the fire of doom there, the fire which was once kindled by the secret services of the former communist regimes no less.
The enormity of the issues affecting the Roma people in Central and Eastern Europe stands out for two reasons. Quantitatively, because it affects several million people and qualitatively, because the very existence of this extremely diversified people is at stake.
This is the Roma issue with all its intricacies in a nutshell.
For example, how can the Roma break through the social barrier and widespread discrimination whilst maintaining their identity? How can they be galvanised into social involvement and into achieving the much-needed change in mentality?
Fortunately, such profound questions are heard - officially and unofficially - within the candidate Member States.
They have led to well thought-through and promising initiatives and projects at national level, but these absorb a huge amount of funding.
In a nutshell, the EU' s future Member States are making a direct appeal for solidarity to the current EU Members.
Or does the Western expert' s razor-sharp criticism levelled at the European Union for its dismissive attitude towards Roma asylum-seekers cut ice after all? I quote: "On the one hand, the Central and Eastern European countries are pilloried on account of their policy of structural discrimination etc. and on the other hand, most EU countries are banishing the Roma collectively on account of them being economic migrants" .
The latter injustice should certainly not be missed out from the trio of racism, xenophobia and antisemitism in the candidate Member States.
In the wake of the holocaust, the systematic mass murder of millions of European Jews, antisemitism has still not disappeared from Central and Eastern Europe.
Extreme left and extreme right did not - and still do not - shrink from using this execrable and pernicious political instrument of battle.
Indeed, antisemitism does not appear to bear any relevance to the numerical presence of Jews.
For example, demagogues will take pleasure in pointing out the Jewish background - founded or not, as the case may be - of their hated political rivals.
And this is also borne out by the umpteen reprints of the notorious antisemitic protocols of the Wisemen of Sion, this fictitious account by the tsarist secret service dating back to 1897, of the Jewish grasp for world domination across the entire region.
Still less credible are the conspiracy ideas cooked up by the ultra-nationalist grouping where the so-called traditional enemies, i.e. the national minorities in various candidate countries, are systematically associated with Jews.
In this light, Jews and Hungarians are seen as traitors of the mother country in Romania.
The same goes for Jews and Germans, and for Jews and Czechs in Czechoslovakia, Jews and Germans in Poland and Jews and Turks in Bulgaria.
Paragraph 32 of the draft resolution should be read against this dark background.
The European Parliament has called for constant political and social vigilance towards, and for stricter constitutional prosecution of, the unabating antisemitic comments expressed within the various candidate countries, bearing in mind that latent antisemitic feelings and thoughts are fairly widespread.
Thanks to the fruitful and probing discussions held within the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and also the opinions presented by the rapporteurs of the other committees, this report now lies before you in this form.
The amendments have been carefully weighed up within the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and quite a few have been honoured.
Mainly to avoid duplication, I will only partly support the newly tabled amendments.
All in all, the present report requires, in my opinion, regular follow-ups or continuous re-assessment.
It would mean a great deal to me if this were to be accomplished.
Mr President, I would like to welcome the passion with which Mr Belder has delivered his report on the Roma and on the East European situation.
It is the most extreme versions of racism on the edges of Europe which we are disturbed about.
When the debate about Austria - which has many elements, many complexities - was unfolding we realised that on the edges of Austria there were significant candidate countries which, while they were making progress in economic, progress in social aspects, represented a real problem with regard to their treatment of minorities.
In Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary there were significant problems with the treatment of the Roma.
What we must realise is that, as we enlarge Europe, we have a significant responsibility for ensuring that any country that wishes to join the European Union must also reform the way that it treats minorities and the way that it treats the whole question of race discrimination.
I would make two or three other very simple points.
What the Roma situation shows, what Mr Belder's report shows, is that an extreme version of discrimination clearly exists throughout the European Union, otherwise we would not be discussing this issue.
There are many questions we must discuss: How strongly will we push the question of Article 13?
Do we really want race discrimination protection throughout the European Union? The answer is yes.
We must have it quickly and we must have comprehensive legislation.
If we look around the European institutions and Parliament, we realise there are very few faces from ethnic minorities.
That situation is improving, but ultimately we have institutions which are bereft of representation.
It is representation and other similar issues that we must now tackle.
Racism is a complex issue.
We have begun to discuss it adequately but we have so much further to go.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Malmström on her very balanced and illuminating report.
From the relevant debate within committee, it appears that Parliament supports the human rights principles unanimously, which I can only applaud.
I also back the rapporteur' s decision to deal extensively with the women' s rights issue.
With the sharia on the up in various parts of the world, this issue is more topical than ever.
The situation remains extremely alarming in Afghanistan, where, since the Taliban have taken over power, women are no longer allowed to go out to work, are beaten in public for wearing indecent clothing and have hardly any access to medical care.
According to reports which reached me over the past couple of days, the number of suicides among female intellectuals has risen dramatically over the past couple of weeks.
The example of Afghanistan illustrates that discrimination against women is not a cultural but a political phenomenon.
Moreover, Afghanistan is not the only country where the rights of women are violated on a massive scale.
Millions of women throughout the world are still being circumcised or married off.
In many African countries, women are not allowed to own any possessions or open a bank account without the permission of a man.
Other practices, such as polygamy or the inheriting of widows, have become untenable in an AIDS era.
It is hardly surprising that in Africa, more women than men are infected with the AIDS virus.
We must condemn all practices which lead to the mutilation or death of women.
Within the European Union, female circumcision must be made a punishable offence.
This is not a matter of tradition or culture, it is one of the basic human rights.
But the atrocities in the rest of the world should not blind us to the atrocities in our own countries.
Domestic violence is still a huge problem within the European Union.
We must take a firm stance against this, which also involves prosecution.
Just as serious is the problem of white slavery: 500 000 women and girls per annum are imported to Western Europe alone.
A business which is estimated by the UNDP to be worth USD 7 billion.
A powerful and concerted effort is needed from all Member States to fight this outrageous form of trafficking in human beings.
Mr President, this report sends a powerful message to the Council and Commission.
I urge both institutions to turn it into something tangible, something concrete, and to do something constructive with it.
In any case, we will judge them on their actions, not their words.
Mr President, Commissioners, I would like to heartily congratulate the rapporteurs Mrs Malmström and Mr Haarder on excellent, systematic and innovative reports.
They provide the Commission, the Council, and also Parliament, with many ideas to really improve and guarantee human rights.
One example of this is Mrs Malmström's suggestion of a special representative to protect those fighting for human rights.
It is also the duty of Parliament to examine the question of human rights in the candidate countries in a systematic way.
We have the knowledge, but we need to coordinate it and ensure that it is put to use so that we can influence the enlargement of the Union in such a way that human rights are respected.
I am also very pleased that Mr Haarder took up the rights of minority groups.
It will be an historic moment if we adopt Mr Haarder's report and call attention to the crimes and the lack of respect for the rights of minority groups that are found within the EU.
It is time to put a stop to the contradictory messages we have been giving out in this regard and which have meant that we have required more of the candidate countries than we have of ourselves.
In actual fact, I have no hesitation in saying that it will be an historic moment when we adopt Mr Haarder's report because it would not previously have been possible.
Finally, I would like to mention another matter that is close to my heart, namely aid for the Commission's work for children's rights as expressed in Cecilia Malmström's report.
The Commission needs this aid.
We ought also to give aid when it comes to allocating budget funds to work for children's rights.
I also believe that, in this area, we need to guard against children' s becoming a commodity.
There is also a lack of respect for the rules of the Hague Convention and, as far as this is concerned, we also have very, very serious problems in the candidate countries.
Mr President, we have before us an exceptionally high standard report on human rights, and I am now speaking of Mrs Malmström' s report, and what is also gratifying about it is the fact that it was drafted in close cooperation with independent NGOs.
Without civil society we are living in a vacuum.
We cannot breathe unless we are motivated from outside, from grassroots level.
The report contains a number of excellent and well-considered proposals.
I would like to draw your attention here to just three, regarding which my Group has been active.
They are: the need to act when independent journalists are attacked, the need to protect conscientious objectors and deserters, and the need to develop smart sanctions, which do not make conditions wretched for vast sections of the population, but which are targeted at the political tyrants that have amassed riches.
This is a precision weapon, which must be utilised more.
Speaking more generally, as Mrs Malmström herself also said, we have to develop a strategic approach to all the problems we are speaking about today.
It must be a dynamic one and one that can penetrate the reality of the situation at all levels.
We cannot go about correcting obvious wrongdoings by merely resorting to rhetorical commitment.
The Finnish writer Samuli Paronen wrote: "big crimes need many accomplices, millions - all those who do nothing" .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think these reports speak for themselves.
Racism and antisemitism are on the increase in the European Union and beyond.
Our first act must therefore be not only to refuse to accept this situation but to publicly denounce it.
Due to its clear-sightedness, Mrs Ludford' s report actively contributes to this approach.
Denouncing racism, including racist talk, does not mean censoring the freedom of opinion as some would have us believe. Racism is not an opinion.
It is a crime against human dignity. It is antisocial behaviour which can include physical attacks on individuals.
This has recently been seen in El Ejido in Spain and it also happened with the attacks on the homes of Turkish workers in Rostock and with the death of young Ibrahim Ali who was killed in Marseilles in 1995 by billposters of the French National Front.
On each occasion, people were given the ideological arms to carry out the attacks.
There is also another type of racism which involves daily harassment and humiliation.
This can be seen in the discrimination applied in access to housing, leisure facilities and employment.
You will all be aware of the example, recently reported in the French press, of a young man from Strasbourg who sent two completely identical curricula vitæ to the same company.
The name on one was foreign-sounding and the other was typically French.
You can guess which 'applicant' was invited for interview.
We cannot nowadays simply defend those described as minorities. Instead we must get them out of this ghetto.
Rather than concentrating on protecting minorities, we should be building the concept of European citizenship involving common values. We should be concentrating on building a common future for everyone and a society in which everyone can develop and which totally rejects any hint of submission to barbarism.
Throughout its history Europe has been capable of the best and the worst.
The best is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention. The worst is colonialism, the Shoah, Stalinism and nazism.
We must teach our children about all of this.
We must clearly embrace everything which can strengthen Europe and reject anything which weakens it. At the same time we must send a clear message about the type of society we want to build.
I will say plainly that those who regard as acceptable an alliance with extremists in order to win elections will be swept up and dumped in the dustbins of history. An alliance with the likes of Haider or Le Pen is like supping with the devil.
You need a long spoon which will never be long enough. I would also remind those who advocate an ethnic concept of the nation that Clémenceau said that patriotism is the love of one' s country whereas nationalism is the hatred of others.
These people have clearly chosen their side.
All these fine words must now lead to concrete action and practical legislative steps.
Legislation against racism must be harmonised. The words must take on real meaning.
Equal opportunities means allowing all children born on European soil to become European citizens and to enjoy the right of nationality of the country in which they are born.
Equal rights means being entitled to vote and fighting against all forms of discrimination, whether spatial, geographical, social or racial.
This is how we can positively support the values for which we are fighting.
Mr President, as I stressed yesterday, I feel it is significant that we are confronting the issue of human rights here in France, for, along with North America, France could be called the birthplace of these universal principles.
However, it appears that we are not always completely sure which rights we are talking about and that we are introducing or we want to introduce rights which are not provided for in the Conventions or the international Treaties.
For example, the right to immigration does not exist.
Of course, an immigrant coming from outside the Union has the right to enjoy his rights, but imposing limits or controls on immigration cannot be classed as racism or xenophobia, for the very reason that there is no mention of a right to immigrate in any text.
Moreover, the idea of completely uncontrolled immigration is unimaginable, if only for reasons of space and numbers.
And, in addition, there are duties which should sometimes be remembered as well as rights.
For example, we have been talking about the Roma.
Of course, the Roma have rights and should not be discriminated against, but many of them, and I am not saying the majority, but certainly a large number of them, as has been statistically proven, do not live lawful lives.
Many of them abuse their women and, more importantly, their children.
Ill-treated, ragged children are often to be seen on the streets, and this is a conscious situation calculated to arouse the pity of passers-by and to induce them to give them some money.
Sadly, the authorities often turn a blind eye to this, in the same way that they turn a blind eye, or two blind eyes, to the other unlawful activities perpetrated by certain parties who do not pay taxes and who are not fully integrated into our society.
Moreover, there seem to be free zones within our communities when it comes to some violations of human rights: for example, certain types of genital mutilation are very frequent and there needs to be more of a crackdown on them.
Now then, it is right for an immigrant to have rights, but it is also right for him to abide by the rules of the country in which he finds himself, for it must not be forgotten that European civilisation, which is a Christian civilisation, an enlightened civilisation, even though it is welcoming and open to other cultures, does have its own roots and must not be overwhelmed.
We must take care that we do not become a minority ourselves, and that we do not become victims of discrimination here, in our own home.
Mr President, the 1998/1999 annual report on respecting human rights within the EU has gone far beyond its own brief.
Too much attention has gone into developing European powers in the field of human rights, of which, by all accounts, there are high expectations.
Asylum policy has been dealt with extensively, so has the heading "life styles and types of relationships" .
The rights of homosexuals have been given more attention than is necessary, and all kinds of requirements have been imposed on the Member States.
What is remarkable, however, is the deafening silence when it comes to those who really are the weaker parties amongst us: the elderly, babies and the handicapped.
And where does the right to life come in? And what about the protection of the family?
In a nutshell, the report is full of good intentions but is dogged by a view of man and society which is too individualistic. Nor does it do enough justice to the fact that life itself is worth protecting.
Racism, xenophobia and antisemitism must be stamped out.
I fully share this view, which is expressed in the Ludford report.
But in contrast to what is stated in the report, we cannot prevent racism and xenophobia by adopting a unilateral, positive approach to the multi-cultural society as a "source of social vitality" .
This notion smacks of a naïve kind of intellectualism.
The Netherlands has adopted such a policy over the past couple of years, aimed at bringing about a multi-cultural society.
This did not turn out to be a success, as is evident from the "multi-cultural drama" which we now find ourselves in.
Many immigrants have, as a result of this policy, ended up in a sub-class of society, with all the consequences that entails.
Rather than putting our own culture into a multi-cultural context, I am in favour of developing a sound, realistic awareness of our own culture, taking both the positive and the negative aspects into account, which can lead to improved relations with each other and acceptance of the cultural differences on both sides.
Finally, racism, xenophobia and antisemitism, have, I am sorry to say, existed throughout the world since time immemorial.
With this in mind, we should take the century-old Biblical commandment "love thy neighbour like thyself" to heart.
Mr President, having been alarmed at how the 14 Member States have prejudged Austria, it gives me satisfaction to acknowledge the Haarder report, which gives Austria full marks, even in comparison with the other Member States, when it comes to human rights, something which is self-evident, in my view, for this country at the heart of Europe.
In so doing, he has confirmed my contention that this action by the 14 lacks any justifiable basis, Mr Schulz.
The report also criticises the fact that Austria has not yet ratified the 1998 European Charter for Minority Languages.
I should therefore like to point out that the ratification of the Charter for Minority Languages referred to is indeed an element of the government' s programme.
The coalition has undertaken to table this before the Nationalrat (National Assembly) by January 2001, and the highly criticised government is continuing to burnish Austria' s already excellent image in the field of human rights.
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, it is as a pseudo-rapporteur for the PPE-DE Group that I will comment on the human rights report to be voted on by this House. I will therefore simply set out the principles and analysis of our Group.
We have several basic principles.
The first is not to take account of issues falling outside the time framework of this report which relates to 1998 and 1999. Any comments on the current political situation must therefore be avoided.
The second is to prevent this report, as far as possible, from simply being a collection of objectives, pious hopes or conclusions based on false premises as these are not specific and verifiable rights which can be effectively exercised in the Member States.
Our third principle is in line with the unchanging beliefs of the PPE-DE Group.
Although we do not want to be less generous or less open to others than the rest of the groups, nevertheless we do not believe that the identified rights are truly appropriate. This has caused us to vote against certain rights which, although we consider them to be completely legitimate and worthy of support, are not appropriate in a report on the state of human rights in the European Union.
We have also wanted to avoid, where possible, countries being mentioned or highlighted when the report on human rights for this year does not contain a systematic analysis of each country.
This issue must also be viewed in the context of subsidiarity in that it is the responsibility of the Member States to ensure the protection of human rights and it is up to the national courts to punish any infringements.
Finally, we would like the report for next year to take account of the preparation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. In this way, from next year, we will have a report in line with the real situation which will allow a country-by-country and right-by-right analysis to be carried out due to the simultaneous preparation of this Charter.
The next report to be put to the vote should be awaited with even more trepidation and should clearly show the interest which our Union takes in human rights within our Community.
Mr President, in this great debate about human rights it is surprising how infrequently we hear children mentioned - the people who are least able to protect themselves in relation to human rights.
Children are actually invisible in the EU Treaties.
Animals have rights, children do not.
Yet children are affected by the laws that the EU passes and the single market.
The electronic revolution seems to have given more freedom to exploiters, the paedophiles and the pornographers, than to industrialists.
In a twenty-first century where we regard ourselves as civilised there is still a slave trade in which children are bought and sold for sexual exploitation throughout the world.
We have problems in the candidate countries.
We have a scandal at the moment in Latvia which allegedly goes to the very heart of the government. We have pictures on our TV almost every day of child soldiers fighting in conflicts throughout the world.
And of course, we have familiar tales of child labour.
We have to take tougher action.
We have to bring children up the agenda.
This is not to say that the EU should start to be responsible for children's policy but we could start by ensuring that EU laws are child-proof.
We should ensure that measures developed by the Commission have a specific children's dimension.
We should ensure that there is somebody in the Commission with responsibility for child matters.
In 1998 my own government appointed a child rights expert from Save The Children to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to develop strategies and practical projects in relation to children's rights.
Why can we not do the same?
We also have in Great Britain a Children's Select Committee able to investigate child abuses and to interrogate expert witnesses. Why can we not do the same?
Can we make sure that the Charter of Fundamental Rights has a section relating to children? I know we have communications.
We have action plans and conventions but what we want is action, not good intentions.
Mr President, why are human rights so far behind human progress? Science, technology and communication have broadened man' s knowledge and expertise and abilities beyond belief.
Yet, the world is still being plagued by human rights violations on a massive scale, mainly due to war, poverty and misuse of power.
We should therefore concentrate all our efforts on these human rights.
But cultural value patterns underlie these violations too.
Mrs Malmström was therefore right in asking, in her special report, that the position of the woman be given special attention.
In a great many societies, the woman is still suffering at the hands of men as a result of institutionalised and sometimes legalised misuse of power.
Not collective habits but the effects on the individual must be the overriding factor in our judgement.
This means, for example, that we should not respect female circumcision as an old tradition but should fight it with all civilised means.
European foreign policy is too easily thrown off course by purely economic interests.
It is high time that human rights were given the priority they deserve, not only in theory but also in practice.
In this way, Europe can make a substantial contribution to progress, progress of civilisation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of our discussion of these reports on human rights inside and outside the European Union, the time is therefore right to consider the cross-influences between the 'inside' and the 'outside' .
Clearly, the Union' s best tool for disseminating its human rights model is the experience of migrants.
Yet our greatest failings in human rights involve these very people.
I can give you two examples of this.
Firstly, there is cause for concern about the shape being taken by the readmission agreements which directly threaten fundamental rights such as the right of asylum or the right to live as a family.
The Union has confirmed its attachment to the Geneva and Dublin Conventions by establishing the anti-deportation principle.
It is therefore unacceptable that the readmission agreements can allow a third country national to be returned to his or her country when we know that this country more often than not does not guarantee respect for human rights and democratic freedoms.
It is just as unacceptable to see families torn apart with children sometimes being left alone following the expulsion of their parents who have no right of residence, even though some have lived and worked in Europe for nearly ten years.
What image of human rights do you think they will take back to their countries given their experiences of questionable living conditions, humiliating body searches, insults, endless forms and interrogations in police stations and detention centres? After all this, we then just end up sending them back to countries which they are legitimately seeking to leave, often for political and economic as well as humanitarian reasons.
These readmission agreements are dangerous for asylum-seekers, for the dissemination of human rights throughout the world and for the international stature of the European Union.
If the Union wants to be taken seriously on the issue of respect for human rights, it must immediately stop these expulsions. It must legalise the situation of all these men and women who are deprived of all rights, including the right to live as a family and the right of free movement, and who are currently kept in a situation of official illegality.
Another flagrant attack on human rights concerns foreigners and citizenship.
How can we expect third country nationals to integrate and their children to respect the law and to believe in the reality of democratic rights when they are not allowed to exercise these rights?
At a time when the Union is considering the definition of a Charter of Fundamental Rights, why are we creating second-class citizens? This really is a case of fundamental rights.
How can we allow some people to be excluded?
How can they believe in the reality of the Declaration of Human Rights? On human rights, the Union could take pride in being the first in history to define citizenship according to a principle of residence instead of establishing discrimination based on nationality.
Mr President, this debate is taking place at an important moment for this Parliament.
The excellent reports by Mrs Malmström, Mrs Ludford and Messrs Haarder and Belder offer us Europeans the opportunity for analysis and, above all, self-criticism.
This year is especially significant.
A year after waging war against Yugoslavia in the name of human rights, we have remained passive in the face of an even greater violation of these rights on the part of Russia in Chechnya.
Two weeks ago, with the support of the United States, Spain and Great Britain allowed Pinochet to evade his responsibilities to face justice for his very grave violations of human rights.
This year we have also seen a racist and xenophobic party enter government in Austria, and in Spain we have also seen an outbreak of racist violence in El Ejido.
We have seen the mayor of that city receive 75% support in the elections there.
This has also been the year in which the Catholic Church has issued a mea culpa on violations of human rights committed throughout history.
To this end, we in the European Union could develop a more constructive attitude.
I therefore propose five points, which are the contributions of the GUE/NGL Group to the various reports.
Firstly, to abandon all hypocrisy and treat all countries in the same way; secondly, to commit ourselves to defending, at all costs, human rights everywhere, including in the economic field, in factories; thirdly, to show a special concern for human rights throughout the world, in Latin America (in Mexico, in Argentina, in Peru) etc.; fourthly, to accept unreservedly the cause of human rights for women; and lastly, to recommend the ratification of the International Criminal Court.
I am obliged to destroy the good humour of this House, for 25 years' experience of intense discussion and analysis of human rights shows that good intentions combined with massive ignorance of the reality involved produce some terrible results or, to put it in ordinary plain language, "Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it" .
It is not so much a question of what is said, and the more talk there is of human rights, the worse are the abuses.
I want to make three small points.
First of all, I completely agree with my fellow countryman and rapporteur for the report, Mr Haarder, when he says that, where the protection of minorities is concerned, we should make the same demands upon ourselves as we make upon the candidate States.
This is something which the EU' s institutions should have thought about in 1991-1992 when, in contravention of the rules applicable to the protection of minorities, they recognised firstly Slovenia and subsequently Croatia and, in the process, added fuel to the flames of what subsequently became the Balkans disaster.
The second point is an extension of yesterday' s debate.
To insist on incorporating the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights into the EU' s constitution - or, rather, into the EU Treaty - would not merely entail a number of huge and insuperable constitutional problems, especially in a country like Denmark, but it would also make the EU Treaty into a genuine constitution incorporating fundamental rights.
It is said that the more rights we have, the better, but rights are part and parcel of a complicated interplay of systems.
The result of an EU Charter would be an endlessly complicated morass of legal and constitutional problems. Which is the decision-making authority?
Are the rights guaranteed under the Convention on Human Rights better than those guaranteed under the EU' s Charter? Is the latter, again, better than the national constitutions?
That is a question which has no meaning. Finally, my third remark is a compliment to the rapporteur, Mr Haarder.
It is with satisfaction and much interest that I see that paragraph 61 emphasises the collective right to trade union membership.
However, Mr Haarder' s old hobbyhorse about the individual' s right not to join a union is not included as a recommendation.
I want to congratulate Mr Haarder on the new political insight on his part which is evidenced here.
Mr President, the report contains important conditions for future candidate countries, thereby granting human rights problems the same status as economic conditions.
We particularly welcome the fact that the problem of religious freedom was mentioned, as some countries, especially the Czech Republic, have already passed very restrictive laws against religious minorities.
The passage on the human rights situation within the EU is also interesting and gives the EU no cause whatsoever to take the moral high ground vis-à-vis new candidate countries.
We Austrians now find ourselves in a situation, ostensibly in order to safeguard human rights, in which we no longer know whether to laugh or cry.
A few weeks ago, taxi drivers in Brussels were refusing to take Austrian passengers.
Austrians were thrown out of hotels and restaurants in Belgium and France.
Our assistants' French teachers declared that they no longer wished to teach Nazis and school exchange programmes were cancelled.
Austrians working abroad had their cars vandalised, stones thrown at their houses and their children were threatened at school.
Today it was revealed that the Austrian entrant in a show jumping competition in Grenoble had his invitation withdrawn.
The town council in Grenoble held lengthy discussions on whether or not the horse was welcome but, in the end, its invitation was also withdrawn as it had not expressly distanced itself from the Austrian government.
Perhaps we shall soon see Mozart banned from international opera houses.
Who knows where it will all end.
Whoever takes political responsibility for this anti-fascist Punch and Judy show here in the House and in the EU countries in question has cause to be proud.
I can assure the previous speakers, who call me Satan' s sidekick, that I am not hiding a cloven hoof beneath the benches.
If this irrational collective hatred against an entire nation can be so readily called upon in the EU, we are a long way from being in a position to dictate to other countries.
If only all these good people who take the floor here had lived sixty or more years ago, just think what Europe could have spared itself.
Mr President, there is something rather pathetic in our determination to link human rights to the European project whose very logic questions and even threatens those rights.
In our opinion, human rights cannot be envisaged without a political society and, in particular, without this supreme form of the peaceful political society which is the nation, in terms of both civil peace and balance between nations, and therefore international peace.
Yet Europe is trying to build itself without this basic element and even to destroy this through its two fundamental aspects, namely res publica and sovereignty.
It is not by chance that the Declaration of Human Rights coincided in France with the affirmation of national sovereignty.
De Gaulle rightly said that the first human right was national sovereignty for the simple reason that there is no point in having rights without a political society which is free from feudalism and empires. This society must therefore enjoy popular and national sovereignty which is precisely what the European project is slowly but surely destroying.
We also consider it impossible to combat racism, antisemitism or xenophobia without making people into citizens and without detaching them, at least in political terms, from their membership of ethnic groups, or minorities to use the current term. We are seeing the re-emergence of this minority concept, not only in various reports of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, but also, very dangerously, in our own policies, such as that conducted in Kosovo.
If the concept of ethnic groups and minorities is re-established, this will take us down a dangerous road towards individual membership rather than political and national membership.
This Pandora' s box will ultimately destroy our continent which is why we feel it is pathetic to crow about human rights in a Community which is threatening, some time in the future, to take us into the worst decline.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I read the Ludford report with great interest and I would like to compliment the rapporteur on her remarks on Austria and the Austrian situation.
However, I would stress that these remarks are out of place in a report on human rights.
When we hold a debate on Austria, when we draw up a document on the Austrian situation - if Parliament judges it appropriate so to do - then we might even be able to give Baroness Ludford the task of drawing up a document which we will debate together.
These remarks have no place in a document on human rights, as they should not be using up the time allocated to the Baroness' s report, and so they have acquired the bitter taste of political exploitation of a very serious issue such as human rights.
I would like to say something else on the subject of this report, regarding the right of Europeans to their own identity.
Throughout the document, the identity of Europeans, of the European nations, is not once referred to in a positive sense but always as a possible framework for xenophobia and racism.
I am a practising Christian who is sure of his beliefs: now, is this a reason to accuse me of xenophobia? On the contrary, xenophobia is more likely to be caused by a decline in religious convictions.
Religion per se is a factor which promotes fraternity.
I am a staunch Italian patriot, so, according to paragraph O of this document, I could be accused of xenophobia.
This seems to me to be indicative of a cultural attitude which encourages xenophobia, for it encourages fear of globalisation, which prompts many local communities to become inward-looking and refuse dialogue, dialogue which takes identity into account.
We must make it clear that Europe does have a cultural identity, based on our Greek and Judo-Christian heritages and on enlightenment, which enters freely into dialogue with other identities.
A multicultural Europe which does not include European culture would lead to disaster and its decline.
This is not a not a question of black or white cultures: there is no connection between colour and culture.
Culture is based on values, not colour.
There are many issues related to xenophobia and racism, but these must be dealt with by the local communities.
It is not our place to define labour market quotas, or police or any other labour market quotas, and if we were to do so we would hinder integration, not encourage it.
Lastly, are we really of the opinion that all those who are not in favour of completely uncontrolled immigration are racist?
And do we really think that the Constitutions of all of our nations are racist because their criteria are different from those espoused by Baroness Ludford? These aspects of the report need to be evaluated carefully and many of them changed, or we will find it hard to obtain a general consensus in this Chamber.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by offering my congratulations on Mrs Malmström' s report to Mrs Malmström herself and to everyone who contributed to it.
It seems to me to be a very comprehensive report and to make some very striking points.
I would like to draw the House' s attention to three key points concerning human rights as I see this issue at present.
One of these is the issue of water.
The World Water Forum is about to take place in The Hague, at the end of this week to be precise.
At this event, water will be treated as a rare economic commodity.
This is serious, as whilst it may be true that water is becoming ever more important in economic terms, it is also true that the right to water is a human and social right for everyone.
I would therefore like to draw honourable Members' attention to precisely this issue, water, which is going to be one of the most hotly debated subjects this year.
The situation is becoming ever more critical, but the right to water also has to be seen as a human right.
The second point that I would like to mention today, very briefly, is the situation in Angola.
The report says that attacks on human rights in Angola have been treated with too much diplomatic discretion.
I believe that this is exactly what has happened - a veil of silence has been drawn over events in Angola, a country which has been in a state of permanent war for 40 years and at civil war for 25 years.
We need to have a clearer and better informed view of events in Angola, as I said in this House when we were discussing the issue of attacks on journalists' rights.
But what worries me most, and what worries me most in Angola, is the issue of the rights of children forced to take part in the war by both sides, and the rights of women, who are the greatest victims of this ferocious war.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have taken the floor to explain the reasons why I am going to vote against the motion and my concern over two issues, which were included in the resolution at the request of some Members, who, I feel, are trying to exploit the credibility of the European Parliament in order to further their own interests, which conflict with the general interests of the Community as a whole and Italy in particular.
I refer, Mr President, to point 38 and points 41 and 42 of the Haarder report.
Point 38, which was amended for the worse by Amendment No 22, cited again today in the Chamber, imposes on Italy - and who knows why Italy should be singled out - in order to guarantee the impartiality of judges, not the separation of judicial and political authorities, as advocated by Montesquieu, but the separation, within the judiciary, of the careers of judges responsible for giving rulings and investigating magistrates.
The consequence of this absurd step is that, as is the case in Italy, anyone who is part of the judiciary as an investigating magistrate will become dependent upon the decision-making authorities, with the genuine risk that it will not be possible to conduct inquiries into corruption and the abuse of political power without fear of political pressure.
With reference to points 41 and 42, I appreciate the fact that no citizen, not even a male descendent of a former ruler, can be deprived of the freedom to enter the country of which he is a national, but I do not understand why this only applies to Italy and Austria: there are other Community States which have rulers and sons of rulers living abroad.
In particular, with regard to Italy, to lay down a period of not more than six months within which to apply the sanctions would be against the Italian Constitution, which, in fact, provides for the adoption of a constitutional resolution.
Mr President, the annual reports on human rights, racism and xenophobia give the House an excellent opportunity to make a critical or, to be more precise, a self-critical appraisal of the countries in the European Union.
Candidate countries and their Members of Parliament, and I am thinking of many a member of the Turkish parliament, have a great deal to learn, such as how independent representatives of the people act and must act when it comes to human rights in their own country.
We have to admit, however, that we still have a lot of homework to do.
Self-criticism is not enough.
It does us credit, but alone it does not suffice.
Although, in our reports, we condemn cases of torture and maltreatment of detainees or prisoners by the forces of order or officials in charge of executing sentences, we must admit that so far little has been done about it by those in a position of responsibility.
The same applies to the way in which many refugees are treated in many Member States.
How many more times do we intend to debate the conditions in numerous detention centres as a problem of which we are aware but which has yet to be regulated? If we want to win the people in the detention centres over to our society, then we must admit that most European detention centres are not at present suitably equipped for the task.
We are right to criticise human rights violations and discrimination in candidate countries such as Turkey or some of the Eastern European countries when it comes to the Roma and other minorities, but that is precisely why we must set an example when it comes to human rights in the European Union.
In this sense, thank you.
Mr President, these reports are heading in the right direction but we cannot accept the self-satisfaction of the recitals in the current treaties.
To be effective, the fight against discrimination requires broader and, in particular, more specific measures.
Therefore, any restriction linked to nationality for access to civil service jobs must be abolished.
The institutions of the Community and Member States must lead the way in this.
In the same way, full citizenship implies giving third country nationals resident in the European Union the right to vote in all elections.
As long as these third country nationals are refused political rights, they will be the target of demagogy and discrimination.
If their status as taxpayers justifies their access to this right, why limit this to the local and European levels?
Finally, in Europe the situation of all illegal immigrants must be legalised in order to fight against the traffic in labour and the xenophobic hatred which has recently been seen, in Spain, for example.
This would mean breaking with the provisions of the Schengen, Amsterdam and Dublin Treaties which are real insults to the right of asylum.
We believe that the fight against racism does not really require a legal arsenal, however good this may be, but rather specific measures to eliminate unemployment and exclusion. This is where we expect to see progress.
Mr President, we can write all we like about human rights and we can report and discuss the issue, but unless we follow through on our intentions and the reports, they are meaningless.
They gather dust on the shelves of the Commission and in the offices of well-meaning people and governments.
We must show leadership as must the media, educational institutions and the churches; they have not shown such leadership in the past.
Shame on us for ignoring Mozambique for so long and doing too little, too late.
We are a continent that is sending USD 2 billion worth of weapons to drought-stricken Ethiopia and we cannot find a couple of helicopters to send urgently to save people drowning in Mozambique.
It is a real shame on us and the other European institutions that we cannot respond to these kinds of disasters.
Shame on us for allowing the children of Iraq to die at the rate of 5 000 a month.
Half a million have died since the introduction of sanctions.
There continues to be a barbarous war in Iraq.
Bombing continues ruthlessly and unreported.
It is a war against children and the innocent citizens of that country.
We should intervene with the Security Council individually and collectively to ensure that medicines are delivered to the people.
Shame on us for allowing the sale of arms and weapons to the Great Lakes region.
Shame on us in the European Union for not stamping out racism and xenophobia which are endemic in my country and in the EU in general.
Racism is a crime - a crime that is not pursued in the Union, an offence against a law that is not enforced in the Union.
It is something we have a great responsibility to do something about.
We are not doing anything whatsoever about it.
The citizens of this Union are our judges and juries.
Unless we show them leadership and a sense of purpose, a sense of direction, they will make their judgements in the coming years.
We will have failed them unless we tackle racism and xenophobia in the European Union.
I want to say to my government that we must do the same at home in Ireland.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Belder on his sound report which deals with the fight against racism, xenophobia and antisemitism in the candidate countries.
This all revolves around the kind of philosophy on man and society people take their inspiration from, and Mr Belder has presented his in no uncertain terms.
The report is based on the notion of the unity of the human species, a Christian teaching which forms a firm barrier against any lapses of a racist nature.
Man could be seen as being created in the image of God.
This should make it impossible to see one' s fellow man as a threat or to harm his dignity.
Mr Belder quite clearly does not pursue the ideology, which is termed conservative by some, which defends the identity of communities against cultural influences from outside.
An ideology of this kind, which overestimates the sense of community, contains insufficient guarantees against tendencies towards discrimination.
I condemn such a conservative ideology.
The candidate Member States expect the European Union to be a constitutional community based on the common acceptance of values which are mostly of a Jewish-Christian origin.
It is only logical that we should observe these values.
This does not always accord with their and our gut reactions but that is - like it or not - the trademark of sound principles. They do not always turn out to be to our advantage.
People have to overcome their fears and short-term interests.
We need to help the candidate Member States in a critical, yet constructive, way and not be afraid to call a spade a spade.
The Belder report contains a few concrete pointers in this respect.
Churches, trade unions, women' s organisations, occupational training courses and other educational institutions, in particular, play a decisive role in this.
My Group did not have any reason to table any more amendments.
With regard to Mrs Ludford' s report, I belong to a minority in my Group who do not consider the report' s shortcomings serious enough to vote against it.
It is true that proposals on voting rights for foreigners do not fit in at all in a report on xenophobia, but we do agree on the principle of drafting a recommendation in this respect.
I have subscribed to this practice in the Netherlands for some 25 years, starting with the South Moluccans.
I have no problem at all with providing them with government jobs.
This may not be an ideological issue for me, but if you have a look at the EU delegations abroad, they are teeming with foreigners in EU service, even in sensitive functions.
Governments do well to give ethnic minorities a visible presence in police forces, for example.
In my opinion, it is extremely impractical to restrict the options in this respect, and I certainly do not want to see this become a requirement.
What interest would be served in doing so?
If the Ludford report is not changed for the worse by amendments, the minority which I represent here will vote for this report.
Mr President, although the debate is not yet finished, I would nevertheless like to take the opportunity to thank my colleagues for their comments and support and also for the fruitful cooperation we have experienced in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy while working on this report.
Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, after this debate, it should be crystal clear that the issue of human rights is not just something to talk about on Sundays while wearing your Sunday best.
Human rights must be integrated into all political cooperation that the EU is involved in.
We need consistency, patience and a well thought-out strategy for turning noble words into concrete action that leads to results.
I hope that the message has got through and that, in this House, we will soon receive specific proposals from the Council on how we can take this work forward together.
Mr President, although we are moving in the right direction, not everything in the garden is rosy.
For example, some States do not respect the basic right to education and the use of one' s own language.
In the Basque Country, where, despite the problems we face, we can choose the language of our children' s education, the Spanish Supreme Court has declared that it is illegal for local authorities to join together to promote the development of the language, in a clear example of how legal interpretations can be forced through as a result of political intentions and of how not all rights are respected here and now in the European Union.
How can we justify our habit of talking about human rights in places thousands of kilometres away while at home we do the opposite and vary our positions according to commercial and political interests?
Chirac speaks of the rights of the Inuits in Quebec, but ignores linguistic rights in France.
He condemns Jospin for calling Hezbollah by its name while he pontificates about other types of organisations and prides himself on his anti-terrorist cooperation with Spain.
The Spanish Prime Minister speaks of Chechnya as if it were an internal affair, thereby clearly allying himself with the extermination of the Chechen people.
This approach to politics, based on pure hypocrisy, is entirely unacceptable to us.
Finally, for the Basque citizens whom I represent, there can be no excuses based on internal affairs or on political opportunism.
For us there are simply, here and elsewhere, people, citizens, with unalienable rights on which we wish to base our coexistence.
The Italian Constitution solemnly bans the former kings of the House of Savoy, their consorts and male descendants from entering or residing on Italian territory.
The Italian Constitution is the result of the great historical agreement between all the democratic forces which fought against fascism and to liberate Italy during the Second World War.
It is intolerable that the European Parliament should ask us to breach the provisions of this Constitution, which is one of the most democratic and advanced Constitutions in the world.
In this regard, it should be remembered that the House of Savoy not only welcomed the fascist dictatorship and supported the fascist attack on democratic Spain and the fascist imperialist war against Ethiopia, but that it also permitted the alliance with Hitler' s racist regime, going so far as to apply the shameful anti-Semitic laws in Italy.
Once Italy and the whole of Europe had been caught up in the catastrophe of the Second World War, the royal family fled from Rome and shamefully abandoned the Italian troops to their fate, leaving them without orders or leaders at the time of the armistice with the allied forces.
Moreover, the House of Savoy has never acknowledged the sovereignty of the Republic or the irrevocable nature of the decision to create a Republic, which is enshrined in the Constitution.
Mr President, we have no hesitation or uncertainty in rejecting the request, which is unexpected in this context, to breach the Italian Constitution.
We have no hesitation in reiterating that there is no room in my country for the descendants of the former kings of Italy.
Mr President, the Ludford and Haarder reports clearly show the vigour with which some people seem to be trying to mimic the United States of America in its less useful contributions to the development of society.
I have identified three particularly characteristic points.
We are invited to achieve a more ethnically diverse workforce which will require, in the first instance, all staff to be identified by ethnic origin.
I, for example, am of Parisian origin and I am concerned about how we can be sufficiently represented in the EU bodies and about how we can practically establish records on ethnic origin which will allow this ethnic diversity to be monitored.
We will have to establish controlled records or, in other words, conduct a policy of racial discrimination of the masochistic type known as positive discrimination.
We are also invited to recognise all the new religious communities and to afford them the same rights and the same existence as the religions of the Bible.
This unfortunately echoes a decision taken yesterday by the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg which gives the Church of Scientology the satisfaction of being treated like all European religions.
Finally, it is suggested that we give homosexual couples the same rights as families.
You are forgetting that families obtain their rights from the State and from the nations clearly because they allow the State and the nations to continue in existence and because they have a common interest.
Mr President, as usual each spring, between the flowering of the plum and cherry trees, we are treated to a fashion show of the latest moral and intellectual campaigns in the fight against Satan, his vanities and his works or, to use the accepted expression, against xenophobia, racism and antisemitism.
As an academic, a teacher of the languages and civilisations of the Far East prior to my entry into politics and the former dean of a faculty where twenty-eight foreign languages and civilisations were taught, I do not regard myself as a xenophobe.
Yet I must say that all this supposedly antiracist talk has some common features, the first of which is intellectual invalidity and the second the destruction of liberty.
This talk is intellectually invalid because the terms used are not even defined. What are racism, xenophobia, nationalism and extremism?
What do these concepts cover?
What are their philosophical origins? What doctrines do they involve?
Do those accused of these acts deserve this opprobrium? No one knows or wants to know because, if these terms were defined, this would weaken their real purpose which is to paralyse hearts and minds by constant repetition of the same generalisations and by the threat of demonising those not stepping into line.
The aim is really to fraudulently make patriotic sentiment seem to be expansionist nationalism, the legitimate refusal of migration policy to be xenophobia and the desire of nations to preserve their identity to be racism.
This is completely absurd.
Racism is the desire to achieve the domination of one race over another.
Who is racist in Europe nowadays? Xenophobia is the rejection of a foreign presence.
You can morally condemn this but, politically speaking, you should consider that, in its literal meaning, xenophobia is the source of all the national liberation movements which we have praised at other times.
As for antisemitism which is apparently re-emerging in Europe, why not ask the real questions? The proposition made in a book by the left-wing philosopher, Jean­Paul Sartre, according to which the Jew is basically an artificial creation of the antisemite is clearly false, like the rest of this philosopher' s thinking.
However, could the opposite proposition not be true, namely that certain Jewish circles need antisemitism in order to exist, to strengthen their identity and even to assert their moral, political and even financial authority?
This is exactly what is stated by certain intellectually honest and courageous Jews who go so far as to deplore the perverse reminders of the only persecution of the Jews during the Second World War, known globally under the vague and religious term of 'Shoah' . These daily, obsessive, exclusive and sometimes frenzied reminders of this persecution are for political and financial purposes which no longer have any connection with the worship of the dead and their remembrance.
Yet the problem with this supposed antiracism is not its search for truth or even its support for migrants ... Mr Schulz, my family never accepted any German capo.
This will not start with you! ... It is rather a question of nipping in the bud any vague desires which nations might have to oppose the destruction of their identity.
The religion of antiracism has its dogmas, its priests, its inquisitors and its witch-hunts.
History will roundly condemn the protagonists of this shameful ideology which we are proud to fight at any time.
The English philosopher John Locke once said that a country without law is a country without freedom.
Fifty years after the signing of the European Convention on Human Rights, twenty years after the Helsinki Final Act, ten years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and one year after the coming into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, there are constitutional provisions remaining in the heart of Europe which belong to the medieval age - provisions which have no place in a modern Europe.
For instance, Victor Emmanuel of Italy was forced to leave his native Italy as an uncomprehending nine-year old child, and for fifty-three years has been unable to return.
If he sails from his home in Corsica in the direction of Italian territorial waters, coastguards are mobilised using modern satellite technology instructing him with loudspeakers to turn back.
His twenty-eight-year-old son has only been to Italy once when his plane was diverted to Milan airport because of bad weather.
The plane was surrounded by police guards and he was told not to step off the plane.
What has he got to do with what his great-grandfather did during the Fascist era? 80% of Italians in a recent poll believe these people should be allowed to return without restrictions.
Neither represent any conceivable threat to the Italian State.
This is not, as some have tried to claim, an issue affecting only a few people; it goes to the heart of the European Union's commitment to respect the Convention on Human Rights, to its own Treaties and to the rule of law.
There is much talk of a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Such talk will ring exceedingly hollow if this Parliament does not first do all it can to address existing Treaty violations.
I speak as someone with a deep and abiding love for Italy and its people, but I say here to you today, and to President Ciampi of Italy, that Italy had neither the moral nor the legal right to sign the Treaty of Amsterdam until it had removed this most blatant violation of the Convention from its own constitution.
This is also the case for Austria where Otto von Habsburg was required to deny his own identity and renounce rights belonging to him and to members of his family to enter Austria.
The rights under the Treaty are not conditional in my view.
The Treaty does not discriminate against individual families and the Treaty is therefore violated.
The right to enter, live and die in your own country are fundamental, sacrosanct rights and I hope that this Parliament will uphold them.
I therefore commend paragraphs 41 and 42 to this House.
Mr President, respect for human rights is one of the European Union' s cornerstones.
That is what it says in the Treaties and that is what we keep reminding each other of.
It is therefore to be welcomed that every year, the European Parliament issues a report on respecting human rights within the European Union itself.
Although I did not join the European Parliament until last year, I happen to know that the handling of this annual human rights report has, over the past couple of years, always met with a great deal of political commotion and confusion.
The commotion is justified, given the nature of the topic, but the confusion is not.
I am therefore particularly delighted that this year, a report has been produced which is very well balanced and to the point, except for one single industrial accident which Mr Schulz has already mentioned and with regard to which we are having to sit and witness some rather despicable displays at times.
Fortunately, we can show our disagreement by drumming our fingers on our tables.
Apart from this, I would like to extend warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Bertel Haarder, for the huge commitment he has shown and the constructive cooperation which I have received from him as shadow rapporteur for the socialist group.
Thanks to our discussions, I have gained a much deeper insight into the complexity of the matter and I would especially praise him here in public for his openness.
As far as the content of the report is concerned, I would like to outline a few topics.
Is it not rather ironic that it is precisely asylum and migration issues, which are at the very top of the political agenda in Europe, that have been echoed so clearly in this report? Should, in fact, the European policy on asylum and migration not lead to fewer human rights violations in this field?
To ask the question is to answer it. It is wise to remain vigilant when it comes to observing human rights of the extensive minorities in Europe.
People from these groups, more often than not economically vulnerable, run the considerable risk of becoming victims of discrimination.
The reality is that millions of people live in poverty in our rich and privileged Europe.
The report quite rightly describes this issue of poverty and disadvantage in terms of human rights, and this seems to be a step in the right direction.
The report also devotes attention to the issue of the equal treatment of men and women and the equal treatment of different types of relation and life styles, more so than in previous years.
Free choices which people make in their private lives, and which do not harm anybody, should be honoured, with respect for diversity and with a guarantee of the principle of equal treatment.
As is evident from the amendments, the battle is not over yet, not by a long shot.
Mr President, there are still many people, some of which are in this House if this debate is anything to go by, who would like to give preferential treatment to marriage and family and, as such, openly insult and discriminate against anyone making a different choice in their private lives.
My Group, on the other hand, considers the principle of equality sacrosanct. After all, human rights are there for everybody.
Mr President, I should like to express my thanks for the broad support given to the main features of this report.
Human rights are, of course, indivisible and independent of political parties and national borders. It is therefore important that we in this Parliament should obtain broad agreement on this issue, for a right cannot, of course, be universal if half of Parliament is opposed to it.
I should especially like to thank Mrs Swiebel, both for her friendly words today and for the intense collaboration which we have had and which has naturally given her considerable influence.
I should like to tell her that I am also delighted to vote for the further amendments which she has tabled and which we shall be voting on tomorrow.
I should also, however, like to thank Mr Pirker and Mrs Palacio.
I should like to express my gratitude for the broad agreement we have obtained in connection with this report.
I think this is commendable, especially this year when human rights have been so high on the agenda of the European Union.
Finally, I would say to Mr Krarup that he must withdraw his expression of delight at the change in paragraph 61, because this was an error pure and simple.
There are ten words missing from the Danish version.
If he reads the English version, he will be able to see what the wording should be.
Mr President, in the present report China has been subjected to criticism.
I agree with this criticism, despite the fact that, as chairman of the Delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China, I risk receiving yet another protest letter from Beijing asking whether the European Parliament is waging a hostile campaign against China.
Based on the reports from Mrs Malmström and Mr Haarder I can answer emphatically: " No, we are not waging a campaign against China, but for human rights - everywhere" .
The reports direct criticism towards twenty or so countries outside Europe and towards almost all EU and candidate countries.
In fact, I am considering sending the reports to the EU committee of the National People's Congress in Beijing and suggesting that they do something similar.
How about a self-critical report from the National People's Congress on human rights in China and a report on human rights in the world and in the EU, as seen from a Chinese point of view? In actual fact, of course, we do need to discuss human rights with China.
Then the Chinese will have to discuss and not just protest.
Mr President, what concerns us in particular is the hypocritical and selective manner in which human rights are applied during the exercise of the European Union' s external policy, especially as a pretext for justifying intervention, including military intervention.
At the same time, the European Union turns a blind eye to situations in which human rights are being savagely violated when, of course, it comes to protecting its imperialistic interests.
Its attitude towards the Turkish regime is a blatant example.
The recent and continuing invasion in Kosovo, using the rights of minorities as a pretext, and the unbelievable demands being made on Yugoslavia are a typical example of how military intervention is being advanced as a general principle of international law at the expense of the principle of national sovereignty.
Furthermore, the policy being exercised by the European Union at home basically violates a series of fundamental human rights.
Political and social rights are being hit and individual rights and democratic freedoms are being trampled underfoot.
The results of this policy are already visible in the support being given to extremist, racist, Fascist powers, and not just in Austria.
And yet the report on the fight against racism does not demonstrate that the necessary conclusions have been drawn.
We call on the people to step up their fight to stop their self-proclaimed saviours trampling on the rights for which they have fought hard and made sacrifices, and to reverse the current trend, which only serves the interests of those who are exploiting them.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Haarder whose excellent work I would describe as well-balanced, measured and well thought out.
Furthermore, since I have had the honour of working with him on previous annual reports on human rights, I know how difficult it is.
I hope that he receives the broad support of this House that he has asked for. He deserves it.
Mr President, at the beginning of his first intervention, Mr Haarder said that Europe did not invent human rights, and that is true.
However, what does characterise Europe is the fact that, having moved them from the private realm into the public realm by making them actionable, it has made human rights the flag, the distinguishing mark which characterises us as Europeans.
We have talked about the defence of these human rights and I would now like to insist that if we proclaim human rights, it naturally follows that we must ensure that those rights can be exercised.
I support all the points that have been made and I would like to add another. I am talking about those people who cannot exercise their rights because they are under pressure from certain quarters, certain organisations.
I will give just one example.
Recently, the members of the Foro de Ermua [Ermua Forum] visited us and I would like to remind the House that these members come from all sections of the political spectrum, ranging from left to right. They are intellectuals, they are men and women who live in the Basque Country and who cannot exercise their rights, their right to freedom of expression, because they constantly feel under pressure from Herri Batasuna, the political wing of ETA.
Just one more example: last Sunday the Basque people received an intimidating invitation not to turn out to vote.
Fortunately, Basque society voted en masse, displaying the courage which is so essential in that environment.
Mr President, I will end as I began: this House must state loud and clear that the most important element of respecting human rights is the defence of the exercise of those rights - in full - in all cases and particularly in the face of those forces and organisations which hinder freedom of expression.
Mr President, I want to speak for a few moments on the Ludford report on countering racism in the European Union.
This is a very important topic.
It is crucial for the construction of a peaceful and harmonious Europe, a Europe united in its objective and at ease with itself and its citizens.
That is certainly what we, on this side of the House, believe.
That is what this report aims to do.
But the EPP it seems, and others opposite, clearly do not want that.
We heard a few moments ago a disgraceful speech from Mr Gollnisch on behalf of his party.
Mrs Palacio, who is just leaving, has said that human rights are needed in a public place and at the core.
And yet, by their amendments to the Ludford report, they seek to divide Europe and to make millions of our brothers and sisters from the ethnic minorities second-class citizens.
That is the clear aim of the amendments in the name of Mr Hernandez Mollar and his colleagues and this is consistent throughout all the amendments on behalf of the EPP - the so-called European People's Party - which actually reveals itself in its amendments as a party for some of the people but not all of them.
The EPP's amendments seek to divide families.
They object to family unity.
Their Amendment No 12 seeks to delete reference to the need for family unity in Europe.
The EPP, it seems, do not accept that ethnic minorities feel alienated from the electoral process.
They do not feel that the European Parliament and national parliaments should reflect Europe's diverse ethnic nature.
That is the aim of Amendment No 13.
It deletes that from the report.
They are against ethnic diversity and they do not accept the benefits given to our society by all its people.
They do not accept that everyone has a part to play in the electoral process.
We cannot complain about what is going on in the candidate states if we have amendments like this being put forward in the European Union.
Nor, it seems, does the EPP believe that ethnic minorities should be encouraged to vote.
Their Amendment No 21 deletes the call for encouragement to the ethnic minority to take part in elections to vote or stand as candidates.
Is that what we want?
I do not think it is. We, on this side of the House, reject that position completely.
We will publicise the EPP position and their amendments whether they are passed or not.
We deplore the line that Mr Hernandez Mollar and his colleague have put forward.
We urge the Liberal Group to dissociate themselves from their links with the EPP over the amendments because it has shown itself to have racist instincts in its party.
Should the EPP amendments to this report be adopted we will oppose the whole report.
The EPP amendments weaken the report and would make the position of this Parliament worse than at the moment.
It would make it so weak that it would be one that we could not support.
It would be a retrograde step.
So, I urge all colleagues to reject the amendments put forward by the European People's Party and their colleagues on the far right.
Mr President, I thank all those who have spoken on my report.
I should just like to clear up a few misunderstandings.
Firstly, nowhere does this report say that fighting racism means you should have no immigration controls.
It says that such controls should not be racially discriminatory and should avoid fuelling xenophobic attitudes or hostility to ethnic minorities.
The references to enhanced rights for third country nationals means, of course, rights for those who are legally resident.
Secondly, on religion and identity, there is an assertion that there is no exclusivity.
I agree with Mr Schulz.
Christianity has been an important contributor to European values but it does not hold a monopoly on them.
Thirdly, reference has been made to quotas.
Nowhere in this report are quotas mentioned.
As a liberal I am opposed to quotas.
Fourthly, on Austria, the assertion is made that we should not mention Austria because of the time-frame of the report.
This report is the annual debate on racism in the year 2000.
It refers to where we are now.
I welcome the remarks of Mr Oostlander, and I welcome his support for the report.
As a gesture of goodwill I will be accepting five small amendments from the EPP, though incidentally none of those mentioned by Mr Evans.
I very much hope that more members of the EPP/ED Group will support this report.
Mr President, what has not been stressed sufficiently thus far in the debate I believe is democracy and subsidiarity.
Many of the atrocities in the Balkans that we spoke of earlier and much of the racism and antisemitism is because communities everywhere have not been allowed the ability, in line with the concept of subsidiarity, to develop within their own communities the democracy that people need everywhere if they are to evolve and create within their own regions and nations, the social rights, justice, respect for minorities, coexistence of different people and respect for every race and people.
Article 3b of the Maastricht Treaty, President, still confines subsidiarity to the relationship between the European Union and the Member States.
Regions and stateless nations are ignored.
People within their own communities therefore suffer.
They are unable to establish the structures they need so that human rights can prosper and the blight of racism can be forever removed.
In own nation, Wales, for example, we have no empowerment to establish our own laws to counter racism and defend human rights.
The principles of cohesion and the drive to limit poverty and depravity in our communities are a well-settled concept in the European Union.
However, it must encompass respect for minorities everywhere if it to inspire the world in its drive towards defeating racism and defending human rights.
A heartfelt thank you to the rapporteurs for their work.
More and more, we need to follow our words with actions.
Disrespect for human rights, racism, xenophobia and antisemitism are not confined to other continents, but are also present here, within ourselves, our lives and our institutions.
Even in this Parliament, fascist and xenophobic opinions are expressed.
We must start with ourselves if we want to build a world where everyone helps each other.
We will be able to intervene more effectively in countries which deny the existence of human and social rights - whether these are the rights of Kurds, Palestinians, Chechens or the rights of Afghan women - if we avoid hypocrisy.
Europe is full of Haiders.
We are Haiders when, to give the minor example of an incident which took place in Rome last week, Bosnian Roma refugees are deported with the approval of the mayor and sent back without aid to places of conflict; children and mothers, brothers and sisters separated, without even the time to gather together any belongings to take with them; children born in Italy snatched away from their schools where they have become integrated and made good friends with the other pupils.
We are Haiders when, in Rome, parties of the right-wing opposition and the new centre incite the people to hatred and prevent the authorities from accommodating the Roma safely in places with running water and electricity.
And this does not mean that I do not condemn the unlawful behaviour of many Roma and other immigrants.
I would like to be able to share with everyone my conviction that, in our countries, no one is a stranger.
For this reason I give my full support to the proposals contained in the resolutions which promote and lend support to all those elements which contribute to a culture of peaceful coexistence and all-embracing citizenship.
Mr President, I should like to concentrate mainly on certain aspects of the Belder report, which contains an excellent analysis of the current situation in the candidate countries.
As far as these candidates are concerned, and this has already been said, we must avoid creating the impression that we demand higher standards of them than we meet ourselves.
We should compare the actual situation in these countries with the reality in our own countries rather than with our perfect legal texts, otherwise the candidate countries will always come off worse in practice.
Certainly nobody contests the fact that candidate countries which, for example, only acquired their independence recently, such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have the right to redefine and articulate their own national identity first.
As the Communist dictatorship under which they previously suffered obviously did not foster a culture of pluralist debate, many forms of expression of national identity appear to us to be overstretched or even to be directed, indirectly, against minorities within the country or in one or more neighbouring countries.
We should not look down from our high moral horse and condemn this phenomenon as long as it is only a question of temporary manifestations on the path towards self-definition.
However, we should give these countries en route to the EU the specific support that they require so that the self-awareness which they need to find is not based first and foremost on negative restrictions on minorities or neighbours.
I should like to use the situation in Estonia and Latvia as an example of a positive development between two sections of the population which is by no means self-evident.
It is not self-evident given their history of illegal occupation and deportation and the politically motivated transfer of people into their countries, accompanied by the suppression of every expression of national self-determination up to the end of the 1980s.
The fact that the Russian tanks which withdrew in 1994 were often daubed with the words "We' ll be back!" did little to foster understanding between the Baltic states and Russia.
And yet, despite this history, there has not been one single incident of violent clashes between the majority and minority sections of the population since they regained independence.
We should therefore voice to the Estonians and Latvians our express recognition of the fact that they have managed to keep a cool head and that they are receptive to our arguments when it comes to adapting their legislation in this area to European standards.
I therefore take the view that the express call to continue measures to integrate the Russian minority contained in point 14 of the Belder report is unnecessary.
This is already happening.
This express reference creates the erroneous impression that this is not the case.
Madam President, it is a fact that over recent years, as immigration has increased, a climate of prejudice has started to creep in, racial violence has become more and more frequent and even political parties have been set up on the basis of racist ideology.
In other words, a social climate is developing - and it made its appearance in a wing of our House this morning - which suggests that the protection of human dignity, respect for those who are different, democratic values and social solidarity have not yet been fully mastered.
Our action to foster respect for human rights and create a fair society of creative coexistence therefore needs to be examined against a backdrop of policies and measures which seek to improve economic and social conditions for everyone and combat unemployment, poverty and social exclusion.
The new multicultural Europe needs a policy which ensures that immigrants and different social groups and minorities are integrated into the social, political and economic life of national societies.
What we need is a common European asylum and immigration policy based on European humanitarian values.
Of course, the education sector is also important and we need huge improvements in education for the children of immigrants and gypsies.
At the same time, the mass media need to help fight prejudices and to demonstrate the beauty of modern multicoloured, multicultural society.
Of course, within this framework, respect for those who are conscientious objectors, for example, and who do not therefore wish to serve in the army, should be guaranteed.
I should like to take this opportunity of assuring the European Parliament that the problem which used to exist in Greece no longer exists, following the adoption and application of legislation on 1.1.98.
The reference in question, therefore, in Mr Haarder' s otherwise excellent report, is therefore irrelevant today.
I must protest about the use by the United States of America of the death penalty on an almost industrial scale. This is the most powerful country in the world which claims to embody the cutting edge of civilisation.
Regardless of the risk of judicial error, a society which uses this machinery of the law to knowingly and coldly perpetrate such a barbaric act, in order to wreak revenge for vile and barbaric acts committed by individuals, can only be regarded as behaving in a way which is worse than that which it condemns. The abolition of the death penalty worldwide is the very least that we should be calling for if we really want to defend human rights.
The condemned sometimes await their execution for many years in American prisons.
I must particularly highlight the threat of execution hanging over Leonard Peltier and Mumia Abu-Jamal who are both victims of the machinations of a police force and legal system riddled with racism. In truth, they have both been condemned to death for their political ideas.
Having respectively suffered 26 and 18 years of this vile torture of waiting on death row, they must immediately be set free.
As it is now time for the votes, we shall suspend the joint debate and it shall resume at 3 p.m.
Vote
Thank you, Mr Lannoye. This is totally clear.
After the vote:
Madam President, I would like to point out a mistake in translation in Amendments Nos 18 and 30.
This has already been notified to the relevant linguistic services, and it has also been mentioned here in the voting list that was distributed to us, but I would like to remind everyone of the matter, so that it is taken into account when people vote.
Quite right, Mrs Myller. I am informed that the Translation Department is already aware of these errors.
We can therefore point these out at the appropriate moment.
Before the vote on Amendment No 18
In both Amendment No 18 and No 30 it should read "critical loads should not be exceeded" .
In place of the word 'exceeded' it says 'reached' , which is the opposite.
Thank you. Everyone is now clear on this.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on the Special European Council to be held in Lisbon on 23/24 March 2000
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I would be most grateful if we could lay Mrs Caroline Jackson' s resolution to rest in the Committee on the Environment; we could take care of it in three or four minutes.
I would be most grateful if we do that right now.
I feel that we should not spend any more time on this.
I will therefore put this to the House.
Madam President, please note that the French socialists in the House will not take part in the vote as we consider that the tabled motion is not impartial.
We do want the environmental directives to be applied and integrated into European policies but this must involve all the directives and not just the Natura 2000 and migratory birds directives.
We also consider that the application of directives is the responsibility of the law, the Commission and the Court of Justice.
We do not therefore wish to take part in this vote which we regard as partisan.
We do not in fact yet know whether we will be voting on this motion this morning as I was going to put this to the House.
Madam President, I would like to remind you that you said that the previous vote would be the last one, and I would also like to point out that this resolution, which is the result of an unfortunate accumulation of two oral questions, in violation of the Rules of Procedure and normal practice, is causing complicated problems in all of the Groups and I do not believe that this is the best way to deal with it.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must think about this carefully.
I did say clearly, at the start of voting time, that we would go as far as the motion for a resolution on the European Council in Lisbon.
I said that we would end at 1.15 p.m. and we have respected this timetable.
We should keep to what was decided.
Madam President, I disagree with this decision.
The House is free to decide if it wishes to vote on this now or not and I would therefore request that we take a vote on whether to vote.
(The President put the proposal to the House which decided to end voting time)
Madam President, I did not want to interrupt the voting when I arrived a little bit late.
Could we request that the bells be rung a little bit earlier? People on the twelfth floor had extreme difficulty getting here for the vote as the lift stopped on every single floor and we could not make it any quicker.
The lift was full of Vice-Presidents, Quaestors and all sorts of people coming down from the twelfth floor.
Madam President, by tabling amendments to the chocolate directive, we have tried to offer better protection to those consumers who would like to know whether they are buying real chocolate or a product which, instead of cocoa butter, also contains fats of another origin.
However, these amendments were not adopted, unfortunately.
As a consequence, we remain concerned about the third-world cocoa producers.
We predict that, despite any improvements for the benefit of producers of other vegetable fats, the overall outcome will, in any case, be harmful to the third world.
It is regrettable that the study into the impact of the new directive for the countries in the South was not carried out earlier.
From now on, chocolate is no longer a product which consists of nothing but cocoa butter.
In some parts of the Union, the name 'chocolate' was already used, even if the product contained substitute products.
We regret that the standardisation we have achieved is to the detriment of the consumer and the cocoa producer, and was dictated by the pursuit of profit.
Madam President, the traditional dictionary definition of chocolate is a foodstuff made from cocoa beans roasted or ground with sugar, vanilla and other seasonings. Yet it seems that another definition is now emerging.
This states that chocolate is the former name for an authentic, healthy and quality product, produced in its day according to ancestral tradition and to which some delightfully outdated nostalgia-seekers are still attached.
This new definition goes on to say that this name is now used to designate a black, brown or white product, or one of any other colour, made with vegetable or industrial fats, or in fact anything else provided that the end result finds a market and preferably a world one at that.
This is the essence of the new directive before us today, if applied to the letter, which could end up replacing the definition of chocolate as we know it.
Clearly, the alternative products are a speciality of the industrial lobby which seems to have inspired this amazing directive.
Once again it seems that the law of business or, in other words, the law of the strongest has been preferred over the protection of consumers, SMEs and our craftsmen ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, given the disastrous vote just now on the chocolate issue, I must say that I am not particularly proud of what we have approved.
It should be pointed out that the European Parliament has taken responsibility for altering the very composition of chocolate by allowing the introduction of vegetable oils and fats other than cocoa butter.
The European Parliament is clearly not in tune with public opinion in several respects.
Firstly, its position does not correspond to the demands of consumers who want clear labelling.
We have not granted them this labelling on chocolate.
Parliament is also not in tune with public opinion which is becoming increasingly reticent about GMOs.
We have rightly refused to allow GMOs in chocolate, but only by three votes.
In addition, we have applied the precautionary principle by refusing the prior studies on the impact which this directive will have on the producing countries and so on.
Nothing has changed.
The question to be asked is who really benefits from the manipulation and ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I taste sweet victory for British chocolate producers in our vote today in their fight to have good British chocolate recognised across Europe as the delicious, high-quality product that it is.
The victors are not just British chocolate makers but chocolate consumers right across Europe who will now be free to wallow in the delight of Dairy Milk, Galaxy and Milky Way at will.
Clear labelling will enable consumers to choose and enjoy the chocolate that they want.
Their taste buds will no longer be deprived by Europe's chocolate police.
Developing countries are also the victors.
This legislation takes account of the needs of the world's poorest farmers.
Those vegetable fats permitted will be of tropical origin, and there will also be a review of the impact of the directive after three years.
Best of all, the directive will increase chocolate sales overall, thereby increasing the market for developing countries' exports.
So chocoholics can now munch safe in the knowledge they are doing their bit for the Third World.
I am sure you will agree that the EU, in the past, has got itself into a right Twix on this matter.
Some governments have got their Snickers in a twist trying to protect their chocolate industries.
For them, however, Crunchie time has come and they now have Creme Egg on their faces.
It is high time the European Parliament gave two Cadbury's Fingers to the chocolate snobs.
- It is now sixteen years since the debate on chocolate started in the European Parliament.
I believe that we should not even have become involved in this directive.
Debates about national tastes and products give us too far wide a sphere for ridiculous discussions.
Consumer choice will be exercised regardless of what the EU does, and that is only fair.
National chauvinism has been all too often evident in the chocolate debate.
The European Commission' s directive authorising certain vegetable fats which are cheaper than cocoa butter to be used in the composition of chocolate clearly serves the interests of the five multinationals which share three-quarters of the European market.
Given that the resultant product incorrectly referred to as chocolate will not be any cheaper, consumers will not gain in the purchase price what they will lose in transparency with regard to the nature of the product.
Although we do not share the protectionist concerns hiding behind the defence of 'real chocolate' , we do not see any reason to vote for the Commission directive.
After more than two years of prevarication, the Council finally adopted in October 1999 a common position on the directive relating to cocoa and chocolate products.
As it stands, this text does not allow the interests of consumers, small-scale chocolate makers or cocoa producers to be protected. It also does not guarantee the quality of chocolate.
Instead it allows the widespread use of vegetables fats other than cocoa butter, fails to provide precise information to the consumer and attaches little importance to the absence of a reliable method of analysing and measuring the fats present in chocolate.
This proposal in no way responds to the concerns expressed by MEPs during the vote at first reading on 23 October 1998.
This text opens the door to the industrial production of cocoa butter equivalents based on palm oil, the price of which is significantly lower than that of cocoa.
Its adoption could lead to a dramatic fall in income for the eleven million people earning a living from cocoa in West Africa and for all the producing regions.
To help us swallow this bitter pill, an attempt has been made to give the text a social aftertaste by claiming that it defends the interests of the poorest shea butter producing countries such as Mali or Burkina Faso.
However, there is no guarantee that the chocolate industry will use shea nut oil which, in any case, can only replace 50% of the cocoa butter.
This is a largely artificial conflict between cocoa producers and shea producers, between poor countries and even poorer countries.
In reality, this proposed directive mainly reflects the position of the chocolate multinationals and defends only their interests with any certainty.
I am therefore not happy about this.
This is why I fully support the amendments which place greater importance on the concerns of small-scale chocolate makers, the interests of consumers and the future of millions of small-scale cocoa producers.
Firstly I must congratulate the rapporteur on his tenacity in this 'chocolate' issue.
Next I will sketch the broad outlines of this issue.
In 1996, the European Commission proposed amending the 1973 directive which authorised the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark to derogate from the applicable rules by replacing part of the cocoa butter in chocolate with other vegetable fats up to a maximum of 5% of the total weight.
With the accession of new Member States, the number of countries authorising vegetable fats other than cocoa butter increased to seven with the addition of Finland - which authorises 10% - Austria, Portugal and Sweden.
The eight other Member States - Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands - ban vegetable fats.
The current proposal therefore aims to give Member States the option of authorising the addition of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter to chocolate products up to a maximum of 5% of the total weight of the finished product.
This has clearly succeeded in causing some occasionally stormy debates and has particularly revived legitimate concerns among consumers.
The latter felt particularly threatened some years ago when Europe, through certain harmonisation directives, tried to impose 'Euro-products' on us and they have demonstrated their desire to defend their culinary traditions.
A campaign has subsequently developed to promote food quality at the same time as food diversity.
In this case, although it is indisputable that Member States using vegetable fats instead of cocoa butter should be entitled to market their products, the question is whether these can be legitimately marketed under the name 'chocolate' .
The replacement of cocoa butter with other vegetable fats raises a question about protecting the very nature of chocolate.
Adequate guarantees must therefore be provided for both consumers and cocoa producers.
We must demand the following:
a method of analysis allowing the exact content of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter to be determined.
This requirement was not specified by the European Commission and has unfortunately not been included in the Council' s common position. However, I still believe that this is an essential condition to ensure respect for the 5% rule;
very explicit wording intended for consumers so that they can buy chocolate in full knowledge of the facts;
the reservation of the name 'quality chocolate' for products which contain cocoa butter;
the restriction of alternative vegetable fats to tropical fats not obtained using enzymatic production processes and not originating from genetic engineering;
a study into the impact of such a measure on the export of cocoa by developing countries.
I support these demands which are contained in the amendments tabled by the rapporteur.
I myself am a consumer who is concerned about the quality and taste of traditional chocolate.
I also believe that consumer protection policy, elevated to the rank of a Community policy, does not just involve food safety and the protection of health.
It must aim to promote quality food which is part of a more general philosophy of quality of life!
This proposed directive dating from 1996 is connected with the harmonisation of the internal market. The Commission is therefore giving Member States the option to authorise the addition of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter to chocolate products up to a maximum of 5% of the total weight of the finished product.
The directive also provides for the marketing of these chocolate products containing vegetable fats in all Member States, subject to a label which lists the ingredients.
I agree with the rapporteur that we should go back to the text adopted at first reading in this House in 1997 and that we should not authorise this addition and this marketing. I still believe that the name 'quality chocolate' should be reserved for chocolate which does not contain any alternative vegetable fats.
A study into the impact of such a measure on developing countries' cocoa exports should be recommended. Finally, I still want clear and precise labelling for consumers.
This is a position of principle which is not really open to negotiation, just like the protection of quality products and consumers which we all are.
This is why I encourage this House to vote for the amendments tabled by our rapporteur and, in so doing, to take a stand against the position of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
This is all cock-eyed.
In a Europe which claims to want to protect the consumer and which talks of quality and authenticity labels, here we have a common position from the Council which aims to change the nature of what has, up to now, been a quality product, namely chocolate, rather than upset the food multinationals.
What is even more astonishing is that this same Europe produces mad cows, sheep with scrapie and chickens containing dioxin and imports hormone-treated beef and genetically modified cereals.
Of course we should 'inform' consumers that the products they are buying are adulterated.
Yet this is nonsensical when this information is written in small letters in an incomprehensible language on the back of the packaging.
You are accustomed to doing anything you like in the name of your dogmas, free movement, free competition and free trade.
Please stop messing about with our gastronomic traditions, our quality products and our soil.
Stop playing with our food.
Now that would be real progress.
Understand this. I and my colleagues on the European right will vote for the 'zero option' which is no vegetable fats other than cocoa butter in chocolate.
Who would have believed it?
More than twenty-five years after the first debate on chocolate in the European Parliament and I am again involved in a discussion on the big question of whether a product can be called chocolate when it is not made exclusively from cocoa butter.
Today, as twenty-five years ago, this question has divided this House to the point that my Group did not produce a voting list and group discipline could not be imposed, which I love in such a case.
I can therefore freely come out in favour of the solution which seems best to me for the producers of real chocolate, as appreciated by the gourmets who believe in calling a spade a spade and calling chocolate chocolate, provided that it is actually made with cocoa butter.
I deeply regret that we could not agree on the solution which seemed to me to be the most sensible which was that the name 'chocolate' should be reserved for products containing 100% of vegetable fats originating from cocoa and that the presence of other fats should be clearly indicated in the packaging of products containing these. In this way the consumer could be informed and not led astray, given of course that the marketing of these products in the single market would be guaranteed.
In terms of chocolate, as in other areas, different cultures and traditions exist.
Everyone has different tastes.
In addition to the 'product quality and taste' aspect there is, of course, the 'development policy' aspect. The ACP countries fear losses of income in the region of 160 million dollars if our large industrial chocolate producers use up to 5% of other vegetable fats, with this percentage being the recommended figure but not actually being verifiable.
The situation being as it is, I would have preferred the common position to be rejected in the same way that I prefer good handmade chocolate to an industrial product which is currently unverifiable.
Unfortunately, a small majority in this House has failed to ensure that consumers can enjoy real chocolate.
. (PT) We fundamentally reject the principle of allowing chocolate to be produced throughout the Member States using a percentage of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
This is for reasons connected with safeguarding the legitimate interests of cocoa-producing countries and also reasons relating to consumer protection.
It is quite clear that a step of this kind would inevitably have an adverse effect on cocoa-producing countries.
Furthermore, and this is the key reason for our views, consideration has not even been given to a study on the impact of such a measure on developing countries that produce cocoa.
At the same time, allowing up to 5% vegetable fats other than cocoa butter to be used in chocolate production sets a dangerous precedent, given that, in the long term, it may lead not just to the use of a higher percentage of these fats than set at present, but it may also open the way to chocolate being produced with other kinds of fat in future, including even genetically modified fats.
Furthermore, it is clear that there is still no reliable method for testing the quantity of such fats used in chocolate production, whilst there is no requirement for clear, compulsory labelling which would, as a minimum, allow consumers to distinguish real chocolate, which only uses cocoa butter, from chocolate whose ingredients include other fats.
This directive alters the very definition of chocolate which should, in our opinion, be made from cocoa butter and beans.
We do not have the right to mislead the consumer by using the name 'chocolate' to designate products which are not necessarily made from cocoa.
Consumers require clear and specific information.
They should no longer be deceived.
Today' s vote went beyond the problem of chocolate alone and has threatened the confidence of our fellow citizens.
This is why I voted for all the amendments which aimed to improve this directive and which were tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
- (DA) The basis for prosperity in the EU is competition.
And the intention in adopting a new directive on chocolate products is precisely to improve competition in the EU.
With regard to food policy and consumer protection, we must be very careful.
But this is not a question of health or environmental protection.
It is exclusively a question of the extent to which, without any risk to health, we are to permit free competition in the chocolate industry so that all chocolate producers can sell their chocolate in all EU countries and not only in the seven countries which have so far permitted the aforesaid vegetable fats.
Seen from the consumers' point of view, it is exclusively a question of taste.
It cannot therefore be right for politicians to decide what consumers should be entitled to choose between.
Products should be put on sale, and it should be clear what they contain, but otherwise we must rely upon consumers' own judgement.
We can hardly do otherwise.
Consumers should find out for themselves what tastes best.
If, today, we are obliged to note considerable opposition to the proposal here in Parliament, this cannot be viewed as anything other than an attempt on the part of certain chocolate manufacturers to curb competition.
If one looks at where the opposition is coming from, it is also clear that it crosses the Group divide and comes mainly from those countries which are already using current rules to protect their chocolate industries.
Despite the commendable efforts of Mr Lannoye, I personally voted against this text which aims to authorise the addition of 5% of vegetable fats to chocolate. This is the very type of European regulation which leads to a lack of understanding among our fellow citizens and which prepares the ground for Euro-scepticism.
Where a clear and unambiguous labelling obligation would have been sufficient to allow the marketing of all the types of chocolate available in Europe, one of those grotesque compromises at which we are so adept has been proposed. Instead of no vegetable fats as specified in eight Member States or 10% as specified in other Member States, the knife has fallen at 5% for the whole of Europe!
This 5% of vegetable fats, which of course cannot be verified, will be of greatest benefit to the chocolate industry which will soon flood the market with cheap imitation chocolate, thereby causing an increase in the price of real chocolate which will become a luxury product for privileged consumers.
Will we now harmonise the composition of tomato ketchup, mustard, cooked meats, cheese, beer or pizzas, all in the name of a single market aiming to promote a single taste solely for the benefit of the food business?
Although it is legitimate, out of concern for public health, to lay down legislation on manufacturing processes and the traceability of products, it is not legitimate to impose a standard food style for the whole of Europe solely in the interests of 'big business' .
Although the construction of the internal market is a way to strengthen Europe in the face of world competition, this must not lead to a totalitarian dogma and meddling at all levels of our home life.
In particular, the diversity of Europe' s gastronomy and food customs is part of its heritage and culture, if only at the cost of local specialities foreign to the internal market.
The people of Europe do not want this to be a place with standardised consumers living in a large uniform internal market.
They expect major political ambition from Europe, not punctilious regulations of secondary importance.
The misadventures of the new 'chocolate directive' primarily illustrate the extraordinary weight and slowness of the Community' s legislative process.
Introduced at the Edinburgh Council in 1992, the 'simplification' of the 1973 directive became a Commission proposal only in 1996 and was considered at first reading by this House in 1997. It has taken another two and a half years for the Council to adopt a common position which is before us today.
Has such a long process at least resulted in a practical text? The answer is clearly no.
The new directive does not meet any of the relevant needs.
The 1973 directive clearly and unambiguously defined chocolate as a product made with sugar and cocoa.
To take account of the food customs of certain northern countries, derogations were specified.
The situation was therefore satisfactory. So why change it?
Why, under the pretext of 'simplification' , has it actually been attempted to subvert the 1973 directive? Might the rest of the acquis communautaire no longer be untouchable?
In effect, if the content of the directive is being changed, this is due to the pressure of the five multinationals - Nestlé, Suchard, Mars, Cadbury and Ferrero - which already share over 70% of the European market but whose production capacity is hindered by the current dual legislation.
A site located in France, for example, cannot produce chocolate which does not meet the French standards. These stipulate that chocolate cannot contain vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
However, these multinationals particularly want to minimise the cost of their raw materials and do not care that this will be at the cost of a change in the composition of chocolate.
Cocoa butter represents 8 to 9% of the total price of chocolate.
Shea butter costs a third of the price of cocoa butter and palm oil butter is ten times cheaper.
By adopting a list of alternatives to cocoa butter and by specifying a percentage, this new directive is opening the door to further changes and this is the heart of the matter.
Tomorrow, the percentage will simply have to be increased and then soya, for example, could be added to the vegetable fats proposed today.
Shea butter will have played its role as an alibi. Its producers will then experience the same problems which are now going to be suffered by cocoa producers given the fall in prices which will follow the adoption of a directive which resolutely ignores its own development consequences and cynically postpones their examination indefinitely.
To achieve their aim of being able to produce and sell imitation chocolate under the name of chocolate at a lower price throughout the Union, these multinationals have worked ceaselessly to make the 1973 derogations the rule, regardless of the interests of chocolate makers and cocoa producers.
The common position fully grants their demands by proposing to establish, as a uniform and compulsory rule for all fifteen Member States, a derogation which used to correspond to a food custom confined to just a few States.
Will this at least increase the level of requirements and quality for all Member States? Not at all.
In fact, quite the contrary.
As usual, harmonisation is occurring at the lowest common denominator.
It is the lowest quality level which will be generalised in order to ultimately impose a standardised Euro-taste, to the detriment of taste quality.
Paradoxically, the burden of proof for quality will fall on the small-scale chocolate maker who can be comforted by the fact that he is not prohibited from indicating that he has not added vegetable fats other than cocoa butter!
Will the new text at least allow the consumer to easily distinguish between true and imitation chocolate?
The answer is no because the text of the directive is dishonest. It specifies the option of introducing into the chocolate manufacturing process an extremely precise percentage of 5% of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter, whereas everyone knows that we do not have a reliable method of analysis allowing this percentage to be verified.
The Commission is therefore setting a percentage which it knows is unverifiable.
This is deceitful.
The text also contains dishonest provisions in terms of labelling.
On Mr Lannoye' s initiative, this House rightly adopted at first reading an amendment specifying the obligation to place, on the front of the product, clearly legible wording indicating the presence of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
As this amendment was not retained by the Council, the consumer will not be correctly informed.
In all countries and for all consumers with a taste for real chocolate, the name 'chocolate' can now legally cover a completely different product.
Through a Community mechanism which is constantly diluting everyone' s responsibility, the definition of one of our basic foodstuffs is being changed, solely for the purpose of allowing a few multinationals to maximise their profits.
Chocolate lovers, religiously savour your next Easter eggs!
This will be the last time you can be sure that they have been made with real pre-harmonisation chocolate.
What will be next after chocolate?
When labelling comes in the door, sense flies out the window...
This is a distinctive label used throughout Europe which we want to imbue with renewed vigour.
Like the French NF Environnement mark, this label is voluntary which means that it is up to manufacturers to apply for it.
It is based on the principle of a global approach which takes account of the whole life cycle of the product.
However, we must not cast aside all the national logos.
Consumers and buyers have their own codes and have built up their confidence on the logos which they know.
Any attempt to replace the national logos would end up once again confusing the people of Europe who are lost among a forest of markings including lists of ingredients, quality labels, logos and references to regions.
You could almost imagine yourself faced with a bar of chocolate!
As our main goal is to help SMEs gain access to these essential Community eco-labels, we support the rapporteur.
- Madam President, I wholeheartedly support Europe's moves to become an eco-friendly continent.
This measure is yet further proof of the EU's commitment to greening up its act.
Since 1992, the Euro-Flower logo has become a hallmark of environmentally-friendly products, ranging from washing machines to writing paper.
However, consumers' enthusiasm for green goods has yet to be matched by industry.
The measures contained in this 3-year strategy, however, should hopefully bring manufacturers on board.
In the fight to clean up our planet, Britain's Labour Government has, of course, been at the forefront.
At Kyoto, for example, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott secured, against the odds, an agreement to cut global emissions.
Britain is already well on the way to achieving its target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010.
Not content with that, the Government has recently raised the target to 60-70% by 2050.
This House should challenge other Member States to match Britain's example.
They will get their chance to pick up the gauntlet at the forthcoming Kyoto follow-up Conference in The Hague this November.
Of course, protecting the planet means much more than just cleaning up the atmosphere.
It means protecting the natural environment on the ground too.
Again, Britain's Labour Government is leading the way.
Its recent Wildlife Bill, for example, will give greater protection to endangered species than ever before.
Furthermore, 'right to roam' legislation will give the British public the freedom to enjoy and appreciate our beautiful countryside.
Madam President, coherent action is urgently required at local, national and European levels to clean up our land, sea and air.
The Euro-Flower is just one element of the broader environmental strategy that is needed to save our planet.
Our citizens want to see concrete action.
They do not want to see mere hot air from politicians, which just adds to global warming.
By harnessing Euro-Flower power, we can all contribute to a cleaner, greener world.
Recommendation for second reading of the Blokland report (A5-0056/2000)
- Blokland rightly raises serious concerns regarding waste disposal, including incineration.
Coming from a country with over 90% landfill use, I face the conclusion that properly controlled incineration is both necessary and inevitable.
Commitment by the Irish Government to serious recycling and separation of waste is far from evident.
Separation of waste, including use of organic waste for composting, must be a priority in any waste strategy.
Waste management is a very complex issue subject to extensive lobbying.
This is why the European Union has adopted a comprehensive strategy to tackle this major environmental and health challenge.
The directive before us today is part of this strategy as it aims to regulate the thermal treatment of hazardous or non-hazardous waste.
I myself have always been doubtful about the incineration of hazardous waste being dealt with in the same legislation as the incineration of non-hazardous waste.
I therefore raised my concerns and questions at first reading.
Regrettably, in my opinion, a majority has approved co-incineration.
This is why I am now fighting for measures to be adopted in order to guarantee that emission standards for hazardous waste will not be diluted.
Everyone knows that the volume of waste to be incinerated in the European Union is set to increase.
Thirty-one million tonnes of municipal waste were incinerated in 1990 and this figure will be in excess of 56 million this year.
There are several reasons for this, including the increase in the volume of waste produced and the fall in the quantity of waste sent to landfills.
It is well known that the incineration of waste causes emissions of substances which seriously pollute the air, soil and water and which are therefore dangerous to health.
The pollutants emitted depend both on the nature of the waste to be treated and the technologies used to treat this waste.
This is why our concerns focus on the emissions of heavy metals, dioxins and furanes.
The debate has particularly crystallised around co-incineration plants.
These use hazardous waste as fuel for the production of energy or physical elements.
Although the provisions of the applicable directives impose a maximum limit of 40% of hazardous waste in the fuel used, this percentage is too high!
These plants must be subject to very strict control standards, at least as strict as those imposed on incinerators.
In addition, the generalised use of this hazardous waste must not lead to the production of this waste becoming acceptable.
We are at great risk of being told in the future that, as investments have been made to build these co-incinerators, we must now make these profitable!
I firmly reject these arguments in advance as they will lead to an increase in the volume of hazardous waste being transported with all the risks which this entails for the environment and safety.
To conclude, although offences must be penalised and authorities must be assisted in bringing their incinerators up to standard, it must be stressed that our priority is, and must, remain the prevention of waste production, whether this is hazardous or non-hazardous waste.
- The European Union has been at the forefront in devising new waste management strategies in recent years.
In fact, the object of the directive we are discussing here today is to reduce the adverse effects of incineration on the environment and on human health by considerably reducing the emission levels of several major pollutants into the air.
This directive also seeks to control the discharge of waste into our water systems.
This report is now before us at second reading.
I note that one of the recommendations from the European Council is that, if an operator of a plant incinerating non-hazardous waste intends to start incinerating hazardous waste, an integrated pollution prevention and control licence must be secured.
I believe that this is a particularly sensible proposal.
It is very important that the European Union is very active in putting in place new waste management proposals.
Waste in Europe has been generated at a rate of over 1kg per person per day.
2 billion tonnes of waste are being generated within the EU each year.
The European Union is clear about one aspect of our waste disposal problem.
The future of waste disposal does not lie in local authorities up and down the length and breadth of this country searching for new landfill sites.
There is a growing concern about the environmental consequences of landfill sites in general.
Nothing less than a major shift from reliance on landfill sites to more integrated waste management plans will suffice.
The European Union fully supports the strict, ambitious but attainable recycling and recovery targets that have been laid down by the Irish Government.
These targets, which are to be achieved over the next fifteen years, include the following:-
· A diversion of 50% of overall household waste from landfill sites.
· A minimum 65% reduction in bio-degradable waste presently consigned for landfill sites.
· The development of waste recovery facilities, employing environmentally beneficial technologies capable of treating up to 300 000 tonnes of bio-degradable waste per annum.
All these measures reflect changing public opinions on the issue of waste management.
The day of landfill sites is now coming to an end and they must be replaced by more environmentally beneficial technologies.
There is unanimous support for this position across all the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
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(FR) The enormous volume of waste generated by our industrialised urban societies is undoubtedly one of the major challenges to be overcome by the European Union in the 21st century. Imperceptibly, the planet is gradually being swamped with waste and each year another 2 billion tonnes are produced by the Member States.
In view of this, waste management according to the law of the least immediate cost is not acceptable.
The waste treatment industry, which employs tens of thousands of people and makes billions of euros, is flourishing due to this growing need. It will certainly have to be very inventive if it is to correctly carry out its task without itself causing pollution under the guise of waste recovery, given that incineration discharges heavy metal particles and dioxins into the atmosphere, that cleaning generates unwanted sludge and certain recycled materials have not found a market.
The best possible protection for the environment and health therefore lies in the major progress to be made in implementing waste management legislation. The transposition of this legislation is actually far from satisfactory according to a recent Commission report.
The Member States and their industries must therefore be urged to quickly take the steps necessary to adapt. The former must adapt their national legislation according to environment protection and precautionary principles and the latter must adapt their techniques in order to eradicate and not just displace the problem of pollution.
However, at the same time, the European Parliament would be well-advised to come up with realistic ways of achieving objectives which are feasible, rather than allowing its lyrical instincts and idealism to dominate to the detriment of its credibility. On environmental matters, it is by doing what is immediately possible that we will have a chance of achieving what is desirable in the long term.
This is why the UEN Group has not supported the amendments which are inapplicable in our Member States and whose anticipated economic consequences could prove to be very harmful.
Otherwise, as a local elected representative, I hope that the merger and simplification of the Community directives will clarify and streamline the regulatory framework in which the departmental waste management plans must be established.
The adoption of this directive on waste incineration, which will come into force with effect from 2005, will considerably improve the current waste management framework in Europe, by giving higher priority to important criteria such as public health and the protection of citizens' rights.
Furthermore, if this directive were to come into force immediately, rather than in 2005 as is unfortunately the case, it would be virtually impossible for the Portuguese Government to continue with its co-incineration strategy.
As it is, given that this directive imposes strict technical, legal and operational restrictions on all incineration and co-incineration processes across Europe, it will become more obvious that the strategy being pursued in Portugal is deeply flawed.
Accordingly, although I would have liked to go further with restrictions on incineration and co-incineration processes, I am nevertheless delighted with what has been achieved, given that this directive:
1. Establishes stricter limit values for emissions, in particular those of carbon oxides and particulates.
2. Will put incineration and co-incineration plants on the same footing in terms of limit values, removing the special status granted to co-incineration plants.
3. States without any doubt whatsoever that incineration and co-incineration may only be used as a last resort, once all other technical avenues have been explored.
4. Sets extremely rigid conditions for overall waste management and for the siting and size of incineration and co-incineration plants, which must be complied with before permission can be granted to any authority.
5. Increases the relevant authorities' powers of intervention in case of non-compliance with limit values at installations.
6. Drastically reduces the scope for using the end waste from incineration and co-incineration, particularly in civil engineering projects.
7. Makes continuous sampling of dioxins a compulsory requirement in incineration and co-incineration processes.
8. Increases the role of the public in decision making on the siting of installations.
9. Makes it compulsory to publish an annual environmental report on compliance with limit values.
10. Considerably limits the present derogations for cement kilns.
11. For the first time sets a limit value for emissions of ammonia, NH3, in view of the atmospheric acidification caused by this chemical product.
The proposed directive on waste incineration is a complex and technical document whose environmental and economic implications must be carefully considered.
At first reading the European Parliament really made its mark on the issue by proposing the merger of two directives on the incineration of domestic waste and the incineration of hazardous waste.
I now believe that the common position submitted by the Council is a very good compromise which I can support.
However, I must make one specific point about co-incineration in cement works and justify my vote against two amendments.
I voted against the first part of Amendment No 25, amending Annex II, which sets emission limit values for the cement industry and in particular the value of 15 mg/m3 for dust.
The majority of the Member States currently have limit values of 50 mg/m3.
In a recent cost-benefit analysis, the Commission concluded that values of 30 mg/m3 are the best compromise.
To impose limit values of 15 mg/m3 would involve an excessive environmental cost and would not be profitable.
I also voted against Amendment No 14 on the definition of municipal waste. This amendment reintroduces a definition of mixed municipal waste even though this is already specified in Article 3(3).
Incorrect interpretation of this article could lead to the use of municipal waste in cement kilns being excluded whereas this type of treatment is provided for by the waste plans of several public authorities.
This vote is not at odds with my environmental concerns as co-incineration in cement works is not particularly harmful for the environment. Cement kilns are actually subject to strict emission rules.
Moreover, co-incineration is, in certain cases, an integral part of the waste management policies of certain Member States or regions, under conditions which are both economically and environmentally acceptable.
- (SV) More stringent rules for incineration plants are highly desirable.
It is, however, doubtful whether the same kind of rules ought to be laid down for plants designed for unsorted waste as for plants that are only intended to treat certain types of waste, in other words waste that is sorted.
Plants for unsorted waste require more advanced equipment.
If the same requirements are laid down for all types of incineration plant, the effect could be to hinder the sorting of rubbish and to make recycling and reuse more difficult, including composting organic waste.
We in the Swedish Christian Democratic Party would therefore like to encourage the Commission to pay close attention to these points of view during the continued work on the issues of rubbish and waste.
I studied this report from my standpoint as a mayor because the Commission proposal mainly reinforces current legislation on the incineration of municipal waste. As an aside, this shows the usefulness for an MEP of being able to exercise the complementary mandate of mayor which is an option that the current French Government is unfairly and absurdly planning to prohibit.
It is in no one' s interests to cut MEPs off from their grassroots.
The directive' s objective is commendable. It aims to prevent and reduce the negative effects of waste incineration and co-incineration.
However, we cannot support the proposal as it also aims to subject all plants to the same emission standards.
This is not the way to deal with the overcapacity of incinerators in Europe and the rapporteur agrees with this.
Certain waste flows are more easily treated in a co-incineration plant.
We believe that certain proposed amendments to the common position may actually prevent existing plants being brought up to standard and may penalise the co-incineration of hazardous waste in cement works. This latter aspect essentially concerns France and Belgium.
With regard to municipal waste, I have several comments to make.
Firstly, confusion should not be allowed about the definition of 'mixed municipal waste' in the context of co-incineration.
Likening 'partially separated waste' to 'untreated mixed municipal waste' , as Amendment No 14 does, risks affecting the development of the waste sorting sectors which we are trying to establish and in which some or all of the residues could be co-incinerated.
Furthermore, if Article 7(4) was amended as proposed, the removal of the qualification of municipal waste as 'untreated' would be tantamount to prohibiting the co-incineration of certain sorted municipal waste such as paper, cardboard and so on which could not be recycled unless it was collected separately.
Finally, it is not acceptable to reduce the threshold of 6 tonnes per hour above which existing plants incinerating household waste are subject to an emission limit value of 200 mg per cubic metre for NOx. This is because local authority planning to adapt existing equipment uses this threshold.
See, in this respect, Annex V(a).
Even though we know that incineration is not the ideal solution, it represents an important advance for many authorities which have invested heavily to develop modern management of the municipal service for domestic and similar waste.
However, thinking on this issue must be taken into account and research must be continued.
The waste treatment industry will have to be very inventive in the future to avoid actually causing pollution.
We must therefore develop broader waste management strategies and actively encourage research and development in this area which is essential for life and for the future of our local authorities.
- I find it incredible, given the anti-Brussels hysteria of his UKIP allies, that Mr Blokland has managed to produce such an over-regulated monster of a report.
But at least these proposals will allow the anti-European rubbish peddled by Mr Blokland and the UKIP to be disposed of in an environmentally-friendly manner.
The aim of these proposals is to improve air quality and protect human health.
Incineration is often the most effective and safe method of waste disposal.
Sometimes, however, it can release dangerous chemicals, such as dioxins, into the atmosphere.
It is therefore vital that these by-products are monitored and prevented from escaping into the environment.
The technology for cleaning up fumes from waste incineration plants already exists.
We just need to make sure that it is used.
The sensible measures put forward by the Commission should encourage the utilisation of this technology.
I find the UKIP's hypocrisy breathtaking.
I challenge the UKIP to explain to their own supporters how they can be allied to such an obvious supporter of EU over-regulation.
While pretending to be the Eurocrat's foe, they are clearly, in fact, the Eurocrat's friend.
I fear that cleaning up the environment may prove to be a doddle compared to the task of persuading the UKIP to clean up its act.
The losers, sadly, will be our own citizens.
If we are to believe the texts of the Ancients, waste disposal was a problem in ancient Rome even though, since then, this waste has made generations of archaeologists very happy.
At the time the majority of the waste was biodegradable which is far from being the case today.
We have just been talking about chocolate.
This provides an ideal way of illustrating this issue by looking, for example, at the journey of the packaging of a chocolate bar from the dustbin to the incineration plant. From this we can see that the combustion of the aluminium foil produces toxic gases.
We are facing an enormous challenge in terms of waste management.
However, I believe that some countries are not prepared for this either practically or theoretically.
One-third of domestic and similar waste treated by French disposal plants is currently handled by three hundred incinerators.
This incineration generates polluting emissions of dust, metals and dioxins which must be controlled using a smoke treatment system.
The regulations on the limitation of discharges are gradually being reinforced.
Clearly, action is needed to ensure that the rules are respected because health and the environment must be protected. However, in terms of co-incineration, the scope and definition of these plants should not be altered.
In consolidating certain regulations and complicating others, we must be careful that this does not lead to mistrust regarding European environmental legislation, advocating first one thing and then another. Every change in this legislation causes uncertainty for certain professions and industries.
Amendments to the legislation on co-incinerators or the specific treatment of hazardous waste risk creating cost distortions or even causing unjustified transportation of waste elsewhere.
There is a real risk of encouraging one particular sector to the detriment of others through ill-judged limit values. We need four incineration sectors specialising in hazardous waste, non-hazardous waste, co-incineration and incineration in adapted combustion plants.
My colleagues should also note another point, although this is of less importance.
In my opinion, however, an information campaign is needed following the merger of these directives.
The people of Europe are under the impression that special, hazardous, non-hazardous and municipal waste will all be mixed together and undergo common treatment in the same kiln and in the same plant.
The sorting of waste which they carry out therefore appears to be useless.
We must therefore set up a proper information and explanatory campaign.
Davies report (A5-0062/2000)
This debate on air quality concerns the particular problem of ozone in ambient air, as set out in the Davies report.
All the experts agree that it is essential to raise standards of air quality so that people throughout the European Union are protected effectively against health risks posed by ozone in ambient air.
The various health effects of ozone include irritation to eyes, nose and throat, difficulty in breathing, coughs and headaches.
Ozone also contributes to asthmatic attacks, impaired lung function and increased bronchial reactivity.
In the long term, this can even cause premature ageing of lungs.
These facts are frightening to say the least, which is why I warmly welcome this proposed directive.
It aims to amend the existing Community legislation on ozone in accordance with the requirements of Council Directive 96/62/EC on ambient air quality assessment and management.
It sets long-term objectives and interim target values for ozone in ambient air.
It also introduces a framework of standards to protect human health and the environment.
Finally, it requires Member States to monitor ozone concentrations and to report the results to the public.
The directive will therefore provide a benchmark for the levels of ozone in ambient air.
In setting long-term objectives, the Commission proposes to use the 1997 World Health Organisation air quality guidelines.
The ultimate aim is to prevent these long-term objectives being exceeded and thereby avoid harmful effects on human health and the environment.
However, the Commission' s proposals do not set a deadline for this to be achieved.
This is to be regretted.
As a first interim step, target values are set.
The aim is to achieve these, as far as possible, by 2010.
These are also based on the WHO guidelines, but it is accepted that these will be exceeded on a number of days each year.
It must be pointed out that the Commission proposal does not take account of any changes which may result from the Community' s climate change commitments.
These currently call for an 8% reduction in a range of greenhouse gases.
Success in meeting these commitments should enable Member States to be more ambitious regarding target values for the reduction of ozone levels.
To conclude, I am fairly satisfied with the text of this proposed directive as it takes an important step towards attaining the ultimate goal set out in the fifth Environmental Action Programme of never exceeding critical levels of ozone in ambient air.
Myller report (A5-0063/2000)
We are today debating a legislative proposal which affects us all directly as it aims to improve ambient air quality.
This proposed directive concerns national emission ceilings for certain atmospheric pollutants and comes under the framework directive on air quality.
It is part of the Community' s fifth Environmental Action Programme or EAP.
The main objective is to limit emissions of acidifying and eutrophying pollutants and ozone precursors in order to improve the protection of the environment and human health against adverse effects from acidification, soil eutrophication and tropospheric ozone.
The ceilings indicated in this text must be complied with by 2010 at the latest.
Member States are therefore required to draw up programmes for the progressive reduction of their annual national emissions and report these to the Commission before the end of 2002.
The programmes are to be updated and revised by 2006.
Member States are also required to prepare, and regularly update, national emission inventories and emission projections for 2010 for SO2, NOx, VOCs and NH3.
These inventories and projections must be reported to the Commission each year.
The rapporteur has proposed amendments to reinforce this proposal.
In particular, she suggests setting stricter standards for emissions of the four pollutants in question.
In principle I can only agree with these proposals.
When it comes to protecting health and the environment we must be ambitious if we really want to improve the situation.
However, setting the standards too high can be counterproductive.
This is why I believe that at the moment we should keep to the objectives set in the international conventions. These ceilings can, of course, be revised in light of future progress.
The report also asks the Commission to propose new amendments to the directive by 2004.
The Commission could, in this way, revise the ceilings set in the text, the interim environmental targets and the new measures adopted to ensure respect for these ceilings.
These amendments could ensure that the directive is brought into line with technical and scientific developments and would allow the objectives to potentially be achieved by 2010.
I feel this is a good compromise.
The rapporteur also proposes setting target dates for achieving these objectives. This is essential.
Without compulsory deadlines, texts are all too often simply declarations of intent which achieve nothing.
In the same respect, penalties applicable to infringements of the directive' s provisions must be established as quickly as possible.
We are in favour of the EU creating fixed limit values in connection with the environment by means of framework legislation, as most environmental problems are general and transnational.
Each Member State has different traditions and requirements, which is why the Member States themselves should be responsible for implementation, ensuring that the common goals can be achieved in a satisfactory way.
We have chosen to vote against Amendments Nos 16 and 17, because these proposals, in a much too general and undifferentiated way, relieve small Member States of the need to achieve the environmental goals that have been established.
Motion for a resolution on the Lisbon European Council
The goal of full employment which reappears on the agenda whenever growth returns is clearly an admirable intention. It is difficult to achieve, however, without attacking the real causes of unemployment.
Despite current growth, job creation in Europe is notoriously inadequate.
Those jobs which are created tend to be precarious, particularly where they involve women and young people.
We must move away from simple declarations of intent, no matter how positive they may be.
In view of the extremely high social expectations, we must urgently define measurable and verifiable objectives.
What I would have liked to see was a commitment on the proposals indicated in my Group' s motion such as:
The introduction of a process for reducing working time without any loss of wages or flexibility;
A review of the directives on Euroworks councils and collective redundancies to reinforce the rights and powers of employees and their trade unions, particularly in the event of mergers and restructuring;
The establishment at Community level of taxation on speculative capital movements and reinforcement of the fight against fraud and tax evasion.
I deeply regret that we are not embarking on a new type of sustainable development, based on the fairer distribution of wealth, an increase in the purchasing power of households and the stimulation of public and social investment.
For all these reasons we will vote against the joint motion.
Portugal holds the presidency of the European Union for the first half of the year 2000. It has therefore decided to organise at the end of this month, in Lisbon, a Special European Council on the following problem: 'Employment, Economic Reforms and Social Cohesion - towards a Europe based on innovation and knowledge' .
This initiative is to be congratulated.
Unemployment and the resulting poverty and social exclusion are scourges which we must tackle head-on.
The preparation of a coherent and coordinated strategy involving all the Member States is therefore essential.
We must firstly set ambitious objectives.
Those indicated in the Portuguese presidency' s document are the return to full employment, stable growth, a genuine process of social cohesion, equal opportunities and the fight against poverty.
As underlined by the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Guterres, we were able to coordinate our economic policies to launch the euro.
The European Union must now accept the challenge and proceed in a similar fashion by proposing guidelines for the policy on employment and social inclusion.
I also welcome the idea of setting quantified objectives and benchmarks, in particular an annual average growth rate in the EU of 3% and a level of employment of 70%.
To complement this, a transparent benchmarking system must be established in order to assess the progress made by Member States in achieving these objectives. This requires an open system of paired assessment and coordination.
The presidency' s document also stresses the necessary reinforcement of social convergence and the modernisation of our social protection systems.
The essential condition is clearly to guarantee a high level of employment.
This requires the creation of jobs, not just any jobs, but quality jobs, particularly in the service sector.
It also involves keeping jobs in Europe, given that the recent trend has been mass and systematic redundancies.
This means that the workforce has to adapt to the new information technologies.
I therefore broadly support this programme.
I hope these objectives will lead, during the Lisbon Summit, to specific and ambitious measures which can meet the legitimate expectations of the male and female citizens of Europe.
- (EL) Yet another summit, this time initiated by the Portuguese presidency, is about to add its contribution to the continuing intensification of, and support for, the neo-Liberal, monetarist policies which have led to the present dismal situation, which contradict every social and employment policy and which cause dramatic rises in unemployment, job insecurity, discrimination, social exclusion and widespread poverty, ostensibly in order to 'promote' proposals and measures to support employment and combat unemployment.
It is a contradiction, it is ironic, it is hypocritical and it is insulting to workers to propose strengthening the competitiveness of undertakings by reducing labour costs, promoting total liberalisation, increasing the flexibility of the job market and supporting atypical forms of work as measures to combat unemployment.
We need to stop maintaining and strengthening the Stability Pact, giving priority to nominal convergence criteria, and we need to stop completely subjugating social policy to financial criteria and requirements before we can start talking about fundamental employment policies.
Speculative working capital would be taxed, tax havens would be abolished, fraud and tax evasion would be combated, wealth and income would be redistributed for the benefit of labour, state aid would be controlled, restructuring, merger and relocation grants which result in mass redundancies would immediately be suspended, and better social protection based on solidarity and independent of commercial and financial interests would be introduced if employment really were the European Union's main concern, rather than how to 'sweeten the pill' in order to deceive workers and limit social reaction to its anti-labour and anti-grass roots economic and social policy.
If its aim were to improve the standard of living of workers, increase their purchasing power and guarantee safe jobs, it would support public-sector and social investment and equal opportunities, combat all forms of discrimination in connection with access to employment and jobs and act as a barrier to policies based on privatisation, low wages and lack of social protection, flexible and temporary work and the constant exclusion of women, the young and people with special needs from the job market.
In fact, what the economic and social policy guidelines are promoting, what they are striving for in practice, is a minimum level of poverty, not a minimum level of prosperity for workers.
Prosperity is the preserve of big business, before which all bow down in reverence, making it more and more immune, throwing the job market even more out of kilter in the name of increased productivity and competitiveness, attacking social and other rights which have been won even more violently and promoting the perception that the modern (anti­)social state need only throw the people a few crumbs of charity.
The victims of long-term unemployment and social exclusion, and there are over 60 million of them, and European workers as a whole, have no intention of showing themselves to be 'mutually supportive' , 'adaptable' , 'docile' and 'cooperative' in their choices, as you will have them be.
You will find them insubordinate, uncompromising and intractable, fighting and demanding full and stable employment, a social policy system which includes insurance, health, a pension, unemployment protection, truly equal opportunities, quality education and fundamental vocational training.
You will find them fighting for a social, democratic, mutually supportive Europe, a workers' Europe, a Europe of the people, and you will find us by their side, fighting with them.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Human rights, racism, xenophobia and antisemitism (continuation)
Ladies and gentlemen, the next item is the continuation of the joint debate on four reports on human rights, racism, xenophobia and antisemitism.
Madam President, I should like to expressly thank Mr Belder for his report.
Racism, xenophobia and antisemitism are a depressing problem, including within the European Union.
Fighting them is one of the common goals of almost every political group in this House.
This House is prepared to exercise diplomatic restraint in many areas, but not on this question.
And rightly so.
Mr Belder knows that I and the committee wished to quote the specifics of individual problems in candidate countries.
A number of proposed amendments by Baroness Ludford attempt to rectify this and I shall support them.
The way in which the social causes of racism in candidate countries and the highly significant social and employment policy consequences of a consistent anti-racist policy have been dealt with appears to me to be too general.
The fact that Mr Belder was prepared to clearly address the question of antisemitism is one of the most important results of the discussion process and I again extend my thanks to Mr Belder.
Leafing through the various positions of the Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and the Vienna Monitoring Centre, one is struck by the fact that antisemitism is quoted as a particular and particularly dangerous form of racism in several headlines, but only in the headlines.
There is almost a total lack of analytical appraisal or special programmes to combat it.
And as far as the Commission programmes in the candidate countries are concerned, Commissioner, the word "almost" can be dispensed with.
I consider this an unacceptable oversight and I therefore refer this question to you specifically.
Antisemitism is, without doubt, widespread; often it is latent, which complicates the issue.
This morning in this House we were witness to one of its most repulsive forms, when the age-old assertion that the Jews themselves are responsible for antisemitism was repeated.
This debate should therefore be a separate and very, very specific task for us and the Commission.
Madam President, the presentation by the Council of a first EU annual report on human rights was a welcome contribution to the on-going debate.
In particular I welcome the information it contains regarding the EU-China human rights dialogue.
While this dialogue can and does play a role in the transformation of human rights issues in China, it will only bear fruit if the European Union speaks and acts as one.
Too often in the past EU Member States have allowed themselves to be blackmailed by China.
At previous sessions of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, when some Member States were raising China's appalling human rights record, they were picked off one by one because of threatened trade sanctions by China.
Capitulating to China was both immoral and cowardly.
It was immoral to extend greater priority to the importance of trade interests over human rights and is in marked contrast to our approach in relation to the bilateral trade agreements we have with developing countries.
It was cowardly also.
History has consistently shown that the correct approach is to stand up to a bully.
Attempts to compromise are always interpreted as weakness by bullies, and China is such a bully.
We see this in its response to legitimate international concerns about its human rights record.
It treats the views of the outside world with contempt.
We witnessed it again at last week's conference of the National People's Congress in Beijing.
Its warmongering tone in relation to Taiwan is unacceptable and is a direct interference in Taiwan's presidential election.
Its arrogance in relation to its treatment of Falun Gong practitioners and dissidents also cannot be tolerated.
In Geneva, and elsewhere, the EU should take every opportunity in a united way to express its displeasure.
While I strongly support China's admission to the WTO, we should give China a dose of its own medicine.
We should use these negotiations as a means of leverage to ensure that China not only listens to EU concerns about its continued abuse of human rights but that it also takes action to improve its record.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if we are to reinforce the protection of human rights in the European Union, we must firstly concern ourselves with the most vulnerable, i.e. essentially, the poorest.
The most basic violation of human rights is the denial of each individual' s right to live decently.
Respect for human dignity must be our guide. We must ensure that poverty is not allowed to destroy individuals and families, that children are not taken away from their parents because of poverty and that the simple right of association is not refused to those who do not even have the right to work.
The aim is to create acceptable living conditions for all.
Everyone must be protected from poverty and exclusion.
Everyone is entitled to education, culture and health.
Everyone is entitled to decent housing and an income which allows them to live honourably.
We must declare that poverty will not be tolerated.
We must declare that everyone is entitled to their physical and mental integrity and that this integrity involves the right to a decent life.
Could the idea of fraternity become the key concept for the 21st century? Everyone has in them the enduring need to dream and through fraternity we could meet our main expectations for the poorest in society.
Fraternity gives meaning to solidarity, rejects exclusion and solitude, and ensures respect for differences.
Fraternity must guarantee the rights of the poorest.
Our century will be a century of progress in which the wildest utopian ideals may be realised.
Fraternity is one of these ideals and together, ladies and gentlemen, we can achieve it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are devoting part of our time in this Chamber to one of the most honourable aspects of our parliamentary work: the defence of human rights of all kinds and in all parts of the world.
I would like to compliment the President on the wise decision to take these four reports together.
While we may not be able to devote to each report the time its importance would merit, we can safely say, when we discuss human rights elsewhere, in the rest of the world, that we have not omitted to carry out a serious analysis of shortcomings here in the European Union itself.
Whilst it is a fact - fortunately - that we here in the European Union are not faced with the gross violations that we rather unjustly criticise in other states, our own Member States still need to improve the way they respect these rights, economic and social rights, civil and political rights, with particular reference to respect for privacy and data protection for individuals, children' s rights, women' s rights and the rights of refugees who are immigrants here.
And we still have a long way to go as regards violence by the police and in prisons, and in combating racism and xenophobia.
With regard to third countries it is vital, and urgent, for the European Union to have a common strategy - to be prepared by the Council in consultation with this Parliament - which should consistently shape all the European Union' s policies, and in particular its development cooperation policy.
It makes no sense in terms of Realpolitik for us to be more demanding in some areas than in others, for us to be more indulgent of some states than of others, and for us to pursue cooperation policies with some states that do not respect fundamental human rights, and where the rule of law has broken down and serious transgressions go unpunished.
If we continue to give political and economic support to countries where this is happening, we will be condoning regimes that do not respect human rights, countries where we can legitimately question whether Community aid is reaching the people whose development we are endeavouring to promote, or whether we are simply maintaining the vanity, opulence and secret bank accounts of a handful of leaders.
Madam President, even to a slightly unprejudiced eye, there is clearly no trace of racism down the broad middle of this House.
Even if we disagree on a report on racism, the reasons lie not in racism in Parliament but in the report itself.
For example, the report not only contains laudable words on the fight against racism; it also deals with matters such as the voting rights of third country nationals in specific countries or the right to hold public office, which may be decided one way or the other, but which have nothing whatsoever to do with racism.
And it is precisely on these points that this report is a dishonest and sorry effort and I make no bones about the fact.
The fight against racism, to which we are all committed, is turned into small political currency and abused, which is why we are unable to vote for the report in its present form.
I stand firmly against the way in which racism has been played down, as we have said, to make it a subject of political debate.
That is our grave criticism of the approach taken in this report.
We are all against racism and we all have a contribution to make.
There should be a broad consensus on this in this House.
But we cannot possibly allow this concept to be taken up by one side of the House and used to conduct a political fight; we must insist that matters of this sort are dealt with in a way which can meet with everyone' s approval, and that is not the case here.
Madam President, I congratulate the four rapporteurs on their work, and in particular Baroness Ludford for carrying forward work that I, amongst others, helped to initiate nearly a decade and a half ago with the first Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Fascism in Europe, whose rapporteur, in fact, was an excellent member of the Christian Democrat Group and of Nea Dimokratia, Dimitrios Evregenis, of whose work Mr Le Pen has said that he will use all means possible to prevent its being put into practice.
I wish to make two comments with respect to the reports in front of us; one on the Belder report, which contains a version of an amendment which I have tabled concerning the treatment of the Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia.
I believe it has a place here.
What was happening 15 years ago in Austria was that Mr Haider was actually persecuting the Slovene-speaking minority there.
Very few of us wanted to stand up and say anything at the time.
We need to tell the Estonians and the Latvians that, if they continue that treatment, their prospects of joining the European Union will be that much less.
Secondly, the Ludford report has a series of amendments tabled by the Christian Democrats challenging a series of paragraphs that were originally in the Evregenis report 15 years ago - and were approved by the Christian Democrats then - on the amendment of the Staff Regulations to allow ethnic minority members to join the European Community staff.
On voting rights, on the selection of ethnic minority candidates, what I do not understand is whether they have no institutional memory or whether, a more sinister development, their political position has changed.
Madam President, both I and my Group enthusiastically support Mr Haarder' s human rights report because we have found a very good line in it and there are numerous reasons for doing so.
My Group and I do, however, have serious reservations about the Ludford report because numerous political measures are discussed under the banner of the fight against racism and xenophobia which have nothing to do with the analysis and which, of course, have lost nothing by being in this report alongside a wealth of other measures which we shall wholeheartedly support.
Allow me to tell you which points we do not accept and why.
They are the points which fall outside the stated report period of 1997/98.
And when Sarah Ludford says the report refers to the year 2000, then she must be clairvoyant because it has only just begun.
Secondly, we are against all the points which fly in the face of the basic principle of solidarity.
Mr Nassauer has already pointed out the fact that intervention in the right to hold public office has been called for here.
Has the author ever tried to enter public office in Morocco for example?
The question of recruitment to public office in a Member State or to the police is exclusively a matter for that Member State.
Thirdly, matters are addressed which have no place in this report, such as the voting rights of third country nationals in European elections or local elections.
I consider this last point to be very important.
As an Austrian, I cannot accept a report which takes exception to my country in a most unqualified and most unjustified manner and which expressly welcomes and supports party-politically motivated action and unjustified boycotting measures by the fourteen.
These are actions which, in the final analysis, are directed against young people, the economy, sport and the people of my country, and they have no place in this report.
The report does not contain what the title promises.
Madam President, thanks are due to Mr Haarder for a basically splendid piece of work.
There is, nonetheless, one point on which I have to say that I disagree with the rapporteur.
When I read the Danish version of Mr Haarder' s report, I thought for one brief moment that Mr Haarder had grown wiser with the years, and I had taken note of the fact that there is now a judgement from the Danish Supreme Court stating that so-called 'exclusive agreements' do not contravene human rights.
I believed and hoped that I could declare myself in agreement with Mr Haarder in emphasising the individual' s right to membership of trade unions.
When, however, the report is read in other languages, it can be seen that Mr Haarder has not grown wiser.
Either that, or he is hiding it very well. From a number of unclear wordings, it looks as if the rapporteur is continuing his crusade against the Danish model, in which employees and employers are able to agree that only members of a specific trade union can be employed in a specific area of work.
No one is being deprived of the right to work and no one is being deprived of the right to belong to a trade union, but individuals cannot benefit from extensive social agreements without also being themselves members of precisely that union which has produced the agreements.
Mr Haarder goes much further in his assault, for he tries indirectly to strengthen those unions which do not recognise precisely those collective victories which have helped create the welfare and the human rights which we have spent all day debating.
Madam President, I notice that you have not called Mr Hernández Mollar, who had asked me to speak on his behalf.
I would therefore ask you to allow me the two minutes allotted to Mr Hernández Mollar, so that I can present his intervention, and then the four minutes allotted to me, if this is acceptable to you.
I will therefore present Mr Hernández Mollar' s intervention.
Madam President, the debate on xenophobia and racism is always of great importance, politically and socially.
The Ludford report contains points which are highly acceptable and which any democrat can and must ratify, but also contains other points which are less than rigorous from a political and even from a legal point of view.
European citizenship is an abstract concept which lacks any legal form.
The Member States regulate the political rights of their citizens in accordance with their own democratic laws, as also happens in many of the countries of origin of the citizens who emigrate to the European Union.
To ask for political participation in local, national or European elections, or even access to the civil service for people who are not nationals of the Member States, without even coming to a reciprocal arrangement, is politically unrealistic and displays a lack of legal rigour.
It would be impossible to comply with a proposal of this type and I therefore ask Mrs Ludford to withdraw it so that we can vote in favour of her report.
Xenophobia and racism should be combated by means of education and integration in the workplace and in society, and by paying attention to the issues of housing, health and social services, but let us not use blithe rhetoric when it comes to an issue which above all requires rigour and seriousness.
That was Mr Hernández Mollar' s intervention.
I will now begin my own, Madam President.
The existence of a panoply of fundamental civil, economic, social and political rights, fully guaranteed by constitutional legislation and by public authorities, is one of the essential elements of modern Western society.
The various charters and declarations which mark the history, firstly, of European/American politics, and then, later, world politics, are milestones which have ennobled the collective life of humanity, carrying it aloft on the shoulders of Christian values and the Enlightenment through to today' s democratic ideals.
The European Union has always considered the respect for fundamental human rights to be one of the essential principles of its founding spirit and has engraved this on the frontispiece of its founding Treaties.
Without this irrefutable component of our moral concept of social organisation, the very existence of the Union would cease to make sense, because, as well as constituting a broad space of economic freedom, the citizens of the fifteen Member States wish, above all else, to offer the rest of the world an example of the scrupulous respect for these rights.
However, that firm and unequivocal will must be exercised in a manner which is legally rigorous and, above all, based on common sense.
The nationals of non-EU states who live in the Union must be treated on an equal footing with the citizens of the Member States with regard to access to education, health and social protection.
This must be done whilst respecting their specific religious beliefs and cultural characteristics.
The tiniest hint of racism, intolerance or xenophobia must be eradicated in any Member State in which it may occur.
However, the administrative status of the resident is not the same as the political status of the citizen.
In a political sense, the citizens of the Union are classed as such by virtue of being citizens of one of the Member States and this allows them to enjoy full political participation and, in particular, to express themselves in elections, to take collective representative responsibility of an electoral nature and to compete for permanent posts in the public administrations.
The ingenious construction of a European citizenship which is not based on the prior and essential requirement of being a citizen of a Member State, of a European citizenship which is above the constitutions of the States of the Union, with no legal basis nor solid political foundation, rashly granted to passport holders from non-EU countries, even if they are residents, would be a source of confusion and would endanger the rights of the nationals of the fifteen Member States.
The European Union must offer a generous welcome, and must be open to all people who wish to contribute, through their efforts and their work, to our general prosperity or who seek asylum or refuge from oppression or persecution.
However, full political citizenship must be acquired in accordance with the laws of each Member State.
In his celebrated lecture at the Sorbonne entitled "What is a Nation?" Ernest Renan warned us: "Let us not abandon the principle that man is first and foremost a rational and moral being, before speaking any particular language, before being a member of any particular race, before belonging to any particular culture" .
Many of the tragedies of the twentieth century in Europe have resulted from ignoring this wise advice.
Let us allow Renan to refresh our memories, but let us not indulge in excesses which are less than rational and of dubious morality.
Madam President, I would like to express my appreciation for Mr Belder' s report, which is also the topic of my contribution today.
The report raises many relevant points.
Many indeed, such as the issue of racism and discrimination in the candidate countries, require a great deal of attention.
I hope that the candidate countries seeking membership of the EU will act upon the recommendations contained in the report and I also hope that our future partners, the enlargement countries, will soon sign up to the Community action programme against discrimination which will be tabled shortly in this Parliament.
However, in my contribution, I would like to home in on the predicament of the Roma people, otherwise known as gypsies.
Many Roma in the candidate Member States live in extremely abject conditions.
They are frequently at the receiving end of all kinds of discrimination.
Under the communist regime, they were subjected to an assimilation policy. After this, after 1989, they were more or less left to fend for themselves.
For a long time, little attention was given to their predicament, but fortunately, the Council of Europe was the first to raise the alarm.
In the light of enlargement, the Commission has now also accorded their problem priority status, and rightly so.
Many governments in the candidate Member States concerned have also become active on this score, and many of us have noticed the sudden influx of gypsy groups into a number of Member States.
Parliament would like to gain more insight into, and an overview of, all the actions and intentions on the part of the European Union and the Commission and would therefore ask the Commission to produce a coherent programme, based on strengthened cooperation, with objectives and timeframes.
We want the European Union to get more directly involved in order to address the problems of the Roma.
Not only the European Commission but also this Parliament would do well to pay a lot more attention to this.
This should, first and foremost, be placed within a broader context.
We should not just aim to combat discrimination and change people' s mentality.
We also need to address the causes of discrimination.
Regional developments and a sound social policy are indispensable tools in this.
Roma often live in areas where everyone is struggling.
We want to adopt an approach from a local perspective.
Local communities and local governments play a key role in solving the problems of the Roma.
This is the level at which improvement programmes need to be drawn up in the areas of education, housing and employment. They must be organised in such a way as to ensure that the entire population benefits.
At the same time, local cooperation is an effective tool against prejudice and discrimination.
Only at a local level can the negative cycle of disadvantage and discrimination be broken.
The Roma' s own contribution is also important.
As far as I am concerned, this too is a key word.
Roma need to be able to stand up for themselves more.
They need to become directly involved and given co-responsibility in order to improve their conditions.
In my opinion, official recognition of the Roma as a minority could help them to achieve more political independence.
In addition, there is a need for more specific action aimed at changing people' s mentality.
The tendency to discriminate is often deep-rooted, even at government level.
This needs to be given special attention.
I also advocate sound cooperation between the European Union and the Council of Europe. We should make better use of the expertise developed within these circles.
Finally, I would like to underline that, more than anything, there is a great need for tangible results in the short term.
Many campaigns are being launched with a great deal of good will and the European Union is very active too. This is praiseworthy in itself.
At the same time, however, I would ask the Commission to aim for swift and visible results, the goal being the European Union' s first enlargement. We can then prove to our own citizens that we have addressed the problem.
Some investments require a lot of time and it takes a long time before they take effect, but other aspects, such as housing and tackling the employment issues, can yield tangible results sooner.
We must address the problems facing the Roma in the candidate Member States themselves, which is, after all, where they live.
In fact, we should do this as soon as possible in order to avoid this problem becoming our problem in six years or so.
Mr President, human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law are the alpha and omega of any political system.
We take them for granted, but it appears that in our ultra-civilised Europe they are not always observed.
Mr Haarder has described the situation within the 15 Member States, and the implication is that there is certainly much work still to be done.
For example, it is an inadmissible, almost bewildering fact that, even today, some countries are denounced by Amnesty International for failure to respect the most basic human rights.
It is absurd that some states, including, sadly, my native country, are being condemned by the European Court of Human Rights over the exaggerated length of their legal proceedings.
The fact that the institution of exile is still in force in some Member States is incompatible with all the principles of human rights.
If the European Union wants to enlarge and become an authoritative reference system for the international community, we do indeed need a strong, coherent reaction from the European institutions, but there is also the need for each of us to transcend his own national political interests and focus on the good of the Union as a whole by voting responsibly, in both political and, more importantly, humane terms on these issues.
We are all quite aware that this report will not be binding upon our governments: until the Charter of Fundamental Rights is completed and inserted into the Treaties we can do no more than invite the Member States to take action.
However, where there is political responsibility this should not be a problem.
At a time when the Union is attempting to create an autonomous military body to enable it to intervene wherever the rule of law is under threat, at a time when the Copenhagen criteria have become an integral part of the acquis communautaire to be assimilated by the candidate countries, it is unacceptable for there to be such discrepancies in the area of human rights within the 15 States.
We must overcome this and incite our governments to be European through and through.
I am not the first person to say this: the European Union is not, cannot and must not be a purely economic union.
The European Union is something much greater than that; it has a common origin and a dream which we must fight to realise, and civil rights are an integral part of that fight.
Mr President, we might call today' s sitting a sitting in celebration of human rights.
Those with ulterior motives might say that Europe is engaging in self-flagellation.
I believe that Europe is reviving its hopes and its prospects.
Human rights issues spearhead and underpin the development of Europe.
And when it comes to human rights, we must never ever make concessions.
We demand various criteria of the countries which will accede and of other countries, wherever they may be.
The death penalty is an example.
And yet we have an ally, America, in which the death penalty both exists and is used.
I mention this in a spirit of international sarcasm and because, if we want to build a Europe based on humanitarian principles, it must never make concessions to political expediency and must behave in a mature forward-looking manner.
All four reports on which we shall be voting are good reports.
They need some improvement and I think that the entire House will help without any expediency or ulterior motive.
In particular, Mr Belder' s report on candidate countries is a very good report and I hope that, in the end, it will be even better.
I am tempted for the sake of quality, and because I wish to participate and because I agree, to read two paragraphs, two proposals relating to two candidate countries.
Cyprus - Cyprus satisfies the Copenhagen criteria. In passing, it should be said that there has been no progress in resolving the political partition of the island.
Turkey - The Commission report notes no progress on the fundamental Kurdish issue.
In short, Turkey still fails to satisfy the Copenhagen criteria.
We are in favour of Turkey' s joining the European Union.
However, we must not make concessions on questions of principle for anyone.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, I should like first and foremost to say one thing about the Belder report: it is an excellent report, a serious and very important report and it has my full support.
It is based on fundamental European values which, per se, vehemently oppose racism, xenophobia and antisemitism.
I think that only if we base our position on these fundamental values inside the European Union are we entitled to criticise others outside the Union, in places where these fundamental values are violated.
That is why I believe that this debate, which is being conducted in connection with the Austrian government, provided that it is a serious debate, is extremely important, because its precise aim is to struggle for these fundamental European values and stand up for them, both at home and abroad.
There are various sections of the population in the candidate countries, in the candidate countries, which merit our particular attention.
The first which I should like to mention are the Roma and Sinti; they represent a very large section of the population and we must seriously consider how they can be sensibly integrated into society.
We must also admit that there is a problem in this regard because the Roma and Sinti themselves have different conceptions of how this integration can function.
But we must help them with training.
We must help them find jobs and we must do a great deal of educational work so that what happened recently, the literal immuration and separation of the Roma and Sinti from the rest of the inhabitants in the community, is never repeated.
The second group which I should like to mention are the Kurds.
Turkey, which is a candidate country even if we are not yet negotiating with it, recognises no minorities, not even the Kurdish minority.
I consider this stance to be wrong and one which contradicts the declarations of the Council of Europe.
But even if the Kurds are not recognised as a minority and Turkey is not prepared to grant them any collective rights, it must acknowledge that it is violating the Kurds' individual rights and their cultural freedom, their freedom of expression as well as their economic freedoms and rights.
I therefore think it extremely important that we help the Kurds gain their rights in a reasonable and peaceful manner.
The Belder report also states this unequivocally.
The third group which I should like to make special mention of is to be found mainly in Estonia and Latvia.
I refer to the Russian-speaking minorities.
I understand many of the arguments which I have heard in the Baltic states, namely how difficult it is simply to treat as equals and accept minorities which are not native but which came as an occupying force.
There are many emotional obstacles to this and yet it is important to take these steps and some have certainly been taken.
But they must be persevered with and the past, in other words what was done to these minorities by the occupying forces, must be overcome so that a new common future can be built in the Baltic states together with the Russian-speaking minorities.
The Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia will open in Vienna on 7 April.
I personally have asked the President of the European Parliament on behalf of my Group to ensure that this date is adhered to because, objectively-speaking, I consider it to be a very important date, irrespective of the current situation in Austria.
I hope that this institution will not only be supported and will attract a great deal of publicity and attention on the day of its inauguration, but that Parliament, the Council and the Commission will actively support it in years to come.
Mr President, I am in favour of the Haarder report in its entirety, including paragraph 38, and I am therefore departing from the line of the Group of the Party of European Socialists to which I belong, for I feel that the four points mentioned in paragraph 38 - the excessive length of time for which people are remanded in custody, the excessive length of time taken to complete trials, failure to separate the careers of investigating magistrates and judges and the risk of politically influenced magistrates dealing with politicians in public enquiries - are all matters for careful reflection which should lead us to vote for this motion.
After all, I launched an attack on this subject when I was Italian Minister for Justice, and my right-hand man in that operation was the most important, the most famous and the greatest of all Italian magistrates, Giovanni Falcone. In the same way as I, or rather, we do, he maintained that it was necessary to separate the careers of magistrates, not, of course, in order to penalise them, but to differentiate between the activities of investigators, who are part of the prosecution, and judges, who have to guarantee balance and impartiality.
I do not feel that the European Parliament' s intervention in this matter is abusive or excessive, but rather that it is a step towards guaranteeing the realisation of the concept, the vision of balanced European justice, especially with regard to the proper functioning of the public authorities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not intend this to be a very long speech.
I believe that the debate we have had here today is an extremely important one, and that the various concerns that have been expressed in relation to the various reports have raised some interesting questions.
Some of these questions have been raised in a rather polemic way, in other cases contradictions have been highlighted. In some cases there has been agreement with the form but probably not with the content.
In any case, I think that these four reports are, overall, extremely important and that they raise highly topical issues for all of us, especially at a time when the European Union, both internally and as regards its role on the world stage, is endeavouring to highlight and give substance to a fundamental set of values which will ultimately act as a catalyst for its own political union.
We believe that it is impossible to achieve deepening of the European Union if we are not willing, amongst ourselves, to guarantee a common set of principles and to ensure that these principles also form the essential basis of our own external presence.
I have referred to our external presence and to the internal dimension.
A great deal has been said today, either directly or indirectly, about the stance adopted towards Austria. This was sometimes expressed in a rather emotional way, I might even say in an understandably emotional way, on the part of individuals linked with that country.
As the Portuguese Presidency, that is the Portuguese Prime Minister, acted as a channel for the position that 14 countries of the European Union expressed as regards their bilateral relations with Austria, I would like to be very clear about the following point: we do not have any criticism to make about how Austria has behaved at international level, and in particular about how Austria has fulfilled its duties and obligations within the European Union.
Austria has undeniably been a country that has met its European Union obligations.
But we have to recognise one thing that has a significant bearing on how we view the European Union: we are all Austrian citizens.
Today, in the European Union, citizenship means European citizenship.
An Austrian citizen is a Portuguese citizen.
A Portuguese citizen is an Austrian citizen.
There is no such thing as a domestic issue when certain ideologies and certain political forces propagate and advocate a certain type of ideology, even if they may subsequently retreat, for tactical reasons, from positions they have adopted.
This cannot be viewed as a matter of indifference to the other countries.
We are now operating within a European area, a common area within which we regard ourselves as being bound by a basic set of principles, many of which are highlighted in the reports before us here.
We need to look at these issues from a European perspective, and we cannot keep using subsidiarity as an excuse to say that these are national issues and that this amounts to interference in the internal affairs of a particular country.
That simply is not true.
As I have already said, Austria' s internal affairs are also the European Union' s internal affairs.
When we advocate the need for political life in Austria to be in accordance with the values and principles promoted by the European Union, and which Austria has also undertaken to promote at European Union level, we are not trying to interfere in Member States' internal affairs.
Apart from any emotional issues and, of course, apart from the reactions that situations like this can engender, we believe that there is a need for mature reflection on the significance of this act, which we should point out was bilateral and which, let there be no mistake about this, is a precautionary political act.
We believe that political precautions of this kind are possibly the best way of warding off future problems, and in particular the ghosts from the past that may return to haunt us in Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to external relations, we believe that the European Union now has a solid set of values which the deepening process is bound to improve, particularly by means of these reports.
There are naturally some controversial issues in this area, and people may see things in various different lights in different areas.
Whilst we all oppose racism, and I think that is a statement everyone in this Chamber will accept, I am not so sure that we can all reach agreement in practice on concrete measures to combat racism.
And although we may all say that we oppose xenophobia, I am not sure if we can all agree on active steps to integrate foreign citizens into the European Union and accept measures to protect the interests of foreign citizens within the European Union.
And there is going to be an interesting test of this, in the form of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of citizens of the European Union.
If there is a will within the Union to extend this charter to foreign citizens living within the European Union, we will be giving a signal that we are starting our action against xenophobia by putting our own house in order, with measures that we ourselves have decided to implement at internal political level.
Furthermore, as regards antidiscrimination and the various forms of discrimination identified in the various reports, a great many differing measures obviously exist.
And we know that even when it comes to internal legislation within our Member States, there are major differences in the way some of these questions are dealt with.
However, I also think that the way these issues are being raised in this House, and the way these reports are helping us to reflect on these problems, represent a shake-up in our collective thinking and are an important factor in helping us to further intensify the debate on these issues.
This is a task not just for governments, but also for non-governmental organisations, for social lobbies and for political lobbies.
We need to keep this question on our agenda, and that is the rationale and the significance of this debate.
Finally, I would like to conclude this speech by drawing attention to the set of measures already adopted in the Council of the European Union and the various Community actions it has implemented.
The measures that have been developed include a set of initiatives connected with the European Year against Racism in 1997.
I would also like to highlight a very important aspect which we have probably not yet fully taken into account: the role of the new Treaty of Amsterdam in this area.
It was not easy to reach a consensus: when we were negotiating the Treaty of Amsterdam, and I took part in those negotiations, it was not easy to reach a consensus on including the various measures now covered in Articles 6 and 7.
Our present experience suggests that it would probably be advisable to improve these provisions, that is to improve these articles.
We shall see whether, in the course of the Intergovernmental Conference, we can achieve a consensus that will allow us to make further progress on this matter.
However, I would also like to draw attention to an initiative that will, symbolically, take place in Vienna on 8 April - the launch of the European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia.
This will be a very important body, and I believe that it will also be very important to secure everyone' s cooperation in encouraging an effective fight against racism and xenophobia in the European Union. This essentially represents what we might call the "ethical pillar" of the Union.
I am talking about a Union of principles and a Union that we have to strengthen - there will not be a political Union in the future if we cannot guarantee that these principles are shared by the great majority of the Community.
Madam President, at the end of this extremely interesting debate perhaps I can explain the division of labour or work-sharing on the Commission's side.
I intend to deal mainly with the Malmström and Belder reports and my colleague, Commissioner Vitorino, will deal with the other two important reports, although there will obviously be some overlap between us.
Let me start with the Malmström report.
I think the first annual report of this new European Parliament is thorough and timely.
Timely, because I hope that before the summer break this equally new Commission will adopt a communication on human rights in external policies.
It will cover many of the areas in the report and all the European Parliament's recommendations provide extremely useful input for our work.
I cannot respond to all of the points in the report at this stage.
Instead I will pursue them, including discussions with the European Parliament, over the coming months so that we get the communication right and reflect the important arguments in this report.
I want to concentrate my initial remarks on women's and children's rights, as the rapporteur has chosen to focus on these important objects.
It is a timely choice in view of the Beijing +5 platform for action this year at the UN General Assembly in New York.
Beijing confirmed that women's rights are universal human rights and that women have a central role to play in building democratic and just societies.
The European initiative for democracy and human rights reflects this.
Women are explicitly included as a target group for support.
The actions cover a broad sweep of concerns, from women's participation in decision making in the Balkans to support for female domestic workers in the Ivory Coast.
Issues such as violence against women have been rightly categorised as issues of human rights.
As such, they should be promoted vigorously as part and parcel of our foreign policy and development assistance.
Mrs Malmström's report sets out some of the stark realities of the violence which is perpetrated against women in many forms and at all levels of society.
From the horrors of rape to genital mutilation, from the home to the prison cell.
Our programmes DAPHNE and STOP are the mainstay of the Commission's response.
DAPHNE has supported the sharing of information and good practice amongst NGOs and Member States through more than 100 transnational projects.
A new DAPHNE programme for 2000-2003 was adopted in December 1999 at a level of EUR 5 m a year.
In response to a European Parliament resolution in 1997 the Commission has conducted an awareness-raising campaign on domestic violence within the Member States.
We should use what we learn during such campaigns and share that knowledge with applicant countries, perhaps in the context of DAPHNE.
I take note of what the report says on the horrific practice of genital mutilation and the lack of data on the subject.
We will look, in the Commission, at ways in which we can contribute to the search for a solution.
The Commission is also working with others to halt the heinous trafficking of women which has been growing in the last few years.
We produced a communication in 1998 on this subject.
The focus then was placed on prevention, research, law enforcement, effective sentencing of traffickers and support to victims.
We are working on this, as the honourable Member knows, with NGOs, the OSCE and candidate countries.
As for children's rights, the STOP programme has co-financed 67 projects dealing with trafficking and sexual exploitation of children with a budget of EUR 6.5 m for the first five years.
A new STOP programme is planned to start from this year and this will be open to accession countries.
Moving on to more general issues, I mentioned the forthcoming communication on human rights and external relations.
My aim is to adopt a more effective and coherent approach to policy and to spending and in particular to improve the management of our programmes in this area.
Human rights projects are very different from projects to build bridges or reinforce primary education.
NGOs and civil society partners are integral to their implementation.
The projects are often carried out in sensitive or dangerous conditions in the field.
Those who implement the projects may even see their own rights threatened, which is no doubt why NGOs often feel a little aggrieved that they then have to provide the Commission with a shoebox full of receipts when they return to the office.
The European Union's financial procedures, including the financial regulation are, to put it mildly, not NGO-friendly, which begs the question: should we stop funding NGOs or should we change our procedures? The former is clearly as impossible as it would be totally undesirable.
We could not work without NGOs.
Reform to our procedures, many of them determined by Member States in an era when NGOs barely existed, is going to take time but we are working on it, not least as part of the overall reform package.
We will not, alas, see an overnight change.
This brings me on to the budget and the Parliament's proposal for a joint declaration on yearly increases in human rights expenditure.
The size of the budget cannot be divorced from the question of our capacity to manage it.
Otherwise we will make too many promises which we simply cannot fulfil and when it comes to supporting NGOs you often operate on a shoestring.
Broken promises can lead rapidly to bankruptcy.
We have a backlog of projects to complete and we have underspent the human rights budget in the past so I would find it very difficult to justify an increase in spending until we have sorted this out.
But I want to make this clear: I would like to put myself in a position as soon as I can where we spend every penny and can therefore justify spending a great deal more.
The possibility of creating a human rights agency as foreseen in Vienna and Cologne could help us here.
I believe that such an agency should be operational, not advisory.
I will be exploring this in the communication.
The potential for an agency should also be considered in the context of wider reform of our external assistance and of externalisation as a whole.
I now turn to the issues raised in the Belder report which responds to the Commission' s communication on countering racism, xenophobia and antisemitism in the candidate countries.
I am responding to this on my own behalf and that of my colleague, Commissioner Verheugen.
I would like to congratulate the authors of the comprehensive report.
Of course, it criticises the lack of specific proposals in the Commission' s communication but I should note that the adoption of that communication came after the resignation of the college in March 1999 when the Commission, and I put this gently, was not best placed to elaborate new proposals.
I hope this response will set a few pointers for the future.
The fight against racism is an essential element of the Union' s human rights policies and of the pre-accession strategy.
This has two main elements: adoption and implementation of the acquis by candidate countries including the 1996 Joint Action concerning racism and xenophobia and the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1967 New York Protocol on Asylum Seekers and Refugees, and effective use of our cooperation programmes.
The compatibility of legislation concerning minorities is raised during the screening process and during bilateral discussions and in association committees.
For example, we have looked at language laws in Lithuania, Estonia and Slovakia, a subject that was raised during the debates, and legislation regarding the Roma in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
These discussions have produced concrete results.
The second element, our cooperation programmes, include the PHARE national programmes, PHARE Democracy and the MEDA Programme.
Under PHARE, reform of the police, criminal justice and asylum systems has been accorded a high priority in line with the rapporteurs' proposals.
This reform helps to bring about the necessary changes in attitudes within institutions.
The goal of raising police awareness of racism and xenophobia was also incorporated in the framework of the European curriculum for the training of the police in Central and Eastern Europe.
We will persevere with such measures.
We are also open to opportunities for strengthening them.
One central aim common to the Malmström and the Belder reports is the need to build on our relationship with NGOs in candidate countries.
The new Access Programme which replaces the LIEN and Partnership Programmes aims to strengthen civil society.
Finally, on the Roma, whose condition was mentioned by several speakers, the Commission is seeking to bring more coherence to its support for Roma communities.
We intend to be associated with the meeting to be organised by the European Monitoring Centre to which European Parliament representatives are being invited - a meeting called in order to stimulate ideas for improving European Union assistance to Roma communities.
These reports cover extremely important issues.
They are issues of increasing concern to European Union citizens as they are daily assailed by media footage of human rights abuses, whether they be in the Caucasus, Colombia, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, China and so on.
I look forward to the European Union taking up these abuses at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, which I will attend on 27 March.
I am grateful to Parliament for its timely input.
The Commission and Parliament are well placed to work together on human rights.
We are well placed to give a strong lead to others.
I am particularly looking forward to working with Members of this Parliament to ensure that the communication we produce later this year gives an intellectual and political lead on this issue and can be regarded by NGOs, parliamentarians and others as blazing a trail for discussion of these fundamental issues.
Madam President, I understood my good friend' s, Mr Seixas da Costa' s, remarks as a defence of the sanctions against Austria, and I should therefore like to ask him, as a matter of form, whether he was tabling this proposal as President-in-Office of the Council, and therefore on behalf of the Council, or whether it was on behalf of the 14 governments.
Madam President, I too should like to ask in what capacity you made this statement.
Secondly, in speaking of subsidiarity, I meant points in the report which referred to areas of intervention in the rights of nation states which, according to the Treaty, clearly come within the remit of those states.
My third comment, if you will allow, is addressed to you, Mr da Costa: what happens in one country of the European Union is of interest to the other countries, that is perfectly obvious.
That is not least precisely why we are members of this European Union and it is to be commended that we obtain information and evince an interest.
But evincing an interest also means, in my view, obtaining objective information about a country and levying criticism where criticism is due and then taking measures when transgressions have taken place and not preventatively or, where possible, on the grounds of political persuasion.
Minister, I should like to call on you on behalf of the Austrian delegation to obtain this information, which neither you nor many or, presumably all of the 14, have, in situ.
If you want to know who elected this party which forms part of the coalition, namely the Freedom Party, then the answer is that 50% of the workers who used to vote for Socialism have now voted for this party and that half the youth of Austria voted for this party.
It was not right-wing extremists, although, of course, we do unfortunately have them in Austria, perhaps in the order of 3 to 5%, just as other countries do.
The motives here were different, however, and voters simply overwhelmingly voted the old government and Socialism out in favour of an alternative.
If you wish to pass value judgements here, please ensure that you are in possession of all the facts first and then levy criticism where it is really due and not on the basis of supposition or suspicion.
Madam President, Mr Pirker has not spoken on the agenda.
Clever as he is, he has taken cover under a point of order to give a short, two-and-a-half minute speech as to what we must forgive him for as an Austrian who also comes from Carinthia.
I should like it recorded that what Mr Pirker has said had nothing to do with the agenda.
I call on the President of the Council on behalf of my Group to continue to be as vigilant and critical of racism and xenophobia as you have demonstrated here, in whatever capacity.
Madam President, I am grateful for this opportunity to clarify once again the capacity in which I made those observations.
Let there be no mistake: the statement by the President of the European Council and Portuguese Prime Minister was made on behalf of the 14 countries in the European Union apart from Austria.
This statement was made in a context which, from the outset, as I explained in the speech that I made to this House on 2 February, had nothing to do with the workings of the Community' s machinery.
The 14 countries' three levels of response as regards Austria are therefore bilateral in nature.
The fact that this was channelled through the President of the Council was merely a question of coordinating the joint position of the various countries.
I would like to reiterate and to emphasise what I have said about Austria' s conduct at Community level up to now: I think I made it quite clear that Austria has been a loyal partner within the European Union and that nobody is questioning Austria' s conduct. Nor is there any question of Austria infringing any of the provisions of Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The bilateral sanctions are therefore exactly that. They are not sanctions within the operational framework of the Community.
No formal aspect of the European Union' s operational framework has come into play during the Portuguese presidency in relation to the Austrian situation.
Certain informal aspects may have been involved, but at present, formally speaking, Austria' s representations are being dealt with at Council Working Group level, at Council of Ministers level, and at the European Council which is to take place shortly.
With regard to the political question which the honourable Member has put to me about the attitude of the Member States towards the effective operation of the Austrian Government, I would like to stress a point which has not always been sufficiently emphasised in relation to Austria: the current situation does not represent 'business as usual' , neither for Austria in general nor for Austria' s political life.
It was not by chance that the party with the second largest vote in the Austrian elections was not invited to form the government.
It was not by chance that a party that received a larger number of votes was invited to form the government, but that it then passed on to the party with the third largest number of votes.
It was not by chance that the President of the Republic of Austria has obliged the two parties in the coalition government to make a declaration recognising a basic set of principles.
It was not by chance at all!
That is also the reason why the present political situation in Austria is, of course, not 'business as usual' and why, in the same way as the Austrians have doubts about this situation, we all have the right to entertain such doubts and to express them bilaterally.
As regards Austria acting as a full partner within the Community, as it has done up to now, nothing will militate against Austria at Community level.
That is quite clear.
However, at bilateral level, we must have the responsibility, the right and the duty to be aware of what we regard as a certain violation of the atmosphere of trust which we can no longer take for granted, because of statements that certain individuals have made in the past and because of the political proposals that these individuals have made.
This is a political point, it is a political statement, and we have drawn the relevant conclusions here bilaterally speaking, and bilaterally speaking no one can deny us the right to draw conclusions as regards our relations with Austria.
We regret that this is how things have to be and we hope that matters will develop in Austria in such a way that we can act differently.
Madam President, as my colleague Chris Patten has clearly said, it is my responsibility to set out the Commission' s position on the other two reports being discussed this afternoon. These are the Haarder and Ludford reports.
Firstly, the Commission shares the European Parliament' s view that the new legal context, following the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty, gives the Union increased competence and responsibility for human rights.
In this respect the Commission congratulates the European Council' s initiative to prepare an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. This will give greater visibility to these rights and also, I hope, greater legal security if, as desired by both Parliament and the Commission, this Charter becomes a legally binding instrument under the supervision of the courts.
In this context and as the personal representative of the Commission President to the convention responsible for preparing this Charter, I must defend the view that the Charter should be extended to third country nationals legally resident on the territory of Member States.
The Commission is also pleased to note that its views are basically in agreement with those of the European Parliament on the nature and content of this Charter.
This was also the case in yesterday' s debate on the Duff and Voggenhuber report and it is also true with regard to the conclusions of the report by Mr Haarder whom I warmly congratulate.
The Commission shares the concern for action, and not just words, in ensuring the coherence of the rules on human rights applied by the national courts and by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg or the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
In this respect there is no doubt that the signature of the European Convention on Human Rights by the European Union would allow the hierarchy of the courts' decisions to be clarified and would allow external supervision of Community law, as is already the case with the legal systems of the Member States.
The signature of this Convention is certainly compatible with the preparation of a binding Charter of Fundamental Rights.
With regard to the content of the Haarder report, I will particularly concentrate on the aspects which come directly within my area of competence within the Commission.
The conclusions of the Tampere European Council provide a very clear political framework for the EU' s policy on respecting and promoting migrants' rights in the broad sense of the term.
The Heads of State and Government underlined that the joint policies on immigration and asylum to be developed on the basis of the Amsterdam Treaty should be founded on principles which are clear to the people and which offer guarantees to those seeking protection in the European Union or requesting access to its territory.
Furthermore, the Presidency' s conclusions define the four pillars which will form the future basis of the joint European policy on asylum and immigration. These pillars are: partnership with the countries of origin, a common European asylum system, fair treatment for third country nationals and more efficient management of migratory flows.
I must particularly stress the need for the European Union to have a comprehensive approach to immigration which covers political aspects, human rights and development questions in the countries and regions of origin and transit. The latter involve the fight against poverty, improvement of living conditions and job opportunities, prevention of conflicts, consolidation of democratic states and respect for human rights, including those of minorities.
I wish to confirm the importance which the Union and its Member States attach to absolute respect for the right to ask for asylum on the basis of a full and comprehensive application of the Geneva Convention.
I must also underline the intention to develop a vigorous policy on the integration of third country nationals legally resident on EU Member State territory.
Finally, although these measures are needed to guarantee social peace in our Member States, we must recognise that the fight against illegal immigration must be strengthened and the protection of the rights of the victims of the criminal networks organising such immigration must be guaranteed. Particular attention must be paid to the situation of women' s and children' s rights.
I therefore share the rapporteur' s and Parliament' s concerns.
The Commission asks you to note that, in response to your concerns, our concerns and the requirements of the Tampere mandate, we intend during this year to submit all the main instruments of the asylum policy to Parliament and the Council. These consist of the joint procedures, the revision of the Dublin Convention and the final Eurodac instrument.
However, at the same time, the Commission intends, in the autumn, to submit to Parliament a communication on immigration policy in the European Union.
We must review the 1994 communication and update the approach to the questions of immigration policy in the Union in light of the Tampere conclusions.
As for the inadequacies of the legal services which have been underlined during this debate, the Commission does not intend to tackle some of these albeit very interesting theoretical and practical questions, such as the career structure of national judges or the duration of trials in several Member States. This is because we should respect the principle of subsidiarity and recognise that the basic options must be the decision of each Member State.
The Commission would underline in this respect that a green paper on legal aid represents a worthwhile contribution, both to the requirement to define common rules on the protection of defendants, such as the guarantee of assistance from interpreters and translators in cross-border trials, and to the establishment of a wider programme of mutual recognition of legal decisions.
As for civil justice, the communitisation of several civil justice instruments is an efficient way of ensuring the effective legal consideration of human rights.
The Commission has already proposed communitising all existing conventions not currently in force, particularly the one on the service of documents and the Brussels II Convention and the convention on bankruptcies.
We have also proposed making the very important Brussels Convention of 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgements in Civil and Commercial Matters into a regulation.
All these instruments are currently being examined by the Council.
Even the United Kingdom and Ireland have decided to join the Member States on this and Denmark, which does not have the same capacity to participate in work on civil legal cooperation, is also seeking solutions which are currently being examined.
Finally, with regard to children' s and women' s rights, although these matters specifically come under the competence of Member States, I can remind the House that the Commission and I have undertaken to submit a package of measures on these questions by the end of the year.
These measures will aim to go beyond the joint action of February 1997.
They will consist of definitions, charges and penalties in the fight against the trade in human beings for the purposes of sexual exploitation and measures against the sexual exploitation of children.
Turning now to the Ludford report, I very much welcome the opportunity to respond to Parliament' s report on racism and xenophobia.
The Union' s commitment to supporting fundamental rights and fighting discrimination was made very clear in the Amsterdam Treaty and this is, for me, a crucial development of the European message.
Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union introduces new powers to react in case of serious and persistent breaches of fundamental rights by a Member State.
Article 13 of the EC Treaty provides for measures to combat discrimination on the grounds of sex, religion or belief, disability, age, sexual orientation and - of greatest relevance to us today in this debate - racial or ethnic origin in which (to clarify the question raised by Mr Brie) we include the fight against antisemitism.
Many forces came together to reach agreement on Article 13 in the last Intergovernmental Conference, as the representative of the Council has already reminded us, and the Commission is determined to honour the Treaty commitment to a discrimination-free society.
That is why we put forward our package of proposals to fight discrimination only two months after taking office last year.
My message today, in the follow-up to the Ludford report, is that we still hope that Parliament will give priority to giving its opinion on this package so that we can adopt the two directives and the action plan by the end of this year.
But besides that, I think that in many quarters there is growing recognition of the need for European action against racism.
That is why in the Article 13 proposals we are able to make greater progress, I believe, on racial discrimination than on the other matters.
We felt that it was politically possible.
We sincerely hope that the facts will not deny our hope.
As you know, the package of proposals that the Commission has put forward consists of two directives and an action programme.
The two draft directives provide a legislative framework for legally enforceable rights including provisions on a number of key issues such as protection against harassment, scope for positive action, appropriate remedies and enforcement measures.
The proposed directives are complemented by a proposal for an action programme.
We know that, to combat discrimination, practical action is needed to reach out to people and help change discriminatory attitudes and behaviour on the ground.
Getting the Member States to adopt the anti-discrimination package is now our top priority.
Although it is important, the Article 13 package is only part of an on-going process to develop new ways of tackling racial discrimination.
The Union is committed to mainstreaming the fight against discrimination on the basis of race and ethnic origin, and we recently organised a major conference on this issue.
We intend to keep pushing the process forward, through the Structural Funds, the Research Framework Programme, the European Employment Strategy, the new EQUAL Initiative and the new Social Action Programme which we hope to adopt in the summer.
We intend to use all these instruments to fight discrimination and, as you know, work has also started on the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Parliament has a key role to play in this regard.
It is vital for the Commission that the Parliament contributes to the growing momentum surrounding these proposals by delivering its opinions on the package as soon as possible, and by participating fully in the work of drafting the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I will conclude as I have started: the Charter will represent the high priority that the Union as a whole accords to the fight against racism and discrimination and to protection of human rights.
I sincerely hope that, during our debate on this issue next year, we will be congratulating ourselves on achieving, with the Charter, a new tool to fight against racism and xenophobia in the Union.
Madam President, allow me briefly to correct what the President-in-Office of the Council said.
Two heads of government, Mr President-in-Office, have already been reprimanded by their parliaments for the steps which they initiated against Austria.
You therefore had no right to speak on behalf of their countries; on the contrary, you obviously spoke as the head of a socialist party.
At most, Mr President-in-Office, you can therefore only speak of twelve countries.
Mrs Flemming, the debate on Austria should not be restarted as we have already had an exchange of views on this issue.
I will give the floor to Mr Schulz who wanted to raise a point of order on a personal challenge made in yesterday' s debate.
Madam President, I seldom make use of these rules but I must do so now for the record.
During the debate, Mr Gollnisch, a member of the French extreme right, attacked me personally.
I should like to state the following for the record: I have nothing to take back as regards my statement that the extreme right is abusing this House for rabble-rousing purposes.
Mr Gollnisch stated for my benefit during his speech that his family, and these were his words, would never accept fascism.
That is where Mr Gollnisch clearly differs from his family, because he himself accepts fascism or, to put it plainly, he is a fascist.
Thirdly, I should like to state for the record that the fact that such speeches are given here fills me with consternation, as does the fact, which I ascertained from his loud applause, that Caudillos Le Pen is still allowed to sit in this House, despite the fact that he has already lost his eligibility for office on account of his prize fighting activities in the French election campaign.
Mr Schulz, we have noted your statement.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Eurodac
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, firstly I would like to thank the Presidency-in-Office of the Council for their high level presence in this House and for their positive attitude.
Last year, this Parliament was consulted twice about the establishment of a system for comparing fingerprints.
In principle, the system is intended to correctly implement the Dublin Convention.
On 13 April 1999, this Parliament rejected the Council' s proposal to extend the Eurodac system to illegal immigrants by means of a protocol.
This Parliament was then consulted again in accordance with the provisions of Amsterdam.
We were once again told that this system has to be developed in order to correctly implement the Dublin Convention.
This seems all very well to me, with the limits introduced by Parliament in its last report, with the amendments which ranged from our reservations about the inclusion of children under 14 in the system to the request that this Eurodac system be only applied to the Dublin Convention.
Given that we have been informed that none of our suggestions are going to be accepted, I would like to ask the Council whether it is prepared to hold a genuine dialogue with Parliament.
This is not a trivial question.
We are beginning to build and implement the instruments for the 'communitisation' of the area of freedom, security and justice and, as we will never tire of saying in this House, this cannot be done without the national parliaments and without the European Parliament, because these issues are far too important to the citizens not to be endorsed through a strong social consensus.
The other question I would like to ask the Council is whether it agrees that this system should be administrated by the Commission, in which case the Commission should be provided with adequate staff and resources.
Returning to the content of the report, the non-acceptance of Parliament' s amendments and the ambiguity of some of its provisions, as well as certain information that I have received, lead me to ask you, and to insist once again, what exactly are the Council' s intentions with regard to the scope and functions of the Eurodac system. I would like to ask why other foreign nationals have been included and, especially, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, whether the Council has any intention to extend the use of the Eurodac system beyond the application of the Dublin Convention.
I await your responses to this question and I would like to thank you once again for coming to answer this oral question before the debate on the new Eurodac Regulations, which I hope will also reach this House.
Mr President, as far as the Council Presidency is concerned, I for one am delighted that we are currently cultivating extremely positive contacts, especially as regards cooperation in the domestic policy area.
We have all managed very well to really work together with you, and the same applies of course to Commissioner Vitorino.
But when it comes to EURODAC, we have a problem.
We here in Parliament have passed a resolution and have made clear why we cannot accept EURODAC in the form which the Council and the Commission wish it to take. And we have given our reasons.
We have humane reasons, we have reasons when it comes to children, as far as the age limit is concerned; for example we cannot accept the age limit of 14.
We highlighted all these problems in a resolution by Parliament.
For this reason, it is of course most important for us, for my group, to see how seriously you take Parliament, how you deal with our proposals and, in the final analysis, we hope that we will continue to be able to report gladly and proudly on how well we are cooperating together.
The question is whether you are willing to lend us an ear when something gives us cause for concern and we urgently need your support.
Mr President, esteemed Commissioners, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the debate on EURODAC and the implementation of this system is something of a never ending story.
It started back in Dublin in 1990.
In November 1999, we here in Parliament, and I assume you too Commissioner, believed that we were on the home stretch and were finally going to be able to implement EURODAC.
Set targets were tabled on several occasions and, on balance, we welcomed the fact, and I personally was pleased, and that' s a rare occurrence, when you said, following the vote in Parliament, that you would not accept the proposals adopted by a majority in Parliament which we, I should add, had voted against.
That too was a very positive aspect.
All in all, I would have been pleased to see this system implemented for the simple reason that it is this system alone which makes Dublin enforceable and because it allows the jurisdiction of the Member State responsible for the asylum procedure to be established unequivocally, thereby indirectly dividing the burden to a certain extent.
Plus, we could then prevent multiple applications for asylum and abuse of the asylum system and this, in turn, would allow us, as it were, to fight illegal immigration indirectly.
In other words, it is, as a whole, a system which must be seen as very positive and absolutely necessary in the context of asylum and immigration policy and the responsibility of the Member States.
What filled me with consternation was the fact that the Council then upset the whole applecart at its meeting on 2 December by refusing to accept that implementing powers should remain with the Commission, i.e. that the competent regulatory committee should be able to act under the chairmanship of the Commission.
The upshot of this was that we failed to achieve what we wanted to do, i.e. to communitise the system; on the contrary, the Council upset our plans by more or less announcing yet again that it was staking its claim.
As a result, it is not the Commission which controls this instrument in the interests of the Community; on the contrary the initiative is again with the Council and, as a result, the Commission and, in the final analysis, Parliament too are excluded.
We will not and cannot accept this because it involves consequences which are so far-reaching that, in the end, there will be no control over the efficiency of the system, it will no longer be possible to collate statistics for the purposes of analysis and action and a delay has been caused which is absolutely unacceptable on account of the fact that we need this system.
My question to you is this: when can we really expect to see the EURODAC system which we have waited so long for up and running? How will the system actually be configured?
Will it comply with the rules and with our requests for the Commission to be fully responsible for implementation, because then we would have achieved our own necessary goal; we would have re-Europeanised one part, because it makes sense here to actually implement this communitisation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall reply very directly to the questions that have been raised, so as to avoid any possible doubt about the Council' s position, and I think it is indeed important for that position to be clarified.
With regard to the scope of the Eurodac system, I would like to recall that Article 1 of the proposal for a regulation on establishing this system is very clear, so let me quote it: "A system known as 'Eurodac' is hereby established, the purpose of which shall be to assist in determining which Member State is to be responsible pursuant to the Dublin Convention," I repeat, "pursuant to the Dublin Convention, for examining an application for asylum lodged in a Member State, and otherwise to facilitate the application of the Dublin Convention under the conditions set out in this Regulation" .
This is the sole objective of the regulation, which is an instrument pursuant to the Dublin Convention and which goes no further than that objective.
As regards the role of the European Commission, Article 3 of the proposal for a regulation clearly defines that a Central Unit shall be set up within the Commission.
Furthermore, the Commission has, as we know, started to work on this, and preparations for establishing a Central Unit are under way.
Concerning the role of the European Parliament, I would like to clarify something that can only be the result of a misunderstanding.
I would like to make it very clear that in no way has the Council stated its opposition to all Parliament' s amendments, nor has it called upon the European Commission to come up with any new proposals.
Some of Parliament' s amendments were in fact incorporated into the proposal for a regulation, which is a point I wish to stress.
In addition, I would like to remind you that all the Justice and Home Affairs Council' s proposals on this matter have been presented to this House, which has, in fact, given its opinion on this matter on three occasions: 15 January 1998, 18 March 1999 and 11 November 1999.
At present, as you know, and for reasons that are not entirely relevant to this issue, but have more to do with other circumstances of a political nature, it has not been possible to reach a consensus within the Council on the new proposal to be submitted to this House.
We hope that this will happen shortly, perhaps even during the Portuguese Presidency.
With regard to the other questions raised here, the first was the minimum age for taking fingerprints, which has been set at 14 years.
I recognise that there are some concerns about this, but I would like to say that this is in line with the practices followed in Member States, which in some cases even allow fingerprints to be taken from children under 14.
I would like to highlight an important aspect which was probably not taken into consideration when discussing this age limit: an ever increasing number of applications for asylum are submitted by minors, and such situations need to be monitored using technical procedures of this kind.
As regards the involvement of the European Parliament and of the courts, I think that Title IV of the Treaty of Amsterdam is sufficiently clear about the role of this Parliament and the Court of Justice in this field.
I believe that the need to safeguard privacy is properly covered by the provisions of Article 18 of the proposal for a regulation, to which I would like to draw your attention, and which, in addition, refers to the rights already enshrined in Directive 95/46.
Furthermore, as a result of Article 1 of the proposal for a regulation, and I think it is very important that this should be reiterated here, it is clear that the application of Eurodac will, at all times, be governed by the principles enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights and in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I believe that these points mean we can say that this is a safe system without any aspects that could jeopardise citizens' rights.
But we have to recognise that the creation of a set of EU mechanisms for regulating all these issues relating to applications for asylum needs to be subject to rigorous technical scrutiny, failing which it could be perceived as implying a loss of citizens' rights.
Mr President, the statements by the President-in-Office of the Council go straight to the heart of the problem facing us here.
The Social Democrats are divided, I make no bones about the fact, as to how to deal with fingerprinting of under 18-year olds.
Some members are saying we should not fingerprint fourteen- to eighteen-year-olds.
I personally take a different view on this.
You cannot advocate reducing the voting age to sixteen and still say that an eighteen-year-old should not be fingerprinted.
It is incomprehensible.
It comes down to how this system is seen under the rule of law.
If you guarantee that the Council has no objection to leaving implementing powers definitively with the Commission and allowing us in Parliament to exercise a control function, at least in the area of Commission jurisdiction, then that is considerable progress.
However, the Council has not so far given us to understand this in so many words, which is why I listened to what you said with pleasure.
Because I should like to draw your attention to the following point: if we create systems at European level which can directly violate people' s basic freedoms - and the anthropometric treatment of a person, compulsory treatment of a person is a violation of his individual rights - if we create institutions at European level which have these rights then the Executive must be subject to parliamentary scrutiny and the people affected by the measures must have legal recourse, both of which are lacking in almost every system which we have created within the framework of internal security in the European Union.
There is a lack of parliamentary scrutiny and no precise guaranteed legal recourse.
It is there in principle, but it has never been accurately described.
The same applies to parliamentary scrutiny.
We therefore say that if implementing powers remain with the Commission, if the regulatory committee is set up under the chairmanship of the Commission, then we agree.
If not, then we must tell the Council that there is no question of the Council taking implementing powers away from the Commission, not if it expects the Community budget to finance the system.
Otherwise Parliament would have to reconsider the budget and the question of financing the system from the community budget. And believe me, we shall do so.
The purpose of the Dublin Convention and Eurodac is to allocate to a single Member State responsibility for examining an asylum application, and the justification for the proposed regulation is that there is a need to extend fingerprinting to certain categories of illegal immigrants on the grounds that a substantial number of them will have claimed asylum previously or intend to do so.
The problem is that some have not and will not, so this means that the proposed regulation goes beyond the strict terms of Dublin by guessing at or anticipating the existence of an asylum application.
Thus the Dublin Convention is, in the words of the UK House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities, a shaky edifice on which to construct a system for taking and exchanging fingerprint data on those who have not yet made or may not make an asylum application.
This is a legally uncertain basis for legislation and that makes me unhappy.
There is also an absence of clarity in the definition of the illegal immigrants to whom the regulation will apply.
Member States are required to fingerprint every third-country national over 14 who is apprehended in connection with the irregular crossing of their border - that is not very precise.
Fingerprinting is a serious invasion of privacy and the compatibility of such requirements with the European Convention on Human Rights needs to be carefully weighed.
I am not sure that this has really been done.
There are also data protection worries, which is why Parliament wanted to extend the provisions on erasing data to include, for instance, those who obtain any kind of legal status to remain in a Member State even if not full refugee status.
I am glad to see the amended proposal takes up Parliament's demand to erase the data when an individual has got a subsidiary or temporary form of protection, but could I enquire whether this would cover for example - in the system I know best - the UK's exceptional leave to remain?
Finally, Mr President, whatever the justification for widening the Eurodac fingerprinting system to some categories of illegal immigrants, I am personally not convinced that this proposal is legally watertight.
Are the Council and the Commission so convinced?
Mr President, we are beginning to establish a common asylum and immigration law in Europe.
That means that we need instruments to exercise the necessary controls.
A common immigration law means that we have no more internal borders and take responsibility for the people entering the European Union at the external borders.
It is perfectly clear that there is abuse, for example in connection with asylum claims.
The number of people applying for asylum on grounds which have nothing to do with political persecution far outweighs the number of applicants recognised as victims of political persecution.
Abuse in this connection means not only that asylum is sought on non-existent grounds but also that the same applicants make applications on these grounds to several countries.
We will only be able to control this abuse if we at long last implement the EURODAC fingerprinting system, which we have been waiting such a long time for, and if the Council finally decides to allow this system to enter into force.
It has already proven its efficacy on several counts, and it is essential if asylum is to gain acceptance.
We therefore advise the Council in the strongest terms to make its decisions so that EURODAC, the system which allows fingerprinting throughout Europe, can become a fact of life.
That is the task now before the Council.
Ladies and gentlemen, as we have been told by the Council representatives, the amendments adopted by Parliament and included in the text have improved the draft regulation.
However, this is still unacceptable to us as it stigmatises third country nationals and tends to criminalise them.
Given that we are now discussing a Charter of Fundamental Rights and yesterday, for instance, a report on human rights, could we really live within a fortress Europe outside, or even inside, which rights might be being violated?
Moreover, this draft regulation concerns us basically because we feel that it is not needed yet.
It is, we feel, putting the cart before the horse.
We are using and establishing instruments before we have developed a proper harmonised policy on the right to freedom of movement, the right to live as a family and the right of asylum.
We should start by harmonising this policy. We can look at the instruments for implementation and control after that.
Finally, a third point which particularly concerns us is the dismissal of Parliament' s opinion.
This raises a vital question about the democratic credit granted to the Members of the European Parliament.
It is a shame that we are currently being given the impression that we serve no useful purpose.
We are told that this is just a case of abstention but this is actually the norm as Members' opinions are not being taken into account.
To conclude, the establishment of this area of freedom, security and justice needs instruments. Yet this security can be achieved only if there is real justice, and freedom can be achieved only if we have rights which are respected.
Mr President, we have spent a whole day here in the European Parliament discussing human rights and high ideals, and it is therefore a matter of some shame that, when the Union then acts in the real world, matters look quite different.
With Eurodac, the Commission and the Council are, in my view, going too far in their desire to monitor asylum seekers and other citizens of third countries who cross the border into Fortress Europe.
The Eurodac initiative is a series of absurdities and outrages.
Firstly, keeping the fingerprints of minors - right down to 14 years of age - who have not committed any criminal offence contravenes the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which asks us to protect children and to respect an age of criminal responsibility of 18 years if we ourselves have not legally specified another age - something which, as far as I know, the Union has not done.
Keeping fingerprints for up to ten years, even if the person concerned has not committed any offence and even if they have perhaps, into the bargain, obtained legal residence in the area of the Union, is a violation of the demand under the European Convention on Human Rights for respect for private life.
To confuse asylum seekers with illegal immigrants contravenes the Convention on Refugees.
Those human and fundamental rights which are so much talked about have no value if we are not in a position to guarantee them in practice, and on behalf of those who penetrate Fortress Europe as well.
The impression with which those people travel home, or which they obtain while they are here, of the "area of freedom, security and justice" does not reflect those values which, on state occasions, are otherwise designated as global and universal.
What I would therefore urge the Commission and the Council to do is to allow Eurodac to die a peaceful death, as it deserves to do.
Mr President, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, I should like to express my confidence in the Council' s handling of this matter and, in common with others, I want to urge the Council now to make a decision about establishing Eurodac.
We are talking about establishing an area which claims to offer a high degree of legal protection, and I think it odd that, in the next sentence, we express a lack of confidence in its being possible to administer such an arrangement responsibly.
In my view, the purpose is to safeguard the rights of asylum seekers, and there is no question of infringing the rights of those who honestly and legitimately request asylum.
I cannot imagine that either the Council or the Commission might wish to construct this system in such a way that it could include restrictions of any kind upon the freedom of law-abiding citizens.
The system is quite in accordance with the creation of an area of freedom and justice, and this is something we support.
Mr President, the back-peddling in relation to the adoption of the EURODAC system has given rise to numerous, logical questions concerning both the expediency and the efficiency of the system for the comparison of the fingerprints of applicants for asylum which complements the Dublin Convention.
I personally am among those who have serious reservations about the system.
Numerous facets of the system already exacerbate our concerns regarding possible violations of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, given that it calls for 14-year-old children to be fingerprinted.
Apart from that, the fingerprinting system per se has negative associations with criminal investigations by police authorities and criminal offences.
In other words, extending the system to asylum seekers automatically identifies refugees and immigrants as a whole with crime and illegality, which I think is quite unfair and goes beyond every concept of international law and respect for human rights as demanded in the Geneva Convention, the 50th anniversary of which we celebrated in this morning' s extended debate here in the European Parliament.
In addition, the system does not guarantee 100% identification, as we know from numerous criminal investigations and, as such, we cannot consider that its application will facilitate the implementation of the Dublin Convention and help to prevent abuse of the right to asylum.
In all events, the European Parliament is calling for the right to exercise parliamentary scrutiny, in which case the Council and the Commission will have the final word on the matter.
However, I think that the best thing the European Commission and the Council can do is to institute a common asylum and immigration policy based on European humanitarian and democratic values and respect for human rights.
Mr President, the Commission would like to welcome, first of all, the very clear statement issued by the representative of the Council to the effect that the Eurodac system is only a system conceived to implement the Dublin Convention.
I would also like to confirm, as the representative of the Council has already said, that there is a problem concerning the territorial application of the Eurodac regulation.
I can also confirm that the Council did not ask the Commission to come forward with a revised proposal.
Nevertheless, this is a very sensitive issue, as the debate has already shown, and one of the few cases where the three institutions do not have the same position, as I very clearly stated before Parliament.
The Commission, in this case, has a different position from both the Council and Parliament.
That is why, although not being asked to come forward with a new proposal, we decided that to clarify the political options that are on the table we should do that extra work and come before the Council with a revised proposal.
In its revised proposal the Commission takes on board the solution proposed by Parliament that the data should be deleted from the base as soon as someone is recognised as a refugee.
On the other hand, we did not subscribe to the idea of Parliament about the age limit for fingerprinting.
We considered that 14 years old is an adequate solution.
Perhaps this is because I come from a country - which the representative of the Council also comes from - where our children, when they are ten years old, in order to get their first identity card, are fingerprinted.
It is inconceivable for me that my country is one which criminalises all children of 10 years of age just because they are fingerprinted for their first identity card.
I still remember that it was a major event in my youth to get my own identity card.
Nevertheless, I recognise this is a very sensitive question.
Consequently, the Commission believes it should clarify to Parliament two very strict and clear ideas.
First, we should not ask Eurodac to give answers that Eurodac cannot give.
That is why we consider that some of the questions Baroness Ludford raised and some of the issues that were raised by Mrs Boumediene-Thiery - which are very important - have to be addressed in the context of the regulation on temporary protection and on subsidiary protection that the Commission is actively preparing.
We will come to Parliament and the Council with proposals in the next few months.
We have just achieved, this week, a working document to re-evaluate the Dublin Convention itself.
We want to launch a debate not only on the technical questions of Eurodac but also on the essential solutions to the current Dublin Convention.
We do not want to lose time.
We want to have as broad a picture as possible for all instruments that concern asylum policy.
Where is the point of difference between the Commission and the Council? Of course, the Council has been generous in the sense that it has given to the Commission management and the technical functioning of the system.
But there is a point where the Commission does not agree with the Council.
We do not agree that the Council should reserve for itself the powers of implementation of the system.
According to the comitology agreement, there are not sufficient grounds for the Council to reserve the implementing powers for itself rather than delegating them to the Commission.
The proposal of the Commission is that the executive powers, the implementing powers of the system, should be delegated to the Commission, associated with a committee composed of representatives from all Member States.
In our opinion this will be a more coherent and transparent way of managing the system and reinforcing the capability of Parliament to scrutinise the way the Commission manages and develops the Eurodac system.
Maybe through this balanced solution it will be possible to address in a more relaxed and trusting way some of the reservations and political doubts that have been raised by several Members of Parliament during this debate.
Maybe I am being stubborn but this is what I sincerely believe.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
Trade in bovine animals and pigs
The next item is the report (A5-0044/2000) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 64/432/EEC on health problems affecting intra-Community trade in bovine animals and swine [COM(1999) 456 - C5-0239/1999 - 1999/0217(COD)].
Mr President, the point of this report is to allow the situation which prevailed before 1 July 1999 to be reinstated with regard to a provision which has been in force since 1 July 1999.
The reasons given by the Commission are as follows: the Member States have failed to honour their undertaking to implement a control system and we therefore need to reinstate temporarily the situation which prevailed previously.
We support the Commission in its implied criticism of the Member States which have failed to do their homework but deeply regret that we are again in a situation in which we are unable to implement amendments and improvements to a control system which has been accepted and entered into force because the Member States have failed to carry out their duties.
Nonetheless, we support the Commission' s proposal because we consider that the old rules provide a sufficient degree of safety, especially as the Commission is only asking for one year' s delay.
The Commission has, however, left itself with an escape clause by asking for a further transitional period of three years under the provisions of the agreement with the Council in the Council decision on comitology of 28 June 1999 and we in Parliament consider that somewhat unusual.
What you should have done, Commissioner Byrne, was to apply directly for four years, if it was going to take four years, especially as this would have given a sign to the Member States.
If the Commission is leaving itself an escape clause in the form of a three-year postponement, why should we keep to our side of the bargain?
However, here too we said that we wanted to help out.
We tabled a proposed amendment seeking to reduce this period to two years and it became clear during discussions with the Commission that it too was willing to go along with this proposed amendment.
Then we noticed an unusual feature; we noticed that you had presented us with the statements of this decision on comitology in long prose texts, despite the fact that you agreed with the Council a long time ago that references to the article would be succinct.
Hence, we have complied with the requirement and the practice which you have cultivated with the Council and, for our part, have now called in a proposed amendment tabled in my name for the new regulation to be adopted, still with the unusual feature that, because the legal basis was Article 37 and Article 152, you had submitted both Article 17 and Article 17a to us on the grounds that this was both a consultation and a codecision procedure.
In the codecision procedure, Article 8 applies under the decision on comitology but not under Article 37.
We take the view that these two separate submissions are unnecessary and we have tabled a single proposed amendment which I shall read to you.
We are calling for Article 17a to be deleted. The proposed amendment should read as follows: "Where reference is made to this Article, the management procedure under Article 5 in conjunction with Article 7 of Decision 99/468/EC shall apply and, in the case of a codecision procedure based on Article 251 of the Treaty, Article 8 thereof" .
I hope that the Commission is able to accept this amendment.
This is a codecision process.
If the Commission and the Council are able to adopt our amendments, we can shorten the procedure which, given that we have been in a legal grey area since 1 July 1999, is a reasonable step.
We have already had intensive discussions.
I am curious to see what the outcome of your position will be.
I hope that you will go along with our considerations, as tabled during the discussions, especially as we do not disagree in principle.
Mr President, we are dealing here with amendments to a directive concerning the intra-Community trade in bovine animals and swine.
I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur on his report and agreeing very strongly with the remarks he has just made.
I suggested a single amendment during the committee stage of the debate, which was accepted by the committee, regarding the need for Member States to put in place a proper system of spot checks, inspections and controls to ensure the efficient implementation of these regulations.
My amendment calls upon the Commission to monitor the Member States to see that they carry out the necessary inspections set out in these regulations, because if we are to mount a successful campaign to contain and eradicate tuberculosis and brucellosis, then the proper implementation of these regulations will be essential.
May I also say that, sadly, these regulations are at the present time largely academic in respect of my own Member State because of course we have been banned from exporting live bovine animals from the UK for the past four years.
Indeed, even the export of dead bovines is still being blocked in certain countries because although the ban on the export of beef from the UK was lifted on 1 August 1999, it is, as we all know, still being illegally maintained by France and Germany to this very day.
In the case of the pig sector the export trade is also suffering because during the past two years the pig industry has experienced acute difficulties.
Indeed in Scotland, my own country, we have witnessed a 25% reduction in the national herd in the past twelve months.
Unless urgent action is taken by the UK Government, a further 25% will go within the next few months.
Now, this appalling situation has been brought about by a combination of issues involving the strength of sterling, the gold-plating of welfare and hygiene standards, which have been imposed on the industry by the UK Government, and the extra costs arising out of the BSE crisis.
These factors are driving UK pig farmers out of business as more and more cheap imports are sourced by retailers and supermarkets in the UK.
Now it transpires that the situation could deteriorate even further as EU applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe are projected to increase their net exports of pigmeat by nearly 300% by the year 2006.
At the same time they will be seeking derogations from the EU to enable them to produce pork to welfare and hygiene standards that would be considered illegal under current EU law.
If Britain is once again to reactivate a dynamic intra-Community trade in bovine animals and swine, then immediate help is required to alleviate the catastrophic situation affecting rural Britain and affecting our pig and beef sectors in particular.
I hope this message is getting through to the British Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mr President, I also agree with the rapporteur with regard to the basic matters and I can naturally and gladly sympathise with the amendment calling for the transition period to be just two years.
This is a case of negligence on the part of the Member States in putting these matters and the system into effect.
This is an issue concerning serious animal diseases, and I think the most essential matter in this discussion is the fact that we have to quickly adopt the system to avoid repeated postponement of legal provisions that should take effect as soon as possible.
Mr Stevenson mentioned that exports from East Europe are increasing: we are now expanding the area of the EU to include the countries of Eastern Europe.
If our own systems are not in order, how can we expect new Member States to be able to be ready to join our system of agricultural policy? We have to stress the importance of the fact that food safety and the European agricultural model should be a basic issue with us and one that serves as a vision of the future, but in the Member States we are ignoring issues of a basic nature which would help monitor systems that would ensure this.
For that reason we will have to pay very serious attention in the future to ensuring that Member States really do adopt systems we are here taking joint decisions on.
If that is not the case, there will have to be some form of sanction to ensure these matters are put right.
Mr President, I would like to join previous speakers in congratulating the rapporteur.
He has approached this matter with his usual conviction and great dedication.
I was very pleased to hear him say that there is no real conflict on the principles and objectives of the proposed directive.
I have no doubt that the Commissioner will assist in reaching a satisfactory resolution because both Parliament and the Commission have a common goal in relation to this very important and very crucial area.
The directive on inter-Community trade in bovine animals is central to the economic survival of livestock farmers, particularly from my own country, Ireland, where we export up to 90% of our entire livestock production - a very high proportion of which is live exports to continental Europe and beyond.
In this regard, I support proposals for a further update of the 1997 directive with the caution that it must be done in a sensible way.
We need to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy while, at the same time, providing total traceability with regard to livestock movement as well as safeguarding public health.
Mr President, this proposal introduces an extension of a current exemption to Directive 64/432 applicable to the Spanish Government.
Without this exemption, it would be required to implement a system of veterinary checks for tuberculosis and brucellosis, for each bovine animal exported from its region.
These are already, of course, implemented by many other states.
This exemption has important implications for my country.
Whilst Spain is being given exemption, the British meat industry is suffering heavily from the implementation of an allied directive which requires ruinously expensive veterinary checks in our slaughterhouses.
So rigorous are the requirements for veterinary supervision that we do not have enough British vets to carry out the work.
But instead of giving us more time, the Commission has commenced infringement proceedings.
In order to avoid ending up in the European Court of Justice, my government has had to recruit large numbers of EU vets, 300 of whom come from Spain.
If Spain has such a large surplus of vets that it can afford to send so many to my country, why is it having such difficulty implementing the system of veterinary checks required by this directive? It does not seem right to me that British slaughterhouses should be put through the hoops as a result of the Commission's action whilst Spain is allowed to default on its obligations.
Why is the Commission giving Spain such an easy time? Should it not be asking why Spain can afford to send so many vets over to the United Kingdom to implement a related directive and perhaps be insisting that some of these officials be retained in their homeland to implement Community law in their own country?
On that basis, I believe that this proposed directive is wrong and I will be voting against it.
The Irish interest in this particular amending directive centres around a request by our country to permit pre-export TB testing to take place at assembly centres, rather than only at holdings of origin as the practice now is in Ireland; I understand that we have about two years to discuss with the Commission any difficulties we may have in relation to this and I am pleased to see the Commissioner here today.
Under EU trading rules and in the interest of food safety and consumer confidence in animal health status, annual testing is required to maintain the official TB-free status of our cattle herds.
With a cattle population in Ireland of between 7 and 8 million in recent years, some 10.5 million TB tests have been undertaken annually in some 138 000 herds.
Since 1954, when our TB scheme was introduced, we have spent in Ireland - a small country - EUR 2.54 billion on TB testing and subsequently brucellosis testing.
I think that stands as a testament to our determination to protect the health status of our cattle herds in Ireland.
Indeed, following disclosure of a reaction, a special contiguous testing programme for herds adjoining restricted herds is operated.
Analysis of test data is carried out on an on-going basis by a special TB investigation unit.
Routine post-mortem examinations are carried out by veterinary surgeons employed by the Department on all animals slaughtered.
Animals which react positively to the TB test are slaughtered.
From the earliest stages in the bovine TB eradication scheme, the Department of Agriculture has recognised the benefit of pre-movement testing, and we request that our particular amendment to the amending directive be looked on favourably.
The point I would like to ask the Commissioner to consider particularly is the fact that the only test provided for in the EU and under Irish legislation is the single intradermal comparative test as specified in Directive 64/432 of the EC.
I understand considerable work has been done on laboratory-based blood tests for TB.
The gamma-interferon test is the most promising of these, and is used under practical field conditions as an adjunct to the tuberculin test in herds.
I would like the Commissioner to indicate where that now stands and how quickly we will be able to have a blood test accepted by the EU.
The TB test we use now is herd-specific, not animal-specific.
We need to get to the stage where blood tests for individual animals will stand up.
Mr President, Commissioner, animal epidemics are not only important economic matters, they are also important from the point of view of consumer policy.
Plus, animal epidemics are again costing us a great deal of money.
The main objective of the directive is to create electronic data bases from which information on bovine animals and pigs, and how they are kept, can be accessed, in order to foster safety and transparency.
These new data bases will form part of the bovine animal labelling and registration system set out in the regulation.
However, as the implementation of this directive and the long-windedness of the codecision procedure have given rise to difficulties, the Commission has concluded that transitional measures should be introduced in order to avoid problems with the trade in live bovine animals and pigs.
I agree with the rapporteur that Member States are always very slow to implement unwelcome Community legislation, which is why we need to discuss if a 3-year margin is really sensible.
I think that Mr Daul' s proposed amendment of two years would be an excellent compromise.
I should also like to point out in this connection that, rather than planting more trees, we need to clear the jungle of paragraphs and exemptions.
Absolute account must be taken of the Economic and Social Committee' s reservations concerning strict limits on exemptions and harmonisation of veterinary legislation.
I therefore fail to understand that some countries are doing their homework while others keep finding excuses and dragging their feet.
All that does is distort competition and, for this reason, I vote that we make the regulation binding on everyone as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I will try to be brief, and I will not use all the time available to me but restrict myself to a short message.
This morning, in this Chamber, one of the Members made the statement that without rules there is no freedom.
But I feel that where there are too many rules, freedom can become confusion.
It is my opinion that this measure is suffering from a surfeit of rules.
Since 1964, a series of laws have been adopted on this subject. Some were implemented, but many were not.
The application of some of them was deferred, and others were not adapted by the individual States.
Now, in all probability, some of the States are at fault in that they have not aligned themselves with certain directives.
However, we have to ask why it is that this happens so often and in so many States.
It is very likely that this is caused by difficulties in implementing the directives.
The delays in the adaptation of national legislation may well be due to the expense and tedium involved, as well as the fact that the process is often unproductive.
Therefore, the message I would like to convey is that where there is an excess of rules and regulations, and in this case there is an abundance of rules in the preparatory measures of this text, which, in essence, I approve of, when the sheer number of different texts makes implementation difficult, then application of the text is deferred and we run the risk of creating not only legislative, but also practical gaps: legislative gaps on account of overlapping competences and confusion of legislation, and practical gaps because it appears that, in many areas, there is clearly the risk of insufficient control, and there is therefore a danger that consumer policy will not be aligned either.
Mr President, may I first of all thank you for the interest you have devoted to the Commission proposal modifying Directive 64/432 on health problems affecting intra-Community trade in bovine animals and swine.
I am particularly grateful to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf for his report on this proposal and to the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for the support given to most of the modifications proposed by the Commission and for the amendments included in the initial committee's report.
Member States encountered serious trade problems when implementing the updated animal health rules for intra-Community trade laid down in Directive 64/432 that came into force on 1 July last year.
In order to facilitate the change-over to the new rules the Commission, based on Articles 37 and 152 of the Treaty, proposed amendments to the directive that include transitional measures to solve the most acute trade problems, minor corrections and clarifications in the annexes and a general mandate to the Commission to lay down transitional measures in accordance with the new comitology procedure included in the proposal.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Parliament agreed on two amendments tabled by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf to the Commission proposal.
The first amendment requires the Member States to ensure full implementation of the directive and the Member States and the Commission to execute controls on the implementation.
The second amendment seeks to restrict the period of application of transitional measures to two years.
The Commission can agree to these Amendments Nos 1 and 2 and must therefore oppose the amendment from Mrs Auroi requesting the deletion of any transitional measures.
However, I regret that I am not in a position to accept written Amendment No 3 which Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf put forward last week.
It modifies the comitology procedure by proposing for implementing measures relating to Article 37 to introduce a management procedure with the right of scrutiny.
This is clearly against Article 2 of the Council Decision 99/468 on comitology which provides for regulatory committees in issues relating to animal health and it seems that perhaps it is not accepted by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf following detailed discussions with my cabinet that this is the position.
But I understand that perhaps Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf may very well have misinterpreted the comitology and that he intends to amend it again during this plenary.
Let me express my surprise and concern about this.
I regret that I cannot accept your new amendment which replaces Article 17 and 17a by a single new article comprising the entire comitology procedure.
It introduces a regulatory committee with the right of scrutiny for Parliament and I quote from the letter which he sent me: "in the case of a codecision procedure based on Article 251, Article 8 thereof" - that is Article 8 of Council Decision 99/468 on comitology.
I can assure you of the importance that I attach to Parliament's role in the legislative process, in particular relating to comitology in the codecision procedure.
The overall aim is to achieve quick and efficient results in order to translate policy into legislative acts.
The framework for the comitology procedure is clearly established in the abovementioned Council decision.
The right of scrutiny for the Parliament is foreseen for areas relating to codecision, that is Article 8.
The amended Directive 64/432 is based on Articles 37 and 152 of the Treaty.
The new provision concerning the implementing powers for the Commission to lay down transitional measures may have a direct effect on public health.
This is the reason why the Commission, in this case, proposes Article 17a which refers to a regulatory committee with the right of scrutiny for Parliament.
I refer you to Article 3 of the directive in particular which amends Article 16 of the original where it says: "where necessary to facilitate the change-over to the new arrangements provided for in this directive the Commission, acting in accordance with the procedures laid down in Article 17a, may adopt transitional measures applicable for a period of not more than three years" .
That is, and I am advised by the legal service, the appropriate way to deal with this.
In any situation where a basic legislative provision envisages amendment by a comitology procedure it must include in the basic provision the actual procedure for the comitology.
That is why each individual provision which envisages such an amendment must identify the procedure quite clearly.
Therefore, the power that is given to the Commission to further extend the period of time which is contained in Article 3 clearly identifies Article 17a as being the appropriate article to deal with this which incorporates Article 8 of the Council decision of last June, thereby giving Parliament full scrutiny powers in relation to any such proposal.
Where reference is made in the current version of 64/432 to Article 17, this relates to implementing measures concerning animal health, that is based on Article 37 which are of no or, in very few cases, of very remote, public health concern.
Therefore these measures should not be subject to the right of scrutiny of Parliament.
For example, such implementing measures relate to the approval of procedures and sites for cleansing and disinfection, the format of disease reporting, the approval of assembly centres, the definition of additional guarantees for Member States free of diseases not transmissible to humans such as infectious bovine rhinotracheitis or transmissible gastroenteritis in pigs.
I will now make some remarks on the implications of the proposed amendment for the institutional balance.
The implementing powers of the Commission are laid down in Article 202, third indent of the EC Treaty in conjunction with the Council Decision 99/468 that I earlier referred to which is the appropriate Council decision laying down the appropriate procedure for comitology.
This system aims clearly at defining exactly the respective role of the executive and legislative power in the basic legislative instrument.
Consequently, in the basic legislative act it has to be made clear from the outset which implementing measures are based on codecision procedures, that is, Article 152 and which provisions do not have as their direct objective the protection of public health and would therefore not be subject to Parliament's right of scrutiny.
The procedure must be made clear in the basic legislative provision requiring to be amended by comitology.
Any wording leaving room for case-by-case negotiation would jeopardise the delicate institutional balance and also seriously undermine transparency.
The wording proposed in the new amendment for the regulatory procedure with the right of scrutiny, and I quote: "in the case of the codecision procedure based on Article 251, Article 8 thereof" leads to legal uncertainty and is not in line with the agreed implementation of Council's comitology decision.
I note from the document that Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has circulated this afternoon where he signals his intention to put forward this amendment at this stage.
He says: "I think that it is not necessary to include two almost identical references to the comitology procedure just to make sure that the European Parliament does not ask for rights that it does not have" .
Let me assure Parliament that it is not my intention, in setting out these two procedures - Articles 17 and 17a - to ensure that the European Parliament does not ask for rights that it does not have.
I am firmly committed to the procedure of codecision and I am firmly committed to the procedures laid down in comitology.
I am firmly committed to the notion that Parliament will have full scrutiny of Commission proposals in circumstances where the legal structures of the European Union, that is the Treaty and the directive, allow for that situation.
To deviate from that is to risk challenge in the European Court, which is something that I must avoid.
Also I must reply to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf by saying that the two, as he describes, almost identical references to comitology procedure are not in fact identical.
They are quite different and must be dealt with quite separately.
However, it is in the interest of all the institutions that the procedures are clearly defined and transparent for everybody.
Furthermore, adopting this amendment would mean further delaying the legislative procedure which could otherwise be concluded after the first reading.
In conclusion I wish to confirm that I accept Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's Amendments Nos 1 and 2 but not the amendment on the comitology procedure that he has suggested this afternoon.
Consequently I cannot accept the amendment of Mrs Auroi either.
To deal with the individual issues which were raised by speakers this afternoon, first of all, in respect of those points made by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf which I have not already dealt with, he makes reference to the long prose text and that there is an agreement with the Council to be more succinct.
You are, of course, quite correct in relation to that.
That agreement, however, was reached with the Council subsequent to the initial drafting of this document.
That is why it has been drafted in this way.
It pre-dates that agreement.
It will be automatically amended in the manner envisaged in the agreement with the Council.
Therefore the concerns that you have in relation to this matter will be remedied automatically in accordance with that agreement.
You also suggested that if the Commission goes along with your suggestion that there will be a shortened procedure.
In response to that, if this particular amendment is withdrawn by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, having regard to what I have said here this afternoon, then it is also true to say that the procedure will be shortened and this matter can be dealt with on first reading.
There is a significant risk that if the matter is proceeded with in this way and if the Council votes in accordance with the proposal put forward by the Commission, the matter will go to second reading, thereby creating further delays.
It has come to my attention as late as today, in consultation with members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, that there is a concern which I was unaware of: of the interaction between Articles 37 and 152.
I have made it clear that I am prepared to respond quickly to any invitation that the committee might wish to extend to me to discuss this important constitutional issue of the interaction between Article 37 and Article 152.
I say that in circumstances where I also urge Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf to give serious consideration, in the light of what I have just said, to the withdrawal of that particular amendment, having regard to the serious legal difficulties that exist in relation to it.
In response to Mr Hyland and Mrs Doyle, both of whom are concerned about the testing issue, I have taken note of what both of them have said in relation to this and I will make the appropriate inquiries.
Mr President, allow me to ask Commissioner Byrne one more question.
The situation is this: you tabled a text which no longer complies with the standard procedure agreed with the Council.
We noticed that.
We then table our proposed amendments, which you consider to be correct as far as principle and procedure are concerned.
Then you differentiate between what applies to a report tabled to us under Article 152 alone and this report, which you have tabled under both 37 and 152 and you say that is why we need separate references to comitology.
Of course, we too consulted our legal service and the text which I read out to you contains precisely this reference to comitology.
The legal text is therefore confirmed.
The Commission is being thick-skinned here; it is saying no, we stand by our proposal as we have already done on a similar occasion in the past here in Parliament.
Hence, Mr Byrne, when you say I should consider withdrawing the amendment, I should like to ask you to consider if you do not agree with it, especially as it complies with the decision on comitology.
Then we can use the simplified procedure.
Generosity is incumbent upon the Commission, not the rapporteur.
It makes no sense to continue with the debate.
I would ask the Commissioner to reply as briefly as possible.
I am afraid that what Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has said discloses a misunderstanding of the issue.
First of all, the agreement that was reached with the Council in relation to the shortening of the prose text is something which will automatically be dealt with in accordance with the agreement as I have identified a moment ago.
Secondly, on the issue relating to comitology, I can only repeat what I said which is that in any basic legal text which authorises the Commission to amend that text by comitology, that text must itself identify what procedure is being adopted.
What Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf is suggesting be done in his amendment is to confer a discretion to deal with the issue in each case on a case-by-case basis, so that the text to be amended will refer to Article 17, but within Article 17 there will be a discretion as to whether Article 7 or Article 8 of Decision 1999/468 will apply; this means that somebody - that is the Commission - will have to determine in those circumstances which of the two articles is the appropriate one, depending on whether it is or is not codecision.
I submit that this is inappropriate, because it effectively confers a power on the Commission to make a decision on that issue as it were in its office, rather than enabling the reader to consult the text - the basic text - in any circumstance where the Commission is empowered to amend a provision by comitology, and to refer to that basic text.
From that text it will be clear what comitology procedure is the appropriate one to follow: whether it is Article 17 in the version suggested by the Commission which applies to all of the circumstances in this particular directive, or Article 17(a) which incorporates the scrutiny procedure of the comitology, and which is appropriate to the circumstances set out in Article 3 - that is, where there is a further extension of time beyond 31 December 2000 and where the Commission can extend it for a further period as we have discussed.
That gives clarity to the situation.
It avoids any exercise of discretion by the Commission or anybody else.
It leaves it clear to anybody reading the text what the appropriate procedure is that will govern this particular situation.
I regret I cannot make it any clearer and I regret I cannot accede to your request: I would ask you again, in the light of what I have said about making myself available to your committee, to discuss the interaction between 152 and 37, and to give serious consideration to withdrawing this amendment yourself.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The relevant committee will continue the discussion of this issue.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0201/2000). We will examine questions to the Council.
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Seixas da Costa, is here with us today.
He has to leave the chamber at 7.00 p.m. and we must therefore try to be very quick and make a collective effort so that we can deal with the majority of the questions.
Question No 1 by (H-0141/00):
Subject: Human rights of women in Europe On 19 January 2000, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe met to prepare a special session of the UN General Assembly due to take place on 5-9 June 2000 in New York to assess the situation of women five years on from the Beijing World Conference on Women, which adopted a platform for action to tackle the problems faced by women at international level.
During the proceedings, the Swiss Foreign Minister, Mrs Ruth Dreifuss, stated that 300 000 women were victims of trafficking in Europe.
Does the Council concur with that statement?
Does it consider that the measures it is taking are sufficient to guarantee the safety and dignity of women in Europe in the face of the threat of trafficking? What additional measures will it take to counteract a probable deterioration in the situation arising from enlargement, given that the majority of victims are from countries applying for membership of the Union?
. (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before going any further, I would like to remind you that the Member States of the European Union played a very important role in the Beijing Conference in 1995 and in preparing the Beijing Action Platform.
Since the adoption of that platform, the European institutions and the Member States have been working hard to ensure that it is applied both at national and European Union level.
As regards the specific question of trafficking in women, which is covered in the chapter on violence against women, the objectives are very clear.
Various measures are to be taken by the governments of the countries of origin, transit and destination of the regional and international organisations, and Mrs Avilés Perea is quite right in drawing attention to the violation of women' s safety and dignity in Europe by the threat posed by trafficking.
You may rest assured that the other institutions are taking this subject very seriously, and some measures have, in fact, already been taken to combat trafficking, and I would like to sum these up as briefly as possible.
Firstly, starting in November 1993, the Justice and Home Affairs Council agreed a series of recommendations on trade in human beings for prostitution, with a view to combating trafficking in human beings.
Two years after that, this House took on this subject: apart from adopting a number of resolutions, it also produced a report and a resolution which specifically addressed trafficking in human beings.
For its part, the Commission published an initial communication on trafficking in women and, in 1996, that is to say the year immediately after the Beijing Platform was adopted, it launched the STOP programme, with an annual budget of EUR 6.5 million.
The importance of this programme should not be underestimated, given that it has helped to finance a great many projects and has proved to be genuinely effective.
Thirdly, back in 1996, the Commission and the International Organisation for Migration organised an interdisciplinary conference in Vienna, which brought together representatives from Member States, the institutions, the European Union, the academic world, and various non-governmental organisations.
A number of conclusions emerged from this work.
Lastly, also in 1996, the Council approved a common action to combat trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children.
In 1997, the Ministerial Conference in The Hague resulted in The Hague Ministerial declaration on a European Code of Conduct to prevent and combat trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Lastly, in 1998, the Commission adopted a further communication on new measures to combat trafficking in women.
I would also like to point out that this issue is periodically considered under the transatlantic dialogue, because this phenomenon also affects countries like Canada and the United States, and is not limited to the area immediately adjacent to the European Union.
We believe that it is increasingly important to exchange views with other destination countries so as to make a comparative assessment of this phenomenon and to establish a series of harmonised measures for controlling it.
This issue has, of course, been a regular agenda item in contacts with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe which are both transit countries and even the countries of origin for the great majority of this traffic.
Campaigns are being financed under the PHARE programme in this field, some with support from the International Organisation for Migration.
I would like to make it clear that the Council does not wish to comment on the figure of 300 000 women falling victim to trafficking in Europe given by the Swiss Foreign Minister.
There is no statistical data on this very specific subject, because we have to work with figures that are very difficult to obtain, given that we are talking about illegal immigration on the one hand and about illegal employment on the other, but it seems to us at first sight that this number is rather high.
We think that an attempt should be made to assess this figure more accurately, and we should not get involved in commenting on an estimate of this kind, which does not seem to us to be well founded.
In any case, this problem needs to be taken very seriously, not just because of the number of people involved, but also because trafficking in women is a form of organised crime that is evidently on the increase throughout the world, as it generates high profits in return for relatively low risks as far as the traffickers are concerned.
Some of this trafficking is on a small scale, but there are also big international companies and networks behind a sophisticated and well-organised industry, with political support and economic resources in the countries of origin, transit and destination.
This is why this question needs to be tackled at the highest level, and in particular in conjunction with the United Nations.
Mrs Avilés Perea, you will certainly be aware that discussions are taking place on a protocol aimed at preventing, eliminating and punishing traffic in human beings, especially in women and children, which would complement the United Nations convention against organised crime.
To this end, the Council recently adopted a decision authorising the Commission to negotiate on this very protocol.
The Member States of the European Union are also playing a very active role in the meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women which is preparing the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on women.
To conclude, I would like to reiterate that the Council continues to attach great importance to the issue of trafficking in women and children, and I hope that I have been able to allay some of your fears, Mrs Avilés Perea, at least in relation to the Council' s efforts in this field.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am truly grateful for your full answer to this question on the programmes which, as you have pointed out, have been implemented.
However, the question stressed the fact that this is a problem which has recently become more serious, precisely because of the ease with which our borders can be crossed. This movement of people basically originates in the candidate countries of the East.
The majority of cases involve women in illegal situations. This immigration is taking place in the worst possible conditions and these women are defenceless victims of every type of marginalisation and hardship.
I believe that an effort has been made over recent years, but I must insist that it requires special attention now and we must prevent such problems in the future, since it is possible that this problem will become even more acute.
Mr President, I would just like to add that I totally agree with you, Mrs Avilés Perea, and that the European Union is anxious, as part of the enlargement negotiations and, in particular, in the context of external relations in the field of justice and home affairs, to enter into a specific dialogue with the candidate countries on all issues concerning the free movement of persons, and in particular illegal immigration.
We believe that without questioning the need for the European Union to have a policy of tolerance on immigration and a policy of welcoming economic refugees, we should try, by following this route, to avoid creating mechanisms that make it easier to exploit women in particular and to develop forms of crime specifically associated with the free movement of persons.
We believe that the work that has been done, and the increasing awareness on the part of the candidate countries of the need to work with the European Union during the pre-accession period to strengthen control mechanisms, combined with collaboration in this field, may yield concrete results.
The Commission is paying particular attention to this subject, and I believe that the fact that during the Portuguese presidency various negotiating chapters linked with this - particularly in the field of justice and home affairs and freedom of movement - are to be opened with the Luxembourg phase candidate countries may help to create a common culture, a common culture that the candidate countries will later on have to share in terms of respecting the acquis communautaire.
While adding my thanks to the Council for the earlier answer, I would like to press the Council on a related matter.
The BBC recently produced evidence that 'wombs' , as they described it, were for sale in Romania - that women were being paid to have children for export to Member States of the European Union.
Furthermore, the BBC alleged that this was being done with the tacit approval of the Romanian authorities because it was bringing hard currency into Romania.
Will the Council raise this in their dialogue with Romania in relation to Romania's application for membership of the Community?
I would like to thank you for your question, Mr Martin, as it gives me an opportunity to discuss an initiative recently taken by the Portuguese presidency in Romania.
I had an opportunity to exchange impressions with the Romanian authorities on this subject less than 10 days ago, and not just on the subject of trafficking in children, but also on the problems of the Roma.
These are issues that the Romanian authorities say they are taking very seriously and, as far as I could ascertain, they consider that they stem from a cultural situation affecting certain sections of the population.
The Romanian authorities' determination to tackle this issue seems genuine to us, and all the more so as they know that it has specific implications for the way in which their application for EU membership is viewed by the Community of Fifteen.
I detected a great commitment by the Romanian authorities to going as far as possible to confront situations of this kind.
Question No 2 by (H-0148/00):
Subject: Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union On 2 February the Commission told the EP that it intends to monitor Austria, following the entry of the FPÖ into government, pursuant to Articles 6 and 7 of the EU Treaty.
In its resolution of 3 February 2000 the EP 'calls on the Council and Commission to be prepared, in the event of any violation of the principles of fundamental rights laid out in Article 6(1) of the Treaty on European Union, to take action under Article 7 of the Treaty..'.
For its part, the Commission replied to Oral Question H-0826/99 - on the fact that Italy is the country most severely criticised by the Court of Human Rights for slow and inefficient legal proceedings and that in Belgium trials linked to paedophilia proceed with slowness and worrying delays - by saying that 'it is not for the Union to interfere with the administration of justice in the Member States', that it had set up an administrative structure which would, if necessary, be instructed to examine cases of serious and persistent violation of fundamental rights by a Member State, applying the criteria and principles already laid down by the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Communities, and that, at present, no serious and persistent violation of human rights by a Member State was being examined.
Can the Council rule out the possibility that the facts outlined above constitute serious and persistent violations of fundamental rights as defined in Article 6 of the TEU and, if so, for what reasons? If not, does it intend to launch the procedures referred to in Article 7?
Mr President, this question has already been broached here more than once.
We have to recognise that the Austrian situation in particular, and the issues raised in this question concerning Italy and Belgium, are quite different from what is envisaged in Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam - and it is very important to make this point, as the Treaties are breaking fresh ground here - states that the Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.
Although we all know that the European Union is not a signatory to the European Convention on Human Rights, the same article compensates for this by stating that the European Union respects fundamental rights as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
As for Article 7, which is in fact a Portuguese proposal that I was able to present to the Reflection Group which prepared the previous Intergovernmental Conference, this article establishes a specific mechanism, and this is the point to which the honourable Member' s question refers, for taking action against any Member State which seriously and persistently breaches the principles mentioned in the previous article, Article 6.
And this action may lead to the suspension of this Member State' s rights as a member of the European Union.
This mechanism goes back to an idea originally put forward in the Spinelli report in 1984, and it is linked with the need to guard against breaches of democratic principles within a Member State, and in particular against actions that may infringe the principles of the rule of law.
I have to say that the facts that Mr Dupuis refers to in his question do not represent a violation of any of the principles mentioned in Article 6 of the Treaty.
This article should not be invoked with a view to any type of interference in the administration of the home affairs of Member States, particular in the field of justice.
The existence of a violation of a principle mentioned in Article 6 must - and this is also an important point and the reason why no mechanism has been brought into play - be determined by the Council acting on a proposal by one third of the Member States or by the Commission and after obtaining the assent of the European Parliament.
As this procedure has not been invoked by any of the bodies with this right of initiative, this situation does not, in our view, constitute a matter covered by Article 7.
With regard to the Council statement made on 2 February, I would like to repeat, as I was the one who presented this declaration in this House, that it was made by the Council Presidency, but on behalf of 14 Member States, and of course the consequences of that statement and of its content as regards relations with Austria are only binding on each Member State on a bilateral basis.
They do not bind the Council and they do not affect the free and normal functioning of the Community institutions, in which Austria is still participating in full.
Mr President-in-Office, I think that you have clarified the technical aspects of Articles 6 and 7 very fully indeed.
The fundamental point that we have to bear in mind here is that whilst Europe has made enormous progress in economic terms, as regards the single market and the single currency, nothing or next to nothing has been done in the field of justice and home affairs.
We still have an almost purely national framework for justice, although certain situations are in practice clearly of a transnational nature.
We constantly find ourselves having to deal with this contradiction, particularly as regards the rights of the child, an area where there are cases in which more than one country is involved and in which the victims are not only not notified by the state where the judgement is made, but are also deprived of legal support.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I should like to thank you expressly for stating during question time that Austria has not been found guilty of violating Articles 6 and 7 and that, in the case of Austria, it is a preventive sentence.
My question relates to the ad hoc decision by the Prime Minister concerning bilateral sanctions taken without consulting the foreign secretaries of the governments and parliaments of the states of Europe.
All the European Union institutions were bypassed and presented with a fait accompli.
Hence my question: what will happen in the future if we disregard the case of Austria now?
Will the national Prime Ministers of the countries of Europe pass judgement in future?
Will a majority of eight votes suffice or will a different majority be needed?
In what way do the European Council and the European institutions lose power and the potential to formulate policy as a result? Is this a question of new competition between the European institutions and the national states?
Mr Casaca, I can assure you that despite everything I am not pessimistic about the way in which the European Union has been progressing towards establishing an ethical dimension, and in particular towards equipping itself with legal mechanisms to enable it to cope with new situations such as the ones you have mentioned.
When it comes to the development of the Treaty of Amsterdam, I think it is important for us to bear in mind that transfers of power have taken place, and that further transfers of power remain to be made over the next five years from what was the old third pillar to the first pillar of the Union, particularly as regards visas, judicial cooperation in civil matters and customs cooperation.
We still have judicial cooperation in criminal matters under the third pillar, but at the moment we are working towards establishing a European area of freedom, security and justice, and we hope that the Commission can respond to this by presenting a scoreboard giving us a catalogue of pertinent measures.
On the other hand, I would like to stress that the European Charter of Fundamental Rights that is being discussed will very probably help to strengthen these new aspects and will certainly help to give the European Union a more solid body of legally arguable principles, which some of us, and the Council in particular, would like to see.
As for your question about Austria, I would like to repeat what I said about Austria' s compliance with Articles 6 and 7 up to now.
It was good to hear you talking about an "ad hoc decision" as it is clear that this was an ad hoc decision, and one taken by the 14 Member States regarding their relations with the Austrian Government.
What was at issue was not the Austrian Government' s conduct, but its political make-up.
During an earlier debate I said that we are now all Austrians within the European Union, and I would like to repeat that.
We are all Austrians because the European Union is a single entity in terms of rights and citizenship, and I would like to have the same rights in Austria that Austrian citizens should have in my country.
So I do not like to be taught any lessons by a party which behaves in a racist and xenophobic way, and makes racist and xenophobic statements which it seems to me give us every reason to be concerned.
These concerns are at present being expressed in a bilateral political framework rather than at European Union level, because there would only be scope for a decision at European Union level if there were an infringement of Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which means that, for the future, Mr Rübig, we will have to assess to what extent the Austrian Freedom Party can make a break with its past ideology, because that is crucial.
It is important for the Freedom Party to clarify if it is still adhering to the principles described in its previous statements, and in particular the kinds of individuals through which those statements were made, because otherwise I cannot see any other solution except for the other Member States to continue to have the same kinds of reservations about their relations with the Austrian Government, with all the consequences that flow from that.
And, as I said, this would be a purely bilateral matter.
The Austrians have every right to whatever government they want - but we have every right to our opinions about the Austrian Government.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you said that there is a party in power in Austria which has made racist comments in public. Here in the European Parliament, people speak, not parties.
In your reply to Mr Dupuis' question, you referred to the fact that the sanctions approved by the Heads of State and Governments of fourteen countries were bilateral in nature.
Can these sanctions also be stopped bilaterally? In other words, can an individual Member State decide to end the sanctions and resume normal working relations?
If so, when will the Council officially release the citizens of Austria from this ordeal, which violates their democratic rights? Must each Member State individually abandon the sanctions before the Council comes to its senses and overturns the decision?
I think Mrs Kauppi must have misheard or there must have been a mistake in the interpreting.
I never said that the Austrian Government is a racist government, let me make that quite clear.
I know people in the current Austrian Government who I have worked with in the past and who I hope to carry on working with in the future, who are a long way from being associated with any kind of racist ideology.
What I am saying in very clear terms is that this government includes a party, some of whose leaders have not only made extremely serious racist and xenophobic statements, but have even proposed domestic legislation clearly inspired by racist ideology.
And the Freedom Party has not as yet made any statement totally repudiating its association with ideologies of this kind.
As for the other question you have raised, the answer is yes.
Any country can disassociate itself from the declaration made by the 14 countries.
We are talking about 14 free countries which freely made the decision, on a purely bilateral basis, to demonstrate to Austria their displeasure at the make-up of its government, but any of these countries could pull out of this joint arrangement whenever it wishes.
The same freedom that led them to stand together could lead them to part company tomorrow if they had a different view of developments in Austria.
You also asked, Mrs Kauppi, when the Council will allow the Austrian people to escape from this pressure.
First of all, there is no Council decision.
As I have already said, we are talking about 14 countries.
This is not a European Union issue.
I would like to make it clear that Austria has been totally involved and will continue to be one hundred per cent involved in all the formal workings of the European Union' s institutions.
Mrs Kauppi, you cannot expect some members of governments within the European Union to be happy about sitting alongside people who they consider to be apologists for ideologies which clearly remind them of another period in history and which raise old European ghosts.
Different individuals will have different perceptions of all this.
I personally do not like sitting alongside fascists.
Question No 3 by (H-0151/00):
Subject: "Energy for Democracy" - FRY The current winter is one of the severest in recent decades, with several European countries having been hard hit.
Among those affected is the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which additionally faces the fuel embargo, with the result that hospitals and schools are not being heated and have been forced to close temporarily or to operate a restricted service.
In some cases, the fuel shortage has claimed human lives.
Given that the embargo is continuing, as is the harsh winter, does the Council intend to take steps to extend the 'Energy for Democracy' programme as quickly as possible and to cover the needs of hospitals and schools?
Mr President, as you know, as part of the energy sanctions imposed on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, it was decided, on the basis of a proposal discussed in the Council, to provide for exceptional measures for municipalities run by democratic forces.
This measure was intended to send a message of support to democratic forces and to encourage those within the Republic of Yugoslavia who, despite the adverse conditions they face, are committed to an approach in keeping with the defence of democratic rights and to policies in the interests of the people of Yugoslavia.
This programme started with two local authorities where the opposition held power.
The European Union subsequently decided, acting on proposals from various Member States, to extend this system to five other municipalities.
This is a complex process involving substantial budget commitments, and the Commission has made a great effort here to find the funds needed to extend this system.
We hope that this signal from the European Union will be heard by democratic forces in Serbia.
We deeply regret the need to maintain energy sanctions against Yugoslavia, but they form part of a set of measures identified to exert pressure on the regime there, and in particular they represent a form of pressure on the way Mr Milosevic is running the country.
We are aware that this obviously has an impact on the civilian population.
But we have to recognise that the political situation in Yugoslavia and the way in which Mr Milosevic is continuing to behave at international level justify maintaining these sanctions, and this remains the unanimous view of the Council.
We are witnessing what I see as speedy preparation for a new bout in the dirty war against Yugoslavia and its people and everything going on outside Kosovo over the last few days bears witness to this.
On the other hand, as we have heard today, the much-vaunted "Energy for Democracy" programme amounts to no more than barbaric blackmail of the Yugoslav people by NATO and the European Union in a bid to impose the New Order and completely subjugate them.
The point is whether or not a country has the right to decide its fate and choose its government.
In Yugoslavia, the people decided democratically and Yugoslavia has its government and its president.
And whether we like it or not, that is a fact.
What sort of logic is it which, in order to punish the supposed suppressor of a people, punishes his supposed victims? Mr President, that is what is being done with the barbaric bombing, that is what is being done with the fuel embargo on Yugoslavia.
We are supporting a policy of genocide against a people which does not accept the choices foisted on it by the USA, NATO and the European Union.
My question is this: because there have already been a great many deaths due to the cold, will the fuel embargo be lifted and will the Yugoslav people be left to decide its own fate?
Mr President, I confess that I find it strange to hear the word genocide used about action against the Yugoslavian Government, the same Yugoslavian Government that carried out various actions in Kosovo involving exactly that type of behaviour.
I also find it impossible to forget that this same government has, in the past, promoted a wide range of actions to destabilise Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, and has repeatedly played a destabilising role in the entire region.
I totally accept the honourable Member' s premise that every people needs to be the master of its own destiny, that is exactly what we are seeking.
But we want this to mean access to the media, total freedom of expression for the opposition, unrestricted individual rights, freedoms and guarantees, the rule of law and total transparency in the institutions.
If that is what Mr Korakas thinks exists in Serbia, then we know where we stand.
Question No 4 by (H-0155/00):
Subject: Information on European Union citizens condemned to death In the absence of a reply from the Council to Question P-2697/99 within the deadlines laid down in the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure, can the Council say whether it is or is not in possession of information on the numbers, the identities, the legal situations, the conditions of detention and the personal and family situations of nationals of Member States of the European Union condemned to death in other countries?
Has it attempted to obtain this information and, if so, will it forward it to the author of this question and to the European Parliament? If the Council is not in possession of such information, does it not agree that steps need to be taken to establish a system for keeping proper records of these cases?
What action does it intend to take to remedy this lack of information?
Mrs Díez González, you have asked an important question, but I have to confess that the Council does not have the information you have requested about the number of European Union citizens condemned to death in other countries.
However, I would like to stress that work is currently being done through consular cooperation between Member States with a view to monitoring and safeguarding the interests and rights of the citizens of any Member State in third countries, particularly as regards the possibility of their being condemned to death.
For this precise purpose, and in all cases where a citizen of a Member State is threatened with the death penalty in a third country, there is now a coordination mechanism allowing combined approaches to be made to the governments of third countries by the European Union missions in those countries.
This cooperation between the missions of Member States will also cover information sharing on citizens who may be threatened with the death penalty.
We will therefore, in due course, be able to give a concrete reply to this question, and to obtain specific and up-to-date information, but this will naturally depend on progress made with the consular cooperation that the European Union is trying to build up.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am grateful for your words but not for their content.
In other words, I appreciate your concern but not the content of the information you have offered.
This cannot be due to lack of time because I asked this question to the Council three months ago and it did not reply in writing.
It did not reply within the time period laid down and is replying now, orally, two months late.
Do you not think, Mr President-in-Office, that a census of European citizens sentenced to death throughout the world would be a very useful tool in the defence of the right to life, so that the political institutions of the European Union may be in a position to defend that right to life?
Do you not think that it is rather difficult to accept that an economic and political power such as Europe, which is capable of building satellites, of sending men to the moon, of creating a single currency, that is to say, an important power, is not capable of knowing how many European citizens are sentenced to death in the world? Do you not think that this is rather difficult for the European citizens to understand?
I know that we require the commitment of the Member States, but do you not think that what we basically need is a political will which, until now, I have not seen from any quarter?
Mrs Díez González, you have asked two questions.
The first concerns the reply and the time the Council has taken to provide it.
As you know, this is a procedural matter and involves deadlines set unilaterally by the European Parliament.
The Council was not involved in approving those deadlines, has never accepted them, and it is accordingly the Council' s policy to reiterate this point on a regular basis.
With regard to the specific point you are making, I recognise that you are perfectly right and that this is an issue which should be included in the agenda for work in this area as soon as possible.
Your comments make perfect sense.
The European Union is indeed, as you have said, a world power, and it is establishing various instruments and mechanisms to strengthen its position and to properly protect the rights of its citizens in other countries.
You will also be aware that consular cooperation within the European Union is a recent development.
A systematic approach for consular cooperation and for coordinated consular action has only been developed in the last few years.
I presume that there are delays, and I believe that you are quite right, and the pressure being brought to bear on the Council on this subject is welcome as far as I am concerned.
I would like to add that I share the opinion of Mrs Díez González and I also share the view that the European Union has the capacity to put a man on the moon, but has yet to demonstrate it.
It is a challenge which has still to be met, but I understand what was meant by that comment.
Question No 5 by (H-0158/00):
Subject: Parliament and the Euratom Will the Council issue a general request for opinion to Parliament on the subject of international agreements under the Euratom Treaty, so as to assist the 'KEDO' procedure agreed in 1998 between the Commission and Parliament, and if not will the Council issue a request for opinion on each occasion, and in any case for the Ukraine Agreement currently on the table, and the US-Euratom Agreement on fusion in preparation? Is the Council prepared to formalise the KEDO procedure by changing the Euratom Treaty in the IGC, or at least to establish it as an Inter-institutional Agreement on Euratom between the three institutions, to compensate for the democratic weaknesses of the Euratom Treaty?
Does the Council agree that, as the other part of the budget authority, Parliament should be consulted in advance about the impending Euratom loan to Ukraine on k2/r4, especially given the recent safety incidents at both the Khmelnitsky and Rivne sites, as well as the falls in electricity production and consumption and the halt to the reform of the energy market, which puts the viability of the loan and also its repayment in even more doubt?
Mr President, Article 101 of the Euratom Treaty provides the legal basis for international nuclear agreements, as is the case with the European Atomic Energy Community' s accession agreement to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation or KEDO.
This article provides that agreements or contracts with third countries shall be negotiated by the Commission in accordance with the directives of the Council, and are to be concluded by the Commission with the approval of the Council, which shall act by a qualified majority.
It is for the Council to respect and apply the relevant provisions of the Euratom Treaty, which does not provide for the Parliament to be consulted on these matters, which is how the Treaties stand.
You will recall that as an institution, the Council is not empowered to make any amendments to the Treaty, which is quite natural, as questions of this kind can normally only be raised at an Intergovernmental Conference.
In my role as chairman of the preparatory group for the ICG, I will make sure to take account of this request regarding the ICG.
Turning to your questions about the nuclear power stations in Ukraine, whose names I find rather difficult to read - Khmelnitsky and Rivne - may I remind you that is it for the Commission to carry out technical assessments of these nuclear power stations so as to determine what maintenance is required, or even closure.
In March 1994, the Council approved a decision authorising the Commission to contract Euratom loans of up to EUR 1 100 million in order to contribute to the financing required for improving the degree of efficiency and safety of nuclear power stations in certain non-member countries.
However, no non-member country has made use of this facility to date.
Furthermore, the legal basis for this is the Euratom Treaty, so that there is once again no provision for consulting the European Parliament.
To sum up, your questions raise some sensitive problems which, as we know, have been discussed in this House in recent years in the context of increasing its powers, and Parliament has been using its budgetary authority as a legitimate source of pressure.
As regards the specific instance of KEDO, let me remind you that in 1998 Parliament blocked the funds for that year, and it was only possible to overcome this problem by means of a compromise with the Commission, in which the Commission undertook to inform Parliament, at the beginning of each year, about Euratom agreements being negotiated, so that Parliament could consider them.
Thank you, Minister.
Just to continue on the question of the IGC, Parliament will probably ask, under institutional reforms and especially the chapter on decision-making procedures, to have assent for international agreements and codecision on other matters.
So do you have a feeling about how these discussions may develop in the IGC?
Mr Turmes, the extension of codecision on legislative matters is an issue which the Intergovernmental Conference has been considering and, as you know, the more radical position traditionally adopted by many Member States is that all legislative decisions adopted by a qualified majority in the Council should be submitted to the European Parliament under the codecision process.
Although this position has been explicitly welcomed in the ICG, there are some Member States who advocate a case-by-case approach on the use of the codecision procedure, even where legislative decisions are concerned.
With regard to ratification of international agreements, I have already been able to raise this issue at the ICG, and when it was first discussed this request and traditional position of the European Parliament did not receive what might be called a ready welcome from the Member States. Although this item is still on the table, as all these issues are kept on the agenda until the end of the conference, it does seem to us at this stage that there is unlikely to be any significant progress on this.
Nevertheless, we will continue to maintain a dialogue with the European Parliament on this subject.
Next Tuesday I shall be attending a meeting of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs at which I will make sure to discuss this issue and to explain in a little more detail how the ICG preparatory group is dealing with questions like this, and in particular the list of requests and proposals presented by the European Parliament, which we hope will be supplemented by the resolution to be voted upon on 23 March.
Question No 6 by (H-0160/00):
Subject: Compensation for victims of fascist war Many rulings by Greek courts have confirmed that Greek citizens are entitled to compensation as victims of the nazi regime, while the war reparations which Germany owes Greece remain in abeyance and have not yet been paid. Repayment of a loan which Germany extracted from the Bank of Greece during the occupation in 1943 also remains outstanding.
In the light of the recent agreement signed by Germany on compensation of DM 10 billion for forced labour in German industry, will the Council take steps to ensure that the victims of the fascist war are given their rightful compensation and that the loans extracted during the occupation are repaid, bearing in mind that, since the unification of Germany, not even the formal reason that Germany adduced for not settling these legitimate and valid claims now applies?
I can answer the honourable Member' s question quite easily: this issue does not fall within the competencies of the Council.
It is a matter for bilateral relations between Greece and German and the Council is not, therefore, willing to take any action, let alone the action recommended by the honourable Member.
Mr President, the reply by the President-in-Office puts me in mind of the reply by Pontius Pilate.
How exactly do things stand? During the occupation, the German Government forced the Greek Government to give it a loan, which today, with interest and inflation, totals some USD 25 billion.
This loan was signed and sealed and represents an obligation.
The point at issue, to get to the crux of the matter, is a transaction between two Member States of the European Union and the Council of Europe cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that Germany is clearly using its power to refuse to honour its commitments.
It collects every last cent of the loans which it grants.
The other issue is the tremendous damage caused by Germany' s occupying forces in Greece.
This comes to some USD 40 billion.
Other countries have been paid.
Greece has not. Why?
Of course, the Greek Governments bear some responsibility, but at some point all this needs to be analysed.
Germany has acknowledged its obligation from time to time.
However, it has failed to honour it on various pretexts.
Now there are no longer any excuses and it is duty-bound to pay and the Council cannot wash its hands.
I consider the reply by the President-in-Office to be unacceptable.
I can assure Mr Korakas that the Council is perfectly willing to intervene in this matter, as long as he can explain to us what the legal basis for doing so would be, under the Treaties.
Question No 7 by (H-0162/00):
Subject: Support for European films European films are highly important to the cultural diversity and the cultural heritage both of the individual countries and of Europe. 80 to 90% of the films showing in Sweden are, however, American.
Up to 50% state aid for film production is allowed in the EU at present.
The Commission is said to be considering lowering the limit for State aid, i.e. to reduce the exemption for cultural support to a maximum of 30%. This would be a threat to European film production, as producing films is expensive and commercially very risky, especially in smaller countries.
Does the Council agree that State aid is important to promote European culture? Does the Council not consider it important to encourage diversed European film production?
Mr President, Mrs Hedkvist Petersen' s question is a very important one, but we do not have any information to the effect that the Commission is considering reducing state aids in this field.
In fact, the Council understands that as part of its programme, the Commission is holding discussions with Member States on this very subject.
I would like to explain that at national level this type of support is a matter for Member States, within certain legal limits laid down in the Treaty.
On the other hand, the existing MEDIA II programme and the future MEDIA-PLUS programme provide complementary financial assistance with a view to strengthening the presence of European cinema.
This is one of the key steps the European Union has been taking in order to maintain and protect its cultural diversity and forms part of the guidelines contained in its own position in relation to the WTO negotiations, in particular as regards the audiovisual industry.
I would like to thank the Council's representative for his reply.
Firstly, I would like to say that there is an enormous difference between, for example, producing cars or lorries and producing a film.
We are aware that film production is dependent on aid, as it is a combination of culture and commercial production.
We also know that European film, particularly when produced in languages with few speakers, cannot easily maintain as large a film production as one would wish.
Therefore, aid for both national and European film production is extremely important, as is the opportunity to continue the practice of accepting up to 50 percent State aid for film production.
I would, however, like to ask the Council's representative whether he does not consider it important, with the help of this practice, to be able to give up to 50 percent in aid to the production of European film in those languages with few speakers.
Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, I am of course especially conscious of the point you have made about the Union' s smaller Member States.
We are also concerned about this.
As you know, in the past all the Member States of the Union were authorised to provide special support for their film industries, particularly bearing in mind the specific need for cultural diversity within the European Union and because it was necessary to ensure that account was taken of this specific need, thus going beyond a purely economic view of the film industry.
We hope that it will be possible to maintain this support in future, and we also hope that this can be totally reconciled with the new WTO rules, especially in the new round which we hope will start sooner or later.
At present, there is still a 50% limit on state aid in relation to the overall cost of any given project, but this percentage could even be raised to 60% in special cases envisaged in the programme.
At the moment we have no indication that the Commission is considering a lowering of this limit, let alone the amount and the percentage mentioned by the honourable Member.
Question No 8 by (H-0166/00):
Subject: Information for the public Will the Council draw up a list of parties which the electorate can safely vote for without running the risk of their country being ostracised?
Mr President, it is clear that the European Union does not have the power to intervene in the constitutional arrangements of the Member States, no more than it is for the Union to draw up a so-called positive list of parties for whom electors may vote.
If we went down that path we would certainly be entering very dangerous territory.
This does not mean that the idea behind this question does not make some sense politically speaking: in some countries, including my own, a Nazi or fascist party does not have the right to register with the constitutional court.
This means that it cannot be accepted as a legitimate party in the democratic process.
Other countries have different systems and these have just as many virtues as my own.
What we have to recognise is that when we are considering a broader Community, no situation affecting democratic rights in one country can be a matter of indifference to the other countries and their citizens.
We are all European citizens and we are all citizens of a European Union which is underpinned, politically speaking, by a basic set of principles.
If these principles are at risk, we have the right - and the duty - to sound the alarm.
But whether lists of parties are desirable or otherwise, I hope that this never becomes a matter for the European Union.
Yes, but the problem, of course, is that this is what we are concerned with here.
Because Austria has a county mayor in Klagenfurt who has expressed himself in a way for which you and I feel equal revulsion, you have punished a country with sanctions and you are punishing a people with sanctions, including those individuals who may have voted against the party in question, and this without specifying what their crime entails.
Up until now, it is only opinions you are punishing and not actions.
If it were a question of actions, it would perhaps be Denmark which should be punished for a ban on immigrants of a kind which the FPÖ has not been able to put into practice.
It is therefore opinions which you have punished and not actions.
I should therefore like to know, when I next vote, if Portugal and other countries - outside the Council - will wish to propose sanctions against my country in the event, for example, of the present Danish government' s incorporating ministers from the Socialist People' s Party or Unity List, which are both opposed to Economic and Monetary Union, or if they will wish to prevent the appointment of a government including Fogh Rasmussen from the Left party if he relies upon support from the Danish People' s Party which, in many newspapers, is described as a party equivalent to the FPÖ in Austria.
Knowing the answer to these questions would be useful as a guide to the consumer, but it may well be that the action taken by the 14 Prime Ministers is a source of regret.
Mr Bonde knows what I have said in previous answers: in the specific case of Austria, and I know that that is what is behind his question, we are not working at Community level, but through bilateral relations.
The attitude adopted by some Member States towards the Austrian Government related to their negative perception of the new Austrian Government, which does not affect the Community framework.
We are not working at Council level here.
The European Union has not taken a single discriminatory measure against Austria.
These 14 Member States decided of their own free will to make plain to the Austrian authorities their displeasure at the kind of government they had established, and above all at the fact that they had included in the government a party which advocates, or has advocated in the past - it is difficult to distinguish between the past and the present in the Freedom Party' s statements - a certain ideology and a certain way of interpreting European values.
However, Mr Bonde, you should not, of course, confuse economic and monetary union with Nazism, they are in fact slightly different.
Of course, all parties have every right to oppose economic and monetary union, the Schengen Agreement, or anything else; they can even oppose the European Union itself.
As you know, there are parties which are opposed to the European Union, but that does not mean that they should be seen as undemocratic.
The fact is, and you know this as well as I do, Mr Bonde, that there are parties which promote ideologies which jeopardise the system itself and which affect the set of values which are the very essence of the European Union, which are ultimately part of the justification for creating the European Union in the first place.
It is therefore quite natural, Mr Bonde, that certain governments should feel somewhat uneasy.
This uneasiness is only being reflected in bilateral relations.
We are not confusing Community matters with bilateral matters.
Question No 9 by (H-0169/00):
Subject: Secrecy of legislative proceedings in the Council During Question Time in January, in answer to my question, the President-in-Office said that all information about legislative sessions in the Council, such as who voted which way, the minutes and the summary record was readily available to the public.
I expressed my doubts, but, further to my supplementary question, the President-in-Office undertook to write to me, before Question Time in February, a letter giving full details of where and how this information was readily available to the public.
I have received no letter from the President-in-Office, which confirms my worst suspicions about the obsessive secretiveness of the Council.
Will the President-in-Office now finally tell me where this information - who voted and how, the minutes, and the summery record - is readily available to the public, as he claimed during Question Time in January?
Mr President, it is possible to keep track of the Council' s work by means of the monthly reports prepared by the General Secretariat of the Council and which are published on the Council' s web site, covering legislative and non-legislative acts approved since January 1999 and including the results of votes, explanations of vote and statements for the minutes when the Council is acting in its legislative capacity.
In the case of definitive legislative acts approved by the Council, the reports include the results of any votes, and any statements for the minutes made by the Council, the Commission and the Member States.
However, the only authentic texts are, of course, definitively approved minutes from which extracts are published by the General Secretariat of the Council on the Internet via the EUDOR web site, which is managed by the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, under "Transparency of the Council' s legislative activities" .
This is in fact one of the achievements of the much maligned Treaty of Amsterdam which people need to be regularly reminded about.
After each meeting of the Council, a press release is issued which contains information on decisions taken by the Council. This indicates for which decisions statements for the minutes were authorised for release to the public and which are obtainable from the Press Service.
It is also possible to obtain information on the legislative transparency of the Council by e-mail.
The public' s right of access to Council documents is covered by Article 255 of the Treaty, which stipulates that the Council shall determine general principles and limits for exercising this right within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It should be borne in mind that this provision of the Treaty of Amsterdam makes it possible for the various institutions to regulate access to their own documents, and we need to be aware of this, given the particularly delicate nature of certain issues under discussion in highly sensitive fields, such as the common foreign and security policy and justice and home affairs.
These provisions need to reflect a number of concerns which, whilst preserving the rules of transparency, cannot be allowed to turn transparency into a means of making any Council activity totally ineffective.
For this reason, as I have already said, this article stipulates that the rules of procedure of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission should contain specific provisions regarding access to their documents.
This issue comes under the general transparency rules of the European institutions which were, in fact, defined in the conclusions of the last European Council, in Helsinki, and I quote, as "an important element in bringing the Union closer to its citizens and improving efficiency" .
During the Finnish presidency, substantial progress was made in the field of access to documents by means of modern information technology, and in particular the Internet.
Furthermore, a Council Decision on improving the provision of information relating to the Council's legislative activities and the public register of Council documents was approved.
In accordance with this decision, and let me quote once again, "The General Secretariat of the Council shall make accessible to the public a list of the items on the provisional agendas of meetings of the Council and its preparatory bodies referring to cases where the Council acts in its legislative capacity" .
The current presidency has been following this practice.
The decision stipulates that the public register of Council documents shall also include references to the document number and the subject matter of classified documents, with the exception of cases where disclosure of this information could undermine protection of the public interest, protection of the individual and of privacy, protection of commercial and industrial secrecy, protection of the Community's financial interests, and/or protection of confidentiality as requested by the natural or legal person who supplied any of the information contained in the document or as required by the legislation of the Member State which supplied any of that information.
From the outset, the Portuguese presidency has declared its commitment to initiate discussions on public access to documents and its intention to entrust this dossier to the "Friends of the Presidency" group as soon as the Commission presented the proposal for a regulation on public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.
This proposal was presented to the Commission, in the College of Commissioners, on 26 January, and, as I have said, it attempts to fulfil the objectives of increasing transparency, and in particular proposes significant amendments to the 1999 Code of Conduct.
The presidency immediately initiated discussion of the proposal, which was presented at the Coreper meeting on 2 February and which was examined at two subsequent meetings.
This set of tasks has therefore, Mr President, been developed by the Council on the basis of Commission proposals which I believe suggest a real will to increase the transparency of this work.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for a very long, detailed and serious reply.
Because I do not speak Portuguese I shall study the reply before the next question time and come back to you on it in April.
For now I would like you to give me a very simple reply to a very simple question of principle.
Do you accept that for legislation in a democratic environment, in which we are in the European Union, the public, whom the laws affect, should be able to see and hear what their elected representatives are doing to pass the laws? I do not think it is the case in the Council that the public is actually able to see and hear everything that their representatives say and do when passing laws.
Would you accept that principle?
Mr Newton Dunn, this is a complex issue and it relates, of course, to the type of legislative practice involved and in particular to the degree of similarity between the legislative practices adopted in the European Union and in its Member States.
In the Member States, there are legislative powers associated with parliaments in which debates are held openly and in public, and there are legislative powers which, either because they are delegated by parliament or as a matter of law, are a matter for the government.
Discussion of legislative proposals within the government is not in the public domain, but the result of these legislative proposals is in the public domain, whether they come before parliament or not.
At European Union level, I do not believe that we can go any further than the existing provisions, that is to say making the results of discussions in the Council public, and in particular making public the way Member States voted and explanations of votes and statements for the minutes.
I think that I have said enough on this subject now but, as I have said, this is my personal view, given that this is basically about the underlying philosophy of the European Union' s legislative procedures.
Mr President, during the Finnish presidency, we were able to get through twenty questions in question time.
Last time we covered twelve with Portugal as the country holding the presidency.
It seems as if we will not get through any more than that today either.
But my actual question concerns the fact that the President of the European Commission, Mr Prodi, has sent a letter to the European Parliament criticising the Parliamentary Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, for having taken part in a public debate and wanting various documents to be widely accessible, as well as having presented his own point of view that there should be more public access to documents in the EU.
I would ask the representative of the Council whether he thinks the President of the Commission' s action was right and justified, and whether the Council also wants to restrict the Ombudsman' s freedom of speech on this topic.
.
(PT) I have two points to make, Mr Seppänen. Firstly, if that was how Parliament saw things, we could even give not twenty, but thirty answers to honourable Members' questions.
But I shall reply in 15 seconds, omitting the detail which would reflect the presidency' s desire to deal more thoroughly with questions and to go as far as possible in giving specific replies to honourable Members' concerns.
But we can also opt for a bureaucratic, officious, quick, artificial and probably unsatisfactory answer.
We would then - in quantitative terms - be more successful in giving answers to this House.
I have been here since 9 o' clock in the morning and I do not think that the Council can be accused of not doing a serious job in answering honourable Members' questions.
With regard to your question about this disagreement between Parliament and the Commission, it is obvious that the Council would be the last institution to get involved in this disagreement and will leave those two institutions to sort out this potential argument between them.
Just to follow on from Mr Newton Dunn's question regarding the decisions made in secret in the Council, could the Minister possibly list those legislatures in the world, that he referred to, where decisions are made in secret?
I would be grateful if you could rephrase your question, Mr Nicholson, because I did not grasp what you were saying.
Excuse me, but could you put the question in a different way?
You were saying that the Council is not alone in being a legislature that makes its decisions in secret.
I just wondered if you could give us examples of other similar organisations in government that make these decisions in the same way.
Unless I am very much mistaken, Mr Nicholson, the majority of governments do not broadcast meetings at which they are acting in their legislative capacity.
Governments' legislative role is normally exercised in restricted, closed meetings in every country in the world.
I am not aware of any governments who perform their legislative work in open meetings, only parliaments do that, and as legislative power is divided between parliaments and governments there are two different ways of dealing with the legislative process.
Therefore, to the best of my knowledge, in the majority of countries throughout the world, governments do their work in closed sessions not open to the public.
Mr Seixas da Costa had informed us that he had to leave at 7.00 p.m.
He has also pointed out that he has been working with us since 9.00 a.m.
I believe that today he has earned his salary as a minister and as President-in-Office of the Council.
We will therefore conclude questions to the Council and thank him for being here.
Questions Nos 10 to 38 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was closed at 7.00 p.m.)
Mr Evans has the floor.
Evans, Robert (PSE).
Mr President, my point of order relates to Rules 148 and 135 regarding the distribution of the minutes and particularly regarding roll-call votes.
All Members have, this morning, received a booklet containing 113 pages of roll-call votes.
I am sure this is of interest to a number of Members and there will be a few Members who want to look at it.
But in the interests of economy and the environment, I would suggest that Parliament look again, or ask Parliament's services to look again, at the interpretation of the word 'distribution' .
Perhaps the results of roll-call votes could be distributed on the Intranet or made available to Members who need them so that we do not have the waste and the superfluous nature of everybody being distributed with a 113-page document listing roll-call votes.
I wonder if you could ask the services to have another look at this please, President.
Thank you, Mr Evans.
Your comments will be passed on, not to the services, of course, but to the Bureau.
If you were also to add the cost of each of those votes to Parliament' s budget, there would be even more cause for concern.
EU-Mexico Interim Agreement
The next item is the report (A5-0066/2000) by Mrs Ferrer, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision on the Community position within the EC-Mexico Joint Council on the implementation of Articles 3, 4, 5, 6 and 12 of the Interim Agreement on trade and trade-related matters [5965/1/2000 - C5-0076/2000 - 2000/0024(CNS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the debate I am opening under the very long title you have just announced represents the final phase of Parliament' s work, carried out in close contact with the Commission, to strengthen relations with Mexico on the basis of the principles and values which underpin our democratic system.
In May 1999 Parliament gave its assent to an Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement, signed in 1997 between the European Community and its Member States, on the one hand, and Mexico, on the other. Once it has been ratified by all the Member States, it will replace the cooperation agreement signed between the Community and Mexico in 1991.
In May 1998 Parliament gave its assent to a provisional interim agreement on trade and related issues associated with the 1997 agreement. The aim was to enable negotiations on liberalising the trade aspects of the global agreement falling within the Community' s competence to begin as soon as possible, without having to wait for ratification by the fifteen Member States to be completed.
Now that these negotiations have been concluded and the Council has expressed its view on their content, it falls to Parliament, in response to the Council' s formal consultation, to give its opinion on the results of the negotiations.
Here I want to thank the Commission for making this consultation by the Council possible in close cooperation with Parliament - I am delighted about that and I hope it will set a precedent. However, I am sorry it did not adopt the commitment of the previous Commission to keep us informed of the progress of the negotiations, given the importance of the issues involved.
Turning to the substance of my report, the first thing I want to highlight is that, although we are dealing with an implementation agreement exclusively concerned with trade, there is a political dimension to bear in mind in expressing our opinion.
This is the case because the text my report covers is set in the context of the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement, and that agreement is a reflection of the will to promote a genuinely democratic political system, respect for human, social and environmental rights and a fairer social balance, thanks to the greater economic development the liberalisation of trade will generate.
In fact, Article 1 of that agreement makes respect for democratic principles and human rights, in the widest sense, an essential factor and the very foundation of the agreement.
Again, the inclusion of a clause on fulfilment of obligations, providing for the agreement to be suspended in case of failure to meet the obligations laid down in Article 1, also guarantees the commitment of the parties to democracy and respect for fundamental rights.
In addition, by institutionalising cooperation between the European Union and Mexico, especially on human rights issues, social affairs and the fight against poverty, an instrument is being created which could be extremely useful for reducing the social inequalities which persist in Mexico and for improving the living conditions of the less advantaged strata of the population.
My second point, relating to the content of the negotiations on the implementation of Articles 3, 4, 5, 6 and 12 of the interim agreement, covering trade in goods, public procurement, competition, the consultation mechanism for questions relating to intellectual property and dispute settlement, is to highlight the fact that this package of measures represents a good agreement. Although for certain sectors there may be flaws - I am thinking specifically of the textiles sector, where the rules of origin issue causes great concern - the effects will be beneficial for both the European Union and Mexico.
For the European Union, because the establishment of a free trade area will enable it to rebuild the presence Member States had in Mexican markets before the NAFTA agreement came into force, involving new expansion opportunities for European companies. For Mexico, because it will be able to diversify and introduce balance into its external trade, currently 80% dependent on its NAFTA partners, and at the same time increase the volume of its exports to the European Union, with the consequent favourable impact this increase will have on the Mexican economy.
Of course, during the transition period, and until all products have been fully liberalised, the agreement will be more beneficial to Mexico than the European Union, but this asymmetry also takes account of the levels of development and competitiveness of the European economy as compared with Mexico' s.
All the same, in spite of this asymmetry, Community producers will clearly be in a much better position to compete in the Mexican market than they have been up to now.
For all these reasons, ladies and gentlemen, and by a very large majority, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy recommends a vote in favour of the Council Decision on the result of negotiations whose benefits we must monitor to make sure they genuinely contribute to promoting a more democratic political system and respect for human rights and social justice.
Mr President, I should like to start by thanking Mrs Ferrer for her excellent report.
She has gone to a great deal of trouble and has used her report to set out the problems and the advantages and disadvantages of this project with Mexico.
This is a trade agreement which falls within the competence of the EU and, as you rightly say, we only have the option of saying yes or no.
We cannot renegotiate the agreement.
All in all, our Group will vote in favour of this trade agreement, which we welcome.
For the rest, I should like to say to Mr Folias, who worries about the problem of footwear that, generally-speaking, trade relations between Europe and Mexico have always proven their worth in the past.
We might have been able to dispense with the Lannoye report on chocolate yesterday had Mexico not given us cocoa in the past.
In fact, chocolate - "chocolatl" - is a Mexican word.
We can therefore use past experience to help develop future relations with Mexico.
The advantage to Mexico is obvious.
This agreement will enable Mexico to redress the imbalance of its one-way dependence on the USA to a certain extent.
I should like to remind the House that 85% of Mexico' s exports go north and only 5% come to Europe.
Mexico stands to gain here by achieving a better trade equilibrium.
Mexico' s automobile industry, which is partly of European origin, certainly also stands to gain from the possibility of exporting vehicles to Europe.
We too stand to gain, as does European industry, be it on the Mexican market or by exporting to the USA via the Mexican market.
As far as trade is concerned, there are advantages all round.
I should like to go briefly into, or at least touch on, two problems.
The first are social problems; in other words, Mexico will certainly have to review its social policy because trade policies alone will not solve social problems.
When free trade increases, there are also losers.
Poverty in Mexico has risen rather than fallen.
Social policy is therefore an important area for Mexico and we should build this into the dialogue with Mexico.
The second is scientific and technical cooperation.
I think that there is potential here which can be exploited between Europe and Mexico.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement signed with Mexico in December 1997 is back in this House for analysis of the trade measures negotiated in the context of the interim agreement.
A few weeks ago I visited Mexico for a number of reasons, one of which was to find out what Mexicans think of the new framework for relations between their country and the European Union, announced with great fanfare in most of the media.
After analysing what I saw, read and heard during my stay in the Republic of the United Mexican States, I came to the same conclusion as Mrs Ferrer, author of the report we are debating today, and I congratulate her publicly. This is the best agreement the European Union has yet signed to promote trade and investment and it will benefit both parties.
There have been certain changes in Mexico recently, since the announcement and approval of the agreement, largely in a positive direction.
I therefore support the rapporteur' s conclusions although I am concerned about the impact of tariff liberalisation for cut flowers as this could have negative repercussions on certain European regions specialising in this type of agriculture, such as the outermost regions.
Coming as I do from the Canary Islands, a region located to the north-east of the continent of Africa, with my political soul divided between Europe and America, I am delighted to witness this debate on Mrs Ferrer' s report. The opinion Parliament is expressing on the association agreement is not just about its trading aspects, but also about its political implications as we experience the extraordinary scenario of globalisation.
In my opinion, the implementation of this agreement will undoubtedly take the European Union and Mexico down a road which offers hope of improving the income levels and quality of life of the communities involved at a time and under circumstances which, despite the distances, evoke the legendary meeting between Suchil and Quetzalcoatl, immortalised in Don Salvador de Madariaga' s "El Corazón de Piedra Verde" .
Nevertheless, when asked to vote for this report, we have some constructive points to make. First, the Community services and departments responsible need to be provided with more human resources to make trade actions more efficient; and secondly, financial instruments should be made available to companies implementing the various trading aspects of the intended Euro-Mexican partnership, in the old ECIPs, for instance, which brought such good results for Mexico.
If that does not happen, there is a risk that this very significant agreement will not be worth the paper it is written on.
Mr President, this is the third debate on the EU-Mexico agreement and, given that it is the most comprehensive agreement which the European Union has ever concluded with a third country, the principles that mark the sort of cooperation which will be viable in the future should not be thrown to the wind.
Both we and the people of Mexico set great store by this agreement.
They see it as a chance to correct their one-way dependence on NAFTA.
They believe that, in the EU, they have found a partner which stands for democracy, human rights and social and ecological development.
Today we have analysed the contract and found that the agreement with the EU not only creates the same sort of relationship as with NAFTA, but that, in parts, it is even worse.
Like the rightly failed MAI, freedom of investment, reproduced bilaterally, does nothing to foster a democratically-controlled economy geared to local development.
Placing no limit on opening public procurement merely allows large suppliers to swallow up small suppliers all over the world.
Provisions such as domestic treatment and bans on conditions cut companies which, for example, prefer to employ women or engage in environmentally sound production, out of the running.
The EU has kept derogations open for itself here.
Mexico has none!
Here is another shortcoming in comparison with NAFTA: the latter has an agreement on employees' rights with a sanction mechanism, while the EU agreement has not even heard of the Social Pact of the United Nations.
However, the opposite applies to trade disputes, for which a dispute settlement mechanism is provided together with the possibility of sanctions.
We know from the WTO that environmental laws are regularly sidelined as the result of such disputes.
"A free trade agreement at the cost of the Mexicans" .
It was under this banner that the Mexican civil society called a few days ago for the Senate to improve the agreement and not to rush into signing it.
Some points even contradict the Mexican constitution.
"We are not 'globalphobes' they write at the end, "but we want globalisation which benefits mankind and a fair world order without social exclusion" .
We here in the European Parliament do not oppose an agreement with Mexico.
On the contrary!
We are unable, however, to vote in favour of this agreement for the reasons stated and must continue to fight for better agreements in the future.
One last word: we need a critical voice here in Parliament which continues to support the rightful concerns and demands of Mexican society.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Ferrer, for the recommendation on the implementation of certain articles of the EC-Mexico Interim Agreement on trade.
The report is thorough, but I am afraid that I do not agree with the choices and recommendations it makes, although we do welcome some of the criticisms mentioned.
However, these criticisms are decisive, and have led us to oppose the motion.
I refer, for example, to the insufficient democratic transparency displayed leading up to the agreement, and we, along with all the other Members I imagine, have received a great deal of criticism on this point from both Mexican and European civil organisations, as Mr Kreissl-Dörfler said.
We are particularly concerned by the fact that the rapporteur is satisfied with the progress made by Mexico in the area of human rights and democracy since the application of the global agreement.
We now have conflicting evidence revealing an increase in violations of human rights, supplied not only by civil society but also by UN representatives and officials, by Mary Robinson herself, by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and by many other sources.
The most serious violations include the systematic use of torture, illegal arrests, disappearances, executions by paramilitary death squads, the arrest of trade unionists, bans on strikes and allegations of enforced sterilisation in the State of Guererro.
At the same time, the Saint Andrés agreements and the rights of the indigenous peasants are not being observed.
All this is common knowledge and I need say no more.
We believe, along with the German and Belgian Governments, that we should enforce observance of Article 1 of the Treaty, which contains the fundamental principle, and adopt instruments and set in place practical controls to ensure its implementation.
There are many other aspects of this agreement which, we feel, require correction: I will give just one example - it reveals a European Union economic policy which does not take into consideration the social and economic situation in Mexico or its human development.
The EU-Mexico Agreement could have negative implications if it does not take into account the need for balanced development, and not uncontrolled liberalisation, which could lead to greater poverty and inequality.
Mr President, we regard the title of the agreement which is the subject of Mrs Ferrer' s report as at best incomplete, at worst dissembling.
It would in fact be more accurate to refer to a European Union-NAFTA agreement rather than an agreement associating the European Union with Mexico only. For this agreement, which the rapporteur herself describes as the most important one the European Union has ever signed with a third country, will not only affect our relations with Mexico but will also have implications for our relations with the North and Central American countries as a whole.
The Ferrer report, following what is clearly now the fashion in this Parliament, sets itself the objective of helping to create a new framework that will enable European enterprises to compete on equal terms with the United States and Canada.
That is a totally unrealistic objective for the near future and it is quite obvious for whose benefit the measures advocated in the text are designed.
Indeed, it must be quite clear to everyone that the decline in European exports to Mexico is the result of the NAFTA agreement, which turns the entire area into a single free trade area.
Does anyone seriously think, for example, that whatever the details of the system we set up, European textiles and cars, which are currently taxed at 35% and 23%, will soon be able to compete on equal terms with American exports of the same products, which are taxed at 1.8%? Under these conditions, how can anyone justify the fact that the respective markets will be liberalised at different rates, to the detriment of the Europeans?
Finally, there is a real fear that this will have an immediate and tangible impact on employment in Europe in the sectors opened to Mexican products, especially in already vulnerable sectors - such as textiles, to name but one.
These sectors do not need to face further competition, in return for opening up to markets blocked by the Americans.
Moreover, the supposedly reassuring formulation of the rules on protecting designations of origin, and more generally on intellectual property, are more likely to have the opposite effect; their vagueness and wording seem more of a threat than a guarantee.
Mr President, the conclusion of trade negotiations between the European Union and Mexico, considered from a positive perspective, could mean a new and durable framework for the institutionalisation of political dialogue and cooperation, provided that this trade pact works to the benefit of both sides.
Unfortunately, the experience of NAFTA shows us that this target was not achieved automatically, because there is evidence that free trade has had an adverse effect on the lives of many people, exacerbated environmental damage, and marginalised wide sections of the Mexican population - all the more so as Mexican human rights NGOs have also reported a deterioration in the human rights situation since the interim agreement came into force in 1998.
So, all in all, the on-going agreement has not allowed Mexico to protect vulnerable labour, intensive sectors and minimal environmental standards.
In the light of this we cannot be optimistic, because the procedure followed in the recent negotiations, without effective control either in this House or in the Mexican Senate, provides ample evidence that the agreement lacks those mechanisms absolutely necessary to ensure that the damage currently being done will not be repeated again in the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are about to vote on one more step down a new road, begun in mid-1995, when, like anything new, it met with quite a lot of criticism and quite a lot of reluctance.
Fortunately, that criticism and reluctance is now a thing of the past; unfortunately, however, we still hear some reservations, like those voiced in Parliament just now.
I think we need to realise that what we are doing is actually forestalling the fears expressed here, with an agreement which, in this case, is purely about trade.
So we are forestalling these fears about Europe losing ground in Mexico against the exporting power of the United States.
What is more, this agreement means we are also strengthening the country' s democratisation process.
As a result of that 500 year-old meeting of civilisations, Mexico is a country culturally and politically bound to Europe.
But politically and geo-politically, the fundamental weight has essentially lain with the United States, its powerful neighbour to the North.
And until these agreements start to bite, the hegemony of the United States in terms of economics, trade and investment will remain virtually absolute.
But Mexico has also made great progress on human rights.
It has been granted permanent observer status at the OECD and in 1999 it reformed its constitution to grant autonomy to its National Commission on Human Rights
So, for both economic and political reasons, we urge approval of this agreement.
Mr President, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance does not have a common position on this issue.
The latter part of the group, representing, as you know, groups which regard themselves as defenders of nations and regions internal to the European Member States, take a different view and, of course, members of the group are free to adopt different positions.
Obviously we share a basic concern about everything relating to human rights and sustainable development, especially in a context which leaves no room for social exclusion.
However, many of us feel we cannot realistically and sincerely oppose an agreement like the one before us today, primarily because we believe it will create objective conditions for further development and greater democracy and because, in addition, this agreement includes a suspension clause for non-respect of human rights.
I also think measures can be introduced to monitor its effects at all levels, not just on tariff changes and so on.
I am more worried about the points Mr Sánchez García made: for example, that the agreement we are signing cannot be implemented because there are insufficient resources and services; that it will have perverse effects because we have not provided financial instruments for companies.
So let us do all that and let us be vigilant about preventing what we want to prevent: the continued violation of human rights.
Mr President, first I want to congratulate Mrs Ferrer on her excellent report, but despite that I also have to record that, regrettably, we cannot vote for it this time.
Our decision has nothing to do with her work, it relates to the situation in Mexico.
Three weeks ago I met with President Zedillo in Madrid and expressed our concern about the news we were receiving on violations of human rights in Mexico, the situation at the university and the situation in the indigenous towns of Chiapas and other localities.
Mr Zedillo promised to let me have full details to prove to me that our concern was groundless.
The days have gone by and still the information from Mr Zedillo has not come. Meanwhile, information is reaching us from many sources indicating that serious human rights violations are continuing in many places, increasing our concern.
We quite understand that the economic content of the agreement is intended to bring about improvements, but we also recognise that we have not been able to achieve our aim of shifting the tremendous weight of North American influence that bears down on Mexico and other Latin American countries like a jackboot.
Last time, we consulted with the parties on the left in Mexico on how to vote and we decided to abstain. This time we cannot even abstain, because the Mexican Government needs to be sent a signal - in friendship and solidarity - that it must be serious about respecting human rights, complying with the San Andrés undertakings and restoring democratic normality, as laid down in our democracy clause.
Mr President, I will not discuss the content of this agreement since many speakers, including the rapporteur, have already covered it.
I just want to highlight the political significance of the signing of this free trade agreement between the European Union and Mexico.
First, from the strategic and political angles, it is important for the European Union to build up its relationship with a country that is so important in that part of the world and which, above all, is making progress in terms of respect for the values of human rights.
Mexico' s membership of the OECD was just mentioned, and its observer status at the Council of Europe should also be remembered.
Nor should we forget the opportunities represented by this market of 100 million people.
But obviously this political symbolism can in no way allay our concern about environmental issues, social issues and above all human rights issues, and many speakers have already referred to them here today.
What we do know is that our concern must make us more rigorous in our relations with Mexico.
That is just what we will be in ten days' time.
The European Parliament' s delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and Mexico will be visiting that country.
We are not going just for institutional dialogue between partners, between the Congress and the European Parliament.
We are going to talk to non-governmental organisations.
We are also going to Chiapas to talk to the indigenous people and representatives of local society.
That is how rigorous we believe we need to be but it will not detract from our support for approval of this agreement.
Overall, I feel that we can but support this agreement, for the reasons expressed by Messrs Westendorp y Cabeza and Seguro, whose opinions I share.
However, today' s debate has revealed that it does have shortcomings, such as the failure to make an adequate connection between economic liberalisation and the guarantee of the respect of human and democratic rights, the rights of trade unions and rights in the area of child employment. The report also contains an alarming derogating clause regarding the origin of products, which will obviously penalise European produce, in particular in the textiles, clothing and footwear industries.
Since this involves highly labour-intensive European manufacturing industries, it would be truly absurd if this penalisation were to benefit practices which run contrary to the principles of human rights or to benefit unacceptable working practices such as child employment or an absence of trade union protection. It really would be absurd if, to the detriment of our own footwear and clothing industries, we were to work to the advantage of companies and situations which violate those human rights that we have always vowed to protect.
I therefore feel that the Council and the Commission should take great care when implementing this agreement, and continually monitor its application for as long as it is in force.
I support the agreement in its entirety, for it certainly represents a step forward.
However, I also call for scrutiny, care and prudence regarding this agreement for its entire duration.
Mr President, first of all I want to thank Madam Ferrer for the report and Parliament for the very constructive input with regard to the results of the trade negotiations with Mexico.
These results of the trade negotiations are based on the EU-Mexico agreement to which this Parliament gave the green light on 6 May last year.
This agreement is based on human rights and democratic principles.
It covers all our relations with Mexico, notably cooperation and political dialogue.
The negotiating results are balanced, ambitious and offer a window of opportunity for both sides.
All important areas are included, notably trade in goods, services, procurement, intellectual property rights, competition, capital movement, investment and dispute settlement.
EC operators will be very rapidly able to compete on the Mexican market on an equal footing with industries elsewhere, notably the United States.
As in all negotiations, compromises had to be found in certain areas but the results are a balanced package assuring market access while preserving specific sensitivities.
Last, but not least, I would like to express the Commission's high appreciation of the very short time period of one month in which the Parliament will be delivering its opinion.
It is very important because it will pave the way for organising a meeting of the EC-Mexico Joint Council on the margins of the Lisbon Council next week.
This will allow for the rapid entry into force of the results which, as you recognise, are in both our and Mexico's interest.
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Information society for All
The next item is the report (A5-0067/2000) by Mrs Read, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission on a Commission initiative for the Special European Council of Lisbon, 23 and 24 March 2000: Europe - An information society for all [COM(1999) 687 - C5-0063/2000 - 2000/2034(COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner Liikanen, ladies and gentlemen, before starting on my speech on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I want to express our very sincere and warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Read.
We have been working against the clock and we have been dealing with an excellent and supportive fellow Member, who has been very open to accepting all the points our committee wanted to raise in this important debate.
Many thanks for your report and your skill, Mrs Read.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has welcomed the Commission' s very important initiative, e-Europe, for the Special European Council to be held in Lisbon on 23 and 24 March, with support and optimism.
We naturally applaud the Commission' s aim of making the information society benefit all sectors and all regions but now, with the Commissioner here, we also have the opportunity to consider the citizens' viewpoint and remind the Commission and the public that rhetoric in announcing objectives and expressing desires is not enough. We want these words transformed as firmly as possible into specific objectives and precise financial commitments, because that is the only way to get a real strategy covering every aspect of the information society.
And the strategy will only be of use to the weakest groups and individuals, and those who are most at risk of exclusion from the new society, if there are concrete commitments.
No doubt the Commission has the noblest intentions, but, looked at from the viewpoint of the workers and the least advantaged people, it still has not answered the questions this Parliament has raised in many documents, for example, the report on the Green Paper entitled "Living and Working in the Information Society: People First" . We still do not have much idea of who is going to finance the massive programme to teach basic digital literacy which Europe needs to close the gap with the United States.
We do not have much idea of how the responsibilities can be divided between governments and Commission, or what role trade unions and civil society can play.
So we want supplementary analyses taken into account, we want firmer commitments, we want a specific point about strengthening employment and social cohesion in the information society - because there is nothing about that in the Commission' s communication - and we want a strategy with guidelines, recommendations and indicators.
We want adults mentioned, not just young people, we want disadvantaged groups mentioned and we want you to remember equality of opportunity too.
The new society must not exacerbate inequality between men and women.
Commissioner, there are great opportunities here, but they must reach all the people.
And we want the European social model to be defended.
So we are asking for a step forward, with more specific commitments and far more adequate political and financial efforts.
Mr President, Commissioner Liikanen, the e-Europe initiative by the European Commission is to be welcomed in principle.
We all agree that new technologies will lead to extensive change, not only in our business life but in all aspects of our social life.
It is also true that the evolution from industrial society to information society cannot be halted and that it therefore makes political sense to prepare Europe for the information society as best we can.
I therefore expressly welcome the statement in the e-Europe initiative that its prime objective is to accelerate the positive transformation to the information society in the European Union and gear the transformation towards social and regional integration.
The European Commission sets out ten measures in its communication on the e-Europe initiative, which should level the playing field in the run up to the information society in Europe.
As welcome as the individual measures are, they need to be structured as a whole and clear priorities need to be set for our policy.
This includes clearly differentiating which tasks the European Union can and must take care of itself and which tasks come within the jurisdiction of the individual Member States, taking account of the fact that some Member States and regions have been promoting the new technologies and fostering their acceptance by their citizens for years now.
In this respect, the summit in Lisbon should table recommendations to the individual states, without imposing comprehensive obligations or heavy financial burdens.
What must the European Union do within the framework of the e-Europe initiative? In my opinion, the following priorities should be taken care of by the Union and should have been addressed as core points in Mrs Read' s report, for which I should like, at this point, to thank her.
First: we must create an open, modern, high-performance multimedia infrastructure.
The policy objective must be to ensure that Europe has a modern, high-performance infrastructure which allows valuable quality telecommunications services to be supplied and demanded from the telephone via the PC and television.
This includes cheaper Internet access for all the citizens of Europe, which means fostering even more competition in local networks, for example by unbundling customer access.
It also means that all platforms must be made accessible to service providers at competitive prices; this might include making television cables available.
It also means that the policy regarding frequencies in Europe will need to be reviewed and we will need to take a more strategic approach based on economic principles, as you have suggested, Commissioner.
But, in so doing, we must not, of course, forget commercial applications which are generally provided in the public interest, such as public service radio.
On the contrary, this must be taken into account when frequencies are being allocated so that it can fulfil its purpose as an opinion-forming institution which provides a platform for a variety of opinions.
Secondly: we must quickly create a legal framework for electronic commerce.
This means that we must deal swiftly with legislative proposals pending, such as the e-commerce directive or the directive amending copyright protection.
However, caution is required in the legislative area in that we must not over-regulate; in other words, the first question with future legislative proposals should always be, do we actually need this?
Thirdly: we need an e-Europe test bench for European initiatives.
I have already referred to the fact that the changes in information technology and the new media affect all areas of life.
Consequently, it is advisable to set all initiatives at European level on the e-Europe test bench. In other words...
(The President cut the speaker off) Mr President, I apologise. Please be so kind as to allow me to finish my sentence.
I have inadvertently run over time, but allow me to use my closing sentence to stress once again that I welcome the e-Europe initiative and to say that the suggestions which I had made would have been taken into account in my intervention.
Mr President, congratulations are in order today of course to Mrs Read on her excellent report and to Commissioner Liikanen.
This is a positive debate, very positive for Europe, and widespread interest has been shown, as evidenced by the large number of amendments.
Let me pick out the points that we think are most important: infrastructure, legal certainty - people must know where they are - and the skills offensive, which ought, please, to be targeted not simply at our schoolchildren and students but at groups which have been neglected, such as women and older people, who represent an enormous source of skill if it were to be exploited.
It is a disgrace that large countries in the past have not foreseen the need to train, and countries like Germany and the United Kingdom should not be having to bring in workers from elsewhere.
I know that we will have a very good advertising and information campaign, and that we will capture the imagination of the citizens of Europe.
We must not forget people with disabilities.
There is also the fact that the documentation is not available to partially sighted people, and that is an oversight which could be put right in future.
We must prevent divisions, divisions between the regions of Europe, between the households of Europe and between the individuals of Europe.
Business-to-business communications are doing well but we must enhance communications between business and consumers in the European Union, where we lag behind the United States.
Of course, to do that we have to ensure that people - customers - are convinced of privacy and security, and your measures will help to bring about that confidence.
Business-to-consumer communications are particularly important for the elderly, the housebound and for those with family responsibilities who are finding it difficult to juggle work and career, overwhelmingly women.
There are ethical issues which we must give regard to, but I am very optimistic, and I think that Mrs Read will continue her work alongside you, and we will find in this House many missionaries for the 'e-Europe' communication.
Mr President, Commissioner, the present initiative is important for the purpose of making decision makers in general more aware of developments, but also because levels of development differ very greatly from one European country to another. We can also see this from the follow-up document prepared by the Commission.
The initiative is important if we are to stop having to say that the United States is the overall leader within this developing field.
According to the "2000 IDC/World Times Information Society Index" , published in February, Sweden has overtaken the United States as the leading information economy.
The United States occupies second place. Finland, Norway and Denmark follow, in that order.
People may hold different views as to the value of this type of investigation, but I think it is important to emphasise that the US model is not the only one which leads to success in the IT society, something which far too many people have said in this House.
Scandinavia is acquitting itself well with its social infrastructure and also, perhaps, with its pensions systems.
We ought to bear this in mind, something I am convinced the Commission has done.
We should also remember that the EU countries are very different from one another and that developments are very rapid.
This must be reflected in the action plan.
It is also important that the countries which are forging ahead most quickly should not be checked in their development.
It is important that we should clarify what is being done at EU level and what is being done with EU resources and that we should be prepared to make changes to regional policy and redirect some resources for research in ways that benefit "e-Europe" .
In view of countries' different levels of development in the IT sphere, I am also sceptical about information plans and campaigns at EU level. "e-Europe" means more than just "e-commerce" .
The Directive on electronic commerce deals for the most part with things other than trading on the part of consumers.
I should like to appeal to the Commission to pay attention to the question which is being discussed in an adjoining room with Federal Trade Commissioner Thompson: that of how we are to increase consumer confidence.
The consumer has to be king when it comes to electronic commerce. Otherwise, it will not properly take off.
When alternative ways of solving disputes are discussed, we ought to collaborate globally with the United States.
Nonetheless, we should also support the OECD in its work.
The issues of broadband communications and of good infrastructure are on the agenda in the majority of countries.
There is a need for diversity, but now more standards are being sought for Digital Subscriber Lines with the help of which it will be possible to upgrade the network.
It is widely maintained that telephone companies are not making use of the available technology because standards are lacking.
Smart cards, encryption, mobile phones and "e-Europe" constitute our strength.
We shall persist with developments in these areas but, when it comes to standards, we need to pursue further development.
It is not we politicians who should decide on these standards. Instead, we should allow industry to reach an agreement concerning standards where there is a demand for these.
Our task is to legislate more quickly and to make for new patterns of legislation where possible.
I am glad that this point is made in the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, rapporteur, allow me to thank you for the open debate and, of course, the report.
I should like to turn my attention first to the policy approach of the e-Europe initiative and to the approach taken by the Read report.
The Internet, e-mail and mobile telephones will apparently do away with unemployment.
But the reality of the matter is somewhat different.
The IT boom is confronted by mergers and redundancies.
History teaches us that this approach has failed.
Industrialisation, atomic energy and biotechnology have not brought freedom and prosperity for all.
Initiatives and reports are informed by the concept that the playing field should be levelled for the youngest and best.
Unfortunately, this concept totally ignores the fact that this group already represents the winners, while the general mass goes away empty-handed.
What we need to do is to allow everyone to profit from technical innovation, irrespective of how old or how rich they are or in which region they live.
We should hold our principle of equal opportunity up to the light of truth.
A universal service points the right way, but the idea should not be implemented by providers which censor the Internet by using technical devices to deny their customers access to parts of the Net.
The Commission' s proposal aims to create equality through market liberalisation.
That alone is nonsensical enough because liberalisation always starts from the premise that the strong will become stronger, while the state should only give the weak minimum support.
In the case of information technology, however, we start with a totally different set of coordinates.
For example, there are numerous initiatives to promote the Internet and computers in schools.
But if no account is taken of the fact that each class contains at least one pupil who knows more than the teacher, then the initiative cannot but fail.
The fact that strong anti-American arguments had to be used at numerous points of the Read report as an excuse for the liberalisation policy again illustrates the extent to which the interests of private industry have dictated the text.
That brings me to my next controversial point: civil rights.
What we in fact need is a concept for universal data protection.
Instead, the Commission and parts of the European Parliament visualise a smart card on which all your data would be stored.
Your medical health fund would know that you are homosexual and your employer would know all about your previous and expected future illnesses and your forefathers.
It means a step in the direction of see-through man and yet more state interference in our private lives.
It is being used to deliberately plan and implement a further massive restriction of fundamental rights at European level.
It is being sold as an innovative policy at the same time as Parliament is arguing with other institutions for a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
How can these two things be reconciled? In the light of "echelon" , I am calling for a rethink of this matter.
Data protection and encoding are what we need.
For the rest, the citizens must control the state, not the other way around.
Mr President, in the original paper in English, the Commission uses the words 'information society' and not 'knowledge society' . These are two different things.
Information is only a raw material of knowledge.
Information is chaos, while knowledge is order: order out of chaos.
The information society is the chaos society.
The knowledge society is more than that, and it may also be a society of social order, cultural diversity and human solidarity.
The information society has to date made its presence felt in the form of price quotations on a chaotic stock market.
The prices of shares in technology have risen in a such a way which cannot be justified economically.
Neither has the money often gone into new investment for business but to the owners, who have become millionaires and billionaires.
In that way the information society emerges as a bubble economy, a symbol of social inequality and imbalance.
The information society has been a matter of millionaires causing a social revolution: they have innovatively destroyed the old structures of society.
Their revolution has been to sell computers and software to everyone.
The rest of us should start a counter-revolution.
We should set our aims higher than the Commission has done.
We have to demand a knowledge society for all rather than the chaotic information society we are getting.
It cannot just be a question of whether everyone has a mobile phone, how e-mail gets sent and what to buy over the Internet.
At its best the knowledge society can be a social dimension of the new capitalism.
The information society for all is too undemanding, too commercial and too culturally restricted a goal.
We should want a knowledge society for all: that is democracy.
Mr President, 'the best is the enemy of the good' , as they say in France, and I do fear Mrs Read' s report is a striking illustration of that saying.
Indeed no one will deny that means of communication, and in particular the Internet, are most important to the future development of our societies, or that the EU Member States are currently trailing behind the United States in this respect, or that we need to legislate to control the potentially anarchic development of these means in order to limit the excesses to which they can give rise and ensure that they are as successful as possible for our people.
Yet I fear that the catalogue of good intentions before us today may, in fact, make it more difficult to achieve the objective we are seeking.
Rather than moving ahead one step at a time and setting the Member States a concrete and quantifiable short or medium-term objective, Parliament is sending out a confused and confusing signal, largely, it is true, because of the rather bizarre committee work.
We would have liked to see more precise details about the specific nature of the European approach to this subject and, in particular, on how the Commission proposes to help the Member States to check the headlong race towards standardisation, an exact blueprint of the American model, which is bound to encourage the development of these tools on the basis of purely technical and commercial considerations.
The educational and social concerns set out in the report are, no doubt, laudable ones, but in the end they will have little impact given the immediate repercussions that the extension of this tool will have for the people of Europe.
In what way is the Commission' s document compatible with the existence of tax provisions in the field of commerce and employment specific to the various Member States?
How can we ensure respect for our concepts of the freedom of the individual and freedom of expression, which have not yet been harmonised at world level? What guarantees are there for the security of our states in the context of the development of a technology operated chiefly by a big power which, while teaching the whole world the lessons of liberalism, never forgets to ensure that its own enterprises scrupulously respect its concept of the national interest?
It is rather surprising, Mrs Ferrer, to read in paragraph 55 of your report that this Parliament expressly supports ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, it is a very positive sign that Lisbon will see focused discussion on the development of the information society in Europe.
The 'new economy' is here to stay, in Europe too.
The European response to new challenges and exploiting opportunities has, however, been a long time coming.
For that reason, the e-Europe initiative is in a more crucially important position than ever before with regard to Union competitiveness and, consequently, from the point of view of our citizens also.
The proposals for reform in the initiative are ambitious, but do not even necessarily go far enough.
The goals are too modest, especially for my home country of Finland, where, in many respects, we are ahead of our European partners in networking.
The initiative should also be supplemented by the future challenges facing those countries with a more advanced information society.
Commissioner, I appreciate the amount of work that you, to your credit, have carried out regarding these issues relating to the information society.
We Members of the European Parliament cannot stand by either, while Europe continually lags behind its global competitors in the world of the Internet.
The clear lead Europe enjoys in the world of wireless communications is not enough for us to stop caring about the future of the European information society and about whether we really can keep up with the competition.
Being in a key position when creating the information society encourages real competition in telecommunications networks.
Competition cuts costs, and we have to bring down these very costs of communications, so that consumers and SMEs can derive full benefit from the electronic revolution.
Apart from reduced costs, the growth in electronic commerce also means that questions of security should be able to be resolved to the satisfaction of consumers and that defects in legislation should be corrected.
I think it is particularly important to take measures to increase venture capital projects for SMEs in the high technology sector.
The EUR 20 billion currently being used in venture capital projects in Europe each year is only one quarter of what the United States spends over the same period.
The amount is much too small.
Fortunately, the Commission has shown initiative in this matter, however, and has focused attention on accelerating developments here.
Speedy developments in the information society will drastically change our environment and our working and living conditions.
As European legislators, we have before us an immense challenge, if we intend to keep legislation abreast of the times.
The legislator does not always even have to interfere in developments: in certain matters industry and the players themselves may quickly resolve problems through cooperation.
Examples would be the positive experience that was gained from the common standardisation of second generation mobile phone systems and which is directly visible now in the strengthened competitive position with regard to third generation output.
Control of the new operational environment will also require increased technical and pedagogic facilities and resources in training schemes.
Consequently, there will have to be more focus on the training of teaching staff in European educational and training programmes.
Finally I would like to say that I support the introduction of benchmarking with regard to the development of the information society.
With regard to the concrete proposals contained in the e-Europe communiqué, I can only wonder why the Council has not discussed them before, so as to ensure commitment on the part of Member States.
Mr President, with regard to the Commission' s communication on the information society, I feel that it is particularly important to underscore the emphasis placed on the need to provide all European citizens with access to new technologies.
This is more than an economic challenge: it is a process of profound cultural change which must filter down to every family, every school, every company and every public authority.
In order to achieve this objective, although, on the one hand, we do need to promote the spread of new technologies, on the other, it is essential to implement the necessary measures and reinforce the confidence of consumers in the major opportunities presented by e-commerce.
There is a genuine need for this, given the suspicion with which our fellow citizens approach these new tools.
A high level of protection is essential for the effective spread of the use of new technologies to the daily lives of millions of people, and clear rules will have to be defined if European citizens are to be able to take full advantage of the benefits.
In this regard, I had submitted a series of amendments for the attention of the Committee on Industry intended precisely to stress the importance of consumer protection in the project for disseminating new technologies put forward by the Prodi Commission.
It was with regret that I learned that only some of these amendments had been included in Mrs Read' s report. I am, however, in agreement with the main points of the report, and I do hope that this omission was due to the unfortunate circumstances which meant that my Committee, which deals with consumer protection, did not have time to produce an official opinion.
I trust that during work on the action plan, following the Lisbon Summit, there will be more effective cooperation between the two Committees.
Mr President, Commissioners, if every possible attempt is made - and rightly so - to establish ways of creating an information society for everyone, we should make just as great an effort to ensure that we do not end up recreating a dual society with IT literates on one side and IT illiterates on the other.
Moreover, I set great store by protecting small and medium-sized businesses, with special emphasis on the small businesses.
In this connection, it is important to ensure that guarantees are provided for advertising purposes.
Indeed, due to a lack of a harmonised policy on commercial communication, obstacles could well surface which cannot be negotiated, particularly by small businesses.
Far-reaching harmonisation concerning commercial communication is therefore urgently needed.
In the last instance, I would also like to underline how important it is that at least the parties involved, i.e. the consumer and entrepreneur, must always be able to make prior arrangements regarding the applicable legal system.
After all, if it is stipulated that consumers can take legal action within their own jurisdiction, then this situation will be untenable for small businesses, which will need legal assistance in 14 other Member States. Needless to say, small businesses cannot afford to make this kind of arrangement.
Mr President, with the e-Europe initiative, the Commission is reminding us that Europe is lagging behind in the development of the information society.
That means it is lagging behind the United States which, indeed, no one would deny.
But having said that, we should evaluate the quality of this backwardness: economic, political and social.
How do we measure it?
The Commission says it wants to launch a political initiative, so let us take it at its word.
Yes, Europe is backward in terms of access to the information society as a tool, a tool of knowledge, a tool of creativity, a tool for exchanging information.
Yes, it is backward in terms of the development of e-commerce made possible by the Internet.
But are these two forms of backwardness the same? Some might say 'no matter' , we must strive for the wholesale development of the magnificent tool of digital information and that is an end in itself.
That is the impression the Commission' s initiative could give.
But is it enough to set out a list of objectives, where the development of small enterprises is put on the same footing as the development of the public services, where electronic commerce vies with university education? The question that has not been asked is about the content of the information that is supposed to circulate thanks to this digital tool.
Will that content be standardised or will it reflect the cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe? Will it be a social content or purely market-related?
Even now, the information society is creating social networks, giving rise to new cultural experiences, producing sites for political debate and exchanges of view.
We need to evaluate them properly.
The Commission refers to Europe' s backwardness and the need to make up for it.
Between considerations of backwardness and urgency, we must not confine ourselves to speeding up this process but must instead consider the democratic and political conditions under which it takes place.
Technological progress is an all-too familiar slogan.
In fact, the transformation we are witnessing is reminiscent of what happened with the invention of printing.
We need to reflect very seriously about the challenges and changes it is bringing about.
If the objectives are to strengthen employment and improve democratic access, as so clearly elucidated in Mrs Read' s report, it would be a pity to evaluate them solely in terms of the market and of economic development.
Mr President, it is difficult to summarise in three minutes the thoughts and feelings which naturally present themselves when one is to comment on such a broadly based and interesting initiative such as that which Mr Liikanen has prepared.
The new technologies which we are debating here have, for the most part, radically altered the bases of production, service, distribution, trade, research, use of information etc. in our societies.
Productivity is increasing, as is the quality of various products. Moreover, one of the reasons why we have relatively high growth in the world economy and, at the same time, low inflation lies precisely in these new technologies.
I think we are all fascinated by all the new products and applications which are being made available.
It is nonetheless important that, in our capacity as politicians, we should pay attention to the prior conditions which are being created for using these new technologies to help solve urgent problems for society with which the market economy will not automatically concern itself.
One such example is, of course, the area of education.
We live at a time when education is becoming ever more important as a factor in production.
One aspect to which little attention is paid in this area is that knowledge, unlike other production factors (such as capital, minerals, and agricultural and other land), is not a scarce resource.
Knowledge has a clear tendency to increase or to expand when it is used. It opens the door to incredibly exciting developments where democracy and justice are concerned.
We are all born with the potential to learn and acquire knowledge. This cannot, however, occur without good prior conditions for education and learning.
That is why the proposal in this report, according to which resources for education and learning would be made available, is so important.
It is not, however, just a question of technical equipment. It is also a question of developing new teaching methods and distance learning.
This is important in our own part of the world but is also, of course, especially important in poor countries.
I hope that the experience which will be gained by the EU in this area will also be used as part of our collaborative work on development.
I would urge Mr Liikanen to have a detailed discussion with Mr Nielson on that issue.
Another area which is just as important is that of the opportunities for using the new technologies to make the use of energy and materials more efficient.
Commendably, in my view, the present programme refers to the area of transport.
Do not forget, however, that it is also possible, to a significant degree, to achieve an actual physical reduction in transport needs, which is something we should be trying to come to grips with.
Finally, where e-commerce is concerned, it is extremely important that a framework should be created which ensures that consumers can feel secure in engaging in this form of trade, that commerce within the EU is facilitated and that due attention is paid to the tax issue and to the risks concerning integrity.
We are only at the beginning of an important discussion, and I look forward to further stimulating dialogue.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen and Mrs Read, for an interesting report.
Mr President, Commissioner, metaphorically-speaking, what we have in the new I+C technologies is new fuel for our economic locomotive to re-heat our eco-system.
However, I should like to raise three points which perhaps merit our attention. First: Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam clearly calls for the principle of sustainability to be integrated into all policies.
To be honest, Commissioner, on reading the communication, I find too little account has been taken of sustainability, the question of ecological products, incentives for an ecological lifestyle or the question of the impact which I+C technologies have on environmental protection.
Improvements are therefore needed here.
Secondly: how will our working life and employment relations change? Will people be able to influence how they are organised?
We need to consider if we need new joint-decision structures in the face of these revolutionary developments, new structures for listening to employees and making decisions.
Greater account needs to be taken of this.
Thirdly: the Fifth Framework Programme on research contains a great deal of socio-economic research, the purpose of which is to analyse what holds Europe together in the area of I+C technologies.
We cannot fill and heat our locomotive with ordinary fuel and, at the same time, carry out socio-economic flanking research under the framework programme which makes no reference to this communication.
In short, we need to heat the locomotive but not to allow it to travel anywhere it pleases. This locomotive needs rails.
Mr President, colleagues, not since the spread of universal suffrage in the last century has our society faced such a big potential transfer of power.
The information society has potential to transfer power from government to individual, from bureaucrat to citizen and, of course, from business to consumer.
It opens up a global market place and almost limitless information to anyone with access to a computer screen.
It is the biggest engine to break down barriers between communities and nationalities that we have ever seen - bigger than any EU directive can possibly be.
It offers more power, more choice, lower prices to citizens across Europe and indeed across the world, and in my view the best thing that governments can do in cyberspace is to stay out of it as much as they possibly can and let consumers, businesses and citizens get on with their businesses and their lives.
Legislators cannot keep up with this technology even if they try to.
Technology and industry are better equipped to respond to consumer concerns in what is an immensely competitive market.
It is that competitive market which will ensure that consumers are protected, not heavy-handed legislation which might stunt e-commerce and leave others around the world to reap the benefits of a revolution in our economy which is unparalleled since the industrial revolution of the nineteenth century.
But we all know that we need a base line of government involvement.
We need a basic legislative framework for e-commerce.
I hope it will be a light-touch framework, but we need to drive it through quickly because the e-clock is ticking and there are many organisations around the world fighting for this business.
It is in our interest to make sure that we get the answers and our legislation right, but also to get them through quickly.
We in this House should drive through the e-commerce directive with its country of origin principle as fast as we possibly can.
We should adopt new rules on jurisdiction which trust consumers to make an informed choice about which jurisdiction they want to opt for.
We should drive through the liberalisation of the telecoms package, because it is only with a low-cost competitive telecoms market that we can deliver this power, these low prices and these big opportunities to our consumers, because that is the only way to get low prices for our consumers.
We want to build on Europe's lead on mobile telephony and adopt the examples of such great global players as Finland's Nokia.
Member States should build on the IT skills concepts in their schools, but we must do this quickly because if we do not, others will take the prize on offer here, which is dominance in the global e-commerce market.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all let me thank Mrs Read for this report and point out at once that I will simply concentrate on the social aspects which, in our view, deserve a closer look.
With the Lisbon Summit coming up in a few days, I think the European Parliament needs to send out a clear signal to the Member State governments that Europe' s entry into the digital age, and therefore into a new economic area with very considerable potential, must not be at the price of social cohesion.
The need for solid social foundations and for consideration of the people' s real needs are, in my view, the sine qua non of the success of the information society, as we understand it in Europe, i.e. a society that cannot be built only on market forces.
We must take the utmost care to ensure that all sectors of society benefit from the information society and that we do not create a society in which social inclusion or exclusion depend on access to the new technologies and the use of their potential.
I think three points need to be noted, as well as the risks and concerns to which they give rise.
The first relates to the users and the risk of a gap emerging between the various victims of social exclusion.
The cost of Internet access, the sidelining of entire sectors of society (the young unemployed, housewives, the elderly) and the shortcomings in education and vocational training are serious obstacles to an information society meant to benefit everyone.
The second relates to the individuals working in this sector; given the flexibility that is a feature of the sector, organisational structures must be set up for the employees, together with guarantees of their rights, in relation to social security, pensions or the necessary job-security provisions.
My third and last point relates to the question of public service and improving the democratic systems to develop procedures...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for the successful work that has been done in so short a period of time.
An information society for all is certainly an area of focus for the Commissioner in this process.
It is important, and I thank her for it.
Agreement should be reached at Lisbon on the principles of the sustainable funding of social security on account of this notion.
We also have to reach agreement with management and labour, for example, on the subject of remote working and vocational training, if what we are talking about is an information society for all.
It will not be so if the basic rights of employees are not safeguarded.
There is a threat that, because of the Internet, services will become self-services, and that again is a major employment issue.
Another matter is that we have been deregulating the telecommunications industry for around ten years, and now, with these massive Internet players merging there is a fear that they will once again start regulating the market.
This, I think, should be stopped.
It cannot be allowed to happen and I expect the Commission to sit up and listen and take the necessary action.
Thirdly, the quoted share value for a certain Internet company rose by a sudden 4 000% in one month, and this came about merely because unsubstantiated information was given about it for the stock market.
With many companies in the same position, or almost the same position, there is going to be a bubble effect in the industry, and when the crash comes I hope the taxpayer will not be footing the bill.
Has the Commissioner a remedy in mind for if and when the air balloon companies in this sector burst so that the taxpayer does not have to pay out, as is the case with crises in the banks, for example?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is very important for the European Parliament to take part in the debate on the European Union' s attitude to the opportunities opened up by the information society, an item on the agenda for the Lisbon Summit.
While stressing that many people had hoped for clearer answers in this area from the employment summit, I do not undervalue the relevance of the issue and the need to define a European strategy for the sector.
We all know the Union is lagging far behind the United States in this sensitive area, which is so vital to our future.
I concur with Mrs Read' s report and, borrowing an expression used here by the President of the Council, António Guterres, I want to highlight the three main deficits in the sector.
First there is the pragmatic deficit.
As the Read report correctly points out, the document put forward by the Commission is full of general guidelines and laudable intentions, but it is weak on concrete measures and ensuing actions.
I would not like to believe the Council' s conclusions will be restricted to this list.
On this issue, as on others, we do not need more statements and speeches, we need measures and decisions that can reduce the huge lead the United States has on us.
Then there is the democratic deficit - which has been greater, admittedly - but it is important to combat the division between those who have access to the Internet, the new technologies and the benefits of the information society, and those deprived of them either for economic reasons, or because of insufficient technological information and education.
Our first concern must be to prioritise our commitment to the educational system and in the carrier and telecommunications structures which make access to the Internet cheaper, faster and more powerful.
And finally there is the investment deficit.
As the report rightly affirms, the response to these problems cannot be left to the market alone.
A great deal can and must be done in the health system, in public administration, in relations between governments and people, and in public services generally to ensure that Europe takes the qualitative leap we all recognise to be necessary today.
Mr President, the point of the special summit in Lisbon next week is to define the European way in the future world of employment. How can we become more competitive?
How can we create new markets?
How can we create permanent, more highly-qualified jobs? We can take one of the leading roles in tomorrow' s global information society, provided that we learn the script.
Europe has talents.
Europe has skills.
Occasionally we lack competent directors to motivate us.
I personally feel that it is important for broad target groups to take an active part in these serious changes.
They need to familiarise themselves with the Internet and data bases from an early age.
Mrs Hieronymi pointed that out.
Schools without computers must become the exception.
We need a qualification offensive with computer-aided learning and active use of networks.
The European Parliament' s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is calling for the information society to become the common property of all citizens, including the socially weak, the disabled and older people.
The pace of change is hotting up in the European economy.
Undertakings are subject to constant restructuring, new holdings, strategic alliances and friendly or hostile takeovers.
The consequences for both employees and managers is the same: greater mobility and faster and faster adjustment.
Independence is increasing, as is pseudo-independence.
Within companies, responsibilities are changing.
Teams have shorter and shorter sell-by dates.
That has repercussions for the internal composition and the representation of the interests of employees.
Many companies are too small to set up works councils or are so large that relationships are not even forged and employee representatives become roving ambassadors.
People in ICT professions who have a great deal of freedom, analysts, engineers and creative planners, want to be their own bosses.
They are fighting for new working time regulations and new variable contract-based tariff and remuneration systems.
In addition, trade unions in other areas fear that unregulated structures will spread and social standards will drop.
Citizens must be familiar with new forms of work and working relations in the information and communications industry, be they in the hardware sector, the software sector, services or consultancy.
Once they are able to share in innovation, once they can be won over by the information society, then it must be made clear that this is a success or an advantage not just for private- and public-sector undertakings, but for consumers and employees alike.
Mr President, I want to begin by thanking Mrs Read for all the work she has put into the present report.
It is wonderful that there should be such a lot of interest in this area.
I believe it is important that, here in the European Parliament, we should now promote further knowledge of these complex and exciting developments and create a readiness to implement the necessary changes.
Commissioner Liikanen, with his personal commitment, and the Commission' s "e-Europe" document represent a positive vision of the new economy and a growth-orientated policy which I wholeheartedly support.
It is unfortunate that certain Members see the burgeoning information society as a threat, rather than appreciate the opportunities it involves.
The significance of e-commerce is difficult to overestimate.
Until now, the single market has only been a reality for major companies. e-commerce means that the single market will become accessible in a quite different way to smaller companies and, above all, to individuals, customers and consumers, who can now finally benefit from the whole of the European single market.
In the wake of technological change, there will not only be changes to patterns of trade, but new opportunities will also be created where the arts, entertainment and personal contacts are concerned.
In order to best support the new economy, it is important that we as politicians should not believe that we can foresee companies' and people' s every need.
We must allow the market, that is to say purchasers and vendors, to choose for themselves.
In view of the way this part of society and of the economy looks, it is even more important not to engage in a fever of regulation by controlling activities in every detail.
Instead, we must further deregulate markets so as to increase competition with a view to reducing prices.
That is definitely the best way of making information services available to all citizens.
An important part of creating growth in the new economy is to increase the flow of venture capital for newly started-up and expanding businesses.
We must increase competitiveness and the development of ideas in our part of the world, that is to say in Europe.
The most important thing that heads of State and government can do in Lisbon is to begin reducing taxes on capital in their various countries, for it is these which now constitute the greatest obstacle to an increased flow of venture capital.
To the left-hand side of this House, I would say, following the present debate: try to affirm the opportunities available to people because of the information revolution.
Avoid being so fearful and negative.
Take Mrs Villiers' insights on board.
Adopt Mr Wijkman' s global and positive attitude, and learn from young Mrs Kauppi' s experiences.
I do not think we should underestimate the problem of making the relevant adjustments, but do not bury this initiative in your old conceptual world.
That would be Europe' s loss.
Mr President, I want first to thank Mrs Read and Parliament for the report, which has been produced extremely rapidly and is very important, because the extraordinary summit will take place next week and the e-Europe initiative is one of the fundamental documents there.
The subtitle of the e-Europe initiative, "An Information Society for All" , or we could also say as Mr Seppänen has said here, "A Knowledge-based Society for All" , is an indication of the far-reaching objectives of this initiative.
We welcome the contribution of Parliament to this very important policy debate.
The Commission is currently contributing to the preparation of next week's summit in Lisbon.
To this end, the Commission has adopted several communications including a progress report on e-Europe last week and a paper setting out an agenda for economic and social renewal for Europe two weeks ago.
I find it very important that Parliament is participating through today's debate in the discussions before the Lisbon Summit.
The debate has been really illuminating and has shown the great interest and also the expertise of Parliament on this issue.
We hope that the Lisbon European Council will endorse concrete, focused policy actions providing a strong signal that European leaders are determined to transform Europe into a dynamic and competitive economy.
As to the content of your reports, I note that you have expressed concern that mechanisms through which the targets of e-Europe are to be achieved are not made explicit in our initial document.
In this context, the progress report submitted by the Commission to the Lisbon Council last week and also submitted to you last week will provide further details.
In addition, there will be an e-Europe action plan by June as requested at the Helsinki Summit.
I hope that these documents will answer many of your concerns in relation to the realisation of the goals of e-Europe, but it may be that some of the issues will not be addressed, because we must try to remain focused in this initiative.
I am particularly pleased to see that the report shares the Commission's view on the key elements of e-Europe.
It is essential to create a modern multimedia high-performance e-infrastructure, to create legal certainty in e-commerce, to counteract the skills shortage and to improve the availability of risk capital to stimulate innovation.
Your support to move forward on these key elements of e-Europe is most welcome.
I find the idea of organising an e-government conference highly interesting.
It is important that we in the European institutions, along with Member States, develop effective means of exploiting the potential of regional technologies, to increase both the efficiency and transparency of our interactions with citizens.
I can report to you that this will be one of the main topics of a ministerial conference organised by the Portuguese presidency in Lisbon in early April.
I would also like to add that the White Paper on the Commission's internal reform contains an "e-Commission" action.
The aim is to enhance the Commission's IT and communications infrastructure in order to provide better service by means of the Internet.
I would like to briefly respond to some items where the emphasis of the discussion has perhaps been a little different from the Commission document.
The Commission is asked to include an eleventh action line on employment and social cohesion.
I fully accept that these are very high priorities, and for that very reason particular communications have been accepted on these subjects.
I would like to mention especially the communication "Strategies for Jobs in the Information Society" .
I also agree with you that the information society is perhaps the biggest opportunity for structural policies and policies for cohesion that we have had, because it means the death of distance.
The "e-Europe" communication focuses on the actions necessary to accelerate the transition to the information society.
These actions will result in increasing numbers of jobs and will thereby reduce the principal cause of social exclusion, namely unemployment.
Your report expresses concern about the smart card action.
I would like to assure you that this action is not intended to intervene in an area that, the report rightly notes, is market-driven.
The Commission's role is purely a facilitating one, bringing together the key actors and enabling them to move towards agreement on standard approaches.
The aim is not to disadvantage other technologies.
It is not clear how the Commission can guarantee ethical security of services, but I fully share the view that we should take all measures to ensure respect for human rights; existing actions, primarily the Internet action plan, address this issue.
Finally, I would like to close by thanking you once again for your work in this area.
The efforts which you have made confirm that you share with us a sense of the importance and urgency of this issue for Europe.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Vote
Mr President, the debate on my report on the European Union' s action plans on asylum-seekers and migrants has been postponed until this evening at 6 p.m., and the vote until tomorrow at 9 a.m.
I would like to see the importance of the issue reflected in the debate and vote in this House.
So I would ask you to put it to the House that the debate be deferred to the next part-session in Brussels.
(Parliament agreed to the request)
Mr President, I have asked to take the floor simply because the Italian translation of paragraph 6c is very strange.
We have sent a note in this regard, but nothing has been done about it, and so I would ask you now to investigate the matter.
The text appears to be saying that violations of fundamental rights are permitted if the European Parliament is in agreement, which seems rather absurd to me.
Mr President, I would like to draw attention to the text of paragraph 6(c), in line with the doubts raised by Mrs Frassoni.
We have made a quick check here and the Portuguese text seems to have the same meaning as the French text, implying that the majority of this House believes fundamental rights can be violated if the European Parliament agrees to it.
I do not know if this is a language problem or a political problem, given the speeches we have heard here about Austrian political rights.
However, this is a very sensitive issue, and I want to raise it with the Bureau, so that the matter can be clarified, because if that is what we are supposed to have voted for, I think an extremely grave political precedent has been created.
We always have a check on the language versions to make sure they conform to the original language version at the end of the votes.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I have some sympathy with that remark.
Perhaps we should ask the Rules of Procedure Committee to look at the precise procedural methods we use here.
It is very clear that if a report has come from a committee, the committee can request referral back.
But when it has been set on the agenda at the beginning of the week I am not clear that Members can move deferral.
I was not sure, so we should refer it to the Rules Committee.
Mr President, before we vote on the Jackson resolution on the Structural Fund programmes, may I draw Parliament' s attention to the French Council of State decree dated 27 September 1999 which cancels the notification of 500 sites that could be designated as special conservation sites and therefore pose a problem.
The Commission has not expressed its opinion on that.
The Council of State ruled that the procedure had not been respected, i.e. that the mayors and regional and local authorities, organisations and associations concerned had not been consulted.
We do not know exactly what the situation is at present.
To ensure that Member States are not unjustly penalised, I move that the vote on this report be deferred until the Commission has delivered its reasoned opinion on action to be taken following the Council of State decree.
I also think Parliament cannot be both judge and judged.
We could have a long debate about this but rather than get into a procedural wrangle, you are not, strictly speaking, entitled to move this.
I am not going to debate it.
The easier thing is to put it to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
Mr President, let me repeat what I said yesterday, namely that the French Socialists will not take part in the vote because they believe that this is not the correct procedure, since the only environmental directives referred to are those on wild birds and on Natura 2000 and a more balanced approach should have been taken.
My second point is that we do not believe it is in the remit of the legislative authority to decide whether the laws have been transposed.
That is up to the Commission and also the Court of Justice.
Mr President, I simply wanted to say that if Mrs Lienemann was so worried it is a pity she did not take part in the debate and make her points to the Commissioner during the debate.
Mr President, I agree with that remark, for I am surprised at some of the statements made here.
This is in fact the first time this kind of observation, which was not heard in committee, has been made, and I regret it.
Today we are to vote on this resolution, which is why we are asking for a vote on the work done in committee.
I think it is excellent that we are trying to adhere to the Rules of Procedure and, on the basis of what was stated by Mrs Lienemann a moment ago, it is quite obvious that there are circumstances which have not been dealt with in committee. With reference to the Rules of Procedure, I would therefore take the liberty of proposing that the matter be postponed and referred back to committee.
Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement and remind Mrs Jackson, who certainly has a lot of work as chairman of the committee, that, at the first committee meeting at which we discussed this subject, I said I disagreed with the biased way certain directives were selected and not others.
Moreover, Mrs Jackson, I tabled numerous amendments calling for the series of paragraphs you had proposed to be deleted.
My amendments were not adopted in committee and I therefore felt it was not acceptable for us to continue on these bases.
Mrs Isler Béguin was not in committee on the days we discussed these subjects.
You will find exactly the same arguments I have put forward today in the Minutes of the committee meeting and in my amendments.
I know we have a great deal of work in committee and that colleagues cannot always remember amendments in detail, which I fully understand.
However, I wanted to point this out.
Mr President, if you are going to refer this matter to the Rules of Procedure, could you also ask them to consider the sense of drawing up a resolution weeks before we have the debate with the Commissioner and then voting on it after the Commissioner has made a response which more than overtakes the whole purpose of the resolution.
Motion for a resolution (B5-0227/2000) by Mrs Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on Structural Fund programmes in the Member States and national implementation of EU environmental laws
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on support for the Geneva Convention of 12 August 1949 and international humanitarian law
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Annual report (A5-0060/2000) by Mrs Malmström, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on International Human Rights and European Union Human Rights Policy, 1999 (11350/1999 - C5-0256/1999 - 1999/2002(INI))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I am sorry, I have been trying to catch your attention but you are going very fast, on which I congratulate you.
On Mrs Jackson' s report, I just want to say that I did not take part in the vote for similar reasons to Mrs Lienemann.
I believe respect for Community law must be general and cannot be based on selective, and therefore necessarily arbitrary, interpretations.
I ask for it to be recorded in the Minutes that I did not take part in the vote.
Annual report (A5-0050/2000) by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on respect for human rights in the European Union (1988-1999) (11350/1999 - C5-0265/1999 - 1999/2001(INI))
Concerning paragraph 45:
Mr President, before we vote on paragraph 45, I would like the rapporteur to hear what I have to say.
The Italian version of the second part of the paragraph refers firstly to physical, psychological and sexual abuse of children, and then the final part reads "urges them not to imprison child abusers, except as a last resort" .
I would like to know whether this clause has the same meaning in his language.
Would the rapporteur be so kind as to inform us whether his version is the authentic version, for, if so, the meaning is the complete opposite to the Italian.
Mr President, I believe I can shed some light on the matter.
I have read the French version of the text, and it is completely different from the Italian version at this point.
The Italian says "not to imprison child abusers", which seems absurd to me, whereas the French reads: "not to imprison young people who commit offences" which, I think, must be the original meaning.
This a serious translation error.
I feel sure that the Italian is a mistranslation.
The original version probably said "not to imprison young people who commit offences, except in special cases" .
I think this is the root of the problem.
I am able to confirm that it is Mr Imbeni' s interpretation which is the correct one.
The French, Danish and English versions are correct.
The phrase is to be understood as Mr Imbeni said.
Mr President, if we change the meaning of the paragraph, the debate will start all over again.
It is a common occurrence in this Parliament for texts not to correspond.
Do you remember when, a few months ago, we were told to distribute condoms to priests? This time, according to some versions, we are told to protect child abusers.
If we change the English version as well, Mr President, we will have to start the debate afresh and, seeing as your plane leaves at 4.30 this afternoon, this does not seem appropriate.
Maybe it would be better to stop at the comma, after "physical and psychological abuse and all kinds of discrimination" .
We could then deal with the behaviour of young people who commit offences later on, in one of the many other reports which are churned out by Parliament.
If the House could agree we could overcome all the difficulties that we have with the language versions by putting in as a separate paragraph itself - either as a sub-paragraph of 45 or as a new 45(a) - which says "and urges them not to imprison young people who commit offences, except as a last resort" .
That would overcome all the difficulty.
There is no ambiguity, there is no uncertainty.
That is quite reasonable.
It would follow between the existing paragraphs 45 and 46.
Concerning paragraph 61:
Mr President, a number of words have been omitted from paragraph 61 of the Danish version.
It is the English version which is correct.
In the Danish version, the following words should be added after the words "trade unions" : "as well as the rights of individuals vis-à-vis trade unions" .
It is, then, not only a question of the right to form trade unions but also of rights vis-à-vis these trade unions.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
As it happens, we have a report by Mr Provan in which the Bureau is looking at how the plenary functions.
We had a debate on that in the Bureau on Tuesday and I made exactly the point you have just made.
So I agree with you one hundred percent.
I am usually accused of being too brusque with Members who want to make a point of order.
I suppose I cannot win.
The trouble is that when people ask for the floor on a point of order you do not know if it is a valid point until they have made it.
I agree with Mr Pirker, and it is probably the only thing I will agree with him on if we do vote on the Ludford report.
It is going to be an interesting vote.
It is unreasonable at this stage to postpone it to a time when a lot of people will have left.
If you are intending to postpone it to 5.30 p.m., it will totally distort the vote on this report.
I urge that we carry on now, understanding all the difficulties that you have mentioned.
Mr President, I should like to request that it not be taken this evening. The vote will be totally distorted.
We know that a lot of people will leave this afternoon.
They do not expect this kind of vote on a Thursday afternoon.
Could we not postpone it until the April plenary session in Strasbourg?
I am afraid that would have to be decided before we take the vote this evening.
Mr President, there are other categories of worker whose jobs are much more tiring than ours and whose work compels them to postpone their mealtimes, and yet they do not complain and they do not leave their work unfinished, as we are about to do.
This is shameful.
We have been here for less than two hours and we have already had enough.
What would sailors, pilots, drivers, petrol station workers and doctors say? I find it absolutely absurd that we are not able to work for more than two hours at a time.
You are just making the point that I made when I said we could not carry on with the votes.
Mr President, I think the translation of Mr Speroni' s speech may not have been entirely correct.
He appeared to me to be saying the complete opposite regarding the decision taken. If the Members had been prepared to wait half an hour longer before eating, this would not appear to have been too great a sacrifice.
Effectively, it does cause problems when you randomly move important measures to a Friday sitting.
For example, we voted on drugs, which is a highly disputed issue, on a Friday. We will vote on these measures either this evening or on Friday.
This appears to us to be a political manoeuvre to influence the majorities in this Chamber. You arrange our agenda and our timetable according to whether you want a particular measure to be adopted.
Mr President, in order to be completely fair, you should have called for one intervention for the decision to suspend the sitting or continue and adhere to the scheduled voting time and one intervention against.
Once again, the wishes of the Chamber have been disregarded. Democracy only exists on paper: it is not applied within this Parliament.
Mr President, I am sorry but I asked for the floor at the start.
Two specific points. First, I wanted to vote for, not against proposed amendment 24.
Secondly, I should like to say that there is a rule here, that it is standard practice to vote up to 1.30 p.m. on Thursdays and to leave the rest until 6.00 p.m., after the urgent votes.
We have done so for years and we can be flexible one way or the other pretty much as we please.
Perhaps all the members should be reminded of that.
Members are supposed to work here through to Friday, so that we can use the afternoons to see our visitors.
Mr President, perhaps I can be of help here.
The rapporteur has stated that she agrees with your suggestion, i.e. with the President' s suggestion.
Allow me to recapitulate: the President said that we are to vote at 5.30 this evening on whether or not to postpone the vote until the next plenary session.
Please let us proceed thus.
Sarah Ludford has stated that she agrees with that.
So, we vote at 5.30 p.m. on postponing the Ludford report to the next plenary session. That is my motion.
There is absolutely no problem with that.
It is well within the Rules.
It can be done immediately before the vote.
It is normal procedure.
That is why I cannot take it now.
The Rules say you move postponement before the vote on the matter.
That concludes the votes.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Graefe zu Baringdorf report (A5-0044/2000)
We need to pay close attention to the issue of animal health, particularly that of bovine animals and swine, hence the importance of sanitary inspections in intra-Community trade in these species.
This approach must also take account of the need to put more effort into the total eradication of diseases like leucosis, tuberculosis and brucellosis, and into adequate health procedures.
But it is also vital to remember that producers need proper support, with special attention being paid to small farms and family farming given that, as in Portugal, the already low incomes of small farmers are often profoundly affected by these diseases and this is not generally made up for by the low level of compensation.
So it is essential that intervention in future makes it possible to protect both the interests of consumers and the interests of producers, especially of small farmers.
Ferrer report (A5-0066/2000)
- (DA) We cannot vote in favour of the report since there are gross abuses of human rights in Mexico.
That has most recently been demonstrated in an Amnesty report from December 1999 which draws attention to, among other things, the serious problems in the Chiapas region.
We think it is splendid that the trade agreement has had built into it a demand to promote democracy in Mexico - including the observance of human rights - but, as long as this demand is not followed up by concrete action, it is merely a case of empty words.
A democracy clause was also built into the old trade agreement with Mexico, but this was not complied with.
Pressure must therefore be exerted upon Mexico through international organisations such as the UN and via individual nations. Only after that, and when there have been significant improvements in the area of human rights, do we think that we can enter into a new trade agreement with Mexico.
- (FR) At its meeting of 7 May 1999, the European Parliament adopted the EU-Mexico Global Agreement even though none of its Members knew the terms of negotiation of its trade aspects.
Furthermore, we continue to see cases of impunity, violations of human rights, the repression of social protest movements and an undeclared war against the indigenous people of Chiapas.
All this has been condemned by, among others, the UN High Commission for Human Rights and the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights, and these practices conflict with the undertakings the Mexican authorities entered into under this agreement (Title I, Article 1).
The association agreement was designed to serve the interests of the large transnational firms on either side of the Atlantic, as shown by the wording of its Title IV, which refers to capital movements and related payments.
Under the heading of trade, we find a repeat of several of the most dangerous points of the MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investments).
Finally, this agreement ignores most of the proposals put forward by social, trade union, human rights and environmental organisations in Mexico and the European Union which, for their part, aim to ensure that social, cultural and political cooperation take precedence over mercenary aspects.
For all those reasons, we shall vote against ratifying this agreement.
- (DE) I voted against the EU­Mexico agreement, not because I am against more intensive cooperation between the European Union and Mexico in principle, but because the agreement, in its form for the purpose of the vote, is unbalanced and flawed from a development policy point of view.
Never before has Mexico made so many concessions to a much stronger trading partner as it is now making to the European Union.
The impact on Mexico cannot be quantified, although the NAFTA agreement has already resulted in the impoverishment of large sections of the Mexican population and the demise of small undertakings.
The rules of the agreement on which we have voted go even further than those of the NAFTA agreement.
For example, the liberalisation of investments which is championed covers all sectors of the economy.
In other words it is a mini-MAI.
The drop in the standard of living and the inequalities between the European Union and Mexico which already exist will be exacerbated yet further.
Whereas Mexico has been required to make numerous concessions to Europe (such as in the agricultural, investment and public procurement sectors), the EU has included derogations and restrictions for itself in order to keep competition at bay.
It is obvious that the European side, especially Europe' s large corporate groups, will profit from the agreement with Mexico.
It is a gift to large-scale European industry.
However, it will do nothing to improve the living and working conditions of the Mexicans, on the contrary.
There is no mention in the agreement of employee rights or social standards.
It contradicts development policy objectives and for this reason among others Mexican NGOs and other parties have asked their Senate not to sign this agreement.
The EU is trying to use individual agreements with developing and newly-industrialised countries in order to implement what it failed to achieve at the WTO conference of ministers in Seattle, partly due to the resistance of developing countries.
Its main objective in the present case is to gain access to the lucrative NAFTA area via Mexico. The living conditions of the people have been disregarded.
This agreement does not bring about the progress needed in relations between Europe and Mexico, nor is it a suitable model for similar agreements to be concluded in the future, for example with Mercosur.
Agreements with developing countries must serve their interests first and foremost, not the interests of European corporate groups.
Joint resolution on the annual legislative programme
Mr President, I want to give the explanation on behalf of the Liberal Group in respect of the Commission's legislative programme.
We abstained as a group throughout this vote. The reason, as we made clear during the debate on Tuesday, is because we believe the process to be flawed, not because we necessarily have any quarrel with the content.
Having put this marker down for this time, in the future we would like to see the process reviewed so that it amounts to more than just ourselves as a Parliament swapping lists with the Commission.
We want something more substantial and meaningful.
- (FR) We voted against the joint motion for a resolution because it means granting a full discharge to the European Commission in advance and we disapprove of that in terms of both form and content.
We abstained on the GUE resolution because, although we agree with a number of its criticisms of the Commission, in the recitals the Commission is described as an "indispensable interinstitutional instrument" , which is not how we see it.
Duff/Voggenhuber report (A5-0064/2000)
Mr President, we heard many speakers from the federalist majority of this Parliament say here yesterday that the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights under preparation would give a big boost to citizens' rights.
However, the conditions under which this initiative was put forward tend more to reflect contempt for the life of the citizens and give us cause for serious concern about what will happen next.
First of all, a few months ago, we discovered, tucked away in the Cologne conclusions, in paragraphs 44 and 45, the decision to start drafting a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Who was consulted beforehand? No one, and certainly not the national parliaments, who had never heard of it.
All the same, however, we must remember that basically fundamental rights come within the remit of the national parliaments and, as a whole, of the various peoples of Europe.
Of course, some people will say this was merely a new formulation of existing rights, but it is clear that this operation will go much further, with the European Parliament already calling for an innovative Charter.
In any case, whatever its final form, the national parliaments should not have been sidelined.
They are now involved in the Convention to draft the Charter, but only as one partner among others, which will guarantee an imperfect job.
Worse still, they will not even be involved in the final stage, since the Cologne conclusions provide that the Charter will be proclaimed jointly by the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission.
Yes, I did say "the Commission" .
So the national parliaments find themselves sidelined and replaced by a body of officials who will 'proclaim the Charter' .
That is quite ludicrous!
Democracy is sidelined, supposedly for the good of the citizens.
But then is that not how Europe usually works?
Mr President, I voted for the report despite many misgivings because it included Mrs Morgan' s excellent proposed amendment on minority languages and cultures.
I would also like to have seen support for Mr Vidal' s proposal.
But I think that we have taken an important step here towards greater protection of minorities traditionally present in the European Union.
We cannot keep setting criteria for candidate countries which we fail to meet ourselves.
Mr President, my party, the Socialist Party in the Netherlands, is in favour of democratic cooperation from the bottom up among the European peoples, but not of a large European superstate modelled on the United States of America.
A European constitution could provide the initial impetus for a superstate of this kind.
I have, therefore, supported a number of amendments tabled by the UEN Group and the EDD Group with regard to the Duff-Voggenhuber report.
This does not apply to similar amendments tabled by the TDI Group, although I completely share the criticism expressed therein regarding the fact that national parliaments are being overlooked, the lack of referenda, and the attempts to turn the European Union into a superstate.
If the parties of the TDI Group had taken a consistent line on the equivalence of all people and on democracy, I would certainly have supported their amendments.
However, I had to consider their view of the world in my deliberations.
Of all the groups represented here, it is their view that takes least account of equivalence, democracy and human rights.
This is why I was unable to support their proposals.
Mr President, this week Parliament has dealt with the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights and we have specified - adequately I believe - the civil rights of individuals.
For me, however, as a representative of the Basque Country, collective rights are still lacking - and I hope they will soon be included - for example, the right of self-determination for European peoples and nations with a collective consciousness as such, so that, if a majority of their citizens so decide, they can join the European Union directly and not just through the existing Member States.
We also approved the inclusion of the right to protection of the diversity of European languages and cultures, especially the less widespread and less used national and regional languages, which also gives due recognition to the official languages of the autonomous communities and regions, like the Basque language.
In this increasingly global world, some people want to impose homogeneity on us, as if we were all soldiers or units in a production chain.
So I want to claim the right to an individual and collective identity, the right to diversity and difference.
That is definitely a fundamental right worth defending in the European Union.
- (DA) The Danish and Swedish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report by Mr Andrew Nicholas Duff and Mr Johannes Voggenhuber regarding drawing up a European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We are in favour of the drawing up of a Charter of Fundamental Rights in the form of a political document.
In this period of reforms of the EU, including its enlargement, it is important to focus upon the fact that the EU' s raison d' être is to protect individual citizens.
A Charter could make a positive contribution to this.
In drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights, there is always a certain danger of citizens' viewing it simply as a meaningless piece of paper, to be waved on state occasions but destined to disappoint.
A majority of the European Parliament is therefore calling for the Charter to be of binding effect and to be incorporated into the Treaty, in other words for the agenda of the current Intergovernmental Conference to be extended.
In connection with previous votes on this subject, we have clearly expressed our view that there should be no more issues on the agenda than it will be possible to resolve at the Nice Summit in December.
We have already emphasised that no more obstacles should be put in the way of enlargement of the Union.
Drawing up a set of binding, fundamental rights would raise a series of very difficult questions of principle, in terms both of the content of these rights and of their relationship to other sets of fundamental rights, for example the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is therefore unrealistic to expect the issues to have been resolved by December.
For that reason alone, we do not think that fundamental rights should be on the agenda of the current Intergovernmental Conference.
We have made this known in the individual votes en route to the report. If we nonetheless choose to vote in favour of the whole report, that is because we believe that fundamental human rights are one of the foundations upon which the EU is built and because we want a Charter concerning these to be drawn up in the form of a political document.
Whether it is subsequently to be incorporated into the Treaty in a form that is binding will depend upon an assessment of whether the content of the Charter would provide citizens with better protection than that which they have at present.
- (SV) The most important development for the EU' s future right now is that the Intergovernmental Conference should reach agreement concerning the reforms which are required in order to facilitate the enlargement of the Union in accordance with a fixed timetable.
It is therefore a matter of urgency that the Nice Summit should be able to make decisions concerning the Amsterdam leftovers.
We have voted in favour of the EU' s Charter of Fundamental Rights being introduced as a matter to be considered by the Intergovernmental Conference, thereby guaranteeing, among other things, citizens' rights in relation to the EU' s institutions.
The Charter is an expression of the EU' s ambition to bring the EU closer to its citizens.
Our point of departure is that the work on reviewing the treaties must progress following the Nice Summit and that the EU' s Charter of Fundamental Rights should form part of this on-going process.
- (DA) The European Parliament' s report on the Charter is characterised by one pervasive idea: the desire for EU citizenship in a supranational State, whether one likes that term or not.
This way of thinking is fundamentally different from our own vision of a European Community.
The Union is, and should remain, a union of States.
It must therefore be ensured that the Charter does not in any way interfere with the Member States' national constitutions or equivalent arrangements for establishing fundamental rights.
This is not to support the view that those in power can do as they like within a given country' s borders, but an expression of the view that human rights are nothing less than universal and require universal tools by way of protection.
Moreover, we do not wish to see two sets of rights on the European continent - one for citizens of EU countries and another for citizens of non-EU countries.
It is therefore crucial for any EU Charter not to affect existing international conventions and declarations of rights, but merely to require that EU countries sign these.
Growing problems arise when the EU acquires more and more powers as a State but cannot be bound in relation to, for example, the European Convention on Human Rights.
We do not, however, see it as a solution for the EU to accede to the Convention on Human Rights as a juristic "person" , since we do not share the view that the EU is, or should be, identified as having the status of a separate politico-governmental body.
Nor do we support the constitutional process of which the adoption of a Charter is an integral part.
We prefer the Treaty to state that the EU' s authorities respect the competence and decisions of the Court of Human Rights.
Legal practice of this kind makes it possible to condemn an aspect of Community law which is open to criticism and which has arisen through a Member State' s use of that law.
The European Court of Justice should not have jurisdiction over areas already covered by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg or by other international bodies.
If the existing conventions are found to be inadequate, for example, because bio-technological developments give rise to new problems, then this is an international problem to which international solutions should be sought.
It is not solely a concern of the EU, and we must seek international and global consensus in international forums.
We are therefore voting against the whole report.
- (FR) Our abstention from the vote on the Charter certainly does not mean we are opposed to its European character.
On the contrary, we are persuaded that in future we shall see a Europe without frontiers between unified nations, from one end of the continent to the other.
However, the European institutions, like the national institutions, tend far more to represent the interests of big capital than the interests of the people as a whole, and especially of the working people.
Democratic rights and freedoms, like democracy itself, can only be genuinely expressed so long as they do not conflict with the interests of large industrial and financial groups.
Whichever of the two institutional trends implicitly reflected in the debate about the Charter we look at, these groups can take entirely sovereign economic decisions that spell disaster for an entire population, leading, for example, to factories closing down and to the ruin or pollution of an entire region.
We therefore believe that a genuinely unified and democratic Europe is possible only if we can rid it of the de facto power of the large industrial and financial groups, which is the necessary condition for real and democratic control by the people over their institutions.
- (FR) I was very happy to learn, last June, that the Cologne European Council had decided to convene a Convention (made up of representatives of the Heads of State and Government, the European Parliament, the national parliaments and the Commission) that would be responsible for drafting a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
That Charter will be a vital step towards the political deepening of the European Union, under the appropriate conditions.
It will, in fact, enable us to make up for shortcomings that have existed ever since the growth in the powers of the European Union and the European Community, with the European institutions taking decisions that affect the life of the people of Europe more and more directly.
These people need a document to which they can refer when they take their case before the European Court of Justice.
So we must provide for direct resort to that Court in accordance with certain procedures.
The Charter will also help define a 'collective patrimony of values and principles and a shared system of fundamental rights which bind citizens together and underpin the Union' s internal policies' , a patrimony we must constantly defend against the racist and xenophobic tendencies that have, alas, not disappeared.
As the representative of the people of the European Union, our Parliament must take a very careful look at the contents of this document.
The people of Europe expect us to take a very bold approach here.
Our demands are quite clear.
The Charter must have fully binding legal status by being incorporated in the Treaty.
To that end, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs calls on the Council to put the Charter on the ICG agenda.
Any amendment of the Charter must come under the same procedure as its original drafting procedure, which means it would require the assent of the European Parliament.
The European Parliament must approve any secondary legislation that might have a bearing on these fundamental rights.
The indivisibility of these fundamental rights must be recognised by making the Charter applicable to all the European Union' s institutions and bodies and all its policies, including those contained in the second and third pillars, in the context of the powers and functions conferred upon it by the Treaty.
The Charter must be binding upon the Member States when applying or transposing provisions of Community law.
Turning to the actual content of the Charter, it would seem advisable to divide up these rights into three categories.
The Charter would enshrine the civil rights directly related to European citizenship, such as the right to vote, the right of petition, the right to appeal to the ombudsman; the rights of the individual, i.e. all the rights protected by the various international organisations and the new rights (bioethics, protection of personal data); and the social rights, i.e. the right to a minimum wage, the right to strike, the right to unemployment benefit.
Let me conclude by saying that this Charter must form the key component of a process leading to the drafting of a European Union constitution.
- I wish to state the reasons why I felt obliged to abstain on the final vote, even though, in common with other Members, I am totally in favour of the protection of fundamental freedoms and rights, and with ensuring that future social developments can be taken account of.
Already, within the European Union, Member States have ratified and transposed into their legal systems the European Convention on Human Rights, which, although the document is nearly 50 years old, has shown itself capable of evolving in line with changing conditions as well as developing new rights.
I believe that what is now proposed with this 'Charter' will eventually lead to conflict between the interpretation of rights under the different documents, which could create a legal vacuum and, ironically, reduce the rights available.
We need more time and debate on these potential conflicts.
- (SV) At the Council' s meeting in Cologne, it was decided that an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights should be prepared.
The Charter was to assemble and establish the rights which are to be found in the treaties and make them clearer and better known.
We welcome such a Charter of Fundamental Rights which can also, of course, include rights under existing international conventions signed by the Member States.
At the same time, human rights must be regarded as an international and global issue and not only as a matter for EU citizens.
We are, however, hesitant about making such a Charter legally binding before it has been fully clarified what that would mean in practice.
The relationship between the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights appears, for example, to be legally complicated and could undermine the European Convention on Human Rights.
We believe that there are a number of questions which ought to be investigated before one particular model is opted for exclusively.
We are therefore abstaining from voting in the final vote.
- (DA) The Danish Liberal Party' s five Members of the European Parliament, Bertel Haarder, Anne E. Jensen, Ole Andreasen and Niels Busk have today voted against paragraph 14a of the report, since they wish to keep the issue of the Charter off the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference.
- This report confirms our worst fears about the intentions of some people in relation to the Charter and that is why we have voted against it.
We are not voting against a Charter itself, but so far the process seems to suggest a wasted opportunity to protect the citizens of Europe from the overburdening powers of the European Institutions.
There is a gap to be filled in providing fundamental rights to citizens of the Member States concerning European regulation and legislation.
This report turns its back on this need and thereby devalues the potential of the Charter.
In the process of voting against, we have, of course, tried to improve the contents in the interests of the members of the nation states of Europe who might be affected, and some of the amendments which we have supported are aimed to do this.
Conservative MEPs will continue to examine the progress of the proposed Charter through our representative on that body, Timothy Kirkhope, MEP, (Yorkshire), and in discussions with our colleagues in the European Parliament, and we will be as positive as possible in this exercise.
However, we do not hold out too much hope of converting this whole exercise into something which could be really positive in turning back the tide of legislative bureaucracy and over-regulation, and genuinely protecting the human rights of the citizens of Europe.
- (FR) The discussion about the Charter of Fundamental Rights shows the lack of legitimacy and transparency in the construction of Europe, for today the laws of competition and profit are quite evidently taking precedence over human rights.
We prefer a different approach, under which economic aspects must always come second to the satisfaction of human and environmental needs.
The Charter should be drafted on the basis of a broad public debate among all the people, including those in the candidate states, and also involve the unions, the associations, the women's movements and the unemployed, in a constituent process.
A Charter of this kind should be based on the most progressive acquis and combine social and democratic rights.
A radical reduction in working hours which must lead to more recruitment and not flexibility; a ban on redundancies; requisitioning empty housing; equality and the right to choose for women; the right to vote and freedom of movement for immigrants: that is what should have featured in this text.
A Charter of that kind would offer support to all those men and women who are fighting against a Europe that lays off workers or expels immigrants who do not have the proper identity papers.
- (DE) I did not vote for the resolution, despite the fact that I am in favour of a charter of fundamental rights, because it contains demands which overshoot the mark and risk causing considerable confusion by formulating the same rights differently and, more importantly, jeopardising the universality of human rights.
I do not take the view that this charter should contain enforceable economic and social rights.
These are subject to the employment law of the Member States and the autonomy of the social partners.
Those who want to overload the cart, for example, with new basic rights in the information, bio-technology and environmental protection areas, are doing little to promote the endearing concept of a Union charter containing subjectively enforceable basic rights.
I would much rather see the European Union and, of course, all the Member States, quickly accede to the 1950 Human Rights Convention as opposed to the inevitable dispute regarding the new wording of the fundamental rights of Union citizens.
In order to safeguard uniform case law and prevent differing interpretations, case law should continue to be the preserve of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg which, thanks to the quality of its case law on the 1950 Convention over the past 40 years, has provided a dynamic instrument which takes full account of the social, economic and ethical developments within our society.
The discrepancies or inconsistencies which might result from various ideologically informed views can be seen in the position of the Committee on Women' s Rights which is calling, for example, for the Charter of Fundamental Rights to contain a clause banning discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation but maintains that family rights as such do not exist.
We need to be wary of perhaps well-meant, generous proposals if we want to prevent decision processes in the EU being crippled by a plethora of recourse proceedings which would mean more than doubling the number of judges at the European Court of Justice, and nobody would know where to enforce their basic rights any more or how long they must wait for a judgement.
- (SV) We welcome the work which has now begun on preparing an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
A Charter of this kind will have a very important symbolic value and will strengthen the confidence of our citizens in the EU and in European integration.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights should be seen as complementing the European Convention on Human Rights, which we believe should be incorporated into the Treaty.
The Charter should concentrate on the relationship between citizens and the European institutions.
Its primary objective should be to guarantee that the Union is governed openly.
The Charter should be legally binding through its also being incorporated into the EU' s Treaty.
The Charter must not only be a declaration, but also entail obligations of some kind on the part of the EU' s institutions and Member States.
We would emphasise the subsidiarity principle and the fact that the Charter should concentrate on the fundamental freedoms and rights of citizens, as presented in accordance with the Member States' common constitutional traditions.
We would emphasise the importance of the social dimension in the EU' s activities but consider that social policy is mainly a question for each individual Member State to decide upon.
- (FR) The Charter of Fundamental Rights is the latest manifestation of the drift of Community legislation towards a constitution.
In fact, the significance of this document is obvious if it is regarded as a potential preamble to a European constitution; conversely, it would be redundant in those Member States that already include these rights in their own constitution and legal traditions and confirm them by ratifying international texts such as the European Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
It is easy enough to think of ways to improve the application of the existing texts; but the technocratic nature of the process of European integration becomes quite obvious again today from the decision to draft an additional document, which could hardly be anything but repetitive.
Yet what worries me most is the content that is to be given to these rights.
Indeed, at this same part-session we are discussing reports by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms which reflect a libertarian vision of society.
Their aim is not so much to defend and promote human rights as to make a clean sweep of all the points of reference on which our societies are founded and replace them with an individualist jumble 'with neither lord nor master' .
This kind of Europe is based on a new totalitarianism in which man finds himself alone facing a Community administration that is as remote as it is impersonal, in which the intermediate structures - and in particular the most vital one of all, the family - have been gradually destroyed.
Our society will no longer have a common destiny; instead it will be based on a juxtaposition of 'minorities' which each have their own rights but no common obligation.
The conclusion I draw from these texts is that the just fight for human rights has become the ideological plaything of irresponsible and selfish individuals.
What they are proposing to us today spells the death of the common good and, over and above that, of the very meaning of life; for they are concerned only with human rights and have forgotten what man is first and foremost, and what his roots and aspirations are.
- British Labour Members fully support a Charter of Fundamental Rights which makes visible citizens' rights across the EU.
However, we are at a very early stage in the process of determining the Charter.
It is therefore too early to say what should be legally binding.
This decision will be made at a later stage as recognised by the report itself in Paragraph 6.
That Paragraph also states that any legally binding status recognises that Fundamental Rights are indivisible by making the Charter applicable to all the European Union's institutions and bodies and all its policies.
This is a recognisable aim which British Labour Members would support.
As the final Charter text is not available, we are supporting the Charter in principle but awaiting the final version.
This is a complex process which needs clarity and precision at all stages to ensure that the end result is a positive and visible step forward for people in all EU countries.
Our abstention on this report on the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights derives primarily from our view that it might be part of some federalist rationale which we oppose, and which could find clear and definitive expression in providing the European Union with a constitution, as proclaimed in the report, with this Charter as an important component.
At the same time, as we agree with many of the rights targeted for inclusion in the Charter which, by the way, are part of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, we decided we could not vote against the report, although we do think the set of rights under consideration could and should unequivocally include the social domain, as would be ensured by approval of the amendments tabled along those lines by the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
- (DA) The European Union rests upon fundamental principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights.
If, however, I have misgivings about introducing a new set of human rights into the EU Treaties, this has to do with the confusing signals which would in that way be sent out and with the fear that existing instruments which are operating well would be put at risk.
In my view, a declaration would be more appropriate.
The European Convention on Human Rights is an excellent tool for protecting human rights in Europe.
It involves enforcing these rights on the basis of judgements given by the Court of Human Rights, which has developed considerable expertise in this area, as well as extensive case law.
The Convention also has the advantage of not being limited in scope to the area of the EU but of operating in relation to almost the whole of the European continent.
At the same time, it is the European Court of Justice' s practice to take account of the national fundamental rights applicable in the Member States.
This practice could be affected if the EU were to obtain its own set of fundamental and human rights.
Jackson resolution (B5-0227/2000)
My Group voted in favour of the Jackson resolution on Structural Funds in the environment because we believe in the principle of ensuring effective implementation of environmental law - in this case, the wild birds and habitats directive.
However, we are surprised that Members of this House voted for the original proposal in paragraph 7 to cut off funds to some of our poorest regions in the EU.
Indeed, the Commissioner, in a response to the debate, said she would not be stopping approval of key funding programmes.
Members of the Environment Committee clearly cannot be aware of the undue delays that any non-approval of Structural Funds programmes would create, nor indeed of the new budgetary procedure that could involve not only delays but the loss of millions in funds in the case of the UK to Merseyside, South Yorkshire, the Highlands and Islands, Northern Ireland, Cornwall and the Isle of Wight.
These are vital life-line funds for jobs and growth.
I therefore welcome the fact that this House voted by a majority against cutting off resources.
The Commissioner would, in any case, have had no legal competence to stop approval and therefore I am glad that, at the end of the day, common sense has prevailed in our vote.
- (DE) It would appear that Community environmental protection does not have its own lobby at the Community institutions.
There is no other explanation as to why the Commission gave way yesterday and suddenly decided to reinterpret the Structural Funds regulation.
Having given itself real teeth last year and called in notifications of FFH areas for the joint "Natura 2000" project which had been overdue for years, the Commission has now tripped itself up by accepting that notifications can be submitted ex-post.
That was unnecessary in that the regulation fully covered the Commission' s demand for FFH lists to be submitted together with the plans at the latest and per se leaves the Commission no room for manoeuvre here.
The Structural Funds Regulation - decided unanimously last year by all the Member States - clearly states that the ex-ante evaluation is a prerequisite to the programme and the planning documents which the Member States submit to the Commission for approval.
The Structural Funds regulation also states that this ex-ante evaluation should include an assessment of the environmental situation, especially in areas which might be influenced by Structural Fund intervention.
The Commission is therefore duty bound to ensure that the documents notify it of potential areas subject to European nature conservation before it approves the plans.
Submitting FFH lists once plans have been approved makes no sense from the point of view of content, because the protected areas will be reduced and adjusted to planned investments (rather than representing the framework, as required under the regulation), nor does it make any legal sense from a legal point of view because then, of course, exactly what the Commission wished to avoid will happen, i.e. planning conflicts will result in long-winded disputes.
The Commission is deluding itself if it thinks that it can use Article 39 to recoup what it has failed to obtain during ex-ante evaluation.
How can the Commission be credible vis-à-vis the European citizens if it is unable to implement its own requirements? By giving in, the Commission has lost the confidence of many who see sustainable development as a chance for the next generation.
- (FR) The French members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group are very concerned with preserving the natural heritage in general and the environmentally sensitive areas in particular.
We share the desire to protect an environment which it is our duty to pass on intact to our children.
That is a laudable and necessary ambition.
Yet the Commission, ever faithful to its nature and its habits, cannot stop taking every opportunity to overwhelm the states and their citizens with new directives and pernickety little rules, which often bear little relation to real local conditions.
The only result of this kind of overload is to paralyse the economic players a little more each day and to hold back freedom of enterprise.
This happened, for instance, with the CTEs which are designed to turn our farmers into environmental officers, rewarded not by the fruit of their labours but by subsidies paid in return for their submission to the Gosplan of Brussels.
We therefore categorically reject Mrs Jackson' s proposal to link payments from the Structural Funds to the transposing by Member States of EU environmental legislation.
That would be a very dangerous mixture of unrelated things and would pave the way to the generalised practice of financial blackmail, a blackmail that is all the more inadmissible in that, as we must remember, the money from the Structural Funds remains above all the product of the contributions the Member States pay into the EU budget.
Malmström report (A5-0060/2000)
Mr President, I would like, as a matter of priority, to thank Parliament for lending its support to aid for Mongolia.
I hope this will lead to a much more proactive approach on the part of the Commission, as I have not seen a sign of this yet.
It is unacceptable for the Commission only to take a lukewarm interest in a country which probably has no mineral resources, which, in terms of human rights, is doing a relatively good job in the region, which is small and very much agriculture-based.
It may not occupy centre stage but is very needy despite this.
This Parliament has noticed this and offered its support, and I urge the Commission to take this message extremely seriously and to grant this aid.
While agreeing with some of the concrete concerns expressed in the report about, in particular, women' s rights, and while approving some amendments which point the way to progress, we do not intend to support the European Union' s claim that 'respect for, and promotion of, human rights and fundamental freedoms... constitute fundamental objectives of EU foreign policy' .
Within the European Union, one of the fundamental rights of man, the right to make an adequate living from his labour, is being trampled underfoot for nearly 20 million men and women.
A fairly substantial proportion of immigrant workers, those regarded as not having the proper papers, is being deprived of any legal existence.
All the while, outside the European Union, several of its Member States, among the most powerful of them, are supporting, arming and financing vile dictatorships, especially in their former colonial empire.
And what about that manifestation of respect for human rights that took the form, for several weeks, of bombing Kosovo and Serbia?
Under these circumstances, we are abstaining from the vote on this report.
- (FR) In this joint debate on human rights, the report under consideration here analyses the instruments available to the Union to promote these rights in the world and their concrete application between 1 June 1998 and 30 June 1999.
As you know, the EU' s international action to promote and protect human rights is based on several instruments, including the CFSP and development cooperation.
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Union has become more visible on the international stage thanks to the appointment of a CFSP High Representative, in the person of Javier Solana.
The Treaty of Amsterdam has made respect for human rights one of the main objectives of the EU' s common foreign and security policy.
The European Union has many instruments available in this field. There are the common strategies (a new instrument created since the Treaty of Amsterdam and designed to enhance the overall coherence of EU action at international level), the common positions (which define the EU' s approach to a particular matter) and the common actions (which relate to certain specific situations and involve immediate reactions, on the model of humanitarian aid).
There are also specific and horizontal actions relating to a given policy. They include, in particular, the fight to abolish the death penalty.
Finally, what is known as the 'human rights' clause, which has been incorporated into most cooperation and development agreements with third countries since the 1990s, enables the EU to keep up the pressure, in respect of human rights, on the countries with which it is linked.
This clause does not change the fundamental nature of these agreements but does enable both parties to reaffirm respect for certain common values and principles as the precondition for any form of cooperation, economic or other.
Yet the rapporteur feels that the current European human rights policy is fragmented and needs to be replaced by a coherent common strategy marked by closer interinstitutional cooperation.
Obviously I agree with that.
I think initiatives such as establishing an advisory group to discuss the strategic aspects of human rights activities, comprising representatives of the EU institutions and the Member States, together with human rights specialists, would lead to greater coherence and therefore effectiveness.
In the same context, the proposals that the EU should develop its own indicators to gauge respect for human rights, that a special European Parliament envoy should be nominated for prisoners of conscience and that a human rights website should be launched on the Europarl site on the Internet, are well worth considering.
The report also emphasises that the EU strategy must give priority to systematically abolishing the discrimination suffered by women.
I want to express my unconditional support for that demand!
- The European Parliamentary Labour Party voted against Amendment No 7 because we do not feel that a reference to the supposed 'Echelon' network is appropriate to this report.
Allegations that such an 'Echelon network' exists are based on hearsay and circumstantial evidence.
Furthermore, the democratic oversight of national intelligence services is, in any case, primarily a matter for national parliaments.
The United Kingdom has one of the most effective systems of democratic oversight, both political and judicial, of its intelligence services in the world.
Political oversight is exercised by a House of Commons committee, which has full access to documentation.
Moreover, the intelligence operations of third countries, including the United States, operating in cooperation with British intelligence services within the United Kingdom, are also subject to the same democratic oversight.
- British Conservatives are in the forefront of those seeking to improve human rights in many parts of the world.
While there is much in the Malmström resolution that we can support, unfortunately there are significant elements that have been included which we find unacceptable.
For example, we do not share the enthusiasm for an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We are sceptical about demands for substantial increases in expenditure and bureaucratic activity and in the role of EC-funded NGOs.
We are concerned that it is minority differences that are stimulated, with little emphasis on integration.
We are concerned at the extension of the concept of human rights to include, for example, domestic violence, which is properly a matter to be handled under other legal instruments.
We are opposed to the introduction of sweeping new categories of eligibility for asylum, which would be open to abuse.
Many of us do not support the abolition of capital punishment in principle.
And we are suspicious about proposals to impose further codes of conduct on business.
While we value the role of the EU in supporting human rights, we believe that human rights regulation and legislation, as in so many areas dealing with the relationship between the citizen and the state, is a matter for national governments, and we do not welcome an extension of EU intervention in this area.
It is for these reasons that British Conservatives have voted against the Malmström resolution.
Haarder report (A5-0050/2000)
Mr President, I would have liked to have voted for the Haarder report, in spite of certain passages in it, and certain statements, including some to the House, to the effect that there are no rights for the family and that to grant special rights to the family would be a discriminatory, not to say racist, measure.
The supporters of that theory should get their act together.
If there are no specific family rights as such - as the Committee on Women' s Rights decided, very much against my wishes - then such rights do not exist for the other heterosexual or same-sex communities either and the section on "Lifestyles and types of relationship" has no place in this report.
I myself was lucky enough to grow up in an entirely normal family, consisting of a mother and a father who were not divorced, and I still regard this model of a happy and united family as one of the foundations of our society. It always deserves to be recognised and to enjoy a special status, despite what some people might feel; but, given the result of the votes on the amendments, in the end I really could not vote for this report, in particular because paragraph 18 was adopted.
Mr President, I should like to follow on from what Mrs Lulling has just said.
I should like to say that Mr Haarder has made an exemplary effort to bring about a consensus.
As a result, his report was far better than all the previous reports.
However, I and a majority in my Group voted against the report because points 52 - 56 contain quite controversial social policy requirements which may well be supported by the left wing of this House but which have nothing to do with human rights.
The German constitution offers marriage and the family special protection and that has nothing to do with the violation of human rights.
On the contrary, it is a guarantee of human rights.
Marriage and the family form the basis for human rights, as does the right to life.
I therefore believe that these points should have been left out of the human rights report.
If they had, the House would have voted unanimously in favour of this human rights report because, apart from that, Mr Haarder has presented an exemplary piece of work.
Mr President, I just wanted to add to what Mr Pirker has said by pointing out that I voted in favour of point 42 of the Haarder report despite the fact that it contains an error because Austria is named in connection with freedom of movement.
The executive committee of the Nationalrat (National Assembly) has passed a resolution unanimously adopting the motion for the executive committee to reach an agreement under paragraph 2 of the Law of 3 April 1919 on the resolution by the Federal government of 26 March 1996 and to consider the declarations of renunciation by Felix Habsburg-Lothringen and Karl Ludwig Habsburg-Lothringen as adequate, so that nothing now stands in the way of their being issued with passports which will allow them to enter Austria.
I am therefore able to tell the House that both Felix Habsburg-Lothringen and Karl Ludwig Habsburg-Lothringen have valid passports without any form of restriction.
Neither signed the declarations of renunciation required by the constitutional office, because they have distanced themselves from the house of Habsburg; instead they merely entered the following statement on their passport applications: "In order to avoid misunderstandings, let it be noted in this connection that I, the applicant, have not and do not question the republican form of government of Austria nor have I ever considered making any manner of claim to sovereignty" .
The call on Austria to take action in relation to freedom of movement is therefore devoid of any substance.
- (FR) In adopting the Haarder report on human rights in the European Union, the European Parliament has just committed one of those aberrations that are so common they must be part of its nature.
Among others, it is calling for equal rights of all kinds between same-sex couples and the traditional family, together with lowering the age of consent for same-sex relations.
May I just remind you that Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State" .
That same article defines the family in terms of the marriage between a man and a woman.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights repeats the same idea by declaring, in Article 10, that "The widest possible protection and assistance should be accorded to the family, which is the natural and fundamental group unit of society" .
The reason why the traditional family is entitled to this state protection is because it provides a service without price: the renewal of the generations, the perpetuation of society, the education of children and the transmission of values.
That service is a very good reason for granting the family special advantages, reserved to it alone.
By ignoring that vital law, the Haarder report shows that in this respect, as in many others, the European instruments go against not only the nations but also against society itself.
- (DA) We support the general recommendations in the report to the Member States regarding compliance with the international conventions on human rights.
We also share the concerns referred to in the report about the situation in certain countries as regards the rights, for example, of asylum seekers, women and children and in connection with minority languages.
However, we oppose the annual report on human rights being used to promote further integration within the EU.
We are not in favour of the new institutional arrangements proposed in the report or in favour of the proposal that the EU should establish a common legal framework and a common policy on refugees and asylum seekers.
We believe that human rights problems should be combated locally and by means of the international human rights institutions and forums which already exist and which are designed for this purpose, for example, the UN and the Council of Europe.
Nor do we support the view that the EU should draw up a new, legally binding EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Rather, we are of the opinion that such a Charter would create conflicts in relation to the European Convention on Human Rights.
An EU Charter of Fundamental Rights would not in itself help improve the human situation, either at European or international level.
We have, however, chosen to vote in favour of the report in spite of what I have just said, for we think it is extremely important to fight for improved human rights in Europe.
- (FR) I welcome the EU-related aspects of the work carried out by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Defence and Security Policy on the annual report on human rights.
Let me remind you that this report replaces the traditional memorandum on EU activities in this field which the Council used to present to the European Parliament every year to inform it of EU action on human rights in the world over the past year.
This report aims to explain the EU' s motives and the institutional structures and instruments available to it for conducting an active policy of respect for human rights.
More specifically, the report points out that the Treaty of Amsterdam has introduced new human rights provisions in order to underpin EU action in this field, especially in the context of the CFSP.
We must grasp these new opportunities.
Thus the Treaty has established respect for fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the Council of Europe' s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as a principle.
That means the European Union is 'founding' its action on the principles of democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
With enlargement, the European Union has clearly announced to all candidate countries that respect for democracy, the law, human rights and minorities is a basic accession criterion.
Our European Parliament has a vital role to play in the formulation and practical application of EU human rights policy.
Our powers have gradually increased so that this Parliament has now become a forum for discussion of human rights, a recognised forum as our debate today proves.
The report we are discussing points out that, although the European Union claims to export its model to third countries, the situation at home is not flawless either.
In fact the 1999 Amnesty International Yearbook singles out eleven of the fifteen Member States for criticism, reproaching them with more or less serious human rights offences.
Aside from any criticisms, the rapporteur puts forward practical proposals, which I support, such as extending the right of all non-EU nationals to vote and stand for local and European elections provided they have resided in the EU for more than five years.
I also find other proposals on improving the right of asylum most interesting; they need to be quickly put into in practice.
On the situation of candidate countries, much progress remains to be made, especially in relation to respect for the rights of minorities.
The European Parliament must, therefore, remain vigilant.
- Concerning the statement in Amendment No 32 by Mr Rack, Mrs Schleicher, Mrs Cederschiöld and Mr Méndez de Vigo, on behalf of the EPP-ED Group, to the Duff/Voggenhuber report on an EU Charter for Fundamental Rights, our Group questions whether, under the present circumstances, it is still necessary for the Union to become a party to the ECHR.
This is an issue which requires deeper analysis.
Overlapping and conflicts between the Court of Justice of the European Communities and the European Court of Human Rights should, in any event, be avoided.
- I believe that this is a good report and deserves support.
However, problems arise in the detail of paragraphs 52, 53, 54 and 56.
I voted for these paragraphs because I agree with the objectives of the rapporteur.
I would, however, like to ensure that my voting intentions are not misinterpreted.
In relation to paragraph 52 I support the right of individual conscience.
In stating this principle I would also like to make it absolutely clear that this in no way implies that I personally support abortion.
With regard to paragraphs 53, 54 and 56 I oppose discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
I would, however, add a few caveats.
Firstly, I do not support the right of gay couples to adopt.
Secondly, I do not support the lowering of the age of consent below 18 years of age.
With these clarifications entered for the record I am happy to vote for Mr Haarder's report.
- On balance, this is an excellent report with the exception of paragraphs 52 to 56.
This section is poorly drafted and ambiguous.
It deals with issues that are firmly in the competence of each Member State, and should so remain.
- (FR) I want to congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Haarder, on the quality of his report on respect for human rights in the European Union.
I support the general philosophy underlying the document, which aims to consolidate European policy with regard to civil and political rights, but also to the economic, social and cultural rights of EU residents.
Yet I would also like to draw my colleagues' attention to two requests made in the report, which I find problematic.
Paragraph 19 of the report, concerning the protection of national minorities, and paragraph 20, calling for the ratification of the Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, pose real problems.
We certainly understand the spirit of the rapporteur' s observations on the need to protect national minorities: it sends out a strong message to some of the candidate countries, especially the Eastern European ones, whose nationals do not all enjoy fundamental rights.
Parliament firmly rejects abuses of fundamental freedoms throughout Europe, as the Haarder report emphasises.
But we regret that it alludes to the rights of 'national minorities' , an expression that is far more restrictive than the universal concept of 'human rights' .
Furthermore, we support the idea of an indivisible political community, within which ethnic origin is not eclipsed but regarded as being of secondary importance.
The Republic cannot recognise specific 'minorities' or 'communities' : in its view there are only autonomous and free citizens with equal rights.
In view of our convictions we must also express strong reservations about paragraph 20 of the report, which refers to the Charter for Regional and Minority Languages.
Everyone is free to use one or several languages of his or her choice in addition to the language of the Republic and everyone has the right to learn them at school.
But the fact remains that this is a choice and not an obligation.
The Charter is too vague in this respect, which entails the risk of encouraging the formation of regional communities; that would pose a threat to the unity of the Republic but also, in the long run, to the cohesion of the Union.
I will, nevertheless, vote for Mr Haarder' s report because of its quality and its underlying philosophy.
- Obviously, we have no objection to a report on human rights being presented to the European Parliament but as all Member States of the European Union are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights and all citizens are therefore (even if indirectly) able to pursue cases of breach of these human rights to a Court of final arbitration, what concerns us is the way in which this report seems to go well beyond the important principles enshrined by the United Nations and the European Court of Human Rights.
It is not the primary function of this parliament to produce extensive and controversial additions to current legislation and extra channels of redress on an assumption that these should automatically be acceptable simply because they have been proposed.
All of us want human rights to be uppermost in the minds of national and European legislators. In most cases they are.
We do not need this report either to remind us of them or to attempt to push the agenda into areas which are likely to be of great controversy and are likely to achieve counterproductive results instead of an enhancement of human rights already determined.
- (EL) Once more, the hypocrisy of the European Union is evident both in the state of, and respect for, human rights within the Union and in its international policy on these matters.
We are particularly worried by the proposals for greater consideration to be given to human rights in the Union' s foreign policy, not because we underestimate their importance or the need to promote and safeguard them but because experience shows that they are being used selectively.
The European Union turns a blind eye to situations in which human rights are being savagely violated in order to protect its imperialistic interests.
Its attitude towards the Turkish regime is a blatant example.
Elsewhere, the particularly sensitive issue of human rights is being used as an excuse for intervention, even military intervention, so as to impose specific policies and particular courses of action.
The recent and continuing invasions in Kosovo, using the rights of minorities as a pretext, and the unbelievable demands being made on Yugoslavia are a typical example of how military intervention is being advanced as a general principle of international law at the expense of the principle of national sovereignty.
The very policy which the EU and its Member States are pursuing from within is leading to human rights being subverted and becoming dead letter.
The effects of this policy are already visible in the rise of extremist, fascist powers and racist perceptions, and not just in Austria.
The report on combating racism does not demonstrate that the necessary conclusions have been reached.
We therefore condemn the EU' s attempts to use human rights as a pretext in order to reinforce its anti-grass roots and anti-democratic nature and intervene further to the detriment of the people.
We call on the people to be vigilant and to stop their self-proclaimed saviours trampling on their rights. We also urge them to fight for solutions which will guarantee that their rights are promoted and flourish.
For these reasons, the three Members of the European Parliament of the Greek Communist Party will abstain from voting.
- (FR) I want to draw a parallel between the reports by Mrs Ludford and Mr Haarder and the report by Messrs Duff and Voggenhuber.
The European Parliament is proposing to take part in drafting a European Charter of Fundamental Rights. And why not?
Nonetheless, we cannot see how this additional document can contribute to the fight for human rights, except by injecting a little more legal confusion.
And, above all, what are we to think of our House' s concept of these rights? We can get an initial sketchy idea from reading the Ludford and Haarder reports: this is a project for a libertarian society, based on rights without obligations, on freedom without responsibilities.
Freedom is not something that can be decreed.
But those who are building Europe seem unaware of that fact: they not only want to bring happiness to the people ex nihilo, regardless of their differences and their aspirations, but, on top of that, they want to establish a society without points of reference, without distinction between what can and cannot be done, a society that believes in hedonism or the culture of death.
Man cannot be regarded as an entity independent of those around him and concerned solely with his immediate well-being.
Certainly he has rights, including, first and foremost the, right which, paradoxically, he is often refused, the right to life, which must be defended and promoted; but you appear to have forgotten that the human being needs the objective limits necessary to all life in society to be established.
The human being not only needs to be given the means to live, but also, and above all, he needs the reasons to live.
An additional charter, European or not, will certainly not provide them.
- (NL) We have consented to the Haarder report but would like to make the following observations regarding paragraphs 19 and 20 of the draft report.
Paragraph 19 urges Belgium to sign the Convention for national minorities.
Flanders does not seek to prevent Belgium from ratifying this Convention for national minorities, but it would like to add the proviso that this should be done outside the Belgian constitutional context.
In the Belgian federation, the federal states are equal pursuant to the rules in the constitution.
Not one of them constitutes an actual minority.
Because the Convention does not clearly define the term "national minority" , according to Flanders, it does not apply to the periphery. For Flanders, "national minority" in such a context can only refer to a minority which has been established within a certain area for centuries, whilst the French-speakers only moved to the periphery some three centuries ago and have since refused to integrate, which is to be expected in the normal course of events (compare this with the Flemish migration to Wallonia and their perfectly integrated descendants).
Moreover, French-speakers living in the periphery, which boasts the language facilities, can count on protection, which is mostly unavailable to real minorities.
So, whoever tries to change the situation in the Brussels periphery using this convention will implicitly put the future of the Belgian constitutional equilibrium at risk and illustrate once again that a European lack of insight into our federal system can lead one to think that we would be better off as the separate Member States of Flanders and Wallonia, rather than as a federal Member State of Belgium.
Without a doubt, French-speaking Belgian MEPs will again use this vote to play political games in Belgium.
We do not wish to participate in this and would emphatically disassociate ourselves from this kind of practice.
Moreover, we regret that in paragraph 5 of the Ludford report, the same text was adopted for racism and xenophobia.
In the same light, Flanders would like to make it clear that the Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, as referred to in paragraph 20 of the Haarder report, does not pertain to French in the periphery but, for example, to the Limburg dialect (recognised in the application of this Charter in the Netherlands) or to the Arel German dialect in the Province of Luxembourg.
- (IT) Quite apart from the approval or rejection of amendments and the removal or amendment of paragraphs, we were disgusted to find in an annual report of the European Parliament on such a sensitive and urgent matter as human rights, the recommendation "not to imprison child abusers, except as a last resort" , and a call for the Member States to "lower the age-of-consent for homosexual relations" .
We must fight against pornography, against increasingly widespread child abuse, against male and female prostitution and against sex tourism, which inevitably leads to suffering on the part of children.
We must fight against discrimination and psychological and other forms of abuse in the spheres of work, information, politics and the family, which is again at the centre of the debate at a time when children are being transformed into mere objects to satisfy the egotism of those who, having relinquished all other values, are attempting to satisfy their egos and their desire to possess with "technological" motherhood or fatherhood.
We utterly reject a resolution which cancels out its positive points with such abominations, and we are sounding the alarm bells in dismay. If you continue along this path, you will destroy the European Union and go against the wishes of the great majority of its citizens.
- (FR) I want to explain the reasons underlying my rejection of the annual report on respect for human rights in the European Union.
Two of the provisions in that text call on a number of countries, including France, to ratify the European Framework Convention for the protection of national minorities and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages without delay.
First of all, I really must dispel a misunderstanding that is tainting the whole debate about regional languages; the purpose is certainly not to forbid whomsoever it be from speaking, teaching or promoting a minority or regional language of whatever kind.
Insofar as learning or using these languages remains a personal choice, I, for my part, am in favour of any measure to promote their conservation and transmission, since they form part of the cultural heritage of the nations.
I have voted against the Haarder report because, in calling for the ratification of the European Framework Convention for the protection of national minorities and the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages, it is seeking to promote a concept of European integration that is based on a vision to which I cannot subscribe.
According to that concept, the individual has particular rights based on his membership of a territorial, ethnic or religious entity, while the community constitutes the key means of mediating between the individual and the right he is claiming.
Whilst, at first sight, recognition of the community may seem a factor that protects the integration of minorities, in fact, however, it is a strong factor of social segregation and regression (you need only think of the situation of young Turkish or Maghreb girls, who are excluded from the emancipating benefits of ethnically mixed schooling, who are held back by archaic rules on the status of women).
Similarly, while recognition of a special status for these communities may seem to protect the weakest and most destitute, on the contrary, it in fact produces a social compartmentalisation which the triumphant march of liberalism can turn to its advantage.
Moreover, while it is true that enlargement of the European Union means we must take account of the special situation of certain national minorities, nonetheless the community-based solution offers no future prospects whatsoever for population groups who are under threat or oppressed.
On the contrary, recent history has shown how the exacerbation of the sense of belonging to a particular community can trigger the resurgence of ancient ethnic disputes and lead to fratricidal conflicts.
Rather than this concept, I prefer the universalist vision of a republican Europe in which each individual as such fully and actively exercises his rights and freedoms.
I prefer a Europe which offers a chance of integration to all those who subscribe to its common values, whether they proclaim their religious identity or practise no religion, whether they speak the language of their ancestors or have chosen to transcend their roots.
That Europe affirms the primacy of a principle not found in the Haarder report, the secular principle, which contains and synthesises all the other freedoms: right to respect for private life, freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of expression and association.
The Republic of Europe remains to be built: let us hope that the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is still at the drafting stage, will constitute the first act and the cornerstone of that Europe.
For the same reasons, I abstained on the report on the fight against racism and xenophobia in the European Union.
.
(SV) It is incompatible with the subsidiarity principle and proximity principle that the 626 Members of the European Parliament should pronounce upon what vision of the family and what legislation affecting the family the 15 Member States and the twelve candidate states' national parliaments should arrive at.
In solemn speeches and addresses, such as that given this week in the European Parliament by the Prime Minister of the country currently holding the presidency of the Union, Portugal, the wealth of Europe' s different cultures, traditions, languages and national identities has been emphasised time after time.
To then state that the family' s - and, therefore indirectly, children' s - legal position should be standardised throughout Europe, as proposed in paragraphs 53 and 54 of the present resolution, constitutes a basic offence against the national right to legislate and against the EU' s own subsidiarity principle, as formulated in the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam.
In our capacity as Swedish Christian Democrats, we shall, of course, be continuing our work in the Swedish Parliament aimed at establishing a basic legal position where the family and marriage between men and women are concerned. This is with a view to making our country' s legislation more friendly to families and children and out of an active desire to support stable and long-term parental relationships which can meet children' s needs for security, care and socialisation.
- (FR) The annual report on respect for human rights in the European Union is usually taken as an opportunity to display a rather pathetic excess of political correctness.
The champions of the libertarian ideology never miss the chance to list a whole series of demands, each more ludicrous than the next, all wrapped up in proper sentiments.
Perhaps that is what this whole exercise demands.
Alas, the 2000 vintage still goes along with this curious tradition.
Nothing has been left out, from the right of non-EU nationals to vote and stand in municipal and European elections, to guaranteeing 'same-sex couples rights equal to those enjoyed by traditional couples and families' , to the standardisation of the procedure governing the right of asylum within the European Union, all inspired by the eternal resolve to glean new powers for Brussels.
As a member of the Committee on Women' s Rights, I shall confine myself to emphasising the equality between men and women on the one hand, and the importance of the family on the other.
While the persistence of discrimination between men and women, with regard to pay for example, is unacceptable, to set men against women, as some feminist organisations do, would be sterile and put social cohesion at risk.
We therefore categorically reject any policy of quotas or positive discrimination, those pet themes of political correctness.
As we put it in Brussels on 1 March, that kind of policy would reflect a profound contempt for women: women should gain access to political or administrative posts not through the mechanical workings of some form of quota but through the recognition of their merits and abilities.
Women have a specific role to play in society: they have a vital family role to play in the procreation of the new generations that are essential to the survival of society, a role to play in educating the young; they have an economic role, as mother of the family, but also a role within family enterprises (family holdings, businesses, SMEs).
This role has been downgraded for far too long, although it is a key role.
On the one hand, that implies giving the wives of self-employed workers who play a part in the family business a stable status and, on the other hand, recognising the economic and social role of the mother.
It also implies enabling women to reconcile family life with working life, giving all women the chance to make a genuine choice: how many women have been forced by economic constraints only to have two children when they would have liked three? How many of them have been forced to devote more time to their professional life than they would have wished?
That kind of policy would mean giving the family its due place.
But this report is an extremely dangerous all-out attack on the family.
It calls for equal rights for same-sex couples and traditional couples and families, forgetting the vital role the family plays in social cohesion.
Let us make no mistake: everyone leads the private life they want; there can be no question of secret policing.
However, same-sex couples as such are of no use to society, they are sterile and can only lead to a sterile society; so society does not have to recognise them and grant them rights: it should ignore them.
The family, on the contrary, is the community on which society is based and that ensures its stability.
Its utility resides in the fact that it provides the most stable framework possible for creating new generations, for their education, and therefore for the continuity of mankind.
Even now, with the strong backing of certain European resolutions and under pressure from action groups, there are some who are preparing to recognise the right of same-sex couples to adopt children.
Just imagine the psychological future of children with two fathers and no mother, or two mothers and no father! If it is to fulfil its potential, a child needs a father and a mother, a stable family.
In face of the culture of death, it is our duty to stand up for the culture of life.
We believe in an exalted idea of the dignity of man, whoever he may be, without discrimination, from the moment of conception to his natural death.
That means breaking with the materialistic and individualistic view of man and believing that there is something sacred in each individual, which is the foundation of human dignity.
Only then can we effectively and consistently ban human cloning or discrimination on the basis of genetic inheritance, a discrimination suffered far too often by, for instance, Down' s syndrome babies, in the name of what seem to be the best of intentions.
It is only at that price that we can reject the unacceptable hypocrisy of chatting peacefully about human rights while closing our eyes to an economic and commercial system which, in the name of the dogma of free trade, encourages child exploitation in many third world countries.
And then we will be able to move away from a policy of minorities, the legacy of an individualist thinking that is a threat to a peaceful society, away from an ideology of minorities that is a new expression of the class war, that disregards the profound unity of the human family and seeks to establish superficial divisions based on race, sexual mores, age or ethnicity and demand specific rights for each of them.
Man is neither a social security number nor a pawn on a social and economic chessboard to be manipulated at will and discarded when no longer of use.
He is worth much more than that: every man is a sacred history.
- (NL) The SP MEPs Anne Van Lancker and Kathleen Van Brempt have abstained from the vote on paragraphs 19 and 20 of the resolution on respect for human rights in the European Union, in which Belgium is urged to ratify the 1995 European Framework Convention for the protection of national minorities and the 1998 European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages.
"We fully subscribe to the international agreements to protect minorities and minority languages.
However, we cannot tolerate international agreements of this kind being used by certain groups in Belgium to their advantage in order to undermine the language legislation which guarantees the tolerant co-existence of the three language communities" .
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was adjourned at 2.11 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Western Sahara
The next item is the debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0246/2000 by Mrs González Álvarez and others on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left;
B5-0253/2000 by Mr Sánchez García and others on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party;
B5-0262/2000 by Mr Carnero González and others on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists;
B5-0272/2000 by Mrs Schröder and others on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance;
B5-0278/2000 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez Neyra and others on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
on the Western Sahara.
Mr President, this Parliament has long been calling for compliance with the United Nations resolutions and for the European Union, that is the Commission and the Council, to become more deeply involved in solving the Sahrawi problem. Although we are going to vote in favour of this resolution - which I regard as a good consensus resolution, calling for the obvious once again - I would perhaps have worded certain points differently.
I refer to the statement that both parties, Morocco and Western Sahara, must make equal efforts to resolve the conflict.
We believe there should be more emphasis on asking Morocco to concentrate its political will on resolving the conflict, because the Sahrawis have demonstrated time and again that they want it finally resolved.
They have released prisoners and accepted the United Nations rulings on eligible voters. It is the Moroccan Government that has been putting obstacles in the way of resolving the conflict.
The latest obstacle to delay this referendum indefinitely has been the introduction of 76 000 appeals to the United Nations from possible voters in the referendum on Western Sahara.
If obstacles continue to be put in the way, we may be responsible for a more serious conflict.
Some people are shocked that the Sahrawi people are now saying they are left with no alternative but to take up arms again.
I am not shocked.
I can understand it. It is a solution nobody wants, of course, but it is one we are forcing them into.
Mr President, the European Union - and Parliament within it, of course - must strive to avoid a new conflict in an area which is already troubled enough.
We do not want Western Sahara to become another East Timor, Mr President,
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are circumstances which make Western Sahara a highly topical issue and they are relevant this evening.
The first is the United Nations Security Council' s urgent resolution of 29 February, which agreed to extend the MINURSO mandate to the end of May.
Secondly, there is the food crisis facing the Sahrawi refugees in the desert camps.
Mention must be made of serious incidents which have recently occurred in the occupied territories of Western Sahara, where pro-referendum demonstrations have been suppressed by the Moroccan authorities.
Mention must also be made of the visit the Maghreb Delegation will be making to Morocco next week and the King of Morocco' s favourable attitude to the European Parliament visiting the territory of Western Sahara for the first time.
The instability that could become endemic in this part of Africa could affect some of the outermost Community regions, like my region, the Canary Islands. Our citizens want a peaceful solution to the conflict in Western Sahara and they want the Sahrawi people to hold the referendum under conditions of freedom, transparency and equality.
And finally, one of the objectives of the European Union' s common foreign and security policy is the maintenance of peace and the strengthening of international security.
And here the High Representative for the CFSP, Mr Solana, ought to play a more active role in achieving adequate guarantees for the Sahrawi people through an active presence and direct participation in the stages of the peace process and the referendum.
That is why we support the motion for a resolution.
Mr President, first we must express our concern for the Sahrawi people, many of whom have experienced long years of exile and suffering.
Solving their problem means respecting the deadlines for holding the referendum that has been postponed again and again.
If there were to be another postponement it would seriously aggravate the problem.
Stability, security and peace in the Maghreb region depend on this referendum taking place.
For the referendum to lead to the fulfilment of those objectives, however, the preparatory work must be done with great care, especially the correct compilation of the full electoral roll, which has still not been achieved, and strict fulfilment of the criteria governing its compilation must be insisted on.
The European Union must fully assume its role of mediator in this process, which is important not just for the region itself, but also for the whole of Europe, and especially for certain countries.
It must carry out that role by, amongst other things, supporting the decisions of the United Nations and ensuring that the process reaches a conclusion in total transparency and with maximum guarantees, complete probity and respect for democracy.
Mr President, after the vote in East Timor, the process of self-determination in Western Sahara is the last one outstanding in the world.
But it is a process of self-determination which grows more complicated by the day, as highlighted last week by news of the repression taking place in the occupied territories of Western Sahara.
On the proper conclusion of this process of self-determination depend the stability, peace and indeed the economic integration and development of the whole Maghreb.
I would even say that the transition to full democracy apparently under way in the Kingdom of Morocco also depends on it.
From our point of view, the culmination of the process of self-determination in Western Sahara lies in the application of the peace plan from the United Nations and the Organisation for African Unity.
And the core of that peace plan is precisely the holding of a free and fair referendum on self-determination, in which voters can make their choice without any kind of pressure.
In spite of the efforts of the United Nations, in spite of MINURSO, in spite of the progress that has been made in compiling the electoral roll, the referendum keeps being postponed virtually sine die.
Of course, the delay of the referendum is essentially the responsibility of one of the parties, which is failing to finalise acceptance of the terms under which the said referendum is to take place.
For that to happen, for self-determination to become a reality in Western Sahara in the short term, the available instruments must be used: the Houston Agreements and the efforts of James Baker.
Direct dialogue between the parties is essential.
The Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front must restore the direct dialogue which existed at the end of the 1980' s and which led to the Houston Agreements.
The European Union should make it a priority to help keep that process going, to help it succeed.
Regrettably, the Union has not acted in the most appropriate way up to now.
Much has been said, but little has actually been done.
The most important point in the resolution we are going to adopt here today is the European Parliament' s call to the Council to take common action, as provided for in the Treaty on European Union, on Western Sahara.
And that means statements and instruments, making all the instruments we have at our disposal available to help bring this process of self-determination to a satisfactory conclusion, assist Mr Baker, support the United Nations, call on the parties to respect the terms of the international resolutions and set in motion essential humanitarian cooperation.
That is how we can contribute to achieving a priority objective: peace in the Maghreb.
Self-determination in Western Sahara is essential for that.
Mr President, I should like on behalf of my Group to voice our serious concern at the current situation in the Western Sahara to the European Parliament and, more importantly, the Commission and the Council.
The constant postponement of the referendum on the future of the Western Sahara is unacceptable.
A state of emergency reins in the occupied areas.
At least 56 people have been arrested, including 27 women, for fighting for the right to self-determination.
We call on the government of Morocco to stop repression, lift the state of emergency and permit freedom of expression.
We call on the Council of the EU to vote on joint action which will enable the peace plan to be duly implemented without delay.
The previous involvement of the personal envoy of the UN Secretary General, Mr James Baker, should be used for further mediation work in a bid to implement UN Security Council Resolution No 1292/2000.
We urge the Commission of the EU to ensure immediately that the people in the refugee camps have a secure supply of food.
The supply situation has deteriorated dramatically.
All the stocks of basic foodstuffs have been used up.
According to information from various NGOs, food has been rationed since December and various countries have withdrawn bilateral aid.
The World Food Programme relies on the EU; as a result, ECHO must now provide 80% of the food aid originally intended as supplementary aid.
The Council and the Commission must therefore immediately exert pressure on the UN to improve the food situation.
The Commission must set up a financial safety fund for the next three months.
Is it right that, due to staff problems at ECHO and the lack of a new global plan, no food aid is being supplied at present?
Anything approved today will not be implemented until next August at the earliest, but people cannot be left without aid for such a long period unless they are supposed to starve to death.
We had a similarly dramatic situation a year ago in East Timor.
A referendum was held.
A state of emergency followed.
Only then did international aid react; no preventative action was taken in order to avoid conflict.
That is why we call on the Commission and the Council to act before it is too late.
Mr President, to begin with, I want to agree with most of what has been said in this regard, especially by my colleague, Mrs González Álvarez.
I also want to take the opportunity to appeal to the Council.
As I understand it, Portugal does not intend, during its presidency, to take any initiatives on this issue.
I would therefore appeal to France do so in the course of its own forthcoming presidency and, last but not least (and if nothing has happened by then), to my own country, Sweden, to take measures during its own presidency with a view to achieving a peaceful resolution of this conflict after all these years.
I am also particularly glad that Commissioner Nielson is present here today.
I hope that we shall be able relatively soon to have a meeting in connection with what was stated here in the European Parliament by German aid organisations the other day, namely that refugees in the camps are in danger of starving and that infant mortality and deaths in childbirth have already increased by an alarming amount in recent months.
ECHO has assumed the major responsibility of constantly providing for the refugees and, whenever this organisation wavers, the voluntary organisations are left powerless.
They have ceased to provide aid and there is no effective coordination.
I really would appeal to Commissioner Nielson to act quickly.
I would also appeal to the chairman and members of the Committee on Budgets to deal with this issue quickly.
I cannot think of anything worse than languishing for 25 years among the sand dunes and being taken in by referenda year upon year, only then to starve to death.
Mr President, the Western Sahara issue is, unfortunately, familiar.
It is one of the few legacies of colonialism still surviving in the year 2000. Morocco is not complying with the United Nations resolutions.
A referendum should have been held years ago, as it was in other countries such as East Timor, Latvia and other places where the right to self-determination has been exercised.
The position of the European Parliament has always been to support, not the independence of the Sahrawi, but the right of the Sahrawi people to freely express their views.
Even today, this right is still being suppressed, under various different pretexts.
Meanwhile, the situation of the Sahrawi people has become serious: even their physical survival is under threat.
In spite of this, they have kept up good relations with Morocco, continuing to conclude trade agreements in various different fields - from fisheries to citrus fruit - while the violation of human rights and of the right to self-determination is being completely disregarded.
I therefore call for all possible steps to be taken to ensure that the right to self-determination of the Sahrawi people is recognised, if necessary through the cooling of relations with Morocco, which, moreover, has already spent too much money fighting this principle.
Mr President, the peace process in the Western Sahara initiated and led by the Secretary-General of the United Nations looked promising.
The eligible voters were identified thanks to the effective UN mission, MINURSO.
But the Moroccan Government has artificially stepped up the number of appeals concerning voters, a clear sign that it wants to prevent the holding of the referendum on self-determination.
Nor has it confined itself to these delaying tactics.
In recent weeks it has embarked on violent repression of the Sahrawi people, in the form of arrests, disappearances and the introduction of a real state of siege in the occupied territories.
In its motion for a resolution, my Group reaffirms the right of the Sahrawi people to self-determination and calls on Morocco to call an end to all forms of repression and to apply in full the Houston Agreements to which it has subscribed.
The United Nations must do its utmost to ensure that the referendum is held before the end of 2000.
I call on the Council and the governments of the Member States, in particular France and Spain, to stop being so accommodating vis-à-vis the Moroccan authorities and to involve themselves more actively in the success of the peace plan and the holding of the referendum, for that is the most appropriate democratic means of achieving a peaceful and lasting settlement of the conflict in Western Sahara.
The Commission is closely following developments in the implementation of the UN Security Council' s plan to settle the Western Sahara conflict.
Like the Member States of the European Union, it wholeheartedly supports the efforts of the UN Secretary-General and his personal envoy, Mr James Baker, to find a just, equitable and lasting solution for the Western Sahara.
The Commission is aware that the organisation of the referendum is currently affected by problems with the finalisation of the list of voters and it hopes that Mr Baker' s visit to the region will bring the desired breakthrough.
As for humanitarian aid, the Commission channelled more than EUR 61 million through NGO partners to provide Sahrawi refugees in the Tindouf region with food, medical and sanitary aid between 1993 and 1999, and even though the circumstances for delivering humanitarian aid in this case are quite difficult, this will not stop us from continuing our support.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Mozambique
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0244/2000 by Mr Miranda and others on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left;
B5-0251/2000 by Mr Queiró and Mr Ribeiro i Castro on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group;
B5-0254/2000 by Mr van den Bos on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party;
B5-0263/2000 by Mrs Carrilho and others on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists;
B5-0276/2000 by Mr Rod and others on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance;
B5-0279/2000 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and others on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats
on the floods in Mozambique.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
We all hope that our aid really will help the people get over the worst of it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, the violation of human rights in Peru is another case in the long list of cases occurring in Latin American countries with the connivance of a complacent United States.
The coming elections offer no democratic guarantees, so it is up to the European Union to act as a reference point in ensuring that the citizens of Peru and the democratic parties of that country receive those guarantees.
In view of what is going on in that country, and in Colombia, Mexico, Ecuador and elsewhere, it seems appropriate for the European Union to establish a permanent human rights observatory for Latin America.
It is not just the euro which must compete with the dollar; our ethical and political human rights principles must replace the old backyard and gunboat policy the United States is pursuing in the area.
Mr President, Peru has had quite a troubled constitutional life with frequent incursions by the military into civilian life.
After democracy was restored, as a result - certainly - of the activities of the Shining Path terrorist organisation, the democratically-elected President of Peru, Mr Fujimori, carried out a government coup by dissolving Parliament and drawing up a constitution made-to-measure for himself as President.
The European Parliament has already had occasion to condemn this type of action by President Fujimori.
President Fujimori has obviously re-established a degree of calm, if one can call it that, in Peru. But he has continued to keep himself in power by authoritarian means.
In fact I would say that, for many, President Fujimori is no more than the civilian representative of military power exercised indirectly.
Yes, there are still elections in Peru, there are political parties, there are means of communication and there are certain guarantees.
But the guarantees are not complete.
The proof is that three judges from the Constitutional Court were removed for opposing his re-election plans.
That means the guarantees are not complete.
There is no independence of the judiciary or of the legislature.
Secondly, Peru recently withdrew from the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court for Human Rights, and I think that is a very bad sign for a country.
I think we should ask the Government of Peru to review that decision.
And thirdly, there is still military action going on inside Peru at this moment, frequently creating difficulties for democracy.
Remember that, as a member of the Andean Pact, Peru is bound to the European Union by a democracy clause and the European Community, or more specifically the Community institutions, has a certain responsibility by virtue of that democracy clause to call for the electoral process in Peru to be adapted, as far as possible, to certain essential democratic requirements.
Mr President, our primary duty in the struggle to protect the civilian population, refugees and prisoners of war in Chechnya is to do everything to finally bring the war in Chechnya to an end.
This should also be uppermost in the mind of the parliamentary delegation due to travel to the war zone over the coming weeks.
Only a political solution to all the issues connected with the conflict and reconstruction of the region will guarantee a change in the awful situation faced by the people in the towns and villages which have been destroyed, in the refugee camps and in the prisoner of war camps.
I should also like to warn against judging just one side and apportioning blame solely to the Russian side.
It is clear, including from the report by the Council of Europe delegation, that human rights have been violated and war crimes committed by all the warring factions.
They must be investigated and the guilty must be called consistently to account.
But we should also give the competent Russian authorities the chance to do this themselves.
Mr President, we had a welcome visit yesterday to this Parliament from a delegation from the CIS Parliamentary Assembly.
This gave us a unique opportunity to discuss Russia' s war with Chechnya face-to-face with other Parliamentarians.
These visitors appealed to us to understand that, in their words, Russia was fighting against terrorism and was not waging a real war, and that this fight against terrorism had been exacerbated by outside arms flows and training camps sponsored by predatory nations jealous of Russia' s power.
We responded.
Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, and even her need in terms of security to protect her citizens internally from outside assault could not absolve her from her responsibilities under international conventions.
I put the point that the containment by Russia of arms flows from Russia would be a very welcome step forward in terms of shared efforts to combat terrorism.
There are, however, two sides to this political tale of war and suffering, and I think we must seek more strongly to understand the causes of conflict between Russia and Chechnya, so that we can help to stem the flow of human blood more quickly another time.
I suggest no sanctions, no economic sanctions against Russia should be considered at this time.
We have a duty, now that the war is almost over, to have access to victims and to give aid for rehabilitation.
Mr President, it would seem that a war that was started to end terrorism is turning into a situation where a new terrorism is just starting.
It seems to be becoming a permanent phenomenon in the region.
We have condemned the Russian action over the recent months in five separate resolutions.
There has been a certain amount of one-sided thinking in them here and there, which has not made them any more effective.
For example, the idea to use the TACIS programme as a sanction will only lead to ordinary people suffering and has not deterred the Russian government in their policy.
The extension of the war and terrorism is a major threat to us all.
For that reason, we need a Caucasus peace conference, because these problems are not confined to Chechnya.
Secondly, the human rights situation is intolerable, and we therefore need a proper investigation into violations of human rights by all parties.
In addition, speedy and unhindered access to the area on the part of relief organisations must be guaranteed once and for all.
Thirdly, the war must be stopped and talks begun.
And fourthly, Russia' s active participation in the work against international terrorism and the illegal arms trade is essential.
Finally, the principal rule with respect to refugees is that they should be helped near to where they live and helped to return to their homes.
We should be reminded, however - so as not to be too sanctimonious in all of this - that when Chechen refugees turned to us for help we did not receive them in our own countries as we did on such a large scale with Kosovo.
In this we recognise the short-sightedness of our own policies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we know that Russia' s international standing has been seriously damaged by the Chechen war.
A full investigation of human rights violations involving international observers is also in Russia' s political interests.
Except that the Russian government does not appear to be totally convinced of the fact.
How else are we to interpret the fact that the UN envoy Mary Robinson was not granted access to Grozny and the filtration camps.
The agreement which has now been brokered with Mr Kalamanov by the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, Gil Robles, is a step in the right direction.
But it will only continue to be credible if the two Council of Europe envoys really can work independently and move freely and independently around the country.
We reject and shall not accept any unilateral interpretation of the agreement by the Russian government.
If it should come to the point that the Russian government fails to keep to this agreement, the Member States of the European Union must bring intergovernmental proceedings against Russia before the European Court of Human Rights and ensure that there is an international investigation of the human rights violations, and I cannot but support Mr Paasilinna.
We too are required to put a halt to the expulsion of refugees in our countries, as the German government has done.
We too are required to grant Chechens political asylum in our countries.
It would make a great deal of sense if the proposals by the German government were adopted by all the Member States.
Mr President, although this does not mean that I approve of the policy of the Chechen nationalist leaders, I wish to say on behalf of my colleagues and myself, that we are disgusted at the vile deeds the Russian army has committed in Chechnya.
This is a despicable war, whose prime victims are the people of Chechnya, but also the young Russian soldiers.
We are also appalled, however, at the attitude of the western powers, in particular the European ones.
The British Prime Minister' s recent visit to Moscow, the way he toadied to the butcher-in-chief Putin, reflect the general attitude of the western powers.
What public opinion sees is a few declarations condemning certain aspects of the war in Chechnya; what we are actually seeing is political and financial support for the Kremlin.
Any western loans that have not been hijacked by the Yeltsin clan can thus be spent on pursuing the war against Chechnya.
Many of the parties represented here in Parliament form part of governments that are pursuing this policy of conciliation and support.
Under those circumstances, the vote in Parliament can only serve as a fig-leaf for the hypocrisy of the European big powers and their profound complicity with the crimes the Russian leaders have committed in Chechnya.
Freedom of the press in Serbia:
Mr President, having access to independent media in the context of an open and free debate is one of the most important cornerstones of a free and democratic society.
This is something which the world' s dictators have always known.
All societies and all States which stifle their own press are after one thing only: to silence debate and to extinguish the vital spark of democracy, which is to say the open and free society.
This is now happening every day in Serbia.
The few independent TV and radio stations in Serbia are being harassed and persecuted in order finally to be closed down entirely.
Dissenting voices are silenced.
A desperate, dictatorial leader is oppressing his own people.
Mr Milosevic is threatening Montenegro, attacking the weak opposition in Serbia and infiltrating Kosovo.
Mr Milosevic and his fellow criminals must be removed.
Democracy must be saved.
I therefore want to ask Commissioner Nielson what he and the EU are doing to ensure that Mr Milosevic is brought to justice before the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. It is to the world' s shame that Mr Milosevic has not been tried in court for his war crimes and that he is allowed to continue his attacks upon freedom, peace, democracy and the free press.
The people of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are still living in terrible conditions, battered by their own government' s policy of homicide and suicide, NATO shelling and the embargoes of the international community.
Any democratic opposition is difficult, not only because of suppression by the Serbian authorities but also because of the deprivation suffered by the whole of the population, for which the international community is partly responsible. The result is yet more conflict and violence.
Today, we want to express our solidarity with the journalists and democrats whose rights have been violated and declare our commitment to fighting the Milosevic Government' s suppression of the freedom of the press and the freedom of speech.
The Serbian authorities are suppressing newspapers, independent radio stations and any radio stations which acknowledge opposition groups or parties.
I would just like to mention the example of the Studio B operators who, in addition to being pressurised by heavy fines from the authorities, saw their equipment destroyed by hired masked vandals.
In this regard, an appeal has been made to the Serbian authorities, calling upon them to bring their criminal inquiries to a close in order to punish those guilty of crimes, to put an end to the increasing suppression and to amend the recent law limiting the freedom of the media.
We call for economic support from the European Union for the independent press, but also an economic aid programme for Serbia, to assist the entire afflicted population and to help make it possible for the people of Serbia to at last live in peace and to elect a democratic government.
Mr President, I believe that we are all of one mind today as to how this topic should be handled and the way the media are being treated in Serbia.
The situation in Yugoslavia is deteriorating by the day.
In fact, it seems as if Mr Milosevic and his friends are playing a three-way game by means of which they are trying to deregulate anything which can possibly be deregulated.
Tension surrounding Montenegro is mounting.
At Kosovo' s border, the situation is very unsettled and the regime in Belgrade is creating a climate in which large-scale accidents are likely.
The last few weeks have been marked by a series of repressive measures against the independent media.
This ranged from high fines to direct intimidation.
In addition, there is talk of a kind of internal isolation.
It is increasingly difficult to enter the country.
I experienced this myself a couple of weeks ago when I tried to attend a few conferences of opposition parties in Serbia.
During that weekend, I was refused an entry visa whilst, two weeks prior to this, many international guests had been able to attend that bizarre conference staged by Milosevic.
It shows that every effort is being made to keep out outside influences.
There is also talk of curtailing communication by telephone, e-mail and keeping tabs on written correspondence.
The government seems keen to remove the opposition from local authorities, where they have been entitled to be since the previous local elections.
The new regime can only win the new local elections, expected in May, if the opposition is, in effect, eliminated.
I find this a dangerous game.
Consequently, we would like to see extensive protests against this media repression, but the EU should also look for ways to provide direct support to Serbia' s independent media.
The latter is a vital lifeline for the opposition which will be mounting campaigns again this spring and which certainly deserves our support, also where the media is concerned.
Mr President, we have started a new round - the umpteenth - in Milosevic' s war against the free media. So much is clear.
It seems to be heralding the elections in a perverse kind of way.
The campaign has started and anyone who disagrees with him needs to keep their mouths shut.
It is really unacceptable that elections will soon take place - allegedly formal, democratic elections - in a country where the opposition has first been left without any tool to express itself.
It is a trademark of a totalitarian regime which knows all too well that free, independent media are a nuisance and pose a threat, even to a regime such as that of Milosevic.
The EU' s support - on which we are probably all agreed - can roughly take two forms.
It would be beneficial to support the media in the neighbouring countries: Croatia and a number of other countries have been mentioned.
I am in favour of this.
But it can never replace support provided to the media in Yugoslavia, in Serbia, media which deserve this support.
The EU makes a difference.
The EU has made a difference in the past with its support. It has an obligation to do this in future and should also be given the means to do this.
This is fine within the framework of the new CARA programme, but it is also particularly important that this should happen in two weeks' time, in conjunction with the Stability Pact.
At the finance conference on the Stability Pact, the European Union can and must commit itself to a number of programmes.
The programmes are ready, the necessity is there; let us take swift and unambiguous action.
Mr President, whichever way we view the Balkans, in the light of recent atrocities or future events in terms of the Stability Pact, we always seem to come up against this horrifying character of Milosevic and his cronies, people who have a string of crimes against humanity to answer for and who should urgently be taken to the Court of Justice in The Hague.
This crook, this old communist crook, is able to remain in power on account of his virtual monopoly of radio and TV and his oppression of any critical independent alternative, among other factors.
Various actions have been undertaken on the part of the European Union, such as providing independent stations with equipment.
But now that one station after the other is being closed down, the EU will need to act again in consultation with the affected parties.
We just heard that Mr Wiersma was denied a visa to visit the opposition in Belgrade.
It is most peculiar that the European Union is not really aware that we too have this tool at our disposal and that, for example, we should, in fact, deny entry to the EU to the Serbian football hooligans in return, because they are people who take advantage of the Milosevic regime in the most shocking manner.
Now that the Stability Pact will be coming into its own, the help of the neighbouring states will provide a new and sound alternative, especially now that Croatia has experienced a political U-turn.
Alternative reports can be directly provided via stations in Croatia and also in Montenegro.
The Stability Pact can only succeed if Serbia is a democratic constitutional state, not before, and once the criminals have been brought to justice.
As long as Milosevic and his friends can introduce laws which undermine the traditional human rights and human freedoms, as long as this is the case, the outlook for Serbia remains bleak.
It is unfortunate that the internal opposition is so weak and so divided nationally.
The European Union will need to look for powers in Serbia which are not driven by this blinkered nationalism but by values whose observance has also proved to benefit humanity in the European Union.
Mr President, we will gladly support our compromise resolution, especially once the GUE/NGL has pulled out.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the first time that we have debated the media in Serbia; we have been discussing this matter for years.
We should remember that, in October 1998, once NATO considered that the first planned attack on Serbia in order to help the Kosovars was over, because Milosevic had allegedly given way and allowed unarmed OSCE observers into the country, that it was precisely at this point that this Information Act was issued and began causing so many problems for the independent media: and now we are looking at the result.
It has become clear over the last two years that the media are being increasingly sidelined.
But we have already said that.
How weak must the Milosevic regime really feel, given how it treats the media?
Apparently he is terrified that the awful truth of his inhumane treatment of all Serbian citizens over the years, even against the Serbs in Serbia, might finally be revealed to the majority of these citizens, terrified that the people might soon deal with Milosevic and his henchmen the way the Romanians dealt with Ceaucescu.
I think he is terrified of this and we should help the media so that they can spread the truth about Milosevic and his regime.
Mr President, apparently, the Milosevic regime is not tired of fighting battles, not by a long shot.
Recently, it has taken systematic action against local stations, in particular.
It does not flinch from using violence in these activities.
Neither do the government-run media shrink from launching a full-blown witch hunt against the country' s independent media. They are then termed rather scornfully 'NATO agents' and 'traitors of the mother country' .
It is not by chance that the powerful Serbian police apparatus operates mainly at local level, especially in those towns and cities where the opposition emerged victorious in the 1996 local elections.
With the same elections round the corner and parliamentary elections not too far off either, many in Serbia suspect that the Milosevic regime has already launched its own campaign.
The target, regional radio and television stations, is an obvious one from a Milosevic viewpoint.
Anyone in Serbia' s small and medium-sized towns who wants to see and hear anything other than what is spouted parrot-fashion by the state media based in Belgrade is heavily reliant on these stations.
By the way: the few independent papers that do exist are hard to come by in the provinces.
This once again underlines the significance of a political counter weight on the Serbian air waves.
As can be expected, Serbia' s dictator is fighting his battle against the as yet independent media in an underhand manner.
Legalistic arguments over missing licences or outstanding financial state payments mask the true political intentions: to silence his own people as much as possible.
What did receive the official seal of approval for the Serbian population, however, were the politically correct pop music stations of Slobo' s son Marko and daughter Marija.
Given this sad situation, all those in Serbia who stand up for the freedom of the press deserve our support.
This is not just verbal support, but also tangible support in the form of new transmission equipment being provided to the affected stations, following consultation, as stipulated in paragraph 3 of the present joint resolution.
Milosevic' s willing servants are then welcome to hold on to the confiscated technical equipment.
Situation in Iraq:
Mr President, the majority of the Security Council - France, China, Russia - is now in favour, subject to certain conditions, of lifting the embargo imposed on Iraq nearly ten years ago.
Imposed on the Iraqi people I should say.
The UN inspectors responsible for monitoring disarmament in Iraq have destroyed or ordered the destruction of the stocks of arms, material and products that could lead to the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.
They have made sure that Iraq has no long-range missiles that could threaten its neighbours.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has concluded, after a number of investigations on the ground, that Iraq has no capacity to produce nuclear weapons, as has been confirmed by the reports of three groups of experts on Iraq, and as the UN Security Council' s Resolution 1284 confirms today.
That is why our resolution calls for this embargo to be lifted.
Nonetheless, the US Government refuses to definitively lift the embargo, on the pretext that Iraq has not respected its obligations.
Without offering the slightest proof, Washington continues to accuse Iraq of secretly manufacturing biological and chemical weapons.
In response to this concern - which, according to the experts, is unfounded - France has proposed to the Security Council that the lifting of the embargo be accompanied by further inspections relating to disarmament and by controls on Iraqi imports.
Washington has refused this proposal too, thus creating a situation which primarily hits the Iraqi people and not their leaders.
According to the UN humanitarian agencies, several hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, including some 500 000 children, have died prematurely because of the embargo, for lack of food, medicines or adequate care.
For the first time in ten years, an American delegation of advisors and congressmen published a report yesterday, on 14 March, on their return from a visit to Iraq. In it they call for the embargo to be lifted for humanitarian reasons.
According to that delegation, the 'oil for food' programme is a totally inadequate response to the urgent physical needs of the Iraqis.
Mr Eric Rouleau, the former French Ambassador, speaks of a slow-motion genocide.
Our resolution therefore calls for an end to this situation.
However, we also think we need a broader debate on this subject.
That is why we are not putting this resolution to the vote today.
On an issue as serious as this one, we prefer, first of all, to call for a Commission and Council declaration.
We are therefore proposing that this debate be deferred to the month of April.
At that time, we will endeavour to obtain the support of all those who want to bring this inhumane embargo to an end and to do so, needless to say, without giving Saddam Hussein' s regime a blank cheque.
Mr President, the situation before us arises from the Iraqi Government' s refusal to accept United Nations Resolution 1284.
As things stand at the moment, the Iraqi government is not prepared to accept this resolution, and there is a real danger that when the United Nations Commission responsible for monitoring the destruction of weapons of mass destruction applies for an entrance visa it will be refused. The British and American Governments have already given it to be understood that, in this case, hostilities would be resumed.
It is therefore possible that, in a few months' time, we will have a major military clash on our hands, not just the ticking over of long drawn out hostilities as, sadly, is the case even now - the bombs continue to fall periodically - but large-scale bombings within the space of a few weeks.
I feel that we should focus our attention on the possibility of preventing this from happening.
I am sure that the Iraqi Government is prepared to accept Resolution 1284 - a fact confirmed by contact with the Iraqi leaders - but it needs clarification on certain points which are referred to in the Resolution.
It must be made clear that, at the end of the United Nations mission, the embargo will be lifted - not just suspended, but lifted once and for all.
No one will consider rebuilding Iraq if it is obvious that there will only be four months of stability, and that, after that, the embargo could be reimposed without fresh, credible reasons.
We have attempted to besiege Iraq and to force the Iraqi people to change their government through the embargo and we have not succeeded, even though we have been trying for seven and a half years.
Instead of driving the Iraqis to rebel against the regime in power, the embargo has induced them to hostility towards the West, and in any case, has made them incapable of any kind of action.
I feel that it would be more destabilising for the regime to return to a more comfortable situation in terms of trade, to a situation in which the people have at least some hope of happiness, rather than to continue with the embargoes which, at this stage, are not succeeding in overthrowing the regime, but are simply inflicting enormous suffering on the people and, in particular, on Iraqi children.
Iraqis are not going to die of starvation.
There is no famine, but there is an extremely serious health problem: the water and drainage systems have disintegrated and sewage water and drinking water mix, creating dysentery rates which send the infant mortality rate sky high.
The people need more than medicine: they need us to go out there and rebuild their water supply network, their drainage system and their power stations, restoring an adequate quality of life.
I feel that our resolution should also serve to reassure the State of Israel.
We must not forget that Iraq does not possess any nuclear weapons and is not likely to be able to produce any, but it is also true that if it did, its government, or part of it, would use them.
We must therefore make it clear to Israel that a major concern of our policy is the defence of the State of Israel and the right of the State of Israel to exist.
We must draw up a balanced resolution which is acceptable to all the parties involved if we want to avoid the military clash which is lurking over the horizon: not a demagogic declaration, but a political proposal in which Europe takes control in order to protect world peace, exercising its key role in this area with due responsibility.
Mr President, I must confess that I am extremely unhappy that we are not going to vote on this motion today. With every passing moment, we are rushing towards the danger of a military clash which must be avoided.
I called for the issue to be debated during the last part-session, and I wonder at the fact that a month passed before our socialist friends managed to reach a consensus with us regarding a motion, even though there should not have been any difficulties as we agree on the basic points.
Nevertheless, I realise that it is also important for us to achieve as great a consensus as possible in order to give our governments a firm basis.
However, I call for no more time to be wasted, for I would not like us, as has happened in the past, to once again have to discuss what we should have done to preserve peace once war has already started.
Mr Buttiglione, if I may summarise, you are confirming the note the Chair has received in the meantime, on behalf of your Group, and in agreement with Mr Naïr, to the effect that this resolution will be withdrawn.
But the debate will continue, regardless of what is going to happen in the next part-session in April and which I hope will accord with the political wishes the two of you have expressed here.
So the debate continues and the resolutions are withdrawn.
Mr President, I too am sorry that the vote will not now be taking place.
I am concerned, as are the other speakers, at the plight of the people in Iraq.
One should never forget that the plight of the people in Iraq is being inflicted upon them by their own government.
We should not forget that in January this year Parliament passed a resolution asking that the Kuwaiti prisoners of war still imprisoned in Iraq should be released or at least that details should be given to their families and that there should be compliance with the United Nations resolutions.
That has not happened and we must be quite unequivocal in sending the message to Iraq, and indeed to the people of Kuwait, that we in Europe are not going to forget and are not going to ignore the plight of those people still being improperly imprisoned in Iraq.
We want to make that message as loud and clear and unequivocal as we possibly can.
Mr President, the UN sanctions have become a weapon of mass destruction, claiming at least 200 children's lives every day.
Dennis Halliday, who resigned from his position as director of the UN humanitarian mission in Iraq in protest at the sanctions, confirms the UNICEF statistics - five to six thousand children die every month as a direct result of the sanctions.
Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has been speaking out against the sanctions imposed in violation of international law, which prohibits the starving of civilians as a method of warfare.
She says: 'How can you expect me to condemn human rights abuses in Algeria, China and elsewhere when the United Nations themselves are responsible for the situation in Iraq?' The UN economic sanctions have denied Iraqis spare parts to restore infrastructure, making water and airborne infectious disease rampant.
Furthermore, the shortage of medical and food aid has made deaths from these treatable diseases epidemic.
The UN estimates that five to six thousand children die unnecessarily each month due to sanctions, even after the UN food for oil programme.
The sanctions constitute relentless lethal force, and innocent Iraqi people caught between opposing forces are paying the price.
It cannot continue.
John Pilger's documentary two weeks ago on British television showed quite clearly what the situation is, and nobody with an ounce of humanitarian concern in them can ignore this plight and can persecute the innocent people who have no say over Saddam Hussein.
This is ridiculous: a war is being waged against voiceless children basically because the United States, and indeed the British, are supporting this kind of inhumanity to their fellow man.
Mr President, we are spending a few minutes discussing an issue which, although seemingly a long way from Europe, is really close by because, in today' s world, trouble spots can reverberate throughout the entire world.
It is in the interests of all of us to prevent a new crisis and a new war in Kashmir, because, in the final analysis, it would come down to a military conflict between two countries which are equipped with atomic weapons, which are striving for atomic weapons and which are prepared to acquire atomic weapons.
Whatever the details, whichever way you look at it, it is a damned dangerous situation which we have to avoid.
Without making a value judgement, I think that both countries, India and Pakistan, must exercise extreme restraint. The one with regard to increasingly frequent violations of its borders and the other with regard to increasingly frequent proven discrimination against sections of the population, especially Muslim sections of the population in India.
I do not want to make an assessment, I do not want to put it on the scales, but both sides are guilty of fanaticism, in this case religious fanaticism and extremism, which is making this trouble spot more and more dangerous.
The European Union - and we have debated human rights, xenophobia and discrimination at length over the past few days - must fight against this extremism with all the means at its disposal wherever it occurs, at home, in the candidate countries or throughout the entire world.
We have to support all available initiatives.
We are not the ones in the hot seat when it comes to taking initiatives. The United Nations and, without doubt, the United States of America find themselves in this position.
But it is incumbent upon us to state clearly that this conflict needs to be resolved, not exacerbated.
In this sense, Mr President, I consider it important for Europe to raise its voice and call on both countries, both India and Pakistan, to do whatever they can and to offer them both international aid if they consider that it is needed or makes sense in order to resolve this conflict.
What we must not do is keep quiet.
Mr President, I am pleased that we are debating this resolution today even though I would have preferred the ELDR resolution to have been the one we are debating.
India and Pakistan have carried on this conflict for over fifty years now.
There were UN resolutions that called for a plebiscite for the people of Kashmir all that time ago, and still nothing has happened.
It is even more important now that we find a solution, especially as both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers.
If there is another war across that border, I believe it could turn into a nuclear war, and that will be a problem not only for India and Pakistan and the people of Kashmir but for all of us.
That is why I hope India and Pakistan will come to the negotiating table, together with the people of Kashmir.
I would like to see either the European Union or the USA acting as an honest broker, as a mediator, to try to find an end to this dispute.
But whatever happens, the human rights abuses must stop.
We have daily reports of rapes, murder, torture, and a lot of people say, "Oh, this is an exaggeration" .
But when I was in Azad Kashmir and I went to one of the refugee camps a few years ago I was very moved by the first-hand accounts I heard.
I was even more moved when I went into a tent where the women and children were.
I went up to one woman and although we could not speak each other' s languages we stood there and hugged each other.
That woman was sobbing her heart out.
I could almost touch the pain, really feel the pain of that woman.
She was not acting it, she was not pretending it - nobody goes to a refugee camp for fun.
They were there because they had been tortured, they had been mistreated and they were escaping.
That was not an isolated incident, and it is still happening today.
We must find a solution.
They must come to the negotiating table.
Mr President, I am delighted that we can discuss this almost forgotten conflict. It has not been completely forgotten in the sense that political refugees who live in our own towns and neighbourhoods come and talk to us about this problem.
I am then often ashamed at how little influence we can exert as a huge economic power in the political field.
This is why I welcome the debate on this conflict today.
However, we should not just treat it as a conflict between Pakistan and India regarding the respective spheres of influence that the two countries want to see established.
Very often, the people who actually live there are not taken into account. Although the UN resolutions of 1948 and 1949 stipulated that the fate of Kashmir and Jammu should be decided by a referendum under international supervision, this never actually happened.
India and Pakistan were supposed to attempt this on their own, but this only led to a whole raft of small conflicts which - and the previous speakers were right to underline this - have taken on more threatening proportions since both countries have become nuclear powers.
This appears to have awakened world opinion again.
I am convinced that international mediation is desirable and necessary.
I am therefore happy to concur with what Kofi Annan said concerning this matter, but I do hope that this will not prejudice the right to self-determination on the part of the peoples involved.
Mr President. Over a year ago, in February 1999, there was hope for new relations between India and Pakistan.
In the Lahore declaration, both presidents confirmed their determination to comply with the 1972 Simla agreement.
Unfortunately, the Lahore process came to a standstill during the clash over Kargil between May and July 1999.
The latest development in Kashmir is worrying.
We condemn the continuing human rights violations, the religious fanaticism, the sabotage and the terrorism.
The cause lies in activities by rebels who are operating across the border, across the line of control from the Pakistani side and systematically attacking unarmed civilians.
India has repeatedly accused the government and Islamabad of backing the guerrillas with technical and military know-how.
Border crossings have to be prevented along a 700 km stretch of country which is hard to monitor.
The political and military situation needs to be further stabilised in order to create a climate for bilateral talks.
The Indian government has already declared that it is prepared to resume negotiations, provided that the demarcation line is strictly adhered to and fundamentalist tendencies are checked.
When US President Clinton visits South-East Asia at the end of March - James Elles referred to this - and if we are to visit India in April as the SAARC delegation of the European Parliament, then the subject of Kashmir will need to go to the top of the agenda.
We must work on achieving a rapprochement between the two neighbouring states, the Islamic state of Pakistan and the multinational state of India.
It is up to Commissioner Patten and the high representative of the Council, Mr Solana, to ensure that the European Union has a chance to distinguish itself as a successful international mediator in conflict situations.
First, on the presidential elections in Peru, the Peruvian authorities invited both the EU presidency and the Commission to send observers to the elections.
A consultation took place between the Commission and the Member States, concluding that the situation does not justify the organisation and deployment of a full EU observation mission.
Some Member States announced, however, that they would be sending observers on a bilateral basis including, in some cases, representatives of their national parliaments.
They are also supporting the mission of observers of the Organisation of American States, led by the former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Guatemala, Mr Eduardo Stein.
On the human rights situation in Chechnya I have the following comments.
The Commission is also deeply concerned about increasing evidence of human rights abuses in Chechnya.
We want Russia to comply with its OSCE/Council of Europe commitments and seek a political settlement, allow independent investigations on reported human rights abuses, improve the climate for an independent press to operate, and address the legitimate requests of humanitarian operators.
These issues are also mentioned in your resolution.
It was exactly these issues I discussed very directly with the Russian Government during my visit to the region at the beginning of February.
The Commission also reiterated this message through Foreign Minister Ivanov during the ministerial troika on 2 March, where we submitted to him a number of concrete proposals including ECHO assessment missions to Chechnya, NGO access and basic requests, visits of EU diplomats to the region before presidential elections to report on civil conditions, the humanitarian situation, alleged human rights abuses and investigations.
We are still waiting for an answer from the Russian authorities on these concrete proposals.
On the media situation in Serbia, the mounting series of actions taken against Studio B by the authorities last week are wholly unacceptable and we deplore them.
The increasing pressure put on the independent media shows just how important those media are.
The European Commission has made great efforts to support the independent media in Serbia.
In December 1999 we approved a EUR 3.3 million programme of support.
We have put aside an emergency envelope of funding which will be able to provide equipment and survival funds for these media, including such television stations as Studio B. The Commission is allocating new personnel for the implementation of media projects, and our contracts with beneficiaries have been streamlined to try and speed up the process of the delivery of grants.
Satellite equipment is being distributed across the region to Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia.
The European Commission's Europe-by-satellite service is continuing its support by making available time on its service for independent TV stations in Serbia to broadcast information which will reach the rest of the region and encourage exchange of programmes.
On Iraq, I have the following comments: the Commission is concerned about the unilateral Iraqi decision to oppose the acceptance of UN Security Council resolution 1284 and its subsequent delaying of the operation of the new monitoring instrument UNMOVIC and the easing of the sanction regime.
This will only prolong the crisis in Iraq.
Oil for food remains the best short-term option to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi population.
In the longer term, the economic and social situation in Iraq can only be improved by increased economic activities stimulated by lifting sanctions.
Ways should be pursued to engage the Iraqi government in a dialogue on the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions which might lead to a gradual easing of sanctions.
But let us be clear - the key to the lifting of sanctions lies with the Iraqis.
The Commission has, since the Gulf War in 1991, been the major donor of humanitarian aid to Iraq, to the tune of over EUR 242 million.
Another EUR 8.6 million is allocated from the 2000 ECHO budget.
The Commission is, however, concerned about the restrictions imposed by the Iraqi Government on NGO operations, which may jeopardise the implementation of ECHO financed humanitarian aid programmes in Iraq.
Finally, Mr President, on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, the Commission welcomes the European Parliament's deep concern regarding the Kashmir conflict reflected in the different draft resolutions.
The international community's concern for the region is a legitimate one, particularly as both sides possess nuclear weapons and as dialogue between them has, at this stage, effectively broken down.
Precisely because of this impasse and the high risks involved, third parties must adopt a balanced approach.
Third parties may urge both sides to de-escalate military confrontation in a structured way and resume comprehensive dialogue with a view to relaunching the Lahore peace process.
Pakistan should be asked to put a stop to infiltration of paramilitary personnel crossing over from their side of the line of control.
India should be encouraged to look for and explore the full potential towards internal political solutions to meet the expectations of the Jammu and Kashmir populations in line with the possibility for enhanced autonomy as enshrined in its constitution.
The Commission believes that a stand on the issue should take the present extreme sensitivity of the situation into account, especially with a view to the upcoming EU summit with India, where Kashmir will certainly be discussed.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m., except on the situation in Iraq, as agreed.
Combatting organised crime
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0248/2000 by Mr Di Lello Finuoli, Mr Manisco and Mr Papayannakis, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on crime linked to illegal trafficking in Apulia (Italy);
B5-0259/2000 by Mr Procacci, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the fight against organised crime in South-East Europe;
B5-0267/2000 by Mr Lavarra and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the fight against organised crime;
B5-0274/2000 by Mrs Frassoni and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the urgent situation created by crime linked to illegal trafficking in Apulia (Italy);
B5-0277/2000 by Mr Le Pen and others, on behalf of the Technical Group of Independent Members, on organised crime;
B5-0284/2000 by Mr Fitto and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on organised crime.
Mr President, I support the motion for a joint resolution tabled by a large number of my fellow Members and supported by the most representative groups of this Parliament, for we must call urgently upon the governments of the Member States to intensify the fight against organised crime and make it more effective where, in addition to cigarette smuggling, this involves drug and arms trafficking and, even more importantly, the trafficking of human beings.
Italians are familiar with the difficulties of dealing with organised crime.
We are familiar with the way in which organised crime uses activities such as cigarette smuggling, which do not always seem, and I stress that this is only an illusion, to be very serious, in order to sabotage any possible opposition.
Europe has a major duty to promote the development of these new areas, many of which look set to join the Community, but there is every likelihood that all our investments will be in vain should we not succeed in defeating these organisations of gangsters which will otherwise reap all the benefit of our investments.
The means and resources donated by the European Community would not be used for healthy growth, but would serve to further strengthen the canker of underground organisations.
For this reason, I would draw attention to an extremely positive point of the resolution which calls upon the Community to monitor the economic and social development of the populations of the areas in question, because that is where we will achieve most.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the first time that we have dealt with the problem of organised crime in the European Union and there is a specific reason why we are doing so today in an urgent debate: the murder in Brindisi on 24 February of two officials of the Guardia di Finanza has again suddenly brought to light the danger faced by our colleagues in the security bodies of the Member States whose job is to protect the external borders of the European Union or work in regions which, because they are adjacent to the external borders of the European Union, are breeding grounds for organised crime.
Our colleagues in the public police departments do not only deserve our full solidarity and respect; above all, we owe it to them to acknowledge once and for all that, wherever we live in the European Union, officials of the Guardia di Finanza in Apulia, for example, and I say this as a German member of parliament, are protecting the territory and the citizens of my country.
I think that we in this European Parliament owe it to the relatives of the victims to acknowledge that respect for the dead is not an Italian but a European matter.
That is the first point which I wished to make here.
The second is a political challenge which, in my view, we are not taking seriously enough.
We talk of the need to combat organised crime efficiently and yet we too frequently overlook the fact that the European internal market which we ourselves have created, with freedom of movement of services, capital, goods and persons, has created a huge free zone of economic activity in which, wherever legal transactions can be freely conducted, illegal transactions can also be freely conducted.
In creating this huge legal economic area, we have also created a huge illegal economic area and it is now possible to operate on a large scale throughout the whole of Europe for the purposes of smuggling, trafficking in human beings, credit card fraud, drug trafficking, prostitution and every other possible form of serious crime.
However, the police counter-strategies needed still mainly come within the jurisdiction of the nation states.
The instruments to fight organised crime are organised at intergovernmental level.
Where I live, in the district of Aachen, there is a town called Herzogenrath.
The Netherlands are on one side of the street and Germany is on the other and if you rob a bank on the German side and escape to the Dutch side in time, then you are lucky because no German police is allowed to follow you.
This is a practical example of the difficulties inherent in the fight against organised crime and clearly illustrates the need for a cross-border, or rather a pan-European approach.
The point I wish to make is that, when it comes to serious crime which can only be combated at a pan-European level, the European Union needs independent operational powers for the European police agencies under the control of the European Parliament.
I think that, as politicians in the Council, the Commission and Parliament, we owe it to those who fall victim to increasing organised crime to create the instruments needed to fight organised crime efficiently.
Mr President, for a long time, cigarette smuggling has had a rather romantic appeal in Italy, which it acquired particularly after the war thanks to the influence of neorealist films.
However, the events taking place in Puglia and the South of Italy are not at all romantic.
Quite the opposite. The tragic death of two customs and excise officers is a European issue as well as a question of Italian public safety, and it is not just a question of European safety, but also, and above all, an issue which has a bearing on our relations with our neighbours across the Adriatic.
The European Union is making a substantial contribution to the reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia.
The actions of the local authorities and our initiatives to assist them are absolutely vital elements in the fight against organised crime, and are therefore also crucial for the safety of Europeans.
We regret that the joint resolution did not take up our suggestion to make the new reconstruction programmes conditional upon an undertaking by the governments of the former Yugoslavia to cooperate actively in the fight against organised crime.
However, we hope that the Council and the Commission will be able to mobilise these governments through their endeavours and that an effective action of this kind will be instigated at the Conference scheduled for 19 and 20 May, in which both institutions are to take part.
Mr President, the Tampere Summit last year took note of the extremely difficult situation of some of the regions of Europe, and set the date for the forthcoming Conference of 19 and 20 May next which is on the very subject of the security and development of this area.
Europe is attempting to enlarge its borders and create an area of freedom, security and justice.
The Adriatic is a border and so is the Ionian Sea.
If we want to give weight to the processes of European enlargement, we must reassure our citizens, our fellow citizens who live in those areas, that our words are not just hot air but authentic projects which will genuinely affect their situation, and that, when we talk of law and security, we will provide them with the necessary means, conditions and systems.
We have already paid too high a price in deaths - too many civilians gave their lives in the raids in Puglia - and we have lost too many men from the forces of law and order.
In consideration also of the existence of the Stability Pact, we need to take practical steps to show that the enlargement of Europe will also mean greater security for our people.
Mr President, when it comes to this issue, I am in two minds.
On the one hand, it is only natural - and I was the rapporteur for enlargement to the east and internal security - that we need to worry about higher security standards, not only in the candidate countries, as we do in the EU itself, but of course in all other European countries.
We need a pan-European system of internal security, and here the Balkans are naturally a special cause for concern because we have assumed responsibility in Kosovo and the neighbouring regions.
On the other hand, however, we must take care not to classify certain peoples in a particular manner.
We are therefore against point 4 of the joint resolution which names Montenegro.
Of course, Montenegro also has internal security problems, as we do in the EU for that matter.
But Montenegro presently faces a huge threat; as you will have heard, and as officially confirmed by NATO yesterday, Milosevic has again started military operations against Montenegro.
We must be careful not to give him an excuse.
Therefore, solidarity in the fight against organised crime, yes, but please, no specific passage on Montenegro; just support for Montenegro in its struggle for greater freedom.
Mr President, I consider the consensus reached in this Chamber on the need for a new initiative to fight organised crime very important, in particular because of the realisation which spread from the Group on behalf of which I am speaking, that the dramatic events in Brindisi are not just an issue which is confined to the Region of Puglia, but that they draw on values, principles and objectives which are an integral part of the new European policy and on the question of justice and security for the citizens of the Union.
Parliament and the institutions of the Union must take due account of this perspective and provide a rational response to the fear and insecurity experienced by the citizens in the face of crime, and it must fight all aspects of crime, including those who resort to brutal violence with no qualms about killing the forces of law and order and defenceless citizens, and the supranational financial and economic criminal organisations.
The links between criminal groups in different countries and the increasingly wide geographical spread of crime call for a supranational response.
After all, security is one of Europe' s objectives in the Treaty of Amsterdam and was on the agenda of the European Council held in Tampere in the autumn of 1999.
We hope that substantial decisions similar to those proposed in Tampere will be taken regarding the creation of common investigation groups, a European police academy and a genuine European judiciary such as EUROJUS.
This is the path we must take, taking due account of the fight against crime taking place in the Balkan States in our relations with these countries.
Finally, may I also express my sympathy for the families of the victims and recognise before this Chamber the extreme sense of duty shown by those two officers in that tragic event which took place on 24 February.
The Commission has examined with great interest the resolution concerning the threat posed by the development of illicit activities of criminal groups operating in several countries of south-eastern Europe.
We share the preoccupation expressed in the resolution as to the risk of seeing the reconstruction and development efforts in the context of the Stability Pact being jeopardised by international criminal networks that engage mainly in trafficking in human beings, trafficking in drugs and arms as well as in smuggling of goods.
Clearly a lot of these criminal activities have serious negative consequences for the Community and its Member States.
As you are aware, the European Council has shown its strong determination to fight against organised crime and has demonstrated the need for a coherent and coordinated approach by adopting in June 1997 an Action Plan to Combat Organised Crime.
Although many actions envisaged aim to encourage cooperation between the fifteen Member States, the plan does not neglect the need also to develop wider forms of international cooperation.
The tangible result has been the conclusion by the Council in 1998 of the Pre-accession Pact on cooperation against crime with the candidate countries.
As regards the specific question raised by the resolution and related to the situation in the Balkans, the Commission agrees that there is a real danger of massive development of organised crime activities if no coherent and coordinated action is set up in this region associating the various donors as well as the international and regional actors.
The Commission considers that the Member States have a crucial role to play in providing their expertise and human resources in supporting specialised projects in the fight against various criminal activities in the Balkan region, including the fight against corruption.
The Commission considers that it can prove and provide a useful input to the Stability Pact by combining the Member States' expertise and the Community funds in order to set up well-targeted anti-crime projects and activities.
In this respect, the Commission is also ready to act as a coordinator and in close consultation with the special coordinator of the Stability Pact.
Furthermore, I have to underline that the Commission is preparing a proposal for a new specific financial instrument which will provide a global legal basis for the Community assistance to the whole region.
An official proposal will be presented to the Council by the end of this month and we hope that a new regulation will come into force as soon as possible, hopefully just after the summer break.
The Commission remains convinced of the crucial importance of making all the necessary efforts to support effective measures for the fight organised crime and is determined to develop, within this new framework, regional projects covering the field of justice and home affairs.
In addition, the Commission is already in a position to announce that, under its programming of the assistance envelope of regional programmes for 2000, around EUR 2 m have been earmarked for projects within the field of justice and home affairs.
Furthermore, as regards trafficking in certain goods such as the smuggling of cigarettes, and insofar as this traffic also affects the Community's territory and its financial interests, OLAF has set up multi-disciplinary and multinational task groups.
These groups work to combat organised crime whose transnational dimension has been demonstrated on several occasions. They have been established to provide support and operational assistance that focuses its investigations on the sectors and products which are most vulnerable to fraud, which is the case for cigarettes.
The results of the activities of these task groups recorded over the last few years are particularly significant.
In 1996, for instance, cigarette smuggling, mainly in the transit regime, totalled ECU 800 m.
The overall financial impact of fraud detected in this area in 1997 was an estimated ECU 1.6 bn covering Community own resources and national revenue.
The number of inquiries against cigarette smuggling even increased in 1998, although the financial impact was lower than in the previous years.
This can be explained by the continuation of large international inquiries and the success in the fight against cigarette smuggling from Andorra and against the black market in Spain.
All in all we take these threats to the Community very seriously and will continue working hard to fight them.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
CITES
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0243/2000 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Bowis, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES);
B5-0249/2000 by Mr Sjöstedt and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES);
B5-0260/2000 by Mr Davies and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES);
B5-0269/2000 by Mrs Roth-Behrendt, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES);
B5-0275/2000 by Mr de Roo and Mrs Isler Béguin, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
Mr President, first of all, I would like to apologise on behalf of Mrs Maij-Weggen, who submitted this resolution. She has had to leave earlier on account of a death and funeral in the family.
It is not the first time in this House that the CITES Convention is being mentioned.
Over the years, this Convention, with its 148 signatories, has saved many plants and animals threatened with extinction.
This often followed robust campaigning on the part of the environmental and animal-protection lobby, campaigns which were adopted many times over by the European Parliament, the national parliaments and also, for example, by the American Congress.
Once again, it seems unlikely that the correct decisions will be taken at the CITES meeting in Nairobi and once again, we will be stepping in to prevent the wrong decisions from being taken.
In this intervention, I would like to focus on three risks.
The first risk concerns the fact that a number of southern African countries have proposed moving the African elephant from appendix I to appendix II, which means that the controlled hunt will be allowed. Together, these countries would like to harvest more than 50 tonnes of ivory.
We urge the Commission and Member States not to go along with this.
The list of illegally traced ivory is already so extensive that a legal hunt would only exacerbate the problem.
In the light of the fact that over a twenty-year period, the entire population of the African elephant has plummeted from 1.3 million to 625 000, we have now reached a critical level, as is widely known.
A second risk which I would like to point out is Norway' s and Japan' s proposal to re-legalise the hunt for the minke whale in the North Atlantic and the Southern Pacific.
Again we are opposed to this, if only because these lovely animals are already being hunted down by both countries.
Re-legalisation would only further reward bad behaviour.
In addition, this minke whale is an endangered species and it would be preferable to keep to the arrangement to protect all whales.
Finally, I would like to give a third example.
Cuba has requested to move the hawksbill turtle back to appendix II.
This is the result of a typically isolated view of an animal generally threatened with extinction.
As this species mainly lays its eggs in Cuba, people think that there are plenty of them and would like to kill 500 of these tortoises per annum, only to serve them up at exclusive restaurants, with the shells being sold off to Japan.
This would be a tremendous incentive to continuing the illegal hunt.
Cuba should be ashamed of itself, making this proposal, and what is more, their own proposal does not even meet the ideology adopted by Cuba itself, to which, incidentally, I do not subscribe either.
In a nutshell, these are three examples from a series of proposals in Nairobi which cause us great concern.
We urge the Commission and Member States not to support this type of proposal but to keep CITES as it is.
Let us not start this century on a bad note but on a good note and work together to ensure that no more plants and animals are threatened with extinction.
Mr President, as the previous speaker said, this resolution is addressed to the parties to the CITES Convention meeting in Nairobi in April.
We are addressing them to try to preserve species under renewed threat, species like the Asian pangolin, the gorillas of the Congo, the elephants - through the sale of ivory - and the other species mentioned in the resolution.
I want to refer briefly to three essential measures which ought to be taken in Nairobi in the days ahead.
The first is providing information and raising awareness amongst the public, the buyers and sellers.
The second is sanction mechanisms against those who have not yet adopted legal measures to stop poachers, in particular, benefiting from impunity.
And the third is cooperation with developing countries, because sometimes trafficking and trading in threatened species is the only way to survive in their rural areas.
Mr President, protecting animal and plant species which are threatened with extinction is about more than just preserving the natural riches.
It is about a battle between civilisation and barbarism.
Maintaining bio-diversity is also about more than preventing the extinction of certain animal species, however important these may be, such as elephants and whales.
Since the individual species are unable to stand up for themselves, we need to do this for them, at home or elsewhere.
This means, for example, that the international transport of tropical animals must be regulated.
Even today, there are scandalous cases of abuse, both in legal and illegal transportation.
Over-exploitation and misuse cannot be explained by poverty alone.
They often involve ruthless traders who only have their own self-interests at heart.
Although we may not be aware of it, huge numbers of animals are also the victims of natural disasters and especially wars in Africa.
Animals are, by definition, not just there for our amusement.
It is only right that a civilised society should give their beastly fate more attention.
Mr President, at the previous CITES conference, the European Parliament almost unanimously adopted a resolution to accord the African elephant the highest status of protection.
The African elephant is still a threatened animal species, according to the IUCN.
Fourteen EU Ministers faint-heartedly abstained from the vote and, as a result, legalised the shooting of elephants in Africa.
The Dutch Minister was the only one to vote for the conservation of the elephant.
Between 10 and 20 April next, the fate of this elephant will once again feature on the agenda of the world community.
Kenya, the hosting nation, and India have tabled the proposal to grant the African elephant full protection once again. Shooting elephants in order to sell their tusks to Japan and then giving the proceeds away - at least on paper - to protect wild animals is a perverse kind of logic.
Besides which, it does not work.
South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia want to shoot even more elephants now.
This blood money also ends up in the wrong hands.
I would call on the 15 Environment Ministers, including the 6 Green Ministers, to show courage and to grant the African elephant full protection once again on 30 March during the Environmental Council.
Full protection is also needed for the hawksbill turtle which is only to be found in Cuba.
In the space of three generations, more than 80% of the population has disappeared.
Regarding the African elephant and the hawksbill turtle, the European Commission gives priority to the blood trade with Japan.
This is scandalous.
Mr President, the European Community is not a party to CITES.
The present text of the Convention permits only individual countries to join.
The Gaborone amendment to the CITES text from 1983 would allow us to become a party to the Convention.
However, this amendment has not yet entered into force due to the insufficient number of CITES parties who have ratified it.
The Commission continues its diplomatic efforts to ensure that a sufficient number of ratifications are made in order to allow the Community to play a more proactive role in this important Convention.
Notwithstanding the fact that we are not yet a party, the Community possesses legislation to implement CITES.
This legislation is amongst the most thorough and comprehensive of its kind in the world.
The Commission's policy is based on both conservation and sustainable use, principles recognising that peoples and states are the best protectors of their own wild fauna and flora.
Concerning the specific matters in Parliament's resolutions, we agree on the need to step up enforcement measures in the field of wildlife trade in India.
We will approach the Indian authorities along the lines suggested, and continue to do all we can to support and further the objectives of CITES.
Concerning the proposals for the forthcoming Conference of the CITES parties, the Commission has yet to adopt a formal proposal.
However, our general orientation on the major issues is as follows:
On whales, the Community's position should be unambiguous.
No return to commercial whaling until the International Whaling Commission deems that the appropriate management controls are in place.
We should therefore oppose the Japanese and Norwegian proposals to restart the trade.
On African elephants, we favour the maintenance of the status quo until a clear picture emerges of the impact of the international trade that was permitted in 1997.
We should not support any of the proposals that have been made.
Concerning the Cuban sea-turtle proposals, the Community should oppose the resumption of the regular annual trade in shells.
We need, however, to hold a more open position on the disposal of the Cuban shell stockpiles until we know the position of the neighbouring countries to Cuba.
Finally, on sharks, there is cause for concern, and the proposal on basking sharks should, in particular, be supported.
Here, however, CITES will need to work closely with regional fisheries bodies and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, I see from my order paper that the vote on the situation in Iraq has been withdrawn.
Can I be told at whose request, and what reasons were given for withdrawing that?
It was not the vote which was withdrawn; on the contrary, the movers of the motions themselves withdrew both their motions.
If there is no motion to vote on, then obviously no vote can then be held.
I am not aware of the reasons which prompted the movers of the motions to do this - you must ask them yourself - but clearly, if they have been withdrawn, then we cannot vote on them.
Perhaps Mr Swoboda can briefly explain what is behind this.
Mr President, you are quite right, we have withdrawn the motions for resolutions.
If I may briefly explain, we withdrew them because we shall be holding a longer, more detailed debate on this subject during the next Strasbourg session.
I think that it makes more sense, given the worsening situation in Iraq, to hold a debate once the Council and Commission have made statements detailing their position rather than under the urgency procedure.
That was our reason for withdrawing them.
Mr President, may I confirm that what Mr Swoboda just said applies equally to the EPP-ED Group.
We have withdrawn our motion for a resolution for the same reasons, i.e. the debate scheduled for April.
Thank you, Mrs Grossetête, I think the reasons are now clear.
Mr Buttiglione wishes to raise a point of order.
Mr President, I withdrew my motion in spite of my conviction that we are mistaken not to take the opportunity to intervene, now that it is time to do so and we have the possibility of achieving a general consensus on the matter.
I would stress that this is the second time that the adoption of this motion has been deferred and I hope that events do not reach crisis level before we are able to attempt to influence the situation to bring about peace.
Thank you, Mr Buttiglione.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Vote (continuation)
Mr President, although it would have been better if we had voted at lunchtime, I am happy to go ahead now.
Mr President, I support the proposal by my friend, the very honourable member, Baroness Ludford, with pleasure.
Let us proceed with the vote.
Mr President, I should just like to ask why the sudden change of mind by the members.
Mr President, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, I wish to withdraw Amendments 53 and 55 relating to paragraph 17 of the report.
It does indeed seem that the wording of these two amendments could give rise to conflicting interpretations, especially in certain language versions.
I am against ethnic classifications, because that would stigmatise immigrants.
Amendments 53 and 55 called for the term "ethnic" to be deleted.
The use of the word "data" could be taken as referring to statistics on the incidence of racism and discrimination, which could be useful; but it could also be taken as referring to the introduction of files, with all the problems that implies and which we also discussed in relation to Eurodac.
Those are the reasons why I decided to withdraw these two amendments.
Thank you.
We have noted your remarks.
Mr President, I am grateful to Mr Sylla for withdrawing these two amendments.
But I wanted to ask him whether he does not think the same problem could arise with the part of the first sentence of Amendment 54 that has not been changed and which, in the English version I have before me, reads: "stresses that the EU must collect reliable ethnic data as a basis for review" . I am concerned specifically with the terms "reliable ethnic data" and wonder whether Mr Sylla could perhaps table an oral amendment relating to this notion of "ethnic data" ?
The mover of the motion had the foresight to withdraw the motion before the vote.
We are not therefore voting on it.
(Parliament approved the motion for a resolution)
Mr President, I do not want to delay the proceedings, I just want to ask the Bureau to consider refusing to accept any more motions for deletion in the future which delete entire paragraphs so that we can avoid the problem which has arisen today.
I would ask for this to be considered.
Mr President, I freely admit that I have room for improvement.
Mr Swoboda, that applies to both of us!
You have touched on a fundamental problem which has to do with the way in which this has been entered on the agenda.
If, according to the agenda, these proposed amendments have been submitted in time, then the President will call them and deal with them as usual.
Mr Speroni wishes to raise a point of order.
Mr President, I do not know whether there has been an interpreting error, but Mr Evans called us the "technical group of racists" , whereas we are the Technical Group of Independent Members.
I am certain it was a problem of translation.
I am convinced of it.
Report (A5-0055/2000) by Mr Belder, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission communication [COM(1999)256 - C5-0094/1999 - 1999/2099(COS)] on countering racism, xenophobia and antisemitism in the candidate countries
(Parliament approved the motion for a resolution)
Report (A5-0067/2000) by Mrs Read, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on Europe - An Information Society For All: Commission initiative [COM(1999)687 - C5-0063/2000 - 2000/2034(COS)] for the Special European Council in Lisbon on 23/24 March 2000
(Parliament approved the motion for a resolution)
Mr President, I voted against this report because I judge a good bottle of wine by its contents, not its label.
This report may well have an anti-racism label, but it contains an indigestible brew of ideologically confused nonsense and does not merit the title of an anti-racism report.
This report is beyond improvement and I warn the House not to continue making a fool of itself with such absurd reports, because the issue of anti-racism is too important to be used as the basis for some sort of ideological show battle.
Although we do not agree with many of the recitals in the report on countering racism and xenophobia, we voted for that report because it takes a stance against discrimination and in favour of the rights of minorities.
Yet we certainly do not go along with the way Parliament is congratulating itself.
First of all, because most of the proposals to promote the rights of minorities and immigrants remain vague and are not binding.
Secondly, because of the hypocrisy involved in pretending to stand up for immigrants and minorities while conducting an anti-immigrant domestic policy, if only in the form of hunting down immigrants who do not have proper papers.
Finally, the report says nothing whatsoever about the deep-rooted economic and social reasons, in particular the rate of unemployment and the worsening poverty among a growing section of the population, that encourage demagogues of the racist and xenophobic extreme right to stir up unrest.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Spanish delegation to the Group of the European People' s Party to explain why we abstained in the vote. Abstention does not normally mean taking a clear position but in this case it does.
We abstained because, on the one hand, we support the symbolism and principles of the fight against racism and xenophobia, and some of the points in this report contain important statements, for example, paragraph 8, on the functions of the European Racism and Xenophobia Information Network and paragraph 24, which invites the Member States to prioritise some very specific issues in this fight, to mention only two.
But, on the other hand, by contrast with the Haarder report which we voted for this morning, this report is long on radical demagoguery and short on legal rigour.
Now this Parliament, as co-legislator, should know that any statement it makes has either legal value or, as in this case, quasi-legal value, and that is why greater care must be taken.
Let me give you just one example of this: paragraph 22, which seeks to give substance to European citizenship, by granting rights to vote in European and local elections to third country nationals resident in the Community.
That obviously violates the Treaty right away.
It is badly drafted.
And I could give further examples of this kind of thing to justify our abstention.
Mr President, I should like to give a very brief explanation on behalf of the Austrian delegation of Socialists.
We voted in favour of this report because we believe that, a few statements notwithstanding, it is a good report, and I find the way in which parts of this report have been described during the explanations of vote totally unjustified.
We abstained on point 10.
We would have preferred a statement in keeping with the European Parliament' s resolution on Austria.
But as this point was accepted nonetheless, we voted in favour of the report on account of its fundamentally positive thrust.
- My Group and I are pleased to have voted for and supported the Ludford report which is concerning the important subject of the fight against racism and xenophobia.
Those who have voted to oppose family unity; to oppose encouragement for ethnic minorities to participate in elections; against a policy force that reflects Europe's diversity and against multi-ethnic parliaments are to be deplored and condemned.
The British Labour members and the PSE Group voted in favour of Amendment 2 to delete paragraph 17, not because we opposed the sentiments and intentions, but as it was open to possible misinterpretation or charges of ambiguity.
The fight against the racists and xenophobes in our society, those who seek to divide Europe, is one that must and will be won.
. (SV) We conservatives support most of the measures against racism and xenophobia in the Ludford report.
We are, nonetheless, abstaining from voting in the final vote because we believe that labour market legislation is an area to which the subsidiarity principle ought to be applied, as mentioned in paragraph 17.
- (FR) The Ludford report on countering racism and xenophobia, like the Haarder report on human rights in the European Union that is also before us, seem inspired by some malevolent spirit that is prompting them to go beyond the legitimate protection of the rights linked to human dignity and to methodically destroy, one by one, all the bastions of citizenship, regardless indeed of whether it is national or even European.
Both reports give the impression of aiming to defend the rights of an indiscriminate individual, who could be living anywhere at all on this planet, rather than the rights of individuals situated in time and space, who have inherited certain traditions, who uphold their own values, i.e. precisely the citizens of our respective countries, who have sent us here to protect them, and for no other purpose.
I think the approach taken in these reports is a kind of violation of our terms of reference.
For instance, the Ludford report proclaims equality between European citizens and third country nationals and goes so far as to propose that non-nationals can be employed as European officials in the same way as Member State nationals, or that they enjoy the same rights of unchecked freedom of movement and family reunification as EU nationals.
The differences are being ironed out at every level, for the Haarder report also supports equal rights for same-sex couples and the traditional family.
The two reports also join forces in calling for the right of immigrants to vote and stand for election in local and European elections.
I think that second category is highly significant.
For even if supposedly practical reasons could sometimes be trumped up for calling for their participation in local elections, the significance of their participation in European elections is purely ideological. Its aim is to show that the future Europe must not be a super-nation (even if there is a super-state) but, on the contrary, an open field, a crossing point where the rights taken away from the nations would be redistributed all over the world.
Another revealing point common to both reports is that they call for the proposed new 'rights' to be enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of EU citizens, now being drafted, on which I gave my views the day before yesterday during the debate on the Duff­Voggenhuber report.
And, of course, they insist that, in future, this document must be legally binding on the Member States.
That is another aspect that shows that this Charter, if it really was adopted in the form called for by the European Parliament - but which we will oppose absolutely - would have the effect of a mechanism for reducing the powers of the nations.
Here as ever we see that the European level is the point of least resistance in face of pressure groups, of extraneous minorities, even of foreign interests.
And once again we draw the same lesson: the citizens must keep a close guard on their powers and only delegate them where necessary to transparent institutions, devoted to their defence and over which they have full control.
- (DA) We are in favour of the humanitarian angle from which the report has been drawn up.
We are in favour of the report focusing upon the breeding grounds for racism and xenophobia in Europe.
We think it is important to combat racism and xenophobia by guaranteeing citizens the rights to education, access to the labour market etc.
It is also positive that the report should recommend that citizens of third countries should have better opportunities for integration.
For the aforesaid reasons, we have chosen to vote in favour of the report, since we basically think it is extremely important to combat racism and xenophobia.
We would emphasise, however, that we cannot support the means of combating racism and xenophobia that the report recommends.
We believe that measures such as drawing up a common asylum policy and establishing EURODAC - which would cause asylum seekers to be viewed with suspicion - would not further the fight against racism and xenophobia.
- (FR) I congratulate the rapporteur on the quality of her work on the European Commission' s report on the implementation of the European Year Against Racism (1997).
Recent events in Austria demonstrate that it is, alas, still necessary today to combat racism, antisemitism and xenophobia.
As the report points out, we really must express "horror at the entry into Government in Austria of Jörg Haider' s Freedom Party" .
Let me take this opportunity to repeat that we must keep up the pressure on the Austrian Government and continue to encourage public debate.
For there is indeed a strong risk that people will simply become used to the situation.
I repeat: the great risk is that it will become part of everyday life.
This open breach of the founding principle of our European Union, namely unconditional respect for fundamental rights, must not create a precedent.
Throughout Europe, extreme right-wing parties are hoping to exploit the entry into power of this coalition with its fascist connotations.
So it is our duty as European democrats to remain vigilant, to tempt this government into a foolish mistake that will lead to its fall.
I personally am prepared to take this fight to the bitter end.
Like the rapporteur, I believe that the ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic diversity of Europe is a source of vitality and that it is essential for Europe' s future economic prosperity and social success.
That is why the public authorities of the Member States and the EU institutions must actively promote racial equality and take concrete action to achieve greater ethnic diversity among their staff.
I also agree that leading the fight against racism and xenophobia and the promotion of equal opportunities should be an explicit responsibility allocated to one European Commissioner.
One other proposal deserves our full attention.
The report urges the Member State authorities to include, as formal requirements of school curricula and teacher training programmes, the teaching of Europe and its role in the world, including slavery and colonialism, and the history and culture of minority communities, the dangers of racism, xenophobia and intolerance, including the Holocaust and antisemitism, and the imperative of racial tolerance and the value of diversity.
Coming back to Austria, one reason why it has come to this extreme situation is perhaps that this country does not have a sufficiently objective memory of the past.
Let me conclude by asking for consideration to be given, in the framework of the IGC, to possibly amending the Treaty of Amsterdam, specifically its Article 7 which concerns action against any Member State guilty of a "serious and persistent breach" of fundamental freedoms and rights.
in writing.
(PT) We cannot fight racism and xenophobia only by legislating against them. What we really need are measures aimed at effecting a sea change in the underlying causes of the conditions which allow these phenomena to spread.
The report we are debating deals with a series of points we fully agree with, aiming principally at guaranteeing the fundamental rights of the citizens of third countries who choose one of the Member States of the European Union as a place of work and residence.
It is especially worth highlighting the need to give the citizens of third countries resident in the European Union political rights, by granting them the right to vote in local and European elections.
For those reasons, our vote is in favour of the report.
- As a former Minister in the UK for race relations I am very much aware of the need to look constantly for ways of improving relations between all groups and interests in the population.
This requires a careful mixture, firstly of education, and only when absolutely necessary, of legislation.
This report totally fails to provide a balanced approach.
It is gesture politics at their worst with the clear ideology of the author taking precedence over good sense.
It is damaging through its stridency.
It gives no credit for the great achievements in race relations in EU states.
It offers only a defeatist agenda, not one of a positive nature.
It insults those who are trying to improve a situation and therefore it is offensive to many.
In short, it is an abuse of the opportunities offered by our Parliament to debate and determine issues like this which are vital and important and deserve better than this approach.
Those of us who really care know the great difficulties of this subject.
We simply cannot support such an appalling set of proposals, particularly as Baroness Ludford's approach could have the unfortunate result of turning the majority against the minority rather than harmonising relations.
This report would undermine rather than improve race relations.
That cannot be a desirable outcome.
- (FR) Sarah Ludford' s report is a masterpiece of morbid and destructive rage against the identities of the peoples and nations of Europe, their rights to be different, their rights to make their own choices, to be their own masters, to refuse social, cultural and institutional disintegration.
This pathological, fanatical and obsessive 'anti-racist' mania is being used merely as a psychological lever in the process of colonising Europe and forcing its people into submission.
The sole purpose of this frenzied attempt to heap guilt on the Europeans, who are in fact generous, welcoming, open to other cultures, anything but racist or intolerant, is to make them accept the unacceptable, to persuade them to submit in silence to a mass, general colonisation, to a new society in which they will become no more than a subjugated minority.
The moral inquisition, propaganda and constant psychological conditioning to which we are being subjected are worthy of the most despicable methods applied in the communist regimes' 're-education' camps.
But this report will at least have the merit, thanks to the Baroness and her cronies, of letting us find out who the new collaborators are.
Stand up and be counted!
- (FR) Europe is facing real difficulties today.
Like it or not, it is not the path of glory it aspired to be for the citizens of the Member States.
It reflects what it is, namely a remote and restrictive machine whose sole purpose seems to be to enact finicky legislative rules obviously aimed at centralisation and standardisation.
It is against that background that this year, as ever, we are once again debating human rights in the world and in the Union, accompanied this time by a debate on countering racism in the European Union and the candidate states.
That could have allowed us to inject a little 'soul' into a system sadly in need of it.
But that was not to be.
The rapporteur, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and the plenary have served us up documents that smell of death.
These pseudo-defenders of the rights of man have quite simply forgotten that man is not a concept, a point in a political programme.
The human being has a dignity, a mission that are far superior, if not contrary, to what is being put before us today.
Respect for the human being means recognising that his legitimate rights correspond to legitimate obligations, that he must exercise his freedom responsibly, that his natural dignity presupposes moral points of reference.
It is not a question of restricting that freedom but, on the contrary, of becoming aware that man lives within a family and national community, that his humanity imposes rules on him, failing which civilisation becomes synonymous with barbarism.
I would not so much say that the European Parliament has missed an opportunity as that it has once again been true to itself, libertarian and, in the final analysis, liberticidal.
- (FR) I could not vote for the report by Baroness Ludford and I want my abstention to be perceived as an expression of strong contempt, because of the incongruities and exaggerations contained in certain passages of this report.
Various exaggerated statements and demands, especially those concerning third country nationals residing in the Member States of the European Union, are of a provocative nature and lead to reactions that the report terms racist. Yet the majority of the citizens of our Member States often cannot understand why it should be absolutely essential for third country nationals residing in the EU to enjoy the same rights as them, including the right to vote, when there are no reciprocal rights at all for EU nationals residing in those third countries.
I know that in making these points I risk being demonised by the media and falling into the trap some sections of the report are setting for those among us who still dare express their opinion in the face of the exaggerations on which Baroness Ludford' s report bases what it sees as a rise in racism and xenophobia.
- (FR) Today, the European Parliament is presenting us with the new man in a new world.
The Ludford report is not an account of the good or bad situation as regards racism in the European Union; it is the political programme of an extreme left-wing libertarianism that, in the end, shows little concern for the natural rights of man.
In fact, reading this document would suggest that the countries of Europe, especially the Member States, are hellish places where the most elementary rights are trampled under foot daily, where the governments and their authorities, including, and I quote, "the police, justice and immigration services" , pursue totalitarian and inhumane policies.
Oh how wonderful it must be to live in China, in Cuba or in North Korea!
Faced with these tyrants, the European Union is keeping vigil: since it is close to the people, and so concerned with their happiness, that it manages their daily lives, it will know how to promote new and hitherto unknown rights; since its foundations and the way it works are so democratic, it will know how to create this new Europe freed of all sin; it will know how to be the undisputed guide that can lead all its followers towards 'a brighter future' .
This is not serious.
Communities, whether national or European, need points of reference that are not exclusive but that guarantee enduring relations.
Our nations are often pluri-secular, they have always attracted populations and ethnic groups different from their own, who have added their value to that of their hosts.
This happened without problem, because our nations presented these newcomers with identified systems within which they could easily find their bearings and their place.
Mrs Ludford is proposing a society with no model, where the law of the strongest would be bound to prevail.
Freedom means a just and identical law for all; for each individual or each group to have its own law spells anarchy and barbarism.
The European edifice will not be built simply by the addition of those who make it up; it will be the result of a concordance of views about its destiny and the ways to achieve it, or it will not be built at all.
Today, the Ludford report puts us at a remove from that Europe.
Report (A5-0055/2000) by Mr Belder
- (FR) The European Commission presented this communication on countering racism in the candidate countries in response to the request by the Vienna European Council of 11 and 12 December 1998.
I welcome the communication, which reflects the European Union' s resolve to help the candidate countries to combat racism, xenophobia and antisemitism with determination, and to satisfy the Copenhagen criteria relating to human rights, the sine qua non for accession to the European Union.
The profound process of transformation that has been under way in Central and Eastern Europe since 1989 has had its impact on the rise of racism, xenophobia and antisemitism.
The high unemployment rate (formerly an unknown social phenomenon, but now officially recognised), which resulted from the economic reforms, is making people feel more insecure.
All this creates fertile ground for the rise in forms of racism.
There is a risk that the changes resulting from the implementation of the Community acquis will further accentuate the social tensions in the candidate countries.
So it is vital to take vigorous action without delay to help these countries to tackle these problems.
This could be done through programmes such as PHARE (and more specifically "PHARE-Democracy" , now incorporated in the "European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights" ) and the MEDA programme for Turkey, which can provide back-up during these changes.
The European Observatory of racism and xenophobia which will open its doors in Vienna on 10 April this year must also make a relevant contribution to continuing the fight against racism, xenophobia and antisemitism in the candidate countries.
The report highlights one very acute problem in the candidate countries, the problem of respect for the rights of minorities.
I am thinking particularly of the Roma, who face intolerable discrimination in several Central and Eastern European countries.
I am also thinking, obviously, of the problem of the institutionalised discrimination against the Kurdish people.
Let me take this opportunity to remind you that Mrs Leyla Zana, a Turkish parliamentarian of Kurdish origin, is still being held in Turkish jails after a parody of a trial.
So far, all the pressure exerted by the European Parliament has had no effect on the Turkish authorities' position.
Sadly, Mrs Zana' s case is no exception!
Turkey needs to make considerable progress in relation to respect for the Kurdish population.
That is the condition for its accession to the European Union and there can be no compromise on that!
ECB foreign reserve assets
The next item is the report (A5-0042/2000) by Mr Goebbels, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the European Central Bank recommendation for a Council Regulation (EC) concerning further calls of foreign reserve assets by the European Central Bank (BCE 0001/1999 - C5-0202/1999 - 1999/0817 (CNS)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has equipped itself with a politically independent Central Bank, responsible for safeguarding price stability.
The ECB must, at the very least, be financially independent.
Pursuant to the Treaty, the Bank' s initial capital is fixed at EUR 5 billion while foreign exchange reserves are fixed at EUR 50 billion.
As the European System of Central Banks is currently composed of only 11 national central banks, the capital released is only EUR 3.9 billion, while currently transferred reserves come to only EUR 39.46 billion.
Of that, 15% are in gold, while the remaining 85% consist of US dollars and yen.
It should be noted that interest on its own capital is the European Central Bank' s only reliable source of income.
In the short term, this income varies with interest rates.
The ECB' s other source of income is the interest on its official reserves.
However, from that income the ECB has to deduct the interest it pays on its liabilities in euros vis-à-vis the national central banks.
The foreign exchange reserves that appear on the ECB' s balance sheet are given in national currencies, while the liabilities vis-à-vis the national central banks are given in euros.
At present, given the interest rate differentials between the euro on the one hand, and the US dollar and the yen on the other, the net income from interest is positive.
However, in the event that interest rates vary, and to the extent that the source of income is highly sensitive to interest rate differentials, the share of income accruing from interest could fall very quickly and even produce a loss.
Since the ECB holds currencies to offset liabilities in euros, it would also run a foreign exchange risk if the euro appreciated substantially against the reserve currencies it is holding.
An internal ECB calculation indicates that the foreign exchange value at risk could exceed the ECB' s current capital.
A 10% depreciation of the US dollar and the yen against the euro, accompanied by a 10% fall in the price of gold, would wipe out all the ECB' s existing capital.
The Treaty provides for a mechanism whereby the ECB can forearm itself against any erosion of its capital.
The European Central Bank can partially or totally retain the monetary income from the Eurosystem.
Nevertheless, a central bank that depended on being bailed out repeatedly would not be very credible.
In fact, the European Central Bank will probably close its 1999 financial year with a deficit of more than EUR 200 million.
So it is imperative to resolve this structural problem as quickly as possible.
On 14 April 1999, the European Parliament endorsed an ECB recommendation on doubling its capital in the long term.
The recommendation under consideration today seeks to authorise the Governing Council to effect further calls of foreign reserves, raising the ceiling to EUR 100 billion.
So it is simply a question of authorisation in principle to increase reserves as needed, without being pressurised by exceptional events.
The ECB might, for example, make use of this procedure to augment them on a case-by-case basis, particularly during a period of large-scale intervention, but also, possibly, because of potential portfolio losses, the portfolio being revalued every quarter according to market rates.
In this context it must be noted that the total reserves of the Eurosystem come to more than EUR 350 billion.
As President Duisenberg maintained at his last hearing before the European Parliament, the ECB does not intend to intervene on the foreign exchange markets to try to influence the external value of the euro.
In the event of another international financial crisis, which remains possible given the irrational exuberance of the markets, there could be a need for concerted intervention by the main central banks.
To enable the ECB to be a party to agreements such as those known as the Plaza or Louvre agreements, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs felt it was clearly necessary to advise Parliament to vote for the recommendation.
I have not proposed what might be called a political resolution to my colleagues.
Personally, as I said a while ago, I feel that Parliament votes on too many resolutions and that this inflated number of resolutions reduces the value of other, politically essential resolutions.
In this case it is a question of saying yes or no.
A massive yes vote also sends out a political message.
We want the ECB to be able to pursue its main objective of safeguarding price stability in total independence - including material independence.
At the same time, and here Mr Duisenberg is being too evasive for my liking, we also want the European System of Central Banks to give its unequivocal support to the European Union' s general economic policies.
We want the Central Bank to play its full part on the international scene and to make an active contribution to defining new rules that will enable the international financial system to operate without crises.
We are confident that the Governing Council will make optimum use of the foreign exchange reserves in the Eurosystem in the event of tension on the markets.
No one claims that the deterrent effect of the foreign exchange intervention instrument is proportional to the amount of reserves. However, credibility is enhanced by the option of being able to mobilise additional assets at any time without delay.
It would be warranted, however, for such internal ECB transfers, which will not be included in detail in the Eurosystem' s weekly consolidated financial statements, to be disclosed a posteriori.
The European Parliament also assumes that the ECB President will explain the decisions taken by his Council when he appears before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and, indeed, during plenary debates.
The Central Bank has everything to gain from this improved transparency with regard to consolidating its credibility.
Mr President, I will close my statement by emphasising, speaking for myself and addressing myself to the ECB, that the ECB is there to serve the women and men of Europe, to serve the economy as a whole.
So its role is not just to satisfy the expectations of the financial markets.
Mr President, in this draft legislative resolution, Parliament approves the ECB' s recommendation for a Council regulation concerning the continued calling in of foreign reserve assets. The following reasons are given: first, the Treaty makes provision for this.
If it is not applied in the form of a regulation, this could be construed as a difference of opinion between the ECB and the Council.
Secondly, the ECB should gain in financial independence.
Thirdly, the foreign exchange intervention instrument will be made more credible and the capacity of the ECB to adjust to various scenarios will be fostered.
Of course, there can be no objection to any structural improvement of the ECB' s financial situation.
The only question is whether or not pouring more money into it will solve the problem once and for all.
Before an answer can be given, the following questions at least must be considered:
Firstly: does it make political and economic sense to apply the sort of restrictive monetary policy which the ECB applies and which is more restrictive than the FED? Secondly, does the increase in interest rates for top refinancing facilities and deposit facilities applied on 9.2.2000 not run counter to economic growth?
Thirdly, are more decisive measures to reduce unemployment permanently not the most tried and tested means of guaranteeing price stability?
Fourthly: in addition to a supply-orientated economic policy, should greater emphasis not be placed on a demand-orientated economic policy, i.e. strengthening the European internal market through reduced import tax rates in the Member States? Fifthly, is it so wrong to assume that the exchange rate set when the euro was introduced had more to do with political wishful thinking than economic reality?
Sixthly: what specific grounds are there for assuming that the ECB will probably sustain a loss in 1999?
Having answered these questions, our Group felt unable to vote for the proposal for a resolution.
Not because the ECB has too few foreign reserve assets, but because it is wrongly organised structurally and will therefore complain endlessly of these liquidity problems.
Mr President, the European Central Bank is recommending to the Council that it double its foreign reserve assets.
To that end, it puts forward two very different kinds of argument.
The first dwell on its own concerns about financial administration, given that the increase in its staff appears proportional to the fall in income from its assets, income one might in fact have hoped would be sufficient to make it self-supporting.
In a flash of lucidity, the ECB has declared that a central bank with a structural deficit would quite simply not be credible.
That is true, and it gives some cause for anxiety about the administrative ability of those who so quickly need to raise the ceiling level.
The second argument is that the ECB needs to enhance its capacity to intervene on the markets in a general context of the depreciation of the euro - contrary to the soothing forecasts we were originally favoured with - and of repeated attacks by the financial centre of one EU Member State which, it has to be said, was wise enough not to join the single currency.
So it did not take long before the supposed instrument of EU independence and economic power so cruelly demonstrated its inadequacies.
It is rather shattering to read in the report that, should the political authorities - Parliament and the Council - refuse to help to bring about a structural improvement in the financial position of the ECB, the latter would no longer be regarded as independent by the markets.
It is clear to see where the ECB' s priority lies; it has acquired the habit of facing the policy makers with a fait accompli and its main aim is to gain the respect of the financial centres, to which it evidently attaches more value than to the confidence of the people.
No, really, we care little whether the ECB does or does not double its nuisance value.
We would have preferred some genuine self-criticism on the part of those who are genuinely responsible, namely the governments of the Fifteen, and a policy reversal, which would enable the people of the Member States to free themselves from the fate of standardisation that is being prepared for them by an ill-assorted group made up of technocrats who believe in the divine right of federalism and of globalised speculators.
Mr Goebbels points out that rejection by Parliament could be construed as indicating profound disagreement with the soundness of the policy pursued by the European Central Bank.
That is reason enough for us to vote against this text.
Mr President, we have good reason to be puzzled by the European Central Bank' s request to double the ceiling of its calls of foreign reserve assets from the national central banks.
At first sight it may seem acceptable to raise the current ceiling from EUR 50 billion - in fact it is 39.5 billion because certain countries have not joined the single currency - to EU 100 billion, when we remember that the national central banks will still have EUR 300 billion of own official reserves available.
However, the fact that this operation is to take place so soon after the date when the single currency was launched clearly shows that the value of the reserves was seriously underestimated at the time.
Why? Aside from a few technical explanations relating to details, such as the exact number of ECB staff, there is only one valid reason that can be cited: the euro-optimism surrounding the launch of the euro, as it was called at the time, led people to believe that the single currency would naturally be strong and that the question of reserves was, therefore, secondary.
They all seem to be becoming rather more realistic again now.
But the whole business is not yet closed, for the explanatory memorandum in the draft regulation, like the explanatory statement in the European Parliament' s report, are rather disturbing, pointing out as they do, in passing, that the aim of raising the ceiling is, and I quote, to enhance the Bank' s "ability to adapt to different possible scenarios" .
Since this does not refer to a scenario where the value of the euro is rising - if that were so, there would obviously be no need for additional reserves - it must mean a scenario where its value is falling.
The European Parliament' s report seems even more alarmist when it refers in so many words to the potential instability of the euro which, according to the rapporteur, does not need to be demonstrated.
This slip of the pen will no doubt displease Mr Duisenberg who, for his part, keeps reiterating day after day that the euro is fundamentally stable.
Yet it is a revealing slip of the pen.
For it is, in effect, not realistic to believe that an artificial currency can inspire the same confidence as a currency solidly established among the people.
Mr President, on behalf of my colleague, Mr Solbes, I would like to make the following comments.
The Commission has been consulted by the Council - as it has been by Parliament - about the recommendation of the European Central Bank concerning further calls of foreign reserve assets to the ECB.
The Commission has adopted its opinion on this recommendation on 8 March, which reads as follows: "Noting the rights of initiative of both the Commission and the ECB, the Commission has agreed with the initiative taken by the European Central Bank.
The Commission supports the doubling of the limit for calls of foreign reserve assets by the ECB to the extent that these further calls serve to replenish holdings of reserve assets up to the initial limit of EUR 50 billion fixed in the ESCB Statute" .
The Commission has therefore adopted a favourable opinion on the ECB' s recommendation.
Should Parliament adopt the report of Mr Goebbels in its present form, this would mean that Parliament' s and the Commission' s views converge, which I would welcome.
Thank you, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.35 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, last night, we were faced with the unwelcome news on EDF (German TV channel) that Mr Hombach, the EU Balkans Envoy, has been placed under investigation again by the Public Prosecutor.
We have already had serious problems of this kind to contend with, as has the previous Commission, but in this particular case the accusation has been levelled that DM 300 000 were allegedly paid to an agency with nothing being received in return.
I call upon you to inform the Council of this and to urge it to relieve Mr Hombach of all his duties until such time as this investigation has been resolved in a conclusive and legally valid manner.
We cannot afford for the European Union to make a bad impression again.
We take note of your comments, Mr Zimmerling.
Yesterday evening after the votes in the Chamber, a comment was made which I would like to distance myself from and not to be associated with.
There was no mistake in the interpretation and Members of this House did refer to the Technical Group as the Technical Group of Racists.
This was an unfair comment.
No one could, by the wildest stretch of the imagination, consider someone like Emma Bonino a racist.
People need to be extremely careful how they treat other people in this Chamber.
Some people may not like the fact that the Technical Group has been set up, but it has been.
These Members were elected just like me and every other Member in this House and we have to accept that fact.
People have rights and I do not think that the comment that was made yesterday was acceptable.
We take note of your comments, Mrs McKenna.
Mr President, when, in the sitting on Monday, I thanked the French State, the city of Strasbourg and the European Parliament for the fact that we could only get sound on the Finnish television channel and that the taps runs cold water but not hot, I did not mean that this is how it should be, but that these things should be put right.
I hope that the French State, the city of Strasbourg and the European Parliament will be able to take steps to put such small matters right in so expensive a building.
Very well, Mr Seppänen, we also take note of your comments.
Mr President, on seeing the Minutes, I am horrified to note that I have once again failed to sign the register of attendance, although I participated in a quite considerable number of roll-call votes.
I would ask that my attendance be recorded in yesterday' s Minutes.
That will not be a problem.
Mr President, I do not have any comment to make on the Minutes, but I do want to say something about the European Parliament' s information services.
I do not know whether I have picked the right moment to say this.
It does not concern the Minutes, but relates to something else.
Can I go ahead? Right then, a fellow MEP has just given me the session news about the debate we had yesterday on the Ludford report, and I am disappointed to note that it makes no mention of the statement I made on behalf of our Group.
I would ask the parliamentary services to look into why it was left out.
I can assure you that the services will look into this very closely, Mr Poettering.
Mr President, further to yesterday' s minutes, I would like to express my great disappointment at the fact that even fewer than 200 Members attended the votes yesterday.
I conclude this from the minutes.
Very well, Mr Manders, we take note of all of that.
(The Minutes were approved)
Vote
Whether national or European, any central bank exclusively serves the interests of big investors.
We refuse to make a choice between the different ways in which capitalist groups and wealthy investors manage their banking, since whatever they do is against the interests of the working classes and the majority of the population.
Our abstention expresses our opposition to both the national and the European organisation of the banking system.
- (FR) The European Central Bank' s proposal induces us to reflect and to act prudently on two counts:
Firstly, with regard to the method, it is clear that the procedure remains the same: the Community institutions present truncated reports, which minimise the consequences in terms of further loss of sovereignty for the Member States, and then proceed by means of successive small-scale tinkering.
In this way, when introducing the euro, the Commission maintained that the sovereignty of the Member States was in no way threatened by the ECB, or the ESCB, which was set up to hold and manage Member States' official foreign reserves. However, they forget that, on the one hand, the national central banks manage these funds on behalf of the ECB, which has sole control of monetary policy.
On the other hand, while Article 30(1) of the statutes of the ECB sets the maximum amount for reserve assets at EUR 50 billion, an amount considered sufficient to safeguard the independence of the ECB, two years later, the dogma of independence is looking to Article 30(4) to grant further assets, because it needs to increase its independence and credibility further ... It seems legitimate to ask ourselves whether we are throwing funds down a bottomless pit!
Secondly, with regard to the content, the 'dressing up' of this new exorbitant demand should not fool us. It is not simply a question of giving more financial resources to an independent institution so that it can apply an effective monetary policy which benefits the Member States, but also of, indirectly, creating additional resources for a technocratic structure so that it may finance its ever greater operational needs.
The issue therefore remains skilfully blurred; while the euro was intended to be 'strong and stable' and the reserve assets were originally intended to provide protection during the transitional period (should this prove necessary), it now appears that neither of these expectations has been fulfilled and Frankfurt is totally deadlocked!
Consequently, another question arises regarding the effective use of financial resources.
Why should the Member States give up their resources in favour of a Community institution which, as a result of its need to be independent, cannot be controlled?
In conclusion, let us remember that a State is not defined in terms of the sovereignty it enjoys as a result of its autonomy of action.
In fact, experience shows that its authority and credibility in the international arena depend very largely on its available resources: we must therefore take care, because to progressively deprive it of both would eventually cause it to cease to exist!
CAP: information measures
The next item is the report (A5-0046/2000) by Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation on information measures relating to the common agricultural policy (COM(1999) 536 - C5-0249/1999 - 1999/0209(CNS)).
Mr President, as high a priority as possible ought to be given to transparency and to keeping EU citizens informed of the work being done in the EU.
Providing factual and objective information about cooperation in Europe has become very important in recent years as we face considerable challenges with the extension of the EU into Central and Eastern Europe.
It is especially important to explain what the common agricultural policy is about and to provide information about objectives, resources and potential for development.
There are many target groups - farmers, first and foremost, but also people generally, as well as everyone directly or indirectly affected.
If this work is to succeed, it is important that cooperation should be established with the farming organisations and also with consumers.
The common agricultural policy was the first, and is also the most extensive, of the Community' s integrated policies and it accounts for a very large proportion of the EU' s budget.
It is, therefore, also important to make it clear that the subsidy arrangements ensure that consumers obtain food at prices which, as a result of the subsidy, are lower than they would be without the subsidy.
This means that the EU' s agricultural arrangements are of benefit to all EU citizens.
The common agricultural policy is always undergoing change and development.
It demands a great deal in terms of the supply of information and, especially, in terms of the coordination which is needed if cooperation is to succeed, both within the Member States and independently of the Member States.
Circumstances are very different from one country to another, and it ought, therefore, to be farming organisations which are among the main players, because these organisations focus primarily upon farmers.
Mr President, the purpose of information on the common agricultural policy should be to establish a strategy for communication, directed mainly at those working in farming and rural areas.
In our opinion, the main criticism of this proposal for a Commission regulation relates to the opening up of a budget line to non-agricultural organisations and also the reduction in budget appropriations to EUR 4 500 000.
This situation has been made even worse by the reserve of appropriations that the Commission is building up for itself, which, when taken in conjunction with specific actions, in fact leaves the organisations with only EUR 3 million, which is obviously a very limited amount.
I therefore welcome the rapporteur' s proposal that the Commission should match the budgetary appropriations to the numerous organisations that have a right to funding under this regulation.
However, another negative aspect of the Commission' s proposal relates to limiting cofinancing to a rate of 75%, when actions implemented directly by the Commission are financed at a rate of 100%.
Furthermore, we know that the draft guide to the rules makes access to the budgetary line I have just mentioned even more difficult for organisations, especially those in a weaker financial position, in other words, exactly the ones that need the most support.
Hence the importance of our amendment designed to supplement the concept set out in the report.
With our amendment, we hope to see Community cofinancing rise above 75% for organisations representing small farmers and family-run farms in financial difficulty.
We hope that this amendment will be adopted.
With regard to the amendment designed to reduce funds intended for the Commission by EUR 1 million and instead increase specific actions, we feel that this is potentially a way of improving the Commission' s proposal for a regulation.
Lastly, it is important to emphasise the need for the Commission to simplify its administrative procedures both in order to study the programmes presented by the organisations and for their future monitoring.
Mr President, I welcome this measure.
From an administrative point of view the formalisation is a good thing.
But when we come to think about it the amount of money is quite small - EUR 27 million over a period of six years.
Considering the size of the agricultural budget and the fact that it extends to every corner of the Union, it is a relatively small amount of money.
That is why I welcome that fact that most of it will be spent at the rate of 50% rather than 75%.
The more of it that is spent at the rate of up to 50%, the further the money goes and the greater the impact.
The common agricultural policy gets a lot of criticism.
One of the things that was not widely understood was the importance of this policy from a social point of view: the fact is, that in all the depressed regions of the Union, the common agricultural policy has maintained the population and supported communities, in a social sense, that would not otherwise have survived.
This is particularly true of the peripheral countries such as Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal, where communities that would have disappeared have been supported and maintained, if not for ever, certainly until a change in economic environment, until the new technologies arrived.
The long-term effect of the common agricultural policy in that sense will be greater than people have often imagined.
I have no fault to find with the way the Commission interacted with the agriculture industry over the years.
From my experience the European Commission was more open to representations and information exchange with the agriculture industry than most departments of agriculture in most Member States.
The Commission taught Member States over the years how to be open with very limited resources.
But there are new pressures, arising out of consumer concerns about new processes and systems of producing food. These have to be explained, not only to farmers, but to consumers as well.
There is a lot of mythology about what is safe and what is not safe.
We have an important job to do to explain the workings of the whole productive system to the consumers of Europe and those outside the Union who will buy our food.
It is important that we apply as many resources as possible to this.
The last point I want to make is that, arising from these pressures, we will have a reaction from agriculture.
As we inevitably wind down some of the supports in the process of enlargement and, at the same time, maintain the pressures to protect the environment and the consumers, then there will be friction between the producers and the European administration.
To devote as many resources as possible to good relations is a wise policy.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur, Maria Izquierdo Rojo, and the members of the Committee, for their report.
The proposed regulation intends to provide the Commission with a tool to help it to present an operational model for European agriculture, and give wider publicity to the common agricultural policy.
In this way, the implementation of agricultural policy is facilitated.
Now I would like to speak about Parliament' s proposed amendments. They are not generally aimed at changing the subject matter but rather at amending the proposals.
Amendments Nos 2 and 6 concern organisations falling within the scope of aid.
It is the opinion of the Commission that it is not necessary to mention the groups and organisations by name.
All agricultural organisations and rural players fall within the scope of aid according to Article 2.
This being the case, the proposed addenda are unnecessary.
Amendments Nos 5, 8 and 10 concern measures that are eligible for aid.
Amendment No 5 contains amendments regarding information services and fora for discussions for men and women in rural areas.
They are unnecessary, as they are already contained in the Commission' s proposal.
One of them, which reads "supporting them in their choices" is not in harmony with the Commission' s proposal.
The purpose of this regulation is not to offer farmers any special services.
Local bodies are better qualified to do that.
The resources available would not be sufficient for that either.
I would, moreover, like to make the comment, with regard to the amendments tabled for Article 3, that information visits are not being ruled out.
The list of activities that are eligible for aid is not exhaustive, which is indicated in the word "particularly" .
The Commission is prepared, however, to adopt this amendment.
The funding of long-term exchange programmes cannot, however, be accepted, as such action is not a part of the information policy.
Amendment No 10 concerns Article 5.
The Commission supports the objectives mentioned here, proof of which is to be seen in the fact that they are implicitly contained in Article 1, which concerns the operational model for European agriculture.
That is why it makes no sense to repeat the contents of the model in further detail.
Amendments Nos 7 and 13 concern contributions.
The Commission thinks that it is not desirable to pay more than 75% of eligible aid costs.
The funds available are modest. The lower the contribution stays the more measures there will be that can be financed and the greater the multiple effect.
Amendments Nos 9 and 12 concern the allocation and approval of appropriations. As we know, Parliament is a budgetary authority together with the Council.
For this reason, the Commission thinks Amendment No 9 is not necessary.
Regarding Amendment No 12, which proposes including the allocation of appropriations in the regulation, I would say that if the allocation is settled on beforehand, the administration of the budgetary heading will lose its vital degree of flexibility, which might be damaging from the point of view of proposed applications for financing.
Amendment No 11 concerns evaluation.
The Commission agrees with Parliament on the usefulness of regular evaluation.
It can best be taken account of in the implementing regulation.
Amendment No 4 concerns administration.
This extra recital is unnecessary in the regulation, in the opinion of the Commission.
Provision for administrative details, evaluation and later assessment will be laid down by the Commission in the Implementing Regulation.
In this connection, it has to be said that the effective monitoring of public funds has to be assured in the process regardless of how open and simple the process is.
Amendments Nos 1 and 3 concern linguistic nuances.
These the Commission does not consider significant, as Recitals 4 and 7 in the Commission' s proposal are not as restrictive.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Grain legumes
The next item is the report (A5­0045/2000) by Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1577/96 introducing a specific measure in respect of certain grain legumes [COM(1999)428 - C5­0187/1999 - 1999/0182(CNS)]
Mr President, I am presenting a report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1577/96 introducing a specific measure in respect of certain grain legumes.
The European Parliament has been analysing this proposal since October 1999 and approved this draft legislative resolution unanimously on 23 February 2000.
I would like to highlight the following aspects of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament.
First, Amendment No 1 on the inclusion of a Recital 2a.
This amendment supplements the Council approach, which is purely commercial, and opts for a proposal with wider economic, human and food quality aims.
Whereas the Council only talks about the market, the European Parliament highlights the economic interest for the Community of the production of these grain legumes.
Given the deficit of protein crops in the European Union, Parliament considers that this system should be improved without cutting the level of aid.
Secondly, Parliament' s Amendment No 2 proposes that seed vetches should also be included in the aid system.
Aid for seeds already exists for rice, chickpeas and lentils.
We propose this aid because, as we all know, the production of seeds is subject to supplementary technical and quality control requirements, so that if the cultivation of seeds were not supported by some form of aid, this could have extremely negative consequences for the quality of production of seed vetches.
Thirdly, Amendment No 3 indicates that, in our opinion, the Commission should, without further delay, make proposals for the 2000-2003 period.
Before I finish, Mr President, I would like to point out that in 1993 - which is some time ago now - the Council indicated that it intended to gradually strengthen the current aid system for grain legumes.
However, this has still not been done.
Secondly, successive periods show that we are faced with a chronic imbalance in this system.
The maximum guaranteed area is being systematically reduced, thus penalising time and again the farmers who are suffering reductions in aid of up to 20%.
Therefore, Mr President, what the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Parliament would really like to see is an improvement in the system.
However, we appreciate what the Commission is telling us, that this is a time of serious budgetary restrictions that we could not implement without reducing aid.
That is why we are presenting this proposal, which is really a maintenance proposal, and what we are saying to the Commission is that, without further delay, proposals must be drawn up at the latest for the 2000-2003 period to achieve an improvement in this system without decreasing aid.
I thank all the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their collaboration and support, as well as the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
Thanks also to the Commission for its willingness to hold a dialogue and I hope it will be open to our proposals.
Mr President, Commissioner, the report that is being proposed for approval today in plenary refers to a minimal reform of Regulation 1577/96 on aid for the grain legume sector.
So slight is the reform that it does not amend the total maximum guaranteed quantity, although it does split it into two, nor the amount of aid per hectare.
The only new element is the substitution of the management committee by the cereal management committee.
As the Spanish saying goes, which is very much in agreement with this regulation, 'Esto son lentejas; si quieres las tomas y si no las dejas' [ 'here are some lentils, take them or leave them' ].
Consequently, my Group will support the rapporteur's report and, above all, will particularly support Amendment No 2, which proposes the inclusion of areas dedicated to the production of seed vetches in the aid system, as this will lead to high-quality crops.
Nevertheless, I would like to make it clear that we have missed the opportunity to support a substantial, very arid area of southern Europe, which has no other crop alternative for its soil.
Furthermore, the demand for vetches for feeding livestock is increasing all the time, as shown, at least in Spain, by the fact that the area sown in the last three years has exceeded the proposed maximum guaranteed area by 100 000 hectares per year on average.
On the other hand, the food problems we have had in the European Union have been caused by feeding herbivores with animal-based feedingstuffs, and if we do not encourage the feeding of livestock with plant proteins, such as legumes, and lower their price, farmers will continue to resort to animal meal due to the enormous pressure of competition.
Finally, it just remains for me to lament, once again, the fact that the Commission's agricultural policy is more concerned with reducing spending - or, at best, not increasing it, as on this occasion - than with maintaining a genuine European agricultural sector that is so essential for the equilibrium of the region.
Mr President, I am participating in this discussion in order to support the report by my colleague, María Izquierdo, whose proposals, like those of the Commission, seem to me to be beneficial and of interest.
Grain legumes are a traditional crop in certain areas of southern Europe, including Spain and, more specifically, Castilla-La Mancha, the region I come from, which contains one third of the total area dedicated to these crops in Spain.
Our concern is therefore to avoid damaging the aid system for this sector of agriculture and, more specifically, for the production of chickpeas, lentils and vetches.
Chickpeas and lentils are two essential products in Spanish gastronomic culture and in our diet, the Mediterranean diet, which is now so highly thought of by scientists, which includes dried pulses in our traditional recipes.
The purchase of dried pulses in Spain has been increasing by up to 5% annually.
In my country, the consumption of these is 6.5 kg per head annually and anyone who knows how these products are cooked can vouch for the fact that this is a very substantial amount.
Religious customs, for example, mean that we do not eat meat during Lent and due to the wiliness and common sense of our compatriots, meat has been replaced by other dishes - delicious dishes, of course - such as our lentil and spinach stew.
We are talking about uses that have been consolidated throughout history and are now consumed throughout the year, including by non-believers and those who do not practise a religion, and that have left an almost infinitely varied series of main courses based on dried pulses, which undoubtedly increase the consumption figures.
Another sector which requires this type of product is livestock farming.
At times like this, when we are seeing fraudulently-fattened livestock and the use of unauthorised products, it becomes essential for the market to provide reasonably-priced, good quality natural feedingstuffs, such as some of those that this regulation concerns, and specifically vetches.
Finally, we are talking about Community protection for a crop which last year, in my region, provided an honest living for around 17 000 families.
Moreover, this is a sector in which, fortunately, there has not been a proliferation of bounty-hunters who move into agriculture in order to receive grants from the Union.
Here we are dealing with traditional crops farmed by people who devote themselves to these crops from generation to generation, and who have contributed to the formation of a large part of the countryside and cuisine of substantial regions of Europe, which still interest us and which we should maintain.
I am therefore asking for the support of Parliament for the Commission's proposals and the improvements which, by way of amendment, are contained in María Izquierdo's report.
Mr President, we are able to support an extension to the proposal but, at the same time, I would draw attention to the fact that Agenda 2000, which was decided upon last year in Berlin, is based, of course, upon our looking towards free trade and endeavouring to reduce the present level of aid and to reach a number of agreements under the aegis of the WTO whereby, by virtue of market mechanisms, we can obtain greater access to the many markets out in the world.
I would also draw your attention to the fact that, in recent years, conventional farming has been put under pressure. Prices have fallen for just about every product.
This is what some people call stability. Farmers experience it somewhat differently because costs are, of course, rising and price freezes will therefore automatically be experienced as a setback.
I would also recall the fact that the Commission has recently tightened up on the conditions for intervening in the area of grain.
Wheat growers, in particular, will be affected very badly, which they already are because of a 15% fall in prices, but then there is also a tightening up on quality and with regard to the issue of protein crops. This means, moreover, that, especially in the northern part of the EU, there will be further price falls in the offing.
On behalf of my Group, I shall, as I said, support an extension to the arrangements, but I would strongly urge the Commission, before 2002-2003, to make a concerted effort to investigate possible changes to the way in which we employ resources so that we can, in the future too, safeguard that group of farmers which, until now, has been supported by means of the aid arrangements in question.
- (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we must support the production of grain legume crops by improving the system without reducing the level of aid, given the current shortfall in grain legumes both for human consumption and animal consumption.
The fact is that the system of aid established in 1989 has been modified several times, but no report has been presented on the application of the present system.
Now, by advocating a maximum guaranteed area of 400 000 hectares, the Commission wants to reduce the average production area over the last three years by around 100 000 hectares, which will mean considerable reductions in aid.
On the other hand, although we do not disagree with splitting the maximum guaranteed area into two, we feel it is necessary to adjust the historical reference period in order to calculate each of the maximum guaranteed areas excluding the last three years, in order to reduce the damaging impact for Portugal on products designed for human consumption.
Finally, it is important to point out that it is vital for Portugal that dry bean should be considered in this system, even without the change to the maximum guaranteed surface.
We therefore firmly believe that the Commission should bear in mind these amendments to the new system which it hopes to establish for grain legumes.
Mr President, I would again like to thank the rapporteur, Maria Izquierdo Rojo, for an excellent and constructive report.
There are two Commission documents that serve as a basis for the issue of grain legumes.
The first is a report on the aid scheme in place for grain legumes, and the second a proposal for improved administration of the system.
What vegetables are we actually talking about? I know that the Spanish members know the subject well, but I should mention that by grain legumes are meant three annual vegetables with a high protein content and which are gathered in the form of dry seeds.
Lentils and chickpeas serve as food for humans, while the seeds of vetches, which to us are more unusual vegetables, are used as animal feed.
Grain legumes are grown as field crops, particularly in the southern part of the Union, as they thrive well in dry climates.
In fact Spain accounts for 90% of all EU grain legume production.
Grain legumes are not covered by the aid scheme that was remodelled with the Agenda 2000 programme, although they can be used in crop rotation schemes involving other crops such as corn.
Grain legumes are covered by their own scheme where the amount of fixed aid per hectare is EUR 181 and the maximum guaranteed area is 400 000 hectares.
The scheme was established in 1989 when the growing area of grain legumes was reduced at the expense of corn, which was already suffering from overproduction.
The special scheme aimed to preserve traditional legume grain growing areas by means of the aid per hectare arrangement.
What are the conclusions of the Commission' s report? An examination of how the scheme has been applied reveals that the MGA of 400 000 hectares has been systematically exceeded.
There are two conclusions to be drawn from this.
First, the aim of the scheme has been successfully achieved and, second, the growing areas have to be brought under better control.
The MGA overruns in the last few years have shown themselves to be mainly with regard to vetches.
Although the scheme is being applied satisfactorily as a whole, MGA management is problematic, as those responsible for the overruns are not being treated any differently from other producers.
So how could the system be improved? We should aim to find solutions regarding improvements within the framework of the present scheme and the appropriations set aside for it.
We are in a situation in which the Agenda 2000 reform has been adopted and international trade negotiations are drawing closer.
I would like to point out that the rapporteur' s proposed amendment whereby the current aid scheme for vetch farmers could be combined with another market arrangement, i.e., that for seed vetches, would not achieve the improvement desired.
This is a reference to Amendment No 2.
It cannot be adopted for two reasons: firstly, the schemes are mutually exclusive, as in one scheme the seeds, in principle, have to be harvested as animal feed, while, in the other, they are designated for sowing.
The other reason is that it might involve extra expense.
The Commission' s report recommends that the MGA should be divided into two parts based on the earlier land area division in the proportion 40/60.
It would divide up thus: 1 600 000 hectares would be used for the production of lentils and chickpeas, and 240 000 hectares would be used for the production of vetches.
In addition, it is proposed that the Management Committee for Dried Fodder be replaced by the Management Committee for Cereals.
The purpose of this change is only to legally endorse what has become common practice on the committees.
Finally, I would like to say that the Commission will adopt the rapporteur' s amendments that reinforce its position, proposing that the Commission submit a new report, as in Amendment No 3, and seek ways of improving the system, as in Amendment No 1.
Members of the European Parliament, in the light of my comments, the proposal will probably not be difficult to adopt so that it can be applied from the marketing year 2000 - 2001 onwards.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Additionality
The next item is the debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B5-0207/2000, by Mrs Evans and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on additionality
B5-0209/2000, by Mr Davies and Mrs Attwooll, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the additionality principle in Structural Fund appropriations.
Mr President, Commissioner, the purpose of the Structural Funds is to target the poorest and most run-down areas of the European Union, those in greatest need of development, with extra money to help them begin to rebuild the economy, create jobs and regenerate poorer communities.
Additionality is meant to ensure that happens and to prevent governments from using EU funding to replace their own aid as this would defeat the object.
But in many regions and nations that is what happens at the moment and I can illustrate the problem using the example of Wales.
The granting of EU Objective 1 status to West Wales and the Valleys last year was an acknowledgement of the poverty in two-thirds of the country. EUR 1.2 billion of European funding used effectively could provide exactly the additional help that is intended.
But if we look at the government budget to Wales, in practice there will be no more government spending next year with Objective 1 than there is this year before Objective 1.
The National Assembly budget which comes from the Treasury remains the same so that in the first fifteen months, at least, of the new programme period there are no additional resources at all.
The money will be taken from other budgets in the National Assembly, such as health and education.
Therefore central government expenditure is reduced.
Under the Structural Funds, areas of greatest need are identified and selected on regional criteria.
Yet when the Commission looks at additionality it is dealt with on a Member State level.
This is a clear contradiction. The rules as they stand allow this to happen.
Member States are not legally required to demonstrate additionality at the regional or programme level.
I agree with the statement made by Commissioner Barnier in a written reply to me when he said that the spirit of additionality rather than the letter of the law on the matter is an important consideration.
We need the revision of the system and a central part of that is looking at additionality internally in the Member States at the programme level as well as at the Member State level.
Mechanisms need to be in place to ensure that Member States respect the principle and the spirit of additionality so that funds are targeted and spent effectively.
So we are asking in this question, Commissioner, for confirmation that this will be done and I look forward to the vote on this debate in April.
Mr President, the principle of additionality exists in order to ensure that transfers to the Member States under the Structural Funds add to, rather than replace, national expenditures on structural development measures.
In this way, European Union structural policies will have a greater impact on reducing regional and social disparities.
The ex-ante verification of additionality is at present being undertaken in application of Article 11 of Regulation 1260/99.
This is an integral part of the negotiation of the Structural Funds programmes with the Member States.
This exercise is a demonstration of the Member States' intention to implement the principle of additionality over the programming period that lies ahead.
Where necessary, the Commission may request clarification from the Member States on the details of their forecasts for eligible expenditure for the period 2000-2006.
As a further measure, the Commission has prepared detailed implementing provisions for inclusion in the programming documents covering both the situation ex ante and also the mid-term and final verification of additionality.
The second issue covered by the questions is the possibility of the verification of additionality at regional level.
I would like to develop a number of elements of previous answers.
Firstly, although additionality is implemented at the level of the overall eligible spending by the Member States rather than at regional level, it must be borne in mind that the overall additionality required to be demonstrated is, by definition, the sum of the eligible expenditures at the lower level.
In practice, reduced national eligible expenditure in some regions would have to be balanced with an increase in other regions in order for additionality to be respected overall.
On this point the Commission can give a clear assurance that, where evidence exists of reduced national expenditure in a given region or regions, it will be particularly attentive with regard to the credibility of the overall figures.
A second point of clarification concerns the scope of additionality and the suggestion that, when implemented at national level, it may be incompatible with the regional vocation of the Structural Funds.
It must be borne in mind that the development-related expenditure of a Member State which is taken into account for the assessment of additionality is generally a mixture of resources allocated and managed at national level and those managed at regional level.
While there might be some categories of expenditure for which stability could be expected at regional level between the programming periods, it could hardly be suggested that the level of spending on, for example, major infrastructure should be maintained at the same level in each region regardless of current needs.
This is why the Commission takes the view that the strict application of additionality at regional level would lead to excessive rigidity in the management by the Member States of their own development expenditure.
Finally, regarding budgetary provisions within the Member States between the central government and the regions, the Commission can only repeat that these are matters exclusively for national consideration and are not related to additionality as defined in the regulations.
Mr President, can I begin by thanking my colleague from Wales - though from another party, Jillian Evans, for raising this issue.
I do not think that there is a more important issue in Wales at the moment than the application of Objective 1 funds and it is important to look at the background to the issues that we are currently considering.
There are two major news stories breaking in the United Kingdom today.
One is the shock news of BMW's decision to break up the Rover-Land Rover Group with the threat of massive redundancies right the way across the UK and the other breaking news this morning is the Conservative Party's stunning victory in the Ayr by-election driving the defending Labour Party into a miserable third place with a swing of almost 10%.
Now these stories are not just topical background to this debate.
In my view, they underpin the very issues which we are considering in the context of Structural Fund spending under Objectives 1 and 2 in those parts of the European Union which are facing major economic problems.
As we have already heard from Jillian Evans, a major part of Wales, in constituencies which I also represent, has been granted Objective 1 status, but sadly ever since that announcement was made by the Commission, our problems in Wales have actually got even worse.
As a direct result of what I would describe as UK government policy, our agricultural economy has all but collapsed.
Farm incomes are at their lowest level for a generation and this decline is also hitting the manufacturing sector.
I do not apologise for saying that the massive overvaluation of sterling which gives the UK Labour Chancellor an electoral war-chest of unprecedented proportions has handicapped every Welsh and UK manufacturer trying to export into the European market.
It is little wonder that BMW blames the Rover decision directly on UK government economic policy, but that I fear is little comfort to the thousands of workers in Rover who have strained to improve the efficiency of the company only to find that their efforts have been undermined in Downing Street.
I turn then to the central hand of Labour government at work in terms of the European Structural Funds package.
The unacceptable behaviour of the UK Government over this has already brought about the timely end of the political career of the first Secretary of the Welsh Assembly.
Sadly, the Structural Funds spending issues have been marked by delay by disputes in relation to matched funding and also in relation to the issue of additionality.
Lest it be raised later in this debate let me make it clear: this is not a new issue and I share the view that it is an issue that needs to be examined very carefully by the Commission itself.
I have the honour to be appointed as the rapporteur on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee for the Structural Funds guidelines 2000-2006 and the committee agreed on that occasion, based on our recommendations to the Regional Policy Committee, that the Commission should pay attention to this issue of additionality.
We reiterated the importance of ensuring that Structural Funds do not just merely, as it were, replace public spending otherwise earmarked for those areas that are lagging behind.
I am rather sorry that the Regional Policy Committee did not incorporate that in the report themselves, but there it is.
There are a number of questions that I would ask Commissioner Liikanen to take back to Commissioner Barnier.
I appreciate that he is the Commissioner in office today but he may not be in a position to respond to these points himself.
However, these are points that I seek to put in the context of certainly the area that I represent and I daresay they are points that would be supported by Jillian Evans on behalf of her party. What progress is being made in relation to the approval of the programming documents within the Commission?
Will the Commissioner take the step in terms of transparency of publishing at an appropriate time the correspondence that has taken place between the Commission and the National Assembly? We were assured, I am bound to say by a rather complacent Economic Secretary, who has now become the First Secretary, that all matters were proceeding in an orderly fashion.
Yet we hear from remarks that are made from time to time by the Commission that there are real problems and we find it difficult to do our job within this Parliament without that degree of transparency.
So, will the Commission undertake to make that information available to all Members of the European Parliament?
Will they undertake to keep us informed in relation to these matters?
Will they undertake to challenge Member State Governments in relation to the maps that have been drawn up in relation to Objective 2 where also there has been quite clear evidence of jerrymandering also. The additionality issue is an important one, but I must say it is not the only one which gives much concern to many Members of this European Parliament.
Mr President, I should just like to touch on a couple of points that Mr Evans raised.
First of all, I acknowledge that there is difficulty in the Midlands with the Rover Group.
I would not like to make political capital out of it.
There are too many jobs at stake.
Secondly, he also mentioned their by-election.
I congratulate his party in securing a victory in this by-election.
But, unlike him, I have been in Ayr for the last three weeks, on the doorstep.
I can tell you that additionality was never raised once.
I turn to the question at hand.
I thank the Nationalists for having raised this.
It is right that we have a proper discussion on the whole question of the Structural Funds.
But I suspect there is a deeper plot here.
What are they actually trying to achieve? I listened to Ms Evans.
Basically, what I took from her contribution is that she wants to redefine the Structural Funds regulations.
I would remind people in this Parliament that it was not so long ago that this Parliament passed, by the assent procedure, the rules and regulations governing the Structural Funds, including Article 11, which defines additionality.
Is it therefore Parliament's role now to change that? We should not change that.
The role of this Parliament is to ensure that the rules are complied with. That is what we should concentrate on.
I know that Ms Evans, along with one of her colleagues, Dafydd Wigley and a member of the Scottish Nationalist Party, Mr Wilson, went to meet Commissioner Barnier.
I should like to read out the statement made by Commissioner Barnier after that meeting:
"I know that there has been a great deal of debate in Scotland and Wales recently about European regional funding.
But I have the impression that this has sometimes confused two separate issues - additionality and cofinancing.
I am not surprised that there is a certain amount of confusion among the Nationalists on this.
Additionality, whether or not EU funds are providing additional impact, compared to what would otherwise have happened, can be used as one of the selection criteria by the local programme planners before they decide to approve aid to individual projects.
The Commission, on the other hand, is obliged by the rules to make a global assessment of additionality for the UK as a whole, with the specific aim of ensuring that the European financial aid is additional to, and not a substitute for, national finance.
We have always been satisfied in the past that the national requirements have been met" .
Mr President, it is clear from what the Commissioner has said that the Commission is conscientious in measuring the additionality of structural funding at Member State level, and it was good also to hear his assurances about the various different levels of evaluation that take place.
As the Commission will be aware, however, a number of Member States within the European Union have devolved systems of regional government.
Such regional systems of government are normally financed in whole or in part from central government funds.
It appears to me that, under the present rules, central government can build the EU contribution to structural funding into its calculations for determining regional government budgets.
There appears to be no mechanism, despite what the Commissioner said, for ensuring either of two things: first, that the additionality rule is applied to this calculation, and second, that the amount of EU funding which ultimately reaches individual regions corresponds directly to the amount earmarked for those regions at the planning stage.
At the very least, this engenders a lack of transparency.
It may also mean that the additionality principle is not being properly implemented on a region-by-region basis.
I accept, like Mrs Evans, that this does not, strictly speaking, contradict the letter of European Union law on this matter.
But, unlike her, it seems to me to be quite clearly contrary to the spirit of additionality rules and undermines the very purposes for which structural funding was established in the first place.
Although I come from Scotland, I know these issues are of concern not just to my Liberal Democrat colleagues from other parts of the United Kingdom but also to ELDR members representing regions across the whole of the European Union.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate my Welsh colleague for her excellent speech and I am also glad that there is basic agreement from all sections of the political spectrum.
Some of us newcomers to this Parliament are already beginning to tire of good intentions, fantastic programmes and of hearing about the spirit of the Community regulations.
Instead of spirit, we are going to end up with ghosts and sleepless nights because, in reality, commitments are not being fulfilled.
It is therefore appropriate for the European institutions themselves to start by making good their commitments with regard to additionality.
The Court of Auditors has already drawn up an assessment of the implementation of the additionality principle in June 1999 which shows that it is a total disaster and a mistake.
Secondly, we must take into account - and this is a political declaration - the real Europe, the citizens' Europe, the Europe of nations and nations within the States, because until these are taken into account, we will keep coming back to the same old problem.
Scotland, Wales, the Basque country, Catalonia, Galicia, even a region as large as Andalusia, cannot depend on the decisions of a central State, however much of a State it is.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to reiterate the words of Mr Miller, who spoke earlier - and who is regrettably no longer in the Chamber - when he criticised the authors of this question by saying that our main task is to ensure that the rules are complied with.
The first rules that need to be complied with are those in the Treaty, in this case, Article 158, which takes the objective of economic and social cohesion to its highest level.
Our task is to ensure that following on from this, the Commission' s regulations and behaviour attain and serve to attain these objectives.
Our task is also to be alert enough here to criticise and to raise the issue whenever we see that this is not being done.
We support the good timing and the reasoning of the issues raised by the authors of the oral question and we agree with the comments that have already been made here.
We call on the Commission to exert more pressure to ensure that these instruments are used effectively in favour of the regions with the greatest needs, instead of, as it seems to us, letting the objective of economic and social cohesion go cold.
This subject is obviously a delicate one, and its development has been discussed at great length over the years, with many rules being regularly revised, but what we cannot accept is that the revision of these rules and the development of the bureaucracy always hit the most needy.
We cannot, for example, accept the fact that problems have been raised about allocating funds to regions which are eligible under various programmes, because if these regions are eligible for various funds it is precisely because their needs are the greatest, and anything that hinders the operation of these funds holds back their development and threatens the objective of economic and social cohesion.
Similarly, we do not accept that the Commission should in any way associate itself with the degree of inertia shown by some national governments who are not prepared to support the regions with the greatest needs.
We therefore call on the Commission to...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I have been watching this whole business of Structural Funds and additionality for many years, and there are a number of things that we can learn from the past.
The first is that the money in absolute terms in most regions of the Community is relatively small, and its impact is political rather economic - though that is important too.
I have often said it is important that we as a European Union should not just make regulations telling people what they may or may not do, but that we should extend what appears to the European public and to the regions of the Union to be tangible benefits.
Even in rich regions they will appreciate the fact that the European Union tries to help close the gap between rich and poor.
The other thing in the macro-economic sense that we can say is that, if a certain amount of Structural Funds is allocated to Portugal or Greece or Ireland, as it has been in the past, then that money goes into these states in any case and that is the first impact that it has.
The money is actually transferred and, regardless of whether the letter of the law is observed or not, the countries become the better off.
Another point that I would like to make is that we can learn from the past.
First of all, we have now tidied up the regulations to some extent, but originally they were written in an effort to please every sector and every political interest, so that it became impossible, with the staff that the European Commission had at its disposal, to police the spending of the money, and that is still the case to a large degree.
We are now into to the third or fourth programme.
What we must do is learn from the mistakes of the past and try and apply the lessons to the future.
If you want to be absolutely effective with the way this money is spent, what you need to do is to look at what a country has been spending previously, and to ask them to submit their plans to the European Commission.
The European Commission identifies the weaknesses in this plan and says: This is the way we would like our money to be spent in addition to what you have already allocated for all this work you intend to do.
In my personal experience in Ireland, I never heard the European Commission take Ireland to task for failure in the area of additionality.
But one should remember that, between 1982 and 1992, the Structural Funds to Ireland peaked; they are getting less now, and there was a generous amount of money.
But, from 1982 to 1992, the public capital programme actually reduced, including Structural Funds. It reduced in real terms by 30%.
So where did the Structural Funds go?
The Structural Funds actually went into public sector pay and social welfare, and it is very questionable as to whether they did a good or a bad turn to the Irish economy in those years, because they contributed to inflation and increased wage demands.
So there are lessons to be learned: set against the staff the Commission had at its disposal to deal with the Irish problem - three or four people - Ireland had 30 000 civil servants, and the Irish Civil Service won every time!
Mr President, I am going to refer to a subject that none of the previous speakers has discussed.
I am referring to the report by the Court of Auditors on the principle of additionality.
This is a report that was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 9 March.
This report contains a very interesting section - section 62 - that discusses privatisation.
Over the past few years, various European Union governments have enthusiastically embarked on a policy of privatisation placing the heritage which previously belonged to the community in very few hands.
In Spain, for example, over the last four years, public companies have been privatised to the tune of 4 billion, with a B for Barcelona or Brussels. These public companies have passed into the hands of private individuals.
Mr Liikanen is an expert in accounting, and knows that privatisation is a form of public disinvestment and, specifically, that it can be a form of regional disinvestment.
If, for example, an airline providing regional services was privatised, regional disinvestment could occur, and we would thus be infringing the principle of additionality.
The Court of Auditors has referred to this, saying that Member States are aware that spending decreases as a result of privatisation and it is in their interests to reduce it.
Taking into account the importance of the categories of spending affected, telecommunications, energy, etc., this simple operation can substantially modify the final result.
And we also have the response by the Commission, which must be very recent, and which Commissioner Liikanen, as a member of the College, must remember perfectly.
The Commission replies here with a system that we call the Olendorf method, a method of language-learning that consists of the teacher asking the student "Have you got my uncle's underpants?" and the student replying "No, but I have my grandmother's glasses" .
And the response given to us by the Commission in section 62 is very short.
It says: "Although the private sector sometimes invests in sectors that are traditionally considered public, it would be incredibly difficult to increase the verification of additionality in private investments, as this would imply the collection and examination of the accounts of a number of private companies which would not be obliged to provide the corresponding information to the national authorities or to the Commission" .
That is, the Commission is replying using the Olendorf method.
We have here Commissioner Liikanen who knows the subject very well, and perhaps he could give us a more specific response, as I believe that this considerably affects the core of additionality.
The second issue is that the Berlin financial forecasts anticipated a substantial reduction in the Structural Funds.
This year we have EUR 29 430 million. In the year 2006 we will have a nominal figure of EUR 26 600 million, that is to say, a reduction of 14% over seven years.
Taking into account inflation, I can calculate that there is a reduction of 20%.
That is, from now until 2006, the Structural Funds will lose over 20% compared with the current figure, which means that it will be very difficult to meet the needs we are meeting today and, as we have heard, there are still many problems in many Community regions.
There is a further problem, which should also not be hidden from the Commission or the members of this House: we are talking about the impending enlargement of the European Union with thirteen new Member States, most of which have a far lower average income than that of the poorest regions of the Community and there are no plans to fulfil cohesion policies with regard to these candidate Member States.
I know that the Commission will not be able to give me a reply on this question, but I am drawing the attention of the House and the Commissioner to the problem that this will cause with regard to Community cohesion policies.
Mr President, while I endorse everything that Mr Medina Ortega has said, I would like to say that, although we are a tiny Group with very little time to speak, I did refer to the report of the Court of Auditors that he mentioned, which is indeed from 9 March this year.
Mr President, Commissioner, as has been said here, EU funds cannot replace Member States' public expenditure and the structural aid that runs parallel with it.
This principle of additionality is important to reduce regional disparities, which is the aim of the Union' s regional and structural policies.
The Commission must oblige the Member States to work in such a way that the principle of additionality is implemented both nationally and regionally.
I suspect that this principle is being seriously violated in the Member States.
The effect of the Union' s regional policy is dramatically weakened by governments drastically reducing national, public and structural aid and subsidies, even in excess of what is coming into a region via Union funds.
In some cases this violation is covered up by including as national regional funds development funds, which are mainly, however, targeted at the fastest growing areas.
The regional failure to observe the principle of additionality aggravates the situation with regard to internal regional disparities within Member States, which runs counter to the aims of the Union' s regional policy.
President, it is a great pity indeed that Commissioner Barnier has been unable to be present here this morning, because this is a matter within his brief which is causing great concern not only in Scotland and Wales but in other parts of the Union.
It is a matter of real concern because it is made to appear as though a scheme which is supposed to provide specific help really ends up just been a conjuring trick between the Commission and the national governments in which extra money is supposed to be coming in, but we are told afterwards it makes no difference whether extra money went into the particular region as long as it went into the country as a whole.
That is simply unacceptable.
We are further told, however, that all is well, because the additionality rules in the regulation are being carried through properly.
Yet the Court of Auditors, in the very report that we have been talking about, says the following things: the difficulties encountered are caused by the limited development of the principle in terms of concepts and methodology and the joint failure to find appropriate and effective procedures for verifying it.
And then two paragraphs later, the identification of the structural assistance interventions in the eligible regions is unreliable, and this leads to the inclusion of a large number of estimates and hypotheses which are difficult to verify.
'Difficult' indeed, Sir.
No wonder that this causes disquiet throughout the Community and let us ask the Commission to give it its full attention.
Mr President, one of the main problems arising in this whole issue is that there is not any legal sanction from Europe to ensure that Member States adhere to the excellent concept of additionality.
I think we must look in detail at that problem, and we need also better coordination between DGs on this issue.
Additionality is your concept, and it is up to you to ensure that it works effectively in Member States.
We understand as well, of course, the problems you are facing concerning the overlapping of programmes, creating problems of continuity for you.
Verification is another matter that needs to be tackled with Member States, because they are guilty as well.
We understand your problems, that they are not providing for you sufficient data in good time, especially with Objectives 2, 3 and 4, to enable you to ensure that the system works more effectively.
One of the worst offenders in this connection is the UK.
No additional money has been built into the budget of our Welsh Assembly.
This is clear non-compliance.
The European Parliament and the European Union admit that our nation of Wales is poor and yet the UK government, not only the Labour government, has not complied with additionality.
It is all very well for my colleague Jonathan Evans to imply that his party is not guilty.
For eighteen long years the concept of additionality was not complied with by his government either.
I think some momentum is being lost, Mr President.
I was talking to councils in Wales yesterday.
They need this scheme to go ahead.
It is in line with the excellent principle of cohesion, and we ask the Commission to adhere to that and to assist the poorest regions in the European Union.
Mr President, I had not expected to speak today because I represent the south-east of England which is one of the more prosperous regions of England and of Europe.
We pay the taxes that make up the grants that other areas receive.
We have no Objective 1 funding.
What Objective 2 funding we had has been reduced by the present government and the Conver Fund that used to be very helpful is now being phased out. So, why do I speak?
Because even in the south-east of England there are pockets of deprivation.
In particular I want to speak of the Isle of Wight, a beautiful island with 130 000 good people but 68% GDP per head of the European average - a very poor region.
It gets no support from Europe. Why not?
It does not get the grant from Europe because at NUTS II it is classified with Hampshire.
Hampshire is a prosperous county - 100% of European average so, no money for the Isle of Wight.
Yet, it has a population of 130 000, a bigger population than the Åland Islands which are NUTS II and do get grants from the European Union.
The island has taken its case against the British Government that it feels is treating it unfairly, to the High Court in London. I think they might win that case.
As far as Europe is concerned, on my advice, they took their case to the Ombudsman because we believed that EUROSTAT, by refusing to define the Isle of Wight as a separate NUTS II region, was treating the island unfairly.
This week, in what I would say is a landmark ruling by the European Ombudsman, he has said that constitutes maladministration by EUROSTAT and by the European Commission.
Let me read out his ruling: "In the present case the Commission has not provided the Ombudsman with elements which show that EUROSTAT, when deciding not to classify the Isle of Wight as a separate NUTS II region, has taken into account all relevant factors including Article 158 of the Treaty and the Viola report of the European Parliament" .
He has recommended that the Commission and EUROSTAT should look again at this particular problem.
I would ask the Commission to consider fairly this recommendation that has come from the Ombudsman so that I can go back to the people of the Isle of Wight and say that this issue will be looked at again, that they can expect the Commission to treat fairly the particular problems and concerns of the island.
Then we can get in on this act of additionality and take up our fight with the British Government to make sure that we get support from Europe and from the British Government to treat fairly an island which to date has not been fairly treated either by the British Government or by the European Union.
- Mr President, Tony Blair and Donald Dewar will not have slept well last night!
Their worst nightmares have turned out to be reality.
The Labour Party heartlands of Scotland have sent them an unmistakable message.
The Scottish Labour voter - for so long taken for granted - has spoken.
The Scottish Conservative Party candidate in Ayr, John Scott, has humiliated Labour into third place - 5 000 or more votes behind.
This will only get worse for Labour when the truth about their incompetent and cynical administration of the European Union's Structural Funds becomes better known and better understood.
Because of the Labour Government's tardiness in submitting its proposed maps nine months late in December instead of March last year, it is still struggling to come up with acceptable specific projects.
Scottish local authorities are left not knowing whether or not the projects which they are having to underwrite will indeed obtain Structural Fund support.
Commissioner: three questions:
When do you expect to be able to provide certainty for the Scottish regions and the badly needed projects which are looking for EU support?
Are you satisfied with the preparedness of the Scottish Executive to provide the necessary matching funding and to assure you that it is truly additional? Or is it all just the usual Labour/Liberal coalition hot air, all mouth, while feet drag along the cobbled streets of Edinburgh and European money is hijacked by the Treasury in London?
I have listened carefully to this interesting debate and I will transmit all the questions which were raised here to my colleague, Mr Barnier, and he will respond accordingly.
I am sure he will send you his replies at least to all those issues which concern Structural Funds and additionality.
Mr President, inevitably Commissioner Liikanen was not in a position other than to reply formally to the debate and say that he had heard what had been said and would pass it on. That is not very satisfactory from the point of view of the many Members of this House who made important points.
I request that Mr Barnier gives a written summary of his response to these points.
I am sure that Commissioner Barnier will be willing to follow up on this interesting debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on 11 April.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a good weekend and I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 10.50 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday 17 March 2000.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, on Tuesday a terrible accident took place in Kitzsteinhorn, near Salzburg.
Eleven people were killed in an avalanche and that is not the final death toll.
It may be worse yet.
The next few hours will tell.
I would simply like to tell you that at these difficult times my thoughts, indeed our thoughts go out to the victims of this disaster and to their families.
Madam President, the verbatim report of proceedings for 16 March did not record my speech in full.
I should like to correct it because the meaning has been distorted.
It says: "I am therefore able to tell the House that both Felix Habsburg-Lothringen and Karl Ludwig Habsburg-Lothringen have valid passports without any form of restriction."
Now comes the mistake: "Neither signed the declarations of renunciation required by the constitutional office, because they "have distanced" themselves from the house of Habsburg" is what is recorded in the verbatim report of proceedings. It should read "will never distance" .
Madam President, I call upon you, our President, but also upon the Council and the Commission to clarify certain questions, raised by the events of the last few days, with the Turkish government. Firstly, the existence of a blacklist of Members of Parliament and representatives of NGOs whom the Turkish government deems undesirable.
Secondly, the arrest, which took place at the very time when a delegation from the European Parliament was visiting Turkey, of Akin Birdal, a human rights campaigner who, apart from anything else, was in a very poor state of health when he was taken back into custody. In addition to this, there has been a marked return to suppression of journalistic activities, which has been documented in a report by other sources as well.
We feel that these actions taken by Turkey against Members of Parliament are cause for very serious concern.
I would like the Turkish government to be asked to clarify whether blacklists also exist for European countries other than Italy.
Thank you, Mrs Morgantini.
We shall, of course, look into the matter thoroughly.
Madam President, I am rising to speak about what has just been said by Mrs Morgantini.
In my capacity as chairman of the Socialist delegation which visited Turkey, on Monday evening, after speaking to the Prime Minister, Mr Ecevit, to raise the situation of Mr Birdal and Mrs Zana, and to express our concern - and I would like to point out that we were able to receive the first report which is being discussed by the Turkish government on adapting the Turkish constitution and legislation to the Copenhagen criteria - we held a meeting in the Commission' s headquarters in Ankara with representatives of the NGOs, including Mr Birdal, who participated very actively in the meeting.
Yesterday, Tuesday morning, Mr Birdal went to prison to serve the sentence that the Turkish courts have imposed on him.
From Turkey we expressed our vigorous condemnation of the fact that a person who has fought for human rights for many years, like Mr Birdal - who has not paid with his life in this struggle, although he has unfortunately paid with his health - had gone to prison. We also expressed our opinion - which I believe is not only that of the Socialist Group but also of the whole of this House - that, in order to set Turkey on a path which may lead to a good relationship conducive to full accession, it is clearly necessary - as the Turkish government is now saying - to amend the constitution and the legislation and also to implement a law of amnesty so that people such as Mrs Zana, who is in prison, or Mr Birdal, who has just gone to prison, do not have to pay for crimes of opinion which fortunately do not exist in any of our countries.
Thank you, Mr Galeote Quecedo.
Of course, we all remember the very moving debate we had right here on the subject.
We can assure the journalist in question of this institution' s complete solidarity and opposition to this truly disgraceful act of terrorism.
Madam President, I would like to inform the House of an incident which occurred at a joint meeting between the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Canada and its Canadian counterpart, which was here on a visit last week.
Mr Sturdy, the chairman of our delegation, was unable to attend at that precise time, Madam President, but he has written to you this morning to confirm what I am about to say.
Something quite astonishing for this type of meeting occurred.
The chairman of the Canadian delegation suddenly launched into the most obnoxious personal attacks upon myself, for no reason whatsoever, to the point that the other members of his delegation spoke up to disassociate themselves from his words.
Everyone was quite dumbfounded by this attitude.
This is regrettable in the extreme, since this was an otherwise excellent visit, and because we wish to maintain the best relations with Canada, after so many difficult years, principally due to conflicts over fishing.
It is imperative to restore good relations, and we therefore deplore this incident most strongly.
Madam President, I should like you to ask the Canadian government for some explanation of the significance of these declarations.
Of course, Mr Berthu.
This is certainly a quite regrettable incident.
Indeed, I seem to remember, as you have just stated, that the members of the Canadian delegation expressed their regrets at this incident and offered their apologies.
Madam President, 13 April will see the start of the trial, in Iran, of thirteen Iranian citizens who are of the Jewish religion.
Since they are being charged with spying for the United States and Israel - who have denied any connection with them - there is every likelihood that the thirteen citizens could face the death penalty.
Madam President, I know that you have already intervened, at the request of certain Members of Parliament, to request that a delegation of the European Parliament be allowed to attend the trial, but if I am not mistaken, the Iranian government has, as yet, neither granted nor refused our request.
I must ask you to intervene once again, and I also call upon the Commission to intervene, to ensure that human rights are fully observed in the course of this trial, so that thirteen people are not condemned to death for reasons unknown, given that this Parliament has repeatedly declared its opposition to the death penalty.
I would like to thank you in advance for your efforts and for the endeavours of Parliament and the European Commission to protect freedom and respect for the rights of the defence in the trial of these thirteen Iranian Jews.
Mr Tajani, you are quite right.
I did approach the Iranian government, but received no response.
You can count on me, therefore, to try again.
Tomorrow' s agenda includes the topic of human cloning.
It is important for Members of the House, as they prepare for that debate, to be aware that the scientists who work behind the research which led to the patent have given a categorical assurance that their project has nothing to do with cloning and it has not at any point been directed in that direction.
This does not affect any of the central questions in the debate about the conduct of the Patent Office but since it relates to the reputation of individuals I think it fair and proper that this should be noted by Members of the House.
I should also mention an interest of my own since I am a professor of the University on unpaid leave of absence from that institution which is also involved.
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to get on with the items on the agenda.
I do not think that all these contributions are genuine points of order.
We do still have two of them, though.
Madam President, I shall be very brief.
We share Mr Galeote Quecedo' s disapproval of the displays of politically motivated violence in the Basque country.
Having said that, I think it would be a more accurate analysis and a fairer representation of the facts if we attributed this violence to its real instigators.
The murderers of the Basque country are not inspired by the doctrine of Benito Mussolini, but by Marxism.
These are the extreme left-wing ideas represented in this House.
Unless we therefore consider that they benefit...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Let us see if Mr Katiforis' contribution is a genuine point of order.
Madam President, I would simply like to follow up what Mrs Morgantini said about the lists in Turkey.
It seems that there is also a list of Greek subjects and I see that Turkey' s Foreign Minister has stated that any country can make such lists.
Naturally, I imagine, he must mean any country that does not belong to the European Union ....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Katiforis, we shall look into it, thank you.
Welcome
Agenda
We will hear statements by the Commission and Council presidency tomorrow on the interception of communications.
It is a sensitive subject.
It is one where the powers of the Union are strictly circumscribed and the major political groups have not wished to take a position until they have heard the Council and the Commission.
So we are asking that the vote be postponed to the April part-session and that the deadline for putting down motions under Rule 37 of our Rules be re-opened to allow the committee eventually to table a motion on this issue.
The item is on the agenda of our next committee meeting.
Madam President, I should like to speak in support of this motion.
I must say I find it extremely sensible, since the debate is to take place shortly and we are awaiting details which will enable us to give a more informed opinion on this very important issue.
I feel, in any case, that it is generally sensible, Madam President, not to give an opinion until one is in possession of all the facts, and, in particular, to wait until the speaker has come to the end of his speaking time before deciding on a point of order.
Is there any objection to Mr Watson' s request on behalf of his committee to postpone voting on the resolution on the Echelon system until the April part-session?
There do not seem to be any objections.
(Parliament gave its assent)
General product safety - BSE tests
The next item is the Commission statement on general product safety.
Madam President, there were two issues within my area of competence dealt with in the Commission this morning and I have the pleasure and the honour to report to Parliament on both of these issues.
The first one as you mentioned, relates to the proposals on the amendment of the directive on general product safety.
I am very pleased to be able to present to you the draft revision of the directive on general product safety which the Commission has approved today.
The idea behind the directive is in fact quite simple.
Only safe food or industrial products are to be placed on the market, and this means European products as well as imported products.
The two key objectives of the general product safety directive are, firstly, to ensure a high and consistent level of protection for consumer health and safety throughout Europe and, secondly, to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market.
We have undertaken an extensive stocktaking exercise on the implementation of the present directive.
The report on the main findings will be circulated in parallel to the draft revision of the directive.
While the general approach of the directive is sound, experience has revealed certain weaknesses which we are now trying to correct.
We first wish to clarify the scope of the directive.
This directive is meant to provide consistent assurances of the safety of products for consumers.
It is also meant to fill possible gaps in sectoral legislation, for instance market surveillance or emergency procedures, which are rarely foreseen in specific pieces of legislation.
However, it does not apply where a specific sector of legislation covers the same aspects under consideration.
We want to make sure that the directive gives the best coverage possible to products used by consumers.
This also means products which have migrated from the professional field to personal use, for instance laser pointers, and secondly products which are used to provide a service.
Two examples of that would be hair-dryers in a hair salon or equipment in a gym centre.
We want to have a more efficient system.
This implies, therefore, additional obligations for producers and distributors to provide information.
This is probably the most important element in this amended set of provisions.
The present situation is in fact far from ideal.
It is quite extraordinary that, for example, the authorities of a Member State were informed by the United States of a particular product that was dangerous because the provisions that prevail in the European Union do not provide for this.
This notification is compulsory in the United States but not so far in the European Union.
This particular provision is designed to rectify that situation.
I also want a reinforcement of the market surveillance by Member States.
As you know, there is no good law if it is not applied properly.
Member States now will be required to strengthen the tasks of the surveillance authorities.
They will be required to establish sanctions; they will have to develop links with other Member States as well, in particular through a network of enforcement authorities of the Member States.
This is also extremely important from an industry point of view in order to make sure that a level playing field is maintained between competitors, especially in relation to imported goods.
We also want to improve the rapid alert system, a system which is operated by the Commission to monitor the information on dangerous products and measures taken.
The scope of Rapex, as it is called, is extended to cover voluntary measures taken by industry to withdraw a product.
The practical operation of the system will be improved.
We now also foresee the possibility of opening the system to third countries, in particular candidate countries.
We also intend to introduce provisions to simplify the procedures for emergency measures at Community level, so that we can take rapid action with the advice of a regulatory committee.
I will mention here that we have now introduced an export ban for products withdrawn at Community level.
Another point to which I wish to draw your attention is improved transparency.
Consumers often lack confidence because they do not know what is happening.
We believe that in line with the general policy of the Commission, citizens have the right to know which real dangers they are exposed to and the measures taken.
The limitations to this is, of course, professional secrecy, as defined in Article 287 of the Treaty, but that of course is except when there are overriding public health considerations.
To conclude, I will say that consumers should be confident that products on the market are regulated in a consistent manner, that dangerous products are monitored in an appropriate way and that information is provided.
I believe that this draft directive can effectively contribute to our common goal of ensuring a high level of consumer health and safety and I look forward to more detailed discussions with Members of Parliament in future on this issue.
Could I, on behalf of my group, assure the Commissioner that these proposals are welcome and just ask him a couple of questions about them: firstly, could he say more about the consultation programme regarding the candidate countries? It is urgent that those countries which aspire to join the European Union should be perfectly clear about the changing nature of the acquis communautaire and the regulations that they will have to follow.
Is there to be a regular process of dialogue in which they will be involved?
Secondly, could I ask about the process whereby dangerous products, or products that are deemed to be dangerous, are removed from the market.
In this instance, is it the case that it will be possible to speed up the procedure under the rapid reaction process for taking something out of the marketplace once it is perceived to be dangerous?
Finally, could I ask him about those products about which many people, including myself, have been in correspondence with him, which are thought to be dangerous but are not so regarded at this stage by the Commission?
Flammable furniture would be a case I have in mind.
Is there going to be a widening of the area of scrutiny which will take into account products of this sort?
Thank you, Mr Whitehead for those words of support which I greatly welcome.
Let me say in relation to your question on candidate countries that there is an ongoing discussion in relation to this issue.
My service and Mr Verheugen' s service, which, of course, is the lead service for enlargement, are in discussion on this, not only on issues relating to public health, but also protection of consumers.
Issues such as this particular provision will also be the focus of our attention.
In relation to the second part of your question, the rapid removal of dangerous goods, I would like to reassure you that under the rapid alert system, the Rapex system, there will be a speedy removal of products that have been found to be dangerous from the market.
Thirdly, I am aware of your concern in relation to flammable furniture and other items, and these are being kept under review.
Commissioner, you have just made the very important point that consumers should be able to be confident.
They should be able to be confident in all areas and that a whole raft of instruments seems to have been implemented to that end, particularly the White Paper on consumption and food safety.
Today, in order to give more meaning to all the current thinking on consumer safety and in order to reconcile Europe with civil society, particularly that society which successfully made its views felt in Seattle and elsewhere, expressing its anxieties about food quality and food safety, could the Commission not take the initiative of organising a forum for a large-scale debate between, on the one hand, the responsible parties from the Commission, the representatives of governments and members of parliament, of course, but also the representatives of civil society, non-governmental organisations, consumers' organisations, and professionals involved in the sector, in such a way as to ensure that these debates filter down to the European citizen? This would forestall fresh criticism of us as rather a remote body, a forum that does not sufficiently involve the citizen in all debates.
Would you be in favour of establishing a forum of this kind?
I can confirm that there are a number of proposals in the pipeline in relation to the very issue that you draw attention to.
For instance, my service is currently putting the final touches to the framework document on public health, and contained in that document is a reference to the establishment of a public health forum, where issues relating to public health, and by extension the food and consumer affairs you draw attention to, will be able to be discussed.
I have been concerned by the lack of the involvement of the civil society in the issues that you talk about, particularly in relation to trade.
I also attended the WTO talks in Seattle with a view to promoting the ideas that you refer to, that is the involvement of, and the provision of a voice for, civil society, NGOs and consumers generally in the talks surrounding the whole WTO issue.
So I can assure you, Mrs Auroi, that I am concerned about these issues.
I believe it is important that there should be a connection between the work in the Commission and civil society and of course this is something that the Directorate-General of which I have the honour to be the Executive Head, must be closely associated with.
I take that responsibility seriously and we will be moving along in this way.
Madam President, if there is to be an export ban on products banned in the Community, have you investigated and calculated how many jobs will be lost in Europe as a result? Has this been agreed with the trade unions and employers' federations?
I have to stress, Madam President and Members of Parliament, that my responsibility rests in the area of public health and consumer protection.
I have said on a number of occasions, including in this Parliament, that the primary consideration must be the protection of the public.
In circumstances where there might be a conflict between the protection of consumers, particularly their health, and monetary issues, public health must, of course, take precedence.
That is not to say that the considerations that you draw attention to should be ignored.
They cannot, but in any situation of conflict where you have to choose one or the other, public health must always prevail.
Madam President, Commissioner, I wish to congratulate the Commission on this initiative, which I believe to be extremely important.
I would, however, like the Commissioner to explain how we can take such an initiative against the background of the common agricultural policy, which runs totally counter to promoting food safety and quality? As the common agricultural policy basically pays for production, and is based solely on quantitative criteria, namely production levels, and as farmers receive money according to the amount they produce, how can we accept a directive like this unless we first make our agricultural policy a policy based on quality, a policy based on food safety?
Or is this simply a way of dealing with public opinion, as the public is increasingly suspicious of the food chain?
We cannot change public opinion overnight on the basis of this agricultural policy.
Why not start by changing our agricultural policy so that it inspires complete confidence in consumers?
Let me say that the provisions that are contained in this particular legislative document relating to food will operate for such time until the general food law comes into operation.
You will be aware that our plans, which are set out in the White Paper on food safety, contain a provision relating to the introduction of legislation in respect of a general food law, and there are many other legal provisions contained in the White Paper which are designed to protect food safety, and by inference consumers.
In bringing forward that legislation, of course, it will be necessary to have detailed consultations with the other Commissioners, and in particular Commissioner Fischler, who has the responsibility for the CAP.
I can assure you, Mr Campos, that the interaction that takes place at Commission level on these issues puts a high premium on food safety.
It is my belief that there will not be, nor can there be allowed to be, any conflict between concerns relating to the development of farming and concerns relating to food safety.
Madam President, I too would like to say how much the Commission' s statements today have pleased me.
However, I would like to dwell on the point of transparency because, like yourself, I too Commissioner think that transparency is directly and mainly related to the public' s confidence in food safety.
However, you mentioned the concept of 'confidentiality' in connection with transparency, and I would like to ask you where this concept of 'confidentiality' begins and ends because I think this is the most sensitive point if we are to win back the trust of European citizens.
This particular provision deals with improved transparency, and, as I mentioned in my presentation to you earlier, we believe in the Commission that, in line with general policy, the citizens have a right to know the real dangers to which they are exposed, and what measures can be taken to protect them.
As I mentioned the limitation to this is professional secrecy or confidentiality as defined by Article 287 of the Treaty, except in circumstances where there is an overriding public health consideration.
In those circumstances, the provisions contained in Article 287 must take a back seat.
In those circumstances both the Treaty itself and the legislative provision that is being brought forward here this afternoon deal with the very situation that you identify and provide adequate and full protection for the consumer and full transparency.
Let me also say that I fully agree with you that consumer confidence is best enhanced by the provision of full information.
Transparency is hugely important in this regard and any apprehension among consumers that some information is being kept from them does enormous damage to consumer confidence.
I am acutely aware of this issue and therefore I fully agree with the import of your question.
Madam President, Commissioner. Food safety, product safety - I should like to dwell on this aspect.
We know that meat production begins in the stall.
The talk at present is of a total declaration of feedingstuffs.
We have also seen that the feedingstuffs industry has gone straight on to the defensive because they say that what is being asked of them here is unrealistic.
My question is this: how can we protect our farmers as producers if, in the final analysis, they do not know what they are feeding their animals and are then held liable?
You ask how we can best protect our farmers as producers when they do not know what it is that they are feeding their animals.
There is a body of legislation in place that deals with animal feed and in the White Paper this issue is also addressed.
There are legislative provisions in the annex to the document which indicate the Commission' s intentions in relation to animal feed.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the Commissioner for this important directive, which, as he himself says, is intended to restore consumer confidence.
The Commissioner is bound to be aware of the fact that Belgian public opinion has taken quite a knock and consumer confidence has fallen in the wake of the dioxin crisis. So much so, in fact, that a committee of inquiry was set up in the Belgian Parliament at the time of the crisis.
I would like to ask the Commissioner a specific question about the rapid alert system.
The said committee of inquiry accused the Belgian government, the authorities responsible that is, of being too slow to implement the system.
This met with the response that the rapid alert system procedures are not very user-friendly, nor is it very clear as to when exactly the alarm has to be raised.
Is the Commissioner able to provide assurances that these new proposals will overcome this problem?
You are perfectly correct in what you say about the provision of information by the Belgian authorities in respect of the dioxin issue.
There was quite a considerable delay at that time which was a matter of concern to everybody, not only the Commission, but obviously Parliament as well.
It was of such concern to the Commission that proceedings were instituted by the Commission against Belgium in the Court of Justice.
That litigation remains in place, even though the other aspects of the particular problem that you raise have been resolved, because of the delay in reporting this particular matter to the relevant authorities and to the European Union.
Perhaps I might continue with the other aspect of my presentation to Parliament this afternoon, which deals with the proposal for the introduction of BSE tests, and I have pleasure in presenting this to Parliament this afternoon.
I have announced on several occasions that I consider the new rapid post-mortem tests to be one of the most important tools in our efforts to control BSE.
The Commission' s services have worked on a proposal to introduce these tests in BSE monitoring throughout the Community since September last year.
Currently we have three different tests which have been found to give excellent results when used to test animals with clinical signs of disease after their death.
The tests offer new opportunities to test a large number of animals on a routine basis.
An active monitoring programme carried out in Switzerland has demonstrated that the use of rapid post-mortem tests could significantly improve the efficacy of BSE monitoring, particularly if targeted on animals which die on farms or are sent for casualty slaughter.
Since 1998, the Community has a BSE surveillance programme in place which is based on the examination of animals with clinical symptoms suggestive of BSE.
The Commission now proposes to replace that programme with a new programme where each Member State tests a representative sample of dead-on-farm and casualty-slaughtered cattle in its territory.
Compared with the current monitoring, the sample size will be increased twenty-five to one hundredfold in each Member State depending on the size of the cattle population.
I expect that the proposed new monitoring will provide significantly better information on the incidence of BSE in the Community than we have at present.
I am also happy to be able to tell Parliament that these particular tests will produce a result within 24 hours.
We propose to test a minimum number of 65 000 animals per year in the whole Community, and the testing will start in January 2001.
The proposed decision does not in itself have implications on the Community budget but that is an issue that will be discussed in the special veterinary committee next week.
I commend these proposals to Parliament which have been put through the Commission this afternoon.
Madam President, Commissioner, it will come as no surprise to you that I am not satisfied.
I have quite a few questions.
Parliament has been calling for the BSE test to be made compulsory since the BSE control committee. I have asked you time and again for quite some time now: do you not consider that making the test compulsory as late as January 2001 is too little by a long chalk and much too late, given that the BSE tests were assessed a year ago?
Do you also not consider, Mr Byrne, that taking dead animals and sick animals is not good enough and that you will only get a proper overview, i.e. carry out proper screening, by testing one animal in every five, six or ten thousand to be slaughtered, depending on the BSE status of the Member State? Mr Byrne, if the only reason for this weak Commission proposal is the Member States' unwillingness to agree, are you prepared to tell the House which Member States refused to agree to a more ambitious proposal?
This particular proposal, as I have indicated, will be put before the SVC within the next week or so and, assuming that there is agreement there, it will get to the system much more quickly than envisaged.
In the event that there is not a clear agreement, then of course the appropriate procedures that are laid down have to be complied with, that is to go through the Agriculture Council and so on.
Then, of course, the systems have to be put in place in Member States to enable this to happen, so that the dates that I have put on this are, as it were, a conservative estimate.
It may very well be that it can happen in a shorter space of time.
Furthermore, a number of Member States have already announced that it is their intention to bring forward their own testing at Member State level, and it may very well be that we are going to have Member States introducing these systems in a shorter space of time.
One must always bear in mind, however, that a system such as this will require not only legislative provisions to be put in place but the technical details will also have to be arranged.
Tests will have to be available to ensure that the systems that are put in place are monitored and working properly.
All this has to be put in place to ensure that we get the best possible results for the work that has been undertaken and for the expense that is incurred.
So the best possible date that I can predict for all this to happen and the best estimate that I can give for a commencement date having regard to all these factors is January 2001.
But if Member States are in a position to do that earlier, so be it and so much the better.
Mr President, Commissioner, you have already partially answered the first question on samples.
I have a second question for you.
I am convinced that, with regard to the consumer, we would be taken more seriously by producers if we were also to do away with the slaughter of animals at risk and if we were to have the same legislation throughout the entire Community.
My second point, Commissioner, regards application in 2001.
I feel it is necessary, in addition, to include the elimination of the emergency slaughter of diseased animals, so that only actual casualties are subject to emergency slaughter.
Control would then be much tighter in the production sector, thus benefiting the consumer.
I fully agree that there is a concern relating to the high-risk offals and that is why I will be bringing forward proposals relating to the removal of SRMs.
We know that there is a proposal there already and that will now be fast-tracked.
I am hoping that this issue will be dealt with by the Agriculture Council in or about June, which will meet the concerns that are raised by the question.
Commissioner, we are particularly concerned because the decision that has been taken does not appear to be an adequate proper response to the anxiety of the consumers.
The testing is not systematic or is limited to sick animals or dead-on-farm animals, and so we are in no way giving the impression of adopting a quasi-systematic, and hence reliable, approach with regard to meat quality and to the epidemiological policy which might be implemented.
You have just said that public health takes priority over employment and economic considerations.
Do you not think that, in this instance, considerations of the costs of vaccines and money have taken precedence over consumer interests?
This particular proposal is targeted on, as you say, sick animals and animals that have been slaughtered as a result of emergency procedures, but it is not exclusively targeted on those.
The reason why it is targeted on those animals is because that is where we are likely to get the best and most accurate information.
In addition, however, it must be borne in mind that there are proposals relating to the removal of SRMs, which add another layer of security for the consumer.
Moreover you are aware of the proposals that are in existence relating to the control of animal feed containing meat and bonemeal.
So all these factors must be looked at together.
It is not just one proposal that we are putting forward to you this afternoon as being the only answer to the protection of consumers in respect of the consumption of beef.
There is a multi-layered response, there are many issues involved, and I have indicated a number of them to you this afternoon.
I wish to assure you that there is concern to ensure the maximum protection of consumers in respect of the consumption of all food, including beef.
Mr President, Commissioner. I share all the concerns expressed by previous speakers.
As a producer, it is in my interest to restore consumer confidence in the production of cattle and sheep and related products.
My question to you, Commissioner, is this: so far, thank God, Austria has not had a single case of BSE.
Will these tests also be carried out in Austria?
Yes, these tests will be carried out in every Member State, including Austria.
Only by carrying out these tests in all Member States can we have the kind of security that we believe is necessary.
Many of you have spoken about the need to put before anything else the protection of consumers, food safety and public health, and in those circumstances the scheme that we have devised for these tests is predicated on the basis that to acquire the most valuable and accurate information it is necessary to carry out the tests throughout the European Union.
Just in order to concentrate the minds of the Member States, can we ask what the Commission, and indeed the SVC, have concluded as a result of the tests which have been carried out in Switzerland with regard to the number of animals, either by number or proportion, which have entered the human food chain?
I have to say I am not in a position to read the mind of the SVC but this particular issue is going before the SVC next week, and of course my representatives there will advance all of the arguments that I have advanced to you this afternoon.
You, Mr Whitehead, are particularly familiar with these.
I expect and hope that the proposals will receive a welcome at the SVC and there will not be a need for the proposals to then go forward to the Agriculture Council.
But I regret I am not in a position to read the mind of the SVC.
I hope that we will get a good response and I believe that from the contacts that we have had with some of the Member States, there is a real apprehension in relation to these issues, not least because of the finding of the one single case in Denmark very recently.
That has tended to concentrate minds very considerably.
I have just a minor question to add to what Mr Daul and Mrs Lienemann have already said.
What is to be done?
Would it not be sensible also to eliminate the animals taken to the abattoir at the last minute, which are often likely to be infected? Surely it is better to take them out of the food chain?
My understanding is that those animals are normally taken out of the food chain.
My question to Mr Byrne relates to the recent report of the Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin on the incidence of BSE in France.
This was a report which related to a period during 1999, but which came to the European Parliament and to MEPs not very long ago.
The findings of the report make extremely alarming reading.
A large number of French departments - I think about 23 departments - had not apparently been monitoring for BSE in the cattle populations within their departments, although they were departments in which there were a large number of dairy cattle.
The conditions and the controls in the abattoirs were such that one drew the conclusion from the report that it is perfectly possible today, 29 March 2000, that animals with BSE are still entering the food chain in France.
This must be an issue of great concern to the Commissioner.
I raised this with the French Agriculture Minister, Mr Glavany, when he came to Brussels last week.
He rejected out of hand the conclusions of the Food and Veterinary Office report and the findings of the inspectors.
I would like to know what the Commission is doing about this.
I realise that my question will be more properly posed to the Agriculture Commissioner, but Mr Byrne is responsible for food safety, and clearly there is a risk to the safety of food in France if the findings of the Food and Veterinary Office are accepted.
Could I therefore ask Mr Byrne what he is doing about this report?
This particular report came as the result of an inspection which took place in June last year.
Following on from that, the report had to be written and evaluated and then discussed with the French authorities.
That was done into the Autumn and I have been assured that the issues that were drawn to the attention of the French authorities during that exercise have been addressed substantially in the responses by the French authorities.
I have to say, in relation to reports from the Food and Veterinary Office, that I have had discussions with them about the reports and we are currently reviewing how the reports are done, how they are written and what information they contain.
I was at a seminar in Dublin as recently as last weekend discussing these issues with the chief veterinary officers of the European Union and with the Food and Veterinary Office.
We have made a number of proposals and I am satisfied that when these proposals are put into place we will have met the Member States' concerns in relation to this and also, of course, taken account of consumer concerns.
I am satisfied that the French authorities have taken action.
I would also draw your attention to the fact that recently Mr Glavany, the French Minister of Agriculture, announced his intention of putting in place approximately 40 000 tests of the type that I have been discussing with you here this afternoon to determine the presence of BSE and the levels of infectivity in France.
Aeroplane "hushkits
The next item is the joint debate on two oral questions to the Commission by the following Members:
Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on hushkitted aircraft (B5-0018/2000);
Mrs Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the hushkit issue (B5-0020/2000).
Mr President, I look forward with great interest to the Commissioner' s reply to this debate.
The first question one wants to ask is: is The Financial Times accurate this morning in forecasting that the Commissioner is about to answer our questions by saying that only part of the noise regulation will come into force, the part relating to the European Union, on 4 May. We believe that what the Commissioner is going to say is that the part relating to third countries, which should come into force from 2002, will not come into force and will in fact be suspended.
The Environment Committee is the committee responsible within the European Parliament for the original regulation on aircraft noise and we have watched with some dismay the reluctance of the United States to accept that the European Union is within its rights to insist on bringing the regulation into force by the due date.
The background to this is from our point of view continued prevarication on the part of the United States' administration whose attitude has, in the past, given us insufficient guarantees that they are willing to negotiate seriously through ICAO to find a way out of our difficulties.
The Environment Committee insists that we have every right, given the proximity of very many European airports to centres of population, to try to get lower noise levels from planes landing in Europe, no matter where they come from and who operates them.
Europeans should surely be able to legislate as they wish to protect the population of Europe, and give them the highest standards possible of noise protection.
To put it at its crudest, how will we explain the situation to the people of Europe if, after 2002, they still hear noisy old planes from third countries, fitted with the hushkits we judge inadequate, clattering round our skies?
This is, of course, a difficult issue to discuss sensibly in a United States election year.
We can understand that American politicians have little room for manoeuvre.
I think, however, that the Commissioner may be about to announce to us that light is dawning and that we can see a way forward that will enable both sides to be satisfied and to allow sensible negotiations to continue for a global solution.
The first compromise put forward a little time ago seemed to many in the Parliament to be much too shaky.
In effect the European Union would have suspended the whole regulation, and then the United States would have suspended its complaint to ICAO and negotiations would have gone forward. Or would they?
The danger, it seemed to us, was that the European Union would have been left with absolutely nothing.
We look forward to what the Commissioner has to say, and I have to underline that it is very important that she should satisfy the Environment Committee and the Parliament, not least because if she is asking us to suspend the application of any part of the regulation, it will have to come through this Parliament by codecision.
Mr President, as has become clear we asked that question because Regulation (EC) No 925/99 on the reduction of aircraft noise must enter into force very soon, while in the meantime there are ongoing talks between Mrs de Palacio and the US, which has found the regulation, which was approved by the Council and Parliament, disturbing and is calling for its withdrawal and suspension.
As is clear, the regulation was adopted in order to protect the environment and the public.
At the same time, however, it seems that the regulation affects the interests of the American aircraft industry.
To show good faith, the Council and Parliament postponed the regulation' s entry into force by one year.
Despite our positive attitude, the Americans for their part have shown supreme arrogance especially towards the European Parliament, calling as I said earlier for the regulation to be withdrawn at first and then, as a slight concession, speaking about indefinite suspension.
As we know, Mrs de Palacio was authorised by the Council of Ministers to negotiate with the US.
I have no doubt that aside from being lengthy, those talks were also difficult.
A time came when it seemed that some progress had been made, though far from anything that could be considered satisfactory, but in the end even that slight progress has vanished in the last few days, since the US has petitioned the ICAO under Article 84 of the Chicago Convention against the European Union concerning the regulation whose purpose, as I said, is to protect the environment.
For our part, we wish to make it abundantly clear that we have no desire to create tensions with the US. We do not want a trade war, we want no problems in our relations, and we regard them as allies and friends.
However, as they themselves would say, they must understand that 'it takes two to tango' .
Our position, then, is as follows:
firstly, our strategy must aim for global agreement on much stricter standards on aircraft noise;
secondly, if there is no agreement, then it is clear that the European Union will have to act unilaterally;
thirdly, we consider that the position of the United States, calling for withdrawal of the regulation or indefinite suspension of its implementation, is totally unacceptable;
fourthly, we welcome the progress made within the Committee on Aviation Environment Protection towards gradually phasing out any noisy aircraft in circulation today;
fifthly, we oppose any further delay in the regulation' s entry into force for aircraft of the Member States, and this because we regard the issue as an internal one and we cannot consider the Americans competent to determine what we do about our own aircraft,
and sixthly, we are prepared to review Regulation (EC) No 925/99 on aircraft registered in third countries provided, however, that in the interim agreement is reached within the ICAO on new standards.
If good faith prevails, that agreement can become a reality.
Meanwhile, however, there is no reason to suspend the regulation for third-country aircraft, for the very simple reason that the regulation concerning such aircraft only enters into force in 2002.
In that sense I cannot understand the insistence of the US, who continually talk about the suspension of our own regulation.
And, of course, we believe the US ought to withdraw their petition to the ICAO under Article 84 of the Chicago Convention, because that kind of action blows the spirit of cooperation sky-high.
Mr President, I want to conclude with two respective observations.
The first is this: it must be made clear who is negotiating on the US side.
We know who our negotiator is, it is Mrs de Palacio, and to date she has proved a very good negotiator.
As for the other side, it is not clear who the negotiator is.
This is preventing us from having a stable position from the US, and is also thwarting our own efforts.
The second observation is this: the US must understand that the European Parliament is no longer the body it used to be, in previous decades.
It is now a powerful body.
So they must understand that besides the Council, they must also talk to Parliament and take its views very seriously, because without Parliament there can be no progress.
So if they want us to help them, they must first help us, they must first contribute towards progress by showing goodwill.
With these thoughts, therefore, I would like to ask the Commissioner and the Council what their positions are.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one thing is crystal clear: on 4 May, the 'Hushkits' regulation enters into force in the European Union.
That is all we know for sure.
From then on we will have to see how we can carry on negotiating with the United States.
The objective of this regulation is very clear: to achieve compliance with what has been agreed within the ICAO, that is to say, that the aircraft landing at our airports genuinely conform to the noise standards of the ICAO.
This regulation has no further intention, but I believe we need to be more ambitious.
The current standards, as Mr Blokland has reminded us, date from 1978.
Since then, world aeronautical technology has made great advances.
Today, the noise levels of current aircraft can sometimes be 20, 40 or even 50 times lower than those of older aircraft.
It is therefore a question of achieving new noise levels as international standards within the ICAO.
In this respect, we need to cooperate with the Americans who, after all, are our friends and allies.
The fact that this regulation will enter into force soon does not mean that we do not have to carry on negotiating with the Americans with the aim of improving the situation with regard to noise standards within the ICAO.
What can we negotiate? We can negotiate two things:
Firstly, we are going to seek higher international standards within the framework of the ICAO, we are going to cooperate within the ICAO and we are going to seek a common objective, which will be to reduce noise at airports even further and thereby achieve lower noise levels, by applying more modern technologies, with a phasing out period for the most noisy aircraft with the establishment of a chapter 4.
Secondly, the Americans must suspend their complaint to the ICAO in accordance with Article 84 and we - this is something we could negotiate - could suspend the part of the regulation which refers to third country airlines; but certainly not in reference to European airlines, since that regulation enters into force on 4 May.
In other words, with regard to European airlines, there is nothing more to say: we can only negotiate with regard to third country airlines - for which we have some leeway until 2002 - and we would have to suspend that part.
Obviously, when we reach a new agreement within the ICAO, the Community standards will be adapted to the new ICAO standards, which, in any event, will be better than those laid down in the present regulations.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hatzidakis asked me who we are negotiating with and Mrs Jackson reminded us of the meeting they have had with Mr Slater, the Secretary of State for Transport.
I have negotiated with many people from the United States administration.
The only problem is that what is required - and I hope that at some point we will obtain it - is not only negotiations but also the confirmation that the preliminary agreements reached with the particular negotiator on duty receive the backing of the United States administration.
I have kept you informed promptly and with complete transparency throughout all this time.
I am not going to expand on what the stages have been, since you are perfectly familiar with them.
The last took place on Monday, with Mr Slater.
Agreement could conceivably be reached on the basic ideas which I presented to him, and we will continue to work on it.
Therefore, Mrs Jackson, what the Financial Times said is not true at all.
Only if there is in agreement on the other aspects would I come to Parliament to ask for your support for a postponement with regard to third country airlines, for a suspension of the provision of the regulation in this specific respect.
I hope that, between us all, we can reach this agreement.
Mr President, I should like to have begun my intervention with the title of a play by Shakespeare: 'Much ado about nothing' , but unfortunately it would be totally unsuitable.
There is much ado about a great deal.
However loath I am to put things a little more into the right context, thereby perhaps disassociating myself somewhat from the President-in-Office of the Council, the point is: we are not talking about the environment here, which I am otherwise quite happy to discuss, as you well know, we are talking about health.
What we are discussing today has very little to do with legislation on transport or the environment; on the contrary, we are legislating to protect people.
Every scientist in the world, including the USA, has established over recent years that noise makes people ill.
Noise makes people ill and therefore not only injures and stresses people themselves, it also damages the community as a whole, i.e. the national economy.
That is something which many of us here wish to bear in mind, which is why we tabled this legislation.
That is the only reason. That is what we wish to bear in mind, irrespective of the fact that, otherwise, we are, of course, always happy to integrate transport policy into other policy areas and environmental policy into transport.
The legislation is in force, as everyone has said here today and, commendably, the Commissioner too has again made that quite clear.
The last few times I have listened to you, Mrs de Palacio, I was most impressed by the very clear, very logical and very decisive manner in which you conveyed that.
I welcome that and I congratulate you.
The legislation is in force and I therefore wonder what the Council of transport ministers discussed yesterday.
Basically, it has nothing to discuss, unless it wants to submit new legislation to us, which is obviously not the case.
Mrs de Palacio said earlier that she will need Parliament' s support at some point for the second part of the regulation, the part relating to third countries, including the United States, South America and the countries of eastern Europe, i.e. all countries outside the European Union.
That is the part which is due to enter into force in April 2002.
But if you approach us, Mrs de Palacio, and want us to defer this part, then I think you will need to offer us more than you have at the moment, as you well know.
If you go back and negotiate, then one thing must be made clear and I hope and believe that the House is relatively united on this question: it must be clear that we need a declaration of unequivocal standards.
We must be clear and united on where we want to go and what the ultimate goal is.
I am not haggling over six months, but I do want clear objectives and we must have a clear timetable.
If - and I say this now completely off the record, insofar as I can in a minuted debate - if, rather than April 2002, it were September 2002 or even January 2003, I would be the last to make a song and a dance about it, but I do want a clear, binding timetable to be adhered to by everyone concerned, including the USA.
Once we have all this, then I should like to see it go through the general assembly of the International Civil Aviation Authority, the ICAO, in September.
If it goes through in September of next year, then we still have enough time to suspend the regulation.
I am not prepared to consider a suspension without the conditions which I have just formulated.
If that is, nonetheless, what you come to us with, then it will be possible, but it will have to go through the normal legislative procedure and then you will need Parliament' s support - even the United States of America must understand that - and then perhaps we can finish at the end of the day with another play which Shakespeare might have called "No ado about anything" !
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I actually think it is a shame that you have had to invest so much time and energy in this issue, because as Mr Blokland said, we are spending all our time looking back at regulations from the seventies instead of looking to the future.
I think that is a particularly sorry state of affairs.
We must bring the new standard into force as soon as possible. It is in our interests to do so, but what we are lacking is commitment on the part of the Americans.
That much is clear.
They have not given us their commitment, that is what makes us so suspicious.
They have given it to us so often. On so many occasions they have half committed themselves and then backed off again, and so on and so forth.
As far as I am concerned it is clear that the suspicion derives from the Americans' lack of willingness to commit themselves to something that is inevitable.
Only when they actually sign on the dotted line to this effect will we in the Union be able to help to move the situation on.
We should not turn things round.
Yesterday we had a talk with the American Minister for Transport.
It was my impression at this meeting, that in common with ourselves, Mr Slater is of the opinion that the hushkits are an issue of secondary importance which stands in the way of far more important issues, and that we must put this matter to bed as swiftly as possible.
But there is a huge amount of suspicion on their side too.
And so I think that it is time for a clear signal; but it must come from them in the first instance.
What we need to hear from them is that they want to find a solution, not behind closed doors somewhere, but officially, on paper.
It is not acceptable for them to ask us to defer our own regulations.
Their future commitment depends on whether or not we are willing to defer.
The complaint they have filed with the ICAO is in fact uncalled-for blackmail.
I believe they should withdraw it.
Mr Hatzidakis has said that it should be withdrawn and you have said that we should defer.
I have tabled an amendment to the effect that they should definitely withdraw the complaint.
I think we need to word what we currently have on paper a little more strongly.
What is worthy of admiration, in my view, Commissioner, is that you are presently taking the same line as Parliament and, it would seem, the Council.
That being the case, I think our position is stronger than that of the Americans at the moment, and we must do all we can to keep things that way as far as possible.
Mr President, in my opinion, Commissioner Palacio is completely right to uphold the European position against the United States.
This is not the first time that our positions, laws and regulations have differed from those of the United States. Consider the example of genetically modified organisms.
If we want to maintain our sovereignty, we must do so in every area, including this one.
Now, I feel that the issue here is not which devices should be used in aircraft to reduce noise, for standardised procedures exist to control the levels of aircraft noise, but that the important thing is for the noise limits not to be exceeded.
It does not matter whether this is achieved through the use of modified afterburners or other types of engine mufflers. What is important is that the limits which have been set to protect our communities are respected and that their observance is enforced by the competent bodies.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am happy that we are here together today, after all the discussions over recent months, and can confirm that all three institutions - the two legislative institutions and the Commission as the proposing authority - take the view that the regulation has to enter into force in May of this year.
No other course would be possible, because there is no legislative process which is fast enough to allow further changes to be made in May.
What is crucial in our view is that noise protection regulations are right for our people, that we must protect people in the vicinity of airports and that American interests have not, in any case, been affected thus far.
Individual interests of American companies may be affected, but the regulation does not enter into force for aircraft registered in third countries until 2002, which is why we must bite our tongue somewhat and choose our words carefully, Mr President-in-Office.
I wonder if we should abolish this regulation as far as third country aircraft are concerned.
It has not even entered into force.
It is on the statute books but will not enter into force until May 2002.
Why should we abolish it? I think that we should begin with a legislative procedure at the end of the year.
Once agreement has been reached on global standards in the ICAO working parties, we can start to adopt these global standards in our regulation insofar as it relates to third country aeroplanes for the year 2002.
If, during the course of the legislative procedure, which takes six months or a year, we receive an indication in September that these standards have also been adopted by the general assembly of the ICAO as they stand, we can conclude the legislative procedure well before May 2002.
This was also what my fellow member was asking.
We should not begin the legislative procedure under the slogan "suspend" but under the slogan "adaptation to new, jointly-agreed standards" .
In this respect I think that Mr Slater should put his money where his mouth is, as we say in Hamburg.
It is not enough for him to say that he wants to agree with us; as the Vice-President has called on him to do time and again, he must also say what noise reduction quality standards he wants to agree on.
On that basis, Madam Vice-President, you continue to have our full support.
We admire you, because the Council has gone on the attack time and again, saying you should draw up a legislative proposal right away and give in to the Americans.
You rightly said, the Americans are our friends but we will not be blackmailed when it comes to our own environmental protection.
Stand by your guns, Madam Vice-President!
If the Americans approach us on this matter, we are perfectly able in principle to start the legislative process the day after tomorrow.
But I would advise that we wait for the first working results from the ICAO working party on noise protection regulations.
Then we can start on a sound legislative process in the interests of all our citizens, because we want global standards which are more stringent that those we have had in the past.
Mr President, Mrs Roth-Behrendt quoted from Shakespeare in her contribution and I would like to quote from Hamlet' s soliloquy: whether it is nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or by opposing end them. As chair of the US delegation here in this Parliament, I am only too well aware of the many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune that make up the trade disputes between the EU and the United States of America.
But having said that, it is important to get each trade dispute in proportion.
Every one of us would want to welcome the small indication of progress that comes after the meetings with Secretary of State Slater and Ambassador Morningstar.
I say this knowing full well the massive pressures there are upon Congress in an election year.
I do not want to be too critical, we know only too well as parliamentarians about electoral pressures, but it is worth saying that the pressures in the United States are not so much from the citizens, from the voters, but from the big business backers of both parties and both campaigns and that makes an enormous difference.
The Commissioner and others have outlined the basis of possible discussions.
I will not go through all those again, but just say that there is a need not only for a timetable to agree stringent noise standards but also to agree a timetable in which they should be implemented.
Mrs Roth-Berendt has mentioned a target with which I will concur.
I want to make one other brief point, because this dispute highlights the need for earlier and more forthright discussions about the many issues over which there are disagreements.
The delegation for relations with the US is planning, as you probably know, a transatlantic legislators' dialogue using video-conferencing techniques so that we can discuss and understand - and clearly the Americans need to understand - what the powers of this Parliament are, the positive powers and also the negative powers and also the importance of timing in our joint negotiations.
We need to learn lessons on both sides but I very much hope that even at this late stage there can be some sort of resolution.
Mr President, I strongly support the resolutions that are on the table before us.
I do so not only because of the importance of the hushkits issue itself, although no one should underestimate the huge disturbance and the very real and significant health impacts from noise, but also because it establishes the principle of Europe setting its own regional standards.
The hushkits issue is also widely seen as a first case of how aviation issues will be dealt with in the future by the new Parliament and the new Commission.
It is very clear that ICAO standards need to be seen as a floor, not as a ceiling.
It should be quite possible and right to go beyond them.
This is a critical case because it is about how we face hard decisions about how to begin to make a deeply unsustainable industry a little less damaging.
It is about how we put into practice the Treaty of Amsterdam on integrating sustainability concerns into all policy areas, even the very difficult ones.
I wonder if we can use this conflict and these negotiations with the US to enter into a broader discussion about a proactive global environmental policy on air transport more generally. Hushkits are important but noise pollution is only one aspect of the environmental damage from the airline industry.
It is the fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and we know that it is deeply unsustainable.
We need to be looking towards a new policy architecture to deal with all these questions.
Mr President, I have problems with the genesis of Regulation 925 of 1999 to which the resolution before us refers.
It was voted through the last Parliament without any debate.
It is contrary to the principle of non-discrimination.
It offends against the fundamental requirement for reasons under Article 253 of the Treaty in that there is no explanation at all in the regulation for the use of the bypass ratio of an aircraft engine as a criteria when internationally approved noise and emissions standards certification for aircraft engines already exist.
It is contrary to the principle of proportionality and, most importantly, it is contrary to the rules of the WTO which require the use of performance standards, not design standards, as is the case in this regulation.
In whose interest was it to depart in this piece of fast-track legislation from tried-and-tested procedures and the practice of using objective performance criteria for environmental standards? This legislation rolls out the proposal made by Airbus at an Airbus-hosted meeting in Toulouse on 29 and 30 September and 1 October 1997, effectively commercially sponsored legislation.
At that meeting the Members of the European Civil Aviation Council (ECAC) present were told by their legal advisor that they could not proceed under the ICAO Agreement as requested by Airbus and so Airbus persuaded the Commission to legislate where ECAC could not.
We now have legislation which threatens another transatlantic trade war - but that is another issue - which does not respect best environmental practice with performance criteria and which - surprise surprise - excludes aircraft using a modern US manufactured engine while permitting the continued use of the Rolls Royce engine which conveniently has a bypass ratio of 3.1.
Yes, Mr President, noise pollution affects 20% of our population, and 0.01% comes from aircraft.
I fully support the necessary standards to protect the health and quality of life for our citizens.
The strictest possible criteria to reduce noise and emissions from aircraft engines can only be achieved however by using performance criteria and not design criteria which is commercially sponsored and fast-track in anti-competitive legislation.
Environmental legislation based on design criteria, I put it to you colleagues, is without precedent, and for good reason.
I would ask with respect that the Commissioner, in the interests of probity, satisfy herself fully as to the genesis of this regulation in question to ensure the impact of its roll-out on the aviation industry world-wide.
I do not care whether it is America, Europe, China or Mars - world-wide is equitable.
Above all, it should serve as well as possible the important environmental objectives it purports to achieve.
I fully support the objective of the regulation and we must agree on a timetable to implement noise standards, but it must be one based on objective performance criteria and not design criteria.
The integrity of this House demands detailed answers to questions which raise major doubts about aspects of a regulation upon which the motion before us is based and on which we will be asked to vote tomorrow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think Mrs Doyle cannot have examined the genesis of the actual situation, as we have debated this issue on several occasions in this House.
I cannot imagine, Madame Doyle, that the Council was unanimous and this House almost unanimous in taking a decision based solely on the Airbus defence.
No, there are thousands of residents living in the vicinity of airports who suffer considerable noise pollution.
Obviously, this regulation offers them the best protection as things stand at present under current international legislation.
Secondly, Mrs de Palacio, Mr Coelho, in my view, the postponement of one year served no useful purpose, for the simple reason that American interests - and when I say American interests I mean the interests of one section of American industry - are clearly interests which run counter to the general improvement of standards, even more so in the case of 'hushkits' .
There are only two things that will cause them to shift position: pressure from the European Union or pressure from their own public opinion for, unfortunately, the United States is a vast territory and the environs of airports are less badly affected than the territories overflown in Europe, which is, by virtue of its geographical layout, affected more seriously by such constraints.
American opinion will therefore only be shifted significantly in turn if we first make it known in our capacity as Europeans.
My regret is that this year' s postponement may have been seen by our partners as indicative of weakness in our position.
Let me tell you, then, Mrs de Palacio, Mr Coelho, that we want to see firm negotiation.
There are no grounds for suspending regulations.
We might at best revise them, but we could do so only in one instance: if an international agreement makes it possible to improve the situation and to draw up an overall framework agreement.
An overall framework does not mean evading the issue, as I began to doubt upon hearing the views of the Council.
Do we in fact all agree on the idea that the framework agreement should apply to standards on sound levels and should not seek to cover too wide an area, which would tend to force us to accept a number of compromises regarding sound levels, at the expense of some other type of pollution, which probably deserves our attention, but not so much so as to warrant our ceding our argument.
Mr President, Commissioner, as you know, I live in Bilbao, a city in the Basque country which, like other European cities, is very densely populated.
Our airport is very close to housing and, like 20% of Europe' s citizens, we suffer levels of noise from aircraft which health experts consider to be unacceptable.
On 29 April 1999, the European Union adopted a Council regulation with a view to controlling and reducing the noise produced by subsonic aircraft engines, limiting in due course the use of silencers, which do not resolve the problem completely, and helping airlines to update their fleets with new generation aircraft which create less pollution.
This has pleased the powerful American firms, as aircraft manufacturers, but at the same time harms them because they are also owner-investors in thousands of leased aircraft in all the countries of the world. Since these aircraft are antiquated, it would be difficult for them to operate in Europe.
Neither has the European Regulation been popular with the American manufacturers of aircraft engine silencers known as 'hushkits' and, therefore, the United States has announced commercial, financial etc. measures against the European Union unless we delay the entry into force of our regulation.
I understand that we must not be inflexible. We must offer an opportunity for dialogue and understanding, but in order for this to happen, the United States must agree to adopt certain approaches.
At the next assembly of the ICAO, the United States must commit itself to the adoption of a new and more restrictive standard for aircraft noise, as well as to withdrawing its complaints and coercive measures.
Only under these circumstances could we accept a delay in our regulation for third countries.
Mr President, the British delegate has just spoken using Mr Bowe' s speaking time.
I would be more than pleased to present her with the documents I received from Commissioner de Palacio, which weaken her story, so as to enable her to have another look at them, and so as to avoid her bringing the whole Parliament into disrepute.
I think, Mr Blokland, you could have done that without actually announcing it to Parliament, but never mind.
Mr President, like most of the other speakers here, I see absolutely no reason at all for any kind of immediate suspension, or urgent suspension, of the hushkit regulations.
There are regulations, we put them in place.
I was here at the first reading in the Parliament in Strasbourg.
There were not very many of us here, a lot fewer than there are today, when we introduced these regulations in the first instance.
They are good regulations.
There are going to be useful regulations and they are going to bring positive benefit to the people of Europe.
That does not mean though that you should not negotiate.
I was fortunate to have an opportunity to talk with Under-Secretary Slater yesterday along with a number of my other colleagues.
They seem to be reasonable people who would be willing to talk reasonably with you about a better, long-term solution.
We know there are better long-term solutions because we know our regulation applies only in Europe.
Although it may have some spillover effect in the not too far distant future to third countries, we are not having a world-wide effect.
Your objective, Madame Palacio, is to get that world-wide effect.
Your objective is to make absolutely sure that whatever agreement you come up with with the Americans secures new controls on aircraft noise world-wide out of ICAO in a clear timescale.
It is not just a question of agreeing to the controls and the levels but also a timetable for implementation that makes us happy and satisfied in this Parliament.
That is the mandate we are giving you here today.
That is what we would like to see you come back with at some time in the future.
In the meantime though, enforce and implement the regulations as we expect them to be enforced and implemented.
Tell the Americans that if they want to talk in an atmosphere of confidence and trust and goodwill, the first thing they can do is to suspend their Article 84 complaint in ICAO.
They do not have to withdraw it, they do not have to take it away, they just have to make sure it does not go on the agenda of the next meeting.
Suggest that to them, Madame Palacio.
Start the negotiations and then come back to us with a reasonable compromise.
Mr President, first of all I wish to thank all of you for your speeches and especially the Portuguese Minister for Transport, the President-in-Office of the Council.
Yesterday we discussed this matter and I received the full support of the Council, for which I would like to publicly express my gratitude.
Ladies and gentlemen, it should be made abundantly clear that our ambition must not be to conform to the 'Hushkits' Regulation, to the regulation on silencers.
The regulation on silencers means nothing more than implementing the noise levels of 1978 and we are in the year 2000.
We must go further.
We must reach an agreement within the ICAO, and to achieve this, the support and cooperation of the United States is essential.
The United States should not be the only country with which we cooperate, but we certainly must cooperate with the United States and with the United States in particular.
We must move beyond what has been reactive behaviour, that is to say, behaviour that has worked on the action-reaction principle, and move towards an approach which is ambitious and which looks to the future.
In this respect, there are two issues we should be discussing: in domestic terms, we must talk about the communication on air transport and the environment which Minister Coelho referred to, which we discussed yesterday in Council and which involves many other things, apart from simply noise, such as emissions, and a series of other issues.
With regard to the United States, we must try to find a form of cooperation that goes much further than current cooperation within the ICAO.
We must try to create a common transatlantic aviation area which is a regional area in which we can achieve greater integration of the markets on each side of the Atlantic, because it is a geographical area with similar levels of development and which has the highest level of air traffic in the world.
Clearly, the tensions and confrontations involving the 'Hushkits' issue hinder this type of action.
We must therefore try to reach an agreement which will allow us to overcome the current situation of conflict.
I wish to make it very clear that the regulation on silencers comes into force on 4 May for European airline companies.
There is nothing more to say about this.
We have proposed to the Americans that, if they consider the definition of 'bypass ratio' to be a form of discrimination - and we think it is not - that we try to find a different definition.
However, the United States have not wanted to enter into this type of discussion.
The regulation comes into force for European airlines on 4 May.
Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, if we could reach an agreement with the United States to act jointly, in order to obtain lower levels and greater requirements in terms of aircraft noise emission, I would be prepared to make a proposal to this Parliament and the Council to suspend the provisions of the current regulation with regard to third countries.
As Mr Sterckx has said, we must overcome any mutual distrust, we must overcome situations of confrontation and I believe that a gesture of this type, if backed on the American side not only by this commitment but also by the withdrawal, or even suspension, of Article 84 of the ICAO Convention, would be valuable if, in exchange, we manage to move forward together to achieve better international standards which will also be applied here in Europe, and which will allow us to go much further than we can go with this regulation on silencers at the moment.
That is all. Thank you very much, Mr President.
I would like to thank you once again for your support and I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council on Transport and the Council on Transport as a whole for the answer they gave me yesterday.
I have received one motion for resolution from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
That concludes the joint debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow.
Mediterranean policy
The next item is the joint debate on twelve oral questions on Mediterranean policy by the following Members:
Napoletano, Sakellariou, Obiols i Germà, Naïr, on behalf of the PSE Group, to the Council (B5-0015/2000);
Napoletano, Sakellariou, Obiols i Germà, Naïr, on behalf of the PSE Group, to the Commission (B5-0016/2000);
Rutelli, on behalf of the ELDR Group, to the Council (B5-0202/2000);
Rutelli, on behalf of the ELDR Group, to the Commission (B5-0203/2000);
Morgantini, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, to the Council (B5-0204/2000);
Morgantini, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, to the Commission (B5-0205/2000);
Queiró, Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, to the Council (B5-0210/2000);
Queiró, Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, to the Commission (B5-0211/2000);
Fiori, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, to the Council (B5-0212/2000);
Fiori, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, to the Commission (B5-0213/2000);
Bautista Ojeda, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, to the Council (B5-0214/2000);
Bautista Ojeda, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, to the Commission (B5-0215/2000).
Mr President, great is the frustration and disappointment of the European Parliament, almost five years on from the Barcelona Declaration, at the lack of progress made in the implementation of the programmes and objectives it set out.
Disappointment and frustration which are all the greater when we consider the substantial progress of European policies in other fields, for example regarding the East, Central Europe and the Balkans, and also relations between Europe and Latin America.
It is obvious to all of us that the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership has to complement the European policy for the Mediterranean Basin.
I would like to stress the basic points upon which we expect a detailed response from this debate: the clause which sets out the basis of the agreements, on respect for human rights, the undertaking to draw up ratification instruments for giving effect to the association agreements, and the development and acceleration of new linkages for a cooperation process with Libya, provided that the requisite political conditions are in evidence at the Cairo Conference on 3-4 April 2000.
Mr President, I would also like to stress the need to forge ahead with objectives that facilitate a greater involvement of civil society in creating networks linking cities, ports, universities, trade associations, entrepreneurs and non-governmental organisations, for the INTERREG programmes to be used to promote balanced development with regard to trade and territory through the modernisation of economic structures, so that the MEDA programme, which has received such a disappointingly small amount of funding, can at last bear fruit.
Finally, Mr President, may I say that the Union' s Mediterranean policy could become one of the common strategies laid down by Article 12 of the Treaty on European Union regarding foreign and security policy, and that we could also promote the political dimension of the issue through parliamentary debate.
Mr President, our group has joined with other groups to hold a debate on Mediterranean policy, and I cannot deny that this initiative stems from a two-fold concern.
The first is a general consideration.
I would like to make this very clear to the representatives of the Council and the Commission: as a group, although I imagine that we are not the only group to feel this way, we are concerned that the Mediterranean policy which, in 1995, was at the centre of a major project, the Barcelona project, no longer appears to be a political priority for the Union.
This is a general political concern.
We feel that Mediterranean policy needs to be thoroughly analysed and relaunched, on a par with enlargement, or perhaps more so than this, seeing that the enlargement strategy is now safely underway.
The second point is more specific.
In our view, Barcelona defined the major points of this policy, but, with the passage of time, these have been lost from sight.
Our feeling, which will become apparent from the resolution which is to be put to the vote, is that complete priority has been given to a procedure for the development of a free trade area, shifting the emphasis from other policies which, in our opinion, should go hand in hand with the objective of building a free trade area, which we fully support.
This means that the pillars which were the basis for Barcelona must be adopted and perhaps even reinforced. I refer to a policy of support for investment, support for employment, support for decentralised cooperation and support for a policy of joint management of migratory flows, and also a policy for culture, schools, young people and for setting up dynamic, worthwhile exchanges between these countries and their communities.
Furthermore, we stress the fact that, although the association agreements are important and their ratification procedure does need to be speeded up, they cannot be used as the basis for a policy which must, by nature, be multilateral.
And this is a weak point.
We therefore welcome the major step taken by Parliament in deciding, through the Presidents of the Groups, to convene the Interparliamentary Forum.
We agree to support the civil forum.
We welcome the French presidency' s announcement in its programme of its intention to hold the next Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Marseilles, but we feel that the Marseilles Euro-Mediterranean Conference must be more than just a run-of-the-mill administrative conference.
The political signal which we must all send out together and the instruments which are decided upon must be capable of successfully relaunching this policy and restoring its status.
I hope I have been clear. We feel very strongly about this issue.
Mr President, the Confederal Group of the European United Left are extremely concerned at the stagnation of the Mediterranean partnership and we see can no justification for the Commission and the Council' s reluctance to reopen the debate.
And yet two of the fundamental causes of the breakdown in the debate have now been eliminated: a new Commission is installed in Brussels which numbers the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean area of peace and stability among one of its priorities, and peace negotiations between Israel, Palestine, Syria and the Lebanon are once again in progress.
It is time for Europe to send a political signal to reopen negotiations with non-member countries of the Mediterranean, and this is why we welcome the idea from the future French presidency of the Council of organising another Euro-Mediterranean Conference.
However, the agenda must tackle the central issues and not skirt around them, as it currently threatens to do.
We are also concerned at the total lack of interest shown by the Commission in reopening the debate.
And yet much remains to be done in order to relaunch the three cooperation chapters decided upon in Barcelona.
A large workshop needs to be opened on promoting the protection of human rights in the area of justice, in a framework of mutual respect, for we cannot make concessions for anybody on human rights issues, not even civil Europe.
For a long time now, Parliament has been proposing to create a Euro-Mediterranean Court of Human Rights modelled on the Court in Strasbourg, and also to set up mutual consultation mechanisms to facilitate applications for peaceful solutions to conflicts and the fight against organised crime.
Political dialogue must be structured and take the form of regular consultations.
To this end, we propose that Summits of the Heads of State and Government of the Mediterranean countries of the European Union should be held regularly, and that the role of the special envoy for the Middle East should be consolidated, so that we do not relinquish the political role we desire to the United States.
There is now no reason to exclude Libya from the debate, and it should therefore take part in the next Euro-Mediterranean Conference.
With regard to economic and financial cooperation, the Commission has the duty to relaunch negotiations for the signing of trade contracts which are socially sustainable.
This is extremely important, for the mutual benefits are very great.
At the same time, however, I would stress that the bilateral approach hitherto adopted by the Commission does not seem adequate to meet the numerous challenges presented by the Mediterranean.
Economic cooperation must include multilateral/bilateral approaches facilitating the promotion of trade among Mediterranean countries and south-south trade. This multilateral approach must also be mirrored in the fields of cultural and social cooperation.
The promotion of a culture of diversity, of individual freedoms applicable to all members of a multi-cultural society, of peaceful coexistence and of dialogue across religious divides with respect for universal human rights, and the affirmation of women' s rights and freedom, hinges on multilateral cooperation programmes, which must include a number of countries.
In this sense, it is essential, in addition to being the Union' s responsibility, to support democratic organisations from the civil society of Mediterranean countries and parliamentary dialogue modelled on the Euro-Mediterranean Forum.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the need to create a Euro-Mediterranean area of peace, economic justice, citizenship and stability is common to both sides of the Mediterranean.
It is a major challenge, a foreign policy which the Community institutions must undertake to pursue in order to provide the Union with a political and cultural project which will bring about peaceful coexistence and growth in the face of different territorial and cultural conditions, and, putting aside the myths and legends of days gone by, make the Mediterranean a genuinely peaceful area, and not one of conflict or of abuse of power or where impoverished immigrants lose their lives attempting to reach Europe.
Mr President, the development of the Mediterranean requires, first and foremost, political strategies which do not allow bureaucracy to take over and stifle the whole process.
Europe stands for the noble values of peace, freedom and social development, values which have to be constantly defended for the very reason that they were won at a high price.
However, the economic progress of Europe is now threatened by globalisation, and our continent is in serious danger of recession due to competition from South-East Asia - where labour is one tenth of the price - the United States and Japan.
Our defensive strategy of enclosing ourselves in a single market and barricading ourselves in will ultimately prove to be a losing one.
We cannot shirk the challenges thrown up by globalisation, but have to learn how to approach and exploit them.
The Mediterranean is still the greatest benchmark of Europe' s capacity to exert influence beyond its borders.
The present issue consists in developing a Mediterranean policy in a Union which is skewed towards the north-east and is focusing less and less on the Mediterranean Basin in the South.
The Mediterranean policy is set in a context of wide-ranging interests and latent tensions, and it therefore has to include various different elements such as the development of peace-keeping initiatives - now that the Middle East peace process has been relaunched - and we are grateful for the way that the Pope' s visit to the Holy Land is improving relations between the different religions, leading them towards mutual understanding and support, and the creation of partnership projects involving Northern and Southern Europe, for the very reason that the objective of transforming the Mediterranean into an area of dialogue, tolerance and cooperation that guarantees peace and stability cannot be achieved without firm political will and sustainable, balanced social development.
The need for a different, more efficient Mediterranean policy for the developing countries in the Basin cannot be disregarded.
Too many unnecessary interventions have been made, while the need remains for aqueducts, schools and the means for young graduates to build a life for themselves.
Therefore, Mr President, much work still remains to be done.
Mr President, this is a decisive moment for the future of the European Union. We are preparing for unprecedented enlargement and, at the same time, we are working on reform of the institutions in order to be able to best manage such a large political entity.
We cannot underestimate the value of the Mediterranean region: it must be a privileged partner in our policies, an important border on which we must focus our attention.
The process defined in Barcelona in 1995 for building an effective Euro-Mediterranean Partnership is still ongoing, despite the intention expressed by the European Union governments to include the Mediterranean policy among their priorities, an intention fully supported by our group.
Despite the progress made at bilateral and multilateral levels, the Charter for Stability and Security is still awaiting completion.
The Partnership is still far from achieving its objectives.
The forging of multilateral relations has not led to sustained expansion, and the cultural, social and human partnership is highly inadequate.
Since the completion of the peace process is essential for the smooth development of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, does the Commission not consider that the Commission and the Union should take resolute action to further the Middle East peace process?
With regard to the economic and financial partnership, in addition to creating a free trade area by 2010, would the Commission specify the actions it intends to promote in the countries concerned in order to accomplish the objectives of macroeconomic stabilisation and the process of liberalisation and privatisation, to simplify laws and to consolidate social policies.
By what means is the Commission going to make the MEDA programme more efficient?
What are the actions it is going to undertake to reduce income discrepancies and to encourage the creation of infrastructures and the reviewing and updating of trade agreements? What are the specific actions that the Commission intends to adopt to create a genuine cultural, social and human partnership?
Let us go right back to Barcelona and return to a global tack, fostering the priorities that have been ignored and promoting the development of civil forums, to encourage the active participation of civil society.
Let us make it our firm political will to relaunch the Mediterranean partnership, defining a new generation of programmes to prevent fragmentation, improve coordination and ensure the efficient use of resources.
Our group has faith in the Mediterranean, and wants the European Union to accord to it the strategic, economic and political importance it once had.
Mr President, enlargement is essential. It is genuinely important for the future of the European Union, as it is the only way to prevent Europe becoming an island of prosperity surrounded by poverty.
However, if enlargement towards the East is inevitable, how can we explain that enlargement should only happen in one direction, taking us further away from the Mediterranean, which is so near by, forgetting how near the countries of the Maghreb are, some of which enjoy a special association status with the European Union, and that our future is intimately connected with theirs.
This is no need to remind you of the important common interests we have with those countries in terms of agriculture and fishing, nor the serious shared problems relating to immigration between Andalusia and Morocco, which create added difficulties.
European regions such as Andalusia, which are very close to the countries of the Maghreb, share more interests and problems with those countries than they do with other Member States of the Union, and far more than they do with the future candidates for enlargement.
In fact, this love-hate situation between certain Community regions and the Maghreb creates unnecessary tensions, both economic and social, which we must resolve by putting all our powers of negotiation on the table and by using all the existing mechanisms, or new ones which should be created, in order to relaunch Euro-Mediterranean cooperation.
In this respect, do the Council and the Commission believe that the creation of an inter-regional body or council for the Straits of Gibraltar, consisting of political representatives of the bordering countries and the European Union itself, could be useful and allow for the decentralisation of cooperation?
Mr President, on behalf of my colleague, Chris Patten, I have the following comments.
The Commission agrees on the need to reinvigorate the Barcelona process and will soon be putting forward ideas which should enable us to move the process forward this year, particularly in the light of the Euro-Mediterranean Summit which is likely to take place in mid-November.
The text of the Charter for Peace and Stability should be agreed at the meeting in mid-November.
It should be as meaningful and far-reaching as possible. I should like to see regular security and stability discussions open to all partners willing to participate.
In addition, we should develop cooperation on drugs, terrorism, migration, good governance and conflict prevention, at least with the Maghreb countries.
I also want to see an enhanced human rights dimension in the partnership.
We should have a frank and open dialogue on the policies needed by partner governments to improve the situation in this respect.
We shall use MEDA and the specific MEDA democracy programme to support positive actions, particularly by NGOs, to promote respect for human rights and democratic freedoms in the region.
The economic objective of the partnership is to create an area of shared prosperity through the progressive establishment of free trade accompanied by substantial EU financial support for economic transition and to help the partners confront the social and economic challenges which this implies.
Programmes financed by MEDA are in place to support industrial modernisation, structural adjustment, development of the private sector, training and promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises.
All programmes contain conditionalities ensuring that their social impact is taken into account.
I intend to ensure an even tighter focus on priorities in our financial cooperation in the future, particularly by concentrating on sectoral adjustment facilities. These will enable us to focus on the key objectives of the partnership and will also improve the disbursement rate on MEDA.
The implementation of MEDA has been subject to criticism, some justified, some not.
It is a young programme with specific objectives linked to the implementation of free trade with the partners.
Often the final beneficiaries are not the partner governments.
This has, in itself, increased the complexity of implementation.
The Commission has put forward a proposal to amend the MEDA regulation to ensure a more strategic approach to programming, better coordination with other donors, including the Member States, and streamlining of procedures.
The proposal is still under discussion in the Council, and I fear, that far from supporting these objectives, the Council may be moving in the direction of making the procedure even heavier.
I count on the Parliament to support our efforts.
For my part, I shall also ensure that internal Commission procedures are reformed in a way to speed up delivery.
Investment is a major issue which was addressed at the important conference held in Lisbon on 29 February and 1 March.
That conference showed that the key to increasing the regions' attractiveness to investors is for the partners to have flourishing, open, competitive economies with a secure and predictable legal and administrative environment.
We shall use MEDA to support the partners' efforts in this respect.
Regional cooperation to ensure that the region presents a unified market is also vital.
Sub-regional free trade areas should be supported as a step towards the global objective.
I want to encourage the harmonisation of single market measures among all partners - an action programme should be agreed later this year - and to offer diagonal cumulation of origin to those partners who agree free trade among themselves.
Regional infrastructure is essential to economic development.
MEDA supports, among other things, the interconnection of infrastructure as regards energy, transport and new technology.
Investments in these areas are primarily supported by loans from the European Investment Bank as well as other donors.
I shall continue to ensure that the right mix of funding is used to ensure that public and private actors can play their appropriate part.
As far as agriculture is concerned, there should be a thorough consideration of all of the issues related to this sector with a view to seeing what we can do to improve market access with the objective of free trade.
In addition, we are considering the introduction of a regional cooperation programme which could focus on processing and conservation, quality standards and animal health.
Support for civil society is key to the development of the human dimension of the partnership.
I shall ensure that civil society is supported but as far as the old decentralised cooperation programmes are concerned, I shall not repeat the mistakes of the past regarding financial management and administration.
NGOs can benefit from a number of programmes.
The SMART Programme on the environment, the Cultural Heritage Programme, the EUROMED Youth Programme and MEDA Democracy, for example.
I will consider what more we can do while respecting the need for sound financial management.
Mr President, at this stage it is obvious that this parliamentary initiative is born out of a general sense of concern in this House about the slowness, and even paralysis in some areas, in implementing agreements reached within the framework of the Barcelona Conference, almost four years ago.
For some reason or other, these agreements have not been implemented.
It would certainly be cause for satisfaction, and would be a significant step in the right direction, if this debate were to persuade the Commission to promote a more active attitude to the relaunch of the Euro-Mediterranean association agreement.
From reading Parliament' s joint motion for a resolution, which we will probably approve tomorrow, we can certainly observe specific proposals which we can use as a starting point.
I am sure that we all agree on the strategic importance, which is crucial for the European Union, of its Mediterranean influence; politically, since, being neighbours, we are required to build a relationship which goes beyond the constitution of a simple free trade area; economically, because I am convinced that opportunities for mutual benefit are being created which we are not taking sufficient advantage of; also, socially, because the problems of the extent of economic inequalities and of the great pressures resulting from migration require coordinated and structural solutions and, of course, we also have to mention the question of security.
From this point of view, Parliament is justified in repeating its request that the European Union make a more decisive contribution to the peace process in the Middle East, especially given that the parties in the conflict requested this explicitly during the recent visit to the region by the President of the European Parliament.
We are convinced that, in order to be successful, a European Union common foreign and security policy must be based on the concept of balance in order to respond to the sensibilities of all the Member States and, therefore, of all the citizens.
Mr President, in November, five years will have passed since the signing of the Barcelona Declaration.
The moment has therefore arrived to make an assessment of the Euro-Mediterranean policy, an assessment of the results achieved and also of this policy' s delays and shortcomings.
In this respect, this debate and the motions for resolutions tabled by the Groups in this Parliament are very appropriate initiatives.
This assessment certainly includes some positive aspects.
On the one hand - and this is no small thing - the process has continued, despite the negative factors that have affected the Middle East peace process.
The summits and meetings have always been held with the presence of all the countries involved, including Syria, Lebanon and Israel.
Secondly, although progress has been slow, we have seen the signing, ratification and implementation of a series of association agreements.
Thirdly, we have been developing a permanent routine for intergovernmental cooperation and we have been implementing the different financial aid projects of the MEDA programme.
However, these results cannot lead us to ignore the delays and shortcomings which, in part, have frustrated the hopes and expectations raised at the first Euro-Mediterranean Conference of November 1995.
Firstly, there has been no decisive political thrust when we really needed it.
Strictly speaking, it could be said that, in political terms, Mediterranean policy should today be the main priority of European Union foreign policy.
Enlargement towards the East, in strategic and historic terms, leads to a scenario in which the only uncertainties are the timetable, pace, cost and means for achieving it.
Even allowing for possible new regional conflicts, it is difficult to imagine any outcome other than the culmination of the enlargement process.
On the other hand, there is no certainty whatsoever when it comes to the future of the Mediterranean.
It will depend to a large extent on the policy of the European Union as to whether this region becomes a 'sun belt' with a new economic and social balance in a context of security, development and peace, or a 'slum belt' where the norm will be an increasing imbalance between north and south, galloping poverty in the south and the progressive emergence - forgive the repetition - of every type of emergency: violence, instability, terrorism and uncontrollable migratory pressures.
Secondly, I believe that, as a result of this lack of political direction, the economic and financial dimension has experienced obstacles and delays.
In this respect, we should point out the difficulties involved in launching the MEDA programmes, the excesses of centralisation, the heterogeneous nature of aid criteria, the lack of joint reflection on the possibility of a common Mediterranean agricultural policy and, thirdly, and as a consequence the tiny amount of direct investment in the south: just 2% of the total of the European Union' s direct foreign investments.
This is an illustration of what could be described as the "strategic blindness" of the European system as a whole.
In conclusion, a new phase is necessary, with the Portuguese and French presidencies, a brand new start for Euro-Mediterranean policy, which could promote a 'virtuous' circle encompassing the objectives which were correctly drawn up at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona in November 1995.
Thank you very much, Mr Obiols.
I have allowed you the extra minute since you are chairman of the Maghreb delegation.
Mr President, the Council and the Commission should take good note of Parliament' s practically unanimous position in favour of the relaunch of the Union' s Mediterranean policy, as was established at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona in 1995, under the Spanish presidency, and whose characteristics have already been highlighted here.
On the other hand, we know that certain obstacles, basically political ones, have hindered its correct application.
I would simply like to remind you that, within a few years, the population in the south of the Mediterranean will be greater than that of the north, but that practically all the wealth will be in the north rather than the south.
If the European Union does not act quickly to redress the balance of this situation, both from a demographic point of view and from a social, economic and political point of view, we will be creating an explosive situation for future generations to deal with.
It is therefore a political priority to show political leadership, obviously accompanied by economic cooperation in order to improve the expectations of these populations and bring prosperity and stability to the whole of the Mediterranean, because the prosperity and stability of the European Union also depends on this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in Barcelona we signed with due formality the Charter for the Mediterranean which we had ensured would focus on the rule of law and human rights.
I am very pleased to see that the joint resolution adopts the suggestion we made to ask the Commission and the Council to publish an annual report on the situation regarding human rights and the rule of law in the countries of the Mediterranean.
I believe, however, that it is not enough to make declarations of pious intent about human rights and the rule of law and then forget all about them, the way many things are forgotten. No, this policy must be made a key element in bilateral relations.
We should therefore tell those countries where human rights are not observed that bilateral relations may be forced backwards, and we should tell the countries where there is real progress, such as in Morocco or elsewhere, that bilateral relations may go forwards.
Let me take Tunisia as an example, one of the first countries with which we signed a partnership agreement.
The situation of the rule of law and human rights in this country is scandalous.
Right now, there are people held there as prisoners of conscience.
The Tunisian government declares itself to be in favour of opening up economic relations, but who is entitled to a passport in order to be able to leave Tunisia? Who is entitled to travel and to make use of the Mediterranean area?
Not the opponents of the regime. Right now, there are two people on hunger strike in Tunisia because they want passports in order to be able to travel, specifically a publisher, the wife of Mr Ksila who was one of the people nominated for the Sakharov Prize.
I am bringing up these subjects because I believe we must not cease to remind the countries of the Mediterranean of their responsibilities as regards the rule of law and human rights.
It is not enough to have a healthy economic balance sheet.
It is not enough to achieve good results in agriculture or anything else.
Respect for human rights must take precedence in our policy, and that is not the case at present.
It is not the case, and it is something we have to change, and that means Parliament, as well as the Commission or the Council.
Mr President, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership launched in 1995 has broken down. It is official.
The relaunch of this policy announced by the forthcoming French presidency of the European Union bodes well, since the countries in this region have to face extensive and urgent challenges.
In order to respond effectively to these, it is crucial that the interests of the peoples around this central sea are truly taken into consideration, and that the people participate actively in the partnership.
Let me say from the outset that the time has come to change the course of Euro-Mediterranean policy.
First of all, the objective of a policy of this type must be to tackle the blatant disparities between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, which keep the peoples of the south in an explosive economic and social situation.
Poverty, a high level of illiteracy, massive unemployment, particularly among young people, extreme inequalities and an increasing technological deficit compared to Western countries.
There are considerable infrastructure needs, not to mention environmental challenges.
The effect of this widening gap can only be to increasingly foster the most violent forms of nationalism, fundamentalism and war.
Indeed, the weight of foreign debt, the drop in the prices of raw materials and structural adjustment plans have already forced these countries to adopt swingeing austerity programmes and have wrecked their capacity for development.
The prospect of a free trade area, a sort of regional MAI, is liable to dangerously exacerbate these power struggles.
Studies show that two thirds of Tunisian industry would not survive the opening of frontiers.
The slowdown in the process indeed stems as much from the deadlock in the Near-East peace process as from the many concerns expressed increasingly overtly: for instance, the first Euro-Mediterranean trade union conference held a year ago which highlighted the complete absence of the social dimension.
There are, however, advantages to establishing things from scratch.
Citizens, NGOs and trade unions are committed on a day-to-day basis to supporting solidarity between peoples and to putting many local cooperation projects into practice.
The Euro-Mediterranean process thus calls for a pooling of resources which should be advantageous to all concerned in moving towards a common area of prosperity, which was the objective set in Barcelona.
There are many possible ways out of the dogma of free trade that was challenged in Seattle.
It is more than time to wipe out the debt of the countries of the South, and to engage in technology transfer and cooperation in the areas of training between public services.
I should finally like to say that, besides working towards peace in the Middle East, which the European Union must continue to strive for, I am just as keen to seeing Europe play a much more active part in ensuring that the referendum on self-determination in the Western Sahara, which is under serious threat, is held in the conditions stipulated under UN authority.
The credibility of European foreign policy is at stake here.
Mr President, while Parliament is getting bogged down with details, here we are, forced to deal with one of the key areas of European concern, the Mediterranean, in a great rush.
Because of the complementarity that actually exists between the interests of the two continents of Europe and Africa, this vast Euro-African entity which necessarily revolves around the Mediterranean, our Mediterranean policy is invested with an importance, and I might say a seriousness, which unfortunately finds little reflection in the programmes carried out to date by the European institutions and the fact that, as in the case of MEDA, three quarters of the programmes adopted are still not applied.
Everything goes to show that, in fact, in this matter we are truly unaware of what is at stake.
We have heard it said that the stakes are vast, and it is worth repeating.
If we manage to create a unified, fraternal union between the lands to the north and the south of this sea then we shall continue to hold a position at the centre of world balance instead of being consigned to the sidelines in favour, it goes without saying, of other geostrategic formations, those of the Atlantic, primarily, or the Indian Ocean, or, above all, the Pacific, centres on whose periphery we are increasingly nothing more than supernumeraries.
There is no salvation to be found here, except by a proactive approach which - let me say quite bluntly - involve our regarding transatlantic communities of interest or relations with the continent of Asia as secondary and focusing on privileged relations, 'privileged' in the precise meaning of the word, with the Arab world.
This would mean, for example, accepting countries such as Morocco, Tunisia or Algeria into the Union as Member States in their own right.
Without this proactive approach we should have no chance of gaining control of the balances, or rather the increasing imbalances in the world, or any control of economic flows - I am thinking particularly of raw materials, but also of agricultural production - no control of demographic flows, where balances are disrupted at great speed and to our disadvantage, as everyone knows, but also no control of cultural flows, for we certainly have no better allies than our Arab and African partners in resisting what is hastily termed globalisation, but which I feel is rather the general Americanisation of the world.
Our nations will remain great powers in the next century only insofar as they have successfully met the challenge of the Mediterranean partnership.
I hardly need express our pessimism in this regard.
Firstly, because this key aspect is struggling along lethargically, with vague impulses served up in the form of speeches, witness the so very insipid Barcelona Process, this pathetic alibi for our basic indifference.
Pessimism, too, because our transatlantic partner, the United States of America, has fully understood that there is no better way to subject Europe to its domination than by cutting the productive links Europe may establish with its neighbours around the Mediterranean and is striving to erect a vague but effective wall between the two sides of the Mediterranean.
Episodes such as the Gulf War and the proscription of Libya, and even of Syria from the international arena, in which we were skilfully manipulated by Washington, were just the most recent illustrations.
Pessimism, finally, because Europe remains too divided on this point, with too many states, particularly northern European states, preferring the Atlantic connection to the Euro-Arab or Euro-African connection, as evidenced by the gradual abandonment of the Lomé policy and the weakness of our Mediterranean policy.
All in all, on this matter, as on other matters, it is only the nations that can attempt to take up this great challenge, primarily France, which is still the leading power on the Mediterranean coastline, by means of its Arab policy and its policy of establishing links throughout the French-speaking world.
France may be acting alone, but it is acting for the benefit of Europe as a whole.
Mr President, in principle we must welcome the fact that the Mediterranean area is again being seen more as a partner of the European Union.
I think the inclusion of Libya is crucial.
Libya in particular has a great deal of catching up to do in telecommunications now that the embargo has been lifted.
I visited Libya a month ago and found the people, especially the young, to be open-minded and most interested in Europe.
It was clear from talks with the rector of the university and students that the long-term embargo has left many young people traumatised by a feeling of powerlessness and being distanced from the north.
I think that now we must all do everything we can to prove to the people in all the Mediterranean countries that we recognise them as equal partners and offer them assistance, both in order to restore their trust in us as well as to solve their economic and social problems.
This will certainly be in the interest of both sides.
Mr President, I believe that this debate is appropriate at the end of the five-year period for which MEDA was programmed, but I also believe that we are going to have time to discuss this new regulation, which at the moment is being debated in this House.
What I mean to say is that, in any event, I share the Commission' s concern and I think the proposal to simplify the procedures is a positive one.
I hope that this Parliament will support it.
In the few seconds allocated to me, I will simply refer to two aspects which I believe should be dealt with urgently in relation to the MEDA programmes.
Firstly, decentralised cooperation and the activities generated by the Barcelona Process between the most active social operators from the non-Community Mediterranean countries and the European Union. These are projects, which, as well as having intrinsic value, create growth in the social sectors in these countries.
It seems essential to me, since we want an area of free trade and prosperity, and since we also want to push decisively for democratisation in this area in the southern Mediterranean, that we support the men and women who are trying to work in this field.
We must put an end to the poor esteem in which they currently hold the Union and we must once again ensure that their expectations and ambitions are supported by the Union.
I believe furthermore that the Commission must have sufficient human and material resources to do so.
The second issue which concerns me is the inclusion of immigration in the regulation.
I am concerned about how this issue will be dealt with in the Mediterranean area.
We must not only create agreements on the readmission clauses, and not only provide resources for guarding borders. We must also, by means of imagination and new measures, create the capacity for co-partnership with these countries, so that we can adopt a legal approach to the issue of immigration and so that people do not simply feel that we have closed the border to them but that they can move freely within this free trade area.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, this is a good day to raise a series of Euro-Mediterranean considerations, since a series of cultural, social, religious and political events are taking place which cannot pass unnoticed by those of us, looking on from Europe, who wish the best for the countries bordering the Mediterranean which furthermore, throughout history, have lived alongside certain European countries.
This debate is also appropriate because this Parliament' s delegation for relations with the Maghreb countries visited Morocco and Tunisia last week, with a full working agenda.
It is true that the situation is different to the situation some years ago, since we can see certain slight improvements in specific areas such as human rights and in the economic field, despite certain difficulties.
In general, we have seen a common desire on the part of these countries to associate themselves with their neighbours in the north who form part of the European Union, since they see us as their sole hope of solving the problems they are facing on a day-to-day basis.
That is why the different European institutions, Parliament, the Commission and the Council, must make an effort so that these people in the Mediterranean area may improve their situation.
To this end, we must carry out a decisive and courageous policy which will allow us to successfully confront the Euro-Mediterranean challenges which have arisen in this globalised world.
The Mediterranean and its peoples need us.
We cannot leave them to struggle alone.
Mr President, the basic economic instrument for the implementation of our Mediterranean policy, resulting from the Barcelona Process, is undoubtedly the MEDA programme, on whose activities it is my task to report, and for which my fellow Member, Mr Valdivielso de Cué and I are currently involved in amending the regulations.
Let me draw the attention of our fellow Members to these reports which are currently being discussed in committee and which are to be presented before the House in June.
At this juncture, I should like to highlight two important points: firstly, MEDA is a good programme, a young programme, which has to date suffered from inefficiencies in its implementation.
Less than 30% of the total appropriation in the order of EUR 3 500 million for the last four years has been paid to date, what with delays in payment, observations from the Court of Auditors on the examination of the files and excessive time periods.
The regulation must be amended and Commission staff must be increased.
We shall have proposals to present to Parliament to this effect in order to ensure better examination of the files.
Next, 90% of the appropriations are reserved for bilateral cooperation, but only 10% for regional cooperation, which is of great interest to us.
This must be increased, decentralised cooperation must be stimulated and the participation of civilian societies must be utilised.
Secondly, this programme does not focus solely on economic matters and free trade.
There is also the definition of a common area of peace and stability, and the concern for rapprochement of peoples by means of a social and cultural partnership.
Finally, it plans to bring third countries up to par in terms of respect for human rights and, in this regard, in many countries the situation is showing no signs of improvement.
We therefore request that the Council and the Commission publish a report annually, or every two years, on human rights in the countries participating in the Barcelona Process, which could be used as a basis for the implementation of cooperative operations between the European Union and third countries.
Tunisia, which Daniel Cohn-Bendit has just mentioned, has alone received 10% of the MEDA appropriations, almost all of which have been paid.
This is something that we must take into account specifically in order to ensure that it is the European Union which is actively directing the projects and that the projects are not just decided according to ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I wish to say that the debate is important, but I feel there is a certain lassitude and perplexity about it, especially from the answers given by the President-in-Office, whose intentions are clearly good.
I think that we can learn something from the concerns expressed on all sides.
In the minute I have, let me say that the European Union' s Mediterranean policy lacks strategy, and it lacks a timetable and clear objectives in contrast, if you will, to its policy on Eastern Europe.
It would be impossible to summarise the Minister' s answer in five lines, because he referred to all the issues but did not answer the key questions.
Secondly, in my opinion, there is a lack of generosity.
The European Union is stuck on free trade, despite free trade zones having negative economic and social consequences in those areas. It could, on the other hand, be adopting direct, specific and effective measures on issues such as debt or technology transfer, where we see hesitancy and a lack of effectiveness.
The third point is that in my opinion the European Union has no autonomy.
We see this in the Middle East vis-à-vis the USA and on a broader scale, too.
Presidents all, Commissioner, on the occasion of this debate I should like to highlight the importance and the impact of the Pope' s visit to the Holy Land.
Whatever our beliefs or religious convictions, we are forced to acknowledge that John Paul II' s message is a major contribution to progress towards peace in the region.
In an area where pitfalls abound, in a context where every word and every gesture is weighed to assay its symbolic meaning, in Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories the Supreme Pontiff has found the right way to discuss persistent problems between the communities.
The Holy Father shows us that the religious aspect of the conflicts cannot be disregarded, and that dialogue between religions is just as much a factor in stability as political dialogue.
This visit has been an exceptional demonstration of the understanding that can be achieved between all parties.
My feeling, on the occasion of this debate, is that it is worth paying tribute to the actions of this great man of peace, this indefatigable pilgrim.
I should also like to ask two questions of the Council and the Commission, the first on regional cooperation between the countries of the southern shore of the Mediterranean, and the second on the role of the European Parliament in the Barcelona Process.
Firstly, with regard to regional cooperation - and the presidency has just answered this in part - the Union bases its Mediterranean policy on the Barcelona Process.
This approach is supposed to be global and regional and treats the Mediterranean Basin as a regional entity.
It is reasonable to think that cooperation between the Mediterranean States should be much stronger.
The second question concerns the role of the European Parliament, and it must be noted that, at present, it is too limited.
So, as I pointed out, the Union' s Mediterranean policy is supposed to be global.
The European Parliament is, in fact, only consulted on the occasion of bilateral agreements.
It would be necessary either to reconcile the European Parliament with the Forum, along the lines of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, or to organise the more active and regular participation of the European Parliament in ministerial meetings.
Mr President, the Union' s Mediterranean policy must not only gain shape, but also gain substance.
It should be filled with content and not emptied.
It is essential that we strengthen political, economic and social ties and continue to move forward.
We now have an association agreement with Morocco, in force since 2 March, which makes that country a privileged partner.
However, there can be no close cooperation with Morocco without dealing with an activity - fishing - on which the economies of many European regions depend.
I would like to mention the fisheries agreement between the European Community and Morocco, which expired on 30 November last year.
Well, four months later, we are in a vacuum.
We still have no date for a start to negotiations.
Not to renew that agreement would be a backwards step in our Mediterranean policy, because if that policy is to be more than empty rhetoric, we must make progress in specific cases.
Mediterranean policy takes its name from the sea where, for centuries, European and North African fishermen have fished together.
The Commission should fulfil its duty and ensure that these negotiations finally begin.
Mr President, if, by means of this debate, we manage to focus the attention of the Council and the Commission on the importance of the Southern side of the Mediterranean to European policy, we will have partly achieved our aim.
As has been said, a delegation from this Parliament has just visited Morocco and Tunisia.
Human rights, the Western Sahara, fishing, agriculture, investment, MEDA and emigration were discussed by MEPs, the authorities and representatives of civil society.
As a result, we have been asked to ensure that the Union has a greater political involvement in the Mediterranean.
There are fears about enlargement and there is a feeling that the balance is more in favour of the north and the east and less in favour of the south.
It would be good if the representatives of the Commission and the Council present here today could answer this question.
On the other hand, we have to encourage investment in the region, and, respecting the idiosyncrasies of these countries we must cooperate with them so that they may make progress in their democratic processes and their respect for human rights. We must accept their pace but at the same time make it clear to them that the European Union does not only want to invest in economic development, but also in peace and stability, based on respect for peoples' fundamental rights and on people being able to exercise their liberties in a democratic way.
This is not an easy task, and only dialogue, and not confrontation, can achieve it.
European Union actions are still very diffuse and complex in this area.
The Barcelona Conference corresponds more to political will than to a genuine strategy aimed at creating a real Euro-Mediterranean area, where economics play an important part, but only one part, in a permanent dialogue and political cooperation in the social and cultural areas and also in the defence of mutual interests in order to guarantee the peace and stability which we all wish to see in this region.
Mr President, I did not want to speak earlier in order not to interfere in the debate.
I simply wanted to express my total disagreement with the previous President chairing this sitting with regard to speaking time, since he has not respected the time allocated to the Groups and the time which is, of course, distributed amongst the MEPs.
The previous President has clearly discriminated in favour of other MEPs who have been allowed to speak longer than they should have done.
Once we take our places, all MEPs are equal and all of us have to respect the Rules.
Therefore, although this humble MEP does not represent a multinational lobby, he asks that the time allocated to his group be respected.
Mr Bautista Ojeda, your comments will be recorded in the Minutes and will be passed on to the Bureau.
Mr President, my thoughts go automatically to the debate we held here about five years ago, when the Commission at the time bombastically announced the EU' s new Mediterranean policy.
Today, we all agree that most of what was announced then has not been achieved.
The reason behind those poor results is a combination of a lack of political will on the one hand, and lack of money on the other.
I think we should place greater emphasis on Mediterranean policy, based on the diptych of democracy and development.
Democracy in the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean because that will help us to understand one another, and development because, apart from anything else, development will reduce the flood of immigrants we have and will continue to have in years to come.
The Council and the Commission, then, must make every possible effort to reanimate the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership agreed at the Barcelona Conference.
It is also important to give new impetus to the MEDA programmes and at the same time to strengthen programmes such as MEDA-Democracy, Euromed-Audiovisual, and sub-regional training programmes for journalists.
Parliament has also long been proposing the implementation of a programme of interregional and transnational cooperation aimed, by effective financial and systematic coordination of the INTERREG and MEDA programmes, at achieving effective economic and social integration of the participating countries and regions on both sides of the Mediterranean.
I would also like to dwell on another issue which may not seem important to you, but which is important to me personally.
I think that an important and catalytic role in ensuring the successful outcome of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership must be played by the Mediterranean islands, such as Malta, Cyprus and Crete, as the middle ground between the two sides of the Mediterranean.
Since those islands have traditional links with both sides, they can be the centres of that cooperation and I think we ought to direct many programmes in the context of MEDA towards that.
I have received 6 motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that the Secretary of State has formally apologised for being unable to remain with us for the continuation of the debate.
High Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration
Mr President, firstly, I would like to express my thanks to the political groups in this House who have supported the report of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and who have enriched it through their participation in the intense debates which we have held.
Furthermore, I also wish to recognise the positive and cooperative attitude of the Commission to whom, Commissioner, I would like to express my personal thanks.
The action plans for the six countries selected by the High Level Working Group on asylum and migration represent, and this seems to me to be important, the first external action of the European Union in the field of immigration and asylum, and as Commissioner Vitorino correctly said in Strasbourg, they are priority objectives for the Member States and I hope they continue to be so.
My report, Mr President, on the one hand reflects the critical feeling of all the groups with regard to aspects of form and substance in the presentation and preparation of the plans.
We have not been able to examine each one of them individually and we have had to limit ourselves to very general considerations and, on this basis, make proposals which I hope will be taken into account by the Commission and the Council for these and for future action plans.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the very fact that these action plans are to be implemented is positive in itself.
It is also positive that we have combined action plans in the fields of foreign policy, cooperation and development and in adopting measures to regulate migratory flows.
However, what has not been positive is the way that the Council has presented these plans to Parliament, which has remained silent on the way in which they have been selected and drafted.
Our basic concern relates to the possible effectiveness of the actions planned for countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia or Iraq, where political instability is combined with constant violations of the most basic human rights.
Quite different is the case of Morocco, or even Albania or Sri Lanka, where there is a greater likelihood of multi-sectoral cooperation, and there are countries with privileged situations such as Morocco, where we have just implemented an association agreement.
In addition to the fact that it is impossible to comply with the time limit laid down for the majority of actions, there is also a lack of budgetary contribution for some of the measures envisaged, as more than 50% of them have no financial resources.
That is why one of our proposals is to create a budget line for 2001 to cover these needs.
I would also like to draw your attention to the imbalance between the measures to control migratory flows and those which promote genuine cooperation in the development of the countries selected, including measures for integration.
We cannot criminalise immigration, whether it is for economic or political reasons.
It should be understood that it is crucial to implement the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere Summit on the 'communitisation' of asylum policy and the fair and humanitarian treatment of refugees and immigrants.
We should put emphasis on the humanitarian conditions in reception centres and also take advantage of the experience of some countries with regard to regional approximation.
As well as economic immigration and cooperation with countries of origin, we should deal with the question of labour market legislation in the Member States themselves, the social integration of immigrants and the fight against the mafia-types involved in the trafficking in human beings.
The problem cannot be resolved solely by means of readmission and border control agreements, although they are necessary.
In terms of the action plans, these measures seem to be given priority over the ones I have just mentioned
I also consider it necessary to create an immigration monitoring centre because, in addition to coordinating statistical data, this would allow sociological studies to be carried out on the phenomenon of migration, which would help in the decision-making process.
With regard to respect for human rights, there must be greater cooperation in order to modernise the administrative structures of some of the selected countries. We must also cooperate in the training of police forces and, in particular, open them up to cooperation with the NGOs, which have a social role to play in this area.
Finally, Mr President, I hope that, with regard to these plans and the plans to come, the defects highlighted in this resolution will be corrected and that there will be closer cooperation, especially on the part of the High Level Working Group and the Council, with Parliament.
I also hope, of course, that the Commission will be given the resources to carry them out. The success or failure of the European Union' s first external action in an area as sensitive for European society as immigration and asylum, depends on the success of these plans.
- (PT) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Hernández Mollar on the outstanding work that he has carried out and on the excellent report that he has presented to us.
He has already emphasised, and rightly so, that although migration and asylum are closely related issues, they are nevertheless substantially different and require different responses from the European Union, although it should be borne in mind and recognised that in both cases there are advantages in applying a cross-pillar and global approach.
We know that increasing numbers of people are seeking better opportunities or protection through migration, in order to escape war, persecution, poverty, unemployment or violations of their human rights.
We know that there is an increase in illegal migratory movement, for the most part controlled by criminal networks that often create situations involving exploitation and blatant violation of human rights.
We obviously support a global approach including support for democratisation and promotion of the rule of law, support for the prevention of conflicts and for reconciliation, respect for human rights and the development within countries and regions of origin and of transit of the fight against poverty, by improving living conditions and by creating greater opportunities for employment.
In order to achieve all of this, and despite the criticisms that Mr Hernández Mollar has just presented to the House, which related specifically to action by Parliament and the effectiveness of this action in some of these countries, Parliament' s commitment must be serious and consistent.
We cannot herald good intentions and then fail to put them into practice because of a lack of funding.
Information campaigns must be undertaken in close cooperation with the countries of origin and of transit, publicising the real opportunities for legal emigration, in an attempt to reduce or eliminate the problem at its source.
We must step up the fight against illegal immigration, ensure that the rights of the victims of criminal networks are protected, and step up efforts to prevent all forms of trafficking in human beings, paying particular attention to the situation of women' s and children' s rights. We must also detect and break up the criminal networks involved in these activities.
Within the Union, we must make a detailed assessment of the situation in the various Member States and harmonise national legislation on conditions of entry and residency. In doing this, we must take into account economic and demographic changes in the Union, each Member State' s ability to receive immigrants and the historical and cultural ties that the Member State may have with the countries of origin.
In short, we agree with a common European policy on asylum and immigration based on four pillars: partnership with the countries of origin, a common European asylum system, fair treatment of immigrants from third countries and more efficient management of migratory flows.
Mr President, I would like firstly to express, on behalf of my group, our unease at this Council proposal at a time when, within the Union, we are working - and this is shown in the initiatives which the Commission has taken and is taking - on the communitisation of what we have called the 'Third Pillar' and on the development of an immigration and reception policy for citizens from third countries.
We are uneasy because we do not understand very well where this High Level Working Group comes from or why it is being maintained, why the Council is making a proposal in this way and why that proposal was taken up at Tampere; what the Commission is going to do in these action plans and what coherence there is between this proposal and the work carried out by the Council' s High Level Working Group and the rest of the Commission proposals on policies to be implemented in the Union.
I believe this is important and I would like an answer from the Council.
Secondly, I would like to say that we have mixed feelings with regard to these action plans.
On the one hand, what they say seems reasonable; it seems reasonable to establish bilateral policies between the European Union and some of the countries in which the problem of the exodus of migrants and refugees is greatest; this seems useful.
This is the case with Morocco, for example, with whom we must establish a serious and significant bilateral relationship in order to ensure that the immigration originating from that country remains within the law.
This may also be the case with the Balkan countries, where it is clear who our partners are.
On the other hand, however, there are countries on this list whose governments do not even deserve to be described as such, and countries with which I do not think we should speak, such as Afghanistan.
I would like to ask the Council if it intends to go to Afghanistan and say, 'Good afternoon.
We have come to tell you to respect human rights because you are sending us too many refugees.'
This would be absolutely incredible or, at least, very naive.
Furthermore, it seems to me that broaching this issue with these countries is difficult and dangerous.
I believe that there are some people that we should not even speak to on principle.
Therefore, since we cannot adopt a cross-pillar approach - that is to say, between the Third and the First Pillar - taking the shortest route, I believe that the Council should once again consult this Parliament on each and every action plan which is to be set up, in accordance with the provisions of the First Pillar.
I have pointed out two problems: who is going to take charge of these action plans and with whom?
There is a third problem: how are we going to pay for them? There is no budgetary contribution set aside for them and the measures which provide for some degree of funding will apparently take money, for example, from cooperation programmes such as MEDA.
It is difficult to see how the idea of codevelopment and the idea of working with these countries in order to tackle immigration at source can be compatible with the idea of taking away funds earmarked for cooperation in development, in order to guard external borders.
I believe this warrants some reflection.
Finally, the development of action plans is on the 'scoreboard' .
This is a good thing, but I would like to remind you that there is an action plan that has been implemented, that of Iraq, on which nobody has ever provided us with any information.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Hernández Molar for the excellent work that he has done on this report and for the spirit of cooperation with which he has sought an all-party consensus behind his recommendations.
I would like too to pay tribute to the work that the Commission has done in this area.
We face a number of challenges in a world where the drive for emigration and the drive for immigration into Europe is still substantial.
Clearly, we face a situation where there are push factors in countries of origin and pull factors in our own countries.
It is important that we approach this debate with a very clear distinction between asylum and illegal immigration.
It is important that we retain the commitment set out in the Geneva Convention and a humane approach.
If I would pass one message to the governments of the Member States, it is that all too often they fall into the temptation to seek easy headlines by taking the populist approach to the so-called problems of asylum seekers and illegal immigration.
Too rarely do they look to the principles to which they have signed up and try to deal with this problem seriously.
This report sets out a number of proposals for action which are, in my view, to be welcomed.
In particular it looks at immigration and at the inadequacy of current data.
It looks at the problems of the action plans that have been drawn up which fail to strike the right balance between security and immigration.
It looks at the policing of illegal immigration and calls for focus on combating trafficking and combating illegal employment.
These are the things our Member States should be doing.
And, of course, most importantly, it looks at budgets and the fact that under half of the measures proposed have budgetary allocations so that if we are to be serious about this, then an approach will be needed by the Council to give a legal base to the budgets which are being proposed.
So in conclusion, Mr President, and on behalf of the Liberal Group, I welcome this report which we will vote on tomorrow.
Mr President, unfortunately the action plans of the High Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration hardly do justice to the task in hand.
If you read the action plans carefully, you will see that most space is devoted to measures to combat illegal immigration.
This is not the only problem, however.
No consideration is given to development policy or foreign policy measures to deal with the reasons which make people flee and emigrate from these regions.
Although the High Level Working Group itself has concluded that human rights violations are an important reason why people flee, too little account of this is taken in the action plans.
Let us look at the situation in Iraq.
Clearly it is not easy at present to make suitable proposals for Iraq which might have some chance of being implemented, given the current political situation.
The same applies in Afghanistan, where one is uncertain as to whom one should even start discussions with.
Whom should we urge to respect human rights? The way in which the High Level Working Group was set up and operates also gives cause for criticism.
The European Parliament was consulted on neither the appointments to the group nor the crisis regions selected.
This modus operandi is unacceptable.
Mr Hernández Mollar' s report is highly critical of the work of the High Level Working Group.
The report now gives us the opportunity to develop a new basis on which to evaluate the work of the High Level Working Group and my group therefore supports the rapporteur.
Mr President, I hope that honourable Members will forgive me if I stand back and ask a fundamental question. Why does the European Union need a common asylum policy?
No one would deny that this is an area where countries can gain from mutual collaboration but, of course, there is nothing new about cooperation among our home countries in the asylum field. Since long before the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the Member States of the Union have been bound together by a complex web of agreements covering the right of asylum, the treatment of refugees, the principle of non-refoulement and much else.
We must not make the mistake, as we so often seem to do in this House, of believing that the only alternative to EU action is some kind of anarchy wherein no nation consults with any other.
On the contrary, the alternative to action at EU level is a negotiation of bilateral and multilateral accords among independent nations.
Such accords have two potential advantages it seems to me over Community action.
First, they are often well tried and well trusted and established and second, they can, of course, apply to states outside of the European Union.
In my own constituency of South-east England the local police and immigration services long enjoyed excellent relations with their French and Belgian counterparts.
Indeed, it is at least arguable that we cooperated more closely with other Member States ten years ago than we do today following the entry into force of the Dublin Convention and its flanking accords.
Now, how can this possibly be?
Well, it was Aristotle who first adumbrated the principle that which no one owns no one will look after.
His precept surely holds true among nations as it does among individuals.
Put bluntly, a border guard who sees that a traveller is heading for a destination beyond his own frontiers may have little incentive to detain him and so to provoke an asylum application within his own jurisdiction.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for refugees, 93 000 people applied for sanctuary in the United Kingdom last year.
This makes Britain the most common destination for asylum claimants in Europe, a position we hold jointly with Germany.
But what is most astonishing is that this figure has risen in the United Kingdom by some 40% since the mid-1990s while across the European Union as a whole, it has remained relatively stable.
I say 'astonishing' because the vast number of applicants in my constituency have passed through several safe countries prior to their arrival there.
Now surely a genuine refugee' s priority is to get out of the particular country, not to get into one.
Barring exceptional circumstances it is not unreasonable to expect that someone escaping from oppression would apply for sanctuary as soon as he reached a safe state.
I am proud of Britain' s role through the centuries as a safe haven for those fleeing from injustice and wrong and I know that Members across this House will feel a similar pride in the honourable record of their countries.
That record depends on our ability to distinguish between economic migrants and genuine refugees and it depends critically on our having the resolve to secure our borders against false claimants.
As cooperating states we can do this, as a single territory the evidence suggests that we cannot.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report highlights the many errors and omissions which the action plans contain.
First of all, there is the question of partnership, particularly the place given to NGOs.
Their opinion has not been sought or has not been taken into consideration.
Another error is that questions relating to asylum and those relating to emigration have been dealt with in the same way.
It is true that one cannot attack the causes of migratory flows without talking about human rights.
I am going to talk about asylum.
With some countries Europe is signing agreements which include readmission clauses authorising the deportation of third country nationals without the political, economic and social situation of the individual or the country being taken into account.
This clause is a violation of international law.
It refutes the principle of not expelling people before considering whether they are being sent back to a safe country.
Just how is it possible to believe that people sent back to certain countries will be safely welcomed there when human rights, particularly those of women, are violated on a daily basis in those countries? Just how can we agree to making development aid conditional upon the signature of such agreements?
Europe must cease to turn a blind eye.
The best solution to reduce the flow of migration is to support development in these countries and support the welfare of these peoples.
This means cancelling the debt of developing countries.
Cancelling the debt would make it possible to develop educational, social and medical structures, which would directly benefit the population.
Moreover, it would be better to improve the host structures for refugees and asylum seekers, who are currently treated as if they were criminals wishing to take advantage of the system.
They must be adequately looked after, and, in particular, given access to medical care, social entitlements, and education for children.
In conclusion, would it not be more urgent to harmonise our asylum and migration policies and to establish a genuine Community policy on the subject?
Mr President, each of the countries referred to in this report is different and each of the plans varies accordingly.
I will speak only about Sri Lanka, a country I have visited, and a country many of whose citizens have sought refuge in London and other parts of the European Union.
It is a country, President, in which a civil war has raged for the past eighteen years - eighteen years which have seen the proportion of defence spending by the Sri Lankan government rise steadily.
This money is spent fighting a war that the Sri Lankan government cannot win and it is a war that the Tamils cannot win either.
The only solution must be a brokered peace.
It could be that the European Union, with its historical links, could act as that intermediary.
My colleague, Anna Terrón, has said that this report is naïve.
I feel that the report skirts around the real issue and is a diversion from the debate that we ought to be having on Sri Lanka and the other countries.
The report says that there is no end to the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka.
It speaks of human rights abuses, cases of aid not reaching the most desperate areas and of economic deprivation.
That is the effect of the war and it says that we should work more closely with the Sri Lankan government.
Yet it is they who are controlling what we know and it is they who control what coverage we get and we must be circumspect.
We all know about the well-publicised cases of Tamil action against government forces.
We have heard less about the hospitals and schools being destroyed and of torture by Sri Lankan government troops.
So when the report says, Mr President, that we should look for ways to find a political solution to this conflict, I agree.
Nothing else matters.
Nothing else will solve the problems or lessen the human rights abuses.
Nothing short of a cessation of the conflict will end the misery of the Tamils in Sri Lanka and nothing else will end the number of people seeking refuge in the European Union.
Nothing else will stop people from fleeing the country.
A high-level action plan, Mr President, that does not recognise these fundamental reports is - I would argue - not worth the paper it is written on.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, but the European Union deserves no congratulations whatsoever, for in the area of civil liberties it appears unable to focus on anything but repression.
I am therefore all the more content to see that this report includes a reference to the key study which has just been published by the United Nations on replacement migration, as this study contains data which can only give cause for concern, revealing the current relentless advance of the process of population ageing and decline. The population of Europe will fall by 12 percent in the next 50 years if current levels of migration are maintained.
Declining birth and death rates will halve the worker/pensioner ratio in the European Union from four workers per pensioner to less than 2 in the year 2050, and this will lead to a drastic reduction in pension and welfare payments to offset the sharp drop in contributions.
Any meaningful migration policy cannot fail to take these considerations into account, for this demographic holocaust, soon to become an economic disaster, calls for proposals for migration policies which are liberal, antiprotectionist and geared to economic requirements and labour market demand, to counteract the prohibitionist and protectionist, nationalistic, ethnic, inhumane policy currently in force in Europe. To date, this has done nothing but criminalise immigrants, who are needed by the labour market, and deliver illegal immigrants into the jaws of crime, starting with the arrangements for their entry onto European territory and ending with their involvement in the black market and other unlawful activities.
To sum up, while the United States are negotiating with Indian universities for the best graduates in new technologies, Europe prefers to barter with the Taliban regime with a view to repatriating some of the women once persecuted there.
Mr President, I must make it quite clear that I do not agree with the conclusions of my fellow Italian who has just spoken.
However, I would like to join him in congratulating the rapporteur and his committee on their excellent work.
What conclusions can we draw from this report? Basically, that the positions of Parliament and the Council are poles apart.
This has always been the case, but today we are formally recording it in a document: on the one hand, we have the Council, which maintains a particular line through the individual States of which it is composed and which makes recommendations on the basis of the decisions of those States and, on the other hand, we have the Community, or, rather, Parliament, which advocates a different, more harmonised, more coordinated and more homogeneous approach.
I feel that this distinction is important: Parliament' s approach is more idealistic, optimistic and utopian, whereas the individual States are more concerned with practical issues and have to answer to their citizens, who are not easily convinced by hopes and illusions but are well aware of the reality of present conditions which, in many cases - both in Italy and in many other European countries - have resulted in uncontrolled immigration.
Therefore, in view of the security issue and the problem of migration, which has its roots in poor countries which are beset with problems, where individuals, groups and families need to find not only a means for self-expression but also a completely different, secure environment, I feel that it is essential for Community policy to be comprehensive.
- (PT) Mr President, the action plans under way in the Council' s High-Level Working Group are, as we all know, an unreliable instrument for jointly tackling a problem which, for some, is merely one of security and for others is merely one of integration, and it is usually impossible to tell where the line between the right to asylum ends and the right to economic survival begins.
I say that it is an unreliable instrument because it does not seem that the studies on which the action plans are based provide useful new features requiring effective policy measures - usually in the form of generic proposals for classic external policy or for development aid - which would only succeed with target-country authorities that were legitimate and stable, which unfortunately is not generally the case.
Hence the temptation in the action plans, in the measures that have been proposed, to place a far greater emphasis on managing illegal immigration than on integrating people. They place a far greater emphasis on repression and control than on a European asylum policy and a genuine system of temporary protection for those who come and knock at Europe' s door, for whatever reason, but always in a genuine state of need.
The action plans that Tampere accepted and stated should continue, in spite of their inability to cope with the complexity of the problem, could nevertheless be improved until the European Union can equip itself with an asylum and immigration policy of its own.
What these plans must not do is to fluctuate between relative ineffectiveness and worsening of the situation in terms of human rights, although, as asylum seekers, immigrants cannot be considered as potential criminals. It would be better if, instead of being treated like 'police cases' , they were treated, as a matter of course, as cases of universal exclusion.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an excellent report. It touches on all the sore points in this saga, but it would be better if we had proposals by the Commission before us rather than reports by government experts.
Let us not lose hope, however, that we will soon be debating these issues here with Commissioner Vitorino.
That will be a sign that Europe has moved towards common policies based on a balance between security and integration, and that it has finally opted to put an end to uncertainty.
Mr President, the Commission would like to thank Parliament for the opportunity of having this debate and I would like personally to warmly congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Hernández Mollar, for his excellent report and the excellent motion for a resolution.
I appreciate that Parliament can support the proposed integrated and cross-pillar approach which - and I quote the report - 'may' produce positive results.
I understand that the Parliament is taking a cautious approach to these action plans and the Commission would like to follow the same line.
On the one hand, the Commission is pleased to see that in broad terms the approach of the Council in developing these action plans is very much in line with the approach advocated by the Commission in its communication on migration of 1994 that enjoyed broad support in this Parliament.
On the other hand, one must be aware that, for the time being, these plans only exist on paper.
Implementing these plans will need, as has already been stressed by several Members of the House, a combination of very different policies: political cooperation, human rights, rule of law and democracy, commercial, social and development policies, economic assistance need to be fitted together with measures aiming at better management of migration flowing from these countries and regions.
Clearly this is not an easy task.
Please allow me to highlight, and subscribe to, a number of important elements of your draft resolution.
The partnership with the third countries concerned will be always a key element for the success of such a policy with a view to promoting co-development.
I would therefore support your view that we will need to initiate a political dialogue on the implementation of the action plan on an agreed basis of mutual benefit both for Member States of the Union and for the third countries.
We have to recognise that this political dialogue will have to take into account the very different political situation in each of the five countries.
Therefore, I would like to emphasise the important role that non-governmental organisations will have in the implementation of these action plans.
We are all very well aware of the fact that migration problems will not be solved within the coming month.
We have to bear in mind this very serious limitation when the European Council in December this year receives the first assessment of these action plans.
I would very much agree with your observation that the European Union should adopt a long-term structural policy to tackle the causes of migration and I therefore agree that the deadlines set in the action plans are rather optimistic.
The action plans, however, can be considered as a first step in creating an external policy on migration of the European Union and should therefore be given a chance.
I also agree with your view that reception in the region does not absolve Member States of the Union from their duties towards asylum-seekers under the Geneva Convention.
When implementing the action plans, it is extremely important to keep the balance between the various measures so that efforts are not concentrated exclusively on the short-term defence actions.
The Commission stresses that it will play an active part in maintaining that balance.
Implementation will require close cooperation between the Council and its competent bodies, the Commission and Member States in accordance with their respective responsibilities as defined in the treaty.
The important role Member States have to play was, by the way, acknowledged at the Justice and Home Affairs Council of last Monday, 27 March.
The presidency has called on the Member States to turn their political commitments into real activities, a request that the Commission has supported.
The Commission is, of course, ready to play the active role it is expected to play, especially in areas such as development and economic assistance, human rights, good governance and institution building.
In order to play a similar role for other measures, the Commission currently lacks the financial means.
I therefore very much welcome your recommendation for the possibility of allocation of extra funds to cover cooperation with third countries in the fields of justice and home affairs with particular reference to immigration.
These budget lines should, above all, consider not only providing humanitarian assistance, including the improvement of basic living conditions, as we are already doing using the funds of ECHO, but also different initiatives aimed at economic development, improving respect for human rights, improving the independence of the judiciary, improving equal opportunities of men and women in the third countries, but also assisting the third countries to put in place the legal and practical mechanisms for dealing with asylum-seekers and refugees.
Mr President, finally I note that you consider that the action plans pay too little attention to the internal policies.
However, I understand the primary aim of the action plan to be to contribute to the development of an external policy of the Union on migration.
Let me assure you anyway that the Commission will take its own responsibilities in the development of a common internal European Union immigration and asylum policy as foreseen in the conclusions of Tampere.
A detailed breakdown of our intentions is presented already in the scoreboard that was endorsed by the Justice and Home Affairs Council last Monday and which was communicated to the Parliament earlier.
In autumn this year we will have a new opportunity to discuss the priorities of a comprehensive immigration policy of the Union when the Commission presents to the Council and to Parliament a review of the communication of 1994 in order to bring on board the new dynamics, the new social, political and economic realities of the world we live in as far as immigration policy is concerned.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
2001 budgetary guidelines
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we face an enormous challenge with the budget for the year 2001.
The first budget of the new millennium must strengthen the social and cultural dimension of Europe and honour the commitments which the European Union has set itself vis-à-vis its citizens and vis-à-vis the international community.
What does that mean in practice and what do we expect from the Commission as we draw up the preliminary draft budget, Commissioner?
Of course, we assume that the budget will take suitable account of policies newly introduced or reinforced by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Even if we have deliberately dispensed in the Committee on Budgets from including detailed information and statements on each of these political areas, this does not imply that they are any less of a priority but merely that we wished to be as brief as possible and we expect commensurate account to be taken of them.
We still consider the implementation of equal opportunities, equality and environmental sustainability to be priorities which we wish to see anchored in the budget.
The main priority for the budget 2001 must still be to remain active in the fight against unemployment.
That does not mean, and let me be quite clear on this, financing huge employment programmes at European level, nobody wants that.
What we do want, however, is to provide the strategic momentum needed so that small and medium-sized enterprises can quickly start using the structures of the new information and communications technologies and participating in the information society.
This form of strategic initiative will safeguard international competitiveness and development potential and hence strengthen the enterprises which continue to provide the majority of jobs within the European Union and which still create most new jobs.
I am pleased to report that we are at one with the Council on this point and I am sure that we shall be able to implement some of the commitments and objectives formulated in Lisbon in the forthcoming budget in a spirit of partnership and consistency.
Apart from this core initiative for the budget 2001, we must not allow the quality of economic and political integration achieved in the meantime to eclipse our cultural identity as Europeans.
This does not mean centralisation and standardisation, by no means; on the contrary, it means promoting cultural diversity.
Supporting the regional cultural industry means that we shall be laying its economic foundations and securing its potential to develop.
We want the next budget to meet the challenges of efficient administration and guarantee the necessary transparency in European finances. We support the Commission' s efforts to introduce Activity Based Budgeting.
We support efforts to allocate administrative and personnel costs openly and clearly to each budget area and this must be accompanied by efforts to improve political control of the budget and to improve the implementation of political priorities.
Parliament sets particular store by this.
We shall monitor these objectives closely during the reform process. But one thing must be absolutely clear: any attempt to reduce parliamentary scrutiny and control of the budget will not be accepted.
The greatest challenge, however, is in relation to our commitment to reconstruct and secure peace and stability in the Balkans.
I would stress here quite clearly and unequivocally that, as far as the objectives are concerned and the need to provide the necessary funds for them, there is no dissent whatsoever.
The European Parliament also stands by these commitments.
We know that the Council also stands by its commitments and, at the donor conference today, the Portuguese Foreign Minister stated, in his capacity as President-in-Office of the Council, that the Council wished to secure lasting stability in the Balkans and that efforts would need to be made over several years in order to achieve this.
In other words, the Council recognises these demands and these commitments.
However, we expect the Council to set itself these new challenges and to act accordingly.
Gaining the ability to act in this important foreign policy area while, at the same time, losing it in other foreign policy areas as the result of excessive savings is unacceptable.
Allow me to make myself quite clear.
The interinstitutional agreement and the budget 2001 are indeed two different pairs of shoes, but both pairs must fit, otherwise we will be unable to walk in them and we will get nowhere.
I must stress the fact that we are not questioning the interinstitutional agreement per se; we stand by this agreement, but we are calling for a review which takes real account of demands in a specific area, namely the additional cost of assistance for the Balkans and certain other foreign policy measures.
This call is obviously directed at the Commission and the Commission will submit its proposal accordingly; however, this message is also directed at the Council, above all at the Council.
I have the very real impression that when the round of finance ministers hears the words 'review of the interinstitutional agreement' , it immediately thinks of wasted money and sees red.
But a review is not a catastrophe; it is a perfectly normal procedure which in no way questions the spirit of the agreement.
Histrionics do not help, they merely create unnecessary fronts.
What we need in order to finance the measures referred to is flexibility.
Without flexibility we will get nowhere.
I therefore call on the Council to stop adding fuel to the fire.
Do not commit yourself to a blockade attitude towards the review.
Take your cue from us and work together with us to find a constructive solution which can overcome exaggerated positions both here and there.
Over the last few days, the Lisbon Summit has highlighted aspects of the development and future viability of Europe which deserve support.
We want to support these aspects in the coming budget and concentrate our efforts on these areas.
At the same time, we here in Parliament recognise the need for an economical and efficient budget.
The objectives which I mentioned, in which we, the Council and the Commission have a common interest in numerous cases, can only be achieved if we approach the budgetary procedure in an atmosphere of trust and partnership.
This means avoiding an escalation of the conflict surrounding the financing of external actions at all costs.
So let us use the discussion of the forthcoming Commission proposal for a multiannual programme which has been scheduled for the coming weeks in order to find a viable solution which secures our ability to act in the foreign policy area without impeding our internal priorities.
Mr President, Commissioner, in relation to what Mrs Haug had to present, a banker might say that the budget for the other institutions is peanuts; small budgets which are not as significant, including from the political standpoint, but which are important nonetheless because they allow the other institutions to make their work transparent and thus, I think, to look their citizens in the eye.
What are the challenges which we must take into account in the small budgets for the coming year? First, and this applies to all the budgets, budgetary rigour.
When I see that we alone in the European Parliament are planning an increase of 0.07% in comparison with the year 2000, then this rigour is guaranteed and we can show our face.
Compared with a total budget of EUR 965 million, that does not represent too big a bite out of the cake at our disposal.
What are the challenges of Activity Based Budgeting? Of course this is a question which we must also apply to the other institutions, as and where it is sensible to do so.
If I look around me here, I might wonder what the costs are in relation to the number of members present.
That is not what we mean by these questions; what we mean is transparent expenditure in the budget lines, so that everything is comprehensible.
We must draw up a medium-term personnel plan in order to meet the huge challenge of the enlargement of the European Union.
This is a huge challenge for us in Parliament and for the translation services in the other institutions.
We have been preparing for this over recent years and we must start to take up the challenges and manage personnel developments accordingly in 2001.
This gives rise to a second thought which we must consider.
How can we work together with other institutions in the area of personnel recruitment? We shall have similar positions to fill in individual areas in the coming years and it makes perfect sense to consider organising and centralising these activities.
We must bear in mind that there are also new challenges in the legislative area since the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force.
I only have to look at the Commission' s work programme, with its 108 codecision procedures, to see that this is a challenge which we did not have to face in the past.
Even in the peak years at the beginning of the 1990s, when we were implementing the internal market programme, we only had a third to a half of the labour costs now being proposed by the Commission and we must organise our work more efficiently and provide the resources so that we can carry out our work accordingly.
This includes preliminary scientific work, I should like to be quite clear on that.
We are dealing with a Commission which has a joint research centre.
We are dealing with 15 Member States which have their own national resources and, as a legislator with equal rights, Parliament must naturally make use of its opportunities here.
I suggest, and the Committee on Budgets agrees with me here, that we introduce improvements in the area of public relations, so that we have a starting point at which citizens who want to find out more about the work of Parliament can do so without needing to be in an official group of visitors.
We suggest that we make provision for new posts in certain areas, but only where absolutely necessary.
We shall have to examine this very closely over coming weeks and months because we have some room for manoeuvre.
We have taken a very reasonable approach to buildings policy, as far as the costs of the European Parliament building are concerned, but it makes no sense if we again destroy our new found freedoms straight away in 2001.
As far as the other institutions are concerned, I only have a few comments to make.
I think we should try to ensure that the interpreting service starts working more closely with the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions forthwith.
There is potential for collaboration here.
We shall have to monitor the Court of Justice very closely.
I hope that new rules will be developed for the Court of Justice during the review of the Treaty which will allow it to operate efficiently and which will ensure that there is long-term financing for personnel planning.
I should expressly like to praise the Court of Auditors which not only monitors us strictly, it also honours its undertakings to the letter, and I think that we must also ensure that funds are used economically as regards the Ombudsman, especially as far as new posts are concerned.
I should like to thank everyone who worked with us on this, especially our own administration, for their correct and very positive preliminary work, and all the honourable Members who made it possible for us to present a proper result to plenary despite the limited time available.
Mr President, I welcome this procedure this year because it is the earliest start we have ever had and this will enable us, I hope, to give more serious consideration and more detailed consideration as the process develops.
So I treat this as a beginning and not an end.
As a beginning, I would say the Environment Committee would like to reiterate the demands it made last year with regard to the budget.
We have a persistent and clear need to continue to work towards greening the budget in all areas of policy activity and I want to see further work on this this year.
In addition, we are spending a lot of money on our external policies, particularly through the PHARE and TACIS programmes, on ways of developing the important role of the environment and the sustainable development of those areas so close to our own borders.
I want to see more work from the Commission showing us how that money is being properly and correctly applied and what the positive outcomes are.
I also want to give more consideration to what the agencies are doing and take a more differentiated approach to them depending on their particular roles and activities which we have not done in the past.
In particular we want to consider the problems that the Treaty of Amsterdam presents and the fact that the full financial implications of the Treaty of Amsterdam are only being realised this year and we have to take account of that.
The committee also wants to reiterate its support for continued financial assistance to NGO participation in much of the technical committee work of the Parliament and the Commission.
Finally, Mr President, I would say that we continue to oppose the tobacco subsidies which are continuously being paid by the Commission and the sooner we get a chance to do something about it the better.
That is the view of this Parliament.
Mr President, the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities requests that the Committee on Budgets incorporate the following conclusions into the motion for a resolution which it adopts:
The Committee highlights the importance of appropriate training for women, moving beyond the traditional mould, promoting on-going training, specialisation and the integration of women into the phenomenon represented by new technologies, so that society may gain a large number of highly qualified women whose participation at all levels - business, political and social - results from both qualitative and quantitative criteria. It also requests that a new priority line be added to the e-Europe initiative, bearing in mind that the information society has enormous potential for women, not only with regard to training and access to knowledge, but also because of the opportunity of new jobs or new working methods which may help to reconcile family life.
The Committee highlights the need for adequate appropriations to be provided and for the relevant comments to be added to the budget with regard to the strict application of the principle of mainstreaming which guarantees equal opportunities between men and women in the planning, implementation and assessment of all European Union projects and programmes.
The Committee requests that the Commission support the Fifth Action Programme for equal opportunities, drawn up with the aim of overcoming the difficulties of the previous programme and asks that the principle of equal opportunities be applied in all Community policies.
The Committee requests that a programme for employment be created, specifically targeting women and, to this end, requests that a budget line be created to finance it, with the fundamental aim of achieving equality between men and women in the workplace, not only by means of measures to protect that equality but also by means of special formulae, which will allow women to integrate fully in the labour market without jeopardising other aspects of their lives.
The Committee stresses the importance of the collaboration between those non-governmental organisations and associations, whose activities complement the Community action programmes, to achieving the European Union' s aims with regard to equal opportunities between men and women.
- (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the guidelines for the 2001 budgetary procedure as laid down in the Haug report are a starting point for a debate on the European Union budget for 2001 which promises to be both arduous and heated throughout the year.
I must emphasise that the amenability of the rapporteur, whom I congratulate, has enabled a broader consensus to be reached.
Going back to the first four paragraphs of the motion for a resolution, which identify the European Parliament' s political priorities, and then those that contain the essence of its position, I would like to highlight the following aspects: appropriate funding is being promoted for the new policies introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam as well as for the policies that have been strengthened by the Treaty in the fields of internal and external action.
In this way we are sending out a clear political message.
The provisions of the Treaty are designed to be implemented. It is not merely a declaration of intent, which would be a serious example of political hypocrisy as well as completely unacceptable.
The substance of the Treaty must be implemented.
The report broaches the issue of employment in terms of job creation, which in turn is connected to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as to the use of new technologies.
This, for us, is the crucial approach.
It is vital for new jobs to be created and this depends on the initiative and the creativity of entrepreneurs.
Let there be investment, then, in a culture of initiative.
The report restates the need for a sustainable and multiannual contribution to financial aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo and for the stabilisation of the Balkans as part of a review of the financial perspective.
It rejects such financing if it is to be provided at the expense of existing commitments, either involving external actions or through cuts in the common agricultural policy or other policies.
New money must be found for new requirements, with the condition, as always, of judiciously identifying those requirements, and the rigorous use of funds, as should always be the case. In relation to Kosovo, this concern seems to be particularly reasonable.
The report insists on the need to reform the European Union' s administrative system, which is essential if there is to be efficiency, responsibility and transparency.
This debate has launched the budget procedure and, at the end of the year, when the final assessment is made of the draft budget for 2001, it must contain the essence of this Parliament' s position.
Unless that is the case, the democratic legitimacy that Parliament gives to the actions of the European Union, particularly in the budgetary process, would be an enormous confidence trick, which the public would see through and for which they would not forgive us.
Mr President, I would like to start off by congratulating Mr Ferber on excellent guidelines.
I welcome the clear orientation of the report to planning for enlargement.
The drive towards efficiency is especially vital in the context of enlargement.
It is important even at this early stage that we have a clear strategy on how the institutions will respond to the accession of new members.
We need to be imaginative about how we address the issues of staffing and building requirements.
The institutions cannot respond to enlargement by just adding an extra post here or an office there.
We do not want a Lego approach to enlargement.
What we need is a major rethink about management of operations and that involves all the institutions exploring alternative ways and embracing new information technologies wholeheartedly.
This is especially important in relation to linguistic support.
I am totally in support of the idea outlined by Mr Ferber regarding the setting up of an interinstitutional recruitment office because I believe it will help reduce costs and reduce competition between the institutions in attracting new personnel.
As everybody here needs to recognise, there are major limitations in relation to resources that will be available as a result of enlargement and there are implications for the financial perspective in relation to Category 5 expenditure.
However, these guidelines are not just about enlargement they are about policy direction for all the institutions next year.
Therefore, greater accountability and transparency have to be top priority because the European citizen does not distinguish between the different institutions.
All the other institutions have to undertake a fundamental review along similar lines to those proposed by the Commission' s reform agenda because what the European taxpayers want is the reassurance that they are getting value for money and that includes not just the institutions but also political parties, Members of Parliament and staff.
Any changes have to be clearly justified and transparent.
Improvements and efficiencies need to be demonstrated by every institution and I believe that this can only be achieved through tools such as activity-based budgeting and thorough examination of current policies and systems and procedures.
One of the biggest inefficiencies that we have is the location of EU institutions and if we want to be taken seriously we need to focus our work on one seat.
I appreciate we have obligations under the treaties to two different locations but we should make sure that these are not expanded.
Many of you are aware that the UK is reluctant to expand the scope of qualified majority voting but this is one issue where the UK would gladly see majority voting take place.
To conclude, our group' s priorities are that these guidelines are budgetary prudence, improving efficiency, more effective budgetary control, better use of resources and general improvements in services and management, so I call upon all the other institutions to take these on and implement these improvements vigorously.
Mr President, Commissioner, the rapporteurs Mrs Haug and Mr Ferber have drafted their first report on next year' s EU budget.
I wish them both luck in the task facing them.
Drafting the budget means spending taxpayers' money.
For that reason the work is important and calls for stringent budgetary discipline.
There are many areas that call for financing, but there are only a few vital ones.
Only the vital areas can receive public funding.
In addition to stringent budgetary discipline we wish to stress the following: our Group gives its full support to the package of reforms as proposed by Mr Kinnock.
Activity-Based Budgeting and management will be the cornerstones of these reforms.
They will emphasise the importance of personal responsibility, diminish the bureaucratic load and enhance efficiency.
But the reforms will require cooperation with the staff.
That is why we have to prepare carefully for the forthcoming talks regarding the reform of staff regulations.
The current staffing structure has to be clarified and made more flexible, so as to facilitate the reallocation of funds, for example.
The work of reform might also demand additional budgetary proposals, which we urge the Commission to be prepared for.
Mrs Haug' s report stresses the importance of culture as a means of creating jobs.
Culture as such falls within the competence of the Member States.
However, culture as a means of livelihood is an area which is rapidly growing in importance.
For that reason we support the report insofar as it emphasises the importance of developing this within the framework of structural action.
In a later debate on the budget we wish to draw attention to the matter of sufficient appropriations for science and research and financing the fight against exclusion in all its forms, within the meaning of Article 13 of the Treaty.
Our group also believes that Category 1 of the financial perspective - agricultural expenditure - should not be used as a primary source of financing in response to needs that become manifest in external policy.
With regard to Mr Ferber' s report, we would like to remark that we are disinclined to take a position on the details as yet, including the establishment of posts.
Nevertheless, we consider it vital that reforms concerning members' rules be established promptly, in accordance with earlier agreements.
Mr President, Commissioner, I must say that I feel rather uneasy when confronted with this report, especially after the amendments by the Committee on Budgets.
Mrs Haug is not to blame.
Taken in isolation, a good number of her subparagraphs are acceptable, and some are even excellent, and my group will vote in favour of them.
On the whole, however, without even mentioning specifically those paragraphs which we find quite simply unacceptable, I consider that this report lacks the clear political will, the strong ambition, the resolute decisions which Parliament should, in my opinion, be expressing at this stage in the budgetary battle, for this year' s battle promises, once again, to be a hard fought one.
Each and every one of us can remember the trial of strength we had to take part in last year with the Council because the Council wished to complete the funding of the reconstruction of Kosovo by drawing particularly on the appropriations for cooperation with the countries of the South.
In the end, the majority in Parliament agreed to vote in favour of the budget in return for a limited concession from the Council but also, above all, an undertaking from the Council to accept a review of the financial perspective in the year 2000, if the development of the Balkan situation should require resources significantly greater than those for which provision has already been made.
This is clearly the case today, but neither the Commission nor the Council seems resolved to respect the spirit of this commitment and fund our new priorities without compromising our traditional priorities.
However, while the report recitals clearly record this position, particularly recitals A, B and D, on the other hand, subparagraph 22, which has already been mentioned, advocates, 'equal' distribution of the financial consequences of special budgetary needs instead of a limited revision of the financial perspective, with additional resources.
Once again, there are plans to rob Peter to pay Paul in accordance with the sacrosanct budgetary Stability Pact.
For my part, I remain convinced that we must, on the contrary, ask the question clearly: do we wish to play an active part on this continent and throughout the world? If we do, then we should provide ourselves, in moderation, but steadfastly, with the financial resources to do so.
The same reasoning is equally applicable to other priorities, which have been advertised but not acted upon, such as social aspects, employment or even cooperation with the countries of the South.
I hope that, beyond this vote, there will be enough of us to relaunch the initiative in time, in this spirit, and, this time, to hold out until the end.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Haug and Mr Ferber for their reports, which are doubtless comprehensive and very detailed in terms of all the guidelines.
I would also like to stress from the outset that, if we want to boost employment in the European Union, it is of fundamental importance to build on the role of small and medium-sized enterprises for, when all is said and done, they are the hard core of our undertaking in Europe. With regard to the reference to the cultural economy and new technologies, this should also be included in the Lisbon report, and my view is that we will be able to use these bases to boost employment substantially.
We often talk of a new economy, but if, then, at the end of the day, we ourselves do not focus on the potential core factors, which, in this case, are culture and new technology, then we will certainly not be able to produce solutions.
In addition to this, I welcome the fact that the item of natural disasters occurring within our nations has been reinserted in the budget. Why?
Because in this way we can help Member States when they suffer natural disasters, such as earthquakes, for example, because otherwise people will fail to understand why it is that we intervene in countries such as Kosovo, and yet do not seem able to intervene in our own States.
And so I welcome the reinsertion of this item in the budget as a major step.
However, on a more antagonistic note, I have to point out that we cannot make cuts in agriculture as a matter of course.
Naturally, we must finance the Kosovo mission as a fundamental political objective, in order to erase the effects of the war and to prove the existence of a political objective, but we cannot always do so at the expense of agriculture.
I would also stress that we need constant guidelines from the Council and the Commission, for we cannot manage on the same budget as last year. It was only thanks to the patience and tenacity of President Wynn that we were able to reach the end of the year.
We cannot go on like this. Finally, I would stress the need to restructure the budget - for example, we could axe TAOs - and thus secure new resources.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Employment supports the general rapporteur' s initiative to give employment policy priority once again this year and, more importantly, to give small and medium-sized enterprises support in the field of information and communications technologies.
However, the social aspects must, of course, not be forgotten in the process, which is why our Committee is calling for an own initiative, mainly to ensure that everyone has an equal stake in the new technologies.
So far, only some 30% of women have access to the Internet and high earners have three times more access to the Internet than low earners. This is not on.
There is another important point in this budget.
It concerns civil dialogue.
We are calling for sustainable financing for civil dialogue and for the non-governmental organisations involved in it, in order to support their important role as the voice of the disadvantaged.
Mr President, Commissioner, naturally, the question of employment also plays a decisive part during budgetary discussions in the Committee on Fisheries.
Healthy growth and low unemployment are what we all want.
Europe needs to set the framework, which is one of the reasons it created the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But the real responsibility for employment, and this is not the first time that I have stressed this, lies with the Member States.
A greencard alone, such as that for which provision has been made in Germany, is not a practice which makes perfect.
It is in practice that a Member State demonstrates at home if it is being innovative or if it is hiding with an innocent expression behind the EU.
That would be cheap and it would not be right.
We need to manage a plethora of international fisheries agreements and conventions over the coming year, all of which have budgetary implications, because if we want to keep our products on the global market, we need raw materials and imports and they do not come cheap.
However, we in the Committee on Fisheries cannot really go to town, Commissioner, because you have still not provided us with the long-promised cost-benefit analyses on our fisheries agreements.
How can we stand up to the Committee on Budgets' demand for rigour in these circumstances?
The EU will have a new fisheries policy from 2002, a huge, fascinating venture with a global dimension.
We are already making the necessary preparations, which is why we also need the strong guidelines planned by the main rapporteur in the fisheries sector.
Later we will need the commensurate funds.
Thank you very much, Mrs Langenhagen.
I congratulate you on being able to express yourself in less than the time allotted to you.
Unfortunately, others do not tend to follow suit.
Mr President, Commissioner, first may I extend my warmest congratulations to Mr Ferber and Mrs Haug on the work which they have carried out.
In the first year in which the full budgetary procedure comes to fruition, we are all bound to be highly enthusiastic.
Everyone wants to have their say, as we have seen in the very active and lively debates over recent days and weeks.
The Union budget of EUR 90 billion represents so many hopes, the hopes of people looking for support.
They may be farmers in the European Union, who obviously want appropriate remuneration, a just reward, which they have earned, for producing healthy food.
They may be the regions in Europe which are lagging behind in terms of economic development and which expect much from the solidarity of the European Union, namely assistance to help them develop into a balanced system of cohesion within the European Union, as far as living and working conditions are concerned.
There are the hopes of the unemployed, who want us to support them along the path back to work. There are the hopes of the young, there are hopes throughout the world, in which we, as the rich continent of Europe, and we are the rich continent of Europe, can give assistance.
And there are hopes at the heart of Europe, where we have a cancerous growth called war, where there are people who are forced to live in appalling conditions, people who need a future, people who need hope.
We do not want any curious divisions of tasks, as are presently becoming apparent, when this money is distributed over the coming weeks and months.
It is becoming apparent that there are people on the one side who are making promises left, right and centre and raising their estimates.
Contrary to what has been said here time and again, agricultural spending will not fall, it will rise by nearly 5% or even more than 5% next year.
We must not upset the farmers too much in this European Union.
We cannot have a situation in which people on the one side, i.e. the Council, promise money and increase the sums involved and then come to us in Parliament and say, be sure to keep overall expenditure down, make cuts in all areas and tell all other 'hopefuls' that there is nothing for them.
This division of tasks is unacceptable.
Nor can we have a situation in which the international community sits down at the donor conference, promises money and says to Kosovo and everyone living in the Balkans, we will support you, you will get money for what you want.
In future, excavators will be rattling past, not tanks.
You must be able to reconstruct and we want to help you.
We cannot have a situation in which they promise so much and then come and say, take the money we need from the most needy.
That cannot be.
We have stretched out our hand.
Mrs Haug has stretched out her hand. She has said that we are prepared to work openly with the Council and the Commission.
We want to show you that there is no need for a repeat of last year' s tragedy, with heckling and confrontation throughout the entire budgetary procedure.
We can work together.
You should know that.
Take the outstretched hand.
But I say quite clearly at this point that, if you signal that you are not prepared to cooperate with us and that we are on course for a confrontation, then this Parliament is not defenceless or powerless and we shall use our powers for the people who place their hopes in us and we shall certainly not disappoint them.
Take the outstretched hand and do not engage in the same pettiness as last year, because it damages all of us in Europe, including the people who pin their hopes on us.
Mr President, securing the future has always been a difficult issue, irrespective of whether it takes the form of a White Paper, deregulation, partnership or structural adjustment.
It is the financial situation which dictates future development.
The major topics are correctly positioned in the main report, but the report lacks content.
Fighting unemployment through economic growth is the greatest challenge facing Europe.
The Lisbon Summit announced the direction to be taken up to the year 2010.
We must therefore expect future intergovernmental conferences to substantiate how this is to be done.
Farmers and cooperatives expect the European Commission to reduce the amount of red tape in the agricultural economy and adopt budgetary guidelines based on calculation, reliability and progressive structures.
The Berlin resolutions set out agricultural policy up to the year 2006.
Farmers and politicians fought hard for this position.
If a premature review should be necessary, because the social analysis uses different standards, then let it only be in comparison with facts and figures, and let us retain what was successful, i.e. reliability, rather than dismantling Agenda 2000 piece by piece until what is left is hardly recognisable.
The ink was barely dry on the budget 2000 when Mrs Schreyer demanded a financial review and financial perspective for the priorities, together with action on negative expenditure.
Unless these funds are channelled back into the agricultural budget, Agenda 2000 will be jeopardised, especially as further technical inconsistencies are to be expected.
This is a policy based on rough estimates and founded on pure observation.
Of course, the Balkans must be reconstructed but, overall, in a spirit of social solidarity.
Then, and I am convinced of this, the farmers and cooperatives will also make their contribution.
Mr President, we cannot give our assent to the general economic rationale of the resolution on the budget guidelines for the 2001 budgetary procedure as it now stands.
Indeed, we would protest against the veritable misappropriation of funds which is proposed: the inappropriate use of resources reserved for agricultural expenditure under Category I of the financial perspective as a source of funding to be used to meet funding requirements in the sphere of foreign policy.
We find this attempt to fund the reconstruction of Kosovo at the expense of European farmers, and to convince us that there is no budgetary solution other than this outrageous deception, absolutely iniquitous.
Quite the contrary, we should maintain expenditure on agriculture, the compulsory expenditure, and moderate expenditure under other categories, where there are unquestionable margins.
We must therefore reject annual funding of the EUR 5.5 billion intended for the Balkans, an amount calculated by the European Commission on who knows what basis, by raising the ceiling for external expenditure and lowering that under the agricultural categories, on the erroneous grounds that appropriations would not be taken away from agriculture but that it would be appropriate to release the margins for 2001 and 2002.
Well, we are all aware that the mid-term review planned by the Berlin Summit is due to take place in 2003.
When this occurs, there is no doubt that if the dubious practice proposed by the Commission, and forcefully denounced by our Group, is endorsed by Parliament, it will then be claimed by many as an acquired right.
It therefore constitutes an extremely dangerous precedent as far as our farmers are concerned.
This, moreover, is the message clearly expressed by the European Council in Lisbon, whose conclusions unequivocally refused to incorporate the Commission' s wish to reduce the agricultural budget by EUR 300 million in 2001, and by the same again in 2002.
Regardless of the background, we do not accept the challenging of the conclusions of the Berlin Summit represented by this continual demand for the financial perspective and the various categories to be revised.
We accept it still less in light of the fact that the calculations for the European Commission' s ambitious Balkans programme lack both discipline and precision, that the Union' s existing appropriations for Kosovo cannot be spent in full and that other donor states are not meeting their financial commitments.
So I repeat, Mr President, there are no grounds for the call for the revision of the financial perspective. We therefore reject it.
Mr President, I would first like to say that I agree with the political priorities expounded by Mrs Haug.
Nevertheless, we are still lacking explicit support for such relevant fields as scientific research, technological innovation and development.
Failure to take these into account in the Union' s budget is equivalent to going out on a rainy day without an umbrella.
Without a constant and intense effort in these fields there will be no competitiveness and a lack of competitiveness means no new jobs will be created.
We have therefore introduced an amendment to cover this.
Another amendment that we have suggested, in accordance with what was agreed at the European Council in Lisbon, refers to the fact that employment is one of the Union' s great political priorities for the coming years and that objective is unfailingly expressed, as Mrs Haug correctly points out, through policies which favour small and medium-sized businesses.
However, it is not enough simply to give them access to new communication and information technologies.
The Internet is a tool, not a magic wand.
Without a decisive programme for basic structural reforms, which improve the ability of European business to compete, the digital era will be a time of frustration for Europe, hence our amendment designed to remind us of this fact which is so obvious and yet so worrying.
Lastly, with regard to what Mrs Haug describes as the "cultural economy" , we have pointed out that she mentions it amongst the political priorities, and then it fails to appear elsewhere in the text.
In order to deal with this methodological inconsistency, we have proposed an amendment which expands on this thought-provoking concept.
In any event, the rapporteur has, in our judgement, correctly established the bases which will set the course for Section III of the Union' s budget for 2001 and we are happy to offer her our sincere congratulations on her work.
Mr President, I want to concentrate mainly on the revision and just say to those who have been making comments condemning the Commission on the proposal for taking money from 1A: 'Let us wait and see what the PDB brings forward' and not write off everything at this time.
Ralf Walter made the very pertinent point that agriculture expenditure will actually increase and if money is taken from 1A it will be from surpluses, but let us wait until the PDB comes along.
We are working on assumptions when we present this report from Mrs Haug.
I am just referring to the Haug report not to Mr Ferber' s.
I congratulate the pair of them but in this Haug report we make certain assumptions about the revision, about redeployment in Category 4 and about the needs of Kosovo.
However, I need to remind the Council - and at least we have one willing scribe down there if no one else is doing the night shift for the Council to get the message across - that really, if the Commission makes the proposal which we expect them to make, then they are duty bound, because of the interinstitutional agreement, to discuss with Parliament what that revision should be before their first reading.
My gut feeling is that there will be no agreement with the Council on getting a revision of the financial perspective.
Well, if that is the case, the message needs to go out now loud and clear that we will have the same bumpy ride with the budget this year that we had last year and you will not win.
We will be determined to do our best for the Balkans and Kosovo but, at the same time, we will be realistic for those other policies which Parliament considers to be important.
The trouble with the Council is that everything revolves around what was agreed at Berlin.
We keep being told that Berlin is set in concrete.
Well, in the words of Hugh McMahon who was one of my colleagues up to the last Parliament, in a debate on shipbuilding, he once said, 'We don' t want it set in concrete, we want it set in runny cement' , and I presume that what we want in this day and age is to have the Berlin Agreement in a type of runny cement so at least you can be flexible enough to agree with us that things have to change.
I make the point, Mr President, as I did yesterday in the Budgets Committee, in the twelve years of the financial perspective there have been 38 revisions totalling over EUR 7 000 billion of monies that have been involved in those revisions.
Kosovo is one of those occasions where the financial perspective is not flexible enough and it needs to be changed and that message has to be got through otherwise there will be problems.
Mr President, it takes some nerve to state that employment is, and I quote, a constant priority of the European institutions at a time when the European Union has 18 million unemployed and when, at this very moment, a number of the most wealthy of all major European businesses are announcing savage job cuts without the said institutions lifting a finger to prevent them.
It is not that it would be impossible to put an end to unemployment immediately, but it would take a proactive policy that was not reluctant to draw on the profits of financial and industrial groups or the personal fortunes of major shareholders.
Then, what word other than hypocritical can be used to describe the European institutions' claim to wish, and I quote, to eradicate poverty wherever it exists while still permitting industrial groups to exacerbate poverty right here in the richest countries of Europe, and providing political instruments for these same groups in order to promote the criminal plundering they undertake in the poorest countries.
We are aware that it would be futile to ask the European institutions to do something of which they are incapable, designed as they are, like the national states, to favour profits and represent the interests of the wealthy classes.
The members of Lutte Ouvrière will therefore be voting against the Haug report.
Mr President, I congratulate both rapporteurs on their reports, which have received a high degree of consensus.
The Ferber report is a very courageous exposition of the present and future needs of Parliament.
A European Parliament interested in the new information technologies, a European Parliament aware that its organisation must, as a priority, revolve around the new tasks which the MEPs are obliged to carry out under the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This report proposes changes. Changes always meet resistance in institutions and we should therefore be especially grateful that the rapporteur has wished to draw up this report with the support of the PPE, and, we hope, of the other political groups in Parliament.
The rapporteur, Mrs Haug, has reached broad areas of compromise in her report, which we hope will be respected in the vote, and which we hope will strengthen Parliament' s commitment with regard to employment, culture, the new Amsterdam policies and, no less importantly, the budgetary obligations and rights.
This House voted by a majority for a financial perspective which respected the political balances of Berlin, even when we were all aware of its shortcomings in the face of unexpected external events.
Last December, this Parliament voted to maintain the financial perspective and the interinstitutional agreement despite the fact that, at that time, the Council drew out the negotiation to unacceptable limits.
Today, the Council, Parliament and the Commission are bound by a signed commitment.
This is a very serious commitment.
If we have to finance new policies, we have to find new funding.
If the Council intends to finance actions in the Balkans at the expense of current external or agricultural policies, it would not only be showing a lack of political vision but it would also be failing in the commitments it has signed up to.
Mr President, Commissioner Schreyer, Mr Liikanen said at the Commission hearings that we will be around 1.2 million jobs short in the e-commerce sector by the year 2002.
Providing the quantities and quality needed therefore represents a real challenge.
Commissioner Schreyer, I should like to ask you if you can really tell us which budgetary lines create, maintain or destroy factories and/or jobs? Is there in fact a valuation which we can use as a starting point to say which budgetary lines support the creation of new jobs?
Does DG IV have any scientific studies or papers on the subject? If we have a budgetary procedure, can we then establish if the main priority which we have now set at European level has been achieved, and where new jobs are being created or where new jobs are being destroyed?
Today in question time I asked the Commission how many jobs are lost if manufacturing plants making products which cannot be exported because they are banned in Europe are closed down.
Commissioner Byrne quite rightly said that, as far as he was concerned, public health took priority.
This morning we discussed environmental protection.
Then it was said that environmental protection took priority.
I think we should find an objective procedure which safeguards new jobs.
We can only do so if there is proper representation of the confederations of industry, especially confederations of small enterprises employing up to 10 people.
I think that this sector should receive far more support in the future, including at European level, because this is where jobs are created, this is where new products are invented and where the future is shaped.
I think that also represents an opportunity in relation to the enlargement of the EU.
We must endeavour above all to include small enterprises.
That is an important function and social dialogue is needed here.
I would be pleased to see new initiatives in this area.
Mr President, I want to thank the rapporteurs for their work and say that they have found a decent consensus and produced good reports.
I want to wish the new Commissioner well in her first budget and say that I sincerely hope that we can have a smooth and effective procedure in which all of us will do the best we can to produce a sensible budget in a most efficient way.
If there are to be problems - and sometimes there are problems - it will be around this whole question of the proposal to finance the shortfall in Category 4 with money from the agricultural section of the budget.
This proposal is more likely to create psychological problems throughout the European Union in rural areas than real problems.
We have to reassure European farmers and say to them there are regulations in place, those regulations grant entitlements to European farmers and there is no possibility whatever happens that those obligations can be denied by the European Union.
Nevertheless, we do have a fall in incomes.
We did have a statement by the Commission for 2000-2006 and that set out certain perimeters within which agricultural spending would be provided for.
Now we hear new proposals coming forward that if we have a situation of enlargement, we have entirely new proposals for entirely new policies towards the new Member States and without any provision as to how these will be financed.
We need a little bit more clarity and there is tension building up between the institutions on this question of the Balkans.
The sooner the Commission can propose to us clear figures for year-by-year spending the better.
I do not actually think that it is necessary to take any money from agriculture in order to finance a decent programme within the amounts of money set out - EUR 5.5 billion - considering what the obligations of the Union are, what the Member States will put up and what is likely to be called upon because of the situation in Serbia.
So why generate a battle about some EUR 300 million that, in the end, I do not think that we will have to call down from agriculture?
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Combating child sex tourism
The next item is the report (A5-0052/2000) by Mrs Klamt, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the implementation of measures to combat child sex tourism (COM(1999)262 - C5-0096/1999 - 1999/2097(COS)).
Mr President, child sex tourism is not a national or a European problem, it is a global problem which has become more and more explosive and more and more extensive over recent years.
The motion for a resolution which has been tabled takes account of this fact. It no longer has a selective, national or European dimension.
The worrying increase in the number of cases of sexual exploitation of children shows that the European Union and its Member States need to use every means at their disposal in order to protect the weakest members of our society, i.e. children.
The motion for a resolution therefore contains two central demands.
First: unilateral criminality should apply in cases of child sex tourism; that means that even if the country in which the offence is committed does not punish sexual abuse, it must nonetheless be possible to prosecute offenders in their country of origin.
Secondly: account must be taken of the principle of extraterritorial jurisdiction.
We need standard national legislation throughout Europe which punishes Union citizens who engage in child sex tourism, irrespective of where the offence was committed.
Europe must take responsibility for its citizens, even beyond its borders.
These demands can be succinctly summarised: children are no less deserving of protection because their home country denies them the necessary protection, and there is all the more reason not to turn a blind eye to incidents within the European Union.
Each of us knows of cases of child abuse in our own country.
The Council and Commission have indeed supported the principle of extraterritorial jurisdiction, but these drafts still allow for the criterion of dual criminality in exceptional cases.
In other words, in exceptional cases, it would still be possible for sex tourists who have abused children to escape punishment if the country in which the offence was committed does not punish child abuse.
The European Parliament flatly rejects this regulation on possible exceptions.
The Member States must be proactive in opposing anything which encourages or plays down child sex tourism.
Respect for the rights of the child must be anchored in the European Treaties if we are to guarantee protection for children in principle.
Measures taken so far must be examined to see how effective and efficient they really are and EU funds must also be made available in the future to fight child sex tourism.
The role of NGOs is particularly important in this context.
The Commission is called upon to draw up a survey of national laws in this sphere and, if necessary, to submit suitable proposals setting out the constituent elements of offences.
All the points which it has now been decided should be regulated and taken into account in the future within the European Union must be given the same consideration in accession negotiations, in relations with third countries and, most importantly, when deciding how development cooperation funds should be deployed.
The freedoms and rights of citizens include freedom from physical and mental harm.
This applies not only to our children but to all children.
It is our duty to implement this with all the means at our disposal.
Everyone involved agreed on this consensus.
In my view, this resolution sets an example for constructive and fruitful cooperation which goes beyond the party political divide.
I should therefore like to thank all my fellow Members, especially those from the other committees involved, whose positions have been worked into my report.
This is also an explanation of the fact that numerous proposed amendments were rejected by my group. They are already contained in the report, even if some are formulated differently.
I am convinced that this is a good, sensible resolution which will allow us to protect children.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, I should like to thank Mrs Klamt for this comprehensive and thorough report. I am glad, too, that the opinion of the Committee on Women' s Rights has been incorporated into the report.
Child sex tourism does not take place only in Europe, but throughout the world.
Child sex tourism is a tragic and distressing fact of life and this problem has become worse and more serious in certain regions of the world over recent years.
Parliament' s approach to the fight against this evil must therefore go beyond the borders of Europe.
In addition to the situation in the Far East, there is also that on the German-Czech border, which is why this problem needs to be clarified in no uncertain terms during accession negotiations.
It is important to clarify the legal situation and to dispense with the notion of dual criminality.
The law of the offenders' country of origin must be binding for the purposes of criminal prosecution.
Offenders should not imagine themselves to be safe in some law-free zone.
It must be possible to punish offenders, even if abuse is not a punishable offence in the country in which it is committed.
This problem cannot be solved through national measures.
We need a common approach in the European Union and in the Member States, in cooperation with the third countries in question.
Children as persons with their own, inviolable rights deserve our special protection, irrespective of the country in which they live.
This protection must be guaranteed in both theory and practice.
Sufficient funds must be provided to support an effective, victim-orientated fight against this evil.
In all the Member States of the European Union, the necessary legislative measures must be taken and the laws harmonised in order to guarantee the protection of children.
Last but not least, protection of children as separate personalities with the right to freedom from physical and mental harm must be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Klamt, on a splendid and successful piece of work.
Swedish travel agents are to be the first in the world to actively combat the child sex trade, which is rife in many so-called tourist paradises.
All the major players in the Swedish tourist industry have already promised to comply with a special code of conduct.
Once they have shown that they are fulfilling the requirements of the code, they will be duly approved or certified.
As early as the beginning of April of this year, a campaign was begun to make travellers aware of what is happening.
There are TV and cinema advertisements, posters at the airports and large placards.
Behind the code of conduct lies the Swedish branch of ECPAT, an organisation which works to end the sexual exploitation of children.
Among the requirements made of travel companies are that they should train their staff, both at home and at the resorts, as well as inform travellers.
They are also to see to it that, for example, hotel owners and staff are aware of, and contribute to, the work being done to combat the child sex trade.
It is about touching people' s consciences.
Allow me to conclude my speech by talking about children - our greatest gift, the most precious thing we have.
They are innocent and defenceless and they seek security.
We must awaken citizens' consciences where our children are concerned.
I also want to talk about the sexual dimension to life.
Adult society cannot escape from its failure to adequately foster an appreciation of both the wonder and the responsibility entailed in sexual experience.
It is about showing love and tenderness, about the gift of life, about carrying life forward and about faithfulness.
We must awaken citizens' consciences regarding the place of love in our lives.
Mr President, I should first, of course, like to congratulate Mrs Klamt on her report. It is not only excellent in quality but also extremely useful.
Everyone agrees on the idea that children are the future of the world but, at the same time, they represent one of the most vulnerable groups in the population of this planet.
Indeed, the United Nations Convention of 20 November 1989 granted them specific rights and all our actions should take their inspiration from recognition of these rights.
We must tackle a dreadful scourge, the sexual exploitation of children.
There are 'clients' , if one can use the word in such a horrifying situation, who buy children in order to indulge their sexual fantasies.
These clients, from Europe, the United States or Japan are the hard core of child abusers.
This horrendous phenomenon occurs principally in third countries where there is great poverty.
The chief causes are poverty and social inequality, the collapse of family and community protection, discrimination against girls and ignorance.
All these causes combine to form a melting pot where lives are shattered by the greed of some parties and the deviance of others.
We might remember the old Japanese proverb which says, 'The traveller knows no shame' .
Some people have no qualms about doing in another country what they would not do at home.
It is a compound of anonymity and impunity coupled with a scorn one might describe as racist, which permits some individuals to treat a child as an object to be used, defiled and rejected.
Most child prostitutes are part of the general prostitution market run by Mafias of procurers.
It is very hard to locate these children and to extract them from a life of prostitution.
Unfortunately, some individuals use the Internet to provide details of their base acts and addresses where children can be procured.
We cannot remain indifferent to this scourge which represents an appalling infringement of children' s rights and human rights, and we must protect these children by attacking the origins of the problem and by pursuing the paedophiles.
The origins of the problem can be attacked by tackling poverty and ignorance.
There must be criminal penalties for child abusers.
The first chapter of the European Charter on the Rights of the Child states that 'child' refers to any person under the age of 18.
I suggest that we adopt this age limit and say that all minors must absolutely be protected.
It is our duty to this generation which represents our future, a generation which expects us to protect and respect it.
This report and the Commission communication to which it responds makes two major contributions to progress in seeking to reduce sexual exploitation of children through so-called sex tourism.
The first is in contributing to the construction of an international human rights community: in all kinds of ways there has been increasing recognition that Europe must promote international standards of respect for human rights, for instance in the international criminal tribunals on Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the agreement on the statute of the international criminal court, the Pinochet case, the intervention in Kosovo to stop ethnic cleansing - all these things have been developing momentum.
Saying that we will not allow our citizens to sexually exploit children abroad fits into that pattern, and the part of Mrs Klamt' s report that talks of how we must insist that double standards are unacceptable is very well put and particularly valuable.
It is not acceptable that our citizens should behave abroad in a way that they would not behave at home.
Secondly, this report makes a contribution to police and judicial cooperation in the European Union.
This is a strong example where those Euro-sceptics who resist cooperation in this field are wrong.
It is only by joint across-the-board action that we can tackle this issue, not least by agreeing to extra-territorial application of criminal laws.
Approximation and mutual recognition of national criminal provisions, which is not the same as harmonisation, will be of the utmost utility, as will cooperation through police forces and Europol, insisting all the time, as the Parliament does, on adequate parliamentary and judicial scrutiny.
So I congratulate Mrs Klamt for a very valuable report and I hope it will continue to be built on in future.
Mr President, confronted with the worrying development of sex tourism and, more generally, the sexual exploitation of children in Europe and throughout the world, Mrs Klamt is quite right to put forward measures in her report which are adequate to deal with the serious problem before us.
I particularly recall measures such as the inclusion of children' s rights in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the setting up of free telephone helplines for children.
There is an urgent need for a coherent policy for the protection of children to be implemented.
I therefore support Amendment No 4 calling for a European centre for missing children and victims of sexual abuse to be set up in order to coordinate the activities of the organisations set up in the Member States.
The Commission must undertake to actually establish this European database.
I wish to point out that Parliament has already adopted resolutions on this subject.
It must be noted that the proposals made have only been implemented in part.
Much more effective measures are required.
Finally, I must alert the House to the latest developments.
It is now not just sex tourists who are travelling to third countries; we now have children being sent here, to Europe, like so many items sent by parcel post.
Considering, then, the transnational nature of the problem, I think that we should demand that Europol supports national and transnational inquiries and gives an annual report of its work.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to offer my sincere congratulations to Mrs Klamt.
I feel that she has produced a report which proposes practical solutions, as many of us wished, and I thank her for that.
I also think that she has avoided the pitfalls of sexophobia, which was not lacking in some contributions.
It is an extremely serious problem.
The report is a good one, but I would not like to see it sabotaged or even drastically cut by one section of this House tomorrow, as I fear it will be.
It is all very well to discuss the problem in the third world, but I believe, as previous speakers have said, that there are also major problems within the European Union, and I have just learnt that the Group of the Party of European Socialists has requested a separate vote on the important sections of this report.
A separate vote means that some parts of the text may be removed.
In particular, the Group of the Party of European Socialists is asking for the suggestion for the establishment of a committee of enquiry to be removed.
I find that cause for extremely serious concern.
We are aware, for we have already discussed this, of the seriousness of the situation in some countries within the Union, particularly in Belgium.
As I speak, the lid is being lifted on the infamous Dutroux case in the form of an excellent investigation on the Belgian national television station, RTBF. Unfortunately, I was not able to see the whole thing.
It showed that the highest authorities in this country did all they could to hold up this inquiry by indulging in constant obstruction, transfers of police officers and magistrates and the defamation, and worse, of the victims who came forward to testify.
These are extremely serious matters, involving high-ranking personalities, but it is all still perfectly concealed, completely outside the scope of the justice system.
I think that we can and we must look at what is happening in the third world. We can and we must, and let me once again thank Mrs Klamt, propose solutions.
I agree with Mrs Ludford: we must think in terms of institutions, in terms of an international court, and consider already extending the jurisdiction of international courts, but we must not neglect our own doorstep.
There are some extremely serious situations within the European Union as well.
It is a matter of urgency that, pursuant to Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union, in the event of a 'serious and persistent breach (of the principles of) human rights, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law' , the Union, and hence Parliament, which has a responsible part to play in this, should, at last, tackle, since the relevant Member State cannot, this very serious matter of the hundreds, nay thousands of missing children, including, as you know if you have seen the posters in railway stations and at bus stops, at least 150 children still missing in Belgium, who have been not only raped but also killed, sacrificed in the name of some dubious pleasure.
Mr President, the matter addressed by Mrs Klamt' s truly excellent report is one of the most burning and ever growing issues of our time, to which a solution must urgently be found.
Of course, the Commission' s initiatives, especially the activities to increase awareness, should not be underestimated but unfortunately they are proving to be inadequate since the sexual exploitation of children and child tourism are continually assuming greater dimensions, not only in 'traditional' underdeveloped countries but within the European Union itself.
We therefore urgently need an integrated and cohesive Community policy on children and it is really sad - as others too have said - that the Treaty of Amsterdam does not provide the necessary legal base.
Yet, the provision for the creation of a new area of freedom, security and justice in the immediate future, which presupposes police and judicial cooperation in combating international organised crime, reinforces our hopes of a more effective approach to those circles which both supply and demand child sex services.
For that reason, it is vital to include the rights of children, exactly as they are laid down by the UN Convention of 20 November 1989, in the European Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights which is currently being drawn up.
We also need legislation which is binding on an extra-territorial scale, to punish culpable acts perpetrated abroad, with strict provisions for the prosecution of travel agencies and haulage companies which promote the abomination of child sex tourism.
We need more resources for the implementation of specific schemes, and we need closer cooperation between the Commission and the tourism industry to define codes of ethics.
We should look towards the good example set by Sweden.
Finally, we must also act to protect and support children who are victims of sexual exploitation, and young refugees and immigrants who are a particularly vulnerable group.
In summary, I think we need a common front and a common strategy at three levels.
Firstly, at the level of awareness, secondly, at the level of suppression, and thirdly, in the direction of protection and rehabilitation of victims.
Mr President, in November 1996, the European Commission adopted its first communication on combating child sex tourism.
A year later, in November 1997, a European Parliament resolution and a Council statement on 'Tourism' revealed the general consensus among the institutions on the broad lines of the Commission communication.
Since then, this support has been implemented in practical terms by the setting up of a new budget line, with the funds made available intended for campaigns to raise awareness, within the European Union, and to combat the development of child sex tourism.
It has since been expressed in the Council conclusions of 21 December 1999, which display a new firm political commitment to resolving this significant social problem, which we are pledged to do.
If, as it is to be hoped, the European Parliament reiterates its support for this approach, then this will strengthen the determination of all the operators involved in combating this scourge.
At the same time, further progress in this direction will contribute to our response to the concerns expressed by European citizens at the development of this scourge.
Mrs Klamt' s report follows up the Commission communication of May 1999 presenting the operations carried out in the period 1997-1998 and specifying follow-up operations necessary to initiate and/or implement new actions.
You will have noted that Community measures combating child sex tourism is progressing at a sustained rate along the lines of the strategy initially agreed, aiming, on the one hand, to reduce demand, particularly by means of cooperation with the tourist industry and the relevant NGOs, and, on the other hand, to tackle the sources of supply in tourist destination countries by any appropriate means, including Community policies for external relations and development cooperation.
The importance of this second aspect was, moreover, highlighted by the Commission as early as 1998 when the support strategy for the development of sustainable tourism in developing countries was defined, which stipulated that the problem of child sex tourism should be taken into specific consideration as the subject of structured political dialogue with the countries most affected, particularly at regional level.
The development of child sex tourism flies in the face of the very idea of a human community united on the basis of ideals such as respect and dignity, and public welfare and remembrance.
Furthermore, it could be said that, rather than fuelling the 'regulation versus self-regulation' debate, the need for efficiency requires us to concentrate on investigating and maximising the use of the synergies between these two modes of operation which, in the case in point, are broadly complementary.
Especially since, alongside the progress made towards effective self-regulation, i.e. including mechanisms to monitor the execution of commitments made, the development of police and judicial cooperation in Europe cannot fail to have a positive effect on the suppression of child sex tourism.
The Council joint action of 24 February 1997 on combating the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children, stipulating that each Member State should undertake to review its own national legislation on measures relating to types of deliberate behaviour, is exemplary in this regard.
The fact that it is actually possible to be prosecuted by the authorities of two countries, in exceptional circumstances, must not disguise the main contribution of this joint action, to wit, affirming the principle of extra-territorial jurisdiction applicable to one of its nationals or to a person usually resident on its territory.
It is therefore easier to understand the great interest generated by legislative reforms on the subject, as well as their practical interpretation, in terms of the everyday application of the legislation, hence the importance which the European Parliament attaches to assessing the degree to which the Member States actually meet their obligations under this joint action.
This assessment may provide the opportunity to focus on suppressing child sex tourism, and to draw up an initial status report.
In operational terms, the raft of planned operations has been implemented steadily.
Combating child sex tourism offers the Commission an opportunity to enlist its various services to step up internal coordination.
It also affords the Commission the opportunity to step up its cooperation with the national administrations, professional associations and non-governmental organisations involved.
Other Commission initiatives in the context of the increased involvement of the tourist industry have also had practical results, particularly in terms of drawing up and strengthening codes of conduct and other self-regulatory mechanisms in the tourist industry.
As I am sure you are aware, your support will give us further incentive to pursue this avenue with yet more determination.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Liability for defective products
The next item is the report (A5-0061/2000) by Mr MacCormick, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Commission Green Paper 'Liability for defective products' (COM(1999)396 - C5-0184/1999 - 1999/2158(COS)).
It is an honour and a pleasure to have the opportunity to present this report to Parliament today.
It is on the very important subject of product liability on which the European Community first introduced legislation as long ago as 1985 in the form of a directive.
This was transposed in a somewhat leisurely way, and in some cases we might even say in a shockingly slow way, by Member States.
So it is only fairly recently that there has been across the Union experience of the working of the product liability regime, which of course is not absolutely uniform in any event across the countries, because there are areas where different views may be taken consistent with the directive.
This legislation substitutes distributive justice, in a sense, for corrective justice in this very important area of the law of civil liability.
The idea is that if a defective product is sold and used and injures in any way a consumer, the consumer should be entitled to compensation without proof of fault on the producer' s part, merely proof of causation of the damage by the defective product.
This is a very good idea.
It helps to spread the risks of injury widely and ensure compensation.
Of course, it does not in itself ensure product safety.
That is better done by other regimes regulating various industries, and we have a good regulatory regime in most of our industries in the European Union now.
Moreover, it should not be thought that this is the only basis upon which people who are injured can be helped.
We have other systems of distributive justice on this side of the Atlantic, not paralleled in, for example, the United States of America, which has a different but somewhat tougher product liability law than we have.
There, however, it is a kind of forensic lottery, as academics have called it, because many people who are injured get nothing at all and some people who are injured get enormous damages.
It is generally, and rightly, thought that plaintiffs' lawyers are the people who do best out of the deal.
We should stick to our own view on social security as the main basis for help, but then have this product liability regime as well.
The Green Paper raised the question of whether this scheme should be extended and whether some changes should be made.
This was in response to debates in Parliament last year, which led to the amendment of the directive to include primary agricultural products.
It seems to me that the Green Paper, although it has started the debate well, will not finish it completely.
It gave a useful summary of the way the law has developed and been applied, and then asked a series of questions of interested parties and required replies in by the end of November last year.
That is a good way of finding out if there are alarming and urgent matters needing swift action.
It is a bad way of producing a thorough and scientific study of the impact of a body of law on civil society and on life in our Union.
We need more and deeper study for that purpose.
In the meantime we could take this view, and my report suggests that we take this view: unless the evidence produced shows a strong factually-based need for early change, we should have further and deeper reflection on the matter, and we should have a debate that ranges wider than the debate triggered by the Green Paper itself.
There is a great deal of very interesting work of a scholarly and scientific kind and there could be more if it was known that this was properly under consideration.
I know that this approach has disappointed some colleagues, particularly those who raised the debate last year, and it has been suggested that the Parliament would simply walk away from important issues if we left it at that.
I would not myself like to leave it at that.
I have therefore suggested some compromise amendments which suggest that there must be a further and deeper dialogue about this which pays close attention to the points which have been raised without prejudging what is the right answer to them.
I do not think it should be prejudged.
I would not myself like to be a party to imposing on Europe the "tort tax" under which Americans have made themselves suffer.
So I suggest that we urge the Commission to hold a longer and deeper dialogue about this; not to precipitate action but to measured consideration.
We have a good law and the saying "if a thing ain' t broken, don' t fix it; but do not be complacent about it either" applies here.
Mr President, yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, an American court awarded the nicotine victim Leslie Whiteley compensation of no less than USD 44 million. A week ago, the European Council in Lisbon spoke out in favour of a Europe of innovation.
Under these circumstances the question which arises is, do we need to review our European liability law?
Do we want to mimic the Americans in our liability law? How can we formulate a liability law which promotes rather than hinders innovation?
We welcome the fact that the Commission has initially submitted a Green Paper on this issue because we consider it sensible to start by evaluating experience with the present directive before we start laying down new rules.
As the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, we are in favour, in the interests of legal security, of a clear division between compensation and punitive sanctions, a division not possible under American law.
In the interests of medium-sized enterprises, we want to prevent incalculable liability risks and avoid excessive compensation for parties which have suffered minor damage at the expense of consumers as a whole since, at the end of the day, it is they who must pay for such compensation in the form of higher prices.
We want a liability law which promotes innovation and does not conceal incalculable liability risks for companies launching new products.
In evaluating the opinions submitted on the Green Paper, we should like the Commission to have a free rein when it assesses the need to reform the product liability directive.
We would like you to evaluate the reports which you receive impartially.
We think, at first glance, that the present liability law achieves a fair balance between the interests of consumers on the one hand and the interests of product manufacturers on the other.
Companies must assume liability for damage to consumers without fault.
At the same time, liability is statute barred after ten years and capped at EUR 75 million.
We therefore take the view that a review should only be started if there is clear proof of the need to amend the directive.
Caution and level-headedness are needed.
Millions of cases are affected day after day.
We wish the Commission every success in evaluating the results of the Green Paper.
Mr President, our honourable friend, Mr MacCormick, has made a thorough and critical appraisal of the Green Paper on civil liability for defective products and he deserves our thanks for his work and for his cooperative contribution.
I should just like to make a few more comments on behalf of my group on a number of necessary amendments on which both we and the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party reached extensive agreement in the run-up.
I refer to the checks which your department needs to carry out, Commissioner Bolkestein, and the question of the burden of proof which, according to Article 4, rests solely on the injured party.
My group believes the Commission should check if prima facie evidence and circumstantial evidence can also be taken into account at all levels at which evidence is taken.
This is particularly important because the product world is becoming more and more complex and it is becoming more and more difficult for individual persons who have suffered damage to provide proof in this area.
There is also the question of derogations from general manufacturer' s liability, especially the so-called development risk.
We need to examine if these derogations are expedient and conducive to the balance between manufacturers and consumers.
This applies in particular in the case of foodstuffs and medication.
We do not want to see the consumer alone bear the risks inherent in technical progress.
In my view, applying the directive solely to private use and consumption is a questionable move.
The Commission should consider if the directive should not be extended to commercial goods.
The material damage sustained by a company is, in principle, no different from the material damage sustained by a private individual.
And the smaller the enterprise, the heavier the burden of this unequal treatment.
Harmonisation of laws at Community level would be in keeping with the purpose of the product liability directive, especially as increasing flexibility in the world of work is tending more and more to blur the clear distinction between the private world and the world of work.
We also need to think about the way in which liability is statute-barred.
It is clear from the case of BSE that a standard ten-year limitation on liability may be insufficient under certain circumstances.
We could perhaps consider gearing the limitation period to the type of product.
However, it is not only these individual points which are important; we also need to seize every opportunity to harmonise product liability still further in the form of comprehensive consumer protection in the European Union.
If we supplement the MacCormick report in this direction, the European Parliament will have done a good job in the eyes of the consumer.
Which is why we have been elected.
Mr President, I would like to welcome what is a very well considered report, which invites us to stand back and take stock before embarking on further legislation in this field - a refreshing welcome from the tendency of this House sometimes to rush, or to be pushed to rush, at complex legislation.
I would particularly like to focus my comments on the issues raised by this report on the further harmonisation of private law.
In our enthusiasm we sometimes forget what a sensitive subject the harmonisation of private law is; it touches the national legal traditions in our Member States, legal traditions born of our differing histories and cultures of separate nations and jurisdictions.
Professor MacCormick will be acutely aware of this in Scotland, with its own legal heritage.
I am not in any way opposed to further harmonisation, it can be helpful to the good functioning of the internal market, but imposed legislative harmonisation needs to be carefully and openly considered, or we may find we have left our citizens behind in this project.
The traditional push towards harmonisation has been the internal market to which we can now add the aspirations of Tampere for a single area of European justice.
But harmonisation must respect subsidiarity - we have no need to rush towards uniformity of civil law in this area of product liability.
We should be aware that uniformity can stifle innovation and prevent adaptation to local or national circumstances and problems.
It is a truism that European law has been able to benefit from the ability to draw on rich comparative material of varying legal traditions in our different Member States.
It would be dangerous to stifle this by uniformity.
Let me suggest that the aspirations of Tampere can be better met in the public law area of the intended Charter of Fundamental Rights than by further imposed legislation which harmonises our private law traditions.
Research seems to show that our traditions are tending to converge slowly.
Let us perhaps be prepared to assist and guide that convergence and respect the conditionality of the further harmonisation which is integral to Professor MacCormick' s proposals.
Mr President, I would like to join my colleagues in giving a warm welcome to Professor MacCormick' s very realistic report.
In considering the whole issue of product liability we have to say that the current directive appears to have functioned well.
There is not a great deal of evidence that consumers are at the moment being seriously disadvantaged.
I would argue quite strongly that we have achieved a very fair and reasonable balance of interests.
I want to pick up the point made by my colleague Mr Wuermeling that we must take particular care about development risks in the environment within which we now find ourselves.
It was a crucial issue at the Lisbon Summit and new product innovation is one of the key competitive aspects of European business.
If our regulations on product liability stifle competitiveness and innovation, I suggest that consumers will be at a major disadvantage as well.
Consumers will be the ones to lose out, if a flow of competitive and innovative products is stifled.
So let me echo Mr MacCormick: there is a need for much more clearly-based factual evidence before we make changes to this legislation.
Mr President, I am afraid that my opinions will differ from those of Mr Harbour or Mr Wuermeling, because, although the 1985 directive on civil liability was a milestone in the field of consumer protection and furthermore a chapter in which the Commission played a very important role and adopted a strikingly progressive approach, I think that, at the same time, several years have passed since it was adopted.
I therefore feel that it is notable and praiseworthy that the Commission has decided to review it.
This Green Paper represents a first step towards this review.
We must bear in mind the fact that in 1985 certain principles that are today considered to be fundamental were not incorporated, and at that time could not be incorporated into the text of the directive, because debate on the subject had not reached a sufficiently advanced level.
Amongst these principles, the first we should highlight is the importance of the manufacturer accepting, at least in certain areas, the development risks.
I come from a country, Spain, where consumer legislation dictates that the manufacturer bears responsibility for development risks.
There have been no bankruptcies among insurance companies or manufacturers, nor has technical progress been hampered as a result.
For too long the consumer has had to bear the full cost of this risk in the cause of progress.
The second principle consists of removing the burden of proof from the party that has suffered the damage.
We are talking about an objective responsibility and therefore the burden of proof imposed on the victim must be made as light as possible.
The third principle concerns setting levels of compensation.
The directive does provide for this eventuality, but we must bear in mind the fact that judicial bodies are used to seeing this setting of compensation as interference by legislative authority in its duties and this issue must therefore also be reviewed.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Electricity
The next item is the report (A5-0078/2000) by Mr Turmes, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on electricity from renewable sources and the internal electricity market (SEC(1999)0470 - C5-0342/1999 - 2000/2002(COS)).
Mr President, what is the purpose of a directive on renewable forms of energy, or an own-initiative report from Parliament? I think we must place this report, and also the directive which is in the pipeline, in the context of the European Union' s energy policy with its three objectives of competitive pricing, security of supply and environmental protection.
Since 29 February 2000, we have had a common electricity market but, regrettably, still with considerable distortions of competition which still, unfortunately, work to the disadvantage of both renewable energy cogeneration and energy management and the forms of energy of the future.
The reasons for this are energy prices which do not incorporate the external costs, with the sizeable subsidies which are still available to the nuclear sector as well as the fossil-fuel sector.
The directive which is currently being prepared should, in my opinion, have two objectives.
Firstly, the current imperfect market must be adjusted as necessary in order to protect the still tender shoots of the plant which is renewable energy, and also to lay the foundations for renewable energies so that they head in the direction that they need to before the year 2030 or 2040, when they must be capable of providing the greater part of the European Community energy mix.
We have many reasons to move in this direction.
Firstly, the protection of the environment, but also the creation of jobs.
We have studies, backed up with figures, to show that renewable energies create more jobs than conventional forms of energy.
We know that we must make Europe ready for a world renewable energy market and there are also geostrategic advantages to our reducing our dependence on regions which are often in crisis.
What must the cornerstones of this forthcoming directive be? It must, in the first place, be based on the Treaty articles relating to both the internal market and the environment.
It must have ambitious, clearly defined objectives at European level in the order of those given in the Commission White Paper, i.e. 12% for energy and 23% for electricity.
After setting these objectives at the European level, there must be 'burden sharing' negotiations between the Commission and the Member States in order for reciprocal agreement to be reached on the specific national objectives which, when added together, will combine to form the European objective.
As regards the instruments to be implemented, my report advocates subsidiarity.
I believe it is too early to pass judgement on the various instruments that can be classified.
On the one hand, there are the fixed-price systems which have launched the renewable energy industry in Europe.
On the other hand, there are the trading systems which have just been created in the Netherlands and Denmark, where there are still many administrative and technical problems to resolve.
We therefore propose that the Commission makes an assessment of the various instruments in 2005, and that, until that date, subsidiarity should be maintained and the Commission should refrain from regulating subsidies to the renewable sector.
I would argue that it is pointless to make cuts in subsidies to the renewable sector when there are much larger subsidies going to the nuclear and fossil-fuel sectors.
There is one last point which I wish to put forward, namely the need for a system for labelling and providing information on all forms of electricity.
In an internal market, the consumer should be informed, and this information should be provided for every form of energy, not just green electricity.
I would like to thank all the people who contributed to this report, which is the result of a real team effort, and I await their comments with interest.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent piece of work.
We have what are per se excellent basic documents in the field of renewable energy sources, such as the White Paper referred to, which contains a brilliant critical analysis.
But, on balance, everyone is in favour.
Everyone says yes, we need these new sources of energy. They are a fundamental component of the 21st century, of the 21st century way of thinking.
But everyone has slightly different ideas and, as a result, we often fail to find a standard line which will allow us to achieve these objectives.
The second point is that we tend to polarise, and that causes problems.
On the one hand, we say, there are the advocates of renewable energy sources, ecologically-minded, forward-looking people.
On the other hand, there are the energy suppliers, oil traders and oil producers, who want exactly the opposite.
All we are doing is fanning the flames of enmity.
I think we should put this enmity behind us and acknowledge that these renewable sources of energy only have one enemy. That enemy is our ignorance of the fantastic opportunities which they offer us.
First, there are ecological advantages and, secondly, there are job opportunities.
Thirdly, I think that whatever we invest in this area is neither subsidy nor promotion but sensible investment from a national economic point of view. We must recognise that.
Fourthly, we must bear in mind that sources of fossil fuels have been accompanied recently by price fluctuations ranging from 10 to 30 dollars a barrel.
Fifthly, more and more studies are implying that actual sources of fossil fuels are much smaller than we perceive them to be today.
Sixthly, we are conducting discussions throughout the world - and we can see this happening from Chechnya via the Gulf to Africa - about earth' s remaining resources.
If we now recognise that you are also a bringer of peace, then we will probably have made a huge step if we accept this report tomorrow.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has basically been in agreement on this question since 1996.
It was Parliament, may I remind you, which had to push the previous Commission in the direction of this policy.
It did not start with the White Paper, but with an initiative by Parliament, and I remember because I was the rapporteur at the time.
We need a much higher proportion of primary energy used.
We have already come a long way, but not far enough by a long chalk.
We need it for climatic reasons and for industrial policy reasons, because there is a global market to fill here.
In this respect, I should like to thank the rapporteur on behalf of the committee and note that, consequently, 80% of the resolutions tabled are therefore uncontested.
For the rest, an aside: everyone still here this evening must have not renewable sources of energy but an inexhaustible supply of energy!
We are represented in accordance with the subject matter!
Unfortunately, I note that the report contains a number of statements which are incorrect, which violate the Treaty or which are politically untenable.
For example, elevating the feed-in system to a universal panacea is wrong.
It is true, of course, that the countries with feed-in systems have made a great deal of progress, but that is not on account of the feed-in system but because of the financing which is in place there.
We must make a distinction between these causes.
As a result, we and the Commission are of the opinion that the Member States should now be allowed to experiment.
It is too early to see one system as a universal panacea and dismiss another.
Secondly, the report also contradicts the Treaty at certain points.
This applies in particular to the statements on aid policy.
It is true that renewable energy needs aid now, and probably will for some time to come, in order to get started.
That is quite right and it complies with the Treaty.
But it is certainly not right to give them the same aid as all other forms of energy because they make a totally different contribution to the energy mix, and it is not right to link aid for one to the lifetime of the others.
My third comment also concerns a point at which the resolution does not comply with the Treaty.
We here in the European Union cannot impose mandatory obligations on the Member States.
The European Union has no legal basis and no credentials for doing so and, because of that, it cannot impose sanctions.
Anyway, that is precisely what the Lisbon Council has just agreed to reject in connection with the job markets.
That is why it is right to regard this as a matter of economic policy of common interest; hence the burden sharing negotiations.
More importantly, I cannot agree when there is talk of the curse of the lowest bidder.
Statements like this show disdain for the consumer and disregard the principle of supply and demand.
In addition, as I am sure you will understand, we cannot get excited about new forms of bureaucracy, even if it comes along in the jewel-studded cloak of an EU agency.
That is why, Madam Vice-President, I have three recommendations to make to the Commission.
First: you should use your directive, the draft of which we are waiting for, to promote the use of all renewable sources of energy and, if possible, you could suggest a uniform development framework.
Secondly: as far as financial assistance is concerned, a distinction should be made between everyone and those who need this financial assistance.
The distinction is easy to make.
Thirdly, and I consider this extremely important in the interests of investors: if a new system should replace the systems currently being tried out in Europe, either in the Member States or in the Union, it should not, of course, penalise those who have already made investments.
They need permanent protection.
We want both the competition and energy departments of the Commission to make a clear statement on that to the markets.
Mr President, I too should like to thank Mr Turmes on behalf of my Group for the excellent and detailed work contained in his report.
We certainly have no lack of reports.
We have had the Mombaur report, the Rothe report, the former member, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, drafted a report, Mrs Ahern drafted a report and, if I remember correctly, I also drafted a report on this subject once.
So there is no shortage of reports and they have all been translated into every possible language.
What we need now are initiatives to implement our decisions.
We have decided that the share of renewable sources of energy should rise from 6% to 12%.
At present, if I remember the figures correctly, we are not yet even quite at 6%, but at 5.4%.
In any case, I am merely repeating the Commission' s figures.
How can we do this? Biomass and hydroelectric power account for 95% of renewable energy sources in the European Union.
Wind, solar energy, photovoltaic energy etc. only account for 5%!
In other words, if we decide to double these figures and if we come up against purely physical limits with hydroelectric power, if we cannot build more large power stations as and where we please, and there is a limit to what we can do in the Alps, then we have to think of something else, for example a bridge with agricultural policy.
I should like to ask you, Commissioner, to build a bridge with agricultural policy, to enter into an alliance.
If, for example, the enlargement of the European Union encompasses countries such as Poland, which have large agricultural areas and a high proportion of their population working in agriculture, most of whom will become unemployed over the next 10 or 20 years as these countries engage in intensive farming, then there is room for manoeuvre here.
There is, of course, the question of how we can finance this, but at least we have technical room for manoeuvre.
As far as renewable sources of energy and financing them at national level is concerned, I have just a few brief comments.
The systems are so different that they must, at all costs, be made compatible in the medium term, so that we can create a real European market here.
Secondly, aid must be degressive.
Not radically degressive perhaps, otherwise there is no end result, but it must show a downward trend in order to ensure that the best technologies are used, because there is constant technical progress even with renewable sources of energy.
I can easily imagine, and here I do not share Mr Mombaur' s view, that we may need to consider sanctions, otherwise the whole thing makes no sense.
For example, we undertook at Kyoto to adhere to certain quotas.
No one can be punished for failing to keep to the quotas.
Had we introduced the euro like that, if no sanctions had been imposed for failing to comply with requirements, the euro would not have been a success.
In the case of renewable sources of energy or the CO2 policy, nothing will be achieved in the long run without sanctions.
We cannot enter into commitments willy-nilly and then fail to honour them.
I keep coming back to this: without sanctions, this joint energy policy, because in the final analysis that is what it is, will not function.
It is perhaps an unpleasant thought, but it will not function otherwise.
Mr President, I would like to reiterate the thanks to the rapporteur for the extremely cooperative manner in which he has embarked upon this important report and I am pleased to participate in the intimate gathering of renewable fanatics so late at night.
Three points - firstly, the whole issue of a level playing field.
It seems to us essential that if we are going to give renewable energies the breathing space and the momentum that they merit, it is right to try and aim for a level playing field.
That requires, above and beyond everything else, downward pressure on the unacceptably high and legally dubious levels of subsidies which continue to flow to fossil energy sources in the European Union, notably, but not excusably, the coal industry in a number of large Member States.
As long as those market distorting subsidies to fossil fuels continue we cannot realistically talk about a fair or level playing field in the European Union.
In that context we join with the rapporteur in feeling that some kind of special provisions concerning subsidies are merited as long as those market distorting subsidies continue elsewhere.
On targets, I very much side with Mr Linkohr.
We cannot be serious about this without trying to add teeth in some form, moral, financial or otherwise to the concept of targets.
We were not very happy with the early versions from the rapporteur because we felt the targets were there to almost micro-manage the market in renewable energy sources.
That is neither viable nor desirable, but a mixture of the pressure towards targets, combined with competition between effective renewable energy industries, seems to us to be the long-term approach we should all adopt.
Finally, I would make a plea on behalf of my group: let us not set up yet another agency.
Paragraph 22 of this report calls for the establishment of a European sustainable energy agency.
This Parliament and the European institutions have been spawning a blizzard of new agencies all over the European Union.
It does not necessary help us to follow the policies which we wish to follow - it could actually have the effect of ghettoising the policy altogether.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his hard work and particularly the excellent definition of renewables.
This directive should be solely directed towards supporting new renewable technologies that are not yet commercially viable.
The directive, as some of the speakers have already said, needs to have binding targets in order for the Member States and the entire EU to achieve a significant increase in the share of renewable energies in the total energy market.
I note that the Commission is proposing a review in 2005 but I would urge that you also ask the Member States to make annual reports on achieving the targets in the White Paper.
I would also like the directive not to establish any ceiling or limitation on direct support mechanisms chosen by the individual Member States.
It should also encourage fair and non-discriminatory network access as its most important item.
The directive should also contain mechanisms to discourage, as we have already heard, the Member States from their market distorting subsidies to traditional forms of energy, particularly fossil fuels and nuclear.
There are a lot of covert subsidies to the nuclear sector that have been there for a long time and that are long overdue for a considerable review if not a total ban.
Attempts to say that support for renewable energy is a distortion of the market in the context of the vast subsidies for nuclear and fossil fuels that exist in the European Union are totally spurious.
I hope that the Commissioner will really take that point to heart.
The directive should explicitly propose a system of support and advantages for the small and medium-sized companies in decentralised production and distribution of renewable energies.
It should include incentives allowing the Member States to clearly support advantages for the regions, especially rural areas, in respect to labour intensive green production.
Most importantly, the directive should propose mechanisms for the internalisation of external costs of traditional energy production.
Finally, I would urge that it is important that some of the undertakings by Member States to include renewables in the energy mix in the electricity sector be at least equal to the total EU commitment made in the White Paper on renewable energy, as endorsed by the Council and this Parliament.
I would like to make particular reference to the unsatisfactory rate of uptake in the UK, Ireland and France.
Here we can clearly see from empirical studies that network access is by far the best way to achieve high percentages of renewable energy rather than the other methods that have been undertaken in those countries.
Mr President, I believe that all of us are in agreement that the development of renewable energy sources is the way forward.
If we are serious about this, we must be prepared to make funds available for research and development in this area, both at national and European levels.
Parliament recently voted to maintain and increase funding for the SAVE programme.
In my own country of Ireland a total of EUR 125 million has been devoted to developing an environmentally sustainable energy sector.
I am pleased that the rapporteur identifies the links between the issue of renewable energy sources and wider policy considerations.
The creation of an internal market in electricity should provide consumers of electricity with real choice.
The introduction of an element of competition in any industry should lead to more favourable pricing for the consumer.
While it is desirable to create a level playing field it may also be necessary to provide subsidies for certain types of energy in order to promote other objectives.
Clearly the development of renewables is linked to environmental objectives as well as issues of employment, regional development and the promotion of local initiatives.
I would like to see the development of small local initiatives which would strengthen rural development by the provision of, say, 20 to 30 jobs per project.
Such projects should not only be open to the business sector and local groups such as small locally-based co-ops should be assisted in creating such local enterprises.
This report states that support for renewable energy projects must not be viewed as a straightforward subsidy under the state aid rules.
What is important is that Member States be allowed to continue subsidising renewable energy sources which are not yet economically viable.
Apart from the obvious environmental and other benefits, this can actually be justified on competition grounds.
It is clear that there are serious distortions in the energy market with many hidden subsidies to both coal and oil generated energy.
It would be virtually impossible to quantify these subsidies which have been embedded in the industry over decades of generator construction.
We still face a significant challenge in meeting our commitments on limiting greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector under the Kyoto protocol while, at the same time, promoting growth within our economies.
I believe that, while each Member State must work towards the 12% target of renewables, the imposition of a single binding target would not be helpful because of the great differences in the structure of the energy market between Member States.
All I have said so far is on the positive side but, on the negative side, the report specifically calls for peat to be excluded.
Peat power plants work very well indeed in my country and make an important contribution to Ireland' s energy supply.
In addition to that, the report emphatically calls for the European imposition of an energy tax.
I am totally opposed to this approach and I reject this taxation.
Therefore, I regret to say that my final vote on this project will be seriously affected.
Mr President, the need to promote the development of sources of renewable energy becomes a crucial matter every time that issues such as the Kyoto protocol and meeting our commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions are raised or when we talk about sustainability in energy policy.
Also, on everyone' s mind is the fact that supporting renewable energies is one of the most important ways of achieving effective results, particularly with regard to controlling carbon dioxide emissions and to attaining the objective proposed in the White Paper, to reach a level of 12% renewable energy by 2010.
Since we are aware of this need, there is a set of relevant facts that we should consider.
Firstly, it should be said that renewable energies currently have the disadvantage of being less efficient in economic terms, which means that, in the first phase, support mechanisms are needed which will make them viable from a business point of view.
Secondly, any support mechanism that is considered must be realistic and consistent, but must, above all, fit into a stable and appropriate legal framework if it is to achieve the desired effect.
In order for any action related to the development of new projects for investment in these technologies to be launched, it will require a legal basis which will ensure that the laws on which it is based are transparent.
Thirdly, renewable energies are characterised by the different situations from which the various Member States are starting, which means that any solution will have to adapt to these differences.
Fourthly, we must not place too many limits on the concept of renewable energy, although it does seem reasonable to impose certain restrictions on support actions for plants whose size and performance require them.
I shall finish by saying that the report by Mr Turmes, on which this House is about to vote, addresses my main concerns sufficiently.
Its content provides the necessary balance for us to be able to rate it positively, but our final position will depend on the outcome with regard to certain key points.
I would not like to finish without congratulating the rapporteur on his willingness to enter into dialogue and for his vigorous and thorough work.
Mr President, I have an interest, though not a financial one, in this subject in that I am chairman of the Northern Energy Initiative, a company which operates in the north-east of England, and has within it a renewable energy agency whose objective is to promote the development of renewable energies.
The UK has a low proportion of electricity from renewable sources, I believe amongst the lowest.
Yet the studies in my home region have demonstrated considerable potential for renewable projects: wind, including offshore, small hydro, landfill gas, waste incineration, biofuels and photovoltaics.
It is important to have EU and national targets, but it is also important to have a European directive which will support efforts at local and regional level, where many of the decisions are actually taken.
In general terms, there is a need to build up an awareness amongst architects and potential customers of the technologies that are available.
Support for demonstration projects should be included in any directive.
Larger developments often fail to get planning permission, sometimes because of public opposition.
More proactive planning guidance, preferably linked to regional renewable targets, and feasibility studies would be helpful additions to the directive.
Access to the grid system at fair prices is crucial.
The disincentive of high capital costs of connection to the grid from remote renewable sites and the prevention of transmission penalties are other issues which the directive should tackle.
I hope that the Commission will take note of these points.
I would urge support for the amendment to assist the promotion of renewables in the remote islands of the Community.
I am sure that this was an oversight in the drafting of the text.
I have to say that the British Labour Members will vote against the exclusion of waste incineration from the definition of renewables, on the understanding that this refers to material which cannot be recycled.
Mr President, the chief aim of an internal electricity market must be fair play.
This aim is clearly visible in the Commission' s preparatory act.
In his report, Mr Turmes, does not in all respects advocate the same way of thinking, however.
The report does contain many good ideas.
The recorded aim of the Commission with regard to the promotion of renewables obviously has to be supported.
We really do have to invest in research into energy sources.
However, we must remember that a free energy market will have to be based in the future on viable, free competition, and not on favouring renewable energy sources by discriminating against the others.
All forms of electric power must have free access to the market.
The harmonisation of taxation and aid schemes is a different matter.
Electricity producers must be able to determine the prices at which they wish to sell.
If the Union starts messing about with the burgeoning electricity markets, for example, by imposing rules controlling the electrical supply, or with guarantees of minimum prices or quotas, we can say goodbye to the free market.
Renewables can be made more competitive by increasing consumer choice.
In this respect the certification of electricity is an idea to be supported.
If we wish to pay more for electricity produced from wind power than from other sources, for example, then we should be allowed to do so.
To no good purpose, the report tries to define renewable energy by raising the question of peat as a special area.
The position with regard to peat cannot be determined according to the same standards as biogases, for example. For that reason, peat must occupy its own energy class in future, so that its taxation can be determined on a level that is reasonable.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on being open to dialogue on all areas connected to the report and to the amendments.
I think we must consider all matters related to renewable energies to be extremely important, bearing in mind the fact that we want to leave behind us a world which future generations will find inhabitable.
It is curious that we are slowly killing ourselves and yet the earth' s contamination is not causing the alarm bells to ring.
What can we do about it? I think that first we must seek out all renewable energies and take advantage of them, encourage them, promote them and provide the appropriate incentives to make them viable, and at the same time penalise energies that contaminate.
I know that this is all easy to say and difficult to do, but unless we act immediately, within a few generations, we will be stretched to the limit.
My opinion is that we should start by differentiating between compensation and subsidies.
It is common knowledge that most traditional sources of energy, apart from those using water, wind etc., cause a great deal of serious environmental damage, in many cases, such as CO2, acid rain, oil slicks etc.
This damage is usually repaired by public administrations, by means of programmes for restoring and caring for the environment.
In the case of renewables which do not cause any harm to the surrounding environment, I believe it would be reasonable to compensate them while there is no tax on emissions of polluting particles such as CO2.
Therefore, as long as public administrations continue to take responsibility for repairing the damage caused by thermal or nuclear power stations, we will be subsidising these sources of energy at the expense of renewables.
I would finally like to mention the establishment of an appropriate legal framework for this kind of energy, which would foster its rapid development, bearing in mind that, in the long term, renewables must become predominant.
Mr President, Commissioner de Palacio, ladies and gentlemen, to summarise today' s debate, there are basically three issues at stake here.
First, the sustainability of energy sources.
Secondly, security of supply, which has a quite special effect as far as Europe is concerned, not least because of the unstable political situations in the countries which currently supply energy to Europe.
Thirdly, of course, the economy, because energy is a fundamental factor in our international competitiveness and we must therefore ensure that we have an economical supply of energy.
I personally come from Upper Austria and, at present, Upper Austria has broken the energy-saving and energy-renewing records.
Where I come from, renewable energy takes top priority, and Upper Austria has an energy savings agency which runs like clockwork.
The principle of subsidiarity applies here and I think that it was this energy savings agency which inaugurated the energy savings fair held a few days ago, thereby meeting the need for education and information for the public as a whole.
I also think that research and development in this area need greater support.
In the final analysis, we should endeavour in Europe to apply the best practice, i.e. to see where there are models - at this energy savings fair in Wels we presented a thick directory of best practice models - and, at the same time, to use benchmarking to show where we have taken the lead in Europe and where progress is being made elsewhere in the world.
I think that this management system is particularly significant for the future of energy supplies in Europe.
Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate Mr Turmes on the report which he has prepared, as it will be of great use to the Commission' s work.
I would like to remind you that in April last year the Commission approved a working paper on electricity from renewable sources, whose main objective was to present a thorough overview of the support programmes of the different Member States in the field of renewable energies, as well as to highlight certain conclusions and possible options for the adoption of Community measures in this area.
On that occasion the Commission indicated in its working paper that it had not reached a final conclusion and that a final decision would be adopted on all the issues involved in the light of reactions to the paper itself.
In this respect, Parliament' s contribution is an extremely important element in this process.
This House has always been forthright in its support for active policies designed to promote renewable energies.
I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate my thanks to Mr Turmes for his work.
Furthermore, and as Mr Linkohr has pointed out, it must be said that it is Parliament that has, in part, forced the Commission to undertake more concrete action in the area of renewable energies and that Parliament has always been a leader and a driving force in this area.
We all agree that renewable energies have to play a key role in guaranteeing our supply of energy, as well as making us less dependent on imports and in fulfilling the commitments we gave in Kyoto.
However, they can also help the EU' s technological development and enable us to export clean technologies to other parts of the world.
I must point out that Mr Turmes' s report fully concurs with these views.
The Commission is already giving its support to the production of wind, solar and biomass energy, small hydroelectric stations and geothermal energy, that is all sources of renewable energy, with the exception of large hydraulic power stations, which we feel we should not support because they have sufficient options available to them. Furthermore, they have some extremely negative aspects from an environmental point of view, as constructing a dam always involves flooding a valley.
I must, however, say to Mr Turmes that, despite what I have just said, we cannot consider peat to be a renewable energy.
The ALTENER programme is enabling magnificent work to take place and Parliament has always been an ally of the Commission. It has always cooperated with the efforts of the Commission and, I repeat, has even been a driving force in making the Commission' s proposals more ambitious.
We are now faced with a considerable challenge, which is to establish the most appropriate mechanisms for supporting the development of green electricity in an internal market, an open single electricity market, which is what we are trying to achieve in the European Union.
I can assure you that all issues that have been highlighted here will be carefully considered in relation to the directive on which discussions will begin in the next few days.
Going into specific issues, almost all of the points made in Mr Turmes' s report deserve our support and fully concur with our own studies.
Some aspects are more open to debate, but they also deserve thorough study, even if they must be rejected, in some cases because they are not sufficiently based on fact or because the problems they present are greater than the solutions they propose.
I must repeat that the report stresses the importance of the objective of doubling, from 6% to 12%, the proportion of renewable energy sources in the gross domestic consumption of energy.
In the proposal for a directive, we hope to include some objectives chosen by countries, that is, individual objectives for each country in the European Union.
These would not be compulsory objectives, but ones which can produce results, at least from the political point of view, and I think that this would be a very important step.
I agree with Mr Turmes on the need to protect the different national systems in force at the time that this directive is adopted.
This is what we will do, which does not mean that, in five years time, there should not be a review of the different systems and that we should not commit ourselves to those which have proved to be the most effective and which have resulted in greater development of renewable energies in those countries.
In any event, as you know, on 2 December 1999, in the Energy Council, I gave a questionnaire to the Member States, so I could see what stage we had reached, what stage the issue had reached, and so I could present a directive that could obtain sufficient consensus to quickly conclude its passage through both Parliament and the Council.
The result of this questionnaire, which has been studied by the services, is a document, in my opinion, of extremely high quality, which I hope will enable us to get through the Parliamentary and Council procedures reasonably quickly.
Let us state quite clearly that the proposal simply and straightforwardly seeks to stimulate production in the EU of electricity from renewable energies.
I would like to point out that I have taken careful note of Mr Linkohr' s words on agricultural policy and the possibility of encouraging non-food production.
As a former agriculture minister, I am sensitive to these issues and this is one which, to a certain extent, is also covered in this proposal.
I would also like to point out that our objective in all of this is to have a safer and more reliable supply of energy, which treats the EU' s environment with greater respect.
To conclude, Mr President, other speakers have mentioned repayment.
Mr Vidal-Quadras and Mr Valdivielso both mentioned this a while ago.
Renewable energies today are not competitive in relation to traditional energies, particularly as traditional energies have certain external costs which, of course, are not internalised.
Support must be given to renewable energies.
My personal view - although there are other ideas on this subject - is that, as things stand, we cannot write off other energies, for reasons of competitiveness and growth.
We can, however, support renewable energies, precisely because they are obviously based on respect for the environment and on reducing emissions.
In this respect, we must be able to ensure that those who do commit themselves to renewables have a fair return on their investments.
We obviously have to create a stable framework that will enable investors to make investments which require a sufficient number of years to cover their repayment.
This is one of the issues under discussion in the Commission and which has proved to be more difficult in some cases, together with certain other aspects. But, ultimately, everyone in the Commission agrees on the need to encourage green energy.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur and all the speakers, and to assure them that this element of stability, which will enable decisions relating to medium-term investments to be taken, will also feature in the proposal for a directive that I hope to be able to present to you soon.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.10 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I think anyone reading page 6 of the Minutes might get the wrong impression from the juxtaposition of my speech and Mr Vander Taelen' s.
I want to stress two points.
First, Mr Vander Taelen may disapprove of my position on the European Union, but it can in no way justify the wholly unfounded personal attacks against me by the Chairman of the Canadian parliamentary delegation.
Anyway, Mr Vander Taelen admitted he did not personally witness the incident.
Secondly, I simply cannot understand how Mr Vander Taelen could have got the impression I was against enlargement.
I have never said that.
On the contrary, I have stated time and again in this House that enlargement is an historic necessity.
I have just pointed out that the institutions in their present form undoubtedly constitute an obstacle to enlargement, but that is an entirely different issue.
Of course I am in favour of the enlargement of the European Union to the East.
Thank you, Mr Berthu.
We will scrupulously check whether there are grounds for amending the Minutes so that everything is as it should be.
Are there any further comments?
Madam President, although I was not the speaker, it was Mr Katiforis, I see that in the Minutes, he is reported as having said that the Turkish authorities had also drawn up a list of Greek people living in Turkey.
He did not say that.
He simply said "of Greek citizens" , in other words people who are resident in Greece.
I say this because Mr Katiforis is not here and so that the Minutes can be corrected accordingly.
Absolutely.
I remember that too.
That will be corrected.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, this is not about the Minutes but about a point of order.
I was contacted several times yesterday and have already been contacted several times today, by people from the press who have got wind of the fact that the Court of Auditors sent you a report yesterday on the funding of the political groups.
I am aware that this is a very tricky business and that we must prevent any half-baked stories from getting into the papers.
The question on quite a few people' s lips is: what is to become of this report?
Will it be made public? I understand that the chairmen of the groups have been able to have a look at the report.
I would like to ask you what you are intending to do with it.
Will you find a way of making it available to the press or to those who favour doing so, appending a few comments, yes or no? I believe we must adopt an open and transparent strategy here, so that we can say in all candour how we dealt with the funding that was made available to the groups.
It is standard procedure, Mr Staes.
The Court of Auditors sent me this preliminary report and it is going out to consultation.
I have in fact circulated the report to the Chairment of the groups asking them to let me have their comments so that we can forward them to the Court of Auditors.
After that has been done, the Court of Auditors will draw up its final report.
I do not think it is up to the President of Parliament to issue this report to the press.
This is not a lack of transparency.
It is not up to me to do it.
I have done what I had to do, which was to send it to each Group Chairman concerned.
Madam President, I learned yesterday that Mr Akim Birdal, the former chairman of the Turkish Committee on Human Rights has been reimprisoned.
Mr Birdal had asked to be released on health grounds, after being attacked.
That request was refused and he is in prison because, some time ago, he dared to suggest seeking a political solution to the Kurdish question.
I think it would be very welcome if you, as President of the European Parliament, were to approach the Turkish Government, in whatever way you consider appropriate, and ask for this man of honour to be freed.
Quite, Mr Wurtz.
We raised this matter yesterday and I am completely in agreement about approaching the Turkish Government along those lines.
The "Echelon" system
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the existence of an artificial intelligence system allowing the United States of America to intercept and monitor all telephone and electronic communications within the European Union, a system called 'Echelon' .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, following on from the letter sent by this House to the Council and from the hearing of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs regarding data protection in the European Union, you have today invited the Council and Commission to comment on the possible existence of the Echelon system. This system is suspected of intercepting telecommunications beyond the bounds of any legal framework of justice and home affairs activities.
I must thank you for having invited the Council to speak on this issue. This gives us the opportunity not only to clarify our position but also to inform you about all the measures taken by the Council on the lawful interception of telecommunications.
The European Union must respect the fundamental rights which are guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights and which result from the common constitutional traditions of the Member States on general principles of Community law.
The Council will do everything to safeguard these principles, particularly with regard to the right of every person to respect for their private and family life, their home or their correspondence, in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights which forms the cornerstone of our political work.
It is common knowledge that work is in progress, in which this House is fully involved, and whose aim is to produce a Charter of Fundamental Rights which must apply within the Union.
This is why the Council presidency wants to firmly state its position on the possible existence of a system for intercepting telecommunications in the European Union, beyond the bounds of any legal framework.
The Council cannot accept the creation or existence of such a system which does not respect the laws of the Member States and which violates the fundamental principles aimed at protecting human dignity. I must stress this very firmly.
Having said this, the presidency considers that everything must be done to create an area of freedom, security and justice at European level.
Our aim is to build a more open and secure Europe founded on an attachment to our common fundamental values.
In this respect, it will sometimes be necessary to allow telecommunications to be intercepted when strictly essential to protect these values and in the interests of justice.
This interception, which must be in proportion and have clearly defined limits, must pursue specific aims such as combating organised crime.
When exercising this right which is fully enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, the presidency considers that the case law of the European Court of Human Rights must also be respected to ensure that the right balance is achieved between interference in private life and the public interest.
In certain clearly specified and truly exceptional cases, the interception of telecommunications may be justified under these conditions.
We want to act on this point with total transparency so that the European Parliament is kept fully informed of the progress of work within the Council on the lawful interception of telecommunications.
There are also some other areas which we want to tackle. These were listed in the letter, which I have mentioned, as set out by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, and they were also contained in the letter, which your President has just sent to the Council.
These areas are police cooperation, judicial cooperation in criminal matters, Europol, Schengen and the initial discussions currently in progress on data protection within the Third Pillar.
The Committee raised these matters and I have been asked to comment on them in the letter from your President.
In the area of police cooperation, the Council adopted a resolution on 17 January 1995 on the lawful interception of telecommunications.
This resolution, published in the Official Journal, contains a list of specifications for the Member States authorising them to lawfully intercept telecommunications with regard to network operators and service providers.
This list allows each Member State to adapt its own national legislation so as to identify and overcome the difficulties in introducing technical specifications for interception in modern telecommunications systems.
In November 1995, a code of conduct containing this same list of specifications indicated in the resolution was established between the Fifteen and Norway.
The governments of the United States of America, Canada and Australia informed the Council that they would not sign this code of conduct but that they would follow an identical policy.
In 1999, the Council submitted an initiative on the lawful interception of telecommunications with regard to new technologies for assessment.
Immediately after the start of this work, the Council consulted the European Parliament on this proposal on which this House issued an opinion in May 1999.
The Council is continuing the work on this issue but has not yet adopted a final position.
In its meeting on 28 May 1998, the Council adopted conclusions on encryption and law enforcement to guarantee the integrity and confidentiality of digital communications which present considerable advantages for electronic commerce and the private lives of individuals and which can also help to prevent fraud and other crimes.
However, we are aware of the concerns about the negative aspects, which the proliferation of encryption services for confidentiality purposes may have in the fight against certain forms of crime.
This is why it was decided to closely monitor the degree of use of encryption technologies, particularly by and for organised crime.
These measures must be proportional and carefully balanced with regard to other important interests, particularly bearing in mind the need to protect the fundamental rights specified in the European Convention on Human Rights and the operation of the internal market, with the aim of ensuring the development of electronic commerce.
In the area of judicial cooperation in criminal matters, particular attention should be paid to the draft convention on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters between the Member States.
Over four years of negotiations on this draft convention are nearly complete.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council, in its meeting on 27 March, examined the most important remaining questions, including those on the interception of telecommunications.
I am very pleased to announce that a full political agreement on measures for interception was achieved at this meeting. We therefore hope that the adoption of the act establishing the convention will take place during the Justice and Home Affairs Council in May.
Measures have also been specified on data protection in the Europol Convention.
It must be stressed that Europol does not have powers of investigation and does not carry out work of an operational nature.
Rather, Europol' s mission is to analyse the data supplied by the Member States or third parties.
It cannot gather this data directly. I will clarify this for you.
It is the responsibility of each Member State to send data to Europol.
Therefore, any supervision of data protection is carried out in the Member State of origin with full respect for the Council of Europe Convention of January 1981 and the Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe of September 1987.
In this way the general rules on the protection of data sent to Europol by the Member States are respected.
The convention therefore states that the latter must answer the question of whether the data has been properly gathered in the Member States.
So it is the responsibility of each Member State to correct, delete or amend data sent to Europol where it becomes apparent that this data is incorrect or infringes the rules established in this respect.
It must be stressed that Europol cannot, on its own, determine if the data sent by a Member State has been properly gathered.
Each national supervisory authority has an essential role to play in this area.
I must also speak briefly about the data protection rules within the Schengen Information System.
This system provides for an authority responsible for protecting personal data.
This common supervisory authority is composed of the supervisory authorities of the various Member States and ensures respect for the system' s principles on data protection, particularly those on the content of the data obtained and the use of this data.
Full protection of the interests of individuals is therefore ensured in accordance with the instruments ratified by the Member States.
Finally, I must mention data protection within the Third Pillar.
The Member States and the Commission are examining this issue in order to determine to what extent data protection should be provided in a horizontal perspective for the whole of the Third Pillar.
Various aspects of this debate are being carefully considered, such as, for example, the questions of whether a common supervisory authority for all the instruments of the Third Pillar should be created or whether it would be sensible to create a common secretariat for these authorities.
Furthermore, the Portuguese presidency intends to submit in due course, for the Council' s consideration, initial ideas on the possibility of developing general principles on data protection, which would apply to all the instruments of the Third Pillar.
These ideas are still being developed.
However, I can tell you that the Portuguese presidency, with full respect for the Community mechanisms, will duly inform the European Parliament about future developments in this work.
This, briefly, is the Council' s position on the work in progress or already concluded in the area of the lawful interception of telecommunications.
To conclude, I must say that we fully understand the political concerns underlying this Parliament initiative.
The presidency wishes to stress that it is ready to closely monitor Parliament' s work in this area as it considers that there is every reason not to compromise when principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights and the fundamental freedoms of individuals are at stake.
Madam President, first of all, I am delighted that the Council and the Commission have delivered a clear opinion today regarding the Echelon problem.
In the past, a great many parliamentary questions have been simply ignored.
The present statement is therefore a step in the right direction, albeit only the first of what need to be quite a few such steps.
We must now calmly consider what measures are to be taken in order to protect the European economy effectively.
Less helpful in this regard are the hasty proposals tabled by the four smaller groups in this House.
When I read in the proposal put forward by the Technical Group of Independent Members about fears of a "Super Echelon" which will apparently use surveillance techniques to gain control of the whole of the information society, then this shows with how little understanding of the facts the present state of affairs is being approached.
What we have here is not Huxley' s "brave new world" taking shape, but merely industrial espionage.
With its proposal to establish a committee of inquiry, an alliance of Greens and of Members from the Left and Right of the political spectrum clearly want, however, to use Parliament as an arena for James Bond-style games. Who, I wonder, would call for a committee of inquiry?
The American President or the head of the British secret service, who is not even known in Britain?
What is this committee supposed to find out? The fact that Echelon exists and is also used for industrial espionage is something which we have known at least since the interview with former CIA Director Mr Woolsey on 7 March of this year.
No, the time for investigations and debate is past.
Now, we must act.
In addition to frank words with our American and British friends, we need a European encryption system, independent of the United States, with which to protect our data.
We must put this subject on the agenda of the next session of the World Trade Conference.
We must develop a code of conduct which guarantees compensation in the event of espionage systems' being misused, and we must make it clearer to our businesses than we have done so far that they themselves are called upon to safeguard their own data through encryption.
In contrast to a committee of inquiry, which in this case would serve no purpose, this would be a constructive initiative.
Madam President, I have issued this statement on behalf of Mr von Boetticher who, because of a bereavement, had to travel back to Germany yesterday.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are in a difficult situation regarding the decision which we now have to make after hearing the Council and the Commission.
Just how difficult the situation is, you can see from two remarks made in the last three minutes.
Mrs Klamt says that we all know that the United States of America engages in industrial espionage.
The Commissioner has just explained to us that of course the United States does not engage in industrial espionage; they clarified this in writing only yesterday.
So what is to be done, then?
After everything we have been told at the hearing in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the indication is, of course, that we should continue with the strategy which, as Social Democrats, we have believed to be correct.
In the Committee, there were accusations against the Council and the Commission to the effect that individual EU citizens were insufficiently protected against the interception and monitoring of communications, that the competitive disadvantages to which the Echelon system is exposing the European economy are not being combated sufficiently in the context of the Community law governing the EU institutions and that no adequate counter-strategies are being developed.
We then said that we wanted to hear what the Council and the Commission had to say before deciding how to proceed further.
I should like to say that what I have heard this morning from both institutions gives rise to more questions than answers. The Social Democratic Group will therefore do what it already decided to do weeks ago in the light of present knowledge.
Bearing in mind the statements by both institutions, we shall make decisions next week on the following issues. (In fact, there are no two ways about it, we shall have to make these decisions.)
Do we want a committee of inquiry?
Do we want a non-permanent committee?
Do we want an own-initiative report?
Do we want to take other measures in order to shed more light on the outstanding issues, to obtain more answers and, above all, to examine whether Community law has been broken? Precisely how we go about this, we shall decide next week, but one thing I would state clearly here is that, if we continue to adopt what, as I see it, is a dilatory approach to the problem, as I heard outlined by our partner institutions this morning, we shall not do justice to the political problem, or to the political drama, behind the questions raised here.
I do not know whether we were well advised to say that we wanted a committee of inquiry because, if such a committee were to be set up, its legal basis would have to be impeccably clarified.
In this regard, too, there are still questions to be answered.
I was therefore of the opinion that it was too early for a committee of inquiry.
I do not, however, want to exclude the possibility of our reaching conclusions in the course of the debate which will lead our Social Democrats to say, here in Parliament, that, even if there is the merest hint of suspicion that Community law has been broken and that citizens' freedoms and the competitiveness of our industry and economy are not being adequately protected, then we shall act most decisively.
First I would like to thank the President of the Council for his statement that the system we are debating is unacceptable in principle.
That is something, at least.
Having said that, I was expecting the Council to give us some details about the problem we are trying to deal with today.
I have to say I am disappointed.
To use a sporting metaphor, the representatives of the Council and the Commission have been doing what I call the fencing side-step.
It is very effective in fencing, but I dislike it in politics.
I have no regrets whatsoever about having taken the initiative, with my group, in calling for a parliamentary committee of inquiry into this matter.
I think the stature of the European Parliament will be enhanced by adopting such an initiative and I hope the whole of Parliament will support that position.
I also want to point out that while speeches on the principle are of course interesting, we have to have the courage to talk about the facts.
Eighteen months ago, during a debate in this same Parliament, when Mr Bangemann was the Commissioner responsible, he said, in answer to a number of questions from Members, that if the system existed it would represent a serious problem for human rights and the operation of the European Union.
We have since discovered that this system does exist, but we do not know exactly how it works.
There is good reason to believe that a European Union Member State - the United Kingdom, to make no bones about it - is collaborating in the system. I expected the Council Presidency to make a statement about that.
Is the British Government being open about it?
Is it collaborating in the system or not? I think we have a right to know.
The Commission is responsible for ensuring that Community law is observed.
We have good reason to believe that Community law is being flouted in this case.
Directives are obviously fine if they are applied, but what use are they if there is clearly technology available for by-passing them? Especially when we know that certain Member States are probably collaborating in order to by-pass them.
I am really very worried. If this Parliament seeks to represent the people of Europe, it really must clarify this situation.
We will not be doing that if we routinely wait for initiatives from the Council and the Commission.
I want to remind the House that we passed a resolution eighteen months ago calling for a proper open debate on this type of monitoring technology.
In view of what I have just heard, there is no genuinely open debate.
Secondly, we said effective economic protection systems and encryption must be adopted.
Now we are told the same thing all over again, eighteen months later.
Are we going to pass another resolution in Strasbourg repeating the 1998 resolution?
I honestly believe that it is now too late for that.
Therefore, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we must move into a higher gear and it is this Parliament' s duty, as the third institution of the Union, to spearhead the attack.
Madam President, I actually think the speeches from the Council and the Commission were most enlightening.
The United States now acknowledges the existence of the 'Echelon' system.
Tongues are being loosened in certain Union governments.
The press is crammed full of details about this all-pervasive electronic monitoring network.
And yet, how embarrassed the Council and the Commission sounded!
What tangled comments they made to avoid answering our questions.
I did not hear the slightest explanation of why it was necessary to wait for Members of Parliament to discover this massive scandal nearly two years ago, and then recently for them to provide proof that their revelations were in fact true, before the Council would agree, in a very implicit and convoluted way, that there is indeed a problem.
Let me restate the problem: by virtue of privileged and very special links, a strategic ally and a Member State are covertly joining forces to monitor private communications and spy on companies in other Union countries.
Where is this taking us? With friends like that, who needs enemies?
You will understand, Mr President, Commissioner, that with the truth now established, we feel entitled to ask you further regarding a number of questions that are on everyone' s mind today.
First, what do you know about the type of information this system intercepts, the ultimate recipients the information is sent to, and the reliability of the protection that exists in Europe for people' s privacy and firms' strategic data? Secondly, apart from the formal exchange of correspondence the Commissioner mentioned, what serious action has it undertaken with regard to the United States Government on this matter and with what outcome?
Thirdly, what can you tell us about the role played by the United Kingdom in this system, or at least the role it intends to play in the future?
Whether people like it or not, the 'Echelon' file is now open and it will remain open.
After the European Parliament, the matter has been taken up by other parliaments and indeed the United States Congress, which I have contacted, because what we are doing is not anti-American.
Our fellow citizens have been alerted.
So I want to warn Members who are still hesitant that trying to stop this movement now would be a rearguard action, and would probably be severely condemned by democratic opinion.
On the other hand - and I have listened carefully to what has been said, particularly by the spokespersons for the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party - expectations would be fulfilled if we were to make progress together on truth, transparency and ethics in international relations.
In tabling the call for a committee of inquiry, over a quarter of the Members of this Parliament have made that choice.
I think Parliament will increase its stature by taking up this case by a majority.
Madam President, I shall be very brief as I only have one minute.
I will simply say that the revelation that the 'Echelon' electronic espionage network exists, and that it was set up by the United States national security agency, demonstrates utter disdain for the rights, freedoms and sovereignty of European countries.
We would rather not believe this affair is indicative of a general attitude towards the European Union.
Under the circumstances we are stunned by the Council' s statement.
The presidency began by stating an excellent principle - no communications interception system is admissible if it does not respect the principles of human dignity and the legislation of Member States - but the end of his statement was extremely muddled.
It dealt with data transmission inside Europe, the Schengen Information System and Europol, none of which were really relevant.
Actually, the question to the Council is extremely simple: are we going to demand the cessation of the 'Echelon' network' s activities, which violate human rights and freedoms? Or if this 'Echelon' network is really intended to combat international organised crime, Madam President, we must insist on being involved in it.
We must shoulder our share of the burden and create an international organisation for that purpose. Otherwise the network should be closed down, and we are in favour of the parliamentary committee of inquiry called for by several groups in the European Parliament, including the Union for a Europe of Nations Group.
Madam President, so the country of the Statue of Liberty, Jefferson, Lincoln, and human rights is listening in on all world communications by cable, satellite, telephone, fax, e-mail or mobile phone!
That is obviously a shock, not in terms of our technical knowledge of encryption, but in terms of our political beliefs.
We have believed in the great market as if it were God, and competition and competitiveness, all under the governance of the WTO.
With Mr Monti, and Mr Van Miert before him, we have done everything possible to keep competition pure and perfect, even against the interests of our own businesses, our banks, our airlines, our insurance companies, Crédit Lyonnais, Rhone-Poulenc.
And now we find out that people are cheating and spying on this market, creating distortions of competition.
This Parliament, which wanted to use OLAF to spy on Members for the sake of protecting Europe' s financial interests, is discovering that we are being spied on by the United States against our financial interests, even as regards the WTO negotiations.
We thought Mr Haider' s Austria was endangering our freedom. But it is through Mr Tony Blair' s Britain, Glyn Ford' s Britain, that fifteen thousand agents, stationed in Gibraltar, Cyprus, and even on British territory, are spying on us.
So, Madam President, are you still prepared to go to London? Will you ever go to Sydney again?
Will you ever go to Ottawa or Wellington again?
And we thought there was solidarity in Europe.
Now we find that Britain' s solidarity extends across the Atlantic and across the Pacific Ocean. We thought we were building Europe, making Europe stronger.
But stronger than whom?
Stronger in opposition to Iraq? In opposition to the Serbs?
Stronger in opposition to nations and nationalism? But with 'Echelon' , we find that Boeing belongs to a specific nation, Rayton belongs to a specific nation, and they are having people spy on Airbus or Thomson because those companies do not belong to the same nation.
'Echelon' brings us face to face with nationalism, but it is the ethnic nationalism of the Anglo-Saxon ethnic group, which includes Australia, Great Britain, New Zealand, the United States and Canada.
It is an ethnic group with a religious base, the holy alliance of Adam Smith and Calvin.
So is the Catholic Europe of Gasperi, Schuman and Adenauer going to apologise?
Apologise to the people spied on, for all that evangelism? 'Echelon' is the French word for rung, and I am afraid this 'Echelon' is taking us down to the bottom rung and we will end up at dignity level zero.
Poor old European Commission!
Poor old European Council of Ministers!
Poor old European Union!
We are conditioned by the circumstances of our birth.
Something born of a Harvard University lecture theatre under the presidency of the American, General Marshall, is bound to end up obeying its creator.
Mr President, Mr Gomes for the Council and Mr Liikanen for the Commission this morning have both made very clear statements.
As a UK Member of this Parliament I understand other Members' concerns.
This morning, and in recent days in particular, we have read and heard a lot of allegations.
Even today we have heard talk of James Bond, of American espionage and we have had the rantings of the madman to my left a few moments ago.
But today, and in the Citizens' Rights Committee, we have had few real facts because of the secrecy.
That is, after all, the nature of intelligence and military information work.
If it was not secret and we all knew about it, it would not serve the purpose for which it would be intended and necessary.
Members will therefore understand that it is the practice in the United Kingdom Government, like, I imagine, most or all other governments, not to comment on alleged interception whether the allegations are based on trivia or something perhaps more substantial.
As Mr Liikanen has said, everything done in the United Kingdom is in line with a proper legal framework.
Everything is subject to close parliamentary scrutiny in the House of Commons.
We have very tight controls, both independent controls and control that emanates from the Secretary of State with the full consent of the United Kingdom Government.
Finally and importantly, I want to reiterate that everything that has been conducted, or will be conducted, is in complete conformity with United Kingdom law, with United States law and, most importantly, is done with complete respect for, and in complete conformity with, the European Convention on Human Rights.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, having heard all the speeches made today, we are all convinced that there is a system controlled by the American secret services which can intercept practically all forms of voice and data communications around the world.
What we are not sure about is whether this system has been redirected, not at purely military and defence objectives, but at commercial, industrial and technological targets. We fear and suspect this, however.
I therefore have three questions.
The first is to the Council and the Commission. What does the term 'fair trade' mean when major American companies can gain unlawful advantages thanks to privileged information provided by this system?
Secondly, what do civil liberties, a principle on everyone' s lips, mean to us when the privacy of our Heads of State, our elected representatives and our people can be violated other than for reasons of combating crime and without a court order, as required by our laws? How do the Council and the Commission think the USA would react if it knew that Europe could intercept the communications of its president, elected representatives and people?
Finally, how can we defend ourselves against this threat? The Commissioner has spoken of work on cryptography, which was also mentioned in Parliament' s last recommendation.
However, what specifically has been done to reinforce the cryptography system and to invest in European technology which is our best defence against this threat? What comments might the Council and the Commission have on France' s recent decision to remove commercial closed source code systems from its public computer systems, thus allowing open source code systems to be used, which is intended, as indicated by the French Defence Minister, to guarantee that no nation and no defence systems are at the mercy of a single person or a single company?
Mr President, Echelon is a source of concern for the people of Europe, not only because it may have been used for unlawful purposes, but, above all, because of the risks inherent in its very nature, for it is an automatic, general, indiscriminate interception system, about the existence of which we can be in no doubt.
We need tighter controls to guarantee the fundamental rights of the people and to protect European companies, and we need political initiatives which ensure that the Member States cooperate more closely and keep each other informed of agreements concluded with third countries on this matter.
Legislation must be updated and harmonised and supervisory authorities simplified and consolidated and, of course, new technologies are needed to protect telecommunications from disproportionate and unjustified interference.
This is a complex assembly of measures which have only been timidly, belatedly and in part announced by the Council and the Commission.
Parliament must also support all the measures necessary to ascertain the truth, and be constantly, intensely vigilant even when all this has died down, for without transparent authorities and guaranteed individual rights, there can be no faith in democracy.
Mr President, because so many questions have unfortunately remained unanswered today, I should like to ask a number of further questions and request that the Council and the Commission answer these.
Is it true - and this is a matter for the Commission and the Council - that representatives of the Commission and the Council have been working, under the chairmanship of the Americans, on Echelon-compatible European telecommunications standards, including interception options, and this within the framework of ILETS, a so-called institute? This then provided us with the notorious Infopol documents.
How great is the damage which has already been caused to the European economy?
Are there companies in addition to Thomson and the Airbus consortium which have sustained damage?
What will the Council and the Commission do, and how will they deal with those Member States of the European Union who are spying on their partners in the Union in order - as, in fact, has been admitted - to protect their economic well-being? How will the Commission and the Council respond to the answer from the Americans, which was read out today and which clearly contradicts what, for example, ex-CIA director Mr Woolsey has stated?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have noted your concerns with great interest.
I should like to quickly make the following points.
Firstly, I did refer, more than once, specifically to the Echelon system. I unequivocally condemned this and stated that the Council cannot accept the creation or existence of a system for intercepting telecommunications which does not respect the laws of the Member States.
Mr Wiebenga said that I did not clearly and specifically condemn Echelon.
I did do so and I do so again.
It is clearly apparent from this debate that the key issue is not whether or not a system for intercepting telecommunications exists but what use is made of this system.
In this respect I must add the following comment in response to Mr van Velzen. The Council has no information allowing it to conclude that any company, including the companies mentioned, has benefited or been damaged as a result of telecommunications being intercepted by this system.
If we had any specific information on this, the Council would not hesitate to adopt a clear position.
I can only answer the Member' s second question in writing, as I do not have precise information on this.
I would also like to tell this House that the concerns voiced here are of course shared by the presidency.
Therefore, at the next Justice and Home Affairs Council on 29 to 30 May, the Portuguese presidency will ensure that the Council debates this issue so that we can adopt a position.
We will keep Parliament constantly informed of developments in this respect.
President, can I first thank Parliament for the discussion.
I think there is one point which has been raised by a few Parliamentarians which is fundamentally important, namely to guarantee that there will be strong European encryption products.
It is very important to increase the awareness of the European citizens and companies that electronic communications need to be encrypted to guarantee confidentiality.
Here, there have been programmes for eighteen months.
The European research programmes have been relatively successful and it is recognised also in the discussions in other countries that European competence in this area is confirmed.
Secondly, to the question of Mr van Velzen on the software and data privacy in telecommunications. As Mr van Velzen knows, we are working now with the review of telecommunications legislation and this issue must be analysed in that context and I will reply to you very soon in writing where I will reply to the rest of the issues.
Mrs Berger asked whether some companies have been losing contracts because of espionage.
No companies have contacted the Commission on that issue.
As to the question about the United States and the UK: the reason why we asked for clarification recently was the interviews which were given by a former official of the intelligence agency of the United States.
For that reason we contacted the United States government and asked for clarification and what I said here was their reply to that very issue.
Finally, these are very important and sensitive areas and we must be very firm that confidentiality and privacy in telephone and telecommunications can be guaranteed.
The European Court of Human Rights took a decision some time ago when they said "tapping and other forms of interception of telephone conversations represent a serious interference with private life and correspondence and must accordingly be based on a law that is particularly precise. It is essential to have clear, detailed rules on the subject especially as the technology available for users is continually becoming more sophisticated" .
I think this decision is very clear.
The Commission will, in all its actions, respect these principles and we will not fail to act under the obligations of the Treaty if any Community law is breached.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I have received four motions for resolutions pursuant to Article 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place during the next part-session.
Decision by the Patent Office on the cloning of human beings
The next item is the statement from the Commission on the decision by the European Patent Office on the cloning of human beings.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I come before you here today to make a statement on European Patent No EP 69 53 51 which was granted by the European Patent Office to the University of Edinburgh on 8 December 1999.
After the granting of this patent, a number of concerns have been raised, both here in Parliament and also by organisations such as Greenpeace, about the true scope of this patent.
On behalf of the Commission, I should like to say that the Commission shares these concerns.
It seems clear to everyone involved that this patent should not have been granted in the form it was.
The European Patent Office has issued a press statement to that effect.
I know that there have been some among you here today who believe that the European Patent Office has, at best, been economical with the truth or at worst has sought to seriously mislead the public.
You have a joint motion before you today which includes such charges.
May I point out that the European Patent Office is not a Community body; its existence and its actions are derived from an international agreement to which all the Member States of the European Union and four other countries are a party, but not the Community itself.
Therefore, I cannot give you authoritative information on the actions of the European Patent Office in this particular case.
However, given my experience of the European Patent Office, which I visited in Munich recently, I personally should be very surprised if this unfortunate occurrence was anything other than a mistake during the examination process.
Irrespective of the cause of the problem, it is clear, as I have mentioned just now, that the patent should not have been granted in its current form.
Therefore the question is: what does the Commission intend to do about it?
That is the reason why I am here today.
The motion before you calls on Parliament itself and the other institutions of the European Union formally to oppose this patent within the 9-month period during which an opposition is allowed under the rules governing the granting of European patents.
Some oppositions to this patent have already been filed.
However, if the European Patent Office follows its usual rules for oppositions then this is unlikely to bring any changes to this patent before December 2000 and perhaps even later than that.
Such a delay in correcting what is, in effect, an admitted error, is clearly undesirable.
I have therefore written to the European Patent Office in Munich requesting that it should explore every possibility to bring about a speedier resolution of this issue.
I am pleased to say that the European Patent Office has agreed, given the particular nature of this case, to form a so-called opposition body immediately, an opposition body which will, shortly after having been constituted, issue a first communication indicating a preliminary opinion.
Now, the European Patent Office said that such a preliminary opinion will be without prejudice to the final ruling of the opposition division in this case.
But the Office assures me that proceedings will speedily lead to conclusions, subject to respecting the rights of the parties to be heard.
I am sure that, like me, Members of this assembly, Mr President, will welcome this willingness on the part of the European Patent Office to respond to some of the concerns raised by this Parliament and as a direct result of the approach taken by the Commission.
I am happy to make available to you, President, copies of both my letter to the European Patent Office and its reply to the Commission.
Of course, I shall inform you, as soon as possible, about the conclusions which the legal service of the Commission will formulate having studied precisely the reply of the European Patent Office to the letter which I sent it recently
Let me therefore conclude by reiterating that the Commission, like everyone else, regrets that this patent has been granted in its present form.
We have taken action which - based upon the full cooperation of the European Patent Office - will, I believe, bring about a speedy resolution of this unfortunate occurrence.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the granting of a patent on genetically modified human embryos and on a technique which might possibly lead to the cloning of human beings is a huge scandal.
This is a flagrant violation of human dignity.
The event shows how important it was for the European Parliament, in debating the directive on the patenting of biotechnological inventions, to have made it a cornerstone of the directive that there can be no question of patenting techniques for cloning human beings and for manipulating human genetic material, still less of patenting the human being in all phases of his development.
Many people said at the time that these clarifications were quite unnecessary and that a patent of this kind would never be granted anyway.
We now see how important these clarifications were.
The European Patent Office has incorporated the European Union' s directive into its own directives.
It is not, in fact, bound directly by the Council' s and Parliament' s directive but has incorporated word for word what we decided upon at the time into its implementing rules.
What has happened in this connection is therefore a flagrant breach of the European Patent Office' s own rules.
Nor can I feel any sympathy or understanding for those who say that, oh, there was nothing very untoward about the granting of this patent, that we should not be getting so worked up about it and that, what is more, the technique in question may potentially have a lot to offer.
Then, there was a press statement from Europabio, which was not very helpful in this regard and, following which, I wrote a letter to the chairman of Europabio pointing out that such an ambivalent position on the patent involved was not at all helpful in furthering people' s understanding of biotechnology. It must also meet with vigorous protest in the European Parliament.
It is not, however, a question of the directive we adopted in 1998 being a bad one.
It is a question of its needing to be applied better.
There has been a breach of this directive, and we ought not, therefore, to bring the directive into question but instead to make sure that the directive is applied both in the European Patent Office and also through being transposed into national law.
We stated clearly at the time that we are in favour of biotechnology and approve of the opportunities it presents, but we want to see clear, ethically based limits.
There is also something else which requires clarification. The European Parliament has always taken a clear stand, not only against the patenting of techniques which violate human dignity, but also against such techniques themselves.
Parliament has always repudiated the cloning of human beings, the manipulation of human genetic material and the use of embryos in research. Take, for example, Mr Tannert' s report on the relevant research programme in these areas.
The Group of the European People' s Party has therefore tabled Amendment No 4 in order once again to make it clear that we are not going back on this.
We shall, in any case, vote in favour of this resolution because the European Parliament must send out a clear signal in this regard.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, European Patent No EP 69 53 51, granted by the European Parliament and concerning the genetic manipulation of human cells and human embryos has triggered understandable feelings of horror among the public.
As soon as the course of events became known, my group tabled an oral question on the matter in order to obtain clarification of the questions of principle which had been raised and of the inevitable consequences.
However, the question disappeared without trace in the course of this House' s business.
Instead of the required answers, we have today received an explanation from the Commission which cannot be the last word as far as the European Parliament is concerned.
Why do I mention this? Quite simply because this dreadful patent and the run-up to it, together with the disappearance of a parliamentary question, show how we ought not to deal with biotechnology, that is to say in a careless and slipshod manner.
That would lead to a disastrous situation in which the principles of the inviolability of the human being and of human dignity would be completely lost.
Clearly, everything must be done in order to completely do away with Patent No EP 69 53 51 and any similar gaffes.
Clearly we must move as quickly as possible to close the legal loophole constituted by the flawed European patent.
Clearly, we must quickly create a route to independent patent jurisdiction which is open to everyone.
Or do we want further to abandon a powerful authority to a form of self-monitoring which still does not even begin to operate satisfactorily?
Obviously, the development of biotechnology and of all new techniques must be subject to increased public supervision.
In this way, the European Parliament is confronted with a special task requiring the preparation of an annual report on the work of the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies.
It is just as clear to my group and to myself that the genetic inheritance of humanity must remain common property and should not be sold off on the floor of the stock exchange.
We only use biotechnology in a responsible way when we respect its ethical limits and make the genetic code accessible to researchers throughout the world.
Finally, it must be made unequivocally clear once and for all that our Directive on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions excludes not only the patentability of the human being, of parts of the human genetic make-up and of interference with the genome, but also forbids the cloning of human beings at all phases of their development.
Moreover, everyone must adhere to this.
Mr President, European Patent No EP 69 53 51 has been a great shock to us.
It amounts to deliberately awarding a patent for the breeding of human beings.
The genetically modified human being would himself be degraded to the status of a product of genetic technology, and that would be a flagrant affront to human dignity.
We are therefore delighted that, in its motion for a resolution, Parliament has taken up the proposal tabled by the Greens to the effect that we, as a Parliament, should submit a complaint to the Patent Office in Munich and that Parliament should join us in our criticism of the structural problems of the European Patent Office, because if transparency and an ethical approach are to be allowed to come into their own, we require independent supervision of the European Patent Office.
This patent is no isolated case, however.
It is only the tip of the iceberg or a Pandora' s box which has been open for a long time.
The Patent Office has awarded a whole range of patents on human genetic make-up and thus breached the regulations of the European Patent Agreement.
Parts of the human genetic make-up have, quite intolerably, been declared to be, and commercialised as, the invention and the property of third parties.
We must vehemently oppose this commercialisation of human genes and these flagrant violations of human dignity.
This also means, however, that we need to investigate the patenting of parts of the human genetic make-up and of genes themselves, which is also made possible by the directive on patenting.
That is because we need a moratorium on the patenting of human genes and of parts of the human genetic make-up so that its social and ethical consequences, which are now everywhere to be seen, can be examined.
For this patent must be a lesson and also a last warning to us to the effect that we really have to adopt a different approach in dealing with this issue.
I would also have expected more from the Commission today in terms of more criticism and also of more questions about the background to the directive on patenting which also virtually legitimises past practice on the part of the Patent Office.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our group supports the joint resolution on the offending decision by the European Patent office.
I am also delighted that the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats - and I want to thank Mr Liese - has adopted Article 1 of our motion for a resolution as an amendment, reaffirming the primacy of the dignity of human life over any considerations of research or profit.
In their defence the officers of the Patent Office refer to the language problem.
But the English wording of the patent undermines that explanation because Article 11 explicitly mentions that the term 'animal' includes all animal cells, especially of mammalian species, including human cells.
So that seems to contradict the linguistic explanations given by the Office and the fear remains that the mistake is not just a technical one, as they apparently want to make out.
An inquiry to identify responsibility for such a mistake is essential, sanctions must be applied and, above all, adequate measures must be taken by the Member States of the European Patents Convention and the Office itself to prevent such incidents recurring.
But it is not just a matter of applying the legal rules in force in the Union, or indeed those of the Office itself.
It is a matter of defending the dignity of the human being, from conception to natural death.
We know very well that cloning is an attack on that dignity, especially when it involves embryonic reduction in the secrecy of laboratories.
We know the creation of clones to provide healthy cells for the benefit of the original is an affront to that dignity.
Each person is unique; there is something sacred in each human being.
The contempt for human beings, and life generally, that now exists can only feed the worst excesses of irresponsible scientists.
It is a good thing that, at least for the space of a short debate, we have remembered everyone' s fundamental right to their own unique identity.
Mr President, the public alarm at the granting of this patent is, I feel, totally justified.
In the first place, at this stage, it is in the general interest to avoid patents being issued on human chromosomes, in order not to close any doors to the endeavours of scientific research to find new treatment methods and to use knowledge gained about the human genome to improve health, which is an end that should be placed over and above the albeit legitimate protection of the economic interests of researchers.
Secondly, there is a deficiency in the law: it is not possible for the European Patent Office not to have any links with the Commission or be part of the structure of the European Union.
Thirdly and most importantly, we are considering an issue which is at the very root of our civilisation.
Christianity has taught us the value of the dignity of every human being; the tradition of the left enshrines the concept that the human person, man, is not a commodity and cannot be treated as such. Well, we are now clearly running the risk of turning human beings into commodities, at least in part, and this affects the very roots of our civilisation - in terms of Christianity and also of the enlightenment and Marxism.
We must be united, determined and resolute in our reaction, remembering that the embryo is a unique human being.
Whatever our attitude to abortion, even those of us who consider abortion to be lawful have always agreed on one point: the right of the mother prevails over the right of the embryo, but the right of the embryo does exist. It yields solely and exclusively before the right of the mother, not before the right of a multinational to make money.
Mr President, I would thank the Commission for its statement and would urge it to file an official objection to this patent.
The Council should give the Commission the mandate to do this.
In justification of this, I would point out that it must be the Commission' s job to enforce the directive on bio-patents.
It is debatable whether this directive, for which I was the rapporteur, is in fact a suitable tool for managing the problems involved.
It would have been helpful if whoever was giving vent to his indignation had taken the trouble to read the patent.
He would then have seen that the patent infringes the directive on bio-patents on two counts, firstly because the patent protection extends to include a procedure for modifying human genetic material and, secondly, because the patent protection extends to include the use of embryos for commercial and industrial purposes.
These are two clear infringements of the directive on bio-patents.
How one might now use this as an opportunity to again cast doubt upon the directive without having read the patent or the directive, I really cannot imagine.
Hence, my request to Parliament to the effect that we should not again cast doubt upon the directive, as Mrs Breyer thinks we have to.
This is, in fact, the first text in the world to offer a satisfactory solution to the problems involved in patent protection and bio-technological inventions and, what is more, the first text in the world to win universal approval.
It is now, therefore, a question not of again bringing the directive into question but of enforcing it.
Mr President, I must begin by explaining that I have no association at all with Edinburgh University, but I think that it is important to stress their bona fides.
It is, after all, one of my own country' s most distinguished universities.
When they sought and obtained this patent, which they did for entirely lawful purposes, they did so in good faith.
They have no interest in cloning humans: rather what they are interested in is being able to work on human tissue to help find remedies for, for example, Alzheimer' s Disease and leukaemia and what they are doing breaks no law in the United Kingdom.
As has been explained, the patent in question was examined prior to the coming into effect of the 1998 directive in September 1999, but it was issued after that date and, as has been said, a mistake was made in the form in which it was granted.
I have seen no evidence at all at this stage of anything more than error on the part of the Patent Office.
Of course, I would like to add that that is something which is of serious concern.
But until there is something more, I think it appropriate that the wilder claims and suggestions should be ignored.
My understanding is that the patent error can be corrected either by the patent owner applying to correct the document or by a third party filing an opposition which I understand has already been done.
I have been told by the university' s advisors that it will not resist so long as the disclaimer which may be added to the patent continues to allow them to carry out their lawful work on human tissue.
In other words, what we are talking about here is an amendment to cut out the offending elements of the patent, thereby rendering it lawful, and not its revocation in its entirety.
I believe that the work which is being carried out in Edinburgh is not permitted by national law in some other Member States.
But what this Parliament and the Community institutions and international bodies should not do is attempt to legislate for national parliaments in areas which are national competences, and in my view any attempt to do so should be resisted strongly as a matter of overriding constitutional principle.
Mr President, may I begin by thanking Members of this Parliament very much indeed for the questions that they have put and the comments that they have made.
Perhaps you will allow me to pass a few comments on what the various Members of this Parliament have said.
May I begin by saying in reply to Mr Rothley that indeed the Commission has reserved to itself the right to oppose the patent in a formal way.
As I have said earlier this morning, I wrote a letter on behalf of the Commission to the European Patent Office. I have no objection whatsoever to making that letter public.
The penultimate paragraph reads as follows: "In this context, I have to inform that the College of Commissioners has already decided to take more formal action, notably to file an opposition by the Commission or the Community in case no pragmatic solution can be reached" .
In other words, whereas we prefer a negotiated settlement because it will be quicker than the nine months which is foreseen by the Patent Office rules, we have retained for ourselves the right formula to oppose the patents if no progress is made along this quicker route.
So, as far as that goes, Mr Rothley may rest assured that the Commission has reserved that right to itself.
I should then like to support Mr Liese who has emphasised that there is nothing wrong with the directive.
I agree with him.
I think that the directive is a good one.
Indeed, Mr Rothley himself has said that the directive is the first of its kind in the world and that it has received universal acclaim.
Certainly if I look at paragraph five of the directive where it says that certain processes are not to be considered patentable, then it seems to me that the directive is perfectly clear.
Mr Blokland has said that the directive is unclear and inconsistent and certainly the Commission will be very interested in a substantiated view of that statement.
It was also mentioned by Frau Gebhardt that the cloning of human beings should be forbidden.
Well, President, it is forbidden.
May I draw the attention of Mrs Gebhardt to the fact that the directive specifically forbids that.
It seems to me that that is all we need to do, provided, of course, that the directive is properly applied.
The last issue I should like to deal with is the matter of the Community patent.
Several speakers this morning have spoken about the European patents.
Now, a European patent is what the European Patent Office grants.
The proper term to use is a Community patent.
In other words it is one application made to the European Patent Office in Munich but that office would then grant a Community patent and that would apply at one go to the whole European Union.
We are working on that.
I should like to say to Frau Gebhardt and Mr De Clercq who mentioned this that we are certainly working hard at realising the possibility of having a Community patent.
It is not an easy thing, principally because the European Patent Office is not a Community institution.
So what we want the European Patent Office to do is something on behalf of the European Commission while the Office itself is not a Community institution.
That presents us with certain legal problems and we are trying to solve them.
It is indeed true that the language problems are considerable.
The average cost of a patent is about EUR 30 000, much higher than in the United States, and that is because 40% of those costs are taken up by language problems - the translation costs - and we are trying to get to grips with that problem.
Lastly, it is the intention of the Commission to issue a document to substantiate the construction of a European patent before the summer and I look forward to entering into a dialogue with Parliament on the substance of that document.
Mr President, I just wanted some further clarification.
Mr Bolkestein, I am very sorry if you have not been listening very carefully or if the translation was not very precise, but I have not put forward a demand that cloning should be prohibited.
Not so.
Having kept a critical eye on the way in which the legislation relating to the directive on biotechnological inventions was developing, I am perfectly aware of what this contains.
I would merely ask you to be aware of this.
What I in fact said is that I should like absolute clarification that these are in fact the contents.
That is a quite different statement from the one you attributed to me.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Article 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.55 a.m. and resumed at 11.05 a.m.)
Vote
Mr President, I know that there are to be no votes on the opinions which have been submitted by the various committees.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities has tabled a special opinion.
I just want to point out that what is most important in this opinion is, of course, the view that proper resources should be set aside for mainstreaming.
A mistake has nonetheless crept into our opinion. I do not want there to be a mistake here, even if we are not voting on it.
The last part of section 4 of our opinion, following the words "Community action programmes should cooperate" , is to be deleted.
The Committee voted to remove this section, but it has nonetheless been included by mistake.
I want this part to be removed and I want to give notice of the fact now, before we proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0068/2000) by Mr Ferber, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the budget guidelines for the 2001 budgetary procedure: Section I - European Parliament, Section II - Council, Section IV - Court of Justice, Section V - Court of Auditors, Section VI - Economic and Social Committee, Section VII - Committee of the Regions, Section VIII - Ombudsman
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0289/2000) by Mrs Jackson and Mr Blokland, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on aeroplane hushkits
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on Mediterranean policy
Concerning Amendments Nos 4 and 5:
Mr President, the oral amendment which I am about to read out replaces Amendment No 4 and Amendment No 5.
There was consensus among all the groups tabling the joint motion.
It supplements Paragraph 16 and reads: "Favours the convening of a Euro-Mediterranean conference on agriculture, with the participation of representatives of the institutions, members of the agri-foodstuffs industry and representatives of farmers' and consumers' organisations" .
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Report (A5-0057/2000) by Mr Hernández Mollar, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on asylum-seekers and migrants: action plans for countries of origin or transit - High Level Working Group (C5-0159/1999 - C5-0160/1999 - C5-0161/1999 - C5-0162/1999 - C5-0163/1999 - C5-0164/1999 - C5-0165/1999 - C4-0133/1999 - 1999/2096(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0052/2000) by Mrs Klamt, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the implementation of measures to combat child sex tourism (COM(1999) 262 - C5-0096/1999 - 1999/2097(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0061/2000) by Mr MacCormick, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Commission Green Paper on liability for defective products (COM(1999) 396 - C5-0184/1999 - 1999/2158(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0078/2000) by Mr Turmes, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on electricity from renewable energy sources and the internal electricity market (SEC(1999) 470 - C5-0342/1999 - 2000/2002(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on the decision of the European Patent Office on the cloning of human beings
Concerning Amendment No 4:
Mr President, excuse me if I am a bit hoarse, but I have a cold.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has requested a split vote on this amendment.
I think that the first part of the amendment is uncontroversial, but there is a linguistic problem in the second part. I think it is a translation-related problem.
It was the intention of the European People' s Party not to open a new debate but merely to re-confirm what Parliament had already decided recently, for example in the context of the Fifth Framework Programme on Research or in that of the Tannert report on the specific Framework Programme on Research.
It is therefore important for us to adapt the German language version to the wording also chosen for the Fifth Framework Programme on Research.
In this case, the English text is the original, and the German should read 'verbrauchende Embryonenforschung' , which are the words also decided upon by Parliament for the Framework Programme on Research.
It is not, therefore, a question of tightening up Parliament' s position but of emphasising what we have already decided.
The German must therefore read 'verbrauchende Embryonenforschung' .
I just wanted to explain that my group will nevertheless be voting against this amendment, because I think that discussion of embryo research has no place here. We are therefore voting against the amendment, even with this correction.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Haug report (A5-0070/2000)
Mr President, I voted against the Haug report on the budget guidelines for the 2001 budgetary procedure for reasons which may seem futile to the other Members present, but which hold great importance for me, for I was elected to this Parliament to represent the Pensioners' Party and I intend to do everything possible, and the impossible as well, to draw attention to the requests, needs and requirements of the elderly.
There are approximately 120 million elderly people in Europe, most of whom receive a pension, although there are a few, less fortunate people who do not, but these guidelines make no provision whatsoever for a European Union policy for pensioners and the elderly.
This is why I oppose this procedure, and I hope that I will be able to improve conditions for pensioners and the elderly during the next few years.
Mr President, I have naturally voted for the Haug report on the budgetary guidelines, but I would particularly like to stress the welcome reinstatement of natural disasters, confirmed by this morning' s vote.
As I have said here several times, I do not think the European Union can want to make its presence felt and to be more visible to its people than it has been up to now, whilst, at the same time, turning its back on their difficulties and misfortunes when these occur.
So it is with great pleasure that I have voted for paragraphs 21 and 34.
My hope is that they will be implemented rapidly, particularly for the forestry sector, which is experiencing structural difficulties and has experienced a drastic reduction in supply.
I think that the Union' s natural role would be to dedicate itself to this, and I hope we can build on this report to make Parliament and the Commission aware of the need for intervention.
- (SV) We have voted against a number of points in Mrs Haug' s report on the guidelines for the 2001 budgetary procedure.
The biggest challenge confronting the European Union over the next few years is enlargement to include the countries in Eastern and Central Europe.
Enlargement will be an expensive business in many ways. It is therefore important that the EU should set aside large sums in this connection, and not only accession aid.
In spite of this, enlargement is not mentioned in Mrs Haug' s report.
Instead, "the social and cultural dimension of Europe" is chosen as the most important point to be taken up in the guidelines for the 2001 budget.
We think that the EU should devote its energies to those problems which the Member States cannot solve themselves, that is to say the cross-border issues.
Cultural policy and social policy are very important political areas but ought not, on the whole, to be subjects of common legislation.
Aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo is taken up in Mrs Haug' s report as another priority area, which is something we support wholeheartedly.
However, we think that the resources needed for Kosovo should be found from the aid given to tobacco cultivation and to other production in the context of the common agricultural policy.
As liberals, we believe that agricultural policy should be adapted to the market and made less bureaucratic.
If Parliament is serious about enlargement eastwards, efforts must be made to cut back considerably on the costs of agriculture.
All direct aid given to agricultural production ought to gradually be abolished.
The EU plays an important role when it comes to employment, especially through the single market.
We would nonetheless emphasise that unemployment cannot be reduced only by means of political decisions at European level.
We are convinced that measures in the Member States, such as reduced social costs, flexible labour law and a good business climate, are what lead to increased employment and dynamic development throughout the Union.
. (ES) I would like to congratulate Mrs Haug on her excellent work and say that I agree with her when she highlights job creation as a priority for the Union.
The Committee on Fisheries does not want more money.
We simply wish to be named in the guidelines, because what is not named does not exist, and fishing exists, and is even a common policy.
Fishing is crucial to maintaining employment and the economy in the peripheral European regions which depend on it.
This industry also generates numerous land-based jobs, in the processing industry and in the dockyards.
The cheapest jobs are those which do not have to be created because they have not already disappeared.
It is better to support activities that already create employment than to have to invest huge amounts, later on, in the creation of new industries.
We in the Committee on Fisheries believe that the international fisheries agreements deserve explicit budgetary support, so that the Community fleet may continue its activities and the economies of the fishing regions do not reach crisis point.
In the process of reaching an agreement we will therefore see to it that the Union' s support for fishing is consolidated and increased.
During the current budgetary procedure we will also highlight our concern that fishing resources be conserved and working and safety conditions in that industry improved.
The Haug report reveals that there is a serious risk that what happened before will be repeated in the 2001 budgetary procedure.
Strict compliance with the Stability Pact requires an approach involving budgetary restriction. This affects the commitment to the European Union' s traditional priorities and, in particular, to basic challenges such as combating unemployment, promoting economic and social cohesion, adequately preparing for enlargement and establishing the policy for cooperation that is so essential.
It is imperative that new priorities are given new financial resources.
In the current situation, the financing of Kosovo' s reconstruction and the Stability Pact for the Balkans requires a comprehensive review of the financial perspective.
Under no circumstances can the approach contained in the report of a cut, albeit fair, in all the budgetary categories be accepted in order to respond to the current requirements.
We do not agree with this approach and therefore cannot approve the report.
Ferber report (A5-0068/2000)
Mr President, I abstained from the vote on Mr Ferber' s report on the other sections of the 2001 budget because, although it was excellent, it does not focus sufficiently on reducing the costs of the bureaucratic machinery of the European Union, and of the European Parliament, in particular, in addition to that of the Commission.
There is too much staff-related expenditure.
The European Parliament' s bureaucracy is a steamroller which takes up too great a part of our all too modest economic means, and I have an albeit vague suspicion that this is partly responsible for the sluggishness of the European Union in financial matters as well.
Haug and Ferber reports (A5-0070 and 0068/2000)
The French Members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group reject the Haug and Ferber reports on the guidelines for the budgetary procedure. They reflect political choices our delegation finds unacceptable.
We condemn the priority accorded by the rapporteur to the financing of policies newly introduced in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group denounces the federalist integration promoted throughout this report, which calls for growing Community powers in justice and home affairs.
Our group likewise condemns the desire expressed by the alliance of the large Socialist, Christian Democrat and Conservative groups in the European Parliament to use agriculture, the appropriations under heading 1 of the financial perspective, as a source of financing for areas now falling within the remit of European Union 'foreign policy' .
We consider it iniquitous to seek to finance the reconstruction of Kosovo on the backs of the farmers, and unacceptable to try to make people believe the problem should be framed as a conflict of duty. Such trickery deserves to be denounced.
On the contrary, Europe must maintain agricultural spending and possibly moderate spending on other budget headings, where there are margins.
In fact everyone now agrees in acknowledging that the EUR 360 million sought for Kosovo for the year 2000 represents a sum, a godsend for some people, that this region of former Yugoslavia, with ever-growing centrifugal forces at work, is in no position to assimilate.
It can also be observed in this region of Europe that the donors other than the European Union countries, in their reluctance to shoulder their financial commitments, starting with the United States, are taking the view that the money is arriving too late and coordination is poor. And this is at a time when the Balkans is still a veritable powder keg where there is increasing evidence that trends are moving in the opposite direction to what we were hoping and the sound of tanks is more often heard than the sound of mechanical diggers.
Similarly, regardless of the substance of the agreement, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group denounces the rethink of last year' s Berlin Summit, represented by the ongoing demands for revision of the 2000-2006 financial perspective and the various headings, at a time when there are no precise figures for the European Commission' s ambitious programme for the Balkans (EUR 5.5 billion).
There are no justifiable grounds for this demand for revision of the financial perspective and, assuming that the 2001 budget is adopted with the maximum amounts authorised in Berlin, that would permit a 5-6% increase in the available sums.
It is right to oppose this poor solution and, acting responsibly, especially on behalf of the voters who gave us their support, we must certainly ensure that the budget for Europe remains in line with the evolution of national budgets, in particular as regards payment appropriations.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group is equally opposed, out of concern for consistency, to any annual financing of the EUR 5.5 billion sought for the Balkans by increasing the ceiling on external expenditure by Europe and lowering the ceilings for the agricultural headings, on the deceitful pretext that the appropriations would not be taken from agriculture, but that it would be appropriate to release margins for 2001 and 2002.
It should be remembered here that, in 2003, the mid-term analysis planned at the Berlin Summit in the context of Agenda 2000 will be known.
There is a great risk that, when the time comes, this dubious practice will be claimed by many as an acquired right, and it will therefore constitute an extremely dangerous precedent as far as the farmers of our countries are concerned.
The Commission' s figures for the Balkans are highly political and do not correspond to any specific study, while, for its part, the Council of Ministers thinks it is possible at the moment to finance the programmes and aid for the Balkans within the ceilings of heading 4: 'External actions' .
So, first of all, and with great urgency, indeed before the draft budget for 2001 appears at the end of April, we must demand and obtain from the European Commission precisely calculated estimates for real needs, as well as strict multiannual budgetary planning, respecting certain conditions.
It is unacceptable and irresponsible that, ten months after the end of the conflict, we still do not have any reliable estimates of the region' s needs.
In conclusion, let us bear in mind that the European Union' s budget for heading 4 on external actions is far from representing just the concerns of Europeans, concerns which do not seem to be reflected in the budgetary guidelines.
Taking natural disasters as an example, it is deplorable that there should no longer be specific reference to vital reforestation.
Thus, the importance of the position of France, the country which suffered the most during the recent storms, is being dramatically played down, and likened to other situations with which it has nothing in common.
Resolution on "hushkits" (B5-0289/2000)
- I voted against the motion for a resolution because the reference in Article 1 to 're-certified aircraft with low by-pass ratios' would effectively put an end to a project to re-engine aircraft in an unemployment blackspot of West Wales which could potentially create 400 jobs.
This is because the engines which the company concerned plans to use have a by-pass ratio of less than three and so would be excluded from EU airspace under the Regulation as it stands.
Article 2(2) excludes from the scope of the Regulation only aircraft which have been completely re-engined 'with engines having a by-pass ratio of three or more' .
This is in spite of the fact that the engines in question would easily meet all noise and emissions standards.
Aircraft noise is not determined by engine by-pass ratio alone, and I believe that aircraft noise should be measured by the actual noise made during take-off, fly-past and landing as is the case under the Chicago Convention.
The aim of the regulation is to reduce noise pollution around Community airports, which are generally close to the Union' s economic centres, hence in highly urbanised zones.
This regulation provides for the banning, as from May 2000, of certain noisy aircraft equipped with noise reduction devices known as 'hushkits' .
The civil aviation industry is experiencing annual growth of some 6% and this is expected to double in 10 years!
This has to be accompanied by a progressive reduction in noise ascribable to aircraft.
The noise issue is equally topical in American airports.
Stricter rules on aircraft noise must be established at international level, within the ICAO. That is stressed in the resolution.
In 1999, the regulation was suspended for a year. It will be implemented in May with a large number of exemptions.
The latest Euro-American talks suggest this conflict is not about to be settled. On top of everything else, the Americans have lodged an appeal with the ICAO.
The American industry exerts enormous pressure and the situation is distorted by the prospect of the elections.
The United States' position on the regulation is ambiguous; in fact, although the United States government is in favour of ending the litigation, American manufacturers are totally against the standards set out in the regulation which would penalise them.
But how can anyone defend such exemptions on the pretext that there is disagreement?
Did we tell French and Belgian chocolate manufacturers the directive would be suspended or there would be exemptions? Have we told hunters the 'birds' directive is on the back-burner or exemptions can apply because there is disagreement?
What is the point of a legal text, months of consultation, drafting, work in committee, if it is not to be implemented?
Is the European Union really just there to serve the multinationals and big business?
This is not a lot of fuss about nothing.
The Union should not be afraid of American threats and retaliatory measures.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy unanimously supported the European Commission by adopting a draft resolution rejecting the indefinite postponement of implementation and calling on the United States not to use retaliatory measures.
A strong message is needed so that the international community can get the measure of the strength of European convictions in the battle against noise.
Resolution on Mediterranean policy
What you call a European Union 'Mediterranean policy' merely consists of creating the political conditions to allow the large industrial conglomerates of Europe to take advantage of the low wages, natural resources and government contracts of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean, and secure new outlets for their products.
That 'cooperation' is the cooperation of the wolf with the lamb, and the poor majority of the population only get the dubious advantage of being exploited for the benefit not just of local potentates, but of European businesses too.
For two centuries France' s Mediterranean policy consisted of the colonisation of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. Italy' s was the occupation of Libya, and Britain' s the shameless looting of Egypt.
Voices have been rightly raised in this very House against the dictatorship that holds sway in Tunisia and the one that continues to rule in Morocco, even if it is more moderate.
So why do we forget the material, military and diplomatic support France has given those regimes? Why do we forget France' s responsibility for the war it waged in Algeria and for the tragic situation that still exists in that country today?
Our solidarity is with the working classes of the Mediterranean region and that means we are opposed to the cooperation between owners and rulers promoted by this resolution.
Although the Barcelona Conference gave Mediterranean policy new impetus by establishing the Euro-Mediterranean partnership between the European Union and twelve Mediterranean countries, the actual achievements have proved rather disappointing.
The main reason lies in the fact that the European Union and the Member States neglect North-South relations!
This contrasts with the attention and financial aid devoted to the CEECs.
Far be it from me to suggest abandoning aid and support to Eastern European countries, but it is clear that we should rapidly correct this imbalance.
The European Union must start facing South!
The Mediterranean is a sea internal to the European Union. So it is strategically important to the stability of our continent!
It would be a sign of irresponsibility if we did not take account of the needs and expectations of the Mediterranean countries.
The lack of progress constitutes a factor for potential crisis in this very sensitive area.
In both political and economic terms, the European Union must invest more and better in the Mediterranean area!
It undertook to do so by signing the Barcelona Declaration, because the Euro-Mediterranean partnership was made up of three sections, a political and security section, an economic and financial section and a social, cultural and human section.
It has to be acknowledged that the first section has not progressed much and political dialogue has remained virtually a dead letter.
So we must relaunch that dialogue.
The political changes that have occurred in several countries of the region represent an unprecedented opportunity although there are still difficulties.
The Charter for Peace and Stability, for which guidelines were drawn up in Stuttgart last year, may constitute a good way of giving a new fillip to this political dialogue.
But it will remain a declaration of intent unless there is commitment from the Mediterranean partners and the European Union to meet regularly around the negotiating table.
The effort has been focused on the economic section, where progress has been made, mainly thanks to the MEDA programme, the partnership' s principle financial instrument.
This programme has facilitated the funding of bilateral action by the EU/Mediterranean partners.
But it has virtually chosen to overlook interregional cooperation.
That is an area which must be developed.
Creating regional integration would guarantee the economic prosperity of this area, strengthening political stability and ensuring social development.
Improvements in living conditions would make it possible to contain the fundamentalist trends for which poverty is the ideal breeding ground.
Another consequence would be to reduce the pressure of migration.
In conclusion, the European Union must do everything possible to encourage the development of that regional integration which, in the long term, will maintain privileged links, still to be defined, with the European Union.
I can very well imagine that this model could also be transposed to the East to create regional integration around Russia.
I know such aspirations may seem ambitious, but they do at least represent a global and long-term vision for this policy, which is perhaps what is lacking at the present time.
That is, of course, what I said during the main debate.
Since the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership on 27 and 28 November 1995 in Barcelona, the political context has changed.
The partnership has failed to meet the expectations raised by the countries participating in the conference.
We are anxious to preserve the Mediterranean Basin as an area of trade and dialogue, and we want the Barcelona Process relaunched without ill-considered intervention by the European Union.
In fact, the latter must take action to achieve a cultural, social and human partnership.
There are still many social challenges to be faced.
The implementation of an economic partnership is especially vital for agriculture.
The European Union must provide compensation for the crucial difficulties in this sector, notably as regards fruit and vegetables, and wine-growing.
The European Union must consider the island regions of the Mediterranean, particularly in terms of fisheries and agriculture.
We are hoping for synergy in the coordination of the interregional and transnational cooperation programmes, and for coordination between the Interreg and MEDA programmes.
Finally, would it not be appropriate to arrange a Euro-Mediterranean conference on agriculture and fisheries involving the representatives of local and regional communities as well as professional organisations? Our reluctance to participate in the joint motion for a resolution and the vote is based on our rejection of a situation where the European Union would replace the Member States, come what may, in Mediterranean policy.
In fact, Member States are directly affected by this policy.
The European Union has a duty to be extremely vigilant about imports of agricultural products which threaten to imperil the whole of European production.
Hernández Mollar report (A5-0057/2000)
Mr President, the action plans on asylum and migration, focusing on the problems encountered by the countries of origin and transit of asylum seekers and migrants, seem to us an excellent initiative in principle.
So we are astonished at the severity of the European Parliament' s report and the general tone of yesterday' s debate.
The fact is, to have any impact on migratory flows, it is necessary to act on their indirect causes.
So the action plans aim to draw up a list of problems for each target country, whether they be related to the political institutions, human rights, the economy or the government, and propose an integrated approach to the countries of the Union and to third countries, combining development aid, legal measures or foreign policy actions.
So, in our opinion, it is an intelligent exercise, and the kind of thing which should be done more often at European level.
Why, then, are so many Members critical? First of all, because in their view this intelligent exercise is taking place in an excessively intergovernmental context and the High Level Working Group responsible for drawing up the plans is made up of Commission representatives and also - I shudder in relating - national civil servants.
But, in our view, while consultation is useful at European level, it is precisely this presence of national civil servants, and the essential inclusion of the Member States in decision making which is the necessary condition of effective action plans
The second criticism is that the action plans are too repressive because they contain measures to combat uncontrolled immigration and they advocate an extension of the readmission agreements with third countries.
But that is not a defect for us; on the contrary, it is a good idea.
Indeed, it is an absolutely indispensable aspect of the plans.
It makes no sense to want everything and its opposite at the same time.
Mr President, I voted against the Hernández Mollar report on asylum seekers and migrants, not because I am opposed to an action plan for receiving and supporting those who are less fortunate than ourselves and who are forced to emigrate and request asylum from countries near or far - for I am strongly in favour of such a measure - but because this report does not place sufficient emphasis on the procedures for distinguishing between genuine and false asylum seekers, for the latter are, sadly, nothing but disruptive elements who damage those who have a genuine, practical need for asylum and assistance, and who must therefore receive it.
I abstained on the final vote on this report on the basis of my speech on Wednesday evening.
I am not in any way against the intentions or sentiments of the report but solely in respect of the action plan on Sri Lanka.
I believe that it is inadequate and that there is far too little attention paid to the need to seek a political solution in Sri Lanka.
It is all too apparent that we cannot rely on the Sri Lankan government to give independent access to politicians or journalists to the war zones, nor for impartial evidence on what is really happening regarding human rights abuses and allegations of torture and similar practices by, or with the tacit approval of, the Sri Lankan government.
The war in Sri Lanka, President, is one that neither side can win and unless and until there are peace negotiations there will always be applications for asylum seekers in the west, almost all of whom will be Tamils.
The European Parliament I believe has a role to play in arguing that the European Union must bring pressure to bear on the Sri Lankan government to seek peace.
Europe can be the peace intermediary to bring such a peaceful solution to the island of Sri Lanka and peace for the Tamil and Sinhalese communities and others in Sri Lanka.
On the pretext of contributing to building a European immigration and asylum policy, this resolution' s standpoint has nothing to do with freedom for the nationals of poor countries to travel and possibly settle in Europe, but is all about bolstering the slave trade which involves regulating the flow of immigrants as a function of demand from the manufacturing companies of Europe.
When it comes to the right of asylum, statements of principle are one thing, the reality of the situation is quite another.
In France, for example, only 2,000 of 7,000 asylum applications have been accepted.
The rejected asylum seekers become stateless people, victims of the open season on migrants, which is no less disgraceful for being regulated.
And what price the subtle distinctions in the report between 'immigration' and 'asylum proper' , when social reality means that a surreal economic organisation condemns millions of people to torture or death by hunger as surely as in dictators' dungeons?
The only reason we are not voting against this text is that we refuse to be associated with the extreme right and their despicable ranting.
But our institutions are organically incapable of eliminating the causes which force tens of millions of men, women and children into exile across the world, fleeing oppression or destitution, because that would require society to share the wealth it produces equally, instead of leaving that to the discretion of a few thousand financial groups and their shareholders.
In the last half century, after several centuries' pause, massive migrations have started again on the planet.
From south to north, from east to west, across Europe, these ceaseless waves of migrants destabilise the economic, budgetary, social, urban, religious and cultural balance.
Security, the first fundamental public freedom, is no longer guaranteed in European towns, the scene, since the 1970s, of drugs, muggings on trains, in the streets, on public transport, cars set alight, schools vandalised, murderous new crimes, lawlessness in the suburbs, town centres emptying and fear seeping in and taking over.
Observation of the facts shows that these two phenomena, migration and insecurity, are linked in time and space and involve the same persons. It can therefore be legitimately concluded that this is a case of cause and effect.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam, Europe has been in charge of the regulation of asylum, refugees and migrants. So what is Europe doing?
Europe is drawing up plans and developing measures, 108 to be precise, with unspecified funding of course.
Faced with a planetary phenomenon of migration, we counter it with plans, budgets and information campaigns. No doubt if Rome, Byzantium, Spain and Europe had had such plans, then Alaric, Attila, the Saracens, Tamburlaine, the Ottomans, the sack of Rome, the fall of Constantinople, the raids on the Mediterranean coasts and centuries of fear could all have been prevented.
What it all adds up to is that, once again, the decision makers of the European Union are not dealing with either the causes or the scope of the problem.
In the end, if there is a migration towards the European continent, that is because this continent is emptying fast.
Italy, for example, will lose 17 million people from the workforce between now and 2050, and you are happy to conclude, along with the UN population division, that 159 million non-Europeans will have to be imported between now and 2050.
But between now and 2050, two generations could be born here, in Europe, with the right demographic policy for the same budgetary cost as has been allocated to importing non-Europeans.
With population growth relaunched, Europe would create the internal market, the new demand and the additional dynamism needed to resolve at a stroke the stupid problem of unemployment created artificially by a policy of recession, immigration and ruinous taxation.
But for that to happen, we would have to deal with causes and the European Union is all about treating symptoms, prescribing palliatives and nursing care for an extremely elderly continent which is being allowed to sink into an Asian and African demographic lagoon.
Klamt report (A5-0052/2000)
Mr President, we have naturally supported Mrs Klamt' s report because of our desire and our duty to protect our children and everyone else in an extremely vulnerable position.
The report is also a good text in that respect.
However, after the speeches other Members have made about the necessary and legitimate condemnation of child prostitution, those who organise it and those who make use of it, I want to talk about the general phenomenon of prostitution.
In the wake of Mrs Gröner and Mrs Roure, who tackled this phenomenon, I want to mention the upsurge in prostitution in Strasbourg and Brussels during this Parliament' s part-sessions.
Of course, our institution as such is not responsible for this evil.
All the same, the coincidence is distressing.
Tolerating prostitution, closing one' s eyes to the shop windows, right here in Brussels, where prostitutes are on show like so much merchandise, as if this were a commercial activity which could be listed in a trading register, is ignoble and also irresponsible on the part of elected representatives responsible for the welfare of the community.
We can hardly be surprised that certain individuals, at best psychologically weak, at worst deliberately criminal, lose all their moral principles and commit reprehensible acts not because of any geographic remoteness or cultural difference, but because, in their own countries, those moral principles have disintegrated.
It is not just children' s human dignity that must be defended, even though their natural vulnerability justifies our affording them major protection.
That dignity must be defended and promoted for each and every one of us.
If dignity does not belong to everyone then it ceases to exist.
The struggle against the scourge of prostitution will only be really effective when we stop talking about ourselves in one way and about other people in another way, and when we apply to ourselves the principles and measures we legitimately want to see applied elsewhere.
Selling one' s body to survive is often the outcome of a desperate situation which we must remedy by ambitious policies to develop and support charitable organisations involved in bringing up children.
Exploiting that economic and social misery, as pimp or client, is a criminal act and that is how we must approach it.
The Klamt report is perhaps not sufficiently ambitious, but at least it has the merit of going in the right direction.
Mr President, I voted for the Klamt report, not only because I am in favour of any measure which contributes to eliminating child sex tourism, but also because I want to provide encouragement for more to be done.
I would argue that the report still lacks something, namely greater focus on procedures for punishing the citizens of the European Union States, who, sadly, are the main perpetrators of this abomination.
We must not forget that there are many Europeans who feed this scourge of the new millennium
The text we are debating today certainly affects us more than most since it is about protecting children against sex tourism.
The European Commission has drawn up a report of the measures which have been taken in this field.
In view of the results, it is clear that the European Union and its Member States must increase their efforts to combat sex tourism and the exploitation of children.
The Member States must pass extra-territorial legislation allowing them to carry out investigations, prosecute and punish any individual guilty of crimes committed abroad and linked to child sex abuse.
We must go even further and establish measures such as a coherent child protection policy by creating a new general legal base in the context of the next revision of the Treaty, with adequate Community funding.
I also think it is essential to incorporate the rights of the child into the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights.
In conjunction with this, we must take action at grass-roots level by encouraging travel agencies, tour operators, transport and advertising companies to set up self-regulation systems designed to combat child sex tourism, and by creating free helplines for children in distress in every Member State.
Exemplary penalties must be imposed on the people guilty of such monstrous behaviour.
The fact is, when people are in a foreign country, in an unfamiliar region, they can act in complete anonymity and convince themselves that child abuse is less reprehensible in a different social and cultural context, and that the moral principles in force in their own country do not apply.
That is intolerable!
We must not be blind to the fact that the Internet facilitates these 'practices' .
This is why Parliament calls on the Commission to assess the link between child pornography on the Internet and the growth in sex tourism, and to propose practical measures against the phenomenon!
It is also essential to recognise that prostitution in general in the developing countries is very often due to poverty, affecting children, women and men.
We must also fight on those grounds because there will always be unscrupulous people around to exploit human poverty.
I want to end by reaffirming that children, this world' s future, are one of the most vulnerable groups in the population, with specific needs that have to be protected.
We must never forget that every individual' s childhood and the particular circumstances of their family and social circle in large measure determines their adult life.
Consequently, all the European Union and Member State institutions must be inspired in their action by the protection of children' s rights as recognised in the United Nations Convention of 20 November 1989.
I am voting with total conviction in favour of Ewa Klamt' s report on combating child sex tourism.
Amendment No 1, which defines the child as any person under the age of 18 years, seems to me essential to the consistency of this report. The report rightly places this form of slavery in the general context of cross-border organised crime.
That means the fight we are engaged in here cannot be dissociated from the problem of the trade in human beings and child pornography.
Faced with the exponential development of the latter on the Internet, Amendment No 2 is essential.
It is all the more necessary to criminalise these forms of child slavery because there is a line of thought seeking to gain currency today for the idea that 'sex workers' are workers like any others.
But a fundamental boundary has been overstepped when sexually exploited children are also represented as 'workers' .
In fact, this comes down to accepting the phenomenon of child sex tourism, on the pretext that the social and cultural context is different in countries where it is not unusual to work as a little slave from the age of five.
To stop that kind of sideways drift, the report rightly recommends supporting the draft optional protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and pornography portraying minors, which would be attached to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Criminal law must remain within the Member States' area of competence but, to be effective, the struggle against organised crime undeniably involves strengthening judicial cooperation in criminal cases, on the basis of extending the Europol mandate.
Amendment No 3 broadens the terms of this measure.
The creation of a European observatory for missing children would seem to respond to the disturbing situations in the candidate countries and the vulnerability of some young people in our own countries (asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, young people from broken homes and marginalised families, and so on).
Let us try to look out for the future of these child victims, not just for the psychological consequences but also for the medical effects.
The sex industry destroys the prospects of children who pick up the AIDS virus and sexually transmissible diseases.
These sick children cannot even return to their families, which are just as crushed by poverty and social or ethnic discrimination.
Any paedophiles found guilty must be banned from activities involving contact with minors and we must crack down hard on them, as called for in Amendment No 9.
Mrs Klamt has presented a good report today.
I am delighted Mr Marchiani' s amendments reaffirming the criminal nature of child sex tourism have been incorporated but, at the same time, I am disappointed at the rejection of other amendments tabled by my colleague which were intended to strengthen the principles set out in the text, without altering its general meaning.
Obviously, this form of 'tourism' is a crime. How else could we, as parents, especially mothers, and elected representatives, doubly responsible for the continuity of our societies, regard these acts, all the more heinous because they are committed against the weakest of all?
But should we be astonished at this phenomenon when, at the same time, the development of prostitution, more generally, does not cause offence? How can we criminalise the perverts who go to the ends of the earth to violate children without, at the same time, condemning the pimps and clients who exploit girls from the East attracted to our countries by lies, and even by force?
This is an area where double standards must apply least of all.
Belgian society is currently being rocked by paedophile trials, and similar proceedings often go on in our own countries.
The poverty of some parts of the world is certainly used by irresponsible adults to try to explain the unjustifiable sexual exploitation of children. Nevertheless, the permissiveness of our societies, the libertarian views some people express, even in this House, are undoubtedly the essential root of this evil, with geographical remoteness just an illusory and gratuitous excuse for the depraved.
We cannot rejoice at so-called taboos collapsing, and then lament crimes which are merely the consequence of the disappearance of rules that are natural to all social life.
We must condemn these practices. Our respective states must take the necessary measures to prosecute and sentence those found guilty.
But back home, in our own countries and towns, we must combat the sexual exploitation of children, which is only the most despicable form of sexual exploitation of any human being.
The dignity of the individual, of the weakest in particular and of all in general, must be our guideline, in this area as in any other.
- I wholeheartedly support Ewa Klamt' s report on the fight against child exploitation.
The report focuses specifically on combating child sex tourism but, as we all know, the issue is much broader than this.
Clearly, with new technology and globalisation, child pornography on the Internet, in particular, is an ever-growing international problem.
Technology is proceeding faster than individual governments can legislate.
Europe can act by strengthening child protection legislation and ensuring adequate child protection, particularly in some of the applicant countries, such as Romania and Hungary.
At present, it seems that animals have more rights than children in Europe.
I believe we must be vigilant and ensure strong, effective measures are put in place to protect the rights of children in e-Europe.
Progress is, of course, being made.
More and more European money is being given to combat child sex tourism and to increase public awareness about child protection, with a EUR 1 million separate budget line, and the STOP and DAPHNE programmes.
But whilst I welcome the positive noises coming from Brussels, it is not enough.
Mr President, I am not calling for a nanny-state approach, but simply that, in a civilised society, we recognise the right of children to their childhood.
That is too precious to become the plaything of wealthy, western tourists.
MacCormick report (A5-0061/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the MacCormick report on liability for defective products because 'it is meet and right so to do' .
However, allow me to say that it does not go far enough for me or the Pensioners' Party.
The European Union must do more to enforce liability for damages suffered by citizens, particularly the weaker members of society, caused by the defective products of public administration.
How often do European pensioners receive their pensions on time?
How often do widows and elderly people receive the correct allowance?
The States are guilty of such offences and should be held liable.
Since we punish private individuals and make them pay damages, why should we not exact just as much payment, and I would advocate greater penalties, when the damages are caused by public authorities?
Turmes report (A5-0078/2000)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, environmental protection is a prestigious field of politics, and rightly so.
However, it is precisely the subject of renewable energy sources that must be freed from the burden of ideology and wishful thinking, as well as from the material misuse of energy sources themselves.
The present report on the subject of renewable energy sources does precisely the opposite, and that is why I have rejected it.
What, for example, is to be made of the much-touted benefits of wind power, something I consider to be an economic and ecological mistake?
No appreciable percentage of an ultramodern industrial state' s energy needs can be met from wind power.
We are still talking about mere thousandths of the overall requirement.
Last year in Germany, two billion kilowatt hours were generated through wind power.
That is just 0.8% of the total requirement of 2,500 billion kilowatts, and even that has cost the taxpayer DM 3 billion in grants.
Clearly, then, the future does not lie down this particular road, and we should therefore turn back from this economic and ecological blind alley and find ourselves a new direction.
Mr President, I read the Turmes report on electricity very carefully and I voted for it.
How could anybody fail to support any initiative which stresses the importance of electricity, of which we are all aware? However, I have taken the floor to explain my reasons for voting in this way because I wish to say that, once again, there is something missing.
The Turmes report lacks a recommendation to provide the most vulnerable citizens of our Union, who have the lowest economic means, not with electricity at a reduced price, but with free electricity.
Nowadays, it is impossible to live without electricity.
Electricity is like the water we drink and the air we breathe.
Do we pay for the air we breathe? Then we should not have to pay for electricity either if we do not have the means to do so.
- (SV) Regarding paragraphs 11-16 concerning supports to renewable energy sources, we would provide the following clarification.
We want to promote the development of renewable energy sources but believe that this should not be done by means of direct subsidies but, instead, through the use of various financial instruments of control, for example higher tax on fossil fuels, environmental charges and stricter application of the polluter-pays principle.
In addition, support ought to be given to research and development projects for the promotion of renewable energy sources.
The final text of Mr Turmes' report is bound to disturb anyone committed to a rational energy policy based on environmental conservation as the vital imperative.
Of course, there is no problem with the general aims of the report. The current situation and its share of disasters now regularly oblige us to recognise the importance of what is at stake, and there is no difficulty at this time in making fishermen, oyster farmers and other operators on the French coast see the advantages of doing away with an energy policy whose conditions require unregulated rusty boats to transport carcinogenic oil waste under flags of convenience.
At that point, however, under the dual influence of the compromises so dear to this House and the environmentalist creed which takes off from confirmed observations into flights of utopian fancy, Mr Turmes report becomes a truly labyrinthine system, producing absolutely everything but the simple promotion of renewable energies.
So we will pass over in silence, out of charity, the side-effects of the rapporteur' s proposal for the creation of a tax on CO2 emissions, which highlights the environmentally-friendly nature of nuclear energy and how 'clean' it is, thus contributing to the preservation of the ozone layer. We are delighted at this possible interpretation, but we doubt whether that was your intention.
But, on the other hand, we must emphasise that from your first paragraph onwards you are proposing nothing less than the creation of a European tax. The adoption of such a measure would be regarded as creating an extremely serious precedent by anyone opposed to a standardised European taxation system.
You ingenuously demand the uniform application of Community guidelines on state aid, with all Member States and all energy subject to the same provisions. You hope thereby eventually, well, as soon as possible, really, to impose not just common but identical energy policy on Northern Finland, Central Spain, the Southern Alps and the outermost regions of the Union.
It is symbolic, and really rather distressing, that the only amendment tabled at the sitting emphasises the specific nature of island situations, proof of the lack of discernment to which your frenzy to impose your idea of energy policy drives you.
But your egalitarian fancy turns into doctrinaire blindness when you express the wish to see restrictive targets imposed on the Member States, supported by sanctions if these targets are not achieved. This type of challenge is not appropriate in an area which has not yet officially ceased regarding the Member States as independent nations, freely implementing policies of their own choice.
You have the merit of having shown your hand, although in a rather peremptory way, by affirming that the Member States recognise that it is necessary to promote renewable sources of energy as a priority.
We believe it is indeed necessary to promote these renewable energy sources, but that the priority is to draw up an overall energy plan which treats existing sources with some respect and, in particular, includes the adaptations of nuclear infrastructure needed for greater safety. Because, actually, its total eradication, which you seem to be so keen on, is impossible without exclusively handing over seven-tenths of the surface of the planet to the development of the replacement energies, as you define them.
That simple observation is all it takes to condemn a text where good intentions are not enough to mask federalist logic and a dangerous lack of realism.
Resolution on the cloning of human beings
Mr President, we agreed with many points in the motion for a resolution, for example with the proposal that the European Parliament should submit a complaint to the Patent Office, but also with the criticism of the structures of the European Patent Office.
However, we were very divided when it came to the vote.
I, for example, voted for the resolution because, for me, it sent out important signals concerning human dignity.
Many in the group - quite rightly, too, I think - abstained from voting because most of the amendments of the Group of the European People' s Party were adopted.
I think it was the wish of the Group of the European People' s Party to attempt to transform this motion for a resolution into an advert for the patenting directive.
They did not succeed, but they have nonetheless weakened the resolution.
However, I am confident that the European Parliament will stop deceiving itself before long, by which I mean deceiving itself that the directive on patenting prohibits the patenting of human genes or parts of the human genetic make-up.
That is unfortunately not the case.
There is absolutely no point in burying one' s head in the sand and always maintaining the opposite of what is in fact the case, on the principle that the more you insist on something, the closer it comes to becoming a reality.
Contrary to what Parliament believes, this patent is no isolated case.
For years, the European Parliament has not patented human genes where they originate, in the body.
However, the patenting of human genes and parts of the human genetic make-up still goes on.
This is an affront to human dignity and also signifies a commercialisation of the human body.
I was delighted to see that both the European and the German federations of medical practitioners are so clear-sighted about the fact and have also warned that research might be impeded by the patenting of genes.
It is also nonsense and self-deluding to maintain that the directive on patenting would prohibit this.
I think this very case has shown that we need to revise the directive on patenting and that, above all, we need a moratorium on the patenting of human genes and parts of the human genetic make-up, for I believe that, with the granting of the present patent, the ethical and social consequences have become more than clear.
Mr President, I very much regret, also on behalf of my group, that a minority has succeeded in introducing extraneous ideological factors into the resolution concerning necessary changes to the way in which patent law keeps pace with biotechnology.
This neither helps clarify patent law in the European Union nor makes for better and urgently needed protection against the rampant commercialisation of the building blocks of life.
On the contrary.
In its current form, the adopted text further reduces the minimum level of protection provided under the 1998 directive on bio-patents.
In this way, there is a growing danger that the genetic inheritance of mankind will be taken from the community as a whole and made into a profitable commodity for the few.
In order to counter this danger, my group and I have voted in such a way as to reject any elements which have nothing to do with patent protection for biotechnological inventions.
In the end, we have voted as a unit against the resolution.
That does not prevent me and my group from campaigning, in the future too, for a situation in which ethical limits upon medical research and therapy are all complied with.
It is human dignity which provides the decisive standard.
- We have had a lengthy debate in this house on the patenting of biotechnology.
I myself, together with other Green deputies, warned of the consequences at the time.
Specifically, I warned that to make patents on human genes or part of human genes would jeopardise the freedom of research and impede the progress of medicine.
Genetic information can only be discovered, it cannot be invented.
Commercialisation of the knowledge of the human genome, which has been accumulated by research in many parts of the world, would jeopardise the medical application of this important scientific knowledge about the human body and its functions.
The human genome and its sequences should not be patentable.
The granting of this patent by the European Patent Office is deeply shocking and must be revoked.
Because we have no faith in the drug companies which are more interested in profits than in people, or, unfortunately, in certain researchers and doctors who are wedded to their logic, we must obviously agree with the spirit of the (new) Amendment No 3b, rejecting any intervention in the human germline and any cloning of human beings.
Our vote against human cloning is primarily intended to express our lack of confidence in the present economic and social organisation, certainly not our rejection of science and its possibilities.
We are not in principle opposed to intervention in the human germline for people who want to have children without risking malformation, any more than we are opposed to cloning with a view to developing human tissues intended for grafting.
Such techniques would undeniably represent progress for humanity, as would many others still to come, if they were not led astray, as now, by the lure of profit, but were used in an aware and disinterested spirit of humanity.
- My vote in this matter is in support of the need to ensure that the European Patent Office improves its procedures to prevent any patent being used in human cloning.
The University of Edinburgh' s application for this patent has nothing to do with cloning (cloning was considered impossible when the patent was filed!)
It is established and legitimate practice in both academic and biopharmaceutical research to genetically manipulate human cells in tissue culture.
This has been done for many years and is a major method of learning how genes and cells function. It bears no relation to genetic manipulation of people or embryos.
It is misleading to suggest that the object of this patent is to genetically manipulate humans.
The University of Edinburgh have indicated their willingness to cooperate with any suitable modification of the patent.
It think it should be made clear that the potential application of this patent in human cells is to guide the production of particular cells that could be useful in transplantation therapy for conditions such as Parkinson' s disease, strokes, diabetes and heart failure.
This is what the Edinburgh research is about.
- (SV) On 8 December 1999, the European Patent Office approved 'by mistake' Patent No EP 69 53 51 concerning the genetic manipulation of human cells and embryos.
As a Swedish Social Democratic Member of the European Parliament, I have supported that resolution which now very firmly repudiates the European Patent Office' s decision, a decision which is contrary to people' s moral concepts and to EU and national legislation concerning patent law which applies within the European Union.
By means of this explanation of vote, I want to express my anger and very deep disappointment at the fact that the European Patent Office can deal with a question about life itself in such a totally and indefensibly careless and negligent way.
At the same time, I presume that the European Patent Office as an authority, and its representatives personally, are drawing the necessary conclusions from what has happened.
This totally unacceptable decision on a patent concerning the genetic manipulation of human cells and embryos must consequently be rescinded and revoked as soon as possible, and this in order to protect life, the greatest and most sacred gift we have.
- I would like to first congratulate those who have drafted and voted on Directive 98/44/EC which is a step forward in the protection of the human being.
Unfortunately, companies have already been developing and patenting cloning techniques.
While they state that they support the ban on 'reproductive cloning' , they have already patented and commercialised human closed cells in order to treat age-related and degenerative diseases.
A patent for these techniques has been granted in the UK since August of 1995.
While I understand the argument that bona fide cloning experimentation may contribute to scientific advances which would alleviate human suffering, I must point out that there exists a loophole for the totally unacceptable usage of the human embryo at the stage of stem cells, cultures 'out of their natural environment' .
Indeed, this experimentation, under the guise of 'therapeutic cloning' is already patented, and the object of ongoing research.
In light of this reality, I would ask the Commission to issue a particular reference to the patenting of the human embryo at the stage of stem cells.
Scientific research is now doing more than explore and analyse the world, it is changing it.
The Patent office has acknowledged a 'linguistic' mistake which does not seem to be entirely corroborated by Article 11 of the description of the intervention.
A mistake like that becomes symbolic, a sort of Freudian slip, and it has impelled us today to hold this fundamental debate on cloning, certainly, but above all on whether the living organism should be patented.
Soon we will be cloning our pets. Just recently there was the statement by Bill Clinton and Tony Blair on free access to the genetic heritage of human beings, plants, animals and genes have been patented, and Craig Venter claims to own 97% of the human genome.
GM corn, manipulation of the living organism, transplanting animal organs into human beings - we are entering unknown territory and there are great fears we must confront. Where will it end?
Why should we put our trust in science alone in this new context? The issues and debates we face are increasingly complex and politicians will soon have to be multilingual and multicultural scientific experts as well, if they want to understand and not accept the word of experts as gospel.
As elected representatives and citizens, we are outpaced by issues where the scientific component is too strong.
Science and the experts are suffering the consequences of serious crises (for instance, mad cow disease) and indeed the implications of crises to come, because they cannot tell us what the results of their interventions will be: dissemination of GMOs in the environment, manipulation of the living organism, genetic manipulation.
Science itself seems outpaced by the onward rush of sorcerer' s apprentices with no longer any taboos, moral boundaries or ethics.
Their research laboratories, which long ago became ivory towers, are increasingly surrounded by the business offices which are proliferating in this new biological El Dorado between knowledge and profit.
There is plenty of money at stake.
Will the political authorities have the power to regulate this new market and ensure that the ethical dimension is respected in genetics? Or will we soon find ourselves in the kind of world depicted in that excellent film 'Gattaca' ?
It is not enough for the Patent Office to acknowledge a mistake and make its excuses. There are so many uncertainties at the legal and moral level, about the future acceptability of patents applied for, which are currently in the thousands.
The debate about the moral boundaries of biotechnology and how to control them has begun.
Categories of 'forbidden knowledge' must certainly be created but without making the mistake of those who condemned Copernicus, Harvey (the heart is not the repository of the soul, but a large organ), or Jenner (the smallpox vaccine).
That concludes the vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12.40 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 30 March 2000.
Mr Andrews, there is of course no need to start a debate on the subject.
I should just like to point out that in a few moments the House will be voting on whether to add another item to the 'Human Rights' section and one of the proposals made by two groups is specifically to do with the problem of the famine in Ethiopia.
Thank you, Mr Imbeni, for your extremely kind words.
I would like to tell all the Members of Parliament who attended this moving and very important ceremony how well I believe we all represented the European Parliament, and I know that none of the participants failed to notice our attendance in large numbers.
I believe it was very important for this House.
Thank you, Mr Imbeni, for your comments.
Madam President, if I have been informed correctly, the Council has postponed its statement on Iraq and it will not now be made this week.
Would it be possible for you to ask the Council to make a statement on Ethiopia in place of the statement on Iraq?
This point would then be filled, depending, of course, on whether the Council is able to oblige.
Mr Hänsch, we shall deal with this point when we come to the draft agenda in a few moments, and we shall make a decision at that time as to how to handle the situation.
Disciplinary procedures? I do not think so, but I do promise to consider very carefully the comments you have made regarding both the no-smoking areas and attitudes towards the ushers.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, reading the international press is an interesting activity should one wish to know how certain MEPs keep themselves occupied here.
Most of the time, the press reports are read with a certain element of interest, fascination or surprise, bearing in mind that the European Parliament is a House which comprises many chambers. One can form one' s own opinion and keep quiet.
However, there was one incident last week about which we cannot keep quiet any longer.
During an outing as part of his election campaign, a prominent Member of this House, Mr Berlusconi, thought it necessary to make extremely hurtful jokes - they were not even remarks - about people dying of the terrible disease of AIDS.
You will have to forgive me if I tell you what Mr Berlusconi said, but I think it is difficult to judge if you do not know the content. Mr Berlusconi made the following joke: do you know why an AIDS sufferer needs to take a bath filled with sand?
The answer is in order to get used to lying in the soil. These words were spoken by a Member of this House.
I refuse to believe that anyone here would keep calm if this joke was aimed at Jews or blacks.
I think that a reaction from yourself, Madam President, would be wholly appropriate.
I would, at the same time, ask the chairman and leader of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats for his opinion on this matter.
I can only say that these remarks have shocked me deeply.
In solidarity with all the millions of people who suffer from this terrible disease, I can only express my shame on behalf of the honourable Member, Silvio Berlusconi.
(Applause from the left)
Thank you.
The Member you have quoted is not here to answer you or to defend himself...
(Mixed reactions)
Madam President, we have read in the newspapers that five million euros' worth of Parliament property has been purloined and that Parliament' s finances have been poorly managed.
In addition, a report by the Court of Auditors of the European Communities is due shortly on the use of resources by Parliament' s political groups, and it is not a flattering picture.
These are big issues, and Parliament must address them seriously.
I wish to speak about some small matters which I would not normally raise in the parliamentary plenary session, but it is astonishing that the bureaucratic machinery of the House is unable to rectify such small matters.
I have already, on many occasions, bemoaned the fact here in plenary that Parliament' s television system fails to produce a picture for Finnish television.
Finland is the only country whose television picture cannot be picked up in Parliament.
I would have hoped that such a small matter as this would be sorted out.
The Dutch often complained about the lack of Dutch television during parliamentary part sessions.
They now get two channels, and I hope that we Finns will now get at least one.
And then, might we not still hope for hot water in the pipes, which has not been available during this new Parliament' s term of office?
I have already complained about this on various occasions in parliamentary sittings.
What is the problem with you bureaucrats, that you cannot sort these things out in this House? Meanwhile you allow five million euros to be stolen!
Thank you, Mr Seppänen.
It is not just a little detail.
You are probably aware of the considerable effort that went into arranging for our Dutch Members to have a television channel in their own language, and the problem with regard to Finland has not yet been resolved.
Mrs Banotti, who is dealing with the matter, will be able to give you the latest details.
Madam President, at least three times I went searching for our Finnish colleague to assure him, as I was assured in the last plenary part-session, that he would be handed a card that would enable him to not just hear, but to see Finnish television in Parliament.
I am really sorry that he has not been handed that card.
I will attend to it this week.
In the College of Quaestors we have also discussed - because we too are concerned - robberies that are taking place within Parliament.
I can assure you that the Quaestors are working on it.
Thank you, Mrs Banotti.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you, please, not to use points of order to start a debate on this matter which would keep us here all night.
In return, I promise that I shall raise the matter at the Conference of Presidents.
The Group leaders have heard your points.
There clearly is a problem and it is one that we shall examine at the Conference of Presidents when the next agenda is determined and, of course, more generally after that.
Thank you, Mr Ribeiro, we shall look into your statement very carefully.
Madam President, I would like to bring to your attention an incident last week where two football fans were tragically murdered on their way to watch their team play in the UEFA Cup.
Football is a sport which transcends the world.
Almost every country plays football.
It is known as a beautiful game.
In about three months Belgium and Holland will play host to Euro 2000.
There is every likelihood that incidents such as those that happened last week will be repeated again in Belgium and Holland.
Can I ask you, through your good offices, to contact all the Member States who are involved, to try and keep such problems to a minimum?
Thank you, Mr Miller.
We shall do so.
We have often voted on recommendations on sports-related violence and what you tell us is rather worrying.
Madam President, Mr Hänsch made an important observation a moment ago and, since his point forms part of the agenda as a whole, I would like to add my thoughts as well.
First of all, I would like to say that the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats supports the proposal, now that the Council' s declaration on Iraq is not taking place, to replace Iraq with Ethiopia.
This is a very sensible suggestion in my view.
We would also like to see Iraq treated as an Urgency because, eventually, Parliament will need to pass its verdict.
Just because the Council is not ready, that does not mean that we in Parliament cannot bring the matter up for discussion.
On a final note: we would appreciate it very much, partly in the light of the alarming television pictures we have seen lately, if Zimbabwe too were to be included under the human rights heading.
We have a comprehensive package which will probably enable us to cover all the points which are important to this Parliament.
Mr van Velzen, you will have the opportunity to make your comments in just a moment, as we are about to move on to the agenda.
Agenda
Madam President, we would prefer Turkey to be given priority, although if we move it from Wednesday to Tuesday, then there is still room to discuss Ethiopia on Wednesday, if the Council agrees.
So, Tuesday Turkey, Wednesday Ethiopia.
Madam President, I do not think that proposal is such a good one because, if I am properly informed, the Council will not be attending on Wednesday.
I would prefer it if we could hold the debate on Ethiopia when the Council is present.
Madam President, I would suggest that this will give us the opportunity to adopt a short resolution on Ethiopia.
Madam President, it would be a great help to many of us if we could vote on item IV first, for I believe there is a large majority in favour of our proposal under item IV.
We shall then be able to withdraw our proposal under item I.
In other words, Mr Haarder, you would like us to move directly to the proposal to replace item IV 'World forum on education' with an item on 'Iraq' , which you tabled in case your first proposal was not adopted.
If I have understood - please correct me if I am wrong - you are going to withdraw your request to replace the item on the 'Non-proliferation Treaty' , and it is item IV that we shall be replacing, if the House agrees, of course.
Unless you want us to proceed directly to the vote on replacing item IV?
Madam President, I should be glad if we could vote on item IV before I decide about that.
Madam President, if I have understood correctly, the Liberal Group has moved that the point concerning the non-proliferation treaty be replaced by Iraq.
For goodness sake, let' s vote on it!
If you want to cancel that and put Iraq in place of the world forum on training, then you must move that and we will then vote on it under item IV when it' s the world forum' s turn.
Madam President, since we now have Ethiopia, which we wanted to add, elsewhere on the agenda, I would like to ask the mover of the motion whether he would agree to adding Zimbabwe as a fifth point.
It is okay to have five points.
If we take Zimbabwe as an additional point, we could vote for it.
The originators of the proposal seem to be happy to agree to that.
Thank you for that.
There is therefore no need to vote on this proposal since it has been withdrawn.
I then received five proposals to add a fifth sub-item to the 'Human Rights' section.
Madam President, I would like to be clear that if we have agreed that Zimbabwe would be the fifth point then there is no point in voting in any other points because we already have five points on the agenda.
Mr Elles, first of all, I am going to suggest that we enter Zimbabwe as the fifth sub-item in the 'Human Rights' section, since I believe that is in line with what we have just agreed.
It is up to the House to decide.
I think we are all in agreement.
I shall, however, at least notify you of the other proposals, if only out of consideration for the Members and the groups which tabled them.
So, I have the proposal regarding Zimbabwe.
Next, I have a request from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance for a sub-item on 'Human rights violations in Australia: arbitrary judgements against aborigines' .
The proposal for an item on the Ethiopian famine has been withdrawn.
Then there were the proposals for the item on Zimbabwe which I have already brought forward as the first item, and the proposal from the liberal group to add a sub-item on 'Pinochet' .
Who is in favour of entering Zimbabwe as the fifth sub-item in the Human Rights section?
(Parliament gave its assent) Relating to Friday:
Regarding the oral questions on forestry, the Group of the Party of European Socialists has requested that the debate should conclude with the submission of motions for resolutions which may be tabled but not voted on.
Is there anyone who wishes to speak in favour of or against this proposal?
Madam President, I would like to speak in favour of adopting a resolution in connection with the oral question to the Commission on the consequences of last December' s storms.
The citizens would not understand it if we simply held a debate without then saying what proposed solutions and options the European Union can offer.
I therefore ask that a resolution be taken in connection with the oral question.
Do you mean after the oral question on the storms? I do not think that would be a problem.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Sittings in Brussels on 3 and 4 May: no amendments. (The order of business was adopted thus amended)
Child pornography on the Internet
The next item is the report (A5-0090/2000) by Mr Kirkhope, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the Republic of Austria with a view to adopting a Council Decision to combat child pornography on the Internet [10317/1999 - C5-0318/1999 - 1999/0822(CNS)].
Madam President, child pornography is a loathsome form of crime.
Measures at transnational level are required, especially due to the denationalised nature of the Internet.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Kirkhope, for his most excellent report.
In this regard, it is perhaps particularly pleasing that it is from Great Britain that Mr Kirkhope comes.
It is good that he has defined child pornography, and I believe we have arrived at a satisfactory compromise.
It is particularly good that Mr Kirkhope has also stated that everything that has the appearance of being child pornography shall also be included under this definition.
Contact points or special units shall be set up in the Member States according to the draft. This will hopefully lead to better investigations.
There is a need for more expertise in this area if it is to be possible to carry out professional investigations.
Europol will be involved, as will the candidate countries.
It is a good thing that crime in third countries will be punished in accordance with national legislation.
The definition of "children" - that is, the age up until which a person is to be considered a child - has been formulated in order to show that we want to create the most effective level of protection where child pornography is concerned.
Our line of argument allows for flexibility in defining the age-limit that strikes the hardest blow to child pornography.
It is a question of creating the most effective protection for children so that they are able to hold on to the childhood that they are entitled to.
All children should have the right to a childhood!
That ought to be a basic human right.
For many years the European Parliament, the Member States and a whole range of organisations, by virtue of various legal bases, agreements and resolutions, have been tackling the issues of child protection, children' s rights, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, sex tourism, trade in children and women and child pornography on the Internet.
The initiative of the Republic of Austria with a view to adopting a Council Decision to combat child pornography on the Internet will place an obligation on the Member States, and obligation is the crucial word here, to take measures to combat child pornography on the Internet.
This obligation must have legal implications.
The importance of the Internet is obvious to us all.
It has come to be indispensable as a modern communication tool.
We need it for exchanging information, for learning and for all sorts of operations.
However, increased use of the Internet also means increased access to violence and pornography, not least child pornography.
Children themselves have access to violence on the Internet, which must be objectionable to us all.
Parents are powerless in the face of this phenomenon because they cannot keep up with this technological progress.
We are extremely concerned, especially in the new MEDIA 2000 programme which is being drawn up, as to how we should deal with this problem in the future.
Consequently, an urgent need has arisen to combat child pornography on the Internet effectively.
This requires efficient software to determine the country of origin, to trace the images and to catch the perpetrators and those producing the images.
This in turn requires extremely advanced technology.
We need specialists who can develop access codes, which will also necessitate certain restrictions being placed on media freedom.
We need to network all the relevant organisations, the welfare organisations and NGOs, to facilitate rapid action and effective procedures.
However, we must not forget one thing: the main reason why children are forced into this is poverty.
We must combat poverty and intolerance and take this as our starting point.
This is the key to prevention.
It means that we must understand the children, but also that we must protect the victims, offer them assistance in reintegrating and help them to rediscover a normal life.
We must not, therefore, simply act in a preventative fashion; we must offer long-term help to those children affected.
- (PT) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the need has grown over the last ten years for a policy for children, based on the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by all Member States.
The attention that has been paid to this issue has increased considerably in all Member States.
Nevertheless, at European Union level, even though children represent around one fifth of the Union' s population, specific attention is very rarely paid to their needs in economic policies and in other areas.
Thousands of children all over the world suffer serious and systematic violations of their fundamental rights, from domestic cruelty, which goes undetected and unpunished, and the economic exploitation of their labour, which robs them of their childhood and education, to their use in war; from being forced to play the horrific role of child-soldier to their use in prostitution or pornography.
According to the estimates of the Economic and Social Committee, there are more than five million children working in Europe.
Most of these children work in areas such as pornography, drug trafficking, child pornography and sexual tourism.
These children are in particular need of society' s protection.
The evolution of the Internet, its incredibly rapid development and its importance today raise the question of its use for these reprehensible purposes.
In the last part-session, here in Strasbourg, we discussed what needs to be done about the Internet. The European Union' s desire is to make more rapid progress in terms of e-commerce and to make a firmer commitment to the new technologies and to education.
Today we have been discussing what we need to prevent and combat, and that is the circulation and distribution of child pornography, which has been increasing at an alarming rate.
And although it may be true that we have to encourage web-site administrators and service providers to define their standards of conduct and to regulate themselves, and encourage Internet users to inform the authorities whenever they discover child pornography, it is nevertheless true that Union and national law bear some responsibility.
Mr Kirkhope' s excellent report makes it very clear how much we still have to do and where we need to improve, in terms of establishing specialist units, strengthening cooperation and exchanges between States, in terms of Europol' s activities and the efficiency of Member States' actions, including, where necessary, the revision of their own legislation and the procedures in force in these areas so that we can guarantee the effective imposition of criminal sanctions.
As far as the responsibility of the Union itself is concerned, I am delighted at the fact that the Charter of Fundamental Rights that is being drawn up considers the specific rights of children, and takes account of the areas in which the Union can provide considerable impetus, specifically in these matters.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Kirkhope for his excellent report.
There is no doubt in anybody' s mind: the physical and emotional integrity of children and the protection of victims of sexual crimes are of fundamental importance and must lie at the heart of the Union's concerns.
Despite earlier initiatives by the Commission and Parliament, the misuse of the Internet and its harmful and illegal content have only increased, and it is time and again apparent how difficult it is to combat child pornography.
What exactly needs to be done in order to combat child pornography effectively, especially on the Internet? First of all, we need to set up an easily accessible and recognisable contact point.
In fact, the Netherlands was the first country to set up such a contact point back in 1996, on the initiative of the Internet providers.
Secondly, for the purposes of enforcement, police forces and the judiciary need more expertise regarding the Internet and ancillary digital technology.
This is simply lacking.
Officials need to be trained well, otherwise they will be unable to combat child pornography effectively.
Lastly, the penalties must be harmonised in Europe and must be increased. If not, the Internet will remain a threat and it will never be the challenge which it could be.
Mr President, Commissioner Vitorino, ladies and gentlemen, firstly, I would like to congratulate Mr Kirkhope.
In fact, his name fills us with hope.
Mr Kirkhope' s document has lifted the lid on a great deal - a great deal of child suffering and human suffering.
We are delighted that there is now a definition at long last.
Secondly, that this phenomenon must be increasingly brought into the open and binding measures must be drafted. This includes setting up contact points, such as those in Belgium and the Netherlands, and also in the other EU Member States and candidate countries.
After all, there is quite obviously a correlation between child pornography on the Internet and trafficking in children.
This correlation is evident in the countries of origin, the transit countries and the host countries in the European Union. This is also borne out by the studies carried out by police forces in this field with regard to under-age asylum seekers.
They disappear on their own, or even accompanied, from asylum centres and reappear within the world of prostitution.
This correlation is also evident in the case of possibly kidnapped and missing children. Recently, mothers recognised their own children on a porn website which could be viewed at police stations in France.
We also know that details of people' s identity are used or misused by people with connections in the world of child porn websites.
In order to conceal their own identity, they use the bank details of others.
In order to stamp out child pornography, we need a multi-disciplinary approach.
The police and criminal investigation services must be able to do their jobs well. This means that the politicians need to ensure that the police can do its job effectively.
The police within the European Union work differently from the police in some candidate countries, as other MEPs have already pointed out.
Politicians too should believe that child pornography exists on the Internet.
The NGOs are doing a great job.
To finish off, I would like to point out that some pimps use the Internet to distribute photographs of young people engaged in prostitution.
Mr President, Mr Kirkhope' s report has the virtue of drawing the Council' s attention to a dreadful criminal activity.
While I support the action stipulated by the report, and I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, I still think the proposed measures do not match up to the scale of the problem before us.
Communication technologies transform data.
The Internet thus has formative and demultiplying effects on the trade and traffic in child pornography.
This trafficking is on a scale hitherto unknown in terms of its extent and the geographical areas covered.
It is an urgent state of affairs, and specific action must be proposed in order to deal with the networks that exist.
In all the States of the Union, individual paedophile acts are suppressed, but ignorance and inefficiency still reign in the suppression of networks.
What we have to deal with here are ephemeral, evolving sites, which adapt constantly and which are complicated to monitor.
This state of affairs makes it essential to draw up a survey of paedophile networks within the countries of the European Union.
The existence of these networks confirms the need for a common judicial area.
Once again, the rapporteur urges the Union to approach the Member States, and ask them to make an effort to harmonise their national legislation in this area.
I share his opinion but, given the cross-border nature of the problem, the response must be at Union level.
The common judicial area does exist with Europol, Schengen and Eurodac.
Let it be noted that it is used primarily, and indeed exclusively, to control the flow of migration and to suppress illegal immigration.
But even if action was undertaken in each Member State to create specialised units working in liaison, as the report advocates, that would not solve the problem of the networks because their work would still be restricted by national borders.
There is no problem identifying the parties involved in trafficking child pornography, who are often repeat offenders.
What is needed is prevention, in order to counter their activities and to dismantle their networks.
The European Union must provide itself with a suitable structure, a European instrument to enforce information exchange and action.
This instrument must be such as to make it possible to address States directly in order to urge them to pass on information, but also to issue orders so that the networks can be dismantled.
The Union should be in a position to apply penalties to any State which does not fulfil its criminal law obligations in the matter of combating paedophilia.
The Dutch police have drawn up a file of several hundred children from a CD-ROM containing 10 000 images or sequences of child pornography available on the Internet.
Interpol has acknowledged having a file of 800 photos. Why are these valuable documents not used?
Who are these children and what is being done to locate them? If there are records of offenders, it must be possible to keep records of victims.
It is our duty, ethically, as human beings, to do everything we can to find them.
For all these reasons I think the European Union must make combating this form of crime a priority.
Mr Kirkhope' s report is filled with good intentions, but further proposals must be made in order to deal with the present situation.
I think the Commission and the Council should take action which is up to the task of dealing with the high stakes of this crime that affects thousands of innocents.
Mr President, in the wake of Mrs Klamt' s report on sex tourism, Mr Kirkhope' s excellent report takes us back to a debate on one of the sordid moral deviancies in this modern society of ours.
The action proposed by the Austrian Government is heading in the right direction, which is that of strengthening the prosecution of anyone deliberately producing, selling, disseminating or owning materials relating to the sexual exploitation of children.
What, however, are we to think of the limited personnel and financial resources allocated at the present time to the police departments responsible for monitoring Internet networks, which are, by definition, worldwide ones?
To govern, however, means to make plans.
And we have to investigate the deep-seated reasons for this scourge in order to attempt to find an effective cure for the problem.
Admittedly, there is at root the unspeakable vice of certain parties, whose possible distress could never be any justification for these crimes, and the lure of easy profits for the producers and distributors of documents of this type.
We must bring our attention to bear, however, on the economic poverty of the parents who are led to exploit their own children in order to survive, or the poverty of abandoned and defenceless children who have lost their points of reference, and think this is their only way out of the situation.
Our society, and often this House, claims that the future of humanity is freedom without responsibility and rights without duties.
This is an irresponsible attitude.
We are now paying the price for this permissiveness which some parties have been championing as the way of progress for over thirty years, but what progress do we see, except progress in the loneliness of our peers, the broken families and the children left to fend for themselves who, almost naturally, turn to drug addiction, sexual promiscuity, sects and alcoholism.
Respect for human dignity, as the Council decision rightly claims, first involves the uncompromising affirmation of the destructive nature of these abuses and also involves appropriate policies which, in Europe and in third countries, enable families to accommodate, educate and protect their children, and enable children to regain their essential points of reference, which are goodness, truth and beauty.
The legitimately and ultimately repressive message of this report will only be heard and be useful if, at the same time, we clearly reassert the basis of a life-enhancing culture, a culture which respects life, applicable to all people in all places, and if, at Member State and Union level, we provide the practical resources necessary to achieve this.
Mr President, many comments have been made on Mr Kirkhope' s report, which makes many interesting points, and I would like to do more than add a few banal observations to these comments, but I shall nonetheless begin by saying, first of all, that child pornography is the product of essentially two phenomena.
The first phenomenon is the boom in pornography in general, and the second is, obviously, the exploitation of children for sexual purposes.
I mention the boom in pornography in general because I do not think it is possible to isolate child pornography completely from the rest.
The consumer experiences a phenomenon of habituation, if I can call it that, in the face of the incitements to pornography displayed on television, in hotel chains (and that includes here in Strasbourg or Brussels) or in all the magazines in view on shop shelves, and necessarily is driven ultimately to seek ever stronger stimuli, like a drug addict.
This is what happens, and that is why those people who, in France in 1987, for example, thought it right, in the name of freedom, to strenuously oppose the common-sense measure of removing pornographic magazines from display in newsagents' shops, and keeping them under the counter, as it were, have to bear some responsibility for the measures which they are condemning today.
Just now I heard Mrs Ainardi, a left-wing Member of Parliament, complaining, for example, that a number of files have been compiled but are not used in any way for investigation or prosecution purposes, as they should be.
I should simply like to remind my fellow Member that one of the very first measures on jurisdictional, judicial and police matters taken by the left-wing government in France was to order the destruction of the file on sexual perverts.
We should not, therefore, be astonished that our society is in the position that it is in, and that child sex abuse is commonplace.
Is this, though, not also the inevitable continuation of a number of measures which have already been taken? For example, in the area of trivialising homosexuality.
I am well aware that not all child pornography necessarily...
(Mixed reactions) ... you see, you are proving the truth of what I am trying to say.
Some of our fellow Members who are here condemning child pornography are also demanding, for example, that homosexual couples (indeed why should we limit it to couples?) should be able to adopt children.
This is the total reversal of the idea of adoption, whereby adoption is no longer in the interests of the child adopted but only in the interests of the adopting adult.
This is necessarily the first step on the road which leads ultimately to the deviancies of child pornography.
I know, I am well aware of Mr Schulz' s customary protests.
They are not going to stop me asking whether this horrendous decline in moral standards is not also a continuation of the morality of the termination of unborn children? Why, when one is prepared to accept state-controlled hospitals organising terminations of unborn children, should one find it absolutely scandalous in moral terms to abuse children, once born, for the sexual pleasure of adults?
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I wanted to say.
Such practices have met with leniency, as we all know, within the Member States up to and including at the highest levels of their political classes.
We therefore do not want a situation where you cannot see the wood for the trees.
International cooperation is needed in this area, admittedly, as is Europol action, and why do we not extend Interpol' s mandate?
If child pornography must be fought, however, then it must be fought as such, whatever the means of transmission!
Whether by personal networks, by telephone, by Minitel, no one considers bringing back censorship or opening mail on the grounds that child pornography may also be sent by post.
The Internet, Minitel, the post are nothing more than the medium.
It is the originators we must combat.
It is not the Internet itself which is to blame, but the child pornographers, and they must be punished severely.
Everyone knows perfectly well that that is not the case today.
(Applause and mixed reactions)
Mr President, the pioneers of the Internet saw the electronic highway as the ultimate means of communication and the road towards a new social order.
It was important for it to be subjected to as few rules as possible.
It has since become apparent that the Internet is merely a reflection of our society.
In addition to a wealth of information and expertise, it also reflects the criminal underbelly of society, including child pornography.
The nature of the Internet is such that it has become easier to disseminate child pornography anonymously, rapidly and across national borders. This is a good reason to take action against this as a Union.
Our children should be protected against this disrespectful exploitation, which reduces them to mere toys and leaves them damaged for the rest of their lives.
I therefore welcome the Council' s current proposal and Mr Kirkhope' s report with open arms.
I do wonder, however, whether too much is not being asked of the Council through Parliament' s adding new elements to the description of the criminal offence of "child pornography" .
Harmonising criminal law at European level is quite different from creating European criminal law.
Another difficult point is the age limit up to which pornography is considered child pornography.
I myself am in favour of an age limit of 18, rather than 16, years.
But the current compromise, in which both ages are mentioned without opting for one or the other, is confusing.
I do not think that we can seriously expect the Council to adopt this text, but that does not detract from my appreciation of the work which the rapporteur and the Commission have put in.
Mr President, as someone who is deeply dismayed by the on-going out-of-hand condemnation of Austria by fourteen Member States, I am particularly pleased that the initiative for the report in question has come from Austria.
This matter has preoccupied us for a long time, too long in my opinion.
Its importance is demonstrated by the constantly increasing incidence of such delinquency.
Nevertheless, irrespective of the importance of efficient law enforcement in this area, we must not depart from the principle of criminal-law liability and postulate strict liability.
The report is therefore on the right track.
In my opinion, the most urgent need is to create, as soon as possible, in all Member States and in the candidate countries, the legal and technological capability to search the contents of the Internet for child pornography.
Finally, I would like to reiterate the view which I have held for some years that an obligation must also be placed on providers and, by way of conclusion, may I again stress that it would perhaps be useful to formulate a uniform definition of "children" within the Union.
Children are taking on various ages in this Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, it has already been mentioned on several occasions that the proposal for a joint initiative by all the EU Member States goes back to the initiative of the Austrian Federal Chancellor, Dr Wolfgang Schüssel, who, as Foreign Minister in 1998, presented it to Europe within the framework of the Austrian Council Presidency, as well as to the United Nations in New York, in order to bring about a resumption of the draft joint action to combat pornography on the Internet.
The motivation for this initiative was clearly that all those who wish to make policy for the future must, on the one hand, have the courage to carry out necessary reforms and, on the other, must positively and effectively avail themselves of the opportunities afforded by technological and global development and human resources, all the while taking responsibility for pointing out risks and undesirable developments and for drawing the necessary boundaries.
Anyone who does not take action against children and minors being abused and lead astray is jeopardising the future.
The aim of the Austrian initiative was, as previous speakers have pointed out, to draw attention to the fact that the Internet, given its special nature, offers new and, in the light of its scope, not always positive, opportunities, indeed incredible opportunities for the distribution of child pornography.
Pornographic material can be distributed via the Internet in unlimited amounts and by the most direct route.
There is the danger that children themselves may surf the Internet and come across pornographic images of their peers, thereby sustaining psychological damage.
Combating child pornography and the misuse of the Internet is, therefore, both a worldwide and a specifically European responsibility and we call upon all Member States to take action in light of this report.
We welcome the debate on the age limit.
However, I share the view of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport that we should have fixed the age limit at 18 and I hope that the initiatives will lead to the highest possible age limit being set in all Member States.
We welcome the fact that there will be a uniform definition and I support all measures to also place providers under obligation since today' s discussion can only be the start of a debate and of initiatives and is far from the end.
Actions must follow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in a debate in which so many things have already been said I need not repeat myself, but I cannot fail to respond to two comments by Mr Gollnisch who, unfortunately, as usual, has now left the Chamber.
Mr Gollnisch is a fascist delegate in this House who takes advantage of every opportunity, not least in this Chamber, to slander others.
It is the left-wingers or the gays who are responsible for child pornography.
He beautifully tars everyone with the same brush.
The left-wing French Government is responsible for the abolition of the criminal register of sex offenders and is therefore responsible, in the logic of this arch-fascist, for child pornography.
This is the type of poison which he spouts here.
Then he slips away because the sole reason why this pack of hounds sits in this Parliament is to permanently set upon others and then slink back into its holes to evade the responsibility of debate.
At any rate, these fine people do not participate in parliamentary work and it is time that this was made known because they are only ever speaking for the benefit of the visitors.
Then it all sounds so wonderful. The reality is that these fine people do not partake in 99% of the work.
They spout their poison and then push off.
I share the opinion of Mr Hager that we should also place an obligation on providers.
I think this is a worthy point which Mr Kirkhope should take into consideration in his report.
I also expressly support the view that we should not move away from criminal-law liability.
It cannot be right to release from criminal-law liability one of the primary areas where human dignity is violated, particularly taking into account the special need to protect minors.
I believe this must be made clear, even if it has sometimes been disputed by the groups on the left.
On this point, Mr Hager is correct.
One final comment: the permanent availability of sexual material in the exclusively anonymous private sphere, which is conditioned by the structure of the Internet, and the attendant fact that sexual abuse is removed from public and, hence, social controls, is one of the central challenges with which we are faced as a result of this new aspect of human lifestyle.
We cannot resolve it simply through Interpol and more stringent criminal law.
The Internet, as evidenced by child pornography, presents totally new challenges to our subjective, individual sense of responsibility.
We should discuss this in at least as much detail as the tightening of criminal law.
Mr President, child sex abuse is a criminal offence, whether it is committed by homosexuals or heterosexuals.
The distribution of child pornography on the net is also a criminal offence, and so is making child pornography.
Victims of paedophile activity are often facing lifelong trauma with some of them turning into child abusers themselves.
The distribution of child pornography is facilitated by the Internet.
Not only is the scale of distribution magnified, but there is a risk of the offence being trivialised.
Various MEPs have already spoken a good deal in the wake of this commendable report, commenting for example on how good and necessary it is that there should be contact points, that the police should have the relevant expertise and that there should be clear penalties.
These are all points underlined by Mrs Plooij.
But anyone who is at all familiar with this sordid subject matter knows that the contact points are inundated with information and that - in stark contrast with this - the number of people who analyse this information is very limited.
I feel sorry for them, not only because of what they are witnesses to, but also because of the volume of material in respect of which they must feel powerless.
We pretend that we are all agreed on this, but this is not so in practice.
In actual fact, there is a great deal of resistance.
Tourist areas, also within our own European Union, do not want to admit that poverty forces poor children into prostitution.
The Internet has the aura of progress.
And when it comes to harmonising our legislation at European level, reference is made to all kinds of grand legal principles.
I think that whoever wills the end must also will the means.
Mr President, It is good that we are having this debate on child pornography on the Internet.
Apart from a few rather coarse, ignorant contributions from my opponent, what has been said has been very sensible.
I would like to point out that, in actual fact, many paedophiles assault children that are close to them.
It is not divorce, alcoholism or anything else that encourages this behaviour.
It is fairly well known that being sexually aroused by children is not exactly normal behaviour, and for that we should be grateful.
The Internet makes exchanging pictures easier, and it is this we should be discussing.
I agree totally with Mrs Maes that we have excellent police authorities working with these issues.
However, in relation to how the problem has increased, there are not enough of them to be able to examine the whole situation.
It is, therefore, a shame that we are immediately about to call in Europol.
We have had discussions with representatives from Europol with respect to trafficking in women and children, and they say that they have two reports.
However, these reports are not official, so only Europol is aware of Europol's own activities.
This is a problem.
The police that I have been in contact with in my own country, Sweden, who are working on these issues via Interpol, need, of course, more support, just like their colleagues in other countries. For this is not only an issue within the EU.
There is also much to do when it comes to Thailand, the Philippines and other places around the world, something the police authorities are working on.
It is not exclusively in Western Europe that this issue is being dealt with.
There is one aspect of this matter that has not come up very often in the responses to this report, but which I would, nevertheless, like to raise in the debate, namely the rehabilitation of the victims.
The problem with the Internet is that the pictures are so clear.
Older children are at risk of being continuously pursued on the net and of being recognised for ever and a day.
We must consider how we in the Member States are to take care of the children that have been victims of this crime and whose photographs are on the net.
In Sweden we have also had experience of people finding their way into the school system or child care because they are paedophiles.
It is a shame that we have not discussed the enormous cutbacks and extensive privatisation in these areas.
Of course, we must perhaps also ensure, as a preventative measure, that no-one works alone with children, either in the private or the public school systems or within the child care profession and in other positions.
I truly welcome this debate. However, I would like us to remember that paedophilia is not a common, widespread activity, a fact for which, as I have already said, we must be grateful.
Mr President, likewise dismayed by the persistent out-of-hand condemnation of Austria by the 14 Member States, I consider it particularly important and I am pleased that we are showing unity in this matter.
I only have the following points to add or raise with regard to this excellent report; firstly, the appropriate training of specialists to be able to also prosecute the perpetrators; secondly, the need for the capability to carry out legal proceedings at international level; and thirdly, the need to be able to punish crimes committed in third countries under domestic law.
Finally, I would like to express my satisfaction that the Member States of the EU are so resolutely and actively supporting this Austrian proposal and not just taking refuge in soundbites and clichés.
Mr President, Commissioner, as long as there is a demand for child pornography, it will be produced.
As long as there is a trade in pornography, the Internet will be used to carry it out, because the Internet offers an extra benefit, namely it masks the consumer and keeps the supplier, for the most part, in the shadows.
However, as long as this demand exists, there will also be abused children scarred for life.
I therefore welcome this initiative, which was finally put forward so comprehensively by the Austrian Presidency.
Above all, I welcome the proposals for expanding the initiative which the rapporteur, Mr Kirkhope, has made.
He has made a major contribution to the instrument, which the Member States can now take up, being more efficient than ever before.
I would like to pick up on five points which seem to me to be particularly important in the fight against child pornography.
My first point is that not only should the sale and distribution of child pornography be punishable, and indeed should incur punishments that will act as a deterrent, but that the possession of child pornography itself should also be punishable.
My second point is the age limit.
It cannot be set high enough.
I therefore appeal that the target which the Committee has set itself, i.e. of establishing the age of 18 as standard at European level, be implemented as soon as possible.
16 is just the first step.
The target must remain 18.
My third point is that we need experts in the fight against child pornography on the Internet.
And it is even more important that these experts join forces, that they are coordinated, and here again Europol presents itself as the appropriate institution.
My fourth point is that the register of persons who have been convicted of the distribution of child pornography or of the sexual abuse of children will hopefully be implemented across Europe as quickly as possible and that access will be available to all Member States and Europol.
My fifth point is that we should proceed according to the personality principle in order to punish criminal acts as efficiently as possible.
In conclusion, I would like to appeal first of all to the individual responsibility of all those who use child pornography for their own gain.
They are responsible for its being produced and for the harm it causes children.
I would also like to appeal to the Member States, in the interests of the most vulnerable members of society, to implement as quickly and efficiently as possible the measures proposed by the rapporteur in his excellent report and by the Austrian initiative.
Mr President, thank you for the well-reasoned proposal of the rapporteur!
In this context I would like to propose, in order once again to show the consequence of the proposals, a few follow-up measures, because it is not only e-mails which can be sent anonymously, but letters also.
This is why all public post-boxes should be closed and it should only be possible to send letters at the post-office following official verification of ID.
The second point concerns telephones, because telephone calls can also be made anonymously.
All telephones should also be gotten rid of, except for a few telephone boxes which should, of course, be monitored by the police.
Then all fax machines should be gotten rid of as quickly as possible - nothing else springs to mind!
Mr President, the Commission would like to join several of the speakers in thanking the rapporteur for his excellent report on the draft Council decision.
As has already been stressed, the aim is to intensify actions to prevent and combat the sexual abuse of children, with particular reference to the production, possession and distribution of child pornography through the Internet.
The Austrian initiative to reintroduce the draft joint action to combat child pornography on the Internet, on which Parliament has already delivered a favourable opinion, is welcomed by the Commission.
One essential and positive aspect of the text is the encouragement of international cooperation, which is already well developed in other areas of the fight against criminal activities, such as drugs and illegal immigration.
As the Internet ignores national boundaries, those tracking down Internet crime must also be able to cross them.
International cooperation therefore has to be encouraged as much as possible.
The Commission has been closely involved in international activities and initiatives addressing this issue, such as the International Conference on combating child pornography on the Internet, which was held from 29 September to 1 October 1999 in Vienna.
It was jointly organised by the Austrian and United States Governments and the Commission under the STOP Programme.
The conference adopted conclusions and recommendations that are being actively followed up.
The Commission therefore welcomes the fact that the draft decision underlines the need to engage law enforcement authorities and industry, especially Internet service providers, in a constructive dialogue aimed at improving mutual understanding and sharing respective experiences.
There is a clear need to identify appropriate fora where law enforcement and industry's concerns can be addressed and to encourage the development and implementation of codes of conduct and best practice.
We should bear in mind that the key role must be played by self-regulation and by the individual responsibility of those who use the Internet.
The Commission has long been concerned about child pornography on the Net.
In order to fight against it, it proposed a multiannual Community action plan on promoting safer use of the Internet by combating illegal and harmful content on global networks.
The Council and Parliament adopted it on 25 January 1999.
The action plan provides support for concrete action in four areas: a European network of hotlines, self-regulation by industry, filtering, and rating and awareness.
In addition, the Commission, and the Union as such, is involved in the work of the G8, creating a 24-hour points of contact network.
It is also involved in the current negotiations on a draft convention on cyber crime in the framework of the Council of Europe that will address the specific problem of paedo-pornography on the Internet.
The Commission fully supports the position expressed in the draft report that the subject of child pornography on the Internet should involve the approximation of the laws and regulations of the Member States.
We are convinced that agreements on common definitions, common charges and common sanctions need to be established for certain forms of crime.
We have included in the scoreboard on the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice a specific action aimed at criminalising the sexual exploitation of children, with particular reference to child pornography on the Internet, as called for by the Heads of States and Government at the Tampere European Summit.
A proposal for a framework decision on common definitions, common charges and common sanctions will be put forward after the summer.
The Commission will participate fully in the discussions that will take place in the Council with a view to adopting this draft decision in order to see whether further action should and would be needed.
We welcome Parliament's proposal on a legal basis: as a framework decision it should be based on Article 34(2)b of the Treaty.
The Commission will also consider, together with the Member States, how to support the implementation of the decision through other projects funded under the STOP programme.
These could be aimed at promoting further training and exchanges between those responsible in the Member States for fighting against this phenomenon, such as the police authorities, but also the judiciary, and at close cooperation between those authorities, Europol and the future Eurojus network.
Finally, the Commission wishes to indicate to Parliament that it can fully support all the amendments tabled by Mr Kirkhope and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, as they provide some very useful clarifications on the definitions and description of the activities to be criminalised, on the age limit, on the offence of possession and on the need for the law enforcement authorities, the police and the judiciary to adopt the necessary technological instruments to scan the net and to make the fight against paedo-pornography not just a rhetorical issue but a concrete action of the Union as such and of each and every Member State.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
European Refugee Fund
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0091/2000) by Mrs Frahm, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council decision creating a European Refugee Fund [COM(1999) 686 - C5-0120/2000 - 1999/0274(CNS)].
Mr President, because of its wealth, Western Europe is naturally a magnet for everyone seeking protection and fleeing persecution.
Our share in the task arising from a growing influx of refugees must, of course, correspond in scope and importance to our prosperity and to our global and historical role.
But encounters between people from different cultures are not always simple, and they should therefore be helped along, just as refugees should be given support to begin new lives in their new locations.
The Member States each tackle these matters in very different ways, and rightly so, because they each start from perspectives within their different cultures and traditions.
However, all refugees have some basic needs in common, and special groups need professional help and support so that they can again start to live lives appropriate to human beings.
What is more, they need advice and guidance from the authorities in their new countries and in connection with their actual seeking of asylum.
All refugees begin with a dream of returning home.
For some, this becomes a reality but, for others, the period in exile proves to be so long that returning home is unrealistic.
They acquire children and friends and a new life for themselves. The children put down roots in the new country, and these become stronger than their parents' roots in the old country.
Therefore, a number of them choose in the end perhaps to apply for citizenship in the new country. A number of surveys show, however, that, even for those who achieve their dream of returning home, it is very important that the period in exile should have been meaningful, that they should have had the opportunity to grow as people and that their qualifications should have been used so that they do not cease to develop as people and are not hindered from developing professionally in their own fields by stagnation, passivity, uncertainty and lack of qualifications.
Integration and repatriation are not, therefore, opposed to each other, and integration is not only for people who wish to move country for good.
It is also of significant help to those who subsequently return home.
It may, in fact, prove to be a prerequisite of successful repatriation.
I do not, therefore, understand why some people want to distinguish between displaced persons and refugees.
Responsibilities in Europe are unfairly distributed in relation both to the Member States' size and prosperity.
The European Refugee Fund is a first and very modest attempt to distribute resources in proportion to the tasks which individual Member States promise to undertake.
It is not a question of the ratio between the number of refugees and the number of existing citizens. It is a question of the actual task which is to be undertaken.
It is not about relative numbers, but actual numbers.
I think that some of the amendments from the Group of the European People' s Party and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party must be based upon a misunderstanding in this area.
I hope the discussion may make it a little clearer what the thinking here is.
But because the task is a considerable one and because it has been unfairly distributed, it is naturally sad that the fund in question should be so small.
We are talking about EUR 26 million to cover the fixed expenses of the current work, distributed among 15 Member States.
Not much is, in fact, being given to those Member States which really have taken a considerable degree of responsibility upon themselves.
By German or Italian reckoning, the amount must seem tiny.
In addition, there is, of course, some uncertainty about the fund' s financial future.
I am very anxious to know whether the Commission has some good news for us and whether it has given the necessary consideration to the issue in question so that the Fund will have a future and not just become a nonsense over the next few years.
All in all, however, the European Refugee Fund is, in fact, to be regarded as a start.
And if it has a good beginning and if we are able to follow up the issue, then it will only be natural for us to increase the amount concerned so that the Fund really can live up to its name as the European Refugee Fund.
Mr President, I would like to warmly congratulate the rapporteur on her report and would also like to thank her for the cooperation I have received in my capacity as draftsperson of the opinion.
I was very excited when I read the Commission' s proposal.
The Commission is obviously on the right track.
It is important that the financial responsibility for refugees be distributed among Member States.
This is far better than shifting people around and, in this way, it is possible to end the vicious circle of Member States passing the buck, something which they have become familiar with through the international Treaties.
However, the Committee on Budgets is raising two objections.
Firstly, no consideration is given to the Financial Regulation. Indeed, the programme is multiannual, whilst the financial calculations have only been made for one year.
The second objection is more extensive.
The financial scheme of setting aside 26 million for structural measures whilst keeping ten million in reserve for contingency measures could never lead to the goal which the Commission has in mind, namely an actual spreading of the financial responsibility.
The Member States will, however, need to set up all kinds of structures and procedures in order to share out the money.
In this way, solidarity among Member States and solidarity with those seeking protection threatens to be encumbered by a disproportionately high administrative burden.
The Committee on Budgets therefore suggests that the present proposal with the amounts quoted could be considered as an experiment, a very commendable experiment at that.
But a real European Refugee Fund will cost a great deal more than that.
It will need to be investigated exactly how much more this would cost, and the Committee on Budgets has decided unanimously that we expect the outcome of this investigation before 31 March 2001.
The Commission is on the right track.
We should not, therefore, get distracted by restrictions upon the financial perspective as long as the net result is to be positive.
Mr President, firstly, I too should like to thank Mrs Frahm for her work and willingness to support a number of amendments, both from the committee and from myself.
This has all too often been a very rushed process which has not allowed those of us involved to collaborate as we would have wished to find the best solutions to certain problems.
I would particularly cite the example of the allocation of the funding which does not even meet the Commission's intention to give particular consideration to the Cohesion Fund countries.
So the proposed review process becomes essential.
Asylum-seekers are not a burden but a responsibility.
The European Union Member States are the chosen destination of comparatively few, compared with the world's poor countries such as those in Africa.
A proposed amendment from our committee requires that all measures under this fund should be based on an approach designed to prevent any outbreak of xenophobia, racism, discrimination or inequality.
That is particularly important, especially given recent criticism by the UNHCR of certain parties in my own Member State for their encouragement of such negative views or their failure to challenge them - criticism which is fully justified in my view.
A change to the funding proposed by our committee aims to give a minimum to each state, which could be used to promote public awareness.
My committee feels that the money, inadequate at the moment, should be used to improve the facilities and services offered, which is why we also want to see an overall strategy for the development of services, with a view to refugees and displaced persons being able to play a fully active role in society as equals.
Not to take such an approach would be short-sighted, as others have already pointed out.
The committee also proposed that there should be greater partnership at Member State level in determining and evaluating how the money should be used, including the involvement of refugee organisations themselves.
We also want it to be a duty for the committee assisting the Commission to consult with other organisations.
How we deal with the dispossessed is an issue for society as a whole, not just for governments.
Mr President, my Group is highly delighted with the proposal to set up a European Refugee Fund and also with the way in which Mrs Frahm has tackled this problem in her role as rapporteur.
The asylum policy urgently needs a European approach.
We do not wish to see a downward spiral where Member States compete in making their own country look unattractive, the way the Netherlands did, for example, when it appeared on CNN with leaking tents in which refugees could be received.
As Europeans, we do not want that sort of policy. We most certainly do not want one country to shift its responsibility to another.
Setting up this fund is therefore a step in the right direction.
It provisionally brings the desired solidarity within the European Union symbolically into focus.
It is only right that the countries which do a great deal per capita of the population should be the first to receive financial support.
This is also the thrust of the amendment tabled by my Group.
Subsequently, the aid figures will need to correlate with the absolute numbers.
I suggest including these two values in an algebraic formula, a task which I pass on to the officials with pleasure.
Needless to say, the values will depend on the influx of asylum seekers in each country, the number of people granted refugee status, obviously in accordance with the Geneva Convention, and the number of displaced persons received.
The tasks supported by the fund are covered in the proposal and by the rapporteur.
We are extremely pleased with the broad support for our concept of tailor-made solutions. As Mrs Frahm mentioned a moment ago, the tailor-made aspect refers to the difference between those who have attained refugee status as individuals and those who are benefiting from temporary protection as displaced persons who have been driven out on a massive scale.
Individual refugees gain from a dynamic approach to their integration in all kinds of areas within the European Union, such as permanent jobs, housing, the settling of whole families etc.
Displaced persons, on the other hand, have been driven out en masse and against their will and want to return to their home country.
For them, it is important to optimise their chance of repatriation with dignity.
In order to achieve this, they need to maintain their own social networks and they need activities which will strengthen their prospects in their country of origin upon their return and, of course, they need to be able to maintain their self-respect.
In this respect, Amendment No 19 deals with refugees, while Amendment No 21 focuses on displaced persons.
We should really spell this out a little more clearly.
In my opinion - and this is my personal opinion - integration should also include the recognition of the religions of the new minorities.
This is why my Amendment No 20, which I supported on my own in committee, has mysteriously found its way back into the report, thus affording Members who wish to prove their broad-mindedness in this respect the final opportunity, in one way or another, to include this amendment in the report.
I have been informed that the European Commission is carrying out a comparative study into the asylum policy of the Member States.
I am very curious to see whether this report will be published before long.
It could, in itself, contribute towards the common policy based on best practices. It is also vital that this report is made available as soon as possible.
This week, for example, in the Dutch Lower Chamber - and undoubtedly elsewhere - an asylum policy is again being discussed which is drafted in such a way as to be completely out of tune with everything that is happening in the EU Member States. This seems very bad policy on the part of the Netherlands.
However, perhaps this is also happening elsewhere.
In my opinion, the Commission should keep its finger on the pulse, in a tactful manner, of course, but a finger on the pulse nonetheless.
It makes sense that the fund should mainly focus on improving the procedures, but at least as interesting is the Community' s approach to the phenomenon of displaced persons. After all, this is a category which- more than anything - is typified by the need for security, without choosing a particular EU Member State as such.
We are also in favour of EU aid being earmarked for a common follow-up scheme which monitors the experiences of repatriates and which also offers a certain level of guarantee.
It goes without saying that we, as Christian Democrats, welcome the efforts of private organisations and those of refugees and displaced persons themselves with open arms.
On behalf of my Group, I wish this new type of Structural Fund, because this is what it comes down to, every success.
I also want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Frahm, on the handling of this important topic and I hope that she will accept my efforts in the field of tailor-made solutions for what they mean as regards, on the one hand, refugees and, on the other, displaced persons.
Mr President, my Group welcomes this proposal.
It is important that this instrument should remain in force for the entire five-year period and that the core elements of a common asylum system should be codified within this period.
The Fund should help to balance up the differences between Member States in the acceptance and integration of persons in need of protection.
A precondition for this is that the various factors must be given due consideration in allocating the money.
It is necessary that the legal basis for the Fund should be adopted as soon as possible so as to ensure continuous EU financing of refugee projects.
I welcome the fact that, under Article 5, the money for routine projects is to be separated from emergency aid measures.
Mass refugee situations require special measures and separate budgetary allocations.
Only in this way can routine long-term measures also be maintained.
The effective distribution of responsibilities which the Fund is striving for can only be achieved in the long term if the existing problems of widely divergent capacities are tackled.
This requires additional support for the Member States with a less well established asylum system.
I therefore consider that a fixed sum for the Member States which are experiencing difficulties in establishing their asylum system is advisable.
The description in Article 3 of the tasks and measures which are worthy of promotion could lead to a priori support for measures to improve the acceptance conditions for asylum seekers, but this should not mean that measures necessary for fairer and more effective asylum procedures are neglected.
I am of the opinion that the Fund should finance measures to inform the public concerning the policy and practice of the Member States with regard to refugees, asylum seekers and other temporarily protected persons.
The positive results of such activities in the past speak in favour of the continuation of such financial support, which should be made available to every eligible applicant.
I congratulate Mrs Frahm on her excellent report and gladly support the request of Mrs Frahm and Mrs Buitenweg for the addition of this sum to the Refugee Fund.
Mr President, in Denmark, Pernille Frahm and her party have led the way in the struggle against what they call "more Union" .
They campaigned against Denmark' s joining the single currency, which we are to vote on in September, and they have been on the "no" side in four out of the five previous Danish referenda.
That is why I am so pleased to read Pernille Frahm' s report in which she does not merely approve, but also requests, "more Union" in the form of mutual aid in connection with the burden which the influx of refugees imposes upon us.
To cap it all, she wants more money transferred from the national Refugee Councils to their EU equivalent.
I agree.
If a large number of Albanian refugees arrives in Italy or a large number of Baltic refugees in Scandinavia, it is more sensible to spread the cost over the whole Union than compulsorily to distribute the refugees throughout the Union.
The Refugee Fund makes it possible to help more refugees in the vicinity of their own countries where they can maintain links with their families and native cultures and continue to put pressure upon the tyrants who drove them from their homes.
It is, therefore, also a good thing that the EU should be able to come up with aid in support of large influxes of refugees.
We saw the need during the war in Kosovo.
Just imagine if a great many more Kosovars could have been helped in neighbouring Macedonia and Albania.
They would have much preferred this than to have been sent thousands of kilometres away to distant countries.
If there are any who stand united on this issue, they are Pernille Frahm' s and my own party.
If we could make Pernille Frahm rapporteur for European cooperation, too, then I am sure that we could agree about that issue as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is with great relief that we welcomed the proposed Council decision on the creation of a European Refugee Fund.
After Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan, to cite but a few of the tragedies which bathe our planet in blood, creating such a body is an increasingly urgent matter.
The report shows the extent to which parliamentary activity can be beneficial to Europe.
We therefore support these motions.
We shall here mention only three points.
Firstly, if there is one point on which the report is not satisfactory, it is financial resources.
Very few resources are allocated to the Fund, considering the scale of its activities - improving reception conditions, integrating persons benefiting from international protection, encouraging voluntary return by facilitating reintegration in the country of origin.
These are huge tasks requiring amounts far greater than those initially planned.
We must provide ourselves with the resources to realise our shared ambitions, and make Europe a land of solidarity and hospitality, which respects human dignity and the values which are the reasons for thousands of people to seek asylum, particularly freedom of democratic expression and peace.
Secondly, improving reception conditions should also include providing access to health care for all, the provision of education for children, and also training.
Already made rootless by virtue of their exile, families must be able to benefit from education for their children and training programmes for young people in order to regain some stability, to promote their social and economic integration, and to encourage their possible return to their own country.
Thirdly, many of us are calling for NGOs and the associations working on a day-to-day basis with refugees to be consulted, both in defining the necessary programmes and in their implementation.
It would be a serious mistake to exclude the very women and men who often, with their invaluable experience, make good the omissions of the State, from the process.
Finally, in conclusion, I should like once again to stress the ever more insistent need for Member States to arrive quickly at common legislation in matters of asylum.
It is only this advance which will make it possible to allow this European Fund to make a proper impact.
Mr President, allow me first of all to emphasise that, in the referendum on the Edinburgh Agreement in 1993, the Danish people declined to participate in EU cooperation on legal issues, and Denmark is not, therefore, bound by any legal obligations to allow the EU to decide which refugees are to be received by Denmark.
And one cannot in all decency receive money from the EU if one will not also allow the EU to decide which refugees are to be allocated to which countries.
I think it is the individual countries' responsibility to finance their refugee policies themselves and, for that reason alone, I have to vote against this report.
On Danish television, representatives of the High Commission for Refugees in Geneva have expressed the view that only one in ten asylum seekers are genuine applicants.
If, as in Denmark, the majority of applicants are given asylum or residence permits, then legitimate refugees are left in the lurch.
Denmark offers the world' s highest level of financial aid to refugees and therefore attracts many who are merely economic refugees. And that is not what the Convention on Refugees is about.
I nonetheless agree with Mrs Frahm about one thing, namely that EUR 26 million is far, far too low a level.
In Denmark alone, the level of aid is EUR 2 billion per year so that the present little fund is of absolutely no effect.
We therefore think we need to manage the whole issue of apportioning and prioritising our efforts concerning refugees in a far more rational way.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are many reasons why, in principle, I welcome what the Commission has submitted: firstly, because the Commission is sending a signal to the Member States that they are not alone in the problems of migration, refugees and displaced persons; secondly, because it at least regulates in part the distribution of the burden; and, thirdly, because the Commission is proposing a differentiated package of responsibilities for two different groups, namely recognised refugees and displaced persons, i.e. persons temporarily seeking protection.
I welcome the proposal because it clearly defines the target groups, because the acceptance conditions will be improved and the integration of refugees supported, and because the re-integration of temporary refugees will be promoted.
However, I do not share the view that Mrs Frahm' s report can be accepted almost without criticism because I consider that measures which go beyond these defined responsibilities are inappropriate.
Firstly, the money is not available and, secondly, there are other totally different groups which have a claim to it if you are talking here about groups which are particularly in need of protection, and we are unquestionably talking about persons within the meaning of the Geneva Convention.
I also do not support your proposals for measures which are incompatible with the particular groups.
When it comes to refugees, the measures should be different to those for displaced persons.
You cannot, in the case of displaced persons whose main concern is to return to their homeland, require that the host country integrate them into the labour market.
That contradicts the basic intention.
However, we must seek to make an amendment when it comes to the allocation of funds, taking the number of refugees or displaced persons per capita of the population of a Member State as the basis.
One final point which I would like to mention, and I do not understand why Mrs Frahm does not want this, is that we must also have the option to make money available for refugee reception centres.
You reject this and I simply cannot see why, because this is the first point of contact where we can provide specific help, accelerate processes and promote refugee integration.
However, in all the proposed measures, we must not fail to recognise that one objective has not been addressed here, namely taking into account the distribution of the refugee burden.
Please do so in implementing the measures which are necessary and positive.
Mr President, firstly, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Frahm, because I believe she has produced a really good piece of work.
Furthermore, her report expresses this Parliament' s pleasure.
For us, the establishment of this Fund is good news.
Since 1997, we have been trying to carry out coherent work in this respect, and we have had some successes.
However, in order to be fully successful, we need a legal basis to ensure the continuity of the work on improving the reception, the integration, or, where they wish it, the satisfactory return of the asylum seekers and refugees present in the European Union.
Those are three different areas of work.
We have to safeguard all three, and I agree that we must maintain a reserve fund in order to deal with the arrival of displaced persons without endangering the development of better infrastructures and practices within the Union.
With regard to the distribution of resources, we have to take account of the need to show solidarity with countries which are highly committed to the question of refugees, but we also have to bear in mind - as the report says - the need for countries which have less of a tradition of accepting refugees - such as my own - to improve their infrastructures and services so that they may reach the same level as the other countries and take on - because I believe this should be the objective - higher levels of responsibility together with the other countries of the European Union.
The Member States have a major role to play in this respect and must make considerable efforts.
However, I would like to point out that we should also make use of our experience of managing other funds, especially the Structural Funds, in order to involve local and regional administrations and the organisations representing civil society in this management, in addition to the Member States.
This would create added value, because contact with the NGOs and the local administrations could contribute to the fight against racism, to involving society and informing the citizens of the reception countries of the importance of asylum and refugees.
Furthermore, using the practices already developed for the management of those funds could promote interaction between them.
We must develop policies which are coherent with both funds.
Lastly, I would like to add my voice to those which have called for a greater financial contribution to the European Refugee Fund.
Mr President, firstly I would also like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Frahm, for this excellent and extensive report.
However, as she herself did, I would like to point out a few problems which, in our opinion, are still important and which need to be remedied.
The allocation criteria, which are based on the average number of asylum applicants and recognised refugees and the nature of the projects, are perhaps not adequate to achieve a fair distribution of the burden.
In practice, the countries which take in the greatest number of refugees will probably receive the most funds.
Insofar as it goes that is okay, but it should not mean that the other EU States go short and, ultimately, that the refugees in these states, who are not particularly numerous, should be the ones to miss out on the benefits.
We must also deal with the actual money to be allocated, which must be in proportion to the stated objectives.
Financing must be ensured up to 2004.
So far, the balance sheet has not made any clear statement for the period after 2001.
If we can resolve this issue, then we should do so.
Only in this way can the European Refugee Fund be used sensibly and efficiently.
Mr President, it seems legitimate that the states of Europe should demonstrate solidarity in the event of a sudden, massive, exceptional influx of refugees driven by some external disaster, but what the Commission is proposing today is a different kettle of fish.
The proposal is to establish a permanent European Fund distributing appropriations to assist Member States in managing their countries' usual flow of refugees, genuine or not.
This proposal raises many questions.
Are Member States themselves no longer capable of managing the refugees they receive in normal circumstances? How would their situation be improved by giving money to Brussels, only to have Brussels immediately give it back to them?
Will some countries be net contributors and others, net recipients, and if so, which?
The answers to these questions cannot be found anywhere in the reports passed on to us. We cannot even find a statistical table of the numbers of refugees currently residing in the various countries of Europe.
Once again we are being asked to take an important decision while being kept in the dark.
It is all the more worrying that the planned system is liable in itself to exacerbate abuses since reducing the immediate costs for each State may lead to a reduction in its vigilance, ultimately increasing the overall cost for everyone.
This is a pernicious effect which insurers are familiar with.
This risk is, in turn, all the greater since the proposed text is extremely vague when it comes to defining the type of person that qualifies as a refugee.
There is, of course, the standard definition of refugee given in the 1951 Geneva Convention, but obviously all sorts of categories of displaced person can be added to the list, including persons accepted into the country in accordance not with international commitments but only with national legislation, decisions or practice.
In such conditions, the risk of things spiralling out of control and of financial abuse is very great indeed, Mr President, and the report itself even implies as much when it states that the planned appropriations, even though they still amount to EUR 36 million, are much less than the potential demand.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group considers that there is just one solution if we want to halt this risk: for each Member State to retain financial responsibility for the reception of refugees, and for European solidarity to be kept only for exceptional tragic circumstances.
- (PT) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, many of us have repeatedly called for the European Refugee Fund to be established.
The persuasive examples of what happened in Kosovo - and on a smaller scale, in East Timor - proved necessary, in order to support the evidence that this fund was needed.
The entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam has facilitated this new approach to European policy on asylum and migration, which, as Mr Oostlander has already pointed out, requires a degree of solidarity between Member States, and there should therefore be mechanisms designed to contribute to finding a balance between the work undertaken by Member States who receive these refugees and their being able to bear the short- and long-term consequences of welcoming these people.
We feel it is right that the fund should have an emergency component, which would apply to cases of a massive influx of people in a situation where they need international protection, but which, at the same time, guarantees that structural policy measures will be financed.
In other words, there must be a component which will enable us, under a multiannual programme, to provide effective support for measures designed, firstly, to improve conditions of reception, secondly to promote integration, thirdly to facilitate voluntary repatriation and fourthly to facilitate reintegration.
The experience of Kosovo has proved that most displaced people, including those who have been granted refugee status, were willing to return to their country of origin as soon as the necessary conditions were met.
I would therefore like to emphasise something that Mr Pirker has already mentioned, and that is the difference between migration and temporary refugees.
What must in one case be met with policies of support for integration must, in others, in the interests of the refugees themselves, be met with policies of support for a return to the country or region which they were forced to flee.
The two situations are quite different and require different responses.
To confuse them would be to give way to populist rhetoric.
I would also like to stress the need to speed up the establishment of legal instruments which will facilitate the mobilisation of funds that have already been earmarked for this purpose.
Specific rules will also have to be laid down covering the criteria and organisational provisions for the allocation of these funds and for activating the respective monitoring mechanisms.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to begin by thanking Mrs Frahm, rapporteur for the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, for her excellent work, the quality of her report, and the support it gives the Commission' s proposal.
You know better than I do that the proposed Council decision on this Fund was adopted by the Commission on 14 December 1999.
It is in line with an approach, my own personal approach, which I put forward during my hearing before the European Parliament' s Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
The Fund is a single instrument combining support for Member State actions on the reception, integration and voluntary repatriation of refugees and displaced persons, which were previously dealt with in joint actions and pilot projects on the basis of appropriations allocated annually to the Community budget on the initiative of the European Parliament.
This Fund is not intended to substitute for Member States' efforts in the field of refugee reception and integration, but it does represent an initial step, highlighting a key political aspect of European strategy: strategy on asylum must be based on shared responsibility at European level.
I think that adopting this Fund contribute to showing that, in this area, the European Union as such can provide added value for the efforts of each individual Member State.
We are setting up a European Refugee Fund for an initial period of five years.
The total appropriation for 2000 is EUR 36 million, which includes EUR 10 million for emergency aid.
I quite understand the rapporteur' s comments to the effect that this amount is inadequate given the needs and ambitions of the Fund itself.
The Commission has already pointed out to the Parliament' s Committee on Budgets that it intends to propose, in its preliminary draft budget for 2001, the financial means to maintain the Fund for the next five years.
In other words, the Commission will propose increasing the EUR 36 million for the year 2000 to EUR 45 million for the following years, thus taking the overall allocation for the five years to EUR 216 million.
This is, I feel, an initial step in the right direction.
The European Refugee Fund is an instrument for solidarity between Member States, intended, as has already been stressed by several speakers, to contribute to balancing the efforts mentioned in Article 63(2b) of the Treaty.
To this end, a proportional distribution of the resources among the Member States is envisaged: firstly in proportion to the number of asylum requests they receive (two thirds of the resources) and secondly in proportion to the number of refugees they accept into their country (one third of the resources).
I can understand why proposals were put forward to consider the number of refugees in relation to the overall population in each Member State.
I must admit that the Commission itself attempted to consider this criterion, but we found it extremely hard to come up with a mathematical formula which did justice to the principle of sharing costs and efforts while including this criterion.
I am perfectly willing to look into any practical solutions but it is not enough to simply state the principle.
A practical solution must be found, and I have to tell you that that is no easy matter.
The European Refugee Fund will be able to cofinance Member State actions up to 50%, a level which can be increased to 75% for Member States benefiting from the Cohesion Fund.
The proposed decision also provides for the possibility of financing emergency measures in the event of a massive influx of refugees from a reserve of EUR 10 million.
In this respect, it provides an initial response to the request made by the European Council in Tampere.
Together with my fellow Commissioner, Michaele Schreyer, I have already initiated discussions on the ways of utilising, in the event of an emergency, the maximum possible resources suited to the needs of the situation.
In this area, however, what worries me more than the figures - because, unfortunately or fortunately, the necessary funds cannot be provided to respond to emergencies such as Kosovo - and what we are looking for is some financial and also administrative mechanism sufficiently perfected to fulfil needs efficiently in an emergency situation.
The selection and administration of Fund projects, as regards structural aspects, are delegated to the Member States within the framework of cofinancing requests.
Implementation, monitoring, follow-up and assessment arrangements are based on the existing conditions for Structural Funds.
As regards amendments, the Commission has taken note of all the proposed amendments and can accept, conditional upon some formal reworking, in some cases, the principles behind a number of them which aim to make the objectives of the European Refugee Fund clearer in the introduction, or to make some terms more precise.
One particular case is the mention, in the introduction, of the importance of NGO activities, and there are some useful clarifications, such as transparency in the project selection process, or the need to promote the long-term continuity of projects.
The principle of minimal Fund participation enables each Member State to provide effective support, regardless of the extent of flows of refugees.
The Commission cannot, however, go along with other sets of amendments, particularly those on budgetary methods.
These will, in any case, become irrelevant if the budgetary authority ratifies the Commission' s proposals to set the allocation for the Fund at EUR 216 million for the five years.
It cannot align itself with the amendments on the Member States' strategy and on setting up a partnership with the various operators affected by asylum policy.
This is an initial experiment with a decentralised asylum-related programme.
The competent national administrations are by no means familiar with these procedures.
In this decision it is important to avoid anything which might add to their workload and slow the process down, without allowing for the fact that the amounts involved are not vast and that if this decision for the year 2000 is adopted this year, that will not leave much time to prepare cofinancing requests.
The Commission proposes to take on board some of the ideas put forward in the amendments in terms of defining the practical arrangements for the implementation of this instrument and for the dialogue to be entered into with the relevant national bodies.
Finally, with regard to the amendments for cooperation with candidate countries, I think we must be quite clear on this.
The Fund is intended to contribute to balancing Member State efforts.
These modest enough resources should not be watered down further by the inclusion of secondary objectives.
Cooperation of this type with the candidate countries would duplicate the action of other programmes, especially the PHARE programme for transposing the legislative acquis and bringing the competent authorities in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe into line.
In conclusion, Mr President, the Commission is delighted to see the European Parliament support this initiative.
I believe that we are now beginning to see the start of a journey dedicated to the values of asylum, a journey which will show that we can all meet the challenge of European solidarity in asylum matters.
Thank you very much, Mr Vitorino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Electronic money institutions and credit institutions
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0080/2000) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on:
the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the taking up, the pursuit and the prudential supervision of electronic money institutions
[C5-0306/1999 - 1998/0252(COD)];
the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 77/780/EEC on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the taking up and pursuit of business of credit institutions [C5-0307/1999 - 1998/0253(COD)].
(Rapporteur: Mrs Kauppi)
Mr President, the two directives on supervision of the business of electronic money institutions are of the utmost importance to the development of e-commerce in the European Union.
The aim has been to ensure the financial integrity of electronic money institutions and to help to cultivate an environment which fosters the development of this new means of payment.
Since many of the amendments proposed by the Parliament at first reading have been taken into account, I personally find that the view of the Parliament has been incorporated into the common position to a sufficient extent.
The common position reflects a compromise that has been reached after long negotiations in the Council.
I am very aware of the fact that any amendments to the Council common position are likely to carry a real risk that the directive will be lost in conciliation, since the directive was, and continues to be, a very delicate compromise.
As rapporteur I have tried to avoid pushing the directive to the conciliation procedure.
I made a compromise proposal which, unfortunately, was not accepted in my political group.
I do not think we could reach a conclusion that would serve the interests of all the parties concerned better than this common position does.
So the question for us as Members of the European Parliament is whether the proposed amendments are absolutely necessary compared to the potential risk that we do not get the supervisory framework at all.
That would mean that the situation would remain uncertain from the consumers' point of view.
I also want to remind colleagues that the amendments now proposed are new and therefore not based on the position Parliament took at first reading.
They are all the amendments proposed by the ECB which were unanimously rejected by the Council.
I am also afraid that by emphasising the position of the European Central Bank in terms of monetary stability control we will cause difficult problems for the Member States which do not belong to the euro-zone.
We have to keep in mind that the ECB has no right of veto when it comes to European Community legislation.
The monetary stability control of the ECB is based on the founding treaties of the EC and it should not be expanded through the provisions of EC directives.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 add the words "at par value" to the report.
These additional words are not absolutely necessary as Article 3 sets out the terms for redeemability.
In that article it is implicit that redeemability will happen at par value unless there are any reasonable charges which would be deducted from the par value.
In this latter case the additional words would add nothing and be misleading to the consumer.
Adding the words "at par value" to Article 3(1) may mislead the consumer since it is always possible to deduct the charges that are strictly necessary to carry out that operation.
According to the common position Member States may allow their competent authorities to waive the application of some or all of the provisions of the proposed directive.
The waiver is possible in cases where the total amount of e-money issued is limited and where the e-money issued is accepted as a means of payments by only a limited number of undertakings.
For example, the waiver could be used for university campus payment cards or for local transport systems.
All these cases are also subject to a maximum storage amount of no more than EUR 150.
In addition, the waived schemes will not benefit from the Single Market passport provisions.
The business of these limited national schemes cannot, from a financial stability viewpoint, be compared with the business of large e-money schemes or credit institutions.
These limited schemes are not likely to have any spillover effects which could endanger financial market stability.
Furthermore, these national limited schemes will not be unsupervised since the text requires any waiver to be subject to a separate decision by the supervisory authorities.
Waived institutions would therefore always be registered and monitored by the supervisory authorities.
Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 reduce the scope of the waiver.
It was clear in the Council that the price for having a directive was that a waiver would need to be included as an option.
The Council was able to agree its common position only because it felt that a directive, which included a waiver but tightened regulation and permitted competition in a single market, was better than no directive at all.
The Commission took a similar view.
The sooner the directive is adopted and implemented, the sooner the improved regulation will take effect.
If this still raises concerns in practice then the Article 11 review clause is available in reserve.
Mr President, at present there is no requirement for supervision of national e-money schemes.
Therefore I do not believe that the European Parliament should adopt any amendments or there is a risk that the whole directive may be lost.
Mr President, Commissioner, concerning this directive I would basically like to say that it pursues the objectives firstly of responding to the rapid growth in electronic means of payment, secondly of creating a common legal basis for these and, thirdly, of providing a guarantee of liquidity ensuring security and protection for consumers.
We therefore welcome the directive.
We also welcome the fact that the non-banking sector will be subjected in this regard to a degree of banking supervision and that a minimum reserve requirement will be stipulated.
We also welcome the fact that there are no exemptions to the change-back obligation.
The rapporteur has already indicated in her speech that, in spite of this basic affirmation of the direction and necessity of this directive, there were several motions for amendment and also several areas of discussion which went even further.
Although the rapporteur belongs to my Group and I greatly value her commitment, I can nevertheless refute one thing for those delegates who have voiced objections and raised questions, namely the assertion that all the motions for amendment emanate from the European Central Bank.
The European Central Bank cannot put forward amendments here, and it is a slight on all delegates who have submitted amendments to say that they have raised these issues and put forward these amendments (which, incidentally, were all adopted unanimously in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs) on behalf of third parties, and not on the basis of their own judgement and responsibility, simply because the report has been adopted unanimously together with the amendments.
What are we talking about here?
These objections and questions, which do not run counter to the basic affirmation, concern four areas, basically relating to the question of whether the exemption provisions in Article 8 are too extensive and need to be more limited. They indeed need to be more limited, and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has taken up this issue, because the issue is in the area of what consequences these comprehensive exemption provisions will have for monitoring currency holdings.
What effects will these comprehensive exemption provisions have on currency stability?
Under certain circumstances, could the extensive nature of these exemption provisions not lead to circumventions, thus making the exception the rule?
This matter of monitoring currency holdings and stability and the matter of whether the exception would not thus become the rule have lead to the motions for amendment.
Should the recommendation be adopted here without any amendments, I would ask that the Commission and the Council make use of what is in the directive and submit to Parliament a brief report on the consequences of the directives with any amendments which might be necessary.
We will monitor this.
Mr President, electronic money does not yet have the same importance in the European Union as e-commerce, e-business, e-Europe.
We must ensure, of course, that we in Europe also increase our competitiveness in this area vis-à-vis the United States.
The introduction of the Euro will undoubtedly have a positive effect and will mean that the time has also come for us to establish uniform regulations to safeguard electronic commerce.
I think that electronic money will gain in importance, not just in commerce but also for consumers, particularly as the safety precautions on the Internet are regarded as inadequate and many are therefore hesitant to choose this option.
It has to be said that electronic money in the European Union today enjoys rarity value rather than common usage.
This must change!
In this regard I must also point out that within the European Union these electronic payment systems also fail to work because interoperability is not guaranteed.
I think that we should do something about this if we want to promote this means of payment in future.
We must also do it in the interests of consumers, because costs will be saved.
However, the issuing of electronic money is not just about the simplification or safeguarding of payment processes, but in practice also concerns financial stability and the functioning of the payment systems.
For this reason we need uniform regulations and we must realise that there will be particular fears if electronic money is issued not just against cash holdings or similar bank account holdings, but if e-money is given on credit.
I think that this is the particular cause of the fear of instability instead of the stability which we want to ensure in the European Union.
I therefore think that Article 8, which provides for an extension of the conditions for exemption, creates excessive discretionary powers.
This could result in many electronic money institutions not being affected by the regulations applicable to credit institutions.
This cannot and should not be the case and we all know that national issues of e-money can no longer be guaranteed today, if we look at the wording of Article 8c in particular.
The Council' s amendments, which extend the scope of money, cannot be in the interest of the consumer.
We need electronic money which is valid in a given environment.
For this reason, it must cover the entire European area and not just a national area.
I also think that institutions issuing e-money should be treated as equal.
It is, of course, also important to consider the role of the European Central Bank - controlling the amount of money in circulation, for example.
However, I am thinking primarily of consumers.
Even if e-money can be used without limit on the Internet and for mobile telephones, this does not mean that it might not be counterproductive.
For this reason I cannot support the new wording of Article 8c.
I think that we must do everything possible to increase consumer confidence in the electronic money age and not to build consumer foundations which have no stability.
Mr President, it is very regrettable that this common position, which has been put together with such care by the Council and which paid due respect to the Parliament's views at first reading, is now in the process of unravelling.
I think we are going to lose a rather useful piece of legislation which would have put in place a necessary supervisory framework for one of the growth areas in financial services, namely the storage of cash on plastic cards and other forms of e-money.
The concerns which have been expressed by the European Central Bank, which have largely, but perhaps not fully, been taken on board, are coming out in a way which is likely to damage the potential for this business to develop.
The concerns, particularly about the waiver, are misguided precisely because it would be very limited: it would be limited to only EUR 150 on any particular card.
Every issuer would be supervised by national authorities and we know that the potential for money-supply growth caused by this sort of issuance would be extremely slight given the sort of schemes which are already operating in a number of Member States: for example, on university campuses a student may be able to use this piece of plastic to buy something in a bar, or in a canteen, or in the university bookshop.
The reality is that other Community central banks - notably the Swedish Riksbank, the Bank of England - do not have these concerns about money creation.
If we look at the reality of the ECB's concerns over the last few years, we can see that there has not been a stable relationship between the money supply and the growth of nominal income.
There has been a substantial variation in the velocity of circulation because of new developments within the financial services industry and this is merely another one of those.
Therefore, in the years before the ECB took charge of euro-zone monetary policy, the Bundesbank itself was not able to respect the growth of its money supply targets.
What we have here is an attempt, when we see that a particular theory of monetary control is not working and does not accord with reality, to squeeze that reality back into the theory, to the detriment of the innovatory capacity of the Member States and of their financial systems.
That is very regrettable.
There are a lot of safeguards that the Commission has put in here that the Council has carefully discussed and I very much hope that we will fully support the Council common position on this matter.
Mr President, as from January 1999, the euro has been the new currency for most of the European Union.
Since then there have been no more exchange rate risks and, in theory, the cost to consumers of transferring money across borders and of changing cash from one euro-zone currency to another should have reduced sharply.
There are obligations on financial institutions within the Union to substantially reduce the cost to consumers of transferring money from one euro-zone to the other.
We may recall that the European Consumers' Association, which represents the consumers of the European Union, carried out an extensive survey of charges for cross-border payments only last year.
The conclusion of that survey clearly demonstrated that costs for consumers of transferring money from one country to another in Europe are still too high.
With the forecast growth in electronic shopping over the next few years, heavy bank fees for money changes will be a serious disincentive for consumers to shop over the Internet.
It is important that consumers are reassured in relation to electronic payments by establishing a legal framework.
This survey also showed that consumers are still charged a lot more for making cross-border transfers than they are for making national transfers.
This does not make sense.
Euro currency has removed exchange rate risks and costs should have reduced substantially.
I welcome the directive on cross-border credit transfers which is now in force within the Union.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that the new directive on cross-border transfers is good news for the consumers of the Union.
It is also good news for financial institutions.
Mr President, like some of the previous speakers this evening, I am very pleased the Council came forward with this proposal.
I do not think that it will be helped by the amendments being proposed inside this Parliament today and indeed in our committee.
Whatever they say about having had to vote for the report as a whole at the end in the committee, it does not persuade me that some committee members did not also have concerns about the effects of some of those amendments.
Some of the opportunities of this nascent market, which we are now seeing emerge in the European Union, will be affected by some of the suggestions being made.
Whereas money supply, of course, is of very direct interest to any central bank, there is in this case no direct inference that it will have the effect that everyone suggests it will have, i.e. that e-money will be anything other than a means of exchange, a redeemable voucher if you like or a mechanism expected to be involved in trade.
Because of the very limits that Mr Huhne talked about, this is, of course, very closely controlled by the Council's proposed waiver and particularly by some of the sensible compromises suggested earlier.
I personally, and the EPLP Group, could wholeheartedly support something like the compromise Amendment No 5 which Mrs Kauppi put forward in committee; but I am afraid if Amendments Nos 3 and 4 were adopted here in Parliament this week, we would see this legislation fall.
Be in no doubt about that, this legislation would fall.
I would worry very seriously about the motives of the people who would like to see this legislation fall, because any vacuum which would be created would be a vacuum the European Central Bank would find itself eased into.
As an institution which has kept outside any form of regulation that is decided here or anywhere else, I find that a worrying idea.
Let me ask all comrades and colleagues around this room today to consider the effects of the amendments that could be passed this week, the damage they could cause, the lack of confidence that would surely emerge and the damage it would do to this nascent market.
Mr President, may I begin by expressing the heartfelt thanks of the Commission for the work that has been done by Mrs Kauppi.
We are most appreciative of that work and of her report because it concerns a matter which is of importance, not so much to governments, but in particular to the private citizens of the European Union, as Mrs Randzio-Plath said a little while ago.
May I also express the appreciation of the European Commission for the continuing support from this Parliament for the e-money initiative and, indeed, for all the Commission's e-commerce initiatives.
The Commission has noticed the high level of cooperation between Parliament, Council and Commission in reaching an early agreement on the e-money proposals.
As evidence thereof perhaps I may cite the high number of amendments put forward by Parliament, amendments which were then accepted by the Council and by the Commission.
We certainly have taken due cognisance of the wishes expressed by this Parliament, and we have done our best to integrate them in the proposals that are now in front of you, as noted by Mr Huhne.
May I, however, express the Commission's disappointment that Mrs Kauppi's initial report could not be accepted.
That report recognised the high level of cooperation between Council, Commission and Parliament as well as the delicate nature of the common position.
In relation now to the specific amendments, I should like to say the following.
The first two that deal with redeemability at par value introduce unnecessary legal uncertainty into the text.
The provision on redeemability, which was proposed by this Parliament at the first reading - a first reading which took place almost a year ago - and was accepted by the Council, is clear.
It means that e-money must be redeemed for cash on request minus any deductions for legitimate costs in carrying out the transactions.
It seems to me that is a perfectly reasonable position.
The recognition of allowing the deduction of reasonable costs conflicts with an obligation to redeem at par value.
On this basis, and for this reason, I cannot regrettably accept the first two amendments.
Amendments Nos 3 and 4 propose substantially to limit the circumstances in which Member States may waive the application of some or all of the provisions of the directive to certain limited electronic money schemes; here I am concerned because of a misunderstanding on the waiver provisions.
These provisions are optional, they are limited in their application to specific identifiable schemes and they are on a case by case basis.
May I add that schemes which benefit from any waiver will not benefit from the European passport.
They will continue to be credit institutions and therefore fall within the monetary control of the European Central Bank in the euro-zone.
Therefore, the justification for their deletion on the basis of monetary policy concerns is unfounded.
They continue to report to the competent authorities on a periodic basis.
While on this point, I should like to say that I am a little intrigued by questions put and remarks made by Members of this Parliament on monetary stability and monetary supply.
As stated by Mr Skinner, under the e-money procedure the customer first pays in his money and then gets the equivalent amount of electronic money.
In other words, in the whole process not an iota of money is created.
Therefore considerations of monetary supply or monetary stability - as one Member put it, e-money as a vector of credit - simply do not apply.
E-money does not mean that money is created.
It means that money is paid into an institution and received in another form, but it is the same amount of money.
Therefore I should like to lay these apprehensions to rest.
There is no possibility that monetary instability will arise from the phenomenon of e-money.
Returning to the waiver provisions, if the directive should fail because of deletion of the waiver provisions - and Parliament originally proposed they should be extended - there is a very real possibility that it will prove very difficult, if not impossible, to harmonise e-money rules in the future.
We want those rules.
We want them to be harmonised, not least because the citizens of the European Union want that.
If these two directives fail it will be detrimental to European consumers, businesses and the whole e-commerce initiative.
If there are legitimate concerns or if issues which have not yet been identified arise in the next few years, they can always be taken into account in the review of the application of the directives.
The Commission is committed to a review, which will take place three years after the coming into force of the directives.
Regrettably, therefore, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 3 or 4.
As far as the Commission is concerned we would like them to be rejected by Parliament, in the same way as Amendments Nos 1 and 2 will hopefully be rejected.
Turning to Amendment No 5, which amends the text so as to prohibit Member States from waiving the redeemability requirement but does not limit in any other way the provisions of Article 8 allowing Member States to waive the provisions of the directive in respect of certain limited schemes, the Commission's view of this amendment is somewhat less unfriendly than it is regarding Amendments Nos 1 to 4.
Still, we would support the view expressed by Mrs Kauppi, who said that it would be best for all concerned, if all five amendments were rejected.
In the light of these considerations, I ask Parliament most earnestly to reconsider its amendments for fear that the directives will be lost and deformed in the conciliation process.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Animal nutrition inspections
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0084/2000) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive 95/53/EC fixing the principles governing the organisation of official inspections in the field of animal nutrition 10804/1/1999 - C5-0273/1999 - 1998/0301(COD) (Rapporteur: Mr Staes)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, practice has shown that scandals and crises can have a cleansing effect and can help improve legislation.
This is most certainly the case for all legislation related to food safety, either directly or indirectly.
There are ample examples to prove this.
It is now more than 20 years, for example, since the discovery of the presence of female sex hormones in jars of baby food led directly to the hormone directives being issued in 1981 and 1985 and revised in 1988.
Another example is the clenbuterol scandal which led to the slaughter of more than 15 000 calves in North Rhine-Westphalia in 1988 and which brought about a change in the original legislation of the hormone directives in 1996.
In Flanders, where I come from, we now have what I would term, without hesitation, the strictest national hormone legislation in Europe following a whole series of attacks on meat inspectors and the murder of the devoted veterinary surgeon, Karel Van Noppen.
Scandals can have a cleansing effect.
This is also evident today as we scrutinise the amendment to Directive 95/53 at second reading. Once again, this amendment has been prompted by a minor scandal, namely the importing of citrus pulp from Brazil contaminated with dioxin.
Citrus pulp is used as a feed for dairy cows and this is how dioxin ended up in milk for public consumption.
The authorities in Baden-Württemberg discovered this, got the ball rolling and established that between December 1997 and February 1998, a total of nearly 106 000 tonnes of contaminated pulp entered the European Union.
The scandal taught us that the Commission did not have the means to act forcefully in emergencies.
As a result, the Commission presented, at the request of the Member States, a proposal to amend the present directive on 4 November 1998.
As early as 16 December of that same year, Parliament assented to this proposal without tabling one single amendment.
After the Treaty of Amsterdam came into effect, the Commission immediately changed the legal basis of 100 A to 152.
On 15 November last, the Council laid down the present common position.
The Council made a few editorial changes, which were not a problem for us at the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
What does cause a problem for us, however, is the way in which the Council has robbed the Commission of the ability to act immediately in case of an emergency.
I will have to put my technical hat on for a moment and mention the tangle of comitology legislation because, since the Commission proposal has been submitted, comitology legislation has been changed and, from now on, Council Decision 1999/468 applies.
This legislation offers us various procedures for transferring the powers of the Council to the Commission.
Today, we should focus on Articles 5 and 6 of the Council Decision.
Article 5 provides for a regulatory procedure, Article 6 for a safeguard procedure.
The original Commission proposal, as it was approved by our Parliament at first reading, was clearly written in the spirit of the existing safeguard procedure.
The Council would now like to do away with it in its common position and replace it by the regulatory procedure.
It should, however, be clear to all MEPs that the Commission cannot act independently according to this latter procedure and must always seek permission from the Council.
After the citrus pulp scandal, the Member States themselves requested that the Commission should act.
I am of the opinion that we should give the Commission the opportunity to act swiftly. The four amendments which have been tabled aim to ensure that Article 6 of comitology legislation, i.e. the safeguard procedure, can be applied.
The Commission will then be able to act immediately in cases of emergency and can then, for example, suspend the importing of products which would harm public and animal health.
The Council will then have 30 days to change, supplement or even reverse this decision.
If the Council fails to act during these 30 days, the measures enacted by the Commission will then lapse.
I believe that this is good working practice - so far, the Council has never abused this kind of power - and it therefore deserves our support, against the wishes of the Council.
We should all bear in mind that this dossier is only an intermediate step.
On the day my report was approved in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, the European Commission submitted a new proposal to amend Directive 95/53/EC.
It immediately drew lessons from the dioxin crisis.
If Parliament and the Council adopt the same line as the Commission, a whole chapter will be devoted to further developing the safeguard clause and animal feed will come under a rapid system.
In fact, these matters are included in the White Paper and have helped the Commission keep its initial promises on the White Paper with regard to food safety.
Mr President, I am in favour of adopting the four amendments tomorrow and thus giving the Commission our full support.
We should join forces with the Commission against the Council and move towards a conciliation procedure.
Mr President, the rapporteur said in his introduction that crises have a cleansing effect.
I listened to him and hope that what he said is right.
He is evidently more optimistic than I am.
I do not really think that crises have a purifying effect.
If crises were to have a purifying effect, then Agriculture Ministers would have rather more understanding than they evidently do.
Once again we are sitting and standing in this Parliament at a time when we are, for the most part, agreed among ourselves and with the Commission, whilst the person with whom we do not agree, namely the Council representative, is absent.
Such is life!
It would be nice if he could be made aware of this, but that is probably unlikely.
The rapporteur, and also Mrs Klaß, who has just spoken, have pointed out that Parliament allowed the Commission proposal to pass through first reading unamended.
This means that the institutions who are not always in agreement were, on this occasion, agreed. And what has the Council learnt from this?
It was the Council (and I say this again in all clarity, drawing in part on my own experiences of recent years) which basically got us into the BSE scandal. It was not this Parliament, and only to a very minor extent the Commission.
It was the Council of Ministers who tried repeatedly to keep things under wraps. So what has it learnt from the BSE crisis?
Has it learnt that it is better to be transparent? Has it learnt that it is better to permit safeguard options and safeguard clauses?
Has it learnt that rapid action is needed? It has learnt none of these things!
It has submitted to us a common position in which the option to have a safeguard clause will actually be taken away from the Commission.
It will not have the option to get involved quickly and unbureaucratically on the basis of safeguard clauses.
It will also not have the option to make unannounced on-the-spot inspections.
It will not be in a position to act quickly.
And it will also not need to inform the European Parliament, nor will it need to publish any inspection reports lest, heaven forbid, the public finds out something which worries it.
It is better to leave things in the hands of the Agriculture Ministers.
I can see the Council representative writing busily and I hope that this will also be passed on to the Presidency and the other members of the Council of Agriculture Ministers.
I am sorry if I am not being very amiable at the moment, and particularly with my cold I would much rather be mellow, but the fact is I am not.
I consider this common position to be scandalous!
It is we who have worked for untainted animal feedingstuffs in recent years, we who established that we got BSE because animal feedingstuffs were mixed in a way in which they should never have been mixed, we who established that there just happens to be dioxin in the peel of oranges and other fruits and that we have it in our animal feed, we who established that sewage sludge has no place in animal feedingstuffs, we who established that hormones should not accelerate growth and do not belong in animal feedingstuffs, we who established that there is no place for antibiotics, nor cough medicines for calves - we have established all these things; my goodness, I am making more agricultural policy, and I come from the constituency of Berlin, which is a purely urban constituency, than my voters can imagine, because it is consumer protection policy - and if we know all of this, then what is the Council learning from it?
Yet again we are providing an example here right across all the groups, the rapporteur, Mrs Klaß, who has just spoken for her group, and me for my group, of how the institutions work closely together.
We support, Mr Byrne, the fact that you will have the opportunities which you need in the Commission in Brussels, for example via the Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin, that will enable you to carry out rapid inspections and take safeguard measures, so that we are actually able to say to consumers that we genuinely care about safe food, and safe feedingstuffs and animal nutrition inspections are the first step in all this.
I thank you for the fact that you will obviously now be able to table a motion for the primary inspection of European Union products, not just, as in this instance, products from third countries.
It only makes sense if we prevent this in unison and only then, Commissioner, does the White Paper on food safety, which you have presented, also make sense.
I therefore hope that, tomorrow, we will actually slap the Council of Ministers in the face by unanimously affirming the rapporteur' s four amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not have time to philosophise in just one minute.
The important thing, then, is to thank the Commission, and our rapporteur, Mr Staes, for having finally made sense of the White Paper presented by Romano Prodi, which included a chapter on the food chain and animal feedingstuffs.
Animals are just the first link in the chain which leads ultimately to human beings.
But our impression is that the Council does not see this.
The Council does not appear to see that, after the dioxin crisis, every day since the start of the year there have been cases of mad cows just about everywhere in Europe.
The Council does not therefore see what we have seen, which is that as a follow-up to European legislation it is necessary to have structures to monitor and take fast action in the event of a problem.
In the context of the forthcoming establishment of the European health authority, it would therefore be advisable to allocate this body real resources in order to enable fast detection and thus prevent contagion.
It would also be advisable that all animal feed industry operators should sign proper specifications with the competent health authorities that aim to reduce accidents as much as possible and that accept certain thresholds, making it possible to take any additive raw material or animal feedingstuff components out of circulation, and thus helping to restore consumer confidence.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Staes for his report on the organisation of inspections in the field of animal nutrition and for the broad support that was also given to the Commission position by Mr Olsson, Mrs Klaß and Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
I particularly appreciate the good collaboration with Parliament in this case.
Already at first reading, Parliament fully supported the Commission's proposal.
The proposal aims at improving control measures in the field of animal nutrition.
It intends to harmonise inspection procedures for all products imported from third countries.
In 1998, the detection of dioxin in some raw materials imported into the Community showed the need for a legal basis to permit the Commission when confronted by a serious risk to public health to adopt safeguard measures on products from third countries.
The proposal also extends the legal basis to carry out on-the-spot inspections, both in Member States and in third countries.
I have to say that I was surprised by the Council's rejection of the Commission proposal for the safeguard clause and by the introduction of a committee procedure that will not guarantee that a prompt decision is taken in the event of a serious risk to human or animal health.
As a matter of fact, the dioxin contamination has clearly shown how important rapid action is, in particular when a danger spreads from the feed to the food chain.
I should also highlight the fact that similar provisions already exist in food and veterinary legislation and there is no evidence of misuse of this instrument.
The Commission, although not opposed to most of the amendments made by the Council, strongly rejected the Council amendment concerning the safeguard procedure.
Council has denied the possibility for the Commission to take immediate action in emergency cases without consulting Member States beforehand.
The possibility for the Commission situations to react quickly in emergency cases even before consulting Member States is a landmark question.
The discussion in the present case constitutes an important precedent for the future.
Following the dioxin crisis of May 1999, the Commission announced legislative acts to improve the legal provisions regulating feed safety.
In the recent proposal to the European Parliament and to the Council adopted on 21 March, the Commission introduced the same safeguard clause concerning feedingstuffs produced within the European Union.
Consequently, this question will also be relevant for several measures on feedingstuffs which are of vital importance and which are announced in the White Paper on food safety.
For all these reasons, I can fully accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, and 4 by which Parliament reintroduces the original provision on safeguard procedures.
Although it is not so important as the other amendments, I can also accept Amendment No 3 regarding the carrying out of on-the-spot inspections.
In the light of the plenary's support for the amendments put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I will press once more on the Council the strong case for supporting the proposal's original provisions.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Food additives other than colours and sweeteners
The next item is the report by Mr Lannoye (A5-0072/2000), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 95/2 on food additives other than colours and sweeteners COM(1999) 329 - C5-0068/1999 - 1999/0158(COD).
- (FR) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to discuss a second aspect of the food safety issue.
The fact is, over the years, more and more additives have been used in foodstuffs, in connection, in particular, with the industrialisation of food production.
When I say 'more and more' , you only have to look at the figures.
A survey of the current situation shows that 307 additives are authorised within the European Union.
We are effectively working with a positive list.
All the additives given on this list are authorised; any not included are, by the same token, prohibited.
That makes 307 authorised additives, only 163 of which may be considered as totally harmless, indicating that many others are either suspect or actually cause food safety-related problems.
I am thinking in particular of the problem of allergies.
What is being proposed today? Not reducing the list, but extending it a little further since the Commission has made nine proposals, either to add certain additives to the list or to extend the uses of some already authorised additives.
In principle, there are three criteria governing the acceptance of a new additive: technological need, usefulness for the consumer and harmlessness.
It must be acknowledged that, in the course of time, technological need has always been the predominant criterion. It is not that the criterion of harmlessness has been ignored, just that it has been modified slightly over time.
It is common knowledge today that the precautionary principle was practically unheard of seven or eight years ago, whereas today it has come to the fore.
The situation must therefore be reviewed from a different perspective to the one we took a few years ago.
I therefore find it quite astounding - as indeed does the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy - that a number of additives are being proposed for inclusion, for which we do not have assurances.
Of the Commission' s nine proposals, we think that five are suspect for one reason or another.
I shall mention them quickly.
Firstly, an additive called sodium alginate is proposed for use on grated carrots.
The usefulness for the consumer is that the grated carrots will appear to be 'fresh' even though they are actually not.
This is quite clear, just from reading the relevant literature.
As for the risks to the consumer, apparently these are not very significant, but the Scientific Committees which have looked into the matter do consider that the laxative effect of this additive is likely to combine with other problems of the same type.
It is not, therefore, necessarily to be recommended.
In consideration of the fact that this involves deception of the consumer rather than improving the situation for the consumer, our opinion is that this additive must not be accepted.
There is another additive which presents a huge problem, E467.
I will refrain from giving its official name because it is far too long and complex, and I think it would be even harder to translate.
E467 is problematic in terms of assessing its harmlessness, because it contains extremely dangerous impurities.
One such impurity is ethylene oxide, which the relevant scientific authorities recognise is a proven carcinogen.
We must consequently reject this one too.
Finally, three other additives are proposed as propellants.
These are inflammable gases - butane, isobutane and propane.
In view of the fact that there are alternative solutions - the technological need is therefore a real one, but it can be fulfilled by other additives - and that, in addition, after cooking, after the use of these products, the residues in the form of organic products are not, a priori, harmless, we consider that these additives cannot be approved either.
That is a brief overview of the problem.
As far as we are concerned there are five additives which should not be authorised, and the four others do not seem to present any problem, based on a reading of the scientific literature about them.
As we are not absolutist, we consider that they may be accepted.
I think it is important, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to reverse the trend in the current legislation on additives.
The Commission has announced a radical revision of the directive.
I think we would be sending out a positive message if we indicated that we do not wish to maintain the attitude which has dominated for years, allowing the number of additives to grow and grow, even though we know nothing about their synergistic effects in combination.
Quite the contrary, we think we should move towards a much more limited list, and remove the most suspect additives from the list.
I have counted around fifty of these myself.
Others should be used far less widely.
I am thinking, for example, of nitrites, nitrates and sulphites which are known to present proven health problems.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to thank the rapporteur for his thorough work but, in my opinion, the preparatory work has been carried out far too meticulously, with too much weight given to the precautionary principle.
I would like to draw your attention to some of the issues that have been raised in this opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
The Committee found that the proposal for a directive does not follow the procedure specified for the basic directive on additives.
The amendments in the Commission' s proposal are based on the needs expressed by a Member State, and the Scientific Committee for Food has delivered a favourable opinion on the amendments in question.
Now we are talking about allowing the use of a few new additives.
The rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy have, however, treated the proposal heavy-handedly and are proposing that the use of most of the new additives mentioned in the Commission' s proposal be rejected. This raises a few questions.
The Scientific Committee for Food has delivered a favourable report on proposals by Member States concerning additives.
Has it not shown itself capable of the task in question or has the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy indeed gone too far in its interpretation of the precautionary principle?
To what extent has the point of view of industry been taken into account in the report? Should not the question of innovations and the use of better additives, as well as competitiveness of the European food industry, be given greater consideration?
We might also ask how Parliament in future will manage its enormous task if it tackles issues so meticulously.
Should Parliament not decide on goals and procedures whereby matters such as the safe introduction of new additives can be assured? If the report is adopted in the form in which it has been presented, could not the adoption procedure regarding new additives be reformed once and for all and the whole additives list revised?
I would ask the rapporteur in question, and the representative of the Commission also, to reply to these questions.
Mr President, the way in which we feed ourselves is an expression of how we live.
Some people criticise what I would call the modern western lifestyle, rightly or wrongly.
The answer to this question is often determined by the choices we make.
What matters to the European People' s Party is that the consumer has choices.
This presupposes both the availability of information and the guarantee that what is on offer on the market does not present any health risks and that all products are manufactured in accordance with current rules and procedures.
As far as additives are concerned, the basic rules are enshrined in the 1989 Framework Directive.
This directive stipulates that an additive shall only be admitted if there is sufficient technological need, if there is no risk to the health of the consumer and if the consumer is not misled in the process.
In our view, the latter condition has not been met regarding the admission of sodium alginate in peeled and sliced carrots.
If consumers buy fresh carrots, they must be able to assume that these are untreated and not processed and they do not expect them to be dipped in a preservative.
To assess whether the use of additives is necessary, the Framework Directive lists various accepted objectives. One of these is the supply of ingredients or components of foodstuffs to patients with dietary needs.
The use of E 467 - I will not attempt to pronounce the full word - as proposed by the Commission, seems to meet this requirement.
Finally, the Framework Directive also stipulates that facilitating the manufacture and preparation of foodstuffs is an acceptable criterion of usefulness.
In the light of this, our Group is not really opposed to permitting three additives in baking sprays, unlike the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
All other amendments tabled by this committee receive our support, including the amendment tabled by the PSE Group.
I would like to add the following if you will allow me. Firstly: the rapporteur who, incidentally, has worked extremely hard - I have rarely seen a rapporteur put so much effort into one report and I would like to congratulate him on this - has every right to complain about the Commission providing Parliament with insufficient information in the COM document.
Something was added at the end, but I do not think that this is the way forward and I would like to find out from the Commissioner whether he intends to do anything about this in the future.
Secondly, the effects on public health must obviously be assessed on a scientific basis.
For this purpose, we call on the Scientific Committee for Food for scientific opinions.
After the BSE crisis, the Scientific Committees were reformed at our request and, as we have said before, they have been reformed to our satisfaction.
We now have to make a decision: either we accept the opinions of the Scientific Committees in principle, or we do not; but then these Scientific Committees will need to be reformed once again. We cannot do a bit of both.
I fear that if we do not, out of principle almost, accept the conclusions reached by the Scientific Committees, this will cost us and the legislation we draft dearly in terms of credibility, and we will then end up replacing the expertise of the scientists in the Scientific Committees by our own convictions. This is something I find difficult to come to terms with.
Thirdly, I would like to know from the Commission if it intends to screen the permitted additives at set times and examine these according to state-of-the-art technology, as the rapporteur has asked in his explanatory note, and quite rightly so.
Fourthly, and on a final note, I would like to say a few words on the hierarchy of standards.
We have asked for a hierarchy of standards in the IGC report and we have also mentioned this elsewhere.
Could the Commissioner tell me whether he thinks that lists of additives should be drafted or completed within the European Parliament and the Council, preferably according to a codecision procedure, or is this a task which, in his opinion, should be carried out by an authorised executive body?
Mr President, our foodstuffs - and this also applies to entirely fresh produce, for example the peeled carrots we heard mentioned today - are nowadays doctored in all kinds of ways with colouring agents, sweeteners, flavour enhancers and preservatives, in fact with every possible type of substance.
And all in order to disguise the products' natural characteristics.
It is, of course, not just a few substances we are talking about. Nowadays, we use several thousands of additives and, where the majority of these are concerned, the fact is that we are not even aware of their consequences for health.
To top it all, we are in fact aware that a large number of them are harmful, and yet we still allow them to be used.
I think that Community policy in relation to the use of additives has developed in a quite irresponsible way.
I should therefore like to support Mr Lannoye' s report.
I think a splendid piece of work has been carried out.
New additives ought to be refused and any increase in the quantity of accepted and permitted substances should be rejected.
Instead, I think the Commission needs seriously to rationalise the number of additives.
In the general remarks in his report, Mr Lannoye points to many substances which ought to be investigated, including antibiotics added directly to foodstuffs.
I should like to point out a further problem.
It is a problem which Mr Lannoye also mentioned in his intervention, namely the question of adding nitrates and nitrites to meat products.
In my opinion, the quantities of these compounds that are permitted are way too excessive.
A major investigation by five consumer organisations in Europe has recently shown that a large proportion of meat products contains quite large quantities of nitrosamines.
Nitrosamine is a carcinogenic substance which is derived from, and produced by, nitrates and nitrites.
I think the situation is unacceptable in this area, but I do not see the investigation having made any impression upon the Commission.
I think that the quantity of nitrates and nitrites added to meat products ought to be considerably reduced and that there should be compulsory monitoring of the quantity of nitrosamine which, as I said, is of course a powerfully carcinogenic substance, the presence of which in our foodstuffs is not presently measured at all.
I hope that Commissioner Byrne, who has assumed responsibility for this area, will examine the question of added amounts of nitrates and nitrites.
I think we have a serious problem in this regard and I hope he will confirm that this will be done.
Finally, I would say that, in my view, we need quite a thorough rationalisation of the quantity of additives in our foodstuffs.
Mr President, the report is concerned with supplementing a list of permitted additives with additional foodstuff additives, other than colouring agents and flavourings. This means that the Commission suggests supplementing the list with additives which have not yet been used.
It does not, however, mean deleting any additives from the list.
In terms of food and food safety, the needs and wishes of the consumer need to be given more consideration than has been the case in the past. That does not mean, of course, that we can ignore the interests of the foodstuff manufacturers or that we should turn our back on modern food production methods, as Mr Pojarno mentioned a moment ago.
It does mean, however, that food safety must be at the top of the agenda.
Whilst many additives are harmless, this does not mean that they all are.
And if harmlessness has not been established 100%, there is no doubt that the only correct way forward is to ban the use of the product.
In addition, it is useful to get manufacturers to spell out the benefit of adding substances for the consumer.
The example of E401 or sodium alginate - a word which I can pronounce - has been mentioned. This makes stale carrots look fresh.
What consumer interest is served by doing this? What is in the interests of the consumer differs from one consumer to another and from one consumer group to the next.
But what is clear is that all consumers benefit from sound consumer information so that they are not misled.
This report literally takes a refreshing look at the problem, and not before time.
The rapporteur is to be congratulated on this and the report can count on the support of the liberal group.
Mr President, naturally we too wish to congratulate our colleagues.
Mr Lannoye has done an excellent job; indeed, he has achieved what the Commission failed to.
The Commission only offers talk of the precautionary principle, whereas Mr Lannoye has shown in his report that it is also about implementing it in practice and actually making the precautionary principle a keynote.
I also fail to see what the Commission promised, i.e. transparency.
It is nothing less than consumer deception if we are giving the illusion of freshness which does not in reality exist.
Commissioner, you must finally come clean as to why you are not envisaging that unpacked foodstuffs, in particular fruit and vegetables, should also be compulsorily labelled.
I would also like to once again stress what Mr Lannoye has said.
This report makes clear that we need a reform of additives.
We cannot place hundreds of additives on the market simply because industry wants it.
It has nothing to do with competition that we reject what the Commission is proposing.
We actually need, as in Japan, a limited list of 70-100 additives and I would have liked to know what the Commissioner thinks of this.
Industry will then have to decide the ones it wants.
That would at least be an innovative viewpoint which makes competition the basis.
Mr Lannoye is right that we must lay our cards on the table in this regard and do justice to the precautionary principle.
Mr President, I should like to start by saying that, with Paul Lannoye as rapporteur, the report concerned has been placed in very competent hands, and I am able fully to support all his conclusions.
As is well known, there are three prior conditions which must be fulfilled if additives are to be included on the positive list.
There should be a technological need, the product should be useful to the consumer and there should be documentary proof of its being harmless.
Paul Lannoye rightly points out that none of the prerequisites are present in the case of sodium alginate. The substance is not useful to the consumer.
On the contrary, it directly misleads the consumer by making sliced carrots look fresh, even if they are not.
It is also very unfortunate that the synergy effect has not been investigated.
It is, on principle, very alarming that the Commission should be able to extend the list of additives just because the substances are permitted in parts of the EU.
This rule ought to be changed so that an additive can only be put on the positive list if there is a clearly documented technological need for it which is also, mind you, of benefit to consumers.
It is ironic to be having to deal with this proposal such a short time after the publication of the Commission' s White Paper on Foodstuffs.
In the white paper, the Commission itself attaches importance to limiting the consumption of additives in order - as the Commission puts it - to thereby avoid negative effects on health.
The Commission also states that it wishes to guide consumers as best it can so that they themselves can make a choice.
On examining this proposed directive, the conclusion has to be drawn that there is very little connection between words and deeds in the EU' s handling of additives.
I seem to remember that the original intention in drafting a positive list was partly that it should be possible to decide to remove additives from the list.
Current liberalisation of the quantity of permitted additives is worrying.
Let us, therefore, have the list shortened as soon as possible rather than extended.
In addition to what Mr Lund has said about nitrites and nitrates, I would mention that, in the course of the last part-session, I asked the Commission if the newly discovered scientific facts about these two substances' effects on health had caused the Commission to review its position.
The answer was unfortunately 'no' and, in common with Mr Lund, I should like to see that 'no' justified here today.
Mr President, I share in principle the opinion of the rapporteur that new additives in foodstuffs should not be approved if there is no actual need for them.
However, I would like to point out that we ought to consider the fact that there might be a regional or national tradition that justifies the approval of an additive.
The additive I am thinking of in this regard is ethylhydroxyethylcellulose.
This substance is no luxury and it is not addictive.
Ethylhydroxyethylcellulose has, however, been used for more than 20 years in Sweden and Finland, and I think also in Norway, as a binding agent in gluten-free bread and pastries.
It is used in order to prevent gluten-free bread and pastries from crumbling apart and in order that the relatively small group of people with an intolerance for gluten are able to eat bread and pastries in the same form as other healthy people.
Ethylhydroxyethylcellulose is particularly suitable for the kind of bread traditionally made in the northern region of the EU. The substance is, therefore, not completely exchangeable for other, already approved types of cellulose.
The rapporteur claims that there is a risk of contaminants in ethylhydroxyethylcellulose that could have a carcinogenic effect and also suggests that high doses could have a laxative effect.
However, I maintain that in reality the opposite may be true.
The fact that the bread sticks together and does not have to be eaten with a spoon because it has broken into a mass of crumbs is particularly important for children with gluten intolerance.
These children have difficulty understanding why they should have to eat breadcrumbs when other children eat whole bread that does not crumble into pieces.
If children are careless about their diet, there is an increased risk of malnutrition.
If children with gluten intolerance abandon the breadcrumbs and eat normal bread, they will suffer from stomach pain and they can then develop diarrhoea.
In the long term, there is probably also an increased risk of contracting cancer of the stomach or intestine.
For many families with gluten intolerant children, life is very difficult and the extra work involved in managing their diet is tremendous.
These families cannot buy their bread, but have to make it themselves and add the binding agent themselves.
Why should we make life even more difficult for these families? Why should they not be allowed to continue to use the binding agent that they are used to using?
Not approving ethylhydroxyethylcellulose makes life more difficult for people with gluten intolerance and for families with gluten intolerant children.
In this case it is not possible to invoke the precautionary principle in order to ban the substance.
On the contrary, the precautionary principle favours the approval of ethylhydroxyethylcellulose.
Mr President, like everyone else in this debate I should like to congratulate Mr Lannoye.
He and I sometimes cross swords on the issue of other nutritious additives, but in this case we are looking very much at the essence of the burden of proof before this list is yet further extended.
He has done a service to the committee and also to this House by pointing out that this procedure appears to be almost always one-way.
We need to hear from the Commission on two points of principle: the first is whether the procedures themselves need review as the Commission spokesman suggested in the debate in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy; secondly, whether there is a more efficacious way of removing additives as well as bringing them into effect.
It seems to us that the list is getting larger and that the burden of proof must remain with those, be they in Member States, in the Commission or in the Scientific Committees, who want us to adapt these things.
I am prepared to accept that some of these are harmless.
Indeed, the committee and even Mr Lannoye were prepared to accept E949 and E650.
However, whilst I would not claim to be an expert - as no other member of the committee would - on the issue of which of the various propellant sprays can safely be used, enough doubts were raised in committee, not least when we heard from the representative of the Commission, about the propellant sprays themselves.
These are apparently needed by manufacturers because they produce an equal spray of fat on the utensil concerned.
One of them is there only for professional use.
The other two are regarded as safe for all.
We all want to look again at this issue and see why they have been chosen and whether we might now hold back any clearance of them, at least until the review which is suggested has been carried through.
With regard to the two amendments, my Group, whilst it supports the spirit of what Mr Lannoye proposes in Amendment No 1, would not go as far as this to write the precautionary principle itself into this particular directive.
It does not seem to us to be the right place for it.
We would prefer to strike out recital 5 and we shall so vote.
This is the place to discuss the burden of proof rather than the overall principle of precaution.
Finally, as regards Amendment No 2 in the name of my Group, this is purely a drafting amendment to remove references to the codecision procedure.
But its meaning remains crystal clear.
We do not think these additions should be made unless it can be demonstrated that the consumer benefits.
At the end of the line it is for the consumer that this is being done.
It is being done in the consumer's name.
For that reason we commend Amendment No 2.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the recent dioxin and mad cow scandals have amply demonstrated, if indeed there was any need, that consumers now want to have every possible guarantee as to the quality of their food.
In this respect, the Lannoye report provides one more classic example.
The rapporteur rightly wonders if the additives added to our foodstuffs are really necessary and, more especially, if they are really harmless. What are we discussing here?
The total of 307 additives authorised by the European Union, only 163 of which are completely harmless, as Paul Lannoye has just pointed out.
Who stands to gain from the inclusion of additives, of chemicals, in our meals?
Certainly not the consumers, who are now increasingly looking to find 100% healthy food for themselves and for their children.
In this respect, without going into the technical details, I should like to go back over the three criteria highlighted in the report. On the one hand, do the additives meet a technological need?
The least that can be said is that consumer interests are not always in line with the interests of manufacturing firms. On the other hand, are the additives useful to the consumer?
On this subject, the rapporteur highlights at least one case where this mistaken conclusion may be drawn; is stopping an ageing grated carrot going soft and losing colour - as it ought to - not, in the final analysis, a form of deception? The question answers itself.
Finally, is it certain that the additive is harmless? Once again our thinking must be guided by the precautionary principle, since selecting a carrot which has had the E401 face-lift treatment also involves - and this is something the customer is not aware of, or not generally at least - running the risk of potentially unpleasant side-effects which cannot be ignored or played down.
In conclusion, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party will support the Lannoye report because it makes a practical contribution to improving consumers' quality of life and, moreover, guaranteeing honesty with regard to what is on our plates.
That is the prime consideration.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Lannoye for his report on the Commission proposal to amend European Parliament and Council Directive 95/2 on food additives other than colours and sweeteners.
The Commission considers that Directive 95/2 needs to be adapted in the light of recent technical and scientific developments.
Our proposal is based on three main principles.
Approved additives are safe and present no risk to public health.
Safety issues are evaluated by the Scientific Committee for Food.
Food additives are only permitted if it is demonstrated that there is a technological need for them and consumers are not misled and will benefit from having a choice of new products with better quality.
Several of the additives now proposed for use have been temporarily authorised by some Member States.
Provided that the opinions of the Scientific Committee are respected, technological need is demonstrated and consumers are not misled, Community legislation should recognise the experience of the Member States in the use of these additives.
For these reasons the Commission is not in a position to accept Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5.
The amendments proposed do not sufficiently take into account the opinions of the Scientific Committee for Food and the technological need that exists in some Member States.
If these amendments were adopted, some perfectly safe foodstuffs would disappear from the shelves of food stores in certain Member States.
As to the first amendment, the application of the precautionary principle is not appropriate as has been mentioned by a number of speakers this evening.
The safety of the food additives we are discussing has been evaluated by the Scientific Committee for Food.
This is the basis on which the Community legislators have approved the use of additives in the past and it is the basis on which the Commission now proposes the authorisation of new food additives.
Therefore, the Commission is not in favour of the first amendment.
The Commission does not believe that Amendments Nos 2 and 6 are necessary or appropriate in respect of this directive.
The Commission is sponsoring this directive on the basis of the well-established criteria that the additives in question are safe, as evaluated by the Scientific Committee for Food, that there is a technological need and that consumers are not misled and will benefit from having a choice of more products with better quality.
However, it is my own belief that such an amendment could be appropriate in Framework Directive 89/107 of 21 December 1998, and that document is referred to in the annex to the White Paper at entry No 42.
It is Mr Whitehead's amendment in relation to No 2 that has given me the opportunity to consider this particular aspect and whether there is a need for raising the standard in this area in a particular manner.
I have come to the conclusion that he is correct and that some effort should be made to deal with this.
But I think that it is probably best to do so in the framework directive rather than in this particular directive.
That would have more universal application and would achieve the ends that all of us want to achieve for consumers.
So when we come to the point of amending that particular directive, i.e. 89/107, I will be giving serious consideration to that suggestion and to that amendment put forward by Mr Whitehead.
There are a number of individual points that have been mentioned that I would like to draw attention to and see if I can respond to the questions raised.
First of all, in relation to sodium alginate, a number of speakers mentioned the fact that this particular proposal would have the effect of misleading consumers because it was designed for the purpose of keeping the carrots fresh.
That is not strictly speaking a correct analysis of the purpose of this particular additive.
The carrots are pre-packed, so they are labelled and therefore the consumer knows that an additive is being used.
The purpose of the additive is as a firming agent rather than making the food look, or suggesting that it is, in fact fresher than it is.
Therefore, in those circumstances, it is justifiable.
Mr Lannoye mentioned the application of the precautionary principle.
I have dealt with that very briefly but let me just say, I respectfully agree with a number of the contributors this evening on the proper place for the precautionary principle.
I believe that the precautionary principle is inappropriate in the circumstances that we are considering this evening, whereas it is appropriate in circumstances where there is an absence of science.
But in this particular case, the Scientific Committee has examined the situation, it has given its opinion that these additives are safe.
I agree with another contributor earlier, that I have some anxieties about putting forward our views in place of the scientific opinions expressed by scientists.
I would have strong reserves about approaching a particular problem in that way and therefore we should give full regard to the opinions of Scientific Committees.
Our decisions ought to be science-based.
To supplant the opinions of scientists with our own opinions is a dangerous precedent in my view and certainly this is not the appropriate place for the precautionary principle.
I was also asked why does the Commission propose the use of the additive E467 that is alleged to contain dangerous impurities such as ethylene oxide.
I should say that the impurity of ethylene oxide did not prevent the Scientific Committee from concluding that this cellulose is safe for use.
Limits for impurities will be set in the specifications that are drawn up as a Commission directive after the additive is permitted for use.
I was also asked why the Commission does not propose the deletion of food additives instead of always adding new ones to the positive list.
When the Commission has the information that an additive is no longer used, it proposes the withdrawal of the substance from the positive list.
For instance, in the next revision of this directive, the Commission services will propose the deletion of calcium hydrogen carbonate and magnesium carbonate.
Mrs Thyssen made reference to the fact that there was insufficient information in the Commission document, and I take account of that.
There is something to be said for what you say in relation to this.
I propose to take steps when further Commission proposals are made in this regard.
Perhaps some greater clarity might be contained in the document, giving a broader justification for such inclusion from a consumer benefit point of view.
Perhaps some more technical information might justifiably be included also.
Mr Lund suggested that the colouring agents are added to unprocessed food.
That is a factually incorrect statement.
No colouring agents are added to unprocessed food at all.
He also asked if some consideration should not be given to the consumer survey that took place in December on nitrates.
I have been informed that this is under active consideration and discussions are taking place with Member States in relation to that particular survey.
Mr Whitehead asked me if we should give some consideration to a more effective way of removing additives.
I refer you to the earlier part of my answer when I said that two particular additives will be removed from the list, but I will seek some further information from my service as to what procedure is followed and what information is available to Members of Parliament so there can be doubt as to what procedures are involved.
Not only Mr Whitehead but also some other speakers made reference to this.
Obviously there is some concern that there is not enough information about this.
I will certainly make further inquiries so as to be in a position to give further information to Members in due course.
I promise, Mr President, to be extremely brief.
I do not think we have time or that it is in fact possible to have an in-depth debate on such a complex problem, but I should like to be able to discuss the matter with the Commissioner outside this Chamber.
Firstly, I have an initial comment to make on the Scientific Committees.
It is not sufficient, Commissioner, simply to read the conclusions of the Scientific Committees.
You must read the report, as I have done.
Occasionally, reading the reports gives rise to more doubts than certainties.
I would ask you, therefore, to be a little more circumspect before rejecting all the amendments out of hand, since I can also claim to have made a scientific study of the situation.
I have gathered a number of opinions, I have read the texts, and I can tell you that you are going too far in sweeping aside the amendments we are proposing.
Next, there is one other aspect which has not been taken into account, to wit, the potential interaction between the many additives found in food.
They have never been studied together, they are studied in isolation; and that is an aspect that you must take into consideration.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting closed at 9.20 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I should just like to let Mr Corbett know that within the EPP Group an amendment cannot be put before Parliament unless it has been voted in the Group and has the support of the Group.
He should be quite clear about that procedure within our Group.
Secondly, as he is aware, there is a process going on at the moment for reforming Parliament.
If he has any suggestions to put to the Bureau about the voting procedures, that would be the correct way to go about it.
Mr Corbett, I will pass on your comments to the President, and the Bureau will look into all our working procedures in May.
Mr President, I was present yesterday and I signed the register but my name does not appear in the Minutes.
I should like that to be corrected.
It shall be done, Mrs McNally.
Mr President, in the capacity of draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation on the granting of discharge for 1998, I would briefly like to mention that, last night, a partly joint committee meeting was held, involving the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Development and Cooperation, about the Rühle report. During that meeting, agreement was reached, in principle, to adopt a compromise approach which was subsequently refined.
In practice, this means that the existing text will be replaced by a new joint compromise proposal, which will, in effect, lead to a delay in the proceedings and a reconsideration in June.
The political groups will undoubtedly submit this text some time this morning and the debate will be able to take place as normal, but it is useful for the Members to know that this debate actually took place last night and that, in actual fact, a new political situation has arisen in which the Members of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Members of the Committee on Development and Cooperation once again agreed on what we consider to be a more positive approach.
Mr President, I should just like to say in reply to Mr van den Berg that the report on postponing discharge for the Structural Funds is ready and the vote will be taken on the premise that this is indeed merely a postponement and does not grant or refuse discharge and that everything which we worked on together yesterday will be taken into account in the final version, i.e. that we shall nonetheless debate and vote on Mrs Rühle' s report.
Mr President, I have a request; every member has a very precise timetable.
We agree on a great number of deadlines in the citizens' interest.
Today, yet again, the sitting has been brought forward, this time to 8.30 a.m.
I think it would be conducive to greater overall efficiency if we stuck to a basic programme and stopped changing arrangements at short notice.
Thank you for your understanding.
Mr Rübig, look upon it as an exceptional decision taken in response to specific requests from the Portuguese Presidency.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, on a point of order. It concerns a reference made yesterday by the President on the change of business which is taking place this week.
I am very concerned indeed about the reference that the President made as to who would be present from the Council when the President of Austria attends this Parliament tomorrow.
There was, and still is, concern among a lot of people that the change of business means that the Council will be absent on that important occasion.
I should like to have some assurances that the Council will be represented at a sufficiently senior level to offer the respect which this Parliament traditionally offers when these sorts of visits occur.
(Applause from the right)
I will pass on your comments to the President, Mr Kirkhope.
Vote on request for urgent procedure
. Mr President, whilst the Council has made this request and we are quite happy to do what we can to ensure that things are speeded up, there is no need to vote on this urgency today.
It is planned for our agenda in May.
The way the finances are at present, there will be no problem in financing the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, whose money is guaranteed until the end of this year, as are also the substantial funds available for the UNMIK operation there.
We can leave this until next month.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
1998 discharge, budgetary control
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A5-0087/2000) by Mr Stauner, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on postponement of discharge to the Commission in respect of implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the 1998 financial year [SEC(1999) 412 - C5-0006/1999 - 1999/2050(DEC)];
(A5-0089/2000) by Mrs Rühle, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control,
. on postponement of the decision concerning discharge to the Commission in respect of the financial management of the sixth, seventh and eighth European Development Funds for the 1998 financial year [COM(1999) 227 - C5-0003/1999 - 1999/2004(DEC)]
. on granting discharge to the European Foundation for Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Dublin) for the 1998 financial year [C5-0150/2000 - 2000/2094(DEC)]
. on granting discharge to the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Thessaloniki) for the 1998 financial year [C5-0149/2000 - 2000/2093(DEC)]
. on the granting of discharge for the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the 1998 financial year
Section IV - Court of Justice
Section V - Court of Auditors
Section VI, Part B - Committee of the Regions
[SEC(1999) 414 - C5-0008/1999 - 1999/2166(DEC)]
. on postponement of the decision concerning discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the 1998 financial year
Section VI, Part A - Economic and Social Committee
[SEC(1999) 414 - C5-0008/1999];
(A5-0092/2000) by Mr Khanbhai, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on granting discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) for the 1998 financial year [C5-0153/2000 - 2000/2077(DEC)];
(A5-0097/2000) by Mr Kuhne, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge in respect of implementation of the general budget for the 1998 financial year
Section I - European Parliament/Ombudsman Annex [SEC(1999) 414 - C5-0008/1999 - 1999/2051(DEC)];
(A5-0095/2000) by Mr Mulder, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on granting discharge to the Commission in respect of the decisions on clearance of accounts of the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF for the 1993, 1994 and 1995 financial years [C4-0128/1998 - C4-0372/1998 - C5-0167/2000 - 1997/2167(DEC)];
(A5-0079/2000) by Mr Casaca, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 723/1997 on the implementation of Member States' action programmes on control of EAGGF Guarantee Section expenditure [COM(1999) 169 - C4-0225/1999 - 1999/0091(CNS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, "zero tolerance towards fraud and other forms of incorrect conduct is a precondition for regaining confidence in the European civil service" . These are the words of Mr Kinnock, the vice-president of the Commission in charge of reform, in the Commission' s consultation paper dated 18 January 2000.
It was on this premise and with the noble claim that it would not repeat past mistakes - the last Commission having been brought down just under a year ago as the result of fraud and irregularities - that the Prodi Commission took office in September.
The Commission must be measured against this claim and its self-evident obligation, as guardian of the Treaties vis-à-vis third parties, to guarantee that their application begins at home.
It was against this yardstick that the Committee on Budgetary Control came to the conclusion, as the leading committee, that it would recommend that discharge be postponed until 15 May 2000 and would call on the Commission to adopt 17 measures. These measures relate mainly to four areas which still require clarification or the oft-quoted fresh start.
Firstly, the error rate of over five per cent calculated by the Court of Auditors over several years must be cut considerably by 2001 and a positive declaration of assurance must be achieved by 2003.
Secondly, the particularly blatant cases of fraud and irregularity in connection with the Fléchard case, ECHO, MED and contracts awarded to visiting scientists must be fully clarified and dealt with in disciplinary terms.
Thirdly, Parliament must be given unrestricted access to information and documents for its control activities, as called for in the 1997 discharge resolution.
Fourthly: reports must be filed on the relevant disciplinary hearings and fundamental reforms implemented.
The Committee did not pass this resolution lightly and finally adopted the proposal submitted by a large majority of 19 votes to 1.
The fact that this motion was tabled in the form of a compromise between the four main groups demonstrates clearly that Parliament is pulling in the same direction on this extremely important issue and wishes to signal its unity over and above party political divisions and any national interests or chauvinism.
The Commission should agree to it if it wishes to retain its credibility in its handling of the taxes paid by European citizens and its democratic dealings with the elected representatives of the people of Europe.
I feel particularly strongly about the integrity and the ability of the European executive to act, especially in view of the imminent enlargement of the EU, because the Commission needs to have its hands free for political policy-making and must not be hampered by time-consuming and irritating justification campaigns.
Parliament takes the control function assigned to it in the European Treaties seriously.
All the cases of fraud and irregularity addressed in the resolution relate directly to the 1998 financial year, even though some originated much earlier.
All the measures called for must be carried out by the deadline set.
All the cases are awaiting a decision.
Clearly, the new Commission cannot be held directly responsible for the cases I have referred to, even if not all the members of the Commission are new.
But it is responsible for dealing with this legacy and it will only distinguish itself positively from its predecessors if it takes a ruthless approach and clears up every last one of these cases.
The Commission should also take a close look at how it treats officials who deserve the highest respect for their courageous sense of civic duty in dealing with irregularities.
Despite countless lofty announcements, there is as yet no real evidence of a fresh start.
Commissioner' s Kinnock' s reform paper, which is broad in scope if nothing else, sets off every single alarm bell in the area of financial control.
Decentralisation must not result in the total de facto abolition of internal financial control.
On the contrary, care must be taken to ensure that reforms concentrate on basics and that the principle of quality before quantity still applies.
My conclusion is this: "Words enough have been exchanged, let me at last see some action.
While you fashion compliments, something useful may happen."
You see, good old Goethe had the right words even in this situation.
In this sense, I see the motion for a resolution as a chance for the Commission to justify the trust which Parliament demonstrated in it and its President when I was nominated last September and which it reiterated in its discharge for the 1997 budgetary year.
The motion should also send out nothing more and nothing less than a clear signal of Parliament' s support to the President of the Commission, who unfortunately is not with us here today.
I should like to call on the President to grab this chance and to make use, where necessary, of the powers to issue directives granted to him.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have a number of difficult decisions to take this week.
Controlling the Executive is one of Parliament' s main rights and that right centres on budgetary control.
However, it is difficult to grant discharge for a budget which is two years old and this problem is exacerbated by the fact that it was not the responsibility of the present Commission but of its predecessor, a Commission which resigned because it failed to take its responsibilities seriously enough.
Our yardstick must therefore be the central issue of what the new Commission' s attitude is towards responsibility.
A good example of this, in my view, is the discharge for the Development Funds.
Our Committee had confidential information on mismanagement and irregularities which amounted to suspicion of corruption.
In response to our questions, we received only inadequate information, for which we had to wait a long time.
The majority of the Committee therefore decided to suspend discharge in order to obtain more information.
In the meantime, however, we have good news to impart.
Together with representatives from the Commission and the parliamentary Committee on Development we have drawn up an action plan, which can be implemented by 15 May.
I am therefore able to correct my report in this respect, i.e. we shall replace my report with this specific action plan and propose that we suspend discharge until 15 May and we shall then grant discharge on 15 May on the basis of the Commission report on the action plan.
I think that this development clearly demonstrates the direction that we need to take.
The Commission and Parliament must work together and must create greater transparency in relation to the budget and its implementation.
Unfortunately, I was forced to include another postponement in my report, this time in relation to the Economic and Social Committee.
There are again problems with the Economic and Social Committee in relation to travel costs and mission expenses.
It took the Committee over 15 months to refer justified cases of suspicion of fraud to OLAF.
Discharge therefore had to be suspended pending the results of the OLAF investigation.
There is another problem with the Economic and Social Committee, the problem of buildings.
We are still paying rent for the Ardenne and Ravenstein buildings.
We are also paying rent for the Belliard building and Parliament must pay for its new building. This means that European taxpayers are currently paying rent for three buildings.
We want to exert pressure here to ensure that the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions move into the Belliard building as quickly as possible.
However, we have not moved for a postponement in this area because we hope that a satisfactory solution can be found and that we can grant discharge for the buildings in the 1999 budget with no further pressure needed.
However, I should just like to say on the subject of buildings that better management is needed at European level.
There are similar problems with the European Court of Justice.
The Court of Auditors has drafted a special report on this subject, which will be reflected in the 1999 discharge procedure.
As rapporteur, I should like to suggest that we need better cooperation between the various institutions at European level as far as the management of buildings and rents is concerned and that we should learn from each other' s mistakes so that, here too, we use the European taxpayers' money in a responsible manner.
As a new Member, allow me to point out that there are serious shortcomings in this area.
As I have little time left, I should like to give a very succinct and concentrated presentation of the rest of my report.
We are able to propose that the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Auditors be granted discharge.
Both institutions gave highly satisfactory answers to the criticisms in my report and we have had prompt and comprehensive replies to our questions and comments.
We are also able to propose that the Dublin agency and the Thessaloniki agency be granted discharge.
However, we would like to see the contradictory procedure shortened for the agencies.
We welcome the fact that the agencies have decided to carry out an evaluation and we expect this evaluation to be submitted by December 2000.
Overall, as a new member, I should like to reiterate my belief that the procedure for the 1998 discharge represented an important step forward in reinforcing the taxpayers' confidence in the European institutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, over recent days, just before the debate on this report, certain areas of the media created the impression that we needed outsiders to open our eyes to shortcomings in our own institution, as if Parliament would operate double standards, by being intensely critical of the Commission, but turning a blind eye to its own shortcomings.
I should like to report quite unequivocally that neither applies.
My draft report was presented to the Committee in all language versions on 10 February this year and all the shortcomings reported in the press, such as the article in the European Voice about 10 days ago, have already been addressed in an open and critical manner in the report.
There has been no whitewash.
The report before Parliament today both contains a description of the shortcomings and lays down clear conditions for the attention of Parliament' s administration, including deadline commitments, which clearly show what needs to be done in order to rectify these shortcomings.
In addition, contrary to the Commission discharge procedure, we have no cause to complain that we did not receive certain documents.
Some were perhaps a little late in arriving, but they did all arrive.
That is another difference in the discharge procedures.
We here in Parliament certainly have cases of mismanagement in certain areas which need to be criticised and cleared up, but we have no legacy such as cases of fraud.
I say that in order to highlight an important difference, because interested parties have "let it drop" that, if Parliament is using the same yardstick, then it should come to the same conclusion and cannot postpone discharge for the Commission on the one hand and be prepared to discharge itself on the other.
I am all in favour of the same yardstick, but the same yardstick does not necessarily give the same results.
We should not sit down with the strategic far-sightedness of garden gnomes and say, now we must kow-tow to those who have given the impression that we should go around in sackcloth and ashes just so that our decision to postpone discharge of the Commission seems more credible.
Were we to do so, I can assure you that, within half an hour of the vote on Thursday, you would hear the sound, from Brussels to Strasbourg, of the champagne corks popping in many a Brussels office in which many people would be delighted if Parliament were to make the content of its own discharge the variable upon which the Commission discharge depended.
If we did that, there would not be a single Commission over the next 20 years which needed to fear Parliament' s discharge or, at most, its merciless opportunism!
I should like to come now to the question of where the shortcomings which we must clear up lie.
We must, for example, reverse the trend whereby the number of direct contracts has increased dramatically in comparison with the number of open competitions. This refers mainly to the fixtures and fittings in this building.
It is not a procedure which is illegal per se and it would be wrong to assume that it were.
However, we must insist that this trend be reversed in order to reinstate a sound administrative culture. This direct contract procedure must not catch on and become the predominant procedure.
In the long term, it would mean accepting cost increases on orders without being able to check if they could be obtained more cheaply elsewhere, which is why this trend must be reversed.
The second point is this: Parliament has lost several cases on personnel issues before the European Court of Justice over recent years and the verdict of the European Court of Justice has been harsh and clear.
It has been clearly stated that our own, previously public, competition criteria have been broken for certain positions in order to lever certain persons into those positions.
Parliament and its members must ensure that there is no place for this sort of thing in our House and that we keep our employees motivated by ensuring that they can be certain that promotions and recruitments are made on the basis of merit and qualification, not cronyism.
Another important point addressed relates to the question of buildings.
We have come to the conclusion that Parliament is in an extremely difficult position, for which the Council is mainly to blame. The Council finances its own building out of compulsory costs in the budget but has denied Parliament the facility of direct financing.
I am not in favour - and I say so quite clearly, despite all the difficulties which we have to overcome - of sending yet another box of chocolates over to the Council in its building and tying yet another ribbon around it and saying, all right, we profess our faith in the fact that the whole procedure is beset with legal problems.
We have already discussed them at length. We have received every document written on the subject.
What I say is, whoever still has a problem should please go to the European Court of Justice and get it cleared up there, rather than turning plenary into an extrajudicial seminar. They should also consider what it means, from a political point of view, if we go ahead and give these sweets to the Council.
The inventory has been addressed. Mr Seppänen addressed it yesterday.
The report itself lists the difficulties which have arisen, the huge number of items which have disappeared or, to put it bluntly, been stolen.
In the meantime, thank God, we have introduced an electronic inventory system in Parliament. We are now waiting for an explanation as to how this electronic system functions.
I should like to come back to the question of yardsticks and results.
If the majority in Parliament decides, not for reasons which have something to do with this report, but for reasons which have to do with the fact that certain groups have more skeletons in their cupboard than others when it comes to what they have done with their group money and what they have done with party financing; if a majority plays pass the parcel with this report, then we here in Parliament will end up in the position over the next few weeks of having to ask ourselves what future the Commission and Parliament discharge procedure has, now that it is no more than an excuse for party political manipulation and manoeuvring.
I hope I do not have to sit in such a Parliament.
Mr President, the discharge which we are discussing today, as far as agriculture is concerned, pertains to 1993, 1994 and 1995 and you may well wonder why we are so late.
The reason for this is that we delayed the discharge for 1992 for a long time, because we had made certain requirements of the Commission which up to last year it had failed to meet. We are pleased to note that this has meanwhile been rectified.
So what exactly were Parliament' s requirements?
Firstly, we asked for 15 extra jobs to be created in the inspection department within agriculture and for the financial corrections to be increased from 10% to 25% maximum, in case something went wrong with agricultural expenditure.
This has since been done and we are grateful for this.
It still causes Parliament some concern that the jobs have not yet been filled and that it is extremely difficult to do so.
In general terms, the error rate for agriculture is below the general error rate for the budget.
Where the general rate is 5%, as already mentioned, that for agriculture is 3%. This is moving in the right direction.
This may also partly be due to the fact that agricultural policy has changed over the years.
I believe it is easier to keep income policy in check than it is price policy.
There has since been an increase in expenditure for development within rural areas but I will come back to this.
Special attention should also be paid to the European revenue.
Although the own resources are falling, they are still an important source of income and it has now been decided that certain Member States are allowed to retain 25%.
This is all the more reason why the Commission should keep tabs on all the money coming in to which the European Union is entitled.
What does the Committee on Budgets mainly want? First, the Commission should work towards driving back the current error rate within the short term.
In my opinion, we should be able to have a 1% error rate within a number of years.
One way of achieving this is to establish an estimated reliability level for each sector.
This is something which the Commission could undertake itself. What is the error rate in the milk sector, the dairy sector, the cereal sector, etc?
In this way, the various offices will benefit from a healthy rivalry. Everyone wants to outstrip the others and agriculture would be able to take the wind out of the sails of the other budget components.
For many years, we have also talked about an integrated management and inspection system for agriculture and lamented the fact that many countries are still unable to meet this requirement. I think it is about time this stopped.
We have stipulated in the resolution that the Commission will have two years to solve this and I have been given assurances that this should be possible.
Although the agricultural budget components are scrutinised, they cannot be scrutinised in the same way as guaranteed expenditure, which is down to the Guidance Section for agriculture.
We think the Commission should come up with proposals to actually apply the financial corrections system to structural expenditure for agriculture.
In common with the Court of Auditors, the Commission is also concerned that huge mistakes are still being made in the export refunds system.
The Committee on Budgets, therefore, recommends discharge.
There are, however, a few problems remaining, one of which I have already mentioned, namely export refunds.
We are expecting a report on this.
We are also waiting for a report from OLAF on fraud involving the aid provided to flax in certain countries, notably Spain.
Finally, and I may come back to this at a later stage, we are waiting for a report from the Court of Auditors on the Fléchard affair.
We can grant discharge to the Commission without these three elements.
There is something else. Since 1995, there has been a conciliation committee for agricultural expenditure.
If there is a difference of opinion between the Member States and the Commission on the financial correction to be imposed, we can call upon a conciliation body to mediate.
We have as yet to be convinced of the usefulness of this conciliation body.
The Commission has promised to assess this.
We look forward to the findings because we would like to considerably reduce the number of court cases at the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Mr President, my report is about the European Coal and Steel Community and how that fits in with Mrs Stauner's report and the discharge.
We have decided to give the discharge on three conditions, and the conditions are clearly spelt out.
We hope that by 15 August those concerned will give us the information that is requested.
What I find extraordinary is that EUR 2 billion are being managed by this vestige - the last remainder of the European Coal and Steel Community, which, of course, was very important historically but is not important any more.
It is being wound up and it is remarkable that such an instrument should continue with that budget and 145 staff.
I believe such an instrument should be wound up as quickly as possible so that it is incorporated in perhaps a reformed European Investment Bank: a European Investment Bank that is transparent and accountable.
Such investments can and should be made by professional banks rather than the little outfit that we have at the moment.
The number of people employed for the amount of money being invested is again quite disproportionate.
I am hoping that this can be wound up speedily and incorporated in either the EIB or the European Investment Fund, because that would be a better way of using the money and resources.
This is for the social and research fund, but again these objectives could be better addressed by a bank that would ask other banks to manage investments so that we have the highest return.
I hope that the three conditions, the conditional discharge and the obligations on those concerned to address these conditions will be taken seriously.
Far too often in the past we have found that promises have been made and not kept.
So I hope that the answers will be given to Parliament and to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I think that is about all I need to say.
On that basis I recommend to this House a discharge.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur for the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, it is with some satisfaction that I would like to point out that, in our own area of competence, the Court of Auditors had no criticism to make of the way the appropriations for the financial year 1998 were implemented.
I have, what is more, received no complaints from any officials at all.
I am not aware of any vengeful articles by investigative journalists, or any OLAF inquiries, and personally I have not managed to discover any proven cases of mismanagement, fraud or misappropriation of funds in our sector.
In a word, as far as our committee' s area of competence is concerned, there is nothing to prevent the discharge being granted to the Commission.
And now, to express my own personal opinion, I would like to say more generally that I support the conclusions of Mrs Stauner' s report with a view to postponing discharge to the Commission for the year 1998.
The citizens' primary right is to see that their money is managed and spent properly and as long is this is not clearly established discharge must not be granted.
I should, however, like to make two observations.
Settling political scores or making personal attacks must not be mistaken for combating poor management, irregularities and fraud.
In this context, it is essential to prevent a climate of political vendetta arising between the main institutions of the Union.
My second observation is that, in my opinion, it is essential to be as implacable in criticising oneself as in criticising others, and I therefore wonder about the effects, which I expect to be disastrous, of postponing discharge to the Commission on the one hand, even though Parliament is prepared to grant its own discharge, despite the administrative problems it acknowledges, and although the political groups gloss over their own administration.
My personal preference would be for adopting a more self-critical attitude.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, expenditure for research accounts for nearly two thirds of the budget for internal policy.
Consequently, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has requested the Court of Auditors to carry out a thorough investigation into the legality and lawfulness of payments in research as a matter of high priority.
The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy regrets the inaccuracies in one third of payments.
The European Commission has paid over the odds most of the time because the beneficiaries had failed to declare non-eligible costs.
Inadequate inspection by the offices of the Commission and the lack of contractually determined penalties for excessive declarations have also led to deliberate over-invoicing in nearly two-thirds of the payments. What does the Commissioner intend to do about this?
Has the Commission ever taken legal action?
Or does it intend to? I would like to have these questions answered.
The success and usefulness of the research programmes are beyond dispute.
But effective implementation requires better management and coordination, as well as inspections carried out by various Directorates-General.
According to the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, it is essential that the tasks pertaining to financial management be carried out by officials who are required to render full account of their tasks to the institution.
If money from Brussels is spent, then the responsibility should lie with Brussels and not with external service providers.
We are prepared to grant discharge under these conditions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen.
Alas, I sit here between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, I would and should recommend, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism too, that the Commission be discharged due to the satisfactory take-up rate of the budget lines which affect us, despite numerous critical comments.
On the other hand, I cannot in fact recommend discharge due to unclarified incidents at the Commission which are beginning to threaten the very existence of regional project agencies and which, as the representative of my home region, I have been fighting to have clarified for months.
It is not enough for the present Commission to acknowledge the errors of the old Commission without finding a solution.
However, this is not the place for such personal experiences.
Allow me rather to highlight the causes for criticism as the representative and draftsman of the RETT Committee.
Firstly, certain measures dating back to before 1989 have still not been completed.
Secondly, the irregularities identified by the Court of Auditors refer mainly to errors in relation to proof of expenditure which are signed by Member States, and for which they are responsible.
The Commission is indirectly and to some extent jointly responsible here insofar as it should have issued clear rules for grants and aid.
Thirdly, delayed payments by the Commission which unsettle and, sometimes, ruin our citizens, as the result either of transgressions or inefficient bureaucratic structures and cover-ups or liquidity problems following cuts in payment appropriations by the Council.
The conditional postponement of the discharge suggested by Mrs Stauner is to be welcomed.
I personally would like to have better facilities for quality control, in situ, of how EU funds are used.
Mr President, the Committee on Cooperation and Development has been extremely critical in its appraisal of what became of the development and cooperation expenditure in 1998.
We have translated this criticism into a number of very concrete questions, answers and proposals in order to make drastic changes to the policy as it is being adopted now and will be adopted this coming year.
To our great delight, we are also at the dawn of a drastic reform of development policy.
Policy as it was adopted in 1998 by Europe as one of the world' s key players did not really have a clear poverty focus or clear-cut, result-orientated objectives and, as such, it was difficult to judge whether we had achieved our goal.
We have now agreed to re-arrange the entire budget in a number of clearly defined sectors according to international agreements in the field of poverty control and, following on from this, to submit annual reports on the results within the various sectors to our Parliament.
It has also been agreed that in these sectors, clear objectives will be formulated and that, in these objectives, basic health care and primary education will be considerably reinforced as components of social development. This is not just restricted to either the European Parliament budget or the EDF budget, but refers to the total.
This brings us to the desire and agreement that the EDF, even if it is just in terms of figures, will at least be absorbed into the 2001 budget, so that we in Parliament can actually see where the money is being spent.
After all, we are talking about a huge amount which the European tax payer expects to be used to combat poverty.
If we look at what really happens, however, it is often not about a child who goes to school or food which is grown locally in a more productive way. Very often, economic interests of the various Member States in Europe take priority over poverty issues in the relevant countries.
In terms of inspection, this is all undoubtedly neatly justified in accounts, but is incorrect in terms of content.
This poverty focus is essential in order to actually get value for money.
We hope that, with the inclusion of the EDF in the 2001 budget, even if we do not have any formal budgetary authority there, we will be able to pursue a more result-orientated policy by breaking it down into clear sectors.
Then there is still the staffing problem.
Many shortcomings, the lack of spending and the fact that 80% of the commitment appropriations are sometimes not spent, are due to an organisational structure which is inadequate, not sufficiently decentralised in the various relevant countries and guided by a form of regulation which does too little examining after the event and is too bureaucratic before the event.
In the light of this, there is a great need for reform on this score.
We at the Committee on Development and Cooperation have every confidence that we can bring about this reform thanks to the agreements we have reached with the Commission.
Further to the agreement we concluded with the Committee on Budgetary Control, I also expect that the action plan on 15 May will help us at the Parliament to turn a corner, in tandem with the Commission.
I would like to underline the confidence we have in the Commission and all its Commissioners.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, for the second time this year, we are debating the discharge of the Commission for the budget of a previous financial year. Two and a half months ago, you granted the Commission discharge for the 1997 budget.
That discharge was accompanied by numerous, far-reaching calls to the Commission which provided strong momentum and incentive for the reform of the Commission and which are incorporated in the Commission' s White Paper.
I should like once again to extend my thanks on behalf of the Commission, especially to the rapporteur at the time, Mrs van der Laan and, in this context, to the rapporteur for the reforms, Mr van Hulten.
Today we are debating the discharge for the 1998 financial year.
Under the European Treaty, Parliament has a duty to audit the accounts, the statements of assets and the annual report of the Court of Auditors, together with the replies from the bodies being audited.
In its report on the 1998 financial year, submitted in November last year, the Court of Auditors granted the Commission a declaration of assurance with regard to receipts and the handling of commitment appropriations.
The Court of Auditors did not grant the Commission an auditor' s certificate establishing that payments had been implemented in a lawful and proper manner.
The error rate was considered to be too high by the Court of Auditors.
As the Commissioner for the Budget, I subscribe fully to the opinion that, in some areas, the shortcomings in the implementation of the budget are simply unacceptable.
That is why I immediately took the initiative, in my official capacity, of drafting an action plan listing specific measures sector by sector on the basis of a specific timetable, in order to reduce the number of errors identified.
Nearly 90% of all errors identified or highlighted by the Court of Auditors concern the Member States.
The majority of payments out of the EU budget are paid not directly by the Brussels administration, but by administrative units in the Member States.
This decentralised implementation of the budget has numerous advantages, but, of course, it also calls for efficient and close cooperation.
As rapporteur for the SEM 2000 programmes and decentralised management measures, Mr Kuhne has dealt with these questions in detail and I should like to thank him for his work in this area.
The Council, which recommended discharge for the Commission, included the question of shared management in its debate on the 1998 budget discharge and the proposal was mooted that the Member States should perhaps set their own objective for reducing shortcomings in the implementation of EU funds, an interesting proposal.
For its part, the Commission will step up its efforts to formulate more manageable financial rules for the administrations in the Member States and to provide advice and information, especially on the control systems. Alternatively, should it prove necessary, the Commission will use financial corrections to refunds paid to Member States as a monetary lever, as is the case in agriculture.
The fact that the error rate for agricultural expenditure is well below the error rate for the Structural Funds is perhaps due to this financial correction instrument.
My colleague Franz Fischler will go into this in greater detail in a moment but I should like at this point to thank Mr Casaca for his report and to congratulate Mr Mulder on his report.
The Court of Auditors made no critical remarks on the budget for the European Coal and Steel Community and I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Khanbhai, for the report which he has just presented.
The European Court of Auditors also issued a declaration of assurance for the budget of the European Development Fund, although it did find cause for complaint.
Overall, there was a clear drop in the error rate for the Funds in comparison with previous years.
However, this gives the Commission no cause whatsoever for complacency.
On the contrary, the Commission also wants to achieve more satisfactory results for this financing instrument, which is so important to development policy, and this applies in particular to the question of the speed of aid.
You addressed this point, Mr van den Berg.
This is also one of the concerns of the rapporteur for this area and I should like to thank you, Mrs Rühle, for your willingness to include the arguments of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and the Commission in your report and to propose an action plan and also, at this point, to thank Mr Blak for his preparatory work in this area.
The legislative, budgetary and control powers of the individual institutions overlap even more in the European Union than they do in the Member States.
It is therefore essential that we act in unity if European policy is to work.
This presupposes a clear and reliable division of tasks, which is why current talks and negotiations between Parliament and the Commission on the agreement, which also includes the question of access to and dealing with confidential information, are extremely important.
The chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, also has a very responsible role in this respect.
It is in all our interests for these negotiations to come to a swift conclusion, hopefully with results which enable there to be a good policy and collaboration on such important matters as discharge.
The Commission has made a commitment to transparency and openness.
These are not just empty words as far as the Commission is concerned, which is why I have transferred all the confidential audit reports needed to the Committee on Budgetary Control, or rather to the rapporteur, during the course of the discharge procedure and which is why the Commission has also replied in detail to questionnaires, even though this differed from past reporting practice.
The Commission has nothing to hide and this Commission sees it as its duty to support Parliament fully in the performance of its duties.
But we need a procedure which safeguards the confidentiality of information and, more importantly, the principle of the rule of law whereby people cannot be pre-judged.
That must also apply to the Commission staff, just as it applies to people who belong to the other European institutions and to all our citizens.
The Commission is called on in the report adopted by the Committee on Budgetary Control to answer various questions or take direct action by 15 May.
I should like to thank the Committee on Budgetary Control for this resolution and also for the deadline attached to it.
Some of the points refer to dealing with so-called old cases, i.e. cases of irregularities or suspicion of fraud from previous years.
I should like to say quite clearly at this point that the Commission will do everything within its powers to fight fraud and that applies not only to the future, but to clearing up past cases.
This Commission has no fear of any findings.
The Commission has proven this in the so-called Cresson/Barthelot case by passing documents to the courts, introducing disciplinary proceedings, lifting the immunity of a former member of the Commission, giving the investigating magistrate access to the Commission premises and demanding repayment of missing EU funds.
But I repeat: for the Commission, the rule of law applies. This means that it cannot of course influence judicial proceedings, even if they are unsatisfactory, as for example in the ECHO case, on which the competent courts, which received the file a long time ago, have still taken no action.
It also means that proportionality is required when meting out punishment and demanding refunds and this applies both to demands by the Commission and to refunds demanded by the Member States.
The European Court of Justice again made that clear in its most recent judgement a few weeks ago, when it halved or even cancelled fines in the case of the cement cartel.
My colleague Franz Fischler will shortly be going into the question of the agricultural budget in connection with discharge in greater detail.
But I too should like to say at this point that I do not see the letters drawing the Commission' s attention to the fact that companies may fold or jobs be destroyed following certain Commission measures as an illegal attempt at intervention, irrespective of whether the letters originate in Parliament or in a Member State and regardless of whether they come from France, Ireland or Bavaria.
Naturally, decisions must be taken where there is room for discretion and they must be taken according to clear rules and in a transparent manner.
I shall fight for clear rules within the framework of the financial regulation.
Of course the Commission will take very careful notice of the Court of Auditors' recommendations and findings in the so-called Fléchard case and all I can say is that I, for my part, am very grateful to the Court of Auditors for taking on this task.
I am not in a position at this point to go into the individual points of the resolution in detail.
However, the Commission will immediately notify OLAF of your demands and, as far as the administrative investigation is concerned, I have set the procedure of clarification in motion.
Your resolution insists first and foremost on a reduction in the error rate.
I can assure you that the Commission is doing everything it can to achieve this, which is why we submitted the action plan, containing specific measures with specific deadlines and which is why we are completing revising the financial regulation and I shall shortly be reporting on this to Parliament.
This is why the European Anti-Fraud Office is being reinforced.
This is why the Commission has started reforming financial management as a whole by increasing the responsibility of everyone who handles the money of the European taxpayers, by improving efficiency and by setting the clear objective of restoring trust in the European institutions.
The Commission will do everything to ensure that the reform is a success and it would be a good thing if all the European institutions were to expose themselves to such reform.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to restrict my comments to the so-called Mulder and Casaca reports.
Mr Mulder, I should like to start by thanking you on behalf of the Commission for your report on granting discharge in respect of the decisions on clearance of accounts of the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF for the 1993, 1994 and 1995 financial years.
The main thrust of the report is that clearance of accounts for the expenditure financed by the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF was a job well done.
This can also be seen from the financial corrections quoted under number 1.
I consider this to represent a certain degree of acknowledgement and, at the same time, to be an order to do even more in the future.
I expressly state that I agree with number 4.
The date of April 2002 is needed in order at last to guarantee the proper operation of the integrated administration and control system in all the Member States.
It is also a prerequisite to our being able to reduce the error rate still further.
As regards the question of building up a central database containing data on all payments to final beneficiaries, I should like to draw your attention to the following. The interaction between the common agricultural policy and the final beneficiaries currently passes via approved paying agencies in the Member States.
These agencies have all the data on the final beneficiaries and the Commission services naturally have unrestricted access to them.
However, I should like to stress that the Commission does not need a central database per se in order to exercise its control function and I would therefore suggest that a cost-benefit analysis should be considered here.
A study is currently examining if it is technically feasible to set up a central database for recording all payments and hence all final beneficiaries.
Even if it is not prescribed under law, it could of course simplify a number of operations, not only for the Commission, but also for the Court of Auditors or OLAF.
The Commission is aware of the fact that the European Parliament considers it important to know the names of the recipients of the largest sums.
However, I should point out here that, because of data protection at Union and Member State level, it would be impossible to publish such information, even if it were technically feasible.
As far as staffing the clearance of accounts unit is concerned, I can confirm, Mr Mulder, that only the three posts of the new unit leaders have yet to be published.
The recruitment procedure for the remaining six posts has already been completed, or will be shortly.
The Conciliation Body referred to in number 16 of the report is one of the measures which should ensure that efforts to speed up the procedure do not compromise the quality of document audits.
However, this is only a consultation process and it is the Commission itself which takes the decision in all cases.
I can also assure you that refunds and the aid regime for flax and hemp will be examined very conscientiously.
Corrections totalling EUR 249.8 million were made to refunds for the financial years from 1994 to 1998.
However, before we can make any further corrections for subsequent financial years, we must first carry out the scheduled control visits.
Allow me to conclude with a few comments on the declaration of assurance.
It is proposed in the resolution that there should be a separate declaration of assurance for the EAGGF and the individual sectors.
This question is, of course, addressed first and foremost to the Court of Auditors.
The Commission notes this proposal with interest.
A first step in this direction should of course be a declaration of assurance for individual policy areas, i.e. separate declarations for the agricultural fund, the Structural Fund and so on.
This alone would considerably improve this instrument.
And finally, my thanks in this respect to the Committee on Budgetary Control for their excellent cooperation in drafting the report.
A few words now on Mr Casaca' s report.
I should also like to thank you, Mr Casaca, for your report.
According to Council Regulation No 723/97, the Community contributes towards the costs "incurred by Member States in implementing new action programmes, arising out of new Community obligations, approved by the Commission and aimed at improving the structures or effectiveness of EAGGF Guarantee Section expenditure controls" .
The purpose of the proposed amendment tabled here is to improve controls.
In addition, provision is made for the Community to make a contribution in cases in which the Commission calls on the Member States to carry out additional controls over and above the minimum rate laid down in the regulations.
I should like to make the following comments on the proposed amendments. The Commission cannot, unfortunately, accept proposed Amendment No 1 insofar as the rapporteur proposes changing the legal basis for the regulation from Article 37 to Article 280.
The Commission takes the view that Article 37 of the Treaty is the correct legal basis because the most important objective of the proposal is to prevent irregularities in EAGGF Guarantee Section expenditure.
As far as proposed Amendment No 2 is concerned, the Commission cannot accept the part which refers to the second paragraph of Article 5a, in which mention is made of administrative and staffing costs incurred by the Commission in administering this scheme.
I agree with the idea behind the proposal, i.e. to ensure that the Commission has sufficient means at its disposal to perform its tasks, but the proposal confuses the administrative and staffing costs incurred by the Commission which are covered solely from Part A of the budget with the operational costs in Part B of the budget and I am unable to agree to this.
Mr President, fellow Members, Mrs Schreyer, Mr Fischler, I should like to make one thing clear from the outset: postponing a discharge is not tantamount to refusing a discharge, irrespective of what is always wrongly assumed.
On the other hand, granting discharge is a serious procedure with serious consequences in that the controlling body answers for the fact that the activities and financial conduct of the body being controlled have been correct from a legal, economic and political point of view.
This responsibility on the part of Parliament vis-à-vis European citizens and taxpayers is a heavy burden, which is why discharge for the Commission' s management of the budget cannot be reduced to a compulsory, but somewhat tiresome annual exercise and I am sorry that the President of the Commission could not be here today.
On the contrary, what is needed is a thorough examination on the basis of pertinent sources of information and a conscientious appraisal of the results.
And that is what we have done in the Committee on Budgetary Control over recent weeks.
The rapporteur, Mrs Stauner, and the draftsmen of the opinions of the other discharge reports and working documents, whom I should like to congratulate on their work, have based their work first and foremost on the annual and special reports of the Court of Auditors and on the Commission' s replies.
The sources for the information and documents needed from the Commission, on the other hand, gushed little, if anything at all, despite a great deal of paper and, unfortunately, no clear answers were given to the questions asked.
When the Commission then writes to complain about the questionnaires and working papers of the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control, that shows that something has gone wrong with the flow of information between the controlling and the controlled parties and this must be rectified as quickly as possible.
We are working on that. Mrs Schreyer also mentioned it.
However, I am warning you that the Commission is heading straight for the same fate as its predecessor.
According to Article 276 of the Treaty, Parliament, and hence the Committee appointed by it, is entitled to any information or documents which it needs or demands in order to prepare its discharge.
This includes reappraising old cases.
The rapporteur quotes four cases by way of example. Other cases should be on the list, but the Commission has unfortunately not yet passed them on, despite the date of March 2000 set in the 1997 discharge.
Here too the Commission misunderstands our basic cause for concern.
The rapporteur and the Committee on Budgetary Control are not holding the present Commission per se responsible for the deplorable state of affairs in previous years.
The resignation of the previous Commission did not put an end to it.
On the contrary, the new Commission was completely aware of all the outstanding accusations before it entered office and it undertook to assume responsibility and establish transparency.
I take this to mean that it must clear up all the old cases without exception and - where necessary - must pass them to the courts.
Cover-ups or even sweeping issues under the carpet are not the answer.
On the contrary, the answer means being prepared to draw conclusions from the unhappy events of the past, so that the same thing does not happen again in the future.
This ranges from precise filing rules, so that documents cannot simply disappear, to a fundamental reform of disciplinary proceedings and much else besides.
This approach also informs the White Paper on the reform of the Commission tabled by Mr Kinnock.
Mrs Stauner' s report lists our short-term demands with respect to these conclusions and we all consider that they can be met by the stated deadline.
The Committee debated them at several meetings and finally adopted them with one vote against.
Here we must thank the rapporteur for her honesty, on the one hand, and for her perfect readiness to compromise, on the other.
One of the most important objectives that we consider the Commission should achieve is to reduce the error rate in payments to well below the persistent figure of 5%.
I know, Mrs Schreyer, that you have tabled an action plan.
Nonetheless, the error rate has remained at the same high level for the last five years.
We shall have to debate this.
However, we also know that most errors occur in the Member States and we are prepared, as a committee, to discuss this with you.
Nonetheless, we take the view and the Treaty states that the Commission is responsible for implementing the overall budget.
Excuses and promises are no use.
We need clear proof of improvement.
On balance, my conclusion is that we need a strong Commission, which is able to act, which works openly together with Parliament and which supplies Parliament with all the information needed or requested.
Using the pressure of postponement to advance discharge is constructive pressure because it gives the Commission the chance to clear up shortcomings caused by slowness, pettifogging or unwillingness so that Parliament will be able to grant discharge for 1998 as quickly as possible, hopefully before the summer recess.
I think that the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, should direct his team forcefully here in order to take transparency in Europe a stage further.
Mr President, the Committee on Budgetary Control has considered several reports recently, mostly relating to the 1998 discharge procedure.
It is a strange time for us to be considering how the Commission is faring after its forced resignation last year due to many of the issues highlighted in the 1996 discharge.
The discharge procedure is, of course, an opportunity for the European Parliament to exercise its responsibility in terms of monitoring the Commission and the other institutions' behaviour.
We check their accounts.
We ensure that policies have been well managed.
The Commission spent the last year preparing for a radical reform, outlined in the White Paper presented on 1 March, and we appreciate that it will take more than a few months to turn this massive tanker around.
Parliament and the Budgetary Control Committee are, however, keen to ensure that the reform occurs at a speedy pace, which is why we have decided to postpone discharge in the expectation that the Commission will hit the targets that we have set them within the next two months.
The report as it stands at the moment is very different from the initial report that was submitted by Mrs Stauner on behalf of the EPP Group.
That was clearly used as a political battering ram.
Mrs Stauner quoted Goethe. I will quote Shakespeare.
The report was full of sound and fury signifying nothing.
That is why the explanatory statement attached to this report has not been agreed by the Budgetary Control Committee.
It makes no sense in the context of the postponement report, and it is totally nonsensical and hysterical in tone.
We are delighted that there was an almost unanimous consensus, however, on the new practical approach to the general discharge.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for her cooperation on that.
We expect and hope that the Commission will deliver and the rapporteur will perhaps take a more considered approach in her final report.
But one thing which has become manifestly clear to me during this process is that we need an overhaul of the discharge procedure to avoid this kind of confrontation again.
This discharge procedure should be an opportunity to study systems failures within the Commission.
In an ideal world, it should be based on the Court of Auditors' Report, but that does mean that both the Budgetary Control Committee and the Court of Auditors must develop a much closer relationship.
There is a massive amount of expertise in the Court of Auditors, expertise that Parliament should draw on in order to reach its own political conclusions.
The discharge procedure should not be a time to score political points nor to hound individuals but, where systems fail and lead to inefficiency or - worse - to fraud, it is the duty of Parliament to correct them.
We must also make sure that we find a mechanism within this system to make sure that we take account not only of the reports that are submitted by members of the Budgetary Control Committee, but also those by members of other parliamentary committees.
In postponing the discharge, we have set out clear points that we expect the Commission to act upon.
Never again will we accept the situation where we cannot get to the bottom of a case, because documents have gone missing.
Clear lines of responsibility must be established so that if problems occur, disciplinary action will follow.
Never again will we accept a situation where misconduct or a bad administrator will be judged by his or her peers.
We expect an external element to be included, as advised by the Committee of Independent Experts.
These are just two examples of how the Commission can improve its act in the short term without waiting to implement all the recommendations of the White Paper.
There is a question to answer as to whether the current Commission should or can take responsibility for the mistakes and problems of the past Commission.
Let us not forget that here we are considering the discharge for 1998.
If we took this to its logical conclusion, it would mean that Parliament could only judge a sitting Commission during three years of its tenure.
That is why it is clear that we must address systems failures rather than attack individuals or individual Commissioners who may no longer be involved.
We do not want witch-hunts.
We want answers as to how best we spend European taxpayers' money.
I would like to turn very briefly to the other reports that we have considered in committee, and first of all to the Kuhne report on the European Parliament.
Mr Kuhne has done an excellent job as rapporteur for the Parliament discharge.
There is no doubt that there have been vast improvements in Parliament's performance.
Our financial control system does not have the quantity of payments that the Commission has and therefore things are more manageable.
We have had everlasting problems, of course, with the buildings, often through no fault of our own but because decisions have been imposed on us by the Council.
If the Council had any concern about budget control, we certainly would not be sitting in this building right now.
There has been a great deal of talk about a report on political group expenditure.
The fact is that our committee has not seen this report.
It has still not been published officially, and therefore it is difficult for us to comment on it.
But transparency is a principle that we must hold dear in this context.
I am delighted that Mrs Rühle has done such a great job on the EDF report.
Mr Mulder has done a great job as well, displaying his usual wizardry with the EAGGF accounts.
We support Mr Casaca in his approach, although we did not expect the Commission to support us on that of course.
We certainly do not expect the Council to support our position on the Casaca Report.
We are voting for postponement on many accounts.
The important reports, of course, will come next.
We hope that we will be able to develop a better approach in the next part of this discharge procedure.
It is important that we find a new way of doing it.
Thank you, Mr President, for all your kind support over the years for the Budgetary Control Committee. It is always greatly appreciated.
Mr President, I would like to echo what some speakers have already expressed before me: after last year' s events, this Commission will need to have all its wits about it if it intends to ignore what this Parliament has to say in resolutions.
All I can say at the beginning of this first debate is that the Commission would do well to go through the resolutions with a fine tooth comb, because this time Parliament is serious.
As far as the Stauner report is concerned, the liberal group is able to support the compromise resolution.
We are in favour of the Commission publishing an extensive report before 15 May which covers all the points we have raised.
In common with Mrs Theato, we hope that everything will be signed, sealed and delivered before the summer.
I should add that we, as a group, have less appreciation for the explanatory note which the rapporteur has added to her own resolution.
This was already mentioned last night.
In our opinion, an explanation should reflect the resolution itself and should not include any new elements.
I would like to make a brief comment on the report by Mr Kuhne.
We too have a great deal of appreciation and admiration for the way in which Mr Kuhne has drafted his report.
If we are to criticise the Commission, we should perhaps make sure that we have put our own house in order first.
It is difficult to scrutinise somebody else if we as Parliament do not ensure that we are completely beyond reproach ourselves.
I also think that Parliament' s administration would do well to stick to the many dates and deadlines included in the Kuhne report.
I would now like to come back to the Stauner report and a number of points made in it. The Court of Auditors will shortly be publishing a report on the so-called Fléchard affair.
There have been many speculations in the press, in Parliament, and so forth.
We must not get ahead of ourselves.
A few things are already clear, however, irrespective of the fraud affair itself.
Firstly, how is it possible for documents intentionally to go missing from the four Directorates-General or directors dealing with these? The documents disappeared everywhere simultaneously.
The big question to the Commission is: what has it since done on this score? Secondly, we would like proportionality explained.
Should large businesses pay larger fines than small businesses? Thirdly, where does the Commissioners' responsibility lie?
To what extent can officials decide some things for themselves?
This is an extremely political issue.
The following general rule will need to apply to this Commission: the error rate is too high.
It is not enough to say that it should come down.
We need a plan of action: by such and such a year, the Commission should bring the error rate down to such and such a level. Then Parliament would know where it stood.
The Commission would then have a goal to work towards and we could market ourselves better to the general public.
This is what it is all about at the end of the day.
Europe' s ideal needs to be preserved.
Mr President, Commissioners, I too should again like to confirm that postponement must not be construed as a refusal of discharge.
On the contrary, we had no party political axes to grind in our committee and we obtained a broadly-carried compromise across all groups with just one vote against.
We can see that the new Commission is making an effort, but the 1998 discharge is at issue here and we must take it very seriously.
We must restore the public' s lost confidence in the European institutions.
We must re-establish confidence and that means that, as a committee, we must make a critical examination of the 1998 budget.
We want neither to play down nor sensationalise the problem.
On the contrary, we need to exert constructive pressure and we see the decision as a chance, not a punishment.
Our yardstick was how responsibility and transparency were dealt with and requires an open approach to shortcomings and an open approach to mistakes.
We hope that the action plan will help the administration to achieve better management.
We also take the view that the same yardstick must then be applied to Parliament and in this we completely disagree with Mr Kuhne, although we welcome his critical report.
Criticism is just one side of the equation; consistency is the other and we hope that a majority in Parliament will vote to postpone the decision, subject to the clear condition that the administration of Parliament must also table an action plan to improve management.
The questions of the award of contracts, buildings and staff are at issue.
We know all about the pressure of time up to the point of discharge.
The report by the financial controller, for example, was submitted relatively late.
Obviously it was not possible to submit this action plan in time for today' s decision.
However, we call on Parliament for precisely this reason to vote for a postponement here, so that an action plan can be drawn up jointly by 15 May.
This too we see as an important chance for Parliament to restore confidence and make it clear that it takes its own administration and the shortcomings in its own administration seriously.
I must also highlight something else, since Mr Kuhne appeared to be hinting that a hush-up would be in the groups' interest.
I can only say, as the new treasurer of the Greens, that I went to the administration and to the Court of Auditors back in November or December and pointed out that I had discovered a number of errors in the management of the finances on entering office, that there was mismanagement and that I would fight to get this mismanagement dealt with over the next three months. I also pointed out that I was in favour of maximum transparency and openness in this area and that we urgently needed to address the financing of European parties in order to be able to refute the accusation of indirect party financing which was rightly being levelled at Parliament.
We need clear-cut criteria and clear-cut guidelines.
We must do away with grey areas at European level because, as we all know, grey areas can and will always be abused, which is why we want transparency and openness.
Transparency and openness mean - and this is my clear call - that we must apply the same yardstick to all the institutions.
We should vote for a postponement whenever we are of the opinion that an action plan can be drawn up within a month which will show the public that we take our errors seriously and are trying to correct them and I would stress once again that it has nothing to do with dismantling institutions; on the contrary, we want to strengthen them and we want to restore trust in the eyes of the public in Europe.
Mr President, it says "BUDG 1998 discharge" on the notice board, but it should say CONT.
Perhaps this could be corrected because Budgets and Budgetary Control are always getting confused.
It is the question of control which is at issue here.
It would be difficult to confuse them, Mrs Theato, but, in any event, we will try to correct it on the screen.
They tell me that it has to be written with a limited number of digits.
We will try to find a formula which will make it clear that we are talking about the COCOBU.
Perhaps CCB would be useful since this is the formula used in other bodies.
Mr President, the European Union lacks moral authority. That is particularly problematic in matters of finances.
Parliament could achieve it, and it does wish to, which is clear from the reports now under discussion, but it lacks credibility in this area.
To maintain its own self-respect Parliament must accept the rules and regulations for the Members forthwith.
Parliament must investigate the misappropriation of funds by its political groups.
Our group will not agree that the practice of party aid should be introduced at the taxpayer' s expense to cover up such malpractice.
Parliament must investigate why it was so lax in its vigilance when it came to millions of euros' worth of Parliament property disappearing.
I do not really understand why it should discharge itself just now, when the report by the Court of Auditors of the European Communities on monetary and economic issues for 1998 is being prepared and is about to be published.
I would remind you how difficult it was in Parliament to raise the issue of malpractice on the basis of the accounts of the Commission for 1996.
I would remind you how the Social Democrats in particular defended Mr Santer' s Commission, and how we were obliged to compile a list of Members' names when passing a motion of censure.
Those parliamentary members that compiled the list were obviously right.
The 1998 accounts and data give weight to earlier conclusions: Mr Santer' s Commission appears to have approved a framework of budgetary discipline in which it was possible for malpractice to exist.
The members of the Commission in many cases are not themselves guilty of furthering their own interests, but the officials continue to act as before, and this Commission must take them to task.
To support them will be the fifty or so trade union officials employed by the EU, defending people who are guilty of malpractice.
They are the home guard for the officials that have behaved dishonourably.
Most of the officials in the EU are diligent and decent people.
In this case there is a need for increased vigilance, and that is something Mr Santer' s Commission was unable to achieve.
It would appear that Romano Prodi' s Commission has not got off to a very good start in this respect either, and the President of the Commission, in particular, has delivered opinions that show that the notions of public accessibility and transparency are not being honoured in this Commission.
However, postponing the discharge is justified and is the correct course of action in this situation.
We want to give the Commission the opportunity to improve the way it does things and show that it is able to do the job it inherited from the previous Commission.
Postponement of the granting of discharge is in itself the result of a quite incredible situation.
Even though it is not a question of discharge being refused at the present time, the postponement is a consequence of the Committee on Budgetary Control' s not having been able to obtain adequate information on time, of documents' having disappeared and of the fact that there is so much that can be criticised in the financial and administrative spheres that the impression is one of dealing with a South American banana republic rather than with a supranational European organisation.
These extraordinary results from a seedy administrative culture go back to 1998 and are not this Commission' s direct responsibility, but it is the present Commission' s responsibility to show that the misconduct, fraud and betrayal of mandates which have taken place really do belong to the past.
We have still not obtained proofs of this in all areas. We have heard excuses, often in a dismissive tone, from the Commission, as if it were the Commission which was to be giving us discharge, rather than the other way round.
We have seen an express reluctance to hold those officials to account who are responsible for the circumstances open to criticism.
It is not that there are no rules. Rather, it is a case of rules having been quite deliberately set aside in many areas.
As Mr Kuhne rightly pointed out, it is important that we should also direct criticism against Parliament' s own economic administration.
I would especially point out the quite unacceptable buildings administration and the way in which the rules for using the competitive tendering procedures were circumvented.
The impression cannot be avoided of systematic nepotism of precisely the kind which the competitive tendering procedure should prevent.
We shall therefore vote against the discharge for Parliament' s 1998 accounts.
If there are no dramatic improvements in the financial administration, European taxpayers will know how to react against this irresponsible misuse of their money.
The Commission must understand that they are not Europe' s overlords but the servants of European citizens.
I should like to emphasise that there is broad agreement within the Committee on Budgetary Control about postponing the discharge for the most important accounts, and I would thank the rapporteurs for the splendid and painstaking work they have carried out.
I would also especially draw attention to Mrs Stauner' s and Mrs Rühle' s very efficient work, just as I should like to thank Mrs Theato for her very conscientious and effective leadership of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Mrs Theato should know that we value her desire to call a spade a spade.
Mr President, before I comment on Mrs Stauner' s report, I would like to endorse what has been said before, namely that the European Parliament is quite right to rap the European Commission over the knuckles and to at least postpone the discharge on the 1998 budget.
It is quite ironic that this should happen at a time when a draft report by the European Court of Auditors is being circulated which shows that our Parliament has not exactly spent the taxpayers' hard-earned money wisely either.
In the light of this, it might be expedient to establish in all honesty at this stage that the reproaches which we are quite rightly hurling at the European Commission today might well be heading in our own direction tomorrow, again quite rightly.
Indeed, if we are to believe the draft report, the groups deal with the many millions which are made available to them for God knows what reason in a very careless, even fraudulent manner, and the administrative department of this Parliament gets off anything but scot-free, to put it mildly.
This is just to add to the issues which have been dragging on for many years, such as the nonchalant way in which we deal with the expenses we are paid as MEPs, in principle with a view to recruiting personnel, or the way in which we handle the building policy of this Parliament, which is so strange as easily to prompt thoughts of large-scale fraud.
In short, today we are quite rightly acting as the plaintiff, but we need to be very aware of the fact that, tomorrow, we will be in the dock ourselves.
The fact that this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black should not, however, be any reason for tolerating deceit, fraud and further theft of taxpayers' money and should not, especially, give certain people any excuse for tolerating these things. Nor should it be any reason or excuse for allowing those who have lined their pockets and taken advantage all these years to go unpunished.
I only wanted to make the remark because I am quite convinced that fraud and mismanagement are inherent and are causally linked to systems where there is no obvious connection between revenue and expenditure, between the levying of taxes, on the one hand, and the policies being financed with these taxes on the other.
In my own country, for example, I know of projects which have been launched with so-called European money which would never have been accepted or requested by the people, if it they had known that their own tax money would be used for them.
European money is always spent with less thought than tax money which has not made a detour through Europe.
This is done under the motto: if we do not spend this European money, somebody else will.
This may sound harsh or even simplistic, but that is how it is.
I have not even mentioned the overlap which exists in a large number of these European credits.
National states provide development aid, so does Europe.
National states combat racism, so does Europe.
National states support the women' s movement, so does Europe.
National states support the trade unions and parties, so does Europe.
National states support all kinds of Third Way movements, so does Europe. And so on and so forth.
Manna falls from heaven and nobody knows whether it is all spent wisely, or worse, we know for a fact that a great deal of that money is not spent wisely, but there are no complaints because, in the case of European money, a kind of pro-European goodwill is systematically bought from all kinds of pressure groups.
Returning to today' s topic, I would especially like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Stauner, on her report.
It is true that the explanatory note to the resolution reads much like a piece of crime fiction. It contains scandals which are now out in the open about waste, nepotism, theft, the Fléchard affair, the ECHO affair and such like, not to mention the direct involvement of Commissioner Cresson.
There is no need to keep on about what is stated quite clearly in black and white in this report.
I would only like to add that I, as representative of hundreds of thousands of tax payers, am shocked to find that the present Commission too is manoeuvring in all kinds of directions and making all kinds of attempts to protect a number of people responsible for this mismanagement.
I think that we need to do some straight talking to the Commission and that we may have to penalise their persistent bad conduct with a new crisis of confidence after 15 May, if necessary by means of a motion of no confidence, because desperate situations call for desperate measures.
Mr President, the Committee on Budgetary Control is doing sterling work under Mrs Theato' s, Mrs Van der Laan' s, Mr Bösch' s and Mr Blak' s expert leadership. I should also like to complement Mrs Stauner on a good report.
My group will not grant discharge in connection with an account which conceals more than it reveals and has been submitted by a Commission which despises openness, subsidiarity and democracy.
How is it different from the Commission which was overturned? Are our rapporteurs now getting complete information and full answers in response to their questions?
No.
Have administrative procedures been instigated against those who had their hands in the till or covered up for those who had their hands in the till? No.
Has Mr Paul van Buitenen been rewarded for his courageous efforts to turn the Commission into a responsible organisation? No.
He has moved to Luxembourg and has had to agree to keep quiet. Moreover, any future van Buitens know that they will be fired if they behave as any person of integrity would expect of officials of the Commission.
Mr Prodi' s Commission is not responsible for the sins of the past, but all 20 Commissioners are now responsible for the fact that procedures have not been cleaned up and put in order and a fresh start made.
It is you 20 who are responsible for the fact that the Commission' s draft regulation on transparency will cause documents which are at present readily available to be locked away.
It is you 20 who are responsible for the fact that we, as Members of Parliament, are still not receiving the information we request.
You operate on the principles of absolute monarchy.
Come out into the open and acknowledge that it is no longer possible to govern with old-fashioned secrecy.
Admit that you will be replaced if you continue to sweep the dirt under the carpet.
You will soon have been in office for a year, so we have to observe that you too will be accountable if you fail to meet your responsibilities.
And we must apply the same critical standard against ourselves.
We ought not to approve Parliament' s accounts for as long as we have assistants who do not pay tax and yet obtain social security and for as long as travel expenses not connected to actual costs are refunded.
Mr President, a few years ago discharges in this House used to be perfunctory debates, certainly not held on Tuesday mornings.
But we now have a wider remit to discuss this subject. and over the last few years it has been realised that discharge is a very important part of the life of the European Union.
Under Article 276(2), the EC Treaty requires the Commission to submit to Parliament any necessary information on the execution of expenditure and operation of the financial control systems.
Article 276(3) of the Treaty requires the Commission to take all appropriate steps to act on Parliament' s observations concerning execution of expenditure.
It should not be any surprise to outside observers, or those in the system, that as Parliament has become more authoritative in ensuring the democratic accountability of the institutions, it will not be simply fobbed off with a lack of reply to questions which have been asked, however far they go back into the past.
I congratulate all the rapporteurs on the discharges before the House this morning.
I have a few comments on Mr Kuhne' s and Mrs Stauner' s reports.
Firstly, on the question of the Parliament discharge.
There has been significant progress on a number of issues outstanding but it is clear from Mr Kuhne' s report today that there are still a number of issues to be clarified: the question of the calls for tender; the issue of the financing plan for buildings; the question of the security service for this House here, and not least the question which is raised under paragraph 15 of the Kuhne report, concerning personnel policy.
Here it states and I quote: "deplores most strongly the residual impression left by these cases, whereby it would appear that favouritism plays a significant role in the granting of appointments to high-grade posts within the administration of Parliament" .
If we take the context of this report we will see that it has to stand on its own merits.
If we add to that the Court of Auditors' report on the operation of the political groups, we have come to the conclusion in our political group that we need to postpone discharge on its own merits.
It is not a question of the popping of champagne corks between Brussels and Strasbourg, that is an irrelevance if I might put it politely.
It is not a question of parallelism, it is a question of substance.
As for the admissibility of the amendment, I draw to the attention of the services of Parliament and to your attention, Mr President, the fact that Annex V of our Rules of Procedure does not apply to the Parliament discharge but applies to the Commission discharge and therefore our amendments should be considered to be admissible.
Secondly, I turn to Mrs Stauner' s excellent report and the explanatory statement.
It is a pity Mrs Morgan is not still here in the Chamber, because I understood her to say that you cannot just leave a discharge to systems alone; it is the question of access to information, so that we as a Parliament can grant discharge.
You can ask for access to information, but if you do not get it then you have to start applying a certain rigidity and postpone discharge.
The explanatory statement very clearly sets out the reasons for so doing.
I come to two points here.
The first is access to information.
We do not have at this time a framework agreement between Commission and Parliament - that is still outstanding in the context of Annex III.
Why? Because Parliament and the Commission cannot agree about what access we have to information.
The impression is left that we are foot-dragging, but in fact we are not getting complete answers to the questions put by Mr Bösch and Mr Blak.
Parliament is not getting the answers it requires.
Secondly, the question of the disciplinary procedure.
It is an arbitrary procedure.
It seems that high officials get off and ex-parliamentarians, who are in the Commission services get downgraded for no apparent reason and against the information available.
I am thinking of the case of Mr Zavvos in particular.
Therefore we, as a Parliament, should look at each of these cases as it stands.
My group will be in favour of postponing discharges both for the Commission and for Parliament until all the information is available to us.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate is probably one of the most important matters which this Commission has to negotiate with Parliament at the present time and not just for the reasons which have already been addressed.
The fact has been overlooked today that, if memory serves me well, this is the first time the finance ministers of this Union have not unanimously recommended that the Commission be granted discharge.
So things are not improving, Commissioner Schreyer; they are obviously going in the opposite direction, which is why we must follow the recommendations proposed by Mrs Stauner in the Committee on Budgetary Control as closely as possible.
As far as the information policy is concerned, I am in full agreement with Mr Elles.
We are not holding you responsible for past errors, but I believe that, pragmatically speaking, we are entitled to expect two things of you.
Firstly, you must ensure that monies paid in error or, as in the Fléchard case, sums waived in error are recovered.
In other words, you must repair the damage to the taxpayer, insofar as it can still be repaired.
Secondly, you must ensure that the people responsible for mismanagement and erroneous developments are punished consistently, if necessary by making them compensate for part of the damage caused out of their own pocket.
That would represent two innovations at the Commission because, as far as I am aware, officials implicated have never yet had to pay money back into the EU budget.
The provisions of the financial regulation on this point do not need to be revised.
We need no reforms for the purpose, we merely need to apply these provisions, otherwise they will remain dead letter.
Having said this, you will understand, I think, that we have serious doubts about some of the proposals which you have put before the European public in the much-publicised Commission reform.
I need only refer to your plan to do away with independent - I repeat - independent financial control or your plan to delete provisions on the financial liability of authorising officers from the financial regulation.
It is obvious that some people have been living in glass houses in Brussels for a very long time.
If any of us goes to our constituency and tells our voters, now that one Commission has had to resign because of fraud and misconduct, that independent financial control and the liability of officials are to be deleted from the relevant provisions, then, by God, we shall have done Europe a bad turn.
Mrs Schreyer, Members of the Commission, use the postponement of discharge for the 1998 budget as an opportunity to show that the new team is strong on management and able to act.
Mr President, the key task of this European Parliament is, and remains, that of restoring European citizens' confidence in the European project.
Our most powerful weapon in this regard is the discharge.
This is why the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is in favour of postponing discharge, as suggested, until such time as the Commission has fulfilled our specific condition.
In this way, we can keep the pressure on and bring about real reform.
Unfortunately, the Council failed once again this year to follow the good example of Parliament, and discharge for 1998 has been granted as if the matter were quite insignificant.
This is particularly regrettable because the national governments are responsible for 80% of European spending and are, as such, responsible for a proportionate share of the irregularities.
It is now high time that the Council followed our example and searched its own heart.
There is no doubt that our discharge resolutions are effective. This is borne out by the far-reaching reforms which the Commission has now undertaken.
I would like to illustrate this with a recent example.
Our pressure has prompted the European Commission to undertake drastic reform in foreign policy.
I am keen, therefore, to share with you my initial reaction. The plans for changing the project cycle and transforming the SCR into a European bureau are a positive step forward.
But the real political prioritising we need for the purpose of employing our very limited resources is still lacking.
The attention paid to the discharge granted to the European Commission is overwhelming, but I am of the opinion that the discharge granted to the European Parliament deserves just as much, if not more, attention.
Within the European Commission, a drastic reform programme has been launched at our insistence.
Unfortunately, it has proved impossible so far to take the same drastic steps in this House.
The Kuhne report is Parliament' s first report which takes discharge seriously.
Not only did Mr Kuhne manage to identify the sensitive areas where all the key points were concerned, he also managed to set fixed deadlines.
This is what Parliament will be judged on and he deserves our true appreciation for this work.
Some claim that the European Parliament should be judged by the same stringent measures as the European Commission.
I do not share this view.
In my opinion, we should raise the standard for ourselves.
We are the controlling body.
We have the direct link with the citizen.
We are primarily responsible for restoring their confidence in the European project.
This is why it is not enough to measure up against the non-elected officials within the Commission.
We should outstrip them by far. Unfortunately, nothing is further from the truth.
I would like to emphatically lay the blame for Parliament' s bad image with those who have always had a majority.
The two large parties are responsible for the ethos of nepotism and underhand dealing which permeates this House.
But the small parties too which have mismanaged the party funding have once again put our name in a bad light.
The Kuhne report will be an important weapon which can be used by those in favour of reform in this House.
But whether it will be adopted at this stage remains to be seen.
There is in fact a risk that, if we grant discharge to ourselves whilst not having done so for the Commission, we will then take the edge of this report and this is exactly what we do not want to do.
We must think very hard about this so that we can actually restore the citizen' s confidence.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, do not try to argue that what is wrong is right. That is the attitude we must adopt in this difficult exercise constituted by the annual discharge.
Mrs Theato was right in stating that granting discharge is a serious matter.
To grant discharge is, when all is said and done, to grant a certificate of good management.
I would like to thank all rapporteurs, but also the Committee on Budgetary Control, for all their hard work.
The Stauner report, including the explanatory note - which I fully support, by the way - is very critical of the European Commission.
The four largest groups have reached a compromise in which it is recommended that discharge be delayed and that the European Commission be given a list of 17 specific questions.
I am in favour of this approach and as such, would like to ask you to adopt Mrs Stauner' s report without any further ado.
Secondly, I would like to comment on the Kuhne report. I am not trying to argue that what is wrong is right.
I wish to make it absolutely clear here that the Kuhne report does not follow this theme. Mr Kuhne has completed an excellent piece of work.
His report incisively denounces what is going wrong in our institutions.
Mrs Morgan told us a moment ago that we do not want witch-hunts.
But Mrs Morgan, this is not happening. What we denounce is stated quite clearly in the courageous report of our financial controller, Mr O'Hannrachain.
The complaints are staggering and include a faulty inventory and many thefts.
I was a victim of this myself in a previous life when my computer and printer were stolen.
Secondly, there are far too many restricted and private allocations.
These should be the exception, but we have noticed that in 1998, 50% of the cases were awarded privately.
This is no longer the exception.
Thirdly, I would like to mention buildings policy, a policy in which decisions are taken step-by-step, rather like slicing a salami, and which is made up of faits accomplis.
Ladies and gentlemen, we need a long-term building policy, to ensure that policy is not only carried out correctly, but that unnecessary expenditure is also avoided, a case in point being the underground tunnel being built here in Strasbourg which links the printing department in the IPE-I building to the distribution department in our building.
The price tag is FFR 27.4 million.
This is ludicrous!
Mr Kuhne has hit out in the press and also here today at the stance taken by my Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
He is blaming us for playing a party-political game.
Well, Mr Kuhne, I can assure you that this is not the case.
What we are doing is being consistent in our approach, however.
Surely, asking for our offices to be treated in the same way as the Commission is not a political game. Hence our amendment which recommends postponement of discharge for Parliament' s budget and which has given the Secretary-General a list of queries which we expect to be answered by 15 May.
I am delighted to state that Mr Deprez has adopted the same stance a moment ago.
I am delighted to state that Mr Elles has tabled a similar amendment on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats.
I therefore hope to receive more support for our amendment which was completely voted down in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I am now counting on a majority in the plenary meeting.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Stauner' s report, which we are discussing today, is important in more than one respect.
Indeed, it is of direct concern to the citizens of our respective countries, since it discusses European Union finances, and the citizens of Europe are entitled to ask for explanations regarding the use made of their money.
This report is also important because it deals with serious inefficiencies in the European Commission' s implementation of the budget, inefficiencies involving considerable amounts of money.
Our Group is in favour of any action which may be taken to combat fraud, by definition, and therefore shares the rapporteur' s opinion regarding the overwhelming need to make the management of the European Commission more efficient and effective.
We are extremely concerned at both the irregularities committed within the scope of the MED and ECHO programmes and at some of the details of the Fléchard case.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group is convinced that such practices can only seriously impair the credibility and, hence, the image of the European Union as a whole.
We should also remember, ladies and gentlemen, that we have been forced to note shortcomings in the procedure for dialogue with the Commission, which seems not to have been able, or not to have wished, to respond to the expectations and questions of the members of the parliamentary supervisory body.
In view of the many contentious issues still pending, whether they involve irregularities or budget funds, our Group considers that, at the moment, it is essential to refuse discharge for the year 1998.
All we can do is urge the European Commission to pass on, within the necessary time limits, all the information requested by the Committee on Budgetary Control regarding the measures adopted, in order to overcome the obstacles to the granting of discharge.
For us to grant discharge without asking the European Commission for further details would, of course, be evidence of weakness on the part of the European Parliament.
This House would lose face and would discredit itself in the eyes of public opinion in our countries, and that is something we do not want.
Regarding the European Commission' s proposal, there could be no question of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group' s accepting sharing responsibility for the decision on discharge.
The Treaties clearly establish the exclusive competence of Parliament in matters of budgetary control.
Mr President, the 1998 discharge procedure illustrates once again that the European Union' s bad image is not totally unfounded but is actually based on facts.
In its 1998 annual report, the Court of Auditors mentioned an unacceptably high error rate and felt compelled, would you believe, to issue a negative Statement of Assurance.
As long as the Commission does not commit itself to drastically reducing that error rate from the beginning of next year, we cannot grant discharge to the Commission.
The Stauner report deserves every support on this score.
We in Parliament set high standards for the Commission, but do we set them for ourselves too?
We are right in insisting that the Commission base its budget on accurate estimates, but how accurate are the estimates for our own budget?
Year in year out, many EP budget lines show up enormous surpluses which are subsequently used to purchase buildings by means of a collective transfer.
I cannot help thinking that many administrative expenses are intentionally estimated on the generous side in order to have the extra funding for buildings in reserve.
These shady tricks must stop at once.
We also need to search our own hearts regarding public tenders.
It is unacceptable that the number of privately awarded contracts in 1998 increased to half of all contracts. Why such a steep rise?
The Secretary-General has mentioned a few procedural reasons, but is this the full story? A clarification regarding this drastic rise is urgently required.
Rapporteur Kuhne also puts his finger on the problems regarding the financing of the Spinelli building.
This is the umpteenth affair involving new buildings.
Is it not about time we commissioned an independent inquiry into the decision-making process for building projects?
We can no longer afford to cover the above issues with the cloak of charity.
We need to exert parliamentary pressure to bring about the necessary reforms.
We will therefore support the amendments to postpone discharge until such time as the Secretary-General has produced concrete plans.
Mr President, I welcome the two Commissioners who are most involved in the development of the budget, and I have no doubt that President Prodi will be present at the debate that will take place in two months time.
Beginning with the most important discharge, the discharge of the Commission' s accounts - in political terms, the most relevant and, in terms of quantity, the most significant - we are aware that your responsibility in terms of expenses is limited and that a majority of the responsibility in the field of expenses lies with the Member States.
It is important that you try to become, firstly, an example for the Member States to follow and that, therefore, you understand that we demand more of you, if possible; and one day we will have to start to talk very seriously about these cases which are always detected in the Council rather than in the Commission.
Furthermore I would like you to look at Mrs Stauner' s report from the most positive point of view possible.
All the groups have reached an agreement to raise 17 questions in relation to certain cases.
They are not the only ones.
We could have mentioned other problems arising from the TACIS or PHARE programmes.
After the crisis of the previous Commission, which you have begun to deal with, what we want - because we believe in your intentions and we want a strong and independent Commission and we are therefore giving you time - is for you to give us a positive response to certain very specific cases.
I can assure you that you will be able to reply in the affirmative to each of the cases which we are putting to you.
Therefore, between now and the summer, we could hold a sitting for the purposes of discharging the accounts.
Not only are we as interested as you in the discharge of the accounts, but in fact we are more so.
I would therefore like you to study the report which has been presented by Mrs Stauner with the broad consensus of the Groups.
This is a political debate, and you must understand that we need you to act.
Documents must not disappear.
You must do something, irrespective of the fact that I want us to reach an agreement soon on the way we will have to deal with the documents you call confidential.
As rapporteur for the 1999 Commission budget, I would love to be able to do my work in the clear knowledge of which documents we have access to and which we do not and why.
I will give you an additional piece of information.
This debate must not concentrate excessively on the accounting issues.
As you can see in this budget, this is a political debate which goes beyond a strict examination of what you have done with regard to the 1998 budget.
It is a general debate.
We will also have to reach a framework agreement on how we can include in this debate - which is becoming increasingly important - not only accounting issues but also issues from other years relating to expenditure or management.
You know that an unknown amount of money is lost through fraud or misappropriation.
You are facing a great challenge, because even more resources are lost through a lack of motivation, that virus which has infected the entire administration of the Commission and which you must eradicate.
More resources are lost through lack of motivation than through misappropriation.
This is a quality issue which will also have to be increasingly discussed in the context of this debate.
I will refer finally to the European Parliament' s budget, and I would like to reply to those people who say that, since we are supposedly tough and demanding with you, we must also be so with regard to our own institution.
Of course we must.
However we must not compare separate issues.
For example, the auditor has not detected any irregularity in Parliament' s budget.
We must therefore be prudent and fair and try to treat everyone as they deserve.
The same must be demanded of Parliament as of all the others, but this is our House, we have more information and we can therefore take a different approach when it comes to proposing, as the Kuhne report does, a conditional discharge and not a postponement of the discharge.
I will end by saying that you can reply to the 17 questions we have raised.
We want you to do so, and we understand that in that way we can support you so that you, who have just joined this Commission, can really control your house. 'Take the bull by the horns' - as we say in Spain - and we will be able to achieve a discharge for this year on the part of the majority of the Groups in this House before the summer.
Mr President, the new Commission is not responsible for matters from the past, but it is to be judged on the basis of its willingness to straighten out its affairs.
So far, it has not shown much desire to do so.
The Commission has put the lid on the issue, and it has been impossible to obtain the necessary information. The Commission maintains that the matters in question do not fall under the 1998 discharge.
That is not the case. All these matters surfaced in 1998 and they should therefore, of course, also be dealt with under the 1998 discharge.
The Commission has, on the whole, employed many dodges to avoid responding to our questions, and that is completely unacceptable.
The Treaty is clear: in accordance with Article 276, Parliament is entitled to obtain all necessary information in connection with the discharge procedure.
I should like to give an example.
In accordance with general practice, I, as the rapporteur responsible for the subject of development aid, sent the Commission a questionnaire concerning ECHO.
It was sent to the Commission in November.
Only in March did I receive an answer in which, moreover, I was told to take a running jump.
In the meantime, Mrs Fontaine received a letter from Mr Prodi, stating that the Commission was tired of answering all the stupid questions from the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Excuse me but, either the man has been out in the sun too long or he must have some incredibly bad advisers.
The Commission is obliged to answer our questions, irrespective of whether or not it likes the content of these.
Until they understand this, I think we should postpone granting discharge.
I hope the Commission will take our demands seriously. If they do not, we shall be ready to send them on a very long holiday in May.
I should like to explain what the ECHO case is about.
First and foremost, I should like to emphasise that this is not a smear campaign directed against individuals, but a question of putting matters in order.
What signal is being sent out to present and future leaders of the Commission when the people responsible escape indictment? The ECHO scandal has still not led to any repercussions.
The case is at present before the Court of Justice in Luxembourg which admits that nothing will probably come of the case and that it will no doubt refer it to the Belgian authorities in a couple of years' time.
The problem is that the ECHO case is not about property crime.
It is about gross negligence and about an official who has taken decisions without regard to the finance regulation.
The decision to exonerate the previous director was taken by the previous Commission, and this was a political decision pure and simple.
Now, the Commission has until 15 May to solve the problem.
If they do not come up with satisfactory solutions, I shall campaign for our obtaining a parliamentary committee of inquiry which can examine the matter in depth.
I also think it is a good idea to look a little more closely at the discharge for the development fund.
There are still unresolved demands but, if we postpone granting the discharge, this will be accompanied by clear demands upon the Commission.
The Commission' s delegations have failed.
There are several examples of cases where they could have prevented fraud if they had been just a little observant.
Unfortunately, there are too many delegations which are just there for the ride.
I have therefore asked permission to prepare an own-initiative report so that we can have these issues clarified.
The final thing I want to say is that the Commission should undertake to refer the fraud cases to OLAF.
I obtained 11 reports under Pentagon-like conditions, but OLAF still does not know anything about these. I therefore think it is time that these matters were tidied up, and I am pleased that Mr Nielson has now shown that he wants to get this process under way.
I look forward to seeing the results.
Mr President, the issue of discharge is an immense one for the institutions of the EU.
Its importance is evident in the fact that in many cases it is now being proposed that the discharge should be postponed.
As far as the Commission is concerned, this is the fifth year in succession that the Court of Auditors has not delivered an unambiguously favourable verdict.
As the Member States, that is to say the Council, has advocated discharge, this is almost a matter of structural conflict.
Apparently, the Court of Auditors should specify the shortcomings and incidences of malpractice in more detail and place less trust in mathematics.
Although I say this, in no way does this diminish the Commission' s responsibility, which is a great one.
The reports concerning discharge show just how badly administrative reforms are needed.
Commissioner Kinnock' s package of reforms must be pushed through without delay.
The main focus is the reform of internal auditing in each of the institutions.
Administration and auditing must go hand in hand to preserve a sense of personal responsibility and help it grow.
The present system, in which it takes various signatures to authorise payments, does away with the notion of personal responsibility.
It is totally impossible to find anyone who will take responsibility.
Improving the quality of administration is a basic requirement for a greater sense of responsibility and better efficiency.
Increased control is only a reflection of the fact that the organisation has failed.
The main financial difficulties focus on the largest budgetary category, agriculture.
This is because agricultural aid is largely based either on land area or the number of livestock, and the Member State in question pays it.
This development is largely due to the WTO agreement, which determines the various forms of agricultural aid, their classification and the desired trend it should adopt.
The system has led to a tremendous amount of bureaucracy, an enormous increase in monitoring, and, in the long term, we can assume it will also lead to inefficiency and the entrepreneurial spirit of agriculture will vanish forever.
At the same time, the European farmers have become the most closely observed section of the population on the Continent, and, for that reason, I am hoping for a lucid clarification of the agricultural aid system at the forthcoming WTO talks.
Mr President, over the last few days we have read in the press that the European Parliament is a haven for thieves.
This is both embarrassing and distasteful.
We must act in such a way that EU property is treated with the same respect as other property.
In this connection, we must check up on the matter of parliamentary administration.
In the EU budget this year there is an appropriation of EUR 300 000 set aside for an investigation into parliamentary administration.
According to the budget, this investigation will be given to an independent expert.
What has happened to this investigation, why has it not got under way, and what is going to be done about it?
- (PT) Mr President, because of problems stemming from large-scale fraud in the production of wine and other types of fraud, we are more aware that EAGGF Guarantee Section appropriations are frequently used to promote the products of large-scale farming operations whose only real aim is to obtain subsidies, without even considering whether there is a market for these products.
This applies when small family-run farms, such as those dedicated to producing milk, find themselves outside the subsidy arrangements and find their very survival is threatened.
We therefore feel that the Commission' s proposal to amend Regulation No 723/97 and to change the legal basis of the Regulation on preventing fraud and other irregularities from Article 37 to Article 280 of the Treaty, as the rapporteur Mr Casaca proposes, is extremely timely.
This will ensure that agricultural expenditure is treated like any other expenditure involving EU resources, and this will strengthen Parliament' s power of intervention.
Mr President, Commissioner, I was responsible for the research section of the part of the report by my fellow member, Gabriele Stauner, relating to internal policy.
I was perfectly aware of its importance.
However, what we could not foresee was that, with the vote on the overall report, outbursts very similar to those at the time of the refusal of discharge for 1996 would occur once again.
To refer to the corresponding passages on research, I also make a statement on what have deliberately and disparagingly been referred to on occasions as old cases.
Old cases are not the same as obsolete cases; they are an outstanding burden which the Commission must finally remove from our shoulders.
The Court of Auditors highlighted a series of shortcomings in the research area in 1998.
It complained about the pre-dating of contracts and a high overall error rate in payment audits due to incorrect proof of or information on costs, an error rate for which the Commission is perhaps not 100% responsible, but is at least 90% responsible.
There is the old case of visiting scientist B and how his contract came into being.
They also include the internal audit report drafted in 1997 on the area of jurisdiction of the former Commissioner for Research, Mrs Cresson.
This report disappeared from the filing cabinet at the end of 1999/beginning of 2000.
At the same time, there was the so-called European nuclear affair.
Who then is going to be surprised that a link between the financial controller' s filing cabinet and the roaming plutonium was established at the end of 1999?
We might be satisfied with some of the explanations that the Commission offers for these incidents.
Having spoken on many occasions, I am pleased to say, with trustworthy Commission officials, I have the impression that they are ready and willing to make corrections.
As are we.
But mistakes have been made and the audit was organised as politely as when an auditor visits a company.
However, it was the Court of Auditors that carried out the audit, an institution that has no form of personal interest in the matter and it is no good playing down the mistakes.
If, nonetheless, the rapporteur takes the view today that these cases have not been solved properly, then I would like to side with her fully and unreservedly, as did the Committee on Budgetary Control with just one vote against.
I call on the Commission to immediately give us satisfactory answers, which stand up in public.
Then everyone will have a true picture.
Questions can hurt.
We asked them because mistrust and criticism have been spreading since the refusal of the 1996 discharge.
But what matter are the results which will be presented on 15 May.
Mr President, representatives of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the discharge procedure is a complicated exercise.
We have to assess a budget two years after it has been implemented by the Commission, while taking into consideration the budget which is currently being framed, the improvements needed for the implementation of the budget and the practical realisation of the political goals of the European Union.
This already complex situation is further complicated by the peculiar situation we have found ourselves in for almost a year now, to wit, the discrediting of the European Union to a certain extent following the resignation of the Santer Commission last year; a new Commission, in which most of the Commissioners were not members of the Commission which was led to resign; a new Parliament, with many Members facing this discharge procedure for the first time; and reforms or proposed reforms directly concerning European Union finances.
I am thinking of the Structural Funds for the things already achieved, and the Financial Regulation for the things already achieved.
This is the context in which we received Mrs Stauner' s report, a report which, unfortunately, makes only a limited assessment of the Commission' s implementation of the budget for the financial year 1998 against the yardstick of the political goals which the European Union set itself.
If it is unthinkable and intolerable for public money to be used for irregularities and fraud, and if we must both dismantle the mechanisms enabling such abuses to take place and denounce the people involved, then we can also question the methods used to draw up this report.
This report was unacceptable in its initial form because it did not give us the material to form an opinion as to whether or not the budget for 1998 was correctly implemented by the Commission.
It has been possible to adopt a compromise, but the fact remains that we find the explanatory statement unsatisfactory, as it does not reflect the new direction of the report, and portrays relations between our institutions as frozen in an attitude of defiance, at a time when we and our fellow citizens are hoping that productive cooperation in the interests of improved cohesion between our States will develop.
The content and the arguments presented in other more specific reports provide no more justification for postponement of discharge.
Let me refer, by way of example, to Mr Khanbhai' s report, which revealed some problems in the ECSC accounts, including, among other things, the solvency ratio and the transfer of property, although the Commission and the High Authority are currently reducing these problems with a view to the expiry of the ECSC Treaty in 2002.
In this specific situation, it would seem that the current discharge procedure would be a perilous exercise.
Should this not require giving a more precise framework to the work of Members of Parliament within the Committee on Budgetary Control?
I shall conclude by mentioning the internal reform of the Commission. Among other objectives, the Commission has set itself the task of improving financial control by various means: new structures, responsibilities of authorising officers, and financial controllers within each directorate-general.
We must be attentive to ensuring that this reform makes it possible to achieve the set objective and that it requires the various financial operators within the directorates-general to assume real responsibility.
It also seems essential that, in combination with the determination to reduce irregularity and fraud effectively, the reform should be able to look into the implementation of our policies within Member States, where one of the problems arising concerns payment deadlines and the inadequacy of some payment appropriations.
Mr President, this is a useful and very necessary procedure.
One problem that I have about it is that there is a natural tendency to concentrate much more on the 4% of the budget that might have been lost, or the 2% that probably was lost, than the 98% of the budget that was properly spent.
It is necessary to acknowledge that 98% was properly spent.
It is also important to try to correct the situation where things have gone wrong, but in so doing not to exaggerate it in such a way as to create in the European public's mind an image of a European Union that is out of control, that is a sea of corruption and cannot be trusted with taxpayers' money.
There is fraud at every level of government at which I have served - local, national and European and regional.
It is always there, but local and national bodies can stand up to criticism better perhaps than this younger institution of the European Union, which is less accepted.
While it is important to put things right and to give people confidence, nevertheless it does not help their confidence if we exaggerate the extent to which abuses occur and money is lost.
I thank Mrs Stauner for her report. Some people have criticised it for being a bit too severe.
Mrs Stauner is new to the Budget Control Committee, but her statement is a real reflection of the mood and the debate that went on.
I do not agree with all of it, of course, but nevertheless it was agreed by a majority.
I would not entirely accept the explanatory statement.
It is Mrs Stauner's own explanation but it is the motion for resolution that we the Parliament have to decide on.
Another point that I would like to make is that in seeking to bring everybody into accountability, whether they be officials or Members of the Commission, we ought, like Mr Deprez said, to avoid this vendetta between institutions.
We ought avoid particularly vendettas between an institution and individual commissioners.
We should see this Commission as a college and while the individual commissioners must be held accountable, nevertheless we must take an objective view of what is going on and beware of either European party politics or international politics colouring our judgement.
The last point I will make is that we have not only an obligation to ensure that accounts are better kept and money is better accounted for. We also have an obligation to ensure that when we make regulations they are regulations which can be put into effect.
Over the years, I witnessed the making of all the regulations that are creating the problems and my experience in this Parliament was that we wanted to pander to public sentiment.
We never sought to ensure that our regulations were enforceable.
Mr President, Parliament' s refusal last year to grant discharge on the 1996 budgetary year heralded the fall of the Santer Commission.
Parliament employed its powers in a sound manner under special circumstances.
A college of Commissioners, which has since been appointed, has presented an ambitious reform programme.
Last year' s opposition from the Commission to Parliament has now developed into good working relations.
Needless to say, Parliament needs to keep a critical eye on the Commission.
It is unseemly, however, to deploy the discharge procedure as a weapon in a party-politically motivated battle and, what is more, it undermines Parliament' s influence in the long run.
Mrs Stauner' s motion for a resolution, which was before us initially was, in this respect, unbalanced. It over-simplified the issue and its sole aim appeared to be to malign the new Commission.
Her motion for a resolution contained damning accusations regarding the Commission which, as it happens, did not even relate to the 1998 budget year.
Meanwhile, the motion for a resolution has been amended drastically and the suggestion was made to postpone the discharge decision.
The Commission is being given the opportunity of responding to a number of urgent questions raised and requests made by Parliament before 15 May.
I would like to single out one point from among these questions and requests.
Over the past year, it has become clear that the Commission' s disciplinary procedure does not function properly.
In countless cases, no action was taken or if it was, it did not lead to any result.
The procedure needs to be completely overhauled.
The Commission has made suggestions to this effect in its White Paper.
However, these suggestions do not go far enough.
The Committee of Independent Experts has recommended the appointment of an independent outsider, preferably in the role of chairman of the Disciplinary Committee.
Parliament supported this proposal in January and does so once again by means of this motion for a resolution.
I would ask the Commission to reconsider its position.
The European Parliament' s financial situation has been the subject of extensive media coverage over the past few weeks.
Mr Kuhne has drawn up a report on this subject, on which I would like to warmly congratulate him.
He did not let himself be talked into adjusting his well-balanced approach in the face of sometimes heated publications.
The Kuhne report proposes granting Parliament discharge, provided a number of well-defined requirements are met.
For example, the offices of Parliament are expected, from now on, to offer, in the majority of cases, contracts for tender which are public in nature.
In addition, Parliament needs to indicate when the reform process which is being launched within the Commission will start taking effect in Parliament. One of the key proposals is to separate the audit and financial control functions.
The Commission has already indicated that it will submit proposals to this effect before the summer. I am of the opinion that such separation should also take place within Parliament.
An independent parliamentary audit office needs to be set up as soon as possible whose task is to ensure the effectiveness of public spending by Parliament. Such an office should make annual - and if necessary, more frequent - recommendations regarding the working method of Parliament' s offices.
Only when Parliament has its own financial housekeeping in order will it gain credibility when it comes to assessing and sometimes condemning the Commission and Member States.
Mr President, I shall focus on only one point: access to information.
Many of my colleagues have raised this issue this morning.
We need better access in order to move forward.
In my committee, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, we are determined to take our responsibilities as MEPs very seriously indeed.
We have asked Members of Parliament to volunteer to follow budget lines.
These Members of Parliament are now approaching Commission services to talk to the officials responsible for those budget lines.
We are having problems and we are having problems in finding out who is the right person; the people we talk to are not clear what their responsibility is, what information they should be giving us.
Some services cooperate very well; some are setting up briefing meetings for Members of Parliament - but others are not.
What we need from the Commission is a new system.
We need a better reporting mechanism to parliamentary committees, to the spending committees, so that we know what information it is going to give us.
A start would be a list of who is responsible for what in which budget lines of each committee.
Only in this way can we do what we are supposed to do, and restore the public confidence that Mrs Schreyer spoke about this morning.
We need to know that money is being spent properly.
If we have that confidence we can pass that message on to the public in Europe.
My colleague, Mrs Morgan, spoke earlier about the need to overhaul the whole discharge procedure. That is right.
For too long discharge was seen as something bureaucratic and rather unnecessary - something to get out of the way very quickly.
Now we have to move away from that, we have to overhaul it, and I hope proper reporting mechanisms to committees will be part of that overhaul.
Mr President, I am speaking here especially in the capacity of rapporteur of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
First of all, I would like to extend warm thanks to the rapporteur for her report.
I am delighted that we now have a broad-based compromise on the issue of discharge which enables the Commission to make progress and to solve a number of problems which have cropped up recently.
I would also like to comment on a few points which are included in the report of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Firstly, we share the Court of Auditors' criticism regarding the inadequate measurability of the effects upon employment of the structural fund measures.
I would ask the Commission to pay more attention to this aspect.
We have, slowly but surely, made tremendous progress in this field, but this does not seem to be evident from the way we are dealing with the funds.
Secondly, I would like to mention the issue of financing.
There have been problems recently regarding the payment credits of the Social Fund, in particular.
Unfortunately, these problems have not been solved.
This merits further attention too.
Finally, I would like to mention the problem surrounding the Leonardo programme.
You will be aware that the Leonardo programme has played an extremely important role in the events which have led to the previous Commission resigning from office.
Nevertheless, we wish to underline that this association needs to be brought to a definite close, and it is also important that sufficient consideration be given to the lessons we have learnt in the field of BAT.
These are the key points which I would like to highlight here.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has naturally been unable to adopt all these points in their entirety. This would not have been appropriate either, but I would like to take this opportunity to add these specific points to the list which is, in fact, already before you.
Mr President, I welcome all the reports on the discharge procedures, especially Mrs Stauner's report.
Before I make my initial comments, I just wish to welcome what Mrs McAvan said about access to information from the Commission.
I have found it remarkably difficult to get important documents and information from it on a number of occasions, especially for various budget lines relating to culture.
It would be very useful if the Commission were to release more information to us and give us the reports we ask for.
I welcome Mrs Stauner's report for a number of reasons.
One because, as we are dealing with 1998, we should be looking at the past and trying to find answers to the questions we have raised about Fléchard, ECHO and the MED problems.
These are all relevant nowadays because we must learn the lessons from them.
Any new proof that arises from these cases must be investigated.
These investigations must be very rigorous and must be reported back to us.
OLAF must use its teeth.
The three cases I have mentioned are also quite important because they reflect remarkably on four current Commissioners.
All four of them must look carefully at their past, come clean and show this new Commission where reform is needed.
I hope that Commissioner Kinnock listens to this debate and will reflect upon.
There are lessons to be learned and many questions to be answered and he is the man in charge of getting these questions answered for us now.
I also wish to make a couple of points on the Kuhne report on Parliament's own budget discharge.
We regularly cast stones at the Commission, but when it comes to looking at our own finances sometimes we are a bit slow on the uptake.
Although we have recommended discharge for our own budget this time, there are a number of points in the discharge report we should look at, especially the inventory services and the new system.
I welcome the fact that the Kuhne report has called for a report on the new inventory system for Parliament.
I hope the Commission takes the time to look at this debate seriously.
This Parliament is very serious in the way it discharges various budgets.
I agree with Mrs Morgan that maybe we need to reflect on how we discharge budgets in the future.
However, for now, the Commission has a number of questions to answer and I hope it will start right now.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.45 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon)
Vote
Mr President, the European People' s Party would like a separate vote on Amendment No 19. As such, we would like to propose a split vote.
I am sorry but it is too late.
The request was not submitted in time.
It has to be made the evening before the votes. The Rules are very clear.
I should explain to the House that the reason we do this is so that all the groups can prepare their voting slips and so that there is no confusion during the votes.
If we start breaking that rule then it just creates chaos during the votes.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTES
Staes report (A5-0084/2000):
The proposal before us today aims to amend Directive 95/53/EC in order to provide a legal instrument more appropriate to the requirements of inspections in the field of animal nutrition.
Following the dioxin crisis in May 1999, it was apparent that it was necessary to adapt this legislation.
At that time the Commission announced a legislative programme with a view to improving food safety regulations.
The programme was adopted by the Council and by the European Parliament, and included a revision of Directive 95/53/EC.
At the time, several problems had been identified.
Mismanagement of the crisis, particularly the poor coordination between the various authorities involved, became apparent and was noted in the course of the Commission inspection.
There were delays in transmitting the information on dioxin contamination to the Commission, and measures taken at national level were inadequate.
In order to offset these omissions, the proposal aims to stipulate that Commission and Member State experts should have the possibility of carrying out inspections not only within the Community but also in third countries, particularly following the emergence of a phenomenon likely to have an adverse effect on the fitness for consumption of animal feeding stuffs marketed within the Community; that a safeguard procedure should be set up and that the Commission should have the opportunity, if necessary, to assign Community experts to the site in order to check whether Community regulations are being observed and to take any appropriate measures necessary; that the Commission should be responsible for adopting specific coordinated inspection programmes, in addition to the general programmes already stipulated by Directive 95/53/EC, in the event of unexpected contamination which may represent an imminent and serious risk to human and animal health.
The common position did not adopt the European Commission' s right to take safeguard measures appropriate to the context of animal nutrition in the event of an emergency.
Obviously, this is extremely reprehensible and even irresponsible!
This is why the rapporteur proposes reintroducing this clause, and I am pleased to see it because without this clause there is no guarantee of consumer protection in food crisis situations.
Lannoye report (A5-0072/2000):
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his work on the proposal for the directive amending Directive 95/2/EC.
This directive authorises the use of a number of new food additives which are currently banned but which have been assessed recently by the Scientific Committee for Food (SCF) and deemed fit for human consumption.
The report clearly expresses consumer concerns in the face of the flood of additives, of chemicals, into our daily diet. Indeed, our diet has changed radically under the influence of lifestyle changes and the contributions of new technologies.
The time devoted to preparing meals has been reduced considerably. This often leads us to eat ready-made meals, which are practical but which do not really suit our tastes or fulfil our vitamin and mineral requirements.
The fact is, the industrial foodstuffs which wind up on our plates have often undergone intense processing leading to the loss of flavour, texture and colour.
In order to overcome these disadvantages, the chemists of the agri-foodstuffs industry add artificial flavourings, flavour enhancers, firming agents, colorants, etc.
What is more, with food distribution chains becoming ever longer, it becomes unavoidable to have recourse to preservatives and oxidation inhibitors.
This cannot fail to give rise to concerns on the part of consumers who, following recent food crises, are increasingly anxious to know just exactly what they have in their plates!
In response to these concerns, the European Union has endowed itself with a particularly complex arsenal of legislation which is supposed to eliminate any risk to the consumer.
So, in order to justify the inclusion of an additive in a foodstuff, there are three criteria which must be fulfilled, though there is still rather a wide margin for interpretation.
The technological need for the additive to be approved, for example, is obviously determined by the industry itself, which argues primarily in terms of reducing production costs and winning markets.
At the moment, this criterion is the weightiest consideration.
Usefulness for the consumer is a particularly vague concept.
Does the consumer really wish to eat a fruit or vegetable which has remained in his fridge for a month without changing in appearance? Finally, there is the criterion of harmlessness.
Before any substance may be authorised for use as a food additive, it must, in principle, be subjected to toxicological assessment.
Normally a great many tests are carried out on laboratory animals in order to determine whether the substance is harmless, and at what dosage it may be safely consumed.
There are still loopholes!
On the one hand, the human being does not always react in the same way that animals do, so extrapolating from the results of tests on animals to human experience is always problematic.
On the other hand, these experiments assess the effect of each substance taken in isolation.
Our diet, however, often contains a cocktail of different substances whose combined effect is rarely identified!
The precautionary principle must be used with the utmost rigour in matters of foodstuffs!
The Commission' s proposal has not taken adequate account of this principle!
We therefore await Commission proposals for provisions that are directed more at improving consumer protection but also at promoting quality foodstuffs!
Kirkhope report (A5-0090/2000):
The Danish Social Democratic Members of the European Parliament have chosen to vote in favour of the report and fully and wholeheartedly support the initiatives being taken where this is concerned.
The Internet has created an entirely new situation where the duplication, sale and distribution of child pornography is concerned.
The Internet operates across national borders. It is not, therefore, possible for an individual State effectively to contain the spread of child pornography.
Initiatives such as this, in which cooperation between States is increased in the common struggle against the spread of child pornography, is absolutely necessary.
As I stated during the previous part-session, in our debate on child sex tourism, there is nothing that arouses more horror and disgust than the sexual exploitation of children, and we have to admit that the Internet facilitates such 'practices' by enabling all manner of perverts to consult illegal sites anonymously.
Having made this extremely alarming observation, it is essential to consider the means of combating this phenomenon in order to protect our children.
I must, in addition, congratulate the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on its work, which produced some very interesting proposals.
One suggestion it makes is that every European Union Member State should make special police units responsible for monitoring the Internet, looking for pornographic material involving children.
If we wish to take effective action against child pornography on the Internet, it is not enough to simply react to crimes which have already been discovered.
In addition, the report sets the cut-off age at 16 for the definition of what must be considered to be child pornography.
I further support the rapporteur in insisting that the Council decision should be more binding and that the proposed measures should not be left to the discretion of the Member States.
In the same way, the idea of the 'offence of child pornography' must be seen as quite comprehensive!
There was a proposal to add that 'the production, sale and distribution or other forms of trafficking in child pornography material and the possession of such material is punishable' , but 'possession shall be punishable only where it is the result of an intentional or deliberate act or, if it is not, where possession is deliberately retained.'
Without this qualification, users 'surfing' the Internet and inadvertently accessing a site displaying child pornography would also be punishable.
Productions which, although they do not actually feature children, may suggest or intend to suggest that children are involved are also covered by the definition of offence.
Users of child pornography must be punished severely to serve as examples.
In addition, it is very important to organise better cooperation between Member States police forces through Europol.
The European Parliament must make bold proposals and must remain very vigilant.
We must utilise all the preventative and restrictive means possible to combat such phenomena.
This proposal is a step in this direction and I can therefore only give it my support.
This Council initiative is essential because it is not possible to allow childhood and naivety to be exploited for degrading commercial purposes, in denial of all humane values.
It is of the utmost importance to prevent such violations of the rights of individuals and the rights of children and not to confine ourselves to merely reacting.
I share the opinion of our rapporteur and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, that the Council proposal should be made more binding.
The definition of offences of child pornography must also be stricter, and I find the definition given by the parliamentary committee perfectly appropriate, 'the production, sale and distribution or other forms of trafficking in child pornography material and the possession of such material is punishable' with the proviso that 'possession shall be punishable only where it is the result of an intentional or deliberate act' .
We need all citizens to be involved and to be vigilant, not just police forces through Europol, and public authorities, but also Internet users and the economic network producers, in order to be able to identify the people who use these electronic messages.
There is too much at stake for us to fail to call for the mobilisation of the general population against this danger, and that is why I am compelled to vote in favour of this report.
Regarding Amendments Nos 22-28, which are the subjects of a joint vote, we would state the following.
We regard the problem of child pornography with the utmost seriousness, whether it be on the Internet or in other media, and we obviously share the view that both the Member States and the Applicant States should do everything in their power to combat child pornography.
In the same way, it is important that joint, effective measures should be taken and that the European Parliament should be kept informed of how this work is progressing.
For the same reasons that we have a negative attitude to the proposals to establish special registers of convicted sex offenders (Amendments Nos 21, 30 and 32), we do not consider Amendment No 24 to be politically desirable.
Even if it were technically possible, registering the identities of everyone allocated e-mail addresses would constitute too far-reaching a curtailment of personal privacy, as well as risk discouraging such lawful use of the Internet as is much to be desired.
The twenty-first century is the century of communications.
Paradoxically, it has become more usual to contact friends or colleagues on the other side of the world than to chat with one' s next-door neighbours.
Within the vast Internet market there are some people who have found ways to make easy money from exploiting human poverty.
Amoral producers and distributors of material have decided to respond to the deviant urges of some individuals by disseminating pornographic documents involving children over the Internet.
No one gets upset at finding large numbers of prostitutes in the streets around this building or at seeing them on display in the windows of Brussels, no one protests when newsagents sell, albeit on the top shelves, magazines flaunting the worst deviations, including paedophilia.
And yet this House is indignant today at child pornography as if it were not all part of the continuum.
Once again this damage is caused by permissiveness, which, while it may satisfy the mania of some, remains a source of unhappiness for many others.
The police and judicial authorities of our respective States must therefore receive adequate resources to combat this plague which affects the most vulnerable of us.
In this area which is cross-border in nature, it may be useful for the European Union to make its own contribution.
While the combat must involve international cooperation, however, it is also essential to fight on a day-to-day basis by preventing all these practices becoming commonplace.
Some people will retort, as they often do, that it has always existed and will always exist.
What a fatalistic comment, and what resignation, what contempt for the human condition!
I am delighted to see that our institutions are today becoming aware of the tragic fate experienced by thousands of children throughout the world, including our own countries, and are deciding to find a solution to it.
I am however afraid that the usual double standards may make these measures meaningless, for how credible are policies which would restrict the fight for human dignity to some parties and leave out others? Obviously we need to offer children special protection, but in a society which has lost its points of reference, whatever they may be, and which leaves life' s victims by the wayside in the name of individual freedom, it is our duty to fight to ensure that everyone, man, woman and child, is enabled to live in dignity.
I hope, without too much confidence, that the day will come when our main concern will once again be for the public good, responding to the highest aspirations rather than to the lowest temptations.
Frahm report (A5-0091/2000):
Mr President, creating this European Refugee Fund is the very least that could be done to face up to the reception of refugees and forcibly displaced persons likely to enter European Union territory.
We are therefore voting in favour of creating the Fund, although it is clearly inadequate to ensure the decent reception of refugees and it is, above all, an alibi for lack of action.
Let us just mention the unspeakable attitude of the countries of Europe, particularly those responsible for the bombing raids on Serbia and Kosovo, with regard to the refugees forced into exile, many of them precisely because of these bombing campaigns.
Refugees which wealthy Europe has abandoned, in the most part, to the care of neighbouring countries in the region, which have still not recovered.
We also deplore the fact that the States of the European Union are making the allocation of refugee status ever more restrictive and more arbitrary.
We deplore the fact that great numbers of women and men fleeing from oppression are being refused this status and are being made stateless persons under permanent threat of being returned to their country of origin with the risks, often serious risks, that that involves.
The creation of a European Fund for refugees, which the European Parliament has just adopted, despite the Union for a Europe of Nations Group' s voting against it, provides a fine example of these hypocritical proposals which will solve nothing at grass-roots level and will serve only to make the situation worse by transferring costly and unsupervised jurisdiction to Europe.
As I explained in my speech yesterday, this fund is not specifically intended to handle infrequent, exceptional and tragic instances of influxes of refugees originating from crisis-stricken countries, but to handle the day-to-day distribution of appropriations for the management of the usual flow of refugees of all kinds towards the most developed countries.
But what additional contribution is this Fund going to make exactly, in comparison with the present situation? As in the case of the structural funds, the citizens will be led to believe that Europe is handing out heaven-sent money in order to assist them in managing refugees.
This money is not really heaven-sent, of course, it is taken away from those self-same citizens without their being aware of it.
Europe is thus creating a good reputation for itself on the cheap.
It is always the same process: some pitiful situation is selected (the plight of the refugees, in this instance) in order to appeal not to rational argument but to people' s sympathy.
We are given the explanation that Europe will bring about the synergy that will solve the problem at minimum expense and, as proof, we are told that the new Fund will be a lightweight body, allocated only limited appropriations.
Over the coming years, however, it will be noted that the competences transferred to Brussels are executed with little discipline, as they are too far removed from the citizens, that the Fund has made the States less responsible, that therefore more money is needed, that European inspectors are also needed in order to supervise the use of appropriations, and that an entire European administration is needed to manage what will have become an uncontrollable monster.
We have just witnessed live the birth of a new sideways shift in Europe, one which will be extremely costly for everyone, and whose only effect will be to make the States mere onlookers and, what is more, it will achieve this using their own money.
At the end of 1998, the Commission proposed a Community action programme with a view to promoting the integration of refugees within the Union.
Following our opinion and the response of the Council, the Commission replaced this project with a proposal to create a European Refugee Fund, initially for a period of five years (2000-2004) and I must say that I am delighted with it!
In putting forward a multiannual plan with a wider sphere of activity, the Commission is acting in compliance with the Treaty of Amsterdam in undertaking long-term actions in favour of refugees and displaced persons and responding to the requirements expressed by the European Council in Tampere in October 1999 regarding the creation of an instrument appropriate for emergency situations.
This represents a clear improvement on prevalent practice to date.
The Fund is to establish a financial redistribution system in order to balance out the financial expenses incurred by Member States in receiving refugees and to enable those with the least developed systems to bring them up to speed.
The Fund is a single instrument intended to integrate the three facets of European policy on refugees: the reception, integration and repatriation of refugees and displaced persons.
It will therefore make it possible to support actions within the Member States such as improving reception conditions and procedures in terms of infrastructures and services (accommodation, material assistance, social welfare, assistance with administrative procedures), the integration of persons entitled to some form of stable international protection, voluntary repatriation and reintegration into the country of origin.
The target groups are refugees, under the Geneva Convention, persons that have applied for this status, and displaced persons that have requested protection on a temporary basis.
In addition to the structural measures, the Commission proposes to use this Fund to finance emergency measures in the event of an unexpected massive influx of refugees.
For the financial year 2000, the Commission proposes an allocation of EUR 26 million for structural measures and EUR 10 million for emergency measures.
As is often the case, this allocation is inadequate to handle the actual requirements.
In order to obtain real results, the budget for this Fund must be increased.
The European Commission must provide us with financial estimates covering the entire period of the programme within the scope of current financial perspectives and, if necessary, a proposal for the revision of appropriations, in view of the fact that much greater amounts will be necessary in order to achieve the Fund' s objectives.
Let me conclude by emphasising that creating this European Refugee Fund represents the first step towards a common asylum system and we must continue to work towards this.
If the purpose of creating a European Refugee Fund were to make asylum and refugee policy in the Member States of the Union more humane and open, then it would be a welcome step.
The Fund, which is merely the product of a combination of three budgetary lines, will not do this.
There is evidence in addition to the debate as to what the creation of the European Refugee Fund really means. It means "distributing the burden" .
An approach whereby immigrants entering the EU in search of protection are seen as a "burden" which has to be "distributed" is fundamentally flawed.
No policy which takes humane account of the needs of persons fleeing persecution can be constructed on such a basis.
The policy of the Member States and of the Union is geared towards heading off and turning away refugees, as the recent inclusion of a "re-adoption" clause in the Lomé Convention demonstrates.
If this is what the outlines of European asylum and refugee policy really look like and if refugees are seen as a "burden" , then creating a Refugee Fund is a cosmetic exercise designed to hide the real face of a European policy of turning refugees away.
The Fund will not, in this form, cause any country to switch to a policy of greater openness towards the immigration of refugees.
Nor will it improve the legal security of persons fleeing persecution and in search of protection.
But it is precisely the legal security and the right of participation of refugees, which must be considered.
The European Union calls throughout the world for freedom of movement for capital. But it is reducing the freedom of movement of persons yet further by closing borders and cutting itself off from refugees and asylum seekers.
Every year many refugees die, killed on the external borders of the EU.
To assume in these circumstances that creating a Refugee Fund will make for a more humane asylum and refugee policy is an illusion, which is why I have abstained.
That concludes the vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Outcome of the European Council in Lisbon, 23 -24 March 2000
The next item is the debate on the European Council report and the Commission statement on the outcome of the European Council in Lisbon, the Social Summit.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Lisbon European Council has certainly given new impetus to the European agenda and I am sure that you will be aware of its results, both through reading the conclusions and also as a result of the broad public coverage that this Council received in the European and international press.
The key aim of defining a new world-wide strategy for the European Union within a world economy that is open, competitive and truly global was achieved. That strategy is to make the European Union the most dynamic and competitive economic area in the world, based on knowledge and able to guarantee sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and with greater social cohesion.
A knowledge-based economy underpinned by a society based on information and research will be a powerful factor in the European Union' s development and of course requires a swift and consistent process of structural reforms and the completion of the internal market.
This objective also involves modernising the European social model, investing in people and combating social exclusion.
It also involves implementing sound macroeconomic policies encouraging economic growth and employment.
Strengthening the European Council' s coordinating and guiding role will be vital to developing the Lisbon strategy. The European Council will annually monitor the progress that has been made, by holding a European Council meeting each spring.
It will also establish the broad guidelines for the sectoral Councils. A coordination method was established, with specific timetables for the short, medium and long term, outlining objectives, benchmarking based on best practice and also other kinds of indicators.
This is an open method of coordination, which we hope will produce optimal results.
These guidelines will also be transposed into national policies, and will be periodically monitored and assessed as part of a process of mutual learning between Member States.
The goals set at the Lisbon European Council are extremely ambitious and give specific mandates to the Commission.
Just yesterday, President Prodi presented the Commission' s programme in this area to the Council and also to the various Council formations, and it is therefore crucial that we bear in mind the diversity of platforms on which the strategy laid down in Lisbon was developed, with its implications for the fields of scientific research, education, the single market, industry and so forth.
Developments in electronic commerce, the liberalisation of the telecommunications market and the establishment of a framework for reducing the costs of access to the Internet are, of course, crucial factors in the success of this modernising strategy, and the e-Europe Action Plan, which will be presented to the Feira European Council, will also be a key instrument in speeding up the progress of the European Union towards becoming an information society.
Just yesterday, I was able to inform the General Affairs Council that the Portuguese Presidency had already prepared a timetable for the remits given by the Council for implementation of specific measures in the various areas, and also for appropriate preparation of the Feira and Nice European Councils.
The Ecofin Council will primarily assume responsibility for strengthening the Cardiff process, the action plan for financial services, the action plan for venture capital, the tax package, the mid-term review of the employment guidelines and for the assessment of the contribution made by public finances to growth and employment.
The Internal Market Council will assume responsibility for electronic commerce, copyright and related rights, for the dual-use export control regime, for removing obstacles to services and public contracts, for Community and private sector electronic procurement systems, for the establishment of a coordinated strategy with a view to simplifying laws and rules and for the Community patent.
The Employment and Social Affairs Council will assume responsibility for conducting a review of the employment guidelines, for mandating the High-Level Working Party on Social Protection to prepare a study on the sustainability of the pensions system up to 2020, for applying an open method of coordination to policies for combating social exclusion and for considering the future direction of social policy, with a view to reaching agreement on a European social agenda at the Nice European Council.
The Research Council will assume responsibility for the e-Europe Action Plan and for promoting the establishment of a European research area.
The Telecommunications Council will assume responsibility for concluding the review of a regulatory framework for telecommunications and for the liberalisation of the market in this field.
The Consumer Affairs Council will assume responsibility for the distance selling of financial services - by approving pending legislation - and for alternative systems for resolving consumer disputes, by establishing a Community network.
The Education Council will assume responsibility for considering the future objectives of our educational systems, with a view to contributing to the Luxembourg and Cardiff processes by establishing new basic skills at European Union level, for creating a European diploma for basic IT skills, for removing obstacles to the mobility of teachers, for developing a European format for curricula vitae, for monitoring national policies on implementing these objectives, for access to the Internet in schools by 2001 and for the minimum training, by 2002, of the network of information technology teachers.
The Industry Council will assume responsibility for drafting the charter for small businesses and for establishing a procedure for standardising appropriate practices for the creation and development of innovative businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized businesses.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council will be responsible for adopting the pending legislation on jurisdiction and enforcing judgements.
It should be borne in mind that implementing the remits decided in Lisbon will require close cooperation between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament, since many of the laws to be adopted are subject to the codecision procedure.
As you can see, the task of setting objectives at the Lisbon European Council is developing into a major timetable for action that the Commission and the various Council formations must now implement.
The Portuguese Presidency has already taken appropriate measures in Council so that the specific Council formations can immediately start implementing the programmes defined for their respective fields, and so that appropriate coordination takes place in this area, through the presentation of a synthesis report, either by the time of the Feira European Council this June, or by the Nice European Council, during the French Presidency.
Madam President, Mr Gama, President Prodi, with good reason the Lisbon Summit could be dubbed historic in terms of its political content.
At the meeting the Union' s strategic objective was to create the world' s most competitive and dynamic information-based economy, with steady growth and the ability to create more and better jobs.
The aim alone does not, however, make the meeting a historic one; what does is the range of measures that the meeting is recommending the Union and its Member States take to achieve their objective.
I will borrow the words of the Presidency. Firstly, to achieve the model, we have to put our faith above all in the private sector and in cooperation between the private and the public sector.
That will be dependent on the mobilisation of market forces available and action on the part of the Member States themselves.
The Union will act as a catalyst in the process.
Secondly, we must reduce the tax burden among the workforce, especially among the relatively low paid and less educated.
Thirdly, we have to reallocate public money to increase the relative importance of the growth of capital both physically and in terms of human beings.
Fourthly, we must speed up the process whereby competition is freed up, for example, in the gas, electricity, postal and transport industries, with the objective of having a fully functional internal market in these sectors too.
I have given just a few examples to show that the Council of the fifteen countries of the European Union, fourteen of which have socialist governments, has adopted a totally central to right policy with regard to the economy and development, one which is associated with social responsibility, in many respects like that of the PPE-DE Group.
When I speak of this with such satisfaction on behalf of my group, it is not with the slightest hint of mockery. In our opinion, the essential thing is not to look for political conflict, but to use the right tools for the benefit of our citizens.
In the decisions taken at the Lisbon Council, those tools took the form of a social market economy, which was a good thing.
Let me utter a few words of warning. The main responsibility for achieving results lies with the Member States as far as the liberalisation of markets and the making of electronic commerce cheaper for consumers are concerned.
I would ask whether the astronomical price of the third generation mobile phone licences now being put up for auction in England will be of benefit to the consumers of the future? It will not be.
Greed will bring its own revenge in that the system will be made expensive and will be slow to establish itself.
I give the example because it is relevant and not because I want to draw attention to the fact that the United Kingdom is doing something than runs counter to the decisions of Lisbon.
Let me issue a second word of warning. We are on the threshold of enlargement.
As we now step on the gas with regard to an eEurope within the Union, are we making it more difficult for those countries joining the Union to adapt? The answer cannot be not to speed up developments in the direction of an eEurope.
The answer is, in fact, a question: are enlargement, which has been planned, albeit relatively slowly, and the budget in accordance with the decisions of Agenda 2000, mutually compatible? Is structural aid to be increased after all, so that those states intending to join are not left even further behind in terms of development compared with the Union?
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say finally, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, that we have full confidence that Romano Prodi and the Commission he heads will be able to achieve the Lisbon objectives.
The PPE-DE Group and, to the best of my knowledge, the whole of Parliament, support the Commission' s work while voicing constructive criticism.
As the imperfections of the Single Market now also stem from protraction on the part of the Member States, the implementation of each of the decisions taken at Lisbon will also depend at institutional level above all on whether the Member States will stand by the solemn theses of Lisbon in the years to come.
Madam President, the Lisbon Summit will mark a milestone.
Following on from Luxembourg in 1997, when Europe revealed its joint responsibility for employment, the European Council has just outlined a new economic strategy, intended to make the European Union not only the most competitive and most dynamic knowledge-based economic system in the world, but also a model in terms of employment and social cohesion.
"The novelty of this summit is that it dealt with the entirety of economic and social policy." This is a quotation from Belgium' s Liberal Prime Minister.
Along with him, the President of the French Republic, and the Heads of Government of Austria, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourg have endorsed the Lisbon conclusions.
Some political forces within this Parliament nonetheless appear to wish to turn the Lisbon Summit into some sort of Socialist International 'happening' .
How else is one to interpret the refusal of the PPE and ELDR Groups to negotiate a joint resolution common to the main political forces within Parliament? Some conservative and liberal ayatollahs seem not to want to hear anything about a macroeconomic and monetary policy of benefit to the European social model.
The untrammelled free market seems to be their only god.
Yet the market economy must necessarily have a social dimension.
Here is a riddle.
In Lisbon, who was it that said that the citizens of Europe are looking to the European Council to give shape to a social Europe? Who was it that said that, for European citizens, I quote, "unemployment wrecks lives and societies for entire generations and, even though it is starting to fall, unemployment remains the main concern" ?
That "the across-the-board return to economic growth means that we can do things today which were impossible yesterday" ? That citizens are scandalised by "untrammelled capitalism, whose relocations, social dumping, ruthless exploitation of the disparities between the social and fiscal legislation of the Member States and remorseless pursuit of profit at the expense of working men and women" ?
These are the words of Mrs Nicole Fontaine, the President of this Parliament.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists also supports Mrs Fontaine in her declaration made in Lisbon to the effect that, I quote, "The European Parliament is committed to the social model in all its aspects" .
The President has our support when she asks the European Council to, I quote, "introduce balanced rules on company mergers within the European Union" ; and says that there should be "a ban on any mergers that do not comply with binding European legislation on prior notification and consultation of workers" ; "that, before such mergers can take place, a serious assessment of their social impact is carried out" , and when she points out that "unregulated mergers, based merely on dominant capitalist concerns, have a devastating effect on the Union' s social cohesion" .
The Group of the Party of European Socialists agrees with the President, when she demands an observatory of industrial change, and a fairer distribution of income between capital which enables and work which produces.
In short, the Group of the Party of European Socialists endorses the conclusions of our President, whom we congratulate on her fair and courageous statements.
Parliament would appear ridiculous if it voted in favour of the joint resolution tabled by the PPE and the ELDR, who seem to wish not only to disown our President, but also to disassociate themselves from both President Prodi and the Conservative and Liberal Christian Democrat Prime Ministers who endorse Lisbon.
I therefore advise all the Christian Democrats, all the Liberals and all the Democrats in general who want to see a social market economy, to vote in favour of the resolution proposed by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
We wish to combine economic efficiency, quality of life and social protection.
We want sustainable development in all these aspects.
(Applause from the left)
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I should like to start by saying that we in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party did not especially agree with the observations made by Mrs Fontaine in her speech at the Lisbon Summit.
However, we were very pleased about the far-sighted messages which were to be found in the conclusions from the Summit.
We are particularly pleased about the emphasis placed upon Europe' s creating prosperity and employment by strengthening the market economy and increasing competitiveness, partly through greater flexibility in the labour market and reduced social charges in connection with low-paid jobs.
I also want to express satisfaction at the fact that the open coordination with which we are familiar from employment policy is to be used as a tool in other areas to promote the use of information technology and reinforce training and strengthen research.
Working for common goals in this open and flexible way, in which countries can measure themselves against each other and learn from one another, is a good way both of ensuring progress and, at the same time, of guaranteeing individual countries' freedom to seek their own solutions to their own problems.
I would also express great satisfaction at the fact that the opinion sets a time-frame for developing the single market in important areas, chiefly through the commitment to rapidly create a legal framework for e-commerce.
However, there is, in fact, just a great a need to develop the traditional economy, and I am therefore delighted at the emphasis on increased research efforts and on the enlargement of the single financial market, as well as at the Council' s support for liberalisation within the energy, postal and transport sectors, even though it has not set a time scale for such liberalisation.
In developing employment policy and combating social exclusion, it is only right to invest not only in economic growth but also in education and training as a way of giving those who are excluded from society a foothold in the labour market and enabling them to help themselves.
There are major advantages in a form of coordination based upon benchmarking, but we should of course be careful that the whole process does not take a bureaucratic turn or lead to over-zealous management.
Finally, I would offer an important and perhaps less complimentary remark.
In the Lisbon conclusions, the Council refers a good deal to what it is going to do in the future, perhaps following proposals on the part of the Commission.
I hope that we are not to read too much into this apparent emphasis upon the intergovernmental character of EU cooperation.
Madam President, many observers have stressed the fact that the Special Summit was characterised by the triumph of the contentions of Mr Blair and Mr Aznar.
If that means that the Lisbon Summit sanctioned a liberal view of Europe, then I must of course, unfortunately, concur with this analysis.
I cannot however be delighted by it.
I do not by any means wish to allow the current British and Spanish Heads of Government to monopolise the offensive position with regard to the information revolution.
In my opinion, this is indeed a huge challenge which must be accepted.
So when I read the summit conclusions which state that Europe has set itself the goal of promoting a dynamic knowledge-based economy 'capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs' , I say, 'Go on then, I dare you.'
An annual upturn in investment in people and adopting a proactive policy to promote full employment is something I am firmly in favour of.
The political difference between us is not a question of whether or not to adopt modern methods, but of what our concept of these modern methods is, particularly on the place and the role which all men and women, bar none, must play, both as workers and as citizens.
In this respect, however, Mr Blair and Mr Aznar and their followers are held captive by archaic liberal ideas, which are conformist in the most ordinary way: allow the market, particularly the financial market, to operate, introduce wage flexibility, reduce labour costs, even if it means boosting the mechanism which produces inequality, precariousness and exclusion across the entire planet.
There' s the rub: do we or do we not have the courage to tackle these taboo areas at the very time when we are starting to see such promising beginnings of a new phase in human civilisation?
This, in my opinion, is the yardstick against which we will be able to measure Europe' s true ambition and also the true modernity of the left.
- (PT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to highlight some positive conclusions resulting from the Lisbon European Council, which essentially relate to the joint motion for a resolution supported amongst others by my group, and which has already been attacked so fiercely here by the Socialists.
These conclusions were presented by the Heads of State and Government as part of a strategic objective to make the European Union the most competitive area in the world within ten years, by developing a knowledge-based economy and adopting policies geared towards growth and full employment.
I must ask this, however: do the statements by those currently in power in Europe, who are, in the majority, Socialists, and who, for various years have headed the governments of their respective countries, not above all reveal more about their shortcomings and the serious failures of the European development model which they have been promoting? Is there anything genuinely new and original about the Lisbon Summit conclusions that had not already been diagnosed and stated in the 1993 White Paper "Growth, Competitiveness, Employment" ?
A commitment was made at that time to, and I quote, "information networks" ; today the commitment is stressed, and I quote again "to the area of knowledge and access to the information society" .
In the White Paper, the stress was put on "lifelong learning and continuing training" . Now, and I quote once again, the issue is "lifelong learning" .
I could go on, as there are countless conclusions completely identical to those in the 1993 White Paper.
There is nevertheless one aspect that deserves a particular mention in the area of policies for full employment.
In 1993, the objective was to halve the number of unemployed in the European Union, from 17 million to 8.5 million.
The fact is that we are now in 2000, unemployment still stands at 15 million and the summit conclusions promise us rates of almost full employment in ten years' time.
This is at best politically irresponsible and displays a mentality which is quite typical of the Socialists, even for those followers of the third way, which is based on the proactive development of a strategy which, as you all know, is the product of many different factors and is ultimately based on the actions of businesses.
As one well-known analyst said, Europe' s leaders have decided on something that they cannot possibly achieve.
To promise, as they have done, ambitious targets for growth and employment is equivalent to announcing an increase in the population or the number of days of sunshine.
We believe that the role of governments should instead be to focus on developing means to enable social and economic agents to generate wealth and to produce positive results in these areas.
Another aspect that is worthy of attention is essentially that the summit appears to have ignored the fact that the countries of the European Union have different historical backgrounds and economic and social structures. These are disparities which eastward enlargement will only accentuate, and the summit also appears to have ignored the fact that there are still imbalances that even average levels of development cannot hide.
This applies to both positive and negative aspects.
How can we explain, for example, that Sweden and Finland, countries with highly developed social protection systems, have levels of Internet use identical to those in the United States, that is around 50%, whilst the United Kingdom, a much more liberal country, has levels of around 29%?
On the other hand, how is it that there can still be gross disparities in the minimum wage levels of some Member States, marked differences in the quality of social security systems and in the value of retirement pensions, and even in levels of unemployment or hidden unemployment, not to mention increasingly widespread pockets of poverty and exclusion?
The European Union may have begun its race towards levels of development already seen in America' s economy and businesses, but this, the real Europe, will not become a reality until the convergence of national economies and internal economic and social cohesion are given top priority.
It was with great interest that I followed the European Council' s summit in Lisbon. There was a very impressive display of rhetoric, chiefly indicative of impotence on a massive and growing scale.
It is, of course, all well and good to have the strategic goal of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world with a view to creating sustainable growth.
The first problem, however, is that no specific actions of any kind have been outlined which can give actual substance to this ambition. The second problem is that the social problems entailed and which (for better and, particularly, for worse) are a very significant part of actual life in the European Union have been ignored.
The Presidency' s conclusions talk of "the European social model" .
I am not aware of any European social model. I am familiar with a number of different models for social welfare, tied to specific national traditions.
In my own country, there is a tradition which differs markedly from the dominant tradition in the European Union.
The real problem is being completely ignored.
This was hinted at in the negotiations prior to the intergovernmental conference, namely the problem of implementing reforms so as to create a European social model. I must issue a strong warning against doing any such thing.
There is to be a commitment to majority decision-making in this area.
My own country' s government opposes this, and so do we who are sceptical about this self-fulfilling development within the European Union.
The most significant legacy of the European Council' s summit in Lisbon is all the unresolved problems.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Lisbon focused on employment, economic reform and the shift to the digital age.
But Lisbon is not the first summit to discuss the topic of "employment" .
Since Essen, we have had numerous declarations of intent and well-meant action programmes.
The only way to achieve a sustainable increase in the employment rate is to give companies the entrepreneurial room for manoeuvre which they need in the form of framework conditions.
The proposed measures to promote SMEs are confined to analyses and to drafting yet more non-binding declarations of intent.
Paper is cheap.
Unfortunately there is a total lack of concrete results.
A sustained improvement in the employment situation can only be achieved through structural reform, which means reducing the tax burden, simplifying tax systems and making it easier to incorporate a company.
We are all familiar with these requirements.
Everyone says, "Yes, that is quite right" .
But implementation is where it falls down.
As an Austrian member, I must also address the sanctions of the 14 in connection with Lisbon.
The ability to be democratic goes hand in hand with the ability to discuss.
The efforts of the presidency to ban the subject of Austria from the agenda gave me even more food for thought.
It is in the interests of the Union to clarify relations between Austria and the EU.
Refusing all discussion was never a recipe for resolving a conflict.
Many people back in Austria ask me "How can the peaceful house of Europe be built if the highest representatives are not on speaking terms or refuse all discussion?"
These symbolic gestures are the right way to open up old wounds between people.
I therefore say to everyone who declares that the sanctions are for the government but not the people, that such a separation is not possible.
A democratically elected government cannot be separated from the people who elected it.
This is illustrated by absurd examples such as the taxi boycott in Brussels, problems with school exchange programmes and much else besides.
The distrust shown towards Austria, despite the fact that it has not once violated democratic principles since 1945 stands in clear contradiction to the spirit of this Community.
Judge the Austrian government by its deeds.
You will not find any violation of the spirit of the Union.
(Applause from the right)
Madam President, I wish to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council and to wish him every success in the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union.
I am sure that we are all in broad agreement with the Lisbon Summit' s strategic objective to make Europe, and I quote, "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth" .
Nobody doubts the importance of preparing the European public for the demands of a society based on information, knowledge, and new communications technologies as strategic weapons, in order to emerge victorious in the future, generating employment with higher-quality work and higher pay.
This would all be fine if the Lisbon Summit had been held specifically to discuss this kind of issue, which would mean that it should have been called the Information Society Summit, or the Knowledge Economy Summit or the New Economy Summit, according to people' s whims, taste or pretensions.
To call it the Employment Summit, however, would be to depart from its real purpose.
It is like putting a fake label on a product, which does not match the content.
In this case, it was done out of political expediency.
The truth is that the objective of employment goes far beyond these issues.
Firstly, the new economy, which essentially represents a challenge for this generation, cannot put a bomb under the old economy, which is the mainstay of our lives and whose modernisation and structural adjustment represent a stage that we cannot dispense with.
This means that we must immediately discuss strategies for restructuring the traditional sectors of our economy, which rethinking the choices that we will have to make in relation to the guiding principles of the World Trade Organisation would require.
Secondly, a strategic debate on employment would have to start with a substantial analysis of the European Union' s agents of competitiveness, because that is what sustainable economic growth depends on, and hence employment and social well-being.
The truth is that in a debate of this kind, we are bound to wonder why the EU has grown at half the rate of the United States of America over the last few years, and why no government has had the courage to question the more harmful effects of the so-called "European social model" , because, without wishing to detract from its positive aspects, this model is, to some extent, an incentive to passivity, to indolence and sloth in some elements of society, who could and should work. We should therefore ask ourselves why the level of economic reintegration into the active population has been so low amongst those who have benefited from certain support policies.
This applies particularly to the "minimum guaranteed income" type of system. We must also ask ourselves why we in Europe have a system that is so state-led and so interventionist that it regulates the competitiveness of the economy in a damaging way, and which, in the guise of arguments about society and stability, sometimes conceals high-spending strategies and even, very often, strategies for helping their political cronies.
These strategies certainly have a harmful effect on economic growth, on the distribution of wealth, and consequently, on employment.
A far-reaching debate on the problem of employment in the European Union would inevitably, therefore, have to address these issues properly.
Madam President, I wish to add my warm welcome and congratulations to the presidency on the successful achievement of the Lisbon Summit.
I think we will come to see in the future that all roads did lead to Lisbon via Luxembourg, Cardiff and Cologne, because Lisbon should be the end of a process, one that can actually deliver as regards the sort of priorities we want to bring to a successful conclusion throughout the whole of the European Union.
The key question is how we turn the conclusions of the Lisbon Summit into action; we must ensure that we turn the rhetoric of Lisbon into a reality.
I shall not dwell too much on the specifics of the Lisbon Summit.
A lot of us have been through that already and we welcome many of the conclusions.
I want to look at the challenges that are inherent in the Lisbon process for Parliament, the Commission and, indeed, all three institutions.
In particular, for Parliament there is a huge challenge in realising the full legislative implications of completing a single market.
There is a challenge in realising the full potential of the e-economy.
There is a challenge for Parliament in playing its part in helping Europe to become the dynamic centre of sustainable job creation, innovation, competitiveness and modernised social welfare.
It is a challenge that Parliament must rise to, working with the other institutions, Commissioner Prodi and his colleagues, and the Council.
If we do not, nobody will understand or forgive us for not realising our aim.
The reason, as I mentioned before the Lisbon Summit, relates to those who are in the gallery with us today - the citizens of Europe.
We have to turn Lisbon into something that means something to them, something to the people in my home town of Wolverhampton.
To me, Lisbon is all about creating a Europe of highly-paid, highly-skilled, high-value-added jobs.
If we can achieve that sort of Europe from the Lisbon process, it will be good for our citizens and for Europe as a whole, because what could be more socially just and inclusive than a Europe that genuinely benefits from full employment and good jobs that everybody can enjoy?
That is our challenge.
In conclusion, I thank the Portuguese presidency very much.
I thank the President-in-Office, the Minister and, in particular, Prime Minister Guterres for all the personal effort he put into this process.
At Lisbon the Portuguese presidency gave us the key to unlock a decade of sustained innovation, competitiveness and job creation across our continent.
Now is the time for us as a Parliament, the Commission and the Council to work together to ensure that key is turned.
- (PT) Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, the document adopted at the Lisbon Summit is rather abstract, and this may mean that it is not implemented equitably.
The policy that has been adopted could conceivably result in a high rate of growth, rivalling that of the United States, but it is unlikely to prevent social exclusion or achieve social cohesion and regional balance.
I wish to discuss this problem, which affects fundamental European policies.
The European Council ought to be aware that in Europe today, the lowest per capita income and the highest levels of employment exist side by side in the same regions or countries.
This requires a European employment policy with its own budget, linked to the Structural Funds policy that the European Council does not want to blindly accept. The Council should also be aware of the fact that there are countries in Europe that are not highly developed, but which are nevertheless prepared for the knowledge economy.
They have a high-quality system of technical, university and professional education, but since they do not have the necessary economic development, they are once again seeing their sons and daughters emigrate. These young people, paradoxically, are acting in the same way as computer experts who are trained in India but then go to work in the United States.
The Council ought to think about this and work towards a real Europe.
- (PT) Mr President, the results of the Lisbon Summit demonstrate that everything the Portuguese Presidency has up to now presented as a priority for employment and for combating social exclusion has merely been a massive attempt to pull the wool over our eyes.
Its supporters may try to make its conclusions look rosy, whether they are talking about the so-called modernisation of the European social model or about the need to make the European Union the most competitive area in the world, but they cannot hide their real aims, which are to produce a labour market free from the conditions imposed by legislation designed to protect workers' rights, to put social security entirely in the hands of the financial markets and to speed up the process of liberalisation in fundamental sectors such as gas, electricity, postal services, transport and telecommunications.
Therefore, instead of more high-quality jobs with employment rights, instead of a reduction in working hours whilst maintaining salary levels and without flexible working arrangements, the summit' s decision will, in practice, lead to poorer jobs, which are less secure, which provide fewer rights, and do not offer an effective system of social protection.
Instead of high-quality public services which meet users' needs, protect the most vulnerable sectors of society and generate high-quality jobs, the Council has decided to speed up privatisation to satisfy the interests of economic groups and to increase their profits. This will have a harmful effect on employment and on working conditions - which will deteriorate - and on the environment and town and country planning.
If we are to draw something positive from this, it is the major demonstration by tens of thousands of workers who condemned the growing instability of employment as they marched past the Lisbon Summit. They condemned unemployment and social exclusion and demanded more high-quality employment, better salaries, more social rights and a change of direction in European policies, in order to achieve economic and social cohesion.
Mr President, in the debate preceding the Lisbon Summit I said that the preparatory documents seemed to show that, in tackling the new economy, the Heads of States and Government were torn between a centralised, bureaucratic approach and a freer, more simply coordinated approach.
Following this Council meeting, in our view, the scales have tipped in favour of the freer approach, since the Lisbon conclusions declare that there is no question of adding further European regulations to those which exist already but, quite the contrary, of implementing - the expression is used several times - a new open method of coordination.
The knowledge economy which we are moving into is thus already having a retroactive effect on our concept of the European institutions, for this new method of coordination must mean, as we already know, that top-down authoritarian integration and uniformising regulations are to be abandoned and replaced by a system in which the States and national democracies will play a much more important role, and will combine within networks following the specific model of a computer network.
The Union as such must then simply play the role of coordinator and catalyst, to use the precise word used in the Lisbon conclusions.
This new method also entails the European Council rediscovering its fundamental strategic guidance mission, while allowing the various Councils of Ministers to take the practical decisions and the Commission to prepare and execute policy.
This is the way we may finally achieve more balanced and more democratic European institutions.
The Lisbon conclusions, Mr President, may, however, in other respects, give rise to a number of reservations.
Since there is not much time, let me cite just one: the proactive goal of increasing the proportion of women in employment from 51% to 60% by 2010.
This really is the type of authoritarian attitude which should be a thing of the past.
It is not up to the authorities to say how many women must go out to work. This is a matter for the interested parties and civil society.
The authorities must simply ensure that housewives receive fair treatment and that personal choices may be made freely.
Mr President, I decided to speak in this debate when I read the truly excellent analysis of the current situation in Europe produced by the European Commission before the Lisbon Summit.
It is true that the Lisbon Summit also represented something of a sea-change in attitudes towards the global society and in particular towards issues like e-commerce.
At the same time there was a tension in Lisbon between the old world of the international socialists and the new world of those who have a slightly wider perspective.
So the city of Henry the Navigator may become the city of Netscape the navigator, a new approach which I thoroughly welcome.
The summit was variously described as a social summit and an e-summit and so on.
Much was said about the economic and social policies that were supposed to emanate from Lisbon.
The reality is that the European social model is now living in London and she is called Laetitia Casta.
She is Marianne, the symbol of France but taxes in France are now so high that she now has to go and live in London despite the vastly increased taxation under Labour.
Very soon now the government is about to raise GBP 16 billion through the sale of the third generation mobile telephone licences as Mr Suominen reminded us.
There is tension around Europe but at the same time I detect a sea-change.
I rarely speak in debates after summits but this is an important one.
I therefore look forward to some genuine action from the European Commission.
It is action not words that is needed.
When I talk about words, I am thinking about words like "bench-marking" and "peer review" .
I am sure there are not many people in this Chamber who understand what bench-marking or peer review means.
Do not worry, it is meaningless.
What actually matters is a light touch on the e-commerce directive, a light touch on telecommunications.
Give people the freedom to use the Internet to their advantage, to their benefit, for social reasons, for educational reasons, for the disabled - all the benefits the Internet can give us.
We do not need the heavy regulatory touch of the past.
Please Mr Prodi, ignore your friends on the Left and stick with the new world not the old world.
Mr President, let me say to Mr McMillan-Scott that a spectre is haunting Europe, the spectre of economic efficiency and one wonders why it is still so evasive despite all the great efforts that liberalism has put into it.
It is a question of strategy really.
So what is the strategy for making a success of this incredible economic transformation Lisbon is promising us? It is a strategy which is radically innovative.
All those who have endeavoured to tackle the problem of the European economy so far have done so within the context of the old economy.
Guterres decided that the problem was practically insoluble in this context and, rather than having to contend with the deadlocks of the old economy, he decided to circumvent them altogether.
It is what you might call a great inspirational strategy which proposes that Europe put all its effort into the new economy, into information technology and into telecommunications in the hope that, as this new economy develops, the old economy will take a new direction in its wake.
The most basic example is employment.
Europe currently has 16 million unemployed whom it cannot absorb.
At the same time, there are 800 000 highly-skilled jobs in the new economy which cannot be filled due to a lack of skilled human resources.
Some say these figures are set to reach 1.6 million next year.
If Europe does not learn its electronic lessons fast, these unfilled jobs will multiply and the economy will slump.
And even if we do fill these 800 000 jobs, there will still be a further 15 million unemployed.
We do not appear to have solved any problems whatsoever.
However, the new technologies can, with our support, lead to competitiveness and cost reductions in all sectors.
And as all the other sectors become more productive, thanks to the impact of the new economy, they too will create more jobs.
This is the simple yet great idea of Lisbon.
The question is whether this idea will work in practice.
And whether or not it will work in practice depends on whether or not we are capable of a new financial perspective in Europe.
All these years, Europe has been convinced that investing taxpayers' money into the old-style economy was a waste of time.
This is where all the zero deficits, stability plans and so forth come from.
It is debatable just how much of ECOFIN' s die-hard approach was totally justified, but perhaps we are now in a position to leave this behind us.
Lisbon may well have shown us how to leave this behind us because, if we are to attain its objectives, we need public investment in the new economy.
We need to build information highways, on which private enterprises can of course then create and run their own vehicles.
However, these highways can only be built by the Member States, by the public sector and by the European Union.
Lisbon will be judged on this, i.e. on whether or not we are capable of integrating the public and private economies in an original and enterprising manner.
Mr President, as far as the European Council in Lisbon is concerned, even though it was dedicated to employment, the unemployment of eighteen million women and men in the European Union and the human and social tragedy that this represents are just a grey area in a current economic situation which is more promising than it has been for a generation.
Such cynicism borders on candour!
The present situation, which is exceptionally advantageous to employers and the property-owning classes, arises specifically because of the extent of unemployment, the pressure that this exerts on wages and the generalisation of precariousness.
As for the promise to create twenty million jobs in the years to come, this is just as deceitful as it is ridiculous.
The Council presented the so-called new economy as the main provider of jobs for the future, but the stock exchange crisis which occurred a few days after the Summit demonstrated just to what extent the new economy was, more than anything, the basis for old-style speculation, and that the promised jobs in information and communication technologies were, after all, just virtual jobs.
At the same time, the demonstration of Alsthom' s European workers in Brussels reminded us that the real economy, that of big business, is continuing to cut thousands of jobs and to make unemployment worse, while governments back these firms up by cutting support and allowances to the unemployed in order to force them into accepting any old job, at any price, under any conditions.
Mr President, I welcome the Lisbon conclusions.
In fact, seen from the perspective of employment and social policy and against the long procession of summits which preceded it, Lisbon stands out along with Luxembourg in terms of the potential it offers us.
I stress the word "potential" because, as others have said, we now need to look at the follow-up.
Partly that follow-up is institutional.
We will be looking very carefully, for example, at how the broad economic guidelines will be prepared, at just how successful the input of the Social Affairs and Employment Council will be in emphasising the need for employment and social cohesion when it formulates the broad economic guidelines.
Also, we are told that each spring the European Council will consider an overall report to be produced by the Commission that will deal with structural indicators to be agreed.
We wonder who will agree those structural indicators and just how strong the synthesis report to be produced by the Commission will be. What will the role of the Commission and this institution be?
Will it, in fact, be largely intergovernmental? If so, I think we will be disappointed.
But we are not just concerned about the institutional follow-up. We are also concerned about the substance.
What proposals, for example, will the Commission come forward with by June this year on social inclusion, as it was challenged to do in the Lisbon conclusions? Further than that, how quickly will the high-level group on the future of social protection begin to move into the realm of a convergence strategy for social protection that this House has called for?
So we are concerned with the substantive follow-up as well.
One point disappoints me - that is the stance of the EPP in all this.
It is trying to pretend that it welcomes the outcome because it is largely liberal and concentrates upon the liberal market aspects.
It should be honest and say that, like us, it has always supported a social market economy.
We welcome the emphasis upon the smooth and efficient functioning of markets.
But as always we want that to be balanced by solidarity and social inclusion.
I hope the group has the political honesty to accept that it continues to support that point of view.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, from amongst the very interesting Lisbon conclusions, please allow me to highlight a declaration which, because it is apparently technical - although I believe it is politically very important - has not yet been mentioned by previous speakers.
I am talking about the request to the Commission that it contemplate, for 2001, a coordinated strategy in the legislative field.
At the moment we have, to name but a few, initiatives such as SLIM, the Business Test Panel, the Regulatory Policy Guidelines and the Better Law-Making Report, not to mention the initiatives relating to codification or the quality of legislation.
Clearly this will all have to be coordinated and we will even have to go further in laying down the new regulations or restructuring the existing legislation.
Improving quality must not only be directed at Community legislation but also at the legislation of the Member States.
In all new legislation we must establish a better balance between 'self regulation' and 'public regulation' , in accordance with what, in the conclusions of the Lisbon Summit, in some initiatives, has been called coregulation.
We must review the 'Best Business Impact' initiative.
Throughout the whole of this exercise, we must take account of the interests of the consumers and the interests of the environment, and these are complicated tasks.
Returning to simplification, the SLIM initiative requires a complete revision.
We need a clear programme. We also need this programme to be applied on a national level, where there is still a lot of 'gold plating' of directives when they are transposed.
We need expiry clauses and we need to improve codification.
Codification is currently too cumbersome an instrument, too ineffective, and therefore we perhaps have to reform the Treaty.
We have to tackle that reform of the Treaty.
Lastly, we have to regulate more quickly and be more effective.
Since we are in the Internet era, we have to take account of the fact that, in Internet terms, a year is equivalent to three months at the most.
Therefore we need to make improvements in that respect as well.
Mr President, congratulations on a particularly focused summit as regards: the clarity of the objectives; the analysis of the tasks needed to meet those objectives; and the built-in progress-chasing system.
There was particular emphasis at this summit on the European area of research and innovation, following the excellent communication from Commissioner Busquin.
This is a domain of severe under-achievement in the European Union.
We need deeper knowledge in science and technology.
We have grasped the need to rectify our lack - by means of patent protection, mapping of areas of excellence, tax incentives for research and development, an electronic network for scientists and enhanced mobility for our researchers.
The sixth framework programme will be another tool.
As well as deeper knowledge, we need wider knowledge.
We need people who have been disenfranchised in the areas of science and technology - women, older people and particularly those suffering disadvantage - to be on board in the quest for this wider knowledge.
We need to use the knowledge in better ways.
Of course, we need new products and we need new processes and we need new ideas about how our society should be run.
We also need new sustainable technologies.
The European Socialists are fully behind the leap forward which is possible given the cogent analysis that took place at the Lisbon Summit.
Mr President, many commentators have drawn adverse comparisons between the European Union and the old Soviet Union.
Both have been profoundly anti-democratic, both have seemed opposed to enterprise and wealth creation.
At the Lisbon Summit it appeared that the EU had rediscovered a commitment to enterprise.
Although I have some reservations about references to the social market in the EPP resolution, I am happy to support it.
Let us hope that it is carried into effect and is more than mere soundbites and press releases.
In direct contrast, the President of our Parliament made a remarkable speech in Lisbon which amounted to a virulent and vituperative attack on multinational companies, on liberal economics, on free markets and on the very heart of western capitalism.
I have no doubt that she was prompted by the best humanitarian intentions.
But we must understand that if her proposals were carried out, they would damage competitiveness and productivity, they would deter investment, they would hurt prosperity and, above all, they would increase unemployment in Europe.
She was attacking nothing less than the foundations of western capitalism, the engine which has delivered wealth and success undreamed of by earlier generations.
She said that Europeans are quite "scandalised by untrammelled capitalism, whose relocations, social dumping, ruthless exploitation ... and remorseless pursuit of profit at the expense of working men and women have a direct and traumatic effect on their lives."
This goes beyond socialism, this is pure Marxism.
It may have been appropriate for the Kremlin in the 1960s but it is totally out of place in 21st century Europe.
It is typical of this Parliament that we call for an end to unemployment yet we promote actions that have the opposite effect.
Her remarks fit this depressing tradition perfectly.
I do not know whether she was speaking for her party, for the Parliament or in a personal capacity but I absolutely reject, repudiate and condemn her remarks and am delighted to have this opportunity of publicly dissociating myself from them.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, in January and last month, we were able to congratulate the Portuguese Presidency on its initiative to hold this special Council and on the thorough and conscientious way in which the Council had been prepared.
And today, now that the Council has taken place, we would like to offer our congratulations on its conclusions and to congratulate President Prodi on the way in which the Commission, under his leadership, contributed to the Council' s success through the timely presentation of its own paper.
However, Mr Gama, all such conclusions have one drawback in common: they cannot change the world overnight.
Today, we have heard several speeches by Members who would like the Portuguese Presidency to come here and say "before the summit we had 15 million people unemployed and today we only have 10 million; before the summit we had 40 million people living in poverty and today there are only 30 million" .
We know how difficult the real world is and how difficult it is to get the European Union to agree on a strategic objective.
I would like to express a deep-felt concern here: whilst the presidency, the 15 Member States, the President of the Commission, the Commission itself, the President of the European Parliament and a substantial part of this European Parliament are agreed on an objective and on a strategic plan, the main group in Parliament is deeply divided over what it wants and over which path it should follow in the European Union.
We confirm once again that we agree with this objective and that we are fully behind it, but we also wish to reiterate that the only part of the American model we are interested in pursuing is that of growth, since we do not want Europe to be a carbon copy of the American model. Nor do we want to copy the social aspects of the American model.
We urge the Portuguese Presidency and the Commission to continue in their determination to fight for us to be able to create our own model from the opportunities offered by globalisation, so that the wealth generated can be used to combat poverty and can be more evenly distributed to ensure that social cohesion, full employment and sustainable development will be the outcome - in ten years' time, but things should steadily improve up to then - of this meeting in Lisbon.
Congratulations, Mr President.
Mr President, I have to say that I have listened to this debate in increasing amazement, especially when I hear the socialist group talk about our resolution.
It appears that the socialist group only wants to hear one-sided applause and praise about everything which took place in Portugal.
We too would like to congratulate you, Mr Gama.
There is a certain likeness between you and your distant predecessor Vasco da Gama at Cape of Good Hope.
The employment situation in Europe seems to be slightly improving.
As far as this is concerned, congratulations are in order, also for the fact that many fine promises have been made.
It remains to be seen whether they will materialise or not.
This is not so evident as the Summit is remarkably opaque about this, especially if we consider the three most important Prime Ministers involved.
First of all, Mr Blair. He makes enough noise but is destroying the British industry by setting the exchange rate for the pound far too high.
The French government is drafting a definition of social policy which implies that nothing should change and, as such, will run into problems with this social policy.
This is a problem too. Finally, there is Mr Schröder, who does nothing at all, so we can be very brief about him.
Mr President, in a situation such as this, surely it cannot be expected from the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats that we come up with a 'hurrah' resolution.
We are satisfied with what the Portuguese Presidency has said and brought about, but we really need to wait and see whether action will follow.
We have listed a few problems.
There may be reservations regarding issues which have been presented by both the liberal group and our group.
However, we as the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats - and this is clearly spelled out in the resolution - proceed on the basis of the model of a social market economy, and this is what it is about.
It has taken socialists a very long time to get this far and we are pleased that they are nearly there.
We also hope that they will implement it efficiently. Unfortunately, we have not yet seen any evidence of this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report to the European Parliament on the results of summits is always an experience. It is an experience because if only half of what is regularly announced to us really happened, if Europe had already achieved the results which have now been presented to us as the slogan of the European Council - fighting unemployment and putting the European Union in the leading position on the world markets -, this alone would be a success.
Has the Council still not learned how little its political promises are worth when it then fails to implement anything and trivial matters are blocked in the Council for years? Has the Council still not learned that we never solve any problems in Europe because we keep shifting them to European level?
Can the Council really back out of its responsibility in the individual Member States so easily?
As the European Parliament, we should not accept this.
The right model for successfully meeting the challenges of globalisation is competition for the most successful economic, employment, research, education and social policies, not European dumbing down.
Who, if not Europe with its different traditions and cultures, can find an answer to this, provided that we leave responsibility for problem solving where it belongs, namely with the Member States?
It makes no sense to define European targets for economic growth if we do not remove barriers to growth at Member State level.
It makes no sense to unify education policy at European level if we still have countless problems with arrangements for recognising diplomas.
Even the desire to connect all schools to the Internet is not a question, which should be dealt with at European level.
It needs to be done locally. As a member of the Committee on Budgets, I warn you against doing this with European funds from the European budget.
Lisbon missed its big chance to really improve things substantially for the citizens of Europe.
Instead, all we heard were pipe dreams which can never be checked and for which the Council is responsible in the Member States, not at European level.
In the end, people will take their leave of such a Europe.
We must not allow that to happen.
Mr President, I believe in a common strategy which must be monitored from within Europe.
I think that the Lisbon Summit has given us a new impulse in this respect.
This is important and these are aspects which one would expect from a Summit.
But it goes without saying that the merit of this Summit, at which so many good intentions were formulated and which is also based on an excellent analysis, will be judged on the action taken subsequently.
Because a number of the matters which were brought together at the Summit - as, in fact, happened - had been formulated previously by the Commission.
The e-commerce document springs to mind, for example.
This is an existing document.
Another example is the intention to draft a legislative frame for pension funds.
This intention was formulated a long time ago.
In addition to the positive aspects of summits such as these, I would also like to make room for some criticism.
These summits try to build a momentum - and it is important that they do so - but this momentum caves in because so little action is taken subsequently, as a result of which people no longer believe in the next momentum.
The press now writes that the most important element of the Lisbon Summit was that it actually took place, nothing else.
This is very serious.
The content of the Summit was not bad, but faith in subsequent action is evidently ebbing and this is a very serious matter indeed.
I would like to list three elements which are lacking in my opinion.
Firstly, fiscal integration, which has been talked about for so long.
In order to take action in the economic field, fiscal integration is required.
Secondly, social security.
There should be a convergence programme, a kind of guideline for social security.
Thirdly, if you want to enhance employment for women, you will need to undertake some action in the care sector and not simply in the new technologies, however important they may be.
The care sector will be of key significance in years to come.
Finally, I do not share the view of the British Conservatives and I would like to make this quite clear.
It is important to point out that, within the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, there are also voices other than these.
Thank you very much, Mr President of the Commission.
I have received eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Article 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
The debate is closed.
EU - Africa Summit (Cairo, 3 and 4 April 2000)
The next item is the Council statement on the EU-Africa Summit held in Cairo on 3 and 4 April 2000.
. (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Cairo Summit represents the result of four years of diplomatic work which has enabled the countries of the European Union and Africa to come together for this initiative, the first under this framework, overcoming many problems throughout the process, both of substance and of form.
The Cairo Summit instituted a mechanism for global dialogue at the highest political level which will enable us to add a new dimension to EU-Africa relations which have, until now, been limited either to bilateral frameworks or to regional platforms for dialogue, be they the ACP mechanism or the Barcelona Process.
The summit represents a turning point in relations between the two continents and will enable the European Union to make its strategic partnership with Africa as strong as its partnerships with Asia, the Gulf States or with Latin America.
The first sure indication of its success and of its historic importance was the level of representation of European and African countries: 58 countries - 45 from Africa and 13 from Europe - were represented at Head of State or Government level.
This ensured that all issues of common interest to the European Union and Africa were addressed, and on an equal footing, since both sides had the opportunity to express their concerns and also their common objectives.
In this context, all issues covered by these concerns and objectives - economic, political and development issues - were discussed in a frank and straightforward way.
I would like to highlight some significant measures adopted by the summit.
In economic terms, understanding was reached on the need to define policies which will enable African countries to gain maximum benefit from the liberalisation of trade throughout the world, thus reversing the current trend of consistently and progressively marginalising Africa in world trade.
The commitment to reduce world poverty to half its present levels by 2015 was reiterated.
On the important issue of African debt, and despite the fact that at the summit a huge range of countries stated their national policies on this issue, it was stipulated that the bi-regional group of senior officials, which will in the first instance ensure that the summit' s decisions are implemented, will prepare a report on the debt situation in African countries.
This report will then be studied at ministerial level, under the summit' s monitoring mechanism.
On the other hand, the African countries committed themselves to promote and respect human rights, to eliminate patterns of discrimination against women, to fully support the establishment of the International Criminal Court and to combat discrimination and intolerance.
In the area of good governance and the rule of law, both parties demonstrated their commitment to adopting specific measures to prevent and combat bribery, corruption and nepotism.
In this context, they expressed their willingness to adopt the necessary measures to guarantee that illegally obtained public funds deposited in foreign banks should be subject to investigation and returned to their rightful owners in the countries of origin.
Concern was also expressed about the harmful effect on development of military expenditure, which is constantly increasing.
Other important issues such as education, AIDS and the environment were addressed under the theme of development, with the understanding that these are essential elements of the challenge of sustainable development in Africa and of eradicating poverty.
One fundamental area of dispute between Europe and Africa is returning stolen or illegally exported cultural goods.
Some progress was made on this issue too.
The bi-regional group of senior officials will prepare a report for assessment at ministerial level of the viability of taking further action in this area.
The last part of the action plan concerns the monitoring mechanisms.
These mechanisms will guarantee the continuity of this overall dialogue between Europe and Africa at the highest political level, at ministerial and senior official level, and it has already been established that the second summit will be held in Europe in 2003, thus ensuring continuity with this process that has now begun with the first EU-Africa Summit - the Cairo Summit.
Mr President, the holding of the summit was in itself a success achieved after considerable difficulties.
These difficulties - mostly of a political character - remain and need to be tackled by Africa and Europe, both separately and jointly.
The summit was the first encounter at the highest political level between Africa and the countries of the EU.
It will add a new strategic and global dimension to the existing relationship between Africa and Europe and will bring that relationship to the same level as that we already have with Asia and Latin America.
The EU already has a deep and broad relationship with Africa, notably in the field of development, where that relationship is unique and backed up by substantial finance.
We are spending development assistance money at the level of EUR 2.5 bn per year.
For our part, we have done what we should do and more if we look at the HIPC initiative to help the highly-indebted poor countries.
Here the EU is still waiting for a number of G7 countries to play their part.
We want to see the African countries as equal partners in the 21st century - the first century they are entering as independent states.
The EU has a comparative advantage in regional integration that Africa can benefit from, and we will ensure it benefits from it in the coming years, when the organisation of regional economic cooperation will dominate the agenda in Africa.
The summit provided an opportunity for useful discussions on debt and other bilateral problems.
It also provided an opportunity to underline the need for Africans to participate actively in the WTO process and to seek support for the Community's approach.
It was possible for the EU to tackle politically sensitive issues, such as good governance and human rights, with African leaders at the summit.
Other difficult questions, such as the question of the return of cultural goods, were also discussed.
The declaration and plan of action adopted at the summit take account of the sensitivities on both sides.
Internationally recognised principles, in particular human rights, are respected and clearly reflected in the declaration.
This is important to note in view also of the very few statements made during the summit that deviated somewhat from this general consensus about the basic principles that we and others take for granted.
It is regrettable that the civil society forum could not take place in Cairo but representatives of the forum were received in Cairo in the margins of the summit.
The text adopted in Lisbon by the forum was widely distributed by the Algerian and Portuguese presidencies.
The follow-up to the summit should enable the EU to round off its existing relationship with Africa with a high-level relationship covering, in particular, a continental approach to political and security questions as well as economic issues.
The Commission will endeavour to make a success of the meetings of the bi-regional group to be held at senior official level.
The ministerial-level meeting to be held between summits should concentrate on questions which concern the entire continent, meaning a continental approach must be taken to political and security questions and questions which are not covered by the mechanisms set up under the existing ACP-EU, Mediterranean and South Africa agreements.
Our view is that the follow-up to the summit should wherever possible be pursued through existing mechanisms.
The background is that we already have a credible working relationship.
With the new EU-ACP Convention being successfully concluded a few months ago and with the EU-South Africa cooperation agreement now being implemented as planned, we have two very important additions to the MEDA cooperation and the Barcelona process.
This means that we have not only the perspective of this Cairo summit but also a well-established basis to continue, widen and improve our daily work.
Mr President, I welcome the fact that the Cairo EU-African summit took place, but I must stress my disappointment that no one from this democratically elected Parliament had the opportunity to address the summit, nor did NGOs have any input.
At the very least, the two Co-Presidents of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly could have made statements and this would have given an EU-African balance.
Members of this Parliament, through the Committee on Development and Cooperation and the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, have laid the foundation for many of the policies in the developing countries: the Martens report in 1997 pointing to the benefits of the Lomé Agreement; the Rocard report in 1998 strengthening the objectives for the future; my own report in 1999 on regional cooperation and integration which is top of the Cairo plan of action agenda; lastly, Mrs Kinnock's excellent report in 2000 on the future ACP-EU partnership agreement that sets the scene for the next 20 years.
The final Cairo plan of action is an excellent document if we can now turn words and good intentions into concrete actions.
I know debt relief was at the top of the African agenda and everything must be done to alleviate poverty, but we must have some evidence that funds saved go towards better health care, better education and an improved standard of living for people and not into arms and war materials.
For these ideas to come to fruition, African countries themselves have to make the effort towards good governance.
We have already seen some good election results.
Let us hope that we can see the same happening in Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast and Togo in the forthcoming elections.
The top priority of regional cooperation and integration should have strong political benefits as well as trade ones.
With only 6% of African trade being carried out in Africa there is huge potential for an increase in trade if tariff barriers and trade barriers are removed.
Many of these countries will need both time and financial help to compete in the world market, but these countries must understand there is no other option in this new era of globalisation.
This is all unattainable without peace and peace-building; conflict prevention, management and resolution must be top of the African agenda.
The OAU must be given international support to continue its work and the peace initiatives must come from the African countries themselves.
Where peace is achieved, help must be given for demobilisation and reintegration, and the use of child soldiers below the age of 18 must be banned.
Ethnic cleansing has been the horror of the last 25 years, and religious wars destroy the very fabric of a country.
Peace can bring prosperity.
The main thrust of our aim therefore must be better education leading to better health care.
Through AIDS and malaria, Africa is losing the very generation it needs to build its future.
This summit was a start but much has to be done to turn words into reality, and we, Members of this House, must be part of that new world.
Mr President, I appreciate that wide-ranging coverage of the issues by Mr Corrie.
I would like to concentrate on my view that poverty eradication in Africa must begin with children and the realisation of children' s rights.
The Cairo summit will be followed up by another forum in Dakar on basic education.
The need for basic education is the single most important cause of global poverty.
Therefore, we need to ensure that girls in particular have equal access at least to educational advantage.
We can see that education will deliver, it will stimulate the economy, it will offer opportunities to control population and increase health awareness.
Dakar is an opportunity to deliver on internationally agreed targets.
The EU should put its political will behind universal primary education by the year 2015.
Clearly commitments made a decade ago have not materialised.
Africa is falling deeper into mass illiteracy and poverty and being further marginalised from mainstream developments in the economic and democratic fields.
In sub-Saharan Africa more children are out of school now than a decade ago.
40 million African children today are not attending school.
One third of the classrooms in Africa do not even have a blackboard. They have no toilets.
70% of their schools do not have any clean water.
Teachers are under-qualified, often unqualified, and they struggle without pencils, exercise books or blackboards, often trying to teach children who are simply too hungry to listen or concentrate.
Julius Nyrere, one of Africa' s most famous teachers, in those post-independence, optimistic days, said education is not a way of escaping poverty, it is a way of fighting it.
Some of you may be aware that Julius Nyrere spent his spare time translating Shakespeare into Swahili.
But that man' s wonderful dreams were lost.
He lived to see one third of African men illiterate and two thirds of African women.
I urge the Commission and the Council to make the link between poverty eradication and basic education.
The benefits for us all will be seen in increased child life expectancy, cuts in population growth and improvements in farm production.
We have the blueprints and I urge all of those with the political will to take action, to deliver for the children of Africa.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council for their reports on the Cairo summit and say how really surprising I think it is that there has never been a summit of this kind before.
When, however, one learns that it took four years to arrange it, then this is not perhaps so extraordinary.
Will anything come out of a meeting of this kind?
Well, that probably depends upon how you look at it. If you start by considering the disasters, famine, conflicts and problems with AIDS which Africa faces, then, as Mr Prodi says, it is certainly a long way from Lisbon to Cairo, in which case not a lot will come out of the summit.
But nor do I think that one could have expected it to. That was not, of course, the purpose of the summit.
The purpose of the summit was to open a dialogue between the EU and African countries. That dialogue was in fact initiated, and it is safe to say that, at times, it was fairly unrestrained with its demonstrations and its wrangles or, in any case, point-scoring.
I believe, moreover, that both Africa and the EU can learn from dialogues of this kind which, I believe, are also a prerequisite of our avoiding the risk of African countries' displaying bitterness about the history they partly share with countries in Europe.
I believe that the final document will prove to be an important reference point in connection with further cooperation between the EU and Africa.
This is due firstly to the fact that the document in itself constitutes an important signal about increased cooperation between the EU and Africa and about the fact that we have not forgotten Africa, and secondly to the document' s emphasis upon the interrelatedness of democracy, politics and economics and upon the fact that Africa' s integration and development should not, therefore, be seen in divided and piecemeal terms but as integral parts of a single whole.
Whether or not concrete results will be achieved in this way will depend, of course, upon the political will we show in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Cairo Summit gave rise to great expectation among African countries, particularly among those which hoped to see their debt cancelled.
Europe' s response to this was to say that it was too great a call upon its own resources to move towards the complete cancellation of the debt.
On the contrary, we affirm the political need to restore balance in the relations between African and the European Union.
After having plundered the natural resources of Africa very widely, and in fact continuing to do so, we must cancel our historical debt to them by cancelling their current debt to our banks.
This would enable us to pursue relations on a sounder basis.
And the Members of the European Union must stop lying.
We are asking African countries to respect democratic principles, but we are perpetuating antidemocratic practices in order to guarantee our own financial interests, in the style of Elf or Total, in a number of countries.
We order African countries to guarantee the plurality of political parties and allow the NGOs freedom of expression, but we negotiate only with Heads of States, the majority of whom represent only themselves, forgetting to invite the NGOs to the Cairo Summit.
We are asking African countries to accord women a larger place in society, but we ought to begin by establishing parity in our own countries.
Need I remind you that some European Union countries have less than 10% of women members in their national parliaments?
We expect the African countries to observe cease-fires, but we are fanning the flames of conflict with our arms exports to belligerents.
But none of this is the key issue.
As long as the European Union does not provide itself with the resources to ensure that the agreements for the granting of mandatory licences for the production of medicines to combat the AIDS pandemic are applied, expecting any progress in the African economy will remain in the realms of the pious hope.
For how can one expect a country in which a quarter of its young people are dying from AIDS every year to have a booming economy?
Once again, as we have already said, the European Union and the Member States must make their actions consistent with their statements.
For, while we are hesitating, while we are shilly-shallying, while we are discussing, Africa is dying.
Mr President, first of all I would like to emphasise that I consider the fact that this summit has been held to be extremely positive.
It has always been our opinion that every effort should be made to achieve this objective, as we have always felt that it would be a good opportunity to launch a genuine partnership that would be of mutual benefit to both continents.
But we also feel that the results of the summit fell considerably short of what was possible and indeed desirable.
I even think that it was the difficulties along the way that led to the idea that the event should be held in the first place, orthe formal meeting and the group photo, and not what could and should result from it, with a view to establishing a strategy for this partnership on a new footing.
Indeed, the conclusions do not strike me as being adequate to address current needs and opportunities.
It is obvious that economic issues are shaping a genuine rapprochement between the two continents, a fact which cannot be hidden by the individual positions of some Member States, which have a limited but positive influence. I am referring in particular to external debt relief for the LDCs.
This is occurring because the European Union, which has been consistently and mistakenly withdrawing its cooperation, is being affected or guided in its cooperation with Africa by two fundamental ideas.
On the one hand, by the prospect of transferring traditional, preferential relations to the rigid framework of the WTO, a fact that became obvious in negotiations on the post-Lomé agreement. On the other hand, by the priority being given to relations with Eastern Europe, which was clearly demonstrated by the cuts in expenditure on cooperation in the current budget year.
It is obvious that with this kind of outlook and in the light of the enormous problems and shortfalls facing most African countries in terms of the economy, the environment, health, infrastructure, conflict resolution and poverty, amongst others, it is difficult, if not impossible, to cement a genuine partnership which is effective and lasting.
This is the route we must follow in the future.
I say "must" because, contrary to what has just happened, I hope that in future the European Parliament and the NGOs will be part of this process. I also say this because I hope that this summit will at least contribute to a greater awareness of the real problems that exist in the field of cooperation with Africa, and that it will represent a warning call for the need to change tack in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the 1960s people used to say Africa was not on the right track, and now, in 2000, Africa has still not arrived.
And why not? Because no destination was established.
Where do you expect to get if you do not know where exactly you are heading?
Africa' s initial objective was to achieve independence, with nation states instead of ethnic tribes, and the result was Rwanda, the Hutus and the Tutsis, Nigeria, the Ibos, and Biafra.
The next objective was Socialism, the fair-haired comrades.
Black Africa was supposed to turn red.
The result was famine in Ethiopia, Algeria' s agriculture destroyed, not to mention Guinea under Sékou Touré.
The white man, Mitterand, then offered Africa parliamentary democracy, parties instead of tribes.
The result was a permanent situation of coup d' état, even in the Ivory Coast.
The present objective appears to be liberalism, the market, the IMF, the World Trade Organisation.
The result is rebellion by the poor people of Tunis and the poor people of Casablanca at the rise in prices, European meat destroying the Fulani' s livestock farming in Africa, the Latin American banana destroying the Cameroon or Ivory Coast banana, and fats extracted from GMOs are about to destroy the Ivory Coast' s cocoa.
All in all, from Socialist Africa to ultraliberal Africa, from the European Development Fund to the World Bank, from the summits in Bujumbura, Addis-Ababa, Nairobi, Casablanca, and now, on 3 April, Cairo, it is always the same assessment, the same threesome of poverty, epidemic and massacre.
Even so, on 4 January, the UN found the final solution, or the miracle cure: a proportion of the 800 million Africans would have to emigrate.
They even set a figure: 159 million Africans were to be unloaded on Europe by 2025.
In the same way that the problems of the inner city are not solved by building towns in the countryside, Africa' s problems will not be solved by shifting part of Africa to Europe.
The logical thing to do today is to apply to Africa what has worked elsewhere, what has worked wonders in our countries, in the United States, in Europe, the solution which in our countries created heavy industry, agriculture, the textile industry, the solution which in our countries created growth and sustainable development.
There is one word for this solution - protectionism, and there is one instrument for this solution - customs barriers.
This solution has been worked out in theoretical terms, and called 'self-centred development' .
And, what is more, the new Senegalese President is inspired by this, telling the young people that they should get involved rather than waiting for the billions to arrive from Europe.
In practical terms, Africa will achieve the first stage in growth according to the Rostow model if it protects its agriculture, its livestock farming, its self-employed craft industry, and its emergent economy.
Opening up to the world market, on the other hand, will expose it to the law of the jungle and to the plundering of the natural resources of Africa, wood, oil, minerals, the flora and even the fauna, by multinationals.
This is, moreover, what we have seen, ladies and gentlemen, with the privatisation of specific key sectors in Africa.
For the Africans it was a negative outcome.
Africa does not therefore need either the cut-throat world economy or the economy of world charity, with the Holy Father and the Blessed Jacques Chirac, or the cancellation of a government debt of EUR 300 billion.
The watchword of the solution is customs protection on the African side and, on the European side, intelligent intergovernmental cooperation, of which the Lomé Convention was a prime example.
In this respect, the Mediterranean could serve as a test bench for a Euro-African policy which respects identities.
We in the Front National proposed a practical working method which involved dealing with the individual issues - water resources, soil erosion, desertification, the management of fisheries resources, livestock farming, pollution, control of migration flows - in a Marshall plan for the Mediterranean and Africa which would be funded from customs duties, reimbursable to African states in the form of open credit accounts in European banks.
We have proposed an international organisation, with an intergovernmental high-secretariat of the Mediterranean.
This would have its headquarters in Cairo, Tangiers or Tunis.
An interparliamentary assembly, like that of the ACP.
I feel that Athens would be the ideal site, or perhaps even a university in Valencia, Montpellier, Nice or Barcelona.
And there perhaps the words of Raymond Loulle would hold sway.
The practical implementation of these Euro-Mediterranean projects, respecting the identities of both shores, north and south, and involving around twenty Euro-Mediterranean states, would open the way to greater ambitions.
It could then be extended to relations between Europe and sub-Saharan Africa.
This is a great project, Mr President, on the scale of humanity as a whole, and humanity needs both Africans and Europeans.
All the more reason not to flood Africa with the unregulated world economy and not to flood Europe with an influx of people.
Humanity needs Africa where, it is said for the first time, in Kenya, man first stood upright, and humanity needs Europe where, for the first time, in Greece, thought first stood upright.
Mr President, when Mr Solana came to visit our group last week and was questioned about the outcome of the Cairo Summit, his answer was that the atmosphere had been good, which is more important than an outcome.
I disagree with him on this.
Commissioner Nielson also said something to that effect.
I think that the atmosphere is important, but as a basis for reaching sound agreements. If the agreements are not forthcoming, then a good atmosphere is neither here nor there.
Nonetheless, an EU-Africa Summit is to be welcomed.
I also feel positive about the Portuguese Presidency' s initiative.
This huge continent is still beset with a lack of democracy, war, human rights violations, drought, flooding and chronic poverty affecting large parts of its population.
There are most certainly a number of countries which are better off, which boast sound growth figures and where the first signs of prosperity are visible, but there are also countries where the situation has dramatically changed for the worse.
Mr President, the European Union has over the past 25 years invested a great deal of time and effort in development and cooperation.
It is disappointing to have to state that this aid has not always had the required effect.
In our opinion, we need a new Africa policy, a policy in which democracy and sound management are prerequisites for aid and cooperation.
The Union can then also be expected to adapt its agricultural and trade policy in such a way that it is of more benefit to Africa and not, as is now often the case, a source of further disadvantage.
In return, we can expect African countries to cooperate better at regional level, open up their markets and give their economies a fair chance.
At the same time, Africa needs sound budget management combined with effective social policy, good education policy and sound health care.
Excessive spending on defence or futile projects should be avoided.
Mr President, the African countries have asked us to clear their debts.
This is vital for the poorest countries, especially if these enjoy good leadership and a balanced budget.
But more than anything - as underlined by Commissioner Nielson -we need to treat Africa in an adult manner.
We need to support what works but we also need to dare to speak up if certain things are unsuitable.
We need to support good leaders and good governments, but offer no support to dictators, bad leadership or countries riddled with corruption.
If the Africa Summit in Cairo has led to this kind of realism, then we have created more than just a good atmosphere and we are probably on the right track.
Mr President, the recent Euro-African Summit has given rise to concern, even vexation, but at the same time, it has also given rise to satisfaction and hope.
There was concern about the way the Summit was being managed - it did not even appear in the programme for the current six-month period - with moments of confusion, suspense and abundant rumour-mongering, which were incompatible with the seriousness and rigour which should be expected from the European Union given the importance of this historic meeting, the first to be held at the highest level between European and African leaders.
There was concern and vexation as a result of the way in which the European Parliament remained in the margins of the Summit process, partly due to our indifference.
This marginalisation, and that of the African parliaments, demonstrated a considerable incoherence on the part of the organisers.
It is incoherent to go around preaching good government, democracy and the rule of law while, in practice, ignoring the parliamentary institution which is essential for the realisation of those principles.
There was vexation on discovering that certain NGO meetings - the fora of civil society - which should have taken place in Cairo, sponsored by the European Commission itself, could not take place because of communication problems or the veto, still unclarified, of some part or other of the organisation of the Summit.
However, I said at the beginning that there were also positive aspects to this Cairo Summit which were cause for satisfaction and hope.
There was satisfaction at the fact that the conference was able to take place at all - which in itself is a great thing - and we should therefore congratulate the Portuguese Presidency and Commissioner Nielson, whose efforts helped to overcome the difficulties, intrigues and lazy defeatism of many people who assumed that this summit would be suspended, although it was going to fill an unjustifiable vacuum in the external relations of the European Union.
There was also satisfaction with regard to some of the tangible results of the conference in areas such as the cancellation of debt, the elimination of anti-personnel mines and the return of cultural goods pillaged by colonial powers.
Europe must now also commit itself to the prevention and resolution of armed conflicts, the provision of humanitarian aid for famines and the treatment of illnesses such as Aids or malaria which decimate the African population.
However, a Summit of this type should be an important source of hope, especially if it is not an isolated event but a first step in a process which we must set to work on immediately, in the expectation, furthermore, that relations between the European Union and Africa are going to change shape.
I am not impressed by the current pattern of African partners requesting aid in order to resolve their problems, as a result of which the European partners merely grant a part of that aid and little more.
We must go much further, much further than mere cooperation with development, which, by definition, is an unfair form of cooperation.
We must create platforms for dialogue and cooperation in which Europeans and Africans can discuss common problems and put together joint strategies in order to act in a coordinated fashion within the world order, in which we must all play a principal role, in equality, dignity and responsibility.
Thus, that world order will have to be more egalitarian, shared, cohesive, democratic and compatible with the values which we in the European Union proclaim as our distinguishing marks.
Mr President, taking this approach, we will vote in favour of the good resolution with which this debate will conclude.
Mr President, except for photographs and fine words, the Africa Summit has yielded very little.
Africa asked Europe for more market access and debt repayment, and got vague pledges in return.
Europe asked Africa to respect human rights more, fight corruption and cease violent conflicts, and got vague pledges in return too.
The solemn declaration of Cairo was signed by governments which are anything but generous regarding clearing debts and opening up their own markets.
The document is also signed by countries where human rights are being violated on a massive scale, where women are discriminated against, where the little funding that is available is used to massacre other population groups and where corruption has taken on almost ineradicable proportions.
Wealthy Europe must grant generous aid to Africa in support of democratic institutions, primary education and health care and must substantially lighten the debt burden.
The African countries need to understand that, without proper government, none of their developments will come to fruition, and both continents need to realise that strict population policy is absolutely indispensable.
On the photographs from Cairo, the African and European leaders may be rubbing shoulders with each other but, in reality, there is a yawning chasm separating the two continents.
Mr President, the first EU-Africa summit was an important event and had a great deal of potential for taking meaningful steps to reduce the marginalisation of African countries.
So it is a pity that a number of things prevented that potential from being fully realised.
Firstly, neither the European Parliament nor the EU-ACP Joint Assembly was invited to participate in the summit.
Secondly, it is very sad that civil society was not able to have a greater input into the meeting.
The NGOs from the EU and African countries took this summit very seriously and it was a missed opportunity not to engage in more meaningful dialogue with them.
Civil society has a key role to play in Africa' s development process.
Finally, this meeting could have resulted in a far-reaching action plan of concrete actions.
What we have is a plan full of warm words and good intentions but short on firm commitments, in particular on trade issues.
While it is nice to recall the EU' s important decision to grant duty-free access for essentially all products, it would have been even more significant to have gone beyond the famous "essentially all" to include those products of real importance to the poorest countries, such as agricultural goods.
Finally - sadly - commodity prices were conspicuous by their absence from this agenda.
A majority of African countries are overwhelmingly dependent on just one or two commodities for the bulk of their foreign exchange earnings.
Until action is taken to reverse the fall of commodity prices, poverty in Africa will not be properly addressed.
Mr President, wanting to achieve relations on the basis of partnership between the old continent and Africa means first of all putting a halt to the present system which operates to benefit the great powers and the corrupt elite of the south.
The continent of Africa is ravaged by epidemics such as the AIDS epidemic and by wars that are conspicuous, or sometimes forgotten.
Antipersonnel mines continue to kill innocent people, arms of all kinds proliferate and fall into the hands of child-soldiers.
The number of undernourished people in black Africa rose from 90 million in 1970 to 180 million in 1995.
The figures speak for themselves.
Time seems to have stood still between the Biafra famine thirty years ago and the one which is once again devastating Ethiopia.
Illiteracy and unemployment affect the vast majority of young people on the African continent.
So it would be a mistake to think, today, that three quarters of the planet, three quarters of the human race, are going to carry on living in this sort of poverty without causing some serious instability at world level.
We must also do away with aid policies, which are equivalent to giving fish to people living on the bank of the river, as the saying goes, instead of helping them to make fishing rods.
The result is there is never enough fish and there are increasing numbers of people fighting over the leftovers.
Moreover, the IMF ordered ultraliberal policies, supposedly for structural adjustment.
These are policies that have never worked anywhere.
Quite the opposite.
I do not know of a single example of a country which made any progress by applying their directives.
In all its negotiations, the European Union should also demand fighting against corruption, certainly, and for democracy but, in return, African countries can also demand that the friends of Le Pen, Haider and Martinez should stop making regular racist attacks on their populations resident in Europe.
We agree that we cannot carry on supporting dictators in the name of Realpolitik.
We must support democrats unreservedly. From this point of view, what has taken place in Senegal sends out a strong message, proving that Africa is not automatically condemned to conflict, coups d' état or tribal warfare.
There is an imperative need for a new policy, based on codevelopment, conflict prevention, and the rejection of the dictates of the financial markets.
Obviously, this necessitates cancelling the 350 billion dollars of debt which is strangling any development in these States.
Finally, Mr President, Europe too made its wealth from colonialism and slavery.
Europe thus has a moral debt towards Africa.
Part of our wealth came from the colonial plundering inflicted on Africa.
Acknowledging that slavery was a crime against humanity would be an important gesture.
Mr President, after months of endless squabbling about agendas and participants, the Cairo Summit did take place eventually. Only to establish what all of us have known for a long time, namely that the majority of the African population still live in abject poverty and are weighed down by a heavy burden of debt.
There is no doubt that the many informal contacts which the Summit created have been useful.
But I do wonder in all honesty if there can be talk of a Euro-African Summit if civil society is banished to Lisbon and neither the European Parliament nor the ACP-EU Assembly are in any way involved in the Summit.
The European Council gave in to the demand of African dictators not to admit any parliaments to the Summit. But how much more credible would words such as democracy and the interest of the people have been if those people had actually been represented.
In that sense, Cairo was not a Euro-African Summit but more like a summit of élites.
With his statement that Africa does not need democracy but water pumps, Colonel Gaddafi has undoubtedly put into words what many of his fellow dictators think.
It is evident that our political models cannot simply be transplanted.
Africa has to find meaning for the notion of democracy itself.
But fundamental principles, sound leadership, separation of powers, free and fair elections and respect for human rights are not negotiable.
The European Union' s reaction to violations of these principles is sometimes feeble and often divided.
Take Zimbabwe, for example, where political opponents are being attacked in the run-up to the elections and white farmers are being threatened and illegally evicted from their own land and where Mugabe provokes violence.
What other messages does the Commission need in order to suspend development aid?
In an interview with The Sunday Times last Saturday, Kofi Annan reproached the African leaders with greed, megalomania and failure to create better living conditions in their countries.
Against the background of Kofi Annan' s words, the question arises as to whether the people do not consider the organising of solemn rituals such as those in Cairo as a conspiracy among élites.
The international community should not be tricked into feelings of guilt by the African leaders who do not carry any democratic legitimacy.
It is high time that the European Union told the African dictators where their responsibility lies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, all too often, Africa is seen by Europe as a lost continent, which is why this EU-Africa summit was long overdue.
This event must not be used as an alibi; it must mark the beginning of a real partnership.
If we are honest, then we must examine our own motives because, the truth is that a sort of Africa summit would also suit the European Parliament, because dealing with this subject usually means extremely topical and highly dramatic incidents, with conceptional discussions and efforts to find the right perspective generally getting the thin edge of the wedge, if you disregard the fact that Africa is a predominant subject at the ACP assembly.
But who notices that here in Europe?
Africa is the continent most seriously affected by the injustices of the international economic and financial system and the consequences of globalisation.
The promise by the German government and by other European countries to write off the debts of the poorest countries in the world will help considerably, because the high level of debt is an obstacle to investments in all forms of infrastructure in the countries in question and is hence one of the biggest obstacles in the fight against poverty.
Governments which have not yet decided to join this move should copy those who have already done so.
Success will only be achieved in the long term by finding points which unite rather than separate us and by endeavouring to reach a mutual understanding and to integrate Africa into the international community of nations.
Nonetheless, it is clear that something may, indeed must be demanded of the governments of Africa when it comes to safeguarding human rights, basic democratic order and the rule of law.
There can be no question of allowing dictatorial rule on the African continent which, as in Zimbabwe now, fosters racism, dispossession and forcible suppression and ousts an operational legal system.
The Lomé Convention offers a suitable framework for consultation, political dialogue and, if necessary, the suspension of cooperation.
Still less can there be any question of allowing financial aid and food aid from the European Union to be misused in order to buy weapons.
Newsreels showing wretched people starving are currently flickering across our television screens from Ethiopia, while the government is siphoning millions into new arms and has even turned down Eritrea' s offer to allow its ports and transport routes to be used for aid for Ethiopia, despite the continuing state of war.
That is immoral and an important chance to make a move towards reconciliation may have been wasted.
Banning the NGO meeting from Cairo was a most unpleasant side effect.
The countries of Africa will have to get used to the fact that non-governmental organisations have an important status as part of the civil society and can act as mediators in the development of an autonomous civil society in these vulnerable countries on the path towards stability and peace.
Mr President, the Cairo Summit has been genuinely significant, an historic milestone.
It has been significant in terms of its meaning but also in terms of its lack of achievement.
It is historically significant because it is the first time that Europe, which was the colonising power and is responsible for the under-development and poverty of Africa, has met with the countries which are the consequence of that, the African countries which are seriously under-developed.
It is also significant insofar as its conclusions could not have been more feeble.
It has been noted that it had been prepared hurriedly, as a cosmetic exercise, without taking responsibility for the past and without preparing comprehensive and solid programmes on the future of relations between the European Union and Africa.
It is truly illogical to lament the constant instability and warfare, when there is a real battle for power and control of resources in Africa which, in turn, increases the cycle of poverty and sends waves of immigrants towards Europe.
It is also contradictory for us to lament the problem of Aids when it has been caused by the instability and precariousness created in those countries by the structural adjustment plans imposed by us, the IMF and the World Bank.
Therefore, Europe owes an enormous historical debt, centuries old, to Africa, and should repay it, not only by means of asking forgiveness, but also by forging social, economic, political and cultural links in order to show an indispensable form of solidarity.
Mr President, it appears that some MEPs here are trying to attribute the problems in Africa mainly to the Africans, while others seem to attribute the blame mainly to Europe and the former colonists.
This seems to be the pattern for the Summit in Cairo too. Some think it is a missed opportunity.
They are extremely disappointed and can think of all sorts of reasons to support this view, while others deem it a unique and historic event.
The fact that, for the first time in history, such a meeting has taken place between the African and European leaders is, of course, an historic event.
The fact that contact has been maintained mainly with Latin America and Asia is indicative of the fact that, evidently, there is something wrong with the normal relations between Africa and Europe.
This is true, of course, because very often it is not the Ministers for Foreign Affairs who travel to Africa but rather the Ministers responsible for emergency aid who then pursue their policy from there.
In connection with the African continent, policy has always been biased towards all kinds of funding for trade, agriculture, foreign affairs and, of course, development cooperation and there has been insufficient room for normal policy.
This is undoubtedly down to our dual approach of pity on the one hand and misericordia on the other, in other words the inability to snap out of the old colonial relations between Europe and Africa.
This is as much our fault as it is Africa' s.
In the light of this, I consider the Summit more as a good opportunity and a new moment to create a new beginning, despite all the attendant misery - inevitably, there are dictators and there is some European policy which is inappropriate.
I would like to praise the Portuguese Presidency, because they could have quite easily opted out, or it could have quite easily dragged on for a while longer, but they took the bull by the horns.
No, I am certainly not expecting tangible, huge successes, but what matters is what happened at a deeper level.
Parliament received a letter from Mr Prodi in which he says, on behalf of the Commission, that he has ordered proposals to be made for granting countless African products access to the European market at a zero rate.
Such a step is significant.
It has been stated that we want to make a large contribution and take part in a much more far-reaching debt burden initiative, provided we can link this in with social development.
Mr Nielson is in favour of a complete overhaul of the development policy in which attention will focus much more on social development and poverty, both within the ACP-EU Treaty and within the EU.
You cannot develop the African people from within Europe.
The African people have their own plans and want to develop themselves, but want help in order to achieve this.
A new framework such as this really creates opportunities.
Within this framework, room must be made for conflict prevention.
Ordinary, regular contacts cannot work miracles. They will not bring about marvellous new results, but they are necessary.
I am pleased to hear from the Portuguese Presidency that it intends to ensure that a Summit like this will take place again in the foreseeable future.
They should become the norm.
In a normal relationship, we can be tough and businesslike with each other and we can adopt a result-orientated policy.
I would like to add one more point. I hope that our budget for 2001 - and the Commissioner is only too aware how heavy this weighs on me, because I am the budget rapporteur for that component - will also accommodate some of these promises.
If 45 million children in Africa have never seen a schoolroom before and if we managed to double the education budget next year - not the budget as a whole but if we simply shifted some figures around - then this would be a welcome bonus.
Apart from in this final note, I made my contribution on behalf of the entire Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Mr President, ordinary people in most African countries are poorer today than when their countries became independent.
Poverty, therefore, is a disease inflicted upon innocent populations by evil dictators, greedy and corrupt politicians.
Natural disasters, including climate change, have aggravated the problem.
The Touareg in the desert in northern Niger, the Makonde in Tanzania or Mozambique take their families and put their meagre possessions in a little basket if they wish to move.
They are poor, insecure and exposed to the elements.
They have no water, sanitation, energy, medicine, education or reliable shelter.
Such desperate people cannot think of democracy and human rights in the way we do from our houses and leafy suburbs in the West.
They have no stake in their village, regional or national economies.
Such rootless people, desperate people, are easy prey to evil political manipulation, and that is why we see so much conflict and civil unrest in those countries.
We here in this Assembly offer these people open and free access to our EU markets.
We invite them to be part of the global economy, so that they can come and sit at the tables in Seattle for the WTO discussions.
What does this mean to these poor people, the majority of whom live in the bush, who have no knowledge, no means of efficient cultivation, harvesting, processing, packaging even what little they grow? They cannot even market it in their own countries let alone sell it abroad.
So I suggest, let us teach them to be self-reliant and independent, by teaching them the means to grow and harvest what there is in those countries.
Let us give them the technology transfer that makes sense, before we say our markets are open to them.
. (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you for your speeches, which will encourage us to pursue this European Union policy on Africa.
I would like to clarify a few points.
Firstly, the question of linking parliamentary bodies, such as the ACP-EU Joint Assembly and the European Parliament.
As you will be aware, this summit was negotiated with another party: it was not imposed on them, nor could it be.
It was not a summit involving the European Union alone.
We had a partner that had to be respected, because the consequence of not respecting our partner would have been to have had neither a dialogue nor a summit.
Well, let it be said that there were even problems in including references to the ACP group in the final conclusions.
Why was this the case? Firstly, because this was seen as the first major rapprochement between Africa and Europe and not all Africa' s countries are ACP countries.
Secondly, the ACP group is not a purely African group. It also covers the Caribbean and Asia.
Therefore, you will understand that incorporating the ACP group into the summit, particularly at Joint Assembly level, would not have been at all easy, especially as the ACP group was not involved at any other level.
Secondly, with regard to the European Parliament, we understand how necessary and important it is for the European Parliament to take part in these initiatives and that is why we, the Presidency, have been involved in extensive dialogue with the European Parliament through the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and here today, in plenary sitting.
My only regret is that attendance is low, but it is nevertheless of an extremely high calibre.
We have held lengthy discussions on this summit and on the fact that its effectiveness rested on two pillars: one is the European Union, and the other is the OAU.
And the OAU, for its part, does not have a parliament.
There was therefore a problem in accommodating within one summit, which I repeat was a summit of equals, not a summit of parties of a different status, an institution which the other co-sponsoring organisation did not have.
When we prepare the next summit, the 2003 summit, we will certainly look at ways of strengthening the European Parliament' s participation in a framework that must take account of the other party, given that the other party exists.
And nobody can understand anything about relations with Africa unless they grasp the fundamental point that Africa is out there and has its own opinions and ideas on issues.
Let us not try to insist that all our ideas should be automatically accepted and included in the negotiations just because they are ours.
Another important point is debt.
I would not be as sceptical as some of you have been in your speeches and I even think that the reaction of the Africans at the summit and afterwards to the way in which the problem of debt was addressed showed a degree of confidence.
We must not forget that there is a qualitative difference.
I would remind you of the commitment given by Member States in relation to the world' s highly indebted poor countries to reduce and even cancel their debt, not forgetting the Union' s EUR 1 000 million contribution to this programme.
I would also draw your attention to the fact that in 2000, the European Union will clearly commit itself to establishing, by 2005, a programme of access to its economy, free of customs duties, for products from less developed countries. This will make a major contribution to stimulating their economies in the context of uneven trade liberalisation.
This is unprecedented and has never been done by any other group of countries.
It is extremely innovative and is greatly welcomed by these countries.
Confirmation of these principles at the summit was generally well received by the African countries.
The summit is not an international financial organisation. The problem of reducing or cancelling debt could not be solved at the summit.
The summit has helped to confirm values and commitment, and it was also extremely significant that many European Union countries took this opportunity to announce publicly that they were reducing or cancelling the debts of the poorest highly indebted countries. This had an important effect in terms of synergy and precedent.
The most important aspect of what took place was in fact consistently highlighted by the Africans: for the first time the European Union has agreed to address the issue of the indebtedness of African countries with the whole of the African continent through the follow-up mechanisms of a summit. The high-level bi-regional group was charged with preparing a report on African indebtedness which will then be discussed at ministerial level.
This represents a complete U-turn in this area. It is the first time that the European Union has agreed to discuss the problem of their indebtedness with all the African countries, in an institutional framework outside the international financial organisations.
The African countries considered this to be one of the most important milestones of this summit.
I should tell you that the aim of the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union was to do something for Africa, not just because we had done something for other continents or regions, such as Latin America and Asia, but also because other countries or groups of countries, such as the United States, Japan and even China had begun to do so before us.
It was time to put right this delay.
And therefore, with the cooperation of Commissioner Nielson, the Development Council held in Lisbon in January was, for the first time in history, devoted to EU-Africa relations. It had never been done before.
It was the first time.
It was an excellent piece of work, which furthermore was reflected, and rightly so, in the results of the summit.
We also finalised negotiation of the ACP agreements for the second Lomé Convention and we finalised the free trade agreement with South Africa.
We are also working very rapidly on the Barcelona Process and on African participation in the framework of association agreements seeking to create a free trade area by 2010.
We are working to review the Mediterranean strategy, to produce a rigorous draft of the Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Peace and Stability and also to review the MEDA II regulation.
We held the Mediterranean Forum in Funchal and we will be holding an informal ministerial meeting in Lisbon on the Barcelona Process, specifically to determine its good and bad points, on what needs to be improved and to prepare the summit which will be held under the French Presidency.
With regard to the Cairo Summit, it was not included in our initial programme, because when we took over the Presidency, it had not been finalised, but we always said that if the problems could be resolved, we would be prepared to hold the summit.
Later, we proposed the summit, we resolved the diplomatic problems and held a summit whose results were greatly welcomed by the African countries.
Of course, we did not resolve all the problems of the African continent overnight, but a step needed to be taken, a step towards including Africa in the European agenda.
It was necessary to hold a summit with this scope, on this scale and which would target these goals.
We took that step.
We must now continue, but I am sure that with the African agenda more rigorously defined in European policies, we are in a position to continue in a sustained and successful way, because the African continent requires it to be so. The situation of conflict, poverty and disease requires the European Union to boldly accept its responsibility.
It is also essential for the European Union to have an African agenda.
We, that is, Parliament, the Commission and the Council, are all working towards this.
Let me refer to some of the specific points made in the debate.
Mrs Kinnock mentioned the forthcoming meeting in Dakar on basic education.
As part of our preparations for that meeting I have gone through the bulk of what we are doing on primary education in Africa and I am happy to say that I am in a position to express something positive about what I have seen in the Commission.
We are doing much more than I had expected and I would be happy to inform Parliament about the portfolio of primary education activities in which we are involved in Africa.
This is not to say that we could not do more but it is much better than the picture in general.
Secondly, with reference to Mr Rod, who said that the longer we discuss more people will die of AIDS in Africa, I only have five minutes.
I have discussed AIDS in Africa with President Mugabe.
It was quite interesting that he openly admitted to me that they are now pursuing a policy of open, honest information on AIDS and HIV, pretty much parallel to what Uganda has been doing with some success.
This is not to say that the problem is over but I consider it real progress that one of the statesmen in Africa who, in this discussion, was seen for some time as part of the problem rather than the solution, is now openly saying that he knows he has to change his policy.
I am not claiming to portray the whole situation in Zimbabwe but this is an important point.
Mr Miranda reminded us of the indirect effects on the budget for Africa of the concentration on eastern European Balkan problems.
In absolute terms, our focusing on Kosovo and other activities has not meant a reduction in what we actually do in Africa.
In relative terms this is the case, but we have been able to shield Africa from direct reductions in the volume of what we are doing.
I appreciate the support from Parliament to that effect.
Mrs Maij-Weggen mentioned that development aid has progressed over the years.
I wish that were true.
If we look at total official development assistance, globally it has in fact decreased.
We are now down to 0.23% and many governments should and could do more.
Against that background it is a privilege to represent the European Union internationally in this field because we have not been part of that downward trend.
In total numerical terms, it is foreseeable that we will be increasing what we do in the coming years.
This Parliament, our budget, and our activities stand out as a sort of corrective measure to the global trend. We should be proud of that and we should make the most of it in political relations also.
Mr van den Bos and others talked about debt relief and these problems certainly need a lot of attention.
I will remind you though that most of the EUR 1 billion, which is the EU' s contribution to the HIPC II initiative, will be directed towards Africa.
The EUR 680 million, which is our contribution as a donor, not as a creditor, will all be directed to the African Development Bank earmarked in the special trust fund in the HIPC initiative in order to bail out Africa and make it possible for the African Development Bank to continue servicing the poor countries in Africa.
We are doing quite a lot and the problem now is to what extent the G7 countries - who started up the HIPC II initiative in Cologne last year - will deliver, not just as donors but in their more narrowly defined role as creditors.
We welcome the cancellation of bilateral debt, which is relatively easy to decide politically, the difficult part is multilateral debt.
This is where the EU, as a donor - not directly involved as a creditor - has been able to lend a strong hand.
This is something that should not be forgotten in the on-going discussions.
It may not be enough but it is certainly more than any other group of donors has done so far.
Mr Zimmerling mentioned the problem of Nigeria and getting money back.
We made some last minute changes to the text in Cairo which strengthened the views expressed and I hope that Europe will be able to give a helping hand in identifying some of this money and getting it back where it belongs.
This should be part of international economic governance.
Money should not be able to disappear as has been the case.
It was of real importance that the Heads of State and Governments spent two days together.
They got along quite well.
It was very nice to witness this, which is of considerable importance, not only for the mood between Europe and Africa, but also for the kind of partnership we want to create, which also needs these personal relations.
They certainly developed quite well in those two days.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks for the very good cooperation established with the Portuguese presidency during this substantial effort.
It was very successful and it has been a pleasure working with the presidency.
That concludes the debate.
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37 (2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
External relations package
The next item is the Commission communication on the external relations package.
Mr President, we discussed a number of issues in the Commission today, including the broad economic policy guidelines which have been the subject of a statement by my colleague Commissioner Solbes elsewhere in Parliament during the course of the afternoon.
But I would like to focus on two issues touching on external relations and one of those issues in particular.
Briefly though, I will first of all mention our communication on election observation and assistance, which we will now be publishing and which I will look forward to discussing with Parliament over the coming weeks and months.
I have to say straight away by way of a confession - and since Dr Paisley is not in the House I can probably make a confession - the paper does not represent a radical new approach, but it does attempt to bring order to an activity, which has become a very real growth area in recent years.
We have spent EUR 150 million on this important activity.
It is now clearly a first- pillar activity following the adoption of the regulations, which provide a legal basis for human rights and democratisation activity.
As Members of Parliament will recognise, the communication invites both Parliament and the Council to work with us on a more coordinated approach.
It invites everyone to try to learn the lessons of the past.
It is a very practical document.
It suggests that we need greater coherence in what we are doing and I am looking forward to hearing the views of Members of Parliament on the document, which I hope they will regard as an important and useful contribution to a debate which is going to become more important, not less important, over the coming years.
Let me turn to a subject on which I would like to address the Parliament at rather greater length.
It is a subject which is very close to my own heart - imperfect a specimen though that may be.
It is the rapid reaction facility, which we have been discussing for some time and on which we have come to some conclusions.
My colleague, Commissioner Nielson, was talking a moment or two ago about the EU-African summit in Cairo just over a week ago.
It is true that the President of the Commission, my colleagues Pascal Lamy and Poul Nielson and myself were all confronted during that summit with a litany of complaints about the slow delivery of European Union assistance.
The people making those complaints were very often justified in doing so - not always - but very often.
It is not a new problem, as Members of Parliament will know - particularly Members who have been on delegation visits to other countries.
I have been frustrated at our slow and cumbersome procedures ever since I have arrived at the Commission last autumn.
I want to say once again that this is not a problem created by our staff, who work extremely hard, thin on the ground as they are. It is a problem which they have been labouring under for a number of years.
The problems of slow decision-making and delivery are both structural and cultural.
Our procedures are old fashioned, they are as I said 'cumbersome'.
But the traditional legislative approach to Community business is also sometime ill-suited to the fast changing realities in external relations.
This is particularly true for conflict prevention and it is particularly true for crisis management efforts.
Today we are criticised for being slow, today we are criticised for being overtaken too frequently by events, and I think to borrow a cliché 'history is not going to wait for us any longer', nor will our international partners, nor even will the Council, and they are right.
We have to make sure that we are ready and capable of acting when action is needed, not six weeks later, not six months later.
We have to do better and we can do better.
Now we have embarked on an ambitious reform of our external assistance programmes, designed to bring a serious improvement in their effectiveness and in their speed of delivery.
We will present our proposals in the next few weeks.
Some things we can do relatively quickly, others will take longer if, for example, complex legal changes are required.
The rapid reaction facility is something that in our judgement we can do fairly quickly if we have the support of Parliament and if we have the support of the Council.
I hope that support will be forthcoming because we have time to lose.
The Helsinki European Council called on us, in the context of development of the Union's crisis management structures within the ESDP, to set up a mechanism for rapid reaction.
Inertia is only part of our problem today.
We must also be able to combine different tools more effectively and flexibly into a tailor-made mix to suit the particular situation.
The rapid reaction facility responds to these needs.
It is intended to allow us to draw without delay on existing Community resources and expertise to address specific crisis situations, complementing the valuable work already undertaken by ECHO in the humanitarian field.
I am suggesting a mechanism with the following broad characteristics.
First, there are the urgent time-limited operations in situations of crisis or emerging crisis.
Action should not normally last for more than nine months.
Second, where longer-term intervention is necessary, actions under the rapid reaction facility will anticipate operations under existing instruments, which can take over the action using the normal procedures.
Third, as with ECHO, the procedures must be streamlined.
The Commission should mostly be able to act under its own responsibility and if it has to consult Member States it will be on the simplest possible advisory basis.
Fourth, the management of the rapid reaction facility will be the responsibility of a small team, the crisis coordination unit in the Directorate-General for External Relations.
I do not want to build up large structures where people create work while waiting for a crisis to happen.
The added value of the rapid reaction facility is speed and flexibility in Community intervention in crisis situations.
It will help us to overcome procedural hurdles which have slowed us down in the past and it will allow for the combination of several instruments within a single action and for a single purpose.
Now I have heard concerns expressed that we are taking on new responsibilities when we should be focusing our efforts.
I understand that concern, but the rapid reaction facility does not create new responsibilities, it tries to get better mileage out of what we already have.
It builds on existing Community instruments, putting them to concerted use in a new framework.
It can cover action in areas as diverse as human rights work, election monitoring, mediation, institution building and media support, customs and border management, mine action, support for police operations, civil emergency assistance, resettlement and rehabilitation.
There is an inevitable, indeed necessary, area of overlap with existing instruments.
I repeat: the facility does not create a new instrument.
It provides a mechanism for drawing more effectively on the existing ones and the overlap is limited by the procedural nature of the rapid reaction facility and the time limit to its interventions.
The facility is a kind of quick-start package.
It will allow us to react in time and if necessary, to take the initiative in urgent circumstances.
In doing so, we will be better placed to put the wealth of Community experience and resources to optimal use in the interest of the Union as a whole.
But rapid reaction facility action is not meant to last longer than absolutely necessary.
If it needs to be pursued beyond the immediate time frame of the crisis situation, it should be taken over as soon as practicable by the regular geographic or thematic Community instrument most suited to manage it in the longer term.
That is why the Commission proposes a rather modest budget allocation for the rapid reaction facility: about EUR 30 million for this year and EUR 40 million for subsequent years.
We need to have sufficient funding available to get crisis action started quickly, but we do not want to tie up large resources, which could and should be put to better use in regular programmes.
Similarly we do not want to create a large new bureaucracy which would hang around waiting for the next crisis to happen.
I have dealt with that point earlier in my remarks.
In sum, I am convinced that the facility will help us both materially - I would have loved to have had it in hand when we launched the Energy for Democracy scheme last autumn - and institutionally by providing a concrete Commission contribution to the evolving ESDP.
It is not an ideal solution.
My own favourite economist and guru, Jane Jacobs, points out that everything is disappointing in practice.
There are rarely ideal solutions, but I do think that it is a very workable solution and if, when we review the programme in three years, we find we no longer need it because we have integrated similar rapid reaction mechanisms in the regular programmes for external assistance, no one would be happier than me.
Mr President, I would first of all like to extend warm thanks to Commissioner Patten for his extensive clarification.
I have a question pertaining to his first point.
As I understand - and I am delighted to hear it - the European Commission intends to provide more structure to the way third-country elections are observed within the European Union.
My question is: will this be a structure similar to that employed in the United States? I have always noticed that it is the Carter Institute which is responsible for election observation over there, and it always acquits itself of this task in a very professional and very transparent manner.
The European Union, which may be present on a massive scale, is really lacking such an image.
Could you explain whether you will use this American model as a gauge, because I think this is an excellent example of how things could be done and how they could be done properly?
The honourable Member has, as ever, made an extremely shrewd observation.
There is an image problem. It is one we address in the communication.
We want to ensure that what the Union does is more recognisable: it is not just a question of logos or armbands but of the whole presentation of what we are doing.
I think Members of this House will have sometimes been frustrated to discover that, on the basis of European Union funding, people from other countries, even North America, and some other countries are getting all the credit and none is coming to the European taxpayer who pays for all these things.
There is no such thing as European funds, there are European Union taxpayer funds, and it is an important point to remember.
Image is important and we have addressed it in this document.
I hope that if the honourable Member thinks we have not done so adequately, she will let us know.
Part of the purpose of this document is to try to generate more ideas from Members of this Parliament who, of course, are so familiar with the important activity which we are addressing.
Mr President, Commissioner. I concur with Mrs Maij-Weggen' s question.
I have taken part in several election observation exercises and, according to the principle of "do good and be seen to do good" , we, and I do not mean just I, have often remarked that visibility was often lacking.
Now I am all in favour of our continuing to work together with the OSCE and the Council of Europe. However, it is a poor show that we, the European Union bear all the costs, as is often the case, and yet nobody even notices that the European Parliament is present to observe the elections.
I think that we should take reasonable account of visibility in this context.
Secondly, Commissioner, I should like to ask you when you intend to have at least the basic structure of your rapid reaction facility up and running, because it is also important for Parliament' s work?
What sort of timetable should we be working towards? Thirdly, Commissioner, not all, but many crises to which we must react can be prevented.
Are you satisfied with the state and development of crisis prevention or do you want to couple crisis prevention to the rapid reaction facility?
Firstly, on visibility: there is an early paragraph in this pretty lengthy communication which, in my judgement, sums up the problem rather well.
It states that EU visibility is not as ever-present as one would like because of a number of factors.
The first is the lack of a clear EU policy and the necessary instruments to implement it.
The adoption of a CFSP joint action is no guarantee of increased visibility, as people found in Nigeria last year.
Another factor is the participation of the European Union under the umbrella of other international actors.
That has often been a problem in the Balkans, and one with which the honourable Member will be familiar.
In other cases, like Palestine, the lack of visibility was due to insufficient effort with the media.
Then we finish perhaps a shade provocatively: "Unlike the United States the European Union does not appoint retired high-level politicians for this kind of job."
We have politicians who are actually still in the kitchen feeling the heat.
Maybe we should learn something from that, though I agree that there are some important high-level retired politicians whom one would not want to see necessarily supervising elections.
At which point discretion is the better part of valour.
Secondly, as far as the rapid reaction facility is concerned, I want to see this up and running as quickly as possible. I have enough anecdotes to justify my impatience.
I have no doubt at all that our "energy for democracy" programme, which I mentioned in my remarks, has been an extraordinary success.
The mayor of one of the towns which has benefited wrote last week to his colleagues in the Serbian opposition making that point.
We are now looking at what we can do during the summer, now the winter emergency is over, to build on it.
Nor have I any doubt at all that the tortures of the damned which our officials had to go through to get the scheme launched would have been much easier to cope with had we had a facility like this.
Anybody who thinks that we do not need one should just try talking to our officials who were operating pillar 4 in UNMIK in Kosovo.
Again, there is a legion of almost unbelievable stories which underline the importance of a facility like this - a facility that is not a cop-out, not a way of getting round budgetary procedures but one that allows us within our existing budget to do things more effectively and more flexibly.
Of course, if you can act more rapidly, you make a contribution to crisis prevention.
It is one of the oldest saws in the book that it is incomparably more expensive to fight a war than to keep the peace.
Very often what is required to keep the peace or to prevent a crisis is not just doing things generously but doing them quickly and generously.
We are, as the honourable Member knows because he has been in this business much longer than I, actively involved in trying to develop an intellectually respectable case for preventative diplomacy, trying to pull together all the various non-military capacity headline goals which we think are required.
There are a number of things we will be doing.
I look forward to coming to Parliament with some further ideas over the coming months.
Mr President, Commissioner, you have spoken of the lengthy payment procedures which have an adverse effect on the image of the European Union in the various actions it takes.
We are currently in the middle of a conciliation procedure for the late payment directive, in other words, this is not just a problem in external relations; it is also a problem within Europe.
I think that it would make sense if you as Commissioner supported the view that the late payment directive should also apply to the European institutions, because then payment could be made, if there was a legal basis, within a certain period of time, namely between 21 and 30 days or, we hope, even sooner.
The idea is that the late payment directive could also be applied in these areas.
That is an interesting and important point, which I shall follow up. It is an extremely valuable contribution.
I am also concerned about an even larger issue, which is the amount of time between our commitments and our contracting.
This is a serious issue and I hope we will be able to offer some helpful thoughts about that in the course of the next few weeks and months.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the Commissioner on the progress he has made on the rapid reaction unit.
I should like to ask the Commissioner a couple of questions.
Firstly, although I recognise that he wants to keep the budget small and use existing instruments, is he satisfied that the budget in category 4 is sufficient for the special rapid reaction unit to be able to carry out its objectives over the course of a financial year? Secondly, concerning coordination: what will the relationship be between this unit and the European Union special envoys?
One of the problems we had with Kosovo was not just coordination within the Commission but also coordination among the Member States of the actions they took as individual governments. What relationship will you be able to have with Member States in order to ensure coordination of their independent activities?
As the honourable Member knows, because a paper which the High Representative and I wrote for the European Council miraculously found its way into the newspapers, the question of better coordination of Member States' activities is one that both Javier Solana and I feel strongly about.
For a start, it would be nice always to know what Member States are doing.
The High Representative and his colleagues in the secretariat are bending their best efforts to try to achieve that at the moment.
They are trying to explain, for example, to the United States the full scale of what Europe is doing in the Balkans.
We have had problems which should not have arisen because we have not always known in sufficient detail exactly what Member States, as well as the European Commission, are up to.
So we need to work more closely and in a more coordinated way.
That is an issue which the High Representative and I are attempting to take on more positively.
I hope that the Stability Pact conference a couple of weeks ago was a help along that road but we will certainly continue to pursue that issue.
On the relationship between the rapid reaction facility and the special envoys who are, of course, responsible to the Council - even though we are responsible for the budget - we will want to work closely with them.
There are some in particular whose activities bear on the sort of things we might find ourselves wanting to support through the rapid reaction facility, like the work being done by one of our special envoys in the Great Lakes region in Africa.
We will keep in touch with them.
I do not think that the sums of money that we are talking about are going to give us budgetary problems.
We can manage EUR 30 or 40 million.
I am sure I shall have other opportunities to come back to Parliament and explain some of the pressures we have with much bigger items of expenditure in category 4.One of my continuing obsessions is the gap between the language of our communiqués and what is agreed when finance ministers meet to discuss these things.
I am looking forward to what is called a full and frank exchange with Parliament on those issues.
I should like to begin by thanking the Commissioner for an excellent exposition of the rapid reaction facility. It is much needed.
I should like to ask him how he envisages disaster relief of the kind that was needed in Mozambique recently - how would this rapid reaction facility liaise and collaborate with Member States' armies and navies?
Would he also consider whether he would extend the call for help - if the need arises - to beyond the European Union countries? For example, in Mozambique I found it quite extraordinary that the Indian navy was on the other side of the Indian Ocean and could have come to Mozambique very quickly, but nobody ever involved them in disaster relief in Mozambique, while people were hanging on trees.
There are different sorts of crises and different sorts of disaster.
The appalling floods in Mozambique were a classic case for intervention by ECHO as a humanitarian intervention.
The growing food crisis in the Horn of Africa is a classic case for the deployment of traditional food aid, albeit with emergency shipment and emergency on-movement through lorries, etc.
It is very difficult to compartmentalise these crises.
Very often you need to use a number of instruments.
For example, we discovered very early on in the Mozambique crisis the requirement for helicopters and the importance of using some military capacities in support of civil-power operations.
What we have to ensure is that there are not any "Chinese walls" between these various operations.
There need to be "Chinese walls" only in the budgetary sense.
We need to make it absolutely clear that we are not using the rapid reaction facility to cut corners in our budgetary practices, which are not justified by an emergency on the spot.
But the honourable Member is entirely right to say that Mozambique was a demonstration of the extent to which the various forms of intervention are interwoven and that it is very difficult to make precise categories out of different forms of support.
Commissioner, thank you very much for your statement.
I strongly welcome this rapid reaction facility. It responds to long-held concerns which many of us have had.
You are to be congratulated on the work that you have done.
I should like to elaborate on the point which my colleague Nirj Deva mentioned.
We are not just talking about urgency, we are not just talking about effectiveness of action.
The question of coherence is very important.
You have the overall responsibility for external relations from the Commission's point of view.
I am thinking again of the role of ECHO.
Do you not foresee an opportunity here to bring ECHO under your policy-making umbrella so that we have a more cohesive approach to emergencies when they arise; so that we do not have this problem of different instruments; so that we are addressing the problem with one mind and can then deliver with urgency and efficiency?
I recognise the case for coherence.
It would be challenging politically, to get up and make a speech in favour of incoherence.
The honourable Member is entirely right about that.
But one has to bear in mind two important facts about ECHO.
ECHO is justifiably jealous of its reputation for delivering humanitarian assistance without political strings being attached and without any political infusion.
For example, you can distinguish very well between the humanitarian assistance which ECHO has given in Serbia and the assistance we have given through the Energy through Democracy programme.
They both help to improve people's lives made miserable by Mr Milosevic but they clearly have different triggers and slightly different purposes.
Secondly, it is very often the case that what marketing managers would call the deliverables are different.
Very often with ECHO one is talking about food, medicine and blankets. With our rapid reaction facility one is very often talking about advisors, mediators, observers, customs officials, police officers, and so on.
There are differences. But I totally accept that there is a need for more cohesion.
It is a considerable advantage that in this Commission the external relations commissioners work together as a team.
We are about to start sharing all the programming decisions together.
I very much hope that, without breaking down some important distinctions, we can ensure that the Community's various instruments, which involve the expenditure of quite substantial amounts of assistance, are moving together in the same direction. It has not always been the case in the past.
Mr President, I am sure the Commissioner would agree that writing the report is the easy bit.
The practical implementation is the difficult bit.
When this rapid reaction force actually comes together, will it work in certain cases at a regional basis as well as an individual nation basis? There are situations, such as that in the Horn of Africa, which cover more than one state.
The problems in the Great Lakes region cover a number of countries.
It would be useful if you could link these problems on a regional basis and act from that point.
Would the Commissioner agree with that?
I agree with the honourable Member on that point.
I believe that we should be looking much more constructively at regional solutions in a lot of other areas as well, not least some of our trade relationships with other countries.
This facility has to be used not just on a bilateral basis but in helping groups of countries with what are often common political problems, as well as environmental and other problems.
I just wish to congratulate the Commissioner on his replies.
I am a little upset and worried about his talk of rapid reaction and the refusal of a political infusion into ECHO.
Quite honestly, ECHO needs more than a political infusion: it needs somebody to see what is going on there.
When Mr Deva asked Commissioner Nielson a question on Mozambique and about the delay in getting helicopters there, it was dismissed out of hand by Commissioner Nielson. That is unacceptable.
We have a situation in Ethiopia where we knew for the past three years that there was a famine coming.
The stores down there are empty. Where was ECHO?
Commissioner, why did ECHO not foresee this and foresee that food was needed there when so many people were threatened? The Committee on Development and Cooperation and myself have time and time again warned ECHO and the Commission that something should be done about this.
Absolutely nothing has been done.
If the honourable Member, who has made some serious points, does not have anything else on tomorrow morning, he might come to the debate on Ethiopia in which I shall be taking part myself because my colleague has to be elsewhere.
I shall be setting out the figures for our actual disbursements of food aid in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
I just wish to add two points.
Firstly, I do not share the honourable Member's views on ECHO: it does a very good job in difficult circumstances.
I want to make this point about the Horn of Africa.
I was a development minister from 1986 to 1989 and I spent much of my time trying to deal with the food crisis then in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
I feel rather strongly that we have managed over the years, despite problems from time to time, to increase our ability to get food and other assistance to people in the most appallingly difficult circumstances.
We have managed to increase our ability to deliver humanitarian assistance.
What we have not done is to increase our ability to make that humanitarian assistance unnecessary in the first place.
There is a food crisis in the Horn of Africa.
There are two large armies dug into trenches, buying expensive military equipment from other countries with money which should be going to agricultural extension, to improving water schemes and the life chances of babies and young mothers.
So I hope I catch your eye tomorrow in the debate and make some of these points.
I have great sympathy for the problems being faced by Ethiopia and Eritrea.
However, I have to say that I was dealing with these problems 13 or 14 years ago and, alas, much less has happened to the good than one would have liked.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Could you let us know exactly how Question Time is going to be organised now? Will questions to the Commission - ostensibly due between 6.30 p.m. and 7 p.m. be taken?
I can inform you that Question Time will last an hour.
Therefore, we will be working from seven until eight.
The first part, Questions to the Commission, will last 30 minutes.
We will dedicate 10 minutes to each Commissioner, instead of the usual 20 minutes.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0216/2000). We will examine questions to the Commission.
At the request of the Commission, we will begin with the third question so that Mr Patten can answer it.
First part
Question No 34 by (H-0306/00):
Subject: Commission participation in the Council's military committee Does the Commission agree that its participation in meetings of the Council and all its bodies is an established part of the acquis communautaire and an essential element of the institutional equilibrium of the European Union?
Can the Commission comment on rumours to the effect that it is not participating in the work of the new military committee? Can the Commission explain the reasons for this non-participation?
Will the Commission insist on its right to participate?
The Commission shares the view that its participation in meetings of the Council and all its bodies is part of the EU acquis and an essential element of the European Union institutional framework.
Commission participation is expressly provided for in the Council's Rules of Procedure, which state that the Commission takes part in all Council meetings, and in meetings of all its preparatory bodies.
Only in exceptional circumstances and on a case-by-case basis can the Commission be excluded from these meetings.
In Helsinki, it was confirmed that the development of ESDP should take place within the existing institutional framework. This reflects the Commission's full association with the common, foreign and security policy and its shared responsibility with the Council for ensuring consistency in the Union's external relations.
Excluding the Commission from work in this area would be tantamount to accepting the emergence of a fourth pillar in the Treaty, contrary to the Helsinki conclusions.
But although the Commission has a right to attend all working structures in the Council, it does not have an obligation to do so.
There are instances where the Commission decides not to participate in a particular meeting, usually because it considers that the items to be dealt with are not of direct concern to it or to Community affairs.
We have agreed arrangements without difficulty to take part in all the post-Helsinki structures, such as the interim Political and Security Committee, with one exception.
We are still discussing arrangements for the interim military body.
We would plainly have nothing to contribute to the interim military body when it deals with purely military business but there will equally be occasions from time to time when it discusses issues which straddle civil and military cooperation.
In cases like these, I think that it is not only natural but in everyone's interests that the Commission should participate in the meeting in order to contribute to the overall coherence and effectiveness of European Union policies and actions.
Mr President, may I thank the Commissioner for that excellent and comprehensive answer, which goes a long way to reassuring me.
May I ask him to confirm that the Commission's choice not to participate in certain meetings will be taken, as he put it, on a 'meeting by meeting' basis, not a structure by structure basis, depending on what is being discussed.
To take a decision structure by structure would indeed create an unfortunate precedent, undermining the acquis communautaire, which is that the Commission takes part in all Council meetings and preparatory meetings.
Indeed it would be counter to the Treaty, which states that the Commission is "fully associated", not partially associated, with the CFSP and that it will remain the Commission's choice whether to participate or not.
I realise that the honourable Member is a greater expert on these institutional issues than I am. It is not therefore surprising that he is holed in one.
The question is whether the choice is meeting by meeting or structure by structure and we have made it gently and courteously but firmly clear what our view is of the matter.
I very much hope that it can be resolved satisfactorily over the coming weeks.
Mr President, if the Council does not agree with the Commission, does that mean the Commission will have to take the Council to the European Court in order to participate in the military committee? Secondly, has the Commission drawn any conclusions as to the security implications of its participation in the military committee?
On the second point, if I may be slightly irrelevant, the history of the last fifty years does not suggest that it is bodies like the Commission which usually are a problem in that regard.
I certainly do not think that is an issue.
There is a general issue about security, which I know the High Representative is addressing and rightly so.
As for the first point, I very much hope that we can resolve these things amicably, and I am sure that if both honourable gentlemen put the case that they have put to me with equal force to their first cousins in the United Kingdom Government, that will very much help to resolve these issues without it taking too long.
I hope that we do not have to resort to the sort of measures suggested by the honourable gentleman. I hope that we can solve this in a civilised and sensible way.
I repeat, we do not have - to borrow a phrase - "ideas above our station".
We are trying to follow the terms of the Treaty and to do so only when it is helpful to the overall implementation of a common foreign and security policy.
Thank you very much, Mr Patten.
I believe we have asked you all the questions we were going to ask you today.
We therefore wish you a good afternoon.
Question No 32 by (H-0293/00):
Subject: Ability of dialysis-dependent people to travel in the EU The free movement of Member States' citizens in the EU is a fundamental right.
One group of people that cannot make use of that right are those who require regular haemodialysis because of malfunctioning kidneys.
When travelling, they rely on being able to obtain treatment at dialysis units other than those they normally use.
This poses a major problem especially during the European holiday period, when virtually all dialysis units scale down their activities and frequently turn away 'guests' who are passing through or visiting their area.
This severely restricts the ability of families with dialysis-dependent members to travel.
Does the Commission intend to take any steps before the next summer holiday period begins to make it easier for dialysis-dependent people to travel within the EU, without having to forego the treatment they need?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to refer Mr Arvidsson to Community legislation on the coordination of individual national social security systems.
According to this legislation, persons temporarily resident in a Member State other than that in which they are insured are entitled to health care services if their condition is such that they require emergency treatment.
The persons in question need to obtain an E111 form from their insurance agency and submit it to the institution in the Member States in which they are temporarily resident as proof of insurance.
In order to ease the situation of temporarily resident dialysis patients and rectify the possible lack of clarity in the definition of emergency treatment, the Member States have agreed on special rules which are laid down in Decision No 163 of the Administrative Commission of the European Communities on Social Security for Migrant Workers of 31 May 1996.
According to these rules, dialysis qualifies as emergency treatment, provided that the purpose of the visit is non-medical.
However, as the availability of dialysis treatment may differ from one Member State to another, the patients in question are of course invited to make the necessary arrangements in advance with the hospital which is to supply the service in order to ensure that they can receive dialysis treatment while temporarily resident in the Member State in question.
As to the question of whether the Commission will take any initiatives in order to increase the availability of dialysis during the holiday period, I should like to say that there is no standardised social security system in the Community and that it is up to each individual Member State to configure its own social security system and to decide what services will be supplied, who is entitled to them and to what extent they are to be provided.
It is not therefore up to the Commission to intervene here and to influence national rules on the modus operandi of hospitals and clinics in the Member States.
Many hospitals do not regard chronic dialysis treatment as an emergency form of treatment and may therefore deny dialysis-dependent travellers the opportunity to undergo such treatment at their dialysis units.
Children, parents or young people in families where someone is dialysis-dependent are often very keen to travel.
They work and are given holiday-time, but they are unable to go on ordinary tours.
For such people, going abroad is an international issue and, if the national authorities do not do anything to help, their hopes lie with the EU as an organisation.
Even if it is not possible to intervene on a purely legal level, there may be other options for calling attention to the need to increase the provision of dialysis facilities during holiday periods in the Member States.
For example, more prominence could be given to hospitals which make efforts to provide such facilities, or attractive European prizes could perhaps be announced for those which take the relevant measures.
Perhaps my first explanation struck you as overly legal, Mr Arvidsson, and I should perhaps repeat myself in simpler terms: as far as Community law is concerned, the relevant committee has clarified that dialysis during temporary residence qualifies as emergency treatment.
It has nothing to do with whether someone is chronically ill or an acute case.
The decisive question is whether or not this is emergency treatment and the answer to this question is yes.
On the other hand, the Commission, as I have explained, can only propose or make certain information available here.
The Commission departments have made such information available.
But in individual cases and in relation to a specific holiday resort - and you will probably agree with me here - it would be advisable in that case to check in advance if the hospital or institution in question has dialysis facilities.
Question No 33 by (H-0298/00):
Subject: Measures to protect chocolate As part of its policy to ensure the quality of agricultural products and foodstuffs, the Union has set up a system to protect traditional products of specific character, under which chocolate is eligible for recognition.
Council Regulation No 2088/92 provides for the Commission to set up and administer a register of certificates of specific character. Under this regulation, producers of chocolate without the addition of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter can apply for a certificate of specific character (guaranteed traditional speciality) so that it can be recognised as a food product made from traditional raw materials.
Has the Commission already received from the Member States applications by producers for chocolate of this kind to be included in the register of certificates of specific character? Will the Commission take all necessary steps to give effect to the provisions laid down in the regulation and include chocolate without the addition of vegetable fats among the foodstuffs recognised as guaranteed traditional specialities?
.
(DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. The Commission has received no applications from producers for a so-called certificate of special character for chocolate without the addition of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
However, if such an application is submitted, it will be examined in accordance with the procedure provided for in Regulation No 2082/92 on certificates of special character for agricultural products and foodstuffs.
The name of the special character registered on the certificate allows the words - and I quote - 'guaranteed traditional speciality' , 'gts' for short, to be added, together with a Community symbol reserved for them.
If I am not mistaken, the Commission is not considering this option.
I would like to insist on this point because I feel that there is concern among consumers that the creation of the single market is resulting in less importance being attached to product quality.
We must endeavour to allay this concern, and I therefore feel, should the manufacturers of a Member State so request, of course, that within the White Paper on food safety and in other ways, the Commission should consider protecting chocolate which is produced according to traditional methods without additional vegetable oil as a high quality European product, and refuse to set the lowest level as the standard, for this may be permitted by the market, but it is not acceptable in terms of the quality of the produce and the lives of our consumers.
Mr President, Mr Napoletano, as I said, no chocolate producer has yet demonstrated any interest in this form of protection.
No applications have been filed.
However, in order to clarify matters somewhat as you have requested, I should point out to you that the Regulation which I quoted makes provision for two possible forms of legal protection for names.
One possibility is that a name can only be protected if it is connected with the Community name 'gts' and the corresponding Community symbol, in which case it is possible to find other products on the market which have the same name as the registered product, but which are manufactured using a different process and consequently are not entitled to use the Community name and the Community symbol.
That is the drawback with this variation.
The second possibility is to protect the name per se if it corresponds to a single type of manufacture, namely the type registered, in which case there will be no products with the same name which are manufactured under different conditions on the market.
It would only be possible to register the name "chocolate" and issue a certificate of special character under the first procedure referred to.
Registration using the second procedure would run counter to the future chocolate directive, because chocolate is redefined and may contain a certain proportion of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
The Commissioner actually answered my question in the second part of his answer.
As a long-time passionate lover of chocolate for more years than I care to remember, I am sure the Commissioner will agree that, if for sixty years people have been eating a product called "chocolate", they are entitled to continue to eat the product called "chocolate".
I am very glad that we finally put this directive to bed in the last session.
We take note of your statement in favour of good chocolate, Mrs Banotti.
Question No 35 by (H-0307/00):
Subject: Children's rights Given the reports of sexual abuse, of child prostitution and the high number of young children living on the streets of the candidate countries from Eastern Europe, what measures are being taken by the Commission to ensure within the framework of the present accession negotiations, that children's rights and child protection are a priority and that the welfare of children is taken into account when preparing these countries for future membership of the European Union?
Mr President, I should like to start by saying that I share the concern behind the honourable Member' s question.
It is particularly depressing to see that, in a number of Central and Eastern European countries, children are suffering from the consequences or, to be more precise, the uncontrolled consequences of social change.
However, before answering your question with the standard legal arguments, I should like to get a political point out of the way first.
This is not a problem specific to the candidate countries of the European Union.
Unfortunately, as you well know, I am sure, the problem encompasses many, perhaps even the majority of countries in the world.
It is quite clearly a development problem, a problem which stems from poverty, a problem which stems from social neglect and, I believe, a problem which stems from the indifference or lack of decisiveness in our societies to really do something to fight this terrible manifestation of child abuse.
Allow me to tell you what we can do within the framework of accession negotiations.
To get straight to the point, it is not much, but the fact remains that countries wishing to join the European Union have of course undertaken to adopt the Community acquis.
That includes the legally binding regulations for the protection of children.
The most important of these is the joint action to fight the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children, on which a decision was reached on 24 February 1997.
The Commission also intends to submit a proposal to the Council in the year 2000, i.e. this year, whereby the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children, taking special account of child pornography on the Internet, will be declared to be punishable offences.
If this proposal is accepted, it will become part of the Community acquis which applies in candidate countries.
The Member States and countries seeking to join the European Union are working together comprehensively in the fight against all forms of organised and other serious crime within the framework of the pre-accession agreements on the fight against organised crime concluded by the Member States of the European Union, the Central and Eastern European countries wishing to join the Union and Cyprus on 28 May 1998.
Programmes such as PHARE and MEDA and the relevant specific programmes relating to justice and internal affairs such as GROTIUS, STOP, ODYSSEUS and FALCONE also offer the opportunity to support countries seeking to join the Union in this respect and support is indeed given.
The following programmes are relevant to child protection: first the DAPHNE programme approved on 24 January 2000.
This relates to the period from 2000 to 2003 and includes preventive measures to fight violence against children, young people and women and allows funds to be provided to governmental and non-governmental organisations active in this area.
The countries seeking to join the Union can also join this programme.
Then there is the STOP programme for the period from 1996 to 2000.
This is a promotion and exchange programme for people responsible for measures to fight the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children.
This programme helps to develop coordinated initiatives to fight the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children.
The Commission will draft a proposal for a new edition of the STOP programme during the course of this year, which will then also be open to countries seeking to join the Union.
The Commissioner showed us where his heart was in the opening remarks.
I should like to ask him if he is aware that, notwithstanding the implementation of many of the Community programmes, in a recent BBC television programme Newsnight there was clear evidence that there is a systematic breeding programme in Romania in particular, where children are being bred for export and sale.
It was a totally horrendous programme, although I agree social exclusion is a major factor in these dreadful occurrences.
There were children who were being bred specifically to be put into an institution from which they were subsequently sold to people coming into that country to buy babies.
There is also the question of Internet pornography.
Poland is one of the significant countries from which much of this is being broadcast.
It is not enough that we have these small, under-funded programmes.
What are we actually doing in terms of the accession discussions with these countries to make our opinion abundantly clear that this is unacceptable?
I should like to explain to the honourable Member what my feelings are in this matter, not just the legal aspects.
The whole problem could not have arisen and would not exist were there no demand for this horrendous supply in our rich societies, including in the Member States of the European Union.
The entire problem has only arisen because there are people in our societies who will pay money for it.
In Romania there are no people paying for it.
These people are in this country, the country in which we live, in all the neighbouring countries, in all the countries of the European Union.
I would be most grateful to the honourable Member if, before representing one of the poorest countries of Europe in her question here, she were also to point out that the real responsibility for this terrible crime lies with those who pay for and demand it.
Now let me come to Romania.
The subject of children in Romania is, as you know, one of the subjects on which the Commission is most intensively employed, including me personally.
There is no single topic in the context of accession negotiations, apart perhaps from the safety of nuclear power stations, to which I personally have addressed myself more intensively than the situation of children in Romania, including the problem to which you referred.
I cannot confirm the accuracy of the BBC television report.
The fact that something has been broadcast on the BBC does not automatically mean that it is true.
Not that I am saying that it is untrue.
Simply that we cannot confirm it.
It is therefore difficult for me to answer your specific question as to whether children are being bred in Romania for the purpose of sexual abuse with a clear yes or no.
What I can say is that, as Parliament' s hearing on the subject of children in Romania has demonstrated over recent weeks in Brussels, the Commission is doing absolutely everything in its power to improve the lot of children in Romania.
I assure the honourable Member that we are doing far more than is our duty and, in fact, far more that what is actually politically permissible within the framework of accession negotiations.
I do, however, admit that we are doing so because, in my view, it is also a human rights issue which must be considered in accordance with the political criteria governing accession.
But I must again expressly state that I would guard against representing this problem - although I do not think the honourable Member intended to do so - as a problem specific to the accession or candidate countries.
It is a problem that should be a cause for concern to everyone in Europe.
While we address the question of what we are doing in Romania or in other countries to fight the supply, I would also ask Parliament to address the question of what we are doing to fight the demand.
. (PT) Mr President, the Commission is perfectly aware, as it demonstrated exhaustively in the two communications it transmitted to the European Parliament on this matter, the first in November 1997 and the second in December 1998, of the need for coordinated and multidisciplinary action at European level, for both preventing and combating trafficking in women.
The Commission has been supporting and will continue to support various non-governmental organisations involved in this field in various applicant countries, and recently financed two prevention campaigns which we feel were very successful, one in Poland and one in Hungary. At the same time, the same type of campaign has been funded by the American government, as part of the transatlantic agenda, concerning trafficking in women for exploitation in Ukraine and Bulgaria.
In the area of police cooperation, the Commission wishes to remind honourable Members that in 1996 Europol was given a mandate by the Council to combat trafficking in human beings, with the basic aim of ensuring that all networks of traffickers working in Europe would be closed down.
With regard to criminal issues, the Council would like to repeat that it intends to present a set of legislative proposals to the Council and the European Parliament by the end of the current presidency.
The aim of these proposals is to go beyond the February 1997 joint action and to comply with the provisions of Paragraph 48 of the Tampere European Summit conclusions, with a view to adopting a framework decision leading to the joint definition of trafficking in human beings and the prosecution and punishment of those involved.
Finally, the Commission also wishes to emphasise that through the STOP and Daphne programmes, it has already funded numerous cooperation and training projects in the area of combating trafficking in human beings, specifically against the trafficking of women for sexual exploitation, and through these programmes has brought together the relevant bodies, namely police and judicial authorities, non-governmental organisations and social services.
The Commission intends in the course of 2000 to present the European Parliament with a new legal basis for the STOP programme for the period 2001-2005.
Under this new legal basis for STOP, we will also be able to fund projects for combating trafficking in human beings submitted by non-governmental organisations and by public authorities from the applicant countries themselves.
Lastly, concerning the specific situation in Albania, the Commission acknowledges that networks trafficking in human beings originating in the Balkans represent a major concern, due to the increasing number of cases being seen in European countries.
We therefore acknowledge the fact that under the Stability Pact for the Balkans, priority must be given to combating trafficking in human beings.
I can even answer the honourable Member by saying that a group of experts is already working on identifying the best actions for combating the networks of traffickers in human beings and that I myself had an opportunity recently, on a mission to Greece, to exchange ideas with the Greek Minister for Home Affairs, in order enlist the cooperation of his government in establishing these actions and priorities, bearing in mind the action that Greece is already developing bilaterally on the trafficking of human beings in the Balkans.
Commissioner, thank you for your answer, which I find partially satisfactory as I am well aware of your personal interest in the matter and of the initiatives you have undertaken to combat prostitution rings.
However, we must admit that we have not been very successful so far, since the number of rings has increased and we have recently received reports of abuse, particularly of Albanian and Kosovar women.
Of course, this issue is bound up with the economic, social and political conditions which prevail in the Balkans and which have resulted in the poverty and overexploitation of vulnerable sections of the population, such as women.
However, Commissioner, we must also admit that the intervention of the EU' s institutions has been both inadequate and ineffective.
Are you aware, Commissioner, that concentration camps still exist where women are raped before being forced into prostitution? European women are particularly concerned as to whether there is any political will to dismantle these prostitution rings, whether there is any police or judicial cooperation and whether any victim support measures are in place.
I am going to ask you to be brief and I am going to be brief.
This is the Rule in this House.
For your information, in Annex IIB(3) of the Rules of Procedure, there are some recommendations for cases such as this when there is no time for questions.
Therefore, in application of the said recommendations, we will allow just one supplementary question per subject and only 30 seconds, which may extend to 35, but no more, in order to reformulate the questions.
Question No 37 by (H-0272/00):
Subject: Agricultural budget for foreign policy activities in Kosovo With regard to the budgetary forecasts, will agricultural funds be used to foot the bill for Kosovo? Are EUR 300m to be deducted from the items earmarked for agriculture funding to cover the costs of Kosovo?
Mr President, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, reconstruction in Kosovo and the stabilisation of South-Eastern Europe are among the most important tasks facing the European Union over the next few years.
This has been emphasised in numerous Council and Parliament resolutions, most recently in Lisbon, and for the Commission, this task does, without doubt, have the top priority which it requires.
The funds required for this task need to be anchored in the budget accordingly.
This task was not included in the Council resolution on the financial perspectives for 2000-2006 at the Berlin summit last spring.
The resolution on Agenda 2000 was taken, I would remind you, on the same day that the war in Kosovo broke out.
In the interinstitutional agreement on the financial perspectives concluded between Parliament, the Council and the Commission in May 1999, Parliament and the Council decided to call on the Commission, in view of developments in the Balkans, to submit the necessary budgetary proposals, if necessary in the form of a proposal to revise the financial perspectives.
It is precisely this call that the Commission is addressing.
It has proceeded by taking the following steps: first by estimating the sum in aid needed from the EU budget; secondly, by setting new priorities within foreign policy activities, so that funds can be redeployed for South-Eastern Europe and, thirdly, by proposing a redeployment between categories, i.e. between the various political areas.
One of the reasons for the proposal to redeploy EUR 300 billion from the expenditure budgeted as maximum expenditure for agriculture was as follows: the financial perspectives make provision for an increase of EUR 2.8 billion for agricultural expenditure from 2000 to 2001.
Because the Council reduced the budget estimates by EUR 400 million for the year 2000 in comparison with the maximum amount or ceiling set for 2000, the maximum rate of increase for next year would have been as high as EUR 3.2 billion.
In the external aid area, on the other hand, the figures in the financial perspectives would have resulted in a reduction in expenditure next year in comparison with this year and I think that everyone is agreed that this does not really reflect the actual situation and actual requirements.
The Commission therefore decided to propose a redeployment of EUR 300 billion to the budgetary authority so that the increase in agricultural expenditure would be correspondingly lower.
I hope that, when faced with these realities, Parliament will support the Commission proposal.
The Commissioner confirms our suspicions that Commissioner Fischler is hiding things from us and hiding himself as well.
I am not surprised that he left the chamber hardly ten minutes ago because this proposal is shameful. It takes from agriculture an amount to pay for a United Nations mission in Kosovo, in European Union resources and agricultural policy resources.
And then we have a Commissioner who is denying farmers subsidies for nuts, whose production they are going to lose, and who is denying European agriculture the aid to deal with the effects of the drought.
All of this demonstrates that Agenda 2000 has been nothing but a great firework display.
This is a disgrace for European agriculture.
It does not surprise me that given this outrage the Commissioner responsible... This is a disgrace!
A disgrace!
Mr President, I hope I can risk Mrs Izquierdo's wrath by saying that I agree with the Commissioner.
I want to put it to her that it is far better to reduce the rate of growth in agriculture in order to protect the money that is currently going to the very poor in this world, because the alternative would be to squeeze further the budget lines in category 4.
It would be unacceptable to find money for Kosovo - which I support - at the expense of the very poor in the world.
Does the Commissioner agree with that?
I should like to thank the honourable Member for his remarks.
I should also like to clarify that it is really not in the nature of my colleague, Mr Fischler, to run off and hide.
Clearly there are new priorities and new tasks and everyone here in this House must suggest how these new priorities can be funded.
The Commission has taken the step for which provision is made in the interinstitutional agreement, i.e. to examine the extent to which funds can be redeployed in the relevant categories and then make another proposal.
We have examined this carefully.
Mr Patten and Mr Nielson have come to the conclusion that a total of EUR 1.6 billion could be redeployed in the external aid area for south-eastern Europe and I think that we really must acknowledge that this step has been taken.
In addition, there is a further funding requirement and I should like to emphasise once again that the growth rate in the agricultural policy area is extraordinarily high for next year and my colleague Mr Fischler has accurately calculated the extent to which a reduction in agricultural expenditure by what is a small amount for the agricultural budget is feasible.
I should like to state clearly at this point that this redeployment will not of course have any effect on income support for farmers.
I should also point out that the Commission will propose that even the expenditure budgeted for promoting and developing the countryside be increased to its ceiling next year.
But I think that it is our common responsibility to find an answer, including a financial answer, as far as the important obligation that the European Union has in south-eastern Europe is concerned.
Question No 38 by (H-0287/00):
Subject: Structural measures to overcome delays in payments The EU budget is failing in that commitment authorisations are not being adequately matched by payments.
Payments as a proportion of total commitments have fallen over many years and barely 80 per cent of commitments, reportedly, are paid out.
One of the reasons for this situation is the delays in implementing the Union's projects.
The absurdity of this system is becoming increasingly apparent. The Member States undertake to fund operations under the supervision of the Union, while there are delays in implementing projects which have long lost any legitimate purpose and which, under this system, preposterously, continue to receive funding.
Such a situation is untenable, particularly in view of the negative public opinion prevalent in some Member States?
In the Commission's view, what structural measures are required to overcome the delays in payments?
Questions to Mr Kinnock
Mr President, the Commission is doing its utmost to settle proper payment applications within 60 days.
The large majority of invoices can be paid within this period and the number of overdue payments is falling satisfactorily.
However, the honourable Member' s question obviously refers not only to settlements in the narrow sense of the word, but to the question of how many commitments from previous budget years have yet to be paid.
So what we are talking about is the period of time between the first promise of funds for a project and a specific contract and the period of time between the commitment and the actual payment of funds.
The Commission submitted a working paper to the budgetary authority last year in which it made a comprehensive analysis of developments, broken down by sector and underlying factors, and suggested remedies.
The Commission is currently updating this analysis.
In terms of volume, commitments, i.e. sums that will need to be converted to payments in later years, were around EUR 71 billion at the end of 1999.
Developments in these old cases are influenced, de facto, by several factors and I think that it is important to make that clear here.
The first factor is the ratio between commitment appropriations and payment appropriations which the budgetary authority applies to the budget every year.
For the year 2000, for example, the budget contained approximately EUR 4 billion more in commitment appropriations than in funds for payments.
The second factor relates to the take-up of these budgetary funds, i.e. both commitment appropriations and payment appropriations.
Finally, the release of commitments for which no more payment applications are expected, so-called sleeping commitments, a somewhat misleading term meaning commitments which obviously will no longer be converted to specific commitments and specific payment commitments, also plays a not inconsiderable role.
However, the Commission is unable to subscribe to the honourable Member' s view that delays in implementing Community projects robs them of any legitimate purpose; on the contrary.
As soon as the Commission comes to the conclusion that no more substantiated payment applications are expected for a project, for example because the project has been suspended or abandoned, it orders the corresponding commitments to be released.
This applied to a sum of around EUR 1 billion in 1999.
I should stress that the time lag between overall commitment appropriations and their conversion to specific projects is a feature of many Union programmes.
This applies, for example, to multiannual programmes and the most important in quantitative terms are the Structural Funds, which are subject to shared administration, with the Commission making commitment appropriations which are then converted into specific projects at Member State level.
In order to reduce the time lag between promises, specific projects and payment, the budgetary authorities need to decide on a balanced ratio between commitment and payment appropriations and there needs to be real pressure to speed up the implementation of programmes.
The Commission has discussed precisely this today as part of the debate on the revision of the financial regulation and I can assure you that we intend to change the rules in order to tighten up the time scale.
I hope that we can count on your support.
Thank you for your answer.
I am pleased that the Commission really has taken note of the problem and intends doing what it can to ensure that the payments are made more quickly.
Commissioner Patten pointed out a while ago in the Committee on Budgets that, within category 4, there are eight and a half year-old commitments which have still not been paid out.
This state of affairs indicates either that we have major problems in implementing the budget efficiently or that we ought, in fact, to have some kind of deadline or time limit which would be much tougher when it came to writing off old commitments.
Perhaps both these matters are problems which the Commission ought, in that case, to do something about.
I should like to inform the honourable Member that an analysis has shown that it takes approximately one and a half years to convert commitment appropriations into specific contracts.
That is all well and good, but there are also old, sleeping commitments and you may be interested to know that another 20 posts were recently made available, in addition to the 60 posts decided for the SCR last December, in order to see which commitments no longer apply and can be cleared up.
I should like to offer my warmest thanks for your suggestion.
That is exactly the approach which the Commission will take during the revision of the financial regulation and I am therefore sure of at least one person' s support in Parliament.
Mr President, what I would like to know is, do you think that prompt payment by the European institutions, as set out in the late payment directive currently in the pipeline, might result in a clear improvement to the image of the European Union?
Do you intend to use benchmarking or best practice methods?
The honourable Member is right; it is in fact fundamental if the Union' s reputation is to be enhanced that both the time lag which I mentioned between promises, to call a spade a spade, and specific contracts must be reduced and payments must be made when invoices, i.e. substantiated payment applications are filed.
Of course benchmarking means that no more than 60 days should lapse and, as I said, more and more payments are being settled within this period.
Of course the aim is to have few, if any exceptions.
Thank you very much, Mrs Schreyer.
Since the time allotted to Mrs Schreyer has elapsed, Question No 39 will be replied to in writing.
Question No 40 by (H-0332/00):
Subject: Institutional reform In the Action Plan on Reform it is stated that an 'external legal expert' should sit in an advisory capacity on Disciplinary boards.
What is the excact definition of this 'external legal expert' , and what legal expertise will this person be required to have?
The Commission is at present implementing, or preparing legal grounds for implementing, the different actions set out in the White Paper on reforming the Commission.
In his question the honourable Member is probably referring to actions 57 and 58 of the Reform Strategy Action Plan which, amongst other things, specifies commitment to making proposals for the establishment of an interinstitutional disciplinary board.
The Action Plan does not, however, specify that an external legal expert should sit on the board.
The Commission will be presenting detailed proposals for the modernisation of disciplinary procedures and related arrangements in a consultative document which is scheduled for publication in October.
The document will include recommendations for improving administrative procedures and for making relevant amendments to the Staff Regulations.
Consultation on those proposals is a legal requirement and the views of Parliament and Member States, as well as those of the staff, will naturally be taken into account on all relevant matters, including the possible use of external expertise on the interinstitutional disciplinary board.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
Following on from the Van Buitenen affair and the Commission's fairly lamentable reaction to it, is there not a case that these disciplinary boards - and especially those called for whistle-blowers - should be independent of the Commission altogether?
. I am grateful to the honourable Member for his question.
The affair of Mr van Buitenen was conducted completely in compliance with the existing Staff Regulations and however tested, I am sure that any fair-minded person is bound to come to that conclusion.
So far as whistle-blowing is concerned, and as the honourable Member may know, we will be putting forward very comprehensive proposals for radical change in current arrangements which will, when they are implemented - hopefully with the assistance of this Parliament as a legislature - provide the European Union institutions with the best, fairest and most effective system for ensuring that the duty of officials to report their suspicions of wrong-doing will be fully accessible and made totally effective.
Question No 41 by (H-0342/00):
Subject: Institutional reform At present, 'whistle-blowing' means that a member of the Commission staff has to breach Articles 12 and 17 of the Staff Regulations, accordingly, if someone does come forward as a whistle-blower, he/she will almost certainly be disciplined.
Point 47 of your action plan makes reference to this situation but offers no remedy for it.
How do you plan to address this? Are your staff currently examining this problem and, if so, which members of your Cabinet or Directorate-General are actively involved in finding a solution to this contradiction?
Questions to Mr Byrne
. Mr President, the honourable Member's question refers to the Commission's proposals on whistle-blowing in the consultative document on reform adopted by the Commission on 18 January 2000.
Following that, more detailed orientations were set out in the White Paper on reforming the Commission which was adopted, published and presented to this Parliament on 1 March.
In specific response to the honourable Member's question, Articles 12 and 17 of the current Staff Regulations do not prevent members of staff from reporting wrong-doing within the Commission and it is consequently not the case that officials have to breach the regulations in order to properly report suspicions or concerns.
In addition, last June the Commission decision implementing the regulation establishing the anti-fraud office, OLAF, explicitly made the provision that officials and servants of the Commission, and I quote, "who become aware of evidence which gives rise to the presumption of the existence of possible cases of fraud, corruption or any other illegal activities detrimental to the interest of the Communities" are obliged to inform their hierarchy or the Secretary-General or the Director of the European anti-fraud office, OLAF.
That legal text also specifically guarantees that officials and other servants of the Commission shall, and I quote, "in no way suffer inequitable or discriminatory treatment as a result of having communicated such information".
It follows that Articles 12 and 17 of the Staff Regulations do not prevent staff from reporting wrong-doing either within the Commission or to OLAF.
In neither case would disciplinary action result from making such reports.
In the White Paper on reform and elsewhere, the Commission has made direct commitments to reforms which will further improve rules related to the reporting of suspected wrong-doing.
More precise rules on the rights and obligations of officials to report wrong-doing through internal channels and to OLAF are required, and rules defining external channels for the reporting of alleged wrong-doing need to be compiled and proposed, as they will be.
These rules on whistle-blowing will be put forward for introduction into the amended Staff Regulations and officials who follow them would not be subject to disciplinary action.
The Commission will present detailed proposals in a document scheduled for October of this year.
As the law requires, consultations on those proposals will be undertaken with staff and with the other European Union institutions.
Preparatory work on the proposals is progressing under the Director-General for Administration.
One member of my cabinet has specialist responsibility for reform of personnel policy, including whistle-blowing, and others are naturally actively involved in the overall issue.
Further to my question, as the Commissioner has just stated, the Commission is now drawing up its "whistle-blowing" charter to a certain extent. Will this be framed, for example, along the lines of the Swedish Government's or the British Government's rules on whistle-blowing?
Could the Commissioner inform Parliament as to the exact circumstances in which Paul van Buitenen now finds himself? Is he still being disciplined by the Commission and has any of his pay which was docked in the past been refunded to him?
I am grateful to the honourable Member for his question.
Firstly, the development of the proposals relating to whistle-blowing will take full account of best practice in several of the Member States.
The Commission is acutely aware of the provision long established in Nordic democracies, recently developed also in the Public Disclosure Act in the United Kingdom, and several other comparable pieces of legislation.
As the honourable Member would expect, this institution will take account of the breadth of provision and seek to ensure that in terms of accessibility, usability and career security we provide the best possible attainable system to ensure effective whistle-blowing because we believe it to be appropriate as a complement to good conduct in an international publicly accountable administration.
As far as Mr van Buitenen is concerned, he took up employment on 1 April in the Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection in Luxembourg in a very responsible job, as the House would expect.
He is not currently the subject of any disciplinary procedure and the honourable Member should be aware that immediately after he ended his period of suspension last April Mr van Buitenen's full pay, conditions, status and pension rights were restored, as were his rights in all other respects.
I reported to this House previously that Mr van Buitenen, a short time after ending his period of suspension, was informed that he had a right to seek employment in any of the European Union institutions in a job for which he was qualified.
He made a couple of applications, one of which was for a job in the Commission. He was successful in that application and I am pleased to say that he was duly appointed.
We thank Vice-President Kinnock for his replies.
Since the time allotted to Mr Kinnock has elapsed, Questions Nos 42 and 43 will be replied to in writing.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 44 to 48 lapse.
Question No 49 by (H-0284/00):
Subject: Møllergårdens Vivaldi - a Shetland pony The Committee on Petitions decided on 15 May 1997 to examine a case concerning the Shetland pony, Møllergårdens Vivaldi, from Denmark, which the Swedish authorities refused to register as a stallion in Sweden.
In an answer dated 29 October 1997, the Commission concluded that the Swedish authorities were in breach of Commission Decision 96/78 of 10 January 1996 and Council Directive 90/427 of 26 June 1990. The Swedes have since changed the rules.
However, the Commission has not yet established whether the Swedish authorities are now complying with current EU rules.
Information received this year from the Swedish Shetland Society indicates that the Swedes are not complying with the rules in that a pony must still have been shown in a stallion prize competition before it can be used in Sweden.
In order to be approved for breeding in Sweden, a stallion must undergo an examination of its pedigree to be entered in the Swedish national register.
This must be contrary to EU rules as it is to be expected that a stallion which is already approved in one Member State should automatically be approved in another Member State.
Is the Commission of the opinion that the Swedish authorities are complying with common rules? If not, how will the Commission ensure that the Swedish authorities comply with EU legislation in this respect?
A first-class Danish Shetland pony stallion named Vivaldi and his progeny were denied entry into the main section of the Swedish Shetland pony stud book.
The dispute between what I might describe as a courageous private breeder from one Member State and a breeding association in another Member State, reflects shortcomings in implementation by Member States of both the spirit and letter of related Community law, in particular Directive 90/427 on zootechnical and genealogical conditions governing intra-Community trade in Equidae.
I wish to remind you that it is the responsibility of the Member States to ensure that any dispute is settled by action to be taken by the competent authorities in cooperation with the organisation maintaining the stud book of the same breed or even the stud book of origin of the breed.
The Commission, following its inquiries, was officially assured that the Swedish stud book rules had been aligned with EC legislation.
However, in the light of new information, the Commission undertakes to take up the case again and to arrange for a zootechnical inspection mission, should this be required.
I should like to thank you for your answer.
I assume that the Commission will take immediate action on this matter, or will it be a case of the Commission having to be approached again before anything is done? I should like to point out that what we are concerned with here is an individual citizen whose livelihood has been affected.
It is a matter costing an incredible amount of money.
As some of us who have been involved with the equine trade know, there is a great deal of money at stake here.
It has cost an ordinary citizen, who has made a business out of horses, an incredible amount of money because Swedish associations have not been willing to approve his stallion.
I would therefore ask whether it is once again necessary to make an application in connection with this matter. Given all the talk currently of the Commission doing something for citizens, might not, rather, the Commission be expected to take the initiative directly?
I thank the Member for her supplementary question.
As I indicated earlier, this is essentially a matter between two Member States.
The Danish Breeding Association, in my opinion, should have taken up this issue with the Swedish Association.
It is not really the role of the Commission to develop this issue further but it is doing so in the manner I have indicated in an effort to assist the private breeder who - I perfectly agree with you - should not be compelled to have to go through these steps to seek a result in this particular issue.
As I have indicated, in the light of new information, the Commission undertakes to take up this case again and, if necessary, to arrange for a zootechnical inspection mission, should this be required.
The way Question Time is run is not acceptable.
Firstly, it does not start on time.
We had group meetings; I was watching the screen and you jumped from Question 41 to 49.
That makes it impossible for Members to be here.
In addition, Question Time did not start at the time stated on the agenda.
How are we meant to function in this way? It makes it virtually impossible for us and is not a fair procedure.
Situation in Turkey
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on Turkey.
. (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today marks a very important step in relations between Turkey and the European Union, particularly in terms of putting the Helsinki conclusions into practice.
There had been no meeting of the Association Council between Turkey and the Union for three years and nor had there been any meeting of this kind after the deliberations and the criteria laid down in Helsinki. This was an important meeting with an agenda that included not only relevant points of political dialogue, but also practical decisions which will translate into a step forward in the negotiating process.
They will do so specifically by establishing eight sub-committees, which will now enable the Commission, in this case represented by Commissioner Verheugen, to rigorously prepare the screening exercise and also to start negotiations on public services and markets. These are negotiations which will increase the present level of trade liberalisation between the Union and Turkey.
By implementing the Helsinki criteria and having made progress in the country itself, Turkey has made significant steps towards these negotiations, which it is important to bear in mind. It has been gradually committing itself to implementing or to adopting a huge range of institutional and legislative changes.
This is progress in the right direction, progress which is still of course experiencing delays and interruptions, and only seeing the process through will ensure that this progress meets with complete success.
Hence the importance of holding the screening procedure that is being prepared and the importance of Turkey' s commitment to incorporating the body of Community legislation and also to respecting the Copenhagen criteria.
In our political dialogue with the Turkish delegation, we were able not only to assess the progress made, but also to comment on what we felt were shortcomings at institutional and judicial level and also in terms of the actual implementation of economic policies.
Today' s meeting will be followed up at the forthcoming meeting of an association committee, which will study these issues in greater detail.
It should also be pointed out that there was a very constructive approach to the preparations for this Association Council with regard to drafting a joint position, which was adopted by the fifteen members of the Association Council.
This meant of course that very thorough work was undertaken with the Greek delegation too, which is following this issue with a sense of importance worthy of Athenian diplomacy. Now, however, the delegation is also guided by the spirit of a diplomatic rapprochement, which has been seen in relation to its neighbouring country since the earthquake that devastated Turkey and the consequent expression of solidarity by Greece.
This progress in the bilateral relationship will have considerable influence on progress on this issue in the future, on the relationship between the two countries and will certainly contribute, as will these negotiations between the European Union and Turkey, to establishing a favourable framework and environment for a solution to the problem of Cyprus.
We are working in the right direction. There are shortcomings, but this right and safe direction is also the only one that will enable the great country that Turkey is to take the appropriate steps for its economic and institutional modernisation and for its complete integration into modern democratic society.
Mr President, when Turkey joins the European Union the impact and the benefits will be considerable.
The EU will then have to adjust, and in a welcoming way.
But, in the shorter term, it is Turkey which has to adjust the most, in particular to meet the Copenhagen political criteria.
I am glad the Commissioner stressed these.
We cannot fulfil our role of critical friend by soft-pedalling on the need for drastic change, particularly with regard to guaranteeing individual freedom and a legitimate right to the Kurds.
Indeed the key to reform is ending the war against the Kurds, which gives the pretext for the state of emergency and the repression that goes with it.
The Kurds deserve a peaceful settlement involving a degree of political devolution and respect for their cultural and linguistic rights.
To say this is not to be anti-Turkish.
Will not other Turkish citizens benefit also?
The arrest and imprisonment of HADEP leaders like Sakharov prize-winner Leyla Zana and human rights campaigner Akin Birdal is an impediment to Turkey's progress to the EU.
To allow the European Parliament to vote for Turkey's accession when the time comes, reformers in Europe and Turkey must work together to lobby for change, as the Commissioner advised.
Mr President, the majority of my Group supported the Commission' s policy on Turkey and the resolution passed by the Council in Helsinki.
It was and is extremely important to us that the candidate status granted to Turkey should bring about fundamental changes to democracy and hence the way in which human rights are dealt with within Turkey.
We were pleased to acknowledge the declaration by the Turkish Prime Minister that Turkey would meet the Copenhagen criteria as quickly as possible.
The decision to defer the death sentence on Mr Öçalan was also welcomed as a step in the right direction.
However, we were then forced to acknowledge a number of incidents which we were and are unable to accept.
The mayors belonging to HADEP were arrested and we rightly criticised this move.
We are pleased that the Turkish Government reacted quickly and the mayors were released but we shall monitor the court case against them.
The former president of the Turkish human rights association, Akin Birdal, is again under arrest, despite the fact that he requires medical care.
Unfortunately, he must serve another six months of a one-year sentence.
We realise that the measures needed to guarantee the permanent democratisation of Turkish society cannot be introduced overnight.
However, a number of small steps are urgently needed in order to demonstrate that Turkey is prepared to take the path trodden by Spain, Portugal and Greece.
Turkey must at last abolish the death penalty, the only country in Europe yet to do so.
And we should not have to wait for a reform policy on the Kurdish question.
Today' s report from Luxembourg is good news but we would say, nonetheless, that Turkey must realise that respect for human rights and minority rights are prerequisite to any accession negotiations.
We are prepared to be patient as far as the speed of democratisation is concerned. But we will not accept a standstill on this issue.
When my fellow Member Daniel Cohn-Bendit visited Leyla Zana, she said to him - and I think to us too - that we should support the reforms in Turkey and that the Helsinki resolution was Turkey' s only chance.
In this sense we shall continue to support the Helsinki process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, whoever wants to join the EU must meet the Copenhagen criteria and abolish the death penalty.
Including Turkey.
Despite frequent promises by the Turkish Government, human rights violations continue there.
I should like to list a few examples.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party has been exposed to attack since 20 February.
Three Kurdish mayors belonging to HADEP were arrested recently and then released but are not allowed to leave Turkey.
Then the former and present leaders of HADEP, Murat Bozlak and Ahmet Turan Demir, were sentenced to three years and nine months in prison together with 18 other members of HADEP. It was maintained that HADEP was supporting and helping the PKK which has opted for peace rather than war.
Akin Birdal has started serving the rest of his sentence.
Thousands of Turkish troops marched into northern Iraq at the beginning of April.
More than 50 000 soldiers are stationed on the border in order to fight the PKK, despite its call for peace.
Why are arms being delivered to Turkey? More than 300 000 people gathered for the Navruz festival in Diyarbakir under the banner "Peace, Brotherliness and Democracy" .
Having been there, my personal impression is that the people are longing for peace and democracy.
The leader of the ANAP, Mr Mesut Jilmaz, said at an event in Diyarbakir, that the way to the EU was via Diyarbakir.
I therefore call on the Turkish Government to respect human rights and to find a political solution to the Kurdish question. Because the only way into Europe is via the Copenhagen criteria.
It will be the task of the European Commission and the Council to strengthen their commitment here.
At the moment, the most important task is to advance the democratisation of Turkey, which is why I call on everyone to unite without hesitation and to reinforce democracy and peace.
Mr President, all of us who have visited Turkey recently realise that the picture is very complex.
The first impression is that there is a sort of EU euphoria in Turkey when it comes to the media.
There is a very lively debate in the country. That is very important.
Secondly, the trade unions, popular movements, etc. all say the same thing.
They think it is positive that Turkey is a candidate country.
We even heard Akin Birdal, on the eve of his imprisonment, say that a new Turkey has been emerging in the last five months.
We must realise that we will have a lot of ups and downs in our relationship and that we will have both progress and setbacks.
Perhaps we are seeing something new being born.
But the old legal system is still there.
That is what is working against democratic fighters such as Akin Birdal.
But we also see the reformists who know very well what has to be done according to the Copenhagen criteria.
One party leader said to us that at least 65 articles of the constitution and penal code had to be changed.
When we spoke to people in that country during the Socialist Group visit we found three different approaches to EU membership.
First you have the anti-reformists, the fundamentalists and so on, who do not want membership.
And then you have the reformists - within the government, administration, human rights groups and other parts of civil society - who really want it. They certainly want membership.
Then you have a third group, who say that they want Turkey to become a member, but on Turkish terms.
Here the Copenhagen criteria, and the Commission and our screening are very important.
Almost automatically they will have to deliver if Turkey is to become a member one day.
There are two final impressions and messages received from the people we talked to during the two or three days we were there.
The first was that nothing will prevail without a strong civil society in Turkey.
People we met from civil society also said they appreciated the help from the European Union, but that some of it was slow.
We know that and we would like the Commission to look into that.
The other and last message is that yes, we have the road-map. But we need more precision from the road-map.
Help us to be more precise with the road-map because we want to follow it.
Mr President, the question of whether or not Turkey belongs to Europe is not primarily a geographical issue, nor is it primarily an economic one.
The deciding factor, however, will be whether or not Turkey will subscribe to a European set of values in which human rights, democracy and the protection of minorities are guaranteed.
This will not require any sacrifices, probably unlike Turkey' s other issues, but it will be for the good of all inhabitants of Turkey itself.
The political solution to the Kurdish issue would not only liberate the Kurds, it would also take a heavy weight from Turkey' s shoulders.
As a matter of fact, I am of the opinion that we should not aggravate the situation by supplying arms.
I myself am sceptical of Turkey joining the EU, but the current process may well promote peace and stability.
This is why we want to give Turkey the benefit of the doubt.
Whether or not Turkey will join may therefore depend largely on how it will fare in matters pertaining to human rights, democracy and the protection of minorities.
I would like to ask both the Council and the Commission to see things as they really are and not as they appear to be.
I should like to point out that in Helsinki, Greece withdrew its reservations and Turkey became a candidate country.
Greece has made a great many gestures of good will and good neighbourliness, a great many.
Turkey has made none.
Even today in the Association Council, Turkey' s Foreign Minister, Mr Cem, said that there is no occupying army in Cyprus, only the army which entered Cyprus in order to liberate Greek and Turkish Cypriots alike. I just wonder who have they been trying to liberate for the last 25 years, and from whom?
Have they still not managed to do so? I would point out that, when we visited Turkey as Parliament' s representatives, we asked to see Leyla Zana.
We were not allowed to see her because she was in prison.
Akin Birdal, who held talks with Mr Barón Crespo, was taken into prison while he was standing outside.
I just wonder if the Commission' s regrets will help to get Akin Birdal out of prison tomorrow? Is that such a drastic step?
Finally, I would like to say, to keep within the time permitted, that only two weeks ago, Turkish newspapers published a list of some 100 European journalists, parliamentarians and other individuals, including Archbishop Christodoulou of Greece, who are persona non grata in Turkey. Today, Mr Cem dismissed the list as media hype; but, at the end of the day, Turkey does in fact reserve the right to publish lists of persona non grata.
I should like to close by saying that I hope they will not get wind of what I have said here today and include me on this list, because I love Istanbul and I like to go there quite often.
Mr President, Turkey was granted candidate status at the Helsinki Summit, but accession negotiations must go on hold until the necessary internal reforms have been introduced and the human rights situation complies with European principles.
During your recent visit to Ankara, Commissioner Verheugen, you too drew attention to the fact that continuing human rights abuses, the failure to establish rule of law and the fact that no solution had been found to the Kurdish question stood in the way of Turkey' s accession to the EU in the near future.
The unequivocal shortcomings in this area contrast with statements by Prime Minister Ecevit to the effect that Turkey may be ready to start accession negotiations in 2004.
A number of factors which have been listed here several times already make this sort of prognosis appear premature.
Even the fact that the head of government, Mr Ecevit, described Kurdish as a dialect of Turkish, despite the fact that the two languages have fundamentally different roots, is an indication of the hardening of the political situation in Turkey.
The fact that all this has been accompanied by a recent offensive against the PKK in northern Iraq only adds to this impression.
There can be no question of the European Union having any interest in increasing Islamic fundamentalism in Turkey or of wanting to encourage the Trotskyist PKK, which is also guilty of massive human rights violations, to engage in new clashes.
However, one has the impression that anti-European forces within the army and the administration are behind the recent arrests and the new offensive against the PKK in northern Iraq in order to prevent Turkey from moving closer to Europe.
This demonstrates in retrospect that the concessions made to Turkey in Helsinki were perhaps premature and that the strategy towards this country, which is so important to western security, needs to be reviewed.
Mr President, the discussion here today is quite an interesting one; nonetheless, we should see to it that Turkey is judged in light of the clear-cut European criteria and that Greco-Turkish relations are not used as a fig leaf to mask a different reality.
I would like to add two or three minor points.
Turkey has its internal problems, but it has its external problems, too.
It could, for instance, show willing by accepting the jurisdiction of the court in The Hague, or the Court of Human Rights.
But no, this is not the case.
Secondly, in our endeavours to help Turkey integrate into the European Union, we must be strict when it comes to compliance with the political requirements we have laid down.
In this sense, if we try to paint a skewed picture of reality, then of course it will be a false one.
And in politics, false realities produce false results.
As for the problems cited by Turkey, there is Kemal Ataturk' s theory which says that "there is a danger that our unity will crumble and henceforth we should not say that we are Turks, we should say that we call ourselves Turks" .
There is a huge difference in meaning, because to say I am not a Turk, but I call myself a Turk leads some to reason that all nationalities should be ground together into one pulp from which a new human race can evolve.
As you know, historically, such a thing is just not possible.
In this sense, it is clear that, first, the democratization of Turkey must be the most we can strive for and, at the same time, the very least and, secondly, we should put an end to Turkey' s fears that it will crumble as a nation if its recognizes the rights it should be according minority groups, because there are not only the Kurdish minorities, there are also Arabs, crypto-Christians, and other minority groups.
In any case, what is certain is that if we do want to help Turkey, we must insist that the political criteria are respected, and I would like to add the following: to date at least, as far as I know, the only real forces in Turkey in favour of the European strategy are the forces of economy and we should bear this in mind.
. (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank all the Members of the European Parliament for their contributions to this debate.
I have not interpreted their opinions and points of view as giving a red light to this policy, which says 'no, this policy is wrong and we want a different one. We want to deny Turkey the right ever to join the European Union' .
No!
Nobody said that!
And this is something upon which we agree.
I considered the speeches to be demanding ones, calling for the whole process to be scrutinised thoroughly.
The European Parliament obviously has an important role to play in this.
Turkey will not be admitted to the European Union without the European Parliament' s approval.
Well, the decisions made at Helsinki are demanding ones, with clear benchmarks, and we are not currently negotiating Turkey' s accession to the European Union.
Turkey has merely been recognised as a candidate.
In fact, as long ago as 1963, the Ankara Agreement established the possibility that Turkey might join the European Union, with the association agreement to evolve through an initial stage, a transitional stage and a final stage.
The Copenhagen criteria are clear and Turkey must not be discriminated against, either positively or negatively.
Furthermore, the very fact that we are currently making good progress with the planned enlargement of the Union to include Central and Eastern Europe enables us to prove that Turkey is not being discriminated against.
On the contrary, it is being given equal treatment, in the sense that it must comply with a body of legislation, it must amend its own laws and it must behave in the same way in this process as the other countries that have applied for membership.
I can tell you that the Commission is not carrying out an assessment even now.
This has not yet started, but the Commission has been instructed to prepare it.
The Commission is involved in bilateral discussions with Turkey in order to provide it with information on the acquis communautaire.
We have not even moved to the negotiating stage in which the assessment will be undertaken in a multilateral context, with the participation of all countries.
We are, therefore, at an exploratory stage.
We are giving Turkey powerful messages about the need for it to reform itself through its institutions, its laws and its administrative procedures.
We in the Association Council have been very strict with Turkey and Turkey has, to some extent, recognised shortcomings and has stated its willingness to improve them, in particular with regard to laws governing the press, criminal law and the way in which citizenship rights are recognised, specifically in the cultural and language fields.
I think that here too, real progress has been made, although perhaps not progress which has a clear legal form yet.
There have also been steps backwards and we have expressed our deep disappointment at the fate of the leader of one of the most representative human rights organisations, and that of certain council leaders and politicians who have recently been arrested.
It is obvious that the Turkish political process is a complex one.
However, something that can be acknowledged today is that, contrary to what used to happen in crisis situations, when Turkey was always tempted to use military power or to use extremist internal forces, thanks to the guidelines and the frameworks that were laid down in Helsinki, this strategy has contributed in Turkey to the consolidation of pro-European forces, which will, of course, have to develop a completely pro-European programme in terms of constitutional reform, political changes and new legislation.
Criticism must be levelled at the Turks, not in order to prevent them from continuing in this process, but we must monitor the situation closely so that they can implement the changes necessary for this process to continue successfully.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at the next voting session.
Deliberate release into the environment of GMOs
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0083/2000) by Mr Bowe, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 90/220/EEC on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms (11216/1/1999 - C5-0012/2000 - 1998/0072(COD)).
Mr President, I think that today the European Parliament is faced with one of its more important debates in the last few years, given that it is dealing with the dangers of the release of genetically modified organisms into our environment.
It seems to me that this vote could be a watershed.
It would, we hope, give us a new tough set of rules that would ensure that genetically modified crops and other GMO products are used throughout Europe in a safe and sensible way that ensures protection of the environment and guarantees the safety of public health.
There are a number of critical issues which need to be addressed.
The first and the most important is the issue of producer liability.
The European Parliament has long called for legislation which would ensure that companies that want to produce genetically modified organisms would be totally responsible for the products they produce.
In other words, under the terms of the amendments, companies would be required to take out insurance to cover any possible damage to human health or the environment caused by GMOs and could be sued if their crops escaped and created super-wheats or contaminated organic crops or if GM crops were found to damage human health.
Regrettably, instead of accepting their full responsibilities, a number of companies have been launching massive campaigns behind the scenes to try and stop this proposal from advancing.
I am in no doubt that when we have the discussion tomorrow many MEPs will be confused and perhaps split in their vote on this issue.
I feel that the compromise we have found with the Christian Democrats is one that is viable and workable and I hope it will find support here.
At the same time the European Commission can endorse it by giving further reassurances about their own proposals for such a liability measure.
I want to see that European Commission proposals have real teeth when it comes to this Parliament in the not too distant future.
In addition to that critical issue there are also a number of other important questions.
I hope that tomorrow my colleagues will renew their support, as they did at first reading, for the demands for strong new limits on the use of GMOs containing genes with resistance to antibiotics.
Parliament has in the past called for a ban on all GM crops and foods containing such antibiotic-resistant genes, even those used for research.
Tomorrow we may take a softer line, but nevertheless we want to see action in this area.
We want to ensure that serious consideration is given to the dangers of using these crops.
Other measures that I think we need - and on which I would seek the support of the Parliament tomorrow - include new measures to restrict the dangers of the cross-breeding of GMO plants with naturally occurring wild relatives.
We need to ensure that when products are placed in the field, whether they are plants or whether they are animals, they do not cross-breed and irreparably damage the balance that exists in the natural environment around them.
We must also address an issue which was avoided at first reading, and that is the question of the control of the import and export of GMO crops and other GMO products.
Here we need to go to at least as far and perhaps beyond the measures agreed in the Bio-Safety Protocol in Montreal in January.
Many people fear the possible consequences of genetic pollution and it is our job to respond to those fears.
Those fears have recently been heightened by the discovery of GMO-contaminated cotton-seed imported from the USA into Greece for cotton production, which for the moment at least has no approval at all for commercial planting within the EU but nevertheless has found its way across our borders and into use in at least one Member State.
We have been lobbied by very many groups during the process of developing this legislation.
Not just the industry but also Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have given their backing to various aspects of Parliament's report.
They have supported us in continuing to press the Council of Ministers to agree on new GMO rules on licensing as quickly as possible, to bring to an end the de facto moratorium on new GMO commercial approvals, which has been in operation since the Commission published its proposal almost two years ago.
The lobbying has become quite intense in the last few weeks.
The outcome of the vote in Parliament tomorrow is likely to bring a few shocks and surprises.
But it should mean that in six months' time the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the Commission will have arrived at an agreed proposal, at a revised directive for the commercialisation of biotechnological inventions and biotechnological products.
That should give biotechnology companies and others involved in the industry a clear idea of the rules that they have adhere to and consequently a more transparent and predictable regime.
That can be only good for the future development of this new technology within the European Union.
At the same time, I would hope that our governments will be able to assure their consumers and their people that GMOs released into the environment anywhere in Europe will meet the much more stringent standards that we are fixing here in Parliament tomorrow and that the public concerns regarding the protection of human health and the environment from the dangers of GMO inventions have been properly addressed.
And I hope one of the significant non-legislative outcomes of this process will be a shift in the balance of power in the approval and control of GMO crops and food in favour of the public.
For the biotechnology industry that can only be to the good.
It will create an atmosphere, a situation in which it can work carefully, thoroughly and I hope successfully to make positive use of this very brave new technology that we should all welcome, with the appropriate safeguards.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by thanking the rapporteur, David Bowe, for his hard work.
He really has tried to find compromises on this complicated issue but has not succeeded in finding compromises in all areas which all the Groups here in the House are able to support, which is why we shall be voting on one or two points tomorrow.
Those who know me know that I am not a blind advocate of genetic engineering.
Many aspects worry me.
I even have mixed feelings about the announcements which we heard last week on the almost complete decoding of the human genome because I think that we do not yet have enough strict rules in the European Union on the application of biotechnology to human beings in this way.
However, today we are debating the release of genetically modified organisms, especially plants.
And in my view, and in the view of the PPE, this is a different kettle of fish.
The common position is not too weak to guarantee public safety, as some would have us believe; on the contrary, it is very, very strong.
It makes provision for a great many rules to govern monitoring, labelling and informing the public.
The common position offers an adequate level of safety for both man and the environment, which is why the PPE is against tightening up the common position, especially in certain critical areas.
If certain amendments calling for stricter provisions are accepted, then we can kiss biotechnology in the area of plants goodbye and we can totally ban it right away, but that is not what we want to do.
Take the example of genetic transfer.
All we hear about are Frankenstein plants and superweeds.
However, if you study the subject in detail, you will see that it is not a fact that cross-pollination from genetically modified plants is always an environmental disaster.
I have a key witness here.
The former research policy spokesperson for the Greens in the Bundestag once said that no Frankenstein plants were growing in the fields.
Unfortunately, the Greens did not nominate him again for the Bundestag, but he is right nonetheless, which is why we have tabled a motion stating that we should keep an eye on these risks but not totally ban genetic transfer.
We are also opposed to discrimination against biotechnology when it comes to liability.
We do not want specific genetic engineering liability, we want general environmental liability.
It has frequently been said that the Commission must be forced to do something at long last.
I share that view but we must first praise Mrs Wallström here: she promised during the hearing in the European Parliament that she would present a White Paper on environmental liability and she has done so.
Her predecessor failed to do so for several years and we should now move forward on the basis of this White Paper and decide on specific liability rules to be incorporated in the directive.
The common position is not too weak; in our view it is too strong on certain points.
The general 10-year limitation on release consent is impracticable for plant cultivation, which is why we support the motion tabled here by David Bowe that the 10-year period should only apply from the first registration of the plants.
I think that the common position gives us good control of the risks.
We should not make the mistake of gambling away biotechnology' s chances, which is why we shall not be voting in favour of all the tabled amendments.
I should like first of all to thank Mr Bowe for the work that has been done on the recommendation for second reading on amendment of the directive on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms.
I think it is a very competent piece of work, and I think some important improvements have been made to the common position.
I shall single out the points I think are most important.
First and foremost, I think it is right that we should now have an actual ban proposed on the use of substances which can produce resistance to antibiotics.
I think it is important for health reasons.
The second point I would make is that, unlike Mr Liese, I am in favour of including proposals to the effect that measures should, if possible, be taken to prevent gene-transfer from GMOs to other organisms, otherwise known as GMO contamination.
I also think it is important that risks should not be assessed on a case-by-case basis when applications and requests concerning consents are examined. Instead, an attempt should be made to carry out an overall assessment of the accumulated effects of the many consents which are issued upon the fertility of the soil, the food chain, biological diversity and the health issues which are of importance to us as human beings.
I think that is a major flaw in current practice in this area.
In this connection, I also think that consents ought to be reviewed every ten years, so that they can only be issued for up to ten years at a time.
In that way, we can be properly sure that the necessary monitoring is carried out.
I also think it is right that this proposal should provide us with legislation ensuring that, whenever vertical legislation is enacted in specific areas, the same conditions regarding risk assessment and monitoring should be complied with as also apply in the case of the general directive.
Finally, I would call attention to the question of objective liability.
I agree with the original proposal in Mr Bowe' s report to the effect that businesses seeking consents should be made objectively liable and that liability insurance must also be taken out in connection with an application for consent.
If insurance cannot be taken out to cover such circumstances, then the risk in granting a licence is too great.
I hope we shall see the adoption of these amendments designed to tighten up on the common position.
If they are adopted, I also believe we shall obtain a legal basis for granting future consents for GMOs which serves our interests and which will provide the necessary security.
In that way, we shall, in actual fact, obtain the legal basis that should have been in place before the first consent for new GMO crops was issued.
In my opinion, the present legal basis is far too weak.
Mr President, I would like to stress that this is a debate on procedural questions regarding the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms, or GMOs.
Contrary to what one might think, this is not a fundamental debate on the pros and cons of GMOs or its principles, for that matter.
Needless to say, how we perceive GMOs will be reflected in the positions we adopt during the discussion about these procedures and the framework around them.
In simple terms: in the extensive amendments to this report, which is excellent by the way, the most important aspect seems to be that either we decide to make life easier for the GMO industry or we decide to give it sleepless nights.
But the discussion also reveals that the production of genetically modified food has prompted quite a few questions: ethical and moral questions, questions related to public health and the environment, questions as to what opportunities industry and research are given and questions regarding the freedom of choice for consumers.
The following points are key issues for the Liberal group and these will also influence our voting behaviour.
First and foremost, there is the issue of the freedom of choice for consumers.
It is, of course, too crazy for words, really, that if you want GM-free food, you will need to settle for food with a guaranteed maximum GMO content of 1%.
This is not dealt with as such in the draft directive but public information, labelling and transparency which crop up in this context are very much part and parcel of this issue.
Secondly, we would like to see the public have plenty of opportunity to have its say during the approval procedure of GMOs.
Thirdly, we would welcome a streamlined procedure that offers security to both consumers and producers and, as far as we are concerned, better harmonisation throughout the European Union.
Fourthly, we would like to see research promoted in Europe in the field of biotechnology so as to offer more clarity regarding what is and is not feasible.
One controversial issue is producer liability.
We are in favour of the self-regulating effect this has.
Ideally, we would like to see this liability included in the long-awaited horizontal regulation of environmental liability.
However, some of us are tired of waiting for this horizontal regulation in which the Commission has been engrossed for some 10 years now, and we want to move forward.
The present proposal is important to both producers and consumers and is welcomed by the liberal group.
We, too, would like to congratulate the diligent rapporteur on this report.
Mr President, where the release of genetically modified crops into the environment is concerned, the precautionary principle must be the decisive factor. At present, it ought to entail a moratorium on the release of new genetically modified crops into the environment.
Scientific ambiguities, especially where the risk of dissemination is concerned, and deficiencies in legislation and in the application of international agreements are both factors which justify a moratorium.
We also consider that each EU country should be entitled to have a tougher policy than the EU in this area, and we shall therefore vote against Amendment No 6 concerning a common EU procedure governing the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment.
The proposals to be adopted tomorrow will not go anything like so far as we would have wished.
We shall therefore vote in favour of as satisfactory a solution as possible to the issue as a whole. This means that we shall be voting in favour of most, but not all, of the proposals in the Bowe report.
We shall be voting in favour of a situation in which those who release genetically modified crops into the environment are held fully liable under civil law.
We want to see an end to the use of antibiotic resistance markers We want to see clear, compulsory labelling, and we demand that each application should be dealt with separately, and with no use of simplified application procedures.
We are also in favour of having a clear obligation for the provision of information and in favour of recipient countries' being approved in the case of exports to third countries.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive on procedures for the authorisation of genetically modified organisms has been returned to this House for second reading, even though events since the first reading have done nothing but heighten the fears that we originally expressed.
On 11 February 1999, at first reading, we opposed this proposal since we considered that it in no way controlled the risks that GMOs pose to the environment and to animal and human health and that a straightforward application of the precautionary principle should have resulted if not in the definitive prohibition of the release of these organisms, at least in a moratorium lasting several years.
Furthermore, we were critical of the authorisation procedures stipulated in the proposal, which seemed to us too lenient and inordinately centralised.
A year on, studies have been conducted that even more clearly highlight the dangers of releasing GMOs.
As recently as last week, a committee of inquiry from the French National Assembly concluded, and I quote, that it 'considered the placing on the market of new products deriving from genetically modified organisms to be premature' .
In these circumstances, we find the text which has been presented to the House for second reading increasingly outmoded.
All our principled objections, including the request for an official moratorium, are all the more relevant today and, as was the case with BSE, we would like to see any country which is convinced that it is running a serious risk being entitled to take national prohibition and safeguard measures.
How is it possible, in this day and age, that we have to demand a right as self-evident as this?
Mr President, in February 1999, we discussed the revision of Directive 90/220 at first reading.
I would remind you that in his contribution, Mr Blokland talked about the importance of the precautionary principle.
We are thus delighted that the Council has underlined this principle in the common position.
Both in the main body of the Directive itself, notably in Article 1, and in its application, the precautionary principle has been accorded an important role when it comes to weighing it up against economic interests.
I mainly have the restriction of the simplified procedure and the attention to GMO traceability in mind.
On the whole, we should therefore be satisfied with the present proposals.
We are thankful to Mr Bowe for his report, which once again contains proposals which we are totally behind.
We are particularly delighted with the stricter wording related to reducing the risks for consumers.
Compared to Amendment No 32, the original Amendment to Article 28 (1) was more forceful, in our opinion.
It very explicitly spelled out the possibility of consulting ethical committees in the case of ethical issues.
The present Amendment No 32, on the other hand, only underlines the importance of being open with the public.
We regret this toning down.
Finally, I would like to point out that it is not sufficient to map out and restrict the risks pertaining to these new production methods.
Plants and animals are not production factors which can simply be manipulated.
The biotechnology debate requires an integral ethical approach.
We believe that God created the world.
Based on this awareness, we need to treat the natural world around us responsibly.
Mr President, this is a debate about plant research and plant protection from research.
It is a debate about the potential of GMOs for good and their potential for risk, and how you manage that risk.
You cannot abolish risk because it is part of our natural environment.
We cannot prevent all man-made risk because that would end scientific progress.
But we must respond to public concern about the potential and unknown dangers to our environment, to our food chain and to our health.
I believe there are four areas where we must act to reassure the public.
I believe we can do so without destroying biotechnology.
Firstly, antibiotic-resistant genes must be phased out.
The amendment sets a realistic, but urgent date of 2005 for that.
Secondly, we must be open with the public about where experimental crops are being grown.
That is only right. It is fair.
In return we must ask environmental action groups to show restraint and responsibility with regard to that knowledge.
Thirdly, we must build on the Montreal Protocol as far as the export of GMOs is concerned, and this should be done on the basis of mutual agreement and transparency.
Fourthly, as many Members have said, we must ensure liability; but it is a question of whether we need any greater liability than applies to other environmental risks.
I suspect we do not, so long as we already have criminal, civil, product and environmental liability in law.
That should suffice, but it is wise to add the provision on negligence as something which can be brought into play within the courts.
We can gain real benefits from GMOs if we get it right.
Fewer crop sprays, for example, would benefit the environment if we grew GMO crops that did not need so many crop sprays.
But we have to take the public with us, with the science.
I believe these measures will help to do just that.
Mr President, ideally GMOs should not be released into the environment.
But if it is going to happen there have to be a number of measures taken to ensure that the industries that say this technology is safe take responsibility.
That is why I cannot understand why the industry and the lobbyists are so concerned about the issue of liability.
If they are so sure that their products are safe then why are they afraid to take responsibility, both as regards liability and compensation?
The other issue I should like to address is the contamination of gene transfer.
We have a situation where, for example, conventional farms can be contaminated with GMOs.
That means there is no free choice, either for the farmers themselves - and that goes for organic farmers too - or for the consumers, in the long run.
If you have contamination of conventional farms or organic farms, there is basically no free option for the consumer.
This is not acceptable.
At the end of the day, the GMO industry does not have anything to offer the consumer or the environment, even as regards the use of chemicals.
It is ironic to think that the same industries that are promoting this so-called chemical-free agriculture are the very same ones that have bombarded us with chemicals over the years and are making those crops reliant on chemicals in the future as well.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Bowe for his report and, in one minute, mention four fundamental questions which have already been discussed.
Firstly, the protection of public health.
It seems to us that we should strictly forbid the use of antibiotic-resistant genes.
Germany, Luxembourg and Austria have shown the way by banning Novartis maize, which has a gene which is resistant to ampicillin, a wide spectrum antibiotic.
Secondly, the commitment to international agreements.
Amendment No 1 refers to the Montreal Protocol and the need to defend biosafety and the consultation of and request for authorisation from non-EU countries for exports.
Thirdly, the civil liability clause, which is clearly necessary for those who are responsible for the release of these genetically modified organisms which may have effects on health or the environment.
Finally, Mr President, the prevention of genetic contamination. This means preventing the spreading of transgenic pollen which may travel and contaminate other plants and, therefore, seriously affect the environment.
Mr President, I should like to start by complimenting Mr Bowe on his objective and balanced presentation.
In previous debates in Parliament I have put on record my own views in relation to biotechnology.
In the short time available, I appeal to the Commission and, indeed, Parliament to urgently expedite the conclusions necessary to allay consumer fears concerning the public health, environmental and ethical aspects of a technology which has the potential to make a significant contribution to food production and public health.
Of course there are concerns on the part of consumers.
They are entitled to an in-depth and independent evaluation of what is a rapidly changing technology.
The longer we allow the confusion to exist, the greater the delay in enabling society to benefit from its full potential.
In this regard the bio-industry has itself contributed in no small way to public unease by the planned introduction of unacceptable practices such as seed-terminator technology and other ethical issues such as experimentation with human embryos.
It was the vigilance of this Parliament in particular that raised a warning flag in relation to many aspects of the application of this research.
But there are now welcome indications that the industry has taken on board Parliament's concern in this regard.
An indication of the potential of genetic research to make a positive contribution to food production is demonstrated by the very recent announcement by Monsanto of a significant breakthrough on the genetic structure of rice, which is the staple food on which millions in the developing world depend and about which there is considerable concern with regard to the continuity of supply.
The bottom line in relation to every aspect of the application of GMO technology, particularly in food production, is transparency, consumer information and accurate labelling.
In short, the consumer must at all times be given a choice.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, European consumers are justifiably concerned about genetically modified organisms and their release.
The industrial lobby continues, unscrupulously and in the name of the great god profit, to play the sorcerer' s apprentice, juggling dangerously with food safety and consumer health.
It is Europe' s duty to pass stringent legislation that will make these alchemists accountable and to guarantee product quality whilst also providing citizens with clear information.
We totally agree with the line of thinking adopted in this report.
The emphasis should be placed on the traceability facilitated by comprehensive information, including that aimed at third countries which import or export GMOs.
Indeed, consumer safety calls for equal treatment with a view to avoiding any deflection of trade or the export of products unsaleable on the European market.
We must also require the prior approval of the recipient country before any trade can take place.
If the liability of the operator responsible for release is to be officially established, it would also be advisable to define this liability precisely and unhurriedly, in order to avoid introducing an over-general concept of environmental liability.
Lastly, the risks to the environment should be assessed via an annual cost-benefit analysis of these GMO releases, carried out in a transparent manner and extended to cover animal and plant health as well as public and private goods.
Mr President, there has been a significant increase in biotechnology applications and they are becoming more and more important both to the economy and to society, because using applications derived from genetically-modified organisms will be instrumental in improving our quality of life.
Hence, it is essential that we introduce a modern framework governing the development, marketing and exploitation of genetically-modified organisms.
Europe must not be left behind the USA and Japan.
This, however, does not mean that we should overlook the safety issues surrounding these innovative applications, such as public health safety and environmental protection.
I must point out that we have all witnessed the ongoing war of words recently over the safety of genetically modified organisms.
This has led to confusion amongst consumers and has resulted in their being unable to form a sound judgement on the benefits and dangers of biotechnology.
We should therefore win consumer confidence and the way to do so is by improving safety standards.
For example, we can build up public confidence by banning the creation or use of GMOs containing antibiotic-resistant genes and by providing agencies and the general public with detailed and objective information.
Parliament called at first reading for amendments to be incorporated into this directive which cover the above two objectives, i.e. the creation of a useful framework of rules for the deliberate release and trade in GMOs, accompanied by safety measures for the protection of public health and the environment and information for the public and consumers.
It is also important for provision to be made for the directive to be adjusted and amended in line with new developments resulting from the fast pace of change in biotechnology and its applications.
In closing, I should like to dwell on one point which I stressed in the Committee on the Environment and which deserves our particular attention, and that is the issue of safety.
We are awaiting a more general proposal from the Commission on product liability and safety.
We must not overreact if we want this directive to promote and support such a promising sector.
Mr President, to genetically modify food means to break through the barrier that divides different species, for example by introducing a fish gene into a strawberry. This is not possible in conventional agriculture.
Tinkering with genes holds unknown risks. This is why measures are needed to prevent gene transfer so that this fish gene cannot contaminate conventionally or organically grown strawberries.
According to the gene tech industry, the risks of such unwanted contamination are low.
If these risks are so low, why is it then that the gene tech industry refuses to accept any legal liability? But maybe there is a risk for the environment and human health and in those cases, such a liability clause is most definitely needed.
The Christian Democrats are playing a dangerous game. Whilst they are in favour of a liability clause in the directive on disposing of dangerous waste, they suddenly want to wait five years when it comes to gene technology.
If liability pertaining to gene food is not regulated now, suspicion among the public regarding this type of food will only grow.
The Christian Democratic position will rebound perfectly off the gene industry.
Mr President, I would urge colleagues to strengthen this report by insisting on environmental liability.
Producers of GMOs should be required to take out insurance against any damage to human health or to the environment from the release of their products.
The Commission promised the introduction of horizontal legislation over ten years ago.
But even though we now have a White Paper, the actual legislation is some years away.
This means that, if it is not accepted into this directive, the victims will have to pay for any damage instead of the companies that are making the profits.
Thousands of people across Europe have chosen not to buy products containing GMOs because of the evidence of health and environmental damage.
We must address those very real issues.
I would urge colleagues to accept my group's amendments on liability insurance, GMO contamination and the ban on antibiotic-resistant genes.
Consumers are demanding the strictest controls and will be satisfied by nothing less.
It is vital that all the necessary safeguards are now included in this directive.
Mr President, I am pleased that Parliament, in collaboration with the Council, is now finally in a position to give Europe a chance to make its influence felt in the sphere of GMOs.
We must be careful, however, that we do not now just sit back in the belief that we have finished our work.
We have selected an authorisation procedure which is more restrictive than its American equivalent, and this will of course be significant in terms of our ability to hold onto the best companies and researchers.
The time limits we adopt for processing applications should not, therefore, be applied as the rule but, instead, constitute an absolute maximum.
We must reject the proposal that the entire liability for any damage should be shifted onto whoever has released the GMOs into the environment.
A natural consequence of Europe' s strict authorisation procedure must be that the authorities assume a portion of the liability.
Only by sharing the liability between the authorities and businesses in this way will it be possible to offset the competitive disadvantages presented by the laborious approval procedure, and only in this way will be able to compete with the Americans.
Mr President, when I started at the Commission last autumn I realised very quickly that the directive on the deliberate release of GMOs would be one of the most sensitive dossiers under my responsibility.
Genetically modified products and biotechnology give rise to a number of questions and concerns. The most important are perhaps: what are the benefits?
What are the risks?
How do we best avoid possible negative effects? How do we ensure that we have access to all the relevant information?
To tackle these three concerns raised by our citizens we need a wide and open debate where all key players participate and the discussion cannot be limited only to the experts.
Here the European institutions, the Member States, industry and science all have to take their responsibilities.
The basis for meeting these new challenges has to be an efficient and transparent legislative framework.
I should especially like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bowe, and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy for their hard work in making a rapid and important contribution.
Our role as European policymakers should be to provide for a balanced response to these new challenges.
We need a regulatory framework, based on safety and the precautionary principle which ensure a high level of protection for human health and environment.
At the same time, it has to allow society to benefit from the development of modern biotechnology.
Our European legislation on GMOs guarantees an individual and thorough risk assessment of each GMO product placed on the European market.
We are here today to strengthen and improve the existing framework.
The sensitivity and complexity of the matter might explain why we are confronted with a total number of 52 amendments at second reading.
The Commission can accept in their entirety Amendments Nos 9, 17, 19, 29 and 47, which improve the quality and the clarity of the texts.
The Commission can also accept in principle Amendments Nos 1 to 4, 8, 11, 24, 35 to 38, 46, 48, 49 and 52.
They further strengthen the intention of the Commission to establish an efficient transparent and balanced regulatory framework for GMOs.
Let me comment further on Amendment No 1 and Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 28, which all relate to the biosafety protocol and obligations for imports and exports of GMOs.
The European Community was one of the driving forces in the successful adoption of the Cartagena Protocol on biosafety in January.
The Commission therefore welcomes the spirit of Amendment No 1.
This refers to the need to submit the appropriate proposals for the implementation of the protocol when ratified - work has already begun.
However, the Commission cannot accept the inclusion of provisions on import and export obligations in the text of the directive.
We believe that the implications of the protocol on the overall European Union legislative framework have yet to be fully assessed.
Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 28 are therefore not acceptable in the present revision.
Let me now turn to the issue of liability, and I know that this is an important political subject for all of you.
When I made my presentation to Parliament in the autumn I promised that I would make particular reference to GMOs in the White Paper on environmental liability.
The Commission did exactly that when adopting the White Paper this year.
The Commission is of the opinion that a horizontal approach is the most efficient way to guarantee a comprehensive responsibility regime for environmental damage.
This will provide clarity for complainants and prevent loopholes.
This is also the best way to complement the existing horizontal system for product liability already covering GMOs.
I can assure you that I will do my utmost to be able to present a proposal for legislation on liability before the end of 2001.
I can therefore accept Amendments Nos 2, 36 and 46 in principle, as far as they refer to the Commission White Paper.
Let us be clear, if this is put in this directive, rules will have to be made to ensure legal clarity, and how long will that take? It must be seen in that context.
However, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 33, 40 and 45.
I am also fully aware of the political importance of certain other aspects raised by the proposed amendments.
It is clear that antibiotic resistance marker genes need to be phased out and be replaced with alternatives as soon as practically possible.
A phase-out is already foreseen in the common position.
The Commission agrees to strengthen this political message. The Commission cannot agree to a general ban of GMOs containing antibiotic resistance marker genes.
At the moment there is no scientific evidence that all GMOs of this type present adverse effects to human health and the environment.
Instead, we should continue to carry out a comprehensive case-by-case risk analysis.
Within these limits, Amendments Nos 11, 37, 48 and 52 are therefore acceptable in principle.
The Commission can also accept in principle Amendments Nos 3, 4, 8, 24 and 35 to the extent that they are in line with the logic of the texts and fit within the overall legislative framework.
The Commission can therefore agree to a recital concerning socio-economic aspects which refers to the reporting obligation of the Commission.
This will be done every three years under Article 30.
The Commission welcomes Amendments Nos 38 and 49 concerning gene transfer.
They constitute a balanced approach between a total prevention and a permissive approach.
However, the wording should be aligned with the text of the directive.
In addition, the Commission reference should be deleted since the Commission does not necessarily play a role under Part B - national consent.
However, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 12 concerning the prevention of gene transfer.
Gene transfer between organisms is, as we know, a common phenomenon in nature.
Instead we need to ensure that potential risks from gene transfer are thoroughly assessed before GMO products are released for research or placed on the market.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 22 and 23 as they stand, since the provisions foreseen in these amendments would not be workable within the authorisation system established by the directive. This is both for administrative and legal reasons.
The Commission, however, acknowledges that these amendments aim at addressing the possible problems that certain industries might face with strict time-limited consent.
This concerns in particular the plant breeding industry.
The Commission will therefore consider how due account can be taken of these concerns while ensuring political, legal and administrative consistency.
In this context, Amendment No 26 is also not acceptable since this would limit the flexibility of the optional time limitation of consent for the renewal.
Amendment No 25 seeks to introduce a provision which allows for the introduction of differentiated procedures under Part C of the directive.
This builds on the original proposal as presented at first reading in Parliament.
However, this amendment goes beyond the Commission proposal and is therefore not acceptable to the Commission as it stands.
The Commission is, however, willing to reconsider this amendment in the light of its original proposal and within the framework of an overall compromise.
Finally, I should like to deal as a package with the amendments I have not yet addressed.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 21 since the legal basis of future legislative measures is subject to its content and cannot be established in advance by this directive.
Amendment No 6, concerning a centralised Community procedure, is not acceptable.
However, I should like to stress that careful evaluation of a centralised procedure would be done in the Commission report required under Article 30 of the directive.
Access to the work of the European Group on Ethics and their opinions is an important of the general evaluation.
The Commission is, however, of the opinion that this is already appropriately covered in the Rules of Procedure of the Committee.
Amendment No 32 is therefore not acceptable.
Amendments Nos 5, 7, 10, 15, 16, 18, 20, 27, 30, 31, 34, 39, 41 to 44, 50 and 51 are also not acceptable since they would introduce legal and technical uncertainty or jeopardise the overall balance achieved in the common position.
To conclude, we urgently need a revised Directive 90/220.
It has to ensure a high level of protection for human health and the environment and, at the same time, allow society to profit from the benefits of these new technologies.
To strike the right balance between these two justified concerns we need a transparent process, a wide dialogue and strong political leadership.
We all have to take our responsibilities in achieving this, and this is the only way in which we will win the trust and confidence of our citizens.
Mr President, I think that tomorrow' s vote is so important that I should like to ask the Commissioner to clarify two points so that we know what we are voting on tomorrow.
Commissioner, my first question is this: have I understood you correctly, can you promise that you are making provision for an environmental liability with compulsory insurance, yes or no? I just want a yes or no.
Or is it correct that you only agree to liability as set out in the White Paper, i.e. just for Natura 2000 areas and with no compulsory insurance. In plain text, this means that if damage occurs and the person responsible cannot be held liable, the general public, i.e. the taxpayer will pay for it.
Can you give Parliament a guarantee - and I should like a yes or no - that compulsory insurance is contained in a horizontal directive?
My second point is this: unfortunately, you did not go into proposed Amendment No 42.
Can you confirm that there is no EU legislation for GMOs in contained use? You know that the contained use directive excludes this and, at the same time, Article 2 (4) of the common position makes no provision for regulations on GMOs for contained use.
There is a gap in the legislation here and I think that this is very important for tomorrow' vote.
For example, transgenetic fish in contained use would not be covered by the two directives.
I should like a clear answer on this.
I am not reopening the debate.
I will give the floor to the Commissioner if she wants to respond to these two specific points, but I thought the Commissioner's response was very clear and comprehensive.
Commissioner, do you wish to reply?
. Mr President, I shall start with the second part of Mrs Breyer's question.
It is true that there is no specific Community legislation for the contained use of genetically modified plants and animals.
However, Article 2(4) of the common position obliges Member States to ensure that these GMOs are handed over to a third party only if stringent containment measures are in place, otherwise notification under Part C of the directive is necessary.
Amendment No 42 would prevent any exchange of genetically modified plants and animals for research activities under contained use until Community legislation is in force.
That is why we cannot accept Amendment No 42.
As you know, we have now issued a White Paper on environmental liability.
It is now open for comments and views and we are ready to discuss it because I want to ensure that this environmental liability paper covers GMOs.
Your views are also welcome.
I intend to ensure that this paper covers GMOs.
It already covers product liability.
Insurance is one thing we will have to look into in more depth and also get the views of other parties on the practical aspects.
The White Paper is a first step, as you know.
That has to be discussed in depth and I will come back with a proposal.
I believe it will be possible to put an insurance system in place.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Identification, registration and labelling of beef
The next item is the report by Mr Papayannakis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products and repealing Council Regulation (EC) 820/97, (COM(1999) 487 - C5-0240/1999 - 1999/0204(COD)).
- (EL) Mr President, we all know that the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis, the mad cow crisis, is yet another crime which has not been punished, and I doubt it ever will.
But aside from this serious issue, it has left us with an institutional crisis, a market crisis, a drop in sales of beef products, a drop in prices and, most importantly, a consumer confidence crisis.
The regulation under discussion has come too late, much too late in my opinion, but all the same it will help to provide some answers, some solutions and it will help us to take some action to restore consumer confidence.
As you will recall, we fought a hard battle over this regulation last December in order to protect the rights of the European Parliament.
We also fought a battle to push through the implementation of the measures laid down in this regulation as swiftly as possible.
In short, we all know what we are talking about.
On the basis of this regulation, very soon, this year, all bovine animals will, by law, have to be identified and monitored right up to slaughter.
Meat from bovine animals will carry a label indicating the origin and history of the animals from which the meat is derived.
During our analysis of this regulation, we tried to cater for a great many demands and a great many opinions.
We wanted the provisions of the regulation to be kept as simple as possible so that they could be applied, and applied as quickly as possible.
Let us not forget that the system we are going to implement is an extremely complex, extremely technical system, and concerns approximately 100 million animals throughout the EU.
So we are talking about an extremely complex operation.
The system therefore needs to be simple and practicable and it needs to be comprehensible to the consumer; this is of utmost importance to us. Above all, it must not contain exceptions or what we call loopholes, i.e. ways in which the regulation can be contravened either through complex wording or because of local or special exceptions or applications.
I believe that we have managed to achieve this.
The system that Parliament is endeavouring to establish though its amendments could be applied from 1 September 2000 onwards and we insist on this because one demand of the entire House was that specific dates and deadlines should be set at long last and that we should get started.
I would just like to look at two amendments, two categories of amendments.
First, your rapporteur is calling, with the greatest respect, for a report, a Commission proposal, within the year, on the application of this system to meat products.
If we want to be taken seriously, we should also take account of consumer confidence in all meat products, of which, as we all know, there are a great many.
And secondly, some amendments deal with how permits are to be granted to enterprises, operators and so on to apply the labels, to label the meat.
The provisions recommended by the Commission are, to my mind, extremely minimal.
The interested party submits an application and, after a period of time, the system which he wishes to apply is applied.
I propose that we change this system.
Anyone labelling meat must have explicit approval from the competent public authorities.
This may seem a little more laborious, but we already have a laborious system and we must, at all costs, have state approval for meat labelling. If not, then I am afraid that the system will become too lax and may even become corrupt, and, as a result, we will not achieve our main goal of winning consumer confidence in the system.
Mr President, as draftsman of the Committee on Agriculture, I should like to recapitulate a number of the committee' s main causes for concern on this question.
The most important objective of the Commission proposal - and I should like expressly to stress this once again - is the traceability of beef or bovine animals from birth through to processing and sale.
This is one of the consequences of the BSE crisis and we must bear the objective of this proposal, i.e. traceability, in mind when debating what information should appear on the label.
We want labels which are practicable, simple, safe, cheap and easy to control.
Labels must be easy for consumers to understand, which is why the information needs to be kept to a minimum.
Consumers want information, not a novel.
Information on the fattening process and, where applicable, on antibiotics or other stimulants administered, as demanded in proposed Amendment No 48, have absolutely no business to be on the label.
Information which does not come under compulsory labelling but which is requested by market participants or is already included on labels in the Member States can continue to be included within the framework of voluntary labelling.
This applies in particular to information on the region of origin of the meat.
As far as the entry into force of the regulation is concerned, we agree in principle with the Commission' s approach that compulsory labelling should be introduced in two stages, but we do not agreed with the timetable insofar as we think that the date of 1 January 2003 has been put far too far back.
We shall have problems explaining this to consumers.
The Committee on Agriculture agreed on the wording "by 1 January 2002 at the latest" in a compromise on the introduction of compulsory information on origin, i.e. stage 2.
Now the Committee on the Environment has opted for 1 September 2001 and I think that we can agree to this date.
It is only a matter of four months.
But we are emphatically against making all the information, including the indication of the place of birth, compulsory when the regulation enters into force in September 2000, rather than in two stages.
That makes no sense, as the electronic database on which traceability depends is not yet up and running in the majority of Member States.
A compulsory labelling system for beef can only be as good as the system for registering bovine animals and all their movements.
Mr President, beef labelling has two distinct functions.
Firstly, traceability in the case of a food safety incident - the recent E. coli outbreak in Scotland for example - and, secondly, to give consumers information about the origin of beef at the point of sale.
The two should not be confused.
For traceability we need maximum information made available to the authorities as and when required but the consumer label should be simple, concise and unambiguous.
The need for information sprang from the BSE crisis.
Member States have differing levels of BSE incidence but there are also variations in the measures to eradicate the disease and protect human health.
Although the United Kingdom has the highest incidence of BSE, it also has the most comprehensive control measures.
Other countries, which admittedly have lower declared levels of BSE, operate a whole-herd slaughter policy which entails the risk of the under-reporting of cases.
Therefore people want to know which country their beef comes from.
Reference to regions should not be an alternative to country of origin but a voluntary addition.
Even regions like Yorkshire, Britain' s premier region and coincidentally the region I represent, are not known by every citizen throughout the EU.
From a marketing and promotional point of view smaller areas and localities could be used, as well as regional breeds such as Aberdeen Angus.
The well established description of Scotch beef should continue to be used.
Small traditional butcher shops that sell beef unpackaged should be allowed to display information as an alternative to labelling each item.
Many consumers would be confused if given information about hanging or maturation, which could be mixed up with sell-by dates in their minds.
I would draw attention particularly to Amendment No 41 which seeks to exclude farmers from Community aid schemes if the regulation is not strictly adhered to.
I have already had cases drawn to my attention regarding other EU schemes where honest errors by farmers, who are not professional bureaucrats, have resulted in punitive sanctions which often threaten the future of a family farm.
We should not go down this road.
The listing of antibiotics and stimulants that might have been administered would, if adopted, create a two-tier beef market.
Animal welfare would be compromised as farmers would be reluctant to treat animals therapeutically.
Similarly, reference to fattening methods should not be introduced.
I hope that in amending this regulation Parliament can for once simplify rather than embellish and make the labelling of beef consumer-, butcher- and farmer-friendly.
Mr President, my group welcomed the report by Mr Papayannakis and salutes him for his persistence.
I say that because he comes from a small political group - and it is often hard to make headway here - and he comes from one of the southern Member States, which will in some ways have to make sacrifices and introduce regulations to bring about effective, proper beef labelling throughout the Community.
He has also had to face the obfuscation and delays brought about by the Council.
The fact that we have had to wait two years for this proposal to become a practical reality is a poor comment on the urgency with which they regard it, although the situation was plainly critical from the time of the outbreak of the BSE crisis onwards.
However, we are not here today for recriminations but for looking ahead.
This is our chance to put right this sorry process of delay.
Parliament has the opportunity, if it is willing to grasp it, to set a realistic timetable for the two-tier implementation of a comprehensive process of labelling for beef and for beef products.
In the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, we supported most of the amendments from the rapporteur and others and we do so again today.
We do that on the basis that the key proposal plainly has to be the issue of timing.
Some of the versions of this report in themselves have been contradictory in the dates that they gave.
We are now talking about implementation of the first stage in September 2000 and the second stage in September 2001.
I was glad to hear the representative of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development say that they would settle for the four-month advance that would involve coming forward from January 2002.
We believe that this is necessary because we should now get the whole European Union on the move.
That is why we want the second stage as set out in Article 13(5) to be distinct and a commensurate advance.
Why do we want that?
There are some here - certainly some from Member States that have very effective traceability and labelling possibilities already - who would like to do the whole thing at once.
They would be able to say to others: look - you cannot do it, you are at fault.
Our job is to bring all 15 Member States together so that the process of traceability throughout the whole of the food chain, from the birth of the animal to its slaughter and disposal, would be universally applied throughout the European Union.
We say to those who are resistant to this: please remember that it is necessary to bring everybody on board.
What everybody wants - whether they are farmers, citizens or consumers in the United Kingdom or anywhere else in the Union - is to feel that they have equal confidence, wherever they are, in the safety of the product that they are consuming.
We have struck out the second subparagraph of Article 13(5) and all other amendments which follow the same line of allowing imprecise mixed origins or an indication such as "EU origin".
One day "EU origin" may be assurance enough but it is not at this moment.
We need to know from which state a product has arrived.
I know that there are people in the Netherlands who disagree with that and I would be interested to know why.
I cannot see that "EU origin" is currently sufficient in the way of labelling and we are opposed to that proposal.
We are also opposed to the derogation for minced beef, which might apply to something like 30% of the beef output, which ought to be open to labelling.
Minced beef is as much, if not more, at risk as any other form of beef since it frequently comes from a variety of sources.
It is the case in my country that we have seen minced beef and lamb and other meats mixed up together.
We need traceability and labelling there as much as anywhere else.
We agree with the rapporteur' s intention to stiffen and speed up the compliance provisions in Amendments Nos 42 and 43.
We also agree that supplementary information should and can be provided for those Member States that need it and for those special regions which have important information to communicate.
My last point is to end where I began. My country, Mr President, and yours - if I can call Scotland my country too, as I certainly would - have suffered the horrors of BSE.
We know we bore a large part of the responsibility for it.
It was incumbent upon us to make special provisions by way of food safety as a result.
After our years of effort to that end, we can now justifiably say to the Community as a whole that what we want for ourselves we want for everyone else as well.
Mr President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, it is important to reinstate market confidence.
It is, however, still more important to restore citizens' confidence in the food they buy and eat - in actual fact, it is perhaps in that way that the market will be strengthened.
The crucial factor is that it should be possible to trace with certainty the origins of what we eat.
Amendment No 29 is very important for producers, above all perhaps for small producers in vulnerable areas.
This Amendment would entitle producers to provide information on the label in addition to the name of the nation where the goods concerned originate.
There would be the option to state, for example, the particular area from which the meat comes or the fact that a particular breed of cattle or special breeding methods have been used.
However, there should be no legislation on this matter, other than a ban on lying.
I am very pleased about Mr Whitehead' s remark about minced meat.
I fully and wholeheartedly support Amendment No 30 from the rapporteur.
For me, the most important aspect of this whole issue is that no exceptions should be made for cheap food.
We who sit in this Chamber, for the most part middle-aged and well-to-do, know perfectly well that it is young people and families with children who buy and eat the cheapest food - sausages, hamburgers etc.
In all social systems and at all periods in history, the most vulnerable groups have had the least purchasing power.
It is our absolute moral duty first and foremost to make cheap food safe before we do the same for fillet of beef.
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Parliament has proven its far-sightedness on this matter and I should like to thank the two rapporteurs from the Committee on the Environment and the Committee on Agriculture for their work.
They have approached the issue with the same consistency demonstrated by the European Parliament.
Allow me to refresh your memory: compulsory registration has applied for a long time, because Regulation No 820/97 entered into force on 1 January 2000.
The postponement adopted is not lawful.
The European Parliament has filed charges against the Council because the postponement was not within the Council' s discretion.
Nor did the Commission come up smelling of roses here.
It was the Commission which proposed this seemingly elegant but legally dubious procedure.
If nothing is done, compulsory labelling will enter into force on 1 September 2000.
The Commission is therefore urged to accept the European Parliament' s proposals in this codecision process by 1 September.
We have tried in our suit to ensure that no equally elegant attempt will be made to implement an extension on 1 September - and I hope that we shall succeed in putting a stop to this.
If we cannot agree on Parliament' s proposals by 1 September, then the old regulation with the compulsory system will enter into force.
I therefore hope that you will implement Parliament' s reasonable proposals and that you will give up your plan to postpone this once again until the year 2003.
It will confuse our citizens and will certainly meet with decisive resistance here in Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, consumers can be given a guaranteed indication of origin for the majority, I repeat the majority of foodstuffs and for beef in its many and varied forms, if they so wish.
The basis for this was and still is the passport for each individual animal which provides information on place, origin and birth.
Thanks to comprehensive controls of and the wealth of data on the animal trade, the place of origin and rearing can be proven.
What I mean is that we are not starting from square one and, as a producer of several tonnes of beef a year, I know what I am talking about.
The latest crisis in the foodstuffs sector may justify the introduction of stricter standards, as contained in the report; however, where possible, red tape should be reduced.
I agree with all the proposed amendments which are predicated upon greater promotion of regional marketing and processing of agricultural products and which help to build up regional markets and create greater transparency, irrespective of the date on which they are introduced.
Mr President, the people who will be most shocked to learn of this evening' s debate must surely be European consumers.
They will be astounded to learn that, so many years after the start of the BSE crisis, the European Union still does not have a reliable traceability system for beef.
Quite clearly, though, consumer confidence must be restored, as a matter of urgency, by guaranteeing the consumer perfect traceability from the stable to the table, so that any potential risk to human health can be efficiently eliminated at an early stage.
Fortunately, the appropriate initiatives by the most enterprising Member States have compensated for the extraordinarily slow reactions of the Community apparatus.
It is therefore all the more deplorable that they should have been deprived of this possibility by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I am thinking in particular of the compulsory labelling system which was drawn up in France together with livestock farmers and distributors, which has been in force since 1996.
This system has proved very effective. It has made it possible to restore consumer confidence.
France' s legitimate wish not to lift the embargo on British beef prematurely, since Britain did not offer the same guarantees of traceability, was in order to maintain this restored level of confidence.
France had simply forgotten that it no longer had the right to do this.
What a decidedly strange Europe it is that penalises Member States which take the necessary initiatives and action to restore consumer confidence and protect citizens' health!
If legal action can now only be taken at Community level, then let us at least act quickly and stop indefinitely postponing the implementation of the commitments made in 1997 with a view to providing the consumer with transparent and comprehensible information.
Compulsory labelling indicating the origin of goods must therefore be introduced as soon as possible, and it must certainly not be postponed until 1 January 2003, as the Commission proposes.
We must not agree to any exemptions, again as the Commission proposes, for minced and cut meat, which would be tantamount to excluding 30% to 50% of beef, according to the country, from the need for mandatory labelling.
Nor must we agree, as the Commission is once again proposing, to adopt an over-general EC-type generic designation of origin.
Consumers want to be certain of the operators' ability to monitor the origin of meat accurately.
The Member State of origin must therefore be indicated.
Furthermore, beef imported from third countries must be subject to the same labelling regulations as Community beef, and if it does not comply with European Union regulations on traceability, this must also be clearly indicated.
This, Mr President, is the intention of the amendments which Mrs Thomas-Moreau and I tabled on behalf of the UEN Group, which we are proposing to all our fellow Members who are keen to contribute to bringing about genuine traceability of beef.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, fourteen years after BSE first appeared, we have finally got around to doing something about labelling meat in order to protect consumers and ensure traceability.
This protection is undoubtedly belated in principle but, above all, illusory in practice.
Firstly, in the draft regulation, 50% of European meat is effectively exempt from compulsory labelling if it is minced or cut.
For the remaining 50%, labelling is not compulsory until 2003, which means that we have three years to dispose of British surplus stocks.
And after 2003, the designation of origin may be limited to a simple indication of 'EC origin' with no mention of the country.
What is more, to bury the prion under even more details, the label is laden down with indications of: the place where the animal was born, fattened, slaughtered and boned, with the Member State of origin, the region of origin, the farm of origin, a total of twelve items, plus the price and the weight, making a total of fourteen items, which is simply too much to read and take in.
So, Mr Papayannakis is improving the system, the deadline for compulsory labelling has been brought forward from 2003 to 2001, since 2000 is out of the question; labelling is to be simplified, the national labelling systems mandatory in France, Belgium and Finland are to be retained.
This is a good move.
The amendments will be adopted.
The unwillingness of the Commission is, however, with apologies to the Commissioner, apparent to everyone.
As a solution, labelling is a good idea only at first sight.
Labelling is no safeguard against GMOs, chocolate containing vegetable fats or, tomorrow, GMO fats, or, at a later date, American hormone-treated beef, or prion-infected meat.
The only effective protection would be checks, and this requires States and frontiers.
We have, however, eliminated frontiers, and this is the price we have to pay for Europe: freedom of movement at the expense of safety.
I just hope, ladies and gentlemen, that no one will have to be punished in future.
Previously one could be punished at the stake, now punishment would mean a steak, a British beefsteak.
Mr President, this debate on the labelling of beef is closely akin to our previous concerns on the subject of food safety.
By means of this report and its conclusions, if they are adopted, we will be raising a number of concerns among consumers, in a very sensitive area where the mad cow syndrome is still predominant.
As far as the EDD Group is concerned, product traceability provides a guarantee both for the protection of consumer health and for the promotion of quality products which all producers, large or small, are capable of producing if they favour quality over base commercial and financial interests which have little regard for human health.
In our view the important and essential thing in this report is that all meat industry products should be covered by compulsory labelling, from basic butchered meat to derivatives, minced meat, cut meat, etc.
In the same way, the consumer must absolutely be provided with a complete set of information, with labelling which gives full details on the way the animal was reared and slaughtered: its place of birth, farming and slaughter, as well as feeding and farming techniques, not forgetting any antibiotics or growth promoters which may have been administered.
Finally, it is essential that these measures should be implemented as quickly as possible, since it is a matter of consumer rights.
Let us not delay, especially as this is no recent matter.
It is high time we took action.
Consumer confidence cannot be decreed, it must be earned.
To that end, as I already stated in our discussions on 5 October 1999, the CPNT party members within the EDD Group will therefore support any measure in support of complete traceability, which can only be of benefit to everyone concerned: the consumer, who will be informed, and the good producer, who will be protected.
Mr President, I wish to put firmly on the record tonight that the farmers in Northern Ireland are exceedingly angry at the UK Government for not seeking European funding to help promote beef labelling.
Other states have taken up this money to the tune of some £4m. the Irish Republic to the tune of £100 000 - yet the disgraceful attitude of the London Government is to keep this from the UK farmers.
I want also to say that the place of origin mentioned in any labelling system should be the real place of origin, because any idea of stating where meat is processed as the place of origin is not acceptable.
That is a very fundamental question that must be made perfectly clear in any law that we pass.
Any food labelling policy must be accurate and dependable for both the producers and the consumers.
Whatever may be the policy of this Union in regard to an open market economy, those people who want to buy home-produced meat should be given the right to know it is home-produced.
Farmers deserve to have a guarantee of that, and so should the consumers.
Mr President, the discussion on labelling beef has reached a point at which it is crucial to restore confidence among producers and consumers.
The report focuses on the traceability of beef, i.e. knowing its exact origins, but at the same time, this cannot be detached from consumer confidence, as consumers want information.
It strikes me that this Parliament insists on also making national labelling possible and obligatory, while the Commission places the emphasis on labelling which states "originates from the EU" .
I am convinced that one day, we will be proud again of a label which states: produced in the EU, and that we will have a food safety bureau in the European Union with a forceful, supranational mandate which can act promptly as and when problems arise. This must be our ultimate goal.
We will then be where we need to be.
Until such time, we need to be able to find out exactly what is happening, we need to be able to give the consumer sound information and until such time, we will need to use stop-gap measures to do this.
One of these measures is most definitely the use of a label indicating the Member State.
This is good, because in this way we can start restoring confidence in the producer, especially at a time when food safety is so much in the public eye.
We simply need this.
Another positive step is if it could also be pointed out that there can be a time when confidence will be restored.
In this sense, I have to say that my delegation and some in my group support Amendment No 61 tabled by Mr Maaten and Mr de Roo, in which the times are indicated when assurances can be given with regard to BSE inspections and other matters and which states that there can also be a time when the EU label will be applicable.
I consider this to be an interim step, and ultimately I can see one key goal: to restore confidence, to produce a forceful EU label and ultimately a forceful food safety bureau, because these discussions are interconnected.
Mr President, Commissioner, food safety gets people talking perhaps more than any other issue, and, for that reason, it is good that it also gets us talking here in Parliament.
But the most important consideration is that it does not just get us talking, but that we should also do something about it.
The work of Mr Papayannakis has already been praised here.
I would like to express my thanks too: it is a good basis for better standards of consumer safety throughout the European Union.
We have plenty of examples of consumers not having always been given priority when it comes to food production.
The Single Market and the free movement of goods provide more freedom of choice for the public and better markets for producers.
As the issue here is about food, it is even more important than ever to ensure that this freedom is also responsibly restricted, that consumers are protected, and that they have a right to know what they are eating.
In this case, it is especially important that meat and processed meat products are among those products whose origin the consumer knows.
Many have mentioned here that the EC label is not enough and that more precise information is needed.
I agree with this.
It is absolutely essential to know what country the products are from.
In addition, the origin, not only of meat products, but of the ingredients used in processed meat, must be shown as clearly as possible.
Labels must also be made compulsory as quickly as possible.
The timetable that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is proposing is not too pressing.
The Member States should have already prepared themselves for it.
Mr President, this regulation cannot be postponed any longer, and I fully support the stricter timetable that the European Parliament is proposing in the amendments to the Commission' s proposal.
Consumers require information about where the animal was born, bred and slaughtered, and cattle should be identified and registered so that their traceability can be guaranteed.
The Commission must be far more vigorous than it has been so far in putting the screws on those countries which have not established databases, so ensuring that the countries concerned become fully operational in this respect.
The issue is also one of credibility when it comes to implementing joint resolutions in all Member States.
It is also about citizens' confidence and belief that food quality is everything it should be.
A bit of drive needs to be shown, and no exceptions should be made in the case of cattle which graze in the mountains.
Where registration is required, what, in any case, is the difference between cattle which graze in the mountains and those which graze in valleys or in fields? I am in favour of beef being labelled with the name of the country or countries it comes from and I am strongly against introducing a common EU label from which consumers cannot see which countries are involved.
The purpose of the regulation in question must be to achieve a situation in which consumers have confidence in meat from all EU countries.
Until this is a reality, consumers need to know precisely which country their meat comes from.
I have tabled an amendment to the effect that the slaughterhouse' s authorisation number should not be shown on the label.
In this way, I wished to ensure that small and medium-sized slaughterhouses could continue to supply meat to butchers.
The authorisation number does not provide the consumer with any useful information and has no bearing upon traceability.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by thanking everyone who has worked so constructively on this report.
The compulsory registration system for bovine animals due to enter into force is the sine qua non for a reasonable beef labelling system.
As a farmer, I am concerned that every consumer should be able to trace where his schnitzel has come from.
All farmers are proud of the quality of their products and it is therefore in the farmers' interests for everyone to know whom they have to thank for their extremely safe and healthy food.
Such a system must be practicable if it is to achieve its objective.
We must take account of how the procedures will be applied in practice.
Because of the varying topography of Europe, its farmers must apply different working and production methods.
Take the example of summer pasturing in the Alps.
As you know, every spring a total of 400 000 cattle are driven on to the Alps in Italy, Austria and Germany, where they remain for the summer, i.e. for about three months.
Consideration must be given to the pasturing lists which are already in use and which take account of this situation in order to avoid forcing additional unnecessary administrative costs on farmers.
As we have said, traceability must be guaranteed in all cases.
But the regulation must be adapted to actual and local circumstances if it is to be seen as anything other than EU harassment, which merely triggers abuse and if it is to gain acceptance among the people.
I therefore hope that proposed Amendment No 19 to Article 7(1) second indent will be adopted by the entire House. It has already been adopted by the Committee on the Environment and in the Committee on Agriculture.
Mr President, the discussion on labelling beef is quite loaded.
An important question is whether the "Origin: EU" label should be permitted as an added option.
The Commission thinks it should.
Many in Parliament believe that it is the country of origin that should be on the label.
The background to this is the food crises.
I could not agree more that beef should be completely traceable and that this should be the case as soon as possible.
I also understand that consumers increasingly want information on the country of origin or region of origin concerning their food.
This is often a matter of taste.
Furthermore, I agree with the analysis that the "Origin: EU" label could be abused by countries where food safety is not regulated. But I do not advocate scrapping the option of including "Origin: EU" on the label either.
In my opinion, we should choose another approach.
We need to prescribe conditions for the use of the "Origin: EU" label.
One condition, for example, could be that the identification and registration system must be fully implemented and observed.
There are, of course, other means of enforcing compliance, but this method is far more direct.
Parliament has to keep an eye on compliance with the directives it produces.
This approach has the added advantage that the "Origin: EU" label has a positive ring to it.
Rather than being a cover-up for countries where food quality needs to be regulated, the "Origin: EU" label is thus a quality guarantee.
If the producer prefers to indicate the country of origin nonetheless, this is possible too.
There are a number of additional arguments as to why "Origin: EU" labelling should be possible.
For example, the meat industry and retail trade have raised all kinds of practical objections and pointed at the red tape which too detailed information would entail.
I will not spend any time on this argument, as it is not of key importance, in my opinion.
However, I would like to ask your attention for a question of principle.
The internal market is a large entity.
The principle of mutual recognition is fundamental. Mutual recognition requires trust, and trust requires common standards, especially in the case of food safety.
If we prohibit the use of the "Origin: EU" label, we would be resigning ourselves to a kind of re-nationalisation of the internal market.
We would then be accepting that we have more confidence in certain countries than others and this is a sign of little faith in our own food safety policy.
This is unacceptable in my view.
All EU Member States need to guarantee safe meat.
"Origin: EU" is then a symbol for quality and I therefore advocate backing Amendments Nos 60 and 61.
Mr President, Commissioner, in my view, at present this is not a matter of confidence in the safety of food alone: it is very important that we also look to the near future.
We must put our own house, our own part of the world, in order.
The EU is expanding eastward, and we all know the capacity and volume of meat and beef production there, for example.
This should also alert them to the fact that they must now start to put their own affairs in order, so that they can adapt to the model that exists here.
If we are not ready, how can we expect others to be? For this reason, labelling must be kept very simple: the labels must show the country of origin, and, if one wishes, the region of production.
But a label showing the country of origin of a product is very important to us, particularly if we want consumers to have confidence in food safety in the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, the beef industry has signed a contract with public opinion, based on the transparency claimed and, I might even say, demanded by the citizen.
Today, this transparency is applicable, within the beef industry, to two different but indissociable areas: BSE and labelling.
France is stepping up its precautionary measures for specified at-risk materials and is implementing an extensive protocol to evaluate ESB tests on bovine animals.
Tomorrow, the European Union is preparing to outline a test programme for all Member States.
In this context, consumers would not understand the delays in the matter of labelling.
I am therefore particularly concerned to ensure that the operators in this industry are not confronted with a legal vacuum which would lead public opinion, quite legitimately, to wonder whether there is a real desire for greater transparency.
How else is it possible to explain the fact that at European level we have managed to obtain an agreement on chocolate but that we are unable to meet the deadlines we set ourselves in an area as sensitive and important as beef.
Let us make no mistake as to what is at issue here.
I am convinced that the subject of beef labelling is no mere technical issue.
I should like to point out that if labelling is of such great importance to consumers it is because it is their guarantee that product traceability has been tightened up, that the operators in the industry and also the European and national public authorities have become more accountable, and that control systems have been improved.
Finally, what our fellow citizens are demanding is the right to information.
This right to be informed is the natural counterpart to the development of trade and the proper exercise of competition.
By virtue of the transparency it conveys, labelling makes it possible to improve the freedom of movement of beef, providing assurances to consumers and guaranteeing their freedom to make an informed choice.
In the beef sector, improving consumer information through labelling represents a strong message from Europe to its trading partners: it demonstrates its intention, over and above product health safety, to safeguard the consumer' s freedom of choice.
Mr President, I agree with the many speakers before me that what we need more than anything at the moment is a system which enables traceability at all stages of production.
Fortunately, integral chain control (ICC) is already well-known in many countries.
In my opinion, this is not related to national borders.
If certain conditions are met - and I would like to refer to Amendments Nos 60 and 61 concerning the inspection of BSE, as others have done so before me - then the designation "Origin: EU" is sufficient as far as I am concerned.
This does not preclude all the other information being added to the label on a voluntary basis.
Mentioning the relevant country, region, town, village, and so on and so forth, is fine but let the consumer decide where he wants to buy the product.
But it should not be an EU stipulation.
If this were to be the case, then this would be a re-nationalisation of Europe' s common market in a sense, and that would be a retrograde step.
Mr President, I am very disappointed at the delay, though I am delighted now that we are going to have clear compulsory labelling.
I hope this will restore consumer confidence in beef, especially after the BSE crisis.
I would like to see not only the country but also the region of origin on the label.
I represent the West Midlands which has some of the best beef in the world - Herefordshire beef and Shropshire beef.
I should like to see that go on the label.
I would oppose very strongly the idea that "EU" should be on the label and not the country and region of origin.
I am also concerned about some of the words that might go on the label.
One of those words is "slaughtered". That will not help with consumer confidence and might put some of the consumers off if they actually see where the animal was "slaughtered".
I wish we could find a new word for it.
Generally speaking, I am delighted that at last we are going to have clear labelling and, as I said, I want it to be the country and region of origin.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that I welcome the report.
A European Union-wide identification system for cattle is long overdue.
The system is certainly very necessary, if nothing else than to achieve a level playing field within the European Union and to ensure that all countries reach the same standards.
I want to sound a note of caution.
I come from an area in Northern Ireland that has a standard of identification and traceability which is as good as any ever will be.
No system is a hundred per cent perfect, so do not think you can bring that about.
There will always be people out to abuse the system.
That has been the case for centuries - and will continue.
You can only try to develop the best possible system of traceability.
I have a number of concerns.
The first is: who pays?
The problem to date has been, in my experience in Northern Ireland, that the consumer has borne the brunt of the cost of the extra traceability, and this has been substantial.
It has not been borne by the retailer.
The consumer will perhaps ultimately pay - but he or she may not.
From that point of view it is expensive for those people.
I have one further question of the Commission.
Is it wise to renationalise the beef market? Or even to regionalise it within countries.
I seriously question that point. We have fought for years within the European Union to achieve a single market and now we are renationalising that market.
I challenge the Commission tonight to answer that question.
Is this a wise move? Let us not look to the short term, let us look to the long term, because the long term is the challenge - not five years but ten, fifteen years from now.
What is going to be the situation on the beef market?
As I said, in Northern Ireland we have full traceability and our measures go beyond the regulations.
I have to say to the Commission, and to producers in other Member States, that my producers have to date not seen any financial benefit from that which they have suffered.
The proposal, as Mr Goodwill has said, has two important aims.
First to ensure the traceability of beef, second to allow consumers to make a fully informed choice.
Unfortunately, although the two aims are compatible, there is some tension between them where the details of the regulation are concerned.
This is particularly the case in relation to Article 13 and Article 13(2) primarily serving the first and Article 13(5) the second aim.
Amendments Nos 26 and 28 to 13(5) therefore seemed rather confused - one seeking less and one seeking more detailed information for consumers.
For this reason, whatever the final form of Article 13, I regard Amendments Nos 15 and 29 as being of the first importance.
Amendment 29 in particular will allow areas of the EU that are justifiably proud of the quality of their product to identify it as such.
For my own constituency of course, Aberdeen Angus beef is already justly renowned throughout the world but I am sure the same is true for other regions in the rest of the UK and other Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Papayannakis, and Mr Kindermann, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture, for their constructive contributions to the debate on the draft regulation under discussion.
A whole series of amendments to the Commission proposal have been tabled, 44 of which were accepted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on 22 March.
A further 18 proposed amendments were subsequently submitted for this plenary sitting.
I should like to start with the Commission' s views on the first 44 proposals.
The Commission is able to accept 18 of them.
This includes proposed amendments which are accepted in full or in part and amendments which require minor editorial changes.
In another 12 proposed amendments I can see what your concerns are but the Commission is unable to accept these amendments.
However, I shall ensure that the Council is informed of your point of view.
This applies, for example, to proposed Amendment No 20.
A number of the proposed amendments which the Commission is able to accept, such as Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 18 and 19 first part, and 21, 33, 35 and 42 tighten up the wording.
I also accept proposed Amendment No 19, second part, which makes provision for a simplification for cattle pastured on the Alps in the summer.
The improvements to the definition of labelling are also acceptable.
The same applies to the information to be included on the label and to the interpretation of the concept of origin.
I am therefore prepared to accept proposed Amendments Nos 22 and 23, insofar as they concern labelling, and the parts of proposed Amendments Nos 25, 26 and 28 calling for information on individual regions to be scrapped.
As we are all concerned that the labelling system should be introduced as quickly as possible, I welcome proposed Amendment No 39 reducing the deadline set for the Member States to appoint the competent authorities.
Finally, proposed Amendment No 44, under which the regulation would enter into force on 1 September 2000 heads in exactly the same direction.
I think the new recital suggested in proposed Amendment No 6, whereby Member States must ensure that their databases are operational as quickly as possible, is also a good idea.
I am also able to accept the parts of proposed Amendments Nos 25, 26 and 28 making information on the region optional, whereby I assume, if no decision is made to the contrary, that this information will come under the voluntary system.
As I too take the view that the possibility of confusion with protected geographical indications governed by Regulation 2081/92 must be excluded, I agree unreservedly with the new recital in proposed Amendment No 15.
Nonetheless, we must still investigate how the stated objective is to be reached, whereby I envisage a more comprehensive solution than that suggested in proposed Amendment No 29.
The question of when compulsory indications of origin need to be introduced is an important point.
As the obligation to enter the place of birth and all stopovers in the animal passport and database has only been introduced for animals born on or after 1 January 1998, it will be difficult to trace the complete origin of bovine animals over the next five years.
According to our calculations, this problem will apply to just under half the beef produced from 2003 onwards, which is why I have reservations about introducing compulsory indications of origin earlier or even, as suggested in proposed Amendment No 26, as early as 1 September 2001.
I would point out in this respect that the Committee on Agriculture has recommended that they be introduced on 1 January 2002.
I also note that you insist that indications of origin must state the country, even if this means listing several countries on the label.
I am sorry that you find the simplified indication "Produced in the European Union" unacceptable, despite the fact that it is in keeping with the principles of the internal market.
As far as labelling of minced meat is concerned, we must bear in mind that the production of minced meat, for example of hamburgers, is a continuous process. The obligation to provide a complete indication of origin for this meat would therefore give rise to technical problems and may well bring the entire intra-Community trade in processed meat to a virtual standstill.
I would therefore suggest that you reconsider the simplified labelling system.
The proposed labelling regulation makes provision for the possibility of combining animals in groups rather than entering each individual animal with producers who take the trouble to guarantee the traceability of each individual animal given an incentive in the form of a special logo.
I must admit that I do not fully understand why you demand in proposed Amendments Nos 14 and 31 that we should let go of the only instrument which guarantees real and complete traceability.
As far as the Commission' s powers to react to unusual and unforeseen circumstances are concerned, I am, unfortunately, unable to accept proposed Amendments Nos 16 and 38 because they prevent a practicable solution.
Finally, I think it is premature to commit ourselves to extending the labelling system to processed products containing beef, as suggested in proposed Amendment No 40.
Let us gain some experience with the system being proposed now and then we can consider this idea at a later date.
As far as the proposed amendments tabled subsequently at the end of last week are concerned, I have already explained in connection with proposed Amendments Nos 45 and 46 that the Commission agrees with you that the first stage of the compulsory system should start on 1 September this year.
If proposed Amendment No 44 is accepted, the regulation automatically enters into force on this date.
Proposed Amendments Nos 45 and 46 are therefore superfluous for technical reasons.
As far as proposed Amendment No 47 is concerned, I should like to advise against continuing the national compulsory beef identification system as soon as the full EU system has been introduced.
In the end we would have 15 different national systems, which runs completely counter to the internal market.
Proposed Amendment No 48 refers to information on the use of antibiotics or stimulants and to fattening methods.
This idea may look simple on paper, but it is in fact extremely complicated to administer and, more importantly, to control.
In addition, there is no definition of the various rearing methods and every animal will certainly be fed using various methods, rather than one and the same method, during its lifetime.
As far as medication is concerned, it would be much better to maintain our high veterinary standards, thereby guaranteeing that only safe beef reaches the market.
The Commission would therefore prefer not to adopt this proposal.
As far as the voluntary system is concerned, which is to be set up alongside the new compulsory system in order to include all the information which is not being made compulsory, the Commission can accept two of the four amendments adopted by the Committee on the Environment, namely proposals 33 and 35.
It is obvious from the vote in committee that Parliament is not in favour of amending the Commission' s basic attempt to simplify the approval procedure.
However, I see that a total of nine new proposed amendments have been tabled for this plenary sitting which were not adopted by the Committee on the Environment.
These amendments seek to re-introduce a formal approval procedure for voluntary information on labels.
Let me assure you that such amendments do not cause any particular problem because their purpose is to reinforce the administrative procedure.
For the rest, recent discussions in the Council have gone in the same direction.
I am therefore convinced that these proposed amendments will be taken on board by the Council.
From now on, the Commission will be acting as go-between between the two decision-making institutions on this matter.
With just over three months, we do not have much time left for a final decision.
Given the speed with which you have worked here in Parliament, hopefully the Council will decide on its common position as quickly as possible.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 12.10 a.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mrs Ludford, are you sure your point of order is related to the Minutes?
Thank you, Mrs Ludford.
I am happy to take note of your point of order.
But for the time being I would like comments to relate to the Minutes, so that we can adopt them.
After that Members are free to move any other points of order.
Madam President, item 2 of the Minutes on page 5, which is in fact the first substantive page, refers to the points I raised about certain political groups apparently not respecting the Rules of Procedure in that they appear to allow individual members of their group to table amendments in plenary, supposedly in the name of the group, although this cannot possibly be the case because contradictory amendments are tabled in the name of the same group.
I would like to underline that although the Minutes mentioned specifically the EPP Group, it is in fact not the only group to have acted in this way.
For instance, the Technical Group, the TDI Group, which did not table any amendments at committee stage whatsoever, has now arrived in plenary with between 20 and 30 amendments, many of which are contradictory.
They are tabled by different members within that group taking different positions and therefore cannot possibly be a group position.
That does not respect our own Rules of Procedure, which allow only 32 members or a group to table amendments in plenary.
Madam President, my point concerns the section of the Minutes on Question Time yesterday evening, when I raised a point of order.
First of all, Question Time was put back to 6:30 p.m., then it was announced on the screen that it would begin at 6:50 p.m. In the end it was after 7:00 p.m. before Question Time started.
The first part was supposed to last 30 minutes, according to the Agenda; but it lasted much longer.
Basically, my problem is that I had questions down - as some other people did - to Commissioner Byrne.
We had group meetings at the time and saw on the screen "Question 41" .
But by the time I reached the plenary, you had moved on automatically within a few minutes to Question 49.
So five or six people had questions down to Commissioner Byrne, but none of us were here to ask the questions.
Commissioner Byrne seems to have taken offence at this and seen it as some kind of snub.
But it is very difficult for Members to sit right through every single question during Question Time just in case we jump from No 1 to No 99 in a matter of seconds.
So, could we please stick to the Agenda: thirty minutes for the first part of Question Time, twenty for the second part and so on.
We should not keep changing the Agenda because then it is extremely difficult for us to operate.
Thank you, Mrs McKenna.
I take note of your comment and will ensure this does not happen again.
Madam President, in recent days, immense natural catastrophes in which quite a number of people have died have again occurred on the banks of the River Tisza.
I would therefore ask the President to send our condolences to both the Romanian and Hungarian parliaments.
At the same time, we must be alert to the kind of environmental risks these natural catastrophes may entail for our common European environment. The Tisza flows into the Danube delta, which is one of the world' s most significant protected areas of environmental interest.
Thank you, Mrs Thors, I am quite prepared to do so.
Thank you, Mr Wynn, I cannot answer you right now, but I will have the matter investigated.
Madam President, I wish to inform you and the Members who come into daily contact, although sometimes without noticing them, with the Parliament staff who ensure the running of the House as a whole, that certain sections (security guards, receptionists, firemen) were on strike yesterday afternoon.
They were protesting at having to work 12 hours at a stretch, day and night, for an average net salary of FRF 6 000, without even receiving extra pay for night or weekend work. I want to express my solidarity with them.
Moreover, we have written you a letter, Madam President, on behalf of the LO and LCR Members, and hope you will follow the matter up.
Thank you, Mrs Laguiller.
I will give the letter my utmost attention.
Madam President, I have been listening to the translations of the speeches on my headphones for a long time now, and the sound disappears sometimes, even if I change places, and I also get a rasping noise, not only here but also in our Group' s room.
There is some technical fault here, and I wish the relevant people would check whether there is too much interference here, owing to mobile phones, for example.
Even the position of my head affects audibility, and I cannot really sit here listening with my head tilted to one side.
The other request I have is for a technician to adjust the sound volume here.
Some Members shout into the microphone, even though the microphone is, in fact, there to make shouting unnecessary, thereby making it impossible to hear anything over the headphones.
So whenever someone shouts into the microphone - even though they should not - I would ask that the sound volume in the Chamber be lowered immediately, so that we can also hear what is being said over the headphones.
Thank you, Mr Paasilinna, we will look into all that and check the sound system in general.
(The Minutes were approved)
IGC
The next item is the report (A5-0086/2000) by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the European Parliament' s proposals for the Intergovernmental Conference (14094/1999 - C5-0341/1999 - 1999/0825(CNS)).
First of all I must inform the House that the Union for Europe of the Nations Group has moved the report' s inadmissibility, pursuant to the Rules of Procedure.
Let me point out that the Council consulted Parliament on convening the Intergovernmental Conference and that the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen was entered on the agenda in accordance with the appropriate Rules.
Mr Ribeiro e Castro will present the motion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this report should not have been admitted.
It is generally anti what Europe really represents and anti most of what Europe has achieved.
Paragraph 15 of the motion for a resolution is a symptom of this aggressiveness towards Europe.
We are all attached to fundamental rights and the rule of law, starting here in this House.
So how can we agree when the fundamental right of recourse to the courts is being threatened? This is not a question of internal affairs, but external affairs of great importance.
We are Members of this House and we represent our electors.
Anything which discriminates in our legal and political conditions, between our political parties and groups in terms of freedom and equality affects our right of representation and ultimately the rights and very freedom of our electors.
These are the elements particularly under threat in this report which wants to interfere with and discriminate between the statutes of the political parties.
The very essence of Europe is under threat.
The fundamental right of recourse to the courts cannot be altered by anyone and nor can the rule of law.
Paragraph 15 ruins the whole text by defiling a very serious issue.
The temptation for those in power to act arbitrarily which this paragraph encourages is a clear illustration of the position taken in the rest of the report, and a terrible omen.
We therefore move the inadmissibility of this report which, in addition to having a dubious legal basis, was not properly prepared and does not enjoy the broad consensus which Europe must have.
This is evident in both the injudiciousness of this regrettable paragraph and the fact that 222, I repeat 222, amendments were tabled on this report.
Is there any better proof that this report is totally inappropriate?
We therefore propose, in order to defend Europe and the rule of law, the immediate rejection of this report.
Thank you, Mr Ribeiro e Castro.
Does anyone wish to speak in favour of this request for referral back to committee?
Madam President, I think Mr Ribeiro e Castro is quite right to consider the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report inadmissible because it conflicts with and even infringes a number of rights enshrined in our institutions.
First of all, Mr Ribeiro e Castro is right to single out paragraph 15, which states that 'no actions may be brought in connection with the interna corporis affairs of the European Parliament.'
That statement clearly infringes the fundamental right of every citizen, and thus also of Members, to bring an action.
But more generally I believe this report infringes a whole range of different rights, beginning with the rights of the small and medium-sized states which have formed an integral part of our institutions and been highly respected by them since the early days of the Treaty of Rome.
Thank you, Mr Berthu.
Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, the two rapporteurs, wish to speak against this motion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, however much I respect the opinion of the Members who have just spoken, I find it harsh and unjust to regard our report as inadmissible because of paragraph 15.
Other colleagues have tabled amendments with a view to voting against that paragraph, and Members may agree with those amendments.
To agree or not agree with a paragraph in a report is justified and democratic, and that is what we are here for.
But I do not think it is right to move that a report is inadmissible because of one paragraph.
I call on Members to vote against this motion.
We must examine and vote on the report during this part-session, because it is not a matter of voting for the two rapporteurs but of voting for the European Parliament' s opinion.
Madam President, I am delighted that of all the groups, it is the UEN Group that is standing up for more fundamental rights and more democracy at European Union level.
I am pleased about that; it is a major step forward.
However, I also believe that the strong language my fellow delegates are using is completely uncalled for.
The EU countries have completely different cultures.
In some countries Parliament can draw up its own rules of procedure and one does not have the option of going to the court of justice.
Some countries have a different system.
We have recital 15.
Mr Dimitrakopoulos has already mentioned that there are amendments.
The UEN Group are welcome to vote against them and then we will see if it is left in or taken out.
All in all, I believe that there is no call for excessively strong language, and I am also in favour of us rejecting this amendment.
Madam President, I do not think this amendment is something we can vote on, as the Treaty of Amsterdam makes express provision for the relationship between the institutions and the procedures to be framed differently.
In this respect, this report forms part of the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and one cannot vote on erroneous, legal proposed amendments, one can only reject them!
(Laughter and applause)
If you feel duty-bound to reject it, you will have an opportunity to do so.
I shall now put the motion presented by the Union for Europe of the Nations Group to the vote by roll call.
(Parliament rejected the procedural motion)
Madam President, Minister, Deputy Minister, Commissioner, we are at a really very important juncture so far as the vocation of the European Union is concerned.
Today, through the proceedings of the Intergovernmental Conference, the European Union is being called upon to address the great challenges involved in the transition from the 20th to the 21st century, challenges we all recognise, which are important, which influence the course of the European Union every day, and challenges which, above all, raise a fundamental issue: how ready are we, as an institution, as the European Union, to face them? The Intergovernmental Conference attempts to answer just that question.
It is common ground that in the face of all those challenges, the way the European Union functions at present is certainly in need of some changes, changes whose important aim will be the future progress of the European Union on the basis of what we have all accepted until now.
The report you have before you today is significant in that it covers the following points.
The first point is once again to consolidate the institutional nature of the European Union.
We repeat and insist that the European Union is both a union of states and a union of peoples.
It is precisely our acceptance of that principle which has guided the European Union towards the many successes we can mention, and which, of course, we all like to refer to from time to time.
The second point is to reconfirm and consolidate another important principle, the principle of a balance of powers, a principle that relates precisely to the role and relationship of those who participate in the European Union, a principle expressed by the way all the Member States express themselves in all - I repeat, all - the European Union' s institutional bodies.
And as you know, the European Union has got to where it is today, achieved what it has achieved, precisely because it has been and is functioning on the basis of a balance of powers as agreed and commonly accepted.
The third basic principle safeguarded in the report is the proposal for a general - and I stress the word general - review of all the institutional bodies that make up the European Union.
For some, perhaps, that may be a risky proposal.
However, I must stress that it is necessary and essential, particularly since we all agree that over and above all, the current reconsideration of how the European Union works is directly linked to the great challenge presented by the European Union' s enlargement.
It is only natural, when already in a Europe with 15 Member States we find and all agree that some things do not work quite so well and must be put right, that this will be all the more necessary when we it concerns a European Union with 18, 20, 25 and 27 Member States.
The fourth point concerns a number of new proposals, despite the fact that the issues to which they relate had always been debated.
I refer very specifically to closer cooperation.
Closer cooperation, at least as we view it, must comprise two main elements.
Firstly, it must be an incentive and not an obstacle - I stress: not an obstacle - it must be an incentive for all the Member States to participate more and in greater depth in the European procedures.
Secondly, it must contain a very highly developed element of democratic awareness, which means that if any country or countries for some reason do not wish to participate, at least during a first phase, this should not be regarded as an exclusion or as a factor that restricts the presence of those countries in the European Union.
We have taken a great many steps and we certainly can point to two examples of closer cooperation.
The Schengen Agreement, and Economic and Monetary Union itself.
I would also like to see closer cooperation in foreign policy issues and others as well.
To put it clearly, closer cooperation is a Community process and both foreign policy and common defence policy issues should be dealt with as a Community process, because it provides control mechanisms.
I would like to close by expressing my thanks to the Portuguese Presidency and in particular to Mr da Costa for his cooperation, to Commissioner Barnier, to you and all our colleagues, and of course, to my co-rapporteur Mr Leinen, with whom we worked hard but very well. I would also like to thank the members of Parliament' s Secretariat who assisted us and the interpreters, who on very many occasions worked long hours to enable the difficult negotiations you all know about to take place.
Madam President, I am sure it will come as no surprise to you if I talk about citizens' freedoms and rights and justice in relation to this fascinating report, whose two rapporteurs I congratulate.
It is the view of this Committee that the construction of this area of justice is important and, to this end, a reform of the Court of Justice is necessary.
In order to reform the Court it will be necessary to amend the Treaty, so that the Statute and the Regulations of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance become operative.
None of them is currently operative.
Our first demand is therefore that qualified majority be established with the assent of the European Parliament.
With regard to the Court, Parliament also asks to be able to participate in the process of selecting judges as already happens with the posts in the constitutional courts in our states.
On the other hand, with regard to freedoms and rights, we want citizens to be provided with full rights to appeal so that they can be assured that Community legislation will be enforced in the event of violations of fundamental rights. This is not currently the case.
We want to see a reform of Articles 230 and 300 of the Treaty so that Parliament is on an equal footing with the Commission and the Council as far as appeals are concerned.
Lastly, Madam President, we want to see a reform of the Treaty so that Parliament, in relation to the third pillar, also has full access to justice by means of repeal in the event of regulations and acts which do not conform.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Court of Justice needs to be properly armed in order to be able to cope with the growing number of disputes, as well as its ever expanding authority.
The Court must be able to focus on the real legal issues and legal protection of EU subjects.
The Court of First Instance must be better accommodated in this framework, and both jurisdictions must be able to take more autonomous decisions regarding their own structures and procedures.
Sound and timely administration of justice is a vital component of the constitutional state.
In the light of this, the role of the European Parliament should be upgraded to that of a fully-fledged legislative body and that of a fully-fledged European institution.
These are, in a nutshell, the motives underlying the opinion issued by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
As rapporteur, I am also delighted to note that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is on the same wavelength for the greater part of its principal report.
Unfortunately, time constraints prevent me from going into any detail.
But in order to bring the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs as far as possible into line with the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, I tabled four more amendments in the plenary meeting.
As some of these amendments are also to be found in the opinions of other committees, I believe that these amendments deserve - and will probably receive - the support of the entire Parliament.
This is where I would like to conclude my brief report on a not unimportant contribution to what will probably be the last IGC before the largest, most historic and most risky enlargement since the inception of the present European integration process.
This is why we need to seize this opportunity with both hands to prepare the European Union, with all its institutions and in all fields, to face the challenges of the 21st century successfully.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets. (ES) Madam President, the conditions of my intervention in this plenary session are illustrative of the budgetary problem.
I have just hurried from a meeting which, according to the Treaty, does not exist.
I am participating, on behalf of Parliament, in the tripartite dialogue on the budget to set the budgetary guidelines.
This is precisely the point we have raised on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
It is the adaptation of the Treaty, Article 272 in particular, to the real situation.
We have spent twelve years practising with a timetable set by the interinstitutional agreements.
We have renewed them three times, and we believe that the time has come to include the fundamental principles in the Treaty so that we will not find ourselves in legally dubious situations, such as the case of the meeting which I have just mentioned.
Specifically, we must simplify the procedure in order to prevent the blocking of the budgetary procedure.
When there are 25 members, the current procedure will not work.
We should simplify it while respecting the existing balances of power.
Lastly, Madam President, we also believe that Parliament, as an institution embodying democratic legitimacy, must fully participate in the decisions on own resources.
Madam President I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs warmly on their report, both in general terms and in specific terms because I believe that they have managed to address the points which we have raised in our opinion, albeit not always literally, within the confines of this reasonably concise report, which I hope will be adopted in this meeting by a large majority.
It is very important to mention the social market economy, as already indicated by Mr von Wogau.
It provides a kind of framework for internal policy which we need and renders a whole raft of discussions redundant.
I believe that this results in satisfaction all round.
The second major point is the Union' s legal personality.
It has been formulated here as if it were only related to foreign policy but it also has enormous significance for internal policy.
Indeed, it then becomes possible to ratify a number of Treaties, such as ILO Treaties and some UN Treaties in the social field, which will add legal clarity to this type of issue.
There are nonetheless two points that are lacking.
One of them is the issue of Article 137(6) which, in my opinion, should be repealed.
There are also a number of amendments on the table which I hope will yet be added.
I would like to finish off with a remark on the issue of the tax policy.
The report, in fact, mentions very little about this.
The tax policy, which also includes social security policy, is nonetheless of great importance, and not only to the Member States. The Commission too has given the matter rather a lot of attention and has devoted a great deal of thought to it.
It is rather a pity, in my opinion, that we talk about it so little.
Maybe we will do so in future.
The policy is implicitly included in the report but I still think that, in a sense, not dealing with it now is a missed opportunity.
That does not, however, detract from the deep appreciation which we have for this report.
Madam President, Commissioner, I would like once again to make the idea of extending codecision to the fisheries policy palatable to you.
The fisheries policy is one of those policies that makes a substantial contribution to the realisation of the single market.
It strengthens economic and social conditions.
How does it do this? Well, here in Europe, in excess of 250 000 people are still directly employed in this sector; being engaged in activities ranging from the catch itself to fish processing, through to marketing.
According to the latest investigations, for every euro invested there is a three-fold return.
A substantial number of those employed in this sector - almost 60 000 that is - are reliant on the international agreements, since fish are, by their very nature, an extremely mobile source of food, and also - I might add - an extremely important source of protein.
It is up to us, today' s politicians, to set down a marker and guarantee the fishing industry' s future.
Consider the message we are to send out to those regions of Europe that depend on the industry. I refer in particular to the forthcoming fisheries reform in the year 2002.
We must concern ourselves mainly with protecting and conserving this resource, which will have social, economic and environmental consequences.
It is obvious that the fisheries sector is not an isolated pawn in the game, for it has an impact on sectors such as development, the environment and foreign relations.
As a Community policy in its own right in the Union treaty, the fisheries sector will unite these aspects to good effect, for that is what we want to achieve: we want to place the fisheries sector on an independent administrative and legislative footing, in relation to agriculture for example.
In fact this political responsibility inevitably gives rise to a claim to the most far-reaching of codecision rights. In addition, if qualified majority decisions in the Council and Parliament' s codecision powers accord with one another, then clearly this will help to tighten up on legislative procedures.
I would welcome any support the leader of negotiations can offer at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Madam President, the proposals by the Committee on Women' s Rights for the Intergovernmental Conference aim to enhance democracy and effectiveness.
It is a fact that the Treaty of Amsterdam was a major step forward for women' s rights, since it provides a firm base for an effective policy on equality, but unfortunately it does not go further than the professional sector.
For that reason we are proposing that the Treaty should include a uniform and cohesive legal base for equality between the sexes, which will include all policy sectors.
We declare that balanced participation of women and men in decision-making at every level is a prerequisite for democracy and social justice, and we are therefore asking for the related articles of the Treaties to be amended to take account of that principle in the composition of the Commission, the European Parliament, the Court of Justice, the Court of First Instance, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
We also stress the need for a close link between the Intergovernmental Conference and the procedure for drawing up the Charter of Fundamental Rights, so that within the scope of the constitutionalisation of the Union, the fundamental right of equality between women and men will be enshrined in Community law.
So besides the essential equilibrium and cohesion that must be secured between the Union' s large and small countries and between the more and less developed areas and population groups, it is also necessary to take into account the balance between the sexes in planning the future of the EU and in decision making.
- (PT) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the work in the Intergovernmental Conference has been intensive.
This time the European Parliament' s participation has been reinforced through your President and two other representatives and also through full dialogue between the Council presidency and your Committee on Constitutional Affairs. This reinforcement also stems from the direct information of this House and its debate in plenary, which have no precedents.
This is very encouraging for the future results of the IGC.
So far five main in-depth meetings of the preparatory group have been held, together with three meetings of the IGC itself. Also planned are all the events in the calendar up to the end of Portugal' s presidency, involving both the IGC and the preparatory group.
A report is also to be prepared which will be submitted to the Feira European Council.
The Council presidency considers that this report should not be purely theoretical but should also make practical proposals. It must enable the next holder of the Council presidency, which will be France, to continue developing this work and to reach a decision by the end of the year.
The issue tackled at the last IGC meeting was the question of extending qualified majority voting.
The Member States demonstrated a certain openness towards this but many have still not made a definitive decision.
Certain areas can already be identified on which the attitude of the large majority of Member States is that these should remain subject to the unanimity rule.
Debates on these issues reveal that there is actually significant reticence, although this may be overcome during the IGC.
The preparatory work carried out to date has also involved questions connected with the European Parliament, the courts, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee.
As regards the decision-making procedure in the European Parliament, there is broad consensus that no revision of the Treaty should be effected which involves changing the existing institutional balance.
As for the scope of codecision, there is some openness towards extending this procedure to all legislative acts adopted by qualified majority without, however, establishing any kind of systematic correlation.
With regard to the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, a group of friends of the Council presidency has been brought together to examine possible amendments to the Treaty relating to these two courts.
The study of possible amendments to the Treaty in respect of the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions has also been started.
Many consider that changes should only be made where strictly necessary to ensure the effective functioning of the European Union after enlargement.
Consideration has also been given to matters which may be included on the agenda of the IGC, on the Council presidency' s proposal.
It should be recalled that the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council specify that the Council presidency will submit a report to the European Council and may propose in this report the insertion of new items on the IGC' s agenda.
In the area of security and defence and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Council presidency considers that, depending on the progress of the work, the right should be reserved to propose to the Feira European Council next June the inclusion in the IGC of any adjustments or additions to the Treaties which may prove necessary in these areas.
With regard to other issues likely to be added to the IGC' s work, an initial debate has been held based on a list drawn up by the Council presidency.
The argument put forward in favour of a prudent approach to the inclusion of new items on the agenda concerned the risk, inherent in the technical complexity of this debate, of causing the deadline of this December for the completion of the IGC' s work to be missed.
On the issue of the size and composition of the Commission, there is a consensus that the Commission to emerge from this IGC must be strong, independent and legitimate. Its collegiate nature must be preserved.
However, there is clear disagreement between, on one hand, the small and medium-sized Member States which want a Commission composed of one national from each Member State, all with equal status, and, on the other, the large Member States which favour a fixed number of Commissioners regardless of the number of Member States.
The size of the Commission is the main point of disagreement between the delegations. The rest of the debate on the Commission is dependent on this issue as some directly link this question with their positions on the composition, internal organisation and structure of this Community institution.
With regard to the individual responsibility of Commissioners, there is general support for keeping the undertaking currently made by each Commissioner to stand down when asked to do so by the Commission President. The delegations are divided into those which want to keep the informality of this undertaking and those which want the process to be enshrined in the Treaty.
As for the Commission' s collective responsibility as a college, there is some reluctance to accept alterations to the current institutional framework, with the current supervision exercised by the European Parliament being regarded as sufficient.
The idea submitted by this House of the Commission being able to request a vote of confidence in it was positively welcomed.
On the issue of the weighting of votes in Council, there is consensus that the criterion which should be used as the basis for qualified majority voting in Council must stem from the combination of the two elements which form the foundations of the European Union. These are the population and the existence of sovereign states.
The EU is just as much a union of peoples as it is of states.
As for specific mechanisms to be established for the future system, there is also a split between those who defend a double-majority system and those who prefer simple reweighting. One recurring argument is that the reform should be acceptable to public opinion and likely to be ratified by the national parliaments.
This is a common concern of all the Member States, whether large or small, not only due to the need, in ratifying the new Treaty, to enable enlargement and respect for its timetables, but also due to the feeling that a European crisis should not be allowed to occur on this type of reform. There is also the idea that these reforms must be submitted to public opinion in the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe so that the impression is not given that these are reforms which must be rushed through, not to improve the European Union but to prevent the new Member States from having access to the EU' s decision-making system.
With regard to closer cooperation, the need or the usefulness for the IGC to tackle this issue was also discussed in an informal debate. Again there was a division of opinion both about the possibility of this issue being discussed and about the scope and nature of any alterations.
The next informal meeting of the Representatives Group on 14 and 15 April in Sintra, Portugal, will deal specifically with this issue which is problematic as there are no examples to follow.
There are no specific examples as the Treaty of Amsterdam already allows closer cooperation and so far no Member State has used this instrument and there are no theoretical examples as these are never put forward by the debaters. Although this issue comes up time and again, it is very abstract.
In terms of the substance of the issue and the introduction of closer cooperation into the Second Pillar, an informal debate has revealed that the majority regard this as unnecessary in external or common security policy, although the possibility of its use in the area of security and defence may be considered.
This means that if closer cooperation were included within the Second Pillar, it would then be necessary to find a specific way of implementing this concept in this area. This could not copy the First Pillar given the dissimilarity between the operation of these two pillars.
With regard to making the existing model more flexible, as supported in particular by the Commission, a certain openness has been detected towards eliminating the recourse to the European Council when launching closer cooperation. However, the limit of eight Member States has been questioned even by those who support altering the requirement for the participation of the majority of Member States.
As you can see, the Portuguese Presidency is continuing to make every effort to take the work forward in order to achieve a comprehensive and balanced agreement which is acceptable to everyone by the specified deadline. Close contact has been maintained with the Commission and the European Parliament.
In the latter case, this has been through both the participation of your President and two selected Members and the regular information provided to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and this House. This is ensuring that this institutional reform work is carried out with a much higher degree of participation by the European Parliament than the previous revision of the Treaty.
This augurs well for the success of our work.
Mr President, with the Dimitrakopoulos - Leinen report under discussion, the European Parliament is declaring its great vision for the European Union of the future.
This is a truly historic moment, as has been stressed.
Our fellow-citizens are waiting to be told what we are going to demand from the Intergovernmental Conference for that future.
Institutional proposals on particular issues without prior clarification of the basic philosophy of tomorrow' s Union of 27 are not convincing.
The draft resolution is therefore quite right to define that basic view in the form of three principles.
According to the draft, the European Union is, first and foremost, a Union of peoples and a Union of states.
Its citizens therefore have both a European and a national identity.
Secondly, it is based on an institutional equilibrium between large and small states.
That must not be just on paper.
Thirdly, the way the Union functions must be made more effective, so that it can cope with the major enlargement.
The above philosophical principles, to which the draft resolution remains faithful, are not metaphysical inventions of the European Parliament but arise from the history and from the political reality which we call the area of Europe.
Anyone who ignores that is building a Europe founded on sand.
The Intergovernmental Conference of 2000 is taking place to make the Union as effective as is required in view of the major enlargement that has been decided.
In this process Parliament' s responsibility is very great indeed.
For that reason, Parliament' s approval of enlargement cannot but depend on the adequacy of the institutional changes that will be decided.
That is not a threat, it is a declaration of responsible attitude.
In good faith, all sides are trying, by means of amendments, to make the way in which European Union functions more effective.
But is it enough for procedures to be simplified and speeded up for them to be described as effective?
The effectiveness of a police service, which indeed demands both simplicity and speed, is quite different from the effectiveness of the fundamental institutions of a democratic public regime.
The effectiveness of democratic institutions is not measured either with a stopwatch, or according to the number of decisions taken.
It is measured by the degree of legitimacy.
The dual legitimacy of the European Union by its European but also its national citizens, by its peoples but also its states, makes the European Union institutionally complex by its very nature.
For that reason the extent to which these procedures can be simplified and speeded up is restricted by the whole complex system of dual legitimacy.
We must bear that in mind tomorrow, when we come to vote on the amendments and the text.
Mr President, within our groups in Parliament and within the IGC itself we are still struggling with the problems that proved fairly intractable at Amsterdam.
These issues are tricky because they expose both the exaggerated self-importance of small states and the folie de grandeur of the big states.
These issues can only be resolved by a greater sense of trust between partners - such trust that is the essential glue of successful federal pacts.
This trust is precisely the quality that is needed so that we are able to ensure the successful accession of the new Member States.
The fact is - and somebody should say this - that if the IGC fails to resolve the Amsterdam questions, enlargement must be postponed.
The Liberal Group supports the efforts of the presidency and of the Commission to build up the extra trust required.
We support the main thrust of this report.
We support especially those elements which expand the European Union' s capacity for action in global affairs: those that strengthen the status and the profile of the citizen, including the Charter; and those that will postulate further political reform in the interests of a strong executive and a mature parliamentary democracy.
In this respect the splitting of the Treaties is vital.
So is retention of unanimity within the Council exclusively for the most serious questions.
Liberals everywhere support ministers that will subscribe to the development of European parliamentary democracy.
But we will be savage critics of those who prefer narrow self-interest and threaten the accession of new Member States.
Mr President, the European Parliament does not take part in Intergovernmental Conference negotiations.
It plays a secondary role, as do all those who are not part of a national government.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has always maintained that the intergovernmental method, which excludes elected Members and does not allow public debate, is a very significant weakness of the reform of the Treaties and a substantial barrier to its success.
Therefore, our assessment of this report is based on the fact that it is being presented in an unsatisfactory context, in which our priorities - an open, working democracy capable of rendering economic development environmentally sustainable, which ensures the respect and consolidation of the rights of the citizens and residents, and, most importantly, which is able to enlarge to include new Member countries in a short period of time - are not the same as those of the negotiating governments. The governments have one sole objective: to reach a unanimous agreement in Nice, whatever the outcome, so that they do not have to move on to some other city as obscure as Maastricht.
Although Parliament cannot take part in negotiations, it has a duty to indicate the way, to define clear options for the future, without pretending to take part in the actual negotiations and without being conditioned by governmental pressure or pressure from artificial comparisons, such as the comparison between large and small countries.
This report only partly achieves this objective, and this is why our Group was not able to be unanimous in its final assessment.
But although the final decision was not unanimous, the Group was united in its view of the positive and negative points of this resolution.
We fully support certain central points, but, unfortunately, our view is not shared by many national governments. The issues on which we agree are as follows: systematic extension, not extension on a case by case basis, of the majority vote to the Council; codecision; the urgent need to make the Charter of Fundamental Rights binding and to extend the possibility of recourse to the Court beyond the economic sphere; the provisions on closer cooperation and so forth.
We are, however, very critical of the reduction of the constitution issue to a mere technical operation separating the Treaties into two parts, which, apart from anything else, would be very similar.
This is not the constitutional process, which should bear no resemblance to convoluted diplomatic negotiations and which, we feel, is essential to give the necessary boost to the integration process which, alone, can mobilise the citizens to strive for a better Europe.
We consider that the insistence on maintaining the limit on the number of Members at 700, even when we become a 20-State Europe, unnecessarily penalises the regions and those whose political orientations are neither socialist nor conservative.
In this regard, we hope that our amendment will find consensus in the House.
The Group is divided over double majority, closer cooperation, the number of Commissioners and security policy.
In particular, as regards the subject of the number of Commissioners, we will support the balanced position of those amendments which ensure both sufficient representation of the Member States and the efficiency of the Commission.
To sum up, this report may well be useful in assisting our two representatives in their often extremely frustrating daily work at the Intergovernmental Conference where others take the decisions, but to our citizens, it will seem about as clear as an interministerial memorandum.
Most importantly, in the same way as the 1984 Spinelli Treaty, this report does not live up to the challenge of being a milestone, a clear, unambiguous indication of where we want to be with those who wish to be there.
Mr President, our Group wishes to thank the rapporteurs, Messrs Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen, for the important work which they have carried out.
I must also tell them that, within my group, there are differing views, according to differing national experiences.
I will say the same thing here that I have said in my group: the debate is not whether we say yes or no to federalism.
The debate is how to go about European construction at the point of enlargement.
It is making sure that we do not just build a Europe of the States and a Europe of the people, but, especially, a Europe of the citizens.
We must create a fully democratic institutional fabric.
We know that there are democratic deficits and that they are considerable.
At the moment the challenge in the face of enlargement is to achieve, as the rapporteurs have said, greater efficiency and greater democracy.
The Intergovernmental Conference cannot end with the same disappointment that we had in Amsterdam.
We cannot create an Amsterdam 2.
We have to create a Treaty which gives rise to genuine European construction in which more than 400 million Europeans can share economic prosperity, a social dimension and a democratic life.
This is the great challenge for the European institutions and for European politics.
My vision of European construction is compatible with the fundamental lines which are laid out in the report which we are discussing today.
It is, of course, necessary to give the Commission the powers it needs and make it responsible to Parliament.
This is precisely the issue. We must clearly define the different democratic powers in the field of European competences and we must know who is making decisions and to whom they are responsible.
Mr President, Parliament does not take a corporate position.
Our minimum demand is that Parliament be treated as an adult which has to request that the Commission take certain responsibilities, but which also has to participate actively in European construction on behalf of the European citizens.
On behalf of the European citizens, we have to ask today not only for that fine-tuning of decision making but also for the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Treaty.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights must give citizens the capacity to demand compliance with these rights in the European courts.
This is the position which we can adopt in our Group, asking for more efficiency and more democracy.
Mr President, in our view the European Parliament' s proposals for the Intergovernmental Conference, as set out in the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report, are a misinterpretation.
What we urgently need today, on the eve of enlargement, is not to deepen the integration of the existing Member States at a faster rate.
It is not to trot out the old federalist recipes of the European Movement yet again.
It is not to propose a super-State again, with its own constitution, uniform rules and majority decisions.
No, what we urgently need today, ladies and gentlemen, is to show some evidence of clear-headedness, to accept that economic and political integration cannot be taken any further and to design new forms of cooperation that are far freer, and that will enable 30 or more States to work together on a basis of mutual respect.
Unfortunately, it would seem that the latest debates within the most well-informed groups of society stop at the doors of this Parliament.
In this matter, as in the case of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, our Parliament seems unable to depart from the federalist line it has been pursuing for many years.
That approach leads to an impasse, to what Mr Tsatsos a moment ago, if I understood him rightly, called a Europe built on sand.
First of all, it takes us away from the concept of Europe as an association of states, an association of national democracies, and puts all the countries, great or small, that are afraid of being marginalised on the defensive.
More generally, the rigid federalist approach reflects a more or less unconscious desire to set up institutional barriers against enlargement, which will once again call in question a whole range of long-standing patterns of behaviour.
We must adopt a more positive approach.
We must promote enlargement by adopting a new form of cooperation that is more differentiated, shows greater respect for national sovereignty, that is based on full recognition of the Luxembourg compromise, as I explained in the minority opinion attached to the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report.
Mr President, in Denmark there is a concept known as asset stripping.
Top class lawyers and accountants are being convicted one after the other because they have helped strip companies of assets and then left them with tax liabilities.
Asset stripping is a punishable offence.
The Intergovernmental Conference is designed to strip our constitutions and fundamental laws of assets and leave the voters with a democratic deficit, but constitution stripping of this kind is not punished.
The asset under our constitutions is the right of voters to be heard and to choose representatives who can pass laws on our behalf.
If we are dissatisfied with the laws, we can choose new representatives and obtain new laws.
This is the beating heart of our democracies, a heart which, because of the constitution strippers, will stop beating.
They are taking legislative power from our 15 national parliaments and transferring it to officials and ministers, from voters and elected representatives to the executive and from open assemblies to meetings behind closed doors in Brussels.
Electoral power is being transferred from our constitutions, but is not being transferred to the European Parliament.
We parliamentarians have been side-tracked.
Power lies with the Commission and the Council of Ministers.
The EU is not a parliamentary democracy, and the national parliaments have been still further marginalised.
A number of us in this House have therefore prepared 19 proposals for democratic reform of the EU.
We call the initiative SOS Democracy - "SOS" because it is a matter of urgency and "Democracy" because that is the heart of the problem.
We do not have democracy in today' s EU.
We should like to have it in tomorrow' s.
We have different opinions as to how the laws should look.
We have support across the political spectrum from communists to conservatives. We disagree about a lot but agree that our differences should be resolved in democratic parliaments.
The voters in our countries should always have the last word.
We reject any attempt to strip our constitutions of democratic content and we urge the public to get involved in the negotiations concerning the Nice Treaty before it is too late.
Join us in SOS Democracy.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I am speaking as draftsman of the opinion of this Parliament' s Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
I understand the importance of institutional reforms, but I would also like to express the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on the issues which we must tackle in relation to the Intergovernmental Conference.
We would like to make three points.
Firstly, the active recognition of the role, protagonism and participation of the regions in the process of European construction which began 50 years ago.
Secondly, the importance of transport.
To this end, we want an extended Article 70 and we also want it to be supplemented with a provision on the creation of a single European agency for air traffic control.
Lastly, the role of tourism for both the economy and for employment.
We - or at least I personally - accept Amendment No 168, presented by the chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy on this issue.
. (FR) Mr President, Ministers, ladies and gentlemen, after listening carefully to the two rapporteurs, to all the committee representatives and to Mr Gama, the Portuguese Minister, and before listening just as carefully to all the speakers in the further course of the debate, let me explain the views of the Commission which, as you know, is playing an active part in these negotiations, in which I too was involved from the outset, along with your representatives and the representatives of the Member States.
I would like to tell you how much I appreciate the very high quality of the report presented by your two rapporteurs, Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos and Jo Leinen, which we are now debating.
The report is clear and comprehensive.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs has set out a determined position and I want to pay tribute to its work and that of its chairman, Mr Napolitano.
I have two comments to make on the report.
The first is that, objectively speaking, the positions of your committee, which will probably be shared by the House when you come to the vote, are in many respects very close to the Commission' s.
Parliament, like the Commission, has sized up the challenge facing the Union with the prospect of an unprecedented increase in the number of Member States which, by the same token, will accentuate their diversity.
Your Parliament is aware that the reform of the institutions is necessary, that it must be tackled seriously and that, if need be, we must look beyond short-term national interests and offer the people a Treaty that is substantial enough to gain their support.
That is what is at stake in these negotiations, which we must bring to a successful conclusion at the end of this year, at the European Council in Nice.
I would stress the 'success' rather than the 'concluding' , for they are two different things.
And success is what we need in Nice.
These changes are essential to the success of enlargement.
In my view they are also necessary right now because in many respects the current institutional organisation is showing its limitations.
I am thinking, for example, of the Court of Justice' s workload and of the log-jams we see in some areas because of the requirement of unanimity in the Council.
Your Parliament has looked in depth at the decision-making system in the Council and at the composition and functioning of the Commission.
Since 26 January you have been well aware of the positions set out by the Commission.
For example, to make things quite clear with regard to the Commission itself, we proposed that each country should certainly have one Commissioner.
But we also proposed two options on that basis.
Either every country will have a national representative within the Commission at the same time, or not all countries will be represented at any one time.
But, if you look at those two options I have briefly described, you will find that the states will be represented on an equal footing, which is not currently the case within the Commission.
On this issue, as on others, we believed it was important, over and above the basic approach, to open up a debate, to take time to consider the pros and cons of the different options, and to decide between gut reactions that would consist of changing as little as possible and the long-term requirements of giving our institutions new impetus.
Negotiations on these issues have scarcely begun.
Whatever solutions are finally adopted, your debates, like ours, will help the Intergovernmental Conference to take more responsible and enlightened decisions.
I note there is broad convergence on the qualified majority issue.
Qualified majority voting should become the general rule for Council decisions, together with the codecision procedure for all matters that come within the legislative sphere.
The Commission itself said just that and recommended a means of achieving these results by identifying the categories of decision where unanimity must or could be retained.
We are well aware that certain Member States have difficulties with some of these questions.
We know there are reservations about the tax system, to give just one example.
What the Commission, what the European Parliament must do is precisely to look beyond these reservations and sincerely, honestly and without any ideological bias consider the coherence and effectiveness of the single market.
That is what we wanted to do with our additional contribution which describes the new area of qualified majority voting in relation to certain aspects of the tax system, certain aspects of social protection, to ensure the smooth operation of the single market.
There is agreement between our positions on other points too, such as the composition of the European Parliament, closer cooperation, the creation of a new European Public Prosecutor' s office which, as Mrs Theato pointed out, will help us to fight fraud against the Community budget, the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance. And that does not surprise me, since the Commission and the European Parliament have always been very close in their thinking on these subjects and are inspired by the same concern for the general interest of Europe.
We will continue along these lines until the negotiations reach their conclusion.
My second comment relates to the active involvement of your Parliament, which is vital to our success.
Because the European Parliament has its own special perspective on things, I want to stress how necessary Parliament' s commitment is, the commitment of each and everyone of you, first of all during the negotiations - as your representatives in the negotiating teams, Elmar Brok and Professor Tsatsos, are well aware, and indeed their contributions often put the discussions back into perspective - but also during the ministerial discussions.
And I must say I was pleased with the most recent joint discussions that took place with your President, Nicole Fontaine, in Luxembourg the day before yesterday at the initiative of the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Gama.
But I also want to emphasise how important it is for us, outside our official and institutional establishments, to explain our activities and engage in dialogue with the national parliaments and the citizens of every EU country and with the candidate countries.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude by drawing attention to three particular aspects, while also noting that as we speak today a number of questions about the correct scope of the agenda of these negotiations have to some extent now been resolved.
I think that is a good thing.
In saying that, I want to pay tribute to the Portuguese Presidency and in particular to Jame Gama and to Franciscos Seixas da Costa for electing to adopt a pragmatic and objective approach, an approach that is as objective as possible and that consists in starting out from the needs and limitations of the existing system and proposing solutions. That suggests that we can work on the basis of the Helsinki mandate as long as today' s presidency has the political will to give an impetus to tomorrow' s French Presidency.
Although this is a reasonably substantial and difficult agenda, there are still a few subjects that have been left aside for the time being, which we regret.
But it will soon be time for a decision to be taken, and, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to put forward three points for consideration.
The first point concerns European defence.
Since the Cologne Council, and in particular the Helsinki Council, the necessary structures are being set up, on an interim basis, within the Council' s General Secretariat.
As provided for by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Union is now preparing to carry out the Petersberg tasks and missions, i.e. humanitarian and evacuation missions, peace-keeping, crisis-management and, where necessary, peace-making missions.
Discussions are under way on relations between the European Union and Nato.
The European Union Defence Ministers met on 28 February.
The first working documents have now been drafted on civil crisis management.
So we can see some progress and certainly a political will to move forward.
My friend and fellow Commissioner, Chris Patten, can confirm this assessment of the situation as regards these questions.
In a few weeks' time, the European Council in Feira will have to decide whether the Treaty should be amended with a view to building on the guidelines of the Helsinki European Council.
Our group of representatives has not considered these questions yet, but let me share a few ideas with you.
Ladies and gentlemen, after matters relating to justice and the police, a security and defence policy is without doubt the last major common policy we have to establish.
The existing Treaty, as amended at Amsterdam, has enabled us to make significant progress.
We can see that today.
But can we resolve everything purely within the framework of that Treaty? Let us leave aside, for today, the question of future of the WEU Treaty with the collective defence commitment it contains and the different statutes of the EU Member States and of Nato and WEU member countries.
Looking only at the Petersberg tasks, I do not think the European Council has given enough thought to the organisation within the Union of a political authority that will give instructions to the chain of command that is being set up.
It may be that, before it concludes, the Intergovernmental Conference will have to consider the structures and appropriateness of the existing Treaty.
I do not have all the answers to this question but I think it needs to be asked, and to be asked in the context of the Conference.
I think it would be premature to close this file at Feira.
Instead, President Gama, I hope the presidency will give an even stronger political impetus on the question of defence.
My second point concerns the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the EU' s democratic values.
The negotiating body is making good progress, or so we are told by Antonio Vitorino who is representing the Commission in it.
The interest that is being shown in this draft Charter and the support for its incorporation in the Treaty confirm what I regard as the need to reaffirm, over and over again, the fundamental values of the EU, to set down once and for all the principles shared by all the citizens of Europe.
It is the same need that inspired your Parliament' s report drafted by Mr Duff and Mr Voggenhuber.
One could say that these principles are self-evident.
But, as we know, what seems self-evident sometimes still needs reasserting, for all the existing Member States and for those that want to join us, because democracy and respect for citizens' rights are never won once and for all, but need to be fought for and defended again and again.
Your Parliament has considered these questions, as it has considered the existing Treaty provisions that would penalise any violation of the fundamental principles of the Union.
The Commission is prepared for this debate, which I believe is a necessary one, provided we keep it clear of any polemics.
My third and final point concerns the reorganisation of the Treaties.
The report before you discusses the constitutionalisation of the Treaties or, as we sometimes rather more modestly term it, the reorganisation of the Treaties.
That is a question of terminology.
Let me say a few words on this.
The Commission, as you know, has asked the Robert Schuman Institute in Florence to carry out a feasibility study on separating the Treaties into two parts: the essential provisions on the one hand and the applied provisions on the other.
This work is making good progress and I hope to be able to tell you the outcome soon.
But just as a mountain grows larger the closer you approach it, let me stress that this exercise involves major technical and legal difficulties.
The Treaties are not complicated in the sense of deliberately wanting to discourage the reader; they are complicated because the expression of the common resolve of 6, 9, 10, 12 or 15 Member States, over the efforts of 40 years, is not a linear operation, nor is it always as logical and simple as might be imagined after the fact, unless you start again from scratch.
But who would seriously suggest that? We have to start out from what we have.
We must seek the best while remaining within the realm of the possible.
Then, if this reorganisation of the Treaties proves possible and convincing - as I personally believe it will - it will be time to examine the procedures for amending these restructured texts.
But the Commission wants to proceed one step at a time and for the time being we are sticking to the pragmatic and meticulous job of reorganisation. I hope to present the results in May.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude by repeating that I and President Romano Prodi are prepared to continue and intensify these joint discussions so that, together with the Council, indeed all together, we will succeed in achieving a genuine reform at the end of this year.
As the Conference progresses, I believe it will become ever more necessary for us to take concerted joint action.
(Applause)
Mr President, I would first of all like to express my appreciation for the sterling work carried out by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen.
I believe that this is one of the best reports which have so far been produced in the framework of IGCs over recent years.
I am making this statement as former rapporteur on the Maastricht Treaty.
By the way, Maastricht is not a strange city, Mrs Frassoni, it is a very exciting city where the Dutch-Flemish, German and French cultures all flow into one.
Just try one of the pavement cafés and you will see what I mean.
I will repeat this to Mrs Frassoni in Italian some time.
Mr President, it is rather a shame that so many amendments have been tabled as this might affect the quality and balance of the report.
The large groups should, therefore, restrict themselves to the absolutely necessary amendments during the vote. This seems the best way to retain the good work which the rapporteurs have put in.
As far as our Group is concerned, the resolution needs to be amended on a number of points.
For example, we do not agree with the proposal in the resolution to restrict the number of Commissioners to 20 and to introduce a rota system for the smaller countries.
One Commissioner per Member State seems a much better solution to us.
In order to boost citizens' confidence in the European Commission, it is vital that each Member State should have a Commission Member.
Our Group, too, has therefore tabled amendments to this effect.
Next is the number of MEPs.
The resolution argues in favour of the possibility of European lists.
This is a sound idea, but if we want 10% of the European members on European lists, then this should not, of course, result in additional MEPs on top of the 700 which have been agreed upon.
It is important that we retain a maximum of 700, with or without the European list.
Parliament is already vast, the buildings are already packed and the whole thing has to remain workable.
The third point concerns the issue of unanimity.
We believe that in an enlarged Union, decision-making should not always be blocked by an excessive right of veto.
Unanimity should, therefore, be restricted to the bare essentials. These are constitutional issues such as the deployment of military troops and issues pertaining to territorial integrity.
All other decisions should be taken by qualified majority with weighted voting, as is proposed, and - this is vitally important - with colegislative powers exercised by Parliament.
We would also thank the Commission for this support.
I would like to end by commenting on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
According to our Group, it is of paramount importance that this Charter be included in the Treaty.
Work to this effect is being carried out, and we sincerely hope that a text can be produced which everyone can agree to incorporate into the Treaty.
This is a key issue for the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, the EU is faced with enormous challenges.
In just a few years' time, the Union is to be enlarged to include almost double the number of Member States.
The euro is to be introduced.
We are to have a security policy worthy of the name, implement administrative reforms and, hopefully, win back some of the confidence our citizens have lost in the European project.
The Intergovernmental Conference should prepare the EU for these changes.
It provides us with the opportunity to adapt our work to the new Member States and to the new tasks we have before us.
It is a question of finding a balance between democracy and efficiency and of maintaining the historic balance between small and large countries.
These are the questions which remain following the conclusion of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is important in these discussions not to become lost in technical details and lose sight of the goal - that of making the EU more open, more efficient and more intelligible.
We must all make sacrifices in order to achieve this goal.
Unfortunately, governments appear to have lost sight of this goal.
The Intergovernmental Conference is making only limited progress, which is not the fault of the Portuguese Presidency.
Probably what will happen is what usually happens: at five minutes to midnight on the last day, a compromise will be reached with which no-one is entirely satisfied.
The talk is already of the next Intergovernmental Conference where the major questions will then be solved.
We have heard this before.
There is starting to be a surfeit of half-baked intergovernmental conferences.
Our citizens have higher expectations than that, and we do not have much time.
That is why we have to take the opportunity now.
The EU must be changed in the way we Liberals have demanded, that is to say in the direction of transparency, public control, more explicit accountability, a clearer distribution of competences and a common constitution.
Quite simply, the EU must become more liberal.
The report includes many of our amendments, and I support these with few exceptions.
The challenges faced by the EU are exciting and historic. They should inspire us all to roll up our shirt sleeves.
We are in a position to create something unique: democratic, competitive and peaceful cooperation throughout the continent.
Instead, however, of awakening hope and enthusiasm, present developments appear, rather, to be giving rise to anxiety among governments.
One might well ask what has become of political leadership and vision.
Mr President, if the changes to the Treaty proposed in the resolution we are debating are implemented, the European Union will take an absolutely crucial step on the way to becoming a federal state and one, moreover, in which the national parliaments will lose control over almost all crucial areas of policy.
In addition to the massive increase in supranational forms of decision-making, the proposal contains quite a few qualitative changes in the direction of federalism, among these the proposal to remove the national right of veto in the course of changes to large parts of the current Treaty and, also, the demands for a single EU constituency in the elections for the European Parliament.
I am convinced that this transformation of the EU into a federal state is a blind alley in every way.
The EU' s major problem today is not a lack of centralised power but a shortage of real democracy.
What the Union needs in place of more supranationalism is democratic reform leading to a dramatic reduction in the Commission' s political power, to the legislative process in the Council' s being made public and to the national parliaments' being given decisive influence.
Through the Treaty changes proposed in the resolution, the EU would become a Union wholly dominated by the big Member States.
The power wielded by the major countries would be increased dramatically through the introduction of a system of "double simple majority" voting in the Council of Ministers.
Their power would also be increased through the increase in their representation in the European Parliament.
In an EU which has been enlarged by a further twelve States and in which seven hundred seats in Parliament have been distributed as proposed in the resolution, Sweden would have thirteen seats, Finland seven and Ireland five. This would mean that, in many Member States, important political powers would not be represented at EU level.
This also shows how weak the democratic basis of such a Parliament would be.
Compared with other federal states, the "EU state" would, on this model, be unusually centralised and offer little protection to small constituent States.
A comparison might be made with the United States in which the one chamber in a two-chamber system has proportional representation, while representation in the second chamber is the same for all constituent States.
In the EU, the big countries would instead dominate both chambers on the basis of the proposal we are now debating.
For anyone who wants to change anything regarding monetary union or EMU, it is now, when the Treaty is being changed, that the opportunity exists.
Many adherents of EMU on the Left have, of course, argued in favour of altering the nature of monetary union in such a way that the Central Bank is placed under democratic control and that the goals of economic policy are not merely monetary.
It is noticeable that they are now completely silent and that it is now only the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left which is demanding the democratisation of monetary union.
As you have perhaps noted, I am going to vote against the present resolution.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I support the enlargement of the European Union because I know it will consolidate the new democracies in eastern and central Europe.
I know it will also increase the size of the European Union as a trading block which in time will ensure that the Union as an economic entity becomes more competitive.
I know that reform within the existing European institutions must take place.
However, any changes within the internal decision-making procedures must be balanced and fair.
We do not want to see a two-tier European Union in which larger Member States dictate the pace at the expense of the smaller Member States.
For example, the report which we are debating today recommends a rotation system for the composition of the European Commission.
This will mean that the automatic entitlement of smaller Member States to have one Member of the Commission will be downgraded.
I do not believe that this is a particularly sensible proposal.
380 million citizens of the Union have an affinity with the Commission.
Certainly, from an Irish perspective, Irish people recognise the importance of the Commission as an institutional body within the European Union.
It is still the institution that controls the operations of competition policy, the common agricultural policy, the common fisheries policy and the common transport policy.
The Union must draw nearer to the citizens of the Union.
We should also remember that some Member States, including my country, must hold a referendum on any Treaty changes that arise at the forthcoming IGC.
The loss of an automatic right to nominate a Commissioner would certainly be a very difficult, if not impossible, proposal to sell to an Irish electorate in this referendum.
I would now like to return to the issue of extending the qualified majority voting system at European Council level.
The Council represents the interests of the 15 Member State governments within the institutional framework of the Union and currently, under existing EU Treaties, unanimous agreement of the 15 Member States is required for any tax changes sought within the Union.
The report we are discussing today seeks to extend qualified majority voting to all legislative activities except those of a constitutional nature.
I believe that national Member States should retain the right of veto on taxation matters.
The Irish taxation system is innovative in many ways and has contributed to our present growth rates.
I do not believe that the extension of qualified majority voting to taxation matters at European Council level is a particularly welcome development.
Mr President, a biblical parable teaches the reader to build his house on a rock.
After all, a house built on sand has no solid foundations.
This parable was meant as a reference to faith and its foundations.
Nonetheless, I was reminded of this parable during the IGC discussion.
The relentless attempts to turn Europe into a political unity seem to be built on quicksand.
Indeed, the citizens of Europe do not feel European and this will not change overnight.
Still, the discussion on the EU' s future is peppered with concepts such as European citizenship.
This does not exist by any stretch of the imagination and is simply quicksand!
In the IGC discussion or the present report for that matter, the end goal of European cooperation is not taken into consideration.
What do we want to achieve as a European Union? I would be keen to hear the Council' s and Commission' s opinion on this.
If there is a well-considered vision on the foundation of European cooperation, the European House will be on more solid ground and will be able to brave the bad weather.
I share the minority view of Mr Berthu, a member of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, as it has been included in this report.
This document does include a solid foundation for the Union, namely a cooperative of independent states, in which the national democracies enjoy the highest level of legitimacy.
Regarding the enlargement issue, the fact that Member States joining the EU can become fully-fledged Members of the Union should be central.
"Degrading" acceding countries to second-class members does not do them justice and has unwanted political consequences.
Instead of the idea of different speeds, I support the idea of carrying out only the core tasks, that is to say in cross-border policy areas, at European level.
Another specific point I would like to raise concerns the European Commission.
This high official college should in future not have more or fewer than 20 members.
If necessary, combinations of countries can alternate in appointing a Euro Commissioner.
I support the policy of granting the European Parliament codecision in all cases in which the Council decides by qualified majority.
This must, however, go hand in hand with sound scrutiny by the national parliaments of their "own" ministers in the Council.
President, Commissioner, we are faced with a fundamental difficulty, in the exercise in which we are involved, in maintaining the balance between enlarging the EU and reforming the institutions to make that enlargement possible.
British Conservatives cannot accept the report, based on the long list of ancillary items which are not on the agenda of the IGC.
We are concerned by the proposals for constitutionalisation of the Union, by the proposals to incorporate the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Treaty, by the progressive diminishing of the distinction between the first and second pillars, by the proposal that the Council should adopt broad guidelines of economic, employment and social convergence policies by qualified majority.
These are just some examples of the complex and controversial issues which are raised.
We are overloading the wish list of the IGC.
The great danger, if all these extra items were to be adopted on the agenda, is that the deadline of December 2000 would inevitably be missed.
Where would that leave the candidate countries like Poland and Hungary, whose government leaders have already expressed concern over the timetable?
We believe the IGC should concentrate on the essential institutional reforms.
It should ensure that it meets the deadline, to enable the first wave of enlargement to include Central and Eastern European countries by 2004, and to continue any further necessary reforms with the full inclusion of our new partners.
If the EU delays enlargement too long, it may make it more difficult, or impossible, for some candidate countries to join within the envisaged timetable.
The President-in-Office addressed some of these concerns in his speech.
Commissioner Barnier in his speech said that the intention is to succeed with the reforms, not necessarily to conclude them.
Some people say that this is the last opportunity for reform.
I do not think that is a very fair reflection on the extraordinary reforms that many of the candidate countries have made in the last 9 and 10 years since they were within the Warsaw Pact or formerly part of the Soviet Union.
Our priority is enlargement.
We should not confuse or reverse our priorities.
Mr President, my group welcomes this report.
It sends a clear message to the IGC to be ambitious, to think long-term and not short-term, to think of how a Union with nearly double the number of Member States we have now can actually function effectively and to take this opportunity to change the Treaties, because future IGCs with nearly 30 states around the table will find it even more difficult than it is now to agree on reforms.
The report puts forward ambitious proposals, as one would expect of the European Parliament.
If adjusted by the amendments by my group, it will be a well-balanced set of proposals, well-balanced notably on the delicate question of the equilibrium between large and smaller Member States.
On the size of the Commission, for instance, the formulas that are likely to be adopted tomorrow will refer either to one Commissioner per Member State or to a smaller number, a fixed number of Commissioners.
The Commission cannot go on expanding indefinitely.
In the second case, it will be a rotating system, so that every Member State, large and small, has equal opportunities of seeing one of its nationals serve in the Commission.
On the question of the size of the European Parliament, we have also found a point of equilibrium, based on to a minimum number of Members for each Member State.
Every state will, of course, have to make a sacrifice following enlargement, but a minimum number will be guaranteed, with digressive proportionality thereafter.
So the report is balanced and I think can be welcomed.
It is ambitious.
Some people are saying: ' The IGC will never agree to this point or to that point' .
But we are not in this Parliament trying to guess the outcome of the IGC; we are trying to encourage it to move in a particular direction, in a more ambitious direction, to make sure that we actually have a Union capable of functioning effectively when we enlarge to nearly 30 Member States.
That is essential for our future.
Mr President, the aim of the IGC is to reconcile enlargement with deepening.
In particular, we need to review the interinstitutional balance, representation within the Commission and the other institutions, the weighting of votes and the areas covered by qualified majority voting.
Unanimity voting must apply to decisions of a constitutional and fundamental nature.
Closer cooperation must make it possible to manage diversity and avoid getting bogged down, without calling the fundamental structure of the Union into question.
The report by our fellow Members, whom I want to congratulate, has been substantially improved over the course of the discussions.
Nonetheless, the outlined reform will hit the small Member States hardest.
That applies in particular to the provisions on the composition and operation of the institutions.
A Parliament in which the ceiling of four seats per Member State, which does not allow for a balanced representation of the political forces, is unacceptable.
The same is true of a Council in which the qualified majority rules have to be readjusted and whose proposed method of operation will inevitably lead to deadlock and inconsistency, and of a Commission in which the rule must be one member per Member State.
Lastly, let me bring up the question of the seat of Parliament and call for the promise made to be respected.
I am always surprised to see our Parliament, which sets itself up as the committed champion of respect for minority rights when it comes to others, go against this approach when it comes to deciding on the institutional architecture of our own House.
Mr President, we, for our part, welcome the enlargement of Europe and will participate in the discussion of how to prepare for it.
The Scottish National Party, which I represent, is committed in its manifesto and its general policy to the idea of Europe as a confederation of peoples, countries and regions, not as a sovereign federal union in its own right.
That is something which the parties of European Free Alliance have in common and our votes will be cast in that light.
I want to draw attention particularly to Amendment No 138, in its interaction with paragraph 32 of the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report.
Regarding its proposal for all-Europe lists of candidates, we in Scotland - a small nation within a large Member State - are seriously concerned about the practical disappearance of Scotland as a distinct entity within the Union This would also apply to Euskadi, Flanders, Galicia, Andalusia and Wales.
The reduction in Members of the European Parliament that we would face, coupled with the arrival of new Member States which are smaller in population than Scotland or Wales and which would be fully represented in all the institutions of the Union, will certainly increase the pressure for and our people' s commitment to the idea of our own independence in this great European confederation.
As it is now voting time, the debate will be adjourned and will resume at 3 p.m.
VOTE
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Recommendation for second reading, in the form of a letter, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European and Council Decision on the application of aerial-survey and remote-sensing techniques to the agricultural statistics for 1999-2003 (13300/1/1999 - C5-0065/2000 - 1998/0296(COD))
(The President declared the common position approved)
Simplified procedure without report:
Proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 95/50/EC on uniform procedures for checks on the transport of dangerous goods by road (COM(00)0106 - C5-0129/2000 - 2000/0044(COD)) (Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism)
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Proposal for a decision of the European Parliament, the Council, the Commission, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the organisation and operation of the Office for Official Publications of the European Communities (EC, ECSC, Euratom) (C5-0080/2000 - 2000/2043(ACI)) (Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport)
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0071/2000), drawn up on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on action to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants by engines intended to power agricultural or forestry tractors and amending Council Directive 74/150/EEC (10323/1/1999 - C5-0225/1999 - 1998/0247(COD) (rapporteur: Mr Fitzsimons)
(The President declared the common position approved)
Report (A5-0102/2000) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the Republic of Finland with a view to the adoption of a Council decision concerning arrangements for cooperation between financial intelligence units of the Member States in respect of exchanging information (11636/1999 - C5-0330/1999 - 1999/0824(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0083/2000), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position of the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms and repealing Directive 90/220/EEC (11216/1/1999 - C5-0012/2000 - 1998/0072(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Bowe)
Wallström, Commission.
Mr President, as I explained during the debate yesterday, the Commission is able to accept fully Amendments Nos 9, 17, 19, 29 and 47.
The Commission can also accept Amendments Nos 1 to 4, 8, 11, 24, 35 to 38, 46, 48, 49 and 52 in principle, as far as they clarify the intention of the Commission to establish an efficient, transparent and balanced regulatory framework for GMOs.
Some of these amendments need only to be brought into line with the legal wording of the text of the directive and the overall legislative framework.
For other amendments, for instance those amendments concerning antibiotic-resistant marker genes, the principle is politically acceptable but the proposed text as such does not seem to be appropriate.
The Commission is unable to accept Amendments Nos 5 to 7, 10, 12 to 16, 18, 20 to 23, 25 to 28, 30 to 34, 39 to 45, 50 and 51.
More specifically concerning Amendments Nos 22, 23 and 25, the Commission cannot accept them as they stand but is willing to consider how due account can be taken of the concerns they reflect.
Mr President, I have a question for the Commission, so as to make it quite clear to my fellow delegates what we are voting about.
I have the Council' s common position of 9 December 1999 before me.
It says in the document passed to us by the Council that this common position was adopted unanimously.
If I remember correctly, we were still under the Finnish Council Presidency in December 1999, with a Green Environment Minister.
Political Union took place in June 1999, under the German Council Presidency, also with a green Environment Minister.
However, I am a little confused because the Greens in this House are maintaining that the common position is so weak that it is imperative that we make a huge number of improvements to it.
That is why I wanted to put the question again as to whether we are really voting on the common position that all the Environment Ministers subscribed to, or whether we are mistaken?
(Laughter, Applause)
Thank you, Mr Liese.
May I remind you that the debate is closed. Nevertheless I will give the floor to the Commission if it wishes to clarify the matter further.
It is that very common position.
Mr President, since Mr Liese has addressed a question to us, I will take the liberty of answering him.
The Green Group is not dependent on the positions of the Green ministers represented in the Environment Council.
We have freedom of choice, and I would hope the same applies to all the political groups here present.
But I wanted to speak specifically on the vote on Amendment No 37.
I think it is quite logical to vote on Amendment No 11 first, before Amendment No 37, because Amendment No 11 goes further than Amendment No 37.
It proposes a total ban on antibiotic-resistant marker genes, which is not the case in Amendment No 37, which relates only to Part C of the directive.
So I believe it would be more logical to vote first on the amendment that departs furthest from the original position.
I am happy to put this question to the Bureau, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, but I was bound by decisions outside my control.
I quite understand your feelings, Mr Bowe.
To tell the truth, I agree with you.
But I also had to respect the protocol which, once again, unfortunately often takes precedence over our proceedings.
That said, it is true that your comment makes good sense and I think the Bureau will have to give it the fullest consideration.
Mr President, I have a question about the method applied here.
It seems to me that, normally, when the sitting resumes and we resume the vote after a formal sitting, a bell sounds to warn our colleagues that the sitting and the vote are resuming.
I did not hear that bell and I would ask you to confirm the method used in such cases, for this probably adversely affected the result of the vote in this Chamber.
In principle, Mrs Lienemann, the bell sounds when the sitting has been adjourned in order to call Members back.
Some Members had left the Chamber, others remained.
I had in fact announced that the voting would resume immediately after the formal sitting.
Moreover this was indicated in the Minutes and on the agenda.
But I too am sometimes faced with imponderables.
Let me assure you that all your comments will be passed on to the Bureau.
You yourself are a member of the Bureau.
I think that by taking concerted action we will manage to improve the system.
(Mixed reactions)
Mr President, an error has slipped into paragraphs 15, 17 and 18 of this joint resolution of the European Union and Africa.
In paragraph 15, instead of saying "the OAU" it should say "the African States" .
In section 17, instead of "the OAU" it should say "Africa" .
In section 18, "members of the OAU" should be replaced by "Africans" .
(Parliament agreed to vote on the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution) EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Resolution on the additionality principle
Mr President, I would like to give the following explanation of the vote that I cast in the debate concerning additionality.
I would like particularly to underline the point in the motion that Parliament fully endorses the Commission' s statement that the spirit of additionality, as well as the letter of the law, represents a key consideration and is vital to ensuring that programmes have a maximum impact on the ground.
In that light it is absolutely unacceptable that the current policy allows Member States, after submission of region-based plans, to reallocate funds internally yet still formally comply with the additionality principle while defying its spirit.
This matter urgently calls for review by the Commission.
Since the debate - yesterday in fact - I have received a very courteous and helpful letter from Mr Barnier indicating that the Commission is moving our way on this.
I am very glad about that.
I should like to congratulate my colleague, Mrs Evans, for setting up this marvellous debate and getting this superb result today.
Mr President, I am delighted this resolution has been adopted by Parliament in recognition of the problem that exists with additionality.
I represent Wales which, due to the practices of the UK Government, has not received, and will not receive, what the EU intends to be spent on combating poverty over and above normal government spending, even with Objective I status in the current programme period.
As Commissioner Barnier has stated, it is as important to comply with the spirit of additionality as with the letter of the law.
The Commissioner also endorsed the statement by Commissioner Liikanen that in future the Commission would be particularly attentive to the spending figures put forward by the Member States when there is evidence of reduced expenditure in a given region or regions.
I trust now that the Member States will comply with the wishes of Parliament and the Commission in this matter to ensure that the effective targeting of structural funds at the poorest regions is not undermined.
- The EPLP delegation voted in favour of the compromise resolution on additionality because we believe that the principle of additionality is one of the core fundamental pillars of the structural funds reforms, for which I was Parliament' s rapporteur.
However, I believe that parts of this resolution, rather than bringing clarity to the rules, will only serve to confuse the general public and in particular funding operators.
Paragraph A continues to confuse the principle of additionality with the separate but equally important principle of co-financing.
Paragraph G is inaccurate.
There is no regulatory requirement to check additionality on an annual basis, but as stated in the regulation, simplification requires three checks on additionality during the programming period.
It is inappropriate for Members to try with this resolution to rewrite regulations which were agreed unanimously by this Parliament and will be up for review in 2006.
More disappointing is the naked party political games which British Members Mr Davies, Mr Bradbourn and Mrs Evans have attempted in this resolution.
This will not serve the best interests of our poorest communities, with deliberate misinformation and hijacking this debate for narrow party political advantage.
Our real goal must be to plan and give our support to the successful implementation of these funds to improve the life prospects of people in our poorest regions.
My party is committed to this goal and will work with other parties in a constructive and positive way to achieve this.
Agricultural statistics for the period 1993-2003
Mr President, of course, it is important, if not essential, for the European Union to be engaged in statistics.
However, this undertaking can sometimes be extremely harmful for certain States in our Union, take, for example, the milk quotas which have been so detrimental for so many areas of Europe.
In my opinion, we must ensure that these statistics are calculated, and are calculated appropriately, but, most importantly, I would like to take the opportunity presented by this explanation of vote on statistics to invite Parliament, the Commission and the Council to avoid what so frequently occurs as a result of the application of statistics to milk quotas and agricultural products, for example, according to which a certain amount may or may not be produced - namely, the waste of resources due to the destruction of excess produce.
Checks on the transport of dangerous goods by road
Mr President, I voted for this resolution because, clearly, the transport of dangerous goods is constantly in need of regulation.
We must do everything possible to reduce the number of vehicles carrying dangerous goods along the roads of Europe to a minimum.
I would argue that rail, sea and air transport should be favoured instead, and, in particular, we should favour employing the elderly to drive dangerous goods vehicles and work in related activities.
Young people lack experience and are certainly at greater risk than the elderly.
The experience of workers who have been performing this activity for a substantial period of time should be recognised, and employment of the elderly in all the most hazardous activities should be promoted.
Recommendation for second reading: Bowe (A5-0083/2000)
Mr President, I feel that we should not be too alarmist in these matters, and that, with regard to genetically modified organisms, we should not hold back scientific progress with an excessive amount of regulations. In any case, no one has ever succeeded in blocking the advance of science.
I have heard on the grapevine that a gene is being discovered which prolongs human life, and I am a little concerned that we may be placing too many restrictions on science and the use of genetically modified organisms.
When this gene is discovered, it would be a shame if Parliament decided not to allow the movement of genetically modified organisms, ourselves, in fact, when, at last, we could live longer in better health.
For this reason, in the interests of the elderly, I would call for less stringent regulation of GMOs.
Mr President, I want to give an oral explanation of vote because what has happened, once again, is not very good news for our Parliament.
In fact consumers, associations and all those concerned with the environment, with health, with the expected risks due to GMOs released into the environment, were expecting the European Parliament to send out a strong signal.
Once again we have simply kowtowed to the lobby of the advocates of GMOs on the pretext that science will help to make the world a better place.
We know full well that as yet there is no toxicology study that evaluates the consequences of releasing GMOs into the environment.
So we can only regret that those amendments that went much further, that indeed allowed us to anticipate the implications of GMOs for nature, were not accepted.
Mr President, I therefore condemn the kind of compromise reached between the major political groups, which goes against what the consumers and associations expected of us, as well as all those who trusted the European Parliament and who expect our Members to adopt firm positions.
- The European Parliament will vote on 12 April, to adopt a new directive on the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
There are major issues at stake.
The time has come to make those who engage in the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms legally responsible for damage to human health and the environment.
They should be liable for any damage caused by such releases and they should be required to take out liability insurance just as every driver has to take out liability insurance in case he kills or injures another human being.
The argument has been made that this issue should instead be covered by horizontal legislation.
It is worth noting, however, that we have heard this argument since discussions about Directive 90/220/EEC first started in 1989.
At that time, the Commission promised that liability for environmental damage caused by GMOs would be covered by horizontal legislation, but we have been waiting for more than 10 years for that promise to be fulfilled.
We must adopt an immediate and categorical ban on the use of antibiotic resistant genes.
Many scientists and organisations, such as the Pasteur Institute and the British Medical Association, have called for a ban on the use of antibiotic-resistant marker genes, which do not perform any relevant function on the plants and are therefore completely superfluous.
In the common position antibiotic-resistant genes would just "be phased out" in the future, and only if "they may have any adverse effects on human health and the environment" .
This would mean that antibiotic-resistant products that have already been authorised would remain.
There are many less damaging forms of marker genes available and it is EU policy to prohibit all unnecessary use of antibiotics if there is a risk for human or animal health.
The directive should take a clear stand and insist that the use of these marker genes is stopped now.
The pharmaceutical industry wants a total exemption from the directive.
The Environment Committee adopted two contradictory amendments, one for a total exemption and one tightening up the common position line of a conditional exemption with all the normal environmental risk provisions.
It is unacceptable that the industry could be allowed on exemption unless the environmental risk provisions apply.
- (FR) I am extremely disappointed at the way the second-reading vote on the amendments to the draft directive on procedures for authorising genetically modified organisms (GMOs) went.
Admittedly, we have known since first reading that the principle of banning GMOs, or at least having a moratorium to allow for more in-depth studies, was rejected.
But the least we could have expected was for Parliament now to decide to take serious steps to protect the consumer.
Nothing of the kind has happened, however.
The European Parliament has just given way on three vital issues, in circumstances I consider shameful:
On banning the release of GMOs containing antibiotic-resistant genes: Amendments Nos 11 and 37 which called for such GMOs not to be released into the environment were rejected.
Instead we have adopted an amendment that simply calls for particular consideration to be given to this problem in order to identify and phase out by 2005 antibiotic resistance markers in GMOs which may have adverse effects on human health and the environment;
On the risk of unintentional gene -transfers to other organisms: Amendment No 12, which called for measures to be taken to prevent such unintentional transfers, was not adopted.
Instead, Parliament adopted Amendment No 38, which is much more vague and simply calls for an assessment of the various forms of risk that might be involved in such transfers;
On the liability and insurance obligations of persons deliberately releasing GMOs: to our great indignation, Parliament rejected Amendment No 33 which called for persons legally responsible for releasing these GMOs to assume total liability for any damage they caused to human health or the environment and which required them to take out adequate insurance to compensate for possible damage.
Instead, it adopted much weaker amendments that express the hope that, in the future, general legislation will be adopted in relation to environmental liability and that call on the Commission to submit a proposal on the impact of biotechnology on all areas over which the European Union has jurisdiction.
Alas, as we already know from the White Paper it prepared on the subject, the Commission is not in favour of compulsory insurance in this area.
We are particularly disgusted that Amendment No 33 was rejected, for if we want to authorise the marketing of products containing GMOs, we should at least ensure that those who sell them assume liability.
The pressure groups in the biotechnology industry explain that there is no risk, while at the same time saying that compulsory insurance is impossible because the risk is not insurable.
That tells us something.
I have never seen an insurer refuse to insure a non-existent risk.
One obscure aspect of this business is that the French Government which, according to the most recent information, includes ecologists, had officially expressed reservations about this Amendment No 33.
Once again the biotechnology industry pressure groups have done their job at every level, out of sight of the citizens.
I warmly congratulate Mr Bowe on his report on the deliberate release into the environment of GMOs.
This subject, which has given rise to much debate, is a very topical one, given that yesterday two European regulations entered into force which require manufacturers to label "food and food ingredients" containing more than 1% of GMOs, together with "genetically modified additives and flavourings" , although without setting out any threshold value in this case.
As a consumer, I am very pleased about this compulsory labelling because it will allow us to make an informed choice, although I would have preferred stricter rules that required a very clear indication on the outside packaging!
Yet this is a positive first step, since it has led several large firms to stop putting GMOs into their products.
Coming back to the issue under discussion today, this is a proposal to amend Directive 90/220/EEC, which covers both the deliberate release of GMOs for experimental purposes and their deliberate release with a view to putting the products concerned on the market.
In the light of the progress of scientific research in this field, it seemed vital to clarify the scope of this legislation in order to give due protection to consumer health as also to the environment.
The proposals of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy set out a strict and transparent framework, thus responding fully to consumer concerns.
The purpose of the three main amendments I support is as follows:
to prevent any accidental contamination of fields by cross-pollination between GMO and non-GMO crops.
To that end, we must require either minimum distances between fields in which GMO crops are grown and those reserved for traditional crops, or that GMO crops are confined to special greenhouses because of the inherent risk of genetic pollution;
to prevent any risk of antibiotic resistance developing as a result of the transfer of the resistant gene from one species to another.
So we must ban the release of all GMOs containing an antibiotic-resistant marker gene;
to impose a strict liability system on producers.
Like the rapporteur, I am convinced that the person legally responsible for releasing a GMO into the environment must assume full civil liability for any damage to human health or the environment.
This principle of responsibility, together with that of GMO traceability and, in particular, the precautionary principle, will enable us to limit the risks as far as possible!
Given the uncertainties that remain in this area, we must be as prudent as we can!
Let me conclude by repeating and emphasising that we must listen to what the people of Europe expect of us!
Public opinion has in fact expressed its reservations about the development of 'Frankenstein foods' on several occasions and its desire for healthy and natural food.
So we must be the spokespeople of this desire to preserve high-quality food in the European Union!
It is good that the Council common position already incorporates some of the amendments approved by the European Parliament.
However, as proposed by the rapporteur, the amendments approved at first reading but not accepted by the Council must now be included.
Following the approval of the Biosafety Protocol in Montreal in January 2000, we must take further steps to protect the rights of consumers and to re-establish their confidence.
We therefore support the amendments which aim to include in the directive the ban on the release of GMOs containing antibiotic resistance markers, even for the purposes of research, and the requirement imposed on the Commission and Member States that no GMO and/or products thereof should leave the territory of the European Union without the prior informed consent of the importing country.
We also support the defence of total environmental liability as it is unacceptable not to force companies in the biotechnology sector to take the necessary measures to protect human health and minimise environmental risks.
Finally, when consenting to a deliberate release, Member States and the Commission must ensure that measures are taken to prevent gene-transfer from GMOs to other organisms in the environment.
- I welcome Mr Bowe' s report as a balanced and considered approach to the important subject of the release into the environment of GMOs.
The three key issues covered in Mr Bowe' s report are: environmental liability, antibiotics and gene transfer.
On environmental liability I tend to take the Commission' s view that this is best dealt with through horizontal legislation.
On antibiotics I would be in favour of a ban on the use in GMOs of genes conferring antibiotic resistance.
As far as gene transfer is concerned I believe measures must be foreseen in the new Directive to control the release of GMOs which can outcross with other plants.
A strong Directive which deals with concerns about the environment and the health risks of GMOs could go a long way to ensure we realise the potential benefits from GMOs and avoid the pitfalls.
Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, mean that industry and, ultimately, human beings themselves are, in the name of health, medicine, larger harvests, insect-resistant crops and other supposed forms of future progress and improvements to human existence, embarking upon a path towards an unknown destination.
The path may one day prove to have led to something which is the total opposite of all the promises which were given when the journey was begun.
I want to issue this warning today.
The European Union needs new, tighter regulations in place of the first and still current directives concerning GMOs from 1991.
Since 1998, the Commission' s proposals have been under discussion.
Further delays would be a mistake.
As a Swedish Christian Democrat Member of the European Parliament, I want to state that it must never be the GMO industry and economic interests which are allowed to govern legislation and regulations.
The representatives of these have, on repeated occasions, expressed the view that Europe has "fallen behind" the GMO industry in, above all, the United States and China, that the GMO industry cannot be "developed" as "freely" in Europe and that opportunities for new jobs and businesses "are being lost" in the EU' s fifteen Member States.
Our political decisions must instead be guided by the concept of stewardship and not by manipulation of the genetic code.
Our task is to hand the earth and the environment over to future generations in as good a state as possible.
We must be able to show that, on the basis of stewardship and the precautionary principle, human beings have a desire to forgo what might appear to be short-term "gains" in favour of higher and significantly more long-term values such as a concern for creation and for genetic diversity.
In purely practical terms, this means regulations which guarantee a minimised risk of the spread of GMOs, a halt to the use of antibiotic resistance markers, an increase in independent research into the risks presented by GMOs, liability for damages based on the principle that those who release GMOs into the environment with deleterious effects upon health or the environment should be held strictly liable, long-term evaluations of the socio-economic and environmental consequences of the release of GMOs into the environment, permanent labelling of GMO products, compliance with all current regulations, such as the Biosafety Protocol, and an open application and decision-making process in which the public are entitled to express an opinion and in which each application is dealt with separately and no simplified application procedures are approved.
- (SV) It is an important report which Parliament has voted on today.
There are many uncertainties surrounding the use of genetically modified organisms, and there is good reason for being very careful.
On important points, the Council has wished to introduce risk assessment, together with evaluation of the use of genetically modified organisms.
The Directive guarantees a high level of protection.
Where most of the points are concerned, I have been able to agree with the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. Where other points are concerned, however, other measures can justifiably be demanded.
In the case of genes expressing resistance to antibiotics, the Council' s position makes continued research possible under strict conditions based upon environmental considerations and respect for the consumer.
Nothing is so enduring as the accidental.
I therefore consider it very important to devise general regulations governing liability for environmental damage.
Dealing separately with the GMO sector may lead to major differences in the regulations governing liability in different areas.
When it comes to investigating the costs, together with the benefit to the public finances, of releasing genetically modified organisms into the environment, I have voted in favour of Amendment No 8 in order to guarantee continued discussion of how such an investigation ought to be carried out.
I do not, however, believe that investigations of that kind can be carried out annually. The EU ought not, therefore, to become inundated with reports on the matter.
- Madam President, I wholeheartedly applaud the efforts of my Labour colleague, David Bowe, to put forward measures to control the release of GMOs into the environment.
With such fast-changing science and a host of possible unknown effects, it is important to protect Europe' s people and our environment.
Strict controls on plants to prevent the transfer of genes from GMOs to other species are crucial.
This will ensure that other species are protected.
We must put safety first and make sure that GMOs do not enter the food chain unseen by the back door.
Furthermore, those responsible for the release of GMOs should bear full financial liability for any damage to human health and the environment.
Industry should pay and face the consequences of its actions, not the man-on-the-street.
Europe should stand up for the rights of the citizen and force industry to take responsibility.
Of course, the health and well-being of our citizens is of paramount importance.
I say no to the release of GMOs resistant to antibiotics.
We must not put our people or our animals at unnecessary risk.
Labour Euro MPs have been at the forefront of protecting our citizens and our environment.
We have consistently backed proposals to ensure that the use of GMOs and products derived from GMOs are strictly controlled within the EU.
David Bowe' s report is yet further proof of Europe greening up its act and putting the safety of our citizens first.
Papayannakis report (A5-0088/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the measure on the labelling of beef.
At last, we are going to be told the place of birth and residence of the cattle, and, doubtless, whether they were called Daisy or Buttercup.
Likewise, however, it would be as well if everyday folk, human beings, pensioners even, were not treated as mere numbers; it would be as well if, rather than just being a file on a desk, they were to become a person with a name, a surname and a life story.
All too often, the governments of our 15 States think of citizens, particularly pensioners and the elderly, as numbers, people without an identity, a life story or a date of birth.
Let us place photographs of our citizens inside all the bureaucratic files with which the States fill our offices.
It is a good thing that a system for the identification of bovine animals and the It is right that this should enter into force as soon as possible but not, however, before September given the codecision procedure which is being used.
Through this system, consumers can obtain information about the origin of the meat which they buy and the background of the animal can be checked.
Due to this improved link between producer and consumer, potential risks to public health can be detected at an early stage and avoided much more effectively.
It is essential that identical labelling rules are applied to beef imported from third countries.
If not all the information required by Community regulations is available, it is vital that a specific label is attached to the product clearly indicating its non-EC origin.
The European Parliament report also proposes, to ensure consumer protection, that operators or organisations producing and marketing minced beef, beef trimmings or cut beef should also be subject to the compulsory labelling system. They should not benefit from the exceptions proposed by the Commission as this would be equivalent to automatically exempting between 30% and 50% of beef from the labelling obligation.
- I welcome Mr Papayannakis' report on proposals for an EU-wide compulsory identification system for cows and the labelling of beef and beef products.
The main aim of the new regulation is to enable consumers to trace the source of the meat they buy right back to the animal.
This system should enable any potential threats to human health to be tackled early and effectively.
I support the rapporteur in stressing that the same rules must be applied to imported beef from non-EU countries and, in cases where not all information is available, a clear indication to that effect should be provided.
Mr Papayannakis is right to insist that labels mention antibiotics and stimulants that have been administered and to oppose derogation from the regulation for minced beef, beef trimmings or cut beef.
Properly applied this regulation will go a long way to enhance the reputation, quality and safety of EU beef - good news for consumers and producers!
- (FR) By way of introduction, let me point out that Directive 79/112 clearly sets out the purpose of food labelling, by stating that the prime concern of all rules on food labelling should be to inform and protect the consumer.
Consumers need to have confidence in the food they eat.
In this case, the aim is not simply to change our tastes and our traditions in regard to chocolate, but to deal properly at last with the consequences of "mad cow" disease.
It is quite astounding that, given the gravity of the situation, today, so many years after the crisis, we still do not have an effective system of traceability in place.
We do not propose to repeat the debate we had in December 1999, but the Commission would have been well-advised to scrupulously monitor the application of that regulation; so once again it committed a serious political mistake.
Let us look back for a moment at the embargo on beef.
Although one swallow does not make a summer, in this case the French Government gave precedence to reason and caution over the ideology of the single market.
Knowing the options that exist in matters European, we can gauge what that must have cost it.
The reason why France chose this option is that the Community institutions are not always able, at this point in time, to ensure real traceability of food products.
Our consumer information and protection system is totally inadequate: for example, there is no way a citizen of the Union can know whether ravioli imported from another Member State contains any British beef.
Should the general public trust a Commission that does not ensure the compulsory traceability of beef yet lifts the embargo?
I did not find it acceptable for the Commission to teach lessons to France, which, for its part, knows that the impact of the voluntary rules it adopted effectively helped restore consumer confidence.
Indeed we also defended that point of view by tabling amendments in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We note with satisfaction that some of the amendments we tabled in the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment were adopted.
The Committee on the Environment amended important points of the Commission proposal.
It is high time we set up a reliable and transparent system.
During this vote, we supported the rapid and rigorous application of traceability, with a view to ensuring unfailing traceability and clear and transparent information, and we are satisfied with the results.
We hope that today' s vote will not lead to new and shameful calls for an extension or a derogation a few months hence.
- May I support the efforts of Mr Papayannakis to endorse proposals for an EU-wide compulsory identification system for cows and the labelling of beef and beef products.
Following the hullabaloo of food scares in recent times, most notably Mad Cow Disease, it is vital that we take measures to ensure that this type of food hazard does not happen again.
Food safety is a top priority and we must work hard towards alleviating the fears of consumers.
These new proposals enable consumers to trace the source of the meat they buy right back to the animal.
This should allow for any possible health threats to be tackled early and effectively.
From September 2000, beef labelling must show the point of slaughter of the animal, and from 2003, the origin of the animal including where it was born, reared and slaughtered must be added.
Public confidence in food safety has fallen tremendously in the past.
We must, of course, put safety first, and also make moves towards rebuilding public confidence.
British farmers particularly recognise that clear labelling is the best way of reassuring worried consumers that the beef they buy is safe.
This House should do its utmost to ensure that public health and safety is high on the agenda.
Pushing for clear labelling is the only way to convince our customers that food safety is top of our list.
Lisbon European Council
Mr President, I have taken the floor, for the last time today, to explain the way I voted on the conclusions of the Lisbon Summit.
I am not very happy: I would have preferred our 15 heads of government to have been more effective, more decisive, more energetic and more courageous.
With regard to social security, I would have preferred it if the decision had, at last, been taken to create a single European pension for the Union.
When the European citizens grow old, all the governments abuse them. They are told off for living too long, whereas the real problem is that their contributions have been wasted.
The European citizens call upon the Union to set up a single European pension and thus show itself to be more capable, a better administrator and less careless with money than the individual governments.
- (FR) The Lisbon Summit was supposed to focus on a social Europe.
In fact, a new wave of neo-liberalism swept through Lisbon and gave the EU its marching orders in the global economic war.
Far from focussing on social and democratic rights, indeed looking more to the US social model, the summit once again sang the praises of the law of profit, workforce flexibility and all-out competition, with new forms of privatisation and liberalisation.
In short, everything should be quoted on the stock exchange.
And this was done with the complicity of all the left-wing governments present in Lisbon.
To sugar the pill, the EU is promising us quasi-general access to the Internet and cutting-edge vocational training.
To crown it all, it is actually dangling the idea of full employment, i.e. the creation of 20 to 30 million new jobs, before our noses.
These splendid promises mean only one thing: a huge rise in insecure jobs, casual work and low wages, with the constant threat of redundancy and, on top of that, a scheme for an inegalitarian overhaul of the social protection system.
Employers, for their part, will once again enjoy quite indecent subsidies.
A new economy, but we are being served up the same old recipes again.
- The Portuguese presidency is to be congratulated for calling a summit to agree new strategic goals for the Union in tackling unemployment, economic reform and social cohesion in light of the new knowledge-based economy.
The Council is right to say that the shift to a digital, knowledge-based economy, prompted by new goals and services, will be a powerful engine for growth, competitiveness and jobs.
In addition, it will be capable of improving citizens' quality of life and the environment.
However, it is equally true that without active intervention this shift will widen the gap between the haves and have-nots.
The Council is therefore to be applauded for acknowledging the importance of promoting social inclusion, for emphasising the role of education and training for living and working in the knowledge society; for highlighting the need for more and better jobs; and for stating that social protection must underpin the transformation of the knowledge economy.
I understand the presidency' s conclusions as confirming the goal that every section of society should have the opportunity to benefit from new technology.
The Lisbon Summit created enormous expectations.
Some saw this as the 'Employment Summit' , others as the 'Summit for the Society of Innovation and Knowledge' .
In the end, it turned out to be the 'Internet Summit' , as it was in this area that some of the most promising promises were made, if you will forgive the repetition of terms.
If only these promises could be fulfilled.
We share these expectations but we should also like to be able to congratulate the practical results achieved.
On this score, only the future will tell.
Yet we already regret certain weaknesses.
Furthermore, the mainly socialist European leaders who met at this summit could not resist the bewitching rhetoric of promising results for which they are not really responsible, yet did not make any promises on the issue which is their responsibility, namely the actual means to achieve these results.
We should also like to have seen more practical emphasis on two basic points. These are the reduction in tax and the obligation to pay employment contributions and the effective deregulation and removal of red tape, thereby stimulating entrepreneurial initiative and promoting growth.
The desire to defend the 'European social model' is admirable. Yet this defence cannot be achieved at the expense of economic dynamism and, ultimately, the very future and quality of this social model.
These thoughts are reflected in our votes and the amendments tabled.
- (EL) The Lisbon Summit, which can only euphemistically be termed "an Employment Summit" despite the clamorous declarations that went with it, achieved no more than to take another step towards changing employment into employability, redefining the concept 'working person' and destabilising labour relations and rights, to serve the celebrated 'New Economy' in the best possible way for big business, this being the new name for the old, familiar but still more unrestrained and harsh economic and social liberalism.
Masquerading with the greatest cynicism under the grandiose title of 'modernising the European social model by investing in people' , are the demands of big business for greater profitability as a means of 'supporting employment' . The competitiveness of enterprises is being increased by cutting labour costs, the labour market is being fully liberalised and made more flexible, atypical forms of employment are being promoted, social security systems are under review and any remnant of the welfare state is being provocatively squeezed.
That is not 'investing in people' as the Summit meeting would have it.
That is the estrangement of people to the benefit of the market, the subjugation of working people to the demands and criteria of monetary credit, and the subjugation of the social state to the indexes and criteria of nominal convergence and EMU.
What the Lisbon economic and social policy guidelines are promoting, what is in practice being prepared for working people and 'served up' under a misnamed 'modernisation' - intended to 'sugar the pill' , deceive working people and reduce public reaction against the anti-labour and anti-grass roots economic and social policy of the EU - is a minimum level of poverty and not a minimum level of prosperity.
The 'New Economy' is actively preparing the creation of an extensive stratum of 'employed poor' , with miserly wages, restricted security and welfare rights, who will be obliged to change jobs according to the dictates of the unaccountable market and the laws of the lawless interests of big business.
The EU does not seem interested in fighting unemployment and promoting and supporting stable and full employment.
On the contrary, it is preparing working people, and this indeed at a fast rate, to live in a situation of complete and permanent insecurity.
Besides, the Presidency' s conclusions boldly state that the aim is 'improved employability' and both the information society and education are dragged along in chains to serve that rationale as tools to support part-time work, tele-employment and piecework employment.
Prosperity is destined for big business, to which splendid fields of glory are being opened since, in order to satisfy its demand for a 'fully operational internal market' and greater competitiveness against the USA, the pressures of international competition are being fully transferred to the labour market, liberalisation is being speeded up and the so-termed 'structural changes' (privatisations, market liberalisation) in vital sectors such as energy, telecommunications, postal services, transport, water supply and others are being promoted.
Instead of being controlled, restructuring, mergers and company relocations leading to tens of thousands of job losses are being made even easier.
Public and social investments are dwindling, equal opportunity and the fight against all forms of discrimination related to access to employment, and labour relations are being undermined, and priority is being given to whatever serves the aim of the 'economic productivity of labour' for big business, in other words low wages, lack of social protection, flexible and temporary employment, and the persistent exclusion of women, young people and people with special needs from the labour market.
The more than 60 million people who are victims of long-term unemployment, mass poverty and social exclusion, and all the working people in Europe too, cannot react 'adaptively' , 'supportively' , 'obediently' or 'cooperatively' to such choices.
You will find them in front of you, unsubdued, uncompromising and unyielding, fighting for and demanding full and steady employment and a system of social policy that includes insurance, health, pensions, protection for the unemployed, real equality of opportunity, quality education and substantive professional training.
The only thing in the Lisbon conclusions one could agree with is that 'people are Europe' s main asset' , except for the fact that they are not disposed to be 'liquidated' in the international money markets and to sacrifice themselves so that the monopolies can inflate their profits.
That asset is, and will prove to be, valuable in the struggle for a social, democratic and supportive Europe, a Europe of peace, progress and socialism.
EU-Africa Summit in Cairo
Mr President, I voted against the motion for a resolution on the EU-Africa Summit for several reasons.
The first was because the respective conclusions do not contain any significant reference to the issue of protecting human rights in Africa or to the development of independent legal systems. The second reason was specifically because there is no mention in the text of last week' s events in Angola which involved yet another brutal attack on the freedom of expression and freedom of the press, values which are so dear to the European Union.
Two journalists and human rights activists - Rafael Marques and Aguiar dos Santos - were sentenced by a court in Luanda to imprisonment and fines for simply having criticised, in a press article, the Angolan President, José Eduardo dos Santos.
As defendants, their rights to a defence, which are fundamental in any rule of law, were violated, particularly by the absence during the trial of Rafael Marques' lawyer and by them not being permitted to prove the veracity of the facts as the judge argued that the case concerned the figure of the President of the Republic.
The international community and the political leaders of Europe must react against this climate of intolerance and constant disregard for human rights in Angola. On this first occasion for the discussion of EU-Africa relations in this House, I must therefore once again strongly protest about this attack on the freedom of expression by the Angolan authorities.
Finally, having taken advantage of this opportunity to highlight these events, I must remind you that this Parliament recently approved a resolution on freedom of expression and press freedom in Angola which condemned the abuses occurring in that country. I therefore ask the Council and its presidency, and also our President, to use all the means at their disposal to put pressure on the Angolan authorities to re-establish the rule of law, freedom and peace in Angola.
This is the only way to end the suffering of a people who are as entitled as anyone to human dignity and happiness.
- (FR) The solemn declaration of the first EU-Africa summit in Cairo opens by stating, and I quote: "Over the centuries, ties have existed between Africa and Europe ... developed on the basis of shared values of strengthening representative and participatory democracy" .
Given that this secular past was a story of slavery, massacres, forced labour, plundering, colonial conquests and oppression, during which the rich European countries bled that continent dry, we can only wonder what is the most shameful aspect: the pride of the representatives of the imperialist countries or the baseness of the local Heads of State who agreed to co-sign such a declaration, on the pretence that they were doing so in the name of their peoples.
We express our solidarity with these African peoples who have paid a heavy price to our ruling classes; and it is not even enough for us to cancel a debt that has already been largely repaid.
Genuine cooperation with Africa could only begin if we return to the people of that continent what was stolen from them over a century of colonisation and is still being stolen from them today.
Genuine cooperation on an equal footing can only be established between Europe and Africa if they are no longer in thrall to industrial and banking groups that grow rich on exploiting the working classes of the two continents.
In view of these circumstances, we voted against the joint resolution that welcomes the Cairo summit, while voting for the only amendment that contains concrete proposals.
- (FR) This Cairo summit is the first meeting at the level of the EU and the African continent as a whole.
Yet the EU persists in wanting to divide Africa between the Mediterranean area and black Africa.
During this neocolonial transition period, the EU is seeking to impose a system of neoliberal relations dominated by liberalisation and structural adjustments.
In fact the only purpose of the famous equal partnership is to remind the Africans that they are indebted to international law and must bow to the panoply of neo-liberal instruments.
The various conflicts in Africa were discussed, but no support is being given because of the rivalries between the great Western powers that are either sharing out or contesting spheres of influence.
As for the question of Aids, although its urgency is recognised, and aside from a moralising approach, the fine speeches cannot mask the cold reality of the figures, which reflect the fall in EU development aid to Africa now that priority is being given to Central and Eastern Europe.
Although the Africans have managed to wrest a few promises of debt cancellation from a few EU countries, the EU remains opposed to the idea of a global cancellation of the third world debt, which means the people are starving daily.
Like the EU-Africa civil society Forum in March, which brought together more than 80 NGOs, we declare our opposition to the structural adjustment programmes and our continued support for the debt-cancellation campaigns.
That brings us to the end of the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Madam President, I did ask to speak this morning when my intervention would have been more appropriate. However, as this was not possible, I will speak now.
I regret that the President-in-Office was this morning struck down by an Austrian malady and was absent from this Chamber. As a result of his indisposition, he was also absent when we voted on two issues of particular interest to the Portuguese presidency, namely the Lisbon summit and the EU-Africa Summit.
As a Portuguese person and as an MEP, I regret that the Portuguese presidency has confused the position which it took as a government in its bilateral relations with Austria with the responsibilities which it must assume and fulfil when holding the Council presidency.
As we were all here, apart from one political group which was also absent from a certain point, I must regret that the Portuguese presidency chose to align itself with a political group which has the most recent totalitarian memories in this House.
In a fair and respectful manner, I must also criticise the behaviour of our President.
I have the highest respect for her but she must also respect us.
Frankly this does not appear to be the case.
Our President exceeded the rules of protocol. She must realise that being President of the European Parliament does not make her the leader of the majority.
She represents this institution and must act and speak in this House with respect for all the different positions expressed here.
She is not the leader of the majority and I must therefore register my protest.
Mr Ribeiro e Castro, your views will certainly be conveyed to the Council and to the President.
IGC (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A5-0086/2000) by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the European Parliament' s proposals for the Intergovernmental Conference (14094/1999 - C5-0341/1999 - 1999/0825(CNS)).
Madam President, tomorrow I am going to vote for the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report.
The Committee for Constitutional Affairs has done a good job and has taken a progressive, courageous position on certain areas of reform of the Treaties.
However, if I were asked to give my opinion on the overall status of the situation in Europe, I would have to say that I am somewhat confused and concerned.
There is no point in trying to deny anything. Certain facts which have become clear in the last few days, some of which have been the subject of furious political debate in recent weeks, show that, in actual fact, much of the confusion and fear that has been expressed and many of the objections raised are well-founded.
In connection with this, a few days ago, Le Figaro published a revealing article by Mr Schmidt and Mr Giscard d' Estaing, the founders of the European monetary serpent, which frankly and explicitly repeated an observation previously made by Jacques Delors, to the effect that if the institutions do not undergo thorough reform, the European Community will rapidly be reduced to a free trade area.
Personally, I find some of the decisions adopted extremely excessive, if not rash, such as, for example, the proposal to open the Community to Turkey - a country which I respect and which it is right to respect, despite its differences from the European Community in terms of history, culture and politics and the concept of the State as well, quite apart from the issue of human rights - and these decisions are evidence of an organisation which is becoming increasingly more economic than political.
There are two alternatives: either the founding countries of the Community change direction, or else, slowly but surely, we will be forced to abandon all hope.
There is no longer even any question of the creation of a different State; it is history which must change course.
The Europe which we Europeanists dream of is a Europe of States, and it should therefore be no cause for concern to anyone who, and rightly so, believes strongly in national identity.
Nobody wants to eliminate the States: however, all these different national situations in the different States, which have reached the point where they are incapable of overcoming the challenges of the world today, must be adapted and tuned to something greater.
I should now like to touch on the vicious attacks on President Prodi, not only from the press but also within the political sphere.
There is no point in denying anything in this case either.
I am not passing judgement on President Prodi now, for it would not be appropriate to do so at this time, but I do feel that these attacks are evidence of strong criticism of a Commission line, a line which has been progressive and open. It has sometimes been a little on the optimistic side, but it certainly represents progress.
Madam President, the fact that I am addressing Commissioner Barnier in this Chamber, with whom I have often had the opportunity for discussion in smaller meetings, gives me a positive feeling about tomorrow' s debate, but my view of the medium- and long-term progress of European development is pessimistic.
I feel that Parliament will be required to take courageous, decisive action in matters much more important than a resolution, if, as I fear, the agenda is not extended, and if, in the end, as the current state of affairs would suggest, an excess of caution results in a Conference which makes nothing more than cosmetic changes to the Treaties and avoids any substantial modifications.
Madam President, as far as the budget is concerned, it is becoming increasingly essential that we bring the Treaty up to date with the procedures.
The integration of the financial perspectives into the Treaty will thereby be a medium-term financial plan which will be agreed between Parliament and the Council.
This integration will create much more stability, as well as the legal certainty which Mr Colom i Naval, the permanent rapporteur for the financial perspectives, spoke of this morning.
Let us remember that the financial perspectives procedure has brought budgetary stability to the European Union.
Nevertheless, Parliament believes that the integration of the financial perspectives into the Treaty will mean that, as well as stability, there will be sufficient flexibility to allow for a review of those perspectives when necessary.
If we do not do this, we will run the risk of confusing the financial perspectives with the annual budgets.
This confusion will lead to conflict year after year.
With regard to the classification of expenditure, which this House has also long wanted to see, we must find an institutional point of balance which combines the European Parliament' s requests for a greater degree of codecision in budgetary matters with the defence of the privileged nature of certain expenditure which forms the basis of the European Union' s economic and social cohesion.
The European Parliament wants the Community budget to be financed by own resources rather than by contributions from the Member States.
The fiscal and budgetary autonomy of the European Union rests on this, as does, to a certain extent, its political autonomy.
However, let us remember that, if what we want is an autonomous financial system for the Union, we must at the same time create a fair tax system.
Progressiveness cannot only be based on expenditure.
Sooner or later we will have to be sufficiently progressive in terms of own resources as a basis for this fair tax system.
Madam President, we are usually very quick to criticise the Commission or the Council when they do not attend our debates, but this time, ironically, the finger seems to be pointing the other way.
At the very least, the two rapporteurs should have been present during the debate on their reports.
I am aware that these days are extremely tiring for all concerned, but duty comes before everything else.
I listened to Mr Segni' s speech.
Somewhat aided by the fact that he was speaking in Italian, I realised that he was not speaking on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, whose views are completely different from those he expressed and which I share.
We are on the brink of an historic occasion where the risks are great, but so are the opportunities.
We must be aware that this historic occasion provides us with the opportunity to enlarge a community of values and not merely orchestrate the geographical and territorial enlargement of an advanced economy which has raised the standard of living of our communities.
This is the real challenge.
Enlargement is thus our opportunity to change our operating rules and ensure that they are based on greater transparency and stronger guarantees of the rights of citizenship, and also streamline our decision-making.
The basic requirement we uphold is the need to confine unanimity to constitutional issues and to use qualified majority voting for all other matters.
In the very short space of time remaining, I would like to refer to paragraph 51, which puts forward the idea of our coming together with the national parliaments to examine the possibility of holding an Inter-Parliamentary Conference on the future strategies of the Union.
Clearly, a substantial amount of responsibility would fall to our President and to the French Presidency.
I am convinced that this opportunity for representatives of the national parliaments of both the Union countries and the candidate countries to meet and discuss future strategies and the implications of the Intergovernmental Conference is extremely valuable and must not be passed up.
Madam President, why is the gulf between the European Parliament and the European governments so wide? There is an excellent resolution on the table which refers to the many necessary reforms.
Indeed, majority decision-making as a rule and reinforcement of the Commission and the European Parliament are essential in order for the enlarged Union to function.
Cooperation should be more flexible and each Member State must retain a Commissioner.
Unfortunately, the many sound proposals from Parliament are at odds with the willingness of the governments to extend the IGC agenda and reach compromises.
If the European governments do not change their attitudes soon, a treaty will be drawn up in Nice which guarantees to cripple the Union once it has been enlarged.
Over the past few years, many European government leaders have presented their own people with the view that the European Union is becoming too powerful and too bureaucratic and is taking away too much national sovereignty.
They have contributed to a climate of Euroscepticism where there is no room for compromise.
At the same time, the same politicians have decided in favour of a substantial enlargement, necessitating reforms which were declared taboo in the first place.
As such, many European politicians are hostage to their own rhetoric.
If the European government leaders are serious about new countries joining, they must display the necessary political courage and agree to far-reaching reforms.
We are the representatives of the people.
If the governments manage to narrow the gulf between themselves and Parliament, they will ultimately be able to narrow the gulf between themselves and their own people and, at the end of the day, this is what matters.
Madam President, aside from the letter of the report, I want to draw attention to a few of the numbers contained in it.
First number: 700.
Limiting the number of Members of the European Parliament to 700 would not be a cause for concern were it not that it would render our Parliament less representative.
By marginalising small countries, while at the same time allowing high electoral thresholds to be set up in the largest ones, this sordid electoral mechanism would prevent whole sections of European society from being represented any more in this Chamber.
We must reaffirm that it is our Parliament' s prime and absolute task to represent the people and the peoples of Europe in all their diversity.
Second number: two thirds.
Two thirds of the vote is the majority required for our Parliament to censure the Commission.
This very high threshold of two thirds is a sad and unique case.
For what European government can boast of being so safe from any real parliamentary control, of having such impunity? We must create a formal symmetry.
If a simple majority is good enough for the investment of the Commission, then the same majority should suffice for a vote of no confidence.
The people' s representatives have the power to undo anything they have done.
That is the rule everywhere, and it must be the rule here too.
Third and last number: 2009.
The report proposes the year 2009 as the date for electing MEPs from transnational lists.
Now this is a case of either or: either our Parliament decides this measure is not a good one, which would mean abandoning it - even in 2009 - or, like the Greens, it must admit that such lists are vital if we want to create real families of thought in Europe, in which case this important political debate can begin by the time of the 2004 elections.
Otherwise we would be being neither lucid nor ambitious enough.
Nor does this report, which, without being bad, does not match up to the issues at stake, seem very lucid or ambitious.
In changing size, the European Union will change in nature.
So our continent will have to rethink its rules rather than simply tidy them up.
This timid IGC 2000 can in no way represent an end result, but only the first step towards a constitution.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we should go back to basics and ask ourselves what makes the European Union different.
Over the centuries many attempts were made by some countries to dominate others.
Ideas may have varied according to the times and individual countries' interests, but the system stayed the same, with power for some and subjugation for others.
We suffered centuries of war and even destruction and ruin on several occasions.
Many times we had to start over and it was the last time this happened that the European idea came into being.
So what is different?
The answer is everything. We have a system based on mutual freedom for everyone, instead of supremacy for some.
We have a framework agreed between nations and not one imposed on the nations.
We therefore have a permanent contract between free and sovereign states which are all equal.
Instead of changing majorities, we have the rules of a stable contract in which we are all minorities.
This is the secret of the unequalled peace and progress which we have enjoyed, based firstly on a common culture of human rights, democracy, the rule of law and free markets and, secondly, on strict mutual respect with no trampling over other countries.
The instruments which we use are procedural rules, unanimity or at least broad convergence, and substantive rules, concrete harmonisation policies and the promotion of economic and social cohesion.
The price is patience, which is a small price to pay for such great results!
We need to be patient with each other and in terms of time so that Europe can continue along the same lines.
We particularly need to resist the age-old temptation of wanting to impose ourselves on others, to break this contract between equals, for this has never led to union.
By cherishing the idea of union in Europe we are being realistic, not imposing a rose-tinted fantasy.
It would be wrong to strip away the rules of the game which have brought us so much success to date.
In my opinion, the motion for a resolution is a dangerous anti-Europe deviation, which completely alters the balance.
This would be a disaster for my own country, Portugal, as for other smaller or medium-sized Member States.
For Europe in general it would mean a crisis or breakdown.
We cannot have a Europe in which less rules over more, which gets annoyed but does not listen and which aims to replace a Treaty between states with a constitution imposed on the states.
We want an open Europe, not one tied in a straitjacket.
Finally, I must mention the idea of transnational European parties.
As a Conservative Christian Democrat, I stand as a witness against this.
My party, the Popular Party or CDS-PP, founded the PPE.
Some years ago we were expelled from the PPE because we advocated a referendum on Maastricht.
It is now our former Austrian companions from the Christian Democratic Union who are in difficulty because of elections in their country.
What a frightening idea of democracy!
We need to be careful, for federalism is so dazzling that it destroys with its hands those concepts which it asserts with its own mouth.
This is because it covets power and ignores partnership and we cannot go down this road.
Madam President, the IGC should prepare the EU for the reorganisation needed to bring about the complete process of enlargement that is in hand.
The most important consideration regarding enlargement in the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report is increased flexibility.
Only differentiation within the EU can create the preconditions necessary for enlargement on such a massive scale.
It is important that the report proposes that closer cooperation should be facilitated.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has recommended that the principle of flexibility should also be realised in the form of greater scope for cooperation for those countries that cannot or do not want to accept the Union' s statutes in their entirety.
This would facilitate and speed up enlargement of the Union.
In making its review the Group of the Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party states that flexibility might lead to a larger concentric Europe, composed of a federal core and a less integrated outer circle.
At this stage it is not necessary to adopt a precise position on how the Union should be differentiated.
It is enough for now that we create an institutional framework in which it is possible to deepen and expand the Union in practical terms.
I hope that Amendment No 154, which the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has tabled regarding increased flexibility, will be adopted.
Madam President, the European Union is starting the necessary process of enlargement, initially involving thirteen new Member States, without defining what the Union is and even without knowing the size of its future territory. This is causing a situation of uncertainty which could lead to the dilution of its political character into a union of national governments without the means to solve the internal problems of social cohesion and territorial balance or to take its place in the world according to its full political and economic weight.
As a Member for Galicia and a European citizen, I must express my disapproval of this legislative initiative from the Commission. This disapproval does not relate so much to the issues dealt with in this initiative as to its fundamental failings which this House still has time to remedy.
How can this Parliament, which represents all European citizens, rule out its own full legislative initiative?
How can we, in the same context, not accept that the Commission President must be elected from among MEPs?
Why is the exercise before the Union of the powers of the national authorities, federal states and Autonomous Communities not recognised?
How can we deny the establishment of a European employment policy linked to the Structural Funds policy? These questions are useful to highlight some of the grave deficiencies in the legislative proposal on reforming the Treaties.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, what are the issues at stake in this Intergovernmental Conference? Manifestly, the first and main issue is the quality of the decision-making process in the Union.
Here we attach the utmost importance to extending the scope of qualified majority voting.
If we were certain that tomorrow every decision could be taken by a qualified majority in the European Union, we would not have raised the question of closer cooperation.
But we have to acknowledge that undoubtedly we will also need this instrument.
That is what this Parliament said when it first stated its position and I think that in a way we have helped persuade the community of Heads of State and Government to listen to our refrain.
Of course we can only be delighted at this.
But today I want to address those MEPs who see, behind this closer cooperation, the risk of too far-reaching consultation between the large countries.
It seems to me that at present it is in the interest of all the members of the Union that any closer cooperation within the Union should be established on a basis of respect for the Union' s legal system and institutions.
To that end, let us authorise closer cooperation when one third of the Member States takes part or is involved, and let us authorise this closer cooperation by a qualified majority, after obtaining Parliament' s assent.
Tomorrow we will certainly have to consider the question of the democratic scrutiny of this closer cooperation, an area where our Parliament will have to play a major role.
So I understand why the Intergovernmental Conference will look into these questions and I am glad the discussions are thus going to the heart of the matter.
But you will find these same questions coming up again in other discussions you will be holding during the Intergovernmental Conference.
Let me make one more point before concluding, Madam President.
I want to sound the alarm about the progress in drafting the Charter of Fundamental Rights we want to see incorporated in the Treaty.
It is most important to incorporate that Charter.
At a time when the values of the Union are at times being overturned or seem undermined, that Charter is coming at just the right moment; but it will be meaningful only if it is incorporated in the Treaty and has real substance, based on the Cologne mandate, the entire Cologne mandate, i.e. only if it includes economic and social rights.
Madam President, this is a strange, uncomfortable and schizophrenic report.
Parts of it are clearly crafted as helpful suggestions to the IGC; other parts form a list of pious hopes and hopeful wishes which are certain to be rejected by the Conference.
How much of this schizoid quality reflects the positions of the two rapporteurs is hard to estimate.
If so, I am sure that I can attribute the better parts to my friend and colleague Mr Dimitrakopoulos and the more unusual parts to Mr Leinen.
However, the majority of my Conservative colleagues have voted to reject the report and will vote accordingly in this House.
The Conservative delegation regards many of the ideas in the report as centralising, syndicalist, unnecessary and backward-looking.
Instead of examining new, flexible and radical approaches to an enlarged Union in the global market, the message of this report is: carry on regardless down the road from Maastricht and Amsterdam!
Nevertheless, in rejecting this report the Conservative delegation shows it too has a schizophrenic quality, since it therefore rejects the excellent amendment by Mr Duff, to give a legal opt-out to Member States, and that of my friend Mr Perry and others, to enable Parliament to put public money where its mouth is by saving wasteful expenditure entailed in the absurdity of these Strasbourg sessions.
That is the nature of democracy and democratic decisions.
They too are often strange, uncomfortable and schizophrenic, but they remain the best we have all the same.
Madam President, the report by the two rapporteurs is very ambitious, very ahead of the times, but it has two major defects, which ought to be corrected by the vote in plenary.
Firstly, to generalise the system of dual simple majority voting is not the panacea of the future integration of Europe.
A principle of that kind could induce public opinion in the Member States and the national parliaments to reject that system for the most sensitive issues which are in fact exceptions to the general rule.
It would be better to seek a compromise acceptable to all, as in the past.
It is a question of legitimacy and acceptability.
Secondly, Member States with a large population get more than their fair share.
The underlying principle of "one man - one vote" is unacceptable.
It conflicts with Article 190 of the Treaty which provides that the number of elected Members must ensure the appropriate representation of the peoples of the States brought together in the Community.
It is a question of equality and solidarity.
Finally, there is no serious argument to back up the thesis we keep being served up, namely that a Commission of more than 20 members would not work.
Equally, in the case of the Commission, let us avoid making numbers into an absolute principle.
On the contrary, if we want decisions proposed on the Commission' s initiative to gain wide support in all the Member States, it is vital for them all to be represented.
The important vote we will be holding tomorrow will, I hope, enable the European Parliament to put an end to this ambiguity and to make some adjustments.
Only a more politically realistic proposal will have a chance of being taken into consideration.
IGC 2000 is not the end of the story.
Madam President, at a time when the future of the European Union depends more than ever on the balance and smooth functioning of our institutions, I want to begin by thanking the two rapporteurs, Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos and Jo Leinen, for the high quality of their work.
We all agree today that we must adopt institutional and political reforms prior to any enlargement of the Union.
That is the challenge we have to meet at a moment when many of our fellow-citizens are beginning to feel doubts and see few political prospects.
Today the European Union which the founding fathers conceived, achieved and then bequeathed to us must evolve and change.
Europe is at a crossroads.
Either we content ourselves in future with being merely a free trade area, or we seek to construct a political Europe.
But let us make no mistake: if we choose to sit on the fence, we are likely to see the worst scenario.
A Europe with a single currency, but without its attributes of political power, would revert to being merely a geographical area, which would give free rein to national rivalries.
The time has come for Europe to be a power capable of genuine political expression, of sustaining a social project and framing a common foreign and defence policy.
It is up to us, the elected representatives of the people of Europe, to work towards improving the efficiency and democracy of our institutions.
But Europe will only be democratic if the people themselves determine the principles and rules of its organisation.
I am happy that the Dimitrakopoulos report takes this aspiration into account in the framework of a constitutional process aimed at simplifying and clarifying the Community treaties.
But I think we need to go further; we need a constitution, i.e. a basic law, so that Europe can assert itself as a genuine democratic society.
Thus the reform of the institutions is not only the condition for enlargement, it is also the condition for the survival of Europe.
Commissioner, I hope the representatives of the Member States will embark on real reforms and take the measure of the issues at stake in the Intergovernmental Conference, so as to make this century into the century of Europe.
Madam President, I would first of all like to thank both rapporteurs.
Long before the IGC was launched, the Dutch social democratic delegation had already taken an active interest in the IGC.
We have held large public debates in the Netherlands and have done a great deal of groundwork.
After all, the IGC should prepare the Union for enlargement, and this enlargement will require the current Member States to make sacrifices.
These sacrifices, however, are small, given the historic opportunity of unifying the East and the West in a secure Europe characterised by peace.
In addition, it should, of course, bring Europe closer to its citizens, because the distance between Brussels and our citizens is still far too great.
The IGC should therefore make up the democratic shortfall.
For this purpose, it is essential to extend majority decision-making to all legislation, except for constitutional matters, and have codecision power for Parliament, as well as the well-known double formula in the Council decision-making process.
Simply reducing a democratic deficit is not sufficient to improve contact with the citizen.
This is why we have specifically committed ourselves to a better and institutionalised social dialogue with non-governmental organisations, since they look after many of the citizens' interests.
This is provided for in Amendment No 162.
Another subject which is close to our hearts is that of making closer cooperation more flexible.
It is clear that the de facto veto, currently inherent in this procedure, must go.
Once enlargement has taken place, closer cooperation could do a great service to a Union containing a still greater diversity of Member States within its borders.
In our opinion, the report does not go far enough regarding another point, namely that relating to individual responsibility which must be granted by Commissioners.
We firmly believe that it must be possible for Parliament to issue a strong warning to a Commissioner who loses the confidence of Parliament.
In our opinion, such a procedure does more justice to a democratic balance between the institutions than the Prodi procedure, but unfortunately, the majority of MEPs considered this step a bridge too far.
Madam President, with regard to our Euro-Commissioner, we would ideally like to have one Commissioner per country.
We would accept a rota system for all states at a pinch, because we support the compromise made by the socialist group.
We think that, ultimately, our compromise has struck a sound balance between small and large Member States.
We hope that this will receive support from this Parliament.
Madam President, enlargement is important for the people of Europe.
We must therefore find a way of cooperating throughout Europe.
The accession negotiations are now under way.
It is therefore important that it should be possible to conclude the Intergovernmental Conference before the end of the year.
Both large and small States must be able to exercise influence in the future EU.
We must strike a balance. This is necessary if our citizens are to have confidence in European cooperation.
If the composition of the European Parliament is to be adjusted, I therefore advocate a proportional, degressive reduction in the number of Members.
All present Member States must be included and make their contribution.
At the same time, the smallest States must be guaranteed a certain number of Members within the framework of the seven hundred seats we have set as a ceiling.
When it comes to votes in the Council, we must find a method of distributing votes which does not need to be renegotiated at each subsequent enlargement.
I therefore recommend a system which takes account of differences in the size of the population.
It is important that each country should have a Member in the Commission.
The Commissioners work for the whole of the Union and are, in fact, important if consensus is to be achieved between the Member States.
The Commission must therefore be able to draw upon knowledge and experience from all the Member States.
EU cooperation is, in the first place, a civil European project and ought to be distinguished from anything of a military nature.
The Member States do have different backgrounds where military alliances and neutrality are concerned.
In Cologne and Helsinki, great progress was made in terms of preparing ourselves for preventative crisis and conflict management.
It is therefore important that the Treaty should reflect the difference between civil and military cooperation.
A European military alliance should not, therefore, be created within the framework of the EU' s institutions but between individual States.
Military support of a kind which places States under an obligation to each other has no place in the EU' s Treaties.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, enlargement is the most crucial European issue as far as we are concerned. It is now also at the top of the agenda prior to the Swedish Presidency.
We do not, however, want to see European cooperation cease or degenerate into bickering, which would be a risk if 30 countries could constantly use their vetoes.
Development of the Union can only seriously be accorded priority through also, at the same time, welcoming qualified majority voting in the majority of areas but excluding, for example, the area of new treaties.
We also want to see majority decision-making in regard to Article 289, because it would then be possible, where the European Parliament' s headquarters and meetings are concerned, to establish rules which would prevent the waste of human resources and tax revenue.
Swedish taxpayers, who also pay net amounts into the European Union, are in fact at a loss to understand the madness of travelling backwards and forwards with thousands of cases every month.
Perhaps it would be more efficient to have the offices in a pan-European caravan than to waste all these man-months, as we now do, upon plane journeys.
We have every respect for symbols of peace, but the billions spent on gadding off to Strasbourg could, of course, be spent instead on our neighbours in the East, who perhaps have more use for these "peace billions" than we do.
Finally, I want to thank the rapporteurs for a very good report and to express my hope that the Citizens' Charter will usher in the new Treaty.
I also want to end by expressing special thanks to Commissioner Barnier for being present throughout the debate and for his commitment to these issues.
In fact, he gives me hope and inspiration on many occasions when I think that the Member States are being both negative and unreasonable on a whole range of issues with which, as European citizens, we really have problems.
I would thank you, Commissioner Barnier, for your efforts which in fact help me to take an optimistic view of Europe' s future development.
Madam President, we have a very challenging task before us.
We have to find answers to the challenge of enlargement, but the Union at its present size also needs to re-establish the rules of the game and the decision-making process.
We have to strike a balance between efficiency, democracy and Member State equality.
Above all, we have to be able to restore confidence of our citizens in decision making in the European Union.
This will come about by increasing genuine transparency and by developing the way administration actually serves the people.
The Commission must be given support while it puts the changes into effect, but the Council and Parliament must also themselves be able to work to strengthen confidence among our citizens.
Both an enlarged Union, and one that is the present size, must ensure that decision making is mainly in the form of qualified majority decisions.
We have seen that matters of taxation, for example, have become stumbling blocks.
It is hard to understand why we cannot introduce a reasonable tax on capital in Europe.
At present, capital is like a dog off its leash.
We all have a lot to gain and protect in a common Europe.
We also have to cling to the notion of European solidarity for as long as possible in changing circumstances.
I cannot accept the idea that closer cooperation can be achieved on the strength of the vote of one third of the Member States.
In my opinion, we need more than that.
The Commission should also be as thorough as possible in the way it drafts topics for debate, and this is why in future there should also be a Commission Member representing each Member State.
The balance between the small and the large Member States must also be preserved in the Council so that double majority voting can never be acceptable under any circumstances.
Madam President, the constitutional questions we are debating today are highly controversial, as the vote in committee clearly shows.
In fact 12 Members voted for and 12 voted against.
Of the latter, 8 voted against and 4 abstained.
That is not something to be proud of.
But I find it reassuring that so many Members agreed that the length of the shopping list of proposals contained in the report' s 52 paragraphs and 58 sub-paragraphs is exaggerated and that, as things stand, there is a risk that the Intergovernmental Conference will not take it seriously.
But unlike Talleyrand, I cannot console myself with the idea that what is exaggerated is by the same token insignificant.
I want to dissociate myself from demands such as that we should cut my country' s delegation in the European Parliament by one third.
I know that by head of population the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has more representatives here than the large countries, but that is a primitive and premature method of calculation.
With 6 Members it is materially impossible to follow up all the dossiers that are crucial to our country.
Moreover, we cannot sit on all the committees.
It is easier to divide up the work and to specialise in a large delegation: even if the largest delegation, comprising 99 Members, was reduced by a third, they would still be able to share out the work.
For the time being, it is enough to propose that the seats in the European Parliament should be allotted on the basis of a degressive proportional system, with a minimum number of seats per Member State, while of course respecting Article 190 of the Treaty.
The idea of European lists is premature, if not hare-brained.
There can be no question of a majority of MEPs deciding the location of the seat of this Parliament here, against the views of the others: we must respect the Edinburgh compromise.
In the case of a qualified-majority Council decision, it is inconceivable to provide for a simple majority of Member States.
We must have a majority of two thirds of the Member States, even if that means providing at the same time for a simple majority of Member States representing a majority of the total EU population.
There can be no question of restricting unanimous Council voting to decisions of a constitutional nature.
We must also retain majority voting for fundamental questions, such as own resources, taxation and so forth.
I hope the idea of not allocating one Commissioner to each Member State is well and truly dead.
Finally, if we really need closer cooperation, it must involve at least half of the Member States, otherwise we risk ending up with something like the French Directory.
This document contains other incongruities too, especially in relation to the budget, which fortunately have no chance of success in the Council and even less chance of being ratified by national parliaments that have any self-respect.
I will not vote for this shopping list unless it is amended along the lines I have just set out.
Madam President, I wonder which of these is more serious: what the Council has done by means of an intergovernmental method, once again, to reform the Treaties and an extraordinarily limited agenda for this IGC, bearing in mind the challenges facing us, or the report that we are going to adopt tomorrow in this House.
I believe that our report is more serious.
How can it be argued that this report is less serious when it proposes exactly what we need? It speaks of constitutionalising the European Union, it proposes suitable changes for its institutions, it requests an extension of policies and, above all, through its proposals, it tries to put the Union in a position to confront such important challenges as, firstly, globalisation and, secondly, the new economy which we have just discussed in Lisbon.
I do not believe that the proposals which we make in this report are extravagant.
They are consistent with what this Parliament has always demanded: more democracy and efficiency for the European Union.
Furthermore, in this respect, I believe that the effort of the rapporteurs in drawing up the original draft and seeking a compromise through the amendments will lead to a position which should be taken into account by this Parliament and by the national governments.
Madam President, I would also like to welcome the efforts of the Portuguese Presidency at the moment, and ask certain governments - I am not going to say which ones - to be a little bit more generous when it comes to European construction.
Madam President, enlargement and its strategic, political and economic consequences for the European Union cannot remain issues undiscussed by the public or viewed exclusively from the national perspective.
This is why the debate caused by the presentation of the European Parliament' s position on this promising Intergovernmental Conference is vital in understanding this new phase of European construction which is both risky and open to question.
We are pleased that this contribution from Parliament stresses, as the main themes and guiding principles, the democratisation, efficiency and greater supervision of the European institutions, exactly where the respective deficits have been most felt and where the risks of disintegration, caused by the significant increase in the number of Member States, were greatest.
Although the majority of the proposals aim to enable and reinforce the joint progress and the integration process in this new and complex framework, and these are to be applauded, there are others which are not so great. I am specifically referring to the European lists for this Parliament or to the rules on decisions by qualified majority or on closer cooperation, for example, in which a fairer balance between the Member States, more in accordance with the representation and legitimacy of the respective bodies, could be attempted.
We fortunately have the opportunity to improve these points tomorrow in plenary.
As for the countries which were for years subjected to forced and authoritarian integration and which are now knocking on our door, attracted by the success of our joint experiment, we must receive them with our house in order and operating properly. There must also be no doubt about everyone' s participation in the search for the best solutions for all and about the primacy of the values of justice, democracy and solidarity within these countries.
I warmly congratulate the rapporteurs on their work.
President-in-Office, Commissioner Barnier, I must start my intervention with the same question as Mr Carnero González. I wonder why, as a committed Europhile, I find myself disagreeing in this debate with many other committed Europhiles and specifically the rapporteurs.
In my opinion, the grounding of the European project in the dual legitimacy of a union of peoples and a union of States is not reflected in the end result of this report' s proposals.
At a time when the European Parliament should be achieving a consensus which could act as an important reference, politically speaking, for the Intergovernmental Conference, our position is cause for regret.
We hope that certain amendments will be approved tomorrow. These are essential to guarantee a balance between small and large Member States and even between the dual legitimacy of a union of peoples and a union of States.
We therefore hope to have reason to vote for this report tomorrow. We will if this House approves a set of just six or seven amendments which we feel are essential to ensure that this issue is considered not from a position of national egoism but from one which defends the coherence and solidarity of the European project.
My second point is directed at the President-in-Office.
We were puzzled about what Mr Gama said, in his initial intervention, on the current state of the work in the IGC.
We are well aware of the Portuguese presidency' s determination. I would therefore like to encourage the presidency to continue working to ensure that the Member States understand how vital it is that more questions are decided by qualified majority and that there is greater flexibility in EU decision-making.
I would also encourage you to ensure that the IGC agenda is extended to questions which we regard as essential, such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We hope that this can be included in the Treaty as, if so, not only would we be making a significant contribution to the EU' s future but we would also bring ourselves closer to the people at this politically important time. We must now reaffirm once again the community of values which will be enshrined by this Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Congratulations, Mr President-in-Office.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Famine in Ethiopia
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the famine in Ethiopia.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we can all remember the pictures of the famine in Ethiopia in the 1980s. We can also remember the drought in Africa in the 1990s, which affected around ten countries.
Yet we must also remember that we managed to get nearly four million tonnes of food to sub-Saharan Africa thanks to action by the international community. This was partly in response to media coverage, which is playing an increasingly important role.
We must realise that, notwithstanding the crisis situations which now exist, the international community has taken objective action in response.
This has probably not been adequate and not what we would have liked it to be, but at least the international community has adopted an objective attitude.
Within the international community, either individually or through the European Union as a whole, the European countries have made an important contribution.
We must remember this, now that the crisis in Ethiopia is occurring again due to drought.
The European Union is keen to ensure that this situation does not worsen and is trying to mobilise all possible means to lessen its effects.
Certain instruments are currently working effectively at both EU level and in the role played by the EU within international organisations.
This intervention is very important in tackling the problem of nearly 16 million people currently at risk throughout this area.
Commissioner Patten will explain, at the appropriate moment in this debate, the actions which the Commission has planned or has been developing.
These actions are very important and have been implemented in time.
The decisions were also taken at the right time.
Both the Directorate-General for Development and ECHO have already sent enough food to satisfy the most urgent needs.
At this precise moment, the Executive Director of the World Food Programme is in Addis Ababa for discussions with the Ethiopian Government on this issue, which involves technical and practical problems in transporting the food.
We cannot separate from this issue the current political and military position in Ethiopia.
We must be aware that this situation, which is in itself extremely serious due to the drought, is currently being made worse precisely because of political and military circumstances which are hindering the distribution of aid.
In particular, means of transport may be lacking because they are being used for purposes other than those for which they are intended.
As I said, the European Union has been monitoring this situation.
In the General Affairs Council the day before yesterday the Commission presented a report on the current situation in the Horn of Africa and specifically tackled one point of the humanitarian situation.
However, these concerns are the centre of attention not only for the Commission but also for the Council.
A meeting was held yesterday in Brussels of a group of experts specifically to analyse the best ways of tackling this situation.
There were representatives from ECHO, the Directorate-General for Development and the Member States of the European Union. This meeting was preceded by one with the Ethiopian Ambassador to ensure the most effective coordination of the aid and support which the European Union can mobilise, both overall and in terms of that from individual Member States.
To conclude, the situation in the Horn of Africa, in both political and humanitarian terms, is at the centre of our concerns.
On Monday in the General Affairs Council we had a debate on this subject at which the Council' s Special Envoy was present. He gave a presentation on the situation and its gravity.
The European Union approved in this same Council a set of recommendations which are to be added to all the political actions which the Union has been developing, particularly since last year, following the severest onslaught in the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
We are monitoring this issue.
Unfortunately, sometimes we cannot react as rapidly as we would like to the various situations of humanitarian need and shortage.
However, we are watching this issue and we hope that the attention raised by this debate may itself also help to mobilise public opinion on such a serious problem.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate - grateful but sad that the debate is necessary at all.
I am standing in for my colleague, Commissioner Nielson, who would have liked to have been able to respond himself.
For me there is an awful sense of déja vu - or perhaps I should say déja entendu - about this debate today.
Over a decade ago, from 1986 to 1989, I was my country' s development minister.
I know that there are a number of honourable Members in this House who have done the same job for their own countries.
I was speaking in similar debates then, tackling similar crises in the Horn of Africa.
I am afraid the story is grimly familiar: there are military conflicts, there is environmental degradation, there is drought, and sometimes there have been - and this was especially true in the past - extremely ill-judged policies.
It is a lethal mix.
It is capable of producing hunger and misery on a massive scale.
We face the same old frustrations, as I said in the Chamber yesterday.
Despite all the problems we will, in the end get help to the starving, never quite as fast as we would like, but faster than used to be the case.
So we improve our capacity to deal with the humanitarian problems in spite of the difficulties.
But alas we are still incapable of preventing the humanitarian problems arising in the first place - very often problems with largely political causes.
That is the frustration.
Let me set out for honourable Members what we are doing to alleviate the present crisis.
There are currently two Commission teams in Ethiopia: one from ECHO and one from the Food Security Unit of our Directorate-General for Development. They will be making recommendations on our future efforts.
The Ethiopian Government has asked for 821 000 tonnes of food aid, 25% more than in recent years.
This amount is nearly covered by existing pledges by the international community.
The Commission has programmed the delivery of 283 000 tonnes and we are about to take decisions on delivering an additional quantity of up to 260 000 tonnes.
Let me also correct an inaccuracy that is circulating as a result of an Oxfam statement which claimed that the Commission provided only 50 000 tonnes to Ethiopia last year.
The real figure is more than three times that.
The deliveries this year come on top of a quarter of a century in which the Commission has been involved in providing food assistance to Ethiopia.
During that time nearly 40% of our total aid to Ethiopia has been in food assistance or food security programmes: some EUR 875 million' s worth, EUR 250 million in the last four years alone.
That is the background. It is important to be aware of it.
There have been a number of allegations about an inadequate European response to the crisis.
There is an admirable letter in the London newspaper, The Independent, by the honourable Member, Mrs Kinnock, who knows a very great deal about the Horn of Africa, in which she sets out the real facts.
I hope that letter gets wider circulation.
One of the things that she said in her letter - and I guess she speaks with almost more authority on this subject than anyone else - is: "The European Union, together with Member States, remains the biggest donor of food aid to Ethiopia" .
She then argues: "This is not 'visible' since it is directed through the government, the World Food Programme, the Red Cross, NGOs and others."
It is important to remember that point.
What matters most is not to rake over these old controversies.
What matters most is what we are doing right now to get help to the starving.
I want to remind Parliament that total Commission food aid, now being off-loaded, shipped or procured, amounts to over 282 million metric tonnes.
An EC food aid shipment of 30 000 tonnes channelled through the World Food Programme arrived in Djibouti port last weekend.
A further shipment of over 16 000 tonnes through EuronAid is due to arrive on Sunday.
This will be followed by further shipments through Djibouti and Berbera in view of the limited port-handling capacity.
Total shipments from all donors expected to be offloaded between now and July amount to 504 000 metric tonnes.
This quantity should be sufficient to meet immediate needs.
Total donor pledges, as I said earlier, are over 800 000 metric tonnes.
So that is what we are doing.
We will continue to devote our full attention to this crisis until it is over, and our people in ECHO on the ground will continue to work tirelessly to get help to where it is needed.
We are facing a major problem posed by the lack of adequate port facilities for food-aid deliveries, not least because of the non-availability of the Eritrean ports at Assab and Massawa, which means that only Djibouti and to a lesser extent Berbera can be used.
Djibouti is expected to be congested with the arrival of 600 000 metric tonnes over the next three months.
We are looking urgently for alternatives, including better use of the Port of Berbera through rapid improvements to the road from Berbera into Ethiopia.
We are also considering using the Port of Sudan.
Road improvements are under way on the Sudanese side and roads on the Ethiopian side are reported to be quite good.
As my friend said in opening this debate, of course there are problems because of the conflict zone and I just want to repeat what I said at the outset.
I have had to speak in too many debates like this dealing with the consequences of crises like this, in the Great Lakes, in Ethiopia, in the Sudan and now in Ethiopia again.
I repeat, we are better at delivering assistance now than we were a decade ago, but it is intensely frustrating that all the assistance should be required in the first place.
It is intensely frustrating that as millions starve, governments spend small fortunes on guns and weaponry to wage war against each other when the only war they should be waging is a war against starvation, a war for food security, a war against poverty and environmental degradation, a war in which we are morally bound to help them.
It follows therefore that as we combat the hunger, we should also lend our full support to those who fight for peace.
We give our whole-hearted backing to the efforts of all of those, including the OAU and the European Presidency' s Special Envoy, Ambassador Serri, who worked for a peaceful settlement to regional conflicts.
They will have our unstinting assistance.
I am afraid that I should add that experience suggests that they need our prayers as well.
Madam President, I wish to begin by welcoming Commissioner Patten' s statement, which sets out the truth about our European assistance.
Once again, we see the scenes on our TV screens of starving children in Ethiopia and we remember the horrors of the last famine in the Horn of Africa.
Once again, we have pop stars and celebrities criticising the institutions of Europe and national governments for doing too little too late.
It is amazing how quickly some people become experts when a situation like this arises and they can see some publicity, without knowing more of the background to the overall position.
Somalia is war-torn into small fiefdoms, which makes it extremely difficult for anyone - institutions or NGOs - to deliver food aid to the starving people.
Who does one negotiate with in such a situation?
Ethiopia is engaged in a border dispute with Eritrea, which means most of the manpower is tied up on a war front and much-needed food is being diverted in both countries to feed soldiers rather than starving children.
Of course we must do everything in our power to alleviate famine.
However, where countries are at war, all our aid must be humanitarian and channelled through NGO organisations to ensure that aid goes to the starving people and not to the war front.
We must watch the situation in Eritrea and balance humanitarian aid there, if required.
We desperately want these two countries to sign a peace agreement through the efforts of the OAU so that we can resume full development aid to both countries.
I recently spent a week in both Ethiopia and Eritrea.
I visited refugee camps in both countries and saw for myself the hardship and the poverty people are suffering.
It is not true to say that Ethiopia has not been crying for help for food aid over the past two years, but the war situation has blurred the vision of many looking on.
When I was there they were pleading for help.
I saw children with serious malnutrition and in need of health care, as well as food and proper shelter.
I saw families living in caves, the walls running with water, and listened to the hacking coughs of children racked with fever.
It looks bad on TV; it is a hundred times worse when you stand amongst it, when people are in such dire situations.
However, I saw food aid being delivered in Eritrea by German NGOs to a camp of 16 000 people, spread over 7 kilometres in case of bombing raids.
I watched two strong men lifting 50-kg bags on to women' s backs and saw them stagger off to their plastic shelters kilometres away.
I saw children aged eight walking eight kilometres out and eight kilometres back to get water.
They were the lucky ones: they were the ones with food.
We never seem to learn a lesson from the past.
It should not be TV cameras and pop stars who alert us to starvation and drought: there should be a proper monitoring system in the sensitive areas of the African continent.
Perhaps this could be built into Commissioner Patten' s rapid reaction unit we heard of yesterday.
We must have action and we must have action decisively and urgently.
Mr President, Commissioner Patten wonders why Africa' s fateful history keeps repeating itself - with good reason.
Millions of people are again threatened with starvation.
This is not just caused by extreme drought.
The blame lies mainly with the unusually irresponsible leaders who prioritise the fight for a dry piece of land over the suffering of their own people.
Surely it is absolutely appalling that the governments of poverty-stricken countries such as Ethiopia and Eritrea buy arms on a massive scale instead of building up sufficient food reserves.
The blinkered Ethiopian government, in particular, contributes through its obstinacy to the suffering of its own people.
How else can you explain the fact that Ethiopia rejected the offer to use the ports of Massawa and Assab? As a result, aid is now unable to reach a large part of its own population.
The Organisation of African Unity and the European Union must exert maximum pressure on the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea to settle their dispute in Algiers, and aid workers must gain safe access to the population without delay.
An Ethiopian Minister has said that the international community does not spring into action until the skeletons appear on television.
He failed to mention that these macabre images are not only due to a lack of rain but mainly to a lack of proper leadership.
I am pleased that Commissioner Patten has addressed the criticism to the effect that European aid is inadequate.
Despite this, I would like to ask him what lessons he has learnt from how Europe responded this time round.
It is difficult not to despair in the face of the misery in the Horn of Africa.
We should nonetheless not lose hope.
Nature can only destroy where people fail.
After all, war and mismanagement are down to people.
Africa' s fateful history does not have to repeat itself, provided that people' s lives take priority over the feuds among its shameless leaders.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is terrible and disappointing for mankind that every now and again we hear these cries of pain from Africa begging for food and water, in the 21st century.
Why do we still allow this to happen?
Do we not have a conscience? Every day the European Union provides less funding, less aid, in global terms, to the poor countries of Africa.
So how can we be surprised at this situation?
How can it be that we have warehouses full of surplus food which we are obliged to destroy when it rots away pointlessly or when it does not meet the conditions for consumption which we demand? There are reasons to justify this, but none of them justifies the death of a single person from starvation.
It is not true that we show solidarity.
No.
All we do is try to put the fire out with occasional aid, without a clear or decisive policy for prevention although we know perfectly well that famine in Africa, and in the third world in general, happens periodically.
I hope that these thousands of tonnes of food aid provided do not silence the media and that they continue to report on the tragedy in Africa.
I am not saying anything new.
It has been said a million times and it will be said again, but today I am speaking from the heart and I feel Africa' s pain as if it were my own.
When will we have a Marshall Plan for Africa? To this end, I propose that there be set up a prestigious and independent committee of international experts to assess the situation together with the international organisations and to implement a series of urgent proposals and initiatives for food and health aid, acting immediately, planning for the future and putting all our humanitarian weaponry into the hands of the non-governmental organisations.
Mr President, the situation in the Horn of Africa, and particularly in Ethiopia, is reaching a level of drama rarely exceeded. It requires from the international community, and particularly the European Union, a corresponding level of attention and aid in order to prevent an unparalleled human catastrophe.
Action is already being taken, like the food aid which the European Union is providing, as mentioned just now by Commissioner Patten.
Yet we cannot relax.
We also have to overcome all the difficulties on the ground in getting food and medicine to the starving and dying people and children, and as quickly as possible.
We must therefore firmly stress to the governments in the region, bearing in mind the political and military situation, that they must allow and ensure rapid movement and access by the international organisations to the areas where these people are gathered. They must also guarantee that this aid reaches those for whom it is really intended.
It is essential that these international organisations, such as the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and the FAO in particular, act together and with all the speed and efficiency which the situation demands. They must deliver the food and medical aid but they must also take steps to re-establish the primary sector which is decisive in this type of economy, in order to guarantee a sustainable and medium-term solution.
This may be achieved by sending technicians and experts who can set up projects in this area.
The gravity of the situation and the need for our solidarity with these people to result in exceptional and priority action lead me finally to ask the Commission, and particularly Commissioners Patten and Nielson, to keep us regularly and closely informed about how the situation is developing and especially the measures which they intend to use or are developing to ease this situation.
Mr President, the Ethiopian government has blamed the international community for not being sufficiently alert in its aid efforts to feed its hungry population.
The donors, including the European Union, are said not to have kept their promises.
I share the Commissioner' s view that the reproach made by Addis Ababa is misplaced to say the least.
Misplaced because this statement is made by a government which has been embroiled in an absurd war over borders with its neighbour, Eritrea, for two years now.
Hundreds of millions of dollars, desperately needed for social provisions and increasing food production, have already been pumped into the war machine and, at the time when the Ethiopian Minister for Foreign Affairs was heaping abuse on the international community, reports were circulating that his government had bought a military aircraft from the Russian Republic.
It is high time that the Ethiopian government faced up to its responsibility and made every effort to end the war with Eritrea.
It could then focus its attention on the economic and social development of the country and so be able to prevent famines such as these.
But also, and I would like to make this quite clear, the aid industry should stop blaming the international community unilaterally and, in this way, stop providing the local regime with an alibi.
Emergency aid is absolutely necessary and must be increased, but development aid to both warring governments must be combined with accepting and implementing the OAU peace agreement.
As a token of goodwill, the Ethiopian leader could in the meantime begin by accepting the offer of a humanitarian corridor from his Eritrean colleague, or could the pride and ego of one man get in the way once again of the interests of millions of his people?
Mr President, famine and Ethiopia: these are two words sadly etched in our memories.
In the Horn of Africa, which has become the site of every conceivable scourge, 16 million victims of famine, of which 8 million are in Ethiopia, are awaiting aid.
In Ogaden, the most hard-hit region in south-east Ethiopia, there has been no rain for three years, to the point that the notion of dry seasons and wet seasons is now devoid of all meaning.
So of course we have to react, and do so quickly, and unfortunately we know all too well that the price of our procrastination and delays is paid in human lives.
At the same time, let me thank the Council and the Commission for what they have already done and for the information they gave us a short while ago.
Of course the 800 000 tonnes of emergency aid promised by the international community must be delivered as soon as possible.
But at the same time, the countries in the region must do their utmost to facilitate this delivery: by opening up the ports, supply routes and infrastructures.
Nonetheless, in a region torn apart by a rearguard conflict, this crisis leaves a particularly bitter taste, because every penny paid to buy a gun, to buy ammunition, aggravates an already precarious economic, social and nutritional situation.
We must demand that Eritrea and Ethiopia freeze their military activities so that all the assets, all the logistical and human capabilities of these countries are put at the service of their peoples.
The sound of guns has for far too long drowned out the cries of the hungry.
That is why we must appeal to the reason of the Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders and call on them to put an end to the conflict, to reach rapid agreement on the technical arrangements for a ceasefire under the OAU peace plan.
But at this moment, of course, we must simply listen to the appeals of the suffering people.
Mr President, misery and death in Ethiopia were on our screens four years ago.
The cameramen left but misery and death did not leave Ethiopia.
Starvation and death continue today.
The population of Ethiopia pray for rain.
Sadly they see only a rain of bullets.
People crave water, food and medicine.
Sadly all they see is their land and their homes blown to pieces by the tanks and planes our governments supply to the Ethiopian and Eritrean politicians.
These politicians are hungry for power: politicians who argue over territorial boundaries whilst their people die.
These politicians fly their national flags on their parliaments and presidential palaces, but sadly the only flag their people see is the flag of death.
Famine, disease and death remain the hallmarks of these countries.
Hunger for power must not be allowed to override the hunger for life.
Mr Patten has listed a number of measures the EU has taken to help.
Such help has been received with gratitude, but let us put it into perspective.
Sixteen million people are starving today; 15 000 tonnes have been delivered.
I accept the difficulties of the logistics but that means less than a kilo per person.
No time limit is given, in other words it is a kilo that has to last forever.
These measures are palliative.
They only relieve the symptoms; they do not cure the disease.
The EU must take the lead in curing this serious problem and the only way to do it is firstly to stop arms reaching all the warring parties and make sure we use our influence with those who supply them; and secondly teach these people how to grow food and harvest, store, package and process it so that they can be independent and self-reliant, not beggars for life.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today' s debate was very important as a way of demonstrating the commitment and attention which this House gives to humanitarian issues, particularly the one discussed today.
Commissioner Patten' s words made clear not only an objective awareness of the work already carried out but also an absolute awareness that this situation is intolerable and that the European Commission will be determined on this issue, that it will take specific action and also closely monitor future developments.
As for the Council, I should like to say that there is great interest in ensuring that situations of this kind can be permanently followed and monitored in close coordination with the Commission.
It is important that an objective awareness is created within the European Union that humanitarian issues must be dealt with in an increasingly committed manner and that the European Union and its Member States must, within the relevant international organisations, ensure priority attention for these issues.
The summit between the European Union and the African countries was held just a few days ago.
Its extensive agenda offered an opportunity for what we hope is the first in a series of organised dialogues between Europe and the African countries. Specifically we want to try and establish a more integrated and coordinated vision of all the issues now affecting the African continent about which we are concerned.
This must be made clear.
These issues do matter to the European continent for a whole range of reasons, even ones which relate to the very safety and stability desired for the European continent.
Dialogue with the African authorities is essential, as is dialogue with the sub-regional authorities.
It is vital to guarantee coherent action in preventing conflicts and creating rapid intervention mechanisms for these situations. Without this collective and organised dialogue, there can be no hope.
The problems cannot be solved through ad hoc actions and one-off interventions.
If we cannot organise the international community within the global international organisations and within the more regional organisations, we will not have any response to all the crises which are systematically affecting the weakest countries in particular.
The European Union has, in this respect, a particular responsibility the tradition addressing this type of problem could almost be said to be part of its civilisation. The EU has an awareness and a responsibility which today' s debate has clearly demonstrated.
Thank you very much Minister.
I would like to inform you that pursuant to Rule 37 (2) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received five motions for resolutions.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
Stabilisation and association process for countries of South-Eastern Europe
The next item is the report (A5-0069/2000) by Mr Lagendijk, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the stabilisation and association process for countries of South-Eastern Europe (COM(1999) 235 - C5-0124/1999/2126(COS))
Mr President, in the time allocated to me, I would mainly like to focus on the Funding Conference of the Stability Pact which has just been held, because it is more beneficial, in my view, to focus attention on this than on the text of my report which, of course, was written for the Conference.
I would like to make a general comment regarding the Conference.
It is safe to say that it was a huge success, not only in financial terms but also due to the fact that the emphasis was most definitely on projects which link up the different regions. In fact, this was one of the central themes of the report and the main thrust of the Stability Pact.
Indeed, regional development is one of the Stability Pact' s key points.
It was good to see all-round commitment most definitely present at all the desks at the Conference.
It was also a success - and I do not simply say this to flatter the Commissioner - because it was clear that the European Union or the European Commission took the lead at long last. In my opinion, it had been taking a back seat for a little too long.
This concludes my general comments on the Funding Conference.
Further to this Conference, I would like to single out five key points from my report.
First of all, the funding.
Everyone was waiting with bated breath for the moment when the Commissioner would produce the amount.
He finally came up with EUR 530 million.
That was very smart creative accounting, I must say, because, of that EUR 530 million, 50% was old, pre-2000 money from the Obnova and Phare programmes and 30% was taken from the same programmes for the year 2000.
In the final analysis, therefore, there was little new money in it.
This is not a reproach to the Commission but an observation, and one which will, of course, create even more bad feeling, bearing in mind that another EUR 5.5 billion is still to be found. This is an amount which was quoted by the European Investment Bank at one time, which was later taken over by Commission President Prodi and in respect of which it is still completely unclear, to me in any case, how this is to be raised in the coming year.
I would, therefore, like to ask the Commissioner how the first year, the year 2001, is likely to take shape?
How are the preparations for the Stability Pact budget coming along? What is his reaction to the ever increasing protests, both in terms of loudness and number, coming, for example, from the Council or the Member States, to the effect that those 5.5 billion intended for the western Balkans, by way of pre-accession aid for Bulgaria and Romania, have been pitched far too high and that, in terms of absorption capacity, for example, a much lower amount would be far more realistic?
I am in favour of retaining the figure of 5.5 billion for the time being. I am only very curious as to how the Commission hopes to raise all this money.
A request had also been made to spread the projects and planning for this Conference over all the desks: democracy, reconstruction and safety, in the knowledge that, at the end of the day, a bridge is more expensive than a training centre or mine-clearance programme.
Unfortunately, I have to note that, looking at all the figures after the Conference, the emphasis has been shifted quite considerably towards reconstruction.
Of 4.2 billion, 80% has been set aside for reconstruction, 17% for democracy and only 3% for safety.
I would call on the Commission, and Europe has more or less pledged to use the same scale, to take the 3 to 4% really seriously and expand it.
I would just remind you of a tragic report in the paper this morning about three children who stepped onto a mine near Sarajevo yesterday and were killed.
A mine-clearance programme is part of safety, is of key importance and should not be overlooked.
Thirdly, I would like to comment on the appeal in the report, backed by the General Affairs Council, to lift trade restrictions for the countries asymmetrically and, if necessary, unilaterally, the underlying idea being that, in time, trade will be just as important as subsidies.
What is the progress here? What does the Commission intend to do to lift these unilateral trade restrictions in the short term?
Fourthly, the NGOs.
Regrettably, very little attention has been paid to the role of NGOs, especially the local NGOs, both in terms of preparation and implementation. This is all the more unfortunate if one considers the level of knowledge regarding the Stability Pact in the region.
I am convinced that it is vital to introduce local NGOs in order to improve the quality of the programmes but also to raise the awareness of the Stability Pact, and the exact plans, in that region.
Finally, the distribution of tasks.
Who will ensure that all these tasks are carried out promptly and efficiently? I would like to give the Commissioner a word of advice.
Last week, he was accused of wanting to saw the legs from under Commission President Prodi' s chair.
If you are having a go at chair legs, could you take those of Mr Solana' s chair?
In my view, he has been given a leading role in the Balkans for no good reason.
It would seem far more logical to give this leading role to the European Commission, notably Commissioner Patten, to implement this Stability Pact promptly and efficiently.
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(PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Lagendijk, on his excellent and important report. The debate caused by this could not have come at a better time.
As you know, the Special European Council held in Lisbon reiterated the strategic priority for the European Union of ensuring peace and stability in South-Eastern Europe and, as such, this is an issue which is on the EU' s immediate agenda and permanently on our political agenda.
The European Union is by far the body which has contributed the most aid to this region.
Between 1991 and 1999, the total aid from the EU to South-Eastern Europe, including that from the EU as a whole and the Member States individually, was in excess of EUR 19.3 billion.
The EU is furthermore the main trading partner of all the countries in this region. It has allowed valuable trade concessions and, as you know, several thousand soldiers, police officers and civilian workers from the EU are active in the region, particularly in Kosovo.
We read with great interest the rapporteur' s conclusions on the stabilisation and association process for South-Eastern Europe.
The assessment of the solidity and possible deficiencies of this process certainly provides points for discussion and I will try to comment on some of these.
The Lisbon European Council confirmed that our overall objective remains the greatest possible integration of the countries in the region within Europe' s political and economic system.
The Stabilisation and Association Agreements constitute a central point of this policy.
As the rapporteur quite rightly notes, these new agreements will not enter into force immediately as we firstly have to prepare, negotiate and conclude each one.
As a result, the rapporteur concludes that it will be necessary to create a type of medium-term stabilisation and regional development programme.
I am not necessarily convinced that this is the most appropriate way of tackling the problem.
The general stabilisation process for the area cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be reduced to just agreements.
Clearly these are, shall we say, the most visible and most well-known feature of this process, but other important instruments are required such as preferential trade agreements, direct aid from the European Union and political dialogue.
Most of the countries already benefit from trade preferences and the Lisbon Special European Council confirmed that the Stabilisation and Association Agreements should be preceded by greater asymmetric trade liberalisation thereby specifically favouring these countries in their bilateral trade with EU countries.
The idea underlying the stabilisation and association process is sufficiently broad and flexible to ensure a constant project in this area.
With regard to the agreements, the fact that it is taking some time to prepare these should not, in our opinion, jeopardise the whole stabilisation process.
This has not been the EU' s experience in equivalent regional processes in the past.
As with other comprehensive agreements, we therefore hope to be able to establish interim agreements covering the period between the signature and ratification of these agreements, bearing in mind that normally almost twenty months pass between these two events.
It is also worthwhile to remember that we already have contractual relations in the form of trade and cooperation agreements with Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The new agreements, which will be more comprehensive and also more demanding on our partners given that they include elements of political conditionality which obviously form part of the Union' s current approach in this area, will specifically replace the existing agreements in these two cases. They will concentrate much more on regional cooperation than the current agreements and will include provisions on cooperation in the area of justice and home affairs, an area which is of great importance to the Europe of the future.
Negotiations have already begun with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.
The Albanian Government recently indicated its reaction to the viability study on the opening of negotiations, which was prepared by the European Commission, and the Council will very shortly analyse this report.
Following internal political changes, the European Commission is also to prepare a viability study for Croatia which the Council hopes to be able to analyse immediately before or after the summer.
Bearing in mind the request made by the local authorities, Bosnia-Herzegovina was sent a guide whose use will help towards preparing a viability study on negotiations for an agreement of the same type.
This work is moving forward at a good pace given, of course, that in this specific case, we must be careful and not create excessive expectations, as the reality of the situation there does not allow us to be overly optimistic in this respect.
I should like to refer briefly to the new regulation.
As we agree with the European Parliament about the need to create a uniform legal basis for support to the region, the Council is waiting for a Commission proposal on a Council regulation which will replace the support granted to the region by the Phare and Obnova programmes. The recommendations to be made will form a valuable contribution to the debates which we will start within the Council on this issue.
I note in particular that the report highlights that the reconstruction of the region must not be regarded as merely physical and economic but must also be aimed at the social infrastructure, civil society and the public institutions.
These are the main objectives of our reconstruction strategy for the area which does not just involve a merely physical dimension but also an overall stabilisation dimension.
The rapporteur also refers briefly to the Stability Pact on which we have been cooperating with these five countries and with the countries involved in the enlargement process.
The recent regional financing conference which was organised jointly by the European Commission and the World Bank, in close cooperation with the Special Coordinator for the Stability Pact, gave significant impetus to the Pact' s objective of reviving the reform processes and stimulating regional cooperation. It proved that the Stability Pact mechanism has already gained a certain maturity and can and must advance.
We believe that reciprocal commitment is the key to the Pact' s success and I feel that this point was made very clear in the recent discussions at the Commission and World Bank conference.
The commitment of the countries in the region to implement institutional policy reforms and to create an environment allowing economic progress is a fundamental element in this Pact.
In return, the international community is supporting the reform commitments and the donors and financial institutions have promised or mobilised a total of EUR 2.4 billion.
Of this amount, the European Union alone, that is, the Commission and Member States combined, have promised or mobilised EUR 1.08 billion.
The international community has financed in particular a quick-start package of EUR 1.8 billion announced at the conference and has made available the necessary financing to accelerate the preparation and implementation of projects and initiatives in the short-term package.
However, the conference was only one initial step in a long process.
The European Union is committed to acting as leader and guaranteeing the coherent management of this whole support process.
It has also pledged to closely monitor and support the regional reform processes in a way which corresponds to the efforts made by each country so that these can be rewarded with advances in the development of new instruments. This will allow economic and social development and progress in line with European standards.
With the exception of Belgrade, all the governments in the region have stated that they will start on the road to reform.
I must clarify, however, that the Council considers that, without Serbia, our common efforts will be incomplete.
A democratic and cooperative Serbia, at peace with its neighbours, will be welcomed within the European family. We must be aware that overall stability in this region can never be complete when one country in the region represents a factor of instability.
This message about Serbia must be received by the respective civil society. Our support for Montenegro and for the stabilisation efforts being made in this country by the respective government must also be reconfirmed.
To conclude, we also note that the rapporteur intends that the mandate of the European Reconstruction Agency should not be limited to Kosovo.
In the meeting of 20 March, the Council invited the Commission to work on a proposal and to present this to the Council with a view to including Montenegro in the Agency' s mandate.
Discussions are also ongoing about the possible extension of the EIB' s activities.
Finally, the Council has invited the Secretary-General and High Representative, under the authority of the Council presidency and in full cooperation with the Commission, to ensure the coherence of the policies for the Western Balkans.
At the last General Affairs Council, an initial commentary was given on these ideas which specifically stem from the presentation given by Commissioner Patten and Mr Solana. We are sure that in future meetings of the General Affairs Council this issue will be followed with close attention and by effective steps towards its realisation.
Mr President, the report on the stabilisation and association process for the countries in eastern Europe we are debating today attempts, and I believe successfully so, to formulate a stable political framework with which to address the Balkan tragedy.
Now is not the time to pass judgement past events and situations.
Today, let us take it that with this report we are taking a step towards the future and creating the platform for a first successful substantive European Union policy, in a way the first successful action of the CFSP.
Here, however, we must pay attention to certain issues.
So what are these issues? It is an open secret that interests are being expressed in the Balkans by many sides and many people, who often do not have common strategic aims.
In all circumstances this must be stopped by non-negotiable political answers given in every direction.
So what are they?
Firstly: absolute compliance with the UN' s decisions on the area.
Secondly: the boundaries of the states in the area are non-negotiable, even if it proves necessary in critical cases to adopt flexible forms of administrative autonomy and greater decentralisation.
I note that if there are some who think solutions will emerge either by creating new states or by redistribution between states, they are making a tragic mistake.
That would lead to continued and lasting tension with no foreseeable end.
A domino effect.
Without exaggeration, at the beginning of the 21st century we would have a new thirty-year war, 10 years of which, in any case, we have unfortunately lived through.
Thirdly: our policy must concern the peoples, and only them.
That is what is also in Europe' s interests.
Fourthly: the issue of economic and institutional reconstruction is an urgent priority.
Positive results will emerge through development, democracy and prosperity.
For the first time you are passing judgement on a complex problem at the very periphery of the European Union.
The EU' s political credibility and competence must prove successful.
It is a bet which must be won.
I hope that the strong convergence of support for the Lagendijk report achieved in the Committee on Foreign Affairs will find the same response in Parliament, and thereby express the desire of us all for a positive and stable outcome.
Mr President, I would thank the rapporteur for a report that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party can fully support.
I should like to take up a subject mentioned neither in the Commission' s announcement nor in the report and so run the risk of its being said that I am operating at too low a level.
The subject I want to bring up is that of women' s involvement in the reconstruction programme, and I wish to do so because women and children have always been the major victims when it comes to conflicts, civil wars and wars generally.
Assaults upon women, rape, killing and torture are daily fare and have been so for many years recently in the countries of south-eastern Europe.
I think it is absolutely crucial, if cultural understanding is to be promoted and a proper reconstruction programme prepared, that women should be involved - and involved very centrally - in the processes concerned.
I am taking up this matter because not enough - although, fortunately, a little - has in actual fact been done in this area.
It is in fact the case that a gender task force has been established under working party 1, but this has not happened because of any initiative from above but because of an initiative from below when a number of women have - if I may put it like this - approached the conference table and asked if it were not unreasonable for them, in one way or another, to have a central place in the whole of the reconstruction work.
It is a number of quite concrete, down-to-earth things these women have proposed, such as developing a proper programme for women and involving women in the general development plans.
The initiative is also, of course, about getting women to stand at elections at local, regional and national levels. If, however, the initiative is to succeed, these women also need to receive money for the projects concerned.
Otherwise, these will not happen. Moreover, the amount of money involved is small in relation to the other money which, hopefully, will eventually be paid out in this area.
I would therefore ask both the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council to take care to ensure that, where future work is concerned, women are involved in the reconstruction processes.
I do not, in fact, believe that the project will succeed if that does not happen.
Mr President, whatever its positive points, this report is flawed by the demands and requirements set out in the Stability Pact.
In other words, it essentially accepts that the wolf can guard the sheep.
By its very nature, the Stability Pact in Eastern Europe is intrusive, on the pretext that human rights and democracy are being protected.
I will not yet again refer to how the European Union is reacting to the flagrant violations of human rights in Turkey and elsewhere or the strident violations of those rights inside the European Union, i.e. the double standards policy.
For the moment, I will just note that the Pact' s real aim is to ensure the political and economic dependence of the countries in the area, to plunder their wealth and to overexploit their workforce.
As is also stressed in the report, it is particularly worrying that in the area there will be a test of the European Union' s - I quote - 'ability to develop an effective civil and military crisis management strategy aimed at conflict prevention' .
In other words, new interventions are being prepared, even military ones, with the aim of converting the area into a protectorate.
The tragic situation brought on by the criminal intervention of NATO and the European Union in Kosovo and particularly in Yugoslavia is indicative of what is likely to happen.
Besides, respect for borders is not a matter of generalised declarations and wishes, as they occur in the report, but practical respect for the territorial sovereignty and integrity of these countries, in other words precisely the opposite of what the European Union and the USA are doing.
It is clear that those who support this Stability Pact want to frustrate any resistance to their plans, especially when it involves conflict.
They try, either by force or by economic blackmail, to terrorise peoples and subjugate them to the new order.
And the question is this: what principle of international law are they basing their actions on?
Convinced, then, that the Stability Pact will bring new strife to peoples in the area and reinforce the dominance of the USA and the European Union, we will vote against the report and step up our fight against the Pact and on behalf of peace, friendship and solidarity between the peoples.
Mr President, I would like to make three observations regarding Mr Lagendijk' s inspiring and excellent report.
Firstly, the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe focuses on regional cooperation in the Balkans.
It is precisely this cooperation which the European Union wishes to promote in the best possible way.
Well, this regional cooperation still leaves too much to be desired.
The basic pursuit of common interests is being undermined by a longing for prestige and rivalry among the various nations. In this way, the swift implementation of the innovative Stability Pact is being hampered.
What is needed here is a powerful response from the European Union.
This should go hand in hand with a selfless and more balanced selection of regional aid projects.
Secondly, I consider Paragraph 26 in the Lagendijk report to be a fine idea.
Indeed, the Stability Pact applies just as much across the borders of the region.
As such, the Republic Moldavia definitely deserves the opportunity of being directly involved in the Pact.
After all, the alternative would be that Moldavia would be in danger of finding itself in a kind of political no man' s land.
What is more: Moldavia is linked with neighbouring Romania both culturally and politically. If Romania falls under the scope of the Stability Pact, so does Moldavia, therefore.
Thirdly, the success of this Stability Pact may well set a positive precedent for the East, with the Pact extended in the direction of the currently very unstable Caucasus.
Am I right in thinking that Russia already subscribes to the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe?
Mr President, I will make three points.
The first is that Mr Lagendijk' s report has interesting ideas, positive proposals, but I very much fear that it is a naïve report which cannot be implemented in the Balkans by the European Union' s policy.
When basic factors such as respect of the Balkan borders are missing, when we play games with Montenegro and Kosovo, when this is coupled with the antagonism being shown towards the Milosevic regime, I think we are already undermining every positive effort we should be making.
The European Union must conclude that it should respect the frontiers in the Balkans, and that is something quite different from its attitude towards Milosevic.
The second point I want to stress is that financing part of the reconstruction plans by reducing agricultural expenditure must finally stop.
I think that the donor conference makes this possible, or seems to at least.
The third point I would like to make here is that there are parts of Greece, yes, unfortunately Greece, for example the Prefecture of Pieria, a tourist province in Central Macedonia, which has suffered enormous economic damage because tourists no longer come to that area.
Such issues should be considered by the European Union as well.
Mr President, I am not about to start arguing the toss with Mr Swoboda over where the Balkans begin.
In fact, it was once said that the Balkans begin at the Rennweg in Vienna.
But leaving that aside, the fact remains that this Stability Pact is of course adversely affected by the heterogeneity of its States.
We have first and second wave candidate countries.
We have countries such as Croatia and Macedonia that are about to overtake candidate countries.
We have States such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania in which the State is scarcely functioning, and then the two decisive challenges, namely Yugoslavia, or Serbia, where it is a question of doing everything we can to foster democratisation and develop a long-term strategy for the Europeanisation of Serbia.
Secondly, Kosovo, where we will never achieve success unless elected political structures come into being there, along with a long-term vision of what is to happen to this region, which will never again be a Serbian province.
We cannot afford to hang about over this issue any longer; otherwise all we will be doing is tinkering about at the edges, as it were.
But that is not the only factor adversely affecting the Stability Pact, it is also suffering from a lack of credibility on the part of the international organisations and also the European Union, which owing to a confusion of competences, wastage, and mismanagement, are displaying traits that would be dismissed as being typical of the Balkans, were it not for the fact that this is happening in our own organisations.
We are losing a great deal in the way of credit and respect in this region, and this respect and credibility are fundamentally even more important than the promises of funding that are made and then not kept.
I truly believe we must put this situation in order in the European Union, primarily by strengthening the Commission' s role in the matter.
Commissioner, I have a great deal of faith in your work, but I must say that we as a Parliament must also ensure that you are able to give this work more in-depth attention than you have been able to hitherto.
What we need here is cooperation between our two institutions, so as to strengthen the EU and its credibility.
Mr President, I, too, consider this to be a satisfactory, significant report.
I would, however, stress certain points.
We know that the countries of the South-East are a priority, but we must be careful not to give ourselves more priorities than we can handle and not to establish conflicting priorities or we will lose credibility.
I refer to the Mediterranean policy and the Middle East peace process, which are also priorities.
We must be consistent, as I will remind the Council when we come to discuss the budgetary issues.
Secondly, it should be borne in mind that the regional approach is appropriate and important, and that it is important for the European Union to play a guiding role throughout this matter.
I therefore call upon the Commission and the Council to ensure, in the management of this extremely complex process, that the balance is maintained between the regional dimension of the Pact and the bilateral Association and Stabilisation Agreements, or we may end up sending contradictory signals to these countries.
Finally, I would like to mention two other points: the former Yugoslavia and crime.
With regard to the former Yugoslavia, I feel that we must follow the recommendations of the report and gradually reduce the embargo on the civil community until it has been lifted completely, because to continue to enforce it will only serve to postpone the fall of Milosevic. The sooner we do this, the better.
Apart from anything else, the embargo is affecting other countries in the region, including several candidate countries.
It is causing serious harm.
And who can lift it if Europe does not? It appears that even the United States are expecting us to lift the embargo.
We must find the courage to take this step.
Lastly, as other Members have reminded us, we must deal with society as well as infrastructures.
It might be interesting to meet with the chairmen of the three Working Tables to discuss these projects; maybe the Committee on Foreign Affairs could see to this.
Society is important, and that is why we must continue with information and culture projects.
For example, my city, Rome, is organising the young artists' biannual event in Sarajevo and funding the Sarajevo Concert Hall, precisely to give a sense of the reconstruction of a society within which there is dialogue, but which has dialogue with us as well.
Then there is the issue of crime.
My country, Italy, has a very high organised crime rate.
Puglia, for example, is a region which has to tackle crime organisations with a base in our country as well as elsewhere.
I would include this among the priorities I mentioned before, because investments will also be affected if this level of organised crime is maintained.
Mr President, I arrived in the Chamber this afternoon with an extremely good speech, which I would like to thank my cabinet for most warmly; but perhaps I can deliver it on another occasion because I would actually like to respond informally to this debate.
Members of the House will have noticed that the High Representative and I produced a report for the Lisbon Council, and I suspect that Mr Lagendijk might have noticed that it bore a striking similarity to his own report.
I am not sure which was chicken and egg, but I feel that in complimenting Mr Lagendijk on the report he will not take it amiss and think that I am really congratulating Mr Solana and myself.
Yet there was a great deal of similarity.
It is fair to say that our work for the Lisbon Council was very much motivated by the strong feeling that unless we can make a success of our efforts in the Balkans, the whole credibility of our attempts to construct a common foreign and security policy will be shattered.
It is enormously important that we rise to the challenge in the Balkans.
A point we made to the heads of government in Lisbon in our report - which was very much reflected in the week that I spent recently in the region - is that the stabilisation and association process has to be at the heart of our strategy.
To put it in a rather more demotic way, in the phrase used by my honourable friend Ms Pack, what it means is designing, helping countries along the road to Europe.
They want to be integrated with the Euro-Atlantic structures; they want that as an alternative to the traumatic disintegration of the last few years.
We have to make that a real process for them.
There were a lot of references to the Stability Pact conference the other day, which as several people have said was a considerable success.
The offers made by donors exceeded by a comfortable margin the expectations at the beginning of the conference.
There are a couple of points I want to make about it.
One, in response to Mr Lagendijk, it is true that some of the money going into the quick-start projects supported by the European Union was money from the 1998 and 1999 budgets.
There is a simple reason for that, which is that in some cases we had already carried out feasibility studies and made preparations for these quick-start projects.
In my book, new money is money you have not spent already.
Unfortunately, given the fact that our budget is based on commitments and payments, and not just payments unlike the budgets in almost all the Member States, that is a particularly important factor.
Committing money does not always mean spending it, the next year or the year after or even in the next decade.
It is important to be clear about that.
This follows up the point made by Mr Swoboda and it is a point with which I strongly agree.
We are not just talking about infrastructure in terms of hardware, we must also talk about infrastructure in terms of software.
That includes the rule of law, democratisation, the sort of civil society projects to which the honourable gentleman was referring; and it includes education - a point I will come back to in a moment.
I want to make one or two other points which arose at Lisbon and which we are following up.
First of all, we were charged in the Commission at Lisbon to bring forward a package of proposals on asymmetric trade concessions for the region.
It is worth remembering that the total exports from the Balkans to the European Union represent about 0.6% of our total imports.
For agricultural products the figure is about 0.16%.
So this is an area where we could afford to be a little generous.
We are also trying speed up our assistance and make it more effective.
I announced yesterday agreement in the Commission on a rapid reaction facility.
We will be coming forward to Parliament in the next few months with our new regulation for assistance to the West Balkans, which I hope will make it more rapid, more flexible and will, of course, have to include sufficient funding for projects supporting gender issues.
I can think of no single model of successful economic or political development which does not include at its heart sensible programmes to ensure that women can develop their full potential and play a full role in their communities.
One point on education: last winter, despite all the cynicism, our energy for democracy programme in Serbia was extraordinarily successful.
Alas, there are not many occasions when people cheer the European Union in the streets - all too few occasions in the country I know best.
But that happened in some of those cities last winter.
The Mayor of Nis has just written a letter saying that Energy for Democracy was a model of the sort of political support we should be providing in his country.
The winter is over, so there is not the same urgent necessity for oil at the moment.
We are looking at ways to extend that sort of scheme.
What we have been thinking of, among other ideas, is education for democracy: providing schools with equipment, school-books and other facilities, cash to carry out small improvements to classrooms and so on, and with sports equipment - all those sorts of things which can make for a better life for the kids in those towns while they have to wait with their families for the departure - sooner rather than later, I hope - of Mr Milosevic.
I hope we are at last going to see more progress on the cleaning up of the Danube, which is crucial for the region.
We had useful meetings with the Danube Commission last week and I hope that the annual meeting of the Danube Commission this week will see us managing to set all that in motion, with the European Union meeting about 85% of the cost of the clean-up.
I have spoken before of my concerns about Montenegro.
Following my visit there about a month ago, we have doubled our Obnova support for Montenegro from EUR 10 to 20m.
We are also providing a good deal there in terms of food security and so on.
I very much hope that the European Investment Bank will lend some money within reasonable limits to Montenegro before too long.
Finally, the honourable Member asked about the scale of our financial commitments to the Balkans.
There will be other occasions when I can follow this up in greater detail.
For me one of the real tests is whether all those yards of Council communiqués and all those promises about Marshall plans and so on for the Balkans actually amount to a row of beans!
This year we will be spending about EUR 540m in the western Balkans.
Because of the front-loading of our commitments in Kosovo, next year we will need to spend about EUR 800m in the Balkans.
About EUR 350m of that will go to Kosovo.
It must be said that it does not involve huge increases in expenditure elsewhere but we have to provide support in a country like Croatia where there is a good and decent government trying to do a difficult job in extremely problematic circumstances.
We have to spend money with those stabilisation and association countries which are negotiating seriously with us on the road to Europe.
For me, in public-spending terms, the crucial year is always year one - you are lucky if you get to year two or three.
Year one is actually the big year of expenditure for us.
Overall, at Istanbul, when we were asked how much we thought we could spend in the region, recognising that it was subject to the budgetary authority - I know all the theology of these matters now - we reckoned about EUR 5.5bn.
People say that is a crazy figure.
Well, I am keen that we should no longer be in the position we are in now where, despite the interinstitutional agreement, we are told by a lot of people that we have to find the extra money for Kosovo within the financial envelope agreed before Kosovo became a necessity.
One thing I have insisted on is a realistic figure in our budgeting for reconstruction in Serbia, because I do not want to find myself in two or three years time having to find additional costs for Serbia out of that same budget.
We reckon that applying the same sort of figures applied in Kosovo, we would need about EUR 2.3bn for a serious reconstruction programme in Serbia.
That could only start once Milosevic has gone.
However, in my view it would be thoroughly irresponsible for us to suggest figures to this Parliament or Council which did not include an element of what we think would be realistic for Serbia.
That is based on economists' figures and our assessment that we need to meet the same sort of a proportion of expenditure on Serbia that we have met in Kosovo.
The rest - EUR 3.2bn - over seven years does not strike me as being outlandishly generous.
That is how we reached the figure of EUR 5.5bn and I have slightly resented the implication in some newspapers that this is a figure we have plucked out of the air and does not make any sense.
I should be delighted to explain it not just in more detail to Parliament but I am looking forward in due course to explaining it in more detail to the General Affairs Council.
Who knows, if I was lucky enough one day, I might even be able to explain it to finance ministers.
I respond to the honourable Member' s well-intentioned question in that way.
This is not a figure plucked out of the air: it is an attempt to provide an honest assessment of what our rhetoric actually means.
People cannot resent the fact that they do it: they asked us to do it in relation to the Middle East - to give some idea of what the cost of a peace settlement would be for the European Union' s programmes.
So let us see the cost of it in the Balkans.
If we are going to have an argument about the relationship between rhetoric and reality, let us start here.
My final point: we are clearly talking in the Balkans about building peace and security, not just in our backyard but in our front yard too.
We are talking about building peace and security in an integral part of our European common home.
I hope we can do so in practice with the rhetoric, with the promises, with the optimism that we show in all those rhetorical communiqués.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11.30 a.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0216/2000).
We will examine questions to the Council.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 1, 2 and 3 will be taken together.
Question No 1 by (H-0255/00):
Subject: Flagrant violation by Turkey of the rule of law and human rights The leader of the People' s Democracy Party of Turkey, together with 17 other members of the party' s leadership, has been sentenced to a three-year and nine months' term of imprisonment for supporting the hunger strike that took place in solidarity with Abdullah Öcalan when he was handed over to the Turkish secret services in Kenya.
Three mayors of towns in S.E. Turkey, who are supporters of the same party, were also arrested on charges of collaborating with the PKK.
Other Turkish parties besides HADEP have voiced their opposition to the arrests and sentences, arguing that they are a flagrant breach of democracy, freedom of expression and the basic principles of the rule of law.
Will the Council raise the matter of the arrest and conviction of democrats for their opinions, and call for unhindered freedom of expression in Turkey together with freedom of formation and operation for all political parties?
Question No 2 by (H-0286/00):
Subject: Human rights violations by Turkey In December 1999 Turkey became a candidate country for accession to the European Union.
Article 10 of the conclusions of the Helsinki Council Presidency states that Turkey must fulfil the general accession criteria, and in particular the Copenhagen criteria, if it is to become a Member of the European Union.
In February of this year three Kurdish mayors (of the towns of Diyarbakir, Siirt and Bingöl) were arrested on their return to Turkey after they had signed the Aalborg Charter in Hanover in Germany together with 4 colleagues making their towns members of the 'European Sustainable Cities and Towns Campaign' ; they are still being held in prison.
Since Turkey is guilty of continuous and repeated human rights violations, what does the Council intend to do prevail upon Turkey to meet the EU accession criteria?
Question No 3 by (H-0299/00):
Subject: Continued muzzling of freedom of expression and violation of the rule of law by Turkey The leader of the People' s Democracy Party (HADEP) of Turkey and 17 other members of the party leadership have been sentenced to prison terms of three years and nine months on charges of supporting the hunger strike organised in support of Abdullah Öcalan when he was handed over to the Turkish secret services in Kenya.
Three mayors of towns in south-eastern Turkey who are close to this party have also been arrested on charges of collaborating with the PKK.
Other Turkish parties apart from HADEP have expressed their opposition to these arrests and sentences, arguing that this move is totally incompatible with democracy, freedom of expression and the basic principles of the rule of law.
Will the Council say whether it intends to raise with the Turkish government the issue of the arrest and sentencing of democrats merely for making statements and to demand, as part of the pre-accession procedure, that Turkey give guarantees regarding unrestricted freedom of expression and allow all political parties to be founded and function without hindrance?
Mr President, the Council has already raised with the Turkish authorities the issue of the democratic rights of Turks of Kurdish origin, including those mentioned in the question. It will continue to monitor this situation in Turkey as it develops and to act accordingly.
An Association Council meeting was held yesterday between the European Union and Turkey in which this issue was mentioned again. The Turkish authorities were told of the EU' s concern about this type of issue and of its hope that the Turkish authorities will end what is currently interpreted as a non-compliance with certain basic criteria of respect for human and democratic rights and the protection of minorities.
Turkey was named by the Helsinki European Council as a candidate country for accession to the European Union.
This status places Turkey in absolutely the same position as any other candidate country in terms of both obligations and benefits.
Therefore, Turkey is subject to the same requirements as those imposed on any other candidate country but also naturally has the same rights.
The European Union cannot make a special case of Turkey which must be treated exactly the same as any other candidate country.
Turkey is therefore currently involved in a process in which its situation must be assessed in light of the criteria of the Copenhagen European Council. These criteria are clear enough with regard to respect for the rule of law, democratic guarantees, fundamental freedoms and the protection of minorities.
These are a prerequisite for the opening of any negotiating process.
On the road towards this, a pre-accession strategy must be established between the Commission, on the EU' s behalf, and Turkey. The preparation of this strategy involves non-governmental organisations, the Member States and the Turkish Government.
This accession partnership will define the priority areas for reform on which the European Union considers that Turkey must concentrate its efforts in order to comply, hopefully in a progressive, capable and complete manner, with the Copenhagen criteria.
Clearly it is in this context that the issues mentioned in the questions will be considered.
Yesterday we heard Mr Verheugen and today the Council' s representative acknowledging, even in small measure, some of the problems related to respect for human rights in Turkey concerning which, indeed, they expressed their sorrow.
Yet, both yesterday and today they underlined the supposed progress made by the Turkish regime in that area.
And we heard the representative of the Council telling us the same thing today.
The truth, however, is that contrary to what some people are claiming even in Greece, the Helsinki decisions on Turkey have emboldened the Turkish regime.
It is no mere chance that on the next day Turkey' s leaders declared that Turkey has become a candidate for accession without attached conditions.
It is not by chance that, while they have not complied with any of their commitments, they protest that they have not been given the appropriations provided for under customs union.
They also told us that Turkey intends to take steps.
But we have been hearing that in the Council of Europe for very many years, perhaps more than ten, without anything happening.
If anything, things are worse.
The campaigner for democracy and human rights who was shot was sent to prison again instead of his attackers being punished.
My question, then, is: specifically when does the Turkish regime intend to progress with democratising that country' s constitution and criminal code, to set free the leaders of HADEP and the Members of Parliament as well as all the political prisoners? Will the Kurdish issue ever be resolved, will all the political parties be allowed freedom of formation and operation and finally, will Turkey ever withdraw its troops from Cyprus?
With regard to the comment that Mr Korakas' question was not a new one, I must say that Turkey' s application for accession to the European Union subjects it to closer scrutiny of its responsibilities in complying with the basic criteria for accession. I believe that the Turkish authorities are well aware of this.
With regard to defining the pre-accession strategy and the accession partnership, Turkey' s problems will certainly be paid close attention, particularly in terms of respect for the basic criteria of acting in accordance with European standards.
In the past Turkey was a country in which we regularly and systematically undertook certain ad hoc initiatives according to the development of its internal situation.
But no more!
The internal situation is now becoming a strategic element in the progress made by Turkey towards approximation with the European Union.
In the specific case of Mr Birdal, I was able to meet him in Turkey in January of this year and I told him during this meeting of the EU' s solidarity with his situation. It is clear in this respect that the EU has already indicated its concern to the Turkish authorities, through the appropriate channels, about his status and in particular his return to prison.
For a long time we have adopted a foreign policy which we allege is based on moral rules.
And not just that.
We have come to believe it ourselves and we claim to represent the world-wide moral conscience.
Already, however, we have reached an impasse, and not just in Turkey.
You see, morality must be applied towards everyone equally, regardless of risks and interests.
But that cannot happen.
You see, Belgrade can be bombed, but not Moscow, Beijing or Ankara.
Let us therefore acknowledge the obvious and return to tried and tested prescriptions.
In other words, let us speak of interests, the balance of powers and policy as the art of the possible.
If we do that we will certainly not be more moral, we will be more sincere and in that case we can all put our time to better use instead of play-acting as we are all doing now.
I am not sure that you have asked a question.
If there is no question, the Council is not obliged to answer, only to listen, as you know, Mr Seixas da Costa. Mr Theonas wishes to rephrase his question.
I recommend to all of you that you begin with the question before making a declaration.
I have a comment and a specific question: would it not be better for the Council to give more specific answers when it asks for specific questions? That was my comment.
Now, the question: if the pre-accession process for Turkey were to last twenty years, would all those who are imprisoned today have to wait those twenty years for the European Union to express interest?
Secondly, would the Council be prepared, in this whole process, to suspend or cancel obligations of the European Union relating to the pre-accession process as long as the people we are talking about remain in prison? And finally, could some action ever be demanded from Turkey which would help resolve the Cyprus issue, granted that this is one of the issues which should be addressed as part of the pre-accession process?
Firstly, Mr Theonas, I do not agree with the comment that the Council presidency is not explicitly answering the questions raised by Members.
In fact, quite the contrary is true.
The ongoing process of Turkey' s approximation towards the European Union, which was started with its designation as a candidate in Helsinki, is one of progressive approximation. The Member should realise that this process of progressive approximation is resulting in greater attention being paid than in the past by the European Union to Turkey' s internal situation and to the way in which this country acts with regard to the requirements imposed by the international community.
It is this point which really must be borne in mind.
Turkey is currently, on its own initiative and therefore as a result of its own political decision, the subject of close scrutiny in terms of compliance with the basic criteria.
This is not to be assessed over the next ten years but rather on a daily basis, usually within the pre-accession strategy process.
If there were a lack of progress on the fundamental issues under observation, the pre-accession process would suffer the respective consequences.
This is very clear to me.
Furthermore, the Helsinki conclusions, regardless of how they may be read, place the issue of Turkey and its relationship with Cyprus in a new perspective, which was in fact welcomed by the Cypriot authorities.
We must draw from this the appropriate conclusions about how the development in the Turkish position on the Cypriot issue may also affect the development of the Turkish position in its approximation towards the European Union.
A comment and question to the Council' s representative: is the answer he just gave us specific? For goodness sake!
Mr Korakas, I must make a confession. In political life, people are used to reading between the lines.
On such a delicate issue as the interpretation of a serious situation, like the development in the Cypriot situation and Turkey' s approximation towards the European Union, we must be very careful in our choice of words.
However, I feel that I made it clear that there is a direct link between Turkey' s approximation process and its position on the Cypriot issue.
I cannot make this any clearer.
Question No 4 by (H-0294/00):
Subject: Blatant persecution and violation of the rights of the Assyrian-Chaldeans in Turkey Tens of thousands of Assyrian-Chaldeans in Turkey living in the south-east of the country have found refuge in Member States of the EU after being persecuted by the Turkish Government which has destroyed many of their homes, closed and raised to the ground their churches and banned the use of their language and teaching in this language.
There is a danger that, owing to the use of force, the remaining places of worship and even the traces of the existence of this minority will be lost for ever.
Will the Council say whether it intends to raise this matter as part of the pre-accession procedure, to call on the Turkish Government to respect the rights of the Assyrian-Chaldean minority in Turkey and, more particularly, to ensure that the Mar Gabriel monastery in Midyat and the Dayr Zafaran monastery in Mardin can continue to operate without hindrance?
Very briefly, what I said about the development of the situation in Turkey and the necessary changes in terms of respect for the rights of minorities also applies in this case which specifically involves the protection of Christian minorities.
The reinforcement of the political dialogue agreed in Helsinki requires progress to be made towards compliance with these political criteria, particularly on issues of human rights. All the situations which have been brought to the Council' s attention during the pre-accession process will be tackled.
This particular question involves the problem of non-recognition by the Turkish authorities of the Assyrian-Chaldean community under the terms of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923.
Under this Treaty, the Turkish Government undertook to ensure full protection for the churches, synagogues, cemeteries and other places of worship of non-Muslim minorities. At this point in time, the claims of the Assyrian-Chaldean community basically relate to the problem of restoring monasteries and the official teaching of Aramaic and the problem connected with the free movement of citizens from this ethnic group who live outside Turkey.
These are clearly administrative issues. They do have a human rights dimension which obviously must be tackled - and we will be vigilant in this respect - but they are essentially administrative.
The Council will be vigilant and the Commission will also raise these issues during the pre-accession negotiations.
Mr President-in-Office, I cannot say your answer is satisfactory.
If the Council were truly concerned about human rights one would have expected a more specific answer.
We are talking here about two very ancient peoples who have been subjected to systematic genocide by the Turkish regime, a genocide perhaps not so impressive as in Armenia, but just as effective.
Several thousand people have become refugees or immigrants to the European Union and only a few tens of thousands remain in the area where they have lived since ancient times.
I would like to ask whether you can be more specific.
Of course, your reference to the Treaty of Lausanne is apt, but beyond that, the European Union also has a responsibility to stress certain things to the Turkish regime concerning the need to respect human rights, whether they stem from the Treaty of Lausanne or in a broader sense.
Is the Council going to take any specific action along those lines?
Mr Alyssandrakis says that my answer was not positive enough.
It would be useful to remind him of his question.
He asked whether the Council intends to raise this issue during the pre-accession process and to ask the Turkish Government to respect the rights of the Assyrian-Chaldean minority in Turkey and, in particular, to ensure the operation without hindrance of their monasteries.
He specifically referred to two monasteries.
I have no idea what more positive answer I could give him than to simply say yes.
It is the Council' s and the EU' s intention to raise this issue with the Turkish authorities during the pre-accession process.
Once again, if this is not a clear answer, I have no idea what is.
Question No 5 by (H-0262/00):
Subject: Renewed tension in Kosovo The results of the 'peaceful' intervention by NATO forces in Kosovo are generally acknowledged to be deplorable.
Instead of the 'multi-ethnic' Kosovo which had been the UN' s objective, we have a situation in which the refugees have failed to return, ethnic cleansing has continued, but now directed at the Serb population, partition has taken root and the dispatch of increasing numbers of new military and police forces is considered 'indispensable' .
The current increase in tension is being fuelled by statements by NATO officials and major new military exercises by NATO forces.
Will the Council say what measures it intends to take to safeguard a 'multi-ethnic' Kosovo as part of the Yugoslav Federation? What action will it take to defuse the crisis and tension in the region?
- (PT) Mr President, the European Union' s objective, in accordance with Security Council Resolution 1244, continues to be the establishment of a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo within the internationally recognised borders of the Former Yugoslavia.
The Council accepts the urgent need to find a solution to the continued outbreaks of ethnic violence, particularly against the Serbs, gypsies and other non-Albanian communities in Kosovo.
The Council has been consistently supporting the efforts made by UNMIK and KFOR to prevent further expulsions and to allow the safe return of all those who abandoned their homes.
In response to an urgent appeal from the UN Secretary-General' s Special Representative, Doctor Bernard Kouchner, and from the High Representative, Mr Solana, the Member States have significantly increased their contributions to the UN' s international police forces with both financial and technical support and human resources.
Several Member States have also reinforced their own contingents in KFOR.
In the past in this House, we have deeply regretted the failure to meet these commitments, which has clearly hindered the action of the international authorities in Kosovo.
There are now new elements involved and some of these commitments are now being met. This is allowing this issue to be handled differently and more effectively, although we are clearly still a long way from achieving a minimally acceptable solution.
The Council has urged all the political leaders in Kosovo to adopt urgent measures to combat the escalation of violence, to reject expressions of extremism and to support UNMIK and KFOR.
It is very important that the Council manages to further develop the progress already made in the reconciliation between the ethnic groups and that Resolution 1244 can be put into practice.
We are committed to the process of democratisation and coexistence in Kosovo.
Only responsibility-sharing by representatives of the minorities can lead to the construction of a multi-ethnic Kosovo.
We should all ask ourselves whether everyone, particularly within Kosovo itself, is interested in the existence of a multi-ethnic Kosovo.
In this context, the Council repeats its appeal to the Serbian leaders to participate in the joint interim administrative structures.
The Council places great importance on the careful preparation by UNMIK and the OSCE of local elections to be held this year, including the provisions on voting by absentees and the participation of minorities.
We believe it is important to start creating legitimate structures with local authority in Kosovo.
This is the only way we can guarantee that the political forces which are currently working in an unorganised manner, outside any institutions, will return to normal political life and end up working in Kosovo within a democratic society.
In terms of supporting this process of democratisation and coexistence, the European Union has been working together with other international partners to re-establish daily life for the whole of Kosovo' s population, whatever their ethnic background.
In addition to the important bilateral assistance given by the Member States, the European Community has allocated humanitarian aid for 1999 to 2000 to the amount of EUR 429 million for the Kosovar refugees, displaced persons within the country and those returning home.
The aid for reconstruction and the special financial assistance, including the support for UNMIK, will total EUR 437 million between 1999 and 2000.
This set of actions and the commitment shown by the EU in this respect have been recognised by the international community.
Unfortunately, at times the practical efficiency of these actions is not sufficient to end an unstable situation beset by tensions which we hope will decrease in the future.
Let me first comment that the President-in-Office of the Council is besieged by questions from Greek Members.
I think that expresses the great insecurity felt by a Member State, but I would also say the inadequacy of Community policy to address serious issues.
I want to thank him for his answer.
I take note of that position, which I find particularly positive and which we do not often see, namely that the European Union' s objective is a multi-ethnic and democratic Kosovo within the framework of the internationally recognised borders of the Yugoslav Federation.
I think that is a positive thing and I have taken note of it. I would like to ask a supplementary question regarding in particular those minorities suffering persecution today in a situation of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, whether they be Serbians, of Turkish origin or gypsies, who are, on the one hand, under such pressure from Albanian extremists and, on the other hand, living in a Serbia still subject to embargo.
Are there any special support and aid programmes planned by the European Union specifically for these people who are living in such misery and desperation?
Mr Alavanos, I believe it was clear from what I said and in fact you recognised yourself that the general objective of the European Union and the international community is to respect the terms of Security Council Resolution 1244, particularly on the establishment of a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo.
I am not ignoring the major difficulties present on the ground in applying these decisions.
There is no point on this issue using euphemisms or diplomatic language.
The mass return of the Albanians expelled from Kosovo and the tension which has arisen in the meantime, particularly involving Serbian, gypsy and other minorities, have ended up creating a new and different situation.
However, we should not only look at the present.
We must consider what happened in the past which was the cause of all this.
Perhaps by looking at the causes of this situation, rather than fixing on the present, we will have a fairer and more objective view of the partial responsibility of the Belgrade Government, particularly with regard to what happened to it subsequently due to its actions in Kosovo.
However, it is true that, for the Serbian minorities who have had to leave the country since the return of the Kosovo Albanians, the conditions have not yet been established to allow them to return. Those still living in Kosovo are having problems coexisting with the Albanian majority.
However, the Member must recognise the clear efforts being made by the international community to protect these minorities and to achieve a safe situation allowing them to coexist with the Albanians.
We cannot ignore the fact that this joint effort also needs the Serbian authorities to be involved in the consultative structures.
This would be one way of making its own actions in Kosovo credible.
Our only objective is to guarantee the continuation of multi-ethnic integration.
We realise that there is a long way to go and probably the situation of the Serbs living outside Kosovo, and who cannot return because it is unsafe, is unfair.
There is no point beating about the bush on this. This situation is unfair.
However, we must realise that the international community is doing its best.
Furthermore, we should always remember what happened before, in order to justify what is happening now.
Mr Alavanos said that until now all the questions we have heard have been Greek.
I would like to say that the Spanish and the Portuguese, as well as other Mediterranean people, are accustomed to speaking with the Greeks.
I believe that Lisbon, the ancient Olisipo, was founded by Ulysses.
The President-in-Office of the Council therefore comes from a country with a long tradition of Greek presence.
Mr President, could I ask the President-in-Office of the Council - all of whose good intentions for a multi-ethnic Kosovo I accept - whether he would not admit that the international community' s policy there in all its facets - the European Union, the United Nations, KFOR, NATO et al - is really an unmitigated and disastrous failure and getting worse by the day.
What is being done to get the KLA and the Albanian bully-boys, who clearly have no interest in a multi-ethnic Kosovo, under control? There just seems to be an ineffectual permissiveness of the situation despite all these wonderful, pious good intentions.
Firstly, to comment on what the President said, I must say that I am very happy to be grilled by the Greek Members. I have some great friends in Greece where I have spent several holidays.
As for the situation you describe, Mr Purvis, I do not believe that the policy is disastrous.
This is the only possible policy, as you know, and it is a result of everything that has happened in the region in the last few years and even in the last few decades.
We must realise that the international community' s position, which is not brilliant in terms of the practical application of these measures, is the only one which can resolve a conflict on which the international community was only called to act due to the total inability to find a solution within the Former Yugoslavia.
It was precisely the situation created in the Former Yugoslavia which caused this reaction.
You refer to the KLA.
Remember that the KLA only exists because the Albanian community in Kosovo was systematically persecuted and totally besieged.
Clearly the need to organise themselves militarily to respond to this threat led to the KLA' s action.
The problem now facing us is to try and ensure that the structures created outside the democratic process, simply because this did not exist in the Former Yugoslavia, allow an approach of solely political action to be adopted in a democratic Kosovo.
We are still a long way off from finding such an approach, but I believe that the international community' s action is very positive in this respect.
Mr President, if a mark between 1 and 10 were now to be given for success in pursuing the two objectives of the action programme, namely that Kosovo should be multi-ethnic and that it should remain a part of Yugoslavia, I believe that the President-in-Office of the Council and I can probably agree that the mark concerned would be fairly low. We agree, however, that this is the result of a policy which has been pursued up until now, that is to say a result of what has happened.
My question is this: is the Council giving any consideration to how this policy can be changed in the future, or is the intention to go on using the same tools, that is to say military action and initiatives against troublesome areas in the region? What is the basic idea behind setting up a 60 000-strong rapid reaction force when we all agree that a number of other initiatives are presumably required if there is a desire to solve conflicts in Europe and in neighbouring countries?
Firstly, I regret not having the opportunity to put questions to the Members. If I did I would ask them what other solution they propose.
As a specific example of what military forces can do, I would refer you to the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Just think what the situation was like there for several years.
Just think about the international community' s failure to act faced with this problem and then just look at the situation today.
This is clearly unstable but it is one of peace due to the presence of the military forces. It is clear that there are certain situations in which attempts to deflect ethnic tensions can only be successful by using mechanisms which involve the protection and separation of the waters.
This is very probably what is needed in Kosovo, who knows for how long, but hopefully for the shortest time possible. We should also bear in mind that the international community and particularly the Member States have no specific interest in intervening in Kosovo and in mobilising human and physical resources for an action of this kind.
In fact quite the contrary.
The international community and the European Union in particular were aware that it was their duty and responsibility to react to a totally disgraceful situation in terms of international standards of behaviour. It was the genocide and siege behaviour of Mr Milosevic with regard to the Albanian community in Kosovo which led to our intervention.
You say that the practical result of this action is not what was wanted.
I would point out, however, that the practical result is that today, with a few exceptions and despite everything, this situation is under control in terms of security.
We have made and are making efforts to achieve greater integration of the minority communities.
A more effective result has not been possible.
We will try to continue exerting pressure in this respect and we believe that renewing in some way the institutional organisation of civil society through independent elections may contribute significantly to this stability.
Question No 6 by (H-0279/00):
Subject: Protection of European undertakings in Kosovo Despite the fact that the Council is unaware of this (answer to Question E-2425/99), the above undertakings have indeed appealed to the EU to protect their interests, as this matter falls within the Council' s remit.
Given that UNMIK and its head, Bernard Kouchner, do not act of their own accord, but under international supervision in which the Council is also involved, the latter should scrutinise their actions more closely where they affect the interests of European undertakings, if it wishes to avoid raising doubts about its intentions though the answers it gives.
Furthermore, the proper management of the fourth Pillar entails a number of additional obligations for the EU institutions.
Since the Commission, which is unfortunately taking an unconscionable amount of time to reply, is well aware of the actions of the undertakings concerned, and in order to avoid any doubts about whether the Council is responsible for failing to act, will the latter say to what extent it is prepared to act in accordance with the obligations imposed on it by the Treaties and to support the interests of the undertakings in question?
.
(PT) Security Council Resolution 1244 gave UNMIK, the interim administration in Kosovo, authority over the territory, including full legislative and executive powers, and control over the legal system. The aim was to establish a transitional administration whose mandate was described in the resolution itself.
This mandate also includes the development of a phased economic recovery plan.
This means that the individual cases mentioned in the Member' s question should be dealt with directly by the UN Secretary-General' s Special Representative for Kosovo, who is responsible for the territorial administration of Kosovo, or by the Foreign Minister of the Member State in which the undertakings are established.
The Council assumes general political responsibility for the EU' s participation in UNMIK which is focussed on reconstruction and economic rehabilitation.
However, neither the European Union as such nor the Council has any competence or direct responsibility with regard to the administration of the territory and the protection of the individual interests of undertakings in the region. These elements are, on the one hand, the responsibility of the United Nations, as the administrator of the territory, and on the other, of the governments of each Member State which may act to protect these undertakings.
I have been waiting about six months for an answer on this.
There is a whole raft of questions and answers and we are becoming schizophrenic over the substance and content of the answers. What is hiding behind all that?
Either the services are not doing their job properly and are giving you wrong information, or there is something rotten in the Kingdom of Denmark and there are many who say that there is something peculiar about Mr Kouchner' s administration. My question is this: if the services are not doing their job properly, what are you going to do when they leave you high and dry?
If Mr Kouchner is not doing his job properly, what are you going to do about it? And the third question: how can it be that the citizens of the European Union are being called upon to pay for the Stability Pact even though European undertakings established there cannot be protected by the European Union?
That does not happen anywhere, it is unreasonable. We should therefore see things as they are, because my impression is that Mr Kouchner is not playing his part properly there.
That is where the problem lies and that is what we should all realise, as European citizens and people interested in developments in the Balkans.
The question raised has never been submitted to the Council of the European Union, particularly by the undertakings which are complaining.
The Council presidency has no knowledge of this issue.
Complaints are submitted to the Member States whose Foreign Ministries are responsible for dealing with this type of question.
It should be borne in mind that the administration in Kosovo does not come under the EU' s competence but under that of the UN.
There is a specific body responsible for this administration.
Each country is normally obliged to protect the actions of its undertakings within the international sphere.
Each country has structures to protect its citizens and undertakings internationally and for this reason there are specific mechanisms which we all use every day in our international action.
The European Union is not a country.
I do not know under what circumstances the European Union would have to have a global and specific action plan in this respect or why, as a Union, it would have to deal with this issue.
That is unless we reach a point at which national governments prove to be incompetent in protecting their own undertakings.
Mr President, an essential element in the reconstruction of post-war society is always that recovery of the local economy should be as rapid as possible, so that it becomes viable once more.
Local businesses in Kosovo now, however, have one substantial problem: a dearth of qualified and linguistically competent labour, as all those who can speak English, or nearly all, were recruited for reconstruction projects in Kosovo, and local businesses cannot compete with the high salaries being paid.
Many entrepreneurs are naturally very bitter about this consequent stagnation in activity.
Mr President-in-Office, I do not know if you have come up against this problem, but I would nonetheless ask you what you think can be done about it at EU level.
Doctor Bernard Kouchner has at times referred to the difficulty he has in recruiting staff, not only for the country' s administration but also for the normal structures of economic reconstruction.
It is clear that the cost of recruiting staff is high.
We consider that this type of question comes within the framework of Doctor Kouchner' s work which, as I have said, is outside the control of the European Union, although we are cooperating on this issue.
The Union as such does not therefore have a specific and direct response to this type of question.
We are ready to listen to and consider the requests made to us by Doctor Kouchner and to give him any possible answer within the commitments assumed by the European Union with regard to the extremely high costs involved in the region.
Mr President, my question is quite specific and is, I believe, of direct concern to the EU.
Is the Council aware that the Serbian government is planning to sell mines and mineral resources in Kosovo to EU companies and to portray this as privatisation? Does the Council know that there are problems here associated with ethnic cleansing in one part of Kosovo, in that Serbs are being settled in one area, which is the area that is richest in raw materials, and there is a risk of the area being partitioned in order to safeguard these raw materials?
Mr Posselt, I have no knowledge of this issue.
However, we will consider the information you have given us.
Question No 7 by (H-0274/00):
Subject: Joint efforts to coordinate IT development The Portuguese Presidency has commendably highlighted the need for development of the IT sector in order to promote competitiveness and employment.
Coordination at European level would be conducive to the further development of the IT sector.
What is the Council' s view of the need for coordination at European level to develop the IT sector and, in that context, of the need to set up a European IT agency?
Mr Andersson, to answer your question I should like to start by confirming that a coordinated approach at European level to the information technology and telecommunications sectors is essential for the future development of the European Union.
We have already discussed in this House the Special Meeting, which was held in Lisbon on 23, and 24 March. At this it was clear that improving the Information Society policy is central to achieving the objectives which this meeting set and which involve the issues of employment, social cohesion and reinforcement of Europe' s competitiveness at world level.
In particular the Special Meeting invited the Council and Commission to prepare an action plan on e-Europe, which will be presented, to the European Council in June.
The idea of launching an agency devoted to information technology was presented at the Lisbon European Council in the document provided by the Swedish Government.
This idea was not followed up but it responds to our concerns and will definitely be considered and developed in the future.
It was discussed, however, particularly in terms of possibly being added to the existing Community mechanisms, which include the Information Society Project Office. This has been producing a range of initiatives during the Portuguese presidency.
On the issue of a possible European telecommunications regulation agency, I would remind you that a study carried out for the Commission in October 1999 concluded that there was no immediate need for such a body. At the same time the Council concluded that regulation should be applied at the closest possible level to that at which the activities to be regulated are carried out.
This too involves the principle of subsidiarity.
I want to thank the Council for its answer.
I was pleased to see that the issue of information technology and its link to growth and employment were so high on the agenda in Lisbon.
What happens in the future is important.
The political task is not, of course, to set up IT companies but to build an infrastructure which stimulates development in this area. We do, of course, have shortcomings within the EU.
Moreover, there are major differences between the EU' s Member States and also between different regions within the EU.
Different population groups have varying opportunities and knowledge when it comes to exploiting this technology, and this may lead to great inequality in the future.
I would therefore ask the question: how are we successfully to devise a form of coordination which enables information technology also to be used out in the peripheral areas so that we create greater equality between different regions and between different population groups? Is there not a need for a joint authority to coordinate this work?
Mr Andersson, you have asked me two separate questions.
The first concerns the substantive issue of democratising the Information Society itself, which was at the root of the concerns of the Lisbon European Council.
This involves the need to spread throughout European society, precisely in the area where it is less competitive and in order to give added value to the usual elements of its economy, all these new dimensions of the society of innovation and knowledge.
This effort is scheduled to use specific measures contained in the conclusions of the Lisbon European Council, particularly with regard to the Internet and methods of apprenticeship and vocational training. In our opinion, these may be able to form a future action plan, which will be assessed every year at special meetings of the European Council, which will always take place in the spring.
This is the answer to your first question.
Your other question concerns the need to have an organisational structure and an institution to supervise this process and to pay specific attention to the similarity between these types of question within the European Union.
You rightly make the point that on many occasions specifying these measures may create and worsen inequalities.
This is a danger and risk to which we are alert.
In the meantime, the governments have decided that the creation of a new structure and bureaucratic mechanism with high costs is not necessary.
They in fact consider that the structures which currently exist for monitoring this process are sufficient for this purpose.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as an Austrian I am extremely proud of the fact that the Council Presidency has focussed on development in the IT sector.
I would be interested to know how the President-in-Office of the Council views the sale by auction of UMTS licences. The proceeds from this sector could create a huge amount of impetus and, above all, boost the Portuguese programme accordingly, if, for example, we were to make the proceeds from the licences that are sold by auction available for research and development, education, training and further education, or for infrastructure.
What do you think to the idea of developing incentivisation programmes for the Member States, so as to enable the proceeds to actually be ploughed back into this sector?
The conclusions of the Lisbon European Council specify national actions which are therefore the responsibility of the national governments.
These are objective commitments which the governments assumed in signing these conclusions and which involve the reorientation of the mechanisms and structures and action plans and programmes which exist within the European Union.
With the exception of the possibility of recourse to the European Investment Bank, there are no new elements in this respect for mobilising financial resources.
This was one of the objective concerns raised during discussions of this issue in Lisbon.
It was decided to try and achieve greater coherence between the current instruments for the simple reason that we believe that, rather than creating new instruments, we should reorganise the current ones.
Having said this, it is necessary, as we have done in the employment and macroeconomic policies, to try and achieve greater coherence between the national actions on the society of innovation and knowledge and to ensure that these actions are subject to a specific plan which each Member State undertakes to implement internally.
This will occur in accordance with a set timetable of objectives and using benchmarking processes which allow us to see which are the best practices and to try, based on these, to encourage similar practices in the other Member States.
This process has this national dimension of a commitment on objectives and it is therefore obvious that there are no financial resources for this other than those available in the budget of each country.
In the other dimension, in which recourse to the European Investment Bank is possible, there is a set of actions within the competence of the EU itself, which not only complements previous actions but also ensures greater coherence between the EU' s programmes and actions in this area.
The Commission has been extremely active in this field and the e-Europe programme presented by the Commission and whose action plan will be approved at the Feira European Council in June provides new guidelines for this area and a new reorientation of Community policies on this issue.
As the author is not present, Question No 8 lapses.
Question No 9 by (H-0275/00):
Subject: Women in the new CFSP decision-making bodies Has the Council provided for any measures for women to be adequately represented in the new CSFP decision-making bodies, or made any recommendations to this effect? How many women will there be in the crisis management bodies and the security and conflict-prevention political committee?
Will the Council be taking due account of the specific contribution women can make to working for peace?
- (PT) The issue raised by the Member is of fundamental importance. It concerns the involvement of women in the common foreign and security policy and the new crisis management structures, such as the security and conflict-prevention political committee.
The Member has asked whether the Council will be taking due account of women' s particular skills in working for peace.
It is quite clear that the contribution of women in working for peace and in other similar respects, particularly in mobilising civil society, is well-known and unquestionable.
We all know, without bothering to be diplomatic about this, that the role and representation of women in the decision-making process, either within the CFSP or generally within other structures, is inadequate.
We all know the efforts made by the international community in this area and we remember the conclusions of the Beijing Declaration of 1995 on this issue.
Next June there will be a Special Session of the UN General Assembly to draw international attention to the need for women to be involved in actions implemented within the Beijing Declaration. In particular, specific measures will be taken to encourage this involvement.
It should be realised that pro-active policies do not work in some areas of the decision-making process.
Greater involvement is needed in political actions, in the training process and in the administrative process in general.
We believe it is impossible to implement just one specific action, for example introducing quotas in the common foreign and security policy structures.
In our opinion, this is not appropriate and the Council has made no proposal in this respect.
However, it is the responsibility of each national government to carry out the necessary reforms of its own system of representation in order to guarantee adequate participation by women.
These issues are now being regulated at European level and recommendations are being made as a result of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We believe that, as all representation within the European Union is carried out by people from the Member States, it is the latter which are mainly responsible for mobilising as many women as possible who can rise within the decision-making process.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Seixas da Costa, very much for his reply, which gives us hope since it demonstrates that the Council understands the problem, is responding politically and perhaps even sympathises with the idea.
Nevertheless, I consider his reply to be basically too retrograde.
The Helsinki and Cologne Summits specifically gave the Portuguese Presidency the job of strengthening this new protection policy.
You have said that you are against quotas but in favour of references.
I would like to ask the Portuguese Presidency: do you not think it would be highly appropriate to include a reference, in the form of a recommendation, in this respect? I believe that the role of the European Union should not be to remain behind the United Nations or to be content merely with a reference to what Beijing was about.
The European Union must be progressive.
Women must clearly be involved in political decisions - also decisions with regard to peace - and I ask the Portuguese Presidency to make some reference in this respect.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, thank you for the hope which you have placed in the Portuguese presidency. However, I am sure you are aware of the limits of what we can do, particularly in an area such as this.
I have no hesitation in saying this because in my own departments 80% of the officials are women, even in managerial posts.
It is therefore clear that hope must always be the last resort of political action and that equal opportunities and equal representation of the sexes must be the practical and specific goal in our daily life and actions.
To be totally frank and at the risk of being considered behind the times, I do believe that there are limits to what can be achieved by pro-active political action in this area.
Bearing in mind these limits, it will be rather difficult, when we set out to assess the new common foreign and security policy structures in terms of defence, to say to the Military Committee or the Military Staff that half of their soldiers should be female.
This is because it is up to the Member States whether or not they have female generals or brigadiers.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I cannot raise an issue like this just to appear politically correct. I must always be objectively honest.
Question No 10 by (H-0276/00):
Subject: Participation of research partners from the developing countries in environmental research programmes funded by the EU The key to the development of the developing countries is their ability to participate in development work themselves both as definers of problems and as seekers for solutions.
On the other hand, at EU level this approach is being poorly applied in relation to science and technology projects affecting developing countries.
The EU' s framework programmes do not extend to the developing countries. This means that North African partners, for example, are not able to be involved in science and technology projects relating to the environment.
In fact no-one is preventing them from carrying out the research, but there are no funding opportunities, and thus the developing countries have no access to consortia as partners entitled to apply for funding.
Why is this not the case, given that opportunities have been devised for even Russia, for example, to be involved?
Has the matter been considered from the point of view of the extent to which, for example, desertification in North Africa or the problems of the Mediterranean affect the EU? Is the EU prepared to provide greater responsibility in the form of funding to local researchers, so that research activities can combine even after the funding bodies have left, and to ensure that projects can be carried out without the investment of local researchers?
In 1998, the European Parliament and the Council adopted the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development to run from then until 2002.
One aspect of this Framework Programme is its four thematic programmes, which define priority areas for research, and its three horizontal programmes.
One of the latter is entitled 'Confirming the international role of Community research' and is intended to promote scientific and technological cooperation at international level and to help implement Community foreign policy in this area.
The general objectives of this international scientific cooperation are also set out in this Framework Programme and include support for the development of a Euro-Mediterranean partnership and a contribution to the economic, social and scientific development of developing countries.
In December 1998, the Council also adopted rules on participation by undertakings, research centres and universities and on disseminating research results in order to implement the Fifth Framework Programme.
With regard to the participation of legal entities of third countries and international organisations, all the indirect research activities under the thematic programmes are open to research bodies in Mediterranean non-Community countries and developing countries, in principle without Community financing.
The only exception to this involves situations in which Community financing is regarded as absolutely vital to achieve the aims of the activity.
Article 6 of the Framework Programme authorises the participation by entities of third countries in specific research and technological development activities under the horizontal programme on the international role of Community research.
In January last year, the Council adopted the specific programmes for the Fifth Framework Programme which set out the objectives and activities for the various categories of third countries.
With regard to Mediterranean non-Community countries, an indicative allocation of EUR 55 million was established for research and development activities such as integrated coastal management in the Mediterranean, including environmental aspects, water management, natural resource management, conservation and restoration of the cultural heritage, socio-economic modernisation and so on.
With regard to developing countries, an indicative allocation of EUR 210 million was made available for specific activities such as those involving the adoption of innovations, the promotion of a sustainable relationship between population pressure, food safety and the use and management of ecosystems, the improvement of productivity and the prevention of damage to natural resources.
In addition, a grant system was created under a specific programme which allows graduates and doctoral students from developing countries and Mediterranean non-Community countries to work on European projects.
Funds were also allocated for coordination with Community technical assistance programmes, including the MEDA and EDF programmes, and also for Latin America and Asia.
The application of these three decisions is clearly the Commission' s responsibility, supported by the committees for the relevant programmes.
So far calls for specific proposals aimed at developing and Mediterranean countries have been made with a total budget of EUR 85.5 million.
Mr President-in-Office, I thank you for this reply.
I would, however, like a brief answer that is clearer and more precise.
Do we then have a situation where the developing countries may now apply for funds? They were not able to before.
How is the situation different from, for example, that regarding the INTAS and Interreg programmes in Eastern Europe?
With regard to matters falling within the Commission' s specific competence, the only promise I can make, in answer to the Member' s supplementary question and her concerns, is that I will try to obtain a more concise answer which will probably have to be given in writing.
As the author is not present, Question No 11 lapses.
Question No 12 by (H-0277/00):
Subject: Common defence policy at the IGC There is a 'shortlist' of proposals for the IGC, according to which the Conference will confine itself largely to 'institutional' issues.
It is generally supposed that Portugal plans to expand the list at the June meeting. Is this true, and will Portugal then bring the common defence policy onto the agenda for the IGC?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Helsinki European Council authorised the Portuguese presidency to establish the EU' s interim security and defence structures as from 1 March of this year.
These structures were established on this date. Their activities are currently being developed so that they can assume a more specific and practical form and in particular so that the definitive model which we believe could start to operate next year can be agreed.
In parallel with the work on these practical aspects, a discussion is ongoing within the European Union on determining the mechanisms for participation both by EU Member States which are not members of NATO and by NATO countries which are not EU Member States. This discussion is occurring within the overall context of action on the Petersberg tasks specified in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The question which has arisen and which has also been raised by the Member - for which I thank you as it is my responsibility to chair the preparatory group of the Intergovernmental Conference - concerns the extent to which this issue may or may not fall within the scope of the IGC.
It will only be placed on the IGC' s agenda if and when it is confirmed that amendments need to be made to the Treaty on European Union in order to bring these structures into practical operation.
It is still not clear at this stage of our debate within the European Union whether or not amendments to the Treaty will be necessary.
As soon as this becomes clear, we will announce this.
The Portuguese Presidency will present a report to the Feira European Council in June giving an assessment of the state of progress and an opinion on whether or not these issues should be included within the IGC.
If these are to be included, this would only be confirmed during the French Presidency.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, European defence policy is at present being drafted, and different countries are involved in the task.
There are Member States in NATO and there are countries which are not in NATO.
Mr President-in-Office, do you believe that the European Union can frame a defence policy that would be independent of NATO, or will all the new arrangements be in harmony with NATO' s basic structures?
Mr Seppänen, your question indicates that you are clearly confused, unless there has been an interpreting error.
We are not talking about defence policy but about crisis management for which powers are now included within the Treaties.
The issue in question is not therefore a European defence policy or the creation of a European army.
The issue is crisis management and humanitarian actions which are commonly referred to in Community parlance as the 'Petersberg tasks' .
All the EU countries, including yours, can make a valuable contribution to this area.
We are trying at the moment not to create a European defence policy but rather a common culture of security allowing us to participate in crisis management.
In this respect, I can see no major problems.
We hope to ensure that all the various cultures which exist within the Union are compatible.
I would thank the Council. I am nonetheless a little surprised at the answer.
I was under the impression that it was not possible to act if it was a national legal system which had pronounced judgement, because that would amount to interfering in national affairs.
In that way, Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam would really, of course, be revoked, that is to say if action were to be taken on the basis of national legal systems. It can hardly be intended that a Member State should be able to do whatever it likes as long as it does so via its own legal system.
I would also ask if the Council intends to look more closely into this issue and perhaps examine it in more specific terms.
The crisis management and humanitarian actions specified in the Petersberg tasks to which the Helsinki European Council referred are actions which may be carried out by the European Union.
However, our intention is to guarantee that these actions are totally compatible with what currently exists in the relations between certain EU Member States and the NATO countries.
The reason for this is that the mechanisms and means which exist for managing these crises are not extensive. In fact, most of the time, these means belong to NATO.
As it is the means for military and security action which currently exist within the EU and NATO which will be mobilised, it is therefore essential to guarantee effective cooperation with all the NATO countries, including non-Community countries and particularly the candidate countries such as Turkey, Norway and Iceland.
It is clear that at a much wider level and bearing in mind the dimension of the operations, these actions will also require the involvement of the United States of America and Canada.
We therefore need broad cooperation which aims to guarantee the sharing of responsibility among all those countries which currently have a similar security and defence culture and objective.
Question No 13 by (H-0283/00):
Subject: Violation of the right to freedom of expression The Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki, presided over by a single magistrate, recently banned from circulation a book by the author Mimis Androulakis, describing it as irreverent. Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam states that the European Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Furthermore, Greece is a contracting party to the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the right to freedom of expression and religious freedom. In view of these considerations and given that the cornerstone of a people' s Europe is the fundamental commitment to freedom, pluralism and human rights, what view does the Council take of such a measure and will it intercede with the competent Greek authorities to put an end to the persecution of the author and the ban on his book?
Mr Papayannakis is asking the Council how it interprets this judgement of the Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki banning from circulation a book by the author Mimis Androlakis which it describes as irreverent.
He is also asking whether the Council intends to intercede with the Greek authorities.
I should like to explain that, under Article 6(1) of the Treaty on European Union, as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Union respects a set of basic principles by reference to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
The underlying aim of this article is to establish a kind of political supervision over the actions of Member States and to ensure that democratic principles and values are respected.
It is intended to guarantee the sharing of common values.
However, Article 6 cannot be invoked for the purpose of any type of interference in the administration of the internal affairs of Member States, particularly at judicial level.
The Union has no competence to intercede in the exercise of legal power by the Member States.
Therefore, the Council cannot interfere in the decision-making of the authorities.
The judgement delivered by the Court of First Instance of Thessaloniki, which is a judgement of a legal body of a Member State on a specific case, may be subject within the Greek legal system to an appeal to the higher national courts.
Having exhausted this recourse to the Greek courts, there would always be recourse to the Court of Human Rights.
My follow-up question is about how the decision at the Helsinki Summit about military, peacekeeping and peace enforcement operations is to be interpreted.
The decision provides an opportunity for the Applicant States too to participate in the military structures to be established by the EU.
Does this also apply to Turkey which has, of course, applied for membership? Does this mean that a door has been opened for military cooperation between Turkey' s and the European Union' s forces in, for example, peace enforcement operations?
Mr Sjöstedt, the Member States undertake to act within the framework determined by the Treaty.
This is why they signed the Treaty.
If a serious and persistent violation of citizens' rights were to be identified, according to the terms of these articles, then there would clearly be ways of interceding with the Member States.
The Union itself has ways of doing this but only in specific cases.
A case like this, in a democratic country like Greece, meets all the conditions to be judged and handled within the Greek legal system until the capacities for recourse within this system are exhausted.
If we were to intervene in a case like this, we would clearly be transposing to the Community dimension an issue for which there is a whole range of recourse in a country which fully respects human and citizens' rights.
Thank you very much, Mr Seixas da Costa.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 14 to 31 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Address by Mr Klestil, President of the Republic of Austria
Financial services and complementary pensions
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0059/2000 by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication on implementing the framework for financial markets: Action Plan [COM(1999) 232 - C5-0114/1999 - 1999/2117(COS)];
A5-0053/2000 by Mr Kuckelkorn, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication "Towards a single market for supplementary pensions - Results of the consultations on the Green Paper on supplementary pensions in the single market" [COM(1999) 134 - C5-0135/1999 - 1999/2131(COS)].
Before we begin I would like to advise you that, since this is a night sitting and we have a lot of work to get through, I am going to be very strict in applying time limits.
I therefore also ask Members to show an appropriate degree of self-discipline so that we can finish at a reasonable time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, if I had to point here and now to two complex issues in the economic field, I would no doubt choose the following: the consolidation of the financial markets and the approximation of the direct taxation regulations - specifically tax on savings - which is under discussion.
The debate which we held recently on the bodies for collective investment in transferable securities and the reactions to the report on pension funds, which we will hear shortly, demonstrate the complexity and importance of these issues.
These two issues, the liberalisation of the financial services market and taxation, are dealt with in the action plan which is the subject of my report.
It is therefore appropriate to thank all the groups for their cooperation and confirm once again to the Commission that it can rely on the active cooperation of the European Parliament in the implementation of this plan, and we will not disregard our duties, but exercise them responsibly.
The complexity of the action plan also reflects the ambitious nature of the report presented by the Commission, which contains 43 measures and involves all the sectors in the field (stock exchanges, banks, investment funds, insurance, etc.) and which applies to what has come to be called the 'new economy' , which is - according to the Lisbon Summit - one of the elements which will help to put an end to unemployment in Europe.
What is included in these measures?
What is intended through these measures? In my judgement, to sum up, it is the following: the liberalisation of the financial sectors and the updating of the regulations on supervision and control in order to achieve a European financial market which is at least as competitive as the United States financial market.
In the explanatory statement, I offer a detailed comparison of the two types of market.
In order to achieve these two objectives, the Commission proposes a truly arguable and risky formula: the speeding up of the legal process, which, in turn, would involve three actions.
Firstly, a reduction in the standards which need to be included in a regulation or directive, that is to say, which require the participation of this Parliament.
Secondly, limiting those standards to the definition of the general approaches and basic principles which must be established in this field, allowing the Commission the possibility of implementing them.
Thirdly, granting the Commission broad powers of interpretation.
I do not doubt that we have to speed up the process, Commissioner, but this Parliament is not prepared to relinquish the powers which it has taken so long to acquire.
Therefore, one of the first tasks which we will have to undertake together is to find a model which will satisfy both objectives.
With regard to liberalisation, the first of the tasks which the Commission proposes, the Commission starts from one premise: the consolidation of the single market in financial services requires the removal of the barriers which hinder its operation.
We could not agree more.
The consequence is that, in order for the market to function, these barriers must be removed.
Again we agree, but we know that there are difficulties in this approach resulting from the need to reconcile the objective of liberalisation with the objective of protecting investors.
Firstly, the barriers are not identified.
Commissioner, it is not sufficient to be able to deduce what they are from the measures proposed by the Commission.
Personally, I would have liked to have seen a list of those national measures which, in accordance with the Directive on financial services, are hindering the operation of the market in each country.
Secondly, the solution proposed by the Commission still raises difficulties.
It is ridiculous that a financial company has to operate while being subject to, and having to have knowledge of, fifteen different legislations, but it is at least as ridiculous that an investor - especially a non-professional investor - should end up needing to contract services, bound by regulations which he or she does not know, from companies whose solvency is unknown, and, in the event of legal dispute, he or she has to take action in a foreign country, with foreign jurisdiction and procedures.
Liberalisation must therefore be implemented in parallel with the increase in measures relating to control and taxation.
With regard to control measures, we have a new problem: the need to adapt the competence and jurisdictions of authorities which are still national and which, on the whole, apply differing models, to a different world affected by globalisation, international competition and free movement of capital.
Finally, Mr President, my personal conviction is that, if we do not want liberalisation to give rise to distortions in competition and the flight of capital to more beneficial climates inside and outside the Union, the correct operation of the market in financial services will not be possible without a certain degree of approximation of the laws which regulate savings.
These are the concerns which are raised in my report. These concerns reflect a constructive attitude towards cooperation with the Commission, which I have always considered to be a loyal ally of this Parliament, in the development of an issue which is so very complex.
Mr President, I am referring, as you have said, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, to the Commission communication on the action plan for the implementation of the framework for the financial markets.
As the main rapporteur, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, has pointed out, in this regard there are two questions which are, firstly, taxation - without fiscal harmonisation it would be very difficult to establish Community financial markets - and secondly, a legal framework.
With regard to the legal framework, I believe that there is a paradox in this sector.
The more liberalised an economy is, the more necessary it becomes to rigidly regulate the financial markets.
The American economy, which is probably one of the most liberalised economies in existence, is the economy which lays down the most detailed regulations for the financial markets.
The Commission, in its proposal, on page 18 of the Spanish version, after recognising the competence of Parliament by means of codecision, in accordance with Article 251 of the Treaty, tells us that we should move towards very flexible procedures by means of comitology.
Comitology in these cases usually means taking away with one hand what is given with the other.
In this respect, I am in total agreement with the conclusions of the rapporteur.
I believe that we need some very specific legislation and I am sure that the Commission can count on the support of Parliament in the drawing up of this legislation.
As the rapporteur said a moment ago, we cannot expect confidence on the part of investors, consumers and, ultimately, the financial markets, if they do not have a specific legal framework in which to operate.
The only way to do this is to replace the current rigid regulations with a set of specific Community regulations which will produce certainty in this very delicate sector of the economy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy deplores the fact that the action plan for the financial markets does not take into account the problems which industry, small and medium-sized businesses in particular, is facing with regard to financing cross-border activities.
Many businesses, ranging from small businesses in border areas to large multinationals, would like to treat their accounts as one national account.
For example, they would like to use funds in their euro account in country A to settle an account in debit in country B. In this way, they would pay less interest.
Existing legislation, however, prohibits or hinders this type of cash management technique.
The world of banking has already driven this problem home to you on numerous occasions.
On behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I would now like to ask the Commissioner whether it would be possible to set up a forum group which carries out market research into the legal and fiscal obstacles for businesses, SMBs, in particular, when they finance their cross-border transactions within the euro zone, in order to solve this problem.
I would appreciate a reply to this.
Mr President, in view of the Resolution of 3 December 1998, to which the Kuckelkorn report does not appear to contain a reference, Parliament once again is obliged to request that the Commission produce as soon as possible a directive or, as Mr Medina Ortega appropriately suggested, a Community law coordinating the various national laws.
The Commission appears to be somewhat apathetic in this regard, and seems to be concentrating rather on producing a directive on prudential rules for pension funds, which is easier to achieve but less effective in terms of decision-making in relation to the elimination of barriers to labour mobility and the coordination of taxation systems.
The legal bases are very important, and, clearly, different: in view of the various judgements delivered by the Court of Justice, pension funds could be governed by Article 47 and Article 55, the removal of barriers to labour mobility could be governed by Article 42 and the coordination of national tax systems by Article 94.
However, I would stress the need and the desirability to develop a single package, because this is the only way to achieve an overall framework which tones down the extreme positions contained in certain proposals for amendments.
I refer, in particular, to biometric risks, which are a very important factor but which should be dealt with on the basis of paragraphs 7 and 8 of the opinion drawn up by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Indeed, making cover for biometric risks obligatory would be likely to make the system very inflexible.
I therefore feel that funds which cover biometric risks should receive privileged treatment, and that any inflexibility of the system could, in effect, result in negative imbalances for the beneficiaries.
Mr President, we see the reality of the situation all around us.
If 23% of Europe' s population is over 65 years old today, this figure will have reached 40% by 2025, and the proportion of four working people to every retired person will have become two working people to every retired person by 2020.
This demonstrates the pressing need to allow the development of supplementary self-funded high return pension schemes in the European Union to usefully supplement state contributory pension schemes.
As we all know, our Member States are working towards ambitious structural reforms, but it is also up to the European Union to intervene in the area of pensions, particularly supplementary pensions, in order to facilitate the free movement of workers in the context of the single market, to establish a genuine single capital market and also to ensure that equality between men and women is respected.
With this in mind, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has been concerned to reconcile the security and efficiency of supplementary pensions for future pensioners as it is true that the guarantee of a high level of security for beneficiaries encourages healthy and desirable competition between European pension funds.
This is why our Committee feels that the proposal for a directive on Community prudential regulations applying to pension funds must be tabled and adopted as quickly as possible, bearing in mind our discussion today, with proper guarantees for the external and internal supervision of the funds concerned and for the calculation of their prudential commitment.
Furthermore, in order to encourage the free movement of workers, we felt it essential to quickly improve the transferability and the acquisition of pension rights from supplementary schemes from different European countries.
This is the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
. (FR) Mr President, I would like to say first of all in this debate that we are expecting to see a proposal for a framework-directive very soon, which will guarantee the development of a genuine single market for supplementary pension funds under the second and third pillars, given that the first pillar, which covers all biometric risks, must remain the cornerstone of the European Union' s social protection system.
This directive must in particular establish a framework to remove obstacles to the free choice of a pension fund, to the free movement of people, to the free provision of services and to charging double taxes.
We recommend a solution based on the principle that contributions should be tax-deductible, and that supplementary invested income should be taxed in accordance with the income tax law in force in the country of residence.
On the controversial issue of whether supplementary pension schemes should cover biometric risks, I wish to state that from the point of view of taxation, pension funds that do not cover these risks will not be discriminated against in relation to those that do.
With regard to prudential regulation, this should not be disproportionate, so that the security of the fund is guaranteed.
That covers the general framework.
I am grateful to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for having included all the relevant conclusions of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities in the motion for a resolution.
I now come to the report by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil.
With regard to the action plan which seeks to deepen the internal financial services market, I would like to issue a warning about certain strategists who are attempting to hold the liberalisation of the financial services sector hostage, because the work that has been undertaken on the taxation of savings has not made the progress they would have wanted.
As matters currently stand, we should remember that a single market for capital and financial services can function perfectly well without tax harmonisation.
Faced with proposals that confuse ambition and reality, I wish to emphasise that establishing a European Committee for stock exchange operations is certainly not the number one priority and, as I have no speaking time left, Mr President, I will give an explanation of vote tomorrow to say the rest of what I still wanted to say, because as draftsperson of the Committee' s opinion and as a speaker on the second report, it is really impossible to say everything in two minutes.
Mr President, representatives of the Commission and the Council, Mr Kuckelkorn, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to thank the Commission for the sterling work they have done.
The communication from the Commission is liberal-minded and forward-looking.
Why should Parliament now adopt a less liberal position and vote in favour of stagnating structures? We should not define the form and scope of the directive too narrowly.
What we need to do instead is to view the issue openly and from a wider perspective.
It is essential that we do not define the nature and scope of the risk coverage in a restrictive way.
Instead, we should be open-minded and look at the issue from a wider perspective and encourage a framework which is based on liberal markets and vigorous competition between different types of pension schemes.
What we should promote is the freedom of choice of the employee and the employer to choose the kind of scheme that best suits their interests
The question of biometric risks has proved to be of a controversial nature.
My firm opinion is that all the different pension schemes should be covered by the same directive in order not to protect certain types of schemes from competition.
Consumers and employers must have the right to choose the most suitable form of pension scheme and, therefore, schemes covering biometric risks should be treated under the same directive as schemes not covering these risks.
Both form a pension scheme but focus on different competitive benefits.
Mr Kuckelkorn, no-one in this Parliament is of the opinion that supplementary pensions should not cover the longevity risk, through the purchase of an annuity or by some other tool.
It is not the task of the European Union to define the nature and scope of the risk coverage concerning other biometric risks.
But it should be determined individually by each employee, as the Commission proposes.
Leaving this kind of decision to the individual is consistent with the principle of subsidiarity.
Allowing supplementary pension scheme managers the freedom to invest in a diverse range of instruments increases the security of the overall investment portfolio.
Increased freedom promotes the functioning of the capital market and has a significant impact on the growth of venture capital in Europe.
I am committed to the idea that we, as the European Parliament, should encourage healthy competition and the freedom of choice of the individual.
This must not only mean a single market for supplementary pensions, but the whole package of legislation concerning the financial services.
Mr President, the Socialists support the Commission' s efforts to establish a transparent and fluid internal financial services market.
It is in the interest of economic operators and all consumers that the costs of capital and financial intermediation should be as low as possible.
European financial markets are currently suffering from compartmentalisation along national lines, even though, following the globalisation of the international financial system, we are seeing the widespread phenomenon of mergers and internationalisation.
The action plan aims to make the European market equal to the American market.
The success of the American market is basically due to 'king dollar' .
It is paradoxical in this context to note that some of the most ardent supporters of financial liberalisation at the same time oppose the euro.
The real introduction of the euro in 2002, however, will result in transparency and competition, which will force the national markets to adapt more quickly than they had anticipated.
The problem is that the legislative bodies, both national and European, are taking a long time to adapt the law to reality.
Personally, I would not be opposed to an accelerated legislative procedure, on condition that it does not end up as a mere exercise for non-accountable technocrats.
The Commission could make a useful contribution in the form of proposals simplifying and codifying the 11 or so directives that govern the banking sector, the 8 directives on investment funds, and the 21 directives dealing with the insurance sector.
There is not only a problem of coherence in the various legislations on the different sectors of the financial world, but in particular there is the problem of supervising and protecting the public interest.
John Kenneth Galbraith condemned the mistaken idea that there is any link between money and intelligence.
The lure of profit is such that the financial world tends to create a form of collective euphoria, which often leads to financial crisis.
The free movement of capital must be accompanied by an efficient regulatory and prudential framework, because supervision of the various markets is divided up according to country and sector, but at the same time, as a result of mergers, acquisitions and amalgamations, boundaries between banks, insurance companies, investment funds and pension funds are disappearing.
Finland and the United Kingdom have drawn conclusions from this and have established a single prudential authority for the whole sector.
Article 105(6) of the Treaty stipulates that the Council can entrust the ECB with specific tasks relating to policies on the prudential supervision of credit companies and other financial companies, with the exception of insurance companies.
Should the Council not use the Intergovernmental Conference to establish the necessary legal basis for the Council to be able to entrust the ECB with certain specific tasks relating to the prudential supervision of insurance companies too?
I must congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Kuckelkorn, for the tenacity with which he argues in favour of supplementary pensions and for these to become in effect a second pillar of insurance for old age.
I shall conclude, Mr President, by pointing out that it amounts to saying that whilst we should not discard insurance products we must favour products which cover biometric risks.
Mr President, Commissioner, if Europe is to grow, attract capital and create jobs, the single market for financial services must be turned into a reality.
Up until now, it has mostly been a matter of words and all too few concrete measures.
At present, the financial services market and, through this, Europe' s power to grow have been impeded by countless national regulations and administrative complications. These are detrimental not only to companies but also, of course, to Europe' s citizens.
The development of the Internet is, and will be, of great importance to the provision of financial services across national borders.
Above all, it is consumers who will benefit from this development because they will have greater choice and access to lower prices.
We Liberals do not regard tax harmonisation as a prerequisite for bringing the single market for financial services to fruition, even if a degree of harmonisation may prove to be necessary to avoid harmful competition over taxes.
The euro has stabilised economic development and provided better opportunities to reduce the costs of acquiring capital, something which benefits both companies and private households.
It is my conviction that, if the EU is to be able to provide Europe' s citizens with growth and strength, then all Member States must participate fully in the EU project, that is to say, be members of EMU.
Mr Romano Prodi' s statement today in a Swedish newspaper to the effect that Sweden could stay outside EMU is therefore both surprising from an economic point of view and doubtful in terms of the Treaties.
The Commission' s Green Paper on liberalising complementary forms of pension protection is something we welcome.
It is nonetheless important to emphasise that pension cover in Europe is characterised by national diversity and that there is no need to harmonise the various systems in order to create a single market.
It is important that a large number of systems should exist side by side. This increases choice and diversity.
However, it is desirable, in order to avoid double taxation, to introduce a minimum degree of harmonisation in regard to the Member States' treatment of supplementary pensions for tax purposes.
I also consider that the Member States themselves should be able to determine what the system should look like, for example whether or not the care of relatives should be covered by pensions.
This is an issue which can be resolved better at national level.
In committee there was lively discussion on biometric risks.
Views were put forward to the effect that only those systems which cover risks of this kind are to be included under the directive.
We do not believe that this should be the case, especially in view of the need for small and medium-sized companies to be able to do business.
Freedom of choice is emphatically a good thing.
Finally, I want to congratulate Mr García-Margallo y Marfil and Mr Kuckelkorn for two important reports designed to create a competitive Europe.
Mr President, where supplementary pensions are concerned, the crucial issue is whether one wants to provide pensioners with security in their old age or to reinforce Europe' s capital markets.
These are not only two quite different goals, but it is also difficult to combine them in one and the same system.
The Commission' s proposal and both the reports we are debating today give priority to the needs of the capital market.
The hope is that the market-based pensions will then also prove to be good for pensioners in thirty or forty years' time.
How matters will turn out, however, we do not know.
If one considers how Europe has changed during the last thirty to forty years and acknowledges that circumstances are going to change just as much in the future, then one can see how uncertain such forecasts are.
There is a large deficit when it comes to security and solidarity in the pensions area because the risk is so great and because there can never be enough security and solidarity.
Supplementary assurances are therefore a problem. They are, of course, much less secure than a system of basic pensions which has been financed on the basis of solidarity.
I also believe that supplementary assurances and supplementary pensions may be needed, but then their managers ought to be obliged to invest in such instruments as provide solid savings in the long term, instead of having short-term rates on the stock exchange and global financial capitalism determine how matters will stand for pensioners in the future.
I also believe it would have been commendable if these supplementary pension systems could have been run as pension funds on the basis of solidarity under the aegis of trade unions, as happens in certain Member States.
Even if these too are market-based, they offer much more in terms of stability and security than the privatised pension assurances.
It now looks as if we are to have a liberal arrangement in the pensions field in Europe, and I shall therefore advise my voters to invest their surplus funds in safer instruments than private pension assurances. To young people I would say: pin your hopes on education and on developing your skills.
And to older people I would say: acquire a nice, inexpensive place to live in the autumn of your years. We politicians ought to be putting our faith in a good, sound system of basic pensions.
Mr President, the European Commission' s Green Paper has caused many to reach for their pens, so much so that in the motion for a resolution, the objective of the Green Paper has been lost almost completely.
Similarly, the intention of the rapporteur, Mr Kuckelkorn, who has carried out a vast amount of work, for which I would like to thank him, is not expressed very well in the motion for a resolution.
It is now up to us to see that an acceptable document is produced tomorrow during the vote.
The principal aim is for workers, when they move to another Member State, to be able to transfer their supplementary pension schemes and continue to pay into them without forfeiting their pension rights and with a guarantee that their accumulated pension rights will retain their value.
Unfortunately, the Commission has not really made any headway towards fulfilling this wish.
We have a long way to go before the compulsory transfer of value between Member States will be a reality.
The first obstacle we need to negotiate is the mutual recognition of supervisory rules.
It is then important that an adequate distinction is drawn between pension funds and commercial insurance companies.
A pension fund has an obligation to be generally acceptable.
A full-value pension scheme covers biometric risks.
Insurance companies do offer their participants a choice, and their products do not cover biometric risks.
Since the risks covered are not identical, government inspection will also vary for pension funds and insurance companies.
On account of this supervision, complete freedom of investment is justified in both cases.
This leads on average to higher returns.
We need to avoid creating a situation where the individual is forced, on account of significantly lower returns on pension funds, to enter the wild investment woods in search of their supplementary pension schemes, where the big bad wolf is after their money.
The second obstacle is the levying of taxes within the Member States.
Taking into account the fast approaching ageing of the population, it is desirable for fiscal systems to promote the development of supplementary pensions.
The EET model, where premium payments are tax-free and the retirement payout is taxed, meets this requirement and is also common in most Member States.
I hope that Parliament and the Commission will make the internal market for supplementary pension schemes a reality along these lines.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I would like to express my opinion on the single market for supplementary pensions.
Firstly, I would like to express my agreement with the model based on the intergenerational solidarity of the basic state systems, to which are added the supplementary capitalisation systems.
On the other hand, I would also like to express my agreement with what Mr Kuckelkorn says in relation to the correlation established between pension systems which cover biometric risks.
We are not talking about systems for financial investment but about pension plans.
On the other hand, we are also in agreement with the participation of workers and the urgent harmonisation of the tax provisions.
Nevertheless, we have to clarify the basic concept of pensions in a way which includes the supplementary pension schemes which cover biometric risks.
It is necessary to clarify, on the other hand, that the single system applies to every type of worker in the European Union; there are not only workers who work for themselves in the European Union but also many cooperative workers, fortunately.
We must opt for collective systems, but not only company systems - something which is mentioned in the report - but also sectoral ones, taking particular account of SMBs, which have been mentioned by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel.
We must take account of the great difficulties which exist within the Union with regard to the development of supplementary systems.
We therefore understand and support the regulatory and supervisory systems for the protection of the rights of participants, but we must put the emphasis on the areas where systems are still underdeveloped, in aspects such as providing information or implementing new plans.
Finally, I would like to underline our support for the creation of a European pension fund with the participation of the different economic sectors and the pension providers.
Mr President, the ageing of the population and the reduction in the numbers of people of working age, while real enough, have been put forward by the Commission and other Members as a reason to open up the way for pension funds for supplementary pension schemes.
The dynamic of growth and job creation has run its course.
The capitalisation mechanisms mean adapting retirement pensions to the single market and the introduction of the euro.
Moving in this direction entails the risk of a system based on private insurance, which would gradually replace social security.
Welfare and retirement pensions would no longer be rights but would be commodities subject to the laws of the market.
The set pension fund strategy essentially aims to drain savings away toward the financial markets.
A system of this type is very dangerous and deeply unfair as it benefits the richest people, those who can save money, and leaves the poorest with a pittance of a retirement pension.
Mr Kuckelkorn' s initial report considered the retirement pension primarily as social insurance against certain life risks, rather than a process of accumulating capital.
It has been radically changed, however, by the adoption of amendments unreservedly supporting the mechanisms of capitalisation.
I cannot, therefore, approve this report which makes the Commission' s approach even worse.
On the contrary, we think that a high level of social protection must be maintained, based on solidarity, regardless of financial profitability.
The contributory system guarantees the rights of the employed and provides them with a pension, in the framework of national solidarity between the working population and the retired population, between generations, between men and women, between the public and the private sectors.
The objective should be to obtain new resources and to upgrading the purchasing power of retirement pensions from contributions which could be raised from taxes on financial products at the same level as those which apply to wages.
Employers' contributions should be linked to companies' employment policies and taxes set up on those which make people redundant.
Mr President, as medical advances contribute to a steady ageing of our populations, the burden of pension provision throughout the Union becomes ever more costly.
In the UK, as in the US, Chile and Singapore and, to a lesser extent, the Netherlands, the burden on the state and succeeding generations has been significantly eased through the successful provision of supplementary second and third pillar private and occupational pension schemes, involving funds which grow to provide pension benefits following the retirement of the individuals.
Both pillars have the advantage of being resistant to demographic change, and third-pillar portable schemes, in particular, which are not restricted to single companies, enhance labour mobility and choice for the investors and are much more affordable to small and medium enterprises.
I welcome the fact that there is widespread recognition in this House to extend these supplementary schemes throughout Europe, even if there are disagreements over their precise nature and the way that the funds are to be invested.
The problem needs to be addressed urgently in my opinion, with demographic pressures in recent years already generating deficits in the pay-as-you-go schemes in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
It is even predicted that if the current trend continues some countries will be facing costs of up to 20% of their GDP in the next ten years for their pension liabilities.
There are, of course, many risks with equity investments, but there are even greater risks to Europe with stagnant economies.
Growing pension funds will dynamise our economies by providing large additional capital funds for investment not only in the EU, but also in developing markets, with greater prospects for future growth and returns on investment for our pensioners.
In the case of defined contribution schemes, which give the investor a direct stake in the overall health of the national economy, there will also be a sense of participation in the country of that individual.
The state scheme will of course remain the primary mechanism for basic provision in old age.
But personal responsibility and choice will become the watchwords of success if the demographic challenges of the coming century are to be met successfully.
That is why we should not be too prescriptive regarding the issues of biometric risks or investment strategies.
We need a light-touch regulatory framework, with bilateral tax agreements, which will ensure the portability for those EU nationals wishing to work abroad throughout the Union, achieve a genuine single market in financial services and provide maximum choice to the European investor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the crux of this evening' s debate obviously seems to be that unless clear and unmistakable distinctions are drawn between products that cover biometric risks, as the rapporteur, Mr Kuckelkorn, has proposed, there will be no single market for supplementary company pensions, or not a genuine single market at any rate.
We need tax harmonisation if we are to make the single market an attractive proposition.
We need taxation during the pension payout period, as proposed in the agreement, because only then will the cross-border aspect hold some appeal for potential members.
After all, why should the Finance Ministers pay twice? They will have to pay once for departing from an input taxation system, and they will then have to take a decrease in tax revenue on board at a later date.
At the same time, they will have to help foot the bill for any unsatisfactory products they have helped to promote which do not prevent poverty in old age, and they might even have to pay a third time because, in addition, they will have to finance poverty in old age from public coffers. These Finance Ministers may then have to pay yet again because they will have to resign their posts, as punishment for their foolish actions.
That is why the debate as presented to us in Amendment No 30, on the freedom of choice of the insured, is a pseudo discussion. I have this to say to those of you that support this argument: these are the same insured whom only a few weeks ago a majority of you undertook to allow to participate in decisions on the fund capacity, on the use of the amounts paid in, which are often a slice of people' s wages, and you gave an undertaking to these same people that those who act on your behalf would be involved in making sure that the funds in question were put to good use.
We are very much in favour of the citizens of Europe having the freedom to decide, but, that being the case, let us be quite clear about what we mean by the principle of subsidiarity.
According to catholic social doctrine, subsidiarity means that we should actually enable the small units - the families and most dependent employees - to make their own provisions for old-age, and that we should concern ourselves not so much with the investment interests of individual suppliers of products as a criteria, but with how we can reduce the number of hurdles to vesting periods.
We must talk about how we are to organise the codecision rights of the insured and their representatives, and we must also discuss how investment capital is to flow into spheres that will generate worthwhile new jobs.
Mr President, this report seeks to harmonise supplementary pensions in Europe.
In fact, it seeks nothing less than to open up all European pension schemes to the financial markets.
Indeed, it recommends the development of a truly single pension fund market by referring to the inevitability of resorting to capitalisation.
It should be noted, by the way, that when the financial interests of the most powerful are involved, they are not slow to forget the principle of solidarity and to propose a single model.
This report puts forward cynical arguments and seeks to give credence to the idea that only capitalisation would ensure better protection of low incomes.
The truth is that it is not an attempt to supplement state pension schemes, but rather to gradually empty them of all substance.
Those who are employed know full well, however, that a pension is theirs by right.
They fought for this right, which is based on intergenerational solidarity.
That is why they do not, under any circumstances, want to see their pensions gambled on the stock exchange.
In several countries, powerful social movements have already opposed similar attempts.
Their threats have to this day prevented the French government, for example, from introducing pension funds.
This is in perfect harmony with past, present and future struggles, and it is in support of them that we shall be voting against a report that reduces this Parliament to the level of a lobby for high finance.
Retired people need an adequate, stable and safe pension.
Pension funds and the stock exchange will never be able to guarantee that.
On this issue, as on many others, a choice must be made between increasing the profits of a few or satisfying the needs of all.
Mr President, I would like to start by paying tribute to Mr Kuckelkorn, because he has drafted a courageous report in my opinion, given Germany' s rigid and inflexible pension situation.
He clearly wants to take steps towards developing a European internal market for supplementary pension schemes.
I think he deserves tribute for this.
I myself come from a country where a very extensive second pillar of supplementary pensions exists.
Almost 90% of the professional population in the private sector are in pension schemes which guarantee a wage-related pension.
This also includes small and medium-sized businesses.
With a capacity of over EUR 150 billion, the pension fund of Dutch civil servants is the largest institutional investor of its kind within the international capital market.
Pension funds in the Netherlands are daring to take increasing risks in their investments.
In 1999, nearly half of the pension money was invested in shares, albeit under strict prudential conditions.
But the average return over the past five years has been around 15%, instead of the usual 4%.
It has been shown that it is precisely the compulsory nature of participation in collective pension funds which encourages these excellent results.
The fact that funds are spread over generations and risks means that the funds can invest in shares to such a high level.
On balance, this yields a far better return for individual members, much better than they could ever achieve on their own via a savings plan or investment fund.
Therefore, I must open Mrs Kauppi' s eyes and disprove her reasoning that individual workers would be better off making their own choices, even if they belong to the fortunate ones who do not have any hereditary diseases, who are young and male, because, unfortunately, Mrs Kauppi, we women are even worse off under individual schemes as we live longer than men on average.
Consequently, I would strongly discourage you from formulating a principle of free choice at European level.
If I were you, I would leave this to the Member States and the free market.
As for biometric risks, other speakers have already talked enough about this.
I fully endorse Mr Kuckelkorn in this respect and would argue that such a definition is very important because we are expecting a number of additional directives from the European Commission.
Mr President, we are voting against this report advocating self-funded pension schemes.
This system restricts employees who want to guarantee a retirement pension for themselves that will give them enough to live on, to make their money available to investment funds, trusts, insurance companies or other private financial groups.
At the same time, it makes the value of pensions subordinate to the financial markets, in other words, to speculation.
What is more, all those whose salaries are too low for them to be able to pay into a pension fund will be entitled only to a very meagre pension.
Referring to demographic changes in order to justify this is a swindle.
Productivity has increased tenfold in the last fifty years and if company owners and shareholders had not transformed the fruits of this productivity into purely private profit, it would now enable salaries to be higher and would guarantee appropriate pensions for everyone.
If contributory pension schemes are having problems, it is only because there are fewer employed people in proportion to the number of retired people, because there are too many unemployed and because salaries are too low.
So, if there is a shortfall in pension funds, States should take over by deducting the necessary amounts from the profits of industrial and financial groups.
Mr President, the ageing of the European population means that we will have huge problems when it comes to footing the bill for our statutory pension schemes.
Member States where supplementary schemes are under-developed compared to statutory pension schemes will feel the pinch most.
Unfortunately, we are forced to note that this is the case for the majority of Member States.
A developed collective system of supplementary pensions, compulsory if so required by the relevant Member State, considerably reduces the dependence on demographic factors and enables the pension fund, in the role of investor, to derive maximum benefit from the possibilities which financial markets have to offer.
Needless to say, the objective of making employees more mobile and flexible within a large single European market and the euro zone will inevitably lead to interest in supplementary pension schemes.
One of the philosophies underlying the European Union and the Monetary Union requires that the internal market should be used to the full.
As such, you, as a worker, should be able to take your accumulated pension rights with you to another European country.
To this end, we need to develop a legal framework at European level at the earliest opportunity.
Why should a German employee, for example, have to wait ten years before he has built up a pension and a Dutch person only one year? As such, this German person suffers a considerable handicap with regard to mobility.
What is more, the fiscal treatment of pensions at the time when contributions are made and at the time of payout should be brought into line.
Commissioner, you deal with taxes, what is the latest on this score?
I have to say that this parliamentary discussion seems to be more about a complete harmonisation than coordination.
This, unfortunately, is at the expense of Member States which already have their house in order.
One such country is the Netherlands, initially presented as a role model for all other Member States and gradually relegated to curiosity status.
But the Dutch system is a worthy system which accepts old age, surviving dependants and vulnerable groups within the labour market as they are.
The supplementary pension scheme is based on collective feeling and solidarity.
This enables SMBs - and specifically SMBs with reference to the UK MEPs - to cover biometric risks at relatively low cost.
Top of the list are payability and security, which is not the case for the proposals submitted by some MEPs.
Mr Bolkestein, how do you intend to bring the discussion back to the crux of the matter, namely mobile pensions for mobile people?
Mr President, firstly can I say that the EMAC report is pretty good and I hope we do not amend it too much.
The key word is "supplementary" pensions.
We are not trying to relieve poverty or provide a basic income in retirement.
The second point is that it is important that we provide decent pensions to enable citizens to move around Europe.
So I welcome the emphasis on removing the restrictions on the investment of pension fund portfolios and support the objective of removing barriers to labour mobility.
The key is to keep it simple or it will not work, it will not remove the obstacles.
As Mr Tannock has said, there are demographic pressures upon us and it is in our interest to facilitate the development of supplementary pension schemes both around Europe and also in many countries within Europe.
On the issue of biometric risks, which we have heard a lot about, clearly a pension by definition has one biometric risk, which is longevity.
Once you start building on top of that, you are on dangerous ground if you make it a condition of a passport.
What we need is to have a very simple proposition, and then let the market sort the rest of it out because that is what the market is for.
The biometric risks problem means many different things to different people.
We must try and get a simple product which is marketable and can be moved around this market, because if we do not, we will end up with a product that does not work at all that the different Member States cannot make use of.
So the key is to keep it simple and make it work.
Mr President, for how long will workers be forced to sacrifice one-third of their salary to government and state pension funds, in the hope of receiving a pension in their old age, while those government and state funds are so designed that they make pensions vanish faster than Houdini himself could have done? Mrs Laguiller, the people trusted the states and the governments, especially the pledges made by left-wing governments, but they have been left with peanuts.
Every day, thousands upon thousands of elderly people reach retirement age and ask their governments, "Where are our pensions?" And the governments reply, "You are living too long and there is no more money left to give you" , concealing the truth.
And what is the truth? The governments have squandered the funds and made off with the workers' salaries.
Shame on the Socialist governments for failing to provide for workers in their old age!
Despite the fact that there may now be a way of safeguarding this capital - the sweat of the brows of the workers - by capitalising pension funds, we are told that we must not do this, because the national governments want to get their hands on private pension funds as well.
It is time to change the tune. We must give to Caesar what is Caesar' s and to God what is God' s.
Mr President, we are facing a difficult issue, as evidenced by the large number of speakers.
I would like to extend warm thanks to Mr Kuckelkorn as rapporteur, for the huge effort he has made to achieve this report.
I am slightly less pleased with Mr Kuckelkorn' s tabling of amendments, because he has tabled a great many and they go beyond the requirements of the current objective.
I think that we should differentiate between the two Kuckelkorns.
I believe that the systems we should pursue in Europe should be based on two principles.
One of them is simply the statutory pay-as-you-go system and the other is the system of capital cover which is an extension of the former, it is just that the only problem we are facing is that all countries have very different starting positions.
It is true that a country such as the Netherlands has managed to strike a fine balance between the two.
Other countries have managed to do this to a lesser extent. Also, for example, countries where nearly all pensions are capital cover systems, such as Great Britain, do not meet expectations because, although the risks for the government are reasonably small, the cover for the retired is extremely modest.
In England, if there is a hard frost, for example, people are unable to pay their bills.
I do not think that this is the right way forward.
First and foremost, we need to remember that this is about people and based on this, we must develop a system which makes sound pension schemes possible, and we must, as far as we can, leave this task to the Member States.
We should keep intervention to a minimum.
We need to bear our starting point in mind, namely that if people move from one country to another to work or retire, it should be possible for them to take their pensions with them.
The Commission has always attempted to do this and I do believe that it has succeeded in its aim.
I think that two issues still need tackling.
Firstly, risks tied in with the second and third pillars should be sufficiently covered, because far too little has been said about this.
Secondly, the first pillar should at long last be defined, as the first pillar in one country is quite different from that in another country.
And if we could bring all of this a bit closer together, we would perhaps have far fewer problems than we have at the moment.
Mr President, may I start by extending warm thanks to both rapporteurs, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil and Mr Kuckelkorn, for the reports they have drafted and the efforts they have made.
In fact, could I also warmly thank all other speakers this evening - nearly thirty of them - for the comments they have made and questions they have asked.
This is an important matter, both the action plan for financial services and the pension issue, and it is heartening to see so many speakers take part in the exchange of opinions.
As far as Mr García-Margallo y Marfil' s report is concerned, I would like to note that, according to the Commission, it is an even-handed report which strikes the right balance between an important political vision and the technical measures required in order to make progress.
Perhaps you will allow me to make a few observations in this respect. I hope, at the same time, to comment on the amendments which have been tabled.
The Commission welcomes the attention which the report pays to the need for capital markets to function to optimum effect.
In this context, I would also refer to Parliament' s request for streamlined rules for stock market access, market manipulation and revision of the investment services directive.
The opening up of financial markets should, naturally, go hand in hand with an adequate level of consumer protection, and this was also requested this evening in this debate.
They are thus parallel processes, with liberalisation on one side and consumer protection on the other, and these are the two objectives which you will find wherever financial markets are at issue.
These are the European Commission' s twin objectives.
We also have a few specific proposals in this respect.
Firstly, we would propose the provision of better information on financial products for citizens.
Secondly, we would like to see better and clearer dispute procedures for citizens who are dissatisfied with foreign financial dealers.
Thirdly, we would propose better harmonisation for the present national consumer protection rules.
The fourth proposal concerns electronic commerce, or e-commerce for short.
Policy and legislation should make provision for e-commerce without creating unnecessary barriers.
Our citizens, on the other hand, must experience the same level of confidence and protection for transactions on-line as they do off-line.
Finally, an adequate supervisory structure is essential to guarantee the financial solvency of our institutions.
Does this mean that the European Central Bank in Frankfurt will be given a central supervisory role? The ECB itself is of the opinion that this is not necessary.
There is in fact an alternative, to wit, a coming together of supervisory systems.
At this juncture, Mr President, I would like to bring up a remark made by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
It is an important remark.
Mrs Randzio-Plath has picked up some noises from the OECD and mentioned the word mega-risk.
Indeed, I think she is right to indicate the risks which can be inherent in financial movements.
She has referred to large mergers which are taking place and, without necessarily sharing her view regarding these risks, I would also like to refer to statements made by Mr Lamfalussi, who is well-known within the European financial system, and who has also indicated the need to be able to cope adequately with the financial risks and system risks which are heading our way.
This is a very important matter.
I still believe that coordination, cooperation and harmonisation of supervisory systems are enough to withstand the risks, but, once again, in the interest of the case itself, I would like to draw the attention of Mrs Randzio-Plath and other members of this meeting to a report recently drafted by Mr Brouwer, second-in-command at the Central Bank in the Netherlands.
This report was commissioned by the Economic and Financial Committee, which, as you are aware, is the gateway to the ECOFIN Council, and the report deals with financial stability. The report will be made available shortly.
No doubt you will be able to find it on the Internet.
This report deals with the issue which is close to Mrs Randzio-Plath' s heart and once again, I would strongly recommend all members attending this meeting to read it.
Well, most of the points I mentioned a moment ago can be found in the draft report of the rapporteur, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, and also in many of the tabled amendments.
In sum, I would like to say that we will undoubtedly continue to discuss the nuts and bolts but as far as the main points are concerned, I do consider Mr García-Margallo y Marfil' s report as welcome confirmation of the Commission' s vision.
I would now like to say a few words on the way in which a number of these measures need to be implemented, the need to take a close look at our legislative ethos and the way in which legislation is established.
Everyone is currently in agreement that we need to drop over-complicated, fossilised legislation, in other words, rules which cannot keep pace with fast market development.
Accordingly, the process by which the European Union, i.e. the concerted efforts of Commission, Parliament and Council, lays down rules should be quicker. But how exactly can this be done?
There are quite a few different ideas and quite a few misconceptions, because if Mr García-Margallo y Marfil tells me that the European Parliament does not want to give up any of the powers it has only recently acquired, then I naturally share his view.
I myself have been a Member of Parliament for a long time, so I fully understand where Mr García-Margallo y Marfil is coming from.
In fact, this is not the Commission' s intention, even if it was authorised to take decisions in this respect, which is not the case.
Nonetheless, we need to proceed faster in order to lay down the necessary rules.
I would invite the Members of this Parliament to come up with any ideas as to how we could speed up and enhance the process. Should we make more use of comitology procedures?
Should more weight be given to agreement reached between the institutions upon first reading? At any rate, the Commission intends to keep Parliament and the competent committees informed of the agendas more quickly and more effectively, so that these agendas can be better harmonised and we can speed up the drafting of the required legislation.
In any event, I would like to keep this Parliament informed of all the developments regarding the action plan. Every six months, we send a progress report to the ECOFIN Council and it seems to me that these reports could be used to exchange views with Parliament on this matter.
Mr President, most speakers have expressed their thoughts on the issue of pensions and I would like to say the following on this matter.
In its communication on pensions, the Commission has included proposals on three fronts.
The first area is prudential rules for pension funds, and protecting pension scheme members should take centre stage.
There is no question that rules could be introduced which could threaten the rights of future pensioners.
This is beyond dispute.
However, this does not detract from the fact that investment and management rules can also serve the interests of people other than pension scheme members.
In fact futile provisions that inhibit the results of investments, do pension scheme members no favours and must be repealed for this reason.
Secondly, the coordination of national tax systems is a condition for cross-border participation.
Mrs Peijs has asked me when we are getting mobile pensions for mobile people? Other Members too, such as Mr von Wogau and others, have talked about the need to enhance the mobility of workers within the European Union.
As already stated, this does not require harmonisation (a word we need to use with discretion because it conjures up incorrect associations in certain Member States) so much as coordination.
So it requires the coordination of tax systems which differ in terms of tariffs.
This coordination is a precondition for cross-border labour mobility.
The Commission is in the process of drafting a proposal, a general framework, intended to facilitate the payment of contributions by occupational pension institutions which are located in other Member States.
This general framework has also been requested, of course, in this meeting by Mr Medina Ortega, for example, while Mrs Peijs has also indicated the need to set up this general framework.
Moreover, I would like to refer to the constant jurisprudence of the Court of Justice.
This jurisprudence has demonstrated that the restrictions which apply to cross-border contributions and premiums are at odds with the Treaty.
The Commission' s third objective is to remove the obstacles which migrant workers are faced with.
More than anything, and this is also underlined in the draft report - rightly so - we should facilitate the transferability of rights from one Member State to another, and this is also very much in the interests of employee mobility, of course.
Mr President, concerning the motion for a resolution, I would first of all like to remark that this Parliament' s support is crucially important if we want to translate these proposals into specific measures.
It was with great interest that I read the sterling report of the rapporteur, Mr Kuckelkorn, and the competent committees, a report that so far has covered an extensive and technically complex area.
I did not fail to notice that Parliament is backing the lines of policy proposed by the Commission.
With regard to the motion for a resolution, I would like to make the following brief comments.
The motion presses for the general introduction of the tax levy model that relies on the taxation of the pension payout whilst providing for tax exemption for contributions to the fund and returns on the fund. The desirability of this model was once again underlined this evening by Mr Blokland, among others.
Mr Blokland pointed this out and I share his view on this.
This is also echoed in the motion for a resolution.
Agreement on this approach would solve the problems of either double taxation or no taxation, which is what citizens and Member States are struggling with at the moment.
However, I would like to point out that this issue, as is known, only and exclusively concerns the competences of the Member States and, as such, falls outside the scope of the European Commission.
The Commission should ensure, however, if different systems continue to coexist in future too, that this does not have any adverse effects on workers exercising their right to mobility within the Union.
Regarding the amendments tabled, I would like to stress one point in particular, namely the scope of the future proposal - as the directive is not yet finished - for a directive regulating the activities of occupational pension funds.
In other words, the question is, and many Members attending this evening' s meeting have spoken about this, Mrs Kauppi, in particular: should this proposal, which we are about to disclose, provide for all forms of pension schemes or should it simply be restricted to pension scheme products which cover the members against biometric risks?
My answer to this is as follows, I hope it is clear: we need European prudential standards for all forms of occupational pension schemes.
These standards will differ in certain aspects according to the risks actually covered by the institutions.
But there is not one single technical reason why these different types of savings schemes could not be combined in one and the same directive.
It would, in my view, be incorrect - and the European Union would impose artificial restrictions on itself - if the Commission were to restrict the directive to be proposed to pension schemes which only cover biometric risks and if it were to exclude other pension provisions which, although they are full pension provisions because they cannot be collected before pensionable age, should nonetheless still be excluded from the directive, according to a number of delegates.
I believe that this is not right.
I think that the European Union would not do itself any favours if the subject of the directive were to be limited to biometric risks and I can honestly see no reason why other forms of pension schemes could not be included in the same directive, as I pointed out a moment ago.
Well now, Member States are thus given every opportunity to give certain pension products preferential treatment by using tax incentive measures, for example.
They can also demand that the products offered on their market, even if the institutions offering the service are based in another Member State, meet certain social criteria.
Employees and employers within one company or one sector are free to choose, according to the benefits and drawbacks of the products available on their market.
In other words, there is still a large degree of freedom for the Member States to arrange the pension systems within their own country as they see fit.
This freedom remains.
The Commission' s ambition is to create, I repeat, one framework which liberalises the setting up and scope of pension funds for the benefit of all the members of such pension funds.
Accordingly, we need to set up this legal framework within the European Union which enables businesses and future pensioners to choose the products on offer within a transparent market by institutions which are adequately supervised.
Adequate supervision is crucial, as is liberalising the scope of pension funds. It is not up to the Commission to specify a pension product in every detail.
Indeed this is a matter which falls under the subsidiarity principle, and the European Commission would not wish to do anything which could compromise this principle.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner if he could also reply to my question.
I have been waiting for a reply for one and a half hours now.
I would, at long last, like to have a response to my question on cash management and the solution to this problem which is particularly hitting small and medium-sized businesses.
Mr President, I would prefer to address Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel' s issue when I respond to the report on the internal market. This would, however, mean that Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel would have to stay even longer at this meeting.
This is not such a bad thing, in my opinion.
In the final analysis, many remarks made in this meeting will also be of interest to Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, but since she has reminded me of this question, which, as I have already said, I would have addressed at a later stage, let me just say that this is of course an issue pertaining to the internal market.
It is true that small and medium-sized businesses are facing obstacles in their cross-border activities.
The Commission is acutely aware of this.
Needless to say, the scope of the internal market is intended to facilitate cross-border activities for small and medium-sized businesses.
The new strategy for the internal market comprises one hundred or so measures, many of which will be beneficial to small and medium-sized businesses.
But if Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel would like to approach me with specific problems relating to small and medium-sized businesses which are not covered in the new strategy for the internal market, I shall make every effort to address these points to her satisfaction.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Strategy for Europe' s Internal Market
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0098/2000) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: The Strategy for Europe' s Internal Market [COM(1999) 464 - C5-0212/1999 - 1999/2167(COS)]
Mr President, Commissioner, the report which I have the honour to present is the result of an extraordinary collaboration - which I am grateful for - between people and committees.
Allow me to make two observations: the Committee on Legal Affairs has not accepted all the suggestions of the committee asked for an opinion.
We were in complete agreement with most of them and they seemed to us to be very interesting, but we consider that this resolution was not the right place for them and that, by incorporating them, its message would be less clearly expressed.
That has been my criterion for recommending a vote in favour of the amendments presented in this House.
I therefore insist - and the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries is a good example of this - that they have not been included in the resolution, not because I reject their content, but because the message in relation to the internal market strategy had to be clearly expressed.
What was that message? That message stems from the position adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs in our resolution of 4 November 1999.
If you will allow me, Mr President, I will concentrate on three ideas.
The first concern of the Committee on Legal Affairs -and I hope this House will ratify it tomorrow - is the concept of the situation of the internal market.
What does the internal market mean to European construction? These days we hear the siren song of globalisation and together with that goes the idea that we are international.
The internal market appears to have become very small in this new globalised economy.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
This document on the strategy for the internal market expresses this very clearly.
The internal market is Europe' s platform in the world.
The internal market embodies the key principles of a globalised economy with advantages for Europe in terms of competition.
That is the first message of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
We need to put the emphasis on the principles of the internal market: the principle of proportionality, the principle of mutual recognition, the principle of control of origin.
These must be the great pillars upon which this strategy for the internal market is built.
We will not make the headlines with this, but it is important nonetheless.
The application and control of Community legislation is also important. The Member States must cooperate in this application.
We must oppose procedures which are used too frequently, such as 'gold plating' .
We need to strengthen our infringement procedure, we need to consolidate it, make it more transparent and more accessible.
We ask that decisions on the outcome of infringement proceedings be explained and that Parliament be informed of them.
We ask that infringement cases be processed more quickly and that they be more effectively presented to the citizen.
The second message of this resolution is that we need to make the present, rather disorganised laws, which the citizens see as a burden, into a genuine legislation, a coherent and clear framework of rules and regulations, without any overlapping or contradictions.
These contradictions are seen by the citizen and by industry as burdens, as a lack of clarity in the message regarding the direction we are taking.
Lastly, the third message is a change in the business culture in Europe.
We need businesspeople who are more willing to take risks.
To this end we will have to change certain laws, such as for example the European laws on insolvency in general, on the suspension of payments and bankruptcy.
We need to put the emphasis on the creation of a genuine capital risk market.
We need to convince young Europeans, as young Americans are already convinced, that the best option is not to join a large company, on a long-term basis, but to create new companies.
In all of this, electronic commerce, the Internet and new technologies must offer a good platform.
Finally, Mr President, to sum up, I hope that tomorrow, on voting for the resolution, Parliament will send a clear message.
We are behind the Commission in this initiative and of course we want to participate in the whole process, permanently, cooperating, offering ideas and monitoring the situation.
Mr President, once again the European Parliament must express its opinion on the Commission communication on the construction of the internal market, in this case, a new version of it.
A proportion of its content affects the competences of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
It is these points which I wish to discuss specifically.
Firstly, I would like to say that, in general, one of the criticisms levelled at previous versions of this documents no longer applies.
The European Parliament' s resolution of 4 November 1999 said that the document was rather unspecific, that it did not contain specific actions.
This new version does contain specific measures and proposals.
Let us then analyse the content of these proposals, albeit in general terms.
With regard to taxation, the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is that the Communication is not ambitious enough, especially when compared to previous documents.
We are aware of the stumbling blocks encountered in relation to the tax package and that some of its chapters have been blocked, but in situations such as this large doses of political courage are necessary to push proposals forward.
We notice a lack of such political courage in this document since the chapter on tax simply reproduces previous Commission commitments, and even leaves aside some of the European Parliament' s proposals.
Secondly, in relation to the rules on competition, the Communication opts for deepening the process of reform underway, and this deserves our support.
Finally, in the chapter on financial services, it should be highlighted that up to now important progress has been made but, as indicated in the recent single market scoreboard, there is still a lot to be done.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, it is natural that I should speak about the problems which the strategy for developing the internal market may pose from a social point of view.
We are starting with a European social model - which is a national model - and we are transforming the economic structure of that society.
In doing so, we are concerned that the effort to liberalise should not transform the essence of the current European social model.
An example of this can be found in an area as apparently banal as urban transport.
If urban transport is not subjected to political considerations and the intervention of local authorities, for example, straightforward liberalisation could make it practically impossible for us to reach our workplaces.
We have had examples such as the case of Venezuela where a strictly private system of public transport led to a profound social and political crisis in that country.
Liberalisation presents other difficulties.
For example, when public services and public companies are privatised and those public companies come to be controlled by a private sector which in reality replaces the state monopoly with a private monopoly, liberalisation may not come about effectively at all.
Liberalisation by means of privatising public companies may end up consolidating dominant positions and private monopolies which in my opinion may offer fewer benefits than a monopoly conceived in the public interest.
Another aspect - which we referred to in the recent debate on the Kuckelkorn report - is the need to coordinate social protection.
Social protection in a single internal market cannot simply be left to subsidiarity.
Lastly, cohesion also seems to me to be important.
If there is no economic and social cohesion, if we do not balance the quality of life in the different regions of the Community, we may find ourselves in a situation where the European Union is an unfair European Union in which some regions will make more progress and others will be left behind.
This is the basis of the amendments which Mrs Berger and I are presenting, representing the views of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
- (ES) Mr President, Commissioner, firstly I would thank the rapporteur for explicitly mentioning the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries, although we regret that it has not been included in the report.
I say this especially, Commissioner, so that you can communicate to the Commission, and particularly to Mr Fischler, the fact that the common fisheries policy is one of the few areas of Community activity where until now very few steps have been taken in the creation of a genuine internal market.
The lack of action is related to the original conception of this policy.
The current Council Regulation No 3760/92 establishing a Community system for fisheries and aquaculture, provides for derogations in respect of the internal market, notably in Articles 6 and 7, which allow derogations from the principle of freedom of access to fishing grounds, so that Member States have the right of exclusive exploitation of their fisheries resources within a 12-mile coastal band, as well as a series of preferential fishing rights, through application of the 'relative stability' principle, which distributes national fishing quotas.
At the same time it lays down restrictions on exercising fishing activities in certain areas known as 'boxes' .
These restrictions on the principle of freedom of action, which were originally intended to be temporary restrictions, have been extended and will be in force until 1 January 2003 as a mechanism to allow certain Member States' fishing industries to adapt to the rules of free competition in an increasingly open and globalised market.
Over 20 years have passed and, as we are about to embark upon a general review of all aspects of the common fisheries policy which, for compelling legal reasons, must take place in 2002, it is now time, I believe, to examine whether the transitional period for adaptation to free competition provided for in the said regulation should be ended.
In my opinion, the fishing industry and the common fisheries policy should also be subject to derogations in respect of the internal market.
Therefore, the principles and fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Treaties should also be applied to fisheries, in other words, the framework of the common fisheries policy should be brought into line with the general legal framework of Community legislation.
Mr President, on behalf of our Group I should like to warmly welcome Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s excellent report.
As she said in her introduction, she has made the very wise decision to focus on what are the most critical issues for the creation of the single market.
I want to focus on a couple of the principal points that she makes.
The first one is the need to address, within the Union, the impact of legislation on business.
It is particularly important that we ask the Commission to reinforce its activities, to ensure proper compliance cost assessment and to assess the costs on businesses of the new legislation.
I say to the Commissioner that we do not expect this to be done as an after-thought, after all the departments in the Commission have developed legislation.
It needs to be an integral part of the policy and regulation process.
He must make sure that from now on that a central objective is to help the internal market to move forward.
We were delighted to see a second point on the agenda at Lisbon.
Our committee and, indeed, our Group has been emphasising, since this new Parliament started last year, the need to encourage the development of small- and medium-sized enterprises across the European Union.
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s report emphasises a number of key points such as the need to make business formation cheaper and quicker and the need to remove some of the barriers preventing entrepreneurs from benefiting from the risks of putting capital into starting up new businesses.
I am disappointed to see that our Socialist colleagues are proposing that clause should be taken out of this resolution.
I can assure them that we will vigorously oppose that tomorrow.
I invite colleagues to reject that proposal.
I conclude by confirming that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market will continue to press vigorously for the speedy completion of the internal market.
I give credit to all our colleagues, across all political groups, for the speed with which we have dealt with the electronic commerce directive this week.
I hope that is appreciated.
I hope it will demonstrate that we are prepared to work with speed.
I hope that, together, we can really make the internal market work as quickly as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I feel nothing but appreciation for Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s clear draft report.
It concisely outlines and highlights the key points from the Commission' s communication on the strategy to be followed for Europe' s internal market.
I would like to highlight some of these points.
The promised dialogue between the Commission on the one hand and business and citizens on the other is to be welcomed because the relationship between the Commission, the European Parliament and society should, after all, be interactive.
In order to keep pace with the present breakneck speed at which technology is developing, it is not only desirable but essential to keep the dialogue going.
So far, the average citizen has had insufficient insight into what drives the Union and what can be gained from European cooperation.
This is why information campaigns are essential. After all, Europe cannot afford to remain a remote spectacle.
Back to basics should be our motto.
The e-Europe initiative praises the use and expertise of Internet and multimedia.
This is very commendable indeed but, rather than just creating a frame, it is more important to give substance to education.
I would like to repeat the words of the French President spoken at the official opening of this Parliament building and I quote: "We must create a citizens' Europe in which each individual gradually comes to see that he or she has a role to play.
We have a duty to build this great common house in which each individual nevertheless feels at home. A house in which everyone lives together, in a spirit of solidarity, but in which each individual retains his or her identity" .
In order to meet these objectives, the residents need to get to know and get a feel for their house, or rather their home.
In order to build a genuine internal market, we should, more than anything, concentrate on promoting the interests of small and medium-sized businesses.
To this day, there are still too many obstacles. Companies' competitiveness and dynamism depend directly on a regulating climate which is conducive to investment, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Finally, I can only echo the need for SLIM.
Legislation must become simpler and must be written in a clear language.
Superfluous legislation should be withdrawn.
It would therefore be beneficial to draw up a scoreboard of laws which have been abolished.
Mr President, I would like to speak on a point of order.
During the debate, Mr Harbour referred to an amendment tabled on behalf of Mrs Berger and myself - Amendment No 2, paragraph 22(2).
If I am not mistaken, Mr Harbour said that he was opposed to our amendment.
I believe that there has been a little confusion.
In the Spanish version which I have there is no problem.
The amendment is based on the German text, which causes some concern because it refers to the issue of share options.
I imagine that in the English text which Mr Harbour has there is no problem either.
The Spanish text simply says "remove the barriers imposed on entrepreneurs capitalising on company value through the issue of share options on the stock exchange" .
If this is the correct text, there is really no problem, in which case I would withdraw that amendment and simply ask for the German version to be adapted to what is said in the Spanish text.
Mr President, many thanks for giving me the floor regarding an issue which is very dear to the Commission as a whole and myself, in particular, namely the new strategy for the internal market.
To begin with, I would like to extend my warm thanks to Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi for the ardent support she has shown for the set of measures proposed by the Commission.
The Commission feels confirmed in its intention thanks to this important vote of confidence coming from this Parliament.
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi has mentioned three topics.
First of all, she stressed the importance of the internal market as a forum in the world, which is essential for the competitiveness of European industry and the European service industry, and she is absolutely right, of course.
This is, in fact, echoed in Mrs Berger' s remarks, who stated that the internal market is not an old hat one can simply take off, the internal market is and will remain essential to European competitiveness as a forum in the world.
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s second remark highlights a number of inconsistencies.
According to her, sometimes one does not know where one stands.
This would be a serious shortcoming if it were true to this extent.
Needless to say, the Commission attempts to establish internal consistency between rules, but it is, of course, possible for rules to be in conflict with one another in certain areas.
If this were the case, then the Commission would be more than happy to rectify this situation.
I would like to thank Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi and the other Members for their comments regarding specific inconsistencies between rules. This will enable the Commission to do something about this.
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s third remark concerns the change in culture.
This is an important yet very difficult topic, which predominantly refers to the availability of risk capital, as Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi has also pointed out.
There happen to be bankers in the risk capital industry who believe that Europe has the money but lacks the entrepreneurs.
In other words, according to these bankers I spoke to recently, the bottleneck is not so much due to the availability of capital as to the availability of entrepreneurs. This is tied in with the economic culture.
I happen to disagree with these critics.
Responsibility lies with both camps.
The bottleneck is the result of both the availability of risk capital, especially the cost of risk capital, but we are also, of course, lacking the sufficient entrepreneurship.
This is down to Europe' s economic culture which still instils in us the belief that bankruptcy will stay with a young entrepreneur for a long time, while in the United States, as everyone knows, bankruptcy is taken far more lightly.
I hence agree with Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi that something needs to be done to breathe new life into Europe' s entrepreneurial culture.
Moreover, I suspect that in the light of developments, which are termed the "new economy" , an increasing number of, mainly, young people, young entrepreneurs, will be encouraged to start up a business.
After having expressed my thanks once again to the rapporteur, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, I would now like to move on to remarks made by Mr Berenguer Fuster.
According to him, the Commission should have more political courage, especially in the fiscal domain.
My response to Mr Berenguer Fuster is: should the Commission have yet more political courage? What the Commission is trying to bring about is already so hard to achieve.
That does not just pertain to the topic that was under discussion earlier this evening, namely the coordination of taxes and tax legislation regarding pension contributions.
It also concerns the taxation package formulated by my predecessor, Mr Monti.
Moreover, during the discussion of the previous topic, Mr Lipietz remarked that he, and probably his group too, is not prepared to further liberalise the provision of financial services if the package, also known as the Monti package, is not adopted.
I would like to oppose such reasoning which has no foundations in the real world.
It would be an example of cutting off your nose to spite your face, if Parliament or the Commission were to say that they refuse to make further attempts to integrate the financial services if no progress were made in terms of the taxation package.
This would not be the right attitude, in my opinion.
Although Mr Berenguer Fuster has not said this in so many words of course, I would still like to take the opportunity to stress this point.
I ask Mr Berenguer Fuster if he would like the Commission to have yet more political courage?
We are already struggling to achieve what we have proposed. I would like to see the Commission achieve what it has proposed to do first and then take it from there.
Mr Berenguer Fuster has also said that a great deal still needs to be done in the field of financial services.
And he is right, of course.
Mr Berenguer Fuster is undoubtedly familiar with the action plan for financial services which was adopted on 13 May 1999 and which includes 43 objectives.
We are in the process of achieving these, at least we are in the process of achieving those objectives that need to be achieved this year.
I am hoping, on behalf of the Commission, to make certain proposals regarding pensions, for example - we discussed this topic a moment ago - but also regarding the opening up of markets for postal services, regarding the public provision of goods and services, public tendering etc., before the summer recess.
We are truly active in the field which is dear to Mr Berenguer Fuster.
I would now like to comment on a remark made by Mr Medina Ortega.
He said that at present, there is a risk of state monopolies being replaced by private monopolies.
I would like to assure Mr Medina Ortega that this is, of course, by no means the intention.
Replacing a state monopoly by a private monopoly only makes matters worse.
This is certainly not the intention of this Commission.
What the Commission does intend to do, however, is to add substance to the decisions taken by the European Council at Lisbon, namely to free up the markets for gas, electricity, transport and postal services a lot faster.
The Commission is trying to flesh this out and this also means that those state monopolies need to allow for more competition in the fields I mentioned a moment ago.
But, I repeat, the prospect of replacing state monopolies by private monopolies is something which we do not exactly relish.
I would then like to come back to the remarks made by Mr Harbour, who, like Mr Beysen and Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, was absolutely right to highlight the importance of small and medium-sized businesses and the costs related to running these businesses.
The Commission is aware that, for example, the costs involved in establishing a business or a small business over here far outstrip the costs in the United States.
To give you an idea of the cost difference, it takes an average of five days to set up a small or medium-sized business in the United States.
In Europe it takes far longer, even as long as five months, a ratio of 1 in 30.
This is, of course, directly reflected in the cost.
If we then talk about culture, and I am addressing Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi once again, we need to try to do something about these establishment costs of small businesses very quickly, because otherwise we will naturally come off second-best in the competitive battle with North America.
Finally, I would like to turn to Mrs Berger as I have already responded to Mr Beysen' s remarks concerning small and medium-sized businesses.
I have quoted what Mrs Berger said earlier about the hat which you cannot simply take off.
I like this metaphor because it is true that European citizens have the feeling that this internal market is already in place. They take it for granted and do not give it any further thought.
This could not be further from the truth.
The internal market is far from complete.
We must - and the Commission does, in fact - work on it week in week out and defend it, because the internal market is subject to constant pressure, and the Member States fall back into old, protectionist habits which we need to fight.
Mrs Berger was right to refer to directives which remain in the Council.
We are all familiar with examples of directives which remain in a vacuum for five, ten or even fifteen years because they are not adopted by the Council.
Let us hope that this will change.
If you will allow me to highlight one aspect of it: we all hope, of course, that the difference of opinion which is keeping Spain and the United Kingdom divided over a well-known rock in the Southern half of this continent, will now be resolved.
I read in an article in a Spanish newspaper that the issue is moving in the right direction. This would actually unblock half a dozen directives.
We are all waiting for this moment.
To sum up, on the subject of Echelon, I can assure Mrs Berger that this is completely unrelated to the internal market and does not form any threat to it whatsoever.
Mr President, this concludes my remarks.
Could I once again express my appreciation to the Members of Parliament and the rapporteur, in particular, for the important vote of confidence which we received from Parliament regarding the new strategy for the internal market?
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
2001: European Year of Languages
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0099/2000) by Mr Graça Moura, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision: European Year of Languages 2001 [COM(1999) 485 - C5-0278/1999 - 1999/0208(COD)]
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Graça Moura for a splendid piece of work and for the energy he has put into drawing up this report. I should also like to thank the Council for being so accommodating and the Commission for the role it has played as mediator, especially just recently.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is very happy to support initiatives which may create greater awareness of the value of linguistic diversity in the European Union.
It is important that the EU' s citizens should be encouraged to learn foreign languages early on in school and also throughout their lives.
A knowledge of languages is important, for European languages are of great significance to European culture and civilisation, and people need good language skills in order to be able to find employment in EU countries other than their own.
The programme for the European Year of Languages offers a splendid basis for providing information about the many different opportunities there are for learning foreign languages, and it is important.
Mr Graça Moura' s proposal includes the 11 official EU languages, together with a number of other languages recognised by the Member States, including Irish and Luxembourgish.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party also thinks that the programme should include other languages which are actually used in the various Member States, for instance Catalan in Spain and Frisian in the Netherlands.
Finally, in the programme for the European Year of Languages, consideration is also given to the forthcoming enlargement of the Union, something which we in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party consider to be crucial to all EU programmes.
On behalf of the Group, I can recommend supporting this programme.
Mr President, needless to say, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent and exquisite work.
I would like to make a few minor observations regarding a European campaign which intends to teach Europeans languages from other communities.
We are all convinced of the usefulness of this exercise, of course.
But the thing that often goes wrong with European campaigns - and fortunately I have not been around long enough as a politician to be unaware how the ordinary citizen reacts to this - is that, very often, they are nothing but an attractive front, pretty to look at but insubstantial.
I would therefore like to think that this campaign will offer something different, and that, more importantly, consideration will be given to why it is so hard for people in Europe to learn languages, and at what stages in their lives they are able to learn languages.
I come from a bilingual country myself and I have met some people in that country who never learn the other language, despite the fact that they attend language classes, sometimes for twelve years, and are still unable to speak another language.
This is a terrible observation to have to make.
I therefore hope that in the course of this year of European languages, research will be carried out into the best language teaching methods and, more than anything, how Europeans can be encouraged to learn the language of the other Europeans using a modern and appealing method.
Mr President, after I too have congratulated the rapporteur, Mr Graça Moura, who has done such a good job that it won the unanimous support of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, I would like to focus my attention on just one point, namely that in addition to the human, cultural and political advantages, the need to learn more than one language is also of considerable economic benefit.
The report also highlights the findings of all the experts: having a good command of one' s mother tongue and learning classical languages, especially Latin and classical Greek, makes it easier to learn other languages.
I would also add our own mother tongue to the equation.
This great truth emerges from a fact rather unknown to most, that in the English language, for example, there are at least 75 000 words of Greek origin.
I repeat, 75 000 English words derive from classical Greek.
There are a similar number of words in the French language that derive from Greek, and the same is true of most other modern European languages.
It is also certain that Latin is just as important for most European languages.
The English sage, Francis Bacon, said that knowledge is power, so knowledge of the basic languages from which our modern European languages derive improves our general knowledge and reinforces European civilisation, which, besides its humanitarian value, is also a weapon for our survival and prosperity as Europeans in a globalised economy.
Besides, the contemporary German professors, August and Werner-Karl Heisenberg, have characterised both classical and modern Greek as the mother and nurturer of human civilisation.
I believe that revival of the teaching of Latin and classical Greek in middle education will also provide a cultural shield for the younger generations against the onslaught of the generally levelling effect of the American cultural message, so that only its positive elements are preserved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur.
The European Year of Languages is important and worthwhile.
All the languages of Europe are equally valuable and worthy of respect in terms of culture.
It could be said that the people who speak the same language share the same mentality.
The mother tongue is not merely a tool of communication, it is in fact more than anything else, it is thought itself.
Language is the most peaceful way of communicating.
Independence is language and language is independence.
The Kurds are a nation with no land or borders of their own, kept together only by language.
Language is a powerful force.
It is the most important bond for a nation.
Large countries, and many smaller ones too, often tyrannise others through language. It is a means of occupation.
The legislation regarding language in my country is among the most liberal in the world.
We have seen how two different foreign languages have twice been proclaimed the official language; only at the beginning of last century did our language, Finnish, become the official one.
That is why we have guaranteed the important status of minority languages.
The multilingual nature of the European Union is thus a source of wealth.
At the same time it is also the right of each citizen in each Member State.
The multilingual nature of Europe must be preserved after enlargement too; there are no obstacles to this.
It is wrong to think that a multilingual environment is costly and ineffective.
Translation is not costly; it is the most effective practical instrument of peace.
Mr President, in addition to congratulating the rapporteur, I would like to highlight in this debate that the idea for this celebration originates from the Council of Europe, an institution with a particular sensitivity towards the cultural and social aspects of the old continent, which, with its initiative of increasing the knowledge and use of more languages by Europeans, hopes to promote understanding and tolerance and bring citizens closer together.
When we speak of European languages, let us not forget that this does not only mean the official languages of the Member States.
In Europe, many other languages are spoken, some of them thousands of years old such as Euskera in the Basque Country or Gaelic, whose origins have been lost in the mists of time, and others such as Catalan, Galician and Alsatian, which is spoken right here in Strasbourg.
This initiative should also benefit all these other regional and minority languages, and the bodies created by the Member States to organise participation in the European Year of Languages must also include representatives of these other languages, which are also European, and which are the essence and lifeblood of the wealth of our unity in diversity.
Furthermore, the learning of languages leads to an awareness of our cultural diversity and contributes to the eradication of xenophobia, racism and intolerance, which forms part of our Community objectives.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission and, at the same time, the rapporteur, Mr Graça Moura, for having permitted so many amendments, many of them open to broadening the scope of the Year and extending it to rural areas and the least favoured areas.
However, I would also like to express certain concerns with regard to the economic restrictions.
I would recommend that many projects be allowed since it is clear that cultural projects attract a lot of investment from Autonomous Regions and private initiatives which we cannot afford to lose.
I would also ask, in this era when emotions often take precedence over good sense, that we do not support projects which are aimed at exclusion and the use of language to support positions which often seek to cause divisions between people, when the objective of this programme is to unite people.
I would also like to see the European Union begin to take great care of languages which have no country, maternal languages which often have no school and no teachers; languages which are spoken throughout Europe, which no state accepts and which will never become official.
I am referring, for example, to Ladino and Yiddish.
These languages furthermore do not have any media of their own.
Of the 150 languages which are spoken in Europe, we should make a list of those which are only transmitted from mothers to their children, which are only spoken in a domestic setting and which, currently, with the invasion of the media and with the official use of languages in schools, will have very few years to live.
I would like this European Year of Languages to be opened up to them as well and that a space be made for them so that they may be considered in any other future programmes which may take place.
Mr President, I should like to address my remarks on languages to my fellow Members, of course, but also to our interpreters, who enable this Parliament to function, to the rapporteur, of course, not for his work as rapporteur but because he is also a poet in this Parliament and, moreover, as I have discovered, one who speaks my mother tongue perfectly.
What better rapporteur could there be?
When one is a new Member of the European Parliament, as I am, one finds oneself dealing with all sorts of things: chocolate, end-of-life vehicles, the qualified majority, dried beans, Spanish lentils, anything and everything.
Then, suddenly, one finds that one is going to have to deal with something that gives Europe its historic and cultural depth, namely its languages.
And when one looks back at the great periods in history, and I am thinking here of the Renaissance, that great age of trade and commerce, what remains of that era today are the cultural achievements, the artefacts of our heritage, and thus will it ever be.
In terms of languages, Europe has known times when a single language predominated: Latin, and also French.
Now it tends to be English.
So what are we to tell our fellow citizens for this year 2001.
Let me just briefly mention a few points.
Firstly, that European unity may not mean linguistic unity.
Next, that every language is deserving of respect and deserves to be promoted and defended.
This is applicable to any amount of things: monuments, objects, you name it.
Why should it not be the case for mankind' s best and most lasting achievement, i.e. his method of communicating with his neighbour? And then, all languages are learnt within the family first of all.
This is why we call them "mother tongues" , and no State, whatever it may be, may have the direct, indirect, explicit or implicit goal of destroying one of its mother tongues, or of allowing it to disappear.
Furthermore, finally, without linguistic diversity, there is no Europe, because this is also one of the few, and perhaps the only, parliament in the world which operates in eleven languages, to the extent that occasionally we speak in this House for the purpose of being interpreted and not to be heard in the original.
It is up to us to construct this dialectic of European unity and its linguistic diversity.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be able to be here this evening to talk to you and particularly to have been able to hear your views.
Firstly, because the subject of languages is very close to my heart.
As somebody from Luxembourg, I come from a part of Europe where trilingualism is actively practised.
It is to some extent a laboratory which could serve as a basis for others who would like to do what we all wish to do during this European Year of Languages, which is to promote the study of one' s mother tongue and of two additional languages.
On the other hand, we are at a crucial stage, as there is the prospect of achieving agreement at first reading between the Parliament and the Council.
An agreement at first reading is essential as we are working to a very tight schedule.
2001 is no longer far off and preparations for implementing the programme are becoming urgent.
What are the aims we wish to achieve by organising the European Year of Languages? First of all, it is important to make Europeans aware of linguistic diversity and of the wealth that this diversity represents.
We know full well that cultural diversity is perhaps Europe' s greatest asset and we must support this cultural diversity, which is based on linguistic diversity.
The various languages of the European Union will never be replaced by a single language, I am quite sure of that.
And even if one particular language of communication spreads further and further, this does not in any way detract from the need to learn languages to be able to function in the European Union.
You have all said so and I fully support you in this.
This leads me to the second great aim of the European Year of Languages: we must encourage the public to learn languages and to do so throughout their lives, starting at a very early age, in nursery school.
Indeed, language learning is important both for personal development and for intercultural understanding, as some of you have pointed out.
It is one of the best weapons for combating xenophobia.
It is also, as some of you have said, essential to finding a job and to everyone' s career prospects.
Furthermore, it will not be possible to anticipate the needs of everyone individually, and so schools must, therefore, in addition to a basic training, prepare people for lifelong learning and in this context, the principle of one' s mother tongue and two other languages should be emphasised.
Learning one language is not an adequate basis for multilingualism.
The European Year of Languages is also a framework, which will enable information to be disseminated on how to learn languages.
Methods have moved on from the traditional ones and much work has been done in this area.
I believe that this Year of Languages should give us ideas of best practice and how we can move from quite theoretical language learning to learning a language for practical purposes.
The European Year of Languages will also complement existing initiatives.
It is designed for the general public and constitutes a huge information campaign.
In order for it to succeed, however, on the one hand it must create an image, develop logos, slogans and information material.
On the other hand, it is envisaged that projects presented by regional and local authorities or organisations will be cofinanced, and I would like to say categorically to those of you who come from border areas that learning one' s neighbour' s language must be one of the major key points emphasised during this Year of Languages.
The year will be organised in close cooperation with the Council of Europe, which is extremely significant.
The Council of Europe has considerable experience in the field of language teaching and we are therefore fortunate to be able to join forces with them.
Many fruitful meetings have already taken place and the ongoing exchange of information between our respective departments is vital to the implementation of this Year of Languages.
I would now like to discuss tonight' s debate.
First of all, I would like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Graça Moura, for his excellent work and also to express my delight at the constructive approach and the useful cooperation built up between the rapporteurs and the Members of this Parliament, between Members and my departments and also between the two institutions and the Council.
I hope with all my heart that this will enable us to successfully see this initiative through and to reach agreement at first reading so that we can start the European Year of Languages.
There were a great many amendments which have, in the meantime, been merged into a smaller number.
It is important to emphasise the fact that the amendments voted for by the European Parliament must be acceptable to the Council if agreement is to be reached at first reading.
I have noted the desire of some Members to include regional and minority languages, and you know how strongly I personally feel about these languages.
You also know, however, how sensitive this issue is for certain Member States.
I think that the definition of target languages as stated in article 1, Amendment No 15, provides sufficient scope, whilst enabling everyone to agree on it.
And I am relying a great deal, believe me, on the debates that will take place during 2001, the European Year of Languages, because these debates will enable us to overcome the problems and fears which still exist with regard to minority languages.
I also hope that at the end of this Year of Languages, their will be no more resistance to languages, because, as has been very clearly stated, there are no small languages, there are only mother tongues, which are all great languages.
I am therefore relying on the debates to help me prepare future activities in this area, and I would also draw your attention to the additional recitals which address this concern: Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4. The recitals also enable us to take account of other specific concerns, as many of you have pointed out, such as classical languages and cultures, which will not be forgotten during the European Year of Languages.
I shall not dwell on the amendments on which we agree.
I am prepared to accept Amendments Nos 1 to 34, and I shall start from Amendment No 35.
The Commission' s draft text proposed a limited number of studies with a direct bearing on the organisation of the European Year of Languages. The Members of the European Parliament have proposed a great many additional studies.
It goes without saying that the field of language learning is in constant development, which is why these studies are necessary.
The Commission could therefore accept these suggestions insofar as they cover subjects that can be addressed.
Indeed, the European Year of Languages is by definition a short-term initiative, with a limited, in fact a too limited budget. You have raised the issue and we cannot do everything in this context, but there are also other possibilities, and I shall come back to them.
On the other hand, the Council is not prepared to accept a long list of studies which could not all be carried out under the European Year of Languages.
My feeling is that we all agree that this point should not become a reason for agreement not to be reached at first reading.
This is why I shall make the following formal commitment to you, the European Parliament.
The Commission has duly noted the possible subjects for studies on languages adopted in the amendments introduced by Parliament when the motion on the European Year of Languages 2001 was studied. Given its awareness of the importance of languages in the process of European integration, the Commission has committed itself to developing these issues when implementing its programme of studies, which will be carried out in the framework of, and in accordance with the procedures of, the various programmes and activities which can be enlisted for this purpose in the spirit of article 8 of the proposed decision.
In particular, as the Commissioner responsible for the Socrates programme, which specifically covers Comenius, Lingua and Eurydice, as well as Leonardo and Culture 2000, I would like to stress the fact that this programme provides an appropriate framework to undertake the following studies, which will enable us to look at best practice in the field of language teaching and learning and at the reasons why language learning so often fails.
The studies on improving the quality of language teaching within the European Union that are provided for in the second part of Amendment No 35 and Amendment No 39; those on linguistic contacts based on studies of migrant communities stipulated in Amendment No 37; those on the opportunities to speed up access to understanding using methods for simultaneously teaching related languages, laid down in Amendment No 38.
The promotion of bilingual publishing, mentioned in Amendment No 41, is covered by the Culture 2000 programme, and I shall see to it that projects undertaken in this area are given the priority that they deserve.
Finally, it is true that enlargement of the European Union and the growth in the number of official languages will have certain implications, as Amendment No 36 suggests.
Nevertheless, this issue is beyond the remit of the European Year of Languages and, furthermore, is a matter for all three political institutions.
I am therefore committing myself to doing everything in my power to encourage discussion on this point in the appropriate setting, whist hoping that I can count on the necessary support of the European Parliament.
Lastly, I would like to say a few words about the amendments presented in plenary. Amendments Nos 43 and 12 have the same content, but the wording of Amendment No 43 is better.
Amendments Nos 44, 45 and 46 which are technical amendments seeking to adapt the text to comitology, do not, therefore, present any problems.
Nevertheless, we know that the Council will not accept Amendments Nos 47, 48, 49, 50 and 51, which relate in particular to regional and minority languages, since we have already discussed this in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport. As these amendments would jeopardise the chances of agreement being reached at first reading, I cannot accept them.
To sum up, Mr President, it is important that we quickly reach agreement so that we can launch the European Year of Languages.
I can assure you that I have listened to your concerns with great interest and that I share them. I am sure that they will be incorporated into the text, as far as possible, and I shall also take them into consideration in other programmes and activities where we have the opportunity to encourage the promotion and learning of languages, not only in 2001, but well beyond that, because the year 2001 will be only the starting point in the campaign we are fighting for all mother tongues to be recognised at European level.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Youth
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0100/2000) by Mrs Gröner, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council decision establishing the Community action programme for youth [C5-0116/2000 - 1998/0197(COD)]
Mr President, I am very pleased to add my support and my group' s support to this report.
This report had a long gestation period.
But the fact that we are still here so early in the morning is a tribute to the rapporteur' s work on this programme and, indeed, that of the Commissioner and the Portuguese presidency - which has shown itself to be committed to youth, to the voluntary service and to education in its broadest sense.
The report we have ended up with now is more closely targeted, with an emphasis on social protection and, as the rapporteur has said, a more flexible approach than in earlier reports.
We also have more money in the programme in recognition of its importance.
We will always ask for more money.
The budget is not enough.
It is perhaps Parliament' s role to ask for more.
But we can be pleased with the outcome.
We can be sure that whatever money we have in this programme will be directed at youth and will, in the long-term, be money well spent.
I agree with the rapporteur that this money and this programme will ensure that the efforts are targeted not just at some small sections of society but, as the Commissioner said in a previous report, at all sections of society.
We must look to those who will benefit most and those who are in greatest need and who might otherwise be socially excluded.
We are delighted that some candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe will benefit as well.
We can be pleased with our efforts and pleased with this report.
In seven years' time we will look back at the youth of today who will have benefited from this report and be pleased that this was the beginning of real progress.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Gröner for her splendid work and for the personal, almost passionate commitment she has shown in preparing the present report.
I should also like to thank the Council and the Commission for contributing to our at long last achieving a good result.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is very happy to support those initiatives which give young people in Europe opportunities to acquire knowledge, skills and qualifications which will help form the basis of their future development.
The strength of the programme is, of course, that, by means of cross-national exchanges, it encourages young people to contribute actively to further European integration.
It will also lead to understanding of the cultural and linguistic diversity within the European Union.
I also think that the programme will ensure that the fundamental values upon which the European Union is founded will continue to be propagated.
Through increased communication between young people in Europe, the programme will indirectly help combat xenophobia and increase respect for human rights.
Finally, the Community' s action programme for youth also gives consideration to the forthcoming enlargement of the Union, something which we in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party believe to be of crucial importance to all EU programmes.
I would recommend that we support this programme.
Mr President, I also commend the report and thank Mrs Gröner for the excellent effort she has made.
It is a very good report.
Youth is the sector in our Community that is so often ignored.
Indeed in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport it is the "Cinderella" sector of funding, as with sport.
We hope that imbalance will be redressed.
The insufficient commitment to youth affairs from the Council, when the European Parliament was calling for EUR 980 million, shows, in my view, this grave disparity and the lack of commitment on the part of the Council to a very important sector.
The danger, in this regard, with the changes that are proposed, of combining two programmes - Youth for Europe and the European Voluntary Service - is that several good parts of both those programmes might be lost.
I hope that does not happen.
We should include the best parts of those excellent initiatives in whatever programme we formulate in future.
The new Youth Programme emphasises the developing links with the youth of entrant countries.
That is an excellent initiative.
The bridges built between youth will be the bridges that eventually unite Europe.
The agreement to constantly review the situation is an initiative that I welcome.
When more funds are needed, budgets should not be cast in stone but be flexible so that they can be amended in the best interests of the deserving needs of youth.
What more deserving cause could there be than supporting youth in the European Union.
Mr President, I would like to join all those who have congratulated the rapporteur, Mrs Gröner, who has produced an excellent report, full of commitment, on behalf of young people.
In her task she has enjoyed the very strong support of the members of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
I offer them my thanks for their work.
The Youth programme is crucial to the European Union, as you have all already said, because it is a unique programme, in which all young people, without distinction, can participate.
I would like to reassure all Members who have spoken about possible sanctions.
In the Youth programme and in the way it is implemented, there will be no sanctions against anyone, and that includes young Austrians, who will not be discriminated against.
The programme has ambitious objectives, which are essential to the development of the idea of European citizenship.
This programme will encourage and consolidate the continuation and development of innovative actions at Community level and will help to improve the quality of the action undertaken on behalf of young people.
It therefore represents a useful instrument in assisting a policy of cooperation and will contribute to the process of European integration.
In addition to ensuring that the programme is effectively implemented, I wish to make a commitment before this House that I will encourage a process of structured and regular cooperation with Member States, in order to work towards drawing up action plans that are up to the task of the challenges, and without which the programme would be less effective.
Mr President, I wish to take this opportunity to talk about the youth policy of the future.
In fact, I stood before you for the first time last September.
I spoke of the White Paper on the European Union' s youth policy, which is a priority.
I would now like to clarify the role of this White Paper and the role of political catalyst that youth policy must play in the future.
I hope to prepare the White Paper on the basis of broad consultation with the different parties concerned and when I say the parties involved I mean above all young people.
That is why, at the Youth Council on 23 November last year, I proposed to the Member States' Ministers for Youth that they hold national meetings of young people during the first half of 2000.
This proposal was very warmly received by all the Member States and these meetings are being organised at the moment.
Most Member States have already set dates for them and most of them have also assured me that these meetings will be open, with the participation of all possible parties including, of course, Members of the European Parliament.
These meetings must allow young people to play an active role and to assert their aspirations, their expectations and their opinions, but also their recommendations for political action in the areas that affect them.
The various national meetings will culminate in a huge European meeting which will be held at the beginning of October, under the French Presidency.
At the same time as consulting young people, the Commission hopes to consult those responsible for youth policy at national level.
The Commission hopes that these national authorities will be able to incorporate into their contributions the opinions and expectations of local administrations, which play a considerable role, I believe, in youth policy.
In order to achieve this, the Commission will be holding bilateral meetings with Member States, followed by a discussion seminar with youth leaders.
We will also rely on the various studies on young people, which will be financed under the Youth programme, and the study, already underway, on the status of young people and the situation of youth policy in Europe.
Lastly, I would like to include the European Parliament in this exercise.
The cooperation methods still have to be worked out, but I can assure you as of now that you will be invited to take part in the European meeting of young people and that I will keep you informed on a regular basis on progress in this matter.
To conclude, I would like to emphasise the fact that the consultation process, particularly with regard to young people, will not be a one-off exercise, because the publication of the White Paper will constitute the second stage of this dialogue with the parties involved, and this is a dialogue that I would like to see established on a more permanent basis.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a considerable amount of work to be done, but it is exciting.
As many of you have pointed out, we are not working for politics here, but for the future of our Union, and I hope that the debate launched by the publication of the White Paper will enable us to strengthen our capacity for joint action in order to implement a genuine strategy for developing the talents of these 80 million young citizens in the European Union, towards whom we have a great responsibility.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Before the sitting is closed, I would like to thank the interpreters for their generous cooperation this evening, since we have exceeded the time allotted.
(The sitting was closed at 12.45 a.m.)
Principles for recording taxes and social contributions
The next item is the report (A5-0073/2000) by Mr Knörr Borràs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation clarifying Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 as concerns principles for recording taxes and social contributions (COM(1999) 488 - C5­0220/1999 - 1999/0200(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing here today a subject of an extremely technical nature, of the type which, at first sight, appears to refer purely to issues involving the adoption and transposal of procedures and terminology within the European Union, which is the political framework to which they are to be adapted, as is the case with certain instruments in the statistical field.
We are all aware, or at least I think we are, that it is important that statistical data is not only reliable, that is, obtained scientifically and rigorously, but also, above all, comparable.
This is particularly true with regard to the shaping of the European single market, a context in which we require statistical data which is comparable and equivalent between the different Member States.
I would even go so far as to say that this is even truer, if that is possible, in view of the enlargement of the European Union, a process in which the availability and comparability of information, particularly statistical and economic information, must be treated as absolutely crucial.
I do not intend to dwell on the qualities of ESA 95 - the European System of Integrated Economic Accounts - nor on the progress which it represented in relation to the previous 1979 system, an issue which I spoke about in the House at the time of my report on the proposed Council Regulation amending the Regulation on the application of the Protocol on the excessive deficit procedure.
What should really be underlined is that, in my view, we must firmly support a Commission proposal which, essentially with regard to an issue as serious as the budgets of the Member States, is inclined to give priority to the revenue actually collected rather than criteria such as the amounts due in the field of taxes and social contributions.
It is common knowledge, or should be common knowledge, that there are occasions when administrations may record, as due, amounts which they will never collect, however many analyses of collectability are made, and this therefore leads to what is tantamount to a concealed falsification of the public deficit.
This is a serious issue which has been debated.
We should remember that in the Parliament of a Member State there was also a great argument between one of the candidates for the presidency and his opponent, and current President, in which the candidate, Mr Borrell, rightly condemned widespread use of the criterion of income which, since it had not been duly corrected, in reality amounted to a concealment of the deficit in the public accounts.
Ending this type of practice requires clear principles, as the Commission proposes, which in addition allow, very correctly in my judgement, for the calculation of income with the option of using amounts collected or the amounts recorded in a tax document.
This course of action by the Commission, which some people attack because in short they believe it does not once and for all end the practices of concealing deficit, in no way intends to distort the assessment of the amounts in the national accounts but, on the contrary, to arrive at the same figure in two different ways.
One, in my view the more correct way, or at least the more academic way, is the criterion of income, with the corresponding provision concerning collectability, set out in paragraph (a) of Article 3 proposed by the Commission, and the other, set out in paragraph (b) of Article 3, is the criterion of cash receipts adjusted to take account of the time difference between the activity and the cash tax receipt at the end of the financial year.
Both calculation procedures should inevitably lead us to the same figure, which will be the outcome of the tax in that financial year.
I would also add that there is no other accounting method which would correctly record revenue in a budget.
On the other hand, it is obvious that the option to use either of the two methods offers the advantage of a speedier adaptation on the part of those who choose one or other of the systems.
Therefore, I consider that the Commission proposal regarding the treatment of taxes and social contributions in the accounts is both the most correct one and, from every point of view, is effective in view of the possibility that it can be applied immediately.
Nevertheless, we believe that, in order to encourage Member States to gather statistical data, even aggregated data, concerning taxes on products, Article 3 of the Commission proposal should deal with this issue by establishing a similar mechanism for recording and adjusting such taxation.
I therefore take a favourable view of the proposal and I congratulate the Commission.
I would like to repeat that the proposal rightly stresses that we should give priority to the revenue actually collected rather than the taxes and social contributions due in the Member States, and allows these two methods of calculation, which make it possible for the systems used by the Member States to be adapted.
A study of the Commission proposal shows that the treatment of taxes and social contributions should indeed follow the two proposed methods.
Finally, I would also like to stress that, consistent with our opinion that the Commission proposal is more an amendment than a clarification and that, moreover, it affects basic concepts, instead of using the procedures under Article 2(2) of Council Regulation 2236/96 of 25 June 1996, for the adoption of changes to the methodology intended to clarify and improve the content of ESA 95, use should instead be made of the introduction procedure set out in Annex A of that regulation.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to ask you, and also the Commission, for your help.
I would be grateful if you could please keep strictly to your speaking time, as our timetable is very tight.
Although Commissioners can, of course, talk for as long as they wish, I would ask them to help me in this regard as well, so that we can finish on time.
Mr President, a Europe that is functioning properly needs transparent and comparable statistical material on its Member States, not least with regard to recording taxes and social contributions.
We have rightly reached agreements in this respect in the European system of national and regional accounts, ESA 95.
On closer examination, it now appears that the information recorded on taxes and social contributions is not as precise as was hoped because it does not always correspond to the amounts actually collected or collectable for a particular assessment year.
The aim of the proposal under discussion is to refine the recording procedure by applying a correction factor both to cash data and data evidenced by assessments and assessment registers.
The PPE-DE Group agrees with the Commission proposal in this regard.
Two questions still remain, however.
In view of the fact that the proposal effectively contains an amendment to the ESA 95 Regulation and that is implicitly acknowledged by the fact that we are applying the codecision procedure, it does seem logical to grant the Member States a transitional period.
The Member States also need time to adjust to new rules.
We have therefore tabled an amendment on behalf of the PPE-DE Group and would ask our colleagues in the House and the Commission as well to support this amendment.
A second question to the Commission concerns the amendments by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs regarding VAT as a basis for calculating the third source of own resources.
I should have liked to hear the Commissioner confirm whether the Commission is indeed drawing up a proposal to amend Article 8 of the ESA 95 Regulation to the effect that all the Member States will, in the future, have an adequate legal basis to use ESA 95 for the calculation of the third source of own resources, that is to say, VAT.
I should like a reply from the Commissioner and also, of course, a response from the Commissioner to our amendment.
Mr President, the Commission' s initiative on presenting this regulation intended to unify the principles for recording taxes and social contributions is very appropriate.
In order for the accounting methods of the different Member States to be homogenous, as the rapporteur has pointed out, they must use the same criteria.
It is true that, in accounting terms, both the cash receipt criterion and the income criterion can be allowed, but it is also true that the former allows for less juggling of the figures intended to distort the true accounts situation of a country.
In short, the cash receipt criterion makes it more difficult to indulge in that accounting trickery which used to be known euphemistically as 'creative accounting' .
It is true that the use of those systems has allowed, for example, certain countries to fulfil the Maastricht criteria, but it is also true that their abuse can distort the picture of a country' s true accounts.
As you know, accounts which do not offer a true picture can be called anything but accounts.
The income criterion, if it is not corrected, for example, by means of the obligation to make provision for non-payment, is an inadequate criterion.
The rapporteur mentioned a debate which occurred in Spain which, in short, resulted from the government claiming ESP 750 000 million in 1997 as social security income, which was theoretically owed but which was clearly never going to be collected.
Thanks to this manipulation of the accounts, to this 'creative accounting' , the deficit criteria for joining the first phase of economic and monetary union were complied with.
Obviously, this juggling of accounts will not be possible if the Commission' s proposal is approved.
It is perhaps for this reason that the Spanish Members from the PPE Group have presented certain amendments and have tried to delay the approval of this report.
It is not a question of revising now what was done in the past.
Ladies and gentlemen, what is done is done.
It is a question of demanding, from now on, greater rigour; it is a question of demanding that accounting figures reflect the true picture of a country' s accounts.
We therefore approve of the Commission' s proposal but we do not approve the PPE' s proposal, which is intended to delay the entry into force of this regulation, or the amendments of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which, since it considers that the regulation amounts to an amendment rather than a mere clarification, in reality delays its entry into force.
Ladies and gentlemen, if rigour in accounting is demanded, it should be so from the outset.
Mr President, firstly I wish to thank Mrs Thyssen for her gesture and for her defence of the amendment we are presenting.
I also wish to thank and highlight the patriotism of Mr Berenguer and Mr Knörr.
This patriotism is consistent because ESA 95 was adopted by the Socialist government, to whose party the former belongs.
Having said this and leaving aside accusations which are truly libellous at the moment, I would like to defend the idea of an extended transition period of two years.
Anybody who knows anything about accounting and who looks at this text with open eyes will know that this implies a profound change in the basic concepts and the data on the resources of the institutional sectors which affect financial companies, non-financial sectors, public administrations and private individuals.
This change is a complicated change.
As any expert knows, the estimations in accordance with ESA 95 require breakdowns which affect no less than 60 accounting categories.
Secondly, this profound and complex change must be done in a gradual way.
As Mrs Thyssen has pointed out, changing and adapting the accounting rules requires a certain amount of time.
At the end of the day this would lead to a fair change because a sudden change would prejudice those States which have adopted the criterion of income, in other words, those which have, to a greater extent, complied with the regulation which entered into force in 1999.
We are being asked to change a regulation which entered into force a few months ago. The PPE-DE' s amendment asks for the change to be introduced gradually.
Mr President, I think we would all agree that, if we are to run the Community properly, we need a high-quality statistical base within the Community and the applicant countries.
There has been a broad welcome in the House for this proposal and the apparent ability to give priority to the revenue actually collected rather than the more notional contributions which may be due.
This is certainly a step forward.
It seems logical to use the revenue collected as the basis for determining the actual percentage deficit.
So far as the transition period is concerned, many of us will have sympathy with the need for some form of transition because, clearly, if you amend the regulations in such a way that you move from a system which is being used over a long period of time to a completely new system some time will be required.
However, I hope that the countries of the Union will not use this as an excuse, if it is passed, but seek to implement the new system as rapidly as they can - in other words, two years should be regarded as an exception and as a maximum rather than as the normal ration for the job.
On the treatment of taxes and social contributions, I agree with the rapporteur that this is a relevant way of doing the calculations and that we should take a favourable view of the criteria which the Commission intends to set because of the way in which priority is given.
Overall, this is a useful step forward.
I welcome the commitment of the Commission.
I hope that we can work together and see this translated into Community law with suitable adjustments as soon as possible.
Mr President, this debate confirms the Commission' s opinion that we need to provide for the most comparable and transparent statistics possible, since they are essential for the definition of certain basic lines for our actions, and particularly that we need finance to be clarified with regard to its legal formula.
By proposing these amendments, the Commission intended for the recording of taxes and social contributions within the ESA to be carried out according to equivalent methods and, therefore, that there be no differences in approach between the different national public administrations.
This proposal is basically of a technical nature and is intended to fill the current legislative vacuum which allows for differing interpretations depending on the position adopted by each Member State.
The Commission is very happy that our proposal has received broad support and is happy with the report adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which I will comment on shortly.
However, I firstly wish to thank especially the rapporteur, Mr Knörr Borràs, for his work, which, on this complex and technical issue, has offered us great support.
The rapporteur stresses in his report that the objective of the proposal is to arrive at the same figure, regardless of the statistical sources used, and in reality this is our objective.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has approved eight amendments and the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 7 and 8 without any difficulty.
There is a ninth amendment, presented later, which I will also comment on.
The Commission would prefer not to maintain Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 6.
The aim of these amendments differs from that of the regulation.
I understand that, insofar as certain elements of the regulation are amended, we could also discuss the model for calculation of VAT used to determine own resources, but we are talking about a radically different problem.
In response to the concerns of the PPE, I would say that, when asking for the withdrawal of these amendments, logically the Commission must commit itself to presenting a proposal at some point to introduce that amendment, which is absolutely coherent, providing for more correct figures, which we hope will be used in the future to calculate the basis of the contribution to own resources.
We hope that this approach will lead to a resolution of the problem raised.
With regard to Amendment No 9, the issue has been studied by the directorate-general of ECOFIN and by Eurostat and, having analysed the problem in detail, I can tell you, Mr García-Margallo, that, in principle, exceptions, in statistical terms, must only be allowed where a Member State is not technically capable of providing data.
This has been the case, for example, with the exceptions allowed for certain Member States within the ESA 95 regulations.
We are therefore talking about a technical problem, of not having the capacity to provide data.
In the case in question, there are no technical difficulties to justify that exception, and the regulation has been substantially amended throughout its negotiation to give it more flexibility, in such a way that, in our opinion, all the difficulties raised by the different Member States can be resolved within the margins of flexibility which the regulation allows.
This is the reason why the Commission does not consider Amendment No 9 to be acceptable.
If everything that has been said here can facilitate a convergence of the positions of both Parliament and the Commission, and if Mr Knörr Borràs and the PPE can withdraw the amendments I have mentioned, we believe that this would allow us to make progress with the adoption of the text which will, without doubt, be positive in terms of clarifying future accounts.
COM in bananas
The next item is the report by Mr Dary (A5-0093/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the Proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 404/93 on the common organisation of the market in bananas (COM(1999) 582 - C5­0277/1999 - 1999/0235(CNS)).
Ladies and gentlemen, as we now have a new report before us and a new team here in the Chamber, I must repeat what I said at the beginning.
I would like to ask for your help in making sure that we finish by 11.30 a.m., as that is when voting time begins, and we cannot overrun.
So I would be grateful if honourable Members could please keep to their speaking time, and I would also ask the Commission to help out here, although they can of course talk for as long as they wish. That way we can finish on time.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
(ES) Mr President, I will be very brief. I simply want to say that, when the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy received Mr Dary' s report, after a detailed examination of the problems facing the banana industry, we came to the conclusion in our committee that the solution proposed by Mr Dary met the absolutely fundamental conditions for its success.
Firstly, with regard to the international obligations of the European Union, not only towards the ACP countries, but also within the World Trade Organisation.
As you know, the European Union has been condemned for its regime of granting licences for this product, but has maintained the viability of the quota regime proposed by Mr Dary.
In fact, in the Commission' s current negotiations, it appears that the main suppliers would prefer this system.
On the other hand, this is the system which best defends the principle of multifunctionality of agriculture, protects the European Union producers, also protects the developing countries, with whom we have a very special relationship, is sensitive to the protection of fundamental social regulations and the protection of the environment and, lastly, it is the system which best obeys the principle of consumer protection.
For all these reasons, my committee voted in favour of Mr Dary' s draft report.
Mr President, we all want to see the end of the 'banana war' , but the immense complexity of the problem deceives no one.
Clearly the banana has become a political issue, with the dispute symbolising a certain conception of world trade, of a Europe which stands by and defends its decisions, its specific political nature and its commitment to the countries of the South.
So on this issue - I know - the Commission' s task is not an easy one.
It is torn between contradictory positions and I understand the difficulties encountered in trying to reconcile the various interests.
But while I share the desire to put an end to a trade war which is poisoning transatlantic relations, this cannot be done at any price, abandoning without compensation the principles of justice and solidarity which guide the action of the European Union.
I, for one - and there are many in this Parliament who feel the same - refuse to see Europe dictated to, even indirectly, by a handful of multinationals with colonialist attitudes and anachronistic social behaviour.
I am sorry, too, that we have not fought for the retention of a specific quota for the ACP countries which alone guaranteed them access to the market.
But the rapporteur' s proposal is satisfactory because it defends the quota system and rejects any automatic move to an exclusively tariff-based regime.
So I thank him and I also thank Mr Fernández Martín for putting the committee' s point of view.
Of course, the ACP countries know they must adapt to world trade.
But let us give them time.
Let us give them enough time, let us give them the means to produce their plants themselves, let us help them build their greenhouses.
Let us encourage organic farming and, in ten years, believe me, the price of African bananas will have fallen to the level of dollar bananas.
They will then become competitive.
If we impose the brutality of an exclusively tariff-based regime too rapidly, bananas are going to taste incredibly bitter to thousands of small African producers.
Mr President, the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on whose behalf I speak, broadly supports the report by Mr Dary and, in general, rejects the Commission' s proposal.
The European Commission has made this proposal supposedly in a spirit of consensus but, frankly, having analysed it at length with the best will in the world, I cannot find a single reason to accept it.
I take comfort in the fact that I am not the only one.
The Commission' s proposal has not been well received by anyone, neither by the Community producers, nor by the ACP countries.
It seems that the Council cannot easily accept it.
Parliament does not like it either.
What is even more serious however is that not even the United States like it.
In this proposal, the Commission not only renounces the defence of Community interests and the interests of the ACP countries but has also, in my opinion, abandoned the minimum degree of neutrality required.
The World Trade Organisation condemned the system of licences in force, which must undoubtedly be modified.
However, the Commission proposes many other things.
It proposes removing any type of quota, and I would like to ask: does it intend in the future to remove the system of aid to producers? Has the Commission decided to begin the reform of the common agricultural policy with a reform of the COM in bananas?
After bananas, will other sectors fall?
When will we stop protecting Austrian white wines, for example,?
This clearly remains an open question within the WTO.
However, after the experience of Seattle, I suppose that we should have learnt something from the point of view expressed by the developing countries and, especially, in this case, by the ACP countries, with whom we have commitments and obligations to fulfil.
It is in defence of our obligations and commitments to the ACP countries that the amendments have been presented on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking for our 'shadow' rapporteur, Mr Vatanen, and I would like to mention that this is now the fifth time since 1993 and the introduction of the common organisation of the market in bananas that the WTO has considered the Community rules to run counter to international trade regulations.
The banana controversy is a good example of how hard it is to reconcile the interests of the fifteen Member States, the Union, the ACP banana producing countries, European consumers and our trading partners.
I congratulate the Commission for striving to reach a compromise that has regard to the various interest groups.
It is right that the European Union should bear responsibility for seeing that European agricultural producers, including banana producers, earn a sufficient income.
It is not right, however, that the EU and businesses operating within its territory should suffer annual losses of around EUR 400 million because of trade sanctions by the USA and Ecuador, which are a result of our violating the GATT agreement with regard to banana imports.
I would like to express my concern regarding the consequences of Mr Dary' s report for trade policy.
To adopt the report as it is could result in a strong reaction from our trading partners, as it does not even include the possibility of talks to ease access to the market.
There is strong evidence that some Latin American countries will refuse to accept import quotas - at least not without the prospect of better access to EU markets.
For this reason, I would appeal to you to support Mr Chichester' s Amendment No 38, which states that if the EU does not abolish import quotas it will at least indicate its intention to start official WTO talks on the future distribution of import quotas.
The Union has lost the banana dispute in the WTO four times already and it cannot afford to lose a fifth time, for three reasons. Firstly, the continuation, despite the bans by the WTO, of the EU' s import quota system, which has been found to be discriminatory will lead to the continuance of trade sanctions costing hundreds of millions of euros.
Secondly, if our trading partners receive permission from the WTO to even disregard intellectual property rights, the costs of sanctions will be enormous and could cause long-term damage to EU businesses.
Thirdly, continued breaches of the regulations will hurt our image internationally in matters of trade, which might weaken the case for the European agricultural subsidy model. This, meanwhile, would have very serious consequences for the whole of European agriculture.
It is high time we showed ourselves to be credible and mature trading partners, as waking up to the realities of the present will accord with our real interests in the long term.
Mr President, the WTO has challenged our Community regulation on bananas several times and each time we have had to redefine the content of this COM and suffer the burden of the fines imposed on us as reparations for damage caused.
It is certainly not easy to find a balanced response which would satisfy our four objectives, which are: supplying consumers at reasonable prices, guaranteeing a future to our Community producers, honouring the Union' s commitments to ACP countries and, finally, at the same time, presenting a case which cannot be attacked by the WTO.
However, in the light of these four concerns, Mr Dary' s proposal is entirely apt, at least that was the feeling of Parliament' s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in unanimously supporting it, a quite exceptional occurrence for such a sensitive subject.
In fact it seems to us that the choice of maintaining the import quotas plus preferential tariffs for the ACP countries for ten years, instead of six, would make it possible to plan for the future of Community and ACP producers, who face a form of competition tantamount to social and environmental dumping.
That we are seeking elimination of any automatic movement to 'tariff only' should not be regarded as downright rejection of the measure.
Our intention is to let the situation develop in a way that is economically and socially tolerable for our producers and those of the ACP countries, without damaging the openness of our market.
So the European Union certainly has arguments to present to the WTO, so that this time our approach is recognised as valid.
Of course, the Union may have difficulty determining the quotas in the immediate future, but is that exercise any more difficult than agreeing on adjustments to the customs tariff in the 'tariff only' hypothesis? For my part I am convinced that the approaching start of the next WTO cycle should mean we can handle this issue positively in a more global context and for that I am counting on the Commission' s determination.
Mr President, it is high time that we resolved this complex and long-standing issue once and for all.
As we all know, there are many competing claims - the claims of ACP banana producers, Community banana producers, EU businesses which have been hit hard by US sanctions, the EU's role and standing in the WTO and, of course, the rights and interests of European banana consumers.
It will not be possible to satisfy fully all these claims and therefore we have to accept a compromise.
The Commission's proposal is a compromise between those who demand an immediate move to a tariff only system and those who wish to ignore the WTO rulings and stick with the flawed regime as it is.
That is why the majority of the ELDR Group supports the Commission's proposal to continue a tariff-rate quota system for a transitional period before moving to a definitive tariff only system.
The Dary report, on the other hand, is premised on the somewhat unrealistic notion that we can ignore rulings from the WTO altogether.
It gives complete priority to the concerns of EU banana producers over the equally legitimate concerns of innocent EU businesses in other sectors suffering from arbitrary US sanctions.
Most strange of all, it risks complicating matters so much further that the Commission, as stated in its proposal of November last year, will be obliged to move directly to a tariff only system.
This would be exactly the opposite of the objectives of those who support this report.
I have also heard that during the vote, which will take place either today or tomorrow, some may advocate referral back to committee.
This would be an undignified act of foot-dragging which would do nothing to address the long-term issues at stake.
We need stability for European and ACP banana producers and EU consumers.
That can be done by rejecting this report and supporting the Commission's compromise proposal.
Mr President, the common organisation of markets in the banana sector has allowed this sector, which is fundamental to the sometimes fragile economies of the ACP countries and the outermost regions of the European Union, to function.
Less than seven years have passed since the entry into force of the COM on bananas, and the Commission is now proposing a profound modification of its operation.
Furthermore, this has been preceded by disputes within the World Trade Organisation which have generated uncertainties and which have led to difficulties in its correct functioning for Community producers.
For us, a transitional period until 2006, as proposed by the Commission, is not acceptable, and we should wait at least until 2010 before deciding on possible reforms.
On the other hand, an exclusively tariff-based system is not coherent with the achievement of the objectives of the COM, given that it does not guarantee access to the market or the survival of the Community and ACP producers.
The Commission proposes a quota of 353 000 tonnes and a possible increase in the event of a rise in demand.
Given that the additional tariff quota is not consolidated, its quantity should be capable of being adapted to Community demand, not only in the event of an increase, but also in the event of a decrease.
In any event, we should safeguard the Community preference and prevent any marginalisation of Community production.
Lastly, special attention should be given to the development of the situation of the Community and ACP producers, who are already in a vulnerable position and will be even more so in a context of intense and open competition.
The Commission must carry out a report in advance assessing the consequences of the application of any modification of the system in order to provide the due compensation for its negative effects on prices and incomes as a result of the increase in the global income in question.
I would therefore, Mr President, like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to Mr Dary.
We support his report.
He has been generous with the amendments of the different political groups.
Furthermore, I hope that the Commission will send a clear political signal which will take account of his points of view.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, seven out of every ten bananas eaten in Europe come from Central America via three multinationals, all with reduced customs duties of EUR 75 per tonne instead of EUR 850.
We are giving the United States a marvellous present there!
Well, it is not enough!
The United States wants more.
Technically, what does it want? It wants the end of import licences, because the B licences give Community bananas and ACP bananas priority sales over dollar bananas.
But, most of all and politically, the United States actually wants the monopoly of the future Eastern European market for their multinationals.
What is Europe doing to face that challenge? It is divided and getting bogged down.
We are divided from our German friends.
Indeed, because of the ancient links with the 1945 German diaspora to Latin America, Germany has eaten 100% dollar bananas since 1960 - though at first they were 'armband' bananas.
So much so - it is an open secret - that the three American banana multinationals put their banana butter on SPD and CDU parsnips.
But we are also getting bogged down in technical proposals.
Thus the Commission proposes, before surrendering totally to the United States, a six-year transition period when, in essence, there would be three quotas, including the ACP quota and the dollar quota.
From 2006, there would no longer be anything but a common customs tariff which would have equal impact on the bananas of the poor of Africa and the bananas of the rich, the multinationals.
We could undoubtedly challenge that, and our excellent rapporteur, Mr Dary, does challenge it.
He proposes that the respite of six years be extended to ten years.
Another four years, Mr American executioner!
And we have tabled amendments too.
We call for regionalisation of aid, because Guadeloupe is further away than the Canaries; quarterly payment; cyclone compensation; the maintenance of the ACP quota; historical guidelines for imports, instead of first come, first served.
Well, all that is very fine, but the battle is elsewhere.
The battle is for Community preference, first and foremost.
We have to choose: either the Canaries, Madeira and the Antilles - or Chiquita.
It is regional policy that is at stake.
Do we want the outermost regions which depend 100% on bananas, like the Canaries, to survive, or do we want Dole and Chiquita to accumulate more wealth? It is cooperation policy that is at stake.
We have to choose: either Africa and the Lomé Convention, or the WTO.
We have to choose: either Europe' s social policy and human rights, or the multinational slave-drivers who produce with social costs totalling 8% instead of the 42% social costs in the Canaries, Madeira or the Antilles.
This is about protection of financial interests, because when OLAF disputes a few centimes of Members' taxi expenses yet is not interested in the annual present of two billion dollars from Chiquita, there is a problem.
The United States was found guilty of two billion dollars' worth of fiscal fraud and it has changed nothing.
When the United States alters its policy, we will discuss the mere 191 million for bananas.
When the United States stops cheating for the benefit of Boeing, Kodak, Cargil and Ford, we will discuss bananas.
In the meantime, we need long, global, political negotiations.
We must talk about Iraq, Echelon, Serbia; put everything on the table.
Sanction for sanction, retaliation for retaliation.
The banana is a moment of truth. Europe can either surrender or stand up and be counted.
There is a saying that bananas can be eaten from both ends.
Does Europe want to stand up or be eaten from both ends?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must put an end to the tug of war over a system that complies with the WTO Agreement.
The EU has not exactly covered itself in glory in this almost endless debate.
I respect the Member States' efforts to protect their banana producers against a considerable loss of income, but such considerations cannot justify persistently refusing to comply with agreements under international law.
It should be our objective to create a market organisation consistent with the WTO dispute settlement body' s proposals as soon as possible, chiefly in the interests of companies which, because of the introduction of the COM in bananas, have been forced to accept financial losses which have threatened their very existence. This is also in the interests of those who have been hit by the punitive tariffs imposed by the United States.
No one should underestimate the adverse impact of export restrictions of this kind on the economies of export-oriented countries, and above all on related jobs.
This is an area where some Member States are indulging in protectionism at the expense of others.
We pay subsidies to banana producers, we have to grapple with punitive tariffs, and we have to pay excessive banana prices in our supermarkets.
Those Member States who want to continue with these restrictions have to recognise that they are partly to blame for the current situation, because they have quite simply forgotten to make structural changes in the field of banana production.
The lack of competitiveness of EU banana production cannot be allowed to justify a refusal to accept uniform and non-discriminatory access to the European market.
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Commission' s proposal on the reform of the banana sector is negative, unacceptable and disastrous for the agricultural sector in the outermost regions and the ACP countries affected by it, which, of course, supply 40% of the Community market.
I have put this so strongly because, if implemented in the terms which have been laid out, it would lead to the sinking of the economies of thousands of families who live off this very special activity on Community islands such as the Canaries, Madeira, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Crete, not forgetting the producing areas of the ACP countries.
It would therefore lead to social and economic deterioration in regions which are already least favoured and suffering serious and permanent difficulties with their development, with horrendous difficulties in terms of conversion and which are vulnerable to the uniform and homogenous commercial measures which are taken at international level.
In my opinion, the European Commission has given in to such measures, incapable of recognising the regional agricultural reality and diversity of the countries of the Union and the need for a genuine policy of solidarity and cooperation with the ACP countries which, until recently, were colonial territories of countries which now form part of the Union.
Therefore, it is a good thing that the Commission is receptive to the report by Mr Dary, who I congratulate, and the amendments tabled, which are intended to achieve the following: correct the imbalances created by globalisation and persuade the Commission to be sensitive to the problems of banana-producing families, not to submit to imports with single customs tariffs and to fight where necessary to maintain, for a reasonable period, its commitment to the citizens and the agricultural organisations involved. These organisations make up one of the most vulnerable sectors of very special regions of the Union and the ACP countries, with the accompanying social, economic and environmental repercussions.
For many of us, bananas are a national issue, since they are related to our history and our culture.
Mr President, it is important for this House to approve Mr Dary' s report, as the Commission proposal to introduce a tariff only system for banana imports by 2006 is unacceptable.
The flat-rate system that the Commission intends to introduce would cause producers in the outermost regions of the European Union, such as Madeira and the ACP countries, to go bankrupt.
Furthermore, the fiasco at the last World Trade Organisation meeting demonstrated that the WTO is in no position to meet the expectations and demands of the public and of consumers in certain respects, such as product quality, environmental protection, training, social conditions and worker protection, as is evident from the report.
If our policies are to be consistent with our declarations of support for the ACP countries and for the development of the outermost regions of the European Union, we cannot allow agriculture in those regions and its future development - in which the production and export of bananas play a major part - to be squeezed by waves of dollar bananas from the large plantations that banana multinationals own in Latin America.
It is against this background that we are supporting most of the amendments in the report, which we also contributed to. I have in mind in particular the call for a transitional period of not less than 10 years, and which should not imply a move to a tariff only system, as the Commission should assess the impact of the new situation on prices and on the income of banana producers in these regions, so as to ensure that compensatory aid can be adjusted, based on the principle of guaranteed income for producers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the long run, we cannot swim against the tide of free and fair world trade with the common organisation of the market in bananas.
We ourselves also have to observe the rules that we signed up to when the WTO was founded.
By infringing them and thus triggering sanctions, we are already blocking access to the major US markets - and also increasingly to Latin America' s markets - for whole sectors of our economy.
We will be jointly responsible for large numbers of lay-offs in these sectors if we as the European Union do not change our stance.
That is why we - and I am now speaking on behalf of a significant minority in the PPE Group, which could be a majority the next time - support the Commission' s position.
Following a transitional period, a tariff of EUR 275 per tonne is to be introduced for bananas from third countries, from which bananas from ACP countries would be exempt.
This will protect the essential interests of the ACP producer countries.
However, the Achilles' heel of the Commission' s proposals is the lack of sufficient protection for the interests of banana producers within the European Union, essentially in the peripheral regions and the overseas departments.
They are up in arms about this omission - particularly our French colleagues, and I assume the same applies to Portugal and Spain.
Commissioner Fischler, things are not as the officials in your directorate-general perhaps claim - and I would also like to address this comment to Mr Lamy.
The arrangements for EU banana producers are not as good as they might be.
There is still a need for a political compromise here.
The structural measures envisaged in Title III of the Regulation on the common organisation of the market in bananas need to be considerably strengthened.
If we made just 10-20% of the total punitive tariffs of EUR 400 million, that is to say EUR 40-80 million, available as agriculture budget appropriations, instead of diverting it for other purposes, we could help our banana producers a great deal.
I call on the Commission to improve the structural measures and so open up the way for a compromise which is fundamentally in accordance with your proposals.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the banana regime of the European Union has already been condemned four times by the World Trade Organisation. After the United States, Ecuador has also now obtained permission to take retaliatory action for an amount of USD 200 million.
Let us not forget that such punitive measures serve absolutely no purpose at all for our banana producers, but have extremely negative effects on European industry and employment.
Therefore, we cannot afford to be condemned like this again. We must now come to an arrangement as quickly as possible that complies with the rulings of the WTO, with the promises made to the ACP countries and which is in the interests of our producers and consumers.
That is not easy, but the present system is untenable.
We must, therefore, urgently find and accept a compromise and a more liberal attitude. In view of the fact that the Commission proposal, in my modest opinion, meets these requirements, I shall support it.
Commissioner, I too remember the European Union introducing a regulation in 1993 on the organisation of the market in bananas, so as to ensure protection of outlets and income for Community producers and to guarantee the exports of the ACP countries to the Community market.
Although they do not produce a single kilo of bananas, the United States has complained to the WTO about the Community banana import regime.
Their one aim was to defend the interests of their great banana companies which are effectively ravaging Latin America and which already dominate over 70% of the world market.
In 1999, the WTO panel, orchestrated by the United States, condemned the Community' s import licences system.
The Commission has submitted to that verdict by amending the market conditions to end up with a 'tariff only' system in 2006.
The implementation of this new regulation, which actually goes beyond the WTO ruling, would call into question the distribution of Community and ACP products and would aggravate an already fragile social situation, especially in the French Overseas Territories where the selling price of bananas had already fallen below 3 francs in 1998 and was less than 2 francs in 1999.
I am glad the Committee on Agriculture has rejected not only the amendments championed by the intermediaries of the American multinationals, but also the Commission' s proposals.
I entirely approve of the Dary report which opposes the automatic move to a 'tariff only' system and which defends the principles which presided over the establishment of the common organisation of markets, especially Community preference.
By adopting the Dary report, we will be sending the Council and the Commission the clear signal that our Parliament is determined to defend the interests of Community and ACP producers, to make the WTO recognise that the preferential agreements constitute development aid instruments.
Our vote will also express our rejection of any compromise with the United States that would sacrifice the Community and ACP producers to the profit of the dollar banana.
Mr President, I would like to start by putting some questions to the Commission in the person of Commissioner Fischler.
Why is it that for the banana trade you are advocating pure and simple liberalisation with effect from 2006, whereas in the case of meat, milk and cereals, which absorb 68% of EAGGF Guarantee Section resources, you refer to the special characteristics of European agriculture, as the Commission did in Seattle?
Surely it is unacceptable to be applying two different sets of criteria.
Is the Commission not guilty of double standards here?
Are bananas the poor relation of agricultural production in the European Union? Should the European agricultural model not be used to safeguard banana production in the European Union which will certainly be threatened by the liberalisation being proposed?
Is there also a plan to liberalise trade in meat, milk and cereals?
Will the Commission yield to the more radical approach adopted by the United States at a time when the Americans are significantly increasing their support for agriculture? Is no attention being paid at all to the fact that bananas are the main agricultural product in four outermost regions which are amongst the 10 most disadvantaged regions in the European Union?
What is the relevance of Article 299(2) of the Treaty, which provides for special treatment for the outermost regions, to the proposal to amend the Regulation on the COM in bananas? The multi-functionality of European agriculture, which is a key aspect of the European agricultural model I have already mentioned, needs to be reflected in this reform, since in Madeira, for example (the region that I represent in this House) the environmental aspect of agriculture is as important as, or even more important than, its economic aspect.
If banana production were to cease on the island of Madeira, it would represent an enormous environmental catastrophe as well as a serious loss of income for thousands of families.
Furthermore, as we saw in Seattle, the new round of WTO negotiations should be a genuine development round.
For this reason, we can justify giving priority to bananas produced in the European Union and in the ACP countries when we reform the common organisation of the market in bananas and this would be perfectly legitimate.
And it is only by maintaining import quotas that we can achieve this objective, which is perfectly compatible with World Trade Organisation rules.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, banana production has a special significance in certain less developed countries, signatories to the ACP agreements, island regions such as Crete, and, in particular, outermost regions such as Madeira, the Canary Islands, Martinique and Guadeloupe.
We are not talking about fully developed regions in the centre of Europe which have countless alternatives when faced with changes in market conditions, and where the common agricultural policy invests most of its resources.
For this reason it is not possible for us to accept radical changes in the Community' s trade policy in this field unless we take full account of its regional impact and unless we take the necessary measures in this field in terms of economic and social cohesion.
The Lisbon European Council instructed the Commission to present as quickly as possible practical measures aimed at implementing the Commission' s report on the application of Article 299(2) in relation to the outermost regions.
Agriculture is absolutely vital to many of these regions, which are hoping that the Commission will act swiftly and decisively to maintain regional conditions for agricultural development.
Mr President, I believe that these Commission proposals will mean that a number of African, Caribbean and Pacific countries will go out of business.
That will lead to poverty and even more deprivation.
Yes, we have to simplify the system.
It is far too complicated at the moment.
But I believe those countries need time to diversify properly and that is why I would agree with a ten-year transitional period.
Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte, who produce in Latin American countries, have not seen their production levels go down since 1993.
Their access to the market has not gone down since 1993.
All they want to do is get more access to the market at the expense of the ACP countries.
Yes, we have to find a solution.
Producers in the UK are being held to ransom by the USA.
We must not let ACP countries go to the wall just to save companies in the EU.
This is not just about bananas; it is about trade with developing countries overall.
I am quite aware of the inconsistencies in the common organisation of the market in bananas and associated relations with the WTO.
It is difficult to take into account the various requirements and follow a policy which will favour the weakest parties and supply a high-quality product at affordable prices.
Having said that, it is not that I do not think it is possible, as put forward in the Commission proposal, to adopt, as of 2006, a system which does not impose quota restrictions or tariffs on ACP countries or any other countries.
Postponing this until 2010 would not make much difference, although that would undoubtedly give us more time to find less damaging solutions.
The Commission' s proposal is too similar to the proposal of the Council of Ministers, which does not consider it necessary to allocate part of the budget to a policy of cooperation and protection of the Community' s primary producers in accordance with WTO negotiations.
Rather than adapting to the WTO system, we should endeavour to reform it without giving in to blackmail by US multinationals which make a profit out of exploiting poor countries.
We are all aware of the illiberal acts of these multinationals, which are destroying and corrupting both people and the environment.
The challenge should be to reform the WTO.
The Seattle Summit and the huge public demonstrations made the need plain.
We must reform the WTO, without adversely affecting development and protection policies for poor countries, small producers and craftsmen, but, as per the Dary report on facilitating access to the market for fair-trade organisations in order to invest in environmentally-friendly and socially viable farming practices.
This should be the European Union' s policy.
Mr President, I speak from three perspectives.
That of external trade, where I believe the European Union should uphold progress towards a liberalised world-trade order; that of industry, European industry, where jobs and industries are at threat from sanctions and they are innocent victims of these sanctions; and I speak from the perspective of a UK Member of this House who is tired of receiving letters of complaint from companies whose business and whose workers' jobs are at threat from the sanctions through no fault of their own.
I regret various aspects of this Dary report.
I have to say that this timescale of ten years is wholly unrealistic and unreasonable.
I regret the attempt to cling on to quotas and to interfere with trade in that way.
Of course, I also regret proposals for higher rates of tariff, which is another intervention in trade.
The amendment, which has been put down in my name and others, calls for a negotiated settlement of this dispute, which is World Trade Organisation compatible.
That is essential.
We have been down this road several times now and innocent companies and jobs are at risk and being threatened as a result of our failure to come to grips with this situation.
I support the Commissioner's efforts.
He has a difficult task.
I have to say that I cannot think of anything more reasonable or pragmatic or sensible than the amendment which a number of colleagues have supported me in submitting.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, like many of my colleagues in the Group of the European People's Party, I reject the Dary report, but there are also some amendments that seem very reasonable to me.
I have in mind above all Amendments Nos 33 and 34.
Amendment No 33 calls for financial support for ecologically sound farming in third countries also.
Amendment No 34 calls for fair trade bananas to be supported regardless of their country of origin.
By the way, I think it is a shame that the Greens are not taking part in this debate and also highlighting these aspects.
But through these two amendments this House is clearly indicating that it also wants a global approach, and there are certainly small producers who behave in an exemplary fashion, not only in the traditional ACP countries and in the EU, but also in Latin America and in the non-traditional ACP countries.
In Ecuador, 60% of banana producers are small producers with less than 20 hectares, and they are suffering from unjustifiable discrimination.
The world is not just black and white, as some people would have us believe, and the Latin American countries have been quite justified in their complaints to the WTO about our common market organisation.
That is why contradictions exist within the Dary report, which, on the one hand, advocates a global approach and support for fair trade bananas throughout the world, but, at the same time, continues to create difficulties of this kind for small producers in Latin America.
I consider fixing the quotas for ten years to be a step in the wrong direction, and I believe that the Commission was already going the right way before this.
To my mind, they could have moved rather more forcefully towards liberalisation, but they were going in the right direction.
I would of course be delighted if Mr Chichester' s amendment, which I have also signed, were to be accepted, but I would like to tell Commissioner Fischler that even if this amendment is not accepted, Amendment No 5, which was accepted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, will give him the remit of coming up with a workable compromise acceptable to the WTO.
That is why I believe that the Commission will, in any case, have a mandate to negotiate, including a mandate from Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, at this point in the debate I am not going to enter into a discussion of the Dary report, nor discuss its fundamental points, but I do wish to say that the official position of the PPE Group is in support of the entire Dary report.
That is the official position.
Commissioner, your proposal does not accord with the objectives nor resolve the problems being suffered by the banana industry and politically it is not worthy of our producers. Mr Schwaiger recognised this a moment ago.
Nor does the Commission' s proposal comply with our international commitments.
However, the most serious problem is that, immersed in difficult negotiations with the World Trade Organisation, we are showing publicly, in black and white, where our weak points lie.
Therefore, Commissioner, I ask you to listen to this Parliament - not simply to hear us - and to take note of the directions indicated in the Dary report and the opinions of the two competent committees.
This Parliament is sending you a very clear political message, unanimously from the committee responsible in this area, and I hope that this House will support it by a majority. Judging by the great political sensitivity which you have always shown, I am sure that you will understand that message.
Furthermore, I am sure that you will find a viable route in the direction indicated.
Therefore, Commissioner, act politically, find a solution and listen to this Parliament.
This is not the time to fail to take account of this House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank you, Mr Dary, for your wide-ranging and appreciative comments on the Commission' s proposal to amend the common organisation of the market in bananas.
By way of introduction, I would like to stress that the Commission takes a positive view of the principles behind many of the amendments, such as the system of historical references for the allocation of quotas.
In fact, these reflect our discussions with the WTO complainants and the ACP producers.
However, the Commission believes that we should not amend our proposal at this delicate stage in the discussions, and I therefore have no alternative but to reject your amendments.
I would like to give my reasons for this rejection area by area.
The first area is the deletion of references to a tariff only system and an automatic move to such a system after a certain transitional period.
I will make no bones about it: the main objective of our proposal is to bring the COM in bananas into line with WTO rules.
The most important part of the proposal is the introduction of the tariff system after a certain transitional period.
On the other hand, this requires agreement with interested parties on the management of tariff quotas during the transitional period.
The Commission firmly believes that your wish to replace the tariff system with a permanent tariff quota system will only lead to renewed attacks in the WTO.
In addition, I would like to point out that the proposal already includes a request to the Council to empower the Commission to enter into negotiations under Article XXVIII of the GATT, so there is no need to refer to this in the regulation.
The second important area is the issue of managing tariff quotas.
The Commission is attempting to negotiate with the principal suppliers about allocating tariff quotas on the basis of historical references.
It would not be advisable to additionally define the individual options until these discussions have been concluded.
Furthermore, with regard to the demand that the tariff quota administration system should not have an adverse effect on operators and producers already present on the market, I must say that if we have to modify the whole COM now, there can be no guarantee that things will stay exactly as they were.
That really would be demanding the impossible.
Our discussions have also covered other alternatives for managing quota C. However, the Commission believes that it would not be appropriate at present to modify its proposal for auctions in relation to quota C, because auctions of this kind are, in any case, a reliable method of allocating licences.
The third area, which relates to quotas, is the extension of the period for maintaining the quota system to at least 10 years.
The Commission considers that extending the period in this way would reduce the credibility of the central theme of our proposal, which is that the COM in bananas should be brought into line with the WTO rules as soon as possible.
As we explained in the explanatory memorandum, the quickest way to do this is through the tariff system.
The Commission has proposed the transitional period because it gives time for producers within the Community and in the ACP countries to prepare for the new system.
Furthermore, if we moved automatically to a tariff only system, there would be no point in having an interim review or an appraisal at the end of the transitional period.
With regard to the tariff preference for ACP countries, the Commission believes that EUR 275 per tonne is sufficient to secure access to the Community market for these countries.
A higher preference would also lead to renewed attacks in the WTO.
If the higher preference limited Latin American countries' access under quota C, this could be interpreted as if we wanted in practice to introduce a special ACP quota.
I shall now turn to the special support measures for our own producers in the European Union.
As I have already said, the principle aim of the Commission' s proposal is to bring the COM into line with the WTO' s final ruling.
The final ruling does not affect our intra-Community support system.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that this is a deficiency payment system, which means that it has a built-in guarantee. If prices fall, subsidies automatically increase.
My last point is about measures giving equal access to organic and fair trade bananas.
There are already horizontal measures in place guaranteeing equal access for organic bananas from third countries and organic bananas from the Community.
In addition, the European Union can grant subsidies for the production of organic bananas under the agri-environmental measures envisaged in the development plan for rural areas.
Measures to support sales of organic bananas can be financed under national and regional programmes.
Fair trade bananas would also come under the horizontal measures for fair trade, which, I hope, will soon be adopted on the basis of a Commission communication to this effect.
As you know, this communication is not just about fair trade bananas, but about fair trade in general.
In addition to the possibilities I have just mentioned, it is also possible to provide support for developing production of organic bananas and also of fair trade bananas in the ACP countries under the Regulation establishing a special framework of assistance for traditional ACP suppliers of bananas.
The Commission is grateful for the wide-ranging discussions that have taken place here today.
Even if it feels unable to accept Parliament' s amendments because of the current international situation, I must say that the whole dossier has been handled very constructively and comprehensively in the various committees that have contributed to the Dary report and in the recent hearing held by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
I shall suspend the sitting until the President arrives.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. and resumed at 11.30 a.m.)
Vote
Madam President, at the appropriate moment, I would ask you, pursuant to Rule 161(1) of the Rules of Procedure, to request that the rapporteur and the Chairperson of the Committee on Budgetary Control explain their position in relation to the coherence between the explanatory statement and the resolution that we are voting on.
Madam President, Mr Barón Crespo, Chairman of the Socialist Group, also directed a comment to me.
Last Monday we did indeed have a wide-ranging discussion in the Committee on Budgetary Control on the admissibility of this question, and on whether, as chair of the committee, I should make use of Rule 161.
Almost every member of the committee spoke on this.
I myself have several times looked into the connection between the resolution, as it now appears in the compromise, and the explanatory statement, which reflects the rapporteur' s position and is her responsibility.
I established the connection, and I said in the clearest terms that the language in the explanatory statement before us is very harsh.
Nevertheless, I do not think I should comment on the style and choice of words in a censorious way, because I would then have to do the same for every explanatory statement.
As I see it, there is a factual connection and I therefore decided not to reject this explanatory statement and informed the committee accordingly.
Madam President, I tabled this amendment, along with 37 colleagues from the European People' s Party, because I was appalled at the way the media had exploited the explanatory statement which, as everyone should know but obviously does not, is the responsibility of the rapporteur and in no way commits the House.
I was struck by the contradiction in tone between the explanatory statement and the content of the resolution. They are radically different.
That is why I tabled this amendment.
Having said that, I think you are right, Madam President, to declare it admissible because the vote this amendment involves is not a vote for or against the explanatory statement, but is simply intended to highlight the distance between that explanatory statement and the resolution.
After the explanations given by both Mrs Stauner and Mrs Theato, who has stated publicly in the clearest possible way that the explanatory statement is only the responsibility of the rapporteur and in no way commits the House, I consider the amendment no longer necessary, and that is why I am withdrawing it.
Madam President, I would like firstly to point out that the rapporteur has not mentioned what is laid down in Rule 161(1) which - and I quote the French version - says explicitly: "... l' exposé des motifs doit être conforme au texte de la proposition de résolution..." [the explanatory statement must accord with the text of the motion for a resolution].
I understand, after the chairperson of the Committee on Budgetary Control' s explanation of the basis of the question, that her explanations should be recorded in the Minutes, not only for parliamentary purposes, but also for the purposes of any possible use of this explanatory statement.
Therefore, bearing in mind that the rapporteur has not spoken on this fundamental issue, I understand that the amendment still makes sense and the Group of the Party of European Socialists accepts it.
In other words, Mr Barón Crespo, you will take over Amendment No 5, on behalf of your Group, pursuant to Rule 139 of the Rules of Procedure.
Is that correct?
Yes, Madam President, and furthermore, I would be grateful if, on such a sensitive issue, the rapporteur could speak on the basis of the question, as she is required to do.
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I shall support Mr Barón Crespo' s proposal.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Barón Crespo, I have not specifically reiterated this point, but I am sure you will realise that when I was drafting both the resolution and the text of the explanatory statement I was very acutely aware that they needed to be in accord with each other, and I have really searched my soul about this over the last few weeks.
I did not think it was necessary to say this again explicitly, but if you wish I will gladly do that.
I like to think that I am sufficiently conscientious and intellectually able for you to assume that I would have considered this long and hard, and that I am happy to take responsibility for this and to face all the consequences that you seem to be threatening me with.
on Amendment No 5
Madam President, just so that things are clear, I withdrew the amendment because I considered it unnecessary, but as it is being voted on I obviously support it and I invite my friends to do the same.
After the vote on Amendment No 5
Madam President, although some people are pleased at the decision that has been taken, this creates a very dangerous precedent.
Whenever, in future, there is an explanatory statement which some in the House do not like we have established that every time we will be able to vote against if we wish to do so.
We had a problem when we had to prepare the voting list, which was that we could not find the amendment tabled by the Greens, the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party for point 5.
I do not know whether it is possible to have it read out so that we have the chance to adopt a position on it.
Madam President, there are two amendments tabled to Mr Kuhne's report which propose to postpone discharge for Parliament.
These amendments make reference to the Secretary-General.
If either of these amendments is adopted, will you, as President of Parliament, assume full political responsibility for their content and take the consequences if the demands set out in them are not met by the deadlines.
Mr van Hulten, as President, I take responsibility for declaring these amendments admissible.
I am not expressing an opinion on their content.
Parliament has not yet voted on them.
The problem facing me is whether they are admissible or not.
I am telling you that I sincerely and honestly believe, after examining the position, that these amendments are admissible.
If they are voted through they will obviously be implemented, like everything else we vote for.
on Amendment No 4
Madam President, we have an amendment before us which allegedly sums up the substance of two observations by the Court of Auditors very concisely.
If you think it is necessary, I can read out the full wording of these observations, although personally I would prefer not to.
I just wish to say that I am opposed to this amendment, because I really do not think it serves any useful purpose for us to include tendentious summaries of official documents in our parliamentary documents, even if said summaries are tabled by the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
on Amendment No 1 from the Greens/ALE Group
Madam President, Point 6, on which we have to vote in this amendment, stipulates a deadline of 15 May.
If we were to accept this, we would be contradicting a paragraph that we agreed earlier.
Earlier on, under Paragraph 10 of the proposal for a decision to be precise, we agreed that we wished to see options for buildings management and a financing plan, taking into account the situation on negotiations, by 1 July.
We have already agreed on this, and this was also unanimously agreed in committee, because we accepted that this was only possible if we took account of the situation on negotiations.
If we were now to set a deadline of 15 May without taking account of the negotiating situation, we would not only be agreeing to something which it was agreed in committee simply cannot be done, we would also be contradicting something that we have already agreed upon.
I therefore appeal to the Greens to withdraw this point, failing which I would recommend that you vote against it, so as to ensure consistency with the rest of the decision.
Madam President, this is a compromise amendment which was negotiated among groups and then, of course, examined by the various groups last night.
Our Group supports this compromise amendment with, however, the exception of one word: "plus" - "plus proportionnelle".
Presumably the English version is "more proportional".
We cannot accept that word.
However, under the Rules, it is not possible to ask for a split vote on a compromise amendment.
I note that if Amendments Nos 100 and 101 were both to be adopted, it would come to exactly the same text as this compromise amendment, except for the problematic word "more".
As I know that colleagues in other groups had exactly the same problem with this word, I would suggest to friends and colleagues that it might be appropriate not to accept the compromise amendment but to vote instead in favour of both Amendments Nos 100 and 101, which are compatible, and that would achieve precisely the result desired by many people.
Thank you, Mr Corbett.
But I have to apply the rules.
A compromise amendment has been put before me.
Mr Brok, could you respond to Mr Corbett' s remarks, and say whether you agree to change the compromise amendment?
Madam President, we would like to keep the compromise amendment.
I put the question to Parliament.
Are there any objections to our putting this compromise amendment to the vote? I thought that was the case.
Madam President, I think it is fair that it be put to the vote.
However, my Group and many others will vote against it in order to support Amendments Nos 100 and 101, which will achieve almost exactly the same effect with the slight improvements.
Yes, Mr Corbett, but I have to ask Parliament if there are any objections to my putting the compromise amendment to the vote.
Madam President, this amendment has been tabled under the Rules of Procedure and it should be voted on accordingly.
If it is rejected, we can then switch to the rules suggested by Mr Corbett.
That is the simplest approach.
Let us have a vote on the amendment, and if it is rejected, we can proceed as Mr Corbett has suggested.
Excuse me, Mr Brok, Rule 130 of the Rules of Procedure is very clear.
It says that if there are any objections to putting a compromise amendment to the vote, the President of the European Parliament must leave it to the wisdom of the House.
I am only following the Rules, just as I should.
(Parliament decided not to put the compromise amendment to the vote)
on Amendment No 118 from the Greens/ALE Group
Madam President, there seems to be a lack of correspondence between the different linguistic versions of Amendment No 118.
The French version simply refers to "les autorités compétentes", whereas the English version refers to "the competent devolved authorities" which, in English, has a more significant meaning.
We established our voting lists in favour of this amendment on the basis of the French version.
However, I understand that the original version is, in fact, the English one, in which case, unless the word "devolved" in the English version can be removed, I will recommend my Group to vote against this amendment.
Madam President, the French text takes precedence.
Right, thank you for making that clear.
on compromise Amendment No 227
Madam President, your services were informed yesterday that we would not sign this compromise amendment.
on Amendment No 174 from the PPE Group
Madam President, we wish to request a split vote, first on the term "four-fifths" and then on the rest.
Actually, a split vote on the original text is scheduled, that is, if the amendment is rejected.
Are you withdrawing this amendment, in which case we will hold a split vote on paragraph 29? Is that right, Mr Brok?
Madam President, if we were to do that here, we would not need to present the oral amendment on Paragraph 29.
So it would be easier to do that here.
So what you want, if I have understood properly - and I also want to check with the rapporteurs - is for us to vote on paragraph 29 with an oral amendment.
Is that right?
Madam President, I have the highest regard for Elmar Brok, but in this case he is mistaken.
The only point of the compromise amendment was to add the word "continuing" in English or "anhaltend" in German to "serious" , which is "schwerwiegend" in the German version.
That is the old text.
We have not agreed on the four-fifths majority, so it is just too late for this now.
We cannot split this again now.
If the amendments are withdrawn, I will take the vote on the original text.
Now, on the original text of paragraph 29, I believe I had a request for an oral amendment from one of our rapporteurs.
So I will give him the floor to present his oral amendment and then we will have a split vote and roll-call vote on paragraph 29.
Mr Dimitrakopoulos, if you would like to present your oral amendment, Parliament will decide.
Madam President, the oral amendment consists of adding the word 'continuing' to the second part.
That is clear.
Are there any objections to putting this oral amendment to the vote?
Madam President, this interesting idea simply takes up in oral form the compromise amendment that has just been rejected.
It is not really in order with our normal procedure.
Are there twelve Members against putting this oral amendment to the vote?
(More than twelve Members rose to oppose the vote on the oral amendment)
Madam President, I must refute what Mr Brok said.
A number of compromises were made and we respected those compromises, except in two cases where there are problems, as we sometimes find when we take compromises back to our various groups.
I proposed a solution in both cases.
In this case, we informed your services yesterday that we would not be signing that compromise amendment.
Thus, it should never have been tabled in our name.
It may have been a compromise between the ELDR and the EPP Groups, but it was not a compromise which we signed.
before the final vote
Madam President, I would like to make a political declaration on behalf of my Group in relation to an issue which I believe has left a nasty taste in the mouths of all the groups in this House: the vote on paragraph 3, on the composition and distribution of seats in the European Parliament.
My Group will vote in favour of the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report, but I propose that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, in its wisdom, be charged with the task of finding a solution to this issue, because it is enormously sensitive throughout this House.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
President.
I warmly congratulate our two rapporteurs, Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen.
(Loud applause)
Mr President, I would have been tempted to follow the example of Mr Cox and abstain from the vote on Mrs Stauner' s report, but, in all honesty, I have to say that before I left to come to Strasbourg, some pensioners asked me what I was going to do here.
When I told them that my tasks included voting on the postponement of discharge, which we are discussing today, they asked me to remind the President of the House that the pensioners and their party, which I represent, consider that expenditure takes up too great a part of the European Parliament' s budget. They therefore call for expenditure to be halved and the resources freed up in this way used to increase the pension funds of the 15 Member States, which have been in serious difficulties for too long now.
- The Liberal Group today supported the amendment tabled by Jean Louis Bourlanges of the Group of the European People's Party, which called for the resolution to be separate from the explanatory statement.
By way of explanation, consider the following quotes:
"One might conclude that the Commission had decided in some fields to draw a veil over and forget past events.
The Commission has sought to distract the public attention from unresolved internal problems in the present by making glib and bombastic promises for the future."
"The Commission apparatus which wielded excessive power even under President Santer has now become even more powerful; moreover it is all too often dominated by coteries".
By any standards these comments are excessive, unfair and, in the context of the discharge procedure, wholly unsuitable.
On the final vote on the resolution we were faced with three choices today: to vote in favour, to vote against or to abstain.
We chose to abstain and this requires explanation.
To vote in favour of the Stauner report is to vote for postponement of granting discharge which, all things considered, we believe should be granted now.
As we explained in the Budgetary Control Committee, our preference was to vote "yes" to reform but "no" to visiting on this Commission the sins of its predecessors.
In the Liberal Group we have been consistently in favour of many of the elements in the Stauner report such as access to documents - it is a duty of the current Commission to provide access to documents.
But the political question remains - is this the moment and is this the issue for an apparent public stand off between Parliament and the Prodi Commission? We think not.
If we do not vote in favour of the report it is because we want to indicate a preference to do business on reform now rather than later because we believe, on the evidence to date, that this Commission is a reformist Commission.
Voting against the report would merely have the effect of sending the report back to the Budgetary Control Committee without a clear expression of what happens next and by what means.
We are against such an approach.
So we have chosen to abstain.
This is a motivated abstention rather than an indifferent one.
Our Group preference was to have voted to grant discharge while promoting reform which we accept is also the view of the European Commission.
Unfortunately, today's choice did not allow for such an option and so we have chosen to abstain.
The French Socialist delegation has voted for Mrs Stauner' s report postponing the granting of discharge for the financial year 1998, because it resulted from a compromise by our political group with the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
This resolution reflected the desire of the majority of members of the Committee on Budgetary Control to break the deadlock over Mrs Stauner' s proposed report in the committee, but also in the European Parliament, which was putting our institution' s relations with the Commission onto a defiant footing.
The French Socialist delegation is glad a majority was achieved to pass Amendment No 5 highlighting the slippage between the resolution put to the vote and the explanatory statement.
By that vote, Members have reaffirmed that only the rapporteur is responsible for the explanatory statement.
The proposed report Mrs Stauner submitted to the Committee on Budgetary Control caused consternation far beyond the members of the committee itself.
Indeed, the proposed document bore little relation to the discharge procedure, which is about approval of the accounts for the financial year and the propriety of the expenditure.
The resolution put to the vote in Parliament today presents a catalogue of reasonable demands and recommendations to the Commission.
The postponement and the response time given to the Commission allow it to answer the questions from the Committee on Budgetary Control within the set time.
They leave the Committee on Budgetary Control sufficient time to prepare a report which will rule effectively on the implementation of the 1998 budget by the Commission.
- (IT) The delegation of the Democratic Left to the European Parliament, of which I am chair, voted against the Stauner report on the 1998 discharge because it does not agree with the basic line taken.
The report does not focus on the Commission' s actions during 1998, to which the discharge relates, pursuant to Article 205a and Article 206 of the Treaty and Article 89(5) of the Financial Regulation, but is lingering over alleged cases of fraud, most of which occurred in the early nineties during the terms of previous Commissions.
The Prodi Commission has undertaken a vast reform, which is necessary in order to modernise the European civil service and to reorganise its structures in preparation for the many challenges which it will have to face over the next few years.
We, too, are convinced that reform of the budgetary control and programme management procedures is essential, for these systems have proved to be inadequate.
Indeed, it is necessary to ensure not only that past cases of fraud cannot be repeated, but also, and above all, that the level of management errors identified by the Court of Auditors in its annual report is greatly reduced.
In any case, it is not by attempting without fresh proof to reopen disciplinary proceedings which have now been concluded that we will achieve a thorough, effective reform of the Commission.
It should be recalled that 80% of Community funds are managed at national level, and improving the financial management of the European Union budget could not therefore be contemplated without the cooperation of the Member States.
Furthermore, we fear that behind this unjustified vicious attack lies an attempt to use such incidents to undermine and sabotage not just Commission actions but the work of the European institutions in general.
We cannot therefore support the perpetrators of these schemes, and, for this reason, we voted against the report.
Kuhne Report (A5-0097/2000)
- (NL) In view of the inadequate management with regard to the buildings and personnel policy contracted out, as mentioned in the Kuhne report and in the report by the Financial Controller, we are of the opinion that discharge to the European Parliament in respect of the implementation of the 1998 budget must be postponed.
The European Parliament must operate the same high standards with regard to its own management as are required of the Commission.
We are convinced that discharge can only be granted to the European Parliament in respect of the implementation of the 1998 budget, provided that specific measures are taken to buck this deplorable trend once and for all.
We are very much in favour of a specific action plan through which such mismanagement can be prevented in the future.
Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen Report (A5-0086/2000)
Mr President, I would like to underline that no one in Parliament will agree with every single item and every single paragraph of this important report.
That is clear.
The overall message that we are giving to the IGC is that this Parliament wants the IGC to be ambitious, to think long term and not short term and to address all the issues that need to be addressed if a Union of nearly 30 Member States is to be able to function effectively.
We have put a large number of suggestions on the table.
Clearly, not all of them will be taken up in the form which this Parliament has advocated.
But we know that.
We think it is right that the IGC should look at these issues, look at them seriously and come up with appropriate solutions that will enable the Union to work.
My Group, as you know and as Barón Crespo has just said, has some reservations on particular points.
They relate, in particular, to the composition of this Parliament, where unfortunately attempts to reach a compromise position fell down at the last minute.
We must come back to this issue and put forward a proper proposal on a matter which is of direct concern to this House.
I am confident that we can do that.
We were very near to a compromise agreement.
We should be able to crack this one.
We are happy to vote for the report, given the circumstances, and with the reservations I have just described.
Mr President, I have voted against this report.
I say this with regret.
I have voted against this report for almost the same reasons that Mr Corbett has voted in favour.
I have the same objectives: an ambitious Intergovernmental Conference which deals with the real issues and looks to the long term.
I believe that this Parliament is sending a confused message to the Intergovernmental Conference through this resolution.
Reading it will not give a true idea of the message that Parliament wanted to send in relation to this Intergovernmental Conference.
Therefore, Mr President, while I am in absolute agreement with many of the things said in the resolution, I disagree with many others and regret, for example, with regard to an issue as important as the Court of Justice, that the resolution essentially fails to provide for the necessary reform of this institution, nor does it provide suitable clear guidelines in this respect.
For all these reasons, I regret, once again, to say that I have voted against.
Mr President, we are opposed to the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report because it proposes an integrated, centralised, rigid model of Europe, which is the opposite of our Europe and which can only block enlargement.
We find three points in this report particularly harmful.
The first is the federalisation of the institutions, by making qualified majority voting in the Council and codecision with the European Parliament the general rule, introducing transnational European elections, and strengthening the powers of the Commission in an attempt to turn it into a European Government.
The necessary but unacknowledged counterpart of all these measures is the marginalisation of the national democracies.
The second is making a constitution out of the Treaties and adding a restrictive European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, gradually subjecting the peoples to texts which go far beyond them and which will be imposed on them, without any of them, individually, being able to escape that.
Thirdly, the totalitarian drift of so-called European democracy, with the introduction of mechanisms, in particular making the application of Article 7 of the EU Treaty more flexible so that a Member State can be suspended, mechanisms, then, which will give a handful of leaders authority to operate a thought police across the continent, even against peoples expressing themselves democratically, as in Austria.
One of the most controversial points that arose during the debate was the contradiction between the anticipated proliferation of Members of the European Parliament because of enlargement, and the ceiling of 700 Members the Treaty of Amsterdam has imposed on our Parliament.
That limit was chosen to make the European Parliament resemble a national one, but all it does today is set the countries against each other, as none of them will accept a reduction in its quota of Members, and that is understandable.
The Europe of Nations Group proposes putting an end to these conflicts by breaking through the ceiling of 700 Members.
Why not a European Parliament of 1000 Members? It could work in variable geometry formations and its originality would have a powerful impact on the imagination.
Mr President, I shall endeavour to explain myself clearly.
I voted against this report and I was not alone in doing so.
We did so with conviction on behalf of the European regionalists of the ALE.
We form part of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, but by taking this position we wanted to express our disillusionment over what is being discussed here today.
This agenda is, of course, too restricted.
Europe is very ambitious when it comes to enlargement, which is a good thing, but it is not ambitious enough to provide a real democratic structure that emanates from the regions and the people.
We regret that all amendments that serve to incorporate this dimension into Europe have been rejected.
We have had to conclude that, contrary to our expectations, the power of the large states will increase and the power of the European Parliament and the possibility of our regions being represented within it, will decrease.
We therefore hope that the IGC will prove successful in getting vigorous reform under way.
We had to vote against because we do not fully identify ourselves with the structure of this democratic Europe.
Mr President, like many others in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I have voted against this report for many reasons, but above all for three reasons.
First of all, it is not, as many perhaps believe, federalism which is now a salient feature of Parliament' s attitude but, rather, centralism.
It is the big States which are obtaining more power, those and the central institutions.
There is no trace of decentralisation and the redistribution of power and no sign of any substance being given to the subsidiarity principle.
Secondly, no adjustments are being made in anticipation of enlargement, which is perhaps the most serious feature of all.
If a Union of 28 Member States is to be successful, it must obviously have a flexible structure.
There must be clear definitions of powers in regard to what is to be decided centrally, what is to be decided in the Member States and what can be decided at regional level.
There is nothing of this, however.
If such a large Union is to be a real success, a large proportion of the decisions now made centrally must clearly be decentralised to a lower level.
Otherwise, the whole system will implode.
Thirdly, this is no democratic, constitutional process but a case of a power game behind locked doors.
I have therefore voted against.
Mr President, I express my disappointment at my Green colleagues and my own group, because I was left with no opportunity to vote on two key amendments on the common, foreign and security policy.
One was an amendment on the arms industries and arms exports and the other was on nuclear weapons.
It was very important for us to have an opportunity to say whether nuclear weapons play a role of any kind in the future of the common, foreign and security policy.
Unfortunately, my Green colleagues deemed these amendments unnecessary, which raises the question whether the Greens are changing their policy on nuclear weapons and on the arms industries.
I voted against the report itself, because I feel that more centralisation means less safety for smaller Member States, less democracy, less involvement of people at a local and national level.
This is not in the interest of the ordinary people of Europe.
A new constitution for Europe that overrides national constitutions, a legal personality for the European Union and, of course, more militarisation: this is not the kind of Europe I want.
I want a de-militarised Europe, a democratic Europe where the people have the real say, not bureaucrats.
Mr President, I voted for Amendment No 100 to the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report on the European Parliament' s proposals for the Intergovernmental Conference, which, I regret, was not adopted by the House.
It laid down that elections to the European Parliament should be held as soon as possible using the same lists of candidates in all 15 Member States, that is to say genuinely European lists.
I feel that this amendment is based on a point which brings the citizens much closer to Europe and the European Union: the citizens who are called on to vote realise that the candidates are the same throughout the 15 States, and this would show them that Europe does exist and that there is a reason for its existence.
This is why I voted for this amendment.
Mr President, I voted in favour of the motion for a resolution although I did not agree with the individual points.
I regret that, at the end of the day, only 238 Members voted for the text, and I would like to ask those responsible for the running of this House to check whether the procedure followed really made sense.
To my mind, the fact that so many amendments were tabled is a sign that there had been a failure to reach sufficient agreement beforehand, and the fact that not even the compromise amendments were adopted is a sign that we were not yet ready to vote on this in plenary.
I would also ask you, Mr President, to raise this vote in the Bureau, and to consider whether we cannot arrange matters differently, so that we avoid a mammoth voting session like this, which has lasted two and a half hours.
And I am sure that in the end there was not a single Member here who could understand what this was all about.
We should make sure we do not have procedures like this in plenary in future!
Mr President, although I am broadly in favour of the Dimitrakopoulos report on the Intergovernmental Conference, I abstained on the final vote.
In fact, in the course of one paragraph - paragraph 32 - the scope of which will certainly have escaped the majority of Members, the door has been opened to calling into question the current status of public services in the context of international trade negotiations, especially WTO negotiations, without the agreement of a Member State. This is proposed on the pretext of amending article 133 of the Treaty and, in fact, making it possible to break the principle of the agreement of all the States in establishing the position of the European Union as regards services, investment and intellectual property rights.
The rejection of Amendment No 57, which would have removed this ambiguity, therefore leads me to abstain on the text although, I repeat, I support its main thrust as regards the IGC.
And I am quite sure the IGC will not retain the current wording of paragraph 32.
Mr President, I voted for the Dimitrakopoulos report, although I do have some reservations about it.
The Dimitrakopoulos report does not go far enough for me in terms of EU federalisation and integration.
I believe that we should go much further, and move more determinedly, towards federalisation and away from nation states, towards the regions and the peoples of Europe.
I hope, even if the omens for this Intergovernmental Conference are not the best, that there may still be an opening here or there.
I am enough of a realist to know that this is a gradual process.
That is why I voted for this report and I hope that we will take many more such steps in the near future.
Mr President, I abstained in the final vote for several major reasons and also some minor ones.
It was difficult for me to support the resolution because it mixes the worst in with the best.
On the other hand, I did not want to vote against a resolution which probably represents the best the European Parliament can do at the moment.
The obvious conclusion seems to me that Parliament itself still has a long way to go to meet the profound aspirations of the majority of European Union citizens.
Moreover, the rejection of two compromise amendments during the sitting bears witness to the difficulty of finding representative majorities, as does the rejection or acceptance, by the narrowest of margins, of institutional measures of the highest importance.
To take just one example, Parliament was only able to maintain a compromise on the composition of the Commission with difficulty, but truth obliges me to state that the compromise incorporates two contradictory ideas.
We have passed a resolution actually stating that the number of members of the Commission should be limited, as long as it is not.
Is that really a very sensible position for a Parliament to take?
Ainardi, Bakopoulos, Eriksson, Figueiredo, Frahm, Koulourianos, Meijer, Herman Schmid, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), in writing.
We, Members from different parties in the GUE/NGL Group, have not voted in favour of the report concerning the European Parliament proposal for the IGC.
We oppose the development of the European Union towards a state with superior powers to those of the Member States in all aspects of policy, as the report in practice advocates.
Instead of transforming the EU into a state, we are of the opinion that the Union must be democratised.
Democratisation of the European Union must be achieved through a decreasing of the Commission's power, the introduction of openness and transparency to the legislative practices of the Council, and strengthening of the role at EU level of the national parliaments.
We further protest against the report's advocacy of the militarisation of the EU.
We insist that the EU remain a civil organisation and that the non-aligned countries' special status be respected.
We are of the opinion that the Intergovernmental Conference must reconsider the construction of the EMU, reassessing the currency union's lack of democracy and its right-wing policies.
We demand that the stability pact be reconsidered and Article 56 of the Treaty be rewritten in order to bring the ECB under democratic control.
We reiterate our condemnation of the failure to submit the EMU project to referendum in all of the Member States.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament today voted against the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen on the European Parliament' s proposal for the IGC.
We consider that in insisting on a broad agenda, the European Parliament is not facilitating what should be the main task of the IGC, namely that of resolving the outstanding institutional problems regarding the composition and voting rules of the Council, the Commission, the European Parliament, the Court of Justice and the other institutions, and so making enlargement possible.
The European Parliament ought instead to take up the important task of ensuring that the essential issues which need to be resolved are debated in such a way that Europe' s citizens are involved and can form their own views on the important subjects being debated.
The EU should build on a common political will to achieve the overriding objectives relating to peace, the environment and prosperity in Europe, focusing on the interests of its citizens.
The debate in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which adopted the draft report with a very small majority, plus the fact that more than 200 amendments have been tabled for consideration in plenary, show that this report cannot contribute to creating a common basis for the IGC.
Despite the fact that we do not consider that the European Parliament should propose all these amendments to the Treaty, we have elected to adopt positions on the individual points, as will be evident from our voting.
However, we would like to draw particular attention to the points which we think the IGC should concentrate on.
As regards the composition of the European Parliament, we have voted for calculation of the number of Members from each Member State according to a sliding scale so that the European Parliament' s composition reflects the size of the individual States, populations as well as the fact that there are benefits to be had from making the European Parliament more representative by enabling the different political viewpoints in the individual countries to be represented there.
As regards the composition of the Commission, it is important that all States have the right to a Commissioner with the same rights and obligations, particularly as in our opinion, the Commission must continue to enjoy the right of initiative.
When it comes to the voting rules in the Council, we consider that a balance must be maintained between the interests of the small and large states. This can be achieved by laying down requirements for a certain number of votes in the Council which must, at the same time, represent a simple majority of the total population of the Union.
We are open to discussing increased use of qualified majority voting, although we do not consider that it should be the rule.
Each particular instance of a transition to qualified majority voting must, however, be analysed and debated thoroughly and a balance struck between what is fundamental as far as the individual Member States are concerned and the need to make cooperation work.
It is especially important that this matter be discussed on an on-going basis with Europe' s citizens.
All Member States must demonstrate the political will to make cooperation work.
It is this will and the desire for common solutions which the EU must also build on in future.
We are not, therefore, worried that, following enlargement, the EU will be paralysed unless a thorough reform of the Treaty is carried out now.
In parallel with the IGC, the Member States are discussing a common European security and defence policy.
These discussions are far from complete, and we do not think that the European Parliament should table amendments to the Treaty before the outcome is known.
We continue to believe that the EU should not be an actual defence alliance.
In this area, the EU must focus in particular on conflict prevention and civil crisis management.
Also in parallel with the IGC, the creation of a Charter of Fundamental Rights is being debated.
We would like once again to stress that we want a charter in the form of a political document and that it should not be raised at the IGC with a view to incorporating it into the Treaty.
The commitment of the Portuguese members of the Socialist Group to the European project is a constant point of reference in its work and in its founding principles.
The building of Europe is today, more than ever, essential for peace and progress not only in Europe, but also throughout the world.
The European project is a gradual process, which has been able to adapt to changing realities and to respond to the vicissitudes of history.
We find ourselves today at one of those key moments at which the European Union needs to rethink and adapt its policies and its institutions so that it can respond better to the challenges of enlargement and of the effective and democratic functioning of its institutions.
Advocacy of a progressive political union, pursuing the federalism which was at its origins, strengthening European citizenship and the economic and social cohesion and cultural diversity of its peoples are essential and inseparable aspects of the options before us.
The institutional implications of enlargement cannot be allowed to damage the fundamental balance - which the Treaties successfully express - between the twofold legitimacy of the union of peoples and the union of states which underpins the European project and which has made a decisive contribution to shaping its institutions.
The deepening, at global level, of European integration with a view to political union must satisfactorily preserve this fundamental balance which has ensured the success of the European project, bringing together states with such divergent demographic and geographical characteristics.
Enlargement should not in any way be used as a pretext for making institutional changes which would gratuitously upset the equilibrium carefully created since 1957, as these institutional changes have no direct logical or political link with enlargement.
It was out of respect for these principles and convictions that we recognised the value of, and voted for, the European Parliament' s proposals to the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) on the revision of these Treaties.
And it is also out of respect for these principles and convictions that we have felt obliged to vote against the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report, which, in our view, attempts to respond to the challenges of enlargement by means of solutions which would lead to a significant imbalance in the twofold legitimacy of the union of peoples and the unity of states.
Accordingly, with regard to the solution proposed for the composition of the European Parliament, we believe that insufficient attention has been paid to certain aspects which, in our view, are fundamental. These relate to the need to eliminate a quantified minimum number of seats in the European Parliament for each Member State and to introduce a degressive approach which can correct the negative effects of strictly applying the rules of proportionality.
Furthermore, we believe that the references in the report to the composition of the Commission are also not totally clear.
We do not believe that the proposal in the report describes with sufficient clarity and openness the adoption of a criterion putting all Member States on an equal footing, whether the Commission is made up of one Commissioner per Member State or of a college of 20 Commissioners.
The same thing could also be said about the idea of a simple rotation principle and about how this would work, which we believe should be properly spelt out if the scenario of a Commission consisting of only 20 members is adopted.
With regard to qualified majority voting in the Council, we believe that the system proposed is not in fact the most acceptable.
In fact, although we agree with the double majority principle, we believe that the solution to be adopted should involve Council measures requiring two thirds of the votes of the Member States and a simple majority of the Member States with a majority of the population. We believe that this approach will ensure greater cohesion in the decision-making process.
As regards the rotation of the Council Presidency, we are also unable to accept the new system proposed, under which the presidency of the Council in its various formations shall be divided among the Member States so that the same Member State may not hold the Presidency of more than one of these formations at the same time, and shall rotate by periods of at least two years.
We consider that this new rule does not guarantee the necessary balance and equality in the representation of the Member States in the Council.
The issue of electing 10% of the Members of the European Parliament via European lists is also insufficiently clear.
We believe that the wording used in the report to describe this option is relatively vague and does not as such offer any guarantees that it would be used to create genuine European public opinion of the kind we would like to see.
The European list is a good idea, especially if the only people included in it are individuals who represent a genuine point of reference in the spirit of Europe.
Nevertheless, it is our view that this concept should be considered in greater depth so that the fears that we have legitimately expressed here can be set aside.
We are also unable to accept the rule on qualified majority voting for decisions concerning appointments.
Until now all decisions in the European Union relating to appointments have been taken unanimously, and there has never been a lack of appointments or any kind of crisis.
We believe that the unanimity rule has the virtue of ensuring a greater balance and of avoiding possible conflicts between large and small countries within the European Union.
However, the spirit in which we have voted should not be confused with the motives of those who have a self-seeking and limited vision of national interest.
Unlike certain others, we want a politically strong European Union capable of sharing sovereignty and of making an ever greater contribution to social progress and to the well-being of its citizens.
The Portuguese members of the Socialist Group will continue to work, alongside those political forces which favour the broadening and deepening of our political union, to find better formulas for pursuing this political struggle.
For procedural reasons we have made this statement immediately, but some of the points remain dependent on a more detailed knowledge of the changes that have been made.
We wish to add that, because of the speed with which we proceeded to the vote, it was not always easy to understand what we were voting on, there being a certain degree of confusion, specifically about votes on amendments and paragraphs. The Portuguese members of the Socialist Group therefore reserve the right, after studying the results of the vote, to change the way they have voted.
- (ES) The process of enlargement which the European Union has started has brought it to a crossroads and its ability to continue making progress will depend on the direction it takes.
It can therefore be said that the IGC, which is charged with proceeding with the institutional reforms which will make enlargement possible, holds the future of the European Union in its hands, since it has to decide between the minimal reform laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam and the broad reform which will allow the Union to accept the countries which are preparing for accession and pursue its task in favour of respect for human rights, peace and social justice.
Therefore, given that we are at a crucial moment in the process of European integration, it was appropriate for Parliament to send a message indicating what it understood to be the key points of the reform.
In the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report which we have just approved and which I have voted in favour of, Parliament indicates that we have to make further progress and that, to this end, we have to give the European Union the necessary means to complete the shared project of peace and well-being initiated 50 years ago.
Let us hope that the IGC is aiming sufficiently high for the great challenges facing the Union and that it follows that path which Parliament has set for it.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs adopted an amendment seeking to add the following sentence to Article 289 of the EC Treaty:
'In the case of the European Parliament, it shall decide, by an absolute majority of its members, on the location of its seat and of all its meetings' .
I would like to point out that this issue is not on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference. The IGC' s principal aim is to reform the institutions in preparation for enlargement.
Furthermore, the issue of the European Parliament' s seat is covered by a Court of Justice ruling of 1 October 1997 and laid down in the protocol on the seat of the institutions annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
That ought to be enough to ensure that this question is never raised again.
To those who envisage building a Europe where the places of work and decision making are concentrated on one site only, I say that today, more than ever, we must build a democratic Europe, close to all its citizens.
The very identity of Parliament and the powers it claims depend on that.
As a French Socialist Member, I am therefore very much opposed to any proposal that would call into question the Strasbourg seat of the European Parliament.
Madam President, that is why I have voted against this motion.
- (SV) Enlargement of the European Union is one of the most important issues for the future of Europe.
The aim of the present Intergovernmental Conference is to prepare the EU for this enlargement. If enlargement is to be implemented successfully, certain institutional changes are required.
The EU must become more efficient and more democratic, and a balance should be maintained between the small and large countries. Moreover, it is important that the Intergovernmental Conference should be concluded before the end of the year so that the process of enlargement which has been embarked upon is not delayed.
The report on the Intergovernmental Conference is the European Parliament' s contribution to that conference.
It discusses both the necessary institutional reforms, about which no conclusions were reached in the Treaty of Amsterdam, and a number of additional questions which must also be dealt with prior to enlargement.
We, the Swedish Members, Mr Pierre Schori, Mr Jan Andersson, Mr Göran Färm and Mrs Ewa Hedkvist Petersen, support the main features of the report, but we would highlight the following points on which, to some extent, we have different opinions, which is why we abstained from voting in the final ballot.
The role of the European Parliament is to represent the people in the Union.
Enlargement means more States' representatives in Parliament.
If an efficient decision-making procedure is to be maintained, there must be a change in the way the seats are distributed.
We advocate a ceiling of 700 Members of the European Parliament.
The number of seats allocated to each country is determined through a system of degressive proportionality on the basis of the country' s population.
Should a system with a single European constituency be introduced, the number of Members should not be increased.
A new weighting of votes in the Council is a prerequisite for successful enlargement of the EU.
It is important that the solution should be a permanent one and not need to be changed in connection with any future enlargement. It ought to strike a balance between the principles of, on the one hand, 'one country, one vote' and, on the other hand, 'one citizen, one vote' .
An alternative would be for the weighting of votes in the Council to be calculated on the basis of the root of the population in the individual countries.
We believe that each Member State should have a Member in the Commission.
The Members of the Commission work for the whole Union and are important if a consensus between the Member States is to be achieved.
The Commission should therefore be able to draw upon knowledge and experience from all the countries in the Union.
In that way, the legitimacy of the Commission would also be strengthened.
The task of protecting the Union' s interests against fraud is to be carried out by the individual Member States' institutions and not by a supranational authority.
It is nonetheless important and desirable that there should be European prosecutors in each Member State and that they should cooperate.
Unanimity in the Council must be required in questions of a constitutional and fundamental nature, as well as in questions affecting general security and defence policy.
Closer cooperation between at least a third of the Member States cannot apply in the case of defence cooperation.
EU cooperation is, in the first place, a civilian European project and ought to be distinguished from military cooperation.
The Member States have different backgrounds where military alliances and neutrality are concerned.
We made great progress in Cologne and Helsinki by preparing ourselves for preventive crisis and conflict management.
It is therefore important that the Treaty should reflect the difference between civilian and military cooperation.
Military aid of a kind which places countries under obligations to each other has no place in the EU' s Treaty.
We are not prepared to dispense with the veto in regard to military cooperation.
- The agenda of the IGC has now been set by the Member States.
We now know its general scope, and it is clear that much of the content of this resolution, regardless of its merit or lack of it, has nothing to do with it.
While Parliament is fully entitled to be aspirational, it is a mistake for us not to have focused our input into what the IGC is actually going to discuss and decide.
I fear that not doing this will damage Parliament's reputation and standing, and will not be as helpful to the IGC as it could be.
- (EL) The citizens of Europe, especially workers, farmers, small and medium-sized enterprises, women, the young, the nouveaux pauvres, all those who suffer under the policies of the EU, are already voicing their anger and disagreement, some more forcefully than others, with the choices being made by the European Union.
Unfortunately, instead of heeding the anxiety and supporting the claims of all these classes of society, the resolution on the Intergovernmental Conference kow-tows to capitalist forces and adopts the decisions made by the monopolies to militarise Europe and intervene in third countries, including militarily, in order to limit further still the national independence and the grass-roots sovereignty of individual countries.
With the Single European Act and the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, the ÅU is now beginning, under the pressure of enlargement and the new order, to address issues which it was unable to solve at previous intergovernmental conferences.
Despite proclamations to the contrary, what we have before us is an integrated plan of attack by capitalist forces on the democratic, social, collective and personal rights and freedoms which workers have fought hard to acquire within the context of bourgeois democracy.
The European Union is being used by imperialists and multinationals as a battering ram to break the people' s resistance and make them give up their fight for a better tomorrow.
The efforts being made, supposedly in the name of democracy and the "effectiveness of the institutions" , seek mainly to serve the interests of monopolies and they will inevitably be opposed by the workers and people of Europe.
What is the implication behind generalising the majority voting rule by introducing majority voting, in terms of both the number of States and the number of EU citizens, if not complete indifference to, and degradation of, the interests of the "smaller" countries, of the less developed regions, of the weaker classes of society and of the working and grass-roots classes of the EU in general?
How else are we to interpret the abolition of a country' s right of veto when its vital national interests are at stake?
What is the point of rotating Commissioners' nationalities and not rotating the presidency of the Union if not to exile a supposedly small country from the centre of power for long periods of time so that it is basically unable to defend its interests and the interests of its people, insofar as they can be defended within the framework of the European Union?
What is the point of limiting the number of MEPs, despite the increase in the number of Member States of the European Union, if not to silence those voices which criticise capitalist forces and their plans and promote political processes which brook no alternatives and which are confined to vapid changes of power which pose no threat to capitalism?
Why is the role of national parliaments being eroded by substantially limiting democratic scrutiny?
Why is the weighting of votes in the Council being changed for the benefit of the large countries, at the expense of smaller countries?
There is only one conclusion to be drawn from the EP resolution, which the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece will be voting against, and from the Commission' s recent proposals.
The people of Europe can once again expect no good to come out of this Intergovernmental Conference.
They alone can defend their rights by conducting their own fights, fights which the EU will face in ever more acute form, ever more dynamic form, despite all its efforts to mislead, pull the wool over everyone' s eyes and sugar the pill.
Fights which will lead to coordinated action by the peoples of the EU, to a strong, pan-European, grass-roots front opposed to the EU and its policies and fighting for a different sort of Europe free from rulers, exploitation and war.
The institutional changes envisaged with a view to the enlargement of Europe, whether relating to the composition of the Commission, the weighting of the representation of the Member States or qualified majority voting, do not answer the basic questions we face ten years after the fall of the Berlin Wall about the kind of Europe we live in.
European Union policy detaches the most developed regions from any sense of solidarity, accelerating the break up of multinational federations.
It imposes forced privatisation.
Above all, it leads to the policy of a pyromaniac fireman in the Balkans, where all the political, social and environmental consequences still have to be reckoned up.
The stability plan for South-East Europe is a failure: the declarations of loyalty to NATO by the governments of Eastern Europe do not prevent the European Union treating them with contempt and imposing anti-social policies on them.
We must build a Europe capable of enlarging towards the East and the South, to all peoples who democratically express the wish to join.
A genuine public debate, involving all the peoples in drawing up a charter of rights and a common plan for society, would allow us to make progress towards that.
That is why we have voted against this report.
I am sorry I could not vote in favour of the report which contains the European Parliament' s proposals for the Intergovernmental Conference, despite the efforts made, especially by the rapporteur, Mr Dimitrakopoulos, to humour small Member States and look after their interests to some extent.
It is inadmissible to seek to cut the smallest national delegation, the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg' s, by a third, without giving any details about reductions to the large delegations.
There are other excesses in this veritable shopping list. I denounced them yesterday in my speech and Parliament has adopted them, in particular as regards the composition of the Commission and the decision-making procedures.
Unanimity cannot be limited to constitutional decisions.
It is completely unrealistic and utopian to think that the members of national parliaments will ratify a treaty which contains such dismantling of their rights, as useless as it is unacceptable, and such a veritable castration of the national parliaments.
The Intergovernmental Conference is not intended to increase the powers of the Union; the point of the operation is to improve the functioning of a Union enlarged from 15 to 26 or even 30 Member States.
Through these excesses a majority of this Parliament has done Europe a disservice.
, in writing. (SV) The Intergovernmental Conference is an historic opportunity for Member States to transform the EU into a democratic, open and efficient organisation, which is why we regret that the governments of the Member States do not have the political will to carry out an in-depth reform of the Union.
We therefore welcome the fact that Parliament wishes to accept the challenge to reform the Union along these lines, but we wish to clarify our position as follows.
A Union of 25 to 30 Member States cannot operate in the same way as a Union of 15 Member States. Instead, we need both an overview of the institutions' working methods and a clearer distribution of labour between the Member States and the EU.
The EU can only function efficiently and democratically if it deals exclusively with cross-border issues and leaves other issues to be resolved mainly at national level.
The difficulty for the Intergovernmental Conference is to find a delicate balance between the desire to create an efficient and democratic Union and the need, at the same time, to reflect the historic balance of power between small and large Member States. In other words, it must be borne in mind that the EU is a Union of both peoples and States.
On this basis, we think it is important for the present Intergovernmental Conference to establish the size of the Commission at one Commissioner per Member State.
With regard to the distribution of power in the Council, the Commission has proposed a system of 'double simple majority' voting on certain questions. This means that a majority is required from the Member States, but also that these States should represent a majority of the citizens if a decision is to be implemented.
This is important from a democratic perspective in view of the fact that, in this way, the voting clearly reflects the will of the people.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party supports the Commission' s proposal but would emphasise that small countries should not be placed at a disadvantage.
Parliament ought to have 700 seats, distributed among the population on the basis of a degressive proportional scale.
We are well disposed towards trying out a new system involving European lists, which means that elections for a limited number of the 700 seats could take place within the context of a single constituency.
We are aware of the fact that European parties at present have little support among our citizens, but we believe that a supplementary system involving European lists would, in time, lead to an increased European identity.
An EU of approximately 25-30 Member States will lead to more countries wanting to exploit the opportunity that exists for a number of them to go further than others in certain areas of policy (so-called closer cooperation).
We do not think it is appropriate to see this as a permanent solution to the problem which will arise when the EU is enlarged.
The risk entailed in a Europe 'à la carte' is that the whole integrity and basic idea of EU cooperation will be lost.
The solidarity between cooperating States would be in danger of becoming fragmented, something which might have very undesirable consequences for the Union as such.
Flexibility of this kind ought to be seen, rather, as a temporary alternative for countries which are not yet ready, or sufficiently well prepared, to enter into deeper cooperation.
The wording in the Treaty of Amsterdam about closer cooperation is therefore an adequate and acceptable solution.
Too many parallel concentric circles create a system which is difficult to supervise.
The Union' s common objectives should be promoted within the context of such cooperation, and no Member State should be excluded from participating.
We welcome the EU' s increased opportunities to pursue a credible foreign and security policy so that the EU can assume increased responsibility when it comes to solving conflicts in the vicinity of the EU.
At the same time, we would emphasise that this development ought not to lead to our having two parallel and competing organisations for resolving conflicts.
It is therefore important to emphasise that the development concerned must take place in the context of close cooperation between NATO and the EU and that representatives of these organisations must sit down together as soon as possible and agree upon a satisfactory distribution of labour.
- While not able to endorse every dot and comma of this report, I support its broad thrust.
If we are to make a success of enlargement a number of key reforms are essential.
A Union unable to make decisions would not serve the purpose of existing or applicant states.
Therefore,
we must increase the use of qualified majority voting in the Council in order to avoid paralysis in decision taking,
we must limit the number of Commissioners so that the Union's executive remains efficient
and we must limit the number of MEPs to 700 to enable Parliament to function effectively.
We must continue to improve the Community's capacity for external action and further democratise key areas of the Union's activities.
- (PT) Once again, the European Parliament finds itself compelled to adopt a maximalist position on the institutions, a position bereft of any realism.
As usual, it is going all out for an unfettered federalist approach.
This is reflected in the proposal to almost totally eliminate the unanimity rule, to make the codecision process the norm, to institutionalise the European political parties, to create a European electoral club, to integrate the Western European Union, to strengthen Europol, and, to constitutionalise the Treaties in a far-reaching way.
These are ideas from which we have always unequivocally distanced ourselves and will continue to do so.
However, this report also proposes new and unacceptable ideas.
On the pretext that it is necessary to adapt the institutions to the prospect of enlargement, it is now being suggested that there should be a disproportionate strengthening at various levels of the decision-making powers of the large countries and an intolerable reduction of the decision-making powers of the small- and medium-sized countries. All this suggests and implicitly encourages the creation of political inner cabinets, which are totally unacceptable, and which will make it easier to achieve 'enhanced cooperation' .
We are, of course, opposed to such ideas.
At the same time, if the European Parliament approves a report like this, it will appear to be indifferent to situations which are obviously urgent, such as the need to overcome or at least mitigate serious democratic deficits; the need to modify the monetarist principles - in particular the Stability Pact - which are the root cause of today' s social scourges such as unemployment and unstable employment; to change the Statute of the European Central Bank so as to ensure greater transparency and appropriate controls and limits on its powers; and to make the existing principle of economic and social cohesion a reality, which is a vital step in creating a Europe of the future based on solidarity.
The European Parliament could demonstrate its worth by adopting these policies.
But if it opts for the proposals contained in the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report, this will suggest that it is becoming increasingly remote from the people it is supposed to represent.
We will therefore be voting against the report.
- The complexity of the IGC process inevitably requires a complex response from the European Parliament.
The Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report covers a wide range of issues which could be considered in the framework of the IGC which is taking place over the remainder of 2000.
The debate which has begun between Member States is reflected in the points of view expressed within the European Parliament, as is the tension over the scope of the IGC.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party believes that it is imperative to conclude the IGC before the end of 2000 in order to leave the EU fully prepared for enlargement.
In order to achieve this, we believe that the scope of the IGC should be restricted to "tidying up" the outstanding points from Amsterdam, plus a small range of other issues.
EPLP Members voted in accordance with this approach, reflecting our concerns over the following areas:
There are doubts over the practicability of a European top-up list from 2009 of 10% of MEPs to be elected on a single European constituency.
We have concerns over the workings of a European Public Prosecutor's office whilst being concerned to protect the Union's interests and resources against fraud throughout Community territory.
Likewise, the legislative measures in criminal matters in respect of fraud damaging the interests of the Union will need to be carefully constructed.
The EPLP believes that unanimity cannot solely be restricted to constitutional items, as issues including tax and social security must be dealt with at national level.
Constitutionalising the Treaties and division into two parts is not acceptable to the EPLP, and the same concerns about unanimity apply here.
The EPLP wishes to see a Charter of Fundamental Rights, but until the content of the Charter is determined, the question of giving it binding legal force should be left open.
Whilst greater coordination is required at European level over our airspace (i.e. Eurocontrol), service provision should remain at national level - the Commission has never suggested a single agency and Eurocontrol already exists to coordinate.
The Commission has not previously called for the establishment of a single European air traffic control agency and the request in this report is superfluous.
- (SV) As representatives of the Swedish Christian Democrats, who view enlargement towards the East as being clearly the most important issue for the EU, I wish to make the following remarks before the Heads of Government and State discuss the European Union' s powers and forms of decision making at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
1) There ought to be one Commissioner per Member State (paragraph 10).
This is about the Commission' s legitimacy and future and about its being able to claim popular support.
2) There ought to be at least six Members of the European Parliament per Member State and, thereafter, a degressive proportional system as at present (paragraph 3.2) and not, as the Committee on Constitutional Affairs proposes, only four Members per State, followed by a strict proportional system.
This is required if it is to be possible to mirror the political breadth and diversity in each Member State.
3) There ought not to be any pan-European lists or single European constituency (paragraph 4).
So as not to make the distance between electors and elected representatives still greater, the Member States should remain as constituencies.
4) 700 should not be set as the upper ceiling for the number of Members of the European Parliament (paragraph 3).
Instead, a certain flexibility should be possible, depending upon the number of Member States in the EU.
5) No EU financing of parties which operate at European level should be introduced, nor should any democratically dangerous and arbitrary suspension procedure (paragraph 6).
6) Decisions by qualified majority voting in the Council should not be taken on the basis of a simple majority from the Member States. Instead, it ought to be a two-thirds majority (paragraph 8), and this in order to win legitimacy.
7) A decision as serious as that of suspending a Member State from the EU should require the unanimous agreement of the other Member States and not, as proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, the agreement of four-fifths of the Member States (paragraph 29).
8) Social protection should not be regarded as an issue of Community interest (paragraph 42).
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, this ought instead to remain an issue to be legislated on at national level.
9) The financing of the EU should not be completely independent of contributions by the Member States (paragraph 44.4).
10) Respect for neutral States' solutions in the field of defence policy and for their right to make their own decisions should be clearly upheld within the framework of the CFSP (paragraph 34).
11) To make it easier for citizens of the Member States to know which institutions are responsible for what, the principle of subsidiarity (to which there are unfortunately no references at all in this report) should be integrated into the Treaty in such a way that the EU' s powers are concentrated upon clearly defined, cross-border core issues.
The national parliaments and local authorities should play an important role by ensuring that the principle of subsidiarity is respected and by monitoring governments' action in the Council.
- (SV) When the European Parliament today stated its position on the Intergovernmental Conference, I advocated solutions which also provide for the interests of the small Member States.
The trend within Parliament towards less understanding of smaller countries' needs will increase the antagonism between Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
I am concerned that there is no desire to find a balanced solution regarding the weighting of votes within the Council of Ministers and regarding the number of Commissioners who should provide for the interests of both large and small Member States.
Through my Group, I have tabled an amendment aimed at guaranteeing that all of a particular country' s nationalities and regions are represented in Parliament.
I also supported the proposal which emphasised the right of regional ministers to participate in meetings of the Council of Ministers on matters which fall within the scope of their autonomy.
However, I would express my satisfaction at the fact that so much attention has been devoted to the way in which the EC Court of Justice operates.
The Intergovernmental Conference must now give consideration to Parliament' s constructive proposals.
I am extremely surprised at the proposals which would give Members of the European Parliament the right to participate in the appointment of the judges.
Finland supports the proposal that the Commission might be given a mandate to conduct trade negotiations in regard to services and immaterial rights following decisions in the Council with a qualified majority.
When the Council in this way reaches a decision about a negotiation mandate, Parliament' s consent ought to be requested.
Otherwise, there will be a loss of democratic and parliamentary control over the trade negotiations.
Since I do not consider the report to be in earnest with regard to the demands for decision making in the Council, to the way in which judges are to be appointed and to the number of Members of Parliament, I voted against the report in the final vote (238 votes in favour, 147 votes against and 73 abstentions).
Because the report is far-reaching in its scope and because there is considerable disagreement about it, Parliament' s point of view will be of little significance.
That concludes the vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 2.02 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
I would just like to ask whether Mr Berlusconi' s name was included by mistake in the attendance register in the Minutes of yesterday' s sitting.
I do not remember Mr Berlusconi being present.
Mr Frassoni, the department responsible will, of course, check up on this in the simplest way: we will ask Mr Berlusconi or his assistants directly whether he was present yesterday.
Mr President, with reference to Mr Frassoni' s intervention, we sent a letter to President Fontaine this morning.
We, too, would like to know how Mr Berlusconi, who is tied up in an electoral campaign in Italy, came to be included on the attendance list; we would like to know the identity of the joker who played this trick, which is in appallingly bad taste, or whether there is something going on which has nothing to do with politics.
We therefore asked the President of the Parliament, Mrs Fontaine, to carry out an internal enquiry, which we hope will take place during the mini part-session at the beginning of May.
This is certainly a most regrettable incident, Mr Fiori, and I hope that the internal enquiry will shed some light on the matter.
Topical and Urgent Debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Iraq
Mr President, it is very important to point out that sanctions are themselves a form of warfare.
They are targeted at the most innocent civilians, at the innocent people in societies, especially children, the most vulnerable.
The sanctions on Iraq have become a weapon of mass destruction against the helpless people there.
Over 200 children die there every single day.
This is not acceptable.
We cannot allow this to go on.
Denis Halliday, who resigned his position as Director of the UN Humanitarian Mission in Iraq in protest at the sanctions, confirmed the UNICEF statistics that 5 000 to 6 000 children die every month as a direct result of sanctions.
Mary Robinson, the High Commissioner for Human Rights, has been speaking out against sanctions for a long time.
She said you cannot expect her to condemn human rights abuses in other parts of the world and let the United Nations itself be responsible for what is happening in Iraq following the sanctions.
In February Mr Hans von Sponek, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, followed in the steps of Mr Halliday when he also resigned in protest at the on-going sanctions and the bombing of the Iraqi people.
Within hours of his resignation, the head of the World Food Programme in Iraq since January 1999 also resigned in protest at the sanctions.
These resignations must cause the world community to reconsider the justification for the continuing sanctions policy and also the bombings.
I would like to point out that 70 Congressmen sent a letter to Bill Clinton in the United States asking him to lift the embargo, asking him to de-link economic sanctions from the military sanctions that are currently in place in Iraq.
It is not just here in Europe that people are concerned, but right across the world.
If anyone looked at the very good documentary by the world-famous journalist, John Pilger, they would see what is happening there.
Can we allow this to go on without saying something about it? It is a blatant violation of international human rights laws.
The sanctions are targeting the most vulnerable in society and making them suffer yet, at the same time, the elite in that society and the people who are part of the Saddam Hussein regime do not suffer from the sanctions.
It is the ordinary people who suffer.
We cannot allow this to go on.
It is not right and the US Congressmen who sent the letter to Bill Clinton are quite right: we have to de-link economic sanctions from the military sanctions that are currently in place.
We also have to address the bombings that are taking place without any UN mandate.
That is absolutely unacceptable.
A whole family was wiped out by these bombings, as shown in Mr Pilger's documentary.
This is something we cannot ignore and we must push for an end to this inhumane policy.
Mr President, firstly let me say to my colleague and friend, Ms McKenna, that there is nothing in what she said that I do not agree with.
No Member of this House can remain unmoved by the harrowing situation in which so many Iraqi people find themselves.
The facts have been presented by respected international bodies such as UNICEF.
We have no reason whatsoever to doubt their veracity. There are shortages of essential foodstuffs and agricultural infrastructure resulting in severe nutritional deficiencies.
Iraq, once one of the most economically advanced countries of the region, is being reduced to underdevelopment.
But let there be no illusion as to the role of the Iraqi regime in the suffering of its people.
The consistent refusal by the regime to fully implement United Nations resolutions has led to a situation where the sanctions remain firmly in place almost ten years after the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq.
Furthermore, the refusal of the regime for five years to accept the oil-for-food programme has certainly contributed to the humanitarian situation.
We, in Parliament, are well-intentioned towards the people of Iraq and are serious in our desire for a peaceful and lasting solution.
We must concentrate our efforts on convincing Iraq to implement the United Nations resolutions.
We must make it very clear in this forum that United Nations resolutions are legally binding on all members of the United Nations.
The European Parliament must not be seen to undermine the legitimacy of such resolutions in any way.
Any such action would be grist to the propaganda mill of the Iraqi regime.
It is within the power of the regime to have the sanctions imposed by the United Nations lifted.
To date, the regime most regrettably has preferred to allow its people to be threatened by disease and starvation than to respect international law.
Full implementation of Resolution 1284 obliges Iraq, among other things, to cooperate with the Red Cross in overseeing the repatriation of detainees.
Let us recall that last January this House voted unanimously a resolution calling on Iraq, as a minimum, to provide answers to the Red Cross as to the whereabouts of the missing Kuwaitis for which there is documented evidence.
I too have met some of these people.
I have shared their suffering with them.
Let us clearly understand that is a tragedy in itself.
We are caught between a rock and a hard place.
It is heartbreaking to see innocent children being sacrificed by their own leaders for purely personal, political motives.
Mr President, during these last few days, Parliament has been watching an extraordinarily powerful documentary on the effects of the sanctions on Iraq, and I would like to thank Patricia McKenna for this.
Civilians, men, women and children are dying because of the sanctions.
I will not repeat the figures, for we are all aware of them and they have been quoted many times in this Chamber.
But what a contradiction.
What a tragedy. In the name of the protection of human rights, the rich, powerful countries of the West are killing communities and starving them to death.
During the war in Yugoslavia, American aircraft continuously bombarded towns, killing civilians.
It is better to tell the truth and admit that the interests of the United States take precedence over those of communities.
Today, we are going to vote on a motion, a very important motion for a resolution calling for an end to the sanctions, an end to the embargo.
I feel that we must then act in order to give practical effect to our resolution.
There is no doubt about the fact that it is important for Iraq to change its policy and that the existing arms must be monitored and decommissioned, but, in this regard, there is abundant documented evidence that the nuclear and chemical weapons have already been decommissioned.
And that is essential.
However, I also feel that a clear policy must be developed for the decommissioning of nuclear weapons where they exist in the Middle East.
For example, Israel is full of nuclear weapons and no one is asking Israel to decommission.
Unfortunately, even the resolution called for by Egypt was not supported by the European Parliament in Cairo.
We must do everything possible to free this world from the nuclear threat.
Today, I would also like to pay tribute to Dennis Halliday - mentioned by Ms McKenna as well - who was responsible for the oil-for-food deal.
In a world of hypocrites and careerists, Dennis Halliday had the courage to speak out over the implications of the sanctions on the Iraqi people and to condemn the lies of the United States departments.
Saddam Hussein is certainly responsible and guilty, but we are also incurring a great deal of responsibility and guilt in continuing with a policy which maintains the population of a country in extreme poverty, a population such as the Iraqi people, with a rich history and culture, a population made up of people, women, children, who want to live.
I hope that when the embargo imposed on Iraq is lifted, this will be the end of all embargoes everywhere throughout the world.
This is important for all of us.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, here we are debating a tragic issue - a source of shame to all of us - and Mr Ford is not here. Not one of Parliament' s noble spirits is here, and yet the sanctions against Iraq are already ten years old, ten years!
People think the war, the missiles and the gassings are over, but the filthy effects of this war, which was never clean, go on.
There is still bombing in the North and in the South.
Cornfields are being burned in a country which invented agriculture; date palms are being burned daily.
In the Strasbourg newspaper yesterday, there was an interview with a priest who risked his life just to go to the Babylon area, in Ur.
For people who go there, taking ambulances and medicines, like me and the National Front, Iraq is a vast concentration camp.
18 million women, children, old people, men, a whole Arab people, are being held captive in their own country by the West, with millions of deaths every day, hundreds of children dying, a systematic, scientific, meticulous, planned, cynical, perverse genocide.
It is not just their bodies which are under attack by being deprived of food, milk, meat and fruit. Their minds are under attack as well.
There are no books.
Even pencils are banned, on the pretext that their graphite could be used as coolant in the nuclear power stations.
There are schools but there is no paper.
There are doctors, but there is no medicine.
There are hospitals, but there is nothing inside them.
It is perverse.
They were promised food in exchange for oil.
But they are asked to practically give their oil away and then buy food.
Ladies and gentlemen - especially Members who are not here - by what right is this happening? Do not keep silent!
Do not be accomplices!
UN officials are resigning.
We should not have to go there in thirty years time, like the Belgians in Rwanda, and say sorry, or like the Holy Father, who is prostrating himself all over the place.
The honour of Europe depends on our speaking out for these young Arabs, for this great people being consigned to the night.
It is all very well being afraid of imaginary dangers in Vienna, but it is in Baghdad that the violation of human rights is taking place.
Let Washington' s Nebuchadnezzar let these people go, these slaves in their own country.
They must be released from this poverty.
I appeal to your consciences!
Europe is denying itself!
Just as people kept silent about Spain in 1936, just as people kept silent about the camps, they are keeping silent about Iraq.
There is no time to lose; this people could cease to exist.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you to act quickly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament will shortly be voting on a joint resolution and that is certainly not just because we are determined to have a clear conscience and actually condemn the perpetuation of sanctions which have never achieved their goals, as everyone agrees.
It is also because we think there is a real possibility of preventing a new risk of military force being unleashed there, given the experience of our colleague, Mr Buttiglione, who has been to Iraq and has alerted us to the fact that there is currently a significant risk of renewed bombing.
He had the opportunity of meeting representatives of the Iraqi government, from whom he was able to obtain a commitment to respect the United Nations resolutions.
So he undertook to ensure that Parliament would send a strong signal to the Iraqi people, given that its government agrees to implement the United Nations resolutions.
We have committed ourselves to ask for the immediate lifting of sanctions.
That is the purpose of this joint resolution and all the groups have agreed that, to show Parliament' s unanimity on this distressing issue, there should definitely be no amendments.
Mr President, Mr Morillon has already explained my Group' s position, which is in favour of this joint resolution.
For my part, I would refer to the procedure which seems to me in this case to be important.
This is a debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance, which has been devalued insofar as we are not getting a declaration from the Council, as Parliament had requested, on including this point as a Council declaration.
I would like to say that, without presenting any valid argument, this attitude on the part of the Council seems to me to show a lack of respect towards Parliament, especially when Parliament offers the Council the opportunity to make any declaration on any subject, as laid down in Rule 37.
It is truly contradictory that this Parliament cannot obtain a Council declaration on an issue as sensitive as this.
Therefore, Mr President, I would like to say that my Group intends to ask the Committee on External Affairs, at its next meeting, to present, pursuant to Rule 42, an oral question to the Council so that the Council will reply.
If this initiative is not successful, my political group will present, pursuant to the same article, an oral question to the Council so that the Council really takes seriously the worries and concerns of this Parliament and really does what is laid down in the Treaties, that is to say, to inform and cooperate with Parliament in all those areas which affect and concern the citizens of the European Union.
Mr Salafranca, you and those who are of the same opinion as yourself could also make the Conference of Presidents aware of your views.
The Conference of Presidents is shortly to meet here in Strasbourg in order to establish the programme for the forthcoming part-sessions, and it could issue a request along the lines that you have suggested.
Mr President, I am as concerned as anybody in this House about the suffering of the people of Iraq as the result of sanctions but also of the actions of their own government.
We should all remember that sanctions are sometimes better than the alternatives that we may have to consider.
If we are to support this resolution then Iraq must most definitely honour its obligations under all the United Nations resolutions.
We, as a Parliament, must stand by our resolution of January this year, calling for the release of all Kuwaitis and other non-Iraqi nationals who are still imprisoned in Iraq.
I had the opportunity to visit Iraq last month.
I met the families of the Kuwaiti prisoners.
I can tell you that fathers do not forget their sons, brothers do not forget their brothers, children do not forget their fathers; nor should this House.
We should remind Saddam Hussein that he must honour his obligations to the international community and we shall then honour our obligations to Iraq.
Mr President, the Commission shares the concern expressed during this debate.
It regrets Iraq' s decision not to accept United Nations Security Council Resolution 1284.
As Mr Collins and Mr Morillon in particular have pointed out, this decision delays the application of the new instrument of control and hence the relaxation of sanctions.
We think the Oil for Food Programme is still the best short-term solution to ease the suffering of the Iraqi population, and the Iraqi government should reverse its policy of non-cooperation and comply with all the United Nations Security Council resolutions, as has been said.
Since the Gulf War, the Community has been the principal source of humanitarian aid to Iraq, with at least EUR 240 million provided to reduce the considerable sufferings of the Iraqi people.
And we could have done even more if the Iraqi government had not imposed restrictions on the activities of non-governmental organisations, hindering the delivery of humanitarian aid in Iraq.
Given the situation we cannot pretend that humanitarian aid can do any more than alleviate some of the effects of this awful economic and human situation in the short term.
The economic situation in Iraq can only improve as economic activity develops after sanctions are lifted. This involves engaging the Iraqi government, perhaps more than we are doing today, in a dialogue on the implementation of the Security Council resolutions.
In this regard, we agree with the draft resolution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
Chechnya
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B5-350/2000) by Mr Markov, Mr Vinci, Mr Papayannakis and Mrs Ainardi, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on Chechnya;
(B5-0363/2000) by Mrs Malmström, Mr Haarder, Mr Maaten and Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Chechnya;
(B5-0366/2000) by Mr Oostlander and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the PPE­DE Group, on Chechnya;
(B5-0375/2000) by Mr Sakellariou and Mrs Krehl, on behalf of the PSE Group, on Chechnya;
(B5-0387/2000) by Mrs Schroedter, Mr Cohn-Bendit and Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the armed conflict in the Republic of Chechnya.
Mr President, Parliament has been dealing with the situation in and around Chechnya for some time.
We have followed with concern developments in the fundamentalist Islamic forces' attempts to split Chechnya away from the Russian Federation.
We are categorically opposed to any form of terrorism and we support the fight against terrorism in every country in the world.
I believe that the territorial integrity and sovereignty of every country is an inviolable and fundamental principle.
However, for several months a war has been raging in Chechnya which none of these arguments can justify.
I spent over six years of my life in Russia and have very close ties with that country.
So I feel it all the more that Russia is totally overreacting in its use of military force in the Chechen conflict.
I find it totally unacceptable that we are witnessing violations of international humanitarian law by the Russian army.
It is a matter of deep regret and profound concern to me that militaristic thinking has now again taken hold in Russia.
It has long been recognised that military might never permanently resolves any conflict, and this needs to be remembered now.
It is high time that this war ended and that a political solution to this conflict was found, no matter how difficult and complicated that might be.
Furthermore, an enormous effort is required to restore this devastated region for the people who have lost all their possessions in the war and to make it habitable once again.
In the long term, this is the only way to remove this focus of conflict.
My Group supports this motion for a resolution, and we consider it essential that this Parliament, in conjunction with the members of the Russian Duma, should seek means of restoring peace in Chechnya without delay.
Mr President, ten days ago, the UN' s Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, returned home from a visit to Russia where she was to investigate the situation in Chechnya in regard to human rights abuses.
Mary Robinson obtained limited access.
She was not allowed to meet the Russian President and was treated in a most humiliating way.
In her report to the UN' s session on human rights in Geneva, Mrs Robinson reported on individual testimonies concerning very serious crimes which had been committed in Chechnya.
The witnesses she had met had told of murders of civilians, summary trials, executions, rapes, torture and kidnappings.
Domestic affairs can never be pleaded as an excuse for atrocities of this kind.
We have a global responsibility to defend basic rights.
Abuses of these cannot - must not - be seen as internal matters.
The UN' s High Commissioner must continue to be supported in his work.
The European Parliament has, on a number of occasions, expressed concern about the situation in Chechnya.
We support the Council of Europe' s decision of last week to suspend Russia if no appropriate measures are taken.
For a liberal, considerations of trade and short-term benefits cannot come before the defence of human rights.
We would therefore react vigorously to these atrocities, but we also see it as very important to cooperate with democratic forces in Russia and with the new government.
We therefore hope that we can organise a joint delegation from the European Parliament and the Russian Duma to travel to Chechnya and, there on the spot, engage in discussions, conduct investigations and bring about a dialogue.
We presume that Russia will be of assistance and allow the delegation to travel freely.
We also hope that the EU can eventually contribute to a reconstruction programme in the region.
Mr President, what has happened in the war in Chechnya has shocked us all.
A guerrilla war is being fought without the civilian population being spared, in fact, the civilian population is also suffering the dreadful atrocities that can occur in wartime.
The first war in Chechnya may have evoked sympathy from us as a battle for autonomy and independence and setting things right in their own territory, but we now have to say that, although this war really ended quite well for the Chechens, the intervening period was not used to best advantage and Chechnya became a country of complete chaos, where kidnapping was commonplace and where the citizens were no longer safe.
At one stage, Chechen generals even invaded Dagestan, an action which merited absolutely no sympathy whatsoever.
This illustrates that there are various movements within Chechnya.
On the one hand, there are the military who tend to play the Afghan card or count on Iran for support.
The other two groupings seek more of a political solution.
One of them is seeking a solution more in terms of what we in Western Europe would also wish to achieve and the other is again seeking to strengthen relations with Russia.
Mr President, the President of Chechnya has limited control over the troops in his country.
We are pleased to hear that Maskadov does not support the actions of his military.
We are also delighted to hear that the Russians are at long last admitting to the fact that Mr Putin is contacting the Chechen authorities indirectly.
We have also noted hat the Council of Europe has adopted a position in this regard.
We know from the Russian delegation that was here until yesterday that this has hit them exceptionally hard and we spoke about it with them in detail.
We have also heard that there is the possibility of a joint parliamentary delegation undertaking a fact-finding mission on an ad hoc basis under the best possible conditions with a view to looking around the territory of Chechnya wherever it sees fit to do so.
A mission of this kind must take place soon and I believe it is important that in the resolution tabled on the basis of the liberal text, an amendment is included to this effect.
Mr President, we support an exceptionally brief resolution in that regard, perhaps even the briefest ever made in this House, consisting of the first two recitals of the liberal resolution, followed by the recital in which the decisions of the Council of Europe are mentioned.
We shall vote against Article 1 because once again it involves support for this statement and we could substitute a better statement of our own.
We shall willingly support Article 2 of the liberal resolution and then Amendment No 2 as well which refers to the joint parliamentary delegation which may be more useful in the future, because it is the future that we must concern ourselves with here.
The delegation will have to examine what can be done to preserve the defence of human rights in the region, but also examine what we can do in the future to help Chechnya become a democratic constitutional state.
Who knows whether with help from the European Union and Russia, a Stability Pact for the Caucasus region can ever be achieved.
Mr President, for these reasons we support this resolution, which initially was not to our liking, but which, at the moment, provides the best basis for a statement from this House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to repeat what the three previous speakers have said, with which I totally concur.
In addition, my colleague, Mr Swoboda, will also say a few words about the reasons behind this war.There is a very broad consensus within this Parliament condemning both the war against civilians in Chechnya and the terrorism which started in Chechnya, and this same consensus applies to the desire to maintain good and special relations with Russia.
On the other hand, we are determined not simply to stand by and watch whilst Russia violates one international convention after another in this war in Chechnya.
We support the proposal from Mr Lukin, the Co-President of the Interparliamentary Delegation of the European Parliament and Russian Duma to send a fact-finding mission to Chechnya to gather information on the ground.
We want to make use of this information at a later stage, that is after the delegation has returned, as the basis for a major debate in this House, involving the Council and the Commission, and leading to the adoption of a really well founded resolution.
For this reason and this reason alone we, the Group of the Party of European Socialists, urge you not to adopt a motion for a resolution today - which would in fact bring the total to seven - and instead wait until we have the information we need for an in-depth debate resulting in a joint resolution.
Mr President, firstly I would like to say that, through political pragmatism and through loyalty to the work that we do with the other groups in this House, we will support a joint resolution which basically supports the decision of the Council of Europe and the sending of a joint delegation from the Duma and the European Parliament.
We must also say that we do not share this kind of silence on the part of the European Parliament which is spreading to all these issues like a low mist which obscures everything.
We have even noted that the Council of Europe itself is showing more courage than this Parliament.
What has happened in Chechnya is shameful, the crushing of a whole people, and it is also shameful that this House has had to listen to 'Mr CFSP' talking about issues such as 'the proportionate use of force' or recommending that the Russian authorities lessen the intensity of the conflict. What is a proportionate use of force in a case such as Chechnya?
What proportion are we talking about?
This is unacceptable. What is meant by lessening the intensity of the conflict in Chechnya?
Perhaps stopping the massacre of women and children? Perhaps stopping the bombing of hospitals?
Please explain this to us.
Of course, we still believe that there is sufficient reason to suspend the partnership and cooperation agreement on the basis of the human rights clause.
I would like to end by saying that I fully agree with what Mr Cohn-Bendit said in this House: in this Europe and this World which we want to build, let us have no more masking of attacks on entire peoples on the grounds of their being internal matters. We have had enough of excuses of this type.
There is no such thing as internal affairs in this world we want to build.
Either we have human rights or we do not have human rights.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, foreign policy needs to be based not only on fundamental moral values and principles, but also on success in achieving its aims and objectives, and this should not be confused with opportunism.
I therefore support everything that has been said here about condemning the barbaric war being waged by Russia, which is a war that recalls the darkest days of the Soviet Union.
What we want to see is a new Russia, not a seamless transition from the Soviet Union, but a new Russia.
To my mind, it very much remains to be seen whether the new President Putin can guarantee this, certainly on the basis of what we have seen so far.
So there is no alternative to condemning this war and saying that although we certainly condemn terrorism we regard Russia' s reaction as being totally disproportionate, inappropriate and unacceptable.
That is what we should condemn.
But we should not fool ourselves into imagining that in this case we simultaneously want to achieve something important for peace in Europe and throughout the world as whole, that is to say a dialogue with Russia and ultimately a partnership with Russia.
Unfortunately, Russia is only accepting this in words, not in deeds.
That is why I think it is important that this interparliamentary delegation exists.
It is the job of the Council Presidency and the Commission, whilst at the same time defending moral values and condemning this war, to endeavour to ensure that we support those forces which are all too poorly represented in Russia, but who nevertheless wish to pursue a European path, a path towards a European partnership, a partnership with the European Union.
This is the formula we need: condemnation of the war and a visit by the delegation, after which we must take whatever steps are necessary.
And if those steps have to be harsh ones, then we should, in full awareness of the facts, not shrink back from taking them.
Mr President, once again we are discussing the situation in Chechnya.
In the last few days the Commission and the Member States have held several meetings with their Russian counterparts: the ministerial troika with Mr Putin and Mr Ivanov on 7 April in Moscow, and the Cooperation Council with Russia, last Monday in Luxembourg.
During these discussions, we have reiterated our main demands: cease-fire and political dialogue, access for, and presence of, international and humanitarian organisations, and independent inquiries into any human rights violations.
All these demands are also in the European Parliament' s resolution and the recommendation from the Council of Europe' s Parliamentary Assembly.
As the European Parliament has emphasised, the Russian authorities have failed to respond satisfactorily to these requests.
All that can be said is that Mr Ivanov finally accepted the European Union and ECHO embassies at the last Cooperation Council.
Recent discussions in the Council of Europe, the Committee on Human Rights in Geneva and this Parliament reflect growing concern amongst the European public.
For our part, we support the United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson' s request to Russia to set up a broad independent committee of inquiry into any violations of human rights, based on recognised international criteria.
Last Monday' s General Affairs Council stressed the importance of maintaining an open and frank dialogue, including on this subject, with the Russian authorities.
We think Russia should pursue implementation of the partnership agreement in terms of its elements - I do mean all its elements - and provide more concrete results than we have at this stage.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, what is the purpose of this joint resolution? Surely it is to establish a proper and public judicial process against the thirteen members of the Jewish community in the Southern Iranian town of Shiraz?
The European Parliament in no way disputes the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to react against foreign attempts at espionage and where the burden of proof is decisive, to punish them accordingly.
The point is, however, that the arrest and imprisonment of the thirteen Jews from Shiraz up to now has been a real caricature of a normal judicial process, a process that the constitution of the Islamic Republic itself actually provides for.
What fundamental objections are we actually raising against the judicial action taken by the Iranian authorities? To start with, a variety of scarcely plausible accusations have been levelled at the accused.
For example, proselytising against Islam and the joint teaching of boys and girls, a violation of the customary separation of the sexes in education in that country.
The latest accusation was scarcely credible to the orthodox Jewish community in Shiraz.
Finally, the official accusers raised the almost stereotypical subject of spying for 'America and the Zionists' , which means the state of Israel.
And so these thirteen Jews are being threatened with the death penalty.
And remember, this has been the case for over a year as they were arrested in March 1999.
The whole affair in the meantime smacks of the unremitting power struggle between the reformist camp around President Khatami and the conservatives around revolutionary leader Khomenei - by trampling on a defenceless Jewish minority of about 30 000 people.
What position should the European Parliament take in this tough, domestic political struggle with regard to the specific case of the thirteen Jews from Shiraz? Of course, it goes without saying that we should support those Iranian powers that publicly declare that they are striving for a society based on the rule of law and human rights and who are open to contact with the West.
This fundamental choice involves, at the same time, not giving the hard-liners in the Islamic Republic any excuse to undermine this promising path of reform.
Our amendment in paragraph 5 is based on this very consideration.
Iranian fundamentalists will immediately attack the European request to Teheran to support the complete abolition of the death penalty - note that this is a provision that runs directly counter to Islamic law, the sharia, as a renewed attempt at the pernicious westernisation of their own Islamic Republic!
And, in their view, the abolition of the sharia is equivalent to the abolition of the present Iranian form of government.
In short, this addition does nothing to support the case of the thirteen Jews from Shiraz.
The European Parliament must not, therefore, give ammunition for propaganda in this matter of life and death to the ultra-conservatives in Iran, who, in the last few years, have quite simply been pushed onto the defensive by Khatami and his followers.
What we have in mind is a clear legal settlement of this tragedy, ending we hope with the release of all prisoners.
That would really add a happy chapter to the almost 2500 years of history of the Jewish community in the land of the Persians.
God willing, that is what we shall see!
Mr President, the trial of thirteen Iranian Jews accused of espionage has opened today in Teheran.
The trial is taking place behind closed doors.
These people have been in prison for months under conditions we know virtually nothing about.
Their lawyers, some of whom are state appointed, were only allowed to look at the files the day before yesterday.
There is no guarantee of the right to a defence.
I am afraid this may only be a mock trial.
Yet the charge is so serious it could lead to the death penalty.
When the case started, we had the privilege of hearing some leading government dignitaries publicly call for the prisoners to be put to death straight away.
This case, which was built up from nothing - I think we are all convinced of that - has mobilised international public opinion powerfully.
With strong feeling all over the world, including in Strasbourg today, the international pressure has had some impact because the Iranian leaders have softened their position, in particular announcing that most of the accused would no longer be appearing on the charge of espionage, tantamount to execution.
Three have been freed on bail.
Finally, the court announced this morning that the trial was being adjourned until 1 May, which is a step forward, at least.
But some of the accused are still facing the death penalty and the others face heavy sentences.
The government' s various changes of attitude illustrate their embarrassment very well.
They were incapable of stating the charges clearly until the very last minute.
It is also clear that the outcome of this trial partly depends on how the Iranian political situation evolves.
In the last parliamentary elections, in February, the reformist tendency defeated the conservatives who include the most extremist elements.
So this trial is starting at a significant moment: on the one hand, Iran is signalling openness and progress, on the other, the conservatives are trying to hang on to power by every means at their disposal.
There is consequently a risk that this case of the thirteen Iranian Jews will be used by one faction against another, in step with domestic conflicts.
Justice has little place in that kind of battle, and human rights even less.
So it is imperative that we react.
The European Union is based on the values laid down in the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As a member of the UN, Iran should be applying them too.
That is why we must demand the release of the prisoners: the thirteen Iranian Jews, but also the other eight Moslem prisoners and the students we know absolutely nothing about.
We must also call on the Union governments to do the same.
We also demand that observers be permitted to attend the trial, because public hearings are fundamental to holding a fair trial.
Finally, we must make it absolutely clear that the development of our relations with Iran will be subject to respect for human rights in that country.
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy, ladies and gentlemen, since 1979, fifteen Jews have been executed in Iran. The charge was espionage, but their real crime was being Jewish.
Today, a new trial is starting in Shiraz, in the South.
Thirteen Jews and eight Moslems have also been detained for a year in Iranian jails, facing death by hanging.
The youngest is only sixteen years old.
Back in September, Parliament resolutely called for respect for the fundamental rights of these prisoners in terms of a fair, just and public trial, with their own lawyers and with international observers present.
When the more moderate elements won the last elections, we thought our call had been heard.
But now there is this parody of a trial, a summary procedure behind closed doors before a revolutionary court presided over by a single judge, and a cleric at that.
As for observers, so far Teheran has not granted any visas.
In other words, we are disappointed, disappointed and alarmed.
We are continuing to insist that the international community be able to follow the proceedings from start to finish.
Furthermore, at the request of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, the European Parliament is urgently calling on the Council to send an official delegation to visit the prisoners.
There is no such thing as an internal matter where human rights are involved.
Our feelings are as strong as our concern.
We must make ourselves perfectly clear.
Iran' s possible return to the bosom of the international community has a price today.
We hope the Council and the Commission will rally unequivocally to our position.
We must remain intransigent on this point - human rights are not negotiable.
Mr President, Commissioner, if voices other than ours had not been raised in the last few days, to give the Iranian Government a warning, thirteen Iranians charged with espionage just for being in touch with relatives in other parts of the world would, at this very moment, be facing trial behind closed doors under summary procedure, leaving them no chance of their most basic rights to a defence being guaranteed.
You have just heard confirmation, from Mr Sylla, that this planned mock trial is at least going to be adjourned for a few days.
That means there is the utmost justification for dealing with Parliament' s second joint resolution on this issue under urgent procedure.
It also means there is a chance this resolution - expressing our indignation - might be heard in Iran, where the results of the recent elections have raised the hope of progress there on fundamental human rights. As everyone who has already spoken has said, it is our duty to ensure that those rights are respected.
Mr President, when we learned a few months ago that thirteen Iranian Jews had been imprisoned a year earlier, we were concerned for their fate. At that time, in an effort to reassure us, the Iranian Government told us it was not a racist trial because many Moslems had also been arrested and indicted on the same charge along with the thirteen Jews.
But the trial opening today only involves the Jews. They are being tried separately from the Moslems charged with them, which proves, if proof were needed, that this trial - which we are told is to be adjourned - is no genuine trial.
You will remember, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, and it has been mentioned, that some Iranian Jews were arrested for spying for Israel a few years ago.
They were put on trial for it and hanged.
Who are the accused? We should point out that they include a cobbler, a cemetery caretaker, a boy who is not even sixteen yet, and two old men.
It is hard to understand how these people are endangering Iranian democracy.
What are they supposed to have done? No one really knows!
We do not have the right to know what they are supposed to have done.
A letter to a family in Israel may have been enough to set this case in motion.
In a previous resolution and in repeated letters supported by the President, we asked to be allowed to visit the prisoners.
That was refused.
We then asked to meet the families who are not sworn to secrecy, as far as I know.
That was also refused.
We asked - in a unanimous resolution - to be able to attend the trial.
Up to now that has been refused.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must recognise the immense risk run by these thirteen people and strenuously reiterate our requests to send observers to this trial and be given access to the evidence in the case. We must also make clear our intransigence on relations with Iran.
I hope we are not going to wake up, some day soon, and find that these thirteen people have been executed because they were Jewish.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance wholeheartedly supports the joint resolution that will be put to the vote today.
I agree with all the previous speakers.
But I also support the massive protests that have been taking place for some time throughout the world in connection with this affair, such as today at 6 p.m. in Brussels in front of the Iranian embassy.
Today is a special day, 13 April 2000, the date of the so-called 'trial' .
In 1979, 1993, 1998 and 1999, resolutions were sent from the European Parliament to Iran, but what happened to them? Via Amnesty International, Jewish families and organisations, we learned that, on 8 March 1999, thirteen Iranian Jews and Muslims were arrested and detained.
The youngest is sixteen years old and the oldest forty eight.
The reason: espionage.
Yet again.
Requests have been made to send letters, but to no avail.
The Israeli Minister for Foreign Affairs, David Levy, sent a letter to various ministers, including the Belgian Minister, to point out that these people are in no way guilty of spying.
They are Hebrew teachers and perform religious rituals, among other things.
Three of the thirteen have been allowed to choose a lawyer and the others have had lawyers forced upon them. I heard today at 11.30 a.m. that the forum of Jewish organisations in Belgium says that there will not be a trial.
The Jewish communities are afraid.
What is likely to happen?
People disappear, they are locked up, but for how long?
Either that or they are used for cattle trading.
It is very worrying and must be followed up. I hope that Iran will act wisely and responsibly and not with hatred.
Mr President, we should be clear that already some 17 Jews have already been executed in Iran for charges of espionage, which basically involves no more than contacting anyone in the outside world, certainly anyone in Israel or the United States.
That seems to me an unacceptable position for any country that claims to respect human rights.
These 13 who were arrested were arrested in secret; nobody knew of their whereabouts for two or three months.
In addition, these 13 were all religious leaders or leaders of the Jewish community.
Therefore, we can only interpret this trial as a deliberate attack on the Jewish community in Iran.
We know that there will not be a free trial; it will not be open to the public and we have no idea whether these people will have representation.
Let us send our message very clearly from this Chamber.
If Iran claims to respect human rights, trials like this should never be allowed to happen.
- (EL) Mr President, we were most satisfied to see President Khatami' s forces of modernisation strengthened during the recent elections in Iran.
At the same time, however, hopes were raised that there would be an acceleration in the processes of democratisation, respect for human rights without discrimination on the grounds of gender, religion or nationality and stronger dialogue with the European Union.
Unfortunately, the case of the 13 from the Jewish community, including a sixteen-year-old boy, is yet another link in the long chain of prosecutions, usually on trumped-up charges, intolerance and discrimination against minorities living in Iran.
Greece has started using its good relations with Iran to wage a campaign and to take steps to rescue the 13.
We are using diplomatic channels to try and ensure that the death penalty is not imposed or, more to the point, is not carried out.
We feel that such an occurrence would put both relations between Israel and Iran and stability in the already sensitive Middle East to the test, which is why the European Parliament must send a strong message to Iran today, a message stressing the need to respect human rights, respect the international conventions which Iran has signed and grant a moratorium on the death penalty.
Akin Birdal
Mr President, Turkey is now standing at a crossroads.
It can choose the past, it can choose oppression and barbarity, or it can choose the future, freedom and humanitarianism.
Akin Birdal has now been imprisoned for such a statement, in spite of his ill-health.
We are faced with a country which apparently fears its own citizens so much that it is willing to violate the most basic human rights and place the unity of the state above the freedom and rights of the individual.
We must say to the Turkish Government that the policy which the country is conducting belongs to the past.
This type of behaviour does not belong to the future, where we hope that human rights will be foremost.
Such a country will never achieve the unity which it desires.
My advice to Turkey must be: choose the future and free Akin Birdal and his colleagues.
Mr President, in Helsinki, the EU countries confirmed Turkey' s status as a candidate state.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party supported this proposal.
We hope that we shall one day be able to welcome Turkey into the Community.
We believe that this message gives an important signal to the Turkish people. But - and it is an important but - before negotiations can begin, a good many changes are required in Turkey, especially with regard to human rights.
Many of us had hoped for improvements in this area. It is therefore all the more distressing to study all the reports about atrocities which arrive on an almost daily basis.
Turkey has signed international agreements on human rights but, as has become bitterly apparent to journalists, writers, human rights activists and opposition politicians, these are not observed.
We in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party wish especially to express our concern about the chairman of Turkey' s Human Rights Foundation, Akin Birdal.
He had scarcely received a just trial and had been sentenced on flimsy grounds.
Following a period of freedom, he has again been imprisoned and is being denied the proper medical care he needs following the severe injuries he suffered in the attempt on his life in 1998.
He must be released immediately.
In the EU, we are proud not merely to be an economic club.
The EU is a Union founded upon values, respect for human rights, democracy and the principles of the constitutional state.
Everyone, both existing and future members, must respect these criteria.
Unfortunately, Turkey still has a long way to go.
Mr President, during the debate the day before yesterday with the Council and the Commission, I mentioned the savage reaction of certain Turkish leaders to the fear that the European Union might try to interfere in internal Turkish affairs on the Kurdish question, at the very moment when a new path to membership is opening up for Turkey.
I can only repeat here as firmly as possible what I said in Ankara on my last visit there.
The European Parliament has no intention whatsoever of allowing the micro-nationalist miasma which has just drenched the Balkans in blood to develop in Turkey.
Turkish public opinion need have no fear of our being tempted to encourage any separatist claims whatsoever.
On the other hand, the values we subscribe to include respect for human dignity the world over and the right of European citizens to keep their roots in their native soil and in the culture of their upbringing.
At any rate, that is my interpretation of minority rights.
We are not trying to tell anyone what to do, but we must constantly reaffirm that the European Union - as Mrs Malmström said - is not just about creating wealth at home. There are many of us in this House who believe we must go on building Europe to promote and uphold its fundamental values, in the spirit of the founding fathers.
That is the purpose of the draft resolution we will be voting on shortly.
Mr President, two weeks ago, we met Akin Birdal in Ankara at the offices of the EU delegation.
These were his words to us then: "For five months we have had a new Turkey.
Now that the country has acquired candidate country status, we see opportunities for democracy and freedom in our country.
In addition, the internal armed conflict has ceased and our relations with Greece have improved" .
Those were Akin Birdal' s words.
Akin Birdal was free at just that particular time because of what was termed 'ill health' .
However, he would shortly be forced to return to prison if he were too healthy.
He also, of course, forfeited the right to be chairman of the Human Rights Foundation.
His so-called crime was that he had spoken about the Kurdish people on World Peace Day.
Because of this crime, and in accordance with Article 312 of the law in force, he was sentenced to one year' s imprisonment and ordered to pay fines.
Akin Birdal is a gentle and peaceful man.
He still suffers from the after-effects of the attempt upon his life in the spring of 1998.
In the course of our conversation, he said that he wanted democracy and a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question and that he saw the value of EU membership.
He also commented on how important it was to abolish 152 laws and articles which limit freedom of expression and cause so many people to be put in prison.
Mr Birdal was re-imprisoned the day after our conversation and after we had spoken with Prime Minister Ecevit about him.
What we are seeing in this case is how an undemocratic system imprisons, persecutes and oppresses democrats.
That is why, in our resolution, we are demanding that measures be taken swiftly to guarantee freedom of expression, reform the judicial system and release all political prisoners.
Mr President, the previous speaker made it easy for me because he spoke in detail about Akin Birdal who was the leader of the human rights organisation in Turkey and who is mainly known for calling for a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question.
In 1998, he survived an assassination attempt by right-wing extremists, but since then his health has greatly deteriorated.
He is now in prison again, at the very time that a number of our MEPs visited Ankara.
From Mr Schörling' s statement, it appears very clear that this is in no way coincidental.
It is real provocation.
Through this kind of action Turkey alienates itself from Europe.
The gulf becomes deeper instead of the other way round.
If Turkey wishes to heed our call, then it can only respond by releasing Mr Birdal because this is out-and-out provocation.
This is not the only instance of human rights violations that concern us.
I understand that a press bureau in Amsterdam has been ransacked and that this was formally sanctioned by the Belgian judiciary.
In the meantime we also know from incidents in Belgium who is really behind this.
Human rights are unambiguous, human rights are the same everywhere and Turkey must also be aware of that, otherwise it will never become a Member of the European Union.
Mr President, from all accounts, the human rights situation in China has deteriorated considerably.
This is especially true of Tibet, where, for the time being, the Dalai Lama' s reasonable five point plan has no chance of finding its way onto the agenda.
The European Union cannot continue to turn a blind eye.
The United States presented a resolution on the violation of human rights in China at the fifty-sixth session of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
We are extremely concerned by the fact that the Council of the Union has also not yet announced its intention to support this resolution, and this may not be coincidental, since the EU-China dialogue on human rights is at a complete standstill.
We call for an end to this policy of turning a blind eye to events in China, and for the European Union to join the American initiative without worrying about losing choice economic opportunities, and to cease this silent and tolerant stance towards the continuous violations of human rights in China, and, in particular, Tibet.
Europe is laboriously and extremely inconsistently shaking off her lethargic attitude to the horrors taking place in Chechnya.
I sincerely hope that she will follow the example of the United States and, at last, wake up to the human rights situation in China.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, two weeks ago an interparliamentary conference on the human rights situation in China was held at the European Parliament in Brussels.
We Members of the European Parliament agreed, together with the Foreign Minister of the Tibetan government in exile, the US government official responsible for Tibet and members of national parliaments, that it is time we put an end to shady compromises with China for the sake of maintaining purely economic relations.
The Chinese are still refusing to enter into a constructive dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and political repression is on the increase.
People are being mercilessly persecuted, and religious freedom and freedom of speech are being curbed.
Tibet' s culture and identity are being systematically obliterated.
These continual violations of the most fundamental human rights must now become an issue.
The United States needs the support of the European Union at the 56th UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
The European Union must use its inherent authority to work for human dignity and minority rights.
If it takes the first step, other countries, including the candidate countries, will certainly follow suit.
My own group, the Group of the European People's Party, is firmly convinced of this.
Commissioner Lamy, Europe needs to stick its head above the parapet.
The Commission and the Council belong at the head of a movement fully supporting the Dalai Lama' s five-point peace plan.
Point one: Tibet must become a peace zone.
Point two: China must finally renounce its policy of expulsion.
Point three: democratic civil rights must be guaranteed for all minorities.
Point four: Tibet' s culture and environment must be protected.
Point five: genuine negotiations must take place on Tibet' s future autonomous status.
Commissioner, all our economic agreements with third countries need to be based on the same premise: respect for human rights.
You demonstrated in Seattle, Commissioner Lamy, and I was there to see for myself, that you know how to build bridges.
How did a Tibetan delegate put it? "We will survive because of your moral support, but above all because of your solidarity" !
Tashi delek!
Mr Sakellariou, unfortunately, the seriousness of this subject prevents me from responding to your introductory comment with some Bavarian humour.
This subject is so serious that I think it would be out of place.
A great many people are involved here.
I am sure a large majority of the House agrees with you.
Death penalty in the United States
Mr President, as I am sure you are aware, at the moment there is much talk of the reform of the urgent debates, and there are certain influential members of the larger groups who see these debates as unnecessary and consider our resolutions to be somewhat superfluous.
And yet I would argue that no topic more than the death penalty in the United States has proved that this type of humble debate can, over time, play a major role.
Things are changing in the United States.
I would not presume for a moment to think that this is entirely due to the European Parliament, but I feel that it is partly the result of the attention constantly paid to the matter by our institution.
I do not see the motion for a resolution that we are about to vote on as simply yet another resolution, but as further proof that things can change.
Moreover, I believe that the three elements which are highlighted as positive in this resolution - the stances adopted by Janet Reno, the governor of Illinois and the U.S. Justice Department - should be brought to the attention of the Americans.
From this point of view, I feel we can congratulate ourselves.
Mr President, you could say that there is something of a feeling of helplessness in standing here yet again and talking about the death penalty in the USA, since it is certainly not the first time we have discussed it, not even the first time during my short period in Parliament.
Most recently, we discussed the Mumia Jamal case, and now it is the Juan Raul Garza case, among others.
However, these men are just examples as there have been so many that you could say that the USA, in its legal policy, is almost waging war against its most destitute and most marginalised people.
In this way the USA has brought itself into line with China, Congo and Iraq.
You may well feel that it is strange to sit in a near half-empty chamber, apart from the visitors, and discuss such an important subject, but I think it is a subject which we must continue to take up, and I would ask the Member States to also respond to it here, to respond swiftly and in no uncertain terms to this so-called friendly state which repeatedly violates the most basic human rights.
Mr President, the European Parliament has, on various occasions, approved texts which state that the death penalty is an assault on human dignity, on human rights and it is a great pity that we have to establish once again that the death penalty still exists among our American friends and that, regrettably, the number of executions is increasing - there have been 350 since 1990.
What I find particularly distressing is the fact that young people as well, people under 18, can also be sentenced to death, and even the mentally handicapped can be sentenced to death.
Those are particularly depressing aspects of the text now before us.
Every execution is an irreversible act and that makes it so extraordinary. In the case we are discussing here it was not life imprisonment that was imposed, but the death penalty, and that is on the basis of facts that were not proven beyond any doubt.
For that reason even the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights asked for time to re-examine the case and to be able to issue an opinion, and it also asked that no date be set for an execution.
We must urge the Americans to act not only in this specific case, but to ensure that the death penalty is abolished in their country. Together with a few other countries where democracy is a long way off, they are the only ones where the number of death sentences is rising.
This is by no means an enviable record. Our Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has repeatedly argued in favour of the abolition of the death penalty, not only in this specific case, but in general.
More specifically, I would ask our American friends to abolish it once and for all.
Mr President, we should be clear as to why this resolution today is so important.
Firstly, we all know that there is a wave of judicial executions across the USA - over 600 since 1977 - but this would be the first federal execution since 1963.
Secondly, it is important because this is the only case since executions resumed in 1977 in which the evidence of unsolved, unadjudicated crime in a foreign country has been used to secure the death sentence.
Juan Garza's death sentence came as a result of murders in Mexico, which he was never charged with.
Thirdly, there are 21 prisoners currently in federal death row: 14 are black, 5 are white, one is Asian and one is Latino.
We know that in state trials black defendants are four times more likely to be sentenced to death than white defendants.
Fourthly, Governor Ryan of Illinois, as we have heard already, has imposed a moratorium on the death sentence in his state because of its appalling record of wrongful convictions.
When we bring all those factors together we see that the death penalty in the US is an arbitrary process and is fundamentally a racist process.
That is why we constantly demand that the death sentence should not be carried out in the US.
In this case it is particularly important because it is a federal execution and will be the first since 1963.
That is why we urge President Clinton to grant clemency in this case and a moratorium on federal executions.
There is a presidential campaign under way.
In a presidential campaign executions, regrettably, become a political football in the US.
President Clinton has the opportunity - he is not standing for re-election - to make a stand on this issue today.
Mr President, I join with previous speakers in demanding the immediate and unconditional abolition of the death penalty in the United States, and everywhere else in the world.
The death penalty is a political arm used by the American Government apparatus to settle accounts with militants like Mumia Abu Jamal.
Like the whole prison system, it is also an instrument of social discrimination because Afro-Americans, ethnic minorities, and more generally the poor, are far more at risk than others of being condemned to death.
It is also a penalty whose irreversible character makes any reparation impossible if a mistake is made - and mistakes are often made.
A government which makes legal assassination one of the pillars of its justice system is infinitely more criminal than those it claims it is protecting society from.
The death penalty expresses all the barbarity of a society organised in a way that also condemns so many children and adolescents, even in the richest country in the world, to die from drug use or insecurity, actually from material and moral poverty, simply because they had the misfortune to be born in a poor area.
On a planetary scale, that barbarity condemns millions of human beings to die of hunger or disease when they could easily be cured - but they are not cured because they do not get the medicine they need.
In rising up against the death penalty we also rise up against all that barbarity, against the barbarity linked to permanently organising society so that all the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a minority and the great mass of humanity is condemned to poverty.
- (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the death penalty was abolished in Portugal over a century ago.
So for the Portuguese, being opposed to the death penalty is inherent in our culture.
I would like to remind you of another reference: the US Declaration of Independence, an inspirational text which defines the three rights on which the United States war of independence was based: "the right to life, to liberty and to the pursuit of happiness" .
Some two hundred years on, the right to life has still not been fully recognised in the US legal system and this deserves a strong reaction on our part.
Mr President, my Group firmly supports this resolution.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the USA for defeating two totalitarian regimes, for defeating national socialism and communism, and for establishing democracy and the rule of law throughout our continent.
Nevertheless, the existence of the death penalty in the USA means that they could not join either the Council of Europe or the European Union.
That means that we should tell even such an important partner as this one, in no uncertain terms, that they should finally abolish the death penalty at individual state level and all the more so at federal level.
The American election campaign could provide a unique opportunity to send a strong message about this.
Sad to say, just the opposite has happened, and the candidates are vying with each other in a populist way on this issue.
However, we believe that the Atlantic Alliance is founded on democracy and the rule of law, so that the right to life should form the centrepiece of the legal system in both the USA and in Europe.
That is why we want to state unequivocally in our Charter of Fundamental Rights that we support the right to life and that we are opposed to a culture of death as typified by the death penalty.
Zimbabwe
Mr President, this short debate takes place against a background of increasing tension in Zimbabwe.
All of us who speak should remember that every word of our speeches and the resolution will be eagerly read in Zimbabwe within the next 48 hours by all sides.
We must, therefore, all encourage Zimbabwe to move towards elections in May.
The old parliament was dissolved on 11 April and President Mugabe pledged at the EU-Africa Summit in Cairo that the elections would go ahead.
It is therefore worrying that constituency boundaries have yet to be set.
This could take up to three months.
I hope that, when the elections are called, observers from Europe will be invited to Zimbabwe to monitor the proceedings.
This would show real transparency.
It is not for Europe to meddle in the internal affairs of any nation.
African countries must work together to consolidate their future.
However, the old Lomé Convention made democracy, human rights and the rule of law a requirement for development aid.
The new Partnership Agreement goes further and asks for good governance.
All we ask is that disputes of any kind be settled through courts and not in open conflict.
I particularly highlight land issues.
Zimbabwe has much to gain from the Partnership Agreement and urgently needs aid and debt relief.
Much of this could go to rural areas for agreed land resettlement.
It is disappointing that Zimbabwe feels the need to be involved in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo at a time when precious resources could be spent on domestic requirements, such as education and health.
We all look forward to the rule of law being strengthened and a democratisation process fully operating under an independent judiciary to allow civil society to express its wishes through a fair and open press.
The Zimbabwean people must be given a chance to choose their future.
Mr President, in the last few decades Southern Africa has formed the subject of much attention in this House.
We have fortunately been able to witness a democratic regime that seems to function well coming to power in South Africa.
At the moment we are receiving very alarming reports from Zimbabwe.
There are clear signs that democracy in that country could be in jeopardy.
The court rulings were ignored.
I sincerely hope that the ruling that was taken about an hour ago, that the police must act against those occupying the farms, will not be ignored this time, as was unfortunately the case with other court rulings.
What is more serious is the fact that innocent people are being beaten for no apparent reason.
The only possible reason for this is that they oppose the government of President Mugabe.
All this, Mr President, is a recipe for anarchy and a threat to democracy that could endanger the entire region.
We therefore believe that elections must be held as quickly as possible, preferably under the supervision of international observers so that everyone can be satisfied that they are held as fairly as possible.
Land reform is necessary.
There are many landless farmers and unemployed people in Zimbabwe.
It must, however, take place lawfully.
Above all, it should not occur along racial lines and it must certainly not be the case that holders of political office of whatever party be given priority in the distribution of land.
Finally I should like to say something about the war that is currently raging in a certain part of Africa.
I agree with Mr Corrie that the money for this war could be better spent on development in Zimbabwe, on education, training and health care.
One can think of a whole range of things.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by expressing my confidence in the people of Zimbabwe.
These people have, over the last few years, shown that they deserve our confidence.
Zimbabwe is a country which, since independence in 1980, has steadily chosen the path of peaceful development under the leadership of President Mugabe.
Not only in the economic sphere, but also politically, with a degree of press freedom in which the leadership of the country has also not been spared from criticism.
As one of the leading SADEC countries it was at the forefront of the battle against apartheid in South Africa.
It would be particularly sad if this country of all countries became the victim of war, racism and civil strife.
Zimbabwe does, of course, still have considerable problems, but the European countries and the Union will continue to assume their responsibilities as partners of Zimbabwe in jointly tackling the problems of poverty, ill health and under-development.
These problems will not be resolved by letting the Zimbabwean army fight in the Congo.
The country cannot afford such a drain on its resources, as is evident from the economic situation.
Neither will the occupation of the land of white farmers resolve the problems.
Land reforms can be introduced through legal channels by a lawful government, and a lawful government comes to power after normal elections.
These have been announced for June at the very latest.
I hope that nobody will use the current problems as a pretext - by exaggerating and increasing these problems, for example - to postpone the elections and heavily influence the spontaneous development of this movement.
In my view, Zimbabwe deserves our confidence.
The population has chosen the path of development.
I hope that nothing whatsoever is done to put an abrupt end to this.
With this in mind, we support the resolution.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should like to agree with the comments made by my fellow MEPs.
I believe that we have a reasonable common position.
Land reform is one of the most important issues throughout southern Africa, so it is therefore not surprising to see that it is again being exploited by Mugabe to his advantage, just prior to the elections, exactly as he has done in previous elections.
After all, this issue is so important for so many black and poor people.
The elections are therefore necessary.
The rule of law is necessary.
You need to have faith in the people and in the law for the system to function properly.
I support what other speakers have said about the SADAC countries who will no doubt be looking upon this situation with great concern and who are undoubtedly working behind the scenes to maintain a democratic climate.
It is also true that they are continually pressing for the withdrawal of troops from the Congo.
Could the Commission and the Council help us, as the European Parliament, to remain involved as observers at these elections, because if things go wrong in Zimbabwe, there will be more trouble in the region.
After South Africa and the democratic government there and the sound developments that have taken place in the region, we very much need to see the positive side.
Let us express our complete confidence in the Zimbabwean people and wish them successful elections for 1 June.
Mr President, it is five to midnight in Zimbabwe.
Everything points to the country sitting on a volcano that could erupt at any minute.
In the run up to the elections, Mugabe will not hesitate to use violence against his political opponents.
At the beginning of this month, peaceful demonstrators were attacked by his followers while the police looked on.
What is more serious is the fact that the demonstrators were arrested and the attackers left alone.
Similarly, Mugabe will not recoil from provoking anarchy and racial hatred by encouraging the illegal occupation of white farms.
Whites are being systematically intimidated and driven from their land through violent means to punish them for their support for the opposition and to buy the votes of the landless farmers.
The government systematically disregards the rulings of the Supreme Court.
In fact, the public prosecutor warned that any attempt to remove the occupiers could lead to civil war.
It is clear that Mugabe, who has become unpopular through his mismanagement of the economy and his exploits in the Congo, intends to do everything necessary to stay in power.
Some people even fear that he is inciting the chaos in order to be able to proclaim a state of emergency and postpone the elections.
At long last, the European Union has this week threatened to suspend aid if the President does not keep his promise of free and fair elections.
But it is already clear that the elections have been rigged.
A quarter of the names on the electoral lists are fictitious or duplicates.
The President is still not allowing any foreign observers in.
What else has to happen before structural aid is suspended? I would urge the Council and the Commission not to wait until it is five past midnight.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is a shame that this resolution was not adopted at the March part-session, just as I think it is a shame that the recent EU-Africa Summit did not tackle this subject head on.
These are subjects which should be at the forefront of political action by the European Union.
We cannot hide the seriousness of what has been going on in Zimbabwe for many weeks now.
The fact is that Hitler is on the loose again - Hitler is out and about again there.
It should not go unnoticed that the leader of the band that is encouraging these arbitrary acts in Zimbabwe chose the name Hitler as his own name.
He is a gentleman by the name of Chenjerai 'Hitler' Hunzvi.
We know that the instigator is the President of Zimbabwe himself, but the leader of the movement took this name, a name that we know all too well from the horrors of our own history.
This is what is happening in Zimbabwe.
That is why we have to take more vigorous action.
The chaos, the threats and the intimidation taking place in that country are unacceptable and it is also unacceptable that this is being encouraged by the person holding the highest office of state, the President of Zimbabwe himself.
Mr President, I will comment on the various issues that have been dealt with during the debate, starting with Iran.
The concern expressed in Parliament' s motions for resolutions on human rights in Iran is entirely shared by the Commission.
Like you, we are particularly worried about the fate of the thirteen Jewish and eight Moslem Iranians detained under this strange charge of espionage.
A number of approaches were made last year by the Union and by various Member States.
Consultations at Union level are continuing, along the lines of the motions for resolutions, in order to establish the most likely ways of guaranteeing the fair and just trial we all hope to see.
Further approaches and the possible presence of observers at the trial could, in our view, be part of that perspective.
So we share the attitude expressed in the debate by those of you who said that, given the progress observed in Iran since the recent parliamentary election, we should, as far as humanly possible, avoid giving the impression of foreign interference which could be counterproductive and which might reverse the improvement we believe we are seeing in the internal and external political climate.
On the subject of Akin Birdal, again we fully share the concerns that have been expressed during the debate and in the resolution on the return to prison of Akin Birdal, ostensibly to complete his sentence.
We entirely support the declaration of 30 March by the Union Presidency, inviting the Turkish Government to take steps to secure the release of this activist.
As you mentioned during the debate, the Helsinki European Council confirmed Turkey' s status as a candidate country on the basis of the same criteria that apply to the other candidate countries.
So it is important for Turkey to engage resolutely in the democratisation process and adopt the necessary reforms in terms of human rights.
Revision, or even repeal, of Article 312 of the criminal code, which was referred to earlier and which is the basis on which Mr Birdal was found guilty of, and I quote, "incitement to hatred" , seems absolutely essential in this respect.
In the context of the regular report it has been producing since 1998 for Turkey, like the other candidate countries, the Commission is following the human rights situation very closely.
In our last report, published in October 1999, we were already expressing our concern about the provisional nature of Mr Birdal' s release, with good reason, unfortunately.
So we will continue to follow up the matter, in the context of the detailed examination we carry out every year.
As you know, we are currently working on a membership partenariat with Turkey, within the framework of the pre-accession strategy.
This document, which establishes the list of priorities to be met by Turkey in preparation for membership, should be adopted by the Commission next November.
By the end of the year, Turkey will need to adopt a national programme reflecting its own priorities for the partenariat and listing the resources put in place to achieve them.
So we have some important deadlines coming up and, in the Commission' s view, questions relating to the democratisation process, in particular freedom of expression, will have an important place in the examination of this partenariat.
As regards human rights in Tibet, we also share your concern.
Like you we are worried about the cultural, linguistic and religious identity of the autonomous region of Tibet, which the Chinese authorities clearly do not respect.
As we have done, with you, many times before, we call on China to re-enter into dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
We regard the renewal of this dialogue as the only realistic method of achieving a peaceful and durable solution to the Tibetan question.
To respond to Mr Mann, the Union has raised these matters many times in the context of the specific bilateral dialogue it is holding with China on human rights.
The situation in Tibet was also one of the main items on the agenda at the last summit between the Union and China, held in Beijing last December.
We will doggedly continue to raise the case of Tibet with the Chinese authorities.
On the death penalty in the United States, like many of you, the Commission is concerned about the growing number of people condemned to death and executed in the United States since the reintroduction of the death penalty in 1976.
In 1998, opposition to the death penalty became one of the most high profile factors in the whole of Union policy on human rights.
We are engaged in permanent dialogue, not only with the United States Government, but also with the other American authorities concerned, in particular the governors of the states where the death penalty has not been abolished.
The Commission is delighted with the Governor of Illinois' decision to establish a moratorium on all executions pending in that state, and we hope that decision will mark an important stage on the road to the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois.
The risk of condemning innocent people to death, mentioned by Mr Ryan, Governor of Illinois, is one of the essential principles underlying the Union' s position on the death penalty.
And we are hoping - we have started - to encourage all the federal states in the United States which apply capital punishment to think about that risk and introduce a moratorium like the one in Illinois with a view to achieving abolition of the death penalty throughout the country.
With regard to the particular case of Juan Miguel Garza, the Commission is currently working to clarify the facts through our delegation to Washington.
On the basis of that clarification, and in accordance with the 1998 guidelines, the Commission will decide whether a specific approach to the American authorities is needed.
The American authorities should be expecting one.
They are fully aware of the whole Union' s opposition to the death penalty and all executions.
Finally, Zimbabwe.
I will rapidly pick up the four points that have been raised in the debate: the elections, the future of our cooperation, the intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo and finally the violence perpetrated in connection with agrarian reform.
Our main concern is the organisation of free and democratic elections.
As regards the possibility of sending a team of electoral observers from the European Union, the Commission recognises the long experience of the European Parliament and the ACP-European Union Joint Assembly in this type of exercise, and particularly that of certain Members of Parliament who are present and who have spoken in this debate.
All the same, we doubt whether such an initiative would be effective in view of the uncertainty surrounding the election preparations.
At this stage, one aid formula would be to intensify civic education, local training and observation of the elections.
The Commission is involved in the last stage of a project designed to train over a thousand local supervisors of the electoral process and we have made contact with our partners from the Southern African Development Community, SADEC, to define their role, and find out whether sending in an observation team from SADEC could be envisaged.
As regards the question concerning the possible suspension of our cooperation, although there could be grounds for suspending financial cooperation with Zimbabwe under the Lomé Convention, we take the view, for the moment, as indeed does Mrs Maes, that such a measure would run counter to our goal prior to the elections.
Since the government' s macroeconomic results are mediocre to say the least, the Commission, the IMF, and the World Bank have already frozen their support for structural adjustment, and the backers participating in the agrarian reform have suspended their institutional cooperation plans.
We have done that, but we continue to support the population re-establishment programmes aimed at combating poverty, and we think it is appropriate to maintain the anti-poverty aid approved in the 8th EDF framework for the social sectors.
On Zimbabwe' s intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we support the Lusaka peace agreement which calls for a status quo of the forces present and a ceasefire in line with the terms of that agreement.
Finally, as regards agrarian reform, since February the Union has been taking various steps in reaction to the recent deplorable events in the country, presumably at the instigation of the Zimbabwe government, such as the violent occupation of farms and non-respect for diplomatic immunity.
In the last few weeks there has clearly been an intensification of illegal occupation and an increase in violence and intimidation, particularly directed against the opposition.
Regrettably, we interpret these disturbances as forming part of the governing party' s election campaign.
Like the European Parliament, we utterly deplore them.
World education forum
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0355/2000 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left;
B5-0357/2000 by Mr Andreasen and Mrs Sander, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party;
B5-0371/2000 by Mrs Banotti and Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats;
B5-0380/2000 by Mr Van den Berg and Mrs Kinnock, on behalf the Group of the Party of European Socialists;
B5-0384/2000 by Mrs Lucas and others, on behalf the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
on the World Education Forum.
Mr President, The World Education Forum in Dakar is a follow-up to the first conference of Education for All held in Thailand eleven years ago.
There has been some progress but, unfortunately, not enough as yet.
As we speak there are 125 million children in the world who do not go to school.
There are 880 million illiterate adults, two-thirds of whom are girls and women.
The Community is the largest donor to many of these countries.
It is regrettable that we are not sending our highest official to attend that conference on behalf of the Community.
We also regret that there has not yet been a communication on children's rights from the Commission.
A prominent African leader made a very pertinent comment.
He said that education is the only existing vaccination against AIDS.
One of the main problems with providing education in many countries is the catastrophic effect AIDS is having on the lives not just of children, many of whom are orphans because they have lost one or both parents.
In several of the African countries which I recently visited, I was informed that in order to have one teacher, the colleges must train three, because by the age of 30 so many teachers are already dead from AIDS.
This underlines the seriousness of the problems.
Many of these children who are not in school are working.
Future plans for education programmes and commitments on the part of the donors to the developing world will have to take this into consideration.
Unfortunately, only 2% of the aid we send to these developing countries is actually being spent on education.
We hope very much that this conference will raise the issue again and bring to it the urgent attention that is needed.
Mr President, for about ten years I have been involved with campaigns to promote education throughout the world.
A hundred and twenty-five million children, mainly girls, do not receive any education.
I am extremely pleased that I am now a Member of the European Parliament and can take specific action and that in this resolution all Groups are saying that the EU development cooperation budget should be doubled.
We are not talking about more money for the development budget but about redistribution within that budget.
According to Commissioner Nielson, we spend 5% on education as a whole and an estimated 80% of that on primary education.
Because I am also rapporteur for the budget for the year 2001, I hope that we as a Parliament, in consultation with Commissioner Nielson - who has, moreover, said that he wants to move in this direction - will be able to double that budget next year.
That would really be a concrete step forward, because so much of the money that we spend simply does not reach the poorest people and is not a step towards real development.
Finally, we cannot develop others, they must develop themselves, but this is a wonderful opportunity to help them and Parliament, together with the Commission, will soon be able to translate this resolution very specifically into real action in the 2001 budget.
Mr President, it is incredibly sad and, in fact, humiliating for us all that, in the year 2000, there are still children who do not receive any basic education or schooling at all and that there are still adults - almost a billion of them - who cannot read or write and who are thus also prevented from participating in the political and democratic life of their society.
It is, of course, also a waste of human resources that this is the way things are.
Unfortunately, it is also those countries which most need educated people to participate in the democratic development of civil society which lack resources for education.
As has been mentioned, the world' s governments agreed in 1990 that steps should be taken to ensure that everyone received a basic education by no later than the year 2000.
At the Copenhagen Summit, the deadline was changed to 2015.
Now, a new summit looms, namely the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal in April.
We know that education is the key to combating poverty, promoting respect for human rights etc.
We cannot accept a situation in which the deadline by which everyone is to receive a basic education is moved forward once again.
I am pleased with this resolution.
I hope that the decision will be a unanimous one and that the clear message will be: ensure you establish a specific framework for a global action plan for prioritising educational needs in the world.
Make resources available.
This is also our message to the Commission.
Mr President, the recent Euro-African Summit in Cairo has made poverty one of our central concerns.
As the author of the general report on poverty approved in the Bahamas by the EU-ACP Joint Assembly a few months ago, I would like to say that the fight against poverty must become one of our objectives and, in many cases, our main objective.
In this context, education, together with health, is the tool with which we can implement an ambitious programme to win the fight against poverty in the world.
Education is a universal human right and the key to sustainable human development. It is the basic responsibility of the States and, above all, an achievable objective if we mobilise the necessary resources.
For this reason, we are supporting this initiative and we urge the Commission to mobilise the necessary budgetary and economic resources and to adopt the relevant institutional initiatives so that this objective may be achieved.
Mr President, I want to preface my remarks by saying that whenever there is lack of respect for children' s rights, there is violence.
And the first form of violence is failure to provide education.
Children from families with problems suffer and often do not have access to proper education.
They will have far less chance of success in life and the conditions are all present for their children to experience the same situation.
So it is time to prioritise prevention and by creating a different family framework finally make it possible to avoid pointless social and individual suffering and implement a real policy of inclusion, socialisation and education from birth.
We need to invent new responses and new social attitudes.
It is our duty to take an interest in these children, particularly the girls, because in some countries they are still regarded as domestic slaves.
The importance of the early years and education must be recognised in order to provide young people with forms of self-expression other than rebellion due to deprivation in childhood.
Human beings are born in a state of dependency.
Defenceless, babies have no duties.
They cannot have any.
Duties follow awareness and awareness awakens with education.
So in parallel with the implementation of processes to promote literacy and education in general, we must also engage in some collective thinking about the living conditions of children in the various countries, especially in urban areas, and assist in projects to look after street children in third world countries, and also in our own countries, developing pilot schemes inspired, for example, by the family pre-school proposed by ATD Quart-monde.
It involves reaching out to families and helping children within the family, as well as cooperation and funding to help families in difficulty, especially single-parent families and vulnerable children.
In fact it is our duty to launch an extensive review of the education of children on our planet if we want a better future for all.
Mr President, the Commission has participated actively in the Forum' s preparation process through the 'Education for All 2000' evaluation and the regional preparation meetings, particularly the one in Johannesburg in 1999. The Commission will be represented at the Dakar Forum by the director-general for Development.
In line with these international commitments, Community investments in education have primarily targeted basic education and primary education, especially in the context of cooperation with the ACP countries.
Thus, a majority of the education programmes financed under the 8th EDF have been devoted to primary education.
The funds allocated to this heading represent 80% of the total amount devoted to education.
The Commission has incorporated the recommendations of the Jomtien Conference on Basic Education into its policy and, in the framework of indicative national programmes, 35 ACP countries out of 71 have made education a priority.
However, I have to specify that, while a balanced approach means prioritising basic education, as has been said, other levels of the educational system must not be neglected as a consequence.
We agree that the effectiveness of our approach on education requires very close coordination between the Community and the Member States as well as with the other backers.
But we believe we must also establish a dialogue with civil society and that will be the Community' s approach to supporting national education action plans in ACP countries.
We are also pursuing the target of eliminating disparities affecting people by the year 2005, in line with the OECD Development Aid Committee' s strategy and the conclusions of the European Union' s social affairs summits.
My last point is the question put by Mr Van den Berg on the doubling of the basic education budget in 2001.
In our view, the Community and the Member States should all allocate more resources to education overall and to basic education in particular.
Nevertheless, we also know this cannot have the anticipated effect unless the recipient countries have the necessary absorption capacity and the resources to ensure the sustainability and durability of the system.
Consequently the answer is not 'no' , but it is not entirely 'yes' either.
We think the issue needs to be examined country by country to ensure adequate analysis adapted to each case.
Taiwan
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0347/2000 by Mr Collins, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group;
B5-0356/2000 by Mr Haarder and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party;
B5-0372/2000 by Mr Jarzembowski and others, on behalf the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats;
B5-0388/2000 by Mr Nogueira Román, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
on Taiwan.
Mr President, the elected Vice-President of the island of Taiwan has been called "the dregs of the nation" by the government in Beijing.
Extra troops have been sent to the Chinese province of Fujian, which lies across the water from Taiwan.
This elected Vice-President, Annette L, said last week that although Taiwan and the mainland are very close to each other geographically, they had become distant relations over the course of history.
China reacted furiously.
Lü had shown her true colours as an extremist and incorrigible agitator for the independence of Taiwan.
According to Beijing, with her poisonous words she wanted to stir up her Taiwanese comrades to hate their fellow countrymen in the mother country, i.e. Beijing.
Lü said that these slanderous comments reminded her of the way in which the Kuomintang had treated her - during the long dictatorship of this party she was imprisoned for five years - and that she is only interested in improved relations with Beijing.
That is indeed the case.
We know Annette Lü and the new President of Taiwan Chen Shui-bian.
Their election is the crowning glory of the democratisation process in Taiwan.
Is that a threat to China? Yes, indeed, after all it is clear that the Chinese people are quite capable of building a democratic system with respect for human rights.
The Taiwanese have shown that.
For the old man in Beijing the internal developments in Taiwan must be a nightmare.
Do they really think their threats will bring results?
Beijing' s behaviour confirms our opinion that the future of Taiwan lies in the hands of the Taiwanese themselves.
As Europeans we do not need to interfere.
Our business is to ensure that this great and independent island is properly represented on the world stage, at the World Health Organisation, the World Trade Organisation, and such like.
The idea that Beijing could represent the Taiwanese in such organisations is absolutely ridiculous.
It is extremely important for this Parliament to forge closer links with the elected representatives in Taiwan.
Democratisation in that part of the world is also important for Europe.
China will only be able to be reunited if both Taiwan and the mainland adopt democracy, human rights and the rule of law as their guiding principles.
Mr President, Commissioner, as European Parliament observers, my colleague Georg Jarzembowski and I were able to follow the presidential elections in Taiwan on 18 March on the spot, 'live' as it were.
On the basis of numerous conversations with various parties and visits to the polling stations, we satisfied ourselves that the election was free and democratic.
We had the impression that the elections in Taiwan were marked by a mature awareness of democracy amongst the population.
This was evidenced both by the high turnout, which, as compared with the presidential elections, had risen by 6% to 82%, and by the result itself.
After a very long period of supremacy by the party in government up to that point - a period lasting over 50 years - the political scene has been revitalised.
The opposition candidate was elected the new President and, for the first time in Taiwan' s history, a woman was elected Vice-President.
These results alone mark a historical turning point.
The people of Taiwan viewed any attempts by outsiders to influence them with enormous sensitivity.
The result was primarily an expression of the internal policy debate, and the newly elected President, Mr Chen Shui-bian, based his election campaign almost entirely on internal issues, and the high-profile, aggressive and provocative noises emerging from the People' s Republic of China, from a variety of sources, had, if anything, the opposite of the desired effect.
Nevertheless, everyone involved was aware of the circumstances.
Chen Shui-bian was also elected because the previously governing Kuomintang party was split by the presence of two candidates.
However, the Kuomintang still has a majority in the Taiwanese Parliament.
Chen Shui-bian is very well aware that a radical pro-independence policy would have been condemned to failure.
The region needs security and stability.
The only way to achieve reconciliation and lasting peace is through positive cooperation and a constructive dialogue between mainland China and Taiwan.
Healthy relations are also needed for economic development.
We therefore welcome the fact that both sides in this conflict are seeking a peaceful solution.
In this respect we welcome Chen Shui-bian' s initiative to commence bilateral talks, and we also welcome the cooperative approach announced by the People' s Republic of China. The PRC is officially endeavouring to reach a peaceful solution, subject, of course, to Taiwan renouncing its efforts towards independence.
Our resolution is intended to further democracy in Taiwan, but the People' s Republic of China is taking it as an affront.
That is why I seriously ask myself whether we should not perhaps adopt a different approach, based on reconciliation instead of polarisation.
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I would like to highlight this Group' s contributions to the joint motion for a resolution, both in terms of promoting dialogue with the People' s Republic of China and Taiwan, as well as in the firm position which has to be maintained on this issue.
We believe that there is an objective need for Taiwan to have a greater presence in the international institutions; this Parliament can promote that.
We therefore support the existence of relations between this Parliament and the Taiwanese Parliament by means of the delegation from our institution and also the need to open a European Union information office in Taiwan.
Having said this, we also want this dialogue to have an objective basis, as have the declarations of the new President, Chen Shui-bian, to which, however, the People' s Republic of China has replied with a renewed display of nervousness, arrogance and a disrespect for democracy.
We must reject these threats since they are absolutely unacceptable, but also because they are an objective threat to the dialogue which is so necessary to the resolution of this problem.
Mr President, thank you very much for letting me speak for the second time today.
The recent presidential elections, which not only observed all democratic norms but also marked the end of the 50-year rule of the Kuomintang, secured the presidency for Mr Chen Shui-bian.
The newly elected President reflects Taiwan' s democratic maturity.
This makes the behaviour of the People' s Republic of China all the more worrying for us, as before, during and after the democratic elections in Taiwan the Republic did not cease to make in some cases totally unacceptable threats towards its little brother.
I realise, of course, that the People' s Republic of China does not understand the word democracy.
Nevertheless, there is no need for them to start panicking just because democratic elections are taking place in a neighbouring state.
Unfortunately, democracy is not infectious!
Mr President, like you, we are delighted that the people of Taiwan have been able to express a democratic choice for the second time.
As the Union has stated through its Presidency, most recently in July last year, in principle we are in favour of one China, but we also want the tension which breaks out from time to time between Taiwan and the People' s Republic of China to be resolved peaceably within a constructive dialogue.
We call on both Beijing and Taipei to take the path of dialogue as quickly as possible.
We are encouraging intensification of economic relations with Taiwan and we think that should happen if, as we expect, Taiwan joins the World Trade Organisation.
Finally, we note the request in your draft resolution, also mentioned by Mr Knörr Borras, for an information office to be opened in Taipei.
We are hoping to do that, but we have not set any timetable because we have other priorities in Asia and worldwide, and you know how limited our resources are in this field, so we are forced to make choices.
We hope to open an office, but it is not one of our priorities at the moment.
We shall now proceed to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Relating to the joint resolution on Iraq
Mr President, there is a drafting error in Paragraph 2 of this resolution.
I would like to propose - and this is in fact correct in the German version - that we should forward this resolution to the High Representative for the CFSP.
But it then continues: "forward this resolution ... and the governments of the Member States" .
I would like to propose an oral amendment so that it reads "and the governments of the Member States, of the United States and of Iraq" .
This is an oral amendment. Are there any objections?
If there are no objections, Mr Sakellariou' s motion will be adopted.
Mr President, I should like to clarify whether this resolution is compatible with the resolution that we passed in January of this year, drawing attention to the problems of the prisoners of war who are still in Kuwait, or whether this resolution is to be taken as contradictory to our resolution of January of this year?
Mr Perry, your objection is political, not procedural.
Mr Sakellariou tabled a motion; nobody opposed it and so the motion has been adopted.
Mr Markov, you cannot make this request on your own.
The request has to be made by 32 Members.
If this request is made by 32 Members, I can check on the quorum.
Thirty-nine or 40 Members appear to have stood up, and so we must check on the quorum.
Mr President, given that agreement was reached on this subject, I find this a rather crude method of avoiding such an important vote.
Mr Naïr, the method may be crude as you say, but the problem is that, according to the old Rules of Procedure, a certain number of Members could request the quorum and then leave the Chamber. The current rule is that whoever requests the quorum has to remain in the Chamber.
Other Members could have requested the quorum and then not voted.
Consequently, all this may well be crude but it is just a touch more practical.
Mr President, I think it is terribly sad that when we are about to take such important votes some people are trying to obstruct this.
I have heard that some Parliamentary staff worked until 4 a.m. so that we could vote on the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report.
I would like to sincerely thank those staff on behalf of my Group, and, I hope, on behalf of all of us.
They work very conscientiously and we should be just as conscientious when it comes to voting!
(Loud applause)
Thank you, Mr Swoboda. However, this is a possibility provided by the Rules of Procedure, and any Member has the right to avail himself or herself of it.
Mr President, I think we should vote.
Just one comment if I may: I understand that on various occasions colleagues may want to test the quorum.
Would you ask the President to invite the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to consider a change to the Rules so we can check it electronically?
Mr Cox, do you really think we can make this change to the Rules of Procedure now?
Mr President, I can understand the reasoning behind not being able to do it electronically, because you cannot check whether everyone uses their card.
I can understand why you would have to take a head count.
I would like to know exactly how many people you counted in the chamber today? Straight in front of me I can see at least four people, just in this row here, who are Group staff - not Members.
How can you, from up there, see exactly which people are Members and which are staff and what the actual figures are?
Ms McKenna, the services of our Chamber are quite familiar with us Members, and also with the collaborators who are authorised to enter the Chamber: they recognise each and every one of them very well.
If you are in agreement, I would like to proceed with the vote.
Other Members are asking for the floor, but if we continue we will be opening a debate which is completely unrelated to the matter in hand.
Let us proceed to the vote.
Relating to the joint resolution on Chechnya
Mr President, I rise to speak about the vote on the Chechen resolution.
During the debate and also during the efforts to agree on a compromise amendment, it emerged that there is a large majority who are of the same view as regards policy and substance.
It can only be a matter of tactics if, at this stage, having adopted six resolutions already, we say the same thing, or virtually the same thing, once again without any serious debate with the Council and with the Commission.
For this reason I would like to make this appeal to Members in the other groups: first of all, let us send the joint delegation to Chechnya.
Everyone has agreed to this specific proposal.
And then, when the delegation has returned, we can hold a major debate on Chechnya in conjunction with the Council and the Commission, and at the end of that debate .....
(The President cut the speaker off)
At the request of Mr Sakellariou, the motion for resolution B5-0350/2000 has been withdrawn.
Vote (continuation)
Mr President, since this voting session is a continuation of the lunch-time voting session, would I be correct in thinking that the few roll-call votes in which we have participated this afternoon will count as part of our daily count, and that this has direct relevance to the earlier vote on whether we had a quorum or not? Perhaps you could let me know later.
Mr President, I just wanted to ask why we are not voting on Ethiopia now.
Mr Swoboda, the vote is scheduled for tomorrow morning.
Mr President, now the vote is over, I would like to come back to the issue of a quorum.
I do not think you would need a head count unless you did a test with cards and got below what is required.
It would save time if you tried that first.
For example, today there were 226 in the first vote after the issue of the quorum was raised.
If there had been a check with cards, maybe we could have avoided the problem of having a head count.
Ms McKenna, this is not an issue that can be resolved right now in this Chamber.
Both your interventions - this one and the one you made earlier - have been recorded.
We will have to evaluate whether it would be appropriate to amend the Rules of Procedure.
It is not an issue that we can deal with now.
Mr President, I voted for the definition of the "Youth" Community action programme, as agreed in the Conciliation Committee, mainly because it will finance and implement the European voluntary service programme, which has a large number of young people involved in community actions, including the provision of assistance for the elderly.
Having said this, I would like to put forward a suggestion for future discussions on the "Youth" project and point out something which concerned me in the vote, although the report was adopted, and that is the definition of the word "youth" .
Mr President, do you feel young? I think you are saying that you do.
In my opinion, it would be appropriate to establish that "young" means those who are young at heart, and therefore give those who are no longer young in years but who are young at heart the opportunity to take advantage of these services.
. (PT) We have been discussing this programme for too long, with all the consequences that that delay implies, as all this effort has not been reflected in the budget agreed in the conciliation procedure - EUR 520 million for seven years, whereas the European Parliament' s original proposal was for EUR 980 million - which is quite frankly less than the programme requires.
On the other hand, whilst the accession of the candidate countries will give more young people access to the YOUTH programme and there will be an even richer exchange of experience, I have some doubts about whether the budget for the programme is enough to guarantee the success of this initiative.
Although the initial phase of this programme has been positive, its scope is very limited, as it relates to just one facet of the youth policy that we need, which should actually tackle the various issues affecting young people - such as education, employment, housing, health and culture - across the board.
The references to ways of solving the problems of discrimination and to the age range for participation in the programme - 15-25, although there are some exceptions - are also inadequate, given that the average age for completing higher education is very close to the upper limit, which should be raised to 30 years.
Lastly, it is important to strengthen the role and obligations of the bodies responsible for promoting the programme in each Member State, to make sure that it is promoted as efficiently and as quickly as possible.
- I was disappointed to see that in the decision of Parliament and Council establishing the "Youth" Community action programme, reference to the family has been removed in final conciliation negotiations.
This reference, which was accepted by the Culture and Youth Committee as well as Parliament, referred to the need to examine the role of the family among those factors which have promoted and hampered the social integration of young people.
The importance of the family in promoting or hampering social integration among youth is clearly recognised within society today, as well as through various studies.
The Council of Europe, in its report Coherent and Integrated Family Policies, states, "Families play a primary role in socialisation because they communicate the values, standards, customs and behaviour of the social groups to which their children belong" .
It is inexcusable that this reference to the family has been removed.
In a report designed to assess and support our young people in the best possible way, the deletion of reference to the family, the single most important influence in a young person' s life, is incomprehensible.
- I wholeheartedly endorse Mrs Gröner's recommendation to approve the agreement reached with the Council on European youth action programmes.
The previous youth programmes, Youth for Europe and the European Voluntary Service, will be grouped together in a general medium-term programme which will run from 2000 until 2006, as the European Parliament has demanded.
A longer-term programme will ensure young people have the opportunity to benefit from such schemes for a guaranteed time.
Every participant will also have full access to health services and social security, therefore allowing as many of our young people as possible to become involved.
Although the funding of these programmes of EUR 520m is well below our original demand of EUR 980m which is necessary for new Member States after enlargement, there will be a possibility of increasing this figure, following extra demands on the budget by enlargement.
These programmes will certainly benefit our young people and give them invaluable opportunities to learn about themselves, about others and about Europe.
Not only is this crucial for their personal development, but in a fiercely competitive world it will vastly improve their chances on the job market.
Increasing our young people's skills has always been one of our priorities and we must continue to support this aim.
Our young people are Europe's future.
We must encourage them to learn about others and about the European Union, as well as developing their own values, ideas and skills.
It is important that they are able to participate in voluntary work abroad, school exchanges and learning languages.
Funding for these types of programmes are a fundamental step towards this objective of opening the eyes and minds of our young people and preparing them to be part of a flexible, skilled workforce.
Mr President, I voted for the establishment of the European Year of Languages 2001.
This is, without any doubt, a major, positive step, although, in my opinion, every year should be a year of languages.
It is of paramount importance for the European Union that the citizens of the 15 States learn to speak the languages of their fellow citizens of the European Union.
I would like to take this opportunity to call for language teaching for the elderly to receive just as much attention and funding as language teaching for young people, which receives an extensive amount of aid. In this respect, the elderly are all too often forgotten and they would love to visit the other States of the European Union.
Mr President, I would like to give an explanation of my negative vote on the report on the European Year of Languages.
Firstly, language occupies an important place in European civilisation and culture, irrespective of numerical considerations regarding the size of the population.
This statement is thoroughly valid for lesser-used languages.
Secondly, the target year for this decision is 2001; European citizens could become proficient in other languages as is shown by the fact that all people who speak minority languages, without exception, have in common an excellent training in this field.
All of them are already bilingual.
It is completely wrong to exclude minority languages from this initiative.
It is regrettable that this House has not accepted the important services that lesser-used languages could contribute to the success of this initiative.
I am glad the European Parliament and the Council have agreed to make 2001 the European Year of Languages.
In a European Union of fifteen Member States, committed to enlargement, with eleven official languages and a multitude of regional languages, it is actually very important to make the citizens of the Union aware of the advantages of understanding and speaking other languages and of the many opportunities that exist for learning to do so.
Speaking a language other than one' s mother tongue undoubtedly broadens the mind.
So, from primary school and kindergarten, children should be encouraged to start learning languages, as an instrument to raise awareness of cultural diversity.
Some European countries, especially the Scandinavian countries, already have very advanced policies in this field and the resulting advantages are evident.
This practice needs to be disseminated to the other Member States.
Of course, we must ensure that this knowledge is not confined only to the better off in society.
Boosting the learning of foreign languages will bring European citizens closer together by giving them the means to communicate, and thus get to know each other and forge the links to make the concept of European citizenship a reality.
Opening up to other cultures and finding out about the traditions of our European neighbours are essential ways of combating intolerance and racism engendered by fear of the unknown.
At the practical level, it needs to be made clear that the European Year of Languages is in fact a joint European Union/Council of Europe project.
To show that, it would be better for the two partners to use an identical logo and slogan.
The same concern for visibility and transparency leads me to support the creation of an interactive Internet site so that people can access useful information about the project.
I am in favour of people being multilingual, but I am sorry we are not trying to develop the teaching of Esperanto in parallel.
It is a language with European roots and easy to understand, but also rich and subtle.
As an auxiliary language, it can provide one means, amongst others, of facilitating communication between all European citizens.
I therefore regret that it is not mentioned in this proposal.
The undersigned members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left agree entirely with the point of view of both the Commission and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport that language is a rather crucial component of human communication, whether it be the spoken or written language, sign language or body language.
There are people who prefer Esperanto as a form of communication across national borders.
There are also professional jargons, different dialects in one and the same country and minority languages which are now being recognised by democracies.
It is also important for posterity to carry out research into languages which are dying out.
In short, we believe that an understanding of the importance of language is invaluable and that the European Union ought to be acknowledging this beyond the mere one year of the present campaign.
We hope that this view of ours is also shared by the Council and by national parliaments both within and outside the Union.
The sums proposed by the Commission (EUR 8 million) and by the Committee (EUR 10 million) are too modest, in our opinion.
It ought to be possible to spend the proposed sums of money on other things, for which reason we are completely abstaining from voting.
- (NL) I am pleased with the report by Mr Graça Moura, the rapporteur, and I am grateful to him that my amendments have been adopted.
In the frame of this European Year, most of the amendments aim to establish closer cooperation with the Member States at all levels of policy, not only at national level but also at regional and even local policy level.
An essential requirement for this is that the Member States earmark sufficient funds to set up activities that can then be cofinanced by the European Union.
If not, the European Year of Languages is likely to remain a PR exercise, just a lot of hot air.
The second aim of my amendments was by means of the activities set up in the context of this European Year to pay special attention to socially vulnerable groups, migrants and semi-skilled and unskilled workers.
This is something very close to my heart: learning to have an active command of foreign languages should not become the umpteenth barrier to the integration of this target group, a privilege for the already privileged members of our society.
Foreign language learning is indeed the key to integration.
A third series of amendments that I have tabled concerns the availability of language courses and accessibility to them in the respective Member States.
It is an open secret that this situation differs greatly from one Member State to another.
Smaller Member States with a correspondingly small language area must ipso facto make much greater effort, whereas in the larger Member States and larger language areas respectively the economic incentive is not so great.
The Member States are therefore inherently asymmetrical in this regard.
I hope that the Council will endorse this initiative and that we shall be able to start the specific activities as soon as possible, because there is a lot to be done.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, giving Europeans the best training for the future, from their earliest youth, whatever their origin and level of education, above all means giving them the ability to speak languages other than their mother tongue.
Haute-Normandie has one of the youngest populations in France, but also one of the highest levels of youth unemployment.
Speaking another European language can clearly be a key to success for those young people.
Making 2001 European Year of Languages will make Europeans aware of the linguistic diversity of the European Union. It is an excellent decision and has my full support.
But I do not think we should only devote one year to this aim. Lasting commitment is needed.
Indeed, it is our duty to be ambitious and to demand that all our young people are able to speak another language fluently, offering them bilingual education whenever possible.
In this respect, IBIS (Institut Bilingue Interuniversitaire de la Seine), which first saw the light of day in Haute-Normandie, is most exemplary.
I am convinced that other operations of a similar nature should be massively encouraged and financially supported by the European Union.
Dary report (A5-0093/2000)
Maes (Verts/ALE).
(NL) Mr President, we not only voted with enthusiasm for this report, but also for the amendments that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development tabled.
We are sure that in our partner countries of the ACP, substantial investments are being made in order to be able to compete with regard to quality on the world market.
The problem, however, is the price.
Many of these countries are still battling with excessively high costs and I believe that a long transitional period, which I would insist on, is very important for these countries.
I think our ACP partners will also be pleased with the outcome of this vote.
- The British Labour members have a strong commitment to the producers in the Caribbean and wish to see an early settlement of the dispute within the WTO.
These are delicate negotiations and at this stage the UK does not rule out an eventual tariff only system.
This is the context in which we have supported the Dary report while being against Amendments Nos 6 and 7.
- (NL) It is clear from the debates once again that there is still considerable disagreement in the Union about the length of the transitional period, the level of the quotas and the system for granting licences.
The vote on the Dary report has demonstrated once again that the European Parliament does not respect the internationally agreed trading rules.
It is unacceptable that in the Dary report again a transitional period of ten years is proposed, without putting a definitive ruling first.
Taking account of the internationally agreed trading rules within the WTO, the GATT Agreement and the internal market strategy of the European Union, we should be arguing in favour of introducing a tariff only system as quickly as possible.
We could possibly agree provisionally on a tariff quota ruling that is WTO compliant, but on condition that a date is specified on which the tariff only system will be introduced.
Belgium has always argued in favour of the immediate adaptation of the banana regime to comply with the WTO, but with a concession to the ACP countries.
Preference should indeed be given to a tariff only system because this option respects the trading flows best and is most clearly WTO compliant.
The vote today is a sham because the real decisions have been taken in secret deals between the great capitalist groups of the United States and the European Union. Their banana war is just one aspect and, like banana production, just one factor in a complex of conflicts of interest.
This war, which is presented as a conflict between producer countries, Latin American and dollar area countries against Lomé Convention countries and European overseas dependent territories, is actually a war between capitalist groups.
Three large American capitalist groups, including Chiquita, the new name for the notorious United Fruit, dominate the dollar banana and are supported by the American Government.
Behind the producer countries the European Union is claiming to protect, however, there are some large families of wealthy French-Creoles and, indeed, powerful English and French groups.
Our position is this: while we do not want to give the mighty dollar banana sharks any awards, neither do we have any intention of providing backing through our votes to the smaller sharks protected by the European Union.
However, it is essential to take measures to protect the small producers who work their own plantations without exploiting anyone, and for them to be guaranteed a decent minimum income, regardless of market fluctuations.
We demand protection for agricultural labourers, who should not be the victims of the commercial war raging on the world market.
If a guarantee fund is created, it must underwrite the wages of these workers and the incomes of small producers, and not allow banana magnates to increase their wealth just to invest it in other, more profitable, sectors.
- (FR) This report gives us the opportunity to welcome the European Parliament' s becoming aware of the need to defend the banana producers of, on the one hand, the ACP countries (to whom we have made commitments in the course of renewing the Lomé Convention) and, on the other hand, the outermost countries of the Community.
Although the WTO' s dispute settlement body condemned certain key elements in the competitivity of ACP operators, the validity of the principle of tariff quotas has not been challenged in any way.
The fact is that we are, as is often the case, witnessing the overzealousness of the Commission which, in the context of the negotiations initiated within the WTO, has gone too far.
In attempting to reconcile the contradictory interests of all parties, in the end it has not been able, or has not wished, to achieve this.
It therefore seems curious, to say the least, to note the paradox of acknowledging that operators are all in favour of a tariff quota system, while adopting the solution of a single rate system!
We therefore congratulate Mr Dary and the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development who are attempting to restore a little order to the Commission proposal which we find simply unacceptable as it stands, because it is selling off Community interests for the benefit of American multinationals whose manufacturing standards are obviously not comparable with EU standards.
While it may, admittedly, be quite laudable to seek to obtain the most advantageous prices for consumers, we must still be able to compare like with like, particularly in terms of manufacturing conditions (social legislation, child protection).
We must therefore ensure that we do not tend towards harmonising these social conditions of manufacturing to the lowest common denominator, and, instead, let us pursue, as a priority, the objective of better product quality, without GMOs or pesticides or anything else. Developing better quality products will cause a consequent increase in demand, and thus in the volume of production, with a concomitant reduction in prices!
After years of difficulty due to the economic crisis in industrialised countries and the decline in the economies of Eastern Europe, the Commission' s solution would be likely to cause the untimely disappearance of these producing countries whose economies would not, for want of time, be able to restructure and diversify production.
It is clear today that, without actively seeking confrontation, the EU must champion its own point of view, a position which is all the more tenable as present and future European consumers represent a major proportion of the banana market.
We are therefore satisfied with Mr Dary' s report, even if we feel it does not go far enough, particularly in terms of the ACP tariff system, the transition period extended beyond ten years, and the definition of a new system for the allocation of import licences, or additional European aid.
- (SV) The EU' s system for importing bananas - which the WTO panel declared to be discriminatory on 7 April 1999 - must be reformed.
There is justification for showing consideration for banana producers in the ACP States and in the extremely peripheral areas of the Union, but there is no reason for special treatment in the field of trade.
Import duties and production subsidies are incompatible with our liberal values.
In our view, it is only through a system of free trade that long-term, sustainable, global economic development can be created.
For that reason, the Commission' s proposal for a rapid transition to a system with fixed uniform rates of duty is a step in the right direction.
Lagendijk report (A5-0069/2000)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, it was with great pleasure that I voted for this measure on the communication from the Commission on the stabilisation and association process for countries of South-Eastern Europe.
This is one of the measures adopted in this Chamber which I have most appreciated, for I am sure we all remember the serious problems which arose in this area just over a year ago during the NATO military intervention.
I feel that the only way to prevent wars is precisely to be closely aware of the tangible problems of other peoples.
In all probability, it is only this initiative and those which will be approved and supported by the European Parliament which will truly succeed in preventing disasters in this region and any other regions that find themselves in a similar situation.
In this communication from the Commission, the European Union sets out its claim to impose itself as protector on the countries of South East Europe.
But throughout the century which has just ended, that region of Europe has known nothing but suffering because of that claim, whether made by rival European powers or by a Western Europe which likes to think it is united.
While it is easy for the rapporteur to denounce nationalism and local chauvinism, which are indeed intolerable, who can forget that the great European powers have always played on these nationalisms, setting them against each other according to their interests as great powers?
The economic and political rivalries between European powers have led to two world wars: the first started in that region and the second was particularly destructive there.
As to the newly united Europe, it has principally distinguished itself first by contributing to the carve-up of former Yugoslavia, and then by bombing Serbia and Kosovo.
As the entire current situation illustrates, that war has further aggravated the situation in the region, both in material terms and in terms of relations between communities.
Under the circumstances, entrusting the stability of this region to the European powers is the same as having the wolf look after the sheep.
Our vote against this report expresses our opposition to the past and present policies of the European powers.
I am delighted to welcome this report calling for the European Union to play a leading role in the context of the stability and association pact for the countries of South-Eastern Europe.
People are always saying that South-Eastern Europe is the European Union' s crisis-riven back yard.
The political context in this region is extremely sensitive and came to a climax in the Kosovo conflict.
That conflict demonstrated the potential political effects of instability on the neighbouring States, threatening to destabilise the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Albania and Montenegro.
Other countries in the region like Bulgaria and Romania have also suffered serious economic repercussions.
It is easy to see that the European Union has every interest in the stabilisation of the region and that interest will grow with future enlargement.
The European Union was traumatised by its powerlessness in the face of the process of violent disintegration at work in the Balkans.
It was incapable of doing anything likely to stop that disintegration because it lacked a common political will for action, but it also lacked a political approach and appropriate instruments which would have allowed it to manage the crisis effectively at the international level.
It can be said that the Balkan crisis was a turning point which had the effect of stamping a decisive orientation on European defence and security policy.
The decisions of the European Councils of Cologne and Helsinki on creating military and civilian capabilities for independent European Union crisis management are proof of that.
The outcome of the Cologne Council was the establishment of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe on 10 June 1999, a pact involving not only the Member States of the European Union and, of course, the countries of the region, but also the United States and Russia.
The pact is part of the global stabilisation approach the European Union has been developing since 1996.
The stabilisation and association agreements to be signed by Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania are the keystone of that approach.
Negotiations are currently taking place with Macedonia.
Croatia, where positive political changes have recently occurred, should be involved in the near future.
These agreements constitute an entirely new contractual framework for the countries of the region; they draw great inspiration from the institutional arrangements and conditions attached to the European agreements linking the European Union with the CEECs.
These agreements are individually tailored to take account of the specific situation in each country.
They hold out the prospect of long-term integration into the European Union on the basis of the Treaty of Amsterdam and in compliance with the Copenhagen criteria.
Above all, they give the countries of this crisis-riven region an important political signal and a definite incentive.
These agreements also encourage stronger regional cooperation, which seems to me indispensable to the creation of an axis of stability in the region.
García-Margallo y Marfíl report (A5-0059/2000)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, I also voted for the measure on the Commission communication on implementing the framework for financial markets: Action Plan, because it is clearly important for the European Parliament, the Commission, the Union and the Council to make progress in terms of competition, using networks and electronic money, which are the latest forms of economic activity. I would have been happier with my decision to vote for the measure if it had included the intention to present every pensioner with a computer when he draws out his first pension payment.
The elderly need to familiarise themselves with new commerce techniques as well as young people.
. (PT) This report comments favourably on the Commission' s proposal for an action plan on financial markets, the objective of which is to liberalise capital markets.
It is also in line with the Lisbon Summit, which declared that this and other liberalisation programmes should be speeded up.
But the truth is that this process increases financial instability and encourages concentration of capital markets and financial institutions, and for this reason we are opposed both to the position adopted by the Commission and to the rapporteur' s position.
However, with a view to introducing specific measures to combat the volatility of capital markets and to control capital movements in the EU, especially those of a speculative nature, and also with a view to minimising the risk of financial crises, we attempted, by means of an amendment to this effect, to persuade the Commission to include in its action plan corresponding concrete measures. These included, in particular, the presentation of a report on the introduction of a tax on capital movements, especially speculative movements.
We regret that our amendment was not approved.
The resolution tabled by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is certainly much better than the original version, and I want to thank the rapporteur, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil.
However, I have not been able to vote for it because it still contains inconsistencies after the plenary vote.
Thus, as regards the idea of the creation of a commission for stock exchange operations, I recommend a green paper on the establishment or gradual creation of such a commission, preceded by a feasibility study.
Moreover, the subsidiarity principle requires that, at a time of remarkable boom in the craze for cross-border investments in securities, we bear in mind that the interests of the issuing companies and investors will be better served by proximity of supervision and monitoring of international investments, with more efficient channels for cooperation between the monitoring authorities.
Supervision of the securities markets can be carried out better by people close to the markets and with in-depth knowledge of them.
In this context, comparison with the commission in place in the United States, the SEC, is particularly inappropriate, because the SEC is the corollary of a financial system resulting largely from a segmentation of the profession between commercial banks and investment banks, and in Europe we have chosen the universal bank model, which has strengthened the role of the banks in the European financial system.
It would be equally aberrant to include the stock exchange listing rules in the remit of such a commission, when at most it should ensure respect for them.
The establishment of a pan-European equity listing would also be aberrant.
Harmonised yet competitive listings guarantee a diversity of investment products.
A pan-European listing would make it impossible for national stock exchanges to concentrate on niche markets and would restrict opportunities for specialisation which may emerge from a competitive situation, even though it is convergent.
Instead of focusing on the listings - already largely harmonised anyway - to the detriment of diversity, we should emphasise rapprochement or even harmonisation of existing dealing systems and environments should be emphasised.
On prudential supervision, I made a direct appeal to the Commission and the Council yesterday not to cling to the crazy idea of entrusting supervision of all the credit establishments in the fifteen Member States to the European Central Bank.
Governments control banking activities, hence the need for financial sector supervision by government authorities, not the European Central Bank.
I have not voted for paragraph 26 which is mostly incomprehensible in French anyway.
Kuckelhorn report (A5-0053/2000)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, considering that we are discussing supplementary pensions, the representative of the Pensioners' Party could not let the occasion pass without explaining why he voted for this measure.
I am convinced that the future of pensioners can only lie in supplementary pensions. These pensions should, however, be optional and replace compulsory State pensions, which are a veritable sieve and lose water from all sides.
When we cook spaghetti, which is a delicious Italian national dish, we use a colander, a container full of holes which drains the water off the spaghetti.
Well, instead of a colander, we could use the national State schemes, which, I am afraid, also lose water from all sides, except that, instead of water, it is the hard-earned money of all the working citizens which drains away.
For this reason, we must replace the national State pension schemes with private supplementary and alternative pension schemes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted in favour of Amendment No 39 by mistake. In fact I reject it for the following reasons: this amendment is based on the assumption that neither the Commission report nor the European Parliament' s Kuckelkorn report give any impetus towards structural reforms in the Member States of the European Union as regards reforming retirement pensions.
The opposite is true of course.
Right now there is a considerable need for reform in Member States' retirement pension systems.
I therefore believe that any impetus given by the European Union and by the European Parliament will assist debate in the Member States, where we still have more questions than answers.
.
(PT) We voted against this report because we consider that in content it differs little from the Commission' s proposal, which aims to put social security totally in the hands of the financial markets, thus weakening or even replacing state pension schemes by stock market speculation. This makes it quite clear what the "modernisation of social protection" agreed at the Lisbon Summit is meant to be.
As we stated in the amendments we tabled, creating a single market for supplementary pension funds is not an adequate response to future demographic problems.
What we need are expansionist economic policies which help to create permanent jobs, thus expanding the pool of contributors to the state pension fund.
The state social security system, which is financed on a solid footing independent of commercial interests and financial profitability, and which is based on a spirit of solidarity between generations, is in a position to guarantee the right to a dignified retirement and to security in old age for workers who have paid contributions to state pension schemes.
I spoke yesterday on the Kuckelhorn report as draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Women' s Rights.
The committee expressed an opinion on the outcome of the consultation on the Green Paper on supplementary pensions in the single market, just as it did on the Green Paper itself.
We believe this very broad consultation should rapidly conclude with a proposal for a framework directive to ensure the development of a genuine single market in supplementary pension funds, under the second and third pillars.
The first pillar, covering biometric risks, must still continue to be the cornerstone of social protection in the European Union.
The targeted directive we are seeking for the second pillar of supplementary pensions should, in particular, define the context for eliminating obstacles to free choice of pension fund, free movement of persons, free provision of services and double taxation.
As regards taxation, the only acceptable solution is one based on the principle that contributions should be tax deductible, at least up to a certain ceiling, and that supplementary pensions paid out should be taxable in accordance with the income tax legislation applying in the countries of residence.
As regards the controversial question of whether supplementary pension systems should cover biometric risks, I want to point out that, from the fiscal point of view, pension funds which do not cover these risks cannot be discriminated against as compared with those which do cover them, it being understood that the need to cover these risks depends on the extent of the first pillar in the various countries.
Subsidiarity and free choice require this.
Prudential rules must not be disproportionate to ensuring that the funds are secure.
They must be differentiated according to whether a scheme is internal or external to the enterprise.
They must allow managers to determine the best investment strategy.
In the absence of agreement on certain essential points, I am unable to vote for the general framework.
I regret this all the more as almost all the relevant conclusions from the Committee on Women' s Rights and my recommendations are included in the motion for a resolution, in particular those considering that
as regards supplementary pensions too, the preservation of acquired rights is essential when a spouse interrupts or abandons his or her work in order to devote himself or herself to his or her family or look after close relatives who are in need of assistance;
for the purpose of calculating pensions, certain periods devoted to the upbringing of children or care of family members ought to be taken into account;
it is desirable to provide for the possibility of continued voluntary or optional insurance to preserve and improve pension rights and guarantee a right to payment of the capital under certain conditions.
We should obviously take advantage of this opportunity to ask the Member States to implement more consistently the principle of equal pay for equal work, because wage discrimination against women has repercussions on women' s pension levels.
Any legal or contractual provisions infringing the principle of equality of treatment of men and women should be invalid.
Finally, I want to reiterate my long-standing demand - disregarded by the Commission for many years - for revision of the existing directives on equality of treatment of women and men in terms of social security, in the same way as it applies in legal and professional systems.
And let us not forget assisting spouses, those millions of invisible workers, the large majority women, on whose behalf this Parliament has demanded an upgrading of the half-hearted 1986 directive to give assisting spouses proper status and compulsory membership of social security schemes, especially pension schemes.
On 28 March President Prodi and seven of his colleagues met with members of the Committee on Women' s Rights, the European Women' s Lobby and the Equal Opportunities Consultative Committee. I hope he and the committee responsible will now stop ignoring those demands of the European Parliament I have just mentioned.
Palacio Vallelersundi report (A5-0098/2000)
Mr President, I also voted for the Communication: "The strategy for Europe' s internal market" , despite the fact that the text did not include the opinion drafted by Mr Medina Ortega on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, page 20 of which states that from the point of view of social security, the ideal of supplementary pensions requires the creation of a genuine European social security system - and I repeat, European social security system - to replace the current approach, which is based on the harmonisation of national systems.
I am not, therefore, alone in hoping that, tomorrow, the 15 governments will at last decide to take social security and pensions in hand at European level, for this is the only way to prevent the current breakdown of the systems.
.
(EL) According to its communication, the Commission intends over the next five years to continue the same internal market strategy, but to apply it more strictly and extend it to new areas.
Not only does the European Parliament report support this approach, it also calls for the relevant measures to be speeded up.
The starting point for the proposed objectives are what are typically referred to as the 'enormous benefits' of the internal market.
However, no explanation is given as to who will benefit from, and who will suffer under, this procedure.
Without doubt, the only outcome of all the measures to implement the principles of free establishment and free provision of services, the measures to liberalise the markets, the measures to promote the free movement of goods and the numerous concomitant laws is to strengthen the huge multinationals whose potential to extend and mobilise on new markets at greatly reduced costs has been facilitated and which have benefited from deregulation measures.
These multinationals have seen their profits increase and their position consolidated. Unfortunately, the same does not apply to small- or medium-sized businesses in small Member States, where much stiffer competition has resulted in an increase in the number of bankruptcies, shrinking business and job cuts.
The problem for these companies is not, of course, that they are 'hampered in exploiting the opportunities afforded by the internal market' ; their problem is precisely the measures used to implement the internal market, the principles which constitute the EU's competition legislation and the reduction in demand in the middle and lower classes as the result of anti-grass roots austerity policies.
And, of course, the solution does not lie in venture capital and the financial markets, which increase the risks for most small businesses, due to their limited resources, but in a different economic development policy which supports productive investment, increases demand and makes it easier for small businesses to trade.
The report calls for new, improved arrangements for companies by 'simplifying the legal, administrative and fiscal environment' and for 'laws... which do not involve costs and other burdens for businesses which would otherwise lose their competitive advantage over foreign competitors' .
In other words, even less accountable capital transactions and even fewer legislative specifications.
At the same time, there is not a word about workers' rights, about the fact that fewer obstacles mean less protection under labour legislation and less accountability during mass redundancies, mergers and transfers.
It is not by chance that neither the individual Commission proposals nor the European Council guidelines make any reference to the need to limit these phenomena, control speculative movements of capital and impose a tax and other measures on capital.
The report calls for greater liberalisation of sectors such as the pharmaceutical market and a reduction in the tax burden on employment, thereby proving that the measures being taken are paving the way for greater liberalisation of and less accountable capital transactions and profits with exceptionally dangerous consequences for the entire social protection system.
The report under discussion is fully in line with the anti-grass roots economic and social policy exercised within the framework of the single internal market and EMU and we shall, of course, be voting against it.
The sub-text of Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s report is recognition of the deadlock between national governments, which fail to transpose Community law when it does not serve their interests, and companies, normally the principal beneficiaries of the single market, which have to be convinced of the benefits through information campaigns and 'incentives' .
In the light of the success of earlier campaigns on the euro, the results of these are still to be established.
This is another illustration of the 'soviet-style' procedures of the Community institutions which are now trying to invent the new consumer and the new businessman, after the new citizen of the Ludford report.
So while the rapporteur supports companies, especially when faced with the difficulties SMEs encounter because of 'administrative obstacles' and complexities, I have considerable reservations about certain provisions in the final text.
The report underlines the vital importance of making infringement procedures faster and more efficient and 'welcomes the proposals to the Intergovernmental Conference' along those lines. Because Community centralisation is failing to demonstrate its validity and its contribution, we are now forced to insist on repressive procedures, where cooperation would have made it possible to draw up flexible rules more easily acceptable to those involved.
Then, the Commission should, and I quote, 'pay special attention to creating internal-market mindedness' in national governments, 'while monitoring national implementing measures' .
When we know the political context surrounding officials in Community institutions, this desire to brainwash officials in our governments alarms me.
Finally, the report regrets that the advantage to businesses of treating the whole of the EU as a single market rather than as a collection of national markets is not always apparent to them.
To remedy this lack of awareness which is additional to administrative obstacles and consumer behaviour, the report envisages 'mass information campaigns similar to those conducted in the case of the euro and incentives to encourage the private sector not to treat partners from other Member States unfavourably' .
These points do not seem to undermine the confidence of this House in the chosen Community construction model. People are going to be made happy, whether they like it or not.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
COM in milk
The next item is the report (A5-0081/2000) by Mr Pesälä, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1255/1999 on the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products (COM(1999) 631 - C5-0339/1999 - 1999/0254(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, this is indeed a matter of an amendment to a Regulation by means of which competence would be transferred from the Council to the Commission.
With this amendment to the Regulation, the Commission would be empowered to amend the list of goods not covered by Annex 1.
The Commission already has this power in the area of agricultural produce, such as grain, sugar, rice and eggs.
It would be logical if this power were extended to cover milk products.
This would be the case as a result of the amendment.
When we consider that funds set aside for aiding exports will dwindle in a couple of years from EUR 587 million to EUR 415 million, as a result of WTO agreements, it would be a good thing if the Commission had the power to examine the list of goods.
There are many goods for export that also contain substantial amounts of non-milk products, such as yoghurt containing sugar and fruit, and yet dairy products attract export subsidies.
This being the case, the question here is very much one of logic, allowing us to proceed in the same way as with grain, sugar, rice and eggs.
It is also very much a question of budgetary discipline, of being able to observe budgetary discipline consistently in the years to come, as appropriations for exports grow scarcer.
There has been some discussion that the transfer of power from the Council to the Commission might not be such a good thing.
My own view on this, and on such situations as this, is that it is what we call a zero-sum game.
We must be logical and adopt the right use of power and the right course to do our job as well and as consistently as possible.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with shifting the balance of interinstitutional power.
I think it is rooted in common sense, and a very far-reaching sense of consistency.
In my opinion, in the future, when prices and situations change rapidly in the world markets, this is the way we should be able to progress with regard to practical matters and react quickly.
I believe the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is also unanimous on this. This amendment to the Regulation must be made.
It will be a very good and positive move for everyone, and agricultural and dairy producers in particular.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by very sincerely thanking Mr Pesälä for his statement, but I must say straight away that the thrust of my comments is somewhat different.
We have a slogan in German which says 'Milk cheers up tired chaps' .
But you can also just say 'Milk cheers you up' , because we now have some women in key positions in the Commission and that is why I would like to put on record my view that the Commission is now cheerfully planning to abolish export refunds for milk products too.
The Commission is empowered to delete goods eligible for export refunds under the COMs for cereals, sugar, rice and eggs, for example.
In the case of goods not covered by Annex I to the Treaty the list has been amended in this way.
My question is this: is the Commission now seeking carte blanche for other products? I know that the Member States have taken widely differing views of this, not least in Council meetings.
Is this really what is intended for the entire milk sector?
I would be grateful if you could give me a couple of answers in a moment, when we consider whether this really is efficient.
The Commission text indicates that additional administrative options are to be created, so as to facilitate more precise selection of those goods for which export refunds are to be granted.
Would the Commission not agree that in this context the expression 'efficient use' is rather euphemistic? What does 'efficient' mean in plain language?
In this case, "efficient" quite simply means abolishing export refunds for milk products. In practice it means that, for example, no export refunds will be granted for the milk part of fruit yoghurt.
So I would like to ask if there is not a danger that without the milk export refund component export refunds for yoghurt will be reduced. Do you have real calculations and reliable figures for this?
What will the situation be then?
The rapporteur, Mr Pesälä, has, of course, already pointed out that this will also hit other products.
There are also other export products, such as cakes and pastries, which contain milk components.
So it sounds rather crazy to me if, on the one hand, we say that we must reduce costs while, on the other, it is possible, because more milk will remain on the market,that additional costs will have to be met for storage and so on.
As I see it, excess production in the milk sector is likely to get worse rather than improve, and this gradual increase in minimum market access and the simultaneous reduction in the maximum export refund are rather contradictory.
I am sure that you will be able to explain this in your statement in a moment.
I believe that in terms of market policy there is no urgent need for this, and I can therefore see no reason why I should happily vote for this procedure or why it should be in the interests of the people I represent.
I think I might find it rather difficult to explain to the farmers at home.
So I would like to ask once more - is the abolition of these export refunds really unavoidable? Of course we agreed at the Berlin Summit that savings would have to be made, but surely in the right place.
I am sure that you will be able to give us some answers in a moment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank you very sincerely, Mr Pesälä, for your report.
So what is this all about? The proposal is to transfer to the Commission the power to amend the list of processed products containing milk products which are eligible for refunds.
As the rapporteur has already explained, the Commission already has this power for cereals, sugar, rice and eggs.
Planned total expenditure for export refunds for goods not covered by Annex I to the Treaty have been reduced from EUR 610 million in budget year 1999 to EUR 551 million in budget year 2000.
Why? This year, for the last time, we can exceed the WTO upper limit of EUR 475 million by the amounts not used in 1999.
In the next GATT year, total permissible expenditure will be limited to EUR 415 million by the WTO system, and it will no longer be possible to carry amounts forward.
Let us compare: last year we had EUR 610 million, and next year will only be able to spend EUR 415 million.
We believe that it would have been unwise to make this enormous change from 600 to 400 in one go.
So we have introduced an interim stage this year.
Our WTO commitments and budgetary discipline mean that we have to adopt a selective approach.
That means that we can no longer grant export refunds for products where this is not essential to maintain their competitiveness. And that, Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, is exactly what you were asking about.
We want to be in a position to adjust the list in accordance with destinations and sales opportunities, so that in future we can use the maximum permissible amount of budget appropriations to export a maximum volume of milk products.
You gave yoghurt as an example, and it is a good one, as it demonstrates how illogical a system can be.
At present, the situation is that if any sweeteners or other additives are added to a yoghurt, it is not covered by Annex I to the Treaty.
If it is a pure natural yoghurt, that is made from milk and nothing else, then it is a milk product and it is not classified as a good not covered by Annex I to the Treaty.
So we have not been paying export refunds any more for natural yoghurt for years, but we still have to grant them for flavoured yoghurts.
Is that logical?
Surely you can see that.
We really are not in the business of putting the thumbscrews on agriculture; this is about being able to react appropriately to short-term market requirements.
So this proposal will, in future, make it possible for the Commission to adapt the list of goods eligible for export refunds swiftly, but the Member States will be involved as it will come under the management committee procedure.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I find it discriminatory if milk only cheers up tired chaps.
Why not 'weary women' as well?
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
COM in milk
The next item is the report (A5-0074/2000) by Mr Maat, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1255/1999 on the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products (COM (1999) 608 - C5-0047/2000 - 1999/0246(CNS)).
Mr President, during the two months I have been working on the report, I have discovered that feelings run high on the subject of school milk in Europe.
There have been many responses from schools throughout the European Union and also from school children.
I found that remarkable in itself.
There has also been much discussion because the Commission says let us go over to joint financing, which means reducing the European contribution.
Many schools reacted particularly to this point and I have also noticed among my supporters that people wondered whether things would turn out all right for school milk, whether it would keep going as an instrument? In that regard I must say that I was very fortunate as a new Member of Parliament that, in dealing with the budget for 2001, Parliament in any case adopted my proposal to increase the school milk budget from EUR 53 to 83 million.
The proposal now before us in the report that was unanimously accepted in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development - I would stress 'unanimously' - and it was particularly gratifying that all parties in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development support the report - boils down to the fact that more money is needed, EUR 96 million in fact.
That does not come entirely within the budget, but the reality is such that, in view of the change in the dairy market, this small difference could also perhaps be found in the dairy budget.
It is also for this reason that I would urge Parliament most strongly to support the report on school milk, because there is every reason to do so.
It is remarkable how casual we in Europe sometimes are about food.
It is always there and in itself is no problem.
But it is clear that school milk has an added value for the dietary pattern of children and contributes to a better diet, particularly in urban areas.
This has been borne out by studies.
The European Commission has also commissioned a study.
I did find it to be rather limited, on the basis of a desk study, but in view of the considerable interest in Europe there is every reason to continue the regulation.
There is extra money for education in the field of the Internet, the electronic superhighway and there is more attention paid to the environment and much attention to safe living and to social conditions and within this we should not neglect a sound policy on the proper use of food and undoubtedly on milk as well.
For these reasons, and to see whether this regulation could be brought more up to date, I am pleased that the report has also been accepted in this sense in the Committee and I hope it will also be in Parliament.
There is an expansion in the number of products that can be used in the school milk regulation.
I am thinking of drinking yoghurt, low-fat cheese, skimmed milk and in this regard valuable amendments have been tabled by my own Group, and also by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, among others by Mr Pesl for Scandinavia.
Many specific proposals have been made and that means that in this way we can adapt the school milk regulation in a better way and integrate it better into the current dietary pattern.
That in itself makes for a stronger case.
Anyone who thinks that the school milk regulation will rescue the dietary pattern is wrong.
You must also be realistic.
If this report is accepted by this House, every year about EUR 12 will be spent per child on subsidies for school milk and that is peanuts in my view.
This can easily be justified socially within the budget and in respect of a sound nutritional policy.
Mr President, on the basis of the information provided I shall wholeheartedly recommend this report.
I should like to thank the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their unanimous support, that bodes well for the vote in this House.
I should also like to thank the Commission for its willingness to provide the necessary information and also for preparing the report.
I hope it will lead to a constructive position with regard to the implementation of this report.
I understand that in any case the Council of Ministers will meet next Monday.
It would therefore be an appropriate moment if Parliament were to approve this report and the school milk regulation.
Mr President, at the request of Mr Cunha I am presenting our statement on this debate on the school milk scheme.
For more than 20 years, the European Union has been financing the free distribution of milk in primary and secondary schools.
In recent years this action has amounted to an average annual expenditure of some EUR 90 million for more than 300 million litres of milk, benefiting around 10 million children and young people, or nearly 20% of eligible schoolchildren.
There are two main reasons justifying this measure and why it should continue.
The first is its social impact, as it ensures a minimum balanced diet for many children and young people who otherwise would not have access to one.
The main beneficiaries are children and young people from disadvantaged social classes and poorer districts in both rural and urban areas.
The second reason is that, as there is a structural surplus in the market for milk products, this measure also represents an incentive to dispose of milk in a far more useful and constructive way than by distributing it, denaturing it or exporting it to third countries at even greater cost.
It is a pity that the European Union does not have more actions of this kind for other products, instead of dumping them on international markets by means of subsidies which are sometimes twice their price on those markets, which makes it difficult to understand the alleged objective of budgetary savings.
The United States, which is famous for having a more individualist outlook with less solidarity, spends nearly 9 000 million dollars a year on distributing foods to schoolchildren, i.e. 100 times more than the European Union.
And the European Union is now proposing to move away from 100% financing and is proposing 50% cofinancing, which will especially penalise less wealthy countries like Portugal.
As a Portuguese national, I would be shocked if a measure of this kind were to be approved while my own country held the presidency of the European Union.
Mr President, Mr Maat has committed himself most impressively to the issue of school milk.
That is a good thing.
I myself am a great supporter of school milk.
In fact, I think that not only children but adults too should drink more milk.
I regret therefore that there is no fresh milk available at the Parliament building in Brussels.
I do hope that Mr Maat' s next battle will concentrate on making fresh milk available in Brussels.
Having said that, I do not support Mr Maat' s proposals.
In the evaluation report on the school milk regulation that the Commission itself quotes, it says that if you only take account of the explicitly stated objectives of the regulation particularly to maintain and increase the consumption of dairy products and promote the sale of surpluses, the positive effects are marginal.
Nevertheless, on 10 December, the Commission decided not to withdraw the measures but to halve the subsidy.
I have asked the Commission a number of questions in this regard.
I asked Commissioner Fischler to what extent this measure corresponded with the subsidiarity principle.
I believe that this measure could be implemented perfectly well by the national parliaments and that national MPs would be quite able to do so.
I am also not convinced about the scientific basis as far as certain aspects of public health are concerned.
Moreover, when dealing with public health, the Commission must make a proposal on the basis of the chapter on "Public Health" in the Treaty.
Nor is it clear to me in the school milk regulation how much will be spent on administration costs.
It is such a small proportion of the overall milk production that I feel that this weighs particularly heavily on the European Commission budget.
I am also not sure what the financial consequences will be after enlargement.
I am not an opponent of school milk as such but I do object to the way we are going about it.
I believe that the Commission must confine itself to the core tasks and leave other matters to the Member States.
I support the Commission proposal but not the proposals of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Maat for a good report and good cooperation, namely in his raising the issue of public health.
Until now the basis for pricing has favoured fattier products.
There was strong unanimity in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the need to change the basis for pricing so that less fatty products might benefit more from this aid.
It has been an excellent signal from the EU to the heart of the people for decades now, and we have been able to get it across via children, school pupils, schools and homes.
In that respect it has to continue, and, as Mr Maat said, be brought up to date and this issue, which is in the common good, should be promoted.
Amendments Nos 9 and 10 specifically move the proposal towards a direction where less fatty products would be treated along the same lines as fattier products.
Mr President, I am pleased to have the opportunity of speaking in the debate and I congratulate the rapporteur for his work.
One clear result, of course, of the proposal before us to curtail or remove this subsidy on school milk will be decreased availability of milk and a drop in the consumption of milk in schools.
I ask you sincerely: is that what you want to see happening?
The nutritional aspect is surely the central element here and the continuation of the consumption of milk by schoolchildren is what we should be working towards.
The proposals before us definitely militate against that.
Can I suggest to you what might happen as a result.
There are two possibilities.
Children will switch to consuming non-nutritional products or, God forbid, we will move closer towards a situation where children will have to pay for milk consumed, thus discriminating against poor children from deprived communities.
We all acknowledge the aim here. It is to cut milk subsidies.
But to use schoolchildren as the means towards that end is a sinister way to go about it, especially in a world that is becoming far more health-conscious by the day.
This is the age of non-GM food and organic products, and the proposals before us represent a major step backwards.
Let us be clear.
Several Member States will not operate this scheme at all if the present subsidy is withdrawn or decreased.
That is the reality of the situation.
This would be a catastrophe, not only for the health of schoolchildren - our future citizens - but to the viability of communities also.
I come from a part of Wales, where GDP per head of the population is less than 75% of the European Union average, in other words, an Objective 1 area.
I am not proud of that.
It is an indication of our deprived status.
Cutting the subsidy, however, would make my community even poorer, a community whose farmers have lost 80% of their income in 2½ years.
This is not the European Union that I thought my nation had joined.
We were looking to a Europe of cohesion that seeks to bolster its deprived communities and help its poorest citizens.
There is also the misconception that Member States will somehow foot this bill and make up the deficit on the basis that it is their responsibility to deal with health and social policy.
Can I tell you that my Member State, the UK, is already prevaricating on the provision of additional money for Wales and for Scotland to match European funds, a point that I and my colleagues have already highlighted previously in this Chamber.
This is not unique to my nation.
Sadly, it affects other nations as well.
Farmers then are told to diversify, to become multifunctional.
These are the buzzwords now in the European Union.
Yet they have already diversified.
They have already become as multifunctional as humanly possible.
It is time we rewarded them, particularly in the peripheral and deprived communities of the European Union.
Cutting this subsidy would destroy an industry already on its knees.
We need to give a window of opportunity to these people and provide them with the assistance to sustain themselves as they undoubtedly face the most difficult period economically they have ever faced.
It is clear to me that the proposals before us are not merely a means to curtail the subsidy, but rather, in the event of a lack of participation by Member States in the wake of the subsidy cut, to terminate it entirely.
This continued erosion of the milk industry is, I am afraid, part of a general trend that we are witnessing throughout the agricultural industry.
Without people farming in our villages and communities, there will be no rural communities; nobody left to service the needs of those of us that sometimes visit rural areas for recreation.
The process of amalgamating farms and the buying-up of farm units by consortia pushing up prices unrealistically is already well advanced in my nation of Wales and is becoming the sad pattern in other regions and nations as well.
I believe we should call a halt to this general erosion of our rural communities.
At the present moment in time, that requirement transcends the need to cut milk subsidies.
Defending communities is far, far more important.
We must keep our milk farmers farming and the communities where they earn their living as viable entities.
The Agricultural Committee deserve every support in this regard.
Mr Maat has done well in a very difficult situation and I wish him every success.
Mr President, Mr Maat' s report quite properly defends the right of millions of European children to receive subsidised milk in school.
The Commission is proposing to reduce the level of Community aid, by amending the regulation on the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products.
The choice of cofinancing involves the risk that certain Member States might be reticent about supporting the project, mainly because of financial constraints, and the effect would be to reduce the amount of the available budgetary appropriation and thus establish discrimination between European schoolchildren.
Milk distribution in schools contributes to the maintenance of consumption of milk products, and those same milk products are vital to healthy nutrition for children, so that they can grow up healthy.
Subsidising milk means teaching children balanced eating habits at an age when lifelong eating patterns and tastes are being formed.
That role finds particular resonance in this age of eating disorders and unhealthy diets.
For example, the increase in the number of obese children in Europe as a result of the culture of sweet, highly coloured fizzy drinks is alarming.
Must we remind people that milk provides a crucial part of our protein, calcium, vitamin and mineral requirements? It strengthens the capacity of young children who drink it to protect themselves against diseases caused by nutritional anarchy.
Mr Maat rightly mentions the way eating patterns change with our changing lifestyle.
Increasingly young people go off to school without eating any breakfast or without having any milk in their morning meal.
Nor do we forget that some children from very deprived backgrounds skip breakfast for financial reasons.
These children are exposed to dietary deficiencies and have difficulty concentrating at school.
The Commission is washing its hands of all this, while heading up lots of other programmes that cost a great deal more.
Why undermine the very one which affects the health of European children? At a time of upheaval in the role of our schools as a training workshop for life, the distribution of subsidised milk ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur for bringing forward a report that not only looks at the problem but puts forward new ideas for the future.
In many countries and areas - such as where I come from in Northern Ireland - young children might not have had the opportunity to have that nourishment and that nutritional support supplied by milk if it had not been for the milk provided to them in schools.
I also hope and trust that they will begin to appreciate and to continue to drink milk.
One thing which amazes me, especially when the agricultural community and dairy farmers are going through such difficult times, is that people are prepared to buy many other products and pay substantial amounts of money for them, but they are not prepared to pay the same amount of money for milk, either for themselves, or for their children.
Milk provides a very healthy and balanced diet, something we should all support.
The European Union should take that on board.
It is good value for money.
We do not always achieve that.
We are in a situation in Europe at the moment where we are pouring millions of euros into the agricultural industry, yet the farmers have never been worse off in their lives.
We have to go back to the drawing board and ask ourselves what our priorities are.
I want to thank Mr Maat.
He has challenged us to look to the future, not just in relation to milk itself, but also to milk products and ways in which we can encourage children to drink milk.
Mr President, for years I have been calling for the school milk scheme to be changed.
I think it is complete nonsense.
It is totally wrong from a nutritional point of view and it is impossible to administer.
Currently, full-cream milk is fully subsidised, semi-skimmed milk is semi-subsidised and skimmed milk receives no subsidy.
The aim of schemes such as this is to do away with surplus stocks, and since full-cream milk contains the most butterfat, it receives the highest subsidy.
We should instead award subsidies per pupil.
I would have preferred it if we had set milk prices lower so that we could abolish the bureaucratic milk quotas.
In the longer term we must change the EU's agricultural policy so that we can put an end to artificial excess prices and surplus stocks.
However, the school milk scheme is one of the better schemes.
It is not just beneficial to farmers.
The scheme is also to the advantage of children and their parents, especially if it is changed so that it offers subsidies to low-fat products.
Children do not need so much fat.
Furthermore, a scheme with subsidies per pupil would be much easier to administer.
There is an enormous amount of administration involved in the present scheme.
I have received many complaints from schools which cannot work out how to administer the scheme.
It is a real science calculating the fat percentages in milk and cheese.
The schools often end up having to pay back large sums.
It is not that they are out to cheat; they simply cannot work out how to administer the scheme.
I think, therefore, that we must vote for the amendments of my good colleague and friend, Niels Busk.
The scheme which he is recommending is administratively and nutritionally the only correct one.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Maat, for his report, which I support in its entirety.
And thanks as ever for the usual good work of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I would also like to thank my good colleague and close friend, Freddy Blak, of the Socialist Group, for his support for my amendment.
The school milk scheme concerns health and nutrition.
Children and infants must learn healthy eating habits, and milk, with its protein and calcium content, is a very important part of this.
On behalf of the Liberal Group, Mr Pesälä and I put forward three amendments which basically aim to make the school milk scheme a lot easier to administer, but which also seek to make the scheme more flexible with regard to the products which are subsidised.
There are various traditions relating to which dairy products are consumed, and the scheme is simplified by awarding the subsidy on the basis of a quarter of a litre of milk per pupil per school-day.
For products other than full-cream milk, the subsidy should be calculated on the basis of low-fat solids or a maximum butterfat content of 50%.
In this way the scheme takes account of the differences in the milk traditions which exist in the different Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Commission proposal to henceforth fund the school milk programme by means of 50% cofinancing has evoked a furious response in the Council and in Parliament.
As soon as the term cofinancing is mentioned in terms of agriculture, people' s hackles rise.
Many see cofinancing as the renationalisation of the common agricultural policy.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is also against the Commission' s plans.
With such a viewpoint, Parliament can make the most of it.
Will we read in the newspaper tomorrow "European Parliament in favour of school milk subsidies - to the rescue of the dairy sector" ? Are we not kidding ourselves and the sector with this attitude?
Is massive opposition to cofinancing in the interests of the sector in the long term? I do not think so.
We shall have to make do with the financial package established in Agenda 2000 and to deal with the enlargement of the Union.
If agricultural policy is not changed we shall not be able to pay for it.
The Union should develop its policy within this context.
The main question here is, how can we operate as efficiently as possible with the limited resources of the European Union?
Must we continue to burden the agriculture budget with a school milk programme of about EUR 90 million a year? Is it not more sensible to seek possibilities of financing such programmes elsewhere?
If we wish to guarantee the agricultural sector a reasonable level of support, then that is urgently required.
If we do not do that, then the Commission will undoubtedly try in other ways to remain below the agricultural ceiling. What do you think about a reduction on the direct income supplements?
Those who are against cofinancing bring such painful economies a lot closer.
We do not wish to be part of that. Relieving the EU budget by means of creative solutions, such as cofinancing, seems to us a better option for the agricultural sector itself.
Finally, I agree with the objection to the fact that school milk is distributed to people at meetings in this building who certainly do not need it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank Mr Maat very sincerely for the effort he has made to present a balanced report on the Commission proposal.
You will have seen from the debate that the school milk scheme is a very sensitive issue indeed, on which there are many different shades of opinion, and that means that he certainly did not have an easy job.
Some of the amendments proposed in Mr Maat' s report in effect totally reject the Commission proposal.
I cannot therefore accept the amendments in question, which are Amendments Nos 1, 5, 6, 7, 10 and 12.
I am still convinced that the cofinancing proposed would promote the commitment of state and municipal authorities - and that of school authorities and the dairy industry - which is, in turn, a prerequisite for the success of all of these efforts.
It is quite simply wrong to say that the level of aid will drop from schoolchildren' s point of view.
The level of aid will remain the same, only the source of funding will change, and no one can seriously maintain that aid is only good if it comes totally from the Community budget.
I am also quite happy to concede that there are health, nutrition and social policy objectives here.
But there is one point I wish to make, and this is also the reason why a particular Treaty article has been taken as the legal basis here: in the field of agricultural policy, we can only justify aid that leads to additional sales.
If the real objective is to take social policy or health policy measures, then these should be financed under health and social policy and not, as it were, through the back door.
Amendments Nos 2, 4 and 9 are designed to cover a broader range of milk products under the scheme.
In this respect the Commission would like to maintain the existing scheme, in which the selection of subsidised products is a matter for the Commission.
Although I cannot therefore accept these amendments, I have no problems with the underlying message, which it is worth conveying, and that is that the current range of products needs to be reviewed, and I will ensure that this issue continues to be dealt with and discussed in the Management Committee for Milk and Milk Products.
Lastly, Amendment No 3 is in the form of a statement, so that I do not think it would be appropriate to incorporate the text into the regulation.
As regards the practical side of the proposal, I fear that this amendment would lead to varying levels of support in different Member States and to dramatic fluctuations in the level of aid within a short time.
And as I am sure that no one would want that, it would be better to keep the existing provision, which is clear, based on objective criteria and which guarantees general stability.
For the same reasons, I am unable to accept Amendments Nos 8 and 10, which are designed to link the level of aid to milk components other than fat.
Finally, Amendments Nos 8 and 9 are intended to make it clear that the aid will be paid for a fixed quantity of milk per schoolchild per day.
This would essentially mean maintaining the existing position, so that is in fact another argument as to why these amendments cannot be accepted.
Thank you for your attention.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Vertical Restraints
The next item is the report (A5-0077/2000) by Mrs Thyssen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on draft guidelines on Vertical Restraints (C5-0009/2000 - 2000/2003(COS)).
Mr President, this debate on the guidelines on vertical restraints is the last in a series of four on an extremely technical subject, for now anyway.
Industry is all too aware of the importance of the Community competition policy for its operations, but let us also not forget that fair, enforceable and sound competition rules also affect the consumer.
I have the impression that for people who are not familiar with the competition policy, the whole question of vertical restraints between companies seems a rather strange business, but the fact is that a large proportion of daily distribution is made, managed and organised on the basis of the rules of vertical restraints.
I did intend, Mr President, to provide my colleagues with a bit more information on this subject, but I can now see how few people are in the Chamber and I think I should not waste your time and the interpreters' time on this.
The Commissioner knows the subject and the Members who are still to speak on this matter know at least as much as I do about it.
I shall therefore just say that I think that we as a Parliament, and as the rapporteur on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, can say that it is a good thing that the Commission draws up guidelines and that it publishes them.
The Commission is the European competition authority par excellence and everyone and certainly legal security will benefit if it explains its new policy in detail beforehand.
Secondly, I hope the Commission will incorporate the comments listed in the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which I shall not repeat here, in the final version of the guidelines that will soon be published and I should also like to hear that from you personally, Commissioner.
I should now like to ask a few questions.
First of all, are we going to receive the evaluation which we asked for after three or four years of new policy in the sphere of vertical restraints? Secondly, when can we expect the proposals for a new policy for the horizontal agreements, a new policy that has also been announced by the Commission?
Thirdly, the automobile distribution contracts for the time being fall outside the new policy, but the regulation for this sector expires in 2002. We can expect an evaluation to be made this year by the Commission.
When will we receive it and has the Commission already consulted the automobile distribution sector and particularly the small distributors? Fourthly, despite everything, we still have a very fundamental question, a question that we have repeatedly raised in vain and I must therefore repeat it again here; why has the Commission nevertheless opted to apply the new policy immediately also to those sectors where the competition policy, as it was hitherto organised, operated perfectly well?
In conclusion, Mr President, I should like to thank those Members - unfortunately they are not here in the Chamber - who also dealt with this subject in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, not only for this report, but also for the three reports that preceded it.
I wish to inform those who tabled amendments, that is, amendments tabled on behalf of the PSE Group, that I have unfortunately had to reject those amendments by reason of their content as I explained earlier in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and secondly, because these amendments had already been tabled at Committee level and rejected one by one.
Mr President, I should finally like to apologise for the fact that I cannot be present at the vote tomorrow morning, but Mr von Wogau will replace me here as rapporteur, if necessary.
Mr President, Commissioner, my colleague, Mrs Thyssen has produced some excellent work and I wish to congratulate her on it.
In this connection, I myself would like to comment just on the relevant production markets and the guidelines for interpretation regarding how market share is determined, especially from the point of view of cooperation agreements in the petrol station business.
These issues cause problems, at least in my home country of Finland, and in other small Member States.
Guidelines on vertical restraints should be designed to help us see clearly and accurately when the seller' s market share in the relevant product market exceeds the 30% threshold to be applied.
Regarding cooperation agreements in the petrol station business, the draft guidelines to be applied do not at present take sufficiently clear account of the special features of that industry' s market and delivery agreements.
The 30% market share limit provided for under the Block Exemption regulation will cause problems relating to equal treatment for existing petrol stations, at least in Finland.
Applying the new ruling might lead to situations where, for example, we will be inspecting in a different manner the contractual obligations regarding cooperation in the petrol station industry that are otherwise comparable in every respect with each other as far as their direct effects are concerned if the market share of one company exceeds the 30% threshold.
It is important to define unambiguously the relevant markets referred to in Article 3 of the Block Exemption regulation.
The guidelines have not defined sufficiently precisely how the market share of a manufacturer and a wholesaler should be determined. I feel this is especially problematic.
As this is a matter of regulating the right of competition in an industry in which competition takes place among brand names, the guidelines should clearly state that calculating market shares should always involve studying each stage of delivery separately.
In addition, the guidelines should indicate unambiguously that the 30% threshold in the relevant market has been calculated to take account of sales of the supplier' s own brand to the retailer or distributor.
Mr President, I am pleased that you knew I was here and that I was going to speak. You know that I do not usually speak too long.
I will simply explain the amendments presented by Mr Berenguer, who is unable to attend.
These are Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4.
Amendment No 2 deals with the possibility of freeing the distributor by means of the return of contributions once the contract has finished.
The formula used is contained in section 147 of the Commission guidelines on this subject, which is known as the investment depreciation period.
The possibility should exist, in certain circumstances, of freeing the distributor by means of a reintegration of the investment.
In other words, the distributor should not be permanently bound by the initial investment of the producer.
Amendment No 3 refers to the setting of prices by the producer - the resale price - in certain cases, such as the launch of the product.
There are certain cases in which this setting of the resale price can be justified.
This is referred to in sections 38 and 39 of the Commission guidelines, but it is clear that, in certain cases, we have to provide flexibility and we are sure that the Commission will understand this.
Lastly, Amendment No 4 refers to the protection of producers against pressures applied by the distributor to force them to extend the contract.
We are talking about exclusive contracts, sections 131 et seq.
Finally, these amendments are simply intended to be a reminder of certain specific aspects, but it is clear that both the guidelines proposed by the Commission and Mrs Thyssen' s report move within boundaries which are reasonable and practical.
We hope that the Commission will administer these guidelines in a flexible way so that, on the one hand, market competition is guaranteed and, on the other, we do not create situations of enslavement or limitation of economic activity with regard to the distributors.
Mr President, as we are short of time I will make my statement telegram style.
First of all, many thanks to you, Mrs Thyssen, for your excellent report.
Second, my thanks also to the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for supporting this important reform project.
The draft is an important step in the reform of competition policy in respect of vertical restraints.
Since the Green Paper was published in 1997, the development of the institution of vertical distribution restraints has gone through various phases, including most recently the adoption of new Regulation 2790 on the application of Article 81(3) of the Treaty to categories of vertical agreements and concerted practices.
As you know, the Commission is taking this policy as a basis for a decisive switch from a traditional approach based on formal criteria to an approach based on the analysis of economic impacts.
The objective of this is to re-establish freedom of contract for the great majority of companies and to simultaneously improve the protection of fair competition for the benefit of consumers.
Furthermore, in answer to your question, Mrs Thyssen, as to whether there will be a review, the answer is yes, there will indeed be a review of the guidelines after four years.
With regard to your question about horizontal measures, the Commission is currently drawing up a set of guidelines relating to this horizontal cooperation agreement.
A first draft of these guidelines will then be transmitted to the European Parliament before it is published in the Official Journal.
It is very likely that this will happen before the end of April.
I am delighted to report that the European Parliament and the Commission have worked together closely and constructively on this issue.
Mrs Thyssen' s report demonstrates once more that this will to cooperate is making a valuable contribution to various relevant aspects of the reform process.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.20 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
We will include this in the Minutes, Mr MacCormick.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I only wanted to report my presence for the Minutes.
I will not be signing the attendance register as I am leaving in one hour, but I wanted everyone to know that I am here.
We can all see, Mrs Van der Laan, that you are here.
It will be included in the Minutes.
Vote
Mr President, we were somewhat confounded yesterday by an action of a Member of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, but I think that what I am about to announce will not come as a surprise to anyone here, as I explained at length on Monday what I am about to request. In fact, you have also received several e-mails and I have also written to the Conference of Presidents on the matter.
The fact is that according to Members of various groups, the agenda on Fridays is too light, as a result of which many Members genuinely believe that their time can be spent more productively elsewhere.
Consequently, there are few of us here today and we cannot guarantee that our electorate is adequately represented here.
We therefore believe that a choice needs to be made: either we need to give more substance to Friday' s agenda or to abolish the Friday sitting.
In this context, I wish to ask for the quorum to be checked.
I think that we all know the rules by now.
Mrs Buitenweg, you cannot request this on your own.
Such a request must be made by at least 32 Members.
I will check if there are sufficient Members present who wish to check the quorum.
I notice that more than 32 Members have made this request.
We will have to establish whether there is a quorum.
You will undoubtedly know that there is a quorum if one third of the MEPs are present in the Chamber.
(The number of Members present was counted)
I note that there is no quorum and that the vote on the Pesälä report will therefore take place in the next part-session.
Mr President, I am pleased to say that I, together with a number of other colleagues from my Group, fully back the initiative which Mrs Buitenweg has taken.
Needless to say, we do not aim to sabotage the work. This is why we announced this action a long time ago - the Conference of Presidents were made aware of it six weeks ago - and neither is this any reflection on today' s agenda, of course.
I think that the outcome of the quorum count is sufficient reason for the Conference of Presidents to revise the agenda for 2001, but at the moment I would like to ask you the following: according to my interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, the request for the quorum means that none of the votes can take place.
If this is not the case, Mr President, I would ask you to check the quorum before we proceed to vote on the Maat report.
(More than 32 Members rose in support of this request)
(The President established that there was not a quorum)
I notice that a few other Members would like to be given the floor on this point of order.
We should, however, bring this to a close very shortly.
I am now giving the floor to Mr Schulz.
Mr Bourlanges, I can perhaps put your mind at rest by informing you that I will, of course, refer this morning' s matter to the Bureau.
Needless to say, we will discuss this matter.
I think that goes without saying.
For the rest, as President, I am at your service at the moment and I, together with yourself, need to apply the Rules of Procedure to the best of my ability.
I still have many requests from Members to speak.
I am now giving the floor to Mr Medina Ortega.
Mr President, since there will no doubt be another quorum vote, I would like to remind the President and the Members of this Parliament that, during a quorum vote, it is not permitted to leave the chamber.
Four MEPs have left the chamber.
The practice often consists of asking for the quorum and then leaving the chamber.
I would ask you, Mr President, to remember this and not to allow any MEP to leave the chamber while a count of those Members present is taking place.
Mr Medina Ortega, we need to straighten a few things out.
We are now working within the Rules of Procedure.
Since the start of the new parliamentary term, it has been defined very clearly that every Member is allowed to leave the Chamber.
If, however - and this is according to the Rules of Procedure - one of the 32 Members who have requested a quorum leaves the Chamber, they will still be included.
The doors will remain open.
This is the quorum provision as it stands at the moment and this is the one I am applying.
Mr Bourlanges said that we carry on voting if there are fewer than 32 Members in the Chamber. This is not the case.
The Rules of Procedure stipulate that if there are fewer than 32 Members in total present in the Chamber, then there is no vote.
Mr Posselt, there are many points of order to cover.
I am giving you the floor for the last time.
Mr President, I am very sorry but we did announce this action six weeks ago - it has not exactly appeared out of the blue.
We have given everyone, including the Presidents, the opportunity to change the agenda if this was considered necessary.
Nobody acted upon this. I have not heard of any action to change the agenda, even on the part of the Members who are now complaining.
This action, the quorum action, will continue, not only today, but every Friday in Strasbourg, until we have achieved our goal.
One of the options is a full Chamber, because one thing that creates the bad image which Mr Bourlanges is talking about is people signing up here and leaving without doing their work.
I have also done my homework and I do not want to mention any names, but we will be able to do this in future.
We will challenge the quorum for each item on the agenda today. This will cause some irritation.
It seems more sensible, therefore, to move all votes for today. We then do not need to continue with this and we can carry on with the debates and ask the Commissioner important questions.
Mrs Van der Laan, I understand that you would like the quorum to be checked.
According to the Rules of Procedure, a vote is to be taken on this.
We need to check whether there are 32 Members who wish to support you.
(More than 32 Members rose in support of this request) (The President established that there was no quorum)
I am just so tired of being accused of not wanting to do my job because I am taking part in this action.
If this Parliament is to be taken even a tiny bit seriously in Europe - and it is touch and go whether it will be, given that only 50% of citizens voted at the last European Parliament elections - then it must take itself seriously, and we are not taking ourselves seriously by sitting and discussing cases when there is nobody here.
That is not a serious way of doing things.
If Parliament has to work on Friday, then people must be here.
What we are asking for is simply confirmation of whether we are observing Parliament' s own rules.
That can hardly be called frivolous.
Mr President, the action which was taken is permitted by the Rules of Procedure, and therefore, those who, like me, acted in this way take political responsibility for it.
I do, however, consider that it is not right to criticise those who use an instrument which was adopted by democratic vote, such as the Rules of Procedure, for purposes which all may not support, but which are nevertheless permitted by the rules which we have established for ourselves.
If the rules had been different, we would have acted differently.
I would ask, rather, why it is that many Members voted in favour of working on Fridays in Strasbourg and yet are not in Strasbourg today.
It might have been better and made more sense to vote not to work on Fridays: in fact, I put it to you that to vote in a certain way and then act differently is a display of blatant disregard for our institution.
Mr President, with regard to Mr Medina Ortega' s intervention a few moments ago, which you responded to by saying that his interpretation was incorrect, I must tell you that your reply was not correct either.
Please do not ask me to name any particular Member, but I guarantee that some of the 32 members who voted in favour of the request for a quorum are no longer here.
Therefore, some of the 32 Members have violated the Rules of Procedure.
Report by Mrs Thyssen (A5-0077/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the draft guidelines on vertical restraints [C5-0009/2000 - 2000/2003(COS)]
Mr President, you will understand that I would like the quorum to be checked, but I think that there are clearly not enough people present.
I would therefore suggest moving all planned votes to the next sitting and proceeding with the discussion with the Council.
This is not the way things are done.
You can ask for the quorum to be checked but the vote is on the agenda.
Would you like to get the quorum checked now?
(More than 32 Members rose in support of this request) (The President established that there was no quorum)
Mr President, two points on the Rules of Procedure: the first is that I would ask you, the chair, not just to look to the left, but to kindly look to the right also to see if anyone here wishes to speak.
My second point is an appeal to the delegates.
The point which is currently on the agenda, night flights, gives us the chance to carry out a roll-call vote.
If you want that, and I consider it very reasonable, we should carry out this vote.
Mr Mayer, I can assure you, it is not just me who casts my eye through the Chamber.
I also have people behind my desk who help me in this activity.
We can monitor all corners of the Chamber.
I actually think that I have not made too bad a job of it.
Concerning night flights, these will be discussed in a moment.
We will see how the point on the agenda unfolds.
I am now giving the floor to Mrs Flesch.
Mr President, I am indebted to my esteemed friend, Mrs van der Laan, for making it clear, the last time she adopted a position, that she and her friends intended to repeat the manoeuvre every Friday morning of a Strasbourg part-session.
I am grateful to her for clarifying the purpose of this action and I agree with Mr Jacques Poos' comments.
I would also like to express my disappointment at the absence from the Chamber this morning of Members whom I believed to be as concerned as I am for the interests of the town of Strasbourg.
Everyone is, of course, free to act as they like.
Information and communication
The next item is an oral question to the Commission (B5-0008/2000), on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the EU' s information and communication strategy.
Mr President, the Union is faced with major tasks and its further development depends to a great extent on what we do here and now.
Enlargement to include the countries of Eastern and Central Europe is the biggest challenge in the Community' s history, and if we do not tackle the issue correctly now, we are putting a lot at risk.
It is extremely important that we explain to the Union' s citizens, and the citizens of the candidate countries, what the Union stands for.
An information and communication strategy must, therefore, be high on our agenda.
I am looking forward with great interest to hearing your answer, Commissioner Reding, because I know that information is also of great interest to you: an interest which we share, moreover, because we are both journalists by profession.
I believe that we also have the same interest in the Union' s communication and information activities being organised in as close proximity to the citizens as possible and in our applying the policy so that the various groups in society get the information which they most need.
The keywords are coordination - partly when it comes to sharing information between the Commission and the Parliament - decentralisation, targeting and optimum exploitation of the available information technology.
I am curious as to how the Commission will go about the task. I imagine that the Commission' s offices in the major European cities will be involved and that they will be assigned tasks and responsibilities and given resources to contact and inform the public at large.
The experts, the authorities and those who are genuinely interested in the EU should not have problems getting information, and I must admit that I am a little sceptical when I hear about an "interinstitutional" library in Brussels or similar central functions.
I would much rather that the Commission' s office in Copenhagen was a little more accessible.
It is the Commission' s local offices, in cooperation with Parliament' s local offices, which must meet the man on the street, the man who always thinks that Brussels is so extremely far away.
He must understand that Brussels means all of us together, as Commission President Prodi put it.
It is a very difficult task because, in my opinion, the gap between the citizens and the institutions is wide, and with the major challenges which the Union is facing the task will become no less great.
Enlargement, the Commission' s ambitious 5-year plan, the Commission' s plans for reform, the Intergovernmental Conference: there is a lot to provide information about, and I think that this is an urgent matter.
I believe that you share many of my views, Mrs Reding.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Andreasen for his question since it gives me the opportunity to express the extent to which I share his views, as, indeed, I emphasised during my hearing before this House last September.
It is true that there is a gulf between the citizen and Europe.
It is true that we have all, not just the Commission, but also Parliament and the Member States, made many mistakes in our information policy in the past.
We must all, not just the Commission in isolation but the Commission in collaboration with the Member States and with Parliament, proceed to examine the matter in depth and develop a new information policy.
Moreover, let me tell you quite explicitly that I have taken careful note of the problems which exist.
I must tell you, too, that there are some things which are working well; it is not all bad.
For instance, we have just started up 'Europe direct' , a new access facility for citizens looking for information about Europe.
We have our Euro-info-points and information outlets in the Member States, which, generally speaking, are very successful.
Along with the honourable Member, I admit that we might be able to improve the way they operate, and I shall indeed make every effort to achieve this.
The honourable Member also mentioned modern technology.
Obviously, the new information policy which we are going to be implementing will have to optimise the use of all the information and communication possibilities which this new technology makes available to us.
In my opinion, one of the major mistakes of the past, in our information policy, was the fact that this was often top-down information identified, wrongly, I must say, as propaganda.
That must be taken into consideration.
We must take the psychology of the public into consideration and we must ensure that dialogue is established.
Moreover, I would draw your attention to the fact that my fellow Commissioner, Michel Barnier, and myself, have initiated dialogue on the Intergovernmental Conference which is to follow this new approach, i.e. making contact with the public, with young people and opinion formers, and discussing matters with them, and also approaching locally, regionally and nationally elected representatives on behalf of the Commission, not to make fine speeches, but to discuss things with them and to gain some idea of their general expectations.
I am, of course, counting a great deal on Parliament to play its part in this citizen information campaign. Parliament is the body which is closest to the citizens, and if all the Members of the European Parliament fulfil their task of informing citizens - and I shall assist them as much as I possibly can to do so - this will enable us to change mindsets.
We have once again started to work within an interinstitutional working party on 'information' , in which Parliament is represented, and as part of this work, which is a tripartite effort involving the national states, the European Parliament and the Commission, I plan to present a communication to you in the near future outlining a new approach which I shall first present to the Commission, some time before the summer, and which I shall then discuss with you.
I cannot give you any details at this early stage of the actual proposal, as it is still being drawn up, but I can assure you that the main pillars of this new approach will be decentralisation, subsidiarity, closeness to the citizens, the coresponsibility of the European institutions and the national administrations and also the increased participation of civil society.
I also think we must all clarify our respective roles.
Obviously, the Parliament' s role is different to that of the Commission.
I am deeply convinced that Parliament' s special role must continue.
Any collaboration in the field of information must allow for the specific character of each institution.
It is possible to cooperate without the parties involved losing their own identities, but we should nonetheless all work in the same direction and we must know that the closer we are to the citizens, the greater our chances of being comprehensible, credible and effective.
In order to do so, we must seriously examine the way we are organised, the instruments and procedures we select, what is being done at the various levels, at institutional, national and regional level, and how tasks are divided between the three institutions.
We must also, openly and objectively, look at our own way of working and examine how we can avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
That, Mr President, is what I wanted to say for the time being.
Obviously, the discussion is only just being initiated and will not be completed today, because in the very near future we shall be presenting a communication on our new information policy which we are going to discuss in detail with you.
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Reding for her response to Mr Andreasen.
We have a very committed commissioner in Commissioner Reding.
She has a really tough task on her hands but I am sure that she will get the full support that she recognises that she needs from the European Parliament.
I find myself totally supportive of this motion in addressing the information deficit of the EU.
The information deficit is actually more serious than the democratic deficit that we often talk about.
In a sense, the information deficit and the democratic deficit are part of the same problem.
In the recent past, we have had the Oostlander report in 1993 and the famous Pex report in 1998. They have analysed the problem, suggested improvements, but sadly little has been achieved.
I wish Commissioner Reding well in getting on with this problem.
This week I had a visitors' group from the Winchester Probus Club, mainly retired people and, in general terms, well informed about world affairs.
However, you could write what they knew about the aims of the EU on the back of a one euro note.
Before anyone tells me that euro notes do not exist, it would not make any difference: they could not write anything.
When I speak to British groups, I often start with the question: do you want to be in the European Union? The immediate response I got this week was: "No".
Five or six years ago, the response would have been: "Yes, but we do not want too much interference".
This situation is getting worse.
I know that it is a particular problem for the United Kingdom, but it is not exclusive to the United Kingdom.
It is getting worse right across Europe.
We only have to look at the turn-out in the European Parliamentary elections to see that.
Why is this so?
Why this lack of enthusiasm for the EU? To begin with, we must remember that the best advertising in the world will not sell a poor product.
Even if you have a first-class product, if you do not market it properly it will not sell.
We must make sure that the product is good first and then make sure that we advertise it effectively.
I fear we are doing neither.
There can be no doubt that, when history is written, the greatest achievement of the 20th century will be seen to be the creation of the EU.
It has delivered peace and prosperity for half the continent for half the century.
Now the other half of the continent is queuing up to get in, yet my constituents want to get out.
I am not an expert in marketing; I know there are no simple solutions; I certainly know more propaganda leaflets are not the answer.
Let me just suggest a few possibilities.
What happened to President Prodi's idea of a rapid rebuttal unit? If it is in existence, it does not appear to be very effective.
If they are giving answers, can I suggest that they e-mail their answers to the MEPs as well, so we can use the information, not just to the press, who often just spike it.
The Commissioner said quite rightly that new technology is good.
We must make more and better use of it.
We must make sure that our website address is known. we could maybe spend some of the Socrates money giving every student in Europe a computer mouse mat so that they can see the website address of the European Parliament.
With the plethora of new TV channels, with digital TV, have we got anywhere with a Parliamentary TV channel? I can watch the US Senate on television gavel-to-gavel.
But not the European Parliament.
We must emphasise the good-news stories of when we help the citizen.
We have a Committee on Petitions that addresses a thousand petitions a year.
When did the information departments of the Commission or Parliament last attend a meeting of that committee? When did they past publish any of the good news that comes from that committee?
Finally, I have to address the problem of Parliament in Strasbourg.
I am not anti-Strasbourg.
I am certainly not anti-France.
I understand that Strasbourg was the symbol of peace and unity of our continent, but that was a symbol of the 20th century.
In the 21st century, I am afraid it is a symbol of waste and inefficiency.
I ask Parliament, Commission and the Council of Ministers to address that problem.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly I would like to thank you for your interest and dedication to the European Union' s information activities.
We have known you for many years and we know of your commitment and dedication, not only to what we could call the European cause, but also to ensuring that the European cause really reaches the citizens.
In your political activities you have always paid special attention to the most sensitive groups: young people, elderly people, the workplace, and you paid special attention to the media.
We support the general lines which you have put forward here and which will be specified in the document which you will present and which the European Commission must approve next June.
You have mentioned two aspects which I would like to stress: the regional dimension and efficiency.
The aim of the information policy is to reach the citizens.
In order to do that properly it is necessary to take account of the regional dimension, because it is one of the fields which is a subject of great sensitivity in terms of society and its problems.
Therefore, so that the citizens may understand and participate in European construction and not see it as a superstructure reserved for politicians and technocrats, it is essential that the work of providing information is done at the level of the regional institutions and in conjunction with them.
This goes hand in hand with efficiency.
In your review of information policy, I would ask you to bear in mind the experience of certain Member States.
For example, during the euro campaign, there was an agreement at the time between the European Commission and the government of a Member State.
That government' s decision was to commission an information campaign on the euro from a very important advertising agency.
That advertising agency made some very nice advertisements and hundreds of thousands of leaflets were distributed.
However, that it is not the way to reach the public, nor is it efficient.
It is perhaps very pleasing to the government, which gets to make fine speeches, and to the relevant Minister, who gets to appear on the television and in the newspapers, but that does not reach the public.
Therefore, it is necessary to ensure the maximum possible degree of decentralisation.
Mr President, those of us who represent Scotland in this House were very grateful when this year the Parliament decided to make its office in Edinburgh permanent.
The Commission has long had an office there.
The Commissioner has mentioned the importance of national regions, as well as the states, in its communication policy.
I am sorry to say that this week it has been announced that The Scotsman newspaper is closing down the office of its Brussels and European correspondent.
It is rumoured that BBC Scotland is about to remove its special correspondent from Brussels.
That would be a disaster.
It is not just the Commission and Parliament which need to think about their role.
Our own media also need to look seriously at the problem of adequately reporting to their citizens the issues of Europe.
May I mention one other sad case, which is of importance in the area of information and communication.
I want to draw attention, yet again, to the case of the Italian language lecturers.
New developments in the case have shown that the quality of openness in information and communication by the Commission on this sort of issue leaves much to be desired.
In these proceedings it is vital that the interested parties are fully informed by the Commission, but the practice fails to honour that ideal.
There has been some evidence this week that the former Commission has actively misled parties in cases of this kind.
During the current Parliament, I have had a number of assurances that the Commission is serious about upholding rights derived from Community law on behalf of lecturers in all issues involving non-discrimination.
That really must be taken seriously.
It is a point about openness, about being ready to communicate what is going on and about informing people how seriously we take rights arising from Community law and how seriously we take the need to demonstrate to our citizens and our public the importance of what is accomplished here.
I am glad that the Commission and Parliament have helped to make information available in Scotland and I wish our own media would do likewise.
Mr President, a distinction must be made between information and propaganda.
Mr Prodi' s Commission has started off badly with regard to information.
I have heard that last autumn it issued an instruction to the national Commission offices to focus on the reporting of political information in place of the former citizens' information service.
This means information and propaganda from above.
Actually, this means the spread of propaganda, not information.
The Commission has started off badly in the most important area of information reporting, that of public accessibility.
The Commission has issued a draft for a directive on public accessibility, which, by any common yardstick, is an untenable document, more conducive to secrecy than increased public accessibility.
This is the Commission' s line on information policy insofar as it concerns public accessibility.
Public accessibility is just as important as information.
It offers our citizens and the media the opportunity to have hands-on access to documents themselves and draw their own conclusions, instead of being dependent on those of the Commission.
There is a very obvious discrepancy between the official documents themselves and the conclusions being drawn.
The documents state that the European Union' s crisis management troops are not a European Army, but the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, says that whatever you call it, it is one.
In an information context such as this, it is important to have access to the documents and draw one' s own conclusions, as the documents do not always spell things out clearly either.
In addition, the way Parliament disseminates information must be criticised.
Parliament has its own information offices, but the Finnish office apparently has no money to buy copies of the EU Treaty, which would allow Members to familiarise themselves with its contents in their office at Parliament.
It has one Internet connection.
To this extent, we could conclude that the officials working in Parliament' s own information office do not know what is going on in Parliament, although Parliament has excellent Internet connections.
To all intents and purposes, it is a war of propaganda that is going on here. In many respects, it is also a civil war.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like once again to point out that Commissioner Reding has announced a dramatic change in the information strategy of the EU and has thus made it clear that there are deficiencies, that fresh efforts must be made and that we must make this issue a focus of our concerns.
We thank you for this.
Secondly, I would like to point out that we too must ask ourselves whether this morning' s initiative to prevent voting was a positive information and communication strategy for Parliament outwardly as well as inwardly?
I do not think that it was!
The homework which we have to do we must do ourselves and we must not confuse information and communication within the framework of our work with self-promotion.
It is a matter of Community promotion and not self-promotion.
In this regard we should all resolve to understand that one of the causes of the problems of the political parties and of the institutions is a problem of communication and information.
We, and I say that very clearly, the institutions of the European Union, the European Parliament and the delegates cannot bear sole responsibility for providing information on Europe.
Without the support of the Member States, without the support of the public representatives at borough, county and national level, without the support of all the institutions, we will not get directly to the citizen, because either we are here doing our work or we are involved in communication and information processes with our citizens.
We cannot do both at the same time within the meaning of Maastricht and Amsterdam!
Commissioner, I am waiting for your master plan, your schedule, your specific measures for implementation.
The public mandataries, all persons and institutions who receive money from the EU, should be involved in this implementation.
We must increasingly involve the visitor groups and also two areas of activity which, in my opinion, are in your sphere of responsibility, i.e. schools and youth, and the staff in the offices of the Community institutions must be equipped accordingly.
Please submit to us a specific plan of action and a schedule.
Thank you, Mr President. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks for the commitment of those Members who openly support our action and are willing to further a new policy which will, of necessity, be innovative.
In any case, this is the impression I gained from the comments of the honourable Members.
May I first answer Mr Perry.
He said that the situation is getting worse.
That is a very negative way of seeing things.
Probably, the honourable Member is right.
I just hope the situation is not getting worse everywhere.
That would be terrible.
But if it is getting worse anywhere, we have to take that very seriously.
We cannot just say that it is getting worse and not do anything.
We have to act.
The new information programme which is going to be set up and which will integrate all the actors at regional and national level will do a lot of good for the future information policy.
Mr Perry has addressed three specific points.
Firstly, the website address should be better known.
I know about this problem.
On 3 April we launched the new access facility - Europe direct.
We will be distributing information about this site to schools and local authorities.
Regarding a Parliamentary TV channel, the Commission would not object if Parliament proposed such an activity.
However, I leave that initiative to Parliament.
Regarding the Committee on Petitions and creating publicity about it, the last time this was done was when I was president of that committee.
I consider it very important.
There are colleagues in this Chamber who sat with me on that committee some years ago.
It is the committee most concerned with the Europe of the citizen.
If Parliament decided to take action vis-à-vis the citizens by utilising the Committee on Petitions, you can rest assured that the Commission would support it.
(FR) Like Mr MacCormick, Mr Gasòliba i Böhm touched on a major issue related to the fact that centralising the provision of information is not viable.
If information were to be issued solely from Strasbourg or solely from Brussels, it would not reach the public.
I am absolutely sure that, if we want to bring Europe closer to the citizens and the citizens closer to Europe, there must be a regional dimension to the information policy at all levels, including information relating to the euro.
In practice, the euro cannot be introduced by means of a television programme.
We must not forget the importance of television but, in addition and above all, we have to keep the people at grassroots informed - to approach the people and talk to them.
And there are a great many information outlets available to us in our regions, towns and villages which can play a very significant role in this.
It would be a mistake for a policy to be managed solely by an advertising agency and not implemented at grass roots level in consultation with the citizens directly concerned.
I am in total agreement with Mr Gasòliba i Böhm when he says that we must integrate this regional dimension into our information policy and, when I discuss the issue with the competent national politicians, I will ensure that this is taken into account.
(EN) Along the same lines, I say to Mr MacCormick that I find it regrettable if the Scottish media no longer report what happens in Strasbourg or Brussels.
Of course, I cannot intervene in that respect.
It is a private decision of the media.
In any event it is important for all actors, including Members of the European Parliament, to intervene with the media so that they enhance their reporting about Europe.
Every time I meet with organisations of journalists or organisations of editors, I ask them to give more coverage to the European political level.
The information office in Edinburgh will not be closed.
So at least regional policy in this area will continue.
(FR) Mr Seppänen said that there has been inadequate provision of information to the public and that the Prodi Commission has been too concerned with political propaganda.
I hope that the honourable Member is wrong and that the provision of information will not ultimately be perceived in this way.
In any case, the channel which I will announce in the written statement, which I am in the process of drawing up at the moment, is dialogue and direct contact with the citizen.
I would like to make it quite clear, once again, that the provision of information to citizens is not the exclusive responsibility of the Commission.
I am convinced that this information service can work properly only if there is close cooperation between the three institutions in question.
If we do not cooperate, we will fail miserably.
(DE) I thank Mr Karas for regarding the ways and means with which we will, in future, tackle information policy as a positive approach.
I strongly agree with him that everyone must take a look at themselves to see where we have gone wrong.
I have no intention of going into the problems of the information policy of Parliament.
The parliamentarians must do that themselves, but we should all carry out Community promotion together.
Mr Karas has quite rightly said that we need the Member States.
That is also one of the focuses of the new information policy which I would like to introduce in the future.
We need not only the Member States, but also the associations, regional and national politicians.
Without them there is no way that we can get our information across.
There must therefore be a concerted action between the institutions and between the people in our regions, in our States.
I know that this is easy to say and difficult to implement.
But unless we at least make a start, then nothing will happen.
I hope, therefore, that on the basis of the new information policy, which I would like to introduce, this aspect of citizen participation and citizen responsibility for Europe will be strongly emphasised.
(FR) Mr President, I cannot bring about a revolution single-handed. Clearly, I need a large number of soldiers and aides, and I need you, each and every one of you individually, to assist me wherever you have influence or responsibilities in this new information campaign.
This is a joint effort.
It is a great challenge, but I know I can count on your support.
(Applause)
Thank you, Commissioner.
This is probably the first time I have heard delegates referred to as soldiers, but we know what role we are playing here.
The debate is closed.
Mr President, in the heated debate on the matter of the quorum I did not get a chance to speak before about my motion for the Rules of Procedure.
Yesterday, there was a question from Mr MacCormick on the postponement of the vote on the COM for bananas.
I share the concerns of Mr MacCormick.
We requested the postponement so that we could remain involved as a Parliament in the communication process with the United States within the WTO.
Had we voted in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, we would no longer have been involved.
That is how it was, Mr MacCormick - he is no longer here.
I would like this to be recorded.
It is to do with the fact that we as a Parliament no longer have the right to codecision in the agricultural sector and so we had to choose this path.
I am taking note of this.
This will be taken care of.
I am now giving the floor to Mr Beysen on a point of order.
Mr President, I have noticed with some degree of satisfaction that the subversive action staged by some of the Members with a view to sabotaging procedures has ground to a halt.
This will probably be because they have come to realise that they cannot count on the support of at least 32 delegates.
I would just like to say, Mr President, that some strange selectivity is being practised here, that certain Members stage little acts and, after the act is finished, they leave and the game is over.
I did want to point this out because Parliament should not be mistaken for a kindergarten, and this is the feeling I will have when I leave this Chamber today.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start the debate.
Let us not enter into discussion.
I will tell you what the Rules of Procedure are so that we all know where we stand.
I am now giving the floor to Mr Van Hulten.
Mr President, our action is not finished.
I simply want to refute that our sole aim would be to disturb proceedings.
What we do want is to make sure that this Parliament can work more effectively and be more credible for the next five years. This is what we are doing.
We hope that we can count on the support of all MEPs to arrange the agenda in such a way as to actually make this happen in future, as you explained so well on television this week, Mr President.
Mr President, I may have been accused of being subversive, but other people appear to disregard the Rules of Procedure. A request to test the quorum should not be made at the start of the debate but when we vote.
Mr Speroni, let us be absolutely clear about this.
According to Rule 126(1) of the Rules of Procedure: "Parliament may deliberate, settle its agenda and approve the Minutes of proceedings, whatever the number of Members present" .
Deliberation is always possible.
We will shortly proceed to the vote (details will follow), and we will then see what happens.
I am presiding over the meeting according to the agenda as it is before us.
I am now giving the floor to Mrs Gebhardt and I hope we will then proceed to the next item on the agenda, which is night flights.
Mr President, I would like to ask a question, tongue-in-cheek, in the style of Loriot.
Where are they then?
Where are they then, those who say that we should do proper work here, who are always putting the question about the quorum and, when we are doing the real work here, are absent? Where are these 32 and more who stood up before and who will stand up again, but who now, when we are discussing matters, are no longer here?
I would really like to know what kind of nonsense this is?
Night flights and excessive noise
The next item is the oral question to the Commission (B5-0206/2000) by Mr Lannoye, Mrs Auroi, Mr Bouwman, Mr Bowe, Mrs Cerdeira Morterero, Mrs Corbey, Mr Costa Paolo, Mr Deprez, Mr Desama, Mrs González Álvarez, Mrs Guy-Quint, Mr Izquierdo Collado, Mr Jonckheer, Mrs Korhola, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, Mrs Lienemann, Mrs Lucas, Mrs McKenna, Mrs Maes, Mr Martínez Martínez, Mr Papayannakis, Mrs Patrie, Mr Arvidsson, Mr Puerta, Mr Ries, Mr Rod, Mr de Roo, Mrs Sandbæk, Mrs Schroedter, Mrs Sornosa Martínez, Mr Staes, Mr Sterckx, Mrs Terrón i Cusí, Mrs Van Brempt, Mr Vander Taelen, Mrs Van Lancker and Mr Ducarme, regarding night flights and noise pollution around airports.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Lannoye for this initiative and for launching the debate in this Chamber on this very important matter.
One of the goals of the Commission communication 'Air transport and the environment - towards sustainable development' is precisely to launch the debate on the suitability of establishing a Community framework for decision-making procedures concerning the operational restrictions to be imposed on airports in the Union for environmental reasons.
In the course of this debate, which will be held in the different institutions, the Council of Ministers and Parliament will have the chance to express their views on this communication, both in general terms and with regard to specific aspects such as night flights.
As pointed out in this communication, the Commission does not see how uniform and restrictive rules governing restrictions on use, which would apply to all Community airports, as would be the case, for example, for the general ban on night flights, could provide the most balanced solution to the issue of noise pollution attributable to certain airports.
The Commission is of the opinion that decisions should continue to be taken at local level.
However, it also considers that a common framework is necessary to coordinate the procedures adopted in order to reach these decisions so that when a region decides to ban night flights, for example, it does so in the same way as a similar region somewhere else.
And this framework could make it compulsory for all the interested parties to be consulted, stipulate an appropriate timeframe for adaptation to the new restrictions and establish a common basis for assessing the efficiency in environmental terms of the envisaged measures restricting operations.
I would also like to touch on the subject of hushkits.
With regard to speeding up the withdrawal of the noisiest aircraft, the Commission is committed to the work currently in progress within the International Civil Aviation Organisation on drafting a new standard on noise and rules for the withdrawal of the noisiest aircraft.
If, as we hope, all goes according to plan, this work will result in the 33rd Assembly of the ICAO adopting new, binding international noise regulations in September 2001.
Compared with the hushkits regulation, which is content to put a freeze on the current situation for aircraft whose certificate has been renewed, genuine international rules requiring the progressive withdrawal of these devices would have greater effect in terms of environmental protection.
Meanwhile, in view of the United States' refusal to back down over the hushkits regulation, the provisions of this regulation on banning the attachment of these devices will enter into force on 4 May next.
Given that the provisions governing the banning of aircraft registered in third countries will only come into force on 1 April 2002, the Commission' s interpretation of the conclusions of the 33rd assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation will provide all the elements necessary to decide whether it is appropriate to replace the hushkits regulation with rules for progressive withdrawal adopted at international level.
All this is in the pipeline. The Commission is working on it and would like to thank Parliament for its cooperation on this matter.
I have received four motions for resolutions in accordance with Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place after the debate.
Mr President, noise pollution caused by aircraft is a very topical issue.
We talked about hushkits not so long ago.
I understand from the observations made by the Commissioner that the regulation as it has been laid down will enter into force on 4 May next.
Mr President, it is not only hushkits which are causing us considerable concern.
In broader terms too, we have to establish that, on account of the increase in air traffic, noise pollution is growing at an alarming rate, especially for citizens who live near busy airports.
At night time, in particular, this level of pollution is out of all proportion.
The number of night flights should therefore be significantly reduced.
But what is meant by night? At Düsseldorf airport, night falls at 10 p.m., according to Mr Florenz.
We in the Netherlands are far more flexible in this respect. Night does not set in until 1.00 a.m. and we do not actually term it night, we refer to it as the brink of night.
Mr President, whatever time we are talking about, it means that we need a coherent approach to noise pollution caused by the transport of civilians and freight by air, as the individual Member States are applying very different rules.
These lead to the direct and undesired effect that airports start to compete with each other. They reason that as long as they are flexible enough, they will get a lot of freight traffic.
But, at the end of the day, it is the people living near airports who suffer.
Mr President, so what needs to happen? First of all, all noise pollution, including pollution generated by aircraft, must be tackled at source.
This means thorough research into low-noise engines.
This means bans and international standards.
But it also means that we need European framework legislation which ensures that measurements are taken, standards set, zonal structures put in place in the same way for all European airports.
What we are asking for - not for the first time, in fact, we did this two and a half years ago in connection with the report on noise pollution which was supported by the late Mrs Carmen Diez de Riviera - is this legislation.
Commissioner and Mrs Reding - you are representing Mrs de Palacio at the moment - you are saying that this is extremely difficult, but I am not asking you for a ban, or even a night ban.
What I do want is to keep the discussion around this issue going and to continue where Parliament left off before.
It was our own amendment, tabled on behalf of the European People' s Party.
Let us thus fight for a European directive which, thanks to Mrs Loyola de Palacio' s new impetus, ensures that we - at long last - can give our citizens what is theirs. That is peace and quiet at night, but this also implies a proper zonal structure, insulation and sound legislation in Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the airline industry has become a growing as well as a thriving industry within the Union.
This undoubtedly brings many benefits, but there are also many drawbacks.
I would like to make it clear straight away that, if Europe does not intervene, aspects such as quality of life, the economy and social factors will very much be in the balance.
The key question is, do we want our citizens to enjoy a good night' s rest, and even day' s rest and, secondly, are we able to give them just that? If you will allow me, I will dwell for a moment on the problem of noise pollution suffered at my own country' s national airport, an airport which, by the way, many of you frequent very regularly.
The noise pollution at Zaventem has exceeded the permitted levels for a long time.
The quality of life - and sleep - of the people living in the vicinity is appalling by any standard.
The solution to this problem has caused great uproar in Belgium and in my government.
As you know, the Belgian Government embraces people from the blue, green and red sections of the political spectrum.
Well, when the green Minister had the audacity to propose a complete night ban, all of a sudden, Belgium was not big enough for the fierce discussion which followed.
Commissioner, you may be red and green in your heart, and I can assure, this is what I am.
I too want to continue to promote life and the quality of everyone' s existence as the supreme good.
This is all well and good on paper, but this can be very difficult to implement in practice. What is worse?
Having a very difficult or bad night' s sleep, day in day out, or suddenly losing your job and your income? Indeed, the parcel company at Zaventem had threatened hundreds, if not many more, redundancies.
All of a sudden, the trade union and employers joined forces.
Belgium has meanwhile come up with a solution: a combination of measures which involves a restriction of noise at source, strict supervisory measures and a number of infrastructural planning measures, such as offering insulation to the houses affected.
It is an improvement, but not a solution.
Too many people continue to suffer from excessive noise in their bedrooms.
Nonetheless, Belgium, in tandem with other Member States, has taken on a pioneering role in this discussion and the question is then, will that country, with its businesses and people who work and live there, suffer as a result? We can only avoid this if night flights and noise pollution are tackled at European level.
This is, in fact, what we are asking for and I am delighted to see that people of all political persuasions in this Parliament are asking for the same thing. I therefore hope that the Commission will be receptive to this.
Europe will need to resolve the false dilemma that exists of having to choose between the economy and social and environmental considerations.
We would like a standardised method to measure noise pollution within the Union.
In this connection, we would also like uniform standards and an effective costing rule.
In addition, we would like criteria which determine when a night ban should be instituted within the Union.
In a recent communication from the Commission on air transport and the environment, an initial strategy has already been outlined.
This is to be welcomed, but it is not enough.
Firstly, this does not solve the current problem, as Mr Lannoye has already pointed out.
Secondly, this is simply a communication, but we want hard legislation from the Commission, so that everyone knows where they stand.
I regret that the Commissioner - the Commissioner who is standing in for Commissioner de Palacio that is - is of the opinion that it is very difficult to institute a night ban.
I think that, with a little good will, this should be feasible.
I am looking forward to her reply.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Lannoye stated a moment ago that noise is a problem with all forms of transport, but the problem with aircraft is very specific because it is so concentrated.
In its communication on airports and the environment, the Commission mentioned a few things about noise, one being - and you also echoed this yourself - that the principle of subsidiarity applies to noise.
In other words, it must be possible to implement at local level without the European Union having to regulate everything. I would, however, like the Commission' s guarantee that distortion of competition is ruled out.
An interesting concept in the communication is the drafting of classification lists, not only for aircraft, but also for airports.
This would mean that noise-sensitive airports would be distinguished from others and that certain activities could not take place at such airports but could possibly take place at less noise-sensitive airports.
Mrs Van Brempt already pointed this out: we are faced with a dilemma.
It is clear that certain businesses and a certain economic sector totally rely on night flights. If we asked them what would happen if there were no night flights, they are bound to say that they would have to close down their businesses, their activities would become pointless and they would no longer be able to offer their services.
Our question is, therefore: how can we marry the two together? The Commission should then legislate against distortion of competition between different airports in different Member States.
Mrs Van Brempt clearly stated what the dilemma was for the Belgian Government.
It is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
As it happens, the Belgian Government has taken a number of measures, but would it not be useful, for example, if the Commission were to compile some sort of list of good and bad airline companies in terms of noise, if it were to draw a distinction between those who do invest in combating noise, those who can present a good record in combating noise and those who cannot, those who do not try their best, and then combine this with measures. Because one thing is clear: noise must be penalised.
Accordingly, it should be more expensive to fly certain aircraft and it should be impossible to fly certain aircraft at night for example.
A total ban would be ideal, of course, but can we afford this and where could this be done? We would like to have these questions answered by the Commission.
A European framework is lacking at the moment - and you say yourself that a framework should be in place, but when? When will this happen?
We have a communication at the moment and shortly we will have the report by Mrs Lucas on aviation and the environment, but when are we getting legislation, when can we expect a framework which is sufficiently clear for each Member State, so that distortion of competition is ruled out? Would it not be useful, for example, to look at 'best practices' at this stage - to use a buzz word - so that we know what certain airports get up to?
This would be some achievement. For example, at Schiphol, there is a kind of complaints desk for noise.
Other airports do not have this but could possibly do with one.
So why not exchange ideas between the different EU airports, where all of us are faced with the same problem?
I would ask the Commission to speed up its process and not to wait for the legislative measure alone, but to set up other initiatives in order to bring people closer together.
Mr President, Commissioner, yesterday the inhabitants of Strasbourg forced decision makers to reject the well-known air courier firm, DHL' s, plans to set up a base at the Strasbourg-Entzheim airport.
Now the company is trying to worm its way into the Nancy-Metz regional airport, which it has targeted because of its rural location where, due to the lower population density, there might appear to be less public opposition.
But this is not the case at all.
When it comes to noise pollution from aircraft and public health in general, it makes no difference whether an airport is situated in the town or the country: all citizens have the right to a peaceful night' s sleep.
I could also mention the inhabitants of the areas surrounding Roissy, Satolas and Milan who are protesting. Milan has fallen into the clutches of Trans-European Networks which have failed to take into account the detrimental effect of their activities on local inhabitants' standard of living.
With air traffic booming and the new economy expanding rapidly, I can foresee a fresh increase in freight in the future. The Union must react and the Commission must propose tangible measures in response to the legitimate concerns of our fellow citizens.
The entire transport policy needs to be revised in order to curb, or even reduce, air transport and related noise pollution.
No research has been carried out into noise pollution from airports.
It is essential to transfer short-haul air freight transport to the railways.
And personally, I am in favour of banning night flights in order to respect the local inhabitants' need for a peaceful night' s sleep, for they already have to put up with excessive noise all day long.
These three matters genuinely require urgent consideration.
Mr President, Commissioner, for some time the populations living close to Barajas Airport in Madrid have protested every time there has been an extension of the airport, for various reasons, but mainly because of noise pollution.
I imagine that other populations living near any airport in any large city will have the same problem.
I know that in the last two months the Government of Madrid has proposed a reduction in night flights, after 11.00 p.m., but I also know that the measures that have been taken have not had any significant effect on the quality of life of the population.
Let us hope that it will improve.
Hence the opportunity for this debate, which we should thank Mr Lannoye for.
From the joint motion for a resolution, I would like to highlight some of the proposals - please excuse any repetition - which I believe the European Commission should take note of if it wants to reduce noise pollution: a global and integrated framework for reducing noise pollution which should lead to a framework directive with concrete and binding measures; the uniform application of those measures in all Member States so that there are no distortions; a Community framework for the classification of noise which will allow measures to be taken with the rigorous allocation of slots and a reduction in flights; and progress towards the establishment of a common air space, which is not in conflict with local and regional measures.
In the fifth framework programme for research it would be necessary to carry out an investigation into the design of aircraft, with a view to reducing its influence on noise pollution.
We should also work towards the reduction and disappearance of night flights and the promotion of the railway.
In truth, Mr President, if everybody disliked aircraft as much as I do and travelled by rail as much as I do, perhaps we would have fewer problems.
All of this work should be done in conjunction with the populations and residents' associations which are already pushing, throughout the whole of Europe, as in Spain, for a reduction in noise pollution, other types of pollution and a reduction in the enormous demand for air traffic.
We should also cooperate in the creation of a noise map in local areas which would lead finally to a serious piece of work on the part of the European Community in favour of a reduction in noise pollution which is increasing as a result of demand.
Mr President, I live 10 kilometres from Malpensa airport as the crow flies and I spent all my working life as part of an aircraft control team, and I therefore feel very strongly about this issue.
First of all, I must say that many of the problems are the result of bad planning or no planning at all.
The airports were built haphazardly and no practical assessment of the environmental impact was made as the towns, or certain parts of them, grew up around the airport structures.
Regional planning is only a recent introduction, whereas airports have existed for a long time. The first flights to operate from Malpensa, for example, began as early as 1910.
Of course, there are other structures which are public nuisances - landfill waste sites, for example, which are created from old quarries with no planning - but, in the case of airports, we see the consequences every day, or rather we hear them, for they fill our ears rather than offending our eyes.
In addition, provision of information is poor.
For example, many fingers are being pointed at cargo flights.
Cargo flights generate neither more nor less noise than passenger flights.
The amount of noise depends exclusively on the type of aircraft, not on what is being transported: a cargo Boeing 747 produces much less noise than a passenger Boeing 727.
Consequently, a thorough knowledge of the facts is necessary even for debating purposes.
Then the legislative framework is also fairly complicated. Here, we have an example of the application of the principle of subsidiarity in its entirety, even extending beyond the European Union, for the standards are established by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which is a supranational body.
I welcomed the Commission' s remarks regarding a European legislative framework.
For example, as has already been said, we need to establish what is intended by the word "night" . Does night start at 10 p.m. or at midnight?
Does it end at 5 a.m. or at 7 a.m.?
This is something to be taken into consideration.
Another factor is the involvement of the local authorities, for every airport is different. The noise impact differs even within the same airport according to the runway used.
For example, runway 25 of Fiumicino airport is next to the sea and hardly disturbs anybody at all, whereas if an aircraft were to take off from the right-hand section of runway 16 it would disturb half a million people or so from the Ostia and Fiumicino communities.
Local authority involvement is therefore important, although, I must stress, it needs to be within a general European legislative framework.
In my opinion, it would, on the whole, be feasible to eliminate night flights and ban them, although, I must stress, this must be done by taking specific local factors and also the type of aircraft used into consideration.
It should not make much difference whether an aircraft has a built-in silencer or whether its silencer is fitted subsequently: the engine noise can be measured and an assessment made of whether the aeroplane is excessively noisy or not, irrespective of the date of manufacture or the type of silencer used.
In any case, I would stress that we must not just concentrate on the individual factors in isolation but view the issue as a whole.
Mr President, noise pollution caused by aircraft is mainly a problem to those living near airports.
This is, in principle, a localised problem which should, as such, be solved by the competent authority of the relevant airport.
Different airports are already working on this by issuing flight bans to the noisiest aircraft or by banning certain night flights.
This solution, however, is not sufficient, since aircraft are produced on a global market.
Competition hinders such solutions, and creates the side-effect that more noise will be produced at other airports.
In short, we are simply shifting the problem.
Technically speaking, the problem is not that enormous.
By using state-of-the-art technology, it is possible to produce aircraft which generate six times less noise than aircraft thirty years ago.
Since the life-span of aircraft is about thirty years, the effect of these technical improvements are not felt for a long while.
The question is whether this long wait is desirable. I do not think so.
If we actually want to do something about aircraft noise, technical improvements will need to be implemented more quickly.
The extra cost involved will obviously be passed on to the user, who will pay more for their airline tickets.
The user should be fully aware of the actual costs of flying, including all environmental costs.
For the sake of fair competition, this should be done on a global scale.
The proposal from the resolution, which, among other things, presses for making information on the level of noise pollution around different airports available in a readily understood format, is a step in the right direction.
I also back the other proposals to reduce noise pollution.
It should be clear that, ideally, the actual environmental costs should be brought into the equation.
Mr President, Commissioner, your comments this morning on both subjects showed that we need not only rapid data highways, but also efficient air transport in Europe to remain competitive.
It is obvious that this will lead, in our densely populated States, to increasing noise pollution for citizens.
I support all those who have stated here that solutions can only be found jointly.
I come from the region around the Cologne-Bonn airport, an extremely densely populated region.
We have tried to restrict the noise pollution for citizens.
Every major attempt was simply answered by the companies with the announcement that they would switch to another airport.
The airports of Liège and Maastricht are within a radius of almost 200 km.
The companies are really not bothered about where they start and land their cargo planes, in particular.
For this reason, I would like to urgently request that we find joint solutions which achieve both objectives: a competitive airline industry in Europe and adequate noise protection for our citizens in the vicinity of airports.
However, I have surmised, Commissioner, from the Commission' s report that some basic conditions for this have still not been met.
Firstly, it is obvious from the report that there is still no common method for calculating aircraft noise and, secondly, there is still no common method for monitoring basic data.
I therefore come to my request: you have proposed specific measures to the Commission in your report.
You have also set deadlines: the year 2001 for expiry of the old specification on noise emissions for old aircraft equipment.
You have announced a strategy, which I welcome, for how the burden on particularly busy airports can be eased on the basis of objective data.
However, you have not set any deadline for this.
My request to the Commission is that, together with the regions, you set deadlines, in the interests of both the companies and the citizens affected, which we can all work towards in a team effort.
Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this matter of night flights and, more generally, noise pollution from aircraft taking off and landing at airport complexes is an extremely sensitive issue and embraces several areas of concern which require attention.
This sensitive issue takes us back to a recurring problem faced by all decision makers and politicians, whether they are local, national or, nowadays, European, and that is the problem of how to reconcile economic development with the need to safeguard the health and the standard of living of our fellow citizens.
In effect, this embraces the three fields of technological, economic and regulatory considerations.
Although progress has unquestionably been made on the technological side, further progress is still essential in order to renew fleets of aircraft, particularly freight aircraft.
The European Union must continue with its endeavours in the areas of research and technological development, equip itself with the means it needs to produce the standards envisaged, and give financial and technological support to all studies and programmes which make shared information available and which facilitate the modernisation of equipment with a view to limiting environmental disamenities.
However, at the same time, we have to take into account the economic aspect of the issue.
Airport complexes are hives of intense economic activity and appeal; our intention to preserve jobs, reasserted in Lisbon, means that we do not have the right to avoid this issue.
Any use of existing structures and the establishment of new infrastructures must conform to the legal instruments - the area-specific land use plans and national and regional development rules.
Finally, in terms of regulation, in the absence of standardised European rules, strict harmonisation of air traffic control and restrictions must be achieved in order to prevent dumping within the Union, a phenomenon familiar to us, which is governed by decisions taken simply at local level.
We cannot allow this to continue. The citizens are waiting for decisions to be implemented within the relatively near future.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to make a few brief comments with regard to our joint resolution.
We are discussing night flights, noise pollution and especially sleeping disorders.
As a researcher who has examined the social effects of industrial labour, especially shift work, for years, I appreciate - and this has also been adequately proven scientifically - the seriousness of sleeping disorders and lack of sleep.
Against this background, the entire discussion is relatively serious, bearing in mind Mrs Oomen-Ruijten' s comments on "the brink of the night" and the way we are discussing noise pollution, and the lack of harmonisation.
In the foreseeable future, we will discuss at great length the more general aspects of aviation and the environment within the committee, including the common noise classification schedules, how to provide economic incentives in connection with noise and how to achieve aircraft noise standards.
However, one thing is still lacking from the discussion, namely that we will need the political courage to talk about restrictions, bans if necessary, for night flights during a certain period and reach common agreements on this.
Mr President, it is certainly not a coincidence that so many Belgian Members have taken the floor during this debate today.
The problem of night flights in a densely populated country such as Belgium is a very topical and extremely sensitive issue, especially since the Belgian Transport Minister issued a ban on night flights in Zaventem which, following a hefty row within the government, was withdrawn soon after.
I believe that Mrs Van Brempt has outlined the dilemma very expertly.
Tens of thousands of people live and sleep a stone' s throw away from the runway.
15% of the population are suffering as a result of the noise pollution generated by aircraft.
Medical reports have shown that people living near airports are having to deal with health problems of an unacceptably serious nature, such as insomnia, high blood pressure, stress and depression.
Needless to say, it makes no sense to ban night flights in one Member State alone.
Businesses, such as DHL, will then simply move to airports in other Member States.
As a result, we are at risk of finding ourselves in a downward spiral, where the citizens' quality of life is pulled down with it.
Mr Sterckx has already pointed out, with good reason, that measures to reduce the effects for those living near airports should not promote distortion of competition.
The increase in the number of noisy, obsolete and unlisted Russian aircraft, in particular, is the cause of unacceptable noise pollution, not to mention the risks for the environment and safety which such aircraft pose.
In my town, Ostend, where the airport is situated in the centre of town, there have already been over 50 incidents, so far only leading to material damage.
I therefore concur with Mrs Oomen, who advocates uniform framework legislation, which will reconcile the economic and employment interests with the care for public health, the environment and safety and which will apply to all airports within Europe.
The much publicised and promised common framework for noise classification of aircraft could not be here soon enough, Commissioner, especially given the Russian situation.
I also hope that the European Commission will not budge one inch from the position it has adopted with regard to hushkits and will not succumb to American pressure.
Finally, I would like to ask that special attention be paid to the specific problems which smaller, regional airports have to contend with.
They are fighting to remain profitable and are even unable to make the necessary investments to reduce noise pollution.
This is why I would ask Europe, where possible, to help out in order to guarantee the viability of airports, but especially the quality of life of those living near them.
Mr President, I have taken careful note of all the comments made by the Members and I will pass them on to the Commissioner responsible for transport.
Parliament' s message was very clear, as might have been expected, for most of the Members who spoke represent the interests of citizens who live very close to airports.
On the other hand, it was pointed out, and very rightly so, that airports represent major economic factors and that, if we start to impose bans, there is a serious danger that this will have adverse implications for employment.
Of course, the question which arises is how to reconcile economics with preserving the standard of living.
Clearly, the level of noise pollution from night flights varies from one airport to another, according to the topography of the areas and population density.
This is why, for the time being, the Commission is not going to place a blanket ban on these flights.
Moreover, very few airports in the Community impose a full curfew: Paris-Orly is the only one to impose a total ban on night flights.
Munich and Berlin-Tegel limit night operations to mail freight.
A general ban on night flights would therefore seriously disrupt air transport activities.
Most large airports place restrictions on the use of the noisiest types of aircraft or employ economic instruments in order to limit their use.
There are, effectively, a number of alternatives to banning night flights used by various airports, all compatible with Community legislation on market access.
A notable example is the use of a noise quota system such as that employed by the London airports, or a ban on using the noisiest runways during the night, which one very well-informed Member referred to.
In addition, the use of flight paths which generate less noise pollution, avoiding sensitive districts during take-off and landing, and the application of differentiated airport tax, calculated according to the environmental characteristics of the aircraft, are some of the solutions currently employed.
The question now arises of how to proceed in the future, and, most importantly, when to act.
Pages 34 and 35 of the communication on air transport and the environment contain an action plan setting forth a precise schedule.
I will not bore you with the details.
You have the documents in your possession.
The Commission has absolutely no intention of postponing decisions on this matter indefinitely.
It has committed itself to precise deadlines.
With regard to the regulatory framework, we aim to present it at the end of this year, or early next year at the very latest.
This harmonised framework could include common reference points for measuring the operational noise levels to be limited or prohibited, a provision allowing operators sufficient time to come into line with the new operational restrictions and the establishment of a right for people living near airports to request consultation and negotiations on noise reduction objectives.
The economic measures proposed also provide for differentiated treatment of airlines according to the characteristics of their aircraft.
In addition, the Commission envisages the development of a code of conduct based on current best practice.
I would also like to reply to the question on the drafting of a new noise standard.
The ICAO is currently working on drafting a new standard, and this is long overdue, for the present standards date from 1977 - ages ago.
Given the long life of an aircraft - thirty years - clearly, the effects of a new standard will only be seen in the long term.
This is why we are insisting on the fact that these new standards should be sufficiently ambitious to counteract the environmental effect of the fast-growing air industry.
In the short term, the Commission considers that rules stipulating the progressive, but rapid withdrawal of the oldest and noisiest aircraft are the best solution, especially for airports whose capacity is restricted by environmental constraints.
And the best way to ensure the environmental efficiency of these rules is to act at a worldwide level within the framework of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, as the Commission is doing, in tandem with decision making at a purely European level.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Mr President, in principle, we should proceed to the vote.
It appears that the joint motion for a resolution is approved by all the political Groups.
There are therefore no complications and there are no amendments.
I would, however, like to request that the vote be deferred, if only out of a desire for consistency with this morning' s events, and also because it would be fitting for a resolution as important as this to be voted in by more than 40 or 50 Members.
Mr Lannoye, I understand that you are moving that the vote be adjourned.
You know very well that this motion is to be made either by 32 Members or by a group.
Are you moving this on behalf of your Group?
Mr President, I am, of course, making this request on behalf of my Group.
In this case, Rule 146 of the Rules of Procedure applies.
This means that one speaker in favour and one speaker against may take the floor in respect of Mr Lannoye' s motion to adjourn the vote, and the majority here in the Chamber will then decide.
- (PT) Mr President, I would like to support this suggestion.
I do not wish to be associated with the sabotage that was perpetrated today.
I think that the person who decided on this course of action should have said whatever he wanted to, but he ought to have allowed the sitting to continue normally. He ought to show respect to his fellow Members such as myself, a Portuguese person, who will put up with a lot, but I am here to work.
I do not understand at all how, after what happened, this House can have chosen not to vote on the resolutions on Ethiopia, which are urgent, and have allowed itself to proceed to other votes.
I find this quite incomprehensible and I think that it makes this Parliament and us look ridiculous.
This is a matter which has extremely serious political repercussions!
This was the speaker against.
Is there anyone who would like to speak in favour of the motion?
I am giving the floor to Mr Blokland.
Mr President, I would like to back Mr Lannoye' s motion.
I think that if there are fewer than fifty Members in the Chamber, it is unfair to vote on such a significant issue.
This is why it is important that this Parliament make a clear statement, and a clear statement is only possible if a large majority of this Parliament is present, and not just fifty Members.
We have now had a speaker in favour and a speaker against.
We will now proceed to vote on Mr Lannoye' s request to adjourn the vote on this item on the agenda.
(The request was rejected) We shall now proceed to the vote.
Joint motion for a resolution on night flights and noise pollution in the vicinity of airports.
Mr President, various Members, such as Mr Beysen, who has disappeared and reappeared in the meantime, and Mrs Gebhardt, have already remarked that there are fewer Members in the Chamber than earlier this morning.
It is clear to us too that there are now even less than half of the Members here than there were earlier on.
The Members who have left are a mixture of Members who supported me in my request for a quorum and those who heavily protested against it.
It seems to me to be a good thing that this debate has got under way and I would like to extend warm thanks to the Members who supported me in this.
I also welcome the fact that, clearly, the choice is not about retaining or abolishing Fridays, but very much about improving the present situation.
Mrs Buitenweg, we are voting at the moment.
We will not enter into a debate on Friday sittings.
If you have a request on a point of order, I would ask you to submit it now, if not, I will now proceed to the vote.
Mr President, I accept the vote which has just been held and that a decision has been taken to vote now.
I would like to point out, however, that the voting will be by roll-call.
This is very important because it will then become clear how many Members were present and, more importantly, how many have left.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now attempt to hold an orderly vote.
This seems to me to be in the interest of the good Rules of this House.
We are going by the Rules.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I would like to say something about the Rules of Procedure which I think is very important given that the MEP, when she asked for a quorum, cited that it is her right under the Rules of Procedure.
That is correct, even though I do not approve of her behaviour politically.
But she has now said something which must be objected to in respect of the Rules of Procedure, namely that we will now see from the numbers how the importance of this vote is to be assessed.
I do not consider this acceptable.
Under our Rules of Procedure a vote is fully valid if it has materialised in a proper fashion, even if those who requested that the quorum be determined were no longer able to do this because there were no longer enough of them.
Even then a vote is fully valid.
Mr Posselt, you are absolutely right.
It is a fact that all votes are valid, irrespective of the number of those participating.
The legality of this vote is thus beyond dispute.
Mr President, we all have experience of trade union movements, national parliaments and so forth.
The reason for rules of procedure is that they guarantee democratic principles and obviously if, at some time, someone wishes to highlight a particular political problem, then they are perfectly within their rights to do so.
If, however, a right is somehow abused, I am not sure if that abuse has anything to do with democratic ethics.
I am speaking on a more general note here.
In other words I am not sure if, in the final analysis, it has more to do with being obstructive than with proving that there is indeed a genuine problem.
What causes me particular regret is that we all have experience of national parliaments and so on and this sort of abuse rarely takes place.
Mr President, I have already asked for the floor four times this morning in order to point out to those Members who expressed irritation at this morning' s events that, ever since the first day of the new parliamentary term, we have requested more clarity regarding Fridays, i.e. to have either a proper meeting or no meeting at all.
I think that the problem could be solved very quickly if we could schedule the votes for the end of the session, like all the other days, and ask for everyone to sign the attendance register at the end of the day.
It would then become clear if we would be prepared to consider this a proper meeting or not.
I therefore recommend that this problem be raised in later proceedings so as solve this Friday problem once and for all.
Mr Meijer, I would thank you and other Members for their creativity in coming up with solutions to this problem.
This will not help us any further this morning.
All that remains for us to do this morning is to apply the Rules of Procedure in an honest and transparent way and, as such, I am at your service and at the service of the Rules of Procedure.
Needless to say, I will refer this morning' s course of events to the President and the Bureau, upon which the competent parliamentary committee will deal with this matter further.
This is clear enough, I think.
I would now like to proceed with the discussion of the next item on the agenda, so that we can debate its content.
Let us move on to the next item.
The forestry sector after the December 1999 storms
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
(B5-0217/2000) by Mr Savary and Mrs Gebhardt, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the problems in the forestry sector following the storms in December 1999;
(B5-0219/2000) by Mr Daul, Mr Martin and Mr Redondo Jiménez, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
Mr President, I welcome this point of order, for foresters and the forestry sector cannot wait for the outcome of these rather irregular debates which can only have one effect today, and that is to send out a message proclaiming that the European Parliament is made up of absentee Members, whereas most of our fellow Members, including those here today, are certainly not relaxing in front of their televisions but are working in the field.
The issue is wider than that.
In reality, this is nothing more than a feature of the anti-Strasbourg sniping which has developed. Let us be completely clear about this and not try to pretend it is otherwise or to evade the issue.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on the forestry sector.
As it happens, we already expressed our sympathy, as we are wont to do, in a resolution of 20 January 2000, and requested that the Commission supply us with certain information and undertake to help those of our citizens - and they were numerous - who were in difficulties, for this disaster affected the whole of Europe.
Now, four months later, we are sufficiently removed from events to be able to learn both from what has been done and what has not, and we are expecting a tangible response from the Commission to this question. Did we actually intervene?
Did we employ the means available to us? This time, we are not claiming appropriations for exceptional circumstances under the "natural disasters" heading.
The sector is simply assessing the extent of its difficulties and the resulting risks - economic risks, security risks, that is to say fire risks, and also risks of non-reforestation, for if it is not possible to remove the wood in the coming weeks, many foresters would prefer to leave them where they are, and then the forestry sector will be in permanent difficulties, and with it the primary processing industry.
Four months on, the purpose of this oral question is therefore, Commissioners, to inform you, first and foremost, that the condition of the forestry sector is critical.
In the space of two days, 193 million cubic metres of timber have flooded the market.
The first question is that of price control and regulation of the market, since the cost of removing some low-quality species is now more than the market is willing to pay.
We are familiar with the regulation of the market in the context of the common agricultural policy.
We are not asking you to include timber in that policy, but it appears that Europe could have employed equivalent measures to assist the timber market during this exceptional crisis. It could have temporarily regulated the timber market for a period of several months.
The question has been put to you.
What action are you going to take?
Secondly, what have you done and what have you achieved with the means available?
I refer to the means which allow us to grant exemptions from the competition laws to help exporters, for the cost of transportation of timber which has been exposed to fungal or parasite risk is totally unacceptable, provided that there is a buyer. If we want to support the market, we must support the transportation necessary for export to places further afield.
Is the Commission prepared to take steps to do this? To what extent has it implemented Article 87(2) of the Treaty, which allows it to grant exemptions?
To what extent, if at all, has it approached the WTO to request it to grant derogations? What has it done to set up means of remedying the natural disasters affecting the forestry sector?
These are not virtual instruments.
We have rules, such as Article 30 of Regulation 1257/1999. If it has not done so, what action does it intend to take in the forthcoming weeks?
The matter is urgent. Finally, I call for the DOCUP development plans to give unequivocal consideration to the forestry sector and the timber industry.
Mr President, I would like to inform the honourable Member that the Commission is quite aware of the extensive problems caused by the hurricanes at the beginning of December 1999 in Denmark and Sweden and at the end of December 1999 in France and Germany, the devastating effect on the entire forestry industries of these countries and the implications for those employed in the industry.
May I refer you to Mr Barnier' s speeches at the plenary sitting of 18 January 2000, when he stressed that the Commission would willingly employ every available means to assist the Member States.
Nevertheless, with regard to forest damage, I must also remind you that the European Parliament, notably in its resolution of 31 January 1997 on the forestry strategy of the European Union, and also the Council of the European Union, have repeatedly stressed that the Treaty does not lay down any specific competence for a Union forestry policy.
Thus, the European Union does not have the necessary means to intervene in the way stipulated by the two resolutions.
In effect, timber is not among the products listed in Annex I of the Treaty. There is no legal framework and timber cannot therefore be governed by a specific market policy, even temporarily.
Although such actions are theoretically possible under WTO regulations, well-defined, solid legal, economic and commercial grounds would be necessary to persuade our trading partners to accept them.
To date, the Commission has not received a detailed analysis justifying its taking such a step.
I will come back to this point in a moment.
It is therefore, first and foremost, national aid to the timber industry which is the most appropriate means, at national, regional or local level, of supporting the worst affected forestry sites in the industry, and the Member States have to decide on the procedures for providing this aid.
The Commission is therefore currently assessing the national aid systems notified to it by the national governments for alleviating the effects of hurricanes on the forestry sector according to the effects on competition at European level.
The departments of the Commission are assessing these aid systems, particularly in the light of Article 87(2b) of the Treaty, which governs the compatibility of the aid envisaged by the Member States in the event of natural disasters.
The aid programmes notified by the French Government do, in fact, contain a general measure supporting the windfall transportation which may result in some of the timber being transported to countries outside the Union.
The Commission stresses that Article 87, paragraph 2b of the Treaty does not constitute an exemption from GATT regulations as such, and we and our legal departments are assessing the compatibility of this measure with the Treaty on the basis of recent information.
The French authorities may be requested to provide further information.
With regard to the joint financing of aid programmes proposed by Member States under Article 30 of Regulation EC/1257/99 on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), I would further stress that the Commission is prepared to be extremely flexible.
However, it is first of all up to the Member States to amend their initial programmes.
In the meantime, two Member States, including France, have presented their adapted programmes, which now include a substantial section on bolstering the forestry industry following the storms at the end of 1999.
In this context, actions are proposed for the removal, storage, transportation, protection and replenishment of the devastated forests in order to support the sector.
These dossiers are currently under negotiation between the Commission and the Member States, but I can state here and now that the Commission' s attitude is favourable.
I have received five motions for resolutions in accordance with Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place after the debate.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate you on the way you handled the debate this morning.
You encountered a storm and weathered it without the help of the Commission.
But Commissioner, I would also like, and I feel that this is essential, the institutions of the European Union to bear witness to the solidarity which unites the Member States, in particular in the event of exceptional disasters such as the storms of 26 December last which caused such unprecedented damage to a number of forest regions in France, Germany and Austria.
There is an urgent need for us to begin using the instruments available to the Union to assist the affected regions and support the individuals and companies concerned. The need for our support is all the more pressing given that transportation, storage and forest exploitation cannot be delayed without serious consequences in terms of both the quality of the products and the restoration and protection of forest ecosystems.
Thus, in the Alsace region alone, more than 6.5 million cubic metres of woodland has been devastated, which is essentially equivalent to one to three years' harvests.
Clearly, the influx of timber onto the market will send prices plummeting and so further damage the industry' s economic operators.
Once again, the way that the sector is structured may facilitate the search for joint solutions between the upstream operators which manage forestry resources and the downstream operators which exploit them.
The inter-trade system introduced in France can certainly play a major part in the search for, and development of, these joint solutions.
Indeed, since they are designed not to protect the interests of any one section of the industry, they facilitate the protection of the industry as a whole, promote the timber sector and ensure respect for the great internal balances which make it possible to consolidate the whole.
Although regional in scale, inter-trade bodies also have a local impact and are immediately efficacious in critical situations such as that of our forestry companies and the timber industry.
We should therefore favour direct contacts with potential partners, even more so given that inter-trade bodies are also the consultative partners of local governments and national authorities with regard to defining forestry policies and hence with regard to the search for immediate solutions to crises.
They are also able to identify bottlenecks in the implementation of safeguard programmes.
This is why I ask you not to disregard direct consultation with the industry' s operators in your consultation mechanism.
Moreover, regulations can be a constraint which varies according to the State in question, as is, notably, the case with regard to grain storage, in respect of the impermeability of the ground, the water sampling limits, which are set at 5% of the low water discharge in France and 30% in Germany and waste disposal monitoring.
I therefore feel that exceptional measures should also be implemented.
The scale of the disaster shows that the aid pledged by the State or confirmed at local level will not be sufficient to cover the damage reported.
It is therefore essential to be able to draw on the Structural Funds to finance special measures for forests and the timber industry in the case of disasters in objective 2 or former objective 5b areas.
The same applies to rural development measures and other, more specific, economic or environmental programmes, in parallel with actions for using up workable timber, which represents about 50% of the windfall.
It would also be desirable to promote incentive measures for using the poorer quality wood for energy production.
However, the urgency of the situation calls for flexible, simplified procedures to financially supplement the provisions already introduced by the Member States
I therefore call upon the Commission to seek consensus with the industry as a whole and the Member States concerned in order to find effective, immediate solutions, for the greater the consensus, the more effective the solutions will be.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I experienced the storms of Christmas day 1999 in my home city of Paris and only managed with extreme difficulty to return on the same day to Germany, where the forests were unrecognisable.
Further south-west, in France, my parents spent many days in the dim light of the petroleum lamp which I had given to them once as a present.
We do not know when and in what form the next disaster will strike.
Permit me, therefore, to say something about the current problems and to expand on one aspect of the comments of my fellow MEP and friend, Gilles Savary.
It concerns point 8 of the joint motion for a resolution in which we ask the Commission to create instruments which make it possible to take rapid and effective action within the European Union if we are faced with a crisis situation as a result of accidents or natural disasters.
We presently have neither the money nor the infrastructure for this.
We should not in future rely on cross-border neighbourly aid as in the case of the storms at the end of the year.
It was offered on a voluntary basis in an exemplary manner. It is also a healthy and important expression of solidarity.
However, in itself it does not constitute a European solution.
The European Union must take full responsibility for its citizens.
The Commission must, therefore, quickly rack its brains to find instruments for rapid and effective emergency aid.
We will expect proposals for solutions soon.
We need have no qualms about making these proposals unconventional and bold.
There will certainly be no lack of support from the European Parliament.
The time has come to move on.
But first we must sort out the current consequences of the Christmas storms.
This involves three things in particular.
Firstly: we must not let the timber market collapse and must, therefore, directly intervene on behalf of the many small and medium-sized enterprises.
Secondly: we must, as an exception, also support necessary transportation and exports of valuable timber to third countries.
The Commission must urgently discuss the approval of export subsidies with the WTO.
Thirdly: we must do everything we can to counter the risks of fungus, pest and fire so that the damage does not become even worse.
Commissioner, when you say that national aid is the important thing now, then I would say to you that this also means that, in this instance, you do not want to organise the common European market.
Commissioner, Mr President, it is true that your news and your message are extremely disappointing when we think of the emotional concern shown at the damage caused by the storms last December.
Mr Barnier was very emphatic in his speech, assuring us that the European Union was, in effect, going to do something to help the victims.
By victims I mean the small-scale foresters who have been ruined, but I am also referring to the small seaside businesses who now have to face the influx of tourists.
Well, now we know that forests do not fall within the remit of the European Union.
So we are going to use part of the Structural Funds to finance emergency aid in the event of natural disasters.
Yet we are well aware that this will take time.
And, in this regard, may I say that the European Union' s policy consists of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
We cannot support this policy, for it amounts to depriving some to provide for others, to the detriment of future projects.
In my opinion, this is really not good enough, and we expect tangible measures from the Commission.
The citizens are calling for immediate action.
Mr President, the document on the difficulties faced by the forestry sector following the storms in December 1999 only refers to the damage caused to the wooded areas in order to better illustrate the price drops in the timber sector and the implications for foresters and timber exporters.
The resolutions deal mainly with the regulation of the timber market and export subsidies.
For my part, I would like to speak up on behalf of forestry workers, who receive no mention at all, even though it is their efforts which are keeping the timber sector going.
The storms were more than just an environmental disaster for all of us and an economic problem for the profiteers of the timber sector.
They have resulted in a sharp deterioration in the working conditions of foresters and lumberjacks, whose jobs are extremely dangerous at the best of times with the very highest accident rate which will continue to rise.
The discomfort and danger involved in their profession is illustrated by the fact that there were over 100 casualties in the 1990 storms in Germany.
The forestry workers' salary is shamefully low - a mere 6900 francs.
They are calling for a decent salary which offsets the risks involved in their job.
They are demanding to be able to retire at 55 and calling for an improvement in their working conditions, which are still antiquated and result in the physical deterioration and sometimes death of a number of workers each year.
We support these legitimate claims.
Mr President, in relation to the storms which occurred last December, the Community did not match up to our expectations during the initial emergency period and now it is late in fulfilling its promises of aid.
The Commission has a duty to learn the lessons of the storm disaster, and strengthen the effectiveness of Community texts.
Between the initial emergency period and the current challenges, with problems in the transportation, storage and sale of wood, there is a chronological gap corresponding to a gap in institutional support.
This must be remedied and the States concerned must be awarded logistical support in the follow-up to the initial emergency period.
In its resolution last January, Parliament asked the Commission to submit practical proposals if it were found that the funds available for aid were insufficient.
So what has become of these famous practical proposals? The Commission should use these proposals to prioritise its reaction to the slump in wood sales, for what we had feared is actually taking place, and it is becoming impossible to sell wood.
And what measures has the Commission taken or planned to promote the immediate cultivation of damaged plots of land, without which the effective reconstruction of our forests cannot begin.
Sadly, one merit of this ordeal is that it will have reminded us that wood is an industrial raw material, one that is, furthermore, essentially renewable.
The sustainable and efficient management of our forests requires an economically viable forest.
Similarly, only sustainable forestry can provide a proper foundation for a competitive wood industry, while making a crucial contribution to the development of rural areas.
The Member States are, and must continue to be, the main operators in forestry policy in Europe.
This must not, however, stop Europe pursuing the coordinated management of forestry issues.
The sometimes extremely binding regulations governing the single market apply to forestry products.
In return the Community must provide support for these products, especially at times of crisis.
Community action in favour of the forestry sector is appropriate inasmuch as it creates added value for the national action which has been undertaken.
This is an ideal justification for the principle of subsidiarity, for instance in matters of protection against atmospheric pollution and forest fires, or forestry certification, and also in matters of support for the implementation of a world convention on forests.
I support the Community initiatives in favour of the tropical forests, but I am astounded that there is not the same enthusiasm to come to the aid of our own devastated forests.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is now some three months since Hurricane Lothar caused devastating damage to forests in Europe, and in particular France and Baden-Württemberg.
In Baden-Württemberg alone the accumulation of storm wood runs to about 25 million solid cubic metres.
This equates to three times the average annual felling and this has already led to 30% lower timber prices.
Just the cost of remedying the damage in Baden-Württemberg, the area for which I can speak as the delegate, runs to about DM 1.5 billion, of which DM 300 million are needed simply for reforestation.
However, Hurricane Lothar is not a problem specific to Baden-Württemberg.
France and other EU States have also been greatly affected.
Nevertheless, the Commission has so far refused to make additional budgetary allocations available and prefers to cite, in this instance represented by Mrs Schreyer, the fact that final agreement has already been reached in the European Parliament on Budget 2000 and that the requirement for additional funds should be covered by the Member State in question from the funds already allocated.
However, the redistribution of funds was made subject to approval and this approval has not yet been given.
I consider the argumentation of Mrs Schreyer to be somewhat cynical when you consider that, only a few days later, she announced that the additional financial requirement of EUR 300 million for the EU Balkan commitment, which is undoubtedly important, would be covered by EUR 300 million from the agriculture budget without the farmers noticing it, and this includes forest owners.
I would like to stress once again that we are dealing here with extremely long-term damage which may also have ecological implications.
Tidying up, storage and reforestation all involve intense physical work.
Commissioner, I know what I am talking about.
I am a farmer.
I have seen how the hurricane took the roof off our stable and I have seen the state our private woods are in.
We were able to put things right ourselves but, by and large, this is not the case for all areas, all persons, all communities.
You can see that.
But that this is done quickly and efficiently and, above all, is sustained long term is an ecological necessity.
During his visit to the Black Forest on 16 February, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries, Dr Fischler, indicated broad flexibility within the existing financial framework for measures for rural development.
He indicated, as you have today, Commissioner, that you are willing to give consideration to, to help ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the natural disaster which overtook European countries was tragic.
I am in complete agreement with the Members who have spoken on the matter and, believe me, the Commission would love to be able to do something about it.
Yet neither the Treaties nor the budgetary regulations provide for this possibility.
As I said before, no Community framework exists which would allow the Commission to adopt initiatives to provide direct aid to the forestry sector.
Moreover, the same applies within the framework of Regulation 1257/99.
It is the Member State itself which has to adopt the necessary initiatives and provide for appropriate aid.
According to the principle of subsidiarity, the Commission cannot direct resources from the rural development programme towards channels supporting the timber industry following storm damage.
The Commission cannot apply competition regulations to authorise national aid or joint financing initiatives under the provisions of Regulation 1257/99.
Moreover, negotiations are in progress with the Member States and I have made it quite clear that, within its institutional and legal capabilities, the Commission is doing everything in its power and more, and is being as flexible as it possibly can.
It is unfortunate that the institutional authorities have decided that forestry policy is to be governed by subsidiarity, and that it does not fall within the competences of the Commission but is wholly the responsibility of the Member States.
This is something which the Commission cannot change for the moment for that would mean amending the Treaty, although reform of the Treaties is currently being discussed.
I therefore call upon all Members who are convinced that subsidiarity should not apply to forestry issues but should be the remit of the Community to make representations to their national governments to this effect.
Commissioner, you have been extremely active this morning.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Joint motion for a resolution replacing the resolutions on the economic effects of the recent storms on the forestry sector in Europe
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Declarations of vote and other declarations
Mr President, I would very quickly like to go back to the events which took place during the explanation of votes or during the point of order this morning.
I am very new to this Parliament and I would just like to express my deep disappointment at the incident.
Of course, I respect the Rules of Procedure and democracy, but the strategic, political action of a mere forty or so Members has prevented us from voting on Ethiopia.
On behalf of this Parliament, I would like to apologise to the people of Ethiopia, to the men, women and children who are suffering in a tragic situation and in relation to whom Parliament was prevented from adopting a position this morning.
I am extremely concerned.
We were able to vote on the last two items, which were also urgent, but, in all honesty, I would have preferred to have voted for the people of Ethiopia and to have lent them the support of this Parliament.
Once again, I apologise to the people of Ethiopia.
Mr President, I would like to support what Mr Daul has just said.
For me also the timber trade is something of great importance, but then our aid to Ethiopia is equally important.
For this reason I would like, and I attach great importance to this since you did not previously allow me to speak again when Mrs Buitenweg falsely quoted me, once more to clearly ask: where are those who this morning arranged this whole theatre? Why are they not here now at the end of the session, proving that the work of Parliament is genuinely important to them?
That is the real question.
Mr President, like everyone else, I am deeply concerned about the situation we have landed up in.
I find it disagreeable to have taken part in the votes we have had when there are so few of us.
In actual fact, I abstained from voting in all our votes this afternoon because I did not think that I wanted to be involved and participate in making decisions which are as illegitimate as I believe they must be when there are so few of us.
I support the protest action which has been taken here today.
I am a new Member and therefore a little shocked when I hear that the unsatisfactory state of affairs which prevails on Fridays has been going on for years, unchanged.
If that is the case, vigorous protests are certainly needed so that we can bring about a change, for matters cannot continue like this.
We shall be a laughing stock throughout Europe.
I notice that, today, we are concluding this sitting with approximately fewer than 40 Members here to make decisions.
It is disgraceful.
Mr President, firstly, I voted in favour of the last motion and the amendments thereto.
That was the formal declaration of vote.
I would like to rid certain people here of the misconception that those who took the initiative for quorum counts are no longer present.
It is true that some have left.
But I am one of the people who took the initiative and I am still here, just as I am here every Friday.
I have noticed that some people say that there are people who are after a four-day week, but I am certainly not one of them.
I am, however, of the opinion, that we need to work a proper five-day week, which is not happening at the moment, if the number of MEPs in attendance today is anything to go by.
And this is why the problem has arisen.
If Fridays were like Tuesdays or Wednesdays, then it would not have been necessary to have this debate and the counts here today.
This will now have to be carried through to the moment at which Fridays either run in the normal way or, due to a lack of interest, they are abolished, which is once again a likely scenario.
- (PT) Mr President, I would firstly like to explain why I voted the way I did: I voted in favour of the joint motion for a resolution because I agree with the serious concerns and actions it puts forward, although this does not represent a change in my Group' s position. Our position is that we have concerns about the Union' s courts having responsibility for forestry policy.
Nor can I fail to mention the fact, which has already been referred to here, that the saboteurs of this morning' s sitting did not take part in the vote, and I am delighted that the PPE has suggested a nominal vote, which will clarify the matter.
There is a French saying about the arroseur arrosé - the biter being bit.
Here we have the saboteur saboté - the saboteur hoist with his own petard.
It is deplorable that we have been involved in this circus.
Those concerned could have made a point of order, since it is an important issue that the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents have to address.
But they went too far.
They showed no consideration for Ethiopia and sabotaged the votes.
They then suggested a nominal vote so a count could be taken.
As we can see, however, when we take a decision here on an issue related to storms, disasters or Europe' s interests, that is, serious matters, they are no longer present.
Almost none of the 32 gladiators were present for the final vote, which is utterly deplorable and which clearly reveals the true intentions of those who destabilised this morning' s sitting.
Mr President, I would like to say to Mr Daul and Mrs Lulling that, in debates on the Rules of Procedure, you must always bear in mind that there are also tactical and strategic aims coming into play.
It is no different for you than for those colleagues who tried what they did.
For the first time this morning I joined in the request for the quorum to be established.
I am a supporter of Strasbourg and a supporter of Fridays.
However, I am of the opinion that those who wish to ensure that the work of Parliament continues to be carried out should also be present.
I therefore thought to myself that a warning shot was in order; what then happened I thought went too far and I did not want to fall into line because I thought that it was about Strasbourg and Fridays.
For that reason, I did not go along with it any further.
But the fact that those delegates did what they did you have to grant them.
You then have to respond accordingly.
The Rules of Procedure, and I would like to pay my respect to the President here, were sensibly interpreted this morning with great composure and great calm.
Matters proceeded as was established.
The votes which were carried out are proper votes.
They are no less valid because only a few delegates participated.
I consider that, by exhorting our colleagues, and also the Groups, to be present, we should try to rescue these Friday debates and these Friday votes and to bring about a positive outcome.
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the President of this eventful sitting, the Members present and Mrs Reding.
Commissioner, with regard to the forestry issue, I would like to say that, although your openness has sometimes made your words difficult to accept, you have, at least, been frank, in contrast with those declarations made at the time of the incidents, which may have been rather rash.
I sincerely feel that your approach is far more beneficial to the credibility of the European Union than the tone of the declarations made when the issue first arose, which led us to believe that Europe was much more involved than it actually intended to be.
The subject of the forestry sector is now open to debate, and we must take up the issue of natural disasters as well, for we cannot endeavour to draw closer to our citizens and then explain to them that we are unable to help them when they are in trouble, while, at the same time, we are sending task forces abroad.
This is a matter of genuine symbolic and political significance.
So thank you.
I would like to express my support for the comments of Mr Daul, who worked together with Evelyne Gebhardt to draft this resolution on the timber industry, and to express my regret and shock at the fact that we have exploited the plight of the people of Ethiopia to further our petty games.
Petty games which are not acknowledged, moreover, for although, effectively, the right does exist to request that the quorum be tested and also to bring up the issue of Friday working, it is blatantly obvious that this morning' s events were an attack by the anti-Strasbourg faction.
And, even more seriously, it appears that this incident may well be repeated every Friday.
We do, however, have one small consolation in that it will not be long before their refusal to participate affects those who were conspicuous by their absence today and who managed to derail this morning' s sitting.
We simply need to return to the issue of the agenda again as soon as possible.
It is a well-known fact, and I am publicly admitting it before all those here today, that the Chamber is never full because Parliament' s work is specialised.
Nevertheless, we must stop trying to hide...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I would like to remind the House that, several months ago, Parliament rejected an amendment calling for Friday sittings during plenary sessions in Strasbourg to be abolished. At the very least, one would expect Members to abide by their vote.
This amendment was rejected by a large majority.
Therefore, we cannot now make any changes to our practices for the year 2000.
Finally, I would like to join the Members who have spoken in expressing my profound shame at the incident.
Parliament was prevented from voting to send aid to Ethiopia by petty political issues.
I feel truly ashamed.
Mr President, I, too, regret the actions which prevented this House from working this morning.
However, I welcome the fact that all those who have spoken before me also condemn the manoeuvres and they are the hardest-working Members of this Parliament.
I feel that we must be constructive in learning from this morning' s events. In the first place, we have a Treaty and positions of the European Parliament in favour of Friday morning sittings.
We must enforce the Treaty and the European Parliament decisions. I call upon Parliament' s Bureau to charge the relevant Committee to examine the Rules of Procedure and any practices of the European Parliament which might penalise Friday morning meetings in Strasbourg, for we should, on the contrary, be making every endeavour to enhance their status.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate you on the way in which you have conducted this difficult session and I would just like to say something factual to my colleague, Mr Meijer.
I have been in this House for 21 years in all, although only 6 of those as a parliamentarian.
I have taken part in every Friday session for 21 years, even when I had another job and was not a delegate.
In this regard, I would also like to thank the staff who work so exceptionally on Fridays.
However, irrespective of that, I would like to say that I have repeatedly seen such attempts over these 21 years.
For this reason we introduced a quorum for determining the quorum because we wanted to rescue Fridays.
That is how all this came about.
However, I would like to say to Mr Meijer that at some point it was also decided that we would pass legislative resolutions from Tuesday to Thursday and not on Fridays, for which the quorum is not prescribed as compulsory, when we would deal with issues which are not controversial so that resolutions which are not controversial, but important nevertheless, can be passed.
That was the consensus, and this consensus was reached here.
Perhaps it is a healthy shock and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf is perhaps right.
But I would ask you to clearly understand that Friday was never intended for legislative resolutions.
These resolutions are not legislative.
They are, however, important and they are consensual. We should therefore be able to pass them peacefully and in a dignified manner, and that is why, at the end of the day, we have passed them peacefully and in a dignified manner.
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.25 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 14 April 2000.
Madam President, I would like to make a statement on this International Press Freedom Day on the situation in Tunisia and request that you intervene.
I will do so when you consider it to be appropriate.
Thank you, Mr Barón Crespo.
I have taken note of your proposal.
Madam President, I rise to speak on the same matter.
We have just learnt that the brother of Taoufik Ben Brik has been sentenced to three months in prison.
Everyone here realises that this decision makes the situation critical as the Tunisian journalist had announced his intention to continue his hunger strike until he died if his brother were imprisoned.
I have just read the piteous appeal that Taoufik' s young brother has made to the Tunisian journalist to urge him nevertheless to end his hunger strike.
I therefore feel that the immediate future could be decisive in terms of reminding the Tunisian authorities of their responsibilities.
That is why I join my friend, Mr Barón Crespo, in urging you, as I did in a letter yesterday - and the situation has become even more urgent given recent events - to use your influence and your authority to obtain a fair and speedy solution to this tragic case of the violation of human rights and freedom of the press.
Madam President, I am going to raise a point of order in the literal and true sense of the word.
I am referring to the disarray in Parliament' s calendars and agendas, at least for this current year.
For example, on 19 April, I received an e-mail from the Quaestor, Mr Richard Balfe, which stated that that day was a restricted day and that the meetings planned for that day were cancelled.
On 13 April, we had received a departmental note stipulating which days were holidays and which were not.
I would ask Parliament' s competent bodies to plan and draw up timetables a year in advance, although I understand that unforeseen circumstances may require subsequent changes.
However, to change dates, as this departmental note indicates, to introduce holidays which did not exist before, is a serious lapse in planning in an institution with 600 MEPs and thousands of employees.
I would kindly request a little attention and organisation in relation to annual planning.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué, I promise you that I shall look into these matters very closely, but Mrs Banotti would like to take the floor to answer you in her capacity as quaestor.
Madame President, many colleagues have approached me about misunderstandings relating to signing-in yesterday.
I would just like to say that I propose to raise this matter with the Bureau this evening.
There was definitely a misunderstanding and many colleagues, in order to be here for the plenary today, had to leave home yesterday and incur the usual expenses.
So I hope we can raise this at the meeting of the Bureau later today.
Thank you, Mrs Banotti.
We will have the same situation on Whit Monday.
We will certainly have to keep a close eye on that.
Madam President, I wanted to take the opportunity to inform you and the other delegates of the fact that Mr Paul van Buitenen, the Commission official who, as you know, has played a not insignificant role in the uncovering of the previous Commission' s failure, received a royal honour in the Netherlands last week.
I would like to add in all modesty that at least in the Netherlands, his work has always been - and still is - greatly appreciated.
Madam President, I want to mention the publication of a very important report a fortnight ago from the European Committee for the prevention of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment.
The report is to the Spanish Government on the visit to Spain by the European Committee at the end of 1998.
The report is accessible via the Internet, as is the Spanish Government' s response.
A week ago, a Spanish Court sentenced five former government officials, including a Civil Guard general, to up to 71 years in prison.
The sentences ended the second so-called "dirty war" trial and added weight to allegations that a dirty war, sponsored by the former Socialist government of Filipe González, was waged in the early 1980s.
According to the international agencies, Associated Press and Reuters, two youngsters of 20 and 21 years of age were driven across the border into the Spanish Basque area where they were tortured for several days.
They were both killed by a gunshot to the head.
All seven defendants were absolved of charges of torture and belonging to an armed group.
The sister of one of the victims told reporters that it was shameful that they were not convicted of torture.
It is important to know about this matter.
Madam President, coming back to a point that was raised earlier on: 9 May is, as you know, Europe Day and Parliament will be closed.
There is, however, a meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market being held on that day.
Will members of the public be allowed to attend that meeting as observers or will they be barred from entering the Parliament?
Thank you, Mr Miller.
The answer is yes: the public will be allowed to attend the meeting.
Madam President, when, on the last day of the last part-session in Strasbourg, it appeared on several occasions that we did not have the quorum required for voting, I suggested to the President of that sitting, Mr Wiebenga, that, from now on, we ought to carry out all the Friday votes at twelve noon or at the end of the sitting on Fridays, just like on the other days, and not get the attendance registers signed until the Members leave, with a note of the time of their departure.
Mr Wiebenga has announced that this matter will be referred to the President and the Bureau.
My question to you is: has the Bureau looked into this matter yet?
I can tell you that I have indeed received Mr Wiebenga' s letter and that this matter is on the agenda for tonight' s meeting of the Bureau.
As you can see, we have not let the grass grow under our feet.
Mr Barón Crespo, I can tell you that following the letter written to me by Mr Wurtz, I have already drafted a letter to the Tunisian authorities, stating what you and Mr Wurtz wanted.
I think that this is the right time to make your statement, if you want, which we can then append to the letter to the Tunisian authorities.
Thank you, Mr Barón Crespo.
It goes without saying that before this letter is sent to the Tunisian authorities, I shall discuss the matter with the Chairman of the Delegation for relations with the Maghreb.
I did not indicate my request to speak earlier because one of the administrators of our Group had, before the sitting, already indicated to the President and Bureau that I wanted to table a point of order.
I do not know whether we will be able to include an item in the agenda for this part-session to the effect that we should be provided with information on the state of the euro, which is a cause for concern, or whether we should endeavour here and now to ensure that the issue is included in the agenda for the next Strasbourg part-session.
It was reported in the news this morning that the euro has already fallen below the psychological limit of 90 cents, which augurs even more worrying and serious falls in value.
We cannot continue to put up with a lame currency.
Somebody has to give an explanation and announce measures that can restore minimum levels of psychological confidence in what has now become the common currency of many of the Union' s Member States.
I would like to draw the attention of the President and the Bureau to this point, so that our Group can, in good time, and if it should prove necessary, take steps aimed at altering the agenda for the next Strasbourg part-session.
I have also heard that, this morning, a Commissioner attended the meeting of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Is the chairman of this committee in a position to provide information to the House on the Commission' s views on such a critical situation?
Thank you, Mr Ribeiro.
As you will be aware, we have tabled a debate on Mr Duisenberg' s report for the next part-session in Strasbourg.
I think that this major debate will entirely meet your expectations.
Madam President, my Group intends to request that, in the debate on monetary policy, a Commission statement on the information policy that it is planning on the euro be added.
I would like to point out that we must not be influenced by information which is not only alarmist, but sometimes hasty, with regard to the euro, and that we must not focus solely on the progress of the euro' s parity with other currencies, such as the dollar.
We must take account of the state of the European economy and also the possibilities created by the euro.
It seems to me that in this respect we should be as aggressive in our defence of the euro as our counterparts in the United States Congress are in defence of the dollar.
Madam President, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Barón Crespo' s last-but-one speech on Tunisia.
Furthermore, I am delighted to see that the Socialist Group has finally decided to adopt a rather more forthright position on Tunisia, a position that, moreover, goes far beyond the complex situation of Mr Ben Brik.
Nevertheless, Madam President, I did not understand your speech.
As you are proposing to write to the Tunisian authorities, an action I fully support, I feel that you should do so in order to state Parliament' s position on the matter.
I therefore fail to see why you should append the position of one particular group to the letter.
You are quite right, Mr Dupuis, and that is why I said that I would immediately be discussing the matter with the Chairman of the Delegation for relations with the Maghreb so that we can plan an approach which will be both forceful and well coordinated.
Withdrawal of Mr Le Pen' s parliamentary mandate
Ladies and gentlemen, I am perhaps the longest-standing parliamentarian in this House, having been elected to the French Parliament 45 years ago and having sat in this House for sixteen years.
I have always sat as a Member of the Opposition and it has been an honour to do so.
The French Prime Minister, as the head of the executive, has just decreed that my mandate as a Member of the legislative body is to be withdrawn,
which is a violation of the fundamental principle of the separation of powers, although this would not be the case in the Soviet Union.
My parliamentary immunity has been disregarded and I have been made ineligible for a year for committing a none too serious misdemeanour involving verbal abuse,
(Protests of "racist" ) in an incident during an electoral campaign,
(Heckling from various quarters of "get out, racist" )which my government has taken to mean that they have to withdraw my mandate for four years, which is obviously completely unfair.
Nevertheless, I have two months in which to lodge an appeal to the Council of State, and I have informed the European Court of Human Rights.
Since an urgent parliamentary procedure is by no means justified, I should like to put my point of view to the Committee on Legal Affairs. In any event, ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you to apply the legal precedents that were more respected in the case of our colleague, Mr Tapie, and to grant me time to lodge an appeal before you take a decision that would be irrevocable.
Madam President, in these circumstances Parliament has powers which are fully regulated, in the absence of a uniform electoral system, by means of Article 12 of the 1976 Act concerning the election of representatives of the European Parliament by Direct Universal Suffrage, of which paragraph 2, which I will read in French, since that is the text I possess, says:
"Lorsque la vacance résulte de l'application des dispositions nationales en vigueur dans un État membre, celui-ci en informe le Parlement européen qui en prend acte" . [ "Where a seat falls vacant pursuant to national provisions in force in a Member State, the latter shall inform the European Parliament, which shall take note of the fact" .]
We are therefore talking about a formal and fully regulated competence.
In fact, Madam President, in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, it falls to the Legal Affairs Committee to examine these issues, but those Rules also stipulate that, on the basis of a report by the Legal Affairs Committee, Parliament shall proceed without delay.
We are clearly dealing with an issue which cannot be delayed, since the presence and the right to vote in this Parliament of an MEP who is no longer an MEP would be a completely irregular state of affairs.
For that reason, Madam President, as soon as I received a note from the competent departments, I called a meeting of the Legal Affairs Committee, which will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Thank you, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, and thank you for having made yourself and your committee available to us.
Mr Gollnisch, pursuant to which rule do you wish to make a point of order?
Madam President, I would like to speak pursuant to Rule 6, in the first instance, and then, if you permit me, to Rule 7(4)(2), but I shall be brief and to the point.
I think that this does, nevertheless, merit one and a half minute' s explanation.
I think that you could allow me that much time.
In what will, I stress, be purely a point of order on the provisions of our Rules of Procedure, I should like to mention certain matters, which are not related to the crux of the issue, but which are related to the procedure to be followed in this case, which, I am sure you will all agree, is extremely serious.
First of all, I would like to refer to Rule 6.
Rule 6 incorporates the provisions covering the waiver of parliamentary immunity into our Rules of Procedure.
I would simply point out to the House that, in the criminal proceedings that led the French government - wrongly, in my opinion, but that is not the issue here - to withdraw Mr Le Pen' s mandate, in contravention of the French Penal Code, the courts made no request for Mr Le Pen' s immunity to be withdrawn.
In my opinion, through its abusive interpretation of the idea of what constitutes a crime, this action is in violation of the protocol on the immunities granted to Parliament and of Rule 6 of our Rules of Procedure, which I invite you to read and note well, ladies and gentlemen.
You will see that it is a serious matter.
Secondly, Madam President, I would like to remind Mrs Palacio, in particular, although I am sure that she is familiar with them, of the provisions of Rule 7(4)(2).
This provision has recently been incorporated into our Rules of Procedure to cover precisely this type of case, following the precedent set by our colleague, Mr Tapie.
This is what Rule 7 states:
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, you have given the floor three times to Mr Barón Crespo, although these interventions were not tabled on the agenda.
I ask you to give me a few seconds in which to finish what I have to say.
(Mixed reactions)
If you have any respect for your position and for the rights of Members...
I have the greatest respect for my position.
You yourself said that you were requesting a minute and a half in order to make your point of order.
That time is up.
Mr Le Pen will explain the entire matter to the Committee on Legal Affairs tomorrow.
Review of the financial perspective
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the review of the financial perspective.
Madam President, I thank the Commissioner for that report.
There were not a great many surprises in it and, to some extent, I welcome that.
A question remains, however, in relation to redeployment in Category 4.
I heard you say there would not be cuts against the poverty lines.
You mentioned lines where there was not complete take-up and that there would be cuts in TACIS.
Can you give us some idea whether there will be any across-the-board reductions? Last year, the Council proposed a 10% across-the-board cut in Category 4.
Is the Commission making selective reductions as you suggested or will they be making any across-the-board cuts in Category 4? I am still unclear as to what happens from the year 2003.
If you are taking money from Category 1 for the next two years, where do you expect that money to come from in 2003?
Mr Wynn, I can give you a definite answer to your first question as to whether the Commission is proposing across-the-board cuts in the external action heading: no, it does not propose to do so.
I would regard that as the wrong approach.
We have enough criteria according to which we can carefully assess to what extent we need to shift appropriations compared with Agenda 2000.
So these proposals are entirely justified and no across-the-board cuts are being proposed.
On your second question: the Commission is proposing to shift appropriations from agricultural policy to foreign policy for the years 2001 and 2002.
Let me repeat that this is simply a question of limiting the increase in foreign policy appropriations, i.e. not of cuts to the budget available today.
The Commission' s proposal for the years from 2003 is as follows: we are looking to increase the amount for foreign policy, which, in arithmetical terms, would, of course, mean raising the overall ceiling.
But the Commission is proposing that both arms of the budgetary authority should try to make savings in particular areas during the annual budgetary procedure in order to find these 300 million.
It could also be that in connection with the mid-term review of Category 1, scheduled for the year 2003, it will be proposed that these additional appropriations be financed over the entire period.
Let me stress once again that, in my view, we can finance this increase in foreign policy resources within the overall ceiling decided in Berlin and that the appropriations for Serbia should only be disbursed once we see real democratic developments there.
Madam President, I was extremely interested and curious to hear what Commissioner Schreyer has just said.
I must say that we would have preferred to be presented with a written text, but it appears that these ideas have been the subject of internal debates within the Commission and that we will therefore be given a more specific text to study at our leisure.
Having said that, I fail to see your grounds for considering that agricultural expenditure is not going to be used in its entirety, as it should, nor how you could release sums, that you describe as minimal, for the heading covering international actions and foreign policy.
During the last financial year, we instead felt palpable tension regarding market expenditure and I do not understand what intellectual grounds you have for considering that too much money is being allocated to agriculture, apart from the fact that you need money for the foreign policy heading.
Secondly, the same applies to the cuts under heading 4.
You tell us that there is such a thing as interregional solidarity.
Fine, I can accept that, but what gives you the right - you spoke of very specific criteria, so tell us what they are - what gives you the right to think that too much money has been earmarked for other parts of the world, apart from the fact that you need that money for Kosovo.
I think that this is a genuine problem.
I will conclude with my third question.
I should like to know whether, in the undertakings concerning aid that we gave at the donor conference, we made commitments in US dollars or in euros? Given the state of the euro, I should like to know, if it was in US dollars, how you are dealing with the resulting situation and how you plan to guarantee that there will be strict parallelism between the donations made by the European Union and those made by other donors within the international community?
Mr Bourlanges, to answer your last question, the World Bank' s estimate of the requirements in Kosovo was indeed expressed in dollars.
We had an opportunity to go into this in depth during the 2000 budget discussions.
In its proposal the Commission has now allocated EUR 1.1 billion for the period 2000-2006.
It is not therefore charging appropriations already disbursed for Kosovo in 1999.
As for your comment that you need a written document in order to analyse the proposal: you will find the proposal on the financial perspective and re-programming on the Internet tomorrow.
The Commission will decide on the CARDS programme next week, because here there were still some questions that required clarification from the legal service. The key figures will therefore be available to you as from tomorrow.
In reply to what you said about agricultural expenditure, let me point out the following: this year, given the fluctuations in the exchange rates, we will be spending about EUR 500 million less on agriculture and the estimates for next year are that we will need about 650 million less, assuming a parity euro-dollar rate.
You are also aware that the Commission will have to make proposals again next year on various organisations of the market, especially the sugar market, and my colleague, Mr Fischler, has stated that he will make a proposal in this regard, which will lead to savings of EUR 300 million a year.
Of course, I am not saying that there is too much money floating around; as Commissioner for the budget I am aware that money is always scarce, but money is also scarce for those who have to finance the European budget.
That is why, in my opinion, the Commission had to propose financing a new priority, without asking for new money, but rather by examining the possibilities of redeployment within the budget and making the appropriate proposal.
And that is what it has done.
Madam President, you came, Mrs Schreyer, to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, you presented your arguments there, and you were met with respect.
However, I would like to make one comment and then put a question to you.
You say there was an increase in the agricultural sector and that this increase would be curtailed.
The fact that the percentage rise is so high is a result of the cuts in appropriations that were decided earlier in Berlin.
In fact, these appropriations are urgently needed!
I think we must not give the impression that we can keep using the agriculture budget as a kind of bottomless pit whenever we are short of money in other areas.
That is why I now ask you: do we not need to shift appropriations that might not be needed in export policy to the line for the integrated development of rural areas? We need substantial funds there, because enlargement, with the accession of the Central and Eastern European countries, will generate enormous problems in these rural areas.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, I fully and wholeheartedly support your commitment to the development of rural areas.
And that will also be very, very clearly reflected in the proposal I will be submitting to the Commission next week for Budget 2001.
It proposes that next year we increase the appropriations to assist rural areas by 10% compared with this year, and that will quite clearly constitute the largest increase in the draft budget.
I can assure you that the Commission did not approach the question of how to finance this new priority, this new task, by looking for some kind of bottomless pit; it simply took a very practical decision for the years 2001 and 2002.
Madam President, first I would like to express my deepest regret that we are debating a review of the financial perspective, and we have not even been presented with an initial written document.
If an issue like this is presented to Parliament, I would have thought that we might have had something in black and white, so we would know what we were talking about.
First of all, I would like to say that, not only are we faced with this bad example of administration, but that the Commission seems to take the view that wars can be waged and expenses incurred, yet the financial perspective cannot be reviewed.
The only way we can bear the costs of war and its consequences would seem to be at the expense of agriculture.
I would ask the Commissioner how this Commission proposal fits in with the decision of Parliament on next year' s guidelines that agriculture could not be the primary source of financing, as it appears that more would be taken out of agriculture than found, for example, by means of reallocation.
On the other hand, I would ask whether the Commission believes it would again be possible to use the flexibility instrument for this financing measure, since the rules forbid the use of the flexibility instrument more than once?
Mr Virrankoski, on your question whether the Commission is taking account in its proposal of Parliament' s decision that the resources needed for assistance to the Western Balkans should not come primarily from the agriculture budget, we have indeed taken that decision into account.
Let me perhaps give you a few very rough figures once again: we estimate the need at EUR 5.5 billion and, overall, 3.3 billion of that will come from the external action heading.
So it is quite clear that the redeployment here is concentrated on foreign policy.
In practice, the Commission proposal means redeploying EUR 600 million from agriculture policy for the years 2001 and 2002.
The second point is the use of the flexibility reserve.
The interinstitutional agreement provides that the flexibility reserve can only ever be used for a given purpose for one year, i.e. cannot be used on a continuous basis for a long-term measure.
The Commission proposes that, for the time being, only the EUR 40 million that are also available in the budget this year should be allocated to Serbia for the year 2001, for example, to finance the Energy for Democracy programme.
In the event of a political change in Serbia during 2001, we could also resort to the flexibility reserve.
Regarding your question of when the documents will be available, you will find them on the Internet tomorrow morning.
Madam President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for her report, although a number of points seemed very unclear and could even be described as highly ambiguous.
If I am not mistaken, the total appropriations for Serbia are EUR 2.3 billion.
These appropriations are not purely nominal; it is simply that they will remain on paper for as long as the Milosevic Government is in power.
This is neither the time nor the place for me to criticise this government, but I would like to ask the Commissioner whether the Commission took into account the fact that neighbouring countries, as well as the Serbian civilian population, were being penalised when it decided to defer appropriations on purely political grounds.
Without direct appropriations and aid, how does it intend to resolve the issues of industrial pollution, the navigability of the Danube and the Danube' s bridges destroyed by American bombing, which drastically reduced the river traffic of as many as five neighbouring countries? What contribution is the Commission going to make - not in three years' time but in the next few months - to resolving the issue of the vast amount of pollution caused by the bombing of the Pancevo petrochemical plant, which contaminated huge areas, seeds and harvests with poisonous gases and which, according to the latest United Nations report, even polluted the water tables with dioxins, mercury and other toxic substances?
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner whether there is any chance, any prospect of taking direct, immediate action on Serbian territory as well, in the interests, and I stress this point, of the neighbouring countries and regions.
Mr Manisco, the Commission regards it as most important to promote cooperation between the states and the regions with funds from the European budget, with your help.
That is why the proposal on the review of the financial perspective specifically earmarks approximately EUR 80-90 million for cooperation projects.
Secondly, as I pointed out, we have allocated EUR 40 million for aid to Serbia in this year' s budget as well, but these funds will only be used in a targeted manner in areas where the democratic opposition forces are currently endeavouring to establish a democratic system and the rule of law.
This year' s budget includes EUR 540 million for the region as a whole.
At the donor conference on the Stability Pact, Mr Patten approved certain projects and made it clear that the Commission can provide practical measures of assistance on the ground.
These EUR 540 million are available in the budget, thanks largely to the very strong support of the European Parliament and its endeavour to genuinely allocate adequate resources to this task.
In this connection, let me once again thank the European Parliament for making such an effort to ensure that the necessary funds are available in the 2000 Budget.
Madam President, Commissioner, I can be brief because, in the end, all the questions have been along the same lines. We have heard that the figure of EUR 1.8 billion was decided on in Berlin.
Today, as you said, EUR 1.4 billion has been decided on, and we keep hearing about the EUR 300 million reallocated from the agriculture budget, i.e. the 2001-2002 agricultural sector.
Commissioner, you had the opportunity to tell us about this in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, but my question is quite simply this: how do I then explain why the farming community is so agitated? When you state here today that we are saving a great deal of money thanks to the exchange rate mechanisms, when you and Commissioner Fischler say at the same time that we can save money in the organisation of the sugar market, then surely the reason the farming community is agitated must be that this information has not been properly conveyed to them, that the agricultural associations did not understand it properly!
Or must we always and, on principle, begin with an exchange of blows when it comes to politics? I would therefore be very happy if we really could allay the concerns of farmers; at the moment, however, that does not seem to be the case!
Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, let me assure you that I have worked very hard with agricultural associations and lobbies over the course of the last few weeks to discuss and explain the Commission' s proposal.
As I have announced, I will be submitting the budget 2001 proposal to the Commission next week. This will clarify the fact that there will be a sharp increase in agricultural appropriations, in line with the decisions taken in Berlin.
I therefore believe that, based on the actual figures, we can make it clear that the farming community need have no fears and that the important decisions taken in Berlin, particularly in relation to direct income subsidies for farmers, are not affected by the Commission' s decision.
This item is closed.
Vote
- (NL) Mr President, I can advise you how to vote on each of the four amendments.
As rapporteur, I have no choice but to oppose these amendments because each of them has also been discussed and subsequently rejected within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
As such, I would suggest voting against the amendments.
Mr President, your suggestion of pausing to listen to the interesting explanations of votes is not being heeded, but I am, nevertheless, pleased.
I voted for the report on the proposal for a Council regulation amending the regulation on the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products because I am convinced that it represents a positive technical step.
We cannot deny the Commission the chance to intervene in such highly technical matters.
I would nevertheless like to take the opportunity afforded by the explanation of vote to remind the House that there is a need for Parliament and the Council to make radical changes to the legislation on milk quotas as well as to the legislation governing the distribution of agricultural produce, regulated within the European Community, in terms of the quantity produced and how it is marketed.
The milk quota system was full of holes and we need a new one!
Maat report (A5-0074/2000)
Mr President, I am sorry that I am only giving two explanations of vote on this occasion, but I do so with great pleasure, for Mr Maat' s report is of great significance: as we are all aware, it has ensured that the practice of giving free milk and milk products to school children will be continued.
I remember the time when an elderly person came into my father' s bar, where I worked when I was a child, and asked for a glass of milk, saying, 'I drank milk when I was born and I want to die drinking milk!' . I therefore put it to you - and I voted for the motion - that the European Union should give a glass of milk to pensioners, as well as to students, on a daily basis.
.
(FR) I do not need to remind you how hard we had to fight to maintain the necessary funds for supplying milk to schools.
In April 1999, the draft budget submitted by the European Commission provided for a 50% reduction in that budget line!
That reduction made it clear that this financial assistance would eventually disappear, which provoked intense reactions within the European Parliament and elsewhere.
According to experts and specialists in child nutrition, milk is indeed essential to the proper intellectual and physical development of children, of all children.
Therefore, children of poorer families, who do not have access to certain milk products having essential nutritional benefits, can make up the shortfall thanks to the meals offered in their school canteens.
A proposal such as this represented a threat to the health of our children.
This was unacceptable, given that public health had been enshrined in the new Title XIII of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Furthermore, it totally contradicted the conclusions of the Agriculture Council of 14 and 15 June 1999.
Our Ministers had stressed the importance of encouraging milk consumption because of its high nutritional value, especially for children and young people.
It was only after long, intense discussions that the Commission proposed to increase the budget line by EUR 31 million, with the total amount committed to aid for providing schools with milk then rising to EUR 84 million.
This is the situation in 2000.
For the future, the European Commission has proposed to implement a cofinancing system.
A maximum of 50% of subsidies for the provision of milk to schools would be financed by the European Union, with the Member States remaining responsible for the other half.
This is an unacceptable proposal!
It was obvious that the Commission' s long-term intention was to dismantle the system of aid for supplying milk to schools.
The European Parliament' s proposal, which I wholeheartedly support, is to make the Community pay 95% of the cost of European subsidies for milk supplied to schools.
This is the only way to ensure that this system survives.
I also welcome the decision to also include drinking yoghurt and milk-based beverages in the regulation.
This must be done to take account of changes in habits and food preferences and to make this programme more attractive to consumers.
I can, today, express my satisfaction at having committed myself to this fight and at seeing that the countless letters to the relevant ministers, the countless questions to the European Commission and the countless press releases have paid off!
.
(FR) This issue of Community subsidies for supplying milk to schools goes back to 1997 and is generating an increasing amount of interest in each of our Member States, all the more so because it involves issues of public health and economics, issues which are of concern to the European public.
If you need proof of this, you only have to read the countless letters which were sent to us when it became known that the European Commission wanted to end this programme!
That is why I can only urge you to follow the recommendation of our rapporteur, who is seeking not only to maintain this type of programme, but who is also taking a stand against the proposal of 50-50 cofinancing that the European Commission is putting forward.
Such a harsh cofinancing programme could lead to certain Member States refusing to pay their national contribution, thereby leading to discrimination within the Union.
Without denying the need to improve the management of this budget line, I nevertheless feel that improvements to the system can, and must, be made gradually, and I therefore urge you to support the European Parliament' s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and its rapporteur by adopting this report.
.
(PT) We are in favour of this report because we think it is important that millions of children attending schools in the European Union continue to be given milk subsidised at a rate of 95% by the European Union.
As you will be aware, EC subsidies for supplying milk to schools were introduced as early as 1977.
In 1999, however, the Commission felt that it should put a stop to this programme.
But following considerable opposition, particularly in the European Parliament, the Commission submitted a new proposal, which, whilst maintaining the programme, would reduce Community cofinancing to 50%, with the intention that Member States would finance, wholly or partially, the remaining 50%.
To date, this system has provided for Community financing equal to 95% of the target price of milk, and in the report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the rapporteur proposes that this level of financing should be maintained, rejecting the proposal of 50%.
We consider this to be very important, as we reject the idea of transferring the costs of the CAP back to national governments.
- (SV) We have voted against the Maat report which concerns subsidies for the EU' s school milk programme.
In many schools around Europe, milk is provided free of charge to the pupils in order to meet their need for different forms of nutrition.
We are wholeheartedly in favour of children and young people being offered milk, and even food, in school, as they are in Sweden.
However, we do not think that it should be the job of the European Union to subsidise school milk.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, school milk subsidies should be reduced to zero.
We therefore view the Commission' s proposal concerning cofinancing as a step in the right direction.
Since the 1950s, Swedish schools have provided pupils with milk and school dinners. They have been able to do this without subsidies from the EU.
Sweden' s membership of the EU means that Sweden, too, was informed about the common school milk programme and, today, Sweden consumes approximately one tenth of the common budget for school milk.
For some years now, Sweden has been providing full cream milk instead of semi-skimmed milk, simply in order to meet the requirements for milk subsidies. This clearly highlights the drawback of the system, as well as the fact that many countries which presently make use of the subsidies really have no requirement for additional resources.
We believe that export and production subsidies under the common agricultural policy must be abolished.
Agriculture ought to be placed on an equal footing with other branches of the food industry and compete in a free market.
Europe is now facing a series of challenges requiring more money to be invested.
The money which is, at present, being spent on agricultural policy, ought instead to be invested in the reconstruction of Kosovo, the enlargement of the Union to include Central and Eastern Europe and aid to the Third World.
.
The reason for this intervention is to clarify why this House should oppose the Commission' s proposals to cut subsidies for school milk by half.
I am glad that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of this House rejected these proposals by bringing forward these amendments not to cut the subsidies at all and I urge everyone to support these amendments.
There are several arguments for doing so.
By nourishing our schoolchildren we also support our dairy farmers who need our support.
But also we are preventing surpluses like those seen in the past.
Trans-European networks (1998 Annual Report)
The next item is the report (A5-0076/2000) by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the report from the Commission to the Council [COM(1999) 410 - C5-0010/2000 - 2000/2004 (COS)], the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Trans-European Networks 1998 Annual Report pursuant to Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 laying down general rules for the granting of Community financial assistance in the field of Trans-European Networks.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ELDR Group supports the Hatzidakis report.
Community policy in the field of trans-European networks is of major importance because it is not possible to have a common transport policy without a convergent infrastructures policy, as is stressed in the Maastricht Treaty.
Efficient transport infrastructures are essential for economic growth and employment, as they are for the competitiveness of companies which depend on the movement of persons, goods and resources.
According to this debate, Europe, first and foremost, is that political Europe towards which we are striving, but it is also the result of economic and social cohesion.
It is true that the European Union' s budgetary resources are insufficient and need to be increased, and it is also true that we need to increase the contributions of public bodies as well as public/private partnerships.
In this regard, my Group has drawn the Commission' s attention to the fact that the report does not contain information on sources of funding other than the Community budget and the European Investment Bank, and it has also stressed its concern that as many as seven Essen projects have not been given a guarantee that they will be completed within the timeframes envisaged.
We, too, say 'Yes' to the Brenner Pass and we, too, say 'Yes' to the use of new technologies.
However, the Member States must respect the pledges made, and the Commission must also take into account the guidelines established for the B5-700 budget line - a major budget line established in 1998 - promoting more environmentally friendly models and, above all, taking the different factors into consideration where a trans-European link passes through densely populated areas or highly industrialised regions.
For this reason, we also consider that appropriations set aside for these projects must not exceed 50% and that, after due analysis, the amounts still available for projects on which little progress has been made could be recouped and used for other projects with the same priorities, including environmental priorities.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first let me congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Hatzidakis, on his very sound report.
The report is as good and judicious as Mr Hatzidakis is in his chairmanship of the committee, for which he certainly deserves recognition and thanks.
Let me also take this opportunity to support him when he says that the financial resources for developing the trans-European networks are no longer adequate.
He proposes increasing the budget funding.
According to Commissioner Schreyer today, that will not be very easy to achieve.
That is why Mr Hatzidakis quite rightly proposed in committee that funding should also be procured from private or other semi-public institutions.
The previous Commissioner, Mr Kinnock, put forward several ideas on the subject on the basis of the activities of a working party and I hope Mrs Schreyer will be able to develop and take up some of these ideas, for without an incentive system of extra funding from the private sector too, we will not succeed in achieving what Mr Hatzidakis, the committee and, I hope, Parliament too, will propose tomorrow.
It is quite clear that in view of the additional tasks that we are also confronted with in transport, when we think of Eastern Europe and the candidate countries, it will not be possible to achieve what Mr Ebner has just called for, namely redeployment from road to rail, especially in bottleneck areas.
That is not an anti-roads policy, because it will, of course, free up the roads for the kind of transport best suited to them.
That is why we need this redeployment.
Some successes have been achieved, especially in relation to the agreement with Switzerland; in other areas, however, we have been less successful.
Let me also say a few words on the Brenner base-level tunnel.
The European Commission has already financed the feasibility study, in fact financed it more heavily than other projects.
Studies alone, however, are not enough.
That is why we do not yet have any additional mode of transport, why no fewer cars are being driven and why we are not seeing a switch to rail transport.
That is why we must tackle the projects and why we need investment.
We also tabled a motion to this effect on account of our common concern in committee.
The three governments concerned and the Commission really must act now, begin with the spadework and start building, while, of course, at the same time guaranteeing the necessary funding.
I believe the Brenner base-level project is one of the most important European projects that need tackling, with a view to making north-south traffic environment-friendly and efficient.
If we combine that with the additional measures concerning the candidate countries, then, in five to ten years' time, we could see an efficient transport system in Europe, and that is something we urgently need!
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Hatzidakis, for his excellent report.
The rapporteur has gone into the matter with great care and raised some very important issues.
Our Group supports him, for example, on the issue of coordinating regional and private funding in the Member States of the Union.
However, I would like to underline a few issues.
The annual report shows that shortcomings exist in the way money spent on the development of trans-European networks is monitored, and insufficient details are available as to the results achieved through the use of funds.
We need more precise accounts of inter alia how the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund, funds from financial sources not included in the Union budget and funds from the Member States are spent to improve trans-European transport networks.
We also need a report on the effects of functional transport networks on a sustainable economy and employment.
The rapporteur has quite rightly pointed out that, of the fourteen Essen specific projects, seven still require confirmation of their funding and timetables.
In addition, the Essen projects have devoured a larger proportion of the Union' s funding for transport than was agreed.
In the future, greater care should be taken in selecting such specific projects.
At the same time, it must be ensured that the Member States will commit themselves to them, set aside a sufficiently large share of funding for them, and give them priority in their own plans.
The Annual Report shows that more money is also needed for the development of transport and traffic safety through the Union budget, since transport communications are so vital for the economy, employment and, furthermore, for social cohesion.
In the future we shall have to pay more attention to the coordination of various forms of transport.
At the same time, we shall also have to give consideration to the link between regional policy and transport.
Balanced regional development can help to slow down the trend towards centralisation and reduce traffic congestion.
In addition to addressing the problems of traffic in congested areas, we will also have to ensure that the trans-European networks are extended and that they are also developed in areas where the volume of traffic is lighter - areas where there is less traffic, remote areas, and areas where the physical environment presents greater problems.
Good communications are a vital necessity in these areas.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are agreed on one thing: policy on trans-European networks is in urgent need of reform!
The trans-European transport networks, and the 14 specific projects in particular, have not succeeded in any of the aims they were in fact intended to achieve, even though a great deal of money has already been invested.
But two of these aims really are vital to the European Union.
One is the key aim of economic and social cohesion, which holds the European Union together.
These TENs were designed to prevent the drifting apart, or the risk of a drift apart, between poor and affluent regions. They have not done so.
On the contrary, the 14 selected projects have, in fact, driven the regions further apart, and have encouraged a trend towards increased economic activity in the prosperous economic regions, because transport links have been constructed between them, while the poorer regions have become increasingly isolated.
Secondly, it is still a mistake to think that the trans-European networks help reduce mass unemployment.
On the contrary, unemployment has risen: even in 1995, in the ten poorest regions, unemployment was seven times higher than in the richest regions, while today it is eight times higher, and rising.
So I really wonder whether we can afford to continue putting European taxpayers' money in concrete without this having a significant impact on employment. Is there really any point in investing more money and calling for more money in this case?
Is that not an incorrect response in structural terms, because we could do far more sensible things with the money in order to regenerate employment. I also wonder whether the value of these projects has not been offset by the environmental destruction they cause.
In fact, they have achieved nothing. They have destroyed much of the living space of the people of Europe and we should take the mass protest movements against motorways seriously, for they often point the way to more sensible and less destructive options.
Perhaps the people who are protesting are actually right.
Europe needs a considerably more intelligent and sustained transport policy, based on a modern approach that thinks ahead to the next generation, realising that resources are finite.
As regards the 14 projects, the European Parliament' s call for a cost-benefit analysis was not heeded, whilst its call for environmental compatibility checks for all the projects was also ignored; only partial checks were carried out, which conflicts with the relevant directive.
I think we really need to improve goods transport, which must be facilitated by rail in order to be sustainable.
We must revise the TENs policy with a view to combining mobility with sustainability.
Mr President, the trans-European networks are often hailed as one of the key successes of European integration.
This is true to some extent but they also make our society more vulnerable.
They help to strengthen the cohesion between the economies of the EU Member States.
Each country is becoming increasingly reliant on imported energy and a great deal of effort also goes into consultation and legal rulings.
What effect does this have on the people in Europe? Perhaps an increase in the number of jobs in the short term.
In the longer term, it could be that, quite unintentionally, businesses become more vulnerable owing to technical defects in a costly transport system and that jobs could, at short notice, be moved to areas with lower wages, poorer working conditions and fewer environmental requirements.
Nothing therefore to get too excited about for the time being.
Similarly, the major transport projects are not as promising as the annual report would like to suggest.
For the north-south high-speed link from Berlin to Verona, only a few minor components have been constructed.
In England, the connection of the high-speed link which runs through the Channel Tunnel has been in the doldrums for many years as a result of the privatisation and the splitting up of the railway companies in that country.
Spain has decided not to go ahead with a European standard gauge for the high-speed link between Madrid and Barcelona, which was used for the line from Madrid to Seville.
The construction of the Betuwe line through the Netherlands is becoming increasingly controversial.
Economic experts have calculated that this expensive line would never be a success.
The costs seem to increase daily, the inland shipping industry considers this line to be distorting competition, freight transport by road does not seem to have gone down as a result and environmental activists are thwarting activities on a daily basis.
All in all, a good enough reason to abandon the Betuwe line project.
There is still far too little broad-based, social debate on the priorities set and choices made.
The people of Europe are entitled to more information on the impact of the TENs, i.e. the impact on their livelihoods, the costs involved, environmental considerations and the rate of implementation.
Mr President, I would like to begin by expressing my sincere thanks and appreciation to colleague Hatzidakis for a very fine report to Parliament here this afternoon.
The Commission' s 1998 annual report on trans-European transport networks gives a clear overall picture of the progress that has been made in certain specific projects as well as containing valuable information on the contributions made to these infrastructural projects by the various sources of Community funding.
Clearly, it is absolutely necessary to increase the resources available for developing these TENs.
At present, the funding is decidedly inadequate if we are to attempt seriously to meet the commitments entered into at the Essen European Summit in 1994.
I share the concern of the rapporteur over the fact that seven of the fourteen Essen projects are still facing difficulties because their funding is not totally guaranteed and no timetables have been drawn up for their implementation.
It would be useful if the Commission, in its future annual reports, specified what funding has been provided by national, regional and local public bodies and by the private sector, in addition to European funding, with a view to setting up the trans-European transport networks.
The Commission will shortly undertake a revision of the TEN guidelines.
I hope that in these new guidelines they will accord greater importance to improving access to trans-European network funding for Europe' s island and remote regions.
It is important to place particular emphasis on the promotion of sustainable transport links with these disadvantaged regions if they are to share equally in the benefits of a unified single market.
If the revision of the TEN guidelines were to concentrate just on existing bottlenecks as announced by the Commission in its work programme for the year 2000, this would focus the funding on the more economically developed central regions of the Union, perhaps to the detriment of the outermost regions.
A package of integrated financial measures needs to be deployed in order to press ahead with implementation of the network.
The Commission and EIB therefore should act together with national governments in implementing the TENs packages through the use of loan guarantees and other financial investments.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Hatzidakis warmly, in particular because he has produced a genuinely realistic report, but some of his observations, which are rather disturbing, should be of particular concern to us.
It is worth remembering that the decisions that led to the choice of these 14 major projects date back to the Essen Summit, which took place in 1994, that is, already six years ago now.
Six years on from that decision, only half of these projects have made any real progress, and those projects are, by and large, concentrated in the northern half of the continent.
A positive start has been made, but the situation looks pretty grim as regards the other projects and, in particular, for the remote regions, as Mr Collins has already pointed out.
I am particularly thinking of the Southern link, which is supposed to link France, in particular Lyon, together with Turin and Trieste, to the rest of the Balkans that we would like to see firmly annexed to Europe. I am also thinking of the other part of Europe, comprising of Austria, with its specific problems mentioned by other speakers, Hungary, and the other countries of central Europe.
In this context, I would remind you that it is not only about opening up a Piedmont which is hidden away, a Piedmont stuck in the Alps. This is about connecting a whole region of the continent, the Balkans and central Europe, to the southern part of Europe, to France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and no real progress has been made as regards this project.
So, in response to what Mrs Schroedter said, I feel that we must not lose sight of the fact that what these major projects are mainly concerned with is the development of railway infrastructures.
This particularly applies to this southern axis, which would make Paris only three and a half hours distant from Milan.
There are, however, difficult choices to be made in order to avoid the huge pollution-related problems currently in the news in Austria, as well as in Italy and Germany.
Choices have to be made; there must be investment and this decision, this choice that was made in Essen, is still no closer to being taken, six years down the line.
This concerns Member States, of course, and certainly Italy in particular, which has not supported this project with sufficient vigour, but it also concerns the Commission, as the rapporteur made very clear.
It is the Commission' s duty to come up with measures which encourage both public authorities and private companies to invest in these huge trans-European networks.
I therefore consider it to be crucial that the Commission submits new proposals so that these dossiers, which are still deadlocked, can proceed as quickly as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are serious problems with seven of the transport projects decided upon by the Essen Council. Like the rapporteur, I am disturbed about this.
One of these projects is the extension of the north-south link, and in particular the Brenner base-level tunnel.
Through this project the European Union could demonstrate that it is not just paying lip service to the idea of shifting transit transport from road to rail.
This is an opportunity to reduce the environmental burden on the region concerned and its population.
Moreover, this project will have a positive impact on the competitiveness of the Union as a whole.
Unfortunately, however, there is still a very long way to go as regards its implementation.
The subsidiary of the Austrian Brenner Railway Company and the Italian Railways, which is supposed to complete the project planning within a period of eighteen months, was only set up at the end of last year.
This means that, more than five years after Essen, there are still no concrete plans on the table.
The people of the region cannot understand that. For it is they who have to live with the ever-growing avalanche of traffic.
The existing rules, under which a maximum of 10% of the total investment can be funded by the Union, are quite simply inadequate and unfair for projects that have enormous implications for the future of the European economy as a whole.
Member States that will benefit from the completion of the Brenner base-level tunnel cannot shrug off their responsibility and leave it entirely to the countries directly concerned, like Germany, Austria and Italy, to shoulder the financial burden.
In the end, that kind of attitude has nothing to do with solidarity.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first let me very firmly reject Mrs Schroedter' s across-the-board criticism of the TENs.
In fact she has insulted us as well, for Parliament and the Council adopted the 1996 guideline by codecision on a proposal from the Council.
If that was such a terrible thing, the Greens should have opposed it at the time.
They did not do so.
Let me just mention two projects that have been successful.
I think that, from the environmental standpoint, the rail link across the Øresund was precisely the right thing to do.
We want railways and we want links with remote regions.
The new Anglo-Irish rail links are of great benefit to the environment and the region.
The Greens are quite simply wrong to criticise the TENs as benefiting only the central and most densely populated states.
Secondly, I agree with Mr Ebner and others that, as far as the Brenner base-level tunnel is concerned, we have to think up some new ideas.
Our committee proposes a four-sided agreement between the three states concerned and the Union.
The Brenner base-level tunnel is an unusually large-scale project, and also a project with an unusually significant impact on the environment, for the Alps cannot be compared with the lowlands of the Netherlands or Friesland in Germany.
The environmental situation in the Alps is particularly problematic.
Quite simply, the way the noise and the stench of cars remains trapped in the valleys is quite different from conditions on flat ground.
Something therefore needs to be done in this regard.
Above all, we must persuade governments not to shift the blame onto each other.
The Italians say they will start building when the Austrians build.
The Germans say they will begin building once the Austrians are building. The Austrians say they will start to build once the Germans and the Italians begin.
So we need clear yardsticks and data on who pays what and when, and the Community must make a serious effort to get this whole project going.
Let me make two final comments.
Madam Vice-President of the Commission. Take your time with the revision of the trans-European networks!
First, you should take another look at all the projects in the light of today' s debate.
We do not want more show projects, 14 or 15 show projects, with no guaranteed financing.
In this revision, we should identify measures as priorities only if we are certain they can be financed over a period of 10-15 years.
For the citizens will lose confidence in us if we declare certain projects to be priorities and then do not execute them.
We must remind the Member States that they have committed themselves to guaranteeing the financing, committed themselves to executing the plan.
Then we really must take them at their word and say: we will only list specific projects if they really are ready to be executed and financed.
Take your time and reopen these difficult discussions with the Member States so that you, as the Commission, do not propose projects in which we make fools of ourselves in front of the citizens, but projects that are feasible!
Mr President, I shall try to speak more slowly this time because last time I gave the interpreters a hard time by speaking at a Mediterranean tempo.
I come from a country which, because of its geographical location, has major transport problems when it comes to sending goods or persons to and from European cities and markets and when it comes to giving and taking.
One can therefore quite easily understand the great interest this country and its representatives have in trans-European networks, which I wish to talk about today.
However, not only as Greeks, but primarily as Europeans, we cannot but treat these networks as an important tool in our endeavour to strengthen social and economic cohesion, employment and sustainable development in our struggle to achieve European integration. And, of course, I disagree with what Mrs Schroedter has just said.
We should indeed accord trans-European networks the real importance which they deserve.
We should ensure that the financial resources spent on TENs are increased.
What is more, allow me to say that we owe this increase since, in the last decade, the need to cut spending in view of the obligation to meet the criteria and objectives of Economic and Monetary Union also badly affected TEN funding.
We should speed up the implementation of these projects by improving procedures and facilitating their funding through flexible public and private sector partnerships.
We should see to it that we overcome any hurdles that are holding up 7 of the 14 Essen projects and leaving us exposed.
And, of course, we should attach importance during the revision of the TEN guidelines to access to island regions and to regions which have difficulty obtaining access to the sea.
The Commission has presented us in its 1998 annual report with a rough picture of the state of progress in the construction of these networks, a picture which the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism - which, in the report under discussion, is asking for greater efficiency in the whole network construction operation - would like to be more detailed and informative.
The main role in the whole of this extremely important operation for the future of Europe belongs to the Commission and we call on it, in collaboration with the Member States, to give absolute priority, in the full meaning and with all the implications of the word, to developing these main arteries in the body of Europe so that it can function in the way we all want it to and meet the expectations of European citizens.
In closing, I would like to thank and congratulate the chairman of the committee and rapporteur, my fellow countryman Konstantinos Hatzidakis, for the work which he has put into his report which, of course, should be adopted.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, it is common knowledge that, at regional level in the European Union, there is a close connection between low per capita income, high unemployment and distance from mainland Europe or geographical remoteness, which is currently a serious problem, but which has existed since the industrial revolution of the 19th century, due to underdeveloped communications.
This is a vicious circle, which can only be broken by a political and economic joint action which addresses all the issues that are causing this underdevelopment.
The trans-European networks policy is not, however, being implemented in such a way as to resolve this crucial issue, despite the fact that it was introduced with the specific aim of establishing direct links between remote countries and the Union' s central regions.
The basic aim of the specific projects and budgets of the trans-European networks, as well as those financed by the Structural and Cohesion Funds, which resulted from a policy that was greatly desired by the Member States, yet poorly accepted and supported by the Commission, was to establish direct links between those regions that have a higher per capita income. In doing so, they rode roughshod over the regulations currently in force, with the damaging consequences with which we are all familiar.
The debate on the report by Mr Hatzidakis, whom I congratulate, provides us with a good opportunity to get to grips with the political dimension of the current situation and to try to find a solution to it, in line with the decisive reform of the trans-European networks policy which is due to be implemented in the 2000-2006 period.
It is therefore the intention of our political group, as the amendments that have been presented have highlighted, to ensure that the networks are compatible with sustainable development and that the reform corresponds to the objective of uniting the whole Community by prioritising the remote regions, which have hitherto been neglected. Finally, it is our intention to upgrade the railways and to bring about the decentralisation of the networks, particularly with regard to airports and ports.
The concentration of road, airport and port networks is causing serious congestion and environmental problems which we must prevent.
I hope that we will be able to bring about the changes that the European Union needs in order to achieve the regional balance and social cohesion that we are advocating.
We must be aware that, at this precise moment, Regional Development Plans are being approved for the period 2000-2006 which will contribute to isolating even further the Objective 1 regions, which desperately need a modern connection to the whole of Europe, including high speed rail links.
Amongst these regions are my own country, Galicia, and the entire north-western Iberian Peninsula, covering both Spain and Portugal, an Atlantic region which is crucial to the whole of Europe.
Mr President, this annual report clearly shows that Europe is not providing itself with the means to implement its trans-European transport networks policy.
But apart from the simple budgetary and financial considerations, in more general terms, it is the Commission' s general guidelines in this area that are worthy of criticism.
We do agree, of course, with the principle that it is necessary to create trans-European networks for the people of Europe, for the movement of people and goods, for economic and social cohesion and for rail alternatives to the all-powerful motorway.
We cannot, however, accept the method that has been imposed or the solutions that have been proposed.
Are all the fourteen projects that have been accepted relevant or essential to the needs of local populations?
Have they been devised in association or in consultation, or is the rationale of the trans-European networks, as the report implies, only based on the free market? It is, moreover, not by chance that out of the fourteen projects, the seven whose timetable and financing are still in doubt are precisely those which do not only answer to the demands of profit.
The most negative aspect, however, seems to be the financing.
It is based on the principle that public funds cannot be increased, which is a moot point.
It therefore proposes to have recourse to private funds, in the form of partnerships, and this, moreover, is an essential element of the project.
This approach to rail transport raises the issue of public service.
Clearly, if private operators are involved in the financing, they will aim for maximum profit.
We must make use of private companies because they profit from the infrastructures, but in the form of tax deductions and not by them having an interest in the capital of railway companies.
The idea of a European public rail service must be developed and we reject privatisation and access to the capital of rail companies, including for new projects.
Once again, Europe is responding to a genuine need on the part of the people, the need for a high-quality European rail transport network, which is outstanding for both passengers and staff, with a race for profit.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first let me thank our rapporteur very warmly for his report.
The European Commission' s annual report on trans-European networks once again sets out the progress made with many transport projects and emphasises the important part the TENs play in protecting the environment.
I take the view that the 14 projects decided at Essen play a very significant role in the extension of the European transport networks and, like many speakers before me, I want to stress the enormous importance of the Brenner base-level tunnel.
Alpine transit must be looked at and understood as an overall problem.
Certainly Austria, France and the neighbouring states are affected most.
To show you or make you more aware of the seriousness of the situation, let me tell you that about 30% of transit traffic round Switzerland goes via the Brenner, which means that Austria bears the main burden.
It should also be noted that in Austria, 80% of goods are carried by road and only 20% by rail, while in Switzerland the proportion is exactly the reverse.
When some people ask why Austria is getting so agitated, since surely there is a similar volume of traffic elsewhere too, for instance in the Ruhr region, I have to reply yes, that is true, but the topographical features of Tyrol, of the Inntal, simply differ from those in other areas, such as the plains.
Moreover, the Inntal in Austria is one of the most densely populated regions.
Alpine transit is an integral problem which needs to be addressed in integral terms.
We cannot look separately at Brenner, toll roads and Alpine transit.
As for carrying out the construction timetables, I can say that we already have definite construction schedules in the Lower Inntal.
Now we also need a clear political resolve, and not just on the part of the Member States.
What we need is cross-financing.
I would consider the transport costs directive an appropriate legal basis.
I think that would give us sound financing.
I call for public-private partnerships, for I think working together is the best way to succeed.
We have a massive problem with north-south transit.
I am against further studies of the Brenner Pass, for we already have enough of them as it is.
What we need is to complete the Brenner base-level tunnel rapidly, for the sake of the population concerned, the environment and a sustainable, forward-looking transport policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, let me add a few comments to what has been said today about the Brenner base-level tunnel, most of which I more or less support.
The Brenner is a particularly good example of the problems besetting trans-European transport today.
Transport by rail, at least to the south of the Brenner, is not operating and the international link is not operating either.
That is why we have such major problems today and if we also need a base-level tunnel because of these mistakes and problems I would suggest that we approach the matter with great sensitivity, and that we proceed with care, for this is a project for centuries to come.
If we do decide to undertake it, we need to choose the environmentally cleanest, economically soundest option, as well as the most functional option.
That is why I have tabled a minor amendment to paragraph 7.
Perhaps we do not need another study, but we should weigh things up properly and select the best project.
I have put one of these projects before the Transport Committee.
There are few better or equally good ones.
We must choose the best because our transport policy, and therefore the EU, will also be measured by this small project.
Mr President, we support the development of a trans-European transport network which will favour rail transport over road transport, on the condition, however, that the development of the great trans-European lines does not prejudice suburban transport or so-called district lines.
Rail transport, the main lines as well as the district ones, should be a public service, which aims to meet the needs of the population, not to generate private profit.
The participation of private capital will necessarily result in a quest for profit, to the detriment both of users and of those who work in the sector.
Far too many recent disasters, particularly the one at Paddington station in Great Britain, illustrate the incompatibility between the quest for profit and safety.
As stipulated in the explanatory statement of the report, public investment is continually decreasing and in less than twenty years, has fallen from 1.5% of the European Union' s GNP to 0.9%.
This has resulted in falling standards in rail transport as a whole as well as staff reductions, which has contributed to keeping unemployment levels high.
If the Member States of the European Union do not adopt a new policy, or, in other words, if they do not prioritise investment in public services rather than endless subsidies to the bosses, any decision on a genuine public transport service operating on a European scale under the best safety conditions will remain nothing but empty rhetoric.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission' s report states that 1998 saw the consolidation of the trans-European networks and outlines the progress made with various projects in the area of transport, energy and tele- and data communications.
It must, however, be pointed out that the European Union' s budgetary resources fall considerably short of the requirements and the challenge generated by the establishment of a trans-European transport network.
Unless there is an increase in the financial contribution made by national, regional and local public bodies and by the private sector, we will not see any significant progress in this area in the foreseeable future.
I should nevertheless like to stress the fact that recourse to private finance should never be an obstacle to the development of communications in regions which currently have a per capita income well below the Community average.
With regard to the future review of the guidelines for trans-European transport networks, I feel I must once again draw the Commission' s attention to the need to attach greater importance to improving access to Europe' s remote and isolated regions, and to focus particularly on establishing sustainable transport networks.
The impact of such investments on the economy of these regions and on employment is a crucial factor in the socio-economic development of these regions.
The Commission' s work programme for the year 2000 lays down that the review of the guidelines for trans-European transport networks must concentrate on reducing bottlenecks in order to rationalise traffic in Europe and to make it flow more freely.
As I understand it, this amounts to saying that the review currently being prepared will mainly concern the central regions of the European Union, which are the main victims of these congestion problems.
I can only hope that this hypothesis does not mean that the remote and, to an even greater extent, the extremely remote regions might only be incidentally affected by this review.
This fear, which has been mentioned several times by many of my colleagues, led me to table an amendment to this effect, which was adopted by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism and which features in Mr Hatzidakis' s excellent report.
I would be most grateful to you, Commissioner, if, today, you could allay my concerns.
Mr President, growth and employment in Europe depend to a large degree upon exploiting European infrastructure effectively.
We should therefore have already set in motion the TEN projects that have still to get off the ground.
It is no secret that I am very much in favour of a permanent link between Denmark and Germany, and I am glad that the new Danish Minister for Transport is also a supporter of the project.
However, I am a little put out that German politicians are rather less enthusiastic.
There has previously been some doubt as to whether a permanent link across the Fehmarn Belt is the way forward, but any such doubt has now been shown to be groundless.
All the inquiry reports from the Danish and German Ministries of Transport show that there are neither environmental nor financial problems with building a bridge.
With a faster and easier link between Denmark and Germany, we can build bridges to the new democracies in the East.
We are not only building a bridge in physical terms, for practical purposes.
We are building a bridge between countries to help industry and for human, political, social and cultural reasons.
Building a permanent link between Germany and Denmark will create many new and much-needed jobs in the area.
There are almost always people who automatically say 'no' to anything new.
Anything which brings about change is a little frightening, whether it be EMU, the euro, environmentalism or a bridge.
One should not, however, be afraid of something good.
A link across the Fehmarn Belt is an exciting, rather than a frightening project.
Finally, I should like to add my voice to the call to increase the budget appropriations for the trans-European transport networks, as they are quite inadequate.
Improved growth and employment require sums of a quite different order.
Mr President, when, at the Essen Summit, the necessary extensive investments in infrastructure were decided upon, it was mainly a question of motorways and high-speed trains crossing national frontiers in a Europe where investments have traditionally been made principally in the individual countries.
That is precisely why this decision was so extraordinarily important. A properly functioning internal market will never, of course, be possible without extensive investment in this area.
Today' s report nonetheless raises a number of questions about how we are actually to follow up our various decisions.
A few of these TEN projects have been carried out within a reasonable timeframe.
Personally, I am very glad that one of these projects in particular has been carried out, namely the permanent link across the Sound between Sweden and Denmark which is to be opened on time in just a few months.
I am more doubtful, however, where a number of the other projects are concerned.
As quite a number of people here have said, many of these projects are being developed awfully slowly.
The rapporteur who, by the way, has done a quite excellent job, has expressed his concern about this.
It is, indeed, very worrying when these ventures are not taken seriously.
Let me give an example of this.
It concerns the Nordic triangle, designed to link the Scandinavian capitals by high-speed train and motorway.
This is something which the countries concerned have undertaken to carry out, but it is a terribly slow process.
Money is forever being transferred to other projects which are obviously considered more important than this major European project.
This happens because there is every opportunity to transfer money in this way, there being no proper deadlines for when the projects concerned are to be carried out.
Neither the road nor the railway ventures are, therefore, going to be finished within a reasonable period of time.
I should therefore like, here today, to ask the Commission' s representative a number of questions.
When does the Commission think that the Nordic triangle and the other TEN projects will be complete?
What is the Commission actually doing to make sure that they are in fact completed? Is the Commission prepared to commit itself to establishing specific deadlines for completing the outstanding projects and, subsequently, also to ensure that these deadlines are met?
Mr President, I would firstly like to express my sincere gratitude for the work accomplished by Mr Hatzidakis, chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the review of the trans-European networks which, in the coming months, I will have to present to this House.
I believe that his work will contribute decisively to the documents which the Commission will produce.
I would also like to express my thanks for the contribution made by Mrs Sbarbati, draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, as well as for the interventions of the other speakers who have participated in this debate.
I believe that, as well as analysing the situation, the most important thing is to look to the future.
Accordingly, I will take this opportunity to make some observations on behalf of the Commission.
Firstly, I fully agree with Mr Hatzidakis on the importance given to Community policy on trans-European networks and I also share Parliament' s concern, expressed not only by Mr Hatzidakis, but also by the draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets and by other MEPs, on the need for this policy to be provided with adequate financial resources.
In this respect, I would like to thank Parliament for its support for the provision of a total of EUR 4.6 billion for the period 2000-2006 for this chapter.
Nevertheless, I should remind Members that, every year, the Commission gives consideration to projects which amount to three times the amount allocated annually in this budget.
At the same time, there is an agreement by all parties not to increase the overall budgets and, in this respect, you have also heard my colleague, Mrs Schreyer, talk of our current budgetary difficulties resulting from new needs and matters of urgency, such as meeting the Union' s main political commitments following the war in Kosovo.
In this respect, I share the European Parliament' s concern with regard to the adequate funding of transport networks, but I believe that we can jointly assume some of these responsibilities.
I would like to remind you that we know that Community support for projects carried out during 1996, 1997 and 1998 has accounted for 30% of the total, which is a very significant figure.
It is true that these include projects in Objective 1 areas and cohesion countries, which has allowed the percentage of cofinancing to be greater.
However, I must tell you that we cannot provide you with overall information, because we are not only talking about Community finance but also about finance provided by individual countries and private sectors in some cases, as well as regions and local authorities.
Therefore, we can only provide the information which is available to us and make analyses based on that data.
We therefore reiterate something that Mr Jarzembowski said, which is that some of those responsible are from outside the Commission and, of course, the will of the different Member States of the Union to promote and implement these projects is of crucial importance.
You say that some projects are being delayed.
In this regard, I would like to say that the target date is 2010.
There is therefore still time to implement them within the time limit.
Furthermore, some of the projects present great technical difficulties.
I will concentrate for a moment on one of the most talked-about projects: the Brenner base-level tunnel.
That tunnel is a symbolic project as far as the European Union' s technological capacities and its ability to act are concerned.
We are talking about 54 kilometres of tunnel in one of our most mountainous areas, with a series of unknown factors and uncertainties which require that the project be guaranteed as far as possible before we make such a huge investment as the one required for the Brenner tunnel.
In order to carry out the Channel Tunnel project, it was necessary to carry out major studies before establishing the routes and detailing and beginning the project.
This is also true in the case of the Brenner. It is perhaps better to begin something late, but to begin with all the guarantees in place, than to find half way through that the studies have not warned us of some difficulty or other, meaning that we have to go into reverse, which would cause even greater delays.
In fact, new studies are under way, through an agreement between a group of interested parties, to determine the definitive route of the Brenner tunnel.
It has not been abandoned, it is just that it is an enormously complex project, ladies and gentlemen, and we must understand that these studies will probably take a further five years to complete.
I want to make this very clear.
We are talking about very far-off dates, but this does not mean that there is no will.
On the contrary, there is an absolute will.
This must, however, be based on the certainty that the project can be carried out in a way which will not damage our credibility.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that the level of funding in terms of the total appropriations for the 14 principal TEN projects has been 60%.
That was the percentage which you, the Parliament, considered appropriate in your most recent resolutions.
It is midway between your initial proposal and the Council' s proposal.
In reply to some of the questions raised, I would like to tell you that, with regard to the changes to the financial rules for the trans-European networks approved last year, new financing possibilities were created by means of partnerships between the public and private sectors.
These partnerships will be promoted in various ways. Firstly, thanks to the introduction of a multiannual indicative programme which will allow for private sector support with greater security and where the developers will enjoy guaranteed Community funding for several years.
That programme will cover the period 2001-2006. Secondly, the budget line for trans-European networks will contribute risk capital financing, which could promote - and I hope this is the case - the creation of investment funds geared to the TENs and, to this end, we have already asked for expressions of interest.
We are about to review the guidelines on the trans-European transport networks.
I will be presenting this review report and an initial proposal shortly.
However, it must be said that the objectives of the trans-European networks are the development of the single market and social and economic cohesion.
I would like to make this very clear. Therefore, the remote regions, the extremely remote regions and the least developed regions must be at the heart of Community action.
However, resolving bottlenecks does not harm the remote regions.
I would like to give one very clear example: the bottleneck on the railway in Bordeaux. Does this affect France?
Yes, of course it affects south-west France, but only to a degree. Its real impact is on the whole of the centre and west of the Iberian Peninsula, that is, most of Spain and Portugal.
So when we clear a bottleneck in Bordeaux, we are in fact benefiting the development of an area of the Iberian Peninsula.
What I mean to say is that acting in a central area does not always harm the interests of the remote areas, but, on the contrary, in many cases it is perfectly interrelated.
Mr President, lastly, I would like to refer to the question of the intelligent management of traffic.
This aspect will also be included as a key element in the review of the trans-European networks.
I would like to congratulate Mr Hatzidakis once again and express my gratitude for his work as well as that of the other speakers.
Thank you, Commissioner de Palacio.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
European airline industry
The next item is the report (A5-0075/2000) by Mr Sterckx, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: The European Airline Industry: from Single Market to Worldwide Challenges [COM(1999) 182 - C5-0110/1999 - 1999/2113(COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, the question you are really asking in your communication is: what does the future hold for the European aviation industry? That is the key question approximately ten years on from the start of liberalisation within that sector.
Liberalisation, as you point out in your communication, set a growth process in motion; new companies have sprung up, new routes have opened, new air fares have in fact been put in place, and so this has attracted a new kind of public to the aviation industry.
The existing large and small national airline companies have become more profitable and have started to operate more efficiently without government funding.
All these aspects demonstrate that liberalisation has stirred the market.
We could say that passengers have generally benefited from liberalisation, but not all of them.
For example, it is evident that the benefits in business class are only minor compared to those in other passenger categories.
We now wonder how solid the basis for the European aviation industry is. In your communication, you stated that fragmentation is still far more pronounced here than it is in the United States.
We have more or less the same number of airline companies, but their share of the global market is 38%, whereas ours is 27%, which is a huge difference. You also stated in your communication that the profitability of our companies is considerably less than that of our American counterparts.
We also question the viability of the new companies which are appearing on the market, because how long will they last and how solid are they? One cannot help but wonder how many of these will still be operating within the European market in ten years' time.
Also, how tenable and sustainable is the growth we have witnessed within this sector over the past decade? We are faced with an overcrowded airspace, or should I say a badly managed airspace?
We have congested airports to contend with and this is why, Commissioner, it is of great importance that you at long last make a proposal on the management of slot allocations for airports. I think this is a matter of life and death, especially for small companies starting out in the aviation industry.
We have also asked ourselves about social development and the rights of passengers.
This is why I wanted to ask you what the outcome was of the agreement recently reached on Gibraltar on this matter.
Is that in any way related to aviation? These are questions which we are still left with.
Important steps still need to be taken after liberalisation.
Firstly, air traffic control should, of course, be Europeanised.
This topic is also covered in Mr Atkins' report and I will be tabling an oral amendment on this matter tomorrow, to replace 'privatisation' by 'liberalisation' .
This was agreed upon in conjunction with the large political groups.
It is clear that another aspect, namely safety, should also be Europeanised.
A European Aviation Safety Authority should therefore be set up as a matter of urgency.
It is obvious that the Member States need to take a step back as far as these two aspects are concerned.
I will now move on to the key point in your communication, namely the fact that there is no external policy for European aviation, in other words that the rights with regard to third countries have been negotiated bilaterally.
This, of course, determines the entire structure of the aviation industry in Europe.
Normally speaking, after a liberalisation process, companies tend to operate in tune with the market which has been liberalised. This is actually quite rare in the world of aviation.
No mergers have taken place.
An attempt to that effect was made by KLM and Alitalia, but this has now been abandoned, due in actual fact to a number of problems related to nationality, if I can put it that way.
A merger between Swissair and SABENA is still on the cards, but we rely there on an agreement with Switzerland which we will be discussing this week and on a forthcoming referendum in Switzerland.
What is happening is that, although European companies join forces with their American counterparts, they play second fiddle to the Americans.
This is why I, as rapporteur, have a few questions with regard to your proposal to establish this common transatlantic air space.
I am in favour of this in principle, but I do wonder whether we are not rushing into things or whether this is not too big a step, considering there is no solid base in place for the European aviation industry. A number of very complex problems need to be solved first before we can take the second step.
As rapporteur, I am personally quite suspicious of America' s nationalism when it comes to transport, including aviation.
Negotiations must clearly be held with a great deal of openness and reciprocity, as it is put, and the European companies must have exactly the same rights as the Americans, otherwise negotiations are bound to break down.
Only then, as things currently stand in European aviation, will we be capable of competing with the Americans within an open market.
An important question is: what do we do if we cannot pull it off with the Americans?
What do we do then on our own?
How viable is the European industry if it is confined to the European boundaries and to those bilateral agreements? What is more - and I have skated over this aspect in my report, but Mrs Lucas has drafted a report on the environment which deals with this at length - we need to acknowledge that there are limits.
The environment too has its limits and this is an important, in fact, vital question which we may need to ask ourselves, not so much following on from my report but following on from Mrs Lucas' report.
Secondly, intermodality is highlighted in my report too.
I think that the Commission too should be clear about this and should issue proposals to promote intermodality.
Trains and planes could work together very well in a number of areas.
At all events, Mr President, I would like to conclude by saying that liberalisation has been hugely important.
I am well aware of this, although we are not even halfway there.
In order to improve the current situation, we need to receive from the Commission proposals, concrete action plans and legal texts which we can debate within the very short term.
It is also clear that the Member States have a very important responsibility and that a great deal depends on them and on how much they are prepared to put into creating real European aviation and a real European aviation industry.
I think, therefore, that Parliament too, in tandem with the Commission and the Council, cannot work fast enough on this score because the world will not wait for us.
As such, we need to get a move on, otherwise we will be buried under an avalanche.
Mr President, as draftsman for the Industry Committee I just want to pick up on a couple of areas which I think need to be mentioned today.
Aviation is without doubt one of the most exciting and stimulating industries.
The opportunities for business and job creation during the last decade have played a major part in the economies of countries in Europe and worldwide.
For example, aviation in the UK contributes GBP 10.2 billion a year to the UK GDP and generates and supports 380 000 indirect and induced UK jobs.
It transports GBP 35 billion' s worth of UK exports, maintaining unrivalled access to the global market, and this is multiplied ten-fold across the European Community.
When I began my career in the aviation industry 30 years ago, very few people could afford to fly.
But today, with the liberalisation of the market, flying for most people has become a way of life.
The report covers a number of areas and outlines fairly accurately the way the aviation industry has developed over the last ten years.
But in a number of areas there is little recognition by the Commission of the benefits the aviation industry, including aerospace, have brought and I am disappointed by the negative attitude towards the industry in this paper.
One of the key factors in the success of the last 20 years has been the privatisation of the national state-owned industries which began in the 1980s.
I also welcome the Commission statement that subsidies have now ceased.
When we look at the choice of routings and so on for the consumer, air fares have come down considerably over the last few years.
Fares from the UK are amongst some of the lowest, showing what effect having three major carriers operating out of one country can have on competition and pricing.
This has produced the real benefits and other countries need to take a look at this.
The report outlines at some length the expansion in capacity which has taken place in the European aviation industry, particularly across the north Atlantic, but that is obviously quite a complicated issue.
I fully accept that there are challenges which need to be addressed such as problems with congestion, in particular air traffic control.
However, I believe that the Commission has a responsibility to put forward more balanced views which do not undermine the value and success of an industry which has made an enormous contribution, not only to the countries of the European Union but worldwide.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats supported Mr Sterckx' s report in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism as it will support it in plenary.
The key message, as Mr Sterckx has reiterated, is that basically liberalisation has succeeded in principle.
As a result we now have substantially more competition.
This stronger competition has also created some movement in price levels, not in all market areas, certainly, but in many of them.
Furthermore, what many people feared has not come to pass, namely job losses and deteriorating working conditions, and instead we continue to see rising employment.
In the space of about eight years, employment figures have risen by nearly 50 000 and there really has been no evidence of a lasting decline in working conditions unless we look at this in the context of what has happened nationally, which is that national airlines are in a sense being transformed into modern service industries, which is, of course, accompanied by changes in working conditions and their modernisation.
Nonetheless I am glad that the report does address the fact that we, of course, expect common rules - even if for a different reason, namely because of safety aspects -with regard, for instance, to working hours and flight times, because, at the end of the day, it is training and actual working conditions that will partly determine how safe we can make European aviation over the long term.
Mr Sterckx also made it clear, however, that liberalisation concerns only a very small area of European air transport, which can largely be regarded as successful, but there are many other areas that currently continue to give us problems, whether these are old, unresolved problems or new ones.
We are a long way from having a uniform, common European air transport market, in principle.
I think in future we will have to deal with four important points.
Mr Sterckx has already addressed some of them, and I would like to raise them again.
In my view, the Member States' airlines must, of course, be in a position to have equal access to the international market, like other airlines in the world.
At the same time, we must ensure that the airline companies really do achieve economic stability, which means we have to try to ensure, through appropriate competition on the ground, that the immense costs of, for instance, landing and ground handling charges are reduced to the kind of level that is usual in other countries of the world.
Secondly, let me emphasise that we do want to see more air transport.
It enhances individual mobility.
But, on the other hand, we must not disregard environmental conditions.
My position is fairly clear on this point.
Bans are not the right method; instead we need incentives, we need to give support for the airlines to move towards reducing emissions by using modern fleets that use less kerosene and also produce less pollution.
Thirdly, in my view we need to improve consumer protection because obviously the growing number of passengers brings increasing problems with it and, in this regard, the passenger deserves more protection than the airline.
My fourth and final point, and the one I consider most important, is that we must ensure that we also have a single European airspace and we must establish a uniform system of air traffic control in order to reduce delays and congestion.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Sterckx on his report.
It is the first in a series of reports on aviation which we will be dealing with in the course of this year.
We support the development of a European aviation space encompassing all aspects of aviation, ranging from delays to environmental harm.
In addition, we think that, at world level, the Union must be able to show a united front on this matter.
We also have our doubts regarding the restrictions and automatic responses generated by national sentiment which, to this day, play such a significant role in European aviation. I would like to illustrate this with air traffic control, for example.
These national responses and preferences also hamper cooperation, as we recently witnessed in the unfortunate breakdown in cooperation between KLM and Alitalia. We will not protest in cases where liberalisation can help achieve a more effective policy, but it is a pragmatic approach and not a dogmatic one.
Indeed, where the interests of public services or the environment so require, we will not hesitate to advocate an active stance on the part of the authorities.
We would also draw attention to the human side of developments within aviation.
This is dominated by three issues: firstly safety.
We back the setting up of a European Aviation Safety Authority which unites as many countries as possible.
Our amendment on widening the scope in this way has been adopted by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
Common standards and inspection agreements boost safety levels.
This should not be restricted to the EU.
We can and must help improve safety agreements throughout Europe.
One is led to believe that lower costs as a result of liberalisation only have benefits.
This may be the case for some passengers, but upon examination of recent annual reports of major aviation companies, this conclusion does not immediately follow.
Personnel too experience the adverse, social effects of cost reductions.
We do not want to let this situation get out of hand, especially when safety issues can be in the balance if, for example, pilots have to fly long hours.
Finally, air fares may seem low, but often the overall interests of the passengers are hardly taken into consideration.
It is no fun having to wait for hours because of a delay, on top of which you are likely to miss your connecting flight.
It is even less fun if you become the victim of overbooking.
Mr Sterckx rather feebly states in his present report that information on these situations must be made available to passengers.
A fat lot of good that will do them. Passengers have rights and, more than anything, they have the right to be informed at the time when a problem arises.
As I understand it, airports will be installing notice boards this summer on which they will display passenger rights in the event of delays, for example.
This is a step in the right direction.
It would be better still if the amendment on passengers' right to information tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists were to be adopted in addition.
We are always harping on about consumer interests, well, here is one.
Mr President, I only have a few minutes so I want to focus on just one particular point in the Commission communication.
Let us recall that the title of this communication is 'From single market to worldwide challenges' .
Yet one of the remarkable things about this communication is that it does not appear to recognise that one of those worldwide challenges must be how the airline industry will respond to increasing environmental concerns and likely environmental legislation.
Of all the many words in this communication, just one short paragraph is devoted to this issue.
As rapporteur for a very good Commission communication on aviation and environment I know that the issue of environment and competitiveness is a very live one with strong feelings on both sides of the debate.
For example, that communication starts by saying that the growth of the air transport industry is, and I quote, "unsustainable and must be reversed because of its impact on climate and on the quality of life and health of European citizens" and it goes on to say very clearly that 'business as usual' is not an option.
It is quite obvious that aviation' s response to environmental concerns will have effects on competitiveness, some positive and some negative.
Let us not underestimate either the impact of aviation on the environment.
A report launched in the UK just yesterday by a number of environmental NGOs including Friends of the Earth forcefully made the case that one flight to and from the US could cause more pollution than the average UK motorist causes in a year.
It makes the case that the world' s 16 000 commercial jet aircraft produce more than 600 million tonnes of CO2 every year - nearly as much as all the countries of Africa put together.
It makes the case that the number of people flying will almost double in the next fifteen years.
I would ask therefore that we see a bit more environmental mainstreaming.
Rather than confining the environmental aspects of aviation to a report solely devoted to that subject, we should be seeing environment threaded through all approaches to this policy area, particularly one which purports to be addressing issues of competitiveness.
Mr Sterckx has included environment in this own report.
I very much welcome that but I would also like to see environment automatically mainstreamed through all Commission reports and communications.
Mr President, in the first half of the previous century, many opinion formers claimed that the air offered enough space for unlimited growth in international transport.
There was ground congestion and new infrastructure was very expensive, but anything was still possible in the air.
Meanwhile, the countries at the heart of the European Union have been faced with unexpected problems.
Thanks to free competition, record low prices and cheap, tax-free fuel, the airspace has become overcrowded there.
Gigantic airports emerged near Paris, London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam with a great deal of transit movement for travellers from outside Europe. These airports continue to grow and they place a huge burden on their surroundings.
Not only do those living near the airports complain, passengers too are dissatisfied.
They are increasingly faced with delays.
The air has more or less reached capacity levels in that respect.
Thanks to new navigation techniques and low-noise aircraft, it may be possible to increase the number of flights for a little while longer, but this will inevitably have an adverse effect on the environment, safety and the reliability of the service.
We have reached the limits of growth.
Further growth of freight and passenger transport will need to be accommodated by alternative means: by rail or on water.
Meanwhile, however, competition between air traffic - which is favoured by government policy - and trains and ships has become fierce.
This is why the proportion of international train traffic and freight transport by river and canal has dropped so dramatically.
There are considerably fewer international through train connections within the European Union compared to 20 years ago.
In the remote areas of the European Union, however, it seems as if time has stood still there.
People still complain there that remote regions and islands are not sufficiently serviced.
New, small airports are expected to perform miracles as they could attract rich business people and masses of tourists.
What is more, the areas surrounding the Mediterranean tourist beaches are also increasingly afflicted by accidents, noise and air pollution, and nature reserves are being sacrificed.
During the discussion on Mr Sterckx' s report, it has already transpired in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, as well as from amendments tabled on this topic, that opinion is strongly divided on this matter within Parliament.
Certain Members favour an increase in the number of aircraft, the lifting of all legal restrictions in this connection and continued reductions in air fares.
I hear this opinion mainly from those Members who endlessly complain within the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism that their flight was once again delayed and who are very much guided by these personal experiences in their vision of transport policy.
According to other Members, air traffic has grown far too much over the past decades.
In their view, the conservation and protection of the natural environment are far more important than fast or cheap transport, and air traffic has already supplanted far too much rail traffic.
It is high time that the safety and health of passengers, personnel and population on the ground were made the top priority.
My Group is very much in favour of the second opinion, relating to the environment, safety and the interests of personnel.
Air traffic cannot continue to grow endlessly and we cannot afford to subordinate all kinds of other matters to this.
We consider that Mr Sterckx' s report falls short of being able to solve the actual problems but it is a first step in the right direction.
I am pleased that the rapporteur seemed prepared to adopt a number of amendments concerning safety and the environment at an early stage.
Mr President, the Sterckx report is excellent and develops a point of great relevance in great depth.
It may not be obvious, but air transport is not an end in itself: air transport moves capital, it moves industries - be it the tourist industry or some other industry - and it brings people into contact, not merely in the pursuit of leisure, but in order to clinch business deals. The contribution made by air transport to the European and global economies is truly great, and it should therefore be both promoted and regulated.
Regulated in that, all too often, there is insufficient planning, airports are located in inconvenient places and airlines are prevented from expanding by the presence of military corridors or restrictions.
Clearly, we must not forget that the air industry is among the most global industries, for, nowadays, an aircraft can easily fly all over the world, especially if it is a high endurance aircraft.
Therefore, while nowadays, it is an easy matter to relocate an industrial plant, it is even easier to relocate an airline, in that the means of production itself is, by definition, mobile.
Then there is a problem of competition, particularly competition from the United States in the form of those huge carriers which are governed by standardised legislation which, I regret, is lacking in the European Union, both in the sphere of air traffic control - with the result that operational standardisation is lacking as well as legislative standardisation - and as regards the recognition of professional qualifications.
For example, even today, an Italian pilot with professional qualifications obtained in Italy cannot do the same job in Belgium.
Another issue to be resolved is the age limit.
Some countries of the European Union allow pilots to continue flying up until the age of 65, but in other countries they have to stop working at 60.
I therefore call upon the Commission to adopt common legislation governing the whole of the Union as soon as possible.
Mr President, aviation is undergoing turbulent times.
The report drafted by Mr Sterckx elaborates on the effects of strong growth within the sector.
The enormous competition within the industry has led to a price war in certain sectors.
The number of passengers and, alongside this, the number of flights, is growing at an alarming rate. The rapporteur is looking for the solution to congestion in a common airspace and European air traffic control.
I support him in this.
Competition also leads to lower costs.
The pressure on personnel in the sector is increasing both socially and financially.
It is vital to guarantee their rights.
I endorse the rapporteur' s observations that proposals are required which deal with the social dimension.
Passengers also suffer as a result of the commercial war.
Although air fares have come down in certain areas, there are situations in which their rights - including those in the event of overbooking - are under real threat.
This too needs to be regulated.
The impact of all these developments on the environment is of vital importance.
Achievements as regards innovations in terms of emission values, noise and harmful substances cannot offset the environmental damage caused by the dramatic growth in aviation. And this is not likely to change in the foreseeable future
It is therefore necessary to consider the position which we want to, and must, accord aviation.
In some cases, only air transport is possible but in the case of holidays, for example, the increasing demand for transport can only be met through other means.
This report should also accommodate the downside of a worldwide aviation market.
Solutions which spring to mind in this respect include a common traffic control system, stimulation of technological innovation for engines and promotion of alternative methods of transport for passengers and goods, i.e. trains for passengers and coastal navigation for goods.
In my opinion, imposing VAT on flight services and excise on kerosene, which are, in fact, levied on other means of transportation - at intra-European level if necessary - will contribute to a more balanced view of the costs generated by the different means of transportation.
In short, the aviation industry is heading for stormy weather.
It is up to us to guide it through this in the interests of society.
In our opinion, the rapporteur is steering things in the right direction.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to shed more light on one aspect of the Sterckx report, the question of airspace control, air traffic control.
I believe that paragraph 8 of the Sterckx report adopts the right approach, for we must look to the medium and short term.
I shall begin with the medium term.
In the medium term we must transfer regulative competencies for air traffic control to the European Union, something that is entirely feasible.
There is no point in people coming along and saying, well, Eurocontrol has far more members and is far better.
Eurocontrol does not work and that has been proven.
One reason is that it operates according to the unanimity principle and the principle of the lowest common denominator.
I think the European Economic Area sets a good example.
If the Community of 15 has the authority to set regulations, and if 12 countries want to join the EU in the next few years, then we will have reached the figure of 27.
If we follow the example of the European Economic Area with Norway and Iceland, then there will no problem with including Switzerland in the same system.
We therefore need EU competencies in this area, so that we can decide by a majority on the basis of Community law, rather than having to abide by unanimity and international treaties.
We also need private service companies to carry out the actual operations.
I admit that Mr Sterckx would like to see the term "privatisation" replaced with "liberalisation" .
I think we will be happy to endorse that.
But we need competition, and, of course, he agrees with us on that.
We must move away from a situation of monopolies and here I would like you to consider - although this is by no means a revolutionary idea - that if we have a single market on the ground, we could also have a single market in the skies, and that we should certainly allow different cooperating or competing service companies to control certain European aviation routes beyond the national borders, that we should move beyond the small-state mentality and offer services to airlines.
We must go further in this regard.
In any case, we will be discussing this again in connection with the Atkins report.
I now turn to the short-term aspects. We are all grateful to the Vice-President for setting up a high-level working party with a view to achieving results in the short term too.
I can only call on the 15 governments to instruct their civilian and military advisers to actually deliver solutions to the Vice-President by the end of the month, so that we will have something concrete to consider in June, and so that the Vice-President can respond to practical requests and take practical action, such as occasionally using military areas for civil aviation.
We must therefore proceed with practical solutions, for we cannot have the same situation this summer as last summer: congested airspace, stacked aircraft, the pointless, constant combustion of kerosene in the air, i.e. environmental pollution of the first order!
Let us hope that if the Member States really provide the Vice-President with what she wants, she can then present us with a good proposal that also includes short-term measures which can enter into force this summer.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Mr Sterckx for his report which addresses an important aspect of the civil aviation industry.
There is no doubt that civil aviation has grown considerably over the last ten years and it is predicted to continue growing in the foreseeable future.
There are those who would argue that this is due solely to the liberalisation process within that sector.
Whilst I and my Group recognise that this has had a considerable effect on aviation' s growth, other factors have also contributed.
In the initial stages of liberalisation, a lot of people lost their jobs, those who remained had to work longer hours and others suffered a deterioration in their working conditions.
Also, on some routes, fares increased while others were so cheap that airlines went bust or built up huge losses.
Another result of liberalisation has been the practice of co-sharing, of airline alliances, and in some instances even takeovers.
We are beginning to see now an increase in aircraft registered outside the EU similar to the maritime sector' s flag of convenience.
At my own airport in Manchester there are Icelandic-registered aircraft and I have been to Iceland more times than they have.
The reason why I mention these points is just to lend some balance to the argument.
It is very easy to say that liberalisation in aviation has been a glowing success, without ever recognising that there is also a negative side.
My Group accepts that gradual liberalisation is a way forward but only if safety, working conditions and passenger rights are safe-guarded and strengthened.
We accept that an increasing number of EU citizens are demanding better services.
My Group welcomes the latest decision by the Commission to launch a campaign to inform passengers of their rights - something which the airlines in particular have failed to do over many years.
We believe we need something more to ensure that passengers are better protected from delays and cancellations.
We have all heard the excuses offered by the airlines, ranging from "aircraft going technical" , which is aviation-speak for 'I' m afraid there are not enough people booked on so we are going to consolidate' .
"Air traffic delays" is the next one, but of course that is an easy excuse because there is never anyone from air traffic control there to say that is not the issue.
Then of course there is the 'get them on board' scenario, irrespective of whether the plane is going to leave or not.
Without doubt aviation has made considerable progress, but I also believe that aviation has a responsibility to its passengers, to its workforce, and also to the environment.
Finally, my Group looks forward to receiving from the Commission its new proposals regarding slot-allocation, even though they have been a long time in coming.
I hope this document will embody the view of the fair market access for all, in particular in clarifying the present legislative position regarding the trading of slots.
Mr President, the report we are discussing today deals with the results of the liberalisation of the air transport sector in the European Union, which was concluded in 1993.
We have supported this liberalisation process so that bilateral barriers may be lifted, ownership restrictions changed, technical standards harmonised, and suitable safety standards established and so that the conditions of liberalisation may promote greater transparency with regard to how air transport development policy is framed and allow, above all, the inclusion of environmental considerations in production within the aeronautical industry, in tariff policy and in the management of air traffic.
A key point raised by the rapporteur is the current situation in which, while the aviation industry is liberalised and operates in an open European market, the authorities which control the air space, the airports and the regulating bodies, as well as the companies providing services to the air transport sector, still operate from an excessively local point of view.
The rapporteur also mentions, as an unresolved issue, the continued state presence, in certain cases, in the ownership of national airlines.
Turning in particular to air traffic control, the development of a common system of air safety is a fine challenge for the future.
We must not forget that European airspace is a mosaic made up of 15 sovereign Member States, which, for a variety of reasons, mainly military, find it difficult to relinquish part of their sovereignty in this area.
To this end, we must concern ourselves with resolving the issue of the policy of privatising the operational bodies responsible for air traffic control.
With regard to charges, we share the Commission' s opinion that the costs over which the airlines have no control - ground assistance charges, airport taxes and atmospheric costs - must be transparent and non-discriminatory.
Turning to the Sterckx report, our contribution has concentrated on the environmental aspects related to it.
Our main criticism centres on the fact that the Commission, in its overall analysis, is trying to treat environmental, safety and health aspects in the aeronautical sector as a separate debate, by means of a separate communication, when, in reality, the impact of these factors on the future of the industry is crucial.
I would finally like to mention some basic points.
Airlines' pricing policy must include the external environmental costs of air transport. The regulation of slot allocation must be reviewed according to specific environmental criteria, taking account of noise and emissions into the atmosphere, and specific actions should be taken in order to strengthen intermodality with other trans-European networks, especially with railways, in light of the conclusions of the report on aviation and the global environment, which considers that more than 10% of European short-haul air traffic could change from air to rail.
Mr President, according to the Commission proposal adopted by our rapporteur, Mr Sterckx, the main stated aim is to liberalise air transport further and make it subject to the rules of the free market.
In this way, or so the Commission and our rapporteur tell us, we will see reduced expenditure on the part of airlines, better passengers services and more innovation.
It is therefore proposed that airports, with all the strategic importance which they have for a country' s safety, should be surrendered to the multinationals, despite the negative implications this would have, and that the aspirations of private-sector airport owners to reap maximum profits should be promoted.
It is also proposed that the sovereign right of each country to control air traffic in its air space should be surrendered to the European Union, on the pretext of establishing a uniform system of air safety. At the same time, the proposal calls for the privatisation of the operational bodies responsible for air traffic control which, it says, will be responsible for all the EU' s air space and will compete with each other.
This proposal, aside from abrogating the sovereign right of each country over its own air space, will give rise to confusion and will have particularly negative and dangerous repercussions on air safety as, objectively speaking, the competition which is being vaunted here as the trump card will be competition for maximum profit and not for maximum air safety.
The proposal argues that all this will reduce flight delays and hence the expenditure of the airlines.
And maybe it will.
Nonetheless, as experience with similar cases shows, it is doubtful whether a rise in profits will mean cheaper tickets or improved services.
On the contrary, the situation will deteriorate.
It is also proposed to end state aid to airlines. This, however, will prove disastrous for air connections to and from disadvantaged areas.
Greece is a typical example.
This ignores the indisputable fact, as the experience of official organisations and trade unions for workers in the civil aviation industry around the world has shown, that constant reductions in the running costs of aircraft and ground services, together with wall-to-wall privatisation and the private sector' s goal of maximum profit, are the reason for the continuous rise in the number of air accidents.
These are the reasons why we shall be voting against the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have seen that the aim of Mr Sterckx' s report was to guarantee security, safety, consumer protection, fair competition and environmental protection.
We agree with these objectives, but we cannot support the project to create a regulatory authority for air transport safety.
We would like to have further information, particularly regarding the formation of this authority and we would like to know who would be responsible for monitoring it and by what means they would do so.
Furthermore, paragraph 8 calls for, and I quote, "the operational bodies responsible for ATC to be privatised" .
We do not think that this is a wise suggestion.
We are totally opposed to any kind of further privatisation, which could exacerbate the already deteriorating working conditions, in this area which is so closely linked to passenger safety.
This privatisation will result in major job losses and will certainly have a damaging impact on safety.
European skies are comparatively safe, and we want to see that safety preserved.
To conclude, in order to guarantee the primacy of safety regulations over all other considerations, air traffic control must remain a public and national service.
Mr President, I would first of all like to extend my sincere congratulations to Mr Sterckx on his excellent report.
It has come, I believe, at a time when the aviation industry is very much in the limelight, what with the takeover agreement between Swiss Air and Sabena, the breakdown of the marriage between KLM and Alitalia, as well as the vicissitudes surrounding Malpensa.
One could therefore say that there is a lot of commotion in the industry and this makes the report all the more topical.
Despite the many advantages described by Mr Sterckx, the liberalisation of aviation has not given us heaven on earth - or not yet anyway.
Just as Europe and EMU will need to be restored ecologically and socially, we will have to assimilate liberalisation with measures designed to better organise the airspace, increase safety and improve consumer and environmental protection.
It became apparent during the Strasbourg debate on night flights only two weeks ago that European legislation on aviation leaves a great deal to be desired.
Liberalisation without a common aviation policy and without a unified airspace will inevitably lead to problems.
It is estimated that air traffic will double in the next fifteen years.
At present, one in three flights is delayed and 450 000 flight hours are lost annually, and unless far-reaching measures are taken, the situation will only get worse.
What is actually preventing us from taking a number of additional measures, except for a powerful lobby of airline companies and a misconceived concept of sovereignty in some countries which refuse to let go of the management of their own national airspace?
We have a unified market, free movement of people and a single currency.
Why can we not move towards a single European airspace more rapidly? Moreover, I fully endorse the idea of a common transatlantic air space, provided that this is not subject to unilateral European concessions.
This is most certainly a lesson we need to learn from the vicissitudes of the hushkits affair.
As far as the allocation of slots is concerned, I believe that more consideration should be given to environmental criteria, such as noise and exhaust fumes.
In addition, the government should invest more in measures which improve the quality of life of those living near airports.
This is often the case and is most needed at smaller, regional airports.
In summary, and by way of conclusion, I would like to advocate a pax avianautica.
The ingredients of the pax avianautica which we need to pursue are a unified airspace, a common aviation policy, viable airports in a comfortable environment, increased safety and strong, European airline companies.
My home town of Ostend, with its noisy and unsafe, regional airport, will not fully understand the meaning of the European Union until we have achieved this.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank our colleague, Dirk Sterckx, who has put an enormous amount of work into a report which is extremely important as it is a policy document that will lead to a great deal of further discussion.
Personally, I fully agree with the committee' s report, in that there is a need to open up the European skies, and with the need to unify them, since, although roads have been unified, the railways, the sea and the skies are not yet in that position.
It is extremely important that we move in this direction, but this should not be limited to the creation of a new market.
Personally, for several reasons, I feel that the tone of the report is excessively smug with regard to the liberalisation that has already taken place.
Firstly, the competition with which we are familiar has created two air spaces: that of the major routes on which we see congestion, delays, queues and broadly inadequate consumer protection laws, although prices have, of course, fallen. And then there is the air space of the smaller routes, which is expensive and which has largely been overlooked by the market.
I live in Bordeaux, but it is more expensive for me to fly from there to Lisbon than to fly to New York via Paris, and if I wish to fly to any other French city, I have to change aeroplanes at an airport in Paris.
I feel that these effects of liberalisation should not be ignored.
Secondly, I think that it is important to point out, as certain honourable Members have during this debate, that safety is not something that should be haggled over, and that European harmonisation of air traffic control must include this aspect of safety and it must not be handed over wholesale to businessmen.
This is extremely important.
I am one of those people who think that a European system of specifications should be introduced, some kind of agency, of course, but which would not necessarily involve privatisation and competition between the various air traffic control centres that exist at the moment.
Lastly, my third reason is that the Union' s regional policy, which accounts for the Union' s second largest budget, is meaningless without an effective planning policy.
Airports are highly decisive factors in influencing the location of businesses, senior officials, management, and therefore jobs to an area.
I fail to see why subsidies should be banned both for routes and for infrastructures, when certain remote regions do not have access to airports.
I feel that this aspect of regional planning should be taken into account.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Sterckx, as well as all the honourable Members who have spoken, for their active cooperation in the debate which has resulted in the report that we are discussing today.
To a large extent, the report confirms the analysis which was expressed in the Commission' s communication on the European air transport sector in the light of the global challenges, since, thanks to the liberalisation of this sector, we have been able to establish a much more competitive market than the one that existed previously. The importance of this is clearly illustrated by the increase in the number of airlines or the increase, much less spectacular perhaps, but significant nevertheless, in the number of routes where there are more than two competitors.
This gives an idea of how competition has increased over these years.
The opening up of the markets means that the sector has evolved in very diverse ways.
Airlines have developed innovative strategies in order to adapt to the growth of the market and the challenges of competition, but despite their restructuring efforts they still suffer a large degree of fragmentation and financial fragility in comparison with their principal international competitors, and I am referring specifically to the US airlines.
Ladies and gentlemen, some of you have spoken of a common transatlantic air space, and I would like to tell you that this is a very important issue.
The current situation is the result of the bilateral signing by various Member States of the European Union and the USA of the so-called "open skies agreements" which, in fact, are resulting in an internal fragmentation of the European market and making it impossible for European companies to restructure in such a way as to give them sufficient capacity to compete at an international level.
As you know, the Commission is totally against these bilateral open skies agreements.
It has appealed against them at the Court of Justice and I hope that the judgement of the Court will allow us to put an end to this situation and do what we have to do: enter into a bilateral agreement with the United States as the European Union as a whole, as a single internal market, and not divided up into different countries.
The opposite situation may undoubtedly suit the United States, but in no way does it suit European airlines and European interests.
One of the objectives of the negotiation of a common transatlantic air space is precisely to resolve, by common agreement with the United States, the current situation caused by the unilateral actions of the different countries which have signed up to these agreements.
I must point out, ladies and gentlemen, that the reality of the internal civil aviation market in Europe has been affected in a very negative way by this.
Just now some of you were talking about the KLM-Alitalia affair, which obviously involves other issues, but where, if the two companies had already merged, we would not have the problems that we are facing at present.
It is true that one trait of European liberalisation, when compared to US liberalisation, is that the granting of state aid has been authorised to support the restructuring of certain airlines.
It is true that the Commission authorised the injection of public capital - only once, as a one-off and subject to strict conditions - with the aim of helping companies to effectively carry out the transition from a regulated market to an open market.
We can now congratulate ourselves on the fact that the majority of European companies have completed the transition process and that transition can be considered to have been finalised.
I must say to those people who said that employment in the sector would be reduced, that this has not been the case and that neither has the quality of work deteriorated in any way whatsoever. On the contrary, more jobs and wealth are being created.
Companies have been able to confront the situation and liberalisation has significantly benefited consumers, although it is true that it has not benefited all consumers in the same way; for example, it has provided less benefit in relation to short-haul business trips where undoubtedly the lowest fares are not usually adequate and cannot be used.
I would like to end by referring to some of the questions that have been raised.
The issue of Gibraltar and the agreements reached recently by the two countries involved do not affect transport.
In this regard, therefore, the situation remains as it was before that bilateral agreement between these two countries of the Union.
I would also like to say that intermodality, which is already being considered, is a key element in the balanced development of mobility and air transport.
On the other hand, the question of slot allocation must be the subject of a Commission proposal since we cannot accept the current situation, in which many slots are lost, not all of them are properly used and, furthermore, let us be honest, there is a black market in them.
We will make a proposal to the effect that slot allocation should be an administrative right granted under licence.
We will try to ensure that there is greater flexibility in this allocation without causing any companies to go bankrupt.
With regard to Iceland, I would like to point out that it is an integral part of the European Economic Area and is therefore fully affected by the legislation.
I have left two issues until the end, not because they are less important, but because I wanted to focus on them for a moment.
The environment is a key issue in the development of aviation and, of course, efficiency in the consumption of fuel per passenger is improving every day, although it is true that the growth in air transport is exceeding the improvements achieved in efficiency.
We must therefore try to ensure that aircraft are modernised.
The question of noise is also a serious problem.
Lastly, I would like to make it clear that our primary concern, despite the fact that I have left it to the end, is safety.
That is the main and primary objective and all initiatives relating to air transport, the single airspace, the management of air traffic, the regulation of air transport, must take it fully into account. All our actions must take account, first and foremost, of the basic objective of safety.
The Commission does not hold any position in principle with regard to whether or not operational air traffic services should be privatised.
We believe that, before we reach that point, some associated services could be privatised, such as, for example, meteorological areas, which would allow for greater flexibility.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Appointment of senior Commission officials
The next item is the oral question (B5-0218/2000) by Mr Pomés Ruiz, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats (PPE-DE), on the appointment of senior Commission officials.
I would remind you that the vote on this matter will take place on 17 May 2000.
Mr President, the policy on Commission appointments is, without doubt, a key element within the framework of the reform to which President Prodi is committed.
It is a key element because this House shares the determination of Mr Kinnock, the Vice-President responsible for reform, to make appointments based not on national quotas, but on merit.
At the moment, therefore, while Parliament has still not taken a position on administrative reform - which we are observing with great attention and which we all hope will, this time, truly be a great success - I wish to say that it is appropriate at this stage to watch how the Commission is putting these good intentions, these projects to reform the appointments policy, into practice.
Furthermore, I believe that transparency is a good thing, not only in terms of the control which this House has to carry out, but it is also good in itself.
We should bear in mind that the appointments policy provides motivation in some cases and not in others. It promotes some officials at the expense of others and this policy may serve as an example, in terms of solving the principal problem faced by the Community structure - I am delighted that President Prodi and Mr Kinnock agree with this analysis - which is the lack of motivation amongst officials.
It is therefore very important that we try to see that good intentions are accompanied by good practices.
We all agree on the need to make progress on national quotas, and that appointments should be made on the basis of merit, but this cannot justify certain regional imbalances.
At the moment, according to the data available to us, which I am grateful for because the transparency process is a very good thing, most A1 or A2 senior officials are of the same nationality as the Commissioner, way above the German senior officials, for example.
There are clear imbalances.
To give another example, it cannot be put down to merit that there are 22 A1 or A2 Spaniards and 16 Belgian ones.
It is important that in a procedure which needs to be transparent, merit is easily explicable and comprehensible.
Merit cannot explain overall imbalances or imbalances in certain Directorates-General, in some of which there is a clear predominance of officials of a certain nationality.
It is also important that there is success in the search for equality between the sexes.
Nobody would say - I certainly would not - that the fact that there are so few A1 or A2 women is due to an assessment of merit.
On the contrary, we are surrounded by women who are much more valuable than us, my wife to name but one.
I must tell my friends that behind every great woman there is a great man, because everybody knows that my wife is worth much more than I am.
I am grateful to the Socialist spokesperson, who knows my wife, for agreeing with me.
It is important that we fulfil the commitment to double the number of female appointments.
We will closely monitor this appointments policy, which must be open and decisive.
We are happy to accept the new appointments within the Commission, in particular that of the Secretary-General.
Many believed that new policies require new faces and, in that context, perhaps the changeover of the Secretary-General should be supported.
At least that is what I think.
I would like to conclude by saying that when you come in July to explain the changes you are going to make to the procedures for appointments based on merit, I am sure you will have the agreement and support of all the Groups in this House.
Mr President, could I begin by thanking the honourable Member for his question.
I substantially agree with the points that he very effectively made.
In fact I would only diverge on one point.
He may be right that behind every great woman is a great man - there is a debate about that.
What I am certain is true is that behind every great man is a very, very surprised mother-in-law.
The honourable Member is, I know, very clear about the fact that responsibility for employment policies and patterns in the Commission, as a separate institution, lies with the Commission itself.
However, in order to provide useful information to this House and to the wider public, I am glad to respond to the two questions which the honourable Member has put down.
In order to give full and detailed answers to his first question, whilst saving some of the time of the House, I have sent a paper to the honourable Member listing the number of appointments of senior officials made in the Commission since taking office and also giving the names, nationalities and previous functions of all concerned.
To provide comprehensive detail, that paper also sets out the total number of senior officials from each nationality in the Commission and of the total numbers of all A grade staff of each nationality in the Commission.
A copy of that paper has also been provided to the secretariat-general of this Parliament for information and, naturally, it will be generally available to honourable Members.
In this oral answer, therefore, I will summarise the situation relating to senior appointments as at last Thursday, 27 April.
Since the present Commission took office, six appointments have been made involving promotions to grade A1.
They related to three officials of German nationality, two of Italian nationality and one of Irish nationality.
There have been fourteen other transfers at Director-General or Deputy Director-General level, which did not involve promotion in grade, although in four cases relating to Spanish, French, German and British officials, the changes meant advances in responsibility to full Director-General posts.
In the same period 19 appointments involving promotion to grade A2 have been made.
These related to officials of the following nationalities: 5 British, 4 Italian, 3 Belgian, 2 German, 1 Dutch, 1 French, 1 Spanish, 1 Irish and 1 Austrian.
Eleven transfers at Director level which did not involve promotion in grade have also been made.
In addition, two external appointments have been made in this period, one of a German national at Director-General level, and one of an Austrian national at Director level.
In summary therefore, a total of 25 promotions to senior appointments have been made since this Commission took office.
Six of the officials are Italian nationals, five are German, five are British, three Belgian, two Irish, one Dutch, one French, one Austrian and one Spanish.
These figures are accurate as of 27 April 2000.
As the House will know, in an international and multinational institution like the Commission, it is essential, as the honourable Member said, that the allocation of jobs broadly reflects the diversity of the Union that we serve and uses abilities effectively.
Those principles of balance and quality are clearly set down in the Staff Regulations and the Commission is committed to applying them fully at all levels.
As in any large organisation there is continual change amongst the staff of the Commission as people move, retire, become recruited, or promoted.
As a result, a still-photograph of the staff profile at any fixed time does not, and cannot, give a complete picture.
To be properly judged, balance must consequently be assessed and be maintained over the medium term and the Commission is also actively committed to ensuring that.
In response to the honourable Member' s second question relating to the rules and criteria applied to senior appointments, I draw the attention of the House to the decisions on the subject which the Commission adopted and published last September and last December.
Those decisions constitute specific legal rules for the institution rather than a generalised code of conduct.
Copies of those rules have been sent to the honourable Member and they are available on the Internet.
Against this background the following information may be useful to the House: the guiding principle of the system which the Commission uses is that appointments to all senior posts will be determined on evidence of the merit of candidates, including managerial capacity and other relevant abilities.
In order to take necessary account of the geographical balance to which I referred earlier and to do so in compliance with the essential principle of meritocratic appointment, specific provision is being made.
The Commission has rejected the concept of quotas because of its counter-productive rigidity, and also because it would breach Staff Regulations.
It has, however, adopted a decision to ensure that all Member State nationalities should be represented by at least 1 qualified person in the most senior post, Director-General or equivalent, and consistent with that, the Commission has given fresh emphasis to assess effectively proven merit as a prerequisite of highest positions.
The effects will be to maintain high standards of quality amongst the officials who lead the staff in the Commission in its vital policy, treaty application and management tasks and to do so whilst ensuring the broad geographical balance which is central to the character of an institution serving the whole of the Union.
The system for making promotion to the highest posts facilitates these purposes of sustaining merit and balance and I will summarise its operation for the information of the House.
Candidates for A1 and A2 jobs are interviewed by a panel of senior officials which has been assisted in the lifetime of this Commission by an advisory external expert with relevant experience in executive selection.
That panel makes an objective assessment of the professional and managerial qualities and capabilities that are relevant to the post and recommends a shortlist.
The shortlisted candidates are then interviewed by the portfolio Commissioner who is most directly concerned with the post and, in the case of A1 officials, by the Commissioner for personnel, who at the moment is myself.
The Commissioner responsible for personnel then formally proposes to the College the candidate who has been agreed upon with the portfolio Commissioner and with the President of the Commission.
In the case of appointments of Directors, the agreement of the relevant Director-General must also be obtained.
At all times the panel, the Commissioners and the College are conscious of the commitment to quality and balance and therefore apply that commitment consistently in the interests of the Commission and of the Union.
I can confirm that all appointments made by this Commission have been in accordance with these rules which are themselves based on Article 29 of the Staff Regulations and that will continue to be the course followed.
I apologise for the length of time I have taken up but, naturally, I wanted to give the House the most comprehensive information.
Mr President. I very much welcome the opportunity presented by the question tabled by my colleague, Mr Pomés Ruiz, to be able to start the debate on what will be many issues in connection with Commissioner Kinnock' s reforms.
I would like to thank him very much for the very comprehensive and open response that he has given to that question.
Today we have rightly focussed on what are the absolutely key appointments at the top of any organisation.
After all, your reform, Commissioner Kinnock, is going to have to be led from the top and we very much welcome the confirmation you have given about the way in which the top appointments have been handled.
What I would like to do in developing on Mr Pomés Ruiz' question is to table one or two other points to you in connection with some of the more detailed aspects of the White Paper and the change in organisation that you have proposed.
Clearly the very ambitious reform contained in your paper is going to be a formidable task for the managers you appoint.
To achieve your objectives of moving the Commission towards a world-leading international public service, it is clear that the appointments and capabilities of your team are going to be critical.
You say in your White Paper that there is a real need to raise management skills and create a common management culture across the Commission.
I would like to know first of all how far you feel that management culture is now being developed by your new top team and how far that is starting to be communicated through the Commission' s organisation.
The important and welcome news that we have had today about the appointment of a new Secretary-General, Mr David O' Sullivan, raises the question whether he has been involved already and will that have an impact on the development that you have already set in train.
The second point I wanted to raise has to do with what you identify in your White Paper - and I agree with this entirely - about the real challenges for any service organisation which is decentralising and delegating responsibilities to reporting managers, empowering them to take decisions and to have that all-important control of budget.
I would like your assurance that the new team that comes in has those skills and also, and this is particularly important, that it also has a commitment to developing team-work in the Commission.
This is going to become more and more important as we get more information-technology driven solutions, more horizontal team-working of the type that I know is moving into areas like the information society.
Can we have your assurance that your senior team is going to be open-minded and looking at these new solutions?
Finally, your White Paper quite rightly notes that action is going to have to be taken when managers are not performing to the expected standard.
It would not be surprising, given the changes, that there are some people who feel uncomfortable with this.
Can you confirm that probationary periods, as set out in your White Paper, have been included in the contracts for the new appointments, how long those periods are and that systematic assessments of performance are included in those appointments?
Mr President, I too would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
It is clear from the current debate that the European Parliament has asked the Commission to rotate senior posts and has already lent its support to this idea. We have also asked to "de-flag" senior posts.
We want to see people appointed on merit and quality, and we as the Group of the Party of European Socialists very much welcome the action taken by the Commission so far, in response to Parliament' s requests.
We have also ascertained - and I must say that a number of the questions raised a moment ago are really starting to confuse the issue again - that the Commission is responsible for its appointments and that we as Parliament do not want to take the Commission' s place, especially not as far as appointments are concerned, because we would then be throwing everything back into disarray, and I felt that some of the questions were already heading in that direction again.
I would actually like to return to the very root cause of this discussion.
If it were to obtain these statistics, I believe that we already had them at our disposal.
If something else were going on, then we must have heard about it through the grapevine because over the past few weeks, rumour had it that some aspects were useless, that certain appointments or certain people had not been transferred and that some of them did not come up to scratch.
It has all gone quiet now.
All we have now is a number of very innocent, factual issues.
If this is about the internal reforms as a whole, then we could say: OK, here is a White Paper and here we have procedures we agreed on.
This very exciting and very extensive change is something both the Commission and Parliament want, but the ball is now back in the Commission' s court.
We have precise data.
The Commission has to come up with proposals on these points.
Are we not up to speed, or is there something up with the Commission? As recently as, let me think, seven months ago, we supported and appointed the Commission with an overwhelming majority, and now all of a sudden these questions are being asked.
Should this be seen as an attack on the Commission?
Is the Commission all of a sudden incapable or is this a sudden, inverse kind of declaration of support on the part of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and that is why this Group is asking the Commission these questions?
Those seemed to be the undertones for a fleeting moment. Our friends from the European People' s Party have thrown us into a bit of confusion because we are fully agreed on the key points.
The rotation system is clear. The statistical data we received in this respect does not lead us to believe that anything should be amiss.
Neither have I heard that anything is wrong with the performance, quite the opposite, in fact. That does not, of course, detract from the fact that, if you say you want to abandon national quotas, each one of us as we are here today would like to see some geographical balance in it all.
In fact, the Commission too has admitted to this, without rushing to attach national identity to the individual figures, individual posts, because we would then be back to square one, as we would be pushing aside the merits of the case and forcing the national flags back into use, which would take each one of us some time to digest.
I am speaking up today as a Dutch national. Despite this, I do not think we should operate at national level but should cover a wider level.
Surely this position could not be any clearer?
I would like to add one more point which has not been discussed here but which I would like to bring up.
The question came up: should someone who has held a senior post be transferred to a job in the public sector elsewhere without any further ado? This is a question which was asked originally, which has now disappeared, of course, and which has meanwhile been milked in the press.
What should we make of it? In our opinion, we really need new standards.
This is what we asked the Commission for.
The Commission was willing to produce these new standards.
What you cannot do is judge the individuals who are not yet bound by these standards.
If you ask me, you would be shooting the Commission in the foot and, in my opinion, you would be shooting yourself in the foot more so than the Commission and this is not helpful.
In short, we are giving our wholehearted support to reform and we hope from the bottom of our hearts that the deadline is met.
Since Commissioner Kinnock is present today, I would appreciate it if he could confirm whether he is on target with his staff and people.
That is a mammoth task.
It is our task to give each other very critical guidance, and to ensure that reform is brought about.
We cannot see how these factual questions, which do not show up any defects, could contribute to this debate, unless there were ulterior motives towards the Commission from the start.
As I understand it, the salto mortale of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats could be interpreted as a declaration of support.
Mr President, Commissioner, it would naturally be rather difficult if Parliament were to take over the European Commission' s personnel policy.
In my opinion, we would then be far removed from the efficiency required by the Commission.
Because when you made your proposals back in January, and we studied them carefully, it was clear that the Commission' s appointment policy - and that is how we put it then - is a matter for the Commission and we should not interfere with it, unless there is obvious cause for this.
We continue to endorse the guidelines you gave at the time for this personnel and appointment policy.
First and foremost, appointments must be based on the candidate' s merits.
This is how it was described in your document and I think that this clause should be retained.
It is clear that we continue to support this.
A candidate' s aptitude for managing an office is one of the key aspects, and I heard you emphasise this in your reply a moment ago. You made it clear once again what procedures are followed when appointing top officials.
You have also already stated in your action plan that a geographical balance should be kept, which was, in fact, what the question was about.
This too seems logical to me, yet it would not be beneficial if we were to rely on this provision too much and be too strict about it. After all, if you were to do this, in other words, if you were to weigh it up extremely carefully, then I think personnel policy would become impossible in the long-run and you would be very far-removed from the efficiency required in this type of matter.
On behalf of my Group, I would say that this question was somewhat superfluous.
One can enter into a large-scale discussion on the decisions taken today with regard to the nationalities of the people who have been moved, appointed or who have left.
This discussion would be meaningless.
The question which should be raised is whether or not this benefits the functioning of the Commission and have the procedures laid down by the Commission been followed?
This is the question we need to ask ourselves.
Whether the person involved is Dutch or of any other nationality is of little relevance in the great scheme of things.
What I do like, Commissioner, is that you, in your information, provide evidence of a transparent policy. I also welcome the fact that, based on your information, it appears that there are no major imbalances.
I feel this should be acknowledged.
We have been given important information, in my opinion, and I would therefore like to say by way of conclusion: let us not stand in the way of the Commission' s reform process but support it instead.
We should not complicate matters - especially with regard to personnel policy, which is one of the most difficult topics - by asking questions which are not really relevant.
Mr President, in September the Commission adopted some excellent principles which were to be applied with regard to its staffing policy, and particularly in the appointment of senior officials, but let us now examine today' s appointments in the light of those fine principles.
I must enquire as to whether the panel actually interviewed the applicants, from whom the leader of the Institute for Future Studies was selected.
I somewhat doubt whether any lengthy interview process was involved in filling the post in which Mr Levi did so very well.
I would also like to mention that all the institutions should in fact adopt these rules concerning the appointment of senior officials, and we are finally able to say that the European Parliament has also adopted good principles regarding the appointment of senior officials, which must therefore take place very openly.
Let me make an observation regarding representation on a geographical basis. It is quite right that we should aim to move away from national quotas, but that should not mean we should have a hidden criterion that actually favours the notion of representatives of large Member States and major language groups in senior positions.
We must realise this.
Finally, let me say a word about equality. Commissioner Kinnock faithfully made a list of the Commission' s senior appointments and promotions, but, Commissioner, you did not say how many women were nominated for, or promoted to, these posts.
I would ask you to take a look at your list with your "gender policy spectacles" on and tell us the answer, because the Commission really has to set equality targets a lot higher than it has ever done before.
Vice-President Kinnock, there is a strange atmosphere in this Chamber.
The PPE Group' s question for an oral answer was to be one of the major debates of a part-session - and a passionate plea was made for the debate to be held in April - but, today, the PPE Group is I know not where, for it is certainly conspicuous by its absence from this Chamber.
It may be that the decisions you adopted this morning have in some way assuaged the Group' s thirst for knowledge, but this Chamber appears to be unusually empty for a debate on such a major issue.
I supported the submission of the question.
I have been wondering since September, Vice-President, how it could be that such objective, such perfect, such universally acceptable criteria of competence, merit and so forth were met solely, surprise surprise, by officials living in or originally from certain island countries, while these same qualities did not appear to be present in officials from other, more misshapen countries - boot-shaped countries, for example. Let us forget the figures for a moment and focus on the functions.
The A1 grade covers a wide range of concepts: an official could hold an A1 post and have important duties, such as Director-General for Development, for the Press and the Media or other Directorate-Generals, or he could be an aide.
How can it be - and this is a question which I continue to ask - that these criteria of merit, surprise surprise, have only worked in favour of certain nationalities? This is what is to be inferred from a careful examination which is not merely concerned with numbers.
I continue to ponder this question, Vice-President, as I ponder the question of the appointment of senior Commission officials - officials or chefs de cabinet - who then unexpectedly book a flight and, via some European airport, London rather than Malpensa, desert the Commission for the private sector.
I feel that this is also a question which, although it does not form part of our question for an oral answer, would merit a debate at another time in its own right.
Personally, I feel very strongly that there is a need for this.
Lastly, I feel that the Commission is making the mistake of giving Commission staff themselves too much say in the selection of new staff. It should retain its right to make such decisions and not delegate this task to its administrative staff.
Mr President, first of all Mr Dell' Alba is certainly right with the first part of his question.
The tone of the question when it was put seems very different from the tone that we are hearing now in the Chamber.
First of all, we have to say that the White Paper reforms are progressing.
They are progressing slowly but Rome was not built in a day and we must remember that.
We all know that there is a timetable - one that we have all agreed to and must be kept.
What I would like to address, before I look at the substance, is the question behind this question, - that is what we really have to look at here.
It strikes me - and I will not be quite as subtle as Mr van den Berg - that the tone of this question seems to be the same tone as the Stauner report, the original Stauner report that was comprehensively rejected within the Budget Control Committee - the same tone that was set in the explanatory statement which was rejected by Parliament as a whole.
We are all desperate to see reform but it will take time.
The new Commission has been in office for only seven months.
It was approved by the European Parliament by a huge majority.
The question we really have to ask here is not to the Commission but to the PPE Group as to the motivation behind the question.
It strikes me as being clearly politically motivated, trying to undermine the work done on reform, trying to shoot this new bird down before it has taken flight.
This is because there is an element within the PPE Group, and I do not include Mr Pomés Ruiz in this, interested in wrecking the tactics of the Commission, wrecking Commission reform and wrecking the EU.
And the PPE Group is being hijacked by that element within the group.
I believe that this Commission is very open to taking on board some - I hope all - of Parliament' s concerns and criticisms, because we have criticisms too.
But there is a time and place for that and this will be when we look at Mr Pomés Ruiz' response to the White Paper.
The PSE Group want to engage in a constructive debate because we are interested in the outcome of reform, not in scoring short-term political points that do nothing but damage the European Union.
Turning very quickly to the substance of the questions: in the Commission hearings the European Parliament asked for rotation of A1 and A2 posts and to end national flags on senior jobs.
The Commission has taken positive steps since they came into power, ensuring that appointments are made on the basis of merit.
Of course, in a multinational institution, we must be sensitive to national considerations but these must be seen within the medium and long term.
As the Commissioner said, you cannot take a snapshot halfway through.
We should be interested in checking systems and not checking individuals.
The role of the European Parliament is to keep the Commission on its toes.
We want to see appointments on merit but that does not mean interfering and questioning every single senior appointment.
I would like to make a quick point on improving the equal opportunities aspect of the Commission' s reform proposals.
Mrs Hautala' s question was very well put and we also would like an answer to that.
We do not currently think that the proposals go far enough in terms of gender mainstreaming and equal opportunities.
On parts 3 and 4 of this oral question I understand that the Conference of Presidents agreed on April 6 that these two questions should be removed.
That being the case, I would like to ask you, Mr President, to look into why the services had still not removed those parts today.
That is a serious problem.
The fact is that Commission reform is going ahead.
Mr Prodi has made some announcements today as the head of the organisation.
Again, most of it looks at mobility but I would like to ask the Commissioner why the role of the new post, Director of the Economic and Political Council, was not advertised.
That is a post that we would like to have seen advertised.
Finally, I would like to ask the PPE Group to refrain from such politically motivated and unconstructive questions as we have here.
I am confident that Mr Pomés Ruiz will not take that attitude when he responds to the White Paper, but please do not let your group be hijacked by a minority.
Thank you very much, Mrs Morgan.
I regret that I do not have any information on the question which you have addressed to the Presidency but, in any event, I will submit it so that you receive an adequate response.
Mr President, I also want to thank the Commissioner for his answer and, in common with other women, request the figures showing how posts are distributed between men and women.
Since the Commission delved into the details on 27 April, perhaps we can be told how many men and women there are in category A posts, not in category A posts generally, but broken down by grade, i.e. A1, A2, A3 and so on, for what is interesting is to see the figures broken down in that way.
More often than not, it turns out that there are no women at all in top posts.
And, in this connection, we could perhaps be informed about the composition of the panel - which should be an objective panel - in terms of gender. Perhaps in terms of country of origin, too, but in any case in terms of gender.
Who, in the end, is to evaluate the shortlist that has been mentioned? More often than not, it is exclusively men who carry out the final evaluation.
Mr President, could I thank the honourable Members in all parts of the House for the constructive contributions they have made in the course of this debate.
Perhaps I could risk some superficiality, because of the time, by trying to answer the specific questions raised.
First of all Mr Harbour' s questions, which typically were perceptive and constructive, related to how far we thought that the commitment to the development of managerial skills and culture was being achieved.
I will just stipulate one or two points that are evidence of progress.
I would not claim they were perfect and this list is not exhaustive.
So far as training is concerned, which, as Mr Harbour knows, is fundamental to the kind of changes that we want to achieve, the comprehensive programme of training for all managers in the Commission which should continue over two years commences this month.
Secondly we are already embarked on the process of collecting mission statements from every Directorate-General.
Most have submitted theirs.
There is also the establishment of task assessments which we will do through a series of pilot schemes that will affect around one quarter of the Directorate-Generals in the first instance and then the compilation of job descriptions which will be undertaken over the period up to the end of July this year.
The process of evaluation of staff, and that of course includes managers at all levels, is being refined and will be introduced.
As Mr Harbour says, the role and activity of the Secretary-General in all of these activities and indeed in many others is crucial.
I believe that Mr O' Sullivan has a very strong commitment to the direction set out by the White Paper and will be a notable successor to his extremely talented and committed predecessor, Mr Trojan, who will take up a new post from the end of this month.
So far as empowering managers is concerned, the best instance we can give is that from May 1 we inaugurated the new internal audit service, the central financial service and we will shortly be having the first meeting of the Audit Progress Committee.
These are the first crucial steps in the decentralisation of financial control, which is of course critical to the empowerment of management at all levels in a money-handling institution.
Mr Harbour will be familiar with my view that as a consequence of making that central and measurable change, subject continually to examination, we will get a reverberating change of culture in the wider managerial style and operation of the House.
Finally, he is right to stipulate that team leadership, team working and team building are all critical to the effective operation of modern managerial skills.
We are nurturing that by the combination of structural change and supplementary training, evaluation and the appointment system.
Obviously too, the consideration of probationary periods in contracts of appointment for managers will be a strong supplement to the direction which we want to take.
But to do that comprehensively will require amendments to the Staff Regulations and I am looking forward to the cooperation of Parliament and the Council in gaining the changes in Community legislation which are necessary to facilitate that further development.
Mr van den Berg was correct, and indeed kind and generous, in re-asserting the fact that the Commission must be responsible for its appointments and its personnel policies.
I presume that he will follow through his enquiry as to why this question was asked.
I can only say that I welcome the opportunity to provide comprehensive information.
I am reminded that, in the hearings, correctly and forcefully, several Members of this House raised the question and indeed made assertive demands for de-flagging of senior posts, for the complete abandonment of formal or informal quotas and for the rotation of officials holding A1 and A2 posts.
Those are principles that I not only agreed with at the time, together with my colleagues in the Commission, but have actively been seeking to put into effect ever since.
If I can come to the point relating to new standards and outside posts, a point also raised absolutely correctly by Mr Dell' Alba, who has a question down on these matters and I am looking forward to answering it, I should draw the attention of the House to the fact that in the course of giving my attention to a specific case, which related to the departure of my own Chef de Cabinet, Mr Andrew Cahn, it became very obvious to me that the current arrangements relating to authorising the movement of permanent and temporary officials to outside employment do not have adequate clarity or consistency.
In practice, the course of action and rigorous scrutiny which I requested to be applied in the case of Mr Cahn meant that his case was dealt with very thoroughly and entirely properly.
I do not believe, however, that the Commission, or indeed other institutions, should have to rely on individual motivation by officials or by Commissioners and on rather ad hoc means of applying principles, which are, to say the least, rather generalised.
I therefore asked the Director-General of Administration and Personnel to produce a draft for rules that would take into account best practice in the administrations of Member States and of other international public bodies and to give precision to procedures.
Having such rules would obviously be the best means of ensuring transparency, consistency and practical guidance which would be in the interests of all parties, especially when, as Members have reminded us in the course of the debate, Member States and institutions are increasingly keen to encourage more exchange between national and EU administrations and between the public and private sectors.
Naturally, when I have a proposal to make for new and improved arrangements, I will put them to my colleagues in the Commission and subsequently report them to this House and the other institutions for consideration.
Can I take the opportunity of Mr Sterckx' s contribution to underline the point that I made earlier, a point which he wisely acknowledges, that no one, in consideration of the broad geographical balance to which the Commission is committed, should try to take a still-photograph of the profile of the staff at the Commission and represent that as in any way a permanent state of affairs.
A moving picture is the only one that tells the full story and the Commission is totally committed to ensuring that priority is given to merit and full and proper account is taken of geographical balance, which is essential in a multinational serving institution like the Commission.
On Mrs Hautala' s point, I would simply say that none of the appointments that have been announced today was the subject of a panel and there is a very straightforward legal reason for that.
Mr David O' Sullivan, for instance, will take up his post by rotation as provided for under the Staff Regulations and equally as provided for under the Staff Regulations, Mr Ricardo Levi is a temporary official and moves with his post to his new position.
So in legal, procedural and employment policy terms, the use of the panel system for promotion and appointment purposes was not required by the existing law in the case of appointments of that kind.
I think that also responds to the point raised by Mrs Morgan on that subject.
The question was also raised of women' s appointments.
Of the 25 very senior appointments that have been made by this Commission since last September, 4 have been of women officials.
That to me is modest.
Mrs Hautala and others will know of my ambitions in this respect.
I would only say that since that is nearly 20% of the total number of appointments, we are on target for this year' s commitment to ensure that we achieve at least a 20% advance in the number of women who are appointed.
In the course of the rest of the year I can say with certainty that velocity will at least be maintained.
Obviously, I would like to see it exceeded because there are a large number of highly capable women, as Mrs Dybkjær pointed out to us, in the Commission, and we want to see that quality properly recognised.
So far as Mr Dell' Alba' s geographical excursion into islands and boot-shaped countries is concerned, as I say I am looking forward to answering his further question and doing so in great detail.
It is significant that the island country, the larger island country, secured in the course of these months under this Commission no additional appointments at A1 level by promotion.
The boot-shaped country obtained two such appointments - the boot-shaped country obtained 4 A2 promotions in this period and the big island obtained 5, of which, to the best of my knowledge, none came from Wales.
I hope that is of some reassurance to Mr Dell' Alba.
Mrs Morgan, inevitably asks from the wilds of Wales 'Why were there not any Welsh people?' It is because, Mrs Morgan, whilst I am totally committed to geographical balance, this would mean in Wales having one North Walian and one South Walian or I would generate even more dissatisfaction in the country I love most.
But Mrs Morgan did raise intriguing questions about the questions which have been put down; doubtlessly they will be pursued.
I would like to say to Mrs Dybkjær that in the comprehensive pursuit of our policy for equal opportunities, there will be evidence as the coming months and years pass, of us giving attention from the point of the invitation to applications, right through to initial appointment and promotions, to show that we are making serious efforts to secure substantial advances in the number of women of all ages and all grades who are employed in the Commission.
I can only ask honourable Members to wait until the physical evidence is available.
But if commitment and the strong and active dedication of members of the current College is anything to go by we will achieve success in all respects.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday 17 May 2000.
Legal aspects of electronic commerce
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0106/2000) by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on certain legal aspects of Information Society services, in particular electronic commerce in the internal market ("Directive on electronic commerce") [14263/1/1999 - C5-0099/2000 - 1998/0325(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi)
Mr President, the recommendation which it is my honour to present, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, proposes that the plenary adopts the common position without amendments.
I have to say that this attitude has also been adopted by the various political groups.
Mr President, I would like to stress that, by approving the Council' s common position on electronic commerce tomorrow, this House will be showing a very great degree of political responsibility of great institutional significance.
Furthermore, by approving this directive, Parliament will be taking a decisive step in favour of the competitiveness of European businesses in the 'on line' economy and will be setting a milestone so that both consumers and companies will be able to operate in the internal market with the same guarantees and the same ease with which they operate in their domestic markets.
The directive ensures that companies and citizens are able to provide and receive information society services throughout the European Union, which will thereby become a genuinely border-free area.
European companies will be able to offer goods, services and information within the Union in accordance with the regulations of the Member State in which they are established and, therefore, in normalised circumstances, without being bound by 14 different sets of legislation.
In order to arrive at these results, the directive harmonises certain areas, in particular - to name the main ones - the place where the operators are established, their obligations in terms of transparency, the requirements for transparency in commercial communications, the conditions required for the conclusion and validity of electronic contracts, the responsibility of Internet intermediaries, the settlement of disputes, as well as the competences of national authorities.
In other areas, the directive is supported by the existing instruments intended to facilitate harmonisation and the mutual recognition of national legislations.
Mr President, the directive includes - and this is important - all information society services, both business to business and business to user services, such as those which allow electronic operations to take place - interactive telesales of goods and services, on-line 'shops' , for example; services which are offered free, such as those financed through advertising or sponsorship, the on-line press, on-line databases, on-line financial services, on-line professional services - lawyers, doctors or other professionals - leisure services such as video on demand, direct marketing and all services accessed via the Internet.
The directive is also - as I have already said - a great example of interinstitutional cooperation.
This directive is a magnificent example of teamwork by Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Therefore, Parliament' s position on first reading, in particular its decisive support for the principle of the country of origin, was crucial to the Council in order to avoid the balance of the text being jeopardised.
In general, the common position follows the guidelines set by Parliament and, apart from some marginal cases, no significant amendments are added to the annex which provides for the exceptions relating to the principle I have mentioned. Balance is also maintained with regard to the provisions concerning consumer protection and the responsibility of intermediaries.
I would like to express my thanks, as rapporteur, for the cooperation of all my colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs, and in particular the leaders of the various political groups - especially the support of Mrs Berger and Mr Harbour from my Group - and the other institutions.
The common position, therefore, maintains the balance between the various general objectives and the various interests, and we have not therefore tabled any amendments.
It is clearly not a perfect text, but we consider it to be a reasonable and acceptable one, and it is crucial that it is adopted as soon as possible.
I will not repeat - although it is true - that Internet time is much shorter than time as we have known it up to now.
We must also understand that this directive is a priority in terms of guaranteeing the development of electronic commerce.
We must take account of the globalisation of the economy and competition from US companies and the legal framework of the internal market which strives, as on the Internet, for a space with no internal boundaries. All of these elements are Community assets as far as the competitiveness of European companies is concerned.
Lastly, the development of new technologies and market-related innovations make it essential that we establish a legal framework for the development of commerce, while, as this directive ensures, areas are set aside which are suitable for self-regulation and for the development of specific codes of conduct.
This directive, furthermore, will provide a significant stimulus to small- and medium-sized businesses so that they will embrace, without delay, this commerce without frontiers. They are currently not doing so because of the legal uncertainty involved in dealing with many different sets of legislation within Europe.
Lastly, several Member States are already legislating in this area and, without this directive, we could see a genuine fragmentation of the internal market.
This directive, furthermore, Mr President, is a milestone which will affect all Community initiatives which have an impact on electronic commerce.
The legal framework established by this directive will facilitate the adoption of other Community directives, such as the one on copyright, the distance marketing of financial services or the controversial Brussels Convention on jurisdiction, and will clearly help to remove the risk of incompatibility between these initiatives and the principles of the internal market.
Parliament intends to monitor closely the transposition and application of the directive in national legislations, and I have therefore included two recommendations, two reminders to the Commission, which I hope will be approved tomorrow, not within the framework of the directive, but within the framework of the legislative resolution; one on the procedures for the detection and withdrawal of illicit material, and another on the drafting of codes of conduct.
Lastly, Mr President - and with this I will end - it is symbolic that Parliament is approving this directive on the eve of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the declaration by Robert Schuman, in which he stated that Europe would not be created in an instant but through achieving specific objectives which would create genuine solidarity between citizens and businesses.
Fifty years ago, 'specific objectives' referred to the European Coal and Steel Community; today, as this directive points out, they refer to the information society.
For this reason, Mr President, I believe that tomorrow this Parliament will be worthy of congratulation, and this congratulation can also be extended to the other Community institutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to thank the rapporteur who, in my view, has done a quite excellent job on a very difficult subject.
The e-commerce directive is such a very difficult subject because it is a typical example of how runaway technological advances and market growth can outstrip legislation.
European legislative procedures happen to be particularly complex and the market is simply developing at a faster pace.
Another problem facing us when we had to consider this directive at both first and second reading was that we realised that in many areas EU harmonisation has not made enough progress yet, for much of what was said in the discussion of this draft directive in fact showed up serious weaknesses and major problems here.
By way of example let me just take the debate on the country of origin principle or, alternatively, the country of destination principle.
In both cases, both alternatives, we as the legislator looked rather like the Odysseus of ancient times negotiating his way between Scylla and Charybdis, quite simply because we will create injustices in either case, whether for the producer or for the recipient of the product or service.
We might also create other problems, which would later prove difficult to resolve in legal practice, for instance if a Portuguese judge suddenly has to apply German law, or indeed if a Spanish judge suddenly has to apply Italian law, in relation to a fairly simple case of secondary importance, simply because such combinations of circumstances could arise.
So I must admit that I am not entirely satisfied with all the points of the common position before us.
I still have criticisms about many of them.
On the other hand, at the moment we do not need a second reading consultation, and certainly not a conciliation procedure.
We must come to a rapid decision so that we can finally offer the users on this market a legal framework, even if, as the rapporteur rightly pointed out, it may not be perfect in every way and may still have a number of weaknesses.
But that is why I also expect the European Commission to monitor the implementation of this directive carefully and, if this should prove necessary, to submit practical proposals for amending it during the current legislative term.
I also believe that we may then have made further progress towards harmonising many areas of the law. Let me just give you as an instance the forthcoming harmonisation of civil law.
Here the Commission has already given the appropriate instructions.
The Tampere Council called for reports and voted on them.
The European Parliament will also be considering this matter again in the near future and I think the decisions that emerge from this process could also serve as the basis for the further development of this e-commerce directive.
Mr President, Commissioner, first let me thank the rapporteur, on behalf also of my political group, for this report and for the strategy she proposes, namely to accept this common position as it stands.
We found this strategy convincing and we too can recommend that the plenary of the House adopt the Council' s common position on the e-commerce directive unamended.
We do so primarily because we believe that this key component of the European legal framework for the information society needs to be implemented swiftly.
Let me emphasise that another reason why we are able to adopt it unamended is because the Council - exceptionally, I am tempted to say - has incorporated many of the European Parliament' s amendments at first reading.
That does not mean, however, that we do not still see much room for improvement, as other speakers have pointed out as well, and some of our wishes have not been fulfilled.
But if we are prepared to set these wishes aside for now, for the sake of the speedy adoption and implementation of this directive, we also expect the Member States, when they implement it, with appropriate monitoring by the Commission, to resolve all the questions that are still not one hundred percent settled without this being at the expense of aspects that are important to us, in particular consumer protection.
Here I am thinking above all of the interpretation of Article 1(3), which is still worded in a very ambivalent way.
I hope that article will not be used to undermine national provisions on health protection, such as the ban on the mail order sales of certain medicines.
I think we are also entitled to expect that the proposed codes of conduct, which will give those involved in e-commerce a very wide margin for self-regulation, will be drawn up as soon as possible and that they will be very comprehensive, with the participation of consumer protection organisations, in such a manner as to be really binding and easy to implement.
I think we can also describe the rules that we adopted on provider liability as generous.
I can only hope that they stand the test of time and that we will not have to revise them again in three years' time in light of practical experience.
The adoption of the e-commerce directive does represent a very, very important step, yet a few other key building blocks for the e-Europe are still missing.
As the rapporteur pointed out, the Council is dragging its feet on the common position on the distance marketing of financial services, on copyright in the information society.
We also need to make more rapid progress in setting up out-of-court settlement procedures and the small claims procedure.
Finally, I hope that the directive we are to adopt will also serve as a good stepping-stone towards finding equally good global solutions.
Mr President, the passage of this directive at second reading has perhaps been historic.
No amendments!
I congratulate heartily our rapporteur on her original strategy and I hope what will be her achievement of obtaining continuing consensus.
I do not believe it has been easy for any of us as politicians to curb our natural instinct either to improve on or alter someone else' s text.
Yet it was a carefully considered decision.
We know the proposal is not absolutely perfect but the general feedback, both at a recent hearing in committee and from those who have lobbied Members has been: 'let' s have what might be an imperfect directive with a review rather than none at all' .
Speed with certainty in this fast-moving new world is essential.
Now we have an initial road-map; a reference point for European businesses trading on the Web; a road-map that has clearly established the country of origin principle while still protecting consumer interest.
That is a good balance.
This should really open up the internal market to the many and increasing opportunities which e-commerce promises to businesses of all sizes, but particularly SMEs.
We must continually be aware that the Web is not limited to Europe.
It is, of course, global.
A large part of consumer transactions from Europe on the Web is directed at American sites and in future may well be directed at Asian sites.
European business has to keep up and the key to this will be confidence.
We have to aspire to the establishment of the highest quality of e-businesses in Europe.
Companies setting up or changing to this way of doing business have to look carefully at the way they operate, at the information and the service they provide to customers if they are to survive.
We should also take care to provide coherent legislation.
Confidence is essential.
There are many opportunities but what of the threats? Only this weekend we have seen in London the down-side of the communications and information revolution that the Web has created by putting elements in society in touch with one another, who have then wrought violence on the streets of London.
This may be extreme but there will be unscrupulous people who will set up scams on the Web.
One bad news story may blow confidence in e-trade for years.
E-commerce is in its early stages.
We need, as legislators, to be watchful, not necessarily interventionist, but wary of implications as the medium grows.
Our rapporteur has given us an extremely good basis.
The ELDR Group will stick to her original 'no-amendment' line.
Mr President, there is a practice in this House of thanking and complimenting rapporteurs and sometimes I have to confess that I feel it can be overdone.
But on this occasion I wish to say that it would not be overdone if I, on behalf of myself and my Group, particularly thank and congratulate the rapporteur on her work.
Perhaps I might also, as a new Member of the House, and therefore of the committee, thank her for the marvellous job she does as the chairman of our committee - for the courtesy and kindness, but firmness with which she carries out its business.
I have some sympathy with Commissioner Bolkestein here today.
Parliamentary debates are not always marked by tremendous cut-and-thrust but today I fear it is a procession because we are all standing up and saying that we agree with each other.
Is this, we ask ourselves, the death of ideology? I suppose we could excuse ourselves with the thought that we are debating more with the medium here than the message.
We are dealing with the creation of a new medium and therefore one which creates an urgent and acute need for regulation and for common regulation on a grand scale.
It is therefore, and I think we are all correct about this, vital that we get on with it and that we do not risk unnecessary delay in bringing this into effect.
Nevertheless, I was very grateful to my colleague, Mrs Ahern, also from the committee, for raising some points of continuing concern tonight and I would like to thank again the rapporteur for the device whereby she has introduced in an addendum to the resolution the points about the intermediate service providers and codes of conduct.
That is important and I hope that the Commission will be taking that on board.
Coming as I do from one of the very remote parts of Europe, it is exciting to speculate on the possibility that these new media will help to correct the apparently unstoppable drift to the centre and the decay of the outlying parts of all our countries and societies.
In these circumstances we should welcome the chance to bring in an effective regulation on e-commerce.
We must also remember that there is another kind of exclusion other than geographical.
There is the lack of skill in these technologies.
We are also challenged - albeit outside the scope of this directive - to make sure that we do not have an exclusion of people by ignorance or the lack of access to the instruments of this medium of communication.
So let us be sure that we carry the directive but do not forget the other problems.
Mr President, can I join in the very warm welcome to my colleague, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s approach, and commend her on the drive and persistence with which she has advocated this directive and the approach that we have taken.
It is an indication also of the approach this committee will take on all the subsequent legislation.
I would like to perhaps put a distinctive slant on this legislation.
I am one of the few engineers in Parliament, certainly in the Legal Affairs Committee which is dominated by lawyers, and can put a rather different point of view sometimes.
It seems to me that this piece of legislation can be likened in the technological world to the operating system of the whole legal framework that we are putting in place in the European Union for electronic commerce.
It is this operating system within which a lot of other key legislation will be fitted, such as the copyright and information society and distance selling of financial services.
All of those things were fitted into the overall framework of this directive.
So essentially this is the core principle.
I hesitate to call it the Windows because that produces rather unfortunate competitive issues these days but those of you who are software experts will know what I mean when I use the word "Linux" .
For those of you that are not so technologically enabled, Linux is a competitor to Windows that is owned and updated by the users.
That essentially is what we have here.
We have a system that is going to be operated by the users and the point I want to make this evening in now thinking ahead, because we are confident we are going to get this directive through, is to say to the Commission that we need to have a very comprehensive and a very fast feedback from the users about the problems and issues that they are encountering in using this directive.
Clearly the Internet world is going to be highly suitable for the Commission to set that up.
We want to know about issues where Member Governments have blocked transactions.
We want to know where the directive is being tested in the courts.
We want to know where consumers have had problems and feel that their rights are not protected.
We want to know for some of the special cases which we have not been able to cover this time, like gambling - the effect on national lotteries - pharmaceuticals and books, the real problems that they are having.
All of those I suggest need to be covered by the feedback.
The final point I want to make is about speed.
Mrs Palacio referred in her introduction to Internet years and the speed of approach.
We were challenged by the Commission and by the Council to get this directive through as quickly as possible.
I say to both of them, and in particular to representatives of the Council here, we have risen to that challenge and we now expect Member Governments to behave with the same speed to get this legislation transposed.
We encourage the Commission and the Council to get the remaining bits of that legislation to us as quickly as possible because that is what Europe needs.
Mr President, can I too add my congratulations to the rapporteur.
There can be no doubt that the job of the Parliament tomorrow is without further ado to vote through the report unanimously.
Commission, Parliament and Council have had ample time to discuss and debate at both first and second reading and, as the rapporteur said, most of Parliament' s views now feature in the Council common position.
It is therefore a balanced proposal.
Let us remind ourselves that the Lisbon special EU Summit in March set us new targets and deadlines to make better use of the Internet, strengthening Europe' s competitiveness in the knowledge economy.
This therefore means we need to create a clear and simple, predictable and consistent legal framework for electronic commerce.
It is now an economic and political imperative.
The directive will go a significant way towards creating the framework which is necessary to provide the confidence that both business and consumers desire to maximise the potential of e-business.
From the wealth of letters and comments that I have received as a member of the Legal Affairs Committee, I know it is not possible to please all interested parties.
Concerns still exist but I believe that Council, Commission and Parliament have struck the right balance between the need to protect public policy and consumers and at the same time promote and support the growth of e-business.
I therefore strongly recommend that Parliament endorses and adopts Mrs Palacio' s report, which represents a common position.
We do this in the full knowledge that the e-economy is evolving at a rapid pace.
We are witnessing in the 21st century the equivalent of the Industrial Revolution.
That means, as policymakers and institutions, we are still navigating our way through uncharted terrain.
We need therefore to continue, as Mr Harbour said, to have a full consultation and debate on both the outstanding and arising issues for business and consumers.
In particular, this is the case given the global nature of e-commerce.
We have in this directive an article which allows us to do that.
Article 21 of the common position provides for a review and we should use the time until then to deepen and further our knowledge on this critical sector of the European economy.
I would warn against complacency.
We need to continue to consult with interested parties in this debate and we need to ensure that the result is a national legislation and that we produce clear, appropriate and speedy legislation.
Mr President, Commissioner, e-commerce offers the European Union a unique chance to stimulate economic growth, strengthen the industry' s competitiveness and create new jobs.
The legal framework of the internal market plays a crucial role in this.
The present proposal removes a whole raft of obstacles and uncertainties which businesses are still having to negotiate in the field of e-commerce. These uncertainties have been there for far too long because the Council needed nearly a year to determine its positions.
Similarly, the copyright directive has been with the Council since February 1999, i.e. for over a year now.
In the light of the speed of developments, neither industry nor consumers benefit from such delays.
Parliament works significantly faster.
The country of origin principle is one of the internal market' s cornerstones.
It is therefore obvious that this should be extended to cross-border e-commerce.
One cause for concern in this respect, however, is that this principle will only apply to trade between businesses for the time being.
Revisions of private international law for the benefit of on-line trade with consumers are in the pipeline.
It is crucial in this respect that disputes are settled out of court as much as possible. After all, court proceedings are drawn-out and costly.
I would therefore call on the Commission to support initiatives to this effect.
It is unfortunate that the present directive is not being dealt with in conjunction with, and at the same time as, the copyright directive, because there are inconsistencies in terms of liability of service providers.
How does the Commissioner intend to create unambiguous and legally secure positions for service providers? I would like a reply to this question.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work.
I was not one of those who agreed with the consensus in committee about the tabling of no amendments.
That does not mean I did not appreciate her very solid work and I would also like to thank her very warmly for taking to heart the concerns that I expressed in committee, particularly on the liability of intermediary service providers, codes of conduct and the participation of consumers.
Without consumer confidence, e-commerce is going nowhere.
This is fundamental, horizontal legislation that is going to be dealing with the whole Internet and its commercial viability.
Unless we have consumer confidence and can deal with illegal content speedily without resorting to lengthy court cases, we will not have the kind of ground rules which citizens and consumers need and require.
There has already been reference here tonight to the need for revision.
Even before we adopt the directive we are talking about revision and I think that is very wise.
Some of the concerns that have been expressed here tonight, particularly about dealing with illegal content and consumer acceptance, need to be being already pursued by the Commission before we adopt this fully as a European directive.
I would like finally to thank again the rapporteur for taking on board the serious concerns that we expressed in committee.
Mr President, with the adoption, without amendments, of the common position of the Council, the European Parliament is rising to the challenges of the current changes, to the demands of the new economy, at last setting rules in place governing the use of the Internet for trade and the provision of services.
I will not go into the technical and legal details, which were covered by the rapporteur, Mrs Palacio with her usual competence, and I would like to thank her for the extremely skilful way in which she handled the legislative procedure for this directive.
A further point: the new economy is something which the European economic and social model will have to address, and it must exploit all the opportunities for development and new jobs it provides.
We are witnessing a new industrial revolution. Consequently, the structure of the European economy is in need of legal infrastructures and, tomorrow, we are going to meet that need.
The absence of legal infrastructures is holding back development.
The internal market has become a reality and the fundamental freedoms enshrined by the Treaty of Rome as objectives have indeed been achieved, but whilst in the past the creation of the internal market was an end in itself leading to economic development, now new challenges have arisen for a market which is being forced to compete with the rest of the world by the globalisation of the economy.
The European economic and social model, which is based on the social market economy, is quite capable of dealing with world-wide competition, provided that it succeeds in evolving, eliminating all the unnecessary rigid constraints which are responsible for its continuing weakness in some areas.
It is no longer good enough just to create any old market: the internal market must be competitive, regulated in such a way as to allow firms to produce and trade quality goods and services at costs which are compatible with those of competitors.
This constituted the historic change brought about by electronic commerce - a revolution whose scope and implications are still not fully understood.
We only need to think back to the issues we have worked on in the past: risk capital, highly skilled services, innovation tools and the protection of intellectual and industrial property.
All these areas will have to evolve, and, in many cases, change completely.
A malicious thought has come to me: what will become of the petty national protectionist behaviour which we have witnessed in recent years? Now, at this time of revolution, a large number of issues dear to the European People' s Party must be reassessed.
The social market economy also means solidarity and paying due attention to the more vulnerable strata of society which, in the industrial revolution sparked off by the Internet, also now include those who do not know how to use a computer.
This potential for growth is our challenge for the future!
Mr President, I want to begin by cordially thanking the rapporteur and the Commission for the superb way in which they have handled this difficult but extremely important issue.
The new technology is in the process of transforming our lives and, together with the new currency, can create a completely new Europe.
However, we are not alone in the world; e-commerce means competition, not only for companies but also for politicians.
Faulty regulations and obstacles both old and new can mean our failing to make the most of our historic opportunity for new freedom and success.
The development of information technology provides new opportunities to communicate and to disseminate information simply and cheaply.
The increased flow of information through Bulletin Board Systems, electronic mail and the Internet ought not to be subject to greater restrictions than traditional information channels and communication facilities.
A guiding principle for the new technology ought to be that everyone should have considerable freedom to make use of it and exploit the advantages it has to offer and that everyone should also be responsible for what they do.
The basis of a democracy must be that freedom of expression should be protected, not restricted.
Communication using computers should be viewed in the same way as any medium of communication.
It is stated in one of the items, item 48, that the directive does not affect Member States' ability to prevent a certain amount of illegal activity by imposing demands upon service providers who store information from their clients.
I proposed that that sentence should be removed because it does not have anything to do with the criteria for being able to impose the restrictions concerned.
It is not appropriate for the Member States to decide this issue or to demand that service providers be held liable for the actual details of the information provided.
That would be as absurd as making a café owner liable for monitoring what is said across the café tables.
Is there anyone who wants to see a utilitarian nanny State? I do not think so.
I therefore also support Amendment No 1, which I think is extremely important and deals precisely with this issue.
E-commerce crime, or cyber crime as it is called, should, in my view, be combated by means of better working methods on the part of the police and not by means of legislation which is in danger of compromising basic democratic values.
It is time to implement the decisions about quality labelling and, in cooperation with the service providers, to devise practical codes of conduct without thereby raising the cost levels for consumers or introducing costly bureaucracy.
Freedom with responsibility ought to be the motto for continued work on developing this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too want to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on her report and her strategy.
I welcome her recommendation that we should not suggest any amendments to the common position.
All current surveys show the great economic potential of electronic business.
The previous speakers have already described that in graphic terms, so I need not go into the subject or this aspect of it again.
Europe continues to trail behind the USA in e-business.
Yet we have a real chance to catch up.
Europe is presently seeing a wave of Internet companies being set up.
We must give political support to this trend.
We must also encourage stronger competition on the local telephone markets to make Internet connection cheaper.
In this context, let me also give special thanks to the Commission, to Mr Bolkestein and his colleague, Mr Liikanen, who has also done an excellent job here with the TC package he forwarded to us in Parliament a few months ago.
Many thanks!
I think that means we have a very good policy in that area as well.
At European level, the creation of the European single market and the introduction of the euro are certainly decisive factors in the promotion of electronic business.
Furthermore, e-business will be encouraged tomorrow when we adopt a legal framework for electronic commerce in the European Union.
That will send out a clear signal.
It will show that Europe is open and is able to promote the Internet as a new form of communication and commerce.
I believe it is also a good signal in terms of attracting foreign investment.
On the content of the directive, I just want to emphasise one key point which some of the previous speakers have also addressed.
It is the question of the regulations that a web trader has to comply with for cross-border transactions.
Here the regulation provides that what is known as the principle of the country of origin should apply.
That means that a service provider is subject only to the control and the legal system of the Member State in which he is established.
The aim is to prevent him from having to comply with the different legal provisions of all the countries in which his clients may reside.
That saves him a considerable financial outlay in these transactions.
However, it also creates a new situation, to which industry and national legislators will have to adjust.
Divergent rules in the Member States, on advertising, for instance, will mean that Internet providers in the European Union are treated differently.
That is why we need changes to the law and more far-reaching harmonisation in some respects.
In Germany, for example, we may well have to abolish the law on discounts and the regulations on free gifts.
I am glad the directive also contains a review clause.
I would ask the Commission to take that very seriously.
We in Parliament will, of course, follow developments in e-business closely and give appropriate support to any Commission proposals for a revision of the directive in a few years' time.
Mr President, I would like to preface my few remarks by echoing comments made by other speakers in thanking Mrs Palacio for the work that she has done on this report.
It is not merely that she is not proposing any amendments - although that is an example that some rapporteurs might follow with advantage, rather it is because she has recognised the overriding importance of taking this legislation forward and putting it on the statute book.
As has been mentioned this evening, e-commerce and online business are developing very rapidly and it is very important that we put in place a legislative framework in Europe within which it can develop and flourish.
Indeed, as Mrs Wallis said, you must remember it is not only within Europe.
It is actually a global industry and it is around the world that we want to see a proper framework established.
It is always easy to be wise after the event and no doubt if we do proceed apace we may not achieve a 100% satisfactory outcome.
It is one of the interesting characteristics of the Community system of legislation that it is relatively easy to bring forward amending legislation.
This can be done quickly if necessary, as Mr Lehne pointed out.
So there is no reason to delay.
Speed on this occasion is of the essence.
It is important that we are not distracted from setting a framework within which e-commerce can develop for the benefit of both business and the consumer.
Professor MacCormick said that there seems to be a very great deal of agreement about the need to go forward without amending this proposal.
One of my colleagues in another parliament, of which I have the privilege to be a Member, always says 'the one way of identifying things when you are wrong is when everybody is in agreement about it' .
On this occasion I do not believe we are wrong to approach this matter in that way and I hope this Parliament will agree with me with a big majority.
Mr President, I would also like to express my gratitude and congratulations for the work carried out both by the rapporteur, Mrs Palacio, and by those who have worked on it in the Council and the Commission.
Of course, it is essential that we have a legal framework in place as soon as possible.
However, I would like to make certain observations which may be useful in this second phase which is so necessary.
We should not forget that the Internet is international.
We are talking about a directive for the internal market, but, as its original name, the 'World Wide Web' , suggests, it is international and we should bear this in mind as a fundamental reference, above all because the Internet is going to determine Europe' s economic position in the future, as well as its political position and its ability to influence the global, social and cultural environment.
I therefore believe it is fundamental that we bear in mind that the bulk of this success stems from the creation of new companies, the creation of small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Therefore, in the review which is carried out, it is essential that we remember not only the consumers - who in any event must make their own decisions and must use mechanisms for encrypting and protecting their data in accordance with laws and with technology - but also the SMEs, because otherwise there will soon be little electronic commerce in Europe.
It therefore seems essential to make a genuine effort to homogenise the rules of the internal market and, at the same time, work energetically to unify the principles applied on a global level with regard to electronic commerce.
There is no point in having sound regulations for our internal market if we lose sight of the bigger picture.
In order to achieve this, it is also important to bear in mind that the regulations of the country of origin are fundamental, since, without them, small- and medium-sized businesses would find it difficult to operate and would encounter obstacles to achieving their objectives, because they do not have access to the same resources as large companies.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, ladies and gentlemen, I say 'yes' to the directive and 'yes' to the rapporteur' s strategy, for it is thanks to that consistent approach that I too have withdrawn my amendment.
The electronic market is a prime market in terms of growth, employment and future prospects, and not just in Europe.
We must therefore exploit all its opportunities and it is important that this regulation on electronic commerce has removed the barriers created by divergent legislative provisions and the ensuing legal uncertainty.
The rapporteur analyses the common position in the spirit of constructive criticism.
Let me pick up on two points of detail that are very close to my heart and where I would have liked to see the common position worded more clearly.
First, there is the question of the sale of medicines and, secondly, the protection of books as a cultural asset in connection with the existing fixed book price agreements.
On the first point, let me say briefly that in my country, Austria, we have banned the sale of medicines by mail order.
So there is some concern that firms established in Member States where this is allowed could encourage Austrian patients to order and buy medicines through the Internet.
In view of the health risks alone, I once again ask for extra clarification in the common position, so as to ensure that advertising activities and agreements with a view to the mail order of medicines are excluded from the area coordinated by the directive.
My second point concerns cultural assets.
Article 1(6) is the only article in the directive that refers, and then only in very general terms, to the cultural area, to the protection and promotion of cultural diversity.
I think that is not good enough.
So I would ask for it to be made clear that the directive does not apply to the fixed book price schemes introduced via legislation or arrangement in some Member States.
Furthermore, operators established in Member States other than the countries concerned should not be allowed to undermine these schemes when selling to an end consumer.
As far as I am concerned, the question of e-commerce in medicines and the protection of cultural diversity will be an important issue in the review scheduled in three years' time, which I welcome.
I ask the Commission to devote special attention to these two points.
Mr President, Commissioner, representatives of the Council, I had to hurry when I noticed my electronic gadgetry up there in my office on the twelfth floor was telling me the list of speakers was being worked through at a rate of knots.
It seemed it was the representatives of our political group that were going at such a rate, and I did not notice.
I am a little out of breath.
Hopefully, however, it will not have an effect on the matter in hand.
It was easy to agree with the explanations given in section 6 by the rapporteur, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, as to why Parliament wishes to adopt the Directive under discussion in accordance with the common position.
As so many have already said, the matter is urgent, and I agree.
Stressing the importance of the review clause is only prudent in such urgent legislative plans as these.
I am satisfied that, as in the directive on electronic money for which I was rapporteur, a review clause is to be included.
The directive in hand is immensely important as regards the competitiveness of the EU.
It is pointless to deny that a veritable race is going on between the various continents in the area of electronic commerce.
There is competition with regard to speed and innovation.
From the point of view of unemployment within Europe, which remains high, we should remember that it is the early bird that catches the worm.
New jobs will be created where the new technology is first introduced.
We cannot watch from the wings while Europe consistently lags behind the United States and other global challengers.
On the other hand, Parliament will not solve the challenges of e-commerce by intervening itself in a big way or through regulation.
Wisdom is not always a characteristic of politicians, be they in the Commission, the Council, or in this Chamber.
Too much regulation will freeze commerce over the Internet and prevent it from adapting to new circumstances and technical developments.
This must also be borne in mind, especially in relation to the second reading of the copyright directive soon to take place here.
To derive maximum benefit from e-commerce we have to ensure there is real competition in the telecommunications networks.
Like Mrs Niebler, I would also like to thank Mr Liikanen, and express my gratitude for the work the Commission has done with such determination in this area.
Only through competition will we be able to reduce costs, and thus increase the length of time people use the Internet, as well as increase the volume of electronic commerce.
If we just sit here talking about details, we will not manage to lay down even elementary up-to-date standards for electronic commerce.
How do we imagine we will be prepared for the next stage, m-commerce, or wireless commerce, if we cannot meet the demands of e-commerce? That is why I support the previous speakers regarding the adoption of the common position with no amendments.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I feel I must thank you, on behalf of the House, for your exhaustive response to the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Food Aid 1999
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0105/2000) by Mrs Schierhuber, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion on behalf of the European Community on the Food Aid Convention 1999 [COM(1999) 308 - C5-0148/1999 - 1999/0131(CNS)]
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(DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I want to sincerely thank all those who helped me draft this report, and especially the committee members for adopting it unanimously.
Day after day, over the last few weeks, we have seen pictures of the dreadful famine in Ethiopia all over the media.
While we all sit at home, replete after a good supper, our TV screens show us depressing new evidence of the sufferings of a people plagued by drought and hunger.
This afternoon, in response to precisely that situation, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the famine in Ethiopia.
The European Parliament, one of the most important political institutions in the European Union, has a duty to take a stance on the matter and it is important that we do not remain silent in the face of such disasters but offer political, moral and financial support, given also that the EU is one of the biggest donor countries.
The international Food Aid Convention we are discussing in plenary today could not take place against a more topical background, and its importance and necessity could not be demonstrated more clearly.
The objective of this international convention is to contribute towards world food security, but also to make it possible to respond to acute food crises with different food requirements.
By and large, I welcome the new convention for I believe it incorporates some very good ideas and covers a wider range of products.
But let me add a few general comments.
Firstly, we must at all events continue to provide food for emergencies such as drought and other climatic disasters.
Here we need to ensure it is delivered rapidly and minus the bureaucracy, because aid can only save lives if it reaches the suffering people rapidly and in time.
A binding strategy for closer coordination between the donor countries will help ensure that the aid really is effective.
Secondly, we should set a long-term objective in our food policy, which is to create food security in every part of the world, so that the supply of food aid can be confined to emergencies.
Food aid consignments should gradually be replaced by measures to improve food security in these countries.
Thirdly, it is extremely important in food policy to take account of the repercussions on local food production and markets.
These repercussions must be monitored and, as I said, local production must not be jeopardised, for I believe that would be counterproductive.
Fourthly, the Commission has been asked to evaluate food aid to ensure that it is fully consistent with other development cooperation sectors and their principles.
Naturally, the findings will have to be incorporated in our future activities, otherwise the evaluation would presumably be pointless.
My fifth point is that we must be extremely careful to ensure that the aid actually reaches the target groups who are genuinely in need.
In this connection, I am particularly keen to see women involved in the planning and execution of the programmes, for I think that would be a good step in the right direction.
Allow me to mention another point, namely the problem of food aid on the basis of credit.
I welcome the restrictions in the new convention, for our long-term aim must be to abolish the credit system completely.
Instead, we should increase still further the share of food aid in the form of grants.
In that context, let me also say that I fully and wholeheartedly support the amendment Mr Fiori tabled for the plenary.
To finish, a word about the forthcoming WTO talks.
Let me express my very serious reservations about linking the liberalisation of world trade to food aid provision, for that would be at the cost of the starving people, which can be in nobody' s interest.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Schierhuber, you have already mentioned the resolution on Ethiopia.
Well, it is an outstanding example of how topical and necessary food aid is, even today.
As such, we can hardly deny this Food Aid Convention review our approval.
But we will not only lend our approval for the sake of international solidarity to relieve famine, but because this review encompasses a number of improvements compared to previous versions.
After all, the nature and way in which food aid is being granted within the framework of this Convention to this day, has been, and is being, heavily criticised, and rightly so.
Under the terms of the Convention, cereal surpluses from Europe and the United States can be converted into cash and removed from our market.
In this way, local food production is often thrown off balance and deeply discouraged.
The Convention is used as a lubricant for commercial transactions and often clashes with social and cultural traditions. For example, our rapporteur already mentioned the important role of women in the supply of food.
Big bucks are often made on the back of the poor by making huge charges for transport and operational services.
The European Union has codes of conduct which deviate from this and which it tries to apply to its own aid.
These rules are now also incorporated in this international food aid agreement.
The Convention has changed significantly for the better, in our view, due to the fact that not only cereals, but also other products, including local products, fish and vegetables, can qualify, transport and operational costs must be proportionate to the value and the least developed countries, in particular, will be able to apply for this aid.
In my view, the intention to promote local agricultural development is vital.
Despite this, there is still a blemish on the new Convention.
The European negotiators have succeeded in cutting mixed aid in the form of loans down to 20%.
But the United States remain determined to use this type of aid, which permanently saddles the most needy countries with a debt burden, even if this is at a reduced interest rate and if it does not have to be paid off for another 30 years.
But what is 30 years in the life of a nation?
We fully endorse the agreements which should prevent a great deal of malpractice, by detaching aid from commercial transactions, for example, and by warning against disrupting the local markets.
This can happen very easily, both in buying products and selling food aid within the local market, because speculations and price rises are just round the corner.
The example of Ethiopia illustrates that not only the purchase but also that the transport, distribution and preservation must be monitored very carefully and, Mr President, given that we were in Ethiopia, the orders had been placed, there were plenty of foodstocks, yet none of it was there at the right place or time of the famine, I do wonder whether we should not fine-tune our instruments.
Mr President, I warmly welcome the extension and modification of the Food Aid Convention and thank the rapporteur for her work on this report.
The Commission proposal comes in for some criticism from the Budgets Committee in that there is no complete financial statement.
I have to say, with the fluid nature of food aid it must be extremely difficult to project accurate financial figures.
Now that the scope of aid has been widened, quite rightly in my opinion, from just cereals, this would be even more difficult.
I am particularly pleased to read in the new Convention that least-developed countries and low-income countries will be given priority when food aid is being allocated.
I am also pleased to see stronger provisions for promoting local agricultural development and local purchases as this also assists local economies and encourages local agriculture.
There are now many areas of sub-Saharan Africa where, unless there is a dramatic climate change for the better, it is unlikely that food will ever grow again.
I am thinking particularly of areas where the desert is literally burying the productive land.
We are now seeing in Ethiopia an even more desperate situation, where food aid is being provided but there is no water to cook with.
This is an issue that will have to be addressed in the future.
Water will become more valuable than oil in future in developing countries.
It is also good news that the new Convention covers transport costs and associated operational costs.
Even if again this comes in for criticism from the Budgets Committee, it is not much good delivering food aid to a country' s ports if you cannot then distribute it to the remote areas by truck or by air to the people starving and in need.
There is no doubt that past programmes have had a beneficial effect where they can be carried out and the fact that sub-Saharan Africa has a steady and worryingly increasing problem probably reflects the instability in many of these countries caused by war.
This has increased the number of refugees dramatically and worsened the problem of providing food aid. The continuous need for an international, legally binding framework which defines and provides the commitments and instruments for the delivery of food aid to the developing countries is obvious.
The extension of the Convention and the new rules that have been introduced must therefore be warmly welcomed.
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate the rapporteur.
Clearly from the comments that we have heard already, the global institutional arrangements intended to underpin food security, as recent experiences testify very clearly, need serious attention.
There is actually a loss of confidence in all forms of food aid except for emergency food aid.
Internationally negotiated commitments to tackle issues of food security problems are not, in my view, properly understood.
There is still an institutional resistance to radical reform of food aid policies.
This is summed up by the kind of tinkering on the edges which characterises the re-negotiated Convention.
The institutional Treaty-based arrangements for food aid are, in my view, still somewhat outdated and created with a world in mind where food aid was assumed to be a major feature of development and of humanitarian assistance and relief.
The arguments have already been made here this evening for compensatory financing, for aid to agricultural development, for export credits and for local sourcing; all of these criteria, all of these priorities are very well understood.
Something people have not mentioned is that the European Union has actually gone further towards translating the understanding of these issues into action than any of the other donors, particularly for instance the United States.
We welcome the fact that in our food aid budget line we target food security issues and that budget provides financial assistance for food security.
That is very important indeed.
Clearly the challenge is to meet the needs of the hungry in the most locally sensitive way.
We need to see foodstock plans based on knowledge and transparency.
We need to have the knowledge of where the foodstocks are, we need to assess where they are and we need to access those foodstuffs when we have identified them.
We also need to monitor all foodstocks that are held in the world, both public foodstocks and private foodstocks.
Finally, in the context of the WTO debates, we also need to see a guarantee of the legal right of all human beings to access to food.
This will mean, and many of us said this in Seattle in the debates, that we would require inter alia a food security clause in any future WTO agreements on agriculture.
This would represent very real progress in the attempts that we make to tackle food security.
Mr President, this Convention will only be successful if, in time, it becomes redundant.
Needless to say, structural food aid will continue to be necessary as long as we have so many seriously undernourished people.
The aim of this prevention exercise is to secure the developing countries' own foodstocks and to phase out dependence on donor aid.
In other words, the intention is not to help Europe get rid of its agricultural surpluses or to promote rich countries' exports by means of soft loans.
Excess production within European agriculture must be drastically reformed in order to re-adjust the market, the world' s poorest regions should not be used as a dumping ground for products of stubborn European mismanagement, and our efforts to stimulate exports should not be aimed at the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the world.
The Fiori amendment is preoccupied with Europe' s own interests and is therefore wide of the mark.
In fact, it promotes exactly the opposite of what is really needed, namely a strategy which leads to self-sufficiency.
This means that the focus should be on stimulating local production.
If this does not happen, our aid will have the opposite effect.
The local producers will then be pushed out of the way from the outset by free or cheap products and the affected countries will remain dependent on the 'oh so generous' donors.
Another implication of a correct strategy is that soft loans would not be linked to compulsory purchases in the donor country.
Moreover, the permitted 20% credit is not really of any benefit because it can lead to unfair competition.
Despite what has been agreed, food aid must remain restricted to financial aid and a range of real food.
As such, vitamin tablets from Canada do not form part of this.
Mr President, does the Commission share my view that European food aid itself should be streamlined and should be stripped of time-consuming red tape?
Does the Commission think that this is feasible and could aid not be allocated via one development budget line?
Mr President, the food problem can, in principle, be solved, even in Africa, provided we have a cohesive development policy intended to reduce poverty there instead of increasing wealth over here.
Our aim should not be to fill the purses of a few but to fill the mouths of many.
Only when we manage to achieve this will aid no longer be necessary.
Mr President, I strongly support Mrs Schierhuber' s report on food aid.
Being myself a producer of food under the provisions of the Berlin decisions, which have already been widely discussed in public, I am aware how insane and inconsistent it is to use various methods to cut production in the EU while there is hunger in the world.
Nowhere is it written that sections of the world population that live in an environment that has been destroyed by natural disasters or wars must not be allowed to eat.
One euro a day is enough for survival and offers a chance for the future.
That is feasible, in any case.
In this regard, the European Union, the Member States, politicians, industry and science must take responsibility and break down the wall between prosperity and hunger once and for all.
How will future generations judge us, I ask myself?
By the flood of megamergers that lead to ever larger and more uncontrollable giant undertakings, or by whether we manage to adopt targeted measures in the next ten years to combat poverty by cancelling the debts of developing countries, as an initial but necessary step?
The report rightly refers to a whole range of guidelines on fighting poverty.
For reasons of time I cannot go into them in detail.
But the careful observer will notice that there are different weightings at work here. They are reflected in phrases such as "priority to the least developed countries" when allocating food aid, or "alleviation of poverty and hunger of the most vulnerable groups" .
I am glad I am not one of those who have to distinguish on a daily basis between "a bit hungry" or "starving" , as it is currently presented in the media, while regrettably little is being done.
The main part of the report correctly makes reference to the fact that its aim, ultimately, should be to make food aid unnecessary.
But we cannot do that unless the politicians agree that hunger is not a political weapon and unless the responsible leaders in every area of society all realise that we only have the world on lease from our children.
We hold the goods of this earth on trust for our descendants.
If we take that approach, then I am convinced we really can combat poverty.
Mr President, I am, of course, in favour of food aid for starving people, despite the commercial operations that are hidden behind this aid and despite the conflicts of interest which divide rich countries on this issue.
First of all, I wish to condemn the derisory extent of this aid compared to what is actually needed.
The European Union prides itself on having given a commitment to supply 1.322 million tonnes of wheat equivalent, but, at the same time, the report states that there are 791 million people suffering from malnutrition in poor countries, 124 million of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa alone, where Europe is supposed to be particularly closely involved.
Work it out for yourself: European aid comes to around 7 kilos of wheat equivalent per person per year, which is less than twenty grammes per day, and the report is cynical enough to stress the fact that food aid must not discourage local production.
It is not food aid that has ruined agricultural production in many African countries, however. It is the iron grip of huge European and American industrial or agricultural concerns, which have imposed the cultivation of hevea, coffee, groundnut, cotton and even out-of-season fruit and vegetables for the European market, at the expense of their own food crops.
Even in terms of food production, habits have been foisted on the populations of these countries by forcing them to consume rice or wheat-based products, which they can only obtain on the world market, generating profit along the way for a handful of huge Western companies.
In places, the report smacks of "Lady Bountiful" and presents this aid as an act of charity on the part of Europe, but Europe, or rather its privileged class, is responsible for the ruin of Africa, and that includes the ruin of its self-sufficiency in food.
It is not charity, then, that Africa needs.
What it needs is the European and American multinationals to stop bleeding it dry. It needs Europe to provide the African people with simple machinery, such as water pumps and industrial products to compensate for what it plundered throughout colonial times and afterwards.
Africa will then be in a position to develop its agriculture to a level where it can produce the food to feed its people properly.
Of course, I am not naïve enough to think that one decent resolution passed in the European Parliament will be enough to guarantee this.
It would require an end to capital' s dictatorship of Europe as well as of Africa, and the only reason why I have voted in favour of this report is in order not to stand in the way of this aid.
Mr President, in our work on food aid we must not forget that, even today, there are hundreds of millions of undernourished people in the world.
The endeavours of our predecessors in the Community institutions succeeded in reducing the total number of undernourished people by over 20% in the space of 30 years.
In recent years, the trend has been reversed, which is extremely odd considering the efforts made by the Western world: in certain areas of our planet, the number of undernourished people is constantly on the up and the problem is heightened by natural disasters or, even worse, wars, which have continued to hit the headlines recently.
We must therefore congratulate ourselves on the fact that this issue is still on the agenda of the European Parliament and the countries of the European Union.
I was very pleased to note that, as is the case in the Convention we are discussing now, the Community legislator has consistently striven to guarantee food security and not subsistence.
The ultimate purpose behind our aid is to bring about food security: with the passage of time, the aid must be gradually replaced by tangible measures and sustainable instruments for consolidating that security, eliminating, at last, the need for any form of aid or intervention.
I am sure that our fellow citizens fully approve and support any initiative undertaken by the Community institutions on the matter of aid, or, even better, support for those communities which are less fortunate than we are.
However, I cannot miss this opportunity to touch on an aspect, a principle which, I feel, is of paramount importance, precisely to our fellow citizens.
In my opinion, the correct weighting should be given to European production.
The Convention does not give any form of priority to European products, not even agricultural produce, which are intended for humanitarian aid.
Europe has always been one of the highest-producing continents in the agricultural sector.
For example, the European Union is one of the world's largest producers of starchy products, which are essential for nutrition.
This productivity must not be undervalued or underestimated in respect of the produce available on world markets, even in the provision of aid to the most disadvantaged communities.
For this reason, I have tabled an amendment, not to the draft Convention, which, I am aware, cannot be amended, but to Mrs Schierhuber' s resolution.
This amendment has been judged inadmissible, but my aim in tabling it was to provoke a debate of substance in this Chamber on a topic which, I feel, is of vital concern to our farmers, particularly at this difficult time for them in the aftermath of the reform of the common agricultural policy.
In conclusion, I would stress that the purpose of my amendment, and the purpose, now, of this speech, is to promote the cause of Community products, in particular, agricultural produce, at the time of the conclusion of international agreements, and to urge the European executive bodies not to disregard the millions of people whose livelihood depends on European produce, and I refer not to consumers but to producers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, allow me to offer my sincere thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber, for her report and her proposal to adopt the Council decision on the Food Aid Convention.
As you know, the International Wheat Agreement comprises two separate legislative texts, the Grains Trade Convention and the Food Aid Convention.
The Grains Trade Convention was fundamentally amended as early as 1995, which meant there was no need to envisage amendments to the new convention.
And that is why the Commission requested extending the period of validity of that convention until 30 June 2001.
In the case of the Food Aid Convention, however, the Committee on Food Aid decided to renegotiate the agreement and in particular to take on board the recommendations of the Singapore Conference.
The purpose of the new 1999 Food Aid Convention is to contribute to creating food security in the world and to enhance the international community' s ability to respond more effectively to acute food crises and the food requirements of the developing countries.
The new convention attaches special importance to the following points. Firstly, more consideration is to be given to local nutritional customs.
Secondly, the donor countries can now express their commitments in tonnage, value or a combination of tonnage and value.
Thirdly, the members of the convention must give priority to the least developed countries and the lowest income countries when allocating their food aid.
Fourthly, stronger provisions are introduced for promoting local agricultural development, including possible triangular transactions and local purchases.
More than half the relevant Commission resources will go to such transactions.
My fifth point is that food aid to the least developed countries will be given purely in the form of grants.
Overall, food aid provided in the form of grants will represent not less than 80% of a member' s contributions and members will strive to raise this percentage even higher.
Next, in determining whether, and to what extent, the food aid provision on long-term concessional credit terms should continue to be covered under the Food Aid Convention, FAC members will take account of the results of the relevant multilateral negotiations.
In this connection, the European Union and some other members reaffirmed their opinion that food aid provided under credit terms should no longer be included in the list of food aid operations.
Our position is as follows: food aid must be clearly separated from commercial transactions.
My seventh point is that the new Food Aid Convention is intended to improve the monitoring of the effectiveness and impact of food aid transactions and cooperation between food aid donors, recipients and others concerned.
Eight, the provision of food aid under this convention will not be tied in any way to commercial exports of goods or services.
In conclusion, since several speakers raised this question during the debate, let me tell you how much aid we are currently providing for Ethiopia.
The Commission and the Community are in a position to mobilise 542 526 tonnes of cereals between April 2000 and March 2001, i.e. immediately, this year.
Let me also point out that during the negotiations we kept in constant contact with the food aid recipient countries so that we were always aware of their position.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Aid to uprooted people in Asia and Latin America
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0065/2000) by Mr Deva, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation (EC) extending Regulation (EC) No 443/97 on operations to aid uprooted people in Asian and Latin American developing countries [COM(1999) 443 - C5-0146/1999 - 1999/0194 (COD)]
Mr President, I am indeed privileged today to present this report to Parliament.
It is one of the first reports from the Development Committee under the codecision procedure.
I am particularly grateful to all my colleagues who have turned up in force to hear me speak and present my first report to Parliament and the heaving public galleries.
All are waiting with bated breadth to hear my speech.
This is a very urgent matter.
It is my hope that we can pass this report without any substantial amendment other than procedural ones because the report is an extension for one year of an existing regulation which supports four million refugees in the most war-torn and ravaged part of the world.
If we delay or fail to pass this report in plenary as soon as possible, all further assistance, food supply, housing, shelter, water, sanitation and education, to the most vulnerable people in the world, will be severely affected as there will be no legal base in the European Union to support them and to fund them.
What we are doing today is to consider a Commission proposal to extend the regulation on aid to uprooted people in Asia and Latin America, which expired on 31 December 1999.
The extension we propose is for one year until 31 December 2000.
The extension of the regulation will enable a further EUR 40 million to be spent until the end of this year.
Between 1997 and 1999, Parliament sanctioned EUR 240 million.
This regulation came to an end on 31 December 1999.
By extending this regulation today for a further period of one year, we are also giving the Commission time to prepare a new regulation which I hope will be a multiannual one to replace the existing regulation.
This new regulation, to be brought in at a later date, should build on, and take into account, the existing regulation as well the annual report and the evaluation which the Commission has undertaken to present to Parliament and Council in the very near future, and no later than September.
The European Parliament' s original report on the current regulation, the Howitt report, was exemplary in how it was constructed by Parliament.
It had considerable success in improving the existing draft and thus played an important part in supporting and improving the text which was finally adopted.
Notably, the Parliament contributed to a strengthening of the regulation in its reference to environmental concerns, complementary support and cooperation and assisting local host populations, a strong approach for targeting support programmes towards women refugees, particularly those who have been the victims of rape, and a clear provision for the upholding of the "non-refoulement" principle, i.e. protection against forced return.
Mr Howitt engaged then in a very positive dialogue with the Irish presidency as well as with the Commission in order to improve on the existing draft.
In addition, and more importantly, more than fifty NGOs were consulted.
Therefore the Parliament played a major role in producing this regulation with its report.
Support to uprooted people, refugees, returnees and internally displaced people in Latin America and Asian developing countries has been a feature of the Community budget since 1984.
The UNHCR estimates that there are 4.8 million in Asia and some 88 000 in Latin America.
Of these, the current regulation and the one year extension that our report today is calling for, will continue to help 2.9 million Afghani refugees of whom about 40% are in Pakistan and Iran and the 60% balance in Afghanistan itself.
A total of EUR 24.3 million was given to Afghani refugees with a further EUR 960 000 to Thailand, EUR 6 million to Sri Lanka, EUR 11.8 million to Burma and EUR 1.8 million to Nepal.
In Afghanistan, about 2 million people were assisted by the mine-clearance programme which is crucial in returning that country back to normality.
Therefore, in a sense, an immediate approval of the proposal would postpone the need for a long-term solution.
In doing so it would nevertheless allow the institutions to engage in a more thorough dialogue in this area and hopefully allow us to find a more permanent solution by 2001.
This is also a very timely report in the context of asylum-seekers.
We are now presented with a solution by this Parliament, by our institutions in Europe, where we want to and can help people where the problem is.
We can stop people needing or wanting to come across if we can help them at the place where the problem has arisen.
The central thrust of my report is to help the people in war-torn areas, in ravaged parts of the world, to settle back to normality, to have proper foundations and sanitation, proper infrastructure, and to stop them needing to travel as asylum seekers and refugees.
Mr President, may I begin by stating how bizarre it is that we are debating the extension of a regulation tonight in May 2000 that already expired last December and which, under the Commission' s proposal, would again expire in seven months' time.
As the rapporteur for this Parliament on the original resolution four years ago, I cannot but comment that this represents a failure of political commitment in Europe to aiding five million refugees, some of the poorest of the poor, in Asia and in Latin America.
Nevertheless we are here now, and the Socialist Group supports the rapporteur' s recommendation for adoption of this regulation with the minimum of amendments, already agreed in principle with the Council, in order to allow a fast-track, one-reading approval of the extension, and in reality to allow refugee support projects this year to go ahead rather than be cancelled.
The need for this work remains as strong as it did four years ago.
It is no good us debating conflict resolution in the Parliament and then finding that the sole support to assist people when the guns are put down or when the period of immediate humanitarian assistance is at an end is then forgotten altogether.
This regulation has enabled us to intervene in countries where there is deep conflict with serious abuses of human rights.
For example in Afghanistan, which has today broken all world records for refugees with six million people having left the country since 1992, leaving the single largest and longest staying refugee population in the world.
Or like the protection of the terrorised indigenous peoples fleeing from Burma.
As one conflict ends another begins, as the half a million returnees expected in Timor by December this year go to demonstrate.
On this regulation, we know that the Council has some divided thinking.
I have to say, Mr Patten, I regret that the Commission does too.
Whilst it has supported projects in Asia to a great degree it has failed to address properly and with sufficient vigour the problems of refugees and internally displaced people in Latin America.
You know that I have spent much time visiting and studying the problems of violent, armed conflict in Colombia.
In that country alone there have been 800 000 internally displaced people since 1996; 123 000 new internally displaced people between January and June last year.
It is a disgrace that with this regulation the European Commission in the past has failed to address this problem.
The sort of forced displacement that we have seen in Colombia I have seen too in Chiapas in southern Mexico where the presence of international aid workers is essential for the protection of human rights.
Finally, I would like to congratulate Mr Deva on his report, thank him for his kind words in his speech and endorse what he says.
I know he will be listening carefully to the Commissioner when he sums up to see if he will put on record that promise to ensure that a future proposal for a multiannual regulation comes forward and that the annual reports will be provided.
With Mr Deva we ask those questions of you, Mr Patten, and if we do not get satisfactory answers the Socialists on this side of the House will be supporting Mr Deva in taking a very different stance on this report altogether.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Deva for a very good report, of which it might be said that it is as long as the Commission' s text is short.
It no doubt says something about the relationship between Parliament and the Commission at the moment that the text presented to us has been produced very urgently and is therefore very brief and very simple.And, as Mr Howitt also mentioned, is it, of course, not particularly satisfactory to receive it four or five months after the regulation has in fact expired, but this is actually the usual way, although I do not suspect Mr Patten of being up to no good.
It is the usual way things are debated in parliaments. A report is submitted which says that we must now extend the regulation.
It is four months since it expired. Parliament is thus, in actual fact, compelled to say: all right, then, we really have to accept the extension for, otherwise, there will be even more people dying of hunger and destitution.
It is not a fair way of doing things, and I shall therefore, like Mr Deva and others, also listen to what Mr Patten has to say.
That said, however, I would also say that we need to implement this proposal as quickly as possible, for we must try to help as best we can and just hope that we can find a more satisfactory way of doing things in future.
One simple little matter, which Mr Deva also emphasises, and which I too think we ought to discuss in the future, is the situation of women and children, which is, of course, extremely difficult and always will be in these situations.
We therefore need to concentrate very heavily on this area and find some methodical ways of doing so, partly by involving NGOs and others who can make a contribution.
Mr President, I would like to join in the heavy criticism which has been levelled by the parliamentary Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Development and Cooperation and which has been outlined in the otherwise very constructive report of Mr Deva.
These committees complained about the fact that the annual reports have not been issued by the Commission, and what is worse, the independent evaluations have failed to materialise, although these are, of course, vital in order to establish that the validity period of the regulations definitely needs to be extended.
But how can we do this without the necessary reports at our disposal?
As has already been expressed in other criticism, this is probably once again a case of outstanding payments, unnecessarily complicated procedures for financial control and a fragmentation of efforts.
Also the fact that the amounts spent are disproportionate to the number of displaced persons raises questions.
Commissioner, of the EUR 240 million, 40% has been allocated to Latin America which has less than 1% of refugees in the world, while 60% has been granted to Asia which has 40% of the displaced persons.
Were it not for the fact that a sudden discontinuation of the programmes would cause undesired effects and result in innocent victims, we would follow the advice of the Committee on Budgetary Control, but instead we will now follow Mr Deva' s recommendation.
He has called for an extension of that programme by one year, although Mr Howitt has already pointed out that, in actual fact, we are already halfway through that year.
We hope that the report and in-depth evaluation will as yet be forthcoming.
Mr President, we are not talking about humanitarian aid but about viable projects aimed at self-sufficiency and the reintegration of refugees and displaced persons, ex-soldiers, etc.
Surely we should be able to come up with the goods and establish that there is indeed reduced dependency on aid.
Mr President, we are prepared to give the Commission some respite because we know that so many people are making huge efforts and because Parliament too is not exactly whiter than white as far as the Council is concerned, which you are under-staffing, but I think that, in any case, we will need to get the Commission to keep its promise to us, because otherwise this cooperation will be futile.
Mr President, it seems simple. All we need to do is to change the year 1999 to 2000 and the European Union can support campaigns for another year for the benefit of uprooted people in Latin America and Asia.
There is, however, more to it than that, as evidenced by the opinions of the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
With regard to the implementation and evaluation of this programme, the Commission has not exactly come up smelling of roses.
Little consideration has so far been given to the operation of this programme.
Sound annual evaluation reports are lacking.
Moreover, we are still waiting for a long-term vision for this programme.
I would, therefore, make the approval of the extension of this programme dependent on the availability of reports.
Parliament must use this as a way of forcing the Commission to account for the spending of the development funds.
None of this detracts from the fact that the recipient countries sometimes have dire situations to contend with.
The European Union must help where it can.
The role of the national Member States, however, is at least as important.
Indeed, at European level, we are always running the risk of making pledges that we cannot keep due to budgetary restraints.
The most important prerequisite to a long-term solution for the problems outlined is sound coordination of Member State efforts.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Mr President, it is not only a political responsibility but a moral responsibility that the European Union has to help those in straits outside its boundaries as equally as they can.
This being the purpose of this report, I congratulate its rapporteur, Mr Deva.
To help those in need when it is in our hands to do so, at the end of the day, results in our really helping ourselves.
The Bible as always is right when it states that there is a giving which does not impoverish.
The other side of the coin is also true.
Hoarding does impoverish.
Countries that have serious internal hostilities and all the terrible reaping of that where the innocent go to the wall and countries encouraging displaced persons to return home ought to be helped.
The fact of the matter is that those displaced are mostly women and children.
This makes it even more imperative that action should be taken.
Food supplies, water and sanitation, housing and shelter, education are, of course, the top priorities.
I welcome the recognition of this.
I believe that the four amendments submitted by the Committee on Development and Cooperation must be accepted by the Commission and I hope that the Commissioner, Mr Patten, who did not very often give me happy replies on other things when he was in another office, perhaps today will give me some little encouragement that Christmas is really coming.
It is essential that annual reports are submitted by the Commission to this Parliament and to the Council, as is specified.
If such reports are not forthcoming then I could not find my vote to go with this renewal.
I believe that the Commission must answer to this and tell us what they are going to do.
The financial framework needs to be introduced in keeping with provisions already agreed to.
These provisions must be strictly adhered to and this change is absolutely necessary.
The new text on comitology is necessary and when the long-term future of this regulation is assessed, this Parliament must have before it independent valuation reports, so where improvements can be made they can press upon the Commission to make those improvements.
Where they think this expenditure of finance can be maximised to a better reaching of the objective and target of these regulations, then we should have the information before us so as to give us a good, healthy and proper debate.
Mr President, the Commission proposes that the existing regulation be extended.
According to the regulation, the Commission is obliged to prepare an annual evaluation for Parliament and the Council, something it has not done. However, the programme must not be halted under any circumstances; that would be quite wrong.
It is important that the programme should be extended, but not before we have seen the evaluations.
The Commission promised that we would have the evaluations in March, then in April and then in May.
So where have they got to? An independent evaluation is needed for otherwise we have no guarantees that the money has been spent properly.
The purpose of the evaluation is, of course, to improve the future programmes.
Everything concerning development aid, including the rehabilitation of refugees, ought to fall within the remit of the Directorate-General for Development.
It is this Directorate-General which has the expertise and it should therefore also have the responsibility.
The Court of Auditors has also criticised the lack of clarity in the way the different initiatives are related to one other.
It is indefensible and damaging to the programme that no effort is being made to introduce coherence.
I am glad that there is support, especially in the Committee on Budgetary Control, for my amendment to the effect that the programme should only be extended once the Commission has fulfilled its part of the agreement and submitted annual reports and evaluations.
Without this amendment, the Commission could get away with not having submitted a single evaluation report since the regulation came into force in 1997.
I have also noted that my dear friend, Mr Dell'Alba, has had his grumbles printed as an appendix to my opinion.
However, he is only speaking for himself.
At any rate, he had no backing in the Committee, since he was the only one to vote against the conclusions.
Mr President, let me first of all thank my honourable friend for his extremely thoughtful report and for the care and attention that he has devoted to the issue of uprooted people in Asia and Latin America.
It is common to all the speakers in the Chamber and to others outside that it is an excellent report but, speaking for myself, I would not have expected any less from my honourable friend.
Regulation 443/97 on aid to uprooted people is an important instrument clearly, an instrument to deliver aid that is not covered by humanitarian assistance and the honourable Member Ms Maes made this distinction extremely clearly.
It supports projects implemented by international organisations like the UN and the UNHCR and NGOs and these measures are designed to improve living conditions, not only for returnees but also for the communities into which they will integrate.
In that context particular importance is attached to clearing the land of mines, a point which my honourable friend referred to, rebuilding farming systems, supporting secure livelihoods and embracing key health and education challenges.
A number of honourable Members have made clear the good and practical work done as a result of this regulation.
I noted in particular what the honourable gentleman, Mr Howitt, said about geographical balance and one or two other honourable Members referred to that as well.
I also noted what the honourable gentleman Dr Paisley said about our moral duties to those who are uprooted.
Dr Paisley and I have not always seen eye to eye on every subject but I hope that this is a subject on which we can see eye to eye and even share quotations from both the Old and the New Testament.
The Commission started preparations for the renewal of this regulation in Spring 1999.
However, these discussions were delayed by the former Commission' s resignation last year.
It was decided as an interim step to propose an extension of the current regulation up to the end of the year 2000.
A Commission activity report covering the three years of implementation of the regulation from 1997 to 1999 was presented in its preliminary version to Mr Miranda, the President of the Committee on Development and Cooperation of Parliament, and, of course, to the rapporteur.
In parallel, preliminary findings of an on-going external evaluation on the implementation of the regulation were also transmitted.
The final evaluation report will be submitted to the Parliament by September of this year.
Now to the amendments: the Commission broadly agrees with the four amendments which have been tabled by the Parliament.
However, concerning the first amendment I would like to stress again that the draft of the activity report has already been made available to the Committee on Development and Cooperation and that official submission will take place next June at the latest.
The Commission agrees with amendments two and three since they reflect the existing framework of interinstitutional cooperation with regard to budgetary discipline and comitology.
Now let me come to the fourth amendment.
I recognise that the Parliament would like to see the independent evaluation report extremely soon.
A number of honourable Members have argued that you should see that by July.
We believe however, that given the late contracting of the 1999 programme, which means that some activities are only now getting under way, it would be better to finalise the report, which must be a thorough and comprehensive document, a month or two later, say by September.
That will give us a reasonable period to evaluate 1999' s activities.
However, as you know, the evaluation is already under way and I will make any interim reports available as soon as they are produced.
I want to make that commitment unequivocally.
I hope that Parliament would be willing to agree this approach.
There have been references to the new regulation.
I can confirm that the new regulation is under preparation.
It will need to take into consideration the findings of the evaluation exercise and, of course, before presenting it to the legislative authority, we in the Commission will have to ensure that we are able to mobilise the necessary human resources for its effective implementation.
Too often, in my experience of just seven months, we undertake to do things without having first made sure that we have got the resources to carry them through and it is important for us to be honest about what we want to do and how we can achieve it.
Before closing let me once again thank Parliament for its support in extending the validity of this important instrument.
I can assure honourable Members that I have taken account of the criticisms and of the aspirations that have been expressed during the course of this debate.
I am old enough and experienced enough in political life to recognise the difference between a standing ovation and a raspberry, or a bronx cheer as the Americans would call it, and I do not wish to sit through another debate about a subject as important as this and hear it dominated by well-meant criticisms.
So I hope that we can do better by the time we next discuss this important subject.
We are dealing with important technical details but, above all, we are dealing, as honourable Members have pointed out, with human tragedies that lie behind the need for all these measures and that is why we have to ensure that our own response is as rapid and as effective as possible.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11a.m.
EC-Switzerland agreements
The next item is the report (A5-0118/2000) drawn up by Mr Carraro, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of the Agreements between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the Swiss Confederation, of the other part (7260/2000 - COM(1999) 229 - C5­0204/2000): 1. on the free movement of persons (9748/1999 - C5­0197/2000­1999/0103(AVC)); 2. on air transport (9749/1999 - C5­0198/2000 - 1999/0104(AVC)); 3. on the carriage of goods and passengers by rail and road (9750/1999 - C5­0199/2000 - 1999/0105(AVC)); 4. on scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the Swiss Confederation, of the other part (9751/1999 - C5­0200/2000 - 1999/0106(AVC)); 5. on certain aspects relating to public procurement (9752/1999 - C5­0201/2000 - 1999/0107(AVC)); 6. on trade in agricultural products (9753/1999 - C5­0202/2000 - 1999/0108(AVC)); 7. on mutual recognition in relation to conformity assessment between the European Community and the Swiss Confederation (9755/1999 - C5­0203/2000 - 1999/0109(AVC))
Mr President, this draft recommendation marks the end of a political and institutional process which began 10 or so years ago under the auspices of the then President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, who, as far back as the early 1990s, predicted the entry of the Swiss Confederation into the then common economic area.
As you are aware, this project was blocked by the Swiss referendum in December 1992, when, albeit by a very narrow majority, the Swiss citizens decided to block the entry of the Swiss Confederation into the European Community.
That was the beginning of a period of uncertainty, of widely sectoral agreements, which is being brought to an end by this package of seven agreements, which are closely related to the economy but which are also wide-reaching and of general interest.
The seven agreements govern the free movement of persons, air transport, the carriage of goods and passengers by rail and road, scientific and technological cooperation, public procurement, agricultural products and, in relation to these, mutual recognition in the area of conformity assessment.
They are also characterised by a specific simultaneous enforcement clause to the effect that the agreements will enter into force only insofar as they are approved or rejected en masse.
For this reason, although the draft legislative resolutions are separate documents, they have to be tabled and approved en bloc because, and I stress this, they have to be enforced en bloc.
The agreements were signed as early as June 1999, ratified by the Swiss Parliament on 8 October 1999, and tomorrow they will have reached the stage of ratification by the European Parliament.
However, I would also like to point out to the House that the citizens of Switzerland will, once again, be called upon to pronounce judgement on this package of agreements, and, therefore, also on relations with the European Union, in the referendum on 21 May next.
Nevertheless, it is as well to remember that this declaration will certainly be different from the 1992 decision in form and substance.
In 1992, the people of Switzerland were called upon to pronounce judgement on Switzerland' s accession, whereas on 21 May they will be asked to approve or reject a package of strictly economic agreements which do not have the political implications of the 1992 agreements.
However, I feel it is highly significant that Parliament is voting on and approving the texts - if that is the decision of the House, as it was the largely unanimous decision of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and as it is the desire of all the parliamentary committees which have expressed their opinion - and giving its assent before the Swiss referendum on 21 May.
Not, of course, in order to undermine the sovereignty of the Swiss people' s vote in any way, but, on the contrary, to give a further sign of confidence and conviction that the development of a common European economic area and growing integration of the markets and economies of this Europe - of which Switzerland is, clearly, at the heart owing to its central geographical position - are a concern which we share and which we consider more important than disputes over procedures.
In my opinion, it is politically significant - and, for this, all thanks go to the Chairman of the Committee on Industry and the staff which have made it possible - that Parliament is going to vote before 21 May, for this will present the Swiss citizens with a sure, well-defined legal framework on which to pronounce judgement.
The opinion of the Committee on Industry is wholly favourable and I recommend that the House votes unanimously for the motions during tomorrow' s sitting.
Mr President, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur for the committee responsible. He has produced a very coherent opinion.
I also want to thank the Commission for its good work in connection with the negotiations.
With regard to my committee' s area of responsibility, that of citizens' freedoms and rights, this agreement is welcome. I also want to emphasise that it is important to view the agreement in its entirety.
In the course of my work on the opinion, I in fact became aware of quite a number of problems and difficulties for EU citizens who live and work in Switzerland. In certain cases, it has been a matter of discrimination pure and simple.
There is no doubt that the agreement we now have provides great opportunities to solve those problems which exist and to prevent new problems from arising.
In this connection, I would just mention, for example, the right of entry, the right of establishment, the opportunity to enter the labour market, the coordination of social security systems, the right of establishment for non-gainfully employed people and students, together with new opportunities for cross-border workers.
I want to emphasise, as the rapporteur for the committee responsible pointed out, that it is important for our opinion to be made available before the referendum in Switzerland - not because it is for the Swiss to say 'yes' or 'no' to the opinion, but to show our desire for cooperation, that is to say further cooperation, with Switzerland.
Our committee has pointed out possible future areas of cooperation, for example operations to combat trafficking in women and to combat organised crime and economic crime.
We view these agreements, especially the agreement concerning the free movement of persons, as being very important in the context of cooperation between the EU and Switzerland.
Mr President, I too want to thank the rapporteur for his report and congratulate him.
The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism as a whole is pleased about this agreement because it was well known how very difficult it was to reach a transport agreement which established a fair balance between competition and the environment and which would also produce a satisfactory solution for both sides.
The two agreements that directly concerned us, and that we have analysed, concern air transport and road and rail transport.
Here we must note, with regard to air transport, that Switzerland is, of course, already a member of numerous international conferences and organisations and has therefore incorporated in its legislation quite a few aspects of what we in the EU regard as the acquis communautaire.
Its adoption of the regulation on the liberalisation packages is the most practically significant measure.
The Transport Committee regards it as a small weakness that the duty-free agreement is not applicable to Switzerland in this case.
The road-rail discussion is a more difficult and also a more interesting one. We think the experiment being proposed here is most interesting.
On the one hand, Switzerland will gradually forego reducing the number of heavy goods vehicles.
It will allow vehicles of 34 to 40 tonnes up to the year 2004; on the other hand, it will abolish the quotas accordingly.
Eventually it will replace this system with a road tax, of approximately EUR 200 on average.
So you can understand why the transport operators are rather critical of that.
And in my view their criticism is fair because we believe these road taxes do not take sufficient account of the fact that the transport operator may invest in environment-friendly lorries.
But what the Transport Committee considered even more important was that this agreement points the way to a transport policy entirely in line with that of the EU: reducing the burden on the roads while supporting transport by rail.
We believe the proposed agreement between the EU and Switzerland is a pilot agreement; the same applies to the analysis of the means by which what we regard as a theoretical transport policy may subsequently be put into practice.
Mr President, the Social Democrats Group and I myself most emphatically welcome this agreement between the European Community, on the one hand, and the Swiss Confederation, on the other.
It is a step in the right direction.
After all, Switzerland is located at the heart of Europe but is not yet a member of the Union.
The conclusion of the bilateral negotiations with Switzerland will put the Union' s relations with Switzerland on a new footing, and we all hope that, in a few weeks' time, the Swiss people will give their assent to these agreements.
But there are a few aspects that still need clarification.
I am not referring to what I usually refer to in this connection, namely closer cooperation to combat tax evasion at the cost of the European taxpayers.
Tonight I will confine myself solely to the question of freedom of movement and will specifically address the subject of cross-border workers.
In all, there are 140 000 cross-border workers in Switzerland who come from Germany, France, Italy and Austria. These cross-border workers are very seriously affected by the most recent deteriorations in Swiss pension schemes.
Prior to the tenth review of old-age and surviving dependants' insurance there was a so-called spouse' s pension, which was paid without regard to the place of residence of either spouse.
Under the tenth review, which recently came into force, this rule was removed.
It was replaced by educational credits, which were, however, tied to residence in Switzerland.
As a result, cross-border workers from the European Union had to pay the same contributions as Swiss residents, but received a 30% lower pension.
The forthcoming eleventh review even provides that only widows resident in Switzerland are entitled to a widow' s pension, which, of course, once again makes the situation worse for cross-border workers from the EU.
Unfortunately, European Union governments have paid too little attention to this issue until now.
I hope all this will change in the near future.
The current rules on old-age and surviving dependants' insurance conflict with the principle of equal treatment and equal status.
Cross-border workers pay in just as much pension insurance as their Swiss counterparts but receive considerably lower pensions.
I hope that this unilateral discrimination by the Swiss Government will be remedied in the wake of this bilateral agreement.
I am extremely grateful to the rapporteur for touching on and bringing up this question in his explanatory statement.
A glance at the map shows that these are probably not the last negotiations and agreements we will see between the Union and Switzerland.
That makes it all the more important to abide not just by the letter but also by the spirit of the agreements we are deciding tomorrow.
For that can only be to the benefit of future negotiations and future agreements which we will be negotiating and deciding bilaterally.
Mr President, the bilateral agreements between the European Union and Switzerland are analogous to the multilateral agreement arrangements that have come into effect within the framework of the European Economic Area.
It is the opinion of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party that the European Parliament for its own part should support their adoption.
Switzerland' s position illustrates the curious nature of Europe' s present arrangements for integration, and the need to aim to change them, especially now that the EU is expanding throughout the whole of Europe.
The merging Europe has organised itself into a series of concentric rings, at the core of which has been the founder members of the European Union.
First there was the Council of Europe at Strasbourg, which divided in two when France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux Countries formed the European Coal and Steel Community.
The attempt to form a political and defence community came to nothing, but the European Community was created.
The Outer Seven, as opposed to the Six, formed the European Free Trade Association, EFTA.
The expansion of the Six into a Community of, in the first instance, eight, and then twelve, went relatively smoothly.
Since these instances of enlargement, a debate has begun on differentiated integration.
At the end of the 1980s, a plan was drafted in the European Commission whereby the then European Community would consolidate as a federation and the other countries of Europe would join the Single Market via the European Economic Area arrangements.
The first Agreement on the European Economic Area was offered to the EFTA countries.
It was then that concentric circles were being spoken of for the first time.
The EEA Agreement was established, although for Austria, Sweden and Finland it turned out to be a short-lived arrangement.
EEA membership was rejected in a Swiss referendum.
So the only countries remaining in the EEA were Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.
Bilateral agreements began to be drawn up for Switzerland.
Negotiations are now under way regarding the future accession of twelve countries to the European Union.
It is strange that neither Switzerland nor any of the EEA countries are among them, although they would be the best suited of all to join.
There is a simple reason for this, however. They do not want to join the present Union, nor that of the foreseeable future.
Now that the Union is growing fast, it is reasonable that it should be subject to internal differentiation.
Just as Jacques Delors, Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, among others, recently proposed, the core countries of Europe should go further along the road towards integration than the others, while the rest of the Union could develop as a confederation of independent states and differentiate.
In this way, we could ease and speed up accession for the countries of Eastern Europe and this would also make membership possible for Iceland, Norway, Liechtenstein and even Switzerland.
Mr President, Mr Väyrynen' s comments just now about concentric circles remind me a little of a hole with circles drawn round it, looking at Switzerland and Europe.
I hope this hole will be filled sometime in the next few years with the accession of Switzerland to the European Union.
For then we would not have to negotiate and decide seven different agreements but all this would be a matter of course.
I very much hope we will make progress in this regard over the next few years.
But perhaps these seven agreements are a preparation for that debate and I very much hope that just as Parliament will be approving these seven agreements by a large majority tomorrow - or so I assume - the Swiss people will also approve them by a large majority on 21 May in order to make it clear that Switzerland is part of Europe.
I would like to say a few words about the agreement on scientific and technological cooperation because I myself have been repeatedly involved in that area of cooperation with Switzerland over the past few years.
I warmly welcome that agreement because basically it means that Switzerland will take part in the European Union' s framework research programme on an equal footing.
To that end, it will pay a contribution in line with its GDP yet participate fully in the programme. That is a major advantage for both sides.
Yet there is one drawback: it is the European Parliament and the Council that decide the content of this programme, not Switzerland.
That means that Switzerland, like Israel, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland, which also take part in this framework research programme, can only participate in something that is decided over their heads.
They have no say as regards its content.
So I would propose that we take our time preparing the sixth framework research programme and that we at least hold informal talks with the Swiss parliamentarians - just as we do with Israel, Norway and so on, i.e. states which do not belong to the EU but which do take part in the framework research programme.
That is something the European Parliament could organise.
Parliament could take the initiative and invite parliamentarians from these countries, so that we can know in advance what input the Swiss can contribute, what problems they may have, what proposals they may have.
In fact, this would also be a step towards bringing Switzerland and the European Union closer together.
I would very much hope we could do that.
Aside from that, let me thank Mr Carraro again for this excellent report.
Anyone who wants to learn will find a great deal of information in his report.
Once again, many thanks and I hope we will adopt it by a large majority tomorrow.
Mr President, the attendance in this Chamber shows that there is no dispute about this agreement, that Members want it, and I am sure we will vote for Switzerland and for this agreement by a great majority tomorrow.
We want closer cooperation in Europe.
We want more dialogue.
We want to analyse problems pragmatically, find compromises, although on the basis of democracy and the rule of law, and we want, at the end of the day, to vote in the proper manner.
We often see the Swiss people voting on issues and as a democrat I am constantly delighted by the democratic attitude of Switzerland.
The peaceful settlement of conflict - i.e. democracy - versus the declaration of war.
In fact, war never has been a solution for the people of Europe.
We need ground rules for democracy, and in the end we must also abide by them.
After over 50 years of a policy of peace, the German Foreign Minister acting as President of the Council has called on the military to take a decision.
That should set us thinking.
I believe it is important that we use democratic methods to safeguard peace.
Now he, as President of the Council, and the 12 prime ministers have taken an arbitrary decision without any legal basis against a Member State. It has no legal basis and in particular it goes against the European institutions.
The decision with regard to Austria was taken without any de facto participation by the Commission, without the participation of the Council and, of course, without the participation of Parliament.
In my view, that raises a number of problems, especially for Switzerland. And I regard the signs of weakness the euro is currently showing as a judgement by the international community of this conflict within the European Union.
The crux of the matter is that this is a conflict between the prime ministers and the European institutions, a conflict that is putting a spanner in the European works and creating insecurity.
In fact, Austria was always seen as the blue-eyed boy in matters of human rights and democracy.
I think Austria has fared very well with its neutrality over the past decades, a neutral position between east and west.
In joining the European Union we clearly committed ourselves to the west, with the aim of preventing any future military conflicts.
But that means talking to each other, meeting each other, analysing things pragmatically, finding compromises.
I must say that in Austria, too, it is now time to review the situation for, when it comes to their referendum, the Swiss people will be looking very carefully at how the 14 prime ministers decide.
In Austria, Mr Haider resigned on 1 May.
He no longer plays an active role in Austrian politics.
I think it is high time the sanctions against Austria were lifted and I believe the prime ministers should also apologise to the people of Europe for choosing to go down a road that is unacceptable to Europe.
I demand the immediate suspension of the sanctions against Austria and I believe this decision with regard to Austria will be of the utmost importance to future plebiscites and referenda in Europe.
We very much welcome the report by Mr Carraro and his colleagues.
I totally agree with the remarks of the honourable Member, Mr Linkohr, about the quality of the report.
I am also grateful for the authoritative comments made by the honourable Member, Mr Carraro, and by representatives of other relevant committees during this debate and the other contributions we have had as well.
One or two honourable Members have been able to bring in subjects about which they care passionately like the honourable Member, Mr Rübig, and I commend them on their inventiveness.
But it has been a useful debate which has reflected the importance of the subject.
We are extremely satisfied that Parliament has given this verbal approval to the seven agreements with Switzerland.
They are the result of four years of extremely difficult and tough negotiations.
The outcome of those negotiations has been excellent and I am delighted that Parliament has reacted in the way that it has.
The agreements are very important.
They are very important politically and they are very important from a technical point of view as well.
They unblock the stalemate in the relations with one of our closest neighbours and our second biggest trading partner.
They open the way to closer relations and, I hope, to further integration.
Through these agreements the biggest problems in our bilateral relations will be resolved in a number of key sectors: technical barriers to trade, public procurement, research and development about which the honourable Member knows so much, agriculture and air transport.
Equally important, a viable solution has now been found for alpine transit.
The European standard of free movement of persons will also be introduced in relations with Switzerland.
I am glad that Parliament has found the result of the negotiations to be in general so positive but we have also taken note of some more critical remarks, especially regarding cooperation in the fight against transit fraud, cigarette smuggling and other fiscal crimes, where you want to see our Swiss friends doing much more.
Parliament has repeatedly called for better cooperation and the problem will be further investigated I know by a special delegation of the Budget Control Committee.
I want to make it absolutely plain that the Commission shares these concerns.
Losses of several billion euros are caused to the Community budget every year because Switzerland does not apply the relevant Council of Europe protocols on judicial cooperation.
The Commission has repeatedly stated that we see a rapid solution to this problem as the prerequisite for any further agreements in other areas.
It is a point that I am looking forward to discussing with the Swiss Foreign Minister when he comes to Brussels a little later in the summer, as well, I hope, as discussing more positive matters with him.
I want to assure all honourable Members that we have taken account of the detailed concerns that have been expressed in this useful debate and of the other comments that we have received on these negotiations.
As a number of honourable Members have said, the Swiss Parliament has already approved the seven agreements.
They did that in October last year.
We very much hope that the Swiss people themselves will give their blessing in the referendum scheduled for May 21.
It would be constitutionally indelicate I am sure for me to urge them to vote in one way or the other but I do very much hope that these negotiations which have been conducted in good faith and have led to very satisfactory outcomes will be endorsed by the people of Switzerland.
I am sure that the assent of the European Parliament will be very helpful in this respect in encouraging people in Switzerland to vote on May 21 in what we all think would be the right way.
So I very much hope that the vote which the Parliament holds tomorrow does not surprise any of you and does not surprise the Commission either.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11a.m.
Financial assistance to Moldova
The next item is the report (A5-0082/2000) drawn up by Mrs Matikainen-Kallström on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Council decision providing supplementary macro-financial assistance to Moldova (COM(1999) 516 - C5-0261/1999 - 1999/0213(CNS)).
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets. (FI) Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, I would like to draw attention to the economic effects this legal decision will have.
The European Union is granting different forms of economic aid to different countries.
Macro-financial aid is one of the most important, in addition to which equivalent forms of aid can be given in the form of European Investment Bank guarantees and Euratom loans.
There is, however, a ceiling to this provision of loans, which has been determined in interinstitutional agreements.
That is a maximum annual figure of EUR 200 million from the Guarantee Fund.
This causes problems for possible new loans from the European Union, because this ceiling is inflexible.
The present loan and guarantee decisions might lead to a situation where this ceiling is easily exceeded, if something unexpected happens.
I would therefore think that, from the point of view of the Committee on Budgets, it is important that the Commission should make a multiannual assessment of likely future fund requirements, which would serve as a general guide.
The aim should be that Parliament and the Council agree on priorities concerning the use of left-over margins, and that a procedure should be agreed in order to make any changes to these principles.
In the case of macro-financial aid, the Commission appears to have considerable faith in the ability of the international institutions - the IMF and the World Bank - to evaluate the economic situation in whatever countries are concerned.
The role of these institutions is perhaps too important, and the Commission often automatically accepts conditions imposed by others on these loans.
For this reason, I think that Mrs Matikainen-Kallström' s remarks and amendments are very important, as they take account of the fact that such areas as employment and social security should also be examined when determining how the money from loans should be spent.
Mr President, the excellent report by our colleague, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, on supplementary assistance for the budget of Moldova gives us a rare opportunity to cast our eyes on this small country on the periphery of the European Union, on its economic development and political orientation.
The people once again find themselves living in poverty.
The average monthly per capita income in Moldova is only approximately EUR 30.
Privatisation is making only slow headway and so far the country has not managed to entirely resolve the problem of integrating its Russian minority groups.
It has still not achieved monetary or budgetary stability and Russian occupation troops are still stationed in part of the country, in Trans-Dnestr.
For days now, there has been a very real risk of all the lights going out in Moldova.
The Russian energy company Gazprom suspended gas supplies because Moldova could not pay its bills in German Marks and US dollars.
So we are quite literally witnessing this country' s almost desperate fight for economic survival and political existence.
Geographically, Moldova is a narrow strip of land between Ukraine and Romania.
Many young Moldovans are looking towards the European Union.
Some are studying at our universities and technical colleges thanks to funding from the European Union and its Member States.
At home, most of them want Moldova to become more open to the European Union.
How can we, the European Parliament, make it easier for Moldova to become more open? The macro-economic financial assistance, which the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats firmly support, is an important step towards building up the necessary confidence in the Moldovan administration system and thereby consolidating its budget.
Moreover, the aid under the TACIS programmes must concentrate more on vocational training, education and improving the totally outmoded transport, communications and energy infrastructure.
Small crafts and services businesses can only be started up if there are prospects of improving the framework conditions for competition and investment, which is only feasible in the long term with the help of the European Union.
But Moldova must also know where it wants to go.
Does it want to remain in a state of insecurity because it relies so heavily on cheap Russian raw materials, which it cannot even pay for yet, and also remain incapable of reform in many areas, which would mean tying its long-term future to the imponderables of Russian economic and social development? Or does it want to follow the example of Romania and resolutely tread the long and difficult road of economic reforms and closer cooperation with the European Union?
In that case, it also deserves stronger support on our part.
That support must be conditional on a radical modernisation of its economy and administration. We hope Moldova will opt for renewal and for Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström' s report deserves our full support.
She has guided this 'child' in difficult circumstances, for which I thank her.
When we talk of transitional economies we might ask where these economies are really going.
It seems that the direction is not always clear.
Moldova imports all its raw materials from abroad and is very dependent on energy imports.
One tenth of its GNP goes on a bill from just one Russian company, Gazprom, which - as the previous speaker said - is switching out the lights in the state of Moldova.
There is therefore a stranglehold on energy that does not just affect Moldova but also its neighbour, Ukraine; and Belarus, too, for that matter.
Consequently, this phenomenon has a broader political significance, which may create tension in this region, and which we will then have to attempt to relieve.
Moldova' s need for finance will be huge in the years to come.
The Russian crisis on 17 August 1998 had an enormous effect on Moldova.
It has become a ragamuffin state.
The basic pension is just one fifth of the heating costs of one small flat.
No nation can live and function like that.
The balance of trade surplus is a massive 23 - 25%.
As has been said, Russian troops are in the region of Trans-Dnestr, Lebed' s famous 14th army, not all of it, but nonetheless it has some influence.
We obviously support the loan decision and the line the report adopts, the macro-financial assistance, but this will not be enough.
We are taking stability eastwards, so that we will not have to import instability from there.
The next zone of enlargement, the following zone of candidate countries, will be the one we shall have to concentrate on.
We have to create an area of special action, of which Moldova will be a part, and we have to help them.
We therefore have to create an Eastern programme, to run alongside the current round of enlargement, which will help these countries - Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and Russia - at a stage when we are receiving new members, so that no new curtain falls between these states.
Mr President, I would also like to thank the rapporteur, Marjo Matikainen-Kallström, for preparing a sound report.
She has got to grips with the issue in a comprehensive way and raised some important issues connected with it.
Our Group supports the rapporteur' s views.
As has been said here several times, the situation in Moldova is extremely difficult.
Although a little headway has been made in the areas of administrative development, social pluralism, and human rights, the economic and social situation is still extremely grave.
The country' s economy has shrunk by around two thirds in the last ten years alone.
Discrepancies in income have grown wildly and half the population lives below the poverty line.
Development in Moldova depends essentially on whether the country can achieve political, social and economic stability.
It will be extremely hard for Moldova to overcome its huge problems without foreign assistance.
The Union' s support for Moldova is thus in place.
The EUR 15 million loan now to be made must be coordinated with assistance from the IMF and other international agencies with the aim of boosting Moldova' s social and economic stability.
It is also important that the Commission guarantees the aid by attaching certain economic conditions to it, so that it is used properly in the right areas, for example, in improving administration, organising basic civil services and increasing economic efficiency.
Later, we have to ensure that the conditions have been fulfilled properly and that the country is progressing along the path of democracy and that people' s living conditions are improving.
The report' s proposal for the possibility of revising the financial perspective to increase the amount of funds in the guarantee reserve is also in order.
Mr President, establishing and consolidating a multi-ethnic state is no picnic in political terms.
Moldova is still living proof of this.
Ever since its conception in 1991, it has been faced with intransigent separatism from the Dnestr Republic.
And we ought to remind ourselves of the Russian military presence in that republic, which is again completely at odds with repeated international withdrawal obligations on the part of Moscow.
Faced with a double challenge in internal and external politics between being absorbed by Romania or by Russia, the political élite and the electorate of this small former Soviet Republic opted without hesitation in favour of its own independence in 1994.
It did so precisely because of Moldova' s political unity.
This commendable strategy of phasing out internal and external hotbeds has made room for, among other things, the autonomous statute of the minority population of the Gagauz and the border treaty with neighbouring Ukraine which is less than one year old.
These achievements, however, cannot begin to conceal Moldova' s extremely difficult transformation process from ex-Soviet Republic to democratic constitutional state based on a social market economy.
In terms of energy supply and a market for its goods, Moldova is extremely dependent on the Russian Federation. As such, Chisinau is looking to the West for financial support for modernisation.
Hence the present, third request for macro-financial support from the European Union.
Given the level of exchange rate stability and internal currency stability achieved by Moldova, I can go along with this. However, I have two questions.
What has been the effect of the European Union' s two previous capital injections into that country?
Could the Commission be specific about this? Also, Amendment No 1 tabled by the competent Committee seems to clash with the objective of this specific long-term loan.
Needless to say, I too much prefer giving the average Moldovan citizen financial support rather than lining the pockets of the Gazprom bigshots!
Mr President, I should like to extend a warm thank you to Mrs Matikainen-Kallström for the effort she has put into this report.
The European Union is prepared to invest EUR 15 million, equivalent to SEK 120 million, in a long-term loan. The desire is for this to be given to Europe' s poorest country, which has a gross national product as low as that of the poorest countries in Africa.
Moldova is a country where the community, or society, has abdicated responsibility in a number of areas.
The average wage among State employees is MDL 230, which is to say approximately SEK 150 or about EUR 19.
The lowest pension is a mere quarter of this, or MDL 64.
Because the State' s finances have been completely undermined, neither State employees nor pensioners receive their payments on time.
Many have to wait for over a year for their money, and sometimes even longer.
Moldova is a deeply tragic example of the devastating consequences of Soviet Communism, an appalling ideology which has destroyed whole societies, countries and peoples spiritually, morally, socially and economically.
What we see fully revealed here is the harvest of the dragon' s teeth sown by communism.
According to the Swedish professor, Per Ronnås, Moldova has seen a more devastating peacetime fall in its standard of living than any other country in modern times.
At the same time, all the intelligence about people' s exposure to extensive torture by the police, involving electric shocks and suffocation with the aid of plastic bags placed over the head, is a very serious source of concern.
Moldova is today experiencing general migration.
A quarter of the country' s four million people are estimated to have travelled abroad in search of work.
Many poor and destitute girls have ended up in the hands of crime syndicates which degrade them and exploit them sexually.
We can do nothing other than support this country, Europe' s very poorest.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mrs Matikainen-Kallström for her report and all of you for the sensitivity you have shown with regard to such a serious problem as Moldova.
I note that the sensitivity of the different political groups is in line with the sensitivity of the Commission when it made the proposal for supplementary macroeconomic assistance for Moldova and, in this respect, we are especially grateful for their support.
It is true that today, we are talking about macro-financial assistance, therefore, with clearly defined objectives, which will undoubtedly improve the financial room for manoeuvre so that we can tackle the other difficulties such as those which you have raised during tonight' s debate.
Of the amendments presented in the report, the Commission has no difficulty in accepting Amendments Nos 1 to 4 referring to the final objective of the aid, the need for a coherent approach in our various instruments for Community assistance and the need for social balance in that assistance.
Therefore, the Commission will support these amendments in the Council and I hope they can be taken forward.
Nevertheless, I would suggest to the rapporteur and honourable Members that they reflect further on the remaining amendments.
Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 8 advocate the establishment of a new committee to control this type of aid.
In our opinion this initiative would be excessively bureaucratic and would not make sense.
Macro-financial assistance is usually granted for periods of one year, it is not always renewed, it is granted in different areas, different countries, according to the circumstances and we believe, therefore, that the current system of concentrating its control in a particular body, the Economic and Financial Committee, makes sense since this is the group of people with the greatest experience and knowledge of the control and management of this type of aid.
I would remind you that the Economic and Financial Committee is not a normal committee. It is a committee provided for in the Treaties which, in practice, consists of personal representatives of the Ministers for Economic and Financial Affairs.
In our view these are the people who really have the ability to carry out this management.
The creation of specific ad hoc committees would achieve less and would not be as effective as the current model.
I would also like to make another comment on Amendment No 9, which asks us - and I suspect that it also coincides with Mr Belder' s demand - whether we can provide information on the effectiveness of aid.
We agree that the Commission should report on what we must do, but what causes us difficulty is the idea that this should be done before 15 September.
By definition, macro-financial assistance includes a series of general economic indicators, which are not always available at that time.
In some cases they will be available to us, in other cases they will not.
We think it is much more reasonable that the Commission' s obligation should refer to the whole year and that we should be allowed greater room for manoeuvre between 15 September and 31 December to present these reports. We believe they will be of better quality if we have additional time available to us.
The Commission' s concern, as I see it, that it should be provided with figures for the budgetary debate should not cause any difficulty, since every six months, a report is sent to the budgetary authority on the guarantees covered by the general budget along with an annual report on the management of the Guarantee Fund.
By means of both reports, the Commission will have access to all the necessary budgetary information.
Nevertheless, in order to assess the aid we should be allowed more time.
Lastly, I would like to make a comment on Mr Seppänen' s concerns regarding the budgetary availability of resources for this type of aid.
In our view, there is no difficulty. We believe that this type of aid can be dealt with by means of the current budgetary resources.
It is true that, in the future, we will possibly have to debate whether the current priorities and our financial room for manoeuvre are coherent or not, but we do not think that this is a debate which can be held in relation to a specific report; rather it will require a much more profound and more general debate, which we will be happy to take part in at this Parliament' s convenience.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 10.55 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to make a correction to my statement on the EC/Switzerland agreement, because since 1 May this year, Mr Jörg Haider has been neither a member of the government nor the leader of Austria' s Freedom Party.
As such, the grounds for the sanctions imposed by the 14+1 on one Member State should be rescinded immediately.
Mr President, I would like to make the following comment in connection with the Minutes: reference was made in the Maat report on school milk yesterday to the fact that the Community' s contribution to financing shall be equal to 75% of the target price.
It says 65% in the German version of the Minutes.
Would you be so kind as to check again whether the various language versions are all in order?
Mr Goepel, the services have already informed me of this error and all the versions will be corrected.
(The Minutes were approved)
Combating counterfeiting and piracy
The next item is the report (A5-0096/2000) by Mrs Fourtou, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Commission' s Green Paper 'Combating counterfeiting and piracy in the single market' .
Mr President, I would like, above all, to thank the Commission for appreciating the risk involved in the phenomenon of counterfeiting and piracy.
Their Green Paper initiative is a clear demonstration of their determination to tackle the problem, and I should also like to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and on the committees whose opinion was requested, who have made a considerable contribution to the enrichment of my work.
Piracy and counterfeiting constitute a risk to consumer health and safety.
Spare parts for cars and aircraft, toys and pharmaceutical products, all of which endanger the lives of consumers, are to be found on the counterfeit market.
Piracy also jeopardises innovation and the very future of certain firms. By way of example, I would cite the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost every year within the European Union due to this.
Counterfeiters take advantage of the investments made by bona fide industry in new product research and development and in advertising.
This also undermines the fiscal resources of the state authorities.
Finally, it has been established that this phenomenon is often closely linked to organised crime.
My report advocates a coordinated overall approach in order to combat piracy and counterfeiting. This approach has two aspects: prevention and law enforcement.
If we are to prevent this scourge, we must first familiarise ourselves with it.
We therefore propose an extensive public awareness campaign, with whatever programmes the Commission can suggest, and increasing awareness among the police, judicial and customs authorities.
We plan to set up training schemes for these authorities and a cooperation plan involving the exchange of know-how and adoption of best national practice.
Prevention must also involve strengthened cooperation between the private and public sectors, and the legal protection of technical arrangements, while obviously respecting consumer rights.
Indeed, making allowances for consumer rights and the legitimate demands of professionals is one of the difficult aspects of this report.
Of course, each Member State has its own internal regulations for law enforcement.
In order to make them more effective, we must endeavour to harmonise current legislation and thereby remove the disparities between protection systems.
Obviously, penal sanctions must be made more stringent and civil measures and procedures must be simplified.
The approximation of the penal sanctions applied by different nations in the case of customs offences is certainly desirable.
It will also be appropriate to pay particular attention to matters of international judicial cooperation.
To conclude this brief overview of my report, I shall say that the effective protection and implementation of intellectual property rights must be an absolute priority in negotiations with countries seeking accession to the European Union and in all relations with third countries.
I shall add that we should try, in our plenary sitting, to preserve the consensus which emerged in committee when voting on this report, in order to ensure that the European Parliament thereby gives a strong political message as to its commitment in the fight against counterfeiting and piracy.
And finally, I appeal to the Commission, which I hope will submit its proposed action programme for responding to the urgent nature of this phenomenon in the very near future.
Since the matter would indeed seem genuinely to be one of absolute urgency, especially as regards piracy in the audiovisual media, the Commission must not fail to respond in a decisive and urgent manner.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mrs Fourtou on this important report.
It is important both in terms of the functioning of the single market and, most importantly, for the protection of consumers.
It is right that we should focus on the way in which counterfeiting is growing between the Member States, within the single market, as well as beyond the frontiers of the European Union.
The consumer can be conned by counterfeiting in all circumstances very easily but it is always a menace.
It is a menace because the counterfeit product carries none of the necessary guarantees of safety and quality which come from a product which the manufacturer can stand by and endorse.
It can be dangerous to health.
It can certainly be dangerous to innovation.
It can be dangerous for the future of research.
There is very little to be said for the counterfeiter except that, at best, he or she is a parasite upon productive industry.
This is not a victimless crime.
We are talking about things that seriously damage the marketplace.
For that reason, the Environment and Consumer Policy Committee takes much the same line as the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in supporting and endorsing this report.
Naturally the point we would wish to make in conclusion, however, is that in protection of the consumer, the provision of information must involve consumer organisations within the Member States themselves.
They are best placed to pick up some of the worst scams which now prevail and inform the public that what may, at first sight, appear to be a bargain, is really a snare and delusion.
My second point has been touched upon by the previous speaker. It is this: there are those who would say that this debate embraces the debate about copyright and trademarks.
These must be kept separate.
A number of amendments from the political groups and the committees have tried to make this clear.
There is a debate going on - and the Commissioner knows perfectly well about this - about parallel imports and whether these are now being used in some cases in a way which is damaging to trade, anti-competitive and against the interests of the consumer.
We do not want to see these two debates confused.
What we are attacking here in this proposal, and quite rightly, is those who, by the parasitic practice of counterfeiting, batten upon the public, confuse and deceive it and can sometimes actually damage society in the process.
Mr President, I am pleased to see Parliament, in the form of Mrs Fourtou' s report, prepared to undertake an extensive campaign against counterfeiting and piracy within the internal market.
The text gives an accurate outline of the extent of the damage and its catastrophic repercussions on the economies of our countries and also on the health and safety of our fellow citizens, since the phenomenon now involves sectors as potentially dangerous as medicines and car parts.
We can therefore welcome this appeal for increased awareness and for a uniform mobilisation of resources across the board in order to limit and eventually curb this scourge.
While the Fourtou report does not appear to play down the significance of the damage, it does, however, appear to disregard the urgency requiring that an appropriate policy is implemented straight away.
Reading this text gives the impression that Parliament is urging the Commission to consider with the utmost urgency the technical definition of the measures which should be implemented, whilst in this respect the counterfeiters are, as always, one step ahead in terms of technology.
If it is appropriate to use any more sophisticated technology that might make counterfeiting and piracy more expensive and more difficult to engage in, then the fight we undertake should not neglect to use radical means, applicable immediately. Failing to do so would mean that our policies, however well intentioned, will be forever missing the boat.
The text is still particularly vague as to the measures to actually protect patents and intellectual property rights which it would like to see Member States adopting. Without such measures, crafty economic opportunists and seasoned technological plagiarists will continue to pass well-disguised theft off as innovation.
Similarly, something is amiss when we are striving for a raft of protective measures, which would make it possible to put an immediate stop to the sale of these goods, while there are reasonable grounds for suspicion and when the only thing lacking is the time needed to furnish proof.
In addition to all the necessary schemes intended to combat the sale of these fraudulent goods, however, it is essential to cut off the supply of these goods pouring into the single market, flouting all the principles which are supposed to regulate its operation.
And in order to do so, Parliament must agree to remove the veil of doctrine which blurs the vision of the great majority of its Members when it comes to incontrovertible evidence of the need to re-establish internal border controls within the Community.
It would also have been wise to specify in some form other than the desperately vague paragraphs 31 and 34 exactly what obligations would be required of candidate countries on the subject.
Finally, and this is certainly the most serious issue, what cooperation policy do Member States intend to implement as of now in order to fight not only against the fly-by-night street trader, but more especially against organised crime, which nowadays apparently is becoming the real beneficiary of this expanding sector of activity?
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group will vote in favour of this report, even though it represents only the first minimal step in a Community-wide policy in which each Member State must take hard and fast action, and urges Parliament to vote in favour of its amendments, which would make it possible to give the text much more force than it has at it stands.
Mr President, this report is extremely late in coming, given that the Commission' s Green Paper was adopted on 15 October 1998.
It is true that, in the meantime, we have had the elections to the European Parliament, but if consultation with Parliament regarding a Green Paper takes more than a year and a half, something is not working as it should, and Parliament and the Commission should therefore review their methods for cooperation so that this issue can be resolved more speedily.
The Green Paper is, of course, a good one.
It was well received by the various parliamentary committees and Mrs Fourtou has produced a good report that was adopted almost unanimously by the Legal Affairs Committee, with 23 votes for and one abstention.
The opinions of the various committees are also favourable and have been well received; the opinion of Mr Berenguer Fuster, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the opinion of Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, and the opinion of Mrs Montfort, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
The Legal Affairs Committee has incorporated most of the proposals made by the various committees asked for an opinion.
What is important is that we are moderate and restrained when it comes to adopting the report.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group, for example, has tabled amendments which may affect the internal market.
Specifically, I think that Amendment No 6, tabled by Mrs Thomas-Mauro, which requests that border controls be established at internal borders, is extremely dangerous.
The purpose of this kind of initiative is not to rebuild the borders that we have already removed, and that is one of the reasons why Mr Berenguer Fuster and myself have tabled Amendment No 9, which is designed to prevent internal controls from being re-established by clamping down on piracy.
We must ensure, for example, that by clamping down on piracy, we do not contravene the agreements on the liberalisation of the internal market in matters of distribution. We must also prevent this provision, as Mr Whitehead said earlier, from leading to the regulation of all intellectual property rights, in the area of patents, for example, which is why we reject some of the amendments.
To sum up, I think that the report is a good one, but I would draw your attention to one issue: when we discuss the conditions for accession of the candidate countries, we must attach particular importance to the issue of the protection of intellectual property and protection against piracy.
In the accession negotiations, it must be made clear to candidate countries that the issue is extremely important to us and is, of course, extremely important to relations with third countries, since the development of international trade must be based on the recognition of the protection of intellectual and industrial property.
Mr President, this is a useful draft legislative provision.
We must dress the wounds suffered by European industry, amounting to millions of euros (though the movement of the euro may relativise such a figure).
We must consider the implications of these inferior quality products for consumers.
We must find the means to curb the globalisation of counterfeiting and piracy.
This text illustrates our inability to regulate the internal market since we eliminated internal border controls within the European Union.
The fact is, establishing a single market without internal borders, without these safety valves which, in the final analysis, would not disturb the ordinary citizen, offers an area which is a sheer delight, and a profitable one at that, for criminals of every kind.
Modern-day pirates, come to Europe, the only risk you run is that of a few spot checks being carried out by customs officials looking for the needle in the European haystack!
In this respect, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy was indeed well advised and insightful when it adopted the opinion, since it adopted the amendments I tabled.
Admittedly, candidate countries must undertake not to counterfeit or make pirate copies of our services (only, perhaps, of our values) but we should also consider the countries with whom we sign customs agreements.
Should the aforesaid undertaking not be a condition sine qua non?
Moreover, let us not be naively optimistic. A totally free area cannot be created until the structures to monitor this freedom are ready.
I wished to point this out in my Amendment No 6, which was adopted within the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Customs controls at the internal borders of Member States, in this specific context, do not represent a barrier to the single market but, quite the opposite, offer protection as regards the jobs, health and safety of European Union residents.
In adopting this very important amendment, realistic and constructive Members of Parliament will be cultivating the art of good border management.
We must ensure that the European Union is not replaced by a poor quality counterfeit which would leave our States vulnerable to cross-border crime and which would be to the detriment of its inhabitants.
Mr President, I have the impression that, by following the Commission in laying too much emphasis on the internal market, many of my fellow Members have not grasped the real scale of this phenomenon.
Our markets are adversely affected by counterfeiting and piracy, as are all world markets.
It would, therefore, be a dangerously narrow approach to confine ourselves too much to the single market, suggesting that the entire solution could be found there.
I should also like, at this Green Paper stage, to stress the fact that such illegal activities, when they affect pharmaceutical products, spare parts and toys, constitute a very real risk to human health and safety.
And I appeal to reason to ensure that the attempts to reconcile national approaches do not compromise the arrangements already in place in our national states.
I foresee the risks of allowing harmonisation to become an end in itself.
Given the real risk of losing focus, I should like to issue a warning to the Commission.
Rather than on the counterfeiting of garden gnomes which it mentions, we should be concentrating on protecting patents, trademarks and copyright, which make it possible to guarantee consumer protection as well as ensuring the continued existence of firms that undertake significant investment up front in research and development and in the manufacture of quality products.
Many jobs in the textile sector, the automobile industry and the sphere of culture also depend on these.
Let us be serious about this. Software protection within European or national administrations requires much more than a code of conduct, but rather the strict observance of regulations, and I hope that the Commission will acknowledge that this is more a matter of determination to adopt sound managerial practices than of the introduction of a harmonised arsenal of legislative and criminal law measures.
Mrs Fourtou' s report is valuable because it provides an important gloss on the Commission' s green paper 'Combating counterfeiting and piracy in the single market' .
This document clearly sets out the importance of intellectual property in the contemporary world and the damage that theft of that property can do.
While many people quite rightly consider that burglary is wrong, there is not somehow the same feeling about, for example, the illegal taking and using of intellectual property, for example, pirated CDs or using Napster to get other people' s music off the Internet.
But, of course, there is no fundamental difference between the two.
In some ways the most interesting challenge posed by these relatively new forms of crime are the means of countering them.
Clearly, in any pan-national single market, measures cannot be confined to a single Member State' s jurisdiction but it does not automatically follow that the correct answer is European-wide harmonisation of penalties, criminal law and procedures.
There is undoubtedly an overriding requirement for coordination and a single strategy to deal with the counterfeiters and pirates, but the principles of mutual recognition have not, in my view, been given the prominence I would like to have seen in the conclusions to the report.
This tends to emphasise the need to harmonise more than is appropriate or necessary in the circumstances.
However, having said that, it is important for the European Union' s judicial area to have a coherent and comprehensive framework for dealing with the problems of counterfeiting and piracy which is widely carried out both within and without the Union by increasingly determined and technologically sophisticated criminals.
We are often glibly told, rightly in fact I believe, that we are moving into a knowledge-based society.
We therefore cannot allow that knowledge to be stolen from those to whom it belongs as doing that will undermine the economic base of the society.
If that happens, we allow it to happen at our peril.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Transitional civil administration/peace accords
The next item is the report (A5-0111/2000) by Mr Laschet, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on support to bodies set up by the international community after conflicts, either to take charge of the interim civilian administration of certain regions or to implement peace agreements.
Mr President, this specific proposal concerns support for those bodies which the international community must unfortunately establish now and again, either to take care of interim civilian administration in regions affected by conflict or to implement peace agreements.
As a Union, we must, of course, assume long-term responsibility for this type of task in Europe.
We are already involved in two cases, through the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina and through the EU' s participation in the UN' s transitional administration in Kosovo.
The major part of the EU' s operations in Kosovo, for example, will, of course, be concerned with actual reconstruction, but the EU must, naturally, also assume responsibility for those bodies which are required if there is to be a return to a society with a functioning civilian administration, able, in the long run, to become a democratic society cooperating closely with both the EU and the other Balkan countries.
It is equally obvious that responsibility must be shared fairly between different international players and that there must be correct and detailed regulations relating to how this is to take place.
In this regard, I nonetheless feel a certain unease.
We are receiving more and more information about an unduly small proportion of the EU' s aid to Kosovo in fact going to practical reconstruction and an extremely large proportion of those resources we have allocated for the year 2000 being spent in other ways.
Administration of the reconstruction bureau, which is also an important measure, is one such item of expenditure, but here we are also concerned with, for example, budgetary aid and energy imports.
We are not questioning the significance of these measures, but it is rather alarming if the cost of those operations which constitute the EU' s main task is actually much lower than the 360 million which has been allocated.
More information is required in this area.
In order that the work can be executed quickly, and in the absence of a legal basis, the Council has so far chosen to take a decision on the measures within the framework of the common foreign and security policy.
In accordance with the present proposal, this type of measure is now to be transferred to the first pillar.
We therefore demand a rethink, firstly of the legal basis for the aid provided by the Union and, secondly, of the way in which we are actually to use those resources which have traditionally been allocated within the sphere of foreign policy but which belong, rather, under the first pillar and Category 4.
There appear to be a number of gaps in this area.
If the Commission' s proposal and the Council' s wishes are to be complied with and a new budget item created, and if this is, moreover, to be provided with additional net financing, it will be necessary to consult Parliament and carry out a proper budget procedure.
I want to be clear on this point: it is not a question of Parliament enjoying the prestige of being able to express its opinion on these questions, but of our now having to realise that these tasks are not of an interim character but are to be more long term in nature.
Where operations are concerned, we must have a method which is fast and legally correct and which permits transparency, and we must therefore have a more regular budgetary procedure.
There must be a great readiness to engage in continued operations of this kind.
We must therefore also clarify the way in which the budget is managed, together with the legal basis for the aid. In this way, disputes about these matters will not become obstacles to constructive operations.
On the whole, I believe that transparency and public scrutiny are important elements of the measures which need to be taken in future. However, these must be combined with speed and efficiency.
In an area like Kosovo, decisions cannot be made on operations which are to be delayed for a long time, because the situation may already have had time to change.
We should establish conditions for how the resources concerned are to be used, but we should not have procedures which are so complicated that the EU is accused of inefficiency or that important reconstruction operations are delayed.
It is therefore important that support for the type of body we are now talking about should be accompanied by special agreements concerning how the money is to be used and that there should be subsequent proficient monitoring of the quality of the operations concerned.
Moreover, we must subsequently be given detailed reports on how, for example, the transitional administration is working.
There are positive features to be mentioned.
Even if the EU sometimes comes in for criticism, it is worth mentioning that the EU' s task force has received a lot of praise for the efficiency it has shown.
We only hope now that this efficiency really can also be transferred to the more permanent work in the reconstruction bureau and to the EU' s operations within the framework of UNMIK.
I want to emphasise that considerable freedom of action at local level is required, but we must, of course, be able nevertheless to check that the resources are being used correctly.
The present proposal also contains a new budget item of EUR 27 million. This is to be accommodated within Category 4 which, in turn, of course, also gives practical expression to yesterday' s proposal from the Commission for a review of the budget in order to accommodate the more long-term support for democratisation and reconstruction in the Balkans.
The Committee on Budgets has a large number of questions regarding these figures.
There is a definite desire on the part of Parliament to come up with the aid required and we are aware that the needs are very great indeed.
We must also focus on the needs of the Balkan peoples, but then it is the task of Parliament and of the other branches of the budgetary authority to find the technical solutions to the financing requirements.
I think that the sum of 27 million we are talking about here emphasises the need to review the budget.
I believe that most people judging the issue, possibly with the exception of the Council, would consider it impossible to use this aid in its entirety within the framework of the budget' s current Category 4.
It is unreasonable that support for other poor regions in the world should be affected by the problems in the Balkans.
To sum up, I think that we must now give more consideration to the quality of the operations.
Now that the Commission is presenting both the budget for implementation and this new way of dealing with the support for establishing the EU' s part in the civilian administration, it is important that we should not focus solely upon the overall figures or the formal decision-making processes. It is at least as important to evaluate the operations and to make sure that these are implemented swiftly and efficiently.
In general, it is now being said that the implementation in Kosovo is more effective than in Bosnia, but there are still plenty of new issues which ought to be investigated.
The whole of this discussion shows how closely foreign and security policy is bound up with Parliament' s role in, for example, the budgetary procedure.
In this regard, we must develop a model for guaranteeing that aid is put together correctly and transparently in accordance with our regulations and in such a way that it can also be examined and reviewed, as Mr Staes pointed out.
These considerations must not lead to the aid programme becoming bogged down in vague decision-making processes.
Against this background, we support the Laschet report.
Mr President, Mr Laschet has produced an excellent report on a very technical subject, going into great detail and discovering certain features connected with the subject which have been discussed during this debate.
For this reason, I would like to congratulate him on his splendid work.
Parliament is considering a proposal for a Council Regulation on a basis for financing the UN operation in Kosovo, UNMIK, and the costs of the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The intention is to transfer these appropriations from the common foreign and security policy in the second pillar to the first pillar, to be financed from the Commission' s budget.
Although this would appear to be a purely technical measure, there are certain problems associated with it.
The first concerns Category 4.
Category 4 is already overloaded.
For this reason, the Commission proposed yesterday that the financial perspective be revised and that there should be substantial use of agricultural appropriations for external action.
This transfer will bring with it a considerable need for additional financing in Category 4.
Another problem concerns competence.
If the proposal for a regulation were to be adopted without amendment, it would mean that there would be a syphon for transferring second pillar funds to the first pillar in Category 4, without consulting Parliament.
For this reason, the regulation must be amended so that Parliament may maintain its power of influence.
This syphon has to be blocked, so the annex to the proposal should be deleted and the amendments the Committee on Budgets is proposing should be adopted.
The proposal should therefore be restricted at this stage of the proceedings to just two situations: financing the UN operation in Kosovo and the costs of the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Thirdly, if the funding of special envoys is transferred in future to the Council' s administration budget, as is supposed, it will mean that the gentlemen' s agreement between the Council and Parliament will have to be reviewed.
Under this agreement, the Council and Parliament do not interfere with the content of each other' s budget.
If, however, what are clearly operational appropriations, such as those for financing the work of special envoys, are transferred to the Council' s budget, they will no longer be serving to fund the Council' s administrative expenses, but rather providing common financing of the work of the European Union.
For this reason, these funds can no longer fall within the scope of the gentlemen' s agreement: the European Parliament must have the right to express its opinion and to influence the use of appropriations for financing the work of special envoys, even though they may have been included in the Council' s administrative budget.
The proposal for a Regulation may, as far as I can see, be adopted only if the Commission, and the Council too, accept Parliament' s amendments, since, otherwise, the proposal will go against the present interinstitutional agreement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to express our Group' s support for the rapporteur' s report.
It is quite clear that we need to strengthen the powers of the Commission and of Parliament in matters relating to aid for Bosnia, because past experience has shown that this is fraught with problems.
There is the report from the Court of Auditors for a start, but there are also the experiences of the delegates of the last legislature, and particularly Edith Müller, who kept on probing in Bosnia-Herzegovina, because it had become apparent that people' s sense of responsibility was nowhere near what is should have been when it came to the deployment of resources, spending money, investigations and the discharge procedure.
Transferring actions to the first pillar increases the likelihood of the Commission and Parliament being able to exert a great deal more influence over the allocation of funds, to carry out their responsibilities, and also check up on what becomes of the funds in the discharge procedure.
Firstly, this means that we will be able to make it clear to the European taxpayer that we are going to heighten the European institutions' sense of responsibility when it comes to spending money.
However, we will also - and I think this is at least as important - be setting the course for an important development, and I am with Mr Brok every step of the way on this point.
I believe it is absolutely vital for us to make it clear, in view of the fact that foreign policy is constantly gaining in importance within Europe, that the European institutions must be strengthened and that it is not for the Council alone to bear responsibility; rather it must be made clear, by increasing the level of responsibility of the Commission and Parliament, that we want to assume responsibility for foreign policy and that we also want to be involved in shaping policy in this sphere.
Mr President, the proposal for a regulation aims to provide a legal basis for transferring the financial contribution from the CFSP to the budget for the first pillar, which we consider a positive move, since Parliament' s lack of monitoring powers over the CFSP itself is a disgrace.
The draft resolution and the amendments therefore quite rightly stress the need to step up supervision of all operations to fund what are euphemistically called bodies in receipt of aid, in order to avoid any mention of a protectorate.
This is what is really at issue in Bosnia or in Kosovo.
The resolution indeed is silent on the key issue, which is the validity of the policy implemented in the former Yugoslavia. What is the state of affairs, five years on, in Bosnia-Herzegovina?
How is the outcome of the war in Kosovo to be appraised? How much did the military intervention cost?
How much did the destruction cost?
Through an 80% increase in the 2001 budget, the peoples of Europe are being asked to foot the bill for the parties that caused the destruction and that now want to embark on reconstruction, for the greater profit of a few industrialists.
But who do they think they are kidding when those self-same Heads of State that conducted the war are now causing living conditions everywhere to deteriorate and making employment less secure? What is more, the planned solutions to assist these protectorates are problematic and harmful.
For example, the level of the wages handed out to international organisations only serve to undermine these regions further.
For example, and this is still more tragic, there are still no effective controls on the distribution of aid.
Even the Committee on Budgetary Control is stressing the serious abuses in the management of European Union aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The deutschmark is foisted on Kosovo, and the law of the market prevails.
As far as we are concerned, the outcome of the military intervention speaks for itself.
Milosevic is still in power.
Kosovo is a ravaged country.
The ethnic divide is becoming entrenched, at the same time that an ungovernable protectorate is being set up which is seeking to deny the Kosovars independence without, for all that, being capable of applying the hypocritical framework of UN Resolution 1244.
For all these reasons, unlike my fellow Members who have spoken so far, we will be unable to vote in favour of a resolution which makes only marginal improvements to a disastrous policy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended from 10.35 a.m. until the vote at 11 a.m.)
Welcome
Vote
- (FR) Today, Parliament adopted the common position on the legal aspects of electronic commerce as it stands.
Everyone will acknowledge the value of clear regulations in a continually developing field where the economic and legal stakes are considerable.
I shall not dwell on aspects which have already been extensively discussed.
I should like at this point to return to one aspect I consider more fundamental.
Today we are setting regulations, quite rightly, for the litigation which may arise from impersonal, and therefore risky, electronic commercial transactions.
It is now imperative that we consider what steps we can take in advance to prevent such problems arising and, in order to achieve this, primarily combat the rationale according to which, in a world which is losing its most sacred ethical standards, e-commerce should be just another phase in the development of an unregulated society and one which therefore, as we can observe, inevitably places the very weakest at a disadvantage.
There is no question here of banning an extraordinary instrument of culture and openness. What we have to do is be as demanding with this as we are, legitimately, with any other form of trade.
And now we are getting to the heart of the matter: e-commerce and, more generally, the Internet, are the expression of a society without legitimate and, ultimately, human territorial limits.
This precious asset of freedom is caricatured by those who, deliberately or otherwise, promote the destruction of protective ethical standards.
Indeed, freedom only really exists, in any society, when each person has the legal capacity to accept or reject, in full knowledge of the facts, what is being offered to him and not just to engage in litigation after the fact, which gives rise to many problems, as we have clearly seen in the course of these debates.
The law must be the expression of a general political vision, a social project.
Otherwise, all it can do is follow after developments that it can neither anticipate nor control.
International or supranational structures never have that extra spark of spirit which engenders motivating ideas and collective commitment.
The European Union is no exception.
Carraro recommendation (A5-0118/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of the EU-Swiss Confederation agreements not only because I feel that it is extremely important for Switzerland, which will undoubtedly become part of the European Union in what we hope will be the near future, to have agreements established with the Member States of the Union, but also because, when I think of Switzerland, I feel a sense of relief.
Indeed, even today, all the newspapers in the European Union were proclaiming that even the fall of the European single currency, the euro, is the fault of the pensioners. Well!
So pensioners are responsible for everything that goes wrong!
In Switzerland, on the other hand, where income tax is only 10%, pensions are much higher than in our States.
Therefore, the Pensioners' Party has a liking for Switzerland.
- (FR) The report under discussion today concerns relations between Switzerland and the European Union.
Let us remember that Switzerland participated in the negotiations that led to the signing of the agreement on the European Economic Area.
In a referendum held in 1992, however, the people of Switzerland voted against this agreement, thus making it impossible for Switzerland to participate in the agreement on the EEA and with the result that Switzerland' s application for European Union membership, submitted in May 1992, was put on hold.
It was therefore necessary to find some means of maintaining links between Switzerland and the EU.
This led to the signing of bilateral agreements.
Since 1993, Switzerland has submitted a series of requests to participate in the internal market in specific sectors.
Following these requests, negotiations between Switzerland and the European Union resulted in a package of sectoral agreements.
This 'package' is made up of seven agreements on road and air transport, the free movement of persons, public procurement, research and development, mutual recognition in relation to conformity assessment, and agriculture.
In order to anticipate a situation in which any one of these agreements could be cancelled by referendum after the conclusion of the negotiations, the European Union decided to link these agreements together by including a standard clause in each of them to the effect that the agreements could only come into effect simultaneously and could only be applied in full.
This represented a minimum guarantee of coherence.
The procedure has undergone some delays in the Council due, in particular, to differences of opinion regarding the free movement of persons.
In April 2000, under pressure from the European Parliament, the Council presented the single, consolidated legislative instrument to approve the seven agreements between the Community and its Member States, on the one hand, and the Swiss Confederation, on the other.
This proposal for a decision combines the seven proposals, previously submitted by the Commission in a single legal instrument, with some amendments.
Shortly thereafter, the Council referred the matter to the European Parliament.
Only then did we have an opportunity to state our views and to decide whether or not we were going to give our assent to this package of agreements.
As it happens, our rapporteur is urging us to do so, and I shall follow his lead.
This is all the more important since a referendum on the agreement on the free movement of persons is due to be held in Switzerland on 21 May.
We must send out a positive political message by giving our assent.
I should, however, like to add a few minor points.
Switzerland must indeed clarify its position in relation to the European Union.
It must not be allowed to carry on picking and choosing the European policies it wishes to implement.
Madam President, the Pensioners' Party voted in favour of the Schierhuber report on the Convention on European Community Food Aid to the world.
We are all in agreement regarding this initiative, myself in particular, but I would like to stress the importance of avoiding the establishment of agricultural produce quotas such as milk, cereal or other food quotas resulting in these products being wasted, squashed by steam rollers in the form of citrus juicers, wine presses and so forth, whereas they could be preserved and delivered, whenever there is a need, and there is always a need, to states throughout the world which require food aid.
Laschet report (A5-0111/2000)
Madam President, this report is chiefly concerned with providing the current situation in Kosovo with the semblance of a legal basis and pseudo-democratic backing.
Parliament is invited to ratify the de facto situation created by the military attack upon Serbia and Kosovo a year ago.
After expressing at the time our opposition both to Milosevic' s ethnic cleansing and to the bombing by Western forces, we refuse to sanction in any way whatsoever the situation resulting from this bombing.
As for the financial aspects, we continue to maintain that it is the powers responsible for the bombing attacks who must fund the repairs to the damage caused by the war and its consequences, in both Kosovo and Serbia, and also in neighbouring countries, deducting the necessary sums from their military budget.
- (FR) The proposal for a regulation before us today seeks to provide an appropriate legal basis to enable the European Union to fund a number of bodies which have been set up by the international community following conflicts and which are responsible either for implementing certain peace agreements, as is the case in Bosnia-Herzegovina, or for ensuring the interim civilian administration of certain regions, as is the case, at present, in Kosovo.
The purpose of this text is also apparently to ensure the transparency of the funding, which would take the shape of subsidies, and also to make it possible to extend the type of action concerned to other bodies in future.
The text would, finally, provide the basis for the European Commission to take decisions on funding and, acting on behalf of the European Union, to then sign financial agreements with these various bodies.
Behind the sales pitch for this regulation, and as an inevitable progression from political decisions taken long ago, what we have here is no more and no less than a deliberate attempt to step up communitisation.
Let us make no mistake!
The present regulation, in response to a request from the Council, involves transferring the funding of joint actions, decided on within the framework of the CFSP and previously funded from the common foreign and security policy budget, to the first pillar, i.e. the vast range of Community policies managed by the Commission.
In this seemingly innocuous move we are also witness to a significant strengthening of the powers of the most integrative and most federalist body par excellence, i.e. the European Commission, on the grounds, although this is not admitted by the Council, that some operations should be perpetuated and that funds should be released for other actions.
Let us remember that if the European Commission decided to support them, any new bodies which might be set up by the international community would be guaranteed funding from the first pillar budget, without any need to even consider consulting the European Parliament.
Finally, strictly in terms of the actual budget, the proposal for a regulation puts a little more pressure on Category 4 of the financial perspective, for external measures, which is already under great strain on account of funding the reconstruction in the Western Balkans. If it were implemented this year, a supplementary and amending budget would be required.
For all the above reasons, the French Members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group are unable to support Mr Laschet' s report.
Hatzidakis report (A5-0076/2000)
Madam President, the Pensioners' Party, which is part of the Group of the European People' s Party, and I, myself, as its representative, voted for the Hatzidakis report on the granting of Community financial assistance in the field of Trans-European networks, mainly because communications within our Union are the single most important factor in the creation of Europe and the most important issue where the principle of subsidiarity is applied in practice.
There is no greater indication that Europe exists as a political, as well as a geographical, entity than the building of a network of links within Europe.
I hope that we will continue along this path and that national infrastructures will be established which give due consideration to European projects.
Sterckx report (A5-0075/2000)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against Mr Sterckx' s report, which I believe constitutes a serious threat to the future of air transport.
In the first place, this report gives no precise analysis of the liberalisation of air traffic.
There is no mention of its huge impact on the environment.
There is no mention of the major implications for airspace congestion related to the fact that the average number of passengers per flight has been considerably reduced as a result of competition.
There is no mention, or only very superficial discussion, of the great decline in the social conditions observed in these sectors of activity, nor is there any mention of the adverse effects on town and country planning, to the extent that, at the present time, it costs a lot to travel to a remote area of Europe, whereas costs have fallen for routes which are already well served.
These are the negative results of liberalisation.
Worse still, Mr Sterckx' s report proposes a new phase of liberalisation, envisaging not only a single European airspace, a proposal worth considering, but associating this inevitably with the privatisation of air traffic control.
Even the United States of America has not privatised its air traffic control agency.
It remains subject to the federal authority of the Federal Republic of the United States of America.
Even the home of liberalism did not go for this option.
One would have to be totally unaware of the deterioration in the safety of British transport systems, and the recurrence of accidents related to the privatisation of this means of transport, not to realise that, in terms of safety, there is nothing better than a public service.
Yet the choice made in this report is quite different, in fact the opposite, the complete antithesis.
I think that Europe is probably now, more so than before, in need of the confidence of its constituent nations, and that a new phase of liberalisation would run counter to the latter' s expectations.
They make this quite clear on a regular basis.
A subsequent return of liberalism will come as no surprise.
Madam President, on behalf of the Pensioners' Party, which is part of the Group of the European People' s Party, I voted for the Sterckx report on the regulation of the European airline industry.
I particularly welcome the recommendation in this report that national government delegations should be seconded to the European Union structures which deal with incentives for technical research.
I would also like to use these few, precious seconds allotted to me to point out that it would have been appropriate for these measures governing transport and, in particular, air transport in Europe, to make provision for young and elderly people who enjoy travelling, and that it would have been appropriate to provide flight discounts for them - but not necessarily during peak hours or on peak days - thereby promoting cultural exchanges among both young and elderly people from different States of the European Union.
.
(PT) We are bound to agree with the report under discussion when it states that increasing competition has had harmful repercussions on social conditions and safety and has led to a great expansion in the number of routes, thereby causing congestion of air space.
We also support the report' s confirmation of the importance attached to passenger air transport as a public service for the remote and island regions and to the requirement that air transport safety be improved.
We are therefore bound to disagree with the fact that the report continues, despite this analysis and in a completely contradictory way, to seek greater liberalisation of every aspect of this sector, as well as the transfer of the sovereignty of air space.
These are some of the reasons why we cannot vote in favour of this report.
Fourtou report (A5-0096/2000)
- (FR) I supported Mrs Fourtou' s draft report on the Commission' s Green Paper on combating counterfeiting and piracy because we are at the preparatory stage and I feel that our rapporteur has clearly outlined the serious risks involved in counterfeiting and piracy.
The fact is that, quite apart from the economic considerations, important enough in themselves, together with the activities of organised crime, consumers are being exposed to serious human health and safety risks.
I also share the views of the report when it stresses the need for public information and awareness campaigns and calls for a strengthening of the law enforcement aspect in view of the rising tide of counterfeiting and piracy.
On the other hand, I have rather more reservations as to the degree of harmonisation required, particularly in terms of criminal law.
In the same spirit, I should not like the involvement of national parliaments to be limited to a warning, inferring that we should be deadlocked if we did not take legislative powers on civil and criminal law away from the national level.
This way of reasoning, the seeds of which are to be found in the Green Paper, seems rather limited, but I have no doubts that, through cooperation between the competent authorities and the pooling of experience, it will be possible to obtain satisfactory results within optimum time limits without falling into this skewed way of thinking.
We must face facts. We already have tried and tested practices at national level.
What we should be doing is coordinating them better rather than ruling them out in the name of a uniformity which would only prove counter-productive.
Finally, I would like to welcome the invitation issued by our rapporteur to European and national authorities to monitor the internal use made of protected works, such as office software.
I would go even further and I believe, as my fellow Member, Mr Yves Butel, has said, that, in this area, what we need is not so much a code of conduct as for the regulations to be strictly observed.
- (FR) Computers, audio and video equipment, toys, fragrances, pharmaceutical products, clocks and watches, cars - absolutely everything is copied.
The harm suffered by the luxury goods industry is just the visible tip of the iceberg, probably also the least dangerous part.
Damage to the economy is much more significant.
A UNESCO Conference organised in Paris in June 1992 estimated the illegal gains due to counterfeiting at some BEF 3 000 billion per year.
According to the International Chamber of Commerce, the cost of counterfeiting represents between 5 and 7% of world trade.
Sales of illegal compact discs were reported to have increased by almost 20% in 1996 and comprise 14% of the world market.
In the software sector, piracy rates are estimated at 46% worldwide.
The number of jobs lost in the European Union is put at 100 000 over the past ten years.
These figures are probably still greatly underestimated, and Internet imperialism will make them higher still.
Current investigations show that piracy and counterfeiting are closely linked to other forms of organised crime, such as trafficking in drugs and armaments and money laundering.
This gives us an indication of the major stakes involved for the internal security of our Member States.
As the rapporteur quite rightly mentioned, I think that a balanced policy on the subject must combine prevention and law enforcement.
Prevention involves increasing public awareness, not just of the damage done to our firms, but also of the risks involved in purchasing poor quality products which may, in some instances, be dangerous to human health and safety.
I am thinking, for example, of pharmaceutical products and spare parts for cars.
I do not share the opinion expressed in Amendment No 8, since I think that confiscating illegally copied goods, even if it is only a simple compact disc, may well serve as an example and be of instructional value, particularly with regard to young people, who must learn that copying is damaging to the artist whose works they like.
As far as the law enforcement aspect is concerned, we must involve our Member States in a more proactive policy of fast and effective legal prosecution of offenders.
I think it would also be useful if the forces of law and order were to receive suitable training to be able to detect counterfeit goods more easily.
Increasing penalties might also have a deterrent effect.
Counterfeiting and piracy constitute a threat to the proper operation of the internal market.
They jeopardise the viability of some of our businesses, especially small- and medium-sized businesses that undertake research.
They introduce distortions of competition.
They undermine the foundations of a sound economy.
Moreover, and most especially, they mislead the consumer, sometimes at the risk of his or her health or safety.
This consumer must be protected, so much is clear.
It is in this spirit that I support Mrs Fourtou' s report.
- (FR) Mrs Fourtou' s report has given us the opportunity for a preliminary discussion on the measures to be taken to combat counterfeiting and piracy.
This report rightly deplores the harmful consequences of these methods for the economies of our countries, as well as the risks they entail for the purchasers of inferior quality products.
Parliament has therefore adopted some of the conclusions of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, particularly on what is at stake in this fight and on the importance of eliminating some of the disparities between intellectual property protection schemes in order to better address the problem.
We thought it useful to adopt, in the form of amendments, other conclusions which were not adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, particularly regarding the need for fast, effective civil law protection for intellectual property rights, and the need for realistic, appropriate and effective legislation on patents.
Regarding the definitions of scope, it would have been better to include not only the deliberate and fraudulent sides of such activities but also the commercial motives behind them.
Not to refer to the search for easy, illegal profits, which is characteristic of activities of this type, is to omit an essential feature, one which effectively makes them similar to one aspect of organised crime.
On the other hand, I am pleased to see that the House has adopted our amendment to define innovation and the improvement of innovation in an appropriate manner, since the similarity between these two areas often makes it possible to disguise counterfeits with nothing more than superficial changes and to introduce them as innovations.
There is a great deal at stake in piracy and counterfeiting, both for the people who are the victims of the illegal copying activities and of the counterfeit products, and also for the people who make money from them.
The fact that such activities are often associated with organised crime makes it imperative for us to define most precisely the legal instruments we wish to create in order to combat it.
The effectiveness of the law, especially within the Community area, will lie in this precision and in its capacity to provide a realistic response to practical problems.
That concludes the voting.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 4 May 2000.
- Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, on Saturday, a horrific accident struck the people of Enschede, in the Netherlands.
There was an explosion in a fireworks warehouse which has already caused at least sixteen deaths and has injured over six hundred people, six of whom are in a critical condition, with many more people reported missing.
Around four hundred homes have been destroyed by the explosion, and more than a thousand have suffered damage.
This is one of the most terrible disasters in the Netherlands since the second world war.
I have contacted the Dutch authorities to express our deepest sympathy, both in a personal capacity and on behalf of the European Parliament.
At this sad time, our thoughts go out to the victims, to their families, and also to the emergency rescue teams who are working tirelessly.
Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to observe a minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Madam President, on behalf of the 31 Dutch delegates of this European Parliament, I would like to convey to you my heartfelt thanks for the words you spoke a moment ago and for the respect this Parliament has shown for the victims of this terrible disaster in Enschede and for their relatives.
Madam President, on behalf of the 31 delegates, there is actually little I could add to your words.
I would, however, like to underline how we have been moved not only by what you said a moment ago and the silence that was observed, but also by the prompt assistance across the borders to relieve the distress following this disaster.
At a moment' s notice, German colleagues joined forces with their Dutch friends to carry out the frequently dangerous activities which were necessary to control the disaster.
German hospitals too have been involved in the care of the wounded, dozens of whom are still in hospital.
I find this an example of European solidarity which is what we stand for in this Parliament.
On behalf of the 31 delegates, I would also like to thank the Commission which immediately expressed sympathy in the form of a letter from Mr Prodi to the municipality of Enschede.
I would like to ask the Commission to consider what kind of a role it sees for itself in relieving distress and in preventing terrible disasters of this kind in which so many citizens are involved.
I am extremely grateful to you on behalf of the 31 for the sympathy this Parliament has shown, and I can see in our Parliament a true representation of the European solidarity which this continent so desperately needs.
- Thank you, Mr Oostlander.
- On 7 May last year, terrorism of the most undiscriminating and brutal kind once again struck in Spain with the murder of José Luis López de Lacalle, a journalist and co-founder of the Forum d' Ermua, a peace movement of Basque intellectuals.
The terrorists intended to strike a blow at one of the most precious assets of democracy, freedom of expression.
This forum was founded after Miguel Ángel Blanco Garrido, a municipal councillor in Ermua, was murdered by ETA in July 1997.
This forum means to affirm that intimidation and blackmail are not enough to silence consciences.
Throughout his life José Luis López de Lacalle fought to defend freedom and democracy.
After spending five years in prison under the Franco regime, he fell victim to another dictatorship, that of terrorism.
That very day, I made a point of staunchly condemning this act of barbarism and of expressing, both in a personal capacity and on behalf of the European Parliament as a whole, our deepest sympathy and condolences to his family and the newspaper he worked for.
I also notified the Spanish Government of our utmost support in the fight against terrorism.
Agenda
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 11 May 2000 has been distributed.
Relating to Thursday:
We can have five items in the Human Rights section.
At the moment, we only have four.
We therefore have the opportunity to add a further item, and I have received three requests.
A request from the GUE/NGL, the Greens and the TDI to add a new sub-item entitled "Tunisia" ; one from the PPE Group to add an item on "Spectator safety and the prevention of hooliganism at the forthcoming European football championship" ; and an item from the Union for a Europe of Nations Group to add a new sub-item entitled the "Situation of Bhutan refugees in Nepal" .
I shall therefore put these requests to the vote in the order in which I received them. Firstly, though, Mr Cohn-Bendit wishes to speak in support of the request by the GUE, the Greens and the TDI.
Madam President, for my part I wish to speak on a constructive rather than on a polemical basis.
I think this is indeed an opportune moment to have a debate on human rights in Tunisia. It must be held this week because today the trial of Taoufik Ben Brik' s brother is taking place in Tunis and tomorrow a delegation of Members of the European Parliament, from my Group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and the Group of the Party of European Socialists will be returning from Tunis.
This week we are also due to be visited by the President of the Tunisian League of Human Rights and perhaps by Mr Taoufik Ben Brik himself.
In view of these circumstances and the importance of the European Parliament decision to take action to encourage the release of Mr Ben Brik, I think it particularly appropriate for us to enter this item on the agenda.
Thank you, Mr Barón Crespo.
I think the House is now sufficiently well informed to proceed to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
And now to the proposal from the Group of the European People' s Party on hooliganism.
Madam President, I wish to thank my own group for allowing this resolution to come this far.
It is not often that we discuss urgencies that might be able to change something for the better.
We are always very reactionary and talk about things that we really cannot affect.
However, next month, before we sit again in Strasbourg, the European football championship starts.
A number of problems have already been raised by people such as the Belgian Police Federation, and there have been many documentaries in various countries about various games and the security arrangements for Euro 2000.
I know this is meant to be a human rights issue, and indeed it is about the rights of ordinary people.
Every real supporter of football has the right to go to a football game and spectate, and then come away without a threat of violence, without problems on the streets and without being harassed unduly by people we do not particularly like to meet at any time: football hooligans.
This is what this motion is about and I very much hope Members will support it.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
Madam President, on Friday of last month, the four votes could not be held because of the absence of a quorum which had been requested.
Now, I do not think that this is the appropriate place to debate this.
Those who took the initiative have sent a letter to all Members to explain what exactly their intentions were in taking this action.
We will all have the chance next month, of course, to speak our minds regarding Fridays because we will then be discussing the 2001 Agenda.
However, that does mean that we have a problem in the short term, namely what we will be doing this coming Friday.
That problem has been addressed by this Parliament' s Bureau and, if I understand it correctly, the Bureau issued an opinion to the Conference of Presidents with a proposal not to hold any votes this coming Friday.
As I understand it, this has not been discussed by the Conference of Presidents.
Since it is, of course, up to this House to draft the agenda, I would like to propose simply moving all votes scheduled for Friday to Thursday because, whatever you may think of what happened last month, I think this would be the best way of avoiding the problem.
We can then decide next month what we want to do in the long term.
Thank you, Mrs van der Laan.
As you can see, this provides some incentive for you to attend in great numbers on Friday in order to vote.
I would address my very good friend, Mary Banotti, and ask what the situation is regarding Danish TV here in the Parliament building.
We are, of course, one of the small countries which are always oppressed, but we should like to be able to watch Danish television so that we can keep up with what is happening. We are Europe' s most important country.
We are simply the best. Just look at who won the Eurovision Song Contest.
But we cannot keep in touch with what is happening.
What are you going to do about it, Mary?
Thank you, Mr Blak.
Mrs Banotti will reply immediately.
Mr Blak will explain it to you.
Madam President, I should just like to say that last year in this House we democratically rejected a motion to cancel Friday sittings by a large majority.
We decided in favour of maintaining sittings on a Friday and said that on that day we would put items on the agenda which were uncontroversial, matters which had nonetheless to be dealt with and yet could also be properly settled with a rather smaller number of people.
Last Friday, a minority of people abused a provision in the Rules of Procedure in order, as it were, to undermine the Friday sitting and to prevent the votes from taking place.
In my view, this is an abuse of a rule which, in itself, is perfectly reasonable because, after all, a majority of this House made a decision on Friday sittings last year.
The matters which were not put to the vote that Friday - including the important issue of Ethiopia - were voted on in Brussels and the results were almost unanimous.
We could have voted on them almost unanimously on the Friday too, and I should like to ask colleagues to stop this sabotage, to let us get on with our work and to discuss the issue of how we organise our work separately and calmly.
But let those who want to work here on a Friday do so in peace and quiet.
At the end of the day, the votes had to be repeated because those who had asked for there to be a check on the quorum were themselves no longer present and did not take part in the vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you are well aware, we are not going to start a debate on this sensitive issue.
I will allow two more speakers and then we shall move on to the order of business.
Madam President, I think there is a misunderstanding here.
Mrs Van der Laan spoke about the proposal made by the Bureau to the Conference of Presidents.
As I understand it, the Conference of Presidents has not discussed this matter any further.
According to Mrs Van der Laan, it is not the intention that we now pass judgement on an action regarding the use of the Rules of Procedure.
I would not want to term it misuse because then I would not know what else these Rules could be used for.
What matters is that we too discuss a proposal from the Bureau here and now.
Surely a proposal from the Bureau cannot simply be sidelined. All we want is that it should also be discussed and that a vote should be taken on it.
Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now give the floor to Mr Wiebenga, since he was in the chair for the Friday of the last part-session and he will be able to tell you that we have discussed this within the Bureau.
Madam President, for those Members who do not know, I would like to make it clear beforehand that I do not belong to the action group which started this Friday action, but that I was the acting President who had to contend with it.
I would like to remind you - and I am at liberty to say this here because I have also said this outside the Bureau - that I referred this point to the Bureau, to you and colleagues in the Bureau, and have, for the short term, suggested four possibilities for Fridays, before we decide on the agenda for the year 2001, because then we might just as well, of course, vote here in plenary.
The first possibility is to scrap Friday sittings altogether.
The second possibility is to have Friday sittings with a full agenda and hold votes at 12.00, at lunch times, or such like.
The third possibility is to hold debates on Fridays without voting and then delay the votes until Brussels or subsequent sittings.
The fourth possibility is to carry on as we are, that is to say, to hold minor debates on Fridays and round them off with votes.
Clearly, this last possibility will lead to situations in which other Members can request that the quorum be checked, meaning that we will once again be unable to hold votes this coming Friday.
Madam President, the competent body in these matters is not the Bureau but the Conference of Presidents.
I think that, whatever your opinion may be, whether you are for or against Fridays and whether you are for or against Strasbourg, our Parliament would benefit most if we were not to argue every Friday about the quorum and - I also told the Bureau this - if we were not to hold any votes this coming Friday.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Conference of Presidents which is to meet on Thursday will look into the situation in any case and will see what grounds there are for holding the votes on Friday.
I must also inform you that Mr Provan is to present a report to the Bureau on the internal reforms to be applied to the operation of Parliament and, of course, the organisation of the Friday sitting, which Mr Wiebenga has just been discussing, will be one of the areas under consideration.
Having said that, if you wish to continue to discuss the matter, I see no objection to this.
We shall hear your comments, presented as procedural motions.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I was simply making a protest about the electronics here.
I was unable to receive interpretation, and I am sure that certain other Members were having difficulty with interpretation earlier.
I think I was getting Swedish at one point and I could not hear Mr Blak at all.
I just wanted to point that out.
I think Mrs Banotti referred to it but as I could not hear her, because I was getting Swedish at the time, I do not really know what she said.
Thank you, Mrs Ahern, we shall take steps to ensure that this does not happen again.
Madam President, on a point of order.
It is the same point, and for once I agree with Mrs Ahern.
This must be a first!
Madam President, I should like to respond to what my fellow Member has just said.
I am among those who are in favour of the Friday sitting and who think it important to keep the sitting on that day, just like on the other days of the week.
I should like to add that some of us who, quite rightly, requested that that quorum be checked so that the sittings could be conducted in due order, remained in attendance throughout the votes.
It is inaccurate, therefore, to accuse Members of sabotage.
There are Members in the Chamber who attend from Monday to Friday, and remain until the end of the sitting on Friday.
Madam President, I could not agree more with the observations made by Mr Wiebenga.
The least we can do is to carefully examine once more how we have filled Fridays.
But I would add - also because a number of misconceptions have made their way into the media - that I am not one of those people who would like to solve the 'Strasbourg' discussion via the back door, but that I do belong to the group of people who want to examine, via a vote, whether we can hold a proper sitting in Strasbourg on a Friday, which also involves our French delegates.
I wanted to highlight these two aspects.
But that also means - and I must get this off my chest - that all those Members who criticised me last time because I had levelled criticism at them, must have left the Chamber before 12.00. (The last vote was held after 12.00.)
That was very hurtful because, unfortunately, the activists, comprising pro-Europeans from my own country and a large number of anti-Europeans, had left by the time the roll-call vote was held.
Reference can be made to the last roll-call vote for this.
Let us examine in a fair manner and through sound discussion how we can fill this part-session.
Madam President, I have little to add after Mrs Oomen' s intervention.
I only hope that you will understand this.
The Dutch group which made Fridays a subject for discussion in this way did not do this because they are against Strasbourg or anything like that.
They did so because time and again, there is heavy criticism, also in the Netherlands, regarding these Friday sittings and also because most of us prefer to work in our country on Fridays.
This is because we already spend a great deal of our time in Brussels and Strasbourg as it is, and because we need the time to talk to our electorate.
I think that a serious discussion about Fridays is urgently needed and this should not be confused with the discussion about Strasbourg.
It is a discussion on the question of whether we organise our work efficiently and well and whether we have any time left to spend in our own constituencies.
I support the action in this sense.
As I said, there is scope for discussing this when we come to examine Mr Provan' s report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I was among those who were present throughout Friday. It is easy to check up on, because electronic voting took place that day.
In fact, there is no question of sabotage. Rather, it is a question of taking Parliament seriously enough to find it actually embarrassing that there are only 70 Members here when we vote on important matters such as school milk or Ethiopia.
This has also given rise to quite a major debate in my own country, Sweden.
We must get a serious discussion under way about these matters.
Either we make Friday a proper working day or we do away with it.
I will be very brief, Madam President. Moreover, I feel that this issue should be discussed in more detail, perhaps at a more convenient time.
I subscribe to the view that Parliament should work on Fridays.
Solutions can, in all probability, be found by putting debates rather than voting sessions on the agenda, for we are all aware that Fridays are convenient for interaction with the Commission and, therefore, important in terms of our political work in the area of our function as MEPs representing our home territories.
When we discuss this issue, it would, however, be preferable for Members to refrain, when considering the action to be taken, from laying themselves open to misrepresentative publicity regarding the nature of Parliament' s function.
There are certain types of action which give our countries and our electorate the impression that, in actual fact, the European Parliament spends its time fooling around and doing no work. The effect of these actions is therefore damaging, whatever the motive behind them.
I therefore hope that we will be responsible enough to reach a point at which the debate can brought to a definitive conclusion without going down a path which none of us want to take and without laying ourselves open to criticism.
As Mr Wiebenga said, and as I said myself, we are currently investigating the best solutions.
Madam President, all I asked for is whether or not it is possible to put the request that we do not vote this coming Friday to the vote. After all, this is now the item on the agenda: determining the agenda for this plenary session.
No, Mrs van der Laan, you ought to know that according to the Rules of Procedure, this is a request that should have been presented in due form and at the due time, and this was not the case.
I cannot therefore put this request to the vote.
It only remains for me to express the hope that there will be a good attendance this Friday, votes or not.
I am counting on you all, if only for the benefit of the public that attends our debates.
Agricultural prices
The next item is the report (A5-0115/2000) by Mrs Jeggle, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the Commission proposals relating to the prices for agricultural products (COM(2000) 77 - C5-0121/2000 to C5-0126/2000 - 2000/0045(CNS) to 2000/0050 (CNS)).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you had a wonderful weekend and that you were able to relax somewhere in Europe in our fantastically beautiful - and, above all, undamaged - agricultural landscape, which is responsibly and lovingly tended by our farmers.
It is in this spirit of optimism that we can begin this debate on our report on the prices for agricultural products in 2000/2001.
In the past, this report was always the subject of fierce debates on farm incomes.
The decisions made under Agenda 2000 established many principles, not necessarily always for the best as far as agriculture is concerned.
This Commission proposal, too, contains a series of points which will again lead to a reduction in farmers' incomes.
In my report I make my opposition to this absolutely clear.
The Commission is proposing to further reduce the additional charges on the intervention prices for cereals in two stages and then to fix them.
The Commission' s proposal to reduce the monthly increments would mean another substantial deterioration in farm incomes.
In this context, we also reject the Commission' s plan to make the intervention criteria stricter.
If the minimum moisture content threshold were lowered this would reduce the compass of the intervention safety net and increase the proportion of the cereal crop which is, in principle, excluded from intervention.
A third point - and here, judging by recent press releases, the Council appears to be coming round to the Agriculture Committee' s point of view - relates to Mrs Schreyer' s proposal to cut the agriculture budget by EUR 300 million per year in favour of the EU's foreign policy, despite the fact that additional money has still not been made available to remedy the extensive forest damage.
At this stage I should like to state clearly once again that however important the EU's commitment to the Balkans is, the agriculture budget does not constitute an inexhaustible supply of funds which we can use to finance all our other desirable policies.
The agriculture budget is neither a self-service shop nor a high-yielding dairy cow.
Mrs Schreyer says that, of course, the EUR 300 million will not come out of direct support, but that is irrelevant because in the second pillar of agricultural policy too - that is, promoting the development of rural areas and stewardship of the countryside - each and every euro is necessary and well-spent.
Our farmers are already experiencing uncertainty of a kind which ought to make us stop and think.
Structural change is not, in itself, a bad thing; it is much more the consequence of a huge improvement in training and therefore in knowledge, skills and technology.
But if an increasing number of farms are going out of business, farms which we have classified as viable from a political point of view, and if farmers are complaining about their workload, which is becoming unbearable, then something is wrong, and perhaps something is also wrong with our policy.
It is our job to put in place tangible and enduringly reliable or - with your permission I will borrow a word from our definition of modern land management - sustainable framework conditions and not to turn the screws - including the tiny ones - even further.
After all, we have already tightened the large ones as far as they will go.
We need to change fundamental aspects of our agriculture policy for the long term!
We need a new vision for our farmers which is forward-looking and geared towards future needs.
At this point I should like to ask the Commission whether, and to what extent, it is prepared to accept the amendments we adopted unanimously in committee.
I am obviously asking because there is the possibility of referring this back to the committee if the Commission is not prepared to take on board points which are important to Parliament.
I refer in particular to the moisture content of cereals and the monthly increments.
On the other hand, I recognise that the budget year begins on 1 July and that a referral back to the committee might mean that the Council would not be able to decide in time, which would again be disadvantageous for agriculture.
That is what I want to prevent at all costs.
I started the report by reminding you of the beauty of the European agricultural landscape.
I should like to finish with the sentence: 'Food and drink hold body and soul together' .
Let us not forget this, even in our political considerations and decisions!
Madam President, a large contingent within the Committee on Budgets is of the opinion that, as far as next year' s agricultural prices are concerned, we should adhere to what was agreed in Berlin.
Nothing more, nothing less.
This is an achievement in itself in certain sectors of agriculture.
In various European countries, large groups of farmers are in dire straits.
At present, there is a great deal of suffering in silence.
So far, it would seem that the agricultural budget was born under a lucky star.
The euro-dollar rate impacts favourably on the budget, although certain figures are a cause of concern.
There is nothing to say, however, that things will remain the same forever.
Despite this, the Commission has made various proposals to benefit from the agricultural budget, if possible.
Sometimes, these discussions focus on the sugar sector and other times they home in on other sectors of the agricultural budget.
The Committee on Budgets is of the opinion that we must keep to what was agreed in the plenary a number of months ago, namely a situation in which the agricultural budget serves as a primary source of funding for external EU action should never arise.
The budget will stick to this principle.
Secondly, according to the Committee on Budgets, the European Commission should come up with proposals to reform the sugar sector without delay.
If we start to discuss the budget for 2001 in structural terms in September or October of this year, then it is essential to know what the Commission has in mind for the sugar sector.
Am I not right in thinking that sugar fell outside the scope of the Berlin agreements? And in order to evaluate the 2001 budget effectively, we need to know this.
I hope that Commissioner Fischler will be able to tell us this afternoon when he intends to produce reform proposals for sugar.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when our farmers read in the press that we in the European Parliament are debating agricultural prices for the 2000/2001 financial year, many will certainly cherish the hope that we might just be considering a few price increases.
But that is not the case!
In fact, we are discussing the proposals which the Commission has tabled following the Agenda 2000 reforms.
May I, at this stage, specifically thank the rapporteur, Mrs Jeggle, for her work.
Hitherto, people have regarded it as a routine annual exercise when we have had to debate prices for agricultural products.
Year after year, blows were exchanged and, in that respect, I now welcome the fact that the fixed multiannual price proposals really can give farmers a rather more reliable framework in which to plan their production.
However, I should like to warn you that, with this system, the annual review by the Council, the Commission and Parliament might not perhaps receive the attention which it deserves.
The market situation, the outlook in the individual sectors and the trends in farm incomes as well as employment should continue to be examined by the European institutions on an annual basis.
The proposals on setting institutional prices and monthly increments cover the products already mentioned.
Most prices were fixed under Agenda 2000, but the Commission is proposing to cut the monthly increments for cereals by 7.5%.
I should like to fully support the rapporteur' s stance in this regard.
In our group' s view, the reduction in the monthly increments for cereals cannot be supported, not least because the Commission' s proposal undermines the Berlin decisions on Agenda 2000.
We should not continue to exert pointless pressure on farmers' incomes.
I now turn to a topical issue, Commissioner Fischler, which is of interest to me. During the last plenary part-session, we once again discussed with Mrs Schreyer whether this EUR 300 million for reconstruction aid in Kosovo for 2001/2002 really could be taken out of the agriculture budget.
I am familiar with the argument that we would save this amount because of the exchange rate mechanism.
This was also reiterated when we were discussing the organisation of the market in sugar.
But have I deduced correctly from the press that, at the beginning of last week, the Council in any case rejected this Commission proposal? I interpreted the press report as meaning that it did not support this, and I would be grateful to have the answer from your point of view, otherwise we will provoke a discussion here and debate the reality afterwards.
Personally, I was extremely pleased at least by this admission from the Council at this stage.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no longer much point in discussing the package of agricultural prices since the 1992 CAP stipulated the gradual transition from a production price support system to a direct aid system, increasingly required to be dissociated from the production volumes.
And as Agenda 2000 adopted and extended this approach, the establishment of agricultural prices is henceforth multiannual.
While, however, it must still be possible to make annual adjustments, they must nonetheless comply, for the most part, with the commitments made in Berlin covering this period.
This leads me, together with my colleagues on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to refuse to endorse the Commission' s proposal to reduce the monthly increments for cereals in two phases, by 7.5% each time.
The same applies to moisture content in cereals.
The Berlin agreement must continue to be our benchmark.
This is the principled position that the European Union adopted in Seattle with regard to its trading partners and competitors within the World Trade Organisation.
Logically, then, it should also set the standard in our debates on internal CAP matters.
In particular, the European Union must fulfil its commitments in order to enable European farmers to have a clear idea of the policy as it affects them, in order to be able to manage their farms as wisely as possible.
I therefore think it imperative to lift the veil from this notion of making the agricultural sector pay for Kosovo. In this connection, then, I would urge the Commission to provide us very quickly with its proposed reform of the COM in sugar.
Mr President, the opinion of the Committee on Budgets and that of the Liberal Group more or less coincide.
This is purely accidental.
I will therefore not repeat what I said in the first two minutes.
All these points which I mentioned are also backed by the Liberal Group.
I would like to add a few more points, however.
We are living in an era in which the agricultural budget is extremely tight.
The slightest movement in the dollar and euro rates would get us into great difficulty.
This being the case, the Commission will have to make a choice as to what to do with the money that is available.
Potentially, however, there is another very large gap.
Over the past few years, we have been faced with outbreaks of epidemics of infectious animal diseases.
We had the BSE crisis in Europe and several European countries suffered from swine fever outbreaks.
These combined outbreaks have cost the European budget billions.
It has so far been possible to finance them from categories other than the agricultural budget.
It was agreed in Berlin that this can no longer be the case.
If I am not mistaken, the agricultural budget only comprises one item of approximately EUR 100 million for the control of animal diseases.
This is peanuts compared to what was needed in the past to control outbreaks of infectious diseases.
This is why the Liberal Group is expressly asking the Commission to produce proposals as soon as possible for coping with any disasters.
One of the options is possibly to set up an insurance system throughout Europe, which would also promote fair competition.
In anticipation of the budgetary discussions in September, we would like the Commission to provide us with the necessary data so that we can take this into consideration in the discussions of the budgets for the year 2001.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, adoption of the 2000/2001 agricultural price package involves a commitment to save EUR 300 million from the agriculture budget and to use the appropriations released for reconstruction work in Kosovo.
In this context the report rightly points out that the Commission ought to submit a general document on this to Parliament, in the form of a concrete plan, before further austerity proposals can be accepted.
Without a doubt, the issue of funding the whole reform package plays a decisive role.
What I do not find satisfactory in this process, however, is the fact that we always speak first of reducing expenditure and revenue while at the same time transferring ever more tasks to the Commission, which, of course, does not reduce costs either.
Up until 2006 the Commission should work on the basis of the realistic targets set and should deduce its financial needs from them.
As a result of Agenda 2000, European farmers had to accept a EUR 5 billion reduction in their income.
This meant that the agriculture budget was fixed at EUR 50.5 billion and it should stay as such.
To achieve its objectives, the Commission should, in my view, be invited to present a report showing how costs have changed in the agricultural sector.
Today, more deals are concluded in a second than used to be in an entire day and change is the only constant.
Agricultural prices change particularly quickly.
In the EU in 1999, the prices of crop products fell by 4% and livestock products by 6%.
As a result of excessive over-production, pig prices fell by 9%.
All the important agricultural products such as milk, beef, cereals and pork are suffering from increased turbulence on the world' s foreign exchanges, reducing farmers' incomes still further.
That is why we are still far from answering the question of how European Union farmers should make a living in the future.
In the saturated marketplace, only products produced economically can be sold.
The price reductions will destroy farmers' livelihoods in Europe and thus temporarily ease the pressure on the market.
Following this structural change the agricultural holdings which have been able to survive will further increase their output and wield even greater power on the world market.
Another price war will lead to a new round of market redistribution.
Further developments will show whether the reform of the EU' s agricultural policy by means of Agenda 2000 is capable of achieving its overall aims or not.
Mr President, notwithstanding the fact that Agenda 2000 has set the parameters governing agriculture for the period up to 2006, the annual price package is still very important.
I agree fully with those who expressed their reservations today in relation to the Commission proposals on the cereals sector.
I am very pleased to see Commissioner Fischler here to listen to this debate.
To farmers the price received in the marketplace should represent the real value of their professional endeavours, rather than what they often perceive as social support for the products of their labour.
While not in any way wishing to detract from the overall success of CAP reform, as agreed in Agenda 2000, and acknowledging that without income support farmers would not survive, I must, at the same time, confess to some unease about a situation in which the produce of the land, as produced by our farmers, has to be sold at below production costs.
This happens in many instances.
In this context the support for agriculture - it is substantial and I acknowledge that because it represents almost 50% of the entire budget - must be seen also as a subsidy to consumers.
With the availability of employment outside agriculture and the advances made by the EU and Member States in reducing unemployment, there is now a serious threat to the sustainability of Europe's traditional family farm.
In recent weeks we have heard much talk about a review of the agricultural budget which was agreed in Berlin only a few months ago.
I get the feeling that those concerned only with book-keeping have absolutely no understanding of what is happening out there in the real world.
I warn that unless we become more vigilant and show a greater understanding of the unique and irreplaceable role of farmers in society, future generations and parliamentarians will be forced to react to save agriculture.
That is what we are now doing in our attempt to rectify the rural-urban imbalance which we have allowed to develop over a period of years.
Remember: that it was not the people who created this major problem for society; it was a lack of vision on the part of politicians and planners.
Let us take a fresh look at how better we can plan the long-term survival of agriculture as the profession responsible for food security and safety, taking account of the unique role of farmers as managers of the environment.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Jeggle on the report that she has produced, on the work she has done and on having achieved the practically unanimous support of the Committee on Agriculture for her report.
I would also like to congratulate the Commission on having included a multiannual element in the proposals.
Nevertheless, although this is a little repetitive, I would like you to bear in mind and reconsider, with regard to cereals, both moisture content and the monthly price reviews, since they are issues which could cause us considerable harm.
There is also another question, and I feel that harsh words are required: every time a problem arises in this European Union or in its political positions - positions which I do not question - we consider taking funds away from the agricultural budget.
This issue is of serious concern to us, since the Commissioner for Budgets has repeated that she intends to take EUR 300 million away from sugar to send to Kosovo.
There are also other matters which I would like to stress, which do not appear in the proposal on prices, such as my concern for the nut sector, hazelnuts and almonds, which is facing such great problems at the moment, since, in some cases, the improvement plans implemented by the Commission are coming to an end.
Since its review is not finished, and until the problem of the nut industry is resolved, an extension of these improvement plans should be reconsidered, until its correct place is found, which should be the COM in fruits, where it will be treated in a genuinely differentiated fashion.
Other issues of concern to me do not appear, such as the case of asparagus intended for processing.
Article 10(3) of the Regulation on processed fruits and vegetables provides for lump sum aid.
This aid is going to stop very soon; it comes to an end during this season.
How does the Commission intend to ensure that, in Europe, this aid is used to promote competitiveness and continues to be given to asparagus producers?
With regard to table grapes, on 31 July aid expires for the production of juice, which is included in the COM in wine.
In my opinion, it should be included in the next amendment of the COM in fruits.
Once it has expired however, that is, from 31 July, what are we going to do, until the new reforms are approved, about the aid for table grape processing? Will it be extended?
What is the intention here?
Regulation No 2275 also provides for aid for promotion in the flower and plant sector, and this aid is also coming to an end.
How can this happen, given that the Council has asked the Commission to carry out a study on the evolution of the aid, in order to justify whether or not it should continue? I believe that, while waiting for this study to be presented - and we still know nothing about it - and then for a reform to be proposed, Regulation No 2275 should perhaps be extended.
Does this fit in with the Commission' s plans? They are important sectors because they affect very specific areas.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Agenda 2000 has created a certain kind of stability for the European Agricultural Policy.
I consider it a matter of great importance that we can have a clear and firm view of the future, at least until 2006.
The departure from the Berlin Agreement - these sums are significant to agriculture, but extremely small on the level of the Community as a whole - the question in principle of departing from what has been agreed, is a very serious matter.
It is necessary for this Parliament to make decisions on a new and ongoing agricultural policy after 2006.
This kind of policy, which departs from what has been agreed upon, is not likely to create the stability and spirit that would enable us to share a common view of the future.
One thing of which we seem oblivious, is the present everyday reality of agriculture.
There has been a considerable rise in agricultural costs; fuel prices have gone up, and the level of costs in general is showing a constant upward trend.
In addition to this, farmers as well as the food industry have invested a great deal in quality, in order to rid us of the scandals which have marred the European agricultural model.
It is the farmers themselves who will ultimately have to pay these costs.
The farmers for their part have carried out all their duties and obligations.
We may only hope that the other party will also hold to those mutual agreements that have been made.
Mr President, in its proposals to the Council of Ministers, the Commission has not set out the prices of products and subsidies, as it falsely claims it has done; in our opinion, it simply wants to remind us of the prices and subsidies which will be in force for the period from 2000-2001 in accordance with existing regulations, and at the very most, to amend some monthly increments to the intervention prices of any products to which this system still applies.
We should like to take this opportunity, however, to note that first: producer prices and subsidies have been frozen for numerous agricultural products for twelve consecutive years, as is the case with sheepmeat and goatmeat, whereas for other products they have been falling due to the constant increase in production costs, thereby reducing net agricultural incomes, as the Eurostat figures also show.
The question therefore is: what are the farmers doing about this?
Secondly, eroding or even abolishing the intervention system will leave farmers at the mercy of traders, who buy from producers at derisory prices and then often resell at substantially higher prices.
As a result, while nominal producer prices have fallen, often quite sharply, consumer prices have risen.
In other words, both producers and consumers are being bled dry in the name of protection, which is what the European Union claims it is doing.
The question is what will farmers and consumers do about this?
Will they step up their fight?
Thirdly, low quotas and the resultant extortionate fines are eating up the subsidies for the 1999 harvest.
Thus the subsidies end up becoming a white elephant.
A blatant example is that of oil, which also concerns my country, and in particular my native island of Lesbos.
Despite declarations that the 1998-1999 subsidy would be GRD 460, producers were only paid GRD 330, one year later.
The same applies to cotton where, although the minimum price is EUR 101 per 100 kilos, Greek producers will be paid less than EUR 65 because of the co-responsibility levy.
We have the following comments to make on the issues addressed in the report: as regards cereals, we disagree with the reduction in the monthly increments of the intervention price, which should have been increased.
Also, it must be said that this approach is further eroding the intervention system and, as with other products, it will apparently be abolished altogether for cereals.
We also disagree with the monthly increment being paid in November, since harvest time in Greece is in June.
And similarly with rice, we recommend that intervention commence on 1 October or November and not on 1 April because otherwise, our producers are at the mercy of greedy profiteering traders for six months....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to support Mrs Jeggle' s report and the statements she has made by asking a few very simple questions.
Commissioner, I think it is in your interest to use the support offered by the Members of the European Parliament in order to attempt to safeguard your budget for agriculture.
When we see the way in which money is being used and diverted to finance other measures, we have good cause to wonder if we shall still have the resources to implement a European agricultural policy after enlargement, and moreover to ensure rural development.
When you achieve savings on cereals through moisture rates, how many millions does that amount to throughout Europe? And how are these millions going to be used?
Do not forget that it is the intermediate regions that will be the first to suffer the effects, not the good cereal-growing areas, the main cereal-growing areas, but rather the regions where there are average production levels, where many farmers are currently experiencing problems.
Looking across the board at agricultural regions, I am forced to note that it is these small- and medium-sized farms whose continuity is not assured, where the farmers' children are looking for careers outside agriculture.
I therefore think that this policy calls for caution, Commissioner.
And you have our support.
The agricultural budget must be used to promote rural development and to step up support to the family-type farms that exist at grass-roots level, rather than containing only budget measures whose sole purpose is to make savings.
Commissioner, we are counting on you a great deal.
We are speaking from the bottom of our hearts. Within Parliament we are aiming to defend the family farm.
- (PT) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Jeggle, on her work, and say that, in fact, this price package is no longer as important as it has been in the past, since, fortunately, it has started to turn into the presentation and definition of agricultural policy in the medium term.
This is why, only recently, we carried out a reform of Agenda 2000: these price packages tend merely to make annual adjustments in response to one-off situations.
The current price package comes at a time when the Commission has promised to present proposals for reform in various sectors over the current year, specifically the rice, sugar, fruit, vegetable and oil sectors.
I hope that these reforms do take place.
There is one particular situation that I would like to highlight, which concerns the issue of fruit and vegetables and which is of particular importance to my country.
We are all aware of the iniquity of the present regulations of the policy on processed tomatoes.
Changes to quotas are made between Member States, and this happens every year within a framework which does not take account of unforeseen changes in the climate or the market, and this creates a permanent state of instability in the sector.
A short while ago, therefore, following Mrs González' report, the European Parliament approved the urgent establishment of guarantee thresholds at Member State level and the Commission was asked to present these proposals as a matter of urgency.
However, in the price package, the Commission has not presented anything in this regard to remedy the situation, and the Commission does not appear to be in any hurry to put forward a proposal either.
My country is likely to lose 10% of its quota if the COM proposal is not adopted quickly, and this, quite frankly, is unacceptable.
So the question is, why has the Portuguese Presidency not adopted initiatives to ensure that a proposal would be put forward with due haste? And why do they use the argument that "the tomato industry cannot be reformed because there is no money" when we spend the money we have on things other than agriculture, such as the financing provided for Kosovo?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank you, Mrs Jeggle, very much for your report.
After all, it is the first which you have tabled in the House.
I should also like very much to thank the Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the other committees, which have actively participated in the consultations, for their constructive cooperation.
I am pleased that Parliament agrees with the main thrust of the Commission's proposals, namely that we need more continuity and that prices therefore need to be fixed on a multiannual basis.
With your permission, I will first comment on the background to, and the content of, the proposals which we have made.
It is absolutely right - as has been stated here - that the price package is no longer as significant as it was in the past.
As a logical consequence of the multiannual approach which we chose for Agenda 2000, the Commission has now also proposed to set the institutional prices and amounts for those sectors for which this is actually still necessary for an unlimited period of time.
This offers our farmers a considerably more stable framework for their longer-term planning, although we do not, in principle, rule out making any changes which may later prove to be necessary.
The only exception to this multiannual approach in our proposals concerns the sugar sector, where the production quota regime currently in force - as most of you here probably know - will expire in the 2000/2001 financial year.
That is why it would not have been appropriate - given that this final year has to be fixed now first - to introduce a change here.
That is why we are also proposing that the current prices for sugar be kept for this final year of the production quota regime now in force.
I shall now turn to the individual amendments put forward. Amendment No 4 seeks to leave the monthly increments unchanged.
I cannot, to be quite frank, agree to this proposal, because you are wrong to claim that the reduction which we have proposed contravenes the decisions made in Berlin.
On the contrary, this is the logical consequence of the decisions made in Berlin!
You see, in Berlin it was decided to maintain the system of monthly increments.
But that has nothing to do with adjustments to the amounts.
In the past, too, we made adjustments- more or less - every year.
On the other hand, I should also like, as it were, to warn you against believing that it would not be sensible to make this adjustment, because you have to bear one thing in mind: if the amounts are not adjusted and this leads to market supply being disrupted and to cereals being held back in the hope of higher carryovers, then farmers will lose more in the spring when they market their products than they would gain through these higher monthly increments.
That is why I cannot accept this proposal.
The second issue, which involves updating and tightening up the quality criteria, has, of course, been under discussion for months now.
In the meantime, since we are, after all, dealing here with an area where the Commission has exclusive competence - I should also like to emphasise this - a vote has been held in the relevant Management Committee.
That actually puts an end to the debate because, as of 19 April, Commission Regulation (EC) No 824/2000 was enacted.
I do not think that we should reopen this debate now.
That is why I cannot agree to Amendments Nos 2 or 5.
Since the issue of moisture content has been raised here today, I should like to point out that the price of cereals might have been fixed in Berlin, but not the price of water! 14.5% is the maximum moisture content which traders customarily accept nowadays.
It does not present a particular problem to farmers.
After all, if a farmer does have bad luck and has rather higher moisture levels in his cereal crop, then all he needs to do is to pay the drying costs and the problem is solved!
But we can no longer accept the idea of having grain in intervention storage which does not comply with usual international trade practices.
Unfortunately, I also have a problem with including mustard seed in the support system, as you propose in Amendments Nos 1 and 3, because that would be contrary to the Marrakech Agreement.
It would run counter to the peace clause which states that no new products may be incorporated into the support system.
I now come to Amendments Nos 6 and 7. Some clarification is probably called for here.
Firstly, the funding of foreign policy measures for the 2000/2001 financial year, which is what we are discussing here, is not in any way linked to the setting of sugar prices.
Secondly, the proposed reduction in the ceiling under heading 1a for the year 2002 does not prejudice the measures in any particular production sector either.
Thirdly, Mrs Jeggle also addressed the situation in 2003 and subsequent years. Here, the Commission has decided that appropriations are only to be withdrawn once the political situation in Serbia has changed dramatically.
If this is the case, the Commission will decide when it reviews the financial perspective in 2002 - as it decided to do in Berlin - how to meet any possible needs.
At this stage, the Commission has specifically decided not to prejudice anything here either.
In addition, the Commission has decided that, as a general rule, funds can only be taken from heading 1a if sufficient funds are not available from other sources, and at the moment it is far from certain that this will be the case.
Mrs Jeggle, you proposed that we should at least utilise the appropriations in 1b - i.e. those for rural development - and you linked this to the disastrous storms in Badem-Württemberg in which many trees were uprooted by the strong winds.
This is a much more complex problem because here the Commission had originally intended to make it possible precisely to transfer funds between the two sub-headings.
However, this was rejected by Parliament.
That is why a transfer of this kind is not possible on the basis of the Financial Regulation currently in force and the Interinstitutional Agreement.
I now come to the question which Mrs Keppelhoff asked concerning what ECOFIN actually did decide. Well, the proposals which Mrs Schreyer circulated to ECOFIN were rejected for the time being.
At the moment, however, we are, of course, still in the discussion phase; the actual budget debate on the 2001 budget is yet to take place.
The rejection does not primarily or exclusively concern this issue of the 300 million; the proposals as a whole were given a negative reception by ECOFIN.
Amendment No 8, to which Mr Mulder, in particular, referred, concerns a study on alternative ways of covering financial losses arising in the event of outbreaks of animal diseases.
The study which Mr Mulder mentioned was also intended to examine the possibility of introducing a compulsory insurance scheme.
We will commission a study of this kind.
However, I have to tell you that the results will not be available until the end of the year.
We will not obtain the results from those carrying out the study any earlier than that.
I also share the view expressed in the amendment that producers ought to take on more of the financial responsibility for eradicating animal diseases.
However, in principle, it is the Member States who are responsible for this issue.
That is why initially all we can do here is carry out an evaluation of the possible ways in which we at Community level might support the Member States in setting up schemes of this kind.
In any case, this issue ought to be dealt with in the context of the review of veterinary legislation which is currently being carried out by the Directorate-General responsible for public and animal health.
Mrs Redondo asked a number of questions about the organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables, about nuts and about ornamental plants, and Mr Cunha asked about processed tomatoes.
As planned, the Commission will submit a report on the functioning of the organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables before the end of this year.
This report will not only cover fresh fruit and vegetables but also processed fruit and vegetables, and therefore processed tomatoes.
We expect this report to be ready at the beginning of the second half of this year.
As far as promoting ornamental plants is concerned - or to be more precise, Mrs Redondo, publicity for the ornamental plants sector - it is true that the Commission is carrying out a review here.
In fact, we made this a requirement when the legal arrangements were introduced and, depending on the outcome of the assessment, we will table a proposal in sufficient time to ensure that there is no interruption in the publicity campaign.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Flax and hemp for fibre
The next item is the report (A5-0124/2000) by Mrs Schierhuber, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1251/1999 establishing a support system for producers of certain arable crops to include flax and hemp grown for fibre [COM(1999) 576 - C5-0280/1999 - 1999/0236(CNS)] and on the proposal for a Council regulation on the common organisation of the market in flax and hemp grown for fibre [COM(1999) 576 - C5-0281/1999 - 1999/0237(CNS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at first sight the importance of the flax and hemp sector may perhaps not be obvious, particularly to those colleagues who work less frequently on agricultural matters.
Flax and hemp are crops with a very rich tradition in Europe, whose popularity has nevertheless declined over the years and whose versatility is only now being rediscovered.
It is precisely the possibilities which this branch of agriculture offers of developing products with a promising future which we need to support at European level.
Insulation for houses, filling materials for vehicle bodywork and presses for furniture manufacture are just some of the examples of this modern technology.
The production of these materials from renewable raw materials should offer a real alternative to synthetically-produced ones and, at the same time, provide a new and attractive source of income for farmers as suppliers of those raw materials.
The need for reform is justified, above all, by misuses of funds and subsidy fraud in recent years.
I am firmly opposed to this subsidy hunting and strict controls are necessary to ensure compliance with legal provisions.
All the same, in my opinion, the Commission proposals overshoot the mark a little.
Allow me briefly to outline the basic considerations underlying my report.
Area payments should be set at EUR 126/t - or EUR 600/ha - and should only be disbursed if proof of delivery to the processor is furnished.
The area payments are being established under the regulation on the support system for producers of arable crops and, for this reason, this regulation also needs to be adjusted to take account of the specific characteristics of flax and hemp.
It goes without saying that the regional base areas envisaged in this regulation need to be expanded to incorporate the areas for flax and hemp.
Since flax and hemp are mainly grown for non-food purposes and no surpluses are produced, there should be no set-aside obligation, because set-aside serves as an instrument to regulate markets where surpluses are possible.
The processing aid which is to be paid out to the primary processor will only be granted if proof can be provided that processing has taken place within the last 18 months.
Since this aid is supposed to take account of the economic viability of the sector, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development proposes setting this at EUR 120/t for long flax fibre and EUR 70/t for short flax fibre and hemp.
Of course, it is not only the premium for long fibres, but also that for short fibres which needs to be secured as a long-term measure because it is precisely short fibres which are of prime importance for innovative projects.
Commissioner, the national maximum quantities and the maximum quantity for the EU, which the Commission is proposing, need to be reconsidered.
The maximum quantities for each Member State should be calculated on the basis of existing processing capacities and adjusted to take account of planned processing capacities for which irreversible investments have already been made.
Allow me to make one further comment on hemp because there is still some misunderstanding here.
There is no risk of drugs being cultivated in Europe and the use of hempseed for nutritional purposes is deeply rooted in certain regions.
The existing control mechanisms and limits are sufficient, in my view, to prevent hemp from being cultivated for the production of psychotropic substances.
Specialities have developed in the individual regions - such as hempseed oil and hemp beer - which help to enrich regional identity through the food chain.
Mr President, I should once more like to point out that a reform, which is admittedly necessary, of the flax and hemp sector, which, on account of its multi-functionality, is so important for the future of European agriculture and for the future of farmers as suppliers of raw materials for new spheres, must not be allowed to render the entire sector unprofitable.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development adopted this report by a large majority.
That is why I should like to extend my warmest thanks to all those who supported me when I was drawing up this report.
Mr President, according to Mrs Schierhuber' s present report, if something goes wrong with a certain regulation in Europe, in this case flax, it is quite possible to ensure that that regulation can remain intact by means of new proposals.
Flax, like hemp, is a special product, with a long European tradition.
The mere fact that both my trousers and jacket are made of linen and flax which is processed in Flanders and partly in Zeeland, and grown in France, bears out this product' s long-standing tradition.
The reason we are having to hold this debate is to do with the fact that the regulation has gone off the rails.
We all know what happened to short flax.
We also know that that derailment occurred in Southern Europe and we need to be prepared to adapt the policy.
But what is now happening with the Commission' s proposal is tantamount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
People have overstepped the mark.
At the same time, it is quite possible to tighten the flax and hemp regulations so that we can manage on a normal budget such as the one we have had over the past couple of years and, despite this, continue to grow flax and hemp in Europe at a profit.
I am saying this because, although the cultivation of flax and hemp is traditional, they are also used in special applications in linen for clothing and in other applications in the non-food sector.
I am thinking of dashboards and bumpers for cars. At the same time, they form a true complement to agricultural policy.
They are special products which offer a great deal of added value and employment.
It is exactly because of these three facets that we have to be so much more careful about drafting a sound regulation.
This is why I give my full backing to Mrs Schierhuber' s report.
The amounts which have been mentioned guarantee that cultivation remains profitable and also ensure sound processing.
What we need is tighter control on processing to ensure that malpractices are prevented in future.
I would like to end on a historical note.
My country suffered an eighty-year war at the hands of Spain, which was eventually settled with the Peace of Münster.
The people who met round the table came from the southern Netherlands - Belgium as it is known today, - the northern Netherlands - the Netherlands as we know it today - and Spain, and all three wore linen jackets, most probably made in Flanders, the linen being grown in Northern France and Belgium.
An eighty-year conflict failed to destroy the cultivation of flax along the North Sea coast.
Surely, we cannot afford to let the current regulation go under on account of a minor derailment in Spain which has meanwhile been rectified and which has led to crops being cultivated there over an area reduced to 50 000 hectares.
I would like a new flax regulation for Europe to reflect this historical awareness that was achieved with the Peace of Münster.
Mr President, we agree with the objectives pursued in the Commission' s proposal on the new regulation on flax and hemp: to regulate and balance the markets, simplify the common agricultural policy and prevent fraud.
However, we do not agree with the chosen method.
This is because we consider that this proposal, since the amendments improving it, which were presented by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, have not been accepted, may lead to the total disappearance of hemp and flax crops in small- and medium-sized holdings, and as an alternative crop in certain areas of the Union.
We believe, Commissioner, that it is unacceptable that, in order to put an end to fraud, we should seek to end cultivation within a certain sector.
This is a good time to point out that the best way to combat fraud is through the total transparency of public aid and of the investigations into fraud that are under way, and publishing the names of fraudsters, as the only way of preventing all farmers and the whole of the sector from having to pay for the consequences of fraud on the part of a few speculators.
The inclusion of flax and hemp within the general regulations on herbaceous plants requires the establishment of a single yield for all areas of the European Union.
The existence of different yields in northern and southern areas, in the different regions of the Union, may lead to real discrimination in payments per surface area with regard to this crop.
Therefore, we request that the inclusion of an average yield be accepted for all regions of the Union, and that this be the average yield for cereals.
With regard to aid for processing, we feel that it is completely inappropriate that there should be transitional aid for the processing of short-fibre flax, as the Commission proposes, which would end in 2006.
We believe that it should be long-term aid and that it should be brought into line with the aid for the processing of long-fibre flax, which is the only way of guaranteeing the commercial production of short-fibre flax in an industrial sector which provides a genuine alternative to synthetic products.
Commissioner, we are in complete agreement on the need for stabilisers with regard to this crop, but we completely disagree with the national guaranteed quantities established in the Commission' s proposal, since we feel that they are absolutely inadequate and represent quite the opposite of the actual situation in each of the countries.
We therefore also ask you to consider the proposal presented by the Committee on Agriculture.
Lastly, we absolutely agree with the existence of controls in this sector.
Therefore, the existence, in every single case, of the sales contract between the farmer and the processor, seems to us to be essential.
We are therefore voting against the report with regard to the disappearance of these contracts.
The existence of a contract is the best way of proving that the crop has been sold and processed.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber, for this report, not least because it takes into consideration processing in those countries in particular, which, as Members of the EU, have also taken up the cultivation of flax.
It is quite natural that they have considered the market and consequently also the support for and emphasis on processing to be matters of paramount importance, particularly in the case of short-fibre flax, which can be used for buildings and as insulation.
I would also like to say I agree with the previous speaker, Mrs Rodríguez Ramos, regarding average yields.
The average yields of flax and hemp are very similar across Europe, in the North as well as the South.
There are no great differences between them. As far as cereals are concerned, however, the differences are considerable.
Such being the case, it would be unreasonable if the fringe areas - i.e. the areas around the Mediterranean and the North - were to be placed in an unequal position with regard to aid payable on the basis of area in the case of hemp and flax, which represents such small-scale production in the context of agricultural production as a whole.
Amendment No 38 is therefore particularly sensible; I endorse it and hope that it will receive wide support, expressly in order to prevent the Mediterranean and Nordic countries from being placed in a position of disadvantage in comparison with the central regions of the European Union, as far as this area of production is concerned.
Mr President, I am pleased to have this opportunity to address Parliament on this very important issue.
The main thing to stress is that misuse of funds in one place should not prevent innovation continuing in other areas.
Excellent schemes are already being developed and should be supported.
In an unstable agricultural industry, the opportunities offered by flax and hemp in a developing market for natural fibres should not be lost.
It will provide farmers with the opportunity to diversify - something that they have continually been urged to do by respective Member State governments and by the European Parliament - to produce new employment possibilities.
In my own nation, Wales, flax processing plants are already being established using European Union aid.
The report from our Agricultural Committee also includes amendments to extend grant aid for producing flax and hemp to non-arable land, thus providing opportunities to diversify areas of the European Union unable to obtain monetary support under the present regime.
This is a crucial matter as it affects thousands of hectares of European land with low productive possibilities.
For example, 80% of the land mass of my nation, Wales, is non-arable.
The higher than average incidence of rainfall there makes it ideal terrain for growing short-fibre flax and yet it could not apply for European Union support under prior regulations.
Its peripheral location, something which has already been stressed here from other areas, and its small family farm units having to compete in a wider market, coupled with the high value of sterling, has meant that it has lost 80% of its income in less than three years.
The importance of flax production being subsidised in such areas of the European Union cannot be overemphasised.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for accepting our amendments in this regard.
We also reject quotas and a ceiling for this production, as this would limit the possibilities to develop diversification and employment possibilities in disadvantaged regions.
We also believe there should be a balance of support between farmers and processors.
The rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber, has agreed to put a limit of EUR 600 per hectare to farmers directly, provided that the farmer proves to the competent authorities, within 18 months after having applied for the subsidy, that he has delivered the fibre to a processor.
We also agreed if this proof could not be provided to the competent authorities within that period, the subsidy should stay at the level of the premia for set-aside land.
I congratulate the rapporteur and call on the European Parliament to support the Agriculture Committee's report.
Mr President, first and foremost I would like to thank Mrs Schierhuber for the work she has done, the main merit of which is the fact that it introduces some sensible elements into a proposal which makes no sense whatsoever.
It is true that the regulation in force is deficient in terms of control, and some people have taken advantage of these deficiencies in order to obtain aid which stretches the bounds of legality.
These situations obviously required modifications which logically should have concentrated on strengthening controls.
Nevertheless, we have seen another example of the unique way in which the Commission fulfils its function of producing legislative proposals.
The Commission' s proposal takes an extraordinary approach: instead of strengthening the control mechanisms, it abolishes aid for short-fibre flax.
To be honest, the Commission is behaving here like the doctor who proposes decapitation as a cure for a headache.
Furthermore, the Commission' s proposal, if put into practice, would lead to the disappearance of the crop in some Member States, which would have a negative affect on many farmers who had found an alternative crop which did not produce surpluses and which was destined for non-food use.
In Spain, for example, practically all flax grown is short-fibre flax, since the heat and the lack of rainfall restrict the growth of the plant.
Furthermore, the dryness of the ground in summer makes it practically impossible to pull up the plant together with its roots in order to obtain long fibre.
Furthermore, short-fibre flax is perfectly suited to dry conditions, there is a certain market for it and, at least in theory, it is the type of production which we are intending to promote.
The elimination of aid for short-fibre flax would hinder the innovative non-food use of agricultural products, fundamentally affecting regions with low rainfall and more difficult conditions.
The Commission is therefore proposing to concentrate aid in the areas with the best conditions and deny it to the least-favoured ones.
I would like to remind the Commission of Article 158 (ex Article 130A) of the Treaty, which lays down that social and economic cohesion must be strengthened, and the differences in levels of development between the different regions and the underdevelopment of the least-favoured regions, including the rural areas, should be reduced.
Lastly, I think it is essential that the Commission' s proposals are not accepted; however, in any event, the inclusion in the regulations on herbaceous crops would lead to unfair situations as a result of the use of yields conditioned by drought.
Mrs Rodríguez Ramos' amendments therefore seem to me to be a good solution to the problem.
Mr President, over the past couple of years, we have seen a sharp increase in the acreage of fibre flax and hemp as a result of subsidy-hunting in Member States such as Great Britain and Spain.
Producers in those countries destroyed their harvest, whilst they pocketed the subsidies for the crops.
It is only right that the Council clamped down on this type of misuse of Community funding by amending the flax regulation.
The original objective of production support was to bolster the traditional fibre flax crops which are mainly grown in Belgium, France and the Netherlands.
It is vital not to lose sight of this objective.
We therefore reject the proposal that the Committee on Budgets outlined in its opinion, namely to pitch the support granted to short- and long-fibre flax at the same level.
The production costs for long-fibre flax are higher than those for short-fibre flax and for hemp.
It is precisely with the short-fibre variant that farmers fiddled the system.
We can go along with the proposal to bring the cultivation of flax under the general support regulation for arable crops.
But the cereal support level is too low for long-fibre flax and therefore acts as a disincentive to producers to grow this flax variant.
This is why we have made our approval of this report dependent upon whether the support level for producers of long-fibre flax will be double that for cereal.
As long as support for processors continues to be varied according to whether the crop concerned is short- or long-fibre, we can do away with this differentiation in the support for producers.
An increase in support should, however, be accompanied by the following three control measures.
Firstly, a compulsory contract with processors who, in turn, must prove that the flax has been processed.
Secondly, a certain quota per Member State, shared between long-fibre and short-fibre flax and hemp.
Thirdly, the use of certified seed.
Finally, I would point out that, as it is late in the season, this regulation will not be able to come into force until the 2000-2001 season.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are discussing a Commission proposal on the reform of the COM on flax and hemp in two respects.
Firstly, the Commission is explaining the need for the reform in terms of an increase in budgetary cost.
I do not believe that that is the best way to try to justify the need for a reform, although I agree that it is needed.
Amongst the objectives which this reform should have, as well as simplifying and updating the regulations, is also improving control, which is something we always forget about later on.
The Commission proposal offers a good, coherent and precise analysis of the sector in the European Union.
It explains the importance of flax and hemp production from both an economic and an ecological point of view.
However, it seems to me that the Commission' s considerations with regard to hemp fibre and short-fibre flax are not very realistic, either as regards its future viability or its range of uses.
However, the thing that seems least appropriate to me is the proposal on processing aid.
In this case I would like to draw your attention to the increasing number of uses for this type of fibre, as several speakers have already pointed out.
If we were to follow that route, the European Union, which already falls short in terms of using this type of fibre, would cease to use it altogether, at least in some countries.
Today I read in one of my country' s newspapers that one of the autonomous regions has abandoned more than 95% of its cultivation of short-fibre flax.
These were the words of the local Minister for Agriculture for that region.
This type of situation will become inevitable if this amendment is put into practice.
With regard to payment for processing, I cannot agree with the Commission' s proposal, either in terms of the distinction between short- and long-fibre flax or its proposals for hemp.
It appears to me that they have not made any precise calculation to justify the different amounts for the premiums.
Neither does there appear to be any precise calculation to justify the maximum guaranteed quantities, either at European level or on the different national levels.
Consequently, these quantities are going to hinder development in the European Union with regard to short- and long-fibre flax and hemp.
In addition, it also seems to me to be problematic to apply these regulations during this, the 2000-2001 season, since we are already at a late stage.
I believe that Mrs Schierhuber' s proposal is a balanced one. It has been approved by a majority in the Committee on Agriculture and we should adopt it as a basic regulation.
Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteur for her handling of what is a very complex matter where both producing and non-producing Member States have serious reservations regarding the Commission proposals.
In very broad terms, I welcome the Commission proposal to bring flax and hemp into the arable area payments scheme.
A single area payment is in line with the view that growers should respond to market demands rather than be driven by CAP subsidies.
However, I shall not repeat the many reservations about the proposals that colleagues have already mentioned.
We should note that flax and hemp are environmentally-friendly crops.
Compared with mainstream crops such as oil seeds and cereals, they require low levels of chemical and fertiliser treatment.
They also produce renewable raw materials that can displace synthetic fibres derived from petroleum and other mineral resources.
We should welcome, therefore, the expansion of industrial crop activity and the opportunities provided for diversification.
However, I wish to raise the question of land eligibility, which appears to be a particular problem in the UK.
Most of the flax and hemp grown in the UK is on land ineligible for arable area payments.
The Commission proposals, as I understand them, threaten the UK growers and would leave UK processors with no domestic supply of raw material.
It has been suggested that the land eligibility rules should be disregarded for flax and hemp so that any land could be used for those crops, but without an increase in the base area.
This would allow expansion, should market conditions encourage growth, and allow new growers to enter the market.
It would be helpful if the Commissioner could comment on this matter when he responds to the debate.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber.
I have a feeling that this type of subject matter is right up her street.
I can only say that I agree with the thrust of her report.
I think it is indeed time that the Commission intervened in a support regulation for flax and hemp.
Large-scale fraud, misuse and so forth can only give agricultural policy a bad name, and this must be avoided.
That is why the Commission was right to intervene.
At this stage, however, there is another reason why the Commission would do well to devote special attention to this subject matter, as I am still of the opinion that it is necessary to develop agricultural crops other than the traditional crops grown at present.
Flax and hemp are typical crops which could help us find new markets for new agricultural products.
'Agrificatie' (agrification) is the correct Dutch term for this and I will have a look in due course to see how this has been translated in the different languages.
Encouraging initiatives have been taken in this field and large investments have been made in various countries.
In my opinion, the Commission should, more than anything, ensure that investments already made in factories and processing materials are used to the best effect.
I am thus not persuaded that it is absolutely vital to tie certain quotas to certain countries.
Instead, they should be tied to certain user capacities.
There is one aspect, however, not covered by the regulation, which works out quite well for Commissioner Fischler, namely that it will not cost him a penny.
Could he not consider making the use of these products made from flax or hemp compulsory?
It could be laid down in the law, in the interest of the environment, that dashboards for cars should be made of such and such products.
Maybe this could culminate in excellent relations with the Environment Commissioner, because I have the impression that she has a habit of hampering agriculture in other areas of the environment.
Perhaps this initiative could help us to turn the corner.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, the Commission appears to have made a sound proposal, but in actual fact, this is not a sound proposal.
It may possibly prevent fraud because there is no longer an incentive for farmers to pocket the higher flax premium instead of set-aside or cereals premiums.
The only problem is that if you cut the flax premium to the level of the cereals premium and the set-aside premium, then no more flax or hemp will be cultivated in the EU and that will be that.
But if you introduce processing aid, where, in your view, fraud cannot be committed - and incidentally it can actually, but let us assume for now that it cannot - then the result might be that the raw material is grown outside the EU and imported.
If we want to ensure that flax is cultivated here, then we need to do precisely what we have proposed here, what the rapporteur has proposed, namely to go back to the level of the cereals premium.
When proof is then furnished that processing has taken place the amount is doubled, and this proof will not require very many checks because it has to be provided by those who wish to have this premium.
I should like to make the following comment on the maximum quantities: the fact that the budget has expanded because of fraud - and here the Commission has not distinguished itself in terms of controls - is not something of which we can approve.
Obviously, we have to push back the tide of fraud and the money which has been lost because of fraud needs, of course, to be traced. But the overall budget for this important, environmentally-friendly crop needs to be increased, and that is why the quotas which are now being laid down are inappropriate.
Mr Fischler, I am curious to hear whether you are going to accept the proposals made by the rapporteur - and I should like to thank her for her report.
You know what procedure this is.
If you say that you cannot accept them, we will react tomorrow and then we will have to negotiate this sound proposal from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development at another level.
Mr President, the aid scheme for flax and hemp has turned into pure subsidy-hunting.
It is almost criminal how grossly the scheme has been misused, and we must put a stop to this.
For a number of years, aid for hemp has been much higher than that for other crops.
Per-hectare aid for hemp is more than twice as high as that for cereals.
This means that, even though there are almost no legal uses for hemp, the area used for hemp cultivation has quadrupled in the course of the last year.
The desire to retain the high per-hectare aid for hemp is, in reality, a result of the very odd collaboration between, on the one hand, those who want to see cannabis legalised and, on the other hand, speculators in EU subsidies, for it is, in actual fact, impossible to see any difference between cannabinol-free hemp and the hemp which is used to produce hashish.
The Commission proposes that aid for hemp should be reduced in three phases to the level of aid that has been set for cereals.
I should ideally have liked to see aid reduced immediately to the aid level for cereals, but I can happily live with the Commission' s proposal.
It gives farmers time to adapt.
I cannot, however, live with the recommendation from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
It cannot be in accordance with modern, forward-looking and enlargement-oriented agricultural policy to propose that the transitional arrangements should be further extended.
That would be "far out" of place!
Moreover, it is something I shall be voting against. Where flax is concerned, the Commission also proposes to limit the opportunity for subsidy-hunting and, here too, the Committee is in favour of improving the scheme.
I take the opposite view, namely that the aid should be limited.
It should be the market and consumers who decide what should be produced, not sky-high EU subsidies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my particular thanks go firstly to the rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber, for her comprehensive survey of the situation and her excellent report.
The debate on reforms in the sphere of flax and hemp grown for fibre has been going on now for almost five years, if you take 1996 and the proposals which the Commission made then as the starting point.
In place of the reform proposed by the Commission at that time, however, the Council simply stepped up controls.
This certainly increased administrative expenditure considerably, but largely failed to achieve the desired, and necessary, effect: subsidy-hunting continued and the area under cultivation increased from around 100 000 hectares to 240 000 hectares, with the result that budgetary expenditure on this sector was, virtually, more than doubled.
The proposal before you today has three main objectives. It is intended to put a stop to subsidy-hunting once and for all.
The Commission wishes to foster rural development by supporting traditional cultivation and production methods, and it wants to help farmers over a limited period of time to find profitable new sales outlets and to increase their sales potential.
You see we are not under any illusions!
In the light of budgetary constraints - with which everyone is familiar - the sector has to be more market-oriented.
An even more important point is that, following the Berlin decisions, no new money is envisaged for the promotion of new products.
Such new products may be perfectly interesting for agriculture, but our message must be honest here: the overriding objective with innovations of this kind has to be profitability.
The Commission has carefully examined Parliament' s amendments.
Many of them are acceptable to us, at least in essence; others are not acceptable in their current form but prompt further reflection.
Then there are others which, I am afraid, we cannot accept.
I now turn to the first proposal on including flax and hemp grown for fibre in the arable crops regulation. I am prepared to accept Amendment No 2, which concerns the formulation of the objectives, and Amendment No 1, at least in spirit.
The idea of doubling aid per hectare when proof is provided that the straw has been processed into fibres seems, at first sight, to be very tempting, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
However, in my opinion, it is doomed to failure.
This is because, by introducing it, we would de facto be creating first and foremost fresh incentives for renewed subsidy-hunting, and ultimately we would again have to rely on controls which have hitherto already proved to be insufficiently effective.
Consequently, I do not agree with Amendments Nos 3, 9, 10 and 12 nor, for similar reasons, with Amendment No 38.
In Amendment No 4, however, fears about the rules on land eligibility are expressed which were addressed in particular by Messrs Adam and Wyn.
I agree with them that we need a sensible solution here, and that is why I can agree in principle to Amendment No 4.
The same goes for Amendment No 37 which is along the same lines.
Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 15, regarding derogations from the provisions for arable crops in respect of surface area and set-aside, are acceptable to the extent that they are in line with the agreement on Agenda 2000, but only within this framework.
In my opinion, they are actually no longer necessary because there is land all over the place within the surface area on which flax and hemp can be grown without limiting the amount of other crops that are cultivated.
Nevertheless, problems could arise in some areas.
We will try to find a solution here, so as to reduce the possible constraints which might arise.
I can accept Amendment No 6 on hemp.
However, irregular plots cannot simply stop being subject to checks altogether, as is recommended, at least implicitly, in Amendments Nos 5 and 16 and I cannot therefore agree to these amendments.
There could be room for a certain amount of flexibility, however, where it is a question of achieving high control levels.
That is why I can state my agreement with these amendments and with Amendment No 14 at least in this respect.
It is because of the risks for the image of hemp that the Commission is proposing a ban on hemp and hempseed being used in food, despite the fact that the varieties which have to be used in Europe do not contain any psychotropic substances.
This is a highly political issue which we can certainly discuss further.
However, at the present time, I do not wish to agree to Amendments Nos 11, 13 and 32.
But the actual objective is clear.
I now come to the second proposal, on the regulation on the common organisation of the market in flax and hemp grown for fibre.
Processing aid has to be in reasonable proportion to production costs and take account of the market value of the products.
It is a fact that processing long-flax fibres entails higher costs.
A distinction must therefore be drawn between processing aid for long-flax fibres and aid for short-flax fibres and hemp fibre.
Maximum permitted impurity levels also need to be fixed because the aid is intended to promote the production of high-quality fibre and not of the waste entailed in fibre production.
Our policy for the sector has to be unambiguous.
We can only accept investment in products which are profitable under market conditions.
This principle also applies here.
That is why I cannot agree to Amendments Nos 18 and 34, even though they definitely contain further food for thought.
I do agree, however, with the ideas underlying Amendments Nos 23, 25 and 26, that is to bring the aid payable for long and short fibres more closely into line and to make the granting of aid dependent on the result of checks.
Nevertheless, the limits given in the budget cannot be exceeded.
The second important subject is the national guaranteed quantities.
In view of the well-known difficulties with checking harvest results, these are absolutely indispensable.
The Commission proposal mitigates the risk of abuse at the processing stage without quotas having to be set for the individual processing plants, and thus without the disadvantages which quotas of this kind would have on an expanding market.
A maximum guaranteed quantity for the whole Community would not be a solution.
Experience shows that this only leads to disputes between Member States and makes it more difficult to find a real solution.
Dividing the maximum guaranteed quantity between the Member States annually, on the basis of processing capacity - which cannot be verified - is not really a practicable alternative.
That is why I cannot accept Amendments Nos 20, 21, 27 to 30 and 35.
But the idea of introducing a kind of newcomer quota and dividing this each year between those Member States where there is only very little flax and hemp production at the present time, or none at all, is, I believe, definitely worth exploring.
I can accept Amendments Nos 24 and 33 for those instances when the farmer and the primary processor are one and the same person.
As far as the import of hemp and hempseed is concerned, I agree that we need a practicable solution.
However, I cannot agree to Amendments Nos 22 and 31 in their current form because they implicitly say that no further controls need to be carried out.
Turning, in conclusion, to the timetable, I am also prepared to accept Amendments Nos 17 and 36, in accordance with which the new rules would only enter into force on 1 July 2001.
But this would mean that the aid per hectare for the next marketing year would have to be set this year in accordance with the system currently in force.
In this case, I would be bound by the figures in the 2001 budget.
A reform of this sector is absolutely essential!
I think that you agree with me on this.
We need to make the fibre flax and hemp sector more market-oriented so that it is able to make an effective, indisputable and useful contribution to the economy and is no longer the target of public criticism.
Under these circumstances, I would have thought that you would have attached great importance to adopting the resolution this week, so that the Council can also take a decision as soon as possible.
In this way we can avoid the market disruption which would ensue in the 2000/2001 financial year if the level of the aid was not settled by 1 August.
For all that - as I have told you - I can accept 13 of the amendments and, as regards many of the others as well, I have specifically emphasised that, although I cannot accept them as they stand at the moment, some of them definitely provide further food for thought and material for debates which I will initiate in the Council.
However, because the market really will be severely disrupted if we do not have a scheme in place in time, we would either have to adopt temporary preventive measures - which would have to take account of the initial budget estimates for 2001 - or we will have a harvest where the producers will not know what payments they can expect to receive.
We really should not allow this kind of situation to develop.
It would be simply unthinkable to have to explain to the producers and also the processors why they should have to suffer because we cannot manage to decide on a proposal which, after all, has already been on the table in this House for eight months.
Mr President, allow me to ask the Commissioner one more question.
Commissioner, you mentioned the controls which will need to be carried out in connection with the processing premium, and these must indeed take place.
Now if you combine our proposal to double the aid per hectare when proof is furnished with the proof for the processing aid, which also has to be provided, and if you join these two things together - of course this is not elaborated upon in the report - then the controls which need to be carried out for both kinds of premium are guaranteed and farmers do not lose out.
If you implement your scheme, as proposed, you will be depriving European flax and hemp growers of land and that has nothing to do with controls.
Mr President, with your permission I should like to ask the Commissioner a supplementary question.
I fully agree with you that we must not let it reach such a point that the poor farmers and processors do not know what lies in store for them or what their prospects are for the future.
That is why I should like to ask you this specific question, Commissioner: can you envisage - and I am referring here to Amendments Nos 27 and 28 and to my previous comments - that the Commission might, after all, consider rethinking its proposal on quotas and restructuring it?
Perhaps I will begin with the second question, which was asked by the rapporteur.
If I have correctly understood what this is about, you are referring first and foremost to the so-called newcomer quotas.
In this regard, I have said that we are prepared to accept a quota of this kind.
I now turn to the first question, which was asked by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf. I am sorry, but what you are proposing is still based on an assumption, namely that this check is carried out.
It is simply the case that the current system is not working and that is why I believe we have no choice but to change it.
And so I do not want us to turn the system completely on its head.
If we go back partly to the old system again then I do not see how we can make it work and why it should work any better than it has in the past.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Tuesday at 12 noon.
Civil liability and motor vehicles
The next item is the report (A5-0130/2000) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, adopted by the Conciliation Committee, on a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles and amending Directives 73/239/EEC and 88/357/EEC (Fourth Motor Insurance Directive) (C5-0111/2000 - 1997/0264(COD)).
Mr President, I must, and can, be brief.
This week we are able, for the first time, to adopt a European Union legislative act which has been drawn up on the initiative of the European Parliament and on which, thank God, the Commission and the Council have cooperated positively.
It is about improved protection for accident victims in the European Union.
This directive resolves a large number of the problems which usually arise when people are involved in an accident in another country.
First of all, however, and before looking back, I wish to take a look into the future.
Commissioner Bolkestein, a draft fifth directive already exists.
I have drawn it up and it will soon be put before Parliament.
I very much hope that we will also be able to cooperate closely on this issue.
The fifth directive is therefore already in the pipeline.
At the beginning of June - this is also part of our glance into the future - we will be holding a conference at the Academy of European Law in Trier on another important issue, the reform of personal injury, and this may give rise to a further parliamentary initiative.
As you can see, we wish this debate on improved protection for accident victims to gain a certain momentum.
I would be very grateful to you in particular, Commissioner, if we could achieve this together.
I would be grateful to you because you made an important contribution - and this is where I start to look back - to the debate on the fourth directive.
You see there was the major problem of deciding whether this directive ought to apply when the accident had taken place in a Member State of the European Union.
I have never understood why the Commission initially fought against this so stubbornly; its stance could not be justified from a logical, political or legal point of view.
Then, thankfully, when we discussed this in Parliament at the end of last year, you prepared the ground for us to make this possible.
This directive will now apply in all countries which are members of the green card system, meaning that approximately 90% of all accidents in which Europeans might be involved will be covered.
And while I am on the subject of figures, we are talking about approximately 500 000 accidents a year in the European Union alone - not counting third countries - where we will be able to settle claims much more easily in the future.
In the past there was the problem that people had to cope with a foreign language, foreign laws and so on.
Sometimes the process dragged on for ages.
When I look at the petitions which have been sent to the European Parliament' s Committee on Petitions because claims arising from traffic accidents in another country have taken years and years to settle, I am quite sure that this directive constitutes a very decisive step forward.
Obviously, we cannot in any way change either the law which has to be applied or the legal jurisdiction, but by now proposing a system whereby each insurer has a claims representative in every other country, we will probably be able, as far as the accident victim is concerned, satisfactorily to settle the claims arising from 90% of all traffic accidents which take place in another country.
That is a very big step forward.
When we debated this, some questions were still open.
I did, and I would just mention this point, rather regret the fact that the compensation bodies - and these were, after all, the Commission' s idea - were gradually watered down during the political consultation process.
Nevertheless, at the end of the day, we did find a solution which is satisfactory, but in three to four years' time we will review what this directive has achieved and, if necessary, propose improvements.
In conclusion, I should like to say that thanks to your intervening, Commissioner, important progress has been made on this directive, and I should specifically like to thank you for that.
You overcame resistance from within your own Commission.
This was a great achievement and we thank you very much for it.
I hope that, where the protection of accident victims and its improvement is concerned, we will also enjoy fruitful cooperation in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Rothley for his work, for this measure will put an end to a series of worrying and embarrassing situations which have arisen in our Community.
The joint draft adopted by the Conciliation Committee certainly represents great progress for our Community.
Nevertheless, although I will vote for the motion, I have to say that I am very perplexed by the response I have received from the Commission to my question on an issue which is not completely related to the question of accidents which take place abroad but which nevertheless concerns the insurance sector, a sector in which, as far as I am concerned, in Italy, truly unimaginable events occur, which leads me to suspect that Parliament' s inspection system is, indeed, defunct.
I tabled a question to the Commission, calling upon them to do something about the genuinely appalling issue of those insurance companies which set high premiums and then do not pay citizens from certain parts of the Community what they are entitled to.
A conference, sponsored by the 'Automobile Club d' Italia', was held in Naples and attended by leading lawyers, because insurance companies, as was also the case in the past, are making Italian citizens pay different premiums according to where they live, claiming that they have to recoup their costs in the areas where there are a greater number of accidents.
So I wonder, and I put the question to Parliament, whether this could be an example of blatant discrimination among the citizens of a single State and among citizens of the European Community.
Although it is true that in certain areas a decidedly larger number of accidents is recorded, it is also true that, when people belong to the same state and the same Community, events are shared by citizens who live in the same district, the same area, the same country and the same Community.
With regard to the payment of premiums, absolutely incredible, unbelievable things happen: in a town such as Alexandria, for example, premiums are less than half the level of those in a town such as Naples or Catania.
Therefore, I feel that, like Parliament, in addition to developing this type of measure, such as that presented in the Rothley report, we should endeavour to take further steps to avoid blatant discrimination against citizens of the same country, and also extend an invitation to the insurance companies: while it is mandatory to be insured, it is also mandatory for the insurance companies to insure the citizens.
In certain regions of Italy, the fact is that insurance companies refuse to insure the Italian citizens, which is an extremely serious offence.
In this regard, I would like to repeat the question I tabled, to which the Commission replied that the European Parliament has no competence in this sector.
Nevertheless, although we are competent when it comes to regulating the matter, as the Rothley report is doing in relations between the different Member States, I feel that we ought to challenge the insurance companies to avoid blatant discrimination, to set the same premiums for all, to pay claimants what they are actually entitled to and to ensure that this sector is improved, or adapted in some way to the changing requirements of our society.
In making these statements, I would like to declare that I particularly support this report and, once again, I thank Mr Rothley and the Commission for their endeavours on behalf of our citizens. I urge them to take action to resolve this matter as soon as possible.
Mr President, I wish to express the heartfelt thanks of the Commission to Mr Rothley, the rapporteur, who has had a considerable intellectual and political input into this fourth motor insurance directive.
Mr Rothley was extremely kind in thanking the Commission for what it has done.
The Commission has perhaps been constructive in the formulation of this fourth motor insurance directive.
However, as Mr Rothley said, it was in response to an initiative from the European Parliament.
The Commission is duly thankful to him for that initiative.
I wish to say that the Commission welcomes the adoption of this fourth motor insurance directive by Parliament.
As Mr Rothley pointed out, every year there are more than 500 000 car accidents involving vehicles from different Member States.
However, the current system of compensation for people involved in an accident outside their home country does not work satisfactorily.
The new directive will provide for improved information, easier procedures and quicker settlement of claims, and these are things which concern the citizens of all our Member States most directly.
This is also a measure which will bring the European Union closer to the citizens of the Union.
As I have just said, the Commission's proposal was a response to a parliamentary resolution in which Parliament made use of its new powers under Article 192 of the Treaty on European Union.
I should again like to thank Parliament explicitly and, of course, Mr Rothley, but also the competent committee and its chairperson, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, for the constructive discussions in the first and second readings of the directive and the subsequent negotiations in the course of informal trialogues.
Mr Rothley has announced a fifth directive.
He said that there will shortly be a conference in Trier on that directive and he has asked the Commission to help steer it through its legislative process.
Perhaps it is a bit early to discuss the fifth directive now but I should like to take this opportunity to assure Mr Rothley that in any further legislative work in which this Parliament would like to engage, the Commission will take the same constructive attitude as it took with the fourth directive.
Lastly, Mr Bigliardo draws attention to the fact that the premia for motor vehicle insurance in Italy vary from region to region, according to the number of accidents.
He objects to that differentiation in premia according to the frequency of accidents in the various parts of Italy and he would like the Commission to intervene.
I have to tell Mr Bigliardo that this is a matter which does not concern this directive.
Strictly speaking, I could end my response there but his comments deserve a fuller answer.
Therefore, I should like to say that if the situation had been that motor insurance premia were different for Italian citizens as compared with French or German citizens living in Italy, the Commission would be able to object.
You cannot ask French or German citizens living in Italy to pay a different premium from Italian citizens.
That is a clear case of discrimination.
But that is not the case.
The premia differ according to the number of accidents in each region and are therefore the same for Italians and non-Italians.
They relate to the different areas of Italy.
I do not think that the Commission can intervene on that point.
It is a matter of how insurance companies calculate their premia, and if there are objective reasons for charging a higher premium for a particular region then the Commission is powerless.
If Mr Bigliardo would like to substantiate his claim in more detail, I should be pleased to receive his letter and answer it.
But if he would like a straightforward answer now, then it has to be that the Commission cannot intervene.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Bolkestein.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Tuesday at 12 noon.
Development cooperation with South Africa
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0114/2000) by Mr Martínez Martínez on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on development cooperation with South Africa (C5-0100/2000 - 1999/0070(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago the Committee on Development and Cooperation unanimously approved the recommendation which is today being considered by Parliament.
It had previously made a considerable effort to speed up and rationalise the negotiation of the issue, believing that voting on the new European Parliament and Council regulation on development cooperation with South Africa was an important and urgent matter.
It was important because South Africa is one of the countries which receives the most funding from the European Union for its development process.
It was urgent because the regulation which forms the basis of this cooperation and which has been in force for five years expired on 31 December 1999, from which date the different procedures in operation were left without a proper legal basis.
It is very worrying that we should find ourselves in such a situation.
In fact, in the first six months of 1999, our Parliament considered the first text proposed by the Commission, adopting six amendments and forwarding them to the Council for their consideration.
This is where the delay occurred, since the Council took no less than eight months to present their position to us.
This took us past the expiry date and led us to the legal vacuum which I just mentioned.
The Council finally presented its proposal.
Their text adopted most of the amendments which Parliament had approved on first reading and, in particular, the Council put considerably more emphasis on the references to combating poverty and achieving the international development objectives, agreed on the basis of United Nations conventions and resolutions.
Having examined the Council' s proposal, the Committee on Development and Cooperation considered it necessary to try to prevent the negotiation being prolonged by a third reading.
In other words, we intended to accept everything that seemed reasonable and limit our amendments to things which were absolutely essential, and even then in a spirit of great moderation.
There only remained two questions which appear in the amendments and which, in the form of a recommendation, our committee is submitting to the plenary.
The first question refers to commitology.
The Council wanted the Committee of Experts to control all cooperation projects relating to South Africa with a budget of over EUR 3 million.
However, we believed that this committee should guide and monitor the broad approaches to development cooperation with South Africa and only directly control larger projects, leaving the smaller ones to the normal procedures, which are the Commission' s responsibility.
Having considered all the main issues, the amendment we are presenting today finally raises the Council' s proposal from 3 to 5 million, and this committee, whose members represent the various Member States, will therefore have fewer projects to deal with and will therefore be able to concentrate more on a global view of such an important field of action.
The second proposal concerns the budgetary framework for development cooperation between the European Union and South Africa for the 7-year period, including 2000, which is referred to in the regulation under discussion.
During the previous five years the budgetary framework had been EUR 125 million per year.
The Council, with a view to budgetary restriction, decreased that allocation in its proposal and set it at EUR 112.5 million per year.
For our part, while we are signing an important Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement with South Africa, it does not seem politically acceptable to send a message of financial cuts.
On the contrary, we should at least maintain and, where possible, increase these contributions, if only as a token gesture, although we share the concern with regard to the available resources.
Finally, the proposal approved by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on whose behalf I am speaking, was extremely reasonable: the EUR 123.5 million already allocated for 2000 and the EUR 127 million for each of the subsequent six years, amounting to a budgetary framework of EUR 885.5 million for the seven years laid down in the regulation.
Both amendments seem well-considered.
The aim is to avoid a third reading, put an end to the current intolerable legal vacuum and provide significant political impetus to our development cooperation with South Africa.
By asking you to support our proposals, we hope that the common sense and moderation which Parliament is showing will be understood by the Council.
We also hope that these proposals are acceptable to the Commission, despite the fact that theirs - 25 million for the commitology question and 850.5 million for the budgetary framework - are somewhat different to the ones that we are presenting.
If we are not understood, it will be entirely down to the Council or the Commission that we become involved in a third reading, with the consequences which the lack of a proper legal basis may have on the projects in operation in our development cooperation with South Africa.
The figure for the budgetary framework suggested by the Commission, which is very close to our own proposal, should in any event have arrived at the Committee on Development and Cooperation on time, so that Parliament could have approved it and above all with the certainty that, in the event that we had adopted it, the Council would also have accepted it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report under discussion here on the Union's development cooperation with South Africa, on which I particularly congratulate the rapporteur, is, leaving aside its content, a striking example of the Council's delaying tactics towards the European Parliament.
This is actually an unproblematic regulation and also, in fact, an unproblematic report.
That the Union should support development cooperation with South Africa, bearing in mind that it is one of the more successful countries on the subcontinent, has never been called into question.
This is therefore predominantly about renewing the legal base for this cooperation, as the preceding regulation expired in December 1999.
Our former fellow-MEP, Mr Fassa, presented the report for its first reading in Parliament in May of last year.
The Council accepted nearly all of the amendments.
Nevertheless, I do wonder why the Council's common position was officially only sent to Parliament in March of this year. Of course, the rapporteur also referred to this.
Delays of this kind, which might perhaps be explained by the trade agreement being negotiated in parallel, never fail, however, to amaze me.
No doubt people in South Africa itself are also asking themselves what conclusions they should draw from the Council's behaviour.
This is why I should specifically like to thank the rapporteur for making it possible, thanks to the fast-track procedure, for this report to be on the plenary agenda now, as early as May, thus allowing us to avoid any potential problems caused by a lack of legal bases in our development cooperation.
As far as the content is concerned, some areas of uncertainty had been clarified in preliminary informal consultations with the Council, which meant that this report could restrict itself to two points, the first of which is increasing the total budget to EUR 885.5 million for the period for 2000-2006, a customary parliamentary request and a necessary one.
Secondly, the threshold of EUR 5 million, which has now been settled on, constitutes a good compromise in my view.
Small projects can be planned and implemented efficiently by the institutions and organisations on the ground.
The limit of EUR 5 million gives sufficient room for manoeuvre.
In making these efforts, the rapporteur has, for his part, done everything within his power to present a proper report on the regulation.
I very much hope that we will indeed still be able to avoid the danger of a third reading, Mr Martínez Martínez.
For the time being I offer you my warmest congratulations on this.
The full significance of this report is, however, only appreciated when it is seen in the context of the other efforts being made to intensify cooperation with South Africa, first and foremost the trade agreement already mentioned.
The Union continues to attach great importance to stable development in South Africa, not only for the sake of the people there, but also because this is in the interests of the development of its neighbours north of the Limpopo.
The South Africans have already managed to put an end to legal discrimination against the majority of the population and to hold democratic elections.
Today it is a question of anchoring the rule of law more firmly in the State.
All sections of the population and all civil servants must feel a duty primarily to this State, which is under the rule of law and no longer, as they did in the past, only to their own section of the population or even to their personal associates of whom they need to take care.
From a political point of view, the Union' s adoption of this new regulation is not only an acknowledgement of the results achieved by the reform process hitherto.
It comes with definite expectations for the future, including securing law and order in all parts of the country.
I read with concern reports about the misuse of tax revenue at provincial level.
I hear with unease that corruption is also gaining ground in the police force, and that in rural areas and in townships there are police no-go areas where the poorest of the poor are left at the mercy of gangs.
Conversely, those who have something to lose wall themselves in and for their own security hire those who previously had professional roles in the army and the police.
Thus a two-tier society again emerges, and, what is more, this is in the sensitive area of internal security.
Since law and order were de facto suspended in neighbouring Zimbabwe, the morale on commercial farms south of the Limpopo has hit rock bottom.
This illustrates another decisive expectation which we have of South Africa: to set an example and be a stabilising influence on its neighbours to the north.
I expect the South African Government to take on its regional responsibilities.
President Mbeki should adopt just as clear a stance as has the former President, Mr Mandela - whom we all hold in high esteem - on the events in Zimbabwe.
Standing by and letting it happen or talking up the situation helps neither the farmers nor the hundreds of thousands in Zimbabwe who are dependent on the farms for a functioning infrastructure.
Food, housing, and sometimes clinics and schools are made available to farm workers and their families.
The situation is similar in large areas of South Africa.
Obviously these are not exemplary structures, but before they are abandoned we have to ensure that those who ought to be benefiting from them receive something better in their place.
South Africa must now, in its own interests too, exert massive influence on Mugabe; otherwise it too will soon be threatened by waves of starving refugees if seed cannot be sown on the farms there now.
In its own country, not only would the rand come under increasing pressure, but the faith in the government shown by important sections of the population who would normally supply the nation's food would be severely shaken.
This cannot be in the interests of South Africa and it cannot be in our interests either!
By adopting this regulation, the Union is showing that it still backs the economic, political and societal reform process in South Africa.
The South African Government needs all sections of society to have lasting confidence in the development of the country.
I hope that this expectation too will be taken seriously in Pretoria.
The PPE-DE Group will be voting in favour of the report.
Mr President, I also warmly congratulate the rapporteur who has shown enormous commitment to this report.
We thank you very much for it.
We are clearly in a very serious situation.
The regulation for South Africa expired on 31 December 1999.
It is clear, as the rapporteur has suggested, that we need to proceed with some urgency in order to provide a legal base for our essential work in South Africa.
This budget line is the work of the European Parliament.
I was the budget rapporteur in 1994 when the Development Committee established the line.
That was because we wanted to see practical and tangible assistance for South Africa's peaceful transition to a free and democratic country.
Surely that has been one of the most encouraging events in recent history.
Now the Republic, with its new President Mr Thabo Mbeki, faces new challenges which, in my view, require sustained partnership with the European Union.
This is not the time, as others have suggested, to have the kind of mean-spirited delays that we have seen from the Council; neither is it the time for political point-scoring by other institutions of the European Union.
Indeed, it is my view that the Council has rather cynically orchestrated the eight-month delay in response to the first reading in order that it could better manage its negotiations on the South Africa trade and development agreements.
This has put life-saving programmes at risk and any delay now would exacerbate the existing impression in South Africa of a European Union which seeks only to serve its own interests first.
Coming as this does after ouzo and grappa, we are in danger of sending a very bad signal to South Africa.
Decisions need to be made.
We cannot risk delay.
For example, I am very familiar with the South African Human Rights Foundation.
That would be endangered.
The Foundation for Cultural Initiatives programme, the South Africa Labour Development Trust, policing in the Eastern Cape - all these programmes would be very seriously threatened by delays.
If there is delay, if agreement is not reached on the regulation, then new programmes will be affected too.
Even the 2000 budget of EUR 1.54 million would not be committed.
Let us be clear what we are talking about.
We are talking about water and sanitation programmes which do so much to improve the quality of life of people in the townships and rural areas.
We would endanger the SADC HIV/Aids Programme, regarded by all as being one of the most efficient the European Union operates.
We risk jeopardising economic developments in the Eastern Cape and work in the Eastern Cape with the Ministry of Education.
We risk jeopardising support for social housing programmes in South Africa.
In this Parliament we have to make every effort now, as the rapporteur has said, to make it possible for this money to move as speedily and as efficiently as it can to the people of South Africa.
The European Parliament position is, and always has been, realistic and morally right.
However I must express my grave concern about the possible misery which would be caused were we to delay.
As usual we should make it very clear that we in the Development Committee regard the budget figure that we have here before us, as purely indicative.
We see it as a reference point only, not as anything that we will not seek to change when it comes to our committee.
It is the first year of the South Africa Trade Agreement.
How does it look in our first year if we do not fully commit the funding and meet our obligations? We must continue our commitment to supporting South African efforts to overcome the legacy of apartheid.
To do that we have to have a regulation sooner rather than later.
I hope that after we have heard the Commissioner we will have the opportunity to discuss his views further and to discuss the very deeply worrying issues which delay on this regulation raises.
Mr President, apartheid in South Africa may have been abolished but it has not yet disappeared.
For example, the disparities in income between the population groups are still shocking and deprived areas in terms of housing, education and health care have not caught up by a long way.
Frustration is mounting, as is evident from the unprecedented crime rate and outrageous violence both indoors and outdoors.
They may want to escape their past, but they are compromising their own future in the process.
The key goal of development strategy should therefore be to correct the imbalance in growth created by apartheid.
If not, that country will not be able to enjoy stability, will deter foreign investors and will remain poor when it could be rich.
Needless to say, it is South Africa first and foremost that has to set its own house in order, but Europe can and must make a substantial contribution to the development process.
We therefore lend our support to the cooperation agreement, on the basis of the EUR 885.5 million, as proposed by our excellent rapporteur.
The Council has sat on the regulation for far too long.
All the signs are there that its association with the negotiations regarding the trade agreement was spurious.
The involvement of the Member States via the committee should focus more on the strategy and the indicative programme rather than on the individual projects.
A maximum of 5 million seems very reasonable to me.
This does not, however, relieve the European Union of its task of monitoring all projects well, down to the tiniest, and to evaluate them at regular intervals.
The Commission delegation must be sufficiently equipped to be able to do this independently and to a professional standard.
Mr President, South Africa has enormous potential.
There is so much there which so few have enjoyed.
Economic growth is a necessary but not an adequate condition for development.
What is needed is for resources to be better distributed and correctly allocated to meet all social needs.
The apartheid regime has been abolished, all that is left to tackle now is apartheid itself.
Mr President, I would like to start by adding my thanks and congratulations to the rapporteur.
I strongly support his aim of getting this regulation brought into force as quickly as possible with no third reading.
The rapporteur has been very generous in his interpretation of the Council's inexplicable 8-month delay in responding to Parliament's six amendments during the first reading.
If there were any evidence that the Council was deliberately holding back this regulation to give it greater leverage during the negotiations of the broader trade and development cooperation agreement, that indeed would be extremely worrying.
To come to the substance of the issue, on the budget it is completely unacceptable that the EU should be offering a budget cut in comparison to former years, particularly at this moment in our relationship with South Africa.
There is a very real risk of this triggering an even greater loss of faith by South Africa in the EU.
Let us not forget that this follows hard on the heels of the protracted and frequently bitter negotiations of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement where the EU acted very dismally indeed.
On numerous occasions, it was EU reluctance to improve access for South African agricultural goods which nearly blocked the whole deal and to follow this up with yet another dishonourable act would be extremely unfortunate.
Perhaps there is an image abroad that South Africa is an increasingly developed country and does not really need these funds.
Let us not forget that in spite of the great leaps forward that South Africa has taken, the life of many South Africans is still one of extreme poverty without work or land or a decent home.
An estimated 42% of black South Africans are jobless as compared with just 4% of whites.
A quarter of schools have no water within walking distance.
Half of South African households are classed as poor.
65% of adult South Africans are illiterate and 10 million South Africans live in informal shacks or on land they neither own nor rent.
Let us not forget either that the Commission and Council turned down the idea of a separate new financial instrument to give support to neighbouring countries which need to adjust themselves to the new framework resulting from the Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
I am not as reassured on this point as the rapporteur and I would have preferred to see a separate budget line which could have been seen and monitored more easily.
It is quite clear that substantial funds are going to be needed to ease these countries' transition.
The loss of customs duty alone is extremely high in some cases.
In Swaziland for example, this accounts for up to 40% of all government revenue.
In spite of its own challenges, South Africa is already demonstrating its commitment to support its neighbours in the region.
For example, in its agreement to a highly asymmetrical liberalisation agreement with the other SADC countries which will benefit those countries.
The European Union needs the same generosity of spirit.
It should honour its initial financial pledges to South Africa and provide significant support to the neighbouring countries during their transition period.
Mr President, it has taken a year, but we have finally reached the point where we can discuss the regulation on development cooperation with South Africa at second reading.
This is not a day too soon, because the European Programme for the Reconstruction and Development of South Africa has been without a legal basis since late 1999.
In the light of this, the continuity of the development connection has been in the balance.
Accordingly, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the drive he has displayed in dealing with this subject matter.
I share his criticism regarding the eight months which the Council deemed necessary to formulate its position.
He is right in claiming that a distinction must be drawn between this regulation and the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement between Europe and South Africa.
Although development cooperation and trade are very much interrelated, they should not be played off against each other.
The deliberate delay in approving these regulations would seem to suggest that there is little real involvement with South Africa.
This is irrespective of how fair the European negotiating position is in terms of trade.
Moreover, such a stance does not fit in with the Commission' s strategy in terms of South Africa which it has outlined in its 2000-2002 Country Strategy.
This document addresses both the fight against poverty and improvement in infrastructure.
I did wonder, however, why it only mentions the European Union' s development instrument in passing. Would the Commission be able to answer that?
I would also like to know from the Commission to what extent South Africa' s qualified Lomé membership overlaps with the European Programme for Reconstruction and Development.
I am, by the way, very grateful to the Commission for the large amount of information on South Africa which is available on the Internet and which has been laid out in a readily understood format.
This is an example to draw on when it comes to determining the strategy for other countries!
I would like to finish off with just one remark for the rapporteur.
I can imagine that he is intent on keeping the EUR 910 million budget for development cooperation with South Africa.
I, however, attach less importance to this, given the limited financial resources for foreign policy and the major challenges in other parts of the world.
What counts is the quality of cooperation with South Africa, which, in my opinion, is sound at present, particularly on account of the regional projects which have been financed over the past couple of years.
This is why South Africa' s neighbouring countries can also benefit from European development projects.
It seems that coherence and consistency are gradually gaining ground in the EU' s development policy.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur not only for the work he has put in to produce this report but also for the rather unique way he has had to handle the situation that the Development Committee and Parliament found itself in.
It is perhaps a sad indictment on the European institutions that, five months after the expiry date of the legal base to this Council regulation, it has only now come before Parliament, thanks, as the rapporteur and almost every other speaker has said, to an 8-month delay by the Council in responding to Parliament's first reading.
Surely we cannot continue to work in this way.
It is interesting to note that half this report is taken up by the procedural points the rapporteur has had to work his way through.
Now it has returned to us it is particularly pleasing that the Council has adopted the thrust of most of our amendments.
Most welcome is the fact that the Council has made poverty alleviation a top priority.
This should strengthen the partnership between South Africa and Europe.
I have just spent a week in South Africa and there is much appreciation for all that the EU is doing to stabilise their fragile democracy.
Only by rapidly improving living standards, particularly in health, education and employment, will stability remain.
There was much resentment against some nation states at the hold-ups there had been over the new trade agreement with particular reference to spirit names.
We are doing much for South Africa and I hope, in return, President Mbeki will work for peace in the region, with particular reference to Zimbabwe.
The implication in the rapporteur's report that this regulation may have been delayed because it was being used as a bargaining chip is very worrying.
The Commission might like to comment on this particular point.
I would also like to hear from the Commission on how we can streamline the system.
In the last session in Strasbourg we had another regulation that had also run out last December and this should not happen.
I must strongly support the rapporteur and his suggestions that the Commission should be tackling the issues of major topics, such as the importance and the overall impact of the programme in relation to the agreed objectives rather than individual programmes.
I would also like to see delegate offices strengthened with more and better staff to be able to cope more efficiently with monitoring and evaluations.
This regulation is bound to have an impact on neighbouring states and I hope the Commission will take this into consideration.
The rapporteur has broken new ground on commitology which can only bode well for the future.
My group supports this regulation but asks for a speedy conclusion to the vacuum we are in.
We would not like to see any disagreement on budget amounts hold up ratification.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in recent years South Africa has made a historic leap forward by abolishing the apartheid system and establishing a new political order based on the rule of law, respect for human rights and democracy.
If the people of South Africa have regained their freedom, this is, of course, for the most part thanks to their persistence and courage, as well as to that of their leaders, but also, it must be said, to the political and financial support provided by European Union Member States for the reform process in South Africa.
Quite clearly, the cooperation agreement signed on 10 October 1994 was a strong message that we sent this people treated so badly by history.
I must confess that the slow progress in Council negotiations for its renewal leaves me rather puzzled.
Our duty to show this country legitimate solidarity must not and cannot be sacrificed on the altar of national trading interests.
On the trade agreement, which, need I remind you, we endorsed by a large majority in this very Chamber last October, we must avoid disagreements which obstruct the adoption of this cooperation regulation.
Such an attitude would be tantamount to appalling blackmail on the part of Europe and would not be true to the spirit behind the new development and cooperation agreements with the ACP countries, i.e. establishing contracts which respect the identity, culture and dignity of each partner.
With regard to the regional cooperation aspect of this regulation, I should like, in turn, to draw the Council and the Commission' s attention to the risks of economic destabilisation which may be engendered by the regulation, and even more so by the trade agreement with South Africa.
We shall have to be particular attentive to the effects that these agreements may have on the ever vulnerable balance within the Southern African Customs Union.
I am also thinking of Namibia and Swaziland, and even Lesotho and Botswana, which are a long way from receiving the same amount of aid from Europe.
I feel that the European Union must, as a matter of urgency, take steps to arrive at an agreement with the authorities of these countries in order to compensate for any losses.
Finally, in conclusion, acknowledging our rapporteur for his clear-sightedness and for his talents as a negotiator, I should like to express my complete agreement with him on the need to remedy the existing legal vacuum to enable these agreements to come into force.
We must put an end, as a matter of urgency, to these long months of hesitation and delay, seen as so many negative signs by South Africa' s fledgling democracy, which expects more from Europe than narrow calculations in order to safeguard limited interests.
Mr President, I am apparently not the only one who hangs her head in shame when it comes to South Africa.
For years, we supported the fight against apartheid and welcomed the new South Africa with excitement.
In 1995, it became our key partner in development cooperation.
The fact that that country received most support from Europe was justified.
After all, South Africa had to be - and still is - the driving force behind development in Southern and Central Africa.
But it took too long for programmes to get underway and, when the date for the legal basis lapsed, we did not have a new regulation in place for our development cooperation.
In his eminent report, the rapporteur emphatically referred to the expiry date of 31 December 1999.
The Council needed no fewer than eight months to determine its position.
This was, of course, not down to fundamental differences of opinion, but, as many of the delegates have already hinted at here, because the development money was used as a means of exerting pressure to secure European trade interests and to exact a trade agreement, in which our much talked of alcoholic beverages had to be protected once again.
We are deeply ashamed about such a state of affairs, which resembles a cattle market.
There is another reason to feel ashamed.
A proportion of the money which we want to spend in the European countries to reconstruct Kosovo is being taken from the development cooperation with South Africa.
Instead of increasing the funding by 1%, in line with inflation, and reaching the amount of EUR 885.5 million, as is also suggested by our rapporteur, we will be proposing a 10% reduction.
I think this is disgraceful.
Eventually, Commissioner Schreyer proposed EUR 850 million, or 121 million annually, 5 million less to invest in the fight against poverty which we deem so important.
Mr President, Commissioner, we will naturally assent to the amendments tabled by the Committee on Cooperation and Development.
Poverty is an injustice.
We want the reconstruction of Kosovo.
We are happy to finance it, but not with money intended to combat poverty.
This is unethical.
We also support the second amendment.
It may seem less important, but I think that the resources for the procedure should be retained.
If we oblige our committee to address the individual programme points, there will be considerably less time and energy for tackling the efficiency of the programme as a whole.
This is why we give our wholehearted support to the rapporteur.
Mr President, I want first of all to thank Mr Martínez Martínez for all the hard work he has put into this regulation.
The European Parliament cannot possibly support cutting development aid to South Africa by ten per cent.
Of course, I deeply regret the fact that the Council sat on this urgent matter for eight months so that there has been no legal basis for cooperation work since the beginning of the year.
Relations between the European Union and South Africa must not be damaged.
South Africa ought to - and must - be the European Union' s greatest and best friend in Africa, for South Africa will play a quite decisive role in the whole continent' s future.
In times of large-scale conflict on the African continent, for example in Congo, Angola, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Rwanda and Algeria - not to mention the intense unrest of recent months in Zimbabwe and the hatred which President Mugabe has been stirring up there - South Africa and the country' s remarkably strong democratic institutions constitute a constructive and stabilising factor in leading Africa towards a brighter and more peaceful future.
South Africa has a vigorous constitution with a clear commitment to human rights and freedoms. The country has a constitutional court whose judgements are respected by the president.
Free elections have been held. There is freedom of the press, and the office of president was in a peaceful and orderly state when the country' s great reconciler and nation builder, Nelson Mandela, left it.
The Truth Commission, led by the Anglican bishop, Desmond Tutu, has demonstrated its willingness to strive for genuine reconciliation in South Africa.
Sweden' s prime minister called the Cairo Conference, held earlier this year between the EU and Africa, "the start of something new and great" .
A democratic and reconciled South Africa is the prerequisite for this "something new and great" , in which Africa and the countries of Europe meet on a new and equal footing and look forward, instead of remaining stuck in the old colonial period.
South Africa is a necessary engine of democracy for the whole of South Africa and for Africa in its entirety.
It can show that it is freedom, together with democratic and strong ethical and moral values, through which Africa can advance furthest.
- (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament is due to state its position at second reading on the regulation that forms the legal base for the general framework of cooperation between the European Union and South Africa.
In the meantime, as you will remember, the Council of Ministers of the European Union adopted the General Agreement on Trade, Development and Cooperation last September on the basis of the Kinnock report, whose trade component was implemented in January of this year.
One of the fundamental components of the trade agreement concerns wines, and South Africa committed itself, under the terms of the agreement signed at the Berlin Summit in March 1999, immediately to cease using certain Community designations of origin, such as, specifically, "Port" and "Sherry" , which it had been using illegally for twelve years.
Following a few incredibly intricate episodes, successive adjournments and time-wasting manoeuvres by the South African negotiators in accepting a regulatory text for this agreement, both parties finally agreed that a new draft of the regulations for this agreement on wines, which is due to enter into force by 1 September, is to be laid down by the end of June.
I have, however, received information to the effect that the South Africans are still raising problems with regard to a draft which faithfully reflects the Berlin Agreement.
They are trying to have these wine-producing issues covered by the WTO TRIPS dossier, which the European Union feels does not adequately protect Community designations.
Furthermore, it appears to be a position that has been reached in conjunction with other New World wine-producing countries, given that the South Africans were negotiating bilateral agreements on wines with the European Union and then they suddenly changed their minds and wanted to postpone everything.
In view of these issues, I cannot agree with the rapporteur when he asks Parliament, as proof of good faith, to approve this framework regulation as a matter of urgency, without linking it to the trade aspect of the General Agreement on Trade, Development and Cooperation.
I do not agree because all the European Union' s behaviour up until now has been nothing but a huge demonstration of good faith, to the extent that, contrary to what had previously been laid down, we accepted the commercial implementation of the agreement without the regulations for the agreement on wines being established.
The time has come to say enough is enough!
Cooperation requires a positive attitude of good faith and responsibility on the part of both cooperating parties.
As this has not been the case, I cannot, in all conscience, support the rapporteur' s position.
Mr President, the Commission is appreciative of the rapporteur's excellent work and welcomes the recommendation on the Council common position which reflects Parliament's commitment to assist the new South Africa.
We too are worried about the delays in the adoption of the regulation and share the view that quick adoption of the regulation on the European programme for reconstruction and development is now becoming essential and critical.
It would be a signal to South Africa of our dedication to the effective entry into force of the agreement on trade development and cooperation and would prevent new tensions arising around issues still to be discussed concerning wines and spirits or fisheries.
If, however, the Community is unable to adopt the regulation in time, our development programme for this year will be jeopardised and confidence undermined.
We also totally share the rapporteur's view that the Council common position contains useful improvements to the Commission's proposal.
However, on commitology and the financial framework, we also consider that the common position is inadequate and cannot be followed.
Indeed, as regards Amendment No 1, on Article 8(5) and (6) on commitology, your proposal for a EUR 5m threshold is, to be frank, somewhat disappointing compared to the level of EUR 25m we had proposed.
We proposed such a level in order to use the committed resources in a more efficient and useful way and to deal with strategic issues rather than the details of individual projects.
But in the South Africa case, we are ready to accept the EUR 5m threshold simply in order not to delay a decision.
It appears from our programming discussions with the South African Government that we will have a limited number of major sectoral programmes which we think have to be discussed in any case with the Member States.
The EUR 5m level gives us enough room to proceed quickly with some small projects, for instance preparatory actions or pilot operations.
But we definitely need to make clear that no precedent should be created for the Council to impose low commitology thresholds.
I should like to retain the possibility of increasing this threshold for the South Africa budget line in the future, if need be.
Regarding Amendment No 2, Article 10(1) on the financial framework: the Commission has been aware on the one hand of the need to respect the political commitment in the trade and development cooperation agreement to maintain assistance to South Africa but, on the other hand, we have to take into account the very difficult budgetary situation caused by the new commitments made for assistance in the Balkans.
As a result, the Commission has agreed on the necessary budget adjustments to accommodate new needs.
This exercise has been very complex: it has required a very sensitive balancing of the political priorities across the EU's regional programmes.
But we envisage stabilisation for South Africa at the average level of around EUR 122m per annum, with a global figure of some EUR 850.5m in the period 2000-2006.
This is below your proposal of EUR 885.5m but it is significantly higher than the EUR 787.5m the Council proposed.
The South African programme is in fact one of the least affected by the proposed changes within heading IV and the adjustment will not affect the nature and scope of the programme as envisaged.
I understand your determination not to reduce the financial amounts for development aid to South Africa.
However, I find it absolutely necessary that the regulation is adopted in time to ensure uninterrupted implementation of activities in South Africa.
This situation is indeed very critical and not a normal, routine situation - but unfortunately it is what we are facing - and I feel an obligation to do my utmost to secure agreement between the Council, Parliament and the Commission on the proposed approach.
I am therefore anxious both to discuss the matter again with the Committee on Development and Cooperation in Parliament and before that to seek a response from the Member States.
Bearing that in mind, I should welcome it if Parliament would consider whether the vote on Amendment No 2 could be postponed so that these discussions can take place.
This is the safest way to reduce the risk of a much more serious and longer delay threatening the credibility of our cooperation with South Africa.
Mr President, you have heard the Commissioner' s request that the vote be delayed, that is, that it should not take place tomorrow.
I must say that this situation disturbs me, because we are all working very quickly and the Commission seems to be saying that, since we are in a hurry, we must drive the car very slowly.
On principle, I am always willing to discuss issues again.
Firstly, I must thank the spokespeople of the different Groups for their support, although I believe that they are lending their support to a very modest position by the committee, almost a critical type of support, because the Committee on Development and Cooperation should have gone much further than it decided.
I repeat: in principle, I would not be opposed, but I do not believe that Parliament is in favour of delaying the vote.
I do not feel at the moment that Parliament wishes to delay the vote.
That would mean inviting the Commissioner to the Committee on Development next week and postponing our decision until June.
I would not be opposed to that and I do not reject that possibility.
But I must say, Mr President, that it worries me profoundly that Parliament should have to take responsibility for prolonging something which, in fact, has been prolonged by all parties.
Everyone has prolonged this process: the Council and the Commission.
Now the pressure is on Parliament because we have been told that, if we do not accept the positions of the Council and of the Commission, the development programmes will come to a standstill, which would be terrible.
I agree that it would be terrible if the cooperation programmes came to a standstill.
However, Mr President, we should take note of who is being pressurised and who really bears the responsibility for prolonging this process and taking it to a third reading.
Therefore, Mr President, I would ask you to examine whether it would be proper to consult Parliament tomorrow on whether or not to vote on our positions.
If we do vote on them tomorrow, it will fall to the Council and the Commission to ensure that the situation is not prolonged, which would create serious difficulties for South Africa and our own dignity.
We must ask ourselves whether we are here solely to accept, at any time and under any kind of pressure, what the Council or the Commission proposes.
If that is the case, then Parliament is unnecessary and all our dignity as an institution has been lost.
I am therefore not opposed to the vote being delayed for another month.
I believe that it would be very dangerous to prolong this process, but, in any event, we must not take responsibility. The responsibility falls to those people who have dragged it out until now and who seem to want it to last even longer, perhaps because the issue of the designations of origin of wines and alcoholic drinks is being negotiated.
There has been a misunderstanding.
The Commissioner can speak for himself but the Commission was not requesting postponement of the vote.
The Commission was simply making a point on Amendment No 2, as I understand it.
Perhaps the Commissioner would like to explain the point he was making on the amendment.
As the President said, it is perfectly correct that I am not in a position to request anything, and it would be out of line with my own feeling and understanding of the relations between the Commission and Parliament if I did so.
I said I would welcome it if a postponement of the vote were considered as a possibility.
It is totally in the hands of Parliament, as it should be.
However, I feel I have a responsibility vis-à-vis Parliament to make it totally clear that I see a real danger of this ending up in a long, difficult postponement - something that will create delays in our current activities in South Africa.
It is simply in order to minimise that risk that I am expressing my views as I have here.
The decision is, of course, totally in Parliament's hands.
Decision on urgent procedure
Mr President, the Committee on Industry considers that this is an extremely important issue and should be dealt with as a matter of great urgency.
We all know the reasons why the situation affecting Montenegro is a complex one and we should not, for obvious reasons, delay this matter any further.
I therefore propose producing a simplified report so that we can vote on urgent procedure.
Mr Wynn, chairman of the Committee on Budgets, asked for an opinion, has the floor.
Mr President, we are in a strange situation because a decision was taken in the groups before the Committee on Budgets had decided on this issue of Montenegro.
Also, I have not had a chance to speak to my good friend Mr Westendorp.
I believe that the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy is sympathetic to the position of the Committee on Budgets, which I am about to state.
However, since I have not spoken to him directly, do not quote me on that - it is only second-hand information.
Firstly, I should like to make it clear that the Committee on Budgets supports any aid to Montenegro.
It has done so in the past and will do so in the future.
On this occasion there is no urgency for this to go through now.
The monies will not be made available until August for the first tranche and the second tranche will be paid at the end of the year.
We are of the opinion that the relevant committees need to study the details of this proposal.
Whichever the lead committee is - Foreign Affairs or Industry - we would merely give an opinion, but those committees and Parliament need to evaluate these proposals.
We should not be bounced into a decision because the Council deems it to be necessary.
As for budgets, our main concern is where the money is coming from.
It is great to make proposals but we feel this urgency should not be agreed upon until we know where the money is coming from.
We should leave it until next month.
The committees can debate it and we can vote on it at the June part-session.
Thank you Mr Wynn.
That is a very sensible opinion.
Mr Newton Dunn, vice-chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy has the floor to explain his committee' s opinion.
Mr President, we have not discussed it in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, but my personal view is that we should not accept urgency now.
Mr President, in my opinion, this proposal has been submitted under rather strange procedural circumstances.
Despite this, as speaker on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, I am of the opinion that the urgency is such that we need to take it extremely seriously.
Accordingly, regardless of the mistakes in the procedure, I have to say on behalf of my group that we would like to support this request for urgent procedure after all.
I also have a feeling that other groups in this House from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy share the same view.
It might be helpful to verify this.
Mr President, I am in favour, although I take the view that it is not quite as urgent as the Council makes out.
However, it would be an insult to the people of Montenegro if we rejected this urgency today.
Montenegro is in great danger, especially from Belgrade, and I think we should send out this signal.
However, we should wait until the Commission finally tells us where it intends to find the money.
It cannot take it away from Bosnia.
It cannot take it away from Kosovo.
It needs to tell us where it intends to find the money and if we reach a decision on this today, we must carry out an evaluation half way through and say what has happened to the money and where the second tranche is to come from.
Mr President, firstly, I am against the urgency for the reasons expounded by the chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
There is, in fact, no urgency because the money would be released for August.
Secondly, if we look carefully, in the line which has been applied until now, there are still EUR 20 million which have not been used.
Therefore, there is no uncertainty and no urgency and we can study this issue again, calmly, at a later date.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
2001 Budget - Parliament' s estimates
The next item should be the presentation by the Commission of the preliminary draft budget for 2001.
Unfortunately, the Commissioner has not yet arrived, although she is on her way.
I therefore propose that we examine the next item on the agenda.
The next item is the report (A5-0121/2000) by Mr Ferber, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the estimates for the European Parliament' s income and expenditure for the financial year 2001.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on the excellent work that he is doing for our House in terms of getting value for money out of our budget.
It is not right that we should be expecting the Commission to do a whole range of things in putting their House and their budget in order unless we also take the same kinds of rigorous steps.
The approach which has been taken is absolutely correct, not only in making sure that we do not simply give money away if we have a little spare in the budget, but also where we have asked the Secretary-General of Parliament to come forward with a number of reports: for example, in paragraph 6 of the resolution where we have asked the Secretary-General to look at and identify job needs in the same way as the Commission so that we can match job needs to the staff which we have available in the longer term.
That quite clearly is a way of long-term planning which is very sensible at this stage of Parliament's life.
There are three things which I would like to emphasise in particular in this Parliament Budget 2001.
The first is a plea from an individual parliamentarian that we should make sure that we have a date firmly fixed for the second network computer in our offices.
It is a matter of frustration for many of us that our staff can access the net with their computers, of course, Parliament's computers, but if we as parliamentarians bring in our own computers, we do not have a place to plug them in and work effectively.
It is important to have a date when this facility will be available to us.
Secondly, on a matter of communication, under paragraph 21 of this resolution, I would like to draw the House's attention to the fact that we have on many occasions in these debates called for all Commission and Parliament offices in the Member States to work together within a European House framework by 1 January 2000.
As we have now gone past that date and there are still one or two Member States, in particular my own, where Parliament and the Commission have different offices and where in terms of financing Parliament's office well over 70% of the expenditure goes on bricks and salaries, it does not leave much for communications.
The sooner we can make sure that the image of the European Union is reflected by one European House, the better it will be.
The last point refers to the question of the implications for enlargement.
I would like to support what our rapporteur has said that we cannot suddenly leap into beginning to authorise posts for preparing enlargement if a political decision has not yet been taken; all the more so, because in Parliament's estimates, as I have understood them, we have in front of us an assumption that we are going to have more languages as a result of enlargement.
Yet we have had no debate in this House to know how we are going to handle not a limited enlargement but an extensive enlargement following the Helsinki Summit late last year, with potentially 12 or 13 new countries, that is 27 - 28 countries with over 20 different languages.
How, Secretary-General, are we going to handle this if we do not have some thinking from the Administration as to where we are going to put them all? Are we going to have rooms which we are going to have to adjust for over 20 languages so that in every room where there is a discussion in this Parliament every person has the right to use their own language?
We are aware that in the last Parliament a lot of work was done on this by Vice-President Cot.
His report was never released to Members.
We never saw it as a report on suggesting how the hub and spoke system should work - the relay system for interpretation - nor, indeed, did we really have any thinking about the freelancing possibilities with modern communications where we can dispatch a large amount of our translation material to people who are in the Member States, rather than recruiting a whole range of people to come and work in Luxembourg as fixed and permanent employees of Parliament.
Therefore, I strongly support the compromise which has been put forward by our rapporteur asking, by first reading, for the Secretary-General to come up with a strategy of how to handle the whole question of languages in Parliament and enlargement.
I suspect the Commission might wish to do that as well, because it is a problem which rightly, in this amendment, relates to interinstitutional matters.
I very much hope that the Socialist Group will change their mind, get their heads out of the sand and realise that this is the problem which we have to tackle and that it is better to do it now rather than later.
Mr President, let me also start by congratulating Mr Ferber on a comprehensive estimate of Parliament's revenue and expenditure.
I support the thrust of this report, which is in line with the policy of budgetary rigour, because the major challenges that this Chamber needs to address are greater accountability and transparency which will involve embracing institutional reform with vigour; secondly, the forthcoming enlargement of the Union and thirdly, a drive towards improving efficiency through effective budgetary control and better use of resources.
Our main priority has to be to explain to European citizens what we are doing, why we are doing it and how we are doing it.
We must win the confidence of the European taxpayer and we can only do this by improving accountability through simplifying - not mystifying - the work of Parliament, by reducing jargon, by improving the process of approving legislation and improving the legislative machinery and by making a clear connection between what we do here and how it benefits the individual.
We are going a long way towards achieving this transparency through the introduction of activity-based budgeting and the proposal we have in this report to put appropriations for political parties in separate budget lines will contribute significantly to achieving this.
These virtues are all the more important as we move towards the challenge facing the EU at the moment of enlargement.
We in the Socialist Group strongly believe that the European Parliament should be giving every encouragement to candidate countries in their preparation to joint the EU.
I have the impression that there are those in this House who appear to be frustrating this process of enlargement by placing unnecessary obstacles in the way and often using spurious arguments to limit the preparation for enlargement: for example, the rejection of the proposal to fill the 35 vacant posts in the language reserve between 2001 and 2002. The reason given, and also outlined by my colleague Mr Elles, is that we believe that this will pre-empt discussions with accession states.
Do we seriously believe that this small step will influence all the institutions as to which countries are in the first tranche and which are in the second tranche?
Do we really believe that by committing less than half a per cent of Parliament's language budget the political decision will be made and taken out of our control? I am somewhat confused and if I recall correctly, the rapporteur agreed previously and argued vigorously for setting up an interinstitutional recruitment agency in his last report.
What is the point of approving a joint operation whilst at the same time we are preventing any recruitment of people? I strongly favour planning properly for enlargement because experience has shown that there is a long lead-in time for the training of interpreters and translators.
It is necessary if the admission of the new Member States into the Institution is to run smoothly from a language point of view.
Of course I agree that we should not at any stage prejudice political decisions which have to be taken at a later date.
On the other hand, we should avoid giving out discouraging messages to the applicant countries that are currently making great efforts to get themselves in shape to join the EU.
I reiterate that we should not pre-empt any political decisions to be taken on enlargement.
We need to plan and to be imaginative and to be creative as to how we prepare for enlargement because nothing will be more damaging to the EU if we make a bad job of enlargement.
What we also need to do is have a vigorous implementation of reform to prepare for enlargement.
Very recently the President of the European Court of Justice warned that it would be unable to cope with enlargement of the EU.
The average time that it takes for a case to be heard has risen from 17 months in 1988 to 23 months last year.
That is a very long wait.
What we need to do is to have reforms, not just in the areas of staffing and procedures, but we also need to have a new approach in terms of buildings policy.
It is vital that the preparations are made during the coming financial year to ensure that Parliament's buildings are able to accommodate new Member States of an enlarged EU.
It is also important for provision to be made to set up information offices in the countries which have applied to join the EU.
It is widely acknowledged that the systems that we have at the moment were set up for the EU when we only had 6 Members and they are creaking at the edges in terms of the Union of 15 Members.
How are they possibly going to be effective with 25 Members? It is important that we plan and prepare.
I am a relatively new Member of Parliament and while I see a lot of good work going on in the committees, I am acutely aware that as a result of the new responsibilities in the Treaty of Amsterdam there is a need not just for individual support for Members but also scientific support for committees.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force Parliament's workload has increased very significantly and it is important that this is taken into account in this budget.
The Commission's Work Programme now incorporates a very large number of codecision procedures and these procedures have significantly increased our workload.
If we are to convince the people of the EU of the importance of the European Parliament's work and persuade them to take it more seriously, we need to improve our systems of working.
That is why I welcome the report's emphasis on the common statute for Members and assistants and I hope that we can adopt this as soon as possible.
I have been disappointed by some aspects of the report's focus.
It focuses too much on the minutiae of detail in sometimes preventing administrative changes in staffing and frustrating strategic vision.
I am concerned at the wisdom of putting 30% of the appropriation into the reserve for security services as the rapporteur proposes.
There is a contradiction in the rapporteur's argument.
He has always focused on outsourcing of Parliament's services. Here we have an example of outsourcing that is not working.
Rather than reducing the budget we should be looking at how we improve security services, and the question we should be asking is: should we have our own security services or should we be retendering it rather than just reducing the budget?
I am also disappointed that the report ignores one of the biggest inefficiencies we have.
Members of the European Parliament are the only parliamentarians who have no say in the location of their seat.
A seat on three sites is the most incredible waste of time, money, travel and transport.
Surely, when we are looking at budgetary rigour we have the right to address this issue because until we do so the general public will be confused about what we are doing in so many places.
It also confuses the roles of the organisation.
Mr President, Mr Markus Ferber has produced an excellent report, on which I wish to congratulate him.
The Parliament Budget is essentially an administrative budget, since wage costs constitute the largest item of expenditure.
We are currently experiencing a significant period of change in administration, as we are aiming to introduce activity-based budgeting, to emphasise greater personal accountability and to improve the reallocation of resources.
This is why, last year, Parliament approved an appropriation of EUR 300 000 for this year' s budget for the investigation of the efficiency and improvement needs of parliamentary administration.
Mr President, this is why it is somewhat surprising that already at this early stage, i.e. before the investigation has even started, important decisions are being made on administrative development.
In the Budget, appropriations for wages are being increased by an enormous 12.2 %.
This increase is so huge that no other institution could even contemplate an increase of administrative costs of this magnitude.
Already, at this early stage, the intention is to spend this increase on the creation of 33 new posts and, apparently, 12 more will be created as a result of the amendment by the Bureau.
For the sake of comparison, I would like to refer to the 1995-1999 period, during which Parliament established a total of only 11 new official posts.
It is worthy of special mention that in this proposal, a new post is even being created for the Financial Control Department, despite the intention to abandon prior inspection altogether.
In addition, the Budget contains a significant number of new staff promotions.
Such being the case, I cannot agree with those who claim that a policy of budgetary discipline has been observed in the drafting of this Budget.
On the contrary, this Budget is uncommonly slack, and this will make it difficult to gain the approval of the general public.
Mr President, it is necessary in this context to address the issue of the policy of the European Parliament in its capacity as an employer.
Administrative reform, activity-based budgeting and downward delegation of accountability require consultation with the staff.
Reallocation of resources is necessary, and consequently also reform of staffing regulations.
Thus it would have been proper to save for the future such tools and opportunities for negotiation, with which these reforms are supposed to be furthered, and to refrain from granting new benefits before there has even been an opportunity to negotiate comparable administrative reforms with the staff.
Mr President, I too would like to extend warm thanks to the rapporteur for his report and for facilitating open communication.
Mr Ferber' s report does not just contain political aspects but is in fact largely composed of administrative aspects.
I will start by quoting and commenting on a number of political statements.
My group wholeheartedly agrees with the line taken in the report that the Council and Parliament should draft a statute in the short term and should do this in joint cooperation. They should compile a statute for the Members of the European Parliament, and, independently of that, a statute for the Member' s assistants.
We support this and hope that it can be brought to a conclusion during the course of this year.
The report also contains a political comment regarding the separate budget lines required for the parliamentary groups on the one hand and the European political parties on the other.
We must avoid hidden subsidies for European political parties at all costs.
We all know that it will be some time before a statute is drawn up for the European political parties and I welcome the fact that, in the meantime, the Secretary-General has been asked to establish transparency in the use of appropriations by the parliamentary groups and the political parties.
Quite apart from this, the report also covers many administrative aspects.
For example, we have been asked to pass judgement on the fact that the Directorate for Committees and Delegations must comprise five A posts, two B posts and one C post, and that one A post and two B posts must be added to the Directorate-General for Personnel.
It is not because I am new, I think, that I have great difficulty in passing judgement on this.
In my opinion, it is mainly up to a manager to take responsibility for the precise detail of personnel policy.
It is also very difficult for the groups if it is decided in the plenary how many additional posts are to be created within the political groups.
Surely, a great deal depends on the organisation of your group and maybe not every group wants to work in exactly the same way.
I think that we should really re-think the system.
I understand that during the reform of Parliament, consideration will also be given to allowing groups to take responsibility for their own affairs and I wholeheartedly support this.
I would also like to comment briefly on the support which has been requested for the parliamentarians.
We have agreed that a study will be carried out which will also be linked in with a study commissioned by Mr Rothley into what exactly it is that the parliamentarians need in the way of support for their work.
I struggle somewhat with the fact that we are running ahead of this study' s conclusions because we do not give our verdict on the Bureau' s conclusion in Mr Ferber' s report. The Bureau concludes that expenses for assistants should be increased by 20%.
In failing to pass judgement on this, we are giving the impression that we have accepted it.
I am not against this increase, in principle. What I do object to, however, is running ahead of the report and I am also opposed to it because I am sure that in September, it will transpire that we will need to prioritise various issues.
For example, the rent we pay for the buildings may increase.
We will need to decide whether we want to inject more funding into other institutions in preparation for enlargement.
We will no doubt return to these points of criticism in September when we will have the precise figures in front of us.
As such, it is not really a criticism but I do object to running ahead of a decision.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing a report on the European Parliament, and I am astonished first of all not to see one of Mrs Stauner' s letters appended to this document because, as you know, she likes to get involved in our business even though her own activities are concerned with something completely different.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that the rapporteur is a member of her own group and, for once, she is therefore confining herself to making observations rather than sending a letter.
I find this rather strange, but perhaps she has not yet said her last word.
We shall see, in time.
What I want to say is quite simply this: the situation is nonetheless rather surprising. On the one hand, we have engaged in a policy of rigour resulting in all our budgets and discharges being obstructed by a Parliament that is rigorous to the extent of obstructing discharge to the Commission, and even obstructing discharge to the European Parliament itself, out of fear of problems, lack of endorsement or money wasting attributable to the duties of officials who are required to shuttle back and forth between Luxembourg and Brussels, costing the taxpayer a fortune.
Yet on the other hand, in the Ferber report, Members of Parliament are awarding themselves fortunes.
We are awarding ourselves a second computer, claiming that one is not enough.
We are awarding ourselves a 20% pay rise from a zero-growth budget.
We are awarding ourselves a 20% increase to the budget heading for funding for our assistants because we are more than anything afraid that the rules will stipulate that this contract will have to be accompanied by a statute which would specifically require welfare contributions to be paid, and so, as insurance against the worst case scenario, we are increasing this line by 20%.
After checking up, I have not found a single budget item in the Community, whether in the field of humanitarian aid, research, or agricultural expenditure where there are plans for an increase.
Moreover, generally speaking, the objective is to reduce the budget.
But not in this case!
Within the European Parliament a second computer is being awarded, 20% additional expenses and, as the Court of Auditors was particularly tough on the political groups, a paragraph is included, which, I quote, "Underlines emphatically the increased workload and the particular responsibilities of the political groups."
This paragraph does Parliament no credit.
If we adopt an attitude, we cannot express any indignation at waste while at the same time putting forward a budget of this type.
On behalf of the radicals in this House, I must inform you that I shall be voting against Mr Ferber' s report.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am sorry that my good friend, Mr Dell'Alba, is not in agreement with the draft budget by Mr Ferber.
We are in agreement and we are very happy.
I believe that the rapporteur, in drawing up this draft budget for 2001, has been rigorous, has made optimum use of resources and has, at the same time, been imaginative and looked to the future.
We congratulate him wholeheartedly.
Ultimately, we are talking about a European Parliament for the 21st century, when we will have to face three fundamental challenges. We will have to respond to the MEPs' new obligations, as laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, incorporate new technologies into our work and react immediately to the huge administrative, organisational and political obligations presented by enlargement of the European Union.
These three challenges faced by the European Parliament should be set in a context of great budgetary rigour and complete transparency in the use of public funds.
We must consider - and the rapporteur has done this - what kind of Parliament we want in the future.
Do we want a more administrative and bureaucratic Parliament or do we want a more political one? Do we want a European Parliament that is centralised or do we want one which is compatible with a European Union which is becoming increasingly federalised but at the same time more subject to subsidiarity and decentralisation?
I believe - and I agree with him on this - that the rapporteur wants a Parliament that treats the MEPs' political work, both in Strasbourg and in Brussels, as well as in their individual political constituencies, as a priority.
In this case it is necessary, as he says, for there to be new information points, new IT resources and new staff - if necessary - to help MEPs carry out their bureaucratic tasks.
I hope that in September new appropriations will be provided for these lines.
I am very glad that Mr Ferber has reacted to the report of the Court of Auditors on the funding of the political groups.
An independent budget line will allow us to present a clearer and more transparent public image until we finally have a statute for the European political parties.
Let us not forget that these parties are the cornerstone of European democracy and there must be no doubts as to whether they are being funded in the correct manner.
We fully agree with the rapporteur' s view concerning the linguistic staff necessary for enlargement.
We must initiate the preparatory administrative measures.
Six new countries - with at least five new languages - in 2004 means that we will have to make a great effort to adapt.
In order to fill these vacancies, we will need to know the exact order in which the candidate countries will join the Union, and that is something that cannot happen now or in this budget.
We therefore support all Mr Ferber' s amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by expressly welcoming Mr Ferber' s report in its broadest outlines.
We have enjoyed extremely positive collaboration over recent weeks and months, cooperation marked by the fact that we expressed our opinions in no uncertain terms on the points where we diverged widely, but when you can reach a common line, then that is the path you should take.
The challenge which faces us has been described.
One can in fact do no more than repeat it.
In the wake of Amsterdam - and I say this now in anticipation of what is yet to come in relation to this Parliament - we must reconcile the powers which Parliament now has with its potential, because at present they do not stand in a very balanced ratio.
We must ensure that we can achieve equality in arms with the other legislative authority, namely the Council, both in respect of the scientific service and scientific research.
We cannot allow the potential of this democratic and directly-elected Parliament to lag behind what the Council can do.
If we take our work seriously, if we take ourselves seriously, we must operate under the same conditions so that we really can stand up for ourselves.
There is no point in the President of our Parliament just putting her mark at the bottom of the page.
That is not enough; it is the work beforehand which is crucial and it needs to be carried out seriously and it needs to be carried out well.
In this respect it is both right and important - and I expressly disagree with Mr Dell'Alba here - that we prepare ourselves properly.
Nor can there be any question of exorbitant cost increases now.
Mr Dell'Alba knows full well that, thanks to a clever buildings policy - let there be no mistake about that - we have been able to release considerable funds over recent years.
Having scrimped and saved this money ourselves, we then need to use it to good purpose.
To good purpose means improving the potential and capabilities of this Parliament.
We are still within the 20% margin which we set ourselves and we are keeping to it.
At no point do we go over Parliament' s 20% share of administrative costs.
I think that shows that our approach is very serious here and we do not want to promise any cloud cuckoo land.
Another challenge before us - admittedly we have been pushed into action here by official discussions in various quarters - is the need to bring some transparency into this Parliament.
We shall accept this responsibility and take up this challenge. Not because we are afraid of being forced to do so.
No, we want the public to know that we have nothing to hide here. We are endeavouring to create a serious basis for what we do here, i.e. financing for the groups, and we want a set of rules so that the European political parties and party organisations can raise funds.
You cannot call for this sort of development at European level without financing the basis commensurately, that is quite right.
The basis must be clearly visible so that our citizens know what money is going where.
We shall do everything we can to make progress on this point and to bring more transparency into the process, so that everyone can see what money is going where and can judge if it is appropriate or unsuitable and criticism can then be levied where criticism is needed.
And it is needed.
However, we must head off criticism on procedural grounds or because we have accommodated certain sums under various budget headings.
Transparency is needed here and, as we said last year during the budget debates, we have our work cut out here.
Allow me to comment now on the question of enlargement, because that is the only point on which we disagree with Mr Ferber and, above all, with our colleagues in the PPE group.
What worries me here is that Mr Stoiber' s visit to your group last week had a greater impact than we all feared.
My next comment is addressed to my honourable friend, Mr Pöttering: it was you who said at a European Union conference "onwards and upwards" , and that enlargement should be speeded up for political reasons, because we cannot afford to put it on the back burner.
But, when we are specifically called upon to move forwards, we should do so decisively.
I know that the issue of when and how enlargement should take place can be the stuff of first-rate political debate, a debate which could set the axe at the very roots and I call for extreme caution here.
As far as specific preparations are concerned, we need, for example, to make preparations for more buildings.
And if you do not start looking for buildings, for example in the candidate countries, until things are so far down the road, you will be faced with prices which make your hair turn grey.
So we need to get our act together and make preparations which allow for sound financial management.
As far as preparing for new languages is concerned, if you read the Cot report, called for by the honourable Member of your group, Mr Elles, you will see that we shall have an additional 460 language combinations in the future.
According to one estimate, this will mean another 500 translators and interpreters.
Do you expect us to believe that you are suddenly going to jump up like a jack in the box with a list of people who are highly specialised in Estonian, Latvian, Czech, in all these new languages which we shall have? No, preparations need to be made now.
And in order to avoid falling into the trap, as Mr Ferber rightly explained, of taking administrative decisions which anticipate political developments, we must, of course, ensure during the course of the year that we have a precise discussion on the distribution of these posts between the various languages.
We shall support the release of the Cot report - that is one part of Mr Elles' motion.
We are in favour of discussing this during the course of the year, but we are expressly against saying as of now that we refuse to fill the 35 posts.
That would be frivolous and would send completely the wrong signal to the Member States and to the people who hope to become an integral part of the Union.
Mr President, allow me to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Ferber, for the good work he has done.
There is a lot in this report which has been well thought-out and which it is very easy indeed to support.
I want to talk about an issue which, in the long term, will be very important for Parliament and for the EU as a whole and which many Members have already touched upon here today, namely the language question.
Rarely perhaps is the linguistic diversity of Europe seen so incredibly clearly as in a debate in this Chamber in which eleven different languages are being interpreted between.
Naturally, this is expensive and time-consuming.
Yet it has been assumed without question, throughout the history of the EU, that whoever is present here should be able, if at all possible, to speak their own language.
A good deal in the report under discussion is based on the assumption that the EU will be enlarged by six new Member States in 2004. What is more, that may be an underestimate.
A few days ago, the Commission said it was its own objective to be able to welcome ten new Member States by the year 2005.
I am among those for whom the greatest challenge for the EU is an enlargement whose ultimate goal is the reunification of a Europe which has always been divided by artificial borders.
I nonetheless believe that it is more realistic to proceed on the basis of the somewhat lower figure quoted in the report by the Committee on Budgets.
Even that figure is awfully large, bearing in mind the number of new languages involved.
Proceeding on the basis that there will be "5+1 countries" in the first round of negotiations - a lot can obviously happen during the next few years, but these six countries nonetheless have a two-year head start in terms of the negotiations - this means that five new official languages will be added to the eleven we already have at present.
There is no question of these newly welcomed countries and their languages being treated any differently from the way in which the existing Member States are treated.
It must equally go without saying that Hungarian, Polish or Estonian Members of this Parliament should be able to speak their own languages, just as we existing Members are entitled to speak ours. Nor can we put ourselves in a situation whereby a country with access to trained interpreters and translators can become a Member State of the EU, while another country which does not have professionals of these kinds cannot.
That is precisely why it is so important that the issue is highlighted right now. That is what the rapporteur is doing, and I think it is excellent.
We must not, in a few years' time, find ourselves in a situation in which the issue has still not been resolved.
We should also be clear about the fact that things are happening very quickly right now.
We are dealing with countries which are developing very rapidly, which means that we too must act quickly in order to have settled the language question by the time these countries join the Union.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Ferber on his report.
These types of reports are never easy and he has done a good job.
My only criticism is that Amendments Nos 4 and 5 should have been tabled in someone else's name for the PPE Group.
By saying that I am being consistent: I said the same to Mrs Müller in the Green Group when she did that.
I shall explain why shortly.
Parliament demands that the Commission and the other institutions are prudent with taxpayers' money, and we think the same should apply to the European Parliament.
As chairman of this committee, I have discovered that your loyalties are spread very wide.
I have a loyalty to the committee, and when the committee takes a decision I feel duty-bound to defend that decision.
I have a loyalty to the rapporteur, and that is why I have made the comments before because the rapporteur should reflect the opinions of the committee.
I also have a loyalty to my political group which has given me this speaking time.
This sometimes leaves me bereft of my own loyalties to myself and what I want to say.
I was somewhat sympathetic to what Mr Dell'Alba was saying because we have to be careful of criticising everybody else if, at the same time, we are giving the impression that we are ignoring that prudency and just doing what we want to do.
I am not saying that we have done that.
However, if that is the impression we are going to give, we have to be very careful and realise the consequences.
Having said that, the Ferber report has tried to balance the needs of Parliament coming into a new millennium - new needs, enlargement on the horizon - and to make it function effectively.
Not all the decisions will be taken when we vote this report through.
The first reading will be time when the final decisions are taken, and cognisance has been taken of that.
When they see a budget of EUR 965m, the newspapers will easily deduce that is over EUR 1.5m per Member.
The British newspapers will be full of GBP 1m per MEP - that is what they cost!
However, we are trying to reduce those costs, especially on buildings.
If people would look at what is being done with the buildings: we are trying to reduce the payments over the shortest possible time, thereby reducing the total burden on Parliament's budget.
One only has to look at paragraphs 15 to 18 to see how serious we are about the buildings policy.
The policy of ramassage has been a great success for this Parliament.
What we have done with the Belliard building may not be ideal but at least it is a step in the right direction, and it is now off our backs.
Finally, one of the great problems in our institution is that we have no statute for Members, assistants or political parties.
What is being proposed is to try to make some headway towards resolving those factors.
- (PT) Mr President, the proposals put forward in the report that we are now considering interpret - or should interpret - the will of the European Parliament to prepare itself to meet the challenges facing the European Union.
It has to be this way, as we have been through a tricky time, and there are permanent tensions and glaring contradictions.
It seems that we expect everything and, at the same time, we expect nothing at all from the European Union' s priorities, as we can see from the level of budgetary transposition - or lack thereof.
It is our ability to take advantage of something that could potentially transform tensions and to reduce the amount of contradictions which will make the difference between the stagnation and the consequent decline of the project and the dynamism that its implementation requires.
Have the competences of the European Parliament increased substantially with the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the consequent extension of the codecision procedure to further areas of policy, for example? If that is the case, we would have to provide Members of the House with a greater ability to carry out their mandate, more and better information and we would have to ensure that the political groups are more accountable and that the staff of the European Parliament is more efficient.
Does enlargement require subtle changes in the membership and functioning of this Parliament? If it does, then we need to prepare for them, anticipate the challenges and how to respond to them and not fall into a situation of 'wait and see' , which would leave us trailing in the wake of events that we can neither prevent nor influence.
This applies to the European Union as a whole.
We are at a turning point and, now that we have reached this point, nothing will be the same as it was before and things will not remain as they are now.
Now that economic and monetary union has been achieved, the euro cannot be a point of arrival but a starting point, which, in time, will bring about and require further changes.
Now that the process of enlargement has been launched, fundamental changes are required as well as renewed ambition.
The need to make the economic sphere correspond to the political sphere is becoming increasingly clear.
We are swinging between deepening and dilution, solidarity and selfishness, decisiveness and delay, coherence and contradiction and convergence and divergence.
By increasing the influence of core principles, amongst which I would highlight subsidiarity and social and economic cohesion, we will be able to launch and see through new initiatives.
I congratulate Mr Ferber on the care he has taken over this work.
Mr President, as other colleagues have said, dealing with Amsterdam and preparing for enlargement are major challenges for this institution.
As far as I am concerned - and we should be very clear about this - new challenges require new resources.
As the rapporteur has indicated, you start by looking at existing resources and see where staff and resources which are under-utilised or no longer appropriate can be transferred.
Once that has been done, in the new situation in which the European Parliament finds itself, there is no alternative but to expand our budget.
I hear what Mr Wynn, the chairman of the committee, has said about prudence.
Prudence is in danger of becoming a false goddess: if we put too much emphasis on prudence it will be at the expense of the efficiency and the effectiveness of this Institution.
There is a delicate balance to be struck, and I know that in his report the rapporteur has striven towards it.
I broadly welcome Mr Ferber's report.
However, there are three fronts to which Parliament needs to pay more attention between now and September.
The first, as other colleagues have mentioned, is the issue of languages.
I had the honour of sitting on Mr Cot's working group on multilingualism.
Frankly, if this institution wishes to continue to practise multilingualism - and perhaps that is a debate we should have - there is no alternative but to start recruiting now.
If we leave it any longer, once we start enlargement we will not be in a position to continue multilingualism.
The decision will be taken for us.
We were almost in that position with Finnish at the last enlargement.
As Members will notice, the Finnish interpreters do a good job speaking English and other languages because we could not recruit Finnish-speaking English interpreters.
We shall find ourselves in that position again come the next enlargement unless we take hard decisions now.
So I want Parliament to rethink the 35 language posts.
The second area where we still have much to do as an Institution is informatics.
We have come a long way, but there are further benefits to be obtained from informatics.
In particular the President of the Bureau is looking at how to reach a position where every Member has a portable computer with access to the European Parliament's computer system so that, no matter where they are in the world, they can get their own committee reports, agendas and so on.
That does not require a massive increase in investment but it does require new money - an increase in Parliament's resources.
Finally, again, something I have heard you, Mr President, talk about: the issue of legal advice.
The new Amsterdam situation means that when we pass amendments and resolutions in this Chamber we have to be more aware of the legal consequences as well as the political consequences of what we are deciding.
We need to enhance the legal advice we have as a Parliament to support us through the conciliation and other procedures.
Finally, I should like to make it clear that I am not asking Parliament to spend massive amounts of new money.
However, to spend one or two per cent more in order to ensure that we remain effective is worth it, and we should look at prudence in the context of the wider demands of this Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Ferber, I should like to make a point of congratulating you on your report.
Of course it is not the Commission' s job to evaluate individual proposals, but I would like to welcome the fact that Parliament is endeavouring to ensure that, in future, the buildings policy will reduce the burden on the budget from interest payments.
Of course, I also welcome, from the point of view of interinstitutional relations, that your proposal has remained, as it were, within category 5 of the agreement.
The agreement makes provision here for this joint estimate of personnel and administrative costs to be distributed between the institutions on the basis of a specific ratio and you have based your proposals on that distribution.
I think that again shows that many aspects of the financial perspectives facilitate work and planning, especially where firm agreements are concluded between the institutions.
Above all, however, what is important is that you have paid a great deal of attention in your report to the question of enlargement and staff policy in the translating and interpreting sector and, of course, the question of what measures are taken here is a highly political one.
More importantly, preparations do, of course, have to be made and you have pointed out - even though the question looks somewhat different from the point of view of the individual institutions - that it should be a matter of interinstitutional concern to address the subject and find a solution.
In this respect, congratulations once again on your report, especially on the fact that the report on the Budget 2001 looks beyond the Budget 2001.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Presentation by Commission of preliminary draft budget for 2001
The next item is the presentation by the Commission of the preliminary draft budget for 2001.
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your presentation. I should like to pick up straight away on your closing words.
I do not think that we should harp on about principles during our discussion of the Budget 2001.
But I also think that this is a call directed at the Council rather than a call directed at us, notwithstanding what has been submitted to us parliamentarians so far from the preliminary draft budget for evaluation.
This leads me to say that, first and foremost, the Commission has taken account of the Council' s wish that it present as economical a budget as possible.
You, yourself, said just now that the Budget 2001 is only 1% higher than the Budget 2000 without agricultural expenditure and we all know that agricultural expenditure accounts for a huge part of our budget.
To then talk of rigorous financial management to us alone is, of course, completely misplaced, especially as we here in Parliament are in favour of economical financial management.
The debate and the budgets which we have voted in the past demonstrate this and that is the way it should stay.
Allow me to remind the House: agricultural expenditure for the organisation of the markets is to rise by 7.6%.
Expenditure on rural development - and you stressed that we of course set great store by rural development - is to rise by 10.1%.
On the face of it, these relative figures alone, i.e. the percentages, are highly satisfactory.
But we all know that market expenditure in the current budget is over eight times higher than expenditure on rural development and that market expenditure in the next budget will be over nine times higher than expenditure on rural development.
This may take account of the wishes of the Council and of Council' s decisions, but it does not take quite such good account of the wishes of Parliament.
It is through Category 3, which encompasses all our priorities - not only Category 3, Category 4 also of course - but it is mainly through internal policies that all citizens perceive the European Union.
When you see that the budget has been set at around EUR 6.13 billion and then you compare that with market expenditure, then you see that market expenditure is six times higher than the whole of Category 3.
Knowing that four-fifths of all expenditure is tied in with multiannual programmes, and that, of course, 80% of all these multiannual programmes are decided under the codecision procedure, then the 1.4% increase proposed by the Commission is purely and simply the effect of the increase in research expenditure.
Nevertheless, you want to increase this expenditure by 8% and research expenditure accounts for over 60% of Category 3.
I know that the Commission is endeavouring to take account in the budget of the priorities it has accepted, namely creating a knowledge-based society and improving the quality of life of our citizens.
So far so good.
We can support that.
But what about Parliament' s priorities? We discussed our priorities well in advance both among ourselves and with the Commission, and we adopted our guidelines well in advance, including for Category 3.
You have just picked out a few points but when we see that education and youth policy are to rise by 1.2% then we must say - looking at the entire heading - that that is because next year is the European Year of Languages and the expenditure for it will rise by 275%.
That is perfectly normal and we have supported that.
If you look at the Culture and Audiovisual Media heading, there is a 2.7% increase.
I would have expected it to be higher.
Information and communications have risen by 4%.
But what about social dialogue and employment - down 4.7%.
What about energy policy, which we have fought for tooth and nail time and again? You have cut it by 8.2% and you have cut environmental policy by a hefty 28.2%.
To my mind, the preliminary draft budget, as it now stands, takes no account of Parliament' s priorities.
Mrs Schreyer, what I personally hold dear to my heart, namely innovation and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises - yes, you have put a figure in the budget for this, but you have cut what we still had in the last budget by nearly 70%.
We urgently need to discuss this so that the budget also clearly sets out our priorities.
I have just this to say about Category 4: I think it is asking for trouble to support Serbia with such a small amount in 2001 and, at the same time, to say that once Serbia has democratised we can again use our flexibility instrument.
And one last comment which cuts across both Categories 3 and 4: what about the timetable on the legal framework for the offices for technical and administrative support or transformation promised by you and Commissioner Kinnock? You wrote to us last December saying that a proposal would be submitted in the middle of April.
We are all dying to see it. It is now the middle of May and we hope that it will make an appearance shortly because it is also important for our budgetary procedure.
Thank you, Mrs Haug.
Remember that you will have many months ahead to discuss this matter and to speak at length.
Furthermore, this is simply a dream on the part of the Commission.
The serious discussion will begin in July with the Council' s draft.
Mr President, Mrs Haug attended the Detlev Samland school of speaking to the clock and just carried straight on, as Detlev always used to.
Though we are talking about a PDB for the year 2001, it is somewhat difficult not to link it to the revision of the Financial Perspective.
I know we should not do so, but there is that link between the two which makes me want to comment on both.
For the Commission proposals to be successful three factors will be crucial.
The first is the assessment of needs for the western Balkans.
In a couple of weeks' time, Parliament will send an ad hoc delegation to Kosovo to try and make an assessment.
We will need to opt for the Commission proposal of EUR 5.5 billion in total or move towards the Council which is proposing a somewhat lower figure.
The second factor will be Parliament's attitude to redeployment, especially in Category IV, not just for 2001 but for the whole of the Financial Perspective.
That is why I say they have to be linked.
I will give you an example.
One area of great interest for me - I make no secret of it - is South Africa.
The proposal to take EUR 2 million per year away from South Africa for six years may not seem much.
But EUR 12 million is a lot of money for the projects in South Africa.
I would not be happy with that and I am sure other people in other areas of interest in Category IV would adopt a similar attitude.
Then we have Parliament's attitude towards redeployment in Category I. Similarly, we have to consider our approach to the use of the flexibility instrument if it was invoked for Serbia, as you suggest.
We have to bear in mind what the Interinstitutional Agreement says about a rule not being used for the same things in consecutive years.
Once again that would be a challenge for Parliament.
The third factor, and probably the most important one, is the attitude of the Council.
If they reject what you are proposing, especially as far as the revision goes, the question remains: what will you do next?
I know we have a trialogue and a conciliation before their first reading but it is a problem we have to resolve before the Council's first reading.
What happens if the Council is adamant and rejects the Commission's proposals?
Mrs Schreyer, you are something of a juggler and an illusionist at the same time, with the proposals that have been made.
You have to keep several balls in the air and, at the same time, because of what is proposed after 2003, you have to make more appear.
One of the great mysteries in your proposals on the revision is where the money will come from after 2003.
But that is not for next year. That is for the future.
In the meantime we await developments on those three factors.
Hopefully, at the end of this process, we will get a satisfactory outcome.
Protecting the Communities' financial interests and the fight against fraud
The next item is the report (A5-0116/2000) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the 1998 annual report by the European Commission on protecting the Communities' financial interests and the fight against fraud.
Mr Dell'Alba has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I should like to ask a preliminary question, pursuant to Rule 143.
The fact is, I think that tolerance can only be taken so far, and that it is no longer acceptable for a parliamentary committee to set itself up as a public welfare committee, going into anything and everything with every report, setting forth considerations which are far removed from the subject under consideration.
Some 80% of this report entitled "report on the 1998 annual report by the European Commission on protecting the Communities' financial interests" , on the legal basis of Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure, refers to OLAF, the White Paper, the reform, all sort of subjects covered by other reports, and even other committees, but has nothing to do with what Mr Bösch was supposed to be dealing with.
According to my rights under the Rules of Procedure, I should like my preliminary question, which is a question of principle, to be put to the vote.
The Committee on Budgetary Control must stop meddling wholesale, as has been the case recently, with the subject areas of other committees.
We have seen rapporteurs, particularly Mrs Theato, obstructing documents outside their own area of competence for weeks at a time.
Some of us are starting to become annoyed.
In this specific instance, I move that this report be deemed inadmissible and that we move on to the report which is the next item on the agenda.
I request that this be put to the vote.
Thank you, Mr Dell'Alba.
Allow me to remind the honourable Members by quickly reading Rule 143(1) out loud: "At the beginning of the debate on a specific item on the agenda, its inadmissibility may be moved.
Such a motion shall be put to the vote immediately."
According to the Rules of Procedure, one person may speak for and one person against the motion, after which it is put to the vote immediately without further debate.
Mrs Theato, are you speaking against Mr Dell'Alba' s motion?
Mr President, I am somewhat surprised because this report was duly and unanimously adopted by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I would have expected such matters to be clarified in committee, rather than here in plenary.
The report has been available for some time and I therefore see no reason why we cannot debate and vote on it.
Secondly, I would be obliged if Mr Dell'Alba could tell me what he means by saying that I have blocked documents for weeks.
I fail to understand Mr Dell'Alba' s choice of words and assertion and I would welcome an explanation.
As no one wishes to speak for the motion, the vote shall now take place.
(Parliament rejected the motion.)
Mr President, I speak on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. I am standing in for the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee, my colleague Mr MacCormick, who is unable to be here today.
In our Community, there is hardly anything worse than fraud to undermine public confidence in the activities of the Union, and so the views of the rapporteur deserve our full support.
Fraud, of course, affects only a small fraction - i.e. just over 1 % - of the EU' s total budget, but it is a very serious problem which seems to extend to almost all political sectors.
The EU budget, however, is largely administered within the Member States, and this is where huge potential for fraud exists.
We must also remember that applicant countries, i.e. the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, should be involved in this fraud prevention process for the very reason that such a large share of the Community budget is administered within the Member States.
So far, fewer than half of the Member States have ratified the protocol on protecting the Union' s financial interests. This process should therefore be speeded up considerably.
Furthermore, some Member States are particularly unwilling to undertake the mutual exchange of information concerning fraud. Therefore it is important for Member States to have a direct obligation to report cases of VAT fraud, for example, to the Commission.
It is quite appropriate to examine the possibilities of creating the post of public prosecutor, expressly from the point of view of the fight against fraud, and this should be done, but even that will be to no avail, if the Member States lack the political will to protect the Communities' financial interests.
As far as OLAF' s position is concerned, it is important to protect its independence and equally important for the European Parliament to come to an agreement with OLAF with regard to the conditions on which Parliament can obtain information about its operations.
. Mr President, in the time available, I wish on behalf of the Economic Committee to stress three issues that we considered to be of cardinal importance when we examined the annual report on the Community's financial interests and the fight against fraud.
First was the issue of definition.
It is the case that the Commission have come under a significant amount of attention in recent years from Parliament and from the European public at large who want the Commission to deal with allegations of fraud, but it is also important that we should know what we are talking about when we define fraud.
The annual report itself indicates that for the first time there has been an attempt made to try to assess what amounts to fraud and what is general irregularity, and I am of the view that it does not help the reputation of our European institutions if we are lax with definition.
It is important that the work being undertaken by the Commission should be expanded because, in a situation in which 20% of irregularity amounts to fraud, the fact of the matter is that by referring to it as fraud and irregularity, European citizens can often be left with an impression that all of the claims are fraudulent ones.
The second point that I want to make is about the commitment of Member States to deal with fraud.
The fact of the matter is that Member States have a high responsibility here.
They are responsible for administering some 80% of the EU's budget and they must recognise that they are, at the very least, partners if not prime movers in attempting to address this important issue, and the report indicates that the performance of Member States has been mixed to say the least.
My final point concerns the accession countries.
We must demand that the accession countries also endeavour to work in conjunction with the European Union and to the highest standards.
Mr President, Commissioner, when deciding here in Parliament whether or not to grant discharge to the Commission, we check that there is no irregularity in expenditure by the administration.
In the past - as we are now all aware - there have been irregularities within the Commission.
Each report by the Court of Auditors also highlights the decisive role of the Member States in distributing Community funds.
A number of errors for which the Member States are to blame occur during the distribution of funds, which makes us apprehensive, especially as a considerable percentage is the result of fraud.
Consequently, it is not just within the Commission that we need to wield an instrument to fight fraud, which we call OLAF.
OLAF is the outcome of the modus operandi of the Member States and the Commission and should take on an objective role precisely so as to get to the bottom of these errors and prevent them from arising.
The EU must use European measures such as the introduction of the euro to prove its European competence to the outside world, because the accompanying counterfeiting industry, to name but one example, is an external matter.
Nevertheless, deeper causes for error rates clearly lie in the different handling systems in the Member States.
Right from the outset, legislative texts are often worded differently and allow perfectly legal but differing definitions of fraud.
This opens the door to fraud.
Just think of the example of the collection of value added tax.
Under no circumstances should OLAF become nothing more than a help desk.
OLAF is not one of your broadcasts for DIY enthusiasts, along the lines of "How can we build a model railway?"
The issue should not be taken lightly.
Protecting the financial interests of the Union and fighting fraud are a necessity, pure and simple, which call for a uniform instrument which can act independently, preventively, efficiently and as a deterrent, and which depend upon transparent regulations both internally and externally, so that everyone knows where they stand.
I would like this financial instrument to have an additional name such as prosecutor, a broad-shouldered European financial prosecutor.
This prosecutor must be accepted by the Member States, take on an active role and, at the same time, be integrated into the national jurisdiction of the Member States.
I would remind you at this point that Parliament called for an external chamber for budgetary discipline in its resolution of 19 January.
In my view this is a good idea and is not only worth considering, it is indispensable if we are to create a comprehensive area of justice and law.
A neutral, objective judgement will serve the cause and the individual concerned, condemnation of colleagues by colleagues will not.
OLAF is no Big Brother à la Orson Welles, but is limited in its remit by the rule of law.
The immunity of members, for example, will of course continue to be protected.
I call on the Intergovernmental Conference to take our concerns on board.
We are fighting here for technical measures which, hopefully, will not turn into a long-running saga.
We must concentrate once again on European values so that, for example, our money is not misappropriated for the drawing up of military measures.
I know it is difficult to impart ideals and virtue to another person.
But that is where our efforts should be concentrated. Because worthlessness soon turns into helplessness.
- (PT) Mr President, the current year is the first in which OLAF is fully operational.
It needs to be pointed out here that this is a decisive step in protecting the financial interests of the Union, the impetus for which came from this House and, in particular, from the Committee on Budgetary Control and from the present rapporteur, our colleague, Herbert Bösch.
With an increase in staff, with a new structure and independence, all the conditions are now in place for OLAF to concentrate on fighting fraud in an area where the objective and verifiable figures point to a more serious situation.
Fraud and other irregularities in the traditional own resources reported by Member States reached a total of EUR 538 million in 1998, an amount unparalleled in any other area of Community expenditure, either in absolute or relative terms.
Special report No 9 of the Court of Auditors on the protection of the European Union' s financial interests in the area of VAT on intra-Community trade points to an even more serious situation.
According to the Court of Auditors, the gap between actual receipts and their theoretical amount is EUR 70 thousand million.
Unlike the main areas of expenditure, which the Commission monitors and on which it imposes a system of sanctions, there is nothing comparable in these two vital areas of the Community' s own resources.
The Commission, specifically in its recent reports on administrative cooperation and on procedures for collection and taxation, describes a situation which is characterised by the maintenance of a system for VAT collection, which was only intended to be used on a temporary basis but is being used permanently. This system is also characterised by the increasing complexity of the system and by the widespread shortage of human resources and monitoring materials compared to the volume of transactions.
Despite the fact that there is widespread agreement on the need to overcome the problems of fighting fraud which result from restrictions imposed by national legislation, or to the lack of a legal basis in Community legislation, the Commission' s proposals have not, until today, met with any response and the anti-fraud sub-committee in the area of indirect taxation has found it impossible, in the words of the Commission "to achieve meaningful progress and cannot take the necessary decisions to improve the fight against fraud" .
What is more serious than this is the fact that the Commission' s reports on VAT collection have been scandalously disregarded by the other institutions and have not been followed up to any degree by the Member States.
Compliance with Article 280 of the Treaty, specifically where it requires the effective and equivalent protection of the Community' s financial interests will be dead letter unless we overcome the situation of there being a loophole in the law in the area of traditional own resources and VAT.
The protection of the Community' s financial interests, and particularly those of the taxpayers, who comply, cannot continue to be disregarded when it comes to indirect taxation.
Mr President, I too would like to start by congratulating Mr Bösch on his relentless efforts to turn OLAF into a success.
There are many points in the present resolution which the Liberal Group can endorse.
Firstly - and this cannot be repeated enough - we think that at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, a decision should be made in favour of setting up a European Public Prosecutor, which in its capacity as an independent body, will work to safeguard the financial interests of the European Union.
We would call on the Commission to submit proposals to this effect as soon as possible.
Also, the date mentioned in the report is important, in our opinion.
We also endorse the proposal for an external chamber to enforce budget discipline, which will mainly be concerned with examining the financial liability of officials.
In our opinion, it is important that this task is taken from the Commission, so as to take away any semblance of nepotism and such like.
OLAF starts its first full working year this year.
We will all have to wait and see what the outcome of that will be.
Expectations are naturally very high.
One aspect, however, could be improved on, namely the Supervisory Committee, as Mr Bösch calls it in his report.
Everyone has a right to a defence, including those who need to be investigated by OLAF.
We must see to it that these investigations are carried out as independently and fairly as possible.
I would call on the Commission to submit proposals to this effect too.
There has been a lot of publicity lately surrounding the issue as to whether or not OLAF should be able to investigate the European Investment Bank regarding the use of European funding, as well as the European Central Bank.
The Liberal Group is of the opinion that this should clearly be the case as these are European institutions too.
They cannot remain outside OLAF' s general scope of investigation.
We support the Commission so as to make this possible.
Finally, over the past few years, the European Court of Auditors has become increasingly aware that fraud and irregularities in structural funds are on the increase, whilst those in agricultural funds are still excessive but are dropping.
This is diametrically opposed to the opinion held by the Commission, which believes that fraud and irregularities occur far less in structural funds than they do in agricultural funds.
This anomaly must be resolved without delay.
The structural funds are gaining in importance all the time and form a large area of investigation for OLAF and the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I too would first of all like to congratulate Mr Bösch on his sound report and, unlike Mr Dell'Alba, I think that Mr Bösch has indeed drawn the right lessons from OLAF' s annual report which was published late last year.
We might as well admit it, there are a great many money-grubbers active within the European Union, and organised crime no longer concentrates solely on drug smuggling, the arms trade, trafficking in humans, meat fraud, alcohol and cigarette smuggling, VAT merry-go-round fraud and oil fraud, and has not done so for a long time.
They are all forms of crime which cause serious harm to the EU' s budget, both on the revenue side and the expenditure side.
We may have had a single market since 1993 which accommodates the free movement of goods, services, people, capital, as well as organised criminals, but this single market does not exist - and this is so unfortunate - for police services and magistrates alike.
On my own behalf, I will therefore stick my neck out and endorse all paragraphs of the Bösch report which call for the setting up of a European Public Prosecutor' s office.
I know it is a controversial issue, even within my own group.
Despite this, I believe that such a European Public Prosecutor' s office should be set up.
I would therefore ask the European Commission, as a matter of extreme urgency, to meet the request of the Bösch report to add an extra clause to the present OLAF regulation before 30 June, providing for a kind of trial project in which a European Public Prosecutor is appointed from within OLAF who can only act on behalf of members and staff of the European institutions.
I entreat Commissioner Schreyer to give very specific answers to this request and would ask her whether she would be prepared to take any initiative in this matter before 30 June.
Mr President, Mr Bösch's report deals clearly and relevantly with the problems bound up with protecting the EU' s financial interests and combating fraud.
Fraud is a scourge as far as the EU is concerned.
I do not know how large a percentage of the Member States' budgets disappears due to fraud and irregularities.
In my own country, it is close on zero per cent, and I think that what we have noted in recent years in the EU' s accounts reflects the fact that common funds are not handled so carefully and meticulously as money which the States regard as their own.
Mr Bösch's report goes a very long way towards representing the positions adopted by my group, most especially in its observations concerning the European Investment Bank and the European Central Bank.
We have a problem in relation to appointing a European Public Prosecutor, whose office we would regard as an integral part of the federal EU we do not wish to see.
We think that the problems highlighted can be solved at national level.
We are quite clear about the fact that these provisions are aimed especially at the new Member States whose legal arrangements differ from those of the EU countries. We think, however, that this ought to be an incentive to engage in negotiations designed to promote cooperation between the legal systems.
However, it is not, of course, by means of the present report that we are to decide this matter and, against that background, I should like to inform you that my group is voting in favour of Mr Bösch's report because we think that there are clear demands which Parliament is making here and with which the Commission must comply.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to emphasise the point I raised to the effect that, out of the 19 recitals and the 30 paragraphs of the Bösch report, there were only 11 recitals and 6 paragraphs to do with the subjects that Mr Bösch was supposed to be discussing.
The other paragraphs are about something completely different.
Important matters, I do not deny, but matters which have already been dealt with in the van Hulten report and the Theato report, or matters which will be dealt with when we come to discuss the White Paper, the reform and OLAF, with the judgement and the ruling of the Court of First Instance.
I am astounded that Mr Bösch is pleased with this because he was one of the people who thought that Parliament' s text was fine and that OLAF was entitled to poke its nose in everywhere, though this is not the case.
The European Central Bank was thus quite justified in saying that it was not very sure what authority OLAF actually had in this area.
My criticism of the Bösch report, then, is the very simple reason that we have other instruments.
A situation whereby the Committee on Budgetary Control' s many reports keep bringing up the same subject is not normal.
Let us take the proposal for an independent Prosecutor.
Mrs Theato attempted to have this adopted as a legislative initiative.
She did not succeed.
The Committee on Budgetary Control tried to do so, and Parliament rejected it. This is not a proposal for a legislative initiative.
What, then, is the point of harping on all the time about something which is, obviously, a problem area? Even though the fraud problem primarily affects the Member States, you wish to set up a special court, ad hoc courts.
You know, Mr Bösch, in the past, in Italy and other countries, they had special courts.
Probably in your own country too, and these were not exactly models of democracy.
So I would adopt a more cautious approach.
I think this report is a waste of a lot of paper.
Mrs Stauner might well write another letter asking why so much money has been spent in order to repeat things that have been said already, Mr Bösch, but which it was not worth repeating.
What is more, many of the amendments seek to remove paragraphs.
We shall readily vote in favour of these because we must confine ourselves to the points included in the reports and it is high time that this practice, which is common to all the committees, were adopted by the Committee on Budgetary Control too.
Mr President, Mr Bösch has prepared a good report on protection against fraud.
We agree with the way in which the problems are described, but I do not believe that crime and theft are combated by establishing a common public prosecution service and common penalties and by appointing more inspectors within the EU.
I believe that it is through transparency that irregularities can most effectively be cleared up: complete openness about the budget procedure, complete openness as to who has been involved in deciding upon an appropriation, complete openness about who the recipient of the appropriation is and complete access to all documents for the ombudsman and for the European Parliament' s and the national parliaments' auditors and supervisory committees.
If it can always be seen who has obtained what, fraud will be revealed by journalists and a critical public - perfectly free of charge and with far greater preventative effect.
I would therefore ask the Commissioners to promise us that, in future, Parliament, the Court of Auditors and the ombudsman will be allowed to see any document. What are we not allowed to see?
What is the ombudsman not allowed to see?
When will we be given a complete overview of all the committees and working parties, together with their members? Will our rapporteurs be allowed to check on any payment from the funds?
Lack of transparency is the fraudsters' best friend and makes it more difficult to clarify matters. It is due to a lack of transparency that the new Commission too will, unfortunately, be concealing fraud instead of bringing every instance of it into the light of day and so deterring anyone else who might have the same idea.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are dealing with the first report sent to us by OLAF and I would like to thank Mr Bösch for the excellent work he has presented to us.
The most interesting parts of his work are surely those which refer to the subject of the report, that is to say 1998, and OLAF, the body which is presenting its first piece of work.
I agree that this report perhaps prejudges certain aspects which should be subject to further debates in the Committee on Budgetary Control and in this House, but I would like to highlight the positive aspects of its contribution.
With reference to 1998, I believe that we should recognise that, after having intensified the task of control, which should be initiated by Parliament and which OLAF carries out, the number of cases of fraud and irregularities has stabilised.
Without relaxing our efforts to control expenditure - of which we have shown signs in the past - we can see that this stabilisation has been the result of an increase in control.
We should therefore be pleased about this and hope that this work continues, so that cases of fraud can be reduced rather than merely stabilised.
It is clear that, in fundamental fraud, there are discrepancies between what the Court of Auditors says and what OLAF says.
In OLAF' s judgement, it appears that it is not in the Structural Funds that fraud and bad management prevail.
It is other expenditure that we should be concerned about.
In any event, returning to OLAF, by means of this report, we should, in my view, ask for OLAF to be provided as soon as possible with the officials which have been allocated to it.
However, I think it is very important that, in this first stage - precisely because we are interested in control - we do not increase OLAF' s scope of activity so soon after it has begun its work.
I understand that there are and there will be - although we hope that this is not the case - great problems with the counterfeiting of currency, trademarks or VAT.
It is essential that we allow OLAF to continue to pursue its scope of activity little by little and that we expand its role at a later date.
Finally, we should not duplicate responsibilities.
In order to use resources correctly, one body should be responsible for each issue and we should not have a situation where everybody is responsible for everything.
I therefore believe that we should clearly separate objectives and not allow confusion to reign.
At the end of the day "he that too much embraceth, holds little", as we say in Spain, so if we want to manage control, we cannot all have the same objective.
Mr President, I would like to join the many speakers who have congratulated Mr Bösch on his report.
As usual - and as has already been mentioned - the annual report shows that in 1998 too, an excessive proportion of the European resources was not spent according to the rules.
As usual, most irregularities pertain to expenditure in the Member States and vary in nature.
The irregularities are partly caused by deliberate abuse of the regulations, partly due to errors in the implementation of European legislation or simply down to bad policy.
I would like to distance myself somewhat from what Mr Mulder said on this score.
The fact that so much fraud is being committed using agricultural funds is a sign that something is wrong with the way in which we organise our support for agriculture and this needs to change.
The steps required to fight fraud have been mentioned on countless occasions, including today.
I would like to highlight two.
Firstly, there are still Member States that have not signed the Convention on the Protection of the Financial Interests of the EU.
My own country is one of them and I hereby call on the Dutch Parliament to ratify the act which ratifies the Convention and which has been with the Chamber since October.
In addition, it is also important that steps are being taken within the Intergovernmental Conference to appoint a European Public Prosecutor.
To my amazement, I noticed that in one of the amendments to this report tabled by the PPE-DE Group, an attempt was made to limit the mandate of this public prosecutor, whilst I was under the impression that the PPE-DE was actually in favour of it.
The PPE-DE Group would like to limit the European Public Prosecutor' s mandate to the European institutions only, while we have just seen that most fraud takes place within the Member States.
The PPE-DE Group had better have a good explanation for this.
We have made a new start with the independent OLAF.
In my opinion, it is rather important for the functioning of OLAF that its work be open to public scrutiny, and for there to be set rules governing investigations, which are available for perusal by Parliament too. This will prevent us from running behind the facts in future, as is now the case with the 1998 discharge procedure.
Mr President, my last point concerns the European Parliament itself.
As you know, the Court recently decided in an initial ruling that OLAF only has limited access to the European Parliament.
I regret that the Court has reached this decision and hope that it will arrive at a different decision in the final ruling.
Meanwhile, however, I would like to make it clear that immunity for parliamentarians does not mean that we are above the law.
If the Court' s final ruling stipulates that OLAF has no access to Parliament because the rules will not permit this, we must adapt our rules rather than overrule the decision, so as to grant OLAF access to Parliament, including parliamentarians, because, I repeat, we are not above the law.
Ladies and gentlemen, this report is an excellent illustration of what should be done and what should not be done.
As far as we are concerned, combating fraud is more than a priority, it is a commitment we have to the people who elected us.
This principle has been emphasised all the more by the revelation of inefficiencies within the Community institutions.
In this respect, our determination to implement sound management procedures beforehand that are capable, subsequently, of being monitored must be absolutely foolproof.
In order to do so, we must focus on the effectiveness of the procedures set in place, particularly under OLAF.
So, I beg you, please, do not try, for ideological reasons, to come and complicate matters, adding yet more structures and procedures.
This is the reason why we are not in favour of creating a European Public Prosecutor' s Office.
We must be able to have confidence in relying on the national structures.
In fact, the proposal to create a European Public Prosecutor' s Department is unacceptable since this requires us to be effective immediately.
In the same spirit, we shall support Amendment No 13 from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which will prevent us creating a budgetary discipline body just for show.
These declarations of intent are more than anything motivated, I fear, by the determination to establish a European sovereignty on the pretext of protecting the Community budget, which, I must remind you, is made up of contributions from our Member States.
From the point of view of the effectiveness of the fight against fraud, these creations are no more than fresh grounds for sterile conflicts.
In conclusion, I feel that the Commission' s watchwords must be rigour, discipline and proper collaboration.
I sincerely believe that the rest can be achieved by adhering to OLAF' s prerogatives, combined with proper cooperation between national and European audit authorities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a survey which showed that an overwhelming majority of my fellow countrymen were in favour of a more common approach to judicial matters.
No other area attracted nearly as much support for new initiatives at European level.
Other surveys in the past have always confirmed that this applies both to Germans and to the citizens in most other Member States of the Union.
We are therefore responding to the expectations of the people in tabling proposals on how to strengthen effectively the protection of the European Union against fraud.
There are without doubt more pleasant topics of conversation than fraud and corruption, I grant you, but discussing them demonstrates clearly that we are not sweeping this tricky question under the carpet; on the contrary, we are setting ourselves this challenge, in precisely those cases which affect the institutions of the Union itself.
This is why the Bösch report deserves particular attention and support.
It was not adopted unanimously by the Committee on Budgetary Control for nothing, as I have already explained.
Allow me to congratulate you on this report. It clearly illustrates that creating the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF is an important step, but is only a step on the path towards the European prosecutor which I have called for time and again both in a personal capacity and as rapporteur.
A public prosecutor' s office to protect the interests of the Union against fraud would be the only really effective instrument to counteract the threat from organised crime. Organised crime has identified the institutions of the European Union as a particularly easy target.
I am delighted that both the Commission and Parliament have included this question in the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has gone one step further in this report.
We want an even more proactive approach and are therefore waiting for the Commission to present proposals for the first stage of a European public prosecutor' s office on the basis of the current Article 280 and I really do hope, Commissioner Schreyer, that you will revise your unfortunately somewhat wait-and-see attitude and accommodate us here.
Mr President, allow me to refer to what was indeed said earlier but could not be answered.
My question is to Mr Dell'Alba; could the honourable Member explain what I, as chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, allegedly blocked for weeks.
I require an answer and I should like it recorded in the minutes.
Mrs Theato, you know perfectly well what I am talking about.
The matter was discussed at length in the Conference of Presidents.
In your capacity as chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control, not in a personal capacity, you were assigned to assist the Conference of Presidents and the President, Mrs Fontaine, in drawing up the Parliament' s position on the code of conduct for relations with the Commission.
I contend, together with the group chairmen, who have, moreover, disclaimed you, that on the 13 April you informed the Conference of Presidents that on the whole you were in agreement with the spirit of Annex III on the exchange of information with the Commission.
I contend that twenty days later, to the outrage of your partner, Mr Napolitano, you sent a letter in which you said you could no longer agree to this annex.
You mentioned points in German which no one had checked, causing uproar among the group chairmen who thanked you, saying that they would take the dossier back because in effect the situation was no longer tenable.
One group chairman even left the room on an occasion when the matter came up on the agenda one day.
Do not pretend that you know nothing, you know perfectly well what happened.
There are perhaps some of my fellow Members of Parliament who do not know, but I am stating this for the benefit of the House, so that it can be entered in the Minutes: for several weeks Mrs Theato obstructed an agreement with the Commission, thereby putting the President of Parliament and the chairmen of the political groups in an awkward position.
That is the truth of the matter.
I do not wish to interfere in the debate but the issue of OLAF and Napolitano was of course a highly controversial one in the entire House and we are all aware of the problems associated with it.
That has now been cleared up.
Mr President, today we are debating a report which goes much further than the figures on alleged fraud or errors in the Community accounts. It demands that the Members of this Parliament act responsibly.
We must address the lack of moral responsibility on the part of bureaucracies, which was condemned in such a masterly way by Kafka.
This lack of moral responsibility is perversely able to involve people in a labyrinthine quest for their exact legal position and subject them to phantom judgements regarding unknown crimes. These situations have happily been overcome in Europe.
The creation of an effective and transparent office to fight fraud is a task with which all Members of this Parliament agree, and I hope that all the institutions agree.
The creation of an omnipotent mechanism, designed to pursue officials on the basis of secret denunciations, accusations and lists of suspects, riding roughshod over the individual guarantees, statutes and regulations which provide basic legal security for people working in the institutions, is a form of irresponsibility which this Parliament or any Community institution should have nothing to do with, because such a climate of suspicion would only benefit the eurosceptics.
The Socialist Group, which is interested in combating fraud as well as protecting the rights of citizens, including officials, and the construction of a Europe based on the principles of fair play, democracy, proximity to the citizens, transparency, efficiency and solidarity, has presented an amendment to paragraph 29 of this report, which lays down the principle that combating fraud should not take precedence over the basic rights of officials.
To demand lists of suspects, as suggested in the report, would be a form of McCarthyism which is beneath the dignity of this House and, furthermore, it may possibly be illegal.
I would like to remind you that claims have been made that no action has been taken against this type of action and that OLAF' s monitoring committee, in relation to these appeals, is aware that certain aspects are not functioning properly within this body.
While accepting that, with the dynamic of European construction, the increase in the budget and the growth of the administration, there may be more fraud and errors, we must not fall into a kind of policing paranoia, or at least this Parliament must not.
The immunity which we enjoy as MEPs must not be confused with impunity.
It is important that this report does not simply create a Kafkaesque type of system, but that it also provides a guarantee for officials.
Mr President, I have to depart a little bit from what I intended to say.
I have some sympathy with the last speaker: sometimes the Committee on Budgetary Control gets so involved with the important work they are doing, that they are unable to see the wood for the trees.
I also welcome the presentation on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee and the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee which took a balanced approach to the major and indeed legitimate concerns of the Committee on Budgetary Control about fraud.
I heard Mr van Hulten's reference to the fact that OLAF should have the right to investigate Members of Parliament.
He has a point and a minority of people in this Parliament agree with that.
But before we embark on such a radical decision, we should look at the history, particularly in the United States, of the relationship between security authorities and public figures and recognise that we could overstep the mark by giving such powers to OLAF.
In the end, OLAF might have the political leverage and power to demand as much money and staff as it wanted.
We should not throw staff, money or powers at an organisation just because problems exist.
Those problems exist and we have dealt with the solution to the problem.
Mr Bösch has rightly dealt with the problem of identifying and prosecuting fraud when it occurs.
I do not agree with all of his report.
There are a number of paragraphs I have doubts about - 14, 15 and 16 for example, regarding the legal basis and whether it is necessary to involve both national and European responsibility to resolve problems of fraud that affect national states more than they do the European Union.
I have run out of time without saying what I wanted to say but I wanted to respond to some of the points already made.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on a very good report.
The very fact that my Italian colleague is opposed to it means that it really is a report of very high quality.
Even though there was a slight decline in fraud and irregularities between 1997 and 1998, there is nonetheless still a need for more effective supervisory mechanisms.
Reform of the Commission is now under way.
Mr Kinnock has submitted a timetable, and it is now up to us to applaud it.
I am very impressed with the reform plan.
In general, it is both visionary and realistic.
There are nonetheless a number of sticking points, and these are what we ought to draw attention to and criticise.
Parliament has already proposed, in the Van Hulten report, that an external court should be established under the aegis of the Court of Auditors. This would deal with disciplinary matters and help recover money which has been paid out unlawfully.
This idea is one we should stick to, I think.
If such a body were to be established, this would mean that disciplinary matters would be taken away from the Commission.
We have had a lot of bad experience with internal disciplinary councils.
At present, officials who have had actions brought against them by the disciplinary council have colleagues of theirs sitting in judgement over them. That is indefensible.
Both the ECHO and MED cases are all too well-known examples of this state of affairs.
I also agree with the rapporteur when he criticises setting up an advisory panel to deal with irregularities.
We have, of course, established OLAF to deal with suspicions of fraud and irregularities. Another panel would serve only to undermine OLAF' s powers.
I cannot, however, vote in favour of setting up a European Public Prosecutor' s office.
I can well understand people' s being tired of all the fraud and therefore demanding that we have a common public prosecutor' s office.
It would, however, be a colossal enterprise to set up when the problems are, in reality, elsewhere.
In actual fact, there is a need for a fundamental staffing reform.
It is, for all that, only the most serious cases which will have penal consequences.
Ninety per cent of cases will be disciplinary matters concerning negligence or incompetence.
Instead, there is a need for public, internal supervision and for more leeway when it comes to sacking people.
We need changes to staff regulations and to the disciplinary procedure, as also proposed in the report.
I would also point out that I had three minutes in which to speak.
I spoke for only two, but I am very disciplined.
I am happy to let someone else use my time. You should also, of course, be allowed to make mistakes from time to time.
Mr Blak, allow me to apologise officially.
You are quite right, you had three minutes. I was not wearing my glasses.
Do you wish to add anything else?
No? Well that puts the friendship between Denmark and Bavaria back on terra firma.
Thank you Mr Blak for overlooking my error.
Mr President, this is just the sort of issue which gives rise to lofty declarations.
But I should like to go into a few points which, as far as I am concerned, are relatively unclear.
Problem number one: every year the media present the refusal to issue a declaration of assurance as an indication of the alleged or actual state of corruption in EU finances.
At the same time, however, both the Court of Auditors and the Council of Ministers grant this refusal to issue a declaration of assurance the status of a mere water-level report, while we here in Parliament and the media see it as an indication of the poor state of the Union' s finances.
I think we need to amend and clarify the basis of the matters about which we are talking.
Otherwise we shall find ourselves in a situation in which every year we regularly and hence permanently, as it were, negligently cast an air of general suspicion over the state of EU finances, if this state of affairs is allowed to continue.
Problem number two: of course further investigation may show that some financial irregularities are in fact cases of fraud.
Nonetheless, these two points need to be kept apart both in terms of how they are defined and how they are measured, because otherwise they will both be lumped together and this will give the impression of a huge level of fraud which is not justified to that extent.
Problem number three: clearly - and I am grateful to Mr Bösch for pointing this out - the findings of the Court of Auditors differ from those of the Commission as to the extent of financial irregularity which has occurred in relations between the agricultural budget and the Structural Funds.
Clearly there are measuring problems, statistical problems which we must solve so that we know what we are talking about when we start investigations or conduct further investigations.
Mr President, I also congratulate Mr Bösch on his report.
He is the acknowledged expert within the European Parliament and, to a large extent, was the architect of the new OLAF.
One thing that is certain to create a stir in terms of the EU is big stories about fraud.
They always get big coverage.
That is quite right too because any fraud is unacceptable.
The figure that is being attached to it is about 5% of the EU budget.
But there are two important points to remember, which have been touched upon several times here today - and Mr Cunha has just raised them again.
The Court of Auditors does not distinguish between fraud and administrative and financial irregularities; that is, administrative mistakes and people who set out to cheat the EU of money.
To give you an example, a farmer may fill out a form incorrectly.
That is not to say that he means to defraud.
It may be that he measured his land incorrectly.
And then there are the big fraudsters: the people who, for example, import cigarettes illegally, avoiding tax.
There is a huge difference between these two things.
We need to have them distinguished much more clearly.
Let us not forget that 80% of the fraud takes place within Member States.
Yesterday the Commission made a commitment to us that they want to cut irregularities by 2%.
We want to know whether the Member States will follow that lead.
It is clear that a lot of the problems lie there, in particular with the Structural Funds.
To take up Mr Dell'Alba's point, the Socialists will be voting against a number of paragraphs in this report, not necessarily because we do not agree with them, but because it is not the right context in which to discuss these points which relate to the White Paper.
Finally, I want to read out a list of shame - Member States which have not yet ratified the Convention on the Protection of the Financial Interests of the EU: Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland and France.
It is about time they signed up.
They have had five years to do it. Let us see them ratify it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fight against fraud and protecting the financial interests of the Community are among the top priorities of the new Commission.
The fight against fraud includes activities such as preventing, uncovering and prosecuting customs and subsidy fraud or tax evasion, as well, of course, as uncovering and prosecuting irregularities within the institutions of the European Union.
But I am most pleased that numerous contributions to the debate have stated that we need to make a distinction between financial irregularity and fraud.
When we talk of the Court of Auditors' report, this covers the whole spectrum of financial irregularities.
We are talking here of the UCLAF or OLAF report on fraud, i.e. deliberate damage to the financial interests of the European Union.
The report before you, which is the subject of Mr Bösch' s report, is the last report drawn up by UCLAF on the fight against fraud in 1998.
Although UCLAF only had 120 employees at the time, this annual report illustrates the considerable success of their work, in my view.
There were 5,318 cases of suspicion of irregularity or fraud investigated by UCLAF in 1998, in cooperation with the Member States, and around 20% of these cases were classed as fraud following the investigation.
I should also point out in connection with the question as to why the findings in the Court of Auditors' report are different, that it has been ascertained that the number of irregularities is falling in the area of agricultural policy, while it is clearly highlighted here that regulations as to which cases of fraud or suspicion must be reported to the Commission differ from one Member State to another, and this explains the difference between the two reports.
Mr Blak stated in his speech that the citizens of the European Union are sick and tired of fraud.
Unfortunately, I must point out that duty- or tax-free cigarettes still sell like hot cakes and tax evasion is often regarded as a national pastime.
In this respect, we face a situation in which we must acknowledge that we cannot completely eradicate fraud which damages the European Union's financial interests.
We must of course do everything within our power to fight customs offences and offences in connection with subsidies and taxation which damage the Community' s financial interests.
I should like briefly to go into the individual proposals in the Bösch report which now come within a wider context; this applies, for example, to the proposal on disciplinary procedures or the chamber at the European Court of Auditors.
The Commission explained in its statements on Parliament' s demands in connection with the 1998 discharge procedure that it did not think that the right way forward was to call in a chamber of the Court of Auditors or the Court of Justice to issue orders in disciplinary proceedings against employees on the grounds of irregularities in connection with the budget, because the European Treaties had granted each of these bodies its own specific remit.
It is precisely the European Court of Justice to which employees can take recourse if they wish to appeal against a judgement in disciplinary proceedings.
As a result, such a move cannot be reconciled with the present Treaties.
The Commission therefore decided to take up the proposals contained in last year' s independent experts' report, which are extremely comprehensive and relate to overall financial management, fraud prevention and disciplinary procedures.
The Commission explained that it also shared Parliament' s view that confidence in the objectivity of disciplinary proceedings would be enhanced by involving an outside agency.
It explained this in its White Paper tabled on 1 March and will also make detailed proposals on reforming disciplinary law in the paper on the overall future disciplinary procedure to be published by the Commission in October.
Naturally we shall include Parliament' s considerations in the overall procedure and in our proposals during discussions.
It was rightly pointed out in numerous debates and in the report that good cooperation and the involvement of the Member States are essential if the fight against fraud to the detriment of the financial interests of the European Community is to be efficient.
Article 280 of the Amsterdam Treaty also makes this clear.
The complaint was also rightly voiced that the corresponding agreement between the Member States has only been ratified by a few Member States.
I should like to thank all the speakers who wrote home calling for the necessary steps to be taken at long last.
OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, is itself working intensively with the Member States and, in certain areas, with other countries, in order to conclude cooperation agreements.
Since the UCLAF report was filed, the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF has succeeded, for example, in concluding an agreement with the Anti-Mafia in Italy, the aim being to achieve good cooperation at all levels and with all organisations dedicated to fighting fraud.
A conference on this subject is to be held in Ancona at the end of the week.
The Commission welcomes the fact that some enlargement countries are already taking steps to set up and activate structures similar to those set up by the European Anti-Fraud Office.
In Poland, for example, it has been decided to set up a Polish OLAF.
I should like briefly to go into the subject of "What happens next in the legislative area?" and point out that the Commission has proposed for the Intergovernmental Conference, which is responsible for revising the Treaties, that the present system for protecting the financial interests be supplemented by a legal basis creating a European Public Prosecutor and allowing provisions on the criminal prosecution of cross-border fraud to be adopted.
The Member States have indicated that they will not amend the Treaty in this area.
However, the Commission does not intend to give up on this and we are continuing to refine this proposal and will ensure that it is on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I should like to comment briefly on the complaints filed by the Commission against the European Central Bank and the European Investment Bank.
The aim is to implement precisely what was introduced into the OLAF regulation by the European Parliament, namely that OLAF is responsible for fighting fraud in all the institutions of the European Community.
Unfortunately, neither bank has made a move over recent weeks.
They too have probably been waiting for the outcome of the litigation pending as the result of the proceedings instituted by a number of members against the amendment of the European Parliament' s Rules of Procedure.
I think that the summary procedures of the Court of First Instance have in fact made it clear that what is at issue is not the legal bases for OLAF - in this respect neither bank can withdraw or hide behind this - the issue is, of course, the need to safeguard the independence of the institutions.
Not that this was ever disputed for the European Central Bank.
Of course, the other issue is that it needs to be made clear that the immunity of members is a democratic achievement and cannot be interfered with under any circumstances.
I should like to thank you for calling for account to be taken of the principles of the rule of law in all procedures, including the work of OLAF.
I think that the new director of OLAF defends this view very vigorously, including in a personal capacity.
We shall have the opportunity of debating other reports on the subject of fighting fraud this year.
The OLAF Supervisory Committee, which monitors the independence of OLAF, will soon submit its report, which we shall also have the opportunity to debate.
I should point out that the Commission is currently working on a fundamental strategy paper on the fight against fraud.
This too will certainly lead to further intensive and fruitful debate.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, for his report and, above all, I should also like to thank the House for supporting the introduction and the work of OLAF so unwaveringly.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.00 p.m.)
Vote
Madam President, the following problem has arisen in connection with the report by Mrs Schierhuber now being put to the vote: the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European United Left filed a motion for a split vote on a number of points.
However, for some technical reason, the services did not receive it.
Now we have the following problem: either you now allow an oral motion for a split vote on the article in question during the voting procedure and we vote today or, if that is not possible, then I move that we postpone the vote until tomorrow.
The services have, however, said that we have a tightly-packed voting programme tomorrow, so that it would perhaps make sense to vote today.
We would be happy to vote.
The vote is not the problem, the problem is that you did not receive the motion for a split vote in time.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, indeed, I checked the situation: it was only this morning that we received the request for split voting, which was therefore not within the time limits set by our own rules.
In Parliament we have certain rules that are applicable to everyone.
They must be observed, and I cannot make any exceptions.
I must be frank and tell you that, even though I appreciate the problem.
We shall then proceed to the vote, unless you are going to propose postponing the vote, which is a proposal I would, of course, put to the vote.
Madam President, in that case - I understand your position - I should like to move that we postpone the vote until tomorrow or Thursday.
I would like to hear the opinion of our rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber.
Madam President, I am sorry that the Socialists' voting list was not received by the services in time.
I should like to state unequivocally that I personally, as rapporteur, have no problem in accepting this split vote, even during today' s vote, and it would be good if we could vote today because, as you know, the Council of Agricultural Ministers is meeting today and tomorrow and it would be good if the agricultural ministers knew what we had decided here.
Unfortunately, if we vote tomorrow, it will be too late.
Mrs Schierhuber, let us be clear on this.
Personally speaking I would not have any objection to split voting either, but, once again, there are rules, and I cannot make exceptions.
This would establish a perfectly dreadful precedent and then there would no longer be any rules to govern the tabling of split voting requests.
You have just expressed your view to the effect that you prefer to have the vote today.
I shall give Mr Goepel the floor and then we shall proceed to vote on Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf' s proposal to postpone the vote until tomorrow morning or Thursday morning.
Madam President, I should like to explain on behalf of my group that we too have nothing against this oral amendment and I should like to support Mrs Schierhuber again here.
The Council of Agricultural Ministers is waiting for our decision and a postponement would not be a good idea.
(Parliament rejected the proposal to postpone the vote)
Following the vote on legislative proposal No 1 and adoption of the Commission proposal as amended
Madam President, I should like to ask the Commission if it has changed its opinion in the last twelve hours on the proposed amendments adopted by a large majority in the Committee on Agriculture.
Mrs Schreyer, can you give our rapporteur an answer in the affirmative?
Mrs Schierhuber, the Commission has not changed its opinion.
The Commission presented this proposal as the outcome of experience in past years.
We discussed a report on the fight against fraud on a previous occasion and that has a direct bearing on this.
I can only repeat that, if the question of the division of land is again discussed in the Council - and this was an important issue in the Committee on Agriculture - then the Commission is of course open to suggestions.
However, as the Commissioner for the budget, I am bound to say that a solution must be found which does not affect the budget.
Our rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber, proposes referral to committee.
Is there anyone who wishes to speak in favour of referral to committee?
Madam President, I should like to speak for the motion.
The groups have agreed that this is the only way of exerting any influence.
To put it plainly, including to Commissioner Schreyer: I think that the Commission and Parliament are at one on the question of the fight against fraud; the question here is what methods will be chosen.
If the method now being chosen takes hold, it will kill off flax and hemp cultivation, which are an ecological form ideally suited to disadvantaged areas.
We must prevent this and Parliament and the Commission must join in the discussion to find a compromise.
(Parliament decided to refer the first part of the report to committee) - Following the vote on legislative proposal No 2 and adoption of the Commission proposal as amended
Madam President, exactly the same applies to this second decision as what you said for the first decision.
Two proposed amendments in this second file are of fundamental importance to the Committee on Agriculture, namely Amendments Nos 28 and 29.
I therefore again ask the Commission if it has perhaps revised its opinion here.
Madam President, my colleague Mr Fischler made a statement on this yesterday.
The Commission has not changed its position.
Madam President, in that case may I again ask the House to vote to refer the report back to committee.
(Parliament decided to refer the second part of the report to committee)
Report (A5-0116/2000) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the 1998 annual report by the European Commission on protecting the Communities' financial interests and the fight against fraud (COM(1999) 590 - C5-0058/2000 - 2000/2032(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)EXPLANATIONS OF VOTES
Rothley report (A5-0130/2000)
Madam President, I voted for this European Parliament directive regulating insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles which may injure citizens who come from States other than the State in which they are insured, but I would have liked the report to have been more audacious.
Many pensioners, with whom I often discuss matters in Italy, say to me "Mr Fatuzzo, I have had a serious car accident. I was the victim of a road accident.
The insurance company asked me my age, and when I replied that I was 80 years old, they said 'You are worthless, you count for nothing, and so we are not going to give you any compensation.' "
Now, it does not seem right to me for a person who is 70 or 80 years old to be considered worthless, and I therefore call for care to be taken that morally acceptable payments are made when the victims of road accidents are elderly.
- The proposal for this directive deals with situations in which a traffic accident occurs in the country of residence of the person causing the accident or in a third country.
The objective of this directive is to ensure that the injured party has a right of action against the insurer of the person who caused the accident.
We must remember that we live in the European Union where the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is in operation.
This directive which streamlines the issue of civil liability in respect of accidents involving motor vehicles is a logical extension to directives which have been put in place over the last 13 years to complete the European Single Market.
It is only right and proper where there is a system of wholesale freedom of movement of persons and cross-border traffic that a streamlined and structured procedure is in operation so that recourse is available to injured parties in the case of accidents.
To that end every insurance undertaking operating within the European Union must now appoint a representative within each Member State to be responsible for settling claims on its behalf if an accident occurs involving an EU national.
This proposal would also involve information centres being set up so as to enable victims to identify appropriate claim representatives.
A compromise has been reached between the institutions at a recent Conciliation Committee meeting which was held last March.
The most complex problem concerns the directive's territorial application.
This matter is now resolved. The directive will apply to accidents involving nationals of a Member State of the Union on Union territory or in any third country operating the Green Card system.
The Conciliation Committee has also agreed to enable Member States to retain and implement more favourable arrangements in respect of the victim than the provisions required so as to ensure compliance with this directive.
I fully support this proposal and would like to commend Mr Rothley for his work in bringing these proposals to this stage.
The European Union, as a result of the Treaty of Amsterdam, has greater powers to bring forward legislation in the field of consumer rights.
This legislation governing the issue of civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles and accidents in Europe will ensure that the rights of the 370 million consumers in Europe will be enhanced in the case of accidents taking place within any of the territories of the European Union.
- I welcome my Socialist colleague, Willi Rothley's recommendation on protecting motorists abroad.
We are sadly all too familiar with the high figures of road accidents across Europe.
As many as 500 000 drivers in the European Union are victims of road accidents abroad every year.
This is 500 000 too many. We must put safety first and ensure that as much as possible is done to protect our citizens whilst travelling abroad.
The proposal extends current EU directives on the handling of motor insurance claims to cover cases where a person visiting another Member State is the victim of an accident caused by a resident of that country.
Every insurance company will, therefore, need to appoint a representative in each Member State.
The European Parliament has gone even further, calling for cover for accidents which take place in non-EU countries, provided that the vehicles involved are registered in the EU.
Under the compromise, the directive will apply to such accidents in a certain number of countries outside the European Union.
Thousands of British holidaymakers travel by car or hire cars every year in France, Spain, Portugal and many other countries in Europe.
Surely we owe all of our citizens the right to ensure that things are made as easy as possible for those involved in car accidents abroad and for their families.
This is not about high-and-mighty insurance companies hindering claims, it is about the European Parliament driving forward a lifeline for our citizens.
For my own constituents and for all of Europe's citizens, I give the green light to this proposal.
Martínez Martínez report (A5-0114/2000)
Madam President, I also voted for the measure tabled by Mr Martínez Martínez confirming aid for development cooperation with South Africa, but, also in this case, with some reserves. Why do we not make one of our inspectors responsible, one of our Commissioners, whenever - every year - we give financial aid to South Africa?
Why do we not monitor, firstly, the use to which this financial aid is put, and, secondly, the human rights situation in South Africa? The situation is not, of course, as bad as it was - there have been improvements - but even I have received news of all sorts of appalling acts of delinquency perpetrated in South Africa as well as elsewhere.
We should take this into account whenever we provide aid to any third countries, including South Africa.
Madam President, the situation in South Africa is difficult - and it is by no means an easy country to run.
Yet South Africa presents itself as a beacon of hope in an otherwise turbulent continent.
We should therefore be doing everything possible to assist the economic, social and democratic development of that country.
That is why I regret that the Council proposes only EUR 787.5 million for South Africa, which is effectively a 10% cut on the amounts we agreed five years ago.
Parliament, in its Amendment No 2, proposes that we give EUR 885.5 million to South Africa, EUR 98 million more than the Council.
EUR 98 million is not an insignificant sum of money in South African terms. In terms of the European budget it is not something we would struggle to find.
I would urge that we be generous to South Africa, that the Council finds this EUR 98 million, does not go to conciliation but accepts Parliament's amendments and gets on with implementing this new regulation with South Africa.
Thank you, Mr Martin.
In future, I shall ensure that the Commission remains in attendance during explanations of votes. They may then hear some interesting information.
The most scandalous aspect of what they are daring to call an agreement on "development cooperation with South Africa" is that this cooperation is subject to the trade agreement with South Africa and that the Council is using it as a means of blackmail in order to foist its own terms on Pretoria.
Such cynicism borders on candour: the European Union grants aid to South Africa on condition that it is able thereby to make a commercial profit.
Although Parliament' s proposals are, financially, better than those of the Council, we have not voted in favour of the amendments, as we do not wish to sanction this farce.
The only reason why we are not voting against the amendments, however, is to affirm our conviction that cooperation between Europe and the whole of Africa is essential.
While, however, it is designed and implemented to profit merchants, bankers and industrialists, it is of benefit only to them and, incidentally, to a select class of privileged Africans.
In these circumstances, "combating poverty" and "achieving development objectives" as mentioned by the Council is nothing but gross untruth that could not be counteracted by any vote here.
Thank you, Mrs Cauquil.
I am given to understand that Mrs Laguiller and Mrs Bordes are also involved in the explanation of vote that you have just given.
Jeggle report (A5-0115/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the measure tabled by Mr Jeggle on the Commission proposals on the prices for agricultural products.
This measure deals, once again, with the European Union' s common agricultural policy.
I welcome our action to support farmers, but I feel that we need to change direction, in some cases completely and in others only in part.
For example, this measure does not contain any initiatives to support the small-scale, family-based elderly mountain farmers who operate, particularly, in the furthermost parts of Europe.
This land is increasingly being abandoned and the European Union' s vast expenditure does not go far enough towards meeting the needs of the farmers.
In future, we must pay more attention to the needs of elderly family-based farmers.
My vote is intended to support the rapporteur' s efforts but prevent the proposed reduction in the monthly increments for cereals.
The European Council stated clearly in its resolutions following the Berlin summit that the monthly increments should be maintained at the current 1 euro per tonne and frozen at this level for the entire period, i.e. from 2000 to 2006.
The planned reduction in the monthly increments would therefore clearly be breaking our promise to the farmers.
Given the worrying economic situation of the rural population, further erosion of their income is unjustifiable.
The income of people working in farming has fallen by a total of nearly 10% in real terms since 1996.
A reduction in the monthly increments would further exacerbate the economic situation of farmers.
- (SV) A transformation of agricultural policy is a prerequisite for enlargement of the European Union.
We Swedish Social Democrats (Pierre Schori, Anneli Hulthén, Jan Andersson, Maj Britt Theorin, Göran Färm and Eva Hedkvist-Petersen) therefore believe that the EU' s agricultural subsidies should be considerably reduced and we welcome the Commission' s proposal for a progressive reduction in the monthly increases in the intervention price of cereal.
Because the report opposes a reduction in the intervention price of cereal, we are voting against the Committee' s proposal.
With regard to the proposal for a Council regulation fixing certain sugar prices and the standard quality of beet for the 2000/01 marketing year, we would make the following point. The reconstruction of Kosovo is an important issue for the EU and something we wholeheartedly support.
The extra resources required for Kosovo should be obtained from general reductions in subsidies for the whole of the common agricultural policy and not only through reductions within the sugar sector.
- (DA) Agricultural aid is a heavy burden for the European Union.
It is indispensable to undertake a radical review of this aid, especially when enlargement to include the Eastern European countries is to become a reality.
I am very pleased that the first step to be taken towards such a review entails a long-term plan for a certain reduction in agricultural aid.
It is problematic, however, that there is not the courage to engage in a full and candid discussion of how our agricultural sector is, in the longer term, to cope under quite different conditions and with a quite different aid scheme than that which is in place at present.
We are forced to reduce aid to the absolute minimum, and we should have the discussion now.
On the other hand, the reduction in agricultural aid should be gradual and carried out at such a pace that there is no risk of EU aid being replaced by national schemes designed to compensate for its disappearance.
It would also be problematic if the Commission were to withdraw aid from agriculture with a view to using the resources for another purpose.
Aid should not be reduced for the wrong reasons.
Schierhuber report (A5-0124/2000)
Madam President, I voted against this measure on the European policy on flax and hemp. This is because I feel that we should change the way we support and provide aid to agricultural products in the European Union.
We should start to let go of the policy of giving a sum of money to the producers of a particular agricultural product which we want to support, and endeavour, instead, to reduce the burdens of production costs, burdens which are mainly the result of national State policies and which push up the cost of labour, tying the hands of those who wish to work, produce and increase the number of jobs in their sector.
Basically, we must start to change the way we provide aid to agriculture in Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted in favour of Mrs Schierhuber' s report.
I consider proposed Amendments Nos 28 and 29 to be particularly important. She rightly points out that any limitation on maximum quantities must correlate with actual processing capacities.
Introducing national maximum quantities as proposed by the Commission would create a system which fails to take account of national processing capacities.
The 50 tonne per annum limitation would exclude many Member States from cultivation in advance.
The aim must be to develop a flexible system which also takes account of regional sales potential, thereby allowing all Member States to cultivate on an equal footing.
.
(SV) We Swedish Social Democrats (Pierre Schori, Anneli Hulthén, Jan Andersson, Maj Britt Theorin, Göran Färm and Ewa Hedkvist Petersen) believe that the EU' s agricultural aid ought to be considerably reduced and we are therefore also opposed to aid for hemp production.
Furthermore, the mechanisms for supervising the cultivation of hemp are problematic because it is not possible, with the naked eye, to distinguish hemp grown for fibre from hemp grown for the production of drugs.
It is, therefore, difficult to guarantee that there is no cultivation of hemp for the purpose of manufacturing drugs.
We therefore believe that hemp production ought not to be promoted through increased aid, and we are abstaining from voting on Mrs Schierhuber' s report.
.
(SV) Regarding the proposal for a Council regulation (EC) No 1251/1999 establishing a support system for producers of certain arable crops to include flax and hemp grown for fibre, we would state the following. As liberals, we believe that agricultural policy should be adjusted to the market and de-bureaucratised.
If Parliament is serious about eastward enlargement, there must be a drive extensively to cut back on the costs of agriculture.
All direct forms of support for agricultural production ought gradually to be abolished.
Bösch report (A5-0116/2000)
Mr President, I have taken the floor for the last time to declare, once again, that it was with no reservations that I voted against the Bösch report on the 1998 report on the fight against fraud. This is not because I do not approve of fighting all types of fraud - of course I do!
Naturally I support this fight. However, I feel that in order to genuinely fight fraud in the European Union we need to change Europe' s expenditure system.
The same report states that these EUR 1 019 million which have disappeared as a result of fraud are only the tip of the iceberg.
Now, we know that 10% of an iceberg is visible but the other 90% is underwater and therefore hidden. Therefore, the European Union is being defrauded of something in the region of EUR 10 000 million.
It is absolutely essential that we change the way we spend our money.
Madam President, you have just congratulated the rapporteur on his work.
I do not see what reason there is to congratulate him as many of his original paragraphs have been dropped, particularly because of his own Group which, in its wisdom, decided to table a great many amendments to delete sections, and these were adopted.
These particularly concerned all the sections to do with the White Paper.
Consequently, many amendments which went beyond the report and the content of the report that Mr Bösch was supposed to be drawing up have been dropped.
I therefore ask the following question: why did we waste money making Mr Bösch draw up texts that have nothing to do with his work and which Parliament has, quite rightly, rejected. You can discuss the matter with Mrs Stauner, who is very interested in other people' s reports, and whom you should really meet, and ask her if she is not interested in knowing why the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control are undertaking work which has nothing to do with their assigned tasks.
All honour and tribute, then, to the wisdom of this Parliament for restoring order.
- (DA) We have voted today in favour of Mr Bösch' s report on the more effective combating of fraud and irregularities involving EU resources.
Even though there was a slight decline in fraud and irregularities between 1997 and 1998, there is still a great need for more effective supervisory mechanisms.
Mr Kinnock' s reform plan is, on the whole, both visionary and realistic.
There are, however, a few sticking points.
Parliament has already proposed, in the Van Hulten report, that an external court should be established under the aegis of the Court of Auditors, part of whose task would be to deal with disciplinary matters and which would help recover money which had been paid out wrongly.
If such a body were to be established, this would mean that disciplinary procedures would be taken away from the Commission.
We have had a lot of bad experiences with the internal disciplinary council.
At present, officials who have had actions brought against them by the disciplinary council have colleagues of theirs sitting in judgement over them. That is indefensible.
Both the ECHO and MED cases are all too well-known examples of this state of affairs.
We ought likewise to criticise the proposal in the white paper to the effect that an advisory panel should be set up to deal with irregularities.
We have established OLAF to deal with suspicions of fraud and irregularities.
Another panel would serve only to undermine OLAF' s powers.
We have voted against establishing a European public prosecutor' s office.
It would be a colossal enterprise to set up when the problem, in reality, lies elsewhere.
In actual fact, there is more need for a fundamental staffing reform.
It is, for all that, only the most serious cases which will have penal consequences.
Ninety per cent of cases will be disciplinary matters concerning negligence or incompetence.
Instead, there is a need for public, internal supervision and for more leeway when it comes to sacking people.
We need changes to staff regulations and to the disciplinary procedure, as also proposed in the report.
- The British Conservatives abstained on the Bösch report overall because we are unhappy with the concept of a European Public Prosecutor, believing that this could well lead to corpus juris.
We were also unhappy with the references to VAT made within the report.
- (FR) I abstained from the vote on the resolution on protecting the Communities' financial interests and the fight against fraud.
I did not wish to vote against the resolution since I fully share the rapporteur' s objectives of intensifying the combating of fraud against the financial interests of the Community.
I did not vote, however, because of the establishment of a new control body.
The Community is not going to achieve the desired goal by creating a tangled multiplicity of such bodies.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.50 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies
The next item is the report (A5-0117/2000) by Mrs Roth-Behrendt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation laying down rules for the prevention and control of certain transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (COM(1998) 623 - C4-0025/1999 - 1998/0323(COD)).
Mr President, our discussion today on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, transmissible diseases which include BSE or scrapie, is one of the many follow-up reports or one of the follow-up discussions to the final BSE report and I think that it is also of great interest to the visitors in the gallery.
We have a report here before us which the Commission promised together with its final report on the 1997 BSE report at Parliament' s request.
It has now presented it.
We have drafted a report on it, although not as quickly as we would otherwise have done, due to the break last year.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and Mr Böge have drafted opinions on it.
In other words, we have been able to keep the BSE team going well.
I should like to tell you briefly how I, as rapporteur for the committee responsible, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, assess the proposal.
The Commission' s proposal is a good one; like so much of what the Commission has presented on BSE and follow-up problems and has satisfied us in previous years, we are also satisfied with this proposal but, like most things, it still has room for improvement, Mr Byrne.
I said that your proposal on BSE testing had room for improvement and I say so again here today.
The involvement of the European Parliament certainly needs to be improved.
We must ensure that the European Parliament can act in the codecision procedure as the real guarantor of consumer and health protection in the European Union.
Only then will we have a high standard and only then will you be able to work in proper collaboration with us, because the Council of Ministers, the individual Agricultural Ministers have not exactly been at the vanguard of the movement over recent years, as we here in the House are only too aware.
It is also important, and here too another proposal needs improvement, for us to hold further discussions on the rapid BSE tests.
You tabled a proposal after this TSE proposal which you then needed to adjust, but the proposal is still inadequate.
If we are to be able to make a real appraisal of the BSE situation in the Member States, we must make it clear that fallen stock are also to be tested for human health safety in a screening process.
So far you have presented no proposal on this.
What we also need, and we have tried to achieve this in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, is to strengthen the Member States' obligation to inform the Commission and to give the Commission information and data on incidents in their countries, on BSE problems or on suspicious circumstances.
Here too we need to take the Member States to task more.
Here, too, I repeat: mistrust is always shown of the Member States, including my own, and rightly so.
Mr Böge rightly pointed out - as I am sure he will again in his presentation - that we need a Community definition of geographical areas.
The definition here is clearly inadequate and the Commission must explain - and I call on you to do so Mr Byrne - how it intends to deal with derogations for cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and other medicinal products.
I am convinced of the need for the Commission to make proposals in order to close any loopholes in current legislation.
Allow me to make a few comments on the proposed amendments and then, thanks to the speaking time for my group, I shall still have time for a comment at the end of the debate.
I agree with nearly all the proposed amendments, but there are some and here I would ask how you evaluate them, Mr Byrne.
This applies in particular to proposed Amendment No 50, which includes cat food in the proposal tabled by Mr Böge, who I know takes a very careful approach to everything.
But you have said that you have a problem with cat food.
Please say something about the risk of infection from cats.
Mrs Attwooll and others have proposed a number of amendments, specifically Amendments Nos 53, 54 and 55.
These proposed amendments limit the present proposal and do not represent any improvement, not even for the situation in the United Kingdom, which I would have understood.
For example, no distinction is made between breeding and fattening; that is a completely inadequate proposal.
I sympathise with the suggestion in the second part of proposed Amendment No 56 that certain materials should be removed if a Member State has a specific and efficient system, but I must also say unequivocally that, at the present stage of the discussion on special risk materials, it is a dangerous signal to Member States such as my own, which are very reticent.
Allow me to repeat quite clearly: the repercussions on the Member States have obviously been overestimated by some members in the House.
In countries which have a good, operational system and a high level of protection, this regulation will not cause any deterioration.
But in countries which do not, it would at long last force them to buckle down and give priority to safety and health protection.
That is why I fail to understand much of the mistrust of many members, but perhaps we can clear that up in the debate.
Mr President, I shall have another three minutes at the end of the debate, which I shall use to comment on some of the interventions by the honourable Members.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development also welcomes in principle the Commission proposal, which is in line with the promise made by the Commission to Parliament.
I should also like expressly to praise the excellent collaboration between the committees and the rapporteurs.
We pointed out on a previous occasion that it is strange that there are still no common provisions for fighting scrapie, despite the fact that scrapie and BSE have somehow been linked since the beginning.
We think it is important to seek a differentiated approach to preventive consumer protection by achieving an understanding of the facts and without panicking.
In addition to what the rapporteur has said, we felt it was important that the Commission had incorporated the principle of regionalising the fight against TSE in order to reconcile strict measures and a sense of proportion.
I should also like to point out that we feel it is important, in the case of the livestock affected, to have a proper discussion on how data on age can be adapted for the purpose of measures to fight TSE.
I would also add that, when we talk of the possibility of introducing tests, for example in the event of dispute between the Commission and Member States or in the event of dispute between the Commission and third countries, carrying out tests can also help to decide if a country belongs in risk category I, II or III if, for example, certain statistics cannot be organised differently.
However, I will not conceal the fact, Commissioner, that the problem of third countries in general will continue to remain an issue for us, as will the question of including pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
We also expect the Commission to quickly submit legal provisions on animal waste, on meat meal, so that we can define safety keys, thereby ensuring that there is a future for a responsible recycling system and guaranteeing preventive consumer protection.
One issue will continue to remain on the agenda and that is the difference between some Member States and the majority of Member States in their approach to the question of what is more important: to define risk materials or to remove entire stocks from the food chain in the event of one case of BSE.
Even scientists have so far avoided committing themselves on this point.
Mr President, if the BSE crisis taught us anything, it is that health takes top priority over all other policies.
This is essentially the basis on which this proposal for a regulation has been drawn up and we really must use this opportunity to make a concerted effort to prevent, control and eradicate transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
We have been well aware of this problem for many years now. Unfortunately, however, we have still not managed to eradicate the disease, nor have we managed to identify all the causes for it, hence all the concerns, restrictions and irregularities in the production and marketing of products of animal origin.
It is therefore essential that action be taken throughout the Community so that firstly: we can effectively guarantee public health protection and, secondly, we can restore consumer confidence which, in turn, will help the internal market to develop and operate properly.
One of the important measures recommended in the regulation is the establishment of rapid diagnosis tests, because rapid detection is one of the keys to combating this disease.
Consequently, these tests, which produce results within a relatively short period of time, will most certainly help us to take immediate and appropriate action.
Three tests have already been proposed, although we predict that we shall see future improvements in this area, together with rapid diagnosis tests on live animals, so that we can monitor better how the whole epidemiological picture of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies is developing in the European Union.
A second key measure is to establish an ongoing epidemiological study based partly on laboratory tests using an established protocol.
The introduction of uniform procedures and truly comparable results from analyses by national and Community reference laboratories will help us to monitor the situation closely and to create reliable scientific data and methods of diagnosis which include rapid diagnostic tests.
It would be a good idea if, at the same time, we monitored scientific progress on the new variant disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob, which, as we all know, attacks humans and is caused by food from animals contaminated with BSE.
Finally, the slightest suspicion of any form of spongiform encephalopathy in any animal must be notified to the competent authorities so that we can take appropriate action.
I should like to stress at this point, that in my view, we will in fact only eradicate the disease effectively if we destroy the whole herd, regardless of how much this would cost both in economic and sentimental terms.
That is why the compensation paid by the Commission to beneficiaries must be quite substantial.
Of course, it is hard when just one animal out of a whole herd is sick, as it is very difficult to discern if there are animals which appear healthy but which may fall ill later on. That is precisely why we are proposing this measure.
"Prevention is better than cure" , as Hippocrates said all those years ago, thereby paving the way for preventive medicine. This is particularly true today, given that there is no cure either for BSE or for the equivalent human disease, the new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob.
In closing, I should like to commend and thank both Mr Böge, the rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, the rapporteur for the Committee on the Environment. Thanks to their cooperation and with the help of all their other colleagues, I feel this is truly a much better regulation, and is a vast improvement on what the Commission originally presented to Parliament.
Mr President, I also wish to endorse and praise the work of Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mr Böge on this issue and the initial proposals from the Commission.
Safety must be a priority and we all understand that if we are to have equal precautions throughout the Member States, we need a variety of measures in place which have not so far been instituted.
Commissioner Byrne is to be congratulated on moving that closer.
These proposals take us a good deal further down the line in the field of diagnostic testing, in a more sceptical attitude to animals which ought to have been under suspicion but in some Member States were not, and in terms of the general prospect of fallen stock being tested for the possibility of BSE.
I want to say something, however, coming from the Member State which first suffered the full rigours of BSE and which has also, as a result of that, been in the vanguard of cleaning up this problem.
We have now had for a considerable period of time in the United Kingdom an over-30-month cull of all animals which have been taken out of the food chain.
We have been able to tackle the problem of the possibility of maternal transmission by also taking out those animals that might be at risk because of their ancestry.
From our position, given the measures we take, we do not see any reason at all why we would need to introduce, additionally, whole-herd slaughter of the kind done in some other countries.
We are being asked not just for a belt-and-braces policy but also to buy a new pair of trousers just in case.
This would cost a great deal of money. It would not remove a single additional suspect case of BSE.
I would remind those present that, with our additional safety measures, we in the UK are only exporting to the Community de-boned carcasses which have gone through maximum checks and security.
In the circumstances, therefore, there are a number of amendments tabled by a variety of Members in the United Kingdom which I would commend in this debate.
I should be very glad to hear whether the Commissioner feels he can accept that in some circumstances - particularly in view of the over-30-month cull in the United Kingdom - for those countries which are admittedly very high risk but also with a very high level of precaution now in place a certain number of derogations are necessary and would be satisfactory to him.
I sincerely hope so.
Mr President, I would first of all address the Commissioner and say that I naturally welcome the present proposal.
Secondly, I want to congratulate Mrs Roth-Behrendt on a very good piece of work.
I also want to thank Mr Böge.
I wish to support in principle all the amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Nowadays, we know a very great deal indeed about the living world.
Life is not, however, complete, as it were, but is evolving all the time.
It is evolving not only in a positive way, but also in a negative way.
As time goes on, we are faced with new viruses and new problems.
The BSE crisis is an example of such a phenomenon.
There are, however, also many more examples.
There are therefore two things which must be done.
The first is the matter with which we are occupied at present, namely trying to ensure that we get the better both of BSE and of TSE, which is, of course, a broader concept.
We must make sure that the situation does not occur again.
However, we must also find ways of overcoming similar tragedies in the future.
Such tragedies will clearly not occur in precisely this area but will crop up elsewhere.
This illustrates what the present debate teaches us: that we must have comprehensive regulations for the whole of the common market constituted by the EU.
We must have the same rules, monitored in the same way.
Everyone must be treated the same.
Understandable differences in attitudes have emerged in the course of the debates which we have conducted in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and in the party groups and which are also being conducted here and now in this Chamber. I am thinking of the last intervention.
The United Kingdom has been affected badly.
I can well understand why people there have points of view as to how it might perhaps be possible to make savings.
Allow me, however, to say something which is extremely important. We must never suffer for having looked to short-term economic gains at the risk of long-term security.
There is a danger of the short-term economy' s taking over at the expense of reason and caution.
To my party colleague, Mrs Attwooll, I have to say that I understand the current amendments very well but that I cannot support them. That would mean our becoming unclear and sending out false signals.
I believe it is extremely important that when, in this context, we decide about this report, we send out a crystal clear signal about the firmness of our judgement on the issue of food safety.
This is important prior to the forthcoming debate on the whole project entailed in the white paper which has been announced.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, according to a Flemish saying, prevention is better than cure, and I assume that this pearl of wisdom is used in each of our Member States and regions.
I would like to expressly congratulate Mrs Roth-Behrendt on her report.
My group has not tabled any amendments and is in full agreement with you.
We give you our full support and have every confidence in you.
After all, the proposal follows on from a pledge which was made previously regarding the follow-up committee. This is therefore to be welcomed.
I would like to home in on the following issues.
Firstly, it makes sense to include regionalisation and regional differentiation in the goal-oriented fight against TSE.
If you are in any doubt about this, just ask my Scottish and Welsh colleagues.
Secondly, there are tests for a rapid diagnosis and to identify TSE in cattle.
We, as Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection want to make these methods available so as to improve our monitoring procedures, and rightly so.
As it happens, we all know that these tests are not yet scientifically accurate and that when these tests are applied, we do not know precisely whether infection actually occurs at each stage of the disease.
I believe that these tests are at least heading in the right direction and that we should support the scientific research carried out in this field.
Thirdly, I welcome the requirement to destroy or remove the entire herd on farms where the disease has broken out.
Fourthly, there is indeed a need for additional legislation for products such as cosmetics, medicines and pharmaceutical preparations which are excluded from the present proposal.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to a number of amendments which actually provide for a number of points to be lifted from the appendix and included in the body of the text.
I think that it is important to bring about more democracy, to get away from comitology, and to increase parliamentary control.
These are cardinal amendments, to my mind.
Mr President, the proposal for a regulation under discussion does not aim to address the problems, as the Commission hypocritically claims, but to cover up the problems which have arisen in certain countries, thereby generalising them and making them everybody' s problem.
This is why this proposal needs to be changed, particularly where it specifies classifying countries into categories.
If the Commission really wanted to protect public health from spongiform encephalopathies, it would have proposed rules to prevent such risks a long time ago, but it did not.
It would have made provision for the necessary procedures and penalties.
But the interests of multinational food corporations, which have subjugated everything to the rationale of excessive profit, precluded any such action.
So, this Commission initiative only made its appearance once the situation had got out of control - with dioxin for example - and is now endeavouring to show that it has some control over the situation.
The conclusion which we draw from this draft regulation is that it is probably an attempt to cover up the situation.
That is the direction in which things are heading with the classification of countries, which, rather than taking into account the most basic factor, which is the existence or non-existence of cases of encephalopathy in their raised cattle, takes account of other factors when allocating countries to a particular category.
The worst thing about this is that, theoretically, if a member state in which cases of encephalopathy have been reported can prove that it has established systems for monitoring production, it could be placed in the same category as a country in which no cases have ever been reported.
This same spirit, this "lowest common denominator" approach, pervades the rest of the proposed measures, such as the mandatory removal of various organs (spleen, brain, spinal cord, etc.).
Such measures will blacken the reputation of meat-producing countries in which there have been no cases of encephalopathy and will also discredit sheepmeat and goatmeat, since there is no substantial scientific evidence as to whether this meat is sensitive to spongiform encephalopathy pathogens.
At the same time, the proposal to remove the aforementioned organs and tissues is a recipe for disaster for sheep- and goatmeat, which will be impossible to market; in other words, this measure will indirectly oust sheep and goat meat from the market, demand will be met by other types of meat from larger animals and traditional recipes using offal such as intestines and spleen will be banned.
We therefore oppose the Commission proposal.
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity of making a brief contribution to this debate and I congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent work.
Parliament has certainly devoted considerable time on behalf of its citizens to addressing the important agenda of food safety, while at the same time ensuring that our farmers can operate within a production framework of traceability which is the only way to fully restore consumer confidence in the wide range of quality food products produced by European farmers.
For this reason, the creation of a uniform legal basis for controlling and preventing the spread of BSE and scrapie is paramount and there is still, as other speakers have suggested, a lack of consistency in relation to the application of the regulations within individual Member States.
I would urge Commissioner Byrne to prioritise introduction of that level of consistency which is the only way that we can convince our consumers that we have a common policy in relation to ensuring public health.
As I have said in previous debates, farmers are the victims of circumstances beyond their control and those responsible for the manufacture of animal feed which puts public health, our entire livestock sector and indeed farm incomes at risk, have much to answer for.
This House must be vigilant in ensuring that it can never again be repeated.
I welcome the availability of rapid diagnostic testing for improved detection of TSEs in cattle and believe, Commissioner, that further consideration should be given to its use as a means of establishing the health status of animals in Member States.
For my country, Ireland, food exports and in particular beef are of paramount importance to our economy and the income of farmers.
I can say that we have left no stone unturned in tackling this problem, including the removal of entire herds where an infected animal has in fact been diagnosed.
May I say in conclusion that farmers have always responded in a positive way to the introduction of regulations governing public health and the health status of animals raised for food production.
Their task as guarantors of food security and quality is, as everyone in this House knows, becoming increasingly difficult.
Far too often their contribution to society has been taken for granted and certainly not always adequately rewarded with a reasonable income.
Mr President, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, Mr Böge, Commissioner, we have before us a proposal for a regulation on the prevention of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which is to say degeneration of the brain in bovine animals, sheep, primates, antelope, cats and even humans, since there have been 53 cases of atypical Creutzfeldt-Jakob in Great Britain, all fatal.
So now we are going to adopt regulations to prevent an epidemic that we have known about since 1986, i.e. for fourteen years.
It is rather late in the day to react, but even so over the last fourteen years we have done a great deal.
Last month, for example, we decided to stick labels on meat to warn consumers.
The Commission told us that it was impossible to enforce such labelling before 2002, sixteen years after the outbreak of the disease, but we have done something all the same.
We have had discussions with Mr Delors, with Mr Santer, with Mr Prodi, with Mr McSharry, the Commissioner responsible for agriculture, then Mr Steichen, and Mr Fischler.
We have set up a committee of inquiry chaired by our fellow Member, Mr Böge, a temporary monitoring committee; we have even tabled a motion of censure, against Mr Böge' s wishes.
We have heard expert opinions from Mr Dirringer, the German virologist, Mr Picoud, Mr Dormont, Scottish specialists, our Portuguese fellow Member, Garcia, was a specialist.
We have had debates, topical and urgent questions on the embargo, etc.
After fourteen years of discussion, there are few survivors of this war of nigh on twenty years - Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, Mr Cunha, Mr Böge, and myself. Mr Happart left us and Mr Pagel died.
So I think it would be useful for the more recent Members, in the end, if I gave a sort of debriefing on the subject, quite apart from the problems with the legal basis under Article 100 A or BSE monitoring problems.
The starting point for this business was the 1984 milk quotas.
To improve their milk reference, our British friends drove their cows like some sort of engines, overfeeding them, and, in order to save on the cost of fodder, they fed their cows on meal made from carcasses.
Then, again, to save fuel oil when manufacturing meal, they reduced the cooking temperature, thereby enabling the pathogen to survive.
BSE is the tragic product of the race for profits and the British farm model.
The disease has been identified since 1986, but nothing much was done until 1996.
Why not? The public could not be thrown into a panic because the Maastricht Treaty had to be sold to them.
So the press, the Commission and the European Parliament all knew about it, but did not say a word.
So when, in March 1996, the British, via the British Ministers for Agriculture and Health, admitted that the disease could be transmitted to human beings, the necessary measures were not taken.
Why? Because this time the reason the public could not be thrown into a panic was no longer to sell the Maastricht Treaty but the Treaty of Amsterdam.
So, met first with silence and then with lies, the epidemic spread and we all know what the outcome of that was.
In the first place, BSE has not been eradicated in Great Britain, and will not be eradicated.
Secondly, the belated ban on meal did not serve to eradicate contamination.
Thirdly, either contamination crossed over to the meal fed to poultry, or there is a third transmission route.
In addition to maternal contamination, there may be transmission via the fields, the grazing land, the grass, and there may be badlands, as in the case of ovine scrapie, where the prion would be encysted and would return as soon as bovine animals were put to pasture there.
Fourthly, Great Britain and the industrialists causing the contamination have not, as polluters, paid.
It is innocent farmers, grain farmers, who are paying the price, in the same way that the farmers are paying for Kosovo.
All in all, then, the directive and the regulation are all well and good, but they are somewhat hypocritical.
We all agree that we need regulations on prevention, we are all agreed on adopting the amendments from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to whom the matter should have been referred.
We all agree that scientific measures are needed, methods to be used in abattoirs to remove the ilia, the ganglia, the duodena, the inguinal, medial, lateral, renal, prefemoral and cervical lymph nodes, but this is not the key issue.
In the BSE crisis, at the moment of truth, when protective action had to be taken, it was taken by the national states.
That is the main lesson to be learnt from the TSE business.
Firstly, protection is always led by the states.
Secondly, the precautionary principle means safeguarding nations.
This is no obstacle to the construction of Europe but, like children making tree houses, it is just a game.
That is what we are doing here, Mr President, all playing out together.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the rationale of maximising profits leads to all sorts of aberrations, including feeding herbivores on meat-based meal.
It is not just the cows that went mad, and as a result, ovine scrapie spread to bovine animals in the form of BSE.
Consumer welfare demands that we use every means possible to prevent and vigorously combat these diseases and their vectors.
The action taken in 1997 is now proving even more inadequate as scientists are today talking about a third transmission route.
We must therefore provide ourselves with effective means to eradicate transmissible spongiform encephalopathies once and for all, if at all possible. This means coordinating and dealing with the sector as soon as waste is used in animal fodder, destroying at-risk materials if there is suspicion, banning the inclusion of animal protein in cattle fodder, demanding traceability by labelling the animal' s site of birth and rearing, and, at Member State level, setting up the local monitoring systems which are the only ways to guarantee that the campaign will be effective and that monitoring will be transparent, setting in place a fast, systematic screening procedure and also in-depth checks, if necessary.
Finally, the whole herd must be slaughtered if one beast is found to be infected.
This is the price of food safety, but it must not be used as an excuse to cast doubt on the transportation of live animals.
Mr President, in stressing the excellent quality of the work carried out by Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mr Böge, I would like to dwell on one aspect and take advantage of the presence of Commissioner Byrne.
Clearly, our goal has to be total elimination, but we feel that this would be extremely difficult as the costs of incinerating the large numbers of animals which die on farms are objectively huge.
Consequently, the economic burdens and the amount of technical organisation involved could be extensive, and so could the environmental impact of such large-scale incineration carried out at extremely high temperatures.
In this sense, we ought to ask the Commission - and insist on a reply - whether realistic estimates of the quantities of material to be incinerated are already available to us, whether they have already been made or whether this still remains to be done, according to the various classification procedures of the States, together with an evaluation of the resulting organisational economic burdens, with subsequent referral to Parliament.
It is therefore essential to prevent the adoption of different, uncoordinated paths by individual Member States from causing substantial distortion of competition and disproportion in the treatment reserved for producers.
It is necessary to provide for the adoption of harmonised financial support measures, lay down common organisational guidelines and use applied research measures to develop new disposal technologies with less environmental impact which allow the use of forms of materials recycling which respect consumer safety requirements.
The development of common guidelines should allow firmer, more balanced and, therefore, more effective responses.
For example, we consider that setting up mandatory disposal consortia according to the model already laid down by the legislation of some Member States could be a practical response to the need to limit the economic impact of disposal operations on breeders and, at the same time, thanks to the increase in the degree of social control over the proper use of the service, to the need to consolidate consumer and environmental guarantees.
We conclude that the adoption of the excellent regulation in question will require the development of a combination of initiatives, research and analysis, but also regulation and standardisation, and we hope that Parliament will associate itself with these measures.
Mr President, we have before us a very important directive, aimed at creating a uniform legal basis for the prevention and control of TSEs.
The objective is to gather into one dossier all regulations relating to TSEs to date.
If we are to restore consumer confidence, it is essential that we do all we possibly can at all levels.
I should particularly like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, for the vigour she has shown in her approach to this matter - many of her proposals deserve agreement.
Mr Böge, for his part, has ensured that these views will gain wide support in this Chamber.
I agree that the Commission for its part has done a good job, a job that Parliament can endorse, whereas Member States must eventually be made to understand that this matter is important and that we must gain consumer confidence.
I should, however, like to draw your attention to one more issue: those countries and farms, which have escaped the animal diseases, must also be able to ensure that they will not have these problems in future.
It is therefore essential that the withdrawal period relating to the transfer of animals from one farm to another be increased from two years to six years.
On the whole, we must firmly hold to the notion that within the internal market, too, human health is the most important thing, and that principles of free competition only take second place.
It is imperative that we bear this in mind, particularly when dealing with these food matters, which are all-important to consumers.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to offer my congratulations to Mrs Roth-Behrendt on her report and to thank her for her openness to discussion on the issues involved.
She will appreciate even better than I how far scientific opinion on TSEs has developed.
For example, the Scientific Steering Committee has recently established that it is necessary to regard the vertebral column and dorsal root ganglion as specified risk material in the UK only for bovines over 30 months and in Portugal only for those over 6 months.
That is why some of us seek an Amendment No 56 to allow adjustments in this area on the advice of the Scientific Steering Committee rather than requiring fresh legislation to implement them.
Similarly, certain measures in combating TSEs have already proved effective.
I refer to the exclusion of animals over 30 months from the food chain, the slaughter and disposal of suspects and offspring of BSE cases, a fully effective feed ban and the removal of a wide range of specified risk materials.
Where such measures are in place, in seems unnecessary to impose the more technical requirement of the date-based export scheme and the certified animal scheme to the domestic market; hence, Amendment No 53.
In addition, given that there is no evidence of horizontal transmission of TSEs, there would seem to be no scientific requirement for whole-herd slaughter.
While accepting that some Member States may wish to engage in the practice, I would submit that it should not be compulsory.
Indeed, we take TSE and BSE very seriously in the United Kingdom. We are committed to the safety of the public and to animal welfare.
We only ask that given that we have taken these measures which we believe to be effective, you do not ask to us to take additional measures which have no scientific justification for them.
Mr President, Mrs Roth-Behrendt' s report seeks to strengthen consumer protection measures but also to extend Parliament' s scope of action, by ensuring that all issues crucial to the prevention of TSEs are included in the regulatory instrument, not just in the annexes which are not covered by the codecision procedure.
This twofold concern seems to be particularly justified today, as French experience shows.
The fact is that considering the range of measures already undertaken, such as the ban on animal-protein meal for bovine animals, the incidence of mad cow disease in France should have started to decline, but this is not the case, and in fact the number of cases is on the increase.
It is this tendency which presents a problem right now, much more than the scale of the epidemic in quantitative terms.
The truth is, at the present time, there is quite simply no adequate explanation for it, hence the debate which has been initiated on the possible existence of alternative disease transmission routes of which we are, as yet, unaware.
Medical and scientific uncertainty still prevails.
In these circumstances, the precautionary principle must be adopted to the full.
All possible resources must be used in order to assess the BSE situation in the various countries, particularly including the development and systematic use of fast screening tests.
The development of BSE in France raises issues that are not purely medical in the narrowest sense.
This is nothing new.
From the very beginning, it has not been possible to give any explanation for the emergence of this disease and its transmission to human beings, and its spread internationally, without taking the key socio-economic factors into account: contemporary trends in the agro-industry, the subordination of producers and consumers to the dominating rationale of capitalistic profit.
Still today, the way in which the agro-industry is organised, and the fact that it is infiltrated by international mafia-like networks, make the fight to eradicate BSE and TSEs even more difficult.
No public health policy should ignore these factors.
They are, however, discussed only on rare occasions and in little detail by the European institutions, including Parliament.
Basically, BSE is one of those medical matters which, in practical and terribly human terms, bears witness to the acute nature of the choices that society makes, and that is yet another reason why preventing TSEs is a political matter to which Parliament' s responsibility is truly committed.
Mr President, as an MEP representing a farming area, I have first-hand experience of how devastating the BSE crisis has been to British agriculture.
I can also vouch for the necessity of maintaining effective controls.
You might therefore expect me to be enthusiastic about these new controls on BSE, but I am not.
We already have enough and I believe they are adequate and effective.
This proposal simply adds more red tape and costs to an already overburdened industry.
Of course, I have no objections to other countries adopting measures which match ours.
In fact, it would be helpful if measures already in place in the UK were implemented throughout the EU and elsewhere.
Thus it is not new laws we need - we need more compliance.
Until all Member States are able to assure us that there is full compliance, this proposal, if passed, will simply add to the list of laws which have not been implemented.
In any case, if more controls were needed, we should not be looking to the Commission for guidance.
The British BSE inquiry which was commissioned by the UK Government at a cost of £20 million is due to report in November.
We should wait to see what this inquiry says.
Mr President, first of all I should like to add my voice to the congratulations addressed to our rapporteurs, particularly Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
Her approach and hence her report is one we can wholeheartedly support.
This regulation is not a major revolution, but it does attempt nonetheless to afford a higher level of protection, based, moreover, on the most stringent practices adopted in specific European Union countries, such as in France.
I should, however, like to draw your attention to a number of specific points and, firstly, the existence of a third transmission route which is now practically certain.
I think it essential in this case to define suspect animals quite apart from the age criterion.
The age criterion ceases to be justified as soon as we are practically assured that this third transmission route does in fact exist.
The important thing, then, is to have systematic recourse to testing whenever an animal dies of unknown causes.
Systematic testing precludes fraud and makes it possible to offer better guarantees.
The issue of slaughtering herds has been discussed at length.
In both France and Germany the whole herd is slaughtered if a single animal is found to be diseased.
We know that this is not the practice in Great Britain, and that this is a solution which is vigorously opposed by our fellow Members from the United Kingdom.
But is it possible to put the argument of the costs of destroying a herd when a public health issue is involved? I think this is not a tenable position.
It is important for the regulations of the various countries of the European Union to be harmonised.
I should, finally, like to talk about at-risk materials, these notorious substances which may present risks.
Once again, in France, a number of measures have been implemented, which have been more or less understood, but I am convinced that it is essential to be extremely vigilant and to apply the precautionary principle.
So this regulation is a good one.
It represents some progress, but it is capable of being perfected rather than perfect as it stands.
It does not raise any questions concerning the incineration of animal-based meal.
In some of our countries, we have stockpiles of such meal which we do not yet know how best to destroy, or which has not been destroyed sufficiently, and also animal-based meal used for swine and poultry.
I think, Commissioner, that these are questions we also have to ask.
Mr President, at the outset I would like to add my thanks to Mrs Roth-Berendt and indeed Mr Böge for their commitment to this important issue.
For some time Parliament, the Commission and Member States have sought the introduction of common EU-wide rules to deal with the problems of TSEs such as BSE in cattle and scrapie in sheep.
The basis of this proposal is that the discovery of any TSE or the first incidence of BSE in a Member State would be covered by common rules which would take effect automatically.
To date, many of the actions taken to deal with BSE have been carried out on a unilateral basis by Members using national measures.
The TSE proposal being put forward includes, among other things, a requirement for educational programmes for farmers, vets and officials; the removal of a list of specified risk material, an active surveillance programme using rapid post-mortem tests; and the strengthening of the ban on the feeding of mammalian protein to ruminant animals.
The proposal also allows for the culling of animals and the compensation to farmers for loss of culled animals.
The principle of this approach cannot be faulted.
Common rules will enhance the protection of animal health and more importantly will ensure protection of the consumer by ensuring that the highest standards of disease prevention and eradication are put in place in every Member State and can be activated when appropriate.
These rules will form a blueprint that can be followed in the event of any new scientific information being made available or if more radical action is required.
However, I am aware, Commissioner, that the vast majority of Member States are of the opinion that the classification of countries for SRM removal purposes should be based on an internationally recognised code set out and agreed by the EU and the many - over 150 third countries - under the auspices of the OIE, the World Organisation of Animal Health, which is based in Paris.
Most Member States are uneasy about the approach being taken by the scientific sub-groups and would prefer a more open and transparent system of classification as set out in the OIE code which is recognised and accepted by countries worldwide.
This view was made plain in Council working groups and was reflected in the final draft Presidency Proposal, a draft that is supported by the vast majority of Member States.
For the purpose of agreement and the speedy implementation of this regulation and hopefully to avoid a lengthy conciliation process, the use of common OIE criteria would be appropriate.
Having discussed this with Mrs Roth-Berendt, we have tabled Amendment No 51 to Article 5 as a compromise to this effect.
I welcome the principle of laying down common rules for the prevention and control of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
However, this proposal may have negative consequences for countries trading in sheep and this is an important point as it currently stands.
There is a view that there should be separate rules for scrapie rather than the current mix of rules where the treatment of SRM in sheep depends on the BSE incidence in that particular country.
I would reiterate in conclusion my support for the use of OIE provisions to have an internationally recognised basis for classification, a basis supported by 150 countries in resolving world trade disputes and recognised by the WTO.
I make no case for leniency of treatment at all.
The UK would be in class 4, Ireland would be in class 3 under either classification system, the SSC or the OIE.
The OIE meets next week in Paris to consider amendments to their classification system and consequently I hope to bring further amendments to this regulation for second reading.
Mr President, legislation which seeks to protect the public from a terrible brain disease such as new variant CJD should be drafted to complement measures already in place in Member States, to recognise the stage of the epidemic that we are at and have due regard to the body of scientific knowledge we have built up.
The United Kingdom already has comprehensive and effective measures in place to protect human health and eradicate BSE in our herd.
This is working. Cases of BSE are declining rapidly.
But most importantly, so far, we have not had a case in an animal born since the complete feed ban was introduced.
That should be happening around about now, if it was going to.
No older animals over 30 months of age enter the food chain.
It is likely that cases may occur due to maternal transmission but these will be isolated and not feed-related, and there is no justification for a return to cohort culling.
Incidentally - and Mrs Grossetête referred to this - there has been recent press speculation about a third possible infection route through grass contaminated by faecal material.
This only applies - as I understand - to animals excreting pathogens ingested with contaminated feed, not, as some newspapers inferred, from animals incubating or suffering from this disease.
I am concerned about the practicality and cost of having to post-mortem all animals for which the cause of death is unknown.
Very large numbers of animals die of natural causes or common ailments.
BSE is a degenerative disease which does not cause sudden death anyway.
Amendment No 26 seeks universally to impose the whole-herd slaughter policy which some Member States with low levels of incidence have introduced in an attempt to reassure the public.
This could well result in the under-reporting of cases, as we have seen in Switzerland recently.
BSE is not an infectious disease that is transmitted horizontally.
Whole-herd slaughter has no scientific justification.
The majority of herds that have experienced BSE in the UK have had only one or two isolated cases.
Most herds in Britain are not closed herds and therefore animals come in from all over the place.
If one of those animals gets a disease, why kill the whole herd?
Whole-herd slaughter is not an effective way of reducing cases of BSE.
It would cost a small fortune for no tangible benefit.
I hope Parliament, in amending this directive, will do so in the light of sound scientific advice, not as a knee-jerk reaction to tabloid newspaper scare stories.
It is my pleasure to give the floor to a Member of Parliament who received the title of Great Chief of Rangatira, when he led our delegation to New Zealand.
Mr President, I will omit replying to that particular remark.
Can I first of all thank you very much for giving me the floor and can I pay tribute to the rapporteur and indeed to Mr Böge.
As someone who was in the last Parliament I know how much thankless time and effort they have put in since BSE first began in a very difficult area to try and find a resolution and a way forward to help everyone in a very sensible way.
I think both of them not only take credit for themselves but indeed bring credit to this Parliament for the way in which they have carried out that duty.
BSE has unfortunately been with us for some considerable time and I suspect that we have to recognise that it will probably be with us for some years ahead.
We have to try to find ways by which we can control the disease of BSE and TSE and at the same time create the consumer confidence that is needed because consumer confidence has been lost.
With respect to Mr Martinez I will only say one word to him - sludge.
I will say no more as far as that is concerned.
Everybody has problems in the European Union of one type or the other and no-one should try to make or take advantage of the other's problem.
However, whatever we do, we should not overburden the producer because he has already been considerably overburdened.
As to the argument whether you slaughter the whole of the herd, there is no scientific evidence to say you should.
There are many instances in my area where maybe BSE occurred five, six or seven years ago in one animal and there has never been another case since.
Once we get to the stage where we have a vaccine or some way of identifying or testing if an animal has BSE, then there is an argument for testing the rest of the herd and if there is a trigger level whereby it goes beyond that, then the whole herd should be taken out.
But it would be wilful carnage to simply go in and slaughter good animals in the thought or the notion that BSE may possibly be in the whole herd.
That would be a drastic approach.
One other point: where I come from, in recent years there has been a continuing downward trend.
Indeed, in Northern Ireland last year, we only had, I think, three identifiable cases of BSE and the projection for this year is one or at worst maybe two.
I was listening to what the rapporteur said that if there are clear reasons then she would agree for areas that have low instances of BSE to have certain controls and mechanisms.
That is an important thing to recognise because in my area farmers feel very secure because of the very low instances we have of BSE and because of the strict controls that we have monitored and made sure worked over recent years.
That is perhaps why our situation is much better than the rest of the United Kingdom.
This is an area which has to be looked at in the months ahead - we must create the confidence within ourselves that we can begin to move forward as we begin, hopefully, to see the back of the TSE/BSE problem.
Mr President, I would like to join in the congratulations to the rapporteur on her excellent report.
The report that we now have before us is an example of the kind of issue which requires of us the ability to demonstrate that the European Parliament places public health before internal market considerations.
The EC Treaty - for instance, Article 30 and points 4 and 8 of Article 95 of that Treaty - presents us with both the opportunity and the duty to do so.
The priority is to protect consumer health, particularly against diseases like TSE, the mode of infection of which is not adequately known and the testing of which so far is only possible after the symptoms have developed.
Secondarily - and this is justified by the notion of the internal market - we must be able to restore consumer confidence in the foods on the market in order to enable the market to function with a minimum of disruption.
Both issues are important, but we must be able to show clearly the priority of values; public health comes first.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has adopted a position that allows both of these objectives to be met.
One important aspect of this view is the whole-herd slaughter on a farm where disease has been discovered.
Even without knowledge of whether any of the other animals have become infected, this action is nevertheless justifiable, precisely in order for the above objectives to be met.
At the same time, we must, of course, ensure that the breeder receives proper compensation for his livestock.
In addition, the internal market must be able to operate in such a way that the spread of the disease is checked, and so that Member States, where no disease has yet occurred, can rely on the Community to protect the animal population of those States.
In the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I prepared a proposal for an amendment on this matter myself, stating as reasons for the issue specifically the above-mentioned prioritisation of values, where public health is the first.
This objective has now been met in the Committee report - in a slightly different, but nevertheless satisfactory manner.
Extending the period referred to in the Annex to the Regulation (the scrapie-free period) from two years to six, may be an adequate means of ensuring that the imported animals and processed material are risk-free, and of preventing the spread of the disease to countries where it does not yet exist.
Contrary to the Commission' s proposal, the report refers to instant tests, which are being used to detect TSE, by name.
This in itself is acceptable, but we must bear in mind that we are dealing with a technology which is continually being developed.
Hopefully, better tests than the current ones will soon be available, and when the time comes, it will be important that the currently approved regulations are kept up to date with the advances in technology.
Mr President, I am pleased to outline our position on your amendments to our proposed regulation on the prevention and control of TSEs.
I wish to begin by thanking you for the excellent cooperation between your assistants and my services.
Due to this thorough preparation I am in a position today to agree in full or in part to almost three-quarters of your proposed amendments.
Furthermore, most of the amendments, which I am not in a position to accept, relate to two issues: the so-called "whereas" clauses - that is the recitals - and whether or not changes to certain provisions of the regulation should be by commitology or codecision.
That is an issue which I have referred to before.
I know it is a controversial issue and I look forward to discussing this particular issue in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development which is scheduled for July.
In substance, therefore, the Commission and Parliament are equally committed to a strong regulation which puts in place a comprehensive framework to tackle TSEs.
I should like especially to thank Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mr Böge for their huge contribution to this proposal.
I can think of no other individuals who have made such a positive contribution to tackling BSE.
They have both rendered an enormous service to the health protection of Europe's citizens.
I might also add that this piece of legislation is an excellent example of the good work and cooperation which has taken place between our two institutions and could provide a precedent for the future.
I turn now to the specific amendments and formal Commission position.
Firstly, on commitology, we accept Amendments Nos 6, 11, 12, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 and 36.
With regard to the recitals, I also accept Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5.
However, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 1 and 2 because it is inappropriate to introduce recitals in a piece of legislation which are not matched by substantive provisions in the text.
However, I shall be raising your concerns on pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, which a number of you mentioned, with my colleague Mr Liikanen and I will ask him to address those concerns.
With regard to the articles themselves, firstly, the scope: I accept Amendments Nos 7 and 8.
With regard to definitions: I can partly accept Amendments No 9 to Article 13 on the definition of TSE suspected animals.
But the inclusion of "fallen cattle, sheep and goats" in the definition cannot be accepted.
It is not practicable to collect, incinerate and carry out a full epidemiological investigation on each fallen animal.
The Commission will, however, be monitoring the situation closely both through the recently agreed measures on random testing for BSE and in the forthcoming proposal on animal waste.
However, I accept Amendment No 52.
I also accept Amendments Nos 10 and 49 to Article 3, with a slight reformulation to create the possibility of delegating the evaluation, not the approval, of tests to an external body.
With regard to classification, BSE status: I accept Amendments Nos 13, 14, 51 and 58.
With regard to epidemiological surveillance: I accept Amendment No 15 to Article 7, introducing the mandatory use of the rapid diagnostic tests in the annual monitoring programme.
Let me add, however, in passing, that we will keep under constant review the scope for increased testing of animals for BSE.
On specified risk material: unfortunately I cannot accept Amendments Nos 16, 17, 18, 40 and 41 to Article 8, bringing under codecision the approval and conditions for use of rapid diagnostic tests.
I happen to believe that it is essential to maintain the flexibility of the commitology procedure.
Nor can I accept that tests should be capable of detecting infectivity in all products and at all stages of the disease.
That is the advice I have been given.
I partly accept Amendment No 19 to Article 8, requesting a review of the age limits for SRM removal under a commitology procedure.
I cannot, however, accept the restraint of annual reviews and, in particular, the proposed deadline for the first review which is foreseen for 1 January next, which is too soon.
I also accept Amendment No 20 to Article 8, which brings under codecision the principle of granting derogations from the provisions on SRM removal in high-risk areas or for taking account of an effective feed ban.
I also welcome Amendments Nos 38, 39 and 56 to Annex IV.
They mainly propose no longer requiring the designation of long bones of cattle as SRM and suggest a reformulation of the proposed derogation for the removal of a vertebral column under a commitology procedure.
On feed ban, I accept Amendments Nos 22 and 42.
I can partly accept Amendments Nos 21 and 57 on condition that the possibility of extending the feed ban is allowed, irrespective of risk status.
I also partly accept Amendment No 54 to Annex V, laying down the detailed rules on the extended feed ban.
I cannot accept the derogation for dicalcium phosphate, as this is against our scientific advice.
I also cannot accept the limitation of extending the feed ban to any species, mainly pet animals, only if a risk of cross-contamination of livestock feed exists, as we believe that ruminant protein should be banned for all susceptible species. I identify cats here in particular.
That is the advice I have been given in relation to cats.
I can partly accept Amendment No 50 to Annex V where it exempts gelatine from hides from the ban.
However, I cannot accept the exemption for feeding cats with ruminant protein from the ban.
I also cannot accept Amendment No 23 to Article 9, ensuring immediate application of the feed prohibitions, as this amendment does not fully make sense legally.
On disease eradication: I accept Amendments Nos 25 and 28.
I also welcome Amendment No 24 to Article 11, but propose to reformulate, providing for "regular" rather than "immediate" notification.
I can also partly accept Amendment No 26 to Article 13 and Amendment No 43 to Annex VII, introducing whole-herd slaughter for BSE in cattle, sheep and goats and, secondly, excluding research animals from these provisions.
Whole-herd slaughter for BSE only, not for scrapie, is acceptable to me on condition of approval of equivalent measures by commitology.
I cannot accept the second part of this amendment as it is in fact superfluous.
I can partly accept Amendment No 44 on condition that the equivalent measures are approved on a case-by-case basis under commitology.
I do not accept Amendment No 27 to Article 13, requiring a complete standstill on a holding with a confirmed TSE case, as I consider the extremely strict conditions of our proposals are already sufficient, as they require measures to be taken under strict, official veterinary supervision, duly certified.
I also cannot accept Amendment No 37 to Annex II, as the proposed definition is not used elsewhere in the text and is, in addition, inadequate for TSE control purposes.
I should add that ADNS regions are too small and too difficult to control.
Bigger regions which are legally defined may be possible, for instance the Azores, and I refer to what Mr Nicholson said earlier about Northern Ireland.
On the conditions for marketing animals: we welcome the intention of Amendment No 53 to Article 16.
However, I propose to reformulate the text to ensure approval of the equivalent schemes by commitology.
I also welcome the intention of Amendment No 45 to Annex VIII, but would ask for flexibility to determine the exact duration of the scrapie-free period.
I cannot accept Amendment No 55 to Annex VIII, reducing the protection measures against scrapie.
Furthermore, I cannot accept Amendment No 46 to Annex VIII, extending the ban on placing on the market offspring of TSE cases, for lack of scientific support.
Finally, on laboratory techniques, I accept Amendments Nos 47 and 48.
Thank you again for your cooperation. I sincerely hope that this will continue to be a hugely important proposal and that we shall continue our cooperation on it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Organisation of working time
The next item is the report (A5-0129/2000), on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council directive 93/104/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time to cover sectors and activities excluded from that directive [C5-0183//2000 - 1998/0318(COD)].
As President for today' s sitting, it is my honour to inaugurate a new procedure.
Before giving the floor to our rapporteur, Mrs Smet, we are going to hear from Mr Provan in his capacity as chairman of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee.
Mr President, as you say, this is a new procedure and I hope that it helps to establish in Parliament the importance of the conciliation procedure in achieving legislation to which Parliament has aspired.
I want to say today how much I enjoyed the support and the great help of the rapporteur and the Chairman of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee.
Mrs Smet, our rapporteur, was President of the Council of Ministers when the original Working Time Directive was enacted.
Mr Rocard is a former very well-known French minister and indeed Prime Minister.
We had an exceedingly strong team which Parliament was able to deploy in the negotiations with the Council and I am extremely grateful to both of them. Parliament should be extremely grateful to both of them - especially the rapporteur for all the work that she put into this negotiation.
The delegation also had a great responsibility in this negotiation because we had many difficult decisions to take.
We did not achieve everything that we wanted to achieve as a Parliament, but I think we went a long way towards helping all those people who are now going to be included within the Working Time Directive to see some progress so that they can eventually get to the goal that we were all trying to achieve.
If we take, for instance, the junior doctors, we discover that Parliament originally wanted a six-year period in which to achieve the 48 hours.
That was never likely to be negotiated with the Council, but we were able to make substantial progress from the Council's original proposal of 13 years.
Indeed, we finished up with a nine-year period.
Only in extreme circumstances will governments be able to go through a procedure to justify an extension of that period of nine years.
The interesting thing in this aspect is that we are making real progress on reducing the time of work for junior doctors.
As many people will be aware, today, many junior doctors are working 72 hours in some countries.
The progress that we are making is that in the first three years, the junior doctors' hours will be reduced to 58 and over the following two years to 56 hours and 52 hours respectively.
We see that the junior doctors are, in fact, going to get a great benefit from this extension to the directive.
We also were able to clarify the position regarding the classification of mobile workers.
The case was argued that, for instance, somebody driving a lorry for a large retail store should be included in retail-type legislation for working time, and only genuine transport workers are now going to fall exclusively within the transport sector.
That, I think, was another major achievement for Parliament in this negotiation.
We move on to the fishermen who were greatly concerned by the application of this directive to their working life because they felt they would not be able to operate properly within that system.
In all honour to everybody concerned in the negotiation, the Council and all Members of the delegation, they have made real progress and I recommend the outcome of the conciliation process to the House and hope they support it.
Thank you, Mr Provan.
I think we can in fact thank all the Members of Parliament that were involved in this conciliation procedure.
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the President, Mr Provan, for his kind words, but particularly for the way in which he, together with Mr Rocard, has presided over and guided the entire process.
I would also like to thank all the delegates, as it would indeed be impossible to find a compromise on a number of difficult and sensitive issues, if it was not for the fact that everyone moderated their demands, and this is what eventually happened. My thanks go to all of you.
The vote in the European Parliament tomorrow and in the Council the day after will provisionally end a decade of European legislation concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time.
I am adding "provisionally" , because although a number of sectors and activities are already covered by conclusive horizontal legislation, the vertical rules are still pending.
The best way to establish these vertical rules is via collective labour agreements, but if these collective labour agreements are not forthcoming, then the Commission will need to take the initiative and propose draft directives.
This has already happened in the case of road transport.
The European Parliament has made its position clear but it appears that the Council is unable to adopt the common position.
This is intolerable, really intolerable, because road transport is one of the key sectors, there are many difficulties within that sector and because so many accidents happen within the Member States due to a lack of legislation and control.
I would call on the Council and both sides of industry finally to resolve this matter.
Since no draft directive has been proposed for inland shipping yet, I would ask the Commission to work on that.
Fortunately, agreements have now been concluded within aviation, navigation at sea and also rail transport, which have been translated into directives.
Like rail transport, the sea-fishing and off-shore sectors, as well as the activities of junior doctors, fall within the scope of the directive which we are discussing today.
For the sea-fishing sector, the European Parliament managed to secure a maximum working week of 48 hours, over a twelve-month reference period.
Exemptions are only possible under a collective labour agreement or following consultation involving both sides of industry.
It is indeed necessary to provide for these exemptions, because not only do sea fishermen stay at sea for extended periods of time, in certain countries even 3 000 hours on average annually, they also carry out heavy work at what is by far the most mobile of workplaces.
Regarding junior doctors, I would refer to what Mr Provan said, because he explained quite clearly what we eventually achieved.
The main thing is that those countries that want a transitional period in excess of nine years will need to follow a very demanding procedure in order to achieve this.
The reason why they want to have an extended transitional period and the decision which is eventually taken have to be published in the EU' s Official Journal.
I hope that this procedure will create a disincentive for those countries because we do not intend to carry on applying the number of working hours prescribed for longer than nine years.
In 1993, when I, in the capacity of President of the Council, signed the directive concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time, I was aware that the Commission' s proposal of 1990 did not exclude any sectors or activities.
But at the time, it appeared impossible for the Council to draw up a directive which covered all employees in all sectors and activities.
Hence the Commission proposed to take a separate and additional initiative for the benefit of those sectors and activities which were excluded from the Council' s directive.
That culminated in the 1997 White Paper and the 1998 consultation paper and communication.
The present directive is the first to be born out of negotiations in a Conciliation Committee within the framework of the European social policy, with the European Parliament acting as co-legislator.
The power of codecision proved to be decisive.
I think we owe our success, the fact that we eventually reached a sound compromise, to Parliament, among other things, which in its wisdom, only tabled a few amendments.
Indeed, had we found ourselves in a conciliation procedure faced with 30 or 40 amendments tabled by Parliament, it would have been extremely difficult ever to reach a compromise.
In this case, we managed to keep the procedure within bounds.
As such, the European Parliament gave evidence of a legislative maturity, which the Council and the Intergovernmental Conference, in particular, would do well not to lose sight of.
Mr President, as British Conservatives, we have always opposed the Working Time Directive.
The idea that politicians in Brussels or Strasbourg should determine how many hours different people work across Europe is, we believe, fundamentally daft. To extend it to groups such as offshore oil workers and sea fishermen is particularly so.
However, because of the special issue of over-worked junior doctors in the UK, as Conservative MEPs we voted last November to extend the directive to them. We very much hoped that this would pressure national governments - especially our own - to produce a better deal.
Certainly Parliament as a whole was of similar mind, hence the Conciliation Committee on which I was privileged to serve.
I extend congratulations to you, Mr President, in your former capacity as president of that conciliation group - plus Mrs Smet and Mr Rocard.
I believe in the circumstances we could not have done any better, but those three played a major role in that.
I should briefly like to mention a point made by some of my colleagues from that delegation.
I hope other nationals will forgive me if I mention only other British colleagues, for a reason that will become apparent.
The first speaker in the main meeting was Mr Hughes.
I am not known for agreeing with him regularly but I congratulate him on the intensity of what he said which set the meeting off to a very good start.
He was followed by Mrs Lynne - also due to speak today - who reinforced what was said with great vigour.
I mention that because, when it came to my turn to speak, it enabled me, as a British delegate from a third party, to speak in support, despite the fact that all three parties have many different policies on different issues.
The fact that I could say that on this issue we were speaking as one and it was a cross-party alliance hopefully helped to reinforce the overall message and the will of Parliament.
One of my colleagues afterwards said that point was a powerful intervention. Certainly it was meant to be.
Imagine my disappointment after the meeting when an official came up to me and said that while I was making those points on behalf of Parliament another Member also from the UK was busy shaking his head negatively the whole time that I was speaking.
That will not have strengthened our case.
It may or may not have made any difference but certainly it will not have done the Parliamentary delegation any good service.
A few weeks later, we did the best that we could.
It will be presented - as you, President, have already presented it - as "nine years".
But it is, as you know, nine years, plus two years, plus one year.
The UK Government will add that up to twelve years as against the 13 years which the UK Government was asking for initially.
Having only got what we consider minor concessions, we can confirm that, as British Conservatives, we neither support the Working Time Directive nor its extension to any other grouping.
We still support a better deal for junior doctors; we will still continue to pressure our own government to provide it, but a directive from the European Parliament is clearly not the right way to secure it.
I would like to begin by echoing previous speakers and adding my words of thanks to the rapporteur and to our chairman and to you for the magnificent work you did in that conciliation.
The progress we achieved is in large part thanks to the formidable effort and attention to detail the rapporteur put in to this.
There are three main issues which I would like to concentrate on in the brief time available to me.
In the original working time directive we had agreed way back in 1993 that it would be possible to introduce annualisation of working time for categories of workers, but only where collective agreements allowed that to happen.
The first two points I would like to make relate to categories of workers where we have managed to achieve that progress in the conciliation.
As far as offshore workers and mobile workers in the transport sector are concerned - there was an attempt in the common position to allow annualisation of working time for those workers without collective agreement.
Thanks to conciliation, collective agreement will now need to be the route for an extension to annualisation.
That was an important point of progress.
The second point concerns sea-fishing.
There we have now built in to the directive the principle that a 48-hour average working week over a period of one year will be the rule. That can be subject to derogation but again only after attempts to broker collective agreements to involve the social partners.
That should be the rule wherever there is an attempt to introduce annualisation and that principle has been safeguarded as a result of the conciliation.
The third area I want to concentrate on - and it is what other speakers have mentioned - relates to junior doctors.
Looking at this part of the agreement without detailed knowledge of the negotiations that went into it, it must seem like a very strange animal. A four-year transposition period - five years transition and then the possibility of extra time beyond that.
But of course that was to take account of the special difficulties facing one or two Member States.
I would repeat what other speakers have said: for us the period in question is nine years.
That will be the normal period within which Member States will be expected to comply with the requirements of this directive in relation to junior doctors.
That is why the procedure to go beyond that into what we might term extra time is so open - in a way humiliating for any government that attempts to take that step.
I think that in fact we will see all Member States complying with that section of the directive relating to junior doctors within that nine-year time frame.
I am confident, speaking today, that will be the case.
A further important point might have been missed.
The provisions relating to nine years for junior doctors only relate to the average working week.
The other provisions of the directive relating to daily and weekly rest breaks, annual leave and nightwork will, of course, apply to junior doctors after a three-year transposition period just as they do for all other workers.
Those parts of the directive can, of course, be subject to derogation but only by collective agreement so those elements will apply to junior doctors.
The sections dealing with annual leave cannot be negotiated away and it is important to bear that in mind: i.e. the nine years for junior doctors applies only to working time - average weekly working time - and the other provisions of the directive apply after three years.
The final point I would like to make relates to the transport dossier.
It is very important that we get movement in that area in the Transport Council.
Maybe the Commissioner has some news for us today.
There was an agreement in the rail sector that the provisions of the working time directive would apply in that sector so long as there was parallel progress in other transport sectors, particularly the road sector.
Unless we get progress in that sector, I am quite certain we are going to see a problem for the rail sector.
The agreement will not be implemented in the near future at national level.
Mr President, I would also like to add my thanks to Mrs Smet in particular for doing an excellent job of work on the working time directive and also, of course, to Mr Rocard and to you, yourself.
I would agree with Philip Bushill-Matthews as well.
I think the strength of having all-party support throughout the UK on our delegation was very, very useful.
I would like to talk specifically about junior doctors.
I am very pleased that they are going to be brought in line with the working time directive.
There are 270 000 junior doctors across the EU who will be affected by this.
50.1% in my constituency work over 72 hours a week as do 10 000 in the UK as a whole.
You can see from those figures that it is extremely important that all Member States actually meet those objectives and I mean the nine-year objective.
The present situation is not good for patients or doctors alike - they have our life in their hands.
We would not want to be treated by a drunken doctor and I do not believe that we should be treated by an over-tired doctor.
Evidence proves that somebody who is impaired by tiredness is impaired in the same way as drunkenness.
The British Medical Association was saying that 15% of junior doctors were leaving the profession citing stress, overwork and length of hours.
A lot of those were going to Australia and New Zealand where the working practices were better.
We have to stop that drain.
The nine-year timetable, of course, is an improvement on what the Council of Ministers wanted.
It is made up of four years' implementation and five years to bring down the working time from 58 to 48 hours. It is far better than what the Council wanted which was the 13-year period.
I, of course, would have preferred a shorter time.
As I have said before, our life is in their hands and it is important that we get this right.
The UK Government, of course, was part of the problem. They maintain that they cannot achieve the reduction in this timescale.
I believe that they are wrong and that is why we have the extension for two years and also the extension after that for one year.
But as everyone else has said, it has to be in exceptional circumstances.
There must be rigorous notification and justification procedures and I hope that the British Government, and other Member State governments who feel that they can delay further by seeking two years and then another will feel so embarrassed that they will not seek to do so and meet the goal in nine years.
It is not twelve years - it is nine years and we must state that very, very clearly.
It is long enough - I would have liked it to have been shorter, but let us hope the governments, and the British Government in particular, adhere to that.
Mr President, I must apologise for this appearing to be a British show at this moment.
I assure you that it does change with the next speaker.
I also would like to thank Mrs Smet, our rapporteur, for the excellent work that she has done throughout this entire process.
With the support that she has received from Mr Rocard and from yourself, she has managed to make progress in face of the tensions between the high expectations of those whose lives will be affected by these decisions, some six million workers, and the difficulties and some intransigence presented by certain Member States.
I speak as my group's representative on that parliamentary delegation and I know what I have seen.
This is a health and safety issue, as has been said, for both the workers concerned and for the public.
While I recognise, like others, that junior doctors are not the only group affected, this issue has proved the most difficult.
I have been deeply concerned at some of the arguments put forward by certain governments which have said that other aspects of health provision could be threatened if the reduction of working time for this group was brought in more quickly.
I cannot understand why it is less important for these workers to have reasonable working conditions and hours than any other group of health workers.
I want to know whether junior doctors in some countries are some sort of superhuman who can do without adequate rest and who will not harm their own health or that of their patients in the process.
The mother of one such trainee doctor said to me recently that she had been writing to the British Prime Minister and his wife, Tony and Cherie, to ask if they would be happy if their new baby were to be delivered by a tired, stressed-out doctor in a semi-drunken condition as that described by Mrs Lynne.
I consider that would be a real health and safety issue requiring rapid action.
As we have all said, we must be clear that nine years has to be seen as an absolute limit, that anything more is an aberration.
Any country not managing that should not be surprised if they find their staff moving elsewhere, to countries which have managed to implement more modern working conditions.
The stepped approach which has been brought in must not be used to simply give a redefinition of working time such as removing meal breaks or time spent on call but not actually treating patients.
That would simply be following the bad practices recently tried out by certain burger chains.
However, at least some of those chains pay their part-time 17-year-old staff more per hour than some junior doctors get in overtime payment.
I would like to congratulate in advance those Member States that will meet their obligations under this directive for all sectors.
The progress of others will be monitored very carefully.
I acknowledge the Commission's role in this and hope that the Commissioner at that time will show the same commitment as that shown by Mrs Diamantopoulou.
Regretfully I am not sure that my group will be able to fully support the proposals overall despite the improvements that Mrs Smet and the Parliament team have been able to obtain in this very difficult situation.
Mr President, I too want to thank and congratulate Mrs Smet on an excellent piece of work in the Conciliation Committee and also on her report.
I also want to thank other key people such as Mr Provan and Mr Rocard.
They have played an important role.
The Parliamentary delegation was basically very much in agreement, even though we differed in our willingness to compromise when it came to the crunch. It was, of course, important to solve problems.
The idea was that seven million people should be brought within the scope of the directive.
When I learned that the whole thing was to go off without a hitch, that is to say that there was to be an agreement, I nonetheless took the liberty of voting against.
I wanted to make the point that, in spite of everything, I was not satisfied with everything in this compromise.
I was especially critical of the agreement when it came to the issue of young doctors.
If the decision is interpreted as it already has been by some people in this debate, namely as saying that the transposition and transitional periods for doctors should add up to nine years and that there should, above and beyond that, be the possibility of an additional three years' extra time, then we arrive at a total period of twelve years. This is really little different from the Council' s position, involving thirteen years.
There was, therefore, not so much of a compromise on that particular point.
I think this is a serious matter, because it is about patients having to suffer and about doctors being placed in impossible situations, from both moral and personal points of view.
Young doctors do not choose these working conditions and working hours but are forced to accept them.
I thought it was appropriate for at least someone in this Parliament to use his voting right for the purpose of indicating this dissatisfaction.
I now hope to see the three extra years become a facility which cannot be counted upon but which is only granted in really exceptional cases.
The intention expressed by this Chamber has, of course, been that, where junior doctors are concerned, the period for implementing the present directive should be nine years and that the three extra years should only apply in extreme and exceptional cases.
Naturally, we hope that, in reality, the process will be still more rapid.
We also want, in the future, to see the working time directive apply to those groups which have still not been brought within its scope.
In common with Mr Hughes, I should like to ask the Commission a question regarding these groups. How far has the work progressed when it comes to the transport sector and lorry drivers?
I want to conclude by saying that, on more than one occasion, the European Parliament has shown itself to be a significant force where working time legislation in Europe is concerned. I hope that this will continue.
It is not just a question of establishing longest permitted working times but of a good deal else besides.
There are ever more differences in the way in which working time is distributed in our society.
For young families, the difficulty of reconciling full-time work with family and children is becoming ever greater.
Working time puts the squeeze on women and children, in particular.
It is also an issue relating to age and to where one is in one' s life.
Young and old have different needs and different abilities.
We need a whole series of changes to working time policy, and it is my hope that it will be possible for the European Parliament to come back with more initiatives in this area.
Mr President, I join in the congratulations to all involved with this matter.
Rather than reiterate what other colleagues have said, I think the core issue is the junior doctors in training.
Obviously, whilst nine years is not the perfect solution which Parliament originally sought, it is the best possible compromise.
It is incumbent on us to send out a clear message that we would expect every government in the European Union to comply fully with the nine years.
Even though I know there are rigorous tests and standards as to whether or not an extension would be granted, it should only be granted in the most exceptional circumstances and not for any willy-nilly ideology.
In addition, as Mr Hughes pointed out, the other parts of the entitlements come into force immediately.
Even though the overall reduction in working hours may be postponed for some time, the actual rest-period times and so on come into force immediately.
I shall just deal very briefly with two other points concerning the whole working time directive.
Firstly, concerning fishermen, there is some attempt to compromise within the proposals before us.
However, it is a notoriously difficult area to enforce because of outside conditions, such as bad weather, that will affect the way fishermen operate.
Perhaps we should review this at some stage in the near future and look at it anew to try to come up with a better solution.
Secondly, transport workers: when we already have tachograph legislation in place, why do we need to bring in a separate and new directive on transport workers, in particular lorry drivers and so on?
Perhaps now is the time to look at this afresh. New technology - in particular digital tachographs and individual smart cards for individual drivers on the tachograph - could be the best way to regulate the hours during which drivers are on the road and at work.
It will also ensure that they can have equal benefits with every other worker in the Union.
Finally, I wish to pay my compliments once again to Mrs Smet.
I have one small, further request to the Commissioner.
Perhaps now is the time, after we have agreed this conciliation and brought this new piece of legislation into being, to carry out an impact assessment on how the existing legislation is working, whether it is of benefit to the workers - increasing their health and safety - and whether it is increasing employment, which is one of the original arguments behind it.
Mr President, I too would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to everyone who took part in the negotiations on our side, especially the rapporteur but also you yourself and Mr Rocard, as well as other members of the negotiation delegation.
I would like also to extend warm thanks to the Commission, particularly for their declaration on working on Sundays.
This was a major obstacle for us, mainly because the Commission had skirted this thorny issue a little too easily in the past.
The declaration was therefore a great help to us.
I would like to say one thing to the representatives of the GUE/NGL Group and the Greens. If you vote against this compromise - and I would understand if you did, because I myself find nine years for junior doctors far too long - you will then be against everything, in effect.
If this line were to be taken across the board, and if Parliament were to say "no" , then we would not have a solution in nine years, or ninety years.
If it were up to the British Government - we heard this quite clearly in the negotiations - it could well be 50 years and maybe longer before they resolve this issue.
The first problem was that they appeared unable to train a sufficient number of doctors.
If, therefore, you do not train sufficient doctors, you need to obtain them from other countries.
If this plan fails too, then the whole procedure could take a very long time.
If this is not something you want, then you need to approve this directive now, obviously with the reservation that it is an empty exercise - I am still convinced of this - and junior doctors should not need to be in this exemption position at all.
That is the problem.
I have one question for the Commission.
It concerns the other matters at issue, specifically that of transport.
I would like to know how the Commission intends to deal with this.
It is now up to the Commission.
The working time directive will not be complete until these issues have been resolved.
The ball is now quite clearly in the Commission' s court.
The Transport Council is behaving badly.
Transport conjures up images of action and movement, but the Transport Council must be the most inactive of all councils and does absolutely nothing.
I wonder if the Commission can think of a way to resolve this.
Failing this, Mr President, we should seriously consider taking legal action against the Transport Council, as was done very successfully a couple of years ago before the Court.
More of this later.
Finally, Mr President, one of the first people to propose working time legislation was Winston Churchill.
That was a key moment in history, not only in the history of Great Britain, but also in the history of Europe as a whole, because in the Netherlands too, we adopted this legislation without questioning it.
That makes it all the easier to bring this directive about.
We thus have the feeling that we are in a way completing Winston Churchill' s work with this directive, especially if we bear in mind that he did at least manage to bring a terrible war to a successful end in five years, while the present British Government would not even be capable of resolving the problem of junior doctors in 50 years.
He - more than anyone - should be in our thoughts when dealing with this subject matter.
Mr President, for me it has been a real privilege - and a surprise - to attend this conciliation procedure and to witness first hand the resistance and difficulties we have had to face in order to make progress.
This is demonstrated by the excellent work of Mrs Smet, and also Mr Provan and Mr Rocard.
I would also like to thank the Commissioner, Mrs Diamantopoulou, her department and so many people - also the Portuguese Presidency - who have allowed Parliament, like Churchill, to set a milestone in the construction of a social and more humanitarian Europe.
I am convinced that there is another reason for recommending that Parliament vote in favour of this report: the difficulties we have faced in making progress with regard to certain governments.
I will be truly happy to see these sectors, which were excluded from the 1993 directive, provided with a recognised European regulation on working time, even if it does involve long and protracted timescales.
However, we should not be dazzled by the light.
There is no doubt that public opinion - and I too am concerned about this public opinion - does not understand why these procedures are so slow and why, with regard to the problem of young doctors or fishermen, we have not been able to make any progress.
It is not acceptable - since we all agree that we cannot continue to ask these young doctors to work these exhausting hours and that we cannot continue to put our patients at risk - that we have not been able to make speedier progress.
I hope that, in fact, the timescale will be nine years and not thirteen years, although it pains me to say that, as a Spaniard, I feel restricted by the fact that it has been my government which has insisted most on having this additional period.
They may have requested this additional period, but we should take great care to ensure that they do not use it.
Lastly, I would like to ask the Commissioner and the Commission, to monitor closely the application of the directive, so that in nine years time they do not ask for three more.
Mr President, in previous debates here last November and in April of this year I supported the general principles behind the idea of directives on working time and I still do so.
Clearly there are significant health and safety issues which can be addressed - not only for the protection of workers but also for the protection of their customers and the general public - and issues of customer health and safety of course are particularly relevant in relation to doctors in training.
Like my colleague, Mrs Lambert, I am concerned that this compromise has not gone quite far enough in relation to doctors' hours.
There would remain though some workers in some working places where practical issues do not readily lend themselves to the implementation of this type of directive.
Coming from Scotland, with one of the largest EU fishing fleets, I would like once again to focus on the problem of fisheries and the defining of working time.
I note the compromise concerning sea-fishermen - a maximum of 48 hours of weekly work in a reference period of 12 months and the possibility of derogation after consultation and by agreement.
This may be an improvement but I still have some questions to put to the Commission.
We have to recognise that there were good reasons for the initial exclusion of the fisheries sector.
As regards fishing there is a deep-seated suspicion of Brussels in many respects and a lot of opposition to the whole idea of fishermen being told when to sleep or when to go to sea, given that their working time is governed by uncontrollable factors such as climatic conditions and the movement of shoals of fish.
The directive says that work at sea comprises sea fishing and other offshore work.
Many fishermen, particularly in Scotland, are organised on a family basis - they are share-fishermen paid only a proportion of their vessel's catch.
They are clearly not employees in the sense of the word that we would understand.
Is this directive going to affect them or is it not?
I have asked the Commission this question previously in committee and in plenary and have not yet received absolute clarification of this point.
The Conciliation Committee concluded in the case of those share fishermen who are employees - a statement which seems to me to be contradictory - that it is for Member States to determine the conditions for entitlement to annual leave and payments etc, but there is no explanation as to whether or when a share fisherman is employed.
I know for sure that the fishermen that I see around the coast of Scotland can only be defined as self-employed and I stress the need for clarification of this.
There are huge differences between a large-scale long-distance fleet where fishermen are employed by companies and sent off for months on end and the smaller- and medium-sized boats, which operate on a family or a cooperative basis.
This is an issue about the definition of self-employment or owner operation and I know that the compromise deletes own-account transport operators, clearly and quite properly identifying an exception in that area.
I call for a similar exception for share-fishermen.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is crucial that all employees are assured a decent working environment in order to guarantee that their health and safety is protected, which requires an organisation of working time that allows daily and weekly rest breaks, annual leave, holidays and other aspects.
This is why an appropriate solution must be found to the problem of all workers in activities that were excluded from the scope of Directive 93, specifically in the area of transport, fishing and the activities of junior doctors.
The truth is that, despite a positive proposal by Parliament, which sought to respond to these issues, the Council has insisted on an unacceptable position.
This substantially reduces the initial proposals of the European Parliament, specifically the increase of the period for transposing the directive to all sectors from two to three years.
The only exception made concerns junior doctors, for whom the period is extended from four to nine and possibly to twelve years. Apart from anything else, this also threatens the safety of the patients themselves who are examined by doctors who work excessively long hours.
That is why we have voted against this agreement, since what we want, of course, is a better agreement.
It was never going to be easy to satisfy all of the interested parties who have lobbied and worked closely with the Union institutions to bring about amendments to the 1993 directive.
This is the new directive, of course, and I am pleased that it has been extended to offshore workers, fishermen and doctors in training.
The most contentious part of the directive was bound to relate to doctors in training who would benefit from this piece of legislation.
One should recall that the Council had originally proposed an exemption for a period of some 13 years before doctors in training would secure the benefits of the directive.
Naturally, Parliament put forward its own proposals to support the right of doctors in training to be covered by this directive after a period of 4 years. Hence the conciliation procedure which you, Mr President, were involved in.
But whatever honeyed words are attached to the conclusions of the procedure, the bottom line is that junior doctors will not secure benefits for a period of nine years at least.
According to the conclusions of the Conciliation Committee, junior doctors will secure benefits after a transitional period of five years and a four-year transposition period.
I fully support the right of junior doctors and doctors in training to secure the benefits of this directive, but the Conciliation Committee conclusions will have reluctantly to be accepted.
I would like in conclusion to refer to one small but very important matter, namely that under exceptional circumstances there may be a further extension of two years and indeed up to three years if governments argue that the reduction would cause real administrative difficulties.
I do hope that this directive can be implemented sooner rather than later.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, working time policy - as we can see once again - is not economic policy, it is health and safety at work policy.
When used preventively, it saves the state and the economy a great deal of money.
I have completely failed to understand in this debate why a reasonable set of rules was not adopted back in 1993, especially as the Commission and Parliament did not want any derogations even then.
Seven million workers were affected and specific sectors, such as the mobile worker sector, have been subject to ruinous competition over recent years, especially in Germany.
It is therefore also a social problem and it is not enough, Mr Crowley, to use tachographs or other technical aids.
One does not exclude the other.
We also need a framework directive, because the employees who are affected have been working in a grey zone for a long time now. They had no rules, they were not covered by a collective agreement, they were exploited and some also engaged in self-exploitation.
We know that this overload sometimes gave rise to alcohol-related problems.
Parliament has shown sufficient flexibility; Mrs Smet highlighted our legislative maturity.
I think, Mrs Smet, you have proven that we can also fight.
The results are acceptable.
I am trying to muster support, even if we have not achieved everything we wanted to.
But the transition period and the graduated plan are the maximum we have allowed the Council.
I hope that no government will use up the full period of time and am counting on constructive competition between the Member States to see which State will be the first to implement the proposals from Parliament and the Commission.
Directive 93/104 was already very restrictive as far as worker production is concerned.
It does not harmonise social legislation upwards, quite the opposite.
It establishes a European framework which falls a long way short of workers' expectations: an 11-hour daily rest period, a 48-hour working week, a 24-hour weekly break.
What is more, a number of categories were excluded from its field of competence.
We find the compromise, which Parliament is to vote on today following the meetings of the Conciliation Committee, unsatisfactory in terms of both the health and the safety of workers.
It makes flexibility more widespread, particularly for sea fishermen, establishing the systematic annualisation of reference periods.
It will permit further exemptions to the already excessive legislation of 48 hours per week.
Finally, it will take nine years, in the best possible case, for the working week of doctors in training to be reduced from 58 hours to 48.
In fact, the proposed working time organisation institutes social deregulation at the very time when, in France, doctors in training are campaigning for decent working conditions and genuine safety for service-users.
Proper organisation of working time would entail, we reiterate, a real reduction in working hours accompanied by moves to create a sufficient number of jobs.
We cannot support this report as it stands.
Mr President, this proposal will bring an additional seven million workers in Europe under the protection of the Working Time Directive, allowing them to have reasonable working conditions and proper rest periods.
However, to get a 48-hour week, junior doctors must wait nine years minimum and possibly twelve years.
I will not pretend to be happy with this situation.
It is, however, the best that we could achieve if we were to end once and for all the Council's delaying tactics.
It has been obvious since 1993 that those excluded from the directive at that time would eventually come under its protection.
One has to ask, therefore, why over that seven-year period virtually nothing was done in Ireland or in Britain to bring the number of doctors forward that would be needed to implement it.
In Ireland some junior doctors work over 100 hours per week, the average being 70 to 80.
Only last night they suspended strike action which they had threatened because they have now reached an interim agreement which will ensure that they are actually paid for the overtime they work.
In some cases they were not paid at all, in some cases only half the normal rate.
Some progress has been made and no doubt the conclusion of the conciliation has helped them in that regard.
Through the Council of Ministers both Britain and Ireland fought tooth-and-nail to slow the process down. That was unfortunate.
The working arrangements for junior doctors are like a horror story from a Dickensian novel of the nineteenth century.
I find it bizarre that at the beginning of the 21st century we are still arguing for common sense with regard to health and safety.
I would appeal to all national governments, including Ireland, not to utilise the additional provisions for extending the implementation of this directive beyond the nine-year period and would remind them that it is intended only as an exceptional measure if all other genuine steps have been taken to implement the measures here.
Mr President, the proposed working time directive for specific categories of worker such as doctors in training, offshore workers or mobile workers, is typical of the slow and derisory nature of social Europe.
The recitals of the proposal, nonetheless, stress the specific importance of this file, the first major file on social issues, adding, even, that it is a matter of the health and safety of 7 million workers.
In France, for example, a number of strikes by junior doctors recently drew the attention of public opinion to the intolerable length of the working day for this category of worker, harmful to the doctors in training themselves, but also to the quality of the care they are providing their patients with.
The same question arises, with at least as much urgency, for other categories such as offshore workers or transport workers.
What we should have had was a quick decision and an appropriate reduction in working hours.
Well, the proposal does intend to cut hours, but by phasing in the cuts.
For the first three years, 58-hour working weeks are permitted.
We have to wait 5 years for the maximum working week to be reduced to 48 hours, and the Commission is cynical enough to cite technical reasons in order to grant a further 2-year delay in application.
Who are they trying to kid that these measures could not come into force almost immediately if there was any political will to act in favour of the interests of the workers concerned rather than favouring the claims of management? Some restriction, even a derisory cut, in working hours is better than no restriction at all.
We shall not vote against this text, but we shall conclude from this experience that workers can have no expectations of social Europe and that, decidedly, nothing can replace the collective strength of the workers when it comes to amending legislation in favour of the workers.
Mr President, the chairman of the European Parliament' s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs could not remain silent in this debate.
Thank heavens, my fellow Members have already said what needed to be said about the issue itself.
I shall come back to this point.
We are not terribly proud of the final result, but I should at least like to pay tribute to it, as some outcome had to be found.
At this point, I should like to thank Mrs Smet, our efficient and indefatigable rapporteur, and Mr Provan, who was also the persistent and efficient chairman of our Conciliation Committees.
I should like to thank all our coordinators, Mr Brok, Mr Hughes, Mrs Flautre, Mr Schmid, Mrs Lynne, who demonstrated great understanding in order to reach some sort of outcome.
I should like to pay tribute to the Commission. Without wishing to embarrass you, Mrs Diamantopoulou, throughout almost all this debate Parliament has had the technical and even political support of the Commission, particularly on the important amendments.
I have one small correction to make, unless I misunderstood, to what Mrs Smet has just said. It is not exactly the first successful conciliation on social matters between the European Parliament and the Council.
It is the second, following the successful conciliation on the minor issue of workers working in an explosive atmosphere.
This is, however, an infinitely more wide-ranging issue, of course.
Mr President, I must point out how unusually tough the Council is to deal with.
The political truth is that the Parliament team, in an astounding spirit of responsibility and unanimity - and you have witnessed the benign respect which I and Mr Bushill-Matthews, for example, have for each other - was remarkable for its united front as much as for its determination to succeed.
Parliament made most of the running.
We are not proud of the result in terms of the content.
In a real democracy Parliament would have been determining the legislation.
I would like to remind the Council that we are just as dedicated to achieving results, but that they must not expect Parliament to make quite so many concessions on a regular basis.
Mr President, I would like first of all to make three political comments.
I feel that the successful outcome of the conciliation procedure proves that where there is a will, there is a way.
In order for this conciliation to succeed, we had to take account of the fifteen different systems in the Member States, different fields of work and proposals from various employer and employee federations.
We also had to take account of the viability of health services as things now stand and competitiveness in sectors such as transport and fisheries.
This was no mean feat!
It has taken six years to achieve today' s result and it is the first major conciliation decision in the social sphere - and I say major because it affects some 5 million workers.
I feel that the most interesting point - and this is my third comment - is the number of workers affected by this directive, who are at present excluded from the working time directive and who will enjoy these rights once this directive is applied.
In my view, therefore, we should be satisfied regardless of whether or not this directive meets all our requirements.
The upshot is that the provisions of the working directive will apply to doctors in training, workers at sea, rail workers and all non-mobile workers in excluded sectors.
I would like in particular to thank the Chairman of the Committee, Mr Rocard, the Vice-Chairman, Mr Provan, who used his great experience to guide the conciliation procedure, and of course, Mrs Smet who, with her wealth of ministerial experience, helped achieve such a difficult conciliation.
I would also like to give special thanks to the Portuguese Presidency and the Member States, particularly those which, for reasons we cannot go into right now, have experienced major problems with their national health services, such as Great Britain, Spain and Ireland.
Certain speakers raised the issue of the implementation of the directive.
I should like to stress that it is indeed a particularly important issue.
One of the Commission' s fundamental duties is to monitor the implementation of directives.
Here I should like to ask the MEPs to cooperate with us and closely monitor any underhanded plans in Member States, so that the Commission can intervene immediately.
A further two questions have also been raised, the first by Messrs Hughes, Schmid and Pronk as to what we intend to do in the road and rail transport sectors.
First, I must tell you that the Transport Council is involved, making the whole process even more complicated.
Secondly, as for road transport, the Commission tabled a proposal in 1996, but it was blocked by the Council in 1998.
The Commission intends, with the cooperation of the French Presidency, to re-table the issue.
We are awaiting new negotiations by the social partners and we hope to obtain their assent.
If we cannot proceed in this way, we shall have to change the whole approach we have adopted so far.
With regard to the issue of fisheries, the matter was raised once again by Mr Hudghton.
We have discussed this in the past.
I will try to clarify it.
I am afraid I was not clear enough. So I would like to repeat that the issue of self-employment in fisheries is not included in this directive.
The self-employed in fisheries is a matter of national competence. That is very clear and very precise.
I thank you very much for all your support and help during these discussions, and that of your services. It is very much appreciated indeed.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Reviewing aid to third countries
The next item is the Commission communication - Reviewing aid to third countries.
Mr President, I hope Parliament will excuse me if shortly after making a brief presentation I have to leave, but this is, as Parliament knows, very much the collective work of the RELEX Commissioners as a whole and very much the shared work of my colleague, Commissioner Nielson and myself.
Commissioner Nielson will still be here to make his own contribution to this report and to answer any questions which may arise.
The function I have to attend is a joint meeting of two committees which was specially arranged to discuss a number of external assistance issues so I hope Parliament will be understanding.
I think it is fair to say that the proposals that we have put forward go right to the heart of the issues that are raised in the White Paper on reform and it is extremely important for us to demonstrate that the reform of our external assistance programmes is the flagship or one of the flagships, for an overall reform process.
People occasionally get a little bored when one talks about internal procedures but what they should recognise is what we are discussing in these particular proposals: ways in which, first of all, we can get assistance to people more rapidly and effectively and, secondly, ways in which we can change the image of the European Union around the world.
All of us have, alas, experienced too frequently occasions when instead of us getting the credit for what we are trying to do on behalf of Europe's taxpayers, we get blamed for not doing it a lot more effectively and a lot more rapidly.
I hope that is a problem which we will be able to tackle.
Very briefly, it is worth reminding ourselves what the background to this issue is.
We have seen a threefold increase in external assistance commitments managed by the SCR over the last 10 years.
That has been driven by events and by political pressures; a recognition of the responsibilities we should discharge in Central and Eastern Europe - the recognition which that triggered of our responsibilities in the Mediterranean.
It is worth noting that our assistance programmes in the Mediterranean have increased four and a half times since 1990.
Then there is the Balkans crisis where the attempts to put in place a common foreign and security policy are being particularly tested.
While our external assistance programmes themselves have grown very rapidly, staff resources have failed to keep pace.
The Commission has 2.9 staff for every EUR 10 million that we manage.
That compares with an average figure about twice that for Member States - the figure is 5.7 but it goes as high as 9 for some Member States and 4.2 for the World Bank.
One of the consequences of that has been the increasing use of technical assistance offices which has been much criticised by Parliament and by the Court of Auditors on the grounds of weak monitoring and a lack of political control.
It is worth noting that we have spent about EUR 170 million a year on the 80 technical assistance offices which is equivalent to the cost of 800 staff working for the Commission.
A consequence of all this is that the SCR today has over EUR 21 billion in outstanding commitments awaiting payments. That is an embarrassingly large figure.
I do not blame the staff of the SCR who work extremely hard in very difficult circumstances, but there are not enough of them.
They have had to operate with extremely difficult procedures.
They have also had to operate against a background of Member States second, third and fourth guessing every implementation decision that we try to make.
We have brought forward in the document, which has now been made public, our proposals for dealing with this problem.
As honourable Members will know, over the years Parliament has put forward a number of proposals including the idea that we should externalise the management of our overseas aid.
That remains a possibility for the long term though it would take some time because one would first have to get in place the necessary legal framework.
However my principal concern at the moment is not how we get from A to Z - that often seems rather easier than getting from A to B. What we have to do - whatever the long term objective may be is - to find better ways of managing our external assistance straightaway.
We have put forward a number of proposals.
We have put forward proposals for improving programming: making sure that all the RELEX Commissioners share responsibility for programming - we have suggested the reuniting of the project cycle from identification to implementation - we think the present split has not worked well.
What we propose to do is to create a new implementation body replacing the SCR which we think should be called Europe Aid.
It would be initially an office under a board made up of all the External Relations Commissioners though, as I say, the option of moving to externalisation in the longer term remains on the table.
We want to devolve more responsibility to delegations and, where possible, to national authorities in the field.
We have proposed special treatment for the pre-accession strategy: humanitarian assistance and macro-financial assistance with fully integrated management.
That means, for example, transferring the residual SCR functions for PHARE to the Directorate-General for Enlargement.
We have proposed taking urgent measures to tackle the backlog of old and dormant projects.
We are writing to the relevant chairmen of parliamentary committees and to the Court of Auditors to explain our approach.
I do not want to go on for very much longer, except to say this: where will the resources come from to manage and run our programmes in the proposed office, Europe Aid, rather better in the future than we have managed in the past? We have to take our turn with others in the Commission in arguing our corner in the peer group process for the assistance we think is required to manage our programmes effectively.
We may, as a result, present the budgetary authority with a rectifying letter to the 2001 budget proposals in September.
That is for the future.
The simple point I want to make is this: we cannot go on as we have.
In my judgement it is simply not an option. We have to do better.
We are not bidding for a bigger empire.
The budgetary authority will ultimately have to judge the right scale of European Union external aid programmes.
However, my only aim is to put the Commission in a position where it can run these programmes competently.
I have to say very bluntly to Parliament that there are two possibilities: either the budgetary authority agrees with our ideas and will then try to implement them from 2001, or else, in order to manage what our programmes amount to more competently, we will be obliged to propose very large cuts.
We cannot go on in a situation in which we are not prepared to provide the resources to manage effectively the money that is voted by the budgetary authority for our external assistance programmes.
We have to be prepared to face up to the management and administrative consequences of what we are trying to do around the world, otherwise the people who suffer are those who should be receiving our help to enable them to read and write or live a better and healthier life or create the institutions of good governance in their communities.
They are the people who suffer as well as the European Union's reputation.
I am sure this will be a long debate.
I am sure that Parliament will have a considerable contribution to make to the discussion over the next few months.
However, my impression after a few months in this job is that Parliament wants as badly as the Commission to deliver a more competently run assistance programme all around the world.
Mr President, this is refreshing - the fact that the European Union is acknowledging that there are problems but that we have solutions.
Commissioner Nielson will recall that a couple of months ago I suggested that it might be the case that he could become an emperor without clothes.
Is it not the case now that this proposal, taking away so much from DG Development as it does, is likely to make my prediction come true?
Secondly, at the end of what Commissioner Patten was saying, I think he reiterated what he was quoted as saying in "The Times" this morning where he said that Member States should back his plans with resources or cut aid.
I have to say, Commissioners, that I find this a deeply worrying and dangerous statement and likely to be taken at its face value by Member States and not in the way that you suggest.
I would very much appreciate clarification of those two questions by one or other Commissioner.
Mr President, I do not feel like an emperor without clothes, but you can judge for yourself.
The situation is that we had to do something not just to integrate the project cycle in terms of the line management of activities.
We also had to do something concerning squaring the circle organisationally giving substance to my political overall responsibility for development policy.
We have done this without changing the portfolios that were defined.
The solution we have reached is to create a board of directors which will oversee and politically be the managerial part of running the new office or EuropeAid or whatever SCR is going to be called.
My role on that board will be that of the chief executive officer.
Commissioner Patten will be chairman, reflecting the position he already has at the head of the table being the ultimate coordinator of all RELEX Commissioners' activities.
We are in a sense structuring the political roles that have been defined and we are doing it in such a way that I think it really does have a chance of functioning.
There are two elements in this which will contribute to better coherence and better political consistency.
One is what I have already mentioned with a closer political involvement in the management of the actual implementation.
The other one is the quality-support group which will have its secretariat in DG Development.
The role is to make sure that the formulation of the different programmes, including those in DG RELEX, is consistent with the policy and principles that we have defined.
All in all, I think this is a good attempt at doing things given the way things were defined last July.
This will also concentrate a lot of attention among all RELEX Commissioners on the problem of whether or not we actually are delivering.
We have to get out of the culture of commitment and into the culture of delivering.
What we are doing here will be part of that change.
We also talk about ownership in our partner countries as being a major problem.
The reality, because of the way we are organised in the Commission, is that ownership on our side is extremely vague and problematic.
This is going to change as a consequence of the reform we are putting forward now.
Finally, I will address the issue of the risk of what happens if we do not get the staff and the resources to do the job.
Clearly continuing the way things are now is not acceptable, it is not possible.
We have to make the point as clearly as Commissioner Patten just did which means that we want those resources.
We have commitments, we have an agreement with 71 ACP states, we have the Member States backing that and accepting the next ninth European Development Fund.
All this is part of the promises we have made already, so there is really no alternative to getting the people to do the job.
But how to do it - this is a problem we cannot solve alone, which is why we are appealing as strongly and clearly as we are; and we make no secret of the fact that if the budget authority will not make it possible to get the staff, we will not be able to do the job.
This is the situation as we see it.
We do not want to invest our own role as Commissioners in fighting a losing battle.
We want to fight a battle we can be proud of participating in.
Mr President, I am very happy to hear that, in order to fulfil commitments, more resources and personnel are required.
As Parliament is aware of this, we will offer our full support.
However, I would like to ask a question, since I have not had time to study the document at length. What will happen to humanitarian aid?
We understand that the Union' s policy of humanitarian aid does not end with simply granting it, but it has to continue - we talk in this context of a 'continuum' - so that development policies can be carried out.
Otherwise, we may see a repetition of what is happening in Mozambique at the moment: clearly, humanitarian aid was removed, ECHO disappeared, development policy is no longer being implemented and therefore, violence may erupt once again.
Within this 'continuum' I would like to know whether, as has been the case until now, ECHO will be an office dependent on the Commission, but whose action will be based on development policies aimed at what we want to see, and that is the eradication of poverty.
Mr President, it is a shame that Mr Patten had to leave so soon. I actually wanted to put my question to him.
But I think that Mr Nielson is equally well placed to answer me because he has been standing by his colleague' s side and he also said that both Commissioners were responsible for the proposal.
Mr Nielson, of course we here in Parliament share your aim of providing quicker aid to men and women, and raising the profile of the European Union.
That goes without saying.
But we had all agreed that what the Commission wanted to introduce now by way of reform had to be done jointly with us.
When Mr Patten says in his presentation that either the Commission programme is accepted or we must make cuts, I find that highly displeasing.
It is we who are the budgetary authority, or at least part of it, and I think that the Commission cannot simply say we shall make cuts or we shall have to make cuts.
That, if you please, has to go through the budgetary procedure first and what is certain is that you will have to implement your reform programme jointly with us.
I should like to know what your colleague meant by this threat.
Mr President, I am very sorry that Commissioner Patten had to leave.
In his absence I am delighted to direct my questions to the Development Commissioner, Mr Nielson.
I am delighted to hear of new innovations and reorganisations which the Commission is going to put into place.
EuropeAid would be a very important attribute of the European Union as far as our external relations are concerned.
It has been extremely embarrassing so far that some of our promises have not been kept.
Not keeping promises to the poorest people in the world is not the nicest way to go about - as a rich part of the world - trying to help them.
Consolidating the RELEX Commissioners and increasing the management support staff and resources have my fullest support.
I am also delighted to hear that they are planning to create a board very much like the World Bank.
But I should like to ask Commissioner Nielson if he has thought about something which is very important to this side of the House - the IFC in the World Bank has the ability to help in the private sector with funding.
Micro-credits and various other mechanisms are key to helping people to help themselves.
Have they considered extending, in EuropeAid, some element of helping people to help themselves through an investment arm where the European Union becomes a partner in venture and enterprise?
Firstly, ECHO is not affected by this reform of development assistance.
ECHO is going to continue.
This is clearly part of what we have decided.
The only issue is to create a better link or bridge between the phase of humanitarian assistance and the more forward-oriented, long-term development assistance.
This is a well established discussion.
We want to keep ECHO more or less the way it is. I have confidence that with the new director of ECHO we are on track.
To Mrs Haug I should like to make it clear that Commissioner Patten was saying that we will have to propose deep cuts in the level of activity if we do not get a positive response from the budget authorities concerning the staff issue.
Why are we saying this as clearly as we are, even running the risk of being interpreted as if issuing a threat? I noticed your choice of word there.
We think it is necessary to make it clear that we seriously think it is problematic to continue without the resources and the manpower that we need.
It is not possible to do this well without being more or less organised like other well-performing donors.
This is the message.
It may very well be the case that we are being misunderstood in this Parliament because, on this matter, we are definitely among friends.
So saying it as clearly as we do here may sound wrong. I realise that.
But there are other elements around.
We have to say it à tous azimuts.
It is absolutely necessary to make these measures clear.
I do not mean to be negative about ministers of finance, but sometimes they can be quite demanding partners in discussion.
Development ministers are not that unproblematic either.
The biggest problem is actually the lack of consistency between the level of ambition defined in this field and the resources and tools that we have available to carry out the job.
This is our biggest problem.
We will be making a positive effort to get a solution that makes it possible to continue at least at the level of activity that we have now.
I should like to add that, though it is right to point out the backlog, the problems and the embarrassment, it should not be forgotten that we are building roads out there, thousands of kilometres in length; we are drilling bore-holes for clean, safe water, giving millions of people access to safe drinking water every year.
We are investing in people in primary education in a large number of countries.
We are making a contribution to the debt initiative second to none, even comparing ourselves with the biggest countries in the world.
We would welcome a little more competition as far as that is concerned.
I warn against giving the impression our development cooperation activities have all but stopped.
That is not the case.
We have to be realistic, clear and demanding in order to enter the primary league amongst donors and not to remain where we are right now.
This is the goal.
Mr Deva, we will, as part of the new Suva Agreement - the successor to the Lomé Convention - be including in our activities a EUR 2.2 billion private investment facility which will be administered by the European Investment Bank at arm's length.
It will deal with private partners, inspiring and helping the creation of business activities between European companies and business in the developing ACP countries.
This major innovation is being prepared right now on the same basis as you were talking about.
Micro-credit is a big thing but it is not the only answer to all problems.
However, we are quite active in this field also.
I thank Parliament for what I sense to be a more than positive reception because the critical notes that I have heard are of a kind that I would tend to interpret as enthusiastic support.
We should be careful not to end up facing a situation where there is a real threat of having to set our sights lower.
Thank you very much, Mr Nielson, for your optimistic view of the future.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0220/2000). We will examine questions to the Commission.
First part
Question No 32 by (H-0433/00):
Subject: Jailing of opposition politician Xu Wenli in China Is the Commission aware of the recent trial involving Xu Wenli in China and the severe prison sentence that was imposed. What action did the Commission take?
The Commission is aware of the recent trial referred to by the honourable Member in his question and of the sentence imposed on Mr Liu, who assisted Xu Wenli in setting up a branch of the banned China Democracy Party.
Xu Wenli, one of the founders of the CDP, was sentenced to 13 years in jail in December 1998, along with two other prominent democracy campaigners.
As the honourable Member will know, the longstanding policy of the Union is to raise the individual cases of Chinese citizens who have been in prison for political offences with the Chinese authorities, particularly in the context of the human rights dialogue, the last meeting of which took place on 25 February this year.
The Union has therefore raised with the Chinese Government the cases of Xu Wenli and others who have been trying to exercise basic rights that are specified by the United Nation's Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which was actually signed by China in October 1998.
To date, the Commission knows that at least 23 CDP members have been jailed for subversion as a result of their efforts to exercise those rights to which China is committed.
In relation to these and other cases, the Commission consistently calls upon the People's Republic of China to comply with the letter and spirit of the United Nation's human rights conventions which it has signed; to do so even before China's ratification of those conventions and actively to pursue ratification.
These efforts by the Commission will continue.
I thank you, Commissioner, for your answer and I should like to ask whether the Commission is aware that 14 months into his 13-year prison sentence Mr Xu is suffering from hepatitis and there are serious doubts as to the effectiveness of the medical treatment he is receiving.
I would seek an assurance that the Commission will enquire into this and ask the Chinese authorities whether they are providing the appropriate medical treatment.
Bearing in mind, Commissioner, what you said about your willingness to raise individual cases, could I also ask you to make enquiries about the fate of Rebiya Kadeer. She was arrested on 11 August 1999 in Urumqui, the capital of the XUAR, while on her way to meet representatives of the US Congressional Research Service.
She was charged with providing secret information to foreigners and is believed to have been sentenced to eight years' imprisonment at a secret trial.
I will gladly provide more detailed information on that, Mr Commissioner.
It makes me even more angry that European Union Member States, faced with these cases and the 23 in general you referred to, show such spinelessness in refusing to support the US initiative in Geneva at the UN Commission on Human Rights attacking China's human rights record.
I should like to tell the honourable Member that in respect to Mr Xu, I will convey what he said about the apparently grave condition of that political prisoner to my colleagues in the external relations area.
I am certain that they will follow previous practice in making enquiries of the Chinese authorities as to the quality and consistency of the treatment of Mr Xu for hepatitis.
I know that my colleagues will be happy to respond to the honourable Member in order to keep him informed with any information they are able to obtain.
So far as Miss Kadeer is concerned, obviously I did not have notice of that question and am not in a position to respond.
The question will, however, have been recorded. I will bring it to the attention of my colleagues and they will provide the honourable Member with the response he is seeking.
Obviously, it would be a matter of great concern if someone, whose only offence is to be antagonistic towards an existing regime, were to be the victim of insufferable treatment.
I know that my colleagues elsewhere in the Commission share this view, which I share with the honourable Member.
As the author is not present, Question No 33 lapses.
Question No 34 by (H-0357/00):
Subject: The Commission's reform programme and enlargement On 1 March 2000, the Commission adopted the White Paper on the reform of the Commission.
The measures and actions announced in the White Paper provide for a radical reform of the Commission which will involve a considerable amount of time.
Can the Commission indicate to what extent the present reform proposals take account of the forthcoming enlargement? Do they anticipate the consequences which enlargement will have on the internal structure of the Commission and do the proposed measures and actions take account of such consequences?
If so, in what way?
If not, would it not have been more logical for the Commission to take account of enlargement in respect of certain aspects, thereby avoiding a situation whereby shortly after completion of the current reform process the Commission has to enter into a fresh round of reforms to cope with the impact of enlargement?
Does the Commission intend to present an action plan with a timetable, as is the case with the present reform plan, in order to prepare the structure of the Commission for the forthcoming enlargement?
The Commission's reform strategy White Paper fulfils the undertakings readily given to Parliament and to the Council last year to give immediate attention to addressing the way in which the Institution, as an organisation, currently undertakes its duties.
Delay in designing a practical strategy and in pursuing necessary modernisation would not have been acceptable to the Commission, to the Council, to this Parliament or to the public, as I am sure the honourable Member understands.
One of the specifically stated purposes of comprehensive reform is the development of strengthened administrative performance which will, amongst other things, enable the Commission to deal more effectively with changes in the current and the future Union and in the wider world.
Clearly the challenges posed by the forthcoming extensive enlargement are different in nature and scale than those presented by any previous enlargement.
The Commission must therefore be capable of achieving the highest standards of executive and administrative performance in the discharge of its powers and duties in order to facilitate that massive and welcome development.
As the College of Commissioners made clear in our introduction to the White Paper, and elsewhere in that document, and I quote what we said: "the challenges of globalisation and future enlargement require better governance at all levels including the European Union".
All political institutions must rise to this challenge and so must the Commission.
Reform is therefore an essential precondition - a precondition for realising our vision of Europe.
The current administrative reform is not a limited exercise - it is an evolutionary process as we have made very clear - it will be continuously monitored and the results achieved will be assessed in order to provide for any relevant adjustments.
Proper account will be taken of any specific requirements that arise from the enlargement process, and naturally that will apply to human resources implications of the ongoing change.
Issues such as the management of the increased cultural diversity within the Commission and an early retirement scheme that is directly linked to enlargement will, for instance, be amongst those that receive particular attention.
As with past enlargements, specific measures concerning the appointment and integration of officials from the new Member States will be adopted at the appropriate time.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his response.
I would, however, like to add something.
One of the main challenges in the enlargement process will be to tailor the veterinary and plant-health conditions prevalent in the acceding countries to those in the European Union.
Would the Commissioner be prepared to encourage observers from the Central and Eastern European countries that wish to join the EU, to attend management committees, scientific committees or any other committees concerned with veterinary and plant health, on a permanent basis?
Mr President, the honourable Member's approach to these and many other matters is I know extremely constructive.
What I know on the basis of precedent, and also the Commission's assessment of the scope and the depth of the challenges that arise from the forthcoming enlargement, is that appropriate measures will be taken at the right time not only in terms of the recruitment and integration of properly skilled staff from the new Member States but also to assist with the preparation of other areas of expertise - presumably including the Scientific and other committees.
To some extent, of course, the process will be assisted by the fact that the international science community inside and outside the European Union is genuinely international.
In addition to relying upon those casual professional relationships, I am sure that the Commission will want to ensure that there is continuity and access provided for those new incoming Member States not only in areas like those that he has mentioned - veterinary and plant health - but in many other areas where the smoothest possible integration of efforts is a matter of crucial and mutual importance.
Question No 35 by (H-0411/00):
Subject: Boarding of Community vessels by Canadian inspectors in international waters Five years after the seizure of the Estai, the Community fleet fishing in NAFO international waters has expressed deep concern at the boarding of a Portuguese vessel, the Santa Mafalda, supposedly by Canadian inspectors.
The Santa Mafalda, a vessel used to catch halibut, was boarded on 24 April last. The inspectors confiscated all documentation and refused to leave the vessel.
Furthermore, a launch belonging to the Canadian authorities has been tracking the vessel constantly, thus hampering its fishing activity.
A few days earlier, Canadian inspectors had apparently boarded a Spanish freezer trawler, which was also fishing in international waters.
European fishermen fear that the underlying aim of these boarding incidents is to deter them from using the fishing grounds in which they catch halibut and cod.
What information does the Commission possess on these incidents?
Can it clarify whether the inspectors were acting on behalf of NAFO or the Canadian Government?
Has it taken any action in this regard, or does it intend to do so? Should accepting Community monitoring rules for inspections in NAFO waters prove problematic for Canada, what initiatives could the Commission take to set clear and binding rules which would allay the doubts of those working in the sector and the Canadian Government alike?
Thank you Mr President.
As the honourable Member who raised the question will know, in accordance with the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation scheme of joint international inspection and surveillance, each contracting party may assign means of inspection and inspectors to the NAFO scheme and NAFO inspectors may inspect any fishing vessel flying the flag of a contracting party.
NAFO inspectors are obliged to carry out their duties in accordance with rules set out in the NAFO scheme and they are also obliged to remain under the operational control of the authorities of their contracting parties and be responsible to them.
Against that background, on 23 April two Canadian NAFO inspectors accompanied by a trainee carried out an inspection of the Community fishing vessel Santa Mafalda which was operating at that time in the NAFO regulatory area.
The Canadian inspectors in question and the surveillance vessel from which the inspection was carried out are assigned to the NAFO scheme.
Their inspection was carried out under its auspices. Having been informed by the Canadians, inspectors of the Commission boarded the Santa Mafalda to verify the grounds on which the Canadian inspectors based their citation of a serious infringement.
In conducting this verification the Commission inspectors ensured the security and continuity of the evidence on board and transmitted their report to the Portuguese authorities.
Those authorities in turn ordered the Santa Mafalda to the port of Aveiro in Portugal for a thorough inspection.
The Santa Mafalda arrived in Aveiro on 10 May 2000 and two Commission inspectors participated in a thorough inspection of the vessel.
The Commission has drawn the attention of the Canadian authorities to the procedures followed by the Canadian inspectors in relation to their seizure of documentation and their continued stay on board the Santa Mafalda.
The Commission takes the view that the Canadian NAFO inspectors in question acted in breach of the NAFO scheme by taking away documents from the vessel without the permission of the master and by continuing to stay on board the vessel.
However, it is relevant to note that in this case the master of the vessel and the Portuguese authorities did not oppose the prolonged stay of the Canadian inspectors on the vessel and the fishing activities of the Santa Mafalda were not obstructed.
Mr Commissioner, I am satisfied with your reply, but I would like to add something else. The sea is a difficult world, and the Community fleet which fishes in international Atlantic waters experiences the interference of controllers and patrols from coastal countries which give the impression that, behind the harassment they sometimes suffer, there is one sole intention; to expel them from those fishing grounds.
The Commissioner knows, as I do, that the current situation in the NAFO is not, fortunately, what it was five years ago after the seizure of the Estai.
The European Commission - like the fishing sector itself - has made significant efforts to iron out our differences.
However, there are still outstanding questions, such as the extraterritorial clauses, which allow the Canadian Government to carry out inspections, controls and seizures beyond their national waters, in open sea, which is incompatible with international provisions and which, all too frequently, involves the arbitrary application of controls within the framework of the NAFO.
For all these reasons, I would like to ask the Commissioner how the European Commission intends to defend the right of the Community fleet to fish freely in these waters, albeit within the existing rules.
Mr President, I am grateful to the honourable lady.
The only way in which we can actually ensure the proper maintenance of an international convention which has the effect of law is to demand on all occasions that the procedures required under the law are fulfilled properly in a balanced but a completely full way.
That is the position being taken by the Commission which is why I drew attention to the fact that the Commissioners have already reached the conclusion that the Canadian inspectors actually acted in breach of the scheme by taking documents without the sight of the master and by virtue, maybe, of their very prolonged stay on board that vessel.
The Portuguese authorities, as the honourable lady will know because of her interest, are now undertaking a full investigation and it would therefore not be proper for the Commission to communicate opinions beyond those I have already offered, but she can be absolutely certain that the Commission and its inspectors together with the Member States are vigilant in sustaining the proper rights of all vessels on the high seas.
Mr President, I had asked the question as a result of Mr Kinnock' s first reply, before Mrs Miguélez asked her question.
I had understood from Mr Kinnock that the ship was in fact being inspected in a Portuguese port and that this inspection had taken place in the presence of Community inspectors.
I understand, from his second reply, that he does not yet have the result of that inspection.
That is what I wanted him to clarify.
If he does have it, I would like him to say so, but I understand from his second reply that he does not.
If that is the case I believe it would be prudent and logical for us to await the final result.
I would ask Mr Kinnock to communicate to Mr Fischler that, as chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, I would like to know the result of that inspection as soon as possible.
I would like to receive it because this Parliament will have to act accordingly.
In any event, I would like to condemn, in support of Mrs Miguélez, the abuse of authority on the part of the Canadian NAFO inspectors which Mr Kinnock mentioned.
I would therefore like to make that request and condemn this violation of NAFO regulations.
Mr President, I will draw the honourable Member's remarks to the attention of my colleague, Mr Fischler, and I know that they will be of interest to him.
He summarises the position precisely because the inspection has taken place and the Portuguese authorities are reaching their conclusions.
It would not be proper publicly to pursue the matter further, but when the report of that inspection and the assessment by the Portuguese authorities are available, I am certain that they will be communicated to interested Members including, of course, the chairman of Parliament's Committee on Fisheries and I am certain the honourable lady whose interest is manifest.
Question No 36 by (H-0415/00):
Subject: Need to support and strengthen the olive oil sector The implementation of the new olive oil regulation is having severe consequences for Greek producers who are poor farmers in infertile and island regions.
The abolition of the intervention price which had already been eroded has brought producer prices down to derisory levels: together with the co-responsibility levy this has had the effect of decimating olive oil producers' incomes.
The profiteering of traders who sell olive oil to the consumer at prices many times the producers' price have increased, and the small quota accorded to Greece in practice cancels out the entitlement to plant a further 3 000 hectares provided for in the new regulation.
Since olive oil is a basic product and the main source of income for farmers from the most disadvantaged regions in Greece and is also a staple of the Mediterranean diet, will the Commission say what measures it intends to take to protect olive oil cultivation and producers' incomes so as to enable them to stay on the land and when it intends to act?
Does it intend to increase the quota in order to cover existing production and the volume of production expected to result from the new plantations?
Will it reintroduce the institution of intervention, but improved as far as prices and the date of commencement are concerned? Finally, will it draw up and implement an integrated and effective policy to promote and advertise olive oil both in the EU countries and in third countries, so that olive oil can occupy the place to which it is entitled - according to scientific findings - in the human diet?
Second part
Questions to Mr Solbes
One of the greatest benefits of the question time arrangement is the way in which it endows me with instant expertise on issues as far apart as fishing, olive oil and human rights in China!
I am happy to respond to Mr Korakas.
In June 1998, the Commission undertook to present a proposal on the future of the common organisation of the market in olive oil to the Council and Parliament in 2000.
The new regime would apply from the 2001/2002 marketing year which, as the honourable Member will know, begins on 1 November 2001.
The Commission is currently studying new data on the structure of olive oil production in the various producer Member States, as well as developments in the world market where the Community is the leading producer by a considerable margin.
The study will also take into account the need to draw up an olive oil quality strategy in order to add more value to the product.
As far as product promotion is concerned, the Community is already financing promotion campaigns through the International Olive Oil Council.
Those campaigns appear to have a positive effect within the European Union and indeed in third countries.
In response to a specific issue raised by the honourable Member's question, I have to point out that the produce of new plantings would not give entitlement to aid.
However, the Commission hopes that the Community producers concerned will benefit fully under derogations from the rules as they relate to approved planting programmes, although the olive oil in question would count towards the maximum guaranteed quantity which has already been set.
Finally, the Commission wishes to point out that rather than simply abolishing the intervention system, what has actually happened is that it has been replaced by a system of private storage which is more flexible than the intervention system because it applies throughout the marketing year if the market situation calls for such support.
Since the start of the 1998/99 marketing year, it has not been necessary to pay private storage aid.
However, it is worth emphasising that over that same period the old buying-in intervention system would not have been activated either.
Mr President, we do indeed appear to be having problems understanding each other in this Chamber.
Because of the policies of the European Union, olive oil producers are truly at the mercy of big producers who negotiate among themselves and try to buy olive oil at unbelievably low prices. This situation has reached dramatic proportions with the abolition of the albeit downgraded intervention system and the system of private storage, let me assure you is, quite frankly, a joke.
So how are we to deal with this situation?
Will an improved intervention system providing rudimentary protection for producers be reintroduced? And given that, on a global scale, olive oil is so important to the human body and plays such an important role in maintaining farming populations in disadvantaged areas, why is it that the quotas, particularly for Greece, are so low?
Are you going to increase them?
And with the widespread practice of mixing olive oil with sunflower seed oil, what does the Commission intend to do to put a stop to this practice, which is harming producers and consumers to the benefit of industrial racketeers? In this spirit, does the Commission believe that this phenomenon can be tackled through guile, i.e., by increasing the quota for Italy, which is the main country responsible for mixing oil, and reducing the quota for Greece?
I am grateful to the honourable Member and I know of the deep concerns he voices. They certainly are communicated in this House and he does it in a most articulate fashion.
All I can say to him at this juncture, because I know this is a matter of continuing concern and activity by him, is that the CMO for olive oil is due to be reformed, as I indicated earlier, by 1 November 2001, following agreement in the Council and in this Parliament in adopting Regulation 1638/98.
I cannot assume that if the situation were precisely as the honourable Member describes, and smaller producers were in a dangerously disadvantaged position by comparison with the big producers, there would have been such agreement in the Council and in this House.
Therefore, I hope he will give attention to the results of the studies I mentioned being undertaken at the moment by the Commission, both in terms of the general questions he raised when he submitted his question and also in terms of the relative fortunes of big producers and small producers.
Finally, as someone who is merely a consumer of olive oil, I hope there is no extensive dilution of what is one of my favourite complementary foodstuffs and that, whatever else we do in the European Community, we strive together with olive oil producers of all sizes to maintain the maximum quality.
That is how we sustain our considerable lead in world markets.
Thank you very much, Mr Kinnock, for your cooperation during this Question Time.
We also congratulate you for using olive oil, which is very good for the health.
I also say this from a Mediterranean standpoint.
Question No 37 by (H-0409/00):
Subject: Further integration entailed by EMU In the Commission's estimation, to what extent do the requirements imposed by EMU on economic policy - which include permanently fixed exchange rates - create the need for further economic integration in the form of a more extensive common budget (a common fiscal policy), cyclical transfers between Member States, increased labour mobility between the participating states and/or a more flexible labour market?
The introduction of the euro will increase economic integration and reinforce the positive effects of the single market, primarily by eliminating the risks relating to exchange rates.
There are also other factors. There is greater transparency in prices, an improvement in competition and an increase in trade and investment both cross-border and also between other countries or areas affected by monetary union.
At the same time, as the common monetary policy will mean the same interest rate for all Member States of the monetary union, it will not only have an effect in terms of developing demand, but it will also mean greater integration of the financial markets.
This should also bring benefits for savers and investors.
For this to have the greatest positive effect, it is essential that we carry out a policy of rationalised public finances, which will not generate tensions in monetary policy itself, and at the same time, a decisive policy of structural reforms and a competition policy, which will allow the maximum benefit to be drawn from the process.
In order for economic and monetary union to function successfully, we do not need a major budget which will allow cyclical transfers in the event of difficulties.
I believe that the Treaty, supplemented by the Stability and Growth Pact, provides adequate instruments to implement an economic policy which is compatible with a unified monetary policy.
The basic framework which we have introduced is a framework of mutual supervision of national fiscal policies and of coordination of economic policies by means of processes to improve our structural situations and the coordination or creation of a positive macroeconomic environment which will favour growth and employment, and at the same time reduce the possibility of asymmetric clashes caused by economic policies.
Budgetary consolidation itself, which is, of course, the reduction of the public deficit, gives each Member State room to act in adverse situations.
Greater labour mobility may certainly help to confront the problems which may arise in the event of asymmetric clashes.
Both an increase in the available work force and an improvement in productivity would improve the situation in terms of creating jobs and helping to reduce unemployment.
That is why we attach particular importance to labour mobility.
The Commission has therefore insisted on its various strategies regarding the specific point of labour mobility, while remaining aware that this is a difficult issue.
It is difficult within Member States and it is difficult between one Member State and another, due not only to historical and cultural incompatibilities in terms of education, but also to a series of other aspects related to this type of situation.
Finally, I would say that clearly these difficulties which are being considered - and which may arise in the future - will surely be much less serious than those which have been brought up in theory by people who study monetary union, given that - and this is our experience to date - we are seeing an approximation of the economic policies of the countries and we have created room, in monetary terms, for us to confront difficulties more easily than in the past.
Thank you very much for your answer which, up to a point, contains many of the features I had expected.
I should like to follow up your answer and ask you what is meant by saying that the euro project will not be a success unless there is a large budget which can cope with fluctuations in the trade cycle. What kind of large budget?
Is it a large EU budget which is being considered? I should also like to hear whether it can be imagined continuing with a policy based upon recommendations and exhortations to the euro zone countries.
For example, Denmark has, in fact, on a number of occasions disregarded recommendations from the Commission.
Is this state of affairs to be accepted in the long term or will the Stability and Growth Pact be followed up and a stable environment ensured for EMU by adopting working methods of a type different from those involving recommendations and exhortations?
In your reply - or comment - I note two implicit questions.
Firstly, a major budget is essential to tackle the cyclical difficulties. This would lead us into a very complex debate.
The problems are not caused by clashes themselves, but by asymmetric clashes; asymmetric clashes differ depending on whether they are temporary or permanent, whether they relate to supply or demand.
We have little experience to help us define a typology and lay down a single formula for resolving these difficulties by budgetary means.
We believe that it is a much better idea to establish a general framework of economic health, of good economic behaviour, which will allow us to confront the difficulties in the case in question.
In the future we will continue with recommendations to comply with the stability and growth pact.
I do not know whether it is a good or a bad thing, but that is our obligation as the Commission.
This is an agreement adopted by the Council of Ministers as a result of initiatives by certain Member States and which I also support, since I believe that a good budgetary policy provides greater room for manoeuvre in the event of difficulties.
Earlier I referred to the fact that the situation is different in each of the Member States.
In this year' s recommendations we have taken particular account of the Commission' s own analyses regarding what the margins are, and which benchmarks we are setting in each of the Member States to tackle the crisis without exceeding the 3% public deficit, which is the figure we have established as a reference.
We can see that that situation is different in each of the countries and, therefore, our recommendations and our comments will always be different in each of the countries, although this is not the only aspect that we take into consideration.
Mr President, the current weakness and volatility of the euro is a cause of concern both within and outside the euro-zone.
Does the Commissioner feel that the current stability pact and the powers of the European Central Bank are sufficient to force the Euro-land states to make the difficult and fundamental adjustments in their economic and labour markets, which are essential if the euro is going to be taken seriously by the global financial markets?
I do not see any great correlation between the two questions, but I do note that the euro is being taken seriously.
What has happened with the euro? There are many technical explanations as to why we are in this situation.
This would require a broader debate, focussing on the starting point, which is the development of economic forecasts and the real economies of each of the areas. It would also clearly concern changes in interest rates and certain other technical elements, such as expiry dates for certain types of issues etc.
The reality is that, by analysing the euro on the basis, fundamentally, of the evolution of the exchange rate, we are making an incorrect evaluation of its introduction.
The euro has been a great success, in terms of its introduction, in terms of issuing it as a currency, in terms of the consolidation of an excellent economic situation in Europe and in terms of the forecasts for the future.
It is true that the interest rate is not what we would have liked.
We believe that a strong economy means a strong euro.
We also believe that the development of growth in Europe will be strong throughout 2000 and, as a result, we will match US growth by the end of this year.
In these circumstances, we believe that the value of the euro will be rising in the coming months.
Therefore, despite a certain degree of concern - because that concern exists within public opinion - about the evolution of the euro, we believe that this situation will be corrected and that it should be considered to be temporary rather than permanent.
Mr President, in my opinion, the supplementary question by Mr Purvis was most pertinent, since recently the need for increased economic cooperation amongst the EMU countries has been justified by precisely this weakening of the value of the euro in relation to the US dollar.
The reason for the dollar becoming stronger in comparison to the euro is simply that the national economy of the USA is stronger than that of the euro countries.
Hundreds of thousands of new jobs have recently been created in the USA, while the number of jobs in Europe has been cut.
I would like to ask the Commissioner firstly, whether the Commission admits that the weakening of the euro that has been much thrashed out in public, is a consequence of the infrastructural problems and lack of dynamism of the EU economy, particularly in relation to the USA, and whether he really believes that the kind of Keynesian action as proposed by Mrs Frahm would be the cure for this weakening of the euro, and whether he believes that the Commission will achieve better results in this matter, when the national governments of France and Germany have actually proceeded in the totally opposite direction, and their actions have weakened even further the competitiveness of the euro area.
As an example, I refer here to the decisions made by the French Government on working hours.
I will try to reply briefly, although these are complex questions and I will therefore have to give this point some attention.
Firstly, with regard to increasing cooperation in terms of coordinating economic policies, I believe that it is necessary and positive and is one of the elements which is emerging from this current crisis.
The French President has highlighted this and it will obviously be a point for debate during the next presidency.
I do not agree with the theory that the euro' s development is leading to a fall in employment in Europe and an increase in employment in the USA.
Transfers of capital may generate additional activity in the United States, but the positive increase in exports is generating activity in Europe.
It would require a very complex and profound debate to deal with this issue.
In any event, what I do believe - as I said earlier - is that the euro, at the moment, has an exchange rate which, if we analyse it in relation to its components and its historical situation, is not that different from situations which have existed at other times.
I am convinced that this is a transitional situation which will improve during this year.
Question No 38 by (H-0419/00):
Subject: Precarious employment and the industrial-accident rate in Spain and in the Murcia region At the Lisbon Summit, a commitment was made to achieving full employment in proper jobs throughout the EU.
In response to the French Government' s proposal involving a reduction in working hours in order to create more proper, stable jobs, the approach agreed between the Spanish and UK Governments, which calls for further deregulation of employment conditions in order to increase the number of jobs, has been adopted.
Spain' s experience over the last four years has demonstrated that jobs are indeed created but are predominantly casual and precarious in nature, and they are associated with a high rate of industrial accidents, the Murcia region being the part of Spain where that rate is highest.
Does the Commission not think that there is an urgent case for monitoring the conditions under which jobs are being created in the various EU countries and regions, so as to ensure that job-creation is not at the expense of the stability and dignity of workers and especially of young people entering the job market for the first time?
Questions to Mr Verheugen
Mr President, despite the fact that I was born next to the Murcia region, it is difficult for me to analyse, in Community terms, the problems of the precarious employment there.
Therefore, allow me to make a rather more general comment.
The assessment of the labour market reforms which have resulted from the processes we have established in the Union - the Luxembourg process and the broad guidelines for economic policy - demonstrates that the reforms of the regulations on the labour market in the different countries are making a positive and significant contribution to greater economic growth and to promoting the creation of employment and the greater participation of men and women in the labour market.
The broad guidelines of economic policy and the recommendations for employment have never advocated a simple deregulation of the labour market, as the question states.
Together with the reform of certain labour market regulations, they also include, for example, the need to adopt measures which will promote entrepreneurial spirit or active labour market policies - and we state this quite deliberately - to improve employment opportunities.
The measures adopted in each Member State must be adapted to the problems and reality of each of them.
It is also quite normal for the Commission to insist on the need to hold debates and make agreements with social partners so that they may actively participate in the changes to the labour market in each country.
As well as a significant and lasting increase in the levels of employment, one of the key priorities of the employment strategy is to improve the quality of jobs.
The recent Lisbon Summit gave a new impulse to the Union' s economic and social agenda and we have also insisted on this point by talking of more and better employment.
I would also like to highlight, as a fundamental contribution to the consolidation of the progress made until now, the promotion and maintenance of rigorous regulations on health and safety at work, which has been one of the most prominent issues in the debate held in the Commission, which advocates better jobs in Europe.
Labour market reforms directed at improving employment opportunities and workers' ability to adapt to these new opportunities in no way seek to undermine working conditions or health and safety at work.
In accordance with its legal competence as laid down in the Treaty, the Commission has kept up the necessary efforts to implement and propose various legal instruments and monitor the incorporation of the acquis communautaire in this area.
With regard to your specific question and the case of Spain, it is Spain' s responsibility, like the other Members, to apply the Commission' s directives.
It is also the responsibility of the Member States to monitor the application of these directives in all of their regions.
The Commission must guarantee that those directives are transposed into national law correctly and, clearly, to monitor all the issues relating to its application, which is the responsibility of the national authorities.
I am grateful to Mr Solbes for the intention behind his reply, which is to safeguard and show concern for worker' s conditions.
Nevertheless, the political analysis of the Lisbon Summit reveals that there were two proposals: one which was more social, more committed, which came from the French Prime Minister, Mr Jospin, and the other, resulting from a previous agreement between Mr Blair and Mr Aznar, deregulating the labour market and making it more flexible. The latter proposal won the day.
If we take Spain as an example, it is clear that job instability, temporary employment and work accidents are on the increase.
Do you not therefore believe that it would be appropriate, in the review of the Treaty of Amsterdam, to incorporate the Social Charter with specific instruments and measures, as occurred with the five classic points of the Treaty of Maastricht, in order to guarantee full employment and employment quality and that it therefore not be left to the whim of each of the countries?
By way of clarification, reference has been made to the number of work accidents in Murcia because it has such a sad record within Spain; that is why we are concerned.
I imagined that was the reason for the reference to Murcia, and not the fact that I was born next to that province.
With regard to the basic problem, I would make a different comment.
Our concern has always been not only greater employment but also greater quality of employment.
In the broad guidelines for economic policy for this year, and in the specific recommendation for Spain, we expressly refer to the need for the problems to be analysed, amongst them the cost of dismissal, which may be important with regard to temporary employment, because we believe that a distinction should be made between precariousness and flexibility, which are two very different things.
Nevertheless, you introduced a second element in your supplementary question which, in my opinion, is of great interest: Why do we not establish the objective of full employment in the same way that we established the objectives of the Treaty of Maastricht at the time? Basically because they are two completely different types of figure.
At Maastricht, what we put in place was compliance with obligations dependent on voluntary decisions adopted by the Member States which form the European Union.
In the case of full employment, the figure is the consequence of measures which are intended to achieve an objective, but which do not have a causal relationship which guarantees its objective.
What we can consider is what is being done in the various employment programmes, and that is the implementation of certain elements which will allow us to move towards full employment.
When we spoke of full employment in the Commission document which served as a basis for the debate in Lisbon, we expressly said that if we add the development of the economy in accordance with currently available figures to the various determining factors and policies proposed by the Commission, full employment will be achieved.
However, this cannot be a political objective, as in Maastricht, because it does not depend on the will of the different governments or on a specific decision by each one of them.
I would like to say that, in order to judge from afar, it is often necessary to understand the reality.
In the countries of the Southern Mediterranean, and specifically in the region of Murcia, they have, in recent years, stopped managing unemployment and started to manage employment.
They have moved from an extraordinary and terrifying level of unemployment, originating in the great state industries whose economic model was unsustainable, through a crisis and then to a situation involving the growth of small businesses (SMBs) and economic incentives which have generated a new and vibrant model.
However, it is clear that accidents in the workplace - which I am now talking about - are a problem of education and mutual responsibility on the part of businessmen, the state, public administration and, of course, trade unions.
Unless they all work in unison, they will not achieve this objective.
In Spain, back in 1995, a law was adopted in this respect, and they are trying to comply with it, but this cannot be achieved in a day.
Therefore, Commissioner, firstly, what active policies and which economic sectors do you intend to bring into play in order to achieve better education in this particular area, so that a sense of responsibility may be developed?
Secondly and very specifically: is there any programme to educate immigrants in the language of their host country, so that we can educate them to understand the minimum safety standards in this region which is host to many immigrants who do not speak our language?
Thank you for your comments.
With regard to your questions, I will say again that the distribution of responsibilities between the Commission and the Member States dictates that these matters fall to the Member States.
Consequently, both the funding of these immigrant education programmes and the active policies are decisions which logically depend on which social policy the Spanish Government accepts or decides on.
Question No 39 by (H-0352/00):
Subject: Adaptation of the applicant countries Will the Commission indicate the total number of documents that have been sent to the applicant countries as well as the total volume of the 'acquis' and will it consider forms of cooperation that do not require the applicant countries to accept every rule?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the entire Community acquis, i.e. all the legal acts of the European Union without exception were sent to the candidate countries immediately after the resolution of the Luxembourg European Council in December 1997, during the course of screening.
No-one has ever counted them and I cannot therefore tell you how many there are.
We usually talk of just over 20 000 legal acts in this context.
Mr President, there is not very much to thank the Commission for.
I find it completely incomprehensible that there should be an institution which is unable to put together elementary statistics concerning the existing rules, which is unable to add up how much money is being sent to the candidate countries, which is unable to provide some general numerical information so that ordinary people can follow what is happening and which is unable to supply the total acquis on a CD-Rom to anyone who might be interested in it.
It is really quite simple. I have worked on it for a good many years.
It is completely impossible even for organisations with academic employees to find out how extensive the 'acquis' is, and it is apparently impossible for Mr Vanhengen to give the entire acquis to a Member of the European Parliament who is quite prepared to go through it and distribute the tasks among the different employees in order to see what positions are to be adopted on its various aspects.
So there is nothing to thank the Commission for.
Mr President, Commissioner, the acquis is, of course, an important basis for accession. Can you tell us how acquis screening is proceeding in your view?
With which candidate countries has most progress been made? Which chapters have been completed?
Chancellor Schröder recently stated in a press conference that the first admissions will probably be in 2002.
How do you assess the scenario if the legal inventory is completed in optimum time? What do you think is the earliest possible date for accession if optimum use is made of all deadlines and options?
I can tell the honourable Member that screening - i.e. legislative adjustment - was of course completed with all candidates some time ago.
It is updated now and again because the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission are not idle and continue to produce legal acts, meaning that the acquis changes.
This amended acquis must, of course, be included in negotiations.
But this happens on a regular basis.
The screening process has therefore been completed with all candidates.
Your question is based on a misunderstanding.
Screening is not the same as negotiation, screening is merely an adjustment process.
Screening is used merely to identify the acquis of the European Union and how much of it already forms part of the candidate country' s legislation and how much does not.
That has been done.
Now you want to know how far negotiations have proceeded overall.
I know that for the Luxembourg group of countries, with which negotiations started in March 1998, between 10 and 15 out of a total of 31 negotiating chapters have been provisionally completed.
A few more will be completed during the Portuguese presidency.
But more important than the number of chapters completed is probably the number of chapters opened.
By the end of the Portuguese presidency, all 29 chapters will be on the negotiating table for the Luxembourg group of countries.
Only the chapters entitled "Institutions" and "Miscellaneous" are still closed for obvious reasons.
They come at the end.
With the Helsinki group of countries, negotiations did not start until February of this year.
Between 5 and 8 chapters will be opened for these countries during the Portuguese presidency.
Indeed, I think that we will be able to provisionally close a whole series of chapters by the end of the Portuguese presidency, but we cannot yet forecast how many with any degree of accuracy.
In all events, the process is proceeding apace.
It is quite impossible to forecast when the negotiating process will be completed and when the first accessions will take place.
There have been intensive discussions on this over recent weeks and months.
The Commission stated quite clearly in Helsinki that an accession scenario could not be developed until all the information needed was available.
We need to clarify if the Union itself is ready for accession, i.e. if the institutional reforms have been completed, how far negotiations have progressed and, most importantly, and this will be the most difficult exercise at the end, if a candidate country is judged to be in a position to really apply and implement the acquis it has adopted.
As things stand today, I am bound to say that we cannot forecast when such a scenario will be ready.
I have said on many occasions that I would like it to be ready by the end of this year, at the Nice summit.
But whether or not that will be possible will only become apparent in the autumn of this year once we have the up-to-date progress reports on preparations for accession for each individual candidate country.
Mr President, Commissioner, my question does not concern the timetable; instead I would like to ask a question regarding a principle of enlargement.
The process of enlargement is expected to be a truly demanding one, in which there is a danger that we either become frustrated by long waiting times or compromise over the criteria by granting overlong transition periods, which will naturally cause displeasure in the old Member States.
An arrangement such as the EEA agreement may be regarded as a solution of the past, but I would nevertheless like to ask, whether the Commission could, even in principle, consider a possible solution along the lines of the EEA agreement - not as it stands but of that nature - to be used as some sort of ' hatchery' or incubator for the new Member States prior to actual membership, instead of the applicant countries having to wait for long periods of time before permanent membership becomes a reality.
I would further like to ask, whether the Commission shares the view that this kind of arrangement, along the lines of the EEA agreement, could considerably reduce the costs of enlargement and promote the economic development of the applicant countries. I hope this question was not an improper one at this time.
Madam, what you wish to engage in now is a hypothetical discussion.
This discussion was held in the first half of the 1990s and it culminated in resolutions of which you are aware, which were discussed on several occasions in Parliament and which can no longer be made retroactive, namely the resolution of the European Councils of Copenhagen, Essen and Luxembourg to prepare the Central and Eastern European Countries and Cyprus and Malta for full membership.
There is no point today in debating whether or not there might have been an alternative.
In any case, it is my recollection that the candidates were not satisfied with anything less.
They would not have accepted less and would have seen it as discrimination, meaning that, in Luxembourg in 1997, there was no longer any realistic alternative to the resolution taken in any case.
There is not a single country involved in the process which takes the view that we should depart from this objective of full membership.
If there were, I would know about it.
But there is not.
All 12 countries with which we are negotiating are seriously working towards the goal of full membership and I urgently advise you against opening a debate on changing the fundamental objectives of enlargement now that the process has begun.
The candidates will only see it as a serious breach of trust.
Question No 40 by (H-0388/00):
Subject: Eastward enlargement: transitional arrangements regarding the free movement of services Negotiations with the first group of applicant states (the 'Luxembourg group' ) on the free movement of services have reached a provisional conclusion.
What transitional arrangements have been agreed to date? What effects does the Commission expect these to have on small businesses and self-employed craft workers, particularly in the regions bordering on the applicant states?
Questions to Mr Monti
Mrs Müller, the question is based on an erroneous premise.
The chapter entitled "Free movement of services" has not been provisionally completed with any candidate country.
Nor do I expect this chapter to be completed with any country in the immediate future.
Mr President, it is certainly correct to say, Mr Verheugen, that the chapter has not been completed, but negotiations have started.
However what I am interested in is this: Have transitional arrangements in the area of the free movement of services been applied for during these negotiations?
You know, I am from a border region and I know exactly what the situation is on the ground.
I am convinced that medium-sized companies and the craft industry will face huge problems and enormous challenges when it comes to the free movement of services, because there is a huge wage differential of 1:10 at present.
You yourself know full well which industries are affected.
Is there any intention on the European side to apply for transitional arrangements in the area of the free movement of services? The Czech Republic has already applied for transition periods for the acquisition of land by foreigners and this will have an impact on services.
What is your position on the transition periods which the Czech Republic has applied for and what is the Commission' s position in general on this point?
Mr President, Mrs Müller, I assume that you know that accession negotiations take the form of a state conference at which the Member States, not the Commission, negotiate and I am not therefore entitled to divulge the content of negotiations which have not yet been completed.
I would gladly do so, but I am not allowed to.
However, I can still answer the question, because the Commission naturally has an opinion on the points which you raised.
First, the Commission takes the view that transition periods should only be considered during the enlargement process if the aim of enlargement cannot otherwise be achieved within the required time or by the required date.
Transition periods must be very, very limited in both scope and duration, especially where the internal market is at stake.
You must know that every transition period, irrespective of whom it benefits, suspends the internal market for that area.
And if a large number of transition periods are agreed, then we can forget the whole idea of the internal market for years to come.
That cannot be the meaning of enlargement.
The question which you actually want answered is the question of how we can prepare for the problems which will arise in certain border regions following enlargement.
The region which you come from and the region which I come from are just such regions.
I have discussed this matter on many occasions in your country, as you know, and so I can be brief.
I think that there may well be transition periods in relation to the free movement of workers, which is the really difficult question.
But we have not yet reached that point.
In the area of the free movement of services, which will lead to stiffer competition in border regions, I think that we need to start preparing an action programme right now, particularly so that small and medium-sized enterprises in border regions will be capable of adapting to and withstanding this new competition.
When, a few weeks ago, I once again read the Commission' s progress report on Lithuania, it occurred to me that the progress reports are being produced as if it were the previous enlargement we were talking about, that is to say the enlargement which took place before the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force.
The Social Chapter is the corollary and counterpart of free movement of services and labour mobility.
My question is about whether the forthcoming progress reports will, to a greater degree than the previous reports, take account of employment and of the Social Chapter, which is now a part of our 'acquis' . I believe, in fact, that we can succeed in enlarging the Union if we combine these two aspects: firstly, the free movement of services and employees and, secondly, more equal conditions when it comes to the dialogue between employers and employees.
The Social Chapter is, in fact, a part of our common regulations, with which the candidate States must also comply.
I would like to remind MEPs in general that questions during Question Time must be specific questions on specific issues, which lead to specific answers.
Everything else must take place during the normal debates of the parliamentary committees, because, otherwise, the MEPs who are due to follow will not be able to put their questions.
Having given this general warning, I give the floor to the Commissioner.
Mr President, to be honest, the underlying question was how many legal acts does the European Union have.
Now I am being asked to answer a supplementary question which very specifically concerns one candidate country.
I really cannot see the connection between these two questions, except that both relate to enlargement.
However, if you take the view that there is a connection, then I am prepared to answer the question and am able to do so.
All the acquis is taken into consideration in the progress reports on the candidate countries.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights cannot be taken into consideration because it is not yet ready.
It is only now being drafted and its legal status has not yet been recognised.
I know no better than you if this Charter will become part of the Treaty or if it will be no more than a solemn declaration.
If this Charter should become part of the Treaty, it will of course be taken into account in future progress reports and we shall report on how the details of this Charter are being taken into account in the individual countries concerned.
We must also report in the progress reports - as you will have noticed - as to whether a country is complying with the Copenhagen criteria.
That basically answers the questions, because the political criteria of Copenhagen basically cover everything which will appear in this Charter of Fundamental Rights and these questions have also been answered in relation to Lithuania and will be answered in the next progress report on Lithuania.
Mrs Thors is raising a point of order.
I wish to point out that I was not earlier referring to Mrs Thors, but to all MEPs, but you have the floor.
I would ask you not to enter into a debate with the Commissioner.
Commissioner, I just want to clarify matters as there seems to be very bad interpretation - I was not talking about the Charter of Fundamental Rights but about the Social Charter including the rights of workers.
These include working conditions which I think are a corollary to the movement of services. What are the conditions under which services are provided?
What are the conditions under which people are working? That is the corollary of free movement.
Mr President, I did indeed hear the words Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Of course, the Social Charter forms part of the Treaty and is therefore negotiated with all candidate countries.
It forms part of the Community acquis.
We report on how the individual candidate countries are preparing to apply the acquis, i.e. to apply the Social Charter.
I am not at the moment in a position to tell you exactly how things stand with Lithuania in particular, but I would be more than happy to give you a written reply specifically on Lithuania and the Social Charter.
Commissioner, we were in fact discussing the matter of transition periods.
I should like to ask what your position is on the wishes of Poland and the Czech Republic to introduce long transition periods for two areas of concern to them, namely the free acquisition of land, including farmland, and the freedom of establishment. These are two very fundamental points and I should like to know what the Commission or your position is on this.
I also wanted to ask you what you think about linking transition periods in the Member States and the candidate countries in the sort of package deal that is constantly being discussed.
On the first question, I should like to say that the Member States still have no negotiating position on this question, nor is there any Commission draft on it.
My own personal opinion is irrelevant.
In any case, I cannot explain it to the European Parliament until the institutions have formed their own opinion.
As far as linking transition periods is concerned, this happens automatically.
We shall have a so-called "play off" at the end of the negotiations between the wishes which the Member States still have and the wishes which the candidates have.
Basically their wishes concern transition periods.
Irrespective of whether or not that is what it is formally called, you can imagine how this sort of negotiation process proceeds.
It will be a negotiation and one of the principles of negotiation is that one side makes a concession so that the other side also makes a concession and an overall compromise must be found in the end which takes accounts of the wishes of both sides.
Highly specific packages - if that was your question - whereby we also say: we are linking the wish for transition periods on the one side to the wish for transition periods on the other side are not feasible in my opinion.
I should draw your attention to the fact that the question of transition periods in relation to the free movement of workers, for example, only gives cause for concern in two of the fifteen Member States.
It is a German problem and it is an Austrian problem.
It is not a problem for the other thirteen which is why I cannot predict exactly how this issue will be handled in the final stage of negotiations.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner, for your replies.
Questions Nos 41 and 42 will be replied to in writing.
Mr Titley has the floor for a point of order.
- Mr President, you realise this is the second month running you have done this to me - cut me off as my question was coming up.
Yet you have allowed speakers to speak for over one minute including a rather long and pointless dialogue about the merits of Murcia.
Also in the rules as I recall, you are only allowed to take one supplementary question per political group and these rules are being broken and as a consequence, for the second week running, I miss out on a question.
I think it is absolutely outrageous and I will be writing to the President to complain.
Mr Titley, I will reply briefly so as not to inconvenience the other MEPs.
I am not getting at you.
What has happened is that the 20 minutes devoted to Mr Verheugen have run out and it is now Mr Monti' s turn to reply, and he has been waiting some time.
With regard to the Rules of Procedure, I must tell you that there are two supplementary questions, not one.
Please read the Rules of Procedure. There are two questions.
I am not going to get into a debate.
You may write the letter you mentioned and you will receive a polite and full reply, but please do not worry since my intention was to give you the floor within the time allotted.
Question No 43 by (H-0354/00):
Subject: Applications by Member States regarding state aids Is the Commission happy about the speed with which it deals with applications by Member States to provide state aids?
The time-limits for the Commission to take a decision on aid projects notified by a Member State are laid down in Council Regulation 659/1999.
In most cases the Commission can close the examination of the notified aid project after the preliminary examination, that is without opening a formal investigation.
Such decisions must be taken within two months following the receipt of a complete notification.
In practice, notifications are frequently incomplete so that the Commission is forced to request additional information before it can take a decision.
In order to further reduce this type of unnecessary delay, the Commission has prepared detailed standard notification forms for certain types of aid - regional, training, R&D, etc. and will continue to do so where appropriate.
When doubts are raised about the compatibility of an aid project with the common market, the Commission must open a formal investigation for which the regulation provides an indicative time-limit of 18 months.
The Commission would certainly prefer to be able to reduce this time-limit.
However, this seems at present not feasible for different reasons.
Firstly, considerable time is needed for translation and publication of the decision, for third parties to submit observations and for the Member States to comment on these observations.
Secondly, the cases for which a formal investigation is opened are usually very complex and therefore require a longer period of examination, often also involving meetings with the Member State concerned and modifications to the original project.
Nevertheless, the Commission considers that given the absence of any time-limit for the formal investigation procedure before the regulation, the regulation has already brought some progress.
The Commission is also considering new ways of improving the efficiency and speed of state aid procedures.
In this regard, the group exemption regulations, which are currently being prepared for aid to SMEs - training aid and de minimis aid - should be mentioned.
Once they are in force, Member States will no longer need to notify aid projects complying with the conditions of the exemption regulations but can grant the aid immediately.
This will considerably simplify state aid procedures.
I wish to thank the Commissioner for that very full answer and, in particular, for the last part where he indicates that the Commission is looking at speeding up and, where possible, giving fast-track approval for state aids.
However, in some Member States there is still a serious problem created by delays in decision-taking on state aids.
I am convinced that some jobs have been lost because waiting for the decision on state aid has meant that a company has gone out of business in the end because it did not have the approval in time.
In terms of the delay, is the Commission of the opinion that the reorganisation that is currently going on will provide new resources and assistance to him in his attempts to speed up the processing of state aids, or does the problem lie, as he partly indicated, with the Member States in the inadequate information provided by some of them when they make an application?
As you know, Mr Martin, we are working in a number of directions concerning state aid and in order to make state aid control more stringent.
As to time limits, there are no plans to change the time limits in the near future.
The deadlines are laid down in a Council regulation, which for the first time codifies state aid procedures, and since that regulation was only adopted in 1999 it is not likely to be modified in the near future.
However, we are prepared and indeed willing to try to speed up certain aspects of the decision-making wherever possible, for example preparing the standard notification forms.
You mentioned the problem of resources.
Of course, this is a key problem for the whole of the competition policy activities and that includes state aid.
The better the quality of information provided to begin with by Member States in their notifications, the more likely it is that the process will be smooth and conducted in a relatively short time scale.
Question No 44 by (H-0355/00):
Subject: State aids to nuclear power Given that the electricity market came into effect in February last, subjecting all electricity production to the rules of the internal market, and that the nuclear common market under Article 92 of the Euratom Treaty does not include electricity as a product, does the Commission agree that electricity generated using nuclear energy is now subject to the same internal market rules as all other forms of electricity? Does the Commission therefore consider that all state aids to the nuclear industry are prohibited by the EC Treaty, given that no derogation is specified, and that Article 98 of the Euratom Treaty does not provide for a subsidised accident insurance scheme for nuclear risks?
In this context what proposals, if any, has the Commission made to the UK Government concerning their NFFO system under Article 87 of the EC Treaty?
Can the Commission now confirm that it is investigating state aids to the nuclear industry as requested by the Green/EFA Group in its letter to Commissioner Monti of 10 March?
Mr President, the Commission shares the opinion of the honourable Member to the effect that the liberalisation of the electricity market affects all types of electricity, including electricity generated using nuclear energy.
The Commission considers that there are no grounds for interpreting the EC or the Euratom Treaty as necessarily prohibiting all state aids to the nuclear industry.
The Euratom Treaty does not include any clauses specifically prohibiting state aid.
Moreover, while Articles 87 and 88 of the EC Treaty do provide for a general principle prohibiting state aids, they also authorise specific categories of state aid.
It would only be possible to determine the incompatibility of aid following specific investigation of each case.
The Commission has not made any proposals to the UK Government on the subject of the NFFO system in application of Article 88 of the EC Treaty.
As regards any existing aid to the nuclear industry, the Commission is not undertaking any systematic investigation.
If, however, cases of incompatible aid are brought to the attention of the Commission, such cases will be dealt with in compliance with the terms of the relevant articles of the EC and Euratom Treaties.
Commissioner, thank you for your response, but I must admit I find it hard to grasp the logic of it.
On the one hand, regarding state aid to the environment, you expect to implement a very thorough analysis of the subsidies to renewable energies even though it is clear that, for the time being, this sector is at a disadvantage due to the internalisation of costs.
In other words, the market share of renewable energies within the current electricity market is barely 5%.
Alongside that, nuclear energy amounts to 30% of the market but in this case you do not plan any systematic investigation.
I do not therefore see how we can possibly understand this, if the logic of your energy policy is supposed to be fair, treating all forms of electricity production alike.
I must therefore ask you to justify your position since, as far as I am concerned, and also many others, most especially the renewable energy industry, it is a position which is extremely difficult to comprehend.
Thank you, Mr Turmes.
I am very aware of environmental requirements, as I was even in the previous Commission, when I proposed the directive on the taxation of energy products, and I try to adopt the same approach in my activities within the Prodi Commission.
I very clearly understand your concern, but permit me some observations.
The proposed new framework for state aid to the environment is very flexible with regard to the granting of aid to renewable energies.
It authorises aid of at least 40% of eligible costs in the case of investment, and for operational aid the Member States are entitled to adopt a system authorising aid up to 100% of eligible costs.
I do not think, therefore, that you can accuse the Commission of banning aid to renewable energies.
There is some competition, again permit me the observation, not only between renewable energies as opposed to conventional energies, but also between the various forms of renewable energies.
Aid to these forms of energy may, moreover, vary according to the Member States.
Unregulated aid would therefore engender distortions of competition, which could have an adverse impact primarily on certain forms of renewable energy.
The Commission recognises that renewable energies may need support in order to be able to develop but, at the same time, it is also important for these forms of energy to adapt gradually to competitive markets in order to ensure their long-term development.
Question No 45 by (H-0383/00):
Subject: Financial aid given to the European nuclear industry What assessment has been made by the Commission of the financial aid given to the European nuclear industry - in the form of support for Euratom and the Joint Research Centres - in respect of competition policy on electricity production in the European Union?
Community action within the context of the Euratom Treaty complies with the provisions of the Treaty and relates, in particular, to the financing of the Commission's tasks: protection against radiation, monitoring safety and research.
As far as the latter is concerned, Community programmes for nuclear research are established by the Council which, pursuant to Article 7 of the Euratom Treaty, acts unanimously on Commission proposals.
In this context, the activities of the JRCs are intended, in conformance with its mission, to increase protection and nuclear safety, and in particular, provide scientific and technical assistance to the competent directorates-general.
Article 305 (ex Article 232) of the EC Treaty establishes that the provisions of this Treaty do not derogate from the Euratom Treaty.
This is particularly true in the case of the competition rules, which do not derogate from the framework established by the Euratom Treaty regarding Community nuclear research.
Therefore, the Community research policy under the Euratom Treaty does not contradict the competition rules laid down by the EC Treaty.
Commissioner, you have failed to answer my question.
I want to know what assessments you are making on financial aid.
This relates to the previous question by Mr Turmes as well and the answer you gave to that in respect of competition policy on electricity production in the EU.
I conclude from your answers both to my question and the previous one that here we have not just a white elephant in the nuclear industry in Europe but a holy cow.
You can provide state aids that are untouchable, even by a Commissioner as powerful as yourself!
But let me ask you what exactly is the situation?
You said that under the Treaties there are derogations - and you quoted the Euratom Treaty.
There is clearly a distortion between Member States because of the state aids.
Where exactly in the Treaty are the written permissions for these state aids? Could you elaborate on that please?
I shall try, Mrs Ahern.
First of all, if you allow me, I have here a note in French.
I should like to emphasise that the Commission does not rule out applying the rules of Community law on competition to public interventions in favour of nuclear electricity producers.
In its illustrative nuclear programme according to Article 40 of the Euratom Treaty, in particular, the Commission very clearly indicated that "Developments towards the liberalisation of the Community internal electricity market will mean that nuclear energy will have to compete in the same framework and under the same conditions as all other energy sources."
A full implementation of the internal market and a rigorous application of the relevant state aid and competition rules implies a level playing field for all energy sources.
Once this principle has been established, it is up to the Commission to investigate on an individual basis any allegations according to which the nuclear sector is in receipt of subsidies engendering unfair competition.
I may add that the services I am directly responsible for within the Commission are of the opinion that it is necessary to keep to a strict interpretation of the Treaty.
Competition rules are applicable to all electricity producers, including the nuclear sector, insofar as they do not depart from the terms of the Euratom Treaty.
I consider this position to be all the more justifiable since the directive liberalising the internal electricity market does not stipulate any specific rule for nuclear producers and does not make any distinctions on the grounds of the source of the electricity produced.
Commissioner, you say that neither the Treaty nor the directive on the internal electricity market stipulate any exemptions regarding subsidies to the nuclear sector.
On what part of the Treaty, then, is the exemption that you are still allowing the nuclear industry based? Articles 87 and 88 make no reference to nuclear energy.
So it is not very clear what your legal basis is for exemptions for electricity generated using nuclear energy.
I believe I have given you all the information available to the Commission on the subject.
I can add that, on the operational level, as indeed I think I said in response to your own question, Mr Turmes, on existing aid to the nuclear industry, the Commission is not undertaking a comprehensive investigation.
If, however, cases of incompatible aid are brought to our attention, then these cases will be dealt with in accordance with the terms of the two treaties.
I would further like to add that in the logical overall construction of the EC Treaty, the articles governing state aid, i.e. Articles 87 and 88, are not restricted to specific sectors.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 46 to 83 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Carbon dioxide emissions from new cars
The next item is the report (A5-0128/2000) by Mr González Alvarez, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a scheme to monitor the average specific emissions of CO2 from new passenger cars.
Mr President, there are few of us here at this time in the evening, but it is also true that this is the third time we have debated this report in the European Parliament.
On the first occasion, in December 1998, this report on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from new passenger cars was approved at first reading with 48 amendments.
Of those 48 amendments, the Council and Commission accepted some in their entirety and others only in part.
The report therefore returned for a second reading.
The Council had accepted certain amendments which we considered to be important, but there remained certain aspects of the report and the amendments approved unanimously in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy - and by a large majority in plenary session - which we also considered to be important and which had not been accepted.
We are basically talking about the inclusion, in this scheme to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from new cars, of lightweight industrial cars, which are used widely within cities and whose carbon dioxide emissions also pollute.
It also seemed to us that they had not included a guarantee of the quality of data.
For a scheme of this nature, rigour and comparability, in terms of the data collected by the governments, are essential.
It also seemed very important that we maintained something that was traditional in the positions of the Committee on the Environment: a certain degree of precaution in relation to voluntary agreements.
If we bear in mind that Community Law - directives and regulations - is often not complied with, it seems to us all the more unlikely that voluntary agreements will be complied with.
The Committee on the Environment had little faith in these voluntary agreements and another amendment asked for the establishment of a clear legal framework which would come into play in the event that the voluntary agreements failed.
They also finally accepted our concern that one of the paragraphs should not only mention the stabilisation of emissions, but also their reduction.
Another amendment which we felt was important concerned the dimensions of vehicles.
Mr President, in total, 10 amendments were approved by a substantial majority in this House and then not accepted by the Council, and we therefore had to embark on this conciliation procedure, which I must point out has been neither difficult nor controversial.
As its very name indicates, the conciliation procedures require each of the parties to give some ground so that a final agreement can be reached.
In this final agreement, our main concerns have been addressed.
It includes a study of the future inclusion of lightweight industrial vehicles, the possibility of shortly presenting a proposed legal framework and reviewing the data with a view to making them more rigorous and more or less equivalent in each of the countries.
In short, Parliament' s main concerns have been taken up, if not in an immediate and radical manner, at least to the extent that a commitment has been given to adopt decisions on this issue in the future.
The only amendment which was not accepted was the one relating to dimensions of vehicles.
Parliament continued to insist that this was very important because the more powerful and larger the vehicle, the greater its level of emissions, and we considered it important that this be included in one of the annexes.
However, bearing in mind that another six issues relating to the capacities and conditions of the vehicles have been accepted, we felt that we could not prolong the conciliation process any longer, particularly considering that we want this study on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from new passenger cars to be implemented immediately in each of the countries.
Finally, I believe that this is a reasonable agreement, which is neither Parliament' s nor the Council' s initial proposal.
Mr President, I believe that we will have no problem ensuring that this agreement is approved.
Mrs González Álvarez, conciliation processes vary in difficulty, I can assure you.
I am glad that this one has gone smoothly.
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me to start by congratulating Mrs González Álvarez.
She really is most persistent, because we had a very good report at second reading as it was, but she was determined to incorporate more proposed amendments and I really must congratulate her on succeeding in doing so.
Parliament has asserted itself against the Council once again.
The introduction of this sort of monitoring scheme is just one of the many steps on the path towards compliance with the Kyoto protocol.
Reducing greenhouse gases by 8% in comparison with 1990 is therefore the main objective between now and the year 2012.
The dramatic change in the climate has been noticeable here in Strasbourg over the past two days and is far greater than we assumed.
It will therefore come as no surprise if we adopt this report unanimously tomorrow, as will certainly be the case, and that the Council and Parliament have been able to find a common position so quickly.
This joint monitoring scheme is the first of its kind and I think that its success or failure will decide whether or not we opt to introduce other similar schemes.
We have taken recourse to a three-part strategy in order to reduce CO2 emissions and fuel consumption: environmental agreements with the car industry, a system of tax incentives and a system of labelling for fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
But despite all these efforts, directives and joint measuring schemes, we should not delude ourselves: we are unlikely to achieve the target objective of reducing greenhouse gases to 1990 levels.
Some experts are advising us to try and stabilise emissions at present levels.
That may well be pessimistic but if we consider that the number of cars on the road is continuing to rise in the 14 Member States, oh excuse me, I meant 15; we Austrians often have to stop and ask ourselves if there are 14 or 15 Member States, but there are in fact still 15, and if we consider enlargement to the east and if we consider that people in China and India also want to live as we do, then we should make no mistake: it will be difficult to achieve a reduction in greenhouse gases or CO2 and we should therefore make every effort to stabilise them at the very least.
Despite all the pessimism, introducing a pan-European monitoring system for CO2 emissions will not do any harm.
Let us try yet again with one small step at a time and perhaps the House will sit in 2005, when we need to examine the initial results, and complain that perhaps we did not do enough today.
Mr President, Commissioner, trust is good, control is even better, as the Head of State of a now defunct system used to say.
Nonetheless, once in a while these words of wisdom fit the bill because our CO2 strategy for cars is of course a new departure in that we are trusting in the willingness of car manufacturers in Europe, Korea and Japan to take voluntary technical measures to reduce CO2 emissions from their cars to 140g by 2008, which will represent a reduction of around 25%.
But we do still need a control mechanism so that we can intervene if necessary.
Hence: trust is good, control is even better.
We want a statistically perfect control instrument at our disposal and in this respect I thank the rapporteur for her persistence in establishing a reasonable control instrument for CO2 emissions from cars in Europe which applies to all Member States, which clearly shows which vehicles are registered where and what their CO2 emissions are, so that we can see clearly in 2003 if the manufacturers' undertakings are being respected or not.
And if they are not, then we must take legislative measures.
I should like to refer to another two pillars in our strategy: the question of labelling, which has been dealt with and the question of additional tax incentives for low-consumption vehicles, which is still a somewhat weak point.
I think that all of us, especially of course the Member States, need to give clear additional incentives, so that we really can achieve our objective of 120 g in 2005.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate our rapporteur on the excellent results that she has achieved and to begin by placing this report in the broader context of climate change.
Since the Rio de Janeiro Conference and then Kyoto, the European Union has always led the political side of the debate on climate change.
Nevertheless, although Europe continues to lead the debate in terms of rhetoric, it is beginning to lose the legitimacy to do so in a credible way.
It is rather pointless for the European Union to try to alarm the whole world with this problem when, in reality, the European greenhouse gas bubble, in particular the carbon dioxide bubble, is more likely to increase by 6% to 8% than to decrease by the 8% that we agreed in Kyoto.
It is therefore time to take internal action in order to lend credibility to our external efforts.
In terms of political action, the transport sector must be our priority for the following two fundamental reasons.
Firstly, because, according to the Green Paper published by the European Commission, this sector will not be part of the European trading system for carbon dioxide emissions, and all greenhouse gas reductions will therefore have to be achieved exclusively through national and Community policies and measures.
Secondly, because transport is the sector that is contributing most to Europe' s falling short of the levels set in Kyoto.
According to a study recently published by the European Environment Agency, transport is responsible for almost 30% of the European Union' s total emissions, and it predicts that the level of carbon dioxide emissions generated by this sector will increase by 39% of the 1990 level by 2010.
Given this extremely disturbing picture, which shows that road transport is responsible for 85% of total carbon dioxide emissions in the transport sector, and given the overwhelming need for action, the agreement reached in the Conciliation Committee on this system for monitoring CO2 emissions from light passenger vehicles is to be welcomed.
This system is a crucial aspect in the implementation of the Kyoto protocol and will ensure rigorous control of the voluntary commitment made by the car industry to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in new passenger vehicles by 25%.
I regret the fact that it has not been possible to include light commercial vehicles in this system.
In any event, I congratulate Mrs González Álvarez once again on the results she has achieved.
Mr President, Commissioner, I intend to be as brief as our successful rapporteur in the conciliation procedure.
However, let me just offer her my hearty congratulations on her excellent report and brilliant success, as some of the previous speakers have done.
Contrary to some previous speakers, I think it is most important that the report should seek not just to stabilise concentrations of greenhouse gases but to reduce them, especially given the fact that we need to achieve a demonstrable success by 2005 under the terms of the Kyoto protocol.
I think it is fundamental, given the reservation which this Parliament has always expressed in connection with voluntary obligations in environmental agreements, that we have managed to include the passage stating that data will be used from 2003 onwards to monitor the voluntary obligations of the car industry.
I also think that it is fundamental - and the scope is not extended by this decision - that we have managed to bring the Commission so far down the line that it is looking into implementing harmonised measurements for the specific CO2 emissions from class N1 vehicles and presenting proposals to this effect.
I think that is a huge success.
I should like once again to congratulate the rapporteur and vote in favour of this report.
Mr President, I welcome the excellent result reached by the European Parliament and the Council on this dossier.
I congratulate the co-legislators on their efforts in finding a swift and satisfactory agreement.
The process leading to the approval of this proposal constitutes a prime example of how the two arms of the European legislature can settle their differences and work together towards adoption of sound and effective environmental law.
I should like to seize the opportunity to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, for its constructive approach.
The adoption of this decision will allow the effectiveness of the Community strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars to be monitored and, more specifically, it will provide credible data to monitor the implementation of the voluntary agreements with car manufacturers.
This strategy is one of the most concrete activities of the Community on CO2 emissions and reductions from the transport sector.
Therefore it represents an important milestone in the achievement of the Kyoto target.
Mr President, unforgivably, I have forgotten something.
It will take me just 20 seconds to express my gratitude to all the members of the Conciliation Committee: to Mr Provan, to Mrs Jackson, who also participated, and to the members of the Commission and the Council with whom we worked in order to reach an agreement on the report.
Furthermore, I would like to thank all the MEPs for their support.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Interoperability of the trans-European rail systems
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports, tabled by Mr Savary on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism:
(A5-0112/2000) on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation and effects of Directive 96/48/EC concerning the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system;
(A5-0113/2000) on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system.
Mr President, I hope that the two members due to speak before me were not travelling by train and have been delayed.
I think they are in the House and will arrive in time.
Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that we are fighting numerous problems on the railways which are a legacy from the past.
For example, in 1970, the railways' share of the freight traffic market was 21%, compared with just 8.5% now.
The railways have lost out massively in freight traffic and their share of the passenger traffic market has fallen from 10 to 6%.
The winner has been road freight traffic, which is increasing constantly and winning market shares: 16% per annum on the eastern borders of Austria, for example.
It is now 2.4 times higher than in 1990.
If you take lorries and buses from eastern Europe on the A1 motorway, which is the most important east-west route, traffic increased sixfold between 1995 and the year 2000.
In other words, freight traffic, especially transit freight traffic, is growing massively. According to forecasts, it will rise by more than 100% between 1995 and 2015.
That is why it is important and urgent that we concern ourselves with the European rail network.
It totals 156 000 kilometres in length, of which 78 000 km are accounted for by the TEN network.
12 600 km of new lines for speeds of over 250 km/h should be constructed by 2010, with at least 16 300 km of lines due to be upgraded for speeds of over 200 km/h.
The total costs - and they are huge - are estimated at EUR 186 billion between now and 2010.
So it is obvious how important this investment is for the European Union and that is why we are being called on here to set the priorities quickly.
I think that it is high time we adapted the railways to the market economy, so as to ensure that the railways invest more money more often in customer requirements and that we can jointly set the priorities and draw up a tight, efficient timetable.
The main requirements are, of course, to harmonise the gauge throughout Europe, especially where more than two countries cooperate.
At the moment, we still have five different gauges.
We need uniform electrification, especially in relation to voltage and frequency.
In other words, the technical properties of the electricity must be brought into line so that extra electricity can be bought from the national grids and fed into the national grids without any significant losses.
The third, and I think the most important point is the safety of trains.
We really do need external inspection and certification agencies.
We cannot have a situation in which the agency operating the railway is also responsible for inspecting it.
No-one questions the fact that cars and lorries are inspected by external certification agencies.
I think there is an urgent need, given the recent train crashes, for external inspection agencies to look after the safety of passengers in Europe.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank all the Members who supported the rapporteur in his work in presenting these two reports which are, I believe, absolutely crucial to the future of the railways.
What is the subject matter? The first report analyses the application of the 1996 Directive on the interoperability of the high-speed rail system, drawing the lessons of this for the future.
Next, and this is the substance of the second report, we must discuss and vote on a proposed directive on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must appreciate the full importance of this subject.
There is today an unacceptable contradiction between what is said in speeches and the reality of European transport systems.
As might have been expected, the creation of the internal market has, logically, considerably developed the trade in goods and the mobility of persons within the Union, which have shown an increase of 21% and 15% respectively between 1990 and 1997.
The bulk of the traffic from this explosive growth in internal mobility, which is expected to be consolidated in the next few decades, has been acquired by road systems and, secondarily, maritime cabotage via the North Sea.
At a time when we have right here, in most of the countries of the Union, a rail network and technology unparalleled in the world, with a recent study evaluating the external costs of road transport in terms of public health, infrastructure and pollution at some EUR 480 billion, even though the objective of sustainable mobility and respect for quality of life are now shared by all Europeans, it can be noted that rail has only an 8.6% market share for freight, and 5.8% for passenger transport.
There is more than one explanation for this paradox: rail' s reduced level of competitiveness due to a social differential in relation to the road sector, but also the distortions of competition engendered by the considerable external costs of road transport, the priority which most major railway companies in recent years have given exclusively to prestigious high-speed passenger transport, but also excessive national characteristics in terms of railway traditions, techniques and protocols, thereby compromising the flow of continental rail traffic.
Today, the situation of the European transport network situation is simple to the point of caricature: there is only one common area in transport and that is the road network.
There is no longer any single airspace or European maritime area, nor especially a continuous railway area within the countries of the Union.
The issue at stake in railway interoperability is, of course, doing away with the technical frontiers that have been inherited from the national railway structures set in place gradually since the nineteenth century.
Today, the Europe of the Fifteen has no less than sixteen electric signalling systems, six electrical voltages, five track gauges and several equipment and therefore infrastructure gauges.
Of course, the new high-speed train infrastructures offer a prime area for the introduction of interoperability, since they are new or recent networks devoted to very similar technology.
Directive 96/48 was adopted for this purpose.
The report on its application, four years on, referred to Parliament to express an opinion, delivers contrasting results, but results that are in the end more positive than they may seem.
In the first place, significant delay is observed in the transposition of laws and regulations since, to date, only two countries have transposed it and the first technical specifications for interoperability are on the point of being completed and published.
The conclusion is therefore that the time limits for transposition and publication must be more stringent in future.
This delay in transposing into law has not, however, hindered the development of interoperable cross-border lines, although Thalys is the only example of true interoperability, more so than even Eurostar, despite its attempts to solve the gauge problem.
These two international lines have established a precedent which can serve as a model for future developments.
More than that, however, in anticipation of tangible results in future, the directive on the interoperability of high-speed routes has primarily made it possible to define and iron out working methods.
For the first time, the railway industry, rail companies and infrastructure managers have started up a joint project to define the technical specifications for interoperability.
They have worked on the basis of the most general studies by the International Union of Railways.
Within the European Association for Railway Interoperability (EARI) they have set up a working group which now has methods and experience available for transposition to conventional systems.
Finally, the Committee established by Article 21, bringing together representatives of the Member States and the Commission, enables political and technical monitoring of interoperability projects and intervention at the discretion of states to direct such projects.
In other words, while the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism felt bound to remind the Member States of their obligations in terms of time limits and transposition, it must be admitted that the high-speed systems have provided a first-rate testing ground for the vast worksite of interoperability.
In this respect, we have to bear in mind that the network and the conventional stock present problems for harmonisation that are formidable in other ways, due to the national and historical characteristics of networks, the great diversity of the stock, and the considerable extent of the networks.
It must be made quite clear at this point that there is no question of insisting that rail companies and infrastructure managers immediately proceed to replace their equipment comprehensively. This is totally out of reach, economically.
In the first place, if the goal is to achieve interoperability, this must entail using the fastest and least costly means to achieve decisive progress.
In this respect, interoperability may be achieved by methods other than the harmonisation of equipment, since it is possible to adapt equipment to operate in different configurations, following the example of the quadruple-system locomotives.
This is a proposal for a pragmatic and realistic approach which would not detract from railways' competitiveness in relation to other modes of transport by imposing additional costs.
The key principles of this proposed directive are as follows: restriction of the geographical area covered by conventional system interoperability to the trans-European network as defined by the 1996 European Parliament and Council Decision; a policy of gradual convergence rather than systematic renewal, taking the form of phasing in priorities and interoperability, establishing a hierarchy for subsystems to enable the fastest and cheapest access, with priority only to new investment for creating, extending, renewing, maintaining and operating systems; establishing a hierarchy of objectives, distinguishing across-the-board objectives to be included in all standards: safety, reliability, health, environmental protection and technical compatibility; the objectives inherent in each technical subsystem: infrastructure, energy, rolling stock, etc.; the separation of the technical task of framing the TSIs assigned to a joint representative body, from the standardisation work entrusted to the European standards institutes, and the inspection and certification entrusted to notified bodies; a policy of user consultation, as suggested by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism which cannot be envisaged, ladies and gentlemen, without concomitant consultation of staff representatives, the subject of an amendment that we shall be discussing tomorrow; finally, ongoing monitoring of these projects by the Member States and the Commission through the Committee established under Article 21, implemented by the high-speed directive, enabling states to request exemptions, to include special cases in the technical specifications for purely historic or regional networks, as well as certain types of equipment originating from third countries, and also instruments for authorising commissioning operations notified by Member States to the Commission.
In other words, there are safety valves for countries with a high level of special characteristics, and, within the institutions stipulated by the directive, they still have the opportunity to argue the case for these special characteristics and to have them included in the studies and in the TSI publications.
Finally, during the transition period, it is important to prevent the networks from growing further apart.
To this end, new investments, between now and the publication of the TSIs, shall have to comply with authorised technical references.
A Union rolling-stock register will be set up, making it possible to identify the rolling stock, its renewal and ageing, in the same way that this is still carried out, albeit imperfectly, for the maritime fleet.
Furthermore, we have to look to the future and, therefore, both the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy have proposed involving candidate country representatives in the projects at this early stage, so that they can anticipate this future acquis communautaire.
Similarly, and this is a recommendation that we make, we should already be planning conditions of interoperability between the various modes of transport, in accordance with our general objective of developing intermodal interoperability.
It would, of course, be presumptuous to expect everything to be achieved by this directive and the long-term upgrading work it requires from railway operators.
Quite clearly Europe is proposing to undertake a long-term and very large-scale project throughout its vast railway network.
It cannot single-handedly solve the problem of distortions of competition or of network access or charges which would represent crucial progress towards a new golden age of rail in Europe.
All the same, the technical interoperability of our old national networks is indeed an essential condition for the recovery of rail, which this balanced, reasonable and flexible text should make possible to achieve in gradual phases under acceptable economic and social conditions.
To the many of you who contributed to this, let me reiterate my gratitude and my appreciation.
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, I should like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Savary, and all the members involved for their excellent and constructive cooperation on this difficult, purely technical subject.
The number of proposed amendments tabled, including here in plenary, shows how important this issue is for Europe, which is why I can also praise the Commission for addressing the subject of the interoperability of conventional trains as well as of high-speed trains.
I think it is a pity that few Member States have transposed the interoperability directive with regard to high-speed trains and I call on the Commission to exert pressure to prevent the loss of valuable time which is costing the railways in terms of market shares and competition.
The directive is even more important where conventional trains are concerned.
The aim of the directive - as with high-speed trains - is to harmonise technical provisions in order to ensure that conventional rail traffic within the Union runs as smoothly as possible and to give candidate countries really exact specifications so that through traffic is also guaranteed after enlargement.
Interoperability will also have many advantages for both passengers and freight transport. Better services, greater comfort, less travelling time, increased safety and possibly also lower prices.
The harmonisation of technical standards is also needed for the long overdue liberalisation of the railways.
Both together, interoperability and liberalisation, are most important if the railways are to survive in the internal market.
I am delighted that we have succeeded with the rapporteur and numerous other members in finding a good, common line on most aspects of this very demanding subject and would like to thank them for that.
This applies above all to the initially highly disputed derogations from the TSIs, but also to the social dimension of this directive, where we were finally able to achieve a compromise.
Nonetheless, - and we in the group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats continue to believe that we are right here - generally-worded social aspects do not belong in this purely technical directive, even if the Commission and the Council may think otherwise.
We are likewise opposed to involving passengers in working out TSIs.
Including these aspects will only result in the directive being difficult or impossible to manage.
Finally, a few other proposed amendments have been tabled, which we consider are quite simply too bureaucratic and have no positive aspects to boot.
In short, our group is against any elements which are counterproductive when it comes to achieving the important objective of an efficient European railway, as outlined above.
Allow me in closing to highlight the excellent cooperation once again; I am optimistic that together we shall achieve the objective of creating as smooth a railway system as possible.
) Mr President, I would first like to congratulate Mr Savary on his drafting of such excellent reports.
This is an important topic, but also an extremely complicated one.
Mr Savary has taken good account of the views of others.
My group supports improvement of the competitiveness of railways and liberalisation of competition.
The first stage is to create the conditions for uninterrupted movement of trains over the entire region of the European Union.
Technical Specifications for Interoperability (TSIs) and common standards are a sine qua non for the development of railway interoperability.
The rapporteur has quite rightly adopted a gradual approach.
Technical solutions can vary a great deal.
The competitiveness of railways should not be undermined by the imposition of additional economic burdens, even though common standards will lower costs in the longer term.
Existing differences between national railway systems will make necessary some exceptions in the harmonisation of railway systems, so that no Member State shall have to face inordinate difficulties and so that current railway transport will not be jeopardised.
This report outlines a course of action by which these exceptions can be accepted without jeopardising the principal objective.
There is one further matter which would require fine tuning; this was outlined in Amendment No 35 by my Group.
It applies to Finland in particular, but some of the applicant countries will be faced with the same problem in connection with enlargement of the Union.
The matter referred to concerns Russian freight wagons, where technical solutions are applied which differ from those of the Member States, inter alia in the area of couplings and brakes.
They are not necessarily inferior, but different.
Russia is hardly about to change its standards in order to comply with the requirements of the Union.
For Finland, this is an exceptionally major issue.
Due to historical reasons, the track gauge in Finland and Russia is the same, but it is different from that in Europe in general.
Russian wagons account for approximately 40 % - almost a half - of Finnish freight transport.
The reason for this high percentage is that we do not want to take the risk of sending Finnish wagons to Russia, since experience shows that they are so very rarely returned.
Russia, of course, is a country which leans heavily on rail transport, with a rolling stock which must equal that of the entire region of the EU put together
In the review concerning point 5 of Article 5, Mr Savary proposes that when considering special cases, particular attention should be paid to the rolling stock of third countries.
This proposal is very good, but the solution remains half-finished, as far as Finland is concerned.
It will lead to unnecessary and laborious inspections of Russian wagons and to massive bureaucracy.
There is no certainty either that Russian wagons in all instances would be regarded as special cases.
This is why we have tabled an amendment of Article 7, which simply aims at making it possible to use third country freight wagons for traffic, as long as they do not cross the border between two Member States.
This is the addition referred to as point f in the Committee' s amendment.
Implementation of this proposal would give assurance that rail traffic in Finland could continue without becoming drastically reduced.
Mr President, Environment Commissioner, I am pleased that you are here because we can now address this matter straight away.
We are evidently debating a highly technical subject matter, namely the interoperability of both high-speed and conventional rail systems.
This gives me the opportunity to make a few comments on the environmental dimension to this proposal.
Today, we are essentially witnessing one of many historic moments which those who work in the sector, as well as those who are in favour of trains, have waited for for a long time, because at the end of the day, all this is, of course, meant to culminate in technological harmonisation, which entails the harmonisation of international rail, labour organisations, train drivers who have to make international rail journeys, etc.
This also means that employers' organisations and trade unions will have an entirely different role and outlook with respect to this work.
In short, the proposal has a knock-on effect on many other areas and it will be some time before it is a reality.
Certainly if I look at the high-speed link and its technical specifications, I share Mr Savary' s view - who has drawn up an excellent report - that it is scandalous that three, nearly four years after the previous directive on interoperability of the high-speed link, we are still waiting for technical specifications for interoperability.
This does not bode well at all for the future.
What we are aiming for in the long run with this rail proposal is to attempt to cut down on traffic jams but also, more importantly, to benefit the environment, safety and a number of other aspects.
It has to be said, and I have already mentioned this several times within other fora, that the rail system is gradually losing its environmental edge, not so much because it does not take any initiatives itself, but more so because we ourselves prescribe few, if any, specifications for example, regarding the use of diesel-electric locomotives, the type of electricity used, etc.
What we would like, and this is why we welcome with open arms the dual speed for technical specification requirements, is for this technical specification to at least take account of energy consumption and air pollution, something which will require a great deal of hard work.
The second important point is of course the social dimension, as I touched upon a moment ago.
I regret that we are confining ourselves to the bare minimum, i.e. working conditions.
We refer to a social dialogue but we should really take it one step further, because this affects the entire labour organisation of railways.
I would urge you to look into the positive experiences which certain countries have had in changing the labour organisation of the rail system, in order to bring about a more efficient rail system and to set up exchange programmes, so that we can learn from experiences in countries which have struggled in the past, and which are often still struggling where other elements of the rail dossier are concerned, such as liberalisation or fair pricing.
Mr President, despite European integration, the rail system is disintegrating.
It is increasingly hard to obtain international rail timetables and it is often the case that train tickets to remote destinations have to be bought outside the country of departure.
Not so long ago, it was possible to take a direct train from Cologne to Athens, from Paris to Lisbon or from Amsterdam to Copenhagen.
This is now a thing of the past.
Meanwhile, railways are, however, in the process of being re-discovered.
The times when trains were seen as a burden inherited from the nineteenth century, something that can be neglected and dismantled, are fortunately over.
Almost everyone admits that trains should once again play a key role in European long-haul transport for people and goods alike.
This is not just necessary to meet the increasing demand for transport options, but mainly to curb the tide of cars and aeroplanes which form a threat to the environment.
The views on how to modernise the rail system are strongly divided.
For a long time, it was fashionable to apply everything that had contributed to the emergence of cars and aeroplanes to trains.
According to this line of thinking, everything should come down in price and should become flexible, so that price-based competition has a less detrimental effect on trains.
Some people still advocate that everything should be privatised and liberalised, that the influence of trade unions must be restrained and that railway personnel should perform more work for lower wages.
According to the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, these remedies are worse than the disease.
These would reportedly lead to further decay of the railway business and deterioration in the quality of services, and would force personnel to strike more, for reasons of self-preservation.
The real solutions must be sought in a completely different direction.
For starters, there should be better cooperation between the existing national railway companies in the management of frequent and fast cross-border routes.
In the case of the conventional railway system, the routes Brussels to Amsterdam, Hamburg to Copenhagen and Dublin to Belfast are good examples of this.
The passengers are unaware that it is two companies who are responsible for this one joint and frequent link.
This could also apply to the extensions of the French high-speed links in England, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany which are running under the names "Eurostar" and "Thalys".
To guarantee success, it is important not to bring in a whole ream of new commercial businesses, which would lead to bad connections and variable pricing.
Furthermore, the money to finance such a high-speed network should not be found through cutting down services on short-haul routes in the individual Member States, as many people are indignant - and rightly so - about the huge amount of funding being ploughed into fast connections for the benefit of a small, privileged minority.
The construction of new high-speed links will continue to meet with protest if the ordinary domestic train user only ever experiences higher prices and fewer facilities and if they do not solve the environmental problems caused by cars and aeroplanes.
Needless to say, technology should be better harmonised by means of common mains voltage, joint equipment, fewer changes for passengers at borders and uniform safety requirements.
Privatisation and fragmentation according to the British model offer no guarantee whatsoever that those improvements could be better accommodated than if we were to keep the present state enterprises.
The position of the one million employees in the European rail system must be protected.
They are people who offer useful services to each and every one of us.
This is why they should not come at the bottom of the list in our railway policy, as is sometimes advocated, I regret to say, by those in favour of a commercial approach.
My group would like to see trade-union rights, participation, working conditions and work pressure given a more prominent role.
Luckily, the rapporteur is not yielding under the pressure to consider personnel as a cost factor alone.
I am pleased that Mr Savary' s proposals help strike a happy balance.
Mr President, Mr Savary' s reports raise a matter of crucial importance to European railways.
Given the alarming position rail finds itself in in most Member States, intervention is vital.
It is of utmost importance to drastically reduce the obstacles created for international traffic by inconsistencies in the different types of equipment and networks used.
The harmonisation of the physical networks for the conventional rail system is a step in the right direction and certainly deserves support.
Nobody can deny its importance.
Despite this, I am of the opinion that a great deal of the work done by Members is superfluous.
Most of their wishes have already been incorporated in some shape or form in the text of the directive.
This should not be done again.
Furthermore, we are dealing with a directive here, which means that it makes little sense to include too detailed and intricate specific cases.
This directive is extremely technical in nature and its main objective is to facilitate the use of all kinds of trains using all kinds of networks.
This is why comments concerning personnel do not really seem to fit in here.
Only clear agreements on qualifications for personnel who will be deployed on cross-border routes are necessary.
The curbing of the freedom of enterprise should not go further than strictly necessary.
In short, Mr President, I will certainly support the idea contained in the reports, even if certain proposed elements are not appropriate in this context.
A very good evening Mr President, Commissioner.
It is unusual, but you know that I have the highest personal regard for you and am therefore delighted to see you here this evening.
Interoperability is a fundamental issue and, if we take it seriously, the time has come to admit that the European Union has failed over recent years.
We have made no progress whatsoever with interoperability.
I think it is extremely important that we again inform the Council, where everything is diligently recorded, that 40 years after the creation of the European common market, we have made no progress in the railway sector.
I hope that the draft report by Mr Savary, whom I should like once again to thank for his draft, and I should also like to thank my colleague Mrs Jeggle for her shadow report - I hope that if we manage to persuade the Commission and Council to accept the draft report, we shall be reasonably well placed for the future.
I also hope that the Council will accept our proposed amendments.
We have taken a great deal of trouble and Mr Savary has also tabled umpteen proposed amendments for the plenary sitting, which we support, in order to achieve a report which the Council can accept, thereby avoiding a conciliation procedure and second reading.
I hope that the Council will do so and I call on it to act responsibly.
Having made no progress whatsoever with interoperability for years now, the Council should accept our decision tomorrow so that we can make some progress and avoid yet another second reading and conciliation procedure.
The difficulty which must be acknowledged is, of course, that the internal market can only function if we have uniform systems in the long term and we must ensure that we really do make progress here.
I also call on industry in Europe to abandon the policy it has pursued over recent years of separating off its national market by deliberately not manufacturing rolling stock which can be used in other countries.
Everyone has staked out their own market, which is why we have this fragmented railway market in Europe - and this is unacceptable.
Allow me one more closing comment.
Mr Swoboda, who is about to speak, and I shall soon be discussing the Railway Pact here in the House.
We are opening the markets but we need interoperability in order to do so.
These are two aspects of the overall complex and I therefore hope that the Council really is wise and clever enough to accept the proposed amendments which we shall probably adopt by a large majority tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, we are, in fact, in a situation in which we are building up a European railway system, albeit somewhat late.
Mr Jarzembowski and I hold such similar views that I should like to begin where he left off.
In a few weeks' time, we shall propose to Parliament at second reading and by a large majority - there are still a few differences of opinion here and there - what framework market conditions and operating regulations are needed in order to create a European railway system.
All this, as the previous speaker has already said, will not produce a European railway system unless there is also a degree of interoperability on the technical and social side.
It is grotesque: every private company, even small private companies, think European nowadays.
It is only on the railways that we have not managed to achieve this and we are now endeavouring to bring about a European attitude.
The comment about industry is correct.
We always look spellbound at America, at the United States, where industry and, of course, the free market economy are also promoted by the state.
Except that, when it comes to American companies, the situation is quite different.
In Europe, uniting in a common European market is proving to be an arduous task.
How can we expect European products to be used throughout the world, when we are cannot even agree on certain technical conditions and interoperability in Europe? In this sense I should like to offer the rapporteur, Mr Savary, my full and unequivocal support and congratulate him on his excellent report.
What we need is technical interoperability.
That has already been said. Industry has its part to play here, but of course clients, i.e. the European construction companies, must also do what they can to force industry to cooperate.
This also applies, and here I disagree with a number of previous speakers, to social comparability and alignment.
Of course, that does not mean that everything will become identical, because we do not want a situation with one side more or less exploiting the other; we want a situation in which we look together to see how we can bring about a European railway system.
Safety is also, without doubt, an issue.
The huge advantage of the railway is that it is safe and environmentally-friendly.
Just as it is a pity that the transport Commissioner cannot be here, it is a good sign that the Commissioner for the environment is here, because, in the final analysis, traffic, and railway traffic in particular, is a means to an end and not an end in itself and it should help to improve our environmental situation.
Mr Savary has also highlighted a very important point; namely that we must ensure during the enlargement of the European Union that the European railway system does not stop at the current borders of the European Union but covers the whole of Europe so that it can help to improve the environment and increase traffic safety throughout Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, these reports make it quite clear that we are flying the flag for the transfer of traffic from road to rail in vain.
If there is no technical follow-up, then our demands will obviously remain a dead letter.
Actual observations today point to the fact that rail in Europe is not matching up to its ambitions and, I would add, it is falling far short of our ambitions.
It is true that in a good number of European policies we put forward the need to transfer passenger transport, but most especially freight transport, from road to rail in order, on the one hand, to comply with our international commitments but, on the other hand, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce environmental pollution in general, to relieve congestion on the roads and to reduce the social costs of road transport, which are borne indirectly by the community as a whole.
For all these reasons, none of them new ones, the European Union must make it possible to take up the challenge.
In relation to the reports on interoperability it must be noted that the train was not considered to be the transport of the future which was going to provide the solution to a number of problems, particularly environmental problems.
In transport policies within the European Union, rail was overlooked.
As evidence of this I would cite the considerable amounts of Structural Fund, trans-European network and Cohesion Fund aid allocated to roads and motorways, which for far too long have had more than their due.
Only rarely was there a question of allocating aid to conventional rail systems in order to modernise them and so that they might compete, particularly with heavy goods vehicles on the roads.
The declining figures for rail transport, particularly for freight, bear witness to the lack of investment at this level.
In the race to develop infrastructures, rail has been the great forgotten area.
Fortunately, there are now crucial studies which make it possible to justify the urgent need and the relevance of investing in rail.
Moreover, we would point out that it is essential that the European Parliament should incorporate staff training and health and safety conditions into this directive.
Indeed, many of us still remember the conditions in which the transportation of radioactive waste between Germany and France was carried out for many years.
Because they did not know about radioactivity, and were not informed about it, some members of staff at the Woippy marshalling yard, in the Lorraine region, used to gather round these heat-generating carriages to keep warm in winter.
The chemical containers which we would also like to see transported by rail also require specific training in order to guarantee general safety as well as to prevent exposure and handling which may prove dangerous to the health of the operators involved.
In general, then, we consider this report to be a well-balanced one, and we also wish to congratulate the rapporteur, but we have nonetheless tabled a number of amendments in order to improve it still more.
These are to do with taking account of social dialogue, which we deem essential.
I would urge you to support the amendments to this effect.
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members present in the House, Mr Savary' s report is an excellent piece of work and he deserves both thanks and recognition.
I should like to focus in my speech on three aspects and I am sorry that Mrs Jeggle and Mr van Dam take the opposite view on two of these aspects.
First, liberalisation of the railway networks in the Member States and the establishment of a common market for railway services is addressed from the point of view of free access and transit rights for the infrastructures of the Member States in cross-border traffic, especially freight traffic.
And new technical specifications for interoperability are at the forefront here.
In my view, the proposed extension to the concept of interoperability, by including questions such as the professional qualifications of staff and the need for health and safety regulations at the workplace, is of paramount importance and a vote in favour of the report by my group depends on it.
Most national railway systems in the Member States have comprehensive rules governing the aforementioned social aspects and rather than lose them in the process of liberalisation at European level, we must harmonise them at the highest possible level.
At this point I should like to support the call for more authority to be given to the merely advisory voice of the social partners in the sectoral committee and for the European social partners to be granted equal decision-making powers similar to those in many national regulations, when resolutions are passed.
Secondly, in addition to agreeing to the minimum level of technical harmonisation proposed in the report, the preparation of ex ante cost-benefit analyses and the order of priorities for drawing up TSIs, my group sets particular store by including the social partners, associations and organisations, passengers and users in the work of drafting and checking technical specifications for interoperability.
Thirdly, we also support the proposal to allow representatives from the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe to attend committee meetings from the outset.
The plan to involve them in the process of discussing and setting TSIs from the outset is important if the technical standards and specifications of future candidate countries to are to be brought into line early on with current developments in the EU.
This will allow us to ensure ahead of time that the infrastructure in these countries can keep pace, thereby helping to minimise the separate costs which the European Union would otherwise incur.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Savary report follows the rationale of sustainable development.
As we consider interoperability to be essential, we support this report, and offer our congratulations to Mr Savary for the pertinence of his observations.
The road-rail balance must be adjusted by means of a carefully calculated interoperability.
In the long term, the increase in heavy goods transport will cause enormous problems, such as congestion, the construction of new routes, and problems of safety and pollution.
It is absolutely essential, in this eventuality, to have recourse to rail transport.
The problem is even greater for countries located at strategic crossroads, such as France, where the saturation of the road networks is yet another argument for the crucial need to put interoperability into practice.
The models of Thalys and Eurostar must be extended and intensified with the new high-speed train routes: TGV-East to Germany, Southern Europe-Atlantic to Madrid and Lisbon, and South-Mediterranean to Barcelona.
As for conventional rail networks, it is time that interoperability was made compulsory, reinforced by considerable amounts of European aid which would, moreover, enable Member States to safeguard their conventional local networks.
Interoperability is all the more necessary as rail transport is profitable over long distances.
So border stops, changes in equipment and staff and, more importantly, transhipment operations should be limited to avoid putting a strain on reliability in terms of the time and service provided.
Airfreight manages perfectly well without border stops.
So let us adapt.
We shall not be able to upgrade the competitiveness of rail unless we bring in stringent constraints.
Interoperability must be made compulsory, particularly for the new networks that are being built, even if the TSIs have not been finalised.
We cannot afford to delay any longer before actually implementing this measure which will acquire even greater significance with the enlargement of our Community.
Mr President, Commissioner, a great deal has been said in today' s discussion.
In my view, the most important points to be borne in mind are two figures, which are really quite shocking.
The first is that in 1970, the railways had a 20% share of the freight market, whereas today they have just 8.5%.
The second figure concerns the average hourly speed of railways in Europe, which is 16 kilometres per hour.
And all this in the year 2000!
Evidently, we need an immediate political response from the 15 Member States of the European Union.
Before such a response can be given, we first need to understand the problem and we need the corresponding political will.
In my view, and of course this is the view of all those who have spoken today, we need to take steps as regards network compatibility and interoperability, because we have different technical specifications, different standards and different management systems.
And of course, we all endorse the report by Mr Savary, whom I would once again like to commend on his work.
However, it is not enough for us just to forge ahead with interoperability.
We need to consider the entire railway liberalisation package and combine this with interoperability. In this context, I would like to say that the Helsinki Council resolutions may well be satisfactory, but they are inadequate.
If we want to make headway, then we need to adopt the opinion expressed by the European Parliament at first reading, because it deals more fully with the problem which, as is already quite clear I think, is a particularly acute problem.
We should all realise that a common market without a unified transport network is simply will-o' -the wisp.
So if we want to examine the problem in its entirety, we need to have, and to provide, the necessary responses.
I would like to add two separate issues concerning my country, Greece, since my capacity as chairman of the Transport Committee does not, I imagine, deny me the right to raise problems of this kind.
The first problem is that Greece has no main cross-border rail links, especially with other Member States.
On the contrary, it has important cross-border rail links with third, non-EU countries, which are not bound by Community legislation and, consequently, employ their own national standards and systems and will no doubt continue to do so in the shorter or longer term.
This is certainly an issue which merits special mention and regulation so that the European harmonisation we are working for does not prove to be detrimental to the cross-border rail networks of countries such as Greece.
Another issue I would like to touch upon is that special provision should be made for peculiarities and differences caused by the geographical location and topography of various Member States such as Greece, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Finland, etc., whose remote or island nature causes particular problems.
Mr President, I too regret the absence of the Commissioner here this evening.
Perhaps she is stuck at Brussels airport.
Perhaps she should have taken the train.
I begin by welcoming the Commission's proposal to integrate Europe's convention on a high-speed rail network.
I thank the rapporteur for his patience, his skill and, above all, his commitment to the cause of Europe's railways.
I would also like to thank the Portuguese presidency for its skilful handling of this very complex dossier - an example of Europeans working together to solve common problems.
This problem, I believe, can only be solved satisfactorily at EU-level.
What is the problem? As we have heard already this evening, in 1970 the railways had a 21% share of the freight market, today just 8.5%.
In 1970 the railways had a 10% share of the passenger market, today just 6%.
If these trends continue just 4% of travellers will go by train at the end of the decade and rail freight will all but disappear.
The sad fact is that the railways have lost ground even where there are well placed, for example, in long distance freight.
The very future of our railways is at stake, together with the jobs of one million people employed in the industry.
A key reason for this decline is that, in contrast to aviation and road haulage, a single market does not exist in this sector.
For 150 years, the railways have been organised along national lines.
Even the opportunity of electrification further divided Europe's railways because there are now five different systems in operation.
More recently the railways have adopted 16 different and incompatible electronic signalling systems.
That all adds costs and it means railways cannot compete.
Differences have also contributed to the fragmentation of the market for railway equipment.
This proposal being considered here tonight, together with other proposals from the Commission, aims to create an internal market in rail services. It will help achieve a harmonisation of technical standards for equipment and rolling stock and the integration of national networks to boost cross-border traffic.
That will make the railways more efficient, reliable and more competitive.
It would also boost the railway equipment industry in countries such as my own.
It will contribute to the fulfilment of our aim of switching freight from the congested and polluted roads to Europe's railways and encouraging the development of more high-speed rail services to take the place of short-haul flights.
The revitalisation of the railways is crucial to the future of Europe's transport system, our environment and our economy.
That is why Mr Savary's report deserves our full support.
Mr President, Commissioner, like aviation, the present issue is reminiscent of air traffic control.
It is high time that the Member States forsook their national stances in favour of a European stance because it is national stances that have prevented the rail system from being vital and from retaining its passengers and freight.
Instead, we are now faced with the opposite.
Mr Savary' s excellent report is the first in a whole series of reports which will deal with the rail system and its liberalisation, which is essential, in my view.
Trains should not be confined to internal borders within a large European market.
I think that is important.
Liberalisation and competition should be introduced within this large European market.
That, in my view, is the best solution for customers and services.
If the best solution had been cooperation between national companies, then they would have done this a long time ago and we would not be faced with this long-standing problem, namely that rail transport is on the wane.
For a country like mine, and several other Members have spoken about their own countries, it is, of course, essential that we have one European market with technical unity or 'interoperability' , to use a buzz word.
Indeed, a small country is vulnerable in that respect, but a country which lies at major intersections is even more vulnerable to this.
I think that we need to take sound steps and take them fast.
A difficult issue was that of personnel.
Mr Savary, I welcome the compromise that we were able to reach in that respect.
It is, of course, important for health and safety to be regulated and not compromised over, and this is also true, of course, of training.
We should be very clear about this too, so as to ensure that these issues are brought into line.
I am left with one question, namely I wonder whether we are sufficiently ambitious, as indeed, we are only referring to trans-European rail systems.
In my opinion, however, if we harmonise trans-European rail systems, we should also do the same for national rail systems.
This is especially important for those people who manufacture trains and train equipment.
We need, as a matter of urgency, to create a European single market in that respect too, and this will only be possible if we harmonise trans-European, i.e. international, as well as national traffic.
As such, we need to ensure as soon as we can that we create rail systems modelled on the HST, such as Thalys and Eurostar, which do not stop at borders but which carry on.
This should also be possible for ordinary trains because if not, Mr President, we are heading for a traffic nightmare.
Indeed, if we do not breathe new life into the railway sector, we will always have that traffic nightmare hanging over us and it is absolutely essential that we resolve this matter.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to begin, as some previous speakers have done, by thanking Mr Savary - the author of these two reports - for his work on achieving harmonisation, which has been difficult, but which has looked to the future. His task has certainly been difficult, and this has been demonstrated by the conflicting interests expressed during tonight' s speeches.
As a Spanish MEP, I would have preferred the task to have been achieved with greater flexibility and certain technical specifications which affect structural issues within the railway system not to have been applied.
I am referring specifically to the Spanish rail gauge, which, since this is a problem affecting the basic railway structure, we believe would involve a costly and slow renovation, and its particular circumstances need to be taken into account.
This means that it should not be regulated by means of the so-called 'specific cases' , subject to committee decisions, but that, on the contrary, we should consider the possibility that automatic derogations should apply depending on the incompatibility of these technical specifications with existing lines.
We therefore hope that you will be receptive to this request because, otherwise, we should bear in mind that all the projects, all the development plans for the rail networks affected by these specifications, would be subject to difficult conditions, and this would have a negative effect, since it would create uncertainty in relation to the planned investment programmes themselves.
Mr President, Commissioner, I recently visited the newly constructed Öresund Bridge which links Sweden and Denmark and which is, of course, a part of the European transport network.
It means that a fixed link is being created between Scandinavia and the continent. The bridge will make it considerably easier to convey people and goods from Sweden and Finland to the rest of Europe.
However, we have a problem, at present, with different voltage systems.
In fact, the power has to be taken away from a portion of the track so that the trains are able to alternate between the different voltage systems in Sweden and Denmark.
We have different gauges in Sweden and Finland.
The only railway linking the two countries is that between Haparanda and Torneå.
Gauge switches are now being tested there to make it easier to cross the border.
However, there are also some extremely good examples of other systems.
The ore trains which travel from northern Sweden to northern Norway have just the one driver to take the train across the border.
This works well because the countries concerned have cooperated with the employers and employees.
Within the EU, we now have fifteen different and separate railway systems which are often incompatible with one another. This means that, within the railways sector, we have neither free movement nor a common market.
If we are serious about creating an international, competitive railway, we must also create a common railways structure within Europe.
Coordination of the railway systems is especially important for those countries and regions which are not situated in the centre of Europe.
In order to be able to travel right through the EU, Swedish trains, for example, must be able to pass through several countries and, thus, several national railway systems.
At present, this involves an obvious competitive disadvantage and means that the centrally situated countries within the EU should be urged to coordinate their various systems.
For the same reason, it is also important for those countries bordering the EU to be able to be involved in the work on harmonisation so that there are no restrictions upon transport to and from third countries.
If compatibility is to be achieved, the specifications of a range of technical components need to be brought into line with one another.
What, however, is at least as important in terms of this change is that coordination should also be achieved within the operational and administrative systems, that staff should be duly trained and that there should be agreements in place to enable drivers to take trains across the national borders.
Road traffic in Europe is increasing each year. It creates problems in the form of environmental damage, noise, overcrowding and accidents.
In order to be able to cope with this trend, methods of transport must become cleaner, quieter, safer and more efficient.
Railways are the means of transport which now best meets these requirements. Rail transport must therefore become more attractive and competitive.
In order to reach that point, however, the railways must be able to compete on the same conditions as other forms of transport.
The Savary report is therefore very important and one step along the road.
It is now just a question of all the Member States turning it into a reality.
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, literature has a few well-known words for what we are discussing in the two Savary reports this evening: "You are late, but at least you are here" , was how Friedrich Schiller put it, words which also apply to our work here in the European Parliament.
To discuss the interoperability of the conventional trans-European railway system at the end of the 20th century, just as everyone is getting ready to leave, looks bad, even if, admittedly, interoperability has increased.
But still! It has taken more than 100 years for us to pluck up the courage here and give the railways another chance.
And yet the facts do not look very promising.
The rapporteur has included figures in his report which are all the more significant for being so thin on the ground.
Mr Hatzidakis has already told us that the railways had a 21% share of the freight traffic market in 1970 and now have a mere 8.5%; in passenger transport, their share has fallen from 10% in 1970 to 6%.
The prospects for high-speed trains are somewhat more encouraging, although here too, not everything in the garden is rosy.
It is true that we have at least got something on the rails in western Europe, namely Thalys and Eurostar.
But where we want to network Europe in the long term, especially with the future Member States of the Union, things do not look any better.
Yet it is vital to win over Eastern Europe, which still makes relatively good use of the railway network, to interoperability with Europe before everything switches to the roads. Incidentally, this must be done through dialogue with the candidate countries, as the Savary report rightly stresses.
On one point, there is a need for nostalgia: we want to maintain a small part of the history of Europe and keep historic railway lines in their original state.
We shall leave them out of the scope of our directive and the friends of the railway will thank us.
Interoperability is rightly not required where regional demands and solutions need to maintain their own legislation within the framework of subsidiarity.
In this context, a word to my Austrian Minister of Transport.
The southern railway in Austria is an old stretch of line and is of regional importance.
But, more importantly, it is the north-south link in the east of the present Union.
If we do not invest in it, the east of Austria will run the risk of economic exclusion in the future.
That is in nobody' s interest.
Austria is excluded from the Union at present more than enough as it is.
Let us end all forms of isolation and ensure that we have comprehensive interoperability in the Union.
(Applause from various quarters)
Mr Rack, I repeat what I said to Mrs Flemming at the start of the night sitting: from an institutional and legal point of view, under the Treaty, Austria has every right to be in the European Union.
Therefore, let us deal with this issue when other points are under discussion.
Mr President, I believe that Gilles Savary has done magnificent work with these two reports.
The routes of the railway structures on our continent were set a long time before Schuman made his famous speech on the Quai d'Orsay.
In those days, military factors were given priority over the transport of people and goods.
In my country, Spain, as in Russia, a different gauge to the rest of Europe was chosen in order to make a possible military invasion more difficult, which proves that European construction was not the priority for those people who took the decisions on railway routes.
Furthermore - as others have said - almost every country has constructed its network in a radial manner, around its capital, which is a serious obstacle to all those who want to create a different kind of route, such as from Spain to Germany or Italy to the UK without passing, for example, through Paris.
Paris and many other capitals and almost all intra-European borders act as barriers for through rail routes.
For this reason, the transport of passengers and goods by rail has been suffering for decades.
We have managed to harmonise the European economy, but the current rail network is not a useful instrument for the single market.
Therefore, we resort to road transport, despite the fact that it creates pollution and is dangerous.
We must free the citizens of Europe from the road monopoly by offering them working railways throughout the Union which are competitive in relation to other modes of transport.
The inclusion of a social clause seems to me to be an excellent idea.
The railway workers are going to play an important role in interoperability and their interests must be addressed in the text of the directive.
These workers have already paid the price for our forgetfulness.
Their number has decreased by 500 000 in the last 15 years.
It is possible to revitalise the railway, as certain projects that have already been undertaken demonstrate.
A Community which is undergoing a rapid process of integration and which is facing imminent enlargement needs to improve the efficiency and quality of the railway services it offers to customers.
As Mr Savary says, this would contribute to achieving the objective of sustainable mobility and greater social and economic cohesion in Europe.
Mr President, one of the European Union' s key goals was the creation of the internal market, but this market has created a volume of traffic which is growing at an alarming rate.
Despite this, we need to ensure that goods and people arrive at their destinations faster, more efficiently, at cheaper rates and in cleaner conditions than before.
Rail transport is not really a great help in this respect, quite the reverse, in fact.
Let us be honest, the train has remained stuck in the nineteenth century.
In percentage terms, trains have certainly not retained their share in transport.
We can only hope that they have retained it in real terms. Trains have proved the European Union right: more competition keeps you alert and on the ball.
Well, due to a lack of competition as a result of excessively protectionist behaviour on the part of the Member States - and I am not ashamed to admit this - the train has been condemned to a second-class position even in this century, also in terms of technology and even durability, which certain Members have emphasised.
Trains are not durable and they are no longer clean, especially the diesel locomotives.
We have finally reached a point in Europe where we are about to try to bring about a change in mentality.
This is desperately needed, and about time too, for the sake of both the people and mobility within the European Union. We can no longer rely on road transport alone for it is fraught with problems, pollution, traffic jams, increased risk of accidents, as well as the problems which an increasing number of people are facing with the swelling flow of through traffic zooming past their doors.
If the rail systems can overcome the obstacles facing cross-border transport, i.e. by using each other' s rail infrastructure and if they make their equipment more durable, then this will relieve the pressure on road transport. Rail systems develop extremely slowly.
In France, for example, this is because the government protects its own market and in the Netherlands, it is because we never manage to bring a procedure to a close and to start doing the groundwork.
As a result of this, planes are still used in Europe for short-haul distances.
Naturally, high-speed links such as those from Paris to Brussels should have superseded the plane a long time ago, but because of the vulnerability and sluggishness of the present trains, many prefer to take the plane.
It is not just manufacturers and governments that should be represented during the decision-making process pertaining to rail systems - in respect of which, incidentally, there is much room for improvement - but also the railway companies themselves.
This is already the case in the technical field, in the form of the European Association for Railway Interoperability.
This should also be the case for railway legislation, right across the board.
After all, railway companies have the necessary in-house expertise and need to be involved in the entire process.
The requirements for admission to the railway network and cooperation between the railway companies and the EU leaves a great deal to be desired.
Take, for example, the night train from Amsterdam to Milan which will be introduced from 28 May.
This route covers Germany, Geneva and Italy.
Each country has its own set of rules regarding speed, safety and travelling comfort.
Only if these requirements are met can access be gained to the railway network.
This beggars belief, especially if the rules change and are adapted virtually by the day, as has been the case.
This makes the interoperability of the European rail systems almost impossible in practice.
What we need are harmonisation and standardisation as soon as possible, if we want to create a true internal market for rail systems.
Mr President, the vast majority of investments that have been made in the EU' s infrastructure have been made at national level. As a result, a lot of things work well within our countries.
However, the deficiencies become apparent as soon as it is a question of crossing a border.
In spite of the fact that there have been several attempts to solve the problems, partly within the International Railway Union, this is especially the case in the area we are discussing here this evening, namely that of Europe' s railway networks.
As long as we have obstacles of this kind, there will also be clear limitations of at least two different kinds.
Firstly, there will be a deterioration in the prior conditions of Europe' s being able to compete with other markets where these problems have perhaps already been solved. Secondly, there will be a deterioration in the prior conditions of the railways' being able to compete with other types of transport.
There is no doubt that the railways have been the big losers in recent decades, and remain so.
From a position, thirty years ago, when it had a more than twenty per cent share of the goods transport market in the EU, the railways are now down to having a share of less than ten per cent.
At the same time, the market share for passenger transport has almost halved.
It is just not an option to force goods or passengers back onto the railways.
The railways will become winners in the market if they become efficient and are given the opportunity to develop by their own efforts.
Otherwise, there is an obvious risk that Europe' s railway network, at least where goods transport is concerned, will no longer exist within a few decades.
For this reason, it is a step in the right direction when the Commission seeks so-called operational compatibility within the railways sector.
The next step is to help extend the EU' s internal market to embrace the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, too.
Common operating systems and businesslike pricing should benefit Europe' s railway networks but, if the railways are to survive in the long-term, at least two additional things are required.
Firstly, a diversity of operators is required.
Just as there are many haulage contractors on Europe' s roads, there ought also to be many competing railway companies.
Secondly, a distinction needs to be drawn between the national operator and whoever owns the track.
That is the model we have in Sweden, and I believe in fact that it would be marvellous if similar systems could be introduced in all the EU' s Member States. Otherwise, the confusion between public authority and operator will continue to be an obstacle to the development of Europe' s railway networks.
In general, this means that an awful lot remains to be done even after the decisions which the European Parliament is making in conjunction with the present report.
These nonetheless constitute extraordinarily important steps in the right direction.
I would like to speak on this particular subject but from a regional aspect.
I cannot speak about high-speed railways in Northern Ireland, never mind the island of Ireland, because the railways do not go at any great speed in that particular part of the world.
It is extremely important that we recognise the importance of a railway system.
One thing that has concerned me recently in my region is that, in Europe, we talk about how important to regions it is that we should have the most environmentally friendly type of transport. At the same time within my area people are talking about doing away even with parts of our present minute railway system.
I find that totally atrocious.
We have one of the main links between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland between Dublin and Belfast.
This is a very important link and one that has been upgraded recently.
Probably that would be up to at least half the standard of the rest of continental Europe, but it is very welcome to those of us who live in that area.
Then we have the link between Belfast and Larne which links us to the rest of the United Kingdom. Parts of this have had to be closed down because there is not enough money to keep it in repair and upgraded.
We have also recently had Northern Ireland Railways tell us that they are going to close the link between Coleraine and Londonderry which is absolutely unbelievable and totally unacceptable.
This is the one commuting area from the Northwest and it takes in part of the Republic of Ireland and the inner shore and peninsula.
They need that railway system as a link for those who want to get to Belfast to reach airports and everywhere else.
So we have to take a really serious look at what we are talking about here.
For too often within Europe we have talked about trans-European networks - be they road-rail, air or sea - but at the end of the day we are not prepared to put in the finance at either European level or national level.
We have to take on board the challenges that come before us and we have to ensure that we have a very highly established rail link.
I certainly want it within my region because that is important.
There should be no more closures and we should make more finance available to improve the present railway system to have more goods moved by rail and not by road, which is totally unacceptable from an environmental point of view.
It is hurtful when I go back to my region and am told the money is not there.
It is hurtful when you go back and you are told that: "No, we must improve the road system - we must not improve the rail system".
The rail system has a tremendous future. It is wrong, it is totally unacceptable that it is allowed in any way to be run down.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission wishes to begin by thanking you for this interesting debate and thanking Parliament for the fact that you attach such great importance to the question of the interoperability of the conventional rail transport systems.
I want to highlight the excellent contribution which has been made by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, especially by MEP Mr Savary who has prepared the report.
The directive must be seen, in the first place, as a technical measure, but the proposal is, of course, also of political significance in so far as it helps implement a common and open market for railway services and railway materials.
As is well known, the Commission has made the railways sector into one of its priority areas for taking action.
This was especially made clear in the 1996 white paper on the revitalisation of the Community' s railways.
As early as the end of last year, the EU took a large step towards revitalising railway transport when it introduced the so-called railway package.
I am convinced that this can contribute to a renaissance for goods transport in the Community.
Above and beyond these measures, further efforts are required if the strategy is to be complete. By this, I mean primarily measures which integrate the national networks and increase the quality of the public services.
We all know how different the various countries' technical standards and operating regulations are. This has also emerged clearly in the course of the debate.
This makes international transport both more expensive and more complicated than domestic transport.
These differences affect not only interoperability but also the internal market for railway equipment.
The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has adopted an amendment to the report and, in that way, backed our own proposal.
Most of the amendments to the report are acceptable.
A series of amendments entail actual added value, something for which we wish to thank Parliament.
As you know, the Council too has examined the proposal and, thanks to contacts between Parliament' s rapporteur, the Presidency of the Council and the Commission' s officials, it is entirely possible that the proposal may be adopted as early as at first reading.
A prerequisite for its becoming a reality is the desire to pursue a genuine convergence policy even where an essentially technical document is concerned.
When it comes to the amendments, I only wish therefore to deal with those which are unacceptable.
First of all, Amendment 9, Article 1(3).
The area of applicability is established in Annex I and cannot be limited in the way proposed.
Those cases which are mentioned may be dealt with as special categories, as special cases or, at worst, as exceptions.
Amendment 28, Article 22(3).
The proposed change is incompatible with the idea that the technical qualifications for interoperability are to be introduced gradually. Nor does it fall in with the need to prioritise those measures which provide the greatest benefits in terms of cost.
Amendment 29, Article 24(1). Where this is concerned, there are legal obstacles to acceptance.
Amendment 32, Annex I, together with Amendment 35 on exempting passenger carriages from third countries.
The proposed wording is unacceptable because it means a fundamental change to the rolling stock referred to in the directive.
The principle which the Commission upheld before the Council and the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism and upon which the proposal is based is that the directive must embrace all rolling stock used on the trans-European railway network.
This is important for the purpose of promoting the internal market for rolling stock and also for the purpose of guaranteeing a minimum level of safety the length of the trans-European railway network.
In order to achieve this minimum level of safety, all rolling stock must fulfil certain minimum specifications.
Amendment 39, Article 18(3) and Amendment 40, Annex VII.
The proposed measures are incompatible with Article 14(2) which specifies that it is the Member States' responsibility to make sure that the system complies with the STI, or spécification technique interopérationnelle, regulations.
This proposal could be introduced into the framework directive concerning railway safety which the Commission will be introducing later this year.
Clearly, however, exceptional instances of transportation or, for example, locomotives involved in track maintenance do not need to fulfil the same requirements as passenger trains.
The proposal therefore mentions a number of special cases (cf. Article 2 K and Article 5(5)) where special, suitably adjusted regulations may be applied.
Allow me to leave the other amendments, because they all have our support.
They help make the directive clearer, especially the special cases. Otherwise, they involve acceptable supplementary provisions, for example certain cases exempted from the technical specifications.
I would conclude my intervention concerning the interoperability of the conventional rail systems by thanking Parliament for its efforts.
We must hope that it will be possible to adopt the directive as early as at first reading. The directive will take on a key role when it comes to revitalising railway transport.
I now move on to the second report, which concerns the interoperability of high-speed trains.
In this case, too, Mr Savary has prepared an interesting report containing a number of constructive observations and proposals.
The Commission will examine them in detail and, as far as possible, take account of them in planning its activities.
The Commission' s report was more concerned with the implementation and effects of Directive 96/48 than with the actual progress made towards the interoperability of high-speed trains.
This has to do with the fact that the railway network in question is still at an early stage of development.
Parliament' s proposal for carrying out an assessment of how much progress really has been made on interoperability is therefore very interesting.
Where the conventional railway network is concerned, the Commission proposed that a common representative body should provide, and regularly update, a facility to help monitor progress.
At the request of a Member State or of the Commission, this would provide a picture of the trans-European rail system for conventional trains.
The Commission has examined all the proposals in the report on the interoperability of high-speed trains, and they constitute a welcome contribution to the Commission' s ongoing deliberations in this area which continues, of course, to be given high priority.
It is generally known that the railway sector is of crucial importance in terms of Europe' s future transport needs and a more sustainable European transport system.
Increased interoperability is a key factor in our endeavours in this area.
It is very pleasing to have it confirmed through today' s discussion that the European Parliament and the Commission see the issue in much the same way.
Mr President, Commissioner, we and the rapporteur, Mr Savary, have gone a long way towards accommodating the Council by including umpteen proposed amendments here in plenary in order to reconcile the two versions.
The Council should accept our opinion and the Commission should support us, not the Council, Commissioner.
Secondly, please be so kind as to point out to your employees that the report is not from the Committee on Regional Policy, but from the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, because we are devising a transport policy for the whole Community, not just for the regions.
Mr Jarzembowski, the name of the committee is the "Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism".
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
British Nuclear Fuels at Sellafield
The next item is the oral question (B5-0223/2000) by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, to the Commission, on the installation of the MOX demonstration facility at the British Nuclear Fuels site at Sellafield.
Mr President, the report on safety at Sellafield, published by the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, is a damning indictment of safety at the plant and falsification of safety checks there.
In mid-February Chief Inspector Laurence Williams said that he himself would pull the plug on the THORP reprocessing plant if his safety recommendations were not acted on.
However, it is clear from his own report that BNFL cannot be trusted.
The response to previous recommendations by the NII was to ignore them.
Indeed, I have documents showing this to be the case as far back as 1981.
This shows arrogance, even when they are called to account.
What are we to make of the fact that this investigation by the UK Nuclear Inspectorate resulted from a press report in the UK Independent, following which the UK Government sent in a posse, as it were - the Nuclear Inspectorate. Surely it should have been the other way around.
We received continuous reassurance regarding the safety of EU nuclear installations, so why does it need a press investigation to alert Member State governments to serious safety issues?
It is time that the citizens of Europe received detailed answers to the questions of the effect on safety and the environment of the falsification of data in the MOX facility at the BNFL Sellafield site - falsification that has been ongoing for some years - because of the seriousness of the questions it raises for the safety of MOX fuel in use and for the nuclear installation's safety generally.
It also raises questions for the transport of nuclear material such as MOX fuel and, indeed, for nuclear safeguards because of the production of plutonium stockpiles.
Indeed, I would ask what level of Euratom safeguard efforts, personalities, site visits etc. has been deployed on that site since 1996 since when, we are told, reprocessing in the UK has been performed under Euratom safeguards?
I questioned Chief Inspector Laurence Williams in committee on whether the inspectorate staff in the UK were going native and imbibing the cultures that they are there to control. He gave me a serious answer.
However, what about Euratom inspectors?
Can we trust them? Do they also imbibe the cultures that they are there to control?
I would also ask you to deal seriously with the harmonisation of minimum standards, because here we received conflicting answers in committee.
I am also directly concerned with the effects of reprocessing on neighbouring states, such as my own, where radioactive contamination from Sellafield has been found on the east coast beaches, in particular Carlingford Lough, where I grew up.
Local people often ask me what the EU is going to do about it. I can give them very short answers.
Denmark and other Nordic states are also concerned at the radioactive contamination of their seas and fishing grounds from reprocessing at Sellafield.
I believe the scandal of abuse of safety at Sellafield is a European question.
In particular, the high-level waste tanks pose a serious, on-going risk to the east coast of Ireland because of the risk of a release of large amounts of radiation should the cooling tanks overheat.
The Nuclear Inspectorate's report stressed that the amount of high-level liquid waste continues to increase faster than BNFL can deal with it.
The THORP reprocessing plant produces continually more waste.
It is this plant that the inspectorate threatened with legal sanctions if the backlog is not cleared.
Reprocessing by its nature produces large quantities of liquid waste.
For more than 40 years high-level liquid waste has been stored in tanks at Sellafield under constant cooling.
It is now urgent that we cease reprocessing and that the high-level waste tanks be shifted to passive containment such as vitrification.
Even then, they will still be highly radioactive for more than 50 years.
The problem for BNFL is that the amount of high-level liquid waste produced by reprocessing continues to increase faster than it can deal with it.
The NII would like to see the minimisation of the amount of high-level liquid waste stored in order to reduce the potential hazard.
I would suggest that this could be done by ending reprocessing now.
In committee I also queried whether a culture of corruption had spread to the independent quality assurance verification by Lloyd's Quality Assurance who verify that BNF procedures comply with health and safety requirements.
Last September it published a report stating that BNFL has high-quality management in terms of health, safety and the environment.
As this was clearly inaccurate, according to the regulator's report, this independent verification now lacks credibility.
I have already talked about going native in regard both to Euratom and the UK inspectorate.
This is the polite euphemism for corruption, and that is what we must control here.
The Chief Inspector recommended that the high-level waste tanks and the serious risk resulting from the inability of BNFL to make them passively safe through vitrification was an urgent issue.
I would ask what does "urgent" mean in this context?
Must we wait for years more of serious risk to the health and environment of people in the British Isles and Europe generally?
The Commission is informed of the events surrounding the falsification of the pellet diameter data at the MOX demonstration facility and the BNFL Sellafield site.
We are closely following the developments and have made direct contact both with the UK authorities and with the company.
The Commission is highly concerned with this event which raises questions in relation to nuclear safety.
Before I refer to the specific aspects raised by Mrs Ahern in her question, I would therefore firstly like to state that we cannot tolerate any negligence in relation to nuclear safety within the present and greater European Union.
The neglect of internationally agreed nuclear safety standards should be openly and firmly condemned.
I am therefore grateful that the European Parliament decided to debate this important issue in plenary tonight and to adopt a resolution later this week.
Let me now turn to the first specific issue which is the implications of the MOX data issue for the safety of nuclear installations.
Let me first remind the honourable Members that under the International Convention on Nuclear Safety the responsibility for nuclear safety rests with the state having jurisdiction over a nuclear installation.
It is also clear that our Member States do not wish to give up this responsibility.
I therefore need to refer to the UK and the NII report on the falsification of the data which states that the nuclear installations inspectorate is satisfied that the fuel manufactured in MDF will be safe in use in spite of the incomplete QA records caused by the falsification of some AQL data by process workers in the facility.
That is a quote from their report.
However, the inspectors' report on the control and supervision of operations at the BNFL Sellafield site also stated its opinion on the deterioration in safety performance at Sellafield.
The company has reacted to the requirement of the NII to produce a programme responding to the recommendations in the report.
We are now awaiting the formal reaction of the inspector to this programme.
Secondly, on nuclear safeguards: according to the investigations carried out by the UK nuclear installations inspectorate, the falsification of data occurred during a secondary manual diameter check of a sub-set of the MOX pellets in the Sellafield MOX demonstration facility.
As far as Euratom nuclear material safeguards are concerned, checks of the diameter of pellets are not covered since operators' declarations for safeguards are based on pellet weights and not on a diameter measurement.
Therefore the verifications performed by Euratom safeguards did not indicate that these declarations had been incorrect.
Thirdly, in relation to the transport of nuclear materials, transport of radioactive material is implemented according to regulations that are elaborated by the IAEA and transposed into national legislation.
Therefore, also for the transport of radioactive material the prime responsibility lies with the Member States.
As such the measurement deviations at Sellafield do not have any consequences on the safe transport of pellets.
However, the Commission welcomes any decision which would increase even further the safe transport of nuclear material.
The Commission has as its objective to promote the harmonisation of the regulations in the field of transport of radioactive material, which would increase safety in the field.
Finally, regarding the concept of proposing a Euratom directive for harmonising minimum standards for nuclear safety in the European Union and its value in discussions of nuclear safety with the accession states: individual EU Member States' safety requirements are more specific and demanding than those of the International Atomic Agency.
Because of different historical background, legal framework, type and numbers of reactors and different approaches to regulation, they cannot easily be harmonised into a set of common rules.
My concern is that any attempt to achieve a consensus on a set of common Euratom safety standards might only result in a very generalised set of rules and principles. As such they would be unlikely to improve on current nuclear installations' safety standards.
It is therefore unlikely that harmonising minimum standards at an EU-level would have been able to prevent what happened at Sellafield.
There are, however, several activities at Community level where harmonisation would be both beneficial and possible.
These activities are based on common recognition of national requirements and the promotion of best practices.
One area where there is scope for in-depth harmonisation is in relation to new types of facilities.
I do not see any obstacles to future harmonisation of rules in the field of safe management of radioactive waste and decommissioning of nuclear installations.
In the context of enlargement, a directive setting out harmonised minimum safety standards might have facilitated our early discussions on the very sensitive issue of nuclear safety.
As part of the Community's acquis it then would have been routinely screened together with other EU legislation.
However, it is difficult to say if such a directive would be developed quickly enough to play a key role in the ongoing discussions with the accession states.
It is also difficult to prejudge if common minimum standards would give us the level of safety that we wish the accession states to aim for.
We have in fact set our sights and those of the accession states beyond such a level.
We are working to encourage the applicant states to apply the good practices in use in the European Union.
One example of this is the development by the DG-Environment of guidelines for periodic safety reviews of the Soviet-designed light water nuclear reactors.
Another major step forward was taken only last week with the setting up of a European nuclear installation safety group.
It will bring together nuclear power plant operators and nuclear regulators from both Member States and applicant states.
I can assure you that the Commission will do everything it can to pursue the objective of a high level of nuclear safety, both within the present Union and an enlarged one.
I am convinced that more could be done at Community level to achieve this.
However, it is not clear that a directive requiring the harmonisation of safety standards at a European level at this moment in history is the best way forward.
It is very important that we retain a sense of perspective, a sense of proportion about this issue and I welcome the balanced response from Commissioner Wallström.
It is very important that we stick to facts and avoid some of the wilder claims that have been put in the Green motion for a resolution on this issue.
I want to emphasise that safety was not compromised in the incident of record falsification.
I would like to quote also from the NII report that the fuel manufactured in MDF, the MOX Demonstration Facility, will be safe in use in spite of incomplete quality assurance records caused by the falsification of some acceptable quality-level data by process workers in the facility.
The NII takes this view on the basis of the robustness of the fuel manufacturing process and the totality of the checks made on the key parameters.
I would also like to draw colleagues' attention to the positive response by BNFL to the two reports made by the NII, one on the records incident and the other on the control and safety management regime at Sellafield.
I welcome the response and their three key recommendations to improve the safety management system and management structure by implementing a comprehensive overhaul of the safety management system across the company.
To improve resource availability by taking on more monitoring staff, by improved training and further emphasising the safety culture and thirdly, to improve independent inspection, audit and review by appointing independent senior compliance inspectors and the like.
BNFL has responded positively to the 28 recommendations in one report and 15 recommendations in the other, the falsification report.
I do not propose to go through those in great detail. I have no time.
Let us not lose sight of the fundamentals here.
Regulatory safety mechanisms worked in this instance.
Members of the staff reported the error and then the regulatory procedures took their course.
There was no actual breach of safety, only a breach of record-keeping regulations for one particular customer.
The offence of falsification of records must not negate or obscure the long-term case for reprocessing or MOX fuel assemblies.
Both of these are forms of recycling. Both of them are effective ways of reducing, of concentrating waste and in the case of MOX manufacture are the best answer known presently to the issue of safe disposal of weapons grade plutonium.
I welcome the Western European Nuclear Regulators Association WENRA which was formed just over a year ago in February 1999.
I welcome their launching of a project aimed at harmonising its members' safety rules and practices.
The regulators themselves are undertaking this job across Member States: who better to undertake that task?
The result will be an enhanced safety culture and that is to be welcomed by all.
Mr President, the vast majority of United Kingdom citizens or indeed EU citizens were deeply shocked and dismayed at the recent events at BNFL.
Let me quote BNFL's own words: "At company level it has been recognised that in the mind of many stake holders quality and safety are inextricably linked.
Failure to comply in one aspect of an accredited quality system has led to a major loss in confidence in BNFL overall."
That is from a management which is now aware of its shortcomings, a management that foolishly engaged in staff reductions, now reversed thank goodness.
The highest standards are required of any nuclear installation.
I have considerable sympathy for the workers at BNFL let down by a sloppy management.
Their livelihoods were endangered.
They will now speak out whenever they see evidence of lack of safety culture.
I do not want to talk at this stage about the viability or wisdom of reprocessing nor about the economics of MOX.
That is not under debate, although those matters should be debated in the UK and elsewhere.
BNFL is now in for a very difficult period and deservedly.
The main reason this is being raised in the European Parliament is to point out the lack of European harmonised standards in the nuclear industry.
There are harmonised standards in almost every other aspect of European industry.
The Euratom Treaty is deficient and that must be rectified so that we can have the sort of directive we need.
We cannot really contemplate enlargement without some sort of acquis communautaire in the nuclear sector.
The Commissioner says she does not feel it advisable to produce a communication.
Please come to our committee Commissioner and we can discuss this further.
I think one is needed in the near future indicating how we could achieve more harmonisation - of course not at the lowest standards in existence but at the most stringent.
If you want public acceptance - and many of you do - of the nuclear industry, you have to ensure that.
Commissioner you say that as far as new facilities are concerned, if there are to be any, you feel that there is a case.
I really do not see the difference, and I urge you to reconsider what you have said this evening to come to our committee, look at this one case as an example of what we need for the public of Europe and for the workers in our nuclear plants.
Mr President, what the investigations into this incident show is what can best be described as a culture of management incompetence and one of complacency.
The report by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate in February of this year into the safety records found that these records had been systematically falsified.
The processing of spent fuel from 34 plants in 9 different countries was thrown into doubt and, indeed, Japan, Germany and Switzerland stopped sending material - and quite rightly so - to Sellafield.
This whole sorry tale has added to the UK's reputation, as sordid as it is often inaccurate, as the "dirty man of Europe".
I believe that all at Sellafield must accept collective responsibility for the things that have gone wrong and must act to improve them.
A number of improvements have been made: the new chairman of BNFL has undertaken a fundamental review; a number of people have been dismissed.
There is undoubtedly progress.
However, there is a lot yet to be achieved and there is a long way for the UK to go, and for BNFL to go to re-establish its reputation.
I would ally myself with the concerns of Mrs McNally, when she asked the Commissioner to look again at these matters.
The fact is that the Commissioner telling us that the rules of individual Member States are more specific is simply not good enough.
We need high minimum standards and, in particular, we need those standards in the light of the accession of candidate countries, many of which are more reliant on nuclear technology than existing members of the Union and have much older generating capacity.
The importance of European Union action in this matter is that it will be a confidence-building measure, and what the public want are confidence-building measures.
I recognise and feel deeply the concern expressed by colleagues in the Republic of Ireland and Denmark.
The fact is that we need legislation to implement what is called for in the motion put forward by the three main political groups tonight: high minimum standards for the safe and reliable design, construction and operation of nuclear and nuclear-related installations, as well as for nuclear-safety management systems.
My group cannot support the Green motion here tonight.
We feel that it treats the matter in too gargantuan terms.
It raises the perfectly legitimate question of whether nuclear reprocessing should continue at Sellafield.
But one cannot conduct this debate in the terms employed by the tabloid newspapers.
We support the motion put forward by the three major political groups because we believe that improvements need to be made, improvements are being made, but that those improvements will be encouraged by an EU-wide approach to this whole matter.
We recognise too the great significance of this plant for employment in west Cumbria and we believe that should the future of the plant be thrown into jeopardy then the European Commission must come forward with special measures to help regenerate other employment in the area.
This is a saga in which nobody, least of all Sellafield, comes out well.
But it is an area where action at European-Union level really can make a difference.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking my colleague, Mrs Ahern, for raising this very important issue.
No one in this House could have been anything but appalled at the recent events linked to Sellafield, with the falsification of MOX fuel data and the Nuclear Installation Inspectorate's report on the low level of safety procedures at the plant.
Following the initial defensive response by BNFL, it was only when that report was published that the real scale of the problem emerged, that the falsification of figures had apparently been going on secretly since 1996.
Wales, like Ireland, has suffered from the radioactive contamination in the Irish Sea, due essentially to Sellafield.
There has been a theory about a link between a high incidence of childhood leukaemia, for example, and proximity to the Welsh coastline.
Now, added to that, we have a situation where any confidence the public had in the safety of the plant, and therefore their own health and safety, has been destroyed.
It is this crisis of credibility in the management of British Nuclear Fuels which may actually bring about the end of reprocessing.
BNFL was determined to press ahead with the Sellafield MOX plant to keep reprocessing going.
But one of the reasons why British Energy, which accounted for a third of Sellafield's reprocessing work, decided to shift from that to waste storage was on economic grounds.
It was cheaper for them to store waste, and evidence published recently by the nuclear-free local authorities confirms this view.
So, with the problems of the environmental pollution and the effects on health, as well as the issue of cost and the debate about the cost, what justification is left for nuclear processing? It is not worth the risks associated with it and, as the resolution states, the Council, the Commission and Parliament must reconsider this whole issue, including the production of MOX fuel, in the light of recent events and in the interests not only of people in Ireland and Wales but also in the whole of Europe.
British Nuclear Fuels has an obligation to deal with the levels of waste that Mrs Ahern mentioned earlier in the safest way possible.
That issue too is one of great concern to me because an area of Wales has been mentioned as a possible site for storing low-level radioactive waste.
This is unacceptable. A strategic approach is needed.
The nuclear industry has caused enormous damage already and we have to be certain that more and more communities and people's lives are not blighted by its legacy in future.
Mr President, an essential requirement in parliamentary work is rigour.
For the sake of this rigour, I would like to remind you of four facts relating to the case of the falsification of manual measurements of the diameter of MOX fuel pellets at the British Nuclear Fuels installation at Sellafield.
Firstly, we are talking about secondary and superfluous controls at the request of a client, not a safety requirement; secondly, no nuclear safety requirement was violated; thirdly, there was no risk of radiation whatsoever; fourthly, no safeguard clause of the Euratom Treaty was violated since the measurements of the weight of the pellets were correct.
We are therefore talking about a dreadful case of a lack of professional ethics, which has done enormous economic and public relations damage to the company concerned, but this case had no implications whatsoever in terms of the safety of workers or the public.
Nevertheless, a mishap like this reminds us, despite its trivial nature, of the need to give utmost priority to the constant control and improvement of the procedures in an installation such as the Sellafield reprocessing plant.
This is the view of the British regulatory authority.
This is clearly demanded in the resolution supported by our Group and we hope that this will be complied with in the future.
Mr President, we must not be under any illusion that the falsification of quality control data at Sellafield was not a most serious matter.
I suspect that the small number of Members of this House who have kept in touch with the plant, both the management and the workers' representatives there over a good number of years, felt the issue more keenly than most.
It exposed a poor safety culture and an inadequate secondary control procedure in the manufacture of MOX fuel.
However, we should note that the response of BNFL to the nuclear inspectorate report has already resulted in very significant management changes. These have been welcomed both by the inspectorate and by the minister responsible.
I hope that in that regard they will not be accused of having gone native on this particular issue.
I would suggest that one of the roles of Parliament should be to monitor the ongoing management changes that are taking place.
We should also note that the chief inspector and the Commission made very clear to the industry committee that there were no safety implications at any of the Sellafield installations.
Nuclear safeguards were not an issue, nor were there safety issues in relation to transport of nuclear materials. I am glad that the Commissioner has reinforced that view this evening.
The fuel can be safely used for the purposes for which it was manufactured.
But to say all this must not lead us to be complacent.
We seek to apply standards to the applicant countries in eastern Europe and, I would suggest, beyond the applicant countries in eastern Europe.
European Union standards applicable to all nuclear installations are still something that most of us want to see.
We know that the Western European Nuclear Regulators Association is seeking harmonisation.
I would hope that the Commissioner, as other colleagues have asked, will reconsider her position and actually support and encourage WENRA in this objective.
I am absolutely convinced, on the basis of my own experience in a number of countries that this is the way to reassure public opinion. It is the reassurance of public opinion that must be our main objective as a Parliament.
Mr President, I have been a Member of this Parliament now for sixteen years. I believe I am accurate in saying that literally in every one of those sixteen years the concerns of the Irish Government and the Irish people about the nuclear processing plant in Sellafield have been raised in this Parliament.
I am always conscious, as I look around, that probably every light bulb in this Chamber is lit by nuclear energy, which explains the reluctance among many of the major European nuclear powers to address seriously the concern we have in Ireland.
Our concerns have been expressed by successive governments to the British Government. They have largely been treated - I regret to say - with indifference and indeed, very often with contempt.
There now exists in Ireland a total absence of any trust in relation to reassurances about the safety of the nuclear plant in Sellafield.
The recent information about the falsification of documents just added to the deep sense of unease that is shared by people throughout our island.
We are a country with all risk and no benefit from this plant.
We are aware that the Germans and the Japanese are sending their nuclear waste for processing to Sellafield because it is politically too uncomfortable for them to do it in their own countries because of concerns about this.
I ask the Commissioner to reconsider her point.
I also ask her another question: are any of the non-nuclear countries on the nuclear safety committee you mentioned?
It is time that we realised that we must count the cost of processing the waste from these nuclear facilities as an intrinsic part of the cost.
It is, generally speaking, more comfortable to leave that out, but this is a matter of extreme concern to the Irish Government, the Irish people and happily, also to the Danish Government.
We are joined in our concerns by them as well.
Mr President, I asked to speak in this debate not just because I am a Member from the north-west region of England where the Sellafield plant is situated, not just because there could be 10 000 livelihoods at risk if Sellafield was closed, and not because I have any vested interest in the nuclear industry.
I do not.
I asked to speak because I want to try and help to get some truth into this debate.
The trouble is, when you talk about nuclear issues - especially Sellafield - it is dominated by a distortion of the truth.
When Mrs Ahern spoke, she spoke of the NII giving a damning indictment of the plant.
No, it did not!
She spoke of the damning indictment on safety checks.
No, it did not!
It made three safety recommendations and the checks were quality assurance checks, as other speakers have said.
She said the report came from a press statement in The Independent.
No, it did not.
The workers at BNFL raised the issue.
They were the ones who discovered it.
BNFL were the ones who told the nuclear installations inspectorate and their customers what had happened.
She spoke of contamination of the seas in Ireland and Denmark.
I quote from The Independent where seven prominent Danish scientists, who actually study as a professional interest the releases of radioactivity from Sellafield, said on 12 May: "There is no scientific basis for the claim that the present release of radioactivity from Sellafield causes an unacceptable contamination in the North Atlantic and Arctic regions".
When your mind is made up facts only confuse the issue!
She spoke of the scandal of abuse of safety.
That is an absolute insult to the people who work there, and more so to their families who live near that site!
Those workers would not work in that plant if they thought it was unsafe. They would certainly not put their families at risk it that was the case.
That is an absolute indictment of those people who work there.
Then she finished by talking about corruption.
That really is the last throw of the dice.
Finally, I say to the Commissioner: the one thing you should do, apart from listen, is to pay a visit to Sellafield and find out the facts for yourself. That is the best advice that I can give you and many Members of this Parliament also.
Mr President, as a Cumbrian - born, bred and resident - and one of the representatives of north-west England, there is nobody in this Parliament who has been more affected by the reverberations arising from recent events at Sellafield than me.
Let us be clear.
There have been real lapses in the way in which it has been managed.
Those lapses quite simply are not acceptable. Speaking as a Cumbrian I know a lot of people in my home county - which I have the privilege to represent - feel let down by British Nuclear Fuels.
But as has already been pointed out, there have been no breaches of the law or of the regulator's rules and guidelines.
In a society subject to the rule of law recent events cannot be used to close the plant.
I know that there are many people who would like to see Sellafield closed down. In particular I know this is a very strongly held view in parts of Ireland.
In a free society, if that is how people feel, they must be allowed to articulate their opinions.
But that is no reason why the plant should be closed.
There can be no question of any lawfully established enterprise in any part of the European Union being closed by the public authorities without its breaking the law.
This true in Ireland, Denmark, the United Kingdom or any other Member State.
The owners - that is to say the United Kingdom Government - and the employees of Sellafield have legitimate interests which quite simply cannot be swept under the carpet.
This applies in this case just as much as to anybody else.
Finally, just as the recent crisis at Sellafield has been self-inflicted, so the solution to it lies in British Nuclear Fuels' hands, as they themselves understand.
I wish them well.
But words are not enough.
They must be matched by deeds - their deeds.
From an Irish perspective we are witnessing the beginning of the end of reprocessing at Sellafield and we have allies.
The powers of the Commission in this area as the responsible Community institution remain hopelessly inadequate, embarrassingly inadequate.
No uniform standards for safety and discharges, no Community consultation procedure concerning power stations sited near frontiers, no clear Community provisions for the storage and transport of nuclear fuels or nuclear waste, no adequate Community system of information and monitoring in cases of nuclear malfunction.
Nuclear safety in the enlargement process is a major cause for concern.
As there are no prescribed criteria in EU law governing the design or operation of nuclear facilities, how do we judge their safety of operation? Realists accept and understand that life is full of risks.
Society usually accepts a certain level of risk in return for an advantage and proponents of nuclear energy almost inevitably remind us of the balance of risk and benefit.
What benefit accrues to Ireland for the risk of being exposed to the majority of Britain's nuclear installations?
If nuclear safety and nuclear energy are so safe, why are not the majority of these installations located near the population centres of the south-east of England? To minimise the risk to these population centres of course.
But seen from an Irish perspective, this stands logic on its head, we have counties Antrim, Down, Louth, Dublin, Wicklow and Wexford where the vast majority of the population of the island of Ireland, about 2 million people, live on or adjacent to the Irish sea where the majority of British nuclear institutions are sited.
Furthermore in recent years, we have all seen how consumer concern about the integrity of the food chain can devastate a once seemingly secure market.
Witness the BSE and dioxin problem.
We can only begin to imagine the effect of any kind of nuclear scare - just a scare - on these sectors of our economy.
Choice about exposure to risk for oneself or for one's children is a very basic human right.
This right to determine, to control, to have any say about the risk of nearby concentrations of nuclear installations is denied to those of us who inhabit the western shores of the Irish sea.
In practice, nuclear decision-making in the UK falls far short of democratic standards.
Often questionable decisions are made behind a wall of secrecy.
I will conclude.
The reality of Sellafield goes beyond the contribution to the Kyoto targets on the dependence of the UK economy on nuclear energy.
It also includes a litany of unreported incidents, falsified quality control checks on MOX fuel rods resulting in the loss of confidence by the Japanese in safety standards at the plant and the cancellation by the Germans and the Swiss of mixed oxide nuclear fuel pellets.
The reality of Sellafield includes incidents last September and early this year of deliberate sabotage, allegedly by members of the staff.
Serious doubts are being raised about the long-term viability of reprocessing.
Their order books are full for a few more years, but no new orders are coming in due to the quality of control lapse at the MOX plant.
Even the new CEO, Mr Norman Askew, is reported as saying that reprocessing is not the big part of the business it once was.
A director has publicly stated the future of the plant is in doubt.
But a nuclear future for Sellafield can be justified: not mixed oxide fuel production, not thermal oxide reprocessing at the MOX and THORP plants.
The skills and the experience of the workforce and the major capital investment could and should be redirected towards waste management and the creation of a centre of excellence for decommissioning and that is what I suggest we concentrate the debate on.
Mr President, thank you very much for an interesting and valuable debate.
I hope that we can all agree on the need for confidence-building because, even though the conclusion is that this incident did not cause substantial damage or serious risks, we see that the price of the loss of confidence is very high.
It is in the interest of all of us to ensure that our citizens have confidence in our safety and security systems.
I am ready to come any time to any committee in Parliament to discuss those issues.
I can say that personally I would very much prefer to have Community rules.
But we must not give the impression that this would mean higher levels of safety in the European Union, because with the unanimity rule on the decisions on these issues, the end-result could be that we have minimum standard rules which would not live up to the expectations of our citizens.
We must be realistic, because we know the discussion and the position and attitude among the Member States: they are not willing to give the European Union more competence in this area.
That is also why the Commission's responsibility in this area is restricted to control radioactivity - but no more than that.
We need European rules.
However, we must not give the impression that this will be achieved very easily and quickly.
I share the view that we ought to discuss it more thoroughly.
In reply to Mrs Banotti's question, this European Nuclear Installation's safety group brings together the power plant operators and nuclear regulators from both Member States and applicant states.
It is not a wider forum but they can cooperate in this specific safety group.
It is not the first time that Sellafield has been discussed and we need to look into the safety issues very closely because, you remember, there was an accident in Japan. That was because of lax control and some of the staff thought they could make a mix of their own.
So even in highly advanced societies there are serious risks with nuclear and processing techniques.
I should be pleased to come to Parliament at any time to continue this discussion.
However, I do not want to give anyone false hopes about what can be achieved very quickly and with the help of Member States.
That is also why we have restricted competence.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to make a comment in relation to yesterday' s Minutes.
I do not appear amongst the signatories of the attendance register.
I was present all day yesterday and during the vote which took place at noon, but I do not appear in the Minutes.
I would be grateful if this error could be corrected.
We will check the list, Mr Valdivielso de Cué, and make the necessary correction.
Mr President, I would like to inform the House, under Rule 111, that last Thursday, the offices of the Moss Media Group in Moscow comprising independent television and a number of newspapers and magazines were raided by so-called tax police, uniformed and armed.
Documents were taken away, the telephones were cut off and threats of legal action remain.
Mr President, this matter is one of the utmost importance.
It involves freedom of the press in Russia and further outrages are expected over the next two or three days.
Mr Robin Cook is in Moscow today.
He will discuss the matter with Mr Ivanov, the Russian Foreign Minister, and the 15 Ministers are thinking of a joint démarche.
But we in the European Parliament - what are we doing?
Nothing. The matter is, if you like, too urgent to take on board because it happened last Thursday and cannot be brought forward as an urgency.
Could you please refer this question to the Conference of Presidents so that some system can be found to deal with very urgent and important matters such as this one?
We take note of your comment and your suggestion, Lord Bethell, and we will pass them on to the President.
Thank you for your statement, Mrs Stenzel.
(The Minutes were approved)
Broad outlines of economic policies
The next item is the report (A5-0134/2000) by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission recommendation for the 2000 broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States and the Community (drawn up pursuant to Article 99(2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community).
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(EL) Mr President, broadly speaking, the report tabled before plenary by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs contains a particularly positive appraisal of the Commission' s recommendation for the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States.
The committee has worked with its usual efficiency and diligence and has supported its proposals with an impressive econometric analysis which I should like to praise here in public.
The recommendation for the year 2000 has been formulated at a time of favourable developments and optimistic prospects for the European economy.
The prospects of an increase in the national wage in Europe in excess of 3% for 2000 and 2001 - 3.4% according to the latest forecasts for 2000 - are much higher than the disappointing actual average rates of increase throughout the 1990s.
These results, provided that they are realised, offer a window of opportunity, a springboard from which the European economy can launch on to a course which will lead to a permanently high and ecologically sustainable rate of growth.
It goes without saying that permanently high rates of growth are the sine qua non for improving the employment situation and strengthening the competitiveness of Europe in the global economy.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs accepts that the requisite rate of progress is best expressed through a growth rate of GDP of 3% or more, that this rate cannot be maintained over time without a substantial rise in the potential product of the EU economy and that there can be no increase in the potential product without productive investment. The Commission, however, has avoided specifying the ratio of investment to GDP.
The Committee on Economic Affairs takes the view that quantitative economic targets may be useful, but insists that the fixing of such targets must not undermine the goals established in the stability pact, which are the fundamental guide for the economic policies in the euro zone.
Despite this general reservation, the report by the Committee on Economic Affairs expresses the committee' s satisfaction at the restatement in the Commission recommendation of the quantified target, set in the Presidency conclusions of the European Council at Lisbon, of raising labour force participation from 61% to 70% of the population by 2010 and of increasing the participation of women from 51% to over 60% by 2000.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs maintains that the requisite economic growth must be based on price stability and budgetary discipline, reasonable wage increases taking account of price stability, productivity increases and a reduction in unit labour costs, even in the case of reductions in working hours.
It also believes in greater liberalisation of competition, strengthening national competition authorities, providing special support for associations of small- and medium-sized enterprises and further developing the single market - especially in the public utilities and financial services sectors.
As far as financial services are concerned, having reached a broad consensus of agreement, we shall be tabling a joint amendment calling for the action plan for financial services to be applied more quickly, i.e. by 2003 rather than 2005.
The majority of the committee believes that mobilising the market will result in the need to increase investments using purely market instruments.
At the same time, however, it approves of the restructuring of government spending in favour of investment which must be justified - when it is justified - by the cost-benefit ratio, but rejects using public investments simply to manage the economy.
On a more general note, the committee approves of the challenges identified by the Extraordinary Council in Lisbon of full employment, a knowledge-based economy, modernisation of social protection systems and dealing with the impact of the ageing population, but expresses its concern at the gap between the key challenges and the often routine specific policy recommendations.
It therefore calls upon the Commission and Council to seriously consider the need for a drastic renewal of the intellectual apparatus behind the general guidelines.
The committee also reiterates Parliament' s previous call for an interinstitutional agreement between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament on the subject of the adoption of the resolution, although it thanks the Portuguese Presidency for its willingness to cooperate on this matter.
This is ad hoc cooperation, however, not cooperation reflected in an interinstitutional agreement, and we consider this a shortcoming in our procedure.
Ladies and gentlemen, we achieved a significant degree of consensus in our work in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I should like to stress the general acceptance of the feasibility of the objective of achieving full employment within the next decade.
Of course, there are certain differences in our assessment of the best way of achieving these targets.
Some of us believe that setting quantitative targets, even without mechanisms for imposing them, would help Europe give concrete expression to its efforts to move in the right direction.
This comment applies in particular to the target investment rate, which requires us to increase the potential rate of growth of the economy to 3% on a permanent basis.
This percentage is a familiar figure.
The Commission set it repeatedly in its studies and it would not have hurt to have included it.
We could also have given more categorical expression to the, I believe, general feeling that we need to relaunch the trans-European networks and address the need for new forms of financing for them and the issue of the involvement of private capital and public investment in this sector.
Without, in any way, giving the green light to squander public spending, we could have tried to give the public sector of the economy a slightly more positive role than merely that of 'guard-dog' for price stability.
There are margins for all this, especially through the window of opportunity, if the main risk to our economy is from the probability of a crisis on the American money markets which could paralyse the private investment mechanism.
Just imagine, ladies and gentlemen, if that were to happen and we, in the meantime, had forgotten how to handle public investment.
The European economy has a huge margin for growth; it is true that the European economy can become more productive, but we need to be bolder in the way we go about it.
Mr President, when drawing up this draft opinion for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the Committee on Social Affairs fully appreciated the importance of this resolution, Parliament' s first resolution on economic policy guidelines since the Lisbon Summit.
In particular, it stressed the importance of the connection between these two priorities and considered that the common elements of the broad guidelines of economic policy should be fully exploited and the various implementing processes adopted by the Councils over the years coordinated, and by this I am referring to the objectives of the Luxembourg, Cardiff and Cologne processes.
In our opinion, the open method of coordination, which was introduced on an experimental basis in Lisbon, should allow for the full exploitation of the connection between growth and employment, which, we feel, cannot be ignored.
The subsidiarity principle needs to be steered in this direction with regard to the role both of the governments and of the decentralised institutions, without diminishing the decisive part played by greater synergy, greater coordination between the broad guidelines, and by placing greater focus on the European Community dimension with a view to developing an economic policy which can enhance the potential for development in Europe and allow us to effectively achieve the goals which we set ourselves with regard to full employment.
We have taken the chapters of the broad guidelines into account, in particular the aspects related to the introduction of flexibility and efficiency elements in the products market, the financial services market and the labour market, but we have also acknowledged the importance of the negotiations of the Social Partners and of social objectives.
A further consideration: we consider - and for the remainder we refer you to the text of the opinion - that Parliament' s role in this matter must be consolidated by formal institution of the procedure laying down a specific interinstitutional agreement on the participation of Parliament in formal consultations on the economic policy guidelines and on the monitoring of their effects.
Mr President, the Liberal Group will support the Katiforis report on the broad guidelines for economic policies, which we are especially satisfied with since many of our observations were accepted during the debate in committee.
At a time when we are debating the weakness of the euro, at least in relation to the dollar, I think that we would do well to remember that the state of the European economy is solid and offers a framework for stability and solidity as well as excellent prospects for growth and employment. In short, we can look forward to very positive development over the next few years.
Therefore, the fact that, in some ways, the US economy is doing better than the European economy, at least in terms of growth forecasts, should not mask the fact that the European economy is doing well at the moment.
Furthermore, it is the European economy which is funding a good portion of US development.
However, we should not only be concentrating on the more positive aspects; we should also be taking note of the fragility of continued growth and solidity in the European economy.
In order to overcome this fragility, in our view, we need the European economy to function better, since it is still subject to excessive corporate rigidity, in both the public and private sectors, and on the part of both economic and social operators.
We therefore propose greater adaptability and flexibility in the labour market.
This would clearly involve the removal of the existing obstacles to the proper functioning of the European internal market and a deep reform of the tax system, with the adoption of a tax package at European level. To sum up, we should overcome the conservatism which still exists in certain economic and social areas of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you why the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance did not vote in favour of the Katiforis report as amended by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Obviously, we endorse the general thrust of the Katiforis report.
In particular, we approve of the ambition to achieve full employment as well as its ambition in terms of sound social and, above all, salary agreements.
On the other hand, we did not endorse a raft of amendments which we considered to be extremely dangerous.
We shall reject these amendments. Indeed, we shall reject them systematically, and we hope within the current parliamentary term to convince our fellow Members, including those in the Group of the European People' s Party, how dangerous they are.
In the first place, we can no longer continue to call for the flexibility of wage contracts to be reformed and increased without specifying our thinking more precisely.
Endorsing the goal of a European society which is as competitive as possible in terms of know-how means maximising investment in human capital.
Well, enhanced human capital is not a commodity to be taken and then dispensed with, but rather something to be respected, something that is offered to an individual by allowing them time to be trained, to gain and enhance experience.
So if there must be structural reform in wages, then it must be in the direction of greater, and not less, stability in employment.
There is a second fundamental point of which I desperately hope to convince my fellow Members in the next five - now four - years, and that is that we cannot claim to wish to respect the Kyoto Agreement by the year 2008.
We are aware, and the report acknowledges as much, that, at the moment, it is contradictory to attempt to reconcile an objective of 3% annual growth with the rejection of the urgent requirement to invest in energy saving, transport systems, in improving accommodation, in such a way as to make the Kyoto objectives and the objective of 3% growth compatible.
- (EL) Mr President, the Commission' s recommendation for the broad economic guidelines for 2000 may well accept a return to full employment, but it has stood by the basic approach of previous years.
Although I recognise the contribution made by Parliament and our rapporteur in gaining acceptance once again for the concept of full employment, I think that the rapporteur himself, whom I congratulate on his efforts, would agree that we need to redefine what we mean by employment and by full employment.
What does employed mean when we have before us a policy which dismantles working relations, minimises employment and, as a result, makes general poverty a mass phenomenon.
As far as its general approach is concerned, the Commission' s recommendation forms part of a more general neo-liberal economic and social policy which, with the support of the majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, finds expression in the report under discussion.
As far as we are concerned, the basic policy objectives should be to support public investment, stable, permanent and full employment, protect and improve the social security system and the system of social protection in general and strengthen active demand by improving the purchasing power of the workers.
This is the direction the broad guidelines should be taking.
The amendments which we propose to the European Parliament move in precisely this direction and we call on our fellow members to vote in favour of them.
Mr President, reading the broad guidelines for the economic policy presented by the Commission for the year 2000 leaves one with a strange impression that something is missing because nowhere is there any mention of the single currency, except in a brief and fleeting reference, stating the importance of the Maastricht criterion regarding the rationalisation of public finances or the need to gear monetary policy towards price stability.
There is not a word, however, on the current depreciation of the euro and its influence on the economy and economic policies.
This seems all the more surprising because every few pages the Commission document reiterates the idea that efficiency demands an overall strategy.
The same is unfortunately true of the European Parliament' s report since, out of the 35 points raised in the resolution, not one relates to the single currency, and it is only briefly referred to in the recitals.
Apparently, the rule of silence is prevailing, as it did when the major groups within Parliament rejected the proposal from the Union for a Europe of Nations Group to organise, as of today, a debate on the implications of fluctuations in the euro.
This debate has been deferred once again, even though there is a great deal to be discussed.
For years, all the economic and financial advantages a strong euro was going to offer have been trotted out for our benefit.
Now the euro is weak, are we to assume that the loss of these advantages has no implications worth mentioning? This is surely some mistake!
The weak euro favours exports, as is often boasted. It also, however, presents serious disadvantages which are concealed, such as the misappropriation of capital, third party buyouts of euro zone businesses or weakening of the incentive for structural reforms, even though these are so necessary.
Finally, the basic problem still remains.
This depreciation in the euro has occurred because it is perceived as an artificial currency, but until this is clearly stated it will not be possible to remedy the situation.
In this instance too, then, let us hope that the European Parliament agrees to organise a debate in the near future, before it is too late.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, having scarcely emerged from the dull 80s, Europe has been plunged into the throes of international speculation.
We were promised a euro-cum-mark that would be stronger than the dollar, and which would compensate for the weakness of economic growth by means of the on-going revaluation of assets.
We have an ersatz currency whose volatility is enhanced by its non-identifiable character.
Formerly, speculation on the exchange market involved the pound.
Now it is the euro.
This is nothing particularly surprising for us Members of the European Parliament who are accustomed to seeing Europe operating on a daily basis amid differences and antagonisms.
What will the situation be like after enlargement, when the markets will react to any event affecting any one of the thirty odd countries which make up the European technostructure? It would almost be like the United Nations issuing a currency.
This reduction in the value of the euro is not something that Mr Duisenberg can do anything about, as this European Central Bank, whatever they say, is the brainchild of the two main States in the euro zone, and the French and German Governments have given the order to do nothing.
In order to maintain the value of the euro in relation to the dollar, we should have to raise euro interest rates to a level which is slightly higher than that of the dollar, perhaps to a level in the order of 50 base points.
From my standpoint as a post-Keynesian, I see this as having little impact on economic growth, since this depends on various other factors, the most important of which are psychological.
Obviously, we cannot agree to all assets located in France being devalued if the downward slide of the euro continues beyond the short term.
If this should happen, and obviously we hope it does not, then we should have to point the finger at the parties responsible, and this would not mean Mr Duisenberg.
We shall judge the candidates in the French presidential elections according to the efforts they have made to get us out of this bind.
Mr President, the report is self-contradictory.
Paragraph 14 supports the Stability Pact' s demand that price stability should always precede employment-related considerations.
Elsewhere, the desire is for higher employment and more democratic influence upon economic policy.
However, inflation should always, of course, be between zero and two per cent.
This is something that is supported, even though inflation has only stood at that rate for a period of six years in post-war Germany and Denmark.
It is now quite certain, however, that this state of affairs will always be best for all countries at all times.
We no longer have any need for elected representatives to devise the right policy mix.
We have a Central Bank which establishes interest rates on the basis of inflation.
In this way, the euro is allowed to depreciate and interest rates are increased with the result that there may be lower rates of growth and increased unemployment.
It is worse than the sacred cows in India, yet the report does not protest against this.
In paragraph G, on the other hand, a new sacred cow is to be found: that of high taxation.
Social security arrangements must be critically examined and social expenditure reduced, but savings can also be made on social expenditure by making higher employment the top economic objective.
In that way, people receiving cash benefits and unemployment benefit will be able to exchange these for proper wages.
That is an alternative recipe for economic policy, but one which is contrary to the Treaty.
The balance of trade deficit is normally to be no more than one per cent of GNP, irrespective of whether the money is used for investments, which can subsequently produce much larger deficits again. This would seem to be something which no amount of elections in the Member States or in the EU Parliament can change.
This is absurd. It runs counter to all experience and is a denial of the principle of democracy which unites our countries and which means that voters can go to the polls and vote in favour of higher employment, even if inflation might, as a result, occasionally rise above the two per cent mark.
Mr President, I enthusiastically support the further deepening of integration. Many matters are best dealt with at Community level, but when I read the report of my colleague Mr Katiforis - which provides several guidelines which are favourable to the market economy and therefore worthy of support - I cannot agree with some of the proposals in it.
The dynamism and desired growth of the European economy will not come about by creating Union-wide integrated programmes, whether they be applied with good intentions in the area of training or entrepreneurship or whether they be common support systems for the benefit of SME organisations.
I also have my personal doubts about the superiority of a European scientific community, if it is to be created from above, i.e. by the volition of the Commission and the Council, and not allowed to develop naturally through networking between the scientific communities, from one business or university to another; financing, both at a national and European level, must naturally be secured.
Something which I have reservations about is the faith in the importance of top-level structures which stands out in this report; a programme and planning from the top may actually put the brakes on development rather than make it dynamic.
At present, European dynamism will be improved by dismantling top-level structures, for example, barriers to trade, which are still hindering the creation of a genuine internal market.
This is what Mr Katiforis is also calling for, albeit of the Commission, when it should be demanded of those nation states, which - in a few individual cases - practice obstructionism, for example, in the areas of transport, public procurement or energy.
When discussing economic policies in the context of this report, we should not forget about competition policy.
Recently, the neutrality of the Communities' competition policy has been called into question - justifiably so - inter alia in the case of Volvo-Scania.
The reason given for regional monopolies and concentration of power in regions with a small population base is rather lame.
It is clearly a real blow to the industry and trade of small and remote countries while they are making efforts to increase their competitiveness within the Union area.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Katiforis and Commissioner Solbes, both of whom have displayed a broader than usual understanding of what is necessary for a successful economy.
We must take advantage of the fact that we are in the European Union to do things collectively.
I wish to concentrate on research and development.
I regret that the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy did not draw up an opinion on Mr Katiforis' s report - it should have done.
Compared to the US and Japan, we are woefully lacking in a proper research strategy in almost all Member States except Finland, Sweden and the Republic of Ireland - countries shown in the Commission paper to have had unusual success.
We need scientists in order to have research and development.
Let us stop young people choosing to do other things.
Let us encourage women.
Let us ensure that competence in widely-used languages is increased.
Above all, let us look at the salaries paid to scientists and technologists.
That is what makes them choose other careers.
Of course, we need infrastructure in science facilities and communications.
We need a strategy.
Jacques Delors spelt it out in his White Paper, so we do not need to reinvent his thoughts.
However, the big difference between us and the successful economies of the world - the US in particular - is that they spend far more money on investment in science, and it pays off.
Commissioner Busquin' s communication on the European research area is very good.
However, what is important is the next stage: transferring that knowledge into goods and products and processes which can be sold.
Let us be innovative in the European Union.
Let us start by bringing the innovation unit back from Luxembourg to Brussels, where it can use its skills working with other departments of the Commission.
That would be a not very revolutionary but a sensible thing to do.
Mr President, as everyone is pointing out, the euro has just lost almost 30% of its value in sixteen months, but the European Commission, like the Central Bank, does not seem to be in much of a hurry to learn the lessons of this experience, as that would be liable to challenge the current monetary policy which benefits only stock exchange transactions and speculation.
The ambition to achieve full employment and a modern economy, as declared in Lisbon, are indeed laudable objectives, but they are now effectively coming up against the liberal yoke.
In its document on the broad economic guidelines, the Commission pursues this liberal approach, and these guidelines now represent the reference text for the coordination of economic policy in the Member States.
The Commission, indeed, shows no compunction in issuing orders to this or that State with a view to drawing up its budget.
It clearly stresses the target of budgetary streamlining, even going beyond the requirements of the Stability Pact.
Following the example of the Central Bank, it demands wage moderation as well as structural reform of the labour market, especially in order to make it more flexible.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs' report is in line with this approach and with the continuation of the Lisbon decisions.
It advocates accelerating the liberalisation process as well as the process of applying pressure to wages. It proposes increasing the flexibility of the labour market.
This is why I am unable to approve of the guidelines contained in this report, especially when made exacerbated by the many amendments introduced by the right wing.
The current economic situation, particularly with the decline in the euro, ought to lead the Union and the Member State governments to strive towards the reorientation of European policy, so as to enable it at last to fulfil expectations regarding social issues.
We must shake up the dogma of the Stability Pact.
We must reverse the current approach, which makes social policy nothing more than a consequence of economic and monetary policy, responsible only for making good the damage caused by the market by means of a policy of aid.
This new policy should be particularly based on support to investment that creates jobs by means of a selective policy of credit, the improvement in living and working conditions and a reduction of working hours without flexibility or increased precariousness, taxation on income and financial measures to curb speculation and to release new resources.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on the very points which so displeased the previous speaker, i.e. the sections of the reports which display a liberal approach.
In fact, as recent events concerning the euro illustrate, the European Union and the institutions are currently at a crossroads: we have the choice between the road to prosperity and growth, undertaking radical structural liberalisation reforms that Europe must implement boldly, and the road of preservation and the perpetuation of a corporate, statist vision of the economy which is condemning many European countries to levels of unemployment which are two or three times higher than those in America and to a marginal role in the most innovative and dynamic sectors of the economy.
Having said that, I cannot fail to welcome the Katiforis and Pomés Ruiz reports, which clearly stress the way in which the liberalisation and flexible nature of the markets - especially the labour market - the dramatic reduction in tax pressure, a thorough reform of state pension systems and the gradual separation of state and economy - first and foremost through the privatisation of public companies - are all choices which cannot now be put off any longer if we want to avoid building a Europe which may well be united, but united by unemployment, marginalisation of the most vulnerable, in particular women and children, and by the endless red tape surrounding the social initiatives of the society, a Europe, that is, which will fail to create either growth or employment.
This is one of the shortcomings of the euro, a currency which is suffering from a structural crisis and inflexible, excessively regulated markets.
Some say that political control of the economy at European level would be a way of resolving this crisis.
Beware!
If political control has to be a means of control which transfers the interventionism of national economies to Brussels, this would be a bad move.
We Italian Radicals are also in favour of political control, but federalist, liberal control, with a limited number of clear laws and no state intervention in the economy, even by the European State.
Mr President, the present draft resolution by Mr Katiforis contains many valid points.
We should, however, qualify one key point concerning a matter of principle.
Both the Commission' s recommendation and the resolution claim high economically sustainable growth as the highest good and pursue this remorselessly.
This is odd, given the global relations in which the rich West is seen as an exclusive residential neighbourhood.
Do we want even more? Do we really need so much growth or can we combat unemployment by other means?
The lopsided emphasis on material goods is bound to have a detrimental effect on our society.
It stimulates egocentricity, social exclusion, a blurring of moral standards and moral decay.
The corruption of society eventually harms economic development.
On a positive note, attention is paid to the effects of an ageing population on the sustainability of government funds.
Only since 1999 have both government expenditure and revenue fallen.
A further consolidation, a reduction in the debt burden, is desperately needed in many Member States, so as to ensure that funds are available in future for health care and provision for old age.
Taxes and social security contributions in the European Union are high compared to the United States, but the picture changes fundamentally when we consider the sometimes extortionate insurance premiums which American citizens have to pay.
The amendments which aim to shift the tax burden from labour to the use of scarce raw materials and minerals receive our support.
After all, the Kyoto Agreement more than merits compliance.
Mr President, I want to associate myself this morning with those people who have spoken in this debate and expressed some desire to challenge an atmosphere of complacency about the current state of the European economy.
I share the view expressed earlier by Mrs McNally that you can look to the United States and see that there has been investment in research.
That is one of the reasons why the United States is doing better than Europe.
But we must also emphasise that one of the other reasons why the United States continues to do so much better than Europe is because Europe has not yet properly addressed the issue of structural reform and market liberalisation.
I refer to the remarks made earlier by Mr Lipietz for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I am very pleased to engage in a debate with him over the next four years on this issue of market liberalisation.
The fact is that we have not yet seen the agreed market liberalisation within Europe applied in some Member States, not least his own.
I have a shared concern about the jobs of workers.
I would be very pleased to bring Mr Lipietz to speak to workers in the United Kingdom who may lose their jobs as a result of decisions made by a French owner of energy companies in the UK, when British companies are not allowed to gain access to the French market because the French have not applied agreed European policy.
That is a structural reform we must drive through.
It is not just in that area.
We see that the wealthiest states within the European Union continue to be the states that apply the strongest amount of state aid.
That is robbing the jobs of some of the poorer states who are represented here.
That is also one of the reasons why I do not share the view expressed by Mr von Wogau in relation to competition policy.
My concern, where decentralisation is concerned, is that there should not be a repatriation of competition policy.
Mr President, over the past few days, the debate on a European economic government has gained momentum once again in different quarters.
It is evident that more economic management is required at European level, but it is not so evident that only the 11 euro zone countries or the Ecofin Council will need to take on that coordination.
At the Lisbon Summit, a decision was made precisely in favour of a wider socio-economic approach in which employment, economic reform and social cohesion are seen as being interrelated.
In my opinion, the key conclusion that was reached at that summit was that the European Council will itself adopt an active, guiding and coordinating role.
Each spring, our government leaders will discuss the socio-economic policy on the basis of an integrated progress report from the European Commission.
Unfortunately, spring had already started this year.
The text for the broad economic guidelines for 2000 had already been drafted, very much along established lines.
Why did the Commission not take more time and, in line with Lisbon, draft the guidelines in an interdisciplinary manner, as prepared by the different DGs? Why do we not let the Commission continue with, and further develop, this type of cooperation, which also typified the preparatory work for Lisbon, in a socio-economic field?
That seems to me a highly interesting challenge for the Commission' s new Secretary General, David O'Sullivan.
I would suggest taking into account conclusion 29 of the present report, which advocates a drastic renewal of the intellectual apparatus behind economic policy-making to bring it in line with the Lisbon conclusions.
I would also like to make reference to the conclusions of this Parliament' s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, compiled by Mr Cocilovo.
He proposes the drawing up of a single annual report on the economic and social state of the Union, and one set of annual guidelines for sustainable growth, employment and social cohesion.
One additional suggestion I would like to make is to include the socio-economic forum, which is scheduled for next month, earlier on in the annual cycle, i.e. at the very beginning of the year.
At the moment, it is just tacked on at the end.
Finally, I would like to draw the attention of the Members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to the consensus-oriented cooperation which we have enjoyed in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs in this sphere and add that we in this Parliament should break though the compartmentalisation and endeavour to rise above the hobbyhorses of this or the other side and to have an input in, for example, next month' s forum, precisely on that basis.
The Commission' s recommendation and report may be evaluated in the light of the euro system' s most fundamental problems, and these are undeniably major and glaringly apparent.
I come from a country whose people enjoy the rare privilege of being consulted in connection with such far-reaching decisions as participation in the euro system.
Among Danes, there is a great deal of scepticism about, and opposition to, the national currency being swallowed up by the euro.
I have no doubt that this scepticism and opposition are shared by large and growing groups of the populations of the other Member States, who are not being consulted.
I only have time to mention a couple of points.
The first is one which is extremely important to the whole problem surrounding the euro.
Nobel Prize-winner Franco Modigliani points out that, in his view, unemployment has certainly been used by the European Central Bank as an instrument of economic policy designed to control inflation.
This is a crucial point.
The other absolutely crucial point I would mention is directly connected with the subject of the current motion for a resolution: the political weakness of the euro system.
What is missing, of course, is a political superstructure for steering economic policy.
This is the background to the French government' s proposal that the EU' s euro system should be equipped with a form of proper economic government.
It is these political consequences which are so crucial to the issue of the Danish people' s consent.
I can predict that the question of whether or not the euro zone is to be enlarged to include Denmark, Sweden and Great Britain will be decided in Denmark in the referendum on 28 September.
The scepticism I have expressed here continues to grow.
Mr President, the Katiforis report is no more than a mundane vindication of the broad guidelines for the economic policies of the Member States.
Of its 29 paragraphs, 8 go in for approval and then 4 indulge in self-congratulation.
As far as the working population of the countries of the European Union is concerned, there really is not much to be pleased about.
What use is the economic growth that the report boasts about, if it is only going to recommend - addressing employees of course - adopting a reasonable attitude in wage negotiations, going so far as to claim that the pension system must be radically revised with a view to protecting their financial position? This is one way of admitting that there is no place in this growth for employed workers or for retired workers.
Once again, the Council and the Commission are acting as spokespersons for big business, asking Parliament to sanction it.
For our part, we have not been elected to offer congratulations to governments that come to the assistance of big business and major financial groups in order to enable them to accrue even greater wealth by exacerbating inequalities, leaving 18 million women and men unemployed, making flexibility at work and job instability more widespread, by making swingeing cuts in the total wage bill in order to ensure the continued growth of income from capital, including its most parasitic speculative forms.
If it is true, as the report states, that we have seen a return to growth, then it is all the more appalling that, throughout Europe, only a tiny minority benefits from it.
We shall therefore be voting against this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is having to compete with a series of challenges generated by globalisation and the creation of a new economy based on knowledge and new technologies.
The Union' s strategic goal for the forthcoming decade must be to ensure economic growth and free enterprise, without violating the social question, with guidelines based on competitiveness, sustainable development and the creation of new jobs.
On the subject of this last point, as the Katiforis report stressed, there has been a slight fall in unemployment in Europe, but unemployment is still unacceptably high, particularly as regards the level of unemployment among women and young people.
The situation appears worse in certain regions of Southern Europe, in particular in the South of Italy, where 21.9% of the workforce is unemployed, including 56.6% of the 14-25 age group.
Consequently, in my opinion, broad guidelines for economic growth and a rise in employment should include measures to render the European market more competitive and increase job flexibility.
In order to bring about sustainable growth, we need to finalise creation of the internal market and remove all the remaining barriers by liberalising those sectors which are not yet totally open to free competition, such as transport, gas, electricity and the postal services.
We need to introduce the reforms which will have to be implemented by the Member States in order to alleviate the burden on firms, reduce labour costs, sustain actions supporting lifelong learning in the context of a knowledge-based economy and support research to close the gap between Europe and the United States and Japan.
We need to facilitate public administration structural reform in the countries where excessive red tape is a barrier to private investment and bring the social protection and taxation systems into line with the requirements imposed by the new economic rules and with the constraints established by the Stability and Growth Pact.
Mr President, we do not support the Commission' s guidelines.
They are outdated and obsoleted by events and do not contain any prospect of a solution to the extremely serious problems which are both holding back economic development and, in particular, weighing down the citizens.
The proposed formulae will lead to ruin: flexibility at all costs, further dismantling of the Welfare State with pension cuts, the imposition of unjustified salary restrictions across the board, and even discrimination between regions, a decrease in public investment and obsessive recourse to the Stability Pact and the monetarism which have not only already caused irreparable harm in the past but have certainly not done anything to support a euro which is yielding increasingly to the supremacy of the dollar.
The acclaimed macroeconomic development for job creation is so tied up in the self-regulation of the free market that it has not yet created any jobs, rather it has destroyed stable jobs, while, in the worst of cases, contributing to keeping salaries low in precarious employment sectors.
This is not the way to fight unemployment, but it will heighten social poverty, increase the democratic deficit and feed public scepticism towards the democratic institutions.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur and the committee for their magnificent work, and all the speakers in today' s debate for the additional ideas they have contributed, which will no doubt be useful to the Commission and the debate in the Council of Ministers.
Today, together with the broad guidelines for economic policies, other issues have been raised, particularly in relation to the euro.
When speaking of the euro, I would point out two things: firstly, I would ask that the problem be looked at in its entirety, not simply the exchange rate problem.
Secondly, I would point out that the Commission' s position remains the same; that is to say, clear growth and price stability must logically lead to an improvement in the euro.
This is not an issue we can go into today, but I wanted to make those points.
Today, we are discussing in particular the broad guidelines for economic policies.
The new broad guidelines differ from previous ones in that they partially incorporate Lisbon.
It has been said that they do not incorporate it fully.
This is true in the sense that Lisbon is too close to the presentation of the broad guidelines and the bulk of the work had been done previously.
Nevertheless, I believe that there were elements prior to Lisbon which anticipated or foresaw what was going to happen there and which have been incorporated into the broad guidelines.
Many of you have referred to the idea of full employment as a fundamental element.
Full employment, according to the Commission' s initial document - which formed the basis of the Lisbon decision - is something which can be achieved as long as the proposed policies are implemented.
The problem of full employment is patently one of our primary concerns.
We can put a figure on both our employment objectives as well as on what we take the expression "full employment" to mean, as some of you have suggested.
It all depends on what we consider the objectives to be.
It is absolutely essential, in speaking of these objectives, that we know whether they are political objectives or whether they represent the possibility of achieving certain economic results, as a consequence of the policies we implement.
In any event, I would say to those who are concerned about this issue that the quantitative and qualitative assessment of full employment will become more efficient when we implement the indicators relating to the different policies.
Some speakers have shown a degree of concern about the Commission' s habitual proposals on the flexibility of the labour market.
In our view, this flexibility will lead to a better balance in supply and demand in the labour market.
It will therefore lead to more employment, but also - as we have always argued - greater quality of employment.
This is something we have regularly stressed.
The flexibility of the labour market involves many other things: we can talk about regulating working time, but also the removal of all the obstacles which currently stand in the way of employment, such as tax-related issues.
A major point of concern throughout this debate has been the development of investment.
The central element of these broad guidelines for economic policies is trying to increase the European Union' s potential for growth.
If we are not capable of doing so, it is blatantly obvious that the current positive growth forecasts of over 3% will only last a relatively short amount of time and this trend will not be allowed to continue.
That is why public and private investment are absolutely essential.
Since 1997, investment has been increasing progressively.
By 2001, public and private investment should reach 21% of GDP and, in 2004, it should reach 23%, which would bring us very close to that objective of 24%, which was mentioned in the Commission' s White Paper on Growth, Employment and Competitiveness.
I would like to raise a point here which seems to me to be essential. In my opinion, there is no contradiction between greater investment, greater public investment, and the Stability Pact.
On the contrary, I believe that since the Stability Pact has allowed for the rationalisation of public finances, it will bring greater public investment in the future.
I agree with the view that, in these new circumstances, an improvement in the quality of public finances must involve greater public investment.
This is a point which the Commission has highlighted in the different stability and convergence programmes and, clearly, it is a point which we must continue to stress.
Some speakers have also mentioned the importance of research and development and the new economy.
This is one of the key elements of the broad guidelines, but I would like to remind you - as I always do - that the main point of the introduction of the new economy is to improve productivity, which is the element which is most likely to bring future growth.
I would like to make an additional comment on two points.
Firstly, with regard to the interinstitutional agreement, which has been of concern to the Commission, and secondly, the problems of greater coordination in the face of greater subsidiarity.
With regard to the interinstitutional agreement, this is clearly one of Parliament' s recurrent demands.
It is also true that its implementation raises legal problems, as well as problems relating to the status of its participants, but I believe that, in any event, we should be satisfied with the progress made this year.
I promised you some months ago, when we discussed this issue in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, that the Commission would try to make the greatest possible progress with regard to its cooperation with Parliament.
It does not take the form of an interinstitutional agreement, but the presentation of the document on the results of the broad guidelines for economic policies, which will permit a prior debate in Parliament, seems to me to be a positive thing.
There are other more profound elements, such as the introduction of the idea of broader economic discussions, with the participation of Parliament, and the famous entretiens économiques, which will, in the future, offer us new opportunities and ideas for our political debate.
In my opinion, the Portuguese Presidency' s idea - which we support - of also establishing a debate with Parliament on these issues, not at an institutional level as suggested by Parliament, but of a different nature, is also clearly positive.
I believe that this is a good direction to take, and we must continue to cooperate in this regard in the future.
Lastly, I would like to point out that something has been raised which may seem contradictory between those who argue for greater coordination of economic policies and those who argue for greater subsidiarity in the way these policies are applied.
As you all know, economic policies are the responsibility of the Member States and, in this respect, subsidiarity is guaranteed.
In my opinion, the greatest possible coordination is essential.
I therefore argue that we should move ahead with the coordination of economic policies, making reference to the Member States' obligations.
I realise that for some of you this may seem like interference by the Commission in the responsibilities of the Member States, but that is what is laid down in the Treaty, in the legislation which we have created for ourselves, and that is the Commission' s mandate: to make specific recommendations.
I said that coordination is necessary, but I do not believe that this has to be incompatible with subsidiarity.
Greater coordination and greater definition of global policies does not exclude, however, the existence of an additional margin for action on the part of the Member States.
I would like to end my intervention by thanking you all for your contributions, your participation in the debate and for your majority support for the document presented.
Stability and convergence programmes
The next item is the report (A5-0108/2000) by Mr Pomés Ruiz, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the annual assessment of the implementation of the stability and convergence programmes (2000/2041(INI)).
Mr President, Commissioner, I am very happy to reiterate your closing words in the debate on subsidiarity or coordination.
I agree with you, Commissioner, when you say that there is no contradiction between these two terms, and that they should both be perfectly achievable.
Perhaps this debate, on the 11 stability plans presented by the countries participating in the euro and the four convergence plans, is a good time to review the harmonisation between the subsidiarity and coordination required by the introduction and future of the single currency.
This, therefore, is the flip-side of the debate which we have just held on the report by Mr Katiforis, and we must firstly begin to think about the instrument.
This is the first time that this Parliament has debated the 15 plans presented by the Member States.
I suspect that, in subsequent versions, the report will not be a single whole, but rather a detailed study will have to be made of the solutions, the weak and strong points, which this Parliament detects in the economic policies proposed by the Member States.
We are therefore going to ask for more detail in the plans which are submitted, in the structure of expenditure and also of income, paying particular attention to investments.
We would ask that the projections they make in the medium and long term take account of different scenarios relating to the development of interest rates, demographic development and other variables affecting the stability of our accounts in the long term.
We also ask in this regard - and I am returning to the debate on subsidiarity - for greater political commitment from the 15 national parliaments.
We believe that this is a task which falls to everyone, and not just to the European Parliament.
Some Member States have subjected the stability and convergence plans to internal debate in order to seek political support for this idea of jointly building economic unity, and we should ask the Member States who have not done so to debate these programmes in their parliaments in order to try, firstly, to persuade those states and parliaments to participate in this common task and, secondly, to provide political support for the commitments which are agreed to regarding the necessary coordination of economic policies.
Turning to the report' s proposals to the House, I am very pleased to note that all of the budgetary objectives established in previous programmes have been met, and even exceeded.
However, this cause for satisfaction is counter-balanced by the fact that, aside from the possible criticism that the objectives could perhaps have been more demanding and rigorous, we are seeing that the objectives have been achieved, not as a result of the interest and efforts of the Member States, but simply to factors such as the favourable development of interest rates or greater than expected tax revenue.
We therefore believe that, although budgetary consolidation must continue to be a priority, the economic environment - which has improved a lot - must offer us the possibility of speeding up consolidation and, at the same time, undertaking structural reforms in the medium term.
It is not acceptable for this relative economic boom to dissuade the Member States from making decisions - sometimes difficult decisions - on structural reforms.
These include, firstly, labour reform, which we discussed earlier.
It is clear that not all the states have implemented the labour reforms which we consider appropriate.
The improved performance of the labour market - which is clear - has been based on satisfactory economic growth, and not all the Member States have made the rigorous reforms that they must make, more radical reforms, to resolve the unacceptable problem of the high rate of unemployment in the European countries in comparison to other countries and which is not only an economic blight but also, and above all, a personal and family blight which cannot be permitted in the modern Europe of the 21st Century.
It is also crucial that we liberalise the telecommunications and energy markets, and not all countries are doing so in the same way.
With regard to tax reform, we should welcome the reduction in the high level of taxes in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain, and we should bear in mind that the high rate of unemployment often relates to the fact that we have high levels of tax.
In the long-term reforms, we should also include the serious problem of population.
In the programmes presented to us, we note that particular attention is given to the ageing of the population.
Perhaps it is time that we insisted that Member States resolve the demographic problem at source, through a suitable approach to both tax revenue policies and social expenditure, in order to protect families with children.
This is the way to tackle the problem at source, and not only its effects.
This is the only way we will prevent the old Europe from becoming a decrepit Europe.
Mr President, the Liberal Group supports the rigorous and demanding report by Mr Pomés Ruiz.
It lays out and highlights both the achievements and the shortcomings of the Member States in the way the stability and convergence programmes are applied, which, as I mentioned in my previous intervention on the Katiforis report, have brought satisfactory results for the whole of the European economy.
However, this current satisfactory situation must not mask a series of shortcomings and must lead to the implementation of the series of recommendations which the rapporteur, Mr Pomés Ruiz, correctly makes in his report.
He mentioned one of these recommendations in his speech: the need to take advantage of the current favourable situation, the healthy state of public finances - which on the other hand are disciplined by the stability and convergence programmes - in order to reduce the deficit, and possibly remove it completely, as well as to reduce debt levels, even to below the limits set in the convergence programmes.
This would mean that we could make far-reaching tax reforms which would contribute to a more favourable environment for our economy, for business initiative, to freeing up resources and promoting them by fiscal means in an area which is one of our priority commitments: to be up-to-date and competitive at the most advanced levels of the information society and in the application of new technologies.
I would like to conclude by arguing - and I believe this is one of the conclusions we must draw from Mr Pomés Ruiz' s report - for greater coordination between the Member States with regard to the implementation of these programmes.
I would therefore like to insist once again on the need for a genuine direction for economic and monetary policy at European Union level.
Mr President, we support the main objective of the motion for a resolution under debate, that is, the need for consistently transparent budget regulation on the part of the individual Member States in line with the objectives of the Stability Pact.
However, we feel that, precisely in consideration of these undertakings and in the light of the current situation, the precise nature of any interventions cannot be identified in advance just for the sake of efficient budget control.
In fact, in a context where there are varying degrees of interdependence between States, there are too many variables at work to be combined to produce more general indicators.
I refer to the constant pressure with regard to restricting welfare expenditure, structural reform of the labour market and privatisation of the telecommunications and energy sectors.
On the other hand, we are aware of the need for a more effective convergence process, for economic cohesion and, therefore, also for the approximation of the single currency, whose oscillation is no longer virtual but is in line with prices and taxes; the need, of course, for more harmonious tax and fiscal policies, but also pricing policies; for more harmonious investment policies as regards both research and the closing of infrastructure gaps, including within the individual States, but also for greater homogeneity in the action of public administrations.
The most representative variable is certainly the time frames and contents of the Treaty reforms and the process of constitutionalisation of the Union, i.e. of a greater or lesser European political presence.
Mr President, I understand that it is not always easy, in a debate such as this, to differentiate between those aspects of our policy which we normally raise in the broad guidelines for economic policies, the stability and growth pacts or the references to the convergence reports, which will be the subject of the third debate this morning.
In the debate we have just held we rather confused the three elements.
I would essentially like to refer to the one which seems essential today, that of the stability pacts, although I will mention certain other points which have been raised.
Firstly, I share Mr Pomés' s view that we need greater coordination, which is not incompatible with subsidiarity, but I am also interested in his additional demands that we work in more detail on expenditure and income, the existence of different scenarios or greater commitments in terms of national policies.
However, I would like to remind him that, within the framework of subsidiarity, it falls to the Member States to define their own stability and growth programmes.
The Commission must judge them, but it is not our job to give instructions on this point.
Nor is it our job to give instructions on the stability programmes or structural reforms, which you have mentioned.
These structural reforms in fact fall within the broad guidelines for economic policies.
However, there is a point - the third which you referred to - which lies between the world of structural reform and the tax obligations relating to the deficit and, above all, the stability of public finances, in particular with regard to debt.
I am referring to the demographic problem and specifically the ageing of the population.
It is true that this is much more than a purely financial problem, but this is the concern which we highlighted in Lisbon.
I would say that, in this case - as in the case referred to by Mrs Randzio-Plath, of the need to compare the quality of programmes and greater harmonisation, or the reference by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, for example, to deepening tax reforms - in our current thinking there is the reasonable prospect of fulfilling the objectives of the stability and growth programmes, and we believe that we must pay more attention to what we call the sustainability and quality of public finances.
We will present a report in May on this specific point, in which we intend to consider not only the nature of income but also the nature of expenditure as well as how the reduction in public deficit has been achieved and what instruments have been used.
These are instruments of a permanent nature which have the same characteristics in each of the Member States.
We will also tackle the issue of our future obligations.
In many cases the Member States have obligations which are not classed as debt, but which do, in fact, constitute debt in one form or another.
All of this will allow us to hold the debate which you have mentioned.
I believe that that will be the time to carry out this type of comparison in more depth.
Having said this, I am grateful for the effort you have made to assess the work we have done.
I believe that the problems of stability and convergence are basically characterised - as you have correctly highlighted, Mr Pomés - by the fact that, firstly, the objectives set have been met; secondly, because we are following the same line.
However, that fulfilment of the objective, especially with regard to the reduction of public deficits, has been less ambitious - surely as a result of an improved economic situation - and we must take advantage of that improved economic situation so that we do not move backwards, but that we make progress in the right direction.
I said that I wanted to make a couple of additional comments on two points that have been raised concerning issues which are not strictly related to this report, but with the previous report.
Mr Karas referred to the Greek problem and the problems of sustainability with regard to convergence criteria.
In the case of Greece, exactly the same criteria were applied as in previous assessments.
I understand that concern, mentioned in the Commission' s report, about the sustainability of inflation, but I would also like to provide some information which may clarify the situation.
According to the latest figures of the harmonised CPI - published on 15 May and concerning the month of April - Greek inflation is improving considerably in comparison to the previous situation: it has decreased from 2.8% to 2.1%; and the unharmonised index also shows better figures for April as compared with March.
Therefore, I believe that these concerns about Greek inflation are sometimes excessive.
Secondly, you will have to debate the problems relating to the amendments which you wish to raise in the Pomés report.
I will simply say, with regard to two amendments by your Group, that in one of them there is a small error relating to Greece' s entry into the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System.
In my view, in Amendment No 4, it would make more sense to adopt a more positive approach with regard to the Greek government' s future obligations than it would to adopt an approach which raises doubts as to its capacity to fulfil its obligations.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Adoption of single currency by Greece
The next item is the report (A5-0135/2000) by Mr Goebbels, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council decision for the adoption by Greece of the single currency on 1 January 2001 (COM(2000)274 - C5-0226/2000 - 2000/0110(CNS)).
Mr President, Greece will be the twelfth country to sign up to the euro.
Greece does not have to beg to be allowed into the euro zone; it is fully qualified to join the States that will introduce the euro as an effective and definitive means of payment in 2002.
In Greece, the economic convergence criteria have been met, as a result of a stabilisation policy implemented most consistently by the Greek authorities since 1996.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Greece was considered the sick man of Europe, economically speaking.
The rate of inflation exceeded 20%.
The European Union officially described the budgetary deficit as excessive.
The public sector was notoriously mismanaged.
Almost half of the public debt was due to on-going transfers from the state to public undertakings.
Today, major international bodies such as the IMF, the OECD, the Commission and even the ECB generally speak very highly of the efforts which the Greeks have made.
It must be noted that private operators have also discovered Greece.
In recent years, it has become a significant net recipient of foreign capital.
The stock exchange has undergone rapid expansion.
International rating agencies have improved their rating for Greek loans.
The situation is far from perfect, of course.
There are still problems, particularly regarding the restructuring of the public sector.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs stresses the following points.
Greece must continue to make efforts in order to ensure that the progress achieved in terms of disinflation has a lasting effect.
The government must step up the anti-inflationist bias of the economic policy instruments available to it, particularly in the fields of the budget and income policy.
Cooperation between the two sides of industry seems essential in order to maintain a situation of non-inflationary growth.
Even if considerable progress has been achieved in terms of the implementation of structural reforms, Greece must step up progress in the reforms which are still necessary, including the effective transposition of European legislation into national law.
Parliament has been consulted, in the context of a political decision to be taken by the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, after deliberation by the forthcoming European Council.
Parliament' s response can therefore only be a political one, in favour or against, like any final decision in a genuine democracy.
Greece' s entry into the euro zone does not entail any political risks.
Greece is entitled and, indeed, obliged to join EMU.
There are probably some economic risks but these are more significant for Greece than for the countries in the euro zone.
In joining the euro zone, Greece will be forced to maintain the culture of stability which has been established since 1996, and this involves pursuing a responsible economic policy.
This has, however, already created a virtuous circle leading to sustainable, non-inflationist growth, proving that stability is not an end in itself but that it must serve the purpose of healthy growth.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, by an overwhelming majority, therefore urges Parliament to vote in favour of Greece' s accession to the euro zone in 2001.
Mr President, let me add a few more personal observations.
I should like to congratulate the Danish and Swedish governments on having decided to consult their citizens regarding accession to the single currency.
I hope that the results of these plebiscites will be favourable.
In the same way, I should like to see the United Kingdom opt for the single currency in the very near future.
The shared objective of the fifteen Member States to create a European Union which is ever more closely bound, particularly comprising an area without internal borders, could not be achieved in full without a single currency.
The United Kingdom, as one of the financial capitals of the world, will not be able to claim all the advantages of an ever more integrated European financial market unless it becomes part of it in its own right and takes on all the joint responsibilities and obligations required under Economic and Monetary Union.
There are some Members of Parliament who will vote against my report tomorrow, or who will abstain.
Some are opposed to the euro, as is their right, while others are attempting to make political capital out of the real concerns which our fellow citizens have regarding the dollar-euro exchange rate.
It must be stressed that the euro is a stable currency.
Citizens' purchasing power within the euro zone has remained virtually unchanged since inflation has been, and remains, at a very moderate level.
Of course, the value of the euro has fallen in relation to the dollar and, to a lesser extent, in relation to the yen and the pound.
Such fluctuations are inevitable in a floating exchange rate system.
Even so, the euro has not become a weak currency.
In the last twenty years, the Deutschmark has experienced much more extreme variations in relation to the dollar.
In 1985, the dollar stood at 3.5 DM.
In order to reach such a low level in relation to the dollar, the rate of the euro would have to fall below 0.6 to the dollar.
Some people claim that the financial markets do not value the euro because of Europe' s tardiness in implementing structural reforms.
What structural reforms did Germany undertake after 1985 in order to ensure that the Deutschmark returned to a rate of 1.7 or 1.8 DM to the dollar?
The fact is, the economic position of the European Union is very sound, and is much more favourable than it has been over the last decade.
The only grey area is a rate of unemployment which, although falling, is still excessive.
A return to full employment is certainly not calculated to please the financial markets most of all.
Generally speaking, good news regarding employment makes the stock exchange nervous, as it makes them afraid of a rise in inflation.
Financial markets operate according to their own particular logic.
They look for immediate returns, and currently this is a safer bet in the United States, particularly because of its higher interest rates.
This trend looks set to continue, as the Federal Reserve has just hiked up its interest rates.
With their sheep-like behaviour, however, the markets will ultimately come to realise, Mr President, that, in the medium term, the euro will be a more secure currency than the dollar.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group I would like to welcome Greece into the euro and say that we shall certainly be voting in favour of Greek membership.
For those other 'out' countries, including my own, I very much hope that they will be able to join the euro soon.
I very much regret too that there are so few British Conservatives here in the Chamber today because it shows, with Greece now the twelfth member of the euro zone, how far from reality British euroscepticism about the future of the currency is.
The euro has successfully delivered low inflation, rising growth, falling unemployment and protection for the euro zone economies from the ups and downs of the foreign exchanges.
Indeed, the British perception of the euro as a failure, because of its fall against the dollar, simply misunderstands the whole project.
The key test of a currency is price stability within the economy, not the value of the currency against other currencies outside the economy.
On the test of internal stability, with inflation at less that 2% and growth higher at 3.1% in the euro zone than in Britain, the euro is clearly succeeding.
Indeed, research at the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi recently calculated the euro' s value as if it had existed over the last few decades, weighting each predecessor currency's value to create a synthetic euro.
Historically, that research found that the euro actually swooped between a high of USD 1.70 in December 1979 and a low of just USD 0.69 in February 1985.
In other words, the euro could stay within its historic trading range and happily now either fall by a further 23% or rise by 188%.
Certainly that synthetic euro included currencies such as the Italian Lira, but the same point applies even to the mighty German Mark on its own.
If the euro is a weak currency, than the Mark was positively anaemic.
It plunged to DEM 3.45 against the dollar at the end of February 1985, which is a third below its current rate of DEM 2.16 to the dollar.
Within three years, and a dollar crash, the Mark was back to DEM 1.57 during December 1987.
The truth is that the history of foreign exchange is a history of gross misalignments, of overvaluations and undervaluations, each inflicting either depressive pain or inflationary costs on the economy and, as Greece has rightly recognised, the euro is a way of regaining control over a key part of our economic environment.
- (EL) Mr President, the report under discussion contains accurate information and an objective assessment.
Greece is being judged, just as the first countries in EMU were judged, and this judgement accords Greece the position which it deserves, the position which it could have taken up back then, when it could have become a member of EMU along with everyone else, but which it failed to take up because of the weakness of its government.
In all events, this moment is an historic moment for Greece and, may I say, for Europe too.
I hope that we shall see other such historic moments when other countries join and, even more so, when we proceed, as we must, with the policy to complete unification.
The euro restored politics to Europe and it is incumbent upon us to pave the way so that politics in Europe can be institutionalised and globalisation, which is progressing blindly, without any historical or political plan, can be politicised at a later date, through a unified Europe,
For Greece and the other members of EMU, the problem of sustainability is crucial.
The problem of whether or not they will be able to act together on economic policy, as if they had already achieved political unification, is a political problem par excellence.
It is a problem of development choices and changes and, of course, it is a problem of public finance management.
Greece has a tax reform problem.
A large part of the economy pays no taxes and the basic taxes which exist in other Member States do not exist in Greece.
The average Greek taxpayer pays more than other Europeans but total tax revenues in Greece are much lower as a percentage of GDP.
This structural change is pending, while our government is confining itself mainly to privatisation.
Other important structural changes are also pending, such as the need to strengthen regional authorities and their financial independence, reorganise cooperatives in all sectors from the bottom up and liberalise and strengthen the social economy and the third sector.
These are the areas which need to be strengthened immediately if sustainability is to have a future.
Mr President, the European Parliament report on Greece' s adoption of the single currency on 1 January 2001 is remarkable, more by virtue of the political will it expresses to enlarge the euro zone than by its concern for technical exactitude.
It is, however, true that Greece has made considerable efforts in order to meet the Maastricht criteria and has achieved good progress, except in a few areas, such as public debt, but on that subject there are some countries within the euro zone that are doing no better.
These minor failings, which would have had little impact if the euro had been strong, are now liable, against the background of the euro' s depreciation, where the slightest ambiguity serves to detract from the image of the single currency, to have a much more negative effect, for psychological reasons.
Nonetheless, the European institutions did not feel that they should postpone Greece' s accession so as not to give the impression that they had anything to fear and, from that point of view, the position seems perfectly logical, albeit somewhat risky.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group almost agrees with their conclusions, but as a result of a very different logical argument.
Our initial impulse, obviously, would be to refrain from participating in a debate which a good number of us think is nothing to do with us.
But, on the other hand, we think that extending the euro zone may, in the end, provide the stimulus for beneficial reforms.
The fact is, the more the euro zone is extended, the harder it will be for the single currency to represent nations which are very different, and the more it will be recognised that it would be much simpler to make the system more flexible by having the euro develop into simply a common currency, overlapping with the national currencies with a degree of flexibility but not replacing them.
This solution, of progress towards a shared currency, would probably attract the support of the countries within the European Union which, until now, have remained outside the euro zone, creating a shared point of reference for everyone, and putting an end to the current schism, which is disastrous for the credibility of Europe as a whole.
Mr President, Greece meets the convergence criteria according to the European Commission' s verdict, which is based on a very nominalistic interpretation.
Every self-respecting economist knows that Greece, despite the impressive achievements of the past couple of years, does not yet have inflation and government debt sufficiently under control or in order.
The Greek government has major financial interests in an extensive number of government enterprises which are mostly loss making.
In 2001, the derogation for the liberalisation of various sectors will lapse, at which point the large hidden government debt - half the size of the current one - will become public.
Why did the Commission not take these skeletons in the cupboard into consideration during the assessment? On 17 January last, the Greek drachma was revalued by 2.5%, mainly to push down inflationary trends.
At the moment, the short-term interest rate in Greece is about 600 basic points above the European Central Bank' s level.
Participation from 1 January 2001 means that the short-term interest rate must come down by the end of this year at the latest.
As a result, the credit facility will expand considerably and Greece will be unable to meet the inflation criterion.
Why does the Commission turn a blind eye to this?
In the interests of the Greek citizens and a more flexible development of the Greek economy, we are forced to decline our support for this Commission proposal.
Mr President, the Commission' s and the ECB' s convergence report deals not only with the Greek, but also with the Swedish, convergence programme.
So too does Mr Goebbels' report, even if the part about Sweden is limited.
The Swedish economy is doing well - very well. Mr Goebbels also points this out.
In common with Mr Karas and Mrs Randzio-Plath, he also issues a reminder that the EU would be that much stronger if all the Member States were to participate in EMU.
This is a timely reminder of something which is self-evidently the case.
If one is going to join the EU, one should not do so by halves.
Even if the economies of Great Britain, Denmark and Sweden are going well, it must be clearly pointed out, as it was by Commissioner Solbes Mira in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, that, if the spirit of the Treaty is to be complied with, no Member State can, in the long term, place itself outside so strategic an area of cooperation as the common currency.
This could have been brought out more clearly in the report.
The euro has provided greater stability. This has benefited companies, especially small companies.
Price competition has increased, and there has been greater transparency.
The euro is not weak. Instead, it is the dollar which is extremely strong.
Allow me to remind those countries outside the euro zone that there is a danger of their influence declining further.
Last week, we learned that France' s prime minister wants to see a Euro 11 - soon a Euro 12 - with more influence and power when it comes to economic and financial policy.
At present, the economy is on the way up in Europe, but the clouds are gathering - in the United States and in Europe.
You do not buy an umbrella once it has begun to rain. Instead, you buy an umbrella when the sun is shining so that you are prepared for when the rain comes.
The euro provides Europe with economic stability and competitiveness.
There are very strong economic and moral reasons why Sweden should join EMU.
Sweden should also have an obligation to help increase Europe' s economic competitiveness.
I should therefore have liked to have seen my home country, Sweden, being able to join with Greece today.
- (EL) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our reservations about Greece' s accession to EMU are not a matter of principle; they are based on actual facts, as regards both EMU in general and the Greek economy.
As far as EMU in general is concerned, we are in favour of real economic and monetary union.
Unfortunately, this union is only monetary, not economic.
It is MU, not EMU.
We know that EMU was created prematurely for political reasons which date back to the events of 1989 and 1990, which is why the child, the euro, has been delivered early and is languishing in an incubator.
This is the opinion expressed by the Nobel prize-winning economists Friedman, Tobin and Modigliani.
The creation of EMU was not preceded by an agreement on the economic policy which the Member States had to follow.
Only now are the Commission and Council trying to outline common policies for certain economic problems such as unemployment and competitiveness.
But the road is long and full of adventures, as the poet says.
The Goebbels report tells us that Parliament' s reply cannot but be a political one and assures us that Greece' s accession to the euro zone does not involve any political risk.
However, the report adds that there are economic risks and that they are greater in the case of Greece than in the case of other countries belonging to the euro zone.
We agree.
There is no danger to the economies of the other 14 Member States.
Of course, I have trouble understanding how anyone can distinguish so easily between political and economic risks, but we shall let that pass.
As far as Greece is concerned, our reservations concern the economic risks mentioned in the report.
The sole aim of the economic policy pursued by Greece over recent years has been to satisfy the convergence criteria.
Efforts have focused on improving indicators, not real economic quantities.
The competitiveness of the economy has not improved and unemployment continues to rise.
The structural changes needed have not been carried out and privatisation has been presented as the new panacea for development and prosperity.
Wage differentials have been sacrificed to indicators and are increasing, and, as a result, the figures are doing well while the people are suffering, however.
In all honesty, the Goebbels report says that, as regards convergence, all EU governments are required to produce results but are free to choose the means of achieving it.
It is therefore the Greek government' s choice of means which we object to.
The means chosen were neither economically suitable nor socially just.
The rich got richer and the poor got poorer.
In joining EMU, we are jumping in at the deep end and hoping for the best.
Mr President, firstly my congratulations to Mr Goebbels on a very professional report and an excellent presentation.
Some government finances are indispensable prerequisites for economic stability and economic progress.
Securing budgetary discipline strengthens price stability and creates conditions which are conducive to creating much needed employment within the territories of the Union.
The Stability and Growth Pact States provide the 15 Member States of the Union with a comprehensive surveillance procedure to monitor their budgetary policies.
The Stability and Growth Pact calls for Member States to reach, in the medium term, a budgetary position close to balance or in surplus.
It must also identify the adjustment pacts adopted to reduce the general government debt ratios.
The Commission and Parliament monitor submissions made by each Member State of the Union to ensure compliance with the Stability and Growth Pact.
We must also remember that there are wider provisions for closer coordination of economic policies in general between the Member States of the Union.
The principle of the Stability and Growth Pact is also a logical progression from the criteria laid down in Maastricht for the Member States to comply with economic conditions for participation within the new European single currency.
The one comment I would like to make about the state of the single European currency is: Why do so many Member States want to join such a regime? It is clear that Greece will shortly join the existing 11 Member States who are participating in the economic and monetary union, and I wish to congratulate Greece on its economic recovery and wish it well in the future.
I welcome Greece into the euro zone.
It is also clear that Sweden and Denmark will accede to the single European currency regime over the next couple of years.
It is known that the vast majority of countries from eastern and central Europe want to sign up to the process of economic and monetary union in as short a time as possible, but I believe that the European Central Bank has to outline a clear strategy as to how it intends to bolster the value of the new euro.
The 290 million citizens within the existing 11 EMU countries have the right to know what the European Central Bank intends to do to maintain and enhance the value of the euro now and into the future.
We shall adjourn the debate on Mr Goebbels' s report, which will resume at 3 p.m. today, as we are now going to start the voting, which will run from 11.30 a.m. to noon.
It will be adjourned for a formal sitting and will resume immediately after the formal sitting.
I therefore urge the Members not to leave the Chamber at the end of the formal sitting.
Agenda
Madam President, it would be much more coherent and in keeping with our Rules of Procedure if we voted, as long as we hold the debate, on Thursday evening or Friday morning.
Mr Barón Crespo, the problem is that the text is still not available in French, Spanish and Swedish, thus presenting a problem in terms of our Rules of Procedure.
That is why the Bureau proposed this solution.
Madam President, I respect what the Presidency has said, but I have different information: that this morning all the versions are available.
I accept the President' s words, but I must point out that there is some inconsistency here.
Mr Barón Crespo, I quite understand your objection.
I am informed by our services that the other reason for making this proposal was related to the limited time the groups have to table amendments.
Having said that, following your request, I suggest that we put to the House the sense of the proposal which I have just made.
Perhaps Mrs Buitenweg can give us her opinion, as rapporteur?
Madam President, I would very much regret it if my report were to be taken off the agenda and if the vote were not to take place this week.
We have an agreement with all political groups in this Parliament that we would accelerate proceedings for this directive.
This is necessary to put through this directive swiftly and within the time in which the Portuguese Presidency, which has shown exceptional commitment in this respect, is in office.
The Council will be convening before our next plenary sitting.
This means that if we do not adopt a resolution here, the Council will be unable to adopt its position either, and everything will be shelved long term.
I would like to point out that the group which has the most problems and seizes upon administrative issues as an excuse to postpone dealing with these, is also the group which voted against this report in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
I therefore do not rule out other motives which might be at play here.
This has a bearing on the speed at which anti-discrimination can be translated into legislation in Europe and at which people can therefore be protected from racial or ethnic discrimination, and I do not appreciate the fact that Parliament is arguing in favour of postponing this protection.
Ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the importance of this discussion, but I propose entering the debate on the agenda for tomorrow, as the Bureau wished.
I suggest that the Conference of Presidents or, at any event, the groups, should come to some agreement on the procedure to be adopted regarding voting after the debate, and that our final decision on the timing of the vote should be postponed until tomorrow.
May I take it that the various group presidents and Members of Parliament agree in principle, as I am afraid that if I give the floor to every Member who requests it we shall be starting the whole debate up again?
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make things quite clear.
The debate is indeed going to take place as scheduled on the agenda and, like everyone in the House, I appreciate its importance.
Nonetheless, I suggest that you accept my proposal, which is this: that the debate should take place as scheduled on the agenda and, tomorrow, the sovereign Assembly, after consulting the groups, shall decide whether or not to vote on this report during the present part-session.
I think it would not be right to vote on it immediately.
Madam President, I do not see why the Conference of Presidents should make the decision.
Surely it is up to all of us here at the plenary sitting to decide whether or not the vote should take place during this part-session, not the Conference of Presidents?
We wish to decide right here, either today or tomorrow, whether the vote on this directive and this report should take place this week. We do not wish to leave the decision to the Conference of Presidents.
Mr Cohn-Bendit, I think you have not been listening to my suggestions carefully enough.
I did not suggest that the decision was referred to the Conference of Presidents, which does not have the authority to decide.
I suggested reconciling points of view within the groups and then tomorrow, in the House, discussing the timeliness of voting this week.
It goes without saying that only the plenary assembly has the right to make this decision.
I should now like to put an end to any further speeches on the subject, as I am afraid that discussing the matter ad infinitum is not going to lead to a clear decision.
I shall just give the floor to Mrs Ludford, whose group has not yet had an opportunity to comment.
Madam President, I just wish to emphasise on behalf of the Liberal Group the desirability of debating and voting this report this week.
Despite the short timetable for the consideration of this matter, it has been dealt with very fully in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and there has been every opportunity for amendments to be tabled.
It is regrettable that there have been administrative delays in producing all the language versions.
However, I feel that there is a touch of opportunism in the PPE Group' s objections to a vote this week.
After all, if it were technically impossible, the services would never have proposed that it be voted on tomorrow.
Therefore, we should debate and vote on it tomorrow; otherwise there is a danger of obstruction by one group.
Ladies and gentlemen, I put it to you that we decide as follows: we shall carry on the debate as scheduled on the agenda and tomorrow, the House will consider whether the vote should be retained as scheduled, after consultation with the various groups.
Vote
Mrs Muscardini, I suppose you wanted to speak on the next item, but, quite frankly, I would urge you not to take the floor.
I cannot deprive you of your freedom of speech, however, but I do appeal to your sense of responsibility.
Madam President, I voted for the González Álvarez measure on the regulation on the monitoring of carbon dioxide emissions from new passenger cars. Why am I in favour of this measure?
It goes without saying that I support the monitoring of new passenger cars when they are first placed on the market, but my vote in favour of the motion also contains a call to make greater efforts in the monitoring of second-hand cars, for, in actual fact, I would argue that new cars are never to be found on the road due to the fact that the very act of driving them along a road ages them by definition.
It is, above all, 'old' cars, the cars which have been in use for a number of years, which cause atmospheric pollution.
I call for monitoring of these 'old' cars, to ensure that they are always in a state of good health and to prevent them from harming the earth' s atmosphere.
I therefore support the use and preservation of pensioner cars as well.
- (FR) The González Álvarez report deals with reducing CO2 emissions, a necessary goal, particularly with the fight against global warming at stake.
An objective like this would require Europe to provide itself with effective resources in order to limit such emissions, either by binding standards, as is the case for other pollutants, or by incentives, with checks and penalties.
Furthermore, the increase in the number of vehicles plays a major part in the increase in CO2 emissions.
This aspect of the problem must be tackled as well, by implementing a transport development policy involving rail and waterway transport, combined transport, and public service which is capable of offering an effective alternative to the private car.
According to the explanatory statement, the Commission is still at the stage of a 'monitoring scheme' , i.e. collating statistics but without undertaking effective checks, and, apparently, excluding light commercial vehicles (vans) and heavy commercial vehicles (trucks).
It is better than nothing, but not much!
Despite its limitations, we nonetheless voted in favour of the González Álvarez report.
Smet report (A5-0129/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the report on the conciliation process concerning the organisation of working time, first and foremost in support of the article on doctors in training.
It is, in effect, appropriate for them to be able to rest in-between operations, particularly during their training period, also in consideration of the fact that, during the rest of their careers, it is above all - not exclusively, but for the most part - the elderly who will fall victim to their scalpels.
The doctors will need to have learnt their trade well, free from considerations of working time.
Above all, however, my vote for the motion is an invitation to consider reducing not just the working time in a worker' s day but the time he spends working over his entire lifetime. It would, in fact, be appropriate for a person not to have to work for 80 years if he is going to live to be 90 years of age, but to work for a period of 30 years if he is going to live to be 60 or 70.
Madam President, I voted for the amendment of the directive on working times because this directive has been extended to include certain categories which had not been covered. I refer, in particular, to categories of the transport sector.
Furthermore, I hope that the approval of this directive will prompt a decision, at last, to approve the regulations on flight times and working times for pilots and cabin crew.
This is not solely a social matter of worker protection - although it does include this factor - but it is also a question of flight safety.
.
(EL) It is a fact that man' s strength and capabilities are limited.
Working times may be harmful to the physical and the mental health of both individuals and families, which is why working times need to be organised so that the safety and health of workers are not put at risk.
However, 7 million workers in the EU, in transport and fisheries and doctors in training are exempted from Directive 104/93/ÅC on the organisation of working time.
This intolerable situation and the abuse of workers in the above specialist sectors as regards their working times is of a nature and is taking on dimensions which are such that rules must be imposed without delay, given that workers such as doctors in training in Great Britain work up to 72 hours a week.
Extending the directive is essential, but it is not enough.
The provisions proposed will be unable to protect the safety and health of workers effectively, given that there are still numerous exemptions and long transitional periods for implementing the directive.
We must also bear in mind that the original directive did not stipulate the length of a working day (it stipulated a working week of 48 hours - an implied violation of the measure).
- (NL) My Group eventually accepted the compromise reached by the Conciliation Committee to apply the working time directive to the excluded sectors.
It is now crucial that these sectors can, at long last, look forward to a regulation so that they too come under the scope of the directive.
We struggle greatly with the long transitional periods for the junior doctors sector.
After the directive enters into force, the Member States have a total of nine years before they are obliged to have transposed the directive into national legislation.
Under certain conditions, this period can be extended by another two or three years.
Needless to say, we feel for the many Member States which struggle with inadequate staffing levels in their health sector.
However, the Member States have known for a long time that they will need to adapt to the working times directive in the long run.
It looks very much like this serious problem has been shelved, as a result of which, in our opinion, the arguments used to support the long transitional periods do not so much signify powerlessness as unwillingness.
In the light of the above, when this directive and the ensuing national legislation is implemented, close monitoring will be required to ensure that the weekly working hours for junior doctors meet the statutory standards.
- (FR) I can only recommend that this text be adopted, which is the product of a long and difficult conciliation process between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
This favourable vote is of capital importance as it concerns the health and safety of some 7 million workers in Europe.
Workers in the transport sector and offshore workers, sea fishermen and doctors in training will at last be entitled to benefit from European working hours regulations.
As a French member of the Parliament' s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, at second reading, I supported Parliament' s position which, in particular, provided for a four-year transition period for doctors in training, with a maximum working week of 54 hours, over a four month reference period.
The conciliation process produced an agreement whereby doctors in training will be covered by the directive, as far as its scope of application - a maximum 48-hour working week over a four-month reference period - is concerned, after a period of nine years.
The nine-year period is to be subdivided as follows: a four-year transposition period and a five-year transition period.
In the first three years of the transition period, the number of weekly working hours shall not exceed 58, or 56 during the last two years.
For some States, however, this sort of nine-year period will not be sufficient to carry out the necessary adjustments.
These States may therefore be permitted an additional period of two years.
The Commission will make a statement on the notification of the relevant Member State, after consulting employers and workers at European level, as well as representatives of the Member States.
The notification, the opinion of the Commission and, if this opinion is not acted upon, the Member State' s justification, shall be published in the OJ and sent to the European Parliament.
If there are specific problems, then the two-year period may be extended for a further year, but the Member State must incorporate the procedure in full.
The maximum number of weekly working hours may not then exceed 52.
. (PT) I have voted against this report because, as a doctor by profession, I think that the excessive working hours that it proposes for junior doctors are unacceptable.
- (FR) The text before you, after years of negotiations seeking to define the maximum limits for weekly working hours, is symbolic in more ways than one of the ambiguities and inadequacies of European social policy.
Firstly, as regards the very principle of a European social policy, the Treaty of Maastricht restricts this to minimum social standards, and only on condition that they do not "hold back small- and medium-sized undertakings" .
These restrictions are no longer acceptable today.
That, then, is one urgent question to be raised for the forthcoming revision of the Treaty.
Ambiguities and inadequacies are, however, just as evident in the proposal before us.
Are we sufficiently aware that, in 1994, when the Member States came to an agreement on the maximum 48-hour working week, they excluded several million workers, such as transport workers, offshore oil rig workers or junior doctors in training?
Mrs Smet' s proposal extends the general rule of 48 hours to some of these sectors.
It still does not, however, settle the matter of long-distance road haulage workers and puts forward a frankly ridiculous timescale for implementing the directive with regard to junior doctors!
The position of these doctors in training is similar in many countries: working weeks of 70 and 80 hours in conditions that are occasionally disgraceful and sometimes dangerous to patients.
The recent strike by junior doctors in France showed that such a situation was not acceptable, either for the doctors, the patients or the public health service.
But, even though, last November, the European Parliament proposed almost unanimously that the 48-hour rule should come into force within four years, it is now suggested that we alter our position radically.
We should adopt the joint proposal of the ministers and the parliamentary delegation allowing Member States up to twelve years (!) before they apply the 48-hour week directive to doctors in training.
Please think about what this means exactly. The first doctors in training to benefit from these conditions have just started secondary school!
I do not know of a single other area - the euro, the free movement of persons, goods or capital - where a timescale of this order is tolerated.
In such circumstances, how can we expect the European Union' s social policy to be taken seriously?
Especially as the proposal divides this twelve year period into several distinct periods, each with their own rules for the maximum working week:
until 2004 there will be no change, there will be no restrictions on working hours;
between 2004 and 2007 the maximum working week will be 58 hours;
between 2007 and 2009 it will be 56 hours;
between 2009 and 2012 it will be 52 hours.
In adopting this text we are sending out a worrying message.
This is the first directive on social matters to be adopted since the Lisbon Summit on employment.
I would like to express the hope that the Commission, Parliament and the Council will, at last, take European social policy more seriously.
Social Europe will not make progress, nor will it convince our countries' citizens with proposals such as this.
Roth-Berendt report (A5-0117/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the Roth-Behrendt report, although, as before, my vote in favour of the motion is also a call for improvement of European legislation in the field of the implementation of the precautionary principle.
It is, of course, right for us to consider our health as human beings and to slaughter the huge number of animals at risk; it is right for us to adopt this measure and thereby establish rules to bring farmers and stock breeders into line, but we also need to keep our feet firmly on the ground.
What I mean is, right now, I can imagine farmers running along behind their cows - Daisy or Buttercup, maybe - and fussing over feeding them hay, fodder and products from their fields, whereas they may well not have had time to have their animal' s health checked.
So let us combine practical action with a desire for improvement.
- (FR) I should like to express my satisfaction with the content of this report.
Let me remind you that in presenting this proposal for a regulation, the Commission is fulfilling the undertaking it gave in 1997 to the European Parliament' s Temporary Committee of Inquiry to put forward measures for effectively monitoring transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs).
This proposal seeks to create a standard legal basis for the monitoring and prevention of TSEs, of whatever type, and for all animal-based products.
It incorporates all Community regulations in force in the field of TSEs.
Like the rapporteur, I endorse the general strategy adopted by the European Commission, but I think the text before us needs tightening up in order to guarantee maximum consumer safety.
I have therefore supported the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
These amendments were intended to introduce the possibility of systematically implementing rapid diagnostic tests, and to reintroduce the European Parliament' s request in the context of the follow-up to the recommendations on BSE, i.e. withdrawing the entire herd from the food chain, banning any movement of animals defined as at risk, and advocating the slaughter and destruction of such animals, with the exception of animals intended for scientific research.
The proposal also had to be extended by inviting the Commission to present proposals for the inclusion of some cosmetic products and medicines, and to draw up a procedure for determining the epidemiological status of countries or regions in relation to BSE, i.e. a classification of countries according to contamination levels.
I shall conclude by stressing the fact that the European Parliament must continue to be involved, under the codecision procedure, in fundamental decisions on the prevention of TSEs.
- (FR) The problem under discussion this morning was first identified a long time ago.
It is all very laudable to attempt to prevent the risks of BSE at Community level today, but it was almost 15 years ago that our researchers clearly established that one of the causes of mad cow disease was the consumption of cattle fodder containing animal-based meal made from ingredients taken from the carcasses of sheep suffering from ovine scrapie.
This is why, when we contributed towards setting up the Parliament' s Temporary Committee of Inquiry into BSE, we pointed out most forcefully that any regulatory instrument should necessarily cover all transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
Why has it been necessary to wait so long to effect the necessary changes in the regulations? Why is there this time lag between scientific discoveries and Community proposals?
Fortunately, as far as the protection of the citizens is concerned, reactions at national level and in a number of Member States were rather more rapid and effective, compared with the incredible slowness and the usual paradoxes of Community bureaucracy.
Let me remind you that some countries, in effect, in order to ensure consumer food safety, have had to deliberately contravene Community regulations.
It is a perfectly good idea to make the use of rapid diagnostic tests more widespread.
They will be a significant component of BSE monitoring at Community level.
Let us not, however, treat them like a universal panacea.
These tests can only detect the affected prion protein above a certain level.
They are therefore no substitute for, in particular, the withdrawal of specific high-risk materials.
Above all, it would be an outrage if Member States which have set up a screening programme based on tests far stricter than the Community programme were to be penalised, in terms of classification with regard to BSE-related risks, in comparison with States which have confined themselves to the minimum Community programme.
Community regulations should never represent a brake on, or obstacle to, the action of Member States that wish to offer their citizens more stringent protection.
It has been clear since the start of the BSE crisis that the most appropriate and effective level of protection for our citizens is directly linked to the vigilance of the national authorities, with Community procedures, when they finally come to be drawn up, being able, of course, to play a useful complementary role.
Savary report (A5-0113/2000)
Madam President, I should briefly like to pay tribute to the work done by our fellow Member, Mr Savary, who has once again shown himself to be a staunch defender of the railways and of public services.
Next I should like to tell the people who voted in favour of this report that I, of course, agreed with saying that it is no longer possible to accept the share of rail transport increasingly losing out to road transport, and that nor is it possible to accept the technical, and even regulatory, obstacles from a bygone age that stand in the way of the much-needed freedom of movement throughout the whole of Europe?
All the same, for future reference, I wish to state today that making this observation and supporting this determination to make progress must not lead to untrammelled liberalisation and privatisation, as this puts our safety at risk, and we can see many examples of this today in some countries of Europe, and it is destructive as far as our public service is concerned.
This is not the purpose of today' s report but, in view of debates we will have in future, I wished to state this publicly.
Madam President, although we are in favour of completely harmonising European rail networks and making them compatible, since this is a necessity, and although we are in favour of developing this type of public transport, both on major international routes as well as on regional and local networks, we abstained from the vote on this report, since nowhere did it mention the need to operate rail networks as a public service, i.e. as a system designed and put into practice in order to respond to the needs of users and not to be a source of profit for private companies.
Madam President, I voted for the measure contained within the Savary report, on the trans-European conventional rail system.
How could I do otherwise?
This is a clearly a matter in which the European Union must intervene on account of the subsidiarity principle.
Long-distance transport can only be regulated at European level.
Nevertheless, there was room for improvement in this measure, but I hope that this will be achieved over the next few years.
We should use this as a springboard to create, at last, a European department of transport links, but, first and foremost, we should make it easier for pensioners and the elderly to travel between the European capitals. Pensioners love to travel and could have the right to a free travel card for journeys between their capital city or their own town and the capital cities of the other 14 European States.
We must give our support to the interoperability of European railways as a means of revitalising and developing the sector at international level, in order better to meet users' needs, and also as an instrument for protecting the environment.
Nevertheless, we do not feel that adequate solutions to the problems arising for those working in the sector as a result of this process have been provided in the texts before us.
We are also aware, and are therefore bound to express our concern about this, that the proposals currently being discussed are part of a package of measures designed to liberalise the sector, and that the experiments that have already been carried out in this area have certainly led to a deterioration in safety and social conditions for workers.
Savary report (A5-0112/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the second Savary report, which differs from the previous report in that it refers to a trans-European high-speed rail system.
My point, this time, is that there is also room for improvement in this high-speed European transport system, in that it should be designed for use by ordinary citizens as well as businessmen who want to travel from Madrid to Copenhagen or somewhere even further away in as short a time as possible: businessmen can always go by plane.
High-speed links must, first and foremost, be designed for tourism, leisure and the enjoyment of all European citizens, especially the elderly, who would be avid travellers if conditions were more luxurious and rail travel a more pleasurable experience.
- I voted against the report on the trans-European high-speed system (A5-0112/2000).
It is most enlightening to compare the two reports presented by our colleague, Mr Savary, even if these documents have different legal bases.
The high-speed sector and the conventional rail system respond to quite different philosophies.
The former report received unanimous support in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
Only half of the Members of the very same committee voted for the latter.
This fact is, in itself, expressive enough.
On the high-speed rail system report the Environment Committee, astonishingly, did not deliver any opinion, even if the environmental aspects are not mentioned in it at all.
It seems that most people in this House do not really care about the need to rebalance the different modes of transport in favour of the railways, to reach a significant rise in the volume of goods and passengers that nowadays overwhelmingly use the roads.
- (FR) First of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work on the Commission' s report on the implementation and effects of Directive 96/48/EC concerning the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system.
Creating the technical conditions for the interoperability of the European railway networks involves harmonising, between the various networks, the many different systems and components involved in rail transport.
The objective is a threefold one: to gradually create the conditions for the uninterrupted movement of trains on the 15 national networks - the free movement objective; to eliminate current high costs and delays in order to improve the competitiveness and reliability of the railways vis-à-vis their competitors - the sustainable mobility objective; and to create the conditions for a single European market in railway rolling stock by harmonising the elements that make up the railways - the economic and technological objective.
The objective of the directive before us today was to publish the technical specifications for interoperability (TSIs) for six sub-systems - Maintenance, Infrastructure, Energy, Rolling Stock, Operation and Control-Command - beginning the work of standardising components in collaboration with CEN, Cenelec and ETSI, and establishing in each Member State a list of notified bodies instructed to assess the conformity of the components produced by the relevant industries.
This report, drawn up pursuant to Directive 96/48/CE, gives an initial assessment of the progress made.
It must be noted that four years after the directive was adopted, not one single technical specification for interoperability (TSI) has been drawn up even though interoperability is deemed to be fundamental to the mobility of persons and the effectiveness of trans-European rail systems.
The majority of Member States have not, to date, transposed the provisions of this directive into their national legislation.
We are a long way from debating the priority to be given to rail!
It would, however, be unfair to say that no progress has been made.
For one thing, a tripartite body, the EARI (European Association for Railway Interoperability), has been set up and has undertaken the work of identifying and specifying existing technologies, components and procedures, which should culminate in two TSIs in the near future.
Moreover, the latest high-speed network investment projects, designed along the lines of Thalys, have, for the first time, made efforts to achieve convergence and technical coherence.
Even so, these achievements are still inadequate in terms of the issues at stake.
National disparities are a considerable obstacle to the development of rail transport in Europe, in spite of the many advantages of this means of transport in terms of sustainable development, pollution and safety.
The figures speak for themselves: in 1970, the railways had a 21% share of the goods transport market; today they have only 8.5%.
The trend is the same for passengers, where the market share has dropped from 10% in 1970 to 6%.
Where freight is concerned, the railways could quite easily disappear altogether from large areas of the goods transport market.
There is no doubt that the closure of large parts of the European network would lead to significant job losses.
It is therefore essential to give a fresh boost to interoperability.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Adoption of single currency by Greece (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A5­0135/2000) by Mr Goebbels, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council decision pursuant to Article 122(2) of the EC Treaty for the adoption of the single currency by Greece on 1.1.2001.
Mr President, allow me first of all to congratulate Greece on its extraordinary economic progress.
The Commission has now concluded that Greece fulfils all the convergence criteria.
I am convinced that Parliament will take the same view.
It is quite an achievement to meet the convergence requirements and, at the same time, as Greece is doing now, to achieve increases in growth and employment.
Europe, especially the remaining convergence countries - Sweden and Greece - are now showing that it is fully possible to fulfil the stability requirements of the convergence process and still maintain a dynamic economy with growth and falling unemployment.
Against that background, I have no reservations about recommending that Greece join the euro zone as from 2001.
Sweden, too, fulfils the basic economic requirements.
The Swedish economy is now one of Europe' s strongest, with low inflation, high growth and a balance of payments surplus.
However, Sweden still does not fulfil all of the more formal requirements.
It has not joined the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and Swedish legislation concerning the Bank of Sweden still does not completely fulfil the requirements of the Treaty.
However, the Swedish Parliament has instituted a number of changes to the legislation concerning monetary policy in order to facilitate Sweden joining the euro.
The remaining changes will be made when Sweden actually applies to join the euro, partly by applying to join the ERM.
I am very well aware of the implications of the Treaty.
But in a Euro-sceptic country like Sweden, which still feels itself to be a new Member State, there is a democratic imperative for a change as major as that of joining the euro to be preceded by a careful democratic process.
At the Committee hearing, Commissioner Solbes declared that it is the individual country which applies to enter the ERM.
Where Sweden' s entry is concerned, it is therefore my and, as I understand it, the Commission' s judgement that to want full status in EMU by entering the ERM is to adopt a political position.
Commissioner Solbes said in the Committee that he respects the Swedish government' s desire to allow the people to decide the question in a referendum.
We are therefore also grateful for the phrases in Mr Goebbels' report in which he welcomes this democratic process.
I, who am working hard in favour of Swedish 'euro membership' , am convinced that, in a few years' time, we shall also make the same decision for Sweden as we are now making in the case of Greece, i.e. to welcome and approve Sweden as a fully-fledged member of the Economic and Monetary Union and of the single currency.
I look forward to that day.
Mr President, I would like to make a brief comment concerning Sweden.
Sweden joined the European Union without an opt-out, certainly not in respect of monetary union.
Only on points such as legislation, which is in Sweden' s remit, does the country not meet the criteria.
There is talk of a referendum coming up.
I would like to know when exactly that will be as I am sure there is not a date for this yet.
How long will it be before the Commission does its duty and reminds Sweden' s Social Democratic government of its signature under a very important contract? The Swedish government sets an extremely bad example for the candidate countries which are, at this moment, waiting to join.
Mr President, I would now like to move on to Greece.
I have a problem with that country.
The Greeks have produced a fantastic achievement.
I only wonder how long the effects of that achievement will last.
But I am acutely aware that by punishing Greece for achieving something positive, we will let the actual guilty party off the hook.
Greece probably does not meet the criteria any more or less than other countries did.
The euro zone should be able to carry a relatively small economy such as the Greek one quite easily.
At the moment, however, this sends out the wrong psychological message to the markets and citizens who, to use an appropriate metaphor, look upon the euro descending Mount Olympus with sadness in their eyes.
This is why Parliament, on behalf of the citizen, has to send out a signal to the Union' s large Member States.
But the Central Bank, for example, is not concerned with the euro' s external value.
The true culprits are the governments of Germany, France, Belgium and especially Italy.
These countries, however, are making a mess of their own responsibilities vis-à-vis the currency and vis-à-vis the European citizen, let alone their own citizens.
They do not introduce the required structural reform within their own markets.
Governments are far too accommodating when agreements are not met, under the motto: you meet the agreements today, I might meet them tomorrow.
Why is Italy not called to task when it makes a shambles of its good intentions?
The large Member States and Belgium are trifling with the interests of all European citizens.
It is said time and again that the European citizens are not adversely affected as long as they stay in Europe.
But surely, Mr President, we should not make that decision for them? In the Netherlands, many farmers are emigrating to North America.
A weak euro lets them down badly.
Businesses within the European Union have become 25% cheaper for the United States to buy.
I think it is time for some changes.
I will be abstaining from the votes today.
Mr President, I am wholly and unequivocally in favour of Greece' s adoption of the single European currency, the euro.
As Mr Goebbels stated in his report, the European Parliament' s task is not to assess practical adherence to the Maastricht criteria, for that has already been done, item by item, by the Commission and the bodies whose task it is to monitor these indicators and keep us informed.
The European Parliament must express a political opinion; it must speak from the heart and not on the basis of figures; it must listen to its soul instead of numbers.
What sort of European Union is it in which one of the 15 States, which wishes to accede to the most committed and most important level of European cohesion, is still left standing outside the door? When, as the report maintains, we consider that all the Maastricht criteria are fulfilled and that, in addition, this country is called Greece - an enchanting name in itself - we cannot fail to realise that this cannot continue and be moved to remedy the situation.
And I refer, in particular, to the Greek pensioners.
You may wonder why, as representative of the Italian Pensioners' Party, I am interested in Greek pensioners.
But Mr President, if we have to ask Greece to reduce its State deficit - and, unfortunately, we know that, nowadays, this is only achieved by reducing pensions - instead of avoiding wastage - which, as the previous speaker said, in socialist governments, especially, is due to poor budgetary allocations - we must not make the pensioners and elderly citizens of Greece pay the price for its accession to the European currency.
Mr President, the euro was born two years ago.
For me, as a Europhile, it was a great day when monetary union was brought to a successful conclusion, exactly as planned and with as many as 11 Member States.
For me, as a Swede, it was disappointing that Swedish Social Democracy had not been able to deliver a result then and there.
Now, two years have gone by - without any response or progress on Sweden' s part.
We are, unfortunately, the country without an EMU strategy.
For my part, I can only congratulate Greece as the twelfth country to adopt the euro.
Now that our discussions are focusing upon Greece and we are carefully picking over the Greek economy, all EU countries ought to join Greece in also adopting the euro.
Many people are to be heard explaining the fall in value of the euro with reference to the fact that the United States' s economy is stronger than Europe' s.
That is indisputable.
It is amazing, however, that more is not being done by Europe to reverse this trend.
For me, the reason for this is clear.
There is a lack of confidence in the European governments.
It is time to implement the structural changes which are often talked about but which are still not being carried out.
With lower taxes and a more flexible labour market, Europe can enter the new economy.
There needs to be more rationalisation of the budget, more exposure to competition, more deregulation and a more rapid phasing-out of monopolies.
If the governments of Europe give priority to this work, we shall immediately find confidence in the euro increasing.
But many of the EU' s social democratic-led governments are visibly unable to take action.
There is a lack of leadership.
It is not the President of the ECB who can 'talk up' the euro. Instead, it is the Member States which can make the EU and the euro competitive.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Goebbels for his report and also the various participants in this debate.
Today we are studying the report on convergence, which deals with the Swedish and Greek problems.
With regard to Sweden, the situation has hardly changed since 1998.
The economic situation is positive, but the legislative adaptation of its Central Bank is not being carried out and it is not a member of the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the EMS.
With regard to Greece, the situation is radically different.
Greece did not fulfil the convergence criteria in 1998 but now it does.
By that I mean that it fulfils them in the strictest sense, using exactly the same criteria as in 1998.
Greece has clearly made a great effort and I therefore have nothing to add to the positive results highlighted by Mr Goebbels in his report.
I would like to talk about some of the points which have been mentioned today, given the concern about the Greek model.
I understand that concern because Greece offers a precedent not only for the new candidate countries but also for the current Member States who, in the future, may join the single currency.
In this respect, it is quite clear that the way we deal with Greece will be crucial but I want to insist that Greece has been treated in the same way as all the other countries when their situation was considered back in 1998.
There have basically been two issues of concern: debt and inflation. Are they sustainable?
Is this inflation situation sustainable, or durable, as you call it? In the case of Greece, debt stands at more than 100% of GDP, practically the same as in Belgium or Italy.
I do not think it is reasonable to compare the current situation in Greece with that prevailing in Italy or Belgium.
We must not forget that Belgium and Italy have benefited from the fall in debt resulting from the reduction in interest rates, which is due, in particular, to the approximation of the interest rates of their Central Banks with those of the European Central Bank.
In comparative terms, the Greek situation is similar to the Italian or Belgian situation at the time of their accession to the single currency.
The second point of concern is inflation.
I understand this concern on the basis of two arguments: firstly, it is true that the level of inflation necessary to comply with the criteria was achieved relatively recently; secondly, there will also be a reduction in the interest rates and this will have a positive effect on speeding up the reduction in deficit and debt, but which may generate tensions in the market.
With regard to the first point, concerning whether Greece has achieved this inflation rate in a manner which is unsustainable, I must make a few comments.
Greece has been complying with the inflation criteria for some months and the situation is improving considerably.
This morning I had the opportunity to discuss the Greek figures which were issued a few days ago by the Greek national statistical service.
The Eurostat figures were also published this morning.
At the moment, the harmonised CPI, in the case of Greece, stands at 2.1%, a drop of 0.7% on the March figure; this is a better situation, for example, than certain countries of the monetary union, such as Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and Finland.
In comparative terms, therefore, Greece' s current situation is quite sound.
If we abide by the strict criterion of the last 12 months, we will see that inflation currently stands at 2%.
This is clearly better than the situation in Spain and Ireland, and practically the same as Italy, Luxembourg or the Netherlands.
Therefore, in terms of figures, I believe that we should not worry about the Greek situation.
However, the Commission also shares the concern which certain MEPs have highlighted.
We have therefore insisted on two points in discussing both the broad guidelines for economic policies and the convergence report.
Greece has to do two things, and the Greek Government is prepared to do them and has committed itself to doing them: Firstly, it must continue with its liberalisation policies and structural reforms which will improve the inflation situation; secondly, Greece must continue with its policy of reducing the deficit, but in a context of combining policies, a 'policy mix' , which will allow it, in the event that an increase in demand, resulting from a reduction in interest rates, may create tension in terms of inflation, to reconsider its tax policy so that it will not have negative effects on the process of integration into Monetary Union.
I am convinced that all of that will happen, and the Greek Government has committed itself to ensuring that it does.
I therefore believe that the entry of Greece into the euro will help rather than hinder it.
The euro has shown that it is still an attractive currency which some countries want to join.
I hope that the path being taken by Greece will be followed by other Member States in the next few years.
This is the end of a process.
We must wait for its culmination with the decisions in June, but I am convinced that, by welcoming Greece into the euro when the time is right, we will generate more confidence in the face of any other type of arguments against the future progress of the single currency.
Mr President, I have asked the Commissioner when he will do his duty as far as Sweden is concerned and remind the Social Democratic government of a signature which was placed here by Sweden.
When will the Commission enforce the Treaty?
The Commission always respects the Treaty. It is obliged to comply with it.
Please do not forget that it is a fact that Sweden is not participating because its Central Bank has not adapted to the European requirements, a decision which falls to the Swedish authorities.
Secondly, we should not forget either that participation in the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the EMS is a voluntary decision.
You may ask whether this is contrary to the spirit of the Treaty of Maastricht, but it is clearly not a point which we can debate at the moment.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Solbes Mira.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Transparency of financial relations between Member States and public undertakings
The next item is the report (A5-0109/2000) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on a proposal for a Commission directive amending Directive 80/723/EEC on the transparency of financial relations between Member States and public undertakings (SEC(1999) 404 - C5-0102/2000 - 2000/2065(COS)).
Mr President, Article 86 of the Treaty captures the very essence of the resolution.
Paragraph 1 stipulates that in the case of public undertakings and undertakings to which Member States grant special or exclusive rights, Member States shall neither enact nor maintain in force any measure contrary to the rules contained in this Treaty.
Paragraph 2 adds, in summary, that undertakings entrusted with the operation of services of general economic interest shall be subject to the rules contained in this Treaty.
It is up to the Commission to monitor the observation of this Article and to provide fitting directives or decisions to the Member States.
The amendment to the directive to which this resolution pertains must enable the Commission to carry out this task more effectively, which is certainly necessary given the ever growing liberalisation of recent years.
Public undertakings and former public undertakings increasingly embrace the commercial world where they, partly with government funding, engage in competition with private undertakings, i.e. their own citizens.
Let it be clear, then, that the much desired level playing field no longer exists.
The present situation promotes money wasting, distorts international trade and, as such, forms a threat to the internal market.
It is surely only logical and reasonable that public undertakings, at the time when they enter into the market, should abide by the same rules as private undertakings.
As a means of guaranteeing a level playing field, the Commission has decided that undertakings with a net turnover in excess of EUR 40 million should keep separate accounts which should illustrate the different activities, the costs and profits pertaining to each of the activities, the method according to which costs and profit are accounted for and the way in which the net profits generated by each activity are used.
These are the considerations with regard to the proposal.
In short, what is the origin of investments in the commercial field?
Initially, the Commission proposal met with a great deal of resistance from EMAC and the Commission.
In actual fact, there was only a handful of PPE-DE Members and the Liberal Group who were in favour of the planned transparency.
This caused me concern.
We, as MEPs, are elected to exercise democratic control over the executive, in this case the Commission.
The Commission is, in turn, responsible for observing Article 86.
We thus have the duty to ensure that the Commission carries out the assigned task properly but, at the same time, some of us would prevent it from doing exactly that.
I wonder how we must come across in a situation like this. We make it abundantly clear that we strive for fair competition and utilisation of our internal market but, when the chips are down, we are once again looking solely after our own interests.
In the report on the adoption of the single currency by Greece, I blame the governments for not doing what needs to be done.
Those against this directive are thus giving the governments a helping hand.
As Parliament, we cannot do anything else but to ensure that the markets operate clearly and transparently and that we do not give preferential treatment to certain undertakings and not others.
This directive may seem tedious, but is, in reality, the acid test.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make three points regarding this directive, and the consultation, on which I should like to congratulate our rapporteur.
I think she has managed to come up with a reasonable balance within our committee in what almost became, on occasions, an ideological debate.
In your proposal, Commissioner, you quite rightly exclude a number of sectors, and we can only be pleased at this.
Secondly, as our rapporteur pointed out, I should like to draw attention to the fact that the jurisdiction of Member States in this field must not be disregarded.
At the present time, there is no definition of services of general economic interest at European Union level.
We must therefore bring subsidiarity into play, and we are well aware that in such areas, national sensibilities may be expressed in diverse ways.
I can therefore only urge you, Commissioner, to show as much drive and determination in making full use of all the terms of the Treaty, particularly those which, following the Treaty of Amsterdam, grant you new scope for action, especially with a view to defining the ability to provide services of general economic interest.
I would urge Mrs Peijs to read again the latest version of the Treaty with regard to what she considers to be the last word on the law on competition within the European Union.
My third observation, Commissioner, is on public broadcasting services.
Once again, I cannot ignore what we incorporated into our Treaty when we amended it in Amsterdam.
This sector is very clearly covered by specific conditions.
This shows the determination of the Member States to treat this sector as a sector in its own right falling outside the rules of competition which exist in other areas.
I therefore feel that the proposals on transparency that you are putting forward cannot be applied to that sector under the same conditions. I think it would be rather difficult in such a sector to implement the notion of separate accounting systems making it possible to draw a distinction between competitive activities and public service activities in the broadcasting sector, especially as, I might mention in passing, there is no single harmonised European accounting system.
I just wanted to complain about the quality of sound reproduction.
There is a bad echo in the Chamber, as a result of which we can hardly hear those speaking in their original languages.
Can something be done about this?
We will try to resolve the problem you have raised in your speech, Mrs Maes.
Mr President, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party welcomes the Commission' s proposal, which will lead to increased public scrutiny of public undertakings and to increased competition.
We want to thank Mrs Randzio-Plath for cooperating so well.
State aid distorts competition and is unfair to both consumers and companies.
In principle, the Treaty prohibits all types of state aid, including cross-subsidies. The Treaty does not, however, prohibit the existence of public undertakings providing services in the public interest.
Whatever one may think about this, it is for the Member States themselves to define what is meant by services in the public interest. The Member States should not, however, themselves decide what kinds of aid they will be granting these undertakings.
The Court of First Instance in Luxembourg stated as late as last week that state support for TV and radio companies may only be provided once the Commission has said that this is compatible with the Treaty.
The rules must be applied in the same way to all parties.
All aid which is not used to finance services in the public interest is prohibited and is to be opposed.
State radio stations and TV companies now often provide services which are outside the scope of what we call services in the public interest.
An example is Internet connection.
Those resources which the State has injected into companies to finance their basic activities ought not, of course, to be used to finance the provision of Internet connections.
In that case, competition is distorted, to the disadvantage both of consumers and of private companies.
The Commission' s proposal requires companies to openly account for the resources provided to them as public undertakings and for how these have been used.
Companies must also show what costs they have, where their income comes from and how this is derived from their various activities.
These are very reasonable demands.
Both these obligations are simple means of upholding the rules governing relations between private and public undertakings.
This is important for the purpose of maintaining proper rules in the internal market.
Mr President, Commissioner Monti, on the subject of the proposal before us, I should like to make four remarks or observations on behalf of my Group, but not without first congratulating our fellow Member, Mrs Randzio-Plath.
First of all, I should like to thank Commissioner Monti for having had the courtesy to consult the European Parliament.
A Commission directive has been referred to us, even though, I believe, it is not legally mandatory to consult Parliament, although the subject is clearly a crucial one.
This leads me to reiterate the hope that the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference will propose subjecting all legislation on competition policy to the codecision procedure, thereby enabling us legally to work on a more equal footing.
My second comment concerns the actual purpose of this proposed directive.
It has an extremely specific aim, which is to prevent, subject to monitoring by the Commission, any legitimate public aid to services of general interest being misappropriated to the benefit of activities which are themselves open to competition.
Having said that, the problem is by no means easy to solve, as the previous speaker made clear.
Indeed he states - and I would be curious to know Mr Monti' s response to this - that Internet connection does not, for example, come under the heading of universal service. I think that this runs quite counter to the objectives of the European Council in Lisbon, and that it is necessary, on the contrary, to have a comprehensive vision of universal service.
One might go so far as to imagine, even if this is a matter for subsidiarity, that the Community as such should at least define the minimum standards of what the universal service may be. Otherwise we are heading towards a relatively chaotic situation.
Thirdly, I should like to know the Commission' s reaction to Recital No 4 of our report, in which the rapporteur and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs effectively ask the Commission to specify how important it considers services of general interest to be.
I await the Commission' s response on the matter.
Fourthly and finally, there is one amendment, Amendment No 3, which is explicitly intended to exclude the broadcasting sector from the scope of the proposed directive.
I think this amendment is an improvement on the current text. Paragraph 6 is a masterpiece of diplomatic language but is relatively incomprehensible.
I should therefore like to see the Commission expressing its support for Amendment No 3 as proposed in plenary.
Thank you very much, Mr President.
I would like to join my colleagues in thanking Commissioner Monti for consulting Parliament on this matter and in congratulating our rapporteur for her great job.
The tenor of this report relates to analysing which public undertakings can receive financial aid from the Member State governments operating within the EU.
There are clearly opposing views in this House on this subject matter.
There are those who would like to see undertakings which are only in direct competition with the private sector to be subject to the terms of this directive, whilst others would propose that public undertakings which are clearly of a general interest could fall within the exceptions in this directive.
It can be said that the right reserved to Member States to determine what constitutes service of general interest is preserved, and the one area that I would like to deal with specifically is the question of broadcasting.
I would like to remind this House that the protocol attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam of the EU recognises that the system of public broadcasting within Member States of the EU is directly related to the democratic, social and cultural needs of our society.
We must ensure that with the advance of new technology the public service broadcast ethos is not undermined.
I would argue that it is more essential, now that we have a strong public service broadcasting sector, to ensure the maintenance of that democratic, social and cultural sector.
In conclusion, Mr President, this is why I believe the role of public service broadcasters must be maintained, and while I welcome the fact that the right must be reserved to Member States to determine what constitutes ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I also wish to add my congratulations to Mrs Randzio-Plath for the work on this report, which has been difficult at times.
This directive sets out to identify and prevent subsidies which distort competition.
In order to do this, the directive proposes to require public undertakings and private undertakings that perform public tasks to carry out separate accounting procedures.
I obviously agree with the rapporteur that competition rules must be applied rigorously in order to prevent cross-subsidies that go against the purpose of the aid.
However, in the sphere of public broadcasting it is essential to remember that, in accordance with the Amsterdam Protocol, in the system of public broadcasting in Member States, it is up to each Member State to specify the financial and organisational structure of public service broadcasting.
This has, as I said, been a difficult report; it has been fraught and often very tense in committee and, more specifically, at the committee votes.
However, I believe the final outcome will work and is a practical and correct approach.
Mr President, despite this discussion in Parliament concerning the changes which the Commission would like to make to the directive on the transparency of financial relations between Member States and public undertakings, we will not have much of a say in it because it will be the Commission, and the Commission only, that will make decisions without further involving the European Parliament or the Council, much to our regret.
In our opinion, on the basis of its autonomous powers concerning competition policy, the Commission approaches some sectors from a purely economic angle without taking into consideration other social aspects.
For example, in the dossier on financing public broadcasting, the Commission still overlooks the cultural aspects and the aspect of media-pluralism, to our mind.
Admittedly, an exception is made but then this exception accommodates further exceptions.
For example, it is very difficult for public broadcasting to survive in an increasingly commercialised environment.
I am against the commercialisation of culture.
In my opinion, culture is above these market laws.
The Commission has thus overstepped the mark.
With this amendment to the directive, it is trying to change the Treaty of Amsterdam, namely the public broadcasting protocol which was attached to it.
I am, therefore, of the opinion that the IGC should apply the normal legislative procedure for codecision by the Council and Parliament to general competition policy legislation.
I can already tell you that I will be here once again when you produce a directive on film.
Mr President, I congratulate the European Parliament on the major work accomplished during the debate on the Randzio-Plath report.
I would particularly like to thank Parliament for the support it has shown for the Commission' s initiative and I welcome its approval of the steps to increase transparency in the use of public resources and thereby guarantee fair competition.
You welcomed the Commission' s consultation of Parliament, despite the fact that it was not obliged to do this under its institutional statutes as Mr Jonckheer and other speakers recalled.
Moreover, the way the debate went reassures me that it was useful for the Commission and in the best interests of the initiative for Parliament to be consulted.
As it stands, the directive on transparency gives the Commission the authority to carry out inquiries into financial relations between Member States and their public undertakings.
In short, the draft amendment to the directive is intended to ensure the introduction of separate accounting procedures for specific types of firms.
The firms affected by this measure are those which, on the one hand, provide services of general economic interest in exchange for various different types of compensation, which may be special dues or payments, and, on the other, also perform normal general activities, thereby operating in competition with other firms.
Clearly, the profits generated by the continuation of reserved activities or by compensation provided for reasons of general interest or public service are not intended to finance competitive activities, and must therefore not give rise to internal subsidies.
However, in recent years, the Commission has had to examine a growing number of claims related precisely to such internal compensation.
As Mrs Peijs mentioned, in the course of its inquiries, the Commission has had to examine these cases of internal compensation and it was frequently unable to obtain sufficient information regarding the costs and profits generated by the various activities.
Therefore, the Commission now proposes to introduce a system of separate accounts for these types of companies which will allow them to perform their role as surety for competition properly.
I would also like to stress that the obligation to keep separate accounts also benefits the Member States, in that it provides them with the necessary information in order to avoid granting state aid which does not comply with the Treaty and to notify the Commission of the aid envisaged.
The directive requires that companies which provide general services and which, at the same time, operate outside that public service mission, keep separate accounts.
This requirement applies to both private and public companies.
The directive does not apply to companies which only provide general services and do not carry on any other activity, nor does it require the separation of different activities which all come under the heading of general services.
In other words, ladies and gentlemen, the directive is intended to make the areas around the line between services of general interest and other activities transparent with the minimum of disruption.
I would like to emphasise the fact that the directive makes no changes either, of course, to the provisions of the Treaty on the awarding of general services, or to the awarding of the management of these services to specific companies.
The directive lays down the principles for the introduction of greater transparency, although, in observance of the subsidiarity principle, it leaves the Member States free to adopt appropriate national measures.
I would now like to turn to some of the comments made.
Mr Jonckheer wondered whether Internet access was to be included in the universal service.
On this point, I can only say that the last Telecommunications Council did hold a debate on this matter.
As regards the doubts expressed by the rapporteur, Mrs Randzio-Plath, I would briefly like to summarise them.
On the subject of the definition of general services, I would stress once again that the directive does not make any changes, it does not reduce the current competences of the Member States - Mrs Berès and Mr Langen - regarding the definition of public interest.
This also applies to the public broadcasting sector, in respect of which the Amsterdam Protocol confirmed the competence of the Member States in the definition of the admission of public service.
Mrs Berès, Mr Jonckheer, Mr Crowley, Mr Skinner and Mrs Maes remarked that it might be possible to exclude broadcasting.
I have to say that this sector could well be among the fields where the directive is most frequently applied, where this directive on transparency is of most service, for, even taking the Amsterdam Protocol into account, of course, this nevertheless leaves the Commission with the task of verifying that aid granted for the provision of public services is not excessive in respect of the costs.
A requirement for verification therefore remains, and this directive should be useful for this purpose.
The size of company is irrelevant, and I am now addressing Mr Langen et al: the EUR 40 million threshold excludes small- and medium-sized businesses.
If we were to raise this threshold we would be excluding companies where, due to their size, we cannot suppose that the aid does not affect trade between Member States.
In any case, in order to give an idea of the size, only 0.2% of all non-farming enterprises in the Community are above this threshold.
Finally, I would like to say - and it appears that this has been perfectly well understood by the Members of Parliament - that this directive is not in the slightest an attack on public companies.
Quite the opposite, to be honest, I see it as a great show of support for public companies.
This is because it provides clarity and therefore does not expose public services to the attacks which would otherwise have been levelled at them.
As Mr Olle Schmidt stressed, this transparency is essential not only for a proper application of competition policy but, indeed, if I may say so, it is also crucial for there to be a proper relationship between the authorities and the taxpayers, the citizens.
I therefore feel that, although, as Mrs Peijs stressed, this directive may appear extremely tedious, it actually allows us to get to the heart of the issue, not only of competition but also of civil coexistence and economic democracy.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Poor countries' debt
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Tajani, Mr van Velzen and Mr Poettering for their valuable, substantial contributions to this debate.
I also welcome the mandate conferred on me by the European People' s Party to present such a major topic as the poor countries' debt, which is stifling the economy of the world' s poorest developing countries.
The scale of this issue is global, and it involves all the civilised, democratic countries which are helplessly standing by, watching the constant growth of the debt of poor countries, which now have to set aside an average of 40% of their annual budget to finance it.
Every year, the debt increases by approximately 12%, and it has risen from USD 110 billion in the 80s to its present value of USD 350 billion.
Parliament has attempted to deal with the issue on more than one occasion, but it has never appeared to find satisfactory solutions.
This year, on account of it being a Jubilee Year, the Holy See and other quarters are calling for the substantial reduction, if not total cancellation, of the international debt in such a way as to facilitate the integration of the most indebted countries into the world production and commercial trade circuit.
The UN Secretary-General also fervently appealed, on 3 April last, to the donor countries and international financial institutions to cancel all the official debts of the highly indebted poor countries from their accounts as a millennium gesture.
A similar appeal was made by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but the time for appeals has passed.
It is facts that are important now.
If we analyse the situation, we realise that, on the one hand, we are talking about an almost irrecoverable debt and, on the other, that in return for cancelling that debt, we can demand greater respect for human rights, greater democracy and social actions benefiting poor communities - improving conditions for children, the elderly and the disabled.
In addition, we would be stemming migration flows, which, quite apart from being a problem for the migrants' countries of origin, are, above all, a problem for the host countries.
Therefore, I would ask whether the Council is aware of all the initiatives which have hitherto been adopted by each individual country of the Union to reduce or cancel the debt of highly indebted poor countries, and whether it would be possible for a résumé to be produced showing the practical actions which have been undertaken by these countries and the commitments made, to prove that these initiatives are not just mere political vote-winning manoeuvres, as they all too often appear to be.
Finally, considering that there is a clear need for a common foreign policy displaying Europe as a coherent system capable of undertaking united initiatives, does the Commission not feel that it would be appropriate to create a structure to study this issue, which would work together with the local Churches, NGOs and civil society and act upon the conclusions reached? This would, I feel, be a different way of interpreting the meaning of the millennium, this time in the name of solidarity between communities.
Mr President, resolving the problem of the external debt of less developed countries is undoubtedly an essential factor in the stability, security and development of these countries, in eradicating poverty and in stemming the migratory flows that affect and weaken them.
We are all aware of the situation.
These countries' resources - and even resources that they do not have - are used up to service their debts; for some of these countries, interest and capital repayments account for 40% of their budget.
In spite of this, the debt continues to grow exponentially, and there is consequently an ever-widening gap between these countries and the industrialised countries, which often behave like unscrupulous moneylenders.
The imposition of unsuitable structural adjustment programmes by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and inadequate cooperation and development aid actions by the industrialised countries, which fall considerably short of the 0.7% of GDP recommended by the United Nations, both contribute to this gap.
There is an erroneous, trade-based concept that has also made matters worse. This concept suggests that, under the auspices of the WTO, the market can regulate and resolve everything, whereas the opposite is true: economic globalisation has greatly contributed to accentuating disparities, increasing injustice and holding back development.
It is obvious that this situation must, therefore, be resolved by adopting a worldwide project and by a new world order that puts the development of these countries at the top of its priorities. This must be based on the idea that everyone, and I mean everyone, including the rich countries, will benefit from this development.
A project of this kind can only succeed through debt relief, which cannot be reduced to a process that is merely full of good intentions, as recommended by the G7 countries, whose contribution represents no more than 1% of Third World debt and which is today limited in practice to partial debt relief for just three or four countries.
The European Union and its Member States can, and must, speak up on this issue, abandoning their limited outlooks, which are full of conditions, which often accompany shamefaced announcements about debt cancellation, and end the aid cuts that have been taking place and which are proposed for the future. Instead, they must put forward a broad and resolute plan that will make a decisive contribution to ending a situation of this kind and help to put the development of such important parts of the world into perspective.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, initiatives in favour of cancelling all or part of the third world debt are proliferating in the year 2000.
On this subject, the Cairo Summit did not, any more than other summits, come up with any even remotely clear conclusion.
This step is, however, a matter of simple common sense, and one is tempted to ask the Council whether they intend one day to refer the matter to their common sense.
The whole thing verges on the ridiculous.
Not only do the countries of the south not have the financial resources to pay back their debts but, on top of that, the international economic order, which has foisted a demented concept of liberalism on the world, is preventing the majority of our partners in the south - I am thinking in particular of those in Northern Africa and sub-Saharan Africa - acceding to the conditions for development that is even remotely sustainable.
Such conditions are continually demolished by the blind application of free trade, accompanied by the obsessive, ideological privatisation of the exploitation of most of their wealth.
The rich countries, foolishly falling in line with the imperialist rules of the IMF and the World Bank, were nonetheless the first to realise that this cannot damage economic take-off since their own development did not fail on occasion to resort to the rules of protectionism, ensuring, moreover, a privileged place for the state and for public intervention in all its forms.
Peace between nations can only be achieved if there is balance.
Political and economic balance are, on the other hand, devastating to a world which is increasingly unipolar.
As we well know, despite the head-in-the-sand policy practised by rich countries with no thought for the future which takes the world down some highly dangerous roads, and while this House gets bogged down in details and side issues, it is high time that we were able to look at the world as a whole.
Instead of leaving our only reasonable policy, i.e. the Lomé agreements, high and dry, we ought to be forming genuine economic and, more importantly, political partnerships with the Mediterranean and African countries.
But, for that, Europe would have to have an authority legitimate and clear-sighted enough to get out of the trap of all-out liberalism and, of course, it has no such authority worthy of the name.
Mr President, hearing the other speakers, I note that we all agree on the facts.
The harsh and tragic figures are there for all to see.
The 50 poorest countries spend twice what they receive in aid in order to pay off their debt.
An average of 40% of the budget of poor countries is dedicated to debt payments.
Not only does that undermine their economic development, not only does that significantly reduce their ability to provide basic social services, such as health or education, but it creates a sort of slavery which benefits Western societies.
In fact two thirds of the debt is generated by interest on earlier loans, loans taken out to pay for the things we sold them, which multinationals sold them.
This is highly reminiscent of the exploitation of agricultural workers in some countries who are forced to buy from the boss' s shop at inflated prices and who are then forced to work for the rest of their lives for scant wages in order to pay off their debts to this shop.
What action are we taking to prevent this?
The G7 countries announced amid much publicity a debt reduction programme, but conditions are such that it cannot be applied.
This initiative remains subject to macroeconomic reform programmes under the aegis of the IMF or the World Bank, which run counter to the objectives of eradicating poverty, due to their restrictive effect on the ability to spend on social services and job creation.
Some major countries have announced that they are going to cancel debts, but this is selective, linked to the interests of certain parties, and is achieved to the detriment of development budgets.
The indebted countries were expecting a strong message from the Conference between the European Union and Africa held in Cairo recently.
They were given plenty of fine words, but no practical action.
What initiatives do the Commission and the Council propose to take at European or international level in order to further relieve or cancel the burden of debt in order to aid the poorest countries?
How does the Commission plan to ensure that the appropriations made available by cancelling the debt are properly invested in eradicating poverty and in sustainable development? Finally, what is the Commission' s reaction to the requests presented by some civil society organisations in the countries of the south for improvements in monitoring the macroeconomic adaptation plan, by organising conferences on national development, in order to give public opinion in these countries an opportunity to define national priorities and projects?
The Commission's contribution to debt relief can be seen in the HIPC initiative.
This was launched in September 1996 with the aim of helping to relieve the debt burden of the poorest countries that make adjustment efforts in a concerted way.
It represents a coordinated effort by all donors including, in particular, multilateral creditors.
It was the first time ever that the multilateral aspect had been addressed directly.
In 1999, on the occasion of the G7 Cologne Summit, ministers agreed to an expanded and more flexible initiative that will provide faster, deeper and broader debt relief.
As a result of the proposed changes, the costs of this HIPC II Initiative are expected to increase significantly to some USD 27.4 billion from a previous estimated level of some USD 13 billion of HIPC I. In fact, the original estimate of the cost of HIPC I was around USD 8 billion only.
For the record, the Commission has already made a large contribution to HIPC I. The Council adopted, on 6 July 1998, a decision on the Community' s participation in the HIPC Initiative with regard to its claims, special loans and risk capital managed by the European Investment Bank for eligible ACP countries.
As mentioned before, the Community, as a creditor, is only a small player in this discussion.
Fortunately, we are mainly a provider of direct grant assistance and not loans.
We set aside EUR 40 million of interest accumulated on EDF funds which should cover the cost for the first six country cases.
Community assistance for Uganda and Guyana was delivered in mid-1998 and early 2000, amounting to EUR 4.59 million and EUR 6.44 million respectively.
The Community has since decided to considerably enhance support for the HIPC II Initiative.
At the annual meeting in Washington in September 1999, it was announced that the Community' s contribution would be in the order of EUR 1 billion.
The Commission subsequently submitted draft proposals for decisions to the Joint EU/ACP Council and the EU Council which were adopted by the General Affairs Council on 6 December and by the Joint EU/ACP Council on 8 December.
It has to be borne in mind that the ACP countries' agreement is required because it is EDF money that is being reallocated so their consent is needed as part of these decisions.
At present, the Commission is in the process of finalising discussions with its Member States, the European Investment Bank, the World Bank and the African Development Bank about the main principles of the actual implementation of the Community support for the HIPC II Initiative, both as a donor and as a creditor.
In June, it will present the relevant financing proposals.
The Community' s global contribution to the HIPC Trust Fund in its capacity as a donor will amount to EUR 680 million for qualifying ACP countries.
EUR 670 million will be earmarked for the African Development Bank in order to cover its financing gap in the HIPC Initiative and EUR 10 million for the only non-African HIPC ACP country, Guyana.
The EUR 680 million Community contribution originating from the EDF will be channelled to the HIPC Trust Fund in 3 tranches taking into consideration effective financing needs as well as support from other donors.
According to the information available, needs for the first tranche this year will be in the order of the magnitude of EUR 250 million.
The first EC tranche will be paid in July.
Besides these contributions to be financed from uncommitted EDF funds, a EUR 54 million contribution to the HIPC Trust Fund will also be made towards non-ACP HIPCs drawing on resources from the budgetary lines for Latin America and Asia.
We want, in other words, to make sure that the EU participation in HIPC is global and in accordance with the figures in HIPC.
Finally, it must be stressed that the ACP/EU Council decision to reinforce the EC Structural Adjustment Facility by EUR 250 million will partly be used to provide interim relief to eligible HIPC countries belonging to the ACP.
It is important to stress that the Community contribution to debt relief should not be seen as a substitute for contributions from bilateral donors.
These are still needed in order to fully finance the initiative announced at the G7 Summit in Cologne.
The expectation created a year ago was that the G7 countries would come up with additional resources.
As regards other contributions to the HIPC Trust Fund, it may be worth noting that the draft budget by the US administration suggests a US contribution of USD 600 million which follows on from pledges made earlier and which corresponds to the share of HIPC calculated by the World Bank for the US.
This draft budget needs to be passed in Congress and this is definitely facing some difficulties.
In fact, it seems very doubtful that the US will deliver its share as planned.
The funds released by the Commission for the HIPC Initiative are subject to the same principles as other funds originating from the European Development Fund and the Commission is carefully involving the EDF Committee, that is Member States, at all stages.
Article 366(b) of the Lomé Convention in its present form imposes strict conditions on the possible use of EDF money.
Politically speaking, it would not make sense to stop EDF financed projects in Article 366(b) countries and to provide them with EC quasi direct non-earmarked budget support, for example through HIPC debt relief mechanisms.
It is the responsibility of the Commission to ensure that EDF money does not facilitate a coup d'état or provide additional budgetary room for manoeuvre to enable dictators to oppress their people.
It is the very purpose of Article 366(b) in its present form to make things more complicated for countries breaching elementary human rights and good governance principles.
This view has also been clearly expressed by the European Court of Auditors when commenting on these issues.
Our hands are somewhat tied in this discussion on how we can accomplish these things in practice.
In the discussions, which led last year to the agreement on enhancing the HIPC Initiative, there was a strong consensus in the donor community that poverty reduction needs to be re-emphasised as a main focus of development efforts.
The concept of the poverty reduction strategy papers was launched to provide a framework for mainstreaming poverty reduction in government and donor policies.
It will require a country-specific approach to assessing a country' s position in development, poverty strategies and institutional capacity.
The Commission has expressed its strong support for this radically new approach initiated by the World Bank and the IMF.
Country ownership is paramount for the development of these ideas and governments will have responsibility for both the design process and the final product.
The Commission attaches particular importance to an open participatory process involving civil society, parliaments and all relevant international institutions and donors.
Policies that address issues of social justice and equity are as central as economic policy to growth and poverty reduction.
The Community is maintaining and stepping up its commitment to support macroeconomic reforms, social sectors, regional integration and sound economic management.
This is all needed in order to make sure that fighting poverty remains the central theme when we are actually improving the situation of these poor countries through the enhanced HIPC Initiative.
I think that it is quite good that the Commission and the EU in general clearly stand out as the single most important contributor towards making this initiative actually work.
Mr President, when one hears of the horrendous debt that has built up in many African states, the first reaction is one of deep sympathy.
However, I have had the privilege of visiting many of these countries in the past year and I have to say that, in many cases, one' s sympathy turns to anger when one sees the abject poverty that people in these countries live in while their leaders and ministers revel in wealth and prosperity and one begins to question the distribution of aid and debt relief.
Despite all the help given from Europe, individual nation states and institutions, Africa' s external debt is growing by about 12% per annum and some countries are repaying more in interest than they are receiving in aid.
That cannot be allowed to continue, but neither can the historic reasons for causing it to happen.
I will be criticised by some honourable Members for saying it, but conditionality must be built into not only development aid but also debt relief.
I have always maintained that good governance was more important than pure democracy if you are going to stamp out corrupt practices, and if we cannot wipe these practices out we are only pouring good money after bad.
We must therefore be in a position to monitor the effect of debt relief and make sure that all of it is spent on civil society to give better health, education and employment prospects to the people who are being denied it.
There is a secondary effect of bad governance and that is the lack of external investment into these countries which denies them the chance of improved prosperity, better employment prospects and a higher standard of living.
The fight against fraud and corruption should be made a condition for allocating debt relief and development aid - not my words, Mr President, but the words of President Obasanjo of Nigeria in Abuja at the opening of the 13th session of the ACP-EU Assembly.
If only that could be echoed by every other president in Africa, the resistance to giving debt relief would diminish and some real progress could be made in alleviating the misery and poverty of millions of people.
Mr President, while we are talking, in Sierra Leone the latest episode in a ten-year long tragedy is taking place. This civil war has been responsible for 50 000 deaths, 2 million refugees and the brutal mutilation of 40 000 men and women of all ages in a systematic campaign of terror.
Most of Africa is affected by similar tragedies, including the tragedy affecting the Sahrawi people, with which we came face to face this morning just outside here.
The other side to globalisation is poverty, the indebtedness of the poorer developing countries and the extension of those conflicts which reduce potential for development whilst exacerbating other conflicts and causing fresh poverty.
This is why the recent EU-Africa Summit held in Cairo was so important. It reopened global dialogue with the countries of the African continent and, for the first time, associated the development aid policy with the upholding of democratic principles, rights and the fight against corruption.
A long-term strategy is essential, and cancelling the debt is the starting point for such a strategy.
As the resolution tabled by the European Socialist Party states, it is therefore important to increase the percentage of resources set aside by industrialised countries for the poorest countries, but, at the same time, the quality of our undertaking is also crucial.
The resolution puts forward two major options: new sustainability criteria and greater flexibility for the more indebted countries, and the bilateral cancellation of the debts of the least developed ACP countries.
These are initial, tangible recommendations, although, in future, we must avoid the repetition of the spiral of debt, with no checks on the choices made.
Indeed, we are aware that it is not sufficient to cancel the debt if the other mechanisms determining all the policies remain unchanged.
Cancellation of the debt must be conditional upon the use to which the resources thereby released are put. These resources must be invested in schools, hospitals and the human development of communities, not wasted, as still often occurs today, due to corruption or, what is worse, used to boost the arms trade and support ruinous wars.
The global economy must be accompanied by a global policy; growth must go hand in hand with the upholding of human and civil rights and the consolidation of democracy.
In order to avoid the spiral of debt, we therefore need to supplement the means for action: there must be greater cooperation, increased trade exchange, an increase in initiatives to prevent conflicts and more coherent opposition to corrupt, indebted governments which visit upon their citizens the hardship caused by crises and poor development.
Our commitment to cancelling the debt is a precondition for the introduction of all the policies for reducing poverty.
Resolution of the debt issue must be accompanied by actions promoting local development.
In order to succeed, we need to harmonise national policies and supplement them with greater opening up of the markets.
The recent EU-ACP agreements follow this rationale and provide assistance for the 31 least developed countries over a period of time which should end in 2005.
In this context, it is essential to involve the private sector in order to boost trade exchange and, in addition to transferring resources, to create the necessary conditions for the growth of an internal market for developing countries, and provide incentives as well as laying down conditions.
Mr President, there is no point flogging a dead horse.
This is why the disastrous vicious circle of loans, debts and new loans must be broken.
The immense repayment costs prevent any form of development.
There is hardly any money left for education, health care or for building well-functioning government machinery.
Debt relief is therefore a matter of extreme urgency.
This should be facilitated in a joint effort involving all creditors, the Union, the States, especially the United States, international institutions and banks.
However, a very broad strategy will not get us much further.
The debt cancellation programmes must be tailored to the specific circumstances of each individual country.
It is essential in this respect to tackle not just the social problems, but also to lay a firm foundation for sustainable economic development.
If this fails to materialise, then foreign investments will not be forthcoming either.
A prerequisite for relieving debts is sound financial housekeeping within the governments concerned.
We should not be naïve about this.
We can no longer write out blank cheques.
In the past, billions never reached the intended causes.
A great deal of money got into the hands of corrupt regimes which allowed Swiss banks to benefit from the large-scale theft of development aid.
When will the civilised world finally realise that countries which maintain banking secrecy are accessory to huge crimes at the expense of the poorest population groups.
The IMF and the World Bank started an initiative back in 1996 to relieve the debts of the poorest countries.
Last summer, the conditions were amended, with good reason.
Aid was made conditional upon tangible results.
It would be wonderful if the European Union and the Member States were to take a generous stance if the conditions were met.
Let us do everything possible to help the poorest countries fight poverty.
This can work if the victim is involved in his own rescue.
Mr President, I think we all agree how completely absurd it is that many of the world' s poorest countries sometimes pay more in interest and for debt management than they receive in aid. There are at least two questions which I think must be answered.
The first is: how can the EU and the G7 nations, together with other Western countries, comply with their commitments so that these do not merely become empty promises? In spite of what the Council and the Commission have said, it is, of course, a fact that, notwithstanding the praiseworthy initiative that has been taken, the G7 countries have not so far, unfortunately, taken measures to comply with that initiative.
All that has happened so far is that the debts of a mere three developing countries have been written off to the tune of 0.25 per cent.
That is naturally not enough.
Even those EU countries which have said that they wish to write off the debts have not appropriated funds in their budgets for this purpose. On occasions, the funds concerned have been taken from the areas of cooperation and development.
The most important question of all is: how can it be ensured that the resources are properly used in developing countries? The Council responded by saying that it was not in favour of that kind of control.
However, the EU, the IMF and the World Bank have, of course, established criteria in other contexts, so why should we not be able to establish criteria to ensure that, for the people, the result of debt cancellation really will be...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are 800 million Africans today and there will be twice as many in 25 years' time, and obviously they are not the only ones to be living in developing countries. Many people in Africa are sinking into poverty and increasing numbers of them are immigrating to European countries, which are in the throes of a demographic depression.
It must be remembered that this poverty coincides with the botched decolonisation of the 1960s which plunged many of these countries into poverty and ethnic conflict, related also to the establishment of dictatorships which were corrupt and, more often than not, it must be acknowledged, Socialist.
What we would like to say is that cancelling poor countries' debt is no doubt a laudable intention and we are in favour of staggering payments, but we would like to see the root of the trouble being tackled with the same seriousness.
We may note, for example, that until the 1990s, the African states which were still linked to France by means of economic, monetary and military cooperation agreements represented a haven of stability and relative prosperity.
The same is true of the states which have maintained links with western powers by means of economic agreements of this type.
We think this is a more serious solution to the problems of the third world than the outrageous recommendation which the UN made on 4 January to the effect that, in order to offset its falling birth rate, Europe should prepare to accept 159 million immigrants from African countries over the next 25 years.
Turning Europe into a third-world country is not, we feel, the way to help the third world achieve a genuine degree of economic development.
The real solution is in Africa in the form of a development policy which enables Africans to live in their own countries, which raises the question of the alleged benefits of free trade.
Our opinion is that there are no real benefits or, if there are, then only for countries at a comparable economic and social level, and that it is only when protected by secure frontiers and customs rights that these countries will gradually progress from the cottage industry phase to that of industrialisation.
Mr President, this year is 2000 AD, a jubilee year.
It is a year in which, based on the concept of the biblical Holy Year, we need to think seriously about relieving the debt of the poorest of the poor.
In the Holy Year, each fiftieth year, debts were cancelled, slaves released and the land was left fallow in Israel.
Such a year created the opportunity to start the future with a clean slate.
In analogy with this biblical reference, the year 2000 should become a Holy Year for the world' s poorest of the poor.
We therefore welcome national and international initiatives to reduce debts with open arms.
However, I cannot refrain from making a number of critical remarks in respect of the proud announcements made by a number of G7 countries over the past few years.
These rich countries boast about the fact that they no longer make a fuss about the gigantic amounts which these poor countries owe them.
Experiences with the HIPC initiative dating back to 1996, however, have shown that debt reduction has not always had an altogether positive effect on the development of the poor.
In the best-case scenarios, 100% debt relief only yields an actual 40% reduction in the debt.
The reason for this is firstly that the conditions tied in with the debt relief are such that only few countries qualify.
Moreover, room for debt relief is often found in national and international budgets for development policy.
As such, it is not a matter of making available additional financial resources but more a matter of shifting funds.
Poor countries may spend less on repaying their debts, but they also have to cope with a drop in foreign aid.
If we really want to take the fight against world poverty seriously, debt reduction should be accompanied by an active policy to combat poverty.
In this respect, it is desirable to deploy local governments and NGOs.
These minor observations, however, do not detract from the fact that concessions made must be met and new initiatives have to be launched.
A careful and generous stance is a welcome bonus in this respect.
The Commission, Member States and international donors must make every effort to turn the year of Our Lord 2000 into a Holy Year in the true sense of the word.
Mr President, fine words have been spoken about cancelling the enormous debts of a large number of developing countries to mark the millennium, as Mr Van Dam mentioned a moment ago. These speeches were given at the G7 meeting, at the European Summit in Lisbon and at the recent Euro-African Summit in Cairo.
The question we are left with today is: what will come of this? We have heard a few examples from the HIPC-I and HIPC-II programmes and I understand that 1 billion is tied up in this second programme.
The total debt burden of all developing countries comes to 350 billion.
This means that, in comparison, this 1 billion is really peanuts.
Many of those countries pay 25% to 40% of their national budget on interest and repayment into banks in Western Europe, the United States and Japan.
The harsh reality is that the billions which are paid to repay debts far exceed the development aid.
That is a disastrous situation because we often ask ourselves why our development aid does not work.
Well, here is one of the most important reasons.
If a sum of money comes in and subsequently a sum has to be repaid which is three or four times the original amount, then those countries will not make any headway, of course.
One question which remains is: should you cancel debts unconditionally? I do not share the view of Mr Miranda or other MEPs who think one should.
In my opinion, conditions should very much be part of the deal.
The countries involved should be the poorest ones, to start with.
They should have a democratic government and a pluriform parliament which keeps the government in check.
The country must fight corruption actively.
The countries concerned should not be at war or participate in wars, and an agreed proportion of the budget must really be spent on social schemes for the poorest citizens, and must be invested in education, health care and social security.
I do not agree with Mr Da Costa who said a moment ago that this might be somewhat neo-colonial.
It was even agreed in Copenhagen, at the Social Summit for developing countries which was held there a while ago, that a proportion was to be spent on those costs.
Mr President, we should really call for something to be done about this.
We should simply spend 10% of the total development budget on cancelling these debts.
If we do nothing, the countries will remain trapped in a downward spiral.
Mr President, I have listened with interest to both the Council and the Commission.
The Socialist Group considers that the debt which blights the development of the world' s poorest countries cannot be dealt with in isolation, as a purely financial problem, but it must be dealt with within the framework of a broad and coherent strategy which, through the eradication of poverty, leads to development.
To this end, firstly, the cancellation of debt must not involve the removal of other sources of finance, but cancellation must be one more measure in a coherent development policy.
Secondly, the funds made available through the cancellation of debt must be used for human development funds, particularly for investment in health and education.
I do not agree with the Council when it says that this may mean a new form of colonisation.
I do not believe that to be the case.
In order to be effective, in development terms, the cancellation of debt also requires, as we request in the resolution, a global strategy implemented in unison in and by the international financial institutions.
The European Union, as a major contributor of development aid, must coordinate its action in this regard and make the elimination of poverty the common objective of its Member States, one aspect of this being the cancellation of debt in the poorest countries.
This is therefore an example of the need for coherence and coordination between Community policies.
The common foreign and security policy, which we too often treat as just a security policy, must address this issue as well as commercial and development policies.
The highly-indebted poor countries, who are the beneficiaries of this debt cancellation strategy that has already been adopted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, must commit themselves to suitable macroeconomic policies, to social development objectives, to increase the credibility of the state, which is the only way to attract foreign investment, and to strengthen their institutional capacity.
By uniting the actions of debtors and creditors in a global strategy aimed at the elimination of poverty, it is possible that we will achieve objective 15 of the Copenhagen Summit on social development, which is an objective which we fully identify with.
We therefore strongly urge all Member States and the Commission to support the international financial institutions' HIPC initiative for highly indebted poor countries.
Mr President, it is commendable that the international community is apparently serious about reducing debt.
Unfortunately, this inspired policy comes too late, far too late.
As early as the late eighties, UNICEF stated that the rich obtained the loans in the Third World and the poor were saddled with the debts, and UNICEF was right.
According to Oxfam, there are 19 000 children who die daily in the developing countries as a result of the debt burden and as an indirect result, admittedly, of the IMF programmes which require certain countries to cut down their health care expenditure by one third.
Is it not mind-boggling that countries sometimes have to spend up to 40% of their budget on paying off debts, which have often been accumulated by irresponsible and avaricious dictators, with the unspoken collaboration of the World Bank and private western banks?
Let us learn from past experience.
I am in favour of debt reduction but not on a level repayment or unconditional basis.
It should feature as part of an integrated and multi-lateral strategy.
It must be accompanied by proper management requirements.
These requirements must be followed by hard guarantees from the countries involved: guarantees that the funding made available by cancelling debts is used to fight poverty; guarantees that the funding will no longer be used to finance arms deals and other military activities.
Mr Da Costa, that is not neo-colonialism in my book.
It is making sure that the funds of the European taxpayer are not misused to fund wars - crazy wars - in Africa.
Conditionality requires courage and - you will have to forgive me - more courage than the Member States and the Commission have displayed so far.
Mr President, as others have said, many promises have been made on debt relief but in fact very few have been delivered.
After all the headlines that we heard at Cologne last year, less than $13 billion of the $100 billion promised has actually been cancelled and as the Commission and the Council have told us, contributions to the HIPC Trust Fund are still way below target.
As the Commissioner rightly says, the burden deserves to be shared.
The fact is that despite a $1 trillion budget surplus over 10 years, President Clinton is not able to squeeze $210 million for HIPC out of Congress.
That is an appalling fact for us to take on board.
It is also the case that we are still waiting for the World Bank and the IMF to come up with something similar to the European Union.
All G7 countries have promised some form of 100% debt cancellation, but many of them are very slow and disinclined to do it in the way that we would like.
Also, to qualify for debt relief, each country has to complete a long and often contradictory 'HIPC' process, and only 5 countries have so far managed to go through the hoops that they are being asked to go through.
So far, the United Kingdom is the only country that has offered 100% debt cancellation.
France, Germany and Japan only include pre-cut-off debts and so ignore a significant portion of debt.
Japan, incidentally, ties its debt relief to responsibility to buy Japanese exports.
On Mozambique, for instance, it is very significant that the IMF, the World Bank and the Paris Club only postponed payments from Mozambique and then actually lent more money.
So, what I would say, finally, is that we in this Parliament urge all the creditors to stop delaying and to start working really hard towards fulfilling full debt cancellation for the poorest countries.
Of course, I agree with all my colleagues, the poorest countries who fulfil the criteria of delivering debt relief to those countries that show a commitment to social sector and human development support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that it has become quite clear today that the situation referred to in the question is of great concern and has attracted the Council' s attention.
This is essentially an issue on which there is a degree of agreement, particularly within the European Union.
The Portuguese Presidency of the European Union has furthermore taken care to include this issue in its working programme and has ensured that it was a key part of the agenda of the Cairo Euro-African summit.
This issue must, however, be considered calmly and carefully, without any histrionics, given the serious situation that the populations of the highly indebted countries find themselves in.
The fundamental issue of debt is not the central issue for these countries - the main issue is their development, and this is the key point behind all this.
We must all be aware that what is currently at stake is the global debate on general development policy and, in particular, on the role of the European Union and its Member States in defining this policy at world level.
This is the crucial issue: debt is a symptom but underdevelopment is the disease.
There are indeed problems of inequality and of the uneven distribution of wealth in these countries, but these problems must be overcome through political solutions.
I spoke just now about the temptation or tendency to adopt a neo-colonial approach, but I was by no means implying that some aid conditions - a subject which is in fact influenced by the current philosophy behind ACP-EU cooperation - are not perfectly legitimate and acceptable.
What we must not forget is that there is a code of conduct for the internal management of resource allocation, and in particular for resources released for these countries as debt relief.
We must be reasonably careful to find a way to respect the right of these countries' governments to manage these funds.
We must understand that we have to endeavour to ensure that political conditionality and the strengthening of democracy in these countries are the key factors underpinning our action.
Working towards good governance and working towards strengthening democratic structures and political participation are vital factors in creating free societies which provide for better management of internal resources and more appropriate management of wealth distribution and, in particular, which do not encourage corruption and the siphoning-off of funds.
It is our opinion that these issues are fundamentally linked to development.
As I said, the issue of debt is a symptom of a much more global issue, namely development.
I think that the European Union and the Member States have demonstrated that they are mindful of the problems in this field and that they have concrete measures to propose in order to address them.
Mr President, I wish to begin by commenting on the necessity of conditionality.
I agree with a number of the contributions here.
I would also say that what we are facing here is not a tighter regime of conditionality than what Member States are actually pursuing in their bilateral development cooperation, as nowadays it is necessary to ensure that the use of resources corresponds to the goals that are set.
If we look at the substance, it is also the link to focusing better on social aspects in the HIPC countries - that is the key to what they have to do.
There is also evidence of this being taken up by the World Bank and the IMF, with those institutions coming on board in terms of giving priority to these aspects.
In a way, one could say that we are witnessing a move from the Washington consensus to the Copenhagen consensus.
The good part of this is that the IMF, with the poverty reduction strategy papers, is aligning itself with the goals the World Bank set a few years ago.
All this shows that the fight against poverty is at the centre of this effort.
So the combination of keeping the focus on perhaps narrowly defined HIPC countries and looking at the social consequences inside those countries is quite reasonable.
I turn to the matter of whether too few countries are part of the initiative.
It would be wrong to think that we could simply broaden its scope and welcome all developing countries to it.
There would be a number of adverse effects if we did so.
Firstly, the cost of the HIPC initiative would increase dramatically because the wealthier these countries are, or the less poor, the bigger the debt they have acquired.
So it must be borne in mind that this has to do with helping the poorest countries to determine those areas in which they can manage the remaining debt.
The idea was never to cancel all debt from the Third World countries because that was totally impracticable.
We are at a level of 0.22% or 0.23% for official development assistance, far from the 0.7% target that in principle everybody has agreed to and which only a limited number of countries have actually reached.
The 350bn would not be a manageable figure, and also the value for the poorest countries would be watered down if it were shared amongst the less poor middle-income countries.
I would say to Mrs Schörling that almost all money for HIPC is found from the existing development budgets.
This is also the case for the billion of EDF money we are reallocating.
The nice thing about it is that the ACP countries accepted it, and this is a reallocation that moves money from the relatively better-off to the poorest countries in the ACP group.
So we are doing something very concrete by improving the poverty focus of our general activity in this reallocation.
That part of it is highly welcome.
The good thing is that we had the money so we were able to do something of real value as the only donor around, except for a few elite donors who are trying to shame the rest by moving forward and setting a good example - the usual gang.
Otherwise, the European Union is the only one able to do something of real value.
Finally, I welcome very much the way this debate has gone.
Parliament's interest is an important asset for the European Union.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I have received five motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Situation in Zimbabwe
The next item is the statements by the Commission and the Council on the situation in Zimbabwe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the present pre-election campaign period in Zimbabwe continues to be marked by a climate of intimidation towards the opposition and a lack of respect for the law and for citizens' rights, sometimes with tragic consequences.
The situation has been growing worse despite considerable international efforts, particularly by the European Union, to persuade President Mugabe to order the so-called 'veterans' to leave the farmers' properties that they have invaded immediately, so as to guarantee the safety of all citizens, and in particular foreign nationals resident in Zimbabwe.
The European Union is deeply concerned at the situation in Zimbabwe and the Council has published two Presidency statements, on 13 March and on 7 May, in which it expressed its grave concern at the situation.
All of the European Union' s candidate countries, as well as the countries of the European Economic Area, have given their backing to these statements.
Various meetings have also been held with the government of Zimbabwe, at the Council' s initiative.
As for the fundamental issue behind the current crisis - land - the European Union has continued to state its willingness to help Zimbabwe to implement a redistribution of farmland which is compatible with respect for property rights and, in particular, with the principles and conclusions of the Donors Conference on Land Reform and Resettlement in Zimbabwe, held in Harare in 1998.
With regard to the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe, which have been set for 24 and 25 June, it is more vital than ever for them to be held in a free, fair and transparent way and within the deadline that has been set.
International observers should be present at these elections so that they can observe how the elections proceed and vouch for the final result of the vote and for the legitimacy that the elections need, and guarantee that the result is accepted by the international community.
To this end, the European Union is prepared to send a mission of election observers, but must, of course, warn the Zimbabwean authorities of the need for satisfactory guarantees that the observers will be safe and that they will have freedom of access to all relevant premises.
The Troika of European Union Heads of Mission in Harare will personally convey this message to the Zimbabwean authorities.
The Commission representatives will travel there on Friday 19 May to prepare for the mission of election observers in order to verify that the appropriate conditions have been met.
Next Monday, the General Affairs Council will consider the Commission representatives' report on their visit.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you that Zimbabwe is a partner of the European Union under the Lomé Convention, and that Zimbabwe must respect the principles enshrined in that convention, which form the basis of the European Union's cooperation policy.
The European Union will continue to follow developments in that country in the light of these principles and will not fail to draw the necessary conclusions in the event that these principles are not adhered to.
The Commission is concerned about the evolving situation in Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe, for decades a stable country, is now going through an increasingly severe economic and political crisis.
Parliamentary elections have now been announced by the government for 24 and 25 June.
This is a good sign.
The pursuance of illegal farm occupations, continued violence, death, injuring and intimidation of the opposition are being interpreted as part of the ruling party' s electoral campaign.
Recent weeks have witnessed a series of international initiatives to facilitate the holding of free and fair elections.
The General Affairs Council of 10 April urged the government of Zimbabwe to create the conditions to hold free and fair elections.
The Commission continues to urge the government of Zimbabwe to hold elections, free of intimidation.
I had a very direct conversation with President Mugabe at the EU-Africa Summit.
I followed this up with a letter to him this week.
Following the EU Member States' agreement in the Azores on 6 and 7 May, the Commission this week has a mission in Zimbabwe to look at necessary arrangements for an EU observer team and to coordinate with other election observation initiatives by SADC, the Commonwealth and the US.
The Commission has already provided EUR 220 000 for the training of 1 440 Zimbabwean election observers and has made available another EUR 6 million to support initiatives from civil society, including on good governance and democratisation.
The Commission electoral assessment mission now in Zimbabwe is discussing with Member States arrangements to deal with the logistical and operational aspects of this exercise, in particular, funding, freedom of movement and security of service.
EU observers are not being sent to legitimise an electoral process so far marked by intimidation and violence.
However, international observers could play an important role in deterring violence and building confidence, especially in the rural areas.
A preliminary EU proposal currently being developed would see the deployment of 150 observers, 100 of whom would be deployed in the first week of June to observe the electoral campaign and the rest to augment the EU' s observation of the vote and the count.
Consultations with the government, coordination with other international observer missions, such as the Commonwealth, US and Norway, and with local observation initiatives are on-going.
Acknowledging the long experience of the European Parliament in election observation, we invite representatives to participate.
With respect to development cooperation, the Commission is maintaining its European Development Fund poverty alleviation aid directed through the social sectors of health, education and rural development and, in particular, to combat the HIV/Aids epidemic.
These poverty alleviation programmes facilitate the pursuance of dialogue with civil society and provide an appropriate political signal.
The international community, while condemning certain governmental actions, still supports the people of Zimbabwe.
Given the government' s poor macroeconomic performance, the EU, like the IMF and the World Bank, has already frozen structural adjustment support.
On the question of the possible suspension of Zimbabwe's privileges under the Lomé Convention, there could be grounds for suspension if the Commission considers, after consulting thoroughly with Member States, that this would not be counterproductive at this stage before the elections.
We fear it would be manipulated and interpreted as a collective reaction orchestrated by what are polemically called 'former colonial powers' against Zimbabwe and its government.
In the worst scenario, if respect for the rule of law further deteriorates or if the elections were to be flawed, the Commission would have to consider whether Zimbabwe merits the privileges accorded under the Lomé Convention.
Suspension of these privileges would be economically crippling for Zimbabwe and would aggravate the crisis.
But so far I believe we have followed the right course.
Mr President, I suppose I can start on a note of slight optimism in that President Mugabe has now named the days for the election as 24 and 25 June.
But on the down side, he is increasing all the army and civil servants' pay as a straight bribe.
I sincerely hope that Members of this Parliament will have the chance to act as observers, as these elections must be seen to have been free, fair and transparent in the atmosphere of fear that President Mugabe has created.
Only last month we passed a resolution in this Chamber condemning violence, calling for the return to full democracy and for free and fair elections to be held.
Some of these demands have now hopefully been implemented, but not before another white farmer had been murdered.
We all accept that there must be a redistribution of the best land in Zimbabwe, but this must be done through round table negotiations, and not with the violent acts we have seen over the last few months.
President Mugabe has now set up a committee of white farmers and Mugabe supporters, hopefully to reach a sensible agreement on land redistribution.
President Mugabe should never forget the economic damage that will be done to Zimbabwe' s economy if land redistribution simply means the land goes back to subsistence farming in small blocks. There are few people in the rabble we have seen invading farms who could afford the employees, the machinery, seeds and fertilisers to farm these units to give a potential export output.
I have seen some of the farms that were reclaimed some years ago by Mr Mugabe and most of the fertile productive land has reverted to bush and the buildings and farmhouses are now crumbling ruins.
What a waste in a country dependent on agricultural exports!
Over the last few years, there has been a move to persuade political leaders in African regions to carry more responsibility for conflict prevention.
It was, therefore, gratifying to hear Nelson Mandela criticising the policies of the Zimbabwe president who is destroying his country.
I am sorry that President Mbeki, his successor, who is probably the most powerful leader in Africa, has not in public condemned the violence in Zimbabwe.
We in Parliament are right to call on the Commission to review its development cooperation with Zimbabwe if transparent elections are not held or if the opposition wins and the violence continues.
The use of Article 366 should be considered.
The World Bank has now cut funding because of debt arrears and Zimbabwe, as a country, is in liquidation.
We can but live and hope that a peaceful conclusion can be reached in Zimbabwe as it is the people themselves who are suffering most in this unstable situation the country finds itself in.
I have to say at the outset that I am extremely encouraged by the fact that the Commission has worked out such a very clear strategy for dealing with these very critical weeks before the election takes place.
I particularly welcome the fact that we are training domestic observers - I think that is very important and will offset the likelihood of Mugabe criticising us for coming in in a neo-colonialist way to interfere in his election.
I also welcome the fact that we will be supporting civil society' s objectives in these next few weeks.
I very much hope, Commissioner, that we will disseminate this kind of information in Zimbabwe because those people trying to mount an opposition campaign will be heartened by the kind of information that we have had from you today and I think that would be important.
One of the things I want to talk about briefly is the role of the state-controlled media in the run-up before the election.
The Commissioner did not mention this, but it would be sensible to do so because TV, radio and state-owned newspapers in Zimbabwe are acting now as if they were the agents of Zanu-PF.
All reporting of opposition parties is negative, with the MDC a particular target.
I would really like to know what we can do from the European Union to try to ensure that the opposition groups - and there are 26 parties standing in the election - have some access to the media.
State-controlled media, Commissioner, is refusing to take paid advertising even from the main NGOs who are just working to support the electoral process and democracy in Zimbabwe, or from any opposition parties.
Only three independent newspapers are carrying any kind of adverts from parties other than Zanu-PF so that only the claims of the government are being read or seen by the people and that has to be a contradiction if we are talking about providing democracy.
The fact is that the independent press does not have the print capacity to deal with demand.
People in Zimbabwe are afraid.
The deaths and injuries in the rural areas and increasingly in the towns are deeply worrying.
Zanu-PF has the government resources, and the MDC supporters are too afraid to donate money.
I even read in the British press that Kabila and Qadhafi are giving money now to Mugabe' s campaign, which is a bit frightening.
It is deeply worrying that the opposition are fighting their campaign on Zanu-PF grounds.
They have no control over the electoral roll, they have no control over the polling stations that will be run by government civil servants.
This is wrong because the role of these government civil servants in the last referendum was very dubious indeed.
The people understand that and are aware of it.
There is evidence also of this Fifth Brigade being involved in pre-election crackdowns.
The Fifth Brigade were responsible for the brutality that Mugabe perpetuated in Matabeleland in the 80s.
That also is something that worries me and I would like the EU to look into it.
Finally, President, let us be sure that we work as a European Union to create the conditions which will allow the people of Zimbabwe to express their choices in this election in June and express their choices in secret and without fear.
Mr President, why have so many African freedom fighters who we admired so much ended up as power-crazed potentates? Why have so few former colonies turned into constitutional states?
Where anarchy and lawlessness rule, the law of the most brutal party applies.
In Zimbabwe, this takes the form of Mr Mugabe. Where this country used to be a model for the Third World of how things should be done, it has now degenerated into its own opposite.
It is ruled by a dictator who deems his own power and privileges more important than the lack of stability of his country and the suffering of his own people.
Land reform is necessary, of course.
The possession of land in Zimbabwe still reflects the old colonial relations and this will, needless to say, cause tension.
But for years, Mr Mugabe himself had the opportunity to carry out this land reform, even with foreign help.
The question is therefore: what mala fide reasons are behind Mr Mugabe' s doing nothing initially and then, just before the elections, getting his cronies to cause havoc in the farms of the white people?
According to the Zimbabwean election monitors, the incessant violence renders free and fair elections impossible.
As long as this is the case, the election date has to be postponed.
A situation whereby Mr Mugabe legitimises his position through violence and intimidation must be avoided at all costs.
It would be a positive step if MEPs acted as observers during these elections and included Mugabe' s pre-electoral machinery in their assessment.
If the elections are not conducted fairly, European aid will need to be postponed.
But the cooperation according to Lomé cannot continue if Mugabe also renders elections impossible.
A further deterioration of the situation in Zimbabwe could have far-reaching effects on the African continent in general, and on South Africa in particular.
The Zimbabwean population deserves a far better government than it has at the moment.
It is high time that the European Union spoke very clear language.
Our patience with African leaders whose heroic deeds only take the form of abuse of power is running out.
Mr President, I too would like to start by welcoming the Commission' s strategy for the run-up to the election that has just been set out by the Commissioner and, in particular, the training of the Zimbabwean election monitors.
The black people of Zimbabwe are still suffering under the legacy of colonialism.
Cecil Rhodes, one of Britain's most successful colonists, said the purpose of colonialism was: "To find new lands in which we can easily obtain raw materials and at the same time exploit the cheap labour that is available from the natives of the colonies" .
The legacy of this barbarically successful strategy can be seen in the chaos that is happening in Zimbabwe today.
Today, just 4 000 white farmers still own over 70% of the arable land while more than seven million black Zimbabweans scratch a living from overcrowded communal areas.
We condemn the violence but we also see that black Zimbabweans have a compelling case.
This makes President Mugabe' s refusal to proceed with the lawful land redistribution programme even more deplorable.
It is a fearsomely difficult problem when Mugabe will not negotiate.
But I call on the UK Government to do all they can to persuade Zimbabwe to set up an independent arbitration board fully representative of the landless people and, once it is set up, perhaps with the assistance of the Commonwealth, to resume financial aid as soon as possible.
The British Government must recognise the moral debt owed for crimes of slavery and colonialism and continue to do all in its power to support a peaceful and progressive settlement to the land issues in Zimbabwe.
Mr President, the story of Zimbabwe is one of hope turning to despair - hope that in 1980 Zimbabwe could have realised its full potential and become a leading country in Africa; despair now because the father of the nation has reduced his creation from being one of the richest and most educated of African countries to being one of the poorest.
It is a truly remarkable achievement and a case study of mismanagement in recent history.
I am sure Mr Mugabe' s place in history books is now secured for all the wrong reasons.
Today the country is suffering from 50% unemployment and 60% inflation; he is spending USD 1 million a day on a foreign adventure in the Congo; the foreign exchange reserves have gone and the World Bank has suspended funding on projects.
I was astonished to hear the speech just given by my colleague from the Greens.
Yet out of despair comes resolution, determination and hope.
The country is one of the most educated in Africa and the European Union should be proud of its role in helping to set up that educational support structure in the past 20 years.
It has a functioning civic institution and culture.
Elections are due and voter rolls are being prepared but those voter rolls must be verified before the election.
The opposition parties want more transparency.
Twenty people have been killed and more than 1 200 farms illegally occupied.
Mr Mugabe has lost control of the country, presiding over lawlessness and corruption.
On 24 June elections are going to be held.
Yesterday, the Commonwealth Secretary-General said that it is still possible to have free elections.
The future of the country lies with the young people of Zimbabwe.
They demand the elections.
They must be given a chance.
It is their future.
One thing we must do is to change the culture that is prevalent in Africa today that the winner takes all.
We must stop this winner-takes-all culture that every African country has, and I mean every country.
We must be seen to have free and fair elections and to demonstrate that they have been fair and free.
Mr President, the view shared by virtually all speakers is that the only ray of hope at the moment in Zimbabwe' s anarchy is the fact that elections will be held soon.
I agree with all speakers who said that we need to ensure that those elections are held as fairly as possible, which will not be easy.
I found the words of Commissioner Nielson encouraging when he said that, as early as the beginning of July, observers will be sent to Zimbabwe.
I think that this is vital because those who are not kindly disposed towards the Mugabe regime, those in opposition, will clearly need protection.
I would therefore like to back up the Commission in this opinion.
Observers need to be sent to Zimbabwe at the earliest opportunity, today if possible, rather than tomorrow.
Another worrying development is the reaction of the neighbouring countries.
From Europe, we have fought for years to establish racial equality, equal opportunities, democracy, etc. in Southern Africa.
At the moment, there is a deadly silence in the neighbouring countries which, in my opinion, is a very ominous development.
I therefore hold the view that, if the elections in Zimbabwe were not fair, for whatever reason, the Commission should continue with the course it set a moment ago.
If there are clear signs of large-scale fraud and Mugabe remains in power illegally, then, according to the provisions of the Lomé Convention, aid must be halted.
If the Commission were not to do this, the illegal dispossessions of land could spread to the rest of Southern Africa and this would be a disaster, not only for the area concerned, but also for the rest of Africa.
We must avoid this at all costs.
Mr President, I want to address the President of free Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, personally, together with his government and socialist-oriented party, Zanu-PF. Hatred, President Mugabe, is not something upon which a society can be built.
Threats can never create confidence and social harmony.
Lawlessness can never create security and human solidarity.
Violence and murder can never be reconciled with the Christian view of human beings which I know that you, President Mugabe, have grown up with and embraced.
The churches of Zimbabwe, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches appeal to your conscience.
My home country of Sweden has supported Zimbabwe very persistently and in very concrete ways, both in developing its economy and in its struggle to be a free and democratic country founded upon the equal, unique and inviolable value of human life, irrespective of the colour of a person' s skin.
Since independence in 1980, Sweden has provided a total of SEK 2 billion in aid, corresponding to USD 220 million.
Twenty years ago, the Church of Sweden' s youth movement, which I myself was active in, embarked upon a special venture which we called 'Be a Friend of Zimbabwe' . Enthusiastic young people from our two countries met.
We believed in you, President Mugabe, and in your country' s future because you wanted to uphold the Christian view of human beings in Zimbabwe.
We want to believe in you again, even though a lot of bad things have happened.
Put away hatred.
Do it for the sake of your own reputation, both now and in the future.
Do it for the sake of Zimbabwe' s citizens, and do it for the sake of Africa.
First in answer to Mrs Kinnock - we are indeed in close contact with civil society.
Civil society represents a hope of achieving a civilised society.
But there is some way to go right now.
We are also in direct contact with the opposition.
We make a point of getting in contact with all players in a very visible and clear way.
We are urging the Mugabe government to accept that pluralism must be there to stay, and this is also the point of sending in the observers.
I hope we can solve the problems of funding of the observer mission.
I have to tell Parliament that this once again demonstrates the inadequacy of our system.
We cannot just push a button somewhere in our system and the funds appear.
It is highly complicated to find the money for this in time.
This is the kind of system we have.
Yesterday' s discussion about the external relations reform is even today relevant.
At least we have excellent coordination on the ground in Zimbabwe with the Member States, which is very helpful.
Let me finally explain to you what we are doing on the ground even in this situation.
We are deciding on a EUR 19 million grant for very targeted poverty alleviation in Zimbabwe via a microproject scheme, part of which will be used to support resettlement of the poorest people on legally acquired land.
This will demonstrate in practice how land should be redistributed - in marked contrast to what is going on in Zimbabwe right now.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0220/2000). We will examine questions to the Council.
I would like to remind you that we are 20 minutes behind schedule.
It is not possible to extend work beyond 7.00 p.m. because the representative of the Council has an official meeting at 7.05 p.m. with the Parliamentary contact group to discuss the statute of the MEPs.
That is very important work, it is already scheduled and we must work as quickly as possible so that the maximum number of questions can be answered.
The rest will be replied to in writing.
We will begin Question Time.
Question No 1 by (H-0350/00):
Subject: Undesirable persons in Turkey The Turkish newspaper 'Sabah' has published a list of 56 persons considered undesirable in Turkey.
The list includes numerous political representatives from several European Union countries (Denmark, Italy, Greece, Sweden and Spain) and also from non-Member States, together with a large number of journalists, clergymen, members of humanitarian organisations etc.
Despite the uproar caused by this list, the Turkish Government has not denied its existence.
As maintaining a list of undesirable persons constitutes an unacceptable and undemocratic act on the part of the Turkish Government, does the Council intend to look into the issue and to intervene with the Turkish Government at once to ask for the list to be scrapped?
Mr President, I shall try to answer the questions as briefly as possible, although the brevity of my answers does not reflect the Council' s genuine desire to give answers to this House that are as comprehensive as possible.
It is indeed true that information has appeared in a Turkish newspaper about a list of people considered to be undesirable in Turkey.
This issue was specifically raised by the Presidency at the Association Council meeting between the European Union and Turkey on 11 April 2000. I would like to say that the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Schem, has stated officially that no such list exists, which is why, in the light of an official statement like this, we feel that we should not continue to insist on this point.
If, by any chance, the Turkish authorities were to take any action that might suggest a contradiction of what the Turkish Foreign Minister has told us, the Council would, of course, act accordingly.
- (EL) I should like to thank the President-in-Office, both because the question was raised and for his reply.
I hope that this is in fact the case.
I should like to use the opportunity which I have to ask a second supplementary question and the occasion of the presence here of the husband and son of Leila Zana, who was awarded the European Parliament' s Sakharov prize, to ask the minister the following question: does he not think that before assuming the Portuguese Presidency, he should have raised the matter of the release of a lady member of parliament honoured by our very own House with the Sakharov prize for her fight for human rights now that Turkey wishes to draw closer to, and integrate into, the European Union? Should the Council and the presidency not have made a move to help Leila Zana?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the decisions of the Helsinki European Council led to Turkey being considered as a candidate for accession to the European Union.
It was agreed that, following this decision, an accession strategy would be established, which naturally includes strict monitoring of what the European Union regards as essential reforms. This relates in particular to the area of human rights, which, in the light of the Copenhagen criteria, are essential for the accession of any country to the European Union.
The Council will monitor all of these issues and will not fail, whenever necessary, to convey any information to this House which is relevant to progress with this accession strategy and, in particular, its views on Turkey' s compliance with requirements for the future opening of accession negotiations by the European Union.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I attend Question Time nearly every time and every time the first question or two are from our colleagues in the Greek Communists and, in particular, Mr Alavanos.
You will notice that the date on this question is 30 March 2000, which was two weeks before the last part-session.
Therefore, in my view, it should not have been number one on the list but should have been on the last part-session' s list of questions.
There seems to be some system whereby Mr Alavanos and his colleagues always get the first and second questions, and they always attack Turkey.
I should like you to investigate why this should be.
Mr Purvis, I believe that we should not enter into any judgement of intentions.
I would like to point out - although you already know - that the President, together with her office, decides on the order of questions.
I do not know whether Mr Alavanos has so much influence with the Presidency of Parliament.
What I can tell you is that it is not the Greek Communist Party but Synaspismos.
That I do know about.
However, we shall continue with our agenda.
I will take good note of your question.
Question No 2 by (H-0361/00):
Subject: Dispute between Armenia and Turkey On 11 December 1999 the Council accepted Turkey' s application for accession to the European Union.
Paragraph 3 of Parliament' s resolution of 18 June 1987 'Calls on the Council to obtain from the present Turkish Government an acknowledgement of the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians in 1915-1917 and to promote the establishment of a dialogue between Turkey and the representatives of the Armenians' .
Turkey has not acknowledged the genocide in question and is still imposing its economic blockade on Armenia.
What action has the Council taken to encourage the development of political relations between Armenia and Turkey?
Is the Council considering lifting the embargo as one of the indispensable conditions for Turkey' s accession to the European Union?
Mr President, I should also like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his answer.
I must, however, regretfully inform him that his answer was still particularly vague, as my question referred to a European Parliament resolution adopted in 1987, in which, effectively, we officially recognised events such as the genocide of the Armenians between 1915 and 1917.
We do not, however, know today what measures have been taken by successive Councils in order to attempt to establish relations between both these countries, given that today Turkey is still imposing an economic blockade on Armenia.
My question is therefore as follows: in the context of negotiations with a view to Turkey' s accession to the European Union, has the issue of this blockade been raised, and could lifting this blockade be counted a precondition to Turkey' s accession?
The honourable Member has asked two questions. The first concerns the 1987 resolution on acknowledging the genocide in 1915-1917 and the second question basically concerns political relations between Armenia and Turkey.
With regard to the first question, these issues are obviously open to political interpretation, although they are based on a historical assumption which we all acknowledge and which is extremely important, but which is not a precondition for reopening dialogue with Turkey.
With regard to relations between Armenia and Turkey, which we hope will be positive in future, all that the European Union has done is to try to ensure that Turkey complies with the European Union' s normal framework of external relations.
This framework includes good relations with Armenia, especially on trade matters.
These good relations and the whole framework for cooperation on which they are based are part of the acquis communautaire that Turkey must accept.
Nevertheless, at international level, we cannot force countries to maintain good relations with one another, as these cannot be imposed by decree.
They must result from a political decision.
Turkey must practically demonstrate that no matter how it views the situation in Armenia, if it wishes to open negotiations with the European Union and if it wishes to join the European Union, it will, of course, have to respect the whole framework of good relations that the European Union enjoys with Armenia.
This has, until now, been a purely bilateral issue and the European Union cannot, therefore, intervene in it.
Question No 3 by (H-0365/00):
Subject: EU-Jordan Association Agreement Would the Council please list those Member States which have still to ratify the EU-Jordan Association Agreement and advise what level of priority it is giving to encouraging them to speed up the process?
Mr President, in reply to this question, I think that in terms of day-to-day relations between the Council and the European Parliament, it would be useful if we could make full use of the facilities that the transparency process for Council information provides for all citizens, including Members of the European Parliament.
That is why I would like to suggest that those honourable Members who are interested in issues such as this should use the Council web page, which is updated daily, to ascertain the dates of signing and the position on ratification, adoption and entry into force of all agreements, and specifically the Mediterranean agreements such as the agreement with Jordan to which the honourable Member' s question refers.
On this point, the latest information I have is that eight countries have still not ratified the EU-Jordan Association Agreement.
As you will be aware, this is a matter for national parliaments, and they have the final say, as these are mixed agreements, in which there is a Community dimension and a national dimension.
It is obvious that we cannot interfere in the decisions of national parliaments.
Nevertheless, we can and we must make representations to the governments of these countries, and I must say that the Portuguese Presidency intends, at the next informal meeting of Foreign Ministers on the Euro-Mediterranean process, to highlight the importance of making the parliaments of these countries aware of the need to ratify this agreement in particular, as well as other agreements which still remain to be ratified.
I would, however, like to mention an issue that is often overlooked.
This is that given that there is a Community dimension to these agreements, and that this dimension concerns trade, the entry into force of these agreements would normally be preceded by a Commission decision.
And the Commission has, in fact, as it has done with regard to other Euro-Mediterranean agreements, already brought into force unilateral measures for dismantling customs tariffs, which will provide products from Jordan with easy and swift access to the Community market.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying how delighted I am that the presidency is prepared to put some pressure on the governments which, in turn, I hope will put pressure on their parliaments to proceed with ratification.
It is quite shaming that after well over six months there are eight Member States still to ratify.
The Jordanians are particularly sensitive to the slow pace of progress.
Commissioner Patten is determined to reinvigorate the whole Barcelona process and the European-Mediterranean relationship.
I hope that the Council will follow that lead and ensure that this is transmitted down through the governments to the Member State parliaments.
Could he give me some assurance that the Council gives Mr Patten its full support in what he is trying to do in the Mediterranean area?
Mr President, with regard to the latter part of Mr Purvis' s question, actions in the Mediterranean area have been one of the Portuguese Presidency' s priorities.
The Portuguese Presidency also intends to continue the very thorough work that has been done to establish the joint strategy for the Mediterranean, and it has developed various initiatives in this area.
Specifically, with regard to the agreement with Jordan, even though we acknowledge and regret the fact that the agreement is not yet in force, previous experience has shown that these agreements take around three years to be ratified.
The most rapidly ratified agreement was the agreement with Tunisia, which was signed in July 1995, and which came into force in March 1998; it therefore took just under three years.
Our experience with all the other agreements is that they took around three years and I think that the pace of the agreement with Jordan is more or less standard.
This depends to a large extent on national parliaments.
Nevertheless, the Portuguese Presidency will certainly make the various governments aware of this issue.
As the author is not present, Question No 4 lapses.
Question No 5 by (H-0370/00):
Subject: Culture and the WTO The Portuguese Presidency has emphasised the role of culture in the European project and has linked it, in particular, to the need to clarify the European strategy for the future WTO Round.
Will the Council now make a statement on the issue?
Mr President, I gather that this question refers to the issue of culture within the WTO.
As you will be aware, when the Council' s mandate for the Seattle Summit was being prepared, many Member States were particularly careful to stress cultural aspects and, above all, the European Union' s need to adopt a very firm position in these negotiations on protecting the specific nature of culture.
I would therefore remind you that in the conclusions of the Council meeting on 26 October on the preparation of the Seattle Ministerial Conference, the idea was expressed that during the forthcoming WTO negotiations, the Union would try to ensure, as it did in the Uruguay Round, that the Member States which comprise the Community would be able to preserve their cultural diversity by maintaining their own cultural and audiovisual policies.
Honourable Members will be as aware as I am of the fate that befell the launch of the new round of WTO negotiations in Seattle, which has, of course, led to delays in addressing issues of this kind.
Nevertheless, it is worth noting that within the specific framework of the GATT agreement, that is, of the General Agreement on Trade in Services, it was specified that negotiations on the so-called built-in agenda would have to begin on 1 January 2000.
These negotiations have begun, but there has been no substantial change of position so far - which is something of an understatement - with regard to progress on these issues, given that this whole process is obviously linked to the start of the overall negotiating process.
I can also tell you that the Council believes that there is no way that a satisfactory start can be made to the process this year.
I wish to thank the President-in-Office for his response.
The reason for asking the question is that we have in our own ideologies many different models at a European Union level which are unique to the European Union as a whole: many times we speak of the European model of agriculture or the European social model, and so on.
In particular, with regard to things like audiovisual, we had a discussion today in Parliament on the Randzio-Plath report on transparency and financial dealings between undertakings and state aid.
There is a huge threat now to cultural diversity within the European Union because of the import of programmes from America and globalisation even of food chains like McDonalds.
That is constantly undermining what is unique not only about Europe as a continent but also about the individual Member States.
I hope that you and your colleagues will be vigilant in ensuring that we have the opportunity to maintain that diversity, as it adds to what essentially the core of Europe is all about.
I would like to offer Mr Crowley certain assurances.
We will continue to address the issue of preserving national identity and the need to maintain a set of instruments which, without in any way distorting the competition rules, can, in some way, ensure that the core values of European identity will be preserved. This applies both to the overall position adopted by the Council, which will, of course, remain the focal point of the negotiations conducted by the Commission on behalf of the Union during the next round, and also at national level.
The position I have described reflects Portugal' s view of this matter, and I believe that my country is not alone in its approach to this issue.
Mr President, the WTO deals primarily with issues pertaining to the opening up of markets. For example, there is a discussion on-going at the moment about China, and whether our European manufacturers are to have access to the textile market as well.
It is a market worth billions and could create many new jobs here in Europe, particularly when one considers that the only possession many Chinese have to their name is a pair of trousers. The cultural question I would most like to hear answered though, is this: how are we proposing to handle the language issue in future?
France pursues a very independent policy where the French language is concerned. Do you see any evidence of similar tendencies on the part of the Germans, Spanish or Portuguese?
Are we going to take an even-handed approach in this respect or will we form an assessment on a country-by-country basis, taking into account the respective size of population?
I would be very happy to answer the honourable Member if I had any idea at the moment of how the debate on this issue will proceed.
I nevertheless believe that the Council intends to highlight these different national approaches, which reflect the very diverse nature of the European Union.
And as regards my own country at least, there is considerable concern that these cultural issues, and specifically the language dimension, should be the very top priority in the discussions that the European Union will be holding with its WTO partners.
As the authors are not present, Question Nos 6 and 7 lapse.
Question No 8 by (H-0376/00):
Subject: EU agriculture budget paying for the UN mission in Kosovo Will the EU use appropriations from the agriculture budget to pay for the UN mission to Kosovo?
Mr President, with regard to the previous questions, I think that when it comes to agriculture, the actions of the Portuguese Presidency are sufficiently eloquent to have answered the honourable Member' s question - even in his absence.
Turning to the question about financing our policy in Kosovo through the agricultural budget, I must make it absolutely clear that the United Nations mission in Kosovo cannot possibly be financed from agricultural budget headings, since there is no appropriate legal basis for this.
The current financial regulations do not allow for appropriations to be transferred between two headings in the financial perspectives.
This does not necessarily mean that there is no intention, as specifically announced by the Commission, to propose an amendment to the 2000-2006 financial perspectives which, in the Commission' s view, would not fundamentally affect CAP appropriations.
The Council is currently studying this issue, which is highly controversial.
We know that in this House, too, a majority is against a review of the financial perspectives which would lead to a reduction in the amount available for the common agricultural policy.
Nevertheless, I repeat that the Commission has stated that there is absolutely no danger of direct aid to farmers being reduced and that this is simply a question of taking advantage of savings essentially flowing from changes in the euro/dollar exchange rate. These savings will be extrapolated over the next two years.
Furthermore, the Commission considers that the post-2002 review of the CAP, which was, as you know, agreed in the Berlin European Council conclusions, will provide a basis for further savings.
But as I have said, the Council' s position on this issue is, in political terms, to oppose a review of the financial perspectives.
The Council considers that a very thorough assessment must be carried out of the requirements of the Balkans and of the real ability of the people there to absorb these funds, particularly bearing in mind and focusing very closely on the role of the European Union as one of the international funding agencies in this area. This request has already been made to the Commission and to the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
We have therefore asked the Commission to provide a schedule showing the indicative distribution of all the contributions that have been pledged, divided into those components which are donations and those which are loans.
The Council feels that it is only on the basis of this kind of information that an accurate assessment of the Commission' s proposals can be made.
It is precisely for this reason that the idea of a review of the financial perspectives is not being considered at present.
What the President-in-Office of the Council has just said completely contradicts what the Commissioner said yesterday, the day before yesterday and on previous occasions in this House.
The Council' s view is correct: payments to farmers are at stake.
It is truly outrageous that aid is not paid for nuts - which means they cannot continue to be grown - or that farmers are not being given what they are asking for: a reduction in diesel oil prices.
Nevertheless, what the Commission does is take funds intended for agriculture, and which have already been approved under Agenda 2000, at the Berlin Summit, as if there were a surplus, and divert them to foreign policy.
Although I am in favour of aid to Kosovo, I am not in favour - in fact I consider it an outrage - of taking money intended for agriculture, approved under Agenda 2000 - since if we do this it shows that it has been nothing but a smokescreen - and dedicating it to foreign policy.
My question is as follows: what do we do when the Council says something diametrically opposed to what the Commission says? Mr President-in-Office of the Council, what do we do in this event?
If Parliament feels that there is a contradiction, it can address this contradiction by comparing it with reality, and the reality is that, contrary to what the honourable Member has just said, nowhere in my speech did I say that direct aid would suffer as a result of this redeployment of appropriations.
I must make it clear that the Commission has simply said that it would use available funds and that savings would be made in the common agricultural policy.
That is all.
This does not mean that the Commission may not present proposals for the redeployment of appropriations, but rather that - as the Commission itself has continued to say - this will not affect direct aid to farmers either.
- (EL) Mr President, frankly the President-in-Office leaves me speechless.
First he assures us that no part of the CAP budget will be used for Kosovo or for exercising the European Union' s foreign policy and then he says that, in any case, the Commission has said - and rightly so - that any sums not taken up will be shared out.
In other words, part of the CAP budget will be redistributed.
We insist on knowing if the Council really believes that part of the agricultural budget, which has undergone swathing cutbacks for 2000, can be used for purposes which have absolutely nothing to do with the purposes for which the budget was approved.
Apart from our opposition to the entire policy being exercised by the European Union in Kosovo, the issue at stake is this: we want a commitment from the Council that not one single euro from the agricultural budget will be channelled elsewhere.
Our farmers are already being squeezed dry, their needs are tremendous, as we see on a daily basis, and it would be unacceptable to take money away from their already reduced budget.
Mr Korakas, I should like to begin by explaining that most of the appropriations allocated under the ACP framework have been granted through the European Development Fund and are extra-Community budget contributions.
They come from the specific EDF budget, which is why I say that it would be rather difficult to transfer EDF appropriations to aid for Kosovo, because they are not part of the Community budget.
Furthermore, I would like to make one point quite clear: I explained that, at the moment, appropriations allocated to aid for Kosovo are unused CAP appropriations.
I repeat: they are unused CAP appropriations.
I would also like to say that, with regard to the Commission' s proposal, I stated quite clearly that currently there is not a universally positive attitude to changing the 2000-2006 financial perspectives in the Council.
The Council has taken the view that the internal balance of the financial perspectives should not be changed during this phase.
It is, however, also obvious that the Berlin European Council conclusions are relevant here, as they show that the financial perspectives for the period 2000-2006 provide for a mid-term review, specifically with regard to the common agricultural policy.
Perhaps it would be worthwhile for honourable Members to consider whether the common agricultural policy will ultimately be compatible with the outcome of the next WTO round.
The 2000-2006 financial perspectives also provide for a review, which will, for the first time in fact, be dealt with by a qualified majority, and I would also ask the House to bear this point in mind.
As the author is not present, Question No 9 lapses.
Question No 10 by (H-0381/00):
Subject: Financial assistance to European-level parties Replying to my oral question H-0268/00 in Parliament on 12 April 2000, the Commission took the view that:
'The present Article 191 of the Treaty establishing the EC does not constitute a legal basis for funding European political parties. The article refers to the importance of political parties at European level.
It does not, however, empower any of the institutions to enter into expenditure commitments to support European political parties, nor does it provide for a procedure for approving any measure to facilitate the giving of such an expenditure commitment.
The Commission therefore considers that in the interests of legal certainty it would be best to incorporate an appropriate legal basis for such expenditure in the Treaty establishing the EC.
This matter should be considered at the Intergovernmental Conference.'
Does the Council take the same view with regard to the legal basis for this? Will the matter be placed on the agenda for the IGC?
Mr President, as the honourable Member' s question states, it is true that Article 191 of the Treaty does not constitute a legal basis for the funding of European political parties.
This issue was studied at the Intergovernmental Conference that established the Treaty of Amsterdam, and it was considered at the time - and I say this as someone who was there representing the Portuguese Government - that there was not a majority, let alone unanimity, among the Member States in favour of creating a specific legal basis in this area.
As regards the Intergovernmental Conference, and particularly bearing in mind the speech made by the President of the European Parliament, Mrs Fontaine, at the IGC ministerial meeting on 10 April, this is an issue that the IGC will consider again.
I myself, as Chair of the preparatory group, intend to have this issue put on the IGC agenda once again by the end of the Portuguese Presidency.
In any event, I think that, at the moment, as there is no legal basis, all we can do is try to discover, through the various Member States participating in the IGC, whether or not there is a will to work towards funding for European political parties.
Mr President, I agree with Mr Seppänen on the legal basis being a primary concern, i.e. it must be in place before expenditure for this kind of support is entered into.
After this, the amount, type and form of support will surely be for Parliament and the Council to decide.
In this context, I would like to ask what kind of plans, if any, the Council has regarding these practical arrangements.
The report on Parliament' s financial administration, in which all political groups were criticised for having channelled parliamentary appropriations into European political parties also, did not take into account the fact, for example, that the office of the Party of European Socialists is situated within the European Parliament buildings, whereas my own group, the PPE, received a great deal of criticism despite the fact that our Party office is situated away from the European Parliament' s services.
I would therefore like to know whether any plans are afoot as to what might be incorporated in this support, which was jointly decided upon by Parliament and the Council, and what issues will be taken into consideration.
I would like to tell the President-in-Office of the Council and the honourable Members that we are discussing these issues within Parliament.
The question concerns the legal basis and the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is one of Parliament' s duties.
As the author is not present, Question No 11 lapses.
As the author is unwell, Question No 12 by Mr Bowis will be replied to in writing.
Question No 13 by (H-0389/00):
Subject: Turkish incursion into Iraq What view does the Council take of the new large-scale incursion into Iraq by a heavily armed section of the Turkish army?
, Council. (PT) We all know that the current situation in northern Iraq and, in particular, the fact that Baghdad is not sufficiently in control of the northern part of the country, are causing a political and even a military vacuum, which have led to Turkey taking direct action.
This results, de facto, from the fundamentally ambiguous situation in that area.
It is obvious that the European Union must oppose any actions that could involve the violation of other states' borders.
But I cannot comment on this issue, except to say that we will remain concerned about the territorial integrity of Iraq and that we believe that anything that could cause this territorial integrity to be violated is undesirable.
- (EL) Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, thank you for your reply.
It was most interesting.
You say that the situation is unclear and that there is a political and military vacuum. In other words, that Iraq does not control its northern area.
Now, forgive me Mr President-in-Office, but Iraq does not control its northern area because we do not let it and perhaps we are right not to.
But even if we do not let Iraq control its northern area, that does not mean that we have to put up with its being controlled by someone else.
What I am hearing is quite absurd.
I imagine that you are unable to defend whoever it is who takes the decisions there.
Except that, of course, they include members of the European Union.
Perhaps they could inform you of what is happening in the area and tell you, for example, why they are allowing other people to go into and take control of the northern area of Iraq, which they do not allow Iraq to control, i.e. let us not beat about the bush - why are they allowing military invasion? I think that this situation is scandalous in every sense of the word from an international and political point of view and I wonder how you tolerate it.
I would just like to say that nothing I have said implies that the European Union is at all complacent about actions that Turkish troops may be involved in beyond Turkey' s borders.
Question No 14 by (H-0390/00):
Subject: European Charter for small companies In the context of creating a business environment conducive to entrepreneurship and innovation, the European Council has called for the drawing up of a European Charter for small companies.
Can the Council say that, in such a charter, it would support due recognition being given to the very specific nature of the fisheries sector, where such factors as seasonality need to be considered?
Mr President, I want to thank the President-in-Office for his reply and I am pleased that work is under way and in fact, near finalisation.
Hopefully, it will not be too long before we have details of the proposals.
I am also pleased that the President-in-Office has recognised that the engine of growth in the economy are the SMEs providing 70% of the jobs.
Therefore, it is blindingly obvious that SMEs will play an important role if we are to resolve the very high unemployment problems that we have generally in the Union and specifically in various regions of the Union.
I did ask a specific question about fisheries.
Of course, fisheries by their very nature create much-needed jobs in coastal regions of the Union.
Fisheries, unlike any other industry, depend so much on seasonality and weather factors.
Could the President confirm that the study which has been carried out would, even at this late stage, look at fisheries in isolation rather than look at fisheries in the global sense?
Mr Gallagher, I am sorry that I did not specifically mention your point about fisheries in my answer.
Nevertheless, in line with the understanding that there has been about addressing this issue on the part of both the Commission and the Council - and this issue will, for example, be considered by the Industry Council tomorrow - we acknowledge the very specific nature of the fisheries sector and we share your concern about the importance of small- and medium-sized enterprises operating in this sector.
This Charter is, however, a broad policy document and is generically aimed at all small- and medium-sized enterprises.
It is not a document that lists measures to be adopted in each sector and assigns priorities to them.
The Charter is designed to create a universal regulatory framework for small- and medium-sized enterprises as defined at European level, and also to establish stages for implementing these measures.
There is no provision for defining sectoral measures that could be implemented at EU level once the Charter is approved, and this could only be done in a more technical document relating to the actual implementation of the Charter.
When I speak to small- and medium-sized enterprises, they are certainly pleased about the mood music that is coming out of the Council, but frankly they are a little sceptical as to whether the Charter will do anything constructive for them.
They think it is just another piece of paper saying how wonderful they are.
Can the President-in-Office tell us if this Charter will envisage new Community instruments being created to help small- and medium-sized enterprises. For example, funds to help them with training, education, adaptation of premises or the use of new technology.
If so, can he also indicate that they will be as free as possible from bureaucracy because the other complaint one gets from small- and medium-sized enterprises is that the funds which already exist at European level are almost unobtainable because of the hoops that they have to jump through in order to obtain them.
I recognise that small- and medium-sized enterprises probably lost patience a long time ago with the lack of concrete measures aimed specifically at them.
Nevertheless, although we are aware of the situation, we would ask them to be patient for another three weeks, until they actually see the draft Charter which will be presented at the European Council.
In fact, the draft version of this Charter will be considered by the Industry Council tomorrow and the Charter will be published in three weeks.
Furthermore, I think that, like the Lisbon Special Summit conclusions, which Mr Gallagher will surely acknowledge go somewhat beyond traditional, merely speculative rhetoric, the Charter must provide concrete and timetabled measures, with firm objectives.
With regard to the Charter' s real potential, let us wait for it to be published and then we will, of course, be willing to listen to criticism from small- and medium-sized enterprises and in particular from the European organisations that coordinate and represent them.
We will be willing to consider all the opinions of small- and medium-sized enterprises.
As they deal with the same subject, Question Nos 15 and 16 will be taken together.
Question No 15 by (H-0391/00):
Subject: Specific directive to combat discrimination against the disabled Pursuant to Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which provides for action to combat discrimination, the Commission has recently presented a package of measures which include three directives.
However, although disability is included as one of the forms of discrimination which Article 13 is intended to combat, the package of measures does not include a specific directive designed to counter discrimination based on disability.
What view does the Council take regarding the possibility of drawing up a specific directive to combat discrimination on the grounds of disability? Should it take a favourable view, when would it expect to present an appropriate initiative?
Question No 16 by (H-0396/00):
Subject: Combating discrimination At the start of the twenty-first century, which signals a new departure by European society in the direction of greater democracy, cohesion and recognition of the contributions of all citizens, the unacceptable phenomena of racism and social exclusion can be observed.
In Greece, the exclusion of physically disabled and paraplegic citizens from two competitions is causing a social and political problem. One competition is for the employment of officials in state banks and the other is for the employment of school teachers (primary and secondary) in state education, and the exclusion is because the new Code for Public Employees includes the term 'able-bodied' .
The Greek Parliament adopted the Code for Public Employees in 1999, almost at the same time as the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which protects citizens of the Member States from all types of discrimination against them (Article 13).
In these circumstances, how is the Council intervening to restore the credibility of the European Union' s policies and the dignity of its citizens?
Mr President, under Article 13 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Commission has duly presented three proposals which are currently being discussed in the Working Group on Social Issues. These are a proposal for a directive establishing a general framework for equal treatment at work and in professional activities, a proposal for a directive implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons, irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, and also a proposal for a Council decision establishing a programme of Community action for fighting discrimination between 2000 and 2006.
The Commission' s three proposals enshrine different approaches to combating discrimination.
The first proposal prohibits discrimination in the field of employment based on racial or ethnic origin, religion or beliefs, disability, age or sexual orientation.
The second proposal for a directive prohibits discrimination on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin in the areas of employment, education, access to goods and services and in the area of social protection.
The proposal for a decision establishing a programme of action for fighting discrimination, which is designed to support and complement the implementation of the directives through exchanges of information and experience, will be implemented by promoting good practice in legislative and other fields.
Furthermore, the fight against discrimination on the grounds of disability is covered by the first proposal for a directive, which seeks to implement the principle of equal treatment in the field of employment and in carrying out professional activities.
This proposal covers an area which is crucial to our citizens' ability to exercise their rights, given that this is an area in which discrimination is more obvious and has a more negative effect on integrating people into society.
As Parliament is aware, it is the Commission that has the power of legislative initiative, not the Council, and therefore the proposals that the Council adopts will be based on what the Commission proposes to us.
Firstly, I would like to express my satisfaction, both at the existence of Article 13 which has been mentioned, and for the action plan which the President-in-Office of the Council has referred to and which has been developed for the issue that we are considering today.
However, since not everything in the garden can be rosy, I am not completely satisfied at the moment.
It is true that Article 13 covers practically all possible - at the moment at least - forms of discrimination.
However, subsequent regulatory development and the initiatives being proposed are incomplete and unbalanced.
The President-in-Office of the Council has mentioned three examples and I would like to refer to them specifically.
There are certain cases in Article 13 which are susceptible to discrimination, such as the one we are dealing with today, the case of disabled people, which I believe have been implemented in an irregular way.
It is true that there are others which are still much less developed, such as discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
However, returning to disability, I believe that the European Union requires more complete legislation which covers every possible type, including cases of double disability.
I would like to know the Council' s opinion - as well as that of the Commission - and I would like to know whether it is considering any initiative for cases such as, for example, women and disability, discrimination on the basis of gender and for the kind of disability involved in the case I have referred to.
Mr President, Mrs Cerdeira Morterero, as I said, these proposals for legislation have been presented by means of Commission initiatives. The Commission, by using the information provided by its various committees, can, of course, take into account the opinions expressed by various interest groups, and in particular those which legitimately oppose discrimination.
Regardless of your real reason for asking a question of this nature, we must recognise that, in recent years, and particularly since the Treaty of Amsterdam, very specific measures have been adopted in the European Union to ensure that these issues are addressed in a far more appropriate way, taking into consideration the interests of the various parts of society that are affected.
In the last few years and over the last decade, the European Union has dedicated a whole approach to this issue and a raft of policies which, although far from ideal, represent a huge qualitative leap forwards.
At world level, we can be truly proud of the steps that we have taken in this area.
But I do acknowledge, of course, that we still have a great deal to do and that probably this accumulation of legislative proposals on discrimination may even lead to and require a different legal procedure.
It is important that we continue to make the Commission aware of this issue and the Council will follow this matter closely and actively.
- (EL) Mr President and Mr President-in-Office, thank you for the replies which you have given us.
I should like to remind the House that the European Council in Lisbon highlighted the promotion of social inclusion and called on the Commission, and the Council, to take priority actions for specific target groups.
One of these groups is the disabled.
Member States choose amongst these actions according to their particular situations and subsequently report on their implementation.
What is happening in Greece, as described in my question, is causing me a great deal of concern because the procedure described by the Lisbon Council gives national legislation and practices the opportunity to practice indirect discrimination.
Perhaps a European observatory should be created so that the specific practices of the Member States and the application of European policy can be better monitored? Also, does the Council intend to work with candidate countries on the recognition of the rights of minority groups, given that we know they are not properly respected in many of these countries?
Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, I cannot add much more to what I have already said.
You are concerned at the shortcomings in the way these principles are being implemented and I would say that such shortcomings will have to be rectified.
I feel that it is extremely important today for all forms of discrimination to be addressed and monitored at political level, either by establishing a specific monitoring centre or by using existing mechanisms, which are more appropriate for monitoring and managing the experience of individual countries.
In any event, I must say that the Council follows this type of issue with great interest and I believe that the attention paid by Parliament to such issues is crucial to keeping them on the Community agenda, and in ensuring that the various Member States do not feel tempted to make any exceptions - within their own borders - to what the Union decides as a whole.
As the author is not present, Question No 17 lapses.
Question No 18 by (H-0392/00):
Subject: Burma What further measures will the Council consider taking if existing measures appear to be inadequate and if the second EU Troika mission meets with no greater success than the first, when the common position on Burma comes up for another renewal in October?
Mr President, the European Union has been closely following the situation in Myanmar for several years.
More recently, at its meeting in April, the Council adopted three additional sanctions against the Burmese regime.
At that Council meeting - and against the background of the concern that has been felt for many years - the Union' s concern at the situation in Burma-Myanmar was expressed, specifically with regard to the repeated and active repression of civil and political rights, and the harsh conditions that prevent the people from exercising their economic, social and cultural rights.
Once again, the Council urged the government of Burma-Myanmar to respect human rights, to restore democracy and to establish dialogue with the opposition, which would lead to national reconciliation in a unified and democratic State.
For this reason, the Council decided to renew the common position adopted in relation to Burma-Myanmar for a further six months and, at the same time, to ban exports of equipment that may be used for internal repression or intimidation, and to improve the current visa system, by identifying those people who are covered by this system and those who support it.
Furthermore, the Council wishes, with the agreement of all Member States, to refuse to grant an entry visa for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, a decision which could be reversed if it is in the interest of the European Union, to freeze assets held abroad by the persons I have just mentioned, who are associated with these acts of repression, and to make greater efforts to explain and promote the objectives of European Union policy on Burma-Myanmar by establishing meaningful political dialogue.
To this end, the European Union plans to send a second EU Troika mission to Rangoon.
The Council has furthermore decided to ask the Commission to study the possibilities of increasing humanitarian aid for Burma-Myanmar, with the aim of directly helping the people, and in particular of distinguishing development aid from direct aid to the people, in particular through non-governmental organisations.
I think that the European Union' s concern about the situation in Burma-Myanmar has been made sufficiently clear and I believe that it matches the concerns that have been expressed by Parliament.
President-in-Office, thank you for the answer.
I am, of course, very happy that the new common position has been established by the Council and that it has strengthened the position as compared with the past.
I prefer to use the name Burma rather than Myanmar since the people of Burma and now Aung San Suu Kyi, the legitimate leader in Burma, do not refer to it as Myanmar.
I should prefer it if Parliament avoided the term Myanmar also.
I have to say to the President-in-Office that the net impact of the various measures the European Union has imposed since 1996 has been very limited: the Burmese have not entered into dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi and the democratic forces in Burma remain as outside the whole process as ever.
Whilst I express my support, one thing still puzzles me.
Whilst we take these measures, there is no progress on the pressure that some of us in Parliament have been trying to exert on the Council in relation to the need for sanctions - sanctions, of course, which Aung San Suu Kyi has consistently called for.
Related to that, we continue to oppose the Massachusetts Federal laws which impose very effective sanctions on Burma.
We are waiting for the US to decide against these Federal laws.
Will that remain the case? If the US decides in favour of Massachusetts, will the European Union then reintroduce our opposition in the World Trade Organisation to these measures taken in Massachusetts?
Mrs Kinnock, I am pleased that we agree on the importance of renewing the common position.
I admit that the action the European Union has taken in this area may not have changed the situation in any concrete way.
I would remind you that in this area, my country spent years, sometimes in relative isolation from the rest of the Community, trying to draw attention to the situation in Indonesia, and the success of that pressure was only measurable against the internal reaction and above all against action by the people of East Timor.
It is obvious, however, that EU action in such a far-off place cannot always have an immediate impact on changing the political conditions that mark the current regime, specifically human rights violations and the lack of respect for these countries' most basic democratic rights.
I would nevertheless like to refer to something that I did not mention just now. The resolution on the human rights situation in Burma adopted by the United Nations Human Rights Commission in April of this year is also important.
I would also like to say - and this is an important point that also concerns the overall framework of relations between the European Union and countries in South-East Asia, and acts as an element of cumulative pressure - that relations between the European Union and ASEAN have, since 1998, been through a rather strained period, precisely because of the problems resulting from Burma' s membership of that organisation.
Because of the common position on Burma, it was impossible to invite the Burmese delegation to the EU-ASEAN ministerial meeting in Berlin, which led to that meeting being cancelled.
I cannot predict what the European Union' s attitude to this situation may be in the future.
As the author is not present, Question No 19 lapses.
Question No 20 by (H-0395/00):
Subject: Decision-making powers of the Euro 11 The media quite frequently make reference to the 'Euro 11' as if it were a formal decision-making body within the EU's institutional structure.
Infeuro No 13, however, defines the Euro 11 as follows: 'This is not a Council in any legal sense but an informal gathering of the Economic Affairs and Finance Ministers of the 11 Member States participating in the euro area ... However, Ecofin remains the decision-making body.
In the light of this statement, will the Council say what exactly takes place at Euro 11 meetings and what implications it may have for the EU's regulated decision-making procedure?
Can the Council confirm that no decisions whatever are taken at Euro 11 meetings? Can the Council refute media reports that references have been made at Ecofin meetings to decisions already having been taken by the Euro 11?
Once again, I am sorry that the honourable Member who asked a question, this time question number 19, is not present, as this would have given me the opportunity to provide an answer with regard to my own country.
In any event, I am more than happy to answer question number 20.
As stated in the European Council Resolution of 13 December 1997, the meetings of the 'Euro 11' group are informal and their aim is to enable Member States to coordinate, through discussion, issues which relate to the responsibilities that they share with regard to the single currency.
Formal decisions cannot be taken at these meetings and are, in all cases, as is in fact stated in the Resolution, taken by the Ecofin Council in accordance with the procedures laid down in the Treaty.
I think that this is quite clear and that this dual framework works in accordance with its own rationale.
By that I mean that Euro 11 is an informal setting, and Ecofin is the formal setting.
The function of the first category of meetings is purely to coordinate the countries that have joined Economic and Monetary Union and which are part of the single currency.
Thank you for your answer, which I think was important and valuable.
In the debate in those countries which are not participating in the third phase of EMU and which are not therefore becoming a part of the euro zone, the point has been made that ministers from these countries are losing influence, not only on issues directly affecting the euro, but also on other issues dealt with by Ecofin. A real shift in power seems, in fact, to be taking place, from the meetings of Ecofin to those of the Euro 11, despite the fact that the latter are of an informal nature.
I should therefore like the Council' s representative to confirm that there is no real shift in power whatsoever from the formal, regular Ecofin meetings to those of the Euro 11.
I should like the Council' s representative genuinely to confirm that it is not the case that ministers from, for example, Denmark or Great Britain, are losing the power to influence other issues dealt with by Ecofin because these countries are not members of the Euro 11.
Mr Gahrton, the cause of your concern will vanish on the day that these countries attend this Council, which will then no longer be Euro 11, but Euro 15.
In any event, I must tell you that until then, nothing within the European Union prevents countries meeting in smaller groups than in the normal Community context.
We are all aware, from newspapers or from conversations in corridors, that various countries in Europe, particularly the Nordic countries, regularly coordinate their positions in a framework that predates the Community decision-making process.
This coordination does not, of course, mean that there is any transfer of power to the specific framework in which these discussions are held.
This is purely and simply a coordination of joint positions, and it is perfectly natural that countries that joined the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union and which are members of the single currency should need to find specific measures to express their action and that they should collectively bring these issues to Ecofin.
I do not think, however, that the position of the other countries is any more restricted in Ecofin than it was at the beginning.
But, let us be frank here: minorities are minorities.
This means that the democratic process is at work in Ecofin and there is nothing we can do about that.
That is how the EU works.
Mr President, I too should like to thank the Portuguese President for his answer, and I would also ask him to confirm that there is no question of an issue being taken off the agenda for any meeting of Ecofin because it has already been discussed in a Euro 11 meeting.
If that were to happen, would it not be possible for any minister at all to be able to insist that it be put back on the agenda for the Ecofin meeting?
Mrs Sandbæk, let us be quite clear about this.
The Euro 11 arrangement forms part of the framework for coordinating relations between certain countries that have a different level of integration or, to use more modern parlance, closer cooperation as predetermined in the Treaty, and this involves certain coordination mechanisms.
The Euro 11 Council can obviously discuss whatever it likes, and may even agree that a certain issue is not discussed in Ecofin.
This does not mean that the countries that are not members of Euro 11, but which are, of course, members of Ecofin, cannot raise that issue under the Ecofin Council agenda.
What must not happen is that a country that is not part of Euro 11 is asked to set the agenda for those that are.
I must say one more very simple thing, Mrs Sandbæk. The other countries are not in Euro 11 or Euro 15 only because they do not want to be, not because anyone has banned them from joining.
Thank you very much, Mr Seixas da Costa.
We hope that you have success with your contact with the Parliamentary group on the important issue of the Statute of Members.
Since the time allocated to Questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 21 to 31 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Telecommunications/radio spectrum policy
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0094/2000 by Mr Paasilinna, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Fifth Report on the implementation of the Telecommunications Regulatory package (COM(1999) 537 - C5-0112/2000 - 2000/2072(COS));
A5-0122/2000 by Mr Alyssandrakis, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Next Steps in Radio Spectrum Policy - Results of the Public Consultation on the Green Paper (COM(1999) 538 - C5-0113/2000 - 2000/2073(COS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, deregulation in the telecommunications sector has continued for a decade and it has been a great success.
The traditional telephone as we knew it is now a fading memory.
In the past, people acquired a telephone in order to keep in touch with each other, but now they have become shareholders in a company, which could, for example, be acting as an intermediary in sexual services.
I am sure this has come as a surprise to many.
The instrument itself is so tiny that it could, for instance, be inadvertently placed in the mouth, being mistaken for false teeth; in this respect, too, things have changed a lot.
Deregulation created fears of a fall in standards of public services and an increase in telephone charges.
This has not happened, however, and instead services have become diversified and prices have fallen.
Money to finance all this has, of course, been generated by new data terminal equipment, networks and services.
The 1988 regulatory package was well timed and - due to its efficient implementation - worked well in several Member States.
In some countries, however, implementation has been slow and even formal.
We would support action by the Commission to improve cross-border services and honest competition.
We are concerned at the fact that the limited supply of user access has prevented many user groups - in particular those with lower resources - from taking full advantage of, for instance, reasonably affordable Internet access.
Therefore, we need new alternative loop systems, we must facilitate the development of wireless local loop systems and also, for instance, the use of a cable TV network, without having to resort to specific legislation on this issue, however.
Parliament notes that due to the variations in its implementations, the current regime has led to legal uncertainty in different Member States.
Sufficient transparency on the specific conditions for operating licences is required, so that undue delays in the approval process can be prevented.
The most important reform strategy of the European Union is a reform initiative called eEurope, the framework of which was recently approved in Lisbon.
The Commission must be congratulated on the fact that the structure and strategy of the European information society differ in a positive way from others in that it has not only taken account of competitiveness, but also of elements such as cohesion, social equality and employment.
The objective is to prevent social discrimination and to increase consumer confidence and social cohesion.
This initiative is impressively entitled: "An Information Society For All" .
The radio spectrum is a scarce natural resource which has now started to come up for auction.
We take a negative view of this with the exception of certain special instances.
We were aware, as early as two years ago, that the GSM auction in the USA had resulted in a state of chaos, i.e. bankruptcies.
Experiences from India are equally bad.
Those in favour of auctioning believe it to be a good means of controlling resources.
We think it will lead to increases in user tariffs and delays in the spreading and development of communications services.
Prices at auction have now become incredibly high, and these will be passed on to the consumers, resulting in a new telecommunications tax. This would be an unfair tax, in that it would be the same for both rich and poor.
Now that the eEurope initiative - with all its worthy objectives - has just been approved, it is being obstructed by the imposition of a new 'digital divide' , a greedy fee-charging principle. In practice, this means that our priority project, the development of an information society, is now being obstructed through taxation.
This is cause for concern, which, in my opinion, should be looked into in greater detail. I therefore request that the Commission investigate, without delay, the impact of this, the auctioning principle, in different countries, in order that we should have more information on which to base our opinion.
Furthermore, this principle will privilege big operators, who will start dividing up the market. In the end, there will be the fear that as we reduce regulations, i.e. deregulate, these big operators will make mutual agreements and 'reregulate' , creating new regulations.
This cannot be right.
.
(EL) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the idea of using the radio spectrum to transmit signals revolutionised telecommunications and new applications for the radio spectrum have been developed continuously ever since.
Thus, we have progressed from the simple wireless telegraph to the digital transmission of sound and image, satellite navigation and the third generation of mobile telephones.
I should like at this point to stress that the radio spectrum is not used solely for telecommunications.
Apart from applications based on the transmission and reception of radio signals, there are also 'passive' applications which just receive signals emitted by natural phenomena.
The main applications here are radio-astronomy, which studies natural phenomena beyond our planet on the basis of the radio waves which they emit, and Earth observation, both of which use the radio spectrum.
The constant increase in the demand for radio frequencies for new applications is such that we need to review the principles on which they are distributed and the policy which the European Union needs to apply in this sector.
The European Commission responded to this need by publishing a Green Paper on Radio Spectrum Policy for public consultation at the end of 1998.
It subsequently issued the communication which we are examining today on the basis of the aforementioned public consultation.
The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, having expressed its satisfaction with the work of the European Commission, has come to a number of conclusions and has formulated a number of principles.
Starting from the premise that the spectrum is a valuable but scarce natural resource and that the demand for it is rising constantly, it stresses that it must be used efficiently in order to best serve the public interest and help develop new high-quality services.
In this respect, the Committee on Industry considers that spectrum policy cannot be solely market-driven, that the economic and social value of the radio spectrum should not be assessed on the basis of profit opportunity and that we need a balanced combination of commercial and social interests.
The Committee on Industry also stresses that specific measures need to be taken in order to guarantee a satisfactory number of frequencies for public and private radio and television broadcasts, for amateur radio operators, for navigation systems and for passive applications, such as radio-astronomy and Earth observation.
The Committee on Industry accepts the proposal of the European Commission to create a Spectrum Policy Expert Group having a purely advisory role and transparent internal structure and modus operandi.
However, although it acknowledges that it would be advisable to further harmonise Community radio spectrum policy to an extent, as far as pan-European services and applications are concerned, it does not accept the European Commission' s proposal for a new regulatory framework at pan-European level, considering this to be both premature and hurried.
I should like to draw your attention to one issue which seriously worried the Committee on Industry and which Mr Paasilinna mentioned just now. I refer to the degree to which the principle of spectrum pricing, auctioning and the introduction of a secondary market should be adopted.
Your rapporteur takes the view that radio frequencies per se should not be bought and sold, because this would result in frequencies' being diverted from their intended purpose.
Other practices, such as auctions and a secondary market, would result, with mathematical accuracy, in the prevalence of stronger economic interests, which would then monopolise the market.
Your rapporteur is in favour of an overall payment for each commercial service which uses the spectrum.
The Committee on Industry did not adopt my view and, although not in favour of auctions in all cases, considers that they could be applied for commercial uses.
I should like to point out to members that the results of the recent auction of radio frequencies for third generation mobile telephones in the United Kingdom have given rise to second thoughts on the subject.
The huge sums paid will not come out of the companies' profits; they will be paid for by users.
I have heard that in the United Kingdom, in order to find the money paid at auction, every man, woman and child will need to spend 400 pounds a year on telephone calls.
We must not lose sight of the consequences which such practices will have on the final user.
I therefore call upon the House to vote in favour of Amendments Nos 4, 12, 5 and 6, so that our final resolution includes a clear position against auctions.
Mr President, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, I wish to congratulate Mr Paasilinna on his report, which we very much welcome.
He has drawn up not only a very concise but also a very hard-hitting report.
It is entirely appropriate as a response to the telecommunications communication from the Commission and exactly what we needed to give us a basis on which to move into our further consideration of the whole electronic communications package, which we shall be debating again in a month's time.
I want to focus on some of the key points highlighted in the report.
I am going to leave issues on radio spectrum policy to my colleague, Mrs Niebler, who will be responding on behalf of our Group to Mr Alyssandrakis' report.
Just to move forward on some of the issues related to opening up the market.
The first and most encouraging thing from our point of view is that we now see the wisdom of opening the telecommunications market.
To have an open competitive regime has now become the accepted wisdom.
It is something that is fully accepted and we now need to translate that and move that forward as quickly as possible, towards further deregulation and even quicker opening of those markets that still work imperfectly.
There is a tremendous amount of detailed analysis in this report and it clearly shows the consumer benefits in price reductions, choice and increased services that have flowed from deregulation.
However, it also clearly shows that there are far too many barriers, and the Commission has our full support in tackling them.
For consumers to benefit from this choice, they have to be encouraged to shop around, to compare in many cases what can be quite complex offers of prices and contract terms and service packages.
We would like to encourage independent regulators to work together to provide simple, impartial price comparisons for consumers and use the sort of new tools they have available, like the Internet, to give consumers the ability to calculate the real cost of their calls.
We encourage the regulators to share best practice with each other to provide a unified price and contract comparison system.
We will not have a developed market unless we have investment.
The other issue we have to address is the ability of investors to make satisfactory returns on their investment.
Therefore, in looking at the market-opening regulations, we have to look at methods of competition and encourage competition between the different parts and elements of the platforms.
That is something we shall address in the next communication.
We welcome this report, which is really going to encourage market-opening to the benefit of consumers and the European economy.
Mr President, Commissioner, previous speakers have mentioned the broad consensus that exists concerning the profits arising from the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector. There was no such consensus previously.
To my great delight, I note that it is liberals who have been in the vanguard of this change: Commissioner Bangemann, together with Finland' s former Minister for Transport, Mr Norrback, who was among the first ministers to liberalise this sector.
I would point out, for example, that, last year, we in Finland noted that GSM prices were, on average, seven per cent lower.
Even foreign calls were ten per cent lower than previously.
We are therefore still making quite large strides in this area.
I also hope that, in the future, we shall be able to conduct a similar open dialogue with the Commission regarding development within this sector.
The Commission is undertaking many investigations and inquiries.
We need impartial information to be able to keep track of developments and, as public decision makers, to be able to take the necessary decisions.
These two reports deal with issues both large and small.
In common with previous speakers, I would express my appreciation of the constructive cooperation that has taken place with the rapporteurs.
The major issues are about the ways in which broadband services can be made available to everyone and about the auctions we have touched upon.
Clearly, it is up to each Member State to decide upon its strategy for obtaining networks with high transmission speeds for everyone.
However, we wish today to offer vigorous support to the Commission' s recommendation that dominant network operators should be responsible for permitting combined services all the way to the subscribers. In certain Member States, that is already the case, for example in my own country, Finland.
Even there, consideration might be given to going further by introducing a situation in which dominant operators become responsible for hiring out the telecommunications companies' premises for the purpose of housing equipment.
I think we need to see to it that we utilise existing capacity as far as possible and obtain better service and, in that way, lower prices.
The auctions issue has provoked discussion and does so every day.
One might well wonder if it is a question here of being penny wise and pound foolish. Apart from the risk of the auction prices for third generation mobile telephones putting the brakes on development, there are two other matters I should like to emphasise.
There is a risk of roaming for third generation mobile telephony being put in jeopardy.
There may also be a risk of barriers arising between the Member States.
I would therefore hope that the Commission is alert to this question and that we can engage in a creative discussion on the subject.
Mr President, Commissioner, twenty years have passed since the philosopher and essayist, Alvin Toffler, identified the new information technologies as the third of humanity' s great revolutions.
Nevertheless, in Europe, we once again failed to take much notice of our thinkers and, in the meantime, over the last decade, the United States has increased its GDP and income per capita to above European Union levels, where, in the last year, these indicators represented barely 75% of US levels.
While half of the world' s internet users are American and 44% of US homes have direct access to the networks, in Europe that proportion is barely 15%.
We are now rapidly turning to the information society, information technology, the Internet, the Galileo network for monitoring and intercommunication by satellite, the liberalisation and convergence of telecommunications and technological advances in general.
For all these reasons I would like to call for the prompt transposition in all Member States of all the directives relating to radio-broadcasting and voice telephony, the interconnection and maintenance of digitisation, general authorisations and licences, leased lines, open networks, mobile telephones and data protection.
In this regard, we should condemn the fact that the national regulatory authorities of certain countries - such as Spain, Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom - are not playing their part to the full, which has led to complaints from new companies, who have found that the telecommunications monopolies that already exist are placing obstacles in their way and delaying the consolidation of free competition to the detriment of users.
Furthermore, we ask that, as soon as possible, flat rates be established for access to the Internet, to the network of networks, and we even argue that they should be free, since they should be offered, like health and education, as an essential public service to the citizens.
Mr President, there has been a change over to electronic capitalism, both in Europe and worldwide.
On the stock markets, there is a 'gold rush' for the shares of IT companies - IT shares are a present-day Klondyke.
The reports by Mr Paasilinna and Mr Alyssandrakis emphasise the necessity of rules even for gold prospecting: if the common and public interest is not secured, the richest, largest and fastest players will take all, and they will reap all the fruits of the new technological developments.
A rapid concentration of the information industry is in progress - at the consumers' expense.
The battle over market shares for next generation mobile phone frequencies, for example, will raise consumer prices sky high.
As we know, the profit from these shares will ultimately always be generated through the prices of telephone calls.
We must now ensure that public interest is secured - as proposed by Mr Alyssandrakis - and ensure the availability of sufficient frequency bands for use by public broadcasting.
This will not be possible if such a restricted natural resource as the radio spectrum is auctioned off for the monopolised use of the highest bidding major companies.
Rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, in 1993 the European Union undertook to open up the telecommunications market.
Since then, this decision has led to the adoption of a series of directives, and we have constantly been reminded that there is a political objective underlying these regulations, namely growth, employment, competitiveness and the provision of access to the information society for all citizens, with the necessary legal protection.
In this context, the Commission has performed its monitoring role and produced a raft of reports, and the communication we are discussing today is part of this undertaking.
I must say that the assessment presented to us is, at least, detailed.
Although, during the two years since the market was completely opened up, the telecommunications market has been characterised by growth, newcomers to the market and some price reductions, nonetheless, gaps have also appeared which are serious to say the very least, including what is known as the digital divide between regions and between citizens caused by the cost of accessing these new services and, along with this divide, the exclusion of some citizens or regions from the new technology society.
It is therefore imperative that we do not lose sight of the objective of providing a high-quality service for all citizens if we want to avoid creating a fresh division within our society.
Moreover, today we are debating reducing the cost of Internet access within the framework of local loop competition.
The objective is admirable, but we must avoid certain errors and must, therefore, discuss the matter very thoroughly with the national authorities.
Once again, I would stress the need to simplify the rules, as well as consumer protection, the role of the national regulatory authorities and the licensing system which has been discussed at great length.
Finally, opening up the market is not an end in itself: it is a means of ensuring that the transition to an information society is made by and for all citizens through the creation of permanent jobs, and this is certainly not always the case in this field.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Reino Paasilinna for his thorough and excellent work in preparing this report, but I would also like to thank the Commission, which has done so much in support of this eEurope initiative and the expansion of the Internet.
As the Commission has stated, there has been a lot of progress in the past few years in the EU telecommunications sector, but there is still a lot to be learnt where the mobile phone market is concerned.
For instance, the availability of carrier pre-selection should be considered, and this facility made available to consumers, if studies confirm that they are going to benefit from this pre-selection.
In future, it is incumbent on the Commission to ensure more vigorously than ever that the 'roaming' fees charged to users by operators are brought down in all EU countries to a sensible level based on actual costs.
At the same time, the Commission must ensure that the fees collected from the operators remain under control.
The EU' s operating logic thus falls into two stages.
The operators are not allowed to collect fees from the users, but neither must the public authority collect from the operators.
The costs to the operator might become unreasonably high, should the new generation mobile spectrum be auctioned.
Auctioning may also distort competition, if operators start making 'tactical' bids for the spectrum in order to harm the position of their competitors at auction.
Therefore 'beauty contests' between the various operators are clearly more consumer-friendly alternatives.
The latest UMTS auction in Great Britain, where prices soared sky high, will, in any case, set the alarm bells ringing.
After the hammer has gone down, it is always the consumer who foots the bill - and that is exactly what we do not want, all of us being consumers ourselves.
If we also want to introduce the Internet into schools and libraries and make it available for everybody on a very large scale in future, and if we also want to utilise its future potential in competition with the USA, the Internet will have to be affordable to all.
President, Commissioner, colleagues, can I add my congratulations to the Commission and to my two colleagues, the rapporteurs, on the speed and thoroughness of their reports.
I want to comment on both reports in a very few, but I hope, significant respects.
On Mr Paasilinna' s report, I want to comment, and perhaps ask the Commission to comment on the whole question of the balance between regulation and liberalisation.
Mr Caudron touched on this in his remarks to the effect that the benefits of liberalisation have been felt disproportionately in the business community and those who make long distance and national calls while domestic consumers have benefited much less, particularly those who make very few calls, or people who live on their own.
I want to ask the Commissioner about the speed of regulation and the purpose of regulation.
It was good to see the Commission taking very urgent action, for example, in respect of leased line and the charges for leased lines where the existing legislation had not been properly implemented.
The differences in attitude, ethos, resources and the degree of independence among the national regulators are still a cause for concern.
On the report on spectrum, others have mentioned the question of to what extent it matters that different systems for deciding on third generation mobile licences have been sorted out.
It significant and I would like the Commission to comment on this in respect of third generation mobiles, and digital television, which are the two areas where the European Union has a lead.
I also want to ask the Commissioner whether he thinks the application of the subsidiarity principle in respect of the allocation of licences might do something to narrow that lead.
If he thinks so, if he thinks the differences in methods are going to distort competition, is he able to tell this House what steps he will take to monitor and address that question?
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Paasilinna and Mr Alyssandrakis on their very timely and invaluable work.
As part of an on-going exercise of monitoring by the Commission, the Fifth Report sets the scene for many of the conclusions and recommendations made in the communication' s review, which was issued at the same time, and on which we, and the European Parliament, are working right now.
Mr Paasilinna' s report inevitably touches on some of the issues to be addressed by the final proposals, which we will discuss here again next month.
The Commission shares many of the concerns expressed in Mr Paasilinna' s report on the current regulatory situation.
They are vitally important for the uptake of the information society, for the development of the Internet, e-commerce and m-commerce - mobile commerce.
They offer unbundled access to the local loop, facilitating developments in licensing, co-location, carrier pre-selection and the independence and the powers of national regulatory authorities.
The Commission is addressing many of these problems which you identify at the moment.
It has the very recent recommendation on the local loop and on bundling.
The Commission will also use its powers in regard to competition to monitor carefully dominant positions.
We have also made a revised recommendation on interconnection pricing and now we have on-going enforcement measures and infringement proceedings, for example, against a number of Member States on carrier pre-selection and local tariff structures.
Pending the adoption of the new framework, which will be presented in June, the Commission will continue to press for effective implementation of the current rules.
This is called for by market players, national regulators and national administrations and has now also been unanimously mandated by the Lisbon Summit.
At the moment, the Commission is preparing the sixth framework report to be adopted during 2000.
Parliament' s report will provide important input.
I am sure that the report will be an important benchmark as we follow the development of the information society.
Cable systems will be examined more closely by the Commission.
We already have a policy of pushing for divestment of cable TV networks to ensure greater local competition and to stimulate investments and services, as Parliament is calling for in these reports.
As to the radio spectrum issue and the report of Mr Alyssandrakis, I agree that radio spectrum is an increasingly scarce and valuable resource.
It is used in many policy areas of concern for the EU, such as telecoms, broadcasting, transport, research and development, which are all very important for the European economy.
For that reason, the Commission proposes a harmonised approach.
Mobile and wireless communications develop at a rapid pace and the unexpectedly high results of spectrum licence auctioning in the UK show the growing importance of the sector.
Furthermore, the messages of the spectrum Green Paper demonstrate the need to address certain radio spectrum issues at Community level and to reach a balance between various user sectors.
Second, Community action on the radio spectrum is beneficial if taken within a clear regulatory framework.
In addition, political support is required to facilitate the achievement of Community objectives at international level.
We have the on-going radio conference in Istanbul where issues like Galileo or third generation spectrum will be discussed.
The Commission therefore welcomes the report from Mr Alyssandrakis.
As this report calls for a radio spectrum policy, which fulfils Community policies, further harmonisation of radio spectrum is necessary.
We have to see development of information and communications technologies and a balance between all spectrum needs including private and public interest.
The competitiveness of European industry at global level must be developed in the interest of the European citizen.
At the same time, the Commission would like to stress that it is urgent and not premature to have an appropriate framework at the Community level to implement the spectrum policy options agreed in the Spectrum policy group and to ensure that results of harmonisation mandates are implemented in the Union.
We should be able to promote without delay harmonisation measures which respond to technological and market developments.
The Commission will report annually to the Council and the European Parliament on the measures adopted.
As far as further actions are concerned, the Commission will present by the end of June - after Parliament' s discussions and the votes on the radio reports - the appropriate framework for radio spectrum policy in the EC.
This will also take into account the results of the overall discussion which is now taking place in the 1999 review.
We well understand the debate on auction prices which have received a lot of attention here.
According to the present new rules, the Commission must recognise the authority of Member States to choose their preferred spectrum licensing method, whether it is the administrative or auction method, but the Commission will closely monitor developments to avoid distortion of competition and ensure the implementation of the licensing directive and also technological and service developments in the interest of EU citizens.
Mrs Read put a question about the balance between competition and regulation.
I would say that we need regulation to push for competition because otherwise bottlenecks can actually prevent competition which can help citizens because it will be the incentive for lower prices and higher quality services.
But there are areas where we also have a major public policy interest, especially in regard to universal service and data privacy.
In those areas the Commission will make proposals in the context of the new legislation on electronic communications which will be presented at the end of June.
At the same time, the Commission also intends defining this balance between the markets and public policy in the context of the Europe Action Plan, which should be presented next week.
Finally, as far as the coherence of the licensing arrangements is concerned, we must ensure there will be no distortion of competition and guarantee the implementation of the licensing directive.
This whole discussion is very important for defining the content of the new electronic communications legislation, and I am sure these issues will not be the concern of only a few passionate expert parliamentarians as is the case today - electronic communications will be a major political issue in the years to come.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Coherent European approach for space
The next item is the report (A5-0119/2000) by Mr Alyssandrakis, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Commission working document: Towards a coherent European Approach for space (SEC(1999) 789 - C5-0336/1999 - 1999/2213(COS)).
. (EL) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the launch of the first artificial satellite by the Soviet Union in 1957 marked the start of space exploration and the beginning of a new era for mankind.
Man' s ability to launch space vehicles has extended our frontiers well beyond the Earth' s atmosphere and has afforded us a wealth of new knowledge on the solar system and the universe as a whole.
At the same time, it has brought practical applications which have changed our lives.
The use of artificial satellites in telecommunications, weather forecasting, Earth observation and navigation is so widespread that it is hard to imagine these activities continuing without the use of space.
Moreover, the high technical standards required of space equipment have led to enormous technological breakthroughs, which have gradually filtered into our everyday lives.
Finally, space has always had a strategic importance, since whoever controls space also controls the Earth.
Space is the one sector in which international cooperation is particularly important.
In Europe, the European Space Agency (ESA), an independent body comprising 14 European countries, 12 of which are members of the European Union, has played a critical role in fostering cooperation in space exploration, space applications and the development of research in space.
The Council, the Commission and Parliament have all addressed the issue of space policy on a number of occasions in the past.
The main political issue in the entire discussion concerned the development of a coherent approach to space and the promotion of collaboration between the European Union and the ESA on the basis of specific targets and within a clear framework.
The Commission' s working document being examined today comes as a response to the Council' s resolution of 22 June 1998 calling on the Commission to take practical measures to promote cooperation between the European Union and the ESA.
The text discusses aspects of the European Union' s space policy concerning practical applications, mainly in the fields of telecommunications, navigation and Earth observation, but makes no mention of space exploration or the use of space for scientific research.
From this point of view, the document is somewhat limited in scope, since an overall policy for space cannot restrict itself merely to practical applications.
The Commission has made it clear that a coherent approach is indispensable for the European Union.
It has therefore set up a consultative structure for space and related matters with the active participation of the ESA.
This structure comprises the Space Advisory Group and other high-level groups.
The Commission' s document concludes that the European Union must find new means of implementing a space policy and proposes specific lines of approach.
The resolution by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy expresses a strong desire to see space used for peaceful purposes for the benefit of mankind as a whole.
At the same time, it takes the view that space policy must not be wholly dominated by the market and that account must be taken of long-term assessments of the benefits and risks of exploiting space, not only from the point of view of the interests of industry, but also in terms of the welfare of mankind as a whole.
It stresses the importance of international cooperation, the need for all Member States to participate in space activities and the importance of collaboration with third countries, and points out that the ESA has functioned efficiently and has played a leading role in space research and space applications in both Europe and worldwide.
The Committee on Industry welcomes the European Commission' s intention of establishing a policy framework for future programmes and stresses that this framework must be developed after extensive and in-depth consultations between all the parties involved.
It is in favour of the further development of launching systems, the development of new telecommunications systems and further European participation in the Alpha station programme and reiterates the European Parliament' s support for the development of the global satellite navigation system known as Galileo.
It calls on the Commission, in collaboration with the Member States, to take all measures needed for effective use of space-based systems for monitoring the environment and for security, in order to protect citizens' lives and natural resources, identify at an early stage, or even avert natural or man-made disasters and help combat fraud.
I am convinced, fellow members, that today' s debate will help to develop space policy further.
Mr Alyssandrakis, ladies and gentlemen, everyone is in favour of mankind' s direct or indirect access to space for, in the first place, it is a dream, a fantastic adventure and a way of expanding our knowledge.
But, in addition to this, it has, above all, generated incredible change in our everyday lives.
Satellites and telecommunications have been mentioned, and we could add the weather forecast.
However, we must also acknowledge that space is a strategic issue: we have mentioned the terrible war between the United States and the USSR.
Today, although the United States and Russia still dominate this sector, the countries of Europe play a major and increasingly significant role.
It is of paramount importance that we establish a European strategy if we want to lend more weight to the Union and this strategy must maintain a balance between the various uses made of space.
The European Space Agency has played a role which has been crucial for the cooperation between European countries in the field of the exploitation of space and research development.
However, as the rapporteur suggests, it would appear necessary to extend its activities to projects launched within the Community framework.
We must also make up for the absence of a genuine European policy and a European strategy ensuring the effective use of space systems to monitor the environment and to provide security, protect natural resources, detect or forecast natural and man-made disasters and combat fraud.
A large chunk of the practical applications involving space is already controlled by the market, and I feel that this is dangerous.
The Commission must put forward measures to control what are genuine abuses.
Lastly, together with many of my fellow Members, I am extremely pleased that the Galileo project met with such approval. It will ensure that Europe makes a substantial contribution to the establishment of a worldwide satellite navigation system.
To sum up, the new approach to space policy must be based on a close partnership between the Member States, the European Union and the European Space Agency.
This is the only way to achieve the consensus such a policy requires.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, the European market for space applications is fragmented.
There are many smaller companies active which do not work together very well.
In order to be able to compete on the global market, it is necessary to restructure the space industry, that is to say integrate various companies into one company or group of companies.
There is, as such, plenty of work for the space advice group.
Cooperation at Community and international level in space activities is imperative.
My second point concerns the position of the European satellite industry.
Since the end of the cold war, the strategic importance of having our own satellite industry has been of commercial importance.
The sector is growing by 10% annually and thus helping create employment.
If the European Union does not want to miss the boat, the Commission and Member States need to promote the development of the industry.
Satellite systems are the means to further develop information and communications technology.
Unfortunately, the European satellite industry is very much dominated by governments.
This is why it works too much in isolation, without a great deal of interaction with the computer, network, software and peripheral equipment industry. As a result, the industry is increasingly losing its market share to the US.
More cooperation and company mergers are needed, as well as more support in technology development, through the framework programme, among other things.
My Group is waiting with bated breath for the document the Commission has promised on a European space satellite in which, needless to say, the input of the European Space Agency is vital.
All this noise is making things very difficult: the sound quality is dreadful.
I would appreciate it if the technicians could do something about it.
Thank you, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel.
The Bureau has also noted that there is a problem with the sound, but this problem can, of course, only be fixed when we are not working.
Let us hope that the sound quality will be better tomorrow.
Mr President, although I do want to congratulate Mr Konstantinos Alyssandrakis on his extremely comprehensive report, I have to say that, on this occasion, the Commission, in particular, and this final report have not been bold enough as regards the European space research initiative.
As has already been said, there is no longer any competition between America and the Soviet bloc, and yet, for all its scientists and technical expertise, Europe is unable to launch itself into space and space research.
We need to increase funding and create a specific budget heading for space research.
The European Union should manage national space research budgets, for space research is, by nature, one of the main activities of the European Union and would clearly not yield satisfactory results if carried out merely at individual State level.
We need to create a European Union space body which is separate from the ESA: the ESA is something different.
We need to organise the launching of low cost European Union satellites to serve European industries.
Finally, I would like to point out that pensioners should somehow be included in this space research.
How can this be? Well, in the United States, a famous pensioner, the astronaut John Glenn, went into space at the age of 69.
I am 55 years old and in 15 years' time I will be 69.
I am already a politician: I could become an astronaut, the first pensioner astronaut of the European Union.
I am booking my seat today!
Thank you very much, Commissioner Busquin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
European research area
The next item is the report (A5-0131/2000) by Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Towards a European research area (COM(2000) 6 - C5-0115/2000 - 2000/2075(COS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would first of all like to thank Commissioner Busquin for launching a broad debate on a European research area.
It comes at exactly the right time, between two framework programmes.
At present, there is no European research area as such.
The research policy of the Member States and that of the Union are running parallel without forming a coherent unit.
In addition, we invest far less in research than the United States and Japan.
These two factors have caused the chasm between us and the United States to widen even more over the past few years.
If the European Union wants to invest in more competitiveness, and thus more employment, we will need an approach which is broader and more innovative than the one we have pursued so far.
The forthcoming enlargement of the Union makes this all the more pressing.
The European Member States need to leave behind their technological nationalism and strive more towards a European Union for research and technology too.
This means that European researchers need access to each other' s national programmes.
The European framework programme for research and technological development is a useful instrument for stimulating international cooperation, but this programme on its own is not enough to boost the joint European research efforts.
Although it only makes up 6% of total European research expenditure, the framework programme fulfils an important multiplier function, a kind of flywheel function.
Industry pays 60% of total investments in research in Europe, 90% of which is spent on research to improve existing production processes and, in this way, to retain the competitive edge.
Only 10% is spent on new innovative research.
As such, the framework programme certainly makes a considerable contribution to this 10%.
Europe has no problem converting euros into research, but has far greater difficulty converting research into euros.
It appears that commercialisation, i.e. injecting expertise into a product, seems to be much more successful in the United States than it is in Europe.
A better link is required between the development of new technology and application in the market.
In this respect, increasing expertise is not a goal in itself, but translating expertise into innovation and industrial success, however, is.
It creates employment and prosperity.
Universities and companies therefore need to work more closely together.
As is the case in the United States, the work of scientists should alternate between academia and industry.
Commissioner Busquin has now indicated how a European research area could be brought about.
However, he mainly focuses on optimising the infrastructure by, among other things, incorporating centres of excellence into a network and by setting up Virtual Centres.
But I believe that in order to bring about a European research area, we will need more than measures in the sphere of infrastructure.
Infrastructures do not innovate, neither do electronic networks, although they are a prerequisite.
But a European research area can only be created if, in addition to an advanced infrastructure, we also have a European identity and European creativity.
In my view, the potential of women has been neglected for too long in this respect.
My final point concerns the lack of a Community patent.
The existing European patent system causes fragmentation and leads to considerable extra costs.
A patent application in Europe is ten times more expensive than it is in the US and far more involved.
Not only do we not have a Community patent; the mechanisms to help small companies protect their patents are also lacking.
Will the Commissioner consult Mr Bolkestein to do something about this? After all, small- and medium-sized companies do not have the means to pay for expensive legal procedures.
Finally, I would like to state that Europe needs a joint research policy which accommodates both applied and fundamental research in various technical specialist fields and which takes into account the fact that innovations often emerge at the interface of different scientific disciplines.
In future, new employment could mainly be created within the specialist areas of bio-technology and ICT, but also research into human and social sciences will remain necessary in the European Union, with its large diversity of cultures.
I would like to thank my colleagues for their kind cooperation.
Mr President, I have to say with great regret that I disagree with my colleague, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, on one point, namely this: if there is any end worth pursuing in human life it is knowledge for knowledge' s own sake.
If there is any impulse which contributes to good research it is the impulse of pure curiosity.
It has been work done out of pure curiosity for the sake of knowledge as an end in itself which has, in the end, produced the big spin-offs that make a real difference.
I agree with her, however, that it is not enough to justify spending public money on the ground that somebody suffers from acute curiosity.
Therefore, it is the promise of long-term applicability and long-term economic contribution that justifies the expenditure of public funds.
But we must remember that public funds will not be well spent unless they are spent on people who have the drive of curiosity and the commitment to knowledge for its own sake.
That is something which we in Europe forget at our peril.
It is mentioned in clauses 'n' and 'o' of the preamble.
I am very grateful for that.
Indeed I am very grateful to Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel for the way in which she has worked into the report of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy practically all the points that were contained in the draft opinion from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for which I was responsible and which is the reason for my addressing you tonight.
The whole is better than the sum of its two parts.
It was very good of her to work it in so effectively.
The amendments by Mr Pietrasanta and Mrs Maes, which add the points about sustainability, environmental goods and health, to the other economic points that we have been making, are important and should be adopted.
There is indeed a European crisis in research funding.
We must increase it.
It must go up to 3% from the current pathetic 1.8% - about half of what our Japanese and American friends and competitors put in.
Legal devices are important.
We should improve the European patent.
Subsidiarity is all-important; subsidiarity, as the Commissioner has said, in its broadest sense - regions contributing to research as well as Member States and the Commission, right down to the research team.
They are the people at the sharp end.
We must make sure that we never have systems of research support that are so over-burdened with bureaucracy, with application mechanisms so difficult to penetrate that we use resources in applying for research funds that should be spent doing the research itself.
Simplicity is all and subsidiarity means, in this context, simplicity and an appropriate period of research review.
We also need other things.
We need due and proper attention to mobility and all that goes with it, proper research careers throughout Europe, the chance for people to gain employment in research and to move freely.
The omens are not entirely good.
We have seen, in the case of the foreign language lecturers in Italy, that 12 years have passed with immobility enshrined in European law because the right to free movement without regard to nationality has been denied and has not yet been effectively enforced by the Commission.
We really must insist that improvement is achieved here and is carried through from the teaching community into the closely allied research community.
In short, we must do at Community and Union level the things that can only be done at those levels and push the rest down.
All that is stated in paragraph 40 of the report.
We must also be better at developing and applying the knowledge we achieve.
My colleague in Edinburgh, Professor Salter, has developed a device for destroying mines safely.
It has never been taken up industrially.
Many good ideas that are developed do not get taken up.
That is also vital.
Mr President, I have great pleasure in responding on behalf of the EPP and ED Group, and on behalf of my colleague, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, who was the shadow rapporteur in the Industry Committee but who unfortunately cannot be here tonight.
I have the pleasure of shadowing Mr MacCormick in the Legal Affairs Committee.
You have already heard that this is indeed a formidable combination and an extremely comprehensive and thorough report from Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, but Mr MacCormick added his own distinctive touches to the report, the flavour of which you have just heard.
Clearly, the thrust of the Commission' s thinking that has gone into this report and indeed our response has focused on two aspects: competitiveness and coordination, because research capability combined with the ability to translate that research into products and services of real commercial value is going to be the key to the competitiveness of the European Union and the enlarged Union into this new century.
We really need to make better use of all the intellectual capabilities that we have across the European Union by improving ways of working together, particularly by better focusing our efforts, by not duplicating that work, by bringing together the original thinkers that Mr MacCormick was talking about.
Anyone who has worked in research will know that if you get people together you spark new and creative ideas all the time.
That activity cannot really be achieved by a lot of centralisation.
The Commission has a job to do as a catalyst for the process.
As Mr MacCormick says, we have to get people across the Union together talking region to region, university to university.
We have to have better information networks, we have to have this exchange of information horizontally, not coming into the centre and going out again.
We have now fantastic new tools to be able to do that.
After all, the Internet was a tool intended to facilitate research networking.
That is what it was originally designed to do and we now have the ability to use it and to think about how we are going to develop the telecommunications capability, the ways of using it, the structure that we talked about in our early debate on telecommunications, the idea of virtual centres of excellence.
That, I think, is a factor of very great importance in trying to achieve this focus and this synthesis of ideas.
If anything should be brought forward very quickly in a pilot stage by Mr Busquin and his team, it is the idea of moving into the virtual centres of excellence and achieving progress in certain key areas.
The second point I want to make links in with our competitiveness.
I echo very much the closing phrases of Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel to us just now: we have to encourage research and development of skills on taking products to market.
We have to improve the ways that we do that.
The processes of original design are prototyping, testing and making.
We have to reduce the time to market, to take these ideas and move them out to consumers as soon as possible, to make products simply, quickly, more effectively, more flexibly.
Those are very important skills that we need to develop and research has a very important part to play in that.
In welcoming Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel' s report, we are anticipating the next stage, Mr Busquin, in meeting these challenges that we have thrown down.
We look to you to turn these proposals into tangible ideas to achieve the objectives that we all share.
Mr President, Commissioner, the communication under discussion forms an important introduction to closer cooperation in the field of research.
As things are now, resources are wasted due to overlapping and lack of coordination.
On behalf of the ELDR Group, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, for a good report and for her extremely enthusiastic work for this cause: your views have the full support of my Group.
The statistics indicated in the communication regarding the poor level of investment by EU countries in research are cause for concern.
Even worse is the fact that the gap with respect to the USA is widening.
However, some Member States have made considerable investments in research, and this appears to have paid dividends, particularly in the area of information technology.
While I have the floor, I would like to bring up a few additional points.
I would prefer to talk about cooperation or strategy, rather than research policy.
The word policy has a connotation of activities being closely controlled by Brussels.
In research, however, objectives for activities should not be defined at too detailed a level.
Each research community is best aware of its own needs for investment and development - these should not be too tightly controlled by policy.
The participation of women in scientific research within the EU continues to be too fragmented.
More tangible action must be incorporated in the programmes in order to promote this participation.
Researcher exchange programmes and interaction between research teams are matters which deserve our full support.
They are a means of disseminating information and skills; these activities will create true European cooperation - networks which will also bear fruit later on.
The COST secretariat has already produced some commendable work.
Its position as research coordinator should be further strengthened.
Mr President, it is, of course, essential to develop a European research area, but this must not operate simply in areas neglected by the Member States.
It must be built openly, sharing competences and resources at as early a stage as possible, in order to ensure optimum synergy.
I wish to thank Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel for her very dynamic work on this report.
We must naturally consider the economic impact and job creation, as our fellow Member, Mr Desama, said. In the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, we do not give priority to the pursuit of competition and competitiveness at any price, or to the commercialisation of research.
Both fundamental and applied research must, above all, retain public support and a public dimension.
We are opposed to the areas of biotechnology focused on genetic manipulation or patenting the living organism. On the other hand, we are in favour of research focusing on sustainable technologies, particularly in the areas of the environment and health.
As the Committee of the Regions advocated in Mrs Blandin' s report, we wish to emphasise support for decentralised research, the formation of networks, collaboration with the regions.
For example, the cooperation which has developed through the ecosites, in the field of ecotechnologies, according to the criteria of sustainable development, is appropriate to local development and to supporting SMBs and SMIs.
Europe may be a significant driving force in this field.
I should also like to stress the aid which we wish to provide for new information and communications technologies by developing virtual laboratories for data collection, analysis and diagnosis, and prevention in the area of major risks.
There is here a potential which can only be realised fully at European level, in collaboration with universities, centres of excellence and the authorities.
Finally, I should like to flag the interest we have in the Joint Research Centre, a subject that is well worth thinking carefully about.
Its nuclear bias, which was topical when it was set up because of the involvement of Euratom, must now be reconsidered.
It is not a matter of duplicating the installations or the research carried out in some European Union Member States but instead of developing, as Mrs McNally suggests, a shared system of technical and scientific references for political applications.
In this respect, there is also a need for serious thinking about the STOA.
In conclusion, I wish to thank our Commissioner, Mr Philippe Busquin, for undertaking, as soon as he arrived, this investigation into a European research area which we support.
He did not neglect the areas of schemes on behalf of young people and the participation of women in research and, in continuing liaison with the Member States and with Parliament, he is working towards developing a knowledge-based Europe in the latest fields, without neglecting social and human aspects.
Mr President, Commissioner, considerable research is indeed essential to be able to make sense of the 27 recitals and 60 paragraphs of a report which has reached oversized proportions due to the studies of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and which contains absolutely everything, albeit in occasionally vague and often inexact terms.
Let us begin, however, in a spirit of constructive criticism, by welcoming the fact that this contribution towards achieving better integration of the European scientific community seeks to safeguard the balance between fundamental and applied research in order to combat the brain drain, to prioritise the problem of unemployment among young researchers within a European policy which is aware of the reality of the situation, and to recognise the leading role played by businesses in research and development.
We might then, also, reiterate what the report said, by emphasising the risk that concentrating research infrastructures, with a view to establishing a cost-effective critical mass, would represent for the peripheral regions, which are, in general, increasingly being disregarded by European programmes.
Attention should also be drawn to the need to adhere strictly to the principle of subsidiarity, in order to leave the Member States and, through them, the regions with genuine local driving forces for research centres in direct contact with the worlds of business and academia, the ability to define their own priorities and methodologies under their own responsibility.
Finally, let us dare to hope that your laudable concern to develop communications and translation services in order to eliminate the language barrier to the desirable synergy between the work of our respective researchers is not a cover for a further attempt to promote one of the Union' s languages above all the others, a language whose imperialism would be no less neutral here than elsewhere.
Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group is going to vote in favour of your report, but I would ask you, in practical terms, will it be effective enough for us to achieve our shared goal, which is high-level scientific knowledge generating improved performance in every field?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel' s excellent report, which we have before us, on the European Commission communication, "Towards a European research area" , has aroused genuine interest in the House judging by the fact that almost 150 amendments have been tabled.
Clearly, the development of research within the European Union is one of the keys to the future.
The twenty-first century will be the century of knowledge and grey matter.
Progress in communications effectively increases the rate of dissemination of knowledge, as the development of the Internet demonstrates, and is a powerful factor in promoting economic growth.
In the broadest sense, then, research will, more than ever, be a fundamental element of future development.
According to the figures made available by the Commission, Europe is definitely lagging behind the United States.
Here are some examples of this: the average investment in research for the European Union as a whole is no more than 1.8% of GDP, as opposed to 2.8% in the United States; the number of European graduate students studying in the United States is twice that of American students in Europe.
On this subject, the proposals of both the Commission and the Plooij-Van Gorsel report lead me to make a few observations.
The first is that European investment in research is at least as important as the European research area.
In the United States, there is rather less concern for semantics and more for practical action.
The second observation is that approximately two thirds of research is undertaken by private companies and that the European Union must take this situation into consideration when focusing its resources.
My third observation is that we must absolutely avoid anything which, from a distance or close up, looks like what has just been referred to as a master plan for European research.
Research is, first and foremost, a matter for freedom and not for planning.
This is all included in the Commission communication and the report by our fellow Member.
There is, however, no prioritisation in the proposals, and this is something I would like to suggest.
This prioritisation should focus primarily on researchers and businesses.
As far as researchers are concerned, their standard of living throughout Europe must be enhanced.
As far as businesses are concerned, research work must be encouraged.
My conclusion is as follows: that we should first back the people involved, then business and, finally, that we should ensure that the European Union does not hinder the activities or the development of either party.
This is what our approach must be.
So the area ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I wish to thank Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel for her usual very good report.
I thank the Commissioner, whose timing is very good and so is his idea of launching this debate.
There is indeed a growing feeling of unease at the lack of coordination in European science and research.
The response has been positive, as the Commissioner knows from his contacts throughout Europe, including a recent visit to Cambridge.
We are looking forward to seeing his analysis of the results of the consultation.
There is a growing awareness in Europe of the dimensions of the threat from the very well-resourced, very well-targeted United States of America.
Frankly, the EU is not punching its weight in research, although some Member States are very good.
I would name Finland, Sweden and countries like the Republic of Ireland, which have made good progress.
Apart from industrial competitiveness, of course, as Mr Desama says, we have serious environmental and social problems which need research to put them right.
A target of 3% of GDP on research is realistic and essential, as is the recruitment of far more scientists, including women.
Please do not underestimate the potential of the Joint Research Centre, which is itself a scientific centre for policy - a reference centre for policy - and is ideally suited to the role of networking the centres of excellence.
It is itself a centre of excellence in many areas.
I strongly support paragraphs 16 and 17, which call for informing the European public about scientific achievements and looking at ethical questions.
We look forward to regular reports from the Commissioner about the implementation and realisation of this very exciting and essential project.
Mr President, it is impossible to say something meaningful in two minutes about such a challenging report as the one written by Mrs Plooij without getting very frustrated, because one could say so much more and, more to the point, would want to say so much more.
I would like to congratulate the Commissioner on his ambition, which is considerable.
Trying to create a European research area is an ambitious plan, because this research space is currently lacking and we only have ourselves to blame.
We make insufficient resources available, although we all - and Mrs McNally underlined this a moment ago - acknowledge the link between progress, development, and creating prosperity and jobs.
This is evident to all of us, yet our governments fail to set aside sufficient funds.
This is true for the Member States and regions, some of whose percentage levels are shamefully low.
We should, as it were, sound the praises of certain Member States and regions, but should not work on averages.
This is why it is good to emphasise cooperation.
Pyramids and hierarchies are not really of much use here, because we know that talent bubbles up from below and from all those regions and all those milieus where talent breeds, both male and female, although female talent - and this has been pointed out many times before here - can only ascend to the very pinnacle of academia very slowly.
Cooperation, however, requires organisation.
And really, the absence of this is something we only have ourselves to blame for.
If our organisation of the scientific environment lags behind, we will not achieve a European research area.
After all, it is exactly this area, where people can communicate a lot more freely with each other than before, which has to ensure that scientists feel at home in Europe.
I really have to ask the Members to exercise some self-discipline. I am sorry to interrupt you, but time goes on and, at this rate, we will be here until gone midnight, and surely that is not what we want.
We cannot do this to the Commissioner either.
Mr President, as a scientist on loan to politics, as I like to describe myself, who has worked in the most advanced laboratories in Italy and elsewhere and who has worked with highly advanced countries such as the United States and Japan, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her extreme sensitivity, her competence and her enthusiasm. I would, of course, also like to thank all the members of the committee, irrespective of their political party, and, in particular, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude on behalf of the academic world to Commissioner Philippe Busquin for the extreme sensitivity he has shown in creating, at last, a European common research area.
The creation of a common research area in Europe will, at last, make it possible to fully exploit networks of high quality centres and achieve that critical mass which is essential both for the progress of knowledge per se and to provide practical answers to the man in the street: answers which cover a range of issues, from the control of terrible illnesses such as AIDS or cancer to neurodegenerative diseases or injuries caused by environmental pollution and so forth.
This is why we support the Commissioner!
Dear Commissioner, what a challenge!
We will keep fighting in order to overcome that red tape which tends to delay the achievement of these goals.
The adoption of the amendments I tabled will greatly promote recognition of the common research area and boost its efficiency.
Thus, the first amendment, which calls for at least 3% of the gross domestic product of all the countries of the European Union to be allocated to research, represents a great victory and will allow us to compete with the United States and Japan.
The second amendment I tabled on behalf of the poor, vulnerable and abandoned regions, the Objective 1 regions of the South, i.e. to invest 5% of the unused regional funds - which would otherwise be taken back - to benefit those regions, will, at last, make it possible to exploit the excellent human resources available to us and close the gap in infrastructures and technology between these regions and the regions of Europe.
The third amendment, which was also approved by our friend Mr Novelli - whom I would like to thank - will apply tax exemption and, thereby, at last make it possible to further increase the level of research carried out in all sectors.
Commissioner, I would therefore like to finish by paying tribute to the new scientific research structure which you have introduced. On 20 June, two Nobel prize-winners, Rita Levi Montalcini, holder of the Nobel Prize for neuroscience, and Renato Dulbecco, will pay tribute to this initiative, in recognition of the fact that, at long last, in establishing the research area, you have conferred great honour on all research scientists.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, cooperation in terms of research is difficult in Europe, far more difficult than it is in the United States and this is why Commissioner Busquin' s communication is so significant.
Investment in research and in cooperation must lead to more economic growth and more employment.
This effort deserves all our support, and this is why I can give my full backing to the report by Mrs Plooij, to whom, by the way, I would like to convey my sincerest compliments.
But I would prefer it if we were a little more precise in our debate.
We have to ascertain that not all research leads to more economic growth or more employment.
The demand for research is huge where supporting policy choices, risk analyses, environmental effect reports, monitors and comparative research is concerned.
It is all part of the preparation or assessment of political decisions in the environmental sector in the area of food or public health.
In these particular areas, European cooperation is meaningful.
The Joint Research Centres, the JRCs, have many examples of sound cooperation projects.
In many research areas, the JRC researchers find themselves in a situation much like a spider in a web.
Where research in support of policy is concerned, initiatives from the Commission are therefore vital in order to prevent work from being duplicated, to avoid fragmentation and to ensure that the best measuring methods and the best techniques become the benchmark.
But in this type of work, no major spin-offs in the employment sphere can be expected outside the research centres.
There is also great demand for applied research, which can be expected to have a far greater impact on employment.
But European policy could restrict itself to creating appropriate conditions, and practical obstacles should be cleared away.
I would like to finish off by saying a few words on basic research.
Research situated between applied and basic research now has a lower profile but remains significant.
Many fundamental questions in the fields of natural and life sciences remain unanswered.
It is precisely in these spheres that coordination of national research efforts is of major importance.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her invaluable work.
On account of the amendments tabled in committee, this report ended up being more wide-ranging; when dealing with issues related to research areas, we must not focus solely on scientific communities.
The role of the SME sector as a locomotive force for innovation and research work must also be clearly borne in mind.
The Commission' s communication provides an unnecessarily one-sided view of the challenges of European research.
It is obvious that, in the preparation of this communication, there has been no horizontal utilisation of the expertise of the various directorates.
Since the discussion on the research area touches, for example, on the enlargement process of the Union and on the vitality of the SME sector, one would have wished that the Commission' s communication had presented more visions and concrete content.
It is not enough to talk in broad terms about the competitiveness of the Union.
Keywords in research policy are flexibility, global thinking, and the more effective use of resources than at present.
The self-directed nature of science and the Member States' own research policy priorities must be accorded sufficient space.
It is therefore necessary to give careful thought to what will be required in the future of the joint research centres highlighted in the Commission' s proposal.
On no account is it appropriate to enlarge the role of the Union' s research centres in such a way that the operations of national research centres are made more difficult in the context of resource reallocation.
Most of the added value of the internal market approach in research will be acquired specifically through the more even distribution of the research and know-how which is funded by non-public resources.
Practical experience has shown that by working within framework programmes it is not possible to react sufficiently flexibly to problems which demand rapid action, such as the BSE crisis.
Increasing, for instance, the mobility of researchers according to need and enhancing the cooperation between the scientific communities of the EU and Eastern Europe will create a reliable and credible basis for research projects.
In this discussion, particular attention must also be paid to the position of women in European research policy; the body of technical experts in particular - which actually suffers from a labour shortage - is alarmingly male-dominated.
The EU must accept that one of the most important challenges for its training and research policy is to awaken women' s interest in this sector.
Mr President, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, ladies and gentlemen, I am personally delighted to have this opportunity to express an opinion on the Commissioner' s communication and to be able to tell him that it is a document of extremely high quality which, as we have seen again this evening, has provided the basis for a relevant debate on revitalising research in Europe.
We have effectively entered the knowledge society, which has led us to put research back at the heart of our society.
In Europe, however, as many people have said, the position of research looks worrying if one looks at the figures.
It is therefore necessary, as a matter of urgency, to adopt an overall strategy at European level in order to make up for lost time.
It is not a matter of casting doubt on the efficiency of the FRDPs. Their results are plain to see.
It must be noted, however, that new initiatives need to be adopted in order to decompartmentalise Member States' national systems which today represent nothing more than a duplication of efforts.
Among the many measures which must be implemented, this evening I shall mention, in particular, the training and the mobility of researchers, to go back to a previous debate which involved the Commissioner and researchers from my own region.
I am speaking, therefore, to voice their concerns, for we are not training enough scientific researchers and even fewer European researchers.
The training of researchers should therefore include a European dimension, which would offer them greater mobility.
Schemes do exist, but, in the real world, before and during implementation, there are administrative obstacles to mobility, such as welfare cover, which discourage many researchers.
I shall end by saying that we must also devote ourselves to informing the citizens, in whom scientific progress raises as much hope as concern.
I therefore hope that, in June, our ministers will be able to approve the rapid establishment of a whole series of building sites in Europe, on the basis of the Commissioner' s proposals.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Busquin for deciding and having the courage to create a European research area, bearing in mind that, in the field of knowledge, we have always fought hard for the principle of solidarity.
I am a member of the Committee on Culture and in fact Parliament has not taken up the opinion of this committee.
I am the only person from that committee who is speaking in this debate.
I very much regret the fact that the contribution of the Committee on Culture has not been allowed to enrich the debate.
In this respect I would like to offer some constructive criticism.
Firstly, I would like to say that this is a laudable and courageous piece of work, because subsidiarity is a straitjacket which is holding Europeans back despite the brilliance of their desires and their minds. Nevertheless, it lacks a parallel project, which is concerned with human resources.
Much is said about money and companies, but we never take into account - or at least we only do so in the small print and indirectly - the fact that it is a question of human resources and that therefore research requires training, training and more training.
In Europe there are no training programmes for researchers.
FEDER and the FEDER projects do not cover grant holders.
Furthermore, the fifth research plan only includes one person per project, although it is impossible to carry out a far-reaching project with grant holders alone.
The personnel available to us include very few post-doctoral teachers and we do not have sufficient staff.
How can we talk about mobility if we do not have researchers? This is the great challenge we have to face and, in this case, I would support Mr Rübig and others who have proposed specific training programmes.
We must support the universities and researchers because, in Europe, working in research means sacrifices and a career full of risks and very few rewards and, of course, no economic reward.
I repeat that we must recycle our teachers.
Only by means of a strategic European resources plan can we do so.
Lastly, I would like to express my fear that only centres of excellence will be recognised.
Mr President, I will confine myself to stressing three points tackled by Commissioner Busquin which are also referred to in the report under debate.
The first concerns the close relationship between research, economic growth and employment.
In order to respond to the challenge represented by the United States, the Union as a whole and certain countries in particular must allocate a higher proportion of their resources to research and facilitate investment by private companies.
I subscribe to the view that we need to propose tax relief, harmonised at European level, as a guideline for the Member States.
Point two: research and development have generated an extremely well integrated system.
In some areas, it is not easy to distinguish between basic and applied research.
However, public financing and the European programmes need to target chiefly medium- and long-term economic and non-economic objectives, whereas competence for market-related research should lie chiefly with the firms.
Thirdly, the tertiarisation of research policies and the consolidation of the role of the regions: The territorial aspect of research policies is important chiefly in terms of the transfer of scientific and technological knowledge towards the small- and medium-sized enterprises which characterise many industrial districts.
Small- and medium-sized enterprises are one of European industry' s strong points, in certain countries in particular, but they are still poorly integrated into the research system.
Thank you very much for your contribution, Commissioner.
Given the time, we should not hold lengthy discussions.
I am not a spokesperson for this debate but I would nevertheless like to congratulate Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel at this stage on this important report.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Peking action platform
The next item is the report (A5-0125/2000) by Mrs Smet and Mrs Gröner, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the follow-up to the Beijing Action Platform [2000/2020(INI)].
Mr President, this initiative report is the European Parliament' s contribution to the special session of the United Nations General Assembly which will be held in New York in three weeks' time and where the actions of the past five years will be assessed as a follow-up to the World Conference on Women in Beijing and where, at the same time, a declaration will be issued to re-establish the commitments made and to see what needs to be done in the next five years.
As such, it is an important report, because it will be the only report from the European Parliament.
I hope that we will be given the opportunity - and this is also a request to the Commission - to do some preparatory work with the Commission before we leave for New York to ensure that we are singing from the same hymn sheet.
I think it is useful to be on the same wavelength because, as regards women' s liberation, we could expect Europe to play some sort of a pioneering role.
Europe has done this in the past and we must be able to continue to do this.
But before I talk about this pioneering role, I would like to say a few words about the assessment itself.
Commissioner, it is particularly difficult to carry out an assessment if there is no data available to check on the precise extent of progress made by the different European countries over the past few years.
No statistical data exists.
There are reports on the twelve topics which we need to discuss in New York for each country, which show exactly how much progress has been made with the assessment.
I am therefore delighted that you announced in the discussion on the fifth action programme that you would like to set up a kind of observatory where an effort will be made to collate all possible gender-related data.
After all, there is an enormous gap in this field.
I would like to direct my second point to Parliament itself.
The efforts we needed to make in order to finish this report suggest that the Secretariat of the Women' s Committee is heavily understaffed.
There was very little in the way of cooperation, and had it not been for the fact that Mrs Gröner and myself had hard-working collaborators, then there would probably not have been a report now.
It is a disgrace for Parliament that other committees can apparently acquire excellent secretariats and well-equipped secretariats with many staff, but that this is not possible for the Women' s Committee.
It may be useful that we, together with the women involved, should take an initiative.
That is all I have to say as regards assessment and I will not touch on it any further.
For the next five years, I believe that the action programme, the five-year programme which the Commission is presenting for discussion at the moment, is of huge importance.
It obviously comprises the traditional themes, which is quite normal because, although the world moves on, these themes are still on the agenda. Admittedly, there are new emphases but, at the end of the day, they are the same recurring themes.
The first theme I would like to mention is the world of employment and the new emphases which should, in my view, be applied.
These include the new technologies and the fact that there are too few women in this sector, if any.
This was also said a moment ago.
Other matters to be emphasised are the division between work and family, as is provided for in the employment guidelines, and equal pay for equal work, something which I find the Commission is not emphasising enough and which is receiving insufficient attention.
There is still a chasm between men and women in terms of wages.
Another theme is decision making.
The Commission has made efforts, as has Europe, but mainly in the political sphere.
I think that efforts should also be made with regard to both sides of industry.
Far more attention should be paid to them since they manage and control a large part of social life.
On the theme of violence, too little attention is being paid to violence within the family, in my opinion.
Attention is being paid to violence in the work sphere, and so forth, but not so much within the family.
In my view, more attention should be paid to the media, which is such a determining factor in social life.
Women are very much absent in the media.
As for women' s rights and human rights, I hope that some progress can be made at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Finally, I already said that Europe is expected to play a pioneering role.
I would mention two areas, in particular.
Firstly, if we grant development aid or if we have contacts with third countries, we should not just prescribe conditions with regard to the economic position of women.
We are now familiar with this.
We know that in many developing countries, the economy is carried by women, and we support this.
This much we now know.
What we do not emphasise enough in our contacts with third countries is that human rights should be respected with regard to women, too.
What is happening in Afghanistan is unjustifiable.
It is unjustifiable that, in a number of countries, female circumcision is still practised and that we maintain the best relations with these countries as a matter of course.
Secondly, with regard to the Union' s enlargement to include the former Eastern Bloc countries, it will be vital that the screening report to be compiled by the Commission should give a sound account of what is happening there, because there are signs of regress instead of progress in this regard.
Mr President, Commissioner, the special session of the United Nations General Assembly, which will be held at the beginning of June under the banner 'Women 2000: Gender equality, development and peace for the 21st Century' , will be of enormous importance to the situation of women.
The monitoring of the application of the Beijing Action Platform reveals that the greatest concerns, in relation to the proposed objectives, are still education and training, power and decision making, health, poverty and violence.
The social changes of recent years have affected women in a special way.
The increase in the elderly population has had a great effect on the lives of women who, in general, when they are no longer looking after their children, have to look after their parents.
Despite considerable progress in terms of the situation of women, there are still considerable differences, especially discrimination at work and different wages for the same job.
The majority and, in many cases, all of the responsibility for domestic tasks falls to women.
The situation of women with family responsibilities, combined with the difficulties in the labour market, have led to a term which is explicit as well as unfair: the feminisation of poverty.
We still require initiatives which help to give women access to the labour market and allow them full professional development, to which end we will need to facilitate women' s 'other' work through nurseries and financial aid.
Men will have to take more family responsibilities and adapt to a society which is constantly changing and which has modified their traditional roles.
The information society requires increasing numbers of people with technological training, which women must get involved in, since this is an area for which they are particularly well-equipped.
If the number of women involved in decision making were to increase, it would become easier to resolve the problems facing them.
A lot of progress has been made, but there are still political and economic areas in which women are under-represented.
Amongst the problems which women are unfortunately facing at the moment, we must mention the violence directed at them: domestic violence, armed conflict and trafficking in women, which has been increasing in recent years.
This is a form of violence against their person, their fundamental rights and their dignity.
The Treaty of Amsterdam provides for the integration of the objectives of equality into Community policies and, especially in Article 141, positive actions in the field of employment.
Employment is usually also a solution to other problems of marginalisation, economic dependence, lack of personal freedom, etc.
The fifth Community Action Plan will have to deal with the problems still existing through a budgetary provision which will allow programmes to be implemented in the most urgent areas.
The cooperation of the media is essential to achieving these objectives.
Mr President, 'Half the sky is borne on the shoulders of women' , a successful man once said.
But the heavens are not enough.
Women account for more than half the earth' s population and yet remain unheard and under-represented within most political, economic and social spheres.
That is unacceptable.
In the course of the centuries, women have demanded their rights as full citizens. They have ranged from, in the northern hemisphere, female campaigners for the right to vote to, in the southern hemisphere, groups opposing genital mutilation.
In the course of the Beijing Conference in 1995, a common action plan was decided upon for these different groups of women. This was a milestone in the recognition of women' s rights as being integral to human rights in general.
Just about all the governments of the world endorsed the Beijing Conference' s action plan.
The Beijing Declaration distinguishes twelve critical areas and defines views and long-term objectives which should be adopted by governments, the United Nations, national movements and private industry in order to improve the conditions under which women live.
Five years later, discrimination against women is still widespread, and violence against women is still a global phenomenon.
A glass ceiling bars women from advancement in the professions, administration and politics.
Women constitute the overwhelming majority of the one billion people who are illiterate and who live in the most extreme poverty, and decisions affecting women are still made by men.
It is high time that, in the course of the Beijing + 5 Conference in June, concrete decisions are taken which will actually result in the objectives of the Beijing Action Platform being realised.
The report we are voting on tomorrow emphasises that progress within all twelve areas is necessary if women are fully to be able to obtain their share of human rights.
A threefold strategy is needed if the Conference is not just to be another exercise in rhetoric.
First of all, the world' s governments must adopt a concrete action plan and again undertake to fulfil the Beijing objectives.
Secondly, they must pledge financial resources with a view to implementing the decisions and, thirdly, supervisory tools must be created for the purpose of monitoring implementation.
These three tools have so far been missing in implementing the Beijing Action Platform.
The fact that the world' s governments refuse to acknowledge that, from the cradle to the grave, girls and women are exploited and persecuted has, throughout the ages, been the most flagrant and far-reaching violation of human rights.
This is something which the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities wants to change.
Women should not just bear half the sky on their shoulders, but also have the right to take responsibility for decisions affecting our entire earth. Is that not so, Commissioner?
Mr President, we are going to New York first and foremost to discuss the position of women globally.
Naturally, there is a need in the European Union, too, to improve the position of women in all walks of life, but we are now talking more about a worldwide conference.
In my opinion, a worthwhile contribution to this event would be the concept that the empowerment of women can be regarded as a strategy for the development of society as a whole.
By investing in women, we will be helping whole communities and societies on the road to development.
The evidence in support of this is very convincing; many problems can be overcome by investing, for example, in the primary health care of women.
In the eradication of poverty, supporting women, for example by 'micro loans' (negligible amounts from our point of view) has proved a very sound strategy for promoting economic activity.
Education and training are, of course, the means for women to become members of full standing in society.
I believe that if there is anything we in the European Union can contribute to this conference, it would relate to the fact that we have launched this 'gender mainstreaming' process, which entails trying to involve the gender viewpoint in all decision making.
As all those present are well aware, this is not easy - we have a tremendous amount of work to do in this respect ourselves - but we can raise the issue that the role of women needs to be reassessed when it comes to questions of war and peace, for example.
Women are, to a very great extent, the victims and those who suffer in wars now.
Would it not be a good idea to debate what could be done by women to prevent or resolve these kind of present-day conflicts?
Five years ago, at the Beijing Conference, it was stated that women' s rights are human rights.
We quite agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Smet. We cannot accept what is happening to women in Afghanistan and we must promote the human rights of women at the New York Conference.
Mr President, where the present report is concerned, we note that there is just about one hundred per cent agreement in the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
I should like, however, to point out a number of things.
We note that women' s and children' s rights form an indispensable and inseparable dimension of human rights generally.
Economic independence for women is a necessity if it is to be possible to achieve true equality.
Women both within and outside the European Union are especially vulnerable to poverty.
The 1995 action platform expressly mentions the freedom to take personal responsibility in questions affecting sexuality, as well as full respect for the individual' s integrity and equality in relations between women and men and in issues affecting sexual relations and reproduction.
These are points which religious fundamentalists of different kinds now refuse to accept.
The pro-life movement and so-called family protection groups, the Vatican and Muslim fundamentalists are very active and have been so in a very well organised way during the conferences which, in the course of recent months, have been held in, among other places, New York.
They are thereby sabotaging constructive dialogue between governments and voluntary organisations.
I should like to appeal to this Parliament' s large Christian Democratic group to distance themselves from this sabotage of the United Nations' follow-up conference.
I would also urge the governments of the Member States and the delegation from the European Parliament which is to go to New York in a few weeks' time to do all they can to bring about the final document from the Beijing + 5 Conference which is, in fact, threatened by these groups.
It is a question of producing a final document containing, still intact, the twelve points in the action plan which have been approved. In that way, we can all of us work to advance women' s rights and equality, and not to set them back.
Mr President, we support the foundation work carried out by the co-rapporteurs, we support their approach and we support the fact that sound proposals continue to be produced, but when it comes to evaluating what has been achieved over the last five years - as has been said - we have no information, in either objective or more general terms, to provide a basis for planning new actions or finding means of rectifying failed past actions.
The European Commission will once again, therefore, be conspicuous for its grand proposals and the failure to follow them up with tangible actions.
In our opinion, on this occasion, it might be appropriate for the Union to adopt an initiative, a practical initiative which is a priority objective with set time frames.
We feel that, out of the vast amount of issues to be considered, female circumcision warrants particular attention.
We would like Mrs Diamantopoulou to inform us whether the clause on relations with third countries which deals with female circumcision is seen as particularly important and, in the interests of bringing the matter to a swift conclusion, we suggest that no further Union aid should be granted to any of those countries which permit or tolerate female circumcision.
This is a major issue, a practice so common and widespread that it is featuring increasingly, even in the European daily media.
- (EL) Mr President, Commissioner, I should like, as we are discussing the action platform on equality decided in Beijing in 1995, to take this opportunity to extol the role played, and the efforts made, by the UN on this issue and to remind the House of the important role played and the contribution made by the Union in adopting a common accepted action platform at worldwide level.
In view of the forthcoming UN conference in New York, I think it is opportune that we claim a more active and effective European and worldwide policy in all sectors, a policy which will reach as far as Afghanistan and the Gulf states, where women are still in a most unfortunate position and are denied fundamental human rights.
This does not, of course, mean that we underestimate the progress achieved and the European Union' s contribution to the dynamic presence of women in all professional and scientific circles, the performance of women at all levels of education and their successes wherever equal opportunity policies and the principle of meritocracy are applied.
However, despite the undisputed progress being made, serious problems of inequality and discrimination persist and have serious repercussions on the functioning of democracy and the failure to make full use of the valuable human resource which women represent comes at a huge economic and social cost.
This is why we need to move forward with a specific vision and specific plan, with strategies and mechanisms, with a precise timetable and indicators, with quantifiable targets so that we can appraise the preceding decade and accurately evaluate the progress made at the new UN Conference in 2005.
Today we need to extend our action to eradicate discrimination on the labour market, involve women in social dialogue and deal with violence against women.
We need to guarantee a fair redistribution of responsibilities and obligations between the two sexes, both in public and private life.
In short, we need to create a new institutional and social framework which reflects the changes which have taken place and which solves the problems and contradictions which arise from the new contract with the two sexes.
The European Union and the Member States must be on the front line of this fight.
- (EL) Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating Mrs Gröner and Mrs Smet on their exceptional and remarkable report.
Apart from the 28 specific recommendations, which are particularly helpful, both for Beijing and the Commission' s fifth programme - and I should like to assure you that complete account will be taken of them - I must also highlight the fact that they are accompanied by a particularly interesting political analysis containing information and views which is an excellent tool and which I think the Member States would be well advised to reproduce.
Five years on from Beijing, we shall be assessing the past five years.
As the speakers have said, a great deal has been done and a great deal remains to be done.
And, of course, Afghanistan will have to be discussed and reported and voted on in New York because it is one of the worst disgraces of our century, one of the worst disgraces of mankind in the year 2000.
We made commitments in 1995; these commitments have been honoured up to a point and we shall be analysing them in full at the Beijing Conference.
One question which arises is whether or not we have the information needed at European Union level.
I should like to inform you that the Commission has been endeavouring for a long time now to collate information on all the Member States, to obtain answers to questionnaires sent out more than once, to obtain answers to individual issues of legislation, infrastructures, action and statistics.
We have managed, after a great deal of trouble, I must admit, to collate a set of data and we shall be publishing a paper as quickly as possible - within a fortnight I hope - containing the data for 1999.
That was the reason for the delay.
As far as the report is concerned, I should like to refer to three points which, according to the questionnaires sent in from the countries of Europe, take priority there.
The first is new changes in the information society.
The new changes, which are changing the economy, society and the work model, are throwing up both huge challenges and huge problems, especially for the weaker groups, and huge problems for women, who are less involved in the new world of technologies and who, of course, have higher unemployment rates.
We therefore need here to highlight the new objective of education, lifelong learning, retraining and special programmes to ensure that women participate in the new information society and, hence, in the labour market.
The second point concerns democracy and is linked to the information society, which is creating a new type of communication between citizens and politicians and opening up a new route, which you need to be aware of and for which you need the right vehicle.
And, of course, there is the traditional problem of the representation of women, which all the speakers have already touched on.
The third point, which also proved to be the issue to which the Member States attach importance, is the issue of violence against women, the most important problem being trafficking in women, i.e. the modern version of the slave trade.
Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, we must assume that the new era is bringing with it not only electronic commerce, as defined in the economy, but also electronic commerce in women and children.
These are issues which call, of course, for innovative solutions and new approaches and cannot simply be seen as the price paid for the new era.
I think that these are the basic points which need to be assessed and, more importantly, where we need to renew our commitments.
I should like to stress that Beijing will obviously give rise to negotiating problems.
I agree that there will be centres of power and organised powers which will try to reverse all this progress and review the agenda which we have agreed on.
How we organise ourselves at all levels and how our lobby operates at all levels are extremely important, because we want to prevent any review of the agenda or a return to the past, renew our commitments and create new momentum so that our commitments are implemented in the new era.
I think that, since all negotiations depend on preparation and on being fully aware of one' s own situation and the situation of those sitting on the opposite side of the table, we at the Commission and the European Parliament need to cooperate very closely with the Portuguese Presidency.
It is, I think, superfluous, to assure you that the Commission - and I personally - am at the disposal of the Portuguese Presidency so that we can prepare for these negotiations in the best possible way.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
I would, by the way, like to congratulate all Members who are still present on their perseverance and I would also like to extend warm thanks to the staff who are still present for their prolonged efforts.
(The sitting was closed at 11.53 p.m.)
Address by Mr Kuçan, President of the Republic of Slovenia
Madam President, I wholeheartedly support Mr Buttiglione' s speech and, on behalf of the Forza Italia delegation of which I am head in the European People' s Party, I cannot forget the suffering of the Italian people in the former Yugoslavia at the end and during the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.
A genuine ethnic cleansing operation took place and disputes still remain which have not been resolved. Some Italian citizens are still waiting for their rights to be respected.
We are on extremely good terms with Slovenia, but we cannot forget past events or allow them to be forgotten.
The Europe which is just emerging, our common home which we are building together, cannot disregard the past.
We cannot create a Europe which does not condemn the atrocities perpetrated by Communism and Nazism.
Therefore, Madam President, in addition to calling upon you to make authoritative representations to the Slovenian Government, I also invite all the Members of Parliament to sign the declaration calling for the institution of a day dedicated to the Shoah, to the holocaust, to be observed throughout the European Union.
Statements by the President
I have two statements to make.
You should already have received the first one by e-mail. This concerns the practical problems encountered on some of Parliament' s premises.
The Quaestors acted quickly to resolve this situation in the best way possible.
They commissioned air analyses from the German company, Dekra, which identified certain failures which we have remedied as quickly as possible.
I thank the Quaestors, and particularly the President of the College, Mr Poos, for their prompt action.
I myself immediately wrote to the Strasbourg authorities and the social services so that all the relevant authorities were informed.
You should therefore have received this statement by e-mail.
My second statement concerns the information sent to me by the French Government regarding the receipt of a decree withdrawing the mandate of Mr Le Pen.
You will remember that I informed the House at the time that I would ask the Legal Affairs Committee, in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, to give an opinion on this issue.
This committee has, on several occasions, examined all the aspects, particularly the legal ones, of this issue.
I thank Mrs Palacio, the committee' s chairperson, and the committee members for their efforts.
The discussions were extremely thorough and it was only yesterday, at 8 p.m., that I received Mrs Palacio' s letter informing me of the committee' s opinion on this issue.
So that there is no room for error or misinterpretation, I would prefer to read you the letter.
'Madam President, during its meeting of 16 May 2000, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market re-examined the situation of Mr Le Pen.
The committee is aware that the decree of the Prime Minister of the French Republic, of which Mr Le Pen was notified on 5 April 2000, and which was published in the Official Journal of the French Republic on 22 April 2000, has become enforceable.
However, the committee has also noted, as mentioned in the letter notifying Mr Le Pen of the decree, that the latter has the option of appealing to the French Council of State. This appeal may be accompanied by a request to suspend the enforcement of the decree.
In view of the decision taken the day before not to recommend at present that Parliament officially take note of the decree regarding Mr Le Pen, the committee has examined the possible responses.
The case of Mr Tapie was mentioned as a precedent to be followed in support of this decision. The result is that the European Parliament should officially take note of the decree withdrawing Mr Le Pen' s mandate only after expiry of the deadline for appealing to the French Council of State or, if applicable, after a decision by the latter' .
These are the contents of the letter sent to me yesterday evening by Mrs Palacio on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee.
Once again, I thank her.
I intend to abide by the opinion of the Legal Affairs Committee.
Madam President, I am taking the floor to request that Parliament express its opinion in accordance with Rule 7(4) of the Rules of Procedure.
If you will allow me, I will justify my proposal.
Go ahead, Mr Barón Crespo.
Madam President, Rule 7(4) of the Rules of Procedure lays down that the President may ask the competent committee for its opinion and that Parliament may express its opinion on the basis of that proposal.
I would ask Parliament to express its view, and I do so with all due respect for the Committee on Legal Affairs and the internal Market, which has held a full debate on this issue, because I believe that there are two basic elements here.
One of them is respect for parliamentary rules and the Treaties.
Monday' s letter from the chairperson of the Legal Affairs Committee - which is the one I know, because I have just been made aware of it - cited Article 12(2) of the 1976 Act concerning the election of representatives of the European Parliament, which reads as follows: "Where a seat falls vacant pursuant to national provisions in force in a Member State, the latter shall inform the European Parliament, which shall take note of the fact" .
This means, firstly, that a Member State, which is a constitutional state, like France, has taken decisions in accordance with a legal judgement and the executive...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I am going to suspend the sitting for a few moments as it seems that one of our colleagues is feeling ill.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.20 a.m. and resumed at 10.40 a.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Staes has just been taken ill. Apparently it does not seem to be a heart problem and is therefore hopefully not too serious but an ECG is going to be carried out straightaway.
I can therefore reassure you, relatively speaking, about his state of health.
I thank the two Members who are doctors for taking immediate action and for giving me this information.
I must also say that this unfortunate incident has regrettably shown the length of time which it takes for the medical services to arrive.
This sort of thing could happen to any of us so we definitely need to do something.
I am going to give the floor to Mrs Banotti who wishes to speak straightaway so that the Quaestors can take steps to ensure that the facilities are exactly as they should be.
Madam President, we have all been deeply distressed by the illness of our colleague.
I am immensely relieved that he appears not to be as ill as he appeared at the beginning.
I am a nurse which is why I went up to see if I could give assistance.
We have to recognise that, particularly when the weather gets as hot as it did this week, colleagues' health is under a great deal of stress.
It is unfortunate that it took a considerable time to get the stretcher to take Mr Staes out of the Chamber.
I would propose on behalf of colleagues that we have immediate resuscitation equipment here in the Chamber in case such a distressing event occurs again.
I am very glad that he is not as ill as he looked, but we must have resuscitative equipment in the House, given not only the conditions but some of our ages and I include myself in that.
Many colleagues are finding it particularly difficult this week in the heat.
Thank you, Mrs Banotti.
I believe there are no age limits for this type of illness.
Madam President, maybe at long last we will decide that the Medical Services should not be placed in the basement.
They would prefer to be on the same floor as the plenary session and maybe we could actually look into that.
Ladies and gentlemen, we trust that the Quaestors will look into the matter.
Madam President, I very much hope that Mr Staes will get well soon, but I believe that we should also remind and ask the media to inform our co-citizens that our life is not a bed of roses, and that coming and going like nomads is not the best thing for our health.
However, we have all made a free choice.
I will return to the issue we were discussing: my Group' s request for this House to express its opinion in accordance with the regulations.
I was reading Article 12(2) of the Act of 1976, which is the legal basis cited by the chairperson of the Legal Affairs Committee in her letter of Monday.
This paragraph says: "Where a seat falls vacant pursuant to national provisions in force in a Member State, the latter shall inform the European Parliament, which shall take note of the fact" .
France is a constitutional state.
There has been a legal judgement, a government decree, which has been communicated to us and I believe it falls to the European Parliament to take note of it in accordance with the Treaties and with parliamentary law.
I have heard - because I do not have first-hand knowledge of the letter - that precedents are cited.
There certainly are precedents and my Group believes they should be respected.
However, in this case, we should not cite the precedent of Mr Tapie for two reasons: firstly, he was ineligible for reasons of bankruptcy, and, secondly - and this is important - he had used his right to appeal.
Here we have a case of ineligibility for one year and the right to appeal, recognised in the French decree, has not been used.
I do not wish to enter into a debate on French law, since I have no knowledge of it.
I believe that, in accordance with the Treaties and our Rules, Parliament must take note of the decision of the French State.
This is the correct procedure and I think that, although I was not present in the Committee on Legal Affairs, the proposal does not reflect it.
In any event, I believe that this proposal should not be ratified by the European Parliament, I am going to request that it be put to the vote and I would like to say that my Group will vote against it.
Madam President, I am speaking as coordinator for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament' s Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
I was very surprised by the letter which you have just read from the chairperson of the Legal Affairs Committee.
Yesterday, I received a letter from the chairperson, which faithfully reflected what had happened in the Legal Affairs Committee: following a discussion, it was decided not to recommend that Parliament take note, leaving the issue on the table for further discussion.
The letter which you have read reflects the personal motives which the chairperson and perhaps other MEPs put forward, but which does not reflect the point of view of the Legal Affairs Committee.
Specifically, the Socialist Group' s position was that, in view of the Act of 1976, all this Parliament could do is what Mr Barón just said, that is to say, take note (prendre acte) of the decision of the French Government, with no other condition.
The possibility of giving an explanation was raised, and I argued that that would mean a new vote.
No new vote took place and therefore - I repeat - the views expressed in the letter which you have just read reflect Mrs Palacio' s personal position and not the position of the Legal Affairs Committee.
Mr President, the representatives of our group in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market have familiarised themselves thoroughly with this matter, and I too represent our group in this Committee. We are fully aware of the political sensitivity of this issue.
We do not, however, want this issue to be used against us for political purposes.
Supported by a majority, our Group concluded that the opinion of the majority of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market was justified. We must make it clear, however, that if there is to be a vote in the part-session on this matter, i.e. on whether the mandate of Mr Le Pen should be terminated, the majority of the French delegation in our Group will vote in favour of this termination.
Madam President, I wish to raise a procedural motion.
I must remind Mr Wurtz that a tribunal does not deliver judgements.
A court delivers judgements.
He should brush up on his legal knowledge.
That apart, the Legal Affairs Committee rightfully discussed this issue and Mr Wurtz was not there.
As a result, he is ill-placed to criticise a confusion which did not exist.
There was political confusion but no legal confusion.
The position of the Legal Affairs Committee was simple.
The decision is not final and therefore cannot be accepted.
That apart, if the President wants to consult the plenary, this should at least pertain to a specific report, as pointed out by the committee' s chairperson.
We cannot properly discuss and vote at midday on such a politically complex issue when this complexity is based on an internal contradiction between texts in French criminal law, which is not easily accessible to the Members of this House, including the French Members.
If you decide that a vote must be held in this Parliament, this cannot occur without a committee report.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have received many requests to speak.
We absolutely must find the best solution.
I will read to you the letter that Mr Hänsch sent to Mr Hervé de Charrette, the then French Foreign Minister, at the time of the Tapie affair.
The most important paragraph states that: "Due to the irreversible nature of the withdrawal of the mandate, it seems to me appropriate to wait for the Council of State to rule on this appeal.
It appears that the Council of State' s decision on the stay of execution will be taken imminently" .
As you can see, and we cannot get into a discussion on this, I too looked at what my predecessors did in similar situations because case law does, rightfully, exist.
We are now in a difficult position.
I propose that we decide whether or not we want the Legal Affairs Committee to draw up a genuine proposal, as some of you seem to think that the letter written to me by Mrs Palacio is not a proposal within the terms of the Rules of Procedure.
Personally, I must abide by the Rules of Procedure which state that: "On a proposal from that committee, Parliament may adopt a position on the matter" .
If Parliament, therefore, wants a genuine proposal, we will ask the Legal Affairs Committee to draw up this proposal on which we can calmly vote, not at midday, but a little later perhaps.
We must resolve this situation.
I will therefore immediately put the two possible solutions to the vote.
The first is that we keep to the current position which is to abide by the terms of Mrs Palacio' s letter and await the outcome of any appeal lodged with the Council of State by the Member in question, before officially noting the withdrawal or otherwise of the mandate. The second solution is that the plenary asks the Legal Affairs Committee to draw up a genuine proposal on which Parliament will adopt a position in accordance with Rule 7(4).
Madam President, the first thing I wish to say is that I think it would be unworthy of the European Parliament to be at loggerheads over this issue.
We should not be presenting the public with a spectacle of that kind.
My second point is that you decided, on the basis of Rule 7(4), to consult the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market. That is your right.
However, if I have understood correctly, we do not have a proposal from the Legal Affairs Committee as a basis for a vote, but you did ask the Committee on Legal Affairs for its opinion.
There is a legal problem here that only you can clear up.
I have in mind the difference between Article 12 of the Act on the election of Members by direct universal suffrage and Rule 7(4) of our Rules of Procedure.
There is a discrepancy here.
My advice is that we need to clear up this discrepancy. That is your task, Madam President.
There is nothing we can vote on until you have cleared this up with the Committee on Legal Affairs.
(Applause)My advice is therefore that we should not hold a vote today, but that we should await your decision, Madam President.
(Applause)
I agree with Mr Hänsch.
I see that Mr Barón Crespo is applauding Mr Hänsch. I therefore assume that he agrees with Mr Cohn­Bendit and will withdraw his request as this is not a genuine proposal from the Legal Affairs Committee.
This is the best solution for everyone.
Equal treatment
The next item is the report (A5-0136/2000) by Mrs Buitenweg, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin [COM(1999) 0566 - C5-0067/2000 - 1999/0253(CNS)].
Madam President, the agenda features an extremely important report by Mrs Buitenweg, yet, with all due respect, we are going through it rather quickly.
Especially given that we only voted on her report this week in the parliamentary committee, we have since had very little time to work on amendments for the plenary.
But to make matters worse, I have to say that, in this case, Rule 115 applies, which states that, except in the cases of urgency referred to in Rules 50 and 112, a debate and vote shall not be opened on a text unless it was distributed at least 24 hours previously.
The latter, Madam President, was unfortunately not the case.
As I understand, the French version was still not available this morning.
I suggest postponing the debate and vote on this extremely important report to the next part-session.
Thank you, Mr Cox.
Before giving the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Buitenweg, I can tell you that the report was available in all languages yesterday afternoon and that the amendments have only just become available.
It is quite clear that we are not within the time limit established in Rule 115.
Madam President, I am delighted with Mr Cox' s proposal and I think that it is also a viable compromise.
I regret that the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats have quoted Rule 115, because the last version of the text, which was the French one, was actually issued at 1.02 a.m.
It is now 23.5 hours later.
Maybe they need this last half hour to prepare for their debate, but it does seem that they seized on this as a rather lame excuse.
However, I am in favour of the compromise of starting this debate at 3.00 p.m., and I also hope that we will be able to finish it this afternoon.
I would like to point out once more that it is indeed extremely important to finish it during this sitting because, otherwise, we will lose all authority which we can still exercise in the Social Affairs Council, to be held on 5 and 6 June and, in that way, the report' s significance will be seriously undermined.
Mr Poettering, the law affecting any given issue is subject to interpretation.
I believe that the position adopted by Mr Cox - who formed a strategic majority with you in order to have Mrs Fontaine elected - is a compromise that makes it possible for everyone here to vote for a report on racism with their head held high.
Opinions may be divided about Austria, but when it comes to making it clear what our position is on racism in Europe, we should not get bogged down in a formal debate as we did just now, we should make it plain that we are clear-thinking people.
So I appeal to you to accept Mr Cox' s compromise so we can proceed with the debate with our heads held high.
Please, I beg you!
Madam President, on behalf of my Group, I would like to insist on Rule 115 and it is essential that it is checked how and when the translations were provided.
However, in line with Mr Cox, I deem it slightly inconvenient if, for that reason, this text will be debated on Friday morning, because this will surely cause a moral dilemma for a number of people.
We agree.
I am now looking to see whether the deadlines would be respected in this case.
They would.
I therefore put Mr Cox' s proposal, as accepted by the rapporteur, to the vote.
Madam President, yesterday my Group presented a request that all procedural questions related to this report should be subject to roll-call voting.
I would ask you to accept this request.
Mr President, just one specific question: when will the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance start, given that it was quite definitely and firmly set for 3 to 5.30 p.m.? This really is a mess!
At what time will it start? I have a right to know.
Mr Posselt, considering the time necessary for the debate on Mrs Buitenweg' s report, the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance will take place at approximately 4.30 p.m.
Trafficking in women
Mr President, Mrs Diamantopoulou, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to thank everyone who has worked on this report, that is to say, all collaborators, but also the people from the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities and the interpreters, who have worked very hard.
This report is also a reaction to the excellent communication by the Committee on new measures to fight trafficking in women.
By way of preparing for the report, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities organised a public hearing which involved experts and the presence of a victim who came to give her story.
A delegation of this committee, together with Mrs Diamantopoulou, visited a shelter for victims of trafficking in people.
Moreover, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Member States and candidate countries received a questionnaire on how they tackle trafficking in women, the results of which will be made available to the European Commission.
The report primarily aims to fight trafficking in women, but also in children and men, that is to say in people in general.
Trafficking in children does exist, but they are used as adults.
Men, too, are victims of trafficking in people and are sexually abused.
In fact, the sex industry is not the only market on which the victims of such trafficking are sold.
In Belgium, 40 percent of the victims end up on the labour market, in the textile, hotel and catering and fruit-picking industries, bakeries and the construction industry, or as house staff or au-pair girls, obliged to work as slaves in degrading conditions.
Victims are also recruited for the marriage market, as well as to sports clubs and football clubs.
According to estimates by the United Nations and the International Organisation for Migration, the IOM, every year four million people throughout the world fall victim to trafficking, 500 000 of whom end up in Europe.
All the signs are there that the number of victims is rising and that the influx from Central and Eastern European countries has exceeded the existing stream from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Asia.
In a report by the United Nations, it is stressed that trafficking in people is one of the fastest growing forms of organised crime.
The huge profits and relative safety for the perpetrators who generate this type of crime will undoubtedly have something to do with this.
The penalties for smuggling narcotics, for example, are far higher than those for trafficking in women.
Victims are often unable to speak out on account of the illegal situation they are in.
Since there are clear indications that these problems are developing within the framework of international networks, it is important that these problems are addressed and tackled at European level.
In order to tackle trafficking in people adequately, we first of all need a clear definition of trafficking in people.
Priority must also be given to the fight against organised networks which are not only involved in trafficking in people but which are also involved in all kinds of other criminal activity, such as the trade in narcotics, arms and such like.
I therefore applaud the new Community initiatives concerning money laundering where the income from trafficking in women plays a major role.
Various initiatives have already been taken at European level.
Efforts to increase public awareness have got off to a good start in the form of activities on the part of Interpol and Europol, initiatives in every individual Member State, Habitat projects, etc.
However, the harmonisation of the different national legislations in this field and the ensuing discrepancies in methods of investigation and prosecution have to be tackled at European level as a matter of priority.
From a survey organised in connection with this report, it is quite clear that there are considerable discrepancies in this sphere between the Member States and between one candidate country and another.
Some countries which have strict legislation on prostitution do not even have any legislation at all on trafficking in people.
By introducing the STOP programme, Europe is striking while the iron is hot, and opportunities for collaboration have opened up.
Last year, the Council adopted the DAPHNE programme.
This is a new policy tool intended to prevent all kinds of violence - physical, sexual and psychological - against women and children.
It is encouraging that, in the first half of this year, the Commission wishes to submit detailed proposals for harmonising criminal legislation in the Member States on trafficking in people with a view to their sexual exploitation and, specifically, proposals for granting temporary residence permits to victims who are prepared to cooperate in the investigations which are necessary if legal action is to be taken against the traffickers.
Scanning the amendments, I have the impression that some people want to hijack this report, which is about victims of trafficking in people, to start a debate on prostitution.
In the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, a clear decision was made to discuss trafficking in women, or forced prostitution, within the framework of this report.
A debate on whether or not to ban or legalise prostitution may be pressing, but cannot be held at this point in the interest of the victims of trafficking in people.
As I said, trafficking in people is not just about the problem of demand for prostitution. Victims of trafficking in women also find it extremely difficult to re-integrate into their place of origin and even within their own families.
Once they have, as victims, worked in prostitution, they are labelled prostitutes for the rest of their lives or, as the saying goes, once a prostitute, always a prostitute.
The initiatives which have been taken are the first step towards a solution but the number of victims continues to grow.
A great deal therefore remains to be done.
We have submitted proposals on prevention, reception of victims and legislation.
A society faced with such a phenomenon has a moral duty towards the victims and must give a high priority to the fight against trafficking in people and to victim support.
. (FR) Mr President, this report is vitally important.
We are profoundly affected by the tragedy of trafficking in women which is a modern form of slavery.
Our priority must be to give aid and assistance to the victims.
We must fight to eliminate all the links in the chain, namely recruitment, transport, managers, middlemen and clients.
By holding this debate today in the European Parliament, we are helping the victims to regain their dignity and integrity.
Women and children are being traded like goods and doomed to prostitution.
Trafficking in women is an important type of trade for organised crime which regards human beings as goods to be bought and sold.
Misfortune, misery and the false promises of pimps are luring these young women into our countries.
They are attracted by promises of employment and some even come in the hope of getting married.
They have no idea of the miserable conditions in which they will be exploited, beaten, tortured and threatened.
Over half of the victims are under the age of 25 and around 10% are between 15 and 18.
Even if these very young girls seem willing, because they are being threatened or are in love, we cannot, at any price, allow prostitution to continue freely when you see how these women are terrorised and traded.
This is why, in our opinion, we cannot use the term 'forced prostitution' in this report.
Trafficking in women involves terrible sexual exploitation.
We must help these victims to speak out and denounce their living conditions.
We must welcome and help them.
The pimps are very violent and victims must pay off large debts to cover the cost of their journeys and the various identity documents which they must acquire.
When they resist the pressure of traffickers and pimps, they are threatened either personally or through their families.
The traffickers belong to a Mafia-like criminal organisation and control several links in the network that has power over the victim.
There is no way out for victims and the very nature of the environment in which they work often reduces them to despair and drug addiction.
Some even go as far as committing suicide.
Fighting against trafficking in human beings is essential but it is better to prevent this.
It is therefore vital to establish a system of information and preventive education for both young people in the countries concerned and also clients who are often what we would call 'family men' .
We should not forget that trafficking has economic roots.
Inequalities and relationships of dependency between privileged and disadvantaged countries mean that it is still always the weakest in society, particularly the women, who pay the price.
We demand a coherent European policy which is why this report is so important.
Trafficking in women is a crime. Trafficking in human beings and sexual exploitation are unworthy of humanity.
Mr President, it has already been said.
We are touching upon an important topic here, namely that of people' s dignity.
As has been said, it is not just about trafficking in women, although that is the subject of the communication, but it extends to trafficking in people generally.
Men, girls and boys, are also involved.
It is a growing problem in the EU, too.
Trafficking in women appears to be financially lucrative.
Not only do women from Asian countries fall victim, but also more and more women from Central and Eastern European countries, including women from candidate countries.
They are lured under false pretences - through job advertisements, for example - into becoming hairdressers or into working in bars or as dancers, or else they are enticed via the lonely hearts columns.
Women are often easy prey, given the poor conditions they live under.
Trafficking in women is increasingly linked with international criminal organisations.
A great deal has been done, but still more needs to be done, especially when it comes to aligning different countries' legislation for the purposes of tracing and prosecution and when it comes to providing information to the police and courts.
This is why I welcome the European Commission' s initiative, as well as the specific proposals in the report, for example, with regard to the further harmonisation of legislation which may facilitate the tracing of victims and prosecution of offenders and make these activities more efficient; with regard to cooperation and coordination, especially during investigations, at police stations and in the courts; and also specifically with regard to the reception and protection of victims.
I hope it will be possible to adopt the amendment on non-governmental organisations, tabled by our group and amended in consultation with the Greens.
Whenever new needs arise, emergency help is often provided by people or groups of people who feel compelled to do something about these on ideological grounds or out of religious conviction.
These groups do not always get the recognition they deserve.
The amendment states that NGOs can also include ideologically-based organisations.
Finally, I would like to state that this is an important communication from the Commission.
It is a sound communication and a sound report on which I would like to congratulate Mrs Sörensen.
I hope that the Member States will adopt a dynamic approach in their future dealings with it.
Mr President, the shameful truth is that our prosperous and free Europe is tolerating a lucrative trade - the trafficking in women - which involves torture, inhumane treatment and flagrant violations of fundamental rights.
The victims have described savage beatings, rapes, abductions, death threats and, on occasions, murders.
The real scandal is that we not only tolerate it in Europe, but we contribute to its expansion.
Every time members of the public purchase the sexual services of a woman trapped in a trafficking ring, they are adding to the abhorrent wealth of these criminal organisations, which employ increasingly cruel methods.
Unfortunately, the institutions' search for solutions is progressing very slowly, and the problem is growing.
In any event, we should recognise that the European Commission' s proposals are, on the whole, reasonable and hopefully useful.
Nevertheless, and given the cross-border nature of this crime, we need to harmonise its classification in all the Member States, including cross-border aspects and universal jurisdiction.
The receiving countries should grant the victims a temporary residence permit for the duration of legal proceedings, regardless of whether or not they wish to testify.
Furthermore, the extremely harsh conditions in which the victims live more than justify the Member States granting them permanent residence permits for humanitarian reasons.
Furthermore, persecution on the basis of gender and, specifically, the trafficking in women, should be considered appropriate grounds for the granting of refugee status.
If we really want to help the victims, we must guarantee their safety as well as that of their families and compensate them through the seizure of the networks' assets.
These victims should also have free access to shelter, medical and psychological assistance, social services, help in finding work, etc.
All of these considerations have been approved practically unanimously by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, but they will not be enough.
Combating the trafficking in women and immigration policy must become a priority within the political agenda of the European Union and the Member States.
Immigration policies which revolve around the consequences and which are not aimed at tackling the causes will do nothing more than exacerbate this terrible pattern of exploitation which is tantamount to slavery.
Poverty, social inequality and armed conflict explain migratory flows.
Until we find overall solutions to the question of development, the number of people searching for a better life will be unstoppable and migratory pressure uncontainable.
So let us analyse, assess and implement genuine development and integration policies.
At the end of the day, the fight against the trafficking in human beings, as well as being essential to the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice, is an unavoidable ethical duty.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mrs Sörensen.
Not only is she proficient, she is also extremely committed to the subject matter.
The fact that she managed to put this important topic on the European agenda is a huge achievement.
Trafficking in women has been overlooked for too long, and politicians underestimate its importance.
A good illustration of this is that it is now three years since the Justice Ministers declared that it was important to appoint national rapporteurs to monitor trafficking in women.
This actually happened in the Netherlands, not least thanks to the efforts of Secretary of State Verstand.
Unfortunately, many Member States still do not have national rapporteurs and they really should remedy this as soon as possible.
At the same time, legislation as well as cooperation are inadequate.
This report offers many ideas and specific proposals and therefore has the backing of the Liberal Group.
There are, however, two points which may seem commendable, but to which we are unfortunately unable to subscribe.
The first concerns automatic refugee status for victims of trafficking in women.
In our opinion, this is a bridge too far, because this would require the entire Geneva Convention to be overturned.
We do find it important, however, that it should be possible to grant residence permits on humanitarian grounds.
We will therefore continue to support this proposal.
Our second objection concerns the reversal of the burden of proof.
What is required here is tantamount to surrendering an important and fundamental part of legal protection, namely the fact that one is considered innocent until proven guilty.
This principle is important in a constitutional state.
The concept is taken from administrative law and mainly pertains to discrimination at the workplace.
To incorporate this principle into criminal law would be a huge step.
Liberals attach great importance to legal protection and we are not prepared to take that step now.
Finally, the discussion on trafficking in women and people is important and a matter of urgency.
This is why it would be wrong to weigh down this discussion with moral judgements on prostitution, as certain people here are attempting to do.
If we do this, it will make the discussion infinitely more complex and will get in the way of effective measures against the trafficking in women.
This should not happen.
The problem is urgent and effective measures are required.
Not just words, but deeds are what are needed now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will allow me to speak on behalf of the Greens as my colleague has had to accompany the Member who was taken ill.
In my opinion, it is very fortunate that Mrs Sörensen should have been given the responsibility of preparing this report on trafficking in women.
There are few rapporteurs who have such direct knowledge of this subject for Mrs Sörensen has been concerned for over 20 years with the issues of trafficking in women and prostitution.
We should therefore place our full trust in her proposals. I myself totally support her report.
However, I should like to comment briefly on the discussions held on this subject in committee and also in the Member States, given that the United Nations Conference on the situation of women throughout the world, to be held in New York in June, is now approaching.
In these discussions several rather abolitionist associations have tried to lump together trafficking in women, prostitution and pimping.
They have therefore encouraged a certain amount of generalisation and are, as a result, opposed to any form of debate on these issues, hiding behind moral considerations such as the inalienability of the human body and its treatment as a saleable commodity.
To this end, they have attacked the latest report by the International Labour Office on trafficking in women and prostitution, and the work of Mrs Lin Lean Lim highlighting the need for a statute to protect prostitutes. They have also decried Europe as a pimp on the grounds that certain countries are trying to establish non-abolitionist legislation in this area.
We surely cannot leave an issue such as this in the hands of associations of which some, and only some, having fought against abortion, are now refusing the distribution of condoms to prostitutes, which they see as encouraging prostitution.
There is but a single step from commiseration to stigmatisation and from victimisation to contempt and exclusion from public debate.
The only solution for prostitutes is to be integrated within a common law system, to look after themselves, to live decently, to defend themselves against the violence to which they are subjected by pimps, clients and institutions. The only solution is to recognise prostitutes as such and, as a first step, to give them a voice.
Recognition of their professional activity, full social rights and police protection from any form of violence are what they are demanding.
We must listen to them.
Whether legislation is abolitionist as in France, prohibitionist as in Sweden or even sometimes regulatory, if it fails to recognise a whole population this can only reinforce discrimination against forced immigrants and also prostitutes, irrespective of whether they are immigrants or not.
The ineffectiveness of the law reinforces the enslavement of male and female prostitutes by pimps, for some, and the impossibility for others of living with dignity or of getting out of prostitution. This leads to a breakdown in any fragile solidarity and further damage to their self-image.
Mrs Roure is right in her analysis of this problem but we accept that different solutions must be examined and that various proposals must be made and considered.
The Commission absolutely must examine all forms of common legislation on prostitution which would give real status to prostitutes in order to protect these women and men from pimping, violence and marginalisation.
Mr President, to begin with, I want to thank Mrs Sörensen for a very good, interesting and tremendously readable report.
We are almost one hundred per cent in agreement in the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
We would emphasise not only the cooperation from the police which has fed into this report, but also the importance of contributions at all levels of society.
There are nonetheless two things we do not entirely agree with.
The first concerns the role of the sex industry in this issue.
We are, all of us, right across the political spectrum, completely agreed that it is poverty that is the major cause of prostitution and trafficking in women.
I nonetheless believe that the sex industry, which is now moreover beginning to register some of its activities on the stock exchange, must be called into question and, in future, also held to account.
The other disputed issue is - as always where this subject is concerned - the view to be taken of prostitution. Almost throughout the report, the term enforced prostitution is used.
However, the use of this term implies that there is an opposite, that is to say voluntary prostitution. That is very strange, especially when we are talking about slavery and trafficking in women.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left has tabled a few amendments, some of them on this subject and in connection with which we naturally hope that we shall receive support.
I would again thank Mrs Sörensen and all our colleagues.
Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be the last time we debate this issue, even though it is so far only the second time we have done so.
Mr President, trafficking in women is not just a women' s issue. It also falls within the wider global context of international crime and trafficking in human beings.
Raising such an issue today might seem anachronistic but slavery will indeed be a part of the 21st century.
It is a potent force which takes advantage of the misery of the displaced who travel the world against their will, who are sold, bought and then brought to Europe.
Nothing is preventing these global pimps from pressurising families to sell their children and luring girls to Europe to make them work and become prostitutes.
During a conference organised jointly by the United States of America and the Philippines in March, the very lucrative aspect of this new market was also raised.
Trafficking in human beings is, after drugs and weapons, the third largest source of income for organised crime.
Yet trafficking in human beings is, above all, a violation of human dignity and human rights.
Our societies are demanding the right to happiness, pleasure and freedom, and the removal of taboos.
It seems not to matter if people, women and children in particular, are paying the price by being dragged down into the underworld.
Prostitution is a form of slavery which we like to make out to be exotic and romantic in order to hide its tragedy and sordidness.
Yet it is actually a denial of freedom.
These crimes are committed solely for the sake of pleasure and are treated with widespread indifference by a society which accepts prostitution as the oldest profession in the world. This is also true of pornography which is found in the daily papers, on television and on the Internet, where everything can be bought, even girls.
Prostitution, trafficking in human beings, sex tourism and paedophilia are all issues highlighted by the media which are gradually becoming less taboo.
So much the better, for the resignation shown towards what society has deemed to be irreversible is intolerable.
We must now help these people whose bodies are being exploited for commercial purposes, both in our countries and in their countries of origin, by increasing aid for development, education and cooperation between countries.
The European Union must wake up to this situation and, rather than giving lessons to the women of the world, five years after the Beijing Conference, it would do better to clean up its own backyard.
Trafficking in human beings is incredibly widespread in our countries because the demand exists and because the European Union is adept at showing itself to be a greedy customer, disdainful of the distress caused to these adults and children who have been denied any choice.
To conclude, I will refer to the slogan of the seminar organised in Paris on 15 May under the patronage of the European Parliament which says that the humiliation of human beings through prostitution represents an intolerable attack on human rights.
Mr President, on behalf of the Members of the Bonino List, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent report on the tragic issue of trafficking in women.
We are sure that Parliament will adopt this extremely well-balanced report by a very large majority, for no one could tolerate the current violence perpetrated against women who are abducted or forced by deception and threats to enter the European Union, where they are compelled to live a life of forced prostitution or do some other sort of job under coercion.
We are all familiar with the horrific stories of prostitutes, often minors, who are abducted from their native countries, forced to enter the Union - we are told - illegally, raped and threatened with retaliation against their relatives or even killed if they have the courage to denounce their pimps.
The report recommends possible solutions which have already been successfully implemented, such as issuing victims with residence permits and providing protection and free healthcare.
These measures, which have already been successfully implemented in some States, must be extended to cover the whole of the European Union.
I would, however, like to draw your attention to a matter of paramount importance: is it not the direct and indirect prohibition of prostitution and the restrictive laws on immigration which are responsible for trafficking in women and forced prostitution? Is it not the case that the victims of prostitution-related crimes are compelled to enter that profession because of their illegal immigrant status and their vulnerability, caught between the violence of their pimps and the forces of the law?
Is it not the very fact of prohibition which renders the phenomenon it is intended to control uncontrollable, tragic and inhuman?
And why should those people who, of their own free will, want to be prostitutes have to suffer from what is essentially a ban on related activities and the subterfuge which, in practice, criminalise the practice of voluntary prostitution, even though prostitution is formally legal in many Member States?
Moreover, would the legalisation of voluntary prostitution not also allow foreign prostitutes to improve their situation in that they would no longer be obliged to work illegally in violent conditions as they are now?
For this reason, we have tabled two amendments: the first amendment calls for the preparation of a cost/benefit analysis of the various laws and policies currently in place and those which may be adopted in the future; the second amendment proposes measures to protect adults from criminal exploitation and violence, adults who, in all freedom from direct or indirect coercion, choose to work as prostitutes, accepting to run their business in accordance with legal procedures.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, simply raising a problem is an admission of its gravity.
Some 500 000 victims of the traffic in human beings arrive each year in Western Europe.
It is imperative to tackle trafficking in women because, having shown its determination to fight money laundering, drug trafficking and organised crime, the European Union has forgotten that trafficking in human beings is one of the major aspects of organised crime.
I must congratulate Mrs Sörensen on her report which has come on the eve of the enlargement of the Union to the CCEEs, which are often singled out as the countries of origin or transit in prostitution and modern-day slavery.
As for the method, I must say that the fight against trafficking in human beings does not necessarily need full communitarisation but rather close cooperation between Member States under the aegis of Europol and Interpol. These inter-state structures have proven their effectiveness on the ground.
Our aim is to ensure that trafficking in human beings is regarded as a criminal offence to be severely punished in all Member States. In doing so, examples must also be made of those responsible for instigating such networks.
Given the current state of legislation, we are faced with a wide diversity of penal traditions in our Member States.
Establishing specific offences at Community level would therefore lead to an impasse.
Instead, we must take inspiration from the method in the Schmid report on combating fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment.
The Council of Ministers could, on a proposal from the Commission, draw up a list of criminal behaviour to be combated, which the Member States would be responsible for converting into criminal offences in accordance with their legal traditions.
To conclude, I am sure that this would render the action we are taking to combat this scourge more effective and that we would avoid the pitfalls of a harmonisation which would delay the measures which must now be adopted.
The debate on this report looks set to run into the afternoon, but more specific information on the continuation of the debate and the organisation of business for today' s sitting will be provided later on.
We shall now proceed to the votes.
Mr President, there was to have been a debate on the question of football violence.
The events last night in Copenhagen underline the importance of the European Parliament having this debate, as it decided to do earlier in the week.
Because of the natural difficulties about the location of the matches under Euro 2000, the PPE-ED Group as a whole has decided not to support this resolution and to withdraw it.
On the other hand, the British delegation, which is now 36 members, has retabled the resolution in its original form.
Mr President, I ask you to rule it admissible for this debate to now take place, as was the wish of the House earlier in the week.
The debate will take place as proposed.
The exact time will be announced later.
Vote
Mr Purvis, the way we work is that the first resolution tabled is the first taken.
When a compromise is created, if it contains the first resolution, that compromise is taken first, no matter how many groups are involved in the compromise.
Mr President, the resolution by the Green Group was tabled first.
It is perfectly correct that we should vote on that text first as we reached a compromise with a number of other groups.
Indeed, Members throughout this House have supported it.
I hope they will do so during the vote - even some Members of political groups who have not supported that compromise - because the situation at Sellafield is serious.
Mr President, I have an interest in a sector affected by the Commission communication which is the subject of this report.
As a result, I will not take part in any vote on this report.
I must do likewise with regard to the following report by Mr Alyssandrakis on radio spectrum policy, unless you can immediately formally acknowledge my declaration.
Mr President, Mrs Flesch quite rightly declares an interest in matters in which she has an interest.
I suggest that such a declaration is not necessary when voting.
When Members are speaking in debate, either in committee or in plenary, they should declare an interest, but that should not prevent them from voting on a subject.
I do not want to have a debate on this.
I do not want to dig the rules up.
My own memory of the Rules is that you should do it before votes as well.
Mr President, I wanted to make the following suggestion.
A number of amendments have been tabled which were, in fact, already in the text when the vote was taken in committee.
With your help, I would like to try to tidy up the report a little and remove a number of redundant items.
In addition, I have an oral amendment to paragraphs L, M, N and O which I have distributed to the different coordinators who assented to it.
This is a tidying-up exercise.
Are there any objections to that oral amendment?
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
Mr President, in these circumstances, an own-initiative report and all this confusion, I propose that it be returned to the competent committee and that they do the work properly.
Mr Barón Crespo, is this a formal request on behalf of the Socialist Group?
Mr President, with great respect to the rapporteur, she is making a point which was not made at all in the debate last night.
This is a report which had to be produced in great haste.
Two committees made substantial input to it.
It may be that, in the end, there will be some redundancy, but there are different points being made.
Last night the Commissioner gave no indication that he found anything ambiguous or difficult.
It is quite out of order that we should do anything other than vote on each of the points on the voting list.
I would like to thank everyone for their comments but I agree most with the comment made by Mr Hänsch.
Maybe it is useful occasionally to look at how we set about things here in Parliament.
This seems a very enjoyable exercise.
I do not want to start another debate.
The Bureau is looking at the working methods of Parliament.
You will all receive a copy of Mr Provan' s excellent discussion document in the near future.
Before the House adjourns you might like to hear the proposal for the organisation of business for the rest of the day.
We are proposing at 3 p.m. to have a debate on the Buitenweg report, followed by the debate on items of topical and urgent debate.
At 6 p.m. we will vote firstly on Buitenweg and then on the urgency resolutions and then after that, on all the other votes on which the debates have closed.
That will be the agenda.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Twice this week we have been in a situation where groups have made requests for a roll-call vote on the final vote of a report and, just before the final vote, the Chamber is told that the roll call has been withdrawn.
What is the situation, because if, for example, a request for a roll call has been made, other groups do not actually make a request so the opportunity to hold a roll-call vote on the final report is denied us?
Could you explain what the situation is?
I accept that it is unsatisfactory that groups can withdraw their requests at any stage.
All I can suggest is a belt-and-braces approach.
If you want to ensure that there is a roll call, make a request on behalf of your own group as well.
I accept that it is not a very satisfactory situation.
Mr President, I think there should be an opportunity for someone else to take over the request for a roll-call vote.
There must be a chance to do this if another group withdraws its request.
That was the point here!
This is a matter for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
Under the present rules there is nothing to stop Members withdrawing their requests for roll-call votes.
Mr President, I did not understand what was to happen with Mrs Sörensen' s report. Will the debate continue following the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance?
Otherwise, when is it intended that the debate should take place? According to the information I received earlier, we were to continue the debate on Mrs Sörensen' s report today, following the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
You did not say that this was to be the case, however, and I should therefore like to have it confirmed.
That is correct.
As normal after the votes, we will continue with the debates and the first two are Sörensen and Karamanou.
So we will carry on with the debates.
Mr President, I would also like to say a few words on the order of business for this afternoon.
You have indicated that we will start with the Buitenweg report at 3.00 p.m. and that we will vote at 6.00 p.m.
On our desks, we have found an anonymous document which states that we will be voting on the Buitenweg report and also dealing with any remaining votes at 6.00 p.m.
Secondly, the document lists the urgency, debate on which has been concluded, and thirdly, contains urgencies which have not been debated due to a lack of time.
I would like you to confirm whether the third point is being considered and I would like to register a protest against it, because that would mean that we would have to vote on urgencies that have not been debated.
This seems unacceptable to me.
That is correct and that is what the House has agreed to, so that is what we will be doing.
Mr President, I rise on a similar point, because I am not clear what the House has agreed to.
We have agreed to vote at 6 p.m.
What we could do is reduce the amount of speaking time for urgencies so there will be an opportunity for a debate on each of them.
It is certainly not clear to the House that we have agreed to vote on urgencies that have failed to be discussed.
Mr Ford, that is not a matter for the President.
What we have decided is to allocate the first hour of what normally would have been the urgency debate to the Buitenweg report.
The house did that earlier.
That was a decision for the House.
The House is sovereign in these matters.
It is then up to the groups to decide how they allocate speaking time for the urgency debates.
If we have enough time we will do all the debates; if we do not, we will not.
It will depend on how the groups allocate speaking time between the different subjects and that is a matter for the groups, not for the President.
Mr President, we agreed that we would take the debate on Buitenweg, not that we would spend one hour on it.
For example, I have been told that I will be speaking just after an hour into the debate, so I guess the Buitenweg debate will take probably an hour and a half at least.
It was not agreed we would reduce the time of that debate, let us be clear on that.
You are right.
I said an hour.
It was a slip of the tongue.
I believe it is scheduled for an hour and a half.
Again, it will depend on Members' discipline, something that this House is renowned for.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I refer to the comments made in a statement this morning by Mrs Fontaine regarding certain logistical problems in the building. In the interests of transparency and information to Members, we need to know the extent of the problem of legionella.
Could you provide us with information on that? What procedures have been put in place?
Has the air-conditioning system now been switched off? Can we therefore assume that an operation has been undertaken to disinfect the system?
Could you confirm this and, indeed, could Parliament' s presidency confirm that there is no problem with asbestosis which, of course, would be in breach of our own EU directive passed over a decade ago.
I personally am not in a position to answer any of your questions.
I have no information on this subject.
You will have to refer the matter to the President and to the Quaestors.
I will certainly draw attention to your remarks.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Ferber report (A5-0121/2000)
Mr President, I was unable to assent to the Ferber report.
From Parliament' s viewpoint, there is always a reason to ask for more money for our own operations.
But the European Union will not become more democratic if the European Parliament receives more funding.
Public opinion within Europe requires us to be frugal.
The money that is available should be spent on the needs of our 375 million people and on the protection of our environment, not on the European Parliament as an institution.
I am of the opinion that we could save ourselves a great deal of cost and unnecessary effort if we were to replace the system of reports and rapporteurs by getting the groups to react directly to the planned proposals, as is the case in most national parliaments.
Finally, I am also against donating tax money to European syndicates of political parties and against filling vacancies for interpreters in a way which offers newcomers a poor legal position.
Mr President, I was happy to vote for the Ferber report on the budget for the financial year 2001, but I am not very happy with the minimal amount of space, money and European Union funds it allocates to supporting activities benefiting pensioners and the elderly.
I do not mean that we have to allocate to pensioners, the elderly and their problems the same proportion of our budget as they occupy of society, i.e. approximately 32% at the last count. I am not saying that 32% of our budget should be allocated to activities related to the elderly, but I would, nevertheless, be very happy with at least 3%, or even 0.3%.
- (NL) I am 100% behind the proposal to in fact allocate 35 vacant posts, funded from the enlargement reserve, to the language sector, provided, however, that all languages of the candidate countries are represented.
This is why I have voted in favour of Amendment No 2.
It is essential that the European Parliament be well prepared for the forthcoming enlargement to include Central and Eastern Europe.
This should coincide with the timely training of professional and highly skilled translators and interpreters.
As previous enlargements have shown, it is not viable to wait for this to happen.
Multilingualism is a prerequisite for the smooth running of the European Parliament for three reasons.
Firstly, on account of the principle of equality, according to which all Members must be able to carry out their work under the same conditions.
Secondly, due to the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament.
The European Parliament is the democratic representation of the people.
Thirdly, because of the requirement of usefulness.
Multilingualism boosts the efficiency of parliamentary work.
In order to give concrete form to this requirement of multilingualism, we need a debate as a matter of urgency.
In this connection, I would refer to the final report of the working party on "multilingualism" , compiled under the guidance of Mr Cot, in which various specific options have been suggested.
Whichever is adopted, it is clear that linguistic preparation for enlargement should not be postponed any longer.
Mr Ferber' s report, which we are debating today, highlights the need for a more rigorous budget policy for our institution. We are in favour of this.
The limited increase of 2.28% in Parliament' s budget proposed for the financial year 2001, which works out at EUR 987.8 million, seems acceptable, all the more so as this proposal uses a realistic inflation rate of around 2%.
The amount proposed corresponds to 20% of the appropriations for heading five and therefore respects the ceiling which the European Parliament itself set for 2001.
However, in view of the need to deal with the consequences, including linguistic ones, of future enlargements, this limited increase in the budget of our institution more than ever requires rational and responsible management of this budget.
In terms of staff policy, an analysis should therefore be carried out, as requested in the report, of the current profiles of the institution' s staff, in the light of Parliament' s clearly changing needs, in order to make the best possible preparations for the necessary structural adaptations.
With regard to the Court of Auditors' comments on the expenditure of the political groups, the resolution seems to be heading in the right direction by inviting the Parliament' s Bureau and Secretary-General to achieve complete transparency in the use of appropriations.
The French delegation of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group cannot, however, accept the idea of entering appropriations intended for European political parties on a separate budget line. We have absolutely no doubt that this would eventually favour the alliances, associations and groupings of European political parties with an essentially federalist and integrationist aim.
With regard to language, this is by nature one of the most sensitive issues as it affects our identity, culture and pride. We are all more or less aware that the current situation cannot continue, even less so given the imminent enlargements.
As a result, it is up to us to reflect and to act wisely and carefully, without upsetting any sensibilities, but also without wasting any time.
One of the possible ways forward could be to recognise for each of us, as the elected representatives of our people, the inalienable right to speak in our own language. This would then be interpreted or translated into one of the three most widely used languages according to the demographic, cultural and economic factors which prevail in the European Union.
These three languages are clearly French, German and English. In this way, respect for the identities, nations and cultures of Europe and cost-effectiveness in the daily work of the European institutions could be combined.
This solution would also have the virtue of recognising the three main cultures and origins of the European Union in its current composition, namely the Latin, Anglo-Saxon and Germanic components.
This solution would also offer the undeniable advantage of benefiting all the European candidate countries whose first foreign language is French, German or English.
Finally, whereas one of these languages is particularly important in Europe, the other two are used worldwide.
- (NL) Democracy inevitably costs a great deal of money.
We are voting on a Parliament budget to the tune of nearly EUR 1 billion!
A huge sum, although it remains within the agreed 20% of the estimate for all European institutions put together.
We owe it to the citizens of Europe - the taxpayers, who have to produce this kind of capital - to keep the costs in check.
Reading in paragraph 18 about the buildings which Parliament needs, we can only conclude that a considerable amount of Community money is being squandered.
Indeed, the European Parliament has no need at all for the building in which we are meeting this week!
We have everything we need in Brussels in terms of facilities.
Let it be clear that we have no need to buy this glass palace, whatever - I am sure - necessary conditions are being met.
Recently, more than 400 Members once again stated that we want to decide for ourselves where we meet.
We are hardly blaming the rapporteur for overlooking this in his report, which certainly deserves appreciation, for example, when he calls on the Council and European Parliament to agree on the statute of the Members. This Parliament should be deeply ashamed of the fact that, one year after the elections, this is still not even in sight.
The budget line suggested by the Court of Auditors for European parties is really not necessary.
All-embracing budget lines of this kind blur our cultural and political diversity and increase the distance between ourselves and the citizen.
As far as the many thefts in the buildings are concerned, it is unacceptable that, despite an extensive security service, these can take place more or less on a daily basis.
With our vote against this budget, we want to send out a signal that a radical change is required in the priorities we set.
- (NL) I would like to congratulate my colleague, Mr Ferber, on his report, although I did not agree with everything and voted - against his recommendation - for Amendment No 2 and against Amendment No 8 of his draft resolution.
I have done so with great conviction because I am of the view that we as the European Parliament do not send out a political signal or pre-empt a political decision by adopting the Secretary-General' s proposal (and filling 35 vacancies in the language sector) but accomplish this by doing the exact opposite.
As long as the House rules on language use are not amended, the candidate countries and ourselves can assume that the language arrangement will stay as it is, that is to say: first of all, that each MEP can use his own language at official meetings.
Secondly, that each MEP has documents in his language at his disposal.
Thirdly, that we in this way are not only treating the Members equally but above all, the citizens we represent.
- (DE) I voted for Mr Ferber' s report on our budget for 2001, but I cannot let this opportunity pass without protesting in the strongest terms against what can only be described as the blackmail practised against certain categories of officials, particular more junior ones, so that they find themselves 'voluntarily compelled' to transfer from Luxembourg to Brussels, on the pretext that they are in Brussels or Strasbourg 'en mission' , i.e. on business, for more than 50 working days per year.
The European Parliament now has three places of work: Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg.
This was agreed by the Heads of State and Government at their summit in Edinburgh years ago.
We have to live with this, and with its financial consequences, which are not so great, and which are certainly justified by avoiding unhealthy centralisation in Brussels, as is unfortunately practised by a good third of the present Members of the European Parliament.
We are now suffering from an example of this centralisation at the hands of certain Green Members, who prevented a number of important votes on the Friday of the April Strasbourg part-session, because the quorum of one third of the Members present was not established.
I have been a Member of this Parliament since 1965, with a break between 1974 and 1989, so I have 20 years' of attendance behind me, during which time I was present at every Friday sitting in Strasbourg.
The flimsy arguments put forward by those who want to reduce the European Parliament' s five-day week in Strasbourg to four days, and who would also prefer not to turn up here on Mondays, are part of their salami tactics, which are obviously aimed at sabotaging Parliament' s seat in Strasbourg for 12 sittings each year, not to mention their objective of transferring the offices of the Secretariat from Luxembourg to Brussels.
The Bureau now intends to present a working paper by a British Vice-President which proposes moving all the services and Directorates-General from Luxembourg to Brussels.
The idea is to keep at most the specialist services such as the printing and translating services in Luxembourg.
This cannot and will not happen.
It would be a clear infringement of the letter and the spirit of the decisions made by the Heads of State and Government about Parliament' s places of work, and this needs to be said here in the clearest possible terms.
I have a word of warning for those people who are using these salami tactics against Strasbourg and Brussels.
We will thwart your highly undemocratic machinations against democratically reached decisions about Parliament' s places of work and about the calendar of meetings - because we have right on our side.
Katiforis report (A5-0134/2000)
I voted for the Katiforis report on the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States because of the important points contained therein, but I did so unwillingly.
This was because this report repeatedly states that we must react to the fact that the population is ageing and control it - the number of elderly people is constantly increasing, making it difficult to maintain pension systems - and that we need to be vigilant and call upon the Member States to spend increasingly less money on pension payments for the elderly.
In my opinion, it is absolutely unacceptable that the elderly continue to be blamed for national budgetary difficulties.
Mr President, as the rapporteur rightly mentions in the second point in his report, budget consolidation must be given the highest priority at present.
We can only increase the confidence of the public and, above all, of the financial markets in the euro by means of consistent budgetary discipline. I say all this bearing in mind that the euro yesterday sank near to its historic low of 3 May.
The rapporteur was unable to include the stability programme which has now been presented by the Austrian Government in his report.
I would therefore like to point out that the new government is determined to overcome the problems that the previous government left behind.
The old government led by the Social Democrats certainly did not bequeath it an easy task.
However, all the commitments in the Stability Pact should now be fully met for the year 2000.
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(EL) Despite the objective of increasing productivity, investment and employment levels in the Union, the Commission' s broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States and the Community are a set of negative guidelines: continuing budgetary restrictions which go beyond the requirements of the Stability Pact, wage restrictions, tax reforms for the benefit of the better off, further disintegration of the labour market and the crucial importance of competition policy, which brings pressure to bear on the principles of social justice.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Policy, despite the sensitivity of its rapporteur, Mr Katiforis, has maintained the spirit of the Commission' s recommendation, which is why I shall vote against the motion for a resolution.
The Union should promote a policy which combines quantitative development with a reduction in working times, increased productivity, tax reforms to support society and development and the modernisation, not the eradication, of the public sector.
The Katiforis report is a crude apology for the broad economic policy guidelines of the Member States.
Of its 29 paragraphs, eight start by showing approval and four by being self-congratulatory.
For the working population and just about everyone else in the countries of the European Union, there is really nothing for which to congratulate oneself.
What good is the economic growth vaunted by the report when it is recommended that 'reasonable attitudes in wage negotiations' are adopted, by employees of course, or when it is presumptuously claimed that 'a drastic revision of pension systems' is needed with the aim of 'safeguarding their financial soundness' ? This is simply a way of acknowledging that, in this 'growth' which the Katiforis report asks Parliament to congratulate, there is no room for employees or pensioners.
Once again, the Council and Commission are acting on behalf of employers and are asking Parliament to give its backing to this.
As far as we are concerned, we were not elected to congratulate governments which help employers and major financial groups to get rich by exacerbating inequalities, leaving 18 million men and women unemployed, making flexibility and precariousness widespread and drastically reducing the wage bill in order to ensure continued growth in capital income, including in its most parasitic and speculative forms.
If, as the report states, it is true that growth is returning, it is simply disgraceful that only a small minority in Europe will benefit from this.
As a result we have voted against the report.
I approved Mr Katiforis' s approach and arguments in committee.
I was due to say this yesterday during the debate in plenary but a technical problem prevented me from doing so for which I apologise.
Like Mr Katiforis, I am delighted to see renewed growth in Europe.
However, also like the rapporteur, I know that this will not be enough to enable a return to a situation of full employment without the Member States adopting a proactive policy and, I would add, without a reduction in working hours.
Finally, I too would say that employment cannot be generated by unbridled liberalisation, accelerated privatisation and a reduction of social and labour protection.
I am not satisfied with everything on which we voted at midday but I have supported the rapporteur in the final vote.
- (PT) In its broad economic policy guidelines for 2000, the European Commission makes it clear that it advocates neo-liberal policies, emphasising as it does the Stability Pact and monetarist policies, faster liberalisation of the telecommunications, energy, postal services, transport and financial services sectors, together with an increase in flexible working arrangements and in the modernisation of social protection systems.
This means that despite referring to the need for active employment policies to combat unemployment and to achieve full employment in the medium term, the Commission continues to prescribe the same solutions, which have not brought any net improvement in employment, since the current unemployment rate is even higher than it was at the start of the decade, as the Commission recognises.
In this European Parliament report, the rapporteur makes some criticisms of the acceleration of the convergence and stability criteria objectives, insists on the need to increase investment and accepts the adoption of global fiscal measures in order to combat financial speculation. This is a positive step.
Nevertheless, he accepts faster liberalisation of the transport and energy sectors, an increase in flexible working and the process of budget consolidation already under way, thus highlighting his own contradictions.
We have presented various amendments with a view to improving the content of the report. In particular, these are designed to strengthen the position of small and micro-enterprises and their associations, to advocate jobs associated with proper rights and reduced working hours, and to call into question the Stability Pact and the consequences of implementing it.
Unfortunately, with the exception of support for SMEs, we were unable to have any of these amendments adopted, and have therefore voted against the report.
I must firstly congratulate the rapporteur on the quality of his work.
The broad guidelines of European economic policy developed in this report seem to be heading in the right direction.
Full employment and the transition to a knowledge-based economy form our common aim for the first decade of the 21st century.
Whether or not the pessimists like this, all the economic lights are on green.
We must therefore be bold in order to continue the growth now being witnessed at European level.
The prospects for the years 2000 and 2001 are encouraging, with growth forecasts of over 3%. This will reinforce social links, increase solidarity and equal opportunities and, in particular, eliminate the inevitability of the mass unemployment which we have been enduring for too long.
This last point clearly poses the main problem.
Although unemployment has already gradually reduced, it is still at an unacceptable level throughout the Community, given the forecasts for 2001 of 8% unemployment among the working population. This is particularly true at the outer edges of the Community, in other words in the most remote regions.
As I have said many times before, the fruits of growth must be shared equally by all European citizens, both mainlanders and islanders.
This is the price of constructing a 21st century Europe with a human face in whose collective development everyone is involved. In this way we will all be able to make progress in our own individual areas, but still be heading in the same general direction.
I voted in favour of the report by Mr Katiforis because I believe in this Europe.
The Katiforis report is an incredible demonstration of the lack of awareness among European capitalists.
It is based on a total misunderstanding of the reasons for the current recovery which is in no way the result of neo-liberal policies favouring wage austerity and a strong currency.
On the contrary, current job creations are due to an economic context characterised by an increase in consumption among wage-earners and a weak euro favouring exports.
Despite this convenient denial, the report proposes to plunge further into social regression.
It proposes increased flexibility in the markets, starting with the labour market.
It calls for 'wage stability' and exhorts the unions to adopt 'reasonable attitudes' in wage negotiations.
So as not to appear to be the direct spokesperson for employers, the report tries to include some social clauses. Yet the contradictions are striking.
How, for example, can it propose the reform or 'modernisation' of social protection, which in practice means replacing solidarity with financial products, and yet invoke a 'spirit of social cohesion' ? How can wages be restricted 'in a spirit of fairness' when profits reveal unashamed exuberance?
The only other argument in the report invokes the use of new technologies to bring about modernisation.
But why should these automatically be allowed to threaten the European social model? This crude materialism, sometimes attributed to Marxists, has now been adopted by cynical capitalists whose only aim is to extend the rule of trade regardless of social needs.
We have therefore voted against a text which is both foolish and repugnant.
Mr Katiforis' s explanatory statement is clearly better than the main body of his report which contains no hint of the criticisms that were set out on the Commission' s recommendation.
I and the National Front Members have voted against this report as we feel that it recommends the same old ineffectual and even harmful recipes. There is still too much emphasis on the markets, which regulate nothing, on ultraliberalism, particularly in the public services which the Commission would like to see dismantled, on sacrificing social protection for public investment to ensure budgetary stability, and on price stability, whereas inflation was curbed ages ago.
For workers there is wage moderation, a reduction in unemployment benefits and a relaxation of employment protection legislation.
Two points have particularly shaken us.
The first is that the Commission recommends that my country, France, which is struggling under the weight of tax and social security contributions, should not take advantage of this growth to reduce taxes. The reason given for this is to avoid stimulating with the budget a level of economic activity which is already vigorous.
Can you believe it?
Since when has growth been rejected in the name of outdated economic dogmas?
The second point is the almost total absence of any reference to the euro. This famous single currency which, it was said, would bring us a prosperous future and be snapped up by the whole world eager for competition with the US dollar, has been cold-shouldered, not only by investors who are investing in dollars in the USA, but also by the central banks.
No one has any confidence in the euro, which is no longer a floating currency.
Rather, it is a sinking currency, and nor do they have confidence in the European monetary authorities.
Wim Duisenberg is not Allan Greenspan, the ECB is not the Federal Reserve and the euro is not the dollar.
Europe has neither the employment rate nor the growth rate of the USA and it will take more than futile gestures to change this reality.
Pomés Ruiz report (A5-0108/2000)
- (PT) The Pomés Ruiz report rigorously defends the principles of the Solidarity Pact, particularly as regards fiscal consolidation as a means of ensuring the sole objective of price stability.
The analysis of the nominal convergence criteria is silent with regard to its consequences in terms of the risk of economic deflation, the adverse effect on public investment, economic growth and policies to combat unemployment.
However, the rapporteur goes even further in supporting the Commission' s recommendations.
He believes that it is necessary to anticipate in good time the objectives put forward in the stability and convergence programmes, so as to take advantage of the current 'much-improved economic environment' .
He therefore proposes swifter acceleration of fiscal consolidation, of structural reforms and of privatisation, and the "modernisation" of social protection, recommendations which have, in fact, already been made by the European Commission, particularly with regard to Portugal, in relation to the liberalisation of transport and energy and labour market flexibility, which is unacceptable.
We have accordingly voted against the report.
Goebbels report (A5-0135/2000)
Mr President, I have already declared, during the debate on the decision to allow Greece to enter the European single currency, that I am totally in favour of Greece' s immediate entry, for it has met all the criteria required by the Treaties of the European Union.
I would stress that I particularly welcome the fact - and that is why I voted for this decision - that no more budgetary restrictions are to be imposed on Greece, for, sadly, the brunt of this could not fail to fall upon pensioners and the elderly, in this case Greek pensioners and elderly people, who would be the victims of the exacerbation of the situation as regards the country' s budget, for Greece is willing to further reduce the negative elements of the Maastricht criteria and we have recommended that it do so, even though it does already fulfil these criteria, as has been stated.
- (EL) The legislative proposal of the European Parliament merely accepts the proposal by the Commission of the European Union, which confines itself to finding that "Greece fulfils the necessary conditions for the adoption of the single currency.
The derogation of Greece is abrogated with effect from 1 January 2000" .
On the surface, Greece does indeed meet the budgetary and monetary indicators required for EMU.
To this extent, and taking account of the position of my party, Synaspismos (the Coalition of the Left and Progress), in favour of Greece' s accession to Economic and Monetary Union, I have voted in favour.
Personally, however, I have strong objections to and reservations about the policies of EMU, which tie the Member States into rigid budgetary austerity, rising unemployment, worsening social conflict and unbridled competition, without being able to offer a strong European currency which is able to stand up to the dollar worldwide.
I am also totally opposed to the way in which the Greek government has achieved our accession to EMU, pursuing nominal rather than de facto convergence, making Greece one of the countries of the Union with the highest rates of unemployment and continually selling off the state' s assets in order to cover treasury deficits.
Unfortunately, these policies will not end when we accede to EMU; on the contrary, they will be institutionalised, consolidated and set in stone.
The Left and Progressive Forces of the Member States of EMU must extend their collaboration so that they can radically reform the way in which EMU is structured and so that priority can be given to social criteria and promoting the fight against unemployment, real convergence policies and viable and fair development policies.
- (EL) The European Parliament is being called upon today to give its opinion on the adoption by Greece of the single currency, now that the Commission and the European Central Bank have given the go-ahead.
We would start by pointing out that, as far as we are concerned, the matter is not technical, it is highly political.
It is precisely on the basis of the ideological and political aspects of the entire process of EMU and the single currency that we shall be voting against the admission of the drachma to the euro zone.
From a technical point of view, Greece has undisputedly managed to fulfil the criteria set in the Maastricht Treaty for entering the third stage of EMU.
The problem, however, is how we got here and what happens next.
The nominal convergence criteria have been achieved at the cost of intolerable sacrifice on the part of the Greek people and as the result of a harsh austerity policy, the main features of which were, and still are, reduced social spending, a highly restricted budgetary policy, wage freezes, limited protection for workers, deregulated markets and greater privatisation.
Unfortunately, this policy, which has reduced large groups of the population to despair and has resulted in a dramatic rise in unemployment, a mass exodus from farming and the closure of factories throughout the country, will not be repealed when we enter the single currency; on the contrary, it will be stepped up.
Both the obligations imposed by the Stability Pact and the strict recommendations accompanying the reports by the Commission and the European Central Bank prove it.
Both demand that we continue the austerity policy, dismantle labour relations even more quickly, rush in measures to repeal the social security system and continue and accelerate the process of privatisation.
It is obvious that the workers have nothing to gain from Greece' s accession to the single currency amidst disorientating celebrations; on the contrary, they are even more certain to see a continuation, on stricter terms and with increased "supervision from on high" on the part of the EU, of the dead-end austerity policy which has been exercised for the last ten years.
Besides, those who speak of the need to safeguard the "sustainability" of the criteria seek solely to ensure that it is easier to harden the present policy and support the anti-grass roots measures yet to come.
The experience of other countries already in the euro zone proves that one new measure after another is introduced in order to reverse what has been achieved over previous decades and the "American model" is now the example to be followed by the famous European social model.
We, the MEPs of the ÊÊÅ, who stand by the positions to which we subscribed when the Maastricht Treaty was signed and which only the ÊÊÅ voted against when the time came to ratify it in the Greek national parliament, will be voting against Greece' s accession to the euro zone on the grounds of the workers' and Greece' s interests.
At the same time, we and the workers shall continue to fight against this policy and to promote an alternative development policy which focuses on man and his needs and which takes the opposite line from the reactionary policies of the 'democracy of the monopolies' .
- (NL) I have voted in favour of the Goebbels report and, as such, for Greece' s joining the single currency.
I have voted with just as much conviction for the amendments to the Pomés Ruiz report.
These amendments specifically underline a sensitive issue which gave us plenty to talk about, not only in the plenary debate, but also in the Economic Committee meetings.
Many MEPs have expressed doubts about, in particular, the sustainability of the convergence and stability policy of the Member States.
We have all been able to see how the pleas addressed to Greece to make further efforts to reduce its debt and to obtain lasting stability do not only pertain to the situation of Greece itself, but also to the discontent about the way in which other Member States with a very high debt ratio have behaved, not making sufficient use of the options available to them, as a result of economic growth and low interest rates, to reduce the debt.
Let us hope that Parliament' s subdued criticism gets through to the relevant parties. This includes the Belgian government, which has already made so many pledges that even the press is starting to question the viability of this spending impulse.
Precisely because the hesitation expressed on the occasion of Greece' s joining the euro does not so much concern Greece as represent a general criticism, I am of the opinion that Greece should not be allowed to become the victim of this hesitation.
Greece is welcome in euroland, and all Member States in the euro zone must respect the letter and spirit of the Stability and Growth Pact.
Sellafield resolutions
Mr President, the vote on Sellafield was a first for the European Parliament.
I think it is the first time that the European Parliament has spoken in favour of uniform safety standards for nuclear power stations.
I believe that the Council should, as a matter of urgency, and before the first accessions take place, resolve to draw up and implement such safety standards.
Randzio-Plath report (A5-0109/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Randzio-Plath report on the distortion of competition where public undertakings are concerned.
When Commissioner Monti gave his response at the end of the debate, he declared that the aid provided for public undertakings must not be out of proportion with the quality of the public service provided.
So I wonder: there are public and private television broadcasting companies in Italy, for example, where a great deal of money is allocated to the public television services. However, this is, in actual fact, excessive, for there is no difference between the service provided by the private broadcasting companies and that provided by the public broadcasting companies.
This is a distortion of competition.
Let us take another sector: state and private pensions.
State pensions are heavily financed but provide services which are inferior to those provided by private pensions: this is not true competition.
The report indicates the need for financial transparency between Member States and undertakings.
However, it is only interested in transparency with regard to public undertakings and only in terms of finding out whether state aid distorts competition between public and private undertakings.
The fact of an undertaking deciding to lay off some of its staff, leading to further unemployment, when a small part of its profits could be used to keep these jobs, is of absolutely no interest to the European Commission.
It is also not interested in the damage to the environment and to the safety and working conditions of employees caused by the race for maximum profits.
More generally, the Commission is totally unconcerned about the complete lack of transparency which surrounds the fundamental decisions of all undertakings, such as the way in which they make their profits and the way they use these, even if to the detriment of society.
We will vote against this draft directive and reaffirm that, in the interests of society, we must have total transparency in the operation and accounts of all undertakings, both public and private, and the abolition of secrecy in business.
The first step in this area should be to repeal all laws which threaten to punish the employees of an undertaking who tell the public and users everything they know about the workings of this undertaking.
- (PT) On the grounds that it is necessary to identify and prevent the granting of subsidies that distort competition and to increase transparency in relations between the State and public enterprises, the Commission is creating bureaucratic arrangements and real restrictions which may undermine the delivery of high-quality public services.
By taking as its basic philosophy the need to ensure competition between the public and private sectors, the Commission has, in fact, ended up undervaluing the important role of public enterprises which provide public services, and this is unacceptable.
The rapporteur' s original report recognised the value of "services of general economic interest" , but her report was subsequently amended, particularly with regard to public broadcasting systems.
We believe that it is right that the directive does not apply to public broadcasting organisations, in view of their specific nature, which cannot be divorced from the democratic, social and cultural needs of the various Member States, and the negative impact that this would have on their ability to fulfil their public service mission.
This was the reasoning behind our amendment, which was unfortunately rejected.
Resolution on poor countries' debt
The external debt of the developing countries poses a major challenge.
The 50 poorest countries spend twice as much servicing their debt as they receive in aid.
The UNCTAD report on sub-Saharan Africa shows that African countries have not received any benefit from structural adjustment programmes for over ten years.
The proposal is very restrictive and is limited to the poorest, highly indebted countries.
It imposes far too many conditions on the countries requiring debt relief.
I regret any conditions which are imposed, particularly any link between debt relief and the application of structural adjustment measures.
This is why I have abstained from the vote on the motion for a resolution.
I am in favour of very substantial debt relief for all the countries concerned and debt cancellation for the poorest ones.
- (IT) I abstained from the vote on the joint resolution on poor countries' debt because I feel that it is wishy-washy and ambiguous in the face of the financial mechanisms known to us all which plunge the greater part of humanity into the most abject poverty.
Today, even the multilateral organisations such as the World Bank and the IMF are talking of reducing the debt, for the mechanisms stifling the economies no longer make sense, even from a neoliberal perspective.
At the June 1999 G7 Summit, the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries talked of reducing the poor countries' debt to 90%.
If we look closely at these proposals, we see that they would not really be a solution, for if these measures were to be applied, they would only affect 8% or, at most, 10% of the debt of the 41 countries involved, which is, at the outside, 1% of the total Third World debt.
But these same measures are given minimal application, which has tragic consequences for the indebted countries, but which benefits the creditors themselves in terms of export loans, financial bodies and multinationals, for example.
First of all, we must acknowledge that the Third World debt is illegal.
Therefore, the European Union should promote an international, bilateral and multilateral action cancelling the Third World debt with no conditions attached.
The Member States must cancel the debts of the poor countries in practical terms and urge the international bodies which represent them to take similar steps.
We must ensure that the cancellation of debts is not conditional upon cooperation, as is often the case, or linked to any sort of structural adjustment measure.
We have to influence the financial mechanisms which caused this debt and the structural adjustment policies which continue to contribute to it, spreading poverty throughout these countries.
Resolution on Zimbabwe
It is in the nature of things that the extreme right should put forward crass arguments to defend the right of 4 500 landowners of European origin to monopolise the best land in Zimbabwe.
Yet the fact that the joint motion for a resolution calls for law and order to be enforced and condemns 'the illegal occupations' and accompanying violence is pure hypocrisy.
We might have more faith in the sincerity of the authors of this motion in 'deploring the recent murders, beatings and intimidation associated with the ...occupation' if they at least deigned to recall the past massacres in which a handful of colonists dispossessed the indigenous population of its land and the decades of colonial violence and apartheid used to preserve this situation.
The Mugabe regime is authoritarian and corrupt.
Yet neither this authoritarianism nor this corruption bothered the defenders of the wealthy minority and the old colonial power until this authoritarianism was used to attack their interests and privileges.
We have therefore not only voted against this motion but must also denounce the cynicism and hypocrisy of those who defend the interests of the privileged whites in Zimbabwe.
It will be up to the poor population of this country to settle its account with Mugabe and his regime, and certainly not the political servants of those who have grown rich by pillaging this country.
Paasilinna report (A5-0094/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Paasilinna report on the telecommunications regulatory package but I found it unsatisfactory as well.
Not enough effort is being put into these European Union directives on telecommunications, if it is true that the result is that, sadly, we are still without a European television frequency and we do not yet have a European television channel or even a mere radio station. Neither Parliament nor our meetings are broadcast anywhere in Europe.
European Union telecommunications directives ought to relate to the European Union.
In 1993 the European Union and the Member States undertook to liberalise the telecommunication services sector.
This undertaking led to the adoption of a series of directives.
Behind the regulations was a political objective of ensuring growth, employment and competitiveness and of giving everyone access to the information society while ensuring adequate legal protection.
The Commission has played a supervisory role in this which has resulted in a series of reports since May 1997.
The Commission communication before us today is part of this process and the assessment presented is balanced to say the least.
Approximately two years after full liberalisation, the telecommunication services markets in the Member States are characterised by a rising growth rate, many new arrivals and falling charges.
However, major problems remain.
A 'digital divide' is apparent between both regions and citizens.
The reason for this is clearly the cost of access to these new services.
The exclusion of some citizens from the new information technology society cannot be tolerated.
The preservation of universal service must therefore ensure the inclusive nature of this society.
We must make certain that the regulations being prepared, which have been submitted to this Parliament, adopt this approach.
Due to a desire to see the cost of access to the Internet lowered and for this to be accessible to all citizens, Parliament insists in its report on the need to open up competition in the local loop.
This measure must be thoroughly discussed with the national authorities in order to respond to the relevant objections.
A major effort must be made in terms of harmonisation and simplification of rules. I am thinking for example of the rules on consumer protection, those governing the operation and role of the National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) and the licensing systems.
To conclude, I would say that the telecommunications liberalisation process is not an end in itself but a step towards ensuring the transition to the information society.
There is still a long way to go and we must not forget that the jobs created must be lasting and of a high quality.
- (PT) We feel bound to criticise the assumptions underlying this report, in particular those concerning faster liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, which are founded on the basic premise that this process has brought benefits to the users of these services. We only need to look at Portugal' s experience in this respect.
Portugal Telecom, a public enterprise which has received billions of escudos of public investment, has been partially privatised, which has led to an increase in charges to what are called 'residential users' - the majority of the population - who today face the 'highest charges in Europe' .
As regards the workforce, thousands of jobs have been cut, stricter working conditions have been introduced, and in many cases workers are poorly paid and have few rights. In other words, the overriding aim has been to maximise profit in a sector which is already highly profitable, and this has led to cuts in investment which have affected the quality of the overall service provided for the majority of users.
We do not think this is the right way to proceed.
We need a modern public telecommunications service which embraces technical and scientific progress.
We need an affordable public service based on equal access and guaranteed users' rights - a service that forms part of balanced development.
We also want to see improvements in conditions of employment for the workforce in this sector.
- (SV) It is extremely important that the EU' s legislation and accompanying rules in the area of telecommunications should be updated concurrently with the explosive global development where digital and mobile communication is concerned.
It is also important that this should take place within the framework of the conditions of the internal market and with a view to safeguarding free competition.
In this context, the report illuminates a number of important aspects.
What the report does not discuss, and what the Commission' s report does not take account of, either, are the different conditions prevailing in the EU' s Member States when it comes to developing and maintaining different types of network.
When it comes to Sweden, which is sparsely populated and where there are significant distances between one locality and another, the public service element has a relatively larger role to play than elsewhere when it comes to the functions and investments of the telecommunications industry.
Where society' s opportunities for investment and decision making are concerned, together with citizens' ability to access functioning communications networks of equal quality, the consequences of completely opening up the markets for telecommunications networks in the way described in the report are unclear.
I therefore abstained from voting on this report.
Alyssandrakis report (A5-0122/2000)
Mr President, I voted for this report, which is the first Alyssandrakis report on radio frequencies, which are nowadays used chiefly to advance mobile phone communications technology.
This directive also has some shortcomings, for there is insufficient focus on adaptation, teaching, refresher courses and the use of these new communications systems by pensioners and the elderly.
I am not referring to pensioners and the elderly in general, but, in this case, I am referring to my mother.
My mother lives in Rome. She is 85 years old, it is true, but I have not yet managed to persuade her to let me give her a mobile phone because she would not know how to use it.
She would find it extremely useful and also a saving, but she will not be persuaded.
I offered to teach her, but she refused.
This means that the elderly are not able to benefit from progress.
Alyssandrakis report (A5-0119/2000)
Mr President, in relation to the second Alyssandrakis report, I must mention my daughter.
When I met her this morning - I did not see her last night for I was here, in this Chamber, speaking on this report - she asked me: "But Daddy, is it true that you want to become an astronaut and go to the moon? That is what they told me when I arrived here this morning."
I had to reply: "Yes, it is true" , for when I took the floor yesterday - and I repeat the request again now - I called for progress to be made in European space research and I mentioned the fact that, in the United States, there was an astronaut, a politician, who went into space at the age of 69, that is when he was a pensioner. I would like there to be a European astronaut, also a politician, who will become an astronaut in 15 years' time at the age of 69.
I therefore put my name forward to become the first European Union astronaut.
Maybe you should give your mother the spaceship and your daughter the telephone.
Mr President, although I voted for the report, I would like the following point to be minuted.
Coordination of European research activity must not result in competition between research institutes disappearing.
The limits on communitarisation imposed by the principle of subsidiarity should therefore be kept in mind.
The standardisation of rights concerning intangible assets has already proved its value in the case of trademark law and copyright.
The present system for filing patent applications obliges the applicant to file a patent application separately in each Member State, which inevitably results in an undesirable fragmentation of the European market.
The logical conclusion is therefore to create a Community patent.
Decision makers at national level will have to be sufficiently far-sighted if this ambitious project is to succeed.
The competitiveness of the entire European Union must be taken into account when research contracts are being awarded.
Plooij-Van Gorsel report (A5-0131/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Plooij-Van Gorsel report on the communication "Towards a European research area" , although I would have been very pleased if the decision had at last been taken to place all the research carried out throughout Europe at various levels of government under the same umbrella. Town, provincial and regional councils all spend money on research, the individual State governments spend money on research and so does the European Union.
All this money should be managed by a single expenditure centre: the European Union.
I am concerned because I would like to see more research in the field of science which aims to prolong human life.
I am concerned because I would not like the State budgets and pension agencies to try to hold back this research, which would have negative implications for them because of the greater expenditure they would incur.
- (EL) Although there are certain positive aspects to Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel' s report, it is driven by the perception that the purpose of research is to serve corporate interests and produce new knowledge - mainly of commercial value - on demand, within the framework of the liberalisation of the market and of competition.
Any research policy based on this sort of perception and which serves this sort of policy is bound to distort the nature of research as a procedure for producing new knowledge and as a productive power.
What research basically needs is an increase in its funding, which is unacceptably low for the European Union as a whole (1.8% of GDP compared with 2.8% in the USA and 2.9% in Japan), while countries such as Greece, which is at the bottom of the EU league, spend a miserable 0.5%.
Increased funding will allow new research activities to be developed and use to be made of the plethora of unemployed, highly-specialised young researchers, of which there is an abundance, at least in Greece.
Funding must be provided by public agencies within the framework of research activity programmes which will support both basic research and applications, the final purpose of which should be to improve the quality of life for all mankind and not swell the coffers of the monopolies.
International collaboration plays a primordial role in the research process, and its further development, both between the Member States of the EU and with other countries, would be both desirable and welcome.
However, ensuring that overall research efforts in the countries of the EU serve the interests of big business, solely with a view to increasing their profits, is undesirable and constitutes a repulsive prospect for the future of mankind.
This is why the MEPs of the ÊÊÅ shall be voting against Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel' s report.
- (PT) It is important to note that despite all the declarations of intent made by the European institutions about the new economy, and despite the trend towards a digital, knowledge-based economy driven by the existence of new goods and services, the European Union' s total research effort as a function of its GDP has been in continuous decline for ten years. On average, the EU devotes just 1.8% of its GDP to research, compared with 2.8% in the USA and 2.9% in Japan.
According to the Commission communication, the gap between total public and private expenditure on research in the USA and in the EU is continuing to widen, having grown from EUR 12 billion in 1992 to some EUR 60 billion in 1998.
Similarly, in terms of employment, there are just 2.5 researchers for every thousand workers in European companies, compared with 6.7 per thousand in the USA and 6 per thousand in Japan.
Yet we know that research and technology contribute between 25% and 50% to economic growth and play an important part in the competitiveness, employment and quality of life of Europe' s citizens.
This being the case, how can the Heads of Government of the 15 Member States of the European Union pledge to achieve a new strategic objective for the next decade, that is to make the European Union the most dynamic and competitive knowledge­based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth, with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion, unless they significantly change their research policy, and particularly the budgets earmarked for this? It is in this way, through public investment and guarantees to respect workers' rights, that we will achieve better levels of development, not by insisting on the liberalisation of key sectors and of essential public services or on flexible labour markets.
Smet/Gröner report (A5-0125/2000)
The recognition of women' s rights as an integral and indivisible component of universal human rights requires the adoption of accompanying measures which will allow this recognition to be transposed into concrete actions.
It also requires a subsequent evaluation of those measures, above all, so that they can be adapted in the event that they are not sufficiently effective.
This is why the Smet-Gröner report, and the proposals contained in it, are so opportune and correct. I have therefore voted in favour of it.
Of particular importance is the request for specific preventive measures and measures to promote women' s health and guarantee their right to genetic health, as long as this right is not understood to mean the right to abortion but rather the right to the protection of the health of the expectant mother and the unborn child.
With regard to the promotion of equal opportunities in the context of policies on cooperation with development, I would like to point out that, in my view, efforts in this area should concentrate especially on guaranteeing girls' access to primary education, which means at the same time ensuring that it is free.
However, I regret the fact that the amendment that I presented on behalf of the PPE has not been accepted.
The prevention of adolescent pregnancies demands, above all, that we educate the young in the values which stem from their essential sense of self-worth and teach them to enjoy their freedom in a responsible manner.
.
(PT) We voted in favour of this report because it highlights the most important aspects of our analysis of the follow-up to the Beijing Declaration and Action Platform.
We also think that the 2000 review process should in no way lead to a renegotiation of the commitments entered into in Beijing.
All the 12 key sectors are important and they must be tackled, given the sexual discrimination which exists in all areas, and since lack of progress in one sector will inevitably have repercussions on the other sectors.
We also believe that it is important to hold a further conference in five years' time with a view to assessing progress for women in the fields of equality, development and peace.
It is also of fundamental importance for the Council, the Commission and the Member States to do everything possible to combat violence against women, especially in the home, at the workplace, in society in general and in armed conflicts.
The report by Mrs Gröner and Mrs Smet gives me the opportunity to look again at a questionable action platform.
As well as containing a Malthusian ideology, the Beijing Action Platform uses means of implementation which we condemn.
The UN already intends to rule the world by imposing a uniform vision, based on the western model, on all the regions of the planet, regardless of their existing cultures and laws.
In addition, in order to bypass the rules arising from its intergovernmental nature which subjects it to approval by its Member States, the UN is using the NGOs which it finances in order to implement its programmes everywhere and with much fewer constraints.
Where countries are reluctant, it is using blackmail based on financial aid to obtain the application, for example, of birth control measures.
Although it is vital for the specific role of women to be recognised in all societies, this must occur with full respect for the local traditions and regulations which are commonly accepted and which do not in any way prevent the dignity of women from being respected.
Such an approach ensures that the people concerned have a better understanding of these broad international texts.
We have also discussed and voted on Mrs Sörensen' s report which deals with trafficking in women.
These two debates should make us stop and think about the real scope and aim of these major international platforms.
While they have succeeded in their aim of weakening still further the demography of western countries, they have not responded in a logical way to the more urgent question of protecting those women who are really in difficulty.
Once again, it is the ideology and egoism of some which have prevailed over concern for the common good. The culture of death has taken priority over the defence of life.
- The British Conservative Members decided to abstain in our vote on this report.
This should not be construed at all that we are not opposed to discrimination.
We are opposed to discrimination, we do believe in equality of treatment between men and women.
We do not accept, however, that the imposition of legal quotas is the way to achieve equality of treatment.
Quite the reverse.
We think quotas of themselves institutionalise discrimination.
We believe that women the world over and especially here in Europe are making a valuable and positive contribution to the democratic process.
We are convinced that role will develop fully and effectively without 'progressive' or 'artificial means' .
On the issue of making contraceptives more widely available we voted against the amendment because we believe these are issues of personal morality and conscience and not an issue where the European Union should be making a political stand.
For these reasons we voted against certain amendments and abstained on the final vote.
- According to the World Health Organisation, the definition of the term "Reproductive Health" includes the term "fertility regulation" which contains "interrupting unwanted pregnancies" , i.e. abortion on demand.
In the interest of subsidiarity, paragraphs and related amendments dealing with reproductive health should not be included in an EP document, unless clearly and honestly defined.
There is a worldwide commonly agreed terminology which is "Primary Health Care" defined at the WHO conference in Alma Ata, 1978, which deals with Women and Mother' s Health without including abortion on demand.
Furthermore, in paragraph 18, the use of language leaves the meaning unclear and open to interpretation; prevention of "girl pregnancies" has the unfortunate double meaning of specifically seeking to prevent pregnancies where the conceived child is a girl.
Ambiguities such as this should not be allowed to stand in a report conceived as instructions for the negotiating team in New York for the remainder of the Beijing +5 session.
Regarding paragraph 26, which states that "the respect of women's rights should be one of the main conditions for the granting of aid and should be closely monitored in all external relations and cooperation" , the European Union must not tie any specifications to its distribution of aid nor impose any conditions for the reception of aid amongst women, realising that women are extremely vulnerable to the use of coercion and coercive techniques in order to realise their basic human rights such as shelter, nutrition, education and basic health care.
The EU must exercise extreme caution that current definitions should be consistent with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as women are not a minority group.
The UEN Group decided to vote against the Gröner-Smet report for several reasons, one of which is the ideology behind Beijing +5.
We do not reject the whole report but we refuse to accept the ideological vision of women which it aims to impose on the world.
This vision which we reject relies on empirical assumptions. Firstly, we disagree with the principle of women being a factor of peace and we reject this image of a dove superimposed on that of a woman to become as one.
This makes men into hirsute and aggressive beings who are the source of all the world' s problems.
Furthermore, we do not believe that women can, by nature, be a factor of economic development.
Clearly, they can contribute to this and we must give them the means to do so.
However, we believe that, in the context of this debate, the absolute priority must be to provide education.
We also cannot accept the individualisation of human rights to be found in this report.
The UEN Group, although attached to the whole European tradition of human rights, cannot accept the individualisation of these rights where they represent only specific needs to which suitable responses must be provided.
A restrictive international instrument certainly cannot be based on false assumptions.
The report on the follow-up to the Beijing Action Platform notes that the situation of women, although improved, still involves major inequalities.
In terms of work, it would appear vital to do more than just evaluate 'the impact of part-time and atypical forms of working on [...] the increase in poverty among women' .
Women often actually do not have the option of choosing a properly paid full-time job, yet 85% would like one.
Being forced into part-time work is clearly a source of poverty which is why we oppose this.
The wage gap between men and women of around 30% still remains.
On this issue, the report should have introduced coercive measures to eliminate this state of affairs.
This would, of course, require a political will.
Finally, over one thousand women' s associations in 140 countries are this year organising a world march to fight against continuing violence and to fight for equality.
It is our duty to support them.
We have therefore voted in favour of this report despite its limitations and we will demonstrate in Paris on 17 June together with all those who are fighting for equality and women' s rights.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.48 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Equal treatment
The next item is the report (A5-0136/2000) by Mrs Buitenweg, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin (COM(1999) 566 - C5­0067/2000 - 1999/0253(CNS)).
Mr President, it was fifty years ago last week that Robert Schuman, with his speech, laid the foundation for the ECSC.
Meanwhile, coal and steel have ceased being the cornerstones of the integration process.
Over the past six months, it has become evident that values are increasingly at the centre of the debate.
Europe as a Community of values.
The importance of the directive which we are debating today threatens to become lost in the commotion about the time of issue of the French translation, the deadline for the amendments and our Rules of Procedure, whilst its very content will probably explain why we are all fighting so hard.
A couple of months ago, when the content had still not been specified, all parties agreed to a swift passage of this directive.
During the Portuguese Presidency, there has been a political momentum within the Council of which I, as well as other MEPs, would have liked to have made use.
Technical problems were deemed subordinate to political will at the time, and this is still true for the majority of MEPs.
Therefore, in addition to the draftspeople of the opinion, I would also like to thank a number of people by name for their extremely constructive contributions to the report.
They are Mr Richard Howitt, rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Mrs Anne Van Lancker, Mrs Joke Swiebel, Mrs Sarah Ludford and Mr Arie Oostlander.
I would now like to move on to the Commission' s proposal.
It embodies a sound minimum level of protection against racism by means of sanctions and independent bodies, by which we set great store.
The Commissioner has done justice to the wide range of areas across which discrimination can manifest itself.
The directive covers both direct and indirect discrimination, as well as the term "harassment" .
My report also calls for the inclusion of incitement to discrimination. This is, for example, the case if an employer asks a headhunting agency to be selective on improper grounds.
I hope that this addition can be adopted by the Commission.
Parliament has also looked very carefully into the areas to which this directive applies.
I have understood that some people in the Council are in favour of excluding asylum and migration policy, as well as the issuing of visas, from this ban on discrimination.
I hope that I have got the wrong end of the stick here.
Indeed, although a distinction based on nationality may be completely understandable, it would, of course, be quite improper to let the colour of someone' s skin be a deciding factor in their request for asylum or to treat the asylum request of a black person in distress differently from that of a white person.
These days, asylum and migration policy falls within the scope of the first pillar. The deliberate exclusion of this area could not therefore be justified.
A much-debated topic in this Parliament is the burden of proof.
Every Member State is by now familiar with this concept, whereby both the defendant and plaintiff have a role to play.
Indeed, the burden of proof has already shifted in cases where men and women are treated equally.
In this procedure, the plaintiff has to supply actual facts on the basis of which direct or indirect discrimination can be presumed, and the defendant subsequently needs to refute the charges.
This arrangement works well and has caused few problems.
Maybe those opposing this procedure could explain to me sometime during this debate why we nonetheless have to review it and, more specifically, why there is less protection against racial discrimination than against sex discrimination.
At the same time, I recognise the fact that even more protection is not essential.
I hope therefore that the House, in its wisdom, will decide tomorrow to adhere as far as possible to the Commission' s original text.
Unfortunately, statutory measures against racism are necessary.
They provide victims with protection and a right to redress.
But it is also important in the forming of attitudes.
It makes it clear that Europe will not stand for racism.
It is this message which this Parliament needs to broadcast.
Everyone is different, everyone is equal.
I note what you have said, Mr Ribeiro e Castro.
I do not think it was strictly speaking a point of order, but I have taken note of it.
Firstly, I want to congratulate the Commission on this text.
It is a good text.
Many of the basic principles we wanted to see are in it.
I also congratulate the Portuguese Presidency because they have pushed this through and given it their political clout to make sure we get it on the statute book because, as Mrs McCarthy has just said, people who are victims of racism cannot wait until all the procedures are sorted out.
They want this legislation quickly and they want it now.
That is why it is important that we vote this afternoon.
It is important legislation.
In the context of what has happened in Austria, it becomes even more important.
There are a few things which would add to and strengthen the text.
Two things I would like to highlight: Amendment No 29, which tries to make sure that there is no hiding place for racism, no hiding place behind considerations of religion, considerations of belief and considerations of nationality.
We need to make sure that these are not just covers for racism.
The second amendment, which is important, is the amendment on incitement to racial discrimination which is as important as the act of racism itself, and I hope the Commission will take it on board.
My own committee, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, thought it particularly important that we make sure that the applicant states are aware of the legislation and are in a position to implement it as soon as possible.
I hope the Commission will make sure in the Action Programme, proposed to accompany this package, that we have a lot of projects from the applicant states.
This directive will have a direct impact on the lives of many constituents of mine in Yorkshire, people from ethnic minorities and many thousands of people across Europe.
It is very important that we get it through today.
I hope that at the end of the afternoon we will have no more shenanigans, no more delays and we will make sure we get the vote at 6 p.m. so that we can get it through before the end of the Portuguese Presidency.
Mr President, first and foremost, I would like to warmly congratulate Mrs Buitenweg on the fact that she managed to finish the entire report, ready for discussion and vote, at the eleventh hour today.
That is the first point.
When I read the report and hear the discussions, I get a strong feeling of déjà vu.
Some 15 or 20 years ago in the Netherlands, I worked together with a Christian-Democrat member of government, Mrs Jeltien Kraaieveld, who was also involved in this anti-discrimination legislation in the field of discrimination based on sex.
All the points raised then, together with the hesitation and conflicts, have come up again now.
The hesitation mainly relates to what should and should not be included in the one report.
Then, too, we realised that it is better to address the types of discrimination one by one than to try to cram them all into one act or even one directive.
In addition, the rapporteur has persuaded me that it is preferable to leave out religion for that reason, because it merits a separate chapter.
What would really cap it all for me is if we could withdraw Amendments Nos 15 and 29, in which religion is portrayed in a bad light.
This would then render my Amendment No 63 redundant, where religion is seen in a positive light, as we would thus redress the balance and have a clean report.
Mr President, I think it is important in this context to bring up the issue of the 'distribution of the burden of proof' , also erroneously referred to as 'reversal of burden of proof' .
In the past, we have had huge arguments in the Netherlands about how this should be done and whether this could be done.
We finally concluded that it was necessary and that it should also be tied in with the establishment of an independent council or independent committee for equal treatment - in fact, one of my best former collaborators currently forms part of such a committee.
This would then be able to look into the extent to which particular complaints should be taken seriously, whereupon we would go to court and, if appropriate, support the plaintiff.
It is then up to the party which is indicted to prove that we are wrong.
That is the type of distribution of the burden of proof which is not only already operational in most Member States in the case of men and women and, as from 2001, will have to be extended to include everybody, but which also already exists in legislation on the environment, for example.
There, too, a reversal of the burden of proof applies, if necessary, or so I was told by an expert in the field a moment ago.
Indeed, these are phenomena which are extremely difficult to prove and which, using the traditional method, an interested party can try to wriggle out of, usually successfully, even if this is completely unjustified.
It is to be welcomed if legislation develops in this respect.
The distribution of the burden of proof is an important point which should be looked into by a committee such as the one mentioned above. As such, on behalf of those in my Group who welcome this, I am strongly in favour of the parts of the report which pertain to this point.
It is, of course, the case that in the traditional forms of administration of justice, some employers or people playing important roles used to be in a strong position, or those forming part of a majority always took exception to anti-discrimination.
Distribution of the burden of proof will affect their position.
As a Christian-Democrat, I think we have to side with those who are most under threat, those in the weakest position. As such, this is a positive development, in my view.
Also, I very much applaud the rapporteur' s compromise to the effect that she is possibly prepared to reinstate in their original form those regulations which have been tightened up in ways not required by statute.
I consider this to be an important gesture, also vis-à-vis the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, and this I very much appreciate.
Regarding the other points of the report, I do have to say that the nature of a directive is such that you do not need to be too specific.
A directive needs to be incorporated into national legislation.
Naturally, one could say, what if some EU government or other lost its faculties, you would need to specify all the steps one by one.
I assume, Mr President, pursuant to the principles of subsidiarity, that this kind of mental breakdown will not affect Member States and that they will transpose this directive into national legislation in a proper and reasonable manner, so as to meet the objective.
This is, after all, the nature of the directive.
This does imply for our Group - and I am speaking on behalf of the entire group - that a number of points are redundant, something which, in fact, the rapporteur has already hinted at. Let us weed them out and exclude them from the directive.
In addition, we do not need to include a number of bureaucratic procedures of how everything needs to be done step by step.
We will not be voting in favour of this, or rather, we will be voting against this.
But this does not affect the core of the report, Mr President, which is what this is all about.
Needless to say, there are a number of points which we do want included, such as, for example, the right to perusal of confidential information, or whether it is, for example, necessary to establish whether a business administration is not secretly committing systematic discrimination.
On behalf of part of my Group, I also find it extremely important that elections of employees representatives are clearly provided for.
Naturally, these too should be held free from discrimination based on race or ethnic origin.
We must strike up a social dialogue where this type of issue can be discussed.
This very much strengthens the concept of subsidiarity because, where anti-discrimination is concerned, we should start at the basis, the very place where social dialogue is extremely pertinent.
Mr President, discrimination, especially based on ethnicity and race, is of great concern to me because it touches the very core of the European Union and European integration.
This is what it is all about.
We are gathered here, people from different nations and of different origins, and we are working together.
This is what the pioneers of the European Union once did and we must translate this now into legislation such as is before us today.
As a Dutch person, I have to say that I am also moved by the discrimination issue involving generations of Dutch speakers, often fellow believers, who kept the apartheid regime in South Africa alive.
This has made us particularly alert and, in my opinion, we should take the warning we received from this historic learning process seriously.
I am delighted that this subject is now being discussed in a proper manner.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am a Member of the group which has joined forces with the two rapporteurs, Mrs Kathalijne Buitenweg and Mr Richard Howitt, with a great deal of conviction in order to enable Parliament to deliver the parliamentary opinion on this Commission proposal this week, and I would like to thank the rapporteurs very explicitly and with all my heart for the extremely constructive spirit in which we have been able to work.
The Social Democrats in Parliament have fought doggedly to keep this item on the agenda and I am pleased that we managed to achieve this thanks to a sound proposal for compromise from the Liberals.
With all due sympathy and respect for the work which Mr Arie Oostlander and a number of delegates in the PPE-DE Group have put into this in order to win that group over too, I have to say that the continuous attempts at sabotage and procedural games which we have experienced here this week are, as far as I am concerned, proof that a hard core of conservative PPE-DE Members want nothing more than to undermine this report and the directive.
I am pleased, however, that we managed to stop them in their tracks.
We all know that the Portuguese Presidency is determined to bring this debate in the Council to a successful conclusion.
This will not be easy.
The majority of MEPs know very well why this directive is important. By implementing the Treaty' s non-discrimination principle swiftly and forcefully, Europe wants to give out an unambiguous message to the citizens in our own countries and those in the candidate countries.
This is to prove that Europe is serious about the fight for equal opportunities, irrespective of people' s race or ethnic origin and also because it is a well-known fact that discrimination is still rife in our countries, and that there is still racism and extreme nationalism which, in fact, is more prominent than before because racist political parties are cashing in on the 'own nation first' ideas.
I know that the debate in the Council is also a difficult one.
It is precisely for this reason that it is important that the European Parliament strengthens and supports the Commission's position, because we will soon need a sound and efficient directive which fights any type of discrimination on the basis of racial and ethnic origin.
To finish off, I would like to highlight a number of my Group' s priorities in terms of content.
Firstly, it is extremely important for the non-discrimination directive to have a wide and efficient scope.
This is why we are very much in favour of extending the directive to groups of people who are discriminated against and also to areas such as housing, education, public service operations and attitudes within the police force.
We are also pleased with the solution which we finally reached regarding discrimination on the basis of religion which should not be a covert reason for discriminating on the basis of ethnic origin.
Secondly, in our opinion, the strength of this directive will stand or fall with its enforceability, the extent to which it monitors discrimination, the efficiency of the measures taken against discrimination and, as such, the importance we attach to the possibility of organising collective actions to tie sanctions in with the directive.
With all due respect and sympathy, Mr Oostlander, but since you refer to the cleaning-up operation, I notice that this is precisely one of those cornerstones of our reinforcement plan which is being removed.
I do not agree with this. This is taking it much too far.
Moreover, my Group also supports the reinforcement of, and support for, the operation of, those independent monitoring bodies.
I am convinced that the centre for equal opportunities in my own country will be encouraged in its activities by this directive.
I should like to finish off with one last consideration regarding the shared burden of proof because I am really at a loss to understand the resistance on the part of some people.
Surely it should be clear to everybody that it is impossible for a migrant who is discriminated against to prove that he is being discriminated against at work or by house owners, unless the defendant too is at least asked to prove that the facts brought by the plaintiff are unfounded.
We women are already familiar with this procedure.
This is why we have fought for such a long time for a directive which distributes this burden of proof, and all we men and women of the Group of the Party of European Socialists are asking for is for migrants to be treated in the same way as women.
This is why we will also support the Commission' s proposal and will not permit any amendments in this area.
Welcome
I have just been told that we have a delegation from the City Council of Munich, the capital of the Land of Bavaria, in the public gallery.
It is my great pleasure to welcome our colleagues from local government, and I am delighted that you are so interested in our work!
Equal treatment (continuation)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, three years after the Treaty of Amsterdam was adopted and the famous and much-debated Article 13 was introduced, the Council is proposing two directives to implement the principles of this Treaty.
We can only congratulate the Council' s willingness to make progress on this issue, particularly at a time when certain parties of the traditional right are starting to sign agreements with extreme-right movements. This has already happened in France, is now occurring in Austria and may soon happen in Italy.
The definition of a minimum European framework for the fight against discrimination is therefore urgently required.
The directive on the fight against racial and ethnic discrimination is heading in the right direction. In particular, it provides for the reversal of the burden of proof, the gradual establishment of positive discrimination - more effective than simple theoretical equality - and the recognition of indirect discrimination.
All these aspects reveal a clear desire to forge ahead.
However, certain shortcomings must be highlighted.
Some of these have been raised by our rapporteur, such as the issue of legal proceedings being free of charge for plaintiffs and the necessary extension of the right to take part in court proceedings to groups and associations. There are also two other problems which I must raise.
The first is of a general nature.
How can the Council consider the issue of racial and ethnic discrimination without being committed to the creation of a comprehensive legislative framework for all discrimination? Singling out one type of discrimination gives the impression that some types of discrimination are less reprehensible than others.
This is unacceptable.
A second directive on discrimination at work is to be examined shortly.
The Council must therefore make haste and propose a draft directive encompassing all types of discrimination.
This is absolutely vital as the most excluded are those who suffer several types of discrimination.
Protecting them from just one type will only go part-way towards helping them.
The second problem concerns the exclusion of religious discrimination from this directive.
It is extremely regrettable that religious discrimination was not included with racial and ethnic discrimination as these different types of discrimination are closely linked. For example, how do you define the Jewish identity?
Surely the hatred for Jews which remains significant in many countries is due as much to anti-Semitism, and therefore to ethnic origin, as to religious aspects. Discrimination against North African communities in Europe is also two-sided.
It may even often be said that the fear of Islam acts as a catalyst for racism towards these communities.
Therefore, limiting this directive to racial and ethnic discrimination risks leaving the door open to ambiguities in interpretation with which the courts might struggle to deal.
To conclude, it is essential that the Council adopts an integrated approach towards the legal tools to be established in order to apply Article 13 in our daily life.
Dividing the fight against discrimination among a number of texts is dangerous for the overall coherence of the anti-discrimination mechanism and therefore weakens it.
Mr President, thank you for welcoming the members of local government who are the very people who will have to implement what we decide here. But first of all, we have to do our work.
I would like to point out that the amendments mentioned by Baroness Ludford are still not available in all languages this afternoon.
Before we proceed to the vote, would you please get the Sittings Service to establish whether the 24-hour deadline applies here and whether or not we have to defer this until tomorrow?
I am not trying to start a debate on this subject now, but I would like you to clarify this once and for all, because there has been a lot of confusion here today.
Mr Posselt, we are used to confusion reigning in this House, but I will have this checked.
Mr President, this motion is positive and we will vote for it. However, its credibility will only be ensured if the Member States start by cleaning up their own acts.
For example, what credibility does Belgium have in this area when it is expelling large numbers of gypsy asylum-seekers to Slovakia and Bulgaria, despite Parliament' s recommendations and the express request of the European Court of Human Rights? What credibility do the Member States have when they are discriminating in their civil services against the recruitment of third country nationals, thus condemning the immigrants who they do employ to constant uncertainty?
What credibility does France have when a draft constitutional act recommending that immigrants from third countries be given the right to vote in local elections, adopted in the National Assembly on 3 May, is now being blocked by the hostility of the Senate and the President and the unwillingness of the government? How can we claim to be protecting from discrimination those to whom we refuse any citizenship?
Discrimination will only be effectively combated when governments stop using double talk.
However, this text is a step forward on which we must build.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it would have been a good thing if the European Parliament had made a positive, informative and decisive contribution to the proposal for a Council directive, in line with the impetus given by the Portuguese Presidency.
Unfortunately, it is not evident that that has happened.
On some points, the amendments involve precise improvements to the text in question.
In addition to details, I myself wish to refer to the right of collective action, legal assistance and other aspects which are already covered by Portuguese law.
However, in key areas, the amendments that we are debating could potentially wreck everything.
It seems that the rapporteurs and others who support them have wanted to go too far, and in their desire to do so they may seriously affect the entire proposal.
There are three points that particularly worry us: the reversal of the burden of proof, which has not been clarified, and the issues of nationality and religion.
Reversal of the burden of proof is already a very sensitive matter in its own right.
Even so, there are areas in which it is clearly justified, but it is unacceptable that instead of applying the classic principle of in dubio pro reo, this is to be replaced by a principle of in dubio pro auctore, especially when there is no explanation as to whether this reversal is to apply to criminal justice cases, and we know that there are cases in this area that can come under the criminal justice system.
This would amount to a violation of the fundamental principles of our legal system and of basic rights of trial formulated in Latin, that is to say based on Roman law.
Secondly, there is the issue of nationality.
We Portuguese can perhaps boast the richest mix of blood and ethnic origins in the course of history.
I myself and my circle of friends have not the faintest idea of our ethnic background.
We would be a real puzzle for a Nazi investigator or for the chart of ethnic origins which Baroness Ludford admired so much a few weeks ago in another report.
We are familiar with the concept of racism, which has no impact on us, although we must combat it. Above all, we must firmly combat racist violence.
But it is important not to confuse separate issues.
In other words, ethnicity is one issue and nationality is another.
If there is discrimination between a black person and a white person, or vice versa, for example if someone discriminates against a white Portuguese in favour of a black Portuguese, or against a black Portuguese in favour of a white Portuguese, this is clearly unlawful racism and should result in prosecution.
However, when it comes to applying for a particular post, if a Portuguese, be he Asian, black or white, is suitable for that job, in a way that does not apply to a Zimbabwean, be he Asian, black or white, then this is not a question of racism, it is about citizenship, and this can be legitimate.
The problem is that in many of the amendments these two concepts are confused, with potentially disastrous effects, particularly in areas such as public service, and even in other, unexpected areas.
The other vital area is religion.
We wish to make it clear that freedom of religious organisation is a fundamental civil right, which cannot be undermined, curbed or jeopardised, which would be the effect of some of the amendments before us.
Mr President, first of all, we would like to thank the rapporteur for improving upon the Commission' s proposal, but we also feel that particular thanks should go to Commissioner Diamantopoulou for grasping the significance of the inclusion of Article 13 in the Treaties and her skill in converting an abstract norm into a package of directives.
With each passing day, Europe is becoming a continent which, as the United Nations' reports on the European population trend illustrate, is host to citizens of third States but which, above all, needs their contribution, their culture, their potential and their initiatives.
In a context such as this, the Union must reaffirm the fundamental principles of democracy and ensure that all citizens and residents have the same rights and the same duties.
Having said that, we are sceptical about three points in the report and the directive: we are completely against the principle of the reversal of the burden of proof, which is contrary to fundamental legal principles.
We do not believe that the end justifies the means but that the means prefigure the end.
Moreover, we do not support the creation of independent bodies in the Member States, which would be responsible for monitoring racial and ethnic discrimination. This is because, in general terms, we do not have confidence in institutions which, in violation of the democratic principle of the separation of powers, interfere with other institutions, with the result that they either upset the balance between the legislative, executive and judicial authorities or they find themselves without a specific function because everything is already being done by other institutions.
Finally, we do not agree with the references to positive discrimination.
We are opposed to positive discrimination in general when it is State-imposed, for we feel that merit should take precedence over the quota policy which, when all is said and done, discriminates between individuals who want to fight that very discrimination.
With these reservations, the Members of the Bonino List will support the report and the directive, in the hope that the European Parliament and the Commission will reflect upon the points we have raised and make the appropriate amendments.
Mr President, it is with mixed feelings that I am making my contribution to this debate.
This is largely to do with the way in which the discussion of this report has been forced upon us, against normal procedures.
Needless to say, I subscribe to the importance of equal treatment of persons irrespective of racial and ethnic origin.
But it is precisely because this is such an important topic that Parliament, and especially the Portuguese Presidency, would have done well to have set more time aside for it.
The enactment of the general act on equal treatment cost the Netherlands blood, sweat and tears at the time.
I am sure that other Member States have had similar experiences and these experiences should remind us to exercise caution and do our homework before discussing this draft directive.
This will require the necessary time, not least because the implementation of the current proposal will have a ripple effect within existing legislation and systems within the different Member States.
The change in the burden of proof is just one example of this.
Parliament' s amendment takes the Commission' s proposal one step further.
The Commission specifies that the principle of subsidiarity is still being enforced, but I question that.
The directive is said to have a supplementary function with regard to the political signal it sends out.
But this type of signal is being emitted with just as much power by long-standing national legislation, which is a great deal closer to the citizen, and by the widely known ECHR.
An in-depth discussion would have been desirable, certainly given the far-reaching consequences which this legislation can have on legislation and legal systems within the Member States and the fact that it will infringe on the Member States' sovereignty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, dismayed as I am about the way the 14 Member States have prejudged Austria, I particularly welcome the Commission proposal.
It goes without saying that the principle of equal treatment of persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin should be applied.
There is no place for discrimination on these grounds in a modern society.
However, it is possible to overshoot the mark, even in the case of such an uncontroversial issue.
The reversal of the burden of proof proposed by the Commission would mean imposing an intolerable burden on small- and medium-sized enterprises in particular, as they would in future have to keep a record of every job interview, so that in serious cases they would be able to provide proof.
Arrangements like this do not result in greater understanding for the victims of discrimination. Quite the opposite - it actually harms the cause.
The precision of the impact assessment form annexed to the Commission proposal is totally dependent on the use of the phrase "without apparent difficulty" .
The wording is as follows: "identical rules have already been applied without apparent difficulty" .
- (EL) Mr President, Commissioner, without doubt, the extremely important "historic directive" , as you called it, and the corresponding European Parliament proposals have come at the right time.
And on time!
The need to combat discrimination on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin or religious conviction is taking on a sense of urgency on the continent of Europe.
The revival of fanaticism and Mediaeval attitudes, the emergence of parties based on racial perceptions and the increase in violence bear witness to the fact that respect for others who are different, which is a feature of advanced societies, has not yet been fully achieved.
Clearly, in the 21st century, ideological and political convictions will meet somewhere between the progressive, cosmopolitan perception which accepts a multicultural society, and fundamentalism, which approaches those who are different with fear and enmity and promotes racism and xenophobia.
This is why the European Union needs to be given legal armour and to speed up the procedures to complete a common area of freedom, security and justice for everyone living on the territory of the European Union.
Once the directive has been adopted by the Council, we hope that the Member States will quickly give immediate priority: first, to judicial cooperation and harmonisation of their criminal legislation; secondly, to instructing state agencies and employers on how to apply the directive to all natural and legal persons; thirdly, to applying the 1997 Charter of the European Political Parties on the defence of fundamental rights and the fight against all forms of racial violence; fourthly, to the right of individual victims of discrimination to take collective action; fifthly, to guaranteeing the access of minorities to vocational training, employment, health services and national insurance and pension schemes and their participation in economic, social, political and cultural life.
We still need public awareness campaigns on direct and indirect discrimination, to monitor the application of the Community institutional framework and to formulate our immigration policy on the basis of the principles which govern this extremely important directive.
This is the first directive that we are debating under Article 13 and it is a very good start in our fight against all discrimination across the EU.
MEPs and NGOs worked very hard to get Article 13 into the Treaty.
I look forward to seeing further directives, perhaps starting with disability.
Initially, I was against racism being taken separately.
I would have liked to see it taken with the directive on employment and with the Action Programme.
I was persuaded of the urgency, because of the current rise of racism across the EU.
A number of Members have cited individual cases today.
I hope the Portuguese Presidency can work very hard to push this through and make sure that we do get this racism legislation.
We have to send the message that we are opposed to racism and xenophobia across the EU.
I am glad for that reason that we are having the vote today.
May I turn specifically to some of the amendments.
I am very well aware that some European jargon excludes people.
This is the reason I wanted Amendment No 48 on simple language to go in.
Amendment No 43: people have talked already about the burden of proof.
This is working towards a shared burden of proof.
The plaintiff does have to provide facts and it has already been said that equal opportunities for men and women cover this in European legislation as well.
Amendment No 51: I am delighted that charities and non-governmental organisations are going to be consulted.
They are at the sharp end; they know what they are talking about.
Finally, I would like to add my congratulations to Mrs Buitenweg and to Mr Howitt in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for working so closely together to put forward an excellent report.
Mr President, since the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere Justice and Home Affairs Summit, things have really got moving in Europe.
It is very pleasing to see this. The action programme against discrimination, the Commission' s two proposals for directives, the opening of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia, and lastly the adoption of Article 13 of the Treaty all give an irrevocable signal.
There was no anti-discrimination provision of this kind in the treaties before.
The European institutions can now, on the basis of Article 13, take appropriate steps to fight certain kinds of discrimination.
The European Parliament has also made its own contribution.
My colleague, Mrs Buitenweg, has, under considerable time pressure, prepared a well considered report on this anti-discrimination package on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and we are now voting on that report.
In general, Mrs Buitenweg' s 55 or so amendments make the Commission proposal much more substantial.
She has achieved a great deal.
The proposal before us is the first implementation of Article 13.
It concerns equal treatment irrespective of the colour of people' s skin or their ethnic origin.
It does not only tackle the most important areas of life, such as access to employment and equal treatment at the workplace, education, social protection and social security.
The Commission is also attempting to build on experience gained in the Member States.
The reversal of the burden of proof will make the directive a very important instrument.
The defendant will now have to provide convincing proof that there is no discrimination.
The scope of the directive has also been widened, with protection against discrimination being extended to associations and groups of persons.
A large majority of the committee went along with the rapporteur, and the vote today allows us to take that decision further in a consistent way.
I would like to expressly thank Mrs Buitenweg for her excellent work and I assume that we will adopt this report by a clear majority today, even if the Commissioner responsible has let it be known here today that she cannot accept half the amendments.
Nevertheless, a very important step is being taken today and we are giving a signal.
The previous speaker' s intervention was not translated properly because it was delivered too quickly, so I would ask future speakers to speak more slowly so that the interpreters can keep up.
Yes, I asked Mr Sylla to slow down.
But he is free to accept or reject my advice.
However, you are right: the consequences are that what he is saying is not heard in the other languages.
Mr President, I wish to make three points.
Firstly, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, the draftspeople and the Commission - in particular Commissioner Diamantopoulou - on the directive and the report we have in front of us.
It has been a long time coming.
I was the chairman of the European Parliament' s Committee of Inquiry into the growth of racism and fascism in Europe back in 1986, when our rapporteur, Mr Evregenis, proposed such legislation.
I myself was the rapporteur for the Committee of Inquiry into Racism and Xenophobia in 1990 that reiterated that demand.
I suppose in a way it was worth waiting.
We have here legislation that will make a real impact on the lives of the 12 to 14 million third country nationals living in the European Union and the 4 million black Europeans.
Secondly, and without subtracting an iota from my support for the report and the directive as a whole, the Council will have to resolve a number of outstanding issues: on representative actions, on the definition of indirect discrimination and, as the previous speaker said, on the burden of proof.
The last of these must be workable, because otherwise we will keep the previous speaker happy!
The best basis is the existing burden-of-proof legislation, which is now underpinned by 25 years of case-law, and where the numbers are not available, expert opinion will suffice.
Thirdly and finally, I wish to warn my colleagues in the PPE Group.
Many of them - the large majority I believe - have been genuinely concerned that Parliament' s procedures have not given them adequate time to consider the detail.
Yet a few clearly have darker motives.
With Mr Haider and Mr Le Pen lurking in the background, the Vlaams Blok and the Movimento Sociale Fiamma Tricolore promoting racism and xenophobia, the PPE Group, as a whole, should not be surprised if people conclude that if they continue with their technical objections, then this is a thinly disguised attempt to block these proposals which the vast majority of Europe so much welcomes.
Those who lie down with dogs get fleas.
Mr President, the Economist says that we need 13.5 million immigrants by the year 2015 in order to get everything done that needs to be done in Europe.
The International Herald Tribune says that we shall not succeed in obtaining that level of immigration and recruitment. On other continents, there is an awareness of how racism is growing in Europe, and it is precisely because of racism that immigrants are choosing other continents, notably America, instead of Europe.
We are used to coming out against racism, because we want to combat intolerance and xenophobia.
Perhaps we must also combat these things for the sake of our own future.
Those who maintain that they speak for enterprise and for small businesses are speaking against their own better judgement when they do not support the present proposed directive.
I support most of the amendments, but on one point I am uneasy.
This is Amendment No 29 in which it is proposed that a difference of treatment on the basis of ethnic origin, which is presented as a difference of treatment on the grounds of religion, conviction or nationality, is to be deemed discrimination.
I am afraid that this may be self-defeating.
In Swedish law on measures to combat ethnic discrimination, it is expressly stated that, in using the term ethnic affiliation, the law means that someone belongs to a group of persons of the same race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin or confession.
There is a danger that what we believe to be an extension of the definition concerned may, in actual fact, be a restriction of it.
The general interpretation is, in fact, that ethnic affiliation embraces nationality.
I shall not, therefore, be voting for the present amendment.
It contradicts what I properly consider to be the case.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe has become strong and we have learnt how to build bridges over the last 50 years.
We have paid very great attention to the social dialogue, which means talking with each other, examining problems and understanding each other.
Social partnership is an ideal model centred on partners who interact with each other and help each other.
We should also all be concerned about integration, about good neighbourliness.
We should endeavour to provide incentives and to act as a model.
I believe that in human society acting as a model is a particularly important characteristic.
Particularly as an Austrian, I can say that in recent years, with a population of 7 million, we have accepted a million refugees. We are therefore the European country that has accepted most refugees per inhabitant.
We were a kind of life-raft in Europe, and we still are today. We fight against extremism on both the left and the right, as well as against violence.
Austria has the world' s strictest laws against fascism and against nazism.
We have learnt some lessons from history and we know how to fight these things.
We are now talking about discrimination.
First and foremost, I am speaking on behalf of small- and medium-sized enterprises.
We must make sure that we do not rob companies of working time and jeopardise their success by forcing them to spend more time on statistical form filling.
When I visit companies I often hear the complaint that there is too much bureaucracy and too many formalities.
Form filling is, of course, a very inefficient kind of work.
If, in addition, there are inspections, this also takes time and I believe that the vast majority of companies behave in a proper and decent way, and that relations between employers and employees are generally very good.
That is why I also believe that cancelling public contracts can also be provocative, and I am returning to the key issue now: reversing the burden of proof will have a knock-on effect if it is implemented.
It will encourage abuse.
People will need to protect themselves against such abuse. It will be necessary to keep more evidence.
It will lead to risk limitation, by which I mean surveillance methods, video recordings and tape transcripts.
Everyone will try to protect themselves as well as possible so that if they are taken to court they can provide evidence.
I can see great dangers here and we must ensure that they are averted.
Mr President, it was difficult to follow the previous speaker, who speaks from the heart.
So do I, for I applaud the fact that the Commission has been so quick in getting this proposal on the table and implementing Article 13.
I would also congratulate the rapporteur on a splendid piece of work.
I am, of course, very much in favour of our arranging for the present directive to be implemented in the Member States as quickly as possible.
I would especially emphasise four factors which I think are particularly interesting about this directive.
Firstly, we have obtained a broad scope of application and, secondly, the directive covers both direct and indirect discrimination, including malice.
At the same time, a shared burden of proof has been proposed.
We have seen how this is an enormous advantage in connection with sex discrimination, and it is therefore good that it is now being introduced in this area.
Finally, it is also an advantage that this is a minimum directive, so that the Member States have the opportunity to go still further if they consider it right to do so.
However, the proposal also suffers, unfortunately, from a fundamental flaw in as much as it relates only to discrimination arising on the grounds of race and ethnic origin and does not cover the other grounds for discrimination listed in Article 13.
In this way, the Commission is going to create a hierarchy of grounds for discrimination, a way of proceeding which I think is totally at odds with the wording, meaning and spirit of Article 13.
It would be interesting if the Commission could explain to us what the motives were for creating this hierarchy of discrimination.
Mr President, our rapporteur, Mrs Buitenweg, deserves a huge pat on the back for her excellent report and the skilful manner in which she has led the consultation and negotiations.
We should, therefore, adopt this report without further delay.
This directive forms part of a larger package which implements Article 13 of the EC Treaty.
As others have already mentioned, this Article does not only pertain to combating discrimination based on racial or ethnic origin, but also based on other grounds.
I can understand why the Commission has decided to include the fight against racial discrimination in a separate draft directive.
I can also see why we are discussing this document expeditiously now and why, hopefully we shall be adopting it later today.
Far harder to accept is the fact that this draft directive against racial discrimination applies over a broader social range and, in terms of content, comprises stronger legal guarantees and control mechanisms than the second draft directive which is still in the pipeline and which is designed to fight other types of discrimination.
Together with the time lapse between the discussion of both draft directives, this difference in content entails the risk that there will be a hierarchy of types of discrimination.
This would give out the wrong political message which would, in particular, have an adverse effect on the fight against discrimination on grounds such as age, handicap and sexual orientation.
If anything, these so-called more recent factors deserve more, not less, attention.
I would therefore like to see the Commission and Council pledge their willingness to eliminate this form of discrimination between grounds for discrimination.
I have even less appreciation for the fact that there is no mention whatsoever of discrimination on the basis of sex throughout the package which the Commission presented in November, as if the fight against this was done and dusted.
It was probably for fear of stating the obvious that no such mention was made. In fact, there was no such risk.
Existing European legislation governing the equal treatment of men and women only pertains to the sphere of work and is still lacking in many other areas which, especially if we compare it to the directive which we are discussing today with regard to racial discrimination, need attention as a matter of urgency.
There is not enough time to list them all here, but I do not have the impression that a lack of knowledge on the part of the Commission concerning this matter is the problem.
I therefore hope that the Commissioner will pledge that she will start this exercise within the foreseeable future and will present proposals soon, as a result of which the equal treatment of the sexes in and out of the work sphere, but especially outside the work sphere, will be aligned to the directive which we are discussing, and will hopefully be adopting, here today.
Mr President, we are all opposed to discrimination and violence of all forms.
However, I do not believe extending EU competence to this area is either necessary or useful to its cause.
New laws will not change the hearts and minds of the people of Europe.
What we need is education, time and confidence building in a spirit of cooperation between the various ethnic communities.
We have in our own group two ethnic Members of the Conservative delegation who are extremely active and proud to be British Conservatives, in spite of what the other groups were saying earlier, and they will be voting against these measures.
The shift of the burden of proof, as called for by this draft directive, is both frightening and extreme.
Already in the UK, Mr Straw is planning that in rape cases the accused man will become guilty until proven innocent, on the basis of the testimony of one person - the woman in question.
This is a very dangerous precedent against all forms of natural justice.
Of course, we all condemn violent racist crimes and attacks.
I was not present, but I believe a number of allegations were made and cases cited by other groups earlier in the debate.
Criminal justice must remain the prerogative of the Member States.
Unlike previous speakers who have cited such cases, I oppose any erosion of national sovereignty in the area of criminal justice.
This must remain the prerogative of the Member States who will retain control of their own justice systems.
The EU has no competence in this area whatsoever.
The more the word 'racist' is bandied about, the more it will become meaningless, devalued and ignored by the public at large.
I call on all those with any sense to oppose these measures.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place immediately following the urgencies.
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Sierra Leone
The first item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0432/2000 by Van den Bos, Malmström and Thors, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
B5-0444/2000 by Maes, Lucas, Rod, Schörling and Boumediène-Thiery, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group;
B5-0448/2000 by Sauquillo Pérez del Arco and Schori, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0456/2000 by Van Hecke, Ferrer, Schwaiger and Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0465/2000 by Morgantini, Sjöstedt, Brie and Manisco, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group
on the situation in Sierra Leone.
Mr President, let us exercise honesty rather than hypocrisy. The European Union, the United States and the United Nations have all displayed considerable concern about the developments in Sierra Leone.
We are not prepared to make any sacrifices.
The United States is paralysed by the Somalia syndrome.
The Union hides behind Washington' s back.
We Europeans even leave the initiative to the Americans who send Jesse Jackson and let him loose in Freetown like a bull in a china shop.
The United Nations' intervention has once again turned into a fiasco.
Only thanks to the United Kingdom were we able to stop the rebels in their tracks and arrest their leader, Sankoh.
This offers opportunities for a peace deal which far outstrips the laughable one which has been shot to tatters.
More than anything, we now need a watertight diamond boycott.
To complain about cruel massacres and mutilations becomes very hypocritical if we ourselves allow the diamond industry to earn a fortune on the back of blood-stained diamonds.
I would call for at least exercising more honesty when we discuss Africa.
Mr President, the violation of the Lomé peace agreement by the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone is not only a human tragedy for the civilian populations, especially for children, but is also a political tragedy for the whole international community.
The impunity enjoyed by the rebels in Sierra Leone and the weakness of the peace-keeping forces, who can neither leave the country, for political and humanitarian reasons, nor effectively confront the armed rebels, are a threat to any future United Nations peace mission.
At the same time, this would be the third failure, after Somalia and Angola, of the Blue Helmets and the United Nations in Africa.
Africa, where the cruellest conflicts are taking place, is also, as far as peace is concerned, a forgotten territory.
The mandate of the United Nations mission in Sierra Leone is, by any reckoning, insufficient to achieve its objectives.
Its reinforcement, requested by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, depends on a decision by the Security Council, the same Security Council which gave the Blue Helmets the resources they required in East Timor and Bosnia, but which is much more reluctant to do the same in Sierra Leone at the moment.
The United States and Great Britain have only sent forces to the United Nations mission in order to guarantee the safety of the evacuation.
The only solution to the difficulties of the United Nations mission, in terms of achieving compliance with the peace agreement, is to entrust the political negotiation to the leaders of Liberia and Libya, whose record in seeking peace is very doubtful and also very worrying.
The liberation of some of the hostages and the arrest yesterday of Sankoh do not put an end to this conflict, but rather they may be a cause for even greater concern.
Only clear and decisive action by the international community as a whole can put an end to it: the arms embargo; the control of diamond trafficking; the deployment of a rapid intervention force, under the mandate of the United Nations; and the prosecution of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity, the savage attacks against civilians, against international peace and security as well as against the United Nations forces.
The European Union must therefore support all these types of measures, within the framework of the CFSP.
Mr President, during the Sierra Leone debate in December, I, together with a few other delegates, warned against the risks involving the Lomé peace agreement.
This agreement not only lets the leader of one of the world' s cruellest terrorist movements off the hook but, to cap it all, also rewards him with the vice-presidency and authority over the diamond mines.
But even that was evidently not enough for the rebel leader Sankoh.
He turned the disarmament pledge into a farce.
Murder, mutilation, abduction and rape simply continued as before.
His strategy is very much akin to that of his godfather, Charles Taylor, in neighbouring Liberia, who, by means of terror, forces the population to vote for him in the forthcoming presidential elections and establishes a new Mafia state in the heart of Africa' s diamond industry.
The UN peacekeeping force, mainly comprising ill-trained third-world troops, is in danger of heading for a fiasco similar to those back in Somalia, Rwanda and Srebrenica.
Sierra Leone has made it clear once more that it urgently needs a permanent, international peacekeeping force which is well trained and equipped, and led by top commanders from the world' s best armies.
It is a good sign that the rebel leader was arrested yesterday and that more than 200 UN peacekeeping troops were released over the past couple of days.
But the question remains of how the rebels will react to this and how the peace agreement will take shape in future.
In any event, the arms embargo must be supervised more effectively and perpetrators must be brought to justice.
More than anything, however, an embargo should be imposed on diamonds smuggled illegally from the country, estimated at USD 60 million annually, which is what is at stake for the rebels in their warfare.
I will call for a ban on these precious stones, which are stained with blood from thousands of innocent citizens, in my own country, Belgium.
Mr President, we are appalled at the present situation in Sierra Leone.
There is a dangerous trend towards the escalation of armed conflict, especially as the United Kingdom has now become militarily involved outside international law and the United Nations.
We demand an end to this military escalation and the immediate resumption of negotiations.
One-sided recriminations are neither appropriate nor helpful in this situation.
The RUF is known for its extreme brutality, but we should not overlook the fact that the government and the militias associated with it are little better.
We demand that the sources of the conflict should finally be tackled, by which we mean stopping the arms trade, halting the RUF' s diamond trade via Liberia and Burkina Faso, and ending the interference of states that want to secure national objectives in Sierra Leone under the guise of humanitarian action.
I have the feeling that, economically speaking, the United Kingdom is acting in a neo-colonial way and that in political and military terms it is now acting like a colonial power.
It is very easy to get drawn into a war, but it becomes almost impossible to avoid the next logical step, military intervention, once the atmosphere escalates.
The military imposition of peace by international troops working with government militias against the RUF will not bring peace at all.
Quite the contrary, it brings with it the risk of uncontrollable escalation.
It is high time that the causes of this situation were addressed and a political solution was found. Because of this, we need de-escalation in Freetown, not escalation.
Mr President, given the threats once again faced by the people of Sierra Leone, when they still have vivid memories of the horror and barbarity they have suffered at the hands of the RUF, we cannot content ourselves with simply condemning the events which are recurring.
Let us remember that amongst the objectives of the common foreign policy are the maintenance of peace and the respect for human rights, principles which are being totally disregarded today in Sierra Leone.
This Parliament must therefore urge the Member States to support the call of the Secretary-General of the United Nations so that the deployment of a rapid intervention force may proceed in order to re-establish stability in Sierra Leone and thereby contribute to preventing the danger of a new civil war which today hangs over that country.
However, our commitment must not end with this call.
We must also fight for an end to the impunity with which acts of genocide and war crimes have been carried out and for the people responsible for them to be brought before the Tribunals so that they may be judged.
We must also eradicate the cancer which has given rise to the destabilisation of that country.
That is why this Parliament must urge the OAU, the European Union, the Commission and the Government of Sierra Leone to adopt and promote whatever measures are necessary to end diamond trafficking and the control of that country' s abundant natural resources by those people who, thanks to diamonds, have become men of war.
We are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Schuman declaration.
The best tribute we could pay to those people who, through that declaration, sowed the seed which has borne such abundant fruit in terms of peace and well-being, would be to commit ourselves to the cause of that beleaguered country, to decisively help the people of Sierra Leone to re-establish peace and, through peace, the full respect for human rights and the possibility of economic development which will lead it out of poverty and allow it finally to live in dignity.
Mr President, the fragmented society in Sierra Leone, the child soldiers and the fights between warlords make it extremely difficult to do anything of any consequence.
We stand here in moral indignation and are, at the same time, filled with a huge sense of powerlessness.
Politically speaking, in Europe, Mr Chris Patten and Mr Solana are two people from the European Union whom, in the event of foreign security conflicts, we can call on to use their political resourcefulness to both intervene in the region and to support the UN.
With everything which has been said about diamond trafficking and the halting of other dealings which finance the local war, and with everything which has been said about the need to intervene, what we need at the end of the day is a political solution.
As Mr Solana occasionally visits the Philippines and Mr Patten is actively involved in the Balkans, I would like to ask them both, on behalf of all of us, to jointly commit their efforts once more, focusing on political support, to reach an active final agreement there with the local regional authorities.
Mr President, Commissioner, any woman or man who, at any time in the course of the last few months, has bought any diamonds must have felt concerned that these might have come from Sierra Leone or Angola and must have wondered whether, in buying them, they had financed the mutilation of children or the drugging of child soldiers or had supported the abduction of the latter from UNICEF' s rehabilitation camps.
We can condemn and we can make demands, but what we need to do, and can do, as a Parliament, is to come up with new ideas.
As was said earlier, we need a long-term strategy for Africa but also a Schuman-style plan for the joint management of those of Africa' s resources which are being fought over, for example in Sierra Leone or in the Congo, so that the struggle does not lead to conflicts with fundamentally undemocratic warlords.
What do we now have to learn, fifty years after 9 May 1950, that is to say fifty years after the Schuman Plan? We need an equivalent plan for Africa' s resources, just as we need a movement in opposition to the diamond trade.
I feel that, from a human point of view, this is much more important than any amount of movements in opposition to the fur trade.
Mr President, we must not forget that the RUF is a vicious and brutal grouping.
We should congratulate the British Government on taking effective action in a peace-keeping capacity.
This is exactly the rapid reaction we are asking for within the European Union.
I find Mr Markov' s remarks, in particular, slightly bizarre because we constantly need rapid-reaction forces to move in to preserve peace and prevent humanitarian disaster - exactly what has happened here.
Clearly, we also realise that peace keeping can only be carried out by the operation of effective force.
That is a lesson we have to learn if we are to have a rapid-reaction force within the European Union.
The other thing we should learn from this is that the Lomé peace agreement was imposed from outside by outsiders and was totally unworkable.
We should consider that lesson when we try to impose peace agreements in the future.
Mr President, once again the drama unfolding in an African country is bringing Parliament face to face with the daily horrors of a bloody conflict and civil war.
Certain kind souls are already pointing the finger at misgovernance and ethnic causes and indicating the culprits who should be eliminated.
As with the oil of Congo-Brazzaville, Angola or Nigeria and the mineral resources of Chad, Niger or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and as in the latter generally or in Angola, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the causes are indeed economic and the fight for control of the diamond-producing areas is the basis and reason for this continuing conflict.
We are right to condemn the Revolutionary United Front or RUF for unilaterally resuming hostilities and for involving thousands of child-soldiers in the horror.
However, the Sierra Leone army and its militias should also come in for criticism.
We are right to condemn the use of diamonds by the RUF for war purposes.
But what are the economic interests behind the government' s actions? We are right to condemn Liberia and Burkina Faso for their involvement in the arms trade and the recycling of diamonds.
But who is selling arms to these countries and who is buying the diamonds?
We are right to send in a UN Implementation Force and to want to disarm those who are fighting. Yet without proper distribution of the wealth of these countries, as in other African countries, and if we continue to allow mining and oil companies to pillage these countries and to fund the groups controlling these resources, our intervention will once again be in vain as it will not tackle the real causes.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that the Commission very much welcomes the capture in the early hours of the morning of 17 May of the rebel leader, Foday Sankoh.
We understand he was arrested by the Sierra Leonean police and that he remains in government custody.
I am sure we all hope that Sankoh will now accelerate the release of the remaining hostages.
There are apparently about 360 of them.
We understand that has already commenced, but there is a long way to go.
Similarly, it is to be hoped that Sankoh will now honour the commitments he entered into last July when he signed the Lomé peace accord and that will allow a long-awaited peace and stability to return to Sierra Leone.
The Commission has been following closely and with very considerable concern the recent events in Sierra Leone which have derailed implementation of the Lomé peace agreement and called into question the commitment of the RUF towards restoring peace and stability in Sierra Leone. That, if anything, is an understatement.
The European Union has issued two statements condemning the RUF' s violations of the peace agreement and the abductions of UN peace-keeping personnel.
The statements have both called on the RUF to adhere strictly to their commitments under the Lomé agreement and, in particular, to the disarmament process.
We remain convinced that the Lomé agreement still offers the best chance for lasting peace in Sierra Leone.
We will continue to support the legitimate government' s attempts to restore peace and stability to the country and to implement programmes of economic and social recovery.
The recent support provided to the UNAMSIL peace-keeping force by the United Kingdom is welcome - the honourable Member, Mr Titley, made the point well - as is the release last weekend of 139 of the 486 hostages, following the intervention of President Taylor of Liberia.
The Commission is aware of the reports concerning the involvement of neighbouring countries, in particular Burkina Faso and Liberia, in the smuggling of diamonds and in providing support to the rebels in Sierra Leone.
The Commission, together with Member States, is currently examining the regional dimension to the conflict with a view to formulating an appropriate regional response.
The Commission stresses the role to be played by regional organisations, for example ECOWAS, in the prevention of conflicts.
The Commission is financing with EDF regional funds the ECOWAS conflict-prevention mechanism, which could provide an appropriate channel for dialogue on this question.
As regards humanitarian assistance, through ECHO we are continuing to finance programmes in support of displaced and refugee communities through international NGOs.
Since the beginning of 1999, ECHO has provided some EUR 14m of assistance, covering the supply of medical aid, therapeutic feeding, water and sanitation and psychosocial support to children affected by war.
In addition, this funding has covered support to amputees - the all too many amputees in the country.
This month the Commission will be seeking approval for a new EUR 12m programme of assistance to Sierra Leone, principally covering refugees and the internally displaced.
This programme will concentrate on providing support first to refugees in neighbouring Guinea and Liberia, second to internally displaced populations and, thirdly, to women and children affected by the war and, of course, the amputees.
Ex-combatant children will again receive psychosocial support.
For me the most interesting point to come out of this debate was not just the expressions of concern about the situation in Sierra Leone - one would expect that - but the number of honourable Members who have expressed very clearly and cogently their views on the diamond trade.
I say with some feeling that I very much hope that Member States will take account of what has been said in this Chamber.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6 p.m.
Sri Lanka
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0433/2000 by Van den Bos, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
B5-0449/2000 by Titley and Sakellariou, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0457/2000 by Van Orden and Deva, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0466/2000 by Frahm, Morgantini and Manisco, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
B5-0474/2000 by Lambert, McKenna and Lagendijk, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group
on Sri Lanka.
Mr President, the resolution initiated by my colleagues, Mr Van Orden and Mr Deva, concerns a matter that is highly topical and most urgent even though this is the first occasion on which Parliament has devoted time to the tragic conflict in Sri Lanka which has been going on for over 17 years.
The resolution sends out a powerful message.
The fighting has to stop.
The parties have to get round the table and reach a reasonable solution that will last.
In this regard, it can only be helpful for the international community, whether it is the UN, the Commonwealth or the European Union, to maintain a strong and current interest in developments.
This legitimate interest should not interfere with the work that has already been carried out by the Indian and Norwegian governments whose representatives have been engaged for some time now in the difficult and sensitive task of brokering negotiations.
I know that in spite of the dreadful atrocities that have been committed against the civil population and against members of successive administrations, the Sri Lankan government at the highest levels is willing to enter into negotiations and is setting no conditions.
We must all recognise the overriding importance of maintaining the territorial integrity of Sri Lanka.
Beyond that there are many political options that can fruitfully be pursued.
The international community, including the EU, should be ready to provide substantial material support in due course for whatever solution is worked out and to assist the economic and social reconstruction of the country after so many years of conflict.
Above all, Parliament' s resolution is unequivocal in its condemnation of terrorism.
This is a scourge which affects us all.
There is no excuse for the indiscriminate acts of murder and mayhem carried out by the so-called Tamil Tigers against children and ordinary civilians going about their daily business and against democratically elected politicians.
This is an attack on civilised society and the democratic institutions which we all value so highly.
Inevitably, the people most effected and most helpless in these situations are the nationals of the target country who have fled the conflict and are trying to lead new lives in Europe.
These people are most vulnerable to threats and intimidation from organisations acting on behalf of terrorists such as the Tamil Tigers.
Of course, there are many other terrorist groups whose activities are sustained in a similar way.
They cleverly avoid breaking the laws of the host country and so can continue their ghastly activities with impunity.
This situation must change.
I commend the resolution on Sri Lanka to this House.
The issue of the place of the Tamils in Sri Lanka is a long-standing problem dating back to at least the year of independence in 1948.
We have had agreements since then to grant autonomy to the Northeast Tamil region, which have been abrogated by the government.
In this conflict, far too many people have died.
There has been a growing catalogue of violence and human rights abuses on both sides - by the Tamil Tigers and, sadly, the government security forces.
These are well documented by organisations such as Amnesty and the US Department of State in its 1999 Country Report.
Young Tamil men in particular can find themselves being a victim of violent coercion by the Tamil Tigers and violent interrogation by the security services.
It is clear that thousands of people have been displaced within Sri Lanka.
Thousands more have sought asylum and the whole population lives in fear of violence.
We cannot say what the exact state of affairs is at the moment as there is a complete media blackout in force as part of a set of new restrictive laws introduced in May.
The resolution is clear.
Those laws must be lifted before the elections in August.
Something has to change.
We have to do what we can to work for a peaceful and lasting settlement.
It is clear that the international community is no longer prepared to see internal armed struggle as only a problem for the state concerned and that long-term political investment and negotiations are necessary rather than arms sales.
Northern Ireland is a clear example of the difficulties of such a process, but also the possibilities.
This resolution is important in its call for immediate cessation of hostilities and the lack of preconditions is a welcome move.
The situation would also be helped by agreement between the Sri Lankan political parties themselves and we welcome the efforts of the Norwegian and other governments and feel that the Commonwealth could have a very valuable role to play in this situation.
Mr President, this is an historic day and an historic debate because, after 17 years of war in Sri Lanka, the European Parliament for the first time is actually debating how to bring peace to this war-torn island.
In 1948, when Sri Lanka obtained independence, it was one of the most prosperous countries in South Asia.
In 1952, Lee Kuan Yew, the newly elected Prime Minister of Singapore, said: "My ambition is to make Singapore emulate Sri Lanka in prosperity, education and standard of living" .
Forty-eight years later, that beautiful island of Sri Lanka has been smashed by a terrorist group now recognised as the most powerful terrorist organisation in the world.
There are four million Tamils in Sri Lanka and there are 15 million Sinhalese.
One million Tamils live in the north; the other three million live in peace in the south with the Sinhalese.
They hold high office in Colombo, the present foreign minister is Tamil, the country' s leading businessmen are Tamil, so are judges, doctors, lawyers and cabinet ministers - the list goes on.
Yet this pointless war also carries on, to serve the single purpose of a terrorist leader pursuing his own ambition.
The resolution states how many people he has killed.
The LTTE has to be stopped.
I ask Member States to proscribe this terrorist organisation and to help build peace and stability in Sri Lanka and strongly support the initiative currently being taken by the Norwegian and Indian governments.
Mr President, here we are again witnessing a conflict between two diametrically opposed parties.
True, this is the first time we have tackled this issue, but we see similar cases every day.
Of course, we hope that peace will be preserved and that these issues will be resolved through negotiation rather than force.
However, we must not forget that the fundamental principle of self-determination is all too often disregarded, sacrificed on the altar of another, equally valid but opposite principle, that of the territorial integrity of the States.
At this point, a choice must be made between the two solutions.
I would not presume to say which solution is better but we must find the courage to consider all sides of the issue.
One of the Members referred to the case of the State of Singapore.
Singapore used to be part of Malaysia but it is now an independent State.
The division took place without conflict, and, today, Singapore is no longer part of Malaysia but has its own complete territorial and State independence. This was achieved without conflict, without murder, without torture and without acts of violence.
On the other hand, in the same geographical area, we have also witnessed another conflict, the conflict of East Timor and, with far too great a delay, Parliament declared itself in favour of the independence of the eastern part of the Island of Timor.
There it is. At times, I find it difficult to understand how the same people, the same Members of Parliament, are able to adopt different positions on situations which are, if not identical, at least similar in some respects.
The Island of Timor has been split into two parts and there are now two separate states, thanks to a referendum which was carried out democratically, although not in the best of conditions.
The people decided their future and, although this involved fighting, conflict and so forth, succeeded in obtaining what they wanted.
I wonder why this Parliament does not call upon Sri Lanka to hold a referendum as well, along the lines of the referendum held in East Timor, and to abide by the result.
Mr President, I yield to no one in my desire for peace in Sir Lanka and in my condemnation of all violence.
However, I say to Mrs Foster and Mr Heaton-Harris that they want to check their stories and sources because it needs both sides in a conflict to be committed if a lasting solution is to be achieved.
I know Sri Lanka, I have been there.
I can give you examples of what I have seen.
I have seen Tamil men being harassed on the streets by government troops.
I know that Tamil people need 11 pages of documents just to travel from Batticaloa in the east to the capital, Colombo.
And like everyone here in this Parliament, and all European journalists, I have been unable to go to Jaffna recently, nor have I seen any television coverage of the battle at Elephant Pass.
I have seen the fighting in Sierra Leone, Chechnya, Kosovo but nothing from Sri Lanka because the Sri Lankan Government does not allow press coverage.
That goes back longer than last May.
This is a government whose defence budget has risen by 11% in a year and which, one day, will have to answer allegations of involvement in the assassination of leading Tamil figures and other human rights abuses.
Let us have a peace for all Sri Lankans, based on citizens' rights, humanity and in which government resources are directed at building communities, not helping to destroy them.
Mr President, the Commission is as concerned as honourable Members about the tragic and dramatic civil war which has been continuing for the past 17 years, a civil war which seriously affects the whole population of Sri Lanka.
It is salutary to recall that over 60 000 people have been killed during the course of this conflict - people in both ethnic groups.
We appreciate the efforts being made in Sri Lanka to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict but we also reiterate, as I am sure all honourable Members would, our concerns for the respect of the basic rules of international humanitarian law.
The Commission shares the concerns of the European Parliament regarding the latest developments in and around Jaffna.
On 15 May, the presidency issued a declaration on Sri Lanka.
This called on both parties, firstly, to cease hostilities and to begin negotiations; secondly, to ensure the safety of the civilian population and, thirdly, to cooperate with the Norwegian government in its endeavours to facilitate a negotiated settlement of the conflict.
I should like to say in passing that I would like to express my own appreciation of the role played by the Norwegian government, which regularly reminds us by its behaviour on the international stage what we are all missing in the European Union on account of the Norwegian people' s referendum decision.
The presidency declaration also rightly called on the government to lift as soon as possible the restrictions on civil liberties and press freedom, which have been introduced under the emergency regulations.
As for our support for rehabilitation in the north and east of the island, a viable political solution has to be found and a measure of peace established before we could consider a major role in this process.
That is fairly clear and understandable.
Assistance in favour of refugees and internally displaced persons will continue naturally to be given through the UNHCR and non-governmental organisations.
The European Commission will continue to provide emergency humanitarian aid to populations affected by the conflict.
Through our delegation in Colombo, we are following closely the impact of the situation on the civilian population and we are in permanent contact with the ICRC, the UNHCR and the main NGOs.
I last visited Sri Lanka in the late 1980s.
I flew into Jaffna - I think I was the first minister from anywhere to do so - in the back of an Indian helicopter gunship.
Alas, 12, 13 years later, the violence continues.
It has been a terrible blight on one of the most beautiful countries in the world, with some of the most talented people.
We are reminded of Sri Lanka' s potential, which we heard about earlier, through the occasionally accurate words of senior minister Lee Kuan Yew.
That is a reminder of what has been missed in Sri Lanka as a result of this violence.
We all hope that it ends very soon.
If we can contribute to the work being done by the Norwegian and Indian governments to help bring the parties together, we would be happy to do so.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, Commissioner, the crisis in the Philippines we are discussing is a tragedy.
I represent one of the countries which has citizens as hostages there.
We appeal to the European Commission to ensure that its representatives continue actively to urge President Estrada to refrain from any assaults which might put the hostages' lives at risk.
I also sincerely hope that the hostages will be able to benefit from any medical aid, for example, that Médecins Sans Frontières might be allowed access so that we may thereby protect the lives of those who are currently hostages.
There is, nonetheless, something to be learned from all tragic events.
I also believe that the Finnish people have learned that the basis for the present conflict is social injustice and that, far apart from one another though we may be, we are nonetheless affected by precisely such social injustices and violations of human rights.
Mr President, Commissioner, we must be very careful as Europeans about taking issue with separatist movements of the kind being discussed here.
I say that because many of the borders involved in these great island kingdoms - the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia - are purely and simply colonial borders that we drew artificially to suit our own political and economic interests and which destroyed historical structures.
To that extent, we are responsible for many of the conflicts in this region.
That does not mean that it is not up to us Europeans to ensure that these structures do not disintegrate, with all the dangers that would imply.
We should not put ourselves on a pedestal. We have to recognise that we bear a lot of the responsibility for these developments.
Nevertheless, it is, of course, our task to create peace and stability in this area, and in particular to take action against all those criminals who, on a political pretext, have, in the most appalling way, kidnapped and maltreated innocent tourists who are citizens of the European Union.
There can be no political justification for ill-treating people as is happening there.
We therefore appeal to these criminals to release these citizens of the European Union and all the hostages immediately, and we give our full support to Mr Solana and everyone else trying to help to bring this hostage crisis to an end.
We should also take this hostage crisis as a warning to us to stop ignoring these parts of the world or simply pursuing our own economic interests there. Instead, we should be helping to create stable and peaceful conditions there, because these areas of conflict are like open wounds that we ourselves have often inflicted in the past in these regions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our thoughts are with our fellow citizens who simply wanted to discover another culture and who are now being held hostage by the armed group, Abu Sayyaf.
It is not clear whether this is a case of organised crime or political demands but the island of Jolo is now at the centre of the hostilities with this awful hostage taking.
In these islands, which are characterised by tropical luxuriance and unspeakable poverty, the machine gunning of villages, kidnappings, ransom demands and torture are common currency.
This hostage taking and the many violations of human rights show how these armed opposition movements have sunk into criminal excess.
Although we cannot tolerate these constant violations of human rights, we also deplore the failure of the peace talks with the Philippine Government.
We also know that the violence has its roots in poverty.
This is why we strongly support the appeal made by the Archbishop of Manila to President Estrada that socio-economic reforms should be implemented.
Without the political will to end the situation, the violence can only continue.
Equatorial Guinea
Mr President, we are currently discussing an issue which Parliament has dealt with on previous occasions.
It is the case of Equatorial Guinea, one of so many African countries which have undergone a very poor transition from the colonial era, during which former colonial relationships, on the one hand, and the ambitions of other Member States of the Union to extend their area of influence, on the other, have prevented the support necessary and conducive to the establishment of a genuine democratic system.
In 1999 there were general elections to the Guinean Parliament, during which the international observers noted that human rights, democratic guarantees and freedom of information had been violated.
The same situation may now reoccur during the elections on 28 May, which is why, as this resolution states, we demand the appropriate intervention of the European Union, in order to guarantee that democratic elections take place on this occasion.
Mr President, the reason for this resolution has already been explained: in Equatorial Guinea, the political and social situation is still extremely serious.
Firstly, no steps have been taken to establish a constitutional state based on a multi-party democracy which fully respects human rights.
Secondly, the population endures harsh conditions of poverty.
The government of President Teodoro Obiang has failed to comply with each and every promise of democratisation which it made to the international community.
The leaders and activists of the opposition parties face constant persecution, in the form of arbitrary arrest and sometimes torture.
Of course, they have no access to the media and they have to face corrupt electoral processes, in which transparency and fair play are totally absent.
With regard to the municipal elections of 28 May, there are grounds for concern, because to date there has been no guarantee of any democratic conditions for these elections.
We are therefore concerned and we ask that efforts be made to observe how the elections are carried out.
Guinea is sinking further and further into under-development.
Paradoxically, its income, which comes from oil, is increasing, but none of it reaches the inhabitants, being entirely purloined by the ruling classes.
Given this situation, as the resolution we have presented indicates, we demand that the government of Equatorial Guinea initiate a genuine transition to democracy, which we believe could begin by making these municipal elections free elections.
The Union must exert pressure in this respect, and not lower its guard or accept any more false promises from President Obiang.
Therefore, if the municipal elections take place in the current circumstances, with no form of guarantee, we must not resume any cooperation with Guinea, apart from purely humanitarian cooperation.
Article 5 of the Lomé Convention obliges the Union and the Member States to demand democracy and human rights in Equatorial Guinea.
We therefore believe that this House should follow that line.
Mr President, we cannot and must not miss this opportunity to encourage the people of Guinea to take the democratic path or the opportunity it represents for its youth, since, in an environment of increasing poverty and inequality, the failure of democracy leads to a spiral of violence and repression, which in turn ends in an armed conflict which is often promoted from outside.
The European Union must, through all possible channels, demand that the Government of Equatorial Guinea free all political prisoners and end the coercion suffered by the democratic forces, in order to guarantee that the coming municipal elections bring hope to the people of Guinea and lead to fruitful relations between Guinea and the European Union.
Iran (press code)
The struggle in Iran for reform and freedom is of great interest.
There have been considerable reasons for optimism in the election of President Khatami and the overwhelming vote for reformist candidates in the February elections but, as Human Rights Watch notes, the struggle to control the press is, in many ways, the struggle to control the future direction of the Islamic Republic as a whole.
The very success of the reformist agenda seems to have provoked a backlash by the conservative reactionary forces and an attempt to punish the majority who voted in February for reform.
They are targeting the independent press because it is a major channel for reformists.
These attempts surely cannot succeed in the long run because the youthful population is impatient for change showing that Islam and guarantees of rights and freedoms are perfectly compatible.
We must do all in our power to encourage and support reform, including especially basic legal safeguards for freedom of expression as required by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Iran is a signatory.
In the meantime, we call on Iran to cease the persecution and prosecution of journalists and writers for views which do not threaten public order, or national security, but only the vested interests of conservatives.
Mr President, 'Bahar' or 'The Spring' is the name of a new independent newspaper in the Islamic Republic of Iran which we hope is still being published.
The name 'Bahar' clearly refers to a political programme and undeniably supports President Khatami' s reform policy.
This course probably coincides rather well with the pursuit of a civil society.
Iranian conservative circles saw this trend as a deliberate attempt to secularise their own state - and with good reason.
To their growing dismay, these fervent defenders of the political status-quo within the Islamic Republic have been pushed onto the defensive since President Khatami took office in 1998.
This was underlined by a painful defeat in the parliamentary elections only a few months ago.
In order to turn the political tide, the hard liners in Tehran have not shrunk from using any means available to them.
Just cast your mind back to some eighteen months ago, when a number of independent clergy were killed in macabre circumstances, or to last year, when the student protest was ruthlessly repressed.
Incidentally, the followers of the revolution leader, Khamenei, attempted to systematically silence the independent and critical press by issuing publication bans.
This hit the ultra-conservatives during the parliamentary elections particularly hard.
Hence, their furious reaction last month when they closed all but a paltry three of the reform-minded daily newspapers.
The present joint resolution supports the persecuted and the journalists in Iran who are doomed to unemployment.
The latter knew and know that they can count on the support of the large majority of the population.
Why? Because they were not afraid to publicly turn against a far-reaching lack of freedom in society, which is perpetuated by undisguised terrorist tactics generated by the state machinery.
With this resolution, the European Parliament aims to encourage Persian editors in their fight for freedom of the press and to banish all fears at the writing desks.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful for this opportunity to talk about Iran again today.
The reform process in Iran is at risk.
Even before the newly elected reform parliament has been able to meet, there has been a menacing intensification of the power struggle in Iran.
We are dismayed at the manipulative reporting of the conference held by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin, and we are deeply concerned about the arrests of journalists and critical intellectuals in the wake of this conference.
We are also concerned about the ban on all pro-reform newspapers and magazines published in Iran.
We call on the Iranian authorities to immediately release the conference participants and journalists who have been arrested, and to cancel all warrants of arrest issued in this connection, to lift the ban on the prohibited newspapers and magazines and, last but by no means least, to respect the political will of the Iranian people, which was so remarkably expressed in the election results.
We call on the Council, the Member States and the Commission to support these demands on Iran and to make respect for human rights a prerequisite for further cooperation with Iran.
Mr President, we are currently witnessing massive attacks on the freedom of the press.
Last week, Mr Putin' s troops occupied the largest opposition publishing house in Russia.
Yesterday, the same thing happened in Belgrade to the independent radio station there.
In Iran, we have a situation where newspapers are being banned for simply acting as a voice for those forces and individuals who were so successful in the last election, and who embodied - and continue to embody - hopes of pluralism in Iran.
I therefore fully support everything Mrs Rühle has said.
We must take advantage of this phase to offer our firm support to democratic forces and forces for reform in Iran, because what we are witnessing at present is a fresh start and yet simultaneously a setback.
What is very much at issue here is that we should not allow those forces to be isolated, which is what the regime is working towards.
That is why it has also been so devastating that the developments at the conference in Berlin occurred, thus giving the regime a pretext for taking measures against the opposition in Iran.
I am convinced that a dialogue with Iran is, in fact, the only way to influence developments in that country.
We must not leave the opposition unsupported by adopting measures that encourage isolation.
Instead, we should press, through intensive contacts not only with the government but also with the opposition, and by the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission bringing all their considerable influence to bear, for an end to these developments, and to ensure that the reform process in Iran, which is fragile but promising, is not once again choked at birth!
Burma
Mr President, it is an awkward situation, this tenth anniversary of the elections of the NLD in Burma.
Awkward because the Burmese junta was successful in obtaining international recognition.
I refer, naturally, to Burma joining the ASEAN.
It is quite possible that the other ASEAN Member States decided in favour of this with the best of intentions and in the hope that this would kick-start the democratisation process in Burma.
We have to ascertain, however, that this is not how it worked, that this attempt failed and may well have brought about the opposite effect, judging from the smirks on the faces of the Burmese rulers when they hosted the ASEAN meeting of Ministers for Economic Affairs earlier this month.
In our opinion, relations between the European Union and ASEAN should not suffer because of the problems within Burma.
These relations are too important for this.
It does mean, however, that, if this situation continues, we will need to discuss the situation in Burma in our contacts with ASEAN.
However, we have to ascertain at the same time that our own sanctions were not that effective either.
It may be opportune to consider whether we can take so-called intelligent sanctions against Burma.
After all, sanctions should just focus on the one goal, namely the reinstatement of democracy in Burma.
Yesterday, we saw the arrest of 95 members of the NLD and the situation in Burma has become untenable.
One of the key things we need to look at is the role of some European multinational oil companies, in particular the French-Belgium company, Total Fina.
We also need to criticise the French government for the fact that they are backing this.
Even the British government is more progressive when it comes to their policy on this.
The British government has actually called on Premier Oil to withdraw from Burma.
The French government should follow the example of the British government.
It is unacceptable that European multinational companies are investing in and backing up a system where large-scale gross violations of human rights are taking place.
When it comes to sanctions, we really need to answer the call that we should implement economic sanctions against the SPDC and that we should be ending all links between Europe and Burma based on trade, investment and, in particular, tourism.
It is unacceptable that we should be investing in tourism in a situation where gross human rights violations are taking place, where people' s lives and liberty have basically been denied.
Mr President, it is now ten years since Burma witnessed a political drama.
After a period of uncertainty and conflict, open and fair elections were held in 1990 and Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi was voted President with an overwhelming majority.
In the parliamentary elections, the NLD won most of the parliamentary seats.
Shortly after this, the military once again seized power.
Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi was imprisoned.
Parliament was dissolved and many MPs were murdered, imprisoned or driven out of the country.
Since then, Burma has been the scene of unprecedented repression.
Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of people have fled the country and are living in camps in Thailand, Malaysia and India.
In the country itself, entire population groups have been displaced in order to break up the minority groups.
There is talk of forced labour.
According to the Financial Times this week, Burma has more child soldiers than anywhere else in the world.
Burma can be compared with South Africa and Chile in the Eighties.
What action would we like the Commission and Council to take? First of all, we would ask you not to accept that the military regime in Burma should represent the Burmese people at the Euro-Asian Summit.
We also ask you to take a hard economic line against Burma.
We advocate economic isolation and an absolute investment ban by all EU Member States, as proposed several times already by the United States.
Moreover, EU citizens should be dissuaded by their governments from travelling to Burma for their holidays.
Many of these new facilities have been built using forced labour.
This is the core of our request.
Burma should not receive any better treatment from the international community than South Africa and Chile did back in the Eighties.
If it does, then we are using double standards.
Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi should at long last receive an effective response to her peaceful protest.
What would she otherwise gain from a Nobel Prize and Sakharov Prize if she does not actually receive support in order to free herself and her country from this terrible plight?
Football: "Euro 2000" and preventing hooliganism
Mr President, I must declare an interest because I am a Class I soccer referee and very active in that and have been involved in football at many levels for 18 years.
This resolution looks at the security and safety arrangements ahead of Euro 2000 so that decent football-loving supporters from across Europe can go to, watch and come away from football games this summer without fear or concern for their safety: a fairly apt thing to call for considering the recent events in Copenhagen.
Most Members will find this motion uncontentious.
However, I do understand that there are some queries about the question of the suitability of the Charleroi stadium and its ability to safely host the England versus Germany game on 17 June.
These I will tackle now because I believe these points are what people want to hear about.
I thank the BBC Watchdog Programme for providing me with details of the findings of a renowned British sports stadia expert, Dr Jim Dickey.
He found, after just a brief examination of the temporary structure above the north stand in Charleroi, that there were too many seats in the rows, the stand is too steep, the safety barriers are too low, the exits from the stand are too narrow and the stairways at the back of the stand are too wide.
This stand, like all the others, will be full to capacity on 17 June.
Meanwhile, a few miles up the road, the King Baudouin stadium, Belgium's national stadium, and now probably one of the safest stadia in all of Europe, will lie empty that day.
I understand the regional pride of many members from Belgium and I do not question that much time is being spent by the organisers of Euro 2000 looking into the safety and security aspects of the competition.
But surely, common sense should prevail and the future of this particular fixture at its current venue should be actively re-examined.
I do hope that Members will support this motion, because this is something we can actually change for the better.
Why not look at an event beforehand and not worry about the consequences of the bad actions of a few violent people after such a football event.
Mr President, I hope there will be a great football match on 17 June between England and Germany.
Most people are looking forward to a good match and hope that it will be safe.
But, unfortunately, that is not the view of everybody.
The German police anti-hooligan task force has said that it is pretty confident there will be hooligans there.
I cannot say anything about German hooligans but I can talk about English football hooligans - I cannot say 'fans' and even the word 'hooligan' is not strong enough for them.
There is a group of people who very definitely are planning to be there.
If you doubt me, just look at the press photographs of the problems that occurred in Copenhagen last night.
As well as the problems my colleague referred to that could occur inside the stadium at Charleroi, there is a serious problem that may occur in the streets around that stadium.
The head of the Belgian Police Federation has said that he is concerned.
We are saying now to the Belgian authorities and the European football authorities that they should choose the option of a safer ground that is available elsewhere in Belgium, and the stadium in Brussels has been cited.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after discussing all these terrible events in the world, it is certainly refreshing to consider other problems even though, on reflection, these also involve images which cannot be tolerated.
I do not believe, however, that the motion before us deals with the problem correctly.
For example, paragraph 2 of the motion is wrong. In this paragraph Parliament expresses its concern about the fact that the Charleroi stadium, which is to host several games, in particular the England versus Germany match, does not meet the relevant Belgian safety standards.
This is wrong for several reasons.
The first is that the organisers of any game in Belgium and the promoters of any stadium must sign a public-law agreement with the municipality in which the stadium is situated. This agreement engages the personal responsibility of the burgomaster.
Our fellow Member has spoken of regional pride.
Belgians are aware of the good and bad sides of regional pride and, as a result, the use of a stadium requires not only the signature of the burgomaster but also that of the Minister of the Interior.
It is therefore completely wrong to talk of regional rivalries.
Furthermore, everyone knows or should know that it is not the inhabitants of Charleroi who chose this game any more than the others.
Finally, in the context of Euro 2000, there is an additional requirement that the stadium must be approved by the European Union and UEFA.
For all the stadiums which have been converted to accommodate an adequate number of visitors, UEFA has not only given its final authorisation to the process but has also been involved in the practical organisation of the stadium reviews.
I know something about this as I have worked, in my capacity as burgomaster of the town of Liege, on the preparation of a similar stadium.
To conclude, I regret to say that our colleagues are using arguments which are inaccurate and which can therefore only lead to wrong conclusions.
I am not the only one to think this as Mr Desama would have said the same if he had been able to speak. Our Dutch colleague, Mr van den Berg, also agrees as he asked me to say that in this case he has witnessed, in addition to a responsible attitude from the Belgians,...
... very close cooperation with the Dutch government and it started at the very beginning and we extended this cooperation with France on account of the lessons of the World Cup and a host of other countries, 14, I believe, including the United Kingdom, of course, because we wanted to have contacts with the countries which might send teams to Belgium.
Mr President, I will conclude by saying that the third and last point is that I think Parliament should make rules and not bother about taking chances.
Are we going to deal tomorrow or next week with the trains leaving Paddington Station?
Mr President, there are a number of advantages to this text.
Firstly, it gives us the opportunity to reiterate that we all condemn hooliganism and that we all obviously want to fight this phenomenon to the best of our ability.
I must also point out, however, that, for two years now, in both the Netherlands and Belgium, the sporting, political and police authorities have been preparing in a professional manner for Euro 2000 and, in practical terms, huge investments have been made.
Despite that, is there still a risk? Of course, but then there is always a risk.
When faced with such a phenomenon, you can never say that nothing will happen.
However, I must say very sportingly to our British colleague that this does not justify an event of this type being used from the outset to incite prejudice. It does not justify the attempt to spread incorrect information in official European Parliament documents either.
Paragraph 2, as indicated by Mr Dehousse, is incorrect.
The Belgian authorities have given authorisation for the Charleroi stadium to be used.
Paragraph 3, which indicates that the King Baudouin stadium in Brussels might be used, is wrong.
No authority and no official has indicated this.
We must therefore be reasonable and certainly not adopt texts like this.
Finally, our fellow member has cited information which he was delighted to indicate was given to him by the BBC.
I should like to mention something which was said on the BBC by someone who is not a football referee like you but who is the coach of the England team.
What did Mr Keegan say - I am nearly finished, Mr President - during his visit to Charleroi? He said that it is a suitable stadium for a high-level match.
He even said that this stadium differs very little from a large number of stadia in England.
So, be sporting!
As a referee, Mr Heaton-Harris, you have one viewpoint but I prefer that of Mr Kevin Keegan who seems to me to be better qualified. Therefore, please withdraw your motion.
Mr President, there is no question in my mind that we all want to see the eradication of hooliganism in football at a European level and globally.
However, we must be careful not to do so in a manner that would restrict the enjoyment of the real supporters.
The issue must, therefore, be discussed at a European level, and we should guard against becoming embroiled in local discussions on the capacity and safety of specific stadiums, wherever they might be.
We must ask ourselves why measures taken in the past have repeatedly failed to create a culture of enjoyment in football for everybody.
I welcome the dialogue under way now between the Commission and sports and football clubs on how matters could improve.
The people who run the game are the people who, through constructive dialogue, will eventually be able to find answers to the blight of hooliganism and, it must be said, racism affecting this most popular of all sports.
Mr President, we must take these issues of hooliganism seriously.
We know now that there are tens of millions of people who are passionate about this sport and that, since the World Cup was won by France, they have been impatiently awaiting Euro 2000.
Football has become a sport of the masses and we must think about the safety of our children, our little brothers and the youngsters who frequent the stadiums.
We cannot therefore just say that there are risks and there will always be risks.
We must try to counter this phenomenon of hooliganism to the best of our ability.
I say this because we cannot allow the good image of genuine supporters to be tarnished by the actions of a few violent extremists who use these major gatherings as a pretext for carrying out unacceptable acts.
The motion is good in that it indicates that adequate safety measures must be taken.
During the last World Cup you will remember that hooligans committed very serious acts of violence. One in particular involved an attack on a police officer who was in a coma for a long time and who is now paralysed for life.
All this is not inevitable and we must find the means, for example, of punishing hooligans in the countries of the European Union in which they commit their offences.
In this respect I believe there to have been a recent example in France which is very important.
For years, under the Nazi banner, French hooligans monopolised a stand at the Parc des Princes in Paris.
They took advantage of matches to vent their hatred, chant Nazi slogans and chase blacks and Arabs on leaving the ground.
The Paris St. Germain club allowed this to happen and even ended up blocking access to the stand in question for any dark skinned person on the pretext of safety.
Following a complaint from the French association, SOS-Racisme, and faced with the threat of prosecution, the club undertook to end this behaviour and to no longer allow the hooligans into the stadium by strictly screening people as they enter.
Before every match, right to the end of the season, Paris St. Germain now shows an anti-racist video clip which celebrates the values of friendship and brotherhood and the pleasures of the sport.
This proves that action can be taken and that violence is not inevitable. I truly believe that, when you think about what football has become, with tens of thousands of youngsters in these stadia, this shows that we really must try to be careful and not take these matters lightly.
Mr President, the PPE-DE does not support the resolution of the British delegates and has announced that it is to withdraw it later on, not because we would not want to condemn the increasing violence as a result of football matches, but because the resolution is too restrictive and insubstantial as it stands and, to that extent, does not belong in this Chamber.
Surely it is not up to us to get involved in the politics of one specific match at a specific venue and make technical statements about the suitability of one football stadium for one Euro 2000 match?
It would have been much better to point out - and I would like to do so on behalf of many PPE-DE colleagues - that, first of all, safety is an essential good over which extreme care is to be taken and for which many efforts are being made with regard to Euro 2000.
Secondly, all those responsible for safety at Euro 2000 are called on to operate in an extremely preventive manner.
Thirdly, the police forces of all participating countries must be encouraged to negotiate obstacles which would hinder extensive collaboration.
Fourthly, we would like to call on all those involved - organisers, players and supporters - to observe fair play.
It is unfortunate that this resolution led to a match between Belgium and England, first within the PPE-DE and later on in this Chamber, too.
I do hope that this match finishes in a sportsmanlike way and I hope that the Belgians will not just win here but also a number of matches during Euro 2000.
Mr President, hooliganism is not a borderline phenomenon but clearly takes the form of a subculture and is, as such, difficult to control.
In my opinion, zero tolerance is the only way to systematically tackle any infringement and efficiently penalise any breach.
The content of the current resolution overlooks the causes of hooliganism, whether or not consciously.
It is clear that the initiators of the resolution are more concerned with slating the organisation of Euro 2000.
The Liberals, however, refuse to play this game.
We can appreciate the enormous efforts which the governments of the organising countries have made in order to make Euro 2000 run as smoothly as possible.
All we want to do on the eve of Euro 2000 is to call on each and every one who bears responsibility to exercise the greatest possible alertness so as to reach the set goal, namely to turn Euro 2000 into a party for hundreds of thousands of spectators and millions of viewers, a party which should help us project a positive European image.
Mr President, we are unable to support the submitted resolution.
I was in favour of discussing the topic of hooliganism but this resolution can at best be described as agenda pollution. This Parliament should not be discussing safety during one particular Euro 2000 match under pressure from what I assume is a portion of British public opinion.
It is also an insult to - in this case - the Belgian organisers of this game and the international authorities involved.
This is a great pity because extensive discussions can be held about the fight against hooliganism itself.
In addition, we continue to learn important lessons, such as for example, how we should really guide the fans?
How can we better educate club managers and organisers of games? Attention should also be given to the so-called 'second opinion' which is now being applied, by means of which a group outside the organisation analyses the measures taken and suggests improvements.
Mr President, hooligans have managed to spoil the fun of the real fans too often.
It will be different at Euro 2000, as this will be a football party for everyone.
Mr President, I will begin in the Philippines and end, such is the reach and range of the European Parliament, with football.
The Commission shares the honourable Members' concern for the health and safety of the hostages in Jolo and Basilan.
We strongly condemn such terrorist actions.
We were, of course, fully associated with the decision to send the EU High Representative, Javier Solana, to the Philippines.
Mr Solana was sent to convey personally to the Philippine government the European Union' s message concerning the safety of the hostages.
He received assurances from the government of the Philippines that military force would not be used to liberate them.
We are following events in Mindanao and the neighbouring islands closely.
We are concerned at the escalation of political violence that has taken place after the suspension of the peace negotiations between the government of the Philippines and various armed groups.
We believe that only an early resumption of peace negotiations, as requested by the leaders of civil society and of religious groups, offers prospects for a lasting improvement of the situation in Mindanao.
I should wish to add one final point about the 21 hostages - seven of them are European Union citizens.
Obviously, we all hope for their early release.
Our thoughts are, I am sure, with their families.
I hope, too, that we will receive early news about the welfare of the journalists who went to cover the story and have subsequently gone missing.
I hope that their whereabouts will soon be discovered.
Moving on to Equatorial Guinea.
We have been closely monitoring the human rights situation there for several years.
We share the concerns of the European Parliament about the local elections there.
Those concerns were reflected in the presidency declaration at the beginning of May.
During a recent mission by the Commission services, the issues that Parliament is addressing were raised directly with the President.
An official request for an electoral monitoring mission was sent on 2 May by the Equatorial Guinea government to Commissioner Nielson.
An answer containing detailed reasons for the refusal is being sent by the Commission to President Obiang.
The request from the government of Guinea-Bissau arrived very late and, in keeping with our guidelines, electoral observation missions should be prepared at an early stage in the electoral process so that we can ensure that the process is accurate and fair.
It is relevant that the opposition parties in Equatorial Guinea have contested the electoral lists and have already decided to boycott the ballot.
We therefore consider that, at this stage, the presence of international observers would not only fail to improve the quality and the transparency of the local elections, there is also a very real risk that this mission could be misused by local authorities as a way to legitimise an unsatisfactory process.
However, we intend to involve ourselves in promoting the process of democratisation in Equatorial Guinea.
On Iran, the Commission fully shares Parliament' s concern over the lack of freedom of expression there.
In the comprehensive dialogue between the European Union and Iran, questions regarding human rights, including press freedom, are regularly raised by the Commission.
The Iranian authorities are well aware of the importance we attach to these issues.
Clearly the present position is a very delicate one: the opponents of reform have used their control of the judiciary and of the security forces to intimidate intellectuals and to ban reformist papers.
The current trial of the 13 Jews on charges of espionage is also very disturbing.
The reformists have remained calm, and so should we, hoping that the convening of parliament will shortly help improve the situation.
I turn to Burma.
We deplore the continued violation of human rights by the Burmese military regime.
In particular, we deplore the continued extra-judicial killings, the widespread imposition of forced labour and the forced displacement of local populations, as well as the repression of political opponents and the prevention of the free functioning of legitimate political parties.
This includes the restrictions on the freedom of movement of Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the National League for Democracy and the routine practice of arbitrary arrests.
We have strongly supported the EU common position on Burma and the decision of the April 2000 General Affairs Council to strengthen that common position.
We use every opportunity to press our Asian partners to urge, what is called - with a touch of George Orwell - the "State Peace and Development Council" to enter into a substantial dialogue with the democratically elected representatives and the ethnic minorities with a view to arriving at a mutually agreed internal solution to the problems of Burma and to respect for international human rights standards there.
Lastly, on football hooliganism: the responsibility for ensuring adequate safety for spectators and players during the Euro 2000 matches lies with the relevant national authorities and the relevant football associations.
I just wish to make two additional points.
Firstly, we want Parliament to recall that, last June, the Justice and Home Affairs Council requested Member States to step up cooperation in order to prevent and control violence and disturbances in connection with international football matches.
At the same time a handbook was made available with examples of working methods to police forces.
Secondly, the Community' s programme for police and customs cooperation finances a project prepared between the police authorities of the Netherlands and Belgium in which police forces from other Member States participate.
This aims at drawing lessons from the organisation of Euro 2000 in order to improve, when necessary, the organisations of future similar events.
I would just like to add one point.
I very much hope that Euro 2000 is a great success.
However, I hope with equal fervour that the games during Euro 2000 are a great deal better than the one I watched on television last night.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6 p.m.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I will be very brief but I rise on a matter which is dear to the hearts of most Members here.
On a number of occasions this week the Members bar has had in it visitors from outside Parliament and, actually, just members of the public.
I know a number of Members during the week have been unable to get any food.
Could we have some clarification from the Quaestors so that we can have a Members bar? We have a Members bar in Brussels.
I am not against taking one or two members of staff or whoever it might be into the bar, but to bring visiting groups of 20 or more into it is wrong.
I hope we can have some clarification.
Thank you, Mr Sturdy.
We will refer that to the College of Quaestors, as you requested.
Your point is well made.
The decision was taken this morning that we would vote at 6 p.m. and that the urgencies not reached would be voted on even though they were not debated.
The matter of football hooliganism was under the human rights matters.
That debate has been concluded.
So we have finished that whole section.
I do not want lots of debates.
We have a lot of voting to get through tonight.
I would just point out to you Rule 50, paragraph 6: "The President and political group chairmen may decide that that the motion for a resolution shall be put to the vote without debate" .
That was the rule under which this practice has been established.
I agree with you that it should not become a precedent.
Let us move forward now to the vote.
Mr President, I rise to make a point of order along exactly the same lines as my fellow Member. I regret that Mrs Buitenweg has involved herself in sabotage tactics and I would like to respond to the repeated claims we have heard from Mrs Buitenweg, Mrs Van Lancker and Mr Howitt, who are accusing others of sabotage, when, in fact, it has been Mrs Buitenweg herself who has been at the forefront of the action to sabotage the functioning of this Chamber.
Vote
Mr President, people are different, yet of equal value.
In our opinion, human society should be based on solidarity, human dignity and equality.
Everyone is entitled to this.
Unfortunately, there is a long tradition of unequal treatment, first and foremost by people who have the power to make other people dependent on them.
They can treat those who are dependent on them unequally by rewarding or punishing them for features which are out of their control.
This was not only done by slave owners and colonial military, but has also been the tactic of employers and those with political authority.
There is also discrimination if the basic requirements of people are made unnecessarily scarce.
If everyone has to fight for a job, a place in education or house, a battle of interests will ensue.
People then start to think along the lines of: if the others were not here, there would be more for us.
From a racist angle, the question then simply is: who can have those scarce provisions and who cannot?
Anyone belonging to a different group can be seen as an unwanted competitor on the job or housing market.
In Western Europe, employers and the police are still ruled by prejudice and a tendency to treat people unequally.
In addition, there are groups who seek political gain from scarcity and short-sightedness by setting people against each other.
The fact that in the recently formed new states of Eastern Europe, the language of workers and farmers has become the language of the state and education, forms part of the necessary democratisation process but should not go hand in hand with discriminating against, and even driving out, minorities living within the particular state' s territory.
Everyone is entitled to protection from those seeking political and economic gain from discrimination.
Vital tools for achieving this are suffrage for newcomers, humane treatment of political refugees, equal treatment of all residents of the European Union, irrespective of their nationality, and the reversal of the burden of proof in legal cases.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left has opted in favour of maximum reinforcement of the position of the victims of discrimination and against all attempts to prejudice this protection.
Mr President, I voted for the proposal for the race directive.
I did so very willingly and, particularly in my capacity as representative of the Pensioners' Party, I am glad to have been able to use my vote to contribute to the adoption of this directive.
Today' s pensioners and elderly people lived through the Second World War: they know what racism means.
They hoped that the issue would never have to be raised again, let alone regulated by laws banning racist acts.
I hope that this law will soon be out of date, for that will mean that antiracist behaviour has ceased. I hope that this and every other law against discrimination will become obsolete.
Since, sadly, this is not the case at present, Europe is acting wisely in publicly making its position so clear.
The Commission' s proposal for a directive on implementing in Europe the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin clearly shows that it is better to let well alone. This is even truer with regard to the Buitenweg report to the European Parliament.
The proposal initially seemed to be well intentioned as it aimed to improve protection for victims of racism in the European Union.
In reality, however, the text before us is so obsessed with hunting down discrimination that it completely loses sight of the basic principles of the rule of law and even, to crown it all, the principle of equal treatment between persons.
In addition, the proposal for a directive as usual fails to respect subsidiarity and allow the Member States the necessary room for assessment.
On the issue of the rule of law, it is particularly astonishing to read in Article 8 of the Commission' s text that if, in a given situation, a case of discrimination is assumed, it is the defendant' s responsibility to prove that there has been no violation of the principle of equal treatment.
This flouts the traditional principle of our law which states that it is the responsibility of the accuser to provide proof of the culpability of the accused and not the responsibility of the accused to provide proof of his innocence.
The effect of such a provision would be all the more devastating as the assumed discrimination could be 'indirect discrimination' which occurs, according to Article 2(2)(b), 'where an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice is liable to affect adversely a person or a group of persons of a particular racial or ethnic origin' .
However, this dedication to anti-discrimination soon comes to a halt in the Commission' s text as Article 5 states that specific measures may be adopted to compensate for the handicaps of a supposedly disadvantaged ethnic group.
This sows the seed for the famous American policy of 'positive discrimination' which is nowadays much disputed, even in the USA.
And this is just the Commission' s text which is the most moderate.
The European Parliament report adds to this in all respects.
Some people in the Commission seem to be having doubts as they have taken the trouble to add a form to the proposal for a directive which explains the possible impact of the directive on enterprises.
This unusual procedure clearly shows that the issue is not cut and dried.
In this form, the Commission simply states that "the Directive will strengthen the competitiveness of European companies by ensuring that they have at their disposal a wider pool of skills and resources than at present and that use is made of such skills irrespective of racial or ethnic origin" .
Unfortunately, this statement, which is solely intended to give the authors a clear conscience, is completely false.
It is quite clear that employers risk being plagued, particularly in the area of recruitment, with threats from people whose applications have been rejected.
Yet it cannot be denied that the immigrants currently entering the European countries are mainly unskilled and come from countries where work experience in businesses such as ours is very scarce.
Threatened by this new legislation and in order to keep the peace, employers may be forced to employ people without any real justification which will hinder the competitiveness of their companies.
For all these reasons, we reject the Buitenweg report. We hope that the Council, which must act unanimously pursuant to Article 13 of the EC Treaty, will in turn reject the Commission proposal.
I was going to vote in favour of the motion given its positive points and the hopes to which certain points may legitimately give rise.
However, two interventions by Mr Désir highlighted that the texts, at least in the French version, contained provisions totally contrary to the principles of international law and, in particular, to the European Convention on Human Rights.
This is why I abstained during the vote on the legislative resolution.
We have voted for the Buitenweg report which supports and improves, in several respects, the proposal for a Council directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin.
However, as we said during the vote on Amendment No 39, we totally disagree with the wording of Article 4 of the draft directive. By providing that "a difference of treatment which is based on a characteristic related to racial or ethnic origin shall not constitute discrimination where, by reason of the nature of the particular occupational activities concerned or of the context in which they are carried out, such a characteristic constitutes a genuine occupational qualification" , this totally contradicts the provisions of the international and European conventions on human rights and the elimination of all forms of social discrimination.
It should be noted that these conventions are binding on the European Union and the Member States which have ratified them.
This wording also contradicts the laws and constitutions of several EU Member States.
This article cannot be transposed into French law, for example, as the Constitutional Council would rightly be forced to oppose this.
If retained in the final version of the directive, this article would, for the first time, constitute a legal basis for discrimination in the right to work based on 'a characteristic related to racial or ethnic origin' .
We were anxious to accompany our vote with this reservation which also applies to the totally inappropriate use in several articles, in the French version at least, of the word 'race' .
In Article 2, for example, it is used to describe 'a group of persons' and not as a characteristic of unacceptable discrimination. This therefore seems to justify this concept and allows it to be validly and properly used to describe a person or group.
The fight against racism is clearly based precisely on the rejection of the concept of race, on its denunciation and on the refusal to place men and women in this category and to divide humanity according to this concept.
- I am voting in favour of the Race Directive for the following reasons.
As a British Asian woman, I have experienced first-hand the damaging effects racism can have on people and communities.
Although there have been tremendous strides over the last few years to fight racism in all its forms, it still continues to blight people' s lives.
For example, in my own region, the West Midlands, we have recently seen some worrying instances of racist violence.
The attack on the white partner of the world-class black athlete Ashia Hansen is a sickening example.
This report is a real breakthrough in reversing the burden of proof in civil race discrimination cases.
Once the facts of the case are established, it will fall to those accused of racism to prove their innocence.
I particularly welcome the measures included in the directive which will allow individuals to take civil proceedings if they are victimised on the grounds of race.
I am also glad that the legislation takes account of the notion of "indirect discrimination" , where apparently neutral provisions can have an adverse effect on a person or a group of a particular race or ethnic origin.
Right-wing extremism is increasing, not just in Austria, but throughout Europe.
This directive provides some of the most effective anti-racism legislation that Europe has ever seen, and the most effective piece of race relations legislation to affect my own Member State since the 1976 Race Relations Act.
Minority groups must be given a greater stake in Europe.
The EU should pay more attention to their problems and aspirations.
We need to connect EU institutions to all the communities of the Union.
Europe must be inclusive, not exclusive.
We must tackle racism wherever and whenever it occurs.
The race directive is a stand against racism and a major step towards stamping it out.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the report by Kathalijne Maria Buitenweg on the Council' s directive for implementing the principle of equal treatment for all, irrespective of race or ethnic origin.
We were delighted to do so, because the European Parliament is hereby complying with its task in connection with implementing Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
According to Article 13 of the Treaty, the European Parliament is merely to be heard on this matter.
In our voting, it has therefore been important that Parliament' s opinion - both the individual points and the opinion as a whole - should have very broad political backing.
We have nonetheless been unable to vote in favour of those amendments directly affecting matters which come within the sphere of the Member States' criminal law. These matters continue to be national concerns.
In connection with the debate on the report, we have pointed out that the present directive only deals with discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic origin.
But what about all the other protective considerations listed in Article 13 of the Treaty? We are concerned that, by only proceeding on the basis of these two considerations in the present directive, the EU will, in practice, create a hierarchy of possible grounds for discrimination.
We would therefore especially draw attention to Amendment No 6 concerning a new consideration which is absolutely crucial for ourselves.
- Given the worrying evidence that racism is on the rise I warmly welcome this report which aims to ensure equal treatment in the employment and social sector between persons of all ethnic backgrounds.
The rapporteur seeks to ensure a common minimum level of protection including the reversal of the burden of proof in civil race discrimination cases and giving individuals the right to take civil proceedings if they are harassed or victimised on the grounds of race.
The Portuguese Presidency is to be congratulated for their readiness to put this matter on the Council' s agenda.
The fight against discrimination is an issue which has been on the agenda of the French Assembly since 1979. Two inquiries on racism have already been established and the French Parliament was the instigator in 1986 of a joint interinstitutional declaration.
However, such initiatives are no longer enough.
We must go further and legislate.
The Buitenweg report is timely as racism and anti-Semitism are still of concern in Europe.
Is this the right moment to reiterate our vigilance with regard to certain parties now in power?
With Mr Deprez and Mr De Clercq I tabled an amendment to the title of the directive.
In the French version the Commission' s initial text uses the phrase 'sans distinction de race ou d' origine ethnique' .
The concept of origin is fundamental as discrimination may relate not only to the current status of an individual but also to his origin and descent.
We wanted to introduce the same nuance and precision with regard to the issue of race and therefore proposed 'd' origine raciale' .
This amendment was adopted in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights but I note now that it has simply disappeared from the text submitted to you.
We should like an assurance that this will be duly corrected.
Also, although the issue of religion has been excluded from this directive for legal reasons, it is vital to reiterate that we are definitely not ignoring the forms of discrimination based on religious beliefs. Parliament has still to examine another Commission text in this respect.
To conclude, the Buitenweg report is inspired by a proactive and progressive approach which I have supported.
The risk of a resurgence of the neo-fascist and racist hydra requires close vigilance from us, more so now than ever before.
We must lead the way in this fight.
That concludes the vote.
Trafficking in women (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on trafficking in women.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on the magnificent work she has carried out on such a serious problem.
The trafficking in women is having a very great impact, especially in the border countries of the European Union, where mafias are forming which deceive women with promises of employment and a better life, and which lead them eventually into prostitution and, in many cases, into situations which can only be described as slavery.
This is a phenomenon related to our current society, in which immigration is beginning to cause a serious problem, since we are seeing significant movements of people who are seeking the kind of welfare society which we enjoy in the majority, or practically all, of the European Union countries.
This situation requires a series of new measures, most importantly aiding victims and prosecuting the people involved in the trafficking in women and children - since it is not just a problem for women, but children as well - for sexual exploitation.
Amongst the measures proposed in this report are basically aid to victims and the request that Member States amend their legislation in a way which will allow quicker and more coordinated action amongst the various countries in order to resolve this very serious problem.
The victims do not only require material aid, but also legal assistance - because we are generally talking about people with no documentation, with no options and who are living in fear and need help - which, at the same time, protects their identity and guarantees that they will not suffer even worse problems if they return to their countries of origin.
The different countries of the European Union must harmonise their legislation in this respect and implement sufficient measures to help these victims.
The trade in sex is increasing at an alarming rate.
Women and children are involved.
I believe that the media should also aid this process, because we are seeing more and more adverts in the press - sometimes in the very serious newspapers - behind which lies the trafficking in women and exploitation.
However, it is not only through legal assistance and through protecting the victims that we must address the problem, but also through information campaigns, mainly in the countries of origin, so that these women know what they are really exposing themselves to, since the majority of them are being deceived and do not realise the hell they are about to walk into.
Mr President, every year, half a million women are tricked or forced into lives as sex slaves.
This greatly increasing trade is more profitable than drug smuggling and is increasingly being directed by an organised mafia for trafficking in women.
Despite this grim reality, the penalty for trafficking in women is exceedingly small compared with that for serious drug smuggling.
It amounts to perhaps two years' imprisonment compared with ten to fifteen years for serious drug-related offences.
Few offenders are brought to court, and still fewer prosecuted.
The EU has so far exemplified the fact that words are not always translated into reality.
Despite a number of statements from the EU about the appalling traffic in women, there is still no complete database with information about victims, trade routes, legislation or measures to be taken.
The European women' s lobby reports that only 0.036 per cent of the EU' s budget for the year 2000 has been set aside for issues of equality and that only a fraction of this fraction goes on measures to combat trafficking in women.
A growing number of women are being smuggled in from the candidate States.
In spite of this, the EU has not made demands upon these countries to prevent, and to introduce measures against, trafficking in women, similar to the demands that have been made regarding economic and environmental objectives to be attained by the candidate States.
By not complying with existing laws and not creating new laws to tackle the mafia concerned, the governments of Europe are indirectly allowing this demand-driven trade to increase.
There is a lack of legislation, not only in terms of measures to combat the aforesaid mafia, but also in terms of laws to protect the victims.
All but two Member States send victims of the trafficking in women back to their countries of origin, in spite of the possibility that their lives may be in danger.
We are voting today, or hopefully tomorrow, on an attempt to convert rhetoric and fine words into concrete measures.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities is demanding that the Member States provide women who give evidence with protection and refugee status.
We demand tough, exemplary penalties for trafficking in women, together with national informants on trafficking in women, able to inform their governments about developments in their own countries, as well as in other countries.
We demand measures to combat the increasing use of the Internet for the purpose of trafficking in women, and we demand that national police forces and embassy officials be given appropriate training and that increased resources be made available for the voluntary organisations which provide aid to victims.
Before the end of this year, the governments of the Member States will presumably have decided upon a new Treaty.
We assume that this Treaty will contain a clear legal basis for combating all forms of violence against women, including, of course, trafficking in women, and that we shall be devising a common European policy for combating the trade in human beings.
Among the issues which should be covered by this policy is that of immigration and asylum, especially that of the right to asylum on the grounds of sexually motivated oppression and sexually motivated persecution.
In the United States and Russia, slavery was abolished in the 1860s. It has to be said, however, that the incidence of slavery is increasing, despite the fact that we have now entered the twenty-first century.
This new form of slavery mainly affects women and girls but, irrespective of who is being enslaved, the mere presence of slavery is humanity' s best evidence of poverty.
Many now support the demand to put a stop to the female slave trade, but more is needed in terms of manpower, intervention by governments and concrete action.
Mr President, it is quite incredible to stand in this Chamber - I can hardly call it an Assembly right now - and realise that we, in fact, have an on-going slave trade in the European Union, too - here, where we commend ourselves for creating peace, freedom, democracy and human rights.
It is a serious matter that we should have this type of trade, because it is often not even adult women who are affected but near-children and very, very young people.
This trade is very closely linked to drugs and money laundering. Presumably, it is different types of mafia which control it.
This report is very good.
Like the previous speaker, I want to emphasise that we need to see action taken and that police cooperation needs to be developed and more information made available.
I am often sceptical about the very large demands, for example with regard to the environment, which are being made of the candidate States.
At the same time, I think it would be reasonable to demand that information be provided to the countries' own citizens, with other information being directed specially at young women. This measure would not, in fact, require large resources, and it is entirely feasible to implement it.
I can therefore only appeal to everyone to vote in favour of the report and to go home and work on their own governments, organisations and the media, too.
Mr President, prevention is better than cure.
This seems to be an impossible task in the case of trafficking in women.
Within EU territory and especially in the Central and Eastern European countries, the commercial exploitation of women is flourishing.
In the rapporteur' s report, it appears that the measures taken so far have been to little avail.
If we really want to prevent trafficking in women, we will need to adopt a different approach.
We cannot put a stop to this trade by amending immigration and asylum policy and the legalisation of prostitution.
And although I am generally in favour of good working conditions, these too cannot halt the trafficking in women.
After all, as long as the demand for prostitutes is still there, there will always be women who, enticed by better prospects presented to them, will - often unwittingly - make themselves available as merchandise.
It is not only heartless criminal organisations, but also rich, and not so rich, customers who help perpetuate the slave labour of these women who have no other prospects.
We cannot bridge this chasm between rich and poor with a few initiatives organised at Community level.
In addition to a sound and generous development policy in order to improve the living conditions of women in our own countries, it is necessary to question the lack of moral standards within our society.
By imposing heavy penalties on criminal organisations which indulge in trafficking in people, we clearly denounce this type of practice.
Only in this way can trafficking in women be effectively pushed back.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for her very valuable report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in 1996, we more or less got the political go-ahead to tackle trafficking in women at European level, and I am delighted to tell you that the then Belgian government played a vital role in bringing about this green light.
But I think we need to ask ourselves whether, after four years of work, Europe is sufficiently equipped to be able to fight this trafficking in women effectively.
I think I can assume that the Sörensen report makes it abundantly clear that this is not the case.
We back Mrs Sörensen' s report 100% and I would like to congratulate her on her sterling work.
I would especially like to re-emphasise the fact that the resolutions, which we will be approving tomorrow, fail to display a coherent legal framework for tackling trafficking in women, an issue which, in fact, the Belgian government made a point of hammering home at the time.
I think that everyone by now realises that a coherent approach to trafficking in people first and foremost presupposes a clear definition of trafficking in women, which, indeed, is not restricted to forced prostitution, although this is very important, but encompasses all types of trafficking in women and which is linked to deterrent sanctions involving trafficking in people.
I think it is beyond dispute that the national laws and methods for tracing victims and prosecuting offenders within the world of trafficking in women should be harmonised as a matter of urgency and that it is important that police forces work together more effectively.
A second point which is essential to us in this report - and we have been hammering on about this for a while now - is the fact that we need to continue to be committed to the protection of women who are the victims of such types of trafficking.
All too often in many countries, those women are criminalised whereas, in fact, they are the victims.
What we are advocating is a legal residence status for those women so that they can be protected.
Thirdly, I think it is clear that without such a legal framework, we will never reach a solution to this problem.
In fact, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Vitorino at this stage on his intention to present a framework decision to the Council within the course of this year, as a result of which we would then be able to resolve a number of these bottlenecks and issues.
Patsy Sörensen, our rapporteur, knows the topic of her report like the back of her hand.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner, since he is here, when drafting his future policy on trafficking in people, to talk to police forces and the civil service - this goes without saying - but I would very much urge him to make ample time for workers at base and aid workers in the field.
After all, it is also their expertise which can ensure that our approach to trafficking in women is coherent and all-encompassing.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Sörensen for her report, which contains many proposals, and for the emphasis placed on the fact that trafficking in women and children is a violation of human rights.
The body and the human person are not commodities.
Even though many women choose to become prostitutes as an easy way of making a living, I would make no distinction between voluntary and forced prostitution: all prostitution is exploitation.
I would like to stress three points: firstly, trafficking and immigration.
A closed border policy prompts immigrants to turn to criminal organisations in order to procure visas or enter the country concerned illegally.
The Member States must develop a more united, responsible policy.
Thirdly: the victims' rights.
It was proposed that the European Union issue temporary residence permits to victims which would be conditional upon the victims giving evidence against the traffickers, but, as yet, Italy is the only State to issue permits which are not conditional upon the giving of evidence.
I would like to finish by raising the question of clients.
Commissioner Vitorino repeatedly stated the need to take into account the demand of this market, that is the clients.
But who are the clients? They could be our fathers, our sons or ourselves.
It is our duty to do our part to bring about a radical change in the mentality and culture of our society.
This means promoting policies which support women.
Mr President, if we are to discuss trafficking in women, we have to be aware that we are talking about a form of slavery, a modern form of slavery in which the majority of the victims are women subjected to trafficking run by organised crime networks.
Trafficking in human beings supplies various markets: the market in organs for medical transplants, the market in new-born babies for those who do not have any children and the sweatshop market.
However, the greatest area of crime involves women, the majority of whom are victims of trafficking for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
The poverty and marginalisation of the women in their countries of origin, the high earnings guaranteed to traffickers and the low risks they incur, and the substantial demand for women for prostitution and other forms of sexual exploitation are the factors behind the growth of this trade.
The Tampere European Council recently charged the European Union to fight against illegal immigration and, amongst other things, against those who profit from the trafficking in human beings.
Mrs Sörensen' s report goes beyond this perspective and gives absolute priority to the fight against trafficking in human beings.
It is estimated that 500 000 women are trafficked every year, the majority of whom then work illegally, but the underground nature of the trade means that the true extent of the problem is unknown.
The contribution of non-governmental organisations in revealing the causes, methods and consequences of the trafficking in women for sexual exploitation, and the support they provide for the victims, has brought about greater awareness of these issues.
The STOP and DAPHNE programmes already represent a major contribution of the European Union, but we must not stop there.
Mrs Sörensen' s excellent report stresses the links between the trafficking in human beings and the policy on immigration and asylum, and calls, in the first place, upon the Intergovernmental Conference to bring about integral communitarisation of European policy in this field.
As the report requests, it will therefore be necessary to establish a legal framework and effective prevention, protection and victim support measures at European level.
On the other hand, the Member States and candidate countries must intervene themselves at legislative, administrative and police levels in order to eliminate this crime and, at the same time, increase international cooperation with Europol and Interpol to fight criminal networks.
At national level, refugee status must be granted to the victims of trafficking and they must be issued with residence permits.
Some countries - Italy and Belgium - assisted by NGOs, have already introduced some early measures.
Furthermore, information campaigns must be launched in the victims' countries of origin and an awareness action pursued in the Member States to raise public awareness, in particular, among the male population.
- (EL) Mr President, with millions of people victim to the criminal activities of worldwide international trafficking gangs throughout the world and the terrifying spread of these networks to the European Union, we urgently need to take steps to fight this contemporary Lernaean Hydra.
The Union and the Member States currently have no powers whatsoever to intervene efficiently and break up the gangs operating almost undisturbed in our midst and in our neighbourhoods.
The public in Athens was shocked recently at the revelation that an Albanian immigrant, who had declared that he was a doctor, had kept a 13-year-old girl imprisoned in his apartment in a peaceful neighbourhood of Athens for nine months and prostituted her to some 50-60 respectable customers a day.
I personally advocate therefore that all the strategies used to fight trafficking in and the sexual exploitation of women and children should call for harsh punishment, both for those who profit from the trade in human beings and for those who use the services of prostitutes, as is the case under Swedish and Canadian law.
It would appear that the increase in human trafficking has coincided with the recent mass migration of people and the impoverishment of large sections of society.
Le Monde recently published shocking information on the activities of human traffickers, who are taking advantage of the situation in Kosovo and working with international illegal immigration organisations in order to sexually exploit some 300 000 women in France, Germany and Belgium, women mainly from Kosovo, but also from Moldavia, Romania and Bosnia.
Women are being held in concentration camps in conditions of true slavery and are being tortured before being forced into prostitution.
What is happening is a disgrace to Europe in the 21st century and betrays a lack of political will and commitment to prioritise this issue.
The Commission communication is satisfactory and Mrs Sörensen has presented an excellent report, but good intentions alone will not combat international organised crime.
We need initiatives on several fronts: legislative and administrative measures, harmonisation of legislation and prosecution methods, harsh punishment, protection for victims and collaboration between police and judicial authorities.
We also need to strengthen Europol with more funds and more staff so that it can start making joint prevention and prosecution plans with all the Member States and, of course, we need to strengthen non-governmental organisations.
In other words, we need to implement all the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere conclusions immediately. All these are issues, Commissioner, on which we are making no progress whatsoever.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Readmission of third country nationals
The next item is the report (A5-0110/2000) by Ms Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Initiative of the Republic of Finland with a view to the adoption of a Council regulation determining obligations as between Member States for the readmission of third country nationals (12488/1999 - C5-0319/1999 - 1999/0823(CNS)).
Mr President, my report does indeed concern the proposal for a regulation submitted by the Finnish Presidency on the relations and obligations as between the Member States for the readmission of third country nationals inside the European Union.
I am really sorry to have to say, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, that the proposal for a regulation has not been given the due attention, study and careful preparation needed when handling such a delicate and complicated matter.
This lack of preparation has resulted in serious reservations, rejection or a lack of interest in the proposal for a directive by the European Commission and the Council and by the parliamentary committees responsible, i.e. the Committee on Freedoms and the Committee on Legal Affairs, as well as on the part of non-governmental organisations, which the Finnish Presidency does not appear to have consulted.
The Tampere conclusions noted that the Union needed a comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of immigration, which is clearly linked to a whole series of political questions which have remained unanswered.
It is linked to respect for human rights and to the economic, social, political and cultural conditions in the person' s country of origin.
As far as the question of readmission is concerned, the Member States already have the experience of agreements under European Political Collaboration and Schengen-type cooperation.
This is a sensitive issue which calls for diplomatic collaboration.
As far as the content of the Finnish initiative is concerned, there is no explanatory statement attached to the draft regulation.
The initiative does not show any strategic vision.
The draft seeks to lay down a Dublin-style system for illegal immigrants, following the model of the Convention on asylum seekers, the application of which, as we know, has proven to be highly problematic and ineffective.
Priority is given in the proposal for a regulation to send back foreigners illegally present on the territory of Member States under a system of compulsory readmission operating between Member States.
The regulation aims to determine which Member State is obliged to readmit a third country national in order to implement the agreement in question.
The draft regulation does not debar a Member State from sending a foreigner who does not meet the conditions of entry or residence in a Member State back to his or her country of origin or another third country.
This provision seems to empower Member States to take more severe decisions outside the scope of the proposed regulation.
Other points which deserve criticism are the fact that any kind of solidarity between Member States is precluded, in particular as far as illegal border crossings and responsibility for the external borders of the European Union are concerned.
The proposal is perhaps a way of exercising indirect pressure for the borders of the European Union to be fortified.
Similarly, absolutely no consideration is given to the particular circumstances of persons who may have spent a long period of time in a Member State before being classed as illegal.
Residence permits for asylum seekers are not included in the documents provided for in the regulation, thereby creating the possibility of undermining the protection afforded to them.
The regulation permits readmission to another Member State to be requested within six months from the time when the authorities of the requesting Member State became aware that a third country national may be (not "is" ) illegally present.
In other words, the proposal allows entry to the territory of a Member State to be proven on the basis of hypothetical evidence.
The way in which the data required to identify persons to be readmitted is determined is open to every kind of abuse.
However, the basic problem appears to be that no strategy or European policy has been devised on immigration.
I consider, Commissioner, that we urgently need to prepare legal tools for the immigration directive, rather than confining ourselves to suppression and policing measures which are not subject to democratic control.
We urgently need to implement the Tampere conclusions and devise a common European policy on asylum and immigration based on European humanitarian values and respect for fundamental human rights.
Finally, we call on the European Commission to take the necessary legislative initiatives on all the issues which touch on immigration and, of course, to define the mutual obligations as between the Member States.
We are aware, Commissioner, of your personal interest and of the difficulties facing the Council and assure you that any initiatives which you may table in this direction will have our undivided support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank Mrs Karamanou for cooperating in such a straightforward and excellent way.
I know that we all had to work very quickly on this document, and at that time she was under additional pressure because of commitments at national level.
She has already mentioned very many points, and I would just like to say that, as regards content, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market was in agreement, as it was with the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
We only differed on a formal detail.
On behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, we are also requesting that this Initiative of the Republic of Finland should be withdrawn.
I am certain that it was very well intended, but it has not been thought through sufficiently.
Legally speaking, it has thrown up more questions than it has supplied explanations.
I would like to add a few important points.
An initiative of this kind should not mean that people can just be shipped back and forth within our territory.
Furthermore, as Mrs Karamanou has just said, this represents a programme singularly lacking in solidarity between the Member States.
With regard to readmission agreements, they should not be used as a possible way of twisting the arms of countries in receipt of development aid by saying that they will only receive development aid and funds or cooperation if they also sign readmission agreements.
This is bordering on blackmail.
Last but not least, I would like to say that the readmission of persons illegally residing in our territory is another problem that can only be solved jointly, by working together to fight the root causes and to finally address the issues of integration and asylum in cooperation.
Mr President, allow me to begin by highlighting the work of both the rapporteur and Mrs Echerer, the draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
I have had the opportunity to work with the rapporteur in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and it has been an honour for me to chair the committee that voted for Mrs Echerer' s excellent opinion.
Mr President, we are facing a situation which is real problem: the progressive disappearance of internal borders means that non-EU citizens in both legal and illegal situations are moving freely amongst the Member States.
If we are going to be realistic, this is a problem which, as the two rapporteurs have stressed, we must deal with fully, and, I might add, as a matter of urgency.
My view of the Finnish initiative is much less critical than theirs.
I believe we should stress the fact that the Finnish initiative was a very significant step forward from the moment it was put on the table, because it led the Council to get involved in a very urgent issue.
In other words, at the time, the Finnish initiative played a fundamental role, and we might say that it has died as a result of its own success.
The thinking behind the Finnish initiative means that its proposals no longer have any point, because they have now been fully adopted.
What we need now is not a provocative initiative which points its finger at the problem and starts a debate, but rather we need to get down - calmly but immediately - to resolving this problem.
Apart from that, I agree with many of the criticisms that have been made.
I also agree with one which has been made implicitly but which has not been stated directly.
We, as a legislating institution, cannot amend just any text; there are texts which are not amendable and texts which require a complete amendment.
This is what we have done in the case of the Finnish initiative, at least in the PPE Group.
We welcome the courage of the Finnish initiative, but we believe that this initiative will not seriously enable us to carry out the responsibilities that the European public has entrusted to us.
Why not? For the reasons which have been expressed, and which I would probably just be repeating: this initiative takes account of one aspect, the most repressive one, but that is only one aspect of the problem.
What we need now, given the developments since Tampere, is a more global vision.
The rapporteur is absolutely right to point out that this initiative does not take account of questions of procedure, or fundamental guarantees for the procedure, nor does it provide the necessary protection for the fundamental rights of those people who will be caught up in this type of procedure.
Finally, it has not been pointed out - and I think it is important that it is - that what we do in this area must be coherent with the Member States' principles regarding readmission of third country nationals.
All these types of bilateral agreement that are required are being negotiated.
The PPE has presented two amendments which I hope this House - to take up what the two previous speakers have said - will support in tomorrow' s vote, thereby sending a political signal, and we ask the Commission to present a complete and coherent text sooner rather than later.
Mr President, I would first like to thank the rapporteur and the draftsperson for their report and opinion.
I would also like to say on behalf of my Group that we fully support the proposal to refer this initiative back.
We did not come to this conclusion because we wanted to make things easy for ourselves and not table any amendments, but because - as emerges from the explanatory statement, which is very comprehensive and convincing - too many fundamental requirements have simply not been met.
We have heard about these shortcomings in the debate as well as reading about them in the reports.
However, it is not because of these shortcomings that we are recommending that this specific initiative should be rejected. What is at stake here is whether it makes sense for the Member States to have the right of initiative in these areas of competence.
The proposals on which Parliament has been consulted up to now under this right of initiative have not, on the whole, been very convincing - including an Austrian proposal that had both technical shortcomings and problems in terms of content.
What these proposals have had in common has been a failure to fit in with a coherent set of measures. Something else they had in common was that they either conflicted with existing legal instruments or duplicated them.
The advantage of the Commission alone having the right of initiative is surely that this ensures a systematic approach and guarantees that we have documents that are more precise and free from technical and legal contradictions. This applies in particular to matters for which Commissioner Vitorino is responsible.
Another clear indication of the shortcomings of Member States' right of initiative is that they are seldom received with very much enthusiasm, even by other Member States.
This also applies to the initiative before us today, which the Portuguese Presidency is no longer treating as a priority.
So, as a Parliament, we have more reason than ever before to be sceptical about this right of initiative on the part of Member States. This is not only because this right skews the balance between the institutions but also because, up to now, it has never really been convincingly exercised.
I would also like to touch upon another problem connected with this, which might perhaps warrant a joint initiative by the Member States.
Officials working at the Schengen external borders are constantly telling us that the residence permits presented by third country nationals and issued by other EU Member States still vary widely and are often difficult to identify as such.
This does not seem to fit in with the Joint Action concerning a uniform format for residence permits.
The Member States should take the initiative here and act in compliance with the EU format in their own administrative area.
Mr President, Commissioner, I want to say that I am speaking as much as a Finn as in my capacity as a representative of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
I would thank the rapporteur and the draftsperson of the opinion for the frank, direct and sincere words they have written about Finland' s initiative.
The report states that the initiative was poorly planned, that it contains no justification section, that it was prepared without organisations such as ECRE or UNHCR being consulted and that the relationship between the principles of readmission between the Member States and the principles of readmission to third countries is not made clear.
Furthermore, the report states that there is a lack of strategic vision, something which the rapporteur also said.
No distinction is made between those who do not fulfil and those who no longer fulfil the conditions in force for residence here.
It is all too reminiscent of Austria' s initiative on that famous first day of Austria' s Presidency.
There are also no procedural safeguards, which does not surprise me because, less than two months ago, the same Ministry of the Interior which is behind the present initiative proposed that Finnish immigration law be changed to include rapid repatriation.
My party, the Swedish People' s Party, voted against this initiative, really for the same reasons that Finland' s constitutional committee had when it considered that the same proposal was unconstitutional because, in the case of rapid repatriation, no one has the right to be heard.
It would be wisest, therefore, if Finland were to comply with Parliament' s proposal and withdraw the proposal, as both the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs propose.
I would point out that, of all the members of the Committees, only two supported this initiative.
I regret that the Council' s and Parliament' s time has been used in this way.
I think, like Mrs Berger said, that it could have been used for other things, for example, purely administrative procedures.
The issue of women as asylum seekers might also have been reflected upon, because we need to look at the Tampere decision in its entirety with a view to improving the asylum process.
I would emphasise that I am speaking as a Finn and as a representative of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
Mr President, the Karamanou report asks the European Parliament to reject the Finnish proposal to establish, within the European Union, a system for returning illegal immigrants to the Member State responsible.
According to this initiative, a Member State which arrests illegal immigrants in its territory could return them to the Member State through which they entered, with the expectation that the latter would probably return them to the third country from which they originally came.
This idea is interesting for three reasons.
Firstly, it responds to a genuine problem caused by the abolition of internal borders within Europe. It therefore fills a legal void by establishing a system for the return of illegal immigrants based on the Schengen acquis and modelled on the Dublin Convention of 1990 on asylum seekers.
Secondly, it forces the Member State which is negligent in monitoring its borders to take responsibility for illegal immigrants who use it to get into neighbouring countries.
Thirdly, it shows the usefulness - whatever the previous speakers may have said - of the Member States' right of initiative which the Treaty of Amsterdam retained as a transitional measure in matters relating to immigration and the movement of people.
In these areas, it is important that the national governments, which are still closer to the people than the Commission, should retain a full right to make proposals and, of course, decide on these.
The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights totally rejects this Finnish initiative however, and, in so doing, shows a tendency to exaggerate.
It uses the pretext of legal shortcomings to reject the whole proposal whereas it could very easily, in a more positive spirit, have itself proposed corrections.
However, this initiative is disliked by the federalists who would prefer a less intergovernmental and more Community-based approach, in other words granting more power to the Commission and the European Parliament.
It is also disliked by the pro-immigration pressure groups whose influence is apparent in the explanatory statement which highlights the positive contribution of immigration and rejects a supposedly repressive initiative.
This reasoning is, of course, diametrically opposed to ours.
Mr President, the Commission would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her report.
Since we completely agree with her analysis and conclusion and share the view that it cannot be adopted, as it stands, I shall be very brief.
Mrs Karamanou' s report has clearly demonstrated that the subject of readmission rules between European Union Member States, although a very technical and specific issue, touches upon some very sensitive policy issues that simply need more thorough reflection and preparation before they are again tackled by the Union.
I recognise that this initiative has drawn the attention of the Council to the necessity of drafting a coherent and consistent approach to immigration policy.
That is why I stated to Parliament the Commission' s intention of presenting to the Council and Parliament in the autumn of this year a communication on immigration policy, precisely to give us the broader picture within which these partial and sectoral issues can be fully and properly integrated.
I can assure you that the Commission thinks that we should not start with this question of readmission.
We think that though questions of readmission are no doubt relevant, they should be mainly addressed in the readmission agreements that the Union is now negotiating with third countries.
Nevertheless, for the time being, it is better to see the whole picture before we start discussing small details.
So the Commission can subscribe to the approach of the rapporteur and, apparently, the large majority in Parliament, in the sense that this initiative, as it stands - and I am not passing judgement on the intention behind it - is unacceptable.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, a gross mistake has found its way into Item 34 of the Minutes of yesterday' s sitting concerning the adoption of the resolution on Euro 2000.
The Minutes show this resolution to have been adopted by Parliament when in fact it was rejected by an overwhelming majority.
Moreover, the resolution is also listed among the texts adopted whereas notification of its rejection should appear in this part.
This will obviously be corrected.
Madam President, following your statement yesterday regarding the state of the air conditioning in the building, I have a slight problem in my position as Chairman of the Delegation for relations with Canada.
I have a group of Canadian members of parliament coming to the next part-session in Strasbourg.
I will have to take a decision on Monday as to whether they will be travelling to Strasbourg or Brussels.
Bearing in mind the French position on the precautionary principle, can a decision be taken rather sooner than a fortnight on where we will be meeting next month?
Mr Sturdy, as you know, and as the Quaestors point out in the memo which you have received, checks will be carried out at Parliament' s three places of work, that is to say, Strasbourg, Brussels and Luxembourg.
Unfortunately, we will then have to wait for the result of these checks.
I would therefore advise you to contact Mr Poos, so that he can keep you informed of the situation.
Madam President, I rise on the same point of order as my colleague, Mr Sturdy.
It is essential that this Parliament should show by example and precept that it follows the same standards that it imposes upon everybody else.
It imposes standards on beef in Britain and cheese in France and it must follow the same example in relation to its own conduct.
I am perfectly prepared, in an extreme situation, to die for my country and my family.
I am not prepared to die from legionnaire's disease because I have to sit in Strasbourg in June.
Therefore we should do something about it now and not just talk about it.
This is why, ladies and gentlemen, we are taking every necessary precaution at all Parliament' s places of work.
Madam President, as you may well expect, we will not enter into a debate between French and British beef producers now.
However, I have two questions to ask.
Firstly, could the same checks be carried out for Parliament in Brussels? Secondly, in accordance with the precautionary principle, can Brussels continue to be a place of work for Parliament since it is not equipped with air purifiers?
I have already answered the first question, Mr Daul, since I told you that the checks would also be carried out in Brussels as well as in Luxembourg where many people work, and this must not be overlooked.
The checks will therefore be carried out at all Parliament' s places of work, but Mr Poos will be in a much better position to answer you than myself.
Madam President, thank you for giving me the floor.
I would like to inform and at the same time reassure the Members who have just spoken on this important and serious matter.
I should like to point out to them that the College of Quaestors has acted in accordance with the precautionary principle.
In fact, if the College of Quaestors had not ordered an air quality check in these buildings, the problem would not even have been mentioned today in plenary.
This check has therefore been carried out and, as you know, it proved negative on two points.
We took the necessary steps immediately, namely closing the buildings where the problems were observed.
After technical changes had been made, we carried out a second air quality check, the results of which are available for asbestos.
The second check did not reveal any more asbestos fibres, suggesting that they had been brought in from outside, or could well have been.
We are quite certain that asbestos was not used to construct the building.
Furthermore, a second check has been carried out for the ducts contaminated with legionella bacteria, but the results of this are not available yet for purely technical reasons, as well as biological reasons, because the cultures take about a fortnight to mature.
At any rate, the results of this second check will be available by the start of the next part-session in Strasbourg, and rest assured, ladies and gentlemen, that if they should be positive, i.e. if these pathogenic elements are found to be still present, then the College of Quaestors will advise the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents to take the necessary action.
There is therefore no cause for alarm at present.
We shall wait for the results of these checks and we shall take the necessary steps in accordance with the precautionary principle.
Madam President, in Item 5 of the Minutes of yesterday' s sitting on the withdrawal of Mr Le Pen' s mandate, there are two half truths in the references to my speech and to that of Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi and two half truths can add up to one untruth.
Firstly, the Minutes state that Mr Medina Ortega 'questioned whether the letter from the committee' s chairman truly reflected the opinion of the committee as a whole' .
What I said was that the letter read out by the President and sent by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi was not the opinion of the committee. It had not been adopted by the committee and therefore was not its opinion.
It is not a question of whether or not it reflected the committee' s opinion: reflecting an opinion is not the same as being an actual opinion.
Secondly, the Minutes then state that Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi 'confirmed that the letter faithfully reflected the committee' s position' .
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi is not here but, if I remember rightly, what she said was something along the lines of it being her opinion of what had taken place in committee, although it had not been adopted by the committee.
Although I am aware that I am splitting hairs here, I should like to make it clear that what I said was that it was not the committee' s opinion and that, in some way, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi acknowledged that it was her opinion of what happened in committee.
In this way, the two half truths could be turned into two complete truths.
Mr Medina, I suggest that we listen again to the recording of the sitting and, if necessary, make the changes you specify.
However, given that this is a very delicate area, I think we must listen to the recording of the sitting first in order to see whether these changes are really necessary.
If they appear to be necessary, the changes will indeed be made.
Madam President, it is all very well Mr Poos saying that the Quaestors asked for the air quality check.
I understand that the staff asked for an air quality check before this building was opened.
I asked for an air quality check in January.
Why has it taken so long to get that air quality check? Usually, in a lot of countries, if legionella bacteria is found in any part of a building, that building is closed.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
There are no further comments.
(The Minutes were approved)
Vote
Madam President, I rise under Rule 126(3) so that I might question whether a quorum exists for this vote.
Despite the unprecedented presence of some French Members, my assessment is that Fridays in Strasbourg do not function properly and effectively for this Parliament and we should transfer more of our parliamentary work to the capital city, Brussels.
- (PT) Madam President, I would like to speak in reaction to the blatant hypocrisy of the request that has just been made.
During yesterday' s vote on the Buitenweg report, we witnessed some very serious goings-on in this Parliament.
Rules of Procedure were brushed aside so that we could proceed to the vote on the Buitenweg report, which bears the name of one of the leading lights of the group, whose spokesperson today is Mr Duff, perhaps because of some embarrassment on the part of Mrs Buitenweg.
Given what happened yesterday, which none of us has forgotten - we were forced to listen to hypocritical statements about great principles when, in the April part-session, for example, a motion on Ethiopia was sacrificed - I would ask the leaders of this group to show, at least in this part-session, some remorse at what they have done and some respect for their colleagues.
Madam President, I should like to convey our support and sympathy for the people of Paraguay in the light of another attempted military coup.
That is all I wished to say.
I should like the position of this House to be made very clear.
Madam President, due to the absence of two dozen Members and the request for the quorum which we would have established without any difficulty, our Group yesterday chose to refrain from preventing the Buitenweg report from being put to the vote when this would have been quite possible.
According to the agenda, the vote should have taken place today since the amendments were not put to the House in time yesterday.
I appealed to the House to act fairly.
I would urge the Members dealing with this matter to declare a moratorium.
We are about to take up the matter of enhancing the status of Fridays.
Of course, the best way to do this would have been by voting on this important report today.
However, I believe Mrs Buitenweg cannot attend today' s sitting.
In any event, we must nevertheless enhance the status of Fridays.
Our Group is in the process of taking appropriate precautionary action.
I would urge you to let us work fairly and to stop deliberately disrupting our work.
As I already said yesterday, I can tell you again that within the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents, we are in fact in the process of enhancing the status of the work undertaken on Fridays.
Madam President, the issue of requests for the quorum to be tested does not have anything to do with whether we work in Strasbourg rather than in Brussels.
Personally, I would prefer to work in Strasbourg, but I consider that if we have decided to work on Fridays - and this seems to me to be the issue here - then on Fridays the quorum needs to be present.
I do not feel that it is right to vote in favour of working on Fridays and then be absent.
With regard to whether requests for the quorum to be tested are intended to sabotage proceedings, I would refer you to events in the Italian Parliament.
I myself have requested that the quorum be checked many, many times, and, on most of those occasions, the quorum was not present.
Yet I have never been accused of sabotaging proceedings and I doubt that the war which has broken out between Ethiopia and Eritrea was caused by the fact that, last time, the quorum was not present.
Madam President, as Chairperson of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, I was a touch surprised at the request to establish that a quorum was present today.
We moved our two topics so that Mrs Buitenweg' s report could be discussed and voted on yesterday.
Mrs Sörensen' s and Mrs Karamanou' s reports were therefore moved to yesterday evening to be debated, and were to be voted on today.
I think it is odd, to say the least, that our colleagues should behave in this way.
It may perhaps be possible for my colleague to withdraw the proposal and appreciate the need to realise that half the earth' s population consists of women.
It is an extremely serious document which Mrs Sörensen has written and which we shall be voting on today.
I would most earnestly ask my colleagues to stop trifling with this Parliament and withdraw their proposal - perhaps with the help of Mrs Buitenweg.
Madam President, I just wanted to correct what Mr Posselt said.
He said that he did not think there was a quorum on the vote on Mrs Buitenweg's report.
By my calculations, 242 people voted on that report including about 35 Members of the PPE, and they should be congratulated on supporting that excellent report yesterday.
Madam President, before we take a vote - and I would rather a vote not be taken straight away - I should also like to join Mrs Theorin in appealing to Mr Duff as a friend and colleague to withdraw his request to establish the quorum.
Last time, at the Friday sitting here in Strasbourg, a request of this type had a disastrous effect on the European Parliament' s image.
It was broadcast on television the same day that there were not enough Members present in plenary to discuss aid to Ethiopia. Pictures of children who had died from famine and starving people were shown at the same time by the same channels.
The same thing will happen today with the fight against trafficking in women.
Pictures of poor girls living in districts that are unfit for habitation will be shown, and it will be broadcast that not enough Members were present in Parliament to discuss the matter.
So, please, I beg you to withdraw your request to establish the quorum, and let us take a vote!
Mr Duff, do you uphold your request? We shall then see if 32 Members join you.
Madam President, should these reports be serious then they certainly deserve a quorum.
What I will do is to press my point of order.
Madam President, I think you are mistaken as the voting list is different.
If we want to reject Finland' s initiative, we must vote against it.
That is primarily what we are voting on.
So whoever votes in favour, votes for the Finnish proposal which was rejected by committee.
Whoever votes against, rejects the Finnish proposal and thus gives the Commission the responsibility of presenting a relevant proposal, as represented by the subsequent amendments tabled.
Madam President, this is a very complicated process as Mrs Karamanou has already explained.
I would therefore urge you to allow me to very briefly explain the process once again.
I have also agreed to do this with the member of the PPE Group who works as a coordinator in our committee, since the PPE has proposed two amendments, although only for the legislative resolution.
The text of the resolution itself should be rejected.
However, I would urge a vote to be taken on the legislative resolution, together with both amendments, in which it is pointed out that we invite the Council to put forward a new draft text.
The present text should therefore be rejected and the Council invited in the legislative resolution to submit a new text.
It therefore comes down to the rather unusual process of the text which is actually to be voted on being rejected, but a vote then having to be taken on the legislative resolution.
I would urge that this rather remarkable procedure be carried out.
It gives us the chance to obtain a new text.
Madam President, with regard to this amendment, there is a linguistic problem.
The French version contains the word "délit" , whereas this is written as "crime" in the English version.
As you know, Madam President, this does not have the same meaning in French.
The amendment seeks to correct this.
I am not the one who tabled the amendment, but it does seem to me that this is the point of it.
I wanted to point this out.
Relating to Amendment No 5
Madam President, in the course of discussions with Mrs Martens of the PPE-DE Group, we decided to alter the amendment to paragraph 19 in this way.
It stresses the vital role played by the NGOs, which might also include humanitarian organisations in Europe that have set themselves the task of receiving and supporting the victims.
I endorse this amendment.
You are therefore proposing an oral amendment to replace the words 'the churches and religious organisations' with 'humanitarian organisations' .
Madam President, I am not quite clear as to whether the words 'church organisations' should appear in the text.
If not, I should like us to return to the original wording.
You, Madam President, said one thing and Mrs Sörensen another.
Would you be so kind as to repeat what the oral amendment should really consist of?
In order to make things crystal clear, I think that the best thing would be to listen to the rapporteur again so that everyone understands in his own language exactly what the oral amendment which you are proposing would consist of.
I apologise for the lack of clarity.
The oral amendment alters Amendment No 5 to paragraph 19 as follows: we want to keep "stresses the vital role played by NGOs" and then the words in bold in the original amendment are to be altered thus: "which may also include humanitarian organisations in Europe that have set themselves the task of receiving and supporting the victims" .
And so 'the Churches and religious organisations' is to be replaced by "humanitarian organisations" , because that is a much broader concept.
I think that things have now been made quite clear.
Are there at least 12 Members who are opposed to this oral amendment being considered?
(As more than 12 Members were opposed, the oral amendment was not considered)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Sörensen report (A5-0127/2000)
Madam President, it was with great pleasure that I voted for the Sörensen report.
I fully approve the contents of the report, but, sadly, I feel that it fails to get to the root of the issue.
The motion for a resolution states that 500 000 people, victims of trafficking in women, enter Europe every year.
The true responsibility for trafficking in women lies with the men who take advantage of them in Europe - in the order of 180 million people, according to my calculations.
The point I am trying to make in this explanation of vote can also be found on page 11, line 14 of the report, and it is the only line out of the 722 making up the report which reaches the crux of the matter: it states that we must fight for "information and awareness-raising activities with a view to reducing the demand side" .
Out of the 7 213 words in this report, a mere handful are dedicated to the truth.
- (FR) Once again we are confronted with one of the most sordid aspects of contemporary society: trafficking in human beings.
And once again, Parliament responds to this by using an incoherent form of language whose repetition is discouraging.
Indeed, whilst the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities rightfully condemns trafficking in women and children as an intolerable violation of basic human rights, at the same time it denounces what it considers to be the disastrous effects of the prohibition of prostitution.
But are the measures which we are rightfully calling for from national and Community institutions any good if we politicians fail to proclaim, beforehand, that this truly basic right to human dignity is being violated by sexual exploitation, particularly prostitution?
Let us take advantage of the fact that Parliament is presently involved in the work of the Charter of Fundamental Rights to think about the direction we want this to take. Is it about proclaiming a vision of the human being, and the sacredness and intrinsic dignity thereof, or recognising the rights of individuals in isolation and of separate impenetrable communities?
I will be told in reply that prostitution has always existed and that we should instead try to limit the damage it does.
This scourge, like so many others, has certainly always existed and regrettably will no doubt always exist, but our task as elected representatives forces us to take a better and wider perspective, regarding what destroys the human being not as an inevitability but as a crime to be combated.
The libertarian decriminalisation measures have proved to be inefficient and dangerous no matter what the field.
Let me remind some of my colleagues of the role played by these laws: by prohibiting certain practices, they set limits intended to protect those persons, male and female, who for different reasons are easy targets for criminal networks which exploit, and prosper on, their poverty.
If these laws are not enough to break up the networks, then we must also provide the competent authorities with the means to conduct a campaign which is all the more efficient since it will be supported by unambiguous legislation.
The unspeakable excesses of some people are often a sign of some distress which must also be put right.
It is criminal to use the weakness of certain individuals to promote a libertarian ideology which spreads distress further afield and ultimately smells of death.
Non-NAFO vessels
The next item is the report (A5-0101/2000) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation laying down certain control measures in respect of vessels flying the flag of non-Contracting Parties to the North-West Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO) (COM(1999) 570 - C5-0041/2000 - 1999/0231(CNS)).
Madam President, Commissioner, regional fisheries organisations, which regulate fishing operations outside the 200 miles of exclusive economic zones, play a fundamental role in the regulation and rational management of fishery resources in international waters.
They will be called upon to play an even more important role in the immediate future.
As a result, the European Union must strengthen its presence in such regional organisations, in those that already exist and in those that may be created in the future.
Unfortunately, in terms of human and technical resources, the European Commission is, in our opinion, currently unable to be present in each and every one of these regional fisheries organisations with the commitment they deserve, or in a way that reflects the important interests the different Community fleets have in the various oceans on this planet.
NAFO is an exception and has perhaps become the best attended, most regulated and most monitored organisation of them all.
It is also true that the Commission is paying greater attention to some of these organisations, as in the case of the ICCAT. This is certainly an organisation that is no stranger to pressure from this House and, more specifically, from our Committee on Fisheries.
However, there are a number of other organisations - to mention only those that relate to the tuna species - and, alongside the aforementioned Atlantic tuna organisation, there is a pressing need for our presence in, and commitment to, the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, the IOTC, the Inter-American Commission for Tropical Tuna, the IATTC, or the MHLC, the Multilateral High Level Conference, which is negotiating the convention that will govern the Western Pacific Council.
The European Commission needs to have an effective presence, both in terms of human and technical resources, in all these organisations and, as I said, in those that may be created in the future.
Parliament will help, and we shall spare no effort in ensuring that, in such organisations, the European Union has a level of influence that corresponds to our fisheries sectors. These sectors are calling for such an influence in view of third countries which, incidentally, sometimes defend their interests more vigorously than we defend ours.
NAFO has served as a model in many cases.
The regulation we are now considering represents an attempt to incorporate decisions adopted by the organisation in 1997, 1998 and 1999 into Community legislation to make our internal measures more effective.
In this case, we are dealing with the thorny issue of trying to ensure that vessels which are not part of the organisation respect the rules laid down by regional fisheries organisations. Such vessels, whether operating under flags of convenience or not, simply act freely whilst others respect provisions on the conservation of resources and, of course, contribute to these respective laws.
We support the measures drawn up, measures which are still scarce and difficult to apply, but which will continue to increase the world' s awareness of responsible fishing and trade and make such awareness more effective.
The measures suggested by this House' s Committee on Fisheries are along these lines. They are measures which clarify some concepts to ensure greater accuracy and improve, as far as possible, upon the already significant control measures in NAFO waters.
As we all know, a Community vessel that was operating in NAFO waters, the Santa Mafalda, has been ordered into the Portuguese port of Aveiro with Canadian NAFO inspectors on board.
Whilst we await the findings of the port inspection, we ask everyone to comply with the NAFO fisheries' regulatory measures. These measures on the conservation of resources are essential if such resources are to be maintained.
We also call on the Canadian authorities to behave in accordance with NAFO control measures and not to exceed their authority. During the plenary sitting on this matter, Mr Kinnock, Vice-President of the Commission, acknowledged that they had exceeded their duties in appropriating the ship' s documentation without the authorisation of the captain of the vessel.
Attitudes such as these remind us of a time we thought we had left behind, a time when Canada created a crisis, which we do not wish to see repeated under any circumstances.
Therefore, we ask for a forceful response from the European Commission to Canada over their behaviour and - I should like to stress this and then conclude - we ask everyone to behave appropriately in order to conserve resources and we ask them to comply strictly with the rules laid down by NAFO.
Madam President, Commissioner, for some time we have been observing with increasing concern an influx of vessels, which do not belong to NAFO, the North-West Atlantic Fisheries Organisation, into the North-West Atlantic.
To be quite frank, the owners of these vessels are stealing fish.
They deliberately refuse to join NAFO, of which the European Union is a member.
They think they can shirk all their responsibilities by doing so.
We have known for a long time what kind of problems the fishing industry as a whole has to contend with.
Overfishing certainly plays an important part in this regard.
What we therefore need, at the end of the day, is a coherent fishing policy, not just in our waters, but worldwide, where all parties act in concert and cannot play their own game.
This concerns everyone: the international community, individual countries and the European Union.
NAFO is therefore more important than you would think for everyone, and not just for the European Union.
The consequences of uncontrolled fishing have already been disastrous, particularly for cod and redfish, two highly valued sources of food.
Regulations - that is, either a total ban on fishing or at least clear restrictions on fishing - have been in force for both types of fish on the part of NAFO ever since the 1990s.
In spite of all the efforts even simply to make these often stateless vessels comply with the protective and conservation measures, fishing continues to proceed unabated.
The problem for the European Union was previously the lack of a unified system of control when checking vessels of non-contracting parties in EU ports because they are obviously not subject to Community law.
By transferring the NAFO regulations as international law directly into Community law which is in force in all EU Member States, the regulation presently under discussion thus gains importance.
The NAFO regulations - and their assimilation in a unified system - which control and, if necessary, sanction the non-contracting parties and their frequently stateless vessels and fishing, are therefore the most important matter dealt with in the regulation.
Those who took part in a psychological study which exists in Germany, and which is appropriately named the 'Fishing Game' , always headed for a resources catastrophe when they acted in isolation.
In the final analysis, every one of them always took whatever was still left and this could no longer be replaced at the end.
If we do not want to just have the choice between unreliable sources of food or unreliable fishing, then a functional form of cooperation between all the parties involved would be in our interests.
As a member of NAFO, and with a large number of Member States of its own, the EU fulfils the requirements for this.
We therefore welcome this initiative, but would like a few minor points to be clarified in our motions in order to achieve greater coherency between NAFO and the EU.
A final word on this interesting term 'international law '.
EU law also has its origins in international law.
Certainly, we must now realise that EU Community law has become a term in its own right, and that this must be analogous to the evolving definition of the term 'European Union' .
Mr President, in his speech, Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna has already mentioned the forceful response from the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Kinnock, to my question on the boarding by Canadian inspectors of a Portuguese fishing vessel in NAFO waters.
If we are to maintain the balance in this important organisation - and in what is an extremely important fishing ground for the Community fleet - then the only way to do so is for everyone to behave responsibly.
The proposal for a regulation under discussion today, on control measures for vessels from countries which are non- Contracting Parties to NAFO, is very much linked to this sense of responsibility that is so necessary in the fisheries sector.
I am referring to the responsibility we all share for managing marine resources, in accordance with rules accepted by all parties to guarantee that such resources are preserved and that ours will not be the last generation to see cod, redfish or American plaice.
Regional fishing organisations have played an increasingly important role over recent years in the management of resources.
In this respect, we, the Socialists, would like to continue developing the idea that encourages this sense of responsibility.
Legal philosophies dating from times gone by have been left behind, times when man felt how small he was in relation to the immensity of the Earth, which appeared to be a planet with infinite resources.
The lack of ownership of the seas and the principle that the sea belongs to no one sprang from such ideas.
However, nowadays, in a world that is becoming ever smaller, a world dominated by new technologies that make the world even smaller and with resources we know are becoming more and more scarce, we, the Socialists would like to move forward on the principle that the sea belongs to everyone.
For this reason, we would like NAFO to be - and indeed it is - an organisation open to countries that have vessels operating in this area.
In this way, such countries would play a part in creating regulatory measures and would share responsibility for managing resources.
If this does not happen, flags of convenience, euphemistically known as 'non-Contracting Parties' , will benefit, not to mention the piracy which lies behind the euphemism, 'stateless vessels' .
Such vessels - which we are often keen to believe have nothing to do with us - do not come from remote southern seas, but rather almost always originate from European ports, from Community ports.
They fly strange flags and their aim is to practise social dumping. In so doing, they avoid regulations on the rational management of resources and pay no attention to workers' social rights.
People who idolise the market should note from this that neither fish nor people gain anything from their hypotheses.
Lastly, it is extremely important that countries with vessels operating in NAFO waters are Contracting Parties, just as it is important that the European Community is also a Contracting Party to regional organisations being set up in the South Atlantic and beyond the area the Community fleet currently operates in.
Our fleet, the Community fleet, does not wish to be seen as a pirate fleet, as a fleet without nationality, nor as an intruding fleet.
To conclude, the Group of the Party of European Socialists would like to state that it wholeheartedly agrees with the content of this report although it regrets, as does the rapporteur himself, Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, that there is a lack of proposed measures from the Commission on combating the main enemy of our fleet and of the conservation of fishery resources today. This enemy is none other than those vessels flying flags of convenience.
I would very much like to support this report.
It is extremely important and it is very important to support the attempts of NAFO to halt this very problematic activity of non-contracting parties.
The reality of the situation is that "vessels from non-contracting parties" usually means vessels flying flags of convenience or flags obtained from countries which have open registers.
These are countries which will allow shipowners the right to fly their flag if they pay the country a fee.
Under international law, it is the responsibility of the state whose flag vessels fly to ensure that they abide by the relevant rules and regulations; for example, conservation measures, safety and labour standards, etc.
The big problem is that these countries selling flags of convenience have no intention of enforcing these rules, and that is the main reason why they appeal to these unscrupulous shipowners who can do what they like.
They can flout the law and no one is going to try and enforce it.
All the shipowner has to do is pay a bit of money to the country to get the flag which will allow him to fish with impunity.
This really has to stop.
The list of these countries is very long, but the traditional ones are Belize, Panama, Honduras and St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Many of these vessels have been active in the NAFO area, but that is not the only place where they operate.
Very large numbers have also been fishing for tuna in the Atlantic where the regional organisation is ICAT.
ICAT has done more than any other regional organisation to try and combat fishing by flags of convenience.
Most dramatically - and this is something that other people should take their lead from - is that it has now imposed import bans on bluefish tuna from one of its own members, Equatorial Guinea.
ICAT really does mean business and other people should follow suit.
Organisations like ICAT and NAFO cannot solve the problem on their own.
The responsibility lies in many other quarters and this responsibility needs to be taken seriously.
Many shipowners like to use flags of convenience for it lets them get away with just about anything.
There is no way of enforcing the law.
The countries that sell allow them to fly their flags; they turn a blind eye and do not care.
This is why it is so popular.
The EU is among the worst in this sense.
According to Lloyd's Maritime Services, in December 1999 there were 1,323 vessels over 24 metres flying flags of convenience.
Of these, 168 were owned by companies based in EU Member States.
By far the worst, of course, and not surprising, is Spain with 116 vessels, but of course they are not alone.
Each country tends to have their preferred flag use.
For instance, the French vessels tend to use flags of Réunion, St Vincent and the Seychelles.
For Greece it is Cyprus and Panama.
The Dutch use Belize and St Vincent and 4 vessels, of course, from my own country are flagged in Belize as well.
The preferred British countries are Panama and Belize.
It is not surprising that Belize is there, considering last year' s revelations about Michael Ashcroft, the Tory Party treasurer' s business connections there.
The Spanish fleet is distributed across a very long list including Belize, Honduras, the Netherlands Antilles, Panama and many others.
The only place which has more of these flags of convenience is Taiwan, with 117, which just beats Spain into first place.
Last year, the Commission was actually trying to do something; it proposed refusing to grant subsidies for transferring ship ownership to countries with open registers.
The Council refused.
It wants to use public money to fund ways of breaking the rules, and that is not acceptable.
At least one organisation is trying to draw this matter to the public's attention.
For the past two weeks, Greenpeace has had a ship in the middle of the South Atlantic where they have found plenty of vessels catching tuna, flying these flags of convenience.
They have also found a transport vessel, flagged in Panama and owned in Japan, both contracting parties to ICAT by the way, which was receiving fish from non-contracting vessels from Belize.
This is very much against ICAT rules and I really think we have to address it.
The European Union has to take responsibility on this issue.
Mr President, I too should like to welcome this proposal for a regulation from the Commission which improves upon certain control measures within NAFO.
I have often voiced my opinion that NAFO fishing grounds are undoubtedly among the most regulated in the world. Such vigilance is sometimes the result of excessive mistrust, on the part of some Contracting Parties - who have almost unlimited power in NAFO - towards other parties who operate completely legitimately.
We all remember the unjust and regrettable incidents that took place a few years ago, regarding a Community vessel. These incidents were the product of suspicion bordering on persecution which has often concealed a desire to throw a smoke screen around management errors in some coastal states.
This is why I must applaud the fact that this proposal aims at incorporating into Community legislation three NAFO recommendations on controlling activities of vessels of non-Contracting Parties, and in particular non-Contracting Parties whose activities are, without a shadow of a doubt, much more suspect than those of any Community fleet.
As is usual procedure when discussing the transposition of measures into Community law, I must once again express my disappointment over the Commission' s delay in starting to work on adapting legislation.
If it is indeed true that the proposal covers NAFO' s latest recommendations on sightings and transhipments from its annual meetings in 1998 and 1999, it is also true to say that this represents nothing more than a reworking of the 1997 recommendation, which is only now being taken into account.
Besides this now traditional complaint, this proposal for a regulation represents an opportunity to debate the real problem of flags of convenience and discuss what the European Union is doing to deal with them.
Given the current state of marine resources, and at a time when there is growing awareness of the need for real protection of marine ecosystems, the fight against illegal fishing must become a priority and vessels flying flags of convenience should be first on the list.
The European Union is responsible for taking the lead in the fight against such harmful forms of fishing and must be capable of putting forward its own alternatives.
The first step must be to propose unified and clear measures in the fight against such activity to Member States. The aim of such common rules is to ban the flying of such flags and stop Member States allowing these fleets to dock in their ports.
Currently, not all Community ports are aware that, directly or indirectly, they are often providing cover for illegal activity.
We can only develop their awareness through an information campaign and by introducing rigorous measures to accompany it.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna on the amount of work he has put into this, indeed into all issues that come before the Committee on Fisheries.
The whole question of what we do to protect marine life outside our waters is not a very popular issue.
It does not exercise the public mind an awful lot in the European Union.
There is a growing understanding of the efforts that the European Union is making, and I would say that for the many years during which the Common Fisheries Policy has existed, the Union has failed, to a large extent, to convince the European public of the importance of the role it has been playing in trying to establish the facts of marine life, to provide the public with the scientific information and to take the necessary action.
Too often we do not get the sort of support from Member States and from national governments that is needed to convince the public that determined and substantial efforts have to be made to enforce all the laws and regulations.
In spite of these efforts, something like 80% of all the major stocks are still over-exploited and continue to diminish.
The measures before us may be the best that we can manage, but they seem rather weak and hardly sufficient to achieve what we want.
We are the biggest market and the most lucrative market in the world for fish products.
We should be prepared to use our muscle and impose every necessary trade sanction on all the states and all the products that are associated with this illegal trade.
It is not just a matter of protecting our interests, because stocks outside our 200-mile limit can be affected by our activities.
Stocks within our limit can be affected by activities outside it.
There is also the whole question of our obligation to protect this resource that belongs to mankind.
I believe that for some people who have the money to buy large ships and equip them in today's world there is no limit to the capacity that can be applied to extracting resources from the sea.
I do not think that individuals should have the right, just because they have the money and capacity and because they happen to live in a certain region, to go out and exploit those resources and become very rich as has happened in some instances.
We may be reaching the point where this resource is tendered and paid for and the public can get some compensation from those who get rich very quickly - they are already doing this in New Zealand.
The European Union in its review of the Common Fisheries Policy should take into account the fact that this is a public resource and that a small number of people think they have the right to go out and get rich from it.
There would be widespread public support for some sort of system that requires compensation.
In the old days people went out and took risks with their lives and bad equipment; today they have the capacity to know where the fish are, to get them, and to exploit them and they should have to pay a fee for that.
I would like to express my sincere thanks for the interest you have shown in the proposal for the Council regulation in question.
As you know, the aim of the regulation is to implement at Community level a very important NAFO scheme intended to counteract non-contracting party activities which risk undermining the effectiveness of NAFO conservation measures.
In this context, I should stress that the Community, as a contracting party to NAFO, has every interest in measures that help to resolve problems caused by states which do not discharge their cooperation and conservation obligations under international law.
In respect of the proposed amendments, I should stress the following.
Amendment No 1 does not seem to be necessary.
In fact, recital 3 of the version proposed by the Commission is correct because we are actually dealing with the practice of using non-contracting party vessels.
What is more, this wording is drawn from the language used in other legal texts, for instance the Council decision concerning the approval by the Community of the FAO compliance agreement and the Council regulation laying down certain control measures in respect of vessels flying the flag of non-contracting parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources.
Amendment No 2 is relevant and will be taken on board.
Amendment No 3 is not acceptable to the Commission.
There is no need to impose an obligation on individual vessels.
If it merely involves spelling out a faculty for individual vessels, there is no need to regulate.
Furthermore, the terms "proceed to a formal sighting" can be construed as an obligation for the Community inspection vessel to direct itself towards non-contracting party vessels in order to make a sighting formal.
Such an obligation would divert the inspection vessel from the performance of its existing tasks, which is certainly not acceptable.
I hope that what I have had to say has contributed to a better understanding and thank you again for the time and effort you have put into this proposal.
The debate is closed.
I have been up in my room just now, and it is little surprising that Fridays are so devalued.
The television technicians have gone home, so the television pictures are of the Assembly and no longer of the original speakers.
The staff are apparently running for the exits from 9 a.m. on Friday mornings, so it is hardly surprising that Fridays are being devalued.
I would ask you to check that the whole service of Parliament is available so long as the House is sitting.
I will pass on your comments to the Bureau but as regards the TV system we have considered this question before.
During the last Parliament, when Mr Gutierrez traditionally took the chair on Fridays, he asked for full television coverage of the sitting.
We tried this for a period of six months and no television network ever took any of the broadcasts and so the practice was discontinued as it was extremely expensive.
I do not wish to embark on a discussion of this issue now but you can rest assured I will pass on your remarks to the Bureau.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) EXPLANATION OF VOTE
I would like to congratulate Mr Varela on his report on vessels flying non-Community flags that are non-contracting parties to NAFO, which was adopted unanimously.
As Ms McKenna rightly said, the use of flags of convenience makes it possible to flout all the regulations.
My father had a bar in Genoa next to the Panama consulate - and I am not criticising the Panama consulate or any other consulate, for that matter - and I am therefore very aware that laws are violated. For example, people who did not know how to swim or row were allowed to set sail, for only a passport was required, not a seaman' s book.
We will be staffing ships with sailors who do not know how to swim, next.
Protection of juveniles of marine organisms
The next item is the report (A5-0103/2000) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries on the proposal for a Council regulation amending for the fifth time Regulation (EC) No 850/98 of 30 March 1998 for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms (COM(1999) 570 - C5-0041/2000 - 1999/023(CNS))
Mr President, Commissioner, before I begin my speech, I should like to highlight the unanimity in this House over the previous report so that the Commission reflects upon the reasons underlying the amendments we have tabled.
I hope that such unanimity leads them to reconsider their position on these two amendments that you said you would not adopt.
In any event, regarding the report we are currently debating, I should like to point out that the specific aim of these technical measures is to protect juveniles of marine organisms in order to reduce the threat to future yields.
As a result, alongside the Commission, we are aiming and endeavouring to protect fishery resources.
As you know, such measures include rules on the size of fishing gear, - and of meshes in particular - minimum allowable landing sizes, specific closed areas, protection of endangered species and so on.
The governing Regulation No 850/98 entered into force on 1 January of this year, but it must obviously continue to be periodically adapted to incorporate any new data and scientific innovations which may emerge.
In the case we are currently dealing with, we are discussing the fifth amendment which will enable the Commission to include various new measures that, in our opinion, are fully justified.
We are talking about nets for shrimp fishing, closed areas for fishing for sand eels and a review of the minimum size for certain bivalve molluscs and crustacea.
The Commission' s proposed revisions and additions to Annex XII appear to be reasonable.
However, in the newly added case of deepwater rose shrimp, the carapace length of 24 millimetres seems excessive and could cause problems for fishermen. As a result, your rapporteur has introduced an amendment, which has already been adopted by the Committee on Fisheries, suggesting a compromise of setting this restriction at 22 millimetres.
This compromise, of course, has already been agreed with the Member States as being more appropriate.
We also feel that reducing the size of carpetshells from 40 to 38 millimetres, which has been widely called for by the sector, is a very positive step.
Therefore, it is now a question of adapting certain measures that will have a positive impact on economic and social spheres whilst strictly respecting scientific reports.
To sum up, it is essential that this regulation is kept up to date and that it is based on the best available scientific recommendations.
This will not be the last amendment made given that there will be a continuing need to adapt to specific conditions and to scientific reports that emerge in the future.
For this reason, with this amendment - which I think should be taken into consideration - we accept the overall proposal from the Commission and I hope that the Commission will in turn accept our amendment.
Mr President, Commissioner, as you can see, we are dealing thoroughly with the conservation of the fish population.
A short while ago, we were still dealing with measures within the sphere of NAFO. We will now depart from the subject of offshore fishing in the ocean and go into detail on fishing in EU waters.
It is not always just whales and seals which the public wants protected, and which attract, without doubt, greater attention from them.
No, we must also direct our attention now and then to less popular species which do not look as cute.
Who as a child has ever taken a carpetshell (venerupis polastra) in his arms as he would a soft toy?
We certainly have a heart for children, but nothing concerns us quite so much as whether the juvenile fish are thriving.
We are therefore always prepared to take the necessary measures to protect them.
We must protect the periphyton of marine organisms now in order to preserve all species.
The regulation which we are dealing with is not a new one.
In fact, it is being amended again today for the fifth time.
In view of the developing populations, however, it must be amended time and time again in accordance with the requirements at a particular moment in time.
The mechanisms are improved, and new minimum sizes and fishing methods to protect species are established, as is deemed necessary by the fisherman on the spot.
In the end it is the theoretical expert who must give way to practice.
We do not have any objections to the amendments which the Commission is proposing, right down to the last detail. They represent the latest technical and scientific developments.
I think the Commission likes to hear this, and it is also therefore appropriate to emphasise the work done by the experts dealing with this in the Commission.
Ultimately, Parliament has no interest in branding the Commission as its general scapegoat.
On the contrary, I would like to use this report to show that things can also be done differently.
The Committee on Fisheries is particularly benefiting from positive cooperation with the Commission and its services. This cooperation is imperative for the preservation of sea populations.
Who, apart from the Commission, should monitor them and protect this natural resource?
It is not always possible to fall back on artificially bred substitutes, which furthermore have been genetically manipulated wherever possible. Does it sound healthy to you, for instance, when I say that it is possible to breed super salmon which grow eight times faster than before?
Quantity instead of quality? The awareness that we need to do something to preserve a healthy variety of food and the willingness to take appropriate action are the needs of the moment.
We cannot go onto a fishing ground like the Huns, destroy it, and then simply move with the caravan onto the next one without taking responsibility for what is left behind.
If the matter is worth something to us, economically as well as ecologically, we must also take appropriate action on our own doorstep and not just in the North-West Atlantic.
These measures are a step in the right direction.
I do not think that tourists, on boat trips in the future, will be able to watch sand eels as well as seals being reared, but maybe, in a few years' time, we will once again be able to say, with a clear conscience, that we can fish for this species because its preservation is guaranteed.
Mr President, we are now discussing the fifth amendment in two years to the regulation on technical measures for the conservation of juveniles of marine organisms.
This is a report of a technical nature which is of no interest whatsoever to the majority of MEPs.
However, perhaps their attitude would change a little if we were to explain exactly what it is about and how a report of this type can impact on the lives of the peoples of Europe.
For this reason, Commissioner, I shall refer specifically to the carpetshell, which is mentioned in paragraph 4. I shall refer to carpetshells as I am delighted that the Commission has reduced the minimum size for selling carpetshells from 40 to 38 millimetres.
Ladies and gentleman, this is a matter of 2 millimetres of carpetshell.
These millimetres are important because when the landing size was increased to the current 40 millimetres, this caused serious problems for women who harvest shellfish in my region, Galicia, as it did for the whole marketing sector and for consumers themselves.
In Galicia, shellfish gathering on foot - and this is how carpetshells are collected - is only done by women.
It would take a long and complicated explanation to say why.
The fact is that men gather shellfish at sea and using technology, albeit basic, and women gather shellfish on foot using a hoe.
Approximately 10 000 women in Galicia extract carpetshells, as shellfish are not fished but rather extracted.
These women work in a self-sacrificing way, working long days digging up hectares and hectares of beach in very difficult conditions for very low incomes. These women then see their income dwindle away as more than half their annual income is consumed by social security contributions.
Evidence seems to contradict any research the Commission used to increase the minimum landing size of these molluscs as, from 30-32 millimetres upwards, the carpetshell is mature and can reproduce.
Environmental conditions in densely populated areas where the carpetshell breeds and reproduces, such as in the estuaries of Galicia, do not allow them to reach the 40 millimetres required by the regulation which we are going to change today.
The truth is that 80% of naturally produced carpetshells fall short of the current size requirement.
If shellfish gatherers were to wait for carpetshells to reach this size, mortality would be considerable and such loss would be due to environmental conditions and not to the women' s actions.
In places where molluscs are most abundant - and I am thinking of the Ferrol and Arosa estuaries - the size of carpetshells does not exceed 36 or 38 millimetres.
Carpetshells measuring 40 millimetres are neither produced, sold nor consumed, simply because there are none.
If we wish to avoid encouraging non-compliance, one of the tasks of this or any other Parliament is to ensure that the rules reflect real conditions. In the case of harvesting shellfish on foot, such non-compliance leads to illegal fishing and to a black market subject to no health checks.
This House must realise that, by drawing up these technical measures, we are trying to protect juveniles, by allowing them to reach a certain size and breeding age, whilst at the same time trying to reduce unnecessary yields.
But for a regulation to fulfil its purpose, it must be adapted to real conditions.
As a result, not only will we benefit hard-working Galician shellfish gatherers but we will also benefit consumers as they will have access to a product that has passed all health checks. We will also encourage traders who will cease to feel persecuted by legislation that, if it were fully complied with, would lead to a shortage on the markets.
For this reason, the Group of the Party of European Socialists - which I represent - supports the proposed amendment to this regulation, in the same way as it supports the amendment from the Committee on Fisheries on the size of deepwater rose shrimp.
The only thing we hope, Commissioner, is that we do not have to review the regulation again within a year, because this would mean that both we and the European Commission had once again made a mistake in our calculations.
But, if need be, we will be here to amend it once again.
Mr President, I should like to express our support for Mr Varela' s report and, at the same time, thank the Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries for being so cooperative in the Committee.
Technical measures in order, especially, to protect juvenile fish- and thus secure the quantities which can be fished in the future - may be necessary.
Up until now, measures have consisted of reductions in quotas, minimum mesh sizes for nets and fishing bans in certain periods.
It stands to reason that such measures and arrangements should be modified in the light of new needs and knowledge.
What is new is that the fisheries in which sand eel are caught off the north-east coast of England and the east coast of Scotland are to become protected areas.
The reason for this is the low breeding rate of the kittiwake in recent years.
Denmark is the Member State which will be most affected by this limitation, which will reduce many fishermen' s potential catches and, in that way, affect their livelihood.
As a matter of form, I would point out that Denmark has agreed to this technical measure for a limited period.
I should like to ask the Commission if the fishermen have been compensated for their losses or been directed to other likely fishing grounds.
Because bird colonies are affected by many factors in addition to fishing, I wish to propose that the Committee on Fisheries be included in future discussions about closures or limitations on quotas against the background of what is happening on land.
What I want is for us to have the opportunity to look in depth at the different factors of relevance to bird colonies and, in that connection, to discuss the bird colonies' influence on catch sizes in relation to the principle set out under the common fisheries policy whereby the fishing industry is to be safeguarded through the optimum exploitation of marine resources.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his work on today's fisheries reports, both of which I am sure will receive the overwhelming acceptance of this House and both of which are extremely important in terms of protection and conservation of fishery resources.
I welcome the Commission's updating of the regulation on the protection of juveniles.
We all know that sustainable development is a learning process and we must be able to update and adapt existing legislation to protect our fish stocks.
I have paid particular attention to scientific advice which indicates the requirement for the closure of fisheries for sand eels off the north-east coast of England and the east coast of Scotland.
This does not just concern the maintenance of sand eel stocks themselves, but the preservation of the entire ecosystem in these localities.
The low breeding rate of the kittiwake that Mr Busk referred to is of particular concern.
I am also happy to note, as Mr Busk confirmed, that Denmark as a Member State principally concerned with sand eel fishery has accepted these measures.
However, while these measures will hopefully contribute to improving the state of fishery resources, I am concerned that the Commission has not got it right in certain other areas: for example, in the recent report on the implementation of MAGPs and the drastic cuts that it calls for in some fleets which is of grave concern to Scots and other fishermen.
I would like to ask the Commission if they have really looked at whether cutting fleet sizes actually improves the conservation of fisheries.
I quote from the Commission's own document which says: "The Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries found no evidence that stocks had, in general, deteriorated or improved since the adoption of MAGP4."
Surely we must question the effectiveness of MAGPs as a conservation measure.
The Commission also failed to take into account how fleet sizes are reduced. I call for a more thorough investigation by the Commission into this.
In those states which have, on paper at least, been complying with MAGPs such as Spain and Portugal, what has happened to the vessels which are removed from the register? How many would be decommissioned?
How many were scrapped?
How many were sunk and so on?
How many were simply transferred to another flag? How many vessels continue to fish either here in the Community or elsewhere under what is, in many cases, a flag of convenience?
The Commission must get conservation measures right, but I am not convinced that MAGPs are the way to do that.
They can be circumvented easily and they do not fully take into account national measures such as days at sea.
How can the Commission reconcile this with the fact that its own report says, and I quote again: "It could be argued that a reduction in activity would have a more direct impact on the exploitation rates than a reduction in capacity."
I hope that the Commission will review its position and not impose swingeing cuts on our fleets.
In Scotland, the proposed cuts would cost hundreds of jobs in particularly fragile rural areas.
The new proposals to cut fleets will, ironically, fall mainly on the Scottish pelagic fleet where MAGP targets have actually been met through control measures.
I welcome today's reports on this agenda, but I hope the Commission will think again when it comes to the interrelation between fleet sizes and other conservation measures.
We have got to get this right so that in the long run fish stocks in Europe are conserved, thereby ensuring the continuing viability of our fisheries communities.
Mr President, I should like to express my gratitude for the fact that my suggestions were taken into account when this report was drawn up and, in particular, the recommendation that the size of deepwater rose shrimps be set at 22 millimetres rather than at the 24 millimetres proposed by the Commission.
Although I think that the Commission' s proposal is not unreasonable, we have to bear in mind that the size limit is being set for the first time and that this species is an important part of the catches of certain fleets in southern Spain and Portugal where, until now, they have been fishing for shrimps without any size restrictions.
In a species that does not grow very large, 2 millimetres is a great deal when trying to determine whether the profitability of some very small-scale fisheries will be increased or decreased. As I said, such fisheries are not used to fishing with minimum size restrictions.
What is more, Portugal, the other Member State involved, wanted this minimum size to be even smaller. As a result, I feel that the compromise reached is acceptable and to be commended.
I should like to thank the Commission for being so prepared to listen and to accept both suggestions from this House as well as from the Council, which were along the same lines.
I am also especially interested in the Commission' s proposal on the temporary halt on sand eel fishing in Scottish and English waters.
I must also welcome the fact that Denmark, the country most dependent on fisheries, has not raised any major objections to this measure. Their attitude should enable us to progress towards a more realistic management system of fishery resources used for industrial purposes.
I have often expressed my doubts about the idea that we should maintain large fleets in depleted ecosystems, such as those of the Community, which means that fish stocks are being destroyed in order to produce fish meal or oil.
In the European Parliament Resolution of June 1998 on this type of fishing, which was based on a report drawn up by Mr Kindermann, it was highlighted that 60% of Community yields in the North Sea, Skagerrat and Kattegat are intended for this type of industrial use.
Reports from the FAO and environmental organisations estimate that 70% of fisheries production is used to this end and say this is contributing to the destruction of stocks on a worldwide scale.
Evidently, these figures also highlight the high socio-economic dependency of some Community regions on such activity.
For this reason, while I have no desire whatsoever to eliminate this activity completely, it may be an opportune moment to debate the possibility of achieving a greater balance, taking account of the various fleets' objectives in the use of resources. Eventually, this new balance should be borne in mind when distributing Community funds for structural measures as well as administrative and market policy measures.
Mr President, firstly, can I congratulate the rapporteur and the Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries on his report on the revision of the regulations on the conservation of fishery resources and technical measures for the protection of juvenile marine organisms.
This report, whose name probably causes more confusion than clarity amongst those people who have not been following, the subject is in fact a number of separate amendments updating the original regulation.
Firstly, with regard to separator trawls or nets with sorting grids used in shrimp fisheries; secondly, the revision of minimum sizes for a number of bivalve molluscs and crustaceans; and thirdly, with respect to the establishment of a closed area for fishing for sand eels off the north-east coast of England and the east coast of Scotland.
It is on the last proposal that I primarily wish to speak.
This is a very good example of the eco-system approach to fisheries: taking action for environmental reasons beyond those applying strictly for fish stock levels.
In 1998, a report by the Working Group on Eco-System Effects of Fishing Activities of the International Council for Exploration of the Seas identified for the first time that sea birds, specifically the kittiwake, which has been experiencing low breeding success over recent years, were in fact in competition with the industrial fleet, primarily Danish operators fishing for sand eels off the East coast of Scotland and England.
The United Kingdom requested the Commission to submit an appropriate proposal in the light of that report and the United Kingdom made initial approaches to the Danish government to encourage their support for the initiative.
It was suggested that a closed season for sand eel fishing should be introduced between April and August when the breeding birds were most dependent on sand eels for food.
The ICES subsequently looked at the science again and suggested a closed area stretching from mid-Northumberland northwards to include the Grampian coast.
This closed area is the one proposed by the Commission in December as part of the annual TAC Regulation and adopted by the Council.
These measures have, I understand, already been accepted in principle by the key parties involved.
I therefore hope the Council will be able, after this debate, to reach a speedy agreement.
It is important for the conservation of sea birds.
It is important for us to demonstrate our concern in this area.
Mr President, this is an important subject.
It is highly technical and not easily understood by the public.
A gradual improvement in the regulations will contribute in the long term to the future health of the marine environment for the generations that will come after us.
We can improve our resources.
We are not self-sufficient in fish in the Union, only 50% self-sufficient.
With good conservation and better practices, we could give a better living to more people involved in fishing.
We could increase by something like EUR 4 000 million the value of the fish landed in the European Union if we could apply a little bit more care over a period of time to our fishing activities.
This is highly technical.
It is important that we do the research, keep up the revision and gradually convince people that the European Commission is not a hostile organisation sent from afar to persecute fishermen and prevent them from making a living.
We should not use occasions like this to make inflammatory statements about the necessity of reducing the size of fleets that are involved, because of the reduction in stocks, because of the high price of fish arising out of its scarcity in the European Union and the attraction of this type of food for health reasons.
There is a great urge to go out and catch more and more of it.
People complain about the Multi-Annual Guidance Programme and say it is not working.
Surely, a transport manager will not want to keep ten buses on the road if one bus will transport the passengers available.
The same applies to trains or trucks.
So why do we get this pressure from the fishing communities to maintain large expensive fleets if, in fact, the fish are not there and we are bound by quotas? If the quotas are being observed, surely it is in the interest of the fishing communities of the regions and the individuals involved to go out and catch these fish with the smallest possible number of fishing vessels.
Surely it contributes more to regional and national economic planning to do that.
Do not swallow this foolish talk that we want to keep boats and that somehow or other this will keep people in jobs if the fish are not there.
There were banner headlines just because the Commission published, a few days ago, a report which indicated that some fleets would have to be reduced.
Those reports spread over from Scotland to Ireland and the papers were full of massive reductions in the number of people employed.
There is no need for it.
Let us sit down, come to the Fisheries Committee, listen to the officials, listen to the researchers and work out a sensible solution to the problems instead of trying to create an atmosphere of hostility.
We have one programme broadcast in Ireland that deals with the sea.
It is called "Seascapes".
The night before we had the Maastricht Referendum, they upped their tone and the temperature of their anti-European broadcasting, which goes on continuously, in an effort to ingratiate themselves with fishing communities who have the impression that somehow or another the European Commission is there to damage their interests.
Let us, as responsible public representatives, try to present the truth to our people instead of trying to mislead them and excite them and frighten them.
Mr McCartin appeared with his last remarks to be accusing honourable Members of this House of misleading the public.
I hope that was not true.
In case it was, then I suggest that he ought to be supplied with a map of the Scottish fishing areas to see just why it is so important to a lot of places where people can take boats out from.
Mr McCartin is far too polite to make any such accusation.
May I thank Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna for this excellent report, he is an acknowledged expert on this subject - and also thank the honourable Members who have spoken on this debate and expressed their thanks for the work of the Commission.
I am very happy to inform honourable Members that the Commission can agree to the amendments that have been put forward.
It appears to me to be an excellent example of the cooperation between our two institutions on this important issue of conservation.
Apart from this, the report fully supports the Commission proposal; and therefore I feel that I need not take up any more of your valuable time.
That concludes the debate.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) EXPLANATION OF VOTE
Mr President, as representative of the Pensioners' Party I voted for the Varela report.
It is not the first time that I have intervened on behalf of young fish, but I do so because I would like them to have the chance to grow old and, if possible, become pensioners.
I have already received satisfied feedback, not only from fish, but also from human pensioners, for it is right to protect the young, even if they are only fish, as is the case here.
It is true that this could cause problems for a few fishermen who can no longer catch such large numbers of fish, but I am sure that the Commission will find a way to compensate the fishermen whose income will fall as a result of their observance of this directive.
I would like to thank the House for its patience in listening to my explanations of votes.
Mr President, I should just like to say that I hope the Conference of Presidents will take serious note of the numbers - or rather lack of numbers - of Members in the Chamber voting on that very important report.
Mr President, I would like to draw to the attention of Parliament' s administration the fact that the Members' coffee bar has been occupied.
There are fifteen people there in military uniform who have taken over one end of the coffee bar and are holding some kind of meeting there.
I should like Parliament' s administration to take immediate steps to put an end to this occupation, so that Members can have the use of both ends of their coffee bar.
You are right, the Members Bar is only for the use of Members.
We will ensure that is enforced.
This matter has already been drawn to the attention of the Quaestors.
Insurance
The next item is the report (A5-0104/2000) by Mr Langen on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the operation of Commission Regulation No 3932/92 concerning the application of Article 81 (ex-Article 85), Paragraph 3, of the Treaty to certain categories of agreements, decisions and concerted practices in the field of insurance (COM(1999) 192 - C5.0254/1999 - 1999/2183(COS))
Mr President, this time the subject at the close of the sitting is not fisheries, but competition policy.
We have discussed this subject in great depth. It has not been too controversial, so it is also possible to discuss it at the end of such a sitting.
Since I am often here on Fridays anyway, I personally do not find this at all difficult.
The subject is exemption regulations, which are in force for the European insurance industry.
You all know that competition law has been one of the most important objectives of the European Union - and therefore of the European Commission - since the founding Treaties came into existence.
The general aim of competition law is to ensure that there is competition in the European Internal Market.
This serves consumers, promotes technical progress, and prevents monopolies and agreements.
Therefore, the rules on this are strict.
The Commission can and must take action in accordance with the rules, which have three different spheres of application: agreements or cartel agreements which are generally prohibited, abuse of a dominant market position, and public subsidies.
Over the past few years, the Commission, on all these issues, has repeatedly shown that it takes the provisions of the Treaties very seriously.
We will deal with the first of these areas today.
The general prohibition of cartel agreements is lifted under certain conditions; these are the exemption regulations.
Price fixing, restrictions on, or control of, production, dividing up markets, application of different prerequisites for the same services and the extra provisions of the Treaties, which often vary tremendously in Europe and exclude different services, are incompatible with the laws, even in the areas where exemption regulations apply.
Under Article 81(3), exemption regulations only apply - please listen carefully - when consumers receive an appropriate share of the benefit generated and no unnecessary restrictions ruling out competition are imposed.
A regulation of this kind has existed in the field of insurance since 1992, and expires in 2003.
The Commission is required to submit a situation report every six years. The present report is available.
The Block Exemption Regulation for the insurance industry lays down and permits common rules governing agreement on the calculation of premiums, the stipulation of policy conditions, joint coverage of certain types of risk, and safety precautions.
To date, agreements on claims settlement and registers of aggravated risks have not been included.
I hope that when the Rothley report on the harmonisation of civil liability insurance in respect of the use of motor vehicles is adopted after the third reading on Monday, the Commission can, and will, also incorporate - on account of the harmonised legal basis - the settlement of claims into this future exemption regulation.
It will then be much easier for European Union citizens, in future, to be able to settle claims abroad, including in EU Member States, with their own insurers, safe in the knowledge that these agreements are also then guaranteed by the Commission within the framework of the exemption regulation.
Parliament has made unanimous demands on the Commission in its proposal. These should be taken into consideration by the Commission when examining the proposal.
This concerns, firstly, the definition of market share in a globalised market, followed by detailed questions about the lead insurer, for whom this might not apply.
When there is one large and 20 small insurers, then the large one may not have more than 10 per cent of the market share for the exemption agreement to be accepted.
Whether this is correct or not is doubtful.
This concerns matters which are connected with the possibility of termination.
We want the notice period for an insurance company to be 6 months and not 12, and we want to bring about a harmonised basis for European standards in the settlement of claims.
All in all, I can say that Parliament is satisfied with this interim report and that it expects the Commission to make continuous progress on this matter and achieve an end result for the insurance industry within the framework of the exemption regulations in force, all of which expire in 2002 and 2003, including for other areas.
With this in mind, I would urge you to give your assent. Thank you very much.
Affairs and the Internal Market. I would particularly like to express my own gratitude to Mr Langen for his report and for the great clarity with which, in writing and in his presentation today, he has brought to our attention what this is all about.
I am glad to say that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market is in substantial agreement with Mr Langen and finds no legal obstacles to this bloc exemption regulation.
As Members of the House will know, the bloc exemption creates exemptions from normal competition law, of the kind Mr Langen mentioned, in relation to the calculation of premiums where net premiums may be jointly calculated by insurers.
Secondly, in the establishment of standard policy conditions for direct insurance and common models illustrating profits from insurance policies involving an element of capitalisation.
It also creates an exemption to make possible co-insurance, common coverage of certain risks and, finally, the coordination of technical specifications for safety equipment and procedures.
The Commission says in its report that it is disappointed that the insurance industry has not taken up as much of that as it might have done.
These are all areas where it seems clear that there is a genuine public interest in not insisting on the strictest rigours of competition law.
What that draws to our attention, in a philosophical way, is that even in a competitive market, insurance is inherently a collective activity in which people share risks among themselves.
If I might make a remark about a currently controversial topic in my own country, I think it is a pity to see such vigorous efforts being made to de-mutualise excellent old mutual assurance companies which fully express the collective aspect of insurance, and I am sad to think of a raid being made on the Standard Life in this way.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Langen, and all those who have contributed to this draft resolution on the Commission's report on the operation of the insurance block exemption regulation.
The Commission welcomes the draft resolution, not only for its overall support concerning the Commission's application of the regulation, but also for the specific comments which it contains on how the regulation can be improved.
A brief word of background about the regulation in question is perhaps in order.
Before 1992, the competition directorate-general of the Commission was submerged by literally hundreds of notifications of agreements in the insurance field, many of which raised similar issues and were eligible for an exemption under Article 81(3) of the Treaty.
Rather than adopting hundreds of individual exemption decisions, the Commission adopted in 1992 a block exemption regulation granting exemption, with conditions, to agreements between insurance undertakings in four categories: agreements concerning the joint calculation of risk premiums, those concerning standard policy conditions, co-insurance and reinsurance, pooling arrangements and agreements adopting standards for safety equipment.
The Council Regulation of 1991 enabling the Commission to adopt an insurance block exemption regulation also authorised the inclusion of two further areas which the Commission, however, decided not to include in its regulation for lack of experience in those areas, namely agreements on claims settlement and agreements on registers of aggravated risk.
Following the adoption of the Block Exemption Regulation in 1992, most of the notifications on the Commission's table were withdrawn, but some were not, as the notifying parties considered that the regulation did not provide total clarity as to whether their agreements were eligible for exemption.
Most of these notifications concerned insurance pools.
The current regulation expires on 31 March 2003 and a new regulation will be necessary.
The future regulation should build on these strengths and remedy any weaknesses in the existing one.
The report produced by the Commission on 12 May 1999, which it was pursuant to Article 8 of the Council enabling regulation, was the first step in the process leading to the adoption of a new regulation.
It summarises in detail the experience of the Commission in applying the regulation and the various problems it has identified.
It does not, however, contain precise proposals for the future regulation.
These will only be decided upon after the end of the consultation process.
Considerable account will be taken of Parliament's resolution in this process.
Other interested parties, including professional insurance bodies and consumer organisations, will also be consulted.
The next step in the consultation will be a hearing organised by the Commission on 28 June of this year for an exchange of views between all those who have submitted comments on the report on the regulation.
This hearing responds in part to the call in the draft resolution for an informative debate on the regulation.
It is clear that the area in which most improvement to the regulation is needed is that of pools.
Significant change will be necessary here, but key questions exist in all the other areas.
The comments and suggestions contained in the draft resolution, for which I thank Parliament, are all relevant and interesting in this context, although each of them will have to be analysed individually and on its merits.
May I just respond at this stage to two issues of a similar nature raised by both Mr Langen and Mr Meijer, and that is the question whether the Commission accepts the draft opinion's recommendation that agreements on claims settlement should be included in the future block exemption regulation.
The Commission has an open mind at this stage as to whether agreements on claim settlement and agreements on registers of aggravated risks should be covered by the future regulation.
It takes good note of the fact that the draft opinion recommends the inclusion of agreements and on claims settlement.
The conclusion of the draft resolution that the regulation has been successful overall, but that a moderate enhancement is needed, is one that the Commission entirely shares.
The draft resolution is a most helpful contribution to this end and the Commission will keep Parliament fully informed and consulted on the process of revising the regulation.
Mr President, I have, of course, voted for Mr Langen' s excellent report, and I congratulate him on his work and also on his report.
Both the public and ourselves are obviously pleased with the simplifications he has explained so clearly.
I would like for this to be the case in other areas as well.
You know that I am a great advocate of Parliament' s seat in Strasbourg and I have also regretted all the fuss again made this morning by those who wanted to prevent us from voting today, because they simply want to ruin the Friday sittings in Strasbourg and for everything to be concentrated in Brussels. And these centralists are also, of course, setting their sights on Luxembourg - as a by-product so to speak - for Parliament' s Secretariat.
Certainly, I must also say that this does not always make things easy for France to defend Strasbourg as a parliamentary seat.
One of my groups of visitors found this out again on their way here this morning.
Their bus was stopped by the French police under the pretext that the driver would not have a French driving licence.
This particular company has transported thousands of my visitors here in the past ten years.
What is going on here then? I must say that these visitors wonder, naturally, whether this is what Europe is all about.
Moreover, the French police do not seem to have heard of credit cards yet.
The visitors had to pool their French francs together to pay the horrendous FRF 5 000 fine.
This cannot be right, Mr President!
I will, of course, check ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I am afraid I must cut you off, Mrs Lulling.
Explanations of vote must refer to the subject of the debate.
I gave you some leeway as you are such a distinguished Member of the House but I must cut you off there.
Mr President, last Sunday in Bergamo, my native town, I held a meeting on insurance and compensation for damages, which Mr Langen discussed in his report.
A young 20-year old, who had, sadly, suffered a serious road accident, rose to his feet and said: "I have suffered this serious road accident but I am, so to speak, content because I have received EUR 500 000 from the insurance company" .
Another person present at the meeting, who was about 40 years of age, said: "I suffered exactly the same road accident, but I only received EUR 200 000.
"An older man who was about 60 added: "I only received EUR 20 000" .
Another man who was about 70 years old said: "I suffered the same accident with the same results, and I was given EUR 1 000" .
An elderly 80-year old pensioner, who could not even get out of his chair because he was so disabled, said: "I did not receive anything at all from the insurance" .
There you have it. Insurance companies consider that the elderly are worthless.
But I say that the elderly are worth more.
I therefore call for measures to be included in the regulation that will put a stop to this injustice.
Mr President, I just wanted to ask one question. I did not notice Mrs Buitenweg this morning and I would like to apologise to her for that.
I just wanted to ask whether Mrs van der Laan is here or have I missed her as well?
I will take that as an interesting intervention.
Adjournment of the session
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 19 May 2000.
Tribute
We are very sad to hear of the death of Mrs Adelaide Aglietta on 20 May 2000 in Rome.
We all remember that throughout her intense political activity Mrs Aglietta was the political secretary of the Italian Radical Party.
She was Co-President of the Group of the Greens between 1990 and 1994.
She was tireless in leading a number of campaigns, particularly those promoting a federal Europe and human rights.
Mrs Adelaide Aglietta was a very courageous woman.
In the first place, she had the courage of her convictions and argued passionately in favour of them, but always with respect for the other party.
In spite of her long illness, she continued to pursue her political and parliamentary activities working tirelessly on her report on comitology and stubbornly continuing negotiations with the Commission and the Council until May 1999.
I may say that, for all of us, she will continue to be a model of courage and dedication to Parliament and to Europe, and I therefore ask you to observe a minute' s silence in her memory.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, since our last part-session, the European Union has been hit by blind and brutal terrorism once again: in Greece, with the murder of Brigadier Stephen Saunders, military attaché at the British Embassy, killed by the terrorist group 'November 17' and in Spain, with the murder of Jesus Maria Pedrosa, a municipal councillor in the Basque Country.
In this way, for the third time in a few months, terrorism has once again attempted to silence the people in this region who continue to fight by democratic means to defend their freedom of expression and to work to promote the right to live in peace.
On the very day that these murders occurred, I felt bound, both in a personal capacity and on behalf of the European Parliament, to express our deepest sympathy and sincere condolences to the families of the victims.
I also assured the governments concerned of our utmost support in their fight against terrorism.
I am about to propose a minute' s silence as a tribute to the two victims but, as a stronger expression of our solidarity, I should like to tell you that I am quite prepared, if the Spanish authorities and the Spanish Members of the House deem it useful and appropriate, to visit the Basque Country to convey the constant message of this unanimous House, which is our utter condemnation of terrorism and our disgust at these barbarous and cowardly acts, and our support for all those who fight courageously, at the risk of their own lives, to ensure that peace and democracy finally triumph in the Spanish Basque Country.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Madam President, on a point of order, on behalf of Euskal Herritarrok I would like to express my regrets at the death of Jesús María Pedrosa.
We should like to show our solidarity with the family and friends of the deceased.
Once again political confrontation shows its most dreadful aspect. We are witnessing tragic moments, in human and political terms, that demand of all of us not to fall into uselessly reiterated condemnations which do not offer anything in the search for solutions.
We should remember that Nelson Mandela, winner of the Nobel Prize and of the Sakharov Prize, was imprisoned for 27 years because he refused to condemn the violent actions of the ANC.
The leaders of Sinn Fein have never condemned the IRA's violence.
This clear attitude has permitted a political breakthrough to a definitive settlement in the bloody conflicts in South Africa and Northern Ireland.
We in Euskal Herritarrok will stick to our commitment to work together with all those eager to find a democratic solution to the ongoing conflict in the Basque country.
Could we in this Parliament at last look for something new that will help a political dialogue in the Basque country, something similar to the Downing Street Declaration?
Madam President, I am grateful for your political will and for your willingness to go to the Basque Country so that the European Parliament' s anti-terrorist commitment may be clearly demonstrated to the Spanish, and particularly the Basque, public.
On the other hand, I believe that the words of the MEP from Euskal Herritarrok are a disgrace.
The MEP in question has no right to class himself alongside Mandela.
Nelson Mandela deserves a different kind of respect.
We heard Mandela in the European Parliament. He fought against violence and represented the legitimate interests of his people.
The legitimate interests of the Basque people are represented by the people who have been democratically elected.
I must tell the whole of Parliament, as Mr Barón Crespo has already done, that Mr Gorostiaga' s party sometimes goes as far as to regret the deaths caused by terrorists, perhaps because it has no choice, but it does not condemn them.
This attitude has even led the democratic nationalist parties to break municipal coalitions with Euskal Herritarrok because it is not possible to accept and comprehend the shot in the back and continual violence as political methods.
Words are insufficient when it comes to condemning not only the murderers, but also those who give them political support.
Madam President, I would like to thank you for your words of condemnation and condolence.
Of course, we also very much welcome the fact that you are prepared to visit the Basque Country.
Madam President, murder and shootings in the back provide no solution for the problems of the Basque Country.
Nor does the failure to condemn those people who carry out the most vile acts in this Europe which we are trying to build day by day - the Europe of freedom, security and justice. I am talking about the attacks on life, which is the most horrendous of all attacks on human rights.
Madam President, on behalf of the Basque Nationalist Party - which is the majority party in the Basque Autonomous Region - I wish to express our total condemnation and rejection of the death of Jesús María Pedrosa Urquiza, Municipal Councillor in Durango in Vizcaya, and our condemnation of any act of violence which takes place in the Basque Country or any other part of the world.
We have constantly rejected the use of violence in order to achieve political objectives.
I must also say that I regret having to take the floor in these circumstances, following this very recent act of violence.
Madam President, I am grateful for the fact that - as I said to you in my letter last week - in circumstances such as these, you are diligent enough to defend democratic principles, rejecting acts of terrorism on behalf of Parliament and expressing your support for the Spanish Government in the fight against this terrorism.
I reminded you that the Basque Government has spent 20 years working for peace in the Basque Country by democratic means and striving for a better future for all of us.
I believe that it is also fair to recognise the contribution, the action and activity of the Basque Government.
However, I must also point out that, over and above the terrorist acts and the violence which is and has been carried out in the Basque Country by ETA and also by the apparatus of the State - which we should not forget - there is a political conflict there which existed long before ETA.
There is a section of the Basque population which does not feel comfortable, which does not feel at ease with the current legal-political set-up in the Basque Country.
I believe that it is a good thing for all political parties with an open and democratic approach to sit down together to hold a dialogue so that we may, once and for all, find a way for all citizens in the Basque Country to feel at ease and to be able to live in peace, which is what we all wish to see.
Madam President, in my own name and on behalf of my political party, the Coalición Canaria [the Canary Islands Coalition], I would like to make public in this House my rejection and condemnation of the murder of Councillor Jesús María Pedrosa.
I would like secondly to make a call - an idealistic one perhaps - for peace and dialogue in that autonomous region.
Lastly, I think it is very positive and opportune that the President of this Parliament has announced this visit to the Basque Country.
Madam President, you have already mentioned the murder in Athens of the military attaché to the British embassy, Stephen Saunders.
I would like on behalf of the MEPs of the New Democracy party and our group to express our outright condemnation of these attacks, not only this specific attack, but all the attacks carried out over the last 25 years by this phantom terrorist organisation, and my deep regret that we have as yet been unable to find the murderers.
Not only is there no justification for these attacks, they also bear no relation to events in the Basque country, not that there is any justification for those events, but the circumstances are different; they are merely blind and unacceptable attacks, the basic aim of which is to damage Greece' s relations with the other countries.
I should like to repeat our outright condemnation and to thank you very much for putting this matter at the top of the agenda today because it is through you that the outright condemnation of the European Parliament will be conveyed to Greece.
I should like to express my deepest condolences to Stephen Saunders' wife and children, whom we have seen on television.
We have witnessed their pain and we have seen that terrorists do not of course only hurt those they attack; they also in essence murder all those around them.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to state on behalf of the Communist Party of Greece that we most strongly and categorically condemn the murder of the military attaché to the British embassy in Athens, Brigadier Stephen Saunders.
At the same time, we condemn the orchestrated plan being deployed against Greece and the attempt to establish a connection between this monstrous deed and the anti-imperialist sentiment of the Greek people.
We must not overlook the fact that the murder was carried out a few days after the report to the United States Congress describing Greece as a country which fails to cooperate fully in the fight against terrorism.
A few days after the Americans expressed their anxiety about security arrangements for the 2004 Olympic Games and just before the police cooperation agreement between Greece and the United States of America was due to be signed.
We have no choice but to conclude that certain parties are taking advantage of this provocative act in order to demand even more oppressive measures against the political and democratic freedoms of the Greek people and it is among them that the physical and moral perpetrators are to be found.
Madam President, I too should like to thank you for your statement in connection with the attack on and murder of the British military attaché.
The Socialist Group happened to be in session when the murder took place and I immediately took the opportunity, from the Socialist Party tribune, of expressing the condemnation of PASOK and of the Greek nation as a whole, which, of course, abhors such acts of terrorism, acts which are directed not only at the victims but at the security and political and economic welfare of Greece.
We cannot deny that a terrorist phenomenon has been a thorn in Greece' s side for many years.
We are taking and we shall continue to take all the measures needed to crush this organisation, but its greatest defeat, Madam President, is the fact that it is completely isolated within the Greek people, it does not strike the slightest political chord and these murders are simply tragic, abominable, monstrous deeds perpetrated by a group of fanatics which the Greek nation as a whole abhors and rejects.
Madam President, I too should like to express my outright condemnation of the murder of the British military attaché in Athens both in a personal capacity and on behalf of the party which I represent, the Social Democrat Movement. At the same time, I should like to express our undivided support for his brave wife and remarkable children.
We feel the deepest regret and trust that, at long last, the authorities will succeed in cracking down on this terrorist organisation which has been a thorn in the side of Greece and its international relations for the past 25 years.
Madam President, I would like to draw your attention to something that has happened since our last part-session.
The German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, made a speech about the future of European unification at the beginning of May.
Although some of the passages in this speech may have been contentious, it was important in as much as it provided food for thought as to how unification is to be accomplished with 25 or 30 Member States.
The reaction of Mr Chevènement, the French Minister for the Interior, was all the more astounding.
What he said in essence was that anyone advocating a European federation or European constitution must have failed to process our experiences under National Socialism properly.
I consider this to be a faux pas of the kind that should meet with protest on the part of the European Parliament.
Mr Chevènement endeavoured to qualify his statement, but what he did in essence was to repeat it, thereby reiterating the thrust of his argument. We parliamentarians have repeatedly pronounced ourselves in favour of a European constitution and a federal Europe - from Spinelli to Herman through to the most recent reports.
I therefore feel that Mr Chevènement' s statement is an insult to Parliament' s work.
I call upon you to duly register the European Parliament' s protest.
As you perhaps are aware, immediately after Mr Chevènement made these remarks, I issued a press statement to express my personal outrage at such comments, which I considered quite out of order.
And, of course, even though I took the precaution of saying that this was my own personal opinion, since the European Parliament had not adopted any particular stance, I am sure that Mr Chevènement clearly understood that, in so saying, I was reflecting the opinion of a significant majority of the Members of the European Parliament.
Madam President, I carefully read your statement in response to the speech by the French Minister for Home Affairs.
I believe that the matter of nationhood is a concept that is far too complex to be dealt with like this, on a point of order, in a forum such as this.
This is a far-reaching debate, engaging all European Union Member States, not one that can be brushed aside.
I think that the words of the French Minister for Home Affairs were understood correctly in Germany, and that we should follow the example of the sensible way in which the authorities there reacted.
Madam President, we are indebted to Mr Leinen for reminding us about this incident.
However, I would expressly like to thank you for taking the stance you did, in your own name as our President.
I would like you to know that you have our full and unequivocal support, and that we owe you a debt of gratitude.
Incidentally, we should refrain from entering into debate on this issue at present.
Madam President, the final draft agenda is based on a part-session starting on Tuesday 13 June.
On 7 June, I sent you a letter regarding the proceedings for Monday 12 June, Whit Monday.
You granted the request a while back to cancel the parliamentary sitting due to take place on this Christian public holiday, and rightly so.
Later on, however, it was announced that the Members could sign the attendance register between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m.
It now looks as if we will need to be financially reimbursed for cancelling a working day.
Madam President, how will yesterday' s attendance register be published and what can still be done to prevent this attendance register from costing the European taxpayer any money? The electorate expect us to extend their democratic rights, not to act in our own self-interest.
To reimburse a day' s expenses for a public holiday would result in the electorate staying at home in even greater numbers at the next elections.
I would ask you to give Parliament the opportunity, by no later than July, to state that Monday' s signatures should not lead to reimbursements of any kind.
An exception could possibly be made for those who can demonstrate that they were required to leave on Sunday on account of the remoteness of their homes, if, for example, they live in Finland or Greece.
Mr Meijer, I think that you have not got the information quite right.
The group meetings were indeed held yesterday, attended by a great many Members, and it would not be fair if these Members were penalised.
Madam President, I should like to say that this is a very great day for the Danes.
We too have now been successful in obtaining television in our own language here in Strasbourg.
I am sorry that Mrs Banotti is not here, for I had promised to thank her personally if the bid were successful, but I hope you can pass on to her what I have said.
I just want to say, 'Mary, you are fantastic.
A small country was successfully taken into account, even if it did take a hell of a long time for this to happen.'
Thank you, Mr Blak.
We shall pass your satisfaction and thanks on to Mrs Banotti.
I can see that the House approves of your proposal, and I shall gladly do so, Mrs Doyle.
Madam President, just now you had to announce some extremely sad news.
Here, however, is a happier piece of news, and I believe I can speak for us all in expressing our relief and joy at the release, at long last, of the French journalist, Brice Fleutiaux, after more than eight months of being held captive by Chechen kidnappers.
I should like to pay tribute to his courage, but also to his clear-sightedness, because, even in his initial statements, he drew a clear distinction between his kidnappers and the Chechen people as a whole.
Many of us had some concerns for developments over the next few weeks, since the forthcoming summer recess appeared likely to lead to a decline in the competent political authorities' interest in the matter, and a consequent decline in the efforts undertaken.
We therefore planned to invite Brice Fleutiaux' s brother to visit the European Parliament, and he was happy to do so, as well as the journalists' unions, who were, likewise, ready to do so, and indeed, Madam President, you gave your personal endorsement to ensure the success of this initiative. I should like to thank you for that.
Fortunately we have no further need for this initiative, but I think we would be happy to welcome Brice Fleutiaux, should he wish to visit the European Parliament, this time as a free man and a man of honour.
Madam President, I am absolutely amazed that the Council does not wish to concern itself with the sanctions the Fourteen are taking against one Member State.
The European Parliament is best placed to know that refusing to engage in dialogue is not the way to solve problems.
Madam Chairman, what I want to speak about is the framework agreement between the Commission and Parliament which was approved by the Conference of Presidents last Thursday.
The agreement is still not available in Danish, it has still not been distributed to the majority of MEPs and it has not been discussed in any committee, and not at all in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs where I think we have the right and the duty to go through it.
It ought to be read and discussed among the Members before it is signed.
The text, which is available in French and which I obtained yesterday evening, is not, moreover, one and the same as that which was arrived at last Thursday as a result of the negotiations.
You will remember that, towards the end of the negotiations, Mr Prodi agreed that the word 'institutions' in the text should be changed to 'the Council and the Commission' , so that it will be possible, upon the President' s intervention, for documents which are issued by the Commission to recipients outside the Council and the Commission also to be issued to MEPs.
I have two criticisms of the framework agreement.
It does not solve those problems typically faced by MEPs.
One of the problems is that, when we sit in a Committee and discuss a bill, the representatives from the different Member States, including trainees from the permanent representations who sit behind us, have the 'restrained' editions of the documents which we are debating but which, as MEPs, we ourselves are not entitled to receive.
It is a humiliating situation when students are sent documents to which we ourselves do not have access.
Another typical problem, which the framework agreement does not solve either, is that we often find ourselves in a situation in which we are able to read in the daily newspaper about a document which has been leaked from the Commission.
We are then asked by journalists if we can comment on this, but we do not even have access to the document.
I have just one more sentence....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Contrary to what you tell me in your letter, this framework agreement will be tabled before the plenary part-session in July, not in the course of the present part-session.
You have made a mistake in this case.
The groups will naturally have adequate time to examine this document.
Madam President, I should like to apprise you and the House of the following incident: last Tuesday, 6 June, I travelled from Brussels to New York in order to attend the UN World Conference on Women.
The travel document which I used was the pass issued to all MEPs by the European Parliament.
However, at New York airport I encountered serious problems with the authorities because I did not have a visa. That is because I am Greek and Greece is the only country in the European Union whose citizens need special permission to enter the USA.
I never realised, Madam President, that the special European Parliament pass was not valid for certain members because of their nationality and I spent two trying hours at New York airport until the authorities decided to grant me a visa so that I could attend the UN conference.
With all due respect for the laws and regulations under which a sovereign state is run, I consider that the problem which I encountered was more political than personal and I therefore ask that you give it your due attention.
Thank you. I shall take note of your comments.
We shall look into what we can do to proceed as you suggest.
Madam President, I should like to draw Members' attention to a very disturbing recent report by Amnesty International.
Amnesty International is an organisation that Parliament has used on many occasions to highlight human rights abuses around the world.
The rogue states that Amnesty International points the finger at have always dismissed the reports by Amnesty International and it is very alarming that in this case the same thing is happening again.
The report in question is the report on the war in Kosovo.
Amnesty International has found that NATO was in breach of many international laws as regards human rights.
It is extremely important that the Member States do not dismiss Amnesty International's report, because its reports have always been balanced, they have always highlighted any human rights abuses that are occurring, irrespective of how the report will be received.
Javier Solana, who is now head of CFSP within the European Union, was Secretary-General of NATO at the time and because of this gross abuse of human rights, Parliament has to take Amnesty International's report seriously.
We cannot allow NATO or any other organisation around the world to abuse human rights, to ignore international law and to kill innocent civilians.
This is not acceptable.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 19 May have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, in Item 5 of the Minutes, on the "Readmission of third-country nationals" , after Mr Duff' s intervention on the verification of the quorum, it says: "The following spoke on this request: Mr Ribeiro Castro, Mr Knörr Borràs,... etc." .
However, if we read the verbatim report, we can see that Mr Knörr Borràs' intervention said: "Madam President, I should like to convey our support and sympathy for the people of Paraguay in the light of another attempted military coup.
That is all I wished to say.
I should like the position of this House to be made very clear" .
I must point out that what Mr Knörr Borràs said has nothing to do with the quorum, but with an important issue of international policy, i.e. an attempted coup in Paraguay.
There has been a declaration on this issue by the President of a political group - the Socialist Group - and we are also going to present a motion for a resolution on it, but I would like to ask the President, firstly, whether the Minutes should be corrected and, secondly, whether the Presidency has made any declaration, because I believe that it is important for us to show our solidarity with Paraguayan democracy.
Thank you, Mr Medina Ortega.
We shall check all this and correct the Minutes, if necessary.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
There are no further comments.
(The Minutes were approved)
Agenda
Madam President, naturally we are very concerned about the situation in Kosovo.
You will understand that we are keen to keep this text.
The European Union is spending an enormous amount of money on the situation in the Solomon Islands and Fiji, and even Papua New Guinea.
We hope that these countries will retain their political stability but unfortunately, the situation over there is taking a turn for the worse.
This is why we think, due to the topicality and not on account of the content per se, it is necessary for the European Parliament to send out a signal.
We have always stressed prevention.
The entire region is in a state of disarray, which requires the greatest care and concern from the entire European Parliament.
This is why I would like to call on the MEPs to continue caring about Kosovo and Serbia.
We can return to this at some later stage, but for the sake of topicality, let us focus on Fiji, the Solomon Islands and the Pacific Ocean region for now and say something of significance about them.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if we are going to talk about topicality then all I can say is that you cannot get more topical than Kosovo and Serbia.
The Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy have just got back from a joint trip to Kosovo. While we were there we promised that we would do our best to adopt a motion of this kind this week.
I urge the honourable members to support this motion for a resolution.
We must bring pressure to bear on Serbia, and also on the Albanians in Kosovo, so as to make them put things to rights.
We can only do this using the modest means at our disposal, namely a motion for a resolution.
The Balkans region is a little nearer to us than Fiji as matters stand, and if it is money we are worried about then I am bound to say that we are footing the bill rather a lot in Kosovo!
Mr Corrie, I am quite happy to give you the floor, but I should like to know whether you are speaking for or against the proposal.
We are not here to start a debate.
We followed the efforts undertaken by yourself and by Mrs Kinnock, and we supported you in your endeavours.
We were behind you all the way, and we were delighted with the successful outcome achieved.
Let me make that point.
Having said that, I should be grateful if you would stand down at present, and let us proceed to vote on the proposal from the Greens and the Liberal Group.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
Still on the subject of the topical and urgent debate, I have received another request on Venezuela.
This is from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to replace the item on 'Venezuela' with a new item on the 'Coup d' état in Paraguay' .
Madam President, I am astounded that there has been no mention of the request from my Group, which I sent you last night, on "Echelon" .
The fact is that, on 13 April, the Conference of Presidents gave an initial response to the request from 185 Members of Parliament for a committee of inquiry, with a majority in the Conference voting against the proposal.
Then, another proposal for a temporary committee of inquiry was tabled by our fellow Member, Mr Barón Crespo.
This is still under discussion, but although it looked initially as if the two proposals might be combined in such a way as to satisfy the requirements of the House as a whole, it now seems that the other request for a temporary committee of inquiry does not in any way agree with the proposal from 185 Members of Parliament.
Indeed, Parliament' s legal advisors have told us that it was impossible for any sort of investigation to be conducted, within the framework of a temporary committee of inquiry, into the involvement of Member States in the "Echelon" project and the role of the European institutions.
In short, no such inquiry is possible.
In my opinion, the logical course of events, although the Rules of Procedure are rather ambiguous, and Rule 151(3) is debatable, is that the decision by the Conference of Presidents should be followed up with a vote in plenary session on the Conference of Presidents' proposal not to set up a committee of inquiry.
My feeling is that the plenary assembly alone has the authority to make a decision on this matter or, if not, then we are falling short of the terms of the Treaty.
Article 193 of the Treaty clearly specifies that, potentially, this is Parliament' s responsibility.
Mr Lannoye, I did indeed receive your request yesterday at 10 p.m. I have to tell you that, at the present time, I have some doubts as to the admissibility of this request.
I wish to look into the matter in depth rather than adopt a position in haste.
It is, however, true, as you yourself indeed pointed out, that it is not particularly clear how Rule 150(3) of the Rules of Procedure applies in this case.
As I say, I wish to look into the matter in greater detail, and I shall inform you tomorrow morning at the start of the sitting whether there are grounds for including your request in the agenda, in which case the matter would then be put to the vote at noon, which is in fact what you would like, I believe.
Nonetheless, I wish at this stage to reserve judgement on the admissibility of this amendment.
Even if I had worked on the matter solidly since 10 last night, I think this would not have been nearly enough.
Madam President, Mr Lannoye has referred to certain decisions of the Conference of Presidents which I believe he has not described correctly. I am not going to go into the background to the issue.
In its meeting of 13 April, the Conference of Presidents decided by a majority to create a temporary committee.
According to the Rules of Procedure, that is a different option to the committee of inquiry.
I requested a report from the Legal Service which was received a week ago.
The issue was included in the agenda of last week' s Conference of Presidents. Since the priority was to deal with other issues, it could not be discussed.
I understand that the final agreement reached was that we are going to discuss this issue at the Conference of Presidents.
Therefore, Madam President, I understand that the intention of Mr Lannoye and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance will become legitimate when you present the Conference of Presidents' proposal to this House, which may be in July, but at the moment I believe that Mr Lannoye' s proposal is not appropriate.
I believe that a proposal by the Conference of Presidents can be objected to, but the Rules of Procedure are very clear: it is the Conference of Presidents which must make the proposal.
In my opinion, it would not be normal to deal with this issue tomorrow, but rather an objection can be raised when you present the Conference of Presidents' proposal to this House.
I understand that it will not be possible before July because the only possibility this month would be Friday, and I do not believe the President of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance wants it to be this Friday.
Mr Lannoye, I have taken note of your comments, and those of Mr Barón Crespo.
Request for the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr Brie
The next item is the report (A5-0151/2000) by Mr MacCormick, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the request for waiver of the immunity of Andreas Brie.
Madam President, this is a request from the Generalstaatsanwalt of the Landgericht of Berlin to lift the immunity of Mr André Brie, a Member of this House.
The Legal Affairs Committee recommends to the House that we decide not to waive immunity in this case.
It would be helpful if I say a few brief words about the grounds for our recommendations.
The case concerns a demonstration mounted by Mr Brie and supporters in September 1998 when he, with eight others, unrolled and exhibited a placard at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin protesting against the gap in society between the haves and the have-nots.
This was repeated on other occasions.
The local prosecutor characterised this as a breach of Article 26(2) of the German Assembly Law, because it was held to be an assembly conducted without prior authorisation by, or information to, the appropriate authorities.
This gives rise to a question of immunity because, as Members of the House are aware, they enjoy immunity in their own Member States on the same terms as if they were members of their own parliament.
Under Article 46(2) of the Basic Law of the Federal Republic, Members of the Bundestag may not be called to account or arrested for a punishable offence, except by permission of the Bundestag, unless they are apprehended in the course of committing the offence or on the following day.
Under these circumstances, it is clear that were Mr Brie a Member of the Bundestag he would enjoy immunity from prosecution which has been launched against him.
Therefore, under European law he, as a Member of this House, enjoys immunity but Parliament may choose to waive that immunity.
Our recommendation is that we should not waive immunity. This is a case of the conduct of political activity and the expression of political opinion.
The tenor of decisions of Parliament in such cases has always been that immunity is not waived. There has been only one exception to this, where speeches directly and deliberately express holocaust denial or other forms of xenophobic attack on persons.
This is by no means such a case and it follows all the precedents in which Parliament has held that political activity should be protected.
This is not a matter of a benefit conferred on individual Members as politicians. It is a matter of sustaining the conditions of a democratic assembly with free, open and frank public debate.
I have great pleasure in proposing to the House the report of the Legal Affairs Committee.
Madam President, I would like to confirm what the rapporteur, Mr MacCormick, has said in relation to the request for the waiver of Mr Brie' s immunity.
As he has highlighted, it has now become normal for this Parliament to guarantee immunity with regard to acts which have been related in some political sense to parliamentary activity.
We believe that the displaying of a placard at 6.50 in the morning, opposite the Brandenburg Gate, an action which involved just the 6 or 8 people who unrolled it, does not really constitute a serious disturbance of civil peace.
As Mr MacCormick has pointed out, there have been cases where Parliament has decided to waive immunity.
These cases particularly relate to Mr Le Pen, where he has denied, for example, the existence of the holocaust or made statements of a racist nature. This also involves those cases where words were accompanied by actions, such as when a stone was thrown and acid sprayed at the President of the United States.
In every other case, the judgement of this House has been to maintain immunity in the event that the political activity may have involved, at a low level, the violation of some administrative regulation, but this has never been put into practice.
I therefore agree with Mr MacCormick' s proposal not to waive Mr Brie' s immunity.
Madam President, it is possible that the rules concerning immunity which exist in many national parliaments, and also in our European Parliament, are in fact an historical remnant which is really not needed.
As long as these rules exist, however, they must apply equally to everyone.
In the case of Mr Brie' s crime, which we are now discussing, this clearly relates, in the first place, to political activity. It is a matter of a demonstration.
What is more, his crime really only has to do with the administrative rules in the police regulation and of his not having sought and obtained prior permission in accordance with these.
This is, of course, not enough to justify waiving immunity for, in that case, serious offences need to have been committed, for example assault or some other crime or an action which puts other people' s lives and security in danger.
This case is concerned only with a purely administrative violation.
I understand that the same view has been expressed by members of different parties in Germany.
I therefore think that the matter is quite clear.
On behalf of my group, I would therefore express support for the draft decisions tabled by the rapporteur.
Request for the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr Kronberger
The next item is the report (A5-0158/2000) by Mr Zimeray, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the request for the waiver of Mr Johann Kronberger's immunity.
Madam President, Mr Zimeray has asked me to defend this report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market since he is unable to attend.
The situation in the case of Mr Kronberger is completely different from the last situation we dealt with.
In this case we are dealing with a mere traffic offence, which has nothing to do with politics.
Mr Kronberger was returning from his parliamentary work, he turned left and caused an accident which injured two people.
There is no political element, no element of fumus persecutionis.
Mr Kronberger himself accepts the waiver of his immunity and has no objection whatsoever.
The closest precedent to this case was more serious, since it involved not only a traffic offence but also the MEP fleeing the scene.
I therefore believe that it would set a bad example if we were to safeguard the immunity of an MEP in the case of a violation of a mere traffic regulation.
Therefore, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market' s proposal in this case is that Mr Kronberger' s parliamentary immunity be waived so that justice may be done in the normal way.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products
The next item is the report (A5-0156/2000) by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products (COM (1999) 594 - C5-0016/2000 - 1999/0244 (COD)).
Mr President, with regard to tobacco, many wonder what business it is of the European Parliament, the European Commission or our Health Ministers.
Tobacco is a natural stimulant.
You are supposed to enjoy it and politicians should not spoil this enjoyment.
But, Mr President, this is not how it is of course.
Needless to say, the element of freedom of choice and personal responsibility should be retained.
This is based on the premise that the decision is taken by an adult who knows all the facts, and therein lies the difficulty.
I believe that smokers are ill-informed on the effects of using tobacco and that they do not give their environment sufficient consideration.
This is our business. And rightly so!
With a directive of this kind, the health aspects will inevitably be the focus of attention.
However, we are principally dealing with an internal market directive, which is why Article 95 of the Treaty has been taken as a legal basis.
There is doubt about this within the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and their rapporteur has expressed this hesitation quite openly to us in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
This doubt is probably exacerbated by fact that the tobacco advertising directive case is now before the Court in Luxembourg.
I, however, do not share this doubt at all.
If it had been a public health directive, then other measures would have been proposed.
Then, we would have discussed points of sale, smoking at work, smoking in public places, possibly minimum age, which I personally do not support in any case.
We would certainly have mentioned the most effective policy against tobacco, namely a price policy.
We only need to look at the British and Swedish examples to see that this policy works.
What we are talking about here is the amalgamation and updating of three existing directives, two of which have already been assessed by the Court, where the legal basis was not commented on.
This draft directive has far too little in common with the one currently under discussion in Luxembourg to warrant a fair comparison.
However, we need to harmonise the internal market for tobacco products as a matter of urgency.
At the moment, we are entangled in national rules, which leads to barriers to trade and legal inequality among consumers.
Harmonisation, therefore, will benefit industry and public health.
For example, our discussions have led to the development of common testing methods and a positive list of additives, as is already in place in France, Germany and Belgium.
I would have liked to propose a list of this kind myself, but I believe that, at the moment, there is too much uncertainty surrounding such a list, to warrant such a proposal.
But the proposals made by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection could mean that such a list could be a reality as early as 2004.
In addition, this test procedure will bring about more openness regarding ingredients and additives, as well as prescribe conditions for the import to, sale within and of course - logically - the export from the European Union.
We, however, are keeping an open mind with regard to the problems which European industry could face in this respect, and so the committee has embraced the possibility of postponement until 2006.
We want to provide consumers with free choice based on more extensive information.
The best means of communication is the packet itself.
It has transpired that the current warnings which cover 4% of the front and back of the packet are completely ineffective and insultingly simplistic.
First and foremost, the information is misleading.
The terms 'light' , 'ultra light' , 'low-tar' and such like, are incorrect.
But indicating the different tar, nicotine and probably carbon monoxide yields also creates a false illusion - and young women, in particular, fall into the trap that certain cigarettes are less harmful than others.
This terminology should be withdrawn.
But in addition to this, we need more useful information, and this is what smokers want too.
They know that smoking is not good for you but they know precious little else.
I have tabled an amendment that tidies up the proposals made by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection in this respect.
The message on the packet should take up more space and should ideally be illustrated. How much space, you may ask?
Well, enough space.
According to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, it should take up 40% or 50%.
I suggested 35% or 45% in a proposal which I re-submitted via my group.
But in any case, messages should not take up less than 30% of space on the packets, which is the proportion currently specified in Poland.
This is why, in my opinion, the 25% suggested by the European Commission is insufficient, although it is a huge step forward.
Finally, I would like to thank the delegates for their remarkable cooperation and I am also grateful to the European Commission and the President-in-Office of the Council.
This is bound to result in better policy.
Similarly, the dialogue with the health organisations and industry has been a positive step.
This Parliament has freedom of choice too and can now use it.
A choice between tinkering at the edges or taking forceful measures.
I call on Parliament to display the courage it takes to go far, because this will be to everyone' s benefit.
Mr President, smoking is bad for the health.
It is, however, naive to assume that we will manage to banish smoking altogether.
What matters most in our view is that we have a responsibility to make every effort to prevent people from taking up smoking at an increasingly young age.
With this in mind, Member States could consider increasing cigarette prices and prohibiting the sale to children under the age of 16.
I would like to make the following observations about the directive.
With regard to the legal basis, I welcome the fact that the directive will now be put to the vote.
The European Parliament has political responsibility in this respect, and we do not need to wait for legal procedures.
This would be a first, we have never done this before and there is always something being drawn up somewhere.
Moreover, the legal offices of the European Parliament and the European Commission have confirmed the correctness of the legal basis.
Secondly, I would like to touch upon health.
First of all, I am in favour of excluding yields from the packets, which seems to have a misleading effect.
Lower tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide yields are just as harmful to health and are, in fact, sometimes even more harmful.
It is sufficient to indicate that these products are in the packets and that they are harmful to health.
People should, however, be able to gain easy and free access to product information.
Strangely, this proposal facilitates export for health organisations and industry alike, and has a positive effect on the votes.
With regard to health warnings, Mr President, given the range of wishes regarding the warning size, I have now decided in favour of maintaining the percentages quoted by the European Commission, which can now be considered a compromise.
It is also important to point out the dangers of passive smoking.
So far, these have been underestimated, but the serious effects are becoming increasingly clear.
Other than that, I am of the view that warnings should be kept as brief and punchy as possible.
Longer texts render the warnings less forceful.
With regard to subsidies, I am in favour of phasing these out.
It is not credible to discourage smoking on the one hand and to stimulate the cultivation of tobacco on the other.
With regard to the market, Mr President, an open internal market entails developing equal starting positions for the industry in the different Member States.
This is why I am in favour of scrapping the ban on snuff.
This product is not healthy but not much worse than other products to warrant sole exclusion.
As for export, Mr President, I am of the opinion that the same health requirements should apply to sales within and outside the EU.
Concerning warnings, the rules of the importing countries could prevail.
In respect of the testing method, Mr President, it is important to arrive at a uniform testing method within the EU that has been established by an independent scientific body comprising experts from different related disciplines who would then be required to develop the testing methods.
Each Member State should then appoint a competent laboratory, either on their own territory or not, as the case may be, and tests carried out in these recognised laboratories should then have to be recognised across all Member States.
It would be a useless exercise if the same tests were to be carried out in all the Member States in accordance with uniform testing methods.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to point out the difference between cigarettes, pipes and cigars.
Smoking is bad for the health and all tobacco products are bad, but there are distinctions between the different products.
Everyone will agree that the target group of pipe and cigar smokers will be different to that of cigarette smokers.
Hence my proposal to draw a distinction in the directive between pipe and cigar tobacco with regard to the size (a smaller percentage) and colour of the warnings (namely not black and white but also to allow contrasting colours).
Cigar and pipe smokers are older, less frequent smokers in the main, and are mainly social smokers.
The product concerned is also more expensive.
If we mainly wish to discourage people from taking up smoking at a young age, this is not the target group.
Hence the distinction drawn.
Mr President, on the eve of the vote on this motion, I would like to focus on the problems raised by this directive and stress the responsibility we have had to display in order to iron them out.
Since the fight against smoking, which is the main cause of death in the Union, is the leading element in the fight to uphold of the right to health, it is important to be aware that this fight can only be won through dynamic but realistic consideration of the implications for production and employment.
I would argue that the balance achieved between these two elements of the text adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy makes up for the hard work of the last few months, and, in connection with this, I would like to thank the rapporteur, who joined us in taking a flexible approach to the matter and liasing openly with both the health associations and the producers of tobacco and tobacco products.
With regard, briefly, to the contents of the draft, I would stress that the Commission' s proposal has not only been adhered to but also further consolidated in terms of public health protection.
Indeed, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy proposes to ban all terms such as light, ultralight or mild, since they are considered to be completely misleading for smokers, and eliminate any possibility of derogation for the States.
The Committee and my group have declared that they are in favour of harmonising the ingredients and additives of tobacco products, and have called upon the Commission to present a proposal for a list of authorised ingredients before the end of 2004.
The rules governing warnings have also been consolidated: we were not content simply to increase the amount of space dedicated to warnings but the messages have been made clearer and more personal as well so that they will be more effective in dissuading consumers from smoking.
As I said before, this reinforced line of health protection could not have been sustained if we had not found common ground with the requests for gradual phasing-out put forward by the tobacco and tobacco-related production industry.
The most problematic aspect of this directive may well be, in fact, that it lays down the same shorter time frames and the same maximum contents for all cigarettes produced in the Union, whether they are intended for sale within the Union or for export.
Nobody wants to deny the principle that cigarettes are bad for Europeans as well as for the citizens of third countries, but you cannot ask an entire sector to change overnight.
In order to take into account the requirements of the tobacco producers and industry, we propose, in accordance with the outcome of the vote of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, to introduce a new amendment, Amendment No 98, to uphold the position which keeps the objective of converting the sector to another activity unchanged but grants slightly longer time periods for this to be implemented, through the application of maximum content levels for internal production as of 2004 and for export as of 2006.
In this way, we do genuinely frustrate the attempts of those who, in the name of production, even reject the requirement to introduce maximum levels of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide.
And that is what counts.
Another delicate point is the granting of the derogation to Greece to allow it to continue to produce strong cigarettes up until 2006.
In this context, having discussed the matter at great length in the Group, we considered that we should keep the situation as it is: that is, keep the derogation for Greece and refuse to extend it to nicotine and carbon monoxide.
Finally, I would like to mention that all the work put in during these last months has been carried out in close cooperation with the Council working party, and inform you that the Portuguese Presidency has placed the adoption of this directive high on the agenda of the 'Health' Council to take place on 29 June.
We are on the point of a major achievement - forgive me, Mr Langen - because in voting for the Maaten report and rejecting the amendments which challenge the validity of the legal basis of the directive, we have the chance to make our contribution to a more general anti-smoking strategy and, thus, to the improvement of our health.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is just one figure to remember and keep in mind throughout the debate and, particularly, during the voting: 500 000 deaths per annum within the European Community are due to tobacco, which is to say, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or other infectious diseases.
And if we were to issue a directive on the social costs or on public health, then it would have to be a discussion about simply banning this fatal poison outright.
This is not, however, the case.
Here we are presented with a directive intended to facilitate the free movement of goods throughout the European Union by approximating Member State laws, regulations and administrative provisions on the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products.
We must therefore concern ourselves not with prohibition but with establishing the same conditions for consumer information throughout all of the European Union regarding the content but also the potential risks they run in consuming these products.
In particular we must give thought to young people who do not have the necessary objectivity, and have only the image of young men and women smokers, and not the viewpoint that I was able to gain as a doctor on a respiratory medicine or cancer ward where I saw smokers dying in great pain from lung cancer.
This is not the future we want for our own children.
Let us also give a thought to other people' s future.
From this point of view, we must be pleased with Mr Maaten' s report and the amendments voted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which improve the proposed directive.
All these provisions, however, still fall short of what is necessary in the way of consumer information, and too often the determination to reach a compromise has prevailed.
We must not let the text be distorted by amendments direct from the headquarters of the tobacco industry.
We must remain vigilant as to the content, size and presentation of these warnings, which must not be changed.
Several contentious issues still remain.
The labelling of tobacco products other than cigarettes must be subject to the same conditions.
The difficulty of measuring values or the fact that these products are not targeted at young people must not be used as an excuse for forgetting that these products, such as cigars, rolling tobacco or snuff, are harmful and must be labelled as such, especially since some, like the cigar or the pipe, may occasionally prove more attractive to young people.
The maximum tar content of 10 mg is still excessive and does not take into consideration the real amount actually inhaled and the habits acquired.
Tar content must be limited still further.
More worrying is the fact that the Technical Committee set up includes specialists from the tobacco industry.
How is this body supposed to be neutral when it includes so-called experts that have spent their time deceiving public opinion, now supposed to become impartial judges of the harmfulness and toxicity of the products sold by their own employers? I feel that one would have to be extremely naive, and not, one hopes, just corrupt, to believe that such a body might be truly objective.
Especially since these consultants to the industry are prepared to allow the introduction of ingredients not only to increase consumption but also to increase habituation.
In conclusion, confronted with 500 000 deaths annually, confronted with the money spent by the tobacco lobbies, infiltrating even this House, we must, ladies and gentlemen, make a choice in favour of life.
Mr President, the Commission proposal introduces a series of stricter regulations for the marketing of tobacco products.
Our group shares the concerns about the harmful effects of tobacco and, apart from a few reservations, generally approves the Commission' s proposals, together with many of the amendments in Mr Ìaaten' s report, although I do not know how effective they will be, especially those which go over the top, as other members have pointed out.
Be that as it may, we shall vote in favour of most of them, together with those approved by other jointly responsible parliamentary committees.
However, there are a number of proposals and amendments which either have no bearing on the matter or which will cause serious economic problems without solving the problems which they are supposedly addressing.
The problem has been raised, albeit indirectly, of reducing and abolishing production aids for tobacco.
Clearly such a move will not help to reduce smoking because I have not seen any of the members on their high horses proposing a ban on tobacco imports and such a move would therefore merely promote tobacco production in third countries.
As for the proposals which say that money saved by abolishing subsidies will be put to certain uses, the members making these proposals obviously have no idea how the budget works.
Ex ante commitments are worthless unless they constitute actual policy worked out by the relevant bodies, rather than just a statement made in a parliamentary committee.
Another amendment abolishes the derogation previously granted to the Greek tobacco industry for nicotine, tar and other yields.
In other words, it will upset the investment and production plans based on our decisions, based on the deadline previously granted.
And it will upset them retroactively.
What sort of law school did the people who approve such arbitrary reversals attend? I should be most interested to hear the Commission' s comments on this.
Finally, industry is required to apply the same specifications to export products as it is to those marketed in the European Union, even if the importing countries require no such thing.
This measure is presented from a moral standpoint, which, however, does not prevent tobacco industries from moving outside the European Union and exporting their products throughout the world from third countries.
Multinationals are already doing just that.
Obviously, the rest will follow, with huge repercussions on economic activity and employment within the European Union.
Of course, the European Union could try - quite rightly - to impose its specifications on candidate and other countries with which it has close ties, perhaps even on the World Trade Organisation.
But instead of focusing on serious matters, we prefer a simple, or rather a highly simplistic and ineffectual solution.
I assume that the Commission, which has conducted a more in-depth analysis, will be able to enlighten us further so that, at the end of the day, we opt for a more balanced, more effective and more logical way forward.
Mr President, I must say it is rather paradoxical today to be discussing the intention to harmonise tobacco products and, at the same time, the intention to facilitate the free movement of what we all acknowledge to be a substance that is extremely harmful to health.
If the European Union sincerely believes that it can protect public health by covering cigarette packets with increasingly larger labels advertising the fact that "smoking kills" or "smoking causes cancer" , we are surely in the realm of the absurd. Is harmonising these warnings a credible step when these toxic products are free to be distributed throughout the European Union, with the authorisation of the Union?
So let us leave the national states to deal with tobacco, with their own structures and their own cultural messages; let us leave them to engage in their own discussions with producers and consumers.
I refuse to believe that, in harmonising the warnings and labels, the European Union simply wishes to act for the common good.
I reject the idea that European citizens should feel reassured in a tobacconist' s in Lisbon or Paris, simply because the Europeanised, standardised product they will recognise there will be familiar to them.
As we all know, warnings serve no purpose, whether or not they are written in 'Helvetica' typeface.
Surely our duty is rather to increase consumers' responsibility rather than to make children of them by telling them what is good or bad for them.
Even if smokers have freedom of choice, we still have a duty to take preventative action, mainly with regard to younger generations.
We therefore support the amendments prioritising the protection of public health, particularly those prohibiting product descriptions for, whether it is "light" , "ultralight" or "mild" , tobacco, in the form of cigarettes, cigars or snuff tobacco, seriously damages one' s health.
Doctors in respiratory medicine, no doubt, but cardiologists too, are well aware of the fact, which they can observe every day, that tobacco is extremely harmful to health.
Calendar of part-sessions for 2001
Manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products (continuation)
Mr President, as far as debates go, Parliament is familiar with some absolute classics which crop up regularly: human rights, bananas, mad cows, and now tobacco.
We are here involved in revising three directives on the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco, cigarettes, snuff tobacco and other tobacco products.
And, at this point, we have yet another classic debate, the one which concerns the legal basis: is this a matter to do with the market, in which case Article 95 of the Treaty establishing the European Community applies, or the rules of operation or indeed health policy? The matter has been referred to the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
The rapporteur from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market suggests kicking the ball into touch by referring the debate back.
Whatever the case, we are required to examine the content of the report before us.
Regarding the content of the report, then, an accurate observation is made and the rapporteur makes some sensible proposals but, in the final analysis, the sideways shift sets in.
As everyone recognises, the observation that tobacco causes disease and ultimately death is perfectly accurate, in the same way that the poverty generated by ultraliberalism is also ultimately harmful to health.
Cigarettes contain tar, nicotine, carbon monoxide, additives, citrates, tartrates, acetates, nitrates, sorbates, phosphates, even fungicides, and all these end up causing lung cancer, cardiovascular disease and cot death in infants, with 500 000 people dying every year.
Of course, many more people die too.
On the basis of these facts, then, some sensible proposals have been made.
Tar content must be limited to 10 mg per cigarette and nicotine content to 1 mg per cigarette.
There are even sensible suggestions to prohibit ammonia, which increases nicotine ingestion and thereby also dependence, and to earmark 2% of the profits made by tobacco multinationals for scientific research.
These are intelligent and reasonable suggestions.
There are also plans to provide information on the dangers of tobacco, and to protect children and even the infants at risk from sudden infant death syndrome.
This, however, is the start of the sideslip into lack of realism, self-righteousness and fundamentalism.
In other words, from an accurate observation and reasonable proposals, we move towards a problem that is even worse than tobacco itself.
What is this sideways shift? In the first place, there is the bureaucratic sideslip with the business of the label.
We are putting labels on everything.
Indeed, the ecologist' s neurosis is revealed by the fact that the subject of labelling is raised.
We have labels on meat, wine, GM products, chocolate.
It is the trump card that beats any freedoms.
And now, labels on tobacco but, mark you, for labelling tobacco we are talking serious business.
The label must cover 30% of the packet surface, 35% if the wording is bilingual, and 12.5% of the outer surface of the wrapping for pipe tobacco.
The label must be printed in black on a white background and the borders must be at least 3 mm and at most 4 mm wide, an average of 3.5 mm.
The labels must feature text, but not just any old text, it must be printed in black Helvetica bold type, 100% intensity.
Thus proving that tobacco affects not only the lungs but also the brain.
The label must also feature a free telephone number for a body which the smoker can call to ask what dangers his habit involves. There must also be a slogan like 'smoking kills' , 'smoking is harmful to those around you' , 'smoking impairs fertility' , and 'smoking causes impotence' .
So, seeing how impotent our governments are to deal with immigration, lack of security, tax problems, and unemployment, we can only conclude that they are heavy smokers.
This is clearly not, however, a sensible measure.
Let me give one example: tobacco was introduced into Europe at the same time as the potato.
Tobacco farming was started immediately but it took several centuries for the potato to catch on. That is how irrational things can be.
Even if there had been a label on the apple to say that there was a risk of being thrown out of Eden, Eve would still have bitten into it!
What does that prove? Well, it goes to show that slogans are not effective, just as a price increase would not be effective, as it would only increase smuggling and crime.
This is the sideslip into self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
We are told that there are social costs.
Yet the smoker pays excise duties of between 75 and 85% included in the price of tobacco.
In my own country, revenue from excise duties is greater than that from recording rights.
In other words, by smoking, the smoker is paying for the cost of his own cancer treatment.
People have said that it is inconsistent to allocate a billion to tobacco farming and then pay out for the campaign against tobacco.
True, but it is just as inconsistent to bomb Kosovo and then pay to rebuild it, or to eliminate internal borders and lose customs duties and then set up OLAF to defend the financial interests of the European Union.
In demographic terms, is it not inconsistent, ladies and gentlemen, to permit the loss of 5 million Europeans per annum due to abortions and then to weep over 500 000 deaths due to smoking?
Then there is the puritanical sideslip.
The rapporteur sends a shiver down my spine when he speaks of social aberrations, social instincts.
What I hear is: the Social Democratic Sweden of the 1960s sterilising fifteen year old adolescents because they were social misfits.
I hear: moral order, the Salem witches.
I hear: the Puritanism of northern Europe, these reformers desperate to reform everything, including the way we eat and drink.
I hear: northern Europe banning wine, on the pretext that wines are harmful to health, but not banning injecting oneself with all sorts of substances.
It is the same puritanical streak shared by Robespierre, Pol Pot, the Greens and the Quakers.
Our rapporteur is a Liberal and should not forget the lessons of laissez-faire Liberalism: let them live, let them be born, let them drink and let them smoke.
Mr President, we are right to be worried when ideology oversteps the limits of the law and merrily tramples individual freedoms underfoot to the point of advocating a tobacco-free Europe.
It is only totalitarian regimes that attempt to regulate the happiness of their citizens.
Nonetheless, the aim of this directive proposing to harmonise legislation on tobacco products is actually to oppose tobacco by every means possible, including those that are the most questionable on legal grounds.
The Commission is effectively misusing EC Treaty Article 95 which stipulates that the object of the single market may be sufficient justification to undertake approximation, but the Commission is justifying its action on the grounds of public health and consumer protection, which are covered by EC Treaty Article 152, and this authorises only encouragement and not actual harmonisation.
What are we to think of this crude misuse of Articles 95 and 152?
What are we to think of the rejection voted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market? What then will be the use of this committee and, indeed, of the European Union' s legal consultants?
What are we to think of the unemployment unavoidably generated by this directive which, in eliminating all subsidies to production, will toll the knell for the tobacco sector? This affects one million jobs in Europe.
In France, 40 000 small producers are scraping a living thanks to this additional activity which is extremely labour-intensive. What are we to think of a Europe which, according to the power of lobbies and special interests, permits the addition of vegetable fats to chocolate, authorises the use of GMOs and imposes restrictions liable to jeopardise the sale of local products on the markets and now to threaten tobacco production, even though it is perfectly legal?
As you will have understood, we shall be voting against this directive.
Is it too much to ask that Articles 95 and 152 be respected? All we are asking for is a minimum of subsidiarity and a modicum of tolerance.
Mr President, the actions of the European Union, the Commission and, in particular, Parliament, in their endeavour to regulate the tobacco industry, continue to give the impression that they are disregarding the needs of the workers and growers of the industry - and by the industry I mean the production, industrial and, in particular, tobacco-growing sections.
You are all aware of how heated the debate in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy was.
There have been a large number of amendments, including the one tabled by myself, attempting to defend the production sector and the tobacco-growing sector in particular.
In Europe, 135 000 families work in the tobacco industry and it employs as many as 800 000 workers, most of whom are seasonal workers hired at harvest time and during production periods.
This is a major industry which, moreover, hires more women than men to do seasonal work.
Furthermore, from a production perspective, it would be very hard to change from growing tobacco to another crop.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has adopted an amendment withdrawing subsidies for European tobacco production.
We are concerned as to whether this instrument will genuinely be an effective means of reducing tobacco consumption.
The most immediate effect will be to weaken the situation of European tobacco-growers to the benefit of production elsewhere in the world, and the price reduction will penalise the entire production system of the European continent.
Are we saying that, in order to reduce smoking in Europe, it is necessary to kill off European tobacco growers without even any guarantee that this will reduce cigarette consumption by a single cigarette? From where I stand, a responsible smoking reduction policy needs to be based on an awareness and prevention campaign, especially in schools.
It should not penalise those who are contributing to Europe' s wealth.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there seems to me to be no question as to the validity of the proposed directive on harmonisation of the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products.
Obviously, the proposal to tighten up standards for maximum nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide content in cigarettes must be considered one of the ways of ensuring better public health protection.
As a member of Parliament' s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I should particularly like to highlight the fact that tobacco producers are not opposed to the changes proposed by the Commission, insofar as these changes are justified on public health grounds.
Like them, however, I deplore the fact that the Commission has not carried out an impact study concerning the effect of the proposal on the production sector, as it did for a number of businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized businesses.
They thus failed to take account of the fact that, on the whole, European producers will not be capable of supplying products to the required quality by the deadline of 2003.
This leads me to advocate delaying the date when these new provisions come into force.
Let me remind you that the tobacco sector, involving 130 000 producers and 400 000 seasonal workers, is more often than not located in regions which present very few alternatives for farm production.
This is a social reality which must not be forgotten, especially since, in economic terms, European production accounts for less than 25% of European tobacco consumption.
In these circumstances, jeopardising the situation of European producers would only be of benefit to the multinationals involved in import and export.
I should not like to think that this might be our objective.
Mr President, I am keen to follow the line taken by our rapporteur, Mr Maaten, and would like to ask you, fellow-Members, to do the same.
Tobacco is no ordinary product of course.
We are familiar with the fatal risks associated with tobacco, we know the statistics which have already been quoted here today.
We also know about its addictive effect.
Typical use of cigarettes is extremely dangerous, life-threateningly so.
You can be unlucky and have a car crash, or abuse alcohol, but with tobacco, the life-threatening aspect is always there.
I very much welcome the emphasis which Mr Maaten placed on the dangers of passive smoking.
A tobacco ban would be inefficient and socially unattainable at present.
But it still remains clear that those who market cigarettes should not be allowed to do so.
The product is far too dangerous.
What can we do as regulators? First of all, we need to realise that we are in an extremely absurd situation, straddling enormous state revenue on the one hand and enormous expenditure in health insurance on the other.
We should be able to admit to this.
European policy on tobacco is not very logical, to say the least.
We as regulators should at least try to practise damage limitation.
We should compel producers to make the warnings to users as clear as possible.
It may be bureaucratic, but if you see how producers deal with other requirements, then I have to say that it is necessary to spell out our regulations very clearly.
Later on this week, Parliament will be discussing phthalates and PVC softeners, and when I see how very circumspect we MEPs are, how very careful we are in dealing with these products, if I compare this with the little we are asking with regard to a dangerous product such as tobacco, I have to conclude that this Parliament can be very selective in its indignation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall not go over the health aspects of the directive again, for indeed I support the rapporteur wholeheartedly as well as the amendments tabled by my fellow Member, Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
I should like briefly to mention the matter of the potential unemployment created by this directive.
The tobacco industry presents itself as the harbinger of employment in Europe and claims to defend jobs, but what has the management in the tobacco industry actually achieved between the late 1980s and the present?
Jobs in the industry have been "rationalised" by 50%. Employment levels in tobacco production, which formerly stood at 120 000 people, now involves no more than 60 000 people.
A World Bank study shows that a reduction in tobacco consumption worldwide will lead to an increase in job creation: for if the money spent today on tobacco is spent in future on some other luxury product, for example, this will create more jobs because the tobacco industry is one that has been rationalised to the bone.
It is therefore not true that the directive will cause job losses.
To return to the question of exports to third world countries, is the health of an African worth less than the health of a European? The speeches made by some Members of this House, who I sincerely believe to be inspired by the arguments of the tobacco industry, are reminiscent of the debate on chocolate.
As soon as certain industries and certain employers in Europe stand to gain something, the solidarity advocated in our speeches no longer seems to apply.
This is one more reason to support Mr Maaten' s report, and also the European Commission' s efforts to extend the directive to exports too.
Mr President, for a long time, we have held the belief that to many, tobacco is a harmless stimulant and that its production creates employment for farmers and workers, particularly in economically weak regions.
The production and consumption of tobacco increased dramatically in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
It was then thought that smoking was normal and that any self-respecting man should light up a cigarette.
In my language, which is Dutch, there are two expressions which illustrate how smoking was viewed then.
The first one is: 'het is geen man die niet roken kan' [he who does not smoke is not a man], whilst the second one reads: 'een tevreden roker is geen onruststoker' [a satisfied smoker does not cause any trouble].
Since then, the production and distribution of tobacco has increasingly ended up in the hands of large international chains in whose interest it is to keep successive new generations of consumers dependent on them on a permanent basis.
Their growth market lies with young people, women and people with little education, those on low incomes and with few prospects in life.
However, there are also many men, especially those who are well-educated, who are trying to kick the habit of smoking, but it is just as difficult as it is to abstain from alcohol or drugs.
Tobacco generates big bucks.
This is why there are stakeholders who would prefer to continue to keep everything as free as possible within this market.
Freedom of production, import and advertising, and freedom to mislead and sponsor events which attract large crowds of people.
Tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide make people ill, as a result of which they die prematurely of heart or lung diseases.
Non-smokers run risks too because they are obliged to inhale the smoke of those smoking around them.
Accordingly, tobacco is not just about economic interests, rather it is far more of a public health problem.
It makes little sense to remind people that it is their individual responsibility whether they smoke or not.
This is not about one case in isolation but about the responsibility of all of us together.
We cannot leave the market free and subsequently blame the victims of smoking for their bad health.
This is not how we treat consumers of heroin or cocaine.
It is necessary to ensure that tobacco products are hard to come by and to warn the rest of the users about the risks as best we can.
The norm should be that smoking is abnormal and that new generations must be protected from this addiction.
From the public health point of view it is necessary that we no longer take the interests of tobacco producers and sellers into account.
The situation would hugely improve if the packets were to display the largest possible warning sign and if advertising and sponsoring were banned altogether.
In addition, it should not be possible for people to buy cigarettes at supermarkets, cafés or petrol stations as an afterthought.
If you are 100% determined in your mind that you want to buy a tobacco product, you should have to visit an outlet which only sells this product.
This could best be achieved in the same way as in the Netherlands, where soft drugs can only be sold in a limited number of outlets which need to have a council permit.
Some opponents of the currently proposed measures blame the rapporteur for making outrageous proposals.
To those opponents, I would like to reveal that in the Netherlands, Mr Maaten belongs to the Liberal Party which adopts the most non-interventionist approach to industry' s interests and which has turned the free market principle into its cardinal ideology.
If even a representative of such a party proposes to further regulate the market, then this is all the more proof that public health is at serious risk.
As representative of the Socialist Party, I would even go further than Mr Maaten or the majority within the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I represent the section of my group which denounces the idea that tobacco production could only fall or disappear altogether once people have kicked the habit of smoking largely or completely.
I believe it has to precede it.
We do, however, fully agree with the other opinions in our group that American chains should not be in a position, on account of free imports, to plug the gap which will emerge if European production drops, and that economically weaker regions in Southern Europe should be given support in order to create replacement employment when tobacco production disappears.
Mr President, the Maaten report on today' s agenda has lead to this interesting debate. However, we must not forget that our business here is politics, which is quite a different matter from merely sitting here listening to technical arguments or pressure from the varies lobbies such as Philip Morris or the large multinationals: we should be thinking about the future of Europe!
In my opinion, the Maaten report, which is certainly technically sound and lays down appropriate parameters, represents a move towards the political will to protect the right to health, a right which must be protected and guaranteed for each and every European citizen.
It is, in effect, all part of the realisation throughout the world that smoking is harmful, and we have the figures to prove it.
Having established that, we can then discuss any other justifications we may wish to.
Smoking is harmful and we must use the Maaten report to regulate tax reductions, labelling and the other initiatives proposed in the report which are certainly, for the time being, important but not decisive measures.
I feel that the main point to be stressed is the need to create a 'non-smoking' culture.
Last century, smoking was part of the culture. It was important and provided a sense of security.
Now, however, we have to turn that culture on its head.
Of course, we must also stress the freedom of each one of us, of all citizens, to choose, and in this case I hope that we will choose the freedom not to smoke, freedom which, however, does not hide the harmful results and dangers of smoking itself.
On the other hand, I also have to consider the 400 000 workers and the 150 000 or so tobacco growers of the tobacco industry.
In this past century, we have succeeded in changing nuclear energy into something different, into clean energy.
It would seem absurd not to be able to change or contribute to the transformation of such industries into equally productive industries which will develop economically and socially in the future.
It would be completely absurd, especially at the dawn of a new millennium, in an era in which man landed on the moon, if we do not manage to bring about a change in this industry or to provide accurate information regarding the genuine harm caused by smoking.
Well, in my opinion, we have two main tasks: we must endeavour to provide accurate information and give everybody the chance to choose whether to smoke or not, and I hope that they will choose not to - my own family has suffered bereavements through this - and, at the same time, we must bring about a change of culture in the relevant industries.
Mr President, smoking forms a serious threat to public health.
In the European Union, more than half a million people die each year as a result of smoking.
Due to the addictive effect, it appears very difficult to stop smoking.
Unfortunately, it is still the case that many young people take up smoking.
Tobacco manufacturers pursue a deliberate policy in this direction by lending cigarette smoking a sporty and macho image in advertising.
Once the tobacco industry has won over a young person, the industry is generally guaranteed another regular customer.
This policy of reeling in customers is helped by the fact that the addictive effect is enhanced by adding substances to cigarettes so that the nicotine is better absorbed.
In addition, with misleading messages such as "light" and "ultra light" , the tobacco industry is trying to create the impression that the relevant tobacco products are less harmful.
The European Commission' s proposal and Mr Maaten' s excellent report adequately address the above-mentioned problems.
I do, however, have two further remarks to make.
Firstly, European tobacco policy is not consistent, a point which has already been argued.
On the one hand, the use of tobacco is discouraged, but on the other hand more than EUR 1 billion is spent annually on subsidies for the tobacco industry.
It is high time that these subsidies were phased out gradually down to zero.
My second comment concerns labelling.
I am in favour of strict labelling i.e. 40% or 50% of the packaging for health warnings is a workable compromise.
As for the content of the warnings, I think that the text "als u rookt, bent u uzelf aan het doden" [if you smoke, you are killing yourself] has just crossed the boundary of what is reasonable.
Warnings should appeal to the smokers' own perception of the environment and should not be formulated such that their effect is like water off a duck' s back.
Mr President, today' s debate reminds me, word for word, of the debate we had at the second reading of the directive on the advertising of tobacco products.
The same legal arguments are being used as a scapegoat by the very same Members of Parliament who, under cover of a putative sacrosanct legal coherence, are in fact defending vast financial interests.
I am sorry to see that over the years there has been no development in their arguments.
I regret this all the more because now even the cigarette industry itself is tending to acknowledge the fact that this debate should be obsolete.
Those who are now hypocritically rehashing yesterday' s legal arguments are taking part in an outmoded rearguard debate.
From a legal point of view, the debate of the future is the one dealing with the court cases which we are starting to see in Europe.
How is it possible to weigh the financial interests of a number of industrialists against the devastating effects of tobacco consumption upon health? Every year, tobacco kills more people.
And, in comparison with the restrictions we are subject to in the context of mad cow disease, how is it possible that we are doing nothing about the 500 000 smoking-related deaths every year in Europe? How is it possible not to shudder when thinking of our young people, our young women and our young mothers?
On the specific subject of agricultural subsidies in favour of tobacco production, I should like to see the European Union at long last adopting a consistent policy.
It is not possible, on the one hand, to offer significant subsidies to tobacco production while, on the other hand, releasing ever inadequate funds to combat smoking and cancer.
For years the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has been denouncing these budget decisions.
In terms of the common agricultural policy, new plans must be thought up with a view to finding alternative solutions for farmers.
I should like to see this directive apply to all tobacco products, not just cigarettes but also cigars, rolling tobacco and pipe tobacco for, while consumption of such products does not cause the same diseases, tobacco for oral use causes equally terrible devastation.
This directive will not, unfortunately, solve all the problems related to tobacco consumption, but it does at least aim to attempt to inform the consumer.
Mr President, anyone who follows this debate will see that there is a kind of war going on between those who are trying to protect health and those who defend tobacco.
However, as Mrs Grossetête has pointed out, the problem stems from the fact that legal arguments have been given and that, by a small majority, the Committee on Legal Affairs decided that Article 95 was not the appropriate legal basis.
As a Socialist member and spokesperson in the Legal Affairs Committee, I would like to reiterate the objection to this point of view.
Article 95 is the article which takes up the former Article 100A of the Treaty, on the basis of which the three previous directives, which are now being remodelled in this new directive, had been adopted.
Therefore, to reject that legal basis now is to go against our previous tradition, to cast doubt upon what we had done, which seems to me to be above all very dangerous for the construction of a European legal system.
To speak of subsidiarity in this area, an area strictly relating to the internal market, which specifically involves the health of the citizens, regulated by Article 95, is a way of diverting the battle and, in my view, this is very dangerous because, while the defence of an economic sector seems to me to be important, and worthy of respect, it must not lead this Parliament to change the legal basis or, as is intended for example in another amendment, to suspend any decisions until the decision of the Court of Justice on the directive on tobacco advertising is adopted.
This directive which we are discussing today has nothing to do with the directive on tobacco advertising.
Therefore, Mr President, I believe that we must be consistent, maintain our previous attitude in this respect, maintain the legal basis proposed by the Commission and endorsed by the Legal Services of the three institutions and refuse to accept this abuse of the subsidiarity theory which would truly put an end to the existence of the European Union and the competences of this Parliament.
Mr President, as I was coming to Parliament this morning I remembered the night I sat by my father's bedside looking at his wasted body as the lung cancer finally claimed him.
I am sure I am not the only person in this Parliament to have lost friends or family through smoking.
The fact is that if the laws on drugs which apply in most countries across the European Union were applied consistently, then tobacco manufacturers would all be locked up behind bars and condemned as murderers for deliberately making their products addictive.
Yet when it comes to the greatest killer drug of all, we apply different rules.
There is no consistency and we say that people should be allowed to choose for themselves.
As a Liberal, I agree with that position: people should be allowed to choose for themselves. However, everything possible must be done to ensure that those decisions are made with full knowledge of the consequences.
The manufacturers say that everyone knows the risks already; that there is no need to increase the size of the health warnings, and that they certainly should not adopt the sort of proposal I am putting forward, to supplement the health warnings with some hard-hitting pictures to drive home the consequences.
Frankly, the manufacturers have an addiction of their own: an addiction to trying to mislead us.
If the rules on advertising were changed, manufacturers would grasp the opportunity to promote their products in every possible way, because they believe that advertising works.
And we should accept that fact: advertising does work.
We should seek to turn the tables on them. We should seek to ensure that the cigarette packs themselves are turned into instruments to promote health, not death.
We should follow the Canadian example and ensure that advertising is used effectively.
And the bigger the better.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Jules Maaten on his first-class report.
Smoking is a dangerous habit which even harms non-smokers, but at the end of the day, I am liberal enough to say that everyone should decide for themselves whether they smoke cigarettes, use dope, drink alcohol, or whatever.
But it is up to the government to point out the harmful effects to addicts and other citizens.
The tiny label of 10% which we have at present is not effective then.
We need warnings which are much bigger.
But 80% of new smokers are young people under the age of 18.
The traditional warning that smoking harms your health cuts no ice with them.
The warning that smoking causes impotence could possibly work, especially if it is illustrated, as young people take a great interest in sex.
I would like to add one other point.
Anyone who has seen the film "The Insider" knows that the cigarette industry adds ammonia and other substances in order to encourage addiction.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has endorsed the green amendment in order to rule this out.
Fellow MEPs, I would like to call on you to back Jules Maaten' s excellent report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one cannot fail to notice the confusion - we hope not deliberate confusion - in the report by the Committee on the Environment, which is turning the campaign against smoking into a campaign against tobacco producers.
We do not dispute the fact that smoking damages your health and we therefore agree with the spirit of the directive proposed by the European Commission.
However, we must not forget that very little, in fact just under 30%, of the tobacco consumed in the European Union is produced in the European Union.
Most of it is imported.
Consequently, measures to reduce tobacco production will do nothing to reduce consumption; they will merely boost imports.
We need to take measures against imports and, once consumption has fallen to production levels, we shall have no objection to discussing production cut-backs.
I should like to concentrate on three separate points: first, we are categorically opposed to Amendment No 17 by the Committee on the Environment, which recommends a gradual reduction in production aids for tobacco.
This would spell financial disaster for hundreds of thousands of tobacco producers in Greece and other southern countries of the European Union, at no benefit to public health, for the reasons already stated.
Secondly, we are also categorically opposed to Amendment No 21 in the report, which abolishes the European Commission' s proposal to extend the date of application for tar yields by Greece to the end of 2006.
This extension was proposed because of the special nature of certain varieties of tobacco cultivated in Greece and abolishing it will hit tobacco production in Greece extremely hard.
Thirdly, we agree with the view that reductions in the amounts of harmful substances should apply both to cigarettes consumed in the European Union and to cigarettes produced for export.
It would be absurd to maintain that people from countries outside the European Union have greater resistance to harmful substances.
Mr President, I am satisfied that there is general consensus within the fifteen Member States that legislation governing the sale, presentation and advertising of tobacco products must be fundamentally changed.
The protection of the general public health of the citizens of the Union, must be a central priority for all European Union legislators at any time.
As a result of the Amsterdam Treaty we now have an equal say with the EU governments in the area of legislation on public health matters.
Let us use it intelligently.
The issue of cigarette smoking and the damage which cigarettes do to the health of the citizens of the Union is a very serious public health matter indeed.
For the most part I support the key amendments which were passed by the Committee on the Environment last month, in their call for the warnings on cigarette packets to be larger than proposed by the Commission.
The warning about the public health risk of cigarette smoking should cover 40% of the front of every packet and 60% of the back of every cigarette packet sold within the Union.
Labelling requirements in general should be stricter and include fuller health warnings and the list of ingredients should also be available on request.
Descriptions such as low tar, mild and light must in future be banned.
I support the elimination of such descriptions because they give the impression that smoking such cigarettes does not damage the health of individuals as badly as other cigarettes: this is clearly misleading.
Such slick advertising by tobacco manufacturers must not be permitted.
The Committee on the Environment has also called for warnings to be printed only in black on a white background, so as to give such warnings more impact.
The committee members also consider that general warnings such as smoking kills are inadequate and I agree with this analysis.
Messages such as "Smoking kills half a million persons each year in the European Union", or "85% of lung cancers are caused by tobacco" should be the messages printed on cigarette boxes in the future.
Mr President, I suspect that in my group as in most others there is a wide range of views, from people who think that smoking is a matter for consenting adults, largely but not necessarily in private, to those who think that sellers of tobacco should suffer capital punishment and that those who smoke should be incarcerated in secure hospitals.
But all of us would agree that the primary purpose of this measure is to protect children and to deter them from a habit that may kill them.
The best way is not to worry about maximum levels of content but to worry about minimum levels, so that the first taste for a child is so foul that they do not seek to repeat the experience.
Certainly we should support the ban on the use of labels such as mild and light or anything that suggests that the product is safer.
The truth is that people inhale more deeply to get the taste and so can actually damage themselves more.
Such labels are deceptive and dangerous and should be banned.
Otherwise labelling is of marginal and temporary impact, whatever the picture, whatever the words, and there is some danger of a cigarette card mentality emerging, with the different messages becoming collector's items.
The export issue is probably the most difficult.
It is one for balanced judgment: on the one hand, it is odd to say that what is not good for our citizens is okay to export to other countries; but on the other hand, it is presumptuous of us to say what standards other countries should adopt and on balance I come down in favour of the second approach.
Lastly, we have the issue of subsidies for growing tobacco, paid by our taxpayers to people in our Europe.
It is immoral and obscene that we allow subsidies for growing something that we know will kill and will cost us billions of euros in health care for smokers.
Our governments must stop this and we must stop them supporting it.
Mr President, this was a highly controversial report within the Industry Committee which only approved its opinion by 29 votes to 26.
The division in the Environment Committee was overcome as the major groups managed to agree a compromise.
On behalf of the Socialist Group, we support this compromise.
We reject the view that the legal basis of the report is wrong.
We support the creation within the EU of a single market in cigarette and tobacco products.
At the same time, within the limits of Community law, we would like to use the opportunity of maintaining and strengthening public health protection within the EU.
We believe that nicotine and tar levels need to be further limited and new limits should be imposed on carbon monoxide levels.
We believe that health warnings should be bolder, clearer and larger.
Nevertheless, my concern is that in some areas, our good intentions are in advance of common sense.
If we are to have a single market, surely we should have mutual recognition of the common procedures for testing.
It would be absurd to make each Member State test separately.
Secondly, I hope that countries outside the EU will follow our lead in cutting limits on nicotine, tar and carbon monoxide.
It seems absurd that we insist on exporting jobs from the EU to applicant countries and others to produce cigarettes that will be legal to import for personal consumption within the European Union.
Thirdly, I accept that the latest research indicates that smokers compensate for lower tar levels by smoking light cigarettes differently.
Nevertheless, banning such terms as "mild", "light" and "low" threatens to make illegal long-established extra-European brands like "Mild Seven" with all the consequences for the WTO rules and it will merely increase sales of thesauruses to the tobacco industry.
If I were to be mischievous, I would recommend "Organic Green" or "One" as appropriate substitutes.
Despite these reservations, I hope the general thrust of the report will receive strong support from Parliament.
Mr President, allow me to adopt a rather Swedish and personal tone.
Swedish snuff is most certainly not good for you and is not to be confused with any sort of 'health food' .
It is a very addictive drug, and I most certainly would not want the tobacco industry, by which I here mean Swedish snuff manufacturers, to be given the opportunity to market snuff in the rest of Europe as something healthy.
That would be devastating.
In spite of these misgivings of mine, I cannot quite understand our allowing all other forms of tobacco product - cigarettes, cigars and pipes - which are in themselves more dangerous for the individual who uses them.
These tobacco products are most certainly and without any doubt harmful to health.
The fact that snuff is less dangerous to people who use it is, in actual fact, less important.
What gives snuff an advantage is the fact that nicotine addicts can use it without affecting the environment.
Passive smoking is probably the most insidious effect of tobacco.
We can experience this on a daily basis, both in this Assembly and in this House too.
There is smoking going on everywhere, something which sometimes causes acute difficulty in breathing for those who are allergic to smoke, among fellow Members of Parliament too.
One ought not perhaps to refer to one' s own experience in this Assembly, but I myself took up smoking when I was very young.
At that time, it was not only cool to smoke, but it was even useful.
Rather tubby young ladies, in particular, were extremely well served by cigarettes.
Fifteen years ago, my husband contracted a serious lung disease. Then, if not before, I painfully learned the cost in terms of suffering of the smoke produced by myself and all smokers.
I now regard myself as a nicotine addict. But I am not bothering anyone else.
Mr President, the right to health should be enjoyed by all citizens of the European Union, which is why we consider the draft directive on the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products to be extremely important.
It has been proven that certain types of cancer and cardiovascular and lung diseases are directly related to smoking.
It is our duty to provide proper and adequate information on what smoking does to your health.
It is our duty to promote health through a public awareness, information and behaviour modification programme, especially for the most easily swayed section of the population, i.e. the young.
The Commission proposal is based on Article 95 of the Treaty, taking account of a high level of protection of public health by harmonising the internal market in tobacco products and we agree wholeheartedly with this.
We also agree that tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide yields should be reduced and that the terms 'light' and 'ultra light' should be abolished because they create the erroneous impression that smokers are at less risk.
We would also like to have a positive list of additives.
As far as the form and content of the message are concerned, it is important that it should be clear, comprehensible and brief if it is to be noticed at once, and we therefore consider it imperative to increase the surface area covered.
However, I should like, Mr President, to touch on what I consider to be another important matter.
It is idealistic to believe that we will stop smokers smoking if we abolish production aids for tobacco in Europe.
Those who have still not been persuaded that smoking damages your health will continue to smoke cigarettes imported from third countries, thereby undermining agricultural production in certain areas of the Union.
I think that a fundamental study of the financial and social fallout is needed if we are to avoid hitting tobacco producers.
Mr President, 500 000 EU citizens die each year from smoking - that is 1 400 a day.
Even if a small number of people stop, it will have huge health implications, not only for smokers but for passive smokers as well.
It is important that we fight delaying tactics today.
The EU already regulates health warnings and tar yields.
Smokers also have a right to know that there are more than 600 additives licensed for use in tobacco products.
They have a right to know that "light" and "mild" branding is misleading.
People inhale more if they have a light cigarette than any other cigarette.
The health warning should be large and explicit.
We must warn of the dangers of smoking, the dangers of lung cancer and also the danger of bronchitis and asthma.
People must know that it is not just lung cancer but other lung diseases and other diseases as well.
We must warn of the dangers of passive smoking.
I know the dangers of smoking and the dangers of passive smoking.
I started smoking when I was 11 years old. I ended up smoking 40 a day.
I had chronic bronchitis and I was told by the doctor that I had to give up as otherwise my life would be in danger.
My health has been damaged by smoking.
There was no warning when I took up smoking.
Maybe I would not have taken it up if there had been.
Now I am the victim of passive smoking.
I just have to pass a cigarette and I have an asthma attack, especially in this building.
I have asthma attack after asthma attack.
I am a good example of why we should adopt this report now.
Even if one person stops smoking as a result of this, or does not take it up; even if one person is not inconsiderate any more; even if it stops one person being hospitalised because of other people's smoke, it is worth it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, smoking is unhealthy and smokers should be aware of this.
Sound and clear warnings about all kinds of diseases and disorders are therefore, in our opinion, a matter of greatest importance.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteur on the dynamism and perseverance he has displayed in this connection.
The European Union too, should know that smoking is unhealthy.
In fact, it should put its money where its mouth is.
The Tobacco Directive is a good opportunity to demonstrate that the internal market is not just about the free movement of goods.
We have to attach clear health requirements to the goods within the internal market.
It is not just the tar and nicotine yields which are at issue here, but also mainly additives.
Additives which encourage addiction should be banned at the earliest opportunity, as far as I am concerned.
The other aspect of the Union policy is the issue of tobacco subsidies.
It would indicate a lack of consistency if we continued subsidising tobacco products in the knowledge that smoking is unhealthy.
If phasing out subsidies has social and financial implications for the tobacco growers in the poorest regions, we are all jointly responsible for finding a solution.
Smoking is unhealthy.
We are all agreed on this, but should we be sharing this with the entire world? This is one of the most interesting and principle questions in today' s debate.
It would be a considerable change in policy if we were to impose European standards on other countries.
If this change were extended to other fields, it could mean that European companies would only produce for the European market.
This would, as such, lead to a certain degree of regionalisation of the world economy, a regionalisation which, in the case of the tobacco industry, would be at the expense of the position of Europe-based companies.
The question is whether we want this.
To impose standards on other countries can come across as presumptuous, moralistic or patronising.
After all, other countries can set their own standards which industry has to comply with.
A sound approach, however, would be to make the European standard compulsory in the case of export to countries where such standards are lacking.
In this way, we would at least avoid other countries, especially Third-World countries, being lumbered with second-rate cigarettes.
Mr President, although I value the work of rapporteur Maaten, I have to say that I am greatly disturbed by the European Parliament' s inconsistent line with regard to tobacco.
The report once again reflects the ambivalence of the European Union - as has been highlighted in this debate - which subsidises the tobacco cultivation by more than EUR one billion and collects more than EUR 70 billion in tax money annually on the one hand and which curbs the sale of tobacco products on the other.
I would also like to emphasise that it is not up to the European Parliament to deny tobacco products, which are legally available on the market, a fair chance of commercialisation.
What strikes me in the debate is that we seem to overlook the objective of this directive.
It aims to reinforce the internal market by promoting better harmonisation and by removing barriers to trade.
In this respect, I notice an imbalance in the present report, an imbalance between the need for harmonisation and the aim of protecting the consumer.
I take exception to the fact that the consumer is considered as someone who cannot judge for himself what he should or should not do.
The proposed warnings on the packet completely miss the point.
Whatever the dimensions, the information will remain ineffective.
Information on the dangers of smoking will need to be conveyed in a more effective way if we want to achieve the objective.
Above all, we should not forget that it is - and should remain - up to the citizens to decide for themselves how they wish to conduct their lives and they should be able to continue to do so.
Mr President, I believe that the objective of achieving greater protection for the consumer in relation to tobacco consumption is absolutely shared by all of us.
To this end, it also seems to me to be fair and beyond all doubt that the tobacco industry will have to adapt to stricter conditions of manufacture, presentation and sale, such as those proposed by this directive.
In this respect, I congratulate Mr Maaten on his work.
Nevertheless, we cannot put the cart before the horse if we want this work to succeed.
The reality is that Europe produces and exports tobacco and, furthermore, its cultivation is subject to significant subsidies.
As has been pointed out, this does not just involve the interests of the large multinationals.
It involves the legitimate and fair way of life of hundreds of modest families.
If we wish to prohibit these subsidies, let us prohibit them, but not without truly seeking alternatives which are proven to be viable.
With regard to exports, it seems logical that the European Union should apply the same levels of content for cigarettes for consumption within the internal market as for those intended for exports.
In this respect, a proposal of time limits may seem logical.
However, we cannot deny or forget the authority of each state to manage the risks within its own society.
If we believe that we can and must teach someone something, we must do so firstly - and this has been said here - through education and increasing awareness and not through an imposition which has dubious results as an instrument for reducing the consumption of tobacco.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Commissioner Byrne, something which has not been done today, for I do in fact think that it is a good proposal that the Commission has come up with, a proposal which I should really like to have voted for without changes.
It is a good contribution to reducing the poison content of cigarettes and to providing far better information about the damaging effects on health of cigarette smoking.
I find it sad that there are MEPs who are trying to weaken the Commission' s proposal.
I am thinking, for instance, of the discussion about the legal base.
In my opinion, this is a ridiculous discussion.
The legal services have agreed that the legal base is in order, and I must say, as a lawyer, that I am rather embarrassed about the fact that the majority of members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market are so unqualified and frivolous and completely confuse the law with their own political wishes.
On the question of when the proposed legislation is to come into effect, I would say that I do not think that there is any argument, either technological or industrial, in favour of postponing the date when the lower limit values are to come into force.
I should like us to decide on the end of 2003 as the time when the legislation is to come into effect but, as a compromise, we could agree to the end of 2004, if necessary.
In my opinion, what is at issue here is an unnecessary impairment of public health.
Turning finally to the question of exports outside the EU, I wish to say that, in my view, it would be immoral if we were to allow the export of cigarettes which, on health grounds, we prohibit our own citizens from smoking.
Under those conditions, I simply do not think that we can allow ourselves to export more cigarettes which are a danger to health.
I could live with a compromise in the form of the year 2006, but I could not compromise any further on this point.
I hope that, in the voting tomorrow too, we shall arrive at a result here in Parliament which does not significantly weaken the Commission' s proposal.
Mr President, tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of ill health and premature death throughout most of the world.
In Scotland, which I represent, one in five people will die of smoking-related diseases.
We have an opportunity of doing something about that this week.
We must pass this report into law and thus save lives.
The reality that smoking kills is not getting across at the moment.
We need a bigger, bolder and clearer health message to make smokers more aware.
If the size of the health warning directly reflected the risk to health, the label would cover the whole cigarette packet.
Half of all long-term smokers will eventually be killed by tobacco and of these half will die during middle age, losing 20 to 25 years of their lives.
This directive will save lives because it is going to alter the content of cigarettes by reducing tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide yields and do away with misleading descriptions, such as "light" and mild".
Consumers, especially young women, are being sold the idea that so-called "light" or "mild" cigarettes are better for them, as if they were the tobacco equivalent of low-fat yoghurt.
However, low-fat yoghurt does not rot your teeth, blacken your lungs or put you on a ventilator.
Yet smokers of mild cigarettes smoke more deeply to get the same nicotine hit as smokers of other products and receive the same level of damage.
I want to make health warnings bigger, better and bolder: 40% on the front, 50% on the back.
Health Canada recently carried out research on the effects of increasing the size of the area occupied by health warnings on cigarette packets.
The result proved that larger warning messages better encouraged smokers to stop.
Adoption of the directive would open the possibility for the improvement of health for millions.
We have the opportunity and responsibility to act positively on this today.
Mr President, we are talking about a directive which attempts to harmonise marketing, manufacture, the different ingredients of tobacco (nicotine and tar content etc.), as well as their presentation to potential consumers.
I believe that nobody can rationally oppose this.
This harmonisation directive is necessary, and it is necessary that we carry out this harmonisation in all respects, without leaving significant gaps, with regard to the possible use or non-use of certain terms, such as "light" or "ultra-light" , to the discretion of the Member States.
If we are going to harmonise, let us harmonise and not be fainthearted about it, within the technological possibilities which may be available to us.
However, to ask in passing for the removal of aid to tobacco growers is to hijack a different debate: that attitude is, 'while we are on the subject of tobacco, let us ask for the removal of aid to the growers' .
I believe that it is truly hypocritical to ask, within this harmonisation directive, for the removal of aid to tobacco growers. Why not simply talk about the processing of tobacco?
Why not talk about the multinationals established in some Member States who tear their hair out when we discuss the production and consumption of tobacco? Why not talk about this processing?
There is no way that I can accept this request for the removal of aid to tobacco.
When the proposed amendment of the COM in tobacco is presented to us, then we will either discuss it or not and we will reach an appropriate agreement.
However, this harmonisation directive should be restricted to harmonising.
Commissioner, you have the responsibility for harmonising, and harmonising in the real sense, and to this end I believe you have the support of the majority of this House.
Mr President, may I start by declaring an interest in this debate: I am a passionate non-smoker and I wish to share my passion with other Members of the House.
But I am also passionate about something else, that is, deregulation in the field of employment and the opportunity for Member States to become increasingly competitive in the global market place.
The idea that we should ban not only the marketing of certain types of cigarette and tobacco products, but also their manufacture, in other words, that we ban the possibility to export, is wrong in principle and absurd in practice, given that those markets exist and flourish elsewhere.
I should like to quote two brief articles from today's Financial Times for those who have not seen them.
One is in the letters page and is headed "Tobacco proposal would be a slap in the face for workers".
One paragraph says that if exports are banned, it will deeply affect our competitiveness in world export markets and may cost hundreds of jobs in Germany alone, maybe even cause the regional closure of plants.
That is a comment from one of the leading trade unions in Germany.
On the facing page is an article written jointly by the prime ministers of the UK and Spain, not about the tobacco directive but about market liberalisation, which says: "It is so important to avoid the sort of heavy-handed regulation that could drive investment and jobs out of Europe".
That, Mr President, is what we are in danger of doing - we are not just stopping exports of cigarettes we are actually promoting the export of jobs.
We have an opportunity today to send two signals - first, that we care very much about health, but also that we care very much about jobs, employment and deregulation.
The final point I would make is a little plea to the Commissioner.
We have had this conversation before, but when we vote today on the labels, can we please have a larger-scale version as posters and spread them throughout the institutions so that we are not just talking to others but also addressing ourselves.
If his support cannot be strong, it can at least be mild!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to express my heartfelt thanks to Mr Maaten for his report, particularly for the way it focuses on the protection of public health but also for the way it deals with the issues affecting tobacco growers and producers.
At last, we have an institutional, comprehensive text on tobacco products which will ensure that, in the future, we work together with the other institutions towards regulating tobacco products at world-wide level.
Until such legislation to regulate tobacco products is introduced, we will have to ensure that we keep a balance in responding to the challenge facing us, for, on the one hand, we must provide for improved consumer information and more intense awareness-raising to dissuade consumers from smoking tobacco, and, on the other, we have to safeguard the rights of producers and growers.
We cannot, therefore, include the idea of eliminating production subsidies even as an aim in the recitals.
In fact, this approach does not take into consideration the fact that the problem cannot be resolved by terminating our own production, for that would just prompt the citizens to use tobacco produced outside the Union. Rather, we need to raise awareness and adopt global directives, directives with world-wide scope.
It is only in this context that there would be any point in providing incentives to our tobacco growers to change the type of crop they grow.
Moreover, we cannot disregard the concerns which weaken the solution adopted in the area of production for export.
The directive governing the matter, which is the product of a partly successful compromise, has a clear, acceptable moral basis.
Indeed, it is immoral to produce for consumption by others that which we retain to be too harmful for our own consumption, but one wonders: will the health of tobacco consumers from outside the Union genuinely benefit from this decision, or will they just smoke non-European tobacco?
Do we not therefore risk penalising our industry, which would have to convert entire sections of production for export, without achieving an appreciable result in terms of health? In conclusion, the moral principle is acceptable but the solution is unsatisfactory.
Mr President, I shall not repeat what our fellow Members have already said, but I believe that all Members of Parliament would agree that overall, culturally appropriate solutions must be found for consumer health.
We have a duty to take action.
The problems will not, however, be solved by adopting puritanical positions and eliminating aid to producers.
Ladies and gentlemen, the consumer and his health must be protected, but this must be achieved logically, by implementing coordinated policies rather than by eliminating the premium for producers.
Reducing consumption will cause a decrease in production.
Health problems will not be solved tomorrow by importing 100% of our tobacco.
On behalf of tobacco producers I would urge the European Parliament, a responsible body, that an overall alternative be proposed to protect consumer health.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am concerned about the health of my daughter, Elisabetta, who has been elected a regional councillor in Lombardy in Italy where I was a councillor for five years.
Unlike in the European Parliament, all the councillors smoked like chimneys during committee meetings.
I was very happy when I arrived at the European Parliament and found that here, hardly anybody, or rather nobody at all smokes in committee meetings.
This is just to emphasise the fact that passive smoking is harmful for everyone, even Members of the European Parliament.
I totally agree with Mr Martinez who spoke earlier.
There is no point in us writing 'Smoking kills' on cigarette packets if all the young people then sit down in front of the television at 3 o' clock on a Sunday afternoon and watch Hakkinen or Schumacher, who drive like maniacs on the race track, are idolised, especially by young people, and whose clothes, helmets and cars are covered in advertising for different brands of cigarettes.
I support anyone who protects health.
I am in favour of this report but I do not agree with its hypocrisy. We must be more courageous!
Mr President, the European Union spends EUR 1 billion each year subsidising tobacco production - EUR 1 billion.
That kills over 500,000 EU citizens - half a million of our citizens.
It would be cheaper to go out and shoot them.
It would save money on health services.
How many billion euros are spent on health services trying to save the lives of people who try to kill themselves with cigarettes?
As you have gathered, I am an intolerant non-smoker.
I do care, and I am extremely concerned about the increasing number of people, particularly young girls, who are starting to smoke.
We can write off those of my age and older who have been at it virtually all their lives but young people are missing the message.
Surely, it is not beyond the best brains of the political world, the medical and scientific world and the marketing world to get the message right so that our young people do not start to smoke.
That is my plea.
Can we not get the marketing message to them?
We would have to protect the tobacco farmers.
There would have to be alternatives, but surely it can be done.
It is immoral to spend EU taxpayers' money on subsidising a product that kills half a million of our people.
We must find alternatives.
In my country, and I suspect in all the other 14 Member States, you can have drink rehabilitation paid for by the public health medical system, you can have hard drug rehabilitation paid for by the public health medical system, but anyone trying to come off cigarettes gets no help from state public health services.
We must correct that anomaly.
In my country nicotine replacement therapy is only available by medical prescription.
Madness!
It should be available next to where all cigarettes and tobacco products are sold.
You can opt to buy replacement therapy rather than overdose on cigarettes.
What is the difference?
The general medical services systems, which in Ireland is our public health care system, should fund those who want to come off cigarettes and provide nicotine replacement therapy prescriptions free.
The state should fund it.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Maaten, for his valuable work.
After all the secretive work carried out by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, the compromise reached in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is a very good one.
Plenary should adopt the report in the form presented in that Committee.
The fact is that tobacco kills.
Anyone who claims otherwise is either completely ignorant or, for one reason or another, a puppet of the tobacco industry.
Everyone knows that we cannot change the centuries old tobacco culture merely through legislation.
Our most important task is to ensure that consumers receive objective information on the dangers of smoking.
It is foolish to claim that the miserably small warnings on cigarette packets are enough to inform consumers of just what sort of product they are actually using.
The tobacco companies use clever image marketing on their cigarette packaging, targeted precisely at different consumer groups - generally the young.
We have to fight the tobacco companies using their own weapons.
About half of the surface area of a cigarette packet should be reserved for health information, to weaken the supremacy of the tobacco companies.
For many, smoking is not a question of choice or pleasure.
Tobacco gets you in its grip, just like any other drug, on account of the fact that it contains nicotine.
It is tremendously important that the maximum quantities of the poisons contained in tobacco - not only nicotine, but tar and carbon monoxide as well - become harmonised at the lowest possible level.
This will also be important in the prevention of harm caused by passive smoking.
In future, greater consideration should also be given in EU legislation to the rights of non-smokers, who suffer from the effects of tobacco smoke.
Mr President, allow me to start by saying that I agree with many of the proposals and amendments because, as we all know, smoking is a scourge, it is a threat, it causes thousands of deaths and we have no choice but to take steps to help the anti-smoking campaign.
However, this does not mean that we should want to use the powers granted to us by this act to intervene where it would, I think, be highly unfortunate to do so.
To start with, I shall not endorse the attempt by certain members to use this act to stop production aids for tobacco because, as you know, first of all, the European Union has a deficit and imports tobacco from abroad and, consequently, the only outcome would be to penalise poor Greek farmers and benefit producers of imported tobacco.
This is not the way to solve the problem of smoking.
On the contrary, we need to engage in an anti-smoking campaign.
Consequently, I shall not vote in favour of this proposal.
On the contrary, I should like to see a logical programme which will really help tobacco producers to gradually restructure their crops and they cannot do so overnight.
We must not create unemployment and underemployment in poor regions of the European Union.
The second point with which I disagree is this: it is wrong and it is inconsistent and incoherent on the part of the European Union to use this directive to repeal previous directives and timetables granted to the Greek tobacco industry and used as the basis for its business plans.
Now we want to repeal them.
It is wrong; we need to be consistent and coherent.
I am very pleased to note the continued wide support in Parliament for this legislative initiative which builds on three existing directives dating from the late 1980s.
The Valverde Lopez report which Parliament adopted in 1997 called on the Commission to bring forward this proposal as a matter of urgency - a call which has been repeated by the Health Council.
The proposal consolidates the existing internal market rules on product regulation, including tar content of cigarettes and the use of health warning labels.
It proposes reducing the level of tar in cigarettes, their main carcinogenic component.
It also proposes increasing substantially the size of the health warnings and bringing them up-to-date in line with scientific advice.
It introduces harmonising rules for nicotine, the addictive agent in cigarettes, and for carbon monoxide, the agent associated with cardiovascular disease.
It also limits the use of misleading descriptions which could lead people to assume that light cigarettes are safer, while the opposite seems to be the case.
I am aware that some in Parliament would prefer to ban such descriptions immediately.
However, I do not consider that this is appropriate.
Instead, in future, these terms would have to be subject to Member States authorisation and the Commission could act to rectify any internal market distortions.
The proposal imposes an obligation to declare additives in tobacco products which results in making the products easier to smoke or perhaps reinforce the impact of the nicotine by increasing addiction.
The Commission has decided in this proposal, as was the case with the existing directives from 1989, 1990 and 1992, that the correct legal basis for action is Article 95 of the Treaty.
This is clearly so because the differences in national rules between the Member States on a product so widely traded as tobacco can lead to very real problems in the internal market and public health protection is potentially put at risk.
Even if the national rules were fully applied this would lead to unequal treatment of economic operators as the content of present national laws is very different.
By adopting Community-level rules, as has been done since the late 1980s, we ensure that certain basic standards are set and respected for all European citizens.
I should now like to refer to the report presented on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
The amendments proposed in this report are of a very high quality.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Maaten, for the contribution he has made in preparing these amendments in such a positive and constructive manner.
I should now like to set out the Commission's position on the amendments proposed.
A total of 48 amendments have been proposed in this report.
Of these, I am pleased to inform you, the Commission can accept 38, either totally or partially.
It cannot, however, accept Amendments Nos 9, 17, 20, 21, 34, 36, 37, 40, 42 or 46.
The accepted amendments include the proposal to increase the size of labels.
However, we need to be very careful not to stray from consumer information to the area of consumer harassment which would be counterproductive.
Banning certain additives is premature until further information on their use and effects is available.
The industry has not in fact provided the relevant information to Member States and it is my belief that the establishment of a law to enable Member States to request the tobacco industry and individual companies to provide this information is the first necessary step.
This would lead to the situation which people have called for this morning with a positive list being established, but first we must get the accurate information to enable us to do so.
In this connection the cooperation of the tobacco industry will be essential.
We need to bring their experience and knowledge of the tobacco products sector into the process of regulation and revision.
Dealing with the common agricultural policy is also inappropriate in an internal market text, as is mentioning warnings on vending machines which are not covered in this proposal.
All in all, therefore, the majority of the amendments which the Commission has accepted will make this a much improved text, whilst several of those rejected can also be taken into account outside this text but within the framework of other initiatives.
I should now like to turn to the other 71 amendments submitted last Thursday.
Of these the Commission can accept a further 34 - either totally or in part.
However, the Commission considers that Amendment Nos 49 and 50, 52, 54, 56, 59 to 61, 64, 65, 68 to 73, 77, 79, 80, 82 to 85, 89, 93, 94, 96, 99, 101, 104 to 106, 110 to 112, 114 and 117 are not compatible with the proposal's scope, intention and legal basis and should not be accepted.
In particular, I would mention that this proposal is a recasting of three existing internal market directives.
Amendments undermining that legal basis, which has been considered valid for over ten years, would not be considered constructive and would ignore the advice of the legal services of all three of the legislative institutions of the European Union, namely the Commission, the Council and indeed the European Parliament itself.
Similarly, amendments which would seek to totally exclude exports from the scope of the directive are not considered acceptable since we need to cover all products manufactured in the Union in order to ensure that products finally consumed here respect the rules.
However, a transition period for exports can be justified in order to allow firms to change brand formulae as appropriate and to modify their marketing strategies.
This extension must also be viewed in conjunction with the upcoming WHO negotiations of a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
This convention aims to put in place worldwide tobacco product standards.
If we succeed in this respect, there will be no need to distinguish between tobacco products for domestic consumption and those for export.
On the issue of additives, the Commission will report under Article 10 of the Proposal concerning the use of additives in tobacco products, a subject of great concern to consumers.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to introduce immediate harmonisation of additives as some in Parliament would like.
In order to ensure a full and detailed report, the proposal envisages a declaration of these additives by the manufacturers and importers.
This is a necessary first step before we can go any further.
It would be premature at this stage to introduce bans on particular substances.
I would hope that a constructive dialogue can be built with industry experts in order to develop Community legislation in full knowledge of technical data.
The Commission recognises the complex issues covered in this proposed directive; particularly, the need to ensure that in drawing up the reports provided for in Article 10 and any accompanying proposals, full scientific, technical and other data are taken into account.
In order to provide advice on a long-term basis, the Commission intends to create a Multidisciplinary Tobacco Group, the first meeting of which will take place before the end of this year.
Finally, the Commission does not consider that cigars and pipe tobacco should be treated as if they were made of something other than tobacco.
Consumers of all tobacco products, regardless of their age or social class, must be informed on an appropriate basis.
I would like to thank Members for their positive contributions and the rapporteur, Mr Maaten, for his excellent work and note that this is yet another example of our two institutions working closely together to good effect.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Accidental or deliberate marine pollution
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0148/2000) on the Council common position with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision setting up a Community framework for cooperation in the field of accidental or deliberate marine pollution (12612/1/1999/Rev1 - C5-0101/2000 - 1998/0350(COD) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy) (Rapporteur: Mrs McKenna).
Mr President, marine pollution, accidental and deliberate, is one of the major threats to the marine environment in western Europe.
This region represents one of the most intensely industrialised areas of the world, where chemical, radioactive and hydrocarbon materials are routinely discharged into the marine environment and carried by cargo ships.
The region also contains one of the highest concentrations of shipping and includes several of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
There are several tragic examples of accidental pollution from tankers and from other ships carrying other forms of dangerous cargoes.
The recent example of the Erika shows what can happen from an environmental, human and economic point of view.
It is a catastrophe.
More by good fortune than good planning there has not yet been a major accident with a ship carrying radioactive materials that has resulted in a major spillage.
However, it must be said that there have been a number of incidents.
In 1973 a cobalt 60 source was lost in the North Sea, never to be found again.
In 1984, the Mont Louis sank in the English Channel with 375 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride.
Also, in relation to releases into the sea, in 1983 Sellafield leaked high-level waste into the sea.
In 1985, there was a leak into the sea at Hinkley Point.
In 1986, 135 cubic metres of radioactive water was released into the sea at Wylfa.
The Commission's refusal to take on board and include explicitly radioactive materials, is not acceptable and it will have to revise its position on that.
Historically the marine environment has been used as the ultimate dumping ground for much of our industrial waste.
Although industrial and radioactive discharges continue from a range of sources, the practice of direct dumping with little thought for the future is now widely regarded as unacceptable.
However, the legacy of the years when materials were simply dumped remains and sometimes comes back to haunt us, with severe consequences.
It is a lesson which shows that we cannot just throw things away: that is not possible, as they are still there in some shape or form.
This report acknowledges the need for establishing cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
Furthermore, there is a need to broaden the definition of accidental marine pollution to include both operational, historical, radioactive and other harmful substances.
Although much attention is rightly paid to the impacts of marine accidents in terms of chronic pollution, it is the operational spills and discharges of hydrocarbons, radioactive materials and other harmful substances which, because they go largely unnoticed, are a cause of major concern.
In terms of the environment, whether a substance is accidentally or deliberately discharged is irrelevant.
Furthermore, although the direct dumping of industrial materials, including military dumping of redundant munitions, is largely a practice abandoned by Member States, the sites of such dumps continue to present a real threat to fisheries and, in some cases, to human safety.
Often fishermen's lives are at risk, as is the health and welfare of the public who either visit the coast or live by the sea.
Furthermore, as the sea is the ultimate sink for industrial materials from the shores and rivers, these sources should be included within the definition.
The transboundary nature of the marine environment, which means that pollution in one area can impact on a wider region, leads to the need for a Community-wide framework for cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
Sharing information regarding hydrocarbons, radioactive substances and other harmful substances carried at sea, discharged into the sea or which have been dumped as part of historical dumping regimes, is a vital prerequisite in facilitating the preparation and coordination of any response necessary to mitigate the impact of pollution incidents on the environment and human health.
Effective mitigation requires a rapid response: the longer an accident is allowed to go unchecked, the wider the impact.
Hence, it is too late to start trying to get information after a serious pollution problem has occurred.
Knowledge about the type and extent of potential pollution problems is also a prerequisite for correct preparation in terms of techniques, personnel and equipment at appropriate locations.
It is also necessary to be clear about the risks to the public and the environment and to alleviate justifiable public concern, with accurate assessment of the risks.
The public's trust in the authorities is important to ensure adequate response.
Furthermore, the public has a right to know what preparations are being made, what types of materials are threatening and what impacts can be expected.
To this end, the publication of information is a vital component as it establishes a route through which the general public can obtain information, e.g. emergency phones and contact numbers.
Such information can easily be made available and updated on the Internet as well as through established channels.
Finally, once the marine environment has been contaminated or polluted, it is impossible to fully clean up and repair the damage. The Erika is a good example of that.
However, a rapid, efficient, adequate and effective response coordinated across national boundaries is needed to mitigate the impacts on the environment and public health in the case of pollution incidents.
This is a prerequisite in the necessary information sharing with all parties.
Mr President, like you I am going to welcome the work carried out by our fellow Member, Mrs McKenna, on this Community framework for cooperation in the field of marine pollution. This should prove to be an instrument of particular interest, as is perfectly illustrated by the latest marine disaster to hit the coasts of France.
In January, this Parliament adopted a resolution, following the oil pollution related to the sinking of the Erika.
What is the situation today? Fuel oil is still leaking out of the hull, which is lying at a depth of around 100 metres, and, contrary to the statements made six months before, this oil is continuing to pollute our coasts and to poison the marine environment.
Implications for the environment and for animal life have been tragic, and there are still serious threats.
Serious social consequences are expected in future: fishermen, hotel owners and all the people involved in tourism are going to suffer for years from the effects of this oil slick.
The International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund, or IOPCF, seems extremely reluctant to provide compensation for the victims and, in any case, the amounts it is prepared to release would not be at all adequate.
This proves, once again, that the principle of 'polluter pays' is not being applied.
I should like to see real cooperation being established in order to guarantee, pursuant to this principle, repair of the damage caused.
This framework for cooperation will, therefore, make it possible to improve existing local or national resources, particularly by creating better conditions for intervention in the event not only of accidental pollution but also of deliberate pollution.
This would therefore make it possible to include illegal degassing and any other source of pollution.
We must also stress the importance of research.
This winter, on the Atlantic coasts of France, effective techniques to combat the oil slick in Brittany were seriously lacking.
Cooperation and the exchange of know-how must be encouraged and supported in this highly technical field.
Regarding the extension of this cooperation to the countries of the Mediterranean and to the countries of central and eastern Europe as well as to TACIS programme countries, I should like to inform Mrs McKenna that I do not entirely agree with her, and this is perhaps one of the few points with which I do actually disagree.
There are international conventions on the Mediterranean and the Baltic, which already fulfil this purpose.
Mrs McKenna' s idea may seem perfectly generous, but the appropriations and the staff allocated to this framework for cooperation, with appropriations of EUR 7 million for a period of 7 years, seem much too little to me.
On the same grounds, I do not think there is any point in providing for a management committee.
In its resolution on the oil slick in January, the European Parliament requested that this framework for cooperation might come into force as quickly as possible.
Let me today stress the fact that the 5 compromise amendments should be adopted and that we should not delay the establishment of Community cooperation which will prove an excellent instrument, one that European citizens are awaiting impatiently, out of concern for the protection of our marine environment.
Mr President, first of all, I too should like to thank Mrs McKenna for the work she has done on this matter as rapporteur.
Enormous destruction is caused by oil spills and discharges into the sea of other substances which are damaging to health and to the environment.
It is destruction which spreads far and wide.
We see before our very eyes the destroyed coastal areas, birds covered in oil, and fish floating on top of the water, and we also hear the reports about the polar bears which have become hermaphrodite because of hormone-affecting substances also supplied through the sea.
Sometimes, the pollution occurs by accident, sometimes through indefensible conduct and, at other times, through the deliberate actions of a variety of individuals and companies.
But, however it has occurred, the damage to animal life and the environment is equally disastrous and, very often, it of course cuts across national borders.
I therefore think it is important that, by means of this proposal, we create the basis for close cooperation between the Member States, with a good information and warning system and with a guarantee of mutual assistance when needed, so that harmful spillages can be prevented or combated effectively.
I am able to support the report with the amendments that have been tabled, and I shall only single out a few of the latter.
I think it is good that radioactive substances have been included in the report. I also think it is good that pollution due to dumping and to used ammunition has been included.
Like Mrs Grôssetete, I think it is important that we establish the polluter-pays principle and, in this regard, I can support the rapporteur, as well as Mrs Grôssetete' s amendment.
Finally, I think it is good that we can get the neighbouring coastal countries involved, both in the Baltic area and in the Mediterranean.
I hope that, by means of the compromise amendments that have just now been tabled, we can achieve a result that can be translated into effect very quickly and so with no need for any Conciliation Committee procedure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say a few words on accidents at sea. The accident involving the Erika off the French coast is just one of the many accidents which have occurred involving a ship.
It is also often the case that cargo goes overboard.
Either way, the marine environment is polluted.
This directive only contributes in a small way towards cross-border cooperation in order to prevent this type of accident.
A far greater contribution would be if a piece of EU legislation governing environmental liability with regard to dangerous cargo were to be laid down.
Unfortunately, we still only have a communication and a White Paper, not a bill.
Moving on to accidents involving radioactive cargo, it is unfortunate that the Environmental Ministers did not expressly acknowledge this problem and dealt with it accordingly in the common position.
According to European Commission officials, radioactive cargo is implicitly covered in the text.
I would invite Commissioner Wallström to take a stand on this issue, explicitly so.
Let us, as a European Parliament, have the courage to include radioactivity explicitly in the text too.
When the Drinking Water Directive was reviewed a couple of years ago, the European Parliament insisted on a tough limit for radioactive substances.
Thanks to the European Parliament' s perseverance, this was also included in legislation.
There is a well-known Dutch expression 'Goed voorbeeld doet goed volgen' [Example is better than precept] which captures the above.
Mr President, now more than ever it is necessary to tackle the matter of a Community framework for cooperation in the field of accidental or deliberate marine pollution, at a time when the preliminary work for pumping the fuel oil is just starting off the coasts of Brittany.
Whether deliberate or accidental, even if we cannot equate illegal degassing and the use of obsolete vessels and flags of convenience, it is still the same rationale of maximum short-term profit which is adopted by oil companies such as Total, Elf and Fina, for example.
This is why we must, at every level - French, European and international - support any restrictive legislation concerning contractor liability, for either civilian or military contractors, by enforcing the principle of 'polluter pays' .
It is scandalous, moreover, than no serious penalty has yet been considered following the wreck of the Erika.
Quite clearly, risk prevention measures must be stepped up by improving vessel design and construction standards, one such measure being mandatory double hulls.
This also requires establishing an independent system of classification societies, increasing the number of inspectors in European Union ports, and also banning oil tankers that are more than 20 years old from European waters.
Naturally, tipping harmful substances from the shore must be prohibited and, of course, radioactive substances must be specifically included in the list of toxic substances.
Finally, the fact that many States tolerate over a hundred flags of convenience, offering guarantees that are more than dubious, is a serious threat to the safety, the working conditions and even the lives of many sailors.
The European Union will have to take action on this issue to and work towards establishing international standards.
The McKenna report represents a move in the right direction, and we shall therefore vote in favour of it.
We must, however, remain vigilant to ensure that the fine resolutions adopted by the European Parliament and the Council take the form of directives and mandatory regulations in the near future.
Mr President, at the very least, the Erika disaster will have enabled us to highlight the importance of European cooperation on accidental marine pollution.
France did not have enough anti-pollution vessels to deal with this oil slick.
Fortunately, the British, Germans, Dutch and Norwegians spontaneously came to our assistance.
This goes to show that it is time to establish a new regulatory framework in order to optimise this cooperation, enabling reciprocal assistance.
We therefore agree with the philosophy behind this report.
Exchanging information and know-how between Member States will make it possible to make faster and possibly better decisions, particularly during clean-up operations, where there is a certain amount of disorder.
Stress must be placed on transparency with regard to the public, particularly in the event of health risks related to the nature of the pollutant.
It is inconceivable that the risk of cancer should be kept from volunteers, as was the case in the Erika disaster.
We are also in favour of extending the definition of accidental marine pollution to include radioactive pollution, arms and degassing.
We think that extending cooperation to neighbouring maritime countries is a good idea.
The sea is our international heritage, and protecting it is a matter for international responsibility.
Recognition of the principle of 'polluter pays' is essential.
At the present time, the owner of the potentially polluting products is not held accountable for the pollution.
In practice, only the carrier is accused.
This is not acceptable, and our hope is that the Member States will ensure that the principle of economic responsibility extended to the owners of the cargoes will be applied.
The proposed budget of EUR 7 million is, in our opinion, however, much too little to fulfil these objectives properly.
Mr President, as speakers have already pointed out, when the Erika sank last year it released an oil slick into the waters along the French Atlantic coastline, threatening wildlife and the local tourist and fishing industries.
Regrettably, however, this was yet another in a catalogue of marine environmental disasters which included the Braer spill off Shetland and the Sea Empress off Wales.
Recently in Ireland we were fortunate to escape a similar disaster when an oil spillage some 88 miles west of the Aran Islands threatened to engulf the Irish coastline. Thankfully the danger passed.
An added difficulty with marine pollution is that because of the nature of the sea it can rapidly spread to the coastlines of many Member States at once.
Hence the need for a coordinated, effective EU response rather than simply leaving it in the hands of the Member State initially affected.
I welcome Ms McKenna's report. I would like to pay tribute to her for her work.
But the real question is how we implement the legislation and what sort of action we take.
The ability to respond quickly with sufficient resources is an essential element of any strategy that must be put into place immediately in the wake of a disaster to minimise environmental damage.
It is doubtful that this could be adequately provided at a national level, which is why it must be done at a Europe-wide level.
The most effective way of achieving this is by establishing an EU coastguard which, as well as having responsibility for pollution control, could also undertake responsibilities for policing the high seas, enforcing the common fisheries policy and also marine rescue.
I believe this is an issue which should be tabled for discussion at the forthcoming IGC.
Commissioner, Mr President, it is indeed an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and Mrs McKenna' s report comes at an opportune moment, even if she did start to work on it before the Erika disaster.
How many times have we expressed our feelings, within this chamber, regarding the implications of this disaster, and how many times have we debated the issue of the European Union and the Member States' inability to respond quickly to the expectations of victims and to react to the ecological damage?
Parliament cannot today fail to respond to public opinion, which is continually urging us to issue a strong, positive message.
Let us not miss the opportunity which this report affords.
The problems caused six months ago by the Erika, for example, have still not been even partially solved.
Apparently, nothing has yet been solved, and this is the lesson we must learn from this disaster.
We are aware, moreover, that containers loaded with radioactive materials are sailing the seas from The Hague to Japan.
Let us not wait until a fresh disaster occurs, this time a nuclear one, before doing something, because we know how oil reacts but we do not yet know how radioactive waste reacts when it is spilt into the depths.
Mrs McKenna' s report offers us an opportunity to include radioactive substances.
Let us please, ladies and gentlemen, not hesitate for even a moment. Let us avoid a disaster and vote in favour of the amendment to include nuclear substances.
Mr President, there is an important meeting on 26 June of the OSPAR commission in Copenhagen.
Let us recall for a moment that the central objective of the OSPAR Convention is to reduce marine pollution to close to zero and to historic levels by the year 2020.
From an Irish perspective we know that marine pollution in the Irish Sea has been on the increase in recent years and this is a direct result of the go-ahead given to the Thorp nuclear reprocessing plant in December 1993.
Surveys carried out in the Irish Sea have clearly shown that levels of a particular nuclear product, technetium-99 have increased 15-fold in the last seven years alone.
To date the British Government has only given broad general outlines as to the strategies it intends to take to comply with the provisions of the OSPAR Convention.
This is simply not good enough and the people of Ireland and the people of Europe have a right to receive the real answers to many questions from the British Government.
For years the British Government has tried to fob off many politicians and environmental groups in Ireland with reassurances about the Sellafield and Thorp nuclear plants.
They cannot do this any longer because of the startling revelations this year about the wholly inadequate safety and quality control standards in operation at these plants.
The Irish Government has tabled a draft decision for the OSPAR meeting calling on the contracting parties to an agreed acceleration of implementation of the OSPAR strategy.
This will include the cessation of nuclear reprocessing and associated activities at the Sellafield and Thorp plants.
This in turn will play a key role in reducing marine pollution in the Irish Sea.
If the British Government wants to comply with its legal obligations under the OSPAR Convention it should state on 26 June in Copenhagen that it will outline a time framework for the closure of the Sellafield and Thorp plants.
I would like to compliment Mrs McKenna on her excellent report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to begin by thanking the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and, above all, the rapporteur, Mrs McKenna, for their work on this important issue of how we in the European Union can become better at combating both accidental and deliberate pollution of the sea.
The purpose of the Commission' s proposal is to reinforce and further develop the various Community measures which have been taken in this area during the last twenty years, as well as to combine them within a solid legal framework.
Since the European Parliament' s first reading of this proposal, the Erika disaster has occurred in France, which is probably the accident involving marine pollution which has caused more damage than absolutely any other.
I was at the scene of the disaster myself in January and was able to see the drastic consequences for human beings, animals and the environment.
I also saw the considerable efforts made by hundreds of volunteers who arrived to help with the cleaning up operation. These people, I think, deserve our special appreciation.
Where preventive measures are concerned, the Commission responded directly in the shape of my fellow Commissioner, Mrs De Palacio and, on 21 March, adopted a communication concerning safety when transporting oil at sea.
This report proposes a range of different measures for improving the safety of marine transport.
Even if the best preventive measures are taken, there will never be no risk at all of accidents.
We therefore also need to improve cooperation within the EU when an accident does, in fact, occur.
We require an effective framework of cooperation as a way of supporting and supplementing the measures taken by the Member States and of making these measures still more effective.
The Erika disaster and its consequences show that we still have a very great deal to learn when it comes to dealing with major pollution accidents.
Following the first reading of this proposal in Parliament, the Commission approved or reformulated 20 of the 29 amendments you proposed.
The Council has included most of these amendments in its common position.
These changes have meant that the text has been improved.
Above all, it has been explained what type of accidental pollution is included in the decision, for instance operational spills.
The need for appropriate coordination with current international conventions and agreements relating to Europe' s seas has also been made clear.
Where the amendments tabled for the second reading are concerned, the Commission is able, wholly or in part, to approve seven of these.
Amendment 16 acknowledges the important role played by non-governmental environmental organisations in this area.
The Erika disaster has been important in this respect, too, and shown how crucial it is for these organisations to be involved, something we also saw when birds injured by the oil had to be taken care of.
Parts of Amendments 6, 24 and 25 make the scope of the directive clear.
Parts of Amendments 17 and 19 are completely in accordance with the Commission' s proposal concerning the most appropriate committee procedure.
Amendment 22 introduces an important reference to the polluter-pays principle.
The remaining amendments are problematic for the following reasons. Amendment 2 and parts of Amendments 6, 10 and 24 introduce a specific reference to pollution caused by radioactive substances.
Naturally, radioactive substances too are included in, and covered by, the cooperation elucidated here in this proposal.
The Commission nonetheless believes that there is no justification for introducing a reference to specific substances, for this is not done in other international conventions that exist to protect the Mediterranean, the Baltic and the North Sea and to which the Community is a party.
An express reference to radioactive substances would also mean complicating the legal situation because of the link to the Euratom Treaty and consequently delaying adoption of the decision.
The Commission cannot therefore approve these amendments.
So what kind of protection is there? There are two directives and an information system used in the event of accidents involving radioactive substances.
There is Directive 96/29/Euratom on the establishment of basic safety standards. It is in accordance with this Directive, which specifies what is required in terms of joint operations in the event of a radiation accident, that the Member States are to establish action plans and develop networks and forms of cooperation.
The Ecurie system is a system for the rapid exchange of information in the event of a possible radiation accident.
It is a system which operates 24 hours a day.
There is also Directive 89/618/Euroatom on the provision of information to the general public about measures for protecting their health in the event of a radiation accident.
We therefore already have a number of different tools and regulations which have bearing upon a possible accident involving a ship carrying radioactive materials.
Including a specific reference in this proposal is not only unnecessary but would also lead to an unclear legal situation.
Why delay this proposed legislation, which really ought already to have been in place?
Several amendments, namely 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 27, deal with the question of dumped ammunition.
On this issue, the Commission supported the European Parliament at first reading.
The Commission nonetheless believes that the text of the common position constitutes a reasonable solution.
A number of Members of the Council were not prepared to accept that reference should be made to this issue other than in a recital.
It is only because I insisted on it that a reference was finally introduced in Article 1.2(b) of the common position.
Amendments 5 and 9 introduce a definition of accidental marine pollution.
This question has been discussed at length in the Council, which finally came to the view that the scope of the proposed decision should not extend to include constant streams of pollution from sources on land.
The Commission concurred in this, because it has never been its intention to allow this decision to embrace this type of pollution, with which we deal in various other proposals.
Amendments 5 and 9 cannot, therefore, be approved.
Amendment 14 and parts of Amendment 17 are aimed at improved cooperation with those countries which participate in the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes.
There is already a certain degree of coordination with the countries concerned within the framework of current international agreements concerning protection of the Mediterranean and the Baltic.
Enlarging the proposed framework for cooperation would unfortunately lead to a number of administrative and resource problems.
Amendments 11, 20 and 21 go far beyond the framework of the proposal and, in preference to these, the Commission supports Amendment 22 regarding the reference to the polluter-pays principle.
Other amendments are aimed, like Amendment 15, at increasing the participation of the bodies affected or, like Amendment 1, concern the need to take account of international conventions for protecting certain regional seas.
The Commission considers that the common position constitutes an acceptable way of meeting these justified requirements.
To summarise, the Commission can accept Amendments 16, 19, and 22 in full and Amendments 6, 17, 24 and 25 in part.
Other amendments cannot be approved.
Finally, I want to thank the European Parliament for the two resolutions it adopted earlier this year in connection with the consequences of the investigations into the loss of the Erika. In these resolutions, Parliament urged that this decision be adopted swiftly.
It is my hope that your contribution and support today will confirm this commitment and will lead to our being able to reach a rapid decision on this issue which is so crucial to the marine environment.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.06 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Substances that deplete the ozone layer
The next item is the report (A5-0161/2000) by Ms Hulthén, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council regulation on substances that deplete the ozone layer [C5-0156/2000 - 1998/0228(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, we know that this question, in connection with which the third and final reading is about to take place, is a major problem for humanity.
What is at issue here is the vital ozone layer which is getting thinner by the day. Perhaps we notice it most in the northern hemisphere, but it nevertheless affects every living thing right across the globe.
We also know how we can escape from this problem.
It sounds like an easy equation, but it is unfortunately more complicated than that.
There are so many interested parties involved in a question like this.
What we now finally have to adopt a position on in this Chamber is a regulation which would give us tougher rules but also acceptable margins within which industry could successfully complete the changeover.
I consider that we have succeeded in producing draft legislation which provides sound incentives to change and which also encourages ecological foresight.
Our task has been to produce an acceptable plan for the way development should look.
By means of this regulation, we want to show that we can go one up on the time-frame under the Montreal protocol, and we know that industry within the Union will manage the adjustment required, even if certain parts of industry have done their utmost to ensure that this directive should never come about.
At second reading, Parliament adopted ten amendments to the Council' s common position.
The Council was able to accept seven of these amendments without any problems.
The remaining amendments, namely 14, 15 and 21, were not accepted, and we therefore began informal negotiations with the Council at the beginning of the year.
Both the Council' s and Parliament' s intention was to reach an agreement without embarking upon the formal conciliation process, so avoiding possible delays to the regulation' s coming into effect.
The first amendment concerns HCFCs in certain forms of air conditioning equipment which Parliament had proposed should be removed.
These were reintroduced as a result of our negotiations, but with a stricter phasing-out date.
The second concerns a total ban on HCFCs in refrigeration and air conditioning equipment which the Council was not as interested in arranging.
In the negotiations, we agreed to postpone the phasing-out until 2015 by means of a review clause.
I consider that this was one of the most important changes which Parliament contributed in its negotiations with the Council.
The third amendment concerns an extension to certain time limits where, too, Parliament and the Council together arrived at an acceptable solution.
If we now decide to approve the Conciliation Committee' s proposal, we should have hoped to have seen everything signed, sealed and delivered.
There are nonetheless still three outstanding problems.
At the final stage, three mistakes were discovered in the proposed wording of the Act.
By mistake, the export of inhalers for asthma sufferers and of pain-relieving cancer pumps had been banned.
Moreover, the text relating to certain companies' imports of CFCs contained a wrong base year.
The Commission will now be tabling supplementary proposals which, in accordance with the timetable and with a view to correcting these errors, will be dealt with during the plenary session in July.
It was never the intention to ban exports of this kind or to have an out-of-date base year as the basis for companies' import quotas.
In spite of this, I should still like the Commission to comment on how these things could happen and should like to know whether the Commission considers that we are now solving the issue in the best way.
I want to conclude by thanking the Commission and the Portuguese Presidency, as well as Parliament' s Conciliation Committee, for their extremely constructive cooperation.
Everyone has done their utmost to come up with a sound regulation and also recognised how important it is for this to come into effect as quickly as possible.
I believe we have found a compromise of benefit to all parties.
It will not repair the hole in the ozone layer, but it is a step in the right direction.
My hope is that, today or tomorrow, Parliament will adopt the proposal and that, by no later than October of this year, the Union will have new and better legislation governing substances that deplete the ozone layer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the first warning call about the reduction in the ozone layer was sounded in 1970.
In 1985, with the revelation that there was a hole in the stratospheric ozone layer, the media began to take a real interest in the problem.
After numerous attempts to reach agreement, the countries that are the main producers and users of chlorofluorocarbons, the famous CFCs, with the exception of the Eastern European countries, China and India, signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987.
This was a truly historic protocol, because, for the first time, people understood the global scale of the profound climatic imbalances that could threaten survival, people' s health and even their lives.
It has therefore been held up as exemplary.
The recent report by the European Environment Agency, entitled "Environmental signals" , was curiously alert, not only to the increase in ozone concentrations in surface layers, but also to the fact that the ozone layer that protects the upper atmosphere above Europe has decreased noticeably since the beginning of the 1980s, at a rate of 8% per decade. This is extremely worrying.
This factor has occurred in spite of the decrease in chlorine compounds and despite the fact that other gases affecting the ozone layer and the troposphere have decreased as a result of international agreements, which have proven to be reasonably efficient.
The production and sales of compounds that attack the ozone in the atmosphere' s upper layers have in fact decreased since 1989.
According to the European Environment Agency report, however, the lasting effects of these products, given their long life cycles, means that the ozone layer will not fully recover until the year 2050.
That is precisely why any action that the European Union can take, any measures that it can adopt to protect the ozone layer, are crucial, compared to which the controversies about global warming and the 'greenhouse effect' for example, are insignificant.
Whilst there may still be doubts as to the scale of these changes, there can be no doubt in the case of ozone.
Saving the ozone layer is crucial to saving the lives of human beings, plants and bio-diversity itself.
The amendments to the Montreal Protocol that are now being proposed go some way towards improving protection for the ozone layer, this filter which is so precious to life on earth, and to improving the apparatus for monitoring the trade in substances that degrade the ozone layer.
The rapporteur deserves our applause and gratitude for her speedy work on this report because, where this issue is concerned, speed is of the essence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the good result which the European Parliament and the Council have achieved on this important issue.
I want to congratulate both institutions on the major efforts they have made to reach agreement concerning the many technical questions which characterise this complex regulation.
We have both worked hard to find compromises and to ensure that we obtain effective environmental legislation in this area.
I want to take the opportunity to express special thanks to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, the European Parliament' s delegation to the Conciliation Committee and, especially, the rapporteur, Mrs Hulthén, for the thorough and constructive work they have done.
This new regulation envisages a range of measures to minimise discharges of ozone-depleting substances.
The most important of these are further measures to reduce the production and use of HCFCs, the phasing-out of the production and consumption of methyl bromide by the year 2004, a ban on the use of substances such as CFCs and halogens, the production of which is already banned, stricter requirements for the handling of ozone-depleting substances, new staff training requirements, compulsory recycling and disposal and improved supervision and licensing requirements.
Adopting this regulation will lead to a more rapid phasing-out of all ozone-depleting substances within the European Union than is possible under the Montreal Protocol.
This will not only lead to clear improvements in the health of EU citizens but will also mean the European Union' s accepting the political leadership of the world on this important issue.
I should also like to respond to the question put earlier.
I shall reply in English.
The Commission is in the process of agreeing the two proposals for amending the new regulation on ozone-depleting substances - one for the metered done inhalers (MDIs) and the other for the allocations of quotas for HCFCs.
Thank you, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Digital television in the European Union
The next item is the report (A5-0143/2000) by Ms Thors, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Commission communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on 'The development of the Market for Digital Television in the European Union - Report in the context of Directive 95/47/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the use of standards for the transmission of television signals' [COM(1999) 540 - C5-114/2000 - 2000/2074(COS)].
Mr President, it is an absolute thrill for me to be able to start this debate in the absence of the rapporteur.
You will have seen my look of desperation as I was scanning the room for Mrs Thors, but I am nonetheless pleased to do the honours.
I wanted to begin by extending warm thanks to her for the excellent cooperation and the sterling work she has done.
This is still the case, of course.
But I am still sorry that she is unable to attend.
Convergence plays a huge role across the globe and naturally relates to both the Internet and the mobile sector, which will soon be closely interwoven.
This is one of Europe' s great opportunities, but digital television also plays an important role.
There is enormous potential there too, provided we meet three pre-conditions which I will briefly outline for you.
My first pre-condition is that we need to do more in the field of standardisation and interoperability.
What do I mean by that? Interoperability of the set-top boxes is intended to avoid a situation where before long, users are having to place a whole assortment of boxes on top of their digital TVs in order to continue to watch the various programmes.
We need to avoid this at all costs.
I therefore welcome with open arms the DVB group' s recommendation of the Multimedia Home Platform as a possible standard.
This is a step in the right direction.
It has to come from the industry.
I think that we can guide this process along to some extent, but the initiative has to come from the industry.
Given the developments in the DVB group, it looks as if the industry has made good progress.
I therefore hope that the industry will continue to seek open standards, because there are all kinds of exciting developments underway which we do not want to sabotage.
But if the industry cannot achieve an open standard or interoperability, the politicians can and must speak out.
A solution must then be found on a political plane as a last resort.
My second remark concerns open access.
It is of utmost importance that open access be established and that the current must carry rules remain in place, because Europe is more than just a digital economy.
It is also a cultural Europe.
This is why I think that the amendment tabled by Mrs Thors with regard to her own report is sound.
The must carry rules must continue to exist as long as they are proportionate and restricted to those stations which are intended to fall within the scope of Protocol 32 annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Finally, it is absolutely vital that the directive on television without frontiers be reviewed.
I hope that our Commissioner will be able to include this when he presents the new telecom legislation relatively soon, because a total package is desperately needed in order to eventually move convergence along much further in Europe, both in terms of telecomms and digital TV, and I hope that this package will enable Europe to take a leading role, which is what we called for in Lisbon.
Mr President, Commissioner, it seems as if I am forever subject to Murphy' s law where this report is concerned, because I myself was in Romania when we voted on it in the Committee.
I want to thank Mr van Velzen for his work in introducing the debate during my absence.
I think it is important that we remember how matters stood when the directive was adopted.
It was believed on that occasion that it was conditional access which would present the worst bottleneck when it came to our obtaining open TV.
That is perhaps not the case now, but it is other parts of television' s distribution network which will become bottlenecks or gatekeepers if we do not watch out.
Not only must it be possible to use different types of technical apparatus in combination with one another, but different computer programs must also be required to understand each other.
At the same time, consumers have a great need for easily accessible information and can reasonably demand that the market should also be predictable.
I think that, where TV is concerned, we shall, in the future, have a situation where digital TV will be a part of ever more integrated electronic functions in the home.
It is therefore important that we should have an API, an Applications Programme Interface, which can be used as part of this integrated environment. This is also crucial when it comes to the electronic program guides.
It is these two factors which the forthcoming provisions should especially concentrate on.
I would also draw my fellow MEPs' attention to the fact that these electronic program guides will be important in, for example, enabling parents to protect young children from material they do not wish them to see.
Neither the decoders' operating systems nor the electronic program values are at present mutually compatible.
The parliamentary committee shares the view, as did the Commission, that the markets and techniques within the field of digital television have been developed beyond the scope of the directive.
The regulations in the special directive we are now discussing ought therefore to be revised and can usefully be incorporated into those clusters of proposed modifications to directives governing the communications sector which we can expect from the Commission in a few weeks' time.
The rapporteur' s conclusion is that open standards are now needed.
We are now seeing the second and third generation of equipment for digital television.
The work being done on creating that kind of open standard for home multi-media equipment is well advanced, and the European Telecommunications Standardisation Institute, ETSI, will hopefully adopt the MHP standard.
There are good reasons for accepting that this standard will form a basis for the future.
Nonetheless, we cannot exclude the possibility that political decisions concerning standards will be needed in the future if the market cannot reach an agreement.
Digital TV is distributed in a number of different ways which are technically not quite the same.
Like traditional TV, digital TV can be broadcast across terrestrial networks, by cable and via satellite.
These distribution systems at present have different degrees of penetration, but satellite distribution is the dominant system.
Tomorrow, distribution by cable may, however, gain ground.
With distribution by cable, there is an inbuilt return channel which provides direct access to interactive services on the network.
I believe that access to interactive services is the sine qua non of digital TV' s becoming one of the important gateways to the information society.
The different distribution systems mean that digital TV can also become a particularly important way for sparsely populated areas to access the Internet.
An end to analogue TV broadcasts and a total changeover to digital TV are important if we are to be able to exploit the limited resource of the radio spectrum in an effective way.
No one has yet been able to define under which conditions analogue broadcasts can cease.
Digitalisation means that there will be challenges, especially perhaps for public service broadcasters which cannot subsidise the extra equipment required in the same way that conventional broadcasters can.
How are licence fees to be collected in countries which finance broadcasting in this way and have a free-to-air tradition?
I would also point out that the rapporteur vigorously supports the 'must carry' principle, or obligation on the part of cable operators to broadcast certain channels, and believes that this must continue.
On the other hand, we ought not to make such demands as would impede the development of the very interactive services in question. Nor ought we to jeopardise the will to invest in upgrading the network.
Even public service companies which previously broadcast their programmes free of charge are now in the process of setting up boundaries and making it more difficult to broadcast across national borders.
In the background are issues of copyright.
The TV companies' copyright organisations ought to make the most of new opportunities to give those who want to watch digital programmes the right also to do so beyond the borders of the broadcasting country.
That is a goal which we are already committed to achieve by the Treaty and by the 'Television Without Frontiers' Directive.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would, of course, first of all like to congratulate Mrs Thors on her report, which she had to complete in a very short space of time and which looks excellent.
Ladies and gentlemen, digital TV will be one of the key access roads leading towards the digital highway and will help in the distribution of high-capacity networks throughout Europe, including the more remote areas.
As such, this means of communication will grant many more Europeans access to all kinds of information.
It is therefore of utmost importance that a favourable investment climate be created for digital television within Europe.
After all, we are at the dawn of a new era.
Traditional boundaries between telecom companies, entertainment industry and journalistic media are becoming increasingly blurred.
These industries are being replaced by multinational cable media giants which are created by mergers.
This is a pattern which is emerging throughout the industry.
Infrastructure and content industry are coming together.
This means that two aspects should be monitored effectively.
Firstly, we should look out for unwanted media concentrations, because otherwise consumer prices will as yet spiral out of control.
Moreover, we must guarantee - and this is directly linked to this - journalistic neutrality, which is so important to our democracy.
In this respect, technological developments naturally affect the legislative framework and vice versa.
Legislation should not hinder the interoperability of different technologies and should, therefore, be laid down at European level, as a minimum, and preferably worldwide.
We have noticed that in many Member States, media policy, in particular, is still all too often being adopted at national level.
My final point, Mr President, concerns the transmission rights which are currently still being sold purely on a national basis.
As a result of this, people outside a certain country cannot subscribe to television services from another Member State, whether this relates to free or pay-TV programmes.
This is an unwanted development.
It should be possible for all citizens to subscribe to television services from another Member State.
This means digital television but also television without frontiers.
Madam President, before I left to come to Strasbourg, I said goodbye to a pensioner - Mrs Lucia Boroni from Mozzanica in the district of Bergamo - who had come to see me off.
She asked me, "What are you going to do in Strasbourg?" I said, "I am going to speak on the Thors report."
"But what is this Thors report?"
"It is a report which deals with the fact that, soon, a pensioner will be able to turn on the television and see Mr Fatuzzo making a speech in the European Parliament and hear what he says." "Oh, that is very good," said Mrs Boroni, and then she asked, "but can I see how many contributions I have made to the Italian National Social Welfare Institution as well?
Can I see what my pension will amount to when I retire?" "Of course, Mrs Boroni, this is the future, the future of the citizens.
There are no more barriers. You will even be able to see what is happening in the pension companies of other States."
"But I have to live on 700 000 lira a month" said Mrs Boroni. "How will I be able to afford this television of the future?"
I have taken the floor to tell you what Mrs Boroni wants: namely for the European Parliament - and I am sure that this was among Ms Thors' intentions when she wrote her report and I call upon the Commissioner to see to the matter when he issues the directive - to ensure that the less well-off citizens, whether they are pensioners or not, are able to access the new digital television services of the future free of charge.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Astrid Thors for having completed her work so swiftly and acquired such intimate knowledge of this subject.
I wish to mention one or two problems connected with this issue.
Firstly, I support the open standard and compatibility: that is only sensible.
Access has been conditional in the cable network, which has been spoken about here, but it is also important to have diversity, and not only access.
Competition alone does not guarantee it.
We know that global competition in the television sector has often led to uniformity of supply: they all compete with the same sort of soap operas.
This is a big issue, and it relates to access.
In general, I support the notion that technical systems are not neutral.
They make some things possible more than others.
Thus, for example, the ease of availability of interactive services - which the previous speaker was perhaps speaking about, in a way - is a political question.
At least it is a social question, if not a party political one, because, for example, Gallup polls and voting in local elections will depend on interactive facilities, as will the extent to which people can intelligently participate.
The MHP, or future Multimedia Home Platform, which transfers facilities from the apparatus to software, is, in a way, the final revolution in this chain, making it possible - as the rapporteur remarked - to receive everything off the television on the Internet, obviously including papers and magazines, films and everything else, perhaps even fragrances, which, for us older men, would be a real pick-me-up.
It is important that the correct policy is established here as well: the cost of the equipment must not impede public participation.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Ms Thors on her work - a difficult task since we are regulating the future. I will dwell on a few critical aspects which I feel should be brought to Parliament' s attention.
For example, in my opinion, it is extremely important to concentrate on the copyright rules because the restrictions resulting from copyright agreements and the differences in standards used for transmissions are likely to hold back progress towards a genuine television without frontiers and a genuine European internal market in television services. This would probably mean losing a unique opportunity to develop a European television industry.
Citizens who live or work in Member States which are not their country of origin cannot legally subscribe to foreign platforms as these do not own the right necessary to broadcast in the Member States in question.
The European Parliament has already raised this issue in the past and the rapporteur analyses it, while drawing attention to the problem as it presents itself in the border regions, where the linguistic minorities live on the other side of the border.
In any case, we should place greater emphasis on actions aimed at implementation.
I feel that it must be stressed, as the rapporteur pointed out clearly, that in the new regulatory framework, a balance must be struck between the need to ensure the diversity of culture and contentin television networks and the risk that regulation might hamper the will to invest in digital TV.
We need a flexible approach in order to regulate the economic situations which are going through a period of deep-rooted change.
The regulation of the market must not hamper its development and, in particular, the development of new television services.
In this regard, I feel that we should go back in the forthcoming months or years to certain factors such as the separation of the regulation of the content in TV from regulation of the infrastructures.
Moreover, I would argue that there should also be great focus on the interoperability of systems which, although its aim is general protection of the possibility for users to access the data broadcast via the digital platforms, is emerging at this time as a competition protection measure, protecting the possibility of access to the market for the different operators and thus opening up unprecedented legal horizons.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as the first rapporteur - back in 1994-1995, I believe - on the subject of digital television and the standards pertaining to this, I would like to tell the present rapporteur how highly I rate the importance of the work he has done on this subject and to tell the Commission how much I appreciate the Commission communication.
I feel that, over a period of a few years, we have all been able to gauge the progress made in this area and to emphasise that the initial choices which we made were valid ones.
Incidentally, today, at a time when we are facing a significant stage of development, I think it important to stress that in all our policies we must find the necessary balance: between the Community approach and Community standards, on the one hand, and the specific national features and national disparities on the other hand; balance between the need, in terms of production, to cover a large European market and promote European products, i.e. developing 'television without frontiers' , and, on the other hand, the ability to retain options as regards wavelength standards and local television.
These are crucial issues for us, requiring the utmost flexibility on our part.
At the outset, digital television was seen as something apart from high-definition television, another subject area that I knew well.
Today, we are coming to realise that it enables vast flexibility and quantity.
At present, we must strive to find a fair balance between what needs to be done at European level, what can be done at national level and at local level, since this has implications both for European and national action as regards deregulation, the market and technology.
It was certainly important to sum up the situation regarding digital television at the present time.
Once again I should like to congratulate Mrs Thors on the quality of her report and to say that I shall remain personally very attentive to the work done in this field.
The important thing is to keep in mind that information, communication and television should be aimed primarily towards the citizens, and any inflexibility which might tomorrow prove an obstacle to a culture accessible to all should be avoided.
Mr President, as the final speaker I, too, would like to join in thanking Mrs Thors for what is, as Mr Caudron has just said, a very well-balanced report.
It is a focused report.
I should like to conclude by making a link to the next debate on electronic communications.
In this whole area we have to be very conscious about how fast technology is moving and how that technology is beginning to change our whole thinking and indeed the whole form of competition in which digital television and other media are developing.
I come from a country where there is a long tradition of public service broadcasting and that is one of the areas Mrs Thors has addressed powerfully in her report: the questions of access to this new technology and access to the viewer.
Let us not forget that one of the key things that all people in the industry are facing is competition for a very scarce amount of viewer time.
As channels multiply, viewers are having more choice - not just in looking at programmes but in being able to shop, to use interactive Internet media through their digital televisions; interactive media which they can pay for.
They can pay for a sports event with interaction to be able to choose the sort of format that they want.
It will not be long before they are able to buy a digital recorder which will hold hundreds of hours of television time on a hard disk which will be sorted for them so they will be able to watch things in time shift.
They will have different forms of competition.
We have to make sure that our legislation does not constrict the growth of technology and does not constrain the growth of competition that is going to come through these new forms of technology.
That is an issue we have to think about, both in considering Mr van Velzen's report and in the new report on copyright in the information society which will be before this House in a few months' time.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Thors for her excellent work.
The Commission welcomes this report. It raises the need for a balanced approach to regulation.
We need to balance two things: first, commercial freedom and incentives to invest and, second, protection of defined public interests in a focused and proportional way.
The new regulatory framework will provide regulators with much greater flexibility to achieve this balance.
The directives that the Commission will propose this month take account of the three key points raised in Mrs Thors' report.
First, the need to update ex ante regulations for digital television.
The new framework will allow regulators to address new gateways such as Applications Programme Interface.
Second, the report supports limiting "must carry" privileges to channels with a public service remit, as defined in Protocol 32 of the Treaty.
The report also points out that there should be negotiation that balances remuneration for operators with the value of public service channels to operators.
The Commission will address these issues in its upcoming legislative proposals.
Third, the need for increased interoperability between different television platforms.
More specifically, the report singles out two key elements.
First, the need for interoperability wherever possible and access rules where proprietary standards contribute to significant market power; and, second, the need to define a new, open decoder architecture, the multimedia home platform.
The Commission prefers an industry-led approach rather than imposing standards.
We have reserve powers to intervene if the market actors cannot agree.
However, the market is developing open standards.
In dynamic markets the standardisation process lags behind the leading edge of technology.
The use of open standards reduces both regulation and the number of competition cases.
The report signals this clear message to the market place very strongly. I fully support this.
The report also raises several issues which lie on the content side and are, therefore, outside the scope of the new framework for electronic communications.
As far as possible, we must separate the network and content regulation.
The reception of encrypted digital television services across borders raises several difficult issues.
First, there is enough ill treatment of copyright: pay-TV services only buy the rights for a particular Member State.
Even digital free-to-air services are being encrypted.
This creates tensions with single market principles for pay-TV services.
Differing approaches to content regulation may also play a role.
But here I need to reflect on this with my colleagues, Mrs Reding and Mr Bolkestein, who have particular competence in this field.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Electronic communications and associated services
The next item is the report (A5-0145/2000) presented by Mr van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Foreign Trade, Research and Energy, on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions entitled: 'Towards a new framework for Electronic Communications infrastructure and associated services - The 1999 Communications review' [COM(1999) 539 - C5-0141/2000 - 2000/2085(COS)].
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking those I have worked alongside.
A rapporteur without such sound qualitative input is only a small cog in a big machine.
We have been able to establish a sound dialogue, which is what is important at the end of the day.
I would also like to express my sincere thanks to the Commission, especially Commissioner Liikanen, for the sound cooperation and meaningful debates which we held, but more than anything, I am grateful to him for his willingness to take into account the debate and vote on this report in the publication of the new directives.
Mr President, five years ago, it was totally inconceivable that today, we would be talking about competition in the field of services but also, above all, competition in the field of infrastructure within Europe.
This is completely new.
If we close our eyes and think ahead about what is going to happen in the next five years, then this is an enormous development.
This also means - and that is my second point - that you have to think very clearly about what to legislate for at the moment within the European Union in order to promote this convergence process which is moving at the speed of light.
I think that the point of departure should be that we decide, if at all possible, in favour of full competition and that, based on full competition, we identify what we still need now in terms of sector-specific regulation.
There will, of course, always be sector-specific regulation, but eventually, we need to move in the direction of competition as a guiding principle.
I therefore think that the Commission was right - and my report has hopefully contributed to this - in opting in favour of fine-tuning the - to my mind - more rigid model which was used by the Commission in the first instance, the so-called 'significant market power and dominant position' .
I honestly hope that the Commission will move further in the direction we have proposed. The markets are moving extremely fast.
The developments transcend national borders.
We are witnessing all kinds of vertical and horizontal integrations.
We can see inter-sectoral movement, which means that, each time, we need to examine one particular sector within the market.
Mr President, my third point is that you also need to consider the supervisory structures which are in place.
It will, of course, not be the case that in five years' time, we will still have 15 telecom/ICT markets in Europe.
As far as this is concerned, we will need to grow towards one European internal market.
This also means that I can see two developments in this field, which cause me some concern.
One is that national supervisory bodies are still working in isolation and my report offers an enormous boost to these bodies to link up, merge or integrate with the general national competition authorities and, where necessary, with media supervisory bodies.
We also need to ask ourselves how long we need to continue the specific sector supervision.
It is, of course, excellent to have a High Level Group, but the main drawback of having such a group is that, because of its huge significance, it is extremely difficult to sideline.
I therefore hope in this respect that by means of sunset and horizon clauses, we will be able to do something about limiting the time during which these groups are active.
Mr President, it is of utmost importance to the citizen for prices to become much more transparent and the cost of roaming to drop, and for the citizen to gain an insight into how this mechanism works.
The citizen would also very much welcome number portability, as would the mobile sector, so as to empower the consumer, and I think we should fight for this.
Mr President, auctions should also come under close scrutiny.
Currently, auction prices far outstrip the actual administrative costs, and I am therefore very curious as to whether the Commissioner would like to answer my urgent written questions at this stage, namely to what extent the forthcoming auctions in the United Kingdom and other Member States comply with Article 11 of a Licensing Directive which explicitly states that only administrative costs should be covered.
Mr President, another important point is 112, caller location.
If something happens to me, it should be possible to trace me immediately.
This is why this caller location facility is so vital.
But it is also important to combat the abuse of 112.
In addition, it is also of great importance, in my view, certainly in the case of third-generation mobiles, to offer the caller location facility.
This does mean, however, that the user should grant permission to set this up.
Mr President, a serious problem is the democratic hole within the entire ICT sector.
Once we have completed 5 or 6 directives in the foreseeable future, we as European Parliament will have outlived our mandate in this field.
At the same time, the Commission will carry on with the CoCom (Communications Committee), the Council delegation.
In my report, I expressly call for an EP working party which is authorised by Parliament to negotiate with the Commission on the same terms as the CoCom.
Mr President, surely it should not be the case that Parliament could be sidelined in this day and age.
I therefore make an urgent appeal to Parliament, but also to the Commission, to plug this democratic hole which currently exists in the way I have just described.
Mr President, we have now reached the stage where at the end of this month, the European Commission will produce the directives.
I have thanked the Commissioner.
I also hope that the Commissioner is able and willing to take into account the outcome of this debate in the forthcoming directives, because that is what it is all about at the end of the day.
That is democracy.
Mr President, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr van Velzen, for his excellent work in handling the Commission' s communication.
He has done an enormous amount of work on the amendments to reach a compromise.
The liberalisation of the telecommunications markets has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent years in Europe.
Regional differences are still too great, however, for us to be able to speak of a free telecommunications market.
Every Eurocitizen must be afforded the opportunity to use all communications services at a fair price.
For example, factors that restrict competition in mobile communications, such as the overpricing of the 'roaming' facility and the lack of the preselection and call transfer facility, must be rectified through action at Community level.
The Commission must give assurances that these obstacles to competition are removed as promptly as possible.
We cannot, however, simply concentrate on wireless communications.
The situation regarding competition in the fixed networks must also be radically improved.
The monopoly status the telephone companies enjoy must be destroyed right down to the last copper wire.
Otherwise, people living in remote areas, in particular, will be at a disadvantage.
I hope the Commission gives a clear response to this question: how will local loops be opened up to competition, or, in other words, how can we most effectively break up the monopolies in the fixed networks?
The question of the distribution of the UMTS frequencies is a matter that should not be regulated at Community level.
Arguments could be put forward in favour of both spectrum auctions and so-called beauty contests.
The fact is that the astronomical prices that result from spectrum auctions always end up with consumers having to foot the bill.
Beauty contests are, in many respects, more consumer-oriented, and more of an alternative that supports the freeing up of the market.
Unlike spectrum auctions, beauty contests do not involve operators having to pay a sum of money that is in the nature of a PAYE tax.
I would like to ask the Commissioner, in connection with this issue, whether the Commission considers that spectrum auctions promote competition.
I hope that I will receive unambiguous answers to these questions.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, is to be congratulated on having produced a balanced and well-founded report and a balanced and well-founded speech in support of it.
I can applaud, as always, his comprehension of the need to regulate but with carefully argued parameters.
It is right to remind ourselves that when we talk about regulation, it is not something of which we have either more or less; within the European Union we plan to regulate for a purpose, for a goal, over a certain period of time.
It is good, too, that Mr van Velzen's report has a clear appreciation of what the convergence of various technologies means.
He and many other contributors to this debate have reflected on how both Parliament and the Commission have been able to look at what has happened in the past and try and guess - educated guesses - about what may happen in the future.
Where we have not guessed correctly, we have been able to put things right.
The speed of change, not only in terms of technology, but also in global competition in this field, has meant that the margin of error is much less.
This is why this report is so important.
It lays the groundwork for the future development of the Commission's plans and Parliament's response for this industry.
The Socialist Group will not be able to support all of the amendments and the details of qualified criticisms of the "auctions versus beauty contest" proposals.
We had hoped to be able to have split votes on that.
I regret that we cannot; nor can I support the amendment that calls for mobile telephones and the mobiles market to be excluded.
We ought to take great care not to introduce rules that limit growth in this startlingly versatile market.
Nor do we want to enter into a situation where mobiles are excluded and other forms of telecommunications are included.
Finally, I would like to draw attention to Amendments Nos 3 and 4.
Amendment No 3 calls for a clearer and unambiguous formulation of the political aims and principles underlying the further development of the European telecommunications market, which is absolutely essential.
Amendment No 4 highlights the urgent need to devote special attention to implementing the existing directives so that major differences in the liberalisation of national markets do not become entrenched and thereby hamper the implementation of new rules.
We still have 15 partially liberalised and still largely segmented markets.
What we have here is the basis for opening up the European Union market in a genuine sense.
I commend Mr van Velzen's report to you and congratulate him again on it; and I congratulate the Commission on the speed, diligence and thoughtfulness with which it has approached the redrafting and relaunching of European Union legislation in this field.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, it is a valuable piece of work which Mr van Velzen has carried out.
On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I want to point out that we support the original report.
We cannot, however, support all the amendments because they do not show the increased clarity which might well be demanded when, within a few weeks, we shall have the concrete draft directives on the table.
I do not think it is necessary for us to agree upon woolly compromises a few weeks before we have the directives in front of us.
Today, we can discuss the telecommunications area at a sociable hour and not, as we usually do, late in the evening with just a few telecommunications freaks taking part.
There is therefore also good reason for noting that, since we last met, important solutions for Europe have been produced at the World Radio Conference in Istanbul.
It is also important that we in the European Parliament should support the preparatory work which has been done in the CEPT, or European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations, and that we should not criticise this work for I believe that it was one of the reasons why Europe was successful to the point that our models were adopted and that we obtained supplementary limits for the third generation telephones, as well as uniform frequencies throughout the world.
When we talk about the forthcoming principles, I think it is extremely important that, then too, we try to strike a balance regarding technology-neutral solutions.
I believe, for example, that, even today, the auctions we are talking about are not technology-neutral because they discriminate against mobile telephony in relation to the existing, fixed networks.
That is not being technology-neutral.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has tabled amendments to cancel the demands to merge the national regulatory and competition authorities.
We do not think that this would be in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
There is no reason for requiring a merger in this context.
What is more, we have a very great variety of solutions in different Member States.
Mr President, we all know that the words 'communication' , 'information' , 'networking' and 'connection' lead to the following two expressions: firstly, the information market and, secondly, the information society. Market or society.
We are indeed dealing with a market.
That much is certain. Everything is moving in that direction.
It remains to be seen, however, what sort of a society we are dealing with.
Even though Mr van Velzen' s report is very technical, the purely technical issues end by confirming two other problems of a technical nature which are, moreover, brought up again in the amendments: access for all, democratic access to this information society market, and the definition of a public service, henceforth known as a universal service, without forgetting the development of the content of these information and communication networks, a content which seems to interest so few people, which never fails to amaze me.
Firstly, on the subject of democratic access, people will tell me that other reports and other programmes, the one on "e-learning" for example, exist to support the efforts made by European countries to promote access to the Internet and to new technologies.
These programmes must not, however, be just a salve for the existing infrastructures, specifically the ones we are currently setting in place.
May we hope for some consistency on this?
Next, what form can a universal service take nowadays?
What undertakings must Europe and the Member States set themselves in this regard? Affordable access to all communication services is not enough to guarantee a universal service.
We need financial commitments from the Member States in order to guarantee a public service, in schools and libraries for example, and we also need them to monitor the quality and diversity of the proposed information content.
This brings me to the matter of content.
It might be feared that our reintroducing this question could be taken for an automatic reflex on our part.
But how is it possible to agree to our opinion being consulted on the regulation or on competition without our being asked to deal with the matter of the content of information and communication?
At the present time, 94 of the world' s 106 most visited web sites are American.
While Europe is certainly ahead of the United States in terms of mobile communication, it lags behind them specifically in relation to the handling of content.
This reminder is, perhaps, just a reflex, as I tell myself every time our only concerns with regard to the new economy are the actual networks.
Is it, however, possible that the matter has become urgent today?
I was pleased to note Amendments Nos 6 and 7 to the van Velzen report clearly acknowledging that the question of content was a problem.
I also take the fact that, on 24 May, the Commission adopted a programme that was proposed to promote European content and multilingualism on the Internet, as a very good sign.
It is only a start, but let us not forget that we also have the task of building a cultural Europe.
Mr President, at the outset I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, on the preparation and presentation of an extremely balanced report on the important subject of electronic communications.
I would like to focus on a few points relating to this important report.
The Union must keep pace with the technological changes which are taking place globally at this time.
If the economies of the Union are to prosper and succeed, businesses must be apprised of new changes in the field of information technology.
In many ways, the Union is ahead of the United States of America in the field of technology.
EU-technology in mobile-phone systems is well advanced.
Most Union countries have extensive competition in the field of mobile-phone markets. This is going to continue with the next set of mobile-phone licences known as UMTS licences when the respective EU governments give them out.
I fully support competition in the telecommunications market, because it is good for consumers in terms of the prices they pay for telecommunication services.
The European Union is behind the United States of America with the Internet.
EU governments must redouble their efforts to ensure that all businesses are fully linked up to the Internet and e-commerce companies must be promoted at every turn.
It is very important for social policies, in terms of promoting the Internet in rural parts of Europe, to be incorporated in the EU strategies.
I would like to take the opportunity of congratulating Commissioner Byrne for setting in train the process for the regulating of contracts on the Internet.
The Commissioner has started this process of looking into mechanisms to guarantee consumer protection.
The Commission wants to bring forward proposals to regulate procedures and for dispute mechanisms for contractual arrangements entered into via the Internet.
Entering into contracts on the Internet must bring with it regulatory procedures and dispute-regulation mechanisms so that consumers will enter into such contracts.
In conclusion, in my own country of Ireland there are 750 software firms employing over 23,000 people.
I am confident that this sector will increase as new opportunities and e-commerce fields open up to them.
Mr President, today we are looking into a new legislative framework for the communications infrastructure.
This sector, however, not only needs regulation at European level, above all it needs regulation on a global scale.
These rules require the necessary flexibility, as rapporteur Van Velzen pointed out with good reason.
After all, it is unclear what the future holds for that sector.
We therefore need to restrict ourselves to prescribing pre-conditions for future developments and proposing measures which can enter into force at the time when the developments are in the offing.
The drafting of pre-conditions requires attention to both the supply and demand side of the communications market.
Fair competition is vital to suppliers.
Accordingly, our pre-conditions should in any event create equal access to national frequencies and infrastructures.
Pre-conditions are important to consumers too.
A new social chasm between consumers who take part in the information society and those who do not is undesirable.
In the field of universal services and the supply of public services, the national authorities should, therefore, be free to intervene within the market.
However, this sector is not just about access for everyone and as much freedom as possible for the consumer.
It is not enough to optimise the customer' s freedom of choice by providing information on the services on offer.
The national Member States, the Commission, but also other international legislators are required to act prescriptively in the supply of services.
The Commission' s current stance against child pornography and racism are good examples of this.
However, there is a need for standards which apply universally and worldwide.
I would like to call for the standards of the Bible to be applied, as they offer the consumer the best protection.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mr van Velzen on his work. I agree that it would be appropriate to proceed to a new phase in the liberalisation of the electronic communications sector which will mirror market developments and constantly evolving technology.
The new legislation should affect all the communications infrastructures and related services by means of recommendations and codes of conduct and other vehicles.
If we keep the regulations to a minimum, this will ensure proper coherence between market developments and the reference legislative framework in addition to promoting investment by operators, improving the quality of the services and, therefore, giving the consumer greater benefits.
In addition, considering the substantial increase in the number and size of operators and the changing conditions of competition over the market as a whole, the national regulatory authorities should, henceforth, start to use their competences, moving on from an ex ante approach to regulation to an ex post approach.
In a scenario where the issuing of licences is genuinely liberalised, no prior approval should be required by the regulators before operators can enter the market unless this is strictly necessary.
We agree with the Commission that, in this second phase of opening up of the market, while full competition has not yet been achieved, it would be appropriate for there to be specific legislation governing the activities of telecommunications companies which used to have monopolies and whose economic and financial strength is such as to influence the market.
When competition is consolidated and the free telecommunications services market has fully developed its potential in the various sections, it will be possible to reduce the sector rules and the special obligations for the operators dominating the market which I have just referred to.
The Commission will have to be careful not to create inequalities between the different national product and service markets.
Moreover, in the longer term, a joint public and private action appears essential in order to make it possible for all people to use all the telematic services of a distinct social nature, such as telemedicine, teleworking, electronic public administration services and electronic commerce.
These objectives are an integral part of the well-known e-Europe initiative, which is a universal service based on a development philosophy which is social as well as economic.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate our rapporteur on the report which he has presented to us.
The fact that Mr van Velzen' s political approach differs from mine does not prevent me from recognising a serious piece of work, such as the report which he has presented to us here today.
The aim of the European Union' s policy in the telecommunications sector is to fully liberalise the markets, develop competition and privatise public-sector corporations.
The Communist Party of Greece is fundamentally opposed to such policies.
We take the view that basic sectors, especially sectors of strategic importance to the economy and to the very existence of a country, should be under government control.
This ensures that the necessary investments are made in order to develop these sectors and provide services even to the most remote areas, such as islands, and, at the same time, it guarantees low prices, because there is no corporate super profit motive involved.
The European Commission' s report endeavours to evaluate the application of this policy to date and proposes measures for the future.
The Commission should recognise that the number one problem which needs to be addressed is the fact that the market is monopolised by a few extremely strong players.
This is proof positive of the fact that the European Union is guilty of hypocrisy when it maintains that it wants to impose equal and fair operating and profit rules, since its very policy takes us in the opposite direction.
In truth, not only do the various agreements, alliances, acquisitions, mergers, etc. not want competition; they indirectly abolish it by creating extremely powerful groups which crush small- and medium-sized businesses or force them into submission.
Even yesterday' s competitors are coming to private agreements and arrangements, thereby adulterating the competition.
Under these circumstances, it is idealistic to believe that measures to strengthen competition further will prevent the market from being control by a handful of monopolies.
Mr President, I wish to join in the congratulations to Mr van Velzen on a very good and focussed report and to say that it has been a pleasure working with him.
As a Member new to this House with his first involvement in work on the telecommunications directive, I have certainly learnt a lot from the process, and I think other colleagues have as well.
I want to focus on some of the crucial issues raised in the report and, in particular, the whole transitional period towards a future single open market for all electronic communications.
The important thing about this debate is that by and large there is a strong consensus towards that.
Our colleague, Mr Alyssandrakis, does not agree with that - and it is always good to have his distinctive contribution to our debates.
But Mr van Velzen has quite rightly focussed on some of the difficulties in making that transition and how it is going to be regulated.
The second issue on which there is important consensus is that we do not want a centralised regulatory body at European-Union level.
We want to see the national regulatory authorities have the responsibility, but there are going to be new responsibilities which will need a strong measure of coordination to ensure that process is carried out quickly and effectively.
I should like to say to Mr Liikanen that one of the things to be addressed is that in thinking about combining the regulatory authorities with the overall competition authorities in each Member State, let us not forget that those competition authorities are already taking on significant extra responsibilities through the activities and policies of his colleague, Mr Monti.
We need to ensure that those competition authorities are adequately staffed, conscious of their European responsibilities and prepared to buy in to the coordination process that is being proposed in this report, because they will have that crucial responsibility.
That will need very careful monitoring, a lot of cooperation between the Member State governments and as Mr van Velzen said, we as politicians have an important role to play in putting pressure on the Member States to ensure that process is achieved satisfactorily.
My final point concerns the question of universal service, which has already been mentioned earlier.
It is quite right that in his report Mr van Velzen does not propose that we should move to an extension of universal service at the moment.
Everything we are talking about shows how fast the market is changing.
The value added, the commercial potential of every connection is going up all the time.
In remote areas the potential for remote shopping and remote services is going to be much enhanced in the new world we are living in.
It is right to keep that under review and not to make a significant change at the moment.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think convergence is a generic term to describe this battlefield of companies, some colossal, some small, where more money actually now circulates than anywhere else.
If we study this issue horizontally, first there is the production of content, then the transmission systems and associated services, which are dealt with in Mr van Velzen' s report, and then comes the terminal equipment: televisions, telephones and computers.
These are manufactured by companies whose methods and staff have encroached on each other' s territories, and this causes the confusion, although there is also new business, which is the issue here.
We need an analysis of the situation as a whole from the Commission.
I, too, believe that we can expect one, as the Commissioner has looked long and hard at the matter.
The large converged monopolies are becoming a problem for us Europeans since they often make mutual agreements on regulations to control the market and thus stifle free competition, i.e. as we deregulate here, they re-regulate: they make new regulations, and this balance - as I understood Mr van Velzen to say - is very important.
In my opinion, the digital divide has already happened.
It is just a question of how to get rid of it, as this equipment and hardware is so expensive that the only people to possess it are those who can afford to use it in converged form.
Then there is the universal service, about which my learned colleague, Mr Harbour, spoke. Perhaps there is no need to define it, but it should be returned to, as this concept is constantly evolving.
We are always having to return to the matter of the universal service, as it must be made available.
It may involve, for example, hospital services, consultation services, and other important services of this type.
I agree with Mary Read that UMTS should have been included here, as they provide everything we can get from elsewhere - perhaps they were omitted for reasons of economy.
I want to say one last word on spectrum auctions. They are causing Europe to lag behind America, and this to me is a serious issue, this process that works against an eEurope.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by our fellow Member, Mr van Velzen, marks the start of a re-examination of the current regulatory framework for communications.
It is a matter, here, of the European Commission providing the European Union with a world class communication infrastructure with the best possible quality/price offer, if not the lowest possible prices.
Of course, no one can disagree with this objective, and I am in favour of it myself.
As for the means of achieving it, however, this is a very different matter and, personally speaking, I refuse to validate the rapporteur' s excessively liberal alternatives which go beyond the text presented by the Commission, which, however, is intended to promote the competitive European single market.
Let me add four points, which I consider are important, to this debate.
Firstly, regarding the principle of competition, I could never accept this being considered an end in itself.
Secondly, regarding monitoring, I am not in favour of subjecting national regulatory authorities to outside supervision.
Thirdly, regarding the allocation of the frequencies necessary for UMTS licences, I think this must remain within the remit of the Member States.
Fourth and finally, regarding the universal service, I am in favour of quickly implementing a review mechanism which is transparent, proportional and non-discriminatory, and I endorse the request to place Internet access within the scope of the universal service.
In conclusion, while thanking our rapporteur for his work, I incline more towards the Commission' s view on this case than the rapporteur' s, some of whose liberal, or even ultraliberal ideas I find rather disturbing.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mr van Velzen on an excellent report.
I totally support his emphasis on the need to protect the European consumer.
We must at all costs ensure that the revolution in technology benefits everyone equally and that we do not create an information underclass.
We also need more transparency, especially in roaming and international tariffs.
I believe we should be looking at making invoices much clearer, for example, so that the consumer can tell whether he or she has chosen the right tariff.
Where I differ with the rapporteur, however, is with his concerns on spectrum auctions.
Auctions are a fast, transparent, fair and economically efficient way of allocating the scarce resources of radio spectrum.
Governments should not be trying to judge who will be innovative and successful.
Industry, not government, is best placed to judge the opportunities offered by third-generation mobile telephony.
In the debate today and in committee criticisms have been levelled at allocating spectrum through auctions.
It has been suggested that auctions are simply a device to provide extra money for governments. That is wrong.
The fact that they raise money is subordinate to other aims such as fairness and economic efficiency.
A well-defined auction with well-informed bidders ensures that licences are awarded to operators that can generate greatest economic benefit.
It has also been claimed that licence costs will just be passed on to the consumer.
I do not believe so.
Auctions allow the market to determine the commercial value of scarce radio spectrum.
More importantly, they give greater opportunities to new market entrants.
Beauty contests often favour incumbents with established track records.
Auctions are fairer than picking winners, which can be more subjective and less transparent.
To conclude, what we are trying to do is to ensure that the EU maintains its position as the world leader in mobile telephony.
The only way to maintain the EU's global lead in this sector is by maintaining a balance between regulation and innovation and not ruling any option out.
I believe this report will help us reach this goal.
Mr President, I feel that this report marks a decisive moment for the future of electronic communications in Europe.
I would stress, in particular, the fact that the legislation which we are going to vote on and adopt tomorrow will, of necessity, prove to be a regulation which will become obsolete within a very short space of time.
Technological development in the sector is, in fact, so rapid that Parliament and the Commission will have to go back to the issue in a very few years' time and update the legislation we adopt now.
Moreover, I would argue that the laws on telecommunications should be kept rigorously separate from laws governing other sectors, particularly the TV information and broadcasting sector, and this point will have to be clarified tomorrow when we vote.
With specific regard to communications, I feel that this is a good starting point and that we all agree upon its structure and substance. The rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, has done some excellent work, for which all thanks are due to him, although we must be aware that any regulations we adopt today can, by definition, only be limited in time and are destined to become rapidly obsolete.
With this in mind and commending this approach, I would like to state that I am in favour of the report which has been presented.
Mr President, Commissioner, representatives of the Council, a condition of success for the eEurope plan is that there should be healthy levels of competition in the telecommunications markets.
We now have before us a large package of reforms which it is vitally important that we adopt and implement swiftly in order to further the process of freeing up markets.
It is good that Mr van Velzen' s excellent report gives weight to the importance of common competition legislation to promote competition in the telecommunications sector.
It will be important in applying common competition legislation, however, that the legal provisions relating to a dominant market position are interpreted in a way that does not discriminate against operators in smaller markets.
Parliament has reservations about licence auctions for third generation wireless communications.
I am also worried, for my own part, about how licence fees will affect the development of markets.
As spectrum distribution will be the responsibility of Member States, however, we in Parliament have to accept that competition strategies in the different countries will vary.
Only time will show what the most rational solution will be.
It is also important that the trend should be towards a technologically more neutral operational environment, and that the sector-oriented approach be abandoned as far as possible.
The danger of too much regulation must also be taken into account in good time.
I support the 'soft law' approach in the creation of the new operational environment, in a way, however, that the legislator is given ample opportunity to make his or her position known to the Commission and the Council, before recommendations are made concerning the matter or other decisions taken revising the operational environment.
I would like to ask the Commissioner how the Commission intends to promote this 'co-regulation' approach.
How will it be possible for Parliament to exert sufficient influence?
I would still like to stress that competition should be promoted openly and transparently, to a degree that is adequate, and not through price policy regulation.
Tariffs must be open, consumers must be able to acquire information regarding the cost of calls easily, and pricing mechanisms must safeguard the ability people have to compare prices.
Mr President, the Commission' s communication provides an in-depth analysis of the sector and certainly presents a series of positive proposals.
However, in my opinion, further study of certain areas is necessary, such as the way the competition criteria are applied and how to tackle a market which is as yet imperfect.
Although it is true that excellent results have already been achieved in the mobile telephony sector, I would argue - and the rapporteur has put in a great of deal of work in this area which has certainly paid off - that the cable transmissions sector is developing new infrastructures which may require convergence of regulatory policies.
I believe that the final objective is liberalisation where the general competition rules guarantee the legality of the procedures, favouring a more competitive market and producing better results for the end user in terms of both services and price.
These are further reasons why I feel that the directives' application period should be limited, so that it can be determined to what extent the sector is still in need of legislation and whether that legislation would be able to react swiftly to the developments in a market which is constantly changing.
Finally, I feel that it is important for Parliament to express its disapproval of the auction system.
Auctions tend to push licence fees up above their effective economic value, and this increase is then passed on to the consumer as prices are raised and it is no longer possible to introduce new services.
The Member States which have applied this system should, moreover, not treat the profits as their own general resources but should use them to promote the development of the information society and electronic commerce, as they were called upon to do by the Lisbon Summit.
Mr President, as the last Member of this House to speak on this important report, whose rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, I congratulate, it seems to me appropriate to remind you that this Commission communication is the gateway to a great reform and a redrafting of the legislation on licences, data protection, universal service and access to the networks.
That is the true sense of this communication and my first request to the Commission is that we act in this area diligently, and with some urgency, since time is passing at Internet speed.
Each year is equivalent to four years and we ask that those proposals included in the Commission' s legislative programme be communicated to Parliament as soon as possible.
I think that I can say, on behalf of the whole House, that we will show a special interest in making the parliamentary procedure as quick as possible, as dictated by the importance of the issues in question.
I believe that the citizens expect this of us and that the Treaty of Amsterdam allows us to shorten and speed up these processes.
Many important things have been said.
Allow me to support what has been said with regard to universal service, access for schools, etc.
However, there are three questions which seem to me to be more problematic.
Firstly, we must establish a better definition of what public service means, failing which we will not be able to make progress, and for the same reason we must also define what the general interest in the field of telecommunications really means.
Secondly, we must separate the regulations for private open television and public television, regardless of the transmission system.
Furthermore - and this has already been said - it is necessary to promote dialogue between the national regulators and the regulators of society, of the private sectors, on this "co-regulation" which is a distinguishing mark for Europe.
Thirdly, I will say that it is necessary to protect - and we are relying on the diligence of Commissioner Bolkestein who is responsible for this area - this system which we are putting in place on copyright, which is one of the great traditions of European culture which is in real danger in this new state of affairs.
. Mr President, I first wish to join in the congratulations of many here today to Mr van Velzen, whose profound knowledge and experience can be seen in this important report.
I also want to congratulate the whole Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the quality of its work.
The debate here shows that many members of that committee have taken part not only in the reflections on this report but also on the whole range of issues on the information society.
The Commission can agree with most of the report and welcomes the conclusions and recommendations.
The report reflects a deep understanding of the sector and what sector-specific regulation should do to support future development of the electronic communications area.
The Commission shares the goals of the report to regulate with a view to achieving a competitive market in this sector.
We also share an understanding of how sector-specific rules can contribute to this objective.
Furthermore, the report accurately notes the two kinds of ex ante regulation needed: first, the regulation needed to inject effective competition into the market.
This includes a symmetric regulation related to market power and other pro-competitive regulations, such as number portability.
In this respect, I welcome the fact that the report pays attention to the need to ensure that number portability is not impeded by technical measures or other arrangements which limit consumers' choice of operators and service providers.
Second, the regulation needed in respect of general public policy objectives, like consumer protection and universal service.
The report concurs with the Commission's intention to withdraw ex ante regulation needed to substitute for competition and to allow the normal competition rules to apply once the markets in this sector are competitive.
It is also noteworthy that this report represents the shared vision of what the sector can contribute to society and to individuals.
Looking in the same direction is an important step in ensuring that everyone reaches the desired destination.
The report proposes that in order to be able to respond quickly to market developments, the directive should be in place during 2001 and that the working period of the directive should be limited to the year 2005.
With regard to the fast adoption of directives, the Commission totally agrees.
As to limiting the life span of the directive to 2005, this raises some questions.
The risk is that it would weaken the credibility of legislation and, in particular, the independence of the regulators.
However, of course we are ready to discuss any comments made in the report.
The Commission accepts that there is a certain tension between legal certainty and flexibility.
Our approach to flexibility is to allow the regulators to determine on the basis of a close-to-the market analysis that effective competition in the market allows the ex ante rules to be dismantled.
This sends the right signals to markets.
Otherwise major players will have an incentive to simply delay until the time period expires.
It also takes account of the different levels of competition in each Member State and the different speeds of development, both of which the report recognises as needing consideration.
On licensing, Parliament calls for one-stop shopping in respect of authorisations in this sector.
The Commission's proposals would both harmonise and simplify the process that companies go through in order to provide communications services.
If the current widely diverse system were retained, then the one-stop shop model would be logical as the report says.
If the harmonised registration system is the solution, it could be as simple as the one-stop shop model.
We must consider the alternatives at the end of the process.
Mr van Velzen has sent me a written question on the auctions.
I will use the normal internal procedures to reply to that question, but perhaps I can make some comment at this time.
I will return to this issue in the formal way.
The same question was put by Mrs Matikainen-Kallström.
According to current law, Directive 97(13), Member States determine which procedures to follow in allocating the limited-frequency spectrum available for third-generation networks, provided they comply with the principles of objectivity, non-discrimination, proportionality and transparency established by Community law.
The Commission is of the view that the use of auction procedures for the allocation of radio frequencies for third-generation mobile networks is not in itself contrary to those principles and as such cannot be subject to infringement procedures.
Regarding the need to foster the development of innovative services and competition, it depends on the economic effect of the various auction formulae used.
These are dependent on a variety of variables - length of licence, rules of payment for licence fees, conditions for network deployment, roaming obligations, etc. which cannot yet be assessed.
The Commission continues to monitor the licensing process in Member States with great attention to ensure that the above-mentioned principles are respected. It is making an ongoing assessment of the economic impact of procedures used.
I will return to this issue in detail, when I reply to the written question of Mr van Velzen.
Mrs Matikainen-Kallström put forward the question about local laws and also put the question about the local loop.
How can we guarantee that the liberalisation of the last mile will take place? When the Commission discussed this issue last time it was decided to make a recommendation to Member States to liberalise the last mile so that both full access and shared access can be guaranteed in the local loop.
I find it a very important issue.
Added to that, my colleague, the competition Commissioner, will monitor the issue from the viewpoint of potential abuse of a dominant position.
Thirdly, we have decided to put that issue, too, into the legal proposal for the future legal framework.
The first question is: could this part be separated out to get it through more quickly?
But I agree with your concern that the question of the local loop is the biggest issue this year.
In two or three years' time we will have other issues, but right now we have the network ready, connecting lines everywhere and we can use the existing network with new technology to achieve an enormous increase in broad band everywhere in Europe.
Mr Glante asked the question of who decides what.
This is a big issue which we have discussed in many contexts.
Some people say we should have a European regulator to guarantee full European coherence on those issues.
On the other hand there are people who say that it should all go to the Member States' national authorities and national regulators.
Our intention is to try to balance this issue so that we have some coherence at European level, coherence of interpretation, so that we can have a European level playing field but not to interfere in the issues where the national regulators can do their jobs in a coherent manner.
We shall come back to that issue in our final proposal.
I want once more to express my thanks for the report and for the very interesting debate today.
The Commission will look forward to working together with the European Parliament in the course of the forthcoming legislative process.
After the debate and your votes it will go back to the Commission and I hope that we will be able to make proposals at the end of this month.
I share Mrs Palacio's wish that on this issue the European Parliament and the Council will be able to take decisions very speedily.
Of course there will continue to be a need for an in-depth discussion, but we must be able to create a competent and clear legal framework for electronic communications in the new converged world.
Otherwise the European economy will suffer severe losses and European consumers, too, will lose the possibilities that new technology can give them if applied in the proper legal framework which guarantees full competition between operators.
EU strategy on financial information
The next item is the Commission communication on European Union strategy on financial information.
Mr President, the Commission approved a communication a moment ago which forms an essential part of the financial services action plan.
The capital markets within the European Union display a lack of comparability with regard to the annual accounts published by listed companies.
This leads to an increase in the capital cost for companies and presents a considerable obstacle in the establishment of an efficient European Union capital market with the best possible capital allocation.
In its communication, the Commission proposes to completely overhaul this situation.
By no later than 2005, all listed companies will be required to compile their consolidated annual accounts on the basis of International Accounting Standards (IAS).
This is a major change which directly impacts on approximately seven thousand companies.
These International Accounting Standards are being developed by an organisation from the private sector, namely the International Accounting Standards Committee.
The European Union has no control whatsoever over this organisation, even though various Europeans are actively involved in the work of the IASC.
It is therefore necessary, both politically and legally, for standards approved by the IASC to gain official recognition from a mechanism set up within an EU context.
This mechanism must be pro-active in providing input to the IASC in order to establish new standards. After approval of a standard by the IASC, it has to give its verdict on the appropriateness of this standard for financial accounting in the European Union.
This EU approval mechanism will comprise a political and technical aspect.
The technical aspect will consist of representatives of the key groups which are closely involved in the problems of financial accounting.
This is mainly the compilers and users of annual accounts, i.e. the bodies which are responsible for establishing standards in the field of annual accounting in the different Member States and the profession of accountant too, of course.
The political aspect will encompass all Member States.
How it will take shape exactly is still to be decided on.
More specifically, thought will be given to how the European Parliament can be involved in the decision-making process.
It is, of course, crucially important that the standards also be applied correctly in practice.
This requires close cooperation between the Member States and between the authorities responsible for supervision on the capital market.
Finally, it is also important that the existing European annual accounts directives, which apply to approximately three million joint stock companies, be modernised in order to accommodate the new developments in financial accounting.
The pressure exerted by the markets and Member States to make the necessary changes to the legislative framework as soon as possible is considerable.
This is why the Commission will be presenting a draft directive or draft regulation as early as the autumn, which will formally set the legislative process in motion.
This proposal will also contain transitional measures which will help to ensure that listed companies switch to the International Accounting Standards for their annual accounting as soon as possible and certainly by no later than the year 2005.
Mr President, in response to this question, I would first of all like to point out - and I am dealing with the second part of the question first - that it is a huge undertaking to persuade the seven thousand companies which I mentioned a moment ago, to switch to the IAS, the International Accounting Standards.
Seven thousand companies are required to do this before the year 2005 and this will be quite something.
To say at this early stage that these IAS should also apply to unlisted companies would be too much of a good thing, or des Guten zu viel, as they say in German.
I hesitate to answer this question in the affirmative.
As far as the first part of the question is concerned, which refers to the voluntary aspect of setting up these International Accounting Standards, well, the Commission is waiting for the IASC (International Accounting Standard Committee), which originates in the private sector, to submit the standards.
It is thus up to that committee from the private sector to lay down these standards.
This will, of course, be done on the basis of a majority decision-making process within this committee and these standards then need to be laid down and approved, first technically and then politically.
Technical approval is necessary because many of the components are so complex that one can hardly expect humble politicians to have the necessary technical know-how and this must be followed by political approval because it is a political matter which should also be laid down at political level.
They are standards which are laid down by a committee from the private sector and are, as such, to some extent standards which have been produced on a voluntary basis.
Once these standards are laid down and the European Union is of the opinion that they should be approved technically and politically, then this is what will be done.
Everyone should then adhere to them.
If the latter were not the case, it would, of course, make little sense to come up with international standards at all.
In my opinion, a standard which combines a voluntary start, followed up by political approval and is then imposed on seven thousand companies strikes the right balance between being voluntary and compulsory.
Thank you, Commissioner.
That concludes the debate.
(The sitting was suspended until voting time at 5.30 p.m.)
Mr President, on a point of order.
I should be grateful if the ashtrays could be removed again from outside the Chamber.
The President asked for them to be removed and they were removed.
People stopped smoking out there and they have now been returned.
I understand that somebody has ordered their return, against the President's wishes.
As I keep on having asthma attacks, I hope they will be removed again.
We will certainly try to have that put right, Mrs Lynne.
Vote
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Procedure without debate (Rule 114):
Report (A5-0146/2000) by Mrs Hulthén, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of the amendment to the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer (COM(1999) 392 - C5-0186/1999 - 1999/0157(CNS)).
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0151/2000) by Mr MacCormick, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the request for waiver of the immunity of Andreas Brie.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Report (A5-0158/2000) by Mr Zimeray, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the request for waiver of the immunity of Johann Kronberger.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Report (A5-0161/2000) by Ms Hulthén, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council regulation on substances that deplete the ozone layer (C5-0156/2000 - 1998/0228(COD)).
(Parliament adopted the joint text)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0148/2000) by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision setting up a Community framework for cooperation in the field of accidental or deliberate marine pollution (12612/1/1999 REV1 - C5-0101/2000 - 1998/0350(COD))
Bolkestein, Commission.
Mr President, as regards the Commission's position on the amendments tabled by Parliament, I should like to confirm what my colleague, Mrs Wallström, said during the debate held in this House this morning.
The Commission can accept in full Amendments Nos 16, 19 and 22.
The Commission can accept in part Amendments Nos 6, 17, 24 and 25.
The Commission cannot accept the remaining amendments.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0143/2000) by Ms Thors, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: The development of the Market for Digital Television in the European Union - Report in the context of Directive 95/47/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the use of standards for the transmission of television signals (COM(1999) 540 - C5-0114/2000 - 2000/2074(COS)).
Mr President, one part-session follows another and, as far as I am concerned, they are all starting to look alike.
Last time, I declared an interest in the radio and television broadcasting sector.
I must now repeat this statement with regard to this report.
I shall not therefore take part in any votes on the matter.
What is more, I shall have to repeat this same declaration in relation to the following report, by Mr van Velzen, unless you would care to take note of my statement on the subject as of now.
Mr President, I do not want to delay the House, but colleagues may recall that on 14 February there was some discussion at the opening of the part-session regarding a broadcast on the Today programme and Mr Kirkhope, who is a Member of this House.
I should like to read the following apology which was broadcast by the BBC last Monday: "On February 14 2000, the BBC broadcast a report about a new Register of Members' interests in the European Parliament, making particular reference to the interests declared by the Conservative Chief Whip, Mr Timothy Kirkhope.
The report, which was later referred to on BBC News, contained a number of inaccuracies.
Mr Kirkhope has not turned himself into a political consultant and has not and does not lobby the European Parliament.
In addition, the BBC report implied that he will for a fee advise on how to handle things in the European Parliament which the BBC accepts is not the case.
The BBC is happy to make this clear and has apologised to Mr Kirkhope for the errors."
It must be said that is not really appropriate in the middle of voting time.
Mr President, it is very relevant indeed because this broadcast followed a week in which the BBC spent a very large sum of public money lobbying the European Parliament about the very report we have just voted on.
Mr President, just for the benefit of Members regarding the last statement made by Mr McMillan-Scott.
If they do not come from the United Kingdom the words "BBC" do not stand for Blair's Broadcasting Corporation, but many of us seem to think it does.
Colleagues, let us try to address ourselves to the business in hand.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0145/2000) by Mr van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Towards a new framework for Electronic Communications infrastructure and associated services - the 1999 Communications Review 8COM(1999) 539 - C5-0141/2000 - 2000/2085(COS))
Mr President, due to a financial interest I cannot participate in the next vote.
On Amendment No 10
I am afraid we cannot have a split vote. It is out of time.
Could Mr van Velzen perhaps comment on whether Amendment No 10 now says: "considers it important to deepen..." or "to clarify the following concepts" ?
Mr President, I voted against the request to remove Mr Andreas Brie' s immunity, not only because I agree with the responsible Committee' s report, but also because, in voting this way, I wish to stress that I am in favour of amending the regulation on the immunity of the Members of the European Parliament.
In my opinion, there should be a common regulation which applies irrespectively of the State of origin of the various Members.
Parliament' s duties are becoming increasingly more significant and require more care and control to ensure that parliamentary immunity is only removed in cases where a genuine crime has been committed.
Therefore, the entire institution of the immunity of Members of the European Parliament must be reformed.
Report Zimeray (A5-0158/2000)
Mr President, I voted against the application to withdraw parliamentary immunity.
In my opinion, Mr Zimeray should continue to enjoy parliamentary immunity.
Our fellow Member committed a road traffic offence, which is a culpable offence but not a crime.
In Italy, this type of offence does not merit withdrawal of parliamentary immunity.
I fail to understand why a State employee, a worker or an office worker would not lose his job over such matter while a Member of Parliament would lose his parliamentary immunity.
Report Hulthén (A5-0161/2000)
Mr President, I voted for this report because it is important for us to intervene wherever anything harms our environment.
It is my opinion that, in this report, Parliament has been able to marry the requirements of the industry, which needs time to reorganise itself, with the requirements of public health.
I refer to the fact that it is essential not to place the citizens in the situation where they have to change all the equipment they use because a potential source of harm to the environment has been found, caused by the emission into the environment of substances produced by the machines - often common appliances such as refrigerators and cars - that they use.
I therefore feel that it is right for the European Parliament to intervene in this matter.
- I warmly welcome my colleague Anneli Hulthén's recommendation for tighter controls on substances depleting the ozone layer.
This will introduce new controls to the agreement reached at Montreal in 1987 and will provide a higher degree of control of trade in ozone-depleting substances.
When thousands of people from Britain hit the beaches and slap on their suntan lotion to sunbathe this summer, there will be something different in the air.
There will be a measure to prevent the hole in the ozone from becoming any larger.
People will therefore be better protected from getting scorched or going blind from glaring sunlight through an ever-depleting ozone layer.
Tighter controls on substances destroying the ozone layer is just one element of a broader environmental strategy that is needed to save our planet.
Britain's Labour Government has been leading the fight to protect our citizens and to clean up our planet.
At Kyoto, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott managed to secure an agreement to cut global emissions.
Britain is already well on the way to achieving its target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2010.
This target has now been raised to 60-70% by 2050.
Strong, coherent action is urgently required at local, national and European levels to clean up our air, land and sea.
Our citizens want to see concrete action, not just hot air from politicians.
This is our chance to continue our battle for a safer, cleaner world.
Report McKenna (A5-0148/2000)
Mr President, when I was 21 years old, I used to travel in cruise ships which went from New York to the Bahamas and back.
One starry, very romantic evening, I was standing with a girl towards the stern of the ship, stargazing as one does when one is 21 years old, when a stern porthole opened and all the ship' s waste was thrown out into the sea.
Despite the fact that it was evening, the seagulls immediately arrived to feast on the refuse.
Twice as much harm was done on that occasion by dumping waste in the sea: it affected both the sea and yours truly.
I therefore support this report which will prevent the dumping of waste in the sea.
.
(FR) During the debate I highlighted the disturbing gap between the extremely mild nature of the text on which we were required to vote and the particularly harsh reality affecting the victims of the Erika disaster, which caused such extensive damage.
By rights this tragedy should have had the effect of seriously reorienting Community procedure.
This was, unfortunately, not the case, and the procedure stands.
It is limited to proposing the exchange of information, which is no doubt highly useful, for the period 2000-2006.
On the key issues, we are still waiting.
Indeed, the victims are becoming aware that the principle of 'polluter pays' is still not truly recognised and that the compensation system set up in 1992 is extremely unsatisfactory and even, bizarrely, lets the vessel operator off scot-free.
In a six-month period, the International Oil Pollution Compensation Fund (IOPCF) has not paid out 2 million in compensation.
Indeed, the IOPCF apparatus looks particularly perverse.
It is a compensation system with no liability, which sets a ceiling unrelated to the extent of actual damages suffered.
It is not fair that the State and local authorities should be required to a great extent to take the place of the polluter in meeting expenses.
This system benefits the oil companies and, as we have just seen, makes it possible for unacceptable pressure to be put on the victims, be they workers in the affected sectors or local authorities, forced to go to court in order to have their damages recognised.
This system must be renegotiated and must be supplemented by a strict legal framework, similar to the one which the United States provided for itself long ago.
This time the necessary debates and the necessary action must not be postponed.
The victims of the Erika disaster want their ordeal to serve to prevent the recurrence of this sort of disaster in future.
Fortunately, this House adopted the amendment confirming the principle of 'polluter pays' .
This is a small step in the right direction.
Report Thors (A5-0143/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Thors report because I feel that it is right for the European Union to intervene in the regulation of digital television.
I fervently hope that the regulation of digital television and new transmission systems will take into account the fact that there always has to be competition between the public and private sectors.
The public sector, public television and public telecommunications activities must always be facilitated, promoted and supported, but not excessively so, for that would result in a distortion of competition.
It would be better to give pensioners a sum of money to buy a new digital television than to give money to public entities which enjoy an unfair advantage in competition with private companies.
. Major changes to European culture that will happen as a result of digital technology are welcome.
However, continued good public service broadcasting is essential.
Guaranteed access to public service and public interest content will be a vital guarantor of universality.
It will also be a key driver of digital take-up, extending its appeal.
For public services to be universally available it is necessary to ensure that whichever digital system people may use they can be guaranteed access to the information that is essential to a well-informed society.
Public interest considerations suggest there will be a need for access to this content through all major delivery platforms, whatever access regime is finally decided upon.
"Must access" rules will be needed to ensure universal availability to public service content on other major distribution systems, and to memory in receivers where that forms a significant gateway.
"Due prominence" rules will ensure that public service content and channels can be easily found on proprietary electronic programme guides.
Digital TV is the only convergent technology without basic interoperability.
Regulatory measures will be required to promote interoperability between the networks and devices that will be used to access digital TV and interactive services.
Interoperability can be achieved through declaration and licensing of those key standards, interfaces and authoring tools necessary to reach the end user.
This will promote interoperability without undermining innovation.
Third parties will need access to this information at the same time as the gateway owners' own services.
It is important to get the right balance between the EU and Member State levels.
It is right that the regulatory framework for infrastructure should be established at EU level and implemented nationally.
National regulatory authorities will need the freedom to apply infrastructure regulation according to specific national circumstances, but be ready to justify this at the EU level.
Content issues will affect infrastructure regulation.
Where this occurs, the Member State should be free to set its own priorities.
As we are already in a world of television without frontiers, it is important in the context of Ireland that public service broadcasting, both North and South, recognises all the cultural divisions that have agreed to parity of esteem under the Good Friday agreement, which had such a strong democratic mandate.
Report Van Velzen (A5-0145/2000)
The Finnish delegation of the PPE-DE Group voted in favour of Mr van Velzen' s report and supports him with regard to its content, although it contains one point that we cannot accept, and that concerns the distribution of the UMTS spectrum via auction, which should not be regulated at Community level, as he proposes.
Arguments can be presented in favour of both spectrum auctions and so-called beauty contests.
The fact is that the astronomical prices that result from spectrum auctions always end up with consumers having to foot the bill.
Beauty contests are, in many respects, more consumer-oriented and more of an alternative that supports the freeing up of the market.
On all the other points Mr van Velzen has our full support.
Mr President, although I voted for the van Veltzen report, I feel that it is a communication on electronic communications that actually communicates very little.
I have read it with great care and it appears to be written in genuine 'Brussels Spout' for the officialese is extremely difficult to understand.
While we are on the subject, I would like to inform you that my mother, who is 85 years old, is still walking round Rome without a mobile phone, which is one of the issues covered by this resolution.
In addition to regulating the market, the European Union must facilitate access to these forms of communication for the elderly and the less well-off, but especially for elderly people who live on their own.
Even mobile phones and progress can serve to take away some of the loneliness from the lives of elderly people. I hope that this will happen.
.
(FR) I voted against this text which does no more than set the stage for a new round of deregulation in the telecommunications sector, without the least consideration for public services or the services of general economic interest even though they are provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In the absence of any framework directive to protect these public services which are essential to regional planning and to citizens' equal access to these services, I reject any further liberalisation.
Moreover, the reports drawn up within Parliament on the implementation of opening the telecommunications sector up to competition revealed that, in virtually all countries, even the meagre, restricted universal telecommunications service could not be guaranteed. At the same time, the profits of major multinationals in the telecommunications sector are soaring, while subscriptions and local communications are becoming an increasing drain on the budgets of the poorest individuals.
The report does not introduce cheap and simple access, guaranteed to everybody, wherever they are, to Internet services as part of the provision of a universal service, thus showing that we are light years away from what a modern public service ought to be, in the age of the e-economy.
It is high time, however, that we put this fine European idea into practice.
In pursuing the interests of untrammelled competition, the European Parliament does itself no credit.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0487/2000). We will examine questions to the Commission.
Mr President, I raised this point of order last month and I now have to raise it again.
Each of the questions is dated, presumably with the date when they were submitted, yet they are completely out of order.
The first was submitted on 16 May, the second on 4 May, the third on 24 May, the fourth on 11 May and the fifth on 24 May.
Is there any rule regulating how they are put in order, or some secret method of getting your question to the top of the list?
Question No 29 by (H-0452/00):
Subject: Political intervention in Georgia's problems Georgia, the newly independent state, is encountering serious difficulties in consolidating democracy and raising its citizens' standards of living.
Its attempts are being hindered by the problem of the breakaway of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the wave of refugees mainly taken in by Abkhazia.
In its resolutions, Parliament has condemned this situation and has asked the Commission and the Council to support the Council of Europe' s initiative to set up confidence-building measures in the area.
Does the Commission have any strategy for this sensitive region? Does it intend to operate a policy designed to safeguard peace and security in the region?
The Commission's first priority is to encourage Georgia and its neighbours Armenia and Azerbaijan to work towards peaceful settlement of the conflicts in the region.
We also believe that Georgia will not reap the full dividends of peace without greater efforts to improve public finances, reinforce its democratic institutions and the rule of law and fight corruption.
In future our support will be specifically targeted on these structural objectives.
Since independence the European Community has provided aid and assistance to Georgia of more than EUR 300 million in grants alone.
The Commission's strategy is set out in detail in the communication on relations with the south Caucasian states of 6 June 1999 which was endorsed by the General Affairs Council in June 1999.
The work of the Community complements that of the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe.
Commissioner, I should like to thank you for your reply on behalf of my fellow member, Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, and put the following question to you: can you cite a few specific measures and actions which you have taken for the refugees?
I remember from my time as chairman of the representation for relations with Transcaucasia that we had thousands of refugees from Abkhazia who were kept in wretched conditions in Tiflida. Now these refugees have been joined by more refugees from the crisis in Chechnya.
Have you, the Commission, done anything?
What you say about structural sectors and encouragement to improve the rule of law in Georgia is all well and good, but what is being done about the refugees? As I am sure you understand, this problem is seriously hampering the political situation in Georgia.
I very much agree that the refugee issue is a burning problem.
This is true for the whole region and one of the main ideas of the Commission through ECHO, working very closely with UNHCR, is precisely to make sure that our approach covers all the different aspects in the region, not to focus on just one activity but to try to broaden the scope.
We are one of the main contributors to the work concerning refugees in the whole region.
When I visited the area neighbouring Chechnya a few months ago the issue of the total number of people moving around was exactly one of the problems we brought up afterwards with UNHCR, and we are in constant contact with UNHCR on this.
Also the International Organization for Migration is involved with our support.
People are greatly concerned at what they hear about the present situation in Georgia.
Democratic rights, employment rights, religious rights are all under very severe pressure.
I welcome what he has said and the amount of money that has been given through the EU to Georgia but surely the situation as referred to by the previous speaker of the refugees is one very serious problem indeed.
Is there nothing more that he and this Union can do to help this new state?
Basically I will have to repeat what I have just said.
Humanitarian activity is in many ways easier for us to organise, and this covers the first part of the problem.
Where things really get difficult is when it comes to creating lasting structural changes and this is where the effort, as I mentioned in my first reply, will be concentrated - on what I would call governance issues.
This is something that necessitates a close political dialogue with society, and that is the long-term perspective that we are working towards in Georgia.
Question No 30 by (H-0437/00):
Subject: Withdrawal of Cuba's application to sign up to the new EU-ACP agreement Cuba's recent withdrawal of its application to become party to the new convention between the European Union and the ACP countries, which will be signed in Fiji in June this year, indicates a considerable change of attitude on the part of the Cuban authorities.
How does the Commission view this withdrawal and how does it intend to handle relations between Cuba and the Union in the light of the new situation?
Does the Commission consider that Cuba can maintain its observer status under the new agreement?
Would the Commission have been in favour of Cuba's signing up to the convention?
Through a verbal note dated 2 May 2000 addressed to the President of the EU/ACP Council of Ministers, Cuba communicated its unilateral decision to withdraw its application to be a signatory to the new ACP/EU Partnership Agreement.
Furthermore, on 20 April 2000 Cuba also unilaterally cancelled a European Union troika to Cuba that was to take place at the end of April and could have provided a useful opportunity for dialogue.
As is clearly stated in the common position of the European Union on Cuba, Europe's policy towards Cuba gives priority to a constructive dialogue.
Cuba's decision to withdraw arrived at a time when discussions within the Commission and at Council level on its application had not yet been concluded.
Therefore, neither the Commission nor the Council took a decision on the desirability of Cuba signing the new ACP/EU Partnership Agreement.
The European Union's future relations with Cuba will continue to be guided, as in the past, by the common position.
The European Union aims at promoting pluralist democracy and respect for human rights, as well as assisting Cuba's integration into the world economy and contributing to the improvement of the living standards of the Cuban people.
Regarding Cuba's future status relating to the new ACP/EU Agreement, the Commission would like to mention that Cuba's application for observer status referred to and was granted only with respect to the negotiations for a post-Lomé Agreement which have now been completed.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your reply, which is rather diplomatic and does not fundamentally answer my question.
It is often said that in politics what is not possible is false.
We all know the Member States' common position with regard to Cuba; we all know that Cuba is not associated to the European Union by means of an institutional agreement.
Let us get to the point. Please tell me, as far as the Commission' s responsibilities are concerned, what budgetary allocations, and for what projects, is the Commission considering in relation to Cuba in this 2000 budget, and what are the estimates for cooperation presented by the Commission in its preliminary draft for 2001.
Is it legal or not for Cuba to continue to be an observer, not in the negotiation, but in the future agreement which will enter into force when it is ratified by the Member States? Could Cuba obtain, in this new agreement, the observer status which it has had during the negotiations?
I certainly did not try to reply in a diplomatic fashion, but in a clear fashion.
I can relate to the question concerning the money and the kind of activity we foresee taking place in Cuba. Generally speaking, we are expecting the level of funding to continue more or less as it is, which means that the actual annual spending is expected to be around EUR 20 million.
Until now, about half of that has been ECHO-funded activities in the form of budget support in kind for the health sector in Cuba.
There is no humanitarian crisis in Cuba as a basis for carrying out ongoing ECHO activity, which is the reason why we are planning to phase out the humanitarian assistance as such and at the same time enlarge the activities that relate more directly to transformation processes in Cuban society.
This we have announced and we are in the process of identifying more relevant activities than those that have been carried out so far by ECHO.
However, this year we are taking care to create some bridging financing in order to facilitate a gradual shift from one activity to another.
On the issue of Cuba becoming an observer to the convention in general, this is not foreseen, and in any case, Cuba has to make up its own mind what kind of relations it would like to try to establish.
It is not our decision, and we have not been involved in any decision-making concerning what Cuba wants to do.
This decision has been entirely their own. When I stress this, it is not a diplomatic way of covering myself, it is simply the way it is.
I am pleased to note that the honourable Member values the initiative, announced by the Commission in its report of the 14 March, whereby an analysis is to be carried out of the way in which the new partnership agreement between the ACP countries and the European Union is affecting the regions on the very periphery of the Union.
I can confirm that the Commission is in the process of preparing to implement this analysis.
The results of the analysis should be available round about the middle of 2001.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for your reply to the question of my colleague, Mr Fruteau, who has asked me to convey his apologies, since he is unable to get to Strasbourg until tonight as a result of force majeure.
I am also very grateful for your reply myself.
I note that we share the Commission' s concern about the fact that an agreement between the ACP countries and the European Union, which is so positive for other reasons, nevertheless has an impact in those outermost regions which have similar production and are geographically close to the ACP countries.
Having seen that the Commission is concerned about this and having received a very satisfactory response, does the Commission nevertheless intend to implement any measure to lessen the impact of this presumably negative effect before the final date indicated?
Does it intend to implement any urgent measure?
The analysis is expected to be fully completed in a year from now.
It is not clear from the outset that the new EU/ACP Agreement will have an adverse impact.
There also elements in it that are for the benefit of these outer peripheral regions, but it is true that they are in a sense caught in between two regimes.
We will follow this very closely.
As things stand, we do not have a basis for specifying what measures we would decide upon, but we are following this issue closely.
Commissioner, the Commission will have to present the European Council in Feira with a report on the development of a statute for the outermost regions, in accordance with Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In the Commission report of 14 March this year, (COM(2000) 147), the Commission refers specifically to the development of some kind of cooperation system between the outermost regions and the ACP countries.
Specifically, the Spanish and Portuguese outermost regions of the Canaries, the Azores and Madeira are close to the archipelago of Cape Verde, and they all belong to the same geographical area, Macaronesia.
My question to Commissioner Nielson is whether the report or the Commission' s proposals to the European Council at Feira consider the possibility of implementing some kind of programme which integrates the action of the outermost regions in relation to this region of Cape Verde, by means of Interreg III for example.
One of the benefits under the new agreement for the peripheral regions is that they will have better access to the ACP markets. So, in a sense the relationship and regional relations between neighbours will be able to work both ways.
We want to have a thorough analysis of the situation before we come up with specific proposals.
Question No 32 by (H-0444/00):
Subject: Concerted efforts in industrial restructuring process Globalisation of the economy is accelerating the structural transformation of European industry which is necessary to cope with the changes in competitive conditions.
In some cases, however - e.g. Renault's actions in Belgium and, most recently, the conduct of ABB Alstoms Powers - it is clear that restructuring takes place with no regard for workers' fundamental right to influence decisions.
This indicates not only that there are shortcomings with the common rules on information and consultation of workers but also that the European Union has a poor strategy for forestalling and handling the consequences of industrial restructuring.
In the light of the Gyllenhammar report, what are the Commission's views on establishing a code of conduct for managing industrial restructuring and setting up a European Observatory on Industrial Change, in line with the proposal by the European Metalworkers' Federation?
Mr President, the Gyllenhammer report on industrial restructuring makes two separate proposals: the first concerns action by companies with over one thousand employees, which can voluntarily draft a basic report at regular intervals on how they intend to restructure, and the second concerns the European Observatory on Industrial Change.
As far as the first proposal is concerned, we are already in contact with the Federation of European Employers, so that we can promote this plan within the framework of the social agenda in all companies at European level.
As far as the Observatory is concerned, the Commission has understood and stresses the importance of the Observatory, especially at a time of constant mergers and structural change in whole sectors of the economy.
This issue has already been included in the social dialogue and we are awaiting the common position of the social partners on 15 June.
I must point out that the Commission' s approach is not to proceed with yet another new structure, yet another new centre or institute, but to set up a section within the framework of existing structures, such as Dublin, Bilbao or Seville, which will deal with industrial restructuring.
Finally, as regards mergers and acquisitions, which generally create problems and huge job losses, we have already been in written and verbal contact with Mr Monti, the Commissioner responsible, and the Directorate-General responsible, so that the Commission can monitor application of the legislation for the Workers' Committee to the maximum and can check if all the provisions of the law have been complied with before mergers take place and major decisions are taken.
As you know, competition legislation in particular does not take account of these repercussions, which are unquantifiable, but we are making an effort and the Commission has been at the disposal of employees and employers alike, so that the best possible preparations can be made and we do not have thousands of people on the streets with no provision made for them.
I want to thank the Commissioner for her answer.
Restructuring must not be prevented.
Industrial restructuring is necessary, but developments in Europe in recent years have revealed a number of examples of restructuring' s having been carried out badly by companies, for example Michelin, ABB, Rover etc.
The Gyllenhammar report makes the very point that restructuring is needed and that we have to find a framework to enable us to handle it properly in the future.
The Gyllenhammar report has now been around for a couple of years.
It puts forward one or two concrete proposals, for example for a supervisory centre and for a special responsibility on the part of the major companies to provide information in time.
I wonder in what way the Commission is going to make use of the proposals made in the Gyllenhammar report a couple of years ago.
How, very precisely, are you going to make use of these in the dialogue with employers and employees?
Mr President, of course the Gyllenhammer report is both known and of use to the Commission; that is our aim within the framework of the social agenda.
Allow me to say first of all, in connection with one of the basic aspects of the report concerning companies operating with over one thousand employees, that it is not easy for the Commission to communicate directly with industries and companies throughout Europe.
These are matters governed by subsidiarity, matters for national federations of employers, which is why the dialogue is taking such a long time.
I think that we will be able to use some of the more important aspects of the Gyllenhammer report within the framework of the social agenda.
However, I must stress, Mrs Andersson, that these measures mainly concern preparing workers or companies for major structural changes so that we can avoid job losses and major social problems.
The Commission' s main task is to complete and apply the strategy for employment, the aim of which is to channel all these human resources into new jobs.
In other words, how we intend to address structural unemployment and how the people hit by the impact of industrial restructuring can find new jobs in the new sectors being created which, as you know, are mainly services and the information society.
Question No 33 by (H-0473/00):
Subject: New agenda for social policy The European Commission has announced its intention to bring forward in June a new social policy for the new economy which takes globalisation into account.
Will the Commission outline the main elements of that policy, and will that policy include any new measures aimed at tackling poverty and the issue of homelessness in the Community?
Second part
Questions to Mr Busquin
Mr President, I must say in reply to Mr Crowley, as he will have heard umpteen times before, that housing policy and policies to combat homelessness are purely national issues.
However, having been given a specific remit at Lisbon, the Commission is drawing up a social agenda which endeavours to take an overall approach to the problem.
Social exclusion is a particularly complicated problem which cannot be addressed through education, health or social security policy or through employment strategies.
However, we should point out that, in the housing policy sector, any endeavour on the part of the European Commission comes, it must be said, as added value to action taken by national governments.
Thus, in view of forthcoming preparations for the social exclusion programme and the social agenda, the Commission has already funded pre-preparatory action, especially in the sectors which interest you, the homeless living in railway stations, homes for the elderly, a new social housing policy and social housing.
Each of these plans has been drafted by non-governmental organisations and cover all the Member States.
Our aim with the new social exclusion programme, which is orientated towards political collaboration between non-governmental organisations or between local governments, is to implement joint innovative programmes and joint studies and draw up statistics, analyses and proposals for policies which will help the Member States to learn from one another and apply more integrated policies.
I wish to thank the Commissioner for her response.
However, since the Delors White Paper on social exclusion, since Commissioner Flynn, your predecessor in the present job, we have had studies, theses, information and strategies coming out of our ears on how to tackle the problem.
I agree with you, with regard to the proposals laid down in the Lisbon Summit, that maybe now is the time for you and us in Parliament to be innovative ourselves to catch the Member States on the back foot and to present them with an imaginative and innovative plan to tackle social exclusion, because we have achieved the big picture.
We have achieved huge growth in employment and economic terms; we have looked at new innovative ways of creating jobs, of educating people and so on and yet still 20% of our population in Europe are lagging way behind and do not have the opportunity of benefiting from that growing economy or of having any quality of life.
Maybe we could be innovative.
Commissioner, you have us as your partners to drive that forward.
I agree.
It was noted at Lisbon that a large section of the population of Europe, 18% to be exact, lives below the poverty line, with housing and myriad other problems.
Obviously, and I repeat, the housing problem is a complicated issue, it differs from one Member State to another and it depends on numerous parameters, from the employment rate to the land development policy in individual Member States and from the organised social system to social benefits; it is not therefore an issue which can be addressed by national polices.
The European Commission can play an important role here, as you said, by making innovative efforts, by supporting innovative polices and by helping the Member States to learn from each other' s experience.
And that is what we intend to do in the exclusion programme, which we hope will be implemented mainly by non-governmental organisations which already have a great deal of experience in this sector and have a decisive contribution to make.
I certainly accept that there is a place for social policy in these more extreme situations.
However, there is a risk of taking it too far.
Would the Commissioner not agree that the most important thing for the European economy, in order to provide the social benefits that we would all like to have, is for it to be allowed to develop without millstones round its neck of excessive social commitments and problems? If we are to compete in the global economy, as this question asks, there should be a measured level of social support and policy and not an extreme binding of our businesses and our economies by social requirements.
Clearly, the European Commission has stated its position on the need for a balance between competition and social cohesion.
However, I should like to remind you that in countries with a very high growth rate and a highly competitive environment, such as the United States of America, or in countries in Europe such as Great Britain, there are also high levels of poverty, a significant number of excluded people and acute social problems.
Obviously, therefore, competitiveness alone or development alone cannot solve social problems, which are particularly complicated, given that the weakest in society cannot always reap the rewards of economic development.
This is why we need a social policy in order to redistribute wealth and allow the weakest sections of society to integrate.
And that is what we are constantly trying to achieve: maintaining social cohesion with no loss of competitiveness.
Question No 34 by (H-0507/00):
Subject: Implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme On 11 October last year, Commissioners Schreyer and Busquin promised in separate letters to provide regular information to the European Parliament on the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme.
This was a welcome step.
However, only one further item of correspondence has been received.
On a related subject, provision has been made for a mid term review of the Fifth Framework Programme.
However, if this review is not undertaken by the end of 2000, it will lose much of its value.
Could the Commission reaffirm its commitment to provide information on the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme? Does the Commission believe it is still worthwhile completing outstanding projects from the Third and Fourth Framework Programmes?
Could the Commission say when it is likely to produce a mid-term review of the Fifth Framework programme?
Questions to Mr Liikanen
In accordance with the undertakings made in the letters from my fellow Commissioners, Mrs Schreyer, Mr Liikanen and myself last October, the Commission plans to continue to inform Parliament on a regular basis regarding the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme and of its budget, as it has already done on several occasions, in October and December 1999 and then in January and April 2000.
The Commission confirms that, pursuant to contractual arrangements, all outstanding projects from the Third and Fourth Framework Programmes must be completed properly.
The Commission shall, furthermore, ensure that these projects produce the best results possible and thereby fulfil the scientific and technological expectations for which the Community funding was granted.
As regards the mid-term review of the Fifth Framework Programme, the Commission will adhere strictly to the terms of Article 6 of the decision on the programme.
The Commission plans to present a mid-term appreciation of the framework programme and its progress this autumn. I believe this is what Mrs Gill would like to see.
Indeed, the Commission will take into account the results of this mid-term review of the fifth programme, as well as the results of the independent assessment of the last five years, in formulating the strategic guidelines for the future, i.e. for the preparation of the sixth programme.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for that answer because I share his view that Parliament should be involved in the evaluation of problems relating to any execution of the Fifth Framework Programme or any previous programme as well.
We need to have a framework for the future as to how we operate because I am concerned about the financial burden of the previous framework programmes.
Whilst I accept the need for the continuation of the Fourth Framework Programme, I find it a bit odd that six years later we are still dealing with payments that need to be settled for the Third Framework Programme.
Has the Commission given thought to a policy of cancelling all commitments after two or three years if they have not paid? I know from my Committee on Budgets role that Commissioner Patten has been pursuing various methods of removing some of the huge backlog of outstanding payments within the field of external relations.
Does the Commission believe that these policies could be applied to the research budget?
Finally, how does the Commission propose to improve the implementation of the research budget in the forthcoming Sixth Framework Programme?
.
(FR) I understand Mrs Gill' s concern and I share her feeling that the Third Framework Programme should no longer be impacting on the budget at this stage.
That being said, even if the amounts in question are minimal, they are still covered under contractual liability.
Furthermore, procedures have been revised since the Fourth Framework Programme.
At the time, we were bound by the procedures legally adopted for the Third and Fourth Framework Programmes. The Fifth Framework Programme quite rightly took some of the previous difficulties into account.
Nonetheless, previous legal undertakings must be respected, even though, I believe, quite negligible sums are involved, at least for the Third Framework Programme.
Indeed, as far as the Sixth Framework Programme is concerned, we shall be having a discussion about the matter of procedures.
Following discussions with Mr Liikanen, we believe that these matters of procedure must be reviewed in the light of previous experience.
The Fifth Framework Programme has, I believe, already solved the problem of procedure on the point you raise.
Question No 35 by (H-0445/00):
Subject: Export refunds Having noted the answer to my previous question (H-0280/00), that 'the Commission simply proposes to adapt the calculation system used in order to take into account the price differences on the world market and in the Community for the cereals used as raw materials in relation to Export Refunds, does the Commission agree that the proposals to change the methodology for calculating the level of export refund rates affecting spirit drinks producers should be accompanied by a detailed explanation as to how this is to be achieved along with supporting justification?
Does the Commission agree that it is essential that this information be made available to the Community' s spirits drinks industry, giving them time to respond before any decisions are taken at Commission Management Committee level?
Does the Commission acknowledge that a change in methodology might be used as a cloak for bringing about a substantial reduction in the level of refund rates and that such a reduction would be unreasonable unless accompanied by a detailed justification of the rate reduction achieved by a change in methodology?
First of all, the background for problems in the export fund is budgetary. We have had the decisions for Agenda 2000 since Berlin 1999.
It has meant tighter constraints and ceilings for budgetary spending and for that reason an adaptation has been necessary.
On 20 March, the Agriculture Council endorsed the Commission's approach on specific measures for savings in export funds for foodstuffs.
These specific measures are designed to replace the across-the-board cuts currently in place.
The Council asked the Commission to take into consideration the observations made by Member States during the debate on this approach.
These observations also covered the question of spirits.
As far as spirits are concerned, no withdrawal from the list of goods eligible for refunds is foreseen.
The Commission's proposal provides for adaptations of the current method used to calculate the price differences between the EU and the world market in cereals used in processing spirits.
The intention is to continue to promote the consumption of EU cereals as laid down in Protocol 19 to the UK Accession Act.
According to the procedure decided by the Council, the detailed proposal and the best way of adapting this calculation method will now be discussed in the management committees with the Member States.
In the course of this discussion the Commission will supply detailed information justifying its approach.
As far as informing the industry is concerned, details of the new calculations have already been forwarded to them.
In fact there was a meeting with representatives of industry and Member States today when specific measures were examined.
Unfortunately, I do not yet have a report from the meeting.
Acknowledging the general objective of budget savings, the Commission proposal will indeed reduce the refunds for spirits as was clearly indicated to the Council.
The Commission will closely follow the situation of the markets, the development of exports and the repercussions on industrial competitiveness and will consider any necessary adaptation of policy.
I am grateful to Commissioner Liikanen for a characteristically thorough answer to each of the points which I raised in my question.
I am grateful for the assurances about communication with the industry as well as with governments.
That is very important.
I should like to underline, however, that although this is an issue about the spirits industry in the Community as a whole, the fact is, as we all know, that by far the major exporter is the Scotch whisky industry.
Commissioner Liikanen will be well aware that production, particularly of malt whisky, for export is concentrated in the peripheral parts of Scotland: in the islands and in the glens of Strathspey and in other remote parts.
These parts are suffering very heavily for a variety of reasons, agriculturally and in other ways at the moment.
I do not suppose that it is the intention of the Commission to make life impossible in these places but a combination of measures might well have that effect by accident.
I ask him to direct his attention to that.
We are very well aware that whisky is a very important product in some areas of Scotland.
I will pay attention to the issues which were raised by the honourable Member.
Question No 36 by (H-0448/00):
Subject: Prospects for creating incentives for developing gas-fuelled cars The new rules on motor vehicle exhaust gases come into force in 2006, covering hydrocarbons including methane.
Gas-fuelled cars emit lower levels of most hydrocarbons, but more methane.
Methane emissions from gas-fuelled cars are negligible compared with the reduction in CO2 emissions achieved by replacing petrol with natural gas (or biogas), but gas-fuelled cars will not meet the new requirements.
Does the Commission consider it appropriate to grant derogations from the rules already adopted on exhaust gases so that gas-fuelled light vehicles may continue to be sold after 2006, or does it take the view that new rules should be introduced that are adapted so that gas-fuelled cars have no greater difficulty than petrol-fuelled cars in satisfying the exhaust gas requirements (whilst of course not emitting greater quantities of the regulated substances than petrol-fuelled cars, e.g. along the lines of a principle similar to the EEV levels for heavy vehicles)?
The potential of gas vehicles to emit a lower level of regulated pollutants than petrol diesel vehicles is well known.
However, gas vehicles emit high levels of methane.
Emissions of methane cannot be ignored in the context of the EU's climate change policy.
Because of their methane emissions, gas fuelled passenger cars or light commercial vehicles seem today to have difficulty achieving 2006 emission limits for total hydrocarbons - that is methane plus non-methane hydrocarbons.
Further technical developments in catalytic reduction of methane may be possible but the efficiency and cost of such catalysts are not fully known.
Derogations are not provided for in the European system for type approval.
So in this respect the Commission would agree that further technical evaluation should be carried out to determine if an amendment to the 2006 total hydrocarbons limit is necessary, to split it into methane and non-methane components for gas vehicles.
The Commission is presently studying the possible enhanced environmentally-friendly vehicle requirement for light duty vehicles to address traditional pollutants and perhaps also global warming potential.
Like heavy duty vehicles the EEV concept aims at being both technology- and fuel-neutral to encourage best available technology wherever possible.
I should like to thank the Commission for its answer.
The problem with this issue is that it is difficult to develop new types of alternative fuels and vehicles because we have already built ourselves into a traditional system based on petrol-driven engines.
At the same time, there are developments under way involving vehicles and also filling stations.
There are also a number of quite well-developed networks. The main advantage here is that the cars can be run on both petrol and biogas.
However, the fact that methane emissions are over the limit threatens to put a stop to the project and, in that way, to technical development.
My question to the Commission is: How can we promote further development and help those who are still trying to invent new systems to progress a little further along the road, instead of stopping them in their tracks and concentrating on possible methane emissions to the exclusion of everything else?
- Thank you for the question.
This issue is very technical in character and I am ready to raise this in the Commission and in the technical discussions with the motor vehicles emission group, where we can determine the appropriate course of action in this area.
I will be happy to inform the honourable Member of the outcome at a later date.
Question No 37 by (H-0467/00):
Subject: Release of financial resources for implementation of the Europe initiative The Commission's initiative for an information society for all, eEurope, is very ambitious.
It is tremendously important that vigorous efforts be made to take Europe into the information society.
Reducing inequality in terms of the use of modern technology is most probably this project's most important aim.
But it would seem rather difficult to implement such an ambitious project as eEurope if it is not allocated its own financial resources.
Will the Commission propose that financial resources be released for implementation of the eEurope initiative?
Mr President, first I want to express my gratitude for this question.
I have today been able to witness a discussion about eEurope which is really one of the top initiatives of the Commission at the moment.
The question of how much Community funding we can channel into this programme was discussed in preparing the draft action plan which was presented to the Council and Parliament two weeks ago.
So far we have decided that the Commission will try to reallocate existing funds as far as possible to e-Europe priorities.
For my part, that includes particularly the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Development, especially information science and technology programmes and TED/Telecom.
They are particular actions which specifically try to strengthen the networks between research centres and regions in Europe which we want to finance from the research budget.
On the other hand, with the Commissioner responsible for structural funds we have drawn the attention of the Member Countries and the regions to the fact that information projects should be given high priority in those areas.
I wrote a letter with Mr Barnier to all regions of Europe on that issue.
We emphasised that in the knowledge-based society, investments in the infrastructure of eEurope are totally essential to guarantee the growth of jobs and also to have more efficient policies of cohesion because the digital economy information society means the death of distance.
So if the infrastructure is there, the importance of distance will be less.
Outside this issue, it is very much a question of the Member States.
What we want to do there is to agree at the European level on the objectives, in particular how to connect schools, how to increase the literacy of young people because the Internet comes to homes through children.
There the question is how to make this essential issue a priority for the Member States.
We are trying to combine efforts at the European level and the national level so that they will reinforce each other and so that Europe can really become a fully competitive information society and, at the same time, an information society which includes everyone.
I would thank the Commissioner for his answer.
I am delighted with this, and my feeling is that we think the same way on this question, which was framed before we had seen the preliminary budget.
I agree that the Commission' s draft budget provides openings which might make that document particularly interesting.
There are a number of areas I should like to draw attention to, in addition to those of regional, research and development policy, etc that the Commissioner himself mentioned.
One important area is that of educational initiatives, and it is perhaps especially important to prepare for the enlargement of the Union towards the East.
This is an incredibly important question when it comes to creating solidarity in Europe, not only among the present Member States but also among the candidate States, which are otherwise at great risk of falling behind in this context.
There is also, of course, the risk of rifts of this kind opening up within the European Union.
Where Parliament is concerned, we have used our Budget guidelines in order very clearly to designate this area as being one of high priority.
For this reason, I should like quite simply to put this question to the Commissioner: could we set up a very specific dialogue between the Commission and Parliament so as to try to come up with these resources no later than in next year' s budget?
Where the candidate States are concerned, I was delighted, a few weeks ago in Warsaw, to be able to participate in a major conference on the information society in which all the candidate States also took part and in which there was a great demand for cooperation between the EU and the candidate States.
We decided at that conference that we must try to adjust the Union' s action plan to the candidate States, too, and try to accumulate experience with a view to combating the threat of discrepancies arising between different countries.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to participate in discussions with Parliament with a view to strengthening the basis of the Union' s action plan.
I really do believe that this is a major priority for us now, and time flies.
We need to act quickly in order to be able to create a special European information society, broadly based in the sense of including everyone and excluding no one.
Commissioner, you said in your answer to Mr Färm that the Member States have a great responsibility in the implementation process with regard to eEurope.
The only problem they have, however, is not financing and its rechannelling, but the fact that national authorities as well need to be altogether more active in the implementation of the eEurope initiative.
You said today, when dealing with Mr van Velzen' s report, that subscriber line differentiation is, in your opinion, a very important part of the eEurope initiative.
Now, however, the telecommunications regulatory bodies in the British Isles, at least, have had huge problems establishing competition in local networks, although last Thursday we received a slightly more positive message from them.
How, then, does the Commission intend to persuade national regulatory authorities, too, to take a more active role and intervene in the market if they need to?
Mr President, Ms Kauppi is right when she says that subscriber line differentiation is a very important issue.
Only in that way can we increase competition at the last mile, which is from the centres to people' s homes, and, ultimately, that alone will be important when Internet charges are determined.
The Commission' s view was a three-stage plan of operation.
Firstly, we made a recommendation regarding a procedure to be followed in order to differentiate between subscriber lines.
Secondly, using the tools of competition policy, we shall investigate abuse of a dominant position in local networks.
Thirdly, we said that subscriber line differentiation will be a part of the new legislation.
At present, we are putting together a package on the new legislation.
The issue currently being considered is whether subscriber line differentiation could be introduced separately alongside the package and a prompt reading requested for it. It always takes time to debate a whole package of measures of this size.
We could perhaps adopt a faster procedure when debating special matters.
The Commission has not yet taken a decision, but serious consideration is being given to such a procedure.
Mr President, Commissioner, the auctions held in Great Britain have given the national coffers an enormous boost.
Do you think it would be possible to draw up a voluntary agreement, in conjunction with the Economics and Finance Council, with a view to agreeing a form of words covering both auctions and beauty contests, and then in future, spend a certain amount of the proceeds on the e-commerce sector? I have in mind a voluntary agreement, according to which 30% or 50% of the funds would be used for research, training and further education, and for new infrastructure.
I believe that in view of the fact that in Great Britain, the proceeds were approximately ten times higher than expected, people are now willing to think again about this revenue.
I believe now would be an opportune moment for the Commission to put forward proposals.
I would like to thank Mr Rübig for a very interesting idea, but I have followed the debate in those countries which have been going for auctions.
I have had the feeling that they already have very many ideas on how to spend the money.
The possibility of a solution at European level as to how this particular part of finance should be used, when only some countries are going for auctions, while others are using beauty contests, may be very difficult.
The issue of auctions will be carefully monitored.
We will monitor carefully in the context of the existing directives how the purpose of transparency, economic efficiency and affordability will be applied.
I am sure we will come back to this issue later.
Question No 38 by (H-0477/00):
Subject: Defence industries Given the importance of the defence industries as a driving force for technological research and job creation, particularly in SMUs, would the Commission indicate what action it has taken to follow up its previous communication on the future of the European Defence Industry and whether it will be publishing a new communication?
I want to thank Mr Titley for a question which is high on the preparatory agenda in the Commission at the moment.
We recognise that the competitiveness of the European defence industry is vital to our political and economic interests and also an additional element in the credibility of the European security and defence policy.
In addition, we must remember that the defence industry acts as a catalyst for growth and innovation in other industries, ranging from the high-tech, such as aerospace and information technology, to the more traditional industries, such as steel and shipbuilding.
The Commission's task is to promote the defence industry's competitiveness through exercising its competencies for policies such as the single market and external trade.
In December 1997, the Commission launched its work in this field by adopting a communication entitled "Implementing European strategy in the field of defence-related industries".
This document presented a 14-point action plan and at the same time encouraged the Council to adopt a common position on a European armaments policy.
However, we have not so far been able to make as much progress in implementing this strategy as we had hoped.
That is why at the moment the Commission is reflecting on how to revitalise this process in order to identify the immediate priorities for the Commission action to match the recent political and industrial progress.
This will allow us to assess the merits of a follow-up communication, refining and updating the earlier plan in order to take account of new subjects in the light of the recent changes and at the same time to accelerate some key measures presented in the 1997 paper.
I went through this 14-point action plan and I can really say that many of them are as typical today as they were in 1997.
Moreover, a number of important topics that were addressed only partially or not at all in the early action plan now deserve more attention.
These include security of supply, the offset practices in defence sales and also the treatment of intellectual property rights.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
In the last Commission this was a priority, it was an agenda being driven forward by Commissioner Bangemann, supported by Commissioner van den Broek.
Do I get the impression that this Commission has really lost interest in pursuing this initiative and that the Commission as a whole would prefer not to take this forward? It seems to me ironic, at a time when we are reconsidering our defence capacity, that we seem to have lost impetus on the restructuring of the defence industry.
In particular, is the Commission, despite its role as guardian of the Treaty, afraid to take on Member State governments over Article 296 in order to enforce the fact that many defence items should be subject to the single market?
Will the Commissioner reassure me that he intends to take the initiative in this area and not run away from it?
A few months ago I launched internal discussions in the Commission amongst the commissioners who have competence in this field, from the external sector to internal markets.
We are analysing what points of the action plan it is most important to tackle soon.
I hope that come the autumn we will be ready to report on what particular actions we are going to take.
This will be an important issue, and I agree with the honourable Member that after the recent changes, especially in the Helsinki Summit, these issues are even more important today.
Secondly, the political atmosphere in Europe is such that they do not actually create contradictory positions between the Member States.
Thirdly, the consultation which has taken place - and continues to take place - in the industry also reinforces the understanding that we need to use normal internal market instruments where possible.
That can create more competition, cut costs, make European companies more competitive and, at the same time, save defence budgets.
Since the time allocated to Questions to Commissioner Liikanen has elapsed, Questions Nos 39, 40 and 41 will be replied to in writing.
Questions to Mrs Reding
Question No 42 by (H-0438/00):
Subject: Legal basis for sport The European Union does not have competence in the sphere of sport because it is not included in the Treaty.
Can the Commission supply information about the negotiations for the inclusion of an article or a protocol in the Treaty?
Without a legal basis, how can we ensure that a budget is allocated specifically to sport each year, and avoid having to use other budget lines to develop measures in the field of sport?
It must be pointed out that, to date, the matter of including sport in the Treaty establishing the European Community, at the Intergovernmental Conference, has not been raised by any Member State or by the European Commission.
These are the parties with legal competence to do so, pursuant to Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union.
The Commission wishes to inform the honourable Member that, on the occasion of an informal meeting of Ministers for Sport, on 10 May in Lisbon, a number of delegations indicated that they were in favour of including sport in the Treaties establishing the European Community, while others were opposed to the idea.
There is a lack of agreement between Member States, even among Sports Ministers.
Mr President, I would nonetheless like to inform you of the comments made by Mr Lionel Jospin, the French Prime Minister, when making a governmental statement on the objectives of the forthcoming French Presidency.
Before the French National Assembly, he mentioned a statement which might be adopted at the European Council in Nice in order to assert the special nature and social role of sport within Community law.
Finally, the Commission has taken note of the declarations by sports organisations requesting some reference to sport in the Treaty.
The Commission has also noted that these requests differ as to the nature of the precise reference, in the sports world too, and we have acknowledged the autonomy of sports federations.
There is a lack of agreement.
Lacking a legal basis, it is clearly not possible to assign a specific budget line for sport.
On the other hand, the Commission is aware of the role played by sports organisations on the European social scene.
This is why many Community programmes are open for such organisations to take part.
In my own area of activity, for example, I can tell you that the relationship between Youth and Sport will be one of the areas focussed on in the forthcoming national and European youth conferences which are being held now in Member States and which, during the French Presidency, will be held in Paris.
What is more, next year, sport will be a priority objective in the Youth Programme.
I know that one of the themes adopted in the new Community Action Programme against discrimination is the elimination of obstacles due to discrimination impeding access to sport.
Even without a legal basis, then, we have continued to concern ourselves with sport and to invest in sport, which is an element of society with a very important social role.
Commissioner, I believe that we all agree on the importance of sport, its specific characteristics, its social function and the many areas in which we use it in the fight against racism and xenophobia.
It serves to bring people together because of the enjoyment it gives, of course, but also because of its educational role in relation to our young people.
Since we are very clear about this, both in Parliament as well as in the Commission - as the Commissioner has demonstrated on many occasions in her work in favour of sport - I would like her to continue working and convincing people so that sport may be included in one way or another in the Treaties and, thereby, we will be able to work for sport, in this Parliament and in the Commission, and we will have specific budgets for it.
Commissioner, you give a very full response.
I would have liked such a response to the written question which I sent to you.
Your answer simply referred me to the Commission's opinion on the IGC.
It is not acceptable for a Member of Parliament to take time to write a question and then to get a response from your services which is two lines long.
I can read documents.
I wanted your personal view on Mrs Zabell's question about legal issues.
We have a tradition with the Treaty of Amsterdam of using protocols to protect specific characteristics.
We could perhaps look at the potential of a protocol to protect the specific characteristic of sport in Europe.
There are many areas now where we have legal challenges, as you rightly know, in the sport domain, particularly in the commercial sector.
We could have a protocol that would allow us to give a political direction to authorities to take proper account of the specific nature and structure of sport in Europe.
Would you be prepared to back such a protocol and do you see a way for us to try and protect the specific nature of sport without, as Mrs Zabell asked, having a particular legal competence?
I should like, firstly, to apologise to the honourable Member if she finds that the written answer was not full enough.
I shall ensure that answers to written questions are more complete in future.
As far as the legal basis is concerned, obviously, since sport is not included as such in the Treaty, the Treaty must be interpreted rather broadly in order to find some legal basis.
Let me give you a concrete example.
In order to initiate a Community action in the context of the anti-doping campaign, we used inter alia the basis of texts relating to health, but there, too, the Member states, on the initiative of Sports Ministers, formed a committee to look into the best legal basis for the Commission' s anti-doping campaign.
As regards sport as a social activity, the Sports Ministers also set up a working party to investigate how they could reach agreement among themselves, because they do not necessarily always agree: there are some Member States that wish to promote sport, and others that do not wish to get involved, for reasons of subsidiarity.
We set up the working party among Sports Ministers in order to reconcile these conflicting points of view, because what we all want, in the end, is to restore the credibility of sport, to prioritise the idea of fair play, to allow young people to receive training in sport and, above all, to prevent abuses such as the sale of children, and damaging their health and bodies in sport, not to mention the economic abuses.
This, then, is a problem which, as you can see, we are tackling unremittingly.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have to be aware that the Member States must agree unanimously in order to introduce even a protocol, and that this is even truer in the case of an amendment to the Treaty.
If you wish to achieve something, then you must lobby your own governments.
As the author is not present, Question No 43 lapses.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 44 and 45 will be taken together.
Question No 44 by (H-0504/00):
Subject: CONNECT initiative The CONNECT initiative was launched in 1999 at the European Parliament's instigation.
Ninety-one of the 517 projects submitted have been co-financed by the Commission.
What is the Commission's assessment of the initiative's first year of operation?
Does the Commission consider that the CONNECT objectives and activities are sufficiently well incorporated into the new education and culture programmes?
If not, how can the discontinuation of the initiative with effect from 2002 be justified?
Question No 45 by (H-0505/00):
Subject: Future of the CONNECT initiative (education, culture and new technologies) The CONNECT initiative was launched in 1999, at the European Parliament' s instigation.
Since then, 91 of the 267 projects submitted have been co-financed by the Commission.
The latter has also created a CONNECT page on the Internet which is proving very useful and which gives the projects a high profile.
All of this demonstrated that the Commission has worked professionally and energetically and that the CONNECT initiative is achieving the objectives which the European Parliament set for it.
These innovative pilot schemes must therefore continue to be comprehensively monitored so that the sound practices they embody and the results they achieve can be maintained and extended.
How does the Commission intend to perform such monitoring in order to ensure that the excellent results achieved so far are maintained and improved?
We are not currently in a position to assess the results of the 91 projects cofinanced by the Commission, since the projects only started at the beginning of the year.
It is obvious that an assessment can only be made once some progress has been made in the projects.
So please allow me a little time, until autumn, before making an initial assessment of the progress made in the projects.
The Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes have taken account of the objectives of the Connect initiative, i.e. stepping up liaison and synergy between the fields of education, training, culture and innovation, with the involvement of new technologies, through their joint actions.
As part of these three programmes, the Commission has provided for the possibility of financing projects in the above fields in order to encourage and strengthen synergy.
The Commission therefore considers it too early in the day to plan the renewal of the Connect initiative for 2002 before we have checked the results.
So, let us give it some time and let the projects develop.
At the opportune moment, during autumn, we shall then consider the best plan of action in view of the experience gained.
Furthermore, the implementation of joint actions in 2001 will demonstrate promoters' interest in submitting projects.
I am very grateful for your reply, Commissioner, which, furthermore, contains reasonable arguments, and I am glad to see that the decision to remove CONNECT is not irreversible.
I must tell you that we have the opportunity to renew a budget line which is very successful and viable because, with a truly modest amount of money - as you have said - almost a hundred very interesting and innovative projects are being carried out.
My supplementary question is as follows: Do you not believe that, even if only provisionally, CONNECT should be renewed as a coordination programme for the other programmes?
Do you not believe that, if we remove CONNECT, it could be interpreted as a new milestone in the tendency for the issues within your competence to lose importance. I am beginning to suspect that this is what the Council intends: to see to it that all educational and cultural fields should lose importance.
Let me tell the honourable Member that I have absolutely no intention of getting rid of the essence of CONNECT.
I feel the content of CONNECT is extremely important, whatever it is called.
Indeed, to give you a specific example, I have just informed the French Presidency, which is planning to organise a major conference on the subject of "Learning about the history of Europe" , that there is a CONNECT project to do with learning about citizenship and European identity through history.
As you can see, it all hangs together.
The French Presidency has tabled this conference, which I feel is of the utmost importance, without thinking of CONNECT directly, but it is up to us to make the connection with the projects underway, because the content is of interest and because the content also points the way to the future.
In future, if we wish to make progress, we must add the development of new technologies to our list of priorities.
Commissioner, I would like to offer a brief reminder.
CONNECT saw the light of day with the 1999 budget, as a preparatory action covering 1999 to 2002. In fact, it was my baby.
I am therefore rather surprised - if your words have been translated properly - that no assessment has been carried out until now, because CONNECT should have begun and did begin, I am sure, at the beginning of 1999.
I am also sure, Commissioner, that there is currently not a single official or agent of the Commission dealing with the operation of the CONNECT programme, nor a single spokesperson for those organisations which are currently implementing projects.
I would be grateful if you could tell me how this situation can be reconciled with the reply that you have given.
Mr President, the Commission launched the CONNECT initiative in 1999 and since then, 91 of the 267 projects submitted have been cofinanced.
The Commission intends to make the most of the results and to disseminate them within the Member States.
In March 2000, the Commission therefore held an initial meeting with the project coordinators, which provided practical information on the projects as well as establishing contact between the coordinators in their respective areas of operation, since this too is extremely significant for future developments.
We do not want people working individually in their own exclusive areas, we want networks to be set up between coordinators, so that there will be follow-up.
We have already taken part in several European meetings organised by the coordinators to provide better guidelines for the projects.
The fact is, it is all well and good to draw up the initial plan for a project but, once it is underway, it often becomes clear that it must be redirected.
At that point, we redirect it if necessary, follow it up and assist in disseminating the contents of the project.
The Commission envisaged holding two other meetings in the near future in order to be able to monitor that the projects were being conducted properly, and to promote the implementation of the projects in national educational and cultural policy.
Finally, thanks to the scheduled interim reports which have been requested from the coordinators, we shall then be able to carry out an overall assessment in the autumn and to inform Parliament of the results of these initiatives and of any follow-up which may be required.
You may rest assured that Parliament will be consulted in deciding the nature of this follow-up.
Commissioner, I am grateful for your reply, but I still require some information. Am I right in thinking that right now there is not a single official or agent of the Commission dealing with the operation of this programme?
Mrs Anastassopoulos is in charge of these files. You surely do not imagine that there are 91 projects cofinanced by the Commission without a single official to deal with them.
This would be somewhat unrealistic, especially since - as I said - the essence of the CONNECT initiative is, I feel, most important.
That is why I have notified the French Presidency, urging it to include the groundwork already achieved in the CONNECT action in its own projects in future.
If I said as much to the French Presidency, it was not to put an end to it, but to continue along the same path.
Question No 46 by (H-0506/00):
Subject: European radio broadcasting Further to the public hearing on radio held on 24 May 2000, does the Commission intend to redefine the audiovisual sector in Community policies to include radio? Does it propose to carry out a detailed study of the radio-broadcasting sector in Europe and, if so, when?
Does it consider it expedient to create an appropriate statutory framework for the introduction of digital technology in European radio and does it consider that the argument put forward in its reply to my Question No 67.
H-0037/00 that Community action should be taken only in sectors displaying market failure is contrary to the principle of preventive action on which many Community policies are based? Does the Commission not consider that the introduction of a new technology such as digital technology is a commercial risk requiring Community support and that, therefore, radio broadcasting should be included in the MEDIA PLUS programme?
A public hearing on radio was held on 24 May 2000.
The question was: does the Commission intend to redefine the audiovisual sector in Community policies so as to include radio? Does it propose to carry out a detailed study of the radio-broadcasting sector in Europe and, if so, when?
Does it consider it expedient to create an appropriate statutory framework and how does digital technology fit into the picture? The honourable Member knows very well that the Commission welcomes the discussions held on 24 May 2000 because they confirmed the public support that radio enjoys.
We all know how popular local radio stations are in our Member States and so it is important to consolidate radio.
The meeting also helped to demonstrate that there is no confusion about the definition of the audiovisual sector and that radio has always been an integral and important part of the audiovisual scene, both culturally and financially.
But at the same conference, expert opinion indicated that a possible market failure may manifest itself in the period 2010 to 2015; and it is precisely this timescale which makes the approach of technological neutrality, which I have proposed to the Commission, the most appropriate one.
Given the rate at which technologies develop, we foresee that TV will enter the digital age first, followed only afterwards by radio.
The MEDIA PLUS programme is not intended to reduce commercial risk related to the introduction of digital technology in any sector, including the TV sector, and that is why MEDIA PLUS is totally unadapted to radio broadcasting.
Commissioner, your answer was most helpful.
Whether or not MEDIA PLUS also covers commercial risks is indeed an issue.
Of course, its justification is that it is supporting television so that it can introduce the new, digital technology.
The question is: why have you not found a way to support radio?
I tabled a question on a previous occasion to which you replied that radio probably has no problem.
However, at the public hearing which we held, all the interested parties stated that there is a problem.
And it is precisely the problem which you mentioned, i.e. that it is difficult for radio to introduce digital technology when it has no specific audience to address.
So there is a problem here.
It is not a question of commercial risk, it is a question of helping the whole sector to convert to the new technology.
Consequently, the question remains.
Do you intend to do anything, if not under MEDIA PLUS, then somewhere else, under some other programme, or are you leaving it until later, until you have seen how television does?
I should like to inform the honourable Member that MEDIA PLUS has no industrial aspect whatsoever.
It is aid for the distribution of European films beyond national frontiers.
This is not a problem that arises for radio which, generally speaking, is not transnational and therefore has no European dimension.
The problem which radio is probably going to face by 2010-2015, if you listen to the experts, is to do with the technological transition and infrastructure.
Many details in connection with this have not yet been clarified, for example, the reallocation of radio frequencies.
Would it be possible to reduce prices? Member States have not yet agreed what course to adopt, whether it be one involving terrestrial or satellite systems.
As you can see, there are still a great many problems to be solved at Member State level.
I do not rule out the possibility that one day we may realise the need for a technological directive and for industrial aid in the transition to digital.
For the moment, however, we have not yet decided on this together with the Member States because we are still a very long way off and there are still preliminary matters to be resolved.
Let me reiterate, however, Mr Papayannakis, that even for the transition to digital in the television sector, the only aid allocated is for training workers in the sector in digital technology, but this is very marginal: of the EUR 400 million allocated, only 50 million, and then only a small part of this 50 million.
Otherwise, MEDIA PLUS focuses on the promotion and distribution of European films, particularly in cinemas.
In this way, even then, the television aspect is not greatly affected.
If you have firm convictions and you want to make further arrangements for television and radio, then we should have to discuss this among ourselves and I should also have to discuss it with the Member States in order to determine whether there is a need for legislation on the subject.
Since the time allocated to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 47 to 82 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.44 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Historical liabilities from JRC nuclear activities
The next item is the report (A5-0159/2000), by Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on historical liabilities resulting from nuclear activities carried out at the JRC under the Euratom Treaty - Decommissioning of obsolete nuclear installations and waste management [COM(1999)114 - C5-0214/1999 - 1999/2169(COS)]
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the dismantling of obsolete nuclear installations and the correct treatment and final destination of the resulting radioactive waste are an issue of great industrial and environmental relevance within the debate on the future of the energy supply necessary for the world' s sustainable development.
Fortunately, we now have the necessary scientific and technological knowledge to ensure that these operations are carried out in conditions which are safe for the workers involved and for the public in general, and it is the role of the public authorities to supply the appropriate resources and ensure that the legislation in force in this field is respected.
To this end we should welcome the Commission' s document on the historical liabilities from the Joint Research Centre installations. This document establishes the financial and technical bases for the dismantling of obsolete nuclear installations and for the closing of others which are still operating, as well as for the final storage of the radioactive waste already generated and waste resulting from the proposed process.
The Commission' s document has been considerably improved and supplemented after its passage through this Parliament' s Industry Committee, and also as a result of the rigorous reports of the Committees on Budgets and the Environment.
In particular, I will mention six points in relation to which our parliamentary work has made particularly significant contributions.
Firstly, Parliament considers that a programme of this scope and duration cannot be left to the whim of each year' s budget.
Therefore, we ask the Commission and the Council to immediately begin a tripartite dialogue on this issue during which the three institutions will set a specific, stable and sufficient budgetary action line.
Of course, the expenditure incurred cannot in any way jeopardise the funds destined for research within the successive framework programmes.
Given that this point, Commissioner, is, if you will pardon the expression, the weakest in the document, and recognising that with in the current financial perspective there is no easy solution to it, I would ask you to make a clear statement about this in your speech.
Secondly, the Member States that are affected must fully participate in the development of the programme, since this will be implemented subject to the respective legislation on nuclear safety and radiological protection.
Thirdly, all the operations must be carried out in a totally transparent manner, in such a way that the workers who participate in them, and the populations in neighbouring areas, are fully and reliably informed and, of course, listened to.
Fourthly, the experience gained and the technological advances which stem from these operations must be taken advantage of in similar situations in the applicant countries, who should be persuaded to participate in them by means of the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
Fifthly, Parliament will monitor the programme in detail by means of receiving an exhaustive and accurate annual report.
Sixthly, a committee of external independent experts will advise the Joint Research Centre and assess the technical quality and safety guarantees of the programme during its development.
I would not like to conclude without acknowledging the loyal cooperation of the staff of the Joint Research Centre, who have constantly gone out of their way to provide the information requested of them, as well as the valuable contributions of the various Members of Parliament with whom I have maintained useful and constructive exchanges of view, in particular Mrs McNally, Mrs Ahern, Mrs Maes and Mrs Buitenweg.
Despite the fact that any issue relating to the nuclear industry is inevitably controversial and hindered by excessive emotion, the fact that the final agreement on the text which the Industry Committee has communicated to Parliament has been unanimous, provides a measure of the maturity and responsibility of this House when it comes to supporting an objective which is both desirable and urgent: a definitive, safe and clean solution with regard to the nuclear installations which have come to the end of their useful life.
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I would for once prefer not to talk about the level of finance requested but about the financing method which has been put forward.
Indeed, the Commission is proposing a very strange method of financing the estimated needs.
Instead of setting aside funds within a budget line, it suggests finding the necessary finance from money which was originally intended for other purposes but which was not actually spent.
As the rapporteur, with whom I worked extremely well, has already remarked himself, this is an extremely peculiar financing method, and I can think of at least three reasons why this is so.
Firstly, the safety of current and future generations cannot be made dependent on the fact that there may be some money left over somewhere.
Secondly, it is giving the Commission a very ambiguous message. Indeed, the budget authority decides on how much money should be spent on certain matters, but hopes at the same time that some money will be left over for something as important as decommissioning nuclear plants.
Finally, this financing method is also at odds with the principle of transparency.
Indeed, it is not made clear how much money is reserved for decommissioning activities.
The rapporteur claims in his report that the nuclear plants in question have been operated for decades with a view to providing direct support to the nuclear industry, which has been able to make use of the results free of charge.
Is it a coincidence that there is little transparency in such a contentious area of policy?
The Committee on Budgets has rejected this working method.
As already indicated, it proposed to convene a trialogue and to include the solution which emerges from this exercise in the budget procedure for 2001.
Moreover, this trialogue can also serve to plug a democratic hole. Indeed, the budget instrument can serve as a big stick in order to secure a say in the programme content.
I hope that Parliament can support this proposal made by the Committee on Budgets.
Madam President, we should be delighted that the Commission is at last intending to deal in a general and in-depth way with the problem of the decommissioning of the obsolete nuclear installations of the Joint Research Centre and the management of radioactive waste.
We should also be concerned, however, at the conditions in which this initiative is being undertaken, very late in the day, on the basis of partial information and in the utmost confusion regarding the funding of this action programme, despite its urgent and important nature.
Not only are there no budget provisions, but the regulations in force mean that financing arrangements are particularly uncertain.
There were no provisions, even though all this was anticipated long ago. We have been aware, ever since the nuclear installations were built, that one day they would have to be decommissioned and that this would not be a simple matter.
So the fact that there are no provisions is indicative of the fact that no one wanted to make provisions for this so as not to undermine the pro-nuclear dogma.
The Commission communication provides an opportunity for us to prioritise as a matter for concern the issue of the decommissioning of nuclear installations, a matter of the utmost topicality of direct concern to the European Union, its Member States and the candidate countries, not just the JRC and the Commission, an already highly topical matter which is going to become ever more urgent in years to come.
This is why we consider it so important that Parliament should be kept fully informed in order to have all the facts at its disposal when debating the matter.
The Commission communication makes the pertinent comment that the Euratom Treaty, signed in 1957, envisaged the establishment and rapid growth of the nuclear sector.
The time has now come, however, to decommission the installations in this sector.
Clearly, then, this Treaty and the role assigned to the EAEC have now also proved to be truly obsolete.
While the European Union must respond, above all, to the problem of historical liabilities deriving from nuclear activities, then we consider it a matter of urgency to re-evaluate the Euratom Treaty and the role of the EAEC in the course of the negotiations currently in progress within the context of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Madam President, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca, for drafting an excellent report.
The dismantling of obsolete reactors and the disposal of spent fuel are essential to the future of Europe' s nuclear research and energy sector.
Nuclear power is currently the most important and versatile form of energy production and will remain so far into the future.
For example, in addition to normal production, many modern plants can utilise the plutonium that would have been used for nuclear weapons prior to decommissioning.
Serious research into renewable energy sources is possible when we have another form of cheap energy at our disposal.
Assurance of nuclear safety is one of the most important preconditions of the Union' s enlargement eastwards.
Both the candidate countries and the Union have to work hard, via the TACIS and PHARE programmes, for example, to make sure that obsolete and disused nuclear plants can be made environmentally safe in a sustainable way.
This, however, must be done in a controlled way.
Calls for the dismantling of plants in Eastern Europe which are obsolete but which are in working order may lead to an uncontrollable downward spiral in the energy sector.
Nobody wants to drive the countries of Eastern Europe into a situation where they are completely dependent on imported energy.
We must invest more in the disposal of radioactive waste.
For example, several years of effort have been made in Finland to solve the problem of disposal.
A sustainable model for a solution already exists.
I hope that the political will to grapple with this issue as swiftly as possible will be found elsewhere in Europe.
Madam President, I extend my thanks to Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca for the way in which he undertook his role as rapporteur and the way in which he involved those of us who were shadows on behalf of our groups.
It was an exemplary way of setting about proceeding on what is a very difficult issue.
Of course with hindsight this is something which should have been considered long ago.
However, the European Commission and the Joint Research Centre have listened to the comments made by the European Parliament about this matter of concern.
I accept that they are trying their very best to put forward a solution which enables them - who know as well as anyone else the seriousness of the situation - to tackle this problem.
The methodology, however, is quite inadequate and can only be very temporary.
We have this historical liability but, colleagues, this is not something that can possibly be funded from current research.
This is not current research.
We would be stealing money from research programmes which are badly needed and a top priority for the European Union if we financed the decommissioning from that budget That would be a completely incorrect use of research funds.
These installations are the property and liability of the whole of the European Community, not uniquely of the research programmes.
Conclusion 9 spells that out most clearly, and I fully support it.
The traditional budgetary procedure is inadequate and inappropriate for the reasons that have been stated by colleagues.
Not least, it is far too uncertain for a very important task like this.
The trialogue is urgently needed.
I support Amendment No 20 which says that the present situation, the present conclusion, is adequate for this year only.
That means that we must have a trialogue meeting called within days after the passing of Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca's report.
We must ask the chair of our committee, the Commission and the Council to get together before the summer so that a solution can be found for next year's budget.
This work must be done in the safest possible conditions.
We cannot have any corners cut in an area where it would actually be dangerous to do so.
It must be done properly and properly financed; no cutting down on the amount of cooling time.
Certainly not!
We face a time-bomb in the Joint Research Centre: the imminent loss of very many skilled people who have the knowledge from their time at the Joint Research Centre.
Those people are getting older and will retire.
We have to have emergency measures to ensure that people with the appropriate skills are brought into the workforce at the Joint Research Centre.
Of course we must look at the historical liabilities, but I urge colleagues to support Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca's report.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report on this extremely complex issue.
Mr President, the nuclear plants in the joint research centres date back to the 60s and were intended to provide direct support to the European nuclear industry.
These installations, therefore, should not be considered research installations in the sense that is understood today.
It should not, therefore, be the case that the Fifth Framework Programme should single-handedly carry the cost of decommissioning.
But the proposed alternative, namely to dip into budget lines which have not been used over the year, demonstrates how little insight there is into the budget discipline.
It begs the question how seriously we take ourselves if, every year, we need to look for any left-over funding in order to clean up the nuclear legacy. And how seriously will the electorate take us if we deal with public health and taxpayers' money in this way?
My group will therefore support Amendment No 12 in order, in consultation with the Council and Commission, to reach a final budget decision for 2001 onwards.
In addition, my group is of the opinion that we should not only find a budget for installations which are out of action.
We should already make provision for the future decommissioning of plants which are still in operation at the moment.
Mr President, my group is concerned that in a number of Member States, notably Italy where most plants are located, legislation on the storage of nuclear waste is still in its infancy.
This can lead to complications during decommissioning activities and can also result in additional financial problems.
Also, it goes to show once again that the drafting of minimum safety standards with regard to the design, construction, operation and decommissioning of nuclear reactors within the European Union is a matter of extreme urgency.
I have also suggested including this in the Euratom Treaty at the forthcoming IGC negotiations in Nice.
Madam President, the issue of the decommissioning of nuclear waste is a very serious one.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca, for his conscientious approach and his efforts to reach agreement on an issue of such sensitivity for our citizens.
Agreement is not consensus, as political groups and indeed Member States differ strongly on nuclear matters.
Nevertheless we can agree on the necessity of dealing with decommissioning and the safe handling of nuclear waste as an urgent requirement.
Nuclear power is not sustainable and should not be promoted, as it still is under the outdated Euratom Treaty which goes back, as has been said, to 1957, and which aggressively promotes nuclear power but does not adequately protect the public health of our citizens.
It is not subject to the democratic control of the European Parliament because it is not part of the treaties of the European Union.
However, the European Parliament has a budgetary role, which is why the Commission's budgetary proposals are not acceptable.
We can only accept it for the year 2000 pending a more correct budgetary solution in 2001.
On nuclear waste it is important to emphasise that no solution has been found.
Only certain Member States create nuclear waste, and these are the states that should therefore pay for dealing with it.
Finally, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur for proposing to convene a trialogue so that the European Parliament can play an appropriate role in managing in a sound manner, as Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca has indicated, our terrible legacy of nuclear waste which future generations will have to deal with and which, with its dreadful effects, can devastate all life on earth.
There are obsolete nuclear power plants all over the EU, not just the ones that we are considering with the JRC.
This has important implications for the future, so that we can deal soundly with the situation.
I thank the Commission for its proposals in general and, in particular, Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca, for the way he has involved colleagues in trying to find a solution to this problem.
This report, on which I congratulate the rapporteur, is one further chapter in the debate on nuclear safety during which public concern about the safety of old and run-down installations, particularly in the new applicant countries of central and eastern Europe is highlighted.
In the absence of appropriate assurances on safety, the relevance of the nuclear industry to a changing world economy and environment is likely to continue to be a controversial issue.
There is a growing unease even with the safest and most modern facilities about our increasing dependence on nuclear energy.
Already we have examples of new installations not being commissioned and a re-examination of policy by some Member States.
With regard to European policy and its relevance to Member States, I believe we should introduce a period of reflection before embarking on further dependence on nuclear energy.
We are living in a time of increasing awareness of the environment and public health.
On these issues, the public are seeking assurances beyond reasonable doubt.
This is their entitlement and in the light of the many failures and accidents in the nuclear industry, I am not satisfied that they can feel safe with what is happening.
The decision last week to close Chernobyl is belatedly welcome.
There is now no credible reason for any further delay in closing the Sellafield installation, which has one of the worst safety records in the industry.
The impact of Sellafield on public health and the environment is now a matter of fact.
The sordid history of management and attempts to conceal serious accidents are a matter that cannot be taken lightly particularly in Ireland where our people are exposed to serious risks with no redress as far as decisions on safety are concerned.
Madam President, for years, the nuclear industry has been able, at no extra cost, to draw on the knowledge and results which nuclear plants have provided within the framework of the Joint Research Centre (JRC).
Now that these plants have reached the end of their working life, we are left with the legacy of decommissioning these plants.
Recital C of the resolution of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy states that Europe boasts a high level of expertise when it comes to decommissioning nuclear plants.
The European Commission communication, however, shows that this does not go much beyond managing old nuclear plants and storing radioactive waste.
A problem in this respect is the fact that the total decommissioning process takes up several decades.
It will therefore be some time before we have learned from practical experience how to decommission old nuclear plants.
In addition, there is no solution in sight as to how to solve the problem of radioactive waste.
It will be evident that this state of affairs also has a bearing on finances.
The European Commission suggests transferring the funds of the R&D budget, which might not be spent, to a new heading intended for decommissioning.
This raises the suspicion that decommissioning is seen as unimportant.
In my opinion, this is a gross underestimation of the cost of decommissioning.
It also implies that the price charged for electricity generated by nuclear energy is too low.
If you ask me, it would, in summary, seem more appropriate if industry and the Member States, which have also enjoyed the fruits of the JRC, were to carry the cost of decommissioning.
Madam President, I recently visited the JRC at Ispra and it served to remind me firstly of the great amount of good work across the wide range of research activity that is carried out there and, secondly, of the historical legacy from the site's origins as a nuclear research facility.
In particular, I saw the need to open up stores of waste which were deemed fit some decades ago and met the requirements of the time, but now do not meet our current high standards.
We must bear in mind that times change and the standards change with them.
I note that the procedure proposed by the Commission for the financing of the decommissioning and waste management work on the research reactors has a familiar ring to it.
It sounds rather like the Tomlinson procedure which was adopted for financing Parliament's building in Brussels.
That was by transferring unexpended funds in odds and ends of budget lines on a year-by-year basis.
So, perhaps colleagues should be cautious before we criticise this proposal.
I recognise the widespread view that funds should not be taken from research lines under the Fifth Framework and that research money should not be used for this purpose.
I see a certain irony in such thoughts coming from those people who also demand the internalisation of external costs, i.e. the inclusion of decommissioning costs in the overall cost structure, when the procedure now put before us is pretty much the same thing.
I support the proposal for a trialogue. It seems the sensible approach.
The work must be done and has to be paid for somehow.
I am very sorry to hear colleagues propagating ancient myths like "no solution has been found for dealing with nuclear waste".
I am afraid Mrs Ahern has lost contact with the facts in this matter because she is quite wrong in her statement, and we should not let such myths distract us from the issue at hand.
Madam President, first of all I should like to thank my fellow Member, Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca, for his efforts, particularly with regard to consultation: he took a good number of our proposals and amendments into consideration.
The JRC' s nuclear activities present us, however, with a twofold problem: that of reducing this type of activity, on the agenda now more than at the time the JRC was set up under the aegis of Euratom, and the problem of the historical liabilities from nuclear activities involving the matter of decommissioning, at an estimated cost of more than EUR 500 million, all told, though there is every possibility that this gross figure has been underestimated, as is generally the case in nuclear matters.
Moreover, although four JRC sites are concerned (Ispra, Karlsruhe, Vienna and Petten), there are still six of the fifteen Member States (Ireland, Luxembourg, Denmark, Greece, Portugal and Austria) that do not benefit from this research.
This whole business has a past history, a historical context which, as the very title of the report indicates, merits serious analysis, both of the origin of the research and of the transfers effected from various countries to the JRC.
This is why, in the first place, we are not in favour of dealing with the problem of cost as a side issue.
Using appropriations that have not been used may prove an incentive not to use all research appropriations in order to be able to invest them in decommissioning.
Secondly, a serious reassessment must be made of the research appropriations and the cost of research in relation to decommissioning and of the consequent impact on the cost of nuclear energy, which must also be re-evaluated.
Thirdly, we are therefore in favour of Kathalijne Buitenweg' s proposal to set up a specific budget line and to determine this by a trialogue.
We should like, however, to draw the Commission' s attention to the fact that problems exist not only in terms of the budget, but there are also technical problems, and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has useful points to make in this trialogue.
Decommissioning operations are not compatible with the principle of annual budget payments and all the countries have appropriate internal procedures.
The objective of the trialogue is therefore to reach an agreement between the three institutions on an appropriate regulation which will serve as a legal basis for financing the operations.
Only on this condition, which must lead us to make proposals for the 2001 budget, will we accept the interim measures for the current budget.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Vidal-Quadras on his excellent report, and point out that the Joint Research Centres at which decommissioning of installations and management of nuclear waste are planned, in particular the Ispra centre, are located in densely populated areas, and the environmental characteristics and quality of life of these areas must not be jeopardised in any way.
We must therefore not only carry out the operations in the strictest observance of the current safety rules but we must also be able to reassure the local population that the operations will be of the highest quality, and they must therefore be based on the greatest respect for the quality of the whole of the environment and human life.
The Commission can no longer shirk its responsibilities, which are now being diluted in the internal debate between the Commissioners on how to finance the operations, but it must guarantee definite, substantial, appropriate, continued financial support for the decommissioning and management programme, ensuring the success of the entire operation in the medium term.
As Parliament has already stated, the deactivation of obsolete installations and waste management will have to be financed from dedicated funds, not from capital intended to fund research.
At the moment, Europe is having to expand its research and technological development capacities, particularly but not exclusively in the field of the new technologies we have discussed today, but also with a view to closing the gap between Europe and its competitors, the greatest of which are the United States and Japan.
I am also concerned by the uncertainty which clouds the action programme, in terms of the final storage of the waste.
As we are aware, the rules and regulations which apply are the responsibility of the Member States on whose territory the Joint Research Centres lie, but the legislation in some States, particularly in Italy, on the final storage of waste is still at the preparation stage.
The absence of national regulations and the uncertainty regarding the actual volume of waste may create fresh financial problems which will have to be taken into consideration.
Madam President, first of all I should like to join all the others who have congratulated Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca on his report, which is comprehensive, moderate and intelligent, and I think this is worth emphasising.
I should also like to thank the Commission for issuing this communication very promptly.
The problem before us today has been at the forefront of the discussions we have had during debates on the Fifth Framework Programme.
What we must be aware of - and many of you are unaware of this - is that for a long time this problem has effectively deadlocked any agreement on the Fifth Framework Programme because the Council wanted both to reduce the appropriations for the JRC while at the same time paying all the costs of decommissioning, as it were.
Today, we are clearly in a situation where the Commission has come up with a budgetary instrument to at last start decommissioning and, in spite of everything, to undertake the necessary action on waste, but in a climate of great uncertainty, as the Commission knows well.
So, as we have been quite rightly saying again and again, what we have to do is organise a trialogue as quickly as possible and find a legal basis, i.e. a regulation that makes it possible to provide multiannual financing for a concerted programme in this area.
Not only does it need to be done, but it needs to be done quickly.
This matter, Madam President, must be added to the current budgetary trialogue negotiations and I should like you to draw the attention of the President of Parliament, Mrs Fontaine, to this. I should also like the chairman of the parliamentary Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy to make his fellow chairman on the Committee on Budgets aware of this.
Discussions have to start now, not in three or four months' time.
To conclude, I should like to make a historical point regarding Euratom.
People have criticised and are still criticising the Euratom Treaty.
We should be aware that the Euratom Treaty was the first example of a treaty offering protection to the public.
It is thanks to the 1957 Euratom Treaty that we in Europe have the highest level of nuclear supervision and protection in the world.
It warrants praise rather than brickbats.
What is obsolete about it is the fact that there is a treaty specifically for nuclear energy.
What we need to do tomorrow is incorporate this treaty, as it stands, into the European Community Treaty.
Madam President, this week, Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca has reaped the benefits of the dialogue, as have we.
I hope that he will promote this dialogue at every given opportunity.
In any event, I would like to thank him for his report.
We are talking about the management of the nuclear legacy, Commissioner, but legacy usually implies a gain and you can refuse it if you so wish.
This legacy, however, cannot be refused.
We are lumbered with it and will have to deal with it in some way or another.
As one of the old opponents of nuclear energy, precisely because of those unresolved issues, I am not speaking with a sense of satisfaction but more with a sense of: "You see, we told you so all along" . We are lumbered with this legacy and it is not fair, really, to saddle future generations with problems.
I would, however, like to make one comment regarding the report.
If Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca says that possible lasting solutions have not yet been implemented, I cannot agree with him, because I do not consider the storage of this waste a solution.
From this point of view, I also beg to differ with Mr Chichester.
I think that a genuine solution has not been found or cannot be found.
As far as the Euratom Treaty is concerned, I would go along with what you are saying, Mr Desama, but I would press for a critical overhaul of the Euratom Treaty, maybe on the Commissioner' s initiative.
In that way, we could see how an incorporated treaty would have to be reviewed, as I find your proposal highly interesting from this point of view.
I would also argue for a programme for decommissioning which is not modelled on too narrow-minded views and for our, as from now, taking into consideration the problems of our future partner countries, as we will have to deal with their legacies from the past too.
Finally, I would like to expressly ask the Commissioner whether he would be prepared to publish the internal audit report of 28 April 1998, because, at the end of the day, there is little precise information available.
I would, therefore, also ask whether the NIRAS [Belgian Institute for Radioactive Waste and Fissionable Materials] report on cost development could be published, for example.
In my opinion, it is absolutely vital to achieve this transparency which our fellow delegates are pressing for, so that, in future, we can have nuclear energy pay for its legacy.
Madam President, the Commission has undertaken a courageous initiative and I would like to express my support for the excellent Vidal-Quadras report on the need to deal transparently with the problems raised by the historical liabilities resulting from nuclear research carried out at the Joint Research Centre - the need to decommission obsolete installations and manage radioactive waste.
I would stress certain points which have been already been touched upon several times, starting with the premise that essential health and environmental obligations must always take precedence over economic objectives, although these cannot be disregarded.
It must be recognised that, for some time, the comparison between the cost of the different sources of energy has been distorted by underestimation of the cost of decommissioning the installations and waste management.
Therefore, the cost of decommissioning nuclear installations must not be taken solely from European Union resources but must also be the responsibility of the Member States which are involved in the construction of installations.
In terms of the budget, the cost must not be taken from the research heading but a separate line should be created, as has been suggested.
Europe must use this undertaking to gain fresh experience which will allow it to tackle the extremely serious issues regarding the ex-Soviet Union and the countries of the East which are candidates for enlargement.
These territories contain many nuclear power stations which will have to be closed or decommissioned in forthcoming years.
We must avoid the repetition of tragedies such as Chernobyl, the consequences of which have still not all become manifest, particularly with a view to the future lives of the communities affected by that disaster.
Madam President, I too congratulate Mr Vidal-Quadras on his report on the decommissioning of nuclear installations and waste management.
However, it has to be said that the current situation of the Joint Research Centres, particularly the situation of the Ispra site, is the result of a past policy which did not take the problem of the disposal of nuclear waste into due account.
The issue of the safe disposal of the waste is, to say the least, worrying.
We need a specific and - in my opinion - short or medium-term project to promote the safety of the citizens who live in those territories and the surrounding environment.
It might be useful, in this regard, to capitalise on the experiences of the other countries of the Union, for example, England, Germany and France, where, although the disposal issue has not been completely resolved, it has been targeted for some time now.
In a country such as Italy, in particular, where there is no specific legislation, we will have to rely on the abilities of the Ispra research scientists for the disposal of radioactive waste from that site.
I tabled two questions on the Ispra issue but I did not receive satisfactory responses.
I, too, call for the 1998 Commission internal audit report to be made public so that a comprehensive, exhaustive assessment of the issue can be made.
I feel that there is a need for Parliament' s voice of democracy to be genuinely heeded in this case, so that we can guarantee to the local communities that they will not be in any danger.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank Parliament and in particular its Vice-President, Mr Vidal-Quadras, for this high-quality report.
I should also like to pay tribute to the sense of responsibility displayed by the Members of Parliament today in relation to a complex problem.
Finally, I should like to express my pleasure at the support which Parliament is offering the Commission' s initiative to launch this action programme in difficult overall circumstances, as you have highlighted.
Before getting to the heart of the matter, I should like to respond to three Members of Parliament, Mr Lang, Mrs Maes and Mr Mantovani, on the matter of the internal audit report for the Joint Research Centre of 28 April 1998.
With reference to this subject, I shall simply say that this is no more than a draft report which has not been accepted by both sides, which may be surprising given that it is now the year 2000 and the report dates back to 1998, but I am only noting the fact.
As to the report then, I shall simply say that it concerns the problem before us today and much more, since it concerns all the activities of the Joint Research Centre.
A number of points raised in this report have already been answered.
Having said that, I share your wish for transparency and I would like to inform you that this draft report and the subsequent exchange of letters have been officially conveyed to the chairmen of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
I can only suggest that you familiarise yourselves with these documents, and I shall remain available to discuss the matter.
I consider transparency to be absolutely crucial and I share your feeling on this.
The documents are available and we are available to discuss them.
Let me remind you, however, that this is a draft audit report which has not been subject to examination by both parties.
I shall now come to the report before the House this evening. All these problems, as you have pointed out, are due to the infrastructure and installations built under the Euratom Treaty in the early 1960s, in the face of the European Atomic Energy Community, in order to further the development of nuclear energy.
Most of these installations have now been shut down and have become obsolete, and they have been maintained in a secure state pending decommissioning.
It must be stressed that they are currently being kept in a secure state with a view to decommissioning in future.
It is, indeed, generally accepted that this delaying strategy, which has also been implemented by many Member States, is in fact extremely costly and that faster decommissioning would make it possible to manage the sites and the waste generated, as well as the available resources, better.
The Commission therefore decided to initiate an action programme to tackle, in a general and in-depth fashion, the decommissioning of obsolete installations and the management of the waste generated since the 1960s.
Indeed, I attach particular importance to the Community' s assuming the responsibilities arising as a result of the nuclear activities carried out in the Joint Research Centre at the start of the Euratom Treaty.
The ultimate objective of the action programme is to enable the land and buildings concerned to be reassigned for non-nuclear use, level 3 of the recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
This is a process which must, as you have pointed out, respect the environment and the health of the population, but one which will extend over around fifteen years at a cost which may be in excess of some EUR 230 million.
Indeed, this sum applied only to installations already shut down.
Initial calculations of the costs of the future decommissioning of installations still being used for research suggest additional costs of EUR 220 million.
Implementation of this action programme has already started.
It is being carried out under the supervision of the Joint Research Centre, which is providing its experience and the personnel necessary, and with the assistance of a committee of independent experts from the Member States.
When I say independent, I mean not only independent of the Joint Research Centre but also independent of industrial interests, since this is a problem that has been mentioned.
I now come to the most sensitive and problematic aspect of the matter: financing.
The solution which the Commission adopted initially, as you mentioned, was to use the appropriations from heading 3 that remained at the end of the year by means of a transfer subject to the budgetary authority.
As the Committee on Budgets pointed out, however, this is not really an appropriate solution, and I am willing to acknowledge this, for a long-term programme.
The fact remains that this proved to be the only way to get the programme under way after twenty years of waiting and two refusals by the Council and the European Parliament to finance these operations form the research budget, which I find perfectly understandable.
So this initial solution was adopted as a pragmatic option.
I accept that Parliament, in its capacity as budgetary authority, was unhappy with this, but I thank the House for its understanding and for authorising, as I said in December, this initial step forward.
Obviously, from a personal point of view, I would prefer a much more structural solution, as you stressed in your report, and in your proposal to convene a trialogue you are sending out a clear message: the matter is specific and sensitive enough to warrant being examined by experts from the three institutions.
Indeed, I share Mr Desama' s opinion in requesting that this trialogue should be convened as quickly as possible.
This is what we want, and, I think, what Parliament wants too.
We have every reason to adopt a pragmatic and responsible approach.
This is the approach Parliament favours and which I myself favour, and the Commission is already looking into the options which might be put before the trialogue in order to avoid the pitfalls inherent in this type of activity.
This may lead us to investigate an approach which bypasses the constraints of annual budgetary payments, as you pointed out.
Moreover, in the preliminary draft budget 2001, the Commission has already made proposals in line with the concerns expressed by Parliament, particularly regarding specific budget lines.
I think this is a matter to be discussed in the trialogue but also with the Committee on Budgets to ensure that the budget for 2001 can already include the first "positive transactions" on the subject.
Finally, I noted a number of requests from Members of Parliament, particularly the legitimate request for greater transparency.
Let me tell you, to this end, that the Internet site requested is already operational. This is not a problem.
Any citizen who so wishes can find information on the subject. Generally speaking, the necessary internal arrangements have already been made in the Joint Research Centre so that it can fulfil its role as the awarding authority fully and effectively and can assume total control of the external firms carrying out the main body of the work.
Finally, we are left with the legitimate question of what is to become of the installations that are still operating.
Mrs Plooij van-Gorsel spoke of this.
The Commission does not wish to dodge the issue, as it specified in its communication.
The Commission also mentioned that the solutions adopted by Member States are not easy to apply at Community level.
I should therefore be very much in favour of the trialogue tackling this question too: not just the matter of the installations already shut down but also that of the installations still operating, which will probably present a problem at some point in future.
Whatever the case, I must thank Parliament for its interest and for its responsible proposals.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I think our President will have taken note of the joint requests from the Commission and Members of Parliament that a trialogue should be convened in short order, and I shall not fail to alert her to the fact.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Restrictions for products subject to excise duties (Sweden)
The next item is the report (A5-0160/2000) by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Council directive 92/12/EEC of 25 February 1992 as regards temporary quantitative restrictions for products subject to excise duties brought into Sweden from other Member States [COM(2000)295 - C5-0260/2000 - 2000/0118(CNS)]
Madam President, I would first of all like to make it clear that I am all for the further completion of the internal market, that is to say the removal of obstacles facing EU citizens in the area of free movement of goods, services and capital.
I also welcome Commissioner Bolkestein' s dynamic approach in this respect.
This development results in great economic expansion and has led to more prosperity in Europe. Also, the free movement of goods within the Union has become something which both citizens and industry take for granted.
There will undoubtedly be Swedish consumers who will benefit, and also find pleasure, from the Commission proposal once beer, wine and spirits, ranging from whisky and brandy to lesser products such as gammeldansk, shellfish in brine and Beerenburg, are more readily available.
There is, therefore, no doubt in my mind as to the general benefits of the internal market.
Despite this, I also have the impression that it is unsatisfactory to treat alcohol only as an issue which concerns the internal market or agricultural policy, as has often been the case.
This is clearly an issue which also has major public health implications.
The main focus in the discussion on the internal market' s further liberalisation and completion is the economic goal of banishing unfair competition.
The aspect of a high level of public health and consumer protection, as expressly included in Article 95 (3) of the Treaty, is sometimes overlooked although it forms an essential part of the European treaties.
The European Community will need to carve itself a role in the increasing cooperation between Member States in collating data and exchanging expertise and best practices.
Across the Union, we will also need to take into consideration the less attractive aspects of alcohol use, which also, unfortunately, exist.
This is also in line with the pledge which the European Union made with regard to the World Health Organisation.
Last year, all Member States agreed to back the second European alcohol action plan drafted by the WHO.
It means that, by the year 2005, all European countries must have drafted a tax policy which contributes to a reduction in alcohol-related accidents.
The action plan also underlines the huge need for a higher minimum tax for alcohol in the EU as part of a general health strategy.
I understand that the Swedish Presidency will be organising a conference on this subject in Stockholm in early 2001.
It is therefore difficult to overlook the significance of the fiscal aspect in this connection.
It has transpired that not only the fiscal instrument greatly impacts on total consumption, but that the tax level in a particular Member State also has a bearing on the neighbouring countries.
Sweden is greatly affected by the excise level in Denmark which, in turn, is greatly influenced by Germany.
In the United Kingdom, people cross the Channel to France on a massive scale to stock up on alcohol.
The Commission has now levelled criticism at Sweden because the excise on wine is apparently too high in comparison with the excise on beer.
Beer is produced in Sweden.
But it is, of course, interesting in this connection to note that seven or so wine-producing EU Member States still apply a zero tax rate to wine.
In principle, fiscal measures are a matter governed by national sovereignty. But in order for the internal market to operate most effectively, Member States should strive for a higher degree of coordination in prescribing excise levels for alcoholic beverages.
Mr President, the general benefits to be had from the internal market are beyond dispute.
It is nonetheless unsatisfactory to treat alcohol only as an issue which concerns the internal market because it quite clearly has major social and public health implications, as well as implications for consumer protection.
The government should not act as a moralist and the moderate use of alcohol poses no problem whatsoever, of course. It even has beneficial effects on health.
But the use of alcohol which leads to fatalities on the roads, violence within the family and such like is not just a Swedish phenomenon by a long chalk.
Public health and consumer protection should form an integral part of the European agenda, and it is encouraging that the European Parliament seems to be heading in this direction.
The step-by-step abolition of restrictions, as proposed by the European Commission, gives the Swedish authorities the time to introduce alternative measures in order to address the problem of alcohol.
Madam President, the Scandinavian countries present us with a difficult problem with their repeated requests for derogations known as "Nordic derogations" regarding the importation of products subject to excise duties, particularly wine and beer.
In this way, Sweden enjoys a derogation to this fundamental right, which we prize and which is one of the major rights acquired under the single market, enjoyed by the citizens of the Community, to carry goods bought for their own personal consumption from one point within the Community to another, without having to pay additional taxes.
This derogation, which concerns alcoholic drinks and tobacco products, was extended until 30 June this year back in 1996, and will, according to the Commission' s proposal, have to be extended once again until 2003.
If this were not to be the case, then, in exactly 17 days, European citizens resident in Sweden would find themselves on an equal footing with citizens in the majority of Member States, who can purchase alcohol and tobacco in another Member State up to a value of EUR 175, which is considered a reasonable amount if you have to prove that the goods are for personal use.
I deplore this new derogation but, inasmuch as Finland and Denmark have been granted derogations until 2003, all we can do is go along with this new derogation granted to Sweden on the basis of the arrangements entered into with Finland.
I do so, if I may say, with a heavy heart, because these continued derogations are not calculated - as events show - to solve the problem of alcoholism which these countries use as a reason not to reduce their exorbitant excise duties, particularly on wine and beer.
These excise duties are the only reason why their citizens adopt a policy of importing from other Member States in order to achieve what I would call the citizens' 'legitimate defence' against high taxation levels. Your problem, Mr Maaten, will not be solved by abolishing the zero tax rate on wine.
In addition, Sweden has a monopoly on importing and a virtual monopoly on distribution, resulting in an price policy which penalises consumers, an area of activity in which Commissioner Monti could well let off some steam more usefully than in the matter of taxes on savings, for example.
Matters being what they are, I should nonetheless like to ask the Commission the following questions.
You base your proposal on Article 93, but you do not say a word about the problem of the harmonisation of excise duties to assist the operation of the single market. Why not?
Apparently Commissioner Bolkestein was opposed to extending this derogation. Why have you changed your mind?
What expectations do you have of Finland and Sweden in relation to the harmonisation of indirect taxes by 2003? Are you so reticent to intervene with respect to the level of excise duties in Sweden because, by rights, you ought to be making the same recommendations to the United Kingdom and Ireland, which are not covered by derogations, but which also implement a policy of exorbitant excise duties in order to prevent their peoples consuming wine, most of all, but also beer, in moderation, which is scientifically proven to have a preventative effect with regard to diseases which cost a lot in terms of social security.
I could continue, Madam President, but my speaking time is running out.
I shall conclude by saying that the solution to the problem of alcoholism in Scandinavia does not involve derogations to cater for the monopoly, but rather by reducing excise duties, particularly on wine and beer, by abolishing monopolies, and by means of an information and education policy which favours the moderate consumption of wine and beer, to make it beneficial to health and quality of life.
Madam President, this matter concerns the phasing-out of Sweden' s derogation from the internal market' s rules concerning imports of alcohol and tobacco.
It may appear as an insignificant detail, given the number of rules governing the internal market, but Swedish alcohol policy has proved itself to be successful in combating harm caused by alcohol.
The policy is founded partly (not solely, but partly) upon high taxes, which entail high consumer prices.
It is also founded upon a State monopoly on sales and upon active efforts to protect certain areas, such as road use, from all forms of alcohol consumption.
In spite of the fact that Sweden belongs to the so-called vodka belt, with its special pattern of consumption, and in spite of the presence of illicit distilling and smuggling, the low overall consumption of alcohol means less overall harm caused by alcohol and lower social costs due to alcohol, if we include everything from accidents on and off the road to alcohol-related illnesses and deaths.
This policy will, of course, become more difficult to implement without the protection of import restrictions, which is the reason why Sweden has wished either to retain the derogation on a permanent basis or, as the Swedish Government has now agreed with the Commission, at least to be given a number of additional years in which to phase out the derogation.
Quite simply, time is needed to prepare new features of alcohol policy which may reduce the risks entailed in the abolition of import restrictions. In the long run, it would probably not, in fact, be possible to isolate Sweden from the rest of Europe in this area.
We are now already seeing a lot of private imports from Denmark and Germany, which is likely to increase further now that the Öresund Bridge is being opened and is creating a fixed land link to the European continent and now that the Danish Government is announcing reduced alcohol taxes as a result of competition in Germany.
There is also alarming intelligence about illicit distilling, smuggling etc.
Even if taxes on alcohol are decided at national level, which ought to remain the case, it would probably be impossible, in the long term, to maintain such large differences as there are today in the level of tax between neighbouring countries without this creating problems.
One of the consequences of the high taxes in Sweden is to create difficulties for Swedish producers and vendors of beer, wine and spirits, as well as for the serious hotel and restaurant trade.
Against that background, I see it as indispensable for Sweden now gradually to reduce its taxes on alcohol.
It is not certain that there is a need to go right down to those levels which prevail on the European continent, but it will probably become necessary to take a few steps in that direction.
In quite a few EU countries, no tax at all is paid on beer and wine, something which is also controversial from a public health point of view.
In these countries, these products ought perhaps to be taxed instead.
I am nonetheless pleased that the rapporteur, Mr Maaten, is taking the problem of public health seriously and does not, like so many others, see alcohol merely as a problem for the internal market.
Excessive alcohol consumption is a public health problem to which attention also needs to be paid at European level.
For the Scandinavian countries, there is, of course, the risk that a sudden change in the patterns of consumption might lead to many people' s also adopting European patterns of beer and wine consumption on top of the old tradition of schnapps drinking, with serious health problems as a consequence.
The two forthcoming holders of the presidency, France and Sweden, have indicated that they intend jointly to take up this issue and to propose common public health initiatives which will also deal with the role of alcohol, a development I find gratifying and an important initiative.
How, then, is the Swedish Government to deal with the problem, now that the borders are gradually being opened so as to permit imports of larger quantities of alcohol than ever before, and at the same time as taxes are likely to be reduced? I believe in a vigorous long-term campaign to provide information, influence attitudes and promote education in schools, within the health care sector and among road users, and I believe especially in the public education carried out by national campaigning organisations etc.
All this is necessary and needs to be worked out energetically and with a view to the long term.
Against this background, I therefore agree with the rapporteur' s conclusion to the effect that Parliament ought to approve the agreement between the Swedish Government and the Commission which came about at the request of the ECOFIN ministers. According to this, Sweden should be given time, between now and the end of 2003, to reduce import restrictions to the level which otherwise applies within the internal market.
In that way, we should in fact achieve the double aim of, firstly, adapting to the rules of the internal market and, secondly, preventing any harm this might entail by obtaining the time to provide Sweden with a more aggressive alcohol policy.
Madam President, Sweden has a different alcohol policy from the rest of Europe.
Social policy on alcohol springs from a history of serious heavy drinking.
For a long time, this policy successfully held its own against influence from outside.
That is not the case today.
Globalisation, an increasingly mobile population and EU membership have caused conditions to change.
The current derogation regarding imports of alcohol and tobacco into Sweden was not going to last forever.
The new agreement now in the offing between the Swedish Government and the EU would involve a gradual increase in import quotas.
This is a good compromise which would give Sweden the opportunity to adapt to the new situation.
Mr Maaten has prepared a good report.
It is no panegyric to the view that alcohol is merely an agricultural matter, a view expressed in certain parts of Europe.
On the contrary, Mr Maaten makes it perfectly clear that alcohol must also begin to be dealt with as a public health issue.
Sweden' s alcohol policy has led to a situation in which both total consumption and alcohol-related illnesses have been kept at low levels. At the same time, the system, with its monopoly on sales and very high taxes, has been put under heavy pressure in a Europe with open borders.
At present, a large proportion of the alcohol consumed in Sweden consists of smuggled and illicitly distilled spirits.
Border trade between Sweden and its neighbours is flourishing.
The increase in import quotas will give Sweden a chance progressively to adjust both its alcohol policy and level of tax in accordance with the policy that is being pursued in other European countries.
Lower taxes are required in Sweden, but higher taxes may also perhaps be required in some other EU countries.
Sweden cannot conduct an alcohol policy with the aid of border controls and of tax levels higher than those of our neighbours.
Now is the time to find new solutions.
I believe that what is required is cooperation with other countries, together with a future alcohol policy characterised by a proactive information strategy.
What is required is a sensible alcohol policy marked by social responsibility and increased responsibility on the part of the individual.
A greater European input is needed in Sweden, but perhaps also a greater Swedish input in Europe.
Madam President, it does feel a little odd to be debating Swedish alcohol policy today in the European Parliament, for that of course is really what this report is about.
Before the referendum on EU membership, the Swedish Government solemnly promised that Swedish alcohol policy would be maintained unaltered.
Now, the Social Democratic Government, together with the Left Party and the Moderates, has given an informal promise, as the Commission' s text puts it, to approve the Commission' s proposal gradually to abolish the restrictions on imports of alcohol and tobacco so that these no longer exist by the year 2003.
In the long term, phasing out the rules on imports means phasing out Swedish alcohol policy. Doing so will, in fact, put a big strain on alcohol policy which is based entirely upon high prices for consumers, that is to say a high tax on alcohol.
Four parties in the Swedish Parliament oppose the Commission' s and the Government' s line: the Christian Democrats, the Liberals (whom we have just heard speak), the Centre Party and the Greens.
These parties are demanding that the Government should stand for, and argue in favour of, keeping the Swedish derogation for as long as the Council has not unanimously taken another decision.
It is extremely important to clarify the EU' s own policy on this question.
What ought the Court of Justice of the European Communities to have said? As Mr Maaten is very carefully intimating, this is not merely a question of the internal market but also a health issue.
Alcohol and tobacco are the factors which cause, for example, the greatest health problems within the EU, major costs to society and great suffering to individuals.
Article 152 and Article 95.3 of the Treaties talk of how important it is to have a high level of protection, and Article 30 in actual fact permits restrictions on imports, partly on the grounds of people' s health.
Sweden has chosen another method, a successful method where alcohol policy is concerned.
We have less harm caused by alcohol than most countries in the world, and very low alcohol consumption compared with other EU countries.
I do not know whether it is cause for laughter or for tears, but it is certainly worth noting that, as recently as last year, the Member States approved another European action plan for alcohol, prepared by the World Health Organisation.
According to this plan, States should impose more tax on alcohol, and there should also be higher minimum taxes on alcohol within the EU.
This is recommended as a part of public health strategy.
Why dismantle Sweden' s alcohol policy when the EU' s public health strategy points in the same direction with a view to reducing the harm caused by alcohol?
Madam President, Mr Maaten' s report states that alcohol is the second most important health factor within the EU after tobacco and that alcohol abuse is growing and giving rise to more and more illness, together with growing social and economic problems in a whole range of EU countries.
The report also indicates that, thanks largely to its responsible alcohol policy, Sweden has a lower level of alcohol consumption and fewer alcohol-related illnesses than other Member States.
Sweden' s positive experiences in these areas ought therefore, of course, to be made use of by the EU.
Alcohol issues ought to be dealt with in the way that, for example, tobacco and drug issues are now beginning to be dealt with.
Instead of Sweden' s now being forced to phase out its approach to health policy in order to adapt to the EU, it ought to be the opposite way around: namely, the EU should model its policy on Sweden' s and try to get to grips with the growing alcohol problems.
In this area, I should like to see a convergence policy whereby countries with major and growing alcohol problems adopt the much more successful Swedish model.
I am therefore going to vote against the Commission' s proposal, recommended by Mr Maaten in a move quite out of keeping with his otherwise excellent report.
I want to conclude by noting that the Swedish Government has now given in to a market imperative able to dispense with the approach focused upon health policy.
I hear that many of my fellow MEPs are adopting the same view, namely that Sweden should, for example, give in, even if there are reasons in terms of health policy for taking an entirely different direction.
I do not share that view.
I think there are good reasons why the EU should reconsider its alcohol policy, and the Swedish experience is important in that context.
Therefore, Swedish policy ought not now to be discontinued but, instead, used constructively to the EU' s advantage and benefit.
Madam President, on the other hand, the Italian Radical Members do not support the proposal to allow this system of excessive taxation and monopolies to continue for a further three years.
I would argue that excessively high taxes and restrictive monopolies are, in any case, in themselves a bad thing, but they are even worse when camouflaged and justified by the alleged morality of policies protecting the common good.
But if we examine the data presented, we see that, in proposing to allow this special system to continue for another three years, the rapporteur is clearly saying that 30% of alcoholic drinks consumed in Sweden are produced illegally - which means that they are also sold illegally and that the profits are the profits of crime and mafia activity - and that another 20% is introduced illegally from abroad.
This is the situation of alcoholic drink consumption in Sweden!
However, he tells us that this policy seems to work, for the mortality rate is lower than in other countries, and cites the results of a study carried out by DG-V in October 1998.
However, it is a shame that, if we were to examine this study closely, we would find a marginal note, which is not really insignificant, which says that a large number of alcohol-related deaths are not reported as such (hidden population), the real figure being estimated at between 5 000 and 6 000 deaths per year due to alcohol.'
These figures are over three times as high as the official figures.
Let us take care, then!
Let us state the figures clearly as they are: the figures demonstrate de facto Prohibition - Prohibition through taxes - a form of Prohibition which, like all Prohibition, fails.
We have the same problem in Italy with the tobacco monopoly: an entire section of Puglia, the region of Southern Italy which is directly opposite Albania, is overrun with criminal bands which commit murder on a daily basis for the sake of the black market in tobacco.
It is the same problem.
The figures should be quoted in their entirety and so should documents, especially when one professes to be liberal and comes from an allegedly liberal group.
Madam President, I am concerned about the delay which Sweden has now negotiated for itself.
I think that deadlines are there to be kept to.
I think that we should all abide by the same rules in the internal market, and I therefore intend to vote accordingly.
The Swedish Government knew that this derogation was to expire after six months, but all too little has been done to overcome the alcohol abuse which exists.
I am particularly concerned about young people' s drinking habits and the easy access to illegal alcohol.
Swedish alcohol policy is now in pieces.
At the same time, what we have in Sweden is a government which, having yielded to public pressure, has tried to meet the public' s demands for easier access to alcohol.
The Swedish alcohol monopoly now opens on Saturdays and at more locations.
In many ways, accessibility has also increased due to the larger number of premises serving alcoholic drinks. Above all, however, it is illegal sales of spirits, beer and wine which have increased at the expense of Swedish jobs, tax revenue and supervision.
All too little is being done about outright abuse, at the same time as the ordinary drinker has continued to be over-protected and not to have anything like equal rights to import alcohol following visits on holiday to, for example, Denmark or France.
I am concerned about this inability to get to grips with the real problems.
Today, perhaps not more than 30 per cent of sales in Sweden take place via the channels controlled by the politicians.
The rest are illegal and may, for example, involve gangland operations, illicit distilling or smuggling by private individuals who, as the politicians see it, are bringing more than their ration into the country.
That is why I am saying that Swedish alcohol policy, which involves charging high prices for alcohol and making it difficult to obtain, has foundered.
I would say to Göran Färm that there has been ample time to do something about this situation.
The catalogue of initiatives he mentions should have been embarked upon a long, long time ago. What is more, a lot can be done in the way of providing information and disseminating knowledge.
The Swedish Social Democratic Government' s bargaining on this issue shows, however, that there has been no concern about, or belief in, people. Instead, it is only the tax base to which close attention has been given.
Madam President, what entitles the EU to undermine Sweden' s alcohol policy and its campaign against drugs? What makes imports of alcohol into more of a trade issue than a public health issue?
In the 1994 referendum on Swedish membership of the EU, Swedish citizens were told that the derogations could be extended beyond the year 2000. The temperance movement and many citizens, including myself, were satisfied with that.
On 13 March of this year, Mr Guterres, Prime Minister of Portugal (the country currently holding the Presidency of the Union) described the EU' s cultural diversity as a form of wealth.
He talked of there not being a single, general opinion, but 15 different arenas.
Through the Commissioner responsible, Mr Bolkestein, the European Union should now nonetheless normalise the conditions which enable the Member States to continue to pursue national, democratically determined alcohol policies.
Mr Bolkestein and the Commission maintain that the internal market functions in such a way as to require that every citizen be given the so-called right day in and day out to bring 210 litres of alcohol across national borders. For a family with three older children, this corresponds to 7 metric tons of alcohol per week.
Should that be a so-called right? Is that a level consistent with moderate consumption?
There is no question of Sweden' s being a nanny State. It is about a one-nation mentality and of taking the issue of alcohol and drug abuse seriously in terms of an integrated view of society.
In the light of this issue and of the disquiet felt during Euro 2000 on the subjects of hooliganism and alcohol abuse, the Commission' s decision and the actions of Sweden' s Social Democratic Government appear absurd to say the least.
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Maaten.
The Commission proposal reflects the compromise which has been reached between Sweden and the Commission regarding prolonging the possibility of applying restrictions to products subject to excise duties which may be brought into Sweden by travellers from other Member States.
This arrangement would normally have expired at the end of this month.
Sweden has requested more time to adapt its alcohol policy.
This has also been stressed by Mr Färm who said that we need time to adapt our policy.
Well, the European Commission is prepared to give Sweden until the end of the year 2003 at the latest.
I believe that the compromise which has been reached is fair and reasonable.
It guarantees that the restrictions for travellers will disappear once and for all by the end of the year 2003, as I have already mentioned.
But at the same time, it provides for a short, further period of adjustment.
The gradual liberalisation during the transitional period underlines Sweden' s commitment to finally do away with derogations and will ensure that Swedish citizens will finally be able to benefit from the unified market in the same way as other EU citizens.
I am also delighted that Mr Maaten' s report supports the Commission proposal.
But the Commission cannot accept the tabled amendments, although it very much understands the reasons which have led to their tabling.
The Commission is of the opinion that it is not advisable to make reference to general issues, such as the connection between alcohol policy and health policy or the need to aim for more coordination of excise levels on alcohol, within the context of a proposal on derogations applied by one Member State.
These derogations from fundamental principles of the internal market have been granted in order to allow Sweden to adapt its alcohol policy.
As such, - and I would also address Mr Sacrédeus here - we are dealing here with fundamental principles of the common internal market.
Whatever the justification was for Sweden enjoying this derogation since joining the Community - and if I could once again address Mr Sacrédeus - as far as I can remember, no exceptions which were to apply forever were made at the time.
The derogation was supposed to lapse at the end of this month, and this has always been provided for.
But as I have said before, Sweden was granted a few more years to adapt its alcohol policy. But - once again - this exception was certainly not meant to last forever.
I repeat: whatever the justification was for this derogation, the Commission is of the opinion that the transitional period will have been sufficiently long, namely nine years from Sweden' s accession to the EU until the end of 2003, and that it is now time to establish a definite expiry date for this derogation from the principles of the free movement of goods and persons.
Maybe you will allow me, by way of concluding, to address a few points which have been raised by Members of Parliament this evening.
I would especially like to stress once again that the public health aspect which Mr Maaten mentioned is, of course, important.
All countries, all EU Member States have alcohol-related problems, and know about alcohol-related problems, and all EU Member States are adopting an anti-alcohol policy.
It is only natural and very sensible that Sweden should do the same, but this should be possible without prejudicing the rules for the free movement of goods which, as has been mentioned before, is one of the European Union' s cornerstones.
So once again, it is very understandable that that health policy is pursued in Sweden.
Mr Färm and Mrs Carlsson have already clarified the way in which it should be pursued.
It is important to take measures in the form of information campaigns, information in schools and vis-à-vis the public, as happens elsewhere in the Community.
This is the first point which I wanted to raise.
The second point concerns the harmonisation of excise duty on alcohol products.
Could I inform you that, as the Members of this House are aware, the Commission does not have any instruments at its disposal to impose a specific excise policy?
The Commission might wish it had, but it has not.
What the Commission can do, however, is to ensure that the minimum tariff, which is the only rule which pertains to the whole of the European Union, is maintained.
Furthermore, the Commission will, as it is required to do, be drawing up a report either at the end of this year or at the beginning of next year which will outline the state of affairs within the EU with regard to excise.
This report will thus be available around the beginning of next year, and the Commission will naturally make some recommendations in this report because, after all, the huge discrepancies in excise levels between Member States lead to distortions within the internal market, something which the Commission does not like to see.
So the report will contain recommendations, but the Commission does not have instruments at its disposal.
I would recommend Parliament to adopt Mr Maaten' s report without amendments.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Exchange of information with third countries
The next item is the report (A5-0142/2000) by Mr Berenguer Fuster, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directives 85/611/EEC, 92/49/EEC, 92/96/EEC and 93/22/EEC as regards exchange of information with third countries [(COM(1999) 748 - C5-0011/2000 - 2000/0014 (COD)].
Madam President, we must bear in mind that the powers of investigation and control available to the supervisory authorities in the financial field are incomparably greater than those which exist in other fields.
In the financial field - to a large extent because there is public concern about credit and savings, including, therefore, companies which use the securities market - there is a public interest in safeguarding the interests of huge numbers of third-party savers who put their confidence in companies which manage other people' s money while the real owners of that money have no capacity to intervene in that management.
The protection of the interests of third parties justifies a high degree of intervention by the public authorities, which leads, amongst other things, to very great powers which provide the authorities with information about the internal affairs of companies.
There is no doubt whatsoever that, if the data obtained as a result of the exercise of these authorities were to be made known to third parties, this could not only cause irreparable damage to the bodies under investigation, but could also cause serious fluctuations, and ultimately changes, in the market.
Therefore, as a counterbalance to such broad powers of investigation, the authorities are obliged to keep the information secret.
That duty of secrecy, taken to the extreme, could hinder certain objectives pursued by the control authorities, which, ultimately, consist of ensuring that the markets behave properly.
There is no doubt that one of the areas in which the phenomenon of globalisation has had the most obvious effect is the financial field, in which the large companies use the securities market.
Today large companies operate in many countries, but there are no supranational supervisory authorities and furthermore the Community authorities find it difficult to carry out their work outside their own borders.
Ultimately, we are talking about issues which involve sovereignty. To sum up, the problem is that the authority supervising the activities of a certain country cannot itself access the data relating to the activity of that company, its parent company or its subsidiaries in other countries because its powers of supervision do not extend beyond the borders of the country to which it belongs.
In order to resolve this problem cooperation is needed between the authorities of the various countries. This cooperation, amongst other things, has to take the form of an exchange of the data obtained.
The problem is that this exchange generally involves a degree of non-compliance with the obligation to secrecy.
It is therefore necessary for the regulations to provide for a way to overcome this conflict between the obligation to secrecy and the exchange of information, and to seek balanced solutions to the problem.
With regard to the European regulations, after the previous unstable regulation which furthermore was different for the different sectors, in 1998 the first banking sector directive was amended to allow Member States to reach agreements on the exchange of information with third countries, on the condition that the information exchanged was subject to guarantees of professional secrecy at least equivalent to those in force in the European Union.
Now, by means of this directive, the corresponding amendments are being made to the other financial sector directives, in the same way that they were made in the case of the banking sector directive.
Just as we agreed with the 1998 amendment, and for the same reasons, we are going to support these amendments in the terms proposed by the Commission.
A final comment.
We are currently awaiting a report by the European Parliament on the review of the SLIM initiative aimed at simplifying the legislation on the internal market.
What has happened in this field may be very significant and it may have very beneficial consequences.
If we want to simplify the legislation, it will also be necessary to reduce the number of regulations and rationalise the initiatives.
We should consequently ask the question why, when the banking sector directive was amended in 1998, the directives on insurance and collective investment, that is to say the ones that are now being amended, were not amended at the same time.
The simplification and coherence of the legislation may perhaps have required this.
Madam President, I am delighted to at least have the opportunity of contributing to this debate on behalf of the PPE, and firstly to congratulate Mr Berenguer Fuster for the work that he has done in relation to this report.
I recognise that his report is quite brief, but that belies the amount of work that has had to be undertaken because the issue that we are considering is a complex one as he made clear in the course of his remarks.
We are dealing in essence with the compromise between access to confidential information, information which comes into the hands of a whole range of regulatory authorities, and the use that is subsequently made of that information.
We know that the information is in general gathered as a result of the obligations that rest with companies from the whole of the inspection regime.
We have a range of regulators now, across the whole of the European Union, but we very often have a whole range of regulators within Member States themselves, and the dilemma of how information is in fact used is one that is not just a dilemma for the Community and its exchange of information with regulators beyond the Community itself.
We often have that dilemma within Member States.
I certainly have had first-hand experience of government in the United Kingdom where I can remember very many instances where the government has been on the point of granting a contract to a particular company only to find out that another branch of government is actually engaged in starting legal proceedings for one reason or another against that very company.
This is often described as the left arm of government not knowing what the right arm is doing, but what it is really about is the willingness on the part of the regulatory authorities within Member States, but also within the European Union and beyond, to exchange information whilst at the same time respecting confidentiality.
That brings me to the second brief point that I wish to make this evening which is about the need for the consolidation of regulatory authorities themselves.
That is a process that has been undertaken within the United Kingdom.
Recently, Howard Davies, who heads the new Financial Services Authority in the UK, was speaking to our Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee and outlining what that experience has been.
It has not been a wholly easy experience, but I think that people are broadly of the view that the consolidation of regulatory authorities within the United Kingdom has been a success.
It is something that could be commended to other authorities within the European Union, not least because it would lead to a common approach to the use of the information that is made available by this process, to the advantage of investors throughout the whole of the European Union itself.
. I thank the rapporteur, Mr Berenguer Fuster, very much indeed for his report and for the helpful coordination and cooperation.
The approach of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has facilitated prompt adoption of the proposal.
The aim of the proposal is to amend several financial services directives, to align them with rules already in force in the banking area in order to improve the exchange of information with third countries.
The proposal is also a response to international recommendations on the exchange of confidential information.
It is necessary to improve supervision of financial conglomerates.
This is an aspect which was stressed by Mr Berenguer Fuster this evening and also Mr Evans.
I fully agree with both of them that confidentiality of that information is absolutely essential.
The measure proposed will allow European securities and insurance regulators to exchange, on a cross-sectoral basis, confidential supervisory information with third country competent authorities.
It also allows European securities and insurance regulators to exchange supervisory information with third country bodies, such as clearing and settlement systems, auditors, etc. which by virtue of their functions help to strengthen the stability of the financial system.
The proposal makes clear that information is exchanged for supervisory purposes and it provides for protection of the confidentiality - the important point mentioned - of the information exchanged.
Mr Evans has spoken of the consolidation of regulatory authorities. That indeed is what happens in the United Kingdom.
The Financial Services Authority, headed by Mr Howard Davies, is indeed a consolidation of regulatory authorities.
That example is followed by Sweden, or perhaps it is the other way around.
In other words, both in London and in Stockholm there is a consolidated regulatory apparatus.
Within the FSA in London there is a unit working with banking.
There is another unit working with insurance undertakings and there is a third unit working with the stock exchange.
They are under one roof, but under that one roof there are still distinct entities.
Mr Evans implies that they are cooperating - and indeed they are cooperating - but cooperation means more than being under one roof.
Mr Evans would like the Commission to exhort other Member States to follow the British example or the Swedish example.
Opinions differ very much indeed.
We are dealing here with a very sensitive question.
In some countries there is consolidated regulation but in other countries there are three separate entities, for example in the Netherlands and other Member States.
They say: we cooperate, so what is the worry?
I am not saying that there is no reason to be worried.
A report was recently produced by a committee under the chairmanship of Mr Brouwer, who is the second in command of the Bank of the Netherlands.
It was welcomed by ECOFIN. It is available on the Internet so anybody can take cognisance of it.
The report says that basically, as far as banks and insurance companies are concerned, the institutional framework is adequate but it leaves aside the matter of how to deal with systemic crises. Nor does it deal with stock exchanges.
But thinking does not stop. If it did we would be in a very bad position.
Everybody knows what has happened in other parts of the world in the way of systemic crises.
Also, everybody knows that the alliances between various stock exchanges are the order of the day.
So we must give this further attention and see whether the rise of conglomerates leads to the need for further supervision.
Certainly in the case of stock markets, whether we should leave everything to national supervisory instances or whether there should be something at European level is a valid question.
This thinking has not led to any firm conclusions but it is continuing.
If developments are favourable then I look forward to engaging in a dialogue with this Parliament on these very matters.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Imports of beer into Finland
The next item is the report (A5­0144/2000) by Mrs Lulling, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs,
I. on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directives 69/169/EEC and 92/12/EEC as regards temporary quantitative restrictions on beer imports into Finland [COM(2000)76 - C5­0137/2000 - 2000/0038(CNS)],
II. on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 918/83 as regards a temporary derogation for duty-free imports of beer into Finland [COM(2000)76 - C5­0138/2000 - 2000/0039(CNS)]
Madam President, Commissioner, in its 1995 accession treaty Finland obtained a derogation until 31 December 1996 to restrict beer imports from other Member States.
This derogation is an exemption to the fundamental right of Community citizens to carry goods purchased for their own consumption from one point in the Community to another without having to pay further duties.
Finland obtained an extension of this derogation until 2003.
At the same time, in order to comply with European legislation in force in the context of customs union, Finland was required to increase the quantity of beer that could be imported tax free from third countries from 2 to 15 litres.
Now, in the face of the massive amount of importation carried out by its citizens from Estonia and Russia, which primarily affects the livelihood of the many SMBs retailing beer in border regions, Finland has requested that the limit for residents' beer imports from these two countries be reduced from 15 to 6 litres.
Finland also mentions problems to do with health, public order and loss of income.
In the meantime, such imports account for some 10% of Finland' s beer retail market.
The reason for this is simply the vast price difference resulting from the exorbitant taxes on alcohol in Finland.
The Finnish population' s response to this situation is a perfect illustration of the truth of La Palice' s maxim according to which too much tax kills tax, because citizens react against what they consider to be excessive taxes.
In comparison with other Member States, Finnish excise duties on alcohol are the highest, and for beer, for example, they are 17 times those in Spain and 44% higher than those in Ireland which, in the hit-parade of excise duties, comes in second position behind Finland, which is the champion of the European Union, though, admittedly, it is beaten by Norway, which is not a member.
It is true that, due to Finland' s geographical position, imports by private individuals from other Member States are much less, and this is not, for example, the case in the United Kingdom and Denmark in particular, which have much higher excise duties on alcohol than their neighbouring Member States.
Given the seriousness of the situation, I recommended in my report that we should agree to this new 6 litre limit for beer from Russia and Estonia, but only until 2003 and not until 2006, principally due to the fact that Estonia is an accession candidate and that the traffic in goods, even the illegal traffic, will not cease after 2006 unless Finland decides to impose less stringent taxes on alcohol products, especially beer and wine.
The majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs did not agree with me on this.
I persisted, and I even tabled an amendment, principally due to the review of the derogation on imports for personal use from other Member States.
The amendment of the directive in question, which was referred to us at the same time, effectively envisages gradual liberalisation from the 15 litres currently allowed up to 64 litres in 2003, and then, as of 1 January 2004, the general regulations will come into force.
This represents definite progress in relation to the current situation which may continue until 2003.
There was a great deal of controversy in committee regarding the problem of alcoholism.
I still claim that the problem of alcoholism, especially the Scandinavian style of consuming alcohol for the purpose of getting drunk, cannot be solved by excessive taxation, quite the contrary, because it makes alcohol a luxury product, a sort of status symbol.
I therefore dare to recommend that Finland take advantage of this new derogation period in order to reduce its high rates of taxation, particularly on alcoholic drinks such as beer and wine.
The real alcoholism and health problems which result can only be combated by information and education.
High taxes do not stop serious drinkers from drinking, they just penalise the great majority that consume beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages in moderation, which is very well known and scientifically proven to have beneficial effects for health and for the prevention of diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer' s and cardiovascular illness.
Let us put an end to hypocrisy, and let us give up on solutions that do not work.
Obviously, we all know that we cannot, and do not, wish to challenge the prerogative of Member States, in matters of fiscal policy, to set their own excise duty rates as they see fit.
We at least hope, though, that Finland may be persuaded that reducing the gaps between its own excise duties and those implemented by the other Member States and neighbouring third countries would be the best means of preventing an increase in the cross-border trade which presents a problem, and that such a policy would have much more chance of success than maintaining and intensifying restrictions on quantities.
Commissioner, I deplore the Commission' s reticence on this subject, especially given that you use Article 93 of the Treaty as a legal basis, and this deals specifically with the harmonisation of indirect duties and taxes.
Make of it what you will!
Madam President, Commissioner, representatives of the Council, it is often said that Parliament is far removed from the people and that what we speak about here does not interest the people in our home countries.
Ladies and gentlemen, for once we have a report to discuss that is guaranteed to interest consumers, at least in my home country of Finland.
Before we joined the European Union we Finns were promised that the EU would mean a more open policy on alcohol, that it would bring down the astronomically high prices of alcoholic beverages due to heavy taxation and that it would free up the retail market as well as break up the state monopoly on alcohol.
I quite agree with what Mrs Lulling said, that the alcohol problem cannot be resolved by restricting imports, nor can it be resolved by keeping prices high and the sale of alcohol in the hands of a monopoly.
Consumers have had to wait for reforms as regards the policy on alcohol, on account of the fact that the long transition periods and the various restrictions on imports have blocked healthy competition.
The report we now have to discuss is a giant step forward in the gradual opening up of the Finnish markets.
As a counterbalance to the opening up to EU imports, Finland, however, is asking for the right to reduce quotas on beer imported from non-member countries.
This restriction that is being sought is, in itself, justifiable, as long as the restriction is not a permanent one.
Also in connection with non-member countries, Finland must, in a determined manner, approach a situation where the market is as open as in other Member States.
The restrictions with regard to non-member countries should be lifted by the end of 2003, as the faster Finland is obligated to open up her market entirely, the more likely we will be able to see a real solution to the question of excise duty.
This is what everything hinges on at the end of the day.
Obviously, lifting the restrictions by the end of 2003 on imports from Estonia and Russia, for example, would, at present gross price levels, lead to an undesirable situation.
Opening up the market in respect of non-member countries more rapidly than scheduled, however, will increase pressure to lower taxes, and the faster taxation reaches a European average, the healthier the situation in the internal market will be.
Madam President, Finland' s special regulations governing beer imports are naturally of great importance both for public health and for commerce.
The problem is, of course, much more acute because of our proximity to third countries, that is to say Russia and Estonia.
Clearly, special rules are also required when it comes to customs relations with these third countries.
As we saw in the previous debate on Swedish alcohol policy, Finland, like Sweden and Norway, has a quite distinctive policy in this area, based partly on high taxes in the belief that high consumer prices will also lead to reduced consumption.
The fact is that, in Finland too, this policy has proved to be successful when it comes to combating the harm caused by alcohol.
In spite of the special pattern of consumption traditionally to be found in countries like Finland and Sweden and in spite of there being a good deal of smuggling and illicit distilling, the relatively low overall level of alcohol consumption does in fact lead to less harm and lower social costs as a result of alcohol.
Where this is concerned, I do in fact believe that there is convincing proof that the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, is wrong when she states that high taxes do not lead to reduced consumption or that a restrictive policy would not be effective.
On the contrary, there is a good deal of research to show that it is in fact effective.
It is also now the case that the UN, for example, is recommending an alcohol policy based on the Scandinavian experience and is recommending other European countries too to go down the same road.
However, this more restrictive policy is naturally more difficult to implement without the protection of import restrictions.
That is the reason why Finland, in common with Sweden, has requested until the year 2003 to increase the quantities of beer imported from within the EU.
Quite simply, time is needed to prepare the new alcohol policy and incorporate new features which may reduce the possible risks involved in abolishing import restrictions.
For Finland, the problems it shares with Sweden are exacerbated by its proximity to non-EU neighbours, especially Russia and Estonia, for these countries have quite different cost levels and quite different levels of prices and taxes than is the norm within the European Union.
The proximity of southern Finland to Estonia and the enormous differences in prices and taxes have led to a situation in which Finland and the European Commission wish to retain the restrictions in connection with these countries for a further two years, that is to say until the year 2005, which I in actual fact think is reasonable.
However, the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, felt unable to accept this and is instead demanding that the same time limit apply in regard to third countries as applies to the internal market.
Happily, the Committee nonetheless elected to follow the line taken by myself, the Finnish Government and the Commission who considered that these big differences in price and tax levels do in fact justify an additional two-year period of adjustment, as long as Estonia does not become a member of the EU before this period expires for, if it did, then it may only be right that the EU' s rules should also apply to Estonia.
Of course, the risks concerned relate, above all, to public health problems but also to problems involving the national production and sale of beer in border areas.
Mrs Lulling has, above all, chosen to use her report to argue the case for reduced taxes on alcohol in Finland.
I agree that high taxes are likely to be difficult to maintain in the longer term when more and more people are crossing borders and have the opportunity to import alcohol on a private basis.
As Commissioner Bolkestein noted earlier, it is, however, in spite of everything, an important principle that this type of tax is an issue for individual nation States and not a subject for formal harmonisation in the context of the internal market.
Nonetheless, it will now probably become necessary for the Finnish Government to begin adjusting tax levels downwards so as to avoid major problems when the restrictions on private imports of beer are gradually reduced to that level which is to apply to the rest of the internal market.
It is nonetheless a little sad that the rapporteur, who is of course a well-known champion of the interests of wine producers, does not take the public health problems at all seriously but, unlike Mr Maaten (the rapporteur on the issue of Sweden' s restrictions on alcohol), only sees this as a tax problem and as a problem concerning the internal market, for it is in fact obvious that low-price imports into Finland from Estonia and Russia have already led to undeniable social and public health problems.
It is therefore gratifying that the forthcoming presidencies will - as I understand it, during the coming year - in actual fact be taking up this issue in terms of public health initiatives concerning the role of alcohol. However, a whole range of new methods will certainly be required.
Against this background, I nonetheless propose that we support the Committee' s proposal to approve the agreement between Finland and the EU.
Madam President, now that Finland has joined the European Union, she must apply the EU regulations regarding competition.
These include regulations on the importation of beer.
As representative of the ELDR Group, I wish to defend the abolition of competition distortion as well as the principle of free trade, which, however, must benefit the public.
I would approach the problem, however, from the angle of the principle of subsidiarity.
For a very long time in Finland, there has been a successful social policy in force where the aim has been to restrict alcohol consumption.
All the statistics relating to alcohol consumption speak in favour of continuing with this policy.
On the other hand, I will admit that consumption is not evenly spread.
In Finland there are groups of alcohol abusers, such as the young, for example.
It is alcohol consumption among these groups that we aim to influence.
One reason for keeping stringent restrictions on imports is, for example, the matter of public order.
An essential part of health policy has been high taxation and, at the same time, well-maintained border controls.
Finland' s geographical position is very different from all the other EU countries.
Beyond our frontiers are countries where prices are low. If, for example, the general EUR 175 tax-free import limit were applied on imports from these countries, permitted imports would double in terms of litres.
That is why Finland needs an independent mechanism regarding what it itself perceives as reasonable import restrictions.
In this matter it is necessary to advance in stages towards lower taxation on alcohol and a gradual liberalisation of imports, but let us respect the conditions that now prevail in the Member State as it itself sees them.
Finland believes it justifiable to have a two-year extension to the restriction on imports from non-member countries.
We cannot therefore support the amendments that were reintroduced in plenary after having been voted down once in committee.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mrs Lulling has done a great job with this report, in my opinion, in the sense that she has endeavoured to adjust the restrictive approach of the Commission.
There is an initial point which needs to be cleared up: it is true that the free movement of goods and products within Community countries seriously hampers the creation of the single market.
And it makes no difference whether the products in question are beer, as in this case, or other products.
The discrimination between consumers who are citizens of other countries and Finnish consumers is clear and self-justifying.
The discrepancy between the restrictions imposed by countries such as Finland on importing beer for personal use and Community standards must therefore be eliminated, and eliminated immediately.
There are no grounds for setting the deadline stipulated of 2003, and there are even less grounds for setting the deadline of 2005 for importing for personal use from third countries.
On this point, we Radicals will support the amendments tabled by Mrs Lulling.
Neither are we convinced, Madam President, by the social or health reasons put forward in support of the derogation.
The bans, the high level of taxes and the public monopolies, which are as unacceptable as all other monopolies, generate smuggling and unlawful activities even though they might benefit the Treasury.
In the long term - and there is not even any need to cite the case of prohibition of alcohol in the United States, last century - they harm society and health rather than generating awareness in the consumer.
Information on smuggling in the Scandinavian countries of products which are in themselves harmless, such as beer or wine, must serve as a warning against political prohibition of alcohol, and against prohibition of other products as well, rather than being an example which some have maintained should be followed by the other countries of the European Union.
And that is not to mention the serious harm to individual freedom caused by all paternalistic excesses, whether they are engaged in by States or politicians.
Madam President, Finland is prepared to increase imports of beer from the internal market.
The derogation has been restricted in terms of time, and I thus support the Commission' s line here.
Finland' s alcohol policy has been a valid one, and we see evidence of this that goes unchallenged anywhere in the world.
Our problem is the enormous difference in taxation.
Hardly anywhere else does such a huge difference exist as is the case on the eastern border of our country.
The reason is obvious if you think about it for a moment.
A whole state collapsed over there and, at the same time, the price of vodka and beer likewise collapsed.
That is what happened over there, and we will not get carried away in the flood, whatever you tell us.
The cost of alcohol fell.
Besides, they concoct alcoholic beverages over there by mixing tap water and home-made spirits. That makes for a pretty powerful brew.
You can buy that virtually for the price of the bottle alone.
What production could be so cheap that you could compete with that?
Besides, who will be bothered by this restriction on imports from the east? It will not bother anyone, at least not the EU.
It is being said here that taxation cannot reduce the consumption of alcohol.
What sort of experience have you had in this regard? Because we do have experience of it.
The first thing that the poor cut back on if prices rise is alcohol consumption.
There is research data on that.
Then you say that education helps.
I happen to come from a region where such education has been provided. What happened?
Vodka continues to be drunk as before, and on top of that there is wine. In other words, total consumption is increasing.
And we still have an additional problem.
We have high taxation, which I used to be in favour of.
If private citizens are allowed to bring in more foreign beer, tax revenue will fall.
Then we would be obligated to lower taxation in our own country with a consequent decrease in tax revenue, but in either case the consumption of alcohol will increase. In other words, there is quite a significant double-edged problem.
I regard a gradual switch as being the correct approach and one where consideration is given to our country' s levels of taxation.
Excise duty on beer is very high in our country but, ladies and gentlemen, what we cannot eliminate is the price gap that exists between us and our neighbour to the east.
Our resources are insufficient for that. This gap is so great that, as a result - as Mr Pesälä said - our special position is quite important for us.
And if it is removed, I will just say that our roads to the east will be soaked in vodka if all import restrictions are lifted.
That is the issue here.
Mr President, Commissioner, unlike my fellow MEP, Ms Kauppi, I think there are better ways of celebrating the first anniversary of the latest election to the European Parliament than by taking up the time of the Member of the Commission to discuss this minor issue as late as 11.00 p.m.
We could have dealt with this issue in a more appropriate way.
It is also obvious that this is mainly a fiscal problem.
To my fellow MEP, Ms Kauppi, I would say that it is quite right to identify matters of concern to liberals here, but what has Ms Kauppi' s party colleague, Finland' s finance minister, done to try to adapt conditions in Finland to take account of this or other tax issues? It is, as has been said, in actual fact a fiscal problem.
I have referred in part to points of order.
I am very disappointed that the Court of Justice of the European Communities considered that a discriminatory time limit could be introduced for citizens from third countries.
My party, the Swedish People' s Party, was against this, but was unfortunately forced to give in when the Court in Luxembourg made its decision.
It is worth noting that, unlike a number of Swedish colleagues, the Finns were no doubt aware that our derogation for other alcoholic drinks from EU countries was a temporary derogation.
For my part, I nonetheless support the Commission' s proposal whereby the year 2006 would be the time limit where imports of beer were concerned.
I am also concerned that we should not relinquish future opportunities for transitional regulations in the negotiations with Estonia.
The Committee has introduced an addendum concerning Estonia, among other countries.
We have a similar problem in many border regions, and I would refer in this regard to Mr Paasilinna' s intervention.
It is a question of not making a hasty decision.
I would also refer to the difficult situation where competition between transport operators in the Baltic is concerned.
The situation is very unequal, and there is a risk of its deteriorating further.
Madam President, Finland has had a period of transition to adapt regulations for imports of alcohol to EU levels.
This is being done by 2004, according to the deadline fixed in respect of the Internal Market.
In asking for extra time for harmonising exports from non-member countries, however, Finland has been keen to ensure that imports from the Internal Market, considered a priority, are harmonised in a controlled way.
The European Court of Justice and the Commission accept this order of priorities, and I thus hope for understanding on the part of Parliament as well.
In my opinion, the picture created in Mrs Lulling' s report of the situation in Finland is a false one.
Commissioner, you can surely ascertain that from what we Finns have been saying here in our speeches.
The essential problem regarding imports from non-member countries is that an EU-wide restriction on imports has been imposed on strong alcoholic beverages and wines among products liable to excise duty, but, for some reason or other, there is no such restriction on beer.
Therefore, as regards the importation of beer, the general euro limit has to be observed, which is products to the value of EUR 175.
At Russian prices, as we have heard, this means more than 200 litres of the best European beer.
That is double what a citizen of the EU can bring in from another EU country.
At what limit the importation of beer from non-member countries should be set is not as important as attending to the issue of imports from non-member countries according to a timetable only after the Internal Market has started functioning.
The border between Finland and Russia is quite exceptional in the EU.
I would point out that no other EU country faces such a wide price differential on its borders as Finland - and the problems resulting from this price differential will not be resolved at any level of excise duty.
Recent information, for example from research carried out in France, shows that alcohol causes serious public health problems in all EU countries.
I also understand that Sweden and France are planning an EU policy, when they hold the presidency, aiming at preventing health problems caused by alcohol throughout the EU.
Knowing the high social costs of alcohol-related problems, the harmonisation of excise duty should preferably come about at the average rate for Europe, not its lowest.
Excise duty is not fiscal in nature, simply a policy to provide revenue for the state, but clearly it is an instrument which will lead to healthier lifestyles, aided by a market economy.
Madam President, may I start by saying that, with this proposal, the Commission is meeting a request made by Finland which is aiming to combat increasing levels of beer imports from neighbouring third countries, such as Russia or Estonia, where beer is much cheaper.
Finland has also agreed to gradually increase the quantities of beer which travellers coming from other Member States can bring into that country without paying excise duties.
In this way, Finland is bracing itself for 2004 when travellers will be able to bring alcoholic beverages for their own use from other Member States for free, in line with the internal market principles.
Despite the large number of amendments tabled, I am delighted that Mrs Lulling' s report largely supports the Commission proposals.
Although the Commission very much understands the motives behind the tabled amendments, it is unable to accept them.
A number of these amendments concern the level of the tariffs applied by Finland.
As I explained earlier this evening, as Community legislation stands at present, stipulating only minimum excise tariffs, it is up to Finland - and Finland alone - to decide whether the adaptation of its alcohol policy should also entail a reduction in the tax level.
In any event, the Commission will be dealing with the level of tariffs in its wider context in a report which will be presented either at the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
That report will also take into account the Treaty' s general objectives, such as health policy.
Neither is it necessary in this proposal to draw attention to the fact that Finland has so far failed to fulfil its obligation to liberalise the intra-Community restrictions in stages.
This obligation is already embodied in the existing text of the directive, and the Commission has reminded Finland of this obligation in its general report of 24 May last on the application of the restrictions in the Scandinavian Member States, a copy of which has also been sent to the European Parliament.
With regard to the restrictions on imports from third countries, I would like to note that it is the first time that Finland is requesting a derogation.
Before, these restrictions were automatically incorporated into the restrictions within the Union.
Concerning the situation in Estonia, I would point out that the excise tariffs which apply to beer in that country are already somewhat higher than the minimum tariffs laid down in Community law.
Finally, the proposed date of implementation, i.e. 1 April of this year, will have to be changed by the Council upon receipt of the recommendations from Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee.
This change will not require a change in the proposal.
The new date will most likely be 1 July of this year.
This concludes my comments. I would once again like to express my thanks to the rapporteur.
.
(FR) Madam President, since I am entitled to do so, I should like to respond, as I cannot let some of the observations and even complaints, directed at me in my capacity as rapporteur by Mr Färm, go without comment. I shall refrain from commenting on his own rather contradictory statement.
If the policy of high excise duties, at 17 times higher than the Community minimum for beer, had indeed been successful, then what need would there be to request further restrictions? It has been clearly demonstrated that this policy is not successful.
Why else would Finland be complaining about the increasing amounts imported from Russia and Estonia in spite of the exorbitant excise duties.
So I would advise Mr Färm, who has unfortunately left the building, to check back over his reasoning and try to come up with something better, since he is subject to rather a lot of contradictions.
He even suggested that I had reduced excise duties. That would be a fine thing, if only I could.
(The President asked the speaker to conclude) I have the right to reply, and I shall finish soon.
As I was saying, I mean to make the most of my right to speak.
Mr Färm also criticised me for defending wine producers.
I am proud that I did though!
Must I remind you that wine is an agricultural product and a foodstuff which, consumed in moderation, has therapeutic and preventative properties, and I would like to see those citizens that get drunk on beer and vodka on Friday and Saturday drinking a couple of glasses of wine every day instead. It would be much better for their health.
I should like to see these citizens in a position to purchase these two glasses of wine, for this is not possible due to the excessive excise duties applied by this country. It would even be good for the social security department in Finland.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Statistics for trade between Member States
The next item is the recommendation for second reading by Mr Beysen (A5-0153/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Common Position adopted by the Council on 28 February 2000 with a view to the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States, with specific reference to a simplified application of the nomenclature of products [(14100/1/1999 - C5 - 0134/2000 - 1997/0162 (COD)]
Madam President, the entry into force of the internal market and the lifting of border controls have led to the abolition of VAT declarations along with the statistics which used to be kept by customs offices.
Intrastat, the statistical collection system on the transport of goods, is met with little appreciation by industry, as the latter is weighed down by the red-tape involved. Indeed, not only does industry need to provide data on the products in question, it is also required to provide information which does not fall within the remit of the companies directly involved in the transaction but within that of the transport companies which they use.
The basic regulation stipulates that providers of statistical information shall make use of the combined nomenclature, which comprises more than 10 500 entries, in order to classify goods.
This combined nomenclature is a tariff and statistics nomenclature which is used for the trade between Member States and that with third countries.
Within the framework of the SLIM Initiative, the simplification of Intrastat has been set up as a trial project.
The SLIM Intrastat working party has proposed to simplify this nomenclature and better tailor it to the real needs of the user without adversely affecting the link with the nomenclature for the transport of goods with third countries, or the connection with other statistical nomenclatures.
In fact, this proposal was carried by representatives of professional organisations and by companies alike because they themselves have contributed to the effect of the recommendations.
Indeed, the simplification must first and foremost benefit small and medium-sized companies.
The number of codes is restricted and, as such, the classification and codification of goods by companies is simplified without them needing to take any special measures.
This proposal, along with all other measures to simplify the system, can only benefit industry.
The European Community could take the initiative here and propose at international level that the set-up of the harmonised system be reviewed and better tailored to the needs of international trade in the 21st century.
Finally, I would like to inform you that a tripartite consultation, held over the course of three meetings by the European Parliament delegation, finally led to a compromise during the meeting of the Conciliation Committee.
The report was adopted unanimously without amendments within the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
I would, accordingly, be indebted to the MEPs if they were to cast a unanimous vote on this tomorrow.
Madam President, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, I would like to very much welcome Mr Beysen's report and also to thank him for the very clear and concise way he has presented the text.
We entirely support his proposal to push this through without any amendments.
Why are we supporting this so strongly? Anything in today's world that is going to simplify life for businesses without, as Mr Beysen points out, affecting some of the key business statistical information they need to plan their businesses has to be welcome.
As someone who has founded and started small businesses himself, it is a very frustrating thing when you are trying to manage a business to be asked to fill in statistical returns, taking resources from your business that you could well be using on developing new sales and moving your business forward.
Reading Mr Beysen's report, the history of this proposal is rather depressing.
I was not in the last Parliament, and it is clear that Parliament has put a lot of work into this, but it has taken three years to get to the point where we are now.
It may well be that Mr Beysen's report hides a deceptively complex set of variables that the Commission has had to deal with.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that if we are going to make serious progress on slimming down legislation, making the environment for small businesses better - and that after all is an aim of the Lisbon Summit, we have seen that - we must get better at approaching these sort of projects.
So, I would like you to assure us this evening that you are making a serious effort to move more quickly in this area; and also, given the benefits of new technology moving forward in this area, with many more business-to-business transactions being handled electronically, more business-to-government transactions being handled electronically, that you are planning to exploit that technology in such a way that statistics can in future be collected automatically.
Both more reliably and automatically and also, as Mr Beysen says, "internationally as well".
The final area, Commissioner, is to look at ways in which we can work with you as a Parliament to speed up the approval of the process.
Surely it should not be taking this amount of time to work on largely technical areas.
Mr Beysen was talking about the way that Parliament has been working internationally on some of these issues.
Surely we should be setting our own house in order first.
If you want a special committee within the Internal Market Committee to look at small business issues, simplification issues and statistical issues, then ask us to work with you and for heaven's sake let us not have to consider these proposals again when we had to wait three years to make serious inroads into what ought to be a comparatively simple area of progress.
Madam President, I would like thank all the speakers and especially Mr Beysen for his work.
In 1997, the Commission presented proposals for the simplification of the basic regulations for the Intrastat system, reducing the list of variables to be introduced into declarations and also simplifying the nomenclature of the products used for exchanges.
It is true that each time a simplification of this type is produced, we have a debate between, on the one hand, the necessary reduction in administrative charges to reduce the cost to companies and, on the other, the lack of information resulting from reducing this information.
At the time, the Council reached an agreement on the basis of the Commission' s proposals by amending them, and Parliament is reaching a solution which in our view is an intelligent and practical way to partially resolve this contradiction.
We are happy to accept Parliament' s proposal and we believe that the idea of reducing the number of products exchanged to ten, only indicating the country of origin or destination of the products and their value, may be a good way of resolving the difficulties which I referred to earlier.
You also ask us to analyse the change of threshold from EUR 100 000 to EUR 200 000, which would exclude a greater number of companies from the obligation to present statistical declarations.
As I said before, we consider the work of Parliament' s committee to be excellent and we therefore support and accept it totally.
I would like to congratulate them on their work.
However, you have raised a couple of issues.
Firstly, Mr Harbour asks how the process can be speeded up.
The Commission is not concern about the delay.
We are prepared to accelerate the process as far as possible and we are interested in reducing the cost to companies to a minimum.
Nevertheless, we must recognise that we have two problems which we must address in a different way.
Firstly, with regard to the selection of the ten most relevant products for the purposes of the declaration, that will have to be done by means of the normal comitology procedures.
However, we hope that excessive time will not be required in order to arrive at these results.
Secondly, the increase in the threshold from EUR 100 000 to EUR 200 000 is a problem which requires the necessary cooperation of the Member States, which is already under way, and as soon as we have the opinions of the different Member States, we will be able to make the specific proposal which will allow us to apply this increased exemption.
Lastly, Mrs Berger asks us which additional initiatives we are going to take.
You have said correctly that this is a first step for us.
We believe that it is essential to go further with this process of simplification.
I can therefore state that we are committed - as we have already said publicly - to continuing with the SLIM and Intrastat initiatives and, above all, with the Edicom actions in favour of companies, bearing in mind that the Council has approved the report on information needs which are essential for economic and monetary union.
I cannot give you a specific date for the new proposals, but I can assure you that we are working on them and that Parliament and the Council will receive the new proposals from the Commission as soon as we have the basic information from the Member States.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.40 p.m.)
Before we start with the order of business, there are still a number of points of order.
Thank you.
As you can hear from the applause, the House has taken note of your comment.
- (NL) Mr President, I would like to bring up another point.
Not only yesterday, but also a few months ago, every month really, permits are granted to the presidency or other nationalities to organise receptions.
These then degenerate into all-out bingeing sessions, at which point the cameras start to roll.
I think, Mr President, that that is unworthy of Parliament.
What I would like to ask through you is that these kinds of festivity be regulated properly.
I think that we can no longer afford this kind of behaviour.
I am surprised that permission is granted for this kind of thing, because my request to set up an exhibition for the handicapped, organised by myself, was turned down last week by the same College of Quaestors.
My request was looked upon critically, whereas these kinds of party, where we are portrayed as vultures, are simply tolerated.
I would ask you to raise this matter with the College of Quaestors in order to put a stop to this, as this is beneath us all.
Madam, please be so kind as to file your concern in writing with the Quaestors, who will then take the necessary steps.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I have been studying yesterday' s Minutes and I have noted that Elmar Brok, MEP, has not mentioned that there might be grounds for his disqualification when voting on the report on digital television, although he has indicated in the register containing information on Members' secondary occupations that he is senior vice-president in a company called 'Media Developments Bertelsmann' .
In my opinion, this matter should be discussed in Parliament.
I have not quite understood the honourable member.
Are you saying that he did or did not vote? According to the translation, he did not vote and if he did not vote on a matter which is pertinent, then he behaved correctly.
Mr President, I have been reading the Minutes and it does not say here that he would not have voted.
We shall clarify the matter.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, I have taken the floor simply to tell you that I have been in contact with Mr Murphy, the rapporteur of this report, and we have agreed that it would be better to proceed to the vote without debating the report.
What you have suggested is most unusual, because normally this is decided when the order of business is adopted.
If reports have been entered on the order of business with a debate then, having consulted the Rules of Procedure, I see no way of removing them from the order of business.
I suggest that we keep to the chosen procedure with debate.
Mr President, I do not know if the problem lies in the wording, but this does not appear to answer the question I was asking.
In fact, on tomorrow' s agenda, the Conference of Presidents has tabled its proposal for the establishment of a temporary committee, not a committee of inquiry.
This, however, is not the issue: what I am asking for is a vote on the decision by the Conference of Presidents, with the motion that there should not be a committee of inquiry.
There is another motion, but that is not it.
You have therefore not answered my question.
I believe I have because, as far as the procedure is concerned, we have two options.
First, we can vote separately on the question of setting up a temporary committee and the question of setting up a committee of inquiry.
We can do that separately and at different times.
But the Rules of Procedure do not require us to proceed in this way.
The motion, therefore, is to vote on both questions jointly as a package and that is our second option.
I cannot see that it will prejudice the idea of a committee of inquiry, which is what you want, if we merge the votes and the whole issue takes another three weeks.
It makes no material difference; at some point the House will have to state its view.
I repeat: it would be possible, but the President suggests that we proceed differently and I suggest likewise to you now.
Mr President, I think that it is quite reasonable to propose two votes at the same time, but I insist that there should be two votes: firstly, a vote on the principle of establishing a committee of inquiry, which was rejected by the Conference of Presidents, and there may have to be a second vote if agreement is reached on establishing a temporary committee, which, I must point out, serves a quite different purpose.
These are two different problems and a close look at the Rules of Procedure will show that Rule 151 does not provide for a temporary committee: it only mentions a committee of inquiry.
I feel that the plenary is within its rights to state its opinion on the position adopted by the Conference of Presidents.
Mr Lannoye, that goes without saying!
The Rules of Procedure are crystal clear: if the requisite number of signatures is collected, then a vote must be held in plenary following the decision of the Conference of Presidents, otherwise it would mean that the Conference of Presidents decides whether or not to set up a committee of inquiry rather than plenary.
And, of course, that is not how it works.
There may be one or two people in the Conference of Presidents who believe that it is, but they are labouring under a misapprehension!
(Heckling, interjection by Mr Poettering)) Mr Poettering says no-one believes that and so your problem is solved!
Mr President, I have taken the floor in order to support the request and I am satisfied with your response.
At last, tomorrow afternoon, the Conference will give a response to this request which has been signed by so many Members.
I have taken note of the honourable member' s comment.
Decision on urgent procedure
The next item is the vote on the motion for urgent procedure with regard to the proposal for a Council Regulation [COM(1999) 576 - C5-0280/1999 - 1999/0236(CNS)] amending Regulation (EEC) No 1251/1999 establishing a support system for producers of certain arable crops to include flax and hemp grown for fibre and the proposal for a Council Regulation [COM(1999) 576 - C5-0281/1999 - 1999/0237(CNS)] on the common organisation of the market in flax and hemp grown for fibre.
These proposals were addressed in Mrs Schierhuber' s report, on which the final vote on 16 May was postponed in accordance with Rule 69 (2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The matter was referred back to committee.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has the floor for the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture, as the committee responsible.
.
(DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as far as Parliament and the Commission are concerned, this regulation raises three issues: first, how to prevent abuse of the aid scheme for flax and hemp, because there have been very significant irregularities under the regulation in the past; secondly, how to ensure that flax and hemp, both of which are impressive, renewable raw materials with a strong ecological and social impact, can continue to be cultivated in the EU.
And thirdly, we need to protect, consolidate and promote the burgeoning processing industry in this area, an industry producing smart, ecologically valuable, biological degradable products.
So we agree on the objectives, but we do not agree on how to achieve them, which is why Parliament has postponed the final vote on this report and is currently negotiating with the Commission.
Considerable progress has been made towards consensus and a compromise has been reached on numerous points.
We met again yesterday but did not finish editing the compromises and proposed compromises.
This motion for urgency tabled by the Council or the presidency is therefore premature and we propose therefore that it be rejected for the time being.
We assume that we will have reached a compromise which can be tabled by July and plenary will then be able to vote on it in July.
I should like to reiterate my express thanks in this connection to the Commission and Commissioner Fischler, who has been most cooperative in this matter.
I hope that we shall also be able to take account in this proposal of the fact that the Commission is keen for us to table and complete this procedure this year.
Thank you.
The chairman of the Committee on Agriculture has tabled a procedural motion.
According to the Rules of Procedure, one member may speak for and one member may speak against the motion.
Mrs Schierhuber has asked to speak.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I agree wholeheartedly with the motion tabled by the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture.
He has outlined the matter quite clearly.
I, for my part as rapporteur, should like expressly to thank the Commission for its willingness to negotiate.
As you know, we still have no co-decision in agriculture, hence the two informal meetings, both of which lasted over an hour.
We reached a consensus on a great many points and the Commission too was willing to compromise.
Unfortunately, we have no written documents on which we can really vote and pass resolutions, which is why I support the motion to reject urgency for the time being.
Mr President, we shall shortly be debating Mrs Lalumière' s motion for a resolution on European security and defence.
It is an important proposal and we each have an opinion on it; however, I think that, if we are to hold a proper debate on this important issue, we should have received the amendments in time.
We requested the amendments this morning between 8 and 8.30 and they were not available.
This means that, when the time comes to vote on these amendments, we shall be unable to debate them first.
Because this also happens with other debates, I should like to ask for measures to be taken so that we receive amendments in time, before reports are debated in plenary.
Our services tell me that the honourable member is right and that there was a delay in distributing the documents because the deadline was set so late.
But as we are not due to vote until Thursday, I think that there is some justification for holding the debate nonetheless.
But basically you are right and we shall make an effort to distribute the documents earlier in future.
European political parties
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
(B5-0488/00) by Mr Poettering on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, Mr Barón Crespo on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Mr Cox on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party and Mr Lannoye on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance to the Commission on European political parties;
(B5-0494/00) by Mr Pasqua on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group to the Commission on political parties at European level.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to submit seven considerations on this important issue.
First: in 1991, the European heads of state and government expressly recognised the importance of European political parties in Article 138a of the Treaty of Amsterdam, guided by the idea that full-blown democracy in the European Union cannot be achieved without solidly-funded European political parties set on a reliable legal basis.
Secondly: next year will mark the tenth year without any material progress with the legal status of European political parties or life breathed into the Treaty.
The group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats deeply regrets this.
Thirdly: we would remind the House of the important preliminary work carried out in the Tsatsos report adopted in 1996 and the Kuhne report of 13 April 2000.
Other reports by the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control, the most recent being the Ferber report, have also indicated the urgent need for a European party statute and for this matter to be regulated.
Fourthly: we therefore welcome the fact that the Commission is prepared to advocate an addendum to Article 191 of the EC Treaty on European political parties and thank President Prodi, Commissioner Barnier and the College as a whole for treating this concern with the importance which it deserves.
It is this which will enable a solution to be found.
We hope that the wording selected will allow the Commission to finalise a European party statute quickly, not set the majority requirements in the Council too high and respect full co-decision for the European Parliament.
Fifthly: we also welcome the fact that the European Commission obviously also confirms the possibility, if my information is correct, of proceeding on the basis of Article 308.
The possibilities offered by Article 308 must be used if and insofar as the Treaty is not supplemented.
Nonetheless, we take the firm view that supplementing the Treaty is the best way forward.
Sixthly: the chairmen of the four largest groups in the European Parliament, i.e. the group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, the Group of the Party of European Socialists, the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance submitted a proposal for the core elements of a European party statute several months ago, in agreement with the chairmen of the party federations and the Commission, thereby demonstrating that this problem should and could be solved within a broad political consensus.
We are confident that other groups which do not yet have their own European party can be included in this consensus.
Seventh and lastly: we are also aware that, until such time as a European party statute enters into force, we need transitional rules regulating and limiting support for European political parties by groups in the European Parliament and we are prepared to take a broad initiative here which crosses the group divide.
We want to promote the emancipation of European political parties from the groups still further and open up future prospects for them and our main concern is to see European political parties become a major vehicle for European political work.
We want to give them this opportunity and we want, above all, to ensure that, in all aspects of support for European political parties, we have a transparent situation and clear legal conditions which can be presented as such to the public. This will serve the credibility not only of the parties but also of the European Union and the European Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, I agree with the words of chairman Poettering on this joint initiative and, if you will allow me, I would like first of all to remind you that ten years ago we achieved jointly - on that occasion we were the Christian Democratic Party, the Liberals and the Socialists - the inclusion in the Treaty of Maastricht of the article recognising the personality of the political parties.
It fell to me at that time to negotiate its inclusion with President of the Council Lubbers and I would like to pay tribute to him because I believe that it was an important step.
We could have chosen to pose the question in reverse, that is to say, why, when the Commission had the monopoly on initiative for ten years, did it not take any step to regulate such an important issue? However, we are taking a constructive view.
We want to resolve this problem which is not just a question of a legal vacuum but a constitutional problem for the European Union.
The current situation is becoming increasingly complicated.
It was traditionally believed in the media that it was necessary to go 'lobbying' in Brussels, to behave like a pressure group.
We managed to have the political parties recognised. In our countries they are a fundamental pillar of democracy.
Nevertheless, in ten years, no progress has been made and we truly find ourselves in an increasingly difficult situation.
We could go so far as to say that at least 75% of the Members of this House are affiliated to organisations which are not clandestine, certainly, but do not have legal status, and demands are continually being made of us, which we try to respect and comply with, by the Court of Auditors, a key institution within the European Union, but which must not be the institution which in reality establishes the legal framework.
We believe that it is absolutely essential, in order to ensure that it is the democracy of the people and not the power of money, which prevails in the Union, that the Commission should exercise its power of initiative responsibly at the moment.
We have made certain useful suggestions so that we may find our way out of a situation which is not only unsatisfactory but also negative for the development of democracy in Europe.
Mr President, the essentials have been covered, but I should like to reiterate the point that the right to propose legislation rests with the Commission.
We have taken an initiative across the various political groups, which we presented in February to President Prodi.
As a matter of law there has been a reference to political parties in the Treaty for more than seven years now.
It states that the parties are a factor for integration, they contribute to the formation of European awareness and are a vital element in the democratic life of the Union and the political debate of the Union.
However, like several of the rather aspirational articles in the Treaties, Article 191, the article referred to, lacks a certain operational content.
The question is: can the Commission take an initiative which breathes life and operational content into the aspirations of Article 191? That really is what the debate is about in this House today.
I share the concern of other speakers that the reports of the Court of Auditors - which, by the way, we fully anticipated in this House several years ago with the report of Professor Tsatsos, which pointed out the urgent necessity of validating parties in statutory terms - adds a new urgency.
The institutions must be able to deliver accountability and transparency.
This House does not have the right to draft legislation: that is the exclusive preserve of the Commission.
We are asking for your assistance to ensure that this vital element, as the Treaty states, in the democratic life and political debate of the Union is validated by statute.
Mr President, according to the Treaty, parties which contribute to informing the citizens about events which take place within the Union and the European Parliament are political parties, and therefore, by their political activities, they contribute to the development of a European awareness and European knowledge.
But what is European awareness? It may be that the Treaties are not sufficiently clear on this subject, seeing that they do not mention the rights of the disabled and they do not provide enough protection for children and babies, who are nowadays particularly affected by widespread paedophilia in Europe.
European consciousness is that which must contribute to the development of mutual respect, which must prevent one culture prevailing over another, and which must ensure that tolerance is not confused with laxity and an absence of rules and laws and that laws and rules are not made with the intention of protecting some and not others.
The European culture is born of respect for our national cultures and national traditions. New elements are integrated, but this must not lead to a situation where one category of individuals dominates to the detriment of another.
The citizens of the Union need greater protection of their rights, economic and otherwise, in the face of a world market which is becoming increasingly dominated by the interests of multinationals and of a world market created, one might say, to serve political as well as other purposes.
Therefore, European parties are not those parties which, to further party interest, have the same acronym in different countries, but those parties whose common ideals, values and programmes lead them to unite within groups and to work together to give the citizens a louder voice and greater representativity
So, à la Voltaire, if you want to talk to me, lay down the rules now.
We have to clarify whether the European parties are something that we want to develop now, something different which will overlap with the national parties, that is if we desire cultural and political globalisation to follow economic globalisation - which would bring total uniformity - or whether we want, effectively, to build a Europe in which parties with the same affinities and ideals can work together at European level.
European parties, let us not kid ourselves!
Before hearing the speakers for the groups, I would like to give the floor to Commissioner Barnier.
Mr President, I take good note of Commissioner Barnier' s statement and the commitment which the Commission is making.
Please allow me to express, not a criticism, but surprise in relation to the unassailable legal basis.
The Union Treaty, at that time signed by the twelve Heads of State and Government and ratified by all the parliaments of the Member States with the approval of the European Parliament, which recognises citizenship, is not, it appears, a sufficient legal basis.
This surprises me because to be associated with a political party is a fundamental right for citizens and, while our citizenship is recognised, that right is not.
We did not manage to have this included in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Commission is behaving gingerly and takes this approach: two stages, almost three stages, according to the Commissioner.
I understand that the proposal relating to the tripartite dialogue and stemming from Article 308 is a provisional proposed legislative provision and the best laws, at least in my country, are provisional laws, which are the ones which have lasted the longest.
This would allow us to end this current situation of a lack of legal status, and I take good note of this and I believe we should work in that direction.
The second step is the amendment of the Treaties.
I believe I can say that we all support it, but the important thing at the moment is, firstly, the existence of a public commitment by the Commission to exercise its right to initiative, a common will to consolidate a fundamental dimension for European citizenship and contribute immediately to the political parties beginning not only to exist in reality, but also to be legally recognised, because I believe that this is an important step towards the construction of European democracy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I naturally concur with Mrs Hautala' s views on transparency.
I would also like to thank the Commissioner for his proposal in which we will be given the opportunity to exchange ideas here with Parliament which is, after all, eminently suited to express its opinion on this matter.
But what we need is an initiative - albeit hopelessly overdue - from the Commission.
After all, for the past twenty years, we at the European Free Alliance have been bringing together political parties which want to help build Europe on the basis of a diversity of cultures, peoples and regions.
In this connection, we have always attempted to stand up for the small and the weak, who cannot represent themselves in this big Parliament but whose concerns we are trying to take into consideration.
Up to now, it has been impossible to do this fully transparently, because there has been no clarity with regard to the European parties' expenditure and revenue, among other things.
But there are questions left unanswered concerning the future too.
It has not yet been mentioned here, Commissioner, but I would like to raise the question nevertheless. Will the European democratic parties which in future appoint themselves as European parties only be supported if they stand for the values on which Europe is built?
This seems a rhetorical question to me. I hope that the Commission can give me a clear answer to it.
Mr President, I would first of all, perhaps specifically for the benefit of the German delegates, insofar as they still care about respecting the rule of law, like to remind you of the judgement by the German Constitutional Court of Karlsruhe, in which the European Union is unambiguously defined as a confederacy, and hence the opposite of a federal state.
In fact, this vision of the European Union is also held by the large majority of citizens of our Member States for whom our Union is a close partnership of free peoples and states which very clearly respects the principle of subsidiarity.
In the light of this, the project of European political parties is the umpteenth fundamentally undemocratic project because it can only widen the enormous chasm which exists between the electorate on the one hand and European political decision-making on the other.
But this is apparently the price which some, hiding behind a mask of rhetoric, are willing to pay here in order to channel even more of the taxpayers' money to already excessive party funds.
It is also a project of people who are hoping to create the European federal superstate.
Indeed, these people are trying to attain their goal, the undemocratic federal superstate, by guile, and seize upon a variety of issues, including monetary union, the unified statute for MEPs and the possible accession of countries which are not even geographically situated in Europe, such as Turkey, to help them reach that goal.
In a European Union which really respects the principle of subsidiarity, we do not need a European political party.
Anyone who has different ideas about Europe or who would like to increase the pompe afrique, the money pump from the taxpayer to the European political parties, should have the courage to stand up and speak out, but you are lacking this courage.
Mr President, I am a strong supporter of cooperation between peoples.
Many problems can only be solved jointly. Global problems must be solved in the UN.
The court here in Strasbourg can support us in connection with human rights.
In Brussels, we have close economic cooperation between the EU and the EEA in connection with a common market.
Would we obtain better solutions, however, if decision-making were, in every conceivable case, to be centralised in Brussels?
Would we obtain better democracy by downgrading the national parties and raising the profile of common supranational parties? Would more people join, become active members and take part in debates in connection with elections and decision-making?
Supranational EU parties are an artificial product which will never be financed through voluntary subscriptions but only by siphoning off EU funds.
We are familiar with the pattern from many national parties which have distanced themselves from the electorate and instead allow themselves to be financed by the State, business and the unions.
It is quite right that the State should support parliamentary work and provide citizens with information.
It must not, however, be a propaganda machine for the view of the majority.
To quote Grundtvig, doyen of the public education movement in Denmark, there must be 'freedom for Loki as well as for Thor' .
The supranational EU parties will never win the hearts and minds of ordinary people.
They will instead be populated by highly paid officials bound to no country in particular - bureaucrats without roots in local political associations.
Manifestos will be written by small groups of experts out of touch with the lives of real people.
An artificial product of that kind does not deserve financial support from the EU.
My group will vote against subsidies for supranational EU parties and against bending the Treaty by using flexible clauses for that purpose.
Mr President, this is a question of democracy.
Democracy is transparency, public accessibility, rule by the people, and participation.
The current European political parties do not represent transparency or public accessibility.
It is a rhetorical question, but who of us knows anything about the European political parties? The only certainty is that some groups in the European Parliament have given financial support to the Europarties, contrary to the regulations concerning parliamentary funds.
They have been discovered in the investigations conducted by the Court of Auditors.
I suspect these abuses are now being covered up.
The European political parties do not represent democracy.
They are parties of parties and that means that the public does not have the opportunity to participate directly in their activities.
For rule by the nation, you need a nation.
Europe is not a nation; it is nations.
We have no concept of supranational democracy.
Now, supranational rules and regulations for Europarties controlled by the big countries are being drawn up, with the Commission' s support, by the big parties in the big countries.
Parties of parties are not democracy.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Security and defence
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
(B5-0315/2000) by Mr Brok on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy to the Council on the European Common Security and Defence Policy in view of the European Council meeting in Feira;
(B5-0475/00) by Mr Brok on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy to the Commission on the European Common Security and Defence Policy in view of the European Council meeting in Feira.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the fact that we are already able to discuss this issue here today and I should like to start by saying that I consider this, to all intents and purposes, to be the first reading of the Lalumière report, because Mrs Lalumière has invested a great deal of expertise and work in this project.
We must stress that, after Amsterdam, Cologne and Helsinki, a great deal of progress has been made in developing the foreign, security and defence policy and we would like to thank the Council and the Commission for making this progress possible in these areas.
It is the result of our understanding that a disaster such as we have witnessed in the Balkans must never happen again.
We must guarantee that Europe has the authority to act in the area of foreign, security and defence policy, the authority which allows us to safeguard our interests jointly; however, at the same time, we must make it clear that this is not an alternative to the transatlantic alliance.
This development complements NATO, which will continue to remain responsible for collective security in Europe.
We as the European Parliament have already come to this conclusion by intensifying and institutionalising collaboration with the NATO parliamentary assembly.
We must realise that Amsterdam transferred the Petersberg tasks of the WEU to the European Union and that, as a result, practically all areas of the Western European Union now come under the responsibility of the European Union.
All that remains is Article 5.
I think this Intergovernmental Conference should consider whether Article 5 can be adopted in the form of a protocol to the EU Treaty and whether we should leave it to each Member State to take a sovereign decision as to whether or not it subscribes to this protocol.
This is surely a way for non-allied, neutral countries to find their own way as members of the European Union while, at the same time, allowing collaboration in practically all circumstances.
In the long run, this must be credibly sustained by the European Union.
We are a Union with our own legislation, which has resulted in our own legal system, and with our own interests based on the internal market and monetary union, which is why areas with different standards of security within the European Union must be a thing of the past.
This will surely help to develop a coherent foreign, security and defence policy.
We can see, precisely in Community matters, that the European Union has a plethora of instruments which are important for foreign and security policy, especially for civil crisis management, and that we are therefore able to provide more foreign aid than the United States Congress, that trade policy is the responsibility of the Commission and therefore that the nucleus of our potential to act is a Community remit and that we should not assign the development of a foreign, security and defence policy to intergovernmental collaboration.
The European Parliament will advocate bringing the Community position, the Community part to the fore.
We are of course delighted that we have a highly qualified High Representative in the person of Mr Solana, but it has always been the aim of the European Parliament in the long run to have a European foreign secretary incorporated into the Community area as part of the Commission.
This is unattainable at present for certain reasons, but we should strive towards it. It is still our aim.
We can see that the Commission has a large stake and that foreign and security policy is being formulated in the European Council.
Defence is still a matter for national governments when it comes to equipment and similar questions.
This must be merged, including practically, so that such absurdities never occur again.
If we just think that today the foreign secretary of Kazakhstan will be received by fifteen foreign secretaries, the Commissioner responsible for foreign affairs and the High Representative, then I think this makes for wonderful Council meetings, but it is not a sign of any particular authority to act on the part of the European Union.
I think that we must speak up with one voice more loudly here and the Troika of Council President, High Representative and Commissioner for Foreign Affairs introduced in the Treaty of Amsterdam should first establish the Union' s authority to act; we should not have any other definitions in this area.
We must also ensure that this Treaty improves our decision-making mechanisms and we should not forget the huge shortcomings brought to light in the organisational disaster in Kosovo, which are the reason for the lack of an arms export policy and which have so far forestalled unity in the EU Treaty.
We must recognise the fact that we are squandering money in national budgets.
We spend more on defence than America, but with far fewer results.
This also applies to transport, satellites and such like.
According to the Treaty, this European Parliament is responsible for parliamentary control, including and especially of the Petersberg tasks, which is why the control function of the European Parliament must also be strengthened.
We shall also endeavour to bring about cooperation as well as collaboration with the foreign and defence policy committees of national parliaments in order to close gaps and cooperate with the parliaments of candidate and other countries.
But this European Parliament is named in the Treaty as the parliamentary controller of foreign, security and defence policy to the exclusion of all others.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, during Portugal' s Presidency of the European Union the development of the Common European Security and Defence Policy has been regarded as a priority, as is evident from the document which we presented at the beginning.
The report to be submitted to the European Council in Santa Maria da Feira will detail the progress made on the various mandates received in Helsinki. In particular it will cover the development of the European military capability, the headline goal, the institutional development of the permanent political and military bodies, the relations between the European Union and third countries in this area, the relations between the European Union and NATO, an indication of whether or not the EU Treaty needs to be revised and the problem of non-military crisis management mechanisms.
In the area of foreign policy and the Common European Security and Defence Policy, the EU has decided to develop the military and non-military dimensions in parallel.
We clearly must coordinate these two dimensions and particularly the military and non-military crisis management actions which the EU may decide to undertake.
This coordination will be carried out by the new structures of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, in particular by the Political and Security Committee, the future Military Committee and the Committee for Civilian Crisis Management.
I must point out that the interim bodies started work in March 2000 and that the Committee for Civilian Crisis Management was formally created during the Portuguese Presidency.
As will be evident from the Presidency' s report to the Feira European Council, an effort is being made to simultaneously develop the military and non-military crisis management capabilities. The Member States have already been working to develop the headline goal.
For example this was discussed yesterday at a meeting of the General Affairs Council attended by the Defence Ministers. The Feira European Council will also see the Member States make a commitment to develop their civil police capability by 2003, with up to 5 000 officers, for crisis management operations.
This represents a major effort by the Member States to ensure sustained and uniform development of these two dimensions which are fundamental for security and stability.
On another issue raised in Mr Brok' s question, I must say that strengthening the Common Foreign and Security Policy by developing a common European security and defence policy, thus allowing the EU to establish a military capability and also to reinforce the efficacy of its civilian crisis management mechanisms, does not necessarily require an increase in the defence budgets of the Member States.
Rather, the basic objective will be to improve the use and rationalisation of the military assets and capabilities of the Member States.
In this context it must be said that the European Union will use, in order to develop the headline goal, the NATO defence planning, the planning and review process for countries which are not members of NATO and the defence capabilities initiative which is ongoing within the Alliance.
Every effort is being made to ensure effective use of all the assets and capabilities and to avoid the duplication which could lead to additional defence costs.
No increase in the Community budget is planned as these efforts are to be implemented by the Member States in a context of voluntary cooperation.
A final answer on the budgetary impact of this policy may only be given, however, after the Commitment Capability Conference to be held in the autumn. This will analyse the national military contributions to this joint effort and the shortfalls which it may be considered necessary to meet.
As for the involvement of the European Parliament in this process, it should be recalled that the Common European Security and Defence Policy is a component of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The EU intends to make its foreign dimension more effective and credible by developing military and civilian crisis management capabilities.
Under Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union, Parliament shall be consulted by the Presidency on the main aspects and the basic choices of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The views of Parliament shall be taken into consideration by the Council.
The European Parliament shall also be kept regularly informed of the development of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and may ask the Council about aspects which it considers are important and may make recommendations which it deems appropriate.
The need to avoid unnecessary duplication and to make the best use of all the existing assets and capabilities also underlies the development of the Common European Security and Defence Policy.
It is therefore natural that the Member States have from the beginning advocated the transfer of WEU powers which could prove useful in the process now under way in the European Union.
Portugal, which holds the Presidency of the WEU, has tried to advance the process for transferring powers from the WEU to the European Union.
The Portuguese Presidency has therefore prepared a set of political and military concepts and procedures which, following the WEU Council of Ministers meeting in Oporto, will be transferred to the European Union. This constitutes a fundamental part of the acquis which must be preserved.
During our Presidency of the WEU, preparations for the process of transferring the Institute for Security Studies and the Satellite Centre of the WEU have also been started. This will occur during the next presidency.
The WEU has already taken the decision to allow the EU direct access to these structures.
Therefore, in accordance with the desire expressed by the Member States, the transfer of the Institute for Security Studies and the Satellite Centre will take place.
The transfer of powers from the WEU to the EU does not imply the end of the WEU; at least this is not the current aim of the Member States.
The amended Treaty of Brussels will remain in force without any further changes. This is why the collective defence mechanism specified in Article 5 will also remain in operation for the States which have signed this Treaty, as will the Parliamentary Assembly, which will continue to operate fully.
However, the whole organisational structure will be slimmed down. This will then simply provide support to a permanent council which will meet when necessary and to other structures which will continue to operate, in particular the Western Europe Armaments Group.
The budget for this organisation will also be substantially reduced.
The Common European Security and Defence Policy requires a close, intense and transparent relationship between the European Union and NATO.
The Portuguese Presidency has paid particular attention to developing ways of establishing this relationship, which must be based on cooperation, dialogue and transparency. However, it must not threaten the autonomy of these two organisations.
The report to be presented to the Feira European Council includes a document establishing the principles and terms of this relationship during this interim period.
Four ad hoc working groups involving the EU and NATO will be created on the following issues: security, European military capability, development of processes for transferring NATO assets and capabilities to operations led by the European Union and, finally, definition of the permanent terms of the relationship between the European Union and NATO.
If necessary, other working groups on specific issues may be created.
In its effort to develop the European military capability, the EU must take into account the need to maintain a relationship of cooperation, dialogue and consultation with European allies who are not members of the European Union and with the applicant countries.
It must be stressed that the headline goal defined in Helsinki is open to participation by these countries which may therefore contribute to the European force.
According to the document agreed by the European Union which will form an integral part of the Feira European Council report, a single and inclusive structure will be created in which the fifteen Member States of the European Union and the fifteen third countries will participate.
This structure will be responsible for dialogue, cooperation and consultation between these countries.
In view of the fundamental role of the six European allies who are not members of the European Union and also bearing in mind that NATO may provide assets and capabilities for operations led by the EU, meetings will take place within this single structure between the Fifteen and these six countries to discuss issues involving the development of the European military capability.
In the pre-crisis phase or rather at the start of a crisis, dialogue, cooperation and consultation will clearly be reinforced and, if the EU were to consider using NATO assets and capabilities, particular attention would be given to the dialogue, cooperation and consultation with the six European allies who are not members of the EU.
It must be stressed that, under the terms agreed in Helsinki, EU operations will in principle be open to participation by these countries.
Russia, Ukraine and other European countries may also participate in operations led by the European Union.
The French Presidency will be responsible for presenting the Nice European Council with proposals on the terms for the consultation and participation of these countries.
At the Feira European Council, the European Union will record the interest expressed by Canada in participating in this joint European effort.
Finally, in Helsinki the Portuguese Presidency was given the task of presenting the Feira European Council with an indication of whether or not the Treaty of Amsterdam needs to be revised.
From the debate conducted and the opinions expressed, it has been possible to conclude that the implementation of the EU decisions on the Common European Security and Defence Policy does not require the Treaty to be revised as this policy falls legally within the provisions currently in force.
However, as this is a process that is open to developments, the Member States have agreed on the need to keep an eye on this issue.
Mr President, the decisions made at the Helsinki European Council on the development of a common security and defence policy are open to interpretation.
Many aligned countries believe that the formation of a common military force would mean the start of a common defence arrangement.
Their plans are clear.
Under the treaties, the aim of a common foreign and security policy for the Union is to safeguard its independence and integrity, as well as strengthen its security in all its forms.
The military force to be established is, in their view, a tool to realise these aims: a common army for a Union that is becoming a federation.
In the opinion of the non-aligned Member States, only the creation of a system for crisis management has been decided upon.
They stress that each country should decide separately on its involvement.
They believe that they have no obligation to become involved in enforcing peace.
Non-aligned Member States do not want the Union to become a military alliance or military superpower.
These differences of opinion and interpretation must be taken into account.
It is also wise in security policy to establish differentiated integration.
Combined troops of the European Union should only be used for crisis management.
Countries which are part of the federal core, as proposed by Messrs Delors, Giscard d' Estaing, Schmidt and Fischer, could create a defence community, to form a strong European pillar within the context of NATO.
The understandable and commendable aim by the European NATO countries to develop a European defence identity should thus be realised within the context of NATO itself.
Decisions relating to security and defence policy are immensely important, and should therefore be made with the emphasis on openness and democracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is useful to remind ourselves and to realise that we are in the first round of many of a debate on European security.
This means that we have imposed a few restrictions on ourselves.
We are very much focusing on the Summit, the European Council of Feira, which is fine, but that means that we will not be covering a number of other issues which are vital to European security.
One such issue which we are not discussing today is the criteria for the deployment of this rapid reaction force.
I am sure that we will be discussing this issue following a further report by Mrs Lalumière in due course, but in the meantime, we are subject to a few restrictions.
Despite these restrictions, we are able to pass a sound verdict now, in my opinion.
Let me start by making a positive comment.
A large part of the resolution is taken up by non-military crisis management, and this is very much how it should be, in my opinion.
The Commissioner spent quite a long time talking about this and I think he had every reason to.
According to my group, the EU has unique opportunities in this respect which, so far, have remained for the most part untapped.
Fortunately, there are also examples of how things can be done, for example, the Stability Pact, which is a mixture of economic reconstruction, promotion of human rights and the development of a civil society.
This is a good example of how, also in future, the Union will be able to use its nearly unlimited options in the field of non-military crisis management.
But military resources also form part of this package and, this may surprise some delegates, this is also largely backed by my group, albeit subject to a number of conditions.
I would like to specify two. One is the EU' s say.
In my opinion, it should be crystal clear, and this is not included in the present texts, that the EU has autonomous power of decision and that the EU countries must be able to decide for themselves on their level of commitment, without needing permission from NATO - or should that be the US?
I would like to make one final point.
It cannot be the case that the new military resources which are required will be over and above the ones we have at the moment and that, as such, a new arms race would be created for military resources.
What is important is that the analysis and security policy are new.
This does not necessarily include more resources.
Mr President, there are matters which give rise to fundamental differences of opinion and this is obviously one of them.
You, Mrs Lalumière, have obtained the backing of a large majority in committee and you will no doubt maintain this majority in plenary.
This majority confirms the quality of your work and the care which has gone into it.
But it also confirms how weak the critical voices have become.
I do not see this is a cause for celebration.
Even official threat analyses confirm that there is no military threat to the countries of western Europe.
Instead, scenarios such as the war in Kosovo or imaginary crises in the future, Islamic fundamentalism or, as in the German defence guidelines, even possible ecological threats are wheeled out in order to justify huge military spending.
It marks the capitulation of politics and of the intellect, when such problems are met with a military response.
Let me pick up on just one issue, an issue which figured at the centre of all the positions taken here today: the war in Kosovo.
I think that the Council, the Commission and we ourselves are drawing the wrong conclusions in principle from a war which was wrong in principle.
First, the violation of international law, as practised by NATO, and which, for the rest, still forms part of the official NATO military strategy, should not shape future security policy.
Secondly, I am convinced that the war against Yugoslavia could and should have been avoided with a consistent, preventive, long-term policy, especially as events over the last few days have again shown dramatically that its alleged or actual aim of safeguarding human and minority rights failed disastrously.
War, if anything, is the most unsuitable and most counter-productive method in this respect.
Finally, when it is again argued that the war in Kosovo demonstrated that the EU needs major military independence from the USA then, to my mind, this begs the conclusion that militarising international relations and security policy will increase, not reduce dependency on the USA.
Military is what the USA does best.
My group takes an opposing view in principle to the present prevalent European security policy on at least three counts.
First: the security policy template is a military, not a political, civil or cooperative one and the section on preventive and civil security policy cannot hide that fact.
It is interesting that military resolutions have been coming thick and fast since the Helsinki Summit while, to all intents and purposes, nothing has been done about a civil, cause-orientated security policy.
Secondly: we reject a European military block formation.
The only viable approach, in our view, is to restore the central role of the UNO for international security, reinforce the OSCE, design cooperative security concepts and radically disarm.
Thirdly: we are deeply concerned at how automatically demands are rejected which, until just recently, formed part of a broad political consensus, at least between Mrs Lalumière and, for example, the positions represented in my group.
In all events, demands for an unequivocal declaration on the UN charter, defence of the ABM treaty, respect for the policy of neutrality of certain EU Member States or an increase in funds for peace education and peace studies failed to muster a majority in committee.
Germany has earmarked DM 17.5 million for civil conflict management projects this year.
I think it is a fairly typical figure.
It represents - and let me say this very slowly - 0.00029% of military spending.
I fear that this policy first creates crises which it then endeavours to control.
Which is why there is nothing left for us but to say a firm No.
Mr President, we take a different approach to the important point raised by our colleague, Mr Brok' s question to the Council.
This is an important issue, because, following the very serious crises that have struck the Balkans, the European Council, especially in its Cologne and Helsinki declarations of June and December 1999 and the Presidency, particularly in the two reports it has drawn up on the Union' s military and civilian resources for dealing with crisis situations, have demonstrated their intention to see the Union become more closely involved in the management of crises that threaten European security, interests and values.
A number of European Union Member States, but also non-members, may perceive such threats as common threats.
The issue of concern to us, then, is how we envisage establishing an intergovernmental process which deals with each country individually and which would allow all the States that wish to commit themselves, to actually do so and combine forces, while not forcing any State that does not so desire to take part against their will in a course of action of which it may not approve.
The organisation of this kind of intervention capability must not, however, be designed in ideological terms, as a factor to make political integration binding.
Such an approach would lead to failure.
It must be seen in terms of specific crisis situations which are likely to occur, whilst respecting the freedom and the will of each of our States.
Treating each case individually will enable us to do this and to establish a type of reaction that is appropriate to the type of crisis and in line with the will of the people.
Furthermore, the question of the financial resources allocated to the establishment of civilian and military capabilities which are likely to be united is obviously a crucial one.
It requires significant budgetary input and therefore a radical reversal of the trend that has been seen in most Member States, unlike the United States, since the end of the cold war.
It would be useful to know whether the Council feels that the upturn in growth in Europe is such as to favour this essential turnaround and how the Council intends to promote it.
Mr President, I am very grateful to the person who submitted the oral questions for creating the opportunity, before the Feira Summit, to debate the CFSP, which is shrouded in mystery.
Its lack of transparency is characterised by a multitude of initiatives and ever changing coalitions.
I would nonetheless like to try to make a few observations.
First of all, I wonder whether the creation of a European identity is backed by sound motives.
I would like to stress that we should not be guided by power motives.
If we only focus on a strong role for Europe on the world stage, then we have got it all wrong.
It is not about power, but about taking responsibility.
This cannot be done without joining forces with NATO as the latter has all the necessary resources available.
I should also like to warn against all too unrealistic expectations as far as cooperation between the Member States in this respect is concerned.
A realistic view of the current developments in Europe shows that paper declarations from St. Malo, Cologne and Helsinki have so far not been accompanied by real security guarantees.
The required "firm political commitment on the part of all Member States" of Paragraph 19 of the resolution is lacking.
These brief comments do not detract from the fact that it is important to include this subject on the IGC agenda.
We need plain agreements on competencies in this field.
And as far as we are concerned, these are still mainly within the national state.
Mr President, we must recognise that the progress that has been made in recent months in the field of security and defence policy originated from the informal Council of Defence Ministers in Sintra, which should be included on the list of successes of the Portuguese Presidency.
One of the many and complex problems involved in the development of this policy, which necessarily requires greater involvement by Finance Ministers and Defence Ministers, is the role and influence of the institutions.
At this initial stage, Mr President, Parliament should be more involved in the development of this policy.
We should be thinking about a parliamentary dimension for the common security and defence policy which includes the establishment of mechanisms necessary for Parliament to participate, with its corresponding institutional role, in the definition and the objectives of that policy.
Furthermore, the appropriate measures should be taken for the Parliament to exercise control over the security and defence policy and so that it is constantly and adequately informed of its tasks and of the provisional bodies which currently work in the service of the Council of Ministers of the European Union.
What I have just said with regard to Parliament, Mr President, is equally valid for the Commission.
The balance between the institutions should not be altered in the case of such an important question.
We should clarify the competencies of the Commission and the Council, since there is an unresolved tension between intergovernmental and Community powers.
The ambiguity with regard to the limits of the Commission' s role is particularly evident in the field of security and should be clarified once and for all, since we must not forget that the harmonious partnership between Parliament and the Commission has given rise to the successes of the European integration project, and we should work and fight for its restoration.
Furthermore, Mr President, this European Union project is not just a matter of a political, economic and military union.
Our project is based, or should be based, fundamentally on a community of values.
We in the European Union do not simply define ourselves as consumers in a big market place, but as citizens of the Union.
The citizens of the Union, represented by Parliament, increasingly want to be involved in this area which concerns them and affects them directly, namely the common security and defence policy.
Mr President, last month we celebrated Europe Day.
Central to this was Robert Schuman' s speech of 9 May 1950.
A lot has changed since then, but Robert Schuman' s and Jean Monnet' s basic axiom to the effect that a lasting peace is created by weaving peoples and nations together in mutually enriching dependence is still valid.
Security is created through cooperation pure and simple, as well as through integration and enlargement.
Schuman began his speech with these words: 'World peace cannot be preserved without constructive efforts to combat impending dangers' .
This far-sighted approach permeates the Socialist Group' s vision of Europe' s foreign and security policy and is also a persistent theme in Mrs Lalumière' s report on the eve of Feira, a report which our Group supports wholeheartedly.
For Social Democrats like ourselves, there are two complementary dimensions to the challenge of security policy in the twenty-first century.
The first is the global dimension, and the second is the purely European dimension.
Seen in a global perspective, security is clearly indivisible.
We share the same planet and the same fate.
In today' s globalised world following the end of the cold war, poverty and exclusion stand out as the main enemies of peace and democracy.
No military arsenals and no new nuclear arms race can provide security against the resentment of the poor.
Generous, fair and far-sighted aid, together with a trade policy which attacks the causes of poverty and insecurity must therefore be an integral part of our foreign and security policy.
In the same way, we must look at conflict prevention and crisis management in the context of our new European security policy.
We are, of course, loyal to the decisions taken in Helsinki.
We should constructively develop the military capacity which the war in Kosovo, in particular, has necessarily brought about.
The headline goals which have been established are important and must be implemented in full, without delay and without exception.
At the same time, we must, however, oppose those who wish to exaggerate our military capacity and role.
We should accept increased responsibility for security on our own continent, but we should not take the place of NATO or create an embryonic form of permanent and independent European defence.
Such ambitions are pure fantasy and mere tilting at windmills.
A policy on conflict prevention is missing from our arsenal.
We must therefore actively support the proposals tabled by Commissioner Patten and also by the Council, together with the proposals in Mrs Lalumière' s report.
Mr President, slowly and all too belatedly, a common European security policy is in the process of taking shape, one which, though it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to say so, is, at it were, being built on the ruins of Kosovo.
The EU did not manage to stop the catastrophe in the Balkans in time, and we shall forever be accountable to our children for this failure.
As Liberals, we consider it absolutely crucial for the EU to be able in future to intervene with personnel and resources in countries in its immediate vicinity, to be able to engage in civil crisis management, humanitarian efforts and peace-keeping exercises based on European values and human rights.
The EU must adopt a credible and independent policy in this area, but it is important to retain the commitment of the United States and the transatlantic link.
NATO is at present the most important organisation for peace and security in Europe.
The EU' s Member States must nonetheless soon come to some definite decisions about the common security policy.
There are three main questions which must be answered at Feira and which I want to submit to the Council.
What is the distribution of labour between the EU and NATO to look like? We must develop complementary, and not duplicate, structures.
How will it be possible to guarantee the influence of the non-aligned States upon expanding security policy? Thirdly, a question in connection with which there are many good proposals in Mrs Lalumière' s excellent report: how will it be possible for the European Parliament and the national parliaments to be guaranteed influence upon, and participation in, the decisions so that the latter are made openly and democratically in the interests of our European citizens?
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, contrary to the priorities for Feira, the European Union must strengthen the civil conflict prevention dimension of its policy.
That means, as far as weighting instruments is concerned, that the financial and material focus must be on an effective conflict prevention policy.
The main lines of conflict today are to be found in domestic conflicts and this proves that the rich countries lack the will to do enough to foster sustainable and socially-balanced development in the crisis regions.
The opportunity was missed in Helsinki to give concrete expression to an active prevention policy and efficient and prompt crisis management and we urgently need to make up lost ground here.
I congratulate Mr Patten on his activities in this direction, which I should like to support and help develop further.
In building up conflict prevention and after-care instruments, the focus needs to be on combining a reduction in the production and sale of arms and stricter controls.
One more point: the importance of Parliament.
There is a risk in the numerous informal circles of totally inadequate democratic control of a European security policy, which is why the European Parliament needs to take the lead.
Its position must be strengthened and this point needs to be entered on the agenda for Feira.
Mr President, Europe is in the unique position of not having any enemies who threaten it militarily.
This might therefore be the time for extensive military disarmament in Europe but, in reality, rearmament is taking place.
Nor is this new military force of 50 000 to 60 000 men to be used within the EU' s own territories. There is, in fact, no common defence commitment.
Rather, it is a question of operating outside the EU' s borders. It is about intervention.
Some might even go so far as to say that attacks may actually be mounted one of these days.
I am concerned about statements to the effect that the EU should be able to intervene anywhere in the world where there are threats to the Union' s security, interests and values.
To me, it sounds as if, in this area too, the EU has the United States' superpower policy as a model for its development.
Mr President, I too would like to express my great appreciation for the work of Mrs Lalumière, who has produced an extraordinarily sound document which is also carefully thought out.
It has been discussed at length in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and has put us on the right track.
Mr President, a European Union which cannot play a clearly defined role in terms of security and defence creates uncertainty on the world stage.
In tandem with the Commission and Council, Parliament would like to contribute to a transparent and convincing policy.
After all, the European Union cannot escape its responsibility which is commensurate with its economic and cultural stature.
The Christian Democrats hope that the transfer of tasks and competencies from the Western European Union to the European Union can contribute to this clarity.
As the President-in-Office of the Council pointed out, this naturally means that the budget of what may be left of the WEU will be drastically reduced but, to our great amazement, he is at the same time quite negative about the idea that the European Union' s budget should increase accordingly in this respect.
This seems extremely illogical to me and leads me to believe that this development is not taken altogether seriously.
Mr President, we have emphasised the civil and military aspects of this policy in our resolutions.
Both play a major role and the military component should explicitly be embedded in the wider context of the civil component.
These are not just pious words, they also have an immediate implication for the way in which this policy is supervised.
This is why it is essential that this European Parliament, in which we discuss all kinds of civil affairs with each other all the time, be the place where the military components form part of a wider context in parliamentary supervision too.
We know that the civil components will always take priority and the military components will in the first instance be used as a big stick and a last resort.
It would therefore be dangerous if this policy were not entirely supervised by us.
I also have to say that the nature of the tasks which we have in mind, the Petersberg tasks, is such that here is the ideal place where they can be dealt with.
As champions of a Community policy, we are particularly keen for the European Commission' s input, as Mr Patten described it a moment ago, to be at its best.
This means therefore that the Council must make this possible and that the personnel and budget required for this should be adequate.
Mr President, we do not want to disconnect these tasks from cooperation with North America.
Obviously not. In fact, we are very keen for our security to be undivided.
This is why it was with some hesitation that, in another resolution, we in the meantime urged that a position be adopted on America' s inclination to determine its own security unilaterally via the ABM system.
We do not want this.
We want to cooperate with North America in these matters too, but also - and particularly - with sound backing from the Council.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner Patten, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to the excellent work of our rapporteur, Catherine Lalumière, we are now able to present Parliament' s position in the run-up to the European Council in Feira.
She has succeeded in describing a really accurate and balanced position with which a large majority of the political forces here in Parliament can identify.
Thank you, Catherine Lalumière.
The war in and about Kosovo has made Europeans realise three important things.
First, that we need to give ourselves conflict prevention capabilities.
So far, we have had neither the political mechanisms nor the instruments to prevent or settle conflicts.
If we want to avoid war, we need to give ourselves this capability.
I am delighted that you, Commissioner Patten, take this same view and look forward to hearing your proposals, the Commission' s proposals.
Secondly, we have learned that we are unable to intervene independently on our own continent and in our own neighbourhood, even in the case of very limited military action.
Thirdly: we have learned that we need to be independent from our American friends if we want to control the means to be deployed in a military conflict.
In other words: if we are dependent on others when it comes to reconnaissance, transport, attacking capacity and other such aspects, then we are fighting their war, not ours.
These realisations have resulted in the European Union' s at long last tackling and stepping up its efforts to define, organise and restructure a common security and defence policy.
Today' s debate is the European Parliament' s contribution to these efforts on the part of the European Union as a whole.
As the European security and defence policy develops further, the Commission and European Parliament are increasingly being sidelined.
The European Parliament should also gain greater influence on military action through the budget and proper accountability through the Council.
If the Union only deals with civil and police matters whilst the governments' exclusive remit is military aspects, then the unity of European action is in danger of becoming the first casualty in crisis situations.
There can be no artificial divide between humanitarian aid and military action. The idea of a joint European and national Assembly has not been sufficiently developed by a long chalk.
Will it need to be more than an informal conversation club?
Will it be given competencies at the expense of national parliaments? It should in any event not cause this Parliament to be sidelined even further during the development of the European security and defence policy.
Mr President, I hope that Mrs Lalumière' s sterling report will this time not only meet with widespread agreement in Parliament but will also be heard in the Council.
But all too often the Council puts to one side what has been decided within the European Parliament, by consensus or not, as the case may be.
European unification is born from a desire for sustainable peace.
This is a leading concept which recurs in many interventions.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy should therefore forge a unity between political decision-making, conflict prevention, crisis management, possibly military action - only if need be, and ideally not - plus a plan to return to peace afterwards and to keep this peace.
I am not only thinking of Kosovo, which has been so important to us as an eye-opener.
The failure throughout the former Yugoslavia has shown that European helplessness and fragmentation between the different governments do not lead to a prospect of joint peace.
This peace is communal and it should also be maintained communally.
Mr President, the resolution proposed by Mrs Lalumière seeks parliamentary backing in the form of proposals for the necessary means and structures so that the European Union can assume international policing duties alongside ÍÁÔÏ, especially when and where ÍÁÔÏ fails to act immediately, as specified at Helsinki.
Unfortunately, this philosophy, as can be seen from the debate, prevails not only in the Council and the Commission, but also in the European Parliament which, instead of expressing the feelings and interests of the citizens, is about to ratify an extremely dangerous policy for Europe and mankind as a whole.
Not only are we ignoring the blatant crimes committed and being committed in Yugoslavia, we are also being called upon to support the need to repeat them with more efficient means and procedures.
The following questions must inevitably be asked: who gives us the right, on any pretext, to bomb, kill and trample the fundamental principles of international law underfoot? How should we describe someone who stirs up tension and conflict between peoples inside countries and then uses that tension and conflict to control and plunder the countries in question?
But, even if international alliances are still prepared to commit such crimes today, the people will soon form their own peaceful front against these criminal policies.
I do not congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Lalumiere; I am disgusted by her proposal.
Mr President, the challenge confronting us is how Europe can do more for crisis prevention and management, and the proposals which we are debating are the only way we can achieve that more effectively.
I congratulate the Commissioner on the lead he is setting for greater efficiency not only in aid, but also in this area.
I thank him particularly for his undertaking to examine my proposal for a European public security force, because there are several organisations across Europe which could offer experience, not least the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland.
I want to address a word to people in London.
It is reported in the newspapers that certain people in London are saying they would end the EU's involvement in the defence process.
To London I say: you cannot do that; be realistic!
You could possibly end the UK's involvement, but you cannot stop what the European Union is doing.
Please face reality.
This is a valuable new development in which we are involved and which we are debating.
We must try to shape it positively.
I look forward to further debate on these questions, being Parliament's rapporteur on the Rapid Reaction Facility that we will be dealing with later in the year.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating our rapporteur, Mrs Lalumière, on the report which she produced for our Parliament and in which she managed to strike a fine balance.
Cologne and Helsinki have added substance to the common European security and defence policy.
With unusual drive, the European Council has taken a number of important decisions, of which we have taken note and for which we have given due credit.
The aim is to develop our own capacity in order to be able to implement the so-called Petersberg tasks.
A decision has been made on the extent of the troops required in this respect.
A draft of the necessary decision-making mechanisms is in place.
A small-scale NATO is emerging.
In this context, I would like to emphasise two incisive questions, which are a small selection from a long series of matters which are being discussed here today.
The European Union must be able to act autonomously. This may sound obvious, but this statement also touches upon an enormous problem.
What does autonomous mean in relation to NATO? There is some confusion surrounding this on both sides of the Atlantic and this should be resolved soon.
Autonomy should certainly not culminate in a political exchange between the common European security and defence policy and the national missile defence, as was suggested recently by an American senator during the NATO Assembly in Budapest. In summary, the question which I would like to put to the Council is: what is autonomy in this context?
Is action within a NATO context always the first option, as the Americans claim?
Should NATO be given first refusal before the European Union can act autonomously or will the European Union allow itself more room for manoeuvre? I have the impression that this question is being avoided on both sides of the Atlantic, which will compromise future cooperation.
The second point is about democratic control.
In the Netherlands, there has been a lot of discussion recently about who was involved in what decisions in Bosnia and Kosovo.
This mainly relates to the government.
But if some kind of policy of faits accomplis is already mentioned sometimes at this level, then what about parliamentary control?
Will the common European security and defence policy turn into a cosy intergovernmental get-together or will national parliaments and the European Parliament be truly involved? Here too, the pertinent question arises as to whether the Council pays any attention to this at all?
Operating at an informal level has its advantages but not if issues of war or peace are involved.
The support base required for using the EU military instrument needs to be more extensive than that required for creating it.
Mrs Lalumière' s resolution contains a relevant proposal for tackling the threat of a democratic deficit in this connection.
The government conference can benefit from this.
The least the European Parliament could ask for is to be considered a fully-fledged partner in this very important debate.
It is disturbing to note the major rush towards the militarisation of the European Union.
The last speaker said that a small-scale NATO is emerging.
Many Members, especially citizens in neutral countries, have no say on whether this is what they want.
In my own country the vast majority of people are against the militarisation of Europe, especially a Europe that will have nuclear weapons at its disposal, a Europe where the arms industries are exporting arms to places around the world where there are mass and gross abuses of human rights.
If we look at the track record of the European Union on its involvement in many conflict areas around the world, we see that the arms industries have been part of that problem.
We need to address that.
With respect to the neutral countries, some of the wording in this resolution is extremely ambiguous in relation to collective defence.
We in the neutral countries are being told that collective defence is not going to be part of it, but of course when we get in so far then there will be no going out.
Finally, I was quite amazed to hear Mr Newton Dunn cite the RUC as a good example of policing.
If you look at the human rights organisations around the world that have amassed damning reports on that organisation, it is incredible to put it up as an example.
I am sure there are good examples, but the RUC is not one of them.
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mrs Lalumière on producing a report which is a fine balance of the arguments and interests involved.
It is a remarkable achievement.
I also wish to congratulate the Council on being able to establish at the last summit the principle of the headline goals.
It is important to realise the significance of these headline goals because for once, instead of spending years discussing institutions, the European Union has put results before means.
That, as we are already seeing, will drive forward the agenda very rapidly.
If we are to succeed in our ambitions at a price we can afford, we have to ensure that we get better value for money out of defence and, in particular, defence industries.
We need a strong, competitive European defence industry.
Notwithstanding the takeovers and mergers in the private sector, there is still far too much fragmentation in this area.
We still rely heavily on intergovernmental activity.
The Western European Union Armaments Group, for example, moves very slowly on the basis of consensus.
Even the six EU Member States which two years ago signed a letter of intent on cooperation have still not agreed a framework agreement to implement that letter of intent.
We clearly need more urgency in this area and we need a single, coherent framework within which the defence industry can cooperate.
That is why I am disappointed to hear what the presidency said about the intention to continue with the work of the Western European Armaments Group.
I believe the pillar structure of the EU provides us with the best opportunity for a framework within which industry can operate.
Pillar II can provide the common positions on things like arms exports, and we could be working towards a European armaments agency which brings together OCCAR and the Western European Armaments Organisation.
The Commission has a crucial role in this.
The last Commission drove forward the agenda on restructuring the defence industries: there were two communications.
This Commission has been completely silent on this issue.
It is as if it is running scared from confronting the implications of its role as the guardian of the Treaties.
We have to ensure that the single market applies to defence industries as far as possible, and that Article 296 only applies in those areas specified in the Treaty.
I would urge Commissioner Patten to follow in the footsteps of Commissioners Bangemann and van den Broek to drive forward the Commission's responsibility in delivering an effective and competitive European armaments industry in order to back up the measures we are taking in the political field.
Mr President, considerable progress has been made towards the establishment of a common European security and defence policy.
The Cologne, Helsinki and Lisbon Councils have all made significant contributions in that regard.
However, in all truth it must be said that decisions taken at these summits and any that may be taken at Feira will remain little more than aspirational until the Union has the necessary resources to implement such a policy.
I agree with the recent comments of Commissioner Patten when he criticised EU governments for making ringing declarations which they are reluctant to underwrite with money and staff.
If Member States are indeed serious about establishing a real security and defence policy then they must put their money where their mouth is.
In the meantime we have to be realistic about what we can achieve and at the moment we cannot talk about operational autonomy for any European force.
This will always be relative to our dependence and reliance on NATO which still owns the essential military hardware and which enabled EU governments to deploy their troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
Unless and until we have a sufficient intelligence capability matching that of the US and the transport capabilities to put EU military personnel into world trouble spots quickly, we will continue to need a close working relationship with NATO underpinned by a structured EU-NATO dialogue which is not simply a replication of the WEU/NATO acquis.
These realities must temper our discussions at Feira and elsewhere as must also the need to keep in mind the status and role of the United Nations.
Let me conclude by saying I welcome the speculation that the Feira Council will endorse the concept of a rapid reaction police force which would swing into action after completion of military tasks.
The experience of Kosovo has underlined the need for such an initiative and I welcome the fact that it may happen at Feira.
Mr President, we are regularly reassured that the measures being put in place under the common European security and defence policy are intended to strengthen NATO.
This is somewhat disingenuous.
If this was the intention there would be no need to set up the separate structures which largely exclude the Americans and Canadians and marginalise reliable European allies such as Turkey.
Over the past five years NATO has already restructured for the specific purpose of facilitating European action should the alliance as a whole not wish to be engaged.
But this apparently is not enough.
The real desire is to create something separate from NATO.
Of course we want to see the Europeans reforming and enhancing their military capabilities but I fail to see how the continued reductions that we are seeing in European defence budgets, most notably by Germany, demonstrate resolve to make a greater contribution to Western defence efforts.
The amendments we have put forward to the Lalumière resolution are intended to stress the importance of the continued commitment of our North American allies to the security of Europe as a foremost priority, to make it clear that the European Union should only opt to act militarily in agreement with the alliance and when NATO as a whole has chosen not to be engaged, to insist that any rapid reaction force should also be assigned to NATO and in any case should not impact adversely on the capacity of NATO allies to meet their alliance obligations.
We want EU decisions relating to the use of military assets, including decisions taken on the basis of a common strategy or when implementing a joint action, to be taken unanimously.
There should not be attempts to create a European armed police force behind the cloak of the common European security and defence policy.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary is a fine force with a proud record in fighting terrorism but this is not at all relevant to this particular debate.
Our overall concern is that the common European security and defence policy is indeed a further step towards European political integration and that is our fundamental objection.
Mr President, honourable members, for reasons of security in Europe and in order to safeguard the security of others outside the Union who may need our support, Europe requires an independent military presence which differs from the presence which it has by reason of its membership of NATO.
Events in Kosovo and the whole tragic break up of the former Yugoslavia are proof most painful of Europe' s failings within NATO.
One might even say that Europe has entrusted the task of a military presence to the NATO leadership and, at the same time, relaxed its efforts over the years, to the point at which it is now more or less incapable of properly honouring its obligations within NATO.
There is a psychological explanation for this.
If someone, be it a person, a country or a group of countries, considers that it has no initiative to act, it loses interest, neglects its duties or goes through the motions of performing its duties, but there is no substance to them and they are performed perfunctorily.
Perhaps the most important outcome of the resolutions of the Cologne, Helsinki and Lisbon summits is precisely the fact that they have restored Europe' s sense of initiative, giving it the motivation needed in order to accept responsibility, make an effort and honour its obligations.
From this point of view, the draft which we are debating does not constitute a threat to the cohesion of ÍÁÔÏ.
On the contrary, a Europe with its own military initiative will take its NATO obligations more seriously.
It is the only way in which it can take its NATO obligations seriously and reassure the political forces in the United States which object to American armed forces and American resources being tied up in the defence of Europe.
Consequently, Mr President, we must ensure that our immediate decisions are geared towards European unity and the defence of a common border and, sooner or later, that is the point we must reach.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposed resolution on a common European security and defence policy is an important signal from the European Parliament in the run-up to the Feira Summit, a signal which points in two directions.
First, a declaration of an independent role for the European Union in both civil and military security policy within a clearly defined remit, as in the Petersberg tasks for maintaining peace and peace-making.
Secondly, a signal to take account of and strengthen the role of the European Parliament in fashioning a common European security and defence policy.
The European Union needs to make up lost ground when it comes to a common security and defence policy if you think that its defence spending does not even equal 60% of comparable spending in the USA and only achieves 10% of the operational efficiency of the USA.
The specific undertaking to create a European strike force no more than 60 000 strong in order to complete the Petersberg tasks calls for solidarity between all the Member States of the European Union.
The lack of any real common foreign and security policy has been exacerbated by the Balkan crisis, which highlighted the weakness of the European Union in this area.
We cannot double the functions of NATO in the area of global security.
We cannot build up an expensive parallel structure.
But completion of the Petersberg tasks must be guaranteed and the principle that security is indivisible must be applied, which is why mutual support, as anchored in Article 5 of the WEU Treaty, must be open to all sides in a revised EU Treaty.
The idea of attaching Article 5 in an additional protocol to a revised Treaty, to which the individual Member States may accede if necessary, therefore represents a reasonable attempt to find a solution.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, honourable members, it is quite right to make crisis management the main objective of European foreign and defence policy.
After all, crises all over the planet are the predominant issue at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
Of course, the current state of the world and the intricacies of the international system also raise other issues and questions which, in my view, form an integral part of the issues and problems which need to inform a specific proposal on European foreign policy.
I should like to congratulate Mrs Lalumière because she has taken a huge step forward in her report.
Not only has she made specific proposals, she has also highlighted the need to find a modus operandi and a modus vivendi for all the means proposed in order to implement European foreign policy.
The problem with a European foreign policy is not quantitative.
There is no problem with the figures.
It is qualitative.
The problem lies in the content.
Having said this, may I suggest, Minister, that we act with the greatest caution when it comes to questions such as the integration of the Western European Union or relations with ÍÁÔÏ.
I, fellow members, shall insist above all on the need to find a system, a modus operandi for all the proposals tabled in the House.
Because foreign policy nowadays cannot and must not merely be the product of simple intergovernmental cooperation.
On the contrary, it must be derived by operating a multi-dimensional structure and system within which the parliamentary aspect plays an important part.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a year has gone by since the war in Kosovo, and intensive reconstruction work has begun.
An enormous amount of valuable property has been destroyed.
To avoid similar disasters in the future, we are now taking new steps to establish a common European defence and security policy.
We are doing this in order to join together in creating tools to safeguard the lynchpin of security, namely freedom and peace in Europe.
I am extremely pleased that this process is going on.
Within the framework of the EU' s mandate, this joint commitment is now being carried out and intensified.
I think it is important that the EU should concentrate on what it is good at, namely engaging in trade, developing contacts and taking measures to prevent conflicts. It is also important, however, to create credibility through 'more muscle' and increased ability to intervene in time.
If (as it wishes, and is endeavouring, to be) the EU is to be taken seriously in the world, it must also demonstrably be able to take more responsibility in its own area.
It is therefore important that we should create structures which cooperate with NATO, for it is there that the competence, capacity, leadership ability and credibility are to be found.
The EU has a complementary role, and that is why Mrs Lalumière' s report is so commendable.
This concept is based upon individual Member States' fulfilling the commitments they have made.
Our main role in the European Parliament is therefore to exercise supervision.
I have previously discussed the shrinking defence budgets of the Member States.
These defence budgets are shrinking at the same time as we require investment in restructuring and new hardware.
Since we last discussed this subject, Germany' s supreme commander has resigned in protest, which is as good a sign as any.
If our heads of State and government are to have any credibility in the year 2003, they should not only talk in Feira, but must also then return home and review the responsibilities of each country and the commitments they have undertaken to fulfil.
Mr President, Secretary of State, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in order for the European construction process to maintain its vitality, which is a prerequisite for its survival, each point of arrival must also form a point of departure.
Having achieved economic and monetary union, other plans are now being drawn up. We cannot take 50 years to implement these, however.
This is the case with the establishment of an effective common European security and defence policy.
The Member States must address this issue from a European perspective which can be fully reconciled with NATO commitments.
Although this was clearly not our desire, the fall of the Berlin wall has obviously not helped with security and defence in Europe.
We are therefore now faced with the complex situation in the Balkans, which throws up new problems on a daily basis. The lessons of Kosovo show us how not to act and the challenges in the Mediterranean basin are keeping us alert.
After decades of a bipolar world, the situation of unipolarity must be transitory and in this the European Union' s contribution will be decisive.
Peace must continue to be the grand plan of European construction but this will not happen by itself.
We must therefore have effective mechanisms for managing crises using non-military means, for developing and ensuring the compatibility of the military capabilities of the Member States, for mobilising adequate financial resources in the national and Community budgets and for establishing effective decision-making structures.
The choices seem clear, the objective is challenging and its achievement will be decisive.
Reforms must be implemented, major financial resources and means must be identified, made compatible and mobilised.
The commitment of the Member States is essential.
The current challenges cannot be deferred or hesitated over.
The Feira European Council must be more than an occasion to reaffirm our desires. It must be a turning point characterised by the identification of the necessary financial resources and by the inclusion on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference of the institutional aspects of the Common European Security and Defence Policy.
I congratulate Mrs Lalumière on her work.
- (PT) Mr President, I must very quickly highlight the usefulness of this debate and the importance of all the interventions in terms of better preparing the Council on this issue.
Mrs Lalumière' s report is excellent, particularly in its balance and the relevance of many of its observations. The report to be presented by the Portuguese Presidency to the Feira European Council next week will dispel many of the doubts and clarify many of the aspects which we have addressed here.
This report is the result of our commitment to carry out in full the mandate established in Helsinki.
Regardless of certain differences which are evident here in terms of security and defence cultures, and more so in the defence culture than in the security culture, we believe that we all agree on the need for the European Union to rapidly acquire a crisis management capability at either military or non-military level.
We must determine the extent of these mechanisms and the appropriateness of these various dimensions in terms which express the different sensitivities indicated here.
I must mention one specific point which was raised with regard to amending the Treaty on European Union and other possible amendments to this Treaty at this stage in order possibly to enshrine in law the EU' s current military mechanisms. The Portuguese Presidency' s and the Council' s reading of this issue is that there is no need for an immediate amendment of the Treaty and that the provisions of Article 17 are sufficient to cover the current mechanisms.
In any case, the way is clear for future discussion of this issue bearing in mind future developments and what will be enshrined in terms of the definitive structures.
As for the EU-NATO link, all the concerns expressed about how the creation of a common European security and defence policy may reflect negatively on the relationship with NATO are unfounded.
On the contrary, we believe that this mechanism will allow us to independently reinforce a particular dimension without creating any type of barrier in our relationship with NATO.
Moreover, the mechanisms which we are implementing to link Member States who are in NATO with those who are not and, at the same time, the formulas which we are using to link the European Union in terms of security and defence with NATO partners outside the EU seem to have found the right balance. We hope that the Feira European Council will enshrine these as the definitive model in this area.
On the issue of parliamentary representation, we obviously appreciate the sensitivity of this House with regard to its greater involvement in these matters.
However, we believe that this issue of representation precedes that of security and defence and in fact lies at the level of the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the well-known claims made by Parliament with regard to its involvement in this wider policy.
This point has been and is being discussed in the Intergovernmental Conference and we will see to what extent these claims are accepted.
In any case, it is essential, particularly with regard to the national parliaments, to guarantee their association with any future development in this area.
We too share these concerns.
Civilian crisis management has been one of the aspects highlighted by the Portuguese Presidency, particularly bearing in mind the concerns felt within the Council and also expressed in this House about this dimension.
The day after tomorrow the first meeting of the Committee for Civilian Crisis Management will take place. This Committee was specifically created during the Portuguese Presidency.
Finally, on the last issue of the Armaments Group, this group is continuing its work and will remain active within the WEU.
Welcome
Vote
Mr Perry has the floor on a point of order.
Madam President, outside the door of this Chamber there is somebody dressed as a cigarette packet.
I have no objections to people dressing as cigarette packets but I have objections to what I take to be political manifestations outside the very door to the Hemicycle.
Is this allowed under our Rules?
Madam President, I understand that we will be voting on the amendments to the Lalumière resolution tomorrow and not today.
I should like to point out that there is an important typographical error in Amendment No 39, which Members will have.
It mentions the "President of Canada".
This should read: the "Parliament of Canada".
There is no president of Canada.
The head of state of Canada is Her Majesty the Queen, who is also the head of state of Australia.
Calendar of part-sessions of Parliament for the year 2001
Dell' Alba (TDI).
(FR) Madam President, I am tabling a point of order concerning the first vote due to take place, because, I, with forty or so fellow Members, have tabled twelve amendments seeking to transfer all plenary sessions from Strasbourg to Brussels.
These amendments have been deemed to be inadmissible.
I admit that our Rules of Procedure state that we must deliberate on the matter according to the conditions laid down by the Treaties, but I would remind you that, last April, Parliament voted in favour of a resolution, specifically bearing in mind the Intergovernmental Conference that was then taking place, which requested, with a very large majority, that the seat and working centres of the European Parliament should be decided on by Parliament itself.
We could therefore quite easily have voted in favour of our amendments, waited for the results of the IGC and adapted the calendar accordingly.
I dispute the statement that these amendments, supported by many of my fellow Members, are inadmissible.
Madam President, on behalf of my Group, I would like to request that the vote on Maaten report be postponed until July.
Mr Fiori, to make things quite clear, you are therefore asking for the vote to be postponed, pursuant to Rule 146(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
Is there a speaker in favour of this request and one against?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is surely an extremely important report on what is without doubt a serious issue.
My own opinion of the legal basis notwithstanding, I really have the greatest respect for the proposals submitted and, above all, for the work carried out by Mr Maaten, who had to process an unbelievably large number of proposals, both in committee and here in Parliament for plenary, in an unbelievably short space of time.
I think that we shall not do justice to the significance and importance of this issue if we complete this procedure in such a short space of time.
There are so many proposals - 120 in all - that I fear that majorities will be reached and results will emerge which are not compatible with each other.
We really do need more careful voting and coordination both in and between the groups so that we achieve a result which is worthy of its name.
With the best will in the world and with the greatest respect for this issue, we must not forget that we really are not under any pressure and we should use the time available to us for careful reflection and review.
Mr President, I should just like to point out that I believe that the House has passed an illegal resolution in the vote on the calendar because a four-day week in Strasbourg would only be permitted if there were no additional plenary part-session in Brussels or, conversely, I believe that only if the full plenary week has been exhausted is it legal to hold additional plenary part-sessions in Brussels.
Please have the legal implications checked as a matter of urgency.
We have clearly passed a resolution which violates the spirit and probably even the letter of the Treaty.
Because this could result in our holding one-day sessions here and five-day sessions elsewhere. That cannot be the purpose of the compromise.
Apart from that, it is a huge waste of money to cut a day here and then hold additional plenary part-sessions.
Mr Posselt, firstly, I am doubtful as to whether this is a point of order and, secondly, bearing in mind that, of course, the Bureau is willing to study everything that is asked of it, if that interpretation were indisputable, the amendment that you are criticising would not have been put to the vote in plenary session.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Parliament' s calendar of part-sessions - 2001
Mr President, I rise to register my opposition to the amendments of my own Group with whom I am out of step, and to similar amendments, which seek to eliminate the Friday sittings in Strasbourg or to break up one of the weeks of the part-session into two distinct part-sessions in order to artificially increase the number of part-sessions in Strasbourg and even to the amendments by Mr Pannella and company, seeking to remove Mondays and Fridays from the Strasbourg part-session or to extend the additional part-sessions by two to three or even five days.
All of these amendments are designed to render the Protocol on setting the venues of institutions, which is annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, meaningless. They are designed to attempt to eliminate Strasbourg and to concentrate Parliament' s activities in Brussels.
By the same token, and out of respect for the rule of law, I voted against the amendments which seek to cancel the additional part-sessions in Brussels.
It is legitimate to attempt to change the terms of the Treaties regarding our working venues, although it is not an intention that I share.
To whittle away, however, at the provisions of the Treaty and the annexed acts is a method that is not worthy of the parliamentary institution.
Mr President, I voted not to work on Fridays in Strasbourg although I am totally in favour of our meeting here.
I decided to vote not to work on Fridays because Friday was inconvenient for almost all the Members.
I would like to make the following point: we put in a lot of time but we work inefficiently and we produce relatively little compared with, for example, the Italian Parliament, which meets less often - it never votes on a Monday and does not meet on Fridays at all - yet produces at least 500 laws every year.
We are constantly wasting time in fruitless discussion and, in particular, with all these votes, resolutions, motions, urgent debates and so on and so forth which, when all is said and done, do not produce any tangible results and undermine the genuine legislative activity which should be the principle activity of a Parliament which is not an advisory body but an organ which adopts resolutions.
Mr President, I am ashamed to say so but I could not stop myself dozing off a couple of times during the votes which have just taken place and only managed to wake up and cast my vote at the last minute.
This is because Parliament' s work is not being organised properly.
I voted for the calendar but I would like to make it clear - as Mr Speroni has just said - that we waste a great deal of time in fruitless activities.
Voting on the amendments to the recitals of all the legislation, even those which merely lay down guidelines, when all is said done, makes it impossible for us to carry out our mandate.
Directives and regulations should be produced and voted upon in Parliament, but Parliament must not waste time in other sorts of debates which could be dealt with by the committees.
Mr President, I agree wholeheartedly with what Mr Posselt and Mrs Flesch have said about this unfortunate vote on cancelling Friday sittings here in Strasbourg.
I take the view that this violates the Treaty and violates the agreement on where Parliament sits.
I am really pleased that the ministers in the Council of Ministers and not Parliament continue to decide where Parliament sits and I hope that the Intergovernmental Conference will not change that.
It is hard to understand why we are passing a resolution on a four-day working week when the Treaty refers to session weeks.
Every employee in the Community, hundreds of millions of people, work a five-day week.
Once we have a four-day week for everyone else, because the self-employed already work whenever they want, then we can also say that a session week is only four days long.
I think it is a disgrace, it is a waste of money and as for the ridiculous ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I too should like to endorse the statement made by my fellow Member from the Liberal Group, Mrs Flesch.
I would like to add something further. It is a fact that very few Members of the House are present here in Strasbourg on Friday mornings.
Nevertheless, I think it is scandalous that some Members want to prevent others from working on Friday mornings. What I find even more scandalous is that these Members think - and I have here an e-mail to this effect from Mrs van Hulten to other Members - that when the Friday sitting is removed, it would still be possible, in spite of everything, to register on Fridays, in order to receive one' s salary, even without having worked.
I urge the Bureau to be consistent and to also remove the possibility of MEPs' receiving money for Fridays on which they have not worked!
. The current practice of moving Parliament between Brussels and Strasbourg implies high costs for the European taxpayer, and reduces the effectiveness of parliamentary work.
It undermines Parliament's credibility and political impact.
The solution to this problem would be to concentrate Parliament's work at only one place.
We call upon the Member States to consider a change of the Treaty, allowing the European Parliament to decide upon its own seat.
In order to make this point we have voted for all amendments that aim to reduce the amount of time spent in Strasbourg and increase that in Brussels.
. I have not missed one day in any of the Parliamentary sessions since the election and, I believe, only two in the previous Parliament.
It is therefore with some hesitation that I voted for the deletion of Fridays from the Strasbourg sessions.
I have come to the opinion that agendas for the Friday sessions have been engineered to fill up the session and are becoming increasingly meaningless.
It does this institution no favours when, on a Friday, there are fewer than a hundred Members debating a resolution which is of no importance.
This Parliament must restructure its mode of operation to reflect the changed working conditions.
Mr President, I voted for the motion and I would just like to point something out: in Italy, the Schengen Agreement is not always correctly applied.
I refer, in particular, to the systematic border checks carried out by border and financial police on all those who travel from Italy to a Schengen Treaty country by aeroplane, particularly in general aviation aircraft, or what are commonly referred to as private aircraft.
According to the Schengen Agreement, there should not be any systematic checks and there should not be any obligation to present oneself to the Customs authorities or notify them that one is leaving national territory.
I therefore call upon the Commission to take action to ensure that the Schengen Agreement is respected and that the bureaucratic interference of the Italian authorities ceases.
Beysen recommendation (A5-0153/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Beyson report, but this is a classic example of what I was referring to in the vote on abolishing Friday sittings.
In this document, the European Parliament defines the categories of goods to be taken into consideration in the drawing up of statistics on products which cross the borders between one State and another, although it is not clear what purpose this will serve.
Is it so that we know how many sweets have passed from Italy into France or how many tractors have passed from Germany into Sweden, for example? This seems to me to be excessive bureaucracy as well as an unnecessary amount of work for Parliament.
Since we are recording the amount of goods which cross the borders, why do we not also record how many people cross from one country to another within the European Union? But to what end?
We must make life simpler for our citizens and simplify our legislation as well!
Maaten Report (A5-0156/2000)
Mr President, I am totally in favour of this report safeguarding citizens' health, the health of both active and passive smokers.
But when, in the past, have we ever succeeded in reducing tobacco consumption or cigarette smoking? Only once, Mr President.
'And when was that?' you may ask.
In 1848, during the fight against the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Milan. In order to damage the Empire' s finances, the Milanese managed to reduce consumption of cigarettes.
There we are: we should have written, 'Smoking kills and governments are grateful for their saving in pension expenditure' .
Mr President, I voted against Amendment No 54 which would have allowed a derogation from our yield limits on cigarettes exported to third countries.
All cigarettes are harmful.
None do any good.
Smoking is an addiction, indeed a slow suicide, as we have voted, and manufacturers have admitted and known for some time that it causes cancer and other diseases.
I agree that third countries should set their own health rules but we should not approve of double standards.
If we choose tight protection for our citizens we should not allow the exporting of more dangerous products which profit from the addiction of others.
No man is an island.
All human beings are involved with each other.
I cannot condone profiting from the ill-health of third world citizens.
Mr President, I wanted to give an explanation of vote stating that I had abstained on much of the Maaten report.
Not because I do not share its health policy objectives, but because I really cannot understand why the Commission and this House wish to pass such detailed regulations at European level, since all they do is destroy our credibility.
When we start regulating the size, colour and position of notices and pictures on cigarette packets, then we are no longer the Europe in which I believe.
I disagree with Newton Dunn; it is not a question of double standards.
But we are responsible for the health of our citizens and we must decide on rules here.
Other regions must decide on their own regulations.
We cannot have rules which damage exports, with the result that others will then export to these regions.
I hope that we can reach agreements with the Council and the Commission here which contain clear, unequivocal health regulations, but not the sort of details which, in all conscience, we cannot decide in this House.
Mr President, this is just a brief statement to declare that I do not totally agree with the Maaten report either.
Although I am well aware that we have a duty to give consumers all the relevant information regarding the risks presented by the products they use, I do not feel that it is our duty to adopt prohibitionist laws, particularly where third countries are concerned.
The report contains excessive statements which are reminiscent of a certain type of terrorist propaganda which I do not feel would advance our awareness-raising operation, also because whenever we go to extremes in these sectors and these fields we obtain the opposite effects to those desired.
I would stress another point: I come from Italy, which is a Mediterranean country, and I would like to emphasise that the attempt to reduce subsidies for tobacco plantations is a very delicate issue. I would ask the Commission to think again for thousands of jobs are directly or indirectly jeopardised.
There are a whole range of activities connected to the tobacco industry, which we must protect at all costs.
Mr President, I share this explanation of vote with Mrs Cauquil and Mrs Bordes.
In voting in favour of this report, despite its shortcomings and particularly despite the hypocrisy of Member States in their actions to limit smoking, we feel that we are making a stand, within the options available to us, against the right of tobacco cartels to poison the population for the sake of private profit.
The measures that are adopted should furthermore impose the same restrictions, at least on European tobacco companies, when they manufacture their products under licence, or sell their poison, in the countries of Eastern Europe, in Africa or elsewhere.
The behaviour of tobacco companies, which runs completely counter to the interests of society as a whole, mirrors the behaviour of all the large oil, asbestos, arms and agrifood companies, which are prepared to run the risk of harming the population or the environment in order to make a little more profit.
We rejected all of the amendments which sought to reduce the already very limited range of measures that have been proposed or to restrict information on the lethal effects of smoking, because they all serve the interests of the tobacco companies' lobby.
On the other hand, we support the employees in this sector, as well as small tobacco producers, whose income, as well as conversion to useful production, should be financed by levies on the enormous profits of the tobacco companies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ban on any form of television advertising for cigarettes and other tobacco products in Directive 89/552 and the more stringent labelling requirements for tobacco products introduced in this directive illustrate the ambivalent attitude of the European Union towards tobacco.
On the one hand, tobacco crops are subsidised to the tune of over EUR 1 billion a year; on the other hand, we are trying to reduce the consumption of tobacco in the Union as much as possible.
This dilemma must be resolved in the interests of the credibility of Community policy.
The European Union must set itself the task of pursuing policies which our citizens can understand.
There is an irresolvable contradiction between the promotion of tobacco cultivation, on the one hand, and the advertising ban, on the other.
If this contradiction cannot be resolved at Community level, then the Union must fight to help attain a high level of health protection by supporting a reduction in tobacco cultivation at international level.
Mr President, I have voted decidedly in favour of the amended proposal and of the legislative resolution with regard to the new tobacco directive.
It is certainly the case that the texts need to be cleaned up because we have adopted quite a few texts which, according to the rules of lawmaking, do not belong in this directive at all.
Despite this, these texts too are of value because they send out a message.
They show that Parliament puts public health first.
Protecting public health is effectively our responsibility.
Even if we harmonise legislation, public health should not be compromised in any way.
Public health is not just any old interest, it is of general interest.
Today, we have proved that we stand for this, and that is how it should be.
- It was important that the tobacco industry was not able to prevent the vote taking place in Parliament today.
More than half a million people died as a result of tobacco addiction in the EU in 1990.
Despite huge lobbying by the tobacco industry, including an attempt to say the process is illegal, the European Parliament will stand firm on public health.
I welcome the commitment to increase information in cigarette labelling.
Health warnings will take up 40% of the front of the packet and 50% of the back.
The industry must be made to give details of the ingredients of the cigarettes, including the tobacco, and just as importantly the filters and additives used to make them.
Each individual brand should list all additives, not just the prohibited ingredients.
This must be made public knowledge and not hidden behind a shroud of 'trade secrecy' .
People have a right to accurate information on the health risks of tobacco.
The Greens want to ban many of the more than 600 additives in cigarettes.
We need to know what these substances are and make sure that they are properly tested.
Smokers have a right to know exactly what a cigarette contains.
.
(EL) No one denies the harmful effects of smoking and no one can object to measures being taken to reduce smoking.
From this point of view, the Commission' s proposal for a directive contains positive provisions.
However, although there is serious doubt as to whether the Commission' s proposals will reduce consumption, they will undoubtedly have a decidedly adverse impact both on Community tobacco producers and on tobacco industries and merchants.
The amendments relating to a reduction in the consumption of tobacco products are no more than a pretext, the sole purpose of which is to reduce budgetary spending (approximately 1 billion euros a year, compared with total tax revenues in the 15 Member States of the EU from the tobacco sector of 60 billion euros a year) and, if adopted, will cause huge and irreparable social, political and financial damage to regional economies, especially in Greece.
Similarly, the abolition of the three-year derogation for the application of the directive proposed by the Commission and the application of the directive both to tobacco products consumed in the EU and to products for export to countries in which the strict provisions of the directive do not apply will cause Greece tremendous problems.
- I welcome the adoption of this report on the basis that it ensures the right to a higher level of public health protection and could potentially pave the way for the eventual eradication of tobacco addiction within the EU in the long term.
If we take the example of the Community's approach to food safety legislation, whereby legislation is based on the principle that consumers have the right to know what they are consuming, then the same principle must apply to tobacco products: smokers should have the right to know exactly what they are smoking and what the effects are.
We as legislators share the responsibility with the manufacturers of ensuring that the public is fully informed about the dangers of cigarette addiction.
The recommendations regarding warnings on the front of packages are to be welcomed because they shatter the myth that those products are less damaging to a person's health.
- (PT) The debate and vote on this report revealed a clear divide between Members.
We supported those proposals which, in order to protect the health of consumers, did not endanger jobs by preventing European farmers from continuing to produce tobacco and the European industry from continuing to manufacture it. As imports are not being prohibited, the American multinationals would be the only ones to gain from a reduction in the production and manufacture of tobacco in Europe.
We therefore voted in favour of maintaining direct aid to income in the tobacco production sector within the European Union, thereby guaranteeing greater compliance with Community preference, in order to reduce the share of American multinationals in the tobacco consumption market and to protect the interests of Portuguese farmers, without public health being endangered.
We also tabled a proposal intended to protect the Portuguese brand 'Português Suave' as we consider that there is no reason to threaten this.
- I voted in favour of lifting the ban on sales of oral tobacco, so called snuff, in the EU.
I totally understand that all tobacco products are dangerous to human health and cause different types of cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
However, I think that all tobacco products, which may have different levels of harmfulness, should be treated in a way that is compatible with the level of danger they represent to human health.
I also want the different restrictions to be based on scientific facts.
That is why I tabled an amendment with my colleagues to do the monitoring of health effects by the year 2002 instead of 2005 which was the initial proposal from the Commission.
This proposal to change the timetable is also very important from the public health point of view.
Unfortunately my proposal was not adopted.
I still think that even if the scientific data come as late as the year 2004, this information will be very important for us Members of the European Parliament, when we create future legislation in the field of tobacco products.
- (DE) I was the rapporteur in this House for the common organisation of the raw tobacco market over 30 years ago.
In the enthusiasm of youth, I hoped then to convince my 141 fellow members not to introduce a market organisation for raw tobacco which would give us mountains of unmarketable raw tobacco to deal with.
Had I been listened to then, we would not now be crying over the billions spent on raw tobacco subsidies.
However, I am not trying here to come to terms with the past.
Things are as they are and we shall have to live with them, because tobacco farmers cannot reasonably be expected to be left standing out in the rain after 30 years' common organisation of the raw tobacco market.
We have got them used to subsidies and that has, to all intents and purposes, destroyed our chances of restructuring the cultivation of raw tobacco.
Now the health missionaries in the House want to stamp out the cultivation of raw tobacco in the European Union altogether; this will naturally benefit imported tobacco - which they cannot and do not want to stop - without, of course, making chain smokers give up smoking.
There is no question that a lot of people in the EU and everywhere else in the world die from lung cancer, which hits far more smokers than non-smokers.
But the sort of bans imposing unreasonable demands on the European tobacco industry which the Committee on the Environment has cobbled together with no regard for job losses, especially for women, will not make the citizens of the European Union give up smoking, as the current drastic measures in relation to advertising and labelling have already proven.
The suggestion that EU manufacturers should be required to comply with the same regulations as regards tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide yields for cigarettes intended for export to third countries is perverse in the extreme.
Wanting to accept a sense of responsibility for the health of smokers in third countries is obviously well meant, but when this sense of missionary purpose results in the tobacco industry relocating production intended for export to third countries outside the EU, then all we will have managed to achieve are job losses.
Measures such as this would result in the relocation of 12% of cigarette production in the tiny principality of Luxembourg alone.
What is being produced here now is out of proportion and unfair to tobacco farmers and discriminates against the European tobacco industry.
One cannot shake off the impression that certain people in the health lobby would prefer to exile smokers altogether.
I am in favour of warnings on packets, but not in favour of a skull which takes up 60% of the surface area.
I am in favour of a targeted information campaign, especially for young people, in order to make them aware of the dangers of smoking to their health. But I am against all the exaggerations contained in this report and am therefore unable to vote in favour of the report as it stands.
- (SV) To impose a total ban on snuff in the EU, at the same time as cigarettes and other tobacco products are permitted throughout the Union, is illogical.
The ban on snuff, which applies in all EU countries except for Sweden, ought therefore to be lifted.
The advantage of snuff is that using it does not affect the environment.
While smoking causes suffering and illnesses even among people who do not smoke, especially among people with allergies, it is only the snuff taker himself who is exposed to possible ill effects.
Snuff is addictive.
The tobacco industry should not, therefore, be allowed to market snuff as something healthy.
The Marketing Directive, which will shortly be banning tobacco advertising within the EU, must be safeguarded and apply to all tobacco products.
. EPLP Members fully support the main direction of the Maaten Report in highlighting health risks associated with tobacco.
However, we believe that there are a number of technical areas which will need to be clarified following first reading in negotiation with the Commission and Council.
The question of tobacco growing subsidy has not been addressed in this report.
Although many Members feel it is part of the whole debate on tobacco and health and should have been included here, we believe that it would be more correctly brought up in reform of the CAP.
. (FR) Smoking kills: it causes 500 000 deaths every year in the European Union, which is 1400 a day or almost one a minute.
One smoker in two will die, sooner or later, from a smoking-related disease.
These figures speak for themselves and are terrifying.
Surely we need no further reason to support the proposed directive in its current form, quite rightly amended by our rapporteur, Mr Maaten, whom I must congratulate on his remarkable work, the broad outlines of which I have supported.
Tobacco is not just like any other product.
It requires specific regulation and it is most apt, in light of recent studies, that the Commission has proposed a revision of the legislative texts in this field.
Although it may seem naïve to try to eradicate smoking, I think that we can certainly reduce it considerably by providing the consumer with better information.
We have just declared ourselves in favour, much to my satisfaction, of warnings that will cover 35% of the front and 45% of the back of the cigarette packet.
Personally, I am sorry that most of my colleagues could not be convinced of the impact that photographs on these surfaces would have had.
I supported Amendment No 75 on banning the sale of tobacco products to anyone under the age of 16.
To the anti-prohibitionists, who feel that this ban would, on the contrary, make cigarettes more attractive to young people, I would answer with an ethical argument.
Our society has the duty, in certain areas, to set strict moral limits.
It is the whole issue of human behaviour that is at stake here.
This also raises the whole issue of education and of health education in particular.
Such education must be started at the earliest possible age, and I think that adolescence is an appropriate stage to instil in young people the limits that they must not transgress.
On the basis of ethical considerations, too, I feel it is reasonable to ban exports of products that we consider to be harmful to our own citizens to countries outside the Union.
I voted in the strongest possible terms against Amendment No 54.
Europe has other assets and other creative ways of finding export markets.
During yesterday' s debate, some Members raised the point that smoking kills more people than tuberculosis, Aids or other infectious diseases.
This factor alone is sufficient reason for us to grasp this problem with both hands.
Mr Maaten' s report is a step in the right direction, but is only one step, because the fight for life, for health, is an ongoing struggle that should engage us all.
- (SV) The Swedish Christian Democrats have today voted in favour of significantly stricter rules for the tobacco industry, including the proposal that as much as 40 per cent of the space on packets of tobacco products should be taken up with health warnings, compared with the 25 per cent proposed by the Commission.
We are also in favour of no longer permitting any references to 'light' or 'milder' tobacco, as well as of phasing out subsidies for tobacco cultivation within the EU as soon as possible, for this form of subsidy is directly at variance with the EU' s efforts and initiatives to improve public health.
Moreover, we wish to abolish the peculiar tobacco derogation granted to Greece.
When it comes to the continued ban on sales of snuff to other EU countries, we Swedish Christian Democrats consider that account should be taken of the unwillingness of these countries to introduce a new product they consider to be habit-forming and destructive from a public health point of view.
Sweden ought not, in the name of free trade and the internal market, to force snuff products upon other countries and peoples if they do not want them.
In the same way, the Commission ought to have shown similar respect for Swedish alcohol policy by having extended and made permanent Sweden' s 1994 derogation concerning private imports of alcohol.
. As Member for a tobacco-producing region, I would like to express my reservations about the proposal for a 'tobacco' directive.
Nobody questions the validity of its aims: smoking kills 500 000 people per year in the European Union alone.
We must therefore fight vigorously against smoking, just as we must fight unremittingly against drug addiction, alcoholism and all dangerous addictions, whether they are of natural or chemical origin.
In this respect, we can only share this report' s proposals, which seek more effectively to warn, make aware and inform consumers of the risks to which they are exposing themselves through excessive tobacco consumption.
Let us even go beyond labelling or limiting toxic substances by making better use than we currently do of the special fund established under the common organisation of the market for tobacco and to which producers pay contributions in order to fund the research and development of less harmful varieties.
On the other hand, however, let us be careful not to destabilise too suddenly, without allowing time to convert, a farming sector that involves 135 000 producers and employs 400 000 seasonal workers, in often very vulnerable agricultural regions.
In this case, there are a few basic principles which I feel must guide our action: we must act fairly against all factors likely to cause addiction, such as advertising and excessive consumption of dangerous pharmacological substances - funded, moreover, from the social security system -and we must ensure that restrictions on tobacco production within the Union are accompanied by the monitoring and restriction of imports so that their effects on consumption are not cancelled out. We must give tobacco growers an adequate timescale in which to adapt their production to the new standards for tar content and we must reject any restriction on subsidies for tobacco production unless we replace them with aid as an incentive for conversion.
In other words, we must ensure that it is not only European Union producers - who supply only 25% of the raw tobacco consumed in Europe - who, without compensation or an adequate timescale, bear the costs of a regulation which is undeniably praiseworthy, but which is too sketchy in the form that has been proposed to us.
. I wholeheartedly support amendments to the Commission's revised proposal on tobacco that will strengthen health warnings on cigarette packets in the EU.
The new cigarette health warnings will cover half the surface of cigarette packs, with warnings 40% of the packet size on the front and 50% on the back.
Smoking kills and there is no nice way to put that.
Half of all long-term smokers will eventually be killed by tobacco and of these, half will die during middle age losing 20 to 25 years of life.
As many as half a million people in Europe are killed by tobacco, and 85% of lung cancers are caused by smoking.
Madam President, I would have welcomed the radical proposal to use pictures to illustrate the damage which smoking does to health, like they do in Canada.
If shocking pictures of smoke-filled lungs or rotting teeth show the harmful effects of smoking, go ahead and print them on packs.
I am disappointed it was not accepted.
It is preposterous that tobacco companies are trying to destroy this legislation.
I am fed up with them trying to put a stop to these proposals.
They have misled people for far too long.
At present, warnings are cleverly hidden by displays or coloured packaging.
Smokers or those considering smoking must know the full risks of their choice.
The proposal will ban the use of misleading terms such as 'ultra light' and 'low tar' .
People have been hooked on the idea that 'mild' and 'low tar' cigarettes are healthier.
This is simply not true.
Low tar cigarettes cause just as much damage as normal cigarettes.
This legislation will spell out the dangers of smoking and save thousands of lives.
- (DE) I voted against an export ban on stronger cigarettes for the following reasons:
The Commission has proposed banning exports of cigarettes with yields of over 10 milligrammes of tar, 1 milligramme of nicotine and 10 milligrammes of carbon dioxide to third countries.
This would result in a massive erosion of EU cigarette exports and the loss of several tens of thousands of jobs.
This sort of ban benefits no one, because the cigarettes will simply be manufactured outside the EU. But the jobs will be lost here.
The EU has absolutely no powers to enforce such a ban. It has nothing to do with the internal single market.
The anti-tobacco fanatics should not act as if exporting cigarettes was tantamount to handing out cyanide.
The EU is acting inconsistently, given that it also subsidises the cultivation and export of tobacco to the tune of EUR 1 billion.
The EU is using an export ban to act as the health missionary of the entire world. That is presumptuous and offends the customs and practices of other countries.
The right move would be to promote the work on global uniform production standards for tobacco products already begun in the World Health Organisation.
Unilateral action by the EU will be pointless.
Berenguer Fuster report (A5-0142/2000)
Mr President, I voted for this report on the exchange on information regarding, specifically, financial activities.
But I would like to accompany this vote with two questions: firstly, who inspects the inspectors, and secondly, why does the European Parliament not extend its controls - as I would advocate - to cover all the uses to which the citizens' money is put, including the money used to finance pension funds? The Members of the Pensioners' Party are not yet aware of how the money from contributions which should boost their pensions is spent.
I feel that this directive should be extended to include this type of inspection.
Lulling report (A5-0144/2000)
Mr President, I voted for Mrs Lulling' s report on beer imports into Finland, but I have to say that I do not agree with these excise duties. For my part, I would like there to be a free market.
I remember when, at the age of about 21, I worked as part of the crew of a ship which travelled between New York and the Bahamas: whenever I left the ship and ventured into New York City I was allowed to take two bottles of whisky with me, which, as I boarded the bus, would regularly be bought from me at three times the price, for whisky was much more expensive in New York.
Therefore, this trade between one State and another which was caused by different levels of duties was only natural.
If we want to avoid it, we must remove all the excise duties in the European Union.
The rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, strongly criticised the taxation of alcohol in Finland in her report, which she considers to be unreasonably high. She also criticised the aim to restrict the importation of beer through derogation provisions.
In my opinion, the Commission' s proposal is a rather good compromise, however.
According to that proposal, Finland would reserve the right to abolish the more stringent restrictions on imports from EU countries in stages by the end of 2003.
Imports of beer from non-member countries such as Russia and Estonia would be limited to six litres up to the year 2006.
Nowhere else on the EU' s external borders is such cheap alcohol available than in those regions that border onto Finland.
In my opinion, Finland is consequently justified in maintaining more stringent restrictions on imports than other EU countries.
Under the Treaty of Amsterdam, Internal Market policy also has to take into account considerations of public health and environmental protection.
Derogations with regard to Community legislation must be allowed if they are made on the basis of higher levels of health protection.
- (SV) Finland has been hit by serious problems in the form of a drastic increase in the amount of beer imported from third countries, mainly from Estonia and Russia.
It is therefore a very positive development that the Commission is now granting Finland a six-year derogation to enable it to introduce a new limit on beer imports from third countries.
Finland is in that way being granted the right to limit beer imports from third countries to six litres per traveller per day up until 1 January 2006.
This issue shows that, in the case of Finland, the Commission realises that private individuals' being more or less free to import alcohol across national borders is not only a trade and tax issue. More to the point, it has to do with public health and with a social policy on alcohol aimed at combating the horrors of abuse.
The Commission might have shown similar insight in its treatment of the Swedish derogations from 1994 concerning private imports of alcohol into Sweden.
While Finland is obtaining a new derogation, the Swedish one is being removed. In this way, the Commission, together with the Commissioner responsible, Mrs Bolkestein, are drastically undermining the tools of alcohol policy, democratically decided by the Swedish parliament and government and consisting of high taxes and a restriction on imports.
Vidal-Quadras Roca report (A5-0159/2000)
Mr President, I have to say that I was very surprised to find myself voting for this report, for it represents, perhaps, the surrender of the European Union to one of the original Communities out of which it grew, namely Euratom: the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
I remember how, when I was a child, one of the books which I found most interesting and which I will never forget bore the title: 'My friend the atom' by Walt Disney. This book explained clearly how our future would be improved by the use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.
Sadly, today, we have to come to terms with the fact that someone has prevented this from coming about.
And who was that? We should send the multibillion pound bill for decommissioning the nuclear industry to the person responsible, although I still do not know who that is.
Maybe you can enlighten me, Mr President.
. (FR) The purpose of the programme that we have been debating today is to organise the dismantling of the Joint Research Centre' s nuclear installations and the management of waste resulting from their nuclear activities.
I do not have any major disagreement with the basic proposal, but I do have questions about this programme' s budget, and the rapporteur has not provided us with any practical proposals on this.
It is true that he rejected the proposal by the European Commission.
Let us remember that the Commission proposed that it would finance this operation by using, at the end of each year, unspent appropriations from heading 3.
To this end, it would use a 'reception' line under the current sub-section B4, which covers energy, the monitoring of nuclear safety and the environment.
This solution may be satisfactory insofar as it places financing outside the framework programmes for research, a point stressed by the European Parliament, but it nevertheless falls short of what is required.
We cannot accept the long-term financing of the dismantling of nuclear activities through a 'miscellaneous' line, of an order which is left to chance.
I must take this opportunity to say that I do not approve of the growing frequency with which we resort to this type of line!
I imagine that this is what led the rapporteur to "take note" of the Commission' s proposal, without actually putting it into practice.
The report proposes that we establish a trialogue between the institutions in order to reach a solution but says nothing about the alternative means for financing that have been suggested.
The most mistaken course of action would therefore be to have the dismantling of these nuclear activities financed by Member States, by methods that still remain to be found.
That would inevitably cause a backlash in the countries that are not greatly affected by this problem.
On the other hand, the most suitable solution is the one that seeks to have this programme financed by a self-contained budget line.
I am quite aware that it is not the easiest solution, because it involves voting for additional appropriations in the review of the Financial Perspectives.
Nevertheless, we must provide ourselves with the means to achieve our ambitions, particularly when we are talking about nuclear activity.
In the long term, then, we will have to put pressure on the Council to accept the creation of this self-contained budget line.
In the shorter term, for pragmatic reasons, we should not obstruct the rapid implementation of this programme.
I therefore support the following compromise: in the very short term we set up the 'picking up the pieces' line proposed by the Commission, and initiate the trialogue promptly in order, in the medium term, to achieve a vote for an self-contained budget line.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.40 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Special UN conference: Women 2000
The next item is the Council and the Commission statements on the outcome of the special UN session on 'Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace' .
Mr President, I am grateful for this opportunity to tell you about the work carried out at the special UN conference assessing the 1995 Beijing Conference and its Action Platform. The Beijing Conference was extremely important in terms of recognising women' s rights and approving an Action Platform endorsed by 189 countries.
It established the content of these rights and approved instruments allowing these rights to be gradually consolidated. As usually happens with this type of international instrument, it became necessary to assess this given that five years had passed since it was signed.
This assessment was carried out over many sessions with preparatory meetings initially being held within a PropCom.
These sessions made slow and sometimes difficult progress in terms of agreeing on certain aspects on which one group of countries, particularly those which are usually regarded as the most developed, considered that progress should be made. There were also some problems in terms of resistance to the language used, not in the political declaration which was approved earlier, but in the final document which was composed of four parts.
One of these parts concerned the measures and policies to be approved by governments in order to consolidate not only the Beijing Platform but also everything which has been achieved by the various countries in the meantime.
This process was relatively complex as alliances were established between certain countries, particularly from the European Union, and the South American countries with the result that the G77 broke up at a certain point. This prevented the work from being carried out at a quicker pace.
Anyway, to summarise as quickly as possible, important progress was made in recognising women' s rights as human rights. Very positive political statements were made in terms of rejecting any violations of these human rights, eradicating all practices which violate human rights, referring to the Commission on the Status of Women and the optional protocol and combating racism and violence based on racial grounds.
On the issue of violence against women, the satisfactory progress made included the agreement achieved on combating trafficking through international cooperation, with support for actions which are being developed at other levels in the international arena, and also the acceptance by all countries of public campaigns against violence based on the campaign instigated by the European Union on zero tolerance.
Also discussed were the issues of poverty eradication policies, work as a factor in ensuring the economic participation of women, the essential need to adopt policies reconciling family and professional life and the need to develop access for women to education and training as a basic instrument in guaranteeing them independence.
There was also, for the first time, a more positive reference to issues of maternity and paternity, usually associated with the male role, and the need for job-sharing.
On health, the need was noted for a holistic approach in terms of sexual rights and not just in the area of reproductive health.
Special references were introduced, also on the EU' s initiative, to handicapped migrant women, elderly women and native women.
The role of men was adequately emphasised, as also was the need to reinforce the participation of women in building increasingly peaceful societies.
Also addressed was the introduction of an issue which was one of the fundamental instruments in the Beijing Platform, namely mainstreaming from the gender perspective. This must be included in all mechanisms on human rights, in the UN Treaties and at the Millennium Summit and represents an extremely important achievement.
As for the methodologies for assessing the progress made by countries in applying their commitments, positive references were also made to measurable and well-established objectives resulting in the type of monitoring which allows a more objective balance to be produced, at any time, than that achieved to date.
Discussions were also held on reinforcing the role of non-governmental organisations in conducting all the policies and as privileged partners of the State in ensuring that the Platform is implemented.
The basic problems concerned what the European Union has already included in Article 13 of the EC Treaty and the difficulty which some countries had in accepting the issue of sexual rights and its inherent diversity and the issue of sexual orientation.
In this context, and continuing the strategy defined at EU level of considering that this special conference was not a new conference but an intermediate phase, it was considered that, on these more delicate aspects, the language of Beijing should be used again.
The EU took the decision to make a final declaration in which it reaffirmed the progress achieved and its intention to continue fighting to ensure that what for us is already a commitment, given the very constitution of the European Union and specifically Article 13, can be enshrined in future instruments.
Mr President, I am very pleased to be here today to give you the Commission's view on the outcome of last week's extremely important conference in New York.
I want to apologise for the fact that my colleague, Commissioner Diamantopoulou, is unable to be here this afternoon.
As some of you will know, she was unavoidably delayed by commitments which she had undertaken before the timing of this debate.
As honourable Members will also know, she is coming to the committee next week in order to have a full exchange with Members, many of whom will, of course, have shared in the success achieved last week.
Members will be able to follow up any further details in that exchange with Commissioner Diamantopoulou next week.
I wish to begin, on behalf of the Commission, by thanking the Portuguese presidency for coordinating the Member States' positions so effectively and for handling the negotiations with other delegations so proficiently under what I understand were occasionally extremely difficult conditions.
We should also thank Parliament for its exceptionally cooperative approach to the special session.
Members of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities made an extremely valuable contribution as part of the delegation.
However, beyond that, they took the initiative in cooperating with parliamentarians from the Member States and from associated countries.
That was an exceptionally useful piece of political coordination.
We in the Commission also very much welcome Parliament's motion for a resolution: it is a firm, constructive statement of Parliament's commitment to gender equality.
The European Union can be proud that it was the most progressive regional group represented at New York.
Collectively we fought hard to move forward from Beijing.
If we succeeded, it is due in part to the unity of purpose demonstrated by the various institutions.
And succeed, I think we can say, we certainly did!
In a number of areas the outcome document goes far beyond what was achieved five years ago at Beijing - a conference which I remember observing from slightly closer than would have been the case today.
We managed that without having to concede any watering down of the Beijing Platform in other areas.
The document reaffirms women's rights as human rights.
It urges all UN members to sign the CEDAW optional protocol and calls for a strong awareness of gender issues in the workings of the International Criminal Court.
It recognises that discrimination against women is often compounded by discrimination on other grounds.
While we did not obtain specific references to all the grounds listed in the EC Treaty, the presidency made the European Union position clear in a final statement before the General Assembly.
We have new, much clearer language on the state's duty to end violence against women, including domestic violence, and to put an end to the appalling yet growing traffic in women.
The outcome document acknowledges the link between gender equality and greater prosperity.
If women are given a chance to participate fully in social and economic life they will be better able to pull themselves and their communities out of poverty.
It seems to me, with some responsibilities in this field, inconceivable to have a sustainable model of economic development which does not have gender issues at its heart.
The document reaffirms the prime importance of education as a means of empowering girls and women.
It also refers to the need for a fair distribution of work between men and women, including work in the home, and for measures to make it easier to reconcile work with family care commitments.
It also has something to say on methodology - how, in other words, to ensure that these fine intentions are put into practice.
At the European Union's insistence the document recognises the importance of establishing benchmarks and progress indicators.
Lastly, we welcome the reference to men's role in bringing about greater gender equality for they clearly have a considerable responsibility as well.
The Union is better equipped than ever to deliver on its Beijing commitments with its stronger stand on human rights, gender equality and discrimination.
The Amsterdam Treaty gives the Union increased scope to push ahead with implementation of the Beijing platform for action.
I hope nobody will doubt the Commission's determination to do precisely that.
The effort is of course led by my colleague, Commissioner Diamantopoulou, but it is an endeavour in which all of us as Commissioners wish to be fully involved.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by saying that I am pleased with the outcome of the Special UN Conference on 'Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace' .
In my opinion, all credit for this follow-on from Beijing +5, where the implementation of the action plans was discussed, should go to the NGOs, but also to the European Parliament, which was represented by five strong women, and naturally the European Commission, which, in the form of Mrs Diamontopoulou, was 100% committed to this conference.
Progress has been made, that is for sure, as has already been mentioned by previous speakers.
The distribution in care, actions against trafficking in women and empowerment of women are important issues to me.
I am pleased that the participating countries still subscribe to the Beijing Declaration and the action plan.
It is nonetheless unfortunate that only eight countries in the world have managed to meet the essential obligations which follow on from these with regard to equality in education, paid work and a minimum representation of 30% in national parliaments.
It naturally gives me pleasure to be able to say that the Netherlands is one of them, although I am not entirely satisfied with its emancipation policy, or rather, the lack of it, and that Germany, the Scandinavian countries and South Africa too belong to the eight.
But back to Europe.
In my opinion, it is downright alarming that it is precisely the candidate countries which have shown a decline in the number of female employees and the number of girls registered in education.
This development merits particular attention from us in the European Parliament.
Not only is education the best way to obtain gender equality, it is also the quickest way and the only way if we want to ensure that our children and grandchildren will not still be grappling with these issues.
We should point out to the acceding countries that they need to improve this situation.
The other point I wanted to raise is the opposition from the Islamic and Asian countries with regard to women' s rights, in connection with which they refer to the sharia.
I find it downright disgraceful that we women cannot join forces across the world.
I would ask you to give attention to this.
It is not just the Islamic and Asian countries to which this applies, but also Poland, for example.
Finally, I would like to ask you, as I do not have any hard facts at my disposal regarding the acceding countries, whether it would be possible to analyse the status quo in the candidate countries, ideally as soon as possible so that we can assess whether the situation there has improved.
Finally, I would call for the NGOs, in particular, to be given a key role, because it is they who are promoting awareness, and this is something which needs to be done not only among women, but also among men.
They need to be involved in this process.
At the end of the day, we are relying on the political will of society as a whole to commit itself to a cause which is related to democracy and human rights and which transcends all cultures and religions.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Presidency.
I did not participate directly in the New York conference, but the reports I have heard, from participants and in other ways, have really praised the European Union as being very much a motor of progressive change.
I think that, happily enough, we can declare the Beijing platform for action a success.
If there is anything which really has had a very secure foundation, it is very much this platform that has been adopted.
We saw this from the assessment, showing a host of committed women around the world working not only on a small scale but also on an extremely large scale where, for example, violence against women is concerned.
I should also like to thank Mrs Smet.
I do not belong to any church and come from a country which has now also separated the Church from the State.
I want to thank all practising Catholics who are dissociating themselves from the Vatican State, which is behaving as it is.
If we cannot enter into dialogue with the Vatican State in the future, we shall probably have to question its basis for existence.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, the Assembly of the United Nations has once again offered an opportunity to demonstrate the progress made since the Beijing Conference, as well as the problems which remain and which need to be resolved.
Education is still the most effective instrument for ensuring that women can freely exercise their rights and for allowing greater access to positions of responsibility, both in the workplace and in public life.
Knowledge of new technologies has been considered to be of great importance in terms of allowing full participation in the society of the future.
The media is of enormous importance as it can allow women' s voices to be heard, and can transmit an image, without stereotypes, which is committed to society and the quest for solutions to everyday problems.
Women' s health is one of the priorities of the meeting' s final document, with special mention of the spread of Aids, especially in certain areas of the planet, which affects women in a particular way and requires special measures for prevention and treatment.
One of the objectives is the eradication of domestic violence, which will be considered as a public issue and therefore subject to national legislation.
Violence against women and girls will be punishable by law, which means that there will have to be legislative reforms in the countries where it is not yet considered a crime.
Poverty particularly affecting women must be eradicated, and this is why the countries which have signed the agreement will send 0.7% of their GDP to development programmes aimed at eliminating what has come to be called the feminisation of poverty.
Globalisation has generated new problems which particularly affect women, such as trafficking in human beings, prostitution and drug-trafficking, which should be combated so that women may live a dignified and free life in conditions of equality.
All these objectives must be achieved in the next few years and, in order to ensure they are complied with, we are requesting a new meeting within the next five years.
The fifth programme for equality promoted by the European Commission must serve to promote the position of women, to eliminate the remaining inequalities, integrating gender policies into all Community programmes.
This meeting has therefore been of enormous importance in terms of making progress in the situation of women in all parts of the world.
The European Union' s position, given that it has a higher level of development and, therefore, better conditions for women, must not allow us to forget the situation of women in other areas, where daily hardships are combined with malnutrition, extreme poverty and a complete lack of respect for their fundamental rights.
Mr President, I want to thank the Council of Ministers and the Commission for their respective interventions.
The Women' s Conference at the UN in New York came perilously close to failing.
A small group of Catholic and Islamic fundamentalist countries clearly intended to undermine the progress achieved by women from around the world in Beijing five years ago.
The issues which created the most problems were women' s rights to sex education, free abortion and safe sex in order to protect themselves against HIV and AIDS.
These issues united certain Islamic and Catholic countries ranging all the way from the Sudan, Iran and Libya to the Vatican, Nicaragua and Poland, which were prime movers in the fight against these rights.
Some countries attempted to quash wordings about governments' responsibility to protect women from various forms of violence.
In spite of the fact that, last week, we were in danger of turning the clock back, we eventually agreed upon a final document which looks ahead to progress on the basis of the Women' s Conference in Beijing and, at the same time, marks out the route towards increased equality in the future.
I should like to point out that the Presidency of the EU, especially the minister Mrs De Belém Roseira, actively contributed to a successful final outcome, something we would thank her for.
The final document embodies progress in certain respects.
Forced marriages and murders committed for reasons of honour are mentioned for the first time in an agreed international document.
On the issues of rape within marriage, right of possession and right of inheritance, together with the right to asylum on the grounds of gender-based persecution, the wordings have been strengthened.
Women' s right to equal participation in macro-economic decision-making, together with the allocation of quotas with a view to increasing women' s participation in political parties and parliaments are other matters which are being taken up.
The resolution we are to vote on demands that the institutions of the EU, Member States and candidate States make active efforts to turn the final document from Beijing +5 into a reality.
It is especially important that all candidate States, including Poland, undertake to abide by the EU' s policy on women' s rights.
What are now required are economic resources for putting the decisions into effect and inspection tools for supervising their implementation.
Mr President, the Beijing +5 Conference has not actually made any significant progress in achieving the aims defined in the Beijing 1995 action programme.
The women' s march for equal opportunities and the affirmation of differences still has a long way to go and is effectively full of dangerous paths.
This became clear in New York when Islamic fundamentalists attacked what, in recent years, has characterised women' s demands: an end to domestic rape and violence, an end to the right for men to commit crimes passionnelles and an end to female circumcision.
However, it must, of course, be appreciated - as Commissioner Patten said, moreover - that the Conference as a whole confirmed and consolidated women' s rights as human rights.
However, similar positions on sexual rights, sexual health and the self-determination of women have caused an unholy alliance - evident at Beijing - to be formed between Christian and Islamic fundamentalists, including the Vatican, Poland, Nicaragua and a number of Islamic countries.
Furthermore, I feel that mainstreaming and empowerment were consolidated in this Conference, and also the fight against poverty and trafficking in human beings, but that there was an absence of tangible, verifiable objectives such as the need for a greater representation of women in the institutions and also for projects to fight poverty.
I welcome the positive contribution made by Europe to forging closer relationships with other countries and the NGOs.
Mr President, the very positive assessment that we are making today of the meeting in New York, should not allow us to forget that there have been serious deficiencies and great hypocrisy, even within the European Union, which make me want to double my efforts from now on.
An example of this, and this is an appeal to the Council, is the issue of wage discrimination.
It has been demonstrated that, compared to men doing the same work, women receive 50 or up to 80 per cent less.
This is not in our legislation.
Nevertheless, it appears that the European Union approves of it.
I wonder if the Portuguese Presidency, before the end of its mandate, could make a recommendation in this respect.
It also seemed extremely important to me, Mr Patten, that in the meeting in New York, when the policy of microcredits was discussed - loans to certain women so that they may be given access to financial autonomy - the countries recognised that these programmes of microcredits had been a complete success.
Why does the Commission and the European Union, given such a positive assessment, not implement these programmes so that the European Union may also offer its women with no resources the possibility of these policies? Please answer me, Mr Patten.
Mr President, the European Parliament' s delegation played a magnificent role with regard to the candidate countries.
Our work has been outstanding in this respect.
I do have reservations with regard to Poland, but precisely because Parliament' s delegation played such a significant role.
Mr Varaut, you are very badly informed. You have made a fool of yourself.
You were not in New York, but I was.
Your information is not accurate. It is not even true.
Your intervention is very unfortunate because it is false.
I have to refute what you have said because none of it is true.
Mr President, I, too, would like to thank the Portuguese Presidency, in particular Minister Maria de Belém, and the Commission, represented by Commissioner Diamantopoulou, for their guidance and coordination work both at the preparatory stage and during the Conference, for this allowed the European Union to make a substantial contribution to the production of the final document.
It has already been said many times: the work carried out by the UN and in New York has demonstrated clearly that some progress has been made since Beijing.
Women are no longer regarded as merely vulnerable people who need to be protected but as the social protagonists of change and as an essential part of society' s resources.
The need to continue the fight against all forms of discrimination on grounds of gender, race, ethnic origin, religion, age, disability and sexual orientation, which are still rife throughout the world, has become clear.
The need has become clear for governments to include a gender aspect in all government policies, from employment to development, from social policies to the fight against violence.
There is an evident need to continue to step up dialogue and cooperation with autonomous women' s organisations in civil society, politics and the institutions.
A number of challenges remain at national and international levels and for the European Union, particularly in the context of its development cooperation policy.
In this regard, I would like to draw Commissioner Patten' s attention to the Commission' s frequently negligent attitude towards the adoption of drafts which provide for the involvement of women on development cooperation with Mediterranean countries.
Poverty affects women more than anybody else.
Therefore, we need to focus on clear policies which fight the social exclusion of women and consolidate their role as active protagonists of political change and economic development.
If globalisation is to provide new opportunities, it must include globalisation of the human rights of all people, globalisation of fairness and globalisation of equal opportunities.
Development must be regarded as a project to expand the freedoms which all human beings have the right to enjoy.
Therefore, the need for recognition of rights without any discrimination must be a priority both for us and for the international organisations.
Mr President, the World Conference on Women, which was held five years ago, meant a breakthrough at the time in the worldwide recognition of women' s rights as an area of human rights autonomy and empowerment.
In contrast to this, I have mixed feelings about the UN Conference which was held in New York last week.
On the one hand, it was confirmed that it is up to governments to guarantee equal rights for women and to pursue sound emancipation policy, and, despite many people' s fears, no retrograde steps were taken.
On the other hand, it was once again impossible to reach agreement on sensitive issues which had not been resolved at Beijing, such as the recognition of the right to self-determination for women in their personal life, including their free choice in pregnancy and sexual behaviour or sexual preference.
This is greatly disappointing.
Actual equality and freedom for women is only possible if all options are open to them and if the traditional family image is not held up to them as the only true one.
Resistance of the kind displayed by governments, diplomats and officials last week, is a form of rearguard action, however.
It is impossible to stop a revolution with clever word games and little schemes behind the scenes.
The fight goes on.
The true inspiration which I gained from last week' s conference in New York lay in the power of the international women' s movement which, contrary to popular belief, is as vigorous and alive as ever and is also bolstered by a new generation of young women who, strong and well-informed, stand up for all kinds of issues.
The European Union and Member State representatives showed great commitment during the Conference to the issue of sexual self-determination for women and the non-discrimination principle pursuant to Article 13.
The fact that this did not end up in the final document should not be a reflection on them.
What can, however, be expected of the Council and Commission, is that they put their money where their mouths are in their respective Chambers.
In addition to what we obtained last week, namely reparative legislation on equality in work and professional life, they should produce new additional legislation to prevent sex discrimination across the entire range of social life.
Article 13 offers the opportunity to do so and the Beijing +5 Conference issued an instruction to this effect.
Surely a European Union which, at international conferences, is full of rhetoric on banishing sex discrimination should set about developing effective policy instruments which can attain this goal at the level of the Union itself.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Many friends and women who are colleagues in this Parliament have just pointed out that my name appears as one of those who signed against women's rights.
I want to put on record that I am not against women's rights.
I have always supported women's rights.
It must be an error.
Sometimes colleagues bring petitions from delegations and we sign them.
I am sorry about that.
That was not a point of order, Mr Khanbhai.
You mentioned a matter which has not been raised by anyone. There has been no reference during the debate either to your name or to a list of reprobates.
I really do not know what you are talking about.
President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you will understand the pride I feel as a Portuguese national at the general acclaim for the Portuguese Presidency' s excellent work in promoting equal rights for women during its term and particularly with regard to the special UN conference on Beijing+5.
The conferences on violence against women, trafficking of women and reconciling family and professional life, together with the UN conference on Beijing+5, are clear examples of the Portuguese Presidency' s involvement in this area.
Anyone at the UN last week, like myself, would know that, in the end, we only managed to approve less than one-third of the final document. The difficulties were immense.
I feel that it was both the work of the Presidency and the Commission and the involvement of all the female Members of this House who were there, and who joined with the national MPs of the Fifteen plus those from the applicant countries with the exception of Poland, which ensured that progress was made in the final document and that this was a lot closer to our intentions than when we started the work.
Finally, I must say that the European Union has a decisive role to play in this issue.
We must lead the way in defending women' s rights and we must continue the work in this respect.
The resolution approved by the European Parliament was greatly appreciated in the UN.
I must thank the President-in-Office for having come directly from Canada to Strasbourg so as not to miss this meeting which is so important to us. I know that, since Monday of last week, she has been constantly dealing with women' s issues both in the USA and in Canada.
Mr President, I must thank the Members for all their compliments on the Presidency' s work.
I must also say very sincerely and with immense gratitude that the conduct of this work in this way was only possible because we all - the Presidency, the Commission, the European Parliament and the non-governmental organisations - cooperated together. This was also possible because the bilateral contacts which we each maintain, by working hard at them and thereby multiplying their effectiveness, were vital in the end result.
I am extremely grateful to everyone for this.
When I spoke, it was clearly on behalf of all the Member States of the European Union and of all the applicant countries except for Poland.
In the contacts established with Poland, it has been made very clear that accession cannot be exchanged for non-recognition of women' s rights.
The European Union could not take any other position on such an issue. Women will no longer accept their fundamental rights being regarded as a bargaining chip for political issues.
Europe must continue to be the driving force in developments in this area.
These must be achieved through cooperation, particularly with all like-minded countries, some of which, like Canada, are totally committed to the Presidency' s statement presented at the end of the special conference.
We must take advantage of all these opportunities.
These developments must also be achieved through benchmarking processes and by using the conclusions of the Lisbon Special Summit, which considered that in Europe there could be no economic development without social cohesion.
In this way the European Union itself can develop and export these instruments for assessing, measuring and exchanging good practices enabling gradual and effective progress to be made.
I referred to the Portuguese Presidency' s work on the issue of discrimination in the European Union.
Portugal is also very pleased that, in the last Social Affairs and Employment Council, a resolution was approved on reconciling family and professional life.
Women are constantly being penalised because the time that they devote to family life gives employers objective reasons to discriminate against them in wage terms.
Therefore, in my opinion, we have already achieved what was asked of us.
Finally, I must thank the President and the whole House for your kindness and the comments which you have made, and I also thank the Commission for its support.
The Portuguese Presidency is now coming to an end and sincerely hopes that the subsequent French and Swedish Presidencies will continue the work which we have together managed to achieve so that they represent the next stage in the consolidation of women' s rights.
Thank you, President of the Council. We all share this hope.
The debate is closed.
I have received four motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Mrs Lulling, we have already heard speeches on the matter from the President of the Council and from the Commissioner on the subject of Poland.
You were speaking about a point of order.
Mr Izquierdo Rojo had already replied to Mr Varaut and therefore, Mrs Lulling, you could not use your speech on a point of order to discuss the issue.
You have, of course, prompted Mr Varaut to ask to take the floor for personal reasons.
You are quite right, Mr President.
In short, I agree completely with the need for a full debate in this Chamber, even if we do not all agree.
Next, having heard what most of the speakers said on the issue of Poland, I am left in no doubt as to many of the things said in corridors and about the pressure of which I was informed, which was brought to bear on the representatives of Poland, a free State.
To conclude, I have heard many things said about the Vatican, but I can see that Jesuitical thinking, at least, has truly pervaded the European Parliament.
Mr Varaut, we cannot base our debates on corridor conversations. These are not reliable sources of information and are not available simultaneously to all Members in all languages.
The corridors are there specifically for private, informal conversations, not official debates.
Tunisia - Human rights - EU-Tunisia Agreement
Mr President, Commissioner Patten, Mr Da Costa, we are approaching this debate, as we approached the questions we put to the Council and the Commission, aware of the responsibility entailed in our partnership relationship with Tunisia, which we consider will be decisive for the success of the entire Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.
In fact, Tunisia is the first country with which the European Union signed an Association Agreement within the context of the 1995 Barcelona Process.
We attach great importance to preserving and consolidating this Agreement, and I would like to make it quite clear that, as far as we are concerned, there is no question about this.
On the other hand, it is true that we are following the development of the situation in Tunisia closely and with a sense of involvement, and we appreciate the positive factors such as economic and social progress, which we do not deny, particularly in relation to the region' s situation and the role played by Tunisia in the Arab Maghreb.
We do not, therefore, intend to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign country at all, and it will be more useful if today' s debate serves to bring about renewed commitment on both sides to the values and undertakings entailed in our partnership.
However, in all honesty, I must also say that we are extremely concerned about the human rights situation in this country, particularly because we are convinced that, given the socio-economic and cultural context involved, there is the possibility for substantial improvement in the degree of freedom of the press, of speech, of association and of movement, conditions in prisons and the autonomous exercising of justice, so that the country can move towards full expression of the rule of law.
And this is the moment to do so.
This is why we call upon the Commission and the Council to support this process by joining us in making representations to the Tunisian authorities.
We must not forget that the creation of a free trade area is not the sole objective of the partnership policy, nor, moreover, that the partnership does not just consist of an exclusive relationship between the governments but has to ensure support and due respect for civil society, for the autonomous associations which uphold human rights and freedoms and for the role of women, whose lives in this country are full of sacrifices and who are often at great risk and undergo indescribable suffering.
For our part, we must prove that the Euro-Mediterranean policy is a priority for the Union as a whole and that it is not based on the egotism of those of us who are motivated by the desire to conquer new markets for our goods or obtain cheap labour for our businesses.
It is also based on shared values, on respect for cultural, religious and linguistic differences, and on policies capable of producing prosperity and security for the entire Mediterranean area.
Today, may this debate serve to remind us and our partners of all these things.
Why is Europe silent about human rights in Tunisia?
Is it on account of the stability and economic progress which this holiday destination enjoys? Is it because of the political links with France or the European socialists?
Or because it has adopted a constructive stance in the peace process in the Middle East?
Or do we see Tunisia mainly as a bulwark against the rise of Islamic fundamentalism? At any rate, President Ali only has the religious fanatics in mind.
He seems to be obsessed by them. But this concern is more of an alibi than a justification for the human rights situation in his country.
Not only Muslim fundamentalists, but all political opponents are systematically silenced. Tunisia calls itself a democracy, a democracy without opposition that is, without freedom of the press, without fair judicial processes and with torture and the elimination of political prisoners and their families.
Tunisia has concluded an association agreement with the European Union which contains a clear human rights clause.
There can, of course, be no question of President Ben Ali' s claiming rights under the agreement but shirking his obligations under it.
If the violations continue, the Treaty will unfortunately need to be suspended.
Would Commissioner Patten agree with me there?
Tunisia is the first Mediterranean Sea partner with which this association agreement has been concluded.
Given its economic development, it can act as a model for the entire region, but it should then, of course, meet the political criteria.
The European Union cannot allow one agreement partner that which it denies another.
The Association Council must, therefore, look into the human rights situation as a matter of great urgency and draft a democratisation programme.
If the European Union keeps quiet any longer, it will be partly responsible for the human rights violations in Tunisia.
Mr President, in March, the Delegation for Relations with the Maghreb countries and the Arab Maghreb Union, of which I am vice-chairman, made a visit to Tunisia, where we observed that, while there has been undeniable economic progress, there exists a democratic deficit in the field of freedoms, particularly in the area of the press and the audiovisual media.
We were also able to observe - and I think this should be stressed - that the Tunisian authorities are aware of this deficit, which they justified time and time again through the need to temper their political openness in accordance with their particular idiosyncrasies and culture as well as the danger to Tunisian society of the growth of Islamic fundamentalism.
They therefore asked for understanding and patience.
I must say that the Tunisian Government has made gestures which indicate goodwill. They made these gestures during our visit and this is reflected in the report which the delegation has presented to Parliament.
In the view of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats and European Democrats), we are therefore holding a debate which is necessary but which should not take the form of an exaggerated and alarmist condemnation, which is often what happens, but which should recognise certain facts which concern us because they affect the areas covered in the association agreement, such as the respect for human rights and democratic principles. This issue must be resolved by means of political and social dialogue, and an effort on the part of the Tunisian Government to implement legislation which will guarantee political pluralism in a real sense and not in a purely formal sense and, above all, provide the necessary freedom so that the citizens can express their opinions and the media can reflect them.
This is the message which this House must send to the Tunisian authorities, who must receive them in the positive light in which they are intended.
To this end, within the framework of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, the Commission, the Council and Parliament must not go into reverse with regard to the aid programmes which must be implemented within the framework of MEDA II.
Education and training in democratic principles are a fundamental element of sustaining a plural and democratic society.
Young people, judges, the police and journalists need to have full knowledge of the rights they must exercise and defend.
This is the area in which the European Union can and must cooperate.
It also concerns me that Commissioner Patten, who is present, is not sufficiently sensitive to the serious problems currently faced on the southern side of the Mediterranean, where Tunisia plays a very important role.
Emigration, fundamentalism, poverty and political instability cannot be resolved by pronouncements and good intentions alone.
We need true political will and the economic and human resources to put it into practice.
In any event - and this could serve as a summary of the debate - we cannot restrict our cooperation with third countries to purely trade and economic issues.
To this end, we also ask Tunisia, together with economic reforms, also to make progress with political reforms aimed at guaranteeing freedoms, but with the aid and cooperation which, of course, they receive and will continue to receive from us, at least from my Group.
We also believe that we need a common strategy in the Mediterranean, as the resolution states, and that, together with political, social and security aspects, special attention is paid to the cultural and human dimension.
This is why we need to strengthen the interparliamentary dialogue and the dialogue with the representatives of civil society.
As we say in my country, By talking we come to understand people' .
If one thing characterises the people of the Mediterranean, it is the wealth of their thought and their words, and that, ladies and gentlemen, costs very little.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we start to examine an issue like this we should remind ourselves of the European Union' s general attitude to its external relations.
The EU has a set of values and principles which it naturally tries to promote in its relations and which it tries to use in all areas of its associations with third countries.
Contrary to what may be inferred from one honourable Member' s intervention, the European Union does not act according to geographical position by being more demanding on countries which are closer and less demanding on countries which are further away.
We do not work in this way.
We usually use uniform criteria and, in particular, the idea that it is preferable to open areas for dialogue in order to encourage countries to make regular bilateral assessments of what is causing exclusion factors or misunderstandings.
In this respect, the work of the Council and Commission is totally coherent. In particular, and I do not really need to say this, Commissioner Patten has more credentials than most of us on the issue of respect for human rights.
On the specific issue of Tunisia, I must say that the Council is fully aware of the human rights situation in this country. It has noted all the concerns expressed on various occasions by this House.
Naturally, it has also noted the considerable concerns expressed here today.
The Council has on several occasions emphasised to the Tunisian authorities its concern about the occurrence of certain situations, particularly the lack of general freedom and press freedom in particular.
Human rights issues are frequently discussed, as the speakers have noted, within the political dialogue which the Council is conducting with Tunisia within the Association Council and through the Heads of Mission of the Member States in Tunis who have regular meetings with the relevant Tunisian government officials in this area.
At the moment this dialogue is centred specifically on the current reforms of the new press law, the operation and functions of the penalty enforcement judge and the amendments of electoral law.
The possibility of such a dialogue, which Tunisia did refuse for some time, represents significant progress.
During the two meetings of the Association Council which took place as part of our relations with Tunisia and which I attended, the Council reiterated the fundamental importance to relations between the European Union and Tunisia of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and, naturally, it used the opportunity to highlight certain specific cases, some of which have been mentioned here.
On a more national note, during the State visit by President Ben Ali to Portugal at the beginning of May, the Foreign Minister, Jaime Gama, had the opportunity to raise with his Tunisian counterpart the human rights situation in Tunisia and in particular the case of the journalist, Taouffik Ben Brick. He underlined the constant need to respect fundamental freedoms.
We realise that any kind of action in terms of political pressure can have advantages where carried out through the media.
We believe that there is room for several dimensions to be used in the international arena on this type of issue and we do not reject the efficacy of these actions.
However, the Council prefers to use the opportunities for influencing the Tunisian authorities more discreetly, and perhaps more effectively, by maintaining constructive pressure on them through political dialogue and various meetings at different levels.
We do not consider it appropriate to initiate the procedures needed to suspend the Association Agreement or to convene an extraordinary session of the Association Council which would probably be reported in the media but which would have no practical effect in specific terms.
Maintaining regular dialogue and continuing all the steps which have been made so far, when and if appropriate, is the right way to proceed in this context.
Despite these difficulties and the problems in moving this process forward which we all recognise, we must accept that there have been positive results.
We cannot ignore, and it would be politically incorrect to so do, the gestures of openness already made by Tunisia, particularly in freeing 600 political prisoners, returning passports to certain members of the opposition and being clearly willing to reduce tensions in the case of the journalist, Taouffik Ben Brick, and accepting his specific claims.
The Commission has also tried to finance actions in order to promote human rights and democracy in Tunisia through the MEDA programme for democracy and may provide further information in this respect.
Finally, in the Barcelona Declaration, Tunisia, like the other Mediterranean partner countries, signed up to certain principles involving respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Within the EU-Mediterranean framework and in reinforcing this framework as we are trying to do at the moment in close cooperation with the European Commission, we are also insisting on the importance of actively promoting the rule of law and the good management of public affairs which constitutes a key area in the dialogue between the two sides of the Mediterranean.
To conclude, I must assure you that the Council remains committed to promoting and reinforcing in Tunisia, as in other countries with which the EU maintains relations, respect for human rights, democratic principles and fundamental freedoms, and to establishing a true democracy with an open civil society based on a rule of law.
A measured policy is, in our opinion, the best way to achieve these objectives.
The Council will continue to pursue discreet but firm diplomacy and will continue its policy of encouraging all forms of progress towards democracy and the rule of law.
I am extremely grateful to the House for the opportunity to comment on these extremely important matters.
As a number of honourable Members have noted, Mr Taoufik Ben Brik's hunger strike is over, but it has had a major impact both on the authorities in Tunisia and on civil society.
It sparked a public debate in Tunisia on the human rights situation in that country.
I want to make it clear that the Commission shares the view of the UN Special Rapporteur who states in his report to the Commission on Human Rights that: "Tunisia still has a long way to go to take full advantage of its favourable economic context and adopt measures designed to strengthen the protection of human rights and, in particular, the right to freedom of opinion and expression".
But how can the Commission and the European Union in general influence Tunisia's rate of progress in this area? This is best done by looking at the three main instruments provided by the association agreement linking the European Union to Tunisia.
The first, to which my colleague referred, is political dialogue.
This dialogue has already given us the opportunity to comment on Tunisia's human rights situation twice at ministerial level at the two Association Councils that have taken place to date.
The Union has made a point of addressing the human rights issues in Tunisia in our many contacts with the Tunisian authorities.
The second instrument is the financing of positive measures in the form of grants from the Community budget for projects promoting the exercise of political and civil rights.
The MEDA programme for democracy, on which Parliament has strong and positive views, has financed training, information and awareness-raising projects for NGOs and for public opinion in this field.
A programme of support for the Tunisian media has already been included in the programming of future financial cooperation with Tunisia and should be the subject of necessary consultations with the Tunisian Government.
As Mr Dupuis reminded us, sustainable economic development and political stability depend, above all, from Russia to the Mediterranean, on strong institutions, not on strong men.
It sometimes requires strong men to ensure that the institutions themselves are strong and operate within the rule of law.
The third instrument is the European Union's option of adopting restrictive measures, the most radical of which would obviously be the suspension of cooperation.
The Commission considers that, before having recourse to any restrictive measures, positive means offered by the partnership should be pursued to the limit.
There is still significant scope both at the level of political dialogue and the financing of support programmes.
I would like to explore this further with Tunisia.
Specifically, the Commission wishes to see to what extent the Tunisian Government will implement its promises regarding reform of the press code and facilitating freedom of association.
We also wish to see if our efforts to support the desired reforms by providing funding from the Community budget prove successful.
I will keep Parliament informed of developments in all these areas.
The issues that we have been discussing this afternoon are extremely important.
I know that Parliament is aware of the whole picture.
Mrs Napoletano, in her interesting address, pointed out the economic and social progress that has been made in Tunisia.
Others could have referred, for example, to the position of Tunisia on the sharia law.
Nevertheless, there are issues which give considerable cause for concern.
It is best at the moment to proceed by dialogue but, as the House will understand, I do not equate dialogue with being supine.
Parliament has legitimate concerns and a strongly felt point of view.
That can be expressed firmly but courteously, as Parliament is doing today.
I want to put the debate on Tunisia in context and to take up a point that was made by Mr Hernández Mollar and some other honourable Members as well.
Of course there will be events and developments that crowd in on us.
Today, inevitably, we have to give a good deal of attention to our efforts to rebuilding in the Balkans and, in particular, to prevent further social and political disintegration.
It is a policy in south-east Europe which, I should add, is not irrelevant to stability and prosperity in the Mediterranean.
But if I have to judge where we are going to face the main challenge in the medium and longer term, it would be, to be candid, our policy in and around the Mediterranean.
What is at the heart of the Union's common foreign and security policy? It is the projection of stability.
That is the crucial element in our policy in the Mediterranean.
What are we trying to do there? It is true that we are trying to create, if you like, the Mediterranean equivalent of NAFTA.
But there is more than that, which I will come to in a moment.
I just want to make it clear to the honourable Member that my commitment to making this policy a success is total.
One of the things that most offends me at the moment is that our record in supporting it through development assistance is not nearly as good as it should have been.
For year after year we have only been able to spend 40% or less of what we have committed in the Mediterranean, partly because of absorption problems in the region, partly because of our own failures, which I am keen to address.
I will make this bargain with the honourable Member: if, by the time I leave my job as a commissioner in 2005, our record in closing the gap between commitments and payments is not a hell of a lot better than it has been in the last three years then he can have a contribution to his favourite charity.
That is what I would like to be taken as a mark of whether or not we are committed to making a success of our policy in the Mediterranean.
It is extremely important that we use our existing instruments much more competently, much more effectively.
That is what I would like to be judged on.
I want to repeat: this is not just about creating a free trade area, important as that may be.
Free trade is not the end; free trade is a means to an end.
The end is the creation of an area of prosperity and political stability to the south of the sea that we have shared with North Africa and the Middle East for all these millennia; it is about the sharing of values, as well as the sharing of trade.
It is not about creating hub economies which will make Europeans more prosperous: it is about working in partnership with Mediterranean countries in a partnership of values as well as trade, for the good of people to the south of the Mediterranean as well as those of us in Europe.
It is an enormously important part of Europe's endeavours over the next few years; as important, in some ways in projecting stability, as the whole process of enlargement.
I very much hope that in the next five years we will be able to carry that programme forward in Tunisia and the rest of the region.
Mr President, one of the best pieces of theatre criticism to be published in Europe in the 20th Century, in my humble opinion, went something like this: 'Yesterday was the opening of such and such a play, by such and such a writer' .
I could not hope to emulate the crushing brevity of this, in my view, brilliant journalistic comment. However, my question is practically the same.
Why are we arguing about the situation in Tunisia?
Why is there a certain crisis in the relations between Europe and Tunisia at the moment which, in one way or another, no doubt affects the relations between the institutions of the European Union and the Tunisian authorities within the framework of cooperation and the association agreement?
I believe that this is a useful question to ask, because only by understanding as accurately as possible what is happening in Tunisia and the challenges faced by that country, will we be able to find the tone of moderation and effectiveness which we must develop within the framework of cooperation.
There is a great paradox in Tunisia at the moment and my concern is that this paradox may be becoming increasingly dangerous.
Tunisia is the most peaceful and prosperous country of the Maghreb, but also has the most closed press and media in the Maghreb.
It is the country with the greatest growth and with the greatest advances in terms of social modernisation, particularly in terms of education and the status of women; however it is the country in which the emergence of a civil society, which is born of this economic and social growth, does not have adequate means to express itself in complete freedom.
It is a country which is, and has been, in the forefront of the association agreements and the agro-Mediterranean policy, and which has signed all the international conventions on human rights but where, nevertheless, time and time again problems arise relating to human rights which are exaggerated by sections of the European media.
Believe me, I am sensitive to the question of human rights.
I have spent fifteen years of my life without a passport or driving licence.
I have had experiences, which I will not describe, in the police stations and prisons of the Franco dictatorship, but I believe that the fundamental problem in Tunisia at the moment is a different one: the future of Tunisia.
We will only be fulfilling our obligations if we in the European Union find the tone and the effectiveness to help the sectors in Tunisia who are in favour of the development needed to accompany and safeguard the future of economic growth and social modernisation.
I will end by saying that I share to a large extent the points which Commissioner Patten has expressed, but I would also like to hear from the Commissioner that he also feels a deep concern for Euro-Mediterranean policy, for the policy relating to the Maghreb.
Only by ensuring that we are not in a situation where the Council is giving less priority to the Mediterranean, the Commission is hindering the implementation of programmes and the European Parliament is simply giving lectures, will we be able to find the tone and effectiveness of a policy which will help the future of Tunisia, in friendship and solidarity, towards a situation which brings both socio-economic growth and full democratisation.
A lot is at stake, not only in Tunisia, but also in the whole of the region, when it comes to achieving the objectives of this task.
Mr President, the paradoxes of this Parliament never cease to amaze us.
We do not hesitate to set about installing a political regime in Kosovo which is antidemocratic and made up of only one ethnic group, from which the non-native populations, if I may call them that, will be excluded.
We do not hesitate to sign trade agreements with China, a totalitarian country if ever there was one, which ordered 1800 executions last year alone - that is the official total - and at the same time, we allow ourselves to pass judgement on the Tunisian government with what is, to my mind, uncalled for severity.
It is true that not all of the Union' s Member States have, like France, had the privilege to have developed very long-standing links with Tunisia, which enable France to understand that the reality of the situation does not match up to the caricature that some fools in the media have managed to spread throughout Europe.
It is true that Tunisia does not match up to our idea of democracy, but how many countries in the world and even in Europe, live up to the idea of what democracy is according to a person who is already a democrat?
Tunisia is actually the first country in the Maghreb to have signed an agreement with the European Union, and everyone recognises the progress that Tunisia has made in adapting its economy and its social fabric to the modernisation required by its links with the European Union and, unfortunately, by acceleration due to liberalisation through globalisation.
I would say that the results that Tunisia has achieved make a good case for the country and that is why the trial it is being subjected to seems somewhat disproportionate given the reality of the situation.
We must, in any event, remember that Tunisia was in the front line of combat when, a few years ago, Muslim fundamentalism threatened the whole of the Maghreb.
In my opinion, Parliament would be doing something it could be proud of if it took into account the whole geopolitical context of the region instead of behaving like some kind of activist cell. Such behaviour is not even worthy of a non-governmental organisation.
Mr President, the news reached me here in Strasbourg of a hunger strike involving more than one thousand political prisoners in Tunisia.
I would like to make two comments.
Based on Christian beliefs, we denounce this ultimate means of self-defence.
However, we are quick to add our condemnation of authorities which force their citizens into such extreme despair.
The present Tunisian regime does not tolerate any independent minds.
Hence the repression which has lasted for years and is even becoming increasingly harsh.
This is why I wholeheartedly concur with those who submitted oral questions today, particularly Mr Van den Bos.
He is quite right in asking the Council for real action because the EU' s own credibility as a partner of the association agreement with Tunisia is in the balance.
"It is not a case of the population being denied its rights" , according to a Tunisian defender of civil liberties. He goes on to say, "they might as well forget that these rights even exist."
If Tunisians lead this fight, then the European Union should not and cannot trail behind.
Mr President, I too should also like to express my great concern at the deteriorating human rights situation in Tunisia, a concern that is actively shared by all friends of that country.
For several years now, those who have promoted human rights have suffered, together with their families, continual harassment by the Tunisian authorities and some of them have been given prison terms.
They are regularly followed by members of the state security services; their passports, and those of their families, are confiscated; their telephone lines are cut off or tapped; they are subjected to defamation campaigns or to verbal and physical threats; and finally, their relatives are regularly interrogated.
Given this kind of abuse, the European Parliament today reiterates its conviction that there should be no exception to the respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms. This rule cannot be flouted without damage being done, because Tunisia is the first European partner to have concluded, in 1995, as a matter of fact, an association agreement with the European Union.
This agreement contains a clause which calls for human rights to be respected, with suspensive effect and provides for political dialogue.
I certainly prefer political dialogue to unilateral sanctions, but, for this very reason, it is our duty to tell our partners that we are extremely concerned about the situation in Tunisia.
It is our duty to ask the Tunisian authorities to undertake all possible initiatives to establish a genuine multiparty political scene, and to guarantee the freedom of the press and freedom of association.
But what form will this dialogue take, Mr Patten? What practical and specific steps can we take?
How can we make the positions that we adopt here effective? We can start by asking how things are going to develop in Tunisia.
The Ben Brik affair alone has come to symbolise the exasperation of many Tunisians in the face of the depletion of their freedoms, with the press being only one of the many areas lying in ruins. There has been a Ben Brik effect, which goes beyond his individual case and in three months, we have seen a whole civil society, which has demonstrated its determination to end the police state, suddenly gain a new dignity.
Over these three months, President Ben Ali has continued to wield the carrot and the stick at those who question his methods or who criticise the state of freedoms in his country.
Given this attitude, we are entitled to wonder if, tomorrow, Tunisia might not become a new hotbed of tension on Europe' s southern border.
Tunisia' s rulers have two solutions today.
The first is to continue to refuse to accept the reality of the situation in line with the principle - quite common in this type of regime - of insisting that everything is fine until the final moment, with civil society having to suffer a new wave of repression and to face up to it with courage and determination.
It would then be the international Community' s task to isolate a power that would be an outlaw and to support the fight of the Tunisian people to regain their sovereignty.
The Tunisian government can also, however, choose the path of dialogue with civil society, in order to decrease tensions and to negotiate a way of pulling Tunisia out of this impasse and to lead it towards democracy.
I think that it is important, as Mr Abitbol said, that we choose our words carefully. In any event, we must implement every measure that we can to ensure that that is the path they choose to follow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in Tunisia must be seen in the wider context of the Mediterranean and the countries of North Africa with which the European Union is interested in maintaining dialogue regarding its peace and stability programmes.
Out of all those countries, Tunisia has certainly made the greatest progress in terms of its economy, stability and social services, and Tunisia is the country which is most aware of the importance of a Euro-Mediterranean dialogue on economic, political and cultural issues.
Nevertheless, we clearly cannot disregard the suppression of civil liberties taking place in that country, but I feel that it would not be sufficient or effective for us to adopt a purely condemnatory position, although we must show our disapproval.
We need an action programme which is capable of genuinely improving the situation step by step, through dialogue and by supporting Tunisian society by means of joint agreements and specific programmes on respect for human rights, as we planned to do with the Cards programme for the Western Balkans
In effect, we have to take into account the fact that countries with different traditions from those of Western democratic countries have to mature culturally in their growth towards the full implementation of civil liberties, and that this happens one step at a time, with the result that the whole process takes longer.
Isolation would not pay off and would be likely to undermine the endeavours of those who are working in Tunisia to improve the quality of its democracy.
It is therefore to be hoped that the EU-Tunisia Association Council will assume the responsibility of continuously monitoring the human rights situation in Tunisia by means of a joint action carried out together with the equivalent Tunisian representatives, and that it will create a joint system to monitor the issue which can only bring social improvements to the human rights situation in Tunisia.
Mr President, human rights are being infringed.
There is no respect for press freedom and the rights to freedom of expression and of organisation, all of which are being ignored.
This is something we know about.
It is also known about in Tunisia, both by the authorities and the people.
Naturally, we shall be taking up these violations and criticising them whenever we have the opportunity to do so. This is an extremely serious matter.
It is a question of universal rights, not only inside but also outside the European Union, and there must be criticism when such rights are infringed.
I think that the best way of levelling criticism is by means of dialogue.
This means people' s real respect of one another, and if Tunisia and its leaders are prepared to respect our views on these matters, then I believe that we, in turn, should note that, in Tunisia, they take quite a negative view of the agreements we have in place.
I cannot find it stated anywhere other than in point 7 of the motion for a resolution of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left that all Tunisian organisations, within both the private and the public sectors, are in fact critical of the association agreement, a state of affairs which we in the EU should, of course, also take on board and respect.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, most members here in this House - with the exception of the member who has just spoken - are concerned about developments in friendly, neighbouring Tunisia.
Tunisia is our neighbour, because the Mediterranean does not divide, it unites us.
These concerns, as expressed here today, are not born of a colonial or neo-colonial attitude.
We are not talking about unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of a third country. No, we are talking, as Commissioner Patten has stressed again and again, about critical dialogue based on the agreements which we have signed with Tunisia.
It would therefore make no sense to cancel these agreements.
On the contrary, we must use them to shape this critical dialogue.
We are talking about creating a common area of security, stability and peace, and that includes democracy, that includes respect for human rights, that includes freedom of the press.
When Tunisia keeps insisting that we are also talking about fighting extremism and terrorism and preventing extremist views, attitudes and organisations, then I agree with it wholeheartedly.
But how else is this fight best fought, if not through democracy? This is also being demonstrated by Tunisia' s neighbours.
Which is why we cannot do without it.
Tunisia keeps saying that it is a question of economic and social development.
But this totally positive economic and social development in Tunisia is precisely the best basis for developing democracy still further and fighting the fight against extremism on democratic soil.
One last comment: we want to help Tunisia, about that there can be no doubt.
We must help Tunisia, just as we must help the whole area, the whole region.
The Balkans are not our only priority. The enlargement of the European Union is not our only priority.
The Mediterranean is not in the third division, it has equal status and importance.
When Commissioner Patten states, for example, that we are talking about reforms, about closing the gap between commitments and payments, then that deserves our full support. But we must do that all together and sensitively.
We must do it in a way which does not repulse our Mediterranean partners but which invites them back into the fold.
Mr President, I have two brief comments to make. Firstly, the Council has taken due note of the legitimate concerns expressed by the Members and we will definitely bear these in mind in our dialogue with Tunisia within the existing institutional frameworks.
Secondly, to enlighten Mr Ducarme, the General Affairs Council planned for 18 June will basically aim to secure approval, within the Council framework, for the common strategy for the Mediterranean which will then in principle be submitted to the Feira European Council.
This common strategy has formed part of the Portuguese Presidency' s programme and may constitute an added value in the Barcelona process. It contains some extremely important elements for reorganising and siting the whole external policy of the EU in this area in a more integrated manner.
At the last General Affairs Council we made an effort to deal with this issue which has some delicate aspects given that these questions are complex and multi-dimensional.
The extraordinary General Affairs Council, which will be held immediately before the European Council in Santa Maria da Feira, will allow this common strategy to be approved. This strategy will surely form an element which will greatly assist the EU' s overall action, particularly within the Common Foreign and Security Policy, in respect of the whole Mediterranean region.
Mr President, I shall be even briefer than I was going to be, because the presidency has just answered one of the points put by Mr Ducarme.
I just want to touch on two other points he raised.
First, to say that, speaking for the Commission, we very much hope to bring forward proposals in the next few months - or weeks, if we can manage it - for revitalising the Barcelona process, a contribution to the debate about how that can be done five years after the original agreement.
If the honourable Member needs more information on Tunisia or on the Barcelona process as a whole, I hope he will let me know and I shall try to oblige as rapidly as possible.
Thank you, Commissioner Patten.
I have received six motions for resolutions in accordance with Rule 40(5).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
China's accession to WTO
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B5-0489/00 by Mr Westendorp y Cabeza, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, to the Council, on China' s accession to the WTO;
B5-0490/00 by Mr Westendorp y Cabeza, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, to the Commission, on China' s accession to the WTO.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, on 17 May I asked an oral question to the Council and the Commission on behalf of the Committee which I chair, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy before the - I would say welcome - signing of an agreement between the European Union and China on the membership of the latter of the World Trade Organisation.
In this regard, I would like to make a comment and two requests.
Firstly, on behalf of the Committee which I chair, I would like to warmly congratulate Commissioner Lamy for his patience, perseverance and the skilful contacts he has been holding constantly not only with the Chinese authorities, but also with other important members of the Council of the WTO, in particular the United States, which have allowed both the Congress of the United States and the European Union to reach a preliminary agreement on the membership of China, the importance of which is obvious because it will incorporate into the World Trade Organisation more than a billion people, with all the challenges and possibly positive responses that this will involve.
Secondly, this agreement is positive because it brings with it economic, social, environmental and also geopolitical advantages for China and the world in general, especially the European Union.
What seems particularly positive to us is the opening up achieved in the field of financial services, telecommunications and insurance, which will offer opportunities, with no doubt whatsoever, to our economic operators, and also the gradual opening up of the energy markets in China which, apart from certain economic benefits, will lead to greater compliance with environmental standards in that country.
Another additional advantage is that China, through its entry into the World Trade Organisation, will be subject to its rules.
This is positive in itself and will bring China into a new and different dynamic in terms of closer relations with the rest of the world, although this must not cause us to stop being vigilant with regard to the respect for human rights, social rights and environmental rights.
In this respect I would like to say that there will be difficulties, since the position of the Commission and the Council, which Parliament supports, requires fundamental respect for basic social and environmental rights, China' s acceptance of which, paradoxically, will be more difficult to ensure once China is a member of the World Trade Organisation with full rights.
Therefore, we also fully support the Commission and Council initiative to relaunch the round, which was frustrated at the outset in Seattle, as soon as possible, turning it into a global round.
Those have been my comments. My two questions are as follows:
Firstly, we are very interested to know whether the Commission is willing to work closely with the United States on this package of financial assistance, which is so important and necessary, so that China may be provided with the administrative and legal apparatus for it to fulfil its obligations within the World Trade Organisation.
The other question is as follows: we have worked very well with the Commission and the Council throughout this process and we intend to continue to do so.
I believe that this cooperation gives legitimacy to a process which is being criticised.
The question is clear. More than a question, it is a request: at the end of the process, will the agreement with China be subject to the approval of Parliament?
I believe that this hypothesis does not put the Council or the Commission at any risk, since its success is guaranteed.
As I have said, Parliament supports this agreement.
Furthermore, we will all gain in terms of democratic legitimacy with this important agreement, since, I do not need to stress, it is laid down that in important agreements Parliament has a decisive role to play.
Mr President, the conclusion on 19 May of the bilateral agreement on access to the market in goods and services between the European Union and the People' s Republic of China constituted, as we must all recognise, an important step in the process of China' s accession to the World Trade Organisation which, incidentally, has now been operating for 14 years.
The integration of a partner with the economic and political size of China into the multilateral trade system will undoubtedly form one of the most important factors in the world economy at the beginning of this new century.
Mr Westendorp y Cabeza mentioned the size of the Chinese population and market and the importance which this will have in terms of the internal balance of the WTO.
The universal vocation of the WTO will therefore be reinforced and the discussions on the ways of making its operation more effective will from now on be an absolutely essential exercise.
At the level of the WTO, the bilateral negotiations now occurring are just one step towards the multilateralisation of the agreed mechanisms and towards the finalisation of the process in Geneva.
This requires the group' s work towards accession to be continued in terms of the final wording of the respective protocol.
Only at the end of this process will China' s accession be placed on the agenda of a General Council meeting for approval by the WTO members, assuming that these have, in the meantime, carried out the internal procedures required for this purpose.
At Community level, this issue must still be discussed by the Member States as the process usually followed and known as the ad hoc Ecuador process is proving to be too tacit and, as such, is incompatible with the political and economic weight of China and with the specific importance of this particular case.
The European Union will have to give its clear and explicit assent to China' s accession to the WTO and the Council must decide on the overall accession package which must also be submitted to Parliament for an opinion.
I will not answer the second question posed by Mr Westendorp y Cabeza as this has been overtaken by events. It concerned the mandate conferred on the Commission and whether this was broad enough.
The evidence shows that the mandate was broad enough, even too broad for some countries, including mine, which had certain concerns about establishing this mandate.
As for cooperation and technical assistance actions, we have seen that, despite the problems noted throughout this negotiating process, China has proven its commitment to the multilateral process and has even prioritised this in certain regional choices.
It must now, during this stage, make an additional effort to apply the commitments it has made and to demonstrate the necessary willingness to comply with its multilateral obligations and to respect the rules and instructions of the World Trade Organisation. It is therefore of the greatest importance that the Chinese authorities carry out the necessary adaptations internally.
For this reason the European Union is already prepared to provide nearly EUR 22 million for actions aimed at certain areas which may initially be more difficult to address due to the particular nature of Chinese legislation. These actions include the issues of government acquisitions and intellectual property.
The developed countries must cooperate closely so that, through technical assistance measures, China can satisfactorily meet the terms agreed for its accession to the WTO. This is a fact which these countries have recognised, as was proven at the summit between the United States of America and the European Union on 31 May when this issue was addressed.
China' s accession will constitute a stability factor in the world economy and will give increased importance to the next round of WTO negotiations which we hope can start as soon as possible. For this reason we must all make an effort to ensure that this objective is achieved.
It is hoped that the accession process can be completed quickly through firm commitments which are compatible with the level of development already achieved by certain sectors of the Chinese economy. This will ensure that the stability of the markets will not be threatened.
However, in addition to this aspect, China' s accession to the WTO will also have effects at political level, given that the requirements for internal reforms and greater transparency, and consequently greater exposure to external public opinion, will have an impact on the actions of the Chinese authorities in areas other than the strictly commercial area.
However, the next speaker will probably know more about this than I do.
Mr President, I wish to begin by warmly endorsing a couple of the remarks made by the honourable Member, Mr Westendorp - which, I am sure, is always a sensible way of beginning a speech in a debate in Parliament.
First, I should like to endorse in the most glowing terms possible the encomium that he delivered to my colleague, Commissioner Lamy, for the way he conducted these negotiations.
I have had some experience of negotiating with China myself and I have to say that I am lost in admiration for Commissioner Lamy's achievement.
I should like, as he did with characteristic generosity, to say that all of us should also pay tribute to his predecessor, Sir Leon Brittan, who helped to get these negotiations up and running, even though they had to travel several more laps than he thought likely at the time.
Second, I entirely agree with what the honourable Member said about the importance of the outcome of these negotiations.
This agreement is very good for China and Europe; it is good for the Asian region and for the world and, as we saw, it almost certainly had a beneficial effect on the vote in the US Congress.
It is good news all round.
It will be a challenge for China and, in due course, for the WTO.
However, it has always seemed to me that it is something of a misnomer to talk about a World Trade Organisation which has not contained the representatives of between a fifth and a quarter of humanity.
This is a good news story.
I want to deal with the two questions which the chairman of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has raised.
First, the question about Parliament's assent.
Commissioner Lamy has already had an opportunity to set out in the plenary of this House in March the view of the Commission that China's WTO accession is a trade agreement of major importance and, therefore, that it is exactly the type of agreement that would be submitted for Parliament's assent, were the Commission proposals for the IGC to be accepted.
However, at this stage these are just proposals.
We obviously cannot anticipate the results of the IGC, so we have to stick to current Treaty rules.
As Parliament knows, the China agreement does not fit any of the categories of Article 300(3) that would justify submission for assent.
The agreement will, however, in principle, be submitted for consultation, so the European Parliament will have ample opportunity to express its views on the agreement.
Of course, it is the Council that decides on consultation with the European Parliament.
This is as far as the legal and the institutional answer goes.
On a more political and pragmatic level, I can assure the House that the Commission will work with the European Parliament to ensure that it can make its voice heard.
The House will know that, in exemplary fashion, Commissioner Lamy has held several rounds of discussions with Members of this Parliament during the final phases of the negotiations with China.
I know that he debriefed Members right after the agreement was initialled: he phoned the honourable Member to inform him that he had finalised the agreement.
I can assure the House that he intends to continue this dialogue throughout the internal approval procedures of the European Union.
It is an indication of that old truth that being more transparent invariably means being more successful.
At this stage I should like to add, however, that on 19 May we only concluded - a point made by the presidency - our bilateral agreement with China on her terms of accession to the WTO.
The multilateral phase of China's accession that takes place in Geneva has still to be finalised.
This is not expected to happen before the end of September at the earliest.
In other words, whatever procedures will apply within the European Union regarding China's WTO accession, the issue is really only relevant after the multilateral phase has been concluded, because the approval procedures will start only after this date.
Second, I want to come to the extremely important point which the honourable Member raised about technical assistance to help China to implement its WTO obligations.
We have in the Commission five cooperation programmes in China, which total EUR 25 million.
They are either in place or will be implemented soon.
They include a framework programme which aims to strengthen the relevant Chinese administrative structures and capacities through a series of specialised modules targeting segments in the Chinese administration which will be dealing with WTO implementation.
Other programmes are geared towards helping China to implement specific WTO obligations.
We are currently considering how best to build on these, and new initiatives will be taken.
China's WTO accession and the related considerable needs for technical assistance are likely to generate significant interest from other donors, including the United States and Japan, but also from our own Member States and from the WTO secretariat.
Clearly, close coordination is going to be essential in order to avoid overlaps and to develop synergies between different programmes which each donor will implement in accordance with its own procedures.
The need for coordination will be especially strong where assistance is targeted at the implementation of specific WTO agreements, and we will support close involvement of the WTO in these areas.
As regards the question of coordination with the United States, we will certainly look very carefully at our options.
We have to bear in mind that this will have some effects on the visibility of our European efforts.
The first exploratory talks on China's technical assistance needs and the respective roles and intentions of various donors will take place shortly through direct contacts in Peking and on the fringe of the WTO working party on the accession of China next week.
I just want to repeat that this is an extremely important issue; it is an issue on which Commissioner Lamy and I have already begun discussions.
We want to keep Parliament fully informed about our plans, but I am absolutely certain that, having made this extremely important breakthrough, it is now very important to give as much technical help as possible to ensure that it has the results in China and, therefore, for the rest of the region and the world that all of us hope for and would like to see.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, China was yet another of our trading partners to realise during negotiations in Beijing that the European Union has specific, independent weight as a major global trading area.
The Commission represented coherent positions on the part of the European Union with the support of the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers and implemented many of them. Competition and the reciprocal opening of markets, freedom of establishment and in the provision of services, intellectual property rights, environmental protection and partnership for sustainable development are just a few examples.
For the rest, our position is based on the principles of free and fair global trade and is shaped by the European model of a social, ecological market economy, many fundamental points of which are already included in European framework legislation.
We expressly thank Commissioner Lamy and his team - and I expressly include his predecessor Sir Leon Brittan here - for the excellent result; the Commission negotiated successfully and competently; China has moved a long way towards opening its markets and basically accepts the rules specified by the World Trade Organisation in 1994 and further developed since.
There is no need to outline the specific successes in detail.
They range from reductions in customs tariffs, from starting rates of often over 40% to an average of 10%, to the opening of import and export monopolies via joint ventures in the service sector, trade chains and medium-term freedom of establishment for independent European undertakings.
So the results are clear.
But integrating China into world trade also means ensuring that it is in a position to respect and apply the rules of the World Trade Organisation, act as a responsible partner and take on new responsibilities.
We therefore thank Commissioner Patten for his assurance that technical assistance, training for China' s specialists and for those responsible for the new chapter in cooperation will be coordinated with the United States.
But we feel that something else is needed; greater understanding on China' s part of the European Union' s commercial position on the reciprocal opening of the markets.
We are counting on China' s supporting the European Union' s proposals for a comprehensive new round of WTO talks in the short term.
In the long term, we would stress the implications of a more intensive trading partnership with China for peace in Asia, Europe and the world as a whole.
We feel that China will, in the long term, see the obvious need for the rapid economic and social development of China to be fostered within a framework of open markets and democratic reform.
On behalf of the PPE Group, therefore, I welcome the successful outcome of negotiations with China and call on the Council to put this result in political order so that the European Parliament is able to adopt this important decision.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner Patten, ladies and gentlemen, my fellow members have already picked up on the main points. Permit me, therefore, to address just a few aspects.
The European Union has achieved a number of successes, mainly thanks to Commissioner Lamy, who really has achieved some resounding successes.
But this also applies of course to the United States, and the same will apply to the other countries due to enter into negotiations.
In my view, one important point will be not just be to help China integrate into the world economy - it has already more or less done that - but also to help this country take a further step towards the general democratisation of its society.
We have been able to follow what is at stake in all the discussions, in the leading world press and in the lively debate between economists on the matter, but the crucial question is: what will actually happen once China becomes a member of the WTO? Will it mark the beginning of a further opening of society?
Will it mark the beginning of a new round in politics?
Will it result in institutional reforms in China?
And, of course, will there also be a further opening of the market?
These are the really crucial and exciting questions which we face. I am sure that it is in the minds of all the honourable members who have spoken and I believe that it is my group' s opinion, that we should use this opening and the integration of China into the World Trade Organisation to help it make a quantum leap.
However, we must not fool ourselves, we must not harbour any illusions, and we must insist that the WTO rules are in fact upheld, because this is, of course, the crux of the matter.
This is where we really will have to get down to brass tacks during further discussions with the Commission. Because the package negotiated is extremely comprehensive and includes highly critical and sensitive sectors.
Critical voices are already being heard on the part of industry to the effect that success is all well and good, but ex-post control of implementation is equally important.
I think that we will be able to count on good collaboration here, so that this form of implementation can be monitored by Parliament and Parliament can be kept abreast of current developments.
One further point which I should like to address, and which I think is highly important, is our hope that with the opening of the market and with the further opening of society in China, greater respect will be given to human rights.
Human rights are a fundamental element of a modern society.
I think that this a point which we cannot allow to be sidelined, even in talks, even if they do not form a substantial part of purely economic negotiations.
I think that you have always set particular store by this.
Nonetheless, it is important that this point be reiterated constantly.
Mr President, I have two short minutes in which to make four points.
Firstly I would like to join in the warm congratulations to Commissioner Lamy and indeed his distinguished predecessor Sir Leon, now Lord, Brittan.
I hope the brevity of my congratulations does not diminish the warmth of them.
Secondly, a point addressed to the Council.
The Council's attitude towards parliamentary assent to a deal like this is linked to the Council's parallel attitude towards the Commission's proposal for its extension of its own powers over areas such as intellectual property and services in Article 133 more generally.
I have to confess I get the impression that there is a certain degree of institutional territoriality here, particularly in the large Member States, where the trade and industry ministries are very reluctant to see the Commission continue to extend its scope in those new areas in WTO trade negotiations and, consistent with that, also reluctant to see the European Parliament increase its influence.
This simply cannot carry on.
It is such a weird anachronism that a policy that was communautarised back in the 1950s is as unaccountable and non-transparent as it is.
I would plead for the internal territorial interests of Member States to be overcome on this particular point.
Thirdly, technical assistance.
It is great that we are going to coordinate with the Americans, but look at the numbers: EUR 25 million is absolutely nothing in comparison to the challenge we face!
We have a total budget for China of EUR 80 million.
Even if we allocate all of that to China-WTO accession it would still not be enough.
We - the Commission, Council and Parliament - have to be a lot more ambitious in actually allocating much more money towards this enormous task.
Finally, human rights.
I hope the fact that we have signed up to this bilateral deal with the Chinese does not leave them thinking that we are going to be any more forgiving on human rights.
It is all the more important that all three institutions should now be particularly robust about the way the Chinese behave in the so-called dialogue on human rights.
Let us not give them the impression that a deal on the WTO means that we are going to be weak on human rights - it should be the reverse.
We should be all the more robust.
Mr President, if the preceding speakers are to be believed, we now have paradise in view. The Chinese, in particular, are heading there and nowhere else.
I was reading an interview in China Labour Bulletin the other day about one of the tens of millions of Chinese who have become unemployed because of the famous 'opening up' of their country.
This person was complaining about the unemployment, insecurity and enormous widening of the gulf between the classes.
In fact, this Chinese person was so desperate that she said she wished Mao Tse Tung was back.
From all the analyses I have read, which is quite a lot (both Chinese and Western, liberal and socialist), it is apparent that unemployment is coming to China.
It has already increased a great deal and, through accession to the WTO, it is going to increase a very great deal more.
I am wondering now if the Commission has carried out any other analyses.
I wonder if the Commission has any serious scientific analyses indicating that unemployment in China, contrary to what is apparent from all these other analyses, is going to decline rapidly and that social stability is going to be strengthened instead of the gulf between social classes widening further.
It would be extremely interesting to know.
Another matter is that of human rights.
A number of people here believe that human rights should benefit from China' s accession to the WTO.
Yes, that is possible - I am no fortune-teller.
Parliament did, however, give the Sakharov Prize to Wei Jingsheng, who has a quite different view of this issue.
His assessment is that the WTO Agreement will not benefit human rights at all.
He has actively fought against it because he thinks that it does not make reasonable demands where human rights are concerned.
It would be extremely interesting to know what are the Commission' s and the Council' s analyses of this question.
In what way is Wei Jingsheng mistaken? We should like to know that we are not doing anything which, contrary to our intentions, is unfavourable to human rights.
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, it is not pleasant to play the role of someone who repeatedly asks the same questions.
It is not, however, my fault, Commissioner, if there is a wishy-washy consensus in this Parliament.
Nor must you count on my weariness to stop me hammering out evidence which, although on the face of it appears dogmatic, should be blatantly obvious to everyone: The WTO is a machine that should by switched off before it goes any further, instead of carrying on as if there were no problem apart from the stunning failure that was Seattle.
Now, what has happened since that abortive summit? New negotiations have started in Geneva, in a fug that is not dispelled straightaway by Mr Lamy' s praiseworthy speeches to this Parliament, and the European Union, hot on the heels of the United States, is negotiating the future conditions for China' s accession.
Therefore, we have the right to ask a few questions.
What purpose do the WTO meetings serve if there is no difference between failure and success in the way internal business is conducted? What credibility can institutional reforms have, given that they are supposed to respond to major investigations, if, even before they are implemented, the path to imminent membership is open to a country which alone comprises one fifth of the world' s population?
Furthermore, are you able to tell us how the European Union and its partners categorise China?
Do you class it as a developing country or as something else?
How do you see the astonishing upheaval in the balance within the organisation that uses this kind of approach to the situation?
Finally, can you tell us what - if anything - the European Union is getting from the United States, as, according to statements by Mr Lamy, the negotiations undertaken with the Chinese have been based on what the Americans had already obtained, with increased benefit for the Europeans.
Commissioner, the quality of Mr Lamy' s work is not, of course, the issue here but, in spite of my repeated requests to see a proper assessment of the WTO carried out, these negotiations are going ahead without such an assessment having been made.
I must say that it looks like we would not be able to undertake any action that might give the impression that doubts exist as to the benefits of liberalising world trade.
I regret the fact that there was such little consultation with the Union' s Member States and the European Parliament which are, in the main, supporters not of the fine cause that is the World Trade Organisation, of which we too are part, but of that of the frantic development of global free-trade, to the detriment of our people' s essential interests.
Mr President, I, too, would like to congratulate Commissioner Lamy on securing such improved terms and a deal with China.
After such a long history of negotiations clearly all that was needed was the question from our committee to push the matter to a conclusion.
Recently I was visiting Taiwan where people clearly hope that the accession of China to the WTO will lead to improved cross-strait relations, and we must welcome that.
I would have referred to Commissioner Patten knowing well the difficulties of dealing and negotiating with China, but he has already mentioned that.
The prospect of a change in the duty on spirits from 65% to 10% will be a most welcome one in certain parts of the whisky-producing areas of the UK.
I look forward to sharing that news with them in liberal and liquid fashion.
On a larger scale the position achieved in access to, and faster opening up of, the telecoms market is also good news.
China has such huge potential in this market for growth, and European operators have a great opportunity as world leaders looking for new markets.
I welcome this step in the further integration of China into the world economy but we must recall the emphasis that we, in the European Union, place upon other values in addition to trade.
In that context I would like to call, on behalf of my British Conservative colleagues, for European Parliament participation in the half-yearly dialogue on human rights.
If this Parliament were part of that dialogue we might exert additional pressure for improvement in that field.
I hope the Commissioner will listen carefully to that suggestion.
Mr President, while international big business is busy popping champagne corks in celebration of the agreement on China's proposed accession to the WTO, China's small-scale farmers are already quaking in their shoes.
They know that accession to the WTO will be a very mixed blessing for China and that for them, as small farmers, it could spell ruin.
So I beg to differ with Commissioner Patten.
There are many people in China for whom this agreement does not spell good news.
Powerful international agri-business knows that too.
That is why US grain companies like Cargill cannot believe their luck.
They have just been handed the biggest market in the world and can expect US farm exports to increase by USD 2 billion over the next five years as Chinese tariff cuts begin to take effect.
No wonder they are already gloating over bigger, better and more consistent markets.
But while Cargill is so delighted that its profits will rise while Chinese self-sufficiency in agricultural goods falls, the picture is a good deal less optimistic for the people of China themselves.
It has been estimated that increased competition from cheap agricultural imports could mean that about 400 million rural Chinese will no longer be needed on farms by 2005.
It is almost impossible to conceive of such a huge figure or to think about the social dislocation and misery that will cause.
The Commission is offering technical support to the Chinese in order to help them with the enormous economic restructuring which accession to the WTO will bring.
What I would like to see is an equal concern to help with the almost inconceivable social restructuring which will inevitably follow in its wake with - I repeat - 400 million rural farmers out of a job.
Mr Lamy has been quoted as saying that the bilateral negotiations between the EU and China yielded 96% of what the EU was demanding.
Would he like to estimate what percentage of success the Chinese people will get from these same negotiations?
Mr President, representatives of the Commission and the Council, the volume of world trade has soared in recent decades.
Despite the giant leaps forward, many problems remain unresolved and questions left open with regard to world trade.
One of the biggest and politically most difficult of these has been China' s accession to the WTO, and this same problem will again be associated with the implementation of the agreement in practice.
As this is a matter of the world' s second largest economy and eleventh largest exporting country joining the most important institutional system for world trade, the importance of the issue cannot be emphasised too heavily.
I agree with Mr Clegg as regards the impression one gets that the Commission and the Council have perhaps been rather too keen in this matter to refer to the Treaty of Amsterdam and hide behind formal requirements.
I am, however, very satisfied that the Commission is in agreement with us that talks with China concerning its membership of the WTO are a matter that Parliament cannot pass over and that we will have this issue heard in this Chamber.
The fact that the talks on accession will not lead to changing the legal framework does not lessen the importance of the issue.
For that reason, an informal dialogue free from the exact wording of the basic agreement, which the Commissioner mentioned in his speech, is more crucial than ever before.
It is in the interests of the European Union as a whole to support China in the reform of its economy, administration and legal system.
It is sensible to implement the technical assistance package from the EU and the United States in a context of collaboration; this is necessary to guarantee the speedy and single-minded implementation of the reforms.
Of the reforms in the public sector, that concerning state-owned companies is vital for continued economic growth in China.
In this connection I will make my sole comment regarding content: the percentage of ownership by foreign companies was not fixed at the level the EU was aiming at.
That was a very bad mistake.
Another important political question is how the economic life of the country is to be reformed, as that is closely linked with the fate of China' s socialist system as a whole.
The debate is closed.
Mr President, on a point of order, when I inquired this morning about the time of this debate I was told it would start shortly after 3 o'clock.
When I came for this debate at 3 o'clock I was told it would be taking place later, towards 5 o'clock.
Clearly there is pressure on our agenda today.
I wish to put forward a proposal that might relieve pressure on the end of today's agenda, namely, the debate previewed for the late payments directive - the report of the conciliation procedure with the Council.
This is an issue which is now entirely without contention.
Everybody supports this matter.
The rapporteur, the shadow rapporteur and the chairman of the committee would all support a suggestion that this be turned into a vote without debate.
That would end pressure on the agenda right at the end of this evening.
Possibly we could have a vote on it now.
Mr Chichester, I do not feel in a position to make a decision, not even with recourse to the Rules of Procedure or the advice of officials.
I am only going to chair an hour and a half of Questions to the Council and then, when the sitting begins, the person holding the Presidency - who will be informed of your intelligent proposal - will make the relevant decision.
But we take very good note of this proposal.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0487/2000). We will examine questions to the Council.
Question No 1 by (H-0434/00):
Subject: Increase in Community budgetary resources Much time has been devoted so far at the Intergovernmental Conference to issues such as the need to revise the decision-taking procedure in the Council of Ministers and the number of Commissioners. Little attention has been paid, on the other hand, to the need for a substantive increase in Community budgetary resources so as to facilitate the process of enlargement and to enable the Union to address the increasingly difficult tasks facing it both domestically and in external policy.
How does the Council view the prospect of a substantive increase in Community budgetary resources, what could be the 'ceiling' of such an increase and how realistic is such an objective under present conditions?
Mr President, the size of the Community budget is a general issue which has been addressed periodically, particularly within the wider debate on the future financing of the European Union prior to the negotiations on the EU financial frameworks.
However, the current context is not favourable to increasing the budget, as was demonstrated in the Agenda 2000 negotiations, and this is not the right moment to reopen this debate.
Within the Interinstitutional Agreement reached on 6 May 1999 on budgetary discipline and improving the budgetary procedure, of which the financial perspectives are an integral part, you will remember that amounts were established which represent an annual maximum limit on expenditure for the European Parliament, Council and Commission. These three institutions undertook to respect these limits.
The Council currently considers that there is no need to revise the financial perspectives.
With regard to expenditure arising from enlargement, the aforementioned Agreement specifies that, in the event of enlargement of the EU to include new Member States during the period covered by the financial perspectives, the European Parliament and the Council, deliberating on a Commission proposal, will jointly adopt financial perspectives taking into account the need for expenditure arising from this enlargement.
However, this alteration of the financial perspectives must respect the maximum limits contained in the guidelines on the financial perspectives for an enlarged Union with 21 Member States, as indicated in Annex II to the Interinstitutional Agreement. This clearly depends on the results of the accession negotiations.
I should like to thank the Minister for answering the question which I tabled, but I think that he has not answered the specific issue which I raised, which is this: in the year in which I have been an MEP, I have noticed that, although the number of EU programmes and initiatives is multiplying continuously, implying new, additional spending, no additional resources are being budgeted for them.
On the contrary, resources budgeted for other commitments are usually cut back; this happened, for example, in order to find money for Kosovo and for developing the Balkans, for the earthquakes and for other issues which have arisen.
I just wonder why we are not making an effort to take payment appropriations up to the legal ceiling of 1.27% of the GDP of the European Union, so that other programmes do not have to be sacrificed, and why the European Union is taking on more and more and, at the same time, limiting payments of approved appropriations, which account for a mere 1.10% of GDP.
Also, can the Council reassure the people in the poor countries of the European Union that enlargement will not result in budgetary cutbacks...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I understand the Member' s concern and realise that this is shared by several sectors in the EU.
The truth is that the changes which have been made to the funding allocation plan, particularly in the last year, have not affected the Union' s compliance with its undertakings in these areas. These changes have also been made based on appropriations that remain unspent in certain areas.
However, if the situation worsens to the extent that some of the commitments made by the European Union cannot be kept in accordance with the financial perspectives, then this mid-term revision may clearly occur, as specified in the financial perspectives and for the first time by qualified majority voting.
In this way, some of the expenditure arising from enlargement, if this takes place in the meantime, may be covered.
However, given that we are currently in the first year of implementing the financial perspectives, there is no reason at the moment to justify any reassessment of the commitment made in Berlin.
The Committee on Budgets and the European Parliament agreed in the end in Agenda 2000 to reduce the 1.27% proportion of GDP by 2006.
The citizens of Europe want a thrifty administration and the purpose of the concept of real stabilisation is to achieve a further net improvement in the quality of the work of the Council and the Commission.
It should enable us to work even more efficiently in the future in the European Union.
Do you believe that the concept of real stabilisation can be continued after 2006?
I am very happy to answer the honourable Member' s question.
I was involved in the Agenda 2000 negotiations and I clearly recall the concept of real stabilisation which was proposed. In practice this meant reducing the amounts established.
In our opinion the European Union will sooner or later have to make a choice. It must opt either for a structure with a solid set of policies and a corresponding budget at the same level or simply for a kind of savings fund.
If we were to regard the Community budget as a kind of savings fund and were to act increasingly through subsidiarity in terms of financing, the future of the EU' s policies would very probably be in doubt, particularly from 2006.
This is my personal view.
As the author is not present, Question No 2 lapses.
Question No 3 by (H-0446/00):
Subject: Plans for a common position of the EU at the Ospar Convention What plans are being negotiated in the Troika for the presentation of a common position by the EU at the meeting being held this month in Copenhagen of the OSPAR Convention on the control of radioactive and toxic pollutants in the marine environment?
Mr President, negotiations within the OSPAR commission on issues coming under the Community competence are conducted, as you know, by the Commission in consultation with a committee of representatives of the Member States.
If, at the end of these negotiations, the parties to the OSPAR Convention were to adopt a decision which, in the Commission' s opinion, should be incorporated within Community law, the Commission would be responsible for preparing a proposal for a decision by the Council on the adoption by the Community of this OSPAR decision.
The Council would analyse this proposal with due care.
The position mentioned by the Member has not been presented to date to the Council and we cannot, therefore, comment on this matter.
I know that the Portuguese presidency is very familiar with this issue.
As you know, the OSPAR commission met in Sintra two years ago and some progress was made on pollution of the marine environment.
My question pertains particularly to radioactive emissions.
I know France is part of the troika and will be taking up the presidency in July.
France pushed quite hard and was part of the agreement on lowering radioactive emissions, but a recent Greenpeace study shows that there are quite strong emissions of radioactivity from Cap La Hague. Is the Council aware of this study?
Would it like more information about this study? Will it bring it to the attention of the French presidency?
On the one hand they claim to be controlling radioactive pollution to the marine environment, but on the other hand we have proof that there is radioactive pollution, so there is some contradiction there.
The Council needs to get its act together.
I take the point about the Commission's proposals and I look forward to discussing this further with the Commission when we have a result from Copenhagen.
Neither Ireland nor Denmark have so far sent the Council any proposals on radioactive waste.
Given that the Council as such is not a member of the OSPAR commission, only the European Commission can adopt a legislative measure in this respect.
Therefore, any information which may be received in this respect by the Council will be welcome.
Question No 4 by (H-0449/00):
Subject: Indication of religion on identity cards The independent data protection authority in Greece has raised the issue of the religion of Greek citizens being recorded on their identity cards, saying it affects people' s private lives and can lead to discrimination against certain individuals.
In view of Article 13 of the Treaty, can the Council say whether both the compulsory indication of religion currently applicable and the possible removal of this obligation, to be replaced by a voluntary indication, are compatible with the legal and political 'acquis' of the European Union? In which Member States is religion one of the items recorded on citizens' identity cards?
Mr President, the Council has never been asked to discuss the issue raised by the honourable Member.
In principle this does not come under the Community competence but is the exclusive competence of the national authorities and in particular, as stated by the Member in his own question, of the Greek High Authority for Data Protection.
As I said, no proposal has been presented to the Council on this issue.
If the conduct of the Greek authorities led to any infringement of Community legislation, the Commission, as the Guardian of the Treaties, would clearly not hesitate to take the necessary steps to bring any action before the Court of Justice in respect of this infringement.
However, this does not come under the Council' s competence but is rather the responsibility of the Commission. It is up to the latter to determine whether or not the reference to religion on Greek identity cards complies with the principle of non-discrimination on religious grounds.
However, from a preliminary analysis of this issue, we feel that the mere reference to religion does not in essence constitute any violation of the legal and political acquis of the European Union, if this reference is only for information or even statistical purposes and if it is not accompanied by any specific measures discriminating against those practising a particular religion.
In any case we are talking about actions by free and democratic countries. In order to challenge a measure of this type, a specific legal framework for complaints exists at national level.
Clearly, the Community bodies can be appealed to following action before these national bodies.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
Yesterday I tabled the same question to the European Commission.
I received its reply today.
However, there is some confusion in the matter which, as far as Greece is concerned, is an extremely important matter.
I thank the President-in-Office, although I noticed that he contradicted himself in his reply.
On the one hand he says that it is not a Community matter, it is a matter for the Member State.
On the other hand, however, he raises the question of compliance with the law.
The President-in-Office obviously has in mind the reply which the Commission gave on precisely this issue, which says that a reference to religion infringes Directive 46/95 on personal data.
Does the President-in-Office agree with this reply, if that is what he has in mind? Or does he not have it in mind, which would demonstrate a huge lack of coordination between the Council and the Commission on a very important issue?
Mr Alavanos, there is no contradiction in this respect and the problem is very simple.
As this issue is not covered by a Community provision, it is solely a question of Greek national policy and is subject to Greek law.
Clearly, this situation will only change if a Community provision is transposed into Greek law and therefore itself becomes a Greek law.
The problem lies in determining whether or not, at this stage of the process, this reference constitutes an infringement of Community law.
Only the Commission would have the authority to act in this respect.
As it has not acted so far, this means that this is not currently a Community issue.
Therefore, at this stage, this issue does not have a Community dimension.
If this situation changes, the Commission will then be able to take the appropriate decisions, particularly in conjunction with the Court of Justice.
Mr President, I must intervene, although I had no intention of doing so, because Greece is labouring under the misapprehension that, if they are to become Europeans, Greeks must stop stating their religion on their identity cards, as they have done for the past seventy years.
The President-in-Office' s reply is correct.
There are no plans to intervene, it is a matter for national law and that is what Greece has been practising up to now.
The principle introduced for personal data resulted in a decision whereby the reference to a person' s religion was an infringement of personal data.
However, I know for a fact that the Community directive on this issue states that, if the person in question agrees to a reference to their religion, then it is not prohibited to include such personal data.
And that is precisely what our party and the Greek church want: a voluntary reference.
Whoever wants to, can state their religion, and whoever does not want to, need not do so.
I would like to remind you that this Question Time is for questions to the Council.
It can in no way be used to explain the positions of governments or the sensibilities of certain countries.
Question No 5 by (H-0450/00):
Subject: Turkey disputes the sovereign rights of Greek islands in the Aegean Prompted by the NATO exercise 'Dynamic Mix' , Turkey has put the spotlight back on its long-standing dispute concerning the established regime of Greek sovereignty over islets and island rocks in the Aegean.
In addition, it has made accusations concerning development and environmental activities by Greece in the areas in question, many of which are funded by relevant European Union programmes.
To be specific, in its representations to the Greek Government on Wednesday, 10 May 2000 Turkey referred to 'military and other activities by Greece on geographical formations of disputed sovereignty in the Aegean' .
Could the Council say whether it agrees with this challenge by Turkey to Greece' s sovereign rights and whether this position accords with the spirit of the agreement which was achieved, following Greek concessions, at Helsinki, and also with Turkey' s current status as an applicant country?
Mr President, the Council does not have any information, rumours aside, on any representations made by Turkey to the Greek Government on 10 May 2000.
As the honourable Member mentioned, the Helsinki European Council recognised Turkey as an applicant country.
At this same European Council, the applicant countries were also urged to make every effort to resolve all existing border disputes and other similar issues.
Unresolved disputes must be brought before the International Court of Justice within a reasonable period of time or at the latest by 2004.
The Council will then re-examine the situation.
With regard to relations between Greece and Turkey, which form the basis of this whole issue, the Council can only welcome an improvement in these relations. It is hoped that this positive process will continue so that the issues relating to the Aegean are successfully resolved in accordance with international law.
It should be recalled in this respect, as this is also extremely positive, that Turkish troops participated in the NATO exercise which took place in part on Greek territory.
Turkish troops have never before participated in exercises on Greek territory.
The Council notes that the Greek Defence Minister described the cooperation between Greece and the Turkish armed forces as excellent and added that the exercises were carried out with full respect for all the sovereign rights of Greece.
This is an important point.
I must also note that, in terms of bilateral relations, the Foreign Ministers of Greece and Turkey, while at the NATO Summit in Florence, presented a proposal to include a range of good-neighbourly measures on the agenda for negotiations between Greece and Turkey. The aim of these measures will be to consolidate the climate of security and harmonisation between these two countries.
These are in addition to the confidence-building measures in the Aegean.
We must all cooperate, in all bodies and in all areas in which these issues are raised, to ensure that tensions are not heightened in any way and to eliminate the ghosts of the past in this respect.
Minister, I too am personally in favour of closer relations between Greece and Turkey, but subject to certain specific conditions.
And I must say in this respect that I am truly surprised by what you said at the beginning, to the effect that the Greek government has not even informed the Council of Turkey' s challenge of Greece' s sovereign rights.
Obviously it sees it as an unnecessary luxury.
It feels that Turkey can proceed unimpeded on its path towards the European Union, violating Greek sovereignty all the while.
But that is a matter for the Greek government.
I should like to ask you, the diplomatic language of your reply notwithstanding, whether or not you consider that Turkey should make moves in order to meet the requirements of the Helsinki resolutions and what you think these moves might be.
Mr Hatzidakis, in my opinion Helsinki represented a moment of great balance in terms of the concerns of those involved, namely Greece, Turkey and also Cyprus as a third party.
The decision taken to recognise Turkey as an applicant country was made in view of this overall balance.
However, certain conditions were indicated in the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council, particularly with reference to the resolution under international law of the conflicts involving the Aegean.
A timetable was also set for this which is indissociably linked to Turkey' s ambitions for its accession to the European Union.
We must all bear in mind that we should be trying, in this specific area, not to aggravate the bilateral tensions which may arise here or there, where these clearly do not involve fundamental principles of identity and the basic interests of the country. We must realise instead that it is essential to reduce these tensions.
It is particularly important that we use the time factor.
At the moment signs are apparent on both the Greek and Turkish sides, with effects evident also on the Cypriot side. We should allow these countries some time before we start systematically highlighting the small incidents which may ultimately stop us from seeing the bigger picture which, after all, is much more important than these small incidents.
It would be politically more responsible at this time to try and reduce the tensions. We must therefore particularly support the efforts which the authorities of the two countries have been making, especially through their respective Foreign Ministers, in order to prevent certain incidents from being exploited, for the sake of the overall situation which is itself of considerable significance and whose resolution may be vital to ensure the balance of the geographical area concerned.
Mr President-in-Office, I should like to be a little more specific.
For Greece, as far as Turkey is concerned, there is only one issue which needs to be settled and that is the boundaries of the continental shelf in the Aegean.
Turkey has disputed a number of issues in the Aegean at one time or another.
And one of these issues is the status of the grey zones or island rocks in the Aegean.
My question is quite specific.
Do you consider, given the spirit of the Helsinki resolutions, which call on Turkey to settle its border and similar disputes with its neighbours by 2004, that the status of the island rocks or grey zones in the Aegean counts as a border dispute? What is the Council' s opinion; is this what it is calling on Turkey to do?
To settle as a border dispute the status of the Aegean, where Greece does not acknowledge that there is an issue?
Mr Theonas, these issues are part of the dispute between Greece and Turkey.
So far these two countries have adopted a totally antagonistic attitude towards these issues, as there are points which Turkey wants to discuss under international law but which Greece considers do not fall within this context.
Conversations and negotiations are now occurring in this respect and bilateral contacts are being made, accompanied by confidence-building measures.
We should allow some time for this process to develop before becoming involved in any potential conflicts.
We know that these differences of opinion exist and that up to now these have formed the essence of what seems to be a conflict about the Aegean which could basically, under international law, be viewed in linear terms.
We know that this is not the case and that we all have different ideas about the same subject.
This is also true of Greece and Turkey but there is now a negotiating framework for this.
We must bide our time and ensure that this negotiating framework can operate, particularly bearing in mind the currently positive Greek-Turkish relations.
Question No 6 by (H-0451/00):
Subject: Political intervention in Georgia's problems Georgia, the newly independent state, is encountering serious difficulties in consolidating democracy and raising its citizens' standards of living.
Its attempts are being hindered by the problem of the breakaway of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the wave of refugees mainly taken in by Abkhazia.
In its resolutions, Parliament has condemned this situation and has asked the Commission and the Council to support the Council of Europe' s initiative to set up confidence-building measures in the area.
Does the Council have any strategy for this sensitive region? Does it intend to operate a policy designed to safeguard peace and security in the region?
Mr President, the Council is clearly concerned about the internal conflicts in Georgia which still need to be resolved. It is also concerned about the difficulties which are being experienced in terms of consolidating democracy and improving the standard of living of the people of that country.
We are therefore giving political and economic support within the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement which entered into force on 1 July 1999.
During the EU Summit with the three Heads of State and Government of the Caucasus in June of last year, an important declaration was approved which sets out the bases for relations between the European Union and the Southern Caucasus.
This same resolution indicated the importance of developing regional cooperation, establishing friendly relations between the countries and sustainably developing their economies.
Moreover, the European Union indicated that it was ready to use its support instruments in order to create a suitable environment for resolving conflicts in the Caucasus.
In this respect, the Cooperation Council between the European Union and Georgia, which was held on 12 October, decided that the cooperation in 2000 should particularly revolve around intensified efforts to find a solution to the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
I must remind you that the European Union is the largest donor of aid to rehabilitation projects in South Ossetia and is ready to support measures aimed at creating a climate of confidence, particularly by rebuilding the north-south infrastructures which connect Russia to Georgia.
Moreover, the EU has also been giving assistance to almost 300 000 displaced persons within Georgia who were forced to abandon their homes due to the conflict.
The EU is encouraging the resolution of this conflict so that these people can return to their homes as quickly as possible and is ready to offer additional assistance in this event.
The Council supports all the efforts made by the competent international bodies, particularly the OSCE in South Ossetia and the UN in Abkhazia, with the aim of contributing to acceptable solutions which can return the political and economic relations to normal and ensure the return of the refugees under safe conditions.
The war in neighbouring Chechnya represents an additional threat to Georgia.
The Council fears that this conflict may spread to Georgia and welcomes the extension of the OSCE' s monitoring mission along the respective borders.
At the request of President Shevardnadze, the European Union is now studying possible ways of helping to reinforce and ensure the efficacy of this monitoring mission.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for the information which you have given me.
It became clear during my recent visit to Georgia and from what was said by representatives of the Georgian Church during the recent meeting between the Patriarchate and the European People' s Party that, in the eyes of the people of Georgia, European policy is ineffectual because, apart from humanitarian aid, it has not helped to solve any of the problems.
The problem of refugees, which include many Georgian citizens of Greek descent, has not been solved.
And I should like to ask you what additional measures you feel need to be taken and extended, as you have just said?
And one more question: do you believe that the conflict to which you referred is part of Russian policy in this region? Also, has the Council taken account of this possibility in its policy in the region?
Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, with regard to the measures which the European Union can adopt in this area, I can only point to the plan mentioned and the set of initiatives which the EU has introduced on the ground.
You should remember that we have a limited capacity for intervention in certain areas and that, as was said today in other respects, the difficulties in the EU' s external action framework and the financing of this framework limit the EU' s capacity to be present in all conflict situations.
However, given the strategic importance of the area, the European Union has been doing whatever it considers possible in this respect.
I agree that other measures may be possible but there is not currently a framework of financing which would allow us to go further, particularly in terms of acting to reinforce the infrastructures.
As for the situation in Russia, regardless of political opinion and what may be underlying the Russian position, there are currently no practical signs which point to an objective intention by Russia to destabilise these countries.
Effects are being felt, as I said, from the war in Chechnya and are likely to be felt in the future by neighbouring countries but I cannot infer from this that there is necessarily an intention on the part of the Russian authorities to spread any kind of instability in neighbouring areas.
Question No 7 by (H-0454/00):
Subject: Human rights: Egypt Further to the European Parliament resolution of 20 January 2000 on the violence in Upper Egypt, what steps has the Council taken to ensure that the Coptic Christian community in Egypt is fairly and justly treated and, specifically following recent events, that those arrested at El-Kosheh were offered a fair trial and, indeed, that the arrests were made with no element of religious discrimination?
The Council has on several occasions discussed the fundamentalist violence and assassinations carried out against the Coptic community in Upper Egypt. We are continuing to closely monitor this situation.
In the meantime a series of positive events has occurred, in particular the release of the secretary-general of the Egyptian Organisation for Human Rights and the implementation of the law on non-governmental organisations which it is hoped may bring about greater freedom of expression.
At every opportunity and at various levels, the European Union has reminded Egypt of its concern about the human rights situation and about the need for Egypt to respect fundamental freedoms, particularly given its status as a member of the EU-Mediterranean partnership.
The negotiations on the Association Agreement with Egypt were concluded last year and it is envisaged that this will shortly be signed.
Once in force, this Agreement will turn the political dialogue between the European Union and Egypt into an institutional matter, especially in the area of human rights, which will naturally enable greater intervention and more scope for political pressure in respect of anything which may be regarded as non-compliance by Egypt with its obligations under this Agreement.
Article 2 of the draft Agreement specifies that the relations between the parties, like the provisions of the Agreement, are based on respect for democratic principles and the fundamental human rights set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This will naturally form the backdrop to the bilateral relations and political dialogue which are integral to this Agreement.
In this context, we will of course continue to remind Egypt, as we have done prior to the establishment of this legally binding framework, of its responsibilities and, in particular, of the need to respect human rights and to preserve fundamental freedoms.
I wish to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I would say this question was prompted by the very large number of letters I receive from constituents about this particular issue.
It is perhaps the issue I have received more letters about in the last year than any other.
It strikes me from what he said that it is very strange that after several of the Coptic Christians had been attacked and disturbed by the others, that it was only Coptic Christians who were arrested.
The President-in-Office said in his reply that the Council will remind the Egyptians of their responsibilities and wait until they have signed the association agreement and can bring an institutionalised political dialogue to bear.
But why does he not use the signing of this agreement as a basis on which to force the Egyptians to come to a more equable, reasonable and non-discriminatory approach to their Coptic Christian citizens?
Mr Purvis, as I have already said, we have not waited for the signing of the Agreement to indicate to the Egyptian authorities, when appropriate, our disapproval of any kind of conduct which does not respect fundamental rights.
This issue has been addressed in the bilateral political dialogue and has naturally been raised within the normal framework of relations between the European Union and third countries.
In this particular case we believe that the Agreement has its own negotiating context and it would not be right, after the Agreement has been approved by the European Union and agreed by the Council, to make its final signing dependent on the resolution of an issue, however important this may be, which is only one part of the whole picture.
On this particular issue and regardless of whether we strictly agree with your reading of the situation that the Coptic community is being subjected to specific measures, our information indicates that, even if the Coptic Christians are being affected the most by these repressive measures, this does not point to an attitude of particular retaliation against the Coptic community. There is an ongoing conflict between traders and certain local communities which has affected the Coptic community but which does not necessarily indicate a specific intention by the Egyptian authorities on this issue.
However, the European Union will continue to carefully monitor this problem and will certainly raise this issue with the Egyptian authorities regardless of whether the Agreement has been signed.
Mr President, I was in Egypt at exactly the time when these events took place.
I saw that the situation was serious, but that, as you said, the Egyptian authorities were making a huge effort.
Nonetheless, I should like to ask whether we perhaps need systematic monitoring of the situation of minorities throughout the Mediterranean, i.e. for the Barcelona process, especially the situation of the Christian minorities living in the Mediterranean, some of whom are in a far worse situation in other countries than in Egypt.
I can only agree with the honourable Member when he says that there are situations in other countries in the southern Mediterranean which seem more serious than this issue.
It is practically impossible for the European Union to constantly monitor all situations in all the countries with which we have a relationship within the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
Within the Common Foreign and Security Policy and particularly bearing in mind the assessment being made, especially in the framework of our political dialogue within the association agreements, we continue trying to highlight our concern about the gravity of various situations. We cannot expect the European Union to operate as a kind of international human rights monitor.
There are other specific institutions to do this work. However, we will ensure that the due consequences are felt in our bilateral political relations with regard to any negative development in these respects.
I also agree that there are much worse situations in other countries within the Barcelona process, some of which perhaps do not occur to us when we are speaking, which must also be duly assessed.
However, the European Union cannot be expected to do the work of the international institutions in this area.
Question No 8 by (H-0457/00):
Subject: Significance of Euro-11 Will the Council say on what issues Euro-11 has, since coming into existence, taken decisions that have been of political significance to the European Union and its Member States?
Mr President, Euro 11 must be one of the biggest mysteries within the Community institutions because this question comes up on a regular basis.
The third phase of economic and monetary union saw the beginning of informal meetings of the Euro Council or Euro 11 as it also known. This brings together the finance ministers of the countries in the euro zone.
These meetings are held monthly and before the formal meetings of Ecofin which involve all fifteen Member States.
Euro 11 meetings essentially address issues relating to the specific responsibilities which the eleven countries share in matters involving the single currency.
Whenever the issues go beyond this scope, the meetings are extended to all the Member States as is laid down.
In all cases where decisions must be taken, Ecofin takes these in accordance with the procedures established in the Treaty.
This was the guidance given by the Luxembourg European Council of 12 and 13 December 1997.
Any other mystery for which the operation of Euro 11 may be criticised can only stem from a failure to understand this reality and the information which is actually in the public domain. The issues discussed by Euro 11 and transferred subsequently to Ecofin, which is attended by all the other countries which have not adopted the euro, are widely known, even in the press.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Presidency for its answer to my question.
The fact is that, in those countries which are to decide whether or not to join the common currency, such as Sweden and Denmark, there are discussions taking place about the significance of Euro-11.
I think it is important that the Presidency should again state that Euro-11 has no formal right of decision-making whatsoever.
The question, however, is that of whether any individual questions in the informal Euro-11 discussions can be pointed to which have subsequently led to formal decisions in ECOFIN.
I wonder if the Council of Ministers can provide examples of any such concrete questions from the discussion in Euro-11 which have led to a new policy' s having been created.
The honourable Member' s question raises an interesting point. As Euro 11 and the institutionalisation of the third phase of economic and monetary union require a form of closer cooperation which is pre-established in the Treaty, the question is whether an acquis will be created in Euro 11 which must be transposed to the full Union.
There are currently no elements of policy coordination between the countries in Euro 11 which naturally affect or should affect their behaviour in Ecofin.
However, it makes perfect sense that countries which are part of an effective policy model and which are involved in implementing policies involving, for example, the single currency framework can separately define and coordinate a position. However, this can only be ratified in Ecofin.
This point is important for understanding that perhaps in the future, when different policy integration models exist, we will see more elements and more ways of working of this kind.
This may be the future and we will see whether the Feira European Council integrates closer cooperation into the Intergovernmental Conference.
If so, we will very probably see several models emerge.
How can we avoid this? For a country such as the honourable Member' s perhaps the problem will be solved by being part of the Euro Council.
However, until this decision is taken by the authorities in his country, the Euro Council will consist exclusively of the eleven countries which have actually adopted the euro.
I understand the answer of the President-in-Office of the Council in the following terms: that there are no instances of negotiations in the Euro 11 having, as it were, pre-empted the formal negotiations and decisions in the competent council, which is ECOFIN; that no acquis has been created; and that what takes place, rather, is an exchange of opinions on the problems encountered by the 11 countries which participate in the euro.
I think I heard the President-in-Office of the Council say something along the lines that there were agendas for these informal meetings and that these agendas were to be publicly available.
I have never seen any such agenda, and I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council to state clearly to what extent agendas are available in advance of the meetings.
The reason why both Swedish and Danish MEPs are raising these questions is that we have obtained the impression that the Euro 11 is an influential body. However, I understand from the answer of the President-in-Office of the Council that formal authority and the power to make decisions of a legal and political nature still lie with ECOFIN.
We must be clear on this, Mr Krarup. Issues relating to the single currency are addressed jointly but solely by the eleven members of Euro 11.
If Euro 11 wants to address any other type of issue which does not concern the single currency, this decision is shared with the other Member States which are not part of Euro 11.
It is as simple as that.
What cannot be avoided is that the coordination of the policies of the Euro 11 countries, particularly on the single currency, and the effect that these policies have on the overall context of the EU' s economic and financial policy do not appear to be linked to the EU' s own coordination.
It is natural that there is prior coordination between these countries and it is natural that this coordination ends up having some influence on the final decision taken in Ecofin.
This happens at contact group level and in the relations between various countries in various contexts.
I know of several cases in which government sectors of EU countries meeting at Council level have talked separately and coordinated their positions so that these appear linked in the institutional contexts of the Union.
You will say that this is not part of the normal procedure.
That is true in that case but in the case of Euro 11 this is institutionalised in the Treaty and it is this which is specified.
There should be no doubt on this.
Mr President-in-Office, from what you have just said, is there therefore an understanding or an expectation in E-11 that after they have had an informal discussion about the euro in Euro-11, they will all vote the same way when they go to Ecofin, even if they disagreed originally? Is there a procedural expectation that all eleven will vote the same way in the formal decision-making in Ecofin?
Mr Newton Dunn, all I can say is that the ministers are responsible for their own positions. Therefore, if at the Euro 11 meeting they have different opinions but the discussion leads them to a joint conclusion I do not see why this same position should not be taken in Ecofin.
I do not see any disadvantage in the existence of various levels of coordination, particularly when these are institutionalised in the Treaty itself.
Question No 9 by (H-0458/00):
Subject: Trying to discover, through clouds of secrecy, what the Council has decided In previous answers to me, the Portuguese Presidency has insisted that everything decided by the Council is open to the public.
I have expressed continuing deep scepticism about the Council's claims.
As a test case, will the Council inform me precisely where in the Council's published documents I could have discovered that Belgian fishermen had been persuaded to stop fishing in the Irish Sea by Britain's Fisheries Minister secretly giving them 190 tonnes of the British North Sea plaice quota and ten tonnes of the British sole quota in the English Channel?
I discovered this from a newspaper, but where could I have found it legitimately through the Council's officially allegedly open documentation?
The Member' s question begins by noting that the Portuguese Presidency has insisted that everything decided by the Council is open to the public. Yet this assertion by the Council causes the honourable Member some confusion.
On the specific case mentioned, what is happening is as follows. The fact that Belgian fishermen will not be fishing in the Irish Sea does not stem from any Council decision as the regulation approved by Council provides for fishing quotas to be granted to Belgium in these waters.
It actually stems from each Member State' s right to exchange with other Member States the fishing quotas allocated to them.
In accordance with the basic regulation of the common fisheries policy, the Member States, having notified the Commission, may exchange all or part of their fishing quotas.
The same article establishes that Member States shall annually inform the Commission of the criteria which they adopt internally for distributing their fishing quotas. Therefore, the quotas available to Member States are established and allocated by a Council decision, with each Member State being responsible for distributing these among the national fleet or, if appropriate, for exchanging part of these quotas with another Member State.
In this case the latter only needs to inform the Commission to ensure the effective control and management of fish stocks. We therefore cannot find any Council document which refers to the exchange of notes between Belgium and the United Kingdom given that, under Community legislation, it is Member States which are responsible for deciding this by mutual agreement and given that this does not require approval by the Council.
However, with regard to the overall distribution of quotas, the honourable Member must be aware that this is published in the Official Journal, in the minutes of the Council of Ministers' meetings and also in the annexed declarations.
We do not feel that there has been any breakdown in the transparency for which the Council is responsible.
Up in the gallery, listening to you and me, are visitors.
Everything is open here in Parliament.
They can hear what we are discussing and agree or disagree.
But the Council of Ministers meets in secret.
Maybe you can slide out of this example and say it is a Member State talking to the Commission and they send them a letter.
Nevertheless these matters are done in secret.
If we - you and I - want the public to understand and agree with the decisions we take, surely you agree with me that it must be done in public?
I do not agree, Mr Newton Dunn. No government in the world takes its management decisions in public.
We can discuss the issue of whether or not legislative decisions should be taken in public.
This is something which we have been discussing in the Intergovernmental Conference.
However, we have not yet reached a definitive conclusion and until then the Council rules are what they are.
I do not feel that this is a negative practice on the part of the Council as we are actually working in line with the provisions of the Treaty.
Question No 10 by (H-0460/00):
Subject: Tibet and the World Bank Is the Council aware of the World Bank's 'China Western Poverty Project' proposal to move tens of thousands of non-Tibetan farmers into Amdo, thereby breaching international law concerning population transfers to occupied territories? Is it also aware that this project has been condemned by the German and United States Governments but supported by the British Government?
Will the Council press the World Bank to abandon the scheme and the British Government to withdraw its support?
Mr President, I will be very brief.
The Council has not examined the issue raised in the Member' s question.
The Member States are responsible for assessing the specific projects to be financed by the World Bank.
With regard to projects for Tibet financed by the European Union through its cooperation programme, the EU' s position is that these projects must benefit native Tibetans.
Can I say firstly that I was astonished by the Minister's response to my honourable friend on the subject of human rights in Egypt.
If Europe does not stand for human rights then I do not know what it does stand for.
I would like to test him, if I may, on Tibet because Tibet has now been illegally occupied by China for many years.
Does the Minister agree that no matter how many years before Tibet regains its freedom, no European state should recognise the illegal actions by the Chinese Government in Tibet and that the transfer of tens of thousands of non-Tibetan people into Amdo is illegal under international law?
The World Bank has now recognised this and I understand is abandoning its so-called Western Poverty Project proposal.
The British Government has not yet withdrawn its support and all I ask the President-in-Office to do is to remind all Member State governments on the Council - including Britain - that they must not endorse or be seen to endorse illegal acts and abuses of human rights and national rights against the people and the nation of Tibet.
Mr Bowis, I note your concerns and we will certainly convey these to the Member States.
However, I must say that the European Union has not ignored the issue of Tibet.
For example, troikas of heads of mission have been sent on fact-finding missions to Tibet.
This issue is also regularly raised in the dialogue on human rights between the European Union and China.
The last round which took place in Lisbon on 25 February was preceded by a démarche with the Chinese authorities which included the problem of human rights in Tibet.
The European Union is not hiding from the issue of human rights in Tibet. However, as the Member must be aware, the European Union has not in recent years taken a clear position on the basic issue.
No definitive decision has been made within the European Union on tackling the basic issue and this is a point which must be raised openly.
The European Union has a lot more than just the ability to send investigative parties, have discussions, make recommendations and so forth.
In the case of Egypt, as has already been said, we have the European-Mediterranean programmes and association agreements.
In the case of China we have very many major trading arrangements and, potentially, their accession to the WTO.
Could we not use our power, our muscle, in order to achieve our human rights objectives and not just go on talking and talking without seeing any results?
I can only repeat what I said about the fact that, within the European Union, no official joint position has been adopted on the Tibet issue, regardless of the human rights issue.
On this issue of human rights in particular, the reactions and attitudes of the EU must be proportional to the importance of the issue.
Although this is certainly an important issue in terms of discussing China' s accession to the World Trade Organisation, for example, it cannot be used to block negotiations of this significance.
We must find a measure which is appropriate for the reactions and the various situations.
Question No 11 by (H-0462/00):
Subject: Effective action against death boats in the Straits of Gibraltar The policy on containing immigration and strengthening barriers along the Straits of Gibraltar is based on a seriously flawed approach and has attracted public criticism from the Andalusian government and the Ombudsman.
Does the Council not believe that, if this project is to bear fruit, an agreement needs to be concluded with Morocco to combat the mafias operating in this area and introduce effective surveillance measures such as observation vessels, in order to prevent people from dying in the attempt to cross the Straits and ensure that the planned investments in the north of Morocco are in fact carried out?
The Member' s question refers to the Council' s actions, firstly with regard to the checks carried out by Member States at external sea borders and secondly the measures which may be taken in the country of origin in order to prevent illegal migration and combat the activities of traffickers.
Measures to reinforce the effectiveness of the checks carried out by Member States at their external air and sea borders have been implemented, particularly within the Schengen area, and are now being integrated into the Community acquis following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Although these measures are carried out by Member States, the Council controls their actual application through its competent bodies.
By way of example, based on a decision of the Schengen Executive Committee of 18 December 1998 on the coordinated use of consultants in respect of documents, measures are being introduced which are intended to combat illegal migration by air and sea in cooperation with various African countries.
Moreover, a 1999 decision of the Schengen Executive Committee approved a mutual aid project for the exchange of officials to give assistance and advice in carrying out security and control tasks at external borders.
In addition to the Schengen acquis, practical measures of the same type are also being taken on behalf of the European Union. These are generally based on the Community acquis and particularly on the common position of 25 October 1996 which established the assistance and information missions carried out away from the border.
Such measures are coordinated within the competent bodies of the Council but do not for the time being cover any African countries.
In terms of addressing the deep-rooted reasons for people wanting to escape and emigrate from certain African countries, we can refer to the action plan for Morocco approved in the Council in October 1999.
This action plan is one of a set of five, each containing an exhaustive and coherent approach focused on the existing situation in a country of origin or transit of asylum-seekers which is regarded as being important.
For each country selected, the action plan presents a balanced combination of options which the European Union offers in terms of foreign affairs, development and humanitarian and economic assistance.
In the action plan for Morocco, which specifically covers the situation referred to by the honourable Member, this country is regarded as a country of origin and transit for economic migration to the European countries.
The measures recommended in this action plan include using existing channels and improving information-gathering, distributing correct information on immigration, creating strategies for combating illegal trafficking and promoting measures intended to apply the readmission agreements.
Also recommended is the promotion of direct foreign investment and vocational training, in which small companies are also involved, and assistance for the voluntary return and reintegration of Moroccans who live in EU countries.
In signing the action plans established by the High Level Group, the Tampere European Council of 15 October 1999 recognised that the European Union still lacks an overall approach to the immigration phenomenon which covers the political, human rights and development issues in countries and regions of origin and transit. This is an important point.
To achieve this objective, poverty must be combated and living conditions and employment opportunities must be improved, conflicts must be prevented and democratic states consolidated.
This requires greater coherence in the internal and external policies of the Union which are the responsibility of both the EU and the Member States.
Partnership with third countries also constitutes a key element in the success of this policy.
The EU is aware that, in order to implement the action plan for Morocco, partnership and cooperation with the Moroccan authorities will be needed.
In this context, in June of last year, a mission to Morocco took place before the action plan was finalised in order to establish a dialogue with the Moroccan authorities.
Another mission of this type is now planned for the end of this month, specifically intended for holding discussions with the Moroccan intermediaries.
As I have said, the EU' s policy covers development and humanitarian and economic assistance for Morocco.
The consolidation of the action plan for Morocco is clearly a long-term strategy but it is through the dialogue now under way in this context and on the Association Council that progress will be made.
I would like to believe from this long answer, which I did not fully understand, that the Council has a well-intentioned attitude to this very serious problem.
Given such an inconsistent state of affairs as the European Union giving more resources and being more effective, for example, in the control of meshed drift nets, in the control of fishing, than in the field of the rafts used for illegal immigration, I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if it would not in his judgement be appropriate for us to have a periodic assessment of the situation in the Straits of Gibraltar and a report on the tiny advances made in this area.
I believe that you have been very explicit, that you have answered in many words, but these words disguise a low level of effectiveness.
The European Union, together with Morocco, and employing control measures for ships in the Straits, would thereby prevent these losses of human lives which now number more than a thousand, and which are our responsibility.
The Monitoring Centre for immigration is nothing more than a story in the press.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, are you not in favour of a periodic assessment?
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, firstly I must say that I agree with you. This is indeed a very serious situation involving regular and even daily human tragedy which must be addressed.
The Spanish authorities have been in contact on this issue with the Moroccan authorities and the Spanish Prime Minister, Mr Aznar, had a meeting just recently with his Moroccan counterpart about this problem.
Development measures are being introduced in the northern area of Morocco, which are starting to improve this situation and the economic conditions that have led to these migratory flows.
As for the possibility of us periodically carrying out a quantitative assessment of these incidents, I believe that the Spanish authorities may be able to provide the necessary information in this respect.
This information is in fact widely available within Spain as it is distributed by the Spanish authorities.
What I want to try and explain to you - and this is why my original explanation was so long - is that the measures taken by the European Union in this respect or which are intended to have an effect in this respect are long-term measures which obviously cannot provide an immediate response to a given situation. They are measures which are intended to work at the root of this situation by creating the conditions to keep the Moroccan people in their own country.
They are development measures which are within the spirit of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
I realise that your immediate reaction may be that the practical effect of this type of long-term measure is limited.
I did say that these measures would involve many small steps.
We must all realise that the European Union has a set of policies which it aims to implement and that these policies involve strategic choices. These choices cannot be systematically prejudiced by overly general actions leading to worse humanitarian effects than may have occurred anyway.
We must realise that, in their bilateral relations with Morocco, the Spanish authorities are currently responsible for solving part of the problem.
The European Union is generally involved in a series of projects, in the context of its relations with the southern Mediterranean countries, which include projects for development, population settlement and guarantees of improved economic conditions.
We cannot turn the European Union into a kind of technical instrument for the practical resolution of specific situations.
Question No 12 by (H-0466/00):
Subject: Decision concerning deployment of EU military personnel The decision to strengthen EU emergency forces for crisis management has raised the question of the legal basis for the deployment of EU military personnel.
According to the Swedish government's interpretation of the decision taken at Cologne in 1999, a relevant UN Security Council resolution has to have been adopted.
Will the Council therefore state where and when a formal Council decision was taken to the effect that military personnel from the European Union may be deployed only after a UN Security Council resolution has been adopted?
Mr President, the decision by the Member States to develop their military capability by 2003 was taken in Helsinki. The headline goal specifies a capacity of 50 000 to 60 000 personnel.
This decision reaffirmed that the European Union' s crisis management actions will be conducted in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter and the objectives of the OSCE' s Charter for European Security.
The Helsinki declaration, which was approved by the Heads of State and Government of the Fifteen, expressly states that the European Union recognises the primary responsibility of the United Nations Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security.
The need to respect the principles of the UN Charter and the Charter for European Security is clearly recognised, so much so that the report to be presented by the Portuguese Presidency to the Feira European Council next Monday stresses the fact that, in the area of crisis management and conflict prevention, the European Union must establish close cooperation with the United Nations, the OSCE and the Council of Europe. Yet a UN Security Council resolution is not needed to generally legitimise the EU' s action.
However, the EU undertakes politically and at the highest level to respect the primary responsibility of the Security Council.
Therefore, for a given operation, the Union undertakes to respect this responsibility and the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council on a case-by-case basis.
However, you should note that some of the Petersberg tasks may be carried out without the authorisation or approval of the UN Security Council.
In fact the Petersberg tasks include, and I quote, 'humanitarian and rescue tasks, peacekeeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace making' .
Therefore, only in the latter, for which the use of military force is required, is the existence of a UN Security Council resolution considered necessary.
It is clear that the implementation of actions, particularly humanitarian ones, does not require legitimisation by the UN Security Council. This does not mean, however, that the principles of the UN Charter do not have to be respected when carrying out this type of task.
Thank you for your answer, but I am afraid that it still does not provide proper clarification.
On the one hand, it is said that deployment is to take place in accordance with the UN or OSCE Charters; on the other hand, the Council' s representative says that no decision needs to be taken in the Security Council.
The Swedish Foreign Minister has stated that the expression 'in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter' is to be interpreted as 'following a decision in the UN' s Security Council' .
She also said, in the course of last year' s conference in Cologne, that, if other countries wanted to align themselves with the UN, Sweden would have the option of using its veto.
I should first of all like to know whether the Swedish Government has informed its colleagues in the Council as to whether it is planned to use the veto in the event of an EU action, that is to say an EU military action, being taken in the absence of a decision in the UN' s Security Council. Moreover, I should like to hear a still clearer statement.
Can or cannot EU military personnel be deployed without a clear decision in the UN' s Security Council or in the OSCE? It ought to be easy to answer yes or no to that question.
Mr Gahrton, the Petersberg tasks have several dimensions.
Some are purely humanitarian, for example rescue tasks.
Do you really think that we need to have a UN Security Council resolution in order to carry out a rescue task in a serious humanitarian situation?
I also clearly said that any situation which may involve the use of military force, namely peace-making, naturally requires recourse and subordination to the Security Council.
As for the other tasks, we only have to comply with the obligations accepted by the European Union in the context of the UN, particularly bearing in mind that some EU countries are members of the UN Security Council.
Therefore, the spirit of the UN Charter will naturally be followed in the type of activity which the European Union may carry out within those Petersberg tasks which do not involve the use of military force.
I am still not quite clear about your answer and would just like to ask whether you think that governments in neutral countries are being somewhat economical with the truth? Mr Gahrton said that his government stated that it is only after a UN Security Council resolution has been adopted.
But from what you have said, that is not the case.
It appears that governments in neutral countries have a tendency to mislead citizens.
Is that the case?
Mrs McKenna, the agreement reached in Helsinki allowing these new military structures to be established was a carefully considered agreement which was prepared under the Finnish Presidency. As you know, Finland is a country which has very legitimate national concerns in this respect and which clearly will have taken these aspects into account.
What we are currently trying to create within the European Union, and will eventually create, is a capacity for specific intervention which, in those areas not requiring the use of military force, will not need a mandate from the UN Security Council. In other areas a resolution will of course be necessary.
We expressly accept the need for this Security Council resolution where military forces are to be used in a given context.
The traditionally neutral countries, particularly the EU Member States which are not members of NATO, have managed to safeguard all their concerns in achieving this balance because this issue is clearly very delicate for these countries.
They are not deceiving their people nor are they being economical with the truth.
They are saying exactly what their commitment is.
Clearly, their right of final veto over any decision is always guaranteed by the decision-making mechanism itself.
Therefore, they can decide on a case-by-case basis as they see fit.
This is the fundamental rule of the European Union for any situation requiring the participation of military forces.
Mr President, there were approximately one hundred military conflicts in the Nineties, the majority of which were civil wars.
I want to ask whether, in connection with the scenarios that have been gone through, a consensus has emerged that it will not be possible to deal authoritatively with certain types of conflict under the existing Treaty.
In other words, is it agreed that certain military conflicts come within Nato' s or some other organisation' s sphere of authority but definitely not under the EU' s?
I will only say that this military capability, this intervention capacity of the European Union and this extension of its area of activity are all specified in the Treaty of Amsterdam which entered into force in May last year.
It is only since then that these issues have been raised.
As you know, the European Union' s position on arms exports is set out in the code of conduct approved in June 1998.
Respect for human rights is one of the code' s main conditions which must be met in order for authorisation to be granted.
Although decisions are taken individually by each Member State, the latter must take full account of the provisions of the code of conduct. This is therefore a matter of political good faith.
The Council does not receive any information on the reasons why Member States grant or refuse export licences and therefore cannot assess the grounds on which these decisions are based.
However, particularly since the establishment of the code of conduct, the exchange of information on arms exports has begun to occur within the European Union. This exchange is the subject of an annual report and will clearly help to identify common ways of tackling the problems.
We must realise, however, that this issue is still subject to subsidiarity in that the decisions are taken by each Member State, even though the code of conduct forms the backdrop and reference for these decisions.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, allow me to hide my amazement at your reply.
It is, of course, the case that with this conduct of conduct, we only have a very weak tool at our disposal to combat inadmissible arms exports.
I would like to ask you if there has ever been consultation within the Council to tighten up this code of conduct or to make it more easily enforceable?
I fear that the same fate that has befallen our foreign and security policy as a whole, and which has been discussed so many times, will also befall this code of conduct.
At the end of the day, we rely on goodwill and, if that is not there, we might as well forget it.
Mrs Maes, I almost totally agree with what you have just said. However, the current code of conduct was the only one possible.
I can say this as I attended and participated in the negotiations on this code. The reality is that the code clearly gives no guarantees with regard to monitoring how the Member States interpret their responsibilities.
Quite frankly, there has not been until this moment, within the European Union, a consensus on or even a majority inclination towards reconsidering this issue.
The code of conduct was regarded at the time as a very important qualitative step forward in terms of the disparate practices of the Member States which existed at that time.
The aim was to tie the various Member States to a basic set of principles and to the observance of certain standards, while still leaving them completely free in this matter.
This is what is happening today.
I realise that the code of conduct is very weak, it particularly does not have a binding nature and cannot go any further than a political sanction.
Therefore, publicising this type of situation - and I am not just referring to the situation raised in the question - particularly where this is taken up by the media, will put healthy pressure on the Council. In this way the European Union will one day be able to guarantee that the practices of its countries and those involving certain types of lucrative activity will be in harmony with the principles which the EU claims to defend.
This is the big test that the European Union and its Member States will have to face in the future.
Question No 14 by (H-0474/00):
Subject: Restoring normal relations with Austria In view of the response given earlier in the year by the Council to the recent political developments in Austria and of the need to promote the best overall interests of the European Community, will the Council now state if it is prepared to restore normal relations with Austria at every level?
I would have been surprised if there had not been a question on this issue which is why I am glad that it has finally come up.
The Council of Ministers of the European Union does not have to express an opinion on a decision taken by 14 Member States in the context of their bilateral relations with Austria.
This is not a matter for the Council.
It would be different if, by not complying with any aspect of the Treaty on European Union, Austria were found to have infringed the principles of Article 6, for example, and therefore had to be punished or the application of the provisions of Article 7 had to be justified.
As this is not the case, what is happening now in the relations between the 14 Member States and Austria is a bilateral issue which is not the responsibility of the Council.
Thank you for agreeing to take the question.
I am certainly taken aback by the President-in-Office's response.
The fact is that the sanctions were imposed by the Council.
I cannot see how the Council can now wash its hands of at least discussing the possibility of lifting those sanctions.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office if he is aware that recent public opinion polls in Austria indicate that over 80% of Austrian citizens want to see the sanctions lifted.
How then can the Council continue to ignore the democratic decision of the Austrian people?
Does the President-in-Office not agree that failure to lift the sanctions now is undermining the democratic foundations on which this Union was established? I would ask him to give this House this evening an assurance that he will use his undoubted influence to have the matter discussed at the summit in your country next week.
Certainly, what is happening does not reflect the European aspiration to unity.
I am extremely disappointed that the Council, in this way, would want to wash its hands of what is a very serious matter.
Mr Hyland, the Council is composed of fifteen countries. I am not aware that Austria has participated in any debate or vote in Council in which any type of measure has been adopted against it.
No EU body has adopted any measure against Austria.
During the term of the Portuguese Presidency, there has been no working body of the European Union in which Austria has not had, like this Parliament, the option of full and active participation with regard to the whole of the EU' s operation.
The bilateral decisions, not sanctions, which were taken by the 14 Member States in respect of Austria are political acts which one country is entitled to adopt in respect of another.
Every country has every right, with regard to the development of the political situation in another country, to adopt an attitude and to draw the due consequences from this.
The consequences in this matter are that Austrian candidates are not being supported in international organisations, Austrian ambassadors are not being received at a level above director-general and there is a freeze on political visits.
These are the famous 'sanctions' .
If any country has interpreted this attitude more extensively then this is a matter for each country. These 'sanctions' are therefore bilateral as each country is doing what it wishes in this respect and the responsibility is collective.
The responsibility for the position taken by the 14 Member States was freely assumed by these countries.
Any of these countries is free to disengage itself from these measures and we have to ask ourselves why up to now none of the 14 countries has done this.
This issue is therefore not a matter for the Council.
The Austrian authorities have had the opportunity to raise this issue within the European Union. It was in fact raised by the Austrian Foreign Minister during the informal meeting of foreign ministers.
It was raised the day before yesterday by the Austrian Foreign Minister in Luxembourg and Doctor Wolfgang Schüssel will very probably take the opportunity afforded by his presence in Santa Maria da Feira to raise this issue.
However, this decision is not a Community decision but a bilateral one, whether you like it or not.
I wanted to ask the President-in-Office to clarify something.
You are saying that the Council is not getting involved in these bilateral measures because, strictly speaking, it is not a Council decision.
So has there not been any consultation within the Council at any time? It is nonetheless being mooted that the sanctions will be brought up again in Feira.
You are saying that Austria might raise the issue again, but that is not possible in a Council meeting.
It will thus need to be raised again in separate meetings of a bilateral nature.
Do you yourself not think that this is a little peculiar?
It does not seem peculiar to me for the following reason. As I said at the start, in terms of strict compliance with its Community obligations as specified by the Treaty on European Union, Austria has not behaved in any way which may lead to action in the specific context of Article 7.
This is clear and no one can dispute this just as no one can dispute that the Austrian elections were free and that the Austrian people are free to choose the government they want.
What can also not be disputed is that the other governments are free to be unhappy about the Austrian Government if they consider that this government contains a party which does not respect a set of basic principles which these governments have collectively undertaken to respect and which Austria has also undertaken to respect.
What I must say to Mrs Maes is that we are all Austrians in that we all have citizenship rights which must be respected in Austria.
We are therefore not indifferent to a political development which may lead to the presence, in the executive bodies of a Member State government and therefore a friendly government which shares with us and which has decided to share with us a basic set of principles, of a party which clearly conducted an electoral campaign based on other principles.
With regard to the issue of using the Community bodies to raise this issue, we are a free Union in that each Member State has the right to raise this issue formally or informally in the specific context of the Union.
As this is not an EU matter, this issue was never placed on the agenda and this will not occur under the Portuguese Presidency in any formal Council body.
The representatives of the Austrian Government are clearly totally free to raise this issue and will have every opportunity to debate this if the Member States want to do so.
At the Lisbon European Council, the 14 Member States decided to entrust the Portuguese Prime Minister with giving a collective response. At the informal meeting in the Azores there was a debate and several Member States expressed their opinions on the situation.
I am not sure what will happen in Feira but clearly Doctor Wolfgang Schüssel is totally free to express his opinions and to see the reaction of the other Member States to his words and arguments.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office, finally, if he and his Council recognise the outcome of democratic elections within this Union?
Secondly, does he believe that the Portuguese presidency acted in haste as a result of a series of telephone calls throughout Europe when that decision was taken? Would it not have been wiser to summon a meeting of the heads of state for an important decision like this which - remember - will have consequences long after our time here in the European Parliament?
I would like to hear the views of the Portuguese presidency, and maybe other presidencies, when others coming from the extreme right or indeed the extreme left enter government within the Union.
This should be a Europe of unity and solidarity.
To use a slang word it is a 'cop-out' to say that it is not a matter for the Council.
Someone must take an initiative to resolve this serious problem.
It has given stature to an individual who does not deserve that stature.
In fact it has strengthened his position, not weakened it.
I will start with the last part of the honourable Member' s question by saying that we were not the ones who gave stature to someone who does not deserve this.
It was Doctor Wolfgang Schüssel who did this by agreeing to an alliance with the party of Mr Haider.
With regard to the result of the Austrian elections, I clearly said that we fully respect the result of these elections.
Austria is a free country and one where the elections are held in a totally legal manner and with full transparency.
The problem is that the result of this free election, as has happened in the past in other countries, brought a certain party to power.
You should realise that there is actually something strange in the Austrian internal situation.
The party which received the most votes was the Social Democratic Party which did not want to form a government.
The party with the second highest number of votes was the FPO which was not invited to form a government.
It is rather strange, in terms of usual constitutional arrangements, that in a European country the second-placed party was not invited to form a government but the third-placed party was instead.
Therefore, this is not a case of business as usual.
It actually involves a kind of reassessment given the potential capacity of Mr Haider to become the leader of an Austrian government.
We do not dispute the Austrian elections and we do not dispute the right of the Austrian people to choose the government they want. However, no one can force us to enter into relations with a government containing a party which has so far not renounced what it said in its electoral campaign nor the gravity of what it said.
It is a shame that this is not being clearly emphasised. The gravity of what was said by Mr Haider and by the FPO in the elections is something which should make us all think, bearing in mind the future of Europe.
We should think about the racist and xenophobic statements which have been systematically made by this party. Curiously, it did not distance itself from these during its last conference, and instead reaffirmed all its pride in its past statements when it had a specific opportunity to rectify the current situation.
Nothing leads us to believe that there has been any positive change which may justify a new attitude of the European Union and, in particular, which may create the opportunity for any type of discussion on this matter within the European Union.
We do not feel that this issue is a matter for the European Union but is rather for the other 14 governments to decide.
So far - and we will have to wait and see what happens next - these governments have maintained a position of recognising that this situation is serious and that it requires a change, but not necessarily by the 14 governments. There is in fact an almost media-wide presumption that the change in attitude at this time should come from the 14 countries.
Why?
What has changed in the Austrian situation which could lead us to change our attitude?
Only time?
We consider that it is the Austrians and the Austrian Government which must change if they want us to adopt a different attitude. That is the essence of the matter.
Why systematically place the onus on the 14 countries?
Why must the 14 Member States change?
What has happened in Austria to justify this change? Clearly this does not necessarily mean that we will not consider other ways in the future of assessing the development of this situation and in fact this is what will happen in the coming days.
Thank you very much, Mr Seixas da Costa.
I would like to thank you for your continual presence, your unselfishness, the intelligence with which you have replied to us, as well as your patience, and we would like to wish you much success in your personal role as Minister and also to the Portuguese Presidency.
May this success match that of the Portuguese football team at the beginning of Euro 2000.
May you achieve much for Europe!
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 15 to 28 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.35 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.).
Change to the agenda
On the recommendation of the Presidency and in accordance with Rule 111 of our Rules of Procedure I propose an amendment of the agenda for this current part-session.
By letter of 8 June 2000, the Council requested from Parliament its opinion of the proposed Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 974/98 on the introduction of the euro 2000/137(CNS) and a proposed Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1103/97 which lays down various provisions on the introduction of the euro 2000/134(CNS) before the European Council in Feira on 19 June 2000.
The Committee on Economic Affairs has decided to apply the simplified procedure in accordance with Rule 158 of the Rules of Procedure to both texts.
I therefore propose that they be included in accordance with the procedure without debate.
Is there any objection to the proposal? If not, the agenda is thereby amended and the deadline for the presentation of amendments is 10.00 a.m. on Thursday 15 June 2000 and the vote will take place on Friday 16 June 2000.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Reconstruction of Central America
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0133/2000) by Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a Community Action Plan for the reconstruction of Central America [COM(1999) 201 - C5-0111/1999 - 1999/2114(COS)]
. (ES) Mr President, in 1998, Hurricane Mitch devastated Central America (Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala) resulting in 20,000 victims and losses of more than EUR 5 billion (10% of the GDP of those countries which are already burdened by eternal foreign debt).
It destroyed crops, homes and infrastructures of every type, thereby jeopardising the future of its peoples.
Europe' s response was immediate and significant, through the Stockholm Conference, and it was consolidated, following the European Parliament' s proposal, in the Commission' s initiative which we are currently debating.
I would like to highlight four issues.
The first relates to our assumption of responsibility in the event of these catastrophes.
The connection between our economic activity and the increase in pollution, with the greenhouse effect and the onset of climate changes makes it advisable for us to immediately ratify the Kyoto protocols on the reduction of the gases which cause this effect.
Furthermore, our model of unequal development leads to poverty and indebtedness in these countries.
It is a contradiction to preach the reconstruction of Central America taking account of respect for the environment, according to a model of sustainable development, while we continue to maintain the same economic relations with those countries.
The second issue involves the global objective of our assistance.
The Commission' s proposal is sensible insofar as it centres its attention on two fields: health and education.
However, it should be more ambitious, so that it may coordinate and integrate all the different initiatives in those countries.
This requires a substantial increase in our staff, a measure which this House supports.
This action will allow for synergy between the different forms of aid and will guarantee that the effort made will not be limited merely to reconstruction - since, in that event, things would continue in the same way - but will offer an opportunity for regional integration, harmonious and sustainable development, creating wealth and general well-being, and for the consolidation of democracy in these countries which have just thankfully left behind years of violence and confrontation.
In this respect, two facts worry us.
The threat of hostility between Nicaragua and Honduras as a result of border disputes would cast doubt upon the good sense of our aid, and we therefore think that both of those countries should be subject to the decisions of the International Court of Justice.
The other is the recent re-emergence in Guatemala of political kidnappings, such as that of the university professor Mayra Angelina Gutiérrez, political killings, such as that of the Community leader, José Amancio Mendoza, or threats against journalists (the case of Gerardi or the Nobel Prize winner, Rigoberta Menchú) which are of concern.
Aid for reconstruction must be accompanied by firm and accountable commitments to safeguarding human rights on the part of the Guatemalan Government.
The third question concerns the way in which we are going to carry out aid and regional coordination and integration.
It is essential that we incorporate the most dynamic and responsible sections of society, the indigenous peoples, as well as the full and broad participation of women, the social organisations which display efficiency and solidarity and, lastly, that there is no partisan use of aid nor fraud in its management.
That is why we need to carry out internal and external audits of the application of our aid.
Increasing our effectiveness as the European Union also means that we must participate officially in the Stockholm monitoring group.
The fourth and last point is currently the most important: the amount of aid.
Although it is considerable, we believe that the amount indicated by the Commission, EUR 250 million, is insufficient given the magnitude of the disaster and the slow rate of the area' s recovery.
The European Parliament therefore requests a significant increase.
We are concerned by the items appearing today in the press indicating that the Commission intends to reduce all European Union aid, including that destined for Latin America, because of its commitments in Kosovo.
We believe that we cannot behave in such an absurd way, since for Latin America this aid offers hope of escaping underdevelopment and freeing itself from the heavy yoke which originates from the North.
The European Parliament has already stated that it would not commit itself to any action which would mean cuts in the aid to other parts of the world.
We therefore insist that this is a crucial and key point.
If we behave in this way, we will ensure that other actions, both with the European Investment Bank and with other financial bodies, are significant and would aid the immediate execution of the programmes approved. All of this should be accompanied by the presentation of periodic reports to the European Parliament on the evolution and assessment of the results obtained.
Finally, I would like to acknowledge the warm and excellent cooperation of all the members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and its staff, as well as the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Mr President, our committee undoubtedly agrees with Mr Marset Campos' s report.
However, I should like to draw the House' s attention to a number of points which, as far as we are concerned, are right at the top of the international aid priority list.
International aid must, without fail, be well coordinated.
The Commission, for its part, must set up suitable structures on the ground.
However, it must also cooperate as efficiently as possible with the international organisations which have been working there for several years already.
The same applies when it comes to involving the people affected, especially the indigenous population.
We must work with these people on the ground during both planning and implementation, that is essential as far as we are concerned.
Not only does it save costs, it increases efficiency and, more importantly, prevents fraud.
We know that in El Salvador, for example, the erstwhile Calderón government diverted aid of EUR 1 million in order to win votes in the right-wing camp.
If we really want to help the countries devastated by the hurricane, then of course we need to do more than just implement a few aid projects on the ground.
We all know that full well.
It is therefore essential that we remit foreign debts and build up regional and, above all, sustainable structures in both the ecological and the economic sense of the word.
The Union must also guarantee these countries access to the markets for their products, which must be assessed from both an ecological and a social point of view, because there is little point in giving out aid, on the one hand, and excluding these countries from our markets, on the other.
I take the same view as the previous speakers, that it is unacceptable for the Council to argue that money now needs to be diverted from Latin America to Kosovo.
Robbing Peter to pay Paul can hardly be called a policy; on the contrary.
The Council keeps heaping more and more tasks on to the Commission and the European Parliament; it also needs to ensure that they can be funded by entering the relevant amounts in the budget.
Mr President, as the rapporteur, Mr Marset, has said - and we support his words and his report - Hurricane Mitch has been the worst natural disaster in the history of Central America.
The human losses number more than 10 000 deaths; almost another 10 000 have disappeared and more than 2 million people have been affected; the material damage amounts to more than EUR 5 billion which is equivalent to 10% of the GDP of Central America.
A significant part of the economic and social infrastructure has been destroyed and there has been a great reduction in the region' s capacity for production and export in the short and medium term.
The countries most affected, Honduras and Nicaragua, are the poorest in the region.
The destructive effect of Mitch was exacerbated by deforestation and the lack of an adequate system of flood control, which demonstrated once again that environmental degradation affects the poorest most and highlights the intrinsic link between poverty and environmental deterioration.
As the Commission has said, the consequences of Mitch will considerably reduce the results of the efforts towards economic recovery and investment made there during the last decade by the European Union.
In April 1999, the Commission approved a special action plan, provided with EUR 250 million, which this Parliament fully supports in the terms in which it was approved.
With regard to the model for implementing this programme, the Committee on Development and Cooperation supports option 1 proposed by the Commission.
Only in the event that it is not possible to carry out option 1 as a result of a lack of sufficient human resources, could option 2 be considered valid, by means of the contracting of highly qualified European experts.
As draftsman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation I must not end without asking, once again, for the cancellation of the foreign debt of the Central American countries, an initiative which must be dealt with by the European Union as a whole and in a coordinated fashion and not only by certain Member States acting on individual and particular initiatives.
Lastly, I believe it is also necessary to ask, within the strategic reconstruction plan, for the proposal of measures aimed at increasing credits from the European Investment Bank in that region.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Marset Campos, on the excellent report which he has presented to us.
This report has inevitably been influenced by the tragic consequences of Hurricane Mitch.
The European Parliament - and I believe we should remember this - reacted immediately by calling an extraordinary meeting on 4 November 1998 which was attended by the Commissioners then responsible.
In its resolution of 19 November, the European Parliament expressed the terms in which the European Union would respond to the situation created by Hurricane Mitch.
This response had to be formulated with the greatest diligence and speed through the approval of a strategic plan for the region within the shortest possible time limit.
I remember the date: November 18-19 1998.
We must say that this request by the European Parliament, at least with regard to diligence and speed, has not been attended to, and this is a cause for regret.
The lack of human resources, while it may be an excuse from an administrative point of view, cannot and must not be a pretext for the establishment of political priorities, especially in the case of basic needs of countries which have suffered disasters on a massive scale.
To transfer this responsibility to the budgetary authority is not correct.
The Commission must at all times ensure the appropriate allocation of resources in accordance with the priorities agreed.
Commissioner, this morning, in the debate on the common security and defence policy, I had the opportunity to tell your colleague, Mr Patten, that I have never had, do not have and will never have any hesitation in decisively supporting the Commission with a view to clarifying and broadening the scope of its competencies. On the contrary.
However, as other Members have said during this debate and as I had the opportunity to say also to Mr Patten during the budgetary debate, it is difficult for me to understand why the Commission has no difficulty in managing the EUR 800 million which it proposes in the preliminary draft 2001 budget for the Balkans but that, nevertheless, it has difficulties managing EUR 250 million which have been set aside in the plan for reconstruction in Central America, which are not envisaged for one year, but for four years.
In any event, Commissioner, the countries of Central America have not carried out a policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
They have included, unlike other geographical areas in their agreements with the European Union, a democratic clause which provides an essential element on which the whole relationship is based.
The countries of Central America have taken on very painful processes of structural adjustment which have meant great sacrifices for their societies.
They have done their duties with regard to the multilateral institutions and have fully complied with what the European Union expected of them.
Mr President, European civil society has already shown how sensitive it is to the tragedy suffered by the peoples of Central America.
It is now time for our institutions, in the face of a disaster of this type, to be a match for our civil society and for the circumstances.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Marset Campos, for his excellent motion for a resolution and also for the great clarity of vision with which he has interpreted the spirit of this resolution, which must not be limited to solidarity but shift the focus onto much more tangible political initiatives.
I do not wish to trawl through the figures recording the consequences of the hurricane again.
I would simply stress the fact that the social and environmental damage concerns us far more than the economic damage caused, and it is that which is affecting this region. And since misfortune is never fair, particularly when meting out its after-effects, it is the poorer bands of society which, as always, have been worst affected.
I would like to start by describing a paradox: the region hit by the hurricane, which is often hit by hurricanes as violent as this one, also includes Florida. Yet although Florida suffers the same weather conditions as Central America, it reports infinitely less serious damage.
This is my point: we must start from here and consider the environmental and social vulnerability of Central America if we are to realise that the emergency relief culture and policy will not suffice, and this must be the focus of European Union aid.
This resolution has the advantage of going beyond emergencies.
The Community action plan is a chance to combine the reconstruction process with an element of change - change which these countries genuinely need - and to invest in a new economic and social development process based on the priorities of health, education and high quality services, which, in these countries, are directly responsible for the quality of life, and, above all, the quality of their democracy.
The resolution explains in great detail that all this is possible provided that two conditions are upheld and satisfied.
First of all, we must activate the monitoring and inspection measures, in order to avoid wastage, unlawful activity and fraud.
To this end, the resolution calls for the European Union to have sole responsibility for planning, execution and monitoring of the aid.
We are calling upon the Commission to take up its responsibility, and we consider it vital that it does so if we are to provide effective aid.
However, the second condition is much more important: we need to increase the Commission' s financial and human resources.
The funds appropriated are not sufficient and the staffing is certainly inadequate.
In an area which has been greatly affected by political violence, the provision of aid - which is intended not only to provide emergency relief but to facilitate the restoration of democratic order as well - specifies and assumes a quality of preparation and a level of human resources which is quite different from that which has hitherto been envisaged.
We consider that greater and more effective use should be made of the cooperation of non-governmental organisations, which represent not only extremely experienced and extremely reliable resources in the countries concerned, but, above all, tangible resources which enable us to make our intervention more dynamic and more effective.
In other words, Mr President, Members of the Commission and the Council, I feel that it is time for the European Union to stop just declaring its solidarity and secure genuine, substantial fairness.
This plan must do more than just provide immediate alleviation of the effects of the hurricane: it must also bring about redistribution of the country' s resources and restore the country' s opportunities.
The resolution adopted by the European Parliament in November 1998 was also a step in this direction in that it referred to the cancellation of the foreign debt of the countries in the region, which amounted to USD 17 billion.
I would like to conclude by reiterating the invitation to the Commission and the Council contained in the resolution to support the total and immediate cancellation of the foreign debt.
Mr President, there is little to add at this point in the debate, especially after the excellent report by Mr Marset, which I agree with completely.
However, I would like to stress certain things that he has said.
It is very important to speak of behaving cooperatively - we have spoken about behaving sensibly - by focussing especially on education and health programmes, as the report itself says, and he has also spoken about coordination and the need for staff.
For those of us who were in Kosovo just a few days ago, we must specifically highlight something which has been said by many of the visitors in the delegation. That is, that, unlike other interventions, the main feature of the one carried out in Kosovo is that it was directed in an integrated and perfectly coordinated fashion, which increases the efficiency of our action.
On the other hand, as Mr Salafranca has pointed out very clearly, I also absolutely share his disagreement not only with the budgetary restrictions, but also with the difficult fact that obstacles are placed in the way of countries such as those in Central America in whose agreements certain clauses have been included, while we do not act in this way in other regions.
For those of us whose leitmotif for political action is solidarity, we also require efficiency, the sustainability of programmes and the creation of policies in the places where we take action, which will help these treasured societies of Latin America to reach higher levels of development and social justice.
I will end, Mr President, with the following quote: "We must be rebels, but we must also be competent" .
To interpret this in another context: let us show solidarity, but, in doing so, be efficient.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that the awful disaster caused by Hurricane Mitch sets three main challenges for European policy.
First: we must help with reconstruction in these countries.
The Commission document provides a good basis for this, although some of what is written in it has yet to be implemented in practice.
I think it is particularly important to use the know-how of European organisations and organisations in Member States for reconstruction and to involve non-governmental organisations and local experts.
I do not think that calling for more new posts in the European Commission every time a new challenge arises is always the right response.
Perhaps Commission staff could be reassigned.
Secondly: we must give these ill-fated countries greater access to European markets than we have done in the past.
It is paradoxical that Nicaragua and Honduras, which were two of the least developed countries even before Hurricane Mitch, fail to qualify for the same treatment as many, many others, such as the ACP countries, which we treat well, and rightly so.
I cannot see why Nicaragua and Honduras still fail to qualify for the same treatment.
I do not want to quote the perennial example of bananas - the report does that.
I support this passage and also what Mr Kreissl-Dörfler has said.
I would like to quote the example of sugar.
In the case of sugar, which is an important product for Nicaragua, Nicaragua has no access of any importance to European markets.
It might help if we were to facilitate its access to the European markets.
The third challenge is that we need to fight the causes of these disasters.
I am well aware that we cannot simply say that the increase in greenhouse gases caused Hurricane Mitch.
However, there are many scientists who assume that it probably did.
We just cannot say for certain.
But all the scientific committees agree that the number of disasters such as this will increase significantly if we industrialised counties continue to pump out the greenhouse gases at the same rate.
They will of course affect all of us, but they will always affect poor people most, which is why we must at last take more decisive action here.
Mr President, I should like to follow on from Mr Liese' s closing comment on climate change, to which Mr Marset Campos also referred.
It is perhaps not by chance that we have suffered tremendous devastation in Central America, Venezuela and Mozambique, not to mention in Europe, and it is likely to increase.
It seems reasonable to suppose that it is not increasing by chance and that it really is the result of man-made climatic changes.
I would therefore like to see a link established between how we view these disasters and energy policy.
There really is a link and I should like to draw your attention to it.
I only wish there were not.
The second point I would like to make is that aid should be used to integrate Central America.
This has been a perennial cause for concern to the European Parliament and we have called for it on many occasions.
In the final analysis, of course, this is up to the people of Central America.
But perhaps the shock triggered by Hurricane Mitch gives us an excuse to overcome the hostilities and difficulties between the individual countries.
In any case, the people would be grateful and, for the rest, our aid would be worthless without any progress with integration.
The third point I should like to make concerns the implementation of this aid.
I do not envy the Commission this task because I know full well that, in a few years' time, a report on the alleged or rightly criticised misuse of funds will land in our lap and I should like to point out that the cost of controlling these funds often exceeds the gain.
I hope that we shall be giving the Commission a certain amount of room for manoeuvre in the use of these funds because the speed at which programmes are implemented is often much more important than accounts in black and white down to the last penny.
I know that this is a comment which a parliamentarian should not make nowadays, but I make it nonetheless because I am right.
Finally, I should like to point out that the hurricane in October 1998 went beyond Central America.
It is now June 2000.
In other words, we too are an unwieldy apparatus and perhaps we too need to consider how we can speed up the process.
Even if we pass a resolution today, we are still a long way from building up the country; on the contrary, it will take many years, perhaps a generation.
I consider that to be far too long.
. Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking, on behalf of the Commission, the European Parliament for the quality of this report and congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Marset Campos, on his report on the Commission communication on the Action Plan for the Reconstruction of Central America.
I am also grateful for the support and confidence that Parliament has given the Commission on the implementation of this important Community Action Plan.
The EUR 250m regional programme for the reconstruction of Central America, spread over four years, will contribute to the reconstruction and the transformation of the four countries most devastated by Hurricane Mitch - Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.
The programme is based on the principle of sustainable development, as has been underlined by several speakers.
It provides for assistance in education, vocational training, public health and social housing.
The primary beneficiaries will be those who live in extremely disadvantaged rural areas where the consequences of the disaster are most acute.
Attention will be paid in particular to the indigenous peoples and to reducing vulnerability to this kind of catastrophe in the future.
The Commission is aware that the success of such an ambitious and complex programme also depends on the degree of coordination among the various actors present.
A coordination group is being set up between the Commission and the Member States.
Another important element will be the Stockholm Follow-up Group.
Until now the Commission has always been involved in an informal way in the activities carried out by this group.
In order to ensure maximum transparency, the Commission will submit an annual report on the progress of the RPRCA to the Member States and Parliament.
A first report of the activities carried out by the Commission has been distributed among the parliamentary Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Following the initial emergency and other post-Mitch aid, we are now actively preparing the implementation of this reconstruction programme.
The mobilisation of the statutory personnel necessary for decentralised management and implementation of the programme certainly delayed the rapid launch of the programme, as has been emphasised by several speakers.
These problems have now been overcome.
The first official will arrive in Managua on 17 July and the remaining officials in the following weeks.
No further delays are expected at this point.
The Commission is taking all necessary steps so that the programme can be in place and operational within the following three months.
I quite understand the arguments Mr Salafranca raised about human resources.
As you know, it is not a question specific to this debate.
However, you should bear in mind that for the Kosovo programme we set up a specific agency.
In the case of this programme we had to deal with the staff who were available, due to the constraints of human resources.
Let me stress - and I share the view of Mr Salafranca and others - that the amount of time it has taken to get this aid to the region is wholly unacceptable.
We cited it as an example in our recent proposals for the overall reform of our external assistance programmes.
It is just another reason why the Commission, and Commissioner Patten in particular, is so determined that we should drive forward those reforms so that we stop letting others and ourselves down in this way.
Since the issue has been raised by several speakers, I should like to take this opportunity to guarantee that the financing of Kosovo will not be to the detriment of money allocated to Latin America, and definitely not to this specific programme.
Additional measures have been adopted by the Commission in the framework of the Community Action Plan.
These include the European Community contribution to the HIPC debt initiative, and approval of an improved General System of Preferences Scheme for Central America and Council Regulation of 21 December 1998 applying a multiannual scheme of generalised tariff preferences has been extended to 31 December 2001.
In addition, the Commission is taking part in the HIPC debt initiative, contributing some EUR 50m to both Honduras and Nicaragua.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
Asylum procedures
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0123/2000) by Mr Schmitt, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Commission Working Document: Towards common standards on asylum procedures [(SEC(1999) 271 - C5-0157/1999 - 1999/2148(COS)]
Mr President, allow me to start by thanking Mr Schmitt, not just for his report, but also for the excellent cooperation and for what he has just said to us.
He speaks from the heart.
Common principles were indeed seen as more important than individual political objectives.
I should also like briefly to thank my committee, the Committee on Legal Affairs, for the confidence which it placed in a neo-parliamentarian, someone who has just climbed on board, in entrusting me with this sensitive issue.
The right to asylum is enshrined in various treaties but, because of different definitions and interpretations by national courts, the law is applied to differing degrees.
This obviously contradicts the principles and objectives of the EC Treaty, Title 4 of which refers to asylum policy as an important means of establishing an area of peace, security and justice.
Establishing a uniform asylum law and harmonised implementing provisions is therefore a Community objective.
The document presented by the Commission starts by explaining that legally binding instruments need to be adopted for the asylum procedure.
Eight specific points are dealt with: Communitisation of the Dublin system, EURODAC, minimum standards for admission, minimum standards for recognising refugees, minimum standards for granting or withdrawing refugee status, complementary, subsidiary protection, temporary protection for displaced persons and, last but not least, a division of the burden.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has also achieved a consensus which pleases me greatly; here too individual political objectives had to be put aside and we drafted a good opinion which was useful for Mr Schmitt' s report.
I think that we shall have a highly constructive vote in favour of our common ideal tomorrow.
I wish us all the courage and strength to push forward on the final point which you addressed.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to highlight two positive things.
The first is the working document presented by the Commission, which was the starting point for the report.
It is a sound basis for instituting a debate which should culminate at some point in a legal act setting out common standards for an asylum procedure.
The second is the report, which I particularly wish to highlight, because the rapporteur really has succeeded in finding a broad consensus right across the political divide on a very delicate matter.
That is no easy task and we have all experienced quite the opposite here, which is why this is an excellent piece of work.
I should like to pick up on three points which I think are particularly important and which I would ask the Commission to take into consideration.
The first is the question of how to divide the burden and has already been addressed.
We must not concentrate on just one aspect; we need to remain receptive to a distribution in terms of people.
If you look at refugee movements, you will see that they always affect the same countries.
Austria, for example, where I come from, is always near the top of the list when it comes to admitting temporary refugees or asylum seekers.
It is on a par with Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Others have a much lighter burden to bear and greater solidarity between the Member States is needed here.
I should like to highlight the question of shortening and simplifying the qualification procedures without - and that is the crux of the matter - compromising careful examination.
It is an important point, because asylum seekers are entitled to a fast decision and a fast answer on their future status.
The third point is that which gives legal certainty and which, when implemented, helps to ensure that identical decisions are taken in all Member States.
It is the point which requires us to keep up-to-date lists of safe third countries and countries of origin.
It will help enormously if we manage to draw up these lists.
It attracted a broad consensus but I fear that this consensus will not perhaps hold up if all the amendments proposed by the Greens are included.
They want much that is positive, but they want a lot that is total, as Mrs Merkel once remarked.
If, for example, they want to implement the total extension of the definition of refugee or total access for asylum seekers to the job market or work to reverse the burden of proof, then the consensus achieved with their vote in committee will be jeopardised.
I call on them to consider withdrawing these proposed amendments so that the broad consensus can be maintained.
Mr President, we from the Liberal group will deeply miss Mr Schulz' s pure and crystal-clear democratic input in this area of policy.
It is unfortunate, but we wish you all the best in your new job.
This was the fun part of what I wanted to say.
What shape is the European asylum policy in? That is hard to say, as there is not really a European asylum policy to speak of.
We in this Parliament, the delegates as well as their predecessors, have for years been pushing in the right direction.
So far, the European Commission, that is to say the present Commissioner' s predecessor, failed to come up with the goods but, prior to the Treaty of Amsterdam, had little say in the matter anyway.
The previous European Commission may have had the will, but did not have any power.
The bottleneck, as we quite often noticed, was located within the Council of Ministers.
Most governments showed willing too, but they were subject to the rule of unanimity.
Then there was the Tampere Summit.
Dozens of proposals were submitted there, also in this area of policy.
Things were looking up, according to many journalists.
They had, however, overlooked the fact that the crippling policy of decision-making on the basis of unanimity still applied.
It is unlikely that a scoreboard will be able to unlock this paralysis within policy.
All it will do is make it clear to the outside world which body and country are responsible for the paralysis within policy.
What needs to happen now? All sorts of things need to happen.
As far as we, the Liberal group, are concerned, both the European Commission' s working document and Mr Schmitt' s report, which we are discussing today, are a useful leg-up to the next phase and, in our opinion, and I would echo the opinions of previous speakers, Mr Schmitt has adopted a level-headed approach in his report.
We will be voting in favour of the tenor of the report and we are backing it.
Mr President, the Treaty of Amsterdam made one thing clear: there is no way of getting past a common asylum and immigration policy. The initiatives of the European Union on reuniting families, the anti-discrimination package, temporary protection for war refugees and, at long last, the attempt to harmonise asylum law make this very clear.
Now, with the Schmitt report - for which, by the way, I thank you in my capacity as coordinator of the Greens - we have the first clear stand by the European Parliament, even if a number of sensible proposed amendments - our proposals, which are also recommended by the UNHCR - have been rejected.
Mr Pirker, I do not see a problem with this - you can reject them again tomorrow.
One way or another, we shall be voting in favour of Mr Schmitt' s report.
These are the usual parliamentary rules of play and with them we can all live happily under one roof - that is my assumption.
Tempus fugit!
We must implement the Treaty of Amsterdam by the end of 2004.
There are difficulties at hand though.
The national states are often not prepared as yet to support European rules.
But this should not divert us from our purpose.
Mr Schmitt' s report goes in the right direction and calls on the Commission to take specific steps by proposing legislation.
I hope that we will be able to persuade the Member States of the merits of our approach.
Mr President, the Schmitt report draws Parliament' s attention to the extremely topical issue of defining clear, common standards governing the right to asylum. This is necessary not only for legal and administrative reasons but also and especially in order to uphold the dignity of asylum seekers.
Clear, well-defined rules governing the matter are also necessary in order to avoid the right to asylum being confused with the problem of immigration.
I used the word 'problem' intentionally, for the very reason that the absence of an adequate immigration policy has meant that our citizens often perceive all forms of immigration as a problem, a burden and even a hazard, instead of as a social and economic resource and a source of cultural enrichment.
In Italy, for example, unregulated or, even worse, illegal immigration is related to organised crime.
In this confusion where illegal activity is ever increasing there are no rules and no certainties. In particular, the human rights of neither European citizens nor immigrants are genuinely being upheld.
It is therefore urgent for us to define an immigration policy, and therefore also a reception policy and a migration flow control policy, a policy which takes into practical account the genuine existence of social phenomena and which refuses to be conditioned by ideologies.
This is the framework within which the right to asylum must take its place: it is a sacrosanct right which every self-respecting civil society must uphold.
This paper from the Commission paves the way for a drastic extension to the opportunities for implementing binding EU legislation.
It is a leap forward in the development of the Union, and that is what is behind my wishing to remind you of a simple fact, namely that the root cause of the asylum problem is social breakdown in countries in the vicinity of the EU.
East, and especially south, of the EU' s borders, an increasing majority of people live in a sea of social destitution and political oppression, and it is that which triggers the asylum problem.
The EU is the region' s superpower - economically, politically and militarily.
Political breakdown in neighbouring countries in the Balkans and in North Africa is the EU' s responsibility.
It is not just a question of passivity and sins of omission.
It is a question of the EU and the Member States having, by virtue of economic hegemony, political dominance and military power, contributed actively to the forms of social breakdown that turn our fellow human beings into refugees.
Do the EU' s institutions and Member States now want to change these basic conditions?
No, for these are the EU' s very rationale.
Is the main message of the Commission' s working document and of the report we have before us that there is a willingness to do something about the core problem?
No. Nor are Christian love of neighbour and human solicitude, or even just general decency, the pivotal factors.
This document is another building block - and an important one - in that Fortress Europe we are constructing with all the means at our disposal to keep our wretched neighbours out in the cold.
It is not a question of our being obliged to guarantee legal rights to our fellow human beings.
Rather, we ought to be exercising justice in the sense of sharing the burden fairly, with the rich countries giving in accordance with their abilities.
We should not regard refugees as interested parties. Moreover, the flow of refugees is limited.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, I would firstly like to acknowledge Mr Schulz.
I would like to say to you, Mr Schulz, from the bottom of my heart, something which I would like somebody one day to say about me: you have been a good adversary, that is to say, a hard adversary, always frank, forceful, often discomforting and there is no doubt that we will miss you.
Mr President, allow me now to come to the point and say that this seems to me to be an important Commission document because it genuinely launches a debate which many previous documents pointed to, in particular the Tampere conclusions, but the content of which needed to be clarified.
There is, without doubt, a great need to clarify the existing differences between the asylum procedure, reception conditions, the interpretation of the definition of a refugee, the links between that asylum procedure and the 'Dublin mechanism' procedures and other forms of protection and, in this respect, this document perfectly focuses the debate.
I am not going to mention all of the points highlighted by the other speakers, but I would like to insist on two points in particular.
Firstly, I believe that the Commission correctly relates the issues concerning asylum procedures, the object of a future directive, to the Dublin Convention procedure and the notion of a safe third country.
I must say in this regard that I have put forward an amendment which is against the system of lists.
It is problem of method.
Fiji was a secure country until a few days ago, and overnight it ceased to be one.
If we employ a system of closed lists, difficulties will arise in terms of keeping the lists up to date, which would cause enormous harm.
The other amendment which I have signed concerns the distribution of burdens.
We are all aware that the principle of solidarity requires a distribution of the consequences stemming from the current asymmetry in requests for asylum.
Firstly, we must say that if we achieve harmonised asylum procedures, the level of requests will also tend to become more homogenised.
Secondly, I would like to say that this report has one virtue which I would like to highlight amongst others - although I have been critical on some points - and that is that it very much insists on legal certainty, on judicial safeguards, on the asylum seeker' s right to defence and, in particular, on everything contained in point 4 and, of course, on everything relating to legal assistance, with the possibility of making contact with NGOs and the UNHCR.
Evidently, this fits in very badly with the measures on distribution by quotas which have an image which is closely connected to deportation.
Therefore, Mr President, I hope that certain groups, and in particular the PPE Group, will reconsider this amendment, which takes up the amendment of the Group of the Greens precisely.
In other words, it is not an amendment of a conservative or any other origin, nor of any particular geographical origin.
It takes up an amendment of the Group of the Greens which was not approved in committee and I believe it should receive the support of the House.
Mr President, now we have heard words of praise, we Greens, but we have also been attacked slightly.
Perhaps you are right to attack us, Mr Pirker, when we think slightly beyond what is planned here in this document. For example, with regard to access to the labour market.
However, a fellow member in your group, if I remember correctly, our new Home Secretary, expressed a similar thought once.
We are also concerned here about the independence of asylum seekers and about social realities.
Mr Schulz has reproached us Greens on the same count.
As I said, perhaps you are right, but if we are talking about the individual right to asylum, then this also implies that there must be an individual examination in special cases.
That also forms part of the legal framework.
We cannot just evince an interest in what happens within the EU and consider that we have nothing more to do with what becomes of an applicant outside the EU.
It is no longer our sovereign territory, which is why this one proposed amendment is highly important and significant, precisely in order to ensure that there is no risk of persecution in the land of origin for rejected asylum seekers present on EU sovereign territory and that asylum seekers enjoy effective protection against refoulement in the third country to which they are deported.
That is the responsibility which we simply wish to accept in engaging in this debate, a debate which - and here you are right - needs further discussion and needs to be examined in much, much greater detail.
We have made a start, a good start and must progress hand in hand.
I shall be pleased if we progress by so much as a millimetre.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I must start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Schmitt, on his excellent report and on his suggestions for rationalising the Commission' s proposals.
The disappearance of internal borders and the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice require us to make an effort to harmonise our asylum and immigration policies and to reinforce checks at external borders.
As has already been said, if we are to address this problem seriously we must establish a clear distinction between the entry of asylum-seekers, within the meaning of the Geneva Convention on the status of refugees, the entry of migrants for economic or other reasons and the temporary reception of refugees from regions in crisis.
These are all different situations which must be treated differently.
The applications for asylum are not distributed evenly, as Mr Pirker pointed out. There is clearly a disproportion in the number of asylum applications being recorded in each Member State.
This disproportion is bad for the European Union as a whole because it creates inequalities between Member States.
The procedures for granting legal refugee status and the conditions for assessing applications must therefore be harmonised so that these are equivalent in terms of the level of protection of asylum-seekers.
A cost-sharing policy must also be established.
Solidarity must be for all.
It is essential that common rules are adopted on the reception of asylum-seekers, on the requirements to be met in order to obtain refugee status and on the process of granting or refusing this status. In particular these rules must prevent asylum applications being made simultaneously in several Member States.
Mr President, today marks the beginning of the second year of our mandate as Members of the European Parliament.
I hope that the next four years will be better and more fruitful for all of us.
I would, however, say that we have started our second year of parliamentary activity on an upbeat by discussing and - tomorrow, I believe - adopting this major initiative on the definition of common standards on asylum procedures.
There is nothing more European than this, and I therefore welcome Mr Schmitt' s report. I support the report and agree with every word it contains.
A pensioner who, as a member of the Pensioners' Party, always comes to see me off at Bergamo airport when I come to Strasbourg, said to me: "Yes, I agree.
Exiles should be granted asylum. It is right for refugees and those who have been persecuted who have to flee from their own land to be granted asylum, but I live on ITL 700 000 a month which is a day and a half of your travel allowance.
Who is going to help me?
I would be willing to help and even accommodate asylum seekers."
And I replied, "Do not worry. You will see that the Commission will also use those who do not have work who are admitted into our country to help elderly people who are not self-sufficient and who need help."
In addition to this, I would argue that it is right for the burden of providing asylum to be divided, at last, between all 15 Member States of the European Union.
I hope that the Commission will bring this about, starting with the events in Kosovo, so that the States which bore the brunt of providing asylum for Kosovars will be reimbursed by all the other States.
Mr President, having seen over the years very difficult discussions in Parliament relating to this subject, it is indeed a pleasure for me this evening to see such widespread support for this report.
The sense of consensus is to be welcomed.
It is a good working document and we have a good basis to start working, so I congratulate the Commission as well.
I feel slightly uncomfortable, given that Ireland is the home of the Dublin Convention and has only very recently begun to receive an appreciable number of refugees and asylum seekers, that unfortunately, the Dublin Convention is not working terribly well.
About 85% of the people arriving in Ireland have not been stopped at the original port of call or processed in the country in which they originally arrived in the Community.
While I can fully appreciate and have great sympathy with the concerns of colleagues calling for burden-sharing, there is a fairly large amount of informal burden-sharing going on anyway.
Reception countries are happily turning a blind eye to the people passing through their countries on the way to third countries.
Having said that, I believe very strongly that we need to harmonise legal procedures so that we can offer a safe haven to those many people seeking refuge in the Community and also so as to have a humane and caring reception procedure that is uniform throughout the Community.
Because of the work I have been doing in this particular area I am very concerned about the criminal activities of some asylum seekers who are exploiting members of their own communities, through trafficking in women and young people.
Cooperation between police forces, where there is widespread information on prostitution amongst young girls in the Member States, has unfortunately to be an intrinsic part of our asylum policy.
What is clear, particularly in my own country at the moment, is that we must challenge the alarming rise in racism and xenophobia within our communities.
It is a deeply disturbing phenomenon in my own country.
We need clear implementation of good, humane laws and we will all benefit from them.
I thank Parliament for the support that has been expressed for this communication.
I especially congratulate the two rapporteurs, Mr Schmitt and Mrs Echerer, for their excellent reports.
I would ask you to convey my good wishes to Mr Schulz, who is no longer here.
I am sure he will come back to this debate, if not for functional duties, out of enthusiasm.
The Commission has now received reactions on this working document from several Member States, from numerous NGOs, and with the report of Parliament, will be in a position to fulfil one of the commitments of the scoreboard, which is to present a directive on minimum standards for asylum procedures.
It is my intention to present this proposal for a directive in the autumn of 2000.
I should like to remind the House that the Commission proposed to the Tampere European Council to adopt a single European asylum system.
But the decision of the European Council in Tampere was to endorse an approach based on minimum common standards.
So the directive is, in my opinion, the most relevant instrument to address these minimum standards for asylum procedures which will have to reflect the cornerstones of the policy of the European Union with regard to asylum as was underscored by the European Council in Tampere: an absolute respect for the right to seek asylum, a full and inclusive application of the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and maintaining the principle of non-refoulement.
The Commission welcomes the approach the European Parliament has taken in many parts of the motion for a resolution.
The Commission endorses the recital calling for asylum policy to be conducted on as factual a basis as possible.
We fully agree with Parliament that common standards of asylum procedures should not be based solely on the premise that administrative and judicial activities have to be expedited but should likewise be informed by the need to preserve the dignity of asylum seekers.
We have to recognise that finding a balanced solution between simplifying the procedures on the one hand and guaranteeing legal certainty and respect for the rights of asylum seekers on the other hand is not an easy task.
But we are determined to come up with a solution that can be considered with a broad consensus as a balanced solution.
The Commission shares the view of the European Parliament that entry of asylum seekers, migration for economic or other reasons and temporary admittance of displaced persons and refugees in the event of a mass influx must be treated as entirely separate matters.
The resolution calls for temporary protection within three years.
On 24 May 2000 the Commission adopted a directive on minimum standards for giving temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons and on measures promoting a balance of effort between Member States in receiving such persons and bearing the consequences thereof.
We have already sent such a proposal for consultation with the European Parliament.
I should like to say that this proposal on temporary protection addresses explicitly the question raised by several speakers on burden-sharing as we have adopted an approach on burden-sharing on the proposal we have already submitted to the Council for a European fund for refugees.
So I should like to stress that this proposal cannot be seen as separate from the other proposals that are already on the table and that they take into account the sensitive question of solidarity among Member States.
I should like to remind the House that with regard to asylum, the scoreboard that has been submitted reflects the conclusions at the Tampere Summit where a two-stage approach was adopted by the Heads of State and Government.
The first step consists of harmonising standards relating to asylum and protection, and the second step is the introduction of a common asylum procedure as such.
To achieve the first step, the Commission will not only come up with a proposal for a directive on common standards for fair and efficient asylum procedures, which we are now discussing, but will also bring forward, inter alia and as soon as possible, proposals on the determination of the state responsible for the examination of an application and on common minimum conditions for reception of asylum seekers.
I should like to remind the House that, as I have already said, we have already put forward for consultation by Member States a working document that aims to replace the Dublin Convention by a Community regulation, having in mind the concrete experience and the vulnerabilities and deficiencies that have arisen in the application of the Dublin Convention.
With regard to the second step, the Tampere conclusions invited the Commission to come forward with a communication on a common asylum procedure and a uniform status for those who are granted asylum valid throughout the Union.
It is my intention that by the end of the year 2000 this communication will be brought forward.
The Commission notes - as has been emphasised by several speakers - that the European Parliament has taken a general position on rationalising Community law on asylum matters in this resolution.
The Commission will not only study the resolution very carefully in order to prepare its proposal for a directive on common standards on asylum procedures - that I reiterate will be presented in the autumn of this year - but will also reflect on them whilst preparing the communication it will put forward by the end of this year on a common asylum procedure in the long term.
I sincerely feel encouraged by the fact that this communication has such broad support in the House.
With such commitment, both from the Commission and Parliament, I sincerely hope we will succeed.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Crime victims in the EU
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0126/2000) by Mrs Sörensen, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Rights and Freedoms, Justice and Home Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee on crime victims in the European Union - Reflections on standards and actions [COM(1999) 349 - C5-0119/1999 - 1999/2122(COS)]
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in this communication, the Commission has certainly demonstrated its willingness to make a tangible contribution towards improving the position of crime victims.
It points out that within an area of freedom, justice and security within the European Union, citizens must be entitled to effective legal protection.
The Commission would also like to launch a discussion on the treatment of victims and would like to see measures taken to improve their plight.
The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs feels that a number of the proposed measures are too dependent on the goodwill of individual Member States and it calls for rules at a European level.
Why is this so necessary?
There are countless examples known to us of how victims have been treated in recent years: child abductions, in which case the parents and relatives are also the victims, victims of terrorist attacks, victims of organised crime, break-ins, robberies and the like, stalking, not to mention intimidation.
But victims must not suffer twice: firstly from a crime and secondly from the system.
There is a need for clarity concerning the rights of victims and for transparency concerning their status.
The measures proposed in the Commission communication appear to be geared exclusively towards victims from one Member State in another Member State, or third country victims legally resident in one Member State in another Member State.
However, the package of measures should also take account of Member State victims in third countries and third country citizens illegally resident in a Member State.
The status of a victim should not have any effect on his rights or on the possibility of acquiring such rights.
In the context of the enlargement of the European Union, particular attention should be paid to the treatment of victims from the candidate countries.
Since they are concerned with both civil and criminal procedures, the Treaties provide the European Union with instruments for increasing the protection of crime victims on its territory.
It is regrettable, however, that the unanimity rule currently applies.
The scoreboard submitted by the Commission for reviewing progress in implementing the area of liberty, security and justice should be modified in such a way as to guarantee and speed up the legislative follow-up to the present directive.
It is disturbing, however, that the measures concerned with aid to crime victims are not intended to come into effect until 2004 in this scoreboard.
We cannot let victims wait for that long.
By providing measures in 2001, victims will at long last be able to look forward to fair treatment.
After all, treating victims with understanding and dignity also plays a preventive role.
The proper treatment of victims will help destigmatise them and enhance their emblematic role.
When granting aid to victims, it is important not only to provide financial and legal assistance, but also to take measures first of all in the field of anonymity, privacy and safety of the victims, as well as in connection with the religious and cultural aspects, and to provide medical, psychological and social assistance. In addition, it is important to recognise the family of the victim as fellow victims and as witnesses, and to recognise the right to be assisted by an interpreter and to be questioned in the mother tongue.
A special system should also be set up for the legal, psychological and physical protection of victims of domestic violence, stalking and genital mutilation.
In particular, additional measures are required for minors.
For this purpose, specially equipped rooms need to be provided where the questioning of minors can be registered on video, so that they are not obliged to be confronted more than once with a traumatic experience.
It must immediately be possible to provide the victim with material, medical, psychological and social assistance which is free of charge at the time of being offered.
Victims should also be informed of the availability of the various forms of assistance.
It is extremely important that, depending on the nature of the crime, specialist assistance is provided.
In this context, it is important to do away with a number of prejudices: some forms of crime are regarded more seriously in some countries than in others.
There is also evidence of a discriminatory response to victims reporting crime.
Member States should be obliged to set up special police units for crime victims.
I would also draw attention to the importance of a legal basis for, and harmonisation of, the measures for protecting victims.
The study carried out under the Grotius programme by An Wergens provides the requisite basic information.
The useful experience available in respect of existing measures in certain Member States can play an important role in harmonising measures or drawing up a common package of measures.
An initiative of this kind is a first step towards crime prevention.
But given the fact that organised, cross-border crime is on the increase, the initiative should culminate in a common prevention programme on a European and international scale.
Finally, pending the introduction of a harmonised instrument for cross-border protection of victims, the Member States themselves and the candidate countries, in conjunction with NGOs, will need to enhance the protection of victims.
It is also important to assess safety aspects in urban development and spatial planning in order to prevent crimes.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentleman who have been so patient.
Talking about strengthening the position of crime victims is like relating a story with a happy ending.
From the beginning, we met palpable resistance from many quarters, but now most people agree that this is something important and commendable. This applies to all the European institutions.
We need to focus upon the victims' perspective and upon strengthening their rights in the Union.
People who make use of their freedom of movement should not have to be exposed to crime.
If they do in fact become crime victims, they should at least not have to suffer twice and end up in a worse situation than citizens of the country concerned who are themselves crime victims.
This applies irrespective of what the particular crime might be.
The position of crime victims ought therefore to be strengthened on a number of levels.
One can hardly talk about strengthening the position of crime victims without also talking about crime prevention measures.
In November 1997, Parliament took the initiative and requested an action plan regarding preventive measures.
An action plan of this kind was adopted by the Council in December 1998.
These questions were highlighted again in Tampere in the autumn of 1999.
We have embarked upon a new process.
The best way of helping crime victims is, in fact, to ensure that no crimes are committed, but that cannot always be done in practice.
The best way of preventing crime is to disseminate information.
To be able to devise an effective crime prevention strategy, we need in fact to know what we are talking about.
For example, there are still no definitions of the concepts of crime victim and organised crime.
In addition to introducing crime prevention measures, the position of crime victims must be strengthened in more concrete terms once crimes have actually been committed.
It is partly a question of making people more aware.
Crime victims ought also to know to what rights and possible forms of aid they are in fact entitled.
Most Member States have services which provide crime victims with some form of first aid.
Travellers may, sometimes more than the local population, require various forms of specific aid.
This may take the form of special measures including help with language and translations, as well as psychological help.
The police, social services and non-governmental organisations of various kinds will, of course, be involved in providing these forms of aid.
European cooperation has, in actual fact, already been devised and is in the process of development.
In particular, the European Forum for Victim Services has developed sound guidelines relating to the position of crime victims.
The Commission' s proposal involves introducing minimum standards for receiving crime victims with a view to being able to provide them with information and support where necessary.
This is excellent.
The police will play an important role because they are the point of first contact, and special training is often required in this connection.
It is difficult for foreign crime victims to follow the legal proceedings at a distance, which is why special measures are also required to guarantee the legal position of foreign crime victims.
Discussion of this issue began in the Commission during the last session under Commissioner Gradin of Sweden.
The issue will be taken up again under the Swedish Presidency.
In actual fact, this is, in a way, a story with a happy ending because there is quite a lot of agreement as to the objectives.
Thinking European is often the same as moving Europe forward.
In this case, we have common interests across party divides and national frontiers.
There ought, therefore, to be good opportunities to think European.
I therefore welcome the Commission' s communication and I want quite especially, of course, to thank Mrs Sörensen for her work on this report - a report we fully support.
We shall then wish to urge the Commission to come back with directives.
We hope for concrete action in the future.
The necessary conditions are broadly present.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when these issues are addressed, the public authorities are usually more concerned about the aspects of dissuasion and security, crime prevention, approval of penal frameworks and action by police forces and the legal apparatus.
However, it is also essential that we consider the people most affected by crime: its victims.
Whoever they are, we cannot allow them to become a double victim, firstly of the crime and then of the system.
Adequate protection must be guaranteed for crime victims within our Union and it is essential that equal treatment for these victims is also guaranteed, whether in court or before the authorities. Active means of support must also be developed.
The personal dignity of the victim must be respected and their safety, privacy and family must be protected given that this Union which we are gradually building is based on respect for rights and freedoms, guarantees of safety for people and their property and effective legal protection. In other words, this is a Union based on the values which characterise contemporary democracies.
We therefore welcome the Commission' s initiative which is clearly compatible with the effort to create an area of freedom, security and justice.
It is essential that there are minimum rules on the protection of crime victims which ensure, throughout the European Union, an adequate level of legal assistance in cross-border proceedings. This is particularly important on issues such as access to justice, protection and effective application of the rights of victims in proceedings or their right to participate, receive the necessary aid, obtain and provide information, understand and be understood and so on.
Victims must also have the right to compensation for damages, including court costs.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report.
It is an important area and she has rightly drawn attention to it.
It refers to the new powers of the Community over the last few years: rights of asylum, immigration and general cooperation in civil matters.
It is therefore crucial that we use these powers to improve the position of victims of crime.
At the time of the crime, especially personal, physical or violent crime, many victims, if not all, will be vulnerable, distressed, upset, probably angry, and desperately in need of support.
As the rapporteur has said, they do not need to become victims again.
Nor do they need to feel that they are being branded almost as criminals themselves.
We need to ensure - and this report goes a long way towards it - that the procedures do not negate the situation or make it worse, but rather, that they support and assist the victims.
The rapporteur has said that we also need to make certain that safeguards are in place so that there is no intrusion into the privacy of victims.
We must in particular draw attention to intrusion or possible intrusion by the press.
I am particularly pleased that this report includes support in the language or dialect of the victim of crime because sometimes that is an area that is overlooked.
Likewise the necessity for training of police officers and others in authority.
Ethnic minorities, very often women, children - those who sometimes find the system difficult - will be the ones who are most at risk in this sort of situation.
Those who perhaps are in fear of authority are especially vulnerable.
The PSE Group is pleased to support this report and to congratulate the rapporteur.
However, there will be no surprise that we will reject those amendments that have been put down in the name of certain members of the TDI Group.
Those amendments do not improve the report; rather they are a crude attempt to add the biased, distorted and racist sentiment of the signatories concerned.
I congratulate the rapporteur on her work.
I congratulate the Commission on bringing this forward, and I wish it every success in the future.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur, Patsy Sörensen, for the care and accuracy of her report.
On the other hand, I would like to focus my attention on the presentation of various amendments to the draft text which include people affected by terrorism as the victims of crime in the EU.
I completely agree with this, as well as the fact that certain groups use violence to try to impose their ideals.
What I believe, Mr President, is that when we speak of imposing ideals, and of victims, we should not only refer to terrorist organisations, of which there are too many and which must cease to exist in a democracy such as the one we want for Europe.
In this respect, we must also reject and condemn the impositions and violence sometimes exercised by bodies and apparatus of the states, as in the case of GAL and other previous cases in Spain.
Democratic justice must apply to all without exception, and moral reparations and material, medical, psychological and social aid etc. must reach all the victims of terrorism without exception, including, of course, the victims of the above-mentioned state-sponsored groups.
Only in this way, acting fairly, will we achieve a Europe which lives in peace and prosperity, which is the founding aim of our Community and I believe that this is still our greatest aspiration.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her valuable work.
The Commission has tackled a very important issue in its communiqué.
The question of more effective help for the victims of crime will not be solved merely by improved legislation.
We can only make permanent improvements through combined, broad-based dialogue on the part of NGOs and the national authorities.
Compared to the authorities, NGOs often, in practice, have more flexible and versatile approaches to problem solving.
For example, Internet-based info-banks and service telephones provided through voluntary work could be developed in parallel with the services provided by the authorities.
The rigid nature of the courts and especially the high costs involved often prevent victims of crime from discovering their rights.
The situation is in untenable conflict with EU principles of the rule of law.
People have to enjoy true justice without having to pay for it.
The minimum level of legal protection in the Member States of the EU must not be allowed to slip to that which exists in the United States.
The EU and its Member States must also ensure that the victims of crime do not have to suffer twice over for the wrong done them.
In particular, when it comes to organised crime, many victims forsake the opportunity to go to trial as a result of pressures or for fear of vengeance.
EU Member States must develop more effective cooperation among the authorities in post-trial situations, for example, in the areas of plaintiff and witness protection programmes.
The added value of Europol in this process must also be investigated carefully.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission communication on victims of crime in the European Union, since it studies the process of creating common policies, as well as greater cooperation between the Member States at a time when we are all aware, including this Parliament of course, of the need for this type of communitisation.
Bearing in mind the enormous number of citizens of the European Union who suffer as a result of crime and, in particular, terrorism, I welcome this report which we are debating today since it contains certain points which, in my view, are particularly noteworthy.
One is the sensitivity it shows by specifically highlighting the fact that there are certain social groups - women, children, immigrants, homosexuals - who are more vulnerable than the rest of the population, as well as the fact that there are also certain sectors who, ignoring the most basic democratic principles, prefer to use violence to impose their objectives.
We must start by achieving a common definition of the concept of the victim to include families and dependants, since they also suffer the consequences of crime.
On the other hand, I also fully share the opinion that everybody resident in the Union should be clearly included, so that they may be subject to all the different measures that we are debating today, regardless of their status.
Nevertheless, it is regrettable that the adoption of the proposed measures is to be postponed until 2004, since I believe that they must be adopted as soon as possible.
From another point of view and bearing in mind the ever increasing importance and influence of the media in our society, special attention should be paid to the way in which the media deal with the reality of these people, which is not always respectful of individual rights, above all when we are talking about minors, whether they be victims or delinquents.
With regard to these people it is also necessary to apply certain measures so that they can rebuild their lives correctly, not only from an economic point of view, but also through psychological, legal, medical and social assistance.
To sum up, they should be guaranteed full protection and, for that purpose, I am convinced that it is absolutely essential to cooperate with the NGOs and associations in the sector in every Member State.
I must finally stress my deep concern about the need to pay due attention to the victims of terrorism, since these are people who suffer from a very serious and specific form of crime which, unfortunately, does not only take place in my country, Spain, and which threatens democratic coexistence and freedom.
Mr President, as the Commission says in the introduction to its communication, we cannot seriously speak of a citizens' Europe without dealing with the rights of victims.
I would like to express my agreement with what has been said by other speakers about the hope that the Commission will be more ambitious than it has been in this communication.
I also urge it be ambitious.
Please allow me, Mr President, to focus on the problem of the victims of terrorism. I must begin by expressing my regret at the fact that a certain Member who spoke previously gave the impression that he reluctantly accepted the importance of the victims of terrorism, and then straight away focussed on other issues.
However, I would like to highlight the importance of this report and Mrs Sörensen' s cooperation.
This is a balanced report which has been sensitive to the victims of terrorism, because if there are three groups of victims which must receive our special attention, they are, as the Treaty says, victims of trafficking in human beings, victims of crime against children and victims of terrorism.
I must therefore congratulate Mrs Sörensen, since she has hit the nail on the head by stressing that certain groups need specific attention.
We must not forget that complete attention must involve psychological attention.
This complete attention must also involve the consideration of family relatives as also being victims.
This is especially true in the case of terrorism.
Therefore, Mr President, I believe that this is a step which we hope will encourage the Commission to implement, with the Treaty of Amsterdam in their hands, more ambitious measures in this area. This, as the Commission says very clearly, is an obligation for all of us if we want to be able to speak proudly of a citizens' Europe.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I should just like to say, if you do not mind, that I could be tempted to take bets on what language you use to address Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, at 12 noon.
Late payment in commercial transactions
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0154/2000) by Mr Murphy, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on combating late payment in commercial transactions (C5-0225/2000 - 1998/0099(COD))
Mr President, unfortunately Mr Murphy cannot be here with us this evening and I therefore have the honour of representing him here today.
However, I am at a disadvantage.
I was not involved in the work of the conciliation committee, although I have studied the documents.
So please forgive me if I am not quite as well informed as the members who helped in the conciliation procedure.
I should like to thank those members because, even as someone who was not involved, I can say that this is an important directive.
It is important to SMEs, it is important to the public sector, it is probably a far more important instrument for promoting employment than many of the resolutions passed here in this House.
I can still remember the earlier debates: late payments are a breach of contract and this directive stipulates that the purchaser must pay the vendor the full sum owed within 30 days of receipt of the goods.
Otherwise, he must pay a penalty in the form of interest etc.
Discussions with the Council gave rise to a whole series of problems which we have now managed to settle, several sittings later.
One of the main problems was the question of retention of title, whereby the vendor retains ownership of the goods pending full payment.
It was also agreed that freedom of contract cannot be invoked in order to limit the effects of the so-called anti-abuse clause.
We have agreed on a clear regulation here which ensures that the debtor cannot procure additional liquidity or additional advantages at the creditor' s expense.
In addition - and this was an important point - the principle of equal treatment between the public and private sectors has been acknowledged.
As far as interest is concerned, we have compromised between the 6% proposed by Council and the 8% proposed by Parliament, agreeing in the conciliation procedure on 7%.
All in all, it is a reasonable result and, I repeat, it is a result which will mainly help SMEs in the Union.
I personally was most surprised to read that late payments were one of the main reasons for bankruptcies in Europe.
Apparently some 450,000 jobs are lost in the EU every year as a result.
We often spend a great deal of money on very few jobs.
Here we are achieving the desired effect cost-free, as it were, and I think that Parliament should make it clear to the outside world that it has done job security a huge service.
Allow me to close with one more comment regarding the Commission.
Late payments are a breach of contract even when it is the Commission which is late paying.
This does not figure in the directive but, in my experience as an MEP, we often hear complaints when we visit SMEs and large companies alike, that the Commission is often far too late honouring the payment commitments which it has entered into in research promotion or other areas.
I hope that the Commission will be guided by the spirit of this directive and make its own payments on time, because here too, I repeat, this is breach of contract.
My warmest thanks once again to everyone involved and I hope that Parliament will vote in favour of this compromise tomorrow.
Mr President, about four or five years ago, former Commissioner Christos Papoutsis told me at a meeting that he was considering some sort of attempt to regulate late payments.
I smiled and told him that I wished such a thing were possible, because it would be a relief to millions of SMEs, but that I thought it would be extremely difficult.
I am pleased that we now have before us a directive making that wish come true.
We have heard and we know what it costs SMEs, what it costs the European economy, what it costs workers when certain companies, which can and do throw their financial and purchasing weight around, or public sectors which can and do throw their weight around, acquire extra liquidity free of charge, at no cost to them, but at the expense, mainly, of SMEs.
Approximately half a million workers lost their jobs and one in four companies went bust because bigger and stronger companies got away with not paying them on time.
Today marks the beginning of a new era, an era which will, of course, dawn in two years' time, once this directive, which gives SMEs different prospects for a different future, has been transposed into national legislation.
It gives them reason to believe that they too have the power to trade in a fair competitive environment, an environment which has been missing all these years, an environment which the SMEs of the European Union have been trying in vain to achieve.
Have you any idea how soul-destroying it is when a small businessman, with limited access to bank loans, is expected to subsidise companies with a far bigger cash flow or the huge public sector of a country? It is a bitter pill to swallow.
What I can say is that the negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council were a most pleasant experience.
Of course, I can say now that it was a pleasant experience because the outcome has been extremely positive for Parliament.
And it would be no exaggeration to say that Parliament was the institution of the European Union which understood exactly where the interests of European society and European business lie, which is why we used all our arguments and exerted all our pressure to persuade the Council that all the European Parliament' s proposed amendments went in the right direction.
And, of course, I must thank the SMEs and Parliament and the Executive Commission, which also helped to achieve this result, and it is a good result.
Finally, I should like to close by saying that every SME in the European Union and millions of workers in small- and medium-sized commercial, handicraft and professional companies in the European Union will look towards us tomorrow, towards the plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, in the belief that a new day has dawned for them.
Mr President, I have already received many reactions from within the SME world to the text that we will be adopting tomorrow and, partly on behalf of all these SMEs, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on the work.
I hope that Mr Linkohr will pass on these congratulations to Mr Murphy. I would also like to thank the Commission for its cooperation, which has been as constructive as ever.
We should be proud of the common text which we will be adopting tomorrow and which we were able to adopt in the Conciliation Committee.
It is regulating what should be regulated.
Nothing more, nothing less.
It is also regulating matters to the extent that they need to be regulated at European level. Again, nothing more, nothing less.
And it is regulating matters in a legally well-organised way.
We can defend it perfectly from all angles, both with regard to transactions between traders and transactions between traders and the government.
Mr President, as early as in 1993 - at the very outset of the internal market - we, together with Parliament, asked the Commission to submit a proposal to regulate late payments.
Initially, the Commission' s reaction was low-key, in the form of a recommendation. It subsequently took a tougher line with a proposal for binding rules.
It took all of us two years to make the political choices and to formulate them in a technically correct manner.
We have now provided the framework; all that is left now is the transposition.
The Member States have been given two years to do this in.
Let us hope, together with the thousands of SMEs in whose interest it is for the Member States to respect the transposition period, that our Member States act more swiftly.
In fact, let us encourage them to do so.
As far as I am concerned, a European Cup should go to the Member State which manages to finish its homework first.
I have another question for the Commission. I should like to have known whether it plans to formulate proposals on conditions for setting up debt-collecting agencies, which is one of the issues which we discussed for a long time in the course of the preliminary work but which we left out of this directive for a good reason.
My question is whether the Commission is planning to make proposals in this respect at a later stage and, if so, when?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my view, this directive is, without doubt, the most important directive for the small and family-run businesses of Europe.
A good day' s work deserves a good day' s pay.
But some have had to wait for it longer than others.
The stronger the partner, the more power he has to make a business wait.
Here, for the first time, we have a regulation which ensures that the company' s liquidity is secured once the service has been provided, and within a foreseeable period of time.
I am delighted that we are debating today in the small circle, because you can see that this directive is totally uncontested and that the European Parliament stands fully behind this directive.
We know that some 450,000 jobs are lost every year as the result of late payments.
When we talk about job security and job creation, then we have a very important and crucial directive here which helps us to secure 450,000 jobs a year in Europe.
That deserves the headlines in the press but, as you know, the fight for jobs is already taken for granted.
I am proud of the fact that the European Parliament is making such an important contribution to this.
This initiative was intensively promoted to start with by Marianne Thyssen, Mr Folias and Mr Murphy and we are proud of such an excellent result in the House. Payment within 30 days, precautions to ensure that payments are actually made and that the company receives the money within 90 days.
It is a sensational result.
Congratulations!
I am proud to be a member of this Parliament.
Mr President, allow me to begin by congratulating everyone who has been involved in the creation of this directive and especially those who have done the hard work of negotiating during the conciliation procedure, which I know has been hard, although I personally have not followed it - I followed the two readings, but not this third reading.
As the esteemed Member, Mrs Thyssen, has said, this directive deals with what it can and must deal with, no more and no less.
I believe that this is a magnificent definition.
The Commission' s initial proposal was much more ambitious, but since we are moving in that pioneer territory of the internal market - that territory which involves elements which are still the competence of the Member States such as procedural rules and civil law, ownership reservations, or Article 5 of the procedure for the recovery of non-contested debt etc...- the Commission' s proposal was not in accordance with the Treaty, since we lacked a legal basis.
The present proposal is less complete, if you like, but no less effective.
I believe that it will have significant repercussions, which have been listed by previous speakers.
Above all, I am going to highlight one more, and that is that it opens up the road to seriously dealing with the need to fully enter into this pioneer territory.
This is because, today, there are still genuine obstacles to the perfection of the internal market, genuine obstacles to the four freedoms laid down in the Treaty, precisely because we do not have a clear legal basis.
Now, with the Treaty of Amsterdam, we may have a clearer legal basis, but we must make a great effort to establish effective coordination and harmonisation in all of these areas.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, rarely does a directive have such wide-reaching social implications as the one we are discussing today.
It will affect millions of small businesses and millions of individuals who carry on economic activities, even though this may not as yet be apparent.
In my opinion, the forecast, as it was established at the end of the negotiations between the Council and Parliament, is precise and essentially correct.
A balance has been found which will certainly influence the relations between buyers and sellers significantly.
It is a measure which facilitates the market, not one which places restrictions on it, although it does lay down rules - for rules are sometimes essential in order to maintain the free market - and it is therefore a positive preventive action which essentially protects the weakest: both those who are weakest financially and those who are weakest socially.
There are some areas of Europe - including certain areas of Italy, for example - where a very successful company has a substantial, decisive, unambiguous influence on the market, which almost amounts to a monopoly.
Clearly, this company influences not only prices but also time frames, including settlement periods. This is sometimes negative for those who need to work and are forced to have recourse to this company.
The issue is that of equal conditions for public and private industry, which I see as a positive thing and which will affect, or, rather, will be a positive development for public accounts.
In fact, you will be aware that public companies settle within a certain period, and this time limit means that it will no longer be possible for private companies who deal with the public sector to impose large, excessive burdens on public companies.
Consequently, public expenditure will also be reduced.
Mr President, the Commission should like to take this opportunity in this debate to congratulate the European Parliament and particularly its rapporteur, Mr Murphy, on the very positive result achieved in the Conciliation Committee. The tough negotiations, as good negotiations always are, have made the adoption of this directive possible.
I am convinced, and several speakers have underlined this, that this is a particularly important directive for European businesses as it affects all commercial transactions between these businesses and between authorities, in both the public and private sector. In saying this I believe I have responded to a comment made by Mr Linkohr.
We hope and we are convinced that the directive will have a positive impact on the daily commercial transactions of all businesses, whether these are large multinationals or small and medium-sized undertakings.
However, it is only right to point out that this type of directive is essentially intended for small and medium-sized undertakings because, given the operating rules of the market, it is these which will gain the most positive benefits from the effectiveness of the directive on late payments.
I am convinced that we have therefore adopted a legal framework which is simultaneously serious, rigorous and effective.
The Commission will do everything in its power not only to guarantee the appropriate transposition of this directive into national law during the next two years but also to reassess the late payment situation in the future in view of the actual application of the directive.
I must conclude by again congratulating Mr Murphy and this House on the decision to be taken.
Mr President, I had asked the Commission whether it intended to submit a proposal on conditions for the setting up, and mutual recognition of, debt-collecting agencies in Europe.
I appreciate that this does not fall within the remit of the Commissioner and that he is unable to provide me with an answer right now.
But I would like to receive a reply in due course, because this issue has been the subject of many a discussion in previous meetings.
Mr President, given the Cartesian evidence that this is not an issue falling within my area of responsibility, I can only say to the Member that I have noted her question and that, as usual, the Commission will certainly give her a direct answer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.30 p.m.)
Madam President, the Austrian political scientist and professor, Anton Pelinka, has been prosecuted following a comment he made about Mr Haider.
Mr Pelinka was member of the committee of the European Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna.
According to treaty obligations, he should be receiving support from the Austrian Government, but despite repeated requests, he has received inadequate support in terms of infrastructure.
In a press release, Mr Schüssel stated that, in the light of these experiences, the treaty stipulations are pitched far too high.
Mr Pelinka resigned because he felt unsupported by the government and was replaced by a member of one of the parties in government.
I know that the President has always been very committed to the issue of combating racism and xenophobia.
I was there when she gave her speech in Vienna to mark the opening of the Observatory.
We are also responsible for the functioning of the European institutions.
I would like to ask you whether you are prepared to write a letter or contact the Austrian Government to express your concern about the restriction of the freedom of expression and to point out the obligations which the government has in this respect and which it cannot escape unilaterally.
Thank you, Mrs Buitenweg.
We are investigating the matter you have just told us about very carefully.
Madam President, yesterday, the European Parliament decided by democratic majority no longer to convene in Strasbourg on Fridays.
You subsequently issued a press release in which you expressed your regret about this.
You have, of course, every right to do so.
Everyone has their own personal and political responsibility.
It is, however, somewhat confusing if the President of the European Parliament expresses regret regarding one of Parliament' s democratic decisions and if she does so on Parliament' s official letter-headed paper, with a reference to the services of Parliament.
I would ask you not to cause any confusion when you have to carry out your personal responsibilities vis-à-vis your electorate - which is something we all understand - and to do so on your own letter-headed paper.
Mrs Van der Laan, you will agree that even when entrusted with the office of President of the European Parliament, we remain free politicians.
I was speaking personally.
I said that, personally, I regretted that vote, I understood the practical reasons which led to it and, with the Conference of Presidents, I would consider the best way of dealing with that vote, in the interests of this House.
I do not think I abused my position.
Mr Mauro, what happened to you is totally unacceptable.
Please let me have a note as soon as possible so that I can take it up with the authorities concerned.
It is all the more unacceptable because it is clearly stated on that document, that passport, that it must be recognised by the authorities of European Union countries.
It really is absolutely unacceptable.
We will try to put an end to it.
Madam President, the trouble with this pass is that nobody knows about it!
We make virtually no use of it at all.
That is why I think you should remind the authorities once again that this pass is valid within the EU.
Yesterday, Mrs Karamanou said that she wanted to travel to America on it, which is of course impossible.
It clearly states in the pass that it is only valid within the European Union.
But to prevent this sort of thing reoccurring, perhaps the German authorities, and also of the authorities in other countries, should be made aware of its validity.
Mrs Pack is quite right.
If we want to prevent such incidents recurring, a teaching initiative in fact needs to be taken, so that everyone knows exactly what it is all about.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Perry, I can assure you that the Quaestors and I will take this very seriously and will take action to prevent a recurrence.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
European Council of 19/20 June 2000
The next item is the joint debate on the:
Council and Commission Statements - Preparation of the European Council (Santa Maria da Feira, 19-20 June 2000), including the situation in the Middle East
oral question (B5-0492/2000) to the Council, by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the Feira European Council
oral question (B5-0493/2000) to the Commission, by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the Feira European Council.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this opportunity.
This is the third time I have appeared before you in the six months of our Presidency and once again this allows the Council to have a direct dialogue with this House.
The Portuguese Presidency has always tried to maintain a frank, open and constructive relationship with the European Parliament, both with the plenary and its committees.
It is in this spirit that I will present our preview of the Feira European Council.
I will firstly refer to the timetable as it is fixed at the moment. On the morning of the 19th there will be the usual meeting with the President of the European Parliament.
This will be followed by a session with the Chair of the Convention, Roman Herzog, who is responsible for drawing up the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. This will not be a deliberative meeting as the Charter is still being drawn up according to the chosen methodology.
Instead this will be an exchange of information. This seems necessary at this point so that Mr Herzog can inform the Heads of State and Government about the progress of the Convention' s work in drawing up the Charter and also so that he can ensure that the various Heads of State and Government are up to speed on this issue.
Clearly this cannot and will not be a deliberative meeting, but simply an exchange of information.
Immediately after there will be a working session involving the finance ministers. This will address the issues of the follow-up to the Lisbon Special European Council and economic and financial affairs.
Lunch will be devoted to the Intergovernmental Conference and, in particular, closer cooperation.
The Council will have to indicate whether or not the latter issue is to be added to the agenda of the IGC.
The afternoon session will be devoted to the issues of enlargement of the Union, the common European security and defence policy and external relations.
I would point out that the Presidency invited the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, to join us at this point so that we can also consider the issue of Africa-Europe relations and regional political issues.
We are delighted that President Mbeki has accepted our invitation, particularly given the importance of South Africa in regional terms and for the European Union and its Member States.
The next day, the 20th, will be devoted as usual to reviewing the draft presidency conclusions.
The Council will provide an opportunity to assess the progress achieved during the term of the presidency in areas which we regard as particularly important.
In doing this, we will try to show the ways in which European integration can continue to be developed, thus enabling to the greatest extent possible the resolution of the many issues which await us in the coming months on the European agenda.
As there is not enough time now to describe in depth the items to be considered at Feira, I will instead identify some of the issues which we regard as a priority and which deserve our attention.
The Intergovernmental Conference will come to the European Council through the presentation of a report by the Presidency.
This report is ready now. It was formally delivered yesterday to the President of the European Parliament and will today be made available on the Internet in all languages for general consultation.
As you know, this Parliament has followed the work of the Intergovernmental Conference with great interest and cooperation. I must point out that the participation of this House represents a step forward in qualitative terms with regard to all previous intergovernmental conferences on the reform of the institutions and treaties.
The Presidency' s report basically consists of two parts. The first assesses the progress made by the IGC to date and describes the trends emerging from the discussions.
The second part contains a series of proposals, lists and tables illustrating the options which the IGC will have in the next six months. Using the mandate conferred on us during the Helsinki European Council and after sounding out the Member States, we will be recommending that the issue of closer cooperation is included on the agenda of the IGC.
I am convinced that based on the work carried out, we will be in a position, with the leadership of the French Presidency, to conclude the IGC before the end of this year as planned.
As for the development of the common European security and defence policy, again based on the report which we will present to the European Council, I believe that significant progress has been made.
I would highlight the formation and entry into force of the new political and military bodies and civilian crisis management bodies for the first time in the history of the European Union and also the approval of the rules governing relations between the EU and NATO and between the EU and third countries.
The decision taken on the location of all these bodies, in terms of buildings and installations, should also be stressed.
We have tried to take advantage of our simultaneous presidencies of the European Union and the WEU which has resulted in a clarification of the WEU' s role and the use of its capacities and acquis by the European Union.
We are now entering a vital phase of this project and we must therefore prepare for the Capability Commitment Conference which will take place in November of this year. Its aim is to create and commit assets and capabilities which will allow us, as planned, to achieve the headline goal.
Yesterday, in the General Affairs Council, these documents were voted on and approved.
With regard to enlargement, this presidency launched the negotiations with the Helsinki Group. As we reported yesterday at ministerial level, several chapters have already been concluded, even with this Helsinki Group which is the most recent group.
We have also made decisive progress with the previous group, the Luxembourg Group, as all the chapters, with the obvious exception of the 'Institutions' chapter, were already open with this group.
Feira European Council will indicate a renewed commitment not to slacken the negotiating pace, given the agreed principles, and to continue with enlargement as the main historic challenge of the European Union.
To this end I must stress that we inherited 16 chapters from the Luxembourg group. We have closed 10 and opened 6.
With the Helsinki group, we have opened 10 chapters and closed 8. We have also recognised full applicant status for Turkey, approved the framework regulation and accession partnership, and also a unique financial framework, and we have held the first Association Council with a view to adequately preparing for assessment.
As for the state of enlargement negotiations, given that yesterday and the day before we held 12 consecutive Intergovernmental Accession Conferences with the 12 applicants, the following negotiating chapters are now closed: 16 with Cyprus, 13 with Estonia and the Czech Republic, 12 with Slovenia, 11 with Hungary and Poland, 7 with Malta, 6 with Slovakia, 5 with Romania, Latvia and Lithuania and 4 with Bulgaria.
This is interesting not only in terms of the rate of development of these dossiers but also as an indication of the way in which the applicant countries are reacting to the negotiating process.
This is very important.
During yesterday' s Intergovernmental Conferences, the future Presidency also announced its working timetables in this respect so that this historic challenge can very clearly be met, based on the agreed principles, and so that there is no frustration among the applicants with regard to our intentions.
Another item for the Feira European Council will be the follow-up to the Lisbon Special European Council.
In this respect documents will be presented on the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines for the Member States, the eEurope 2002 Action Plan, or the Information Society for All, the progress in applying the Financial Services Action Plan and also the approval of the European Charter for Small Enterprises.
Clearly, the whole area of social policy and employment continues to be a subject for analysis by the Heads of State and Government.
On economic and financial affairs, I must highlight the formalisation of Greece' s entry into the euro.
Greece will now join the other 11 Member States which have already moved into the third phase of economic and monetary union.
A report will be presented on the progress made on the tax issue. As you know, an intense series of contacts is occurring in this area.
The Portuguese Finance Minister has established this information network and there will be a meeting of Ecofin on 18 and 19 June, separate from the European Council, at which it is hoped that positive work can be achieved to find a much sought-after solution to this issue and the credibility of Europe as a financial market.
Briefly on external relations, it must be emphasised that the Portuguese Presidency has been significant for having managed to administer the new institutions created by the Treaty of Amsterdam which has only just entered into force.
I must thank the High Representative and Secretary-General, Xavier Solana, and also the Commissioner with responsibility in this area, Christopher Patten, for their open, careful and dedicated cooperation.
The potential of this new model of external representation of the Union is considerable and it is fair to say that the next few months will demonstrate this.
A very important step forward at Feira would be the adoption of the Common Strategy on the Mediterranean.
This strategy will allow not only the whole chapter on the traditional area of the Barcelona process to be harmonised but will also allow an open methodology to be defined which will ensure, at the due time, the transition to a situation of peace, with the Middle East also being fully incorporated within this strategy. I must also highlight the report by the Secretary-General of the Council and by the Commission on the Western Balkans.
This is an area in which our joint commitment is producing encouraging results. The approval of the Action Plan for the Northern Dimension and the report on applying the Common Strategy for Russia should also be emphasised.
We therefore have a series of important items on our external policy agenda.
I have tried in this presentation to give you a fairly comprehensive preview of the Feira European Council.
I am, of course, prepared to continue this exchange of ideas through any questions or comments which you might have. I have highlighted the fact that this European Council has a fairly full agenda.
This is because we have a variety of objectives which are both fundamental and decisive in the context of the European priorities. These objectives include institutional reform, enlargement, the extraction of appropriate conclusions from the Lisbon Special European Council, now with a more rigorous and considered action plan, and also, of course, the various external policy issues which are of concern to us.
We will have the opportunity at the Feira European Council to take some important decisions in the economic and financial area and to approve a series of discussions on external security and defence policy, involving both the military and civilian components.
These discussions will be very significant not so much for the future of the European Union but more for the present as this is an area where progress has been made, is starting to be visible and will surely be significant not only within Europe but also internationally.
Madam President, thank you giving me this opportunity to speak on the oral questions tabled by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
The presidency has already drawn up and submitted the report on the Intergovernmental Conference.
We hope that, when it presents this report at the Feira Council, it will take into account the questions tabled by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and, of course, the opinions which will be expressed this morning by the representatives of the political groups.
The main point raised by the questions of the Committee of which I am Chairman is that we should not just restrict ourselves to recording the agreements and disagreements expressed around the Intergovernmental Conference table, but familiarise ourselves with the extent of the challenges and risks facing the Conference.
The future of the development of Europe and the validity and sustainability of the institutions of the Union is at stake, with the now sure and fast-approaching prospect of enlargement to include a further 12 countries, and our relations with the citizens and their approval and support are also at risk.
In our questions, we referred to Mr Fischer' s speech.
His speech and others which preceded or followed it - and, of the most recent, I would cite Wolfgang Schäuble' s extremely dramatic speech - should have contributed to impressing upon everybody the current responsibility of the institutions and, in particular, the governments of the 15 Member States to bring the Intergovernmental Conference to a conclusion.
Clearly, all the questions regarding the future of the Union cannot be resolved here, of that we are aware, but in Nice we must create the institutional conditions necessary for a new stage in the life of the Union.
In the oral question to the Commission, we requested clarification regarding its undertaking to reorganise the Treaties and provide a fresh perspective on the problems of governance, points on which the Commission had already made its opinion clear.
In our oral question to the Council, we requested clarification of the issue of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and its incorporation into the Treaties.
In conclusion, I would add that it is important to include the topic of closer cooperation on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference - and we greatly appreciate the efforts of the Portuguese Presidency in this area - but, in our opinion, the agenda cannot be extended to include this subject alone without serious consideration of all the other points put forward by Parliament in the resolution of 13 April.
This is cause for serious concern, particularly for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, and we are also very concerned by the serious difficulties encountered during these four months by the Portuguese Presidency in its endeavour to define satisfactory solutions for the three issues left unresolved after Amsterdam, particularly the issue of qualified majority voting.
We await the responses with confidence.
Thank you, Mr Barnier.
Mr Klaus Hänsch has asked to move a procedural motion.
Madam President, I have a very small question for the Commissioner about the expression he came up with, which I found quite remarkable and highly amusing. I refer to the 'proactive snapshot' .
Is this by any chance the Commission' s special contribution to the development of the new technologies?
One could say that, certainly, Madam President, but I would not want to tie the idea down to too technological a definition.
You realise, of course, that the expression implied, first, thanks to the Portuguese Presidency, which has worked well and allowed us to do some spade work and clear some ground.
That had to be done, and it was likewise necessary for the report it has just drafted - in addition to being an objective and lucid snapshot of the strengths and weaknesses of the negotiations - to propose going further, without shutting any doors.
It has done so, in particular, on a point Mr Gama mentioned, the fourth Amsterdam 'leftover' , and I hope the 'enhanced cooperations' will allow us to move on.
We hope all the Heads of State and Government, as well as the Portuguese Presidency, will take that snapshot as a model to set a 'proactive' seal on the remaining six months, so as to succeed - and I do mean succeed - in reforming the institutions at Nice.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner Barnier, ladies and gentlemen, next week' s summit in Feira could be an important summit if the work it is to do is carried out properly.
Europe will not fall from the sky like a ripe fruit - it has to be shaped by working on it day in, day out.
The procedures to be agreed in Feira for the future of the European Union represent a significant step along this path.
I therefore hope that this will be a meaningful working summit.
We, the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats, have two fundamental objectives as this new millennium commences.
Firstly, the Intergovernmental Conference must be concluded in Nice this winter, but not just for the sake of completing it, but rather in order to achieve a satisfactory outcome.
That is the first challenge.
Secondly, we witnessed major changes in Europe in 1989-90, not to mention before and since then.
The peoples of Central Europe are anxious to join our Community of values.
To achieve this, we and those countries need to fulfil our respective obligations.
Mr President-in-Office, I ask you to give a signal in Feira so that the impetus of the accession process is not lost.
We must not create the impression that these Central European peoples are not welcome in our Community of values.
I would like to call on you personally to do everything in your power to make sure that we send a signal to the peoples of Central Europe that they are welcome to join us!
You have talked about extending the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference.
I would like to offer you my emphatic support - be flexible!
Do not just make a list of what needs to be added, but find a formula which allows additional topics to be included over the coming months.
Commissioner Barnier has talked about majority voting.
This is the key point - using majority voting in the EU Council of Ministers as a matter of course, and at the same time extending the codecision procedure.
I am all in favour of introducing enhanced cooperation into the Treaty, but I must warn you, Mr President-in-Office, against introducing enhanced cooperation into the Treaty if this is ultimately just a token gesture and if we are not successful as far as majority voting is concerned.
We need both majority voting and enhanced cooperation!
We firmly support your presidency' s desire to rationalise the Treaty, as will be apparent from the political groups' motion for a resolution, so that the structure of the Treaty is revised.
Commissioner Barnier talked about a basic treaty.
It may not be possible to achieve all this in this six-month period, but we should adopt this approach of creating a basic treaty and a general treaty.
We must have more respect for the principles of subsidiarity.
My group is also in favour of our trying to clarify the respective roles of the European Union, the Member States and the regions.
We can only maintain or even regain agreement to the process of European unification at various levels if people actually know what each level is responsible for doing!
That is why it is key for us to establish our priorities here and to make a start on demarcating the various competences.
The Commissioner also spoke about the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
I support the endeavours to create a strong Europe, indeed we have always supported them, but in the framework of the Western Alliance, and not separately from our American friends, but complementing them and as partners with equal rights.
I would like to add one more thought.
I should have mentioned it just now, but I forgot.
Why do we need a flexible approach to the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference? Yesterday we spoke in this Chamber about a European Party Statute.
You were not able to be present, and I do not intend that as a reproach. If we want to supplement Article 191 of the Treaty, and the Commission is to present a proposal to the IGC to that effect, then it must be possible to deal with this at the IGC and ultimately to supplement the Treaty if we are to make progress on the subject of European political parties.
I would like to make one more observation, without any desire to be controversial, but quite calmly and objectively, and yet with a sense of great personal dismay.
This is about paragraph 8 of the political groups' motion for a resolution.
We are calling on the Council presidency to assess relations between the 14 Member States and Austria, and we are also calling on the presidency to work out a procedure in conjunction with all the parties involved in the European Union with a view to finding an acceptable solution.
Mr President-in-Office, everyone will probably see this differently, but this issue is casting a shadow over the European Union.
We know that in Denmark, support for the euro in the run-up to the referendum in September is rapidly waning because of the Austrian issue, as in Denmark, this is viewed as interference in the internal affairs of the smaller states.
I would like to address this comment to you personally, and I say this not because I wish to be controversial, but because I am firmly convinced that if we do not solve this issue it will lead to major problems.
I therefore urge you to make this your business.
And I also entreat you to take the position of the European Parliament into consideration at the IGC.
We have faith in the Commission, but our faith in the presidency, in the Council, could be greater.
But we nevertheless hope you will succeed. If you succeed, it will be a success for all of us, for the entire continent of Europe!
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, it is no cliché to say that, on the eve of the European Council in Feira, this is a decisive moment for the European Union.
The proof of this is the fact that in recent months there have been an increasing number of declarations, beginning with Heads of State such as President Campi of Italy, President Rau of Germany, prominent European politicians such as Helmut Schmidt, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, Jacques Delors and more recently, with great success, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Fischer, all of whom have related the debate on the Intergovernmental Conference with a debate which is of importance to all of us, that is, 'where is Europe heading?' .
I think that this is healthy given that we are on the threshold of the greatest and most ambitious enlargement the European Union has ever known.
This debate reflects the political will of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and also Parliament as a whole, who wish to achieve an ambitious agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference.
Since we have been talking about photographic technology, to use a cinematic analogy, I would say that we need to be involved in the writing of the script, we need a good ending, and we MEPs must not be cast as extras, but as lead actors.
With regard to the Intergovernmental Conference, it is important that President Herzog appears before the European Council in Feira.
I would like to point out that, when we talk about the community of values, - and there have been recent opportunities to do so, such as the formation of the new Austrian Government - we must demand that the Charter of Fundamental Rights be clearly included in the Treaty in order to fulfil the purpose of Articles 6 and 7 of that Treaty.
Furthermore, although the Treaty of the European Union recognises European citizenship, until now, economic and social, individual and collective rights have not been developed.
It is completely contradictory to have citizenship without rights.
It is therefore absolutely essential that the Charter of Fundamental Rights be incorporated into the Treaty.
In this process, the status of political parties is a means for them also to be protagonists on the European stage.
With regard to the convention, I would add one more element, and that is that, in the drawing up of the Charter, the convention is turning out to be a more transparent, democratic and open formula than the classic procedure of the Intergovernmental Conferences.
It is a formula for the future and I believe we should take it very seriously.
In this regard, I will add two decisive points.
One is, for Parliament, that decisions made by qualified majority should be accompanied by the codecision procedure, and the second point is that we must favour integration over closer cooperation, because what we are actually doing is integrating.
In the economic field, what we need is greater coordination of economic, social and employment policies.
We must implement the conclusions of the European Council in Lisbon, which are positive and have achieved a broad consensus in this Parliament as well, but this requires that we increase our capacity for economic government.
If we wish to create employment, if we wish to defend and fulfil the social agenda at a time when the European train is beginning to move faster and needs more steam, the last thing we need is for our work to be hindered by a strictly monetarist management with no economic counterbalance.
That is an absolutely decisive point for the coming months.
Lastly, Madam President, I would like to make a very brief comment: the report on the progress made with regard to enlargement has been important because it indicates how the problems are being overcome and how we have to maintain this will with the countries with whom we are negotiating.
I believe that it is also important for the Commission, with regard to the Balkans, to take account of the fact that there is a country which could become a bridge - having before been a barrier - towards the Balkans, and that is Croatia.
After the political change which has taken place, the Commission should intensify the negotiation of the association agreement with Croatia.
Finally, I would like to say a few words about the Middle East.
I have just returned from a visit to Syria and Lebanon and I welcome the fact that the President of the Commission is there at the moment.
I agree that the Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon is very important and we must support Barak, but we should also intensify our partnership with Syria and Lebanon.
We must have an active policy in order to contribute towards resolving the dramatic problem of the Palestinian refugees, and we can actively offer ideas and resources in order to ensure that the Middle East peace process will make decisive progress, which would also lead to a greater opening up and intensification of the Euro-Mediterranean process.
All of these elements are on the agenda and I hope that the European Council in Feira will make progress.
Madam President, I should like, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Group, to begin by recording our thanks to the Portuguese presidency and our appreciation of its willingness to engage constantly with this Parliament, with its committees and with its groups.
We deeply appreciate that.
It has helped us to develop and evolve a considerable appreciation of the enormous work which this presidency has put into the task.
I wish also to record our view that, subject to consolidating the path set out at Lisbon, at Feira and subsequent Council meetings, European summits and various Council meetings and in this House, we believe that Lisbon marks a major change, a milestone, in terms of the evolution of socio-economic policy reform in Europe.
It will stand the test of time as a testament to the work of this presidency.
You have remarked, Mr President-in-Office, that enlargement is the historic challenge.
We in my group very much believe that.
We believe that one of the measures of the consciousness of the depth of that historic challenge will be found in the reformist appetite of the states in the IGC.
I say on behalf of my group - and this is not the responsibility of a hard-working Portuguese presidency, but a failure of a collective will - that we regret the failure to date to make more progress on some of the basic issues.
I cite qualified majority voting as an example.
I would insist, as other speakers have, on this Parliament's view that we also need to link changes in voting procedure to changes in legislative procedure.
The codecision question is not simply a question of giving more power to this House.
It is the question of recognising, as we step towards improving the efficiency of the institutions, especially decision-making in the Council, that it needs checks and balances, to add not just efficiency but also representative democracy.
It is an appeal, therefore, for the quality of European democracy and not simply an appeal for the interests of Members of this House.
We are prepared to engage in the debate on closer cooperation and welcome the way it has been put to us by a number of important political personalities outside this House.
But there are some caveats: we hope that speculation on long-term reform will not be the enemy of necessary radical reform in the immediate period ahead.
We believe that the Monnet method has served the Union rather well.
We would certainly wish to reflect on any attempt to radically change it.
We believe it is important not to signal to existing Member States or to candidate states that any of us would contemplate a Europe of first- and second-class citizens in terms of statehood and membership.
I should like to briefly mention the question of Austria.
My group would appreciate it if the Council at Feira would try to make an evaluation of the quality of relations between the Fourteen and Austria.
It is important that as Fifteen we find the accommodating political climate to make the necessary progress in the months ahead.
We are not prescriptive in the manner of achieving this.
I add one footnote, but an important point of principle.
President Klestil came to this House and I had the opportunity to talk with him briefly during his visit.
I asked him to send to me a copy of the list that is available of persons and agencies in civil society in Austria who have become isolated from various educational, social or cultural events in Europe.
That is intolerable.
Regardless of intergovernmental diplomacy, it is intolerable that we should isolate the common citizens of a state.
Lest this should get out of hand, my appeal would be for a calm assessment of the matter, to make an evaluation and find a way forward.
If there is any way that we in Parliament and my group can assist, we are ready to try to do so.
Madam President, a paradoxical situation awaits state leaders at Santa Maria da Feira, as we could say that there the notion of the logistics of inter-state action is being irreversibly left behind in the development of the Union.
In our opinion, this is very welcome.
We warmly welcome the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and we would like it to be vibrant in terms of its content, and to become a legally binding part of the Treaties and a vehicle for a constitutional process in which the people are a central factor.
I also believe that the way in which the Charter of Fundamental Rights is being produced is radically new, and this could also be a way to amend agreements in the future to make them genuinely constitutional.
In our opinion, public opinion is at its lowest ebb now when it comes to the formation of military institutions for the European Union.
I would like, on behalf of my Group, to complain that barely any public debate is entered into in these matters, and that changes happen so fast that sometimes it feels as if not even all our governments can fully influence this process.
Relations between the European Union and NATO are converging so quickly that the non-aligned countries are in a very precarious situation, although they want to make a full contribution to the promotion of national security.
I would like to say that the Mediterranean strategy is a very important one.
I was recently in New York at a conference on women' s issues.
I appeal to the Commission and the Council that you make a serious bid to include the issues of women' s rights and human rights in the Mediterranean strategy.
I also warmly welcome the concrete action programme concerning the northern dimension.
It may at last help to make a serious attempt to resolve the immense socio-economic problem that exists, for example, in north-west Russia.
In that process we have to remember the issue of nuclear safety, which is a problem that affects us all.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, a year ago, almost to the day, the European elections were marked by massive abstentions, confirming that there is a crisis of confidence amongst citizens as regards the European institutions.
When you were preparing for the Portuguese Presidency, Mr President-in-Office, I presume you were determined to send a strong message to the public.
It was undoubtedly in that spirit that you decided to make the Lisbon European Council a special employment summit.
And you effectively relaunched the idea of full employment, emphasised the importance of lifelong training, and stressed the considerable challenge represented by the information revolution.
But without specific job creation targets, verifiable timetable commitments, clear choices about finance and tangible progress on the right of the social operators to be involved, all public opinion will remember about that summit will be the Blair-Aznar trademark.
Besides, Commissioner Bolkestein, to take one example, has not hesitated to refer to what he called the ambition set at Lisbon to require postal services to be opened up to competition, even if it means a head-on clash with the unions, many Members of Parliament and several Member States.
Under such circumstances, what is left of the social message you were hoping to send to the citizens of Europe?
I do not say that as an accusation against the Portuguese Presidency.
I think it is up to all the Member States to take up the challenge.
And what has happened to that other big idea intended to regain people' s confidence, the affirmation of a policy department for European business, faced with the influence of mega-firms and markets? There was a fascinating sight for all to see at the European Business Summit in Brussels last weekend, attended by the flower of European employers present and even the Microsoft management.
And as we know, the Commission did not content itself with sending eleven commissioners to it, which is unprecedented, apparently the Commission President also came out with some original principles there, to the effect that the law is the law, but in times of change excessively precise regulations should be avoided.
What does the political authority, the Council, think of this laissez-faire philosophy? If voices are raised in Feira, as I hope they will be, to distance themselves from the whole engulfing tide of liberalism and advocate real social and democratic reform, then please, Mr President, open the windows and doors of your summit wide, let that dissent be heard in full transparency and clarity and let a real comparison of options, which is so lacking today, begin everywhere in the full light of day.
I think that is the best favour Europe can be done today.
Madam President, President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the Feira European Council represents a fresh opportunity for this House to express its opinion on the various political issues forming the EU agenda.
I wish to highlight four of these, not all of which were referred to by Mr Gama.
Firstly, on Austria, clearly we do not harbour any sympathies for political extremism but we must condemn the ill-timed reaction of 14 Member States to the formation of a democratically elected government before this had even had the chance to start governing.
This decision did not respect the sovereign choice of the Austrian people and has also been ineffective.
The fight against racism and xenophobia must be conducted intelligently and forcefully, not with inflammatory measures which in the end simply produce the totally unwanted effect of promoting what they are trying to fight, in addition to spreading anti-European feeling.
The Portuguese Presidency was willing to take on the role of spokesperson for the Member States last February, wrongly in our opinion, despite the issue always having been a bilateral issue, as was clearly agreed between the 14 Member States.
Although this Presidency is not formally required to solve the problem, each of the governments should be required to assume its responsibilities.
In this way we would find out who wants to continue isolating Austria and who, recognising the error, wants to re-establish normal relations with this country, thus avoiding the 'misunderstandings' mentioned by the Secretary of State, Mr Seixas da Costa, between the Member States.
The second issue is the Intergovernmental Conference.
The distinctive act of the Portuguese Presidency should be to recognise and defend political equality between the Member States as a corollary to maintaining the balance between the large and small countries and between these and the European Union itself.
The participation of national parliaments in the institutional reform and in the conduct of European affairs should therefore be encouraged. In this way the people of each country can become involved more democratically and more directly in the process of building their Europe and in defining the Community decision-making methods.
With regard to closer cooperation, it must be emphasised that the principle of flexibility on which this is based and which we support should not prevent the guarantee that no Member State can be excluded from participating in this cooperation, except on its own initiative.
On the issues left unresolved by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the rule of one commissioner for each Member State should be enshrined, bearing in mind that the Commission has the monopoly on legislative initiative. It should be pointed out that codecision now involves a dual weighting of votes, one in the Council and the other in the European Parliament.
Instead of the intended generalisation of qualified majority voting, the retention of the unanimity rule must be defended in order to preserve the factors of political balance between the Member States regardless of their population or economic weight. These factors have been the key to the success of the cooperative, peaceful and developed Europe which we have come to know in the last fifty years.
The third issue is the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Its content is not in question.
The point is that the European Union does not need a Charter of Fundamental Rights and this is for the simplest reason of all.
The European Union does not have any significant problems with fundamental rights.
As we have said before, if there is no problem, the Charter is not a solution and if it is not the solution, then the Charter is a problem.
We hope that the Feira summit can come to the obvious conclusion.
There are no differences of opinion about the definition or application of fundamental rights in the European Union which cannot be solved by the various Member States in their constitutions and in the Human Rights Convention to which all countries, and the European Union, both before and after enlargement, are bound.
The fourth and final issue is enlargement.
Despite the progress announced here today, we feel that more than ten years after the fall of the Berlin wall the European Union should be showing a more consistent political will in terms of welcoming into the European fold the people of Central and Eastern Europe who legitimately aspire to share a common future with us. This would prevent them from feeling any disappointment or even frustration.
This will should be shown through three essential aspects: firstly the defence of the major European causes of peace, freedom and economic and social development which must underlie the negotiations with the applicant countries; secondly the promotion of the merit of each country as the only condition to be imposed on accession, and thirdly the maintenance of the economic and social cohesion of the current 15 Member States.
Austria, the Intergovernmental Conference, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and enlargement are four issues requiring four different responses.
This is what we expect from the meeting at Feira of the Heads of State and Government on the Portuguese Presidency.
Mr President, President Gama, Commissioner Barnier, in Feira, France will take over from Portugal to complete the IGC, the impossible reform of taxation on savings, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, defence policy, and sanctions against Austria.
Portugal has had a difficult presidency, with the collapse of the euro, and the collapse of the new economy, and, in Lisbon, had to deal with many problems like unemployment, the loss of Macao, the arrival of imitation port from South Africa, and even the arrival of the great criminal Rezala in your country, Mr President.
But you finished up well, 3-2 against England, which, after all, is the most important thing for the people.
Perhaps we should launch a plan for a transatlantic football cup in Feira.
It is perhaps our only chance of beating the United States.
Mr Bayrou and Mr Cohn-Bendit might have a problem deciding which team to play for, but in the end there could be a juicy transfer contract.
The broadcasting rights could be paid to Kosovo, Iraq or the victims of the construction of Europe.
Then Europe could be some use for once.
In official speeches, everyone welcomes enlargement of the EU from 15 to 30 Member States, but that objective is receding ever further, and more and more obstacles are being placed in the path of the unification of Europe' s nation States.
The Feira Summit will give the green light particularly to close cooperation between the most developed and the most federally minded nations.
They will create a State within the State and make decisions on behalf of everyone else.
The pattern is familiar from holding companies where a small majority runs a company which, in turn, runs another company.
In the EU, there is a Franco-German axis which will set the pace for a core EU which, in turn, will make decisions in the EU as a whole, as well as dictating legislation to the candidate States and, moreover, adopting legislation right under the noses of all the other nations of Europe.
Human rights, the arts, transport and foreign and security policy could also become areas for which European bodies such as the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe are responsible.
The common market could also, of course, be opened up to all European countries.
Nations such as the Baltic and Baltic Sea countries and the countries around the Mediterranean could also join together in different regional groups.
It ought to be possible for countries to remain outside those aspects of European cooperation they are better off without, as long as they do not in that way arrogate particular economic advantages to themselves.
It ought also to be possible for some countries to enter into especially close cooperation but, if this is to happen within the EU' s institutions, everyone must be asked.
Otherwise, cooperation must take place elsewhere.
My group rejects majority decision-making on enhanced cooperation.
We are in favour of greater flexibility, but we have no use for a self-appointed avant garde to take the decisions on our behalf.
I also think that the sanctions against Austria ought to be lifted.
Mr President, dismayed as I am about the continuing prejudgement of Austria by 14 Member States, I would like to stress that the Santa Maria da Feira Summit will be vital for the further development of the European Union.
For one thing, it will determine whether the Portuguese Presidency will go down in history as the presidency which upheld the wrongful decision on the part of those 14 Member States against Austria, or, instead, as the presidency which found a way out of this unfortunate period of disregard for European solidarity and lack of respect for the democratic processes within Member States.
Through the measures they have taken, the Heads of State and Government of the Fourteen have really burdened themselves with an enormous responsibility in relation both to Austria and to the Union as a whole.
Over a year ago, it looked as if the disastrously low turnout in the European elections would at least have the helpful effect of initiating a fundamental debate about the structure of the European Union.
Since then, things have largely returned to the normal routine.
If anything, European awareness has receded even further into the distance because of the arbitrary action taken by the Fourteen against Austria.
Feira should therefore give us an opportunity to bring the EU closer to the public, either by giving the Charter of Fundamental Rights legal force, or, which would be even more meaningful, by then stating its intention to include a list of competences in the treaties.
Instead, perhaps as a token gesture, and as a result of the difficulty of solving the core problems, it appears that the topic of "enhanced cooperation" is being given a higher profile.
This is despite the feeling already prevailing in the last parliamentary term, and still prevalent in this Chamber now, that this could lead to a two-speed or even multi-speed Europe, so that "enhanced cooperation" will sound the death-knell of the classic European Union.
In many respects, the Union is facing a parting of the ways, and the Feira Summit has a vital role to play here.
The programme we have heard today does not give us cause for any great hope.
Mr President, the forthcoming European Council in Feira will mark the end of the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union.
As a Portuguese national and a European, no one more than I hopes that this summit will achieve positive results which can take Europe forward and show the merit of the rotating presidency, whatever the demographic and economic weight of each country.
This is the very spirit of the European Union and it is only with this spirit that Europe will remain united.
There cannot be first or second rate countries or people.
Everyone is equal in the Union, in both their rights and duties.
Therefore, as a Portuguese national and a European, I am looking very expectantly to the Feira European Council to ensure that this summit is not just an obligation in the calendar or a transition point.
I have two specific hopes, which are also requirements, obligations and duties, for the assessment to be made of the Portuguese Presidency.
Firstly, we hope that the Feira European Council can definitively end the Austrian question otherwise this issue will remain a cloud over the Portuguese Presidency.
We do not understand why the President-in-Office has allowed confusion to arise between his institutional position as President of the European Union and his role as spokesperson for the bilateral decisions of 14 Member States against one.
If there is one person responsible for this issue it is the President of the European Union who must now correct his error.
He must rectify what could have been avoided.
The Portuguese Presidency assumed a special responsibility in this issue and we hope that it will solve the problem at the Feira European Council so that this does not become a sore point within the European Union.
The longer it takes to resolve this issue, the more difficult it will become to resolve.
Secondly, we hope that the Feira European Council can produce a plan, an idea or a project for Europe for the next Intergovernmental Conference. We also hope that the Portuguese Presidency will be seen to have made a significant mark in this respect.
A report or document is not enough.
It does not take ministers to produce reports and documents summarising positions. This only needs officials to attend the meetings.
We know that the work of the IGC will be drawn to a close by the French Presidency at the end of this year but it would surely be justified for ideas and projects to already exist which had the mark of the current Presidency.
The idea that everything will be decided at the last minute seems too much a justification of a fait accompli policy and must be rejected immediately.
This is even more worrying when everything is being discussed in public, without it being apparent whether these discussions are forms of pressure or academic debate.
We therefore hope that the Feira European Council will produce not just a statement of positions but also a plan, a project or an idea on the changes to the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner Barnier, ladies and gentlemen, we listened carefully to the speech which Mr Gama gave at the beginning of this debate. To a certain extent, this set out the points of the triangle which has formed and which continues to form the shape of the action and work of the Portuguese Presidency.
The first point of this triangle is extension and enlargement.
The second is cohesion and obtaining globalisation opportunities to strengthen the social fabric and modernise the economic fabric of the Union.
The third relates to external policy and the common European security and defence policy. On this third point we had the opportunity yesterday to debate the proposals with the Presidency and in particular the issues which will be on the agenda at Feira.
However, I cannot resist expressing our delight not only at the concrete steps taken in this area in terms of defence and security but also at the political visibility which this Presidency has had in cooperation with the Secretary-General of the Council and the Commission. It has achieved this by contributing to the resolution of regional conflicts and particularly by ensuring that there is not just one regional conflict mediator available in the world, namely the United States of America, but that Europe can also assume what is one of its main historic vocations and one of the decisive factors in the European project.
The second point of the triangle is social and economic cohesion.
We frequently take fundamental issues for granted, such as full employment, modernisation of our economic fabric, the need to create a European research area to generate creativity and the need for this creativity to be at the service of businesses, particularly new businesses in the new economy.
These points are too important to be glossed over and taken lightly.
The contribution made in this respect, with a new method of coordination and a new strategy, by the Lisbon Special European Council cannot be a priority for just one presidency but must be continued.
We are therefore reassured when we hear those who will mainly be responsible for the future French Presidency choosing the social agenda as one of the main priorities of their political action.
We must stress the need for the creation of more jobs to be a priority and an objective of the European Union.
With regard to the issues of racism and xenophobia, we must fight these at the roots and prevent them from gaining ground and being used in speeches of the extreme right which we all reject but which it seems that some only reject in speeches but not in practice.
My last point concerns the compliments already made, of which there cannot be too many given the efforts of the Portuguese Presidency in respect of the Intergovernmental Conference.
This Parliament contributed positively and constructively, as Commissioner Barnier witnessed, so that the work of the IGC could be started in February.
We all knew that this IGC would be reduced in size and even minimalist.
With the exception of closer cooperation, this IGC did not perhaps need to be given eleven months to be decided.
The problem with the IGC, given the leftovers from Amsterdam, is not just in terms of the debate but also the decision.
We demand and insist that the Feira European Council produces an extended agenda which will ensure that the European project does not mobilise just those who, like us, are committed to the institutional issues but can mobilise the real citizens of Europe who should be involved in the construction of a European project.
In this respect, the inclusion of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Treaty is an example and especially an objective which must be pursued.
Mr President, the drafting of the Charter has now reached a critical phase.
We have drafted 60 clauses and provoked 1000 amendments.
Frankly the Convention is staggering and may stall completely should the Feira Council fail to bring a fresh stimulus.
We have so far tried to reach a consensus across the body. This is now proving an improbable task.
We require a far more formal decision-making procedure of a parliamentary type.
This means voting, and voting by a qualified majority, as would be normal for the procedures within any modern European State.
Some representatives of the European Council cannot stand the prospect of being forced to vote and they disapprove of the nature of the Convention itself.
This prejudice must be suppressed by the Feira Council if the project is to succeed.
Mr President, the issues to be addressed at the forthcoming Feira Summit are predictable and have already been mentioned.
However, the results which will be obtained from this summit are of doubtful and limited scope, or at least some of them are, as the respective debate has gone beyond the institutions and this presidency and all eyes are now turned to Nice.
Even so, there is every reason for concern. The enlargement process is advancing and forms a specific argument for institutional change but its effects are being ignored and the measures needed in the various policies and in the budget are being swept under the carpet.
As the debate advances within the IGC, this is taking an unacceptable shape.
In the name of efficiency, attempts are being made to impose the new model of internal power and a markedly federalist option.
Due to the illusory danger of the small and medium-sized countries blocking decisions, the idea of giving the large countries a real and exclusive right of veto is gaining ground.
In the meantime, the essential need to involve the people in these debates is being forgotten, particularly those people who are most disadvantaged and distant from the decision-making centres.
In addition, closer cooperation is being gambled on heavily but it is being forgotten that this would require the establishment of a multi-speed Europe which would inevitably have a hard core and an unacceptable political directorate.
In terms of security and defence, with the fallacious argument of autonomy constantly being used and based on an effective concept of a politico-military block, dangerous routes are being taken towards the militarisation and reinforcement of the European power of NATO when this should be the time to definitively dismantle these blocks, to disarm and to cooperate in achieving lasting peace.
Strangely, this Presidency, which has allowed itself to be overtaken by events, has ended up by accepting all these concepts and, even worse, has actually applauded some of their mentors, even in the knowledge that the acceptance of their proposals and discussion methods would, taken literally, lead to the inevitable closure of the IGC itself.
The Presidency is insisting on the controversial Charter of Fundamental Rights, which it wants as a badge of achievement, but has forgotten the social issues.
Finally, this Conference is at least producing a positive result on Timor given that something clearly needs to be done to rebuild this territory and re-establish its independence.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the European Union will only be able to play its historic role if it decides to be more than the sum of its Member States.
As representatives of the European peoples without their own state, we want the European Union to be a community of citizens, on the one hand, and correspond to the reality of peoples and regions and their political entities, on the other.
This reality is not sufficiently recognised in the texts before us, if at all.
Some Member States are struggling just as hard with granting autonomy to these various cultural and political entities as with relinquishing competences to create a federal Europe.
In fact, this would mean a democratic U-turn which they do not seem to be prepared to make.
This is once again evident from the way in which the IGC is going and from the expectations which are being expressed for Feira.
In our opinion, the institutional reforms which it is hoped Feira will bring are sound but insufficient in our eyes.
We fear, for example, that the refusal to develop a true federal authority will result in a common foreign and security policy which cannot really function properly.
The establishment of a rapid reaction military force, therefore, threatens to become an expensive alibi which could only lead to the rapid militarisation of conflicts.
This would fit in perfectly with the new arms spiral which can be set in motion under the guise of the American rocket programme and with the backing of NATO and non-NATO countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Portuguese Presidency has certainly had a difficult task this semester, for it had to set in motion an Intergovernmental Conference which will finish during the term of the next Presidency and, therefore, there was every possibility that governments would be uncooperative and play for time so that the next Presidency would reap the benefits of the work carried out.
Certainly, we expected more from this first stage of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I feel that the Portuguese Presidency has done everything in its power and that all thanks are due to it for the part it has played and for organising the Lisbon Summit last March. In any case, the Summit opened major avenues with regard to the new economy and in relation to the need to boost the European economy which is being held back by dirigisme and is still oppressed by statalism which is sending unemployment up to double the rates of other economies such as the United States.
From the point of view of the institutions, the current impasse is certainly extremely serious.
Today, the European Parliament is going to call strongly upon the Portuguese Presidency to uphold the need for integration, for political will, or the European Union crisis will become a general crisis, as Minister Joschka Fischer quite rightly pointed out yesterday.
The warning signs are starting to become apparent in the paralysis which has affected us in recent months.
Therefore: yes, we must extend the agenda of the Feira Council, and yes, we must make changes to the Conference' s tasks, otherwise we will not achieve our objective of enlargement and we will not reach any of the objectives which the French Presidency will be expecting to achieve in Nice.
It has almost always been necessary in this House to recall the sound common sense to be found in the Norwegian fell-walkers handbook: 'In the event of a discrepancy between the map and the terrain, it is recommended that you be guided by the terrain' .
The institutions of the European Union, and this House in particular, have still not grasped this very elementary insight.
The Union train thunders off, taking no account of the terrain.
The terrain is the people in the countries of Europe who have long since got off this Union train.
We have no confidence in the Union project.
We disassociate ourselves from the ideological agenda, which the motion for a resolution calls ambitious and which involves a disastrous undermining of democracy in the Member States.
Deeper integration, the Treaty which is to become a constitution, the extension to the military, etc.
But it does not pay to ignore the lie of the land.
On 28 September of this year, the Danish people, who have the privilege of being able to vote in referenda, will send out a decisive signal when we vote against joining the euro.
This 'no' vote will, first of all, mean that our friends and brethren in Sweden and Great Britain will also vote against and, secondly, it will send out a crucial signal to the summits in Feira and Nice to the effect that one ought to be guided by the terrain, which is more important than the ideological map.
Mr President, in Lisbon, a common horizon was set, establishing structural reforms for the modernisation of our economy, in order to increase growth and employment.
However, our Union goes beyond the field of the economy. It is based on fundamental principles, listed in Article 6 of the Treaty, which many of us have seen called into question in one particular Member State.
All we democrats should be delighted to see the Union immediately reacting to any apparent threat to the values on which our co-existence is based.
In the PPE we have analysed - in my humble opinion, objectively and competently - the political situation in Austria and we have agreed, within our political family, on a system of conditions and of monitoring which we pray will make a positive contribution to the resolution of this crisis.
These have been lively months internationally.
I will now focus purely on the Middle East.
Israel, Syria and the Lebanon are living through intense time in terms of national politics, as has been said this morning in this House.
I believe that these circumstances offer a new opportunity for definitive peace in the region.
Therefore, we have to demand of our Heads of Government and of the European Commission that they take the responsibility which the circumstances demand of the European Union, by increasing our joint political presence, of course, but also in the economic field, concluding the associations agreements once and for all, and implementing the Barcelona agreements more quickly.
I hope that these events will remind us of our moral, historical, political and economic commitments to our Mediterranean neighbours, which must not be passed over in favour of other geographical areas.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I think the first thing we should do in this debate is thank the Portuguese Presidency for the way it is preparing to manage the debates at the Feira European Council, dealing with the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference.
Looking at the links between the various presidencies, that was an essential point, and the idea that 'enhanced cooperations' will henceforth be included on the agenda for that conference seems absolutely crucial to us.
We also think it is important to mention that the conference agenda is a full one, and we are expecting a positive result from it - a result which allows the European Union to operate in its present state.
Some major issues have appeared on the scene since the conference was launched.
They are essential, but they must not disrupt the conference agenda.
We will debate those issues whatever happens.
But these are two parallel exercises.
Nothing should distract us from our real task at the Intergovernmental Conference, otherwise the Union will no longer be able to take decisions.
To be able to take decisions, we need significant progress on qualified majority voting. Enhanced cooperation cannot constitute an alternative.
It is not a case of one or the other, we need both.
The inclusion of enhanced cooperation on our Intergovernmental Conference agenda will force us to prolong the period of reflection.
How are we going to organise democratic control of these 'enhanced cooperations' ? I also hope the Intergovernmental Conference agenda will be flexible enough for us to be in a position to add an item or two, here or there, depending on the progress of the work.
I am thinking, of course, about the status of political parties.
I am also thinking about the reform of Article 7.
Mr President-in-Office, as you engage in this important debate in Feira, let me tell you how concerned we are about the drafting of the Charter.
Our fellow citizens have high expectations of the content likely to emerge from the work of the convention.
In the current state of affairs, I see great division in the interpretation of the mandate given to the members of the convention by the Cologne European Council.
The debate initiated by President Herzog' s speech must clearly highlight the European Council' s commitment to the indivisibility of rights and the convention' s task of drafting a Charter rich in content, which respects the full Cologne mandate, civil and political rights, but also economic and social rights.
Many of my colleagues say the Charter must be incorporated into the Treaty.
Yes, but what use will it be to incorporate a Charter if the content is disappointing? First we must work on the content.
That is our main task.
But for that it seems to me we also need the debate at the Feira European Council to give us a political signal.
Mr President, I would, first of all, like to thank the Portuguese Presidency for their work, also because I have just heard Mr Vedrine, the future President-in-Office, say that he considers that the Charter of Fundamental Rights should not be binding and should not be included in the Treaties.
In my opinion, this is a very difficult subject, and one over which we will lament the passing of the Portuguese Presidency, for, at least on this point, it maintained a position which, if not crystal clear, was at least less negative.
The Feira Council will be a major Council if it is ambitious enough.
The Presidency has just announced that closer cooperation will be discussed at the Intergovernmental Conference.
However, there are many different ways of defining closer cooperation and, in our opinion, certain criteria must be respected.
The first is total observance of the acquis communautaire; the second is the abolition of the right of veto for every Member State; the third is full respect of the roles of Parliament, the Commission and the Court of Justice in the decision-making procedures with regard to the initial introduction and implementation of closer cooperation.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights should have been included in the subjects for debate, Minister. Let us hope that external pressure which will, I hope, increase, will be sufficient to bring it to your attention.
This Charter will only be a success if it has binding legal status - its content must, of course, be sound, but it must also have legal status - or it will serve absolutely no purpose - and if it includes other new rights such as the right to a safe environment and a number of fundamental social rights such as the right to belong to a trade union and the right to strike.
Thank you again, Portuguese Presidency.
We urge you to be present, active and vigilant in the matters which are important to you: some of them are very important to us too.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to call on the Portuguese Presidency to do anything, because that is not necessary, as they have worked to ensure effective cooperation.
However, I would like to encourage you to do certain things in Feira.
By way of preparation for the decisions to be taken in December, it should once again be made clear in Feira that the enlargement process needs to be tailored to each individual country, so as to bring those countries which are best prepared into the European Union at an earlier stage.
With regard to institutional issues, it should be made clear at the summit that enhanced cooperation cannot be used as an excuse for failing to introduce proper extension of qualified majority voting.
As far as we are concerned, the extension of qualified majority voting will be a yardstick for the success of the Nice Summit, and it is linked with Parliament' s involvement through codecision.
We need to achieve efficiency and legitimacy, that is very important.
Furthermore, we urge you to extend the mandate of the Intergovernmental Conference such that it can be concluded in Nice but also so that certain important areas can be included.
An attempt must be made to make the Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding.
It needs to be made clear that we need a voice in economic and monetary policy and democratic control of economic and monetary policy.
Progress should at least be made with streamlining the treaties and demarcating competences.
At this point I would particularly like to mention the common foreign and security policy, which follows on from the implementation of the conclusions of the Helsinki and Cologne Summits, and has made good progress under the Portuguese Presidency.
We wish to encourage you to prepare the way so that we take the right decisions over the next six months.
Mr President, I would also like to draw the attention of the Portuguese Presidency to the fact that the aim of Article 8 of our resolution is, from within the European Parliament, to make a positive contribution to resolving the running conflict with Austria.
Needless to say, we are addressing you personally in your role of Portuguese Presidency.
We want at all costs to avoid this becoming an EU-wide issue or its becoming a formal item on the agenda.
But we hope that you, in a creative manner and on an informal basis, will manage to find ways to talk about this at Feira.
My group chairman has made reference to the situation in Denmark, namely the euro referendum.
Let us also look at the possible consequences if your efforts were not to lead to solutions. In my opinion, we will need to establish in time within the European Union that Feira has been a historic opportunity to solve this issue.
I am therefore urging you to also assess the actions of the Austrian Government and to look for creative solutions in order to break the deadlock.
Mr President, many have already pointed to the need for enlargement and the fear that has swept countries in Central and Eastern Europe that, with regard to the IGC, too little progress is being made and that, along with this, the chance for rapid enlargement will pass.
I would advise you to let the political will prevail in Feira too in order to let the enlargement go ahead.
Finally, Mr President, good governance is all well and good in theory, but let us also look at what is happening in practice.
If the Kosovo agency in Thessaloniki is still caught up in so much red-tape that funding cannot be made available, then this is extremely serious.
I would also call on the Portuguese Presidency to find a solution to this.
Mr President, the forthcoming summit at Santa Maria de Feira has been preceded by an almost unprecedented number of pronouncements by key governmental figures.
German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, described the federation model which could be realised in approximately thirty-five years' time, if such a thing is desired, but not the first steps that have to be taken in its construction.
Tony Blair, whose government repeatedly prevents the taxation package from getting through, and José Maria Aznar, whose government blocks the notion of a European limited company, together declared that they approve of the economic structures of the European Union.
Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder announced that their countries are prepared for deeper integration as a core group, failing, however, to illustrate its nature or extent.
I wish to present my message clearly and to a purpose.
It is: let us attend first - and also -to the basic and important matters.
From the point of view of the citizens of the Union the most important issue at the meeting in Feira, too, will be economic growth and employment in the EU area.
That will best be dealt with by removing the remaining barriers to the real Internal Market and attending to the implementation of the Lisbon decisions, with state decisions and investment in infrastructure according to the Swedish model, without simply leaving everything to market forces and sighing with relief.
We may well ask whether the new spectrum network auctions, worth hundreds of billions of euros, arranged by the states, are promoting a consumer-friendly future for networking. In the remote regions of the Union we are still wondering, after the Volvo-Scania episode, whether the Internal Market even exists, or is it so, in terms of competition legality, that only companies in the midst of the market may take advantage of the economics of corporate growth, and the sparsely populated remote regions are the markets for these privileged few.
The candidate countries, on the other hand, must want to know what sort of Union they are joining in the ten or twenty year term.
The big visions, on the one hand, and the Austrian boycott, on the other, cannot be creating a climate of any great confidence in these countries.
Mr President, I believe that the quantity and quality of the speakers on the Charter of Fundamental Rights illustrates the importance this House attaches to it.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would urge you to see to it that the hearing you are to hold on the 19th with the President of the Convention, Mr Herzog, should not be a mere formality.
It is not simply a question of listening to the President of the Convention, but also of listening to the actual problems which are being faced by the Convention at the moment, of asking what the final objective of the Charter is and of knowing how it is going to proceed.
I believe that it would be of great help to the Convention if, in its conclusions, the European Council could make a statement on the future of the Charter, because it appears at the moment that its formulation has demonstrated that the Charter is of interest to the people.
The participation of the NGOs, the participation of ordinary people, clearly show that Europeans are interested in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The institutional questions of the Intergovernmental Conference are enormously important, but they do not reach the people.
I believe that the Charter of Fundamental Rights does reach the people.
The Charter must be the soul of the European Union and, therefore, at a time when we are discussing enlargement, I believe that the European Council - which has promoted the creation of the Charter - must send a clear political message: the Charter is going to be a very important element of the European Union. The Charter will be the soul of the European Union of the future.
Therefore, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I pray that in the Feira conclusions, which we will all read with enormous interest, the Charter will receive the boost that it deserves, so that the Convention will be able to complete its work properly.
In that way we will fulfil the mandate of Salvador de Madariaga, for whom Europe would become a reality only when it is a reality in the minds of the citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this was an important debate which has acted as a real stimulus for the Feira European Council.
I congratulate the quality of the interventions of which the Presidency will take due note as it should.
This European Council, as has been said, will have a very full agenda with the Intergovernmental Conference, the approval to include closer cooperation and other items.
We must be aware that the whole Conference is set out according to the decisions taken in Amsterdam.
This is not the definitive Intergovernmental Conference on the big reform of Europe. It is a Conference which has a specific mandate of technical refinement, particularly in terms of the decision-making systems, in order to allow enlargement.
We also cannot allow third countries to believe that an excessive extension of the Conference is deliberately intended to guarantee an excessive delay in enlargement.
The enlargement of the EU will be broadly consolidated at the European Council. This meeting will include a fairly positive progress report, a fundamental step forward for the Common European Security and Defence Policy, the application of the Information Technologies Programme for Europe, the adoption of the Action Plan for the Northern Dimension and the approval of the Common Strategy on the Mediterranean following the first two Association Councils with Palestine and Israel.
It will also cover the definition of the external action programme in the area of justice and internal affairs, the White Paper on food safety, the European Charter for Small Enterprises, some important resolutions on economic and financial affairs, the entry of Greece into the euro and, as we would also want, a happy resolution of the problem of income taxes.
It is a full agenda but one which shows how the European Union is advancing on all fronts.
The EU has not been paralysed.
On the contrary, it is advancing on both its internal fronts and also in external relations, which is extremely important.
The issue of the Charter of Fundamental Rights has been raised here.
I must stress that the European Union has adopted a methodology for drawing up this Charter which involves a convention.
The work of this Convention has not yet been completed.
The Convention will have to complete its work and decide on many aspects which have not yet been decided. These include determining whether the Charter is just a document setting out principles or whether it is to be incorporated in the Treaties, whether or not the Charter will be one of the primary examples of closer cooperation, how this will be applied to the citizens, whether just to native Europeans or to other residents in EU countries, or to foreigners or even illegal immigrants - this is a problem which has not yet been decided - how it will be linked to the European Convention on Human Rights and how it will be linked to the national courts and to the existing or remodelled European courts.
All these points are extremely important.
I understand the appeal made in this House but must point out that this is not a direct responsibility of this European Council.
In order to take this issue forward, we have decided to invite the Chair of the Convention, Mr Herzog, to contribute to this high-level exchange of views which, I am sure, will stimulate the Convention' s work of drawing up the Charter.
I must also say something on the Austria issue.
As you know, this is a bilateral issue between 14 countries, which are also Member States, and one country which is a Member State too.
However, this is not an EU issue or one for the EU bodies.
No decision has been taken by any EU body although, naturally, we are all Member States.
The Portuguese Presidency has always taken the precaution of making this distinction clear, that this was not an EU issue.
On one hand this was to protect the normal operation of the European Union and the achievement of the EU agenda and on the other so as not to create any obstacle for Austria with regard to its full participation in the life of the EU and its bodies.
Whenever any failure to abide by this principle has been pointed out to us, the Presidency has informed the bodies or institutions concerned to stop them acting in this way.
This has been a constant concern.
The Portuguese Prime Minister and I have been in contact with the other thirteen countries and with Austria and we are still doing this.
I have asked the Members of this Parliament who raised the issue to be aware that it is very difficult to adopt a balanced approach to this problem if an immediate solution is demanded.
I realise that the attitude adopted will have to include an element of phasing and that it is very difficult for a solution to this issue to be based on a diktat. A development may occur based on the maintenance of constant political attacks on people, political personalities and governments or even based on threats about stopping the operation and decisions of the European Union.
In order to produce a window of opportunity in this issue, the political rhetoric that has surrounded it must be curbed, toned down or put on hold for the time being.
Naturally, measures which were adopted in a diplomatic context through the consensus of the 14 Member States will only be able to change also through consensus between these 14 countries.
The conditions for this consensus need to be created and we believe that, in this respect, Austria is creating conditions in order to solve this problem.
Conditions also need to be created so that the 14 Member States can establish a new consensus.
This must be borne in mind.
I would call for your moderation and I very much respect the correct way, as Members of this Parliament, that you have raised this problem in this session and have considered it but it is also necessary to create the conditions so that there can be a window of opportunity.
The following concept must be taken into account. The Feira European Council is an EU body and no window of opportunity can be opened at this meeting because we have to deal with the agenda and the areas of action of the EU.
However, we can deal with this issue in a bilateral context before the European Council - and this is partly what we are trying to do - or after the European Council.
But please do not expect the Feira European Council to deal with an item which is not on the agenda and which, if placed solely on the shoulders of the European Council, will end up prejudicing the arguments to which this problem has very rightly given rise here.
To conclude, the assessment of our Presidency will be made here next week by the Portuguese Prime Minister.
For my part I must also thank France and stress the way in which we have cooperated over the transition between presidencies.
I especially thank the European Parliament, which has stimulated us in its role as a real parliamentary institution, throughout our Presidency, for all its cooperation on the European agenda and for the dynamic, lively, creative and constructive way in which, during these six months, it has carried out its duties as the parliamentary body of the Union.
Thank you, Minister.
I wish you and your government a successful conclusion to the Portuguese Presidency.
Mr President, I should just like to thank the President-in-Office for the care and attention, as a politician, that he has shown in listening to the debate and the concerns that have been raised.
Mr Cox, I think that, with your words, you are indeed voicing the feelings of many.
I now give the floor to Mr Barnier, on behalf of the European Commission, for another brief intervention.
Mr President, having listened very carefully to all the speakers, I would like to add a few words despite the very full agenda. Thank you for the quality and frankness of your speeches.
Mr Poettering and Mr Barón Crespo, I hereby confirm the commitment I made to you yesterday on behalf of the Commission on the status of European political parties.
The Commission will shoulder its responsibilities.
It will take the initiative.
And, with the support of your President, it is planning to use the next trialogue to identify the ideal approach, in agreement with the three institutions, but in the meantime we are getting the initiative ready.
I would like to say a word on Croatia to Mr Barón Crespo.
You are right to highlight the strategic nature of the country, formerly part of Yugoslavia.
Mr President, the Commission is currently preparing for negotiations which should open before the end of the year for an association and stabilisation agreement with Croatia.
In July we will have already drawn up the directives for undertaking these negotiations.
Similarly, we have already begun to negotiate an agreement with Macedonia and we are thinking about negotiating another with Albania.
Thirdly, I cannot accept the suggestion from Mr Wurtz that the Commission is somehow being swept away by some kind of liberal tide.
Mr President, the Commission is doing its duty and shouldering its responsibilities.
This is particularly true when it is faithful to the guidelines and decisions of a European Council.
That is what we are doing after Lisbon.
But we are also doing so, Mr President, by remaining faithful to the letter and the spirit of the Treaties, and especially to one article in the Treaty which I have good reason to remember, the article guaranteeing the specific nature of public service missions.
These are the two requirements we are working to, and which we have worked to in particular in drafting the directive on postal services you alluded to, where I think a good balance has been achieved.
It is more surprising that you criticised some commissioners for holding a dialogue with employers.
It seems to me that we need to have such a dialogue with employers, and with trade unionists too, and non-governmental organisations, if we are to do our work properly.
Mr Wurtz, you know very well that Brussels is not the only place, and I smile when I say this, where politicians of right or left meet employers.
Finally, I share the opinion expressed by Mr Cox and Mrs Berès on the deadlines that need to be respected in the great European debate.
I am grateful to a number of major operators in the construction of Europe - Mr Fischer recently, and before him, Mr Delors and others - for opening up the debate.
The worst things for the construction of Europe we are so committed to, ladies and gentlemen, are silence and secrecy, and in negotiating this reform with others, I have feared that silence.
Mr Fischer and others have provided oxygen, a horizon.
We need that oxygen, we need that horizon for the great European debate.
But please, let us respect all the stages and work through them one by one.
The first deadline to be met, as you said, Mr President, is the reform deadline so that we are in a good position to undertake enlargement and also so that other reforms can follow.
So let us keep to those deadlines and dedicate ourselves, in the few months that lie ahead, to success in the negotiations.
I am not just saying complete them.
I am talking about success.
Success in Nice.
And, as far as I am concerned, the quality of reform is more important than the timetable.
Concluding successfully is more than simply concluding.
With the Portuguese Presidency coming to an end and the French Presidency about to begin, we must now put all our energies into achieving real reform at Nice to make enlargement possible, as well as other reforms later, if need be.
Many thanks, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today.
Mrs Kinnock, I thank you for your words.
I think that you have spoken on behalf of many.
We feel great solidarity with this Sakharov Prize winner and I will pass on your request to the President of this Parliament.
I now give the floor to Mr Lechner on a point of order.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will not re-open the debate on this. We discussed and concluded this matter yesterday.
Good, we have taken note of this.
Vote
If I am taking the floor, it is because there are two serious errors in the Danish translation of point 8 concerning Austria.
The words of the English text, which I understand to be the basic text, are: "asked the Council presidency".
In the Danish text, the words "Council presidency" have been translated by the word "Rådet", and there is no mention of the presidency.
This is a serious political and translation error.
But, in addition, there is another error, namely that the following words have been included in the English text: "with all the parties in the EU concerned", and those words are quite simply not included in the Danish text.
I would urge that a correct Danish translation of the text be obtained, for I find it a very serious matter that, in point 8 concerning Austria, these two mistakes have been made which, from a political point of view, completely alter the sense.
I have consulted the services involved. They will take note of this and will make the necessary corrections.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0505/2000) by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the provision of a common European security and defence policy, with a view to the European Council of Feira
With regard to paragraph 38:
Mr President, there is a small translation problem in paragraph 38.
Reference is made to a 'European interparliamentary body on security and defence' .
The word 'organe' has been correctly used in the French version.
Initially I had proposed the term 'forum' , but discussions in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy produced a compromise and we agreed o use an equivalent of the French 'organe' instead.
In the English version the word should be 'body' , and, probably, 'Gremium' in the German.
My knowledge of the other languages is insufficient.
But I wanted to highlight that point so that the various language versions can be corrected.
Many thanks, Mrs Lalumière, we will take care of this. We will make every effort in order to make sure that this is done.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution
on the outcome of the Special Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations entitled "Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century" of 5-9 June 2000
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
President.
I now give the floor to Mrs McCarthy on a procedural motion.
Mr President, as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market I object to Mr Lechner's attempt to mislead this House on an interim court ruling that has come out of the European Court of Justice on the ban on tobacco advertising, not on health warnings, which is what we voted on yesterday.
Mr Lechner should be aware that the judgement is interim and that we will not have a final judgement until the autumn.
Furthermore, the Legal Affairs Committee ignored the advice of Parliament's legal services that the legal base for this directive was correct.
I can understand Mr Lechner's frustration as he and some of the members of his group worked closely with industry to try and frustrate this resolution, but we cannot have the politics of the press release overturning decisions of this House.
Thank you, Mrs McCarthy.
I have taken due note of this.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Murphy Report (A5-0154/2000)
Mr President, congratulations to Parliament for adopting this directive which compels firms which are overdue in settling their debts to add on 7% interest.
I voted for the motion and the result is successful, but I would like to know how much longer we will have to wait before Parliament votes for interest and compensation to be paid in cases where governments delay pension payments? There are delays in pension payments in all 15 of the Member States.
And why should citizens who receive late payment from public bodies not also receive compensation of 7%? I voted for the motion in the hope that this further step will be taken as well.
Mr President, at second reading I voted against both the reduction in the payment period from 30 to 21 days, and against the proposed interest level of 8%.
I am still convinced that an interest rate at the 6% level originally proposed by the Council would suit business better.
I cannot say that I am entirely in agreement with the compromise reached in the Conciliation Committee, but in view of the importance of this directive for cross-border trade and the operation of the single market, I finally voted for the version now before us.
First I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and my colleagues who participated in the conciliation meetings and had to battle hard with a Council of Ministers more than a little reluctant to progress legislation on late payment, which is an absolute scandal considering the economic problems oppressing SMEs.
It has to be recognised that late payment is the chief cause of the cases of insolvency threatening the survival of many firms, making them bankrupt, which translates into job losses.
The national regulations aimed at managing this problem differ considerably from one Member State to another.
Hence the interest in adopting legislation aimed at harmonising the provisions relating to late payment, due dates and the legal rate of interest at European level as soon as possible.
A legal framework needs to be established to discourage late payment and give creditors the right to fair compensation in case of late payment.
That is the purpose of the directive we are debating today.
The negotiations on this text were difficult.
A common position was finally adopted on 29 May last.
The European Parliament emerged from those long negotiations victorious on several crucial points.
The differences of opinion between Parliament and Council focussed around the difference in treatment between the public and private sectors, which have finally been placed on an equal footing.
As regards retention of title, Parliament fought to have this provision included in the text of the directive.
Thus, the Member States must ensure that the seller retains title in the goods until full settlement, while complying with the applicable national provisions.
As regards the anti-abuse clause, the European Parliament refused to give precedence to freedom of contract to the detriment of the creditor.
The directive therefore provides that, when an agreement mainly serves the purpose of procuring the debtor additional liquidity at the expense of the creditor or where the main contractor imposes on his suppliers and sub-contractors terms of payment which are not justified on the grounds of the terms granted to himself, such provisions may be considered to be factors constituting abuse.
As to compensation, apart from the cases where the debtor is not responsible for the delay, the creditor is entitled as a result of this agreement to claim reasonable compensation from the debtor for all recovery costs incurred.
This compensation may include the creditor' s borrowing costs or bank overdraft, administrative recovery costs paid for by the creditor company, recovery costs of debt recovery organisations and recovery costs arising from legal action.
On interest, Parliament and the Council reached agreement on a rate of 7% above Central European Bank rate, making a total of 10.5% at the present time.
The European Parliament wanted to reduce the period after which interest is due for late payment to 21 days from the date of receipt of the invoice rather than 30 days as envisaged by the Council.
In the end the period of 30 days was maintained, but with the proviso that it may give rise to action for compensation if it constitutes a manifest abuse against the creditor.
To conclude, the result of the conciliation was satisfying as a number of the European Parliament' s wishes are incorporated.
I have therefore voted in favour of this text.
- Although I am aware that what I do here is of no interest to other Members of this institution, my real audience is my own constituents.
It is to them that I wish to explain my actions.
Accordingly, I have to state for the record - for reasons I am not allowed space to expound on - that I do not believe this directive can or will address the real problems of businesses.
Mainly, however, I am against this directive because it brings to the fore the foreign nature of the system in which the UK is embroiled.
The central fact is that it was first presented to this assembly on 17 September 1998.
That was before the last European elections.
In other words, we have a new Parliament installed by a new electorate.
But despite that, the directive goes on.
This shows the change of Parliament was cosmetic - a charade.
All the electorate has been allowed to do is shuffle the deck chairs on the deck of the Titanic.
Meanwhile, the project continues to sink into the bureaucratic bog.
I hope I am here to see it finally disappear but, in the meantime, I have voted against this measure.
- I congratulate my Labour colleague, Simon Murphy, on his recommendation to approve the agreement reached with the Council on tackling late payments in commercial transactions.
This demonstrates yet again Labour's commitment to create an environment for entrepreneurs and businesses to flourish across Europe.
Late payment often suffocates many credible businesses, particularly small and medium-sized companies.
Consequently, many are tragically forced into receivership, through no fault of their own.
This measure, however, will help allow small businesses to fight back.
Creditors will be entitled to charge a statutory interest rate of 7% on their debts, encouraging debtors to pay early.
Furthermore, if debts are not repaid, creditors will also be able to claim compensation form debtors for recovery costs.
By introducing greater certainty in business transactions across Europe, small companies will gain confidence in trading, not just across Britain, but right across the European Single Market.
Membership of the Single Market the largest trading bloc in the world, is crucial for jobs in the North West.
Nearly 40% of small and medium sized enterprises in the region have trading links with other EU Member States.
As a part of the EU Single Market, they have access to over 370m potential customers - over 6 times more than in Britain alone.
In a few years' time, following the enlargement of the European Union, they will have access to a potential 500m customers - as big as the American and Japanese markets put together.
The Labour Government is determined to make the Single Market work for British business.
By giving UK businesses the confidence to reach into these markets, this measure will contribute to this aim and will increase trade, growth and employment across both the North West and all of Britain.
Maaten Report (A5-0160/2000)
Mr President, congratulations to Parliament for also voting in favour of keeping derogations regarding the importing of alcoholic products and the continued application of excise duty payments.
I voted against this measure.
I often imagine that when the Ministers for Finance see one of us, a citizen - many of which are pensioners - drinking wine, whisky, vodka or any sort of alcohol, they say "Goody goody!
More duty.
This will be good for the balance sheet" .
But is it right that the tax systems of our States should benefit every single time we drink a glass of wine? I do not think so!
I therefore voted against the motion.
- (SV) We have voted against approving the Commission' s and the Swedish Government' s agreement gradually to abolish the derogations concerning the rules governing imports of alcohol and tobacco into Sweden.
The Swedish Government has caved in to the supremacy of EU bureaucracy and abandoned its previous position to the effect that questions relating to excise duties are to be decided unanimously by the Council.
Its action is also a breach of the pledge which the yes side issued before the Swedish referendum.
This pledge meant that the powerful temperance movement did not campaign against Swedish membership of the EU, which was probably the decisive factor in Sweden' s becoming a member of the EU.
We would nonetheless welcome much of what is contained in the Maaten report, which admits clearly and unambiguously that alcohol policy is a health-related issue and not, as the Commission sees it, solely a question of the internal market and of agricultural policy.
In our view, the conclusions of the Maaten report are nonetheless contrary to the very spirit of the arguments which permeate the report.
- (SV) Ever since it joined the EU, Sweden has been allowed to have different quotas for imports into Sweden of alcoholic drinks and tobacco products by individuals for their private use.
As Minister for Agriculture, I was involved in negotiating this derogation from Article 26 of Directive 92/12/EEC prior to Sweden' s entry in 1994, and this derogation has already been extended once.
I can make no other assessment than that, for Sweden, this was a fixed-term derogation which would one day come to an end in favour of current Community directives.
Through its actions, the Swedish Government has helped obscure this fact in the course of the debate of recent years.
This has also meant that, in spite of knowing the implications of the derogation, it has avoided taking those measures required for the purpose of adjusting both its domestic market and those tools which Sweden has used as part of its alcohol policy.
Following its informal promise to the Commission to approve the proposal, the Swedish Government must now appreciate the need to adjust its alcohol policy and find other methods of controlling alcohol consumption in the country and of limiting alcohol-related harm.
It is time the Government realised this.
In view of the outcome of the accession negotiations and the Social Democratic Government' s handling of the issue, I see no reason for doing anything other than vote in favour of the report.
- (SV) Since Sweden' s entry into the EU, the Swedish Christian Democrats have worked to make the Swedish derogation in Council Directive 92/12/EEC, relating to the import of alcohol, permanent.
We believe that this is a prerequisite of being able to continue to pursue the successful alcohol policy which, in Sweden, has led to a lower level of harm caused by alcohol than in other EU countries and so to a good standard of public health.
Now that the Commission is rejecting Sweden' s argument and placing the emphasis upon the operation of the internal market, we fear that alcohol policy will sustain great damage in Sweden.
There is also a lack of consistency when, on the one hand, exports of Swedish snuff to other EU countries are banned for health reasons and, on the other hand, appeal is made to the free market, and health aspects are set aside on the issue of imports of alcohol.
We think it very unfortunate that the Swedish Social Democratic Government has chosen not to pursue this issue more vigorously.
An assessment of the derogation by the courts against the background of Sweden' s argument on public health grounds would have been an option which is not now being made use of.
Because we consider that both the Swedish Government and the European Commission have acted incorrectly on this issue, we choose to signal our rejection of their approach by abstaining in the vote on the extension to Sweden' s derogation from the Council Directive.
Meeting of the European Council in Feira (RC B5-0522/2000)
Mr President, I would like to make it known, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, that we have abstained in the vote on the final resolution, despite the fact that we clearly support the resolution on the issues which are within the competence of the European Council in Feira, that is to say, the Intergovernmental Conference and the economic and social agenda.
With regard to the case of Austria, we understand that, firstly, the European Parliament' s resolution, which was voted for at the time, is still in force, since no new events have occurred; because it is not a Community issue as such, but has been raised by the fourteen Member States; because, furthermore, my Group supported President Klestil' s appearance and we took good note of his positive proposals, which are in fact related to issues which come within the competence of the Commission - which is not present - such as the application of Article 7 and the strengthening of our community of values.
We believe that this inclusion has not been appropriate in terms of improving the process, it is untimely, and furthermore, we believe that the best way to create new circumstances is not for one party, as Mr Galeote himself has said today, to set conditions and also demand guarantees from a party which belongs to the same group and is in the Austrian Government. Their content has not even been considered.
Furthermore, it is not acceptable that we have to endure a campaign of provocation, threats and insults not only by members of the Austrian Government, but also by the political forces which support it.
This is not the best way to improve our relations.
For that reason - because we believe that we have to continue working for the European Union and we do not believe that the best approach is to take shortcuts with regard to such a serious issue - for that reason, we have abstained.
Mr President, there seems to be a trial of strength going on behind the scenes, during preparations for next week' s Feira European Council, between those who want to extend the Intergovernmental Conference agenda and those who want to cut it.
That split conceals another: the first group includes the supporters of a great federalist leap forward and realists who are beginning to wonder if a totally integrated Europe - economically and politically - really amounts to the correct solution faced with enlargement and the democratic deficit.
It gives me some satisfaction to say that the second category looks like winning, which suits us fine.
The only point that needs to be added is acceptable to us, as it is about increasing the possibility of so-called 'enhanced cooperation' .
We prefer to call it 'differentiated cooperation' , to make it clear that this does not mean driving Europe up a one way street to federalism but instead leaving Member States free to explore, applying variable geometry, the cooperation they consider most in line with their vision of the future and their interests.
Anyway, whatever the term used - 'enhanced' or 'differentiated' cooperation, the main thing in our view is to take the first step and open discussions, breaking the now totally deadlock of the European system.
I would add that we think the new differentiated cooperation should be applicable to security policy so that it can be developed on a voluntary basis and in respect for national sovereignty.
Finally, if the Feira Council is going to deal with the Charter of Fundamental Rights we want it kept off the IGC agenda so that it can take the form of a statement not incorporated into the Treaty.
As I have already had occasion to say in this House and in the forum responsible for drawing up the Charter, it would certainly be useful to proclaim our common values - if it is done well - but we must not deprive our peoples of the freedom to define the rights of their own citizens themselves.
Mr President, I am sorry you are forced to stay here for a while - I know you are hungry. But - and I am speaking to you as a Vice-President - it just goes to show the extent to which this period of explanations of vote attracts Members' attention and how appropriate it would be, in the restructuring you are currently looking at, to examine whether explanations of vote on major issues should not take place - as used to happen - before the vote and not at a time when everyone gets bored because all we can do is stay here listening to each other.
I am speaking on behalf of the Italian Radicals in this explanation of vote to justify our vote in favour, stressing that, in spite of everything, this resolution contains important points, including the need for dialogue, the need to get past the stage of pseudo-sanctions against Austria - which has not been constructive - and make sure the Minutes state that the vote also includes an important request we formulated last April and which we now reiterate: review of the seat of the institutions.
Parliament has spoken very clearly.
Yesterday we gave a practical demonstration of our position by abolishing the Friday sittings.
I think it is high time account was taken in the Treaty reforms of our determination to insist finally on a status that makes us masters of our own procedure, and masters of our own decisions as to the seat and meeting place of our institution.
That is what we said and that is why we voted in favour of it.
Mr Dell' Alba, with regard to the first part of your intervention, we are indeed in the throes of internal reform of this House.
The debate has started and your opinion on the explanations of vote will also certainly be of value in due course.
Thank you for your reaction.
Mr President, I noted that Amendment No 11 included the proposition that the Community should take action in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed actions cannot be adequately achieved by the Member States or - and I emphasis this - their constituent states with legislative powers that have been conferred on them by national constitutional law.
I thought that part of the amendment was very valuable although there were other aspects of it which I could not support.
I regret that the topic of subsidiarity is substantially missing from the Feira resolution.
On that account I did not vote for it.
Mr President, we in the Swedish delegation of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats are working for a rapid enlargement of the Union and do not wish to delay the Intergovernmental Conference.
The intention in the resolution is that the Charter of Fundamental Rights should be incorporated into the Treaty in the course of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
The Charter is required for the purpose of providing the Union' s present and future citizens with constitutional guarantees.
There are left-wing forces which wish to introduce social objectives into the Treaty.
Our view is that it may damage the Union to introduce economic and social rights which it would be difficult for the courts to guarantee and which would affect the national tax burden.
Mr President, I am speaking briefly to justify my abstention.
I am naturally in agreement with the main points in the text voted on, covering the institutions, the follow-up to the Lisbon European Council and aspects of fiscal policy and certainly food safety problems.
But, given the circumstances, I could not vote in favour of paragraph 8 on Austria.
I think the President-in-Office of the Council clarified matters greatly as to the method followed by the Fourteen, specifically asking Parliament not to consider voting to allow the contacts currently taking place between the foreign affairs ministers to achieve a result.
I am astonished at this and I agree with what Mr Dell' Alba said, about the low regard in which Parliament holds the concept of parliamentary debate, because if it had been possible for the groups to discuss the matter and adopt a position - and there reform was important - after the speech by the President of the Council, I am certain that the vote would not have been the one we have recorded.
That is why I felt I had to abstain.
As we vote on the joint resolution on the Feira Summit, I want to pay great tribute to the importance of the work of the Portuguese Presidency, its readiness to listen, its dynamism and its approachability.
Although, unfortunately, not everything I had hoped for appears in the joint resolution - in particular, the need for a framework directive on public services - I find many of the proposals acceptable, and on all those points it is undoubtedly one of the best resolutions we have dealt with in the current political composition of the European Parliament.
Unfortunately, the right wing has introduced a paragraph concerning Austria into this resolution.
I find that quite unacceptable at a time when 'warning lights are flashing' and there is evidence to show that the alliance with the Austrian extreme right is beginning to gain a lot of ground.
It is now more than ever essential to fight fascists, neo-fascists and their accomplices.
The very future of Europe is at stake.
And that is why, whatever the quality of a text devoted to Feira, and the work and conclusions of the Portuguese Presidency, there can be no question for me of validating, even marginally, even implicitly, a shameful alliance with implications which could prove tragic for Europe.
Hence my militant abstention on this text!
Shame on the sorcerer' s apprentices!
Now, 60 years after the Nazi invasion of 1940 and 55 years after the end of a horrible European and world conflict, how can some people, for base electioneering purposes, have 'such short memories' ?
- (NL) The Belgian Socialist MEPs have abstained from the vote on the resolution concerning the preparation of the Feira Summit.
The adoption of an appeal to the Heads of Government to review their attitude towards the Austrian Government has left the doors wide open to the extreme right wing in this government being trivialised.
This is unacceptable to us.
The Belgian MEPs of the PSE Group regret that, for these reasons, they were unable to assent to this otherwise sound resolution.
- In general the Liberals support the motion, but we would have preferred a shorter and sharper text that focused exclusively on the politics of the European Council, and had clearer messages for the heads of government.
The ELDR Group has requested split votes on various items within the Joint Motion for a Resolution, as follows: in paragraph 7 we seek to delete the second half of the sentence in order to reinforce the imperative of enlargement; in paragraph 9 we seek to remove the last clause because we know that the Lebanese government is indeed trying to reassert control over all its territory, but is prevented from doing so by forces beyond its control; in paragraph 14 we seek to delete the reference to Nato on the grounds that all EU member states are directly concerned with this issue; in paragraph 19 we seek to delete the reference to the Observatory of Industrial Change; and in paragraph 24 we seek to focus the text on the political message needed for Feira.
- This resolution contains many points that I fully support on the IGC, on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and other aspects of Community policy.
However, I find myself unable to support it because of the inclusion of paragraph 8 on Austria.
I was proud of the EU when it imposed sanctions on Austria when the new coalition formed because of the views and actions of the Freedom Party: a party whose policies have xenophobia running through them like Blackpool through rock; a leader who has praised Hitler and the Waffen SS, refused to condemn terrorist bombings against Roma and congratulates Nazi war veterans for keeping to their principles.
Since then little has changed.
Freedom Party ministers continue to echo Nazi party slogans and rhetoric of the Thirties and Forties.
It is too soon now to allow Austria fully back into the European fold.
It will send the wrong message to the Freedom Party and their fellow travellers elsewhere in Europe.
In memory of the victims of yesterday I will vote "no" to their collaboration with the criminals of tomorrow.
.
(EL) Workers cannot and must not be under any illusions here.
Greece' s accession to the third phase of EMU, which is to be decided at the European Council in Feira, will only reinforce anti-labour and anti-grass roots policies, despite the Greek Government' s attempt to portray it as a triumph for our country.
As everyone knows, Greek workers and the entire Greek population have already paid a very high price for Greece' s full accession to EMU and, following the Feira decisions, they will continue to pay the cost of "sustainability" , i.e. staying in EMU, while large corporations and monopolies continue to step up their level of exploitation and increase their profits.
The Feira Council is being called upon to promote the interests of big business even more resolutely and to promote the speedy militarization of the European Union by creating a European army whose main mission will be to intervene militarily in third countries and lend support to capitalist forces within the Member States of the EU itself, at the expense of the grass roots movement.
This summit will strengthen measures to safeguard the "internal security" of capitalism by steering and crushing the grassroots movement when the EU Schengen Agreement is incorporated into the EU.
The new revision of the Treaties being promoted at the Intergovernmental Conference will be the main item on the agenda at the Feira Summit.
The aim is to legislate for the basic interests of monopolies, thereby making conditions even worse for workers, for the weaker sections of society and for the less "powerful" countries.
Abolishing the veto, extending qualified majority voting in decision making and, more importantly, instituting "enhanced cooperation" and "flexibility" will all serve precisely these monopolistic interests under the guise of "efficiency" , thus giving powerful countries a fast track for exploiting both countries and people.
Further dismantling of the social rights of workers, starting with the right to social security, is on the agenda of the Feira Summit.
The report by the "group of wise men" and the decisions which will be taken will aim, on the pretext of combating unemployment, to sacrifice the rights paid for by workers with blood, sweat and tears on the alter of increased profits for the monopolies and "competition" , budgetary discipline and support for the euro.
Workers will not fail to respond to these developments; they will oppose the interests of the monopolies and they will defend their own rights.
As always, the Communist Party of Greece will be standing firmly by their side.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted neither for nor against the joint resolution concerning preparations for the European Council in Feira on 19 and 20 June 2000. We have done this because the opinion sends out some important political signals concerning the follow-up to the Lisbon Summit in March, namely about employment, the economy and combating social exclusion with the aid of the open coordination method, as well as about work on preventing unfair tax competition and efforts to secure safe food products.
However, the resolution also contains a long section about the current Intergovernmental Conference and, in this connection, we should like to repeat that our vote in favour of the overall resolution does not alter our basic view that extending the agenda and turning the Treaty into a constitution, with the Charter of Fundamental Rights incorporated into it with binding legal effect, will not enhance the possibility of achieving a satisfactory result in Nice in December, something which is absolutely crucial if the enlargement is to be able to go ahead once the countries concerned are ready.
We have not, therefore, been able to vote for these sections, viewed in isolation.
In paragraph 8 on Austria of the resolution approved on the Feira European Council, this House has ended up adopting a very hypocritical position which is in total contradiction of all the positions which it has previously taken on this issue.
In my opinion, it is not a question of being against the principle of returning relations with Austria to normal.
It is a question of the right opportunity and time for this political change to occur.
A resolution on the European Council should specify that it is up to the latter to take this political change in hand by taking advantage of its meeting in Feira.
However, this is not what the text does. On the contrary, it asks the Portuguese Presidency to do this.
Clearly, at this point four days before the European Council, it is now the responsibility of this summit, as a whole and as the highest body of the Union, to take advantage of this historic opportunity to update the EU' s policy on Austria.
Giving this task to the Portuguese Presidency is an attempt to place all the responsibility for what may happen on the shoulders of one country which cannot, at the wrong time and on its own, solve a problem which concerns us all.
This is not to mention the reasons for this approval which are difficult to understand given the basic policy. After all, what has changed in Austria?
Has the government fallen? Fortunately this small part of the text does not invalidate the rest of its content which I regard as positive.
Unfortunately it was clearly much more to serve the petty interests of the Portuguese component of the PPE that this group adopted this position than due to the belief in and usefulness of this particular vote.
- The EPLP voted for the resolution on the Santa Maria de Feira European Council on 19 and 20 June 2000 but does not support paragraph 19.
The UK Government position, which is supported by the EPLP, is that it is better to allow this type of negotiation to be undertaken by the works councils.
It is our belief that it would be more effective to advance the status of the European Companies Statute.
I voted in favour of this resolution, but I would like to draw the European Council' s attention to how vital the adoption and full-scale implementation of the northern dimension programme will be at the Feira Summit.
I believe that the northern dimension action programme will help to increase regional stability and security everywhere in Europe and strengthen economic and political developments in Europe' s northern regions.
- (SV) I have voted against the resolution for the following reasons:
1.
The resolution says nothing about the need to give priority to sustainable development and the integration of environmental issues into all the policy areas of the Community.
2.
The resolution does not repudiate militarisation of the EU and does not acknowledge that every military operation must have a UN mandate.
3.
Nor does the resolution make it clear that the Charter of Fundamental Rights must not come into conflict with other international conventions or with the International Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
4.
The resolution does not emphasise that enlargement must be given absolute priority.
Security and defence policy (B5-0505/2000)
Mr President, Mrs Cauquil and Mrs Bordes, who are also present, join me in this explanation of vote.
We have voted against this resolution to affirm our opposition not only to a common European army but to national armies as well.
The past half-century shows that the armies of the great imperialist powers of Europe, in alliance or each on its own hunting ground, were not there to defend the people, but to carry on wars of pillage.
For example, the French army was used for the colonial wars: Madagascar, Indo-China, Algeria.
Since these colonies became independent, it has intervened to support infamous dictatorships, especially in its former African colonies.
The other former colonial powers of Europe have done the same in the same situation.
The recent intervention by European armies against Serbia and Kosovo is certainly nothing to be proud of.
The author of the report is careful not to specify which enemy the future European army is intended to fight.
So what is it for and who is it against, if not to allow the great powers of Europe to be able to continue, on behalf of the European Union as a whole, their Community political game in Africa, the West Indies or elsewhere?
Consequently, not only do we refuse to vote in favour of any resources whatsoever, human or financial, for this army, but we protest against its very existence.
Mr President, I would like to make an explanation of vote on behalf of my delegation and say right away that we intended to vote for Amendment No 26 and paragraph 27.
We are, of course, anxious for crises to be solved by peaceful means and for peace to be maintained.
After the terrible events over the last century none of us wants military conflicts.
Nevertheless, the crisis in the Balkans has demonstrated the shortcomings of the European Union.
We therefore support the creation of an effective common security and defence policy for the Union, with its own identity.
We need to learn from our experience with the war in the Balkans, so that a disaster of this kind cannot be repeated.
The Treaty of Amsterdam made the Petersberg tasks the responsibility of the Union.
That leaves Article 5.
We support the idea of incorporating this article as a protocol to the EU Treaty, but we would like to emphasise that the sovereignty of the Member States must be preserved when it comes to decisions regarding participation in military interventions.
For several months, the European Union has been treading an extremely complicated path, punctuated by the Cologne, Helsinki and Lisbon Councils and tomorrow by the Feira Council, to try to put in place what is called a 'common European security and defence policy' .
The exercise is complicated, first because it is necessary to try to clarify relations with NATO, and because the United States not to mention other countries in NATO which are not members of the European Union, like Turkey, are not making our task any easier.
Everything is also made more difficult by the determination of the Union institutions to extend the scope of this new policy, by presenting it as 'a further step towards European political integration' , in the words of the resolution we have just voted on. In other words, it is another step towards supra-nationality.
As regards the scope of this security policy, there is deliberate ambiguity.
It would not, strictly speaking, be a matter of so-called Petersberg-style tasks (crisis prevention and peacekeeping in third countries, excluding defence of national territory or vital external interests), but the European Parliament constantly insists on raising a much larger objective, a common security and defence policy in the broad sense. In fact, that is the title of the resolution voted on today.
Ambiguity is increased by the decision to implement common military resources intended to prevent crises (for example, the European rapid reaction force, of 50 000 to 60 000 men, agreed at Helsinki), which means the 'integrationists' can constantly play with words and put it about that there is some question of implementing a defence policy in the full sense of the word.
In terms of both method and objective - political integration or cooperation - we think it is counterproductive to be constantly brandishing the prospect of a unitary and integrated supranational power.
To act effectively we need to establish voluntary cooperation, with variable geometry, where Member States of the Union with an interest in this or that action would participate - and there is no reason why non-member states should not participate too, where appropriate.
To summarise, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group believes in advancing towards common security actions, provided we do not get boxed into a rigid institutional system, but instead establish flexible procedures based on voluntary input and respect for national sovereignty.
We are open to the idea of common security actions, which we believe Europe badly needs.
But at the same time we must remain very clear about the conditions for them. It is impossible to hand over power of military decision (even if we are initially told that only Petersberg tasks will be involved) to very imperfectly democratic European institutions - and so they will remain, to human eyes, because there is no such thing as a European people.
There are three consequences of that: the national democracies must always have the last word, so the operations concerned must remain in an inter-state context; decisions can in no case be taken by majority on issues of principle; the system must be based on the possibility of 'differentiated actions' permitting each people to exercise its freedom of choice without discontinuity.
I hope the Feira Council will decide to add this issue to the Intergovernmental Conference.
- (DA) We are voting against the overall resolution, which emphasises the desire to develop a military dimension to EU cooperation.
We cannot support the general approach of the text, which acknowledges the need for a militarisation of the EU' s cooperation on defence and in that way fails to respect the non-aligned countries of the Union.
Nor can we support the more concrete proposals in the resolution, which call for increased defence budgets in the individual Member States and coordination in purchasing military equipment and establishing an actual army for the Union.
We can support the need to draw up a common code of conduct for arms dealing between Member States and between Member States and third countries, but we cannot support the creation of an internal market for the armaments industry, as also proposed in the resolution.
We are against the proposal for a European army which, in the name of stability, democracy and humanitarianism, would in fact defend the EU zone of influence and protect the interests of multinationals on a global scale.
A renewed arms race at local and regional level, along with an increase in military budgets will mean a remilitarisation of the world.
Furthermore we are opposed to a 'high-tech' army for the EU, just as we reject NATO.
Together, Europe and the United States are seeking to impose this army as the military arm of the IMF-World Bank-WTO triangle.
The peoples do not need an army; they need a social policy which guarantees their welfare.
That will not happen without a radical break from neo-liberalism.
The military intervention in Kosovo has increased the poverty of the peoples and exacerbated xenophobia, thus proving that stability and democracy were certainly not the objectives of that war.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats support the proposal for a European defence and security policy, which is to be discussed at the Feira Summit in Portugal in June 2000.
The proposal includes both visionary and rational proposals for a common defence and security policy.
There are, nonetheless, a couple of areas where the Danish Social Democrats believe that care ought to be exercised.
Careful consideration ought to be given to the way in which the European Parliament is to be involved in the area of defence and security policy.
We are uneasy about the European Parliament' s influence in this area, for we believe that defence and security policy is predominantly an intergovernmental matter.
The proposal paves the way for the increased use of majority decision-making, over and above what is laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam in connection with a common defence and security policy.
We see no reason for extending majority decision-making into this area.
With regard to necessary future investments in new technology and new equipment for the military, we think that these should be made possible through changes to the order of priorities in the national defence budgets.
There is no need to increase the overall European defence budgets.
We would also refer to the Danish reservation concerning common action in the defence sphere.
- (SV) The main features of the text which has been debated today by the European Parliament are also to be found in a proposal which was presented by Mrs Lalumière in May to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and which was voted on in June.
In accordance with the ordinary way in which matters are debated, the issue will again come up for debate at one or other of the European Parliament' s part-sessions this autumn.
I find this duplicated work peculiar and difficult to understand. I have therefore chosen categorically to abstain in all votes on this subject, which is so important and fundamental to a non-aligned country like Sweden, blessed with peace since 1814.
- (SV) It is extraordinary that the European Union should wish to implement a security policy designed to prevent and solve conflicts.
The European Union possesses political, economic and diplomatic resources for this purpose.
True, the resolution says it is desirable that non-military measures should be used first, but the possible use of military forces is not excluded.
I cannot support the proposal that military resources should be used to defend the European Union' s interests.
In my opinion, it should only be possible to take military action following a decision in the United Nations' Security Council.
It is not enough just to follow the principles of the United Nations' Charter.
I cannot, therefore, support the resolution.
"Women 2000" (RC B5-0562/2000)
Mr President, I would first of all like to make it clear that I am speaking on behalf of the Dutch members of the EDD Group.
We voted against the present resolution by way of expressing our dissatisfaction regarding the conduct of the European Parliament delegation during the UN General Assembly.
We received the news that Mrs Theorin, chairperson of our delegation at that assembly, campaigned formally and informally on behalf of the EP for the introduction of the right of women to free abortion in all UN countries.
On behalf of the EP no less, she is exerting pressure on other countries, including Poland, to concur with the EU opinion.
As MEPs, we disassociate ourselves from this opinion and consequently do not wish to take any responsibility in this respect.
We are of the firm opinion that unborn life, as a gift from our Creator, is worth protecting.
Moreover, the European Union has no authority at all under its treaties to force candidate countries to adopt specific legislation in this area of policy.
We would therefore make it absolutely clear that the right to free abortion cannot be presented to the candidate countries as a criterion for entry into the EU.
Meeting in plenary session in Strasbourg, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the results of the Special Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations entitled 'Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century' of 5-9 June 2000 held in New York and at which Astrid Lulling, Member of the European Parliament, participated.
As co-signatory to that resolution, Mrs Lulling made the following statement in Strasbourg:
'I have just had the opportunity of attending the special General Assembly of the United Nations called from 5 to 9 June 2000 in New York to evaluate progress since the last UN world conference on women, which took place in 1995 in Beijing, on the implementation of the Beijing Action Platform.
The Assembly was attended by some ten thousand women, making it the ideal meeting place for analysing the achievements of the last five years and comparing attitudes - which are very different moreover - on the need to accelerate implementation of the Beijing Platform.
Although we are not euphoric, the results of the Assembly are acceptable.
Because of certain reactions in this Parliament, both today and yesterday during the debate, from some colleagues who were not in New York - reactions obviously based on misinformation and misunderstanding - I want to make it clear that the Members of the European Parliament present in New York did not speak on behalf of this Parliament without a mandate. Actually, they were not entitled to speak, given the procedure at special General Assemblies of the UN.
It is the Presidency of the European Union that speaks on behalf of the Union at that kind of international conference.
So there are no grounds for putting words into the mouths of the Members of the European Parliament present in New York on mere intent.
Certainly we were active behind the scenes, if I can call it that, and we had informal but useful meetings with Members of Parliament from the Member States and the candidate countries for membership of the European Union attending as part of their national delegations.
For my own part, I contributed with my colleagues in the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, to dispelling an impression which prevailed notably among certain third country delegations, that, for the women of the European Union, in terms of gender equality, sexual orientation and abortion were the absolute priorities in the 21st century.
Because people were putting words into the mouths of various parties, particularly Poland' s, I would like to specify that as regards gender equality, Poland is adopting the acquis communautaire and is not calling into question the provisions of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam on discrimination based on gender.
But the Treaty of Amsterdam does not oblige Poland to legislate on abortion.
It can be recommended to do so, but subsidiarity applies.
I wanted to make that clear to dispel any misunderstanding about what really happened in New York.
It is true that the militants of a certain sexual orientation - which is fortunately only a problem for a tiny minority of women in Europe and the world, and which is not mine - are much more visible, even in New York, than the millions of women who, because of their economic and social situation, have other preoccupations and priorities when it comes to gender equality.'
The final document from the Beijing + 5 conference which has just ended in New York is a victory for women.
After very acrimonious negotiations, realism in appreciating the needs of women and respect for their dignity carried the day.
But there was strong political pressure from the United States, Japan and the European Union, and strong ideological pressure from feminist NGOs generously financed by the Western countries.
How, for instance, can the pressure exercised by the European Union on Nicaragua and Poland be justified?
How can so-called 'sexual and reproductive rights' be weighed against development aid or deadlines for joining the European Union? The pressure on the poorest countries was so great that dozens of members of the American Congress and national or European Members of Parliament officially dissociated themselves from their delegations, expressly condemning their positions.
Along the same lines, it is a real education to note that, although they are all officially specialised in the position of women, the NGOs with the largest financial resources for political communication systematically militate in favour of notions of 'reproductive health' to the detriment of more serious and urgent needs, thus offering unfailing support to the European and American delegations.
In any case, if this conference was ultimately a success for women all over the world, that was mainly thanks to the realism and resistance of the poorest countries, which were able to by-pass Western ideological polemics about sexuality to promote practical measures against poverty - like 'micro-credit' , against international trafficking in women and against lack of education and medical provision.
If the voice of the poorest countries was finally able to make itself heard last Saturday around 4 a.m. despite pressure of all kinds, we owe that to respect for essential principles, the only guarantees of realistic and moderate international policy, I mean the principles of national sovereignty and equality between States.
In this case, the UN showed renewed respect for the rules of consensus after ignoring them for such a long time, and that respect made it possible to focus the negotiations on the real needs of women.
We are glad the European Union has applauded this victory for women and respect for national sovereignty by adopting the final document.
- There will always be differing opinions, this is the essence and vitality of democracy.
The more sensitive the issue, the greater sensitivity must be shown in dealing with it.
This was obviously not the case, neither in New York during the Beijing + 5 conference, nor in our debate in this Parliament yesterday.
In the treatment of Poland and other candidate countries, fundamental principles of democracy and subsidiarity and the political values of this Parliament, as indeed of the new Europe we are in the process of creating, were not respected.
Amendments put forward by the EU delegation in New York do not and could not represent a consensus position of the Member States of the Union: on the contrary, certain of these amendments flagrantly contravened the constitution of my country of Ireland, and I have no doubt the legislative position of other countries which seek to diminish rather than promote the practice of abortion.
Regarding paragraph H of this resolution, "sexual rights" is an undefined term not included in Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty nor in the Beijing + 5 Platform for Action.
This new undefined term causes great difficulty for many countries including mine, as it could for example imply support for the sexual rights of paedophiles.
I will therefore abstain from voting on this resolution.
We have just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Robert Schuman Declaration, the father of Europe.
We would surely want to uphold the spirit, the ideals, and the values which formed the foundation of our European unity.
Part of the Schuman legacy is to respect the diversity of Europe and the emerging cultures of the developing world.
Consensus should be our motif, not imposition or intimidation.
(The sitting was suspended at 2.05 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Mr President, I did not intend to interfere with the order of business, but something very serious is happening in Parliament and I feel I must make you aware of what is going on. In the forecourt of the Parliament a shameful demonstration is - probably still - in progress.
A large group of young Italians with Lega Nord flags are calling out insults to the effect that the Italian flag should be burnt and shouting "Down with the Italians!" . They are also shouting unrepeatable insults at the President of the European Commission.
I am under the impression that the groups of visitors who come here to Parliament and who meet with the Members do so with the intention of familiarising themselves with the European institutions, not to insult them.
I imagine that the Member who invited them did so in order to make them aware that we spend money on making the European citizens aware of the process of European integration.
I therefore feel that the President of Parliament and yourself should be informed of this matter, so that the Member who is responsible for this group will have to answer for this incident.
I do not see any Members who belong to the Forza Italia party in the Chamber. Forza Italia is the largest political force of the Italian Freedom Alliance, which includes this party, the Lega Nord, which is now part of their coalition.
This matter must be dealt with, for it is unthinkable that we should have to put up with this type of demonstration taking place inside Parliament in the name of democracy, open doors and freedom.
Forgive me Mr President, but I feel that these matters must be dealt with while the time is ripe, for otherwise, if we do not speak out, these demonstrations will end up being perceived as the norm.
Apart from anything else, the Italian tricolour is flying up there among the flags which are part of the symbols of the European Union.
Mr President, I have asked for the floor in order to add to Mrs Napoletano' s words. In addition to the indignation of my group and myself, as soon as I realised what was happening, I contacted the security services but they failed to respond.
This would appear quite a serious matter, for, in my opinion, there should always be security staff on duty at Parliament, and they should be able to intervene when incidents such as this demonstration take place and put a stop to them.
This is a very serious matter, Mr President, and it should be explicitly condemned, as Mrs Napoletano said - but I do not want to be drawn into a lengthy discussion here - we must find out who invited these delinquents to Parliament.
Structural Funds (1998)
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0138/2000) by Mr Turco, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the European Commission' s 10th Annual Report on the Structural Funds 1998 (COM(1999) 467 - C5-0325/1999/2211(COS))
Mr President, Commissioner, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has examined the Commission' s 10th annual report on the Structural Funds regarding the implementation of operations during 1998.
As you are aware, the sound and efficient implementation of the Structural Funds is of fundamental importance for the credibility and effectiveness of the Community institutions, in particular the European Parliament, considering its monitoring functions.
Our report, which was adopted unanimously, takes note of the fact that all the resources available for 1998 were fully taken up but it also records that there are still considerable divergences in implementation between Objectives, between the Member States and between regions, and that this full take-up was only made possible by mechanisms for offsetting over- and under-implementation, which, in fact, made the implementation of the budget non-transparent.
We therefore hope that the new rules for the next programming period will make it possible to ensure transparent financial management and avoid the usual yearly liquidity bottlenecks;
With regard to coordination, it urges the Commission and the Member States to coordinate Structural Fund policy more closely with the Cohesion Fund, the other regional development instruments and the various European Union financial instruments such as trans-European networks and the EDSP.
This is because we are convinced that we can only reduce the structural divergences between European regions and areas through coordinated action.
As regards additionality, which is one of fundamental principles underlying the Structural Funds, we call upon the Commission to find as soon as possible instruments to improve verification of compliance with additionality and more transparent procedures for assessing additionality.
We strongly urge the Member States to ensure that this principle is strictly upheld.
We consider it essential, moreover, in respecting the partnership principle, for management decentralisation to be accompanied by a clarification of the responsibilities and roles of the various partners and by a clear distinction between the functions and responsibilities.
Furthermore, we have noted that the results of the interim evaluations are frequently not comparable or quantifiable because unsuitable and inadequate indicators have been employed, which is why it is absolutely necessary for us to have objective criteria and more suitable assessment methods for assessing the results of the programmes.
We have also noted that, although there was an inexplicable and dangerous fall in the number of on-the-spot checks carried out under the regulation in 1998 compared to the previous year, they have brought to light a whole range of shortcomings, from an insufficient number of monitoring schemes in certain programmes to the co-financing of non-admissible expenditure.
As a result, we consider that the Commission' s checks in 1998 were, unfortunately, still unsatisfactory, and that they must be sufficiently strengthened in order to guarantee proper implementation of the Structural Funds regulations.
In our report, we therefore call upon the European Commission and the Member States to adopt a number of actions as soon as possible to strengthen controls and to keep Parliament better informed of measures adopted to increase transparency and improve the implementation of the Structural Funds.
Since this 10th annual report was especially concerned with measures to promote local development, we have noted their strategic importance and emphasise their considerable contribution to local development.
Finally, Commissioner, I would like to stress that our report is consistent with the opinion you expressed on 5 June last in Brussels, when you stressed that, in the interests of transparency, even the smallest European taxpayer has to know where and how Community resources appropriated to the Structural Funds are spent.
I will leave to you the task of assessing whether a Commission report such as the 1998 report allows, I will not say the smallest, but any of the European taxpayers to satisfy their desire.
Mr President, lastly, I would like to explain my position regarding the seven amendments which will be put to the vote on Friday.
I, myself, have tabled a technical amendment, the third amendment, which corrects a transcription error likely to cause confusion and make paragraph 28 inconsistent with the rest of the report.
I also accept Amendment No 1 and Amendment No 2, since they are in line with the report.
However, I cannot accept Amendment No 4, Amendment No 5, Amendment No 6 or Amendment No 7, for I consider that they misrepresent the rest of the report.
In any case, I would like to thank Mr Nogueira and Mr Larrea, the authors of these last amendments, and publicly acknowledge that, although I do not support their approach, I do concede that their argument is valid and well structured.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I want to congratulate Mr Turco on the excellent report he has presented.
He has put his finger on the main problems encountered in implementing Structural Funds credits, and he has clearly indicated what we want to see in this area in the future.
In particular, I want to thank him for taking account of the opinion of the Committee on Industry in the final version of his report, especially as regards the issue of job creation.
For my part, Mr President, I am going to concentrate on just point: the need to coordinate Structural Fund interventions with other Community policies, an issue the rapporteur is likewise very concerned about.
The Committee on Industry believes it is particularly important to avoid conflict between competition policy on the one hand and regional policy on the other.
This is not an easy problem, and it is not a new one either.
I shall be particularly grateful to Commissioner Barnier if he can tell us whether the Commission has looked at this aspect of the problem in the context of the re-examination of competition policy, and if he could tell us where the Commission has got to in its thinking on this subject.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that my Group supports much of what is in Mr Turco's report and is certainly wholeheartedly behind the general thrust of the report.
However, I have chosen to speak in today's debate because some of the issues discussed in the report are at the core of what must be addressed if the European institutions themselves are to lift the cloud of mismanagement and waste which hangs over them from previous times.
The only way we can hope to change the public's perception of what we are doing here is not only to achieve better value for money but also to be seen to be doing it.
It is only if we can clearly show that the Commission's use of money is managed in a sound and prudent way that we can hope to win back the trust that has been lost over recent years.
The report with which we are concerned is, of course, retrospective to 1998.
Many positive changes have taken place since that time, not least since the new Commission took over.
It is crucial, therefore, that we flag up the inadequacies that were inherent in the system and ensure that we go further in our aim to make better use of European taxpayers' money.
This is especially so in the Structural Funds, which directly touch the lives of so many of our own citizens.
We have before us an opportunity to concentrate the minds of both the Commission and the recipients - Member States and others - of this valuable EU assistance, on the criticisms identified in the report in many areas concerning the allocation of funds and the lack of monitoring of their use.
A key remedy for addressing this very real problem is the effective use of exit strategies as a prerequisite to the awarding of funding.
None of us here would personally enter into a business or private financial agreement without being sure of how and when that obligation would come to an end.
All too often that is what has happened in the past.
Until clearly defined, planned and effective monitoring of the success or failure of a funded scheme is introduced, it remains all too easy for ill-thought-out and badly managed projects to waste precious resources, to continue to throw good money after bad.
Failure to act will result in the particular problems highlighted in this report.
It will also result in the problems we have seen over the allocation of ever-scarcer resources within the Member States.
Nowhere is this better highlighted than in the current delays, obfuscation and confusion in the United Kingdom over where to put this valuable money.
This is particularly so in my home region, the West Midlands, where this delay is causing a great deal of uncertainty to local communities and the local taxpayers, who are having to underwrite the projects to the tune of many millions of pounds, pending the resolution of the problems I have outlined.
Therefore, what is required is a simple benchmarking of projects to compare and contrast their effectiveness, to be undertaken perhaps by an independent auditor and used in conjunction with a clear and well-planned end-programme which will allow the termination of poorly operated projects and put an end to on-going waste - in essence, to introduce private-sector disciplines into this system.
Only when the European institutions and the Member States adopt ideas such as these, will we again gain the reputation for financial probity that we desire and which the public demands.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if economic and social cohesion is rightly called the core of European policy, then it is safe to say that the Structural Funds act as its pacemaker.
We are talking today about the functioning of a political instrument which we have since, with Agenda 2000, replaced with a new and we hope better one.
Nevertheless, it is the duty and the right of this Parliament to review the Structural Funds by means of their annual reports and to derive political requirements from those reports, even if they appear to have been overtaken by events.
We believe that the rapporteur, Mr Turco, has done an excellent job on both counts in his report on the 10th Annual Report on the Structural Funds, 1998.
The many amendments made by Members of this House have substantially enhanced the report.
I do not want to repeat here those criticisms which have been recorded and can be checked in writing.
Mr Turco and others Members have already reiterated these criticisms.
However, I would like to strengthen one demand, and that is the demand that in its next report the Commission should devote a special section to reporting on the measures which it has adopted in response to criticisms voiced by Parliament in previous years.
The 11th Annual Report should, therefore, at the same time include a progress report.
Because time is short, I only want to address four problems and approaches which we think point to the way forward.
Firstly, the period covered by the report, 1998, was notable for the fact that it was only possible to achieve total implementation of appropriations for the entire programming period by means of last-minute measures.
Experience has shown that we need special strategies for the initial and concluding stages of programming periods and a flexibility mechanism for crisis situations like those which arose in 1997/98.
Secondly, the principle of additionality is one of the main pillars of our structural policy, and I do not want to undermine it.
Nevertheless, there is a yawning gap between rhetoric and reality.
For example, in the case of Objective 1 areas, it is frequently only partly true to say that there is an independent structural policy to which the European component is added.
This is often because all the funding available in political terms has already had to be committed to guarantee adequate cofinancing, and rightly so.
However, when it comes to the principle of additionality, this means, if I may resort to a metaphor, that it is like me being given a suit by Europe to complement a tie that I can afford myself at regional level.
The forthcoming enlargement will add to this problem.
So as I see it, we need a new definition of additionality. This might perhaps be something along the lines of additional European added value, which is already a prerequisite for the framework research programmes and for the Community INTERREG initiative, for example.
Thirdly, we believe that the principle of partnership with local and regional authorities and with the two sides of industry is heading in the right direction and should be further strengthened.
We need both more local initiatives and pacts and a regional debate about priorities for a given region.
In this way our structural policy itself will contribute to regionalisation.
Structural policy simultaneously reacts to and creates regional structures.
Fourthly, controls and assessments are the alpha and omega of any structural policy that has the noble objective of making itself superfluous as quickly as possible.
Even if there are marked structural differences between regions, this should not stop us from looking for common evaluation methods and indicators.
Only in this way can we make horizontal comparisons between strategies and projects between Member States in individual areas of activity.
The previous speaker mentioned this problem.
Benchmarking should also be possible in this policy area soon.
Mr President, Commissioner, this is a very positive Thursday for the European regions in general and for the outermost regions in particular, since this Parliament is dealing with reports as thought-provoking and important as those of Mr Turco and Mr Ripoll, which refer to the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund respectively, as well as the assessment of the transparency of their implementation.
It is therefore worth remembering that regional and structural policy in the European Union as a whole is a response to the specific disadvantages confronting certain European regions and, in particular, the outermost regions such as Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands and the French overseas departments.
In fact, Articles 158 and 159 of the Treaty set the objectives for economic and social cohesion, giving regional policy the task of reducing the existing differences between the less developed regions and the others.
It also leads to the special treatment of the outermost regions which is covered in Article 299(2) of the EC Treaty, which will allow the Union to continue, consolidate and strengthen its action in order to achieve a specific system of measures that will take account of all the limitations suffered in those regions, whose situation is special, without damaging the coherence of Community law and the internal market.
For these reasons, Mr Turco' s report on the 1998 annual report on such important financial instruments as the Structural Funds is also relevant, since it opens up the possibility of strengthening the effective and decentralised application of those Funds and also because it opens the way for discussion and reflects the specific situation of these outermost regions with regard to establishing criteria for admission to the Structural Funds and their inclusion in Objective 1.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as has already been mentioned, the problem with this report is that it amounts to a retrospective review of a chapter in the history of the Structural Funds which has long since been closed, during the previous parliamentary term in fact.
This looks pretty boring, and the press have already gone home.
Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the seriousness of the issues involved, as the central point of this discussion should be to learn from the mistakes of the past.
In view of the challenge of an enlarged Union, which will in future have 28 or more Member States, we can no longer afford not to use European money for European objectives such as employment, sustainability, environmental protection and equal opportunities in an efficient way.
This was simply not the case during the last period.
I am emphasising this because I have the impression that the new programmes are once again being approved because of pressure from the Member States, although they do not provide for optimum use of funds in accordance with Europe' s objectives.
And this Parliament has been calling for optimum use of funds for years.
We cannot afford, as we did in 1998, to spend EUR 30.4 billion only to find that unemployment is increasing again in the poorer regions.
I would like to cite an example that underlines my doubts.
The Commission is simply not throwing its weight behind the need to make European objectives the real guiding principle of Structural Fund policy.
This House called for this report to include a chapter specifically devoted to equal opportunities.
The three sentences at the beginning are not enough, we asked for a specific chapter, so that we could monitor this area of EU policy separately and effectively.
Equality of opportunities is not just the remit of the ESF, it is the remit of all the Structural Funds.
Let me give you another example. Although unemployment is rising in Germany' s five new Länder, money is once again being invested in roads instead of jobs in the new Community support framework.
I expect the Commission to drop its "business as usual" approach and instead to become the motor of sustainable development in Europe again.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is once again time for us to consider a Commission report on the implementation of Structural Funds appropriations, this time for 1998, and to express the views of our group.
The rapporteur, whom I would like to thank very warmly, depicts very varied trends in expenditure under the Structural Funds. The picture is one of some positive aspects compared with previous years, combined with continuing problems.
I would like to concentrate on two issues.
The first is that EU financial resources have undeniably led to a process of recovery in the poorest regions and Member States.
Nevertheless, the gap between the least and most developed regions of the Community has scarcely decreased.
That means that disparities in regional development continue to exist, even if the overall level is higher.
This is of course totally unsatisfactory as far as I and my group are concerned.
And this dissatisfaction is all the greater when you consider that the continuing regional differences, as measured in income per capita, are particularly reflected in unemployment figures.
Even though there has been a reduction in unemployment in the EU in absolute terms in recent months, the total number of people without jobs is still far too high.
In Germany alone there are still over 3.8 million unemployed, and the employment rate is still markedly higher.
If we were to use this issue alone to gauge the success of Structural Fund policy, we would pass a devastatingly negative judgment on it.
Secondly, the problems of unemployment, which are not tackled under the Structural Funds alone, underscore the importance of efficient coordination of the implementation of funds from the various EU and national support programmes and of restructuring and allocating more money to all those funds that generate new jobs.As the rapporteur rightly emphasises, there was some progress in this area in 1998, but it was still far from adequate.
In view of all the difficulties which undeniably exist, I regard this as a key starting point for greater effectiveness and thus more efficient use of the appropriations implemented, and I believe that this is something that people hit by unemployment in the various countries would welcome.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is important to take proper stock of the application of the Structural Funds regulations, which remain a fundamental instrument of European policy for reducing inequality.
That stocktaking can help us correct any past excesses and learn to manage present and future appropriations better.
We learn that the implementation rate for programmes in 1998 remained satisfactory, although only slightly under 90% of total support was achieved for commitments, and 61% for payments.
That is why we support Mr Maurice Turco' s report, and he is to be congratulated for approaching this issue pragmatically and without complacency.
Moreover, this report reveals some mismanagement in the allocation of the Structural Funds.
Beyond the overall picture, considerable differences in implementation have persisted between the different objectives as well as between the Member States and the regions.
The difference between the budgetary appropriations and the final implementation remains a problem particularly affecting Objective 2.
Moreover the full utilisation of the Structural Funds in 1998, or at least in terms of the percentages mentioned earlier, has only been possible thanks to a compensation mechanism for under-implementation, such as major transfer of credits from Objective 2 to Objective 1.
We denounce this type of practice as lacking in transparency.
Furthermore, we ask for a fairer distribution of expenditure, more transparency in the allocation and control of the funds, better eligibility criteria, a reduction in the number of priority objectives and Community initiatives.
We also think a reduction in the programmes involved would lead to greater effectiveness in their implementation and the possibility of stricter control.
To this effect, we join the rapporteur in asking the Commission to strengthen its control and inform Parliament of the results of its audits and assessments.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report which not only highlights the importance of the Structural Funds but also a series of problems.
I would firstly likely to remind you that the objective of the Funds is to strengthen economic and social cohesion in the European Union and that, while it is true that the GDP per capita in the regions with the lowest rate increased by 9% between 1986 and 1996, over the same period the income per capita in the four poorest countries rose by 8%.
Nevertheless, the difference when compared to the 25 richest regions continues to be the same: two and a half times.
These figures should lead us to consider the fact that, while the level and quality of life in the poorest regions is increasing, we have not managed to reduce the disparities between the richest and the poorest regions of the European Union.
A second factor is that only 10% of the interventions from the Funds correspond to local development measures, despite the fact that most population and poverty is found in urban centres.
To this data we must also add a factor which will distort the statistics and will change the landscape of the European Union in the next few years, i.e. the incorporation of the new Member States.
All of these issues point to the need for a series of criteria to be taken into account in the future.
Firstly, we must leave room for prioritising the interventions relating to urban development.
Secondly, we need to develop policies which will reduce the disparities between the richest countries and the poorest countries.
Thirdly, we must show greater sensitivity towards phenomena which have been ignored in the European Union, such as insularity and isolation.
Lastly, we must take account of all sections of the population with the real objective of creating ever more employment, especially in the least-favoured regions.
Mr President, Commissioner, as someone with a local government background, I should like to stress the need for local government agencies to become more involved at all levels, particularly when programmes are being formulated and implemented.
This is how the required partnership is implemented and integrated, provided of course that the Commission and the state are actively involved.
I should also like to stress the need for greater coordination between European regional policy and other Community policies and between the Structural Funds and other funding mechanisms.
I should like to use the short time available to me to stress how important it is to uphold the principle of additionality and express the view that, despite the development over time of verification methods, it is impossible to compare Member States on this issue, due to the lack of a common methodology.
Thus, we cannot logically adopt a proposal to impose sanctions in cases of non-compliance with this principle until a legal base has been adopted and a common methodology agreed.
The principle of additionality must be taken into serious account and I believe that the Member States and the Commission, in the light of forthcoming enlargement, will have to work together to draw up and adopt guidelines defining a more integrated approach to verifying the application of this principle, taking into account, of course, the particular economic situation in each Member State.
In closing, I feel I must congratulate the rapporteur on his comprehensive report and stress the fact that on the whole, the implementation of the programmes financed by the various funds was on the right track in 1998, the year covered by the report and a good year overall, in which the relative delays of previous years were recouped.
Only when it came to monitoring interventions was 1998 a poor year.
There seems to be a problem with this generally, perhaps due to a lack of staff, and the Commission must ensure that it takes the measures needed to ensure that the implementation of European policies continues to be monitored.
Mr President, Commissioner, I especially welcome paragraph 20 on additionality and hope very much that the Commission will take particular account of the importance of transparency.
I would add that this should also relate to the question of whether the principle is being complied with, not just overall by Member States, but at regional levels within them.
I would also ask the Commission to consider introducing a little more flexibility at the stage when projects are being set up.
I am thinking of one very worthy project within my own constituency which, because of the very short timetable and a misunderstanding, did not enable contracts to be drawn up by the end of December last year.
The offer of funding was consequently withdrawn.
I do not dispute that this decision was correct and I understand the Commission's wish to ensure that projects are completed in time.
The sad thing about this particular decision was that the project clearly would have been.
Finally, I believe that there is a great deal of merit in Amendment No 5.
If I understand what is being asked for correctly, the practice already applies in Scotland.
Management at this level allows for a high degree of coordination and exchange of best practice between those involved.
It also encourages pioneering activities.
I offer as an example our Objective 3 partnership's development of a tool kit for gender mainstreaming in structural funding.
I understand that serious consideration is already being given to its use in other parts of the European Union.
May I please ask the Commission to think very carefully about the merits of taking on board Amendment No 5.
Mr President, I am very grateful to my colleague and friend Mrs Attwooll for her remarks about Amendment No 5, which is in the name of my colleagues, Nogueira Román and Ortuondo Larrea.
I should also like to commend to the House Amendments Nos 4, 6 and 7, also in their names, which strengthen and underline important points in the report.
But I make no apology for coming back to Amendment No 5 in the sense in which Mrs Attwooll spoke of it.
It is vital for the concept of subsidiarity to be brought into the heart of our notion of structural funding and for the regional, local and national authorities within Member States to be fully engaged in the process of implementing the structural funds and applying them.
As paragraphs 20 and 21 say, the additionality principle has not been operating with an effective, transparent style up to now.
Several speakers in this debate have drawn attention to that.
Perhaps Commissioner Barnier will not be surprised if I bang home again on the point that whatever might have been the failures of the past, he has the opportunity to make successes in the future and to ensure that the additionality principle is not just a formal principle requiring Member States to satisfy certain budgetary conditions in a global way.
Rather it should become a substantive principle built into the idea of subsidiarity which he and President Prodi are researching so that at regional and national level within Member States we can see that the funds really are being used to enhance and improve development.
Mr President, the main conclusion to be drawn is that, in 10 years of Structural Funds, no real progress has been made in closing the huge gap between the per capita income of the richest and the poorest regions of the European Union.
Not only have we failed to achieve the main purpose of the Structural Funds, i.e. to help reduce regional disparities and achieve economic and social cohesion; in numerous cases, the situation has worsened and the gulf between the regions lagging behind and the developed areas has widened both in rural areas, especially island and mountain regions, and also in urban areas, which are plagued by mass and long-term unemployment, poverty, and a scarcity, or in many cases, a total lack of basic infrastructures.
The report under discussion makes a number of critical observations and evaluations which are heading in the right direction and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on that.
However, the reality of the situation is even worse.
The lack of planning and transparency and the huge number of irregularities and cases of fraud in implementing the programmes, which have helped swell the coffers of parasitical undertakings, have actually widened the gap instead of fostering cohesion. In fact, the Structural Funds have, on numerous occasions, been used as a means of eroding cohesion and fostering asymmetric development.
Greece is a typical example of this: in 1996, only two Greek regions were classified among the ten poorest regions in the European Union. However, the following year, a total of seven Greek regions were amongst the eleven poorest regions.
Epirus acquired the dubious accolade of being the poorest region in the European Union.
The scarcity of resources under the Damoclean sword of Agenda 2000 and persistent cutbacks in order to satisfy other requirements, such as enlargement, do nothing to strengthen cohesion or stabilize development levels; on the contrary, they help set further socio-economic degeneration of the regions in motion.
President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this Sixth Periodic Report on the social and economic situation of the regions of the Union, which was adopted last year by the Commission, indicated that the 25 richest regions of the European Union still had an average GDP per head that was two and a half times higher than that in the 25 poorest regions, and my fellow Members have also reminded us of this.
The development gap between the Member States has certainly been reduced, but there are still disparities between the regions, not only with regard to the GDP per head, but also, particularly, in terms of unemployment.
Despite the economic upturn, the unemployment rate in the Union as a whole stood at around 10% at the end of 1998.
Moreover, the distribution of unemployment is extremely uneven.
Whereas the 25 regions least affected are experiencing a relative stabilisation of the rate at around 3 or 4%, the trend has not been reversed in the 25 worst affected regions, with a rate which is still higher than 20%.
In its 1998Annual Report on the Structural Funds, the Commission notes, rightly so, that high regional unemployment leads to social exclusion, hence making unemployment even more resistant to economic improvement.
An integrated strategy combining measures to boost the economic base of the regions and measures to improve access to the job market, particularly through training, is essential if this situation is to be resolved.
It therefore seems to me that structural actions must continue to step up their efficacy and impact in terms of job creation in order to sustain the current economic growth, especially in the regions most affected by unemployment.
Furthermore, the work carried out under the European Spatial Development Perspective follows the development of the organisation of the European territory from a traditional, rather centralised model, towards a polycentric model which is the only way to promote a more balanced geographical distribution of work in Europe.
The Commission has promised that the emphasis in the new programming period for the Structural Funds will be on improving transport networks, particularly in the peripheral or outermost regions, and on creating sustainable and effective transport systems that provide a balance between the different modes of transport.
I must stress particularly that the priority objective of this increased coordination should be to reduce structural divergences between the central part of the Union and the peripheral and outermost regions, as specified in one of the amendments adopted by my committee.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, full employment, which the Lisbon Summit established as an objective of the EU' s work, is a very major step forwards.
People in work are a guarantee of peace and freedom in Europe.
This must apply, however, to the whole of the EU, including those areas far from the EU' s geographic centre.
If the employment objective is to become a reality, EU policies must all be compatible with one another, just as the Committee says in the report.
We must make use of regional policy on both a large and a small scale.
Among large-scale concerns, we in Sweden include general welfare policy (including social services), education, research, infrastructure and cultural policy throughout the EU.
The importance of the latter cannot be emphasised enough.
Small-scale measures include aid to companies and the use of Structural Funds, that is to say aid directed more specifically at areas where very special conditions apply.
These areas may, for example, be characterised by industrial conversion or low living standards or be of the type which exist in northern Sweden and Finland, with low population density, harsh climates and long distances between centres of population.
Where such areas in Sweden are concerned, we have for a long time used reduced social charges for companies as a form of aid.
This is now being brought into question by the Commission, something I find hard to understand.
If the major Structural Fund investments the EU is making in these areas are to be effective, the other parts of regional policy have to function, too.
The Structural Funds cannot operate in isolation.
We also refer to that principle in the report.
I should like to hear the comments of the Member of the Commission regarding this principle that policy areas must be compatible with one another.
The Structural Funds are therefore very important and have to function well.
The criticism of the Funds that I have heard in my region is that they are complicated to use.
This is something which we must be helped at all levels to change.
I support all ideas of partnership and decentralised administration, as well as the idea that the Funds should be used to meet the needs of the regions.
There must also be built-in assessment mechanisms.
Finally, Mr President, I want to emphasise that the whole of the EU must share in European growth.
I agree with the person who said that wherever people live is the centre of the world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Mr Mauro Turco on his excellent work. His report states clearly that the results of the 1994-9 Structural Funds programming period, taking into account the assessments available at the end of 1998, have not met expectations on a number of fronts.
This is particularly true in the case of Italy.
Suffice it to say that there was a considerable delay in the use of many of the appropriations, although improvement was apparent at the end of the programming period, obtained purely by mathematical calculation through transferring Objective 2 appropriations to Objective 1.
Suffice it to say that, as far as Objective 4 is concerned, in 1998, Italy did not fulfil any of its undertakings and has only paid out 3% of the funding.
The checking and assessment mechanisms have been decidedly inadequate.
There are essentially three reasons for this poor management and they were highlighted by the Court of Auditors: firstly, lack of planning and poor interaction between the measures funded and the various funding instruments, factors which prevented us achieving the expected added value; secondly, lack of global vision which meant that the projects defined were not ambitious enough; thirdly, delays in concluding previous projects and programmes, largely due to the absence of documents justifying the actual expenditure.
Now, considering the forthcoming 2000-2006 programming period, even though management has been simplified and the number of objectives and Community initiatives reduced, I cannot contain my concern and I sympathise with many regional council chairmen as they tackle the issue of the failure to use Community funds and the responsibilities of the Italian Government.
Months after the rejection by the European Commission of the Objective 2 area map it had put forward on the grounds that the area definition criteria did not correspond, the Italian Government had still not presented a valid, compliant proposal, and this was not for lack of good will on the part of the European Commission.
The result is certainly not outstanding.
We cannot afford to lose more time, and we cannot afford to decline ITL 10 000 billion either; neither the Italian economic situation nor the Italian taxpayer would allow it.
Ladies and gentlemen, in turn, I would like to express the great interest with which I read Mr Turco' s report and congratulate him on the precision and competence of his work.
I would also like to say to him that, beyond the observations, criticisms and proposals addressed to me as the new Commissioner for Regional Policy, a post which I have held for quite a few months now, this reading is also extremely useful for the future.
I would like to devote my speaking time to responding as precisely as possible to each one of you on the most important points and, first of all, on the implementation of the Funds for 1998.
Your rapporteur, Mr Turco, expressed his relative satisfaction with regard to the overall implementation of the Funds for 1998, when 100% of the appropriations available for the year were committed and 100% disbursed.
Beyond this observation - which, I think it only fair to mention, is the fruit of the work of my predecessor, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, and my colleagues, who were also hers -I can also tell you that at the end of 1999, which is also the last year of the programming period 1994-1999, 99% of the appropriations were committed and 75% disbursed: results which are, of course, still insufficient, but which, all the same, mark a step forward in the direction you advocate.
However, it is true that the situation of Community Initiatives is somewhat different and this is due to the specific characteristics of their implementation.
There is the innovative aspect of most of the programmes, a new approach based on partnership and the inherent difficulty in implementing transnational programmes, by both national and regional authorities.
In spite of everything, ladies and gentlemen, a very clear improvement was noted in 1998 and confirmed in 1999, in particular following the redistribution of resources between the various initiatives, as the European Parliament wanted.
At the end of 1999, 95% of the appropriations for the period had been taken up under Community Initiatives and 57% had been paid.
With regard to implementation, Mr Esclopé, since you mentioned the inequality between the different Member States regarding implementation, I think I am right in saying that part of the explanation you are looking for lies in the inevitably different nature of the programmes and projects according to the countries or regions.
We are well aware that it is the countries and regions that propose the projects which, I repeat, are very different.
Therefore, I would put some of your observations down to the differences between these programmes and projects.
If we compare the implementation of the commitments with the financial perspectives determined in Edinburgh, I agree with you that they almost match.
However, ladies and gentlemen, I have taken note of the criticisms and remarks saying that we can do better.
Mrs Schroedter or Mr Markov have noted disparities that are still unacceptable.
I would, however, point out that it is possible to prove the effectiveness of the Structural Funds, since divergences between States have been reduced.
Nevertheless, you are correct, and I myself am concerned by this observation, the gaps between the regions - Mrs Sudre clearly and eloquently stated the figures - prove that the Structural Funds are not yet allocated in a sufficiently efficient or concentrated manner.
There are still unjustified, unacceptable gaps between regions, and between the group of the poorest regions and the group of the richest regions.
On the same subject, I would also like to say that I am taking great care that this social divide, as it has been called, this economic divide between the group of the richest regions and the group of the poorest regions is not exacerbated by another divide linked to the new economy - I am thinking of some extremely worrying figures relating to this subject - that I could call the digital divide, that is to say the democratic access of the most remote citizens, the poorest citizens, the most disadvantaged citizens, to the new technologies and to the opportunities provided by these new technologies.
As to my second point: monitoring, evaluation and control.
In your resolution, Mr Turco, you recognise the importance of monitoring, assessing and controlling Structural Fund interventions.
With regard to monitoring and evaluation, in all sincerity, significant progress has been observed and I would like to cite three examples of this.
Firstly, finalising a harmonised methodology. Secondly, completing the interim evaluation, which ended during 1998 and which has led to restructuring within the programmes, occasionally very significant in financial terms.
Finally, thirdly, completing thematic cross-sector evaluations, in particular with regard to small and medium-sized businesses, equal opportunities or partnership.
I have noticed that these evaluations are gradually bearing fruit, in particular the new programmes for the period 2000-2006.
There is still progress to be made in this area, but it must be noted that the evaluation culture seems to me to be more prevalent today in all the departments of the Commission and also among the programme managers.
I have also noticed that at the beginning of last June, when I had organised a seminar for the first time between the Member States and the programme managers, the management authorities for all the regions and all the countries.
I had also invited the chairman of your committee, Mr Hatzidakis, and Mrs Theato, chair of the Commission on Budgetary Control, to participate in this seminar.
To be frank, it showed that the evaluation culture, which is a modern, necessary culture, is making progress.
With regard to control, the Commission broadly shares your assessment of the complexity of the current Structural Fund system.
Once again, however, improvements have been made since 1997, in particular within the scope of the SEM 2000 initiative, and I would like to thank Mr Bradbourn for pinpointing them.
The establishment of rules on the eligibility of spending for co-financing is covered by an implementing regulation for the new period.
The financial control standards that the Member States must observe will also be covered by a regulation.
The guidelines relating to the implementation of net financial corrections are also being translated into an implementing regulation for this new period.
Furthermore, I would like to remind you that fund legislation for the new period - which Mr Musotto judged to be insufficient earlier on, I noted - provides for intervention monitoring systems to be simplified.
With regard to control, the new legislation also gives the Member States direct responsibility for controls concerning programmes carried out on their territory.
As you know, ladies and gentlemen, it is the Commission that is responsible for ensuring that the control systems are sufficiently sound and reliable.
Naturally, it is a complex business.
Recently, I even heard calls for less of the Brussels bureaucracy, for fewer complications.
I will give some thought, clearly and objectively, to all the ways in which matters could be simplified.
In particular, I will think about this in the joint discussions on the nature of the new regional policy for 2006-2013.
In the meantime, I am bound by a general regulation, with which you have been familiar since Berlin and which I must apply.
I must therefore find, in conjunction with my staff, the optimum balance between and coordination of, on the one hand, the desire expressed by some of you earlier for greater decentralisation, greater trust in the Member States and the regions and, on the other, your requirement for rigour, which is also required of me by the Court of Auditors, in order to be able to be accountable to the taxpayers.
What I can say on this subject, in particular to Mrs Hedkvist Petersen who discussed the matter with me the other day when I was visiting her region, is that I will search for the best balance.
But try to understand that I am torn between your demand for increased decentralisation and the need to present accurate accounts to the European Parliament, public opinion and the Court of Auditors.
Your rapporteur quite rightly remarks that in 1998 the Commission did not carry out enough on-the-spot checks.
Actually, Mr Turco, in spite of the importance attached by the Commission to proper financial management of the programmes and to reliable controls, I must point out that the resources at my disposal did not enable us to carry out as many controls as we would have wished.
Finally, I would like to point out the negotiations underway for a framework agreement between our two institutions, which answers some of Mr Bradbourn' s concerns.
Moreover, this framework agreement has now been definitively finalised regarding the transmission of documents to Parliament and it is on this basis that the Commission will provide your Parliament with all the documents you would like.
Many of you, including Mrs Attwool and Mr MacCormick, have raised the matter of additionality.
I would like to specify that the new legislation seems to me to substantially improve the possibilities of verifying additionality, as this will be verified for two types of programme.
For Objective 1 programmes, as was formerly the case, but also for Objective 2 and 3 programmes, taken together, this verification will be carried out on the basis of samples and will concern solely the active measures of the labour market.
This new system will make it possible to have an overall view of the implementation of the additionality principle, including for Objective 2, which as you know, presented great statistical problems during the previous period.
The Commission had also proposed a link between the verification of this additionality and the allocation of the performance reserve, but, as you also know, this link has not been adopted by the legislator.
I would, however, like to remind you of my desire to verify the reality of this additionality and I would also like to say - as I have said to several Member States - that the verification of this principle, the reality of additionality will be a criterion for the admissibility and approval of new programmes.
You asked me about your draft Article 5.
To be honest, ladies and gentlemen, I must ask you to understand that I cannot approve this Article 5 whatever the good intentions behind it.
Once again, I am bound by Article 11 of the general regulation on Structural Funds which, at least until 2006, does not allow the decentralisation or delegation of the executive powers of the Commission to sub-national bodies, as you call them: the Autonomous Communities, Regions, and Länder.
I am forced to comply with the general regulation on the Structural Funds, at least as laid down until 2006.
The principle of partnership is one which the Commission hopes to make as comprehensive as possible.
Progress has already been observed, in 1998, in particular with the setting up in 1997 of territorial pacts for employment involving regional and local partners and both sides of industry.
But the Commission goes much further with the new legislation for 2000-2006.
The partnership is now actually being extended to new operators, who to date were not really, or very rarely involved, and I would like them to be involved from now on.
The economic and social partners, the associations, some non-governmental organisations, in particular in the fields of the environment and equal opportunities.
Furthermore, the new legislation brings the partnership into play at all stages of the programming from the initial drawing-up of plans by the Member States to the evaluation of the programmes.
Fourthly, complementarity with other Community policies.
Mrs Flesch, Mr Turco yourself, Mrs Schroedter, Mr Mastorakis, you stressed this point.
I would like to note that Parliament, which questions the efforts of the Commission to intensify the synergy between structural policies and other Community policies, should know that this is also of concern to me and my staff.
This is how the cross-sector theme in their annual report for 1998 should be considered, for example, the actions supporting local development and, I would like to announce, actions in favour of equal opportunities and sexual equality in the report for 1999.
A substantial amount of effort recently has been put into improving the coherence of the Structural Funds with other Community policies, particularly, Mrs Flesch, with State aid.
This is a field in which the Commission adopted, in 1998, a communication reconciling the map of regional State aid with the map of regions eligible for the Structural Funds and on this subject, I regularly have constructive dialogues with Mario Monti, my fellow Commissioner with responsibility for such matters.
This is also the case for the environment, within the scope of the new programmes for 2000­2006.
Let it be clear that here too, ladies and gentlemen, there is no question of turning the Structural Funds into instruments of other policies.
The Structural Funds answer one policy: that of cohesion, reducing the disparities between regions and countries.
The objective of the fund is to support the development of the weakest regions in order to step up economic and social cohesion within the Union, and you stressed the lack of progress made in this area.
Therefore, we must simply ensure - and this is no small matter - that structural interventions take sufficient account of sectorial Community policies, but also, in return, ensure that the other sectorial policies of the Union embrace or support the aspect of cohesion.
I am thinking in particular - in response to Mr Sanchez García and Mr Theonas - of the outermost regions.
You know, ladies and gentlemen, of the personal interest that I will continue to take, within the Commission, in the future and the development of the outermost regions.
You had proof of this when the Commission' s report on these regions was published: I took a personal interest.
I would also echo Mrs Sudre' s comments on this.
My comments on the subject of the outermost regions and the need for adequate cohesion and coherence between various policies also applies to the most disadvantaged regions, whether these are urban regions, which are increasing in number, or island or maritime regions, to reply to Mr Ripoll y Martinez de Bedoya who questioned me on this subject.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you for your attention and say a few words about the annual report and its role as I see it.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is right for Parliament to make demands on the Commission with regard to the implementation of the Structural Funds and their impact, and you have presented new requirements.
I would go along with Mr Stockmann' s question regarding the inclusion in future reports of a specific paragraph or chapter in order to reply precisely to the remarks or criticisms of the Parliament with regard to the Commission.
The draft resolution reflects this wish, this requirement, by asking the Commission to provide yet more information in the annual report.
However, for a few years we have chosen to make the annual report more concise, which, moreover, was formally requested by the European Parliament at the time.
The document must remain readable for the citizens, not just for MEPs or specialists- and it is not yet completely so, if I have understood Mr Turco correctly.
I am very attached to this quest for readability, proximity and explanation by the Commission in the field for which I am responsible.
We shall therefore continue our efforts in favour of readability and the task of explanation, while being more precise in order to respond to your requests.
These are the two aspects - readability and precision - on which I intend to concentrate in order to present a top quality annual report.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Barnier.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Topical and Urgent Debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Basic freedoms in Serbia and Kosovo
Mr President, in some language versions the motions are shown as being tabled on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists by Mr Wiersma and by a certain Mr Sumberg, who does not, however, belong to our group.
I, at any rate, have not changed my name.
I am still called Swoboda and I am also proud of this typical German name.
I would be grateful if this could be corrected where it is wrongly shown.
Thank you.
Mr President, freedom of the media lies at the heart of democracy.
If the opposition has no opportunity to express its opinion, if a public debate about society is no longer possible, then you are looking at total dictatorship.
And I know just how painful that is from personal experience.
I also know how hard it is to act as opposition in this situation, and not to despair or give up.
The transformation of society for which we are looking to the opposition there is virtually impossible under these circumstances.
That much should be clear to us.
It is virtually impossible because people stand a good chance of ending up in prison if they act in the interests of democracy.
And it will be extremely difficult to intervene from outside, because the human right of freedom of expression is simply declared illegal.
Therefore - and I am addressing this comment to the Commission in particular - we need all our imagination, flexibility and creativity to development instruments which will nevertheless enable us to support the opposition in this situation.
It is not impossible to transform society even in these circumstances, as we saw 11 years ago.
That is what we have to concentrate on.
We should not always let bureaucratic obstacles get in the way.
We really must find out what can be done under European mechanisms.
And the answer is that they allow more to be done than has been evident up to now.
It is also important to give these signals, because otherwise the opposition feels isolated and loses all its drive.
If that happened things would be much, much more difficult and would take much longer.
Mrs Pack has made it plain that the situation in the prisons is appalling and that for the inmates every day is one day too many.
I therefore call on the Commission to take every opportunity, in all its talks with representatives of the Serbian Government or embassies, to present the list of prisoners and to request information on each prisoner.
We are talking about human beings, and it is a humanitarian act to press for these people to be released and united with their families one day.
I also wish to call on the Commission to offer indirect financial support to those organisations which are trying to draw up lists, to organise prison visits and to care for the families.
It is enormously important to provide this humanitarian support, and this will also strengthen the democratic forces in Serbia.
With regard to Kosovo, after one year that region has still not reached the position we would have liked to see.
It is a great disappointment for me that there is such great hatred that it is not possible for Serbs, Roma and other minorities to live in peace in Kosovo although they are under an international protectorate.
It is humiliating that we have not succeeded in promoting tolerance or at least cohabitation in this area.
For the sake of the credibility of the international community it is therefore a matter of urgency for us to protect the minorities and give them genuine opportunities for living and working there.
And this is also important for me because I believe that otherwise everything that happened a year ago will lose credibility.
It is therefore vital for us to do more in this area and to endeavour to make it clear in the public arena that it is unacceptable for people belonging to a different race to be driven out of Kosovo.
The Serbs, Roma and other minorities have a right to live there!
Mr President, fellow Members, this resolution deals in a meticulous way with a number of practical problems.
I shall not repeat them, as our president, Doris Pack, has explained them better than we could.
I would just like to highlight the issue of Kosovar prisoners, as did Mrs Schroedter.
This is a fundamental problem and we must persevere in our actions, even if we know that we do not have many weapons to influence the Belgrade regime.
Obviously, there is also all the repression in Serbia.
But for the first time, I will admit that I cherish a certain optimism, given the way the Belgrade regime is developing, that it will collapse in the near future.
In particular, I am thinking of the student movement, the virtually underground OTPOR movement, and on this subject, I think that the relentlessness with which it is suppressed and monitored by Milosevic' s henchmen is a good indicator of its power.
Having said this, I think it is time for the European Parliament and also the Commission and the Council to engage in a debate - and I know that the president of our delegation does not entirely share this point of view - on the future status of Kosovo, the future status of Bosnia, and therefore also, directly, that of Serbia.
The uncertainty surrounding the definitive status of Kosovo today is a source of instability, an incentive to extremists of all types, an obstacle to development, because this situation certainly does not encourage foreign investment.
There is another fact that merits our attention: the presence, in a country with less than two million inhabitants, of over fifty thousand westerners with a standard of living 10, 15, 20 times higher than that of the Kosovars, cannot but present many problems in terms of discrimination and inequality, and is not without secondary effects that are not always as secondary as all that, and are in fact very serious and often very problematic, or even truly adverse.
Having said that, I am not questioning the role of the KFOR, the role of the United Nations in Kosovo, at all, but we cannot consider and plan an "occupation" of Kosovo for many years without running serious risks.
We must therefore unreservedly confront the issue of the final status of what was formerly Yugoslavia.
Six years after the signature of the Dayton agreements in 1995, with a Bosnia that is still not a country where things run smoothly, with a Bosnia comprising two or even three entities, we must urgently put an end to all these problems and the Commission and the Council must urgently propose ways of overcoming these situations which were designed to be interim situations.
We must propose ways out of the situation in order to create a conditions which might form a basis for imagining the integration of these countries into the European Union.
In particular, I do not think we can avoid the idea of a federation between Kosovo and Albania, nor can we avoid associations between certain parts of Bosnia and Serbia.
This is the result of a policy which we, the radicals, definitely did not want, but which the international community wanted, and to which we can no longer turn a blind eye.
Mr President, a year ago, the current NATO General Secretary, George Robertson, described the task in Kosovo clearly and succinctly in the following terms: "The objective is to get the Serbs out, NATO in and the Albanians home".
It was successful and a victory for justice and human rights.
I was there before the war began. At that time, the Serbs had already driven 200 000 to 300 000 people from their homes and had ravaged and laid waste whole areas of the country.
And I was there again a couple of weeks ago and can testify to the enormous change for the better which has occurred thanks to NATO' s intervention.
I can also testify to the incredibly efficient work being done by KFOR, the UN mission (UNMIK) and the UNMIK police.
I can, unfortunately, also testify to what the debate here ought especially to be about, namely the fact that it is now the Serbs who are being persecuted by people who act with spite towards them, throw stones at them, burn their houses down and attempt to drive them from their homes.
Now, it is the Serbs who need our attention.
The police are doing everything possible, but nothing like the promised number of police has arrived.
The EU countries, in particular, have gone back on their promise. Only one fifth of the police force comes from EU countries.
That is partly why the former liberation organisation, the KLA is all too easily able to engage in anti-Serbian and criminal activities, which presumably also include murder, arson and attempts to drive people from their homes.
So, what is now needed may be expressed as succinctly as a year ago: the objective is to get the KLA out, the police in and the Serbs home to those places in which they have always lived in Kosovo.
The KLA must be disarmed and stripped of any monopoly position in the coming election campaign. They must also be divested of the special privileges they have evidently been given when it comes to recruiting for the new police force.
The KLA' s criminal activity must be brought to an end.
The EU countries must send more police and judges.
The Serbs must be helped to return home.
Attempts must also be made to help groups of Serbs in Serbia itself. In turn, it must be absolutely clear that the election planned for October in Kosovo must be held, irrespective of whether the Kosovan Serbs boycott it, for what are especially needed are Albanians, who are accountable.
At the moment, all Albanians have been turned into clients and can blame everyone else for terrorism, street fights etc.
What we need is to arrange for the Albanian majority to be held accountable.
Mr President, one year on from the end of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, the situation is unstable and the opposing forces in Serbia are giving increasing cause for concern.
The daily news is witness to the oppressive actions of the Yugoslavian government.
Opposition is struck down and intimidated in the ways traditionally adopted by governments who feel insecure: newspapers and radio stations are closed down, equipment confiscated, various groups and non-governmental organisations intimidated and there are random arrests and trials with unjustified sentences such as the case of Flora Brovina.
Many of the men, women and students who are victims of oppression today are the same people who have courageously spoken up in these past years, calling for peace, freedom and respect for human rights, and who have, in reality, been abandoned even by Europe.
However, the situation in Kosovo is equally worrying, where the oppressed have become the oppressors, and this has been said by Kofi Annan, Solana and Kouchner.
In the space of a year, 240 000 Serbs, Roma, Gorancs and Jews have fled from Kosovo in terror. And those who have remained are regularly attacked and, in many cases, killed.
The most recent UNHCR/OSCE report states clearly that, in Kosovo, minorities have no access to education, health and public services and no freedom of movement. And it is not only the minorities who are in this situation: even the Albanian Kosovars who are openly against the vendettas or for democracy in Kosovo live under threat and in fear of their lives.
Leaders such as Rugova are familiar with the situation, but even more in touch are those women who, together with Serbian, Bosnian and European women - the 'Women in Black' against war - have in recent years managed to maintain relations and build peaceful bridges.
Some of them have had to leave Kosovo and others have been forced to remain silent. In Serbia, the centre of the 'Women in Black' is currently under threat of closure.
In my opinion, Europe, and, in particular, the 19 NATO countries, should undertake a large-scale self-appraisal operation and revise its policies.
The crimes and unlawful acts committed by NATO against civilians are now universally acknowledged.
In the interests of the protection of human rights, we must not violate international regulations and we must start by observing the Geneva Convention.
At this point, let us mention fundamental freedoms: for these freedoms to be established the embargo policy must be abolished. We must not treat civilians in this way, and the democratic Serbian opposition which is still today at the mercy of Milosevic is calling for us to change our policy.
It may be that we should be the ones to give them strong support in Serbia and Kosovo.
We owe it to ourselves, but, most of all, we owe it to a wonderful little boy from Kosovo called Felt who said to me while we were eating an ice-cream one day: 'This war has turned us all into nastier people' .
Mr President, the situation is indeed serious in both Serbia and Kosovo but, today, I would like to concentrate on the situation in Serbia and would like to concur with what Mrs Pack, the chairperson of our delegation for the region, has said on the matter.
It is with growing frustration that we have to note that the situation in Serbia is deteriorating by the day.
Milosevic is creating dictatorial conditions, a country governed by security troops, State media and State terror.
He shies away from a democratic confrontation with the opposition.
Every day, we are confronted with examples of repression.
The independent media are thwarted.
A very negative trend is setting in.
Politicians are under threat.
There is a murderous atmosphere.
The assaults are relentless.
The student movement, OTPOR, on which the opposition is pinning all hope, is being attacked without mercy.
CCL recently branded them terrorists.
Measures are also being prepared against the universities so as to force students to keep calm.
All in all, a situation is being created in which democracy is becoming a farce and the regime is trying to keep a grip on the situation by means of totalitarian manipulation.
We are sitting on the sidelines and can do all too little to bolster the democratic powers.
We have insufficient direct influence on the situation in Serbia itself.
It is nonetheless important that we express our indignation once again today.
We need to remain involved, and it is also useful that we, as a Parliament, are here today expressing our broad consensus on the situation and on how the situation in Serbia is to be addressed.
The opposition in Serbia needs us.
A great deal of aid has been set aside for Serbia within the framework of the Stability Pact.
The money concerned cannot be spent until Belgrade makes a U-turn, but that will only happen if the opposition can express itself.
As Mrs Schroedter has already mentioned, we are asking the Commission to make a huge effort and employ a great deal of creativity in order to help the towns in Serbia which support the opposition.
But in addition to this, it must also be possible to give the independent media some backing.
Is the Commission prepared to cooperate in setting up radio and TV facilities which can reach the Serbian population from outside that country? In my opinion, this proposal is worth a very serious effort.
Mr President, we have heard here about the brutal and wide-scale repression of the freedom of the media in Serbia, and in fact Belgrade' s Radio B92 was closed down during the May part-session here in Strasbourg.
Since then a whole series of repressive measures has been taken against the independent media and against the student movement OTPOR, whose leaders have been unlawfully persecuted, excluded from university and taken into custody.
We are calling for their release and we are demanding freedom of the media, but we must of course do something practical.
I welcome the fact that Mr Wiersma has taken on board something which I also wanted to see in this resolution, which is that we must we must support independent broadcasting stations in the territory surrounding Serbia just as much as we support the few remaining independent media still existing within Serbia itself.
I come from Munich, and Munich has for decades been the home of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, which have been a voice of freedom for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Following the fall of Communism, President Havel said that these stations, which now also broadcast from Prague, played a leading part in establishing freedom and the rule of law there.
But it was up to the Americans to do that - Radio Free Europe was created at the time by the Americans.
We in the European Union today have a chance to do the same for a small part of Europe as the Americans did for Central and Eastern Europe. I have in mind creating independent broadcasting stations in Hungary, Romania, Montenegro and Albania which will be an independent voice and a source of information for the Serbian people.
We must make one thing crystal clear once and for all: our criticism has never been aimed at the people of Serbia, but against those in power who are abusing the name of the Serbian people for their own criminal ends.
We must draw a distinction between the people and the regime, and we must support the people and we must give them information and an independent voice.
We have some opportunities here.
We must at the same time be very much aware that the issue of protecting minorities also affects Serbia.
Not only do people frequently forget about the minorities in Vojvodina, but there is already a stream of refugees and expellees flowing into Kosovo from the border region of Serbia which has an Albanian population.
The Albanians driven out of core Serbia scarcely get a mention in our media, yet they are significantly aggravating the situation in this region.
We are, of course, also championing all the media and supporting all the minorities in Kosovo, and Mrs Pack has already pointed out that in practice there is not only tension between Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo, but there are also Serbs persecuting other Serbs because they are regarded as collaborators since they are willing to participate in the process of reconstructing Kosovo and reconciliation between the peoples of Kosovo.
The issue of those held in prison is an important one, and I would like to add to what Olivier Dupuis said on this: there are many people in Serbia who have been carried off into custody, and about whose fate we know nothing.
I would like to mention Ukshin Hoti, whose release we have repeatedly called for in this House: we do not know if he is alive at all or if he is being detained somewhere.
We are calling for him to be released as a matter of urgency.
His family hopes that he is alive and we must continue to draw attention to the fate of this famous civil rights campaigner, who for a time was the Foreign Minister of the democratic government in Kosovo.
In this context I would like to make it very clear that it is crucial for us not just to point the finger of blame at others, but also to fulfil our own obligations.
This region is, of course, marked by criminality, hatred and conflicts, but if we do not even send two-thirds of the police officers we have promised to the area, so that a whole shift is missing in this crisis region, and on top of that there is no night shift, and all this happens simply because we are not meeting our own obligations, then we can scarcely point the finger of blame at others. Instead we should now ensure that we build up this region' s police force and administration.
Without an operational police force and at least the rudiments of the rule of law, there is no hope of peace in Kosovo between individuals and between ethnic groups.
There is also the point that Olivier Dupuis made so clearly.
There may be differences of opinion about ways and means, but we should be united on the essentials.
We can no longer dodge the vital issue, which is the very future of Kosovo!
Mr President, we find ourselves gazing with bewilderment at each new act by the Milosevic regime, acts against its own people.
Today, no one is safe from attack, whether he belongs to the majority or the minority in Yugoslavia.
That is why I think it is important to maintain constant contact with the opposition and to attempt to bring about a change in the political scene.
I also believe that it is absolutely right that the Commission also wishes to make a relatively large amount of money available if these changes should come about; many people regard such a large amount as being quite appropriate in view of the requirements.
I hope that the Commission and Parliament will remain resolute in facing up to the Council, which is taking a rather softer line here.
I also believe that funding for increased information provision should be implemented here and now, so as to provide more objective information about the actual conditions in the Balkans.
The situation in Kosovo today is different.
Whereas before it was the majority that was in great danger, now it is the minorities who are living in difficult circumstances.
This is just as unacceptable as the previous situation was.
We are unanimous in advocating the rights of all the people living both in this region and in other regions, so that they can live their lives freely and move about at will.
Against this background, I am sceptical to say the least about the elections and their results.
At the very least we should see these for what they are - an election decided by the Albanians, that is by that predominant part of the population which can move freely within this region.
This does not apply to Serbs living in Kosovo, nor indeed to those Serbs who have fled Kosovo and are now living in Yugoslavia.
However, the really critical issue - and I urge the Commission and the Council to really knuckle down to things here - is that more police and greater rule of law are needed.
We are responsible for the rule of law applying to everyone in Kosovo on a uniform basis.
Mr President, quite recently, and to mark the anniversary of the end of NATO' s airstrikes on Yugoslavia, there has been growing public condemnation of the international community' s intervention in Kosovo and of the tragic situation which has developed in the region.
In his annual report, the UN Secretary-General notes that, one year on from the deployment of KFOR, we face a well-developed, organised and well-orchestrated campaign against the Serbs and other ethnic groups in Kosovo, which is undermining confidence in the future and transforming Kosovo into a breeding ground for retaliation and crime.
The UN High Commissioner and the OSCE have condemned the fact that, one year on from the arrival of the KFOR forces in the area, the minorities living in Kosovo, mainly Serbs and Gypsies, are still unprotected.
Even Amnesty International, which throughout the whole of the criminal NATO bombings in the region, only saw Milosevic' s crimes (with or without quotation marks), has now discovered that NATO committed war crimes in Kosovo resulting in the mass murder of civilians.
Only the European Parliament seems incapable, including in today' s resolution, of drawing any conclusions from the tragic situation which has arisen in this area as a result of the military incursions of NATO forces into an independent Member State of the UN, in violation of the fundamental principles of international law.
It seems that the witch hunt in which all the main political forces of the European Union have joined still continues to inspire the European Parliament, making it incapable of assuming its historical responsibility towards those who elect it for safeguarding peace and the rights of the people of the Balkans to live in peace and dignity and to uphold their right to be masters of their own destiny, not the geopolitical pawns of the new imperialist world order.
Will we, as the European Parliament, ever be able to assume our responsibilities and understand that, while we talk of rights and democracy in certain regions, while we subsidize intervention in local elections in Montenegro and while we support the embargo on Iraq, condemning hundreds of thousands of children to death, we have no credibility whatsoever? Will we ever be able to say, we are putting an end to the embargo?
That is the question which at some point will need an answer.
Mr President, we have before us two resolutions on fundamental freedoms in Serbia and Kosovo.
In this respect, I much prefer the joint motion for a resolution to the proposal submitted by the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
After all, the resolution speaks out unmistakably about the undemocratic nature of the Milosevic regime in Belgrade and the means it deploys in order to exercise power.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the other hand, does not seem to see any direct link between the continuous presence of Slobodan Milosevic on the political stage of the Balkans and the continuing instability in the region, one year on from the end of NATO' s intervention against Serbia' s ethnic cleansing which affected Kosovo on a massive scale.
I would like to illustrate this link by referring to the position of Mrs Rada Trajkovic from Grazanica.
This medical doctor forms part of the political leadership of the moderate Serbs in Kosovo.
Her now suspended cooperation with UNMIK led to anonymous threats by the Serbs, because the Milosevic arm stretches far for the time being.
At the same time, the whole of the Serbian minority in Kosovo remains just as vulnerable to acts of terrorism committed by Albanian extremists.
Both motions for a resolution therefore underline the international guarantees of this minority' s physical safety - and rightly so.
In this connection, I would like to make a critical comment on Paragraph 14 of the joint motion for a resolution.
This clause calls for promoting reconstruction projects with EU aid, specifically in those areas of Kosovo where human rights and the rights of minorities are being fully respected and where democratic principles are guaranteed.
In my opinion, this is an impossible criterion for granting aid, given the current situation.
Remember, only one act of terrorism committed by an Albanian or Serb is all it takes to cause a setback within an entire region.
Or do those drafting the joint resolutions have specific arguments underlying this proposal in Paragraph 14?
Commendably enough, the joint resolution presses for actual international attempts at ethnic conciliation and cooperation within Kosovo.
How difficult this is was once again reinforced by the boos and hisses that rained down on the so-called "Mandela of Kosovo" , Adem Demaci, at the massive memorial service to commemorate NATO' s troops entering Kosovo Polje one year ago.
Demaci spoke in the Pristina stadium: "Today, I call on all of you to fight a different battle, namely the battle for peace, for the future, for co-existence.
Do not forget the Serbian people who have stayed behind in Kosovo.
They find themselves in a difficult situation.
Even the Serbian regime would prefer it if they were not there.
Help them.
They are despondent and fearful.
It is up to you to offer them safety and freedom.
Only then will you be able to enjoy your own freedom."
It is exactly this disposition among both the Albanians and Serbs that justifies and inspires the European efforts within the Western Balkans.
Mr President, we have just heard an outstanding speech by a highly qualified representative of the Commission.
We have held a high-quality debate lasting for over an hour on the most important topic in Europe today.
I would like to ask if we can guarantee that this is properly recorded by the Parliament' s Press Service, and is not limited, as so often happens on Thursday afternoon, to just a few lines, while all the other debates are recounted in epic detail.
Mr Posselt, I will pass on your request, and I assume that I will be able to do so before the end of this sitting, so that it is taken on board.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Coup d'état in Paraguay
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B5-0571/2000) by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats, on democracy in Paraguay;
(B5-0578/2000) by Mr Nogueira Román and Mr Lipietz, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the situation in Paraguay and the Lino Oviedo case;
(B5-0580/2000) by Mr Sakellariou, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the attempted coup d' état in Paraguay and the arrest of General Oviedo;
(B5-0582/2000) by Mr Marset Campos, Mr Jové Peres and Mr Di Lello Finuoli, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the attempted coup d' état in Paraguay.
Mr President, the European Union and this Parliament have followed recent events in the Republic of Paraguay with great concern.
The first of them, the coup d' état of 18 May, was the subject of a resolution, by the Presidency of the European Union, which roundly condemned any type of modification by force of constitutional legality in Paraguay and expressed support for the President of the Republic, Luis González Macchi, who, in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, restored the situation to normal.
The second event which has been followed with great interest by this Parliament was the arrest on 11 June, of General Oviedo.
That arrest can be seen as a response by the Government of Brazil to the appeal from the Paraguayan Government to the neighbouring countries for cooperation, given the threats of attempts to destabilise democracy originating from outside the country. This is a clear sign, Mr President, of cooperation amongst the countries of Mercosur, with which the European Union is negotiating a new, very advanced association agreement which is based on the fundamental principles of respect for political pluralism and the defence of democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
In this context, we in this Parliament must, in my opinion, support full democratic consolidation in the Republic of Paraguay and appeal for the correct operation of the rule of law and justice in that country.
Mr President, it seems to me to be particularly appropriate to point out that the defence of democracy and the rule of law is the cornerstone of the policy of cooperation with the countries of Latin America.
The respect for democratic values is, and must continue to be, the central pillar of political dialogue between the European Union and the countries of Mercosur, both on a regional level and on a bilateral level.
Good evidence of this can be found in the ambitious institutional support programmes which the European Union has been developing in Paraguay since 1995.
These projects, Mr President, are fundamental in a country whose constitution only dates from 1992, whose first elections took place in 1993, which suffered 50 years of dictatorship and which, therefore, is very much in need of democratic stability and institutional continuity.
In this context we are concerned about the fragility and instability of the Government of National Union, headed by President González Macchi, resulting from the withdrawal of the Liberal Party from the government coalition, and the growing difficulties which this governmental coalition must face.
And, as if this situation were not ominous enough, they have to deal with a coup d' état.
Mr President, I believe that both the European Union and the United States, which have expressed their support for the Government of Paraguay, while recognising that efforts are being made to consolidate a certain degree of democratic stability, must also remind the Paraguayan authorities of the urgent need to take measures on institutional consolidation and to begin also to resolve the great economic and social problems in that country.
Having pointed out the importance of our institutional support and cooperation in Paraguay, I do not wish to end without reminding you that the European Union still has no office in Paraguay.
I believe that a European Commission delegation in Asunción would not only aid and improve our relations, but could also contribute in a significant way to the achievement of these objectives which are so important to all those of us who believe in the democratic clause, which is the foundation of these agreements and our relations with that country.
Mr President, as has been pointed out, the influence of the European Union in Latin America is important from an economic and commercial point of view, but also from a political point of view, and this is characterised by our encouraging a type of relationship which favours egalitarian treatment - cooperation and the promotion of democracy - and this is completely opposed and different to that which has for centuries originated from Big Brother, in the north of the continent.
For this reason, we consider it appropriate and necessary to show our solidarity and support for the democratic régime in Paraguay and to reject coups d' état and support democracy.
The prosecution of Oviedo, the perpetrator of coups d' état, must be taken as an opportunity to make progress on the road to democracy, but we are also obliged to mention that democracy will not be consolidated in Paraguay unless social justice is improved, the eternal problems of social inequality are eliminated and the problems of unemployment and discrimination are brought to an end.
We can help considerably in this field, by appropriately implementing the contents of the European Union' s agreements with the Mercosur countries and in particular the agreement with Paraguay, which is so necessary.
We therefore believe that our action in this area can be decisive and we would also like to express our full support for the joint resolution which we have signed.
Mr President, fellow Members, the Greens, like several other groups, had tabled a motion for a resolution on Paraguay.
As is customary in the House, we have tried to agree on a joint resolution.
Unfortunately, we cannot put our names to it as it stands.
As you are aware, the situation in Paraguay is characterised not only by a revolutionary tendency in certain sections of the army but, more generally, by very serious human rights violations and the harsh suppression of popular movements.
We have tried, in our resolution, to emphasise both these factors simultaneously.
Given the very long history of Europe itself, you will be well aware that, in countries where human rights are not observed by a government, generally republican or democratic or claiming to be republican or democratic, this government runs the risk of a military coup d' état.
In a way, governments get the coups d' état they deserve, and a weak democracy is vulnerable to military coups d' état.
The resolution before us simply pays tribute to the initiative used by another Southern Cone country to arrest the leader of a military coup d' état and extradite him to his country of origin.
We welcome this initiative on the part of Brazil, but to say that and nothing more would mean framing a resolution on Brazil, not Paraguay.
We can welcome the progress that Brazil is making on the road to democratic cooperation in the Southern Cone, but that does not make it a resolution on Paraguay.
We would have liked the issue of human rights as managed by the legally constituted government in Paraguay to be specifically taken into account.
We would have liked the European Union to exploit the methods of democratic persuasion afforded due to the aid it provides to all the Southern Cone countries in order to encourage the legitimate government in Paraguay to show greater respect for human rights.
Unfortunately, in the current wording of the resolution, this is not the case, and we consequently prefer to vote against the joint motion for a resolution and, if necessary, maintain our own motion for a resolution.
Mr President, I still remember the 1980s very well, when Latin America, including Paraguay of course, attracted enormous attention in Europe, because at that time a great many people, and above all young people, were interested in restoring democracy to Latin America.
Fortunately, by the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s nearly every Latin American state had returned to democracy.
But in several countries there are signs of a return to the old ways.
Paraguay is one of the worst examples of this.
It therefore makes sense that the European Parliament, which has always regarded itself as the patron saint of democracy in Latin America and elsewhere, should express its views on this.
The second point that I would like to mention relates to Paraguay and Brazil.
Mr Lipietz has already touched upon this, but with a somewhat different emphasis.
I regard it as being extraordinarily helpful that within Mercosur, to which both these countries belong, a code of values has now been adopted under which dictators, or attempts to establish a dictatorship, no longer have a chance of success.
Oviedo was arrested in Brazil and I hope that he will be extradited to Paraguay.
This is proof that Mercosur is more than just a free trade area - it is a political area in which democracy is protected.
By the way, I totally agree with Mr Lipietz when he says that what is at stake in Paraguay is not just General Oviedo, but human rights as a whole.
There is nothing separating us on that.
However, you cannot of course write a whole book in a short resolution.
I hope that we will be able to discus this issue at some other point, and I assume that we will also be able to reach a consensus then.
Mr President, as reflected in the resolution agreed between the four groups, we have had good news and bad news with regard to Paraguay.
Clearly, the bad news is that democracy is once again being threatened, but there has also been good news: the democratic forces have resisted and, furthermore, General Oviedo has been arrested in Brazil.
We believe that Paraguay is probably a forgotten country, which has been helped by its integration into Mercosur, and, from that point of view, it is important that our relations with Paraguay should improve the situation, and that Brussels should find a way to help that country and at the same time remind it, as we will surely do later in the case of Peru, of the democratic clause which is the inspiration for all our actions.
We also believe that it would be a positive thing for the Commission to take account of Paraguayan civil society.
Other equally positive signs are the reduction in corruption and the hope that General Oviedo, like Pinochet, will be tried.
Mr President, it is appropriate today for the European Parliament to turn its attention to Paraguay and express its solidarity with the Paraguayan people, who still face considerable difficulties and uncertainties in their effort to consolidate a democratic regime.
The history of Paraguay is one of the saddest and most unjust in Latin America.
For those of us who for many years have sided with the resistance in that country, it is painful to remember how, in the 60s and 70s, there were at least three good reasons to feel sorrow.
Paraguay was probably the only country in the world whose population had been practically exterminated during wars with its two neighbours, Argentina and Brazil.
Only women and some old men and children survived those wars.
At that time, Paraguay was the only country which had considerably more population outside its borders than inside, with exiles, outcasts and emigrants of every type.
Lastly, Paraguay held the tragic record of suffering the longest dictatorship in the whole of Latin America, headed by General Stroessner.
That dictatorship displayed the most extraordinary cruelty in its repression of any opposition, and at the same time its dictator and his entourage was enormously corrupt, with their monopoly on big business and, in particular, smuggling.
The Paraguayan people never gave in.
For decades the fight continued, embodied in the February revolution, and the so-called febrerismo, one of the brief moments of democracy and hope, which was quickly stamped out, firstly by force of arms, but then kept down at a very high cost in death, prison, exile and enormous suffering.
Despite the harshness of the repression, the internal decay of the authoritarian regime and the growing mobilisation of civil society eventually forced a transition which opened the way to progress and representative democracy.
This has been the situation over recent years, although the threat of regression and attempts at destabilisation have not disappeared.
In fact there has been constant agitation from local bosses and members of the military who are nostalgic, not so much for power, but rather for the possibility of making money which that power used to offer them.
We have therefore witnessed a constant tension between civil democratic forces and sinister personalities, the main example of which is General Lino Oviedo, consummate purveyor of repeated coups d' états, professional destabiliser, shady businessman and even alleged promoter of assassinations such as that of the Vice-President of the Republic, Luis María Argaña.
In this context, and with Oviedo under arrest in Brazil, the resolution we are voting on in Parliament is a great opportunity.
It condemns the enemies of freedom and the destabilisers, it asks Paraguay' s neighbours for respect and cooperation, so that the consolidation of Paraguayan democracy may become a reality and, above all, it underlines the European Union' s commitment to the people and democratic institutions of Paraguay.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes today' s debate, because it gives us an opportunity to voice a clear warning and to remind you of the political approach that we have adopted to Latin America.
Overall, we have witnessed an impressive success story in Latin America during the last 15 to 20 years in terms of democratisation.
That is why, in every single case where these successes are undermined, we must say, in the plainest terms, so far and no further.
Paraguay, a country which was in any case a straggler in Latin America when it came to democratisation, appears to be in jeopardy.
That is why we really must express our solidarity with the democratic forces in Paraguay, and not only in words, but also in deeds.
The European Union has already been active in Paraguay for a good many years.
Our attempts to have a concrete influence on the situation there have focused on two areas.
The first of these is to develop and strengthen democratic institutions.
I would like to send a very clear message to the current government in Paraguay that this cannot just be regarded as a job for Europeans, North Americans, or anyone else.
We can help to develop these institutions, but the political will really to establish them, to use them and take advantage of them has to come from those who are currently in power in Paraguay.
The support programme for the Paraguayan Parliament has already gone through three stages.
There is now a further project entitled "Modernising the institutions" .
Because a suspicion may arise that these funds are perhaps not entirely reaching the areas they are intended for, I would like to make it crystal clear that we have seen fit to incorporate very strict control mechanisms both for Paraguay itself and for other countries.
There is therefore no question of the funds involved being diverted through shady channels or into dark corners - we are talking about independent codirection under the direct control of the Commission.
The more important programme both in terms of funding and of its ultimate impact is perhaps the programme designed to tackle the social and regional causes of democratic instability in Paraguay. This programme deals with people' s living conditions, especially in rural areas.
In this case a number of major programmes with significant budgets have already started. The aim of all these programmes is to improve the day-to-day living conditions of residents of rural areas, which still account for 46% of Paraguay' s population, and so to integrate them more securely into the country' s political and social structures.
I would like to mention in particular that this includes a special programme supporting the indigenous population of the Chaco region.
All in all, there is no doubt that these EU activities in Paraguay are unusually far-reaching given the size of the country.
Nevertheless, it is true that we do not have a permanent representative on the spot.
However, I am pleased to inform you that consideration is currently being given within the Commission to reorganising our foreign missions, and that this involves a shift of emphasis, so that this point will be taken into account.
But as yet no decision has been taken to change the situation in Paraguay in this respect.
I would like to conclude by saying that as far as we are concerned, the key objective of our international work is to defend democracy and the rule of law throughout the world, including Latin America and also therefore in Paraguay.
I very much hope that this debate on Paraguay today in this house, here in Strasbourg, will be viewed not just as a sign of European solidarity, but also as a sign that Europe takes its responsibilities seriously!
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Peru
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B5-570/2000) by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats, on the presidential elections in Peru;
(B5-0573/2000) by Mr Lipietz and Mr Nogueira Román, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the presidential elections in Peru;
(B5-0575/2000) by Mr Di Pietro, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on Peru;
(B5-0576/2000) by Mr Marset Campos and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the result of the elections in Peru;
(B5-0581/2000) by Mr Medina Ortega and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the presidential elections in Peru.
Mr President, on 16 March, this Parliament adopted a resolution on the presidential and legislative elections in Peru, in which it expressed its confidence, within the context of cooperation in our relations with Peru, that the presidential and legislative elections would be held in a fair and transparent manner, in accordance with the universally held principles of democratic systems.
Parliament called for the consolidation and the deepening of the rule of law in Peru and for democratic maturity from the Peruvian institutions.
After the irregularities in the first round which took place in April, Parliament decided to send a delegation of observers from this House to the vote on 28 May.
Since the deficiencies and irregularities noted by different independent organisations, both Peruvian and international, had not been put right, and after the withdrawal of Mr Toledo, one of the two candidates for the Presidency of the Republic, the delegation from the European Parliament decided not to carry out its mission in those circumstances.
The Presidency of the European Union, in its declaration of 9 June this year, expressed its enormous concern at the irregularities and anomalies detected.
Despite the fluid relations which the European Union maintains with Peru, which are embodied in the cooperation agreement with the Andean Pact which has been in force since 1998, we should remember once again that these very relations are based on the universally recognised principles of respect for pluralist democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
On the basis of these principles, the European Union must carefully assess the necessary response to this delicate situation resulting from the elections of 28 May.
The Council of Ministers of the European Union, in its declaration of 9 June, has decided not to adopt sanctions against Peru at the moment.
The meeting of chancellors of the Organisation of American States in Ottawa, having heard the report of the electoral mission headed by Eduardo Stein, has decided to send a new mission, which will include the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Secretary-General of the Organisation of American States, in order to ensure that the Government of Peru is adopting the necessary measures to re-establish democratic legality.
The OAS has not adopted sanctions against Peru at the moment either.
Finally, the candidate, Mr Toledo, during his visit to various countries of the European Union and to the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy (incidentally, it would have been desirable for him to have met with Members of this Parliament during his visit to Brussels), expressed on several occasions the importance of preserving and maintaining economic cooperation and aid from the European Union to the Peruvian people.
In this regard, and before making any decisions - and this is one of the key points of our resolution -, we should, Commissioner, send a high level European Union mission which could, after meeting with all the political forces and with representatives of civil society, make an assessment of the situation on the ground in the light of the democratic clause, which is an essential element of the agreement between the European Union and Peru.
This mission seems to me to be particularly appropriate since the European Union is the main provider of development aid and economic cooperation, and it is also the main investor in Peru.
Mr President, since you have asked us not to take up the time allotted, and in summary, I will say that one of the main contributions which the European Union could make in this difficult situation - and I believe there is good reason, as I have just pointed out, not to leave the matter exclusively in the hands of the Organisation of American States - should be, in my opinion, to promote, on the basis of a guarantee of the full exercise of all civil and political rights, a consensus amongst all the forces which would allow democracy to be recovered, strengthened and deepened in Peru.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Greens wanted the joint resolution of this House to specifically consider the illegality of the election of Mr Fujimori as President of Peru and to ask that fresh elections be organised.
The joint resolution which will be proposed to you and to which the Greens have not put their names, merely highlights the irregularities and concludes that these challenge the legitimacy of this election.
We are therefore dealing with a far weaker declaration than the one we wanted.
First, we deplore such a cautious choice of words.
Let me remind you that the conditions of this election, at least in the second round, were so disastrous that not only did the main opposition candidate withdraw, but so did all the international observers.
In these circumstances, it could be concluded, even before the election, that the election was not valid.
After the election, obviously, Mr Fujimori' s government could argue that since their candidate Fujimori had obtained more than 51%, it had to be concluded that even in the absence of any opposition, the vote was valid.
Having said this, the vote count in many regions showed an excess of theoretical votes in relation to the first round, which is completely impossible given that there were no longer any opposition candidates.
The excess vote was around 20% in some places.
So not only was there no opposition, but it was even necessary to resort to fraud in order to obtain the figure of 51%.
These observations should lead the European Parliament to proclaim the illegality of the election of Mr Fujimori and call for more elections, rather than being content with merely questioning its legitimacy.
Unlike the case of Paraguay, we are not going to see this as a reason for voting against the resolution.
We are prepared to put our names to the joint resolution of the other groups, provided, however, that two points are introduced.
We agree with what Mr Salafranca said about making European Union aid conditional on sending a European Parliament delegation on current human rights to Peru.
However, we think this insufficient as, at this very moment, since the election in fact, military demonstrations and intimidation are being used against those members of the population who show their fury at this election, which is invalid in their eyes.
We therefore ask that a tiny amendment be added, condemning the use of intimidation against the Peruvian population.
This condemnation is not accompanied by any particular threat, and with regard to the conditionality of European Union aid, we gladly support the wording put forward by Mr Salafranca.
The second amendment we are proposing, on the other hand, is a sort of catching-up on the matter of legality.
You know that the Organisation of American States goes further than the European Parliament' s joint proposal apparently does, as this organisation is actually volunteering to suggest a democratic way out of the political crisis which Peru is stuck in over this matter.
We are simply suggesting that the Parliament should approve the current efforts of the Organisation of American States to find a legal, peaceful way out of the crisis.
These are the two amendments that would enable us simply to support the joint motion for a resolution.
Mr President, it is clear that President Fujimori has challenged the international community and, in particular, the Organisation of American States and also the European Union.
Therefore, from our point of view, as well as lamenting the situation and supporting the democratic forces, it is still absolutely essential that, as we did in the previous case of Paraguay, we remind Peru of the need for any relations with the European Union to be maintained in compliance with the democratic clause.
Secondly, only by sending observers will we be able to assess the true situation and find a way to act appropriately.
Therefore, since two recent days, 9 April and 28 May, have caused us great concern, it is clear that we will only be able to act appropriately if we send observers, which we hope will be possible, and who we hope will be able to act effectively.
Mr President, the serious anomalies which have led to the withdrawal of one of the candidates, Mr Toledo, from the second round of the presidential elections, demonstrate that the Fujimori régime lacks any democratic safeguards, and there has been a dramatic deterioration in the living conditions of Peruvian society which should be resolved by democratic means.
Fujimori' s failure to take account of the condemnations of the OAS, and the warning of the European Union and other international bodies in relation to these elections, condemns that country to a form of isolation which will be to the detriment of the Peruvian people and will increase social and political tension.
For this reason, the European Union must firmly denounce these proceedings and, having recognised the extent to which democracy has deteriorated, promote a series of measures which will help to overcome the current situation and lead to the repetition of the elections with full safeguards in place.
This is the best way to help Peru and, therefore, the European Union must make an effort so that its influence in Latin America may counteract so many years of anomalies and suffering and favour harmonious economic development, democracy and the consolidation of human rights.
Mr President, I shall be brief, because almost everything has been said already, while I was waiting my turn.
The situation in Peru, like the situation in Paraguay, gives cause for concern.
Nevertheless, I must say that what we have witnessed in Peru is nothing new.
The President of Peru has for years been failing to play by the rules that we expect in a democracy.
So I would not just send a delegation of observers to Peru, but I would also recommend that the European Union, the Council and also this Parliament should pay more attention to the whole region.
We need more than just a resolution every now and again, we need to be constantly alert and critical, so that the people who are working for democracy are aware of our support.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that is not just the OAS, important as it is for Latin America, that has supported democracy in Latin America. The European Union and this Parliament have in fact also played a key role here.
We have spent a great deal of money in this region and it would be gratifying if now and again people talked about the European Union' s contribution in Latin America, and not just about North America' s role.
This is not intended to be a chauvinistic remark, I am just making it so that justice is done towards us.
I hope that the European Parliament' s views on Peru will not go unheard in that country.
I know that a great many people set a lot of store by what this Parliament says.
Lastly, I would also like to mention that the longest standing relationship between the European Parliament and another parliament is with the Latin American Parliament - to which Peru also belongs - and that involves certain obligations.
I accordingly hope that we will obtain a large majority in favour of this resolution.
Mr President, the situation in Peru worries us.
President Fujimori took power with dangerous plans: to give absolute priority to supposed economic efficiency, claiming that a strong hold on power was required to manage it, and to overcome what he called 'party-ocracy' , subliminally blaming all the previous problems on the institutions of the democratic state.
Our fears were confirmed throughout Fujimori' s terms in office, and clear signs of authoritarianism were observed, which saw outrageous propaganda and systematic manipulation of the media.
Furthermore, the President' s disregard for the rule of law became evident.
It was under those circumstances that the elections of April and May were held and, as we feared, they turned out to be a farce, and were recognised and denounced as such by anyone looking on.
In summary, that is what our resolution says, and it is good and appropriate that the European Parliament' s voice should be heard in this respect, for our own dignity, and in order to demonstrate our interest in the democratic process in Latin America, but also in order to demonstrate our support, which the Peruvian democrats need and deserve.
While we are voting in favour of the resolution in question, I would like to point out two issues relating to its text.
Firstly, not just the mere fact that one of the candidates decided not to stand in the second round of the elections, but rather that that candidate was Alejandro Toledo, who is supported by all the opposition, and who in free elections would stand an extremely good chance of toppling Fujimori.
My second point is that I regret the fact that the resolution does not refer to the disappointing role played by the Organisation of American States throughout this process.
In fact, having denounced the irregularities of the campaign, demanded the postponement of the second round and withdrawn its observers, it does not seem consistent that it should remain silent with no further reaction or sanctions, contenting itself in reality with merely condemning the situation.
By taking this attitude, I believe that the OAS has discredited itself considerably.
I will end by expressing our solidarity with Alejandro Toledo, with the democrats and people of Peru, denouncing Fujimori as a sinister and autocratic personality, rejecting the position of those people who have reacted with silence and even at times with a certain complacency - which has been well publicised by the President to justify his tattered legitimacy - and reaffirming our commitment to rejecting this farce and to closely monitoring the events in Peru for the sake of the respect for democracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has of course followed the whole election process in Peru, and with mounting concern.
In view of the numerous irregularities and technical problems, and the adherence to the date for the second ballot, the European Union decided to recall its observers from Peru.
As has already been mentioned, a similar decision was taken by the Organisation of American States.
In taking this step, the EU wished to express its conviction that the Peruvian election could not have the democratic legitimacy that it would have had in normal circumstances, and which this country urgently needed.
We must not simply express our regret about this step, we also need to consider what we can do to strengthen Peru' s democratic institutions.
The Commission considers that it needs to be made clear to Peru, and as forcefully as possible, that we insist on strict observance of the principles of democracy and of the rule of law, and that this applies all the more so at a time and in circumstances when the democratic systems of other countries in the region are also being weakened.
For example, we were discussing Paraguay just a few minutes ago.
In its statement of 9 June, the European Union stressed that it would support the OAS mission to Peru.
We expect this mission to express its findings in the clearest terms and to come up with unequivocal results.
We will be following the situation in Peru with the greatest vigilance and are prepared to rethink our relations with Peru against this background.
At the same time, the Commission attaches great importance to taking concrete measures to reinforce Peru' s democratic institutions and to promote political pluralism in that country, and will make proposals to that effect.
The debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance is closed.
As planned, Mr Turco' s report, which we debated this afternoon, will be put to the vote during voting time which begins in a few moments.
I would simply like to thank all the honourable Members for providing such a clear demonstration on the subject of Friday' s vote of "whittling away" .
Mr President, it is a bit odd in such a small gathering to want to return to the decisions which were taken in an undemocratic manner yesterday.
In my opinion, it would be preferable if those who are now vigorously protesting against the absence of fellow Members were to do what is necessary to get these delegates to attend.
I can indeed see it happening that, if we do not have a quorum on Thursdays, we will need to discontinue the sittings on Thursdays.
If we want to deal with a serious agenda, then we need to attend.
Spread the word to your fellow delegates, persuade them to attend without biting their heads off.
If you do not mind, ladies and gentlemen, I shall interrupt this fascinating debate to move on to something which is equally fascinating, the vote on topical and urgent subjects.
Vote (continuation)
Mr President, before you take the final vote, Amendment No 3 to paragraph 28 is on the voting list as by the TDI Group.
I should like to make it absolutely clear that is not the case because our group would certainly not want to be seen to be supporting an amendment by the TDI Group.
Mr President, first of all, this technical amendment has been voted upon, and I do not see why we have to come back to it.
Let me point out that the rapporteur belongs to the TDI group and that consequently the honourable Member cannot complain.
That is exactly what was on my list.
The amendment has been voted upon as I announced it.
We now come to the final vote.
Mr President, I am merely trying to clarify - and this does not have to be done now, it can be done later - whether the amendment was tabled by the Technical Group of Independent Members or by the rapporteur.
This makes a difference and affects the way we vote.
I would be grateful if this could be clarified afterwards, because we voted on the assumption that this was not a TDI amendment, but an amendment tabled by the rapporteur.
I would like to make it quite clear that this amendment was tabled by the TDI group, and was voted by plenary.
Mr President, I would just like to say that, in my opinion, amendments should be accepted or rejected on the basis of their content and not on the basis of who has put their name to them.
They have already been voted upon.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I abstained from the vote on the report on Tunisia because I do not feel that this type of document serves much purpose.
Since we are discussing the protection of freedom and human rights, I would like to take this opportunity to say that a serious violation, or rather an attempt at violation of the right to freedom of speech took place today in the Parliament forecourt. The victims were a group of young people with banners and flags who were demonstrating against globalisation and genetically modified organisms.
Water was thrown out of one of the Parliament offices - I do not know whether it was in a bucket or another container - by, it appears, a Member of Parliament, who then protested in the Chamber against the demonstration. I repeat that this demonstration is a free expression of thought, even though I may not agree with the tone or expressions used.
This incident was recorded on film and I would ask the Presidency to watch it and adopt any necessary measures.
. (FR) We voted for the joint motion for a resolution despite the fact that we neither approved of a number of the terms used, nor the silence pertaining to the French government' s responsibility with regard to the situation in Tunisia.
This is because this is the only means given us by parliamentary procedure through which we are able to express our protest against the dictatorship in Tunisia.
By protesting at this dictatorship, however, we are looking to denounce the support that it has been given by the French Government, just as many other dictatorships do and have done in the past, in the former colonial empire representing French imperialism in Africa.
We note the Jesuitism of the parties that have succeeded one another in government in France, which are voting here for a resolution to demand rights and freedoms in Tunisia. When they are in power and when they have, therefore, the means to apply considerable pressure on the Tunisian regime, they do nothing, since, in fact, they do not give a hoot about the rights and liberties in this country, from the moment that its leaders secure order and, above all, from the moment that economic relations become smooth and profitable for France.
Marset Campos Report (A5-0133/2000)
Bordes (GUE/NGL).
(FR) Mr President, we are not against the planned aid for the poor countries of Central America, and that is why we have voted for the report, despite the inadequacy of the proposals.
We are, however, convinced that this aid will benefit the population only to a very limited extent, as there are no plans to control the allocation of these sums and consequently, there is nothing to guarantee that they are not, at least partly, misappropriated by the government, or even directly by the wealthy classes.
Furthermore, all aid, even the best controlled, will be absolutely no use at all as long as these countries continue to be plundered and their populations exploited by large western cartels.
Mr President, I voted for the Marset Campos report and I will tell you why, although I would first like to express my support for Mr Speroni' s speech.
If what he said is true, as I am sure it is since he is a truthful man, then I consider that this is a very serious incident.
With regard to my explanation of vote, I have to say that I am certainly in favour of assisting anyone who is in difficulty such as the population of Central America, but I wonder and I would ask you, Mr President, how it can be that the world' s poorest countries have to wait for a hurricane before they receive any assistance for their economy or their daily lives. In my opinion, the European Parliament should ensure that aid is always available for the communities who need it, wherever their location in the world.
Schmitt Report (A5-0123)
Berthu (UEN).
(FR) President, the Commission working document 'Towards common standards on asylum procedures' is a short, fairly general text which, according to the introduction, is designed to launch a discussion following the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty which, in its new Article 63, once again provides for the adoption of a whole series of joint European standards applicable to refugees and displaced persons.
We have good reason to be surprised at this introduction to the subject.
Why launch a discussion? We had thought, quite logically, that all the discussions had taken place before the Treaty of Amsterdam was adopted and that the federalists knew where they were going.
In fact, on reading the Commission document and the report by the European Parliament, we see that this was not the case.
Yes, the need to harmonise asylum standards is broadly recommended by these texts.
But, first and foremost, the reasoning seems weak.
For example, it condemns the disparities in the way refugees are treated from one country to the next but does not provide examples.
There may be perfectly legitimate reasons for these disparities, relating to the special features of a country, its culture or its links with former colonies.
In reality, on closer inspection, there is only one serious reason - at least so it seems - for harmonising asylum standards: because abolishing internal border controls under the Treaty of Amsterdam, and that includes as far as third country nationals are concerned, demolishes the whole delicate legal balance and risks causing entirely uncontrolled secondary movements of refugees.
So, in fact, we are currently trying to solve a problem largely created by the Treaty of Amsterdam itself and, what is more, we are going to solve it to our disadvantage as it is clear that asylum standards cannot be harmonised from the bottom up - for who would dare? - but rather towards the top with all the in-draughts normally caused by this type of policy.
We risk being caught up in the system.
In order to escape, we can only invite the governments to exercise the utmost caution, retain as much power as possible, and interpret Article 63 of the Treaty of Amsterdam narrowly.
Mr President, this explanation of vote is also shared by Arlette Laguiller and Armonie Bordes.
The rapporteur' s succinct justification of his report expresses his misgivings on harmonisation with the fairly lax standards characterising the laws and common practice in some States, clearly showing the author' s desire to harmonise the right of asylum in the various countries of the European Union, but from the top.
All the more so, given that a number of passages attack asylum abuses, even though governments in almost every country in Europe restrict this right, sometimes excessively stringently.
This means that although, in some European countries, the application of this text could in theory improve the situation of asylum seekers, it would make it worse in others.
Consequently, we have abstained from voting on this report, but we did vote in favour of the few articles, and especially the amendments, that at least express the idea that the right of asylum should be extended, and we denounce the scandalous nature of the policies of most European States, in particular France, which refuse to recognise this right, especially in the case of refugees from Algeria given the abuses by fundamentalists and the army.
Mr President, here, at last, is a measure - fortunately not the only one - which is a credit to the European Union.
I am totally in favour of this measure, for it is a precise declaration to the Commission that the burden of providing asylum for those who are forced to abandon their own territory, their home, family, friends and all they have in the world must be shared equally between all 15 Member States of the European Union.
This is a completely new principle, a fact - and we hope that a directive will be produced to enshrine that principle - which makes of the European Union something tangible, something real.
This is a decisive factor and it particularly influenced my decision to vote for the motion.
Furthermore, I consider that it would be appropriate for the Commission to apply this decision retroactively and share the burden borne by those who accepted Kosovar refugees between the Member States of the European Union.
Mr President, I abstained in the vote because I do not consider that these texts serve much purpose.
However, I would like to take this opportunity to say that there may be somebody who is attempting to turn someone else into a refugee this year as well, some intolerant person who is convinced that his ideas should prevail.
We are against a Communist, dictatorial Europe which eradicates the identity of peoples by eliminating the differences between them.
Communism is not a question of the poor fighting against rich capitalists: it means achieving equality by means of blanket standardisation, dictating how things should be instead of establishing genuine equality, which is based on the diversity of individuals and peoples.
Communism and Europe in its current state represent equality expressed as the mobility of the power of society, which means that no changes need to be made to the current situation.
We, on the other hand, consider that there is a need for a great deal of change and that the Europe of peoples should mean freedom for all peoples, including the people of the Po Valley, and that those young people from the Po Valley also have the right to demonstrate without fear of insult or intimidation, because we want our flags to fly as well as the red flag.
The asylum issue is a major political issue concerning fundamental democratic rights, the safeguarding of the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual and the preservation of human dignity.
The problem of political asylum seekers must be examined in this light alone and efforts to harmonize asylum policy come what may and turn it into a means of chipping away at fundamental human rights, reinforcing suppressive, policing measures and rebuilding fortress Europe must be blocked.
It must not be used as a pretext for intensifying and strengthening the electronic filing systems created under Europol and Schengen, which target not only refugees but also the fundamental individual freedoms of the citizens of the EU themselves.
We must take all the legislative and other measures needed to respect the rights of asylum seekers, by strictly applying the provisions of the Geneva Convention.
We must respect and strengthen all the provisions on protecting and granting asylum to individuals or groups being persecuted in their countries by government, quasi-government or other groups on ideological, philosophical, political, religious, racial, cultural or other grounds by giving them guarantees and a dignified reception and living conditions.
Asylum seekers in the Member States of the EU must be treated in a dignified and humane manner.
We must also take proper account of all the parameters and peculiarities of their situation and of the dangers which threaten them should they return to their countries by introducing any protective measures required, even for those who do not satisfy the formal criteria for obtaining asylum, which criteria must be clearly defined in accordance with the principles of international law and fundamental human rights.
Arbitrary and violent deportation is a common occurrence because of the applicant' s difficulty in resorting to the judicial authorities for protection, and the phenomenon of group deportations is intolerable and violates conventions on and the principles of human rights.
We would like to highlight and draw attention to the fact that formulating even more harmonized criteria for granting asylum by gradually and effectively moving away from those laid down in the Geneva Convention and essentially replacing them with regulations such as those mentioned in the report, may have a negative and repressive impact.
In this sense, we deplore the so-called "policy of burden sharing" which conceals a blatant attempt to relieve certain powerful states in the EU from the "burden" of receiving large numbers of refugees and relocating them to other countries.
Finally, we firmly believe that the best and most fundamental way to address the refugee issue is to maintain the right conditions for peace and the social, economic and democratic development in every country in the world.
Until these conditions are guaranteed and while they are being undermined by major economic and military interests which destroy the structures, societies, rights and dignity of the people as they please and for their own benefit, then there will continue to be an ever rising tide of uprooted and persecuted individuals.
.
(FR) Although the number of asylum applications fell from 660 000 in 1993 to 227 000 in 1997, this is not because persecution has decreased but because it is more difficult to apply for a visa.
The Dublin Convention allows asylum applications to be made only in the first State entered by the refugee.
The aim of the Schmitt report is clear: "To re-enhance the reputation and substance of the right of asylum, the qualification procedure should be tightened up, and abuses resolutely curbed" .
Moreover, the States on the edges of the Schengen zone are considered to be "secure" .
They therefore become the border guards of fortress Europe.
How can we consider countries that carry out serious discrimination against gypsies (Romania and Slovakia) as sufficiently safe for Belgium to send anyone it judges undesirable en masse there.
Finally, the current concept of the refugee is far short of that stipulated by the Geneva Convention of 1951, "A refugee is any person who, owing to fear of being persecuted, is unable to avail himself of the protection of that country."
In fact, nowadays refugees have to provide more and more proof that their lives are under threat, which obviously is difficult, if not impossible.
For the European Union to finally apply the right of asylum, it would have to break with the obsessive practice of immigration control.
The more we respect freedom of movement, the more Europe will be worthy of those who seek refuge here.
.
(FR) The statistics concerning the exponential rise in asylum applications currently submitted every year in the European Union and the real situation are an unfortunate and tragic illustration of the importance of political asylum for each Member State of the European Union.
In its desire to "Communitise" and standardise refugee reception procedures, subject areas which are, by their very essence, matters of national sovereignty, Europe is dragging us along in its policy of small steps towards an area of social inequality, positive discrimination in favour of foreigners and high insecurity, where drugs, illegal immigrants, bogus asylum seekers entering the territory of a Member State for strictly economical reasons, terrorism and crime are free to move where they will.
For serious matters that affect the exercise of justice, the management of immigration into a country, public order or public freedom, the actions of the European Union can only and must merely be subsidiary and only concern truly transnational phenomena of criminality or public order problems.
Finally, this report, just like many others relating to immigration management, is unrealistic and highly populist.
Because in fact, wanting to systematically favour foreign nationals over national citizens, whatever the cost, by means of many and varied forms of aid, particularly regarding proof, accommodation, keeping families together or even financial, medical and educational aid, will only lead to rejection by the population of the receiving country.
This is why the Members of the National Front and I myself will vote against this report which jeopardises people' s rights and security and also democracy.
The creation of a legal penal system cannot be achieved in haste.
"Communitising" procedures for asylum, justice and internal public order within the Member States cannot be achieved without first consulting all the citizens concerned.
I bet that if they were to be consulted, our Eurocrats, those advocates of a centralised federal super-Europe would have to review their plans out of increased respect for democracy in the construction of Europe.
.
(FR) In any civilisation, asylum is a concrete example of charity towards those who, for many reasons, find themselves in difficulty, and nobody is contesting the validity of giving aid to those who are victims.
Reading Mr Schmitt' s report makes me think we are not talking about the same thing.
The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs appears to believe that the disparities in the laws of the Member States actually conceal asylum rights that are non-existent or not often applied, as if we were living under totalitarian regimes and our nations had not been providing asylum for centuries.
This same committee discovers the laws of democracy when it suggests that the discrepancies from one country to the next are linked to the political context as much as to the content of the applications.
It is clear that, for a European Union that is naturally and deliberately cut off from everyday reality, the political will expressed by the citizens during elections is of no great interest, unless it conforms to Community doctrine.
This House does not want to improve the situation for asylum seekers.
The political will of this House is, in this field as in any other, to extend the scope of Community power to the detriment of the Member States, who are apparently unworthy of such power.
If the German people and their government wish to be the European Union country most welcoming to refugees, they are to be congratulated.
If the other countries do not match this, often because they simply do not wish to, then it is nothing to do with the European Parliament and the Commission.
Even the Socialist French Government "prefers" - and I quote - "a flexible approach enabling national characteristics of asylum procedure to be observed" .
So what about the recurring proposal that costs should be shared? Either the Member States have their own policy, for which they are responsible and which they therefore finance, or the European Union "Communitises" this field and includes the costs in its budget.
If such and such a country finds its policy too expensive, let it change the policy.
We do not want a Community policy in the hands of the Commission, nor do we want the policy of another government: we want our people and their elected representatives to retain control over their own decisions and destiny.
Respect for human rights should be maintained internationally.
If people' s rights are infringed, it is the responsibility of surrounding countries to offer asylum to those who request protection from persecution.
The nations of the world have a shared responsibility for ensuring that all refugees receive a welcome fit for human beings.
No countries can argue their way out of responsibility when refugees seek asylum on their territory.
Practice in granting asylum varies from one EU country to another. In general, however, policy on refugees has been tightened up throughout Europe in recent years.
Coordination of the Member States' responsibilities is necessary if countries are in practice to be able to pursue generous policies on refugees.
We therefore welcome the Commission' s working document in principle, together with Ingo Schmitt' s report on the drawing up of a common policy on asylum and refugees, but we emphasise that it ought not to be the least generous countries which set the standards.
We want to see a European policy on refugees which is better at distributing the overall burden between the countries of Europe on condition that the European, as well as the Swedish, policy on refugees will in future be more humane than they are at present.
Nor must we forget that refugees and immigrants have a positive influence on the Member States.
They often have experience and knowledge to contribute to society.
Moreover, immigration is especially important now, given the shortage of labour which is beginning to make itself ever more felt in the Member States.
With regard to Ingo Schmitt' s report, we want to emphasise that asylum applications ought always to be examined individually in the light of the individual applicant' s merits, as should also be the norm in the case of mass migrations.
What is more, it is important that refugees should in principle be entitled to the same social benefits as other people resident in the particular country dealing with the application for asylum.
This basic principle is established in the Geneva Convention and must be given due attention and complied with.
We also think it important that the current definition of refugee and asylum in the Geneva Convention be reviewed and extended so that they also include people who seek asylum on the grounds of gender and sexual orientation.
- (DE) In 1993 the Federal Republic of Germany watered down the right to political asylum in its constitution, thus sealing its borders against immigration by asylum-seekers.
Germany has virtually ceased to grant asylum.
Refugees are socially and legally marginalised or driven into the world of illegal immigrants.
The aim of the Schmitt report is to extend this degrading and inhumane system to the entire European Union.
It is precisely this system that is to serve as the basis for the "common standards on asylum procedures" .
The problems of asylum legislation are not addressed in the Schmitt report.
There is not a single word about inhumane pre-expulsion detention centres. Nor is there a word of criticism about social discrimination against refugees, which in Germany takes place under the Law on Benefits for Asylum-Seekers.
Mr Schmitt' s report omits to mention that refugees suffer from discrimination in the job market.
In Germany, they are categorically forbidden to work.
The rapporteur does not even mention the invasions of personal privacy or violations of data protection rights that are part of daily life for asylum-seekers.
Thanks to "Eurodac" and the "Schengen Information System" , no other group of people is as closely monitored as refugees.
They have become the first "transparent people" .
Mr Schmitt' s report does not offer any potential solutions to all these problems.
Instead, the rapporteur complains that people "wrongfully lay claim" to the right of asylum in Europe.
Since the change in the right to asylum, many refugees no longer have any legal claim to asylum. It was, and remains, totally legitimate to want to live somewhere other than your place of birth.
Framing this right and creating optimum conditions for it should be a key priority for this Parliament!
Instead, the statements in the report help to discredit and criminalise asylum-seekers.
With regard to accepting asylum-seekers, the Schmitt report demands "burden sharing" within the EU.
Asylum-seekers are accordingly denigrated as being a burden.
How can a humane asylum and refugee policy which meets the needs of refugees be based on a fundamental assumption of this kind?
Furthermore, the Schmitt report welcomes agreements whereby third countries would promise to readmit rejected asylum-seekers.
These are an instrument of a fortress Europe policy which has nothing in common with a humane refugee policy.
Such readmission agreements can lead to people seeking protection being pushed back to their countries of origin, and make it easier for EU Member States to refuse asylum.
Mr Schmitt' s report also supports the concepts of "safe third countries" and "safe countries of origin" .
These concepts are responsible for victims of political persecution failing to obtain asylum in Germany, that is to say whenever they enter via "safe third countries" or come from a "safe country of origin" .
These instruments obstruct fair and equitable asylum procedures, and they should therefore be rejected and abolished as quickly as possible.
The European Parliament must make proposals that take account of the interests of refugees and asylum-seekers in the European Union.
We must press for an end to the policy of "fortress Europe" , of the weakening of the right of asylum and of undermining the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Everyone seeking refuge in the EU must have access to a just and fair reception procedure.
Unfortunately, Mr Schmitt' s report goes in the opposite direction.
It reinforces the fortress Europe policy and advocates further restrictions on long-term protection of refugees and asylum-seekers.
I reject the extension of a fortress Europe and I accordingly reject the resolution on "common standards on asylum procedures" .
.
(FR) It should not be forgotten that certain Members of this House, within their own families, may have known asylum seekers.
Only sixty years ago, Italians, Spaniards, Germans, Austrians and others, persecuted by their fascist or Nazi governments, were able to benefit from the right of asylum.
It was our pride and our duty.
In France, our most famous asylum seeker was General de Gaulle, who was able to benefit from the right of asylum in England in order to prepare the resistance.
The main value of this report is that it wishes to unify the laws of the Member States on asylum procedure.
Laws and procedures should be harmonised before the Dublin Convention and the Eurodac system are implemented.
It would be unfair to authorise only a single asylum request for the countries of the European Union, given that it does not have the same chance of success from one State to another.
In my opinion, the standards set by the report are too low.
There are omissions and certain points are still unclear.
Persecution is not just political or caused by the States.
Thus, persecuted Afghan women who are stoned for not wearing the chador, should without exception benefit from the right of asylum.
Similarly, an Algerian journalist threatened with death by fundamentalists should be able to benefit from the right of asylum.
Certain States that persecute dissidents are considered to be great democracies.
This is why requests from Chechnya are not examined.
In order to grant the right of asylum, the States require proof of persecution.
But this is often difficult to provide, due to the persecution itself.
The report remains vague on this subject.
Finally, the procedure should take account of family ties, language, cultural affinity and the colonial history of asylum seekers' country of origin, in order to help them to cope with exile.
If there is abuse or people are turned away, it is because of the lack of coherent rules.
It would be unacceptable to be suspicious and restrict this great achievement in the history of humanity, which remains the only lifeline for freedom fighters worldwide.
I abstained on Amendment No 14.
The aim of this amendment is to "request that in every application of the Eurodac system, emphasis be strongly placed on data protection in order to protect asylum seekers from any abuse of the information gathered" .
This amendment admittedly aims to protect data on the information gathered.
But I am against the actual idea of systematically collecting information, as by Eurodac, as I am against the very idea of accelerated procedures, which can give rise to many forms of abuse.
Report Sörensen (A5-0126/2000)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, I welcome the Commission' s decision to adopt rules on compensating victims of crimes in the European Union.
As representative of the Pensioners' Party which sent me to Parliament, I would point out that the majority of victims of crime are elderly.
In Europe, it is no longer possible for the elderly to set foot out of doors, not only at night but during the day as well in some areas.
For this reason I am satisfied by this European Union initiative.
Moreover, it should be stressed that the State must pay victims compensation on behalf of those responsible and then claim damages directly from the criminals.
. The UK Conservatives have always believed that more emphasis should be placed within the criminal law system on looking towards supporting the needs of victims of crime.
We therefore applaud those sentiments in the Sörensen report which support our view.
However, because the report also suggests changes in the structures of the voting procedure in the European institutions, and has serious resource implications, we cannot give it our overall support.
- (FR) Congratulations!
Once again, Europe has shown its great sense of responsibility in taking an interest in crime victims.
As highlighted in the report, the number of crime victims is constantly increasing.
What is the solution? As far as the European Parliament is concerned, it is material, legal, medical, psychological and social assistance for crime victims.
For us, the Members of the National Front, it is different.
It is not the symptoms of the problem that must be treated, but the cause.
Giving support in this area is absolutely no use at all and merely enables the European governing bodies to ease their conscience.
The very origins of crime in Europe must be tackled at source, because then, and only then, will the number of victims be reduced and will we be able to carry out our duty to help them to the full.
However, we only need to make a simple observation to see that, throughout Europe, crime is increasing, people in urban and rural areas feel less and less safe, international terrorism, paedophilia, sex tourism, enforced prostitution and trafficking in women, money laundering, drug trafficking, illegal immigration and cross-border organised crime are ever increasing.
In the name of the sacrosanct principle of the freedom of movement of people, these are the people who are drugged, attacked or killed.
Your unrestricted freedom of movement within your unachievable area of freedom, justice and security, is neither necessary nor unavoidable.
On the contrary, it is by re-establishing our borders and refusing to grant the tenants of the ivory towers in Strasbourg and Brussels any power in the field of policing, justice or immigration, that the security of European citizens may be preserved and guaranteed.
So wake up and take responsibility!
Weeping over and counting crime victims in Europe will not save them or bring them back: what we need to do is make sure that people do not become victims, and to achieve that, we must find ways of ensuring our security, which you are incapable of doing.
First of all, learn to take responsibility, learn to govern.
Report Turco (A5-0138/2000)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, I voted for the Turco report although I would have preferred to vote against it for it resembles a final balance sheet and is, above all, a very tedious report on the allocation and use of the Structural Funds in 1998.
Personally, I am convinced that the European Union must completely change the way it allocates aid to those in need of its support.
In my view, the system of programmes and grids which has been used for twenty years to create new items in the outgoings section of the European Union balance sheet, needs to be completely revamped.
There is too much wastage and the desired objectives are not being achieved.
I feel that it is time to change the European Union' s system of expenditure.
. (IT) The Union for a Europe of Nations Group agrees with Mr Turco' s report.
What is more, it is important to look more closely at certain aspects of the report which, although they are more concerned with the last period of aid programmes than with providing an analysis after the event, are just as important for the current period.
I therefore call for greater and more meaningful coordination between the Structural Fund initiatives, with particular reference to the ESF, and more tangible compatibility not only with the longstanding annual horizontal themes - for example the SMEs - but also with new solutions.
Furthermore, since employment is one of the three governing motifs of the new programming period, Parliament should be kept regularly informed of the quality and quantity of available jobs by means of the Commission reports on the use of the funds in question. The information should include a balance sheet as well as forecasts.
One further aspect concerns another governing motif for the current period: regional and local development and related issues.
New actions based on local initiatives carried out in a partnership framework have recently been introduced to boost the profile of this motif.
It therefore becomes important not only to learn how to be efficient in implementing these guidelines but also to be aware of potential obstacles to their implementation, and always proceed in the knowledge that the Community also has an objective in terms of employment.
It will be important from this as well as other points of view to verify that these objectives and guidelines are consistent with those of the Member States, starting with their national annual employment plans.
The final point has to be the detection of fraud.
The Commission mentions this in its report but provides an overview, confining itself to general aspects and not providing a detailed evaluation, so to speak, of the frauds, still less revealing the means used to combat fraud in the past or those to be used in the future.
This last aspect is, in fact, an unambiguous indication of commitment and political determination.
Mr President, I asked to speak for personal reasons, because I was one of the people who raised the question today of the demonstration by the young people in our forecourt, at the beginning of the afternoon sitting.
Since the effect of Mr Speroni' s words was to discredit the people who raised the question, and seeing as I do not resort to methods other than speaking in this House, I would not like the serious nature of the incident which I condemned now to be played down, so to speak, or the situation to arise where the young people who were demonstrating in that manner are perceived as victims.
Mr Vice-President, I cannot repeat here what those young people were shouting because I feel that it would be unworthy of this Chamber to do so, but I would be quite willing to testify to what was said at any given moment.
Extremely serious remarks were made regarding the President of the Commission, the Republic of Italy - our country - and 25 April, which is the date of liberation of Italy from the Nazis.
I feel that the President of Parliament should set up an inquiry into this matter.
Moreover, I myself am a polite person and I did not even look out of the window: I came to the Chamber and condemned the incident.
I therefore feel that the matter should be examined in full.
I understand from what Mr Speroni said that it was he who invited the group and that he clearly shares and supports these values which I, on the other hand, consider to be reprehensible.
However, I do not want to sink into banalities and so I will limit myself to condemning this incident, which I consider is a serious matter for our institution.
Mr President, I would also like to speak for personal reasons in order to clear up some of the confusion.
First of all, I did not invite the group, and I have already told the press that I do not agree with all that the group said. However, after the manner of Voltaire, I consider that anybody should be free to demonstrate his own ideas, especially in a place which represents the sovereignty of the people.
I realise that some language can be offensive, but when one is on the receiving end of a bucket of water one is quite likely to be somewhat free in one' s response.
I would stress that the incident was recorded on film, and it is clear from this film that the bad language aimed at the person who threw the water was delivered after the water had been thrown.
Furthermore, I am sure that we have all witnessed demonstrations, including demonstrations by other members of the party of the Member who has just spoken.
When, for example, his fellow party members demonstrated in front of Fiat against the owner of the firm, the language used certainly did not lack force, but nobody dared to suggest that the language used during a demonstration had to be suitable for a court reception.
I therefore maintain that it should be possible to express one' s opinions freely, even if this means giving offence.
Should the need arise, the offended party can always take the necessary action through the appropriate channels.
But freedom of speech must be upheld!
Allow me to point out that the President' s private office has been informed of these events and will, I can assure you, take all the necessary measures.
Mr President, I fail to understand why, at the start of the sitting, Mrs Napoletano referred to my party, Forza Italia, in connection with the incident which occurred in the Chamber.
I would like her to clarify her remarks because not only did we vote for President Prodi but we have neither agreed in the past nor agree now with the insults delivered in the forecourt in front of the Parliament building.
I fail to understand why Mrs Napoletano involved my party in the matter.
I am genuinely perplexed.
Please would she explain her reasons, for it is not our job to create bad feeling or pass judgement.
We are judging the behaviour of these young people because of the things they said, but I would like to know whether what Mr Speroni said is true, for if it is true that a Member of Parliament threw water over these people, the behaviour of the Member of Parliament is also reprehensible.
I therefore feel that it is for the Presidency to clarify the sequence of events.
Of course the language used is to be condemned, but we must make sure that we ascertain all the facts.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is neither the time nor the place to start this debate.
As I told you, the President has been informed of this matter and will take the necessary action.
I personally cannot give you any explanation at present.
Cohesion Fund (1998)
The next item is the report by Mr Ripoll y Martinez de Bedoya (A5-0140/2000) - Cohesion Fund (1998), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission' s Annual Report on the Cohesion Fund 1998 (COM(1999)483 - C5-0326/1999 - 1999/2212(COS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as you all know, the objective of the Cohesion Fund is to contribute to economic and social cohesion and at the same time reduce regional and social disparities, through solidarity amongst the Member States.
Thanks to this fund, numerous countries of the European Union have had the opportunity to try to lessen the distance between themselves and the wealthier countries, and the results have been spectacular but insufficient.
The income per capita has increased from two thirds to three quarters of the Community average and the participation of the European funds in the growth of each of these four countries stood at an average of 0.5% per year.
However, we should point out two problems for the future.
Firstly, the incorporation of new countries, which means that the countries which currently benefit from the Cohesion Fund may find that they will no longer be in receipt of those Funds before they have achieved the objectives of real convergence.
In this respect, we should consider a series of programmes for the future which will allow the new Members to achieve convergence with the European Union while, at the same time, the four countries which receive Cohesion funds should continue to receive them so that they can achieve the true objectives of convergence, growth and the generation of full employment.
Secondly, another problem is the temptation of some wealthier countries to penalise those countries which, since they receive Cohesion Funds, have achieved nominal convergence on the basis of serious, responsible, sympathetic and rigorous structural and economic policies, but clearly still without achieving true convergence, by eliminating them, in this case, from the Cohesion Fund, which could give rise to two possible situations.
Firstly, they may opt for less rigorous and more inflationist policies in order not to lose those funds.
Secondly, growth and convergence with the other countries of the European Union may come to a halt in some countries.
It would therefore be good to distinguish, Commissioner, between true convergence and nominal convergence.
Lastly, I would like to take up a series of recommendations regarding the Cohesion Fund.
Firstly, we should make greater investment in the railways, ports and maritime transport.
Secondly, transport aimed at the integration of peripheral regions, islands and outlying areas should become a priority.
Thirdly, we should pay greater attention to sustainable means of transport.
Fourthly, we need to take more action in the field of reforestation and land reclamation.
Fifthly, we must tackle the problem of the treatment of residues and solid waste.
Lastly, as we pointed out previously, we need more investment in urban centres.
I would also like to point out that, tomorrow, four amendments will be presented, two of them approved in committee as well as two new ones which are before the House.
My position - the reasons for which I have explained in committee - is not to accept them, since in general terms they simply propose new criteria.
We are talking about the Cohesion Fund and the 1998 audit, on which there is a regulation and criteria which have already been approved for 2000-2006 and we do not believe that this is the moment to change the criteria with regard to eligibility and the distribution of those funds.
Mr President, honourable Members, Commissioner, today, eight years on from Maastricht, the Cohesion Fund has, without a shadow of doubt, made a positive contribution towards promoting the economic and social cohesion of the regions of the EU and has had clear results in tackling social and regional disparities.
Since I live in an area which benefits from the Fund, I can assure you that every one of my fellow countrymen is also aware of and acknowledges these results, not only because of the information and publicity campaigns, but mainly because the projects which have received funding belong to basic sectors which affect his quality of life, which he can see is improving.
We would therefore like to commend the Commission for its actions so far in implementing the objectives of the fund and we urge it to continue its efforts to ensure that the Fund is used properly and helps improve its efficiency in the new programme period still further.
We must, of course, stress that the environmental aid granted continues to concentrate on the water sector, despite the need in many other cases for other measures to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment and the rational utilization of natural resources as laid down in Article 174 of the Treaty, which refers to reafforestation, land reclamation, etc.
Considerable investment is still required in order to deal with the serious problem of treating solid waste and refuse, although we still need to adopt incentives for using the most modern, environmentally-friendly and efficient technology.
It is also worth our supporting the promotion of further investment in environmentally-friendly transport infrastructures and we insist on the need to continue developing joint transport systems.
In view of forthcoming enlargement, which presents a great challenge, I consider it essential that we take prompt action to ensure that funding under the Cohesion Fund continues, given that it intervenes in two sectors which are very important in helping to achieve the objective of economic and social cohesion in the European Union, which is the Fund' s very raison d' être.
The fact that it has so far worked highly effectively should be enough to convince us of the need to continue funding to recipient countries, provided they need continuing support and depending, aside from the nominal convergence of the economies of Member States, on real convergence of both the incomes and, more generally, the quality of life of European citizens in their regions.
I should like to close by thanking the rapporteur for his sterling work and his willingness to cooperate during the procedure to examine and supplement his report in committee and I should like to pass on to you this succinct and, to my mind, rather dramatic appeal by a farmer in my region. As he said so very simply yet so very forcefully on hearing of the achievements of our Union: "Europe yes, but a Europe for all the Europeans of the Union" .
Mr President, I want to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on my own behalf and on behalf of the Greens, for this report provides a very good overview of how the Cohesion Fund has operated and of the work that was done in the course of 1998.
I am particularly pleased with developments, which tend towards increased investment in the railway sector, ports and marine transport.
Unfortunately, there is still quite a large imbalance in relation to the roads sector.
We have therefore tabled an amendment to the effect that investment in the roads sector should not represent more than a quarter of all investments in transport sector infrastructure so that it will be possible to comply with the guidelines for budget item B5-7, which deals with trans-European networks.
This is something which, in our view, is very important.
We should like, on the whole, to see a more balanced investment policy, aimed at increasing diversification and investment in the environment and, at the same time, reducing investment in the roads sector.
We also welcome the fact that the Committee accepted our proposal, which is now point 9, requiring that it should also be possible to use resources available for environmental projects for financing projects designed both to preserve and to carry out assessments of biological diversity.
Investment in methods of dealing with waste in as environmentally friendly ways as possible is discussed well enough in point 8.
We would nonetheless add something in the form of Amendment 3, which makes it clear that priority ought to be given to efforts to promote recycling and re-use.
Naturally, the amount of waste ought also to be reduced.
In addition to these environment-related amendments, we also have an amendment about the need to comply with the additionality principle.
We would ask the Commission to submit a report on the extent to which the additionality principle is respected when resources are obtained from the Cohesion Fund.
Mr President, I must congratulate the rapporteur and the Commission on their evaluation of the implementation of the Cohesion Fund in 1998. The report now before us reveals some very positive results.
There is a clear trend towards real convergence without this having adversely affected the rigour of the budget policy. Even when measured strictly the Cohesion Fund has clearly played an important socio­economic role in infrastructures with development potential.
We therefore expect a more refined evaluation by the Commission of the application of the funds.
We are delighted to note the increase in employment, the absence of fraud, the greatly increased monitoring and the proper implementation of the programmes.
However, certain issues must be raised. I would draw the Commissioner' s attention to the need for greater coordination of European funds with the objectives of sustainable development within the EU and real balance between the regions.
These objectives require the promotion, as already mentioned, of alternative means of transport such as the railways, the sea and cabotage which will reduce congestion on the roads and stimulate the ports.
These objectives also require the role played by the Cohesion Fund to be integrated into a regional development strategy which aims to establish industries in small and medium-sized towns and in the rural areas which form four-fifths of the EU. They also require integrated support from the Structural and Cohesion Funds for structures allowing technology to be distributed democratically, particularly by following the process decided in Lisbon and promoting investment leading to new businesses and jobs.
Finally, these objectives also require a civil and social dialogue and the participation of research bodies subordinated to this strategy.
The principle of cohesion considered in the Treaty must not come under threat during enlargement.
The Cohesion Fund must be reworked bearing in mind the positive results with the new socio-economic indicators which are expected to ensure that this experience of the cohesion countries is not lost either for current beneficiaries or for future ones.
I would ask the Commissioner to give his opinion in this respect.
Mr President, thank you for allowing me to speak, as I wanted to say a few words on this report, which is extremely important.
It concerns a subject which is of great interest to me personally, given the commitment of the European Union in favour of the countries which are furthest behind in development and which are catching up with the support of European solidarity.
Today, four countries are directly concerned by the objective of cohesion.
We are talking about a budget of almost EUR 17 billion for the period now beginning, 2000­2006.
But if we look back over the last ten years, including the year cited in this report, 1998, I would say to the Members here and to all those listening to us that the four countries that were the furthest behind, Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal, have gained ten points in ten years in relation to the Community average gross domestic product.
If there is one policy - and fortunately there are others - whose efficacy can be shown, it is the cohesion policy.
I would like to say this at a time when citizens and taxpayers sometimes wonder about the importance and usefulness or efficacy of the European Funds.
So the subject dealt with by Mr Ripoll y Martinez de Bedoya in his report is an extremely important one.
I would like to thank him for his clear-sightedness, precision and competence.
Furthermore, several speakers from all parties have thanked him.
The form of the report is just as important as its content.
With regard to content, ladies and gentlemen, on the subject of the investment allocated to transport, your rapporteur argues for a better balance in favour of sustainable transport, in particular in favour of railways.
He may be sure that the Commissioner for Regional Policy, who was once Minister for the Environment in his own country, is extremely supportive of this move and will oversee it personally, particularly in the programming of the Cohesion Fund for the next six years.
I share this concern.
It has also been highlighted by Mrs Schörling and Mrs Damião, and you may rest assured that I will endeavour to increase the tendency towards sustainable transport, in particular railways, that has been noted over the past few years.
But this tendency is not enough: I want to emphasise it further over the next six years.
With regard to the other investments that can contribute to the objective of sustainable transport, I am referring to ports and airports, the Commission - let me be frank - wants to see a certain amount of caution concerning air transport and certain forms of maritime transport.
In any case, we want to look into matters in detail and modify the rate of cofinancing to take account of the commercial nature of the activities and revenue generated, which is the least we can do.
Having said this, the tendency in favour of sustainable transport is one that the Commission will support with all its might.
With regard to the environmental aspect, your rapporteur highlights the need - as Mr Mastorakis also said so emphatically - to pay more attention to the serious problem of the treatment of solid waste and household refuse.
To date, the Fund has focused on three sectors which are the subject of Community directives: the treatment of drinking water, the treatment of waste water and the treatment of solid waste.
The priority was to allow the Member States to respect the deadlines set in implementation of the directive on waste water, and we are well aware that the problems that I have just mentioned, in particular the matter of waste or water treatment, are problematic in the countries concerned.
I have been able to see this personally in the Azores and I know that the situation is the same in the Greek islands, to use these two examples: these problems are particularly difficult in the case of remote, outermost or isolated island regions.
Also, with regard to the specific problems concerning the environment and thinking of islands in particular, I would like to express my wish to support investment in favour of renewable energy, and I have made this known to the Member States.
More specifically with regard to solid waste, 14% of the total budget appropriation was earmarked for its processing, which represents a significant increase in relation to the 1993-1997 period.
However, I share your rapporteur' s wish to use the most modern environmentally-friendly technologies for this purpose.
Earlier today, Mrs Schörling expressed the satisfaction of the Group of the Greens that an amendment to paragraph 9 proposed by her group had been approved.
This was not by chance, Mrs Schörling.
I deliberately wanted to record the Commission' s agreement to using the Cohesion Fund in favour of biodiversity and protecting nature, not just anyhow or for just anything.
This tendency has been realised in the approval of this amendment.
You will also see my continuing desire, under Objectives 1 and 2 and the Cohesion Fund, for part of the loans to be used to benefit biodiversity.
Having talked about content, I would like to say a word or two about form, and first of all reply to the comments of your rapporteur on the study on the socio-economic effects of the Cohesion Fund ordered by the Commission.
It seems to me that these comments are based on a misunderstanding, which I would like to clarify.
The five years cited by your rapporteur refer to the period between the commencement of the projects evaluated and the final evaluation.
The consultants chosen by the Commission first of all developed an evaluation methodology and then evaluated the projects concerned.
It is not unusual for a large project and the ex-post evaluation of its results to take five years to complete.
The Commission, which has just received this study, is currently analysing it, and in any case, it will be sent to you as soon as possible.
I would now like to bring up the issue of consistency between the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds as raised by your rapporteur.
I am particularly interested in this issue.
This is why the Structural Funds programmes currently being negotiated by the Commission with the Member States of cohesion include indicative sums for both Cohesion Fund aid and European Investment Bank aid.
The information requested by Parliament is available in the individual programming documents.
In addition, I would like to emphasise that the recent restructuring of the Directorate-General for Regional Policy brings together the geographical teams and power within the same units for Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, so that Cohesion Countries, which are eligible for Structural Funds in most cases, will have the same contacts within this Directorate-General.
This seems to me to be a more consistent approach for these countries.
But consistency between the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund also means observing the specificity of these two instruments, in accordance, moreover, with the general regulation on the Structural Funds.
It would in fact be inappropriate to use the Cohesion Fund for the same purposes and in the same way as the Structural Funds.
From the point of view of financial management, it is not the right time to abandon the specificity of each instrument.
In any case, I am not in a position to alter the scope of the Cohesion Fund, which stems directly from the Treaty.
Mrs Schörling, you spoke of the matter of additionality.
Allow me, so as not to waste your time, to refer back to what I said earlier on the subject of Mr Turco' s report.
I clearly expressed my wish to verify additionality and what is true for Mr Turco' s report is also true for the Cohesion Fund.
I even said that the reality of this additionality would be one of the points which would enable me to validate or approve programmes and projects.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasise that the annual report is a particularly useful tool for the analysis, assessment and reflection that regularly takes place on the implementation of regional policy.
This report is even more useful in that it is comprehensive.
As I agree that there are advantages in releasing the annual report as soon as possible, I can assure you that my staff will do their best to speed up publication as much as possible in future.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that our reflection is not only linked to these annual reports.
I can also assure you that beyond our regular meetings, the report on cohesion that I shall present to you at the end of this year will respond to a lot of the questions, criticisms and proposals raised by your rapporteur with regard to the pursuit of solidarity regarding countries benefiting from the Cohesion Fund, particularly in view of the perspective that concerns us all: enlargement.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Integrated control system for Community aid schemes
The next item is the report by Mr Casaca (A5-0137/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Council regulation on amending Regulation (EEC) 3508/1992 establishing an integrated administration and control system for certain Community aid schemes [(COM(1999) 517 - C5-0317/1999 - 1999/0207 (CNS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal before us represents a revolution in control systems and provides the technical bases for a revolution in the method of managing the common agricultural policy.
The proposed method is based on a modern geographic information system in which the cartographic information on holdings is digitised and integrated with the alphanumeric information needed to describe the holding and the aid received.
In terms of control, this method has enormous advantages and significantly reduces the possibility of fraud or any other irregularities.
In terms of managing the CAP, this will finally create a management infrastructure with the technical basis to transform a policy which until now has irrationally subsidised the richest countries, regions and farmers and encouraged surpluses and environmental damage. The new system is geographically oriented, it will encourage sustainable agriculture and it will assist the regions and rural communities which are most in need.
This shows that there is the political will and discernment needed from the European institutions to put a new policy into practice.
In my opinion, the integration into the system of virtually all the sectors financed by the CAP should be sought.
The recent Court of Auditors report on classical swine fever shows that, even in areas where the geographic information initially seems less important, this is actually decisive and may form a fundamental instrument in rationalising the common agricultural policy.
It seems to me that there is therefore every advantage in immediately integrating into the system three sectors which are not included in the Commission proposal. These are oil, flax and hemp and tobacco.
For the first, this involves integrating the existing specific geographic information system into the general system.
For the second, we know that the Commission has already proposed the integration of this sector into arable crops but we do not know when and if the Commission proposal will be approved.
As for the third, its integration is the most necessary and urgent. The fact that tobacco is not at the moment subsidised per hectare but by quantity produced in no way affects the possibility of this being immediately integrated into the system and even less so the advantages which this offers.
The application of a geographic control system will ensure that subsidised tobacco is actually produced on the holdings for which the aid is claimed.
Furthermore, it would be absurd for the extensive information which the Commission requires from each holding in order to clear the accounts not to be integrated into the new system.
In this respect, the Commission should reduce its requirements to what is necessary and reasonable.
It must realise firstly that the CAP is placing an increasing and hidden administrative burden on national and regional authorities. Secondly, farmers should not be required to spend more time filling in forms than milking cows or tilling the earth.
We do not want to turn farmers into bureaucrats.
Although it is necessary to fight fraud, we must also prevent the complexity of the system causing a multiplication of minor formal irregularities and farmers being unfairly penalised.
The simplification of the legislation applying the CAP is an absolute priority.
Finally, our expectations of the Commission are as follows. It is incomprehensible that a project of this size and scope should not culminate in the processing at European level of all the information gathered.
It is unthinkable that a common policy such as the CAP should be handled like a collection of fifteen national policies or, even worse, like a pile of unconnected invoices from 80 or 90 national payment authorities.
The Commission must process all the geographic information now required from the fifteen Member States in a coordinated manner.
However, it is also vital that this precious resource is used to further the policy of economic and social cohesion, environmental protection and even regional development.
Mr President, as well as congratulating Mr Casaca on his excellent work, I must thank him for his support for the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture.
This opinion has tried to correct the Commission' s approach, which ignores most of the essential elements, not only for control, but also for administration.
This source of information is found in the administrative information resulting from the payments of the EAGGF.
Regulation (EC) No 2390/1999 demands that the Member States provide the Commission with the data on the payments of the EAGGF-Guarantee.
Nevertheless, it only demands that that information is communicated to them on request and exclusively for the preparation of verifications in situ in the process of the settlement of accounts.
This situation creates various control limits.
Effective administration must be able to provide the institutions responsible with the elements for analysis and decision and amongst these elements is the cost-efficiency index.
This approach must be applied systematically and must be based on the analysis of the payments corresponding to each regulation.
The fact that this information can only be requested for the preparation of verifications in situ in the process of the settlement of accounts sets a time limit on the availability of the fundamental information for administration and control.
Once the process of the settlement of accounts is over, it is no longer possible to make any analysis of administration or control activities.
However, as well as these verifications relating to the settlement of accounts, effective control requires other instruments such as, for example, the cross-checking of the different information available.
In order to reduce these deficiencies, it has been proposed to use the information available within the framework of the above-mentioned Regulation (EC) No 2390/1999 in the integrated administration system, which Mr Casaca spoke about earlier in this magnificent report.
Therefore, in the first stage of the establishment of this integrated administration and control system, it would be sufficient to regulate the conditions for delivering the information mentioned and the need for the Commission to store it.
Mr President, we welcome this proposal by the Commission to improve the system of control and I should like to thank Mr Casaca for his report.
This is a very technical subject and indeed to comprehend it one needs an understanding of almost all the details of the entire common agricultural policy.
Mr Casaca has made a very good effort to explain it to Parliament.
I should also like to thank the Commission for its continuing efforts to tidy up the whole business of accounting in the area of agriculture.
It is extremely important.
We have recently been talking about regional funds and cohesion funds but the common agricultural policy is extremely important.
It is the greatest instrument we have for cohesion since it is the only rural policy which the Community has and it brings immense benefits to peripheral areas and to people who are in businesses that are not otherwise viable.
The policy was given a bad name in the past when most of the funds were channelled to the agricultural industry through the processors and exporters.
We had the possibility for large amounts of fraud and racketeering through the payment of monetary compensatory amounts.
With the reorganisation of the policy we have a new situation.
It is fair to point out that the most recent report by the Court of Auditors for the year 1998 has not drawn attention to any single major failure of the Commission in this entire area.
There have been problems but they were isolated, small offences, relating to areas of aid and also to premiums and the failure of national governments to understand the details of European law.
But we have to recognise that for the most part the Commission was given a clean bill of health for 1998 which is the most recent report we have and it is to be congratulated on that.
Considering that this is something like 48% of the entire budget - EUR 38 or 39 billion - it is quite an achievement, spent over fifteen countries, that the budget was within two and a half per cent of estimate and that waste and the possibility for loss were lower than the average for the budget.
The changes to the whole system have made it easier to control.
The fact that more money is now going directly to farmers makes it easier to understand exactly what is happening.
The proposed changes will readjust our system of accounting to the new policies that have been devised.
It is reasonable to expect Member States to produce the sort of detail that is necessary for the European Commission both from the management point of view as well as that of accounting, to have exact details of where and to whom the money is going, down to the last recipient.
This is welcome.
In relation to the amendments proposed by Mr Casaca, we can support all of them.
We have received complaints from some people about the proposal to introduce tobacco.
Maybe, as things stand at the moment, because the money goes to processors there is some point in saying that it should not be extended.
But we spend EUR 1 000 million on the tobacco regime.
There are about 135 000 farmers, about 135 000 hectares.
That means approximately EUR 7 600 per hectare, approximately EUR 7 600 per farmer.
That is a lot of money.
It is only reasonable that we should seek to establish that this money goes to the farmers and applies to the hectares, as Mr Casaca has suggested.
My group is asking for a divided vote to enable those who do not like the tobacco regime to vote against it but, on the other hand, our amendment is a message to the Commission that we really think this should be clarified so that the money will go exactly where it is supposed to: to rural areas and to farmers.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Casaca on his excellent report.
My group will of course support it.
The integrated administration and control system is actually the central plank of our present agriculture policy.
We need reliable information on final beneficiaries, the number of animals kept and the surface area being cultivated.
This is a difficult task which is only possible at all by virtue of technological progress.
Mr Casaca' s report covers this to a considerable extent.
Welcome as this is, we should nevertheless not lose sight of the fact that this will involve changeover problems.
We learnt that when the present system was introduced under the 1992 regulation.
Today, eight years later, two Member States have not yet implemented the system at all or only in part.
We cannot allow delays of this kind to occur again.
This subject was addressed at the time of the 1998 final discharge.
The Commission informed us that the advance payments for these two countries, Greece and Portugal, had been reduced.
That alone is not enough.
In such cases there must be tangible sanctions that really bite, linked to the process of clearing the accounts.
In connection with the final discharge, the Commission also presented the 1998 monitoring statistics to us.
I do not want to burden you with figures here, but I will perhaps give you a short extract.
In 1998 in the 15 Community Member States there were more than 3 million applications for "area" aid.
Of these, some 12% were checked, partly on the spot and partly by satellite.
Of those applications checked, over 40% were inaccurate.
We should not of course immediately assume that deception was intended in every case.
In some cases, there were technical oversights, in others misunderstandings about interpreting the rules, and so on.
Nevertheless, these amounts add up to millions of course.
These figures therefore demonstrate just how urgently a properly functioning control system is required.
As the European Parliament rapporteur responsible for anti-fraud measures, I would like to bring a serious problem in this area to your attention.
All the Member States report any irregularities to the Commission, but only a few Member States tell the Commission which of these cases are classified as fraudulent.
For example, according to the statistics, in the United Kingdom there were 4 995 cases of over-declaration, 971 cases of duplicate applications and 52 cases of "false" applications.
But not one of these cases was classified in the statistics as being fraudulent or as giving rise to suspicions of "serious negligence" .
Finland, Austria, Portugal and Sweden do not report any such cases either.
So is there a kind of fraud-free zone in the EU? I very much doubt it.
The problem we have here also occurs in other budget areas.
The administrative controls more or less work, but we do not have a reliable overview of criminal aspects.
This problem needs to be solved as a matter of urgency if we really want effective deterrence in order to combat fraud.
The ideal way of achieving this is to set up a European public prosecutor' s office for financial matters, which this House has repeatedly called for.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, expenditure within the framework of the EAGGF, Guarantee section, forms the largest entry in the whole of EU expenditure, and this year amounts to over EUR 41 billion.
The far-reaching management and control measures which the Commission proposes are therefore very appropriate indeed.
It is a matter of great urgency that such a large part of the EU' s expenditure should be used correctly and efficiently.
I do, however, wonder whether the proposed measures are the most effective.
In this respect, I would refer to the useful input from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in this report.
The Committee claims that, when data is collected, the existing databases are ignored, would you believe!
This is how useful information for managing Community aid falls by the wayside.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is right in saying that the Commission is acting in an absurd manner.
Data on payments or revenue in respect of the EAGGF, Guarantee section, can only be used at the request of the Commission for closing accounts.
But surely this is no reason to ignore this information.
The existence of this wealth of information should have been a reason for the European Commission to adapt Regulation 2390/99.
We at the European Parliament can still rectify this mistake made by the Commission by including an amendment to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development' s recommendation, which unlocks this source of information for the management of Community aid.
If the regulation has been amended to this effect, we will back it without hesitation.
Mr President, I would also like to support the report presented by Mr Casaca on the European Commission proposal on the Integrated administration and control system for Community aid schemes, which was unanimously adopted by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In my opinion, the reservations expressed by the Executive, particularly the Commission' s position on Article 1 of the proposal, are unfounded.
The products which the rapporteur intends to add to the list all fall within sectors of considerable financial consequence whose control mechanisms have proved to be insufficient.
In fact, these products have all been subject to fraud and irregularity in the past.
Moreover, the extension of this system to a greater number of products would facilitate sound, effective management, which would lead to simpler procedures for both the Executive and farmers.
It is, in effect, necessary to harmonise the excessive number of different regulations which are currently in force, for the purposes of containing costs as well.
On the basis of the above considerations, I therefore call upon the Commission and the Council to incorporate the position of the Committee on Budgetary Control and, in particular, Amendment No 1 and Amendment No 2.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I too would like to warmly thank the rapporteur, Mr Casaca, and the Committees on Budgetary Control and on Agriculture and Rural Development for their proposals in the form of amendments and above all for the constructive debate on this proposal.
I am particularly grateful for their support for the basic principles underlying the Commission proposal, on which we are in agreement.
Although I cannot agree to all the amendments tabled by the committees, I would like to make it clear that the Commission supports the committees' basic view that the integrated administration and control system needs to be further strengthened.
With regard to Amendment No 1, the Commission' s main motivation in presenting this proposal was firstly to adjust the integrated control system to the new legislative situation arising from Agenda 2000, secondly, to introduce the geographic information systems designed to improve the identification of agricultural areas and, thirdly, to stipulate compatibility between IACS and administration and control systems for other Community aid systems.
Also on amendments, I would like to make the following point: in the case of Amendment No 1, I agree with the criticism raised earlier in the debate that not all Member States have yet made sufficient progress in establishing IACS.
However, it was not because of the transposal situation that the Commission presented its proposal for an amended regulation, but rather to introduce the new geographic information systems available.
As has also been explained, we have already taken advantage of the charging procedure, by setting a charge for those Member States lagging behind in that context also.
Amendment No 2 suggests that various other aid systems should be brought under IACS, with those for olive oil, tobacco, flax and hemp being mentioned in particular.
There is one particular point that must be borne in mind here: these schemes are not exclusively "area" aid schemes, so they cannot be wholly brought under IACS.
However, IACS will, of course, be applied as far as possible in these cases.
In particular, if flax and hemp are now to be integrated into the arable support system, IACS will then be fully applied.
But IACS or the geographic information system will also be used for determining areas and for drawing up the olive sector register.
With regard to Amendment No 3, the Commission is opposed to automatic exemption from the requirement to submit an area aid application for applying aid under a scheme not directly linked to agricultural areaThe Commission has in any case already granted an exemption of this kind for special cases, and it should retain the option of first being able to check whether such an exemption is sensible.
The Commission is in full agreement with Amendment No 4 to the extent that it refers to Article 10, which is to be deleted.
However, it is not possible totally to delete the provision affected in the way proposed.
The Commission must also retain the right to carry out checks in relation to IACS.
I shall now turn to the other points raised in the debate. It has been proposed that payments should be centralised and that all data should be centralised.
We believe that the effect of this would be exactly the opposite of what we wish to achieve.
What we are looking for here is subsidiarity. We cannot carry out all the checks from Brussels.
We know that there are millions of applications, and that means that it is only possible to check and control applications for compliance with the rules through decentralisation.
If we need information, we can in any case always access case-by-case details via national IACS operations and through national payment agencies.
There is no problem there.
But for the same reason, it would not only be organisationally counterproductive in terms of modern management but also highly costly to automatically send all data to Brussels and store it centrally there.
Mr Bösch pointed out that of all applications checked with regard to area, 40% were inaccurate.
However, we need to clarify what we mean by inaccurate applications, and above all just what the defects are.
For example, if you look at the European Court of Auditors' Statement of Assurance and in particular at the representative spot checks carried out by the Court of Auditors for 1998, the following facts emerged with regard to the support system for producers of arable crops: out of the entire random sample taken, a total of 16 substantial errors were found in relation to area.
The deviations in these 16 incorrect applications were in ten cases between 0% and 3%, in four cases between 3% and 5% and for only two applications in the entire random sample for the whole Community was the deviation over 5%.
The other point that Mr Bösch raised, and which I also consider to be important, is the question of possible criminal aspects.
The issue here is to what extent actual incidences of fraud are not subject of adequate prosecutions.
You all know that under present legislation and also in accordance with the current contractual arrangements, all matters relating to criminal law are the responsibility of the Member States.
If cases of fraud or suspected fraud should actually arise in this area, then the national public prosecutor' s office should automatically be involved.
The extent to which it would make sense to set up some kind of European public prosecutor' s office for financial matters or to introduce some kind of European financial prosecution procedure is an issue which ultimately has to be discussed in the framework of the Intergovernmental Conference, because it would imply a treaty amendment.
Just one brief observation, Commissioner.
Your institution is calling for a public prosecutor' s office for financial matters in connection with the Intergovernmental Conference.
I hope that there will be no further need for negotiations and clarification within the Commission.
We will be glad to support you on this.
I would like to make it clear that I did not say that we require anything to be clarified.
I simply said that any decision would have to be taken in the framework of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Nuts and locust beans
The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Commission (B5-0491/2000) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on support measures for nuts and locust beans.
Mr President, in the absence of Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, and on his request, I will speak on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture.
The majority of nut production in the European Union takes place in arid areas and on steep slopes in drought conditions.
These crops offer protection against erosion and desertification and play the role of firebreaks.
They are of fundamental importance as a source of supplementary income, which is essential to the maintenance of a large number of rural operations in the least-favoured areas.
Furthermore, this production is the basis of a significant primary and secondary processing industry, the key to economic diversification in rural areas which suffer very difficult conditions.
The Community' s level of self-sufficiency in this area is between 50 and 60%.
Community production must endure competition from third country producers whose costs are much lower and who are subject to greatly reduced tariff protection.
For example, in the case of hazelnuts, the costs of production in the European Union are three times greater than those in Turkey as a result of the differences in labour costs.
In the case of almonds, the cost difference is a result of the fact that in the European Union they are produced in very difficult climate and soil conditions.
Tariff protection is very low and is being progressively dismantled following the negotiations within the World Trade Organisation and other preferential agreements.
The Commission clearly cannot ignore the fact that, when it holds commercial negotiations, its concessions have effects which sometimes turn out to be negative.
For this reason, it must become customary to assess the consequences and automatically establish measures to lessen the negative effects of commercial concessions granted by the Commission.
Despite the fact that the measures laid down in Regulation (EEC) No 789/89 have had positive results, they have not managed to balance the cost of production with prices on a market dominated by the enormous pressure of imports at low prices.
The problem is that the support which this production has relied on is coming to an end, while the severe production conditions have not changed, and the competition from third country production has become tougher.
In fact, the tariffs applicable to almonds, for example, are going to be reduced further next month from 4.1 to 3.5% and there is a quota of 90 000 tonnes at 2%.
Furthermore, American exports to certain third countries enjoy preferential agreements which the European Union does not have.
In fact, over the last ten years the price has remained the same.
The tariff for hazelnuts stands at 3.3%.
Nevertheless, a lower rate of 3% is applied for products from Turkey.
The pressure of imports is such that there is less and less difference in prices between the select varieties and the common varieties, which has a devastating effect.
The difficult growing conditions in the European Union prevent competition with third countries and it is not possible to improve competitivity unless we abandon the current production areas and move production to other regions.
This would cause serious environmental damage, serious risks of depopulation and serious problems in terms of land management.
For these reasons, Commissioner, the Committee on Agriculture presented the oral question which has led to this debate.
The diagnosis of the problems involved in the needs of Community nut production is well known. This is demonstrated by the fact that all the political groups in this House have agreed on the presentation of a resolution.
The pressure of imports and the difficult climate and soil conditions demand, therefore, support for Community nut production.
The Committee on Agriculture, in the resolutions presented unanimously by the political groups, is responding to the conclusions of the recent appearance of the nut sector before the Committee on Agriculture and, to a certain extent, takes up the requests of the sector, which, as the Commissioner knows, is enormously worried and concerned.
These concerns, demands and requests of the Committee on Agriculture and the political groups in Parliament are aimed at seeking a solution which involves the granting of direct aid to the income of producers which, by maintaining that cultivation, will lead to the prevention of environmental damage and depopulation and maintain certain primary and secondary processing industries in the least-favoured areas.
However, on the other hand - and this is the aspect which has led to the anguish and concern in the sector today - given that the measures aimed at this sector are coming to an end, it is essential that they be extended until a new support system has been put in place.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Jové Peres, may I remind you that the Commission itself discovered many years ago that growing nuts in the European Union involves certain difficulties!
Part of the reason for this, and you are right in saying this, is undoubtedly the keen international competition which exists, but the main reason is that there are various structural deficiencies in the main nut-growing areas.
We unfortunately discovered that these structural deficiencies above all result in low productivity and high production costs.
In view of these difficulties, a support system was introduced back in 1989.
But even at that time it was limited to 10 years, and its objective was to improve the nut quality and marketing.
This system involved a significant financial commitment.
Between 1990 and 1999, this system led to expenditure totalling EUR 725 million.
And as the contractual obligations are still in force, and run up to 2006, this year and in the coming years a further EUR 250 million will be paid out.
In addition, a separate flat-rate aid for hazelnuts was introduced in 1997.
However, as I have already said, it has been clear from the outset, as everyone affected knows, that there is a time limit on the measures to promote sales and that the objective is to facilitate the adjustments necessary to increase competitiveness.
In view of the fact that the programmes will in part be continuing up to 2006, no further measures are planned under this budget heading.
However, I would like to point out that a different form of support for nuts that did not exist previously has now become available.
Above all, the general aid scheme for fruit and vegetable growers under the "operational fund" also provides for measures of this kind, and of course additional, non-market-specific measures are also possible under the rural development programmes which had to be submitted this year.
However, none of the programmes submitted to us by the Member States, including those Member States with substantial agricultural areas, contains any proposals for measures of this kind, so that no such need was evidently identified when drawing up the programmes.
That is the present situation, and that also sets out what the Commission is in a position to do in this field so as to counter negative trends.
But the Commission should not be attacked if it was agreed beforehand that rural development was to be the responsibility of Member States and included in their programmes, and if at all possible at regional level within the Member States.
So that is where priorities for supporting rural development need to be set.
Mr President, I must thank the Commissioner for being present in this almost deserted chamber on a Thursday evening. This House will end up as barren as the programme which you are presenting us with for nuts.
I would also like to thank all of you who are here to debate the future of nuts in the European Union.
I had my speech prepared, but having heard the reply which the Commissioner has just given us and the words of Mr Jové in his presentation, I believe that I am going to forget my notes and try to improvise in reply to the Commissioner' s response.
The Commissioner is aware of the problems of nuts in the European Union and he is aware that we are dependent on a single supplier in many cases: the United States, on the one hand, in the case of almonds, and Turkey, in the case of hazelnuts.
The Commissioner is also aware of the benefits - as Mr Jové has stressed - for the arid areas where all these crops are cultivated, and this cultivation is not improvised from year to year, since it takes a long time to grow an almond tree or a walnut tree.
Therefore, Commissioner, I believe that we are facing a very extensive problem.
When you tell us that there are structural problems of low productivity and high production costs in the European Union, we must ask ourselves whether we want a nut sector or whether we want to be totally dependent on outside sources? We only provide 50% of the supply, for the rest we depend on other countries.
At this rate, we will end up with nothing.
You tell us that there have had to be negotiations and that there is already aid from the COM in fruit and also within the framework of the rural development projects.
Therefore, I would like to say that, in the COM in fruits, the operational funds are intended for those crops - for those fruits - for which there is large-scale production.
In those cases, the operational funds - which are a very small percentage of this global production per hectare, some 1.5 or 2% - are a reasonable amount to work with.
In the case of production per hectare which amounts to little more than ESP 100 000, I believe that the operational funds of the COM in fruits have very little significance and offer very little in terms of resolving the problem of nuts.
With regard to the framework of the rural development projects, the Commissioner knows much better than I do that, in rural development, the second pillar of the CAP - which we all view with great hope and we congratulate him for having brought it up and united it in one budgetary line -, in the regions where these fruits are grown - which are basically Objective 1 regions in some cases, and Objective 2 regions in others-, the programmes developed there are LEADER programmes.
In these LEADER programmes, and PRODER programmes in the case of Spain, where there are national programmes, which are organised from the bottom up, it will be difficult to consider a specific cultivation as being of strategic interest and as a strategic sector, when these programmes normally deal with problems of general interest.
However, Commissioner, what we are proposing to you, and I believe that all the political groups are in agreement on this, is the partial continuation, not continuation sine die, but continuation until a certain date, Commissioner, of improvement funds and plans, because in some cases they have still not ended, and in other cases their objectives have still not been fulfilled.
However, these funds are absolutely essential to the maintenance of the crop, as long as nuts are subject to differentiated treatment within the coming reform of the COM in fruits and vegetables.
Commissioner, I believe that we are talking about a sum of money which is not especially large and which can be covered within the miserly budgets which, according to what your department tells us, are available for allocation.
Therefore, Commissioner, the extension of these improvement plans, as long as they are organised, used, and allocated according to a differentiated treatment in the coming reform of fruits, which will happen shortly, I believe that this will resolve and calm the fears which Mr Jové has expressed, which are shared by all the nut producers in the European Union, as they communicated to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, where they received our political support.
Since these producers have the political support of this House, I believe that it would not be justifiable to deny them a few pesetas of economic support.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I wish to reject the words of Mr Fischler - and his proposals - and I wish to support the motion for a resolution presented by various parliamentary groups, which has the practically unanimous support of this House.
Mr Fischler, the European Commission must not continue to ignore the requests of the sectors affected.
You cannot continue to insist that you alone are right and that we are all mistaken.
You cannot ignore the fact that, if we do not adopt support measures for nuts and locust beans, many crops will eventually be abandoned.
There will be irreparable consequences for many areas of the Union, from both socio-economic and environmental points of view.
It must be said that both specific measures for nuts and locust beans, as well as the lump sum aid for hazelnuts, were in fact transitional measures aimed at the conversion of the crops, but there is no reason why they cannot be extended.
Commissioner, a conversion in the agricultural sector cannot be treated as if it were a conversion in the industrial sector.
In industry, one can modernise plants and improve productivity, but in the case of certain crops, however much investment is made, however many changes are made in terms of marketing, we cannot alter the fact that certain areas are arid or semi-arid.
We cannot imagine that this problem can be resolved through the scant funds available in the rural development programmes.
That is not the place to find a solution for these areas, as the Commissioner and the whole of the Commission seems to think.
Furthermore, it does not appear that an extension of this aid until the adoption of the measures proposed in the resolution, nor even until the definitive measures themselves are adopted, will cause problems within the conversations in the World Trade Organisation.
The sector produces a surplus and Community protection is minimal.
If the quantities requested are not great, if there are no further problems, if this is the only way to maintain standards of living in certain areas, Commissioner, this aid must be retained.
Mr President, having heard the interventions of Mr Jové and Mr Fischler, I believe I should change the form of my intervention and go straight to what I believe is the crux of the matter.
The Commission' s main argument is that which was agreed ten years ago.
That is to say, ten years ago there were certain conditions, we established a programme and it has come to an end.
I believe that it is precisely the change in conditions compared to ten years ago which weakens the Commission' s position, and it is therefore important for them to be sensitive to an agreement which originates from the action of certain MEPs from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the European Parliament at the moment.
In my opinion, there have been three changes.
Firstly, the competition conditions have changed. They are not the same as ten years ago.
Secondly, according to the assessment of the agricultural sector, and this one in particular, it should be pointed out that there is much greater sensitivity towards environmental responsibility than there was ten years ago.
It is an economic sector, I agree, but it has much greater environmental responsibility than it did ten years ago.
Thirdly, if this aid is removed today, the loss of the land recovered over these ten years would be irreversible.
I therefore sincerely believe that there is no margin, either within the framework of rural development or in other areas, because we are not talking about vegetables, we are not talking about any other type of product, we are talking about a very specific product, with very specific circumstances, which were analysed ten years ago and which must be analysed today once again.
For this reason, I believe that it makes absolute sense to carry out a study of a new framework of aid and, in any event, there should be an extension with immediate effect.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, there are not many of us, just the little Mediterranean family, trying to defend the crops that Brussels does not like.
We have had the honey problem - Mr Fischler, you refused a few handfuls of euros for hive subsidies - the olive oil problem, and now it is the turn of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts.
Brussels does not want to be involved.
We are told: there was the 1989 regulation, but it was provisional.
The fixed aid for hazelnuts in 1996 was temporary.
These measures have run their course and must come to an end.
But to put an end to Community funding is to spoil what has been achieved.
In the name of the principle of continuity, coherence and protecting the financial interests of the European Union, the aid that has already been committed must not be ended, especially since another aberration may be added to this one, the fact that we are in deficit.
We are importing.
And if that is making profits for Turkey, then fair enough, but making profits for California!
You tell us that it is expensive, but you are not telling the whole truth. It costs EUR 250 million, but that is for years to come.
You are avoiding giving the annual figure, which would represent 0.0 something percent, a tiny fraction of the European budget.
In other words, Commissioner, action must be taken, first in the name of quality, in the name of seasonal employment, but also in the name of common sense, rurality, the environment, beauty.
I do not know whether you have seen an almond tree in February, well it is truly a thing of beauty!
And as we have told you, we are dealing with regions in Spain, in my native Languedoc-Roussillon, in Greece, where the land is arid.
We must prevent a rural exodus.
As a minimum, since extending the COM for fruit and vegetables is not a solution, we must set aside a few euros from the European budget to finance this activity.
But on top of that, Commissioner - you and I were both in Seattle - there is the problem of Community preference.
Our honey over Chinese, Canadian or Mexican honey.
Our olives instead of North African olives and our Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Languedoc-Roussillon and French Mediterranean before Anatolia and California, Commissioner.
Not for a fistful of dollars, but for a fistful of euros.
Commissioner, in your speech you told us how you viewed the situation, but I can assure you that the industry does not see it in the same way.
It is true that aid was adopted in the past to tackle great difficulties facing the industry, but the problem is that today, ten years later and through no fault of the producers, the circumstances that led to the approval of that aid have not changed.
As has been pointed out, our tariffs continue to be very low, European products are still unable to compete with those originating above all from Turkey and the United States, as a result of social and labour costs or because the crops, in the case of the United States, are in irrigable areas and are mechanisable while those in the European Union are in drought areas which are not easily accessible, where there is little chance of mechanisation, and it is therefore true that they are less competitive.
However, this does not make the production in the European Union any less important.
Furthermore, despite the importance of this production, we still have a deficit, and the disappearance of this crop - which may occur if the aid to the industry is not continued - would put the consumer in the hands of Turkey and the United States, who would set our prices from their position as a true monopoly.
We should also remember, Commissioner, that there is practically no alternative to the cultivation of nuts because of the places in which they are produced.
For all these reasons, it is not surprising that there is enormous concern in the sector at the possibility that aid may be withdrawn, since without it - and we must recognise this -, given that the future of these operations, as a result of the competition from third countries, is in jeopardy and the investment made in the modernisation of the production systems - which has taken place on a significant scale - will have been pointless.
I would therefore also like to ask you, Commissioner, on behalf of the producers in the sector and especially on behalf of the producers in Catalonia, for the specific aid to this sector to be continued in the way that has been pointed out here and along the lines of the motion for a resolution which I hope will receive the support of this House.
This aid only represents 0.18% of the total budget of the EAGGF-Guarantee and 0.16% of the total agricultural budget, for which, furthermore, it has been pointed out that there is a sufficient financial margin.
Any other type of aid such as those you have mentioned, above all rural development aid, may be positive in other sectors, it is true, but in this case, given the specific nature of the sector, they are totally insufficient to guarantee the competitiveness, and therefore the survival, of these operations, whose interests the Commission - you, Commissioner - can in no way ignore.
Mr President, here again, I would simply like to draw attention to the fact that, in this crop that I know so well, the return on investment is long term.
Moreover, the producers have worked towards obtaining certification on irrigation, selecting plants, precisely organising the crops, and this work would be completely ruined if the aid that had been given up until now was not maintained at least long enough for the return on investment to take place.
For walnut trees, for example, the return on investment is around 18 years, and consequently, I believe that economic and financial logic and coherence, and also political coherence, require that for these crops, the Commission should show continuity, logic and common sense.
Mr President, I would just like to respond, very briefly, to the most important arguments raised.
First of all I would like to make it as clear as possible that the Commission is definitely against production aids.
Even the aids that we had in the past were intended to support improvements in structure and quality - they were not intended to be permanent production aids.
In addition, I have to say that any such purely production-related aid would violate all the WTO rules.
It has been argued that we are talking about a long-term investment here.
That is quite right.
But every farmer who has made an investment in this area signed a contract at the outset before he made that investment, so that he knew for exactly how many years he would be receiving investment aid.
So it is not as if the Commission can now be accused of some kind of cynicism because it is withdrawing support in a way that the farmers affected were not expecting.
Every farmer knew for exactly how many years he would be receiving support.
We need to be very clear about that here.
I have explained that there are new options.
If a case is being made that this type of farming is absolutely essential for maintaining the landscape and preserving the environment, particularly in these dry areas, then this is an ideal case for environmental measures.
It was precisely for this purpose that, amongst other things, we topped up the funding for environmental measures in the context of agricultural development.
You cannot be right on both counts.
You cannot argue that this is an important form of agriculture if it is obviously not important enough for the regional authorities to give it priority and grant support for it.
You cannot have it both ways!
It has been said that this is all too little and that more money is needed, and it has been argued that this is only nought point something of the total agricultural budget.
I am sorry, but the proportion of the budget the Commissioner can spend as he likes is 0.0%, so that if you want aid, you must at least play fair and say who you want to take the money away from!
Because the room for manoeuvre is precisely zero, there is no leeway in the budget as has been suggested in this Chamber!
In accordance with Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received two motions for resolutions to end the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.15 p.m.)
Mr President, on a point of order.
I understand that the first point of order ever raised in the directly-elected Parliament in 1979 was by the Reverend Doctor Ian Paisley and his point was that the British flag was flying upside-down.
Twenty-one years later I have to tell you that yesterday evening in the forecourt in front of the Tower building, where the motorcyclists were collecting, there were sixteen flags flying.
Fifteen of them were the right way up but the Union flag was upside-down.
To fly the Union flag upside-down is an internationally recognised distress signal and to fly it upside-down when it is not a distress signal is a gross affront to the flag, the British people and the British nation.
I have corresponded with the President of our Parliament on this issue and she has written to me assuring me that this matter would be corrected and that the British flag would be flown the right way up.
Can I now call upon you first of all to ensure that the flag is immediately placed the right way up and also to take measures to ensure that in future it is always displayed correctly.
I can assure you, Mr Helmer, that everything will be done to ensure that the prestige of your flag is restored.
Mr Goebbels, I would ask you not to reopen the debate and to go easy on me, since I am myself an endangered species in my capacity as President of the Friday morning session in Strasbourg.
Mr President, in its wisdom, the House has made a decision on Friday sittings.
I should like to suggest that those responsible ensure that, even if no sittings are held on a Friday, official cars are still made available, because there will be many Members who will, in any case, wish to make full use of the Thursday here and who will need to have some way of reaching the airport or the railway station on the Friday.
We will certainly note your suggestion.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, with your permission, I should like to draw your attention to an inconsistency between the Minutes and the lists of roll-call votes.
Yesterday, we voted on the resolution on the Feira Summit and many colleagues will recall that - to laughter from many in this House - the Austrian Members of Haider' s party voted in favour of two amendments which were very critical of Austria and then, some time later, took the floor and said that they had made a mistake and wanted their votes to be registered as votes against.
This correction - that is, that they voted against - is accurately reflected in the Minutes but, obviously in part thanks to their party headquarters' intervening, the names of these Members do not appear anywhere in the record of the roll-call vote taken on Amendment No 4.
I would therefore request that the lists of roll-call votes be corrected so that they correspond to the events which we all witnessed here.
The Minutes are correct in this respect.
It would also be desirable to clarify how many corrections to the corrections we Members are entitled to submit.
I take note of your comment, Mrs Berger.
Mr President, during the debate on common security and defence policy there was a roll call vote on Amendment No 36.
However, yesterday's Minutes refers to the wrong paragraph and thus the vote does not reflect what actually took place in this Chamber.
I have not had a chance to look in detail at this voting list, but that is one mistake I have spotted already. I should like to draw that to your attention.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
We shall verify this and rectify it, if necessary.
(The Minutes were approved)
Vote
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal) - Proposal for a Council Directive amending Council Directive 1103/97EC on certain provisions relating to the introduction of the euro (COM(2000) 346 - C5-0292/2000 - 2000/0134(CNS)) (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs)
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Report (A5-0137/2000) by Mr Casaca, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Council regulation on amending Regulation (EEC) No 3508/1992 establishing an integrated administration and control system for certain Community aid schemes (COM(1999) 517 - C5-0317/1999 - 1999/0207(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0140/2000) by Mr Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission' s Annual Report 1998 on the Cohesion Fund (COM(1999) 483 - C5-0326/1999 - 1999/2212(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0566/2000)on aid for nuts and locust beans
(Parliament adopted the resolution)Explanation of vote
Ripoll y Martinez de Bedoya report (A5-0140/2000)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, never was there more need for an explanation of vote, for I made a mistake and voted against the Bedoya report instead of for it.
I am therefore using the time available to me to make this statement.
Of course I voted for the report.
How could I not approve of the Cohesion Fund being used to assist Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland? However, I would draw the attention of the House to the fact that it would be appropriate to grant this aid for as long as it takes for the States' gross domestic product to reach the European Union average in full, for otherwise I can imagine a situation where, as the gross domestic product of each State approaches the average, the relevant Minister for Finance and the Budget says, 'Put the brakes on or we will lose our European Union aid!'
Casaca report (A5-0137/2000)
Mr President, I voted against the Casaca report, not because I am against monitoring European Union expenditure, but because I consider that this is the moment to start changing the agricultural subsidy system.
We can all see that the European Union Agriculture ship leaks like a sieve.
I believe that, if we want to subsidise agricultural products and farmers in their activities, we must change our procedure completely.
I propose that, instead of granting farmers financial aid, we should grant them tax reductions and reductions in their social service and pension contributions relating to their activities. These expenses would otherwise be borne by the States and therefore, to a lesser extent, by the European Union.
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0147/2000 by Mr Sousa Pinto, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation completing Regulation (EEC) No 302/93 establishing a European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (OEDT) (COM(1999) 430 - C5-0304/1999 - 1999/0187(CNS))
(A5-0157/2000) by Mr Turco, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of an agreement between the European Community and the Kingdom of Norway on the participation of Norway in the work of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (COM(1999) 496 - C5-0054/2000 - 1999/0203(CNS)).
Mr President, Article 13 of the Regulation establishing the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction allows third countries who share the interests of the Community and its States to participate in the Centre' s work.
Following a request for participation by Norway, the Commission submitted to the European Parliament a draft agreement between the European Monitoring Centre and Norway authorising Norway to participate in the REITOX network and to be represented on the Management Board of the European Monitoring Centre as well as on its scientific committee.
In this regard, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs unanimously adopted 8 amendments which give a favourable opinion with reservations. In particular, our opinion was influenced by the EMCDDA evaluation report which the Committee had asked independent external consultants to prepare.
The evaluation reveals poor coordination and poor communication between the different departments within the EMCDDA. Decisions are far too centralised.
The REITOX network is more a virtual network than an operational one. The National Focal Points are under-used and they could make a far greater contribution to the EMCDDA' s work.
The role of the scientific committee is still poorly defined and its work is not a central part of the programme.
The Management Board is ineffective in achieving its goals and its meetings are often held without a pre-established agenda and do not involve genuine discussion of strategies.
There is no dissemination strategy for the results the Board produces and, therefore, only a small proportion of the information produced by the EMCDDA is published and disseminated.
With regard to work scheduling, there is insufficient coordination of the management tasks of the director and the heads of department. The administrative procedures are burdensome and inappropriate for such a small organisation and this generates manifest problems in terms of administration, management, planning assessment, development, recruitment and training.
The current accounting system will have to be revamped so that the real costs of activities can be traced. Too many staff and too great a proportion of funds are dedicated to the purely administrative function of the EMCDDA.
These are the conclusions of the evaluation carried out independently by an external consultancy firm commissioned by the European Commission. On the basis of this evaluation, we must now decide whether to allow Norway to participate in the work or not, taking into consideration the fact that the work is completely inconsistent with the mandate and far from exploits the Centre' s potential.
Having said this, our committee unanimously considered that the draft agreement between Norway and the Centre, together with the proposal for a Council Regulation aimed at adapting the regulation governing the Centre with a view to the participation of candidate countries in its work, is therefore an opportunity to stress the need for a comprehensive overhaul of the regulation governing the Centre in order to ensure its effectiveness and reliability.
I urge the Commission to give us a tangible response regarding the amendments adopted by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
Mr President, Mr Turco' s report, which recommends that Parliament accepts the proposal for an agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Norway on the participation of Norway in the work of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, was discussed at length and then unanimously adopted by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
The amendments made by the Committee in agreement with the rapporteur, which have been incorporated into the proposal, are intended to exploit the opportunity presented by this agreement with Norway to give fresh impetus to the Centre' s work.
The committee took into particular consideration the 1999 report on the Centre' s work and the difficulties encountered, and the outcome of the interinstitutional conference on drugs which took place in Brussels late last February.
These sources showed that some of the constraints on the activities hitherto carried out by the Centre, which also restrict Union activity in this field, are caused by the wide range of differing information gathered by the various national centres linked to the Centre, with the result that it is difficult to draw conclusions from this information which would be useful in terms of prevention or damage limitation measures and operations to fight illegal trafficking.
The various amendments, including those dealing with the Centre' s Management Board, are therefore intended to ensure that the Board uses genuinely effective data-gathering methods which are capable of interpreting the data in the light of unit criteria and provide useful indications regarding the efficiency of the various national anti-drugs policies.
Indeed, it appeared to many members of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs that both the annual reports of the Centre and those tabled and adopted by Parliament fail to take into due account the analysis of the results obtained in the various countries, whose anti-drugs policies differ, moreover.
The European Union needs to decide on its policies and recommendations to the governments of the Member States by means of a comprehensive assessment - which is not, as all too often happens, purely moralist - of the various strategies being followed in the various countries, especially with regard to prevention, damage limitation and consumer safety in the face of the constant emergence of new synthetic drugs.
We believe that the agreement on the participation of Norway in the work of the Centre, which, we hope, will pave the way for other enlargement initiatives, provides a major opportunity to revitalise the activity of this technical and scientific body, for the EMCDDA must become an increasingly important reference point in the development of a European policy to fight the illegal sale and distribution of drugs which are harmful to the health of the citizens of our countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when expressions like 'bringing the European Union closer to its citizens' and 'good governance' are on everyone' s lips, an examination of the way the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction works, and of its scientific output, proves quite astonishing, as its conclusions are virtually non-existent.
Like the increasing number of centres that are being set up in order to conceal our differences, this one, in its five years of existence, has done nothing to justify the millions of euros that are pumped into it each year.
If you compare the amount of money which it is allocated with that available to national bodies, one would expect to see in-depth studies leading, as stipulated in the definition of its aims in Article 2, to the provision of objective, reliable and comparable information concerning drugs and drug addiction.
This Centre ought to be in a position to establish definitions and uniform indicators with a view to carrying out an evaluation of the various anti-drugs policies implemented in the Member States, from both a health and socio-economic as well as a law-and-order perspective.
When will we get to know, for example, what the consequences have been of the prohibitionist policy adopted in France or of the regulatory one adopted in the Netherlands?
The independent assessment of the activities of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the conclusions of which were published in March 2000, is very specific regarding the serious mismanagement of the board of directors and of the REITOX network, which gathers information on drugs and drug addiction.
The reports that we are looking at today are about expanding the Centre to Norway and to the 13 candidate countries. On this issue we must agree, but would it not be better to reform this body beforehand, so that it might finally serve a useful purpose?
New members should certainly be welcomed, but with what in mind?
Is the idea to reproduce the failure we have witnessed over the past few years, but on an even larger scale?
To add to the length of the beautifully presented annual reports which achieve precisely nothing? It is high time that the European Union became aware that, a long way from the Centre' s magnificent premises in Lisbon, thousands of people are directly faced with the health and social difficulties engendered by drug dependence.
We are not asking it to deal with such problems, we are simply asking that it should analyse them.
Hundreds of varying initiatives are being implemented in Europe by both institutions and associations, which focus either on criminalisation or risk reduction. What is the Centre waiting for to evaluate these strategies?
How is it that Member States are being so reluctant to cooperate in evaluation? Is it possible that there is a fear that the results may not be that great politically?
I therefore join the rapporteur in arguing in favour of the idea of a real reform of the Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, in respect both of the way it functions and of expanding its activities.
This, moreover, is a necessary precondition to taking on new members.
Mr President, as other colleagues have mentioned, the rapporteurs hope that amendments to this regulation will facilitate the Kingdom of Norway' s participation in the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and, in each of the amendments tabled, they have highlighted the action plans, Parliamentary resolutions and the annual evaluation of the Centre. They are also seeking to relaunch the Centre' s work, change the guidelines for action of the Management Board and - it must be pointed out - ensure that Member States cooperate with the Centre as required.
We are all responsible for achieving this; the Monitoring Centre, our national public institutions and the Member States themselves.
The only way to improve the Centre' s work is by ensuring that the information provided by Member States and the regulations governing the Centre are ever more thorough and reliable.
Failure to do so would make it impossible to put an end to an evil that particularly affects the youth of Europe.
I also believe that if we fail to take this opportunity to amend the regulation with a view to relaunching the Centre' s work, we run the risk of creating further problems when it comes to incorporating the applicant countries in this work.
In the short term, I think that this is one of the key issues to be tackled, which is why we fully agree with the rapporteur and why I believe the report will be adopted unanimously.
Each institution must fulfil their respective obligations and urge Member States to gather reliable information by working clearly and effectively together. What is more, they need to draw up specific action plans to tackle a problem that particularly affects the youth in our countries and implement them more rigorously and with greater enthusiasm.
Mr President, we are examining two proposals for partial revision of the working procedures and methods of the Lisbon Drugs Monitoring Centre, in particular two proposals on relations with the candidate countries and Norway.
This is therefore our chance - for the contents of these proposals are not in themselves revolutionary for the Centre - to discuss the role and usefulness of the Centre in terms of its function, which should also be our function, of providing political indications and assessments and adopting decisions and initiatives on drugs, although the European Union' s powers in this area are severely limited.
I would argue that this type of discussion can only be based on an evaluation carried out by an independent body.
A number of speakers, including, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr Turco, have stressed that from very many perspectives, such as strategy, functionality and the poor capacity to integrate scientific work, this Centre' s contribution to political decision-making is totally inadequate.
However, at this point I feel that it is necessary for the Commission to assume the responsibility of presenting a proposal for reform to Parliament as soon as possible, for we cannot record each year, if not the uselessness, the lack of usefulness of the Centre in terms of political decisions, and then each year, year after year, leave aside the debate and postpone it until the next year.
The Commission must present a proposal for reforming the procedures which are described as bureaucratic and tedious and, above all, failing to focus on the scientific function of the Centre.
Another important point: each year, the Centre and the Commission tell us that there is a data harmonisation problem because the data-gathering criteria differ from country to country.
This is a political issue.
At this point, the Commission must table a proposal on how the data can be harmonised, or the whole exercise will be completely pointless.
The Centre does not in itself have this authority, but it must provide the Commission with recommendations for data harmonisation and table a proposal - maybe a proposal for a directive - on the subject, because this is a political issue.
At the beginning of the 1990s, there was a great scandal in Italy because a leak from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Health revealed that they were hiding the real overdose mortality rate. Obviously, it is more convenient for politicians and governments to say that a young man has died in the street from a heart attack than to acknowledge that his death was caused by an overdose, and the same applies to policy-making.
An official DG XIV document on alcohol consumption states that the Swedish authorities talk of there being 2000 deaths per year due to alcohol abuse in Sweden, while the real figure is between 6 000 and 7 000 deaths a year, but these figures serve to cover up the failure of their anti-drugs policy.
The data problem is therefore a political issue which must be resolved politically, by means of Commission proposals which Parliament may accept or reject.
Mr President, as one of the longest-serving Members in the House my memory goes back right to the first committee of inquiry into drugs in the Community on which I had the honour to serve.
I also have memories of other Community institutions.
We have happily set up over the years several semi-European institutions in different Member States.
Some of them have matured and grown and become quite effective.
But if they do not do that they become flaccid, rot and become totally useless - just another expensive quango, not actually achieving any great results.
It is appropriate that at the moment we are assessing the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
We all too often have a tendency in Parliament, I am afraid, when we cannot to do anything more concrete, to set up another institution.
That makes us feel good but does not actually change anything.
So it is appropriate that we look at the work of this observatory in Lisbon at this stage.
We should not kill it off until we are sure it is not being effective.
But we have to accept that none of our countries are going to come up with a harmonised approach to dealing with the tragedy of increasing drug addiction and the murders, deaths and all that surrounds this dreadful trade.
I take this opportunity to say to my dear colleagues from all parties in the Netherlands: your policies have tended to become like a honeypot for the criminal element in many of the accession countries.
In the last month alone five young Irish drug dealers - and I admit they should not have been doing it - moved to the Netherlands because it was more comfortable for them to be there.
They have all been quite horribly murdered by people coming from some of the accession states to the Community.
So it is important that we include them in the work of this observatory.
It is very important that we take a very serious look at the policies within Turkey, an accession state, in relation to the provision of drugs and to the criminal activities surrounding it.
The observatory in Lisbon cannot work effectively without very close relationships with the Europol agency in The Hague.
I would like to thank both the rapporteurs.
They have done a good, serious job.
They have asked very serious questions.
The point was made that three years is far too long between assessments.
I would like us to have another debate like this next year to really assess how effective the observatory is and how effectively it is using its very considerable budget in this work.
Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Turco and my colleague Mr Sousa Pinto for their important reports which show the essential work the agencies are doing through their investigations into how drugs actually function, their effect, the impact on society and which describe what help and improvements can be made.
This is especially important and significant when we look at the whole question of enlargement.
A previous speaker spoke very eloquently about the evil of drugs, and Mr Beysen referred to the tobacco vote a couple of days ago.
There is an element of hypocrisy here, because half the House voted against having stronger measures on tobacco advertising and - I choose my words carefully - there are many Members in this House who are regular users, to different degrees, of alcohol, which is a very powerful drug.
I am not teetotal, nor do I wish to be sanctimonious about this, but we have to be realistic about the situation that exists in Europe today.
That must be our starting-point.
We also have to be realistic about what we want from the Centre.
I take issue with Mrs Boumediene-Thiery and Mr Cappato on some of their remarks about the Centre as it functions at the moment.
For the work of the Monitoring Centre in Lisbon to be effective, Member States have to cooperate fully.
As Mrs Banotti has just said, the agencies have to be involved.
The Lisbon Centre has to have reliable, accurate information and be able to monitor and involve all the different agencies in as many countries as possible.
Mr Blokland said that we should not include Turkey.
If you look at the whole question of drugs and the issues of enlargement of the European Union, Turkey is an intrinsic part of the supply routes for drugs coming into Europe.
I know the Turkish authorities are looking at ways of improving the situation and so are the applicant countries and those which would like to be applicant countries.
They want to address this problem.
In many cases they do not have the civic structures and other organisations in place to properly enforce some of the regulations we would like and some of the monitoring that would take place.
So we cannot exclude one country because we do not like it very much: we have to open our doors to as many countries as we can and encourage the work that is being done.
Of course, there is not enough being done.
There needs to be more progress.
But if we just sit back and say that everything is fine or just say "no" to drugs and that people should not use them, we are not accepting the situation as it is; we are not giving the tools to those people who want to improve the position.
I look forward to another debate, as Mrs Banotti has said - perhaps in a year's time - when we can actually start to pinpoint some of the progress that is being made.
I congratulate Mr Sousa Pinto and Mr Turco.
Mr President, rapporteurs, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament' s proposed amendments on the Drugs Monitoring Centre seek to fundamentally change the remit of the original Centre.
As a result, the consensus enjoyed hitherto will be abandoned.
The purely information-gathering centre is to be converted into a drugs-combating centre.
It cannot be right to bring in the Swedish method through the back door, because this implies working towards the goal of a drug-free society across Europe.
But there never will be a drug-free society. Or are cigarettes and alcohol going to be banned too?
Despite this restrictive policy being pursued with greater vigour, the number of drug-related deaths has not fallen.
Last year in Germany alone, there were over 1 800.
A drugs policy of abstinence has led neither to fewer addicts nor to less crime; neither has it led to less drug-related prostitution nor reduced so-called organised crime.
European drugs policy therefore needs a new guiding principle.
This principle is called damage limitation.
Damage limitation is pragmatic and based on reality, whereas abstinence is a moral programme which does not work.
Instead of solutions being sought, however, the mandate of the originally neutral information-gathering centre is now to be extended to cover criminal prosecution.
At the same time, in the Commission it is intended that, from now on, the issue of prevention should only play a minor role as a small part of health policy.
In addition, the Commission is making life difficult for NGOs working on drugs.
For example, their prevention projects are being hindered by the Commission' s disbursing the approved funds several months late.
Is it the aim of European drugs policy to place more emphasis on criminal prosecution and to cut back on prevention? As far as I am concerned, this is the wrong way forward.
That is why I shall be voting against this amendment to integrate criminal prosecution into an extended remit of the Drugs Monitoring Centre.
All those colleagues who are interested in having a drugs policy based on people' s needs will, I hope, do likewise.
Mr President, the scourge of drugs and the action taken to combat it know no geographical, social or national boundaries.
Consequently, any attempt to study this phenomenon must not be contained within the geographical borders of the Member States or even the candidate countries, but must be based on information from as many countries as possible, if it is to help prevent and combat the problem more efficiently.
We need to study in depth why and how more and more young people are turning to escapism and drugs at ever younger ages.
Collating, substantiating and evaluating information from a number of countries will only help us carry out an integrated study and find basic answers if we collate and exchange data from as wide an area as possible on a comparable basis.
For example, in Greece, most of the information obtained so far has been from treatment centres, leaving sources of information from other agencies which might contribute towards a more integrated evaluation of the dimensions of the problem unexplored.
The treatment centres house young people who are able to access them because they are helped either by their family or by the wider social environment.
But what happens to the large section of the population which has no such access, such as economic migrants? According to information from the Greek Addiction Treatment Centre, 97% of the people using these centres are Greek citizens.
However, according to prison statistics, the majority of drug users in prison are economic migrants who, either because they do not speak the language or because of a lack of information and social exclusion, have never set foot in such a centre.
Consequently, according to the data collated and evaluated by the Treatment Centre, this category of users is almost non-existent.
In my opinion, every user should have the opportunity to go to a detoxification centre without being obliged to give his or her full personal details.
We all know that using drugs leads to crime, not only because drugs per se are illegal, but because the high cost of drugs set by the huge financial rings which supply them, inevitably forces all users into crime.
Mr President, in company with most of the Members who have spoken before me, I can only say that these reports leave us two essential lines of thought to follow.
Firstly, this is a positive evaluation which is consistent with the Commission' s proposal.
There are no borders when it comes to subjects such as our present concern of drug addiction and the trafficking of narcotics, and so it is certainly a useful, sustainable initiative to set objectives which include countries which are not currently Members of the European Union but which are in the pre-accession phase, countries taking part in the PHARE programme or Norway, in their prevention or suppression strategies, for this will help us to broaden the scope of our anti-drugs strategy.
On the other hand, however, both the rapporteur and the Members have stressed that this occasion calls for reflection upon the way in which the Centre operates and upon the results it has produced in recent years, and I feel that we cannot say we are satisfied with its performance up until now.
And quite apart from our own reservations, there is also an independent report, which has just been referred to, which outlines all the limits and shortcomings of this action.
My fellow Member said that these changes will transform the Centre from a statistics office into a drugs monitoring centre.
I wish it could be so but I cannot share her optimism.
On the contrary, I fear that many proposals and concerns, including those voiced by other Members, will only serve the purpose of rationalising data and making it compatible.
I was even somewhat surprised to hear Mrs Ghilardotti mention consumer safety.
I would not like the Monitoring Centre for Drug Addiction to be likened to the Monitoring Centre for Food Quality and Safety!
Let us be careful, for this is an extremely serious phenomenon which is damaging the whole of our society and destroying entire generations. We must fight against it.
So, the efforts to make data from the different countries compatible and the call for efficient dissemination of the data are all very well, but if we think we can achieve these objectives, even our information objective, without taking into consideration the contributions made by the individuals concerned, Non-Governmental Organisations, voluntary associations and rehabilitation communities in the different countries, then we are living in a fantasy world.
We must involve them, and then the Centre will be able to perform a genuinely effective and productive part - and we must monitor this - in the fight against drugs.
Mr President, unfortunately, the drugs problem is likely to remain on the international community's agenda for several decades to come.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, established 7 years ago, is an important tool for collating comparable data from the Member States.
It is used to monitor this serious phenomenon and determine the approach to be taken in a multidimensional policy at national and European level.
At least two main criteria must be met if we are to achieve this objective: first, we need reliable assessments of the measures taken and, if they are efficient, we need to implement them, not only in the Member States, but also in the candidate countries, the rest of central and eastern Europe and in any third country with the right legal framework under relevant agreements.
Permit me to say that the fight against drugs is a prime example, perhaps the only example of an issue which calls for globalized measures and decisions and where globalized measures and decisions will only have positive repercussions.
The second main criterion which I should like to mention is the need to provide the Monitoring Centre in Lisbon with the necessary economic and administrative resources in order to facilitate its difficult and ambitious objectives.
It is clear from how it has operated to date, as documented in the recent experts' report, that we do not need simply to supplement Regulation 302/93, as suggested by the Commission. We need to amend it as described in the amendments tabled by the European Parliament.
These amendments refer mainly to the modus operandi of the board of directors, the provision of technical assistance by the Centre to the aforementioned countries and the Centre's help with evaluation procedures at national, European and international level.
I am certain that this will guarantee better operating conditions for the European Monitoring Centre and increase the potential for taking integrated and efficient decisions.
Finally, I should like to thank the two rapporteurs for their thorough work.
Mr President, whenever reference is made to a particular undertaking, it seems only sensible to assess the way it operates so that improvements may be made on the basis of the culture of quality and continual improvement.
This is why we agree with those who assert that the European Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction has not performed satisfactorily and therefore why we, like others, are critical of it.
We endorse the amendments and reforms aimed at enhancing the objectivity, reliability and comparability of the information provided, given that quality information is essential if related policies are to be improved upon.
As a group, we should like to see the proposal taken a stage further in order to encompass damage-reduction programmes. Lastly, I should like to stress that, as this issue clearly has pan-European public health and socio-economic implications, it requires a strategy at European level.
Whether we like it or not, Europe is not confined to the European Union, which is why we must support moves to broaden the scope of this proposal to incorporate countries that do not form part of the European Union and those who at present have the status of candidate countries.
As the issue of hypocrisy is so often raised in relation to the tobacco and drugs debate, would it not be appropriate here to mention other forms of hypocrisy, such as those tax havens in which drugs money takes refuge?
Mr President, in the previous Parliament, many Members, especially from Southern Europe, were in favour of free trade in milder drugs.
In the North, it is generally believed that any free trade in milder drugs lowers the threshold that makes it possible to move on to using hard drugs.
It is important that the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, in the context of the positive climate that exists in Parliament with regard to drugs, also acquires sufficient resources for its anti-drugs activities outside the European Union.
It would appear that this is not the case, however.
The Centre is being given new tasks without the corresponding resources to carry them out, and the amendments, by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in particular, tend in that direction.
Resources must be increased via the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
The most important drug routes to the European Union area will, in the future, be Afghanistan, Russia, Chechnya and Turkey as well as Kosovo and the other former Yugoslavian regions.
All the PHARE countries have to be made to go the way of Norway. And they must be given the technical assistance to do so.
Estonia is one of the biggest drugs routes from Russia to Finland, and from Finland to the common markets of the EU.
All countries that receive financial aid must be made to go the way of Norway.
There are, at present, no conditions set for EU aid. By way of example, Montenegro receives financial and political aid from the EU to pay its police force, but not for the fight against smuggling and drugs, but for its struggle against Milosevic.
No such conditions are imposed on the aid by the World Bank or the IMF. The EU should, however, impose conditions for the aid it gives.
Mr President, the fight against drugs is one of the most important tasks we have as citizens and politicians. That applies both to citizens down on the floor of the House and to those up in the gallery.
Drugs breed crime and social destitution and tear many people' s lives apart.
It is therefore a positive sign that we can now see both the candidate countries and Norway involved in the cooperation we already have.
In order to be able to carry out a credible assessment and produce reliable statistics, we must however have a strategy concerning what information the Member States are to send in to the Centre.
Otherwise, the statistical basis will be fairly meagre and not serve any larger purpose.
However, it is not only the Centre' s responsibility, but also that of the respective Member States to ensure that the information sent in is also relevant and can be used for some purpose.
Responsibility for taking measures to combat drug abuse now lies, in the first place, with the Member States.
This ought not, however, to stop us trying to devise common assignments and strategies for preventive work, which is perhaps the most important foundation stone in the fight against drugs.
It ought, moreover, to be possible for the Union and the Centre to have a role in supervising the domestic production of drugs, as one of the previous speakers mentioned, for we cannot get away from the fact that many of the drugs that are in circulation today, and which young people encounter on the streets, are synthetic drugs, produced in the Union and nowhere else.
In view of the open borders we now have, it is a problem if more drugs than we would wish are being produced in a particular place.
I should like to say that the definition of a drugs-free society is a good one.
It is a goal or vision, just like every other vision the Union has when it comes to social destitution and other phenomena we wish to combat.
It is an aggressive approach I should like to see maintained.
Mr President, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mr Sousa Pinto and Mr Turco, for their excellent reports.
The fight against drug abuse and the drug trade is important.
This report has been produced to complement the current regulation concerning the Monitoring Centre.
Moreover, it is intended that the candidate countries should be involved in the work.
Let me comment on that first of all.
It is, in fact, important that the candidate countries be involved.
I myself come from Sweden.
In recent years, we have developed cooperation with the Baltic countries and with Poland in order to end the drugs trade and prevent drug abuse.
The drug trade is not confined by national borders.
We must therefore have cross-border cooperation to prevent the trade from developing.
The same applies to cooperation with Norway.
Norway participates in the internal market and is to become a member of Schengen.
Norway has much the same problems as Sweden when it comes to drugs crossing the border.
It is therefore important that we cooperate and gather information from these neighbouring countries, as well as study how they conduct their policies.
The rapporteur also deals with how the Centre operates at present.
I think he draws an important distinction, for the Centre should not be dabbling in politics. Instead, it is we who should be engaged in politics here in political assemblies, as well as in the Member States - in fact, mainly in the Member States, when it comes to drugs policy.
However, the Centre should create a basis for political decisions. In this regard, there are at present deficiencies when it comes to collecting statistics.
We must obtain relevant and reliable information which can be compared.
What is more, the Centre can carry out analyses and assess the objectives which we in the political assemblies establish, so that we might revise policy accordingly.
The Centre must become significantly better in this area than it is at present.
Analyses must be carried out of the policies which are applied - different types of policy are pursued in, for example, the Netherlands and Sweden.
I think it is important for us to analyse what these differences, in the guise of policy, in fact look like when it comes to problems such as drug abuse by young people.
The joint debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Report (A5-0147/2000)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution )
Report (A5-0157/2000)
Following the vote on the Commission proposal.
Mr President, I would like to intervene on a point of order pursuant to Rule 69.
It was not clear from the Commissioner' s speech whether the Commission accepts the amendments that Parliament has just adopted.
In particular, I did not understand whether Norway will start to participate in the work of the EMCDDA after it has been reformed, that is, whether it is the Commission' s intention that Norway should be allowed to participate in the work of the EMCDDA immediately or whether it should wait until September, when the reform is scheduled to take place, when the Management Board will issue its recommendations. This would allow Norway to join an existing body rather than something which, according to the independent consultancy firm' s report, is currently ineffective, inadequate, extremely expensive and altogether useless.
Mr President, the Commission intends Norway to become a member of the Monitoring Centre we were discussing this morning, as soon as possible.
As I mentioned earlier - and I was also speaking for my colleague Mr Vitorino - we see eye to eye on many of the concerns raised by a number of Members of this House this morning, but this is not an opportune moment to raise the issue of the functioning of the Monitoring Centre itself.
This morning' s debate was about adding Norway, and the countries of Eastern Europe of course, to the centre' s list of members, or that is how the Commission saw it at any rate.
Mr President, the Commissioner' s words on the report on the participation of Norway are not satisfactory, in the sense that Parliament once again unanimously considers that Norway should certainly start to participate in the work of the EMCDDA as soon as possible.
The problem is now that the EMCDDA is not in a fit condition for Norway to join.
I therefore call upon Parliament to postpone the vote.
In accordance with Rule 69, the rapporteur can ask, if Parliament so decides, to postpone the vote and the matter will be deemed to be referred back to the committee responsible for reconsideration.
I see that our co-rapporteur is also requesting the floor.
I would point out to you that Article 69 stipulates that this procedure takes place without debate.
I would therefore ask you not to start the debate again, but I give you the floor as co-rapporteur.
Thank you, Mr President, for allowing me, as rapporteur, to say that the debate we have engaged in this morning is the first opportunity since 1993, when the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction was opened, to make a statement on the fundamental issue of changing its regulations.
I think that Parliament would have seriously failed in its most basic political responsibilities if it had not undertaken a thorough review of the Monitoring Centre' s duties and tabled a set of proposals that represents a thorough overhaul of its operations. We believe that the Drugs Monitoring Centre is crucial, much needed and has a useful role to play in the future of the European Union, but not by means of this report, with which, in essence, the Commission apparently agrees.
The regulation now requires me to submit the request submitted by Mr Turco to postpone the vote to the House.
(Parliament rejected the request) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Community design
The next item is the report (A5-0150/2000) by Mr Ferri, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on a proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on Community design (COM(1999) 310 - C5-0129/1999 - 1993/0463(CNS)).
Mr President, having seen Directive 98/71/EC on the legal protection of designs, we are now being called upon to assess the proposed regulation and to decide whether to adopt it. Of course, the regulation follows the same line as the directive, and it therefore contains all the same strengths and weaknesses as the directive on such a contentious, competitive issue where there are a large number of interests at play.
In the end, the directive did not deal with the issue of spare parts for the purpose of repair.
I am referring to the famous repair clause, the spare parts clause: the complex, organic world of the automotive industry.
The committee took great care over its work - and I would especially like to thank its chairperson - although a more conservative, extremely cautious interpretation prevailed in the end, for we did not want to push the boat out too far, since the directive will be supplemented on the basis of three years' monitoring of the use of spare parts for the purpose of repair.
However, one of the strengths of the regulation lies in its definition of the Community right for products and designs and registered and unregistered products: the proposal to use the central Community trade mark office for design as well, offers an exclusive right to protected use at Community level, with some exceptions.
This is a step towards meeting the clear fundamental requirement of the single market and towards common rules on invalidity, surrender of rights and possibilities of use, particularly in two very important areas: novelty, which is connected to disclosure, and individuality of character, which is connected to creativity.
These are two aspects of a fascinating world, which clearly requires protection, but also requires flexibility.
This is why I insist, in particular, on a minimal package of amendments which, in the balance of protections between the Community right and copyright - I urge the European Parliament to give an up-to-date and, most importantly, realistic evaluation of the highly complex world of designs -will prevent the persistence of monopolies.
I would therefore advocate that a ceiling of 25 years for the protection of registered design rights would be quite sufficient.
On the other hand, the directive is not open to subjective interpretation.
The directive states that the Member States must be able to strike a balance between the Community right and copyright.
I would point out that copyrights last for as long as 70 years in a number of States.
Thus, if we were to add the 25 years to the 70 years, we would end up preventing the modification of a common product which often - and also, so to speak, by its very nature and taking into account novelty and creativity - cannot last very long, not beyond the lifetime of a human being, for example, and therefore a ceiling of 25 years would seem reasonable.
May I insist, therefore, that at least this type of adaptation to requirements is implemented and that the Community of Europe, the single market, is given access to a world which is so important, particularly for the SMEs where, in effect, the productivity of design and creativity - which for the European countries naturally represents a boost for jobs and employment - fits perfectly into this network of rights and freedoms.
I feel that, even with the limits and constraints which I have stressed, in order to give the Members a balanced view, this proposed regulation, which introduces a standardised system with standardised protection throughout Community territory can, in effect, be an important milestone in the construction of Europe.
Mr President, it seems that the long road to creating a single regulation on the legal protection of designs, drawings and models in the European Union is nearing its end.
The large amount of time spent on this regulation was justified on the grounds of the importance of adopting the directive on drawings and models, a job that took most of the previous legislature and part of the present one.
It was clear that once the more serious problems relating to the text of the directive had been overcome - a directive that can be considered as balanced - the task of establishing a resolution would be far easier and so it has been.
The whole process proves that Parliament was right to adopt the approach in creating the directive first, followed by the resolution.
Its decision to intervene to obtain the freeze compromise in drawing up the resolution, with the directive being subject to the codecision procedure, was decisive. What is more, this perhaps would not have been the case had the procedure been the other way round, i.e. first the regulation followed by the directive.
Had this been the case, Parliament' s role would not have been as decisive and the balance between car manufacturers' interests on one hand and independent body part manufacturers on the other would not have been achieved. The same can be said of the interests of consumers and insurance companies.
The fact that this agreement - which is far from perfect, but which provided a way out of the impasse in such a contentious issue - was reached, made the task of creating this regulation and this report on the Commission' s proposal far easier.
This task basically involved incorporating the compromises reached in relation to the directive in the regulation.
If the European Union intended to announce laws regarding the harmonisation of Member States' legislation, it was only right that its own laws were in line with the laws on harmonisation.
Since the Commission' s proposal followed the wording of the directive almost to the letter, it received our support.
On this basis, the majority of the amendments we endorse consist precisely in enhancing the similarities between the directive and the regulation.
I should like to thank Mr Ferri for his report and, at the same time, welcome the flexible approach he adopted throughout proceedings.
The rapporteur' s first report did advocate certain proposals which, though he believed them to be correct, in the opinion -and I believe in the better informed opinion - of many groups in Parliament, contradicted the freeze compromise relating to the repair clause.
However, by adopting this flexible approach, Mr Ferri saw fit to withdraw his proposals and I thank him for that.
At present, there are only two areas on which the rapporteur and my group disagree.
The first relates to the definition of the individual character of the design, which incorporates an element that supposedly brings it into line with the TRIP agreements. This is neither the time nor the place to begin a debate on this issue.
We do not agree with this interpretation and would go as far to suggest that the amendment in question includes certain distortions.
The second point of contention relates to copyright and we shall vote against the amendments tabled by the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
Mr President, my colleague from the PPE-DE Group, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, says that the rapporteur, Mr Ferri, has accused her of being conservative.
I say to my colleague, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, that it is a label she should accept with pleasure and a badge which she should wear with pride.
I am speaking today on behalf of my British Conservative colleagues, Lord Inglewood and Mr Harbour who unfortunately cannot be in the Chamber.
I wish to put on record the British Conservative support for Mr Ferri's report which we feel finds an acceptable compromise between the various conflicting interests.
In particular, we believe it is right that the directive and regulation line up to provide as seamless as possible a regime for the protection of industrial design across the Union as a whole.
I would also like to record our support for Mrs Grossetête's report and to emphasise that in our view it is of supreme importance that EU law is implemented consistently, properly and in a timely manner.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Application of Community law (1998)
The next item is the report (A5-0132/2000) by Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the sixteenth annual report from the Commission on monitoring the application of Community law (1998) (COM(1999) 301 - C5-0213/1999 - 1999/2168(COS)).
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(FR) Mr President, the fact that this report is the final subject for this week' s part-session does not mean it is unimportant. Quite the contrary, we are all interested in a Citizens' Europe, in a Europe for the citizens.
It is our duty to consider the interests of the European citizen, to ensure that Community law is applied in all of the Member States and that the European Commission, the guardian of the treaties, monitors this process with the utmost vigilance.
The figures for 1998, in the report drawn up by the European Commission services, do not, sadly, indicate any significant improvement, and require vigilance from the outset.
Few areas are spared and Parliament must pick out those which are particularly prone to difficulties: the environment, social conditions and public procurement contracts.
Having said that, I am convinced that, in future, we will need to extend our vigilance to other spheres of activity.
The European Parliament must also reiterate its request for information concerning the application of international standards.
All of the Member States are affected to a greater or lesser degree by the problems of applying Community law.
This is why I wanted to stress just how important it is that they behave in an exemplary manner in the period prior to several successive enlargements.
How can we demand that those countries wanting to join the European Union apply Community laws if Member States are themselves unable to respect them?
If additional information is necessary, this is also in the interests of the citizen, who is becoming increasingly involved in the process of monitoring Community law.
This is where the whole question of the infringement procedure comes in.
The European Commission should not advocate more selectivity in dealing with cases which may give rise to an infringement procedure, a proposal according to which the Commission could abstain from intervening in cases of limited importance, such as, for example, the mutual recognition of qualifications.
We must protest most strongly against such a move, which could not be justified on the grounds of cost and effectiveness.
In doing so, the European Commission would find itself turning away from its role as guardian of the Treaties and would deny European citizens access to justice.
As for methods, I think they can be improved.
As has been indicated several times by the European Ombudsman, it is important to safeguard the rights of individuals through improved confidentiality, better access to documents and justification of the European Commission' s decisions on classification.
In the same vein, more data should be obtained on Member States' responsibility for damages suffered by private individuals.
Nobody would think of doubting the importance of petitions, which play a significant part in signalling that, in some instances, Community law has not been applied in Member States.
In this spirit, we are urging that special publicity be given to all complaints in order that any action taken is made more obvious.
Bearing in mind the approach that has been adopted, however, which centres above all on defending the working methods of the Committee on Petitions, I do not wish to support Amendment No 2.
The attention paid to the CELEX and EUR-LEX databases, that is to say improved access and ongoing optimisation is, I believe, beneficial to the citizen.
Consolidated documents should be associated with some indication of the successive amendments introduced, as required by Amendment No 1.
I therefore support this amendment.
Finally, there is the problem of the preliminary question.
I do not believe that it needs to be called into doubt in principle, but we can look into its forms.
When such questions are badly drawn up, the effect can run counter to the aim of legal clarification.
I therefore suggest that the Court of Justice reconsider the way this procedure works.
Moreover, I believe that, in order to clarify the text of Recital G, which reads: "whereas it is primarily national courts that must apply Community law" , it would be preferable to state "control the application of Community law" .
There is also, finally, the matter of relations with public administrations which are having to come to grips with new Community standards.
The current state of affairs in Europe' s construction tends to emphasise the principle of subsidiarity.
In consideration of this key principle, I am opposed to Amendment No 3.
I do not consider creating a European administrative law to be appropriate.
In conclusion, the fact remains that the aim of a control system is to penalise non-application of the law.
With this in mind, I want to stress the importance of the procedure outlined in Article 228(2), of the Treaty. This is a new procedure, and is certainly a deterrent in effect, and the Commission should be less reluctant to consider it in future.
By voting in favour of this resolution, we will be sending out a positive signal, from a European Parliament which is in tune with the citizens.
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(ES) Mr President, I share the rapporteur' s concerns regarding the fact that we are debating a report of this type at such a late hour on a Friday, especially given the importance we attach to the application of Community law. The figures given by the rapporteur have only compounded our concerns as they are a clear reflection of Member States' failure to apply Community law and this report actually incorporates proposals that would force them to do so.
The fact that 1101 letters of formal notice, 675 reasoned opinions and 123 referrals have been presented to the Court of Justice clearly highlight the difficulties inherent in applying European Community law.
I intend to chiefly focus on the proposal put forward by the Committee on Petitions that incorporates amendments signed by all of the groups in the committee.
I should also like to point out, as a result of those gremlins which sometimes appear in this House, that the Committee on Petitions' conclusions were not incorporated in the rapporteur' s report.
I have the distinct impression that the Committee on Petitions is considered the poor sister of Parliament and, in fact, at the end of the previous legislature its very future was in doubt.
However, it is in my view one of the most important committees in Parliament, as it has direct and clearly defined relations with the citizens of Europe and the ability to deal with issues, such as concerns for the environment.
The rapporteur points out that more than 25% of the petitions lodged concern environmental problems, freedom of movement, fundamental freedoms and the internal market, issues that, in my view, are central to the European Constitution.
What is more, in view of the rising number of incoming petitions every year they also highlight citizens' desire to see Community law complied with.
At times it appears that citizens' groups, residents' associations and other types of association show greater concern with regard to the application of Community law than the national public authorities themselves. This is particularly true of environmental issues, something I have personal experience of as a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Proof of this lies in the petitions we handle on a daily basis in the Committee on Petitions. This is why I urge you to approve the two amendments tabled by the Committee on Petitions that are no more and no less than a clear reflection of the Committee on Petitions' concern regarding the procedures used for handling citizens' complaints.
There are considerable delays - often one, two or even three years - between the Committee on Petitions' or the European Commission' s final decision on a matter following the initial complaint.
The amendments tabled call for procedures to be simplified, as failure to do so would seriously undermine citizens' confidence in the effectiveness of the European institutions.
Among other things, the amendments call for a certain degree of harmonisation in European administrative law so that all citizens of the Union receive equal treatment.
Much more could be said, Mr President, about the nature and importance of the Committee on Petitions, but as time is short, I would simply urge members to agree to vote in favour of these amendments today, as they represent the opinion of the Committee on Petitions.
Mr President, I share Mrs Grossetête' s regret: the construction of Europe must involve the creation of a legal area, and the diligence we have shown in timetabling such a major report for a Friday morning is certainly not reassuring.
One great Italian thinker maintains that a society is commonly perceived as such only insofar as it succeeds in establishing rules for itself which are respected by its members.
Certainly, the European Community used to be an institutional model with a remarkable history and the Union is so today; within this Community we have established rules for ourselves - and the Member States and the citizens respect them - but Parliament must not shirk its lawful duty to implement and ensure the implementation of the rules of Community law. Moreover, it must draw fresh strength, fresh nourishment, from its tasks.
Although we have come a long way and we are making every effort now, I feel that we still have a long way to go. It is our duty to take on board the fact that there is still a great deal to do in the internal market in terms of standardisation, but also and above all, we must realise that there are a great many gaps in the development of the European legal system.
It is good to know that the rate of transposition of Community directives into Member States' legislation stands at 95%, but this is not enough if the failure to apply Community law correctly is the result of bad practice on the part of administrations rather than the failure to assimilate directives.
An effective intervention to deal with the national administrations is therefore, in my opinion, necessary, as the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has stressed.
This need is all the greater in that those who are in contact with the law and justice are often unfamiliar with the rules of Community law.
As the report requests, it is therefore appropriate for candidates to the magistracy and forensic science professions to pay particular attention to the rules which we are developing.
I tabled some amendments to Mrs Grossetête' s excellent report in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, prompted by the concern that the legal protection of the citizens we represent is given insufficient recognition and enforcement in the individual countries.
Petitions to the Commission and the European Parliament in this context should give us not only food for thought, but also cause for concern.
The fact that some national courts hardly ever put preliminary questions to the Court of Justice under Article 234 of the Treaty is a further cause for concern, and the representatives of the Commission should instruct their departments to investigate the reasons for this situation.
In short, we must not underestimate the economic and practical difficulties encountered by the citizens in gaining access to Community case law.
It may be that we need to adopt a legislative initiative as soon as possible in order to facilitate access to case law in economic terms, perhaps by establishing a support fund.
Mr President, the Commission' s report on monitoring the application of Community law is a most important document because it reveals the true situation in the European Union and more sittings should perhaps have been devoted to it, not just the Friday sitting.
The rapporteur, Mrs Grossetête, has produced an extremely balanced report containing a series of accurate observations which deserve special attention.
The two reports quite rightly divide the subject of the application of Community law into three dimensions: the non-transposition of Community law and the incompatibility of transposition measures with the letter of Community law and application methods.
As far as non-application is concerned, there are still serious delays in certain sectors, including the social sector, to which, I am sorry to see, the Commission' s report only devotes a few lines, despite the fact that the issues in question relate to social cohesion.
There are numerous reasons for non-transposition and they need to be studied.
Also, it is time that we considered political methods for reducing delays.
For example, what if each country were to appoint a uniform body at the highest political level which would be responsible, vis-à-vis the European Union, for transposing Community law correctly and on time?
What if each country which took over the presidency had to make a prompt, public declaration of its country's degree of compliance with Community law, given that it does not make sense for a country to be responsible for administering political matters when it has not honoured its own commitments?
It might also be useful if the state of compliance of each country were publicly announced before each summit.
Negligence in transposing Community law in the past did not have the same repercussions as it has on a single economic area in which the idea of not having a uniform legal Community order at the same moment in time is inconceivable
As far as the method of applying Community law is concerned, this issue relates mainly to the legislative system, both national and Community, and to the appointment of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman.
The two basic problems relating to the legislative system are: first, often unjustified recourse to the procedure for obtaining preliminary rulings from the European Court and, as Mr Álvarez has mentioned, poorly prepared references and, secondly, the failure to take such recourse on crucial issues.
Despite appearing different, both have the same root cause, which is the national judges' lack of familiarity with Community law.
A general campaign is needed here.
We need to propose to the Member States that all judges should gradually be trained and that this should be the sine qua non for the promotion of older judges to more senior positions and for the admission of newcomers to the bench.
The present Grotius and Falcone programmes have become out-dated as a result of developments.
Finally, I should like to say a brief word about where the Committee on Petitions can play an important part in improving the degree of application of Community law.
This committee forms the interface between the European citizen, the European Parliament and the Commission.
We need to upgrade this committee if we are to uncover omissions in the practical application of Community law.
I am in favour of Mr Álvarez's proposals, which really do form the starting point for European administrative Community law.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I have the pleasure of welcoming Mrs Grossetête's report.
I particularly want to stress a clause which she mentioned in her own speech: recital (e) says that on the eve of several successive enlargements the conduct of the current Member States of the Union in the application of Community law must be exemplary.
And so indeed it must.
Alas, we know that it is not so in all cases.
I have on more than one occasion in this House referred, as others have done, to the shocking case of the foreign language lecturers in Italy who first received a judgment in their favour eleven years ago.
The law of Italy has not yet been brought into conformity with it, to satisfy their rights.
We are tested by our will in favour of the individual, the citizen, seeking their rights under Community law.
No rights are more important than those against discrimination and those in favour of freedom of movement.
If we do not satisfy these we let ourselves down in the face of our own aspirations.
I have received disturbing correspondence this week from a number of sources in Germany, suggesting that a similar problem may be building up concerning self-employed foreign language teachers working there, where laws are being applied retrospectively for the convenience for the state with apparent injustice to the teachers.
I shall be following that up and we may have to look into it again.
I cite these two exemplary cases simply to stress the importance of Mrs Grossetête's report and to thank her personally for her own intervention in the former case which I am sure will move it forward.
I apologise for the fact that I cannot stay to the end of this debate owing to exigencies of transport between here and Edinburgh, but I am delighted to have had the chance of participating so far.
Mr President, fellow members, this Community law which we are helping to establish presents serious difficulties as far as application in Member States is concerned.
European citizens have used this last resort as a way of expressing their anger and indignation at the disruption and even destruction of their daily way of life, foisted on them by bureaucrats for a purpose that sometimes escapes us and for stakes that do not justify it.
While this report should have offered us an opportunity, as elected Members, to assess the many texts on which we are voting, and to learn from them for the future, we are limiting ourselves to a control/sanction approach.
This type of constraining, over-regulated Europe is certainly not the one our respective fellow citizens want.
The way in which this report has been adopted is appalling.
The rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has demonstrated absolute scorn for the Committee on Petitions by not even seeing fit to put its conclusions to the vote.
Yesterday, the plenary displayed a similar contempt when it ignored the opinion of the Legal Affairs Committee regarding the Maaten report.
I greatly fear that the trend will spread and the Commission will not see the text, on which we in this half-empty House are about to vote, as very much more important.
Rather than unnecessary amendments, I should like a response to the following question. The 1998 figures show that reasoned opinions have doubled in volume, cases of non-conformity or poor application, revealed automatically, have gone up by over 50%, complaints by 18% and letters of formal notice by 12%.
This is not, at this stage, evidence of effective control, but rather of the existence of a profusion of texts which, in the hands of the judges, leave our national assemblies, which are expressing the popular will both legitimately and democratically, under threat of condemnations as well as of penalties.
Do the Commission and the rapporteur not think that it would be a good thing to reduce the number of texts and, above all, to modify those which quite clearly raise crucial political, legal and practical questions that do not appear to be so obvious and acute when they are framed, or would they prefer to carry on sanctioning our States and turning our fellow citizens into the real victims?
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Grossetête, I should like to make three comments on the report regarding monitoring the application of Community law, taking as my premise the fact that the proper application of Community law is not just an assessment of transposition in arithmetical terms, but also an evaluation of the practices adopted in actually applying it.
Firstly, I should like to comment on the issue of a community based on law and one based on values. In my view, the community based on law and the community based on values do not stand in contradiction to one other, rather they are interdependent.
Anyone who breaks the law or perverts the course of justice violates certain values. And anyone who violates these values can be judged and condemned under the law.
You will understand that, in this context, what I am saying from the Austrian point of view is that, in their actions towards Austria, the 14 Member States of the European Union have infringed EU law, international law and the UN Charter, that they have defied the spirit of the European founding fathers and thus damaged the community of values.
And I therefore call upon you to repair that damage.
My second comment concerns the Commission as guardian of the Treaties. On 1 February 2000, the Commission issued a statement on this matter saying that it would continue to fulfil its duty as guardian of the Treaties.
And with regard to Austria it said that, in this context, the Commission, in close contact with the governments of the Member States, would closely monitor the situation, maintaining its working relations with the Austrian authorities.
I would stress that, as guardian of the Treaties, the Commission has been closely monitoring the situation since 1 February 2000 and, to this day, it has not found any grounds for criticism, which makes it clear that neither the community based on law nor that based on values is being violated in Austria.
My third comment is that yesterday I made a mistake!
I should like to say this in conclusion.
I criticised my Socialist colleagues from Austria for the inconsistent way in which they voted, and I insinuated that at the end they had abstained from the vote on the Feira resolution.
That is wrong; they voted in favour.
This does not in any way change my critical attitude towards the double standards of the Austrian Social Democratic movement, which were also plain to see yesterday in the way its Members voted.
But I must admit my mistake.
It would not hurt the 14 either if, in Feira, they were to publicly retract the statement they made on 31 January 2000, contrary to the law, about one Member State, and if they were to rectify this mistake.
. (ES) Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and in my capacity as chairperson of this committee, I should like to use some of my allotted time to refute some statements in relation to our consideration of other committees' opinions.
The rapporteur is absolutely right, Mr President, to say that these amendments, though very interesting, are not relevant in this case.
Firstly, everyone is aware how hard I have fought to establish genuine administrative law in this area, however, the report centres on a different issue.
The same can be said in relation to the Committee on Petitions' other amendment that refers to an interinstitutional agreement and appeals to the Council and the Commission for greater cooperation.
We shall have to vote on these amendments, but in another report.
With regard to Mrs Grossetête' s report, Mr President, the fact that I have only tabled one amendment - and even that was in conjunction with Mrs Grossetête herself - is proof of my appreciation of her work and the spirit in which it was carried out.
Those of you who know me will be only too aware of the fact that, if I disagree with a text, particularly one that is close to my heart and to which I attach great importance, I never hold back when it comes to amendments.
There is one issue that I hope Mrs Grossetête will raise during the vote - I unfortunately cannot attend, which is why I am making a point of it here - and that is the mistake in recital G. It should state that monitoring the application of Community law is first and foremost the responsibility of the courts.
As regards the other issues, this report is, in my view, thorough, comprehensive and of great importance.
I should like to mention a few points in relation to Mrs Grossetête' s report.
We should perhaps consider broadening its scope, not only to encompass Annex IV and the development of Article 65, but also possibly take it further and perhaps consider -as part of the creation of the Europe of the Citizens - setting up communication channels to enable citizens to discuss issues that affect them in relation to Community law and even the Treaty on European Union.
Next year, Commissioner, we should like to see a more balanced and exhaustive report drawn up.
As Mrs Grossetête herself pointed out, this report is very balanced and exhaustive in some areas but not in others.
The overall message put forward is that Community law must be applied properly; our Community is a Legal Community; there will either be a European rule of law or not; and monitoring compliance with Community law must be considered a priority.
Lastly, I should briefly like to highlight the importance of the infringement procedure and draw people' s attention, as others have before me, to this reform which is desirable and on which we all agree.
We need to improve the way in which the infringement procedure operates, but do so in a way that does not prevent citizens in the slightest from fully exercising their right to directly contact the Commission which, at the end of the day, is what brings them closer to it.
As we so often speak about bringing citizens closer to the institutions, this is surely one of the ways to achieve this aim.
Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Grossetête for her report.
I agree with her: there is nothing more important that we could devote time to discussing in this Parliament.
Preceding the downfall of the Roman Empire it was customary to take out the imperial decree, unroll the great scroll of purple and gold, read it, have it copied and distribute it - and nobody took the slightest notice of it.
There is no surer way to bring about the downfall and disintegration of this Union than to make laws that Member States do not ensure are then observed.
One thing that did not come up in the discussion was the greater use that could be made of the proceedings in this House, particularly Question Time, to bring to the attention of the Commission and exchange views with them on grievances that arise throughout the Union.
These are increasingly being brought to the attention of Members of Parliament.
In the early days I lived in a border area where the right of freedom of movement of goods and services was not being observed and I found I could get a lot of satisfaction by raising questions directly with the Commission.
In those days Parliament did not have the same power or prestige that it has today.
So instead of reducing working time in this House we should devote a little more time to underlining the failures of the European Union to implement its decisions.
There are some areas that people, particularly in business, are well-familiar with, such as the single market.
But there are other areas where there is a lot of confusion.
I was at a conference last week.
Someone pointed out the fact that we need 100 million migrant workers in this Union over the next 25 years if we are to maintain economic growth and meet our social obligations.
If that happens, there will be a lot of movement of people.
If, from the very beginning, the European Union and the Member States make it clear that these people have equal rights, that the conditions on which they are admitted are common conditions and that they are free to move within the Union after they enter, then citizens would be half-way towards accepting the situation and we could forestall a lot of the difficulties with migrants which are already emerging.
Mr President, it is a shame that Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi has already left. However, I should like to speak in favour of the Committee on Petitions' conclusions.
Out of respect for my colleagues, in my previous intervention I made reference to what I termed the 'gremlins' that sometimes appear in Parliament, but it is not these poor gremlins' fault.
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi made it very clear that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights had no intention of incorporating the Committee on Petitions' conclusions.
Proof that these conclusions were unanimously adopted lies in the fact that they were signed by the chairman of the Committee on Petitions, another member of the Committee on Petitions from the European People' s Party, two members of the Socialist Group and I myself as draftsman of the opinion.
I am of the view that it is imperative for any report on the application of Community law to incorporate the Committee on Petitions' conclusions, as this committee plays such a key role in ensuring Member States apply Community law.
This is why I urge you to vote in favour of Amendments Nos 2 and 3.
Mr President, it is not my wish to see a problem arise between the Legal Affairs Committee and the Committee on Petitions.
The fact is that the basic points made by the Committee on Petitions have already been included in the text of the report I drew up.
The reason why we do not agree with your amendments, as Mrs Palacio has explained, is because this is not the place to include them.
If you look at the report in detail, you will find that the basic elements of your conclusions have been incorporated.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Mr President, my Group abstained from voting on the Grossetête report because in the middle of the perfectly acceptable general considerations on the application of Community law, the resolution put to the vote included a paragraph which we are unable to accept.
This is paragraph 11, which invites the Commission, and I quote,: "to be less timid in the use of the periodic penalty payment procedure in accordance with the third paragraph of Article 228(2) of the EC Treaty.
This Article stipulates that the Court of Justice may, as it sees fit, impose penalties or fines, sometimes very stiff ones, on a Member State that, for whatever reason, fails to apply Community law.
We feel, however, that the legal problem is not that simple, and that inflicting such penalties on Member States is excessive.
In fact, there may be totally legitimate contradictions between Community law and national law. For example, a contradiction which may appear following a qualified majority vote in Council - and there are an increasing number of such votes - or a contradiction which may appear between a national constitution and Community law, or even a contradiction which may appear between Community law and a law which has been voted for after due consideration by the population of a Member State.
These contradictions are very serious, they are still unresolved and this is why we see the existence of Article 228, which was brought in by the Maastricht Treaty, as wholly contestable.
I should like in particular to point out that France is now liable to incur severe penalties through the 1998 law, concerning, for example, hunting seasons which contradict Community law, the embargo on British beef and the conflict which, Mr President, is in the process of arising, relating to the patenting of human genes which authorises a European directive that contradicts French law.
This is why we absolutely cannot accept this report.
It is a question of respecting national sovereignty.
.
(FR) I am pleased that the proposed resolution contained in the report, on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee, on monitoring the application of Community law in 1998, which I presented as rapporteur, was adopted in plenary in Strasbourg.
In doing so, the European Parliament sends a positive signal to Europe' s citizens, who have the right to expect a high level of protection through Community law.
This Assembly has also demonstrated its vigilance faced with the difficulties of application that exist in several Member States and in many spheres of activity.
It has remembered the importance of the infringement procedure, which must not become subject to opportune reform by the Commission.
It has highlighted the position of the preliminary question in the European system and the need to step up training in Community law within the Member States.
While nobody would deny the importance of petitions, I did not wish to go along with the amendments tabled by the members of the Committee on Petitions, in particular the request to set up a 'European administrative law' .
Account must be taken of the current state of progress in the construction of Europe and of the principle of subsidiarity.
I should stress, however, that the intention is to ask the Commission to intensify its relations with national administrations when there is a problem, in order that it can be resolved beforehand.
Taken as a whole, the resolution adopted serves to improve transparency and effectiveness, which is to the benefit of Europe' s citizens.
The Minutes of this session will be submitted for approval by Parliament at the start of the next part-session, if there is no objection.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12 noon)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 16 June 2000.
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great sadness that we learnt, last Tuesday, of the death of President Pierre Pflimlin, the former President of the European Parliament.
Pierre Pflimlin was a true statesman.
His career in public office began immediately following the war and took him to the offices of Council President and Head of Government in 1958 at a time when France was experiencing one of the most unsettled periods of its history, when he eased the transition period with General de Gaulle.
He played an active part in framing the constitution of the Fifth Republic and became a government minister, holding this position until 1962.
Pierre Pflimlin belonged to that historic generation of Europeans who, since the end of the war, as a member of parliament, a minister and a political activist, was at the forefront of all the efforts to build a strong and reunited Europe.
As an native of Alsace and of Strasbourg and a friend and comrade of Robert Schuman, he was one of the most ardent proponents of reconciliation between France and Germany, and a powerful symbol of French-German friendship.
He saw this reconciliation that he had worked so hard to achieve, as he confided to the Bishop of Strasbourg, as an absolute miracle.
He knew, nonetheless, that this miracle was not a random event, but rather the outcome of proactive and constructive commitment, based on common objectives and efficient institutions.
In 1959, Pierre Pflimlin joined the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and in 1963 began a three-year term as President.
Around the same time he became a Member of the European Parliament (1962-1967) before returning in 1979 at the first elections by universal suffrage.
He was elected First Vice-President in 1982 and was President from 1984 to 1987.
During his presidency, the European Parliament established a key role for itself, especially in its budgetary capacity, and increased its standing in Europe and internationally, since Pierre Pflimlin had the honour of welcoming to Parliament the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan, and other distinguished guests.
With reference to Altiero Spinelli' s Draft Treaty establishing the European Union, he strenuously urged treaty reform by the Single European Act, while at the same time decrying its shortcomings in terms of the inadequate powers accorded the European Parliament.
He committed Parliament to taking advantage of his friendly rapport with Commission President Jacques Delors, advocating tripartite meetings with the Council and the Commission, an early form of conciliation.
For Pierre Pflimlin was also a man of dialogue.
Confident in his choices, he respected the opinions of his political opponents, and always put the higher interests of Europe before ideological considerations.
Strasbourg, where he was mayor for twenty four years, represented for him the symbol of this opening up, the visible sign of French-German reconciliation and a sign of hope and confidence in the future of Europe.
He therefore put a great deal of sincere effort into developing his city and its role as European capital, creating real estate infrastructures and developing a genuine policy of welcoming visitors.
Pierre Pflimlin left the European Parliament in 1989, but for many Europeans, especially young people, he remained an authoritative voice, someone who could generate enthusiasm for the political objective of building Europe.
Until the end President Pflimlin impressed us with the vigour and clarity of his message, which is still highly relevant to us all.
Let me once again, on behalf of the European Parliament, express our deepest sympathy to the family of Pierre Pflimlin, especially his daughter who is attending our sitting at this very moment.
It was under Pierre Pflimlin' s presidency, in 1986, that the European flag and anthem were adopted as symbols of the European Union.
I shall therefore ask you to please agree to rise while we play the European anthem in memory of President Pflimlin.
(The House rose and the European anthem was played)
Statement by the President
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, on a point of order, I have here a report which appeared in the British newspaper The Independent concerning a meeting which appears to have taken place between yourself and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
According to this report, you left the meeting and then briefed the press on Her Majesty's political opinions.
This has caused a certain amount of concern and distress in political circles in the UK, because as, I am sure you know, the protocol of such meetings is that they are private and should not be commented on.
I would like to give you this opportunity to let us know what you understood the protocol of that meeting to be, and perhaps also to clarify what you said to the press afterwards.
Madam President, yesterday, at the Euro 2000 final between France and Italy, an unfortunate and extremely serious incident occurred. As some disabled people entered the Rotterdam stadium, they were searched and subjected to a series of humiliating manoeuvres by the security guards.
This situation caused some Italian cameramen to film the treatment of the disabled people. As a result, a considerable number of journalists were attacked and beaten up by the police, and pictures of this scene were transmitted by all the television companies.
Some of the journalists were arrested simply because they were doing their duty.
I believe that the Rotterdam police were not acting on higher orders. Indeed, I am convinced that the Dutch Government and the heads of the Dutch forces of law and order have disclaimed any association with the actions of the police, but I certainly believe that the treatment reserved for these European disabled people who are Italian and therefore European citizens and some Italian journalists who were lawfully carrying out their duty of reporting incidents should be strongly condemned by Parliament and, moreover, the other European institutions as well.
I would also like to declare my disapproval on another matter in which you have taken a great interest, Madam President: the sentence passed on the 13 Iranian Jews who were sentenced to flogging a few days ago.
Fortunately, they were not sentenced to death, and that may be due to the intervention of Parliament which monitored the proceedings to ensure that the defendants received a fair trial in Iran.
At the dawn of the third millennium, more or less regular trials are still ending with the sentence of corporal punishment, and this does not seem worthy of either democracy or the civilisation of the third millennium.
In my opinion, whatever crime a person may have committed, it is uncivilised to sentence them to flogging.
I therefore call once again upon Parliament, the Council and the Commission to ensure that this Iranian Jewish minority is not subjected to further oppression at the Court of Appeal, for a certain element is already rejoicing that the Jews have been found guilty.
Anti-Semitism must cease to be part of the history of the European Union and the world, for the Jewish people have already suffered far too much.
Thank you, Mr Tajani.
As to the first point that you raise, clearly this is a truly shocking incident and I shall look into the most appropriate way of notifying the Dutch authorities of your legitimate protest.
As to your second question, on the sentencing of these Iranian Jews, I totally agree with your analysis of the situation.
The best thing would, perhaps, be for me to write to the President of the Republic of Iran to request that these thirteen people be pardoned, but I shall do so only if the sentence is upheld by the Court of Appeal.
I see that you agree to this suggestion.
Thank you.
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking you for the way that, during this initial stage, you take on board all our questions and follow them up with great care. I would therefore like to thank you for your work.
As far as the Rotterdam incidents are concerned, I am in complete agreement with Mr Tajani.
Indeed, these were serious incidents which we would have not have thought possible, an affront to the freedom of the press as well to disabled people for the journalists were detained for several hours on no grounds at all.
In connection with these events, I would like to give you advance notice of our proposal, which we will expand in detail later on, to include a point referring to the said incidents in the topical and urgent questions on hooliganism.
This will give Parliament the opportunity to express a considered, responsible opinion on the matter.
I therefore call upon the Members to support this point when we vote on the topical and urgent subjects, for this will allow Parliament to express an opinion as it has a duty to do.
Madam President, precisely because the actions of the Dutch police have been called into the question, I would just like to protest about actions against Jews and corporal punishment etc., being mentioned in the same breath as the routine inspection undertaken by the Dutch police, who, following a request from a number of disabled Italian spectators at the match, endeavoured to push teams from Italian television aside.
When this attempt failed, these people were indeed detained by the police.
Moreover, I have to tell you that the Prime Minister of the Netherlands himself, and anyone else who was involved had nothing but praise for the way in which the Dutch police, along with the police from other Member States who were in attendance, defended public order.
I think this accusation is completely uncalled for, however much I, along with certain others, would have been only too pleased to see Italy win.
Madam President, contrary to the first speaker I should like to ask you to make our position very clear on the following point. On Friday, a bill was put before the Yugoslav parliament - a draft so-called anti-riot act - which is essentially targeted at the country's young people, more and more of whom are mobilising against Milosevic.
This bill has not yet been adopted.
I should like to ask you, Madam President, and of course also the Council and the Commission, to do all you can to prevent a bill of this kind from being adopted.
I do not know whether we will be able to influence the Yugoslav authorities or parliament, but the young people of Yugoslavia ought to know that we are on their side.
Mr Swoboda, I willingly take note of your statement and your request.
Madam President, I did not see the incident with regard to the handicapped or disabled people going into the stadium yesterday, or the supposed fracas with the Italian journalists.
However, I was in Rotterdam all day yesterday, from early morning until late last night and I was at the final.
I pass on my praise to the French, Italian, Dutch and many other fans who travelled from all over Europe to watch that final.
I also pass on my praise to the Dutch police for the way they conducted themselves, and to the people of Rotterdam.
It was an excellent day out in Rotterdam.
It was one of the best football matches I have ever attended.
The atmosphere was anything but hostile.
It was one of the best atmospheres I have experienced at a cup final.
On the point that Mr Helmer raised, can he join with me in congratulating Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on supporting the euro?
I was in Rotterdam myself, in the spirit of complete impartiality necessitated by my position as President of the European Parliament, and I can confirm that the atmosphere was indeed as you describe.
Even so, we shall, nonetheless, look into the incident reported by Mr Tajani and Mrs Napoletano.
You can count on me to proceed with the requisite diplomacy.
I believe that we must look into this matter since it involved disabled people, making the incident much more serious.
Madam President, I would like to draw your attention to yesterday' s elections in Mexico.
There has been a change of power there.
A new president has been elected in Mexico, as well as a new House of Representatives and a new Senate.
The so-called institutional revolution, which lasted seventy years, has ended.
I would ask you to send greetings to the new president.
We can certainly all be happy about this change of power, because no revolution can last seventy years.
Madam President, I think that what is missing is a comment on the football match between Italy and France.
The reason why it all went so well was that Swedes and Danes were in charge of the match, so I think we should thank the referees and linesmen for their considerable efforts.
Thank you, Mr Blak.
So, yes, the referees, like both teams indeed, were excellent.
Agenda
The next item is the examination of the final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
Relating to Thursday: Relating to Thursday, and the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance, I have received a number of requests for amendments to the agenda.
Firstly, a request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists to remove item 1, "Fiji and the Solomon Islands" .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, three months ago there was a coup in Fiji.
Hostages were taken in the coup, and the press and politicians the world over have taken a stance on this.
Now it is over: negotiations have been held, the hostages have been freed and the coup has been over for some time.
I wonder what further urgent comments the European Parliament should now have to make on this.
In my view this contravenes Rule 50 and Annex III of our Rules of Procedure.
That is why we are requesting the deletion of this item from the list of topical and urgent subjects.
Madam President, it is clearly true that there have been developments this weekend but it is too soon to tell what they will amount to.
There is considerable doubt as to whether these developments will result in the restoration of full constitutional government in Fiji, so this issue still remains highly important and of topical interest.
The Indo-Fijians, the Indian population of Fiji, are in considerable danger.
There has been lawlessness, damage to property, and cases of assault and rape without any intervention by the security forces in recent weeks.
I have had representations to the effect that people are looking to the European Union for some kind of effective action, possibly - and this could be debated in the context of the resolution - some kind of sanctions under the Lomé Convention.
I do not want to debate the content now but I do want to ask that this be maintained on the agenda, because after what has happened over the weekend, there is still a risk of considerable discrimination against one ethnic group in Fiji.
There is no confidence that the constitution will be applied properly and will be observed.
I do not agree that what has happened reduces the topical importance of the issue.
(Parliament rejected the request) President.
I now come to another request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, this time to remove the following item, "Tibet" .
Madam President, once again it is not the content of a motion for a resolution that is at issue here but our Rules of Procedure.
In the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy we have been trying to ensure - and I appeal to all those colleagues who have been involved in this initiative - that important issues of this kind are not dealt with in the topical and urgent debate; instead we want to ensure that proper treatment is reserved for them in the form of a committee procedure, an oral question or a Council statement.
Here the issue is Tibet.
We know how important this is.
In 1992 I personally produced a report on Tibet.
A motion reflecting the report's conclusions was adopted almost unanimously by Parliament.
On 15 April here in this House we unanimously adopted a resolution on Tibet, and now we are repeating what we said on 15 April, perhaps with one or two minor additions.
I do not believe that Parliament's reputation is enhanced by our constantly debating the same subjects.
That is why we are requesting that this item be withdrawn.
Madam President, Tibet is an issue which is on our agenda year after year after year, and to that extent I understand the point that the honourable Member has made.
We have adopted resolutions on this subject time and time again.
It is a country that is illegally occupied by China and its people are oppressed by that regime.
It is an urgent issue because in recent months we have seen various measures being taken by the Chinese government to move people into the area of Tibet and to exploit the natural resources there.
These measures were initially supported by the World Bank, Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Now that the pressure has been put on, Germany and the United States have withdrawn their support.
The World Bank is withdrawing support but it has not yet said so publicly.
It is urgent that we put pressure on them to withdraw support for these measures so that this Parliament can stand up for the people of Tibet, stand up for democracy, stand up for the stopping of what is an illegal act in international law.
(Parliament rejected the request)
President.
Still on the subject of topical and urgent debate, regarding the "Human rights" section, I have received three requests to replace the sub-item on "Hooliganism" : a request from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance to replace this item with a new sub-item entitled "Outbreaks of racism in Germany and the killing of Alberto Adriano" , a request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists to replace this sub-item by one entitled "Incidents at the Rotterdam football stadium" , and a request from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party to replace this sub-item by one entitled "Desecration of Prague' s oldest Jewish cemetery" .
We shall examine each of these requests in turn.
Madam President, the persecution on racist grounds of people in eastern Germany by their fellow human beings is becoming an increasingly serious issue.
It is an old and yet highly topical matter.
I mention this for Mr Sakellariou's sake, because just this weekend in Neissen people were once again persecuted simply because they speak a different language and because their skin is a different colour.
We must not allow this in Europe, and it is necessary, as a matter of urgency, for the European Parliament to support the forces of reason - which are growing weaker - in their efforts in eastern Germany to combat these racist tendencies and take action against neo-Nazis who want to create no-go areas for foreigners.
That is the background to this motion; the idea is that we state clearly that Europe has a vocation to be a multicultural Europe and that Europe supports all democratic forces battling against racism and neo-Nazism.
It is with this in mind that I ask you to support our request.
(Parliament rejected the request from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance) President.
We shall now move on to the second request, which is from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, that we replace the sub-item on "Hooliganism" with another sub-item entitled: "Incidents at the Rotterdam football stadium" .
In my opinion, on the subject of topical and urgent debates, as we have often found, it is not a matter of the extent to which we agree or whether to deal with this or that subject but of how to deal with it, and it sometimes happens that some of us consider that certain debates or resolutions should be dealt with in a more appropriate context, so to speak.
However, in this case, the matter is truly urgent pursuant to the Rules of Procedure because it happened yesterday, and I therefore feel that in treating it as such Parliament is being faithful to the intention behind the relevant provision of the Rules of Procedure, that is to deal with topical matters.
I feel that in holding a topical and urgent debate on this matter we would be acting upon our discussion earlier this morning, which you agreed to champion, Madam President.
We are all here and there is nothing to stop us, and in this way we will show all those countries against whom we often have to deliver opinions that we will not hold back on matters requiring thorough investigation such as discrimination against the disabled or where journalists are prevented from doing their job, and that we will not hesitate to investigate these incidents even when they occur within our Community.
I imagine that none of the Dutch Members of any of the political groups will object if we decide to investigate the matter thoroughly, for there is no doubt in any of our minds that the incident was not in any way motivated by political will, but this is the very reason why we must prevent such incidents from occurring. This is our opportunity to do so.
Madam President, that makes perfect sense to me, given that you have already promised to make inquiries in your famously discreet manner, and we are not going to entertain the idea of having a debate and a resolution on urgent subjects just because of some cock-and-bull stories.
It seems to me to be obvious that we should await the outcome of your mission.
(Parliament rejected the request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists)
Madam President, I would like to make a suggestion and ask the Members whether this resolution on hooliganism will also deal with the incidents which occurred at the Rotterdam stadium. You can put it to the vote if need be.
I am sure that it would be possible to include the matter and we could also decide to instruct the negotiators to take it into account.
I feel this is a reasonable suggestion, for if we do not make an effort to act in some way we would certainly be guilty of reluctance to do our duty. I would find this totally unacceptable.
Madame Napoletano, I do not think that I need to put this proposal to the vote.
Everyone has heard the suggestion.
When we come to framing the resolutions, we will all remember your suggestion and bear it in mind.
Finally the third request, which is from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, to replace the sub-item on "Hooliganism" with a new sub-item entitled "Desecration of Prague' s oldest Jewish cemetery" .
Madam President, our group believes it would indeed be more useful to concentrate on the matter of Prague and Czechoslovakia instead of hooliganism, because the foundations of the oldest Jewish cemetery were uncovered during the construction of an underground car park.
The coffins were then dug up and removed from the cemetery completely without ceremony.
Despite the Czech government' s promises to find an alternative site for the underground car park and to duly respect the cemetery as an historic monument, and despite the protests issued by various embassies, the construction work continued.
Our group feels that it must be made clear to candidate countries such as the Czech Republic that the European Union insists on respect being shown for fundamental rights such as freedom of worship and philosophy of life.
I think that now would be the ideal time for the European Parliament to issue a statement to this effect.
(Parliament rejected the request from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party)
Madam President, we have just decided to retain the hooliganism motion on the agenda for the debate on topical and urgent subjects.
I should like to make a particular request to the translation service and indeed those who are speaking to the motion: one of the football teams with which some hooliganism was associated was the team representing England.
The Member State which has responsibility for that question is the United Kingdom.
But it is very important in this matter to draw a distinction between Britain - as the state which has overall responsibility - and one of its parts, namely England.
This is all the more important given the known intention of the Scottish Football Association to apply to host the next European Cup but one.
I have received a request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists to remove the sub-item on Iraq.
Madam President, I will not tire of appealing to the consciences of my colleagues.
We, and other Members, in particular the coordinators of the Foreign Affairs Committee, have established that the matters which we select for consideration in the topical and urgent debate are not always very appropriate.
This also applies here, to Iraq.
Three months ago, at the April plenary part-session, we adopted a resolution in which we say everything that it is possible for us to say about Iraq.
All the issues are covered.
I have carefully read the new motions for resolutions which have been tabled, but they do not contain anything new.
Nevertheless, this is to be included as a topical and urgent motion because one group, which has travelled to Iraq of its own accord, now has to submit this motion for a resolution.
I think that this would be wrong and irresponsible of Parliament, and that is why we are asking for this item to be withdrawn.
(Parliament rejected the request) President.
We now have a request to replace the item on Venezuela with a new item entitled "Colombia and the international conference of donor countries in Madrid" .
Madam President, there is to be an international conference on 7 July on the "Colombia Plan" which is to bring donor countries together, in the context of the aid plan for that country, also known as the "Marshall Plan" .
At the present time there are two different strategies on the table as regards such aid. One is a strategy from America aiming to increase police repression.
Personally, and I think I may speak on behalf of my Group, we feel this approach is doomed to failure. Indeed this has already been demonstrated on several occasions.
The other strategy, from Europe, which is intended to effect changes in culture, and which therefore represents a more preventative method, is, we think, a better solution and alternative policy.
In any event, we think it important that the European Parliament should express its opinion on the subject in the few days before this conference.
Madam President, I do not wish to speak against the proposal because I am in complete agreement with what my friend and fellow Member, Paul Lannoye, has just said.
I do, however, deplore the fact that this proposal is set to replace a resolution on Venezuela which is the follow up to a visit to that country by an official delegation from the European Parliament following the serious floods which devastated that country, especially as we have not had an opportunity to discuss the matter since then.
I shall personally, therefore, abstain from voting on the proposal, though unwillingly.
I would much rather the proposal had not been made, even though I do agree completely with Paul Lannoye' s argument.
(Parliament rejected the request) President.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has requested that the item on "Venezuela" be replaced by a new point on "Temelin" .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our hats are on fire as we say in Austria, but unfortunately the very fact that this is a burning issue means that there is no time for joking.
The nuclear power station in Temelin is being commissioned earlier than was agreed or was expected, and it is not intended to carry out the environmental impact assessment until some time after the fuel elements have been installed, making it a pointless exercise.
This is also happening against the wishes of the Czech Environment Minister, against the wishes of a large part of the Czech population and in spite of an urgent request from the German and Austrian Environment Ministers for detailed information on the safety arrangements.
Obviously, the Czech Republic still has more time to implement the acquis communautaire in full, but people might well have doubts about whether the Czech Republic is willing even now to start taking on board these aspects of European policy which are of fundamental importance for its citizens and for environment policy.
There is no need for me to describe the concerns felt by those living in the adjoining areas.
The whole thing could happen as early as next week.
I think that the European Parliament also ought to speak out on this.
I am rather torn.
I am Austrian and yet as a European from the adjoining area I obviously also wish us to proceed together on this.
Madam President, this is a point of order.
This absurd debate demonstrates that a Provan report on urgent procedures would be welcome, because the Prime Minister of Portugal has been waiting an hour for us to finish.
I do not understand how a political group in this House can table two motions to replace a point on the agenda.
I do not know which Rule of the Rules of Procedure this is based on.
I would be grateful if you could explain this to me, Madam President.
Mr Barón Crespo, this is perfectly permissible under the Rules of Procedure.
Having said that, you have just expressed out loud what many people were thinking to themselves.
We must apologise to Mr Guterres, and I must thank you for urging our fellow Members to be much briefer.
(Parliament rejected the request) I am sorry, but the Conference of Presidents proposed only four subjects.
I have received a request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance to add a new item on the "European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia" .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, that is precisely why we wanted to withdraw a number of items.
We wanted to have fewer overall.
But I will be brief.
As you know, the Monitoring Centre is in Vienna.
Some time ago there were difficulties there between the government and the Director of this Monitoring Centre and also the Austrian representative.
Now it appears that the difficulties are being resolved and that better relations are once again being established.
Nevertheless, I believe that this House ought to call on all governments - the Austrian Government and the other governments - to ensure that the Monitoring Centre is in fact able to operate effectively and to support it in its work.
That is why we should like to add this item.
Madam President, I request that this is not taken as a topical and urgent motion.
The matter is potentially a very serious one, involving perhaps a breach of Article 10 of the Treaties, and I believe it requires more serious consideration than can be given to a topical and urgent motion on a Thursday afternoon.
This matter has been drawn to the attention of the Committee on Citizens' Rights and Freedoms, Justice and Home Affairs, which I have the honour to chair.
We have received the opinion of the Director of the Monitoring Centre on the matter, we have asked our budget rapporteur to investigate more widely the question of the Austrian government's attitude to the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia.
We need to know the full facts regarding the resignation of Mr Pelinka, the Austrian member of the Centre's Executive Board.
It may be that we need to refer the matter to the Group of Three Wise Persons charged with investigating the situation in Austria.
But a topical and urgent motion would shed more heat than light on the matter, and seems to me to be an inappropriate vehicle.
Therefore I would appeal to Members to vote against this request.
(Parliament gave its assent) The other two requests therefore lapse, and there are no further requests for amendments to the agenda.
(The order of business was adopted thus amended)
European Council/Portuguese presidency
The next item is the joint debate on the European Council report and the Commission statement on the European Council meeting at Feira and the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council regarding the Portuguese Presidency.
Thank you, Mr President.
I now give the floor to Mr Patten to speak on behalf of the Commission.
- (PT) Prime Minister, I hope you understand, as a former Parliamentarian yourself, that in Parliament it is on political issues that we should focus our debate.
There are at least two questions that I wish to ask you with regard to your speech.
First of all, I was surprised to hear you criticise what you called 'a shift towards an intergovernmental approach' , because, if one thing has occurred in the six months of the Portuguese Presidency, it is that the Council has actually become stronger at the expense of the Commission and Parliament. This was also clear from your words when you described the Employment Summit as 'showing a strong desire for political leadership of the Union' , demonstrating that, in fact, you see this as leadership by the Council at the expense of the other two institutions.
It is therefore worth tempering words and intentions with reality.
If we look at the most uncomfortable issue of the last six months, which I admit you would not really want to discuss here, that is, the Austrian question, we see the extent of the shift in recent months.
There are aspects of the Austrian question that are very dangerous for the future of the Union.
The impasse in which the Union found itself at the Feira Council shows exactly why this shift is so dangerous.
First of all, it replaced the principle of collegiality in Union decisions with a greater emphasis on bilateral action between Governments.
If anyone should never have acted as spokesperson for the Fourteen, it was you, as President of the European Union.
You should never, under any circumstances, have acted as spokesperson, even if you felt that Portugal should agree to the sanctions against Austria.
As a result of your action, the Austrian question has become a European Union issue.
From the institutional point of view, this issue will clearly taint the European Union' s internal relations unless it is quickly resolved.
We all know that in order not to lose face, the basis of a resolution has already been negotiated.
This basis of a resolution, however, is a sign of weakness: weakness, essentially, on the part of the Fourteen countries that have taken a political initiative and do not know how to get out of it.
In contemporary politics, the trend towards handing political decisions to experts and judges shows just how weak politicians are.
These sanctions originated from a political measure and the same people who initiated them should have had the courage to take the decision to lift them. This should have been done at Feira.
As to the Intergovernmental Conference, unfortunately I do not have much speaking time left, but I must say that dangerous trends are being followed there too.
I am not against closer cooperation, but it must be made quite clear that closer cooperation falls within the area of the Union' s sectoral policies and is not an institutional or political matter.
Otherwise, at some point in the future, we will have two European Unions, a first- and a second-class Union. This situation would put an end to what has been the driving force of the European Union and the European Community since the Second World War.
Closer cooperation must therefore not lead to a two-speed Europe. Instead, it must enable whoever wants to do so to move forward more quickly in terms of sectoral policies, but not in terms of the institutions, or else we will risk splitting the Union.
Madam President, my group also salutes the Portuguese Presidency's cooperation with the European Parliament and thanks it for this.
As far as the results of the Feira summit are concerned, however, we are rather more sceptical.
In recent weeks a debate has broken out between the governments of the Member States about the future of Europe, and even about having a constitution.
In stark contrast to these competing visions, however, is the way in which preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference are shaping up.
It even seems that the images of the distant future conjured up by a good many ministers are actually intended to conceal the European Council's inability to resolve the issues it has set itself.
Since Maastricht this European Council has been putting off the problems, the unresolved questions and the necessary reforms.
Many of these were already left unresolved in Amsterdam.
The public's confidence in the EU has now reached an all-time low in all the Member States.
In eastern Europe frustration is growing at the EU's hesitant attitude.
The real initiatives - highlighted by Parliament in all of its resolutions for years - are in some cases not even being discussed in the preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference.
The most important objective is surely to create and develop a European democracy and to eliminate the democratic deficit.
In Feira we did not see a decision to incorporate the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Treaty, one of the decisions most eagerly anticipated by the people of Europe.
An alternative approach to the Intergovernmental Conference, which this Parliament has repeatedly advocated, was not even mentioned.
I think that, instead of making people want to enshrine the prevailing system in a future constitution, the European Council will have given everyone cause to consider the system's gross shortcomings, manifest in the current Intergovernmental Conference.
A procedure for adopting a constitution has not been planned or launched; there is barely a definite notion of doing so.
Questions remain about parliamentary and judicial control in the second and third pillars, as they do about the status of European parties and so on.
Neither are there any tangible plans for meeting the second challenge, to create a social dimension to European integration.
I believe that all of this has serious consequences for the degree of acceptance of the EU by those on the inside and also for the expectations which the eastern European countries have of us.
We still have a few more months, but the work will have to pick up speed and increase in gravity and depth at a much greater rate than we have seen so far!
Madam President, Prime Minister, the Feira Council did not provide any new items of substance. It was even repetitive where certain fundamental policies are concerned and made no changes to weightier issues.
It was a disappointment for that very reason.
Predictably, the main themes, ranging from enlargement to the CIG, via the Charter of Fundamental Rights, were largely put off for the Nice Summit.
This is certainly why it became necessary to come up with a last-minute agreement on timetabling the tax package which, in the end and in essence, is restricted to waiting for another agreement a few years off, which will still be dependent on its unlikely acceptance by third countries, which are precisely today' s tax havens.
It is therefore not surprising that this virtual agreement should have been particularly warmly welcomed by those who have never been keen on a greater balance between legislation on capital and labour and who have always opposed mounting any joint action against these tax havens for tax evasion, fraud or the movement of large sums of money.
On the contrary and in the name of the completion of the internal market and the follow up to the Lisbon Special Summit, we have seen new pressures for speeding up the process of liberalisation and deregulation of the labour market.
When the broad economic policy guidelines for 2000 were approved it was accepted that constraints resulting from the Stability Pact would have to be strengthened and provided for, which suggests that there will be further and greater problems, particularly in the social domain.
The reasons for the large demonstration organised by the trade union movement at the Feira Summit are therefore understandable and the fact that tens of thousands of people took part in this demonstration definitely made it one of the most striking features of the Summit.
There are also grounds for concern in another area, however. I am referring to the revision of the Treaties.
Almost the entire task has been left to the French Presidency and the most important aspect in this area has already moved beyond the normal institutional framework, into bilateral summits and various conferences and statements. Nevertheless, in this area, we cannot let pass without comment the fact that the Feira Summit did not only fail to include the revision on the agenda but that it spoke about 'a form of closer cooperation' in the singular.
We already had deep-felt concerns about what has up until now been known as 'closer cooperation' , given its profound and unmistakable connotations of the creation of a hard core, a vanguard or a pioneer group.
This would therefore mean a multi-speed Europe, headed by a political cabinet. The adoption of this new wording, because it is undoubtedly much more indicative of such ideas, increases these doubts and makes us extremely apprehensive as to the kind of European construction which some people are advocating.
The worst thing is that other people seem to be distracted...
I reserve a final word of disapproval for the obvious trend towards the militarisation of the European Union. Proof of this is the fact that we are developing our own military capabilities, clearly in tandem with NATO.
We still think that the OSCE is still the most appropriate framework for developing the European Union' s security system.
We also take the view that the prevention of crises and civilian crisis management should prevail over any interventionist action.
- (PT) Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the rotating presidency is one of the cornerstones of our Union. It is evidence that we are united on the path of cooperation and that we do not take the imperial route of some countries dominating others.
In addition to this, it works well, as the Portuguese Presidency has clearly demonstrated.
The fact that the Portuguese Presidency was a success and that comments on it have been universally positive confirms and reinforces the truth of this situation and our belief in it.
As a Portuguese citizen, a non-federalist and a European, I can only be delighted, in spite of our political differences.
Those who wish to see the Union' s system of a rotating presidency changed are wrong.
It is not true that only the large and powerful countries can preside over the Union.
The presidency can and must be divided between Member States, since this is symbolic of the fact that we share a common path.
If there is one negative side to this six-month term, it is the Austrian question.
The Portuguese Presidency alone cannot be blamed for the mistake, as I have to call it.
It was a mistake committed by everyone, when they pushed the 'Fourteen' - and what is this 'Fourteen' anyway? - to excess and into an impasse.
In the European Parliament alone, 406 Members supported this disastrous move.
We cannot develop a short memory once we realise our mistake.
Austria held elections and will continue to do so.
Free elections.
They did nothing that constitutes a violation of the Treaties and their guarantees.
The real issue is the violation of fundamental principles with regard to a Member State, which sets a dangerous precedent of arrogance or tyranny.
It has never been clear why the Presidency of the Union became involved in a course of action that was supposed to fall under the terms of bilateral relations.
Today there is growing embarrassment.
Everyone is wandering around with a torch, looking for a graceful way out.
There will certainly be a way out, but I doubt that it will be a graceful one.
It is now the responsibility of the French Presidency to find it.
It has always been said that the French authorities were largely responsible for the mistake that was made, so it is therefore appropriate that they should now resolve the problem.
The Portuguese Presidency attempted to bring some basic realism back to certain fundamental issues.
With regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the presidency made its position clear at the Feira Summit, keeping strictly to the terms of the mandate granted to it by the Cologne European Council.
It is amazing, hearing some of the ideas that are being bandied around, how far some people wish to force us to go beyond the limited suggestion made in Cologne.
We shall see!
As to the IGC, the signs given at the start of the French Presidency are, in contrast, quite worrying.
We are all aware of the differences of opinion and the difficulties that already existed.
Given such a situation, how are we to interpret the French Presidency' s recent initiative to go to Berlin and announce a completely different agenda for the future of the Union? Jacques Chirac' s speech to the Bundestag was ill-judged and ill-timed.
It showed a lack of vision and a lack of respect, from what one can see.
It served only to create distrust in an atmosphere that is already very sensitive.
This type of speech is not pro-European, and in fact, is clearly anti.
The authors, from the French UDF, of a recently published draft European constitution, made it quite clear: any Member State failing to comply with the constitution would lose its place in the Union and be reduced to the status of a mere partner. What kind of madness is this?
Where is the sense in such a contradiction?
A final word: the French Presidency has the responsibility of not ruining what the Portuguese Presidency has managed to achieve through basic realism.
Any idea of a pioneer group does not correspond to the idea of European cooperation that unites us.
This obsession with hard cores or pioneer groups will only serve to create a perverse dialectic and an increasing and divisive tension between the countries who see themselves as leaders and those who do not want to be led and will not accept this.
This is not the Europe to which we belong.
Madam President, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin with a point which Mr Patten emphasised, I thought, very well: the Indian question.
I would like to offer the Portuguese Presidency my sincere congratulations on having successfully managed this initiative, which is very important, in my opinion, even if the press itself has not yet realised this.
It is important because, as Mr Patten said, India is a democracy, the largest in the world, and it is a country located at the heart of Asia, at the very heart of an Asia which, at the start of this new millennium, I think represents the greatest danger of the next century, much more so than the issues we have been discussing already today, like Austria, for instance.
We must tackle the issue of China.
China is as close to us now as were the totalitarian regimes before the Second World War.
Yet we pretend not to notice, we continue to deal with China on a priority basis.
We should be putting all the weight we possibly can behind India and attempting to make China see that Chinese citizens truly deserve to have democracy.
I think the shift to an intergovernmental form of administration is evident, Mr Guterres, and that it is not solely dependent on the personality of the Commission President, Mr Prodi.
I believe that Parliament too must take considerable responsibility for having undermined this body that is central to European construction, but I think that the Council is continuing to exacerbate the sideways shift and that we must, as a matter of urgency, change course and put the Commission back at the centre of the Community' s construction.
I feel that in terms of foreign policy - you also spoke of defence policy - we are making no progress towards Community construction.
Absolutely everything is based on an intergovernmental approach.
We have not managed to grasp just what is our scope for input to the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
We cannot ask Mr Solana questions.
We do not know what matters he is dealing with.
As the European Parliament, we do not have any scope to intervene.
We do not know what tasks you, the Council, have given him.
In my opinion, the fact that relations are not more acrimonious than they are and that there is still a degree of politeness and some superficial agreement is due only to the two personalities holding the key foreign policy positions, Commissioner Patten and Mr Solana.
I think that if anyone else were involved, the balance between the institutions would already have been upset.
I believe that in the course of this intergovernmental conference we cannot avoid starting to plan and set ourselves an agenda for the reform of the European Union providing for gradual communitisation of the common foreign and security policy.
It is just not possible for us to go on exacerbating the sideways shift in the wrong direction.
We cannot envisage any sort of foreign policy which is not, in the medium term, managed directly by the Commission, or by a Commission Vice-President. Similarly, I think it would be dangerous to disregard the question of how each country is represented within the Commission, even if a good number of my fellow Members are experiencing some amnesia on the subject in plenary.
I think it would be premature, and I think that Portugal cannot be unaware of this issue, to reduce the number of Commissioners to less than the number of Member States.
I think the only condition which could possibly allow us to make this leap forward and rid the Commission of its 'national' status, involves electing the President of the Commission by universal suffrage.
I think that the countries which are not large - to avoid describing them as something else - should weigh up this proposal carefully.
I hope that Portugal is concerned about it - but I know that other Member States, Belgium, Luxembourg and others too, are talking about it - as I think it is an urgent matter and that it would be much more important to start to tackle the question of the 'check and balance' system operating between our institutions than to engage in sideways shifts that are liable to freeze any further progress and put it on hold by discussing constitutions or Charters of Fundamental Rights, without even having any legal basis for this charter.
Mr President, in the EU, matters are so often on the agenda that it is difficult to say when the various developments begin.
The precedence of EU law may be dated back to the judgements given in 1962 and 1964.
The right of veto in accordance with the Luxembourg Compromise prevailed from 1966 to 1986.
The changeover to majority voting may be dated back to the Council of Ministers' new rules of procedure from July 1987 and the Single European Act' s majority provisions for the internal market.
The possibility of closer cooperation was introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, but unanimity is required, and that possibility has never been made use of, except in areas where there was already unanimity, for example in connection with EMU and cooperation under the Schengen Agreement.
With the Feira Summit, the EU' s Member States acknowledged for the first time that closer cooperation could take place without the agreement of every country.
Feira put the issue on the Intergovernmental Conference' s agenda.
It is too early to say whether the outcome will be a general clause or whether earmarking will be introduced, but the initial breakthrough has occurred, and the principle of equality between countries has in that way been abandoned.
From now on, Germany and France can set the pace, even if Great Britain and other Euro-sceptic countries wish to see cooperation take a different direction.
Formally, changes to the Treaties will still require unanimity but, in reality, it will soon be possible to increase cooperation without waiting for the stragglers.
Those who want to see further integration have good reason for congratulating the Portuguese Presidency, but for those of us who want to see more democracy and equality between the countries of the Union, the Feira Summit is no cause for celebration.
I also believe that the sanctions against Austria ought to be lifted, and preferably sooner rather than later.
Mr President, I remain dismayed at the way in which Austria continues to be prejudged by 14 Member States of the European Union and believe that it is still far too early to assess definitively the overall consequences of the Feira summit.
Certainly, there will be results on one or two further fronts thanks to the indisputably conscientious and ambitious work done there.
Inevitably it was an intermediate and preparatory summit which did not deliver satisfactory results on fundamental issues and it was therefore disappointing, and above all not very spectacular, apart from the only item not on the agenda - that is, Austria - and it was therefore also a rather thankless task for the presidency.
But what it really will be remembered for is a missed opportunity to return to normal relations within the Community.
Neither in Feira nor in the ensuing days did the presidency succeed - against the wishes of the majority of Parliament - in smoothing the way back to normality.
The further humiliation of Austria was at the very least tolerated.
This will be the enduring image of Feira.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council presidency has given itself a bit of a pat on the back by declaring that the Portuguese Presidency has done what it set out to do, no more and no less than that.
That may be true, Prime Minister Guterres, for the routine tasks.
The image people have of the Portuguese Presidency will not, however, be determined by whether or not routine tasks have been completed, but by two events: firstly, by the fact that as President-in-Office of the Council you have had a hand in imposing the sanctions on Austria, and secondly, by the complete lack of progress in the Intergovernmental Conference.
Why does this matter? Posterity's opinion of us as a generation of European politicians will not be determined by the successes which you listed; it will be determined by whether we succeed in carrying out the historical duty of our time in the Union, which is enlargement towards the east, the reunification of Europe after a century of European civil wars.
To make this possible we need to reform ourselves in the Intergovernmental Conference, and no progress has been made here at all so far.
This must be noted.
There is no doubt that this is a difficult business.
The candidate countries themselves are having to make their contribution; we must of course be ready for enlargement and we cannot make enlargement conditional on the success of the Intergovernmental Conference.
After all, it would be disastrous if our lack of ability to reform became a yardstick by which enlargement was judged.
That is why we need to put more effort into making progress here.
The fact that, for example, the French President has made a proposal to draft a European constitution enshrining the division of responsibilities is a major step forward, because dividing up responsibilities would create the confidence necessary for more majority voting in the Council, which is one of the most important preconditions for its ability to act.
The example of Austria is harmful because you are painting a picture of a European Union which interferes in the internal affairs of a country.
This is not the kind of European Union which the people of Europe want; neither is it what the candidate countries want.
It is regrettable that this has happened under your presidency.
- (PT) Mr President, Commissioner Patten, Prime Minister of Portugal, nobody will be surprised if I add my voice to those who have, in the main, congratulated the Prime Minister on the great skill with which he has led the Council of the European Union over the last six months.
I am doing so for other reasons, as I have already said here over these six months, but above all, because I feel that this Presidency has made three important marks.
Firstly, it has adopted a new political stance.
Secondly, it has made a commitment to building a Europe with a social conscience, which provides a practical response to the problems of European citizens, and thirdly, it has established a new dialogue, based on the universal European values that have been asserted and developed over these six months.
Firstly, there is the new political stance in its relations with Parliament, which my colleague Mr Barón Crespo has already mentioned.
I would like to contribute a further example, of which there can never be too many.
This concerns the number of subjects that were opened up to codecision and then closed during the six months of this Portuguese Presidency.
Above all, there is the respect with which the Portuguese Presidency always treated this Parliament, which will certainly have contributed to future presidencies adopting a new stance in their relations with Parliament.
Secondly, there is the Portuguese Presidency' s assertion of civil values and respect for human dignity.
Here I must return to the Austrian question, Prime Minister, to ask you and to ask myself what would be the attitude of many of those who are today criticising the Portuguese Presidency for having had the courage and the determination to condemn a xenophobic and fundamentalist agenda if the Fourteen Member States and the Presidency itself had remained silent?
We prefer to praise the Portuguese Presidency for its courage, determination and boldness, although others might prefer to highlight its silence, perhaps even its cowardice.
We think that this was an important statement to make, not just within the Union, but beyond it as well.
It has clearly been understood, because when the Austrian Government announced its programme, it put considerable emphasis on the protection of human rights and, above all, on its acceptance of the European project.
I would, however, like to focus on other political issues related to the second mark made by the Portuguese Presidency, this Europe with a social conscience that I mentioned, which has earned the praise of many people, in particular the Secretary-General of the European Trade Union Conference, which also held a demonstration in Oporto. The Secretary-General highlighted quite clearly, however, what the presidency was able to achieve by discussing issues such as full employment, the social agenda, a society that remains true to the values of the European social model and that is based on knowledge and information.
These points are, today, at the centre of the European Union' s political agenda and will never again be relegated to being second- or third-class issues or merely the responsibility of the Member States. This debate continues to raise questions: why are many of those who criticised this Council three months ago for not having reached - in their opinion - substantial conclusions, today criticising the presidency for placing too great an emphasis on the intergovernmental approach precisely because these conclusions have been successful?
The third and final mark made by the Portuguese Presidency is that it has asserted Europe' s new position in the world.
You have already talked about this, Prime Minister, in relation to Mexico, South Africa and the EU-India Summit.
The same applies to the EU-Africa Summit, which we feel was a key point, a turning point leading to the creation of a new, necessary relationship between the European Union and Africa.
The European Union cannot continue to be hypocritical in its treatment of Africa and the Summit was a major step in this new approach.
Prime Minister, these three marks mean that that you are drawing a conclusion here and confirming a desire.
Your conclusion is that European ambition is not the heritage of large countries alone. The conclusion is that the desire and commitment shown for constructing and proving allegiance to the project by its founders are also the heritage of those who, even in remote and even small areas in territorial terms also have ambition and take pride in being Portuguese and, at the same time, European.
The desire is that the reasons we have today to feel proud will not end or die out with the Portuguese Presidency. They must remain alive so that we can continue, as a Member State, to develop this project and confirm these values and a culture which is our own, which deserves our respect and above all, which is worthy of our every effort.
Mr President, Prime Minister, the Portuguese Presidency has been conscientious and committed, it has sought to cooperate closely with Parliament and I too should like to thank the Portuguese Government for this.
However, the other side of the coin is the outcome of the Feira summit, and in my view the results for all fifteen Member States were more than disappointing.
I should like briefly to make three points.
Firstly, the Presidency Conclusions say of the Intergovernmental Conference that significant headway is being made.
I have to say that I find this difficult to understand because really everyone knows that in fact the Conference is not making any progress at all.
Since then, additional ministerial meetings have been arranged and today the German press reported that in French Government circles even a failure is not being ruled out in Nice.
Secondly, many action groups and non-governmental organisations, but also a majority of the European Parliament and national parliaments, are calling for the Charter of Fundamental Rights to be incorporated in the Treaties.
But no mention was made of this in Feira.
There was no clear affirmative answer as to whether the Charter of Fundamental Rights will be legally binding, and I should like to agree with my colleague, Mr Voggenhuber, from the Greens that this is not the way to counter scepticism about Europe in our countries.
The public do not want yet another grandiose-sounding piece of paper.
Thirdly and finally, it was not until paragraph 50 that the Heads of State and Government expressed their shock at the tragic deaths of the 58 refugees in Dover.
I, Mr President-in-Office, am shocked that it did not occur to the Council to do anything more in response to this terrible tragedy than to step up the fight against so-called illegal immigrant smuggling.
No thought was given to making even the slightest adjustment to the EU's policy of a European shield with its sometimes fatal consequences for people in need.
But in my view this is precisely what is urgently required to prevent tragedies such as the one in Dover from being repeated.
What we need most of all is a return to international standards of refugee law and application in full of the Geneva Convention on Refugees.
Drastic policy changes are required here precisely so that we do not continue to encourage those who make money out of trafficking in human beings.
Mr President, I am similarly dismayed at the way in which Austria continues to be prejudged by 14 Member States and in my view, despite the many words of praise about the Portuguese Presidency, the absurdity of the sanctions against Austria, which Member States agreed together but are applying bilaterally, will, as a German newspaper once wrote, go down as a peculiar irony in the history of the EU and therefore unfortunately also in the history of the Portuguese Presidency. A so-called Community of values cannot end at Lake Constance.
The work of the presidency will surely only be credible if the values which are to be defended are binding on all the Member States of the EU and are not employed arbitrarily and on demand as political propaganda by individual politicians against a democratically-elected government of an EU Member State.
Mr President, firstly I would like to add my voice to those who earlier paid their respects to the memory of President Pflimlin.
One of his lasting legacies is an understanding of the continuing need of the strength of the three political institutions of the EU and for mutual respect between them.
It is perhaps inevitable as we are discussing the ending of the Portuguese Presidency that, with the recent speeches in Berlin, the memory is going to focus more on the second half of the IGC than the first, but I would like at this stage to record my thanks to the Portuguese Presidency for their assiduousness in consulting the Parliament both here in the plenary and in the Constitutional Affairs Committee.
The Berlin speeches by Foreign Minister Fischer, visionary and controversial, by President Chirac, controversial but not visionary, and by Prime Minister Blair, neither visionary nor controversial, which threaten to overshadow the memory of the Portuguese Presidency, leave certain questions in the mind which the Portuguese Presidency can still help us with.
Firstly I understand that Prime Minister Jospin has said that he would rather see no agreement in December in Nice than an unsatisfactory institutional reform.
Could the Portuguese Presidency confirm that sufficient work has been done to ensure that agreement can be reached in December?
Secondly, on enlargement, could he confirm that there is still the political will in the Council so that candidate countries, this House and the public of Europe can expect to hear target dates announced for the first wave of accession? This is something that the Commission and many in this House would like to see.
My last question on close cooperation would include Commissioner Patten, if he is able to demonstrate that he has not imposed a vow of silence.
Is it the case that the Council still attaches importance to the democratic interplay between the three institutions and that closer cooperation will not inevitably mean greater decision making by one institution, by the Council, to the detriment of Parliament and Commission and, by implication, the people of Europe?
Mr President, as one of the two representatives of the European Parliament to the Intergovernmental Conference, I would like to thank the outgoing Portuguese Presidency for the warm welcome and outstanding teamwork which it organised for us.
I only hope that the French Presidency will follow in its footsteps.
The European Union is at the most crucial crossroads in its history.
The Helsinki resolution on major enlargement raises the existential question of the institutional structure needed in order for the European Union to function with 28 Member States.
And it is certainly not the present structure.
I subscribe fully to Mr Seguro' s well-placed comments on the multiple successes of the Portuguese Presidency.
However, apart from the question of closer cooperation, nothing was added to the Feira agenda, which was limited to the Amsterdam leftovers.
This attitude on the part of the leaders of Europe causes a problem for the following reason: the purpose of this intergovernmental conference was supposedly to lay down the institutional requirements for enlargement.
However, surely these institutional requirements include safeguarding the credibility of the European Union. And how can this credibility be safeguarded without a Charter of Fundamental Rights, without a radical legal response to the undemocratic conduct of certain countries, without a common foreign policy and defence policy and without turning the Treaties into a kind of constitution?.
If no progress is made before Nice, this state of affairs will raise a huge dilemma for the European Parliament when it comes to approving enlargement.
I have two comments to make on this.
First, we perceive the power to approve or reject enlargement granted to us by the Treaties as an historic responsibility, not as the power to impose our views. Secondly, if our decision to approve or reject enlargement is to be historically responsible, it must be made on the basis of whether or not we consider that adequate institutional changes have been made in order for the European Parliament to welcome 10 or 11 new Member States.
Shortly before Feira, and this was no coincidence, an extra-institutional dialogue was instigated by the Foreign Ministers of France and Germany.
An extremely interesting dialogue, with new ideas which, overall, strengthened the European vision, irrespective of whether you agree or disagree with it.
But, nonetheless, a dialogue which refutes the current logic on which the Intergovernmental Conference functions and, at the end of the day, a dialogue between France and Germany. But did this extra-institutional dialogue perhaps affect the wording of the Feira resolutions?
Is that perhaps why the conclusions on institutional matters were so brief? Perhaps Feira, in conjunction with the Franco-German dialogue, means that the Intergovernmental Conference was bypassed before it even finished.
I hope not.
What stands out with Feira is that it limited itself to just one addition to the agenda: closer cooperation, which is therefore registered as an urgent and crucial issue.
On that, I have this comment to make: I think that it is important for the future of the European Union that we debate the problems and I think it is right to protect it from the risk of being brought to a standstill by the current veto. I also think, however, that the institutional unity of the European Union needs to be protected.
Mr Brok and I stressed this several times at the Intergovernmental Conference.
However, I have one question: have we indeed made clear to the candidate countries that the debate on closer cooperation mainly applies to them at the moment and that we are in a hurry to complete the arrangements before new partners join the European Union? The central tenet of the Franco-German dialogue is clear: we need a two-speed Europe.
I think that Feira will go down in the history books not so much for what it said but mainly for what it did not say on institutional issues.
Mr President, my assessment is a rather critical one.
The future of Europe depends on two major issues: democracy and employment.
Democracy: the Intergovernmental Conference does not appear to resolve the issue of the alleged democratic deficit, and so-called closer cooperation on its own will not suffice.
Greater democracy means guaranteeing full authority to adopt legislation and initiatives to the peoples' elected representatives.
It means independence for Europe from the United States and therefore greater autonomy for NATO.
Greater democracy means political control of the economy and its institutions, starting with the Central Bank, and not the reverse.
Employment: the e-Europe action plan may serve to prepare the citizens to become Internet shoppers but it will certainly not create jobs.
Employment policy is short-sighted and biased towards the market.
A completely absurd ideological process is currently developing in which the State is replaced by the market, and it is absolutely clear to us Communists that the Union must change direction completely.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the Portuguese Presidency on its term of office: progress has been made on various issues and the debate on the future of the Union and preparations for it have been instigated at political level, despite the fact that the Intergovernmental Conference has stuck at present to the original agenda.
The resolutions on the European Security and Defence Policy and the new rules governing collaboration between the Union and ÍÁÔÏ are highly positive, even if certain aspects of future developments are still somewhat obscure.
The Portuguese Presidency referred to federalism and to future issues in general, but without, for example, raising the matter of own resources and without a spectacular increase in own resources, enlargement will become practically impossible and politically painful.
Mentioning closer cooperation as the Union's main means of progress gives the impression that we are preparing, formally, for a two-speed Europe.
Only if this cooperation is confined to certain sectors will it remain the driving force behind the Union.
We were delighted with the confirmation of Greece's accession to the euro zone and if this presages the accession of all those who are still outside the euro zone, then so much the better.
In essence, as far as employment, competition and environmental and public health policies are concerned, the Lisbon Summit made minor concessions to the citizens of Europe, but not enough to meet their real needs.
Mr President, the Feira Council neither surprised nor disappointed us.
However, we must concede that, institutionally, the Union is in a rut. At the same time, certain parties responsible for European policy are voicing various ideas in the press which the citizens of Europe can follow, but without the opportunity to take part in any debate.
Europe will be complete once we are all involved, including those who want no part in it.
And it must be a Europe which gives hope to all its citizens, whose fundamental rights will, we trust, be incorporated in the new Treaty.
- (PT) Mr President, this is a rather improvised speech, but I had to find something out because I am rather confused and I am not sure if this is due to a simultaneous interpreting error. Just now, I heard Mr Nassauer, of the EPP, strongly criticise the Portuguese Presidency, and only the Portuguese Presidency, because of the sanctions against Austria.
Now, on 13 February, the European Parliament voted on a resolution that was subject to a vote by roll-call, and it appears that Mr Nassauer is recorded as having voted in favour of this resolution.
There must therefore be some mistake here, either in the simultaneous interpreting or in the register of votes.
I would be grateful if the Bureau could clarify matters for us.
We will clarify this matter, Mr Ribeiro e Castro.
As you know, I can only permit interventions concerned with the Rules of Procedure and with the false interpretation thereof.
I cannot therefore allow you to speak any further.
Nevertheless, what you have said has now been said and it will be useful and have an effect.
Mr President, it is not possible in a mere 240 seconds to give a full report of the positive work which President Guterres and all his team have done on behalf of the European Union.
I am consequently obliged to confine myself to a few brief and far from comprehensive comments.
Portugal, quite rightly, focussed the European debate on growth and employment.
If we are to gain the full benefit of the internal market, we must, in my opinion, intensify the economic aspects of the European Union.
I am not referring to an economic government.
Such a term only leads to confusion, and indeed who would wish to be governed solely by a government of Finance Ministers? Europe does, however, need more effective coordination of national economic policies, given also that we now have an independent single monetary policy.
It is not that we Socialists wish to see a policy of economic coordination against the central bank, but we do wish to see constructive dialogue between the decision makers in monetary policy and the decision makers in national economic policy, with each party, obviously, having to retain its own autonomy of action and decision making.
This essential coordination is aimed at maximising the advantages to the Community of a common economic policy action.
A few simple rules must be set within the Economic and Financial Affairs Council, but more especially within the Euro-11, requiring every Finance Minister to justify to his fellows the broad outlines of his draft budget or tax reform or any other national action likely to affect the European Union as a whole.
This sort of coordination between national economic policies, which I would term 'discretionary' , would make it possible to gradually direct national schemes towards jointly defined objectives.
The development of the internal market also necessitates new regulations in order to guarantee workers' rights in the event of business mergers or buyouts, in order to avoid relocations for reasons of fiscal or social dumping and in order to guarantee basic public services for all sectors of the population, especially the most vulnerable.
Another major priority, as Portugal understood, is to strengthen the social rights of European citizens.
A more open and more flexible economy requires new guarantees of security for workers, for example, the right to lifelong training.
Any request for increased mobility or adaptability should necessarily be matched by seamless social cover throughout the territory of the European Union, as regards the transferability of pension rights, for example.
The Socialists expect the upcoming French Presidency to ensure that the draft social agenda makes rapid progress and is substantial in content.
Portugal has helped e-Europe to make progress.
At the moment, information and communication technologies are crowned with all the virtues.
The possibilities are apparently endless - communication without frontiers, democratic access to information, trade and communication - but the dream quickly comes up against the realities of the sociological and economic world.
The phenomenal development of the Internet within our societies must not blind us to the fact that there is a digital divide and that the gap between info-rich and info-poor is increasing in developed countries and, more especially, in the third world.
Mr President, I would have so many more things to say but, unfortunately, my speaking time is running out: 240 seconds is really not very much at all.
I should like to emphasise that Portugal and President Guterres' entire team have deserved well of the European Union and that France now has the opportunity to prove that even a large country can complete a successful presidency.
Mr President, on 28 June the EU held its first summit with the largest democracy in the world and the second-largest trading power in Asia.
India - and Commissioner Patten made this point - whose importance is often underestimated, has finally received the recognition which, in the light of its economic and political dynamism, it deserves.
In the end the time was not wasted in exchanging pleasantries.
It was possible to sign real agreements.
It is not only for us, the EU, as India's largest trading partner, that it is important for further protectionist barriers to be dismantled and for liberalisation to be able to continue.
The response to the reform process is significant additional investment from Europe.
In mid-April our SAARC Delegation - of which I am Vice-Chairman - was able to see very clearly for itself in Delhi how much progress has already been made in restructuring the economy.
In the new economy - information technology, for example - we are once again the most important partner.
But we will only be able to take advantage of these well-trained technicians and qualified employees if the idea - which has not been thought through - of having a system of green cards is finally dismissed.
A green card with a time limit will not work at all.
We need cooperation between European and Indian companies.
Employees can then be posted anywhere and they will have clear contracts which are valid throughout the world.
At the summit, think tanks, contacts with NGOs and new networks were discussed.
We have shared values.
All the more important then are the respect for human rights, ethnic minorities and dissidents and the abolition of child labour.
This is in no way a uniquely western way of thinking; these values are at the root of a shared democratic consciousness.
The fight against unemployment and exclusion needs to be fought with the same intensity as the fight against terrorism and crime, and this was agreed by both sides.
I hope now that the meeting of political and economic leaders will be the first page in a new book in which young people from universities, schools and businesses will also play their part.
So Mr President, let us support exchange programmes so that people can meet one another, understand one another's way of thinking and in the future work alongside one another!
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr Commissioner, I really wish with all my heart - given my political views - that the Portuguese had had an easier presidency, a presidency without the strains caused by the bilateral sanctions imposed on the Federal Austrian Government and therefore on my country.
I wish above all that you had not had to take the blame for a policy possibly cooked up for you by others.
The longer this policy remains on the boil the more indigestible it is, not only for my country but also for the whole European Union.
You see, you cannot help but notice a certain contradiction in the fact that these measures were intended to be entirely political and were also taken at political level and yet to find a way out of this blind alley - which is entirely desirable and in everyone's interests - a solution is now having to be sought by means of a legal instrument.
It was not least for this reason - since these measures are of course devoid of any legal base - that Parliament's President, Nicole Fontaine, pointed out at the beginning of the Feira summit that the European Parliament had adopted a resolution on 15 June calling on the Council to analyse relations between Austria and the other 14 Member States, and to draw up with all the parties concerned a procedure which would enable a solution to be found which would be acceptable to everyone.
This procedure seems to have been established: the President of the European Court of Human Rights has been appointed and he in turn will nominate three wise persons who will report on Austria.
In this context I must say that it is regrettable that no timetable was drawn up here.
That would have made the exercise easier.
It is very regrettable that even before this forum starts work its conclusions are already being prejudged by the future President and the work of the forum is coming under pressure because people are acting as though it were politically irrelevant.
I can only hope that people accept the political relevance of this report from this legal institution and that a golden goal will be scored here under the French Presidency, namely an early end to the sanctions against my country!
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the increasingly frequent meetings of the Heads of State and Government of the European Union mean that they are increasingly unable to fend off charges that they are tackling issues which actually have no business at European level while continuing to ignore the issues which they should be addressing.
In Feira a clear delimitation of responsibilities between European level and the level of the Member States was not discussed; the lifting of the absurd sanctions against Austria was not discussed, and neither was a really workable compromise on the taxation of savings interest discussed.
The conclusion reached postpones the problem for 10 years.
Conversely, issues were debated which at the present time do not belong on the European agenda.
With how many countries should we actually begin further negotiations? We must at long last develop phased procedures to govern cooperation between the European Union and countries in central, eastern and southern Europe, which meet the needs of both parties including where these stop short of full membership.
What is the position on compliance with the convergence criteria when admitting further states to the euro? Sustainable stability must be proved by all countries which want to join the euro zone, but also by those which are already in it.
Only in this way will it be possible to boost the strength of the euro.
We do not need closer cooperation on the social dialogue - that goes beyond the powers of the European Union!
We do not need more centralist regulation in this field; if we really want to unleash the forces of growth in the EU we need more competition between the individual national social security systems.
Only the results in the field of security and defence policy are to be welcomed.
Here Europe needs to act; here we need more Europe.
That is what the people of the EU rightly expect of us.
I call upon you as a matter of urgency to put an end at long last to the sanctions against Austria - and we do not need a report from the Court of Human Rights to do this either, as the media is in any case monitoring the situation on a daily basis - and to concentrate your efforts on the real European issues!
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are some fine phrases in the conclusions from the Feira Summit, as there are about progress at the current Intergovernmental Conference, but there are really no solutions in sight.
The Summit again pointed to the importance of rapid enlargement, yet the candidate States are still looking to the EU to adopt positions from which it is ready to negotiate.
We must be more vigorous about the process of European integration and must not begin to be in two minds about it.
The candidate States must not be required to wait for an unreasonable length of time.
A new political will is required that will produce more tangible results than Feira did.
At the same time, it is a question of being clear about how the institutional questions of enlargement towards the east, qualified majority voting and the numbers of commissioners and MEPs are to be solved.
The EU must be able to operate effectively following enlargement, too.
At the same time, issues internal to the EU must not delay the enlargement process.
The processes must therefore run parallel.
With enlargement, there also comes the demand for an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
There should be no getting away from the fact that constitutional conditions are to apply. There is nothing controversial about that.
However, the EU Charter puts the EU' s development in a new perspective. We must show what kind of EU we want.
Is it to be one which offers new opportunities and which is more competitive, innovative and entrepreneurial, with more small and medium-sized businesses? Or do we prefer more publicly financed welfare and a weak currency?
The Charter Convention ought perhaps to be given an increased mandate to draft proposals for constitutionalising the Treaties, because the issues are so closely interrelated.
There is undoubtedly a direct link between the prelude to a new treaty and the actual contents of the treaty.
A parallel development could create new political openings and constitute progress, because the various interests would be directly dependent upon one another.
To bring about parallel processes of enlargement and deepening, a decision in principle could be made in favour of a binding Charter for the constitutional portion, but not for the portion concerned with issues other than those of principle.
The Convention would then certainly know what status the Charter was to be given and could see it as the prelude to constructing the new treaty.
Both those whose priority is enlargement and those who give priority to a deepening of the Union would then meet with success.
A development of this kind would make it possible to admit new Members early on and, at the same time, equip the Union well to operate more effectively for a long time to come.
We have an historic responsibility to overcome barriers and not to intensify conflicts in the way that happened in the case of Austria.
We need to replace short-term initiatives with long-term, in-depth cooperation.
I believe that, in that way, our basic values, which form the uncontroversial part of the Charter, could be used as a lever for enlargement.
Pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received seven motions for resolutions.
The work done by Portugal, as the country holding the presidency, has not been easy. There have been many difficult questions during the spring, but Portugal has shown that it is a country which takes European issues very seriously.
The Feira Summit was in many ways an interim meeting prior to the French Presidency.
Unfortunately, the outcome of the Summit was partly overshadowed by the tragedy in Dover, which really raises an issue which urgently needs to be taken up at EU level.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is delighted by the progress which has been achieved on, for example, the tax package and civil crisis management.
We are pleased to have it confirmed that Greece is soon to be a member of the currency union.
We are delighted about the formulations concerning enlargement. For liberals such as ourselves, no task is more important than that of unifying Europe.
Where the reforms and the Intergovernmental Conference are concerned, we are disappointed, however.
We should like to have seen more concrete results.
Countries are still protecting their positions, and the debate about the EU' s future has only just begun.
It is a welcome and wholly necessary debate.
It must be conducted in all countries, in an open and unbiased way, and involve the citizens of all Member States.
Minimum reforms in Nice will not be enough.
Our citizens expect something more.
They expect the EU to take proper steps forward towards an open, democratic Europe which can operate effectively with up to 40 Member States.
We need to discuss the issues surrounding a constitution.
The EU needs a constitution which, in a simple and understandable way, makes it clear what the EU is about and where responsibility lies.
The baton has now been handed over to France.
I feel a certain unease faced with the different signals emanating from the French Presidency.
Even if different EU countries perhaps need, to some degree, to be progressing at different speeds, we hardly need a presidency which is moving at different speeds.
Mr President, I can reply very briefly because my honourable friend Mr Beazley - and I use the expression in both a personal and a parliamentary sense - asked me a direct question in a speech which perhaps would have been better received in Berlin than in Paris or London.
The honourable Member asked me how I saw the relationship between the institutions - between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
I can answer very directly: in my own area it is a subject about which I have made one or two speeches recently.
I am absolutely clear that I do not want to see any increase in the Commission's competences in the area for which I am responsible.
I want us to manage those competences more efficiently, and I want us to be allowed to exercise those competences fully to support the development of a common foreign and security policy.
In my judgment it is not a question of our seeking to take new powers, it is a question of our seeking to exercise the powers that we have already been given by the Treaty.
We should be trying to exercise those powers in a way that is even more democratically accountable.
Let me give the honourable Member an indication of what I mean.
We have to apply to the budgetary authority - to Parliament and the Council - for the level of our commitments in external relations every year, but we should be involved in a much more open dialogue with the budgetary authority about the direction in which those spending commitments should go.
There should be a more serious exchange about our political priorities.
So, to answer the honourable Member again, I want us to manage much better what we are already charged with doing.
I want us to be allowed to get on with it, and I want us to be as accountable as possible to this Parliament and to the Council for what we are doing.
Our aspirations are as simple and as straightforward as that, and they have the great advantage of reflecting what is written in the treaties.
Finally, I should like to pay one last compliment in the direction of the Portuguese Presidency at the end of its term.
It was, I repeat, a great pleasure to work with the Portuguese Government, with its ministers and its extremely hard-working officials.
Speaking as somebody who during the course of a fairly long and not, I hope, entirely misspent political life, has sat under a number of chairmen, I do not think I have ever sat under a chairman who was better, more competent, more decisive or more courteous than the Prime Minister of Portugal.
Money laundering
The next item is the report (A5-0175/2000) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 91/308/EEC of 10 June 1991 on prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering (COM(1999) 352 - C5-0065/1999 - 1999/0152(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we have here a very good example of cooperation between the European Commission and the European Parliament.
I should like to begin with a few words about the history of this proposal for a directive.
Since as early as 1991 there has been a directive to combat money laundering in Europe.
This anti-money laundering directive essentially forms the basis for national legislation to counter money laundering, which may incidentally be something which people at home in the Member States had not realised, because they always assume that this is the work of their own legislator.
He will also have had a hand in it, but the origins of the fight against money laundering lie in the 1991 directive.
Following the submission of a whole series of reports to the European Parliament - including from the Commission - it held a hearing on this subject in December 1995.
The result of the hearing was that cooperation between the Member States suffered from grave shortcomings because the standard of anti-money laundering legislation was extremely varied.
There are states, such as the United Kingdom or Germany, which have gone much further than the directive.
Others such as Luxembourg have implemented the bare minimum, and inevitably this has caused serious problems.
Even at that time Parliament called on the Commission to draw up a new proposal for a second anti-money laundering directive.
This has now been done.
We are grateful to the Commission for this, and I think that this is a good example of the Commission responding to initiatives emanating from Parliament and acting on them.
On the other hand, I must also make a number of critical comments.
I believe that the Commission has overshot the mark somewhat in its proposal.
It has, as it were, extended the scope of the rules which apply to providers of financial services and banks to other professions, which are also to be covered by the second money laundering directive and which are to be obliged to combat money laundering.
But rules which were intended for banks are simply not so easy to apply wholesale to advocates, tax advisors and auditors because, for example, lawyers have a particular duty of discretion towards their clients and a special relationship of trust.
It was our task therefore to rectify this in our consultations at the first reading.
I believe that we have succeeded in doing so.
Today we have created a situation in which the principles of the rule of law are still upheld, but in which legal practitioners remain bound to secrecy if they are either representing their clients before a court or advising them on a legal matter.
Only when lawyers fulfil the same functions as banks - that is, to administer property or money - is it clear that the same rules should apply to them as to providers of financial services, and I believe that this is also achieved through the amendments.
I believe that we have made the identification requirements which were laid down more practical.
It makes no sense for an estate agent to have to first have proof of a customer's identity before entering into business relations with him.
This would make the job impossible.
The amendments have also made this provision more practicable and realistic.
In connection with the list of predicate offences we are critical of the fact that the European Commission has not defined the concept of organised crime.
We rectify this in the amendments.
Where fraud affecting the European Union is concerned, we have restricted the list of predicate offences to the really serious criminal offences, and we have not included any of the minor offences which appeared in the Commission proposal.
At this stage I should like to express my grateful thanks for the constructive cooperation which we have enjoyed with the Finnish and Portuguese Presidencies, and I am sure that in our further discussions we will also cooperate fruitfully with the French Presidency.
With this directive we tried for the first time to make use of the new procedure in the Amsterdam Treaty which makes it possible to conclude a codecision procedure in one reading. Unfortunately we did not succeed.
But it was not Parliament's fault. It was the fault of the individual delegations in the Council working group which had not brought definitive instructions from their capitals, making it impossible for the Council to submit to us definitive texts which were ready for negotiation.
That is why we decided in the committee even before the summer break that we would enter into detailed consultations now in the first reading, complete the normal procedure of first and second readings and then await the Council's common position.
This should not, however, prevent us from continuing to seek to cooperate with the Council on this issue because the Tampere summit made the fight against money laundering its very top priority, and rightly so.
That is why we must all endeavour to achieve improved anti-money laundering legislation in Europe as quickly as possible.
I think that this evening in this plenary debate we are also making a contribution to doing this, and I think and hope that good progress will be made so that we will have a second directive to combat money laundering in the European Union very soon, which will then I hope also be swiftly implemented by the Member States!
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
(DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is proposing a fundamental amendment to the directive on preventing money laundering.
Since the 1991 directive was adopted many external factors have changed.
Firstly, we have had experience with the existing directive and secondly, we need to take account of the changes in the Treaties.
Given the growing awareness that money is the main objective and driving force behind organised crime, appropriate measures also need to be taken which target the profits from organised crime.
The financial interests of the Community also fall victim to organised crime, as the reports about combating fraud in the Commission show.
This is to the detriment of the budget of the European Communities.
The Member States protect their financial interests in accordance with their laws, but the Communities do not have a police force or judicial authorities with which to bring defrauders before a judge so as to recover the lost money and impose punishments.
That is why the Community budget needs to be protected by means of directives, regulations and other measures.
Article 280 of the EC Treaty clearly states that, "The Community and the Member States shall counter fraud and any other illegal activities affecting the financial interests of the Community through measures to be taken in accordance with this Article, which shall act as a deterrent and be such as to afford effective protection..." .
The Commission proposal should be seen in close connection with this article of the Treaty.
Most of the crime which harms the Community budget is also organised crime. The rapporteur is right there.
But there are also exceptions.
Furthermore it is not always international organised crime, and here the Committee on Budgetary Control would have preferred the Commission proposal.
However, we do recognise the delimitation problems and, if there is simply a reference to Article 280 of the Treaty, we are prepared to go along with the rapporteur.
Incidentally, we believe that the money laundering directive is firstly about prevention and providing a deterrent and secondly about gathering evidence.
The Member States need to have a legal base for their own and the Union' s sakes.
All appropriate evidence ought to be used to punish fraud and other illegal activities which are to the detriment of the EU budget.
It would certainly be in line with the Presidency Conclusions of the October 1999 European Council to proceed in this way.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, for the cooperation which we have enjoyed.
Mr President, laundered money is the reward for organised crime and political corruption.
From an economic point of view, it represents an extremely unhealthy addition to the international money supply and helps to distort aid and reconstruction policies. This has happened in numerous cases which have already come to light.
We have proposed a number of amendments in a bid to harmonise and tighten up supervisory arrangements and sanctions.
However, crime is always moving into new areas, such as the trafficking in immigrants, trafficking in human organs etc., and is always finding new ways of laundering the proceeds.
A great deal of work needs to be done.
We feel that the revised directive does not go far enough, although we do, of course, support it.
Unbridled globalisation calls for ever-increasing political regulation, coordination, harmonisation and supranational bodies, on a scale and to a standard which is commensurate with organised crime.
Take the example, the extremely important example, of offshore activities; the OECD recently published lists of the countries and methods used to launder money and the frightening amounts involved.
We think the Union should help countries, whatever the country and whatever its political regime, which are used to hide illegal activities behind offshore legislation.
It should help them to harmonise and comply with common rules, even the hopelessly inadequate rules which prevail in the Member States of the Union.
We can do this perfectly well, without any particularly illegal infringements, by including clauses and arrangements to foster harmonisation in trade and other cooperation agreements with these countries.
Otherwise, I think we are wasting our time.
Mr President, I came to this opinion on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee with many misgivings.
The suggested extension of the directive to a new swathe of businesses and professions looks on the face of it to be both dangerous and burdensome: dangerous in that there might be a threat to the privileged lawyer/client relationship which is the linchpin of access to justice in a civil society, and burdensome because in theory this directive would now extend to your local high street jeweller.
However, it is one thing to require a multinational firm of accountants to comply with this sort of regulation, quite another to require a small firm or one-person business to do so.
I was attracted at first by the outrage of colleagues who said that this proposal represented the state turning lawyers and others into policemen on their behalf - but as I read and researched, my views changed.
We must bear in mind, as has already been said by the rapporteur, that the proposal we are considering is before us at our request, at the request of Parliament, because we wanted to get to grips with money-laundering, with this international crime which represents a substantial threat to the single market.
I have been impressed by the results obtained in England by the Criminal Investigation Unit, working with lawyers under what are already very extensive rules and regulations, but respecting professional privilege.
They have been particularly successful.
We should learn from that experience.
In Scotland, lawyers are encouraged to see tough rules as self-defence for lawyers, protecting them against the claim of involvement in crime.
We should as a Parliament stick to our original desire to tackle money-laundering strongly as a manifestation of organized crime and it seems to me that perhaps this problem will come back to haunt us.
It is a shame that we have not been able to deal with this problem as what it is, a matter of criminal law, but have had instead to deal with it within the strait-jacket of the internal market context.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if we vote in favour of this directive tomorrow or the day after we will be establishing one of the cornerstones of the fight against organised crime because, as Diemut Theato mentioned, the driving force behind organised crime is the money from drug trafficking, from trafficking in human beings and from all forms of organised crime.
This money is laundered and put into circulation in the legal economy.
This poses serious dangers: a danger to the economy because of distortions of competition; a danger to the company of being undermined, and a danger to the state whose stability is threatened.
That is why it is so important that we take up the battle here against money laundering and prevent it from happening.
Because if we succeed in stamping out money laundering then we will also stamp out organised crime.
That is why I welcome the fact that a new proposal has now been tabled which extends the first directive.
The situation has changed.
Organised crime is using new kinds of businesses.
Money is being laundered through different channels from the ones which were used in the past.
That is why it is absolutely essential for the European Parliament, for the institutions, the Commission and the Council, to make decisions here so that we have a new effective instrument with which to combat money laundering.
That is why we in the European People's Party support the fact that this directive extends the list of predicate offences to all areas of organised crime from which these proceeds are derived, and extends the scope to cover the professions and businesses which are abused or which may specifically be involved.
I very much welcome the rapporteur's efforts to propose an approach which actually makes the directive enforceable and practicable and thus into an effective instrument in the fight against organised crime.
We will be firmly supporting these proposals from the rapporteur.
Mr President, organised crime is often taken by the public to mean spectacular killings such as the murder of Judge Falcone or drug trafficking.
But in truth it means something different.
Organised crime is the repeated, systematic committing of crimes by exploiting professional structures; for example, the systematic theft of cars, the systematic theft of credit cards and the like.
This kind of crime has two consequences: firstly, the damage is considerable because it does not correspond to a single act, but to an accumulation of acts.
Secondly, the money gained from the criminal acts is so great that it cannot be used up unobtrusively by private individuals.
At conferences I always explain it as follows: organised criminals simply cannot eat, drink and be merry to a sufficient degree to get rid of the money inconspicuously.
That is why they try to disguise the money acquired by criminal means and to pass it off as money which has ostensibly been acquired legally.
This is called money laundering.
Dirty money is turned into respectable money.
Anyone who prevents this from happening, or at least makes it considerably more difficult, cuts organised crime to the quick, stunts its growth and damages its ability to propagate itself.
Mr Lehne referred to the fact that we already had a directive on this very early on which harmonised standards in the European Union.
Nevertheless, this new directive is necessary to allow more recent developments to be taken into account.
We think it is good that the directive is not just being extended to banks but also to other businesses or professions which might be abused for money laundering purposes, and here the problems associated with the liberal professions have been satisfactorily resolved in our view.
We also think it is good that all forms of organised crime, and not only drug trafficking, are to be regarded as predicate offences.
We have attached particular importance to the inclusion of dealers in precious stones, dealers in luxury goods with a value in excess of EUR 50 000 and auctioneers.
What surprised us rather was the fact that the Commission did not - although the problem is obvious - integrate electronic money into the directive from the word go.
It would seem that the aggressive civil service intelligentsia within the Commission, who put a positive spin on anything to do with the Internet, drown out any critical murmurings about it also being possible to abuse this technology for other purposes.
The Council has disappointed us: so far it has not decided anything at all; it is behaving like a broody ox.
I therefore say to the Council: make your decision quickly now!
Money laundering is far too serious a matter to entrust to the cowboys and Indians games of small-time Councils of national ministers!
Mr President, in recent years criminal organisations within and outside Europe have set up powerful international networks which make huge profits from, for example, trafficking in women or drugs.
The amounts which change hands in the process run into billions.
The fight against money laundering is also in Europe's interests.
The excellent report by my colleague, Mr Lehne, seeks to improve the existing directive on preventing money laundering.
Institutions, such as banks, and also individuals with similar responsibilities, such as notaries and lawyers, are to be involved in resolving crimes of money laundering.
We must, however, prevent possible new loopholes from opening up.
Our aim will be to develop a pan-European information system to counter money laundering as quickly as possible.
If we do not establish a collaborative network to monitor and combat money laundering then one day we will no longer have an overall picture of money-laundering activities.
It must not come to that!
It is now nine years since the 1991 directive was produced and it is time to update it.
However, it would seem that the new directive is limited almost exclusively to the tasks, roles and responsibilities of the self-employed and does not evaluate sufficiently the growth in illegal trafficking which is, sadly, linked to uncontrolled and uncontrollable mass migration, particularly in the Balkans, which has consequences not only in purely financial terms but also in the wider social context in the countries which are already part of the European Union.
It is therefore necessary and appropriate for us to avail ourselves of the results of the work of the money-laundering task force without delay.
The Commission proposes in the directive to lay down an obligation to provide information, but we are worried about the handling of the information. It might be appropriate to set up an authority or permanent monitoring centre, considering the considerable diversity of types of money laundering.
The reference to banks or art dealers or auctioneers is too narrow in its scope, for not only tax havens but also Albanian pyramid companies and small commercial activities could be included which are a cover for illegal trafficking.
Clearly, prevention has not been sufficient to date, so the alternative is now to resort to the budget to establish penalties.
Finally, it should be noted that money-laundering operations should also be included in evaluations of respect for human rights because illegal activities are often linked to the arms and drugs trades and the trafficking of women for prostitution and children for paedophilia.
Therefore, an evaluation of whether to accept a candidate State for enlargement should include careful investigation of its illegal money-laundering activities!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Safe harbour privacy principles
The next item is the report (A5-0177/2000) by Mrs Paciotti, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Draft Commission Decision on the adequacy of the protection provided by the Safe Harbour Privacy Principles.
Mr President, the right to confidentiality of personal data is a fundamental right in the European Union, but the market interest in the free movement of data is also protected.
In order to keep a balance between these requirements, Directive No 46 of 1995 lays down a series of rules to be transposed by the Member States - which have indeed been transposed into national legislation - and provides for the establishment of an independent authority to ensure that these rules are observed in accordance with the principle of the voluntary disclosure of information: the data subject must therefore have the option to choose whether to consent to data processing and to have control over who processes the data and for what purpose.
In addition to recourse to the guarantor authority, the right is also laid down for the data subject to have recourse to the law in the event of breach of the rights guaranteed to him by law.
In order to transfer data to third countries, it must be established whether the countries guarantee an adequate level of protection.
Where this protection is not guaranteed, data can still be transferred under the appropriate contractual conditions: standard contractual clauses are currently being developed by the Council of Europe and other bodies in order to facilitate the drawing up of contracts with countries which do not guarantee legal protection.
The European Commission will ascertain that the third country provides adequate data protection and oblige the Member States to adopt standardised procedures.
Now, problems do not arise where the laws of the third country guarantee data protection.
Switzerland and Hungary do currently guarantee data protection, and therefore the European Parliament has no reason to intervene since it has nothing to propose.
The case of the United States of America, where there is no general data protection legislation in the private sector, is different.
Therefore, an attempt was made during the complex negotiations between the Commission and the United States Department of Commerce to find a solution which would allow the transfer of data to those private companies which voluntarily submit to a self-regulation system known as the 'safe harbour' system.
Recently, on 6 June, the European Commission sent us the instruments it had drawn up on the basis of the conclusions reached and which it considers constitute adequate protection.
The committee of representatives of the Member States expressed a positive opinion, but the committee of Member States' guarantor authorities criticised the instruments.
Some of the concerns expressed by the committee of guarantors may be considered to have been dealt with by the subsequent clarifications supplied by the Commission regarding, for example, the scope of the system.
Nevertheless, certain questions remain unresolved, in particular the fundamental matter of enforcement: the guarantee that the companies which use safe harbours will fulfil their undertakings. In fact, since there will be neither law nor contract, individuals do not have rights which can be invoked in Court.
Means of controlling the safe harbour system do exist, with the possibility of the imposition of penalties, but these only come into play in the event of unfair or fraudulent practices.
It is at the discretion of the Federal Trade Commission whether it takes them into consideration. The company responsible for processing the data also has the option of recourse to a private dispute resolution body of its choice, but this right is not available to the person whose rights may have been violated.
The safe harbour system can only be considered to afford an adequate level of protection under article 25 of the directive if genuine protection is guaranteed for European citizens whose rights have been violated, that is if there is the possibility of getting the unlawfully processed data erased and of obtaining compensation for damages by means of recourse to a judge or arbitrator or any independent third party who has been assigned the task of guaranteeing that reparation is made for any harm suffered.
The resolution also calls for the transfer of data to be authorised only when the system is fully operative and for operation of the system to be adequately monitored.
By this we are not asking the United States to change its system, even though there have been many calls in the United States from authoritative sources for legislation to be adopted governing the matter. Our only concern is for the European citizens to be adequately protected, as the European consumer associations request and as American consumers would also wish to be.
This is the essence of the resolution submitted for your examination. I call upon you to adopt it in order to ensure that an international model is not introduced which provides fewer guarantees in this sensitive issue and which other States might insist is enforced, but, above all, in order to give the European Parliament the opportunity to demonstrate that it is an assiduous defender of citizens' rights, rights secured by Community law.
Mr President, Commissioner, while I have respect for Mrs Paciotti, I must begin by pointing out the ambiguity of her words.
Clearly, what you are proposing is not a "yes, but" , as you have been arguing, but rather a "no, unless" and Parliament should be aware of this.
It is a "no, unless" , as you have pointed out correctly, in the event that the system is not operative before the judgement on adequacy is confirmed, if these amendments regarding compensation for moral damage or damage to property are implemented and if we do not establish a right to cancellation or a personal right to judicial claim.
In this light, I would argue, and I hope that the majority of Parliament will vote likewise by means of the amendments presented by my group and others, for a "yes" , but on the strict condition that we see realism, respect for the law, respect for institutional balance, but above all, Mr President, respect for the citizens and their interests.
The opposing position is unrealistic.
It is unrealistic since the negotiation has been satisfactory, given the context, the adversary, or opposing party, and the legal context, which I will return to.
I am talking about a serious interinstitutional problem, since this Parliament is not undergoing a codecision procedure, it is not tabling amendments.
We do not have that option. What we have is a power granted to the Commission and certain Member States who have unanimously backed this position.
What is our intention? It is to safeguard our responsibility, as established in the very ambiguous Amendment No 6.
Because, Mrs Paciotti, it is our directive, we voted for it.
We did not establish a criterion of equivalence, but rather a criterion of adequacy, and we established that the Commission was responsible for assessing that criterion of adequacy and a committee of the Member States was established which has unanimously adopted this position.
Mrs Paciotti, if we want to change, let us change the directive, but let us not try, through this kind of subterfuge, which is totally against the law, to achieve a situation which will not benefit the citizens, because if these were the only criticisms made, I would support you. At least, I would support you if the directive were reformed.
But you would have my support, anyway.
However, it does not benefit the citizens.
You say that information can currently be provided by means of a contract.
It is not realistic, Mrs Paciotti, you know it is not realistic.
At the moment, the information is circulating without any guarantee.
Let us turn now to the Safe Harbour.
To say that the Safe Harbour must be operative before we pass judgement on its adequacy will lead to its collapse.
This is because no company is going to accept its implications in terms of investment and change, unless it knows that it will be guaranteed the possibility of having access to the free circulation of information.
I must point out that the United States have at least 25 years of experience in this type of system, which supports the idea that this can work and that it is going to work.
And it is going to work.
With regard to appeals and damages, you, who are a great legal expert, know that an institution can only be analysed in context.
Analyse it, therefore, within the context of the United States' legal and judicial system and the conclusion will be completely different to the one you have reached.
The majority, not all, but the majority, of these rights involve legal redress, in the last instance, after having been subject to a complaint to the competent governmental body.
And neither does this rule out legal proceedings.
This is because American legislation, in relation to economic damages, does not consider moral damages and we cannot demand that they change their legislation.
Lastly, cancellation.
This goes against the principles established by the OECD in 1980.
I will end, Mr President.
I hope that tomorrow this House will support this position which, as I have said, is ultimately in the interest of the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, I should like to compliment the Commission on sticking with the negotiations with the USA over the last two years.
The reality is that data is flowing across the Atlantic and we, and our citizens, have no protection at present.
So the question for us must be: do we give them the protection that is on offer or do we say it is not enough? If we do that, then what will happen?
Concerns have rightly been raised about the access for individuals to redress and compensation.
But this raises the fundamental debate about the clash of legal cultures which has been so central to these negotiations.
Clearly, as an elected Parliament, we have a duty to protect our citizens, but I fear that the conditionality in paragraph 7 of Mrs Paciotti's report endangers the whole agreement, for it could hardly be more fundamental to the debate about adequacy or equivalence. We are in a global context here and e-commerce will continually throw at us clashes of legal systems and style.
Yet we cannot attempt to change the way the Americans deal with their own national legislation and legal system.
They have their way and we have ours.
They will come to their own conclusions about how they will change their system.
Yes, they are considering it; yes, they have had several annual reports about the protection of personal data.
I wish we had that within our European Union.
I urge colleagues in the vote tomorrow to give protection to our citizens now.
Conditionality will mean no protection now.
But if we express our very strong reservations and to ask for clear review, this will give our citizens protection now and offer us progress in this very difficult area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Paciotti has produced an excellent, very logical report, precise in its observations and balanced in its conclusions.
She has taken account both of the requisite protection for individuals against any misuse of their own personal data and of the need to reach an agreement with the United States as quickly as possible so as not to put a brake upon the development of trade.
At a time when it seems certain that an information society will be developed on the back of the new technologies, we think it vital immediately to implement the means needed to protect the consumer and the citizen from the abuses inherent in the marketing and innovative techniques that are so greedy for accurate information.
In the context of an agreement with the United States, the rapporteur emphasised the extent to which this country lacked any legally binding standard on personal data protection.
So American firms may use all the data they wish without the Federal State finding fault with this.
We feel that it is particularly dangerous that the Commission should be willing to ratify an agreement that offers so few guarantees for the citizen.
The 'safe harbour' system proposed by the American authorities offers no protection at all.
It is a voluntary standard which American firms would themselves apply internally and then only with regard to Europeans.
This text, moreover, does not give citizens the right to go to court if their rights are flouted.
It would be a great shame, particularly now that, after years of discussion, the Council appears to be willing to set up a proper European body to monitor the use of personal data, if we were to ease off the pressure in terms of our demands on the subject with regard to third countries in general and the United States in particular.
It is a condition sine qua non for any real protection of citizens' individual liberties.
In conclusion, I should like to remind the Commission that personal data protection is an integral part...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, we fully support Mrs Paciotti' s report and its conclusions.
The 'safe harbour' agreement would mean that we would have to transfer data to American businesses, companies and corporations without the possibility of recourse to an independent authority in the event of improper or illegal use of the data, and that we would therefore not even be protected by those minimal guarantees which exist in the Union.
During the hearing held by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, we took on board the concerns of the representatives of American consumers regarding the inadequacy of the American protection system and we also noted the need, expressed by President Clinton, for the United States to introduce an organic law on the protection of personal data.
If we adopt this report, we will not only be expressing our political will to succeed in concluding an agreement containing protection clauses which respect European legislation, but we will also be encouraging a large proportion of Congress and of United States' public opinion to develop personal data protection laws.
If such laws are not produced and the changes called for in the Paciotti report are not made, we may as well call the agreement with the United States the 'dangerous harbour' agreement.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Paciotti for the work she has done on this report and to extend my thanks to Commissioner Bolkestein, who has regularly sent his officials to assist the work of the committee I have the honour to chair in dealing with this report.
Data protection, which is essential to privacy, poses huge challenges in an age of electronic communication.
If we are frank, we will admit that no government has yet found a way to offer adequate protection to its citizens.
In the European Union the route of regulation through legislation has proven far from perfect.
In the US, the route of self-regulation has also brought up serious problems, as the report from the Federal Trade Commission to Congress last month shows us.
Liberal Democrats have taken the view that the proposals in this draft agreement beg many questions, but that on balance, and since this is the deal on offer, it is better to have regulation to allow this valuable trade to grow than to allow anarchy to reign.
There has been much debate in my group about the impact and the legal effect of this report.
I take the view that this report says yes, but - quite rightly - requires firms participating in the safe harbour to agree to pay compensation in the case of individuals suffering damage from abuse of data held on them.
In my view this is necessary for consumer confidence, which is a fickle thing, but others, probably the majority in my group, will support Amendment Nos 1 and 2 which they believe clear up all legal uncertainty.
Clearly, we cannot know how the United States will react to our concerns.
I am guided by the considerable economic interest of the USA in having this agreement, but I recognise that others are guided by a deep concern about the current lack of protection and a burning desire to see even the limited protection offered by this agreement.
Either way, it remains our hope that legislative developments on the other side of the Atlantic will render the safe harbour obsolete and we salute the Commission in the work they have done in achieving what they clearly believe is the best achievable result.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Visas
The next item is the report (A5-0179/2000) by Mr Lehne on listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement.
, rapporteur.
(DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a story behind this regulation too; its history extends over the whole of the last parliamentary term.
You will remember that at that time, after the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty, uniform rules on visas were to be introduced within the European Union for the first time.
This meant that people from third countries entering the European Union were in principle to be subject to the same visa requirements in all countries in the European Union.
At the time the Commission had already made a proposal which on the whole was very good and which also received support in Parliament.
Unfortunately the Council then made fundamental changes to this proposal and more or less declared the entire visa list to be as good as non-binding when it said that anyone could go beyond it and either impose visa requirements on additional states or leave it at that; they simply had to notify this.
At the time the European Parliament considered that its views had not been properly taken into account and, moreover, that this result was also contrary to what the Maastricht Treaty actually intended.
We then instituted legal action.
We won the case before the European Court of Justice.
The Council regulation concerned was declared null and void.
The result was that the Commission made a new proposal to us which was very similar to its first proposal, to which we again gave an essentially positive assessment in Parliament, and which then, because of the change of legal base - Maastricht gave way to Amsterdam - had to be recast in a new proposal, which is now on the table here and which we must once again debate.
Parliament continues to believe that the visa list in this visa regulation must be definitive, which means that there must be no more exceptions to it, so no black, green, blue, yellow or grey lists, but please just one list, one list which is binding and no other.
This is a crucial point if we are finally to have uniform rules on visas in the European Union.
In addition, the Commission has given ground on one important point, which Parliament regarded as essential even last time round.
It concerns the visa requirements for two associated countries, which are now of course already a long way into the accession process, namely Bulgaria and Romania.
Parliament has always been of the opinion that these states should be exempt from visa requirements.
We came to this conclusion on the basis that much progress has been made in these countries on internal security and many other issues.
The Commission has now also accepted this and is proposing to include Bulgaria and Romania in the list of states which are exempt from visa requirements.
We see this as a step forward.
Obviously these countries have in the meantime also managed to convince the Commission.
Now we can only hope that, if possible, after listening to the European Parliament, the Council makes the same decision and also recognises that important progress has been made here.
My plea to the Council would be that it should debate this regulation as soon as possible.
I should like once again to extend my warmest thanks to the plenary, but also this time to the Conference of Presidents, which put this report on today's agenda even though it had not originally planned to do so, precisely because this makes it possible to complete our business quickly and send out an appropriate signal.
In the run-up to this debate a whole series of requests for amendments, which it was hoped we would adopt here, were sent to me from the Council.
For example, there was a proposal to introduce so-called reciprocity.
What is this? Quite simply, citizens from individual Member States are subject to visa requirements in some third countries.
These Member States should, it is argued, have the possibility of demanding visas from citizens from these same third countries.
I rejected this.
Not because I do not have sympathy for these Member States' demands, but because I believe that in introducing this we would again be contravening the overall principle and we would again be in breach of the provisions of the Treaty, which provides precisely for a standard visa list comprising a list of countries which are subject to visa requirements and a list of those which are not.
For this reason I do not believe that we can introduce a provision of this kind.
In Europe we have come so far - I only need to mention the implementation of Schengen, meaning that there are no longer any controls at the vast majority of borders - that nothing else is simply good enough anymore.
We need standard rules on visas, and I think that the Commission has tabled a good proposal.
We have also debated it in Parliament accordingly, I hope, as the Commission had in mind.
Now it is the Council's turn. As soon as possible it ought to produce a result which is as constructive as possible.
Mr President, I should first of all like to pay tribute to the rapporteur, who has put forward a very concise and well-presented report and one that we are happy to support.
I would like to draw attention to one or two points from it.
I hope that most Members in this House will agree with me that we should be moving towards a visa-free Europe, a Europe without barriers, at ease with itself and the rest of the world.
I know we still have some stumbling blocks and Europe and the world are not quite ready for that at the moment.
But the rapporteur has spoken about no exceptions and I am delighted to support him in that we have one single list.
I also want to draw attention to a few amendments.
Amendment No. 2 is important.
It says it is essential that we have procedures that are as smooth and as simple as possible and do not cause unreasonable expenditure for the applicants.
Many of us in this House know as well as anyone that getting a visa can be a time-consuming and expensive business.
We want to make certain in Europe that is not the case working in the opposite direction.
Similarly, Amendment No 6 speaks about young people and encouraging them to take part in youth programmes by not giving them the extra burden of visas.
That is important because young people are enthusiastic about the European ideal and we do not want to put anything in their way that makes them think that Europe is not welcoming and not moving in the right direction.
My last point concerns Romania and Bulgaria, particularly Romania, a country I know well.
Every time I go there I have to go through the procedure of getting a visa and the Romanians say that as long as the European Union wants visas from them they will demand them from us.
So we are taking a step in the right direction and I am happy to support the amendments and the report.
Mr President, the introduction of a European visa policy is the occasion to debate an important issue, and here in this House we are today discussing the latest developments in this visa policy.
Mr Lehne's report gives important momentum to this process and we support his report.
He is already aware of this, so I do not need to thank him yet again because I have already done so in private.
The matter I should like to address here, something which I have reflected on many times, because I am of Turkish origin, is the following. We considered whether we should table any amendments, but in fact we decided not to do so.
We will not therefore be making any recommendations here on how the report should be dealt with.
However, I should like to take the opportunity today - because otherwise no one listens to me - to voice my opinion for once on something which I am very uneasy about.
In my opinion, it cannot be right for the European Union to offer Turkey a chance to accede while at the same time maintaining the entry restrictions.
I am surprised that we cannot manage to find an alternative way to deal with the Turkey issue, particularly within the context of this harmonised list.
I am aware of the reasons for this, but I should nevertheless like to use our Parliament as a platform.
Around 3 million people of Turkish origin live in Europe and it is for this very reason that our Commissioner ought perhaps to consider in the future how we are going to resolve this problem reasonably and humanely in the coming years.
Mr President, the Commission proposal which is now under discussion is to be seen against the background of the new architecture resulting from the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
That architecture rests on two cornerstones, namely the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice in accordance with the new Title IV inserted in the European Community Treaty, and the integration of the Schengen acquis into the Union framework, to which is added the dimension of variable geometry resulting from the different protocols annexed by several Member States to the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Commission proposal has a legal basis taken from the Amsterdam Treaty, and its content and wording take account of the institutional constraints that I have just mentioned.
The Commission has carefully examined the report by Mr Lehne, whom I would like to congratulate.
In the past, as rapporteur, Mr Lehne has already had the opportunity to show his interest, expertise and commitment in this subject that he has just presented.
The Commission is pleased to note that the report adopted by the Committee of Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs broadly supports the Commission's proposal.
But this is hardly surprising since, as Mr Lehne himself pointed out, the proposal meets a number of requests that the European Parliament itself put forward in various resolutions.
As regards the amendments to its proposal, the Commission appreciates very much the Parliament's constructive contribution.
To clarify our position: Amendments Nos 3 and 4 can be accepted, as the changes they make to the wording avoid any contradiction with other provisions of the regulation.
We can also accept Amendments Nos 1 and 5.
Amendments Nos 7 and 8 are prompted by a wish to clarify the demarcation line between the scope of the regulation and other matters, some of which are governed by the Schengen acquis, integrated into the Community.
The Commission is sensitive to the desire for clarification which it furthermore took into account in its explanatory memorandum.
It takes the view, however, that the appropriate place for such clarification is not in an article of the regulation, and it is prepared to draft a new recital based on the gist of these amendments.
Amendment No 2 in our opinion cannot be accepted since it relates to the conditions for the issue of visas, which do not fall within the scope of this regulation but will have to be addressed in a different instrument.
Finally, the Commission is also unable to accept Amendment No 6.
Despite all the sympathy that can be felt towards the possibility of exempting young people taking part in European Union Youth Programmes from visa requirements, the Commission must stick to its aim of maximum harmonisation and avoid cases creating derogations from, or exceptions to, the visa requirement.
The Commission is convinced that efforts to ensure that the need to obtain a visa does not constitute an obstacle to young people wishing to take part in European Union programmes will have to be made in the rules on the conditions for the issue of visas which will be dealt with by a different instrument and which are not covered by this regulation.
To sum up, I would like to thank the Parliament, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and Mr Lehne, the rapporteur, for their constructive approach and also, especially, for having examined the Commission's proposal on visas so swiftly.
Parliament's swiftness is appreciated by the Commission, and it will help it, in the field of visas, to meet the deadlines set in the action plan adopted in Vienna and reproduced in the scoreboard drawn up following the European Council in Tampere.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 9.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I speak on yesterday's Minutes and something which is not in them.
Yesterday evening I raised two points.
One was on the success of Euro 2000.
The second one was on whether or not Mr Helmer joined with me in congratulating Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on welcoming the introduction of the euro into the UK.
I do not see that minuted.
Could you change that please?
Mr President, there was a very large number of MEPs who could not be here yesterday because we were let down by the flight connections.
I can inform you that 25 Scandinavian MEPs and interpreters took between 10 and 20 hours to arrive here in Strasbourg.
I hope you will convey this to our French President and tell her that our having to meet here in Strasbourg is almost intolerable and a constant strain.
I would also ask the President to contact Air France, which is about to take over the carrier which cancelled its flight to Strasbourg yesterday.
I would ask her to urge Air France to retain the route and to operate it punctually so that we might avoid these constant problems in connection with our meetings.
It would be best, of course, if we did not have to come to Strasbourg at all, but that is an entirely different matter.
Mr Haarder, I shall of course take note of your comments.
I think that in most of your cases you must also have seen that a survey is being carried out by the French Government, specifically asking you to say what problems you have in getting to Strasbourg by air.
I am aware that many Members of Parliament had problems yesterday, but let me point out that when I am in the chair I am no longer French but European.
Mr President, I would like to take up this issue. Many people were unable to get here on time because of air traffic problems.
I actually managed to, but I did not even find a list to sign, so I hope that this will be recorded in today' s Minutes.
Mr President, I was on the flight concerned yesterday. It took me 12 hours to get to Strasbourg.
What is more, I also had problems obtaining a seat at all on a flight to Strasbourg.
It is quite unacceptable for MEPs to have to spend time which should be devoted to political work or to their electorate at home on wondering how they will manage to get to their place of work and also on working out where they are going to spend the night.
MEPs who are not so lucky as to win the lottery here in Strasbourg and to have permanent hotel rooms have, on each occasion, to ponder such matters as where they are going to sleep and how they are going to get a room at their hotel in town.
We need some orderly arrangements if this Parliament is to continue.
I address you as a Frenchman - even though I appreciate that your nationality has nothing to do with your role as President - for the EU has a French Presidency now, of course, and, as far as I know, it is in France' s interests for the Parliament to remain in Strasbourg.
I would request that the President of France be informed of the impossible working conditions to which we are exposed because Parliament meets in Strasbourg.
Mr President, I just want to say that, after 11 years as an MEP, I am familiar with the French airline concerned. For that reason, I chose another and arrived on time.
Mr President, I understand our Danish colleagues' concern about this air traffic problem.
Yesterday was quite catastrophic, but I would remind you all at the same time that when the Danes' problems started, I myself had already been travelling for five hours on my way to Strasbourg.
I took the shortest route possible from a European capital to Strasbourg via another European capital, and the journey took fourteen hours.
I have always cast my vote in favour of Strasbourg' s special status, including on Friday.
But things cannot go on like this.
I am gradually coming round to the opinion that we must assemble in Brussels, which does not take fourteen hours to reach.
Ladies and gentlemen, your comments are completely justified, and will be passed on to the relevant departments.
I can see the requests to speak piling up on my desk.
I hope your points are not just to do with problems of air travel to Strasbourg, as we have a lot of work on this morning.
Your comments will be passed on to the leaders of the political groups and we will have an opportunity, in a few moments' time, to see if the message has been received.
Mr President, I wanted to briefly draw your attention to the admission procedure for visitors in Brussels.
I can inform you that, when we receive visitors in Brussels at the moment, they are admitted and then required to identify themselves. Subsequently, however, their identity cards are collected at reception.
I must admit, I find this rather an odd procedure. Why should someone who comes to visit us, one of our citizens, hand over their identity cards?
The cards are then thrown into a box and when they want to leave the Parliament building, they have to wait for fifteen minutes before they get their identity cards back.
I would like to ask you what the reason is behind this procedure.
If someone has identified themselves, surely that is sufficient?
Surely there is then no need to seize their identity cards or driving licences? I would like to ask you, Mr President, to change the admission procedure in Brussels back to how it used to be: you identify yourself, a badge is made and you are admitted.
Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, the simplest way of dealing with the problem you raise is to refer the matter to the quaestors directly. I shall, of course, ensure that this is done.
Mr President, I should like briefly to draw the House's attention to current developments in Cyprus.
The Turkish checkpoint has been moved into the buffer zone, thereby hampering the movements of the United Nations forces and cutting off a Greek village.
Turkey is a candidate country and should show more willing, through Turkish Cypriots, as regards the commitments which it entered into in Helsinki.
The situation could spiral out of control and I would like the support of the House on this and, more especially, of the British Government, which has a special responsibility in Cyprus.
I too wish to raise exactly the same issue: as you know, the third round of talks between the two communities is about to start.
Despite the fact that the Greek-Cypriot side has no intention of boycotting the third round of talks, the Turkish side has invaded the buffer zone, creating problems for the United Nations Organisation.
I should like to ask the European Parliament, through its President, to write to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, on this matter and to draw attention to Turkey, a candidate country which, in essence, is inciting the Turkish-Cypriot side to take certain measures or is tolerating the measures being taken.
Turkey cannot behave in this way and continue on its path towards Europe and the European Parliament should make that clear.
Mr President, I wish to raise the same issue and to condemn the provocative action by the occupying forces in Cyprus.
Turkey is obviously feeling daring as the result of the policy applied to it by the European Union, a policy which, in the final analysis, rewards its provocative actions.
Turkey has also been encouraged by recent statements by Mr Verheugen in connection with the role of the Cypriot forces and the way in which G7 is dealing with the Cyprus problem. Under these circumstances, the future of Cyprus should give us serious cause for concern.
Mr President, I merely wished to inform you in this connection that Turkish forces have proceeded 300 metres into the buffer zone alongside the British base in Cyprus and that they did so with the blessing of the British.
What my fellow member Mr Ályssandrakis said is true; this is the outcome of several events which have encouraged Mr Denktash and the Turkish Government, such as the Helsinki conclusions, which, to all intents and purposes, recognise the invasion and occupation of 38% of Cyprus in that they state that the Cyprus question need not be resolved in order for Cyprus to join the European Union, the declaration by G7, which has abandoned action under the UN resolutions in order to resolve the Cyprus question - and G7 includes Member States of the European Union - and the Verheugen statements, which basically recognise the occupation and the partition of Cyprus in that Mr Verheugen has stated that there is no problem and that the free part of Cyprus will be able to join the European Union.
The question, is this: what is the European Parliament doing in order to get the Turkish forces to withdraw immediately from the 300 metres which they have occupied, thereby extending the territory which they occupy and, more to the point, what is the European Parliament doing to free Cyprus from the occupying forces?
Mr President, I am taking the floor regarding the issue of Cyprus and the situation there because I do not think that it should only be our Greek colleagues who alert us to the problem which has now existed since 1974.
It is unacceptable that a country seeking membership of the European Union and with which negotiations to accord it pre-accession status have now been going on for 27 years can occupy an area covering 40% of Cyprus.
I think it is crucial for Parliament to make known its position on this problem and for us to make it clear to Turkey that the continued abuses - the green line has been overstepped - will lead to the immediate cessation of all negotiations with Turkey concerning the latter' s membership of the Union.
Thank you, Mr Camre.
If I might be permitted to make an observation, when chairing a sitting one is forced to note that every time the Minutes are adopted there are some Members who want to embark upon a political debate, and as soon as the political debate gets under way, the Members leave the Chamber.
I think that one day we shall have to rethink the way in which these debates are conducted here in this Chamber.
(The Minutes were approved)
1998 discharge
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A5-0190/2000) by Mrs Stauner, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the 1998 financial year (SEC(1999) 412 - C5-0006/1999 - 1999/2050(DEC))
the report (A5-0167/2000) by Mrs Rühle, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the financial management of the sixth, seventh and eighth European Development Funds for the 1998 financial year (COM(1999) 227 - C5-0003/1999 - 1999/2004(DEC))
the report (A5-0189/2000) by Mr Kuhne, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1998 financial year (Section I - European Parliament/Ombudsman Annex) (SEC(1999) 414 - C5-0008/1999 - 1999/2051(DEC)).
I understand your concern, Mr Poettering, but I do not wish to get involved in an argument and I hope that your comments are not going to start one.
Mr President, on a point of order, I wish to point out that it was the PPE who insisted that we looked at the whole question of the funding of political parties in this report.
It was the PPE and it was you, Mr Elles, who insisted on that.
We are responding to that request.
You insisted on it, we are responding.
Mr President, I shall do my best to say what I have to say in the two minutes I am allowed.
On behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, I should like first of all to point out that there has been considerable development in relation to the report on which we are to give our opinion.
Let me remind you that the basic position of the Committee on Foreign Affairs was that we should look resolutely to the future, give ourselves the resources for a practicable policy and, in any case, also give ourselves, i.e. Parliament, real resources to monitor the action undertaken on behalf of the Commission, particularly as regards expenditure of the type we discussed.
We noted that Mr Prodi' s statement was indeed very positive in this respect. He announced that collaboration with Parliament would be a fresh collaboration.
As time has passed, we have observed that this collaboration is indeed in operation. Many Commissioners have had no trouble in appearing before our committees in order to answer questions, particularly the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
We also thought it would be rather clumsy of the committee to hold the current Commission responsible for the attitudes of previous Commissions.
On the other hand, it is also obvious that we are continuing to demand that the present Commissioners show the utmost transparency with regard to Parliament.
I think this is essential and indeed I believe it is the case.
Finally, I should also like to say that, in the context of this Commission, we feel that Parliament will have to take firm control of OLAF because this is in fact one of the key means that we are going to be able to develop for the future.
Whatever the case, Mr President, I think that the salient conclusion that should be drawn from our work - and this view is shared by a good number of fellow Members of all political complexions - is that henceforth, firstly, we shall do our utmost to monitor what is going on and, secondly, we shall insist, as a basic requirement, that the Commission should be open with us.
Mr President, I should like to make one observation on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and one on behalf of the Socialist group as a whole.
With regard to the development budget, the cooperation between Mrs Rühle and ourselves was excellent.
Initially, the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Development and Cooperation kept themselves to themselves, according to their own focus.
Later on, we joined forces and managed, in tandem with the Commission, to put certain things in order thanks to the action plan.
This conceals, of course, a particularly grave situation, which cannot simply be attributed to one single person.
In actual fact, we have a budget for the development fund and, in broader terms, the development sphere, where clear goals are lacking and where staffing levels are inadequate within the critical spheres, which need to be worked on. All of this sets the scene for enormous backlogs and for a control culture dominated by self-interest and fear, rather than actual results and a duty to achieve results and take action.
I believe that we are on the brink of a cultural revolution, which will bring about this change.
This means that the 2001 budget will make it possible to set clear goals within education and health care.
Amounts will be made available which allow for sufficient personnel and which can subsequently be verified to see whether the plan actually worked.
But this requires delegation, responsibility, and - in a word - a modern efficient budget coupled with a modern insight into how budgetary policy works within development policy.
This is how I see the action plan; this is how I see our joint action.
I see it as a joint effort with the Commission.
I am thrilled about the fact that we can, as it were, close off a chapter of fear and a culture of self-interest.
I know there are many motivated officials within the Commission who will now be given the opportunity to perform within the sphere which we would all like to see do well, namely to give people who live in difficult circumstances - one in five still have no access to clean drinking water or primary education - a better chance of a decent life.
We in Europe want to play a key role in establishing this with the necessary resources.
But this means that we need to actually make this change within the next couple of months.
This brings me to the more general comment I wanted to make.
The whole discussion here today will eventually culminate in the 1998 discharge.
For the Socialist group, this will also signify, more generally, the closing off of the chapter of fear and working towards the chapter in which we as Commission and European Parliament take joint responsibility.
In this respect, the Kinnock reforms, or the general internal reforms, are essential.
After all, if we do not succeed in building a new system of financial control and Activity-Based Budgeting, and if we fail to reallocate sufficient personnel to those areas where we need more people, then all we do is create more paperwork, shift more bits of paper with more control and fail to come up with the goods at the end.
And this is, at the end of the day, what the European citizen judges you as Commission and us as Parliament on.
It would mean a great deal to me if in the course of the forthcoming budget, we could, as it were, set our good intentions on a new course for 2001.
I wish the Commission every success in advance.
Mr President, I am going to confine my comments to the general Commission discharge for 1998, which has taken on a highly political and divisive tone right from the start of our discussions.
I feel that we have been through several rounds of a boxing match but ultimately the whole committee, including the rapporteur, said that discharge should be granted.
Rather than stick with the hysterical, drum-beating report that the rapporteur produced, which, if truth be told, had little originality, no sense of direction and no suggestion on how to move ahead constructively, the committee decided back in March to postpone the discharge and to set out seventeen clear conditions which we expected the Commission to sign up to in the space of a couple of months.
We were delighted that the rapporteur saw the error of her ways and supported our way of thinking.
Round one to us, the anti-PPE alliance.
The rapporteur then tried a fast left hook with her headline-grabbing explanatory statement.
She lost.
Round two to the anti-PPE alliance.
The Commission responded constructively to most of the points we set out in March.
The next Stauner report was in the same hysterical tone as the first round but this time we were ready for her.
Round three to the anti-PPE alliance.
We thought the fight was over, but no, we were in for more with the new explanatory statement.
We have yet to see the result of that round but we are confident about the final knock-out round and we confidently predict what will happen on Thursday.
The only real question that remains is why her name is still on the report.
The truth is, we know that the Commission has a long way to go in getting its act together.
The Court of Auditors was right in not giving its O.K. to the Commission expenditure in 1998, but we are willing now to give the Commission the benefit of the doubt.
We think that this is a genuine attempt at reform and the Commission needs a certain amount of time to implement the necessary changes.
We will keep an eye on the situation and make sure the Commission sticks to the promises it has made.
For example, the promise to cut the number of errors is a major promise but it will not happen unless we have the commitment and the resources to go with it.
Commissioner, can you assure us that particularly in the areas of high risk, agriculture, structural funds and research, we will see more checks rather than fewer, as happened in 1998? Will we see significantly more resources for auditing within the DGs in cooperation with the internal audit service?
Can you give us these figures, please?
You know, Commissioner, that one area where we were dissatisfied with your answers was in response to lessons learned from Fléchard.
We know from the Court of Auditors, unlike Mrs Stauner, that we cannot get the money back.
Will you make a commitment though to cooperate fully with our internal inquiry committee and give us the information we request?
Finally, I hope that in our committee, we will be able to stop fighting each other and get on with fighting fraud.
Mr President, on a point of order I just want to ask you whether it is customary when the spokesman for a political group fails to turn up for the debate that the spokesman can then be inserted later.
It seems to me that if a spokesman cannot take the trouble to be here for this entire debate and be here on time for his own speaking time he should not be allowed to speak at all.
It is at the discretion of the chair, Mr van Hulten.
I think Mr Pomés Ruiz is perhaps just a few seconds late.
It is not always easy to get here on time with the lifts we have in Strasbourg.
So, if you have no objections, I shall give him the floor straight away.
Mr President, I think that Commissioner Schreyer has already noticed in her first year of appearing before this Parliament that this Parliament is a force to be reckoned with.
I can assure her that this will continue to be the case for the next four or five years.
All I can say is that so far, she has throughout the discussions shown herself to be a worthy opponent.
I would now like to comment on Mrs Stauner' s report on the resolution, which accompanies the discharge. With regard to the resolution, what matters most to the Liberal group is that so far, the Court of Auditors has failed to arrive at a positive statement of assurance.
The error rate is still too high and I feel we need to clearly stick to the points made in the resolution: the Commission must ensure that a positive statement of assurance can be issued by 2003.
Definite deadlines are needed and it would be useful if the Commission could clearly state, both internally and externally, which categories of the budget we want to reach a very low error rate in, where possible.
Another important point is that these days, documents have suddenly gone missing not only within the European Commission, but all over Europe.
We have heard that the Commission will set up an archiving system by the end of the year which will ensure that mistakes which have been made in the past - I particularly refer to the butter export to the Soviet Union - will no longer occur.
As for those butter exports, the Commissioner has already commented on them in her response to the earlier interventions. There is a clear difference of opinion between the European Commission and the European Court of Auditors.
It was evident from both the European Court of Auditors and the most recent report by the Committee of Wise Men that the Commission did not have the authority in terms of proportionality, retro-activity and such like, which it claims to have, or claims to have at least to a certain extent.
It is up to Parliament to establish this and we will certainly do this. We expect constructive cooperation from the Commission on this score.
Mr Kuhne has already mentioned the salient points in his report: a neutral staff policy on merit within Parliament, public service contracts and better management of the inventory.
Concerning Mrs Rühle' s report, we could not agree more with the comments she made about the need for better coordination between the Member States and the European Commission.
It is the Member States that foot the bill for the European Development Fund.
If the Member States vote for a certain policy, which the Commission proposes within the European Development Committee, it seems only logical to me that, if they are in favour of this policy, they will pursue the same policy using their own bilateral resources.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion, the 1998 discharge was a fascinating exercise in terms of both the budget of Parliament and that of the Commission.
In April, the power of the plenary meeting became evident.
Against the Committee on Budgetary Control' s judgement, we rejected the European Parliament' s discharge, and we formulated five requests for the Secretary-General of this Parliament.
This illustrated that we can be just as firm with Parliament as we can with other institutions, notably the Commission.
I should like to express my personal and heartfelt thanks to Secretary-General Priestley and his staff for the efficient and bold manner in which he met this request and has provided us with the information required.
In my opinion, the 1998 discharge was a fascinating and at the same time useful exercise. And we can now grant this discharge with a clear conscience whilst taking into consideration the comments included in the Stauner, Kuhne and Rühle resolutions.
But I am left with some concern, as if something bad could happen at any time.
Indeed, the framework agreement between the European Commission and Parliament which is due to be voted on tomorrow is hanging over us like a sword of Damocles.
I call on all MEPs, including the MEPs who are following this debate in their chambers, to study this framework agreement carefully and to examine how Parliament' s powers in respect of the grant of discharge are being whittled away.
I would invite you to read Paragraph 17, which contravenes Article 276 of the Treaty of the European Union, and would also invite you to read Annex 3, which is clipping the wings of the individual MEPs and rapporteurs.
I would call on you to fight the establishment of this Parliament, the establishment within your own groups and not to consent to this framework agreement tomorrow.
Mr President, when we talk of discharge, there is a poor spirit prevailing among the groups.
I would like to show my support for Mrs Stauner, despite the fact that the Social Democrats criticise her.
This may be based on the fact that during the Fléchard case, when Delors was the President of the Commission, the Head of his Private Office was the present Commissioner Lamy.
Under no circumstances can we accept that certain documents, which would shed some light on the use of funds, have vanished.
I would also like to support Mr Kuhne in the assessments he makes in his report, which, for its part, was criticised by members of the European People' s Party and European Democrats.
In my opinion, parliamentary rapporteurs have to speak and write what they think about the use of parliamentary funds, in which case the interests of no group can put up a barrier.
Our group agrees with the conclusion that discharge may on this occasion be granted.
Mr President, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group is unable to recommend giving discharge for the 1998 accounts concerning either the Union' s general budget or Parliament' s budget.
We are, however, able to give discharge for the European Development Fund.
It is true that what happened in 1998 is not the responsibility of this Commission, but I think there has been insufficient willingness to assign responsibility for the mistakes of the past.
Where the general budget is concerned, I just want to highlight two serious issues, the Fléchard case and the problems surrounding ECHO's humanitarian aid, and also to emphasise that the whole budgeting process is characterised by a lack of precision.
This is what we normally view as the existence of unused appropriations.
Budgeting is not just about coming up with a few figures.
It is just as much about designing one' s administrative and production machinery in such a way that the objectives laid down in the budget can be achieved.
Like the ECHO case, the Fléchard case is an example of the irresponsible use of European taxpayers' money.
It has not happened during the period of the present Commission, but in both cases I have just mentioned we see an insufficient willingness on the part of the Commission to hold high-ranking civil servants accountable.
The Commission knows that there are criminal activities behind these cases. The Commission knows that certain illegal forces have made anonymous threats to our colleagues, Mrs Stauner and Mr Blak, and this ought to make the Commission realise that a much more vigorous approach is required if action is to be taken against the internal forces partly responsible for the fact that European taxpayers' money can disappear into the pockets of criminals.
We now seem, of course, to have two spokespersons for the Commission: the official one, Commissioner Schreyer, and the unofficial one, Mrs Morgan.
The latter' s statement here aptly illustrates why this Parliament is in no position to be more effective in cleaning up the administration.
In the Danish Parliament, we have a saying about the Finance Committee.
We ask, 'Do you know what a cat is?' , and the reply is, 'A cat is a tiger which has been to a consultation with the Finance Committee.'
That is not the case here.
Mrs Schreyer can always come here sure in the knowledge that Parliament' s Committee on Budgetary Control will not hurt a hair of her head.
Where Parliament' s 1998 accounts are concerned, I would note that the problem is the same as in other areas of the Union, namely an all too careless attitude to the way in which the money is used.
On the subject of the Spinelli building, I would point out that it was acquired at too great an expense and in an unusual way, not easily seen through.
I should like to add that this is not a criticism I am directing at the Secretary-General, for I do not believe there is any basis for such criticism. Rather, it is a criticism to be directed against the system itself, for this is not good enough.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank Mr Kuhne and Mrs Rühle for their reports, especially the well-balanced one from Mr Kuhne.
We have taken the discharge procedure most seriously and I should also like to thank the administration and the Secretary-General for their collaboration in this exercise.
I think it was a good approach to clarify matters, look into them more carefully and solve some outstanding problems with a properly argued report enabling Parliament to have all the facts in order to grant discharge to the administration and the President of the European Parliament.
This is whom discharge is addressed to, even though it concerns the administration.
I am pleased to see that discharge has been granted to Parliament.
I think we have done an excellent job.
Group finances are also going to be more transparent and more appropriate to the exercise we are making ready for if we wish to continue along the road of financing political parties.
It was a useful exercise, properly carried out, and Mr Kuhne should be congratulated.
I think we should be able to vote broadly in favour of his report the day after tomorrow.
I cannot say the same for Mrs Stauner' s report.
I feel it is misguided to attempt to use the rapporteur' s role to one' s own ends: it is deceiving Parliament and deceiving oneself.
This practice has been appalling.
Right up to the very end, we shall have been witness to abuse of the procedure.
More than 60% of the report voted upon consisted of amendments.
Mr President, it is extremely rare for a report to be quite so turned around after the vote in committee.
This clearly demonstrates that the rapporteur must interpret the committee' s opinion logically.
If the rapporteur does not interpret the opinions expressed by the committee accurately then the report will be beset by amendments.
The rapporteur is supposed to be the spokesperson for the parliamentary committee.
I feel that a situation where 60% of the amendments are adopted is verging on the nonsensical, and indicates some deep-seated malaise.
The practice of playing games with the explanatory statement must stop.
It is not acceptable to attempt, as Mrs Stauner did, to include points in the explanatory statement which had not been accepted by the majority in committee.
It is a matter of some importance.
This Parliament has no clear majority or minority.
We have to rely to a certain extent on parliamentary fair play.
If a clear majority emerges, then this majority feeling should be expressed in all the aspects of a report, without resorting to playing on words or abusing procedures.
Furthermore, some of the pictures shown on television from Germany, involving extremely prominent people, suggest to me that one must look to one' s own backyard before preaching to Parliament and to Europe.
We must ensure that private and public matters are not muddled.
We shall therefore grant the discharge.
We shall support this report which the rapporteur is clearly against.
Rest assured, Mr President, that the TDI group will vote in favour of discharge, at least the radical wing of the group which I represent here.
Mr President, they are good reports we are debating today, but I am unable, for all that, to vote in favour of the reports as long as we have no guarantee that those who are to audit the accounts are being given all the information they need.
The ombudsman is not entitled to receive full information; the Court of Auditors has complained that it is unable to obtain full information; in Parliament' s Committee on Budgetary Control, it is a permanent topic on the agenda; and our President, Mrs Theato, has severely criticised the new draft agreement between Parliament and the Commission, for the draft agreement will not give us the documents we are requesting, either.
Let us reject it tomorrow.
My personal experience of the Commission is of encountering a good deal of beating about the bush whenever I ask for information which ought to be available.
Those who vote in favour of the draft agreement do not know how many committees and committee meetings they are approving.
Nor do they know if there are any problems regarding the competence of any of the participants.
Indeed, as a rule we do not know everyone involved in day-to-day legislation and in the administration of the now 800 billion being used.
Nor do we know how much is being paid out to, for example, Danisco.
As long as the Commission is not making the information available that the Court of Auditors and elected representatives are requesting, my group can be relied upon to vote against approving the accounts.
Mr President, the European institutions must be aware that they have a responsibility and also an obligation to guarantee the European citizen an efficient and economical administration.
Unfortunately though, the opposite still holds true, as borne out by cases such as Fléchard and the ECHO administration.
The Commission is still denying Parliament access to information on these misdemeanours to this day, which on no account should we take lying down.
Nor should we be surprised if European citizens continue to lose confidence in these administrative systems.
Consequently, we Independents have no intention whatsoever of granting discharge to the report on the general budget.
This ought to send out a clear signal that we are committed to creating efficient and economical administrative systems in Europe.
Mr President, this brings us to the conclusion of a momentous two years for the European Union, which began with the 1996 discharge and its refusal.
I should like to congratulate Mrs Stauner on the courage which she has shown in getting her report - although not much of it is in its original form - through this Parliament.
We need, in this debate, to associate the 1998 discharge with that of the framework agreement which we will be voting on tomorrow.
Hopefully we will see signs of a more democratic Europe as a result of these last few months.
First, Parliament's role in the discharge has been shown to be one of extreme importance.
The Council, by its absence today, shows its lack of interest in the way in which we, as a Parliament, have used our powers to begin the birth of a political Europe.
Without the 1996 discharge there would have been no Wise Men's report, no Commission resignation and no real urgency for Commission reform.
But not all of us in this House have been heroes.
We have found ourselves split between countries, within countries, within delegations, often with strongly held views.
It was the Socialist leader, Mrs Green, who took the biscuit by voting for a motion of confidence on a motion of censure, which she did indeed get.
Miss Morgan now continues this particular inheritance by asking for a depolitisation of the discharge process.
Indeed, one or two of her amendments, like removing paragraphs 47 and 48 of the discharge report today show that some of these amendments look more Commission-born than in Parliament's interests.
But where to now? Monitoring is necessary to make sure that what we have gained as a Parliament is maintained.
Mr Prodi needs to be supported in his reforms of the Commission.
Last but not least, our most important role is to make sure we have greater accountability and more democracy and that it is not the beginning of the end but the end of the beginning for Parliament's rights in the European institutions.
Mr President, the new Commission should be judged on whether it has the courage and the will to implement reforms and put the legacy of the past in order.
Our granting discharge for 1998 is, in reality, a vote of confidence.
We are giving the Commission a chance to prove that it is different from the old Commission.
I would also take the opportunity to call for a cessation of hostilities here in Parliament.
Let us unite all the forces that are in favour of the Commission' s developing into a modern, open and effective institution.
The European project can only succeed if we show zero tolerance for fraud, nepotism and corruption.
Otherwise, we shall never get the people on our side.
Let us cut across party lines and national allegiances.
Constructive criticism of the Commission must not go unheard due to Parliament' s internal bickering.
There are more and more people who think that we should simply forget the past and concentrate on changing the general way in which things are done, but I disagree with that view.
We need to clean up the legacy of the past, or matters will never improve.
I do not think we have received enough in the way of admissions from the Commission when it comes to the events of the past.
This applies both to the Fléchard and ECHO cases, and I can assure the Commission that these matters have not been buried away, just because we are now giving discharge for 1998.
We shall not forget them until they have been resolved in a proper and dignified manner.
I am, on the other hand, very satisfied with the new initiatives the Commission has taken to clean up the area of development aid, but these have also been overdue.
Both Mr Patten and Mr Nielson have been very critical of the way in which development aid has been administered.
Mr Patten has said it is embarrassing for the EU and the Commission and called it the worst way of providing development aid. For Mr Nielson, it was enough to call it a 'a pizza service without delivery' .
I am also very pleased that Mr Nielson has instituted an investigation into the extent to which the delegations are fulfilling their responsibilities in the high-risk countries.
He has also promised that disciplinary action will be taken if they are not in fact fulfilling these, and I am very pleased about that development, but do not imagine that we shall forget you.
Finally, I wish to say that I think it was a shameless attack which Mr Dell'Alba made on Mrs Stauner.
Mr President, let me first say a few words regarding the quality of the work of our rapporteur Mrs Stauner.
She has been criticised, particularly in the Committee on Budgetary Control, yet she has produced an outstanding piece of work, and I wished to make that point today.
Let me also say a few words regarding the speeches made by the Socialist Members.
In all sincerity, without adding to the controversy, I feel that we have nothing to learn from the European Socialists regarding the use of funds.
Let me say a few words on the Rühle report.
We were all extremely shocked both by the massive misappropriation of European Development Fund resources and also by the Commission' s attitude, which was to carefully conceal its dealings from the Court of Auditors, the former UCLAF (unit for the coordination of fraud prevention) and the European Parliament.
In spite of this particularly scandalous state of affairs, we have nonetheless adopted a positive attitude and have attempted, along with the new Commission, to provide valid and practical solutions to the underlying problem.
The purpose of the agreements between the European Union and a good number of third world countries is to enable the latter to have balanced and sustainable development but, in order to do so, the funds allocated would actually have to get to the end-users and, as we have known for a long time, corruption and fraud are depriving entire regions of the greater part of these sums.
To take just one example, the medical aid granted the Ivory Coast, particularly to combat AIDS, we are talking about some 38% of the aid being misappropriated, or almost EUR 30 million!
Mrs Rühle' s report represents, then, the very last warning issued to the administration of the European Development Fund, who have until October to implement radical reforms in order to fulfil the expectations of Parliament, all the citizens of the European Union and, most especially, the populations of the countries concerned, who still have a vital need for European aid.
So, until October, when we shall meet again.
Mr President, could I just remind Mr Poettering and his friends in the PPE group that, when the Court of Auditors drew up its report on the financing of political parties, it was his group which was criticised and it was the Socialist and Liberal groups which received a clean bill of health.
Maybe this is due to the fact that the PPE-DE group is not one group, that the British Conservatives are allowed to run their own shop and that they keep their own accounts.
It is they who must improve their books.
Mrs Stauner had to be stopped for speaking too fast at the beginning of this debate.
It is a telling metaphor for the work she did in committee.
She ran ahead of the committee without the rest of us realising what was going on.
She tried and condemned the Commission for not sharing the outlandish views she has of financial management and control.
Even the Court of Auditors does not agree with her.
The job of the Committee on Budgetary Control is not to hang the Commission out to dry for the duration of a parliament, but to ensure that Europe's citizens are served by an executive that implements its political priorities efficiently and effectively.
Fortunately that view was shared by the majority of the committee.
One of the disastrous consequences of this whole standoff has been the proposal that is before us tomorrow for a framework agreement on relations between Parliament and the Commission.
This agreement will restrict the rights of individual MEPs, of rapporteurs, to ask for information from the Commission.
It is a short-sighted proposal and if we do not postpone the debate until September then we should vote against it.
Finally I should just like to say, as we are about to listen to Mr Chirac and what he has to say about the French presidency, that I hope that he will also listen to what this Parliament has to say, and in particular to Parliament's view that it should be able to decide for itself where it meets, when it wants to meet, and that this should not be imposed by the governments of the Member States.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteurs - and indeed the people of Wales, because I did not realize they were so concerned about the Commission's welfare that they had elected someone to represent the Commission's views in Parliament rather than their own!
I would also like to say, just to correct something that Mrs Morgan said earlier, that I am very lucky in this debate, because my party declared in our manifesto - which helped so many of us on this side get elected - that we would not give discharge to any EU accounts until the Commission reform process had been successfully implemented.
I cannot therefore follow the lead of our excellent rapporteur, who recommends granting discharge to the Commission, for the reasons I have already given and because many people outside this place have been wondering what actually improved between 1996 and 1998.
Most people believe that things got worse within the Commission in that time rather than better.
I only joined the Committee on Budgetary Control a couple of months ago, and to me the meetings and the reports of the last two months have raised probably more questions than they have answered.
To close, I would like to ask two of those questions.
Firstly, can the Commission confirm whether Mr Fléchard is related in any way to Mr Delors and/or members of his cabinet? Secondly, can he confirm whether any of his or Commissioner Kinnock's cabinet have actively lobbied MEPs for support of the Socialist Group, and in particular for Mrs Morgan's amendments on the Stauner report?
If they have, would this not be an abuse of their position?
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Stauner, my colleague and good friend, for her report.
Sometimes we seem to forget that we are dealing with the discharge in respect of 1998.
I have carefully read the Court of Auditors' report on the accounts for that year, particularly in relation to agriculture and the Structural Funds.
I have come to the conclusion, having had a lot of experience in Parliament and with European affairs, that things have been steadily improving and that 1998 was one of the best performances we had.
The difficulties which occurred - a 4% possible error in the area of agriculture and a little more in the area of Structural Funds - did not result from the failure of the European Commission to dispense those funds in an efficient way, but from a failure - and it was a small failure - to control the Member States and the European governments and to ensure that the Member States and their administrations had done the job in the way it should have been done.
That is my first point.
The second point is in relation to Fléchard.
I do not think it is reasonable to inform the people of Europe that there was a loss of EUR 14 million to the European budget arising out of this case.
To say this is to use a sort of accountancy jargon that puts the whole issue beyond the understanding of the ordinary European citizen.
The truth is that in the Fléchard case, Fléchard was suspected of fraud, the Irish government fined and punished them to the extent of EUR 17 million.
Fléchard took the Irish government to court and won an injunction preventing the Irish government from taking the EUR 17 million.
The European Commission intervened at that point and proposed a settlement.
The worst thing you can say about that settlement is that it was made on a legal basis which was not in effect when the crime was committed, but was in effect while the case was still open.
It seems to me that equating that with a loss of EUR 14 million is a gross exaggeration.
Finally, the lesson to be learned from this is that in the future we in Parliament have to cooperate with the European Commission to ensure that national governments do not, as in the past, interfere in their responsibilities, and that when the Commission takes national governments to task, it can rely on our support.
Statement by Presidency-in-Office of Council - Action programme of French presidency
The next item is the statement by the Presidency-in-Office of Council on the French presidency' s action programme.
It is my very great pleasure to give the floor to the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen of the European Parliament, thank you for welcoming me here today.
Since 1 July, France has held the presidency of the Council of the European Union, and I shall be chairing the meetings of the European Council on two occasions.
I therefore thought it appropriate to present the priorities of the French Presidency to this House.
Last winter, when I was invited to participate in the inauguration of this new Chamber, I made a commitment to involving Parliament fully in the work of our presidency.
I think it natural and necessary to conduct discussions and debates within the European Union in close collaboration with the men and women that represent the citizens, the men and women elected by the people of Europe, who have the task of representing their opinions in the debate on the future of Europe.
Therefore, the French Presidency, represented in particular by Mr Hubert Védrine, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Mr Pierre Moscovici, Minister of State for European Affairs, intends to maintain an ongoing open dialogue with Parliament.
The citizens of Europe want more transparency in the operation of the European institutions.
The time when decisions could be taken behind closed doors has passed.
Nowadays, discussions within the European Union must take place in the light of day and, of course, here in the European Parliament.
We shall also be working hand in hand with the European Commission.
I should like today to express my confidence in and support for Mr Romano Prodi, the European Commissioners and all the parties cooperating with the Commission. Having come into office in quite exceptional circumstances, they have managed to lay the foundations for a radical reform which will bear fruit in the future.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, just fifty years ago the 'Schuman declaration' laid the foundations for the building of Europe, undertaking primarily to reconcile Germany and France.
I should, at this point, like to pay tribute to the memory of one of the great and ardent Europeans who paved the way for Europe, Pierre Pflimlin. He devoted his life to France, of course, and Europe, a bold and noble idea of Europe.
This House acknowledged his commitment by electing him its president.
We have lost a great and fine figure in this venture we are all involved in.
Ladies and gentlemen, half a century of European construction has given rise to a profoundly original European Union, based on the common will of the nations which make up that Union, and today we clearly feel that we are entering a new phase in the history of European construction, which has already brought us peace, economic success and social progress.
The fine and necessary project of enlargement is going to change the European Union, its modus operandi and, perhaps, even its very nature, at a time when it is intensifying its political dimension.
At the same time, as the areas in which the European Union is becoming involved are expanding, the citizens are demanding, quite rightly, that it should be more democratic, more transparent and more efficient, and that it should be more diligent in respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
The debate on the future of Europe has thus been launched, and this is good news because is it essential in crucial periods to look further than the immediate concerns and time limits, and to set the course for the future.
I had the opportunity to express my views on this subject last week.
My comments were intended to shed light on the future and to express what the Europe of tomorrow could and should be.
They, of course, extend beyond the limits of the French Presidency of the European Union.
One thing is clear, however, and I stressed this in Berlin: all further progress of the European Union is conditional upon the success of the institutional reform.
If the IGC were not successful, then it would be pointless to consider the next stages.
The French authorities are fully aware of the responsibility they bear in this respect and they are approaching this presidency with the ambition to achieve progress or a successful conclusion in all the matters impacting on future development.
They shall do so with a commitment to safeguard, and improve, that which gives our whole project meaning: the protection of fundamental values and the respect of national and cultural identities, the continual determination to reconcile economic performance and social progress and to fulfil the practical expectations of the citizens, and the strengthening of Europe' s role as a major player on the international scene.
This is the spirit in which France intends to take forward the remarkable work achieved by the Portuguese Presidency, in close liaison with the Swedish Presidency which is to follow us on 1 January next year.
We have outlined four objectives for this six-month period: firstly, to make the European Union ready for enlargement, next, to place Europe more at the service of growth, employment and social progress, to bring the European Union closer to the citizens in order to drive the message of our shared project home, and finally, to affirm Europe' s position in the world.
The Presidency' s first focus is on making preparations for the future of Europe, post-enlargement.
As I said, the reform of the European institutions is one of the primary issues of our presidency.
Let us not make the mistake of underestimating the importance of the matters on the agenda.
The composition of the Commission, revision of the weighting of votes and the extension of qualified majority voting are all of critical importance given the prospect of the enlarged Europe.
If we do not manage to resolve these matters, the European Union will be sentenced to paralysis in the short term, and I am convinced that all the Member States are aware of this and are in favour of finding solutions.
The French Presidency is also determined to make progress on the matter of intensified cooperation, which was added to the IGC agenda at the Feira European Council.
The objective is not to set the divisions between Europeans in stone, but rather to introduce greater flexibility into the operation of the enlarged European Union by allowing those who wish to do so to travel more quickly along the common path.
You may rest assured that we shall provide ourselves with all the necessary means to make a success of these negotiations, in which the European Parliament will, of course, continue to be very closely involved.
The European Council in Biarritz, two months before the Nice Council, will be an informal summit, chiefly devoted to institutional reform.
It should give the necessary impetus for an agreement to be signed in December, an agreement which is worthy of the importance of the issues involved.
None of us, neither you nor us, can be content with a minimum agreement.
(Applause)Reform of the institutions will pave the way for enlargement of the European Union. I am, as you know, a staunch supporter of enlargement.
It will be an achievement for peace and democracy in our continent, and it will make the European Union all the stronger.
The French Presidency is, therefore, determined to achieve real progress in the accession negotiations with all the candidate countries, based on their individual merits and implementing the principle of differentiation.
Our objective at the European Council in Nice is to arrive at as comprehensive as possible an overview of the state of negotiations, in order to provide effective guidance for the work of future presidencies and to clearly signpost the route to accession.
Bilateral dialogue with the candidate countries will, moreover, be stepped up, and dialogue will also be emphasised in the European conference of Heads of State and Government which I shall be convening in Nice prior to the European Council.
The second focus of the French Presidency is a Europe at the service of growth, employment and social progress.
Opting for the euro means opting for growth and employment.
It is a success. We can already see the positive effects in all the countries of the European Union.
Coordinating our monetary policies, however, must necessarily be accompanied by serious social ambitions and improved coordination of our economic policies.
For many long years, France has been putting the case for employment to be the focus of the concerns of the European Union and the central objective of its policies.
A great deal of progress has been made thanks to successive presidencies, particularly in Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Cardiff and Cologne.
The Lisbon European Council in March marked a crucial phase. It was there that we affirmed our strategic objective to restore full employment and activity for all, increasing employment rates among the working-age population of Europe to 70%, and we set ourselves a target of 3% average annual growth.
The French Presidency will be following up the action initiated by this Lisbon Council.
On the first day of France' s presidency, I was keen to invite the European Trade Union Confederation to visit me.
As you know, I attach great importance to affirming the European social model as based on social dialogue, on social protection appropriate to the requirements of our time and on acknowledgement of the role of the state as the guarantor of social cohesion.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights will have to support this model.
Our priority, then, will be the adoption of a "European social agenda" .
Economic growth and industrial modernisation are meaningful only if they represent a rapid fall in the rate of unemployment which, despite the positive results recorded throughout Europe in recent years, is still far higher than in the United States or Japan.
Europe at the service of the nations also means the determination to make great efforts to achieve social justice, improve the protection of children and boost commitment to combating exclusion in all its forms, particularly in the face of the new challenges of the knowledge-based economy.
The social agenda will make it possible, on the basis of the communication which the Commission has just submitted, to outline a five-year working programme involving all the operators concerned: Member States, the European Parliament, the Commission, unions and management.
We are looking for ambitious projects in fields as important as social protection, the involvement of employees in company decisions, reconciling family life and a career and lifelong training.
This is how we intend to support our European social model: by making progress on practical projects, backed by a strong political will.
At the same time, we must step up liaison and coordination between our economic policies.
This is necessary in order to consolidate the euro and to make sure that the current growth in Europe lasts.
The French Presidency is today proposing to improve the operation of the 11 euro states, shortly to become 12, by making its work more visible and more authoritative, to enhance the coordination of our budget policies by making the Community inspection procedures more effective, to make progress in the harmonisation of our tax policies in the wake of the European Council at Feira and, finally, to take action to prepare our citizens for the forthcoming advent of the euro.
It is vital that the citizens accept the euro.
Everything possible must be done to make a success of this crucial phase in both practical and human terms.
Finally, we must put Europe at the forefront of the information society, build up growth in the European Union on the basis of our training schemes - some of the best in the world - our tremendous scientific and intellectual potential and our industry, which is a world leader.
France will be endeavouring to develop fully the decisions taken under the Portuguese Presidency: support for innovative firms thanks to new risk capital developments, the establishment of a Community patent, the framing of a European scoreboard for innovation, the creation of a highly flexible network of scientists and the development of European projects, the fight against cybercrime.
We must also ensure that the benefits of these new technologies are accessible to all, avoiding the creation of a digital divide, and, in particular, supporting Internet connections for all European schools by the end of 2001, as decided.
We shall also be very attentive to enhancing Europe' s position in the highly strategic biotechnology sector, while, of course, monitoring the observance of the ethical rules which must be applied to any scientific, inventive or industrial activity involving living organisms.
Growth and solidarity must benefit all the regions of the European Union, particularly the island regions which must be helped to overcome their handicaps.
The Presidency will also ensure that links with the outermost regions are consolidated and intensified.
The new terms of the Treaty of Amsterdam now have to be implemented to ensure that the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and the French overseas departments benefit from the rights, advantages and specific Community policies due to their specific features and constraints.
The third focus of the French Presidency will be to bring Europe closer to the citizens.
This is now the legitimate concern of all successive presidencies leading the European Union.
Europe still seems far too remote in the eyes of many of our fellow countrymen, who find it hard to see what Europe gives them or can give them in their everyday life.
It is high time that the European Union took more notice of the matters of concern to the ordinary citizen. Let us achieve a Europe of the people.
The adoption of a Charter of Fundamental Rights which is currently being drawn up with the active participation of Members of this House will make it possible to enshrine in a single text the values, principles and rights which are the basis of our Union: civil and political rights, economic and social rights.
It is crucial that the Convention responsible for framing the text completes its work in sufficiently good time in order to be able to deliver the charter by the end of this year.
We shall also be promoting this Europe of the people by building the Europe of mobility, of knowledge and of young people.
While respecting Member State authority in the field of education, we must also staunchly support individual exchanges, particularly at university level.
Looking forward to the European Council of Nice, the French Presidency will be surveying the obstacles to the mobility of research workers, students and teachers, and investigating ways to overcome them.
We must be ambitious and adopt a substantial increase in exchanges within the European Union as our goal.
It is the synergy between European laboratories and firms, and the strengthening of the many important centres of research and innovation in Europe, which is at stake here, not to mention a certain vision of dialogue between cultures and cultural diversity and, ultimately, European citizenship, the feeling of belonging to the same political and human unit.
In more practical terms, the French Presidency intends to achieve progress in initiatives likely to improve the daily life of Europeans, firstly in terms of public health and consumer protection.
The traumatism caused by the mad cow epidemic and by other similar threats is forcing us to set up an independent European food authority.
I know that I shall be able to count on the support of this House in this undertaking.
We must also achieve recognition for the precautionary principle at European and international level, and make progress in the labelling and trackability of genetically modified organisms.
Let us never forget that agriculture is the first of our common policies.
The French Presidency will be particularly attentive to the WTO in the context of enlargement negotiations and in considering the problems encountered by specific industries, such as pig farming and the fruit and vegetable and banana industries.
As for the environment, the main focus will be on the safety of maritime transportation and the transportation of dangerous substances and petroleum products.
The ecological disaster caused by the wreck of the Erika is all the more intolerable in that it was due to human negligence.
The French authorities are firmly resolved to make tangible progress in the coming months, on the basis of existing and forthcoming proposals from the Commission and from the authorities themselves to prevent our coastlines suffering a recurrence of this tragedy.
Apart from this, Europe will continue to be in the vanguard of the fight to protect our environment. The environment must be ever better integrated into European policy.
We are familiar with some of the environmental risks connected with the globalisation of the economy, which may irreversibly compromise the living conditions of future generations.
Accordingly, the French Presidency is committed to arriving at a good agreement, as good as possible, next November, at the Hague conference on greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and will ensure that the Kyoto Protocol is properly implemented.
(Applause)In the field of justice and home affairs, the French Presidency will ensure that the decisions taken in Tampere in October 1999 are followed up in an ambitious manner.
There must be progress in implementing a European asylum and immigration policy with regard to three specific points: the issue of long-term residence permits, the harmonisation of reception conditions, and the fight against illegal immigration and the associated 'industry' .
We all have the Dover tragedy in mind.
In accordance with the conclusions of the Feira European Council, the Presidency will draw up specific measures regarding sanctions against parties responsible for trafficking.
There will also be particular emphasis on combating drugs and the financial crime often associated with it.
In particular, Europe will have to contribute towards the adoption of measures to combat money laundering effectively in support of the action undertaken in the context of the G7 Okinawa Summit, in Japan. I shall have the opportunity to stress this point.
Finally, we are resolved to make progress in achieving a European area of justice based on the mutual recognition of legal rulings and judgements.
Permit me, in concluding this chapter on the Europe of the citizens, to say a word or two about sport.
Now that the Euro 2000 football championship, which gave Europeans so much pleasure and so many thrills, is over,
(Applause)we must ensure that the European Union takes the specific nature of sport and its social role into more careful consideration.
There is a real problem which must be investigated and solved. The French Presidency will make every effort to do so.
(Applause)The fourth and final focus of our presidency: a Europe with a strong international role.
In terms of the common foreign and security policy, the French Presidency will make a point of affirming the European identity, with the support of the High Representative and the Commission.
One of its priorities will be to consolidate the Europe of defence and security which has experienced spectacular progress in recent months.
This legislation must be put into practice and developed.
In the operational arena, we are to hold the Conference on the commitment of capabilities, in order to give the Helsinki objectives due credibility.
We would also like to see the interim bodies in place in Brussels since 1 March fulfilling their given role in the transition to the final phase.
In particular the interim Political and Security Committee, intended to replace the Political Committee, should gradually become the mainspring of the CFSP, supporting and with the support of Mr Javier Solana.
Finally, the arms industries must confirm the ambitious European defence policies by their harmonisation and their cooperation programmes.
The results of recent months have been very positive in this respect, in terms of helicopters, missiles and the future transport aircraft.
In all these areas, the French Presidency will spare no effort to ensure that Europe provides itself with ample resources for its foreign policy, in a spirit of friendship and cooperation, of course, with its allies.
Geographically speaking, in addition to the summits scheduled with its major partners - the United States and Canada, Russia and Ukraine - three main priorities are discernible in the field of the CFSP:
the Balkans, and the continuation of the stabilisation process which has commenced, in both the military and the economic sector.
The European Union must provide the countries in this region with a clear European perspective in order to persuade them to undertake reform and to cooperate at regional level.
This is the purpose of the summit the Feira European Council proposed should be held between the European Union and the counties of the Western Balkans;
the Mediterranean, with the fourth meeting of ministers in Barcelona and, circumstances permitting, the first Euro-Mediterranean Summit to be organised in Marseilles.
This will offer an opportunity to give new impetus to the Barcelona process by means of adopting a peace and stability charter and by strengthening economic and cultural links between the two shores of the sea we share.
Then there is Asia, with the third Asia-Europe summit (ASEM) and the bilateral summits between Europe and China and Europe and Japan. Here too the French Presidency wishes to develop fully the relations it considers essential in order to construct the balanced multipolar world of the future.
The French Presidency is also keen to ensure that the new convention between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries is implemented efficiently.
Europe must be strong and open to the world.
It must therefore play its role fully and consistently and show solidarity, in order to enable a new round of global and balanced negotiations to be launched within the World Trade Organisation.
As you can see, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the route map that France has set itself for its Presidency of the European Union is both ambitious and very specific.
In the first place, we must ensure that the institutions of the European Union are operating properly at this time when the Union is set to radically change its appearance.
Tomorrow, the number of Member States will have more than doubled and we must find procedures to enable decisions to be taken and Europe to make progress while strengthening its efficiency and legitimacy.
This is precisely what is at issue.
The European Union will only retain its dynamism and its strength if we are able to ensure that it is appreciated by the very people it serves, i.e. the citizens of Europe.
The European Parliament also shares these concerns.
By working hand in hand, with mutual trust, on each of these matters, together we shall succeed in taking Europe through the phases that are essential for the future.
It is my conviction that, in six months' time, when I come back to this Chamber to review our Presidency, Europe will not be quite the same.
We shall have consolidated the edifice by making it more welcoming both for those that already reside in it and those that wish to enter.
(Applause)
Madam President, I want, on behalf of my group, to express a very warm welcome to Mr Chirac both in his role as President-in-Office of the Council and for coming here as President of France to underline the importance which France and he personally attach to the work of this presidency.
Last Sunday, thanks to "the blues" , France became Champions of Europe.
I hope that, under your Presidency, France will once again become a champion for Europe!
We have listened with great interest to your speech today and to the speech you made last week in Berlin.
Both make important contributions to the European debate.
The Europe of tomorrow matters to all of us.
Much in the European debate is unsettled.
What is the territory of Europe; what are its function, identity and values? In launching such a debate you have done Europe a service.
However, the incentive to speculate on tomorrow's Europe should not become a disincentive to act on today's Europe.
As we contemplate enlargement, today's Europe of fifteen has, as you have remarked this morning, major tasks in hand.
One cannot underestimate the importance of the "Amsterdam leftovers" as we prepare ourselves for this enlargement.
You have spoken of having more than an accord à minimum.
We certainly agree with that.
My group attaches very great importance, as you have done today, to a charter of fundamental rights as part of the package that we contemplate in Nice.
Like you, Mr President, we believe that Europe should be based on the values of freedom, dignity, tolerance, democracy and rights.
We respect the role of the European Commission in bringing balance to our debate and our respective interests.
We value the access which our citizens have to democratic checks and balances - through this House and elsewhere - in the formulation of European legislation.
We value transparency and working in public on the record, not behind closed doors.
We value the rights of citizens to appeal to the European Court of Justice where they perceive injustice.
None of these things are characteristic of intergovernmentalism.
We must be cautious about a drift in that direction.
My group believes that a strong Europe needs European institutions with a key role for the European Commission.
I agree with you that we should have a constitution for Europe.
We can launch a debate on that but clearly it is too complex a question to resolve in the next six months.
I would express one hope: that this debate does not become a third lock on the door of enlargement.
Helsinki set two tests: firstly we must reform ourselves in Nice; secondly the candidate states must take on board the acquis communautaire.
We should not add a third lock on the door by saying we must have a constitution before they join.
It is our historic task to bring about a successful enlargement.
I know from your remarks that you agree with that.
It is important to give that reassurance.
I believe that France, once again, has the opportunity to champion the cause of Europe.
We wish you and your government every success in the next six months.
Mr President, there was a time, when you yourself, Mr Chirac, took sides against the foreigner.
What a contrast there is between your Cochin address and your speech to the Reichstag, in which you gave a foreign parliament the first taste of your federalist thinking, supporting the idea of a European constitution! Have you changed or have times changed to this extent?
Does one have to be modern to have the support of a few well-meaning broadsheets?
Or indeed, as in the case of the Treaty of Amsterdam, is the need of the moment all the explanation necessary? Was it really necessary - although not very Gaullist even in 1974 - to become a centrist under Mr Mitterrand, even though the support you gained on the left was more than offset by the support you lost on the right?
You recommended saying 'yes' to Maastricht because the 1995 presidential elections were drawing close.
It would have been a simple matter to dismiss the single currency, the so-called single currency, and put it off forever but you preferred to reduce France to the mediocre level of a general council, rather than the rank of a statesman.
Because Mr Mitterrand had had his Treaty, you wanted one of your own, in Amsterdam.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam proved insufficient, you are looking for another, this time in Nice.
Basically, you are acting like a political schemer of the Third Republic, constantly underestimating France' s potential and overestimating that of your rivals.
You have not noticed that in the nuclear age, the electric age, strength no longer lies in numbers, and that, in order to maintain its leading position, France must continue along the path initiated by General de Gaulle.
(Mixed reactions in the Chamber) Defending France' s interests alone in all areas - but you are, of course, all anti-Gaullist over there, that goes without saying - in all areas and always, being restricted as little as possible by international commitments, such as Europe, NATO, the UN, G7 -8 -9, not waging war on behalf of others, not ratifying the treaties before the others do.
How can you possibly claim that this supranational Europe strengthens France' s hand, when France holds only 11% of the votes within European bodies, a percentage which does not even match its economic power and still less its position in the field of leading edge technology?
By instigating a simplification of the closer cooperation procedures, you have offered our European partners a two- rather than a three-way directorate.
I hope that those who are excluded from this will be opposed to the attempt which, in fact, is playing into the hands of the Germans.
Is that not right, Mr Cohn-Bendit?
Belittling France by allowing important decisions to be taken without France' s agreement, when, through this closer cooperation, European treaties may, if necessary, be amended to the detriment of France...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, Mr President, France is assuming the presidency of the European Union for the next six months.
While it would seem necessary and legitimate to seek to reform the institutions and to give them a new lease of life, given that the system is so flawed and lacking in democracy, we should nonetheless not forget the main thing, which is the welfare, respect and full development of the peoples which make up the nations of Europe.
I am a member of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities.
This name in itself represents our programme, whose prime objective is to ensure that the identities and aspirations of each country are taken into optimum consideration, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
Following the crisis of the Santer Commission - which rocked the institutions - why the devil did they bury the expert committee' s report exposing the serious mismanagement within the institutions? We must learn the lessons of the past in order to make preparations for the future to avoid, once again, strengthening the powers of the Commission, a technocratic structure operating without transparency or democracy.
Should we not challenge the political dimension it has granted itself?
We cannot be content with a Europe adopting ever more dehumanised texts that are too far removed from the needs of the people, who are often the victims of such texts in their daily lives, especially when the vague nature of such texts often means that the final decision is made by the Court of Justice which, by dint of its power of interpretation, sets itself up as a true legislative authority, but without any political supervision.
We reject government by officials as much as we reject government by judges.
Consequently, the IGC must not be the instrument of a reform which will turn the Europe of tomorrow into a technocratic monster, ever more ignorant of the peoples' legitimate concerns and of the opinion of the national parliaments that represent them.
We cannot agree to this reform granting some states the right and the power to force binding texts on states which are unwilling.
The institutional reform we are promised is putting a stranglehold on our nations, especially the smallest ones.
New administrative and voting systems are being created which give power and hegemony to those that some people call pioneer states. This is not acceptable.
Diversity must be respected, and we must allow diversities to be expressed, for they are the true wealth of Europe.
Whereas the construction of Europe ought to be seeking to achieve coordination between the policies of Member States, the objective of integration is leading us towards an intolerable process of uniformisation.
This accelerated uniformisation, the origin of the single model, runs counter to the very thing that we strive to safeguard every day, namely diversity.
How is it possible to claim to defend the individual' s aspiration for a better life when every day challenging our cultures and our traditions a little more? The fact is, behind the institutional debates, there are a number of particularly important subjects, such as employment, health, food safety and the protection of local products.
In addition, there is the entire debate on balanced regional development and respect for the users of territories, and also the future of public services and state monopolies.
We maintain that the French-style public service, which is of particular structural value in terms of regional planning and social cohesion, such as postal, railway and energy services, etc., must be defended against the Commission' s position.
Does defending the national interest make one anti-European?
Does asking for the directives such as those on 'birds' , 'habitats' , 'open air markets' or 'biotechnologies' to be amended make one anti-European? On the eve of enlargement, we need to carefully consider this acquis communautaire that some parties would like to make 'immutable' in principle, with scant regard for democracy and subsidiarity.
In conclusion, Mr President, we hope that you will have the determination to restore the right of expression to the elected representatives and the various peoples of Europe in order to prevent a new rural and territorial divide.
In order for France to speak with a single voice, it is the voice of the people which must be heard. The 'blues' showed us the way.
It was a fine victory, Mr President, but the championship was possible only thanks to the Europe of the nations!
I should like to thank the President, Mr Jacques Chirac, for the very full answers he has given the group chairmen in this House.
We shall carry on with our debate.
The President is forced to leave us because the family of the hostage held on Jolo, Sonia Wendling, asked to meet President Jacques Chirac, in his capacity as President-in-Office of the Council, to see how all these poor hostages might be released as quickly as possible.
I am sure, Mr Hager, that you share the anxiety of these families.
Madam President, you could not be more wrong.
It is a matter of deep regret to me that the President-in-Office of the Council left the House just as the representative of the last group of delegates was about to speak, thereby registering his disinterest.
The honourable members are left wondering whether this is an act against the Independents or against the first Austrian representative to speak in this debate.
I fear that in behaving as he has done today, the President-in-Office of the Council, who spoke out against exclusion earlier on, is guilty of that very thing I therefore refuse to give my opinion on the programme of the French Council Presidency, owing to a suspected lack of interest, and I regret that such a signal has been sent out at the beginning of the Council Presidency.
In spite of the foregoing, being an optimist, I hope that in future this Council Presidency, like others before it, will take cognisance of its neutral position, and that at the end of the day, normality will also return to the group.
Mr President, I have a point of order under Rule 120 of the Rules of Procedure, which moreover is expressly quoted on page 25 of today' s agenda.
According to the schedule, the Council was to have 30 minutes' speaking time.
President Chirac spoke for one and a quarter hours.
According to the schedule, Members of Parliament were to be allowed to speak, but the President did not silence the people interrupting Mr de Gaulle.
Instead she cut his speech to a strict three minutes, even though she had allowed the other speakers an extra minute and, finally, she did not allow the speaker on behalf of the Technical Group of Independent Members to speak.
He was entitled to speak before the response from the President-in-Office of the Council.
The President has not fulfilled her obligation to run debates in this House objectively.
Mr President, the programme which the French President has just presented is both ambitious and realistic.
I was, however, hoping for a clearer commitment regarding the fundamental rights included in the Union' s agenda, for two reasons.
In the first place, these rights must be enshrined in the forthcoming Charter of Fundamental Rights.
In his speech, however, the President did not cite the examination of this charter as one of the main points of the European Council in Biarritz.
In his response to the first speakers, he suggested that there could be some discussion of a proposal for a charter in Biarritz, but with a content that, he is well aware, would make it almost impossible to incorporate into the Treaties at the European Council in Nice.
Is France, the homeland of human rights for two centuries, not going to set a more ambitious objective? This would be a great disappointment.
In the second place, since Amsterdam, fundamental rights have formed the foundations of our Union and should represent the constant reference for any Member State action.
The creation of an area of freedom, justice and security is the most difficult undertaking before us, especially given that unanimity is still the rule.
This is a good subject of investigation for the intensified cooperation to which the President recently referred once again.
The President was the first to refer to the terms of Article 6 of the Treaty in connection with the Haider case.
In adopting such a stance, he set a very high standard, not just for the Austrian Government but, indirectly, for all the others too.
The measures the French Presidency has already announced in the areas of justice and home affairs appear to live up to this challenge.
They are, however, merely plans at this stage.
Let me therefore address the French Presidency with the words the Greeks used to address the most promising athlete in ancient times: hic rhodus, hic salta [here is your Colossus, now jump!].
Mr President, Minister, let me share a few comments with you in the intimate surroundings of the end of the day's sitting.
Apparently, Europe is some sort of vamp provoking everyone into political promiscuity.
I do not know, after listening to President Chirac' s comments, what political party he is going to wind up in at the end of his career, but the transformation is extraordinary, and it is true that we have taken twenty-one years to persuade President Chirac that Europe is something other than that which he believed when he made his Cochin address in 1978.
I should like to say that I am still convinced that we are not going to have to work so hard over such a long period to persuade Prime Minister Jospin to at last grasp the European cause firmly.
He is not always against it and it is safe to make minor observations like that without getting irritated!
I simply meant that I am convinced that it is no longer enough today to repeat things endlessly: President Chirac said many things that I agree with.
Ambitious, yes, it is ambitious, but let us see tangible proof of this ambition!
I am sorry, for example, that he did not repeat what he said in Berlin regarding the agenda for a constitution.
In Berlin, he said we should have enlargement plus constitution at the same time.
I would have liked him to say the same thing before this House: enlargement plus constitution, at the same time, so that we might have a constitution by 2003 or 2004 or 2005 as well as enlargement.
Secondly, speaking of a constitution, we must be careful not to be too naive.
Who does what? It sounds good but what does it actually mean?
For Europe means shared authority, and increasingly shared authority: in other words, the constitution ought to tell us who does what, and how, together.
That is precisely the problem!
If it were quite as simple to perform political surgery, we would make faster progress.
And then I must say that, as Paul Lannoye said, I am saddened when I hear people discussing foreign policy and sparing no expense on arms and defence without even mentioning conflict prevention.
Europe' s role is also to invent an alternative foreign policy based specifically on preventing conflicts, on the need for ever fewer arms.
I am not saying that we do not need arms, I am not so naive, but I do not want European foreign policy to be exemplified merely by top fighter planes and soldiers obliged to go to Bosnia or Kosovo, but instead by our ability to prevent a conflict arising in Bosnia or Kosovo.
From this point of view, I would say that President Chirac is going in the right direction and I think that Prime Minister Jospin would be able to catch up with him if he were more clearly and resolutely pro-European.
Mr President, Minister, one presidency follows another, but, hearing Mr Chirac, we realise that the speeches and the pious hopes regarding exclusion remain the same.
It must, however, be noted that the fate of the fifty million poor people or the fifteen million unemployed people in Europe remains the same, whatever the presidency.
Europe is democratically bankrupt. The operation of the institutions is quite outside the concerns and outside the control of the citizens.
Europe is a liberalising machine deregulating public services at the expense of the people' s basic needs.
Europe is a fortress favouring illegal trafficking in modern-day slaves, as the Dover tragedy showed.
The demonstrations in Seattle, Geneva and Millau, however, show that another sort of Europe, another sort of globalisation, is possible.
To achieve a democratic Europe, let us begin by bringing down the Schengen fortress and agreeing that all men and women have the same freedom of movement as capital, and let us regularise the situation of illegal immigrants.
To achieve a social Europe, let us begin by banning layoffs on the part of firms in profit.
Finally, to achieve a Europe of justice and solidarity, let us begin by setting up, and not just talking about, a Tobin tax, up to a level that would make it possible to guarantee the subsistence of the billions of children and adults totally without resources.
For the people, these requirements are the priorities in the debate, which is certainly needed, on the weighting of votes or the right of veto.
Mr President, Minister, I am speaking on behalf of the Italian radicals in the TDI Group who, as everyone knows, are European federalists.
For this reason, we will be paying extremely close attention to any institutional steps towards closer cooperation, which must be clearly and firmly established within the Community framework.
I shall use my speaking time, however, to remind you that this Parliament asked the IGC to grant Parliament the right finally to decide on its own location.
This is a fundamental right, and three hundred Members of this House, moreover, made it very clear that they are unhappy about being forced to come to Strasbourg twelve times a year.
I hope that the French Presidency will take due account of this issue, which we consider to be extremely important.
It is no coincidence that the Friday sitting has been abolished, Minister.
It is because many Members of this Parliament are fed up with the problems they experience in getting to Strasbourg and in working properly in these conditions.
Mr President, in view of the way in which the list of speakers has been manipulated today in order to put paid to my colleague Mr Hager, I have only this to say to you: if the Austrian referee Benko had broken all the rules in the game between France and Portugal, as Madam President has done today, then France would not even have reached the final.
That is the funny side of it.
The less amusing aspect of the conflict we are engaged in today is that there are several hundred delegates sitting here who are actually willing to accept this without protest!
Mr President, we are delighted with what Mr Chirac, the President-in-Office of the Council, has said at a time when we have the strong feeling that there is a deep crisis in Europe and when we would like to know where we stand.
I should like to discuss the three factors which I think are at the root of the crisis in Europe today.
The first is a profound questioning of all the institutional players in Europe; the second factor is the distance and the lack of understanding that separate the general public from the European institutions, and the third factor, which is the key to the first two, is a loss of perspective.
For a long time, we in Europe felt that we knew where we were going.
This is no longer the case. That is why many of us welcomed the speech made by the President of the French Republic to the Reichstag, particularly his decision to declare the European Constitution to be the key to all future mechanisms for change.
Today, he has chosen not to use the same words.
Many of us regret this because we feel that his statement that the ideas he expressed in the Reichstag went beyond the French Presidency of the Union, represents a fresh approach.
We feel instead that the issue of Europe' s prospects, the issue of the architecture of a new Europe and the issue of the future European Constitution belong right at the heart of the French Presidency of the Union.
These are not secondary or incidental issues, to be addressed at a later date; they should be addressed as a matter of priority and are at the heart of the discussions that we will be holding.
If we are unable to respond to the issue of Europe' s prospects, we will not be able to respond to the technical issues that face us.
This would be a missed opportunity for us.
I shall sum this up in one sentence: work on the Constitution and therefore on Europe' s prospects must be clearly launched during the French Presidency.
It must be launched at Nice.
Mr President, Mr President, the French presidency' s programme is interesting and in no way devoid of substance.
There is a lot one can agree with.
I nonetheless wonder whether it is in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity to talk about housing, health care and sport.
Ought the EU really to be devoting itself to those kinds of issue?
The idea of a community of values is important, but opinions are divided on how this is to be achieved.
Many of us are disappointed at Prime Minister Jospin' s statement to the effect that there will be no change during the French presidency when it comes to the 14 countries' boycott of Austria.
The intensive discussion in recent weeks of our visions of Europe' s future has been stimulating, but it causes disquiet in the candidate States. Where exactly does the EU stand?
This is an issue to which Mr Cox also referred.
The unclear signals give scope to populists with nationalist agendas in the candidate States who want to prevent their countries from becoming Members of the Union.
Was it a coincidence that no statement was made at Feira to the effect that we should be ready for enlargement by the year 2002?
Does the French presidency' s policy concerning a further Intergovernmental Conference at the end of 2003 or the beginning of 2004 imply support for Chancellor Schröder' s proposal for a new conference on the division of labour? Even in that case, the signals are unclear, which is alarming for the candidate States.
To conclude, I would point to one instance of unilateral action which is worrying.
Why did France discontinue Slovakia' s membership of the OECD, citing the EU' s directive on TV issues? Was it right to do this off its own bat, without checking what the other Member States thought?
What was the reason for its action? This has also given rise to concern in the candidate States about the attitude we take to their legislation and to their legitimate interest in being involved in OECD cooperation, which is economically important.
Mr President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the French Presidency' s ship is heavily-laden and we hope, particularly having heard Mr Chirac' s answers, that it arrives safely in Nice, in six months.
Nice is founded on an ancient Phoenician settlement, originally named Nicaia, meaning victory, and we are certainly expecting victory on the part of the French Presidency, both for the current citizens of the Union and for those who will be joining it.
We were pleased to note the Presidency' s will, ambition and clear-sightedness, particularly with regard to the contradictions inherent in some of our European policies.
Global warming is one such problem. Like a sword of Damocles, it hangs over not only the Union, but over the whole world.
Integrating this essential factor into all European policies is the political challenge to which we must respond.
I am not convinced that this is the direction we are currently taking, in spite of all the fine words that have been spoken here this morning.
Mr President, the historical issue concerning the French Presidency, for I do feel that it is a historical issue, is first and foremost to open up the way for the construction of a Europe for all Europeans.
We invited the new democracies in Eastern Europe to join us now that they have put the ordeal of Communism behind them and we were right to do so. Nevertheless, we were fully aware that we would not fit greater Europe into the institutions of little Europe.
Since then we have dawdled and dragged our feet over the reform of these institutions.
Ten years after the fall of the Berlin wall and one year after the Helsinki decisions on enlargement, I see the new Intergovernmental Conference under the French Presidency as the kick-start that all Europeans expect of Europe. I say this because it is not only the size of Europe that is changing; it is also its very nature.
If we consider Europe as a whole, we must define Europe and define its borders, its values and the European project. Any definition of borders raises the problem of Turkey, which, to my mind, should become an associate country rather than a fully integrated one.
We must also think of Europe in a different light, not as a huge nation-state, with a super-government, a super-president, a super-administration or even a super-tax.
Instead, we should see Europe as the construction of an area of genuine federalism, which protects the diversity of people and of nations, which has a clear constitution that defines and limits the powers of Europe and which applies the principle of subsidiarity and ensures that this will be strictly complied with.
Today, the French Presidency has an obligation to achieve results. As the French President said, unless the IGC is successful, there is no point in thinking about the following stages.
A review of decision-making mechanisms in order to prevent paralysis and a review of the functioning of the Council and the Commission are all on the agenda and I think that the projects for tomorrow and beyond must not conceal what is required today.
The success of the IGC now will actually be the best basis on which to build the huge project for the greater Europe of tomorrow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the French Presidency is going to be a particularly busy one.
The Portuguese Presidency has done a great job and achieved major, innovative results at the Lisbon Summit. Now the Member States of the Union need to implement the results swiftly.
However, not enough progress is being made at the IGC.
There is a need for stronger political will and for the political level of the negotiations on reforming the Union to be raised immediately. It is therefore important that the debate on the future structure of the Union has been reopened following the positions adopted by Minister Joshka Fischer.
Now, the first task must be to define at Nice certain priority issues referred to by President Chirac in his introductory speech, such as closer cooperation, the adoption of majority voting as the rule and the adoption of a decisive Charter on Fundamental Rights which will be included in the Treaties. This would be a basic step towards defining a European Constitution.
We feel that these decisions are crucial in terms of the reform of the Union: without them any discussion of its structure will be academic, and it is clear that, now that the single currency and the Central Bank have been established, Europe is in need of new political unity and, as has been said, a fresh boost for economic growth and social cohesion.
President Prodi reiterated these points.
I therefore feel that we can assure the French Presidency that we will make every effort to make these next six months a success: we are aware that there are considerable political differences between the countries and that now is the time to adopt clear positions.
In our opinion, there is a clear dividing line between those who want enlargement to bring less political integration and those who consider that greater political integration and clearly defined timeframes will be necessary.
We feel that opinion is also divided over the form that the Union' s institutions should take after enlargement. There would appear to be a choice between developing the supranational components - strengthening the role of Parliament and the Commission - and enhancing the intergovernmental aspects.
We would like to make it possible for the countries who so desire to cooperate more closely to present a united front in a number of sectors such as economic and monetary union, which is still far from being fully achieved, internal security, and defence and foreign policy, which represents an open, dynamic core of more advanced integration.
As regards management of the economy, we support the establishment of a Euro-12, for we feel that, with the introduction of the euro, this is necessary for the Central Bank as well.
We consider it essential to maintain the fundamental goals of the European Social Model - adapting it, of course, to the diversification requirements determined by the new economy - and introducing new forms of flexibility which are different from those governing the labour market: flexibility which makes its own rules.
We believe in increased synergy between the European Parliament and national parliaments, but we are against commingling which undermines the fundamental consideration that the European Parliament is the parliamentary organ of supranationality elected by direct universal suffrage.
I would like to make one last point regarding the European Union' s role in the international institutions.
President Chirac delivered a highly Europeanist speech to the Bundestag, and committed himself to revitalising the development of the European Union and providing it with a Constitution voted in by the European citizens.
We support these proposals.
President Chirac once again expressed French support for the German application for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council, confirming his intention to strengthen the French-German axis in the context of a purely intergovernmental vision of the future structure of the European Union.
For a long time we have felt a review of the membership of the Security Council to be necessary, but we consider that it would be more appropriate for representation to the Council to be by major continents, such as Africa, South America and Europe.
Since we feel that the intergovernmental, supranational and parliamentary aspects should be balanced within Europe, we consider that it is the European Union as a whole which should be represented at the Security Council.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, Ministers, ladies and gentlemen, the requests, proposals and projects presented during these past weeks by Mr Fischer, Mr Bayrou, Mr Monti and Mr Védrine and by President Chirac in Berlin, and Mr Chirac' s speeches here today are all evidence of the fact that, despite setbacks and despite our differences, we have entered a new stage of European construction.
The positive results we hope for from the Intergovernmental Conference should allow us to proceed to the necessary reform of the institutions in preparation for enlargement.
In this context, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament will each have to play an equally important and equally influential role, but these roles must include active cooperation.
It is the citizens who are calling for it, the citizens who are the true protagonists of the Europe of today, but, more importantly, the protagonists of the Europe of tomorrow, an enlarged, integrated Europe which is capable of meeting the challenge of globalisation. The success of the euro will not be sufficient on its own for us to hold our ground against the United States and the China of tomorrow.
It is true that we must move forward in the area of the common foreign and security policy and support our currency politically as well, but progress has to be made in the defence of the fundamental values of our Union, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights must reflect this.
It is the duty of confirmed Europeanists such as ourselves, who believe in the social market economy, to fight the scourge of unemployment, and in order to do this Europe must encourage the small and medium-sized businesses and foster the development of trade, agriculture, tourism and craft trades, but, in the context of subsidiarity, it must also reduce the burden of taxation.
However, as President Chirac stressed, we must educate our young people, prepare them for the challenge of globalisation, and not only from a professional and cultural point of view. We must educate young people to stand up for principles, and the fight against drugs and the development of the social function of sport may well play a significant part in this.
But, Mr President, the best results take time to achieve: they are like mosaics, built one piece at a time.
Yet are we sure that this Presidency will achieve the goals it has set itself just because it is French and France was one of the founder countries of the Union? It will have the sure political and parliamentary support of the Forza Italia delegation in the PPE-DE Group, for the Italy of today and of tomorrow will certainly be a protagonist in the construction of that Europe in which we all believe so strongly.
Mr President, I congratulate the French Presidency of the European Union on its ambitious approach in all areas and for its intention not to end the Intergovernmental Conference with a minimal agreement, but with results which make enlargement a real possibility.
Due to time restrictions, I will only refer to three points.
Firstly, closer cooperation and integration.
They will only be useful, Mr President, if four conditions are met: firstly, the Community dimension of the Union must be increased, rather than the intergovernmental dimension; there must be more integration, not more cooperation. Secondly, the existing institutions must be used, not replaced with new bodies.
Thirdly, we should not have cooperation or integration of a variable composition, since that would mean a Europe á la carte, that is to say, an ungovernable Europe. Fourthly, in the same way, we should prevent this leading to factions or closed blocs which would divide the Union.
In other words, we want closer integration which is open to all current and future members of the Union.
My second point relates to the functioning of the Euro-12, which must be improved, but not by reducing further the current democratic deficit.
The Commission must therefore have genuine powers for making proposals, and not only for recommendation, and Parliament must participate seriously, starting with consultation, but extending to codecision.
My third point, Mr President, is that I am also one of those who believes that we need a Constitution for the Union.
My question is, why not take a first step now by approving the basic treaty prepared in Florence on the initiative of the Commission? This does not change anything, but it does mean something very important: that the citizens may finally become aware of which system is governing them.
It would at least be a step forward in terms of this clarification which we are all requesting, but which we never get to see, at least with regard to something which must not be forgotten, Mr President, i.e. the distribution of competences in the European Union.
We are leaving it for the future.
Is the ratification process in certain countries not going to jeopardise this? I leave that question open.
I will end here. The ambitions are fine, but we want facts and we expect to see them at the end of the French Presidency.
Mr President, since we are in the run-up to the Treaty of Nice and since we have had the pleasure of reading a number of valuable speeches by Mr Joschka Fischer and President Chirac, it may be a novel idea for Germany and France to share the Union' s presidency for a year.
But under one proviso: that a fundamental breakthrough be reached in the field of European cooperation in line with all these fine speeches we have had the pleasure to hear and read.
This is not only meant as a pleasant intro, because what I want to establish above all is that the French-German axis should not only generate philosophies for the future but should also solve the institutional problems of today and tomorrow.
Whatever happens in Nice, decisions need to be taken on decision making.
As we see it, all European legislation, which does not affect the constitutions of the Member States, should be decided on by qualified majority, with codecision from Parliament.
In addition, decisions need to be taken on vote weighting and as we see it, it should be the size of the population in the Member States, as is the case in this House, that is the deciding factor.
Decisions need to be taken regarding the number of Commissioners - in our opinion, this should be one per Member State - and on the number of MEPs - we said a long time ago, 700 is more than enough.
Also, decisions need to be taken on the Court of Justice and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I completely echo Mr Gil-Robles' views that this should be included in the Treaties and that cooperation should be stepped up.
As far as the latter is concerned, it is vital that we tackle the Union' s structure.
Both Mr Joschka Fischer and President Chirac are right in this.
I am not averse to a federal structure for the European Union.
It could even be termed confederation, as President Chirac said earlier today.
It is high time that we had a European constitution which is organised in the way that the university of Florence recently proposed.
It is high time Mr Prodi had the authority and rights which a European government should in fact have.
It is also high time we had a bicameral system, but not of the kind proposed by Mr Joschka Fischer, with a European Parliament, as we have now, and a second parliament comprising representatives of the parliaments of the respective Member States.
It would be far better to convert the European Council of Ministers to a kind of Federal Council.
Interestingly, this is a term which Mr Chirac used in his response to the questions.
Surely this is the most natural way to provide Europe with a bicameral system consisting of a parliament and senate.
All we need to do is to turn the European Council into a senate.
Finally, such a constitution should very clearly and precisely define Europe' s and the Member States' respective remits.
As far as I am concerned, the European package as a whole could quite easily be fleshed out a little bit and the powers of the European Member States could be increased once again, as long as it is clear what is European and what is national, and as long as we find our way out of the diffuse intergovernmental and Community structure in which we find ourselves at present.
It would be ideal if the decision was taken in Nice to devise a project of this kind in two to three years' time.
I hope that the words of Mr Joschka Fischer and those of Mr Chirac will not remain words but will be turned into action.
I should appreciate a reaction from both honourable gentlemen who stayed behind during lunch.
Mr President, Minister, the French Presidency has committed itself to a courageous, ambitious, brilliant agenda, considering some of the difficulties we are experiencing at this time.
The important aspect of President Chirac' s speech was, we felt, our common values and intentions.
In our opinion, a Europe which builds its future with constancy, continuity and responsibility is the best guarantee that the founding fathers' blueprint is implemented faithfully, that the endeavours of all those who have worked on it over the past 50 years are at the basis of its success and that Europe is built on solid foundations.
It seems appropriate to break down the complex problem of the institutions: we must conclude the IGC on the three topics left over from Amsterdam and closer cooperation.
This is the only way we can move forward in the intense debate on the future of the European Union and reconcile the economic development of Europe with the strengthening of the European Social Model and with the fight against social exclusion and modern forms of poverty, in order to bring Europe closer to the citizens, step up negotiations on enlargement and increasingly consolidate the European Union' s role in the world.
In this context, we consider it essential to reinforce the European Commission, a supranational, independent body, the full expression of the unique characteristics of the structure of the European institutions.
Enlargement is the conclusion of a political process which began with the reconciliation of the countries of Western Europe 50 years ago.
This historic event must not be dismissed by replacing the Berlin wall with another wall, the wall of specific interests, egoism and bureaucracy.
However, as the French Presidency rightly pointed out, enlargement must not weaken the Union' s action either.
Mr Chirac' s words on the future of the European Union are reassuring, particularly because he spoke of a new stage which would start after the conclusion of the IGC, on subjects such as the consolidation of legitimate democracy in decisions, security and defence, the accentuation of the unique characteristics of the European institutions, a clear definition of responsibilities and the consolidation of the principle of subsidiarity, matters which cannot be ignored in the near future.
The subject of closer cooperation has been widely debated and disputed. It used to be known as the 'two speed' Europe and is now referred to as the 'hard core' .
Some see it as an opportunity and some as a threat. In any case, all are in agreement that this situation should not lead to division but should spur us on to reach together those new frontiers which the current European model does not allow us to reach but which, in the future, it will have to.
I would inform our French friends that Italy, which has been at the forefront of the European project ever since the beginning and which, we hope, is soon to enter a period of political stability, will be become increasingly active, implementing tangible actions, alongside the countries which sincerely desire to reinforce the Union' s foundations and to achieve the most important and ambitious cooperation objectives.
Knowing that they both have pressing engagements I should like to pay particular thanks to Mr Moscovici and President Prodi for staying with us until the end of the debate.
Thank you very much.
(The sitting was suspended at 2 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Delegation of EU observers at the Zimbabwean elections
Ladies and gentlemen, I apologise for the fact that we are starting a few minutes late.
However, there has been an important trialogue meeting, which the representative of the Council, Minister Moscovici, had to attend, and because he was held up, we have waited for him.
He will have no chance at all to acclimatise because we are going to start straightaway with the statements from the Council and the Commission on the delegation of EU observers at the Zimbabwean elections, as per the agenda.
Mr President, honourable Members of the European Parliament, Commissioners, please forgive me first of all for my lateness, which is not due to any lunchtime whim but simply to the fact that Jacques Chirac, the French President, was with us.
Mrs Fontaine accompanied him, which prolonged the essential trialogue that we held with Mr Prodi, the President of the Commission, by a few minutes.
Zimbabwe is experiencing a serious economic, social and political crisis.
Despite some infringements of human rights, which have been rightly condemned by the international community, the country has remained, in essence, under the rule of law. It has been able to do so largely because of the dynamism of civil society and of the independence of its judicial system.
Over the last three years, a reversal in its external economic situation has weakened its economic fabric, which is structured but ageing.
Shifts towards authoritarianism and lax management of the economy have continued to tarnish the country' s image, undermined the confidence of the community of sponsors and has encouraged the people to challenge the government.
This discontent was expressed in February' s referendum on the constitution, which was the first time that the Presidential party had lost an election since independence in 1980.
Legislative elections were therefore a major issue for the ruling party.
In order to hamper the success of the opposition, the ruling party risked heightening tensions by conducting a tough election campaign and by making the unequal distribution of farmland the issue for mobilising the rural world and veterans of the war of independence.
With regard to this issue, the Head of State has allowed a huge movement for the occupation of properties to develop and has halted the legal framework for future compulsory purchases.
These shifts, which I have just mentioned, have resulted in the deaths of 33 people, they have made the economic crisis worse and have distorted fair competition in the elections, thereby creating a real risk of instability in southern Africa.
The European Union nevertheless considered it important that elections should be held and that the results should be credible and acceptable.
It therefore sought the agreement of the Zimbabwean authorities to send, as far in advance of the elections as possible, a large mission of nearly 200 observers, thereby demonstrating the Union' s interest in seeing democracy consolidated in that country.
Nobody can deny the fact that this presence contributed to reducing tensions and to restoring a climate, which was as conducive as possible, in such a highly sensitive context, to the free expression of the whole population' s right to vote.
I wish at this point to pay tribute to Mr Schori, who led this mission, and to the remarkable work accomplished by his team.
Although our observers noted that the degree of violence, irregularities and intimidation in the period leading up to the elections meant that the words 'free and honest' could not be applied to the fifth legislative elections in the history of Zimbabwe, they nevertheless emphasised the efficient organisation of the voting itself, the large turnout - I believe it was the largest since independence was achieved - and the peaceful atmosphere in which it took place.
The vote-counting processes were not cause for controversy either.
On behalf of the European Union, I should also like to congratulate the Zimbabwean people, who, by taking part in these elections in such numbers, have proved their determination to take their destiny into their hands in a peaceful and democratic way.
I am also pleased to note that the results of the elections have been universally accepted by all participating parties.
The entry into Parliament of a significant opposition - in fact it almost has a majority in the seats that were contested in these elections - suggests that constructive debates will be held.
Zimbabwe has undoubtedly turned a new page in its young history.
The fundamental problems still remain, of course, and they remain intact.
This is why the Union is urging all political forces in Zimbabwe to mobilise and to bring together the threads of dialogue, in order to set the country firmly on the road to recovery.
The Union hopes that the new government will adopt, with the help of the country' s new representatives, credible measures for getting the economy back on its feet, measures which are likely to restore the confidence of local operators and of donors.
For twenty years, the European Union has shown itself to be Zimbabwe' s leading partner in its development.
Zimbabwe is a friendly country and a partner country under the Lomé Convention and the European Union hopes to continue this policy, with acknowledged respect for human rights, for democratic principles and for the primacy of law.
Because the Union wishes to continue to intervene on behalf of those who have been worst affected by the crisis, it is particularly willing to provide assistance for the necessary land reform in order to reduce poverty, despite the fact that this has not been implemented in an orderly, transparent or rational way.
The European Union wants to believe in the future of a democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe, which is a factor for the stability and the harmonious development of southern Africa.
Mr President, first of all may I say that I would have been delighted on this occasion to have spoken after Mr Schori who has obviously done an outstanding job - as the presidency said - in Zimbabwe.
I think all of us who wish Zimbabwe well would want to congratulate him and all those who were in the EU observation team.
They have all done a magnificent job.
They clearly managed to fulfill their objectives under very difficult circumstances and they discharged their mandate in an extremely effective way.
The mobilisation of a full and experienced team on the ground less than four weeks after an informal decision by European Union foreign ministers is a tribute to the enormous efforts of everyone concerned.
This and the professionalism of the observation mission enabled them to surmount numerous political hurdles. It made the operation a reference point for electoral observation in countries in crisis.
It is widely acknowledged that the European Union mission contributed to reducing the levels of violence, and I think it is also recognised that it helped to build up the confidence of civil society during the elections.
Once again may I stress that the reputation of Mr Schori and the role that he played were key factors in our judgment for the success of the mission.
I believe that the mission constituted the most credible observer voice during these critical times in Zimbabwe.
This was reflected in extensive press coverage during the whole period, both locally and internationally.
What is more the European Union mission being by far the largest observer mission deployed in the country and operational right across the nation, also contributed significantly to the coordination of the overall electoral monitoring effort in Zimbabwe.
We have of course had a chance of becoming acquainted with the main outlines of the report, though we are looking forward to the opportunity of studying it in detail.
I know that the first part of the report follows the interim report which the honourable Member made, and is an account of the violence and intimidation which sadly marked the early stages of the election campaign.
We know from what he has said that the report analyses the voting process and the conduct of the poll and I think - though I would not want to take words out of his mouth - that by and large the actual conduct of the poll seems to have been pretty satisfactory.
Finally, and most importantly, and this is what we are looking forward to hearing from the honourable Member, the report focuses on the consequences for Zimbabwe's future.
The honourable gentlemen is right to recommend that the European Union should in the coming weeks and months monitor very carefully what is happening in Zimbabwe and provide assistance and support wherever it is appropriate for us to do so.
We would certainly want to endorse this, and my colleague Commissioner Nielson and I will certainly intensify our efforts to strengthen channels of communication, both formal and informal, with President Mugabe and his government, to facilitate the transition to effective multi-party democracy.
The honourable Member has spoken of how important it is that the government should prosecute those who have been involved in political violence or guilty of other human rights abuses; he has also stressed the importance of the courts determining the outcome of any challenge to the election results.
It is very important that the government should respect their decisions.
These are both enormously important points and touch, of course, centrally on the credibility of the whole democratic process.
Zimbabwe is plainly at a crossroads.
The outcome of the legislative elections could mark a major transformation in the country's political culture, the transition to a multiparty system in which Parliament will replace the ruling party Zanu PF politburo as the main policy-making institution.
President Mugabe's electoral strategy, focused on land reform and support for the war veterans, failed to address the country's economic plight and this was obviously reflected in the votes polled by his party.
The new government of Zimbabwe and all those who want to see the country rise above its present serious difficulties, whether they relate to the economic situation, the question of land reform or the terrible scourge of HIV, must now address the challenges effectively, collectively and constructively.
We have considerable influence as a major donor.
This influence has to be used to encourage the government to take positive steps for re-establishing the rule of law and good governance as a first step towards a more general recovery, and I know this is a point which my colleague, Commissioner Nielson will want to speak about after me.
But, once again, I would like to offer my personal congratulations to the honourable Member on a very difficult job, extremely well done.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten
You have already indicated that owing to the problematic nature of the issue, two Commissioners are going to give their opinion on it today.
I am therefore looking forward to hearing Commissioner Nielson' s opinion.
Mr President, I would like to start by echoing the congratulations to the EU electoral observation mission. They have managed to do excellent work under very difficult conditions.
The result of these elections offers the EU a new opportunity for reviewing our cooperation with Zimbabwe.
According to the report by the heads of mission there is scope for positive development in Zimbabwe in the political, economic and social fields.
Options for the EU to assist in such development should not be excluded, as they say.
Zanu-PF will have to develop new and more appropriate policies in order to approach the international community for finance to stabilise the economy and restore growth, but the legitimacy of Zanu-PF is at stake because of the extent to which intimidation and electoral malpractice helped it gain victory and because, even discounting the impact of such factors, the MDC won 58 seats, almost as many as Zanu, with 61+1.
The Movement for Democratic Change will not want to share responsibility for the crisis the country is undergoing or for the painful measures which will be necessary for economic recovery.
Zimbabwe's EUR 110 million 8th EDF national indicative programme has a direct poverty alleviation orientation.
Its main sectors of cooperation are agriculture, health and education.
The Commission's approach so far has been that aid directed to the protection of basic social services and the reinforcement of civil society should be maintained even during periods of crisis.
A total of EUR 19 million is about to be released for a micro-projects programme which in the interests of consensual policies has been delayed until after the elections.
It can thus now go ahead.
The Commission has maintained its support for land reform through this micro-projects programme, which is actually for poverty alleviation assistance for legally acquired land in resettlement schemes.
However, in April the Commission froze the EUR 2 million for technical and policy support for land reform.
Until the government's land reform policy was clarified, there seemed little point in continuing a technical and quite academic discussion on the principles of land reform.
Hopefully this will change.
The Commission and other donors are ready to support the process, provided it is in the framework of legality, transparency and poverty alleviation objectives, in accordance with the 1998 donor land conference agreements.
The Commission is preparing a cross-sectoral programme to deal with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Zimbabwe, which is in itself a development crisis and a major cause of present and future poverty.
This programme is to be financed from the EUR 33 million in the 8th EDF second tranche.
I will take a decision on this in the next few months depending on developments in Zimbabwe.
In any event the European Commission is continuing to support poverty alleviation schemes.
If the government seizes the opportunity offered by these new elections, EU support could be more substantial in the future.
As noted by the heads of mission in Harare, it is premature to jump to conclusions on the election and its consequences.
I fully share the view that EU-Zimbabwe development cooperation will depend on real progress in the fields of democratisation, rule of law, human rights and economic reform.
Finally I would like to stress that there is potential for increased cooperation with Zimbabwe, but this will clearly depend on how the situation develops there.
Thank you very much Mr Schori, also for the fact that together with your five colleagues, you left Zimbabwe with a good impression of the European Parliament in Zimbabwe, under difficult circumstances.
The elections in Zimbabwe have been both a victory and a defeat for Mugabe.
They were a defeat in the sense that, for the first time in its short independent life, Zimbabwe has a multi-party political system, which was something that Mugabe clearly opposed.
Apart from tolerating, and even, as we know, promoting, a climate of intimidation and violence, Mugabe has made considerable errors of judgement.
On the one hand, he has underestimated the European Union' s seriousness, willingness and capacity to act in the case of Zimbabwe. However, he has also confused the factors within his own country.
I wonder if this is due to the arrogance of a former, although once respected, African freedom fighter, or to his ignorance of the sociological and political evolution of his country.
It is probably a combination of both things.
Mugabe has brought to these elections the customs and methods of a war of liberation, on occasion treating political rivals as if they were colonial occupiers who needed to be banished.
However, he was unable to appreciate that the emergence of the middle classes was an element which was going to have a different effect for the first time on these elections.
This relative consolidation of a new urban vote, together with the manipulation of official democracy and the violation of human rights, would not otherwise have led to many citizens voting against him, and that is what they have done.
The country and the population will gain as a whole if the current government and the emerging opposition show sufficient political wisdom and common sense to generously and cautiously deal with the transition from former political customs to other new ones.
In this area, the opposition also has a role to play.
Now, after all the accusations and condemnations, in the coming weeks we must watch carefully for any signs of verifiable reconciliation and self-critical acceptance of the errors made.
Mr President, this will help the future of Zimbabwe, its society and the new political culture born of these elections.
We must give decisive support to its future.
Mr President, the fact that the EU observer mission has garnered great international acclaim reflects the fact that Mr Schori has done an excellent job in raising the profile of what we were doing there. I pay great tribute to him.
There is no doubt in Zimbabwe that it has been a case of "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
Mr Mugabe has much to answer for.
If the result may be said to have a positive side, it is the fact that there is now no longer absolute power.
Much of the violence that took place before the elections can be based directly back to the leadership of Zanu-PF and to President Mugabe himself.
The so-called war veterans - they must have been very young when the war of independence was on - have been paid to be on these farms.
This is a grave problem which be traced directly back to the leadership.
There were problems too with the fact that the postal votes, which were sent directly to the army in the Congo on Thursday, miraculously returned on Saturday, all in due form going into many marginal constituencies.
Threats of violence against supporters of the MDC have continued after the elections.
The Archbishop of Bulawayo has been threatened.
All these things must be stopped.
We cannot possibly support a regime that carries on this intimidation.
The fact that President Mugabe wants to stifle inward investment by nationalising the farms, and threatening to do the same with the mines, will do nothing to resolve the economic situation in Zimbabwe.
What Zimbabwe needs is much more inward investment from outside the country.
This will not take place under the present regime.
There is a great and wonderful opportunity in Zimbabwe now with the emergence of the MDC, for all races to work together.
There is great hope for the future, but we must make sure that we keep up the pressure on Zimbabwe and especially on Mr Mugabe.
We should take direct action against assets that President Mugabe owns outside of Zimbabwe.
We must take the argument directly to the man who has created the problems.
Mr President, my speaking time is too restricted to describe the fate of a country for which, for so many years, the situation was in fact quite hopeful, but which for the past couple of years has been on a slippery slope towards greater underdevelopment, whilst the population of Zimbabwe is highly developed.
This is probably one of the things we should give the Mugabe government credit for during its early years.
The population is knowledgeable despite the fact that the opposition was prevented from taking part in the election propaganda in a normal way, at least as far as the official media is concerned. I know Zimbabwe quite well.
For quite a few years running, I visited the country and followed the situation from close by, but I was surprised at the extent of intimidation prior to the elections and I fear that this may continue, even after the elections.
Accordingly, I think we should act within the remit of our international responsibility and ensure that we continue to exert the same benevolent influence after the elections that we had in the run-up to them.
We can do this by driving a hard bargain, yet remaining specific, regarding the planned reforms in Zimbabwe.
A reign of terror pervades the countryside, and this cannot be allowed to continue, of course, because this affects the quality of life of the white and black population alike.
I would like to underline this because these people are also being sucked into a maelstrom of events which are beyond their control.
I hope that we will be able to keep the dialogue going with the government, the opposition and the civil society.
Mr President, the political pressure that preceded the elections and the flagrant manner in which President Mugabe encouraged the violence means that we are not talking now about free and proper elections, although we were sincerely convinced on polling day itself that we were witnessing a desire to hold an irreproachable election.
Everything spoke of a genuine desire on the part of the people of Zimbabwe to build a democratic civil society.
The events of Zimbabwe compel us, however, to consider the relationship between democracy and values, and this may be the right forum for that, as we refer to the EU as a society of values.
At the same time we openly admit that the EU cannot dash about the world paternally handing out advice to others from on high. It is a matter of dialogue.
That was what Pierre Schori, as leader of the EU delegation of election observers, also demonstrated admirably.
Something happened in Zimbabwe that should make every politician consider how we can prevent the demoralising effects of power - among ourselves also.
Why does a former hero of a nation, the father figure of a struggle for independence, now allow the use of violence simply to underpin his own authority? And what has happened to a person' s soul and sense of morality when he has the audacity to proclaim during the elections that the government will be staying in power, no matter what the result?
The philosopher and theologian, Niebuhr, once said that a person' s sense of what is right makes democracy possible, but his inclinations in the opposite direction make democracy absolutely necessary.
In other words: a person' s virtue makes democracy possible; on the other hand, his vices make it necessary.
I think this is one of the truest remarks ever made about democracy.
It follows that, in order to flourish, democracy needs its internal structures to be looked at critically and, indeed, has to be prepared to submit to criticism.
That means that we are willing, in the name of democracy, to encourage people to take a critical stand as citizens.
On the other hand, it requires transparency in decision making and the flow of information.
Only in this way can democracy preserve its self-remedying nature.
In Zimbabwe I also realised very clearly that we cannot speak of human rights without the recognition of human dignity.
It is just empty talk unless it is committed to the unique value and integrity of the individual.
At the same time, I would like to pay my respects to those thirty or more victims of violence who were to die whilst expressing their desire to struggle in favour of a free civil society.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, these elections certainly mark an important moment in Zimbabwe' s national political life.
They also augur extremely well for the European Union' s future cooperation with that country.
There are many things that now seem possible or, in any event, easier, between us.
The report drawn up by the mission led by Mr Schori, the thoroughness of whose work I must emphasis once again, as did Commissioners Patten and Nielsen, provides us with a perfectly clear and impartial analysis of the way in which Zimbabwe' s legislative elections were held.
The electoral situation was particularly tense, not to say violent.
I am convinced that the Union was right, profoundly right, to send this mission, a long time in advance, in order to bring an element of calm to this campaign.
The benefit of this mission in this regard, as in many others, is undeniable.
The mission must continue its work on the ground, as Mr Schori requested.
The Council Presidency is delighted at the generally smooth running of these elections, even if, here and there, the voting conditions might have left us rather perplexed and the mission' s conclusions on this matter are extremely enlightening.
It is now time to forge ahead in conjunction with Zimbabwe.
The Council Presidency fully supports the Commission' s analysis of the need to cooperate with Zimbabwe.
Numerous areas in which we can work have opened up, and they deserve our full involvement. Amongst these are the strengthening of democracy, poverty reduction, and the fight against Aids.
It is crucial that European aid has a direct bearing on the economic and social problems that are besetting the people of Zimbabwe.
Community funds must now be released, as Commissioner Nielsen suggested.
For its part, the Government of Zimbabwe must also move forward and fulfil its commitments to land reform, to respect for court judgements and to economic transparency.
I am convinced that this process needs to ensure the stabilisation of the country and also its democratic involvement in regional integration.
This is why the Council Presidency, and you can be sure of this, ladies and gentlemen, will commit itself to achieving this aim with the same determination as the European Parliament and the Commission.
Thank you very much, Minister
I would like to inform you that pursuant to Rule 37 (2) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received five motions for resolutions.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Trafficking in human beings
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on trafficking in human beings.
Minister Queyranne will deliver the statement on behalf of the Council and in fact he has just arrived, punctual to the second.
Minister, you are in the fortunate position of being able to start your speech immediately.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Council of Ministers has been deeply shocked by the events at Dover and the deaths of 58 Chinese nationals in tragic circumstances.
These events demonstrate the increasing pressure that migration is putting on Western Europe, which we have been aware of for some time.
In order to respond to a situation which is of great concern to our continent, European solidarity must be considerably strengthened.
Firstly, the point must be made quite forcefully that the existence of organised criminal networks, as well as the scale of professional smuggling, which is contemptible but lucrative, plays a central role in illegal immigration, both in increasing the flows themselves and in the methods for smuggling people, of which the tragedy at Dover is an extreme example.
We know that most illegal immigration arrives in Western Europe, as a result of smugglers, particularly in the case of those people coming from far-off destinations such as China.
This point must be emphasised in order to respond to those who say that it is immigration control that creates illegal immigrants.
The increase in non-lawful immigration, on the contrary, leads to greater activity by gangs providing illegal entry to our countries.
It is quite clear that this activity benefits from legislative or operational weaknesses in the destination countries and from all factors that allow the illegal immigrants to enter and remain in these countries in violation of their laws.
That is not all, however. Behind the smugglers, we are beginning to see mafias operating to an ever-greater extent.
Police Chiefs have identified a Russian mafia, exploiting Sri Lankans and Chinese, and a Turkish mafia is taking charge of Kurds, Afghans and Iranians.
We also know that illegal immigrants from the Balkans are under the protection of Albanian mafias.
The fact that many of these illegal immigrants are concentrated in Calais, a bridging post for the United Kingdom - more than 10 000 have been arrested since August 1999 - shows the extremely active nature of the smugglers: 400 of them have been arrested since August 1999.
We should also no longer hide the fact that illegal immigration has become the subject of a veritable traffic in human beings, which consequently leads to crime, even to major organised crime.
Since it is easier, more lucrative and less risky than other forms of trafficking, such as drug trafficking, for example, trafficking in illegal immigrants is becoming a major issue in police and judicial action and cooperation.
The trade in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation is one of the most odious aspects of this trafficking.
When there is this level of organisation, it is no longer simply a question of combating illegal immigration, but of properly fighting crime itself.
The real culprits are those who organise illegal immigration, in whose hands those people hoping to emigrate are merely the playthings of a script that could easily become a tragedy.
We must therefore combat these smugglers first of all. Non-lawful immigration or the trafficking in human beings is a new form of slavery that cannot be tolerated in our democratic societies.
We know, for example, that in order to use the services of a smuggler, it costs a Chinese national between EUR 10 000 and EUR 20 000 and years of illegal work to repay this debt. They generally live under constant threat, without rights or any protection, often in horrific conditions.
The rhetoric of calling for a massive opening up of immigration for work or for the automatic right of residence for all immigrants only feeds this dream of Europe and helps to push hundreds of thousands of people every year into the clutches of criminal networks working in illegal immigration.
The European Union must therefore not make the mistake of targeting the wrong people. It does not intend to do so and will concentrate on those who organise this traffic in human beings, which is one of the most cowardly and odious forms of trafficking.
The Council is determined to implement all necessary measures to combat this odious trafficking.
European cooperation must be based on the means available to the Member States, and the States have clearly decided to provide themselves with the means to fight this scourge effectively.
Since 1995, France has had a central office for the prevention of illegal immigration and employment, which has greatly enhanced its action in breaking up criminal networks in the last two years.
This body has succeeded in breaking up and halting the activities of around fifteen criminal networks per year.
Given the reality of the trade in human beings and of the traffic in illegal immigration, the French Presidency wishes to promote European cooperation, based on the conclusions of the Tampere Summit and on the following principles: co-development, the integration of foreigners, the fight against illegal immigration and the common policy on Asia.
The first point involves taking account of the situation in the countries of origin.
How can we deter people from wanting to leave their country for Europe under any circumstances and thereby often putting their fate in the hands of slavery networks?
The Council must base its action on the guidelines adopted at Tampere and I quote: "The European Union needs a comprehensive approach to migration addressing political, human rights and development issues in countries and regions of origin and transit" .
Migratory movements are actually due to numerous factors: demographic differences between the North and the South, the continual increase in inequalities of income and wealth between the richest and poorest countries, the instability of certain political situations and the often false image that immigrants have of what a future in Europe might hold for them.
Illegal immigration and the trafficking in human beings are not inevitable, however.
They can be combated by means of a firm political will.
In a world that is undergoing profound upheaval, the task of controlling long-term flows must shift from politics to co-development and the stabilisation of the countries in which immigration originates.
The whole purpose of co-development is to link up these countries' policies for development in order to exercise control over migration flows.
France will strive to provide new impetus to this progress towards co-development, making use of its experience in this area.
An agreement has already been signed with Senegal and others are being negotiated with Mali and Morocco.
There are two questions to be answered: how can we encourage the development of local projects, specifically through aid for training and the resettlement of foreigners who wish to return to their mother country in order to contribute to its economic development, and how can this local development contribute to controlling migration flows by stabilising the population?
The study being carried out on these two issues will benefit the future work of the High Level Working Group on Asylum and Immigration, which is today striving to implement the specific measures established in five action plans, covering Morocco and Sri Lanka.
Implementing this priority led to a seminar being held on 6 and 7 July in Paris, in which experts and several Ministers will take part.
The purpose of this seminar is to draw up the text which will guide the work of the European Union, on the basis of a few pilot experiments carried out with countries that have cooperated in this area and which have stable state structures. I am thinking here of Morocco.
The European Union' s second main priority, which was established at Tampere, is to integrate foreign nationals who are legally entitled to be in our countries.
This is an important point with regard to the fight against trafficking in human beings, which feeds off the fact that some foreign nationals in the European Union are on the margins of, or excluded from, society.
This integration requires a firm policy to provide equal economic and social rights and an equally staunch fight against any form of discrimination, particularly in the field of employment.
The French Presidency is planning to hold a seminar in October on this theme, with a view to presenting the Council with a draft text on the harmonisation of permits for extended periods of residence, which is an essential mechanism for integration.
The opportunity to adopt the nationality of Member States is also a fundamental aspect of integrating foreign nationals in Europe, but we realise that, in this area, each country applies its own laws.
The third point emphasised at Tampere is the fight against the criminal networks that I mentioned just now, and against the traffic in human beings. This aspect is clearly one of the French Presidency' s central concerns.
The Tampere Council specifically stressed this priority, and I quote: "The European Council stresses the need for more efficient management of migration flows at all their stages.
It calls for the development, in close co-operation with countries of origin and transit, of information campaigns on the actual possibilities for legal immigration, and for the prevention of all forms of trafficking in human beings. The European Council calls for closer co-operation and mutual technical assistance between the Member States' border control services" .
Following the events in Dover, the Feira European Council called once again for rapid action by the European Union.
This Council, and I quote, "condemned the criminal acts of those who profit from such traffic in human beings and committed the European Union to intensified cooperation to defeat such cross-border crime, which has caused so many other deaths across Europe" .
The Council has urged the forthcoming French Presidency and the Commission to ensure that the Tampere conclusions on this subject are implemented as a matter of urgency.
The French Presidency has already proposed four initiatives to the Council.
The first of these is a draft directive establishing sanctions against transporters who give lifts to illegal passengers.
This draft text would extend the measures provided for in the convention applying the Schengen agreement and the purpose of the text is to provide the Union with a common mechanism for sanctions.
This restates the obligation on transporters to do everything they can to ensure that the passengers they are carrying have travel documents and, if appropriate, the necessary visas. This mechanism also restates the transporter' s obligation to send back or to accept responsibility for sending back foreign nationals who have not been allowed to enter for the reasons I have just mentioned.
This draft directive also provides for sanctions against those who have transported passengers who do not have the necessary documents or visas.
The proposed text provides for a minimum fine of EUR 2000.
A second draft framework decision seeks to increase the criminal punishment for aiding the illegal entry or stay in a country.
On this issue too, by extending the measures of the convention applying the Schengen agreement, covering the obligation of States that are signatories to the convention to provide for sanctions against anyone aiding an illegal entry or stay, France has presented a draft framework decision whose purpose is to encourage the harmonisation of national legislations with regard to defining offences.
This text will therefore play an important role in more effectively curbing the traffic in human beings.
The French Presidency' s third initiative was to also submit a draft directive on cooperation in the matter of expulsions.
The purpose of this draft directive is to facilitate the implementation of an expulsion measure passed by one Member State against a foreign national who is not legally entitled to stay, when this measure is taken by any other State, the foreign national having been arrested in their territory.
Fourthly and finally, an improvement in European cooperation in the area of controlling migration flows and increasing control over external borders is one of the Council of Ministers' priorities.
In its capacity as holder of the Presidency, France has submitted new proposals in this field, specifically an action plan, which the European institutions are about to discuss.
First of all, it is crucial to increase police cooperation in the exchange of information on illegal migration flows and on criminal networks.
The centralisation, cross-checking, analysis and use of this data must be carried out by the existing Working Group.
As the Feira conclusions emphasise, it is particularly important to develop Europol' s role in curbing the traffic in human beings.
The French Presidency therefore intends immediately to ask Europol to submit a report on the action it has undertaken in this area.
The other aim in the field of police cooperation is to strengthen the rapid warning mechanism, which must be made sufficiently effective to enable Member States to be informed about and to react in good time to events connected with illegal immigration.
This mechanism specifically involves the designation of points of contact between Member countries and entrusts the Council Presidency with the task of organising the necessary agreement for implementing the appropriate measures.
Increasing this coordination also involves establishing a network of liaison officers from the Member States in the countries where the immigration originates, in order to improve understanding of particular situations, to control immigration at source, particularly through the checking of travel documents at the point of embarkation at airports.
This whole range of projects, designed to strengthen the fight against illegal immigration, will be the subject of a seminar on criminal networks, which is to be held in Paris on 20 and 21 July, in other words, in a few days' time.
This seminar will bring together high level representatives of the Member States, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the United States, Australia, Canada and Mexico.
Several Ministers from the Member States as well as the heads of various immigration services and border police from Member States will be taking part in this symposium.
I should also like to emphasise the fact that one of the fundamental points resulting from Tampere is the principle of harmonising the right of asylum between Member States.
This is another important tool in the fight against illegal immigration.
We have seen requests for asylum increase dramatically in most countries in the European Union.
This increase reflects the higher number of illegal entries, since 80% to 90% of requests for asylum are rejected by the countries to which they are made.
The right to asylum is frequently used by criminal networks as a legal tool to make the entry into a country and the stay there easier for illegal immigrants.
The main difficulty in our task is therefore the need to reconcile this fundamental right to asylum, which is recognised in international conventions, with the fight against fraud.
With regard to this matter too, I shall refer to the Tampere Summit, where the European Council restated the importance attached by the Union and its Member States to fully respecting the right to asylum.
The Summit conclusions state that "this system should include, in the short term, a clear and workable determination of the State responsible for the examination of an asylum application, common standards for a fair and efficient asylum procedure, and common minimum conditions of reception of asylum seekers" .
It is therefore crucial first of all that we make progress with projects that seek to improve the functioning of the Dublin Convention, with regard to determining the State responsible for the examination of an asylum application.
France is paying close attention to the work currently being undertaken by the Commission.
We will have taken an important step forward if we are able to ensure that the State that is the original point of entry for a foreign national into the European Union has sole responsibility for examining that person' s application for asylum.
The Eurodac system, which will soon be up and running, enabling the fingerprints of asylum seekers to be stored centrally, will certainly contribute to the fight against fraud involving multiple applications.
We must also rapidly attain the objective of a fair and efficient asylum system in Europe.
There is therefore an urgent need to harmonise the conditions of reception for asylum seekers, in order to limit internal flows into European Union territory and thereby achieve a more balanced division between Member States.
This is why the French Presidency has submitted a draft set of guidelines, which is designed to make the Commission' s work and the drawing up of a future directive easier.
We hope to reach our first conclusions at next December' s Council, so that we can contribute to the preparation of the Commission' s draft directive, which is planned for the beginning of 2001.
The Council is therefore determined to use all necessary means to fight against the traffic in human beings and to do so in accordance with the Tampere and Feira conclusions.
The Council takes the view that the issue of the ways and means of illegal entry is no longer a question solely related to the problem of immigration. This issue also involves the fight against organised crime.
This is the approach that must inform our work, and the French Presidency hopes to mobilise all necessary means - national, Community and intergovernmental - to succeed.
Mr President, it is a tragedy that it has taken the deaths of another 58 people to get the problem of trafficking firmly on the international, political agenda.
The Dover disaster has once again opened our eyes to the unscrupulous practices of traffickers in human beings and to the powerlessness - or should that be unwillingness? - on the part of the European Union to stamp out this disgraceful type of exploitation.
Trafficking in human beings has grown into a bigger business than trafficking in drugs, according to The Economist last week.
Organised crime has discovered that this business is not only more profitable, there is less risk involved too.
Every year, about half a million people are smuggled into the European Union.
In the port of Dover alone, hundreds of illegal aliens are arrested on a daily basis.
As the trafficking in human beings increases, so does the economic and sexual exploitation of these people.
Traffickers demand astronomical amounts to smuggle their customers to the West.
Upon arrival, their documents are often seized, as a result of which they are completely at the mercy of crime syndicates.
Young girls are frequently raped during the journey and end up in prostitution or the illegal labour market later on.
It is not unusual for victims who are unable to pay their debts to meet with terror and violence.
It is clear that traffickers in human beings are becoming more professional in their activities.
Their infrastructure, communication and control facilities outstrip those available to the police or courts in the countries of origin or transit.
This internationalisation of organised crime is in stark contrast to the inability of the EU Member States to adopt a coordinated approach in dealing with the trafficking in human beings.
Everyone is agreed that the problem transcends the control, reception and repatriation capacities of the individual countries and that we need to join forces.
But despite the best of intentions, European cooperation is leaving a great deal to be desired.
We do not seem to manage, once the police and courts are involved, to rise above the nationalistic knee-jerk reaction.
And organised crime is exploiting that situation.
Enlargement of the European Union would merely aggravate the problem.
The new countries are, due to their location, extremely vulnerable to the trafficking in human beings.
What is more, their police and court systems are even less adequate than those of the current Member States.
In our resolution, we at least call for the application of the principle of solidarity and make a few very specific proposals for far-reaching cooperation in the fight against the trafficking in human beings.
If we want to prevent tragedies such as those at Dover from happening again, extending the Third Pillar should not be delayed any further, and we are hopeful after President Chirac' s address and Minister Queyranne' s speech.
Mr President, I would also like to begin my intervention by saying that my sentiments about the Dover catastrophe are deeply felt. Unfortunately they are nothing new.
I live in an area of Europe where, every day, every week, the dead bodies of emigrants from the north and south of Africa appear. These victims do not appear in the news because, fortunately, they are yet to die on a massive scale, but rather they die in a trickle.
Having said this, I am sure, as Commissioner Vitorino has said, that the European Union needs a common policy in order to manage the legal entry of immigrants - bearing in mind our economic, social and demographic situation - in a reasonable way, preventing arbitrary treatment and, above all, turning to legal immigration avenues instead of traffickers in human beings.
I believe that we have the responsibility to establish a legal framework which will allow this to be done.
We also have the responsibility - and I would like to highlight this - to apply laws which already exist in the whole of the European Union and which regulate our labour market.
It is outrageous that some people import and use labour and then go unpunished.
To this end, there is no need to create new immigration laws, but we simply have to use the ones we already have to regulate the labour market and punish employers of illegal workers.
A year ago in October, the Tampere agreements were adopted.
I hope that the Commission will do everything that the Commissioner has said and that the Council is up to the job.
In that case they will have the support of this Parliament.
Mr President, sadly, there will be many more Dovers.
Not so long ago, we talked about the trafficking in human beings at the Strait of Gibraltar, and this was also referred to a moment ago.
Prior to that, we held a debate regarding a ship transporting Kurds which ran aground off the Italian South coast.
Each time, the authorities panicked, as is the case again now.
It is high time we adopted policy.
Because that is what it comes down to: each time a policy is announced, but this time, we need to do something about it, because we know that the trafficking in human beings simply continues.
So what should we do?
Minister Queyranne and Commissioner Vitorino already mentioned it.
We need to tackle the causes. We need to set up common immigration and asylum policy, fight cross-border crime and at long last establish surveillance of the EU' s external borders.
But I would like to point out something else.
The heads of government themselves, under the leadership of President Chirac, who were here this morning, could chip in straight away.
When they meet in Nice, they could abolish the right of veto in European justice policy.
In this way, they, and later on the Council of Ministers for Justice, can at long last lay down European immigration legislation by enhanced majority, something which this Parliament has been calling for for many years.
In the case of crime policy, fighting the trafficking in human beings should not be the remit of Europol alone.
It is necessary to harmonise the penalisation of this crime at European level.
Indeed, the trafficking in human beings is a prime example of cross-border crime, which is what makes prosecution so difficult.
This is why it is necessary to set up a European Public Prosecutor' s department in this field.
Mr President, there has been enough talk.
It is time for action!
Mr President, I would join my voice to those who have talked about the tragedy of Dover and the young lives cut short there, but I also want to add my revulsion at the attitude of many people: well, what do you expect, if you take these risks you have got to expect that you might die.
It is a cruel and judgmental attitude that has appeared in much of the press and it does not help us find a solution.
If governments are serious about combating trafficking, these are three areas they need to think about.
How can people legally enter the countries of the European Union, especially those coming from third countries which experience poverty or oppression? Secondly, how can we gain the confidence of those who could provide evidence against trafficking organisations.
I welcome what we have heard about that this afternoon. Thirdly, how the current policies of the European Union and its Member States help to create refugees.
We should not be concentrating so much on a deterrent policy at our borders. We need to look at how we are contributing to the incentive to leave.
We need to examine the consequences of our policies on, for example, trade, its rules and terms and who we will trade with, the conduct of companies based in the European Union and their operations in other countries such as Nigeria, the arms sales by Member States to repressive regimes.
If we are looking at real co-development, that will be a major step forward and I welcome that.
I think we should be considering how our open market closed-border policies are assisting the market forces driving the increases in human trafficking.
Mr President, 58 Chinese immigrants who arrived at Dover, in the hope of a better life, have died in horrific conditions, surrounded by crates of tomatoes.
I, like all of you, am deeply shocked.
This crime, however, is a daily occurrence at European Union borders.
Let us not forget Yagine and Fodé, the two boys from Guinea, who wanted to see Brussels last summer.
Since the beginning of this year alone, dozens of young people from the Maghreb have drowned trying to reach the Spanish coast.
Fourteen Kurds died of asphyxiation in the hold of a burning ship in Patras.
Dozens of Albanians and Tunisians die en route to Italy.
These are terrifying figures.
They should be unacceptable in a European Union that prides itself on being based on the protection of human rights.
How then, can we put an end to this? That is the question.
The debate that has opened as a result of the Dover tragedy has focused on the traffic in human beings and the eradication of the mafias that organise the criminal networks.
The trade in smuggling human beings is undeniably flourishing.
For a long time, we have known about the existence of criminal networks, such as the Chinese Triads, who make huge profits by transporting desperate people to countries that they are led to believe are paradises.
Mafia networks must therefore be harshly punished, but so must the people who exploit illegal labour, since no immigration networks exist without economic networks.
As a result, in France, Chinese illegal immigrants are forced to work for years in sweat-shops to pay for their journey.
These modern-day slaves supply a cheap labour force to whole sectors of the economy, and bosses are therefore free to move them around, even within the European Union.
The dogma of liberal globalisation has magnified the free movement of goods and capital, but is seeking to stop the free movement of people.
Emigration, whether it is a result of political oppression or poverty, merely reflects global inequalities. It is a symptom of the ever-widening gulf that separates North and South, and the incentive to emigrate is all the stronger since images of Western prosperity are invading the screens of the third world.
It is true that the free movement established by the European Union is a fundamental right, but this is reserved for its own nationals.
Nationals of third countries have seen their movement littered with traps, as a result of the Schengen agreement and the mirage of zero immigration.
All of these factors have simply created new forms of illegal immigration.
A purely repressive European response to the issue of immigration would certainly consolidate Europe' s fortification mechanism, but this would be ignoring the most fundamental aspect, which is the uniting of efforts and sharing at global level.
A seminar is certainly a good idea, Minister, but it should cover a common immigration policy based on the principle of freedom of movement, improving rights...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the horrific death of 58 Chinese illegal immigrants, discovered by British customs officers at Dover, highlights, above all, the scale of the pressure that migration is exerting on the countries of Europe.
These people came from China, after all, in other words, from the other side of the world, from a country that has nothing to do with Europe and for which we can certainly not serve as an outlet for resolving their problems of poverty.
In a case which is so typical, the best possible response we can provide is to combat illegal immigration and particularly the mafia-type organisations behind this new form of trafficking in human beings.
We are rather shocked to hear the words of Commissioner Vitorino, who, on 20 June, on the subject of the Dover tragedy, said that this, amongst other events, was proof of the need for a genuine policy on admission and integration, which makes a definitive break with the fantasy of zero immigration.
Those who mention the fantasy of zero immigration unfortunately too often do so in an attempt to provide an advance justification for a lenient policy.
We do not wish to fall into this trap.
On the contrary, we are calling, as a matter of priority, for a halt to this immigration, not only through a policy of co-development and of fighting the mafias, but also through strengthening control at the Union' s external borders and the reintroduction of controls at its internal borders, which have been so carelessly destroyed by European decisions over recent years.
Where internal borders are concerned, of course, we will probably not reintroduce fixed controls in the traditional form.
We must aim for a more flexible network, organised around jointly run border posts, near to borders.
In any event, however, controls will be needed, otherwise we will face the gradual collapse of our societies' structures, which, if the truth be told, match the aims of globalisation too well not to suit Europe' s enemies to a tee.
Mr President, less than 5% of lorries that arrive or pass through the port of Dover are stopped, and even less than that 5% are searched. So what is to be done?
Is it not obvious that we must step up the controls, section more policemen and carry out 20 times the amount of controls in order to be able to guarantee that controls are being carried out properly? And the responses from the Council have not changed; they are still the same: Europol, Eurodac, police cooperation.
On behalf of the Council, Minister, you informed us that the immigration policy and the fight against crimes related to illegal immigration are two separate issues.
This cannot possibly be true, it is not true and I would argue that even the Members' speeches illustrate that it is not true.
Parliament is ready to vote on a joint text - and I urge it to do so - a text which defines the direct relationship between restrictions on immigration and the way organised crime benefits from this trafficking, for this connection lies in the prohibition mechanism. Where there is no legal immigration integration policy, when it takes months to obtain work permits, when United Nations reports tell us that our societies, our countries in Europe need a regular influx of hundreds of thousands of immigrants each year, immigrants which are not permitted to enter, not only in the highly-skilled new technology industries but also in the manual labour industries, restaurants and services, when we are under the illusion that we are banning everything and preventing all harm, we find ourselves overtaken by a flood of illegal immigration which is only illegal because it has, in actual fact, been banned by these laws.
Minister, I believe that Parliament may be able to take a stance on this matter which opposes what you have said today.
Mr President, we have a problem: we are not moving with events.
We are here today for the 58 victims of Dover.
Like Mrs Terrón, I am also from a country, Spain, in which we unfortunately witness hundreds of deaths and disappearances in the Straits of Gibraltar and the Andalusian coasts.
There are outbreaks of violence and xenophobia all over Europe and, while here we are talking about a new globalised economic society and a new information society, we do not realise that organised crime, trafficking in human beings, sexual exploitation and drug-trafficking have also become globalised.
All of this is interconnected.
That is to say, we are talking about a new form of criminality and human slavery which reminds us of the pre-abolitionist era in the United States.
Chinese, Moroccans, Russians and South Americans are transported, extorted and advised by mafias.
This is the responsibility of some very important international organisations and there is a desperate need for international cooperation to combat one of the most shameful violations of human rights; international cooperation of European police forces and judges with police and judges in the countries where the migrants come from, who also have responsibility for the problem.
If they do not have administrative, judicial or police structures, we will have to cooperate with them so that they may be provided with them.
In this regard, the Action Plans which were mentioned by the representative of the Council may have an important role to play and I hope we can debate them in Parliament more transparently than we have up to now.
We must go beyond words - as he has also said - because words do not solve the problem.
We must give the necessary resources to Europol, so that it can work effectively, and to the Action Plans, so that they can be carried out, to the refugee fund and to our borders, so that they can carry out the corresponding controls, because, unfortunately, without economic resources, nothing can be achieved.
Anything else is mere verbiage and preaching.
Mr President, the tragedy at Dover was one of the most appalling incidents that anyone here can recall.
A tragedy for the people involved, a tragedy for their family and friends, but also a tragedy for Europe and the European ideal.
As a European Parliament, we must do everything we can to prevent a recurrence.
This appalling incident was avoidable.
Mr Cappato spoke a few moments ago about the controls at Dover.
But the authorities in Zeebrugge knew that the lorry in question was suspect.
They had never heard of the company on the side of the lorry and the driver paid cash for the ferry.
Accordingly, they alerted the port authorities at Dover.
Had they checked the vehicle in Belgium some of these lives could certainly have been saved.
I thank the Minister for his genuine and honest statement.
He spoke about the real culprits, the organizers.
And of course he is right that we must fight organized crime and global trafficking, but identifying the culprits is only part of the battle.
We must do more to support the countries from which these people came and improve the conditions there.
Can we here in Strasbourg even begin to contemplate the misery and desperation that drove those Chinese people to spend months travelling in clandestine fashion halfway across the world? And their prospects?
Probably to work in Chinese restaurants satisfying Westerners' desire for Chinese food. But to do this they died a tragic and desperate death because as Europeans we failed to come up with common and workable procedures for asylum and immigration and that must be on all our consciences.
Mr President, the human tragedy and the facts of these cases are well known and, as Mrs Boudjenah quite rightly pointed out, they were well known long before the Dover tragedy.
The political will has been made clear, indicating that it is time to pass a legislative act for identifying, arresting and punishing the culprits.
Minister, Commissioner, you have truly disappointed me.
You are not even following the line taken at the Tampere Council.
The Tampere conclusions make a clear call for the Commission to submit a report on the implementation of the conclusions of the High Level Working Group on Asylum and Immigration for the consideration of the European Council in December 2000.
This means that, in six months, you will have to draw up a report on what you have achieved.
Listening to your speech, I have the feeling that I have been invited not to a Parliamentary sitting, but to a rather posh get-together.
I had hoped that the Commission would go further, that it would have the courage, for once, to submit proposals, and that it would be able to do what the Council of Ministers is asking it to.
Minister, the French Presidency may be content to make the point at the next summit, without any real desire to study the Commission' s report or to tell us whether the Commission is fulfilling its contract with regard to Eurodac. If, however, the French Presidency is not able to establish a concrete schedule for legislative procedures to be implemented at European level and to be transposed to Member State level, we will once again face failure, which will lead to another debate like today' s, following further deaths.
Everyone will complain and Europe will not have made any progress.
What I am really asking for is for the Commission to show that it is up to the task, and, in line with what President Chirac and Mr Queyranne said, for it to feel sufficiently chastised so that the work requested of it is sufficiently detailed for the politicians, Ministers and the Council finally to be able to take some decisions.
Mr President, I would say that although emotions are running high everywhere here, trafficking has claimed 2,000 casualties over the past five years.
What I do see, however, is that the OSCE, the IOM, the Council of Europe, the Commission and Parliament are all coming up with sound proposals.
We talk and talk, draft and produce texts and can be very low, very pessimistic, but it is the first time that we are talking at global level and that something is being done to solve the problem.
I am always a little hopeful, yet realistic on two counts. Realistic in the sense that practice and theory are two different things.
For example, when we repatriate people, for example when we send illegal Poles from Germany back to Poland, you need to realise that, some of them have train tickets, obtained from their illegal employer, to return to Germany, within two hours of their arrival, because that is where they work, where they have their jobs and where they are able to earn money.
Secondly, we should not overlook the role of the victims.
This entails reception and a document entitling them to walk around freely.
And the Chinese must be able to speak out.
I have experienced this first hand.
Chinese girls, and women, in particular, are more communicative than men, because I have the impression that women are less fearful when it comes to this kind of thing. I know of Chinese girls whose faces have been slashed with knives.
They are scarred for life.
If they return, if they are repatriated to their countries of origin, the scars will still be visible.
They cannot go back.
You need to realise that we need to be able to repatriate people of their own free will, but I do not believe in this free will.
I think that for certain people, the situation is more complex than that.
There are some who are very hopeful and want to go back, but you need to think of the role of the victims.
In Great Britain, for example, in Dover, in the UK in general, there are no shelters for victims of trafficking in human beings.
There is not even any sound legislation concerning this issue. Accordingly, Europe is responsible for its own legislation, for what we can do ourselves.
And we can do this, we are in this fortunate position, unlike countries in the Balkans, the Ukraine, Lithuania, all these countries which are lacking money and resources, where the NGOs are embroiled in a lopsided power struggle.
I would like to finish off with a comment on the police forces.
I call on you to provide them with the necessary resources for they are fighting a one-sided war.
Mr President, there have been deaths which weigh like heavy stones on our hearts and our consciences, deaths which call for a European reception policy, a policy of rights and duties for migrants, a policy which says: in Europe, nobody is a foreigner and nobody is illegal.
Since 1993, 2063 victims - men, women and children - have died in the struggle to be allowed to live: the earth' s rejects, suffocating in containers, drowning in our seas and committing suicide in detention centres.
The responsibility lies with the traffickers who now form an international network, and the Union will be forced to employ every means and exploit all possible cooperation between countries in order to break these criminal networks; the responsibility lies with a policy which meets the needs of migrant communities with closed borders; an emergency and security policy which induces fear of invasion.
Yet immigration from regions near and far is part and parcel of the history of Europe.
We will overcome illegal trafficking when we tackle the causes of the gap between rich and poor countries, when we practise a policy of cooperation and development which allows everyone to live as a citizen of the world.
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office and the Commissioner for their words and to add my voice to the many who have expressed their shock and horror at this tragic loss of life discovered in Dover.
The committee which I have the honour to chair has repeatedly made clear its view that we need a European immigration policy.
This tragedy involving those so desperate to reach our shores - and it is of course no isolated incident - throws into sharp relief the lack of an immigration policy.
We know that the numbers trying to come to our continent are not in fact increasing over time.
It is simply that as the legal avenues have closed, so the private sector has moved in to exploit the illegal avenues.
Last year's summit in Tampere gave a mandate to the Commission to start moving towards a common policy and I understand from my meeting last week with Mr Chevenement, President-in-Office of the Justice and Home Affairs Council, that the French presidency will launch initiatives to deal with the persons involved, to deal with the transporters of these victims.
The European Parliament looks forward to being consulted on these initiatives.
But these are not enough. How long will it take for governments to realize that they have no clothes in this matter?
How long will it take for them to realize that the criminals are so far ahead of them, and to develop the methods of police cooperation which will put an end to this vile trafficking? I am even tempted to suggest that they might use things like the Echelon system to start fighting against these traffickers, but that might be rather provocative in view of the vote coming up on Thursday.
The fact is that we should be proud that we have developed a society which is so attractive that people wish to come and join us, but we should perhaps also be rather ashamed that our development aid policy has not been more successful in reducing the push factors in some of the countries of origin.
Until we succeed - and I recognise the work of the high-level working groups - in reducing these push factors, we ought perhaps to open our doors a little.
It might even be in our own interest, rejuvenating an ageing population and enriching our own culture.
I am pleased to hear that Canada is among the countries invited to the presidency's seminar.
We might be advised to take a leaf out of Canada's book.
The Liberal Government's proposals there are to close the backdoor to illegal immigration but at the same time open the front door to a legal migration policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that this debate has enabled us to see that there is a broad consensus on the Tampere Summit guidelines, and in particular, on the three elements, the first of which consists of our relations with the countries of origin. This element also comprises actions for co-development, which we must improve, since immigration is a result of inequality and of the desire of people without jobs or prospects to come to richer countries.
The second element is the provision of legal residence for foreign nationals and, from this point of view, I do not think that a policy of zero immigration is right for Europe.
I think that this would be unrealistic.
We must allow foreign nationals who live in our countries to live free from discrimination, and to become integrated.
The third and last element consists of combating illegal immigration, and particularly criminal networks.
I share the opinion of many of today' s speakers, such as Mr Cappato, for example, when they say that these criminal networks are part of organised crime.
We must therefore stand up to these international organisations, these powerful mafias, which deliberately try to take advantage of loopholes in the law, problems in cooperation and the extremely high demand in the countries concerned.
Under our Presidency, we have the opportunity to build on the proposals presented in this debate.
I am thinking in particular of the proposal by Commissioner Vitorino on readmission agreements with the countries of origin, such as China, for example, with regard to making the trafficking in human beings for purposes of sexual exploitation a specific crime.
I also think that we must work together on specific proposals, such as the timetable for their implementation that you requested, including the regulation implementing Eurodac, which must be completed by the end of the year, in response to Mr Pirker' s question.
Above all, we must use this presidency to clarify guidelines, particularly those on Europe' s long-term immigration policy.
We have planned an informal Council meeting, a Justice and Home Affairs Council, for the end of this month, in Marseilles, and, to that end, we have tabled this issue on the agenda.
Moreover, the Chairman of your Committee, Mr Watson, is also due to take part in this debate at the end of the month.
I should like to point out that honourable Members of this Parliament are invited to attend the various conferences that will be held within this framework.
Mr President, I am convinced, at the end of this debate, that there are only two fronts on which we can combat illegal immigration and in particular the types of exploitation it involves. This exploitation has been universally condemned following the Dover tragedy, as well as other incidents in the Straits of Gibraltar and on the coasts of several of our countries.
Firstly, we can use the harmonisation of legislation and then closer cooperation.
Legislation must be harmonised because people should no longer be able to play on the present differences in laws on asylum and on punishment between countries and consequently play the free movement card to try to evade European vigilance. We also need closer cooperation because we are dealing here with powerful organisations, which must be confronted.
In my opinion, Europe' s role, through the work of the Council, the Commission, which can nurture these ideas, and Parliament, is to promote our concept of immigration, which is balanced and humane, and to guarantee that human rights are respected in spite of the rising tide of organised crime and trafficking in human beings.
First of all, I should like to state the Commission' s position on the Tampere programme.
I must emphasise the fact that, since Tampere, the Commission has already proposed a number of legislative instruments, so that they can be discussed by the Council and adopted within the deadlines that have been established by the scoreboard.
I am not only talking about the instrument for the regulation of Eurodac. I am also talking about the proposal for a decision on the European Refugee Fund, the directive on temporary protection, the revision of the Dublin Convention, which determines which State is responsible for examining applications for asylum, and the results of the consultation on the definition of the common rules of procedure on asylum issues.
I think that we could even add the fact that, where legal immigration is concerned, the Commission has tabled a proposal for a directive allowing the families of foreign nationals working in the Union to join them.
We carried out these measures in the six months following Tampere, in compliance with the deadline adopted under the scoreboard that the Commission presented to the Council.
The Commission is not behind schedule, and although this is a complex debate, it is under way, both in Parliament and in the Council.
I therefore understand why Mr Ducarme should say that he feels disappointed.
We all feel disappointed and the reality of the situation is indeed disappointing, but I must tell you - and this point needs to be emphasised - that the Commission has tabled the proposals that were laid down within the deadlines that were set.
You said that my speech did not match the deadline that was set for the end of this year, so that the Nice European Council can evaluate the policy on asylum and immigration.
With regard to this point, I suggest that you look more closely at which deadlines we are in fact discussing.
Nice has the task of undertaking a preliminary evaluation of the work of the High Level Working Group on Asylum and Immigration.
These action plans have been drawn up by that Group and I must tell you that the Commission has more grounds for optimism today than it did three months ago, because we have managed to reach agreement with the Member States on measures for co-development that the Commission will have to implement under several Community policies, including those on human rights, economics and development aid. The Commission and the Member States have also reached agreement on measures to be adopted by Member States, with the five action plan countries.
The deadline of December 2000 that I mentioned is another deadline altogether! This deadline was not set for the Nice Council.
This is a deadline that was set at Tampere for the approval of a legislative instrument which establishes common definitions, common incriminations and common punishments for trafficking in human beings, and specifically for trafficking in women and children for purposes of sexual exploitation. The Commission can reassure you on this point.
Both the French Presidency and Mr Queyranne have just said that the French Presidency has tabled a proposal for a legislative instrument, a framework decision for the incrimination of trafficking and smuggling. The Commission itself is fully on time with this deadline and with presenting a framework decision for the prosecution of trafficking in human beings.
I therefore think that we are indeed putting forward initiatives and I am counting on the support both of the Council and Parliament to be able to conclude these legislative procedures within the deadlines that have been fixed.
I should simply like to make two additional comments: the first, which is directed at Mr Berthu, who, unfortunately, is no longer present, is that, when I was talking about the fantasy of zero immigration, I meant that sometimes, the argument of zero immigration is used as a rhetorical instrument. It is also interesting to note that some leaders who use the argument of zero immigration in this way are also those who are largely responsible for immigration policies that are lax in terms of integrating immigrants into the societies that receive them.
When one condemns the fantasy or the rhetoric of zero immigration, one does so in order to suggest that there is an alternative, and the alternative is to have a proactive immigration policy, which puts at the top of the list of common concerns the integration of legal immigrants into the societies that receive them. One condemns it in order to clarify the criteria and the principles of a coordinated immigration policy at European level.
That is the alternative and - I am sorry to say so - I do not share the idea that the alternative is to reintroduce internal border controls by means of jointly run police stations, which would not be on the border, but thirty kilometres away from the border.
Lastly, my second comment is to say that I am delighted at the fact that this debate has achieved a very broad consensus on the priority we must give to the fight against organised crime, and I shall make a wish. My wish is that this consensus still exists when, at the right time, encouraged by the French Presidency and supported by the Commission, and within the deadlines fixed at Tampere, this Parliament is provided with the necessary instruments for combating money laundering.
I say this because to combat money laundering is to have an effective instrument with which to combat organised crime.
That is not rhetoric, because it is taking the fight to the very area in which the battle must be won.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Vitorino.
Pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received seven motions for resolutions.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday, at 12 noon.
1998 discharge (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the 1998 discharge.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you will be aware, this morning' s joint debate on granting discharge to the Commission was not closed, since we still had to hear Commissioner Schreyer' s final speech.
The Commissioner is now present and I am therefore delighted to give her the floor, after which we can close the joint debate on the issue of granting discharge.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Schreyer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday, at 12 noon.
LIFE
The next item is the report (A5-0172/2000) by Mrs Lienemann, on behalf of the Parliamentary Delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text adopted by the Conciliation Committee on the European Parliament and Council regulation (EC) concerning the financial instrument for the environment (LIFE) (C5-0221/2000 - 1998/0336(COD)).
- (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, during the LIFE III second reading debate held here back in February, we concluded that this regulation was better than the LIFE I and LIFE II regulations.
It was better because it was more rigorous, more transparent and more rational.
It was better because it established the promotion of employment as a factor to be taken into consideration when selecting potential projects.
It was better because it established the reduction of the global impact of products, from manufacture to recycling and disposal, as one of the objectives that LIFE­Environment should achieve.
Lastly, it was better because it established the improvement and planning of coastal areas as one of LIFE­Environment' s priorities.
Despite these positive points, there remained four areas of disagreement between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council, and these were dealt with under the conciliation procedure. These areas were the budget, comitology, provision for a fourth stage of LIFE and the objectives of LIFE­Environment.
The work under the conciliation procedure added further improvements to the LIFE III regulation and we can say quite simply that, although we lost on the issue of comitology, we managed to get our views across on the essential issues.
I therefore congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann, both on her work at first and second reading and on her work during the conciliation procedure.
I would like to highlight what I think are the two most relevant points.
With regard to the budget for the period 2000-2004, which was the main issue at stake, we would clearly have preferred to agree on an amount closer to EUR 850 million - the sum proposed by the European Parliament - than the EUR 613 million set by the Commission and the Council.
Nevertheless, as they say, politics is the art of the possible, and if we had not agreed, as we finally did in conciliation, on an amount of EUR 640 million, we would have ended up bearing the political responsibility for leaving thousands of projects in limbo and without financial support for the year 2000.
In any event, we told the Commission and the Council once again that, as far as Parliament is concerned, although these appropriations are more than the common position provided for, they still fall short of the sum that LIFE has demonstrated it deserves.
I should also like to express my satisfaction with the agreement that has enabled us to integrate the sustainable management of water and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions into the objectives for LIFE­Environment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, they say that every era and every generation creates an image that defines its relationship with nature.
The concept of relationships with nature is changing radically in our own time.
In future we will not be able to subordinate this relationship to profit, selfishness and exploitation.
Whatever today' s policies may be, they must reflect this new philosophy of a relationship between mankind and society with the environment.
With this in mind, the European Union has pioneered legislation in the field of environmental protection and has also been a key partner in international negotiations and agreements on the global protection of the planet.
The transposition of European directives into national legislation has played and continues to play a crucial role in all our countries, particularly Portugal.
The LIFE programme is just one financial instrument at the service of the European Union' s environmental policies and of those of its neighbouring countries in the Baltic, the Mediterranean and in Eastern Europe.
This is not, however, the only financial instrument with repercussions for environmental policies.
We know, for example, that regional and agricultural policy, which is to a large extent harmful, has an enormous impact on the environment and on Europe' s land and water.
It is undeniably important for LIFE to be adopted.
Having experienced many vicissitudes and a period of paralysis with regard to the projects financed by this programme, the Portuguese Presidency and the European Parliament finally formalised an agreement specifically on a budgetary framework of EUR 640 million for the period 2000-2004.
LIFE III will therefore be operational before the summer.
The agreement that was finally reached has many good points, part of the credit for which must go to the Portuguese Presidency - which once again demonstrated its constructive and efficient relationship with the European Parliament as well as its ability to mediate. Credit is also due to the European Parliament delegation and specifically to Mrs Lienemann.
I also wish to welcome the agreement reached by the Portuguese Presidency and the European Parliament on the framework directive on water, an instrument that is crucial for the European Union' s environmental policy.
Mr President, the European LIFE programme is the key European Union initiative to integrate environmental measures into the broad ambit of European Union policies.
The Union as a political entity has a moral and legal obligation to ensure that a clean environment is protected and promoted under Article 130 of the Maastricht Treaty.
In fact between1992 and 1992 the LIFE initiative cofinanced nearly 1600 projects with a total Community contribution of approximately EUR 2.1 billion.
I am especially satisfied that the European LIFE programme has promoted the use of cleaner technologies and has also financially supported many waste recycling programmes.
From an Irish perspective over 90% of our waste is still dealt with via landfill sites.
I would like to welcome initiatives taken by the Irish government, including diverting 50% of all household waste away from landfill sites, reducing by up to 65% biodegradable waste consigned to landfill, developing broader waste recovery facilities and reducing methane emissions by up to 80%.
I also welcome the fact that the Member States have allocated an increase of EUR 27 million for the new LIFE programme for the next five years and that the overall budgetary allocation made to the LIFE programme will be in the region of EUR 640 million.
Congratulations to the rapporteur.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30.
2001 budget (conciliation procedure)
The next item is the report (A5-0184/2000) by Mrs Haug, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the 2001 budget in view of the conciliation procedure before the Council's first reading.
Mr President, we find ourselves in a phase of the budget which resembles the lull before the storm.
The Commission has submitted a second preliminary draft on which the agricultural sector would certainly like to comment.
First of all, the European budget comes off worse compared to other major continents because there is less public funding available here compared to those other continents.
Secondly, the budget has not yet reached the prescribed ceiling. I hope that the Council will make up the difference, if not, Parliament will be submitting proposals.
There are also a few other issues which have struck me.
We need to try to use the budget efficiently.
On the one hand, there is a reshuffle of the headings, also in this budget, which begs the question as to whether the relative stability or the European Union as a whole are safeguarded.
Does the budget tie in sufficiently with discussions with a social dimension within the European Union, such as those pertaining to consumer affairs, the environment and animal welfare? The European Parliament' s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is open to issues of this kind, also with regard to proposals which may or may not be submitted.
The same applies to the quality of policy, and in this connection, particular attention should be given to whether policy helps maintain a high-grade rural environment in Europe from a financial point of view.
Can Europe' s rural environment count on adequate care and financial means?
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development' s report and the opinion show that we welcome the deferment of the discussion regarding the EUR 300 million set aside for the reconstruction of the Balkans as far as it goes.
The discussion has been postponed until October, but the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has pulled no punches in this respect.
The second point I would like to make in this connection is that, since every year, we have some money left in the agricultural budget, it should be possible to use this money the year after i.e. to earmark it and not to return it.
Thirdly, particularly in respect of agricultural policy, resources must be used more effectively and more pressure should be exerted on the Member States or the Commission in order to speed up the submission of plans which can then be implemented adequately.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, for an excellent report, and for having come to hear the views of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
Our committee tabled two amendments for the report.
Owing to tight meeting timetables, they have been brought to the plenary session via my own group, and I hope that they may be adopted.
Amendment No 19 reminds everyone that there must be adequate payment appropriations for Structural Funds programmes, trans-European transport networks and other budget headings relating to transport, so that the programmes may be effectively implemented right at the start of the programming period. In this way payments made at the end of the programming period - as was the case the previous year - are avoided.
Amendment No 20 concerns innovative measures.
The appropriation must be kept at the level decided at Berlin.
We have to remember that the Interinstitutional Agreement contains a pledge that the reduction in appropriations by EUR 200 million made the previous year should be made good this year.
Our committee is not proposing to move appropriations set aside under the URBAN initiative to be used for innovative measures: the compensating appropriations have to be found elsewhere.
The importance of innovation was stressed both at the Lisbon and Feira summits.
Innovation must therefore be adequately supported.
The implementation in practice of innovative measures in the area of Structural Funds has not got under way because preparatory work on the part of the Commission has lagged seriously behind.
Our committee supports the policy of support for employment and the importance of SMEs in Mrs Haug' s report.
The Commission and the Member States should also simplify and speed up administration procedures relating to Structural Funds.
More attention should be paid to the success of projects at approval stage.
Mr President, we in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy are enthusiastic supporters of the common foreign and security policy, and we are also supporters of these Special Envoys which, at the moment, are inscribed in the Commission' s budget.
If I need to mention the Special Envoys at all, it is because the Council is insisting on transferring the financing of the Special Envoys to the Council' s administrative budget. That may sound very sensible.
The problem, however, is that, in doing so, there is a loss of the inspection and the control that of course exists in the case of budget items in the Commission' s budget. I therefore agree with what is stated in Mrs Haug' s report, namely that we must insist that these appropriations for Special Envoys remain on the Commission' s budget, for we in that way ensure continued parliamentary inspection and control and ensure that Parliament continues, for example, to be listened to and kept informed.
In the Foreign Affairs Committee, we have been sufficiently constructive, however, as to think also about how a medium-term solution might possibly be found in a situation where negotiations with the Council were taking place. This can be read about in the Foreign Affairs Committee' s contribution to Mrs Haug' s report.
For if the Council definitely wants these appropriations to appear in the Council' s budget, there is, of course, the possibility of the Council' s, in return, entering into a type of inter-institutional agreement with ourselves here in Parliament, whereby the Council promises to give us the same information, control, inspection facilities etc as if the appropriations had appeared in the Commission' s budget.
That is, therefore, the Foreign Affairs Committee' s constructive contribution, and I should like to add that we, of course, also insist that, whenever anything new is adopted concerning the common foreign and security policy - be it in terms of expenditure or of initiatives - the Council must inform the European Parliament.
. Mr President, I begin by endorsing the plaudits that have been offered to Mrs Haug.
She has indeed worked quite hard although, in the case of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I am afraid she was working so hard that she was not able to pay anything more than a goodwill visit to our committee.
Therefore we have prepared the opinion which is before Parliament.
I will briefly touch on some of the points that arise from it.
Firstly, I want to support the points that are made by Mrs Haug concerning the implications of spending in the Balkans.
It is a matter that has been of significant concern to the Industry Committee.
We are particularly concerned about the implications for a wide range of the programmes that fall within our remit.
It certainly is the case that, with the move to activity-based budgeting, we are moving away from the concept that everything that was previously in the budget has to be preserved for the future.
Nonetheless a great deal of the programmes that are within our remit would be significantly affected by the spending proposals for the Balkans, unless Mrs Haug is successful.
So on behalf of the Industry Committee I should like to voice our support for her in that regard.
In two particular areas we are affected by multiannual programmes.
I want to reiterate our commitment in the research area.
I recognise that this is not a matter that is affected by the budget on this occasion, but we should not ignore the changes we are seeing in the energy sphere with Save and Altener.
The figures that we see are seeing for Save, where there is a significant reduction in the budget for energy efficiency schemes, are a result of the budgetary process last year.
That is only just now coming through.
The final point I want to make in the trade sphere relates to the need for us to ensure that the omnibus regulation for the transatlantic dialogue is adapted.
I hope the Commissioner will take that on board.
Mr President, the Committee on Fisheries has been calling for the strengthening of the common fisheries policy on an international level as well.
We must support our fishing industry and help it to be placed on an equal level with giants such as the United States, Russia or Japan.
As draftsperson of the Committee on Fisheries, I would like to express my satisfaction with the Committee on Budgets' support for our proposals on the international fishing organisations and agreements.
Firstly, I will refer to our contribution to the international organisations.
In an increasingly globalised world, the Union must increase its presence in these organisations which regulate offshore fishing, for reasons of prestige, good management of resources and, above all, the defence of the interests of our industry and our workers.
My second point concerns the international agreements.
This six-month period, with the French Presidency of the Council, will be decisive in terms of completing the negotiation of these agreements, including, amongst others, the Fisheries Agreement with Morocco.
We are all concerned about the prolonged inactivity - seven months now - of the Community fleet which was fishing in Moroccan waters.
This is by far the European Union' s most important agreement in this area and our main priority: five hundred boats, thousands of fishermen out of work and many economically paralysed areas depend on its renewal.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Haug on her work, which has not been easy, and I am happy that the amounts envisaged by the Commission for the funding of the agreements to be negotiated in 2000 and 2001, the agreement with Morocco amongst others, have been respected.
Meanwhile, Mrs Haug, your report is a clear sign of the European Parliament' s support for the Community' s negotiators and for the thousands of European families who are impatiently waiting for the negotiations to be concluded.
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my gratitude to the Committee on Budgets for their sound cooperation.
Secondly, the Committee on Development and Cooperation is extremely keen to radically expand its budget compared to last year, because we have 45 million children in Africa with no primary education and an increasing number of poor in the world, whilst our continent is becoming increasingly rich.
But we maintain a sense of realism.
We are prepared to make do with reducing spending to the 2000 level and thus cancel out the cut-backs which the Commission proposed in favour of financing Kosovo.
No more, no less.
We are aware of the broad support we enjoy in this Parliament.
Thirdly, the issue of modernising the budget is essential.
This morning, we talked about the 1998 discharge.
The way this discharge is currently organised leaves a great deal to be desired.
With our help, the Commission would like to change tack. The new approach involves a clear definition of goals and sectors within regional programmes, explicit grouping of sector-specific goals and a clear division of budget lines.
We will, as a result, be able to deploy personnel where they are needed to carry out the activities.
This results in a classification according to DAC sectors. It is a modernised budget and at the same time, it will inform us whether we have actually achieved the results projected in the budget, as will be apparent from the reports in Parliament.
This budget, therefore, also accommodates the EDF budget, although we are not harmonised legally but we are in terms of content. The sum total will, as it were, show that we are clearly focussed on fighting poverty across different sectors.
We very much hope that with this line of attack, namely a modernised budget, we will be able to turn the negative image, about which Commissioner Patten had every right to complain so bitterly, into a positive image of a Europe which is open to fighting poverty at world level.
- (PT) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the discussion on the 2001 budget is progressing.
We are gradually gaining an understanding of the positions being adopted by the Commission, particularly with regard to the preliminary draft budget, and the Council will soon state its position.
I believe that in the course of this complex process, whilst Parliament is working towards consensus on its views amongst Members so that it can advocate these views as vigorously as possible, it must demand complete clarification of the Commission' s proposals, as well as objectivity in the Council' s position. Parliament must then move forward, as a whole, with its own position.
So we have reached a stage in the clarification process when "wait and see" stance is appropriate.
It seems pointless at this juncture to make threats, to proclaim Parliament' s power or to put forward all of our views at once.
Everyone realises, or will realise, the importance of the European Parliament in the budgetary process and how important it is to achieve consensus in this process.
In the meantime, we need to know more about certain fundamental issues, such as:
implementation of the 2000 budget, especially both parts 1-A and 1-B of heading 1, "Agriculture" ;
evaluating the reductions proposed by the Commission in internal policy sectors - heading 3 - particularly bearing in mind the justification for these reductions and their effects on the policies that have been targeted;
promoting an in-depth analysis of the proposals for reforming the Commission, including the staffing needs of the directorates-general and its policy on externalisation;
identifying the priorities of the Council and the Commission with regard to external actions - heading 4 - and clarifying the relationship between commitments and payments under this heading, by investigating the reasons for the worrying delay in the implementation of commitments and by ascertaining the quality of the expenditure;
gaining full information on what is being proposed in the new programme for the Western Balkans, including Serbia and Kosovo, particularly with regard to its financing;
information on how it is intended to finance the common security and defence policy.
As you will see just from these examples, what we need to know goes well beyond the discussion on financing the Western Balkans.
In fact, it would be a mistake for the European Parliament to reduce the discussion of the 2001 budget to this one issue.
I have two final observations. Taking the appropriations for payment as a point of reference, in 2000 these totalled 1.11% of the gross national product of the Member States, but a lower amount is being proposed for 2001, corresponding to 1.0%.
Does it make sense to try to deepen the European project and at the same time to reduce the relative value of the European Union budget year on year? And, bearing in mind the figures that I have just mentioned, does it make sense to discuss the financing of new priorities and to actually question some of the priorities already established, while at the same time returning considerable unutilised sums to the Member States?
I congratulate Mrs Haug on her fine work.
Mr President, all the points I have to make are addressed to the Council and even though there is no-one on the front bench I am sure the hardworking scribes will relay that information back to the Presidency and to all the Council delegations.
If you look at the Haug report, Parliament wants to find a solution.
We are actually looking for agreement with the Council on the way to get a good budget by the end of this year.
Let us get that point clear.
We are not looking for confrontation, we are actually looking for a way of cooperating together.
But do not be fooled into thinking that we are not prepared to take hard decisions if necessary.
It is pretty hard to get an agreement when the Council just ignores Article 20 of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Ever since the PDB was published by the Commission they have been duty bound to discuss with us the revision of the Financial Perspective which was proposed by the Commission.
They have failed to do that.
On two occasions we have asked them for trialogues and we have been refused.
That makes it pretty difficult. And that will be at the forefront of our discussions at the trialogue this week and in the conciliation on 20 July.
Whatever the Council votes on 20 July we will still be making that point in the autumn when it comes to our first reading.
From the very first trialogue of this year with the Portuguese Presidency, the one thing that was obvious to everyone is that we need an agreement between the three institutions on the funding for the western Balkans.
I am pretty sure Parliament has a position now.
The Council's position is about 200 million less than ours, which means that we will not get an agreement on that and unless we have an agreement there is going to be a problem in how we fund the needs in category 4.
It seems now that there might be some possibility of redeploying funds from the MEDA programme to help solve our problem.
For an institution that tells us that what was agreed in Berlin was set in concrete, I think the Council has a bit of a cheek in moving large sums of money from the MEDA programme which they agreed 12 months ago and then lecturing us about what can and cannot be moved.
Having said that, we are of course, prepared to listen to the Council, to hear what their suggestions are and I look forward to our trialogue this week and the conciliation meeting on 20 July.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, for her excellent report.
The report under discussion concerns Parliament' s provisional position on the budget in the conciliation talks that are to be held.
Just as Mr Wynn said, the problems really mainly concern Category 4: External Action, and the reconstruction of the Balkans.
Last Spring the Commission proposed the so-called CARDS programme for the reconstruction of the Western Balkans. Its total value is EUR 5.5 billion.
EUR 1.9 billion has already been found for the programme; of the remainder, EUR 1.4 billion would be found by the reallocation of Category 4 funds, and 1.8 billion by moving funds from the section of the budget dealing with agriculture.
The sum to be reallocated is therefore approximately 5% of the total sum under Category 4, so that it may be technically possible, given there is sufficient political will.
However, the use of agricultural expenditure for the reconstruction of Kosovo is not fair, as each EU citizen must play a part in the work and not just the farming community.
In addition, the future needs of agriculture are hard to estimate, as the Agenda 2000 reforms are only just starting and the WTO talks are in their elementary stages.
The Commission' s proposal for the CARDS programme is explicit and our group supports it.
EU Member States have to bear the responsibility for the reconstruction of the Balkans, as most of them were keen supporters of the military action there, and many also took part in it.
Unless the countries of Europe help th-e inhabitants of the Balkans in their reconstruction work, honourably and vigorously, then this could result in a deep feeling of resentment and bitterness that could last for generations.
Military action is always an extreme measure, and somebody must always suffer the consequences.
When the Interinstitutional Agreement between the Council and Parliament, which contained the financial perspectives for the years 2000 - 2006, was made, it was forecast that the reconstruction of Kosovo might call for 'fresh' resources.
This is stated in point 3 of Mrs Haug' s report.
The Council has, however, signalled that it will not adopt any amendment to the financial perspectives - not even between categories.
The CARDS programme is so huge that it is impossible to adapt it to the present financial perspectives.
There are two alternatives ahead: to fund just part of the programme, or table an amendment to the financial perspectives.
The Council is responsible for the reconstruction of the Balkans.
If it merely promises money, but is not prepared to give it, its credibility as a global player shrinks.
In that case Parliament will have to act within the framework of the financial perspectives, which will mean severe cutbacks in the CARDS programme.
Mr President, Mrs Haug is rapporteur in a novel situation.
For the first time since the Berlin Agreement, negotiations will take place in the Council before first reading regarding a possible review of the financial perspective. My groups welcomes this development.
The Commission' s initiative is necessary in order to finance the Stability Pact for the Balkans.
We also endorse the plan to earmark resources for Serbia in the post-Milosevic era.
Due to the Council' s attitude in last year' s difficult negotiations, there is insufficient trust in political pledges without a financial picture to match.
But although we agree with the thrust of the Commission' s plan, my group would probably have reached different conclusions regarding the size and distribution of the proposed reductions under the external policy heading.
As it stands now, the civil society, i.e. activities by non-governmental organisations in terms of human rights projects, is proportionately having to foot the lion' s share of the bill, and this seems to me a recipe for disaster if we want to achieve stability in the long run.
My group hopes that the Council is prepared to take a constructive stance and at long last to live up to its pledge to make sufficient resources available for new priorities, such as the Stability Pact, without causing lasting damage to existing policy, which is put on the back burner for reasons other than content.
This request has not yet been met - or so it seems, which is detrimental.
The EU' s credibility will be in the balance, and in my opinion, this is a bad start for the further development of the EU' s foreign and security policy.
Mr President, spectrum auctions are pushing up profits in Member States in a manner never before seen.
At the same time the reconstruction of Kosovo, after the illegal war there, is being financed at the expense of other countries receiving aid, in a way that is improper and dishonest.
Our group supports the former position expressed by Parliament, according to which the Council must agree to amend the financial perspectives, particularly with regard to Category 4.
Waging wars and rebuilding countries must not be allowed to happen at the expense of former preferences in the budget.
We also support the committee' s position according to which expenditure set aside for a common foreign and security policy is operational expenditure, which must remain the budgetary responsibility of the Commission.
That will clarify the context in which discharge is granted.
Furthermore, the granting of discharge must also concern a common foreign and security policy.
However, we will not support the Council and Commission line wherein the main political focus will not shift at all towards the prevention of unemployment.
Mr President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, we spent this morning discussing institutional affairs with President Jacques Chirac and this afternoon discussing budgetary matters which really amounts to one and the same thing.
Firstly, the budget with its EUR 93 million in payment appropriations represents a 5% increase, whereas national budgets are subject to greater austerity.
However, the European agricultural budget is also experiencing a period of austerity, even though outwardly it appears to have grown by 7%.
Agricultural revenue has dropped and so this 7% is a mere illusion; we have simply moved from a price support policy to an income support policy.
We are witnessing the continued, and wholly scandalous, misappropriation of EUR 300 million of agricultural funds for the reconstruction of Kosovo, as though the Balkans formed part of the CAP!
The CAP is being drastically cut back to the advantage of the CFSP and, as you will see, this is being carried out with no modification to the Treaties.
We are here as part of a consultation procedure that the Treaties do not provide for and we are operating within the framework of an Interinstitutional Agreement of May 1999 that the Treaties do not provide for either.
Over the past 20 years, non-essential expenditure has increased from 5% to more than 45% of the total budget expenditure without any modification to the Treaties.
We have carried out an institutional revolution, to Parliament' s advantage, without an IGC.
Does this mean that the institutions are to adapt spontaneously or that the European Commission and Council will be able to operate with 20-21 members just as they do with 15 and, empirically speaking, solutions will be found?
If at the IGC in Nice we tried to make enlargement conditional upon deepening, this would be viewed as a pretext for delaying the entry of the countries of the East, and Poland has recently voiced its displeasure at this.
We are all aware that the accession of the countries of the East would mean a budgetary revolution and increased taxes.
In other words, the revolution that looks set to take place in European affairs over the coming ten years is not an institutional one but a budgetary and tax one.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Haug report is a good report, particularly the part that deals with cuts in agriculture, which, in my opinion, are the key issue.
It is a mistake to make cuts in heading 1, for agriculture is an essential factor in our economy, the economy of the European Union.
Agriculture is certainly a fundamental part of any debate on boosting development or employment, not because any of us are agriculture lobbyists but because agriculture must not lose its funding.
This point must be stressed, although the report also stresses the difficulty of finding sources of funding for that most remarkable and certainly important operation to be carried out in Kosovo.
My question is this: is it possible to carry out the Kosovo operation without taking funds away from other credit lines in our budget? And the answer is that yes, it is possible, it can be done without cutting other credit lines or interfering with sectors which are fundamental for the development of the economy within the European Union but rather giving them financial security for, if we do not do so, we will certainly weaken the European market and the euro against their competitors, NAFTA and the dollar.
Therefore, since we profess to have an ongoing budgetary policy which must certainly be focused chiefly on boosting economic development and the economic growth of the individual countries, it is not at all sensible to be financing operations such as the Kosovo operation if this means that we cannot predict the extent to which we will be able to finance budget credit lines.
Moreover, the very fact that the Council is setting a precedent by including Special Envoys and all our special interventions in its own budget lines is a serious matter. This must stop.
It must be seen as highly negative. In my opinion, if we invert this trend, we will be doing a great favour to both our economy and Parliament.
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on her report.
I also congratulate her on her efforts to reach a consensus, which is a very difficult job.
There is an irrefutable fact in her report: category 4, which was approved in Berlin, may become insufficient if we continue to add the funding of new commitments.
On the other hand, the implementation figures for programmes outside the European Union are very poor and in some cases this is the fault of third countries and in others, the majority of cases, it is the fault of the Commission.
What is clear is that the budgetary implementations do not match the effort made in recent years to introduce these programmes into the budget.
Furthermore, we have the problem of the European Councils.
Every six months we have new commitments to finance because the Council has identified new priorities without consulting Parliament.
Over time, all of this is resulting in a postponement of the decision on the non-obligatory expenses incurred by the Council, and this decision and postponement were not provided for in the Interinstitutional Agreement.
To sum up, I would like to say that Terence Wynn' s position seems to me to be very coherent.
This is logical, since he is also chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
I believe that - as he says - we must enter into trialogue with very open minds.
It is clear that nobody is managing to give a reliable estimate of what is needed in Kosovo.
It is also true that if we have to cut the external programmes, we must do so according to a principle of linearity and if it is not done in that way, somebody somewhere is assuming a very great responsibility.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Interinstitutional Agreement is something this House must maintain.
If anybody is going to be irresponsible, let it not be us.
Mr President, it was to be expected, but it always causes a certain degree of anxiety, mixed with impatience, to see once again that the negotiation of the European budget still leads to the conflict so typical of recent years.
This is almost a carbon copy of the procedure for the 2000 budget.
Once again, the insufficiency of what was adopted in Berlin, in March 1999, for external policy, rocks the foundations of the Community budget.
The Council' s short-sightedness hinders any logical solution.
Rather than a budgetary cycle, ladies and gentlemen, it appears that we have a budgetary big wheel.
Somehow or other, the Commission has honoured its commitment to propose a multi-annual plan for the Balkans.
However, sincerely, I agree to a large extent with the Council' s criticism that the figures do not seem particularly well founded.
As the former MEP, Lord Tomlinson, said, there is nothing more expensive than a meal amongst Foreign Affairs Ministers: they are always ready to promise money without considering where it will come from.
I truly believe that the proposal is rather inappropriate and has no sense of time.
They are proposing to move funds intended for agriculture to foreign policy and these proposals have not even been accepted by the United Kingdom.
Just imagine.
That is no way to make progress.
With regard to Serbia, they propose more than EUR 2 billion over the period.
I would like to remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that in order to topple Pinochet, the European Community spent EUR 10 million.
Our contribution to the campaign against Pinochet in the referendum was EUR 10 million.
We spend EUR 40 million a year on the democratic forces in Serbia and they are asking for two hundred and something more.
When Milosevic falls, I will be the first to accept a revision of the financial perspectives.
However, meanwhile, let us forget the annual EUR 200 million from now until the end of the period.
Let us not push things to the limit.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I do not know if the Council is aware of the real situation.
If it rules out - as it has ruled out - moving money from category 1A, Agriculture, to category 4, and does not accept any increase in the ceiling of category 4 for foreign policy, and all of this must be done by means of a redistribution of resources, we are simply dealing with a case of a non-revision of the financial perspectives.
We are simply dealing with a case of budgetary procedure in the field of non-obligatory expenditure and, therefore, the most that could be said would be that the Council has not complied with Article 20 of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Mr President, I am grateful for this opportunity to make some general comments about the 2001 Budget.
In respect of the fisheries budget, I note that an increase of over 27% is proposed in the funding of international agreements.
These are the southern agreements with third countries which enable EU vessels to fish in the waters of Morocco, Mauritania, Argentina and elsewhere.
I must remind the House that these agreements currently cost EU taxpayers EUR 269 million a year and are primarily of benefit to the fishing fleets of Spain, Portugal and France.
These southern agreements are always calculated on a cash-for-fish basis while northern agreements on the other hand are arranged on a reciprocal basis.
It is this disparity between southern and northern Member States which is evident in the CAP as well as in the CFP budget.
For example, the Commission recently announced an arbitrary cut in export refunds which will cost the Scotch whisky industry around EUR 32 million a year.
Their explanation was simply that Scotch whisky is a rich industry and therefore does not require any subsidy.
Why then do we discover that it is intended to increase the subsidy to wine growers by 64.5% next year, taking the budget to over EUR 1 billion? Why is the olive oil industry receiving an 8.9% increase providing them with almost EUR 2.5 billion next year, and most shockingly of all, how on earth can we justify giving to tobacco growers an increase of 2.8% taking their subsidies to over EUR 1 billion when we know that tobacco products kill half a million of our citizens every year.
Meanwhile, the beleaguered dairy sector with dairy farmers suffering across the EU will receive a paltry increase of funding of only 0.3%.
Let us make sure the budget is for all EU citizens and not just for the southern EU Member States.
That concludes the joint debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0532/00). We will examine questions to the Council, which is represented by Mr Moscovici, Minister for European Affairs, who many of you will know since he is a former Member of the European Parliament.
Question No 1 by (H-0518/00):
Subject: Common foreign and security policy In view of the imminent development of a common foreign and security policy within the Treaty, what arrangements will the Presidency be making to ensure that Parliament is kept fully informed and is properly consulted in this field? In particular, when will Mr Alain Richard, Minister of Defence, be willing to appear at a part-session?
Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union provides that the presidency shall consult the European Parliament on key issues and fundamental decisions with regard to the common foreign and security policy, and ensure that account is duly taken of the views of the European Parliament.
Rest assured that the French Presidency will scrupulously adhere to such provisions.
This is particularly true as regards recent developments in common foreign and security policy as a result of the Feira European Council and with a view to the one in Nice.
As you are all aware, the common foreign and security policy is one of the major European projects as well as one of the priorities of the French presidency, as the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac pointed out this morning in his address.
As Mr Alain Richard, French Minister of Defence, has already pointed out, he has every intention of addressing the European Parliament on as yet unspecified dates.
I should also like to point out that either Hubert Védrine or I will address the Committee on Foreign Affairs each month on Tuesday afternoon after the 'General Affairs' Council meeting. In this way we shall be able to keep the European Parliament informed of defence-related matters.
Thank you, Minister, for your first response during your presidency.
I am especially pleased that we are able to see Mr Richard here.
It is extremely important that the growth of our European security and defence policy commands full public support and respect, and strong and credible parliamentary scrutiny is certainly the way forward.
I simply wanted to highlight the willingness of the French Government and in particular the Minister of Defence, to debate such matters openly with the European Parliament.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, consensus was achieved at the Feira Summit a couple of weeks ago on the idea that flexibility should be on the IGC agenda.
At the meeting, however, no further details were given as to how flexibility can apply also to the second pillar, that is to say, to a common foreign and security policy.
I would like to ask when the country holding the presidency of the Council will present its own point of view regarding how the flexibility clause can be implemented with respect to the second pillar.
If and when that happens, will those Member States not in NATO be automatically excluded from those decisions, taken on the basis of flexibility, which lead to some Member States proceeding more swiftly along the path to a common defence? I refer in particular to the statement made last week by Alain Richard, Minister for Defence of the country holding the presidency, in which he expressed his concern in the event that non-aligned countries are fully involved from the start in second pillar development projects.
As you will be aware Mrs Kauppi, the matter of relations between the Member States of the European Union that are not part of NATO took up a considerable amount of discussion time at the Feira European Council and it is well on the way to a successful conclusion.
As regards the flexibility of the second pillar, perhaps you will allow the presidency to take the Intergovernmental Conference in hand, which it will do following the 'General Affairs Council' next Monday, 10 July.
We shall then be able to determine the various views on this matter.
I should like to remind you that the role of the presidency is to successfully oversee the running of the IGC and not state the positions adopted by the various Member States.
I am very pleased to see the President-in-Office here, as a former Member of Parliament.
Will he, in the Nice Treaty or in the negotiations leading up to the Treaty of Nice at the end of the year, propose codecision between Parliament and the Council on matters of common foreign and security policy? This is to be the lower House, as the President of the Republic told us this morning and if we are to carry public opinion with us in security and defence matters we need a proper position.
So does he agree that codecision is the way forward in this policy area?
Mr Newton Dunn, I stand by my previous response.
I would remind Members in general that we must ask questions.
That is what Question Time is for. The President-in-Office of the Council replies to the questions in the way he sees fit.
Question No 2 by (H-0519/00):
Subject: Transport of water from France to Spain and the sustainable management of water resources France is understood to be intending to launch an aqueduct scheme for transporting water from the Rhône to Barcelona, with the participation of the Lyonnaise water company.
The water is apparently intended to be used to develop irrigated intensive farming in Catalonia.
This scheme goes against all principles of sustainable management of water resources at the regional level.
Is the Council aware of this scheme?
Does the Council not take the view that such a course of action is contrary to the precautionary principle and the principle of preventive action in respect of the environment as laid down in Article 174 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, as it removes responsibility from the consumers of water which has been transported from elsewhere? What steps does the Council intend to take with a view to promoting a policy of sustainable management of water resources in the EU and in order that schemes for transporting water over long distances do not threaten the ecological balance in the regions concerned?
Council.
(FR) There is indeed a project, or rather studies, in progress with regard to the transportation of water from the Rhone to Catalonia, but - for the time being at least - it does not involve the French or Spanish authorities.
What is more, the European Parliament and the Council have put forward a proposal for a directive establishing a framework for a community water policy.
It was adopted recently through a conciliation procedure on 29 June 2000.
It should be noted that this framework directive is primarily aimed at conserving, protecting and improving the quality of the environment, as well as promoting the careful and rational use of natural resources.
It sets out the basic principles for a sustainable water policy in the European Union based on the principles enshrined in the Treaty, for example those relating to precautionary, preventative and corrective action by according priority to the source of the threats to the environment, as well as the polluter-pays principle.
It must be noted that this project should also apply to both surface and ground water with the aim of preventing any further deterioration, promoting the sustainable use of water based on the long-term protection of available water resources and helping to mitigate the effects of floods and droughts.
The project is designed to ensure that these water sources are maintained in good condition through a series of measures that Member States are to implement according to a specific timetable.
On the other hand, it follows that all initiatives of this type must automatically be subject to both a socio-economic and environmental assessment.
Thank you for your response, Minister. However, given that you were able to elaborate on the matter, you no doubt have extra information.
When you referred to the studies that have been carried out, I became worried because the reason I am raising this matter is precisely due to the fact that French and Spanish citizens have alerted our attention to it and are asking for more information. Their concern arises because this has already been the subject of a debate in Parliament that was rejected, specifically in the framework of the directive on water.
However, as you are aware, all directives contain exceptions, and this project for the transportation of water could very well come under this exception.
I am therefore seeking your assurance that until impact studies have been carried out and the members of Parliament have been informed, this project will not be the covered by an exception.
I set the project within a global and general framework and stressed that at this stage neither the French nor Spanish authorities are involved.
It goes without saying that as soon as I have further information I shall inform Mrs Isler Béguin.
With regard to her other comments, I should again like to reiterate my final remarks when I said that we must ensure that all initiatives of this type are subject to a socio-economic and environmental assessment as a matter of course.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, there have been fears expressed repeatedly in connection with the reading of the framework directive on water, that it could be possible later on in the EU to transport water from one Member State to another against the wishes of the first country.
Does the President-in-Office see such a threat as likely, and is there a need to protect Member States against it?
To be honest I have nothing further to add to my previous responses.
Question No 3 by (H-0525/00):
Subject: Digital radio Does the Council agree that a political endorsement of digital radio, similar to that given to mobile telephone technology and digital television, could help to enhance confidence in the future of radio?
. (FR) I can simply say in response to Mr Perry' s question that owing to the absence of an initiative from the Commission, which should not be long in coming, the Council has still to determine its position on this matter.
Mr President, I am disappointed with that response.
The European Parliament held a hearing just a few weeks ago with representatives from the Minister's country as well as from my own.
The point was made very strongly there by representatives of the radio industry that digital radio is one sector of media communication that is not developing as quickly and as effectively as it might do, and the feeling was that political backing was lacking.
I would like to think that the Council, were they to receive a proposal from the Commission, would behave emphatically in support of digital radio.
A problem has also arisen that various elements of the digital radio spectrum are now being allocated across Europe often quite freely, at no charge at all.
Yet that same spectrum would, of course, be very profitable if were used for telephone communications.
I wonder if can we be assured that the Council of Ministers will look very carefully at this and be sure that it does not pose any threat to the development of digital radio in Europe.
I should like to remind you that digital audiobroadcasting has existed since 1989 and the main problem that still remains to be solved relates to the fact that the receivers are still too large.
One of the key issues that the Council - which is keeping an open approach to all of this - must look into in due course concerns the definition of particular principles that are designed to enhance the legibility and effectiveness of this area of electronic communications.
The issue of convergence between telecommunications, the media and information technology was raised at the end of 1999 during a Council meeting and again on 2 May 2000 during a public debate.
On this occasion the Council highlighted the following points, namely that the regulation should be based on clearly defined political objectives, stimulate economic growth and competitiveness and ensure general interest objectives.
The regulation should also aim at technological neutrality, with the rules that govern communication services being as far as possible independent of the technology implemented to provide these services.
On 2 May 2000, the Council stressed the importance of striking a balance between legal security, chiefly guaranteed by the binding provisions, and the ability to react speedily to technological and market developments, using flexible measures.
In other words, I repeat, the Council continues to approach the issue openly.
Question No 4 by (H-0531/00):
Subject: EU-China WTO Agreement Is the Council aware that China has ordered state-run television, newspapers, and billboard owners to stop running Sprite commercials featuring the young pop-star, Sherry Chang Huei-mei, who sang at the inauguration of President Chen Shui-bain? Is the Council also aware that China has recently warned Hong Kong and PRC business organisations not to trade with Taiwanese firms whom the PRC deems to be pro-independence?
In view of the fact that we have recently signed an agreement with China on their admission to the WTO, how will the Council respond to the use of this type of political blackmail, which is contrary to the principles of free trade?
. (FR) For a long time now the Council has been committed to improving the human rights situation in China, including civil and political rights, which have been adversely affected by the issues Mr Cushnahan mentioned in his question.
The key element in this commitment is the dialogue that the European Union has established with China in relation to human rights.
In spite of some progress achieved in improving the legal system with regard to economic and social rights, little progress has been achieved on the ground, particularly in the area of civil and political rights.
As a result, the Council is deeply concerned about the persistent and widespread restrictions imposed on fundamental freedoms, for example in relation to the freedom of assembly, expression and association.
It has been agreed that the European Union would continue to publicly express its concerns on the human rights situation in China and raise such matters in meetings with China at all levels.
In addition, the Council has agreed that the European Union will adopt a firm stance with regard to the motion for a resolution on human rights in China, presented by the United States at the 56th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Should the motion for a resolution be put to the vote, the Council has agreed that the Member States that are part of this commission would vote in favour of it.
Lastly, the motion for a resolution was not put to the vote following the adoption of a motion of non-intervention, on China' s initiative.
The Council also agreed that the position it would adopt during the next meeting of the Human Rights Commission would be based on the outcome of dialogue with China on the issue of human rights.
With regard to the process leading to China' s admission to the WTO, the Council is of the opinion that it is not the appropriate forum for tackling issues relating to human rights and, also believes that an increase in trade transactions would support European Union efforts with a view to guaranteeing respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law, values which form the very foundation of Europe.
Mr President, first of all let me congratulate Mr Moscovici on his country winning Euro 2000.
It is very good to welcome a former colleague into a new elevated office but let me remind you Mr Moscovici, of the frustration which we experienced as parliamentarians trying to question the Council.
I hope that the next time that you come back to this chamber you will not respond in the same curt fashion that you did to Mr Newton Dunn, if the presidency wants to work with Parliament.
As to your answer, I disagree with its contents.
I believe the response of the EU in Geneva was appalling.
It was cowardice to the highest degree that we failed to support the US initiative.
Had we taken the much stronger position, then we would not be experiencing the arrogance that we see from China.
I hope, the next time this issue comes back to the UN, that Member States will put principle above trading interests.
This is an issue where, in the WTO, China uses trade as a tool of political blackmail, and we should have used the EU/China WTO negotiations for leverage in the same way.
I would like to seek an assurance from you, given what you did say, that in future Member States will take a strong stance in their discussions with China where the abuse of human rights are concerned and will not be blackmailed by any economic threats by China in this regard.
I should like to thank you, Mr Cushnahan, for your personal words of encouragement and for your congratulations following France' s success at Euro 2000 last Sunday.
With regard to your other points, I shall endeavour, during the course of these questions, to express the views of the Council.
I should also like to remind you that the presidency has the mandate to do this on the basis of the positions adopted by the Council.
Minister, I cannot congratulate you on this success, since I must remain completely neutral, as you will appreciate.
Furthermore, I am from a country which suffered an unexpected defeat, like other Members present.
Question No 5 by Ioannis Souladakis (H-0536/00):
Subject: Improvement in the export capacities of the countries of South-Eastern Europe
The Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe is a political choice made by the European Union to which it has given a very high priority.
Within the context of this policy for south-eastern Europe it is evident that the area' s socio-economic reconstruction will play an extremely important part.
In view of this, what specific action does the Council intend to take, in the form of economic parameters for the implementation of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe, in order to improve the export capacities of the countries in the region as regards the European Union market, and to strengthen their afflicted economies?
I am well aware, Mr President, that we made few friends during Euro 2000.
The European Union supports the idea that the deepening of international trade should, in the long term, replace the dependence on foreign aid and that trade integration should constitute one of the main facets of greater integration in the longer term for the countries of south-eastern Europe in the Euro-Atlantic structures.
The stabilisation and association process is a key feature of European Union policy and, as you will be aware, it is designed to help the countries in question rebuild their economies by restoring and improving their infrastructures as well as redirecting their old war economies and planned economies towards a more market based one.
As a result of the decisions made at the Lisbon European Council, which provided that stabilisation and association agreements with the Balkan countries should be preceded by the non-symmetrical liberalisation of trade, the Commission is set to put forward a specific proposal extending the existing trade preferences through the abolition of tariff ceilings that exist for some industrial products and the improvement of the access of agricultural products to the markets.
The Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe is generally designed to help the countries of the region attain stability and economic prosperity.
In order to achieve this, a South-East regional group was set up together with a working group on economic reconstruction that also encompasses trade relations.
The importance of liberalising and facilitating trade between the countries of the region, and also between these countries and the European Union, was highlighted, by both donors and recipients, at the regional conference on Pact funding held in Brussels at the end of March this year.
In all areas covered by the Stability Pact, and therefore also in the economic and trade areas, reciprocal commitments between donors and recipients remain the key to the Stability Pact' s success.
The commitment expressed by the countries of the region to implement reforms and generate the right climate for sustainable economic progress lies at the very heart of the Pact.
Thank you for your reply; however, I have the following comments to make: I was debating the Budget 2001 in Parliament before you and the problem again arose of where to find the money to finance the Stability Pact.
In this sense, my question meant exactly that, given that we are dealing with economies which, because of the economic system in place, used to function along different trading, or rather bartering lines. The question which I am basically asking is what can be done to ensure that products from these regions reach the markets of the Member States of the European Union?
That is the question.
In other words, what policies will strengthen production in these regions without the European Union's having to pay out money which, due in part to internal problems, it is having trouble finding anyway.
That is the nub of the problem.
My question is: exactly what steps can the European Union take in order to create these networks, which did not previously exist, so that these people can sell their products?
It is precisely, Mr Souladakis, the aim of the Stability Pact and the Association Agreements, which, as I have reminded you, include provisions in both economic and trade areas.
It is in fact our duty, once again, to agree to non-symmetrical liberalisation to offset the backwardness of these countries. However, I can assure you that both the Council Presidency as well as the European Council Presidency consider the future of this region a priority, which is why the French President has proposed a summit of the western Balkans during our presidency, perhaps in Zagreb.
Question No 6 by (H-0539/00):
Subject: Lifting of sanctions against Iraq UN resolution 687, of 1991, indicates that sanctions against Iraq will be lifted if it agrees to renounce the weapons of mass destruction which it is alleged to possess.
Since that time, despite thorough searches by thousands of observers, no such weapons have been found, nor has any capability to manufacture them been discovered, and official reports are wholly reassuring.
However, the embargo against Iraq is still being applied, with dramatically harmful consequences for the Iraqi population. One very typical example is the huge increase in infant mortality, which over the last ten years has been recorded at 1.5 million child deaths due to lack of medicine, food etc.
The 'oil for food' programme cannot constitute an alibi for the crime which is still being committed, since only a small part of the value of what Iraq is allowed to export returns as food and medicines, while the rest is retained for 'compensation' or remains frozen in Western banks, with Iraq unable to use it.
Is the Council looking into lifting the embargo, whose only victims are the people of Iraq, and in particular its small children?
The European Union fully implements all United Nations Security Council resolutions, including those concerning Iraq.
Resolution 1284, adopted on 17 December 1999, is aimed at recommencing UN inspections and, at the same time, improve the so-called "oil for food" programme" , and finally lifting the sanctions against Iraq.
The European Union urges the Iraqi Government to cooperate fully with the UN and its supporting bodies.
The Council notes that since 1998 no checks have been carried out to see whether Iraq is in fact complying with the wholly relevant Security Council resolutions, in particular Resolution 687.
As a result, the embargo imposed on Iraq remains in force.
We are well aware, it is true, of the serious and even worrying humanitarian situation that has arisen as a result of the embargo, particularly for the Iraqi children.
The Iraqi Government is chiefly responsible for this.
However, as the panel of experts presided by Ambassador Amorim noted in April 1999, the Iraqi population would not have suffered such privations had the measures taken in 1991 by the Security Council not had to have been extended.
The international community and the Iraqi Government should do their utmost to ensure that the "oil for food" programme works to the full advantage of the Iraqi people.
This is why the Council welcomes the creation of a United Nations working party that is responsible for making general recommendations on the way in which UN sanctions can be made more effective, for example by better targeting them, and on the ways in which needless human suffering can be avoided.
The Council noted that the United Nations Security Council, in its Resolution 1302, invited the UN Secretary General to appoint independent experts to draw up an in-depth study on the humanitarian situation in Iraq.
I asked the question because there is a certain sensitivity in France to this issue.
I have listened to the President-in-office's formal reply; however, we all know full well that the situation in Iraq is connected with the arbitrary policy imposed by the United States.
Take, for example, the air embargo, which has not been ratified by a single UN Security Council.
We also all know full well that, when Mr Ekeus, the United Nations representative, reported to the United Nations in 1997 after 6900 visits and inspections, he said that there was no reason to suspect that Iraq was harbouring nuclear or chemical weapons.
I should like to ask the French Presidency if, taking account of all this and taking account of the fact that a large slice of Iraq's oil revenues is blocked in a bank, and a French bank at that, in New York, it plans to take any initiatives during the French presidency in order to put an end to this dictatorial regime imposed by the United States at a massive cost to the people and children of Iraq.
You are right to highlight the fact that perhaps France is particularly sensitive to this issue. However, whether or not this is true, it is not renowned for its indifference to the sufferings of the Iraqi people.
You will undoubtedly be aware that my country is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and, I repeat, hopes that all of these resolutions will be observed while at the same time seeking to examine all possible solutions, starting with the rigorous application of the "oil for food" resolution" .
This is the difficult path we must now take.
Mr President, I welcomed the Minister's reply but I would like him to give an assurance to this House that he and the Council will not lose sight in their consideration of this problem of the 604 Kuwaiti citizens who disappeared as a result of the illegal occupation of Kuwait by Iraq and that they will keep pressing the Iraqi authorities for an explanation of the fate of these people.
I should simply like to confirm our intention to examine the matter fully.
Mr President, I have submitted a similar question, Question No 20.
Unfortunately, however, the Council services informed me today that they had not had time to translate my question because it had only been submitted within three days of the deadline.
I consider that unacceptable, it is not my responsibility.
I should like to add to the debate by pointing out, as I stated in my question, that last month alone, i.e. in May, 8000 people died due to a lack of drugs.
We have doubled infant mortality due to the lack of drugs.
According to the statistics, the number of people who have lost their life in Iraq since 1990, as a result of the sanctions, now totals 1 309 153.
Genocide is being practised against the Iraqi people on the pretext of sanctions against the regime of Saddam Hussein, who is still in power, on the grounds that he has nuclear weapons, which have not been found.
My question to the Council is this: does it accept that this genocide, which has been going on for a decade, cannot continue, will it ask for the embargo against the Iraqi people to be lifted and does it intend to take measures, even unilateral measures, to protect the people of Iraq?
Firstly, I think that - although I am new to this role - there are in fact rules governing this particular exercise which require Parliament to translate the questions raised to enable the Council to answer them as precisely as possible.
Secondly, I should simply like to state that no one is sanctioning Mr Saddam Hussein' s regime through these resolutions and I think that the term 'genocide' - used here, if I am not mistaken, in relation to those that have imposed sanctions -cannot be justified.
This is neither France' s nor the Council' s position.
This is not the time to hold a debate on relations between the Council and Parliament with regard to questions, since that would take up time allotted to Question Time.
However, I must say that there are 6 questions which unfortunately, although they arrived correctly in some languages, and owing to a bank holiday in Luxembourg, I believe, did not reach the Council in all languages.
The Council has decided not to answer them.
In any event, this debate can be held in the Conference of Presidents, which deals with these relations and any incidents which may occur.
Question No 7 by Esko Olavi Seppänen (H-0542/00):
Subject: Non-allied status of certain EU Member States
At the Feira European Council discussions are being held on the EU' s defence dimension, and the matter is also up for discussion at the IGC.
Some EU Member States do not belong to the NATO military alliance.
What is the Council' s view of the position of these Member States in any future EU defence cooperation and will those Member States which belong to the alliance respect - as the Portuguese Presidency has proposed - the other Member States' desire to remain outside any alliance?
There is no problem between Parliament and the Commission.
The fact is, we received an explanation of the correct procedure, and it is in fact standard practice that we have the questions translated so as to be able to answer them properly and not have to improvise, since this would impair the quality of the answers.
To come back to the question raised, Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union lays down that Union policy under this article does not impact on the specific nature of the security and defence policy of some Member States, including non-allied Member States.
Similarly, the policy observes the obligations of the North Atlantic Treaty with regard to those Member States who consider that their common defence is provided within the framework of NATO, and it is compatible with the common security and defence policy established within this framework.
After Amsterdam, the European Union undertook a process aimed at enabling it to take all of the measures needed to play a role in the areas of conflict prevention and crisis management, measures that are defined in the Treaty on European Union and known as the Petersburg tasks, without prejudice to the position of the Member States as regards their membership or non-membership of NATO or the WEU.
This was reiterated in the presidency' s report that was approved by the Helsinki European Council.
Mr President, at the meeting at Feira it was decided to increase flexibility. My interpretation of this is that flexibility will also be introduced in second pillar matters, in a foreign and security policy.
Is yours the same interpretation? At the same time I have been following the French President' s ideas on how the countries of the European Union should develop at their own pace and on how there should possibly be a hard and solid core of pioneer states.
Do you consider that such a hard core - as the former President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, calls it - could include a country that is militarily non-aligned?
The question posed in this way is extremely complex and since it relates to the IGC overall, I suggest that I give you a more detailed response at a future meeting.
I simply wanted to stress that at Feira we expressed a desire to see the framework encompass non-allied countries and those countries that are not members of NATO and, if it is indeed this type of flexibility to which you refer, it will undoubtedly be implemented.
We shall, besides, have further opportunities to discuss the development of European defence and the intensified cooperation in this field.
Question No 8 by (H-0545/00):
Subject: Priorities of the French Presidency as regards the advancement of women What specific measures will the French Presidency be putting forward as its priorities for the advancement of women in Europe?
Mrs Nicole Péry, my colleague and Secretary of State for Women' s Rights, will outline next week the French presidency' s programme in this area to your committee responsible.
My intention here is to simply give a few brief details.
The Council, under the French Presidency intends to deal with several matters relating to sexual equality.
Firstly, the Commission has just sent the Council a communication entitled 'Towards a Community framework strategy for sexual equality' , also a proposal for a Council decision on a support programme for the community strategy on sexual equality, a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and Council modifying Directive 67/207/EEC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards - and this is crucial - access to jobs, training and vocational training and working conditions.
The French presidency, I stress, has already timetabled the presentation of these Commission texts.
As regards the proposal for a decision relating to a programme on the basis of Article 13 of the Treaty and the fact that the programme is due to start on 1 January 2001, the aim of the presidency is to adopt it during the 'employment and social welfare' council on 28 November.
With regard to the proposal for a directive, the French Presidency shall endeavour to make as much progress as possible.
Apart from these legislative texts, the Council, as in previous years, shall also to consider the implementation of the Beijing action plan by the Member States.
What is more, the French Presidency will organise two events in relation to this: a ministerial conference on 27 October in Paris that will focus on three issues - women and decision-making, reconciling family life and professional life and mainstreaming - as well as a symposium on equality in the workplace on 24 November in Paris that will centre on discrimination in recruitment and the difficulties of returning to work.
You therefore have my assurance that the French Presidency will grant the issue of sexual equality particular attention.
Mr President, I am very grateful to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Moscovici, for his very promising reply which, furthermore, puts into practice something which Mr Chirac, President of the French Republic, said this morning, when he stated that the French Presidency had ambitious and specific aims.
You have demonstrated this in your reply.
Mr Chirac also told us that one of the most interesting aspects to be dealt with by the French Presidency would be the reconciliation of family life and working life.
In this regard I would like to ask how we will avoid this necessary concept being misused to relegate women further and also what role men will play in the reconciliation of family life and working life.
It is not something I claim to want, especially as the male gender is completely varied, and we are not all the same.
No, I think that it would be best to discuss the matter further with Mrs Péry, and simply say that, from a more philosophical point of view, the idea of reconciling family and professional life is certainly not to disadvantage women or return to a more traditional model, but on the contrary to move towards our common aim of achieving true sexual equality.
We need measures to achieve this and, I do not doubt that the contribution of men to family life forms part of this.
Question No 9 by (H-0552/00):
Subject: Council's views on the Pelinka case in Austria On 1 May 1999, Professor Anton Pelinka commented on the Italian television channel RAI on previous statements made by the Freedom Party's Jörg Haider in connection with national socialism.
On 11 May 2000, a court in Vienna (Landesgericht für Strafsachen) found Professor Pelinka guilty of slandering Jörg Haider during the broadcast and ordered him to pay a fine of ATS 60 000.
Mr Haider was represented by his lawyer, Dieter Böhmdorfer, who is now Austria's Justice Minister.
Are Professor Pelinka's remarks not completely within the bounds of acceptability in a democracy? The question is whether the Austrian court is guilty of serious encroachment on freedom of expression in general and academic freedom in particular, given that Austria is a member of the Council of Europe and of the EU, the founding Treaty of which lays down, in Article 6(2), that the Union shall, as general principles, respect fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
What view does the Council take of a Member State's Justice Minister having actively pursued a prosecution which blatantly ignores the above Convention and Treaty?
My response to that will be extremely brief.
Of course the Council has been informed of this specific, undoubtedly difficult situation.
However, and you will understand this, it is not within the Council' s remit to comment on legal decisions. Neither is it able to pass judgement on the way a legal institution is run in one of the Member States.
Mr President, I would thank the French presidency for its succinct answer. I nonetheless have two follow-up questions, because this is a very serious case of a very dubious character from a democratic point of view.
Fourteen Member States are planning to ask experts from the Council of Europe to investigate certain states of affairs in Austria.
My first question concerns whether the French presidency considers that this request for an investigation should also apply to the Pelinka case, which would be only reasonable.
My second question concerns Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty, concerning fundamental rights.
I wonder whether the French presidency believes there is cause for examining this case on the basis of Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty.
. (FR) In response to this point, I should simply like to remind those present that a few days ago the Portuguese Presidency, that acted in a very balanced fashion, took measures not on the Council' s behalf but on behalf of the 14, measures that we endorse and that we shall apply both in our assessment of the Austrian situation and to the continued imposition of sanctions.
We shall stick to these measures without adding further ones and of course without taking anything away from them, until we have proof that a significant assessment has been carried out on both the situation and political leanings of the FPÖ, the Austrian Freedom Party.
Mr President, Austria has very strict laws prohibiting fascism, national socialism and the resurgence thereof, and there has been a succession of convictions over the past few years. Does the President-in-Office of the Council know of any similar, or better, legislation in other States?
Will the Council continue to ignore the fact that the sanctions against Austria decided on by the 14 Heads of Government are in violation of the European Treaties? Will it persist in its refusal to take a stance on the matter, thereby remaining in breach of the Treaties?
Are bilateral decisions not to be dealt with by the Council in future?
I believe I have already answered the questions relating to the maintenance of sanctions and the assessment of the situation.
As regards the other points, I am not in a position to comment in detail on the judicial or legal situation in Austria, but I know that there are other countries which appear to have a far more enviable political situation.
And here I am not talking as President-in-Office of the Council but as a government minister.
The second supplementary question will be put by Mr Ford, and I must remind you that he is the author of the next question, Question No 10, which is not going to be answered as Question No 10, since it is one of the six questions that did not reach the Council in all languages.
Mr President, I should like to express my concern that nobody in the French presidency can read any of the European languages apart from French. Also on this point, will the presidency confirm that under the Treaty it is the Fourteen - minus the country concerned - which would make a recommendation to suspend Austria from membership, should that be necessary?
I am not arguing that it is necessary, but should it be necessary, could we not expect a view from the presidency over whether this particular case actually causes it some concern? Is it not right and proper that the same person should not be judge, jury and executioner and that the person making the accusation should not also be the minister of justice at the same time?
Would one not criticise this kind of situation in, let us say, Zimbabwe or some other part of the world, if it arose there?
(inaudible) on the French Presidency' s ability to understand languages other than French.
We are not all uneducated and illiterate.
There are so-called rules of transmission between Parliament and the Council, which have prevented these questions from arriving today.
I sincerely hope that, with or without translation, things will be sorted out for future part-sessions.
These are short-term teething troubles.
With regard to the other points you raised, as you have understood, the French presidency intends to observe the measures that have already been decided on by the Fourteen.
And when I say 'Fourteen' I mean that it is not exactly a Council matter, rather a matter between the 14 Member States themselves.
What is more, I repeat, these measures are of a strictly bilateral nature and do not impact on the fact that Austria is a member of the European Union, with access to all of its institutions and participating in all of its bodies and, throughout our Presidency, will be treated as such. In other words, it will genuinely be treated as a major player within the European Union.
Mr President, I asked the President-in-Office to answer my question whether Article 7 of the Treaties actually asks the Fourteen to take action in respect of a country whose human rights record is called into question.
He seems to imply that this is a matter for the Presidency-in-Office and not for fourteen sets of bilateral relations.
. (FR) I think there is some ambiguity surrounding this issue.
No one is saying that Austria has been expelled from the European Union, something I stressed earlier.
At the same time, these measures were adopted by 14 Member States on a political basis, and we are, of course, continuing to act on a political basis while once again fully respecting Austria' s rights as a member of the European Union.
This is one of the questions which will not be answered by the Council, since it did not reach the Council on time in all languages.
Parliament will consider this issue, but today we are not going to discuss it further, if the Members agree.
Question No 11 by Maj Britt Theorin (H-0554/00):
Subject: International Criminal Court
The Commission, and particularly the Commissioner for humanitarian aid, played an important role in the setting-up of the new, permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) in June 1998.
The adoption of the Rome Statute - on which the ICC is founded - was an important step in breaking the tendency towards the systematic use of rape as a strategy of war.
The Statute is the first international accord to stipulate that rape, sexual slavery and forced pregnancy may be treated as crimes against humanity and war crimes.
However, to become a reality, the Rome Statute must be ratified by 60 States.
Although all the EU Member States have signed the Statute, only Italy, unfortunately, has ratified it.
What initiatives does the Council intend to take to ensure that the other Member States also ratify the Statute?
. (FR) In order to obtain a precise answer to this question, Mrs Theorin should refer to oral question H-0217/00 raised by Mr Cushnahan during the part-session in March, in which the Council stated that, since these Statutes were adopted in Rome on 17 July 1998, it strongly urged Member States to ratify them as they lay the foundations for the International Criminal Court.
Let us not forget that such ratification, as a legal principle, is, nonetheless, something that relates to the exclusive competence of the sovereign Member States.
Mr President, it is good news that France and Belgium have just recently ratified the treaty concerning the International Criminal Court, but I am nonetheless concerned about developments.
It is now two years since the Treaty arising out of the Rome Conference was signed, and only a fifth of the States required have ratified the creation of a permanent International Criminal Court.
At this rate, it is doubtful whether we shall meet our December deadline.
I certainly think the EU ought to be leading the way in creating an international legal system and, when the national legal systems do not function, the international community must be ready to take action against the worst offenders.
That applies especially to attacks on women and girls and to the deficiencies we know existed in devising and implementing the war crimes tribunals in connection with Rwanda and Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
These clearly show that present systems are inadequate for combating crimes such as forced pregnancy, sexual slavery and systematic rape.
If the ICC is to become a reality and to operate effectively, broad international support is required.
I must nonetheless ask the Council if it is planning to take special initiatives to encourage ratification, also by non-EU States.
Russia and the United States are important in this connection.
Once again, the Council is of the opinion that the successful conclusion of the conference on the creation of an International Criminal Court would be a significant historical achievement in terms of making the world a safer and more just place.
How can we even consider adopting a harder line at the same time, given that we cannot encroach on the sovereignty of States as regards the ratification of Treaties?
I should also like to point out that France, for example, has also ratified this Treaty, which it strongly supports and a few months ago I accompanied the French President on a visit to The Hague during which we paid a visit to the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia.
This demonstrates to what extent we are committed to this matter, however our only weapon is our ability to urge them to cooperate.
Question No 12 by (H-0556/00):
Subject: Role of the diamond trade in African wars It is a known fact that the violence in both Sierra Leone and the Great Lakes region is linked to the monopolies on local mineral deposits and the struggles to gain control of those monopolies.
Some Member States, for example the United Kingdom, are already planning to impose an embargo on Sierra Leonean diamonds because there is ample evidence that the trade in precious stones has been and is still being used to finance the RUF guerrillas.
Is the Council considering the possibility of influencing the trade in diamonds from Sierra Leone and the Great Lakes region in a way that might prove conducive to peace in those areas?
If so, could it say what steps it is taking or will take in the immediate future to achieve that end?
The Council has voiced its concerns on several occasions in relation to the illegal diamond trade that is fuelling conflicts in several countries in Africa, for example in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone.
On 13 June, the Council warned the government of Liberia that it was not acting responsibly with regard to the situation in Sierra Leone, particularly in relation to the illegal trade in diamonds. The European Union will take this into account in its policy, especially within the framework of the Lomé Convention.
Let me specify, however, that the Council has not yet discussed the initiatives put by the United Kingdom to the United Nations Security Council, nor has it established contact with the largest diamond importers with a view to preventing the illegal trade in diamonds.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I truly regret your reply.
I believe that the problem relating to the trafficking in diamonds, which has cost, and is costing, many lives, deserves much more decisive and firm attention from the Council.
I clearly cannot blame you for this, since you have just taken over the Presidency, but I would ask you to adopt much more energetic and forceful decisions.
The European Union is committed to promoting peace and stability, not only in Europe, but throughout the world.
If diamonds are not controlled it is clear that peace and stability in Africa cannot be promoted.
In the case of Sierra Leone, Great Britain had supported the embargo, and France as well, to a certain extent.
The Council could promote a generalised embargo of all diamonds originating in Africa and, above all, the control of certificates.
We know these measures would be difficult to implement but, in any event, any advance in this respect would save human lives and contribute to the pacification of truly dramatic conflicts in Africa.
Yes, I was simply outlining the stage the Council' s work has reached, which does not mean to say that we are not giving the matter our fullest attention and will not keep you regularly informed.
I was merely giving you a progress report.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Question No 13 is one of six questions which the Council will not reply to today because of procedural problems.
As the author is not present, Question No 14 lapses.
Question No 15 by Mr Medina Ortega will not be replied to because its subject appears in the agenda of the present part-session.
Question No 16 by (H-0565/00):
Subject: Violations of Cypriot airspace by Turkish fighter-planes Cyprus, a country which is due to join the EU within the next few years, is continuously subjected to Turkish aggression.
Apart from the fact that the Turkish army has occupied 37% of Cypriot territory for 26 consecutive years, Turkey - a candidate for EU membership - disputes the island's status as an independent state on an almost daily basis. The latest incidents have been the subject of complaints to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on mass violations of Cypriot airspace and the Nicosia F.I.R. by a total of 78 Turkish fighter-planes on 27 and 30 April, and on 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12, 17, 18, 19 and 26 May 2000.
The complaints were lodged through the most official channel by means of a letter from the Permanent Representative of Cyprus to the United Nations, Ambassador Zackheos, to Mr Annan on 5 June.
What is the Council's official position on violations of the national sovereignty of an independent Member State of the UN and a candidate for EU membership, and to what extent are the tactics pursued by Turkey consistent with conduct befitting a modern European State?
Mr Marinos has drawn the Council' s attention to the violations of Cypriot airspace by Turkish fighter planes.
The Council values the principle of sovereignty highly, and in this case can only reiterate its commitment to Resolution 353 of 20 July 1974 of the United Nations Security Council as well as Resolution 3212 of the United Nations General Assembly of 1 November 1974 which requested all States to respect the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus.
The Council of course expects all applicant countries to observe European values and establish good neighbourly relations with their neighbours.
With regard to Cyprus, the process for resolving the Cypriot problem was launched under the auspices of the United Nations.
The Council, which supports the efforts of the United Nations Secretary General, expects Turkey, and other countries, to contribute to the success of these negotiations in order to achieve a just and lasting resolution to the Cypriot question.
I thank the Minister although, unfortunately, I do not consider his answer satisfactory.
The Council refers constantly to the Cyprus problem, but what we are talking about here is the occupation of 40% of the territory of an independent Member State of the UN and candidate for accession to the European Union, which is being left to the mercy of a powerful occupying force.
Encouraged by tolerance and compliance on the part of Europe and the United States, Turkey engaged the other day in a new act of aggressive provocation which could well have been the cause of war between two equally powerful countries.
The Turkish occupying forces occupied another 200 metres of Cypriot soil and set up a roadblock next to the last British base, cutting off 10 Greek Cypriots who are now hostages.
My question to the Council is this: does it intend to tolerate and again fail to react decisively to this aggression on Turkey's part?
Does it still not realise that Turkey has nothing but contempt for international law and is exposing the credibility of the UN, provoking the European Union and putting the Greek Government in a difficult position? I would remind you that Greece lifted its veto against Turkish candidacy on the basis of promises by the other 14 Member States that Turkey would change its tune.
Perhaps Turkey feels that its compliance is something akin to the Munich Agreement and that is why it is advancing?
I had understood the question perfectly.
I simply wished to reiterate my previous answer while stressing that we could not claim that Turkey was being provoked in any way to adopt an aggressive position.
Minister, I understand your unwillingness to give a clear, spontaneous reaction to Turkey's intolerable conduct in Cyprus.
Your predecessors were equally unwilling to condemn Turkey's conduct in Cyprus outright and, I fear, your successors will take the same approach, now that the American-, but not just the American-inspired formula of two sets of rules for and two attitudes towards Turkey has been adopted, together with the convenient method of taking refuge in pretexts such as the supposedly clear prospect of settling the Cyprus question, which has lasted 26 years now, and the supposedly concomitant need to appease the puppet of Ankara, Mr Denktash.
Nonetheless, allow me to risk another question, in the hope this time of receiving a satisfactory answer.
Is the French Presidency ready and willing to stop acting like Pontius Pilate and to make it unconditionally clear to Turkey, on behalf of the European Union, that, first: Cyprus will become a full member of the European Union, irrespective of whether or not the Cyprus problem is solved first, given that no such solution will be possible due to Turkey's intransigence and, secondly: that Turkey will forever remain a candidate and only a candidate country if it continues to violate the fundamental principles of international law and the European ideal?
Question No 17 by (H-0569/00):
Subject: Milosevic Over the last few days, a number of media have carried reports that one Member State of the European Union is currently acting as a mediator in an effort to find a 'way out' from the serious situation in Serbia. Those media allege that, together with other members of the international community, that Member State is working on a scenario whereby Mr Milosevic and his family would be granted exile and protection, i.e. immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in exchange for his giving up power.
Does not the Council feel that such a scenario, if it ever became reality, would constitute a complete U­turn in the policy pursued hitherto by the European Union against persons indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia? Does it not also feel that a U-turn of this nature would have serious consequences for the credibility of the future International Criminal Court?
The indiscreet remarks to which Mr Dupuis refers, that were published by some sections of the international press and concerned confidential negotiations between some governments with the aim of guaranteeing President Milosevic and his family exile and protection, have been officially denied by all of the governments concerned.
The European Union' s policy that aims to guarantee full and unconditional support to the International Criminal Court for crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia, and all initiatives undertaken to apprehend all persons accused of these crimes and subject them to international justice, remains - I assure you -absolutely and wholly unchanged.
) Minister, I am completely satisfied with your answer and I note your voice is failing you somewhat owing to the length of this session.
I should like to thank you for your positive start and hope that the rest of the presidency continues well.
I wish you every success.
We also thank the Minister for being present, and we naturally hope that his cold will clear up.
I am also suffering.
These summer colds need a lot of attention.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed.
Questions Nos 18, 21 and 24 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.45 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.).
Draft supplementary and amending budgets (SAB) for 2000
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports:
(A5-0183/2000) by Mr Bourlanges on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on draft supplementary and amending budget 1/2000 to the budget of the European Communities for the financial year 2000;
(A5-0192/2000) by Mr Virrankoski on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on draft supplementary and amending budget 2/2000 to the budget of the European Communities for the financial year 2000.
As Mr Bourlanges is not yet here, I should like to give Mr Virrankoski the floor for five minutes.
Mr President, draft supplementary and amending budget no.
2/2000 contains appropriations for the Council and for Parliament.
The Council' s budget is EUR 6.635 million.
This is going towards the needs of a common foreign and security and defence policy.
EUR 5.877 million are estimated to be required for renting, renovating and furnishing a new building.
This building will be for the needs of the staff required to implement the policy.
EU military staff will be posted there, for example, including military experts who have been transferred from Member States.
They may be around 45 at first, but that number may later grow to 60 or even 90.
Their pay will amount to EUR 758 000 by the end of the year.
Under the old gentleman' s agreement, neither institution - neither the Council nor Parliament - has become involved in the other' s draft budget.
The draft supplementary and amending budget for the European Parliament contains an appropriation of EUR 15 million for an additional prepayment for office space in Brussels.
This will reduce annual interest by EUR 2.2 million over a ten-year period.
This will leave a margin in the financial perspectives of EUR 69.1 million.
The Committee on Budgets transferred EUR 38 million of unused funds this year by means of a C6/2000 to fund this office space, the Spinelli building.
As the President has also been able to transfer funds for this purpose, altogether at this stage we can use around EUR 58 million for accelerated payments, which will lessen annual payments over the ten-year period by around EUR 8 to 9 million for Parliament, which is a great relief.
It is only reasonable that the European Parliament should pay for its office space ahead of time.
In that way interest payments are saved and, at the same time, we have a little room for manoeuvre in the budget for the years to come.
We shall need this, as, with eastward enlargement, Parliament' s other expenses will increase.
Parliament' s share of Category 5 expenses, or administrative expenses, in supplementary and amending budget no.
2/2000 will now rise to 20.41%, which is just over the 20% ceiling that Parliament itself set.
Originally, when the budget was being drafted, the share of administrative expenses was to remain below 20%.
As it is very likely that a considerable portion of the appropriations set aside for members' regulations, for example, (which amount to EUR 60 million), will remain unspent, and as more than half the year has now gone by, this ceiling may be reviewed at the end of the year.
On the other hand we must realise that Parliament is saving money, as the investment it is making is a most prudent one.
The Council' s budget is interesting, as there are appropriations in it for the first time for a common security and defence policy.
Structures are being created for the Council for the defence dimension to be tied more tightly to the work of the EU, in accordance with the conclusions of the Helsinki Summit.
This will be an extremely difficult issue for the small, non-aligned countries, such as Finland, for example. The scars left behind in Kosovo, after the crisis management operation, are frightening.
How justified is humanitarian military action, and what are its limits?
A big problem will be future budget technology. Article 28 of the Treaty is unclear, particularly regarding a common security, defence and military policy.
Administrative expenditure is part of the EU budget, but the Council has discretionary powers with regard to operational expenses.
What then is to be the practice in future, and how much of this expenditure will we try to place under Category 4.
External Action - which is already now overburdened? In future talks, the classification of expenditure must be made clearer and executed more effectively, to comply with Parliament' s wishes.
Before I give Mr Bourlanges the floor for five minutes, I should like to point out that we have an extremely long agenda today and I should therefore like to ask you to keep to the speaking time where possible, otherwise we shall be here until midnight. And no-one wants that.
Mr President, I shall endeavour to act on your good advice.
The supplementary and amending budget presented here should not pose any major problems for the simple reason that, if adopted - and it is good to see that Parliament has an opportunity to introduce several elements and budgetary choices that suit it and are to its liking, generally speaking, it is a draft that the Council will consider positive as well.
In fact, as far as this draft budget is concerned, the Council is the outright winner and legitimately so; not by scoring a victory against us, rather it is a winner all round.
This is because this budget is essentially designed to enable the Council to recover the surplus balances from last year, which amount to EUR 3.2 billion.
It includes a lower contribution in terms of the British rebate and a greater yield in own resources, for example customs duties, all of which is deducted from the costs it has to bear.
The draft presented here can therefore be considered positively by both the Council and Parliament.
This is firstly because during the trialogue, we all agreed that the budget presented should not be limited to merely returning the balances to the Member States, but should also include expenditure and constitute a genuine supplementary and amending budget.
For Parliament this represents a limited victory but a significant one nonetheless.
In the second place, we have made several decisions that can be viewed in a positive light.
First, we have introduced a special contribution for orphan drugs of up to EUR 1 million.
Thanks to the legal basis that now exists we are able to fund these orphan drugs.
This is considered a priority by the committee responsible, the Committee on Budgets and Parliament itself.
Second - and this is the second major contribution to the issue - we have introduced extra resources, which total some EUR 11 million. Five million are to go to the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and six million to the United Nations interim mission in Kosovo to fund the interim civil administrations.
Once again, the legal bases exist to make these possible.
We have the resources, the needs are there, Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina are top priorities and we have chosen to finance them, but the question is how.
This is to be achieved using commitment appropriations from the ECIP appropriations that no longer serve a purpose and, though they exist as appropriations, the absence of legal basis means that they cannot be used.
It is therefore expenditure that has been secured by a sacrifice that barely costs us anything.
The third significant element relates to the financing of the special aid for Montenegro.
You will be aware that we were all against this aid being financed with resources from other foreign programmes, in particular the MEDA programme.
We therefore decided to fund it using the margin which totals 21 million in this heading.
We need 20 million.
Budgetary history works in our favour in this case and by using almost this entire margin, this initiative can be financed without any reduction or transfer from other appropriations, which is highly satisfactory.
Now - and I shall end on this point - the main question that remains to be answered is whether or not the Council will support us from a procedural point of view.
We have had a first reading in the Council, this is our first reading, and we should very much like to conclude matters on the basis of this first reading.
In other words, we hope that the Council' s second reading that takes place on 20 July will take up our first reading, if not we shall have to proceed to a second reading.
I do not believe that it would be in the Council' s interest - and it is a pity that they are not present this evening - to do this.
What is more, I should like to stress another important point in that if we proceed to a second reading, in order to adhere to the strict timetables set, we should have to attend a session in August in order to vote on this SAB at second reading, which is obviously out of the question.
It has always been the rule in Parliament and the other institutions that August is excluded from the timetables set.
I am sure that the Council will adhere to that rule as it is in their interests, our interests and both of our interests to agree on both the procedure to adopt as well as the substance of the budget.
Mr President, Commissioner, fellow members, it may only be July, but today, the European Union and the European Parliament come to the Member States bearing gifts in the form of a supplementary budget refunding EUR 3.2 billion to their original owners.
In short, we are not handing out gifts; we are returning the money to its original owners, i.e. the Member States and, at the end of the day, the taxpayers.
This shows that we are handling funds properly and the rapporteur, my friend Jean-Louis Bourlanges, has just set the facts of the matter out clearly for us.
I should like to extend my warmest thanks to both him and Mr Virrankoski for the supplementary budget, which applies mainly to Parliament and the Council.
We are spending funds economically, that is our main job.
We are handling funds properly, and that too is our main job.
This was a topic which we were able to focus on this morning.
Allow me to make one comment to the Council.
I hope now the building is finally ready that Mr Solana will at last be able to move in with his work and his top secret documents.
We really do have more important things to worry about than how to hide papers from unwanted visitors.
That was why I voted passionately in favour of this transfer of funds, so that these technical problems can be solved once and for all and nothing more can stand in the way of a successful European security and defence policy.
As far as Parliament is concerned, we have used our supplementary budget to reduce interest payments still further.
This gives us room for manoeuvre within the margin which we set for ourselves in category 5 and ensures that we can use the money reasonably and sustainably for parliamentary work and not for interest payments as part of our building policy, which is why the PPE will, of course, be voting in favour of both the Bourlanges and Virrankoski reports.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have nothing much to add in principle to what has already been said.
We too shall, of course, be voting in favour of the two reports.
What I have to say refers to supplementary and amending budget 1 which, as Mr Ferber has just said, brings Christmas in July for the Council.
The Council has the enviable task of being able to claw back and budget EUR 3.2 billion.
If only we could attract the same intensive and intense attention and discussion when we discuss the fact that we are looking for 200 million in order to balance the budget next year and finance a task which has a huge effect on Europe, i.e. Kosovo or the Balkans as a whole.
The figure under discussion at present is 3.2 billion, i.e. sixteen times that amount, and it will rightly be refunded, on that I have no doubt.
The figure of 200 million will then probably be discussed elsewhere.
We had this problem last year and we shall no doubt face a similar problem again this year.
In terms of order of size, it may perhaps be a little more, but the principle is the same and it is a problem we have to solve.
My request to the Council is: bear this in mind, including for the forthcoming negotiations.
It would be wonderful of course if we did not have to give back all the money which we are now refunding, if there were an agreement between the Council and Parliament whereby we could retain some of the money for contingencies.
That would, of course, enable us to change the whole modus operandi between us in the future.
I admit it is a highly unusual proposal, but we should consider the possibility of a reserve for contingencies.
I think that would help to defuse individual budget debates.
I should like to address another two parts of the supplementary budget.
The first is that, thanks to the excellent proposal by our rapporteur Mr Bourlanges, we have indeed managed to provide 20 million for Montenegro, where we have agreed to urgent procedure.
However, we must find this 20 million by squeezing the margin dry.
We cannot use the 3.2 billion; instead we must squeeze the margin dry.
We do not need to be told, as the English say, to put our money where our mouth is, i.e. where it is needed; on the contrary, we are giving the money back and then looking around for spare change in order to perform our duties.
I should like to ask the Council to be a little more circumspect in its announcements and promises in the future unless, at the same time, it intends to tell us what we should cross out elsewhere.
I can only ask the Council in the present procedure - relating to supplementary budget 1 - not to cause any more problems by withholding its approval.
It really would be most welcome for the forthcoming budgetary procedure if the Council could be accommodating here and vote with us.
That would be a good sign and could shape the forthcoming budget debates.
My request to the Council is: please proceed as I suggest; we shall be more than happy to acknowledge such a procedure.
Mr President, the rapporteur has already explained the SAB is asking to approve two separate sums of money.
I hope that these sums have been arrived at after taking good account of the principles of budgetary prudence and value for money.
The political decision to approve the building for Mr Solana and the 45 military personnel had already been taken by the fifteen Member States at Helsinki.
I would like to raise three issues about this.
Firstly, it is not clear why the military personnel in the building should be counted as administrative expenditure.
They would more appropriately come under the heading of operational expenditure.
Secondly, I understand there is a gentlemen's agreement according to which the European Parliament and the Council agreed not to interfere with each other's budget.
I believe this has been pushed to its limit.
The Council's interpretation of the gentlemen's agreement is certainly imaginative.
The agreement applies to buildings and Council staff but not necessarily to seconded military personnel, whose salary comes from their own Member State.
However their overheads would be paid for by the EU in the future with no real monitoring or accountability role by any institution.
Thirdly, I am not satisfied with the use of the SAB as an instrument for this because these extra needs were foreseen prior to the conclusion of the budgetary process last year and should have been incorporated in this year's budget.
In accordance with the spirit of the gentlemen's agreement, I will not comment on the need for 45 military personnel in the building.
That will surely be as safe as Fort Knox.
The point I wish to raise here is that Council must apply the same sort of budgetary rigour to its administrative expenditure as it expects of other institutions.
And I would like some reassurance in the future that this expenditure will be spent in the most efficient and economic way possible.
On Parliament's request for the extra 15 million for the additional advance payment for the new building in Brussels, although it can be identified as a prudent step which will allow considerable savings in the future, I am concerned about the messages that this may convey.
I believe it is crucial for Parliament to introduce activity-based budgeting as a matter of utmost urgency.
I had in fact forgotten to mention the fourth amendment, which, as it does not refer to expenditure, may appear less relevant, but it would be wrong to assume this.
I simply wanted to say that one of Parliament' s amendments included the creation, in B5-671N, of a line for financing a 'Rapid Reaction Facility' which is designed - pursuant to the provisions of the Interinstitutional Agreement on budgetary discipline - to make it possible, thanks to a token entry, to allocate sufficient resources when the regulation is finally adopted.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy considers this a priority and I regret not mentioning it earlier.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, here we are, at the beginning of the second half of the year 2000, debating the first two proposed amendments to the current budget.
The first proposed amending budget relates to the Commission's budget.
The second relates to the Council's and Parliament's budget, in both cases on the question of building policy.
While the extra 15 million granted by Parliament is to be used to pay off the buildings early, thereby saving interest in the future, the extra Council expenditure will give rise to further expenditure in the future because other buildings will be rented in Brussels to house sectors such as the security policy.
As the Commissioner responsible for budgets, I naturally take a more kindly view of expenditure which saves money in the future - that is meant as a little dig at the Council, which is not yet here - although the Council's concerns are also well founded.
If new tasks are to be adopted, then they need to be given staffing and administrative support.
I only hope that the Council also grants the Commission the same courtesy and does not use one sauce for the goose and one for the gander.
Supplementary and amending budget 1 contains important amendments on the income side - as has been stressed - and on the expenditure side of the Budget 2000. On the income side, the refund of the surplus EUR 3.2 billion from 1999, as already mentioned.
A number of other important corrections have also been made, meaning that contributions for the year 2000 can now be finalised.
On the expenditure side, the following amendments have been made: provision has been made in the budget for the planned Repatriation Fund for non-military intervention in crisis areas, as already mentioned by the rapporteur.
The funding for the UNMIK high representative in Kosovo and Bosnia has been amended and EUR 11 million will now be provided.
For Montenegro, additional aid of EUR 20 million is to be provided.
I should like to thank the rapporteurs and to tell the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, that the Commission has accepted all Parliament's proposed amendments, even where, for example in the case of Montenegro, the remaining margin is extremely tight, but that means we must be economical and that is what we intend to be.
The Commission will do its best to ensure that the Council does not take this to a second reading, thereby postponing the resolution until September.
Perhaps the reduction in payments will be incentive enough for the Council to follow Parliament's example in coming to a rapid decision, for which I should like once again to thank the House.
Thank you, Commissioner.
You belong to the progressive school in the Commission, which understands that, in evening sittings, the popularity of the speaker rises in direct proportion to the brevity of his or her intervention. Thank you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Liberalisation of energy markets
The next item is the report (A5-0180/2000) by Mr Mombaur on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Commission's second report to the on the state of liberalisation of the energy markets Council [COM(1990) 198 - COM(1999) 164 - COM(1999) 612 - COM(2000) 297 - C5-0163/2000 - 2000/2097(COS)].
Mr President, the gas and electricity market is, without doubt, essential both to Europe's competitiveness and to environmental protection.
We have drafted a report in response to four Commission documents, the basic aim of which is to make one overall market out of fifteen individual markets.
As rapporteur for the committee, I should like to draw the House's attention to a number of points, Mr President, but perhaps you will allow me to stop for a moment because Madam Vice-president has just joined us.
I repeat, the basic aim of our report is to respond to four Commission documents and to make one overall gas and electricity market out of fifteen individual markets.
The committee has identified a number of points here, which I should like to list.
First, the Union citizens' right to freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services has so far only been partially implemented.
We advise that this implementation be accelerated.
Secondly, we welcome the fact that suppliers are forming new structures and we call on the Commission in its capacity as the competition authority, in collaboration with the national mergers and monopolies commissions, to ensure that new monopolies do not emerge, that new suppliers have free access to the grid, that exchanges are set up and that consumers can change their supplier.
Thirdly, we are concerned about security of supply and consider that great care should be taken to ensure that the Member States which so wish can impose so-called public-service obligations on the competitors involved.
The Treaty contains rules on transparency and clarity in this respect but it also allows the Member States to make their own decision here.
We want to ensure that this remains the case.
My fourth point concerns regulators.
Most, although not all Member States have introduced regulators.
We note that, in the countries in which regulators have been introduced, not only large consumers, but also medium-sized and small consumers can take better part in the market and the conditions for using the grid are clearer.
Perhaps we need to reconsider if the negotiated network access model is the right approach, because it makes life easy for large consumers but difficult for medium-sized consumers and may be an instrument which hampers the European market as a whole.
Fifthly, the grids are the central market place for the markets.
We therefore need free access, and that means that tariffs must give the market the right signal of non-discriminatory access for everyone and - and this is the purpose of the so-called Florence process - good cross-border tariffs must be set which allow cross-border trade.
A model has been worked out here whereby the costs of cross-border trade are paid into funds.
The money is paid in by the national grid operators and paid out to those providing through lines.
Commissioner, Madam Vice-president, I have two comments to make on this.
First, we feel that the costs calculated by the grid operators appear to have been plucked out of thin air.
We need to examine these costings closely in order to ensure that they are not completely out of line.
Secondly, the costs included in the tariffs must be sure to give the market the right incentive, i.e. they must cover all losses and encourage investment.
That is an important point in this process.
Sixthly: not all cross-border services have the necessary capacity.
This needs to be calculated and, if necessary, rectified or allocated in accordance with the markets, perhaps by auction.
Then there are two more points which I should like to address.
We hope to discuss with the Commission in committee exactly how imports of gas and electricity from the Central and Eastern European countries are to be dealt with, because we do not want to damage our own gas and electricity market in Europe by accepting different safety standards or the wrong competition terms.
Finally, in the case of electricity, transmission system operators have formed an association and it was with the help of this association that results were achieved in Florence.
We call on the Commission to use its influence and to take its own action to form a similar association for gas transmission system operators so that results similar to those achieved in Florence can be achieved in Madrid in the parallel process for the gas sector.
Energy, and electrical energy in particular, is of enormous importance to economic activity and social well-being, with a volume of business of some EUR 150 billion per year.
Since the first directive on its liberalisation was adopted in 1996, and the second in 1998, there has been a significant fall in prices, especially in the countries in which those directives have been most strictly applied.
I agree with the Commission, and with the rapporteur, on the need for liberalisation to be speeded up, so that the Community can fully benefit from a dynamic and competitive market.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that the current regulations lay down the essential principles on the conditions, methods and pace of liberalisation, there are certain extremely important aspects which must be dealt with by means of additional measures and specific solutions.
I am talking about the management of congestion, the cross-boundary aspects and the existing bottlenecks in the European transport networks, which hinder the balanced distribution of the benefits of these measures, which may facilitate the creation of a single market at Community level.
On the other hand, there is still the practice of discriminatory prices for transfer between the Member States and the monopolies which own the networks, which hinders the genuine liberalisation of the sector.
I believe that these practices, as well as the possible substitution of the well-known national monopolies by a European oligopoly, should be combated relentlessly by the services which come under the responsibility of the Commission.
Although this issue is of concern to us and deserves much consideration, I would like to end by supporting the balanced report of the rapporteur and highlighting the need to realise the expectations of our citizens as soon as possible.
Mr President, in his report Mr Mombaur has certainly given a comprehensive coverage of the implications of the liberalization of these markets.
Energy, of course, is not just any good or service.
It is very basic and very essential and has to be treated differently from normal goods.
The two directives were very carefully calculated to ensure that there would not be huge and sudden job losses - approximately 250,000 jobs have been lost in this sector, with more to come - and secondly to allow those Member States which had invested heavily in, for example, nuclear energy to do some strategic planning and not leave them with too much in the way of stranded costs.
For that reason they were not full speed ahead directives.
Nevertheless they should have been implemented on time by every Member State and they were not.
Those which delayed were wrong, especially those which at the same time took advantage of the opening of markets elsewhere and we have evidence that this also applies to countries outside the European Union.
I have said that the job losses were very considerable.
There has also been a great deal of upheaval and restructuring and some evidence of the formation of new monopolies, something which must be combated.
There has been a diminution in the amount of research and development and that is a shame.
There is a lack of harmonization to date and Mr Mombaur is quite right to call for harmonization.
I am fairly sceptical about allowing the regulators to do that through the Florence work.
The question of public service obligations is mentioned several times in the report.
The Socialist Group has put forward an amendment asking for a framework directive ensuring that in sectors like energy services of general interest are protected. I hope that will be supported.
Although there are difficulties with the two directives and liberalization, it is part of creating Europe and lower prices do benefit people.
However there are environmental implications which we have not taken very seriously.
The Lisbon Council asked the Commission to look at the possible need for an acceleration.
I do not agree, however, with preaching to Member States and telling them what they should be doing.
It is up to them to decide.
I am very anxious that renewable energy is supported in a liberalised market.
That is not easy to do and it is something the Parliament holds dear.
I am very concerned about the threat to combined heat and power in the gas directive. That needs to be rectified very quickly.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first of all like to thank the rapporteur for the great care he has taken over this report.
Two major factors can be identified with regard to the liberalisation process of the energy market.
First of all, the liberalisation process does not proceed at the same pace in all the Member States and secondly, there is also a difference in timing within the respective Member States.
Moreover, it is also worth emphasising that the way energy markets are opened up depends greatly on the geographic location of the Member State in question.
For the reasons set out above, it would be preferable to adopt a pragmatic rather than a theoretical approach.
The pragmatic approach is also the way forward if we want to achieve Member-State-specific liberalisation, for, in our opinion, we should not speed up the directive' s implementation but rather carry it out gradually.
Against this background, it is important for the amendment tabled by our group to be approved within the Commission.
This aims to force Member States to set up independent regulatory bodies that will be authorised to encourage full competition.
The same amendment also aims to promote the interests of the consumers within the liberalised energy market by guaranteeing universal service provision.
Finally, I would like to emphasise that our proposal on laying down a detailed schedule, in the course of which clearly defined goals would need to be accomplished, is important if we are eventually to achieve gradual, yet full, liberalisation of the energy market.
Acceptance of this proposal within the plenary will put a stop to unfair competition which is currently affecting the electricity market and which is caused by liberalisation being applied in different ways within the Member States.
Mr President, monopolies are not acceptable, whether state or otherwise, and we must be careful with the single market not to create new private monopolies in the energy sector.
I would also like to emphasise that the concept of public service and of the public good must go hand-in-hand with liberalization.
I am referring to social and environmental concerns which this Parliament has always supported but which are not yet sufficiently articulated in the energy sector with reference to the single market.
It is particularly regrettable that liberalization has gone hand-in-hand with a negative impact on energy saving.
This is something that we all pay a great deal of lip service to but we are in practice regressing, we are going backwards on energy-saving.
We must meet our Kyoto commitments: we have international treaties and obligations under them and it is time that we took this more seriously.
I welcome proposals for network access for renewable energies.
Subsidies for traditional forms of energies have been intense and are partly responsible for limited progress on renewables.
It would be very regrettable if Japan, for example, were to surpass us in the new technologies which we have developed and researched over many years.
This is currently something that we should be concerned about.
If we support network access for renewables in Europe, we should not find ourselves in this position.
Liberalization should apply to all energy sectors, particularly the nuclear sector where there are huge subsidies from some states.
Yet the Commission is not tackling this head on.
Perhaps it is afraid.
I have discussed this with Commissioner Monti. He is a powerful Commissioner and even he is unwilling to tackle some of the Member States head on in this regard.
But it is a level playing field, fair is fair, and the nuclear sectors cannot be subsidised.
Finally on the Florence process, we must involve the Parliament and we must have some democratic involvement in this process.
We cannot just let it remain outside Parliamentary control although it has been useful in some respects.
Mr President, this report again demonstrates that liberalisation, the free market and competition are currently seen as the universal panacea to nearly every economic and other problem.
Yes, I am aware of the few positive developments in European energy policy.
Without doubt, electricity prices have fallen.
However, the fact that the prices of some other forms of energy have spiralled is passed over in modest silence.
Such facts do not fit in with liberalisation mania.
On balance, I feel that a number of very serious problems and misdirected developments in EU energy policy have not been addressed.
First, I would like a discussion on the current, completely non-liberal practice already referred to of massively subsidising nuclear and fossil-fuel energy in their many and varied forms.
Secondly, the EU directive on the internal electricity market must be supplemented by an EU-wide supply directive which promotes an ecological and decentralised energy economy.
Thirdly, a radical rethink of the EU's promotion policy is also needed so as to promote energy savings from renewable sources of energy and regionalised energy policies, rather than the construction of high-voltage lines for a centralised energy economy.
Fourthly, I should like to warn against subverting local energy operations by liberalising right across the EU, as we are doing at present.
Economic aspects and the democratic strength and power of local energy authorities to act, socially and otherwise, are at stake here and must not be sacrificed to liberalisation at any price.
Mr President, I would like to convey my congratulations to the rapporteur for this report.
It is a very balanced piece of work covering quite a wide range of views.
We should point to progress made so far in liberalising the electricity and the gas markets, in particular opening up electricity to more than 60% of the market so far, while also remembering that we need to keep up the pressure for more progress.
It is hard to over-estimate the importance of this process to the competitiveness of our European economies in the widest sense.
I know that in the short term it may be difficult to prove that but I am quite sure that in the long term this is a vital part of making our economies competitive in the wider world.
I also believe that it is very important for us to distinguish between the processes of market efficiency that liberalization implies and other policy objectives that we may wish to achieve, such as the question of universal supply, such as the aims to reduce CO2 and it is very important to keep those two distinct and separate.
I have to say that I share the regret of some colleagues that some countries have been rather backward in implementing these measures and it is ironic that at least one of those countries is that which seeks to accelerate the pace of integration in Europe.
St Augustine 'make me more liberalised but not quite yet'.
I would like to recognise that the fears of the pessimists that liberalization would lead to cuts in security of supply have been confounded.
Private sector provision has delivered the goods.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Mombaur' s report deals with the energy markets and, as everyone has understood, advocates speeding up the liberalisation of these markets.
At this hour in the day and stage in the debate, I think it preferable and far more useful to get straight to the point with what I have to say.
Personally, when I think in terms of 'energy' I think of security of supply in the long term, the guarantee of public service missions and the contribution to sustainable and environmentally friendly development.
If I can, in addition, think in terms of competitiveness, then I certainly take the opportunity to do so, though, I have to admit, it is not my highest priority.
That is why ladies and gentlemen, I do not agree with the rapporteur' s conclusions, or the vision and proposals put forward by Commissioner Bolkestein in 'Frontier-Free Europe' .
Those who are not in favour of accelerating the liberalisation of public utilities are not old fashioned.
Those who defend public service do not use fear as an argument to defend their values, and those who are in favour of a universal service are not nostalgic, nervous nationalists, but Europeans.
Mr Mombaur, unlike you, I do not have blind and absolute confidence in market mechanisms.
I do not favour price reduction over security.
I defend employment first and foremost and what is more, I never lose sight of the fact that public services constitute a unifying element and an element of the European social model that is so dear to your friend Mr Jacques Chirac. They are of course, also a prerequisite for balanced regional planning whose failure or inexistence would cost far more than the savings you hope to achieve.
I would therefore have liked your report to have taken account of the Treaty provisions relating to general interest services and to have included proposals for measures designed to guarantee citizens' access to public services in energy.
This is because, and this is something I should like to stress, public service in energy is a factor in social cohesion, the fight against exclusion, balanced regional development, respect for the environment, security and lastly a prerequisite for national and European independence.
Rapporteur, I cannot deny that you have worked hard on this and even congratulate you on your efforts, but I cannot subscribe to the ideology that underpins your proposals.
I hope that the amendments tabled by Mr Harlem Desir and other Members that also share my concerns will be adopted because I personally am not in a position to vote in favour of your report as it stands.
I would also like to join in congratulating the rapporteur on an excellent job well done and make two points which have been mentioned by others before.
Firstly, the value of strong regulatory authorities.
It is quite clear from the experience in the fifteen still separate markets that strong regulatory bodies help market access for smaller players, protect the interests of consumers and force the pace of large monopoly-providers which might otherwise feel free to take a more leisurely pace.
Secondly, the value of a timetable.
It was a pity that the Lisbon conclusions did not call for a timetable.
Experience in other areas such as telecom shows that Member States respond better to this incentive and I hope that the Commission will elaborate a specific timetable for liberalization in the months to come.
Mr President, the report on the Commission' s second report to the Council and the European Parliament on progress in liberalising energy markets only takes account of two aspects, namely competition and the deepening of the internal energy market.
In order to justify this strategy of the full liberalisation of the electricity and gas markets, the report sings the praises of the supposed positive effects of competition, namely, reduced production costs, increased job opportunities and even goes as far as to praise its positive macroeconomic effects on the job market.
By what mechanism does he hope this will be achieved, or rather by what mysterious means?
In fact, the liberalisation that has been carried out to date or is in progress has not generated employment and, in some public utilities, personnel levels have even dropped as a result.
According to the trade unions in the ETUC, 300 000 jobs have already been lost and a further 200 000 are threatened.
Everywhere you look employees rights are under threat.
I take issue with another assertion made in the report concerning the reduction in energy prices.
Who will benefit from this and how exactly? It is commonly known that tariff reductions all too often only benefit large industrial users.
As far as ordinary users are concerned, gas and electricity have become goods that one can either afford or not.
Will users in the not too distant future be asked to pay for their electricity in advance, as is the case in Great Britain, and be forced to go without when their card runs out?
Energy is a basic need.
Access to it must therefore be considered a fundamental right.
In our view, only genuine public and democratic regulation would make it possible to rationalise both the production and use of energy while ensuring respect for the environment and basic equalisation.
This would constitute the first step towards a European public service that met the needs of today' s users and employees.
However, such concerns seem far removed from this report, which is why I cannot vote in favour of it as it stands.
Mr President, I should like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Peter Mombaur, and congratulating him on his skilled reporting. And having heard the contributions made today by the honourable members, we really can say that the liberalisation of the energy markets has progressed faster and more efficiently than we expected in the last parliamentary term.
That is the first thing.
Mr Caudron, it is no longer possible to reverse this and that is how it should be.
Secondly, the energy liberalisation sceptics have been impressively routed.
The prices of gas and electricity have sunk as the result of competition, Mrs Vachetta, including to consumers.
You insist on portraying the large undertakings as the winners here, but you are completely wrong, that is rubbish.
Security of supply to consumers and to the economy has been maintained and the competitiveness of jobs has improved considerably, not deteriorated.
It has improved thanks to international competition.
We still have a whole series of problems to solve.
Too little headway has been made liberalising the markets in individual Member States but we assume that the French presidency will make further progress here.
Secondly, liberalisation must be controlled by the competition authorities and we have a European institution that can and does do that; otherwise private monopolies will replace state monopolies.
Mr Mombaur pointed that out just now.
Thirdly, we need the strict division between energy generation and grid management.
Even the problem of charges and access conditions are, in my view, better solved by a regulatory authority than in voluntary agreements between major associations.
Fourthly, regulated grid access with set prices, following the telecommunications example, is the best way of ensuring that small and medium-sized companies and smaller works departments receive equal treatment.
Both mergers and state aid must be controlled and approved in the future.
Professor Monti has announced this.
I think that this is right in principle, but I think that his deadline of five years is too soon and I think that we need to extend the deadline to ten years, so that European industry has time to develop fully and invest with good prospects in this important future market.
Mr President, it has emerged in the course of this discussion that, for some people, liberalisation is a goal in itself.
I do not think that it, in fact, is.
There must be some purpose to liberalisation, be it lower prices, security of supplies, increased competitiveness or sustainable technological development.
Proceeding from that point of view and inspired, in fact, by the EU directives, we in Denmark have begun a complete liberalisation of the electricity sector.
This entails major upheavals which are causing concern among employees.
When you talk with them about liberalisation, they say, 'We are happy to have liberalisation, but it should be the same for everyone in Europe.'
That is just the problem with this issue.
We have obtained liberalisation in 15 different markets and15 different countries, but we have not in that way obtained complete liberalisation.
It may perhaps be concluded that what we have obtained is liberalisation for liberalisation' s sake.
Employees in the sector shake their heads, and ordinary consumers do not obtain the intended benefits of liberalisation.
It is therefore right to continue with the liberalisation that is under way and implement complete liberalisation.
Of course we should have liberalisation, but it should be on equal terms.
At the same time, it is important to remember that liberalisation ought not to be carried out in isolation.
In future work on liberalising the energy market, we shall make sure that energy policy as a whole is involved.
There is a wide range of considerations to be taken into account.
I am thinking here of consumers, the environment, competitiveness, renewable energy sources and the employees.
There are a good many more agendas we need to engage with, and not only that of complete liberalisation.
Mr President, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Mombaur, for an excellent report.
The liberalisation of the energy markets is the only real way to safeguard consumers' rights and the credible viability of the Internal Market.
The Commission must take care that the energy market is opened up in a genuine sense and in a spirit of fair play.
Various apparent barriers to competition, such as the bottlenecks created by the power grid operators, must be straightened out without delay.
In addition, the largest European "energy players" must fall into line.
For example, France, whose energy sector is among the most progressive, stubbornly protects its own markets.
What does such a competitive country have to fear in conditions of free competition?
The liberalisation of energy markets also means that the Commission will have to approach various forms of energy on an equal footing.
I cannot help wondering about the statements made by the energy Commissioner, Mrs de Palacio, which suggested that free-flowing water would not be on the list of renewable energy sources.
The Commission must reconsider its position.
Hydroelectric power in the Nordic countries is an environmentally friendly and natural energy source that can often be produced at a competitive price, as is the case at present, thanks to a good water supply.
Hydroelectric energy can currently compete at a price that would even rival imported energy from Eastern Europe and Russia, so there is no call to label future imports of electric power from the east to the Nordic countries, at least, as dumping.
Protectionism among the big energy players in Central Europe is the main reason why cheap hydroelectric power is only getting to the Central European markets with difficulty.
Certification systems will guarantee that consumer choice is in direct relation to the pricing of electricity.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur on an excellent report.
The liberalisation of energy markets is an essential factor in the development of the economy.
The objective of improving competition and lowering prices for all consumer groups, including the end consumer, must be pursued assiduously.
The opening up of the market will lead to reorganisation on a European scale with common rules for all the countries.
I hope that the Commission will submit comprehensive proposals to overcome the existing barriers to intraCommunity trade and ad hoc measures to deal with the Member States which do not apply the directives.
We need to speed up the process of liberalisation in the energy and gas sectors by harmonising the Member States' energy policies.
To support the liberalisation process it will be necessary to introduce a benchmarking process, as we have done in other sectors, with the publishing of a Commission half-yearly report on the final price of European Union gas and electricity.
This will allow us to assess the impact of liberalising the energy markets on the consumer directly.
Guidelines will also have to be drawn up for harmonising the price observation criteria and processing the data gathered so as to ensure that maximum care is taken in comparing the situations of the different Member States.
I would support the rapporteur in stressing that competition does not prevent Member States from imposing public service obligations in the general interest on operators.
Moreover, I would remind you that liberalisation does not just mean privatisation, where a company continues, in practice, to be managed in the same way as before: liberalisation must mean opening up, interchange and competitiveness.
I do not consider that liberalisation will have negative implications for employment, for the lower cost of energy will allow companies more room for development and create a greater number of jobs than are lost with the end of the monopolies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Mombaur' s report on the state of liberalisation of the energy, electricity and gas markets has the merit of summarising the various Commission communications on the issue.
It also highlights some of the key facts in this matter, two of which I shall mention here.
First, the Treaties provide for the creation of an internal market in the energy sector, which must be accomplished.
Second, the achievement of this aim undoubtedly involves opening up the markets to competition, the process of liberalisation and division into separate activities relating to energy transmission, production and distribution.
As the French Presidency gets underway, it must be noted - and as a French MEP this is not something I am terribly proud of - that France has taken a long time to transpose several European directives into its national law.
In fact, it appears that France comes bottom of the class as far as this matter is concerned.
The European directive on electricity was therefore adopted rather late by my country and only in its most basic form.
More generally speaking, I, like the rapporteur, deplore the fact that there are other countries that wish to implement the directive only in its most basic form.
And yet, as has already been mentioned -and I too should like to reiterate the point - full liberalisation, as carried out by other States in the area of electricity, has produced considerable benefits for the user: need we be reminded of the 25-33% price reduction in the United Kingdom or the almost 35% drop in Germany? This is why I believe that we should support the Commission in its undertakings and, as Mr Mombaur' s report suggests, set a specific binding timetable for carrying out the full liberalisation of the energy markets in the applicant countries and of course, first and foremost in the Member States.
The ambition shown by the latest presidency of the Union for the advancement of Europe cannot simply stop at the defence of acquired or past situations.
The completion of the internal market cannot be restricted to the European Union alone, which is why it cannot be put off indefinitely.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Mombaur on his report, which I believe broadly coincides with the Commission' s position.
Secondly, I would like to thank all the speakers, although I do not agree with everything that has been said.
In any event, I would like to point out that I agree with Mr Mombaur when he says that the liberalisation of the electrical sector has led to a drop in prices, improvements for customers, for homes and also for large industry, which means job creation, increased competitivity of the European electrical industry, development and work, although it is true that some jobs have been lost in the electrical industry.
However, the benefits have outweighed the problems encountered.
It should also be pointed out that the Lisbon and Feira Summits have reiterated the need to move ahead with liberalisations.
As regards what some have said, it is true that there is no timetable.
This does not mean that there is not a strong will to move forward.
In any event, the progress made so far - which is very considerable - still seems to me to be insufficient.
We must not create fifteen separate liberalised markets, but one single European liberalised market.
To this end, there are still issues to be dealt with, such as the level of openness of the market, the separation of the operators of transmission networks from the production systems, the guarantee of non-discriminatory access in the application of prices.
In this context, I would like to thank Mr Mombaur for his resolution' s support for the importance of the separation of producers and operators of transmission networks.
Furthermore, the efforts of the Florence Forum are invaluable and we must continue along that route.
If they turn out to be insufficient, they will be supplemented with Commission initiatives. In that respect, there is a will to seek an establishment of tariffs which will lead to an increase in exchanges and clear access to the network.
I must also point out that the Florence Forum - with regard to electricity - must be supplemented by the Madrid Forum on gas.
Both of these reflect an original institutional approach, since representatives of Parliament participate in them.
There is a physical aspect, the capacity for interconnection, which must also be developed and which currently lead to limitations in the development of this single market, both in the electrical sector and in the gas sector.
If we are to continue to make progress with liberalisation, we cannot forget one key element: the public service role of electricity - and gas as well, although on a different level.
This means that the supply must be guaranteed - as some of you have said - and there must be an adequate service for all citizens.
This aspect will be included in the initiatives which I propose to present to the Council and Parliament at the end of this year, so that they may be ready in the Spring, for the European Council, in order to provide more impetus for liberalisation in the areas I have mentioned.
I also wish to say that the aspects relating to safety standards must also be developed soon and I am going to propose to Parliament and the Council that we hold a debate, not on the nuclear sector, nor on the coal or renewable energy sector, but on the guarantees of the European Union' s energy supply as a whole, when we will be able to consider the different sources of energy and the problems relating to each of them, because nothing is free, everything has its price, its pros and cons.
We need to hold a reasoned debate on the possibilities available to us, in terms of sources and the guarantees of supply, in the light of the Kyoto commitments.
I consider water to be a form of renewable energy, of course.
Hydro-electricity is a form of renewable energy.
The problem is that the hydro-electrical industry as a whole is not taken into account when it comes to subsidies, which are another issue.
We believe that we have to support renewable energy sources as much as possible.
This is an extremely important European technology, with industrial possibilities beyond our European borders, which we must continue to support.
The Directive excludes hydroelectricity from the consideration of subsidies, which means that it is not sustainable.
We must continue to include it within the broad consideration of renewable energy resources.
Mr President, I do not have time to expand further.
I would like to thank Mr Mombaur once again for his magnificent report and point out that we are going to present proposals in order to continue the progress in the field of liberalisation. We are going to deal with the social aspects of the electricity sector and its public service element.
The assessment is frankly positive and we must continue to make progress in accordance with what the Council has told us, at both the Lisbon and the Feira Summits.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Community railway undertakings
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports:
(A5-0173/2000) Recommendation for second reading by Mr Jarzembowski, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 91/440/EEC on the development of the Community's railways [5386/1/2000 - C5-0178/2000 - 1998/0265(COD)];
(A5-0171/2000) Recommendation for second reading by Mr Swoboda on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on:
I. the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings [5387/1/2000 - C5-0176/2000 - 1998/0266(COD)];
II. the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive relating to the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity, the levying of charges for the use of the railway infrastructure and safety certification [5388/1/2000 - C5-0177/2000 - 1998/0267(COD)].
Before I set the signal for the railwaymen to green and because we have another new team here, I should like to make a brief comment.
We still have a long debate ahead of us.
I beg you to keep to the speaking times.
As the two chief railwaymen starting the debate have unlimited speaking time, I leave it to their discretion to keep their speeches short.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism proposes that plenary at last gradually but properly liberalise the railway market, with liberalisation to be completed by the year 2010.
Only then will we achieve our common goal of shifting more freight from the roads on to the railways and, hence, of sustainable mobility within the European Union.
First I must thank the Commission, especially the Vice-President, Mrs Palacio, and the Finnish Presidency, without whom there would have been no common positions in the Council in December 1999.
We are most grateful for that.
But Parliament will defend the view in the codecision procedure that the positions taken do not go far enough in order to safeguard the long-term future of the railways.
The Council wants to move one small step at a time.
We take the view that it is high time, eight years after the completion of the single market, to set signals and regulate conclusively so that the liberalisation of the railway sector can be completed by 2010.
This also fits in with what was said at the Lisbon Summit, where the Heads of State and Government pressed for further liberalisation of the transport sector.
So what are our most important proposed amendments? First, we agree with the Council that, if the railway networks are to be used efficiently, only cross-border freight traffic need be liberalised for a special trans-European rail freight network.
But we take the view that five years is long enough to show railways and their employees that they have nothing to fear from the liberalisation of the networks.
We feel that railway undertakings should have access to the entire network of the fifteen Member States in five years' time, for both international and national freight traffic, and by 2010 for international and national passenger traffic.
This gradual liberalisation plan would give us a real common network in the European Union by 2010.
In order to ensure that railway undertakings in all Member States also have real access to local networks in other Member States, we feel that there must be a strict, compulsory division between the management of individual networks and the provision of transport services by individual national railway undertakings.
Experience over the past 40 years shows that, if infrastructure and operations are not separated, the national railway undertaking always reserves the best lines for itself, thereby denying other railway undertakings effective, non-discriminatory access.
We take the view that, if there is to be even greater use of the networks, legal entities other than railway undertakings, such as shippers and forwarding agents, should have the right to apply for and be granted licences to use lines throughout the Community.
Liberalising the right to apply to use lines in all fifteen Member States by 2005 will do two things: first, it will take account of the role of shippers and forwarding agents, who need no encouragement to use the railways and, secondly, it will represent a further step towards the completion of the single market in the railway sector in that the railways' exclusive right to use the infrastructure will be somewhat mitigated.
Another factor is the question of track charges.
We take the view that track charges should be increased in the medium and long term in order to move towards the objective of covering costs.
Only if the user pays, i.e. the railway undertakings also bear the cost of operating and maintaining the network, will it be possible to fund network operation and maintenance.
Finally, the Committee on Transport voted by a large majority to abolish the derogations for Ireland, Greece, Luxembourg and Great Britain with respect to Northern Ireland.
We feel that, first, legislation should be the same in all parts of the Union and, secondly, even in geographically remote areas, which we of course all value, the principles of accuracy and clarity of costs and open access to the network should apply.
Allow me to close by stressing once again that we can use our vote in Parliament tomorrow to give a signal.
If we adopt the recommendation by the Committee on Transport by a large majority, we will have a real chance of reaching a compromise with the Council during the conciliation procedure which is acceptable to both the Council and Parliament, which goes beyond the common positions and which enables a real move to be made towards liberalising the railway sector, because we all want to strengthen the railways.
We want to shift more freight from the roads to the railways, which is why we need a clear compromise with the Council.
And we shall only get it if we adopt a clear stance here in Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one could be forgiven for thinking that the three reports under discussion today are in fact technical reports.
But oh what emotions I witnessed when I reported on them in my group today, which is a good thing because a hugely important question is in fact at stake here: the question of how to ensure that the European railways gain in weight again in the future, not in the material sense, but as far as their importance is concerned, because what many people forget when they are busy opposing reforms is that, with the state the railways have got into, they are carrying less and less.
Trains are still chugging round Europe, but there is less and less freight in their wagons and that is a state of affairs which we cannot tolerate.
That is why I, why we all think, that a European railway sector needs to be developed and the Council resolution, the Council consensus, is really a minimum consensus; it does not satisfy us, even if we perhaps differ in our views on many aspects, such as how much further than the Council we should go.
Of course, we have a lot of lost ground to make up, because in the past we have only had national railways.
We talk about globalisation.
All today's private-sector undertakings operate transnationally; only the railways seem not to have heard of this.
So we need to liberalise and open up the markets and of course everyone has differing ideas as to how this should be done.
Some think that the market is the invisible hand, the almost divine principle which should guide and control everything, while others think we should be very circumspect in liberalising the market and should only liberalise it where absolutely necessary.
I think that our position, and my position, is that there is a middle way which will allow us to move forward, but it must be clearly defined; we must be clear as to how we are going to bring about the liberalisation of the market, whereby the railways must, of course, be given a chance to adapt to the new conditions one step at a time.
For us, competition is a way of increasing services, i.e. we need to get more traffic on to the railways, especially freight traffic, which is the real sore point, if we are to prevent railway services from shrinking yet further.
So it is a gradual process, but a clearer and faster process than that planned by the Council.
First, the overwhelming majority of us takes the view that there should be a competition authority, a regulator as it were, in every country.
That would give all railway undertakings, all interested parties, shipping agents, whoever, one authority in each country to which they can take recourse if clarity and transparency of competition are violated.
It also means that there can be no derogations.
We are building up a European railway, not one system for one country and a different system for another, which is why these derogations have to go.
That does not mean that everything will be prescribed down to the last detail, it just means that the freedom which we are granting needs to be granted to all countries equally, not more for some and less for others.
Secondly, we have differing views on the compulsory separation of infrastructures.
We think that it must also be possible to trade fairly with integrated undertakings, provided of course that the balance sheet and certain basic conditions are kept separate.
Our, or my proposal is that the Commission should present a report in a few years' time and report to Parliament on whether or not the principles of free, transparent competition have been contradicted and then we can take another decision.
We take the view that liberalisation should apply first and foremost to freight traffic, both transnational and, in the end, national freight traffic.
As far as passenger traffic is concerned, we feel that it is important and that it suffices, at least for the time being, to state clearly that cross-border passenger traffic will also need to be liberalised.
As to whether passenger traffic between Stuttgart and Munich should be liberalised: this is a matter which, in my view, should be decided by the German government or the regional government in Bavaria and not necessarily at European level.
We feel that the individual Member States should be given room to manoeuvre and take decisions here.
The pricing system is an important issue.
How much should be charged for the capacity allocated? There are two schools of thought here.
The first feels that only marginal costs should be charged, i.e. the costs incurred in running one more train.
The second school feels that the complete costs of providing the route, tracks etc. should be covered.
We feel that charging marginal costs make sense in the short term, in order to ensure that there is competition and that the railways can start running trains again. But in the long term, we will need some sort of complete cost-covering method, similar to the principle applied to the roads.
Otherwise we shall never manage to get more freight back on to the railways because this is precisely the problem faced by certain railways, including the German railways, to quote just one example: when the complete cost-covering method is used in the present situation, many companies refuse to use the railways' services because they are simply too expensive.
Which is why we need a gradual transition and similar conditions for both roads and railways.
I should like to mention one last point. One criticism heard time and again is: has the whole idea of public-sector services gone to the dogs?
Is everything to be run on market principles, on private-sector principles? We have therefore reinstated an original clause on public-sector services, and I am grateful for the support it has received because, unfortunately, the European Commission has not yet submitted any general proposals as to how public-sector services are to be dealt with.
It will still be possible for a country to say that public-sector services must take priority at certain times and this priority can therefore be stipulated.
I am sure that tomorrow's vote will set a conciliation procedure in motion.
That does not present any particular problem.
We, the two rapporteurs, and all the groups in the House are willing to reach a compromise.
But the Council must also show willing.
We have shown willing and, if the Council shows willing, we will be able to reach a compromise.
I should like to close by thanking all those who worked with me, both in my group and in other groups here in Parliament, for all the effort which they invested in this, and of course the Commission, and I hope that tomorrow two or three very good reports will come out of this.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, I should like to start by congratulating the two rapporteurs, Mr Jarzembowski, who has taken over from Mr Pavlos Sarlis, our former fellow Member of the European Parliament who acted as rapporteur for the first reading, and Mr Swoboda, for their reports.
Allow me to say that they both explained the technical aspects of their reports extremely well.
As Chairman of the Committee on Transport, I should like to highlight two conclusions which I think we need to draw from this debate.
The first conclusion concerns the liberalisation of the railways.
This is something we have been hearing about for years, just as we have heard a great deal about the single market in the European Union for years.
The time has come for action rather than words, on both counts.
We need to accept that there will be no complete single market unless transport is fully liberalised and I think that liberalising the railways will be a decisive step in this direction and will make a decisive contribution towards the revival of the declining means of transport which we call the railways.
The second message concerns the Council.
The Council needs to take serious account of Parliament's views.
Of course, we reached a compromise in Helsinki with Mrs de Palacio's help.
This compromise is welcome but it is not enough; we need to go further and account needs to be taken of Parliament's position if we are to do so.
The Council is wrong to believe that the discussion ended in Helsinki last December with the compromise at Council level.
Parliament is here, it has its views, it supports them clearly and will, we believe, support them during tomorrow's vote which, I think, will confirm what was decided at the committee meeting during which the reports were adopted by a large majority.
Mr President, for the railways the status quo is really not an option.
They either have to change or die.
Railways in Europe are in terminal decline, not least in the rail freight sector.
New freight goes by road in Europe, not by rail.
That must change, and I believe it will.
That is why I broadly support the Council position which represents a small but important step towards railway liberalisation.
The alternative to this modest step is no step at all.
That is why tonight, regretfully I cannot agree with the tactics suggested by Mr Jarzembowski because it is a recipe for going nowhere at all, very quickly.
We have to take into account national differences and indeed, social and employment concerns.
Broadly, the Council position has struck the right balance on the charging, licensing, access and separation issues.
They have struck a right balance between both extremes and I would advocate - to use Mr Swoboda's term - that "third way" should be applied to the railways in Europe.
Labour MEPs have two particular concerns which I know are shared by many other Members: one is the issue of derogations.
We believe that Greece, Ireland and Northern Ireland should have a limited derogation of five years because of their unique geographical and geopolitical circumstances.
Secondly, we hope that the deletion of Article 12, led by the Liberals in committee, which could deprive citizens and consumers of network benefits and deprive disabled people of access, can be reinserted into the text.
Those basic safeguards must be restored.
The prize for us tonight is that for the first time in history we can achieve liberalisation of the international freight network.
That is an achievable goal.
Let us not throw it away.
Mr President, I believe that the rapporteurs have done sterling work and the fruits of their labour, which we submitted under their guidance to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, are a coherent whole with a clearly defined objective.
Mr Swoboda referred to this a moment ago: a vigorous railway sector within an internal market, which can be effective for the entire Union.
The objective also sends a clear message to the Council, namely that Parliament wants to go further than the Commission.
I do not really share Mr Watts' view.
In my opinion, we need to go further than the Council stated in its common position.
We must now set the scene for full liberalisation in the medium term, and the step we are now taking is the first step in this process.
This step is also the step currently proposed by the Council.
We must also take the next steps, namely implement full liberalisation with regard to the transport of goods by 2005 and take the same step for the transport of passengers nationally and internationally in the longer term, this time by 2010, a deadline which is ten years away.
There are a number of points which are vital in this context, and I hope that a sufficient number of MEPs will be able to support those opinions tomorrow.
First of all, it is vital that infrastructure and the provision of services be divided.
After all, no one can be on both sides of the fence at the same time.
Secondly, who can apply for a licence? Not only railway undertakings, others too should be able to do this.
I cannot see why, Mr Swoboda, this should be postponed until 2010.
In my opinion, we should be able to bring this date forward to 2005.
I should now like to comment on Article 12, which, I believe, is redundant, and a European licence should be subject to European requirements.
That is not to say that consumers, railway workers' social rights or safety are deemed immaterial.
In fact, safety should come first.
European requirements should apply because a European railway system requires regulations at European level rather than additional regulations at national level, because the latter would enable Member States to carry out certain activities which they no longer have to do within a European market.
If we pursue this line of attack, railway undertakings will need to put their customers and passengers first, rather than act out of self-interest.
I would like to add a brief, technical comment.
Amendment No 23 has been declared inadmissible by the services.
I would dispute this on the basis of Rule 80, paragraph 2 (b), and Rule 80, paragraph 3, of our Rules of Procedure.
I would invite the services to reconsider their view, because my amendment is also related to Amendment No 24 regarding Article 12, which was declared admissible.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have to admit that within my group there are two arguments being disputed in relation to the Community railways.
Though we unanimously agree to finally and genuinely develop rail transport and, though we unanimously agree to make every effort to facilitate the transfer from road to rail, some think that that this will be achieved most speedily via liberalisation whereas others, including myself, believe that the maximum number of guarantees should be created before liberalisation goes ahead, particularly with regard to passenger transport.
In my view, the present state of the railways in the various Member States does not make it viable to open them up to competition.
They are all in need of considerable modernisation in order to offer identical conditions of competition.
The reason for this is that in order to achieve genuine and equitable competition, the right conditions need to be created, they are not simply acquired and excesses must be avoided.
Companies, particularly public companies, need to be granted enough time to modernise their networks before opening them up to competition.
With regard to the guarantees, be they in relation to the harmonisation of working conditions or vital safety regulations, they are also something that cannot simply be acquired.
The disaster in Great Britain is still fresh in our minds and continues to warrant examination of rail safety requirements.
The compromise reached on 10 December by the Transport Council marked a step in the right direction.
Let us therefore go ahead and set up the rail transport network.
It is not a matter of going too far, too fast in terms of passenger transport, what we firstly need to achieve is a rail network that offers the public the chance to get around without causing pollution.
Mr President, rail transport is very important in terms of citizens' mobility, the development of trade within Europe and in terms of the environment and regional planning.
The European Parliament has already paved the way for the liberalisation of international freight transport at its first reading, by granting authorised applicants track access rights.
This rail package was the subject of a Council compromise in December.
The Council suggests that the choice of authorised applicants should be left to Member States' discretion, that the freight rail networks be opened up using a specific network called the "Trans-European Rail Freight Network" and, lastly, that the division into separate entities only take place progressively.
I note, without any satisfaction, that the Council' s position also takes account of the various national situations and grants each State the right to determine their own choices and for example, to pursue cooperation commitments.
However, we are faced with an ultraliberal proposition at this second reading.
The amendments tabled sanction the overall fragmentation of the rail system, which would mark the end of subsidiarity for the authorised applicants in 5 years' time and mean that the separation of entities would not be achieved progressively.
It would also mean the complete opening up of international and national freight transport and, by 2010, of passenger transport.
Just a few moments ago we were speaking about electricity and on Thursday we shall address the issue of the single European sky.
Throughout the public sector the same refrain is heard: liberalise, it' s magic!
In my view, rail transport would be left with an enormous bill.
Rail companies would be forced into the role of service provider, which would create unfair competition.
While the service providers benefit from the largest part of the commercial margin and are free to choose the most profitable sectors, the rail companies on the other hand are left to bear the high equipment and personnel costs.
In opposition to the argument advanced regarding the increase in traffic, this system might cause the isolation and disastrous creaming off of the more profitable sectors.
This same dogma is aimed solely at gaining profits through liberalisation, and users and employees do not get a say.
No proper preliminary study was undertaken and what is more, I think that we should take time to study the impact of the decisions taken by the Council.
It would also be useful to compare - in relation to the freight paths - the private and the public sector.
If the proposals from this second reading are adopted, they would be considered as a real provocation by all involved in the sector.
I can neither endorse them, nor the amendments tabled by the Socialist Group that suggest a need for further opening up on the path to liberalisation.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Council' s common positions within the framework of the railway package are not so much unexpected as they are disappointing in part.
If these plans go ahead as they are, then it looks as if the next couple of years will see little in the way of improvements within the Union' s railway industry.
I would therefore like to make some observations with regard to the railway sector' s critical state.
First of all, the speed at which the EU-wide railway sector is making headway is far too slow, both in terms of transport of people and goods.
This is why it is necessary for measures to apply to the two sectors and the entire Union.
History has taught us that excessive interference by governments has hampered the necessary flexibility.
The continued protection of certain segments of the market - both geographically and sectorally - is not an option either, because this would not break the downward trend.
In addition, some improvements are needed within the sector itself as well.
A number of railway undertakings are still fostering close links with their national governments, due to historic factors.
A division of tasks is necessary in order to prevent the unfair treatment of different economic operators.
It is therefore important to keep the management of the infrastructure and the execution of transport services strictly separate, and this division should not just exist on paper.
Finally, this sector would also benefit from transparency and decisiveness.
We should avoid building complex structures around tasks emanating from regulations within the sector.
The fewer bodies involved, the better.
In my view, the European Monitoring System, therefore, adds little in the way of value and, if anything, threatens to obscure the view.
Mr President, let there be no doubt about it: I endorse most comments made by the rapporteurs and would, as such, like to thank them for the sound work they have carried out.
Mr President, I understand the ideal contained in this report to complete the internal market in the railway sector, thereby allowing freight transport by rail to compete successfully with freight transportation by road.
This is necessary for the long-term survival of the European railway sector and all Member States would be in agreement with this goal.
It is our task to reach agreement on how best to achieve this, bearing in mind the difficulties involved for some Member States.
I speak for my own country of Ireland.
Both the Republic and the North of Ireland seek to continue the derogation agreed in December 1999, because of geographic and geopolitical reasons.
It is a small country isolated from the European mainland.
It cannot be accessed by rail operators elsewhere in the European Union.
I have seen at first hand the continual bombings of the north-south railway lines over the past 30 years due to the Troubles.
Only now is there a chance for them to develop and prosper.
Implementation at this time of this rail liberalisation package will involve the setting up of a complex administrative structure without enjoying the subsequent benefits that other Member States would.
I am sure that the Irish government has agreed to the broad principle of the separation of infrastructure and operation and has pledged to pursue the restructuring of Irish railways to achieve this goal.
I ask that the present derogation be maintained to allow time to implement these changes remembering that, should an EU-rail operator wish to enter the Irish rail market, the derogation would immediately cease.
Finally, it is my personal hope that while I support this derogation, I hope that it would in no way hinder the much-needed upgrading and extension of the Irish rail system.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European transport situation can be summed up using several pertinent figures.
Between 1990 and 1997 the volume of transport of goods increased by 21% whilst over the same period the proportion of freight transported by rail dropped by 7%.
During the same period, passenger transport increased by 15% and rail transport by only 3%.
In terms of both freight and passenger transport European integration has been a considerable factor of mobility, but the roads have been the major beneficiaries of this particularly, but not exclusively, due to the fact that they have been frontier free since the beginning of the 1990s.
European railways therefore need to open up urgently and without fear.
Their future lies largely in their own hands, however, it is also our job to give them every opportunity to achieve their aims.
Railway workers must rise to the challenge of opening up international networks to trains from all countries in the European Union.
The decision taken by the fifteen Ministers for Transport in December 1999 to set plans in motion for the creation of a Trans-European Freight Network that represents 94% of the international freight transport came as a direct response to this challenge.
It is entirely logical to adapt national rail legislation to this new system that lays down rules governing access, pricing policy and standard and consistent management practices within the European Union.
The Swoboda report contains commendable proposals regarding the need to adapt legislation to the various national situations.
On the other hand, it is wholly unacceptable and, what is more, contradicts Parliament' s first reading, for us to take advantage of this second reading - as the Jarzembowski report suggests - to announce measures to open up all networks to competition and others designed for the widespread privatisation of such networks at national and local level, as that stems from a dogma, an untested belief in the superiority of a market model that has clearly demonstrated its limitations in the United Kingdom.
Several moments ago, I stated that the future of rail transport also depended on us, and I should also like to point out the fact that the dogmatic approach that we appear to have adopted in this matter threatens its very success.
Everyone here is aware that rail integration in Europe cannot be reduced to a theological debate on the comparative merits of controlled liberalisation and uncontrolled privatisation.
Railways, which only receive 25% of the investment allocated to transport infrastructure in Europe, as opposed to the 65% allocated to roads, are in need of substantial investment in order to enhance interoperability, reduce bottlenecks, extend networks and integrated transport systems, etc.
The United Kingdom has demonstrated to what extent privatisation can represent a step backwards.
This is why we believe that our work should not threaten the delicate balance of the Council' s common position.
Mr President, the proportion of freight transported by rail within the EU has almost halved over the last thirty years.
It is vital, if we are to have a truly sustainable transport policy that this process is reversed.
I congratulate Mr Swoboda and Mr Jarzembowski on their excellent reports which, if adopted, will make a major contribution to railway development.
I share some of Mr Watts' concern, however, about Amendment No 1 in relation to the licensing of railway undertakings and the proposed deletion of the replacement Article 12.
In any liberalisation process it is very important to ensure that certain standards are maintained, for example those relating to the safety of both workers and consumers.
At the same time we need to prevent artificial barriers being put in the way of the opening up of markets.
Fulfilling both of these objectives requires a delicate balance to be struck.
I doubt both whether Amendment No 1 serves its intended legal purpose and whether it could have the effects that Mr Watts fears.
I believe it could send out the wrong signals.
Instead I seek support for Amendments Nos 23 and 24 which, taken together, should have the effect of securing the second of the two objectives without detracting from the first.
- (PT) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I could conceivably agree to the Europeanisation of railway transport that has been put forward in the directives we are now considering and, consequently, the liberalisation of the rail sector.
I could also give my support to the legal separation of the management of railway infrastructures from the provision of transport services.
In order to do so, however, I would have to see guarantees on certain fundamental issues, which are the criteria for the quality and efficiency of the enormously important political and economic measure that should result from these directives.
We are all aware that many European countries were not able to take part in the industrial revolution of the 19th Century at the right time, precisely because they lacked adequate rail connections.
Some of them are still waiting today for their railways to be modernised and, more specifically, for access to the European High Speed Network.
The liberalisation of this sector must under no circumstances be an obstacle to this access.
Rail networks must therefore continue to provide a guaranteed public service in all Europe' s regions, particularly the more remote ones.
Furthermore, liberalisation must not lead to necessary lines being closed, to unemployment or to safety standards and the quality of service falling.
Recent events have given us grounds to think that these are possible consequences, which must be prevented at all costs.
We therefore harbour grave reservations about supporting these directives.
Mr President, the rapporteur who drafted a report on the development of the Community' s railways has adopted the guiding principle that for the time being, the railway industry has largely lost the competitive battle to road transport and aviation but that despite this, it is preferable to hold on to the railway industry and strengthen it.
I could not agree more.
But this is about the only issue on which I see eye to eye with him.
I believe Mr Jarzembowski is quite mistaken.
What he wants to achieve requires a complete change of tack and what he proposes will lead to further regression.
His proposals are in line with views held at the end of the twentieth century.
In all areas, we are witnessing a neo-liberal attack on public services, Community undertakings and employers' organisations.
This attack is mainly aimed at postal services, rail and the energy sector, companies which have the potential to demonstrate that we can organise our economy in a more democratic, environmentally-friendly and less profit-oriented manner.
Unfortunately, these companies have for years been neglected by their owners, the democratically elected community which belongs to us all, and have been treated as private companies.
The rapporteur considers the rail industry as an irritating state monopoly with difficult and demanding trade unions in tow.
He wants to break this monopoly as quickly and radically as possible.
Instead of focusing his attention on stepping up cooperation between the existing railway companies and enhancing the democratic say over these companies, so that benefits of the rail industry can be better enjoyed on a European scale and liabilities can be eliminated more effectively, he puts all his hope in competition and liberalisation.
In his opinion, the form of organisation by means of which road transport and aviation have largely triumphed over rail, should also be applied to rail itself.
We have now gained some experience in liberalisation thanks to the English and Dutch models.
The English variant carved up the national railway industry into regional companies, some of which ended up in the hands of large foreign concerns.
In other regions, they remained a monopoly.
That country now invests less in innovation than any other country.
Trains are shorter and overloaded, and the safety of railways has declined.
According to the Dutch version, competitors can obtain licences for lines on which they want to compete with the existing railway company. This company was established in 1939 and is an amalgamation of old private railway companies which operated inefficiently.
Following a propaganda war between a newcomer and the existing company, operating different rates and using different trains, this newcomer was first taken over by a large French water company and subsequently ceased all activity.
It is evident that it is only profitable to operate lines over which you have complete control. This reality renders the proposals made by Jarzembowski unviable.
Mr President, ten years ago, Mr Cornelissen found himself in exactly the same debate.
If I were to read out his text, nobody would bat an eyelid.
The train is at a standstill, and to stand still is to regress.
Who in their right mind would take a train that moved backwards?
Thanks to the internal market and e-commerce, the flows of traffic and commodities within the European Union have increased by 70% over the past ten years.
To accommodate this increase, we need all the types of transport we can think of, ranging from internal waterways, air, roads and trains, all of which should be just in time and clean.
So far, trains have not contributed in any way.
In percentage terms, the train has lost a considerable share in the transport market and it is difficult to detect any movement within European rail.
At the same time, the train has proved the European Union right, namely that more competition keeps you on your toes and on the ball.
Due to a lack of competition as a result of excessive protectionist behaviour on the part of the Member States, the train has been relegated to the second division in this century too.
But from now on, the railways need to take down the barriers that are obstructing the cross-border transport of goods, by using each other' s infrastructure.
They need to make their equipment considerably more hard-wearing because they are hopelessly lagging behind road transport in this respect.
In the next phase, the following points will be particularly important, in my opinion.
Honest, non-discriminatory access should be granted to the infrastructure.
Transport companies should be separated from the management of the infrastructure.
It is vital for these components not to be controlled by one and the same body.
Safety takes absolute priority and cannot be monitored by the transport companies themselves.
A second key element is the opening up of the railway infrastructure or, in other words, a liberalisation of the market, which is different from privatisation.
This is vital if we want to breathe new life into the transport of goods. In this way, new operators are attracted who bring with them new insights and a new management culture.
Liberalisation, as mentioned in the common position, is a good start but is not enough.
Only when railway networks open up once and for all will railway undertakings and their employees have a chance.
Liberalisation should, however, work both ways.
Nobody should have to tolerate competitors on their infrastructure that refuse or are unable to grant the same access at home.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, without doubt, the European railways need reviving and that is precisely what the legislative package under discussion is attempting to do.
The congestion on the roads, the threat from which to transport and environmental safety increases daily, is so bad that we must now strengthen the railways.
The common positions approved here by the Council obviously promote the required revival by dealing fairly and transparently with all railway undertakings, by defining a logical framework for distributing infrastructure capacity and user charges, by separating railway infrastructure management from the provision of transport services and by discussing how, to what extent and at what speed this separation should apply.
Of course we are on the right track and of course we understand the problems facing certain Member States in directly, or almost directly adopting all the new measures proposed.
First, the huge disparities between the networks in the various countries and, more importantly, the geographical situations of certain Member States or regions make it very hard for them to change the system quickly and, secondly, forcing the change, as it were, on these Member States would not result in any significant benefit either to the countries in question or the Community as a whole.
We believe that a dogmatic, absolutist approach is risky and is unfair because, as we know full well, it does not apply in all sectors.
Sometimes, the apparently contradictory, oxymoronic Ancient Greek proverb "more haste, less speed" is more efficient.
Finally, I must in all honesty congratulate our two rapporteurs on their sterling work and ask for their understanding where special, objectively-identified circumstances exist.
In this particular case, this applies to my country, Greece, which has shown that it is making quantum leaps, but only where they are really needed.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our trans-European routes, our roads and motorways, are being clogged up daily by millions of lorries, buses and cars, which leads to wasted time, wasteful energy consumption and significant environmental damage, amongst other things.
For all of these reasons the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance always defends the railway as an alternative means of transport - currently underexploited - which wastes fewer resources, and is cleaner and more respectful of the natural environment.
Therefore, when amending and implementing the Community legislation on the liberalisation of the railway sector, we wish to argue not only that the railway should not be penalised in relation to other means of transport, but that there should actually be positive discrimination in its favour, so that we can counteract the delay we have caused in terms of investing in it.
With regard to the taxes on the use of the infrastructures, which in the end will be paid by the users, we suggest that, in the short to medium term, these only reflect the marginal costs generated by the rail traffic itself and not those involving the recuperation of investment and maintenance, which should be covered by state budgets, as in the case of roads and motorways.
That is the only way we will manage to make the railway a competitive means of transport which is used on a grand scale.
Mr President, Commissioner, fellow members, when you receive a lot of letters from people you do not know, it may be for one of two reasons.
Either you are very famous or your correspondents feel very strongly about the matter on which they write.
Members of the European Parliament are not very famous.
It must therefore be the matter at issue which has triggered the correspondence.
We have all received a lot of letters, documents and requests for interviews over the last few days, nearly all from representatives of national railways and nearly all warning us, unisono against the compulsory separation of management and infrastructure called for in the proposals by the rapporteur Georg Jarzembowski.
Mr Swoboda has also addressed this issue, although his argument was that we need to liberalise, but only one step at a time.
Georg Jarzembowski submits that our systems in the past, with quasi-monopolistic national carriers, have not allowed optimum use to be made of the system.
Who can argue with that? The figures speak for themselves.
Our present railway system is a far cry from what we desperately need in Europe, namely an efficient system which is also an acceptable system.
Every example in related sectors confirms the argument.
One step at a time gets you nowhere.
Telecommunications traffic has demonstrated that, the electricity sector and numerous other sectors besides have demonstrated that.
And we expect the same to happen with the railways.
The main purpose of the railways is to serve their users and hence to serve a more efficient, improved European transport system.
That is what we want, that is what we need and that is what we shall vote for.
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, the overall objective of the railway package under discussion here today is fast liberalisation of the European railways.
As you know, we in the PPE are calling for this in all areas needed to complete the single market, wherever healthy competition can replace hand-me-down monopolies.
Only comprehensive liberalisation will allow the necessary progress to be made so that the railway, as a carrier, has the qualitative and quantitative capacity to provide services and integrate with other carriers.
The Commission texts on developing railway undertakings, on licensing railway undertakings and on allocating railway infrastructure capacity are a step in the right direction in this respect.
My fellow member, Georg Jarzembowski, has earned my unstinting support for his efforts to bring about a self-contained railway package and would like to thank him for his work and his excellent report.
What is important to me in all this is that, when management and infrastructure are separated, investments in the infrastructure are examined closely and duly compensated.
Liberalisation will only be accepted if it results in real advantages and consumers need not fear for their safety.
From this point of view, we must be sure to keep a firm hold on strict conditions when licensing railway undertakings.
As far as the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity is concerned, we must ensure that there is non-discriminatory access.
I do not deny that flexible regulations governing access to the grid have caused a number of problems in the energy sector.
But I still think it is the best market economy approach and that also applies to the railways.
We should not just talk about a common Europe, we should have the courage of our convictions and do something about it.
Mr President, and those fellow Members who are still awake, I would like to thank Mr Jarzembowski and Mr Swoboda for their lucid reports, with reference to which we can at last try to revive the railways by opening them up to competition.
It is fashionable these days to talk about the railways; it is politically correct.
It often feels as if Parliament is a chamber where there is just one permitted truth.
We all dash along in the same direction, like a flock of sheep, trying to convince one another that the railways will solve Europe' s transport problems.
It is hard for us politicians to admit the facts.
I have nothing at all against the railways; on the contrary, I greatly enjoy sitting in the buffet car, having a beer and admiring the landscape as it flits past.
To be able to make reasonable decisions we have to identify the real importance of the railways for the economy and examine just how big a part the various modes of transport play.
By far the biggest is road transport.
The share of rail transport, measured in tons per kilometre, has fallen to below 15%, but even this way of measuring the figures gives too rosy a picture of the situation.
From the economic point of view, transporting fifty computers a thousand kilometres is quite a different matter from transporting a hundred tons of grit ten kilometres, although the tonnage per kilometre is the same in both cases.
It is also quite a different matter to transport raw textiles weighing tons as compared to an enormous load of silk neckties - I had one for myself, by the way.
For this reason, any comparison must be made on the basis of the value of the consignments, and, if it is calculated this way, the share the railways have is just - surprise, surprise - 3%.
I am not mathematically gifted, but I see a dramatic difference in favour of road transport, whose share is more than 95%.
It is like comparing a fly with an ox, but it is not any wonder, because it is impossible to ignore the ease of transport, flexibility and door-to-door delivery service we associate with transportation by road.
At present the real role of the railways in Europe' s economy is, unfortunately, marginal, although they receive a good deal of assistance from the taxpayer.
But it is just because of this that we have to do all we can to revive rail transportation and support its gradual opening up to competition.
We expect a constructive contribution from France when we set the clocks of European railway stations to the new millennium.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Recognition of professional qualifications
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0174/00) by Mr Wieland, on behalf of the Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications.
The single market is one of the great achievements of the European Community.
To have turned the distinct and fragmented markets of the Member States into a single European market is an extraordinary and revolutionary change.
While it is true that the process has not yet been completed, it has been set on an irrevocable course.
The mechanics needed to achieve this change are very extensive, as can be seen from even the most cursory examination of Lord Cockfield's 1992 programme, one of the most revolutionary, yet on the face of it unexciting programmes of the post-war world.
Within that framework there is clearly a choice of instruments for putting the single market in place which can be described as the choice between harmonization and mutual recognition.
Of these, harmonization is more seductive for the gung-ho politician who wants to be seen doing something, one of the scourges of the contemporary world.
In my view systems of mutual recognition are more attractive.
They are after all more subtle and sophisticated.
The insensitive imposition of harmonization has caused untold political damage to the European political enterprise and had the single market been based more on mutual recognition and less on harmonization Europe's political condition would be much less febrile than it is today.
One of the great difficulties in establishing a network of mutual recognition is the complexity of the procedures required to put it into place and to ensure the ongoing compatibility and appropriateness of the mutual recognition network.
This requires ongoing monitoring and we very much welcome the revision of the series of directives which are the subject of this debate this evening.
As the rapporteur, Mr Wieland, has pointed out in his excellent report, this directive is primarily about procedures as they relate to the recognition of diplomas.
Finally, if I might conclude on a parochial note, as a United Kingdom MEP, we especially welcome the extension of the minimum length for specific training in general medical practice for doctors from two to three years.
Secondly, we welcome the stipulation that Member States are to examine the qualifications already recognised in one Member State which have been obtained in a third country.
Finally, and more generally, I would like to reiterate the rapporteur's general conclusion that this is all far too difficult and complicated for anyone other than an expert or a lawyer and every effort must be made to simplify the law and make it more user-friendly so that the single market is understood by all our citizens.
Mr President, my task is also on behalf of my group, to welcome Amendments Nos 1 to 11 and the spirit in which they were moved by my friend, Mr Wieland.
These are important points although they are not controversial among us.
We welcome in particular the extension of training for general practitioners to three years, together with the amendment originally moved by Mrs Gebhardt for lifelong learning for general practitioners.
This is extremely important.
The medical associations have been pressing us upon this point and I fully agree with them.
It is also important as a purely linguistic matter to make sure that gleichwertig is translated as "equivalent" and its equivalent words in other European languages.
I conclude by taking up the point that nothing is more important than that the laws of the European Union should be understandable to its citizens.
Without that our Community and our Union lack the clarity of purpose which will make them not merely acceptable to, but embraced by, the citizens.
Therefore all projects of consolidation of law that tend to making the law more readily understood by the citizen and its purposes more lucid to her or him are projects to which we should give our greatest support.
I am very happy to support this report.
I once again congratulate my friend, Mr Wieland, on the spirit in which he moved it.
Mr President, after years of confusion, it is time to clarify the system for recognising professional qualifications and diplomas, precisely in order to provide the European citizens with clear, transparent, and, most importantly, universally accessible laws.
This is clearly a somewhat difficult undertaking for, apart from anything else, there are 14 directives in existence on the subject and each one has been amended several times.
Moreover, the failures and delays of the Member States in complying with European legislation have all too often been justified by its complexity or by the difficulty of gaining access to information at European level.
As the rapporteur points out, even lawyers have trouble.
However, at the end of the day, the only people to pay the price for this situation are the citizens, especially young people who may well have invested time and energy in the certainty of obtaining results and official recognition and feel betrayed by the institutions.
And the situation is all the more serious if we consider the unemployment levels in Europe.
I belong to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport which, once again, has not been asked to speak on an issue which not only involves legal questions, but should also be subject to consensus in other respects.
The complexity which exists in Europe in relation to the recognition of qualifications gives rise to documents such as this, which, despite the efforts of Parliament and the Commission itself, is a real 'collage' .
This document is a 'collage' in the sense that, although it tries to remedy situations which are unjust, those people with most power, such as the doctors' 'lobby' , which has been very active, have managed to resolve their situation.
Many other people, however, have travelled, have acquired academic qualifications, have trained professionally and have still not had their qualifications recognised and therefore have no rights.
I believe, and in this respect I am sorry to disagree with Mr Wieland, despite the fact that he has done such good work, that this is a very simple problem when looked at from the point of view of Roman law and its notion of the right of individuals.
All individuals have the right for their studies to be recognised.
These days we are always talking about mobility. We give grants so that people may have mobility, but then we do not recognise what has been studied with those grants.
We talk of the Europe of research and a Europe of knowledge and then we do not recognise, out of pure fear or pure vested interests, anything that people do outside of their own countries.
Therefore, I wish now to ask that we question this directive, so that the recognition of the medical qualifications may be extended to many other qualifications, because it seems to me to be truly unjust that this is not the case, and that a country is unable to pass on what it knows to another country.
The result is that a lot of knowledge is confined to certain areas, in certain universities and in certain companies.
If recognition were to be extended, Europe could enjoy the full right to the transfer of knowledge and that would be a real innovation.
Therefore, as representative of the Culture Committee in this case, I ask that this recognition be extended and that the road be opened to greater recognition of equivalence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I generally welcome any measure or any directive to improve the mutual recognition of professional or academic qualifications.
Every member who, like me, lives in a border region, knows the problems encountered by citizens who work or wish to establish in a nearby Member State.
The EU Treaty clearly regulates the freedom of movement and the freedom to establish of people in the EU.
But the devil is in the detail.
We now realise that in fact every job description needs to be regulated.
But people no longer understand this. Is this a citizens' Europe?
Is this a common market? These are the questions.
The difficulties are clear from the number of current directives alone - there are "only" fourteen on today's subject.
We must reduce and harmonise the huge administrative costs, including within the Member States, which is why the Commission proposal to simplify the procedure is most welcome.
Individual job descriptions, training courses and pre-requisites vary enormously within the EU.
We need to start by finding similarities in training and curricula.
In the long run, uniform training courses and uniform curricula would be a great help and we must work towards that.
Until then, the Member States must consider very carefully how and where additional demands and improvements are needed and what sort of subsequent examination then needs to be demanded.
The deadline provided for by the Commission - which says that a decision on recognition must be made within three months - is an excellent move.
Procedures for recognising diplomas acquired in third countries must also be simplified.
We must cut the red tape within the EU, so that our citizens are able to put their skills to good use in every Member State.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this evening I should simply like to welcome the initiative aimed at simplifying and clarifying the directives relating to the recognition of diplomas and professional qualifications.
I would therefore like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Weiland, and point out that I agree with what Evelyne Gebhardt said before me.
As an MEP from a border region I am frequently questioned by students that have come up against a system that was implemented in 1989 and 1992, and I am not exaggerating when I say that urgent changes are needed as current mechanisms are far from transparent.
Too many students come up against brick walls in their attempt to have their qualifications validated by the authorities in the various Member States.
All too often they are unjustly denied recognition, which places them in an intolerable position.
As far as principles are concerned, this is a violation of the right to the freedom of movement and, from a more human point of view, it creates an often devastating situation for students who have sought to better their qualifications but then cannot find a relevant job at the end of it.
The cost of the validation process also warrants discussion.
I am personally therefore very pleased to see that measures are finally being taken to apply the principles of free movement in practical terms.
More specifically, the proposal for a directive contains some interesting provisions with regard to clarification.
It provides that the host Member State must take account of all of the experience a person has gained since completing the qualification and can no longer demand countervailing measures.
We clearly could have taken things a stage further, as will undoubtedly be inevitable for other jobs, and I hope that progress can be achieved with the assistance of a Council that is far less cautious in future.
We shall no doubt discuss this issue again, but I hope that this evening' s debate will be welcomed as a step forward in the issue.
Mr President, may I start by thanking the members of your House for the interest they have shown in the proposal and for the work carried out by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and Mr Wieland, in particular?
A number of amendments proposed by Parliament aim to further improve the text of the Council' s common position by illuminating certain points that could otherwise be open to different interpretations.
This is the case for Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6 and 11, amendments which the Commission welcomes.
Moreover, the Commission has taken note of the requests made in Amendments Nos 1 and 2 to codify the directive on "recognition of professional qualifications" and to re-examine the problem of recognition of formal qualifications acquired in third countries.
In principle, the Commission does not object to these requests, but I would remind you once again that these requests do not belong in the preamble to the directive, especially since they are completely unrelated to the content of the directive.
Their approval would contravene the rules governing technical legislation and the interinstitutional agreement that exists in this context.
Regarding medical training, which forms the subject of Amendments Nos 3 and 7 to 10, the Commission shares Parliament' s view that on the one hand, this is a matter of great importance which requires further attention but on the other hand, these amendments only contain a few isolated proposals which require a more general analysis before they can be examined and approved.
Community legislation cannot be altered without a truly global analysis of the role of the GP, the role of the specialist doctor and the respective significance of basic training, specialist training and continuing training.
This is why the Commission believes that it is far too early to adopt Amendments Nos 3 and 7 to 10.
Moreover, it is said that these amendments will considerably delay the final adoption of the proposal, which would not just be terribly unfortunate, it would also be out of all proportion to the many benefits which we stand to gain from this draft directive.
Amendments Nos 12 and 13 are, in fact, not new.
They contain the amendment already adopted at first reading, which was intended to regulate the situation of certain architects from Ireland.
The Council and Commission have already explained why this amendment cannot be adopted, namely because this issue is a purely internal affair.
This concludes my response.
I thank you for the opportunity you have given me to expand on this matter.
Commissioner, allow me to thank you for being both brief and to the point.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.40 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
.
(EL) Mr President, I see from the Minutes that the question and answer exchange during question time with Minister Moscovici has been wrongly recorded.
The Minutes state, on page 14, in the Greek version at least: "Question 16 by Mr Ìarinos: Violations of Cypriot airspace by Turkish fighter-planes.
Mr Moscovici replied to the question and to Mr Marino's supplementary question and Mr Zacharakis then intervened" .
I should like to point out that in the morning the President of the French Republic, Mr Chirac, gave the impression, by appearing here in person and from what he said in his speech, that under the French presidency there would be closer, more systematic cooperation between the European Parliament and the presidency; however, in the afternoon, the first minister of the presidency to appear and work with us, the former MEP Mr Moscovici, did exactly the opposite.
Apart from the fact that he was curt with us, he gave I think almost all my fellow members more or less one-word replies or claimed that he had replied, although he did indeed reply to the written question which I had submitted.
But when I then submitted a second question as a result of yesterday morning's debate on the incursion of the Turkish occupying army into another part of Cyprus, instead of replying on the issue which I had put to him, he said "I have already replied" .
Mr Zacharakis then intervened with two questions and Mr Moscovici barely bothered to stand up and did not bother to reply.
I should like to ask, first, if a minister or commissioner questioned here is able not only to refuse to reply but to do so in a completely disdainful manner and if we are supposed to take "I have already replied" as an answer, when they have not done so.
The same happened to other fellow members who, if they are present here, can confirm this.
I should like a reply on this and I should like the Minutes to be corrected.
Mr Marinos, we have taken note of your view here and it will also be included in the Minutes.
It is true that it would be opportune to review the Question Time procedures from time to time.
I shall look into this.
I too should like to request that the Minutes be corrected because, as they stand, they are not an accurate record of what happened during the sitting.
I should like the Minutes to record that I submitted two specific questions to Mr Moscovici and that he did not reply.
Of course, following on from what Mr Ìarinos said and over and above the disdainful manner adopted by Mr Moscovici, who failed to honour traditional French courtesy, even though Parliament is sitting on French territory, what I note and conclude from his silence, and it would be a good idea to bring this to the attention of the Greek Government, is that the French Government secretly intends to oppose the accession of Cyprus to the European Union and to promote the accession of Turkey, even if it does violate human rights and the basic principles of international law.
Mr Zacharakis, we will not be holding the political debate on this issue here.
Mr Moscovici took the floor yesterday and we will check whether this was included correctly in the Minutes.
Mr President, I wish to raise once again the point I raised on Monday and again yesterday with regard to Mr Helmer's comments in this House.
Can I say that I am surprised that on two occasions now I have asked Mr Helmer to comment on the item about the Queen of the United Kingdom supporting the euro, and so far he has failed to do.
Can I say to this House that I understand this must be the first time that Mr Helmer has been speechless.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, according to our information, Mrs Stauner withdrew the explanatory statement in the relevant committee yesterday, but despite that, it has been distributed today.
I would just like to ask you, Mr President, to establish if this statement was withdrawn by the rapporteur or not.
If it was, then it should not be distributed as an official document.
I shall enquire at the services into the exact course of events.
The fact of the matter is that yesterday evening, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, I withdrew this explanatory statement.
I asked the secretariat of the Committee on Budgetary Control to draft a letter to that effect.
Because we were sitting in the evening, that was no longer possible.
I assume that if I go to my office now, I will find the letter there and can sign it so that we can proceed accordingly.
Mr President, I wanted to bring up an issue which should be of great concern to this Parliament, and in particular to Members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
A serious abuse of European law and the Statute of the European Investment Bank is taking place in my own country.
Member States are not authorised under EC law to propose or nominate their own nationals directly to the Board of Governors for the position of Vice-President of the EIB, and to do so is a clear violation of the Statute of the European Investment Bank.
The task of making the nominations and appointment is reserved exclusively to a Board of Directors of the Bank, which is a quite separate body.
The situation in Ireland is quite contrary to this principle.
The Irish government have, in contravention of the law, nominated a person who not only has no experience of economic or financial affairs, but is furthermore a disgraced supreme court judge who was forced to resign before he was impeached by the Irish parliament.
This issue is now before the courts in Ireland.
This is an extremely important matter for this Parliament, which is concerned because the European Union provides Guarantee Funds to the EIB.
Parliament must take notice of this, because if we allow Member States to contravene the law in this way it has serious implications for the European Union as a whole.
I would ask the President if he could instruct the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Budgetary Control to look into this issue, because it should be dealt with very quickly.
It could set a very bad precedent for the future for other Member States and for nominations to this body.
Mrs McKenna, I agree that it would be beneficial if you, should you so wish, instructed the relevant Committee.
Mr President, I would like to put a question to Parliament.
Yesterday, further hundreds of acres of forest were destroyed by fire in Italy, endangering the outskirts of Rome and the lives of European citizens as well. A similar incident occurred a few days ago in France, on the Italian border.
These acts of arson, which endanger and destroy hundreds upon hundreds of acres of European forest, occur frequently during the summer in the Mediterranean European countries, with harmful repercussions for the economy and the tourist industry.
It is vital that Parliament intervenes, but a decisive intervention on the part of the Commission and the Council is also essential when we consider that the possibility of setting up a European civil protection service was even discussed at the Feira Council.
These fires represent a considerable hazard, damaging the forest stand and the environment throughout the European Union, but, most importantly, the economic effect on our endeavours to boost employment in the tourism industry in all the countries of the Mediterranean area will be extremely serious.
Mr Tajani, these are indeed recurring themes unfortunately, and are a constant concern within Parliament.
They are very sad happenings indeed.
ECB annual report
The next item is the report by Mr Radwan (A5-0169/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the 1999 Annual Report of the European Central Bank [C5-0195/2000 - 2000/2118(COS)].
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, ladies and gentlemen, the 1999 report before us from the ECB is both the first ECB report for a full year and also the first report since the introduction of the euro.
As has already been mentioned, the stage we are now at is that the euro has already been introduced, but the public will only have the bank notes in their hands on 1 January 2002.
Mr Karas will be dealing with that point in detail later on.
However, it is important for us to win the confidence of the public by the time the euro notes are introduced.
The increase in consumer prices over the last year of just over 1%, that is well within the ECB target of 2%, provides a good foundation for this.
Mr Duisenberg, I would like to sincerely congratulate both the ECB and you personally on that.
Because of your stability-oriented policy, the countries in the euro area can boast a historically low level of price inflation.
If the policies of the ECB are to be successful, it must be politically independent.
This does not mean that there is no accountability, but rather that a high level of information and transparency is required.
I would like to sound a positive note by mentioning the European Central Bank' s regular reports to Parliament' s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, as well as the information published on the Internet, which you have already been referred to.
But a young institution like the ECB has to win the confidence not only of the financial markets but also of the public.
I therefore very much welcomed the fact that you addressed the public direct in May, and I think that should happen more regularly.
The public is being flooded with information about the euro and I think that the information is not always eye-catching and informative.
We need to counter that trend here today. The policy needs to be presented so it can be easily understood, and that would help to win people over to the euro.
At the same time, a low inflation rate is a policy for the economically disadvantaged in our society.
That is why it is important for the ECB to tailor its decisions to primary objectives.
For example, as I see it, we cannot accept an inflation rate of over 3.3% simply because it makes it easier to achieve secondary objectives such as economic growth and employment policy.
Those who are disadvantaged suffer particularly from creeping inflation, which I therefore regard as being socially unacceptable.
The areas of economic growth and employment are primarily a matter for the Member States.
This is exactly the reason for part of the weak external value of the euro.
We need to make greater progress with reforms such as flexible labour markets, restructuring social security systems and liberalising financial markets if we are also to make the euro area more attractive as a financial centre and as a centre for investment.
Mere declarations that we want to become number one in the world economy, like the one made at the Lisbon Summit, are not enough.
The Member States have got to take action themselves here.
That is why the objective of debt reduction and balanced budgets needs to be achieved as quickly as possible.
But it is also important for the European Central Bank not to completely forget about the external value of the euro.
On the one hand there is a risk of higher prices, of importing inflation, which is at present being aggravated by higher oil prices of course.
On the other hand, and this brings me back to the subject of 'information and the citizen' , many people see the external value of the euro as an indicator of how stable it is.
With this in mind we must make sure that this factor alone, external value, does not weaken confidence in the euro.
I accordingly welcome the most recent correction in interest rates, that is the increase by 50 base points, as a step towards a medium-term monetary policy with a view to creating confidence and calm both in the financial markets and amongst the public.
Another sign in the eyes of the public that the euro is a good thing would be a marked reduction in charges for cross-border payment transactions, which you have already mentioned.
In this case I believe it is important for the banks to set their sights far higher and make more rapid progress.
For banks simply to refer to the standardisation of systems is not enough here.
The introduction of the euro did not come overnight and it was not a surprise.
I myself come from the world of information and communications technology. I know that if you put a subject right at the top of your agenda and really put some pressure on, you can get something done more quickly.
I therefore call on you to get the European Central Bank to add to this pressure, so that our banks make greater efforts in this field.
Lastly, I would like to talk about the imminent eastward enlargement of the European Union.
First, I would like to make it clear that I am not talking about a treaty amendment, as was now and again suggested during the debate. What I have in mind is to examine the process ahead of us.
No one is disputing that there is a three-stage process, from EU membership, to participation in the exchange-rate mechanism, and finally to full membership.
However, a minimum level of economic convergence is needed to achieve this, and also to create a level playing field for the applicant countries and the present EU Member States.
It is important not only to observe the criteria, but also to allow some leeway with regard to this compliance with the criteria.
We cannot allow decisions that we have made in the past to keep tying our hands when it comes to the present and future process, over a period of five to ten years.
We must maintain this process - this scope for interpretation.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all my colleagues and the committee secretariat very sincerely for their support with this report.
Mr President, Commissioner Solbes Mira, President Duisenberg, ladies and gentlemen, I should like, if I may, to deal swiftly with various questions in relation to the work of the European Central Bank.
First, the 1999 annual report.
I think we need to acknowledge that the Central Bank did a good job in 1999: inflation remained very low, providing the euro with a high degree of stability, and our citizens' purchasing power remained the same.
We should also, I think, congratulate President Duisenberg and his team for the smooth introduction of the euro as bank money.
I think that was an achievement which deserves to be highlighted.
As far as the current year is concerned, the figures are not quite as pleasing.
Inflation has risen again, driven by the increase in oil prices.
The Central Bank has responded by tightening credit terms, not that rates are currently overly high in Europe.
Nonetheless, the Central Bank's strategy has not always been completely clear or highly legible.
In fact, there have been a lot of copycat decisions between the European Central Bank and its big sister, the Federal Reserve in the United States.
When the Federal Reserve hikes its base rate by 25 points, the European Central Bank follows suit; when the Federal Reserve adds 50 points, the Central Bank does likewise a few weeks later.
But the situation in the United States is quite different from the situation in Europe and sometimes I get the impression that the European Central Bank is giving in slightly to market expectations and appeasing the markets with increases of 25 or 50 points and I worry somewhat when I read reports by financial analysts predicting increases of over 100 points by the end of the year.
Inflation is there, sure enough, Mr Duisenberg!
But I note that it is falling and I do not therefore think that waiting for the markets is the right approach.
You are there, Mr Duisenberg, to serve the entire European economy, not to serve the financial markets, and I must say that the European Central Bank has been most discreet so far on the subject of the blatant irrationality and permanent casino atmosphere of the financial markets.
I have just listened to a statement by Mr Issing, criticising the sheep-like behaviour of the financial markets, especially in connection with the relative weakness of the euro.
I think that this weakness is, indeed, completely relative and that we should not read too much into these fluctuations, even if they do relate to our economy.
I hope to see better coordination between European policies.
I want a stronger European economy, not in opposition to, but in cooperation with the Monetary Fund, on the understanding that each of them retains its freedom of decision and action.
Mr President, unfortunately I have run out of time and I would like to have said a great deal more, especially on enlargement.
Allow me to say just two words on Mr Radwan's comments.
Every country which is to join the European Union should be a member of the Economic and Monetary Union.
We want to apply the Treaty, but the whole Treaty and nothing but the Treaty.
My final word, Mr President, is this: if I had to write a report for Mr Duisenberg, it would say 'good, but could do better' .
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Duisenberg on a successful year in running euro monetary policy.
Clearly what matters is internal price stability, and the external value of the euro is of much less significance.
Indeed that was one of the reasons for creating the euro in the first place: it was precisely to protect the European economy from the volatility of the foreign exchanges to which Mr Goebbels has just referred.
I am particularly pleased, too, that Mr Duisenberg has reiterated his promise to publish forecasts and econometric models, and I entirely understand his caveats.
I hope that when he publishes the macroeconometric model he will do so in a form which makes it available and easily usable by outside researchers, perhaps on CD-ROM.
However, in connection with Parliament's view of last year I would urge Mr Duisenberg to reconsider a formal framework for the publication of summary minutes.
As he said, much of the debate which happens within the Council is filtering out in the form of discussion within the monthly bulletin, but this is not the same as a regular report with a formal framework in which it is discussed.
That would help anchor expectations within the market, as well as fulfilling the important accountability mandate of the ECB.
It is also clearly crucial the ECB should look only at the euro zone as a whole in terms of its inflation and price stability objective.
It is essential to point out that different growth trends exist within the different national components of the euro zone economy, and that this implies different sustainable wage growth rates over time.
That is why it is important that there should be an overall discussion of what potential sustainable growth rates of wages are in each of the component parts of the euro zone economy, and why this will actually help deliver low inflation combined with low unemployment.
Those are the main points I would like to make.
I would also very much like to back Mr Goebbels' remarks about the importance of enlargement, namely that we should not have two standards - one for us and one for them.
I very much hope that we will continue to apply the criteria of the Treaty, no more and no less.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not intend to re-open with Mr Duisenberg the debate which we held in committee a while back.
The Group of the Greens totally disagrees with the policy of raising interest rates, which has been applied since the end of 1999.
We are as displeased by the second period of management by the Bank, starting in the last quarter of 1999, as we were satisfied with the first, not because the Bank overestimates the importance of variations in exchange rates against the dollar - it does in our view, but that is by the by - but because the debate on exchange rates obviously masks the Central Bank's aversion to growth and its serious underestimation of the potential rate of growth of the European Union.
Yes, there are difficulties with a rate of growth of 3% but these difficulties imply that there should be more, not less investment and, hence, lower not higher interest rates.
What I would like to stress today is the scandal that is the second part of paragraph 11 of the Radwan report.
To dare to say that the French 35-hour law is responsible for the fall in the euro because it has weakened European competitiveness overall is an intellectual lie, pure and simple.
It was after this law was announced that the Toyota factory - and many others - decided to open in France.
If the MEPs consider that the Toyota factory does not know what it is doing, that is their right; that these MEPs claim to suggest such absurd rules to national governments and European social policy, frankly, seems to us...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the European Central Bank report under discussion covers 1999, its first year in operation following the start of the third stage of EMU and, for this very reason, the European Parliament's criticism of the European Central Bank's annual report should be even stricter and even more demanding.
The European Parliament is the only institution in the Community which is entitled to exercise any, albeit ex-post, control over the European Central Bank and its policy.
From this point of view, the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs does not meet the expectations of the citizens of Europe, in that it fully supports the policy of the European System of Central Banks and, on several counts, is going beyond that policy by calling for even greater liberalisation.
The claim that the international standing of the euro and its weakness against the dollar are due to delays in making the necessary structural changes at the expense of the job, goods and services markets and to delays in advancing on the public sector of the economy, dismantling employment relations and abolishing the labour, social and insurance rights of workers has caused a public outrage.
In its quest for much-vaunted monetary stability, which I consider to be its only duty, the policy of the European Central Bank has been highly contradictory; in pursuing a single objective, i.e. to control inflationary pressures, it has swung like a pendulum from one extreme to the other, with successive reductions and increases in the interest rate which, in the final analysis, have had acutely negative repercussions on growth in productivity and employment.
The workers paying the price for this seriously negative neo-liberal policy have no confidence in it, nor do they share the European Central Bank's ambition or the support given to its policy by the European Parliament, the other institutions of the European Union and the governments of the Member States.
The much-vaunted new economy will certainly not serve the interests of the workers.
In this sense, we oppose both the policy of the Bank and the support given to it by the European Parliament.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Radwan for the quality of his report on the first financial year of the Central Bank since the introduction of the euro.
His efforts are commendable.
One senses a diffuse anxiety seeping through his report which contrasts happily with the steadfast optimism of the various advocates of the euro, together with reaffirmation - somewhat timid but reaffirmation nonetheless - of a few basic principles, all of which are superfluous.
Mr Radwan will go down in history for having reminded us that the independence of the Central Bank is not to be equated with accountability but, on the contrary, implies maximum transparency, mainly in order to make up, he should have added, for its lack of legitimacy.
Alas, Mr Radwan, you see all the symptoms, but you cannot bring yourself to name the genetic disease afflicting the euro and provoking the scepticism of the markets, which have devalued it by 20%, indifference on the part of the economic players, who have yet to adopt it, the distrust of the citizens: in the last survey, 41% of Europeans already thought that the euro was a bad thing for them and, admit it, there were signs of panic among the euro supervisory authorities, 18 months before the planned withdrawal of the national currencies.
Add to that the increasing hostility of the British and the persistent distrust of the Danes, which I hope to see confirmed on 28 September.
The initial cause of the punishment currently being inflicted on the European currency stems, of course, from the conditions in which it was born.
Conceived in haste by France and Germany following German reunification, followed by nine other countries, the so-called single currency was immediately put out for adoption by the political authorities to an independent bank, poor little Cosette sent to the Ténardiers in Frankfurt!
One can understand why the child is sickly, under the circumstances.
According to the Cardinal of Retz, in politics, you often end up with the opposite of what you were seeking.
It is the independence of the ECB, advocated in order to reassure the markets, which is worrying them.
The Federal Reserve was born when the United States was over a century old and after the American Civil War and it acts not totally, but relatively independently within what I would call a single pool of feelings, i.e. within a single country.
With no such foundation, the Central Bank is not independent, it is isolated.
Its message is doomed to failure.
It can only speak the language of the markets, what one French journalist calls eurodosh, not the language of the people, as a result of which the euro is merely a currency of loans which has become the toy of the markets instead of being the business of the Europeans.
Perhaps your euro will rally, Mr Duisenberg, but it will not be thanks to you.
It will be because the dollar has fallen.
So, for pity's sake, between now and then, do not out of wounded pride throttle a European economy which has already paid a heavy price in the chase for the euro in terms of growth and employment throughout the 1990s and which does not want to pay a second, equally heavy price in the chase for a strong euro.
If you do, then do not complain if governments come running back and fight you for your premature independence and illusory sovereignty or, in other words, if Jean Valjean finally comes and takes Cosette away from you.
Mr President, President of the European Central Bank, Commissioner Solbes, on behalf of the Italian Radicals of the Technical Group of Independent Members, I believe that the objective which the European Central Bank set itself - which is the objective enshrined in the Treaty and in the best economic doctrine, that is to curb inflation - has in actual fact been achieved.
This can only be reason to applaud the activity of the Central Bank itself as well.
However, we cannot allow this result to distract us from the many storm clouds gathering overhead.
The first issue is public finances: improvement in the relationship between public deficit and GDP, which, in the space of a few years, has fallen to below 2% in the euro area, disguises the fact that, in many countries, in many instances, this result is due purely to favourable interest rates and to the fact that taxation has risen instead of fallen.
The long-term structural reductions in public spending are of secondary importance and, moreover, the national budgets of many countries remain at around 50%, which is too high a level to control without risk of adding to the deficit in the event of crises or shocks.
In particular, the question of the hidden debt must be raised urgently - and in this regard the Central Bank could and should make a far greater contribution than it does at the moment. This debt arises from the public pension systems in many countries, particularly but not exclusively in Italy.
The demagogic generosity of these systems has a very high cost which someone is going to have to pay very soon, and its effects will soon make themselves felt on the stability of the euro.
There is the problem of transparency in European Central Bank decisions: something has been done about it but not enough, in my opinion, and on this matter I refer to the words of Mr Huhne, with whom I am in complete agreement.
President Duisenberg stated - and I agree with him - that the problem of the new economy, the late arrival of the new economy in Europe and of the productivity of labour in Europe is not, cannot and must not be treated as an interest rates issue.
It is a question of structural reforms and must be dealt with as such.
There is a problem of privatisation and liberalisation in many sectors.
There are countries such as France - large countries therefore - which have put the brakes on with regard to the liberalisation and privatisation chiefly - but not exclusively - of the telecommunications sector.
There is the problem of the flexibility of the labour market.
Mandel, one of the forces behind the euro, when speaking of Europe a few months ago, said that the governments are making the market too rigid.
Hiring and firing must be liberalised, for the simple reason that controlling dismissals only serves to limit the possibility of hiring new staff.
Instead of expecting Central Bank policy or taxation policy to resolve some of the problems of the European economy, European policy should resolve the issues it is able to, such as the issue of restructuring and flexibility in the economy and in the labour market, immediately.
I will end by thanking Mr Radwan for this excellent report and say that I agree with the greater part of its content.
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is ten years now since the inception of monetary union.
Today we are reviewing an annual report based on a successful monetary policy.
In institutional, organisational and monetary policy terms, the European Central Bank has acted prudently while showing the way forward, even if not everyone would agree with all the decisions made by the ECB.
However, more could be done to improve the transparency of monetary policy.
This is not just a question of improving communication, it is also a matter of providing clearer explanations.
That is why I am pleased, Mr Duisenberg, that you have today promised once again that we will get inflation forecasts and that progress will be made with publishing the econometric models.
And of course I would still like us to see the summary minutes of meetings, so that we can follow all the arguments.
The annual report states very clearly that the euro has made its mark at international level and is already the second most important currency in the world.
The report also clearly emphasises that the European Central Bank has achieved its priority objective of ensuring price stability.
However, it seems to me that the ECB' s secondary objective is not yet totally clear to everyone.
After all, the rate of inflation is low and under control despite the increase in oil prices.
This is very different to the situation prevailing at the time of the oil crisis in the 1970s.
The ECB must therefore finally make it clear how and subject to what conditions it intends to support the Union' s economic policy and the objectives of achieving economic growth and employment.
After all, money exists to serve people, and not the other way round.
For that reason support is needed for the macroeconomic framework, and the ECB has a role to play here.
As yet, the ECB has still not provided an explanation as to why price stability is more strictly defined in the euro area than in the US, and why it does not provide greater protection for the fledgling European growth process.
Europe needs a sustained period of high growth if we are to successfully combat unemployment.
After all, full employment is once again a possibility at last.
An ECB stability-oriented monetary policy has every chance of giving an impulse to investment and growth, and thus making a real contribution to achieving an appropriate and properly balanced policy mix.
What contribution can the ECB make, and does it intend to make?
Why does it not follow the example set by the US Federal Reserve Bank in supporting the upturn in the economy? Or could it be - and I would like an answer to this - that the European Central Bank is opposed to growth rates of over 3% because it thinks they could jeopardise its stability policy?
Mr President, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to thank Mr Radwan for a splendid report.
Pages 60 and 61 of the ECB' s annual report contain a discussion of the situation in Denmark in 1999.
It is pointed out that, in 1999, the Danish krone was stable and marginally stronger than the central rate in ERM 2.
This situation has, unfortunately, changed because there has been pressure on the Danish krone in recent months.
Speculation against the Danish krone is occurring primarily because Danish opinion polls suggest that there may be a 'no' vote in the forthcoming referendum on 28 September.
If there is, in fact, a 'no' vote in this referendum - and I very much disagree with my French colleague who has just spoken and who, if I understood him correctly, is hoping for just such a vote - then speculation against the krone may be expected to increase, in which case Denmark will have need of that ECB support in defence of the krone which is provided for in the ERM 2 agreement. I would therefore ask you, Mr Duisenberg, to clarify what the limits will be for the Danish ERM 2 agreement and to answer the following questions.
Firstly, what conditions must Denmark fulfil before the ECB will intervene in support of the krone? Secondly, how much in the way of foreign reserves will the ECB, in practice, spend on buying up kroner in order to support and defend the Danish currency?
Thirdly, for how long a period will the ECB be prepared to support the krone? And fourthly and finally, can you tell us whether the ERM 2 agreement is to be in force for an unlimited period of time?
Mr President, no one denies, Mr Duisenberg, that you and the European Central Bank are operating a very competent and successful monetary policy.
Nevertheless, people' s concerns about the euro' s low exchange rate need to be taken far more seriously, because it is one of the root causes of inflationary trends and higher interest rates.
However, the real and very fundamental criticisms I want to make relate to other areas.
The report welcomes the improvement in the ECB' s information policy.
Yet we are refused the information we really need - publication of the minutes of meetings - on the grounds of the ECB' s independence.
But the ECB is not privately owned.
It should be fully accountable to the people who own it, the citizens of the European Union.
It is one of the European Union' s most powerful institutions and this complete surrender of policy and democracy to the ECB cannot continue.
There is a second problem that worries me.
Yes, and why not? There is a second problem that worries me.
This narrowing of monetary and financial policy down to price stability is reflected in paragraph 9 of your report, Mr Radwan, where the rather revealing wording states that developments in labour markets and social security systems should support the ECB' s stability policy, rather than the reverse, which would be more appropriate in view of the dramatic problems in these fields.
Lastly, I wish to raise a third question, which I will at least touch upon.
There is not a word in the report about the unparalleled over-expansion of international speculative financial markets.
In my view, this will result in inflationary trends in the medium term, and at present it is the cause of a totally unacceptable shift away from companies dependent on labour and real economic factors and towards speculative profit making.
I hope that it will at last be possible to have a serious and essential debate with you about this trend and about instruments capable of influencing it, such as the Tobin Tax.
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, ladies and gentlemen, I think that the Radwan report is particularly important, because it cannot be read in isolation from the next item about the euro information campaign.
I am glad that 11 of my 12 amendments were accepted in committee. I had three principal aims in mind with those amendments.
Firstly, to enhance and underscore the independence of the European Central Bank.
To my mind, this independence also implies freedom from instructions, and this is justified because the ECB has a clear remit, which is to maintain price stability.
My second aim is to call on the ECB, through this House, to continue to pursue its stability policy so as to ward off the increasing risk of inflation.
My third aim is to give a signal to all the applicant countries that membership of EMU is conditional not on political concessions, but on meeting the convergence criteria.
So this report is also important as regards the information campaign, as I have already said, because the media' s overemphasis on the euro' s external value, which has a psychological impact on public confidence in the single currency, needs to be countered to a greater extent by the demonstrable success of economic and monetary union, to which everyone must give greater prominence.
We must not allow information on the technical changeover to be overshadowed by information about the political objectives and the successes achieved so far.
By way of conclusion, I would therefore like to say that the euro, as this report demonstrates, is a project for growth and employment, for a successful single market and for enhancing Europe' s identity.
The euro is a project for price stability and lower inflation rates, for increasing competitiveness and improving public finances, so that we finally put a stop to the process of selling out our future for budget policy reasons.
Mr President, the first annual report by the European Central Bank gives us a chance to thank the executive board of the European Central Bank for its hard work and to congratulate it on its successful administration in connection with the introduction of the euro.
Theirs was no easy task.
These people worked extremely hard to attain our common objectives and we should acknowledge that, even if we disagree with them on certain crucial points of the monetary policy which they have applied over the year in question.
The points on which we disagree, and which the rapporteur has glossed over or failed to mention in his report, do not, in my book, include the criticism which has been voiced on account of the fall in the exchange rate of the euro.
The rapporteur quite rightly reminds us here that the fluctuations in the euro's predecessor currencies were far greater than those recorded so far for the euro, so there has been no deterioration there.
The rapporteur ascribes the fall in the exchange rate to a lack of dynamism within the European economy and he is probably right.
However, his comment raises the question of the extent to which the monetary policy applied for a year or more is the right policy for restoring the dynamism which we all agree the economy needs.
Unlike the rapporteur, who fully endorses the arguments of the Central Bank, many of us believe that its monetary policy has been dogmatic, excessively conservative and prone to inflationary risks.
We could even forgive it all that, because conservatism and perhaps even a little dogmatism go with the job of central banking.
But the Central Bank has no right to publicly present the fight against inflation, which is its obligation under the Treaty, when it itself is free to define inflation as it pleases.
The Bank cannot tell us, 'We have put an end to inflation and inflation is what we say it is, what we judge it to be, and we judge it in a subjective and arbitrary manner, in isolation from the rest of the economy and, more importantly, in isolation from support for employment, which is also the obligation of the European Central Bank' .
This attitude towards economic policy verges on the dangerous, especially nowadays.
Economic recovery in Europe has mopped up all our spare productive potential and needs new investments if it is to continue.
Is the recent increase in interest rates on the pretext of the risk of inflation the most suitable policy for encouraging investment? Can the inflation target of 0% to 2% be reconciled with the need to extend the investment economy or should the twelve countries in the euro zone be considering a political revision of the inflation target, in which case the Bank will be able to pursue a target independently, but the target will be set by and will be the political responsibility of the European governments?
Mr President, whatever the value of the euro, the primary objective of the European Central Bank, as you have reminded us, Mr Duisenberg, is to maintain price stability without worrying about the economic and social consequences which come in the wake of these decisions.
That is why the ECB can increase its interest rates, at the risk of slowing down investment and dampening growth.
This hike follows on from the increase in American rates.
The persistent weakness of the euro against the dollar is also the result of the huge drain on capital leaving the European Union.
According to experts, nearly 950 billion French francs net poured out of the euro zone in 1999 in the form of direct investments abroad, i.e. 43% more than in 1998.
In short, the euro is used mainly for borrowing in order to finance speculative projects, even as far away as the United States.
The decision to compete with the United States by promoting the financial markets leads up a blind alley. It needs a boom in employment, training, research and salaries to enable us to develop a resolutely modern European social model.
To do so, social and monetary sides must join forces.
But the ECB is the only master on board when it comes to monetary policy.
In the name of the fight against inflation and strict compliance with the Stability Pact, it even goes so far as to call the governments of the Member States to order, but never has a word to say in criticism of the speculation sweeping the financial markets.
It advocates wage restraint, flexibility and job insecurity.
It fans the flames of privatisation in order to boost competitiveness and the return on capital.
It also advocates 'modernising' social protection and reducing unemployment costs, thus applying the same logic as the agreement in France between employers and two trades union, an agreement which punishes the unemployed and makes them feel guilty.
We must re-open the debate on the remit of the European Central Bank in order to find a new credit policy which takes account of employment criteria.
We cannot merely tack a social chapter on to neo-liberal economic policy.
The alternative in a truly social Europe would be to substitute a growth, employment and training pact for the stability pact.
And if we are to implement this approach, it is vital that we strengthen control of the ECB by the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
Mr President, when it adopted the Radwan report, the majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs missed a rare and valuable opportunity to draw attention to reasons for the weakness of the euro that cannot be laid at the door of the European Central Bank.
The sheer nonsense that we have heard here demonstrates how important the ECB' s independence is.
The argument that the euro' s weakness is also a consequence of Euroland' s enormous bureaucracy, which - in the words of acknowledged experts - has a Socialist tendency and limits individuals' freedoms, was rejected by a majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for clearly ideological reasons.
The same fate was suffered by other amendments to the effect that the euro area is totally overloaded with heavy taxes, thus penalising entrepreneurialism.
Rigid structures, the slow pace of liberalisation in important sectors of the economy and differences between inflation rates in individual euro Member States, which are already a cause for concern, are the reason why the improvement in public finances in many Member States is not the result of a sustained reduction in public expenditure and structural reforms, but rather a consequence of low interest rates and a heavier tax burden, which represent a threat to the Stability Pact.
I would like to have seen all these points included in the report.
It would also have been a good thing for this Parliament if it had had the courage to recognise in this particular report that the present weakness in the single European currency is chiefly due to a lack of economic flexibility.
Nevertheless, I am glad that at least some reservations have been voiced about certain decisions taken recently in the euro countries, for example on working hours, which instead of making the labour market flexible have made it rigid, and are also contributing to the euro' s weakness.
I do not mind saying this, even if Mr Brie, the chief ideologist of Germany' s old communists, whose party wrecked a whole state and who would do better to keep quiet here, does not like it.
This is an unequivocal signal to voters in the euro area to give the all too numerous Red-Green governments their marching orders, if they...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the European Central Bank is just a cog, albeit a highly symbolic cog, in the wheel of policy of all the Member States of the Union, a policy which promotes the profits of big business, while at the same time imposing what the report euphemistically refers to as a moderate wage policy.
The Central Bank, which has set itself up as the supreme guardian of this policy, claims to be acting to prevent budgetary deficit and indebtedness in the Member States.
But what it does not mention, any more than the Member States themselves, is the fact that those responsible for and those who benefit from the deficit are not those who are required to make sacrifices in order to reduce it.
It is the subsidies, tax relief and various forms of aid granted to big business which empty state coffers everywhere.
But it is to labour and public-sector wages that every government runs when it comes to reducing its deficit.
The elected members of Lutte Ouvrière will be voting against this report.
We affirm the need for a policy to put an end to all direct or indirect subsidies to employers and a consequent increase in taxes on profits, private wealth and high incomes.
We affirm the need to force Member States to use the funds that are recouped in order to create jobs, which are cruelly lacking today in health, education and public transport, and to lift the public services out of their present state of disrepair.
Mr President, having listened to Mrs Berès and Mrs Bordes I am more worried than ever that the fine talk at Lisbon is actually being realised.
There does not seem to be any understanding among the communists and socialists of the concern Mrs Lulling and the EPP Group have regarding how European competitiveness and dynamism can be realised.
I wish that France and the French Members of Parliament were as active, for example, in the implementation of the action programme relating to financial services, as they are in promoting the Social Agenda.
President Chirac yesterday emphasised with eloquence the importance of finding the right balance between these two objectives, and I wish you would listen to your President.
Mr Duisenberg, I remember last year' s discussion on the 1998 annual report very clearly.
Then I pointed out Parliament' s wish to see a strong and independent European Central Bank in the future, one that was well established and had gained the confidence of the market.
The report we are now dealing with also shows that progress was clearly made in this direction last year.
It is to be welcomed that the ECB is committed to regularly releasing its economic forecasts and details of its econometric models of the Euroland economy.
There has to be more transparency, however.
Mr Duisenberg, the fact that there are many econometric models does not prevent their all being published and made known to Parliament also.
It is important that these models, on which we try to decide money policy in a new economy, with all the circumstances of a new economy, are published openly in order for economists and politicians to discuss them.
I agree with Mrs Riis-Jørgensen that the ECB should explain its policy of intervention.
This morning on the CNN news channel they presented some results of research regarding various intervention policies by the ECB, and the ECB came across as a good intervention-focused bank.
Could you comment on that later on in your reply?
Mr President, the Radwan report has addressed honestly many of the issues which relate to the functioning of the Central Bank, ranging from prudential banking supervision and the cost of international money transfers on the one hand, to convergence requirements for applicant countries and the role of this Parliament in providing the framework for the accountability of the ECB on the other.
I welcome the calls for greater transparency which I consider is the bank's best defence against calls to amend the Treaty to reduce its operational independence, and Mr Duisenberg has undertaken to publish the econometric models, for which he should be congratulated.
I would also urge publishing the minutes and the voting patterns of the Governing Council, as winning the trust and the confidence of the markets is vital, especially for such a young institution.
The report welcomes the fact the ECB does not interpret its responsibility for stability policy one-sidedly, but that, in addition to inflation, it also monitors deflationary tendencies.
This is also important.
We all value economic and price stability, and the new paradigm in the United States gives us hope that such stability, including a balanced budget over the economic cycle, is consistent with growth and the steady reduction in unemployment.
The report, however, does not examine the markets' lack of confidence in the euro and the huge capital outflows from Europe over the past year.
I believe this is due to the lack of faith in the core Euroland countries' ability to govern and deliver fundamental structural reforms under their current governments, which Otmar Issing, the bank's chief economist, has referred to as the serious structural rigidities in Europe's labour markets and pensions systems.
Lastly, as a British member, I do not think it is fair that candidate countries should be subject to any stricter application of the Maastricht convergence criteria for joining EMU than the existing members and, as an out-country member, I urge the Commission to consider the flexible European model that we British Conservatives have adopted, allowing these countries to opt out of EMU in future if they so wish after joining.
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, good work!
I believe that you have achieved the main objective of the European Central Bank: to maintain price stability.
I will go further. If necessary, if you believe it appropriate to raise interest rates, if the objective is price stability, if the inflation objective is in jeopardy, do not be nervous, raise interest rates.
However, I would like to add something. It is not in this area that the European Central Bank deserves most credit, but rather it is in the debate on the external value of the euro that the European Central Bank has remained steadfast, has endured and resisted attacks and pressure from different fronts.
The real reason for the external value of our currency is not, from any point of view, the policy of the European Central Bank. It is the attitude and resistance of certain governments - such as, for example, the one which has been mentioned here several times over the last 35 hours -, which are ideologically allergic to the economic reforms needed for the European Union to follow the path marked out at the Lisbon Summit.
I would also like to congratulate you on the change of method of adjudication, since the new variable rate system allows more direct control of the monetary aggregate as a result of greater knowledge of the market' s demand curve and, furthermore, allows for certain signals to be sent to the markets on monetary policy.
For all of these reasons, Mr President of the European Central Bank, I would like to congratulate you and show you my support.
Mr President, in many ways it has been a rather grim year for the euro.
I take a rather more pessimistic view than the previous speaker.
We have seen the external value of the euro plummet.
The interesting issue is to look at why that fall has happened.
There are many reasons which have been explored today, but a big reason is that the markets do not believe in a currency without a country.
They do not believe in a currency which is not backed by a political institution or a government.
This is a very good illustration of the inherent link between economic and monetary union and political union.
The one follows almost inevitably from the other.
That is one of the many reasons why the United Kingdom should stay out of the euro.
But what is vital is that the people across Europe have a debate about the future, a debate about political union.
Too often in the past they have been told that changes in Europe are technical.
Particularly the idea that a move to the euro was merely an economic choice is, quite frankly, a lie.
Every time Mr Blair and Mr Brown say that it is a matter of economics whether the UK joins or not, they are deceiving the British public or they are deeply deluded about the future of Europe.
It is only right that in Denmark we are seeing a debate on political union at the moment, as the Danes decide whether to join the euro or not.
That is the decision that they are making and that is the decision that is faced by the United Kingdom.
I trust that both of those countries will say no to political union and consequently no to economic union as well.
It is about time that the European Union stopped intervening and spending taxpayers' money on one side of this type of political debate.
It is unacceptable, in my view, for taxpayers' money - for public funds - to be spent promoting the euro in the 'out' countries, because they are engaged in a very important political process.
To use government funding on one side of the debate would be an interference in this democratic process.
I trust that we will vote in accordance with that in the Karas report at noon today.
Mr President, the introduction of a single currency in Europe was never going to be a simple task, but with 11 countries within the Union covering a population of 300 million, I fully support the single currency.
There has been much debate in recent months about the strength or otherwise of the currency and I would like to pose a very simple question to the detractors of EMU.
If the single currency is not working, why are so many countries seeking to join the new structure? I welcome the decision to allow Greece full participation within the single currency.
In the Scandinavian countries support for the single currency is rising.
Of course we are waiting anxiously for the decision of the Danish people.
In the longer term, Eastern and Central European countries seeking to join the European Union will want to participate in the single European currency system.
1 January 2002, which is not far away, is the key date for the circulation of euro notes and coins within the territories of all the EMU participating countries.
Business and retailers must gear up their preparation for this date to ensure that the changeover goes smoothly.
From an Irish perspective, I believe that our cash changeover plan is moving very well.
Fortunately we can draw on our experience of a change of currency in 1972, when we broke with sterling.
We want to ensure that the mistakes that were made then are not made again.
Mr President. I have had so many congratulations and compliments that I would simply say I thank the European Parliament for the way in which they have received our annual report and I can see the debate here expresses great support for continuation of the policies that we have pursued so far.
There are a few points I would like to comment on.
The question raised by Mrs Randzio-Plath, Mr Katiforis and Mr Goebbels all boils down to whether the ECB has too high a growth rate, which has the effect of increasing interest rates.
Mrs Berès has asked a very precise question, about which I would like to say the following.
I do not understand the pessimism which permeates this aspect of the debate.
In the past twenty-five years the average growth rate for real GDP in the euro area has been between 2 and 2.5% per year.
This year and next year growth in the euro area will be in excess, even considerably in excess, of 3% per year and we expect inflation to be close to 2%.
Due to the volatility of oil prices it might even be more than 2% in some months but the average will be 2%.
There will be upside risks, but what we do about this depends on how the situation develops.
In reply to Mrs Randzio-Plath's question if the ECB is against growth rates of over 3%, my unequivocal answer is that we are certainly not against growth rates of 3%, which we expect now.
We would be against increased inflation, but that is not yet on the cards although, as I say, the risks will be upside.
We are now entering the best period that Europe has had in a long time, in decades, I might say.
Unemployment will fall over the next two years.
Not by very much, admittedly - there is nothing monetary policy can do to accelerate the process - but unemployment is coming down very gradually and will continue to do so.
If, as well all expect and hope, Greece joins EMU on 1 January next year, only Denmark will be a member of the ERM.
The question was asked what will the ECB do if that creates problems for Denmark? The ECB will do everything in its power to keep Denmark in the ERM and there is no date scheduled for the exchange rate mechanism ending so it will be for an indefinite period.
So far Denmark has been remarkably successful as a member of the ERM with smaller exchange rate margins than were permitted within the ERM, and I expect it to remain that way, although I would hope that Denmark will decide to join EMU.
But I can assure Mrs Riis-Jørgensen that the cooperation between the European Central Bank and the Danish National Bank is exemplary.
I have already alluded in my introduction to the question of transparency and the summary minutes asked for in the motion for a resolution.
The introduction to the monthly press conference refers to the debate in the governing council that has just taken place.
The statement is carefully prepared by the whole governing council; it is not a spur of the moment statement.
A week later the entire statement is produced again in a more final form.
The editorial in the monthly bulletin gives all the information that could be found in summary minutes of the meeting.
Thank you, Mr Duisenberg.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Implementation of EMU
The next item is the report (A5-0170/2000) by Mr Karas, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication on communications strategy in the last phases of the completion of EMU.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 500 days from now euro banknotes and coins will come into circulation.
This will be the final stage of the first currency changeover on this scale in the history of our continent.
EMU citizens, every citizen of the Member States of the European Union and of the applicant countries and beyond will be indirectly or directly affected.
Every single consumer, including both our own citizens and tourists visiting Europe, and the whole world economy will have to learn to recognise the new money, to become familiar with prices and values in euros and to handle the new money.
Both large and small companies will have to adapt and change over their accounts and computer systems to the new currency, which will involve substantial preparatory work.
We have talked a lot about the advantages of the euro and of economic and monetary union.
But there still remains a very great deal to be done.
According to opinion polls, not enough companies or private individuals are using the euro, and awareness of it is still too low.
30% of companies do not yet see any need to make preparations well in advance and in some cases even think that they do not need to complete the changeover until 2002.
Most members of the public do not have a euro account and rarely carry out financial transactions in euros.
There is an enormous need for information and awareness-raising measures going beyond merely technical information on the changeover.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has not simply commented on the Commission report - we welcome the priorities and measures put forward in it.
We have attempted to put the report in concrete terms, to strengthen in it, and, where we thought it was necessary, to supplement it.
Considering that around EUR 80 million will be spent on this information campaign in the three years 1999-2002, plus a further EUR 80 million from the ECB, it is absolutely vital for us to have the closest possible coordination between all the institutions, associations and states affected, for us to identify priorities and to encourage agreement on key messages, for us to monitor the process, and in that case I would suggest using the European Parliament and European Commission interinstitutional working group. It is also important for us to implement the political guidelines, also in the context of contracts with Member States, and for us to demonstrate a high degree of professionalism in doing all this.
I would like to use my last one and a half minutes to say something about priorities.
Over half of all SMEs do not yet have an action plan for the changeover.
SMEs need to tackle their technical changeover as quickly as possible, and in doing so also to give some thought to the strategic consequences of a market notable for price transparency and increased competition.
So SMEs are the priority for autumn 2000.
Secondly, there is the public at large, which includes all the target groups and more besides.
The public needs to be made to feel secure about this.
In this area, public administration needs to act as a role model, just as NGOs and foundations need to be involved in the information campaign and act as intermediaries.
Thirdly, we have schools, schoolchildren and other young people.
We have a very specific proposal, which is not only to change over all school books as soon as possible, but also to organise painting, drawing, essay-writing and public speaking competitions on the subject of 'Changing to the euro' , which is a defining topic for Europe' s identity.
The third area is this: the banks have run world savings week throughout Europe, and in this context we should also introduce 'euro savings days' , to encourage more people to open a euro savings account before the changeover stage.
We need to increase the involvement of elected representatives, by which I mean not just Members of the European Parliament, but also all representatives elected by the public from municipal level to European level.
In addition to the need to have sufficient staff in the Commission' s directorates-general to cope with the change, coordination is also a key area if we are to send a clear message to the public through a wide-ranging communications strategy with adequate financial resources and an appropriate time frame.
We are therefore proposing that the campaign should be extended to 2002.
In that case, the success story of the euro will not come to an end at that point, but, with the support of the public, it will go on to greater things.
Mr President, information on the euro is for the public and is meant to satisfy their need for information in particular.
The information must come in cooperation with the Member States, but what, in my opinion, is of most importance is that NGOs are kept fully aware of what is happening.
We have to reach grassroots level as swiftly as we can, in a language that is perfectly clear.
The so-called two-stage information strategy, where peer groups keep each other' s members informed, has turned out to be the best of all options, and this should be put to good use too in dealing with this information issue.
I fear those information campaigns that are led by the Commission.
They are often sweet as candy and very beautifully contrived.
The fact that this information campaign is being made with the support of NGOs and via them will hopefully prevent a repeat of that.
The arrival of the euro will also entail a lot of practical questions for consumers.
Above all we have to take care that prices do not trail upwards when the currencies are finally changed over.
In this the consumer organisations have a very big and important job, and women' s organisations must also be taken into account, as women need information on this.
It is absolutely essential that cross-border giros and payment transactions are in accordance with the principles of the Internal Market.
I am glad that the President of the European Central Bank, Mr Duisenberg, also paid attention to this and promised that the ECB would produce a report on the subject.
I genuinely hope that these practical matters, which are a thorny subject for consumers, are attended to before the euro comes into proper circulation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate Mr Karas on his excellent report, but at the same time to say that we are not at present satisfied with the European Commission' s information policy.
We wish to remind the House that the euro information programme is also, as defined in the budget, a joint European Commission and European Parliament programme.
During the last parliamentary term there was a committee led by Mr Anastassopoulos which laid down the essential features of information policy in this area. It was very successful at that point.
We also managed at that time to secure a full and key role for Members of the European Parliament in this information campaign, via the political foundations.
This has not happened during this new parliamentary term.
This body, which consisted of the Commissioner responsible and the relevant committee chairs, has not yet been convened.
Some of the procedures dating from the last parliamentary term have still not been discharged to this day.
We therefore have to ask in the clearest possible terms what should happen next.
For this reason, my first request is that a meeting of this body should be called as quickly as possible.
That is my first point.
The second point that I would briefly like to touch upon relates to an observation regarding the substance of the information campaign.
If you compare prices in the Eleven, that is in Euroland, with prices in other countries which have remained outside the Eleven, including the United Kingdom but also Switzerland and Norway, where this is particularly apparent, you will see that price levels in Euroland, even in the 'rich' countries, are generally speaking lower than in the other countries.
This means that the European single currency is already leading to greater competition in this area, and that in turn this competition is leading to the public getting goods and services on more favourable terms.
A study should be carried out on this, something which is also called for in the Karas report.
Mr President, on behalf of my Group I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and to say that we support the report, just as we welcome the positive tone of the Commission' s communication.
It is high time that we had a more efficient communications strategy and that cooperation between the Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States was improved in this new parliamentary term.
The European public not only feels inadequately prepared for the euro, it also genuinely is inadequately prepared for it, both objectively and subjectively speaking.
The fact is that the long transitional period has not led to more intensive and careful preparations being made for the introduction of the euro, quite the contrary - it has led to more disinformation and also to preparations being postponed, in some people' s minds even to June 2002.
Unfortunately, this seems to apply not only to the public, but also to business.
Although 80% of businesses say that they are preparing for the euro and its introduction, objectively speaking at most 25% are making concrete preparations.
A sign of this is of course that only 1% of banknotes within the European Union have been converted to date.
If we do not tackle this now, fears that we will end up with the dreaded 'big bang' , which none of the governments wanted, will be totally justified.
The governments themselves really must do some advance work, however, and demonstrate greater commitment.
I believe that you cannot shift all the responsibility to the European institutions.
After all, it is the EU Member States that have a duty to provide political information and education according to the principle of subsidiarity.
We really must call on the Member States of the European Union to invest money, time and human resources in ensuring that the euro is a success.
It is a matter of regret that up to now public administrations have not led the way as they should have done.
I think it is also important, and the rapporteur has quite rightly drawn attention to this, for schools, teachers and places of education to prepare people for the euro.
The euro must become part of education across the board.
It is not enough to have a few successful but extremely modest Socrates projects about the euro in Europe' s schools.
No, this is really a job that needs to be successfully handled at local level.
I think it would be wonderful if the schools, Europe' s young people, welcomed the euro as a tangible sign of Europe, and if everyone used their own preparations to communicate with others.
This is also something that the older generation, who are generally so sceptical about the euro, could do.
Why should older people in the European Union not use their experience, their knowledge and also the time that they have available in order to make the euro a success? Maybe this is an area where we could have a kind of new pact between the generations that would help the euro project to succeed.
The Commission certainly needs to work even more closely with us and to step up the pace of its involvement.
But we should not forget that the resources for the information campaign are extremely slight and have to be shared out between the Member States.
No company introducing an important product would rely on such modest resources to ensure that a product was a success.
A powerful argument in favour of the euro is the initial positive experience with monetary union, which has in fact provided protection against turbulent currency markets in recent times.
But it is also a matter of turning information into education, because at the end of the day we need to acquire a totally new way of looking at prices, making calculations and judging values.
We should not be deceived by the painless transition on 1 January 1999. Nor should we be deceived by the almost automatic transition to the new millennium.
We also need to prepare for the euro psychologically. We must all do this together, at all levels of the European Union!
Firstly, I would like to say that our Group, as it did in committee, supports the Karas report.
We believe that it is a very good report and it makes a very positive contribution to an issue of fundamental importance in the process of introducing the euro into the lives of our citizens.
It is clear that the euro is not purely a macroeconomic and financial issue. It is an issue which will reach every European citizen, it is a European distinguishing mark and, therefore, it is of the greatest importance in the process of European construction.
To this end, it is very important that a campaign be implemented - and a very good campaign - so that in 2002 the euro may enjoy the degree of confidence and acceptance which we all want.
Furthermore, as has been said, there is a great delay in terms of the number of countries and companies prepared for its use and in terms of our citizens' level of knowledge.
In this respect I would like very briefly to highlight three dimensions. The first is decentralisation.
The participation of regional and local authorities is very important. Many of them have very significant responsibilities and are better prepared than the Member States themselves to reach the citizen.
This is an aspect that the European Central Bank and the Commission should bear in mind.
I would like to know Commissioner Solbes' opinion with regard to participation at this level, which Mr von Wogau has also requested.
We must ensure that these administrations play a significant role. It falls to them to do so, since they are best prepared to reach the citizens.
Secondly, this decentralisation must also take place at company and industry level and not be limited to the headquarters of managerial or union organisations.
Thirdly, I recommend that you read the conclusions of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, which introduce a cultural dimension, which is very important to the success of this information campaign.
Mr President, I welcome this opportunity to give a view from the outside, from Scotland, for the time being part of the UK, where our diet of information about the euro is dominated by a rather lukewarm and unconvincing approach on the part of the Labour government and an almost hysterically anti-euro rhetoric on the part of the Conservatives.
In contrast my party - the Scottish National Party - recently reaffirmed our position of support in principle for entry to the euro currency and we are not afraid to promote that view.
Scotland's traders, from fish processors to farmers, from manufacturers to the tourism sector, are being forced to compete with one hand tied behind their backs.
Mr Karas acknowledges a high level of support for the euro but also some shortcomings in the provision of information within the euro zone and I support his ideas for addressing that problem.
But in particular I welcome the fact that this strategy also addresses those Member States not yet taking part in monetary union, since of course we will be affected whether we join in or remain out.
I call on the UK and Scottish governments to play a full part in that campaign.
Mr President, there are three countries outside EMU.
In these countries, referenda will be held before the governments concerned make the decision concerning the introduction of the euro.
Two of these countries, England and Denmark, have had the good sense not to take part in the euro information campaign. They have said no in view of the fact that the discussion is not yet concluded and with the forthcoming referenda in mind.
The third country that remains outside EMU, Sweden, has, however, decided to take part in the campaign, despite the fact that it will take place before the referendum and before it is decided whether Sweden will introduce the euro.
This means that the euro information campaign will not be a normal information campaign as it is in other countries, but a sort of persuasion campaign and the beginning of the fight between those that are for and those that are against in the referendum.
It is, of course, difficult to imagine that the euro information campaign would produce any particularly critical information on the euro, as the object of the campaign is to increase confidence in the euro and the euro reform.
This means, in actual fact, that the euro information campaign will serve the political purpose of the Swedish government, which is, of course, to persuade the Swedish people to vote in favour of the euro in the referendum.
Fifty percent of the euro information campaign is financed from EU funds and is to be conducted throughout society, even in schools where it is not usual to carry on one-sided political campaigns, which is what this is.
I think that it would be disgraceful if the Swedish government were allowed to exploit the euro information campaign in this way.
It would be both compromising and embarrassing for the EU if the campaign were allowed to be carried out as planned.
Therefore, I want to appeal to the Commission to take steps to ensure that the agreement concerning the Swedish euro information campaign is torn up or amended in such a way that it may only be implemented once the Swedish people have expressed their opinion in a referendum.
I also want to appeal to my fellow MEPs here in the House to support Amendments 7 and 12 in the vote tomorrow, as the text of these amendments recommends that the campaign not be conducted in countries that have not decided if they are to be a part of EMU.
Mr President, I should like to continue where the previous speaker left off.
I am glad that no money from the campaign is formally being used for propaganda in the Danish debate.
This report is one of the most interesting documents I have read for a long time.
It could form part of a handbook for democrats or perhaps, rather, be used as an object lesson in anti-democratic manipulation.
I read here that the euro is an 'essential, identity-building factor in the process of European integration' .
It is also noted that there is no overwhelming support for the euro in the euro area and certainly not in the countries surrounding this area. As the opinion of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport very clearly puts it, the Commission is therefore urged, "when carrying out the advertising and information campaign, to take account of the fact that large parts of the population continue to be sceptical about the common currency" .
Or, to put it another way: the objective, as stated in the report itself, is that "the right means of communication can be used to respond to the European public' s national and cultural features" .
Or, in a nutshell, manipulation.
The situation is that, in this programme, more than EUR 100 million has been used to influence the people of Europe.
That is to say, the Commission is using Europeans' money to manipulate Europeans.
As I see it, that is the very opposite of how we really visualise this project.
Democracy depends upon decision-making by the people, not upon manipulation by the institutional machine.
If I say this, it is because, as is well known, we are holding a referendum in Denmark on 28 September on joining the euro, and it goes without saying that it is the public debate which forms the basis for this.
We will not be manipulated.
Such tellingly described manipulation has not been seen since the totalitarian regimes collapsed years ago.
This is a most deplorable report.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this highly informative report.
One positive point is that small and medium-sized enterprises have been identified as a very important target group, as this group is one where there could be considerable problems at the changeover stage.
What is more, we should also support any initiative and also call upon the Commission in the clearest terms to introduce measures without delay to counter excessive bank charges for intra-Community money transactions.
We must demonstrate to the European public that the euro will cut administrative costs, to their advantage.
We should not just talk about the euro and provide information about it, but the information we provide must also convince the public that the euro will bring tangible advantages for them.
The excessive bank charges in force at present are giving precisely the opposite signal.
Mr President, for most Europeans, the era of the euro will not actually begin until they are required to use euro coins and notes in the shops.
Out of respect for all our European citizens, it is important not to underestimate the political significance of the changeover, and for this changeover to occur without any hitches.
With this in mind, it is necessary to organise the practical dimension of the changeover well as a matter of priority.
It is, in this context, extremely useful that, after extended pleas, also on the part of this House, frontloading has become possible.
In addition, people need to have faith in the process as a whole.
In order to instil this feeling, we must provide them with information as a matter of priority.
We endorse the plans of the Commission, which set out to achieve this for each target group and by mobilising the organised midfield.
After all, the hallmark of sound information is that it is tailored to the specific circumstances of those involved, and people and companies have a great deal more faith in their own associations and organisations than they do in public institutions.
But not until we manage to reduce the costs of cross-border payments and exchange rates within the euro-zone will people and companies have a sufficient level of confidence, and this confidence is crucial.
It is a prerequisite for motivating people to make the necessary efforts, efforts which are needed to adapt to the new situation.
Let us not delude people into thinking they will not need to make any sacrifices.
The changeover will require an effort.
Everyone will need to adjust, everyone will need to make an effort.
If we can help them in this and guide them in the right direction from the outset, we will have succeeded in our task of providing information.
Mr President, Mr Karas' report was approved by a large majority within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
This is only right, because it is a sound report, on which I would like to congratulate him.
- (PT) Mr President, it seems that since the launch of the euro in January 1999, the European public, far from becoming more interested in it, has in fact been losing interest, as if the extremely long period of three years without notes and coins has turned the euro into a kind of virtual reality.
Although we have repeatedly stated that the euro has, since January 1999, been the official currency of 11 EU Member States, which Greece and possibly Denmark will join at the start of next year, and that the national currencies are just multiples and fractions of the euro, the fact of the matter is that the majority of Europeans do not believe that escudos, pesetas, francs and marks are not still their official currency, because that is what they have in their pockets.
While water, electricity, telephone and supermarket bills are also shown in euros, I regard that as a mathematical exercise of limited usefulness.
Yet in 18 months' time our national notes and coins will disappear and it is high time that we were totally familiar with the new money, developed a sense of its value and recognised its implications for our lives and for the development of our economies and societies.
As I see it, information campaigns on the euro need to focus on precisely these two aspects: first, the value of the euro, its appearance and the way we use it as a currency, and, second, its potential and effectiveness in terms of monetary stability in the European Union, the level of growth achieved - the highest in recent decades - and in terms of controlling inflation and creating employment.
If these campaigns are to deliver the desired results, however, it is vital for the various actions to be coordinated.
It is no good having one campaign by the European Central Bank and another one by the Commission or by Parliament, not to mention all the other campaigns organised by the Members States involved.
It is essential to effectively coordinate the resources available so as to reach the target groups, and for us to be certain that there are no errors of the kind already identified in documents which the Commission has widely distributed in Portuguese schools.
Schools are nerve centres for information and have a multiplier effect, so they must be used in the most appropriate, simple and effective way possible.
This means that the key words in these campaigns have to be coordination of effort, involvement, and human, technical and financial resources.
Whereas it seems that up to now the right hand has not known what the left is doing, and vice versa, and it is important to get past this stage as soon as possible.
2001 should be the year in which the euro takes over the key role of national currencies in setting prices, in company accounting and in cross-border transactions.
We need to call a halt to the scandalous cross-border costs within the euro area, which do not involve any risk for the banks.
The practice of charging a percentage on credit card transactions and on bank debits and transfers is one of the causes of the poor light in which the European public views the euro, and only action by the Commission to outlaw the real cartels that have been created can put an end to this and help to restore confidence.
And this is what the citizens of Europe are waiting for.
Mr President, on behalf of my Group, I should like to express our surprise at the fact that a particularly extensive and sometimes even extremely complex resolution should have ensued from a relatively simple matter.
The European Parliament is bringing many problems on itself in this respect. This is mainly due to the fact that, in this resolution, the concept of government information has been taken to mean government propaganda.
During a previous debate on the information strategy to be pursued, I was already bound to make some critical observations with regard to the highly peculiar wishes of some of my fellow delegates.
Unfortunately, I cannot escape this here, either.
Anyone who uses the euro as a vehicle to sell the so-called European idea is committing a very grave logical error.
It is extremely regrettable that this enormous political error is detected to a far lesser extent by this House than the errors of liability on the part of commercial banks in the course of foreign exchange transactions.
If the cap fits, wear it.
Mr President, the question troubling me over Mr Karas' report is whether we are actually asked to endorse an information campaign on the practical implications of the introduction of the euro, or a propaganda campaign in favour of it.
Surely no-one could challenge the need for information.
True, some British newspapers declare that we already know all the facts, but the recent announcement of the merger between the Frankfurt and London stock exchanges left many British newspaper editors spectacularly exposed on the simple issue of which currency would be used for the exchange denomination.
More than two-thirds of UK businesses are unaware of the practical implications of the introduction of the euro, even for those countries outside the euro zone.
If there is funding available for the many seminars and conferences which UK trade associations, lawyers and accountants are holding, then as a UK lawyer let me declare my interest in ensuring that we get our share of it.
But there is reason to believe that this campaign goes well beyond the provision of practical information.
After all, the European Central Bank is holding its own information campaign, so why should we be duplicating the effort? Perhaps we see the answer in the evangelical tone of Mr Karas' report and his remarkable declaration that the euro information campaign must help to perpetuate the successful history of the euro.
I certainly wish the euro well.
Currency instability is bad for all of us, whether we are in or out of the euro zone.
But I personally fail to recognise this historic success over the last six months, and the astonishing suggestion that the euro has proved a stabilising factor in the face of international monetary crises.
Whether in or out of the euro zone it should be: information, 'yes' , but propaganda, 'no' .
The debate is suspended. We shall now proceed to the votes.
The debate will be resumed this afternoon.
Vote
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal presented by the Council here is one which has our support, although it has one serious flaw.
According to Article 14 of this proposal, and this was also discussed in the committee responsible, the documents are to be available in all 11 official languages of the European Union, but not the second official language of the Republic of Cyprus, that is Turkish.
We request that this agreement should also be translated into Turkish, as an official language of the Republic of Cyprus - not only into Finnish, Swedish, Danish, German and so forth, but also into Turkish.
The Council should take this into account in future in negotiations of this kind, if it wants to secure our agreement under a simplified procedure!
Madam President, my reply is that these sorts of agreements are always translated into the languages of the Community.
This has also been the case this time.
I also have a longer version of the declaration if the President would like to see it.
Madam President, I just wanted to ask Commissioner Liikanen whether Cyprus will be treated in exactly the same way as all the other applicant countries. Yes or no?
As I see it, that is the vital question.
. (FR) My answer is yes.
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Procedure without debate
Second report (A5-0176/2000) by Mr Gerhard Schmid, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council framework decision on combating fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment (SN 3040/2000 - C5-0265/2000 - 1999/0190(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0172/2000) by Mrs Lienemann, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council regulation concerning a financial instrument for the environment (LIFE) (C5-0221/2000 - 1998/0336(COD))
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0173/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Council common position with a view to adopting European Parliament and Council directive 2000/.../EC amending Council Directive 91/440/EEC on the development of the Community's railways (5386/1/2000 - C5-0178/2000 - 1998/0265(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Jarzembowski)
Before the vote:
Referring to the report prepared by Mr Jarzembowski on the draft directive modifying Directive 91/440, I should like to state that the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23, 25, 26, and 27, while it welcomes Amendments Nos 3, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 17, 20, 21, and 24.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0171/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on
I. the Council common position with a view to adopting the European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings (5387/1/2000 - C5-0176/2000 - 1998/0266(COD))
II. the Council common position with a view to adopting the European Parliament and Council directive relating to the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity and the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification (5388/1/2000 - C5-0177/2000 - 1998/0267(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Swoboda)
(The President declared the two common positions approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0174/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Council common position with a view to adopting the European Parliament and Council directive amending Council directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications and Council Directives 77/452/EEC, 77/453/EEC, 78/686/EEC, 78/687/EEC, 78/1026/EEC, 78/1027/EEC, 80/154/EEC, 80/155/EEC, 85/384/EEC, 85/432/EEC, 85/433/EEC and 93/16/EEC concerning the professions of nurse responsible for general care, dental practitioner, veterinary surgeon, midwife, architect, pharmacist and doctor (5103/3/2000 - C5-0162/2000 - 1997/0345(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Wieland)
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Framework agreement (C5-0349/2000) on relations between the European Parliament and the Commission
Before the vote:
Madam President, the framework agreement constitutes a degree of progress, but it is also in danger of being a clear retrograde step when it comes to MEPs' access to information from the Commission.
My political Group and the intergroup SOS Democracy therefore recommend that we postpone the vote and give the agreement a proper reading in all committees, especially in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
We agree with the criticism from the chairperson of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, that the agreement directly contravenes Article 276 of the Treaty, which guarantees us access to information as part of the discharge procedure.
Now, the Commission is being given the opportunity to decide what it will hand over for inspection.
It is the same procedure as applies in connection with the ombudsman.
The framework agreement also contravenes our own rules of procedure.
Article 64 requires express equality between the Council and Parliament in the legislative procedure when the Commission transfers documents.
Now, it is only the President of the Parliament and the committee chairmen who are entitled to see different types of non-public documents.
The rapporteurs cannot demand them, and MEPs certainly cannot.
As MEPs, we ought to be legally entitled to have documents made available to us whenever they have been issued to others by the Commission.
That was something all the group chairmen agreed about when we began negotiations with the Commission.
Now, a compromise is being proposed whereby those who are to be inspected can decided what they will have inspected.
This compromise does not correspond with Mr Prodi' s pledges.
I would therefore urge that we reject the proposal today and arrange for it to be improved so that we can vote for an improved version next time.
Mr Bonde is asking for the vote to be postponed.
Madam President, I will have the opportunity later to speak on behalf of my Group.
I will allude to a number of my Group's concerns and criticisms about this project, but in substance, taking the totality of the work that has been done, the significant progress that has been made, and the prospect that in my view we are unlikely through a delay to significantly enhance the document, I would commend to the House that we should vote to proceed with our discussion and the adoption or rejection of the document, because that choice is there, and we have to hear the debate on it.
At any rate, now is the moment to seize our opportunity to try to draw this prolonged matter to a close, to move on, and to build on our interinstitutional relations in a positive way.
(Parliament rejected the request to postpone the vote)
President.
As requested, each group will now have two minutes to explain its position briefly.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, this framework agreement between the European Parliament and the European Commission represents a great step forward in relations between our two institutions.
My Group called for this framework agreement, and it is very much committed to it.
Relations between the Commission and the European Parliament will be put on a very firm and clear footing, and it is our common goal to support the building of Europe.
The Commission is the executive, we together with the Council are the legislative, and this framework agreement will create means for the European Parliament to exercise its parliamentary control function more effectively.
It goes without saying that future regulations which become Community law in the European Union will not be affected by this framework agreement.
As legislators we are of course free to set these in train.
This framework agreement is based on the principles of parliamentarism, democracy and transparency.
The Commission has once again incorporated in this agreement, in a legally binding way, the concessions that it made to the European Parliament last September before it was elected - the 'five points' .
These items relate to the annexes on the legislative procedure, and the involvement of and provision of information to Parliament regarding agreements and on enlargement issues. They also concern the passing on of confidential information.
Of course not everyone' s requirements have been met, including some of our own, but it is not always possible to achieve everything.
However, taken as a whole, this agreement does represent progress, and I would sincerely like to thank everyone involved in it - you, Madam President, Vice-President Loyola de Palacio, the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, and also the political group leaders, who showed great commitment in their work on it.
The Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats will be unanimously voting for this agreement.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, our favourable view of the approval of this framework agreement, on the basis of the principles debated this very week - yesterday, in fact - when we took the view that we were carrying out European construction amongst all of us and fundamentally, as far as we are concerned, with the Commission, based on the principles of democracy, transparency and responsibility.
This is the justification for the fact that the code of conduct - whose negotiation it fell to me to initiate in 1990, when Parliament was much weaker, which President Hänsch continued and which was concluded under his presidency - has been given a greater dimension, since the correlation of forces has changed.
Parliament is more powerful and must therefore act more responsibly.
In this respect, we believe that we have taken an important step.
The negotiation has been very long.
It was expected that the framework agreement would be concluded in December of last year.
There has been a very intense tug-of-war with the Commission, which led us to urge two of Parliament' s committee chairpersons, whose work I am grateful for, Mr Napolitano, of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, and Mrs Theato, of the Committee on Budgetary Control, to make progress in the negotiation, especially in relation to the third Annex.
Madam President, it falls to you to conclude.
I believe that thanks are due firstly to you, Madam President, and to the chairpersons of the committees I mentioned, to President Prodi and the Vice-President, Mrs De Palacio, for the fact that today we have this code of conduct.
What we now have to do is adapt our internal regulations to this new reality.
I would like to end by making a last observation to the Council, which has not taken part in this negotiation. It would perhaps be a good thing if the Council were also in a position and willing to adopt a standard of good conduct with Parliament in the budgetary field and in the political field.
Madam President, that would be a step forward.
Madam President, I would like to thank the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, and Commission Vice-President Loyola de Palacio, for having genuinely embarked on closer cooperation with Parliament in many respects.
This spirit of co-operation is depicted very well in the agreement in those points which concern, for example, the right of Parliament to be involved when international agreements are being discussed, not only with regard to the end result, but at every stage of such talks.
This we regard as a genuine step forward, and the same is true of the fact that the Commission is promising to do its best to keep the European Parliament informed on the intergovernmental conference.
This symbolises the new spirit we are now creating with the Commission, and it is very important that the Commission and Parliament have mutual agreement.
Unfortunately, however, Madam President, the Council has not approved of the process whereby these relations have come closer.
My Group is very concerned about the developments that are under way in the Council.
We hope and demand that the Council gives a public and open explanation about whether in future it intends to respect relations between Parliament and the Commission, or whether it intends to interfere in them in the future.
The Council particularly seems to be aiming for secrecy in the matter of security and defence policy, and it would appear that not just the European Parliament - and via it, the public - will suffer from this attempt at secrecy, which entered the arena after these talks on agreements, when there was a call to amend the text, but also the European Commission will suffer as a result.
We must support a strong Commission, and we must support the idea that in future the Commission will have a fixed role to play in the development of a common security and defence dimension, as these days no one area can remain exempt from the demand for transparency, and that includes a security and defence policy.
Madam President, a majority of my Group will be voting for the framework agreement before us, even, and I would like to make this very clear, if we are not satisfied with all the points in this agreement.
However, we assume that this agreement will serve to strengthen the relationship between the Commission and the Parliament, a relationship based on trust.
You may be sure that if this House approves the framework agreement, Members in my Group will watch very closely to ensure that it is actually adhered to.
I would like to make two critical comments and I am in agreement with the other members of my Group here.
Firstly, the issue of openness and transparency as regards documents and information is extremely important for my Group.
We assume that the agreement stipulated in point 13 will be strictly adhered to, in accordance with which the Members of this House will, as the only institution which has democratic legitimacy, be the first to be provided with information - and I mean all information - as only in that way can we exercise our mandate as the public expects of us.
I therefore hope that this point 18, which relates to the exceptional provision of point 13, will never need to be applied.
Secondly, we too have a comment for the Council.
We were astonished by the Council' s intervention.
I think that this really amounted to a very dubious form of interference in an agreement between the Commission and the Parliament, and, at that, by an institution that has quite rightly attracted criticism itself for meeting behind closed doors.
Furthermore, given that the common security and defence policy is referred to here, at a time when we are aware that Europe is involved in establishing emergency armed forces for military intervention, this really does not bode well.
One final comment: we all heard President Chirac address this House yesterday.
He promised that the Council' s modus operandi would change in future.
I believe that we will all be paying very close attention to what happens during the French Presidency and to whether the Council operates in a more transparent and democratic way in future.
President, it is appropriate to reflect for a moment on how this interinstitutional agreement comes to be before us today for debate.
It is very important that all the EU institutions operate effectively and efficiently and the 370 million citizens of the European Union must support and have confidence in the Union's internal legislative processes.
One of the key legislative organs is the European Commission, which has the power to initiate the enactment of directives and regulations.
The European Council represents the interests of the fifteen governments of the Union and has very strong legislative powers.
Parliament is a democratically elected legislative body which has the overriding power of supervision over other key institutions.
If the European Union is to operate more effectively then it is very important that the relationship between the Commission and Parliament is well defined and that is why the framework agreement between the Commission and Parliament is being put in place.
The negotiations for this framework agreement have been tortuous.
It may not be a perfect document but it is certainly a step forward.
It is more exacting than the agreement that has existed between the two institutions over the past five years.
I would now like to turn to some of the key provisions of the agreement.
The two institutions will now agree to extend constructive dialogue and political cooperation, to improve the flow of information and to consult and inform Parliament on administrative reform within the Commission.
There is also agreement, albeit not very extensive, on the EU legislative process, international agreements and the enlargement negotiations and procedures are put in place for the transmission of confidential Commission documents and information.
One could argue that much of this framework agreement only clarifies existing provisions under the present EU Treaties.
For example, I know that the Commission is required to keep Parliament informed of the enlargement negotiations to enable it to express its views in good time through appropriate parliamentary procedures.
That is right and proper, in view of the fact that the European Parliament has to approve the right of any Member State to accede to the Union as a new and full Member.
The Parliament also has the final say as to whether or not international agreements such as the WTO talks are approved.
Parliament cannot be expected to make important decisions on such matters unless the necessary and appropriate information has been forwarded to the Members for their consideration.
That is why the Commission must set in train open procedures to transmit up-to-date information on the whole range of regulations, directives and international accords being discussed and enacted by the Union.
Finally, I am satisfied there is always a need to clarify the procedures for the transmission of confidential information.
Madam President, on behalf of the Italian Radical Members, I would like to stress that the framework agreement strikes an important balance in relations between our two institutions.
It was difficult to achieve this compromise, and the Council' s last minute attempts to water down the agreement are evidence of how ambitious it is and of the way it places Parliament and the Commission in a relationship of cooperation, where Parliament performs a monitoring function in line with its prerogatives while the Commission has a range of tasks to add to its primary role of guardian of the Treaties and proposer of initiatives.
I am certain that the right balance has been found.
In my opinion, which, I know, differs from that of the Members who criticised the agreement, this was the best agreement that could have been achieved, including in terms of the transmission of documents, and I regret the fact that a slight excess on the part of some Members may well have prevented us from taking the mechanism regulating the transmission of documents further.
However, I feel that this is a great step forward, and we look forward to the adoption and signing of this framework agreement in a few minutes' time.
Madam President, my Group is to vote against the framework agreement.
We are certain that a proper reading in the committees and further negotiation with Mr Prodi himself will produce a better result which we shall be able to vote in favour of.
I should like to begin by correcting a misunderstanding.
We do not want to prevent the Commission from being able to deliberate in confidence.
It is important for every authority to have an internal phase of its proceedings in which any ideas may be discussed and any proposals appear on the table, without its being obliged to make them public.
The Commission should also be entitled to have confidential drafts on the table throughout the preparative phase.
Our demand to exercise supervision applies from the time when the Commission sends documents out or in the case of their being leaked, as happens not infrequently.
If a proposal is no longer within the confines of the Commission, then the latter ought not to be able to refuse to let us see it.
In that way, there would be equality for all, and that is not the case with the framework agreement.
There are two humiliating situations in particular which we should like to avoid.
In the legislation process, we sit, as we all know, in committees and debate draft bills.
Behind us sit students, interns and people from the Permanent Representations with the confidential drafts marked 'restrained' , while we MEPs cannot obtain them.
The lobbyists, who sit behind, also have them, but we elected representatives cannot obtain them.
It also often happens that we read in the newspaper about a leaked Commission proposal.
We are asked to comment on it, but we cannot obtain a copy.
It is a humiliating situation which is completely unacceptable.
When he took up his post, Mr Prodi promised to bring this situation to an end.
We should be legally entitled to obtain documents when they are no longer within the confines of the Commission.
And it is as individual MEPs and rapporteurs that we should have this legal entitlement and not by going down on our knees before the President.
What is more, a President might come along to whom one preferred not to kowtow.
Madam President, on a point of order, I am very concerned indeed about the reports that have appeared in the press, both in France and elsewhere, in the last few days about the opening of an investigation in France by the public prosecutor's office in relation to Echelon as well as, apparently, a parallel investigation into Echelon by the French secret service, the DST.
The European Parliament is an important body.
I am therefore very concerned that these two different inquiries, which may proceed as a result of any votes taken here today, will cause confusion, difficulty and may indeed prejudice the position of the European Parliament.
We shall certainly support the Conference of Presidents' proposal, but in view of my earlier remarks we should now reconsider this position, or at least be given some assurances about the French authorities' actions on this matter.
Madam President, we have just spoken at length about transparency in relations between the Commission and Parliament.
I think that we also need transparency in our debates.
Consequently, before an important vote such as that which are about to take, we must not be under any illusions as to what is at stake.
I should like, if you will allow me, to make two basic comments.
First, the Echelon system was treated somewhat tritely in a number of parallel discussions, including at the Conference of Presidents.
It was said that surveillance took place anyway, it was even added, some even said that it was important to have surveillance systems in order to track down serious criminals.
This is undoubtedly true, but surveillance must take place within a legal framework first of all, which is not the case with Echelon.
Finally, an important distinction needs to be made: Echelon is, in fact, a surveillance system which targets not specific communications but all communications and data transfers.
Consequently, all communications are intercepted and then analysed by super-computers and classified on the basis of a lexicon of key words.
This global bugging strategy clearly infringes the confidentiality of private communications and, as such, violates the Treaty and directives ...
Mr Lannoye, we cannot open a debate now.
My second comment, Madam President, I am sorry, but we have not had a debate in this House.
I think that we also need to make a clear distinction ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Everyone in this House is well aware of the difference between a committee of inquiry and a temporary committee.
Madam President, my motion is that we hold a vote on this matter.
The committee which I have the honour to chair examined the STOA report.
We know quite clearly what the position of the different Members of the House is on this, and the Conference of Presidents has quite rightly presented proposals to us.
There is only one question which arises: whether we should look at one particular system which might be an invasion of privacy, or at all potential systems that might be an invasion of privacy.
There are clear amendments on our order paper today which deal with that point.
I move that we now hold a vote on this matter.
Mr President, we voted in favour of this proposal solely so that the people of Yugoslavia, who have paid dearly for the crimes committed by its dictator, Milosevic, by suffering the NATO bombings and the subsequent boycott imposed on them, do not keep paying.
However, we reaffirm that it should be up to the powers responsible for destroying the bridges and, consequently, obstructing the Danube, to pay the costs.
Agreement between the European Union and Cyprus (C5-0324/2000)
According to the agreement between the European Union and Cyprus, the cost of participation in the programme by Cypriot undertakings will be covered in full by the Republic of Cyprus.
However, the equivalent cost for candidate countries in central Europe is covered out of Community funds.
Although the sum provided for in the agreement is small, this is not a question of quantity but of principle.
In addition, Cyprus also covers the cost of its participation in other programmes.
The people of Cyprus are clearly being wronged here.
I should also like to point out that the total cost of adapting Cyprus to Community acquis is put at between 500 and 900 million Cyprus pounds, i.e. between EUR 1 and 1.8 billion, while the funding received by the Republic of Cyprus from the European Union is minute.
Obviously economic relations between Cyprus and the European Union are unfairly stacked against the Republic of Cyprus and the people of Cyprus have nothing to gain from accession, which is why the members of the Communist Party of Greece abstained rather than vote in favour.
- (EL) I should like to use the vote on the agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Cyprus on small and medium-sized enterprises to raise the issue of the new provocative action by the Denktash regime in Strovilia, where the occupying forces have advanced their position on the green line in an arbitrary act of aggression just a few days before proximity talks are due to start in Geneva.
The Council of Ministers, and the French presidency in particular, must react, especially in the direction of Turkey, whose forces now occupy almost half the Republic of Cyprus.
At the same time, the European Union should raise the issue of when the occupying forces are due to start withdrawing during the debate on partnership between the European Union and Turkey as a condition for continuing negotiations between the EU and Turkey.
Schmid report (A5-0176/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Schmid report, which is intended to prevent forgery of credit cards and other means of payment which do not involve filthy lucre.
I voted for the motion partly because pensioners and the elderly are among the most frequent victims of this type of forgery - as always the prime targets - in the hope that, when we return to the issue, a decision will, at last, be taken to acknowledge that when a citizen is the victim of a crime the State is liable, albeit indirectly, in the same way as it is at football matches.
I therefore hope that a decision will soon be taken to oblige the State to pay compensation to victims of common crimes, and therefore also to provide compensation for citizens who have been the victims of fraud.
Lienemann report (A5-0172/2000)
Mr President, of course I voted for the motion.
Article 3 of this measure sets aside EUR 300 million to be spent between 2000 and 2004 on the protection of birds in general and certain important species of bird in particular.
Of course I am in favour of this measure, for I love birds.
Before I set off for Parliament, I saw Lulù, my pussycat, carrying a bird in her mouth.
I distracted her with some cat food - we all love cats - I distracted her, picked up the bird and took it into the house, where it was lovingly looked after.
I am thus in favour of protecting birds, but I would like the Greens, who are the most prominent party in the field, to attend to the poor old pensioners and elderly people who have nothing to eat as well, and all to come straight over - the Greens I mean - and join the Pensioners' Party.
.
(PT) I welcome the fact that the conciliation procedure on the proposal for a regulation on the financial instrument for the third stage of the LIFE Programme (2000-2004) has been completed, thus allowing further projects to be financed under the new programme in the second half of this year.
I also welcome the fact that the amendments relating to the objectives of the programme have been approved, as has the compromise proposal for a new programme.
Nevertheless, given that LIFE is the only instrument for directly promoting the European Union' s environmental policy, and has achieved substantial results, it is bound to be a matter for regret that the reference budget for LIFE-III has been set at EUR 640 million, that is only EUR 27 million more than in the common position of the Commission and the Council. This is a long way from the EUR 850 million proposed by the European Parliament at first and second reading.
- (FR) Here we are, engaged in a trial of strength with the Council, to defend the budgetary line for the environment within the European Union.
It is with regret that we have supported the compromise reached during the conciliation procedure with the Council.
I say with regret, because Parliament was expected to be satisfied with the few crumbs thrown at us by the Council.
The bonus granted out of the EUR 850 million demanded is roughly the equivalent of about twenty kilometres of motorway in France!
I only hope that the size of this budgetary line is not a pale reflection of the Union's environmental policy, not that I am questioning the considerable work carried out by the directorate-general for the environment or the Commissioner, who do the best they can with the means at their disposal.
But we shall continue to repeat until we are blue in the face that a real European environmental policy can only be applied, or even constructed, with the necessary funds.
The environment will never be taken seriously with a budgetary line of this size, compared with the budgets for agriculture or the Structural Funds which still often have an adverse impact on the environment.
LIFE is just a drop in the ocean of European policy.
That aside, is the environment not the only European sector to have shown no real improvement? With the explosion in road transport within the Union, we are also seeing an explosion of all sorts of pollution and emissions, especially of greenhouse gases.
How much longer will we need to repeat this point before anything is done?
When the Council and the Commission start taking environmental policy seriously, the budgetary line which they propose in the general budget will be commensurate with the challenges we have to face.
This applies both to environmental policy projects and to the human resources which the DG for the environment needs in order to implement them.
Jarzembowski report (A5-0173/2000)
Mr President, the three key factors which typify the transport of people and goods in terms of competition are price, reliability and speed.
It is possible that the railway industry has not been quite up to scratch because, for the time being, it has largely lost the competitive battle to road transport and aviation.
This is why it is sensible to find out how the railway industry could function better and how its market share in Europe can grow.
I can think of different ways to achieve this.
French rail is currently expanding considerably, with growing employment, by doing the exact opposite of what Mr Jarzembowski proposes in his report.
Accordingly, the root of the problem is different from how the rapporteur sees it.
The real problem is that politicians have for years neglected the railway industry, mainly because they considered it to be a crumbling vestige of the 19th century which would not make it into the 21st century anyway.
All new investments were poured into a dense network of motorways and increasingly large airports.
Only when the environmental consequences of this policy became apparent did attention shift back to the railways.
But at that time, the concept that freedom for the economy was more important than democratic input in politics had already taken hold.
Politicians no longer wanted that input in public enterprises and, with it, shirked the responsibility of acting as inspector on behalf of the consumer and as guardian of employment.
Public enterprises started to shape up as private companies, increasingly so, where growth, profit and market value were considered more important than the social consequences of their actions.
Taking care of public transport and the environment should be of concern to all of us, including therefore our democratically elected government.
Whether or not it is judicious to separate infrastructure from the operation of the railway industry is to be decided by the national or regional governments and is not a task of the European Union.
And it is certainly not up to the European Union to implement forced privatisation of urban or regional transport companies, as is in danger of happening in the short term.
For my Group, these considerations are sufficient to reject Mr Jarzembowski' s proposals out of hand and to express the hope that they could never be translated into policy.
I voted for Mr Jarzembowski' s excellent report with pleasure, for there is nothing more relevant to Europe and to bringing together its citizens than the railways.
Free competition in the railway sector can only improve the condition of both goods and passenger railway transport, and, in my mind' s eye, I can already see pensioners and elderly people who are, at last, able to spend their time travelling around Europe in sleeper and restaurant cars - comfortable carriages which are absolutely essential for them precisely because of their age.
I look forward to the day when, thanks to this and future measures, it will be possible to travel here to Strasbourg by rail to visit the European Parliament from anywhere in Europe.
Mr President, complete liberalisation would lead to an increase in competition in the rail sector and enhance the competitiveness of railways as compared with road transport.
There is no point in talking about projects to extend the European rail network until complete liberalisation has taken place.
This is therefore a matter of urgency.
Projects such as the Brenner base tunnel can only compete if freight transport can be offered at competitive rates.
Adopting this directive would give a clear signal about liberalising rail transport.
If a clear split is not made between the trains operated by the railway companies on the one hand and the management of railway infrastructure on the other, the objective of this directive will be seriously undermined.
I have therefore rejected the solution opted for in Article 6(4) of the common position.
Mr President, as we were at second reading, I was unable to register my opposition to the Swoboda and, more importantly, the Jarzembowski report.
The Council and the Commission had struck a certain balance by taking account of the specific situation of small networks and remote islands.
Parliament, in its perennial quest to go one step further and faster than the Commission and the Council, has wheeled out its regulating steamroller and wants to put all the networks in one basket.
We have been told that liberalising rail transport will give us far more services.
Everyone knows this will only apply to main lines with a heavy volume of traffic and that competition for public services will concentrate on profitable lines; the rest will have to provide public services under conditions which are sometimes less than favourable.
I am against this ultra-liberal logic and was anxious to register my opposition.
- (FR) There is no point in beating about the bush; I refuse to subscribe to the ultra-liberal vision set before us in the Jarzembowski report.
He goes far beyond what is proposed in the common position presented by the Council.
He advocates radical liberalisation of the Community's railways and refuses to grant any derogations, despite the fact that they are essential if we are to adapt gradually to new regulations.
He proposes a transitional period of 5 years for the liberalisation of international freight services, adding that the Member States must have liberalised the entire national and international network for freight 5 years after the entry into force of the directive.
And to crown it all, by 2010, he hopes that the entire network will have been liberalised for both freight and passenger services!
At no point does Mr Jarzembowski worry about public service obligations, which continue to be of prime importance in this sector.
At no point does he refer to the risks which radical liberalisation might have in terms of safety.
That is why I have not voted in favour of any of his proposed amendments.
- (FR) Rail transport today stands at the heart of the public service deregulation and liberalisation projects being implemented by the European Union.
According to the conclusions of the Jarzembowski report, the revision of Directive 91/440 throws the door to privatisation wide open by proposing that infrastructure management and the provision of transport services be separated and that every undertaking be given access to infrastructure in the medium term, the objective being to open up all freight and passenger transport to the markets and to competition.
The approach taken in the Jarzembowski report is to bring the management of railway undertakings into line with private sector management as much as possible and to introduce the pressure of competition.
It uses shortcomings in the operation of the public service as a pretext and highlights the superior performance of the private sector on the basis of imperfect comparisons which fail to take account of all the factors and all the missions that have been accomplished.
The logic behind the Jarzembowski report will inevitably lead to a deterioration in safety standards, poorer quality services, a reduction in services to customers and a loss of social rights for employees.
This report turns its back on what the European public really needs: a public service that is coordinated and harmonised at European level, which could guarantee a high standard of efficiency, safety and equity for employees and users alike, right away.
This is why, unable as I am to accept either the status quo or the forward march of liberalisation, however progressive and well-planned, I have voted against the Jarzembowski report.
- We all applaud the coming of the second age of railways, and acknowledge that market liberalisation can continue with economic opportunity and public service needs to bring it about.
The UK invented railways, developed them and was the first to privatise them.
As a member of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union in Britain my view is guided by the balance we strike in railway development.
We should have acknowledged here that European railway systems are all different, and their diversity merits the derogations proposed.
We should have placed greater emphasis on the introduction of rail regulators, as the UK now has, and less on the ideology of physical separation of infrastructure and operating services.
And we need to be absolutely certain that we have licensing systems which carry obligations, and network benefits for passengers.
No one should have ignored these issues in the vote we cast today.
Swoboda report (A5-0171/2000)
Mr President, everyone is agreed that something needs to change within the railway industry.
It needs to operate within a large-scale European network instead of just within the individual Member State borders.
Long waiting and transfer times at borders and the fact that direct international connections have ceased to exist are a cause of frustration.
We would all like to see ineffective, conservative and bureaucratic procedures brought to an end. Indeed, they cause frustration amongst users and unnecessarily drive freight and passengers onto other types of transport.
I indicated yesterday as well as during previous debates that cooperation between the railway companies of the different Member States should be stepped up, so as to offer joint solutions for cross-border traffic.
This cooperation should have been sought a long time ago.
If this had been the case, there would have been fewer opportunities for those intending to elbow out existing railway companies by introducing newcomers onto the market which offer price reductions to the detriment of the working environment, working conditions and the environment in general.
Mr Swoboda is right in stating that years of lack of investment in capacity, infrastructure and technology must now be rectified.
He entertains the possibility of authorities offering financial compensation in order to make the use of railways safe for public transport and does not rule out a role for public companies in future.
On the other hand, however, his statement that, in this line of industry, rights must be available to all to an equal extent, makes him a hostage to liberal ideas.
This is borne out in his ideas that we should aim for full recovery of costs rather than expect extra charges for each additional train.
One unintended consequence could be that passengers and freight are forced to use alternatives which, can, on this basis, compete structurally at lower prices.
These are cheaper for the consumer, but cost society as a whole more dearly because these alternatives cannot afford to care as much about workers and the environment.
In addition, Mr Swoboda has deleted the exemption rules for islands and Member States which do not have cross-border railway connections, as formulated in the Council' s common position.
In his opinion, everyone should be affected by liberalisation to the same degree.
In our view, this deletion does not constitute an improvement on the Council' s position.
Mr President, I voted for the Swoboda report as well.
I totally disagree with the previous speaker, for I consider that the liberalisation of public services may work to the advantage of the citizens, particularly in that the Swoboda report provides for an appropriate public-benefit transport service eligible for State compensation.
In voting for the motion, I call upon the States to decide to allow the least well-off citizens, those who have nothing, and that includes pensioners and the elderly, whose pensions are not even sufficient to allow them to live properly, to travel free of charge.
The States of Europe must assist the least well-off citizens by providing them with free services.
The Railway Infrastructure Package agreed by the Transport Council last December was the result of some very difficult negotiations.
The common position represents a delicate balance which supports the principles of liberalisation of the industry while giving due consideration to the particularities of individual Member States.
Part of this common position includes a complex derogation in respect of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Greece as well as further considerations for Luxembourg.
In the case of Greece and of both parts of the island of Ireland there are obvious geographical obstacles to full participation in a single rail market.
In these circumstances, full implementation of the Rail Package would result in a considerable burden on the administrations of these Member States without any of the benefits to consumers that the Package is designed to bring about.
The amendments which I tabled to Mr Jarzembowski' s and Mr Swoboda' s reports aimed at restoring the equilibrium established by the common position.
The Council position is, I believe, in the best interests of both the rail industry and the consumer.
I would further like to point out that the derogation for Ireland, Northern Ireland, Greece and Luxembourg only covers those elements of the package where implementation would serve no real and practical purpose.
Furthermore, there are even in-built safeguard clauses in this derogation which would cause the whole derogation to lapse should any new entrant to the rail markets of Ireland or Greece appear.
In summary, colleagues, as a member of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism I recognise the desirability of developing a single market in rail-service provision and the potential benefits for the consumer.
The granting of a derogation to the geographically-separated rail networks of Ireland, Northern Ireland and Greece does not in any way undermine this principle.
On the other hand, removal of the derogation would impose unnecessary administrative burdens and costs in these Member States without bringing any visible benefits to anyone concerned.
- I wish to place on record my serious concern at the decision of the EP to seek the deletion of the Irish (including Northern Ireland and Greece) derogation from the full effects of this directive.
The European Parliament's position is based on the mistaken view that it is possible to have a 'one size fits all' approach to Europe's railways.
There are clearly circumstances relating to the island of Ireland and the isolated position of Greece as far as railways are concerned which require to be taken into account.
- (FR) Mr Jarzembowski feels that the European Union should do the impossible in order to complete the internal market in the railway sector by 2005, with a view to giving railway undertakings a chance to regain part of the road transport market.
We can only welcome such an objective, which is doubly desirable, both from the economic and the ecological point of view.
However, we are against total liberalisation of the railways in the form recommended.
We do not want to have a single model imposed on us!
Railway transport in France is a precious public service, a real tool for regional planning in the broad sense of the term, above all, from the rural point of view.
The model of the French railways is also a factor in social cohesion.
In fact, it is perfectly normal to maintain services to unprofitable stations by funding them from much more profitable stations.
That is why, as a French member of the EDD Group, I feel it is important to defend the notion of a public service in this procedure.
Furthermore, absolute and compulsory liberalisation of the railway infrastructure might hamper the development of the Community railways as a result, for example, of the instability and uncertainty which it would introduce into a market which needs a high level of technical expertise and investment both for the railway undertakings and the local authorities.
To conclude, I would remind you that, as a Member for the EDD Group, I support maintaining employment and social cohesion, especially in rural areas, in order to safeguard activities.
It is even more important to ensure that the public services provided in our villages do not disappear.
If the railways are liberalised, we can kiss rural life goodbye, which is why we are opposed to this blind liberalisation and its consequences.
- (SV) The present increase in haulage in Europe is untenable in the long term.
The heavy goods traffic on the roads creates problems in the form of congestion, noise and emissions of environmentally harmful substances.
In order to curb this development, goods transported by road ought to be transferred to the railways.
However, the system that we have in Europe today with fifteen separate railway systems makes it impossible for railway traffic to compete on the same terms as road traffic.
Therefore, the railways in the EU need to be liberalised and the market for the transportation of goods by rail needs to be opened up.
The members of the Swedish Social Democratic Party, Pierre Schori, Anneli Hulthén, Jan Andersson, Maj-Britt Theorin, Göran Färm and Ewa Hedkvist Petersen would like to stress the following points of view in connection with the consideration of Mr Jarzembowski's and Mr Swoboda's draft recommendations for second reading.
One of the most important measures for reducing the competitive disadvantages faced by the railways is to separate those responsible for the infrastructure from the transport firms.
Such a separation must be effected as quickly as possible, as it is a prerequisite for different transport firms being able to compete with each other on the same terms as apply within other forms of transport.
Fair competition also requires rail fees to be based on the principal of marginal costs.
The fees must be based on the traffic-related costs arising during transportation in connection with, for example, noise, effects on the environment, risks of accidents etc.
The aim is to create a system of fees that is neutral with regard to competition and does not discriminate against any form of transport.
Wieland report (A5-0174/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Wieland report because there needs to be an increase in professional requirements in the European Union.
I am referring in particular to the skills of nurses and doctors.
This report rightly increases the minimum length of training required to become a general practitioner from two to three years and I support this step.
However, in voting for the motion, I am also expressing a desire for further measures. Although it is a good thing to have skilled doctors to treat patients, it is also a good thing if citizens who are ill in the European Union are able to treat themselves.
Sadly, the poor, the elderly and a great many pensioners hardly have enough money to live on and can only afford one meal a day. These people cannot afford to buy medicine.
In voting for the motion, I therefore call for medical assistance to be provided for the citizens who are least well-off as well.
- (FR) We have voted in favour of all the amendments which foster recognition throughout the European Union of diplomas and qualifications obtained in one state.
We support anything which helps unify the conditions of workers and facilitate an awareness of their identity and interests beyond frontiers.
We have also voted in favour of all the amendments that aim to foster the wider recognition of qualifications as well as exchanges of information between countries, despite the fact that many of these amendments are somewhat vague.
But we have noted a degree of hypocrisy as regards doctors from third countries, whose qualifications and diplomas are not recognised.
The report states that there are no reliable studies of the problem.
But in numerous countries, and in France at least, hundreds of foreign doctors working in hospitals are underpaid because their diplomas are not recognised.
We therefore need to take action quickly so that their qualifications are recognised.
Shortcomings in the health sector, unequal access to quality care from competent professionals, inequalities between regions and, more importantly, between social classes, do not result from the inadequate harmonisation of regulations.
They result from the lack of funds provided to public health services.
More generally, they result from the fact that a society marked by inequality inevitably ends up with multiple track medical services.
- (FR) I welcome this initiative to simplify and clarify the directives on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications.
In fact, having been contacted regularly by students who have come up against the recognition system introduced in the 1989 and 1992 directives, I would say without exaggeration that the situation is desperate.
We do not realise just how obscure the mechanisms are.
Total legal insecurity is the overriding feature in this area.
Too many students come up against a brick wall when they apply to administrations in the Member States to obtain validation, precious validation, of their qualifications.
This is mainly because it is difficult to identify which department they need to address, but it is also because the staff in these departments have insufficient training to meet their demands.
As a result, they are sent from one department to another, which of course slows down the whole procedure.
All too often they meet unsubstantiated refusal, putting them in an absolutely intolerable situation which prevents them from accessing the job market in another Member State.
As a matter of principle, this is a flagrant violation of their freedom of movement.
In human terms, these people are denied the right to exercise their profession, thereby negating all the effort which they have put into obtaining their professional qualifications in the first place.
Then there is the problem of the cost of the recognition procedure, which appears to me to be far too high.
I am therefore delighted that steps are finally being taken which will allow the theoretical freedom of movement of persons to be translated into practice, albeit still far from perfect practice!
Specifically, the proposal for a directive contains a number of welcome provisions clarifying existing legislation.
For example, provision is made for host states to take account of experience acquired by interested parties after they obtained their diploma and they can no longer demand compensatory measures (aptitude test) as a matter of course.
A new provision also allows the required two years professional experience to be avoided.
What is also needed is to provide legal security with regard to the recognition of training obtained by Community nationals in third countries.
The European Parliament proposed numerous other provisions at first reading, mainly seeking to extend the information requirements of the Member States.
The Council rejected all our proposed amendments.
That demonstrates and says a lot about the lack of political will in this area.
- I wish to place on record my satisfaction that current directives governing architects' qualifications are adequate to enable those who are not currently registered as architects in Ireland to become registered as such.
This obviously requires negotiation and agreement between various architects' representative bodies in Ireland on a registration process.
Framework agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the Commission (C5-0349/2000)
Mr President, the framework agreement between Parliament and the Commission, as has been presented to us today, is diametrically opposed to the prospect held out by President Prodi of making European documents as widely available to the public as they are in those Member States which have moved furthest in the direction of transparency.
The agreement bears out existing practice and even limits public access to a certain extent.
A right which all MEPs still have at present would, on the basis of this decision, soon be limited to a chosen few, whilst at the same time, the list of documents which can only be supplied with the permission of third parties would be extended to include international organisations such as the WTO and the World Bank.
Parliament has not even had the opportunity to discuss or amend this agreement.
A government which keeps information from its citizens is unreliable but a government which does not even take its own parliamentarians seriously is not ready for democracy yet.
Fortunately, a number of Member States, including the Netherlands, have enjoyed better practices for many years now.
This framework agreement illustrates how backward the European Union still is, and this promises little in the way of the possibility of involving the electorate in a democratic way.
This is why I have naturally voted against.
Mr President, I have both spoken and voted against the framework agreement, because I think it is an insult both to freely elected Members of this House and to the electorate.
I cannot understand why we are being given a two-class system of rights, why ordinary Members and even rapporteurs are not being trusted to see confidential information.
This is a fundamental requirement if we are really to take our job of scrutinising the Commission' s actions seriously.
I fear that this framework agreement will basically perpetuate the policy of inadequate transparency that we have seen in recent years, instead of seizing a genuine opportunity and finally attempting to do justice to our remit by ensuring greater transparency and preventing the Commission from continuing to take refuge behind confidential documents.
I would have liked to have seen all Members being treated equally and no one having more or less rights - that should have been the starting point!
- (FR) The framework agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the Commission contains numerous useful clarifications, especially on the flow of information.
Nevertheless, like 145 other Members, especially those who are members of the SOS Democracy intergroup, I did not vote, for two reasons.
First, Annex 3, which restricts the transmission of confidential information to the European Parliament, represents a step backwards in comparison with the current situation.
It is true that the European Parliament cannot always be relied on when it comes to questions of confidentiality.
But, conversely, the Commission may use these provisions to cloud delicate questions relating to it.
Secondly, and more importantly, the framework agreement makes absolutely no mention of the fundamental issue of the policy governing relations between the Commission and journalists of its liking.
Documents should not normally be given to the press before being sent to the Council and Parliament.
But this is a far cry from what actually happens.
We frequently read in the newspapers about Commission proposals which, officially, are still confidential.
This puts Members in the ridiculous position of having to comment on texts which they know nothing about.
These incidents are no accident.
This is a deliberate policy on the part of the Commission to win journalists' favour by leaking texts to those who qualify as friends, so that they can benefit from them.
Anyone not on the list of friends goes to press a week later and therefore appears not to be at the cutting edge, which is obviously very bad for them.
So, logically, everyone tries to please the Commission in order to get on its list of friends.
This is one of the ways in which the Commission keeps everyone under control.
Consequently, a framework agreement which wanted a minimum code of conduct would have needed to clearly prohibit the Commission from leaking documents to journalists before sending them to members and would have needed to make provision for officials guilty of infringing this rule to be punished.
With no such provisions, we feel that the Commission's good resolutions on transparency are seriously misleading.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have voted against the framework agreement because it does not, in its current form, fulfil the conditions for an open and transparent exchange of information between Parliament and the Commission.
Article 276 of the Treaty states that the Commission should submit all the necessary information to Parliament in connection with the discharge procedure.
The framework agreement restricts this provision.
According to the framework agreement, it is only the Conference of Presidents, Parliament' s President and the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control who can ask the Commission for information.
Rapporteurs and 'ordinary' MEPs can therefore be denied access to information.
From a political point of view, it is unacceptable that the chairman of the Committee should be able to decide which information can be passed on.
It is also problematic from a legal point of view because, according to Parliament' s Rules of Procedure, liability is delegated to the rapporteur.
From a practical point of view, it will lengthen the discharge procedure.
According to the framework agreement, Parliament and the Commission are to come to an agreement as to which documents are to be handed over.
It is unreasonable, however, that the Commission (which is to be supervised) should be involved in deciding which information is to be made available.
Moreover, the procedures governing confidential documents are very protracted and may be misused by the Commission to avoid making information available.
We hope that a better agreement will successfully be reached regarding the provision of information as an integral part of the discharge procedure.
In its present form, the agreement constitutes a restriction on Parliament' s right to information, as guaranteed under the Treaty.
- (SV) Parliament is responsible for granting discharge from liability and for monitoring how the Commission has utilised the Union's funds.
In order to be able to make a well-founded decision, Parliament needs the information that it considers to be necessary.
The way the framework agreement, and in particular Annex 3, is worded, it gives the Commission the final decision in any dispute as to whether a document shall be handed over to Parliament or not.
It is completely unacceptable that the body that is to be inspected should make its own decision as to what information the inspector is to have.
We consider this agreement to contravene Article 276 of the Treaty which clearly stipulates that Parliament shall have access to the information it requires.
The agreement also applies to other areas of cooperation with the Commission, and in these areas, too, there are retrograde steps in relation to promises that were previously made.
As regards information on international agreements, there had been a step forward in this area before the governments of the Member States intervened and changed the text for the worse.
Even the Nordic governments have supported a change for the worse that has now resulted in Member States not even needing to give reasons why they do not want the Commission to pass on documents that they themselves have given to the Commission.
On 8 June 2000, the Conference of Presidents of Parliament adopted the framework agreement between Parliament and the Commission.
The vote on this issue will be held during the July part-session, but Members of Parliament will not be given the opportunity to discuss it or to table any amendments.
Without any more detailed examination or discussion within the groups, the group chairmen have adopted this framework agreement which transfers the power of decision over which documents Parliament shall have access to the Commission.
This means that the elected representatives will not obtain any real insight into the legislative proceedings, but will be left in the background or on the sidelines.
The group chairmen unanimously requested the Commission to grant the Members of Parliament the legal right of access to the documents which are issued in other connections.
On 8 June, however, they accepted that Mr Prodi would not fulfil all the promises he made when he took office.
As Members of Parliament, we ought to have the legal right to complete information.
Of course, there may be justifiable exceptions that must be respected.
There is no doubt that the Commission, as an executive body, is fully within its rights to investigate different points of view and prepare drafts in the form of internal working documents without the obligation to publish them.
However, it ought to be beyond all doubt that, at the same time as a document is given to someone outside the Commission, Parliament should have the right to the same information.
If a newspaper publishes material from documents that have been leaked, Members of Parliament cannot get access to the documents in question.
Trainees at the Council of Ministers or at the offices of the Permanent Representations of the Member States have access to documents which Members of Parliament have no opportunity to consult, not even the committee and group chairmen or the rapporteurs.
When Romano Prodi visited Parliament last spring to introduce himself before the present Commission was installed in office, he promised that Members of Parliament would have access to documents if they were passed on to authorities or organisations outside the Commission or leaked to the media.
Because the framework agreement involves certain improvements upon current practice, it should not be rejected in its entirety.
It should, however, at least contain the promises Mr Prodi made on behalf of the Commission.
The closed door policy is unacceptable to the public, the elected representatives and journalists alike.
Members of Parliament must fight for their rights as elected representatives.
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(NL) The framework agreement undeniably contains a number of interesting ideas for increased transparency in the relations between the Commission and the European Parliament.
But I cannot endorse the proposed regulation with regard to confidential documents.
The fact that an application to peruse confidential documents has to go through committee chairmen or the President of the European Parliament is unacceptable to me.
Furthermore, it is not up to one institution to decide on what is confidential and what is not.
This is why I have abstained from the vote.
The 'Echelon' System (B5-0593 and 0594/2000)
Mr President, the European Parliament has brought disgrace upon itself today and seriously undermined its own credibility.
It has just refused to set up a committee of inquiry into the 'Echelon' surveillance system set up by the United States, a worldwide system which violates civil liberties, distorts economic competition and attacks the basic interests of the countries of Europe.
In return, Parliament has appeased its conscience by adopting a greatly watered down procedure, a temporary committee which, under the terms of our Rules of Procedure, will have far fewer investigative powers than a committee of inquiry.
And, in order to be really sure that it will be ineffectual, Parliament has drowned its mandate in vast questions such as risks from secret services in general to individual rights or the value of the protection offered by coding to the private lives of our citizens.
And yet, 172 Members - including us - took the initiative and called for a vote in favour of a committee of inquiry; however, the Conference of Presidents, under the influence of the Socialists and Christian Democrats, is taking its orders from someone - I certainly do not know who - who has managed to run this procedure off the pitch.
This attitude contrasts with that of the French public prosecutor, who recently and courageously instructed our security service to investigate the Echelon network.
For us, this illustrates the fact that, despite its proclamations, the European Parliament, cut off as it is from the people, is the weak link in the chain of civil protection and bends too easily under pressure from foreign interests.
To close, I should like to reiterate what I called for in my intervention on 30 March, i.e. that the 'Echelon' network should be neutralised or, if it is felt that it has a part to play in the fight against organised crime, its remit should be divided between the countries or entrusted to a properly controlled international organisation.
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(EL) According to the hearing of the parliamentary Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the Echelon system has been upgraded by the USA. and the United Kingdom to a global telecommunications spy system, the victims of which include the countries of the European Union.
The presence of Echelon bases in the Republic of Cyprus, i.e. the British bases, are particular important and are tied into Anglo-American attempts to obstruct the independence of Cyprus.
The issue has huge implications for the democracy and freedom of communications.
The European Parliament should set up a full committee of inquiry pursuant to Rule 151 of the Rules of Procedure, just as it did with extremely positive results during the mad cow crisis.
Setting up a simple temporary committee pursuant to Rule 150 will not, I fear, allow Parliament to throw any light on Echelon and will be tantamount to bowing to pressure from the USA. and Great Britain.
- (FR) The United States is spying on us, using a network of satellites, aerials and super-computers, via 'Anglo-Saxon' relay states such as Australia, New Zealand and even Great Britain, one of the Fifteen, one of the Member States of the European Union, which allows its territory and Gibraltar to be used so that the 14 other Member States can be spied on, despite the principle of Community loyalty.
It has been established from and confirmed by numerous sources that this wholesale bugging of all telephone signals has had considerable economic and commercial repercussions, to the detriment of European companies such as Alcatel or Airbus, which have lost huge contracts to American multinationals privy to privileged information obtained fraudulently and illegally.
Conditions of fair international commerce, with fair competition, have therefore been damaged, while within the WTO, on agricultural procedures, for example, the United States continually accuses Europe of undermining healthy international competition by granting aid, income support, export subsidies and certain production subsidies.
This state of affairs cannot simply be ignored by the Commission, by the Council of Ministers or by Parliament, which is always anxious to apply the principle of precaution which, in this case, would allow us to protect Europe's economic health and its financial interests.
How are we to explain this curious conduct, with 15 States agreeing to be spied on, 20 Commissioners agreeing to be spied on and a huge majority of the 626 members of the European Parliament, who are always calling for more transparency from the Council, still agreeing to cloud the issue of this American Echelon network which is spying on us?
How is it that all the European institutions and the people in them agree to what, under the laws of the 15 Member States, constitutes a serious criminal offence, in the narrow sense of the word, and is liable to punishment as such?
Instead of which, what threats and what pressure have persuaded several hundred European decision-makers, ministers, Commissioners and Members of Parliament to become accessories to the crime of espionage and undermine state security?
This question is fundamental because it conditions the very raison d'être of the European structure.
Why, in fact, are we constructing Europe? To be stronger, more independent, richer?
Obviously, the answer is yes.
Then why accept the Echelon system, which makes us dependent and poorer as the result of lost contracts? Anyone can see that this is where the ambiguity of the European construction lies.
And we, the French members of the Front National, the Flemish members of the Vlaams Blok and the Italian members of the MSE, are alone in defending the need for a committee of inquiry into this global spy system.
We must defend the true Europe, the truly European Europe!
- (DE) I am in favour of setting up a genuine committee of inquiry to investigate an infringement of fundamental rights by the Echelon interception system.
However, I am voting against setting up a temporary committee, which, without a remit for its inquiry, I regard as a sop.
If we only set up a temporary committee, the European Parliament will just be viewed as a paper tiger in its endeavours to cast some light on the activities of Echelon.
The caution displayed by the major political groups in the EP about investigating Echelon demonstrates that there is no great interest in focusing on secret service activities, as the European public would then be quite justified in asking what the national secret services and so-called 'defenders of the state' actually do.
Yet this would be even more important because not only are industrial secrets being monitored, but also the private and political activities of people in the EU.
- (FR) The European Parliament has just shown, by refusing to grant itself the power to investigate the 'Echelon' global spy system, that it in fact has little interest in protecting European interests and that the majority of the House is obeying other, higher priority considerations.
Luckily, we still have sovereign states in Europe to defend European interests, states with sovereign justice which can unilaterally open an investigation into the activities of this network, a leftover from the Cold War which has now been turned into an industrial spy tool at the expense of certain companies and certain Member States in the European Union.
Clearly, for the majority in this House, transparency and the fight against distortion of competition are the stuff of words, not deeds.
I hope that other Member States will follow France's example.
It is a crying shame that the Conference of Presidents has decided, at the instigation of its Socialist and Christian Democrat majority, to put the lid on an important debate.
It is likewise a crying shame that the President of our Parliament, Mrs Nicole Fontaine, felt compelled to prevent the chairman of the Group of the Greens, Mr Paul Lannoye, from reminding the House of the huge difference between a temporary committee of inquiry and a temporary committee before the vote: the first is a serious investigative tool, as the parliamentary committee of enquiry into the mad cow crisis demonstrated; the second is merely a smokescreen and will not brook any investigation into the Echelon installations located in several Anglo-Saxon Member States, including Great Britain and Germany.
If ever we needed a clear illustration of the fact that real European interests are best defended by fully sovereign, resolute Member States, rather than by an assembly which is cut off from the people and indifferent to the threats to which they are exposed, then the European Parliament's dodging of the debate on the Echelon global spy system is it.
Lehne report (A5-0175/2000)
Mr President, the Lehne report on money laundering.
First of all, I would like to congratulate Mr Lehne and the entire group for the work they have done.
The document is very sound and strikes a fine balance.
The Green Group as well as the regionalists have voted in favour of this report because it is an instrument for fighting laundering practices, and fighting money laundering is the best way to tackle organised crime.
The 1991 directive confined itself to examining money laundering practices with regard to drugs money.
But organised crime embraces a great deal more.
Hopefully, the proposals submitted by the rapporteur will open up the possibility of adopting a forceful approach in the fight against organised crime, such as trafficking in people and smuggling, but also fraud and corruption in the art trade.
It is important that the exchange of information should be compulsory and we also set great store by the fact that a standard set of rules will be imposed on Member States and candidate countries in the fight against money laundering, thus guaranteeing minimum measures.
The rapporteur also states, by way of justification, that the new directive provides for the possibility of requiring proof of identity from estate agents, notaries, external accountants and legal consultants, unless they represent their clients in legal proceedings or provide legal advice.
This report can be used as a basis for further action.
Our Group welcomes it with open arms, and I do not think that organised crime will receive this report with too much enthusiasm.
Mr President, I abstained from the vote on Mr Lehne' s report, not because I am against the measures it lays down - it is right to employ all possible means to combat crime and the fact that we are combating the laundering of the proceeds of criminal activities is important, useful and right - but because I consider that the European Union is not doing enough to fight financial crime. Financial crime is a drain on energy, resources, means and therefore money which could be used by our governments in activities which are more important for society such as meeting the needs of the less well-off part of the population such as pensioners and the elderly.
This is why I abstained from the vote.
- (FR) You claim to be fighting financial crime and dirty money and yet even your report recognises the absence of any political will on the part of the Member States.
The reasons are not technical, they are political - social even - in an economy whose sole purpose is to generate maximum profits.
So where, in your economy, is the dividing line between dirty money and allegedly clean money?
Are the profits from the arms trade clean money?
Are the huge sums spent bribing officials in order to land public procurement contracts clean money? Are the profits amassed by western companies by making children under ten work in poor countries for a pittance clean money?
In order to eradicate financial crime, we need to start by abolishing banking secrecy and business secrecy and grant any civil group the right to inspect the accounts of companies and their owners and shareholders.
You, however, do not even seem able to contemplate measures such as this.
You prefer to remain ineffectual against traffickers and the mafia rather than making people realise that there are plenty of other ways of making money which are criminal from a humane point of view, from the point of view of the general good, starting with companies that throw employees on to the street, condemning them to a life of poverty, in order to increase their share price and their shareholders' wealth.
- (FR) I am delighted that Parliament has had to debate the amendments to the 1991 directive on money laundering.
This directive was in serious need of revision in order to adapt it to the new international economic and financial climate.
France, which is a key figure in the fight against this scourge, has clearly indicated that it intends to make this issue a priority item on the European Union's working agenda.
Just a few figures suffice to substantiate this position.
Money laundering accounts for between 2% and 5% of the world's GDP each year.
This phenomenon is now a threat of the first order.
Financial crime has adapted to the globalisation of the international economy and now has two overriding features: more and more complex techniques are being used to launder dirty money and criminal financial flows are being internationalised.
Discussions have been reopened at international level with a view to proposing effective new measures to fight this scourge.
As a result, a United Nations seminar on the prevention of crime and criminal justice was held in France in April last year in order to discuss the fight against international financial corruption circuits.
This seminar culminated in the 'Bercy recommendations' .
This action is being relayed through work undertaken in the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) and the financial stability forum.
At European level, the European Parliament has been calling for the 1991 directive to be updated since 1996.
The European Commission's proposals follow on directly from the proposals made at international level.
First, the list of offences needs to be extended.
Money laundering as defined in the directive should no longer apply solely to the proceeds from drug trafficking, it should also apply to activities linked with organised crime, such as fraud, corruption and any other illegal activity which affects the financial interests of the European Communities.
Secondly, the obligations imposed by the directive have been extended unreservedly to various non-financial activities and professions, such as auditors and accountants, estate agents, traders in precious stones and metals, money carriers, managers, owners and directors of casinos.
They also apply to notaries and other independent members of the legal profession engaged in activities which involve a high risk of money laundering.
The idea is to ensure that the parties concerned identify new clients and store documents and evidence.
Credit institutions and financial institutions are required to cooperate with the authorities; in other words, banking secrecy is lifted where there is any suspicion of money laundering.
I have therefore voted in favour of this directive, which forms part of the general action plan to fight organised crime.
Allow me to close by stressing the need for the debate on tax havens to culminate quickly in specific measures to dismantle them.
.
(PT) I voted in favour of the Lehne report, which improves on the original initiative to widen the scope of the directive on money laundering.
The great advantage of this directive was that its adoption led to all the Member States declaring money laundering an offence subject to criminal prosecution.
By virtue of its overall preventive effect, it has helped to protect the financial system by discouraging those who might be interested in money laundering from exploiting the financial system to that end, by obliging credit and financial institutions to inform the relevant authorities of anything which might indicate money laundering.
The aim of widening the directive' s scope in this way is to reinforce efforts to combat potential money laundering outside the traditional financial sector.
The directive, which applied to various financial sectors, including banks, insurance companies, and so forth, is to be extended to other non-financial activities and professions which are nevertheless extremely vulnerable to money laundering.
In the case of lawyers, there are to be clear safeguards, particularly as regards maintaining the right of confidentiality. The fact of the matter is that although there is an awareness of the enormous impact of money laundering and other forms of corruption, it is necessary to safeguard our citizens' right to legal advice and assistance.
Furthermore, it is also intended to extend the list of defined offences.
In addition to income from drug trafficking, it is also necessary to include activities associated with organised crime, and we need to find a uniform definition of organised crime not just at European level but also at international level.
Efforts to approve definitions, types of crime and common sanctions with a view to harmonising criminal law are intended first and foremost to apply to particularly important areas such as money laundering.
Because the world is becoming ever more sophisticated, many organised crime syndicates can take advantage of legal loopholes and differences between legislation in the Member States to exploit anomalies between the various systems.
- At the outset, I would like to place on the record my thanks and appreciation to the rapporteur Mr Lehne on the way he had dealt with this difficult brief.
Each of us I am sure would wish to see action being taken to tackle the proceeds of cross-border crime and money laundering.
This directive will go some way to linking cooperation and exchanges of information, as well as extending the scope and range of the offences.
In Ireland, where there is already existing legislation, the Criminal Justice Act 1994 is presently being updated to take into account some of the proposals contained in this directive.
Whilst I voted in favour of the report, I must confess to having some disquiet with regard to two aspects contained within it.
Firstly, the continuing attempt to create a European Public Prosecutor's office, is something which I am resolutely opposed to.
We already have at our disposal many agencies at a national level, which are most efficient and which are able to deal with the vast majority of cases - and also the Court of Auditors, OLAF and other departments to deal with these issues at a European level.
Secondly, the new disclosures requirements on lawyers, I believe, would seriously undermine the long established precedent of lawyer/client confidentiality.
We must not interfere with the rights of individuals to a fair defence, trial, or prejudice the doctrine of presumed innocence.
However, in spite of these concerns, which I hope to alter by amendment later via the legislative process, I vote in favour.
.
(PT) It is a good thing that there is a desire to step up measures against money laundering, not just in relation to crime associated with drug trafficking, as in the previous directive, but also as regards money laundering linked with organised crime and a wider range of defined offences, that is to say fraud, corruption and other illegal activities damaging the Community' s financial interests.
However, the proposal for a directive is not without its controversial aspects, particularly in so far as it undermines professional secrecy in certain sectors, notably the legal profession, whilst failing to impose a corresponding obligation to declare suspicious activities relating to high-value business transactions on professionals such as those selling luxury items, auctioneers, customs officials and so on.
The rapporteur of this European Parliament report accordingly puts forward certain approaches which are slightly different to those contained in the proposal for a directive, but he basically supports it.
In any case, one important and central issue, that is the growing liberalisation of financial markets and movements of capital, is not addressed, which means that the practical effects of this liberalisation will continue to be weakened.
That is why I am abstaining.
- (FR) We have a whole arsenal of international weapons with which to fight money laundering including, most importantly, the 1991 Community directive, together with the United Nations Convention against illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, adopted in Vienna on 19 December 1988, the Council of Europe Convention on laundering, search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime and the forty recommendations by the FATF (Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering), which is the main international body specialising in the fight against money with criminal origins.
We all agree on the need - and Parliament has called on several occasions - for a review of the 1991 directive, which already goes much further than the 40 recommendations made by the FATF in 1996 and which has been applied successfully by the Member States.
But those responsible for money laundering are highly ingenious when it comes to finding ways of disguising the criminal origins of their money, which is why it has been proposed not just to update the directive but also to extend its scope.
I should like to point out the following so that we avoid using a sledgehammer to crack a nut by succumbing to the risk of making the scope of the directive so vast that it becomes ineffectual.
That is why the criminal activities associated with the concept of money laundering need to be very clearly defined, in order to prevent the requirements of the directive from being extended to fraudulent activities in general in relation to money circulating legitimately in the financial system.
We must not forget that the Member States have their own national laws for dealing with such offences.
Subsidiarité oblige!
As for extending the obligations imposed by the directive to certain non-financial activities and professions, especially to members of the legal profession, we must not infringe the right of clients to professional confidentiality, the right of clients to access the justice system and the right not to incriminate themselves and, finally, the confidential role of lawyers in preventing crime.
As several French Socialist Members have claimed the right during the debate on the fight against money laundering to put certain countries in the hot seat, including mine, on the basis of an erroneous, approximate and aberrant appraisal of the practices of Luxembourg as a financial centre and the Luxembourg political powers, I am anxious to refute here in the House, and as vigorously as our Prime Minister and the chairmen of the finance, budget and legal committees of the Chamber of Deputies of the Grand Duchy have done, the allegations which the French Socialist Members have become guilty of during their so-called 'assault course' against dirty money.
Those who feel the urge to denounce the black sheep in the fight against money laundering and put pressure on tax havens should go right ahead; but they should at least exert pressure on those who really baulk at helping in the fight against money laundering and, more importantly, they should refrain from automatically classifying countries which respect banking secrecy as 'turntables for dirty money' .
You do not need banking secrecy in order to become a turntable for dirty money.
The proof is that the Russian mafia tried to invest its dirty money in several European financial centres before deciding on New York, which does not recognise banking secrecy.
This proves that abolishing banking secrecy is no guarantee of protection against the ravages of drug trafficking, organised crime and corruption and we would do well to remember that!
We have abstained from voting on Amendments 8, 16, 26 and 45, as we do not think that these amendments sufficiently reflect a good balance between, on the one hand, an effective reporting obligation to combat money laundering and, on the other hand, an advocate' s/lawyer's duty of confidentiality to his/her client and the obligations that this entails.
It is important that an advocate/lawyer should not be covered by the reporting obligation when he/she represents a client in a case.
However, it is more difficult to determine in which situations a lawyer/advocate shall be subject to the reporting obligation when he/she has access to relevant information in relation to so-called legal advice.
We think that lawyers/advocates should, to a certain extent, be exempt from the reporting obligation, but the proposals from both the Commission and Parliament are not sufficiently balanced or precise in this respect for us to be able to support them.
Finally, we would like to point out that the proposal has certain deficiencies with respect to definitions that could lead to confusion.
In the proposal, the words advocate, independent lawyer and lawyer are used without it being clear what the distinction between these terms is intended to be.
It is important to emphasise that lawyers must be considered equal to advocates in those countries that do not have the compulsory employment of counsel.
Lehne report (A5-0179/2000)
Mr President, I also abstained from the vote on this document on the list of States into which it is permitted to enter with or without a visa, for this is certainly a barrier to the free movement in the European Union of citizens resident in other States.
I abstained because I would like us to focus more on the free movement in our Union of citizens who are severely disabled, blind or partially sighted, deaf or totally disabled and in need of full time care, who, if they move and go to live in another country - if they move from England to Italy, for example - are no longer entitled, under a regulation which is still in force, to the disability allowance or to the attendance allowance for their carer.
We must take steps to amend this regulation.
I have two points to make in connection with the proposal for a Council regulation listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement:
1.
I am pleased that the list of countries whose nationals are exempt includes Bulgaria and Romania, which have both made specific commitments concerning security on their external borders.
As chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of the European Parliament and Bulgaria, I should like to call on the Council to apply this position.
The abolition of visas is one of the positions covered by the proposals of the Joint Parliamentary Committee of the European Parliament and Bulgaria which starts sitting today in Strasbourg.
2.
The Council of Ministers and the Commission should make representations to the authorities in the USA, which insist on visas for Greek nationals.
If - and rightly so - American citizens have free access to the entire territory of the European Union, then the opposite should apply, on the basis of reciprocity, and they should stop this unacceptable discrimination against Greek citizens.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mr Lehne' s report about the proposal for a Council regulation listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement.
We note that, in its proposal, the Commission considers that this proposal is not covered by the Danish reserve, in spite of the fact that this matter concerns a positive list which, as we understand it, is in fact covered.
When we vote in favour of the report, this should be seen in the light of our view that a solution should be found which satisfies all countries and respects the Danish reserve.
- (FR) The concerns which have inspired this report clearly illustrate that the European Union is designed for money, and not for people.
No visa is needed for money to enter, irrespective of its origin, but nationals from numerous countries require a visa, even if they are staying for less than three months.
What is more, there are no respectable grounds for segregating a minority of countries, whose nationals are exempt from the visa requirement, from the majority, whose nationals are not.
Why refuse a Moroccan, Senegalese or Ukrainian national a right which is granted to a national of New Zealand, Israel or the Sultanate of Brunei.
We abstained rather than voting against this report, despite disapproving of the spirit of the report as a whole, solely because, compared with the current situation, it does slightly extend the list of countries with no visa obligation.
For our part, we are in favour of people being given at least the same rights which you grant to money, i.e. we are in favour of the free movement of people and the abolition of all visa requirements.
- (SV) The EU' s strict visa policy constitutes a major barrier for people coming to Europe.
The tightening up of the visa requirements that has been carried out over the last few years has unavoidably led to more cases of people smuggling and to an increase in so-called illegal immigration to the Member States of the EU.
The people who have been smuggled in, or have found their way into the European Union in some other way, have often suffered terrible tragedies on the way here.
Once they have arrived in the EU, they are completely lacking in rights and social protection.
The list of countries whose citizens require a visa for entry into the EU contains more than 130 countries.
There are not even as many as 50 countries among the states whose citizens are exempt from the requirement for a visa.
This practice, i.e. of having the requirement for a visa as the rule rather than the exception, is not worthy of a democratic Europe.
The basic rule must be that people have the right to enter the EU freely, not the opposite.
Europe needs to change its attitude to immigration.
Within the next few years there will be an acute labour shortage in the EU.
It is therefore important that we recognise and welcome people who are seeking a better future in the EU' s Member States.
A more generous visa policy is also a prerequisite for pursuing a common and humane refugee and asylum policy.
By means of a policy that affirms the value of immigration, we can put a stop to the organised crime and the human tragedies that people smuggling is to blame for.
Haug report (A5-0184/2000)
Mr President, firstly I wish to express my satisfaction with the fact that the entire budget has been tightened up and the increase in appropriations amounts to 1.07% of total GNP for the Member States, while the corresponding figure in the budget for 2000 was 1.11%.
In addition, I am pleased with the increase in the appropriation for youth organisations to EUR 1.5 million.
However, I would particularly like to explain why I supported the proposals for amendments tabled by Mr Virrankoski and Mr Mulder.
I base my opinion in the notion that strict budgetary discipline should be continued and that the prevailing financial frameworks should be respected.
Regarding funds for the Western Balkans, we must take account of the real needs of the regions, the prevailing political situation and the possibility of obtaining funds from other quarters.
For this reason, I do not support an amendment to the financial perspectives in the area of appropriations under External Action.
- (FR) The French delegation of the UEN Group is for several reasons unable to approve the report by the Committee on Budgets currently being debated.
First, we feel that it fails to make a distinction between the debate on the 2001 budget and the debate on the revision of the financial perspectives, which we refuse to revise.
Who could forget the circumstances under which the financial perspectives were drawn up at the Berlin summit.
No French delegation from the European Parliament could possibly question the compromise which resulted from the difficult negotiations in March 1999.
A revision appears to be even less in order now that the European Union has opted, having itself bombed Serbia, to cut off any Community aid to it.
We therefore need to subtract EUR 2.3 billion from the 5.5 billion announced by Mr Prodi for the reconstruction of the Balkans from 2000-2006.
The situation then appears to be quite manageable: there is enough money, the financial perspectives do not need to be revised and nor does the ceiling on the agricultural line need to be lowered.
As far as the figures announced by Romano Prodi last November are concerned, the Commission may take them back today, it knows full well that these sums are not, alas, based on an accurate analysis of the region's needs and, in its own words, it is a 'political' sum which, by the way, has never been approved either by Parliament or, more importantly, by the Council.
It is therefore possible to find a substantial sum of money for the Balkans without revising the financial perspectives.
The fact that we have seen a chronic surplus of over EUR 3 billion at the end of the year demonstrates that the sum of appropriations voted for does not correspond to real needs, whilst it is possible to make substantial savings as the result of the patent under-implementation of certain programmes. This surplus also shows that it is better for efforts in the Balkans to be funded in part by redeploying appropriations.
We also reject Mrs Haug's report for its proposals on the Union's special envoys.
This is, in fact, tantamount to a reduction of what still comes under the intergovernmental conference for the benefit of Community integration.
The Amsterdam Treaty, which we fought against, states that, as of this year, the administrative costs of the CSFP will come under the Council, while operational expenditure will be financed from chapter B8 under heading 4.
Finally, we refuse the differentiated appropriations for rural development which the resolution appears to recommend because this would inevitably create difficulties in settling payments.
We would simply remind the House that the agricultural guideline still applies, the ceiling decided at Berlin notwithstanding.
Although the ceiling is reached if you add market expenditure (1A), rural development (1B) and pre-accession agricultural expenditure, to accept differentiated appropriations for rural development is to run the risk of having the Commission propose substantial commitment appropriations and far fewer payment appropriations, to the detriment of our farmers yet again, and this we cannot accept.
- We have voted against point 9 in the Haug report, concerning the transfer of funds from the budget for Agricultural Policy to the reconstruction programme for the Western Balkans.
Estimates show that a significant surplus will be available in the agricultural budget under heading 1a.
As a great part of the programme for reconstruction of the Western Balkans is still not financed, we believe that it would be wise to transfer part of this surplus to heading 4 in the budget, should a revision of the financial perspectives become necessary.
The reconstruction of the Western Balkans is on top of our political agenda.
It is also one of the most important tasks for the European Union in the coming years.
We agree with the intention of the Haug report that the financing problem cannot be solved only by redeployment in the Union's existing priorities in external policy.
Funds must be found elsewhere, but this does not necessarily create a need for 'fresh money' from the Member States.
Since a significant surplus will be available in the budget for agriculture, a reduction of the ceiling in heading 1a in favour of an increase of the budget for external policy would be a reasonable solution.
. (PT) Faced with the task of setting new objectives for the European Union, we consider it essential to carry out a wide-ranging revision of the financial perspectives with special emphasis on Heading 3, "Internal Policies" and Heading 4, "External Actions" .
We believe that the new priorities need to be matched to the 'fresh money' available.
In view of this we fundamentally and above all reject the prospect of cuts in the cooperation policy, as implied in the Commission' s preliminary draft.
The same applies to the cuts they propose in the areas of employment and the environment.
In the same way, we reject the cut of EUR 300 million for agriculture.
Indeed, as regards agriculture, we believe that it is vital to set up a fund to tackle the enormous problems in the primary sector.
Accordingly, we agree with some of the rapporteur' s proposals.
However, although she does suggest some improvements, they fall well short of what is absolutely necessary. Furthermore, some of the amendments made in the final vote limited and even changed its scope.
And that is without even looking at the position on defence policy.
For these reasons, we voted against the final version of the report.
Paciotti report (A5-0177/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Paciotti report because I feel that it is right for the European Union to take an interest in anything to do with the protection of personal data. Sadly, personal data is all too often used by criminals to exploit confidential data for their own gain.
As I have already said on a previous occasion, pensioners and the elderly are certainly among the victims.
However, in voting for the motion I would also like to stress that, in addition to having our personal data protected, it would also be nice to be able to know what are own personal data are.
In Italy, for example, workers are still unable to discover the size of the pensions they will receive and how much money they have paid in contributions. They are therefore ignorant of some of their personal data.
In voting for the report, I therefore hope that, in the future, not only will our personal data be protected, but, as well as our name, surname and date of birth, we will all know how great our pension will be when we retire.
Mr President, I hope that Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi will give a written explanation of vote on behalf of our political Group, but I want to say a couple of things.
First of all, I wanted to vote against Amendment No 11.
It was purely a mistake that I voted in favour of that amendment, since any amendments to the Commission proposal were very bad and endanger the whole procedure of getting the safe harbour agreement enforced.
We have negotiated with our US counterparts for over two years.
We had a very good compromise but now the work here in the European Parliament means that European consumers and citizens have to wait until the new compromise proposal is made.
It is not certain that the new compromise proposal will be as good as this was.
We are now going backwards.
I voted against the committee proposal along with other members of my Group.
We are all very sorry that we have to wait for this agreement to come into force.
.
(PT) I was unable to make the speech I had prepared during the sitting itself for lack of time.
I am therefore summing up the key points during the explanations of vote.
I share the rapporteur' s concerns that this proposal does not provide Europe' s citizens with an appropriate level of protection as regards transferring and processing personal data relating to them, especially if we take into account the protection they are guaranteed under the European directive on data protection.
However, we all know that at present data is already being circulated in practice, but in an unregulated way.
So while the safe harbour principle may not be an ideal solution to this problem, it will at least impose a certain number of rules and will be a way of preventing abuse.
Work has progressed on attempting to reconcile two differing approaches, namely our own legislation-based system, in which compliance with legal restrictions on obtaining and using personal data is ensured by the public authorities, and the Americans' preference for self-regulation.
The agreement reached represents a limited step forward as far as the guarantees involved are concerned, but it is positive in terms of what it offers for the future by way of security.
We accordingly support the position adopted in the Paciotti report with the amendments tabled by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi.
- (DE) The Paciotti report on the 'safe harbour' agreement has my approval, although it will not solve the problems attending transatlantic data protection for the following reasons:
It will still be possible, even with the 'safe harbour' agreement in place, to find ways of getting round it and selling clients' data to third parties without having to obtain the client' s consent.
Even if the agreement succeeds in defining vague data protection standards, it is not clear precisely what action will be taken when companies violate these standards.
Will it be possible to take them to court? Will they have to pay compensation?
The question as to how far EU citizens will actually be able to assert the rights laid down for their benefit in the 'safe harbour' agreement remains unanswered, particularly as the court of jurisdiction for the US companies is in the USA and so they have a natural advantage over individual EU citizens.
That said, I still subscribe to the report because, as matters stand, there are no provisions whatsoever for guaranteeing EU data protection standards in the exchange of data with other continents. The 'safe harbour' scheme does at least represent an attempt to guarantee data protection beyond EU borders.
.
(EL) Neither the letter, i.e. the legal basis, nor, more importantly, the spirit of the way in which the burgeoning e-commerce industry is developing and the speed with which it is spreading augur well for the protection of citizens' personal data and privacy; on the contrary, they give cause for serious, widespread concern as regards both the decimation and restructuring of commerce and the market itself and the intensification of efforts to abolish civil rights, make citizens slaves to technology and the savage laws of the capitalist market and turn their personal lives and their very existence into cheap, malleable raw materials to generate profits.
The application of technological innovations, especially the innovations made during the impressive and rapid development of the information society, will cut right through the fabric of society.
The dangers of misuse which lie in ambush behind the huge potential which is developing should encourage and oblige us to be vigilant when it comes to ensuring that the human factor and respect for citizens' fundamental rights and freedoms come first.
New applications and technology cannot be stopped, but nor should they be allowed to develop with no regard for man and his needs, and under no circumstances should they be used to undermine political values and human dignity or to attack basic and inalienable rights such as the sanctity of privacy and personal data.
The proposals and policies for electronic commerce and the measures being promoted to support it are coloured by the totally one-dimensional perception of profit and competitiveness.
This policy is being driven by the huge and constantly inflating sums of money being invested in and thrown at e-commerce in order to serve the needs of the big multinationals in the sector and remove any obstacles which prevent them from adapting as quickly as possible to the rapid developments on this market and acquiring huge, fast profits and influence.
The proposed Community model behind the EU's texts and proposals is supported by and vigorously supports unadulterated competition and unbridled, excessive profit.
This perception is not a guarantee for, it is a blatant threat to the future of society and mankind: uncertainty, insecurity, a breach with man's own needs, categorisation of citizens and workers who will no longer shape their environment but will be shaped by it in order to serve those who define it in the best, fastest and cheapest way possible.
As far as we can see, the term "adequate protection" as used in the report means the continuous and arbitrary definition and distortion of the concept of the protection of personal data, given that sanctions and compensation for breaching doors which are already wide open are advocated as deterrents and safety valves.
Personal data on EU citizens is already circulating in third countries, without any fundamental control; in fact we barely even know the extent of the arbitrary acts already committed.
Knowing as we do from the Echelon interception system that every form of democratic control is being flagrantly violated from without or from a distance, knowing that American multinationals are engaged in wholesale monitoring and spying at the expense of European undertakings and the economic, social, political and cultural activities of the Member States and the private life of the Union citizens as a whole, it is slightly hypocritical of us to approach this huge issue in stockinged feet with our prayer-book in hand.
The current protective framework and the proposed standard contractual clauses are inadequate in the extreme, riddled with holes and inefficient.
You cannot appeal to good intentions for doleful competition and a profit monocracy.
We would only dare call the snake pit of unaccountable monopolies which find it easy to spring up, spread and act with impunity in cyberspace 'safe harbours' euphemistically.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Implementation of EMU (continuation)
The next item is the debate on the report (A-170/2000) by Mr Karas, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication on communications strategy in the last phases of the completion of EMU.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the euro has been around for a while now, it is still an abstract concept.
It is something which is not tangible in our day-to-day life, and there is still no so-called 'euroreflex' on the part of the population.
The present currencies are not yet being converted into the euro.
That is why I cannot stress enough the importance of this information and awareness campaign for the euro.
It is not yet too late, but we must all realise that 2001 will be crucial in our efforts to involve the entire European population in this giant operation.
By means of the amendments which I have tabled and which have also been included in the report, I wanted to underline a number of aspects of this campaign.
In the first instance - and I will not labour the point as it was sufficiently highlighted this morning - the campaign must devote special attention to making young people aware and involve education in the information campaign.
Secondly, an information campaign must obviously be tailored to specific target groups, such as the weaker members of society.
I would also ask for special attention to be paid to people on extremely low incomes.
As you know, there are two groups of people who spend a great deal of their time thinking about money: those who are extremely rich and have a great deal of money and those who have very little money or who need to budget every day to make sure they can make ends meet for the rest of the month.
Well, the euro will have a great impact on them and it is they who deserve our special attention.
For this reason, and for other reasons, but especially for this reason, it is important that consumers should not be cheated when they convert their money into euros.
The switch to the euro should not lead to improper price increases.
I have therefore called for the setting up of local hotlines within every local community to ensure that citizens can report improper price increases in a way which is simple and easy.
I have also asked the Commission to submit proposals in this respect and to present best practices to the Member States.
Mr President, not being used to speaking for two consecutive minutes, I am a little worried that I will not manage to fill the time available to me, but I will do my best.
Commissioner Solbes, I must express my approval of this report for I feel that the introduction of the euro is one of the most important, key results of the formation of the European Union out of our 15 States.
Therefore, preparing the population for practical use of the euro is certainly a positive move.
I would like to thank Mr Karas for incorporating a request I made to remove a point from the original measure which stated that adolescents and children must receive good teaching so that they can in turn teach their grandparents.
I would hope that, also on this occasion, it will be the grandparents, the elderly, the pensioners - who elected me here to the European Parliament to represent the Pensioner' s Party, no less - who will teach the adolescents. This is quite possible, for I am sure that pensioners - who fill all the markets of the European Union every morning - will be among the first to understand the relationship between the euro and their national currency.
I believe I can make a small contribution to this effort: I will have posters put up in the areas in Italy in which I was a candidate for the elections, calling upon the Italian Government to raise the minimum pension to EUR 500.
The poster will not specify exactly what this amount corresponds to in Italian lire, and this will force all the citizens to find out the value of EUR 500 in lire.
It is a shame that the Government will not accept this proposal, but, at least it will serve to teach the Italian pensioner citizens the value of the euro.
Mr President, as I and many colleagues have argued for some time, the monetary union project is profoundly dangerous.
It is economically naive and will do huge macroeconomic damage.
Politically it is clearly intended to undermine the nation state, and thus it threatens democracy in Europe.
The proposal before us talks of information on the euro, but we already have all the information we need.
Every newspaper I open has stories about the euro.
Banks and accountancy firms are running seminars and briefing clients.
This is not about information, this is about propaganda.
I do not trust the Commission to provide unbiased information.
The very idea is absurd.
I was particularly horrified by the idea of Mrs Randzio-Plath that we should actually enrol schoolchildren as the stormtroopers of this euro propaganda blitz.
Now, if the 12 euro countries wish to undertake a propaganda campaign, that is no business of mine.
But in three countries, Denmark, Sweden and Great Britain, the euro decision is not yet made.
It would be a gross abuse of the democratic process for the Commission to undertake a euro propaganda campaign in those countries before referenda on the currency take place.
It would be outrageous to take money from the taxpayer and to use it to influence the voters' decision.
In Britain, 70% of people are opposed to joining the euro.
We do not want our money spent on promoting it either in the UK or elsewhere.
I therefore have two demands to make of the Commission.
Firstly, please tell us today that no such campaign will be undertaken in Great Britain, Denmark or Sweden.
Secondly, please assure us that the share of funding which might have been spent on those countries is returned to their national exchequers so that people can see clearly and transparently that their money has not been squandered on objectives they do not support.
Better still, cancel the whole project and put all the funds into a special account to help defray the enormous costs that will be incurred when the euro is eventually dismantled.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Karas, for his report, and all of you for participating in the debate.
Mr Karas' s report contains many interesting elements, including 38 proposals, which in many cases coincide with the proposal in the Commission' s communication in February and, in other cases - as he has explained very well in his initial statement -, are proposals which fine-tune, improve and even extend some of the initiatives.
Having made this initial comment, I would like to clarify certain points which I consider to be essential.
Firstly, the communication is part of a very complex operation, that is, the introduction of the euro, in the form of coins and notes, on 1 January 2002.
Secondly, in the application of this process of introducing the coins and notes, the principle of subsidiarity plays a fundamental role.
This means that the Member States, through their governments and central banks, are fundamental to the whole process and also to the operation of providing information.
Our role as Commission consists, in some cases, of persuading, in others, of acting and, in the majority of cases, of communicating to the Member States ideas which they can or cannot apply, and, in some other cases, of proposing specific actions.
The main concern at the moment is to determine the level of preparation of Member States, companies and citizens.
With regard to the Member States, I can tell you that next week I will present the Commission with a report on the practical application of the euro.
This will contain a summary of the situation of the national plans for the introduction of the euro in each of the Member States.
Companies are the special objective of the information campaign at the moment.
According to the latest information available, regarding September, approximately 88% of small and medium-sized businesses assure us that they are prepared for the euro or, at least, are aware of the need to prepare themselves now.
Nevertheless, this figure would be deceptive if I were not to give two additional figures, or make two additional comments.
Firstly, of this 88%, only 22% have already implemented the plans necessary for the introduction of the euro.
As for the rest, there is a certain contradiction between this position, which in theory is so favourable to the companies, and the lack of use of the euro in normal operations at the moment.
To put it another way, we have the impression that companies view the operation with relative optimism, in the belief that it will be easier than it may turn out to be.
This is the reason why we believe that we must pay special attention to companies during this period, as well as to citizens.
The Commission intends to implement certain specific actions, apart from the July communication, regular reports to ECOFIN, a proposal on counterfeiting, which will be presented before the end of the year, and also a series of measures necessary for coordination.
I would like to make some comments relating to the various points mentioned in the debate.
On the whole, the proposals in the communication coincide with the proposals which have been made here.
Nevertheless, there are certain points which deserve additional comment.
Firstly, what action must we take in the 'pre-in' countries or in third countries? The countries which are not currently members of the Monetary Union have the right, like other Member States, to information campaigns.
This will clearly happen, as long as those countries want it to happen.
Two of them, for the moment, Denmark and the United Kingdom, have not shown any interest in implementing these information campaigns.
Your recommendations include many of the actions which, in our opinion, must be asked of the Member States and, to this end, we will send a communication to the different countries so that they may take account of them.
I would like to highlight certain very interesting aspects which have been mentioned such as paying special attention to training, schools, women, specific sectors, such as tourism, or the tremendously interesting initiative of the distribution of price tables, or the initial or additional obligations of public administrations.
We will communicate to the banking sector your proposals on the possibility of using some of the 'savings days' for information purposes, and we will move forward on all aspects relating to charges on the exchange rate.
The Commission is favourable to the idea that there should not be a differential between the charges made for cross-border operations and for national operations.
Two additional comments.
The Commission is absolutely prepared to work with Parliament, with the European Central Bank and with the Member States in order to implement a programme which is more efficient, bearing in mind however that, in accordance with the current model, approximately two thirds of the total expenditure of the programme will be met by the Member States, according to their specific programmes.
With regard to the possibility of providing more resources or extending the information process, as proposed in the Karas report, the Commission is in favour of both options.
Of course, we will have to debate them in the future, when we discuss the budgets for the coming years.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Use of certain dangerous substances and preparations
The next item is the report (A5-0149/2000) by Mr Arvidsson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending for the 22nd time Directive 76/769/EEC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations (phthalates) and amending Council Directive 88/378/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States concerning the safety of toys [COM(1999) 577 - C5-0276/1999 - 1999/0238 (COD)]
Mr President, there are two reasons for this report on phthalates in toys: firstly, these substances are a health risk to young children, and secondly several Member States have already adopted their own laws in this area, which is why this report is aimed at reestablishing the common market for toys.
When we deal with issues relating to the health of young children, the commitment is often strong, wholehearted and sincere.
According to experts in the World Health Organisation, it is not possible to prove that phthalates are carcinogens.
However, the WHO thinks that phthalates may cause reproductive damage and hormonal disturbances, mainly amongst young children who are exposed to large amounts of phthalates.
For scientific reasons, phthalates have, in common with other toxic substances, been assigned limit values which give the highest recommended exposure level based on calculated risk levels.
I want to emphasise that this handling of phthalates does not deviate from toxicological routine.
The Commission' s Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment has evaluated the risks posed by a number of phthalates and has thereby unanimously established that the two phthalates that are far and away the most common in toys and articles used in childcare are in danger of causing the limit values to be exceeded in the case of young children and of causing health problems.
In this scientific assessment, it is a concern for young children' s health that is being expressed.
These are children who are at the teething stage, which is a time when they often bite and suck on all sorts of objects.
I would like to caution Parliament against making decisions that go far beyond what is justified by the scientific basis for this standpoint.
I am all in favour of information and informed consumers who can make their own choices, but the labelling that has been proposed by the Commission does not provide information but, rather, a sharp warning.
People who read this warning will not buy these toys for their children or grandchildren.
In this way, the warning will constitute an indirect ban.
In addition, the process of labelling toys is expensive and difficult to carry out in practice.
Tradesmen and tradesmen's organisations have informed me that staff in shops have neither the time nor the knowledge to answer all the questions that customers are going to ask.
Introducing this warning system on toys designed for older children is likely to be tantamount to an extended ban.
The Scientific Committee has identified two phthalates used in toys that may be hazardous to young children' s health.
A decision in favour of a limited ban on these grounds would not primarily be based on the precautionary principle, but on the routine procedure for dealing with toxic chemical substances.
To ban all of the 350 or so currently known phthalates is to proceed on the assumption that all phthalates are associated with more or less the same risks.
However, there is no scientific basis for this assumption.
Once these phthalates are no longer used in toys, further risk assessments and the proposed review of this directive in two years' time ought to be sufficient.
In this short presentation of the document, I wanted to stress the fact that decisions ought to be based on scientific grounds and should cover the high-risk group that has been identified, i.e. young children, as well as the fact that the labelling of toys is very difficult to implement.
There is still no scientifically approved method for migration tests which could partly replace the proposed legislation, and no such method should therefore be alluded to in the legislative text.
Speakers will also put forward their own assessments of the scientific basis.
Allow me to anticipate these and state that politicians ought to listen to scientific assessments and conclusions and not try to make their own assessments of the scientific research material.
It is my hope that this report and tomorrow's decision will make the world a safer place for young children.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs let me state in very clear and simple terms the position of the committee as we voted; (a) to ban all phthalates and (b) as a consequence to delete all labelling, since if you prohibit all phthalates you do not need labelling.
As the rapporteur, I share the concerns of the Members of Parliament in my committee.
As elected politicians we clearly cannot afford to play fast and loose with children's health.
We must ensure that they are not exposed to unnecessary and unacceptable health risks and acknowledge the public concern on this issue.
In the interests of the single market we must achieve the highest common standards for product safety.
We also need legislation which cannot be undermined or discredited by legal challenges.
This debate has unfortunately been clouded by confusion and uncertainty fuelled by comments in Parliament from Scientific Committee members who doubted the need for any ban on phthalates and questioned whether the health risks are serious or immediate enough to warrant a ban.
As politicians we need clear advice from scientific committees if we are to make rational judgements, take the necessary risk management measures and produce good legislation.
In this case we have not been able to do that effectively because of the gaps in our knowledge, and so my committee understandably decided to go for a blanket ban.
Nor do we have any information on substitutes to plasticisers which might have toxic or chronic effects.
I believe that this legislation shows us that we need action on a number of areas: (a) we urgently need to continue work on migration testing and research into chronic toxicity and the behaviour of children; (b) we need to review and update this legislation periodically and as gaps in knowledge are filled, where necessary add new substances to the ban in the Commission's legislation.
We need to formalise and accept the permanent ban which the Commission is proposing now and we need stringent health warnings and labelling to inform our consumers of the risks.
We have to answer to the public on the legislation that we produce in Parliament, and we cannot afford to be complacent about risks to children's health.
Mr President, the discussion on the harmfulness of phthalates, or plastic softeners, has been dragging on for a long time.
Today, we in Parliament need to speak out regarding the desirability of a total ban on these substances.
Let it be clear that no one in our Group disputes the many useful applications that phthalates have, such as cable casings, and also uses in medical equipment.
The snag is that phthalates are also used to soften children' s toys, many of which end up in their mouths, even if they are not intended for that purpose.
When, in 1998, reports emerged about the possible harmful effects on children' s health, the European Commission proposed - or tried to propose at any rate - a ban on the application of certain phthalates.
Intense consultation with industry to establish a ban from within and to introduce self-regulation in the processing of these substances, came to nothing.
In my opinion, and I say this on behalf of the Group, that was very much a missed opportunity.
It strikes me as rather odd, though, that the harmfulness of the substances has not been established beyond question.
Accordingly, in response to the Commission' s action, we have met with a barrage of contradictory research studies.
Consumer organisations pointed out the harmful potential, while industry tried to demonstrate that things were not all that bad.
The chairman of the scientific committee too was dragged into the debate, which was certainly not an ideal situation.
It is now up to us to assess the proposals.
I have not seen a proposal as ridiculous and complex as this one for a long time.
I do not know how harmful these phthalates are, but if I do not know, then I need to at least ban a number of these phthalates in line with the precautionary principle, because, in my view, this is also what the internal market wants.
Consequently, I hope that the plenary opts in favour of safety, in line with the precautionary principle. Research, however, should not grind to a halt, but rather come up with alternatives to these softeners.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I regard the proposal for a directive we have here as an inadequate attempt to ban the use of six phthalates in toys for infants under three years old on the basis of the opinion of the Scientific Committee.
As I see it, this goes no further than accepting the inevitable, and the proposal does not comply with the precautionary principle, which it is particularly important to apply when it comes to small children.
Until it has been proved that all phthalates are harmless, there is no place for plasticisers in toys for children under three.
Children in this age group will put any toy in their mouths. They learn about the shape of toys and the materials used to make them by putting toys in their mouths, and these children should be able to suck toys like this without any risk to their health.
This can only be achieved by a ban on all phthalates in toys.
We also need labelling for the three to six age group. This is not only because there are smaller children who play with toys produced for older children, but also because there are also children in this age group who still suck things.
In addition, we want to help parents in deciding what to buy and in sorting out what toys are unsuitable for their children.
The amendments before us, which call for a review after two years, for the evaluation of new test methods and for scientific studies on the dangers of PVC products, are helpful in maximising health protection for us all in the long term, not just for small children.
To sum up then, it is for us to decide whether to opt for the precautionary principle and a high degree of protection, or whether we intend to hide behind scientific reports, which can, however, never relieve us of the responsibility of taking the necessary political decisions.
Mr President, I cannot deny that this issue is extremely tricky for the Liberal Group.
The problem of phthalates in children' s toys is receiving wide public attention and the campaign which focuses on this problem, largely in the hands of Greenpeace, can be termed extremely successful.
This is only natural and right, of course, because children are helpless and are entitled to protection.
We know that phthalates in animal trials - in itself not a very pleasant thought - proved harmful, and we can therefore assume that they will be harmful to people, too.
But we do not know to what extent they would be harmful, or in what dosage. Neither do we know for which application they are harmful or whether there are alternatives, and how harmful these would be and in what form.
As there is no usable test, the question arises as to the basis on which we pursue our policy?
As far as this is concerned, we cannot shake off the impression that this decision is premature in a way.
But anyway, it is now before us.
Phthalates are intended to soften PVC toys, but the substances leach out, certainly if the toys are chewed, as they in fact are by small children, of course.
As far as we know, not many alternatives appear viable either.
We value the assertive course which our rapporteur has taken and we therefore back the thrust of his proposal, that is to say we endorse a ban on this type of toy for children under the age of three, provided it is extensive. If we go for this option, then we should at least be consistent.
In our view, therefore, this ban should apply to all toys, not just those intended for sucking and chewing.
We also believe that we should look into toys for older children, although we should still have this option available once the test methods are there.
I am interested to see what the European Commission' s opinion would be on this.
What do you think of these test methods and what is your view on revising these regulations once they are there?
We are in favour of a ban on the six tested phthalates, but are as yet unable to ban all the other phthalates and softeners, which may indeed be harmful.
This may well be possible at the time when we have more data available that demonstrates that they are actually harmful.
We have insufficient data available at this stage to establish this.
On a final note, how far do we take the precautionary principle at the end of the day? As far as we are concerned, the principle should not mean that we simply reject everything we are not completely sure about at the moment.
Mr President, we in the Confederal Group of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left think that this is a very good, clear and precise example of a situation in which the precautionary principal should be applied.
There are very clear warning signs with regard to the risks associated with phthalates.
Experiments on animals show that phthalates cause damage to the liver, kidneys and testicles.
With this in mind, it would be totally absurd to allow these substances to be used in toys, which children can put in their mouths - something children very often do.
These substances, phthalates, are a very large constituent of the toys concerned -and quite large percentages may be present in them.
It is clear that these substances will leak out and that children will then ingest them via their mouths.
It is also completely absurd to believe that a warning label would be sufficient when it comes to young children.
It is obvious that children who are only a few years old cannot assimilate a warning text.
Once they have the toy in their hands, it is, as it were, too late.
Therefore, the only sensible thing to do is to implement as extensive a ban as is possible in this case.
The Commission's proposal is also completely insufficient for this.
A ban is already in place in several Member States, as several speakers have already mentioned.
If the legislation is now too weak in this area, there is a risk that the Member States that have taken steps forward in this area will have legislation forced on them that is worse than what they already have - according to the bizarre logic that exists with regard to the single market, i.e. that the market is always put before considerations relating to health or the environment.
I consider that this would be extremely unfortunate.
The rapporteur for this report is a member of the Swedish Moderate Party.
We are usually clear political opponents - I am a member of the Swedish Left Party.
Our opinions differ also in this case, but I also know that Mr Arvidsson has been subjected to quite a lot of pressure and harsh criticism from sections of his own Group because he has not been sufficiently industry-friendly.
I think it says something about him that he has resisted some of this criticism.
Mr President, this debate again confirms Parliament's commitment to public health and indeed to environmental issues as well, and I welcome the opportunity to make a brief intervention.
It is well known that PVC may present a risk when used in toys for young children.
The proposal to amend the original directive on this matter will ban the marketing of toys and childcare articles containing PVC which are designed to be placed in the mouths of children under the age of three.
I welcome the fact that in future health warnings will have to apply in relation to the manufacture of these products.
Every time the European Parliament has debated this issue there have been increasing doubts as to the safety of these toys which derive from PVC.
Another problem is clearly the fact that much of the scientific evidence on these matters is conflicting.
We know that when there is doubt about a particular measure, the European Parliament must apply the precautionary principle.
This principle in essence means that safety and health must be put before any conflicting scientific evidence, and I fully support the previous speakers who again referred to the importance of applying the precautionary principle.
Mr President, last month, we held a debate on tobacco.
The risks to public health when using tobacco are clear and scientifically proven.
This is not so for the use of phthalates in toys.
Although a ban on the use of tobacco was not even entertained as a serious option, a large majority within the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection did go along with a ban on phthalates (softeners) in toys.
Although after 40 years of use, no cases of damage to health are known, the seed of suspicion has nonetheless been sown that softeners are harmful.
In accordance with the precautionary principle, this possible harmfulness has to be underpinned scientifically.
The studies included tests on animals, which is common practice with regard to suspected substances.
These tests resulted in a so-called 'acceptable daily intake' for animals.
For humans, a further safety margin of a factor of 100 was added on.
By testing toys, it can be indicated whether or not this 'acceptable daily intake' is exceeded in the case of humans.
On this basis, toys can be approved or rejected.
In short, this is a method based on an acceptable margin, taking a generous safety margin into consideration.
By launching an extensive campaign, spearheaded by Greenpeace, it was possible to convince many policy-makers and politicians of the need to institute an immediate ban.
I can understand that; emotions run high where children are involved.
The argument that children are affected, however, is two-sided: children eat and drink all kinds of things which entail a certain health risk. Why are these risks accepted and not others?
It is my impression that this issue is being played up in order to use this ban as a weapon in the fight against other substances. I fear that if we now vote in favour of a ban on phthalates, this will unleash a witch-hunt against all kinds of substances, without any scientific basis.
Moreover, we do not know what the harmful effects of alternatives will be.
These reasons also indicate that a ban on phthalates contravenes the correct application of the precautionary principle.
Mr President, Mr Arvidsson, I fully appreciate the work which you have done on this report.
I would like to concentrate here on the application of the precautionary principle and on the difficulties in this case of dealing with an issue on which scientific considerations are confused and mixed up with emotional considerations, as well as a long history of disagreements between the industry of PVC and its derivatives and the environmental lobby, which, of course, is also deeply involved with this issue of phthalates.
We are talking about risks to children' s health.
This is of interest to all of us, certainly.
However, we must not forget that we are also talking, with reasonable certainty, about the harmful effects of six phthalates, and also, with a degree of uncertainty, of the other substances belonging to this group.
To ban all of them, as a precaution, may not be a good decision since this may mean abandoning an area of research which is being pursued at the moment, in order to opt for substitutes whose harmful effects we know even less about.
In this respect, there is one good example: four years ago, given the opinion that silicon implants may be carcinogenic, several countries adopted an alternative substance for their manufacture based on soya oil.
A few days ago the United Kingdom banned these implants and is gratuitously withdrawing existing stocks, having discovered that they are carcinogenic.
The social and health cost of a hasty decision may be medically and economically irreparable.
The scientific evidence demanded in Amendments Nos 11, 13 and 24 seem to me to be absolutely necessary in any event, but especially in the case of this type of issue where lives are at stake and where we are likely to punish or benefit certain production sectors.
Mr President, we congratulate Mr Arvidsson for his hard work.
He is in the unusual position of producing a report on Commission action which has already been taken and it is the way it has been taken that we are to some extent talking about here.
The ban on a range of identified phthalates was precautionary.
It attracted broad support and was also in line with the accepted practices of a number of Member States.
If we were simply balancing the health and safety of children against the needs and priorities of industry there would be no contest, but there are related issues which we should address.
The first is how the Commission handles the scientific advice available to it. Was it done in a balanced way?
Does it give us confidence that this powerful and sometimes necessary weapon of a product ban was used correctly? I am not sure about this and I want to return to it in an explanation of vote.
Secondly, on the wider issue of PVCs in general, how soon will we get the kind of migration testing from which phthalates' safety can be assessed and the review which is called for in one of the amendments? We also need information about when the substitutes which the industry may introduce will be open to equivalent testing.
It is no good banning something if you are unsure about what will replace it.
On the issue of labelling, I am sorry to see that there are amendments against this.
Personally I believe that we have to have it, certainly for children up to the age of six, although some will argue that that leads to another kind de facto ban.
Essentially, the number of plastic objects which could be put in the mouth and swallowed is increasing.
This House should be more concerned if it went to bed worried that it had done too much, than if it woke up finding it had done too little.
The precautionary principle should rule.
Mr President, the Commission's approach to this whole issue is totally inadequate.
The fact is that you have accepted a ban on the substance we are speaking about for certain objects, for example teething rings.
We all know that children under three put toys in their mouths.
Allowing the sale of objects containing dangerous substances which children will put in their mouths goes completely against the precautionary approach.
To justify this by saying that we label them is completely ridiculous.
Children under three years of age cannot read and even children up to the age of six are not really capable of reading and even if they are, are they really competent to make decisions on this?
What is happening here is that the Commission and others are bowing to the pressures of industry.
When we talk about the precautionary approach, Mr Blokland is wrong.
We should be looking for materials and substances for children's toys where there is no doubt about safety whatsoever.
In banning some of the objects the Commission recognises that these substances are dangerous.
It is just not acceptable to turn a blind eye to the others because of pressure from industry.
Which comes first: children's health or the vested interests of industry? We must take the precautionary approach.
Mr President, it is high time that a total ban were introduced on phthalates in all toys for children under three years of age, as is already the case in Denmark.
It is quite unacceptable that we can get into a situation in which we are going to reduce the level of safety for our children.
I know that the Commission is very busy, but is it acceptable never to have time to attend to one' s own children? Now, I see that the Commissioner is not listening.
Perhaps he does not have time to do that, either. Anyone who did go to the trouble of observing their children would quickly discover, as has already been said a number of times, that children suck away at anything they get their hands on, and not only on things that are intended to be put into their mouths.
In Denmark, investigations have been carried out which show that the quality of the semen of young men appearing before army medical boards is 40% poorer than that of the 50 year-olds.
It can no longer be taken for granted that people can have children, and suspicions are mounting where phthalates are concerned.
It is only four months since the Commission sent out a communication of just under 30 pages concerning the precautionary principle.
Is it not only right to put all the fine words into practice now about protecting health and the environment and to make use of this principle in an area we still know very little about? If the precautionary principle is not to be employed in respect of one of the most vulnerable consumer groups - our children - it is very difficult to imagine when, in fact, it is to be employed.
I should like to know why the Commission only wants the six phthalates which have been investigated to be banned, instead of them all.
I support Mr Arvidsson' s report which - unlike the Commission' s proposal, which is open to criticism - takes our children' s health seriously.
I think still further action needs to be taken and a ban imposed with no restriction on age, but I hope at least that Amendment 20 will be adopted.
Mr President, some speakers in the House today have said somewhat critically that this discussion is dominated by 'emotions' .
I think that it is a healthy sign in the House if it really is emotions that are setting the agenda for the discussion when children' s health is at stake.
It is better for it to be emotions that govern this discussion than for it to be industry!
In our private lives, in our own homes, we take all the safety precautions we can in order to take care of our own children.
We put safety locks on the doors, we put barriers in front of ovens etc. because we know that it is dangerous to be a child.
I think that we should behave in the same way even when we are in this House.
We have enough information to make the necessary decisions.
It is not the children who must prove that toys are dangerous but the producers who must prove that they are in fact safe.
This is a principle which should apply to all consumer protection, but particularly protection in relation to children.
Several speakers here have said that we know that these substances can be hazardous to health.
Several Member States have already imposed a ban on phthalates in toys for children under the age of three.
The precautionary principle must be applied!
Hopefully, more nations and countries may also realise that this is necessary.
The Commission's proposal is neither sensible nor sufficient.
I can only imagine a situation at a play school or a nursery school where the nursery teacher has to try to keep a check on which children are under and which are over three years of age as well as which children are allowed to put what in their mouths in accordance with all the experiments the Commission is trying to include.
It is, of course, possible for the Commission to issue a special directive concerning what nursery school staff, or other adults, should do when they have more than one child to take care of.
The only sensible solution is a ban, a total ban, when it comes to toys for children under three years of age.
Our aim must be to limit the occasions on which we subject ourselves and our children to dangerous chemicals.
In this case it is taking an unnecessary risk to permit the use of chemical substances in toys which affect those that are smallest and most vulnerable in society.
Mr President, I congratulate my friend and colleague Mr Arvidsson on attempting to make sense of this draft directive.
Of course, if young children are at risk then it is right to take action to remove that risk.
The question on PVC softeners in young children's chewing toys is: Who says there is definitely a risk? The answer is no-one.
Who says there could remotely be a risk? The answer is Mr Suresh Rastogi, a Danish researcher who used the phthalates he happened to have in his laboratory.
His research has never been confirmed by peer review - indeed it was rejected by the Commission's own scientific committee, the CSTEE.
Of the six named phthalates to be banned as a result, two are used for flooring and cosmetics but not for children's toys, one is not used at all, one is not made at all, one is not used because of fears it might be carcinogenic (though on 8 February it was totally cleared by the WHO) and that leaves one, DINP that is used to soften PVC in chewing rings and so on.
So, what does the CSTEE say about this? It said that there was no identifiable risk that could lead to a justified ban, that they were safe if they were used according to existing rules.
The CSTEE met and decided on 25 November.
On 22 November, three days earlier, the Commission had imposed a temporary ban, and we have to ask the Commission why.
It is only justified under the general product safety directive if there is 'immediate and serious risk'.
If that cannot be shown clearly, then the legality of the temporary ban can and should be questioned in this case.
Indeed, the case was to be brought to court but was put on hold when the Commission agreed to work to produce validation systems for the test methods by the end of this year; so we can test these and test the alternatives. Why is the Commission rushing forward now?
Why are the CSTEE minutes not published until April, and why has a statement critical of the Commission's misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the research still not been published?
Crying wolf damages the credibility of the precautionary principle.
I ask the Commission to answer these questions today, and to get its internal scaremongers under control.
Mr President, I think there is every reason to thank both the Commission and Mr Arvidsson: the Commission because, in spite of criticism, it has come up with a proposal in this area, and Mr Arvidsson because I think that, with his report, we are obtaining a responsible framework for the use of phthalates in toys.
Phthalates are, of course, a group of chemicals there is every possible reason for being on guard against, not only in connection with toys but also more generally.
We know that they are suspected of possibly causing cancer, as well as disturbing the balance of hormones.
I am therefore in favour of banning all phthalates in toys designed for the smallest children.
If we were not to make use of the precautionary principle in this case, I find it hard to see when the principle might be applied at all.
There are some who have argued that banning the use of phthalates in toys would have an adverse effect upon the plastics industry and upon employment in that industry.
We also heard this argument in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
I think the argument is completely unacceptable.
If it were in fact to be accepted, then any restriction at all upon the use of dangerous chemicals, not merely in toys but also in foodstuffs and other products, would be prevented.
I personally should like to see the ban we are now devising extended to cover toys designed for children of between three and six years of age.
That would be the ideal situation, but I am inclined to vote in favour of the present proposed compromise whereby, as a first step, there should be a warning label on toys for that group.
I also think it would be sensible to review the directive in no more than a couple of years' time against the background of new scientific knowledge, including knowledge which can tell us for certain whether we should also intervene in the case of phthalates in products other than toys.
I think that would be a sensible health policy.
As other colleagues have said, this is a thoroughly odd proposal.
It is a very bad proposal and I hope that Mr Liikanen when he speaks will agree to suspend it.
I do not think it should be withdrawn, I think it should be suspended.
I am concerned about the precedent that this proposal will set.
The precautionary principle is very sensibly described in a recent Commission paper.
There is an obvious danger of applying it too widely because it brings the European Union approach into disrepute.
For example, a thousand people a year - no doubt some of them small children - die in England and Wales while falling downstairs.
I do hope that does not mean that we are going to see a European Union regulation restricting us all to living in bungalows.
This proposal suggests that, on emotive subjects, the Commission is prepared to act on the basis of that emotion, without the kind of sensible assessment of risk that we need here, as we do for example on risks in foodstuffs.
There has to be, even with the precautionary principle, a substantial link between the assessment of risk and action by the European Union.
If not, then surely we do not even need a European Food Agency: we can just legislate on the basis of the precautionary principle.
It is the Commission's task to assess that risk.
In this case I am not satisfied, as Mr Bowis has said, that the Commission really heeded the advice of its own advisers.
When the chairman of the scientific committee came to us he most certainly did not convey to us any sense of the urgent need for action.
The conclusion I draw from this is that in future, to avoid this kind of emotive reaction on an emotive subject, we should have a European Union chemicals agency, which will not be the creature of the Commission, to assess risks.
I am concerned that the science behind this proposal is incomplete.
Yes, eight Member States have banned phthalates, but when the Commissioner replies, can he tell us whether those eight Member States have supplied the Commission with the scientific evidence that they based their ban on?
We also lack the evidence on migration limits, and that has been mentioned.
That might have enabled the Commission to bring forward a proposal we could all agree with.
What we therefore have is a thoroughly unsatisfactory proposal.
Six phthalates are identified, and a system of warnings proposed that makes no sense.
The Environment Committee has taken the logical step that the Commission avoided.
If these are dangerous, then they should all be banned and warnings would then be unnecessary.
The only problem with this is that the action is then quite disproportionate to the risk, and sets a thoroughly bad precedent for future European Union action in relation to the chemicals we use.
Mr President, the matter under discussion concerns children, and is therefore highly emotive.
I know that very well, as a mother of three.
Furthermore, the facts available to us are such that there are very good reasons why people might end up expressing exactly opposite points of view, all of which might be quite valid.
The person making the decision should look at the issue calmly.
Parliament has even shown a desire to ban all of the nearly 350 phthalates instead of the six proposed by the Commission.
However, there is some kind of evidence of the possibility of danger in the case of only two phthalates.
In addition, a warning was called for on products designed for 3 - 6 year olds, although the risk is likely to be associated with very small children, who like to put things in their mouths, in their discovery of the world.
Reliable migration tests in respect of phthalates are not available, however.
It is excellent that the EU is active in this matter, as seven Member States have already introduced national regulations.
What is even better is that the issue is being dealt with in a consistent way.
In my opinion, Mr Arvidsson has made a rational and responsible contribution to the issue, and is applying the EU precautionary principle to this problem of toxicity properly.
The precautionary principle is a very important tool in environmental legislation.
It should only be used, however, when there is scientific reason to suppose there is a real risk.
This therefore concerns the existence of a scientifically demonstrable risk and the reaction to it, not the existence of a fear that might surround the substance.
You can cry wolf once too often.
Neither is it sufficiently justifiable to resort to the precautionary principle if, for example, some Member States have introduced national legislation in this area.
Parliament' s struggle to ensure the safety of children is very worthwhile in a Union that often just concentrates on hard values.
Parliament will be doing the safety of children and everyone else a disservice, however, if it erodes the basis of the precautionary principle, the possibility of a real risk.
That is what we are in danger of doing in the case of phthalates.
What sort of repercussions will it have, for example, on food safety? It is at least as important today to make sure we preserve the precautionary principle for future needs as it is to take a decision on the banning of phthalates.
Finally, I would like to say that not one lobbyist from the chemical industry has come up to me.
My concern relates solely to the vague application of the precautionary principle.
If we want to ban PVC, let us do so freely and openly.
Mr President, this Commission proposal aims for a long-term ban on the use of phthalates in toys as an emergency measure.
Nevertheless, this emergency measure is already applied in several countries and is renewed every three months.
Furthermore, the Commission proposal is the result of two opinions issued by the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment.
It appears that the Commission has interpreted these opinions according to criteria which are no doubt very well intentioned, but which can at best be described as hasty, in light of the audience which took place in the Environment Committee with the scientists responsible for the opinions.
One of the premises for the application of the precautionary principle must be proportionality, which appears not to be the case here.
In fact, DEHP, the phthalate so far considered the most dangerous to human health, has been declared by the international cancer research association not to be classifiable as a carcinogen in humans.
Furthermore, we should bear in mind that, in order to establish the toxicity of any product, the dose and the exposure time of that product must be defined.
It is not sufficient that a product is intrinsically toxic. Even water can be fatal if consumed in an enormous enough quantity to cause drowning.
A substance as toxic as heparin, a rat poison, turns out to be an effective anticoagulant which has saved many lives.
Viruses and bacteria, in minimal doses, become vaccines.
Furthermore, there has been much less research on the substitutes for phthalates than on the phthalates themselves.
If this ban is adopted - and we can support it, above all if there is a supposed risk to children - we will also support Amendments Nos 11, 13 and 24 because the Commission should amend this directive in the event that the Scientific Committee approves the use of methods of measurements for practical purposes.
Mr President, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Arvidsson, for his excellent work.
The debate on phthalates can only be fruitful if the arguments are based on scientific evidence, not populist theory.
More research is needed so that the long-term effects on health of the different phthalates can be accounted for thoroughly.
I would be very pleased if we could ban tobacco, which we have classified as dangerous.
As legislators, we cannot use excessive force.
If a good deal of phthalates were banned with no clear justification, the toy industry would seek refuge in other PVC plastic softeners, about whose long-term effects there is even less knowledge than phthalates.
Let us now just ban those which have been shown to be dangerous. As it is a matter of the most tender age group of all, the under three-year-olds, precaution is really relevant here.
What the toy is used for cannot in itself be a determining factor in deciding which phthalates can be used and which cannot.
The labelling of toys alone is not sufficiently safe.
Everyone understands that small children put everything that is in reach in their mouths first, including dirt.
In families where there are children of different ages, it is utterly impossible to sort toys for them to play with according to how suitable they are.
It is best if we simply do not buy these products.
Mr President, this report requesting banning the use of phthalates in some soft PVC children's toys is flawed in many ways and rests on a dubious legal basis, given that the Chairman of the Scientific Committee for Toxicity, Eco-toxicity and the Environment, Professor Bridges, when he appeared before this Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on 23 May, stated: "It is hard to see how it" - the ban - "would come under a scientific interpretation of serious and immediate risk" , which is the required criterion for the ban imposed in December.
The Commission seems to have ignored its own scientific committee on the basis that some Member States are imposing their own ban.
They are entirely within their rights, of course.
Instead I support the development of tests to determine migration limits, and for these to be legislated on in due course, rather than a long-term ban as proposed.
It is particularly galling that, of the six named phthalates to be banned, five are not even used for children's toys and only two are suspected on the basis of unreplicated tests on rats.
I too am concerned for the welfare of small children, but based on reasoning and science, not on emotions.
This whole business contrasts markedly with my request for restrictions to be placed on the use of mobile phones by young children, in a formal question to the Commission under the same precautionary principle.
This was, of course, refused even though it admitted there was no research evidence on the safety of child use of mobiles and there was some data for adult brain damage in the prolonged use of mobile telephones.
A recent UK government report has recommended restrictions to child use of mobiles as a developing brain is more sensitive to electromagnetic radiation.
We have to face the fact that here in the West brain tumours have risen dramatically by some 100% over the last ten years for totally unknown reasons.
Therefore I call again on the Commission to use the precautionary principle consistently or admit that the whole thing is a politically motivated exercise with powerful commercial interests at play, undermining the precautionary principle and risking turning it into a farce.
Mr President, so much has gone wrong on the phthalates issue that it is difficult to know where to start.
The Commission's temporary bans have no legal basis.
The Commission may introduce an emergency ban where there is a clear and immediate danger, but no such danger exists with phthalates.
These materials have been in widespread use around the world for forty years, yet there is no evidence of any kind that any damage has ever been done to anyone.
There was one test on rats in which massive quantities of phthalates appeared to cause problems, but researchers have been unable to replicate this test.
We are dealing here with little more than media hysteria and ignorance.
More people have died in Teddy Kennedy's car than have died of phthalates!
Compare and contrast our position on phthalates with our position on tobacco.
Phthalates have never done any harm to anyone, yet we are banning them.
Tobacco, we are told, kills half a million people each year in the European Union but do we ban it? No, we do not.
We subsidise it with millions of euros.
If we ban existing products, alternative products may be even more dangerous.
As Mrs García-Orcoyen has pointed out, this has already happened, for example, with breast implants, where alternatives to silicon have proved to be more dangerous than the implants they replaced.
In trying to defend an untenable position the Commission has shamelessly sought to gag its own scientific advisers.
It has bowdlerised their reports, it has pressured them into changing their positions.
Honesty and transparency have been sacrificed to expedience.
I and other colleagues wrote to Commission President Prodi on this point two months ago.
I understand that his reply has been held for some time 'awaiting signature' , presumably to ensure we should not see it before today's debate.
Neither the temporary bans nor the permanent ban are justified by the evidence.
Migration tests for phthalates are currently under development and will probably be available within months.
We should wait until these tests are available and then, if we must, impose migration limits.
We hear far too much about the precautionary principle.
To be meaningful the precautionary principle should be invoked only when there is a clear and demonstrable risk.
If we continue to invoke it when there is no prime facie risk at all, we make both the precautionary principle and ourselves look ridiculous.
Mr President, firstly I would like to express my thanks to Members of Parliament for their keen interest in this file, especially to Mr Arvidsson, the rapporteur, for his continuing and constructive efforts to find a solution acceptable to all.
The Commission has also made extensive efforts to find a solution to the phthalates' question.
Following discussions about the risks of PVC toys containing phthalates and the opinions of the Scientific Committee on Toxicology, Ecotoxicology and Environment, the Commission took two decisions simultaneously last autumn.
One was a decision providing for an emergency temporary ban, renewable every three months.
Second, the Commission decided to propose a directive to restrict the marketing and use of phthalates in soft PVC toys.
Any interventions here actually concern the first decision, not necessarily this proposal for a directive.
The Commission's proposed directive consists of two elements.
The first element is a ban on the use of six phthalates in toys intended to be put in the mouth of small children.
The ban is based on the opinion of the Scientific Committee that toys containing certain phthalates pose a risk to children's health when held in the mouth for extensive periods of time.
As it cannot be excluded that children can put other toys in their mouths, although not intended for that purpose, the second element of the proposal is a requirement for a warning label on such other toys that could be put into the mouth.
The proposal provides not only for the protection of children's health, it also addresses an internal market issue.
At the present time, the internal market is fragmented, as more than half of the Member States are applying national bans going further than the Commission's emergency ban under the General Product Safety Directive.
Mrs Jackson asked whether Member States have supplied scientific evidence to the Commission, the reply is: Not to my knowledge.
The proposed directive would harmonise the rules of Member States.
I have noted in the discussions today that the Members of Parliament are divided on the Commission's proposal.
Some consider it too strict, while others consider that it is not at all protective enough.
The proposal is based on the various opinions of the Scientific Committee, and it is a considered application of the precautionary principle and consequently a proportionate measure.
It introduces a ban for the products which potentially pose the highest risks, that is for the toys intended to put be in the mouth, and a less stringent measure - labelling - for the products not intended for mouthing but where a risk cannot be excluded.
The Commission is not able to accept those amendments of Parliament which would widen the scope of the proposed ban to cover plasticisers other than the six named phthalates, or to cover other toys than those intended to be put in the mouth.
Nor is the Commission able to accept the amendments which would extend the scope to cover toys destined for older children.
We think that these various proposals cannot be justified on the basis of the risks either defined in the opinions of the Scientific Committee or by the application of the precautionary principle.
Furthermore, the Commission cannot at this moment accept amendments which would introduce migration limits, but the Commission accepts the amendments which provide for this to be reviewed when testing methods have been approved.
The Commission can accept in principle the amendments which would prohibit the use of perfumes in toys for children under three years containing the six phthalates.
It can also accept amendments which would bring forward the review of the directive and widen the scope of that review.
To summarise our point of view, the Commission can accept, at least in principle, Amendment Nos 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 18, 24 and the Commission rejects Amendment Nos 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, revised 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 25.
We wish to carry on the dialogue with Parliament and I am convinced that we can agree on a constructive solution.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Beef and beef products
The next item is the recommendation for second reading of the report (A5-0193/2000), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council regulation establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 820/97 (Rapporteur: Mr Papayannakis).
Mr President, the regulation which we are now examining forms part of a series of interventions designed to rectify the situation inherited from the mad cow crisis and introduce a policy to prevent such situations from arising in the future and restore consumer confidence in beef products.
The regulation therefore introduces a system comprising various techniques for identifying animals in order to guarantee traceability, i.e. the possibility of tracing every piece of meat bought by the consumer to the animal from which it derives.
It is already a highly technical and unwieldy system.
Provision is also made for a beef and beef product labelling system.
The product label will give the consumer rudimentary but crucial and useful information on the meat being purchased.
This endeavour started four years ago.
There has been a long delay, which we have frequently criticised.
We all remember the battles with the other institutions of the Union last December when we suspected that they might postpone and delay application of the regulation yet again.
We now have a situation which I shall explain in simplified terms.
After the first reading in Parliament, the Council approved a common position.
This common position incorporates most of the amendments made by the European Parliament.
The wording of the regulation has been simplified and its application made easier.
The monitoring system has been strengthened.
However, the common position does not include our amendment abolishing the reference on the compulsory label on the meat to the category of animal from which the meat derives.
We abolished this information in order to simplify the label, give the consumer clearer information and reduce the cost to meat companies.
The argument for keeping the reference to the category of animal is that this reference responds to consumer needs, habits and preferences, at least in certain countries of the Union.
The question, therefore, is do we wish to insist on amending the current wording of the regulation? This may take us into a conciliation procedure, thereby delaying application of the regulation and the European Parliament, let me remind you, is in favour of applying the regulation at the earliest possible date and has blamed and continues to blame the other institutions of the European Union for the intolerable delay.
I refer to the amendment concerning the category of animal, not a second amendment referring to minced meat, because I do not think that it meets any particular need.
Minced meat is, in any case, already connected to the animal from which it derives with the arrangements which we have in the regulation and the other matters are technical and production matters and we did well not to change the wording of the regulation.
I should now like to address the matter of the Committee on the Environment, for which I have the honour of acting as rapporteur.
The Committee on the Environment voted by an adequate majority to insist that the text be amended.
It approved this basic amendment abolishing the reference to the category of animal.
Your rapporteur is not convinced of the need, usefulness or advisability of amending the text and feels obliged, to his chagrin, to recommend the opposite approach, i.e. that we refrain from adopting any amendments and accept the common position.
I trust that the wisdom of the House will find the best and safest way of ensuring that this regulation is applied quickly and solve what I hope is a temporary difference of view between the rapporteur and his committee.
Mr President, I fully concur with what the chairman of our committee has just said.
I have presented the entire discussion and the entire dispute surrounding the regulation.
In the last two lines I expressed my personal opinion, with a great deal of chagrin, so as not to have to take the floor again as a speaker.
For the rest, I should like to assure our chairman that I have a great deal of respect for procedure, perhaps more than many other fellow members, both on this and other matters.
Mr President, this legislation on the labelling of beef has two distinct aspects.
Firstly it ensures traceability of beef products.
Cases of food poisoning related to beef are rare, and more often than not can be attributed to storage and preparation in the home or catering outlet, rather than to the processors.
Occasionally, however, there is a problem such as the E-coli outbreak in Scotland.
In this instance labelling can enable the public to be alerted without inducing panic, and facilitate the tracing back of contaminated beef to the shop, slaughterhouse or farm where the problem started.
Secondly, labelling will identify the country or countries of origin of beef.
This is not to assist xenophobic consumers who wish to reject all things foreign - although there is nothing wrong with the desire to support one's own farmers who are facing unprecedented economic pressures.
The BSE crisis shone a spotlight on the possible health risks associated with beef.
Some countries, like France, have a whole-herd slaughter policy which may reassure consumers, despite its lack of scientific basis and a risk of underreporting.
The United Kingdom, on the other hand, which has a higher level of BSE incidence at the moment, removes all animals over 30 months from the food chain, as well as adopting a whole raft of other measures.
We could argue all day about which beef is the safest, but the fact is that once labelling is in place the consumer will be able to decide.
There can be no justification for the continuation of the illegal French ban on British beef if it is clearly labelled.
In fact those in France who have studied the subject in depth may well decide to buy British as the safest and tastiest option.
I will now comment on the amendments.
The inclusion of category is unnecessary, costly and potentially confusing to consumers.
Most housewives do not know the difference between a heifer and a steer.
A bony Holstein steer would be in the same category as a champion Charolais but that prime animal's twin sister would be in a different category solely because of its sex.
Clearly this is a ridiculous situation.
The listing of category imposes costs on farmers and butchers, and at the same time would give consumers irrelevant or misleading information.
It could also devalue some categories such as young bulls, as supermarkets rationalise the categories they stock.
If France wants to continue with its scheme alone, then I would not want to stand in its way.
This is a subsidiarity issue.
The amendment on Article 14 would prevent the confusing situation where minced beef - marketed for example, in Austria, Mr Fischler - which was derived from Polish animals imported live into Austria, could be labelled 'prepared in Austria' .
I am not sure that Austrian farmers would like that to happen.
Without this amendment this potentially misleading suggestion could encourage more live imports, with obvious animal welfare implications.
We are working on a very tight timescale on this legislation, which is due to come into effect on 1 September.
It would, therefore, be irresponsible of Parliament to adopt amendments which could not be accepted by the Council.
There is no time for conciliation.
I do not subscribe to the argument that Parliament should abdicate its constitutional right to improve this proposal because others have failed to initiate the legislative process in time.
We now have a new French presidency - I do not know if anyone is there representing them - but I commend to the Council the amendments adopted by the Committee on the Environment with a large majority.
Could I ask through you, Mr President, that the Council or, failing that, the Commissioner, makes a statement to Parliament? Do you think that you can secure an agreement, based on the five amendments adopted in committee, which will both respect the views of Parliament and deliver this legislation on time as the first major achievement of the French presidency?
Mr President, this proposal has a long history.
I can understand why the rapporteur and Mr Papayannakis are weary of further controversy.
However, we are almost at the end.
As the rapporteur, he has quite properly had to tell the House that the Environment Committee voted by a substantial majority - I think 33 votes to 13 - in favour of the excision of the provisions relating to category of animal.
We have, on the committee, made a number of compromises, as regards both the timetable and the substance.
The Committee has always kept a clear priority and has insisted upon it both to the Council and to the Commission: namely to have the sharpest, best-defined route of traceability on safety grounds that we can get for mince as well as other forms of beef.
It was for this reason that it threw out at first reading the superfluous requirements about maturation times, much as chefs might have wanted them, and category of animal, which did nothing for traceability, added cost, and increased the disaffection of many Member States and of those who will have to implement this proposal.
As a result of that, we thought the matter was resolved.
Indeed, as Mr Papayannakis has said, there have been counter-concessions from the Commission.
Now, to our amazement, category of animal is back, and once again the Environment Committee has voted to remove it.
The Commission knows why.
It knows we cannot be bullied with threats that our timetable will slip.
We have made concessions including a full month' s delay on the implementation of the second phase of this proposal already. We have done that with a good grace.
I urge the House to reaffirm its position at first reading and to exclude a form of compulsory category labelling which is entirely optional for Member States, - a form of labelling we should point out which we do not have in detail.
We have to surrender to the secret harmonies of comitology if we are going to leave it to Commission to advance the precise definitions.
We are not prepared to do that.
We want traceability, we want surveillance, we want this proposal and we want it quickly.
We want the best and most economic route to achieve it and Amendments Nos 3 and 5 do that.
The various amendments on mince add to surveillance and traceability in the way we propose.
Conciliation, Mr Papayannakis, does not take very long.
It consists of two words from the Commissioner this afternoon: 'We accept.'
Let us hear them.
Mr President, there is no need to repeat what my colleagues Mr Goodwill and Mr Whitehead have said regarding the significant agreement that we have reached in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Allow me nevertheless to say that, after what has happened over the last few days when we have had further cases of BSE in France, it is clear that we still have a long way to go before we have a completely safe market as far as beef is concerned.
There is only one way to regain the consumers' trust and that is by guaranteeing the quality of the products.
If we had an ideal world in the EU we would have had a foodstuffs authority which could have checked and ensured that everyone behaved according to the rules.
Then the quality of the meat would have been to a large extent the same throughout the Union, and it would at least have maintained the EU standard everywhere.
If we had also been able to ensure that everyone followed the rules regarding transportation, we would not need to run the risk of animals suffering during transit.
Now, however, we need a system that involves stating where the animals come from, where they were born, where they were reared and where they were slaughtered.
In this way the consumer is provided with information regarding how the animal may have fared and whether it may have been subjected to long journeys in transit.
Mr President, in conclusion, the most important thing is that we obtain a system which means that by looking at a label on the meat we can see where it comes from, and that it is then possible to trace back through the complete foodstuffs chain to the original producer.
This is where we need to get to.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance are delighted with the Council' s common position.
In our opinion, it marks a great step forward and an actual victory for this Parliament.
However, I would still like to point out the difference between traceability on the one hand and consumer confidence on the other.
In my opinion, traceability is a technicality which can be identified and demonstrated thanks to the numerical code or bar code, but even consumers cannot possibly decipher or interpret these codes.
What matters is that traceability is effective and efficient, not only to protect the consumer, but also the whole meat chain. After all, in the event of a crisis or scandal, traceability allows you to identify the problem straight away.
In this way, we can prevent the entire meat industry from going down the drain because of one isolated criminal act or incident of carelessness.
Consumer confidence however, requires more than traceability.
In my view, confidence in a product can be instilled by providing the consumer with reliable, but above all comprehensible information on the quality of the product they intend to buy.
It seems to me that indicating the animal category can most definitely enhance consumer confidence, provided this is done in an understandable manner.
I therefore regret that a large majority of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection rejected this component and eventually deleted the category.
At first reading, my Group also called for labelling the breed and region of origin of the animal involved.
It saddens me that our request did not survive this hurdle.
I would, however, urge the meat industry not to adopt a defensive stance in this dossier, but to be proactive instead.
I believe that this will greatly benefit them and can also boost their returns.
Mr President, the rules governing the voluntary labelling system provided for in the 1999 EU regulation expire on 31 August.
The Council regulation before us must be adopted to avoid a legal vacuum arising.
The agreement reached by the EU Agriculture Ministers on a Europe-wide beef labelling system was not such a major achievement.
The work in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development was in fact much more demanding than the result before us.
The content of all the measures approved is to be modified so that proof of meat' s origin is valid as a guarantee in order to apply environmental control procedures and if necessary impose sanctions.
The Community labelling system quite rightly aims to enhance transparency of production and marketing conditions for beef, and in particular to improve certainty as to its origin.
Higher product costs cannot be ruled out, as the cost of applying the system will be passed on to the consumer.
The incalculable risk as regards food quality will not be dramatically reduced in this way, as the information provided is not primarily intended for the consumer.
The last 16 years, since the first outbreak of mad cow disease, have demonstrated the importance of production for consumer confidence.
The most effective measure is to strengthen production in the region of origin, which is more justifiable both environmentally and economically speaking.
Mr President, we stressed at first reading what a complete anomaly it is that, 14 years after the emergence of BSE, the European Union still has no labelling system giving consumers the information they need.
Luckily, some Member States, including France since 1996, have taken unilateral initiatives and responsibility for designing national systems which have proven to be transparent, efficient and flexible and which should have been authenticated.
Having failed to do the same, the House has, at least, adopted some of their ideas, most of which, we were pleased to see, have been incorporated in the common position.
The main thing is that consumers need to be able to make sense of it.
Giving consumers information without confusing them means including important references explicitly, with secondary information accessible at the checkout via the barcode.
An overloaded label would not promote food safety, it would just represent an additional cost to our SMEs and would really distort competition if there were no equivalent requirement for third country produce.
We also need to move quickly and, in the interest of producers and consumers alike, ensure that there are not any legal gaps.
We therefore consider it important not to question the balance which we have reached, as our rapporteur has recommended, unless we want to set off on a long conciliation procedure.
But not questioning the balance in the regulation also implies that we must be extremely vigilant when it comes to the implementing regulation; most importantly, the categories and list of products and sectors to which this applies must be clearly defined.
We need to show that we are logical, fair, flexible and that we know where European interests lie.
We need to take account of all operators of every size, especially small and medium-sized operators, of whom there is an abundance in this sector, scattered throughout our countries, creating jobs and often using animals or cuts from different origins.
We need to take great care not to impose unnecessary additional costs on these companies.
For example, the reference to the category makes no sense for prepared products, especially kebabs, and we need to be flexible in our arrangements for meat for the catering trade, otherwise our restaurants will all go out and buy Brazilian meat.
So let us respect the balance in the regulation and introduce the necessary flexibility in the implementing regulation, so that we can preserve the interests of European producers and inform European consumers at one and the same time.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, once again, having done so on 16 December 1999, we are addressing the problem of identifying cattle and the problem of labelling.
And all because, for the past 14 years and, officially, for the past 4 years, there has been a zoonosis, i.e. a disease which can be transmitted from cows, in this case British cows, to humans.
Not knowing how to cure this disease and not having had the will to prevent it when we could have done so from 1989 onwards, we are now reduced to bidding to reassure the consumer.
Just as the Americans invented happy pills in the 1950s, we have invented consumer sedatives, i.e. labels.
As soon as consumers are worried, anxious or afraid, we give them a label.
We put labels on tobacco for them, we put labels on chocolate for them, and when they are upset because they no longer have any cocoa, we put labels on GMOs for them, not that this prevents genetically engineered soya, cotton and tomatoes from arriving by the boatload. We put labels on wine for them, not that this prevents bogus port from South Africa from landing in our ports and, finally, we put labels on beef for them!
I must admit, Commissioner Fischler, that you have slammed on all the brakes - if I may put it thus - both skilfully and in bad faith in order to delay labelling.
But unable to delay it all the time, you decided to drown it and the draft regulation has overloaded the label to the point at which it is illegible.
You have even arranged to add the approval numbers of the slaughterhouse and cutting plant, all of which is incomprehensible to the consumer, of course, who does not have the equipment to read the barcode.
And in the case of kebabs, stews, sautés and ready meals, pieces of meat may come from the whole of France or the whole of Europe.
So with a calf born in France, fattened in Italy and slaughtered in Ireland, the label will be a real geography lesson!
As a result, the meat wholesalers, the SMEs referred to by Mr Souchet, have denounced the increased costs and, at the same time, compulsory labelling has given us an insight into the curiosities of the meat market: 40% of beef derives from animals which have done the rounds of Europe; when you buy a steak at the butcher's, little do you know that it has travelled 3000 kilometres, taking in 4 countries on the way: the country in which it was born, the country in which it was raised, the country in which it was slaughtered and the country in which it is consumed.
In my country, 1.5 million animals a year take a trip via Italy and Spain.
So in that case, what do you put on the label?
The whole itinerary?
Or just 'Origin: European Union' ? But if we put 'Origin: European Union' , that conceals the fact that the meat may derive from an English cow, riddled from top to bottom with a prion courtesy of their gracious ultraliberal majesties, Adam Smith and David Ricardo.
So, today, we are offered a compromise.
We are told that labels will state the origin of the animal and the category: is it a calf, a heifer, a cow or a bull? But what we want is a compromise which will make life easier for SMEs, for small companies, not that any of this need prevent us, Commissioner, fellow members, from taking brief stock.
It all started with milk quotas back in 1984.
In order to increase their yield, the British stuffed their cows with bonemeal.
To save money, they lowered the cooking temperature of the bonemeal and the prion survived and contaminated their cattle.
Without free movement, it would have stopped there, but with no frontiers, they contaminated Portuguese and French cattle and we have known about it, even here, since 1986.
José Happart, a Socialist, and I have been warning of the risk of a zoonosis since 1989.
But the Maastricht Treaty had to be ratified, so nothing was said and the truth was hidden.
A committee of inquiry chaired by Mr Böge was set up, but the Amsterdam Treaty had to be ratified and nothing was said.
The Commission was not held to account, Mr Fischler, and for 14 years, nothing was done.
When five German Länder wanted to protect their consumers, you instituted infringement proceedings against them.
The moral of this tale, quite apart from the labelling saga, is that it is the nation states that have protected their consumers.
For its part, the Commission has protected free movement. Real subsidiarity means ensuring that consumers, with the help of their country, can each protect themselves.
The label only comes along when the fork is poised; but the best solution would be to label when the pitchfork is poised.
The intermediate solution lies between fork and pitchfork, i.e. at the frontier, the only place where animals can be protected against unreasonable transport and consumers can be protected.
Mr President, yesterday we heard Mr Chirac set out his objectives for the French presidency.
In his conclusion he said "Europe will be dynamic if we make it loved by those it serves" .
This is the sweeping rhetoric that occupies the high ground but the detail of the debate today occupies the low ground.
It is precisely this sort of detailed, petty interference that drives the people served by Europe to distraction.
If anything was more calculated to make Europe unloved it is its determination to control every nook and cranny of our lives.
We all, I am sure, have letters saying that these regulations are impracticable, cumbersome, costly and far too complex.
Above all, my correspondents tell me that they are fed up with the EU's mania for bombarding the consumer with information.
Soon labels will no longer suffice.
If we keep going at this rate, shopkeepers will have to issue owners' manuals with every pound of minced beef - not, of course, that we are allowed to use pounds any more.
Perhaps even Macdonald's might be forced to protest.
I know from my short experience here that nothing I say and nothing that involves common sense will have the slightest impact because, like a mad elephant out of control, this legislation will crash on regardless.
I will make a prediction.
When this legislation finally goes through we will hear paeans of self-congratulation.
Everybody involved will tell themselves how jolly hard they worked.
Well, they may be pleased but they certainly will not be loved by the people of Europe.
Mr Chirac is going to be disappointed.
The people are despairing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, some of the amendments tabled water down the substance and the objective of the Council' s proposal for a regulation on beef labelling. The argument being presented, as we have heard, is that we should not ask too much of consumers.
An attempt is being made then to withhold information on the grounds that consumers are ostensibly stupid.
To my mind, that is the wrong approach, and we should assume that consumers have a good grasp of things.
We should provide consumers with information about the origin of the beef, offer them certainty and take consumer protection seriously.
The implementing provisions for this regulation are being enacted under the committee procedure.
That means that tomorrow we will have to vote on a legal text whose precise content is unknown.
Even the Commission cannot tell us exactly what form these implementing provisions will take.
I regard this as a very unfortunate procedure, which demonstrates the democratic deficit in the Community decision-making process.
Mr President, Commissioner, in speaking previously to this House I have pointed out that there is a tension in the proposed regulation between ensuring traceability for public health purposes and providing useful consumer information.
I am grateful for recent assurances from Commissioner Byrne that the new European Food Agency will consider how such information can best be provided.
Making it compulsory to include the category of animal on the label is not justified on public health grounds, nor is it obvious why it should be obligatory for the consumer to have this information.
The Environment Committee's amendment makes it clear that it could be provided under the voluntary scheme where there is a demand.
Further, if the labelling scheme in relation to category were to be implemented, as the Commission has earlier suggested, it could add 8 to 10% to production costs.
In my own country this would mean GBP 45 - 55 or EUR 70 - 90 per animal without any benefit in return and, as Mr Goodwill has already said, the scheme could have the effect of reducing the market price of certain categories of cattle, particularly of young bulls.
I very much hope that Parliament will follow the Environment Committee's lead in removing category from the compulsory scheme and that the Commission and Council too will agree not to impose this additional unnecessary burden on producers and consumers alike.
In previous debates here I have supported the principle of having a clear set of rules for appropriate labelling information on beef and beef products.
My belief is still that our beef production industry, as well as the consumer, has everything to gain from the customer confidence which a sensible compulsory labelling scheme can provide.
Of course, we must have clear information permitting full traceability from farm to plate.
There is no doubt or controversy about that, but controversy has surrounded the proposal that category of animal be included.
In judging the value of label information, I believe that its relevance to food safety must be foremost in our minds.
In a recent exchange of views within our political Group here in Strasbourg, Commissioner Byrne and his cabinet officials stated quite clearly that there was no food safety benefit arising from the categorisation proposal.
I cannot support its inclusion.
In relation to country or Member State of origin, could I ask Commissioner Fischler to clarify whether, apart from the compulsory information that we are discussing here, information regarding the area of origin, such as Scotland or the Orkney Islands for example, can be displayed prominently on a voluntary basis?
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to the many negative effects of mad cow disease, one positive effect is the fact that it has induced the European Union and the Member States to adopt more vigilant, detailed legislation to ensure food safety and protect honest producers in the strategically important beef sector.
It is a pity that it takes scandals such as this or the dioxins in chickens issue to speed up safeguard and prevention initiatives, but better late than never!
It has become apparent that the serious difficulties experienced by the entire sector during the periods of greatest crisis caused by mad cow disease were, apart from the direct effects of the disease, primarily due to the lack of confidence between consumers and beef producers and sellers which ensued. The situation was not improved by the dissemination of false information.
We have learned from this experience that it is essential to promote all initiatives which consolidate a stable relationship of confidence between consumers and producers and those who sell food products in general.
Although the protection of consumer health is by far the most important criterion, it cannot be our sole objective in establishing an efficient system for the identification and registration of bovine animals during the production and fattening stage and a labelling system based on objective criteria during the marketing stage.
It is important to understand that all initiatives which protect honest European Community producers - and they are without a doubt the great majority of producers - need to be promoted.
All the Community producers are calling for well-defined but not oppressive regulations.
In other words, we must guard against suffocating the healthy part of our agricultural sector with bureaucracy, which is frequently much more damaging than any disease.
I will conclude by pointing out that there is no point in adopting stringent legislation if it does not provide an efficient supervision system which rewards honest producers and penalises those whose improper conduct jeopardises the future of an entire sector which is of primary importance for the European economy.
Mr President, many aspects of the common position we have here reflect Parliament' s position at first reading, and this demonstrates the Council' s willingness to work with Parliament in order to achieve a positive and rapid outcome in this area, which is so important for European consumers.
I would have liked to simply approve the common position without further ado.
However, I find one point that has already been mentioned several times enormously difficult - category of animal.
This comes under compulsory labelling, where it has no place to be.
Category of animal really does not assist the regulation' s objective of guaranteeing meat traceability.
I therefore support the adoption of Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5.
The Council will now have to remove the provisions relating to category of animal at its meeting in mid-July if it does not want to risk the regulation not coming into force on 1 September this year.
Secondly, there is Amendment No 4 on minced beef, which relates to the last part of Article 14, first paragraph, beginning "and origin" . I am afraid I cannot follow this either.
In my view, this amendment lacks precision. How is 'origin' to be defined here?
Does it refer to where the animal was born or where it was fattened, or both, and who is responsible for labelling here?
Exactly how will origin be indicated? None of this is clearly worded and I see a risk that the Council will refuse point blank to accept this amendment, so that we will end up with a conciliation procedure, which will in turn further delay the entry into force of the regulation.
This is not in the interests of consumers, and I therefore call on the House to reject Amendments Nos 4 and 6.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Council has adopted the European Parliament' s amendments on the labelling of beef products.
There has been fruitful interinstitutional cooperation, and the codecision procedure has shown its strength.
The result is a victory for consumers, and not just them, but the whole beef sector chain: the producers, the processing industry and the organisations representing the beef trade.
This regulation will make it possible to trace the origin of meat, and even according to a reasonable timetable.
After EU enlargement this sort of system will be vital for consumers and producers.
To tell the truth, we could not have waited any longer for this system to be put into practice.
Now it depends on the Member States whether the practice of labelling is adopted in the hoped for manner.
I also hope consumer organisations will give their strong support to the implementation of the provisions in practice.
Mr President, the introduction of the EU beef labelling is a further step on the road to traceability and in the present climate a prerequisite for consumer protection and public health.
As I have said on many previous occasions in this House, farmers are unfortunately the innocent victims of circumstances beyond their control.
I come from a country which exports over 90% of its entire beef production and quality and consumer satisfaction have always been a priority.
We must take steps to ensure that labelling does not result in a renationalisation of the food sector.
Already there is some evidence that this is happening.
I welcome the Commission's assurance that any distortion of trade which might arise as a result of these labelling measures will be dealt with.
Labelling, however, needs to be sensible.
Over-description would only lead to confusion and is unnecessary.
The consumer must be able to see at a glance the certificate of origin which is the assurance of product safety.
Mr President, that went quicker than I thought.
The BSE crisis, and later on the dioxin crisis, focused our attention on the safety of our food.
In addition, the European consumer has become more critical and outspoken over the past decades.
Politicians need to take this into consideration.
After all, there are huge interests at stake: the certainty and safety of our primary products, and hence consumer confidence.
In the coming months, too, we should therefore be looking carefully at the White Paper on food safety.
Today' s regulations are a direct result of the recommendations of the BSE inquiry at the time, in which integral chain management, i.e. the 'from-stable-to-stable' principle, and with it the ultimate traceability of our primary raw materials, was established.
The Commission proposal within the context of labelling beef follows on from temporary legislation dating back to 1997.
It aims to introduce reliable and transparent identification and registration regulations for beef, as well as labelling for beef.
This should also enhance consumer confidence in the quality of beef and benefit market stability.
Meat should remain traceable, whether at the production or sales stage.
An important idea which the Council has adopted from the EP in its common position is to bring forward the date when the labelling regulation comes into effect.
The label should contain information on the animal' s region of origin, where it is born, fattened up and slaughtered.
What is new is that the Council now also considers it important to mention the animal category from which the meat originates.
I admit that making this compulsory could be considered normal from the point of view of the consumer, but this is not yet the case in the Netherlands, where this suggestion is met with a great deal of protest.
I do not call for compulsory labelling, but for labelling on a voluntary basis.
In this context, I am convinced that butchers can meet all the provisions of this proposal in a very simple manner, for example by placing a sign in their shops.
Mr President, with tomorrow' s vote, Parliament will take an initial step towards defining a legislative framework intended to win back consumer confidence in the quality of foodstuffs on the market in the European Union. This goal can only be achieved through a wider strategy such as that outlined in the White Paper on food safety, and we too must make every effort to speed up its practical implementation.
This directive will ensure not only that the meat on our tables can be traced back to its origins but also that the consumer is provided with clear, essential information.
The mandatory labelling to be affixed to packaging will provide consumers with the all the information they need in order to be able to make an informed decision about what to buy: therefore, a limited amount of clear, effective information needs to be included if we are to help consumers and not make their life more complicated.
For this reason and because of the considerable opposition which appears to have arisen to the listing of categories, I have decided to support the amendments put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
In the context of this debate, I feel that I must stress once again the extremely sensitive nature of this proposal, and call upon all the Community institutions to act responsibly in order to make it operative as soon as possible and avoid legal gaps.
Parliament has done its part and will continue to do so.
Let the Commission and the Council do theirs!
Mr Whitehead has already pointed them in the right direction.
Mr President, Commissioner, guaranteeing public health is the objective of one of today' s most important areas of legislation.
This is something to which this regulation will contribute, making traceability from farm to plate as effective as possible, as well as compulsory.
At the same time, European consumers have the right to clear and easily understandable information, so that they know where the meat they are eating comes from.
I am certain that the Council and Parliament can reach a good compromise on minced meat, in so far as Parliament adopts Amendments 4 and 6 which guarantee consumers information about where the minced meat comes from and when it was produced.
I would ask all colleagues to vote in favour of Amendment 6 which Karl Erik Olsson and I have tabled with a view to making it compulsory for minced meat to bear a label stating the date when it was produced.
Minced meat involves a much greater bacteriological risk for consumers than larger pieces of beef, so the production date is a very important piece of information.
It is good that categories have been removed.
The Council' s common position, together with Parliament' s six amendments, constitute legislation of benefit to agriculture and consumers in the EU.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is not the label that counts.
We all understand that expression, but what counts here really is the label - and I am not talking about haute couture!
Beef labelling is an important stage in the process of rebuilding consumer confidence.
I note that despite the protracted preliminary discussions not all EU Member States have recorded every last animal on their computers.
Yet the compulsory labelling system is supposed to take force in all Member States as from 1 September 2000, thus finally replacing the voluntary system.
The question for consumers will be this: what information can we expect?
Where was the animal born? In the EU, in a third country, at which farm, in what region?
What does country of origin mean, or perhaps even source country? And then there is the debate about categories.
Should I buy a sucking calf, a normal calf or a heifer today? As I come from a farming background myself and there is nothing I more earnestly want for farmers than stable prices, I believe that we should create legal bases that are underpinned by consensus.
We should not make the legislation unnecessarily complicated.
We are all concerned about public health and consumer protection.
So as from 1 September 2000 we will have labelling, and as from 1 January 2002 it will be extremely comprehensive.
The beef chain from producer to consumer can be very long, and the supply chains in Member States vary widely.
Yet I do not think that cattle headed for the slaughterhouse are really such great tourists.
However, strict criteria must also apply to imports from third countries.
By way of conclusion, let me say that I once learnt that top athletes' nutrition programmes should include meat.
Our top athletes' eating habits have a great impact on health and performance.
I hope that we can rebuild confidence and that people will once more become great meat-eaters.
Mr President, the report by Mr Papayannakis we are discussing is an important tool to improve consumer protection and increase consumer confidence in food in Europe.
The committee took an important decision in rejecting the category of animal labelling proposal.
The category of animal - heifer, cow, bull, bullock, young bull, calf - will not provide the consumer with any extra information, as the differences within categories might be greater than those between them.
On the other hand, the compulsory labelling of category would increase the production costs of fresh meat products by what could be a large percentage figure, which, of course, would be passed on to the consumer.
On this there is agreement between beef producers, the meat processing industry, retailers and consumer organisations.
And now the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has arrived at the same conclusion.
Category labelling must not be compulsory, but this can happen on a national basis, as, for example, has been the wish in France. Perhaps in a country the size of France there is so much beef that it is possible to label products rationally.
That is not the case in my country.
Another thorny problem relating to the proposal is labelling showing the origin of the meat.
The proposal is for the labelling system to be introduced in two stages. In the first stage there would just be slaughter information.
In cases where the animal was bred and reared in another country, the information might be totally misleading for the consumer, and in countries where stage two is now in force the situation as it is could only deteriorate.
For example, Finland' s national beef labelling system also now includes information on where the animal was bred and reared.
It is therefore to be hoped that, on the basis of the current defining implementation regulation, the beef sector could be flexible enough to come round to establishing the two-stage labelling system.
The basis of this discussion is consumer protection, especially with regard to the BSE crisis we lived through in Europe.
The matter being discussed is an important tool, but the compulsory labelling of beef products and the gradual switch to labels showing the origin of the meat do not serve this purpose.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure there are still many more questions.
You can of course always revisit everything, but I think that we now need labelling of beef and beef products as a matter of urgency, by which I mean as from September this year and not as from January next year.
We have discussed this at length in committee.
As regards guarantees of origin, great progress has already been made as a result of improved transparency, and it was possible to make a positive impact.
There are many regional programmes, for example in my home region of Rheinland-Pfalz, and these demonstrate that this is feasible and have led the way here.
It is not so long since farmers and meat-processing plants were threatened with annihilation, and it has only been through a combination of comprehensive information and strategically sound and effective marketing measures that it has been possible to rebuild consumer confidence to some extent.
We must not allow this success to be undermined by deferring the introduction of labelling, which would be a step backwards.
Designation of origin is particularly important for consumers.
The preparatory work our farmers have done on labelling has been good and clear.
We have made good progress with beef labelling in Germany.
In this context I would like to ask you, Commissioner, what progress the other Member States have made.
We certainly need to keep an eye on products imported from third countries. These should be clearly recognisable as such when they are sold.
But what about those sometimes excessively detailed descriptions? They are confusing.
For example, how many consumers know what a heifer is, who would be interested in that, and why is it important?
The Commission has not yet clearly presented its proposals on category here, but I think it will have to adopt a simple and clear approach.
Descriptions such as 'veal' or 'beef' are sufficient, and anyone who wants more information should also be able to obtain it.
Mr President, I fully subscribe to and take as read what has been said so far in relation to the identification and traceability of beef and all beef products.
Yesterday the Committee on the Environment voted by 37 votes to 13 for the five amendments before us today - a clear, decisive vote right across this House from colleagues in all different groups.
I would particularly like to mention the category issue here which I suppose effectively means getting back to the first reading position on this.
I was incensed when, as late as yesterday, the Commission could not advise us as to exactly what would be involved in 'category'.
We are effectively being asked to buy the bovine equivalent of a pig in a poke.
This is not acceptable.
I would say to the Commissioner, please accept our amendments in relation to this area.
There is no need to confuse and mislead the consumers of Europe on a compulsory basis, because the voluntary labelling system which will be driven by competition, pride in product and consumer demand will add anything that a compulsory category label might otherwise require.
I am still confused about the situation in relation to mince.
If we are now going to insist on country of origin for mince, why cannot we have country of origin for the larger pieces of beef from 1 September, or whenever? I am not quite sure where we stand on that but we will be advised.
The French situation is amazing.
Only yesterday the services of the French Prime Minister wrote to every French MEP in this House - all 87 of them across the House - telling them to vote against all the amendments. What does that tell us about political interference from the top in France?
What is that saying about French beef production and protectionism? What is it saying about the Anglo-French beef issue?
If the French want to label beef they can do so voluntarily. At the moment they only label 50% of their beef, yet they want to insist on compulsory labelling under category for all of us.
I do not understand the political interference and the real message from France, and we should get to the bottom of it.
Mr President, Commissioner, this proposed regulation and derogation of Regulation (EC) No 820/97 has a first heading, which nobody is talking about, which provides for a system of identification and registration for beef based on earmarks, passports and computerised support which guarantee its traceability.
The second heading establishes an obligatory system of labelling of meat and two stages for its implementation.
In the voluntary period for application of Regulation (EC) No 820/97, 36 specifications have been approved in Spain in order to put it into practice, and I can assure you that this has given the consumer confidence and contributed to the recuperation of consumption, which dropped considerably as a result of mad cow disease.
I am therefore pleased that this Regulation has been adopted.
However, with regard to the content of the labelling - which let us not forget is directed at the consumer - it must be said that it is frankly excessive and that indications are proposed which provide little in the way of food safety and traceability, since this is guaranteed by the measures proposed in the first heading and, of course, is not what most matters to the consumer.
The indication of categories is not necessary at all.
Furthermore, this indication of categories may lead to confusion and problems, with regard to the age of slaughter of animals and the protected geographical indications, registered in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 2081/92, because in this case it is obligatory to introduce categories, and the definitions do not coincide with those which are proposed now.
Unless an agreement is reached - a consensus - in the management committee on the 14th.
What matters most to consumers, particularly in the light of the recent food crises, is to know where the animal was born and where and how it has been fed throughout its life.
Naturally, the registration number of the slaughterhouse offers them little or nothing in terms of the information they require.
Furthermore, this Regulation lays down obligatory minimum requirements and there is always the possibility of voluntary optional labelling.
Mr President, I would also like to concentrate on this issue of category of animal labelling.
The original proposal called for labelling as steer, heifer or young bull, which would be sexual discrimination.
But recently I was staggered when the Commission - just as Mrs Doyle has said - reported it had not finally decided on the precise terminology!
This effectively means they are asking Parliament to give them a blank cheque to determine what category of animal means after we have voted on whether or not to include it.
This is very sloppy, very amateur and unacceptable as a way to treat this House.
It is not even a food safety issue.
It is extra bureaucracy and red tape - which is probably why my own government in the UK has supported it.
But it is not in the interests of consumers, nor of the industry and, specifically, it is not in the interest of small abattoirs which would have the greatest difficulty in dealing with it.
I therefore ask the House to support the deletion of category of animal as a compulsory labelling requirement, just as it did on the first reading.
If countries wish to include it voluntarily that is a matter for them.
Assuming we vote for deletion, I would ask the Commission to take note that we shall not be moved on this issue.
So they know what they have to do.
Finally I ask the Commission and the Council to take note that we welcome the principle of labelling beef by country of origin and that we call on the French presidency to set an example by making an immediate commitment to accept all beef so labelled from all EU countries and let the consumer decide.
Mr President, Commissioner, can I first of all say I very much welcome this opportunity to follow the debate on this issue, but quite frankly I think it has tried our patience for a long time and most of us would like to see it resolved as soon as possible.
We have to ask ourselves what we are trying to achieve and whose fears we are trying to allay.
There is no doubt that consumers are tremendously concerned and I think we have to be able to allay that concern so that consumers can feel confident that the food they buy, anywhere in the European Union, will be fully traceable and good for whoever purchases it.
For that we need an effective system of traceability and control that will restore confidence.
I come from an agricultural background and it seems to me that what you need to control is the whole life span of the animal from the moment it is born to the time it is slaughtered.
If you can achieve that then you will go a long way to allaying the consumers' fears.
You can put in controls that will be so bureaucratic that they just will not work, so we have to concentrate on what is workable.
Categorising beef as steers, bullocks or heifers will not do anything to allay the fears of the consumer.
This is taking foolishness to the extreme and I ask you to reflect and take on board the views of the committee and the view of this Parliament on this particular point.
Mr President, since the issue of Regulation 820 in 1997, we have been discussing rebuilding a relationship between the consumer and the production world, and I have to say that a great deal has been achieved on both sides.
Much work has been done to ensure that the consumer is in possession of the correct information.
That said, I am briefly going to return to some of the issues raised by my fellow Members, each of which illustrated the situation in their own country.
In Italy, selling unspecified adult cattle on the market would mean suppressing a sensibility which is linked to our cultural and food traditions, and so we would find ourselves in quite a difficult situation.
Apart from anything else, considering that the price per kilogram of a cow carcass is considerably lower than that of a bullock carcass and even lower than that of a heifer, it would be difficult to justify the different sales prices to the consumer, who will naturally buy the unspecified adult meat out of ignorance.
Therefore, we are drawing up a law giving the consumer the right to know what he is buying and at what price, according to principles of transparency, clarity and information.
The work on the traceability of all the information regarding the animal' s country of provenance and country of birth and, in particular, where the animal was fattened, is therefore excellent.
Indeed, we would like the traceability criteria to be extended to minced beef, which is becoming a very popular product.
We feel that a precise reference to the point of slaughter and to the provenance of the minced beef would contribute to maintaining this relationship of trust that we are building between producer and consumer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that the second reading in this House is taking place so quickly is a clear sign that all of you, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Papayannakis, regard this subject, a very important one for consumers, as a key priority and that it is indeed your objective that compulsory labelling should come into force on time on 1 September.
I would therefore first of all like to sincerely thank the rapporteur and everyone who cooperated with him for the excellent and rapid progress that has been made with this.
Timing has always been vital in this area, and it still is.
You all know that the introduction of the compulsory labelling system had to be deferred last December because agreement could not be reached within the time frame available.
This deferral expires on 31 August, which in practice means that it runs out at the end of this month, because Parliament does not sit in August and no further sittings can be called.
We must all ensure that the pledge we made to all European beef consumers and also to producers and processors is respected.
In order to avoid further postponement or, even worse, a legal vacuum on labelling, we must therefore come to a final decision this month.
Before I talk about the amendments tabled for tomorrow' s vote, I would like to make a couple of brief comments about the Council common position approved by the Council on 6 June.
As you know, I pressed for an informal trialogue on the issue of the legal basis. This took place on 3 May.
The Members participating in that meeting also asked for appropriate explanations regarding the draft of the Council common position.
Once a number of further changes to the text requested by Parliament had been made, it was possible to reach an agreement based on which the following Agriculture Council approved the Council common position.
This was then formally transmitted to Parliament in mid-June together with the Commission' s communication.
This goes to show how well the codecision process could actually function on agricultural matters.Despite the shortage of time, the Council produced what I regard as a workable compromise taking account of the amendments you adopted at first reading. This reconciled the consumer' s right to guaranteed origin with the need for a practical system.
Like Parliament, the Council also recognised that compulsory labelling needed to be introduced earlier than stipulated in the original proposal.
Furthermore, the Council even complied with Parliament' s request to delete all references to EU origin.
Lastly, the Council also took on board the request for stricter labelling requirements for minced beef, and tightened up the wording of the rules proposed by the Commission.
It was only possible to achieve all these joint solutions between the Council and Parliament because the Member States agreed that no more national beef labelling schemes would apply after 2002.
The greatest achievement was reaching agreement on a uniform Community-wide labelling scheme for beef.
We should not therefore jeopardise this common interest and this move towards integration again.
As we have now heard from the Committee on the Environment, we are not yet out of the woods, politically speaking.
There are now amendments to be considered in plenary sitting, and approving some of these amendments would have far-reaching consequences, above all in terms of timing and as regards the adoption of the regulation.
For example, as several speakers have noted, two amendments on labelling minced beef have been tabled.
This issue has been scrutinised in great detail both here in Parliament and also by the Council.
You will see that the Council has taken your comments on board and has tightened up the wording of the rules, and has in fact made them even stricter than stipulated in the original Commission proposal.
One of the two new amendments reiterates the view that producers of minced beef should give precise details of the origin of the beef they have processed.
Ladies and gentlemen, given the industrial conditions under which minced beef is produced nowadays, this would quite obviously be asking too much.
Although the industry agrees with watertight guarantees of origin, it is already having great difficulties in giving details about the point of slaughter and of preparation for minced beef products.
This demonstrates that the regulation will also have a similar impact. So it will certainly not be possible to put the new proposal into practice.
If the worst came to the worst, it could even lead to some companies, especially in the smaller Member States, going bankrupt and the market for minced beef being completely renationalised.
That is the effect it would have.
And you cannot convince me that a Polish cow imported into Austria would be a problem for Austrian consumers.
Because I can tell the honourable Member that if a consumer buys minced beef in a butcher' s shop in Austria, he has the piece of meat minced in front of his own eyes, and in that case there are no problems either with origin or anything else.
What we are talking about here is really industrial processing of minced beef to make burgers and similar products, and nowadays that is a continuous industrial process.
If you start interfering in that, then companies like this will use products originating solely in their own country and nothing else.
And that would result in the opposite of what we are trying to achieve.
The other amendment proposes making it compulsory to give the date minced beef was produced, and this is not the first time we have debated this idea.
However, the label already features a more direct and clearer way of giving the consumer such vital information - the use-by date, which shows how long the minced beef can be used for.
I do not therefore believe that this new proposal would improve or add to information for consumers.
The common position also provides for such information to be given under the 'simplified procedure' if anyone requires this.
I therefore suggest that we should stick to the provisions on minced beef as laid down in the common position.
I am sure that if you take a closer look at the text you will see that the rules stipulated in it are strict enough and that our objective of improving transparency has been achieved.
I would now like to turn to the much discussed issue of category.
As you know, this formed part of the original Commission proposal, and I think there is a lot to be said for giving this information.
It leads to greater transparency and I believe it is important for consumers.
I can only tell you that where I come from, you pay 50% more for veal than for beef.
So as a consumer, I would like to know what I am paying 50% more for.
There is also a price difference of about one third depending on whether I am buying beef from a cow or beef from a young bull.
In that case it is surely in the interest of consumers to know what they are paying more for and to be given a guarantee that when they pay a higher price, they are actually getting what they paid for.
Let me explain now what we are actually proposing here.
Categories have already been compulsory in the Community for 20 years as far as whole carcasses are concerned.
The existing categories are: calves, young bulls, bullocks, heifers, cows and older bulls.
This is also intended as the basis for introducing categories in this case.
We simply want the labelling already applying to whole carcasses to apply to individual cuts as well.
That is all.
We are also willing to make distinctions for meat prepared in different ways.
For example, it is not necessary to make a precise distinction for casserole meat, since as I see it is enough to know if you are buying veal or beef casserole meat.
That is what this is about, and that alone!
If you say that the Commission does not even know what form the final system will take, then I have to reply that this is a typical chicken-and-egg situation.
We cannot lay down Commission rules and implementing provisions until a Council regulation is in force.
The category detail is a matter for the implementing provisions.
So you cannot demand guarantees from the Commission as to exactly how the whole system will operate, because we will have to discuss this with the Member States in the Management Committee first.
What you are calling for here is not legally possible, unless you want to make the whole system part of the Council regulation itself.
But that would be another kettle of fish.
That is why I think that the procedure proposed here is correct.
But I can give you one assurance, if you wish: the Commission will be backing the categories that I have mentioned, but not anything more complicated.
We have to be clear about one thing: if we do not introduce these categories, the result will be a return to national labelling systems in this area too. That can surely not be in Europe' s interest.
Of course, politically speaking there is more than one way of looking at this issue.
Although the Commission, and I think I have made this clear, does not agree with those who think that providing this information is impracticable, pointless or prohibitively expensive, I cannot say that a system without this kind of provision is out of the question.
But what the Commission wanted to avoid at all costs was a return to national schemes, which in practice would lead to a total renationalisation of markets, thus undermining the common market.
Surely that is not the idea.
So I believe that we should adhere to the common position in this respect as well.
I would now like to make two brief points. Mr Hudghton asked if it would be possible to display information regarding the area of origin, such as the Orkney Islands for example, on a voluntary basis.
Such voluntary information on area of origin is possible, as long as protected designations of origin are not involved, because it logically follows that protected designations of origin must be protected as such.
That brings me to the last argument put forward by various Members, that is to say the failure to introduce technical requirements.
If we were to gear our decision-making to when it occurs to the last Member State that it is now ready to establish technical requirements, then we would be gearing the process to those who are dragging their feet on compulsory beef labelling. We cannot accept that, it would be counterproductive.
The market will in fact penalise those who were not prepared to establish the technical requirements for beef labelling promptly.
I would therefore ask you to bear these considerations in mind when you vote tomorrow.
I can also assure you that this system will not be as complicated in practice as many of you here imagine.
This is a mock-up of how one of these labels will look in future.
And there is still room for the price and any other information consumers specifically require anyway.
You see, it can work!
Commissioner, this debate is going to go on until we have completed the conciliation process.
Colleagues, I recognise there is a difficulty.
You should corner Mr Fischler individually if you wish to speak to him.
I have been involved in the meat industry for a number of years myself.
The matter is not yet satisfactorily resolved.
Mrs Jackson, do you have a point of order?
I am simply pointing out that the Commissioner should not give the impression that there is no room for conciliation on this.
We have room for conciliation and the advantage, if we adopt these amendments tomorrow, is that Parliament would be openly engaged in the final form of this proposal, which otherwise we will not be.
The matter of raising conciliation will be after the vote tomorrow.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at noon.
Proposal for a regulation on a Community patent
The next item is the Commission communication on the proposal for a regulation on a Community patent.
Mr President, I am very grateful for this opportunity to inform Parliament about a decision which was taken by the Commission this morning relating to a proposal for a regulation to create a Community patent.
That is in line with a request from the Lisbon European Council, which called for such a Community patent to be in place by the year 2001.
Parliament explicitly supported this initiative in its contributions to the extensive consultation process which the Commission launched through its Green Paper on Innovation in Europe in 1997.
We need a Community patent in order to stimulate innovation, which is a key factor for growth, competitiveness and job creation in Europe.
Our industry, as well as our research and scientific community, have stressed for some time now the need for a patent which is affordable, valid throughout the Community and which offers legal security.
That is an ambitious goal.
Our proposal meets this ambitious goal as it aims at creating just such a patent.
The Community patent will co-exist with, and complement, existing systems by offering a more attractive alternative for those businesses, both big and small, operating within the internal market.
Our proposal builds extensively on the existing European patent system which governs the rules and procedures leading to the grant of European patents, and this approach requires that the Community should adhere to the European patent convention.
By virtue of the Community patent regulation, patents delivered by the European Patent Office in Munich may become Community patents.
The Community patent as proposed by the Commission will have the following characteristics: a Community patent will have a unitary character, it will be valid throughout the Community and it will be the subject of a single set of rules.
This will reduce the uncertainty linked to fifteen different national legislations and, of course, after enlargement, many more.
Legal certainty will be considerably reinforced by the creation of a centralized judicial system which will guarantee the quality and coherence of case law relating to Community patents.
The creation of such a centralised jurisdiction requires a change to the EC Treaty.
We now have a window of opportunity with the ongoing Intergovernmental Conference.
We must not miss that opportunity and I should like to count on the vigorous support of Members of this Parliament in order to ensure that the IGC takes up this issue in all earnest.
Finally, our proposal will help to reduce considerably the costs of patents in Europe by not requiring supplementary translations of the patent once it has been delivered in one of the three languages of the European Patent Office.
May I insist on the need for an ambitious approach.
Previous attempts to create a Community patent, in particular through the Luxembourg convention of 1989, failed because of a lack of ambition on the two key issues: firstly, the cost and secondly, the litigation.
We must convince Member States of the need to change the Treaty to create a centralised jurisdiction for Community patent litigation.
When looking at our proposal, one should also anticipate the consequences of enlargement on the costs and litigation in this respect.
If we are anything less than ambitious in this field, we shall simply not provide our industry, our research and development experts with the modern patent which they need.
Mr President, Commissioner, the proposal for a regulation on a Community patent gives us the chance to review cooperation, as you have just said, between the European Patent Office and the Community institutions.
The patent recently issued to the University of Edinburgh poses the problem of the status of the EPO and how to control it.
In the light of what has now been referred to as a mistake, it would appear that Directive 98/44 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions is inaccurate and ambiguous, especially Articles 5(1) and 5(2).
Should the Commission not propose a revision of this directive in order to preclude the possibility of patenting the discovery of a gene or genetic sequence? We must not skimp on this question, especially now that we are introducing a Community patent.
I am very happy to hear that the Commission has decided to limit the number of languages that can be used for the Community patent.
At the moment translation costs are the biggest problem when we try to reduce the costs and speed up the process.
I warmly welcome the proposal and hope that the IGC is ready to make the necessary changes to the Treaties.
But I would like to ask a specific question concerning the process in EPO.
I was under the impression that the process itself would remain more or less the same in the new system.
Why is it that at the moment the EPO uses the system of many experts instead of the system of one expert, which is in use in Japan and the United States? There the patent is granted when one expert has given their opinion.
That is also a factor in making the process in Europe more costly and slower than that of our competitors.
Mr President, I would like firstly to congratulate the Commissioner.
I believe that this is a great achievement.
As he has said, this is probably the most ambitious internal market project we are currently dealing with and I am happy to say this on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and as rapporteur on this issue.
It is ambitious, Commissioner, because, in addition to what you have said, there is a fundamental reason, based on the principles of the internal market, for having a Community patent.
If we want our internal market really to be a domestic market for companies and consumers, the current fragmentation suffered by patents, resulting from national borders, makes no sense.
Having said this, it is an ambitious and difficult project, because, as you have mentioned, it requires a change to the Treaty and to the constitutions of at least four or six Member States.
Therefore, Commissioner, I pray that there will be excellent cooperation between us, which we are going to need, and the capacity for negotiation so that this project can be taken to its conclusion.
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity to reply to the remarks that have just been made.
May I start by thanking Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi for the broad support that she has given the decision by the Commission to promote the Community patent.
As far as Mrs Kauppi is concerned, may I say that the reason that the European Patent Office in Munich uses not just one but a number of experts is that it wants to ensure that the quality of the patent which is granted by the European Patent Office is of the highest quality.
Without wishing to be unduly eurocentric, patents granted in other parts of the world, in particular one part which is across the water, if I may put it that way, are not of the same quality as the patents granted by the European Patent Office in Munich.
So in this case I am afraid that we must continue to place security and quality above purely financial considerations.
That is the reason why the European Patent Office uses more than one expert.
On the first question, the Commission is aware of the concerns that have been raised in France and elsewhere about the directive and in particular about possible inconsistencies between two paragraphs of Article 5 of the directive.
The President of France, Mr Jacques Chirac, has written to President Prodi on this question.
May I stress that in my opinion there is no contradiction between the first two paragraphs of that article, the wording of which I believe relies heavily on suggestions made by this Parliament.
The first paragraph provides that the human body at various stages of its formation and development and the simple discovery of one of its elements, including the sequence or partial sequence of a gene, cannot constitute patentable inventions.
This paragraph is clearly in line with the basic principle that discoveries are not patentable.
However the second paragraph of Article 5 states that an element isolated from the human body or otherwise produced by means of a technical process, including the sequence or the partial sequence of a gene, may constitute a patentable invention, even if the structure of that element is identical to that of a natural element.
Here the invention arises from the isolation of a particular gene from its natural surroundings or by its production by means of a technical process.
Of course to be patentable, that invention would still need to satisfy the criteria of novelty, inventiveness and industrial applicability.
In respect of this last requirement, industrial applicability, the directive makes it clear that the industrial application of the gene must be specified in the patent application.
A note setting out the Commission's position on this issue has been placed on our website.
Needless to say the Commission will reply to President Chirac's letter and take a position on the issues he has raised.
Our proposal on a Community patent, which is the subject of the discussion this afternoon, does not affect the existing regime, which is governed by the directive of 1998.
That directive is due to be implemented by the end of this month and it should also bind the European Patent Office.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is important that you emphasised the coexistence of the national patents, European patents and Community patents.
I still wonder, however, how decentralised the research regime will be with regard to the Community patents.
It was expressly mentioned in the reply from Parliament in the Green Paper that you mentioned.
I am also pleased that we will achieve legal certainty.
I think, however, that it could have been achieved in a different way and without creating a Community patent.
One question that is important to deal with here in Parliament, and that will definitely be something that affects the linguistic diversity within the EU, is also whether we will guarantee equality between small and medium-sized enterprises that operate in all parts of our Union.
I also think it is important that in all parts of the Union we are able to retain the knowledge that is associated with research patents.
When we recently discussed the research White Paper, we all took the view that it was vital to move forward on this topic because it was important not only to do very good research in Europe, but also to optimise the conditions for its industrial exploitation.
So on that account I welcome Commissioner Bolkenstein's statement.
The word 'centralisation' is unfortunate in this context because it suggests a single centre of what is already a polycentric community.
I take it his real meaning is that there will be one court for the whole Community, not that it will necessarily be in a place which will be geographically central.
Finally, I gather that it is proposed that software might be patented.
My Group would be very unhappy about such a proposal.
It seems to us that copyright is the right way to protect software and that introducing patents in this sphere would be unhelpful and contrary to good legal principle.
We welcome the fact that this is going to be a great spur to innovation and development and the competitiveness of European industry in the future if it does get through the IGC and onto the statute book.
Following up Mrs Fraisse's question and your response to that, the borderline must be established as to what is acceptable for patenting and what is not.
In the biotechnology area there is still this grey area.
You purported to have reached an absolute decision on this.
Is there any room for manoeuvre or is that the absolutely determined and settled position of the Commission as you said in your earlier answer?
- May I explain that the Commission's proposal, if accepted by Parliament and by the Council, does not take away any possibilities that at present exist.
So if the Commission's proposal is accepted there will be three ways of getting patents.
First of all there will be the national patents which will be delivered in the national language and will be granted by the national office for the granting of patents.
That exists now and will continue to exist.
The second possibility that will continue to exist is the European patent granted by the European Patent Office.
The European patent is not to be confused with the Community patent.
The European patent is a basket of national patents, so an inventor would apply for a patent, for example, for Benelux, France and Germany, five countries out of 15.
If the application is approved he would get a patent for those five countries, and jurisdiction would be spread over the courts of those five countries.
That possibility - that is the reality at the moment - will continue to exist.
The third possibility we are now discussing is one patent of unitary character, in other words it is granted and then it applies to the whole Community.
That is why it is called the Community patent.
May I stress that this is an option inventors have, they can go either for a national patent or for a European patent or for a Community patent.
The Commission does not intend to take away any possibilities that exist at present.
Let me address Mrs Thors who asked about decentralisation in this field.
We cannot have it both ways.
We cannot have our cake and eat it.
In other words, if we want a Community patent, granted at a single place, namely Munich, which at one go applies to the whole Community, we must have a central jurisdiction to judge litigation for patents.
That is why the Commission has proposed that a tribunal to judge litigation in the case of intellectual property be set up, and the logical place for that tribunal to exist is in Luxembourg.
That is also what I would like to say to Mr MacCormick.
We are not concerned here with any geographical centrality - although I must admit I do not know whether Luxembourg is or is not in the centre of the European Union.
Certainly with the enlargement of the European Union the geographic centre of the Union would shift eastwards.
We have chosen the place where the European Court of Justice is located for the Community's tribunal on intellectual property.
May I come back to Mrs Thors and say that as far as small and medium-sized enterprises are concerned, the Commission proposal does not take away any possibilities for small and medium-sized enterprises to partake of inventions published by the European Patent Office.
75% of patents are delivered in English, and the current language in the world of intellectual property, in the world of patents, is English.
Secondly there are national patent offices.
Let them use their capacity to enlighten small and medium enterprises about what is going on in Munich and what has been published in English, French or German.
In that way they can stimulate and help the small and medium enterprises existing in those respective countries.
Lastly, on the matter of patents for biotechnological inventions, which was raised both in the previous round of questions and just now again, may I stress that the decision taken by the Commission this morning does not change anything in the area that was alluded to by both speakers.
The question then arises: does the Commission have room for manoeuvre in this respect? Only those people who have no ideas never change their ideas, so it would be bizarre if the Commission had no room for manoeuvre.
We are considering that, we have received the letter from the President of the French Republic, we shall answer that letter obviously, there is already a note which is available on our website and we shall do our best to steer a course which is the most sensible one.
Mr President, I would like to follow up Mrs Kauppi' s question, in relation to the strategy on the level of invention.
A high level of invention has the advantage that it is easy to defend in court, because revocation proceedings are of course a huge problem.
A low level of invention has the advantage that many companies and inventors can submit their inventions and obtain a patent very quickly.
That is why I believe that the strategic level Europe is to adopt is a vital issue, because the Japanese, for instance, have now adopted the principle of a low level of invention and accordingly have a flood of applications.
Europe and the European Patent Office in fact have a very high level of inventiveness.
I believe that this is enormously significant as an instrument of economic policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to congratulate you on presenting this proposal.
Indeed we all hope that in the interests of the competitiveness of the European Union, this unending Community patent saga will now have a happy ending.
That is why it was right - and I would like to specifically support you here - not to overburden this proposal with sensitive issues such as patent protection for biotechnology products.
I also entreat my fellow Members not to raise issues of principle on language matters.
This is a special field subject to special arrangements.
Commissioner, with regard to jurisdiction, you just mentioned in passing that the relevant jurisdiction would of course be in Luxembourg.
I hope that was not a reference to a possible location for the European Patent Court.
It would possibly make more sense for it to be located in Munich together with the European Patent Office, because all the necessary expertise is available there, which would facilitate cooperation.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Bolkestein warmly on the initiative he has shown, the energy he has displayed and the success he has achieved in respect of the European Community patent.
I would like to ask him four questions. As I understand it, some Commissioners, as well as people other than Commissioners, have problems with the proposed language system.
I am not fanatical about languages, but I do wonder why there should be three languages and not five, as is the case in the Community Trademark Office. Would this cause a real problem?
Secondly, the decision to convert the office in Munich into an EU agency has to be approved unanimously by fifteen governments.
Is that a problem?
Thirdly, on the position of the European Parliament, we do not really have much of a say.
Does this mean that the European Parliament, which has worked harder than anyone else to achieve a European Community patent, will not be involved, or at least be updated in good time and on a regular basis?
Finally, what is the latest on the future expansion of the Community patent?
Six questions have been put by three Members of your assembly.
Perhaps I may deal with them one by one.
Firstly, on the matter of thresholds, the only threshold I am aware of is a threshold of quality and we must continue to provide patents which satisfy definite criteria of quality.
Earlier this afternoon I replied to a question by Mrs Kauppi where she asked why the European Patent Office did not satisfy itself with just one expert and the reason I gave is that we need the highest quality patents and therefore it is sometimes necessary to use more than one expert.
I do not think we should adulterate the quality of the patents delivered by the European Patent Office and therefore we should maintain the threshold as it is.
The same Member of Parliament asked about jurisdiction.
Once again, a Community patent needs a Community jurisdiction and it seems to us that this court which will consist of specialised judges but which of course forms part of the whole court system of the European Union would be best placed in Luxembourg, but that is purely a matter of the location of the court.
On competitiveness, may I say that is one of the prime considerations why we engaged in this whole exercise.
Business and the research community want a single patent available at one go for the whole Community and one that is cheap.
The average cost of European patents is three times the cost of an average Japanese patent and five times the cost of an average American patent.
Obviously this is to the detriment of European competitiveness.
As far as the languages are concerned, and here I come to a question put by Mr De Clercq, if we followed the Luxembourg Convention of 1989, which meant that all patents had to be translated into 11 languages, the cost of that translation alone would be EUR 17,000 on average, whereas the system the Commission is now proposing will cost EUR 2,000.
That is also the reason why the Luxembourg convention was never operative.
It was concluded but it was not ratified in the Member States required and therefore it never became operative and that is because we were not ambitious enough either in the jurisdiction or in the costs.
Mr De Clercq says why can we not have five languages.
The reason is that the construction of the Community patent is such that the European Patent Office grants a patent for the whole Community and therefore we will leave the whole process up to the granting of the patent as it is now.
After that it becomes valid throughout the Community and then there is a court to sit on litigation, but up to the granting of the patent itself the European Patent Office will continue to work as it does now.
May I point out that the European Patent Office is not a Community agency.
There is a European Patent Convention and 15 Member States have signed the Convention but a number of other states have also signed it so the Commission cannot tell the European Patent Office what its language arrangements should be.
Therefore when Mr De Clercq says why could the European Patent Office not become an agency of the European Union my answer is that the European Union must sign up to the European Patent Convention and should negotiate that but it is no longer realistic to expect the European Patent Office to become a Union agency.
The penultimate point, raised by Mr De Clercq, was about the codecision procedure.
That will remain as it normally is and therefore Parliament will play its normal role in considering the mandates and the aims of the Commission when these issues are decided in full this autumn.
Lastly, when enlargement takes place the Union will become bigger, obviously, and the Community patent will then apply to the countries that have acceded to the European Union.
There is no other way of keeping and maintaining a Community patent.
Once again, the two other possibilities will continue to exist, so there will continue to be a Polish National Patent and there will also continue to be a European Patent which may if the applicant wishes, include Poland.
Let us hope that most European businesses and most European research experts will promote the shift from the European Patent to the Community Patent so that the competitiveness of the European Union is improved as much as possible.
Thank you very much for your replies, Mr Bolkestein.
That concludes the Commission' s statement and the subsequent debate.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0532/00). We will examine questions to the Commission.
First part
Question No 25 by (H-0549/00):
Subject: Cybercrime Work is in progress to tackle cybercrime (Council of Europe, the G7' s Lyon Group).
In addition, the Commission has recently made proposals and is now considering taking new measures at Community level to combat crime.
Apparently the Commission is discussing a paper with the Member States without even informing Parliament that it is doing so.
One of the measures under consideration is a requirement for service-providers to gather and store traffic data and, upon request, supply it to the authorities.
Does the Commission realise that such a measure could present enormous risks to personal data protection and the protection of sensitive commercial data and would facilitate industrial and economic espionage?
Does the Commission realise that such a measure might destroy users' confidence in the Internet?
Does the Commission realise that such a measure would be inconsistent with the Commission' s recent eEurope initiative, the aim of which was to encourage the use of the Internet both by private individuals and by businesses?
Mr President, Mrs Cederschiöld, Members of Parliament, since December 1999 the Commission has undertaken informal consultations with representatives from Member States' law enforcement and personal data protection authorities and from European industry, mostly Internet service providers and telecommunications operators, with a view to drafting the communication announced in its annual work programme on possible options for further action by the European Union against computer-related crime.
The Commission considers that any solution to the complex issue of preservation of traffic data should achieve a fair balance between the different needs and interests of those involved, while fully ensuring fundamental human rights with regard to privacy and personal data protection.
There are quite different, important concerns to be taken into account.
On the one hand, privacy protection authorities have considered that the most effective means of reducing unacceptable risks to privacy, while recognising the need for effective law enforcement, is that traffic data should in principle not be kept only for law enforcement purposes.
On the other hand, law enforcement authorities have stated that they consider the preservation of a minimum amount of traffic data for a minimum period of time necessary to facilitate criminal investigations.
Adequate security of any preserved traffic data will have to be ensured.
Industry should be helped in the fight against crimes like hacking and computer fraud, but not be confronted with measures that are unreasonably costly.
Furthermore, industry will have a key role to play in contributing on a voluntary basis to the process of creating a safer information society.
Users should have confidence in the safety of the information society and feel protected from crime and from infringements of their privacy.
The e-Europe draft Action Plan, prepared by the Commission and very recently adopted by the Santa Maria da Feira Summit of the European Council, includes the establishment of a coordinated and coherent approach to cyber-crime by the end of 2002 in order to ensure greater cooperation on these key issues.
In the same context of the e-Europe initiative, as well as in the multiannual action plan on safer use of the Internet, the Commission plans to support a number of actions aimed at stimulating the use of the Internet and promoting security and confidence among the users.
I would like to say thank you very much for a nice reply, which, however, did not quite answer my questions.
We perhaps, therefore, need to discuss this in the future in order to get a complete answer.
We all want to combat cyber crime.
It is important that it is crime that is curbed and not the new economy.
To this end, all parties concerned must be involved in this consultation and present their views in good time.
This not only applies to the EU institutions and Member States, but also to the consumer and industry, so that we do not find ourselves in a situation of inconsistency in which one hand is doing something relating to the eEurope initiative, while at the same time we are doing something else in connection with crime.
It is a question of creating confidence in development if e-commerce is to work.
Therefore, the work cannot be carried out in secret.
Rather, it is important that we obtain analyses in this area of the consequences of the proposals.
In Feira it is precisely consumer confidence that is being identified as a key factor for the development of e-commerce.
I would like to conclude with a follow-up question: when will we get an assessment of the consequences for consumers, industry and economic espionage, which may otherwise be in danger of developing?
I share the view of the honourable Member in the sense that we cannot conduct this exercise in a secret way.
It is not the intention of the Commission to do anything in secret generally and more specifically, in this area.
On the contrary, we are trying to promote broad consultation on this issue, which is a very difficult one.
Nobody has yet found the right answer.
We have to follow the discussions that are going on in several international fora, for example the special convention the Council of Europe is preparing on cybercrime and the discussion on OECD.
We also need to follow very closely the evolution of the legislative amendments that are being introduced in several Member States, dealing with the very sensitive question of retaining traffic data for the purpose of law enforcement.
As I have said to Mrs Cederschiöld, the e-initiative action plan will also include a list of actions aimed at reinforcing security for the users of the Internet and also on the specific question of e-commerce.
According to the timetable fixed by the Summit of Santa Maria Da Feira these actions will be implemented in the next few months and we will get the assessment that the honourable Member mentioned in her question.
I was impressed by the Commissioner's balanced response to this question but it does not fit particularly well with the UK Government's proposal that the secret services - MI5 and MI6 - should perform surveillance of all Internet traffic.
They intend to demand the surrender of encryption codes and to penalise those who fail to surrender them even if the codes have been lost and are unobtainable.
Does the Commission consider that this proposal is, firstly, consistent with civil rights, as enunciated for the Community, and, secondly, in the interests of the development of Internet use in the European Union, as rhetorically advocated by everyone, including in particular the British Prime Minister?
I share your view that the question of having a strategy for encryption at European level is a key tool in enhancing security in the use of the Internet.
But as you can imagine, in this new field we have to address the need to reinforce security on the basis of the subsidiarity principle, in the sense that we have to recognise that each Member State is entitled to adopt its own national legislation to guarantee law enforcement at national level.
What we in the Commission do is to coordinate efforts at European level to guarantee law enforcement.
Our approach is to guarantee minimum common levels of law enforcement at European level, which does not prevent Member States introducing more stringent or national legislation.
Nevertheless a comparison of national legislations would be an important factor when we adopt common rules at European level.
I cannot give you a broad picture at the moment because in several Member States, such as the UK, legislation is still under preparation and has not yet been fully adopted by the national parliaments.
Question No 26 by Mr Watts will not be replied to since it is included in the agenda of the current part-session.
Question No 27 by (H-0543/00):
Subject: Non-allied status of certain EU Member States At the Feira European Council discussions are being held on the EU' s defence dimension, and the matter is also up for discussion at the IGC.
Some EU Member States do not belong to the NATO military alliance.
What is the Commission' s view of the position of these Member States in any future EU defence cooperation?
The European Union has made remarkable progress in shaping a European security and defence policy over the past year.
From Cologne via Helsinki to Feira we have gone from an ambitious vision to concrete targets, first military and now also civilian headline goals and the establishment of new specific structures.
This very welcome development has given substance to the objectives of the 'Petersberg principles' as set out in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Like their incorporation into the Treaty a few years ago this has only been possible with the full and active support of all Member States.
It is too early to say whether any further Treaty change in this area is required at this stage.
There has been no formal discussion of the European Union's defence dimension in the IGC framework so far.
The presidency report to Feira indicated that the conclusions of Cologne and Helsinki could be implemented without it being legally necessary to amend the Treaty unless the Council's decision-making powers were to be altered or the Treaty's provisions regarding the WEU needed to be amended.
The presidency has suggested that the issue of a revision of the ESDP provisions in the Treaty should remain open to examination as required before the Nice European Council.
As for the specific question of the position in any future defence cooperation of EU Member States that do not belong to Nato, this is first and foremost an issue to be addressed by the Member States concerned.
What is clear is that the military headline goal agreed at the Helsinki European Council will require a concerted and coordinated effort by all Member States.
As to the shape of individual national military contributions, these will be discussed at the pledging conference to be held in the autumn under the French presidency.
Again, how non-Nato EU states view their role and what their contribution to the defence dimension of the European Union should be is rightfully for these Member States to say.
But it may be helpful to distinguish between two component parts of the overall European security and defence equation, the Petersberg tasks of peace-keeping and peace enforcement on the one hand and territorial defence on the other.
The European Union's stated aim is to be ready to support action within the framework of Petersberg tasks.
All EU Member States have agreed this and are ready to contribute to it.
The excellent record of the European neutrals in the field of peacekeeping and crisis management operations has come very much to the fore in the new European security context.
All four Member States which are not also members of Nato are contributing actively and constructively to the development of CFSB in general and to the European security and defence policy in particular.
Their contribution to the last IGC was indeed crucial to the inclusion of the Petersberg tasks in the new Treaty.
Finally, I have no doubt that their contribution in this area - materially as well as in the ongoing discussions shaping the new structures of cooperation will continue to be both active and ambitious, be it in the military or non-military dimensions of conflict prevention, conflict resolution and crisis management.
Mr President, Commissioner, I thank you for your full reply.
I would still like to have a more specific idea of those principles that were decided upon at the Feira meeting.
There the concept of flexibility was adopted for the intergovernmental conference.
I would ask you whether it is your interpretation that this concept has now been extended to Pillar II issues.
As I said, I do not think it is necessary to have any treaty change.
That is my personal view, but I am sure that will be considered by Member States during the course of the next few months.
One issue which, of course, bears directly on the flexibility under Pillar II to which the honourable gentlemen referred is the whole question of Article 5 of the WEU, which is not being transferred to the EU, and this may of course have been behind the question.
What is being transferred is the Petersberg tasks alone, with of course the institutional and administrative mechanisms which are at the disposal of the European Union.
There are various possibilities about what will happen to the collective defence clause but it is not, given my responsibilities, really a question for me.
Pillar II issues have to be addressed to the Member States but, given our related responsibilities under Pillar I, we take an interest.
Question No 28 by (H-0555/00):
Subject: International Criminal Court The Commission, and particularly the Commissioner for humanitarian aid, played an important role in the setting-up of the new, permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) in June 1998.
The adoption of the Rome Statute - on which the ICC is founded - was an important step in breaking the tendency towards the systematic use of rape as a strategy of war.
The Statute is the first international accord to stipulate that rape, sexual slavery and forced pregnancy may be treated as crimes against humanity and war crimes.
However, to become a reality, the Rome Statute must be ratified by 60 States.
Although all the EU Member States have signed the Statute, only Italy, unfortunately, has ratified it..
What initiatives does the Commission intend to take to ensure that this important Statute is ratified?
The Commission is aware that so far two Member States, Italy and France, have ratified the ICC Convention.
However most Member States will ratify the Convention during this year, including some already this summer such as Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.
Other Member States will shortly present legislation to their parliaments.
The Commission supports NGO initiatives that promote the establishment of the ICC.
In 1999 about EUR 1.5 million was allocated to such activities in line with the budgetary comments for budget line B7706 of Chapter B77.
Mr President, it is, of course, gratifying that several EU countries are about to ratify this agreement.
It is in fact two years since we adopted the agreement. At the same time it only needs a fifth of the 60 countries to ratify it in order for the treaty to come into effect.
It is, of course, very doubtful whether it will be done in time for December this year. It is, however, extremely important, because the treaty from the Rome Conference is the first international agreement that establishes that rape and forced pregnancy can be treated as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Experience from those courts we have set up, namely the war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, clearly show that the present system is inadequate for dealing with the type of crimes I have just mentioned.
However, in order for the ICC to be able to work, broad international support is necessary.
My question to the Commission is therefore: Have you any plans at all to try to persuade important countries such as the United States, Russia and Japan to also sign the agreement from the Rome Conference?
First of all I wholly endorse what the honourable Member has said about the importance of the statute's inclusion of crimes of sexual violence as crimes against humanity when, as has been the case, they are committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.
What we have seen in that context and in other criminal activities is of course the most powerful argument for us getting ahead with ratification of the convention by as many countries as possible.
I think I am right in saying that 160 nations decided to establish the international criminal court and the statute of the court was approved by about 120 states, so there should be no problem in moving from the 50 who have ratified to the 60 figure which we require in order to move things forward.
We have certainly pursued the importance of ratification with the United States.
We do not, as the honourable Member will know, accept the US position on the ICC.
We continue to argue our case with them and we will argue it with Russia and Japan and other countries as well.
It comes up fairly regularly in our bilateral contacts and I would make sure that it did if that were not the case.
We think this is potentially an extremely important institution, particularly in view of some of the appalling things that have happened in the last few years.
The sooner the court can sit, the better for everyone.
Mr President, does the Commission think it possible that the European Community will be associated with the Rome Convention? If it is, what would be the relation between the Court of Justice of the European Communities and the ICC?
There are questions of our judicial personality or lack of judicial personality which have a direct bearing on that.
What we are concerned about at present, and this is very much where the Commission comes in - is encouraging all our Member States to ratify and encouraging some of our partners and colleagues in the international community to do so as well.
That has to be our objective in order to make sure that the provisions that were so widely supported in Rome actually lead to the establishment of a functioning court as soon as possible.
The Commission is fully aware of the environmental problems in the Alpine corridors, but points out that it must act in a balanced way in order to take account of the different interests at play in this kind of situation.
The Brenner is one of the crucial transit routes via the Alps and is therefore a good example of the need to act in a balanced way, with regard to both railways and roads, in order to protect the environment and, at the same time, guarantee the free movement of goods.
As regards the railways, the Commission - as the honourable Members know - supports the measures adopted by the Member States to develop and implement the Brenner railway project.
The Brenner high speed railway line has been included on the list of maximum priority Community projects and has received considerable Community funding via the Trans-European Networks.
With regard to the roads, we must stress that an increase in road traffic in no way automatically implies more pollution.
For example, the Eco-point system has shown that the emissions of polluting gases from lorries in transit through Austria have dropped despite the increase in the number of journeys made.
In general, the Commission will continue to seek solutions to the environmental problems caused by traffic.
In this respect you should be aware that the Commission has committed itself, in this year' s working programme, to producing a communication on traffic in the sensitive regions of the European Union, which include the Alpine region.
The result of this communication will have an influence on the future actions envisaged which, according to the initial guidelines, will include a coherent package of supplementary measures to reduce the effect of traffic in sensitive areas: technical standards to improve environmental and safety requirements, instruments for setting tariffs in order to adjust the levels relating to transport to the real cost of transport in all its forms, and an increase in the efficiency of transport, especially by improving intermodality, and increasing the competitivity of rail transport.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for her comments and for her willingness, which she expressed several times before this House, to take into due consideration the environmental impact on an alpine area which is made particularly vulnerable by its altitude and its geographical location.
We have proposed new solutions in draft form, which have also recently been put forward to the Commissioner.
I consider that this proposal could be a pilot solution for the new projects and the concept of European Union transport as a whole.
I hope that the willingness hitherto displayed by the Commissioner will be mirrored throughout the rest of the Commission and that her intentions will receive majority backing from the European Commission as well.
Commission. (ES) Mr President, I simply wish to thank the Member for this intervention and say that, of course, we are going to go ahead with the Brenner project, although, given its technical difficulties, it is not a project which can be carried out overnight.
However, I hope that, before concluding the period set for the 14 Essen projects, the Brenner project will be under way.
Mr President, we all know that there is an atmosphere of crisis on the Brenner, and I think that it is imperative to discuss plans for extending it and to look at pricing again, because we simply have to get a hold on the situation.
My question is this: do you have any actual plans - we have already had the Green Paper - to put efficient transport pricing, particularly on the Brenner model, into practice?
Question No 30 by (H-0524/00):
Subject: The use of Community funds by Turkey The 22 January 2000 edition of the Turkish 'Hürriyet' newspaper reported that some of the funds provided by the European Union to assist the victims of the earthquake which occurred last year were used to purchase 35 automobiles to a value of TRL 500 billion to facilitate travel by Turkish MPs. Can the Commission state what was the total amount of funding granted by the European Union to Turkey following the disastrous earthquake last year and what measures were taken to ensure that the Community funds were properly used?
What is the Commission' s position concerning the above allegation contained in the 'Hürriyet' , a Turkish newspaper with a very wide circulation? More specifically, will the Commission demand the return of those funds which were used for purposes other than that for which they were intended, in flagrant violation of Community rules, in order to satisfy consumerist requirements of Turkish MPs rather than providing assistance to the victims of the tragic earthquake?
First let me pass on the information that the European Commission via the Humanitarian Aid Office, ECHO, allocated a total amount of EUR 30 million to aid the victims of the earthquakes in Turkey last year.
The programmes were started in August and are still ongoing.
As to the specific question relating to an article in a Turkish newspaper on the 22 January, I can say that there is no Community funding involved in what this article relates to.
We have received assurances on this from two different sources.
Written confirmation has been received from the Commission's representation office in Ankara that the article in question makes no reference to European Union or any external source of funds.
Also there has been confirmation from ECHO's office in Istanbul that the Turkish Parliament Foundation is a private organisation established by, and financed by, the parliament members individually.
The way the money is being used is decided by the council of the parliament after being voted by the members.
The background for the newspaper article was that a unilateral decision was made by the head of the Turkish parliament to allocate funds to the earthquake area.
These funds had earlier been earmarked for the purchase of 35 cars for members of the parliamentary council and the council members objected to this reallocation considering that the original decision to buy new cars should be reinstated in the interest of cost-effectiveness.
The funds in question actually belong to the Turkish Parliament Foundation and this is financed by the members of parliament in Turkey.
So we have absolutely nothing to do with this matter and for that reason I cannot promise any kind of follow-up action either.
My warmest thanks to the Commissioner for his detailed reply to my question and for his reassurance that the funds provided by the European Union were not used to buy cars for use by certain Turkish MPs.
What bothers me is the fact that the Hürriyet, which is, I believe, the most widely read Turkish newspaper, did not meet with any denial on the part of the Turkish Government and, as we all know, freedom of the press is something of a problem in Turkey.
Journalists who go off the straight and narrow and report this sort of information are not just reprimanded, they are usually thrown in jail and sometimes even killed.
But I do want to believe that the reply given by the Commissioner following a thorough investigation by the European Union authorities in Turkey paints the right picture.
If indeed no such thing has happened, allow me to make a little joke by saying that, in that case, instead of giving these cars to Turkish MPs, they should give them to the MEPs in the regions, who are unable to use their cars and travel by public transport.
I would ask Members to limit themselves to new questions or supplementary questions.
I understand the importance of your assessments, but we must abide by the Rules of Procedure.
Question No 31 by (H-0540/00):
Subject: Developing countries and farm animal welfare What steps is the Commission taking, both through the Community' s development programme and its influence on the world stage, to encourage developing countries not to adopt industrial animal husbandry systems, as these pose serious threats to poverty alleviation, the environment, human health and animal welfare in developing countries?
The question reads 'Does the Commission coordinate with EU Member States and other international institutions on the problem of industrialisation of animal husbandry' and the answer is yes.
The Commission participates actively in the Livestock Environment and Development initiative.
The members of the steering committee here are Denmark, France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, the UK, the USA, Costa Rica, EFAT, the World Bank, the FAO, Senegal, India, China and Kenya.
The initiative's targets are the protection and enhancement of natural resources as affected by livestock production while alleviating poverty.
Earlier work under this initiative has identified on a global scale the consequences of increased pressure on grazing and mixing farming systems, and the dangers of the shift to industrial modes of production.
It has highlighted the close and complex interaction between government policies and the environmental impact of livestock production, and identified a large number of technologies which are available to mitigate the negative effects in all different production modes, provided the appropriate policy framework is in place.
So this is something we are giving quite some attention to.
The problem is that it is very big and it will probably be growing, but we are participating actively in the best international efforts to do something meaningful.
I thank the Commissioner for that helpful answer and I am very pleased to hear that these issues are being taken seriously.
I wonder though if the Commissioner would say whether or not he would agree that intensive agriculture is not likely to be the way forward for north or south when we consider that the world population at the end of this century will be 10 billion.
If they were all to aspire to eat a US diet we would need four planets the size of earth to produce the extra 9 billion tonnes of grain required.
And, in particular, would he agree, or disagree with the FAO when they say that the trend of further intensification of demand in production is inescapable? I find that a very worrying statement coming out of the Food and Agriculture authority and would like to know very much whether or not the Commissioner agrees that such intensification is inevitable or would he agree that there are other alternatives and that those are alternatives that all of us ought to be promoting and pursuing?
The problem is that, as groups of people in even quite poor countries earn a better way of living, their diet changes.
This is a very clear pattern and demand for more protein is also increasing.
These statistics, the extrapolation if you will, should be taken quite seriously.
On the other hand, many projections have been made about where we would be today, which are definitely not being fulfilled.
We adopted in the Community already in 1989 a directive on the protection of animals kept for farming purposes.
In addition, a protocol annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam relates to the protection and welfare of animals, and these policies and ideas are of course taken into account in the Community's development aid in the livestock sector.
We have never supported any husbandry industrialisation project, but we have been supportive of an intensification of traditional farming systems of benefit to smallholders, and environmental conservation has always been taken carefully into account.
We are using and taking seriously environmental analyses of the consequences of these activities wherever we are supporting agriculture.
Mr President, what exactly does the Commission consider to be defined, and I quote from the question, as 'industrial animal-husbandry systems'. Would it not be unreasonable to discourage developing countries from employing modern, efficient, cost-effective and humane systems of animal husbandry?
The distinction is as difficult to make in a developing country environment as it is in Europe.
This is clear to everybody.
However, the poverty dimension in what we are trying to support and promote means that more intensified small-scale production is what we are supporting.
As to the problems related to genuinely industrial-scale activities in this sector, we are working with the group of other donors and countries involved whom I mentioned, in order to do this as sustainably and acceptably as possible.
Question No 32 by (H-0567/00):
Subject: Mr Gavin Howard and the Programme de Développement de la Région Nord (PDRN II) EEC (DG VIII) In a letter dated 2 February 2000 to Commissioner Nielson, I asked the Commission to resolve the compensation problems of a UK national, Mr Gavin Howard, who had previously worked as a technical adviser on an EU-sponsored project in the Central African Republic in 1996.
As a result of events well beyond his control, much of his equipment and many of his belongings were ransacked while he was working on the project.
Since 1996, he has sought compensation for the losses that he suffered whilst working for the EU, since he maintains that he was covered by EU insurance.
Full details of this case have been previously forwarded to Mr Nielson's private office.
Will the Commission agree to compensate Mr Howard for his losses?
The mutiny which took place in 1996 in the Central African Republic caused considerable hardship and personal danger to a number of people working there.
Thankfully they were safely evacuated.
Mr Howard was under contract to an association of consultants.
It is for Mr Howard's employer to consider any payment to him which might be possible or provided for under the terms of the contract.
Compensation for the loss of personal belongings out of EDF funds is not justifiable in a situation of force majeure.
Mr Howard was not directly contracted as a staff member by us but was working for a company.
I regret the delay in providing the honourable Member with the information requested.
The answer I have given today will be confirmed in writing shortly.
Well that did not hurt, did it?
I have been waiting for that reply since 2 February and I simply cannot understand why it has taken the Commission so long to come up with that negative.
I accept the negative, but the fact of the matter is that I am a Member of the European Parliament.
I have been waiting five months for that reply.
Why?
My reaction to this is that I cannot understand it either but from the moment I was directly informed about this we started reacting.
I would unfortunately have to put this one in the category of cases showing what some of the problems are between the services in the Commission.
Question No 33 by (H-0573/00):
Subject: Humanitarian aid for the Chechen people How much humanitarian aid has the Commission sent to date to the civilian population in Chechnya - including expellees in neighbouring countries - and how has it sent it, and what is the programme for the remainder of the year?
- Since the beginning of the present conflict the European Commission, via its humanitarian aid office, has allocated a total of EUR 12.6 million in humanitarian aid to the victims of this on-going emergency.
This total amount is composed of two decisions taken in the autumn of 1999, one of them relating to EUR 2.4 million, the other for EUR 10.2 million allocated under the 2000 budget.
A little more than EUR 10 million are currently under implementation.
ECHO is constantly monitoring the further development of the situation and a contingency of EUR 4.8 million for the northern Caucusus has been set aside within ECHO's annual budget, so financially we are prepared to do more.
If the evolution of the situation should require, these additional funds then can be mobilised.
Among ECHO's implementing partners are the UNHCR, the ICRC and several European NGOs.
During the first months of the crisis, humanitarian operations mainly focused on the important concentrations of internally displaced persons in Ingushetia and to some extent on the limited number of victims who have found refuge in Georgia and Daghestan.
More recently operations have increasingly been focusing on Chechnya itself.
Unfortunately humanitarian aid work in some areas of Chechnya strongly affected by the hostilities is still not possible, as lack of security makes these areas inaccessible.
ECHO programmes in the northern Caucusus cover a broad range of aid sectors, for example, food, medical aid, shelter, water, sanitation, essential relief items and psycho-social assistance.
Planning of future assistance has to take into account the volatility of the situation on the ground.
In order to facilitate programming, ECHO carried out a technical assessment mission in Chechnya in May.
Pending a positive evolution of the general working environment, a further increase in operations inside Chechnya itself will be a major priority.
Bearing in mind that a quick return of all the displaced persons currently residing in Ingushetia becomes more and more unlikely, it will also be necessary to duly take into consideration an adequate follow-up to the on-going operations in this area.
Commissioner, thank you very much for your detailed reply.
I would like to ask a supplementary question: what is the position on funds already spent? What proportion went direct to the Chechens affected and what proportion was channelled via Russian institutions, authorities and organisations?
- It all went to the people who were supposed to be the beneficiaries, in spite of the fact that I was very careful to announce to Parliament that this would have to be what we call a remote-controlled operation because of the situation there.
We have been able to do it in a fashion which we are quite happy with.
We have not been using Russian organisations in a way that gives any concern.
So we are quite pleased.
What we are not pleased with has been the lack of more direct access into Chechnya.
Thank you very much, Mr Nielson.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Commissioner has elapsed, Question No 34 will be replied to in writing.
Questions to Mr Barnier
I should like to give Mr Nogueira Román as accurate an answer as possible on this extremely important question, which he is not the first to raise, i.e. the application of the principle of additionality during the management and implementation of the Structural Funds, for which I am responsible.
Mr Nogueira Román, I pay close attention to the information which we request and which the Member States send to us on this question.
I am able to tell you that, to date, the Commission has not identified any Member State which has failed to apply the principle of additionality when implementing the Structural Funds, as defined in the general regulation, especially since Berlin.
However, to be perfectly objective, I do realise that, since this principle was introduced in 1989, difficulties have arisen as regards the transmission of information to the Commission by a number of Member States, from the point of view both of the methodology used and the regularity and frequency of the reports.
In view of these problems and in order to solve them, the Council decided, at the Commission's proposal, to simplify the control and application of additionality for the new programming period starting this year and ending in 2006.
As a result, Mr Nogueira Román, additionality is now only verified three times during the period, rather than annually.
In the same spirit, each Member State is allowed a certain degree of flexibility in setting the starting point for average expenditure between 1994 and 1999.
At this stage, I am, objectively-speaking, satisfied with the ex ante verification of additionality prior to the adoption of programming documents for 2000-2006.
But that does not mean that I shall relax my vigilance, nor does it mean that I shall stop asking questions; as I have reminded several governments, I shall continue to monitor the application of additionality closely.
Most Member States have sent in appropriate information, especially regarding funding.
This information indicates, generally speaking, that their own structural public expenditure has been maintained and, in most cases, that there will be an average substantial increase in this expenditure between 2000 and 2006.
Madam President, Commissioner Barnier, I would like to thank you for your proposal.
As you will understand, my question - based as it was on the moral conviction that many States, including, I am quite sure, Spain, are not observing the principle of additionality - was in part a rhetorical one designed to elicit a response from you.
In any case, as it is obvious that failure to observe the principle of additionality has very serious adverse effects in countries which are less economically developed and have higher levels of unemployment, I would like to ask if you are willing to put in place new and much needed conceptual policy administration instruments which would genuinely, and with the full force of the law, prevent a practice which makes a mockery of the use of Community funds and the very objectives of social and territorial cohesion within the European Union for which you are responsible as a member of the Commission.
Mr Nogueira Román, your question specifically targets the countries or regions with the most difficulties.
I should like to point out that several of the least developed countries benefit from both regional policy funds and the Cohesion Fund.
It is true, Mr Nogueira Román, and there is a text with which I must comply, stating that the Cohesion Fund is not subject to additionality requirements.
It is not subject to this principle because, may I remind you, the Cohesion Fund was and still is there to help less developed Member States catch up and, in numerous cases, accede to monetary union.
That is one part of my reply.
Now you are calling on me in your question to use the general regulation at my disposal and really ensure that the principle of additionality is applied.
I must admit that there is a weakness in the regulation as regards possible sanctions for countries which do not comply with this principle.
That is why I put in so much effort, in a preventive sense, when we approve the Community support frameworks, when we approve the SPDs, when I meet the ministers who come and see me, when I go and see them in the field, almost every week in some region of Europe, in stating my attachment to a number of principles.
The principle of additionality, the principle of partnership, compliance with major policies - we shall discuss that later with Mrs Frassoni - and compliance with the major European policies, especially environmental policies.
It is true that the general regulation for the Structural Funds makes no provision for specific sanctions for Member States which do not apply the principle of additionality.
However, in application of article 11 of the general regulation, the Commission makes and will continue to make approval of Community support frameworks, SPDs for 2000-2006 and mid-term approval and reprogramming conditional upon our departments being sent information on the principle of additionality and compliance with it by the Member States.
There you have it; I have been frank with you.
I admit that there is a weakness from the point of view of sanctions for those who do not comply with additionality.
At the present time I am being particularly clear and attentive and I can assure you everyone will have an extremely precise mid-term meeting.
The problem may also be that even where a state formally complies the idea of the structural funds does not make the difference that it should.
Mr Barnier has said that from 2000 to 2006 there will definitely be an increase in expenditure but nothing guarantees that the state increase in expenditure will be focused on the areas which the Community has taken as targets for structural funding.
Indeed, Mr Barnier has made it absolutely plain that the Community does not and cannot inquire into that point.
So it seems to me a little bizarre that we spend ages trying to build up exactly correct structural maps in the full knowledge that nothing under the additionality principle actually guarantees that the Member State will increase expenditure in the region in question.
That does seem to me to be a radical fault in the concept of additionality and one that needs to be reformed.
Mr MacCormick, thank you for highlighting this point.
Ladies and gentlemen, you must expect a Commissioner to implement the policy which you want and to comply with the texts and regulations laid down by you and the Council.
In this specific case, I said 'a weakness' .
When I say 'weakness' , Mr Nogueira, Mr MacCormick, I do not just note that it exists, fold my arms and say: 'That's how it is, there is nothing I can do!'
I am not a fatalist.
So, as soon as we start preparing the new regional policy for 2006 and 2013, I shall ensure that account is taken of these weaknesses and shall submit my proposals.
There is probably another point which needs revising, as Mr MacCormick has pointed out, and that is that we need to check if the principle of additionality is being applied and we can only do so at national level for both Objective 1 and Objective 2.
That is our problem.
We can confirm that the principle is being applied at national level and, at the same time, that it is not being applied in a region where it is needed.
That is what Mr MacCormick has highlighted.
Again vigilance is my watchword and has been, especially vis-à-vis the United Kingdom. I ask questions, I draw attention to specific cases pointed out to me, as the honourable Member has done.
Nonetheless, I must also say that the regulation does not allow me, on this precise point, to issue instructions.
I can do no more than demonstrate that I am keen to enter into dialogue and that I am available, in the case which you have pointed out to me and in every other case, to do so as actively as possible, while at the same time complying with the general regulation of the Structural Funds.
Question No 36 by (H-0528/00):
Subject: New Structural Fund programmes and biodiversity The Commission is negotiating the new 2000-2006 Structural Fund programmes.
On 16 March 2000 it issued a note on biodiversity and the Structural Funds in the light of the fact that Directive 92/43 and Directive 79/409 have been only partially transposed by the EU Member States and that Structural Fund investment could therefore threaten biodiversity.
How can the Commission guarantee that biodiversity and the Natura 2000 network are protected and not threatened?
Which Member States have caused difficulties in the implementation of what the Commission has requested? What powers does the Commission intend to use in order to ensure that biodiversity is not threatened when the new programmes are implemented?
- (FR) I am pleased to have someone to reply to on this extremely important question which touches on the coherence of the policies for which the Commission is responsible, especially the coherent implementation of the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund policies with other Community policies, particularly in the area of environmental protection and improvement.
Several Member States have yet to send in lists of zones to be protected under Directives 92/43 and 79/409, more generally known as the Natura 2000 Directives.
The Commission has instituted proceedings before the Court of Justice against the Member States most in arrears.
On arriving at the Commission, and because I am in charge of regional policy and also because I was Minister for the Environment in my own country and have an irrevocable passion for and commitment to these issues, I decided to take a close look at the problems of coherence, in a continuing bid to prevent and anticipate.
But our predecessors, Mrs Bjerregaard and Mrs Wulf-Mathies had already worked on this and I and my colleague Margot Wallström decided to get on and regulate this procedure.
That is why, in agreement with Mrs Wallström, I submitted guidelines to the Commission which were approved on 14 March.
I personally sent these guidelines to each of the Member States on 28 March.
I would draw your attention to the fact that these guidelines only apply to the Member States which still have not notified the sites for protection under the Habitat and Birds directives by the time the Commission approves the programming documents for the new period 2000-2006.
This guideline calls on Member States to take immediate action to present their lists of sites protected under Natura 2000 as quickly as possible and, in addition, to undertake to ensure that sites protected under Natura 2000 are not damaged when projects cofinanced by the Structural Funds are implemented.
In the event of any irregularities in connection with the conditions of implementation, i.e. if undertakings to submit lists of protected sites are not honoured, the Commission will formally notify the Member State in question of its intention to take any suitable measures immediately, in accordance with the provisions of the general regulation on the Structural Funds or the regulation on the Cohesion Fund.
Thus, the Commission will be able to have recourse, in compliance with the principle of proportionality, to provisions governing the suspension of payments, unless special circumstances apply.
Because these guidelines were only recently adopted - when the Community support framework for Portugal was approved on 14 March - and the new programming period 2000-2006 is only just starting, I am honestly not in a position to quote specific examples.
I am talking about putting these new provisions into practice in specific Member States; let me also tell the honourable member that, to date, the overall situation concerning the submission of lists of Natura 2000 sites to the Commission is unsatisfactory, at least in five Member States: Germany, France, Ireland, Belgium and the United Kingdom.
These are the countries on which we are keeping a very close watch, as I mentioned earlier in connection with another matter.
I am totally dissatisfied with the response because it was not out of idle curiosity that I wanted to know which Member States had caused difficulties but in order to get an idea of the extent of the failure to indicate the areas of biodiversity.
However, the response was satisfactory in the sense that if, out of all the possible measures, that of suspending the money flow is actually implemented, it will be the most effective step that can possibly be imagined.
A person's wallet is the most sensitive part of their anatomy.
Question No 37 by (H-0544/00):
Subject: Progress of negotiations on the Greek Community support framework Can the Commission say how far the regional development plan (RDP) submitted by the Greek Government differs from the decisions taken to date within the scope of the negotiations between the Commission and the Greek Government (significant amendments), how the negotiations concerning the regional and sectoral programmes are progressing and also what progress has been made on the setting up of managing authorities which, pursuant to Article 9(n) of the framework regulation on the Structural Funds, 1260/1999, are responsible for managing the programmes?
Questions to Mrs Wallström
In response to the question put to me by Mr Hatzidakis, I should like to stress the Commission's delight at the ambitious scope of Greece's regional development plan for the new period 2000-2006.
This plan will promote the structural reforms needed so that Greece can honour its commitment within Economic and Monetary Union.
Negotiations to establish this Community support framework have allowed certain aspects of the strategy for the regional development plan to be strengthened, especially with regard to education, vocational training and environmental protection.
At the moment, Mr Hatzidakis, the challenge which we must take up together is to genuinely achieve these objectives by ensuring that the Structural Funds and the corresponding national funds are managed efficiently.
The Commission has drawn the attention of the Greek authorities - I personally have done so twice on two visits to Athens within the space of nine months - to the need to set up efficient administrative structures before Community appropriations are transferred.
The most important thing is to set up management authorities and, as a matter of priority, the management authority for the Community Support Framework.
The Commission has welcomed the intention of the Greek authorities to adopt a new specific legal framework by the autumn, to regulate all these matters.
I personally - since I shall be in Greece for an official visit to Athens and Crete in October - shall have an opportunity to specify and verify this point.
Negotiations on the adoption of the Community support framework are in the final stages, even though a number of points have yet to be finalised, with regard mainly to the distribution of financial allocations and the definition of the implementation system.
We expect and we hope, Mr Hatzidakis, that these points will also be quickly finalised.
Negotiations on the adoption of operational programmes have started in parallel with the final stage of negotiations on the Community support framework.
These negotiations are progressing normally and I trust that we will be able to approve certain programmes by the end of August.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have before me the development plan for 2000-2006 sent to you by the Ministry of the National Economy last autumn.
On page 1-119 it says that if the 2nd Community Support Framework had been completed between 1994 and 1999 in accordance with the relevant plan, this would have increased the average annual rate of growth in the Gross National Product for the 1994-1999 period by 0.6%. This would have meant additional GNP in the order of GRD 1.6 trillion over and above what we actually had.
The government accepts this and, between the lines, I think that you accept that there are problems with the public administration in Greece.
More importantly, I think that you will have problems with the management committees and I should like you to tell me specifically what you intend to do with the Management Organisation Unit and relations with the Ministry of the National Economy, which could be better? What is to be done about outsourcing the external employees whom we need?
Will there be incentives and penalties from now on in order to ensure that the Community Support Framework is applied correctly to those who need it? More importantly, what is to be done about the gaping wound in the Social Fund in Greece which, in my view, is no more than a black hole which just swallows up Community funds?
Yes, Mr Hatzidakis, even without reading between the lines, I think that, from one period to another, there are always lessons to be learned, progress to be made, mistakes to be corrected and, judging from how the second Community support framework was implemented in Greece, I think there probably are lessons to be learned.
The Commission is well aware of the problems, especially those which you have just pointed to in connection with the operational nature of the Management Organization Unit.
We think that Greece, which is now a full member of the Economic and Monetary Union, is more conscious of its administrative weaknesses and of the need to rectify them than it was in the past because all this is essential, as you have quite rightly said, if maximum profit is to be derived from the new third Community support framework now getting under way.
As far as we are concerned, Mr Hatzidakis, we shall monitor how implementation progresses very closely, both within this framework and within the context of our regulatory powers and I shall not fail, if necessary - let us not talk of sanctions - to do my duty.
As far as more efficient management is concerned - over and above what has already been done under the previous Community support framework, - I would remind you that the Greek authorities have agreed to draft a bill adapting administrative practice to the rules of the Structural Funds.
This law is based on the provisions included in the Community Support Framework.
The same authorities will also need to appoint qualified people, define administrative responsibilities and ensure that there is proper information and training for staff at all levels.
The computer system for integrated management will also need to be fully operational.
We have stressed, Mr Hatzidakis, the importance which we attach to translating agreements into an efficient organisation on the ground, well in advance of payment of the first appropriations by the European Union for the new programming period.
That is the assurance which I wanted to give you.
Mr President, despite Commissioner Barnier's highly specific and detailed reply and the acknowledgement of the shortcomings of Greek public administration, an acknowledgement which is a common ground and which everyone accepts, including the government, there is another problem: decentralised local authorities administer these funds and it is hard for the central public administration to intervene, resulting in inaction and wastage or in funds being used for the wrong purpose. Is Mr Barnier aware of this problem?
What can he do in this direction? Of course he would need to make representations mainly to the government and focus his efforts on the extent to which the government is able to influence regional local authorities.
Mr Marinos, not only have I studied this question, but I also intend to go and visit people and see the problems in the regions in every Member State for myself.
I do not intend to sit ensconced in my office and content myself with receiving ministers passing through Brussels.
I want to go and see for myself. I spent last week in a region of Finland.
As I said to Mr Hatzidakis, and at his invitation, I shall be going to Crete, to one of the Greek regions, in October.
This is the way to accept one' s responsibilities, not by repression and not by sanctions.
I do not want to point my finger or make a priori judgments.
I prefer education.
That is why, for example, I convened a seminar at the beginning of June to which all the management authorities throughout the European Union in charge of Objective 1 appropriations were invited.
500 administrators attended, from all the management authorities, from the whole of Europe.
And I shall do likewise, in the autumn, with the Objective 2 management authorities.
We have also invited Mrs Theato, the chairperson of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the Court of Auditors, to help with this financial and managerial education programme.
I referred earlier, during my reply to Mr Hatzidakis, to training.
Before getting caught up in regional management - I must also respect this notion of decentralisation - I want to check with the Commission's normal contacts, i.e. the Member States, that all the systems really are in place.
So I shall be checking with the Greek government that everything is in place at the level of this new Community support framework.
And the framework to be implemented must of course include a proper evaluation system for each region, especially proper management and disciplinary systems, as well as the principle of responsible decentralisation.
I think that you understand my position on this issue, but I must first work with the national governments, because that is how the Structural Funds need to be managed at this stage, within the framework of the general regulation.
Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mr Barnier.
Question Nos 38, 39 and 40 will be replied to in writing.
We will proceed, late, to the last 20 minutes of questions to Commissioner Wallström.
As the author is not present, Question No 41 lapses.
Question No 42 by (H-0521/00):
Subject: Reclamation work in Dublin Bay Reclamation work is taking place in Dublin Bay in an area submitted for designation as an SPA last July under the Wild Birds Directive.
The boundaries of this extended SPA were altered, following representations by the Dublin Port Company to Duchas, so as to enable the company to carry out its proposal to infill 52 acres of Dublin Bay in order to expand the port, chiefly on economic grounds.
However, according to documents secured by an NGO, Dublin Bay Watch, following a request under the Freedom of Information Act, it emerged that objections made by a local authority were rejected by Duchas on the grounds that 'the proposals to designate an extension would proceed unless a scientific case was made' .
Final designation and submission to the Commission of the altered SPA occurred last February.
Dublin Bay Watch has complained to the Commission and provided extensive evidence.
In the light of this information, will the Commission initiate legal proceedings against the Irish Government for altering the boundaries of an SPA, and will it urge the Government to redesignate the entire SPA as it was first advertised in July 1999? Does the Commission intend to withdraw EU funding of such a project and prohibit any work which would seriously affect an SPA?
Does it believe that the public consultation process was adequate in this instance and in line with the EIA Directive?
As a result of several complaints the Commission is aware of the controversy surrounding this reclamation project for Dublin port.
In particular, it knows of the concerns about the exclusion of an area of about 20 hectares from the 1999 extension to the Sandymount Strand and Tolka estuary special protection area in Dublin Bay classified under the Community's Wild Birds directive.
While included in the 1999 proposal for extension of the SPA, the area in question was omitted when the extension was finally adopted at the end of 1999.
By way of background: the 1999 proposal for extension followed a Commission request to the Irish authorities to enlarge the SPA.
It was particularly concerned to ensure that major Community investment in sewage treatment for Dublin would take place within the legal framework provided by SPA status.
The legal deadline for completing Irish SPAs expired in 1981 and the Commission has for some time been concerned that the Irish SPA network remains incomplete.
In April this year the Commission notified a letter of formal notice to Ireland under Article 226 of the EC Treaty in which it drew attention to the general failure to complete the Irish SPA network.
Dublin Bay was mentioned as a partially classified important bird area.
The Commission is not aware of any intention to use Community funds in relation to the port reclamation project.
As regards public consultation under the environmental impact assessment for the port reclamation project, the Commission would prefer not to comment pending the investigation of the complaints it has received.
I can understand that you do not want to comment until you have investigated the complaints but I would urge you to put pressure on the Irish government.
For decades they have ignored their obligations under EU directives.
As regards the special protection areas they have completely ignored their obligations.
In this case they have basically done what they want.
They change the boundaries whenever they feel like it.
The public consultation, in my mind and in the mind of many of the local people in the Community, is completely and totally inadequate.
This is just one more example of the way that the Irish government is behaving in relation to its obligations under EU directives.
I would like to ask you, Commissioner, are you going to push much further with the Irish government and explore every possible avenue.
I welcome the recent decision on fining Greece and I would like to see the same thing happen with the Irish government if they fail to comply with directives.
It seems the only thing they are willing to listen to is the threat of fines.
Unfortunately the taxpayer will have to pay the fines but real pressure has to be put on the government at this stage because they have got away with it for far too long.
As you know the Commission has taken the first step in a general legal action that includes Dublin Bay.
I would like to mention that two qualifications need to be made.
First the 1999 extension to the Sandymount Strand and Tolka estuary SPA clearly includes most of the important areas not included in the original SPA.
Secondly, while the Commission has until now treated Dublin Bay as still partially classified on the basis of evidence that qualifying inter-tidal areas may still have been omitted it will need to consider any evidence offered by Ireland that the site is sufficiently classified.
Of course, we will do everything possible to help the Irish or to put pressure on them to live up to the rules and regulations concerning this.
I am sure that we will have to continue the legal proceedings against Ireland.
Question No 43 by (H-0529/00):
Subject: Management of toxic waste Environmental organisations in Greece have alleged that toxic and hazardous waste is being buried without any controls.
Of the 264 571 tonnes of hazardous waste produced in 1999, a mere 0.12% was shipped abroad for incineration.
There are no controls on the disposal of waste produced by the lead-acid accumulator recycling plants.
Greek Electricity Board (DEI) condensers with substantial amounts of Clophen have been abandoned at Aspropyrgos.
In Attica there is only one incinerator with a capacity of 0.5 tonnes of hospital waste a day, even though some 20 tonnes of such waste is produced a day.
As regards PCBs, Greece has no processing facilities and it is unknown what happens to them.
Over the last ten years no substantial steps have been taken to ensure the proper management of this waste.
Article 16 of Directive 78/319/EEC states: 'Every three years, and for the first time three years following the notification of this Directive, Member States shall draw up a situation report on the disposal of toxic and dangerous waste in their respective countries and shall forward it to the Commission'.
Will the Commission say how many such reports has Greece forwarded so far on the basis of the above directive, and what do these reports say? What stage have the relevant Greek authorities reached in implementing Directives 75/442/EEC, 78/319/EEC, 94/67/EEC, 91/157/EEC and 94/62/EEC?
Does it intend to impose fines in the event of violations?
As the Commission does not have the means to inspect Greek waste management facilities the most important tools for the Commission to check the practical implementation are reports, plans and programmes requested in the different waste directives.
The Commission has very little information on waste management in Greece.
Greece did not report on the implementation of waste management legislation between 1989 and 1997.
However at the end of last year Greece answered four questionnaires regarding the implementation of four waste directives.
According to that answer 280 000 tonnes of hazardous waste were generated in Greece - the year is not indicated - of which 95 760 tonnes were recycled, though Greece indicated that it has no installation for the processing or disposal of hazardous waste.
The hazardous wastes are reported to be either temporarily stored or exported for final disposal in other countries.
The Commission is of the opinion that a number of Community requirements are not being complied with by Greece and has taken action under Article 226.
The most important aspects concern the absence of management plans according to Article 7 of Directive 75/442 on waste, Article 6 of Directive 91/689 on hazardous waste and Article 14 of Directive 94/62 on packaging and packaging waste, the failure to transpose Directive 94/62 and transmit data according to Article 12 concerning the packaging waste industry, the absence of a programme according to Article 6 of Directive 91/157 on batteries and accumulators containing certain substances and non-compliance with Articles 4 and 11 of Directive 96/59 on the disposal of PCBs and PCTs.
A first report according to Directive 94/67 on the incineration of hazardous waste has to be provided for the period 1998 to 2000 by the end of September 2001.
Despite the fact that you did not reply to me in Greek, which I imagine is a bit harder, thank you very much for passing on your findings.
But the question remains.
Is there absolutely no way of establishing where these huge quantities of waste go? You yourself referred to some 115 000 or 175 000 tonnes - I cannot find the figures - the final destination of which is unknown.
Secondly, having identified all these infringements, do you intend to refer this to the Court which, unfortunately for my country - gave us a recent example by finding Greece guilty of another, older infringement?
I remind you what action the Commission has taken to address the failure of Greece to correctly transpose and apply Community waste legislation.
There are two codecisions, one dated 8 July 1999 and one dated 13 April 2000.
There is an application before the Court.
There is an additional recent opinion sent on 11 August last year and there is a letter of formal notice sent on 10 April this year for failure to apply a number of articles properly.
Of course we are worried.
This is a general problem in Greece, the implementation of Community waste legislation.
Of course we would also like to know where this waste has gone but we can only ask Greece for those statistics.
Unfortunately Greece has not done this properly.
First I should like to say that I have submitted a written question along the same lines as that put by my fellow member Mihail Papayannakis.
Secondly, I should like to say in all honesty that, as a Greek citizen, I am shocked by what you have said.
In other words, that we do not know and the Greek Government does not know, no-one knows what has happened to over half our toxic waste.
From what you have said, I think that my fellow countrymen in Greece should be worried, and with good cause.
I should like to put two questions to you. The first is: what sanctions will be imposed on Greece?
Do you think it is sufficient merely to take recourse to the Court, which could take three or four years to reach a verdict? In the meantime, what about public health in Greece?
Toxic waste is an extremely important issue.
My second question is this: assuming that Greece is convicted for the waste, for the waste management in Hania in Crete, can you tell us, in general terms, where you think the problem with the application of environmental legislation in Greece lies? Which specific areas of Community legislation are causing problems?
Because I know, for example, that there are also problems with the management of nitric compounds.
Mr President there is reason to be worried because we know there are problems in some of the Member States with illegal trading and illegal disposal of hazardous wastes.
Of course the Greek Government and maybe also the local authorities should be asked how this has been handled.
From the Commission side we can continue the legal proceedings and the legal procedures as they are set out for the Commission, but I think what is most effective in cases like this is open debate in the European Parliament.
Of course we will keep an eye on this and keep up the pressure on Greece to report to us because that is the instrument we have available.
Question No 44 by (H-0547/00):
Subject: Polluted land Heavily polluted, former industrial land has created a number of severe problems.
Water spreads the pollution into other parts of the natural environment and, in order to construct housing or other buildings on the land, it must be decontaminated at great expense.
Does the Commission have any plans for dealing with this problem and is it prepared to put forward a strategy for doing so?
Commission. (SV) The pollution of industrial land is a big problem in Europe.
According to the report from the European Environment Agency on the state of the environment, the Topic Centre on Land Cover 1998 estimated that there are 750 000 polluted or potentially polluted places within the EU.
Current EU legislation, like that which is proposed, focuses on the prevention of pollution.
Directive 96/61 concerning integrated pollution prevention and control, the IPPC Directive, states that Member States must take all necessary measures that are required in order to restore industrial land that is no longer in use.
Such measures must already form a part of the operational situation.
This directive must be enforced completely before November 2007.
Another instrument which may help to prevent future pollution of land is the directive that we are currently working on in relation to environmental liability.
To deal with pollution that occurred in the past, certain Member States have developed special financial instruments - there are taxes or different funds that have been set up for this purpose.
It is already clear that this type of clean-up costs, or will cost, Member States very large sums of money.
At EU level, the European Regional Development Fund can contribute a certain amount of support.
I might also add that I can see how big a problem this is in the candidate countries.
The Commission is, however, not as yet planning any form of global or European clean-up strategy.
As far as the past pollution of land is concerned, the proximity principle ought to be applied, because national, regional or local authorities are in the best position to deal with these issues.
Also, this type of pollution is not a transnational issue, and the problem is not first and foremost an administrative one, but a financial one.
I would like to thank Commissioner Wallström for her reply.
It could of course be said in actual fact that this type of pollution can be transnational, because we know that water carries pollutants along with it, particularly chemicals and heavy metals.
The countries, particularly in the central parts of Europe, are so close to each other that it is difficult to say where the pollutants originate from.
I think that a common strategy would be needed to deal with these issues.
That is actually what I was after in the question that I raised.
In her reply, Mrs Wallström has now said that there will not be a strategy in this area.
The question is now whether the Commission is prepared to support research, further experiments and development in the respective Member States in order for us to cope with these problems, which are immense.
Commission. (SV) Of course, it is important for the respective Member States to make a list of the existing industrial land that is polluted and the best way to tackle this problem.
As I have already said, we see this as a very great concern also from an economic point of view for many of the candidate countries, where this is often mentioned as an immense problem.
Up to now we have mainly regarded this as a local and national issue. In order to be able to clean up in the best way possible, we need to consider what sort of pollution is involved and what the local conditions are like.
We have nothing against creating a strategy, if the Member States also want that, but in that case we must also get hold of the resources to deal with it.
As it looks so far, this has not been something that we have given the highest priority to, but naturally I think that it is very important for a proper inventory to be made and for a plan to be drawn up by the Member States, and why not also research and development in the area in order to find the best methods for cleaning up polluted industrial land.
Mr President, the Commissioner has already partly answered a question that has been on my mind, but perhaps I will ask an additional question on the matter.
This same problem concerns former landfill sites that are later used for housing. The Commission may have information on the extent of the problem in the Member States.
Does the Commission think it possible that some kind of strategy could be found regarding these built-up areas?
Commission. (SV) I can only repeat that the Commission is, of course, prepared to take on such a task, but in the present situation, I do not perhaps think it is something that we can do with existing resources and in a sufficiently radical way, because it requires considerable resources.
It is very evidently a problem that must be dealt with at national, regional and local levels.
However, if the Member States should so desire, we obviously have nothing against taking on this task.
I think that we are already doing this when we see that there is great necessity for doing something.
For example, in connection with the follow-up of the disaster in Baia Mare, we are trying to identify where the hot spots are and to see if we can identify dangerous places where we really need to keep our eyes open to ensure that no new disasters happen.
When it comes to the pure clean-up work, I certainly think that the proximity principle ought to be applied.
Question No 45 by (H-0548/00):
Subject: Fireworks factories On 2 June 2000 an explosion occurred at the Liborio Fernandes fireworks factory in the Portuguese village of Lanhelas.
Nine people were injured, and the village was badly damaged.
A similar explosion has just occurred at the Pyroma de Feugueyrolles factory in France.
These two explosions, which occurred only a few days after the tragic incident near Amsterdam, not to speak of the persistent explosions in Spain, are a reminder of the danger posed by these factories when they are located in residential areas.
The manufacture of fireworks has become all the more dangerous since the old craft methods gave way to industrial methods.
This means both the stockpiling of more explosive substances and greater reactivity.
What measures does the Commission intend to propose in order to impose or strengthen safety standards aimed at eliminating the risk of explosion in these firms, to prohibit the location of such firms in residential areas, to prevent the transport of explosives from posing a threat both to the transporters and to the inhabitants of the areas through which they pass?
The Commission is most concerned about the recent accidents in fireworks storage and production facilities.
The manufacture and storage of pyrotechnic substances is covered by Council Directive 96/82 of 9 December 1996 on the control of major accident hazards involving dangerous substances, the so-called Seveso II directive.
This directive obliges operators of establishments having dangerous substances within certain threshold limits to establish a major accident prevention policy.
It also obliges them to set up safety management systems and emergency plans and to demonstrate this to the public inspection authorities by submitting a safety report.
Moreover, the Seveso II directive contains the new provision recognising that the implications of major accident hazards should be taken into account in the land use planning policies of the Member States.
These are obliged to pursue the aim of the directive, that is, the prevention of major accidents and the limitation of their consequences for man and the environment.
This has to be done through controls on the siting of new establishments, modifications to existing establishments and new developments such as transport links, locations frequented by the public and residential areas in the vicinity of existing establishments.
In the long term land use planning policies shall ensure that appropriate distances between hazardous establishments and residential areas are maintained.
Member States shall also ensure that all competent authorities and planning authorities responsible for decisions set up appropriate consultation procedures.
The inclusion of this provision can be regarded as a major step forward in the process of major accident mitigation.
A review of the Seveso II directive is already under way.
After a full investigation of the accidents that occurred, the Commission will evaluate the threshold limits assigned to pyrotechnics substances as part of the review.
A proposal for amendments to the Seveso II directive should be ready by the beginning of next year, that is 2001.
This can only be done when we have evaluated the experiences following the accident in Enschede as well as the accident in Romania.
This process will be carried out in close cooperation with the Member States, the European Parliament and other interested parties.
The transport of explosive materials is covered by Directive 94/55 on the transport of dangerous goods by road.
This directive makes obligatory the provisions of Annex A and B of the European agreement concerning the international carriage of dangerous goods by road for road transport within or between Member States.
Annex A contains the provisions concerning the packaging and labelling of dangerous goods and Annex B contains the provisions concerning the construction equipment and operation of the vehicle as well as the minimum training requirements for the driver.
The application of this legislation guarantees a high level of safety for the transport of dangerous goods including explosives.
You have told me that there are directives, but to our mind they are probably not applied, since accidents are increasing in number and becoming more and more dangerous, now that these factories have replaced old production crafts with industrial methods.
It appears perfectly obvious to me that factories such as this, companies such as this, really should not be located near residential areas.
The tragedy in Enschede, in the Netherlands, illustrates this all too clearly and in Portugal, which I referred to in my question, 159 houses in the village of Lanhelas in the province of Minho were hit by the explosion.
Some were completely destroyed, others were partially destroyed and the victims' protection association that has been set up has estimated the damage at over EUR 1 billion.
I think that we urgently need to get these directives applied and to introduce others prohibiting firework factories near residential areas.
Yes, of course, Mr President, we are also extremely worried about what has happened and that is why we are looking at the Seveso II directive in order to see if it is necessary to complement it with new rules to cover establishments like the plants involved in the recent accidents.
And, of course, we also have to look at the land use planning because the establishments in question were not covered by the Seveso II directive because the thresholds were not the right ones.
We will be looking at this as soon as we have evaluated all the information about these accidents.
We will not sit on our hands.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 46 to 78 will be replied to in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.05 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.).
EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme)
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5­0165/2000) from Mr García-Orcoyen Tormo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, concerning the common position of the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Regulation on the voluntary participation of organisations in a Community Eco-Management and Audit Scheme(EMAS).
Mr President, Commissioner Wallström, we thank you for being here at this time in the evening.
The Community Eco-management and Audit Scheme is not exactly the most popular of the environmental issues but, nevertheless, it is a fantastic instrument for making progress in the field of integrating economic activities and the preservation of the environment.
By adopting a system of environmental management, companies - whether they be industrial or service companies - learn to integrate environmental considerations into the normal management of the company, discovering the many and significant advantages, not only environmental but also economic, which this offers them, amongst other things, because they improve their competitive position.
It therefore seems to me very significant that this regulation is currently being reviewed and that new elements are being incorporated into it which are extremely useful for the environmental improvement of processes, services and products.
The creation of more incentives for European companies to have access to the system, the participation of interested parties - especially workers -, the strengthening of reliability vis-à-vis third parties and an increase in the transparency of information are the main objectives of the amendments which I took up on first reading in Parliament and which were approved unanimously in the Environment Committee.
Nevertheless, the committee also approved certain amendments which were contrary to the opinion of the rapporteur, and I have continued to disagree with them. In this respect, I wish to refer to Amendments Nos 5, 6, 10 and 17, on the controversial issue of the use of the best available technology, as an instrument for environmental improvement, being obligatory for countries which wish to be included in the EMAS register.
Let us remember that EMAS is a voluntary market instrument. Let us remember also that one of the main objectives of the current revision of the regulations is to make the system more accessible to small and medium-sized businesses and also the service sector.
Let us add that until now the initiative has been relatively successful when compared to the other alternative formula, the ISO 14.001 standard, which is more flexible in many ways than EMAS. Let us bear in mind that the best available technology, as defined by the Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control, is only applicable to large industrial plants and not to the service sector or to small and medium-sized businesses.
In this light, I believe that you will agree with me when I say that, although I am absolutely in favour of development and progress with regard to the Directive on Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC), this is not the time, and EMAS is not the right instrument, to demand that companies who want to join the scheme adopt the best available technologies.
In fact, the large plants, as stipulated in the IPPC Directive, will continue to be obliged to be included in the EMAS register, since they will have to abide by the environmental legislation in force - Amendment No 12 - which obviously includes compliance with the IPPC Directive in the cases where companies are affected.
I would also like to insist on Amendments Nos 41 and 50, which my Group would be prepared to accept as long as it is made clear that the word 'representatives' refers to people chosen as such within each company and in no event to organisations, whose participation would hinder and delay the process of adopting the system.
I hope that tomorrow other groups will offer oral amendments in this respect.
There are two other amendments which I would like to comment on: Amendment No 19, for which I have requested a separate vote up to the paragraph which reads "public structures and public contracts" , up to this point leaving the Commission' s text intact.
I believe that the Commission is preparing - and in this sense I would be grateful for a comment from Mrs Wallström - a proposal on the inclusion of the environmental principle as a necessary consideration when awarding public contracts, and I therefore think it appropriate to await the approval of that proposal.
With regard to Amendment No 22, on the incorporation of the Commission, the Council and Parliament, within a period of four years, into the EMAS system, I have consulted the Commission in writing and I would like the Commissioner to reply to it.
Lastly, Amendment No 25 refers to the harmonisation of EMAS with the ISO standard, which is very important to the dissemination of each instrument, and we are very happy with the harmonisation agreement relating to them.
Mr President, our experience of the Community eco-audit scheme has been very mixed.
In Germany and Austria a great number of businesses have taken part in it, whereas the uptake from businesses in other Member States has been very low.
The aim of the present revision must therefore be to make the eco-audit scheme more attractive.
For that reason it is important that there should be scope to involve companies from the service sector and to support small and medium-sized enterprises.
All that, however, is not enough, in my view.
More needs to be done, particularly in terms of reducing the administrative burden and establishing ways of projecting the public profile of the service.
From discussions at various company headquarters it has emerged that EMAS has an internal impact and that workforces are playing a far greater part in protecting the environment, but the time has now come to improve the external impact of the system.
In all the reflections on how to improve EMAS, one thing has to be remembered, namely that EMAS is a voluntary system which companies can join.
It must not therefore be encumbered with concepts such as best available technology. These are binding specifications which set excessively difficult targets.
All we shall achieve by adopting them is to make businesses quit the system. That surely serves no purpose at all.
The system has proved useful so far, and we should build on the valuable experience that has been amassed.
If we cherish certain environmental ideals, I am certainly willing to pursue them too, but that will take us down the road of directives and regulations.
We cannot realise such ideals by opting for a voluntary system like EMAS.
One last point that seems important to me if the eco-audit is to be a practicable mechanism is the frequency of its validation.
The proposal envisages renewal of the validation at yearly intervals.
That, to my mind, is far too frequent.
Companies have to spend nine months on the preparation of an environmental report.
They cannot do that if annual validation is required.
I therefore propose an interval of two to three years, and I hope you will support this proposal.
Mr President, EMAS is to be revised, and my Group and I are very much in favour of its scope being extended.
I do believe, however, that the examples of Austria and Germany to which the previous speaker, Mr Schnellhardt, has already referred, show that it is no coincidence that the countries where participation levels are highest are among the proponents of the tabled position, in which adherence to the existing environmental provisions and the use of the best available technology are seen as key instruments for improving companies' efficiency in the use of natural resources and their protection of the environment.
Accordingly, I should like to give my wholehearted support to those amendments that call for the use of the best available technology as well as to canvass your support for Amendment No 12, which lays special emphasis on compliance with existing environmental provisions.
I am well aware, of course, that there must be incentives to encourage wider participation in this scheme.
For all that, I believe that the credibility of this eco-audit scheme can only be guaranteed if we set our own high standards rather than pursuing the opposite strategy of alignment with the ISO standard.
My Group also attaches particular importance to the participation of employees and their representatives.
I accept the rapporteur's proposal - we came to an agreement on this today - that an oral amendment be moved tomorrow in order to make it clear that we also accept the compromise on the involvement of employees and their representatives, in other words the reduction of such involvement to the works level.
In my view, this will represent a major step forward in the implementation of EMAS, not only in terms of its democratic credentials but also from a managerial point of view.
I shall waive the remainder of my speaking time, which should certainly put me in the President's good books!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the intention behind EMAS is an excellent one: encouraging companies to have more respect for the environment.
Seven years after its creation, however, EMAS is a success only in some countries.
There is still a long way to go, and today we need to identify the reason for this limited result.
EMAS is complex, too complex.
The regulation imposes heavy constraints on those companies which do agree, voluntarily, to participate.
This complexity is such as to discourage SMEs, which, as we all know, are bending under the weight of bureaucracy.
Yet they are the engine of Europe' s economy.
We should be making them our number one priority, hence the importance of the incentives our rapporteur was just talking about.
In the same spirit, I would also say that some amendments are in danger of erring through excess of ambition.
I mean Amendments Nos 5, 10 and 17 on the best available technologies, the BATs.
A requirement like that would mean sometimes insoluble problems for SMEs, which cannot always adapt to these BATs. In any case their very definition is already a problem for some economic sectors.
So the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party will be voting against.
On the other hand, in the spirit of compromise, we are ready to support Amendments Nos 43, 44 and 45, which link these best available technologies, from the environmental viewpoint, with conditions that are economically and technically viable for businesses.
Finally, there is the question of workers' participation, which we naturally value highly and which the common position entirely authorises.
On the other hand, we reject Amendments Nos 41 and 50, because more restrictive measures here again threaten to discourage a large number of candidate firms.
Finally, I will simply say that quantity must not drive out quality.
The system is voluntary, so it must be attractive in order to survive. Otherwise EMAS will be no more than a litany of good intentions likely to be impracticable for businesses and therefore completely useless.
Mr President, a number of speakers tonight have mentioned the issue of the best available technology.
I cannot understand the reluctance to accept this.
It really is an essential instrument.
If we are genuine about wanting to encourage firms to improve environmental policy and environmental performance, then it is necessary that the best available technology should be encouraged.
It makes no sense to me whatsoever to be reluctant to promote that.
If the best available technology is there, then the firm should be encouraged to use it.
We are never going to make any advances otherwise.
This is a voluntary scheme, but if firms genuinely want to improve their environmental policy and their environmental performance then any encouragement in that direction should be welcomed.
So far as the arguments against the best available technology are concerned, they do not stand up to scrutiny.
It is essential that this element, and the amendments in relation to best available technology, be supported by Parliament.
I would urge the Commission, too, to take this on board.
If we are serious about trying to encourage firms in the right direction then we have to encourage the best available technology.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the regulation must be effective because it is a voluntary instrument.
To that extent, it is only right and fitting that we should try to guarantee the manageability of the system, which is why we have taken pains to reach the present agreement between the two major groups, Mrs Scheele, so that the validation is not limited to one year but can be organised in a pragmatic manner, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses.
It goes without saying that they cannot be expected to do a validation every year - that would be absurd.
We must find an effective and manageable solution to that problem.
But I also believe that we need a rational approach to the question of the best available technology, because it is surely unacceptable that two companies producing at entirely different levels - one to a low technological standard and the other to a high standard - should both be able to operate the eco-management and audit system and should both be certificated.
That is patently absurd and will ultimately mislead those who are liable to buy products advertised as EMAS-compliant.
For that reason we need to set a standard.
Perhaps the amendments we adopted in the Environment Committee go too far.
For that reason I am pleased that Amendments 43, 44 and 45 have been proposed as a means of covering the available forms of technology in a similar way to another directive and of limiting the initial scope of the regulation to industrial activity, since it is undoubtedly far harder to legislate for the service sector in this domain.
Accordingly, I would suggest that if we can reach agreement on the frequency of validation, we ought perhaps to be able to reach agreement on this aspect as well.
So the first thing to do is to establish the verification procedure; the application of that procedure will perhaps reveal various ways in which the system can be improved.
Mr President, I believe that tomorrow's vote will truly be a litmus test of whether we regard EMAS as an instrument of ecological progress or as a mere sham.
It must be made clear that EMAS accreditation is intended as a reward for those companies which are the real engines of ecological progress.
BAT - the best available technology - is the fundamental prerequisite of EMAS, because it would be downright absurd for a company to be regarded as an environmental trailblazer if it did not use the best available technology, and it is surely plain to see that anything else boils down to ISO 14000, in other words to our simply selling EMAS down the river, because it would then be ISO in another guise.
In that case we could forget the directive altogether, because it would correspond to ISO.
For that reason I fail to understand the misgivings that have been voiced, particularly with regard to small and medium-sized businesses, because it is precisely those firms which have the least onerous obligations in this respect.
Conversely, we have seen time and again that many small and medium-sized enterprises are far more innovative than their larger counterparts.
EMAS is an important voluntary instrument for companies, but paramount importance attaches to its coordination with environmental programmes.
Studies in Germany have shown that, unfortunately, EMAS organisations have not yet recognised protection of the climate, for example, as a major goal.
From that point of view I believe that we should not sell ourselves short here by putting EMAS on a par with ISO.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs García-Orcoyen Tormo, for her work on the Commission' s proposal concerning EMAS.
Before discussing the individual amendments, I want to touch upon three key issues, namely best available technology, the frequency with which the environmental statement is to be validated and the link between participation in EMAS and compliance with the requirements of compulsory environmental legislation.
The changes proposed by the European Parliament where best available technology is concerned should mean that all organisations which participate in EMAS should be forced to apply best available technology.
The Commission agrees with the principle that all organisations registered to EMAS ought to try to apply best practice within their areas of activity and work as effectively as possible on issues of technology, materials and organisation.
The concept of best available technology, which is expressly defined in the directive relating to coordinated measures for preventing and limiting pollution, is nonetheless only relevant to industry. This has also been noted by the European Parliament in some of its amendments.
In view of the fact that EMAS is now being opened to all economic sectors, the requirement that best available technology must be used is likely to mean in practice that many sectors will be prevented from participating in EMAS.
For example, the European Parliament itself would not be able to participate because best available technology is not a concept which can be applied to public institutions.
A requirement of this kind would also be a major obstacle for small and medium-sized companies, which are not covered by the directive relating to coordinated measures for preventing and limiting pollution.
If the attempt were made to circumvent this derogation by means of EMAS, which is a voluntary system, this would probably mean that small and medium-sized companies would refrain from participating in EMAS.
When it comes to those amendments in which best available technology is confined to the area of application of the directive relating to coordinated measures for preventing and limiting pollution, it ought to be pointed out that it is not EMAS' s task to be an alternative way of ensuring that compulsory legislation is applied.
We all agree that it is important for organisations to comply with that environmental legislation which affects them.
It might be said that it is a minimum requirement that environmental legislation should be respected.
The purpose of EMAS is to help organisations to perform better and to exceed that minimum.
The objective is not, however, to provide supervisory authorities with absolute proofs that an organisation which is EMAS-registered is complying with all current legislation in all situations.
In view of EMAS' s systematic structure, organisations will clearly be well placed to comply with the environmental legislation.
EMAS is, however, a voluntary system.
If the European Parliament maintains its amendments, the basis of which is that compliance with environmental legislation must be guaranteed, EMAS' s role will be in danger of changing. EMAS will instead become a replacement for environmental verifications carried out by the Member States' competent authorities.
I am convinced that that is not the European Parliament' s intention.
How frequently is the environmental statement to be validated? The environmental statement is, of course, the visible public result of EMAS being implemented within an organisation.
That report must therefore correspond to the expectations of those in the surrounding area.
One such expectation is that the environmental statement should be reliable. The simplest way of building up confidence in the conclusions of the statement is to carry out regular, impartial verifications.
An annual verification of the statement would therefore be more appropriate than a verification every third year, as in the majority of cases.
I would emphasise that the common position is flexible in this respect. Account can, therefore, already be taken of special cases or special problems.
I am therefore afraid that, by dispensing with the principle of annual reporting in its amendments, the European Parliament may damage EMAS' s credibility, which is a prerequisite if the new EMAS is to be successful.
Allow me to turn now to the individual amendments.
The Commission has carefully examined the 50 amendments which have been tabled and is able to approve 11 of these.
How credible EMAS is and how attractive it is to companies are two crucial considerations if EMAS is to function.
The Commission is therefore delighted to be able to approve Amendments 1, 2 and 19 (3).
Another important question of which the Commission is also aware is that of how it may be ensured that EMAS is rolled out in the candidate States at an early stage.
The Commission is therefore able to approve Amendment 3 in principle, provided that the wording is made clearer.
The Commission is also very pleased to be able to approve Amendment 4 in principle, because it will help ensure that employees are more involved, something which has already been taken into account in the review of EMAS.
The wording ought, however, to be changed to avoid extra demands being placed upon companies, particularly upon small and medium-sized companies.
There seems to be a general concern about small and medium-sized companies, which also manifests itself in EMAS.
The Commission is therefore able to approve Amendment 19 (4) in principle, provided that it does not lead to the EMAS rules' being watered down for small and medium-sized companies.
Because EMAS is a voluntary system, it is important that there should be information about it.
The Commission is therefore able to approve Amendment 16 in principle, if it is extended to include all information and not only data.
The Commission is very pleased to see that the European Parliament itself is committed to applying EMAS and urges the other European institutions to do the same.
However, EMAS' s area of application extends to include more than physical assets, something which must be clearly shown in Amendment 22, which the Commission is able to approve in principle.
Amendment 25 will contribute considerably to making the EMAS requirements clearer, and the Commission approves this change.
A small addendum is required, however, so that the Commission is able, in a legally correct manner, to comply with the contractual conditions in the agreement that has been entered into with the European Standardisation Organisation.
Unanimity and openness are also important principles for EMAS.
The Commission is able to approve Amendments 30 (1 and 3), 32 and 33 (2).
Where the other changes are concerned, I want briefly to explain why the Commission was unable to approve them.
An important aspect of the proposal is the extension of EMAS' s area of application to include all sectors of trade and industry.
Those amendments which relate only to the industrial sector cannot, therefore, be approved.
These are Amendments 5, 6, 10, 17, 43, 44 and 45, according to which organisations must apply best available technology.
The Commission also considers it important that EMAS should be logically structured, easy to understand and sufficiently flexible to be able to be adapted for the various sectors affected.
The Commission cannot, therefore, approve Amendments 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 19, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33 (1), 34, 35, 37, 41, 42, 47, 48, 49 and 50.
The additional benefits to the environment entailed by EMAS, compared with ISO14001, are a crucial aspect of the proposal.
The Commission is unable, therefore, to support Amendments 13, 30 (2), 36, 38 and 46.
Due to the introduction of longer intervals between verifications of the statements, these amendments would make it more difficult to obtain sight of, and to verify, the information concerning environmental performance.
Nor can the Commission accept Amendments 39 and 40, because the EMAS logo must be a sign of excellence for organisations, at the same time as it must not lead to confusion on the part of the public.
Given the way the directives relating to public purchasing look today, Amendment 19 (1) cannot be approved.
The Commission is pleased to supply information to the European Parliament upon request, but is unable to approve Amendments 18 and 20 because there is a lack of resources for this purpose.
Finally, the Commission is unable to approve Amendment 24 relating to committee procedures because of the legal changes implemented following the decision on committee procedures, according to which a prescriptive committee is required.
The Commission is convinced that the European Parliament' s amendments have, in both readings, contributed greatly to this review and increased EMAS' s potential for helping improve the environmental performance of trade and industry throughout the Union.
Thank you, Madam Commissioner.
May I depart from normal practice by asking you to pay greater attention to the allocated time slots.
Your colleague Mrs Reding is the very last speaker today. She will no doubt be annoyed with me if she has to stay here until one in the morning.
Would you please therefore be so kind as to keep your remarks somewhat briefer on future occasions.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide
The next item is the report (A5-0166/2000) by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council directive relating to limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air.
Ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, I shall try to be brief, because I do not believe that much of the substance of this directive is contentious within this Parliament.
The directive before us is the second offshoot of the Directive on ambient air quality assessment and management, and the proposal is part of an integrated package of measures designed to combat atmospheric pollution.
The essential feature of this second offshoot of the air-quality Directive is that it establishes benzene and carbon monoxide limit values for the first time in the European Union.
This is a very important step; I would even call it a milestone in the history of air-quality legislation, because it is the first limit value to be imposed for a carcinogenic substance, namely benzene, which can, of course, cause leukaemia.
We know that petrol and oil are sources of benzene, and in the European Union 80 to 85% of benzene emissions result from petrol combustion in road vehicles.
There has never been a safety threshold, and so benzene emissions have always posed a health risk.
The precautionary principle that is enshrined in the EU Treaty, however, makes it imperative to establish a limit value at which the health risk is extremely low.
It therefore stands to reason that we are particularly supportive of the proposal for a limit value of five micrograms per cubic metre of air.
The common position is a definite improvement on the Commission's proposal.
I also very much welcome the fact that it incorporates many of the amendments adopted by this House.
One amendment in particular was absolutely essential and central in our view, for the Commission had proposed that Member States could be granted derogations almost at will.
It was effectively a blank cheque that could have been renewed over and over again, and by dropping this provision we have managed to achieve a compromise to which we too can subscribe.
In the implementation of the directive it will also be important, of course, to respond to the problems faced by the countries of the South and to arrive at an appropriate compromise.
The proposal also corresponds to the suggestion made by Mrs Schleicher at the first reading in the Environment Committee, namely that a single exception may be made, that it must be duly substantiated, that it need not be restricted to countries but can also apply to particular regions or geographical areas and that a concentration in excess of ten micrograms may not be authorised under any circumstances.
It is also very important in the light of our forthcoming enlargement to the East that we should emphasise that the European Union does not operate a two-speed environmental policy and that those Member States to which exceptions apply must make every effort to move towards compliance with EU requirements and must furnish proof of progress in this direction.
The Environment Committee has also tabled a number of other amendments, but these should not be contentious either, because they relate primarily to the obligation to provide information.
In these we have clearly emphasised that the new instrument of the Internet must be used as a means of improving the flow of information.
I have no doubt that these amendments will also have answered the question as to how information is to be communicated. Moreover, we have also drawn attention to the fact that indoor pollution is also a major problem which should be addressed by EU research programmes.
We cannot present a credible case for the improvement of outside air quality unless we demonstrate a clear commitment to improving the quality of indoor air.
In addition, we have underlined very clearly that the Member States will also have to compile better documentation.
Another very important point is that the governments of those Member States to which derogations apply should also inform the public of this special dispensation and of the efforts that are being made to achieve our goal of five micrograms by the year 2010.
I shall close there - my time is up in any case.
What is important is that this directive should be swiftly implemented, and I believe we have worked hard towards that aim and that we are unlikely to encounter any problems in achieving it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mrs Breyer has just indicated, we are dealing today with the second individual directive deriving from the framework Directive of 1996 on the assessment and management of ambient air quality.
The main aim of the proposed legislation is to establish limit values for atmospheric concentrations of benzene and carbon monoxide in order to improve the quality of our air and to avoid, prevent and reduce the adverse effects of these substances on human health and the environment.
It is true that the main source of emissions of both pollutants is road traffic.
Other major sources of benzene emissions are fuel distribution, oil refineries and the chemical industry, while all combustion processes emit carbon monoxide.
This directive is a very important contribution to the maintenance of clean air and to the global climate strategy.
The proposal was presented by the European Commission in December 1998.
The Finnish presidency made a determined effort to use the new legal scope offered by the Treaty of Amsterdam in order to have this proposed directive enter into force back in December 1999 after the first reading, with the amendments adopted by the European Parliament.
Our Group would have warmly welcomed that.
I need hardly say that our Group supported the amendments which emphasise the danger to certain sections of the population and which regard the proposed environmental measures as surpassable minimum standards.
The provisions on a single extension of the deadline and on compliance with the limit values that are required for climatic reasons in our southern Member States, provisions which are now contained in the common position, were introduced by ourselves at the time of the first reading, as was the maximum benzene concentration of 10 micrograms per cubic metre.
Mrs Breyer, of course, has already given some indication of the subsequent harmonious development of the common position.
This now contains the very wording that we wanted on this point, and its other provisions are consistent and provide for practicable measures to improve air quality in Europe.
Our Group accepts this common position and can support it as it stands.
This new regime guarantees that public health will be afforded a high level of protection, and it is flexible enough to be adapted at any time in response to technological progress.
Mrs Breyer has taken a great deal of trouble and has achieved much of what Parliament wanted at the negotiating table.
I must say, however, that in our view the amendments which have been reintroduced are superfluous; while they are justifiable, it is not worth putting the directive on ice again for the sake of these amendments, which would only delay the adoption process.
We consider it far more important - as you yourself said, Mrs Breyer - that, after a delay of half a year, this instrument should now enter into force as quickly as possible, so that it can play its part in improving the quality of the air we breathe in Europe.
For that reason, our Group does not support the amendments, because we hope that, by withholding our support, we can expedite the process of adopting this directive.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur for this highly gratifying report and for her successful work behind the scenes; at the same time, of course, I wish to thank everyone else involved for their fruitful cooperation.
I am aware of the significance of this directive in terms of the development and enhancement of European environment policy.
It will be the first legal instrument to set a limit on concentrations of a carcinogenic substance.
Its significance lies not only in the fact that it is important to have a limit value for this particular carcinogenic substance but also in the fact that it sets a precedent for the future regulation of other carcinogens.
The main political aim at the first reading was to limit the scope for derogations from the prescribed limit values as far as possible, to make the rules as restrictive as possible, and I believe that we can be more than pleased with this solution, which was the fruit of our joint efforts.
My Group is also interested, of course, in the rapid implementation of this directive, and we wish to avoid a conciliation procedure.
I am also aware that the debate on this directive is not the right place to discuss indoor pollution.
Nevertheless, I do believe that it is appropriate to highlight the dangers of indoor pollution and to call for initiatives in that domain, such as additional research.
After all, there is evidence that people are exposed to hazardous substances, especially the carcinogen benzene, as a result of indoor pollution too.
This is why we support the amendments that have been tabled, and we trust that we shall nevertheless be able to avoid a conciliation procedure.
Mr President, the three previous speakers have already articulated the significance of these proposals.
We should also like to congratulate the rapporteur. She has done extremely well with the lion' s share of her amendments and the amendments which have been adopted by the Commission and Parliament at first reading.
The question which remains is whether or not we want to go further than what has been accepted in the common position.
In our opinion, the rapporteur' s arguments are convincing and we will give them our seal of approval.
In the discussions we have had on this directive, a subject came up which could in fact have come up in other environmental issues as well, but it is important in my view to bring it to the fore in this context. The question we always need to ask ourselves as European institutions is: why is this one of our concerns?
Why is it the case that a problem which can be very localised - this is, in fact, one of the very problems we are discussing at the moment - why is this something which we need to decide on in Brussels or Strasbourg and cannot delegate to national level? I am not talking about the legal dimension, because, legally, we are bound to deal with this.
Eventually, it became clear to us that in this case, it would be useful if we, as European citizens, were to deal with this on the basis of a kind of equality before the law, offering the same level of protection to the same citizens.
But I can imagine that other people would argue against this, saying: no, it is important to be involved in this as a Union.
I would find it useful if the Commissioner, time-permitting, could comment on this briefly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I want to thank the rapporteur and the committee for their good work.
Mrs Breyer' s report went a long way towards further improving the Commission' s proposal at first reading, which took place in December of last year.
The limit values which have been set for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air are based upon the World Health Organisation' s latest recommendations and are aimed at achieving a high level of protection of people' s health throughout the Union.
Adoption of this directive would mean that the Union would take the lead internationally where limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide are concerned.
I want to begin by explaining the Commission' s views on Amendments 2 and 3. These concern the issue of providing information to the public, something which is of the greatest importance.
As you perhaps know, the Commission has now, in the course of the week, adopted a new directive which will further improve access to environmental information.
The Commission approves Amendment 2, which expressly mentions the Internet.
Amendment 3 (1) refers to the fact that the Member States should make a special effort to inform those who are affected by the extensions to the time limits within which the limit values for benzene are to be complied with.
The Commission agrees in principle with this requirement, but the common position expressed in Article 8.3 of Directive 96/62/EC, that is to say the framework directive on air quality, already obliges the Member States to compile this information and make it available to the public.
In order for the Commission to be able to approve Amendment 3 (1), the latter must therefore be substantially reworded.
Amendment 3 (2) contains a demand for free public access to the Member States' documentation concerning the selection of places from which to take samples.
In spite of the fact that the Member States already have this obligation under the Århus Convention, the Commission approves the Amendment.
I turn now to Amendments 1 and 4 which both concern the Commission' s review of the Directive in 2004.
The review will form part of the first report on the new integrated programme for clean air, which the Commission is in the process of drawing up.
The common position already states that the purpose of the review is to study the latest results and, if need be, further improve protection.
Because indoor air pollution can cause significant health problems, the Commission will take account of this issue in the review.
Amendment 1 may therefore be approved in principle, but must be reworded.
I turn finally to Amendment 4, which concerns an important issue.
The most difficult point in the negotiations in the Council was the limit value for benzene and the time limit for achieving this.
Against the background of the results of a current investigation into benzene, mainly the southern Member States considered that they were uncertain of being able to achieve the limit value of 5 g/m3 by 2010.
Despite this, Article 3.2 of the common position offers only one possibility for extending the time limit by five years under certain conditions.
Moreover, a concentration of 10 g/m3 must not be exceeded during that period.
I would emphasise that this is in line with Amendment 22, tabled at Parliament' s first reading.
Only through an addendum to Article 7.3, in which it is expressly stated that the Commission can propose further extensions in the light of the results of the 2004 review, was it possible for this agreement to come about.
From a purely legal point of view, this clause does not lead to the Commission' s right of initiative being limited or otherwise affected, but may be seen as an important part of the final compromise in the Council.
According to Amendment 4, the clause ought not to be there, something which could jeopardise the agreement with the Council.
The Commission considers that the compromise to which this could lead would involve unnecessary delay in adopting this important directive in which, for the first time ever, limit values are established for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air.
The Commission is therefore unable to approve Amendment 4.
Finally, I want to say that I believe the common position constitutes a valuable compromise to which I hope that the whole Parliament will agree, without the need for major changes.
Thank you, Commissioner Wallström.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Environmental inspections
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0164/2000) by Mrs Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, concerning the common position of the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Recommendation providing for minimum criteria for environmental inspections in the Member States.
Mr President, the idea that is fundamental to the report that I am bringing forward is that the proposal from the European Commission for a recommendation on this subject should be changed to become a directive and, as you will see from my report, this secured near unanimous backing in the Environment Committee.
The members of the committee agreed with me that a recommendation is far too weak an instrument in this instance.
I suppose a recommendation is really rather the equivalent of us all moving down into the centre of Strasbourg and attending the cathedral in order to make an act of collective prayer.
That really is all that a recommendation is.
There is no way in which the European Commission can go back to Member States and say that they have not complied with a recommendation because a recommendation merely says that they may do something, it does not say that they must do something.
The Commission is very worried about this report because it recognises that if we persist in insisting on a directive rather than a recommendation, the whole thing may founder in the Council.
I recognise the Commission's worries.
I did faithfully try in the Environment Committee to get the members to agree to a recommendation rather than a directive.
I got a very rude answer from them which I will not repeat to you but which is basically reflected in my report.
They want a directive and not a recommendation.
And, indeed, if the guidelines on environmental inspection which the Commission is so keen to see survive were incorporated in a recommendation, my committee feels that they will simply be ignored.
We want to see a directive which definitely commits the Member States to introduce environmental inspections operating on broadly similar lines.
I must underline that what we do not want to see, in case anybody hangs this round my neck, is a supra-national European environment inspectorate: lots of little men and women in blue uniforms with gold stars rushing round the Member States, reporting back to Brussels saying this is wrong or indeed, in the case of Germany, this is right.
We do not need that kind of supra-national inspectorate.
I believe, and my committee agrees with me, that the primary responsibility for enforcing European Union environment legislation should be firmly lodged where it belongs, with the Member States.
We cannot understand the Commission's readiness to propose only the minimum possible.
Neglect of European Union environment law forms an alarming background to this proposal.
Yesterday was a historic day in the history of the European Union, not, I hasten to add only because of the visit of President Chirac to Strasbourg, but because it was the day of the first report of a fine levied by the European Court of Justice, an actual fine of EUR 20 000 a day on Greece for failure to comply with a European Union environment directive.
But it is interesting to note that that case was actually launched thirteen years ago and relates to a directive which dates back even further.
At the moment there are currently nine other environment cases which have come back to the Court of Justice for a second time because countries have ignored earlier judgments.
There are no less than 157 cases still pending and I regret to have to say that in many cases the European Commission has not been able to act, to bring cases to the Court of Justice, because it does not know what is happening in Member States as the countries concerned have not reported back to Brussels on what they are doing about legislation.
One of the reasons that they have not reported is that the countries themselves do not know. Why do they not know?
Because they do not have systems of environmental inspection which form the essential raft on which the whole edifice of compliance with European environment law is built.
We need the kind of directive that the Environment Committee would like to see.
A recommendation will do no good.
I hope that the European Commission has the courage, and I mean courage, to accept the European Parliament amendments.
I hope that the European Commission has the courage to go into the conciliation process arm in arm with the Parliament against, and it will be against, the Council.
I think some members of the Council are really quite wobbly in the direction of a directive rather than a recommendation.
The tiny concessions so far offered by the Council lodged in the preamble to this proposal are simply not enough.
Mr President, those of us who survived the conciliation procedure for the water framework directive must be delighted that here we have an issue which is entirely clear-cut and easily understandable.
The first issue is that we want equal and effective enforcement of environmental legislation across the European Union and we must all agree to that principle.
The question obviously is why we have not had that before.
Why have the Commissioner's predecessors not brought forward proposals before now and why are the proposals now introduced so miserably weak? There is also a question for Member States.
What have they been doing signing up to environmental legislation if in reality they do not have the means to check properly that it has been carried out and have no intention of ensuring that it is properly enforced?
I have chemical companies in my constituency in the north-west of England.
Some of them, I am sorry to say, discharge polluting materials into air and water.
They get inspected.
Action is taken.
They are forced to clean up their act.
They pay the price for that.
But they are competing with chemical companies elsewhere in this European Union which are not having to carry out those checks, which are not having to pay the price and they are not able to compete therefore on a level playing field.
It is simply unfair.
The second issue is the clear conflict here between the Parliament and the Council.
Any student who wants to understand conciliation procedure or codecision procedure has a nice straightforward case study here.
We have codecision powers but we have the threat from the Council that if we do not fall into line then they will abandon the whole legislation.
Well, they might as well, as Mrs Jackson has said.
The message for the French Presidency is that we want tangible progress.
We do not want to see this abandoned.
There is room for compromise, presumably over the implementation date.
All the institutions in the European Union want the laws enforced properly.
It is time to give these warm but rather woolly sentiments some real meaning and action.
Mr President, may I first of all thank the rapporteur, Mrs Jackson, and the Committee on the Environment for its work on this proposal on environmental inspections.
I cannot resist the temptation to point out to Mrs Jackson that she reminds me of my promise to the Committee on the Environment not to propose new directives all the time, but rather to concentrate on implementation.
The bad implementation of environmental rules has nothing to do with the lack of such rules and directives.
We have a lot of these and we really want to achieve something.
We want to see results.
So we came straight to the key issue: was it to be a recommendation or a directive? It will not be a surprise to you that the Commission cannot agree to the proposed change to a directive, for the following reasons.
The Commission's 1996 communication on implementing Community environmental law noted a disparity between Member States' inspection systems and recognised the necessity of ensuring that minimum inspection tasks were performed.
Maybe it is not such a bad idea to have those people in blue uniforms with gold stars to check on what is happening!
It recommended that guidelines should be established, leaving to the Member States the choice of structures and mechanisms, fitting in where appropriate with their existing systems.
A recommendation will achieve something.
Some Member States already have well-developed inspectorates or agencies, and the guidelines will ensure that they operate them in accordance with common standards without necessarily having to change their systems that much.
For those Member States which do not, the recommendation will be helpful to enable them in the first instance, with the possibility of Community funding for eligible Member States, to develop their infrastructure and capacity.
A directive might mean that some Member States will have great difficulty complying with it in its entirety from its coming into force, and this was not deemed to be practically or psychologically desirable by the Commission.
I am convinced that the 'carrot' rather than the 'stick' approach will achieve a better result at the present state of development of national inspectorates.
We have already achieved some progress in the area with the IMPEL inspectors' exchange programme and the other work that IMPEL has done on inspections, monitoring frequency of inspections etc.
This proposal should therefore be viewed as the first step in an ongoing programme, and the experience gained in this operation will help us to consider at subsequent stages how to broaden the nature, scope and application of the minimum requirements.
The proposal requires Member States to report back on the operation, and I will take a personal interest in this.
If it transpires that Member States are not applying it in practice then we will not shrink from bringing forward a proposal for a directive.
The attitude in the Council of the Member States, even those with well-developed inspectorates, was unanimously in favour of non-binding legislation at this stage.
Being realistic, if Parliament insists on asking for a directive we will end up with no instrument at all.
In that case we will have failed those Member States most in need of assistance and guidance, and the consequence will be no change in the status quo and no improvement in those Member States' implementation.
For these reasons the Commission cannot accept any of the proposed amendments relating to changing the form of the proposal from a recommendation to a directive.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments of substance: Amendment No 5 to help Member States distinguish between national - for example non-EU derived - law and EU law.
Amendments Nos 6 and 11 which try to change voluntary reporting and advice schemes to mandatory ones.
Amendment No 12, second part, because it does not add anything.
The proposal already refers to reports being in a readily accessible database.
Amendment No 13, second part, relating to reports of site visits being available within two months of inspection because the common position's wording "as soon as possible" is preferable.
And Amendment No 14 which seeks to limit to brief data the compliance information in reports to the Commission, which is not sufficient for the Commission's purposes.
However, if the proposal is to remain in the form of a recommendation, the Commission can accept in principle Amendments Nos 2, 10, second part, and 15, second part, in relation to point 9.1.
They all concern the involvement of the EEA and/or IMPEL in certain activities relating to inspections.
These were accepted by the Commission at the first reading stage and included in the Commission's revised proposal.
Thank you, Commissioner Wallström.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Protection of forests
The next item is the report (A5-0152/2000) by Mrs Redondo Jiménez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the following:
I. proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 3258/86 on the protection of the Community's forests against atmospheric pollution [COM(1999) 379 - C5-0076/1999 - 1999/0159(COD)], and
II. proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2158/92 on the protection of the Community's forests against fire [COM(1999) 379 - C5-0077/1999 - 1999/0160(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Council has presented the amendment of two regulations, Regulation (EC) No 3528/86 on the protection of the Community' s forests against atmospheric pollution and Regulation (EC) No 2158/92 on the protection of the Community' s forests against fire, by means of two regulations, 307 and 308 of 1997, on the basis of Article 43 of the former Treaty.
Parliament queried the regulations with the European Court of Justice on 30 April 1997, and this was resolved on 25 April 1999.
The judgement of the Court (joint cases C-164/97 and C-165/97) repealed both Regulations and stated that the Council should have used the former Article 130s, now Article 175 of the Treaty as the sole legal basis, but the effects of the repeal were suspended to enable the Council to adopt new Regulations with the same aim within a reasonable time period.
The European Commission and the Member States committed themselves, on an international level, at the Ministerial Conferences on the protection of the forests in Helsinki, in 1993, and Strasbourg, in 1990, to the continuous monitoring of the damage suffered by the forests.
Everybody is aware of the important role played by the forests in all respects, both economic as well as ecological and social, and of their role in relation to soil protection, climate, water and flora and fauna, creating balances which are essential to the development of sustainable agriculture and for the management of rural areas.
The Member States have established networks of systematic monitoring and observation posts for intensive and continuous monitoring of the forest ecosystems.
These studies require long periods of implementation and their results depend, according to the improvements in the knowledge of the cause-effect relationships between the changes suffered by forest ecosystems and the factors which affect them, on carrying out this work of monitoring, prevention and study over a longer period.
With regard to fires, work is underway into their causes, prevention measures and the monitoring of the forests.
As for pollution, work is being done on the establishment of observation networks, on carrying out a periodic inventory of the damage by means of a single methodology, intensive and continuous monitoring of the forest ecosystems and the implementation, by means of pilot projects, of methods of conservation and restoration of the forests affected.
Furthermore, the Member States must carry out a periodic assessment.
In the proposal approved unanimously in the Environment Committee, minor amendments are introduced which I would ask the Commission to take into account, since this would prevent us from extending the procedure.
This proposal asks that the Commission be assisted by a standing committee on forests, as it is in many other areas; that it present an analysis of the application of this regulation with regard to its ecological, economic and social aspects, as well as a cost-benefit evaluation; that an amendment be included on the Mediterranean forests as a specific ecosystem for the southern countries and because of its importance in combating desertification and erosion.
With regard to the budget for implementation, I have a reasonable doubt: for the previous period of these regulations, the Commission proposed EUR 40 million to fight pollution, for the five years, and EUR 70 million for fire prevention.
Now, for the next five years, the Commission proposes 34 million to fight pollution and 50 for fire prevention.
It has just reduced the amount by 6 million for the fight against pollution and 20 million for the prevention of fires, without taking account of the rise in the cost of living index or the incorporation of new countries, Austria, Sweden and Finland, which almost double the area of forest in the Union.
Therefore, our proposal would be to increase that budget to 44 million and 77 million for pollution and fires respectively.
I would ask the President, since Mr Cunha is not present, to allow me to use his two minutes, as he told me previously.
Here we have a proposal by the Committee on Budgets.
The Committee on Budgets is once again presenting amendments in which it wants no kind of notification to appear with regard to the budget for implementation.
I believe that the Committee on Budgets is trying to evade the codecision procedure, and I would propose to this House, and also to the Commission, that their amendments not be taken into account...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mrs Redondo, I have to tell you that Mr Cunha has just come in.
Mrs Redondo almost hijacked your speaking time, Mr Cunha!
Mr President, the importance of forests in the European Union is clearly illustrated by the fact that they cover 36% of our territory and employ 2.2 million people.
In several areas of the European Union, the forests are often the only viable economic option, because of poor soil or the lack of other natural resources.
It is also clear that the importance of forests is by no means limited to economic factors. They encompass many other dimensions of social and environmental interest, such as the protection of the soil, the fight against erosion, the preservation of water resources, biodiversity, climatic stability etc.
Despite all of this, the forests have been a kind of 'poor relation' amongst Community policies.
It was only after many years, in 1998, with the efforts of the European Parliament, that the European Union finally managed to approve a strategy for the preservation and development of forests.
However, given forestry' s unquestionable interrelationship with agriculture and its territorial impact, it is extraordinary that the Commission has not been more ambitious in its proposals and that the Council has historically been so short-sighted.
Despite the fact that the European Union' s forestry strategy is a step forward in terms of ideas, it is yet to have any practical expression.
On the contrary, in some ways it has moved backwards, as demonstrated by this Community regulation on the protection of forests.
With regard in particular to the aspect which is of great concern to my country - the regulation on combating fires - it is regrettable that whereas in the period 1992-1996 the European Union benefited from an annual sum of EUR 14 million, this annual sum is now to be reduced to EUR 10 million, that is, by 40%.
Therefore, Mr President, I would like to suggest to the Council and the Commission that they increase this amount and, if possible, create a Community system for information on forest fires.
Ladies and gentlemen, I must ask for your cooperation.
We have calculated that, if we let every speaker overrun for just 20 seconds, we should still be sitting here at one o'clock in the morning.
We have a lengthy agenda, so I hope you will understand why I must be even stricter than I might otherwise have been on the question of speaking time.
Thank you very much, Mr President.
Mrs Redondo is presenting, under the general heading of forest protection, a report on two proposed regulations.
One refers to atmospheric pollution affecting forests, and the other refers to the prevention of fires.
I would like to tell Mrs Redondo that the delegation of Spanish Socialists is going to support her amendments.
We are going to support them because we agree with all the arguments which Mrs Redondo has put forward, and for other reasons which she has not had time to explain.
The basic regulations date from 1986 and 1992, and now the budget for implementation is lower, despite the fact that, since the accession of the Nordic countries to the European Union, the area of forest is greater.
Furthermore, however, atmospheric pollution has worsened as a result of acid rain, and of greater concentrations of dangerous products in the atmosphere.
We are also in a much worse situation in terms of fire prevention, because of climate change and the drought which we are suffering in many parts of Europe.
I would like to give just two recent examples.
This week there has been a Mediterranean forest fire on the border between France and Italy, a fire in the Ostia pine forest, near Rome, a fire in the Region of Valencia, where I live, and furthermore there has been one death, of a farmer who was trying to put out one of the numerous fires which have occurred this week as a result of drought and heat.
All of these arguments more than justify Mrs Redondo' s amendments, and our support for them.
I wish to tell the Commission - and I am sorry that Mrs Wällstrom is not here at the moment - that one of the European Union' s priorities with regard to the environment should not only be the fight against pollution and fires, but also, above all, a policy of caring for the forests.
That is why we are going to support her.
Mr President, Commissioner, I live in the middle of the Nordic forests, which form part of the enormous area of Europe covered by forests.
In the Nordic countries, we obviously do not have the same problems as in the Mediterranean area.
It is therefore incorrect to talk in this context about the forests of Europe.
The forests of Europe are very, very different from one another.
I could spend all night and all of tomorrow talking about the history of the forests and about the enormous importance Europe' s forest areas are going to have in a future sustainable Europe.
However, this report concerns the threats to our forests.
For the forests in northern and central Europe, the greatest threats are from airborne forms of pollution.
Unfortunately, we cannot prevent pollution by means of forest policy but only by means of environmental, traffic and agricultural policy, in short through general environmental policy.
Because most forests are damaged by discharges which come from a long way away, responsibility for the air and climate is global and European.
Fires do not constitute a problem for the Nordic forests. On the contrary.
To obtain environmental certification, the owners of the forests have to burn down a certain area of them each year.
We need more fires.
We set fires for ecological reasons.
In the Nordic forests, there are a great many species of plant which have waxed seeds.
They have to be warmed up by a fire in order to grow.
In the Nordic countries, there are also insects which need burning ant hills in order to breed.
I believe that we should support the southern countries' need to fight fires, but that not all forests can be lumped together by talking in this context about European forests.
Mr President, it is indeed gratifying to note the steady increase in the attention devoted to forests and to the state of their health.
I do not believe, however, that it will suffice to allocate huge sums of money in the future - huge sums in relation to previous expenditure, but still less than is actually needed.
The most important thing, to my mind, is the need to change people's perceptions, not simply with a view to loosening purse strings but also with a view to engendering the level of voluntarism that is essential to the protection of our forests.
In the Alpine regions, for example, the institution of voluntary fire brigades is taken for granted.
Efforts should also be made to establish such bodies in the Mediterranean Member States, not only as a means of fighting forest fires at their source and creating protective infrastructures but also as a means of fostering public willingness to provide neighbourly assistance and voluntary service.
In this respect, I believe that people's mentalities will have to change, because money alone is not the answer.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, forests play an essential role in preserving the balance of our ecology and are a sustainable resource, albeit in the long term.
Forests are, furthermore, an imaginary, mythological and symbolic asset, which we should not forget.
Although there has been a certain recuperation of the area dedicated to forests in the European Union, every year thousands and thousands of hectares fall victim to acidification.
Year after year, huge areas of forest burn in Europe, annually destroying, on average, around 1% of the total forested area.
Biodiversity is also affected, and the situation of various plant species is worrying.
Therefore, the importance of these two regulations is unquestionable, despite the fact that the Community appropriations involved are very modest.
As has already been pointed out, the regulation establishing an action framework for the prevention of forest fires and the reduction of the area burnt is undoubtedly of particular importance to the south of Europe.
This regulation is specifically aimed at the cofinancing of systems for the prevention, monitoring and provision of information about fires, as well as for identifying their causes.
It is therefore extremely important.
Geographers understand this very well.
The most southerly part of Mediterranean Europe is threatened by a process of physical desertification, in the literal sense of the word.
The climatic phenomenon which originated in the Sahara desert has not stopped at the Mediterranean Sea and is spreading to the Iberian, Italian and Balkan peninsulas.
Mediterranean woodlands, which act as a curtain, reducing the impact of this phenomenon, are being mercilessly destroyed by these fires.
This issue of forests does not only concern the countries of the south, whose territories are affected, in the same way, of course, that the defence of the Nordic forests is not only of exclusive interest to the Nordic countries.
The countries of the south, more than any other part of Europe, urgently need a policy for the protection of forests.
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on her work and say that I support her proposals and her objectives.
Mr President, the content of the regulation being discussed here is based on the situation that existed at the end of the 1980s, but since then things have changed greatly.
More attention must be paid in the protection of forests to the effect of climate change.
We have succeeded in bringing traditional forms of air pollution under control in the last ten years, thanks also to EU directives, but at the same time, the risk of changes to global weather patterns getting out of hand has grown.
This development must also be looked at when reviewing the way the forests of the Union are monitored.
The regulation on the subject of the Community' s forests must be reformed, but Parliament cannot undertake financial commitments until the present regulation expires in 2001.
In this situation the suggestion that there should be an increase of tens of millions of euros for just a little over a year is not reasonable.
It is not sufficiently justified by the fact that the Union' s forest area has grown since the last round of enlargement.
The situation is so different between the north and the south.
For example, in Finland and Sweden we long ago reached the stage where the forest is used as it grows.
Here at Union level at the moment we are discussing many genuine legislative proposals concerning forests, including a common position on the emissions ceiling directive and on the directive relating to large incineration plants.
They must be supported, so that they are as successful as possible and so that we can do more to protect the forests as a result.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the Commission has presented two proposals for the amendment of the Regulations on the protection of the Community's forests against atmospheric pollution and against fire.
The purpose of these proposals is to adjust both Regulations in the light of the judgment of 25 February 1999 in which the European Court of Justice declared that Article 130s of the EC Treaty - which has now been renumbered 175 - was the proper legal basis for these instruments.
I should firstly like to say thank you very much to the three rapporteurs - Mrs Redondo Jiménez, Mrs Auroi and Mrs Sbarbati - who have been examining the Commission proposals that are under discussion today for their cooperation as well as for the amendments they have put forward.
This new legal basis automatically means that the codecision procedure under Article 252 applies and that the financial framework laid down in this Regulation becomes binding.
It was also necessary to bring the annual budgetary framework for these two initiatives into line with the amount of funds actually allocated by the budgetary authority in the period from 1997 to 2000 and with the amounts already earmarked in the preliminary draft budget for the year 2001.
That is why it is impossible for the Commission to accept Amendments Nos 6 and 12, which would involve an increase in the financial framework.
Nor can the Commission subscribe to Amendments Nos 5 and 11, which relate to the comitology and provide for the use of the consultation procedure in the case of both Regulations.
The Commission takes the view that this procedure would be inconsistent with the decision of 28 June 1999 on the comitology.
The Commission believes that the substance of the relevant amendments should be discussed again in connection with the revision of both Regulations, which is due to take place in 2001.
The Commission will present its proposals for their revision before the end of this year.
It has no problems, however, with Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16.
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
You are the first Commissioner today who has not taken up his full allocation of speaking time. We note that with gratitude.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
MEDIA/MEDIA Plus
The next item is the report (A5-0186/2000) by Mrs Hieronymi, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, concerning the following:
I. proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of a training programme for professionals in the European audiovisual programme industry (MEDIA - Training, 2001-2005) [COM(1999) 658 - C5-0059/2000 - 1999/0275(COD)], and
II. proposal for a Council Decision on the implementation of a programme to encourage the development, distribution and promotion of European audiovisual works (MEDIA Plus - Development, Distribution and Promotion, 2001-2005 [COM(1999) 658 - C5-0119/2000 - 1999/0276(CNS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, first of all may I thank Mrs Ruth Hieronymi for the marvellous manner in which she has cooperated with our committee and for the outstanding degree of cooperation in all the committees and across the political spectrum.
We have concentrated on the key points. Everyone has made compromises in order to try and improve still further a programme which was already very good from the outset.
I speak now for the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and wish to focus on two aspects of the programme.
Like the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, with which we reached agreement on these points, we also call for an increase in these limited budgetary resources and an addition to the legal basis - not a change, but an addition!
Why do I, or my colleagues in the Legal Affairs Committee, see a connection between these things? I believe that everything is global, that art and culture, like everything else, are subject to these laws.
One reason why there has to be a European cultural policy is that the nation states are no longer able to pursue their cultural policies alone.
Where the European Union can intervene, as it is already doing in MEDIA Plus, it should be able to continue doing so with a greater volume of financial resources.
The Council should be called to account here.
I believe, Commissioner, that Parliament is actually playing into the hands of the Commission when we say that we want more money in order to be able to guarantee the pursuit of a European cultural policy, and that is also the reason why we should like an addition to the legal basis.
To prevent any misunderstanding, let me say that our aim here is not to subsidise the film industry but rather to ensure that more European films can be watched in Europe.
First of all, we have to win over this European territory in its entirety so that we can continue to operate efficiently.
I do not think that I need speak for my full two minutes if I can focus on these two points.
We should like more money, and we should like this addition to the legal basis.
No doubt you will be able to echo these sentiments, Madam Commissioner.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, I associate myself entirely with the words of praise that have been showered on this report and shall come to the point without further ado.
We are now entering the third round of support programmes for European films, and this support remains absolutely vital, for the European audiovisual industry has undoubtedly been in crisis for quite a long time.
The following evidence may be added to what we have already heard. About one in three of the films made in the EU is never shown in a cinema, and a large percentage of those that do make it into the cinema are watched by a total audience of fewer than 130 000.
A film will not normally start to yield a return on the initial investment until a million cinemagoers have paid to watch it.
Only one-fifth of European films ever leave their home country; of those that do, nine-tenths go no further than neighbouring European countries.
One of the strengths of the European film industry also accounts for its structural weakness.
Low-budget productions in the tradition of the film d'auteur often cannot be made without the aid of national support funds and frequently appeal to a limited audience of young intellectuals.
During production and afterwards, an adequate promotion and marketing budget is generally lacking.
Cultural and linguistic diversity are matchless assets but sadly often stand in the way of widespread distribution.
Great though the dream of conquering the U.S. film market may be, let us keep our feet on the European ground!
We must not neglect to strengthen our national markets, and we need to do more to develop the European market more effectively.
If some laurels can be reaped along the way, so much the better!
Competitiveness and marketability are commendable aims of MEDIA Plus.
The programme draws on the lessons learned from the experience of the preceding programmes, but although the Council and the Commission are well aware of the present situation, they are still afraid to take the plunge.
Big cinema needs big money.
One of the lessons that has been learned is that capping production costs as a condition of support is an obstacle to the creation of good films.
The funding of support programmes is not the only issue here.
There is also the question of allowing the provision of venture capital. Here we are confronted with a sorry state of affairs.
European companies and banks do invest considerable sums of money in the programme industry, but they tend to invest in America rather than Europe.
That is why, back in 1995, the Green Paper on strategy options to strengthen the European programme industry in the context of the audiovisual policy of the European Union proposed the establishment of a European guarantee fund, which the Council stubbornly rejected - the German Government, sad to say, being the foremost opponent of the scheme - without offering an alternative solution.
This report therefore marks a new attempt to put this financial instrument on the agenda as an accompanying measure.
In Germany there is a new Government, which will not necessarily feel that it would lose face by reversing the rejectionist stance of its predecessor, so perhaps we can now hope for a more conciliatory response.
Last but not least, we must not forget the television companies, which act as the driving force of the programme industry by investing large sums of money in audiovisual productions and by providing opportunities for the transmission of audiovisual works.
A key role attaches to the public corporations in particular.
They possess a wealth of human and material resources, which are often the prerequisite for successful productions.
Mr President, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party thinks that MEDIA Plus is an extremely commendable and important programme which can help strengthen cultural and linguistic diversity within the EU.
European film production is an important part of the EU' s cultural and media policy, and the Liberal Group considers that it is important to support the European film industry which is exposed to a very great deal of competition, especially from the American film industry.
A special effort must be made on behalf of the European film industry, and that is something the Liberal Group supports.
On one important point, however, we shall be voting against the rapporteur' s recommendation, and that is the budget for the programme.
We are opposed to increasing the amounts proposed by the Commission, as recommended by the rapporteur.
It is the European Parliament' s and the EU' s task to establish the correct framework and conditions for a cultural policy of this kind, but it is not a proper part of our remit to spend an exorbitant amount of taxpayers' money on cultural policy.
We therefore think that the Commission' s proposal for a total overall budget of EUR 400 million over the five years is both realistic and appropriate.
It is similarly with certain reservations that we shall be voting tomorrow in favour of the proposals to set up a European Guarantee Fund and to broaden the financing options through cooperation with the European Investment Bank.
If we are still voting in favour of the proposals, it is because they do not automatically mean more expense for European taxpayers.
Unlike previous media programmes, the MEDIA Plus programme also involves the radio industry and, because we really cannot find any good, sensible reason for this, we have a reservation regarding this area, too.
The media programmes were previously administered by the Commission in cooperation with the Media Committee as the advisory committee.
The rapporteur wishes to change the status of the Media Committee from that of an advisory to that of a competent body, but this is something for which we have never obtained a really good explanation.
I fear that this change will make it still a little more difficult to administer the MEDIA Plus programme, so it is also with a reservation that we shall be voting in favour of the proposals tomorrow.
In spite of all these reservations, I think we have an extremely good program before us to enable us to strengthen the European film industry. We should very much like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Hieronymi, for the impressive work she has done.
Commissioner, Mr President, I have good news and bad news about the MEDIA Plus programme.
The good news is that Mrs Hieronymi has, of course, carried out sterling work and the cooperation which culminated in unanimity within the committee which handled this report was more than excellent.
The plan is indeed sound.
In fact, projects which preceded this plan have already proved that this type of plan meets a real need.
We of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance have called for attention to be given to the smaller countries, to the difficulties which smaller producers encounter in smaller countries or in countries which belong to a smaller linguistic group, and we particularly appreciated this being taken into account in the adopted amendments.
Needless to say, we fully back what the rapporteur has stated with regard to the need for a legal basis.
Unfortunately I have to give you the bad news too.
This is not so much related to the Media Plan as it is to the media policy as a whole, as proposed by the European Union. Indeed, we may well ask ourselves what Europe' s ambition is.
I do wonder.
I was interested to hear Mr Andreasen' s criticism on the budgetary aspect here, but I read in the press that Europe spends EUR 1 billion per annum on helping and encouraging tobacco growers.
I cannot help but ask myself questions then or, as Mr Perry rightly pointed out: why is it seemingly easier to obtain EU funding in Europe if you manufacture olive oil? This is hardly ever discussed.
The huge EU budgets which are channelled into agriculture are not really discussed much, rightly so, in fact.
But I do wonder why it is so difficult to adopt European policy or industrial policy which can match Hollywood.
In my opinion, all Hollywood wants is a worthy opponent.
Unfortunately, we are forced to note that this programme cannot even start to offer anything that remotely resembles an opponent.
This programme does not even take production into account.
It mentions very important areas, such as distribution or the preliminary stages of production, but when it comes to production, mum is the word.
Naturally, the intention is not to squander subsidies.
Indeed not.
As the rapporteur rightly stated, it is vital for the European Union to set up a Guarantee Fund at long last, in tandem with the European Investment Bank, and to offer European producers who dare compete with Hollywood the necessary guarantees, so that we can offer those people who really want to invest in European cinema the opportunity to do this.
And I would like to ask the Commissioner to roll up her sleeves and get stuck in.
This is not just to safeguard our culture, but it is also an enormous challenge for this new century, because everyone knows that this will be the age of the content industry, and it would be extremely regrettable if we at European level were to hand this over completely to the American content industry.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Hyeronymi on the excellent work of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and I would also like to stress the extremely high level of agreement and synergy between the Committees, to the extent - and this is proof - that the main body of the report and those expressing the opinions of the different committees were all approved unanimously.
From a structural point of view, greater investment was necessary in the audiovisual sector to create fresh job opportunities for young unemployed Europeans and to stem the European Union brain drain to third countries, particularly the United States of America, where greater investment leads not only to better working conditions but also greater job opportunities.
The issues worked on: we considered it necessary to alter the eligibility arrangements applying to the programme by reducing the number of partners from three to two; we considered it necessary to ensure that the training programmes set out in the proposal include support measures geared to the need to develop innovative content for the production of audiovisual formats other than drama and documentaries; we considered that it was important to change the legal basis to ensure that the component relating to support for the development, distribution, and promotion of European audiovisual works can likewise be brought within the scope of codecision, thus enabling Parliament to wield greater influence on implementation of the programme and its aim of fostering European culture.
Finally, considering development of investment in the European cinema industry to be extremely important, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy calls upon the Member States to pursue a policy of making sums reinvested for the creation of new jobs tax-deductible, and stresses the importance of establishing a guarantee fund as one of the measures necessary for the development of the independent audiovisual industry which encourages new talent and develops a cultural content of European tradition.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in a Europe of economic and monetary union, it could have been an advantage for the MEDIA/MEDIA Plus programme to have Article 157 (industry) of the Treaty as its legal basis.
Audiovisual media would, of course, be at the heart of European policy, and also of our work.
Now, reading the preview of this part-session produced by Parliament' s press department, I note that the MEDIA Plus programme is not one of this week' s highlights.
And I have been really surprised at the low level of interest aroused by one of this year' s most important reports from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport - or rather, to tell you the truth, I have not been surprised at all.
Culture is not paid much attention in this Parliament, as in all the European Institutions.
That must change.
It is not just the audiovisual industry or, I should rather say, the audiovisual sector.
Like others Members who have spoken on this subject, I hope Article 151, on culture, can also be a legal basis for this audiovisual programme.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs Hieronymi wholeheartedly for her determination to broaden the basis and the aim, and to develop the resources for this programme, not to mention all the energy she has put into our joint work.
Audiovisual creation does not account for the whole industry, but creation is indeed involved and the purpose of this programme is to make cultural diversity effective and concrete.
Cultural diversity is not a slogan. It is a cultural and economic necessity.
We urgently need to have audiovisual works distributed in every country in Europe.
Grants to cinemas showing non-national European films should be increased.
Emphasising the cultural importance of the programme does not mean neglecting its economic importance, of course.
By 2005, the audiovisual sector should have been responsible for creating over 300 000 highly qualified jobs.
How can people have so little interest in a market likely to grow so rapidly? It seems that neither cultural necessity nor economic objectives carry any weight in favour of implementing this ambitious programme.
As always when culture is involved, the budget is minimal, not to mention the fact that it is always gone ten in the evening by the time we get round to culture here.
People may say the budget has been increased compared with the two previous programmes, MEDIA 1 and MEDIA 2.
I think not.
EUR 250 million for twelve countries and EUR 310 million for sixteen countries is no less than the EUR 400 million now proposed for some thirty countries.
Why is such a derisory budget, with no real increase, allocated to a programme which can combine the two objectives Europe so badly needs - the objective of Europe' s identity and Europe' s own diversified culture, and dynamic economic development?
We are told the digital age promises a revolution in the development of content and the distribution of images, and the MEDIA Plus programme devotes space to pilot projects, such as the digital transposition of our audiovisual heritage. Under the circumstances, would it really be responsible not to take the MEDIA Plus programme seriously?
Mr President, the MEDIA programmes are designed to strengthen European industry and the audiovisual content through measures providing financial support to specific sectors such as development, the preparation stage of projects, the distribution and marketing of audiovisual works, the promotion of European works and programmes with the aim of facilitating access to European and international markets, and training aimed at improving occupational preparation.
The adoption of the Media Plus and Training programmes is important; the autonomous role of the promotion sector is important; the significant role of distribution is important for an increasingly wide distribution of works; the complementarity between Media Plus and Media Training should be increased as much as possible.
The Commission should take Parliament's contribution to heart and accept all the amendments - both those to the training part, which is subject to codecision, and those to the development, distribution and promotion part, which is merely subject to the consultation procedure and which, moreover, receives the greatest share of the budget.
The amendments are the result of some very clever work, Mrs Hyeronymi, and, as Chairman, I would like to compliment you and reiterate that you have won the unanimous support of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media, Education and Sport and the committees which expressed opinions.
The latter Committees - the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy - have done something significant in approving the proposal to change the legal basis of Media Plus, inserting Article 157 (industry) and Article 151 (culture) in order to give equal value to industry and the audiovisual sector.
The Commission has already indicated through press agencies that it opposes this amendment.
I am sorry but we are not satisfied with the response and we would have preferred to have heard the Commission's position in this debate and not through press statements.
In any case, we call for an increase in the budget and we hope that Parliament and the Commission will be able to achieve unanimity and an agreement on this issue as well.
Mr President, I thank Mrs Hieronymi for the work she has put into this report.
It is important to stress at the outset that this is not just any old report.
It is something that is very dear not only to the members of this committee and the House but also to members of the industry right across the Union.
But in putting this before the House we have to ask ourselves two very important questions. Firstly, why do we need this programme?
Secondly, what is the added value that it is going to bring us? Only by answering those questions as a House can we go forward to the Council and the Commission with a very strong case.
Why do we need it? We are at the very beginning of an explosion of this industry on this continent.
We have to put ourselves in the position of being able to compete in the international arena.
I believe we are able to do that.
I also believe that this industry will be the spearhead of this century, in the same way as coal, steel and the infrastructure of railways were the impetus for the development of the revolution in the 19th century.
It is absolutely vital that we do not miss the train on this one.
It is absolutely vital that we get in there as a series of institutions committed to building this industry.
The second reason is that we have to, in this increasingly homogenised era of global audio-visual content, get into the area of freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of diversity.
That is where we in this House have an exemplary responsibility in performing our role in the development of this particular sector.
My own Group is very committed to the budget that has been laid out in the report.
We are also very committed to diversifying and looking at different sources of funding as befits our new entrepreneurial era.
Finally, it is very important to reiterate what Mrs Pack said about having a long term strategy for the audio-visual sector in the European Union, a long term coordinated and integrated strategy that allows us to benefit from each other's strengths in every Member State.
Madam Commissioner, on a certain occasion in September, you said that we should declare war on Hollywood in order to strengthen the European film industry.
The only problem there is that our best warriors emigrate to Hollywood.
Commissioner, malicious gossip has it that you could be open to challenge, in purely legal terms, for awarding the European Film Prize in Cannes on behalf of MEDIA Plus, since the prize may have been funded from the MEDIA II budget.
Be that as it may, we shall not criticise you. On the contrary, we are grateful for the tremendous vigour with which you have been tackling the entire cultural agenda.
I have read in the press that we in the European Parliament could possibly upset the timetable because we are pressing for parliamentary codecision.
I do not think this is the case.
We have the political will to see that this programme begins on time.
As directly elected representatives of the people, we also have a legal and moral right to be part of the decision-making process in the field of cultural policy.
Madam Commissioner, we make an earnest appeal for a constructive dialogue with you and with the Council on this specific issue.
Mr President, I would like to say that I am pleased with the MEDIA Plus document.
I believe that it has been very much improved by Parliament.
Mrs Hieronymi, furthermore, has been very open to all suggestions and it seems to me that, in relation to other programmes, it contains an innovation which the Commission has also contributed to, that is, support for marketing and distribution.
Nevertheless, I would like a further step to be taken because, in my view, the MEDIA Plus document follows a principle which is rather like that of arts cinema: it supports in particular the script and the production when these days we know that post-production accounts for 60%, 70% or 80% of good films.
Furthermore, postproduction is the field in which the new technologies are working.
It is much cheaper to produce special effects by computer than in reality.
If we do not support post-production, editing, training in editing and the establishment of studios for dubbing, editing and creating sound tracks, in which post-production can be properly carried out, our cinema will lag behind.
We have European directors who have worked with American companies, who have made fantastic films. We have the knowledge, but we do not have the support for the industry to allow us to compete in post-production, because to speak now of script-led cinema is to speak of times past, it is to speak of the theatre-cinema in which the camera follows the actor around.
That system is completely obsolete.
We should support this new industry in which, furthermore, there are new vocations, new forms of creativity, a creativity of images, pure cinema, the new cinema for the era we are living in. I would therefore ask that, when offering grants, these aspects should be taken into account and the industry should be opened up to the world.
In the conciliation we should now finally be talking of a cultural industry.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, technological progress over the last decade has indeed revolutionised the audiovisual sector.
In any society that respects man and functions to satisfy his diverse material, spiritual and cultural needs, such progress encourages artistic creation to flourish and new forms of expression to develop, making art accessible to all and helping to create a deeper understanding between people from all walks of life.
In capitalist societies, however, in both the audiovisual and in other sectors, the beneficial consequences of technological progress are being stifled by the forces controlling it; to wit, by monopolies making profits not by improving the quality of artistic creation, but by controlling the markets, subjecting people to misleading advertising, dictating ideological beliefs and creating specific consumer standards, even for culture.
The problem, honourable members, is not just whether films produced in the US or films produced in Europe dominate the European market; the main problem lies with the content and quality of the films that we and our children watch.
The European Union treats culture in general and audiovisual media in particular as a commodity, as yet another commercial activity for big business and as a competitive market where the only winners are those who are best equipped to turn the market mechanisms to their advantage, rather than those who have something new or something of a higher quality to offer.
This approach is quite evident in the proposal for the MEDIA Plus/MEDIA training programme, from the very first paragraph of the introduction and from Article 1 of the proposal for a decision, which aims to allow professionals in the industry to take full advantage of the European and international dimension of the market.
The whole structure has absolutely nothing to do with the needs of the people of the European Union or with culture; on the contrary it serves those interests which benefit from the commercialisation of culture.
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on the work that she has done.
There are two simple points I want to make.
There are some things that the public sector cannot do and some things the market cannot do. Certainly the public sector cannot make good films.
I do not believe it can do much of a job of judging what is a good film.
Whenever we try it in the United Kingdom, any support from the government tends to mean that the film is going to be a flop.
We need to very careful about that.
Similarly, the market does not have adequate resources or adequate ability to ensure that we have sufficiently skilled and trained people.
That certainly is an area that is proposed in this report and is a responsibility at a European level.
I must pay tribute to organisations like, in Britain, the National Film School in Beaconsfield, which needs help to do its work.
I was pleased to see there are some references to digital radio in this report, but not enough.
We should not forget the radio sector in audio-visual.
I hope that will not be forgotten as this report goes through.
Finally, it is very easy to write a long speech.
It is much harder to give a short speech.
It is easy to spend a large budget, but difficult to spend a small budget.
We look to the Commission to spend the money that they have efficiently and effectively.
Mr President, I shall not have the last word; that is the Commissioner's prerogative.
I wish to subscribe to the thanks that have been expressed to the rapporteur and to emphasise that I have heard from insiders that the programme has so far been an unqualified success.
I believe that one reason for this has been the way in which the support has been accompanied by intensive consultancy and local networking.
This needs to be re-emphasised.
The MEDIA desk and the local MEDIA branches have proved to be very useful instruments.
It is vital for these accompanying institutional measures to be retained.
The MEDIA branch offices help to minimise the obstacles to European cooperation, for example.
On the one hand, MEDIA is about culture and common European cultural traditions in the audiovisual domain. This is still a rather tender sapling which needs our undivided attention.
Moreover, as other speakers have already pointed out, it is also an economic asset that is judged by its success.
One key criterion of the success of the new MEDIA programme will be its support for the development, marketing and promotion of films that the public wants to see.
I make no attempt to conceal my own personal view on this matter.
Hollywood cannot be beaten, in my opinion, by money and quotas but only by quality.
Recent years have shown that people are interested in many different types of film.
Europe must not shy away from this window of opportunity.
We must continue to foster this encouraging development, and to that end the budgetary increase requested in Mrs Hieronymi's report is a logical move.
Finally, I should like to mention that many of the roots of our European culture lie in Central and Eastern Europe.
A higher budget will also make it possible to involve the Central and Eastern European countries to a greater extent in these programmes.
The last word on an increased budget may not yet have been spoken, and we shall perhaps be discussing further increases over the next few years.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Reding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Quality evaluation in school education
The next item is the report (A5-0185/2000) by Mrs Sanders-Ten Holte, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, concerning a proposal for a European Parliament and Council recommendation on European cooperation in the domain of quality evaluation in school education (COM(1999) 709 - C5-0053/2000 - 2000/0022(COD)).
Mr President, Commissioner, one of the EU' s key goals is to promote mobility within the labour market, and this can only be stimulated by high-quality education.
It is therefore essential to develop tools not only to improve education, but also to ensure that education meets modern-day requirements.
Quality assessment, self-assessment of schools in particular, is a key element in the development of quality education.
This is why, all in all, I am delighted with the Commission' s recommendation that is now before us.
However, I also have some comments with regard to the recommendation, and I included these in my report.
In my opinion, it is especially important to encourage Member States to develop sound methods for assessment in education, bearing in mind that self-assessment is complementary to external evaluation.
In addition, it is important for them to exchange good models and experiences and that all those involved in the school are actually involved in the self-assessment process, including parents and students.
Moreover, it is important to stimulate cooperation between schools and various bodies, also at local and regional level.
Good examples of this can be found in the trial projects and also, of course, at European level.
What the Commission needs to do, therefore, is to draw up an inventory of sound existing methods, in order to set up a database which can be used interactively so that activities can be scheduled and regular reports submitted to Parliament by putting the item on the running agenda.
I have drawn on many ideas from my fellow delegates, but also from many institutions in the sphere I mentioned above.
It transpired in the process that the will to turn this project into a success is present on all sides, and the impetus created by the EU has certainly found fertile soil.
It is therefore all the more unfortunate that repeated attempts on my part to reach agreement with the Council - because you know it was my intention to complete the report at first reading - were thwarted time and again and met with reactions that came too late and insufficient mandate.
I would therefore call on the Council to come up with a proposal for a common position within the short term.
We are nearly there, but I would first of all like to clarify the line adopted by our Parliament, so that we can coincide with the line taken by the Council.
Finally, we reached general agreement in the committee on a large number of amendments.
I thank you all for your very constructive attitude.
I would now ask you for your support to deliver on these agreements.
I would advise you not to pursue the amendments tabled by the PSE.
It is important to couple education with the labour market. This is borne out by the results reached in Lisbon.
After all, we should not educate people for unemployment, and education needs to pre-empt this.
This is why this should also be included in this report.
The other amendments are already more or less reflected in the text or in other amendments.
Finally, I would like to mention the financial dimension.
I have not made any changes on purpose, not because I think the budget is generous but because I think that it will appear from the reports whether the budget is too tight.
That will then be a good time to consider a possible increase in the funding.
I thank you and look forward to your reactions.
Mr President, it was late when I made my last speech, it is even later now so I shall be try to be even briefer.
But education is important and we must make sure it gets the attention it deserves.
Often education attracts fine words.
What it does not always get is the action to match those words.
We all know the EU has very limited responsibilities as regards education, but there are some places where the European Union can give added value.
Quality evaluation is one of those.
When I went into town earlier on this evening I saw young people in the city of Strasbourg looking at leaflets up on a wall.
What they were looking at were their baccalaureate results.
So we think nothing about evaluating youngsters.
What we need to do is evaluate the schools and to make sure that the schools are doing well.
Since the schools are preparing young people for an education in the single market of Europe, we must make sure that the schools across Europe are all doing their work to prepare people for the single market those young people are going to work in.
In some parts of the Union - and I am quite willing to cite the United Kingdom - we are not doing as well as we could.
There are very many bright youngsters who do very well in the schools, but 20% of young people leave British schools without any qualifications at all.
We cannot afford to allow that to continue to happen.
There have been estimates that in the next two years we will require half a million extra people in IT jobs.
Where are those young people going to come from? We have to make sure that the schools can deliver them and I am quite sure that what is contained in this report is one of the ways that we can help raise the standards in schools.
In English we say "two heads are better than one" .
I am quite prepared to believe that 15 heads, or 15 sets of data across the Union, will help us achieve better quality in the schools.
I would just say to the Council - and I hope there is somebody from the Council listening to this - I know we can have confidence in the Commissioner, but let us say to the Council that their fine words at Lisbon were great but they should now deliver on them.
I am therefore very sorry that the great efforts that the rapporteur made to get full agreement were not actually rewarded.
So do not be too surprised if this Parliament backs the rapporteur and tries to push the Council to live up to the fine words they were so ready to utter.
Mr President, building Europe means first and foremost being aware of its diversity and its differences.
In studying the educational systems of the Member States of the European Union we should draw on a profound knowledge of the practices and acquired rights in our various countries, because each of our countries has its own educational reality.
Any change to the educational system calls into question the ideology of the society and its economic development.
Quality in education is a challenge for our society, but education must not become a focus for social operators who want to impose their personal aims upon it.
If an in-depth reform of the educational system is needed, it must involve all the partners in the system and, above all, it must not be rigid.
It must be capable of evolving in step with society because educational systems suffer when they are not rooted in life.
But for all that, we must not forget that the all-round development of the human being is an essential goal of education.
We must not seek to respond at any price to a constantly developing market.
On the contrary, we must let young people acquire the tools of knowledge which allow them to face their future.
Today, the concern is certainly not to wait for pupils to fail, at the end of their schooling, before showing some imagination.
They need to be offered appropriate teaching.
No child is devoid of talent.
Every system creates its own type of failures.
The criteria for identifying failure are essentially subjective.
Success is judged according to pre-established standards. What are those standards?
How have they been established? Depending on the circumstances, politicians may even find it in their interests to exaggerate or minimise things that are going wrong, especially as the problems of education occupy a growing place in the political debate and the media.
Any pupil in difficulties is a young person whose future is compromised.
Any child who is failing is expressing his unease in the educational institution, but also in society.
A young person who is not recognised as an individual with his own experiences and his own knowledge is a rejected human being.
In rejection he will give vent to his despair; he will give vent to his hatred.
The fight against failure at school, in other words, against failure in society, is and must be a major concern for anyone with political responsibility.
So it is time to regard the young person as a developing being, wishing to train himself rather than being trained.
Perhaps we should change the way we approach knowledge and review the operation of our educational systems, but we must be careful not to seek uniformity because the multiplicity of cultures is a source of personal enrichment and a condition for successful human development.
There is no miracle cure, but there are battles to be fought.
And that means that all those who believe it must combine forces to do so.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is almost midnight already, and I do not wish to extend this sitting unnecessarily.
I agree with what Mrs Roure and Mr Perry have said and, of course, with the content of Mrs Sanders- Ten Holte's report.
I should like to confine myself to a couple of points, and I shall begin by referring back to Feira and Lisbon.
This report is really a follow-up to the thoughts of the European Council meetings in Lisbon and Feira.
When we contemplate the information society and globalisation, when we consider the speed at which technology is changing our society, it becomes obvious that we must guarantee a school education that enables young people to stay abreast of these developments.
We must create the basis for the essential establishment of lifelong learning.
For that reason, I approve of the measures that are proposed here.
They will probably help us to deal more effectively with this challenge.
Let me just come back to a point that I raised myself in an amendment.
It must be possible to work with the existing resources, with the available networks and databases.
There is no need for us to keep reinventing the wheel.
We should use what we have, comparing the knowledge we each possess and then operating on the basis of that knowledge.
I shall move on now to a technical point.
In recent days we have heard that Mrs Sanders has been trying to make the first reading suffice.
But of course there is a price to pay for that.
Whoever wants to shorten the legislative process to one reading by making use of the scope for interinstitutional agreements has to conclude a deal.
This deal does not involve a decree from the gentlemen of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, who have no say; they must simply declare their acceptance of the sound parliamentary proposals.
They have not made such a declaration; they did promise us something, but we set no store by promises.
We shall vote on our report tomorrow.
Thereafter, if the gentlemen of Coreper feel able to accept our amendments, we are prepared to expedite the matter very swiftly in the autumn - there is no rush.
We should not buy a pig in a poke; we should vote on our report tomorrow and give these gentlemen the opportunity to think again.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to what has been said already, with which I can only concur, may I reiterate that the foundations for the future prospects of the youth of tomorrow are laid in the classrooms of today and that brainpower will be the key asset of the future.
Among the basic skills we now have to learn is how to teach young people to cope with the rapid changes that are taking place in the present era.
These basic skills also include the ability to motivate individuals to engage in lifelong learning, to arouse their curiosity, to foster their willingness to be mobile, flexible and open-minded and to accept responsibility and to train them to be independent.
Let me just cite one example of this motivation and support.
In my own country of Austria, this type of benchmarking, in the form of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) Pop 3 study, in which we did not perform particularly well, has led to the establishment of a programme known as Qualität in Schulen (Q.I.S - Quality in Schools).
At the heart of this project is the school curriculum.
It contains a model for schools to follow and statements relating to the present situation and enumerates specific aims and measures for the promotion of quality in various areas.
It is a fixed-term agreement with an impact inside and outside schools, providing guidelines for educational practice as well as information for the public and serving as a planning instrument and a yardstick against which the development of a school can be measured.
Comparison creates competition, and competition promotes individuality among schools and hence a variety of models for guidance.
This is the path we must pursue.
Many thanks, Commissioner Reding, especially for the fact that we shall now be able to go home before midnight.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for staying the course!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12 midnight)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on Monday I made a point of order about President Nicole Fontaine's reported comments in the British press regarding her recent visit with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
A British Labour Member of this House, Mr Miller, repeated what were purported to be the Queen's remarks, not once but three times, on Monday, on Tuesday and on Wednesday.
He sought to drag the Queen into a political controversy and to use her name to score cheap political points.
Mr President, it may be that President Fontaine was unfamiliar with the British rules of protocol which obtain in such matters, but Mr Miller has no such excuse.
He knows perfectly well that ours is a non-political Head of State.
He knows perfectly well that for nearly fifty years she has scrupulously avoided engaging in controversial political issues.
He knows perfectly well that she cannot come to this House to set the record straight.
His behaviour is a disgrace and a scandal.
Mr President, I am proud to be British but today I am ashamed to share my nationality with that man. Has he no shame?
Has he no respect? Has he no decency or honour at all?
Mr President, well, how can I respond to such an attack as that? When I raised the point on Monday, and on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, I asked Mr Helmer for his comments on the euro.
So far, he has refused to comment.
Can I also say that when Mrs Fontaine spoke to Her Majesty the Queen and obviously put certain questions to her the Queen, in her response, was representing her government, which is a Labour Government.
That might not suit Mr Helmer, but I am sorry to say that is the way it goes.
Can I also say yes, I am Scottish, yes, I am British, but, Mr Helmer, I am European as well and proud to be.
Mr President, I wish to use this point of order to speak in my capacity as chairman of the delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and Mexico.
As you will be aware, elections were held in Mexico last Sunday.
Yesterday the delegation which I chair met and discussed a report drawn up by our fellow Members who had been to Mexico to act as observers at these elections on behalf of this Parliament.
We finally approved a three-point statement.
The first point was to recognise and welcome the dignified and civic-minded conduct of our Mexican friends during these elections.
Secondly, we welcomed the election of Mr Fox and expressed our hope that relations between the European Union and Mexico would continue to make progress under the general agreement approved and ratified in March.
Thirdly, we wished to congratulate President Zedillo on having enabled Mexican institutions to make this change to democracy.
Mr President, I would ask you to see if the President of this Parliament could forward our resolution, the complete text of which you will receive today, to the Mexican authorities.
Very well, Mr Seguro.
I will certainly inform President Fontaine.
Certainly, Mr Lehne.
You gave ample clarification of the matter yesterday.
We will certainly ensure that the necessary correction is made.
Mr President, yesterday we received a communication on yellow paper from the vice-president, with some nuts attached to it.
This note was about supporting the export of products from Vanuatu, a developing country in the Pacific.
I think that is a very good idea and quite right.
And I am quite happy to support it.
But what rather puzzles me is that in it the vice-president quite explicitly stated that it is illegal to import these nuts into the European Union.
So I must ask this vice-president to explain how these nuts came to be illegally imported, since it was he who delivered them to us!
That in itself is a contradiction so would he please clarify the matter.
(Laughter and applause)
(The Minutes were approved)
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I have the great pleasure of welcoming the members of the delegation from the Swiss Federal Assembly, led by their speaker, Mr Marcel Sandoz, now seated in the official gallery.
The members of the delegation have come to Strasbourg to meet their European Parliament peers on the occasion of the 19th EU-Switzerland Interparliamentary Conference.
The meetings commenced yesterday and will continue throughout today.
The agenda includes the bilateral agreements between the European Parliament and Switzerland, the future development of the Swiss integration policy, the likely results of the European Union Intergovernmental Conference and the enlargement process of the European Union.
On behalf of all the Members of the European Parliament, I hope that the meetings will be profitable for the delegation and I wish them a pleasant stay in this beautiful town of Strasbourg.
Committee on Petitions - European Ombudsman
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports, tabled on behalf of the Committee on Petitions:
(A5-0162/2000) by Mrs Lambert, on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year 1999-2000;
(A5-0181/2000) by Mrs Thors, on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1999.
Mr President, I am glad to have the opportunity to address the European Parliament concerning the results of my work as European Ombudsman in the year 1999.
The Annual Report for 1999 covers the last year of the first mandate of the European Ombudsman.
Last year the Ombudsman's office received 1,577 new complaints compared to 1,372 in 1998, an increase of nearly 15%.
The number of inquiries opened rose from 171 in 1998 to 206 in 1999, an increase of over 20%.
As well as becoming better known, the European Ombudsman is also attracting a higher proportion of serious complaints which require full investigation.
You may be interested to know that the same trend has continued to the present year.
During the first six months of this year, the number of new inquiries rose by 32% over the same period in 1999.
Inquiries are the most resource-intensive aspect of the Ombudsman's work.
It is therefore a great challenge to deal with this increase, whilst maintaining the quality of our work and meeting our target of closing most inquiries within one year.
I do hope that the European Parliament will support the Ombudsman in seeking the resources needed to carry out the work effectively.
During 1999, we continued to receive a quite high proportion of complaints, over 70%, which lay outside the mandate of the European Ombudsman.
The proportion of the complaints outside the mandate even increased slightly, probably because we received a growing number of complaints by e-mail.
We gladly accept complaints by e-mail and many of them contain well - presented allegations of maladministration.
However in all, more of the e-mail complaints are directed against authorities of Member States.
During the campaign for the election of a European Ombudsman last year, some critical voices suggested that the Ombudsman's mandate should be broadened to include complaints against Member States in cases where a question of European Union law is involved.
I am not sure whether they understood that this would mean the European Ombudsman carrying out tasks currently belonging to the European Commission as the guardian of the Treaty, and to the European Parliament as the democratic forum to which citizens may address petitions.
We study carefully all the complaints we receive, especially if they involve rights under European Union law.
In 1999, we managed to advise the complainant, or transfer the complaint to a competent body, in about half of the cases.
Of these, we transferred 71 cases to the European Parliament to be dealt with as petitions and advised a further 142 complainants of their rights to petition the European Parliament.
In many cases, complaints against national, regional or local authorities could be dealt with effectively by an Ombudsman in the Member States concerned.
In every Member State there should be a non-judicial body which can assist European citizens in conflicts with Member States' administration concerning their rights under European Union law.
As a believer in subsidiarity, I remain convinced that the most effective way to achieve this result is through the development of a network of cooperation with these Ombudsmen as similar bodies such as petitions committees.
We organised jointly with the French Ombudsman, Mr Stasi, a seminar for national Ombudsmen and similar bodies.
In Paris in September 1999, Mr Perry, the first vice-chairman of the Committee on Petitions, represented the European Parliament.
A further seminar is planned to take place in Brussels under the Belgian presidency of the Council in the year 2001 in cooperation with the Commission and with Belgium federal and regional ombudsmen.
The regional Ombudsmen and similar bodies were invited to a meeting in Florence last year in which Mr Gemelli, the chairman of the Committee on Petitions, also attended.
The regional Ombudsmen and similar bodies will also be invited to Brussels next year.
The Ombudsmen and similar bodies in the Member States have shown a positive attitude towards cooperation with the European Ombudsman.
I strongly believe that cooperation with them on equal terms will achieve the best results for European citizens.
At the beginning, great doubts were expressed as to whether the European Ombudsman had sufficient powers to achieve anything for the citizen.
These doubts were unjustified because the Community's institutions and bodies have responded properly to the Ombudsman's work.
Since the beginning, they have themselves settled the complaint to the satisfaction of the complainant in over 180 cases.
For example, they have replied to unanswered letters, made payments that are due and reversed previous unfavourable decisions.
This indicates a spirit of responsiveness and flexibility superior to those national administrations of which I have experience.
Sixty-two of these settlements occurred last year, reducing the scope for friendly solutions to be proposed by the Ombudsman.
However, we did achieve one friendly solution in 1999 in a case where the Commission and the Council agreed that the complainant should be paid the amount due him for his work as a European Union regional coordinator monitoring the Palestinian elections.
If the institution or body concerned will not correct the maladministration itself, the Ombudsman's ultimate weapon is to draft a recommendation followed, if necessary, by a special report to European Parliament.
Five years ago, there were many people who said that the Community institutions and bodies did not pay much heed to European Parliament.
Even if they might have been right then, things have clearly changed since the Treaty of Amsterdam and the fall of the Santer Commission.
In 1999 we made ten draft recommendations.
In seven cases the institution concerned has accepted a draft recommendation.
In two cases the Ombudsman has made a special report to the European Parliament.
One case remains ongoing, since Europol needs more time to comply with the draft recommendation that it should approve some public access to documents.
I believe that the European Ombudsman's activities have reached the level that one has the right to expect of a body which is new and consists of 25 persons working in a fairly complex legal environment.
We are achieving results for European citizens, and this is what matters above all.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank all the Community institutions and bodies for another year of constructive cooperation.
I would especially like to address the Commission and its responsible Member, Mrs Loyola de Palacio, and thank her for continuing her predecessor's commitment to an honest and constructive attitude towards cooperation with the Ombudsman.
I would also like to express my warm appreciation for the helpful and cooperative attitude towards the Ombudsman's office shown by the Committee on Petitions and especially its vice-chairman, Mr Gemelli, and also thank the rapporteur for the Committee on Petitions Mrs Thors, for her important work on her comprehensive report.
Thank you for your attention.
Mr President, Commissioner and Mr Söderman, the rapporteur' s and the committee' s understanding of the Ombudsman' s report for 1999 - the year characterised by crises within the EU institutions and by an immense distrust of the administration - is that the citizens will only view European integration as legitimate if they have rights that mean they can actively participate in a political dialogue with the institutions.
The political dialogue is not, however, a real dialogue if the citizens do not have the right to receive information and to have access to the documents that they ask for and if the opinions they express are not paid attention to, discussed or taken seriously.
What has all this got to do with the Ombudsman' s task? The Ombudsman' s task is, of course, according to the Treaty, to investigate cases of maladministration within the Community institutions and within the public bodies.
At the request of the European Parliament, the Ombudsman gave a definition of the term "maladministration" in the annual report for 1997.
These cases occur when a public body fails to act in accordance with a rule or principle that is binding upon it.
During the Ombudsman' s last period of office, the institutions agreed to apply this definition, and it is now, and will be in the future, the basis for the Ombudsman' s activity.
In the report, the committee stresses that this jointly approved definition of "maladministration" also involves the right to inspect how the institutions have interpreted Community law.
Irrespective of the legal form the Charter of Fundamental Rights will take, it will, in any case, be an expression of the Member States' common constitutional traditions which, in accordance with Article 6 of the Treaty, shall be respected by the Union and therefore also by the institutions and public bodies.
The committee observes, therefore, that the Ombudsman ought to play an important part in implementing a future charter of citizens' rights.
The committee has also expressed its clear support for the fact that the Charter of Fundamental Rights ought to contain rules which give citizens the right to expect good administration within the EU.
"Good administration" is the opposite of "maladministration" .
The right to good administration, both with respect to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Code of Good Administrative Behaviour which Parliament and the Ombudsman have sought, should at least contain: the right to have one' s case heard, the right to inspect documents, the right to prompt answers from the administration and the right to receive replies supported by reasons.
All these aspects have been central to the Ombudsman' s work.
These rights are prerequisites for the active citizenship that is necessary if the EU is to regain the confidence of its citizens.
It is these rights that make citizenship active instead of passive.
Good administration can create conditions for active citizenship, whereas maladministration can undermine these conditions.
What are the most common complaints to the Ombudsman and into which categories do they fall? Incomplete or refused information, delays that could have been avoided, discrimination, lack of the right to defence.
Citizens want to see good administration.
They want to be active citizens.
These conclusions can be drawn from the ever increasing number of complaints to the Ombudsman and from the nature of these complaints.
The Ombudsman has become renowned for his work for the wider public. This is something he should receive a lot of praise for.
An investigation that he completed a few years ago resulted in most of the Community' s institutions and public bodies currently having legislation that allows the public to have access to documents.
He has tirelessly continued the work for real transparency and for its no longer being possible for data secrecy and personal protection to be used to prevent the public' s scrutiny of the activities of the authorities.
Step by step, the Ombudsman has developed his work, endeavoured to obtain better administration and gained the trust of the citizens.
His cooperation with the national ombudsmen is also important, as will be his future cooperation with the corresponding bodies in the candidate countries.
This is substantial work that Parliament has reason to support.
It ought to do this by making sufficient financial resources available to the Ombudsman so that he can carry out the necessary investigations which the mandate requires.
We should in the future also make sure that we support an Ombudsman who is independent in his decision making.
I would like to address a big thank you to the Ombudsman and his office, as well as to the secretariat at the Committee on Petitions which, as we know, is currently working under difficult conditions.
Mr President, the European Parliament' s Committee on Petitions is a very special body.
It receives complaints from citizens, as the two previous speakers rightly said, who believe their rights as EU citizens have been restricted.
As draftsman of an opinion on the right of residence, I would like to make a few comments on the specific problems in this area.
The free movement of persons is one of the basic freedoms achieved through European integration.
Since the Maastricht Treaty there is a general right of residence, provided the individual concerned has adequate means of subsistence and adequate health insurance protection.
Freedom of movement and right of residence can be restricted only for reasons of law and order, security or health.
Experience has shown the Committee on Petitions that in practice the right to freedom of movement comes up against a great many problems because: (a) Member State authorities are slow to transpose the rules of Community law, (b) problems arise with the recognition of diplomas and qualifications in the case of specific professions, (c) the rules on social security have not been standardised, e.g. complicated forms for the refund of medical costs.
An analysis of Treaty infringement proceedings between 1996 and 1999 shows that in 97 cases there was a direct link between the petition and the Treaty infringement proceedings before the European Court of Justice.
Unfortunately, the Council often ignores the communications from the Committee on Petitions about serious violations of Community law by Member State authorities.
That reflects a negative attitude towards the European citizens' right of petition.
In future the Council should devote the necessary attention to the rights of EU citizens.
Mr President, the right to petition and to complain is not some recent invention.
Even 2000 years ago petitioners could put their concerns before the Roman emperor.
But this right was always in danger of being changed, restricted or abolished.
Yesterday' s petitioners have become today' s responsible European citizens.
No administration or institution is infallible.
Many petitions point to a discrepancy between the legal provisions and European integration.
So petitions are a gauge for the relations between the citizens and the legislator and there are many levels of petitions.
A population of hamsters in an industrial area is of just as much concern to us as the ban on silicon implants or the introduction of a heavy goods tax.
I turn now to the Ombudsman.
My group congratulates the Ombudsman on the work he accomplished in 1999.
It was, and is, to Mr Söderman' s credit that he has done so much to create greater transparency and openness within the European administrations.
Since most of the complaints in the Ombudsman' s remit relate to the European Commission and concern a lack of transparency, work needs to be done to improve this situation.
That includes access to documents, not only for the citizens of Europe but also for the Ombudsman.
New office technologies cannot be used as grounds for the lack of transparency either.
Comprehensible, substantiated replies to the citizens create trust, the opposite gives rise to distrust and a rising number of complaints that need to be dealt with, which therefore in turn creates costs.
The Ombudsman' s proposal for a Code of Good Administrative Behaviour is particularly welcome.
The citizens have a basic right to an open and responsible administration geared to providing services, since after all it is paid for out of their taxes.
In my view it is most important for the European Ombudsman to play an independent role, which can serve as an example for the introduction of national ombudsmen in the candidate countries and in my Land of Thüringen.
Mr President, Mr Söderman, we in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, and myself personally, are proud that our Ombudsman is courageous, enterprising and able to act.
It is extremely important that we have someone with such integrity who has dared to stand up for openness and transparency and against the culture of underhandedness, secrecy and, unfortunately in certain cases, of cheating and corruption, which also exists in the European institutions.
Only an open and public administration can win support among those who are working here amongst the politicians and among the citizens whom we represent.
The line the Ombudsman is pursuing has a lot of support amongst the citizens of all Member States.
It is an indisputable fact, and there are several international scientific reports to prove it, that there is a crystal-clear connection between a high level of openness and transparency in the administration and a low level of corruption.
The opposite is also true: a closed and secretive administration tends to foster a higher level of corruption.
That is, of course, also true in the European institutions.
That is why it is so important for us to have a completely independent ombudsman who can act independently and without being subject to any lobbying whatsoever or to interested parties attempting to influence him.
The increasing proportion of complaints coming from citizens also points to the need for our Ombudsman, who really acts in the interests of the citizens.
The only criticism that can be directed at the Ombudsman is probably that, unfortunately, the institution is still far too little known in many Member States and that far too few citizens are aware of this right.
This is probably something which I would like to see concentrated on in the future.
To summarise, the Ombudsman fulfils a very important function.
I would like to congratulate him on the work he has carried out during the year and wish him luck in the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Söderman, it may be well to remember that just a year and a half ago there was a debate in this Chamber over whether we needed a Committee on Petitions in general.
I am very pleased to be able to say that the Committee on Petitions has again shown its indispensability, especially at a time like this, when we wish to enhance the status of the ordinary citizen in the European Union.
I genuinely hope that the Commission on Petitions succeeds in establishing good levels of co-operation with the other committees in the coming year.
I believe that we will be able to draft joint reports on the most important problem areas.
With regard to the Ombudsman, he has truly established his position and independence.
The growing number of grievances is an indication that the public have found him, and we members of the European Parliament have often been able to guide people in his direction to have their problems solved.
Public access to documents is an issue that will occupy us in the future, and we have already had some valuable advice on the matter from the Ombudsman.
Mr President, in one minute one cannot say much, so I am going to take this opportunity to summarise.
Firstly, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Lambert, for taking up all our proposals in the debate.
There are therefore not even any amendments.
Secondly, I wish to say that at this stage nobody doubts that the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman make an extremely important contribution to compliance with Community law.
We see this every day in the Committee on Petitions.
Like Mrs Hautala, I am therefore very happy that the Committee on Petitions has survived the attempts to remove it, since, as well as demanding compliance with Community law, it is the committee which is closest to the citizens.
It is the committee which makes the institutions most visible to the citizens.
The greatest problem is probably the long procedure which follows a complaint by a citizen.
The citizen has to study Community law in order to present a petition, and then any response is delayed month after month.
The most important petitions deal with social and environmental issues, which are the matters of most concern.
On some occasions, Mr President - and I will end here - when a complaint involves the eviction of a citizen or the destruction of a natural area, the response arrives when it is too late to deal with the matter.
The speeding up of the process is therefore an important issue which has been taken up by Mrs Lambert.
Mr President, the Radical Members of the Bonino List will support the two reports, and they value and support the work of the Ombudsman.
However, we would like to ask the Ombudsman a very specific question regarding the fact that it is still not possible for complaints to be signed electronically.
In our opinion, this issue is relevant to all the institutions, having a bearing on Parliament's own work as well. However, in particular, precisely because the Ombudsman wishes there to be as much focus as possible on his work, we feel that the possibility for the Ombudsman to attach an electronic signature could be the first step towards introducing the use of this vehicle within the institutions.
I would just like to comment on an important statement which has not received due attention.
Seventy-seven per cent of complaints received concern the Commission.
The Ombudsman has told us that the Commission has made no progress this year in the area of transparency. Transparency is an effective weapon against fraud and corruption.
In particular, on 7 December last, President Prodi undertook to find and propose legal and organisational solutions to give both internal and external candidates to Commission competitions access to their examination papers.
Would the Ombudsman please inform us, in the same way that he has informed us that Europol needs more time to comply with the recommendation, whether the commitment made by President Prodi on 7 December to making papers available by 1 July 2000 has already been implemented or not.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I gather from the Ombudsman' s Annual Report that, as we have now heard, the main complaint of the citizens is about lack of transparency.
But it appears that not everyone concerned is aware of this problem.
The Commission has submitted a proposal for a regulation on public access to documents which you, Mr Söderman, rightly criticised in public as not going far enough.
Indeed there has been quite a lot written on the subject.
The spirit underlying this proposal can be gauged from the statement by the Advisory Committee of Independent Experts.
According to the experts' second report, like all political institutions the Commission needs room to consider, to formulate policy before it becomes public, because policy that is made directly before the public eye is often bad policy.
As a representative of the European public, I find this approach to questions of transparency and of policy-making in general unacceptable.
So I firmly support Mr Södermann' s justified criticism!
Mr President, I would like to add my congratulations and thanks to the Ombudsman for the report which he has presented this year and also to Mrs Thors and Mrs Lambert for their reports to the Parliament.
All these reports, particularly that of the Ombudsman, show the very reliable, dependable work that has been done over the year.
The European citizens undoubtedly need somebody to whom they can turn if they have problems with the administration and in Mr Söderman I know that we have an Ombudsman upon whom we can depend.
I saw that at first hand when I attended the seminar in Paris.
It was very good to see the respect in which the European Ombudsman is held by his colleagues, the national ombudsmen.
On this side of the House we certainly believe the Ombudsman should have all the powers that he needs to discharge his responsibilities.
On access to documents, we happen to think that the views of the Constitutional Affairs Committee are important, but that should not be taken to mean that we have any doubts at all about the principle that the Ombudsman must have access to documents.
In that he has our full support.
It is surprising that last year the Petitions Committee was at some risk and the report by Mrs Lambert shows the very good work that has been down by the Petitions Committee.
With our chairman Mr Gemelli we are now looking at ways of making the Petitions Committee more effective and more efficient in the work it does on behalf of citizens.
One of the important things that we will be bringing forward to the Parliament is a Code of Good Administrative Behaviour.
It is important that citizens and the officials of the institutions know what is reasonable behaviour so that all have a standard to which they can refer.
I would also like to thank the Commission for the support we have received in the Petitions Committee.
That has been very good and very effective through the year.
I hope under the French Presidency we will get the same support from the Council but that unfortunately has been lacking in the past.
Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating the two rapporteurs on their interesting comments.
With its ever widening circle of activities, covering a broad range of citizens' interests, the European Union is turning into a modern Leviathan, complete with the inevitable high-handedness which accompanies every administrative mechanism; from certain points of view, it is becoming even more dangerous than the equivalent national government services.
That is because control mechanisms have not kept pace with the increase in activities.
There are three ways of blocking the dangers which result from this extensive administrative mechanism in the European Union.
The first is to have more direct and more frequent involvement by European Parliament in controlling the individual activities of the institutions of the European Union.
The proposal by the rapporteur, Mrs Thors, that the Commission include a section on reports and complaints in the annual report on Community law and the proposed organisational agreement making it easier for complaints to be examined quickly need to be followed up here.
If the tenet of these proposals is extrapolated, the suggestion is that the European Parliament should, in the future, devote more time to these matters, which are equally important if it is to enhance its status and its right to aspire to codecision with the Council.
In more general terms, it is time to see parliamentary control exercised on a different footing.
The second way is to introduce the European Charter of Fundamental Rights as a binding charter guaranteeing European citizens immediate rights, both adjectival and substantive, which protect their interests fairly and which convert to the right to compensation in the event that their interests are attacked.
The increasingly likely prospect of a Charter which amounts to no more than a declaration will obviously damage the credibility of the European Union which, while abundantly eloquent on the importance of transparency in the operation of its institutions as a basic policy objective and accessibility to European citizens as a basic factor in achieving it, shies from recognising the rudimentary mechanism needed in order to achieve these objectives.
The third way is to strengthen and improve the role of the ombudsman, mainly by giving him easier access to all the documents needed in order to conduct an efficient investigation.
At the same time, the wealth of material in his report should be closely studied and taken as the starting point for the changes which need to be made to the modus operandi of the Community institutions.
I wish the ombudsman courage and good luck for the future.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the European Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, the two rapporteurs, Mrs Lambert and Mrs Thors, all the members of the Committee on Petitions and the Secretariat.
We started from the premise that the purpose of the institutions is to serve the citizens and that, therefore, any breach of the citizens' rights will lead to a loss of confidence in the institutions.
We are currently required to create a complex, comprehensive, harmonious, functional legal framework, and we must therefore also create judicial mechanisms such as the Charter on Rights, a body of law establishing criminal, civil and administrative law, the agreement procedures for the mutual recognition of judgments passed by Member States, Europol and the sectoral agreements, the establishment of the European Fraud Investigation Office as a tool for investigating abuse of the law, the likely institution of the office of European Public Prosecutor which should be the investigating office of the Court of Justice, the separation of the careers of judges responsible for giving rulings and investigating magistrates, and the separation of criminal, civil and administrative responsibilities: all these are instruments which advance the progress of the European Union.
Yesterday's framework agreement is a milestone in this sense.
Finally, we would like to request that, in a similar way to Parliament in the codecision procedure, the Committee on Petitions may be permitted to present its own justification for certain decisions, and we call for amendment of the Treaties in order to streamline the entire legal system and existing legislation.
Mr President, Mr Söderman, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their hard, thorough and excellent work.
The Ombudsman controls power and solves disputes between those who hold power and those over whom power is exercised, and last year there were almost two thousand such cases.
I would like to state seven principles.
The bigger a union is, the greater the need for transparency.
The newer it is the greater this need is, and the more complex it is, the greater the need for better transparency.
The more oriented it is towards the information society, the more open it has to be, and the more civilised it is the more public it must be. The more multi-cultural it is the greater the transparency, and the more democratic it is the more open it likewise is.
We are used to reading instructions for use with all equipment, down to how to use the whisk in the kitchen.
The principles of good administration, which have been worthily established by the Ombudsman, are our citizens' instructions for use with regard to Eurobureaucracy.
And, goodness me, these instructions certainly are necessary!
There is no democracy without good administration, and that is why the Union Charter must contain the principles of good administration.
I would like to make one more important point.
Public access to documents in the information society and the principles concerning them must be upgraded in line with the new technology; in other words, a grievance must be able to be made over the Internet and precedents and associated documents must be available in real time.
My suggestion is that we need an Ombudsman' s portal on the Net.
Thank you for your work!
Mr President, I want to welcome Mr Söderman this morning and to congratulate Mrs Lambert and Mrs Thors for their reports.
The reality of our society is that if governments and administrations had their way they would never appoint Petitions Committees or Ombudsmen.
By nature they tend to be secretive.
They are only there because the citizens and their public representatives demand them and defend them when they are there.
Therefore, it is important that we continue to demand that the Ombudsman's office and the Petitions Committee of Parliament are adequately resourced.
One way of choking off the effectiveness of the Ombudsman's office and the Petitions Committee is to deny them adequate resources.
In Parliament it is disgraceful that the Petitions Committee, the single most important direct contact that the citizen has with this institution and with the other institutions of the European Union, is treated the way it is treated.
It does not have adequate secretarial assistance.
It is treated abominably in relation to translations, which are down at the bottom of the list.
It is simply not good enough.
I would appeal to the Commission and to the Council if they were here - they ignore the Petitions Committee, as well as ignoring Parliament - to give the resources that are necessary for these bodies to do their job.
The Petitions Committee in particular is an important mechanism of access for the people of Europe.
It is important that we ensure that it can do its work effectively.
The two most important issues that come before the Petitions Committee are the recognition of people's qualifications to work in other Member States and the environmental impact of construction development.
In particular, people are concerned that environment impact studies, which are required under EU law, are treated as having no more worth than the paper they are written on.
They are either ignored or they do not address the real issues.
Mr President, I would personally like to congratulate Jacob Söderman on the good work he has done, which resulted in his re-election on 27 October last year.
At the same time, I would like to praise the Ombudsman for a model annual report which is easy-to-read and, at the same time, comprehensive.
It can be seen from the report that it is the Commission that is the subject of the majority of the investigations that have been undertaken, 77 percent to be precise.
It should certainly be emphasised that this is mainly due to the fact that the Commission is the institution that makes the most decisions directly affecting citizens.
In the report on individual complaints, it emerges, however, that there is insufficient transparency.
Insufficient and inadequate information was also the most common cause of complaint.
Openness is important if citizens are to be able to have more opportunity to influence how the EU operates and if tendencies to corruption, cheating and fraud are to be checked.
I would like to highlight the fact that this report emphasises that all EU institutions and bodies must establish a Code of Good Administrative Behaviour.
There is a risk, however, which is also evident from the Ombudsman' s annual report, that the significance of such a code would vary considerably from one institution or body to another.
The PR side of the Ombudsman' s activities has already been brought up by other speakers and can never be underestimated.
I would like to close with some questions: What would be the consequences of a Charter of Fundamental Rights for the Ombudsman' s work?
Are there sufficient resources for the work to be carried out well?
What are the main reasons for the institutions' shortcomings in relation to the citizens? Is there a lack of will, are the resources insufficient or is there unreasonable bureaucracy which is preventing and delaying the handling of this issue?
Mr President, on the basis of the Ombudsman' s report and that of Mrs Thors, we may say that the institution of the Ombudsman is well established.
The Committee acknowledges the work done by Jacob Söderman, and the public too have discovered the Ombudsman.
The basic pillars of the work of the Ombudsman are independence and transparency.
It is just as pertinent to emphasise the importance of good administration for the public and for the authority of the EU in the eyes of our citizens.
It is good that the committee supports the Ombudsman in his efforts to create regulations for good administration.
The principle of good administration must also be included in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights which is being drafted.
From the report it appears that only around 30% of the complaints to the Ombudsman fall within his sphere of responsibility.
For that reason there has to be closer cooperation between the Ombudsman and national and regional ombudsmen.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to participate in this debate today, together with Mr Söderman, the Ombudsman, whose work in the service of the citizens of the Union is very important. The Commission takes a very positive view of this work.
I wish to say that the Commission believes that the citizen should always be the focus of our concerns.
The citizen is ultimately the beneficiary of our activities and is our raison d' être.
In this respect, both the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman play a key role, on different levels and with different purposes, but they are both nevertheless essential to the improvement of the operation of the institutions.
The Committee on Petitions deals with the specific concerns of the citizens and, in this respect, as has been pointed out by Mrs Lambert - who I warmly congratulate on her report - the petitions presented to Parliament illustrate the problems of the citizens in relation to European administrations and also, in many cases, national administrations, at the same time highlighting the legislative vacuums which exist on both European and national levels.
The Ombudsman, as indicated by Mrs Thors - whom I also warmly congratulate on her report - deals with complaints against institutions and bodies of the European Union with regard to the deficiencies of its administrations.
He urges us to improve the management and quality of services by indicating the weak points to us, the points which need improvement and greater attention.
However, nobody wants a more effective and transparent administration as much as we do. It is we who are responsible for this administration and to this end any criticisms of our defects are welcome.
We can only confront our defects if we know what they are.
I must insist that this is why we give such importance to the work of both the Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions; so that the institutions may work properly.
With regard to Mrs Lambert' s report, I would like to deal with two specific issues.
One of them, relating to cooperation between institutions, is essential to the improvement of the operation of the Committee on Petitions and its capacity for action.
In this regard, I would like to express my satisfaction because the report highlights the constructive role of the Commission in the examination of petitions and because it considers it to be satisfactory on the whole.
It awards us a sort of 'pass' , and I thank you, but we will try to improve.
We see this is as a stimulus to make a greater effort, to work better and cooperate more.
Secondly, it proposes a review of the examination procedures of the Committee on Petitions.
It seems to me a great idea to rearrange the examination of petitions by themes, to give specialised rapporteurs the task of examining these petitions with greater care, and, where necessary, to draw conclusions which will allow the deficiencies to be corrected, take decisions to resolve possible vacuums in legislative texts, or counteract the unwanted effects of these texts.
Furthermore, the Commission is prepared to consider a review of the interinstitutional agreement on the processing of petitions which would amend the one currently in force, from 1989, with Parliament and the Council, especially with regard to something that seems to me to be essential, which has been pointed out by some of the speakers, that is, the problem of the periods prescribed for reply.
It is true that we sometimes take a long time to reply.
It is not always the Commission' s fault. There are times when we are relying on responses from national administrations, but it is true that in this respect we have to make an effort to improve and make an even more satisfactory contribution to the work of this committee.
I would like to highlight the importance of cooperation with other administrations. We wish to improve this cooperation as far as possible.
The Commission is open to dialogue, both with Parliament, and with the Council itself, in order to reduce the time taken to produce replies and increase transparency and communication with Parliament and the Committee on Petitions.
With regard to the Thors report, I wish to say that we agree with the need to consolidate the independence of the Ombudsman as an institution and support his work towards transparency and openness.
Clearly, we consider that the principle which motivates decisions affecting the citizens is essential and we try to apply it in a systematic way.
We also accept the definition of maladministration as being when a public body does not act in accordance with a rule or principle which is binding upon it.
Nevertheless, I wish to say that, as Mr Söderman has pointed out very well, the Ombudsman is a non-judicial body, and in that sense, it can in no way substitute judicial bodies.
Its tasks are different from those of law courts.
I believe that it is very important, in the relations between the Commission, the Ombudsman and other institutions and bodies, to systematically respect the institutional balance laid down in the Treaties.
It is true that the increasing reality of the institution of the Ombudsman, which in some ways is a younger institution than some of the other European institutions, requires some time to mature so that the citizens may become aware of it.
The Ombudsman, in his report, has indicated that the number of complaints, investigations and inquiries over the last year have increased considerably, and this is simply the result of greater awareness of the institution on the part of the citizens.
We also need time for the relations between the Ombudsman and the other institutions to mature in order to establish the desired balances and resolve the obvious tensions which may occur until things are working properly.
However, I must say that, so far, the cooperation between the Commission and the institution of the Ombudsman, represented, of course, by Mr Söderman, has been wonderful.
I would like very briefly to point out that these institutions are important because any action by an administration may at some time display a lack of transparency, a lack of efficiency, a violation of basic rights or even corruption.
However, I wish to say that in no way can we portray the Community administration as particularly laden with defects.
If we compare it with other administrations, I believe that it compares very favourably and that we score highly in these areas.
Ladies and gentlemen, finally, I would like once again to congratulate the Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, on the work which he is doing, on the significant increase in his actions and his work, on his cooperation, although he sometimes makes criticisms, but that is his job and his role, and we in the Commission understand that.
The drawing up of a code of conduct applicable to the relations between Community officials and the citizens is a priority, and work is being done in that area by Mr Kinnock and the Commission in general.
With regard to the amendments of the Statute of the Ombudsman, the competent parliamentary committee must issue an opinion in accordance with Article 195 of the Treaty, and when Parliament takes the initiative, we will analyse all the relevant issues.
I would like once again to congratulate the two rapporteurs, and of course congratulate and thank Mr Söderman for the magnificent work which he is carrying out with independence and rigour.
Mr President, I am grateful to you for giving me the floor to answer questions.
Mr Turco asked about the right to complain by e-mail.
This has been possible with the European Ombudsman's office for some years now, since Mr Dell'Alba made us recognise that this would be important.
At the moment about 20% of the complaints we receive are by e-mail.
If you look at our website you will find a form which can be sent directly by e-mail.
Mr Paasilinna said the website could be developed in that direction.
We already have direct access to all national or regional ombudsman websites, but this could be further developed.
Mr Raschhofer spoke about the draft regulation on public access to documents, which has been debated.
I should like to stress that this draft regulation is now before Parliament.
The committee work can start.
In the discussions I have had with Mr Prodi he told me that he is ready to consider favourably all well-founded proposals to improve this regulation.
This is now before Parliament.
Mr Malmström mentioned ignorance about the Ombudsman's office in some Member States.
Our difficulty has been that, if we make too much propaganda about ourselves, we get too many complaints falling outside our mandate.
So we try to find those citizens who have a problem with the administration and might have reason to complain.
Members of Parliament are a very important source of information for many citizens.
I would be very glad if you would take part in the work of making the opportunities for submitting petitions and complaints better known to the citizens.
Thank you kindly, Mr Söderman.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Single European sky
The next item is the report (A5-0141/2000) by Mr Atkins, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the creation of the single European sky [COM(1999) 614 - C5-0085/2000 - 2000/2053(COS)].
Mr President, we meet at a time when congestion in our skies has never been greater.
According to the statistics, the incidence of a 15-minute delay has risen from 12.7% in 1991 to 30.3% in 1999 and is still rising.
We are worried not only about the effects that congestion has in terms of inconvenience and the implications for the economic stability of our Union, but we are also concerned first and foremost about threats to safety that may result from it.
It is a fact that there is a shortage of air traffic controllers.
It is a fact that there has been a lack of investment in air traffic control systems.
The demand for air transport is rising almost daily because of cheap fares, the desire of people to travel abroad on holiday and on business or even to be able to take a few days' break at the drop of a hat has added to this pressure.
Whilst this pressure has been growing, we owe it to those working in the system to congratulate them and thank them for what they have done.
Unfortunately - and this is not entirely their fault - they are not coping with the pressures as well as we would wish: we have all had experience of that only recently, as a result of the delays caused by the strike in France.
All this, then, has a detrimental effect upon the mobility of our citizens, and in terms of the economic and financial and social costs for our businesses and a wide variety of other people affected on a day-to-day basis by what is going on.
I would like to congratulate Commissioner Palacio for having the initiative to bring this to our committee in the terms that she did, and with the force and verve that she has shown, initially, in setting up the high level group, and also in the leadership that she has given to addressing this problem.
What has been produced by the Commission is a major contribution to dealing with the saturation of airspace.
The Council of Transport Ministers needs to take a political decision to address this.
We cannot put it off any longer.
It needs attention now.
We need a single sky over a single market but at the same time we have to recognise that individual nation states have views about how these matters should be addressed, particularly insofar as they affect the livelihoods of the workforce and also the use of national airspace for military purposes.
Military airspace and its abuse in some countries is something that we also have to address not just in terms of the space that is taken up by military aircraft, but also on occasions the abuse of the civil air corridors by military aircraft not abiding by civil air procedures.
This too is an area which need to be addressed.
In this report I have proposed - and the committee has broadly accepted - a suggestion that Eurocontrol should be a regulatory body with more powers, more effective sanctions and with the right of appeal for those who are affected by it.
By the same token, we think that the provision of air traffic services should be open to liberalisation, subject to what each individual country decides is appropriate for itself.
As Members may well know, in the United Kingdom we have addressed the subject by introducing a principle of privatisation.
That may be right for us.
It may be wrong for others.
It is up to individual nation states to decide, but they must decide to address this problem of the division between regulation of their airspace on the one hand and the air service management provision that could be offered by others or other organisations.
We do believe that there should be objective and independent criteria on how the system is managed, with incentives offered for the achievers and penalties offered for those who do not meet the desired levels.
We think that passengers should be compensated for unjust delays and that their rights in these cases should be clear and well known.
But above all we wish Commissioner Palacio, with our support, to press the Council of Ministers and all those associated with this to take urgent decisions.
If there is one across-the-board criticism of the report from the industry, it is that perhaps it does not go far or fast enough.
This cannot last any longer.
We must address this issue now.
Mr President, I would like, if I may, to deliver very briefly a few comments on this report.
It seems obvious that we need to completely rethink the organisation of air traffic control in the European sky.
In this respect, the Commission' s initiative is commendable.
A re-think is one thing, it is also obvious that everything must be carefully reviewed, but I think we should beware of a certain number of preconceived ideas found in reports, communications and speeches on this topic.
It also seems obvious that the political division of the European sky no longer corresponds to the technical requirements and market requirements.
I was extremely surprised to learn that in today' s Europe, political boundaries still prevail when it comes to the organisation of air traffic control.
A European air traffic control space must be created, but must this area be completely unified, and according to which criteria?
I have many doubts as to the conclusions of the report.
It seems obvious to me that there are a number of advantages to dividing up air traffic control, as air traffic control involves segmenting the territory and technical security limits, but also human limitations mean that each air traffic controller, each control tower can only have a limited territory and a limited number of flights to monitor.
In this respect, the cellular, segmented organisation of the European territory must be retained and, in a way, improved.
I am therefore in favour of an increase in the number of air traffic control centres as, not the unification of the whole control system, but the unification of the legal system and also technological unification takes place, as this report, and the research behind the report, have highlighted the absence of European will...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to give very warm thanks to my colleague Robert Atkins for drafting such an excellent report.
He took great trouble not just to comment on the Commission' s proposals but also to outline them.
I regard the broad line of separating the regulatory from the operational function as the right one.
Indeed in paragraphs 4 and 5 we note again that our Parliament has now decided on two occasions that the regulatory function is to be transferred to the European Union.
That brings me back to the last speaker.
Of course we have to distinguish between possibly having several or many service providers in the operational field, but the regulatory function must remain with, or more to the point go to the European Union.
Nor is that in any way a problem.
Today we have 15 Member States in the European Union, and 12 more have applied to join.
If we start to proceed according to the EEA system even at this point - defining the common rules and then asking the candidate states their opinion - we can integrate them.
That is why I also think it is a good idea in the present situation for the European Commission to pool Member States' interests in regard to the regulatory function in the framework of Eurocontrol.
We do not need multilingualism, we need unanimity on the question of the regulatory function.
I really would strongly urge the Commissioner to refer the proposals Parliament will be deciding on today back to the High Level Group and to continue ensuring that this working group produces very sound practical results.
We have great respect for the vice-president, for she set up this group of military and civilian experts and the work is progressing well.
There may still be some resistance in individual countries.
We wish the vice-president much luck and success, so that come October we can submit an excellent programme.
Mr President, can I first of all, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists, welcome the Commissioner's initiative.
We share her objectives, we support her aims.
However, we do perhaps regret the lack of integration with other initiatives that she is pursuing, which is apparent if one reads her communication.
We also note the lack of political will that exists within both the Commission and the Council, although it is worth perhaps reminding ourselves that this initiative started with the Council in June last year when it requested the Commissioner to bring forward this communication.
Indeed in March of this year, the Council in Lisbon sought further progress, progress which I am sure we would all endorse.
The Party of European Socialists also supports and indeed welcomes the rapporteur's carefully judged position.
It is subsidiarity in action: European where necessary, national where possible.
I would like to thank him personally for taking on board many of our concerns, not least in the area of safety, which I acknowledge is now the number one priority for him in his report.
The key concerns of the PSE include a regret at the lack of analysis of the real cause of air traffic delays.
Airports' runway capacity, airline planning, passenger behaviour, airport infrastructure, as well as the shortage of controllers which was mentioned by the rapporteurs.
A second concern of ours is this key principle, which we support and which needs to be developed further, namely the separation of regulation from service providers.
That has to be a key building block of our new approach.
Eurocontrol too must be reformed and revamped and relaunched.
The third principle we support is liberalisation but not privatisation; and fourth and finally we want to see these proposals developed in conjunction with the proposed European Aviation Safety Authority.
Indeed, above all, safety first should be our guiding rule, and I am sure it will be our guiding principle in the months to come.
Between 1986 and 1996 air traffic in Europe doubled.
It will double again in the coming ten years.
We need to tackle this issue urgently and swiftly but in a coherent way.
What we want to hear perhaps from the Commissioner today is a clear timetable from her as to the speed at which she will be acting in the months to come.
We all know there will be people waiting in airport lounges this summer asking, why their plane is delayed, not for minutes but for hours.
Hopefully the Commissioner today can bring forward a timetable for when those delays will cease.
I look forward to her comments, particularly bringing this Parliament up to date on the conclusions last week of the Council which received the interim report of the high level group.
I urge colleagues to back the rapporteur's proposal and I urge the Commissioner to bring forward a very clear timetable.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Sir Robert Atkins has, in my view, compiled a sound report.
He clearly indicated the direction we need to take, because we find ourselves in an absurd situation where we have a unified market for aviation but over and above that, we have an airspace, which has been divided up in an illogical manner.
A number of MEPs have already described the effects of that.
It is obvious that, if we want a single sky, we need to make investments, as the report clearly states.
Thousands of people need to be recruited and investments made in technical infrastructure.
As such, it is clear that money has to be earmarked for this. It also means, and I believe that this aspect is more complex, that political decisions need to be taken very quickly.
And in reality, these can only go in one direction. We need to tackle the issue at European level.
We are all agreed that Member States need to finally decide for themselves what they want do.
National airline services also need to realise that their time is up, that we need to lift services to European level rather than national, as this is the root of the evil, if I can put it that way.
Needless to say, services need to come first, because air-traffic control does not exist in isolation. It is a service to airline companies and its customers.
People sometimes overlook this aspect and only focus on their own patch.
If we talk about services within a unified market, this means, of course, that monopolies are then a thing of the past, that we need clear European legislation and that we must move away from monopolies in the service industry. We are all agreed on this, and I therefore hope that we can make good progress.
An important point, as Mr Watts has already pointed out, is safety. Nobody should compromise on safety.
As such, Commissioner, what matters more than anything is that once the high-level group has published its findings in October, we need to receive proposals from yourself as quickly as possible.
I do not think that this will cause any problems for you. Then, everyone will need to put pressure on the Council of Ministers, Member States will need to take decisions that need to be taken and take the course which we have indicated a few times in the European Parliament and which is once again highlighted in Sir Robert Atkins' report.
Mr President, the report deals with the problem of increasing air traffic.
I want to focus on just one aspect of this report or, more specifically, on a major omission from it.
A number of proposals are put forward but for me the problem with this report is its main thesis that congestion can just be solved with the liberalisation of the air traffic management and control system.
What the options are doing is focusing on technical fixes, not the underlying trends.
Certainly a single European sky would increase the efficiency with which European air space is used.
Improvements in air traffic management would make more space available.
Restricting the use of military air space would also make a significant difference.
But none of these technical fixes are going to make a long-term impact unless we address the underlying problem, which is the unsustainable growth of air traffic.
By failing to link the issue of congestion with air traffic reduction the report misses out on a vital strategy.
It can be compared to rearranging buckets under the tap to stop a flood without considering the possibility of at least turning down the tap a little to reduce the flow of water.
Consider the facts.
The Commission's recent report has already said the growth of the aviation sector is unsustainable and must be reversed and that growth is forecast to double in the next 15 years.
That causes major congestion problems but it also causes major environmental problems as well - not only the noise and pollution for people living around the airports but also the impact on global climate.
Air transport is already the world's fastest growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and could account for up to 15% by the year 2050.
Unfortunately this report fails to make the vital link between congestion and air traffic reduction and therefore misses a vital opportunity to address these problems in a lasting manner.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think there is some ambiguity regarding the expression "single European sky" , because air traffic control is in fact, as you are well aware, already a European field of activity.
There is already a European system for controlling the air space with Eurocontrol and there is already a body, the Central Flow Management Unit, based in Brussels.
This is not perfect, of course, but they do already exist.
The situation must therefore be improved starting with the statement, which is patently obvious, that delays have increased and that with traffic on the rise, they will become worse.
It is recognised that there are many causes of delays but, in the end, I find that we are facing an offensive presenting air traffic control as the only reason for delays.
I believe it would be sensible also to concentrate far more on the problems of types of plane, types of flow, stopovers and of course the continuing defence-related problems.
I feel as if we are involved in a headlong pursuit to implement solutions that seem obvious, but that do not take account of the specificity of air traffic control.
Mr Zimeray said this earlier: yes, a plane journey is divided into different areas and the denser the traffic, the more divisions there are. Why?
Because dividing things into different areas is the human way of controlling or managing a number of aircraft.
Therefore, in my opinion, thinking that there would be too many control centres is nonsense.
Why not say in that case that there are too many aircraft? In addition, as far as I know, there are no specific air traffic control hold-ups at borders either.
The great proposal that is put to us for improving traffic consists of separating regulatory and control functions.
But what is the value of such a measure? It may well be necessary to consider more relevant divisions, why not?
But that is not what is being proposed. The separation of functions would lead to the liberalisation of air traffic service provision, establishing, as indeed the Atkins report states, a liberalised internal market.
Air traffic control is not an airline, nor is it a market sector.
Let it not be forgotten that its main function is to ensure safety.
I believe, however, that it is contrary to the interests of safety to subject aircraft control and monitoring bodies to market pressure.
The ability to invest in new technological tools and training must therefore be safeguarded.
In France - and I am not trying to make France a model - there is a general directorate that governs everything and, in the past few years, investments have been made and air traffic controllers have been recruited.
The system is highly effective.
On what grounds would you want to break...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, this report takes as its starting point an observation which is familiar to all Members of the European Parliament, as frequent users of aircraft as a means of transport: the skies are becoming more and more congested as a result of the growing demand for this form of transport.
This surfeit of aircraft inevitably goes hand in hand with delays in air traffic, causing frustration for passengers, for companies, for business and for tourism.
We share the rapporteur' s opinion that air transport must be seen as a coherent system of operators, airports and air traffic control services, the component parts of which are directly interlinked and that only a study of this system as a whole will solve the problems of airspace capacity.
We therefore welcome the creation of the High Level Working Group, comprising both civilian and military representatives and chaired by Commissioner de Palacio, who has committed herself to studying the issue of flight delays with a view to minimising the problems they cause. She will in due course be submitting a report on this issue to the Council.
Our hope is that this final report will focus on drawing up viable proposals and practical, realistic and effective solutions to the problem of air traffic delays in Europe. We also hope that this report will abandon controversial suggestions that contribute very little to achieving this, such as advocating unrestricted competition between providers of air traffic management services.
We fail to see the connection between this so-called liberalisation and the issue of delays, which must be resolved as a matter of urgency.
Furthermore, any proposed solutions must respect the national sovereignty of the Member States and restrict the centralisation of regulatory action to absolutely essential matters. Any proposed solutions must also safeguard the particular requirements of defence and the specific military needs of each country and honour the commitments that all countries have made in the framework of international organisations.
This does not mean that those countries are not obliged to make air traffic in high air space as flexible as possible and to seek more efficient ways of linking this with military operational needs.
The European air management programme, whose purpose is to achieve complete coordination and integration of ATM systems at European level, must also continue to be expanded under Eurocontrol. The programme must be continued, because the problem lies not so much in the way air space is divided up, which could perhaps be justified in terms of ensuring that there is an appropriate number of aircraft and routes for each controller, as in the technical harmonisation of ATM systems.
Mr President, this is a valuable report: it deals with a very sensitive and, I would say, extremely technical issue, although the problem is essentially political.
There has been talk of the fact that there are too many aircraft in the sky, that one controller has too many aircraft to deal with, etc., but we need only look at the United States of America, which is the most advanced country in the world in terms of aeronautics, where these problems are dealt with and, although they may not be completely resolved, adequate solutions have been found.
One basic fact stands out in particular: the United States only operates one central air traffic control system while in Europe there are still 15 separate control systems.
We also have to take Switzerland into account as well as the border countries. All these factors are difficulties which we will have to overcome.
It is therefore right to call for a single air traffic control system, at least for the whole of the European Union, which clearly needs to include Switzerland for technical reasons.
This is the basic point and it will enable us to resolve a number of difficulties as well as promote technical development, and here I am referring to the TCAS, GPS and GNNS systems, which clearly facilitate a more even flow of air traffic.
I would like to finish by expressing some doubts regarding the application of the principle of subsidiarity: it is a fundamental principle but one which is not always easy to apply.
Along with shipping regulations, air transport and air traffic regulations could genuinely be described as the most international rules in existence, and it is therefore difficult to break the matter down into different areas of responsibility.
One last thing: I see that the report principally targets the large air carriers and airlines.
Let us not disregard other air space users such as air-taxis, private companies and private users flying club aircraft.
Mr President, Commissioner, securing a place in the transport market is an uphill struggle.
This is certainly true if the competition is fierce, the pressure is on, there are worldwide cooperatives and external cost items are considerable.
This is the situation which the aviation sector currently faces.
We need to consider the future of the sector for the reasons set out above.
In my opinion, we should not accept unlimited growth as a fait accompli.
It is true that certain freight cannot be transported in a way other than by air, but the vast majority of freight can.
We should tailor our policy accordingly.
This, however, requires long-term efforts and specific, effective investments in alternatives. We are not that far advanced yet.
Indeed, the development of the Trans-European Networks has been a mixed success.
We now need to look for alternative solutions in the short-term.
In my view, what matters most is using the available space in the most effective way, both in terms of airspace and aircraft, which requires both personnel and organisational measures, as pointed out by the rapporteur.
By creating one single European sky, we will provisionally have enough airspace to allow us to come up with structural measures to impede the unbridled growth of aviation, based on the current state of affairs.
After all, this is what needs to be done if we want to realise the ambitions of a sustainable transport policy.
It is important not only to facilitate, but also to restrict where necessary.
Although the rapporteur' s initiatives are sound, it is early days and we should not rest on our laurels.
We should keep thinking about the future of the transport sector and aviation, in particular.
Mr Atkins' report addresses an issue which is perhaps the most important issue which either Mrs de Palacio or we in the European Parliament will have to deal with over the next four or five years and I must start by congratulating Mr Atkins on his approach in this specific report.
Despite which, there is clearly a huge problem here.
Overall delays in flights have risen from 12.7% in 1991 to 30% in 1999.
By 2010, the number of flights will have more or less doubled, resulting in wasted time, financial loss, saturation and, hence, safety risks.
Eurocontrol has proven to be inadequate as a mechanism for managing air traffic.
It is therefore absolutely essential that Vice-President de Palacio take decisive action, as she has done so far, in order to establish a real single European sky.
The Member States must overcome their perhaps justified anxiety as regards the management of their airspace and, at some point, must take a longer-term view of newly-emerging needs which goes beyond their borders and beyond the present situation.
We need to take immediate action and to regulate the myriad technical details, such as relations between civil and military aviation.
In the meantime, however, passengers must be compensated for delays by airlines and must, of course, be apprised of their rights.
I should like to close my intervention by reminding the House that, when the European Parliament voted on the report for the Intergovernmental Conference, it took view that the regulatory operation of air traffic in Europe, in our Member States, should be taken over by the European Union.
Mr President, I thank Mr Atkins for his report and also for his willingness to cooperate and work with not only my group but other groups in coming up with this document.
There is no doubt that air traffic control delays are a problem.
A visit to any of the major airports at this time of year will make that obvious.
I hear that the average delay is said to be 20 minutes.
All I can say from my experience is that somebody must be picking on Manchester very badly because I have not yet flown with Sabena from Brussels to Manchester when we have ever got anywhere near a 20-minute delay.
I can safely say that the timetable now is just a mere guide, not a definitive object, when planning travel.
It is a clear problem that we need to address.
The report must consider all the issues involving air traffic and adopt a twofold approach as proposed by the Commission.
But not all delays are due to air traffic controls.
It is the greatest cop-out in the world for airlines to say to passengers that the delay is caused by air traffic.
There is never anybody from the air traffic controllers in the airport to turn around and say that is not true.
Frankly, a lot of the delays are caused by the inefficiencies of some of the airlines themselves.
Passengers go missing.
It never ceases to amaze me the number of passengers that go missing in airports!
What do these people get up to, I ask myself?
Invariably they cause delays as much as air traffic.
The issue of Eurocontrol is important.
We support the compromise that is made in point 8 with regard to Eurocontrol.
We also support the need for the military to give up some of their air space.
Finally, there are some TDI amendments with this.
I am particularly interested in Amendment No 24.
I can only assume that the TDI group must...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I would also like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report.
Experiences from last Monday reconfirm that this is a very important report indeed.
Many Members of Parliament had a journey here to Strasbourg of up to fifteen hours.
Flights were cancelled, and many were severely delayed.
This situation is absolutely intolerable. Airspace is badly congested, flights are continually late and the rights of air passengers are totally non-existent.
The report proposes relevant action that must be put into effect right away.
However, I do not believe that it will be sufficient, as air traffic is expected to double over the next ten years.
Short flight routes must be withdrawn in favour of rail, leaving room for longer flights, as there are simply no alternatives to these.
Reports aimed at improving the competitiveness of rail transport are, from this point of view, very important.
Environmental levies, which are being planned for air traffic, should not constrict long flights unfairly, but should work as an incentive to withdraw short flights in favour of rail.
Mr President, Commissioner, with globalisation we have discovered with pleasure that, above all, aeroplanes can take us from our own city to any corner of the world, and we have enjoyed this so much that we can no longer live without flying.
However, just as we discovered the congestion of our cities by motor vehicle, it is now airspace which is becoming clogged too frequently. We regularly suffer delays, we lose our luggage and we have suffered all kinds of work-to-rule or trade union strikes.
We passengers believe that we must establish and defend our rights and manage our airlines, airports, flight timetables and air traffic control better.
However, we often also think that we have to share the sovereignty of the air more amongst all the Europeans and that there is a large section of the airspace with is reserved which we do not take social advantage of in the way that our times demand.
Therefore, as well as reforming Eurocontrol, increasing the number of radio communication frequencies and implementing new and better technologies for tracking so that more air corridors and more planes can be fitted in, in these days of normality it is necessary for civil commercial aviation to be able to use the reserved spaces, especially in the highest quotas and highest altitudes, which do not usually have too much military use.
The citizens demand it and I believe that it is possible to find a solution which is perfectly valid for all, sharing - I insist - sovereignty and the reserved space used by military aircraft.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, like the rapporteur and the previous speaker I think we urgently need to take the appropriate measures to tackle and eventually put a stop to the constant increase in delays in European air traffic.
The discussion in committee and again here in plenary today keeps centring on the best ways and means of changing air traffic management.
Sir Robert Atkins, for whose expertise I have enormous regard, and a majority in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism believe the prime way to achieve this objective is through liberalisation measures.
Liberalisation will without doubt increase the number of providers, but it will not resolve certain problems and will even create new ones.
Firstly, so long as the Member States give precedence to their justified national interests over the general European interest in regard to the coordination and use of European airspace, we will see no radical changes.
Secondly, that is another reason for Eurocontrol' s poor efficiency.
No matter whether the regulatory and control bodies are separated or not, whether you liberalise or privatise, so long as there is no political will to accept that European airspace issues can only be approached on a pan-European basis, another ten reports will not help either!
Thirdly, priority must be given to the civil use of airspace.
In a peaceful and united Europe there is not one logical reason for reserving a large part of airspace for the military.
Fourthly, do you not agree that if we make a kind of fetish out of liberalisation, it is highly likely that there will be fewer and fewer service providers for less lucrative routes and that there cannot be fair competition unless we lay down binding, uniform, social and security standards?
Fifthly, we do not need the Commission to use its influence on national governments in the event of domestic industrial disputes, as called for in paragraph 14 of the report; we need a smoothly running social dialogue between all the players involved in air traffic!
Mr President, Mr Atkins' report raises a number of real problems in the development of the air travel system in Europe.
First of all, the matter of safety.
The strikes that sometimes disrupt traffic take thousands of passengers hostage without proper warning.
Increasing numbers of intolerable delays are not, as has already been stated, solely due to overcrowding in the sky, but to also the airlines' attempt, for reasons of cost-effectiveness, to rotate their planes with excessively short, unreasonable and ultimately impossible turnarounds.
The report, however, omits to bring up one fundamental issue: the issue of traffic rights.
At the present time, it is extremely difficult for a European company with a line serving, for example, Paris, Houston and San Francisco, to board passengers in California, as this is legally considered as cabotage, whereas an American company serving New York, Madrid or Paris, may board passengers in Spain for disembarkation in Europe.
It is in the international negotiation of traffic rights that this concept of European air space...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, it has been noted that air transport is increasingly accessible to a greater number of our fellow citizens.
This democratisation is admittedly welcome, but raises important questions for the future: increased traffic, overcrowded airports, congested skies and lack of respect for the environment, in particular in terms of noise pollution.
The desire to create optimum air traffic control in Europe is based on good intentions, but why should the Commission challenge the air policies of the Member States and their bilateral agreements through a single air space? Of course, I agree, on the one hand, with the goal of rationalising the movement of aircraft and, on the other hand, with the goal of aiming for improved traffic flow, while fully respecting consumer protection and passenger safety.
I would like to believe Mrs Palacio when she assures us that, and I quote, there is "no reference to creating competition between air traffic control services or their privatisation in the works of the Commission" .
But in that case, the staff concerned would have no justifiable need of trade unions?
The Commission is demanding the advent of a proper air traffic management authority, a strong regulatory authority. I say no.
No to a complete overhaul of Eurocontrol.
No to a new regulatory structure - after all, the current system effectively organises, particularly with regard to safety, a balanced flow of traffic while respecting the national systems which all states are entitled to. No to the Commission representing the Member States with regard to external States, thereby destroying any political decision-making power in the field of air transport.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, both the Commission' s communication and the rapporteur' s report, which is magnificent, are in line with the European Council of Lisbon, which asked the Commission for a series of specific proposals as soon as possible.
It is now for the Council to take the necessary and urgent political decisions which will allow the single aviation market to be supplemented with a single air traffic control system.
The growth in demand currently stands at between 5% and 7% and it seems that it will follow the same trend over the next few years. This makes it even more difficult for the European air management systems to do their work, since they have shown themselves to be incapable of dealing with this development and they are the cause of 50% of delays, although it is true that there are other causes, such as the limitations of the airports and flight schedules which do not take account of the limitations of the infrastructures.
Another cause which makes the current system ineffective is the different organisation of the civil system and the military system, as well as the different standards of technical equipment on the ground.
The airspace must be accessible under the same conditions for general, commercial and military aviation, which does not mean that we should not give priority, or indeed exclusive access, to the military in the event of crises.
However, the mere fact that a crisis may occur does not mean that certain Member States can justify maintaining the conditions which prevailed during the cold war.
It is necessary for the civil and military controllers in the control centres to work in close cooperation.
There is a clear need to achieve more effective cooperation between the different users of the airspace, and I believe that that cooperation and a joint approach should be sought at European level.
I congratulate the rapporteur and the Vice-President of the Commission for the opinions they share on an issue which is so important and so sensitive in the daily lives of our citizens.
Mr Atkins' report is detailed and balanced, and it presents the current and correct position of this House.
Lastly, Madam Vice-President, please take note that we are aware of your efforts and we will support you in the line you have taken.
Mr President, I must express major reservations with regard to the Atkins report as it bears the stamp of commercial interests concealed behind the best of intentions.
In actual fact, the airlines would like the air traffic control sector to be completely liberalised, not so much for reasons of safety, interoperability or reducing delays as to be able to access a market of air traffic control services that would enable the more powerful among them to purchase more expensive, secure slots and leave the problem of delays to other airlines and private aviation.
Under cover of a single sky, such liberalisation would actually offer us a multispeed sky.
I have no other way of explaining the witch hunt undertaken in this report with regard to civil air traffic control alone.
We all know that this only represents 30% of delays, which admittedly are worth combating, but which essentially depend on military constraints.
This is a political problem that depends first and foremost on politicians.
We all know that the considerable increase in air traffic is the main underlying cause of overcrowded and saturated skies.
We all know that the number of runways and landing platforms would have to be reduced in order to have any chance of a break, a simple break in the saturation.
Finally, in my country, the airlines have chosen to set up shuttles that send a dozen low-capacity aircraft from each provincial French town every morning between 6.00 a.m. and 8.30 a.m. to Paris alone.
Is it the fault of air traffic control if they refuse to allow all these flights to land simultaneously in Paris?
These are the fundamental causes of air delays.
Naturally, the single sky must be set up through a reformed Eurocontrol and harmonised control services at European level.
However, personally I cannot imagine collective safety services that are dictated by profit alone, controlled by shareholders.
In addition, I cannot imagine tomorrow' s single European sky becoming an sky shared unfairly between airlines.
Commissioner, I hope that, in preparing the future directive on the single sky, the Commission will be able to handle this matter by taking a calmer and more impartial overall view.
Mr President, I am acting as the representative of the air traffic controllers protesting against the European Commission proposal which, in the name of the attractive slogan "single European sky" , will clear the way for the privatisation of air traffic control.
The Atkins report clears the way for the monopoly of private groups that have their eye on air traffic control which, with the increase in traffic, is likely to make money.
This reports mentions delays, which are, apparently, increasingly frequent.
But how would subjecting air traffic control to the requirements of private profit possibly put an end to delays? It is precisely the airlines' quest for profit that has led them to make the choices that cause these delays.
It is in the interests of passengers and their safety, and in the interests of employees in this sector for air traffic control to remain a public service, dedicated exclusively to ensuring the smooth running of air traffic.
Competition and the quest for profit in an area as sensitive as air traffic control will inevitably lead to disaster.
If it is necessary to put an end to national peculiarities with regard to air traffic management, and if it is legitimate to unify the European air space, this must be achieved by rejecting any idea of privatisation, competition, or quest for profitability, and we will vote against this report.
Mr President, I really must congratulate my colleague, Sir Robert Atkins of the British Conservative Party, on his most excellent report on the Single European Sky.
This proves beyond doubt that the overarching ambition of the European Union is a single nation with its single national flag, its single national anthem, its single legal space, its single national borders and now the citizens of Europe will soon be able to breath single European air.
However, after the failure of the single land policy, known as the CAP, the single sea policy, known as the CFP, we can now look forward to a similar failure of the single sky policy.
Not least, given the number of strikes in air traffic control, I suppose we can now look forward to the single European strike.
But you have struck a real blow for the Eurosceptic movement in the UK, Sir Robert, I congratulate you.
Mr President, It is quite true to say that air traffic delays need to be urgently addressed.
However, it is also worth noting that 33% of ATM delays recorded between January and June 1999 were mostly due to temporary capacity reductions associated not least with the Kosovo crisis.
The real problem lies in the sectors straddling areas north and south which include Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, parts of Germany, Maastricht upper-air space and these are responsible for 44% air traffic flow management delays and 30 bottlenecks.
At one time, Greece was part of that problem.
However, the impressive results by the Greeks goes to show that the improvements can be made if there is strong action and real cooperation by national governments.
All too often Eurocontrol is used as the scapegoat and is blamed for the present situation, but the real blame must lie with the inaction of national governments in the areas that I have outlined.
It is quite clear that the European Transport Council must take immediate action to ensure that the air traffic control decisions are applied by all Member States Europe-wide.
It should be remembered that Eurocontrol is the only pan-European institution in the air traffic management domain and must be supported.
Finally, one issue that was raised - the critical shortage of manpower to the tune of 1,000 air traffic controllers throughout Europe - needs to be urgently addressed by national governments.
That in itself will go a long way to improving flow control.
In addition, both airports and airlines need to look closely at their practices, as they too are responsible far too often for the high percentage of delays incurred.
Mr President, allow me to begin by offering my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Atkins, for a powerful presentation, to the Commission for making this issue one of its priorities and to the Commissioner responsible, Mrs De Palacio, for daring to translate words into action.
This has meant that the question of a single air traffic control has, in a short time, come closer to a solution perhaps than ever before.
Of course, there still remains much to be done.
In particular, a number of reluctant Member States need to be convinced, but that is precisely why it is so incredibly important for the European Parliament to give the Commission its full support today for the continuation of the work. We are, of course, in the middle of yet another chaotic summer for flights.
The development we are now seeing will result in a doubling of air traffic in the years following 2010.
This assumes that we have had the necessary political decisions.
Otherwise we not only run the risk of congestion in the air leading in the future to 15, 30 or 60 minutes' delay, which we can perhaps put up with, but are also in danger of no longer being certain of ensuring safety.
This is something we must never put up with.
It is in this light that Mr Atkins' report and the Commission' s presentation must be seen.
The EU has spent a considerable amount of time and energy on tearing down borders and creating a single market.
Everyone who travels a mile up in the air - and we are there quite often - can nevertheless see that there are borders everywhere.
The report lays down an extremely tight timetable.
I share this ambition.
Let us together ensure that the summer of 2000 is the last summer with chaos in the skies over Europe.
The Commission can actually achieve this with the help of the Atkins report.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, there has hardly ever been such a topical report as this one.
Just in time before the summer break, when everyone goes on holiday and more and more people also travel by plane, today Parliament is considering questions of air traffic.
A tiresome subject, as we all know, and as every air traveller finds out.
We all suffer from delays that often last hours.
It has now become a daily scene at airports to see every passage-way overcrowded with bored, irritable or even aggressive passengers.
It happens to us MEPs very frequently, as it does to much of the population during the holidays.
Let me remind you of another aspect.
When aircraft cannot land on time, that not only creates a great many personal difficulties for people on business trips who have to keep to their schedules but also produces extra costs and environmental pollution.
So I welcome the fact that the Commission has submitted a report on these important subjects and that a High Level Group was set up to consider the problems of establishing a single European sky.
I hope we will have the final results of its inquiries before us in good time in the autumn so that we can then really move on to taking concrete measures jointly with the Commission.
The safety aspect comes top of the list for all passengers, but especially for frequent fliers.
Safety standards must on no account be endangered.
That is why we need better airspace control and protection.
Eurocontrol must satisfy all these safety requirements, but that means we also have to create the necessary framework conditions.
Mr President, I would firstly like to warmly thank Mr Atkins for his effort and the serious and rigorous work which he has done over the last few months and which, as the rapporteur for the Industry Committee, Mr Zimeray, has pointed out, illustrates the fragmented situation of our air space both with regard to the existing administrative borders as well as technological fragmentation, which is due to the different systems which are applied in different countries.
On this basis, we have to take account of a fact which is pointed out in the report: the increase in air traffic, the increase in delays. Of course, nobody knows better than the honourable Members what a problem this is.
We must make it very clear that not all delays are due to the management of air traffic; almost half of all delays are due to air companies, airports and sometimes weather conditions.
However, it is the case that 50%, or perhaps a little more, of delays are due to problems in the management of air traffic.
I also wish to make it very clear that this does not mean it is the fault of controllers.
It is not a problem involving the practices of people who carry out their work in conditions of great tension, difficulty and complexity, and who do everything possible to guarantee the highest possible level of safety. This is the main problem: how to guarantee the highest possible level of safety.
The controllers sometimes have to do their work despite excessive numbers of flights, and a lack of human resources, which forces them to work longer hours than they should, and also with certain methods, certain technologies and certain technological supports which are not sufficiently developed.
I wish to make it very clear that this is not a problem with people, with the controllers, who, I insist, do wonderful work.
I must say that it is truly impressive to see them at work because they are responsible for everybody' s lives, for the lives of anyone in a plane at any one time.
As the 'Single European Sky' illustrates , I believe that what is failing is the management system, since it is in a fragmented situation, divided up by administrative barriers, by administrative borders - in a European Union which has been able create so many common elements - and because of the artificial divisions between sky for military use and sky for civil use which persist in many countries, even though we left the cold war behind some time ago. Furthermore, this does not reflect the countries' real defence needs.
This is because the majority of defence flights take place in low altitude areas of the airspace and not in the high areas.
Furthermore, these areas of airspace are used for very few hours of the day, not every day, and in many cases just a few times a year.
What we need to do, ladies and gentlemen, is create a common airspace above a certain height, and manage it jointly - as one speaker said a moment ago - forgetting about borders in that high area of the airspace. We should stop talking about British, Spanish, French or Swedish airspace, and simply talk about European airspace in this high area, and leave the area below 29 500 feet, or 31 000 feet - we will have to specify which area - to national management because there are other types of problems there and its military use is more obvious.
In any event, we must make the military and civil use of airspace more flexible, improve the efficiency of management and provide air traffic controllers, who are currently working in very complicated circumstances, with an easier environment which will allow them to do their work more effectively.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have asked me about timetables.
In principle, the High Level Group, to which I am going to communicate Parliament' s conclusions at the next meeting on the 14th, will finish its work by October.
Therefore, the resulting specific proposals will be presented during the subsequent months and we hope that the specific proposals will be under way by the next European Council in the Spring, under the Swedish Presidency.
That is the timetable.
The 'Single European Sky' initiative in no way implies the removal of Eurocontrol.
On the contrary, Eurocontrol is absolutely essential; it is an essential element which must be strengthened and supplemented since, within the European Union, we can go much further than the scope of Eurocontrol.
Furthermore, ladies and gentlemen, we must think in terms of a strong European common regulator and we must forget - because, of course, it is not going to appear in the Commission' s communication or proposals - the controversy, which in my view is artificial, between privatisation and non-privatisation.
Let us not get into this argument.
That is not the aim of this initiative.
Countries may deal with this within their own competences, but it is outside of this 'Single European Sky' initiative.
This initiative will allow us to guarantee a strong European regulator.
That is what we are dealing with; creating a common airspace which can be used flexibly.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would thank all of you for your work, especially the rapporteur, Mr Atkins, and I would like to say that I hope that between us we will manage to improve the management of air traffic in one of the areas, which is not the only one, which leads to delays.
We are also working to solve the problem of slots and other problems, but there is a time and a place for everything.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Health and safety of pregnant workers
The next item is the report (A5-0155/2000) by Mrs Damião, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the report from the Commission on the implementation of Council Directive 92/85/EEC of 19 October 1992 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the health and safety at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding.
The legislative instrument that we are considering today in the evaluation report referred to us by the Commission has run its course as far as contractual rights and social security systems are concerned.
Thousands of female workers in various countries in the Union have benefited from it, but it is now out of date.
It is out of date because the 1952 ILO convention has just been revised and there is an expectation that most countries in the world will substantially improve their maternity protection.
It was and still is, of course, hoped that the Union will continue to be in the vanguard in social terms, in this area as in others.
But not everything is out of date, because in terms of organisation of work, there have been shortcomings in transposing the directive and even greater shortcomings in implementing it. In most countries, the three stages of job organisation are not being respected.
These stages are: the employer should adjust the working conditions and/or hours of the worker to avoid exposure to risk; if that fails, the worker should be moved to another job; only if neither option is possible should the worker be granted leave, as this reduces the worker' s income and also her career opportunities.
By way of example, I must tell you that in some countries, not even a minimum period of recuperation is allowed for the mother, which the experts say should be around 45 days for a normal birth for a woman working in a normal job.
Nevertheless, there are countries that are not complying with these rules at all, on the pretext that they are guaranteeing women a choice.
We think that women must be guaranteed the option of enjoying an appropriate period of maternity leave, which they can share with the father, but that the leave should be assessed and guaranteed according to the risk to her own health.
Furthermore, this directive does not provide for a link between its own risk assessment provisions and other directives, particularly the framework directive on risk assessment and information for workers.
Since there is no such link, employment of women is subject to unfair criticism because the costs of maternity-related risks apply exclusively to young women of childbearing age.
These risks are being underestimated and should not be a matter for the employer or constitute an obligation on the employer only when the woman' s doctor informs the employer of her condition.
Firstly, because this is too late: risks from radiation, chemically-charged atmospheres and poor working posture are well known now and all have harmful consequences for the health of the woman and her baby, particularly in the first few weeks.
Secondly, these measures do nothing to protect the reproductive health of men and women. There is a considerable degree of infertility in the Union today: over 11% of European couples suffer from such problems, which result from lifestyles shaped by the economic structures within which we live, and also by the fact that measures are not in place to provide protection against these dangers.
An example of this is the extreme temperatures that cause infertility in women and men.
The Union, which is today in a position to do so, should draw up and implement legislation to this end.
With regard to maternity leave, we are aware of the costs to economic activity of proposals to extend this leave.
We also know that these costs are much higher when employing women, but health specialists recommend that a baby should remain at home for at least five months, protected from the outside world and, above all, growing up in a suitable psychological and emotional environment, which will provide it with the necessary balance for growing up with a sense of security, because it needs its parents.
Parental leave should therefore be extended, and, if healthily divided between the parents, will benefit them both.
The directive should also take the informal economy and atypical employment contracts into consideration.
Finally, I hope that the Commission will tell us what it is intending to do in this area, now that it has an extended legal basis, which includes Article 13 and ex Article 118.
This means that it can certainly cover other aspects mentioned in the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Damião has drafted a very good report and taken good account in it of my opinion for the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
It is most important to everyone to improve the health and safety protection at the workplace for women who are pregnant, have recently given birth or are breastfeeding, both to protect the woman and to protect the unborn child.
This is a general social issue and must be treated with the greatest care.
The Commission' s report on the 1992 directive is only concerned with the technical transposition of the directive and does not look at the situation at the workplace, which has to some extent changed, or at the changed role of women in society.
The number of single parents has risen and women are more concerned with achieving economic independence.
The Commission must submit a proposal for revision of the directive that takes account of all these changes, and it must do so as quickly as possible, this very year.
There is a considerable need to improve the legislation.
That applies to preventive health protection measures at the workplace for the mother and for the unborn child.
Here we must avoid any risks.
Any activity that puts their health at risk should without exception be prohibited.
Periods allowed for breastfeeding should be regulated and there should be facilities for breastfeeding at the workplace.
Maternity leave after the birth of the child should be at least eight weeks.
There must be clear rules on financial support, both for the period of pregnancy leave and for maternity leave.
The question of reinstatement also needs to be clarified.
None of these necessary provisions must lead to discrimination against women or to a reduction of their chances of access to the workplace.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are debating the implementation of Council Directive 92/85/EEC of 19 October 1992, which is one of the most important directives in the field of the technical and health protection of workers.
I well remember its genesis and the problems that were discussed at the time.
A positive aspect is that at that time, irrespective of the dispute about the legal basis, its importance to women workers in the single market was recognised and a first step was taken towards establishing minimum standards for the protection of pregnant workers and new mothers.
The Commission report before us continues to show up weaknesses in the implementation of the directive, which means we must increase our efforts to establish the protection of women during a special period of their life in law and in practice.
Really it is very sad for a society to find we have to pay much greater attention to this area in particular.
So I support the call to revise the directive as soon as possible.
However, we will not manage it by the end of the year 2000.
Some of the demands that will have to be incorporated in a proposal for a revision of the directive are set out in the draft amendments before us, and the PPE Group can therefore support at least some of them.
First and foremost, they include the call for a strict prohibition on dismissal during pregnancy and maternity leave, safeguards to ensure that on expiry of their leave the women will be reinstated in their job or given a comparable one and effective penalties for those who infringe that prohibition.
For women who want to or have to reconcile working life and motherhood, anything else would mean penalising or unjustifiably discriminating against them in their occupational and private life.
Seen in these terms, the effective protection of pregnant workers and new mothers is one of the most important contributions to an active family policy.
With a view to eastward enlargement and protection in those countries, let me also point out that the single market must not lead to discrimination against pregnant women and new mothers.
Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur for her thorough, responsible and unreserved report.
This is an extremely sensitive issue which is closely related to other matters which are regularly referred to such as the ageing population, the demographic trend, the low birth rate, the right to health, the right to work, the right to motherhood and the social value of motherhood. This matter cannot be viewed as affecting women alone: they must be protected and supported by society.
The 1992 directive, whose implementation in the Member States we are assessing today, is intended precisely to introduce minimum measures to encourage the improvement of the health and safety of pregnant women and women who have recently given birth and are breastfeeding.
The Commission's evaluation report shows that the directive has proved its utility in that it has been of some benefit in a number of Member States in certain areas of the issue, such as leave on grounds of health and safety, etc.
However, apart from these points, which are of a general nature, we share the rapporteur's criticism of the Commission's report.
This report was overdue and limited almost exclusively to dealing with legal and technical transposition.
There is a lack of concrete statistics and data on vital aspects of the directive, such as the monitoring of workplace risk assessment for pregnant workers and the frequency of work-related accidents and illnesses, and satisfactory information is not provided on the coordination of legislative adaptation of specialist inspection, penalties or scientific research for the detection, prevention, elimination and recuperation of professional hazards relating to pregnancy.
We feel that there has been a lack of serious monitoring on the part of the Commission.
There has been a lack of coordination between the health and safety directorate and the equal opportunities unit, and the ambiguity of the directive itself in this area has become apparent.
The delay in the production of an evaluation report - and I would remind you that, precisely because of the low minimum standards set, Italy was only persuaded to approve the directive on the condition that its implementation would be monitored very soon afterwards - should have led the Commission to put forward a proposal to revise the directive, particularly in relation to certain aspects referred to by the rapporteur: the length of maternity leave, the increase in the duration of maternity leave where risks are involved, a more precise definition of the concept of an adequate allowance, the prohibition of dismissal of women during pregnancy or maternity leave with effective penalties, the prohibition of any form of discrimination with regard to women's careers or the improvement of working conditions, the implementation of all the measures necessary to safeguard the health and safety of woman and unborn child, without prejudice to the woman's right to work or her career and encouraging breastfeeding through diverse measures.
In addition to taking all the necessary compatibilities into consideration, when they revise the directive, the Commission and the Member States should be motivated by the principle of non-discrimination and the recognition of motherhood and fatherhood as fundamental rights which are essential for a balanced society.
Mr President, it is important that women have good and secure conditions during pregnancy and childbirth so that mother and child have a good start, and it is important that pregnancy and childbirth do not reduce women' s opportunities in the labour market.
We have a directive from 1992 which establishes minimum rights for maternity leave and women' s entitlements to financial compensation when they are absent from the labour market due to childbirth.
The Commission has now investigated the Member States' implementation of this directive and, in her report, Mrs Damião quite correctly points out that the Commission' s report contains only a technical and factual assessment of the directive' s implementation and does not provide an evaluation of whether the directive in practice provides pregnant women or women who have just given birth with better conditions.
She does not, therefore, think that the Commission' s report provides an adequate basis for carrying out a review of the directive.
I very much agree with the rapporteur about this.
I am, therefore, also opposed to our requesting a review of the directive now.
I do not think we should demand a new draft directive which contains the right to a longer period of leave, together with demands for longer enforced leave, and which lays down more detailed requirements for financial compensation in a way that does not take the necessary account of the differences between the Member States' social systems.
The existing rules make for great flexibility, and most countries guarantee women better conditions than the common regulations require.
It might be wondered whether new regulations would mean very much in practice.
In any case, maternity leave and financial aid ought to be given priority in the individual countries.
However, I think it would be a good idea to obtain a better overview of what the circumstances are in the different countries so that governments can learn from each other' s good and bad experiences and inspire each other.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission is required to submit a directive proposal on measures for workers during pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding by the end of 2000.
The assessment of the existing measures, which was intended to lead to change, is four years behind schedule and fails to meet the requirements which the European Parliament prescribed at the time.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance calls for an increase in the level of protection.
The report mainly focuses on institutional aspects.
In our opinion, this report should also embrace the right to return back to work to the same or an equivalent job after maternity leave.
We are asking for the rights of pregnant and breastfeeding women to be extended.
In practice, women are often discriminated against during this period, despite rights on paper.
This is why we call for a reversal of the burden of proof.
Employers will need to demonstrate that any dismissal or change of job is not linked to pregnancy.
Finally, we would like the Commission to explain why at the recent ILO conference, the Member States failed to adopt the common positions.
How is it possible that the United Kingdom abstained from the final vote, which, in view of the procedure, is tantamount to voting against?
We would like to close by thanking Mrs Damião for the work she has carried out.
Mr President, at a time when Europe, with the Beijing +5 Conference in New York, is emphasising its pioneering role in the implementation of the principle of equality between men and women, it seems equally important to guarantee their freedom.
This freedom is achieved through a right to specific protection for women, a right that is always related to their bodies, in particular to maternity and, more specifically, pregnancy.
We are therefore pleased with Mrs Damião' s excellent report, which highlights the urgent need to revise the 1992 directive.
Her request for a formal ban on dismissal during pregnancy is essential, and I will dwell only on this point.
It seems to me to be dangerous to allow employers any leeway in this field, as they will always use it to their advantage.
Today, with the revision of Convention 103, the ILO is levelling down the protection of pregnant women, by accepting certain dismissals that are said to be unrelated to pregnancy.
Europe, with Mrs Damião' s report and the revision of the directive, has a duty to be a political reference for women' s rights world-wide.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by congratulating Mrs Damião on the magnificent job she has done on this report. We were happy to contribute to this in committee, not only by giving the report our total support, but also by adding some amendments that were accepted in the final version.
We consider the approval of this report to be a significant event as we approach the summer recess, for four fundamental reasons.
Firstly, we think it is unacceptable that women should suffer social prejudice or discrimination because of pregnancy or maternity issues;
Secondly, because we must more vigorously tackle risks to the health of mother and child associated with working conditions;
Thirdly, the idea of reconciling personal and professional lives, the family and work, in modern society is becoming increasingly important to those of us concerned about people' s day-to-day lives. This is precisely one of those key areas in which a responsible approach to reconciling these interests is called for;
Fourthly, because maternity policies must be consistent with family and childbirth policies generally, particularly at a time when the crisis resulting from Europe' s ageing population is increasingly drawing Member States' attention to this issue.
We shall also be discussing some of the amendments and our position will be based on the balance that we feel has been struck in the report.
Nevertheless, we will not support all of the amendments, because we feel that this balance is actually preferable to some of the steps suggested in the amendments.
We shall support the amendments suggested by our British Conservative colleagues, such as Mr Bushill-Matthews, who drew our attention to the issue of small- and medium-sized enterprises, which we feel must be taken into account when legislation is adopted, whether at Community or national level.
On the other hand, however, we hope that the British Conservatives will back the report, because although it is true that some of the Portuguese Presidency' s conclusions highlight this issue, I must emphasise that paragraph 36 of the final Feira Summit text stresses the importance of companies' sense of social responsibility.
For us Portuguese Christian-Democrats and Conservatives, this is a very important idea. We believe that companies also have a certain social responsibility, which they should build upon.
I would just like to add that we wish certain votes to be held separately, as a means of improving the report, some points in which strike us as rather obscure.
We do not view pregnancy as a social resource and there is one other point on which we would like to see a separate vote in order to improve the report.
Lastly, I would urge all Christian-Democrat Members to endorse this report by my Socialist colleague.
Mr President, I wish at this point to express my disappointment at the Commission' s failure to adopt any position on the revision, assessment and notification of Directive 92/85 on maternity protection as yet.
Nevertheless, although I wish to highlight the considerable harm that this omission has caused to mothers, every cloud has a silver lining, and this report, which has been brilliantly drafted by Mrs Damião, is proof of that such silver linings exist. This report will enable the European Parliament to move ahead now.
The report clarifies concepts, harmonises legislation at Community level, establishes shared responsibilities, takes account of new risks in the way work is currently organised, looks for incentives to increase the population in an ageing Europe and considers pregnancy to be a natural condition for women, and one which should be respected and protected.
It specifically notes the rights of women working independently or as teleworkers, and highlights the growing concern about single parents, who are becoming increasingly common in Europe.
The aim of extending maternity leave to twenty weeks is an ambitious one, which is recommended from a technical point of view, and must gradually be implemented. We must therefore prepare ourselves for this in economic terms, by sharing out responsibilities through cooperation between states and employers' and workers' organisations.
In order to achieve the aims that are being proposed, it is also crucial for us to encourage greater dialogue, collaboration and coordination between specialists in health, hygiene and safety at work, so that a more suitable working environment can be provided for pregnant women.
The European Community must strive to gain the support of applicant countries to ensure that awareness is raised as rapidly as possible, so that the measures recommended in this report can be adopted, since there may be greater resistance in those countries, which could be difficult to overcome.
Lastly, I wish to sound a warning about point 9 of this report, because measures for protecting new mothers, such as very long maternity leave, may have unwanted effects, as it may become disadvantageous for employers to employ women, and they may consequently prefer to take on men.
The Commission must therefore create a system for detecting fraud and for applying harsh penalties to companies practising this kind of discrimination.
Mr President, adopting a directive does not necessarily mean that reality is as we would wish it.
We have a good example of this here.
According to the Commission' s assessment, the situation regarding the health and safety of pregnant women looks fine, but that is certainly only on paper, for is that also the way it looks in reality?
I am not so sure. The pace in the labour market is more hectic than ever.
Great efficiency is demanded, and women are supposed to work as if they were not pregnant, even if they are.
It is stressful, and it is unhealthy both for the pregnant woman and the foetus.
We know this, because investigations have proven this to be the case.
The European Parliament and ourselves as representatives of the people are entitled to know whether the legislation we adopt also actually works in practice.
I think we have an example here of the Commission' s doing all too little in this area.
The message from Parliament to the Commission should therefore be that the work which has been done is not good enough.
It needs to be re-done.
We must know whether the legislation is working.
The Commission' s purely legal analyses now already show that there is a need for further protection.
I think there is a greater need to discover what suitable protection consists in, and there should be stricter rules governing dismissal during pregnancy.
The Commission must go back to the drawing board, set to work again and table the necessary proposals.
The European social model is characterised by the fact that we have a high level of protection.
This should be an area - and this remark is aimed at the Liberal Group which has adopted a very different view - in which the EU should have a big influence.
It should not be left to the individual Member States.
Women' s participation in the labour market is a prerequisite of our achieving the ambitious goals we have set ourselves regarding employment and the modernisation of the European social model.
Modernisation and efforts in this area are therefore important. They cannot be left to the Member States.
Europe as a whole needs to attend to these issues.
Mr President, many women are discriminated against today in their workplaces.
We know that many lose their jobs when they become pregnant.
This is completely unacceptable!
The Damião report contains many good proposals, but we in the Swedish Liberal Party still have fundamental objections to the report. I would like to say to my predecessor, who spoke just a moment ago, that, in this Parliament, we ought more often to ask ourselves the question: What should the European Parliament actually be doing?
How much detail should we go into? We believe in the subsidiarity principle, i.e. that decisions should be taken as close as possible to the people they affect.
Social policy is an area where the EU ought to have limited jurisdiction, except when it is a question of free movement for citizens within the Union.
Every Member State should have full responsibility and the right to make its own decisions regarding its social security systems.
Maternity/paternity leave and maternity/paternity benefit are examples of issues that are not directly transnational.
We do not believe in detailed common European social legislation.
This does not, however, prevent Member States from cooperating and sharing ideas concerning social issues.
The Damião report contains an amalgam of legitimate demands for proper security for women workers throughout Europe, demands for greater freedom of movement and a better functioning single market and demands for the national right of decision on the details of the socio-political system.
In this connection, the report contains an imbalance.
My final question is: Why should the European Parliament decide that every woman in the whole of Europe must have eight weeks off work when she has had a child? I know several women who have gone back to work earlier - there must be freedom of choice!
Mr President, Mrs Damião, the author of this report, is justified in her criticisms of the Commission as regards the delay in revising the current directive.
The report quite rightly laments the Commission' s failure to comply with the timetable set by the directive and the fact that there has been no assessment of how effectively the directive has been implemented. The report stresses the need for a proposal for an urgent revision of the directive, and suggests inclusion of various measures, which we essentially support and agree with.
As a matter of fact, in the discussions held in the Parliamentary committees, we tabled various amendments designed to guarantee the statutory right to take breaks from work for breastfeeding, to ensure non-discrimination in the workplace against pregnant women and women who have just given birth or who are breastfeeding, particularly in terms of salary, and to guarantee career progression and employment, with particular emphasis on the situation of working women who have temporary or atypical contracts.
In general, the amendments were accepted, with the exception of the amendment on the payment of allowances during time off work and maternity leave, which must be equivalent to 100% of the previous salary and be taken into account for the purposes of calculating pension entitlements.
I hope that Parliament will adopt this amendment.
Mr President, if the Commission's intention was to improve the effective health and safety of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth, it may be said that it has not achieved its goal.
The report has two clear shortcomings: firstly, the fact that it is overdue and secondly, its limitations.
It could have been finished as far back as 1997, but even though it is late, it could at least have clarified the wording of certain articles of the directive and defined the many undefined concepts which have given rise to numerous interpretations.
Among the various missing data which would have been useful, it could also have provided the results of the questionnaires sent to the Member States and the results of the coordination of relevant laws and activities by the European Standardisation Centre.
The European Parliament recognised the need to revise the directive as early as 1992, with the result that now, given the need for a social market economy, it agrees with the objectives of Mrs Damião's report: to link maternity policies to family policy and to remove ambiguity by practically and quantifiably enhancing the rights of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, the incorporation of women into the labour market means that at some time their working life will coincide with a pregnancy, which sometimes means that they are obliged to take additional leave so as not to endanger their own health or the health of the unborn child.
Pregnancy is a natural state for women which society must respect, defend and protect.
Society must care for working women in particular by ensuring that they remain in their jobs.
The incorporation of women into the workplace is a reality which cannot be reversed and women cannot be put in a situation of having to chose between having children and keeping their job because of the complications which a pregnancy may entail.
The ageing of the population, together with the low birth-rate in the European Union, means that this is an issue of enormous importance for all social operators.
As important as the protection of pregnant women is provision for breast-feeding, which is beneficial to the health of both mother and child.
The protection of maternity and breast-feeding cannot be considered as a form of unequal treatment between men and women, since maternity is exclusive to women and it is women who must be protected, independently of the fact that some parental leave can be granted to men.
The Member States must deal with the possible negative effects of this directive by making it easier for companies to employ young women by exempting them from the social costs during parental leave.
The directive must include a minimum leave of 20 weeks, with an obligatory period of at least eight weeks after giving birth.
A minimum salary of 80% must be guaranteed, with no loss of pension rights.
The ban on dismissal during pregnancy must be strictly complied with.
In no circumstances must pregnancy be a cause for discrimination against women.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities unanimously condemns the delay on the part of the Commission, which is even more serious given that it extends from 1992 to 2000, which is the period in which there have been the most changes in terms of women' s access to work.
Furthermore, we believe that this deficiency in the legislation may be exacerbating a very serious phenomenon, that is, the rejection by young people of motherhood.
We ask the Commission, before the end of 2000, to present an amendment of Directive 92/85/EEC and that that directive be applicable to all pregnant workers, in all areas and occupations, with no exceptions or conditions.
The new legislation must be clear and progressive.
It must provide for new working situations and also the new family situation of single parent families.
The pregnant worker must be provided with adequate protection, which is designed for their specific circumstances, but this should not mean discrimination or a reduction in their work opportunities, but quite the opposite.
We must be able to provide the means for breast-feeding to be compatible with work.
Mr President, in today' s Europe there is no room for a divorce between women and employment, and much less a divorce between women and maternity.
Mr President, the Commission report, which I have read in great detail, says: "In general terms Directive 92/85/EEC has been well implemented by the Member States and this is reflected in the low level of complaints about the rights of pregnant workers received by the Commission".
The rapporteur has set this all to one side, effectively saying it is irrelevant, claiming that the original directive just did not go far enough.
I like some of the suggestions in her report.
I congratulate her for the enthusiasm with which she has pursued her agenda.
But in general it is not a health and safety agenda.
It is very much a traditional socialist agenda.
Firstly, her report aims to harmonise social policy across the EU rather than leave the detail to Member States - a point made with great force by Mr Olle Schmidt earlier in this debate.
Secondly, it wants to improve the terms and conditions of employment for pregnant workers and new mothers by way of extra maternity leave and specified minimum pay levels.
Neither of these are really health and safety issues.
She is proposing solutions for which there is no health and safety problem.
As British Conservatives we confirm our concern about health and safety for all workers, especially vulnerable groups.
We confirm our commitment to subsidiarity regarding terms and conditions of employment.
But we also confirm our concern to help more women into jobs rather than putting up further barriers to female employment.
Hence we urge the House to reject the report.
Mr President, this text is important insofar as the legislation concerned has significant consequences for the well-being of women and also children, that is, the future of our society.
In this respect, we may well be surprised that the Commission has waited as long as it has to present us with its evaluation report on the implementation of this directive and proposals for improving conditions for maternity leave.
It seems to me that, in this proposal for a revision of the directive that we are asking the Commission to present quickly, it is essential to preserve the reality of three fundamental principles for women and their well-being: the prohibition of dismissal for pregnant women or women on maternity leave, the right to a mandatory minimum leave and allowance during this leave to be taken into account for the purposes of acquiring pension entitlements.
Furthermore, it seems to me that this new directive should comprise substantial improvements, in particular all women must be offered the opportunity to take 20 weeks' maternity leave, without necessarily being obliged to take the entire period, but the employer shall be obliged to offer it, and a minimum of 8 weeks after the birth, in order to foster development of the bond between mother and child.
With regard to high-risk pregnancies and the birth of disabled children, it is obvious that provision must be made for specially adapted proposals offering an extension of the length of maternity leave, taking account of the specifics of the case.
As far as definition of the allowance is concerned, it seems that the figure to be considered must be at least 80% of the previous salary, and that includes for purposes of acquiring pension entitlements.
Finally, it is recommended that this text should correlate and reinforce the formal prohibition of dismissal during pregnancy and maternity leave.
Mr President, my compliments to the rapporteur for her work on protecting women during pregnancy and maternity, a particularly difficult time.
This report certainly represents progress, not just for women in general but also in that it safeguards family rights and upholds fundamental values.
The European People's Party has always upheld the concept of the family, the basic unit of society, as the basis for European construction and the Christian values from which it stems require that it be respected.
At a time when Europe has demographic problems, the institutions need to issue a firm signal to reassure working women, who have to have sufficient peace of mind and the necessary guarantees to be able to opt for motherhood.
This is why it is necessary to have a sufficiently long period of rest from work before giving birth and even longer afterwards, when there is a child to breastfeed, look after and bring up.
Therefore, benefits should not be cut considerably during this period and pension funds should not be affected either.
I would add that, as regards the matter in question, self-employed women should also have a guaranteed right to benefits, which should be funded from contributory national sectoral funds.
Finally, I would like to express my support for maintaining the prohibition on dismissal of women during this period, and also for the fact that the cost of benefits for workers on maternity leave are not borne directly by the company where the woman works but entirely by the State, in order to avoid discrimination and penalising women in the labour market.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you for silence, not a religious silence, but a parliamentary silence, so that we can listen properly to Commissioner de Palacio.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mrs Damião for her magnificent report, despite the fact that it contains a series of criticisms of the Commission' s actions.
I must accept these criticisms since they are true and are based on real facts.
However, I must offer a justification and an explanation.
In order to produce this text, the Commission has had to rely on documentation provided by the different Member States and, unfortunately, that documentation has not been provided with all the speed and efficiency which the Commission would have liked.
That is the reason for the delay in presentation.
The Commission obviously fully shares the Parliament' s interest in improving the protection of pregnant workers and those who have recently given birth.
The Community legislation and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice still do not offer a sufficient framework although they are undoubtedly key elements to making further progress in this aspect which is essential to safeguarding the rights of pregnant workers.
Directive 92/85 was adopted before the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We believe that it is now, after the Treaty, that we will be able to go further and take some steps forward.
That is what we propose and to this end we are going to prepare a supplementary report on the implementation of this directive, which we will present in 2002.
As the honourable Members know well, the Commission last week approved its new social agenda for 2000-2005 and it is within this framework that we hope to offer an adequate solution, not only to this specific problem, but also to a whole series of other issues.
Mr President, this is the last time this week that the House will be meeting in such great numbers.
I would like to draw your attention and the attention of fellow Members to a very sad matter.
This Parliament' s reputation with the press is excellent, because for the past twenty years, Parliament has managed to issue press releases for the written press twice a day.
This previous system has now been changed.
I had a brief look to see how the system worked this week.
The press release to commemorate former President Pflimlin did not appear until 11.22 p.m. on Monday evening.
The report on the Feira Summit was issued on Tuesday morning, the report on Tuesday morning' s discharge sitting was issued at 9.12 p.m.
The report on Zimbabwe, Tuesday afternoon, was issued at 10.55 p.m.
The report on the European Central Bank on Wednesday morning was issued at 8.00 p.m. the same day.
This kind of reporting is not really of much use at all to the written press.
At that time of the day, editorial staff have gone home and we are, in a way, generating old news.
I would ask you, Mr President, to revert back to the old system and to ensure that the press releases, the daily press releases, not only appear on time, but also afford a general overview - in a decentralised manner - for each language.
I would ask you to request the Bureau to think about this very carefully and reconsider their decision.
Mr Staes, your comments will, of course, be passed on to our staff so that we can work as efficiently as possible.
Mr President, on a point of order, I am sorry to delay the House when I know there is a large amount of voting to go on.
I have just discovered from my agenda that the vote on my own report is to be taken last.
I have not been consulted about this.
Indeed I indicated earlier that this needed to be taken as early as possible in the voting because - and as one of those involved in aviation, I know this better than most - I have only got one flight to get me home.
And so I am stuck!
So I throw myself upon the mercy of the House and wonder whether it would be possible to vote early, rather than to vote late, on the Atkins report?
I have taken note of your request.
Mr Mombaur, I have not granted Mr Atkins' request: I have simply taken note of it.
There is a fixed voting order, to which I will adhere, and I am sorry if some of the reports will have to be voted on this afternoon rather than this morning.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Vote
Mr President, as you have said, we will be voting on the compromise motions agreed in an informal conciliation procedure with the Commission.
We referred the report back on 16 May and in the meantime it has been improved.
By adopting this procedure vis-à-vis the Commission, Parliament has once again expressed our resolve also to achieve full codecision in the Committee on Agriculture and in relation to agriculture.
We have achieved it by adopting this procedure for the case in point.
I want to thank the Commission for its cooperation in this regard and I hope the compromises we have reached will also gain the kind of support from the Council and the Commission that means they can only be rejected unanimously.
So the Commission and Parliament have jointly managed to establish a very strong position and I hope that will also serve as an example to the Intergovernmental Conference in Nice.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I really want to give warm thanks, not just to the Commission but also to all those involved, to all my colleagues on the Committee on Agriculture, for enabling us jointly to achieve this compromise!
I would ask you to adopt this document today, because otherwise the Council would be able to take a decision on 16 and 17 July without having Parliament' s opinion, since we would not be cooperating as faithfully as we should according to a European Court of Justice ruling.
So I would ask that we adopt this document today.
Once again, many thanks for your cooperation!
Commissioner, would you like to respond to the question?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I regret having to take the floor in regard to Mr Kuhne' s report, but this concerns a very serious course of events.
This report, which is about the discharge of Parliament' s 1998 budget, as you all know, contains a paragraph 18 and a sixth indent.
This sixth indent concerns our group.
There was an agreement - and all the group chairmen will confirm this - between the group chairmen that we would not address concrete cases relating to individual groups in the report, but that in future we will jointly endeavour to tackle any problems that may arise.
So in view of the wording in the report, I tabled a compromise amendment on behalf of my group, and it was indicated to me a few days ago that the rapporteur would approve that compromise.
We thereupon refrained from tabling an amendment that also refers to problems in regard to the Socialist Group.
I now hear that the Socialist Group evidently will not endorse our Amendment No 10, tabled in my name.
Let me state quite plainly, in all seriousness and with great regret, that this means the agreement between group chairmen was given up.
Fair play was given up!
Let me also say that our group is disappointed, not just I personally but the entire group.
If the Socialist Group does not support compromise Amendment No 10 - and that is up to the group - then let me tell you that this will be a very grave decision it is taking here today.
(Applause from the PPE-DE Group)
Mr Poettering, as you are aware, explanations of vote are made after the vote.
We cannot start a debate now, even if the matter is an extremely sensitive issue.
Commission. (DE) The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 19 (third part).
Amendments Nos 3, 4, 16, 19 (fourth part), 22, 25, 30 (of which the first and third part).
It accepts Amendments Nos 32 and 33 (second part) in principle.
The Commission cannot accept the other amendments.
Following Amendment No 49
Mr President, in order to make this Amendment No 41 acceptable to the PPE Group and the Liberals, I suggest the following oral amendment: replace "the active involvement of the workers and their representatives" with "the involvement of the workers and their representatives in the organisation" .
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0166/2000), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council directive relating to limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air [5860/1/2000 - C5-0182/2000 - 1998/0333(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Breyer)
Commission.
(DE) The Commission cannot accept Amendment 4.
It accepts Amendments 5 and 6 in principle and Amendments 2 and 3 in full.
Amendments Nos 5 and 6 are not here.
I have only got four amendments here.
.
(DE) Mr President, I apologise again for my mistake a moment ago!
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (first part), 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (the first, third and fourth part of 15), 16, 17 and 18.
Secondly, if the proposal is worded as a recommendation, the Commission could also accept Amendments Nos 2, 10 (of which the second part) and 15 (second part) in relation to paragraph 9.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
European Council of 19/20 June 2000 at Santa Maria da Feira
Motion for a resolution (B5-0583/2000)
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0585/2000)
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)- Joint motion for a resolution on the conclusions of the European Council meeting in Feira on 19 and 20 June 2000
(Parliament adopted the resolution)Joint motion for a resolution on the European Union observer delegation monitoring the elections in Zimbabwe
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Trafficking in human beings
Motion for a resolution B5-0595/2000 on illegal immigration and the discovery of the bodies of 58 illegal immigrants in Dover
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)- Joint motion for a resolution
Mr President, as a people' s representative I believe it is important for us to stand by what we have signed.
Of course it is not particularly pleasant in terms of our parliamentary activities to have to withdraw something suddenly.
But the members of our group have different views on the subject of illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings.
That is why we have withdrawn our signature.
I ask you to take note of that.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
President.
In view of the time, voting time will be suspended now and resumed at 5.30 p.m.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, I must inform you that we have not just one legislative report but as many as four to vote on!
Consequently, if we wanted to deal with them all in the same way we would have had to have extended voting time well beyond 2 p.m., and we cannot do that.
In any case, we usually vote when there is a room available and not when there is not.
Voting time is suspended.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Mr President, in view of the vote on the Papayannakis report I should like to ask the Commission to convene a conciliation committee next week so that we sort this out before the 1 September deadline.
Please convey that to the Commissioner please, as she is not listening at the moment.
Schierhuber report (A5-0124/2000)
.
(EL) There are serious reservations regarding the proposal to amend Regulation EC No 1251/1999 on flax and hemp grown for fibre because of the unfair allocation of quotas between the Member States.
Countries with an important agricultural sector and a high rate of employment in agriculture, such as Greece, have been given the lowest quota limit, for both flax and hemp.
We should like to take this opportunity to stress the need for an awareness campaign in the Member States in order to overcome ignorance and educate the public about hemp grown for fibre; in Greece, for example, shops selling hemp fibre have been shut down by the police and small undertakings have gone out of business.
Stauner report (A5-0182/2000)
Mr President, pensioners and elderly people are in favour of innovation, even though it may appear otherwise, and so, as representative of the Pensioners' Party, I cannot help but support the inclusion of any rules leading to innovative measures when decisions are taken on the Structural Funds.
On this occasion, after stating that I voted for the motion, of course, I would call - and I do so willingly - for, in future, the projects to be financed as innovative actions to include projects which are concerned not only with improving working conditions in the strict sense but also with everything which affects pensioners, who, during the period in which they are not working, use the contributions they paid in when they were working, and so this period is, indirectly, a continuation of their working activity.
Virrankoski report (A5-0192/2000)
Mr President, I would just like to say that the Radical Members abstained from the vote on the Virrankoski report because the Council was trying to secure for its own budget the costs arising from missions conducted by military advisers or others within the framework of the CFSP.
Since Parliament has always taken great care to ensure that that CFSP expenditure is an integral part of the Union budget, with the result that it falls within the scope of the Commission budget, we are concerned at the way the Virrankoski report departs from this practice and at the tendency to include CFSP running and operational expenditure in the Council's budget.
This is why we abstained from the Virrankoski report.
We voted against extra money for military advisers because we believe a peace policy needs peace experts and non-violent conflict resolution.
Stauner Report (A5-0190/2000)
Mr President, I do not believe Parliament should feel satisfied with what has been achieved so far.
In discharging the Commission, it runs the risk of losing credibility in the field of budgetary control and combating fraud.
Nor am I sure whether people in this House actually realise that giving a discharge means accepting liability for damages.
It will be hard to explain to the citizens of Europe why EUR 14 million of taxes were squandered on the Fléchard case and why Parliament is letting itself be fobbed off with empty promises.
So everyone in this House who voted for the discharge to the Commission is assuming quite personal responsibility for it.
We need hardly wonder why the citizens are increasingly losing faith in Europe.
On behalf of my group, I therefore want to state that we voted against the discharge to the Commission for that reason.
- (DA) On 6 July 2000, members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group voted against giving discharge to the Commission in respect of implementation of the general budget of the European Union for 1998.
The reason for this is that the present Commission, which has undertaken to implement an extensive administrative reform, is not showing sufficient willingness to implement this reform.
The many cases of foot-dragging, delay and refusal to hand over documents to the Committee on Budgetary Control, together with the extraordinary fact that crucial reports and minutes are disappearing from the record offices where they belong, are an uncomfortable indication that a form of administration is being maintained which is more suited to the age of absolute monarchy.
Clearly, the purpose of the secrecy is to protect the Commission' s members and officials from the penalties which are used in every democratic national administration and without which the European Union' s administration will never operate properly.
In the course of the debate on the report, I have mentioned two matters which are still outstanding, but these are merely isolated symptoms of a general malaise.
One year after coming into office, the Commission has still not presented any proposal for fundamentally changing the provisions in the regulations for public officials which provide the kind of legal protection for incompetence and dishonesty that is completely absurd in an administration which purports to be democratic.
The treatment of this report in the Committee on Budgetary Control has also shown that some Members of the European Parliament are more concerned with protecting the Commission against those citizens who pay for the EU' s budget than with attending to the same citizens' demand that their money be administered honestly and efficiently.
Unacceptable pressure has been placed upon a number of rapporteurs, and the shady operators who have an interest in preventing the serious examples of fraud and deception in the Commission' s administration from coming to light have not held back from making physical threats.
A number of MEPs have today voted in favour of giving discharge.
I do not believe that a great many of these MEPs are satisfied with the Commission' s economic administration, but we have reached a point where the majority prefer to close their eyes to what is going on than to run the risk of their electors and fellow citizens becoming fully aware of the scandalous states of affairs which make themselves felt year after year.
I am convinced that, in the long run, the majority of MEPs will regret having been so indulgent.
- (DE) On 6 June I as rapporteur recommended to the Committee on Budgetary Control that we give the Commission a discharge for the 1998 financial year.
Today I voted against that discharge.
The deciding factor was the way the Commissioner for budgets handled the Fléchard case.
This firm was suspected of fraud as early as 1992.
Nonetheless, it was let off a fine to the tune of EUR 14.6 million.
Nonetheless the Commission continued to do business with it all those years, without asking any questions.
Now the Italian financial police are investigating and it is said that the firm is involved in shady deals and the black marketeering of butter on a grand scale.
Of course, we must not prejudge.
But the Commissioner for budgets does not have the right to refuse to tell us how many millions the Commission has paid to this firm over the past years.
Mrs Schreyer promised the figures to the Committee on Budgetary Control on 24 May, but has still not produced them.
She gives one excuse after another.
On Tuesday, she tried to make this House believe, wrongly, that Regulation 2390/1999 prevented her from presenting the figures.
The Community budget is not a matter of secrecy.
If the Commission refuses to render account, our response can only be to refuse the discharge.
.
(NL) Granting the European Commission discharge is anything but self-evident.
In previous years, the financial irregularities were so extensive that the discharge had to be turned down, which led to the fall of the Santer Commission.
This time, the discharge pertains to the 1998 budget, and it is a particularly hard nut to crack.
That budget was entirely the responsibility of the previous Commission, but we are discussing it with the present Prodi Commission, which has started to adopt better management and examine incidents of fraud in the past.
In the spring of this year, the EP was right in postponing the 1999 discharge in order to clarify matters further and make improvements.
These clarifications have largely been given and improvements made, although a margin of serious error in excess of 5% is still frighteningly high.
The mislaying of the report relating to the Commission meeting, during which the penalty in the Flèchard case was decimated, is nothing short of a mockery.
The Committee on Budgetary Control endured an onslaught of harsh criticism by some and was at the same time given the benefit of the doubt by others. The circumstances surrounding the rapporteur' s explanation can be called embarrassing and harm the committee' s reputation.
Faced with the need to finally make a decision on whether or not to grant discharge, we eventually gave the current European Commission the benefit of the doubt for 1998.
It should, however, realise that this does not create a precedent for the 1999 discharge.
The European Commission is partly responsible for this discharge and has also had the opportunity in the meantime to put its house in order.
Mrs Redondo has asked for the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I would like to ask for the vote on the report on the protection of forests to be postponed until the next sitting, because today, for unavoidable reasons, I must leave this Parliament at 5 p.m.
Mrs Redondo, we have been unable to vote on a number of legislative reports because there is just not enough time, and so these will be put to the vote this afternoon after the votes on urgent subjects, as usual.
As you are aware, certain decisions are taken by the Conference of Presidents.
Usually, when voting time starts at midday it lasts for an hour.
Today, it started at 12.15 p.m. and ended at approximately 1.30 p.m.
The votes on certain resolutions, such as the European Council of Feira, Zimbabwe and the trafficking of human beings took a relatively short time.
The votes on the legislative drafts take up rather a lot of time.
In any case, this is not the appropriate time to discuss this subject.
We will take note of your comment and pass it on to the Conference of Presidents, for, in the order of voting, according to the procedure we have been following, out of all the recommendations for second reading - which engage our capacity as a legislative House - priority is given to the drafts which engage our power of colegislation.
I am sorry, Mr President, to continue from where I left off a moment ago and come back to what Mr Swoboda just said.
Mr President, I understand everything you have said.
But this week for the first time we did not have a vote at noon on Tuesday.
That is a decision that was taken.
We were against; the majority of the House - had they known of it - the rapporteurs - Mrs Redondo Jiménez and Mr Arvidsson and others - would no doubt also have been against it.
But if we do this, then we must also show some degree of flexibility.
Among this rather smaller body of people I dare to say this; most of us are experienced parliamentarians and we know that there are different kinds of sittings.
The Thursday sitting in July is a particularly sensitive one.
We know that, we may not be happy about it, but that is how it is.
So I would ask you to check whether the four legislative reports that are still on the agenda, and that do not need long votes, can be carried over to the next part-session.
Mrs Redondo Jiménez herself asked the same, in the case of her report, and she has my support.
Mr Arvidsson - all this relates to what I know about - will, I hope, also agree. So I would ask you to contact the rapporteurs and the groups.
Mr Swoboda has already said it, and I can repeat it for my own group: we will agree to these four legislative reports being carried over to the September part-session or to a part-session in Brussels.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, as you are aware, a request can be made to postpone a debate either at the start of a sitting in the morning or at the start of voting time.
Therefore, when voting time is resumed this afternoon, a rapporteur or another member of the Committee will be able to request that the report be put to the vote in September.
I do not have any objection to this.
Mr President, you are absolutely right, that is the correct procedure. But if we plan to do that and if it is certain that, let us say, Mr Swoboda or I or others move this proposal, it would be only fair to inform the rapporteurs of this possibility.
In any case, the presiding President will be informed of the request and will, of course, give the floor to any Member who wishes to speak at that time.
Rühle report (A5-0167/2000)
Mr President, I voted against the Rühle report.
Firstly, it appears to contain an error, for it mentions a 1998 budget of as much as EUR 10 940 000 million - at least in the Italian version - which seems to me at first sight to be rather too great a sum.
There has to be an error of at least 3 decimal points.
Apart from this, I would like to stress that, in addition to the other aspects which are inadequate as the rapporteur himself states in his report - which begs the question of why he does not conclude the report with a recommendation to vote against it - it would be appropriate to give at least part of these funds to voluntary organisations, which include many pensioners and elderly people who are willing to go out into the world and assist developing countries.
. (FR) The European Parliament, during its sitting of 13 April 2000, quite rightly decided to delay the decision giving discharge to the European Commission on the implementation of the budget for the year 1998.
This decision was legitimate, insofar as the citizens of our nations have the right to be told how the money of the European Union, their money, is being spent.
Our group is entirely in favour of any vigorous attempts to combat fraud and embezzlement.
Indeed, the irregularities noted, both those covered in Mrs Stauner' s report on the questionable management of the Commission, and those underlined in Mrs Rühle' s report on the various European Development Funds, cannot leave anyone indifferent, and necessarily damage the image and credibility of the Community as a whole.
In addition, we must draw the proper conclusions, in terms of sanctioning those responsible, certainly, but also in establishing far more transparent procedures.
As shown by the votes of the Committee on Budgetary Control, the reports by Mrs Rühle and Mrs Stauner are heading in this direction.
Mrs Rühle' s report on the various EDFs clearly confronts the Commission with its responsibilities; it demands more clarity for all future aid distributed by the Community for the benefit of developing countries.
The desire to raise moral standards regarding aid policy and increase the efficacy of the use of aid is a principle which is now clearly defined and our group is pleased with that.
There is no question, however, of accepting that, on the pretext of better monitoring, in order to achieve a more honest and rational use of the European funds - and I am thinking of African, Caribbean and Pacific countries in particular, that our action should be a pretext for also organising the unfounded trial of certain countries of the European Union - incidentally one of the main net contributors (I am talking about France) - by means of a witch hunt which, it is said, targets certain high-ranking civil servants of that nationality.
Greater transparency is also our primary concern with regard to the finances of political groups within this House; the citizens of Europe, moreover, would not understand if we said otherwise.
We must also take note of the responses of our institution to the observations of the Court of Auditors, and without delay encourage all relevant reform in accordance with the financial regulation and the principle of transparency.
In conclusion, I will say - so much is clear - that we should not introduce confusion between the discharge procedure, which represents an overall appreciation of the management of the European Commission as laid down by the Treaty, and the handling of a number of isolated matters which, although clearly serious, are still only isolated cases and represent a low figure with regard to the total budget.
We must keep a sense of proportion!
Equally, as far as our Group is concerned, taking note of the further clarification we asked the Commission for in spring, in the context of the Stauner report, is no reason at all for our institution to then be affected by amnesia when it comes to tracking down unacceptable practice at the expense of our fellow citizens' contributions.
Our Group congratulates the rapporteurs, Mrs Stauner, Mrs Rühle and Mr Kuhne, on their commendable efforts.
We should, however, remain alert and be in a position to observe what the European Commission' s attitude will actually be with regard to the commitments it has made.
Our Group therefore considers it necessary, for the time being, to abstain.
Kuhne report (A5-0189/2000)
- (DE) I voted against giving a discharge to the Secretary-General because he gave misleading information to the political decision-making bodies about the purchase of the ASP building in Brussels.
This wrongly gave the impression that the Council and the Commission had agreed to the building being financed with the help of the then property developer.
Furthermore, this wrongly gave the impression that financing the building with the help of the property developer was an indirect form of financing.
In fact, in 1988 Parliament directly indebted itself to a banking consortium headed by WestLB, for amounts of ECU 472 million and BEF 7 billion, without first publishing an invitation to tender for the contract in the Official Journal.
The Court of Auditors also found that the relevant financial regulations had been infringed.
Papayannakis report (A5-0193/2000)
.
(FR) Only after the mad cow scandal did we realise the need to improve the traceability and labelling of foodstuffs.
Europe was very slow to react and was left far behind in terms of beef.
Today, on the basis of a unanimous agreement within the Council, we finally have the opportunity to show a little determination.
Indeed, the common position submitted to us includes a large number of the amendments adopted by this House at first reading.
Concerning the mandatory statements, indication of origin, implementation dates, minced meat and the optional system, I believe that Parliament should be satisfied: the Council has listened to us.
This is why I wholeheartedly supported this common position as it stood and did not vote for any amendments.
The debate has focused on a few specific points and in particular on the indication of the category of animal on the label.
Certain fellow Members have explained, in good faith, that this statement does nothing to contribute to tracing beef.
They are correct.
However, after the series of food scandals, which this House has always vigorously denounced, how could we today omit to take account of the colossal role played by the consumer? Specifically mentioning the category is a response to a demand.
It contributes to restoring consumer confidence.
Two types of information must be distinguished:
information making it possible to improve traceability, but that is not directly intended to inform the end consumer.
As it is too specific, it can really only be read by professionals.
It fulfils a health function.
It is on the basis of these statements that controls can be carried out.
We are therefore talking about setting up identification and traceability systems;
the second type of information is directly intended for citizens like you and me, who buy their meat every day.
What do they want to know? They want to be sure that the product they are to consume is safe: the traceability and identification system will make it possible to guarantee the safety and quality of beef.
But the citizen would also like to know what type of meat it is.
This type of indication on the label is addressed directly to the end consumer and gives him intelligible information.
It is a mistake to say that this is pointless.
On the contrary, this labelling is just as important as establishing health guarantees.
Europe must give consumers back their confidence, as they have been avoiding beef since the mad cow scandal.
The implications are significant for the agro-food sector overall, which has been struck squarely by this crisis.
These two types of information are not in competition; they are complementary and contribute, each at their own level, to restoring the confidence of European consumers.
The confidence of our consumers cannot be decreed, it must be won.
Garcia-Orcoyen Tormo report (A5-0165/2000)
. It is a correct policy objective of the European Union to ensure that businesses carry out their affairs in an environmentally-friendly manner.
The Community Eco-Management and Audit scheme known as EMAS afforded an opportunity to EU companies to secure accreditation that they are implementing good environmental practices within their operations.
What we are discussing here today is the revision of the original 1993 regulation which put in place the Community Eco-Management and Audit scheme.
The criteria for inclusion on the EMAS register are very stringent.
The fact of the matter is that there is public reporting of the results which are carried out by each national standards authority within every Member State of the European Union.
Each national standards authority carries out a comprehensive and full review of all the activities of a prospective applicant under the EMAS scheme that may affect the environment.
Under the new regulation which we are discussing here today easier access will be made for small- and medium-sized enterprises to apply for accreditation under the EMAS scheme.
For the most part it has only been larger industrial companies which have sought recognition under the Community Eco-Management and Audit scheme to date.
We must remember that the EMAS scheme is the European version of the International Standard known as ISO14001.
In essence, this ISO International Standard is the equivalent to the ISO9000 for European companies but with the appropriate environmental slant.
It is the correct policy of the European Union to ensure that all companies in Europe respect the environment and ensure that the necessary practices are put in place to guarantee their operations do not adversely impact on the environment in any shape or form.
That is why I fully support proposals to ensure that easier access will be made for small- and medium-sized enterprises to be incorporated under the EMAS framework.
There must be greater flexibility within this system no matter how stringent the rules are to ensure that all sectors and all businesses in the European Union have an opportunity to secure accreditation under the Community Eco-Management and Audit scheme.
I fully support this programme and commend this report.
Recommendation for second reading: Breyer (A5-0166/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the recommendation, which sets limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in the ambient air.
Of course I am in favour of this, in that whenever there is a danger, pensioners and the elderly are always among the first to be affected, for, understandably, their lungs are often in bad shape.
Apart from this, I would like to call strongly for there to be focus in the future not only on the air inhaled by the citizens, but also on the air inhaled by those who work with dangerous substances such as benzene and carbon monoxide.
It would be appropriate for us to concern ourselves with this matter and reduce the working hours of those who work with dangerous substances to less than those of the other workers, to enable them to enjoy an average life span.
I feel that the European Union should concern itself, in particular, with the conditions and working hours of the citizens who inhale those dangerous substances against which we rightly protect pedestrians.
Workers should receive even greater protection.
Recommendation for second reading: Jackson (A5-0164/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the motion and I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Jackson, who worked so hard to ensure that this recommendation on the practical organisation of environmental inspections becomes a directive.
There is no point in Parliament adopting hundreds and hundreds of extremely important and useful directives and regulations if adequate, effective, practical monitoring is not then carried out in order to ensure that they are genuinely implemented and are of benefit to all the citizens of the European Union, particularly - as I said a moment ago - when it is a matter of environmental health, as it is in this case, and when failure to observe the rules causes harm, above all, to pensioners and the elderly.
. The principal aim of this recommendation is to strengthen the compliance with and to contribute to a more consistent implementation and enforcement of Community environmental law in the Member States.
This draft recommendation establishes minimum criteria to be applied in the organising, carrying out, following up and publicising of the results of environmental inspections.
It provides for environmental inspections of all industrial and other enterprises whose emissions and discharges on the environment are subject to particular authorisations or licensing requirements.
This would certainly be the case for all companies who receive pollution control licences under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agencies.
According to the text of this recommendation, environmental inspections will include: site visits; verification of self-monitoring by the operators of the controlled installations; checking the premises, the equipment and the adequacy of the environmental management at the site as well as the records kept by the operators.
Two types of inspections are foreseen, in particular, routine inspections carried out as part of a planned inspection programme and non-routine inspections as a follow-up to complaints in connection with the issue and renewal or modification of various licences.
Member States will be required to draw up in advance plans for environmental inspection activities covering all their respective territory and the installations within it.
These plans shall be available to the public under broader and wider information campaigns which are envisaged under this proposal.
Under this draft recommendation, each plan should define the geographical area which it covers, cover a defined period of time, include specific provisions for its revision, identify the specific sites or types of installations covered, prescribe the programmes for routine environmental inspections, provide for and outline the procedures for non-routine environmental inspections, provide for coordination between the different inspecting authorities.
I would like to commend the rapporteur, Caroline Jackson, for her report.
In her report she is calling for this proposal to be translated into a directive which would have uniform application across the European Union.
The rapporteur believes that only a directive can force the Member States to introduce these inspection systems.
As a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy of the European Parliament, I support the need for Member States to establish harmonised environmental inspections.
The EU Council must listen to the European Parliament in this regard.
We must all recall that the European Parliament has the power of codecision on environmental matters as a result of the implementation of the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty.
The European Union also has competence in environmental matters under Article 130 of the Maastricht Treaty.
Santa Maria da Feira European Council of 19 and 20 June 2000
.
(EL) There are four important observations to be made on the Portuguese presidency and the presidency's closing summit in Santa Maria da Feira:
First, the European Union took another very dangerous step towards militarisation by pushing for an EU military and police force and by developing an Atlantic framework for it to work within.
By contrast, no positive action was taken to promote peace, as the continuing quagmire in Yugoslavia illustrates.
Secondly, it is clear from developments at the Intergovernmental Conference that we are moving towards a "two-speed Europe" rather than towards democratisation, as continual reference to "closer cooperation" and various proposals to reduce the weighting of small countries in both the Council and the Commission illustrate.
Thirdly, the European Union, under pressure from the United Kingdom in particular, failed to reach a specific agreement and binding timetable on tax information, leaving tax havens free to operate within the Union.
Fourthly, the Lisbon Summit, midway through the Portuguese presidency, gave another sign in favour of abandoning the European welfare model and changing to the American model.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted today in favour of the resolution concerning the conclusions from the European Council' s summit in Feira on 19-20 June 2000.
We have done so because we should like to repay a good presidency which has set a commendable and forward-looking agenda for Europe, as is also reflected in the section of the resolution concerning the follow-up to the Lisbon Summit.
Our overall vote cannot, however, be taken as implying that we support the desire for an extended agenda at the Intergovernmental Conference and the legally binding incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Treaty. In this connection, we would refer to our explanations of vote on these matters, issued in connection with the Helsinki Summit, the calling of the Intergovernmental Conference, the European Parliament' s position on the Intergovernmental Conference and preparations for the Feira Summit.
I was unable to vote in favour of the compromise resolution, mainly because the paragraph on taxation is a little too sparse and casts a biased judgement on what was really decided in Feira.
Parliament should rather have noted, with satisfaction, of course, the determination of the Heads of State and Government to reach an integral agreement on the taxation package as a whole (taxation of savings income, business taxation, interest and royalties) at the end of 2002 at the latest.
We should have confirmed the need to preserve the competitiveness of European financial markets by the simultaneous adoption of equivalent measures in key third countries and identical measures in associated or dependent territories.
We should also have asked to receive the reports that the Commission should present at regular intervals on the application of information exchange systems and systems for taxation at source from savings, as well as the report on the basis of which the adoption and implementation of the directive are to be decided.
I would remind you that this was not the case.
I know that opinion on the tax compromise that we just managed to negotiate in Feira is divided.
This is reflected in all the European press.
I cannot help but name a few headlines from French language papers, 'Delaying compromise on savings tax' , 'Doubts on Feira tax compromise' , 'Superficial agreement, fundamental disagreement' , 'lame agreement' , 'taxation at source, coexistence, nothing at all?' or from the German language papers, 'Brown the Scot boosts London as a financial centre.
London leads the way in the EU tax battle' , 'Swiss banks see no need for action' , 'all financial centres must cooperate to do away with banking secrecy' .
The observation in the Basler Zeitung of 24 June is also telling, 'We are more likely to see the Matterhorn crumble than the Swiss electorate release bank staff from their confidentiality obligations and the Bern Finance Minister become the tax collector for Brussels.'
In this context, the headline in the Écho of 24 June, which accurately notes that 'without sufficient guarantees, Luxembourg will block the taxation directive' and that 'the exchange of information should also be applied by competing markets' , reflects what was really decided in Feira.
The fact that our resolution complains about the Feira timetable illustrates the ignorance or delusion of the authors of this passage, whom I would like to remind of what the Luxembourg Prime Minister specified in Feira on this subject, that is, that with regard to taxation of savings 'there are still around fifty technical matters which have never been discussed by the Commission' .
In this context, complaining that the timetable did not reflect the urgency of the problem is irresponsibly unrealistic.
.
(FR) The Lutte ouvrière Members share the indignation expressed by the GUE proposal, which we voted on, at the death of the 58 immigrants in Dover, and of so many others, who attempted to cross external or internal borders of the European Union.
In order to put an end to a situation where poverty forces thousands of human beings to leave for lands where they hope to have a slightly better life, we must put an end to a social system which, in order to concentrate extraordinary riches in the hands of the few, enforces poverty on the majority of the planet.
Obviously, a vote in Parliament will not bring about this upheaval, although it is an essential need for humanity.
It is disgusting that, even in areas where current national and European institutions could actually do something, they do nothing.
The Dover tragedy happened between two European countries.
The barbed wire fence we are currently setting up around the European Union exists even within the Union for third country nationals, and these barriers can kill.
It is not enough to denounce the crooks that make money by trafficking in human beings.
Immigrants must be guaranteed the rights to which every human being should be entitled.
We must ensure the free movement of persons.
We must put an end to immigration policies that turn immigrants into some sort of subhumans with no rights, if not into illegal immigrants preyed on by the police.
We wish to protest most strongly at the policy of the French Government, which revels in its role as President of the European Union but which refuses to regularise 65 000 immigrant workers who have become illegal immigrants as a result of unfair laws, and we demand that their situation be regularised immediately.
. (PT) The tragedy in the port of Dover involving the death of 58 immigrants is, just like the tragedy which claimed the lives of two boys from Guinea on the landing gear of a Sabena aircraft a few months ago, a terrible indictment of the current ineffective and misguided cooperation and development policies and of the inappropriate immigration and asylum policies being implemented by the European Union and by individual Member States.
Such occurrences, which show the damaging effects of current globalisation for what they really are, highlight the urgent need to establish guidelines and measures to reduce the gap between industrialised countries and developing countries. They also highlight the great need to implement bold and tolerant legislative measures at national and Community level in the area of migration, with a view in particular to improving reception conditions for immigrants and their integration, and ensuring that their civic, economic, social and cultural rights are fully recognised.
This was the spirit in which we tabled a motion for a resolution.
It is precisely because the compromise retreats from this that we did not subscribe to and, in fact, rejected it, since this compromise is marred by the negative concept of building a "fortress Europe" . We also rejected the compromise because it aims largely at using policing methods to find the "solution" to the problems of migration.
Mr President, I shall explain my vote in writing.
However, may I submit a procedural motion?
Previously, when Members were present for the vote and an explanation of vote was made in writing, it was possible to leave, as the President used to state that he had received such and such a written explanation of vote on such and such a report.
Now, we have to wait.
Yesterday I waited 40 minutes to say that I was submitting my explanation of the vote in writing! It is a waste of time.
What we are doing is already somewhat inhuman: we vote from 12 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. and then we stay here until 4 p.m. to say that we are submitting a written explanation of vote!
The parliamentary services told me that I had to be here.
Perhaps you would have agreed...nevertheless, could we not clarify things? I understand that Members who are not taking part in the vote on a report or resolution cannot submit a written explanation, but why must those who have taken part in the vote, who are submitting a written explanation, stay here for another half-hour?
Could you clarify that?
Mrs Lulling, whose fault are you saying it is? Your fellow Members who are giving their explanations of vote?
If all the Members here had given their explanations of vote in writing you would have had your chance rather earlier.
However, your fellow Members have the right to give explanations of vote on all the reports that we put to the vote.
Mr President, I would like to comment on points 2 and 3, in which it is claimed that the Intergovernmental Conference is the key issue in the run-up to enlargement of the EU.
This is not the case.
The key issue is primarily that of how the negotiations with the candidate countries are handled and what result is achieved.
There is still no final date set, and the candidate countries think that the EU is extremely imprecise regarding its position.
I would also like to comment on point 10, the contents of which I think involve an unfortunate development in the direction of militarisation of the European Union.
I am saying this also as a representative of a country that is non-aligned.
Finally, I would like to comment on point 11, which talks of a positive step towards necessary tax coordination in Europe. What sort of a statement is this?
In this connection, I would like to quote the Swedish constitution and its words about "the ancient right of the Swedish people to impose taxes on themselves".
(The sitting was suspended at 1.50 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Mr Maaten has the floor for a point of order.
Madam President, I would like to take the floor at the beginning of the topical debate, because, in accordance with Rule 146 of the Rules of Procedure, this is the right time to do this in my opinion.
Indeed, the next item on the agenda is a resolution on Euro 2000 and hooligans.
And although we are certainly in favour of discussing this matter, there are elements in this resolution which are still under investigation by the legal authorities in the Netherlands.
In our view, therefore, it would be premature at this stage to pass judgement on this legal investigation.
I would therefore move, based on Rule 146, to adjourn the debate on this resolution until our part-session in September.
This Rule also stipulates that such a motion shall be put to the vote immediately.
First of all, Mr Maaten, the article you are talking about only refers to one Group or 32 Members.
Secondly, it does not directly concern the question of matters for topical and urgent debate, as the very principle of urgent matters is to discuss them at the beginning of the part-session in order to establish a framework for them.
This is not like a referral back to committee.
Consequently, the urgent matter is either accepted or refused.
If it is accepted, we must follow the procedure through and the debate must take place.
Mr Bautista Ojeda, your speech will be passed on to Mrs Fontaine who I am sure will handle it with the utmost attention.
Madam President, there are nonetheless groups which support Mr Maaten' s motion.
He has spoken on behalf of the ELDR Group and I endorse his motion on behalf of the EDD Group.
I would thus ask you to proceed to the vote in line with the Rules of Procedure.
No, Mr Blokland, the Rules of Procedure do not lay down that the postponement of an urgent matter can be put to the vote.
Topical and urgent matters are a very specific case.
It was voted upon on Monday and this House, by sovereign right, drew up a framework for it.
As soon as a matter becomes urgent, it cannot be postponed.
Obviously, the arguments developed by you and Mr Maatten can be considered during the debate, but I am not putting the postponement of this debate to the vote.
Madam President, you are interpreting the text in a specific way, but I read the text and it does not make any mention of exemptions for urgent debates.
Every item that is put on Monday' s agenda by the House can be taken off the agenda again in the course of the week, should it transpire that, on reflection, fresh arguments have come to light.
New arguments have emerged in this instance.
We now know that the Dutch justice system is launching an inquiry.
It seems clear to me, therefore, that when we decided to discuss this matter on Monday, we did not have this piece of information at our disposal.
We now have new information, which we need to take into account.
I therefore believe that your interpretation of the Rules of Procedure is not according to the letter of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Blokland, I believe my interpretation is in line with the letter and spirit of our Rules of Procedure.
It is clearly stated that the agenda - as we are talking about establishing the agenda - is established by this House at the beginning of the part-session, which has been done.
Regardless of this, if new factors come into play, these can be communicated during the debate to provide additional information for our fellow Members when they come to vote.
However, I stand by this interpretation, which is linked both to the principle of the agenda and the principle of urgent matters.
Madam President, I simply wish to express my agreement with the words of the Member from the Partido Andalucista, from Andalucia, and suggest, as a place to repair the British nuclear submarine, the gardens of Buckingham Palace. That is where they could take the aforementioned 'beast' .
All the arguments have been expressed on the subject of this postponement.
I maintain my position and I now suggest that we move straight on to the debate on Fiji and the Solomon islands, as that is what our fellow Members are waiting for.
Fiji and the Solomon Islands
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0607/2000 by Mr Speroni, on behalf of the Technical Group of Independent Members, on Fiji;
B5-0616/2000 by Mrs Ludford, on behalf of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the situation in Fiji and the Solomon Islands;
B5-0620/2000 by Mr Corrie and Mr Johan Van Hecke, on behalf of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the situation in Fiji and the Solomon Islands;
B5-0629/2000 by Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the situation in Fiji and the Solomon Islands;
B5-0636/2000 by Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the situation in Fiji;
B5-0640/2000 by Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the situation in the Solomon Islands;
B5-0644/2000 by Mr van den Berg and Mrs Kinnock, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on Fiji and the Solomon Islands.
Madam President, what is happening in Fiji is further evidence that the pathetic dreams of those who believe in a multiethnic and multiracial society are unrealistic.
Indeed, we can see that the conflict between the indigenous ethnic group and the immigrant ethnic group has flared up dramatically, although it is true that there has been relatively little bloodshed.
The same thing is happening in the nearby Solomon Islands and all over the world.
The events in the Great Lakes region in Africa, the events on the island of Timor and the current situation in the Moluccas are all evidence of the fact that peaceful cohabitation of communities with completely different traditions, cultures and histories cannot exist outside the good intentions of those who are for total globalisation.
Therefore, in my opinion, we need to focus our efforts chiefly on protecting the indigenous ethnic groups, so that the indigenous Fijians do not share the fate of the South American Indians or the indigenous populations of Central and North America, and to ensure that their culture is preserved by controlling illegal immigration, so that what is happening there and has sadly already come about in the Balkans does not occur in Europe as well.
Madam President, we in Parliament are rightly particularly attentive to areas where ethnic tensions lead to conflict and attempts to overthrow democracy and the rule of law.
In both Fiji and the Solomon Islands democratic government and law and order have been undermined.
In Fiji the aim must be to restore the legitimate government elected on the basis of the 1997 multi-racial constitution, which was approved by both ethnic groups - Indo-Fijians and indigenous Fijians.
Violence against property and people must cease and the hostages released.
The interim civilian administration installed in Fiji does not meet the constitutional or democratic tests.
We therefore call on the Commission to begin with determination the procedures to suspend development cooperation with Fiji.
The beleaguered inhabitants of Fiji are looking to the European Union, which they see as the beacon of democracy and racial equality, to come to their aid.
We also warn the Solomon Islands that a suspension of aid may be needed there to restore democracy, peace and stability.
Madam President, I want to concentrate on the Solomon Islands, but first just a word on Fiji.
My ACP-EU Vice-President is one of those held hostage and I would ask you to send a letter of support to his family.
The ACP-EU delegation went to the Solomon Islands to study the ethnic tension.
It was quite clear after talks that a coup was imminent.
Why did it happen? When we arrived we found a complete vacuum.
There was no dialogue between the warring parties.
The parliament was not functioning.
There was no law and order, as those who were police by day were Malaitan militants by night and they opened their armouries to the Malaitans on the morning of the coup.
99.9% of Guadalcanal is held by the IMF group and only Honiara City is held by the Malaitans.
This situation is unsustainable.
The ethnic conflict is all about the expulsion from Guadalcanal of 40 000 Malaitans back to their own island, to severe hardship, without any compensation.
As they did all the work, Guadalcanal is now at a standstill in both rural and urban areas.
The presence of Mrs Kinnock and myself did influence the situation for the better.
We created dialogue.
We had the 48-hour resignation demand on the prime minister withdrawn.
We advised them to recall Parliament and have a debate on the situation and this has now happened.
Amazingly the leader of the opposition is now the prime minister.
All this happened because we pointed out the European Union could withdraw aid if the coup took place at the point of a gun.
That aid is 25% of their GDP.
But the country is bankrupt and the new prime minister will face the same problems as the last.
He must make the parliamentary structure more active, work towards a cease-fire and then have talks on compensation with outside assistance.
Outside help will also be needed to regain law and order.
I should like to finish by thanking the members of the delegation office there who were so helpful to us.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is true that the Pacific always evokes images of paradise: beaches, coconut palms, sun.
Today, the reality is far sadder.
The two coups d' état that have taken place in Fiji recently in fact show unstable States divided by poverty.
The most incredible thing in this matter, apart from the passivity of our institutions, is that the pretext of interethnic tension is always used to explain such conflicts.
We are well aware, however, that the true cause is not just that.
In the Solomon Islands, the vast majority of the population is Melanesian and Christian.
In Fiji, almost half the population is of Indian origin, but these origins date back to the last century.
Moreover, in spite of these differences, all these people are at home in Fiji.
I believe there are causes other than this ethnic conflict.
For example, we deny the role played by those who make a profit from these conflicts: multinationals and local politicians.
For the former, periods of instability mean fewer social, tax and environmental obligations as the State is very weak in these cases and conflicts favour the arms industry as the political groups need to get their weapons from somewhere.
As far as politicians are concerned, the practice of pitting one group against another, as, for example, the far right does in Europe, allows a political vacuum to be created or power to be maintained.
This practice is only possible because the population is poor and suffers from a lack of knowledge of other groups.
In this case, the two conflicts should have enabled some people to take back or gain power that they could not win through the ballot box.
In Fiji, the coup d' état was fomented by a bankrupt businessman who used his distant Fiji origins to legitimise his actions.
As for the new Prime Minister, he is also from a business background.
In the Solomon Islands, a sham parliamentary vote brought a new Prime Minister to power, elected by the power of the gun.
These two examples support our vision of the conflict.
The joint resolution, however, is too sanctimonious and effectively wants to restore the previous situation.
As is all too often the case, it does not refer to the true sources of these conflicts: poverty and the underlying self-interested role of political and economic participants.
From this point of view, if we want to be really effective, we must prevent further conflicts and to do so, we must genuinely aid the development of education, the local economy and local democracy.
This is how we might succeed in changing things.
Madam President, my comments will be on the question of Fiji.
Some days ago, a number of ethnic Fijian Indians representing that community and the Indian diaspora who are concerned about these conflicts came to the Parliament.
They expressed their deepest concern about the situation in Fiji, about its symbolism and how it could affect Indian communities in other areas of the world.
Their concern was not precisely for the ethnic Indian community, it was for Fiji.
Fiji had a multi-racial constitution in 1997.
It was designed to solve the ethnic problems in the islands, including the land issue and that constitution was unanimously approved by an ethnic-Fijian-dominated Parliament and blessed by the Great Council Of Chiefs.
It was a model for a constitution for a multi-racial society and a thriving island.
Clearly the lawlessness and violence has undermined that constitution but we must look more deeply at the causes of the conflict.
This House has to ensure that in those countries where we give aid we monitor the breakdown of law and order and look at the interests of those ethnic minorities who are in danger.
The concerns expressed are very real.
We have the ability to suspend aid if we believe that there is something going wrong in Fiji.
Myself and Glenys Kinnock and other colleagues who have met with the ethnic Indian community want to help them find a solution to this conflict.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has been observing the events in Fiji since 18 May with growing concern.
It really is discouraging to see the achievements of an entire decade put at risk.
Fiji had a constitution that was not based on racism.
That has been abolished.
It had a democratically elected government.
That has fallen and been replaced by an interim government appointed by the military.
Fiji has already suffered enormous economic damage at this point.
There is a risk that investors will lose confidence in it.
Politically, Fiji, which proudly wanted to give its name to the new 20-year partnership agreement between the ACP states and the EU, risks seeing its relations with the international community of states worsen considerably.
It even risks being expelled from the Commonwealth.
The Commission is currently preparing a proposal to the Council on the application of Article 366a of the Lomé Convention because, in its the view, the fundamental principles of the Convention - democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights - are no longer guaranteed in Fiji.
Let me remind you that this proposal initially provides for consultations between the parties.
Further measures or sanctions will only be decided in a second stage, on the basis of the results of the consultations and how they are assessed.
So it is too early, at this point in time, to contemplate further measures or sanctions.
Any response on our part should be well-considered and targeted.
A trade ban, as called for by unions in Australia and New Zealand, would result in the dismissal of more than 40 000 workers in the clothing and tourist industry, and that should be avoided.
Turning to the Solomon Islands, here too the Commission has been observing the deteriorating security situation with concern.
The Commission supports all the efforts made by the mediators to ensure that the parties concerned can discuss the outstanding issues and differences of opinion openly and without the threat of violence.
The Commission is ready to use its instruments to support the peace process as soon as the political and security situation allows it.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Tibet
The next item is the joint debate on the following joint motions for resolutions:
B5-0608/2000, by Mr Pannella and others, on behalf of the Technical Group of Independent Members, on the need to stop Chinese colonisation and adopt a new Statute for Tibet;
B5-0610/2000, by Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, on behalf of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the urgent need for Sino-Tibetan negotiations with a view to the adoption of a new Statute for Tibet;
B5-0617/2000, by Mrs Muscardini and Mr Collins, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, on Tibet;
B5-0621/2000, by Mr Thomas Mann and Mr Bowis, on behalf of the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the Western China Poverty Reduction Project and the future of Tibet;
B5-0641/2000, by Mr Messner and Mrs Frassoni, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the urgent need for Sino-Tibetan negotiations with a view to the adoption of a new Statute for Tibet;
B5-0645/2000, by Mr Sakellariou and Mr Veltroni, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on Tibet
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think we are preparing to vote on an important text on Tibet, and that today we have the opportunity to make a qualitative leap forward in this fundamental battle.
This is a battle of law, and of international law.
Tibet is occupied, Tibet was invaded by Chinese troops in 1949 and since then has been occupied and colonised by the Chinese.
I think that we must, of course, vote en masse in favour of this resolution, but that we must also vote for the amendment tabled by Mr Thomas Mann, by the liberal group and by the Group of the Greens, an amendment which asks our governments to consider the possibility of recognising the exiled Tibetan Government if, within three years, the Chinese authorities and the exiled Tibetan Government have not ultimately signed an agreement on the substantial autonomy of Tibet.
We can no longer leave the decision not to tackle the problem up to the goodwill, or in this case the ill will, of the authorities of Beijing.
We must oblige them and, through political action by Parliament, assert our determination to see this matter, which has lasted 50 years, finally resolved.
I would particularly like to call on my left-wing, socialist and communist friends to stop using double standards!
We all remember the great battles to decolonise Africa, the liberation of Algeria and Vietnam.
Look at the results today: the latter is still in the hands of a totalitarian system, a dictatorship.
Today, in Tibet, there is a non-violent fight for democracy.
There is no reason not to do here what we did there, what many of us did in those days.
Today, the matter of Tibet must become a matter of law, an affirmation of non-violence by the international community.
China is a large country which has a right to democracy.
So much is clear, but that cannot be a reason to further sacrifice the right of Tibetans to live with their own culture, in full autonomy in every area that must be governed by the people.
I therefore sincerely invite my socialist and communist friends to vote for this resolution and this amendment, in order to make sure that, at least this once, Parliament is at the forefront of this battle for freedom, democracy and non-violence.
Madam President, happy birthday Dalai Lama!
But I am not sure that today is such a happy day for him, because after all, the most valuable contribution which the EU can make to the world is standing up for human rights and democracy, and these are still being flouted in Tibet.
In the light of this, I would like to make the following observations.
First of all, why is it that there is still no real dialogue at official level between the Chinese Government and the Tibetan Government in exile? All manner of so-called indirect contacts have led to nothing.
The European Parliament should adopt a harder line in order to support the principle of non-violence. This is why this resolution is necessary.
Secondly, how can a renowned institution such as the World Bank be on the brink of financing a Chinese programme which is tantamount to a common or garden colonisation of Tibet? This has to be prevented and hence this resolution.
Thirdly, how can the European Union possibly be one to let economic interests prevail in its relations with China? Surely we cannot offer the Tibetan population attention only when it suits us?
In sum, Madam President, I would urge you to ensure that a real dialogue is established according to the Dalai Lama' s five-point peace plan; it will then be a happy day for Tibet' s entire population.
Mr President, Commissioner Verheugen, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow the World Bank will be taking a decision with very serious implications for Tibet.
The aim is to provide international support to alleviate the poverty in western China, and surely everyone is prepared in principle to help those who cannot do much to help themselves.
In the framework of this project, however, 58 000 people are to be forcibly resettled in Tibet. Resettlement on that scale might well gradually turn the Tibetans into a minority in their own homeland, after decades of destruction of their culture and their monasteries, of persecution and threat to life and limb!
A fortnight ago, the Members of our Intergroup on Tibet and many other MEPs urged the President of the World Bank in Washington not to go against the Bank' s own principles for the protection of endangered peoples.
We have written to the national parliaments, to the ministries of finance in Europe, the USA and other continents, and of course to Commissioner Chris Patten.
We have urgently requested the members of the Board of the World Bank to study the report drawn by independent inspectors very carefully first.
For the inspectors seriously doubt whether the resettlement is environmentally correct or socially acceptable because of an irrigation programme.
If public monies are spent, the justification for doing so must be made just as public.
Strengthened by its planned membership of WTO, China, as I myself recently found in Beijing, is becoming increasingly aware of its role as an emerging world power.
But that also implies an obligation to act more responsibly than before and, for instance, to apply the concept of "one China - many systems" .
The full autonomy granted to Tibet must finally be guaranteed.
That includes freedom of religion, freedom of opinion, cultural and social independence.
Bilateral talks must be held with authorised leaders.
The Dalai Lama is available for this at any time.
As my colleague pointed out, this Nobel peace-prize winner, who is accepted worldwide, is celebrating his 65th birthday today and has been the Tibetans' leader for precisely 50 years.
His five-point peace plan, which reflects his profound belief in non-violence, remains as valid as ever.
It is high time to hold constructive dialogues on that basis.
On behalf of the EPP Group and the Intergroup on Tibet, I call on all the Members of the European Parliament to support our resolution.
Only a worldwide protest shortly before the World Bank' s decision, which is in fact due tomorrow, can prevent things from going seriously off course.
Tashi delek!
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are just about to vote, for the thirteenth time, on a resolution concerning Tibet, and we have to say, if we examine the effect these have had in the past, it is exceptionally poor.
This is why I am addressing the Commissioner.
I would like the European Union, with its three powerful institutions, to join forces and appeal to world opinion, the Chinese authorities and especially the World Bank.
As fellow MEPs have already explained, we need to put a stop to internal colonisation, this brutal murder of the cultural identity of the Tibetan population.
That is only possible if the World Bank stops financing precisely the opposite, namely the import of Chinese people with a view to destroying Tibet' s original culture.
How can we justify spending taxpayers' money on this kind of practice?
I hope you will help us bring about a U-turn, as requested by my fellow MEPs in the amendment; a U-turn which prescribes that, if there is no change in three years' time, we will eventually decide to recognise Tibet' s provisional government rather than continue to tread water.
Madam President, naturally, the Group of the Party of European Socialists fully supports this motion for a resolution. The fact that the World Bank is about to make its decision, which has already been mentioned, is conclusive proof of the urgent nature of the resolution.
If the World Bank finances the programme to combat poverty in Western China, the Chinese Government is likely to transfer large numbers of ethnic Chinese to Tibet, with the risk, or rather the explicit intention, that the Tibetans will be reduced to a minority. In this case, their cultural, linguistic and religious traditions will almost inevitably disappear as a matter of course.
In our opinion, it is essential for Parliament to speak out against the World Bank's decision.
We call upon the governments to do everything in their power and use every avenue available to them - economic and otherwise, in view of the fact that China wants to join the WTO etc. to ensure that China respects Tibet's autonomy and that negotiations are resumed as soon as possible between the Chinese Government and the Dalai Lama with the intention of establishing a new statute for Tibet. This is the first point of our conclusions in this resolution.
The negotiations must be based on the Dalai Lama's five-point programme, which has our full support. We would also like to wish him a happy birthday.
Madam President, 50 years on we have been celebrating over the last few years the end of the war, the founding of the United Nations, the founding of the World Health Organisation, the return of independence to the Baltic Nations from the Soviet Empire, but sadly also 50 years on we have to commemorate China's illegal occupation of Tibet: fifty years of suppression and oppression of the Tibetan people by the Chinese regime.
That must never be allowed to become a fait accompli hence the amendment to this resolution to put pressure on China, which I warmly support.
Hence, also, the overall resolution to demand of the World Bank that it withdraw its support for our so-called project which would mean the movement of some 60,000 Chinese into an area currently populated by 4,000 Tibetans making a living with their herds, and the exploitation of Tibet's natural resources.
Both actions are immoral, both are against international law, both demand action by this Parliament and this Union on behalf of Tibet and its people.
Mr President, to begin with, I would like to say that I am speaking today on behalf of the Nordic Green Left Party.
We think that the Tibetans should have the autonomy that they themselves are striving for.
We are also concerned about China' s unwillingness to participate in a dialogue.
I would like to address the Commissioner and say that I hope that the Commission has very good relations with the representatives of the World Bank. Decisions must, of course, be made by no later than tomorrow.
We have therefore only got an extremely short time in which to influence the World Bank, to which this resolution is, of course, primarily directed.
It is, of course, usually quite difficult to have any influence on the World Bank at all.
I would therefore like to be told formally whether it is possible for Parliament to wield any influence at all or whether we should try in the course of the night to get hold of our government representatives. The Council is, of course, not represented here to any great extent.
I have had occasion to witness the situation in Tibet personally. It is far more serious, humiliating and painful than it is possible to describe in this Chamber or at any other meeting.
For the last forty years, the Chinese have forcibly denied the Tibetans their freedom, they have deprived them of their identity and, what is more, trampled on the human rights and dignity of the people.
That is why it is necessary for a Parliament which is so concerned with human rights and combating xenophobia and racism to call upon China to negotiate another statute recognising the rights of the Tibetans in full and genuinely guaranteeing the full autonomy of the Tibetan people.
I would like to be totally clear, even at the risk of appearing antagonistic.
We must guard against hypocrisy.
It is, in fact, pointless to adopt a joint resolution full of good principles, fine words and indignation if, for economic and commercial reasons, maybe, we then allow the supreme Chinese authorities to be welcomed with the highest honours by our ministers or the mayors of the various European capitals, as is actually going to happen tomorrow in Rome, when Mr Rutelli, who is Mayor of Rome as well as a Member of the European Parliament, will officially receive the Chinese Prime Minister or, at any rate, a delegation.
If we continue to sacrifice principles and rights in the name of the economy, apart from making pious declarations of intent in Parliamentary debates it will be extremely difficult to find a genuine solution for the Tibetan people.
Madam President, the Commission, like Parliament, is deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Tibet.
We are particularly concerned about respect on the part of the Chinese authorities for the cultural, linguistic and religious identity of the autonomous region of Tibet.
We have raised this issue repeatedly during the bilateral dialogue with China on the subject of human rights.
In particular, the European Union has called on China to resume the dialogue with the Dalai Lama as soon as possible.
In our view, a direct dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities is the only realistic way of achieving a lasting and peaceful solution to the issue of Tibet.
With regard to cooperation, the European Union takes the view that it is in the interest of the Tibetan people that we support aid projects in Tibet, provided the group of ethnic Tibetans benefits directly from them and is given priority in the management of the projects.
That is precisely what happened in the past when the Chinese authorities gave an official assurance to that effect.
On the question of the World Bank project, I can inform you that the Commission is not involved in that project.
So I do not believe we have any means of exerting much influence now, at the very last minute.
If any influence at all can still be brought to bear, it would be up to the Member States to do so.
Human rights
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Child soldiers in Uganda
B5-0611/2000 by Mrs Ludford, on behalf of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the abduction of children in the north of Uganda;
B5-0622/2000 by Mr Mauro and others, on behalf of the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the abduction of children by the LRA;
B5-0630/2000 by Mr Sylla and Mr Vinci, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on Uganda;
B5-0637/2000 by Mrs Maes and Mrs Lambert, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the abduction of children in Uganda;
B5-0646/2000 by Mr van den Berg, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the abduction of children in Uganda;
Situation in the Moluccas
B5-0609/2000 by Mr Belder, on behalf of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the Moluccas;
B5-0612/2000 by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the Moluccas;
B5-0623/2000 by Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the Moluccas;
B5-0643/2000 by Mrs McKenna and Mrs Langendijk, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the Moluccas;
B5-0647/2000 by Mr van den Berg, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the Moluccas;
Death penalty in the United States
B5-0613/2000 by Mrs Malmström, Mr Haarder and Mr Watson, on behalf of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the death penalty in the United States and the case of the Italian-American citizen Derek Rocco Barnabei;
B5-0619/2000 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Technical Group of Independent Members - Mixed Group, on the forthcoming execution of Derek Rocco Barnabei in Virginia;
B5-0624/2000 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and others, on behalf of the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the death penalty in the United States;
B5-0631/2000 by Mr Cossutta and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the death penalty in the United States and the case of Mr Derek Rocco Barnabei;
B5-0638/2000 by Mrs Maes and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the death penalty;
B5-0648/2000 by Mr Veltroni and Mrs Díez González, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the death penalty in the United States and in particular the case of Rocco Barnabei;
Hooligans
B5-0625/2000 by Mr Van Hecke and others, on behalf of the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on hooliganism during Euro 2000;
B5-0632/2000 by Mr Papayannakis, Mr Sylla and Mr Cossutta, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on hooliganism during Euro 2000;
B5-0649/2000 by Mr Desama and Mr van den Berg, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on hooliganism during Euro 2000;
Iraq
B5-0614/2000 by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, on behalf of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on Iraq;
B5-0618/2000 by Mrs Muscardini and Mr Andrews, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, on Iraq;
B5-626/2000 by Mr Khanbhai and others, on behalf of the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on Iraq;
B5-633/2000 by Mrs Morgantini and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on Iraq;
B5-0639/2000 by Mrs McKenna and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the United Nations embargo in Iraq;
B5-0650/2000 by Mr Sakellariou, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Iraq;
Child soldiers in Uganda
Madam President, Commissioner, one could say a lot about this issue.
Firstly, I hope, in particular, that the Council and the Commission will be active when it comes to also taking up this issue in the Security Council when the action plan concerning children in armed conflicts will be debated at the end of this month.
Secondly, we have today noted with satisfaction that attempts are being made to reach a common solution to at least one other conflict regarding child soldiers.
This solution is the so-called diamond resolution in the Security Council.
Thirdly, we can confirm that we have made a certain amount of general progress with regard to child soldiers.
We have the voluntary Supplementary Protocol against Child Soldiers and the Activities in Africa.
I would ask the House to support this resolution.
I would also like the EU jointly to take up the issue in the Security Council at the end of this month during the follow-up to the general debate on children in armed conflicts.
Madam President, the situation in Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan is the setting for the drama of the child-soldiers.
The aim of my speech and of the resolution which has just been tabled is to prompt Parliament and the institutions to adopt ongoing initiatives which do more than just respond to moments of crisis.
There has been continuous armed conflict in this region for the last 30 years; civil society has been completely destroyed and different groups of rebels have been massacring the peoples of Northern Uganda for over 12 years.
Their favourite victims are children and adolescents because they are vulnerable and easily influenced.
To date, approximately 60% of the soldiers in the Lord's Resistance Army are children under the age of 16.
The strategy is precisely to manipulate the children and subject them to brutal force so that they will in turn be able to kill and torture others.
Adolescent girls are given to the rebels as wives, but the most noticeable thing is that not even the Nairobi Agreements between Uganda and the Sudan last December have caused the LRA to change its attitude.
During the last few days, I have had the opportunity to talk to one of the girls who has escaped from the fields of Southern Sudan, who confirmed that the LRA has no intention of changing its position.
Further evidence of this is the funeral of John Baptista Ochaia, the representative of the Chairman of Kitgum district council, who died the day before yesterday from wounds received during an LRA ambush, which took place today in Uganda.
It is therefore unacceptable that the European authorities and many commercial entities should maintain an attitude almost of tacit approval of this situation, without making any attempt to break the circle which is robbing a generation of its future.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, war is always cruel, and civil war even more so.
However, we have reached another level of barbarism and abjectness when children are used to fight and kill or be killed.
In this way, the LRA, the armed resistance, does not hesitate to kidnap seven-year-old boys and subject them to extreme brutality to train them to fight and terrorise villagers.
Nor does it hesitate to sexually exploit women and girls.
When these children survive, it must be said, they are in any case scarred for life.
It takes time, patience and love to restore their hope.
This is why we must increase aid and support for UNICEF, which has set up an action programme enabling children to return to a normal life.
Madam President, we must also stop pussyfooting around.
Sudan must stop supporting the LRA.
In my opinion, this amounts to collusion, which makes Sudan just as guilty.
And Parliament must intervene to urge the Ugandan Government to find a peaceful solution to this conflict in the north of Uganda, which, let me remind you, has been the cause of 100 000 deaths in 15 years.
The whole population is waiting for this solution and all the children are hoping for it.
The Security Council must hear this plea.
Madam President, I am really pleased that this resolution has come about.
I hope that this will encourage the Commission and the Member States to act on this issue.
Some weeks ago, a documentary from Southern Sudan was shown on Swedish television.
This documentary claimed that foreign investors and oil companies, including an oil company from my home country, Sweden, are being protected by troops which make use of child soldiers. These accusations have also been supported by Amnesty International, which has explained that certain oil revenues are also used to finance the civil war in Southern Sudan.
There, they use child soldiers from Uganda, who are forced into armed conflict.
We must put pressure on the international oil companies and on investors.
We must, as is stated in point 8 of the resolution, strongly urge these companies to cease their activities in Sudan until a peaceful solution to the conflict has been found.
Madam President, first of all I would like to express my gratitude to Mr Van Hecke and his wife Els De Temmerman for their efforts in ensuring that the child soldiers issue in Northern Uganda, and anything related to this, is published in an unambiguous manner for the benefit of Europe.
What is clear is that despite the 1999 Nairobi Agreement, it has not been possible to apply this agreement in an adequate manner.
This brings us to the question of the EU' s authority and the willingness on the part of the Member States to act as a united front in that region.
I would ask Commissioner Verheugen specifically whether he is absolutely clear about the point mentioned in the resolution, that of bringing the investments in both oil and oil pipelines in Sudan to a halt for the time being.
If we exert pressure to bring about peace and make sure we gain control in that northern region, this could lead to very concrete steps within a foreign policy which combines the aid component, the foreign component and the trade component.
Such action is a matter of great priority.
At the moment, we only see these figures and examples increase, and at the same time, we notice that we are exerting too little pressure, although we have more clout there than we have made use of to date.
This brings me to the wider issue of the United Nations.
The protocol was accepted in the General Assembly in May.
In July, a debate will be held in the Security Council.
This would, of course, be a wonderful example of a Europe which does not only hold forth internally, but also takes steps externally.
We, all the European Member States together, are very much in favour of the eighteen years, swift conclusion by signature and effective, coordinated action by the different countries where matters such as education and the re-integration of child soldiers are concerned.
We do a great deal financially in this respect in different countries.
We have a good reputation there.
It would be beneficial if we could act under one banner and with one voice.
I would be interested to find out from Commissioner Verheugen how he rates our chance of success in July.
Madam President, I was in Uganda in January when some of the abducted little girls who were put into the army by the LRA were released.
Many of these young girls lose sight of their families and are gone for many years from their own homes.
As a result of rape and abuse they become mothers themselves, which further alienates them from the communities from which they have been so brutally taken.
However many finely-worded resolutions we have, as long as we in the Community fail to get to grips with the issues relating to children in our own community, we do not have a strong voice to raise our concerns about this.
Many of our policies affect children's rights and interests but this week Commissioner Prodi said he did not feel it was necessary to have a dedicated unit looking at children's rights within the Community.
This will weaken our voice if we attempt to raise it within the context of the UN Special Summit on Children next year, at which the issue of child soldiers will be a significant point.
Situation in the Moluccas
Madam President, the Moluccas require our attention once again.
After a relatively quiet period, the recent arrival of a few thousand Jihad fighters who aim to enforce the Islam religion on the Moluccan islands has led to renewed escalations of violence.
The peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Christians, which lasted for years, seems to be broken for good.
The brave attitude of President Wahid should not go unmentioned.
Last week, he even dared criticise the position of the members of parliament.
If it were up to the Indonesian President, there would be hope for a peaceful future on the Moluccas.
However, the dark forces that still pervade the administrative apparatus, namely within the army, police and government, have a very destabilising effect on the situation.
It still requires a great deal of effort to identify the fundamentalist elements of whatever religious grouping.
I would like to make a few specific recommendations to the Indonesian Government.
Firstly, there must be an all-out effort to discontinue the supply of fighters and weapons by introducing strict border control.
In addition, the deployment of international peacekeeping forces deserves to be reconsidered.
The stark differences of opinion within the region' s own army and police seem to sabotage Indonesia' s efforts to end conflict off its own bat.
Finally, I would like to ask your attention for the victims of these conflicts, namely the ordinary citizens.
In this conflict, we should not only spend time pointing the finger, we should first and foremost supply adequate aid to the refugees.
A humanitarian corridor is essential in this respect.
We wholeheartedly back the request to the Commission and Member States to give generously.
The lack of political and economic interests in that region should not determine the level of aid.
This is about relieving the real suffering that is pervading the Moluccas.
Madam President, I wonder whether history is repeating itself in Indonesia. The bloody confrontations between Muslims and Christians are jeopardising safety within the Moluccas.
Thousands of people have been killed or have taken refuge, and the new fragile democratisation process, which has been initiated so ambitiously by the Wahid government, is under enormous threat.
This is reminiscent of East Timor only a few months ago.
As an MEP visiting with the observation delegation, I saw for myself how harrowing the effects of this can be.
We need to realise that the violence within the Moluccas is threatening stability within the entire region.
It is therefore vital that the international community offer immediate financial and moral support in order to solve the problems in Indonesia.
The international community also has a duty to monitor the situation closely on a permanent basis and help the government there to end this human tragedy in whatever way it can.
Madam President, as rapporteur of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy reporting on Indonesia, I did hesitate for a moment before I tabled this resolution because we will certainly be having a huge debate on the relationship between the European Union and Indonesia in the autumn.
However, the situation on the Moluccas is so critical that we need to treat it as an urgent matter.
After a few months of peace and quiet in that area, violence has flared up again over the past few weeks, and once again, dozens of people have been killed and once again, thousand of people have fled.
The tragedy of the boat filled with refugees travelling from Duma on Halmahera has probably claimed the lives of up to five hundred people.
Only yesterday, the Jihad fighters burnt down two housing estates in Ambon.
In that area, more than three thousand have now been killed and more than one hundred thousand people have fled.
This is a catastrophe and many Moluccan families in the Netherlands are either worried sick or plunged in deep mourning.
Madam President, despite this tragedy, I believe we ought to pledge our support to President Wahid and Vice-President Sukarnoputri.
It is not they, but the opposition powers working against this government that seem to aggravate the situation within the Moluccas.
It seems that the Jihad militiamen are being financed and armed by these groups, and sometimes backed by regional military forces, which are, in fact, supposed to protect the population.
In our opinion, however, the Indonesian government should intervene more powerfully in order to protect the Moluccan population.
We also believe that international observers, journalists and aid workers should be granted access to the area in order to help the Moluccan citizens.
But more than anything, the EU should adopt a clear stance, just as the United States has done, and the EU should step up its aid efforts for the victims.
Madam President, our green colleagues have tabled a number of amendments which may have been compiled with the best of intentions but are to my mind counterproductive, because they might be playing into the hands of the powers working against the government, i.e. those who are helping to stage the violent attacks on the Moluccas.
I therefore reject the amendment to Article 7 (a) and would ask the MEPs of the other groups to do the same.
More than anything, however, the Union should be more pro-active.
This is also the thrust of the resolution and I would like a sound response from the European Commission.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is becoming increasingly clear that the violence on the Moluccas is not a chaotic, spontaneous fight between the local population, between local Muslims and Christians.
It is a brutal power struggle and well-directed fight between sections of the army, between the government and government opponents, at the expense of the local population.
On the one hand there is Laskar Jihad, a group of fanatical Muslims backed by sections of the army. On the other hand there are special police troops, which back the Christians.
In other words, the security apparatus which should guarantee stability, is divided over two camps.
In my opinion, the message which the European Parliament should give President Wahid - and in this sense I hope I can reassure Mrs Maij-Weggen - is that we will remain critical of the progress and speed of reforms, the status of human rights and the way in which the government protects the citizens on the Moluccas.
However, we must also let him know that we support him in his fight against those sections of the army which are of course trying to undermine democratic reform, in his battle against people like Amien Rais, the chairman of the People' s Consultative Assembly who, for example, referred to young people devoted to the Laskar Jihad as the heart of the nation.
In that sense, he deserves our support, but I also want us to remain critical about issues which are not going so well yet in Indonesia.
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to endorse what Mrs Maij-Weggen stated.
It is vital to support the Wahid government at present.
In plain terms - and I think the European Commission and the Council are taking a sensible stance here- this support entails tracking down specific resources in order to support that government in its attempt to pacify and to actively intervene.
This is our urgent request.
We are also very critical of the situation in that region and very concerned for the Moluccan community in the Netherlands. We particularly empathise with the emotional turmoil and anxiety they are experiencing.
We are in favour of granting Wahid support, because the moment we involve international observers or commit other forms of aid without Wahid' s knowledge, we will be intervening and undermining his actions.
In this sense, I clearly endorse the PPE' s stance and would strongly urge this House to show great concern, and great willingness to provide support, but via Wahid, and also prescribe requirements to be met, again via him, because we need to play the game through him for the time being.
Madam President, I think that Mrs Maij-Weggen is quite right to call the situation catastrophic.
It is, in fact, a complex situation, in which many people have died.
The question that arises is why communities that had been co-existing relatively peacefully should suddenly shift to this level of tension and threats. I think that certain forces are at work behind these actions, and there is a significant similarity between a certain type of behaviour that we are now seeing in the Moluccas and the events we recently witnessed in East Timor.
Behind these actions are forces that wish to sabotage President Wahid' s efforts at democratisation.
We need to understand these forces and to combat them.
From this point of view, I think that the references in the compromise motion for a resolution, which deserves our total support, are most timely.
Death penalty in the United States
Madam President, in our resolution on the death penalty which we agreed with the other groups, we appealed to the Governor of Virginia to spare the life of a person sentenced to death.
The name of the Governor of Virginia has been missed off the list of recipients of the resolution.
Please would you ensure that the Governor of Virginia's name is inserted at the end of the text of our resolution, for our appeal is addressed precisely to him.
Yes, Mr Manisco, you are absolutely right.
In the text of the resolution, reference was made to this State.
Technically speaking, it would therefore be appropriate to communicate it to the Governor of Virginia and it will therefore be put to the vote with this amendment.
Madam President, we can all put our signatures to what is written in the resolution.
We know that the United Nations' Commission for Human Rights requested a moratorium in April last year.
This year, this demand was repeated.
They also requested all the States which still had the death penalty progressively to reduce the number of crimes for which the death penalty is imposed.
We have many shocking figures relating to the number of people that are still awaiting the death penalty in the United States.
According to the information that I have, this involves 3 670 people.
In the resolution, we point to the prevailing legal uncertainty in the present cases.
There is therefore reason to require that all cases be investigated, that is to say that the cases of those who are awaiting punishment should be gone through and, for example, investigations made into whether they have received fair trials.
Therefore, a moratorium is necessary in all cases, even those that are not mentioned in the resolution.
We are also given hope by the fact that the issue of the death penalty in the United States has been given a completely new political importance.
I also value the work that the human rights organisations have done to bring this issue to the fore.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Thors has already said this, there is unanimity in this House in support of this resolution.
We must also question the actions of the European Union and its ability to pursue this initiative in favour of the international moratorium alongside the United Nations and the international community.
We know the difficulties encountered by our institutions, mainly due to their odd nature, in particular with regard to foreign policy, an area under the responsibility of a Commissioner, a High Representative and fifteen Foreign Ministers.
To avoid repeating last year' s failure at the United Nations, we must urgently coordinate the actions of the European Union.
To this end, I have presented an amendment asking that this policy within the United Nations in favour of the establishment of a universal moratorium be coordinated by the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy.
I therefore urge my fellow Members to support these amendments.
Mr President, this House is appealing to the Governor of Virginia to spare the life of a man, Derek Rocco Barnabei, sentenced to death, who is in all probability innocent.
As we debate our resolution, in a death cell in the same State, they are sterilising the needles which will be used to administer the lethal injection which, in a few hours' time, will kill Michael Clagget, probably guilty of multiple murders committed many years ago.
We have adopted countless resolutions during these last two parliamentary terms in a vain attempt to put an end to the death penalty in the United States and elsewhere.
What is certain is that many other executions will be performed at an increasingly high rate before August in Virginia and other States, in particular Texas, whose governor - who will almost certainly be the next President of the United States of America - holds the world record of having put 132 human beings to death in the last five years.
I do not know whether George W. Bush boasts of this record, but I do know - because he told me in a letter he sent me dated 22 March - that he is confident that he will be able to fulfil the highest obligations of a fair and errorless justice.
The resolution before Parliament notes the fresh debate which is currently in progress in the United States, not on the abolition of the death penalty at all but on a moratorium intended to ensure a more reliable but no less merciless system.
We may well have done the right thing, but I fear, as the American Herald Tribune said recently, that these endeavours of ours are destined to remain unheeded, a dead letter, and so, the time may well have come - not for boycotts and sanctions, which are abhorrent to us - but, for example, to promote European tourism only in the dozen States of America which do not inflict the death penalty.
There would be a serious, extremely serious risk of retaliation from the United States: if we stay away from Donald Duck or Disneyworld in Florida the Americans would boycott the Mona Lisa in the Louvre.
The time has come for us to take this risk in a last attempt to put an end to this barbaric practice which is such an insult to the human family.
Mr President, the United States, we recall, is the country of the world which has had, for the longest time, an entrenched and justiciable bill of rights.
It is therefore a horrible irony that the United States is one of the few countries in the developed world which still retains and practises the use of the death penalty.
We face today a particular case, that of Derek Rockwell Barnabei: each human being is an individual in her or his own right and must be stood up for as such.
We appeal for his life today, but he is also a symbol of a practice which we find appalling and which we know to be going on in many parts of the United States.
I am myself a great lover of the United States and many aspects of its way of life.
I have been a frequent visitor to the law school of the University of Texas and to other law schools in the United States.
I admire them very much, but I am really sad to see that state and its governor practising this so frequently and boasting of it in presidential campaigns.
Mr President, the case of Derek Rocco Barnabei makes our resolution all the more urgent.
In this specific case, there are reasons to suspect that there has been a miscarriage of justice.
Clearly, where the death penalty is involved a miscarriage of justice is particularly serious; let us not forget that miscarriages of justice in similar cases have subsequently been acknowledged, and it was no coincidence that the defendants in these cases were people who could not afford an expensive attorney.
I believe that the high quality of the law faculties in the United States is due to the fact that the attorneys are very highly paid, but they are only highly paid by those can afford to employ their services.
Therefore, we call for a repeal of this sentence and, in consideration of the petition signed by an extremely large number of Members over the last few days, we call upon the Presidency of Parliament to write to the authorities responsible immediately, insisting that they attend to the matter and, of course, insisting too that the death penalty is abolished in the United States, so admirable a country in so many other respects. And it is precisely these merits that make the continuation of this barbaric ritual so very shocking.
Hooliganism
Mr President, football is a festival.
This is the motto under which Belgium and the Netherlands staged Euro 2000 over the past three weeks.
In sporting terms, it was indeed a festival, except perhaps for our Italian friends.
However, the festival was, once again, overshadowed by the behaviour of some alleged supporters.
Serious riots broke out, especially before and after the Germany-England match.
In total, 173 people ended up in hospital, 1400 arrests were made and 500 English supporters were repatriated by C 130 aircraft.
Some people, including certain delegates in this House, are trying to trivialise the issue.
As far as I am concerned, Mr President, there are limits to the high social cost tied in with hooliganism.
Surely a country cannot take on the appearance of a police state for days on end because of a football championship?
In Belgium, an average of 1500 state police troops were deployed for each match, plus hundreds of local police troops.
It is high time the national governments took preventive measures in order to keep the hooligan hard-core at home.
Germany set a good example in this respect.
In concrete terms, so-called football supporters who have been arrested previously on account of involvement in football violence should be issued with a travel ban.
It is therefore not primarily a case of more or less border control, but of efficient and coherent police cooperation.
Let us draw the right conclusions from the events in Brussels and Charleroi.
There has never been a greater need for hard measures and sound cooperation in order to harness this mindless violence.
Hooliganism has transcended all borders, both literally and figuratively speaking.
Mr President, too many tragedies have taken place, both inside and outside stadiums: incidents which are evidence of the imbalance and social unease of individuals, a culture where strength is what matters and violence prevails over reason.
The resolution reiterates Parliament's concern over the spread of hooliganism, and calls for preventive measures which I support.
However, it is crucial that in this, of all situations, the difficulty of their task does not make the forces of the law lose their heads as well.
At this point, I would like to protest at the behaviour of the Dutch police towards some Italian journalists who were filming the humiliating treatment of a group of disabled people who were being carried up the steps because there were not enough free seats for them.
The journalists were prevented from doing their job and were beaten up, thrown to the ground and arrested.
The film shown this morning here in Parliament contained pictures which leave no doubt as to the express intention of the police to suppress the freedom of the press.
Different interpretations have been given of the event, and so we call upon the Dutch authorities to hold an inquiry in order to find out who was responsible, and we demand that this sort of incident is never repeated.
Mr President, this debate is not entitled hooligans but Euro 2000, and this is great.
The whole of Europe managed to stage a huge festival of football where the Belgian and Dutch authorities were the first to back this idea and which attracted huge numbers of football supporters from Europe.
Everyone was terribly concerned about violence and trouble and such like.
In practice, the festival turned out to be a huge success all-round, and this resolution rightly mentions that we should congratulate the Dutch and Belgian authorities on this achievement.
There is also a small group of hooligans which has been operating for a while and which clearly aims to spoil this kind of festival.
They managed to do this to a very limited extent.
And they still manage to do this at some level.
This costs a great deal of money, is a real nuisance and we therefore endorse this resolution.
We also back the initiative from the Belgian and Dutch Home Affairs Ministers, which attempts to introduce travel bans for this kind of hooligan when high-risk events are due to take place.
Thirdly, I should like to mention the Italian incident.
What is clear is that MEPs have received information from a variety of sources about the incident at De Kuip Stadium in Rotterdam and as a result, some have the impression that the situation got out of hand in a big way and that the incident was terrible, and they formed their opinions based on this information.
Others, who gained their information from other sources, have the impression that the situation got out hand there but not to such a reprehensible extent.
As a Dutchman, I would have liked to see the Netherlands become the European champions, of course, and I congratulate the French warmly on their victory. What I would say though is that if some delegates here got the impression, based on footage they saw, that certain incidents got out of hand, then I do not think - and the same goes for the Netherlands - that we should (a) tar the whole of Euro 2000 with the same brush, and (b) act as if the whole festival was ruined as a result.
What we should do is recognise that something is wrong and ask for all the facts to be made known.
I am therefore very much in favour of the Dutch authorities launching a thorough inquiry.
Fortunately, Prime Minister Kok has assented to this and I would like to pass my final verdict on the basis of these facts.
I should right away like to express my sympathy and concern for our Italian fellow MEPs at this stage.
This goes without saying, but I do want to wait until I have all these facts at my fingertips before I pass judgement.
Mr President, I will start by declaring an interest, because I have been a Class 1 football referee for 18 years now and I am attached to the English FA, and also by congratulating both France for winning the Euro 2000 championship in such a fantastic way, and alas, begrudgingly Germany for winning the World Cup bid for 2006.
I also want to make sure that we actually condemn hooligans in a very strong way in this House; all hooligans whatever country they come from and whatever their background.
I note what Mr Van Hecke said about the repatriation of a number of English football fans on C130 planes.
It was a great shame in fact that the Belgian police overreacted in such a way by clearing bars of decent ordinary football-loving supporters, taking them with the dross that are the football hooligans.
The question is: what message was sent out by the football authorities going back a number of months before the Euro 2000 championship? We had a problem with two Leeds fans being murdered in a UEFA Cup game in Istanbul against Galatasaray, yet no action was taken against Galatasaray - they were not thrown out of the UEFA Cup.
In Denmark when Galatasaray played Arsenal, a number of Arsenal fans were arrested yet not charged with hooliganism.
Then we have the inaction by the British government, which chose not to impose any extra sanctions on stopping people from travelling, even though they knew they might cause trouble.
So all these factors actually led to a number of people thinking: "Well this Euro 2000 championship is a soft touch.
We should be allowed to go there, and we are going to go and have a good fight", instead of watching the wonderful festival of football that it should have been.
This Parliament and others on the outside should step back, because we have a breathing space now where we can take a reasoned view of what actions we should realistically take against football hooligans, and compare that with the rights of people to freely move about our continent.
Mr President, I would like to point out that this resolution is entitled 'Euro 2000', not 'Hooliganism' as it might seem.
And I would add that we have a great responsibility as politicians and Members of Parliament towards the sporting world, in particular the world of football: the responsibility never to lose sight of the fact that it is a merely a game.
We must therefore be concerned when the game is unduly weighed down by either economic interests or excessively emotive behaviour, neither of which must be encouraged in any way by the political world.
In my opinion, we must continually remind our young people, including those who are the most fervent fans, those who are most emotionally involved in these events, that football is a game. I would argue that whenever there is a good match, such as those we have seen during Euro 2000, we have all contributed to its success.
I also understand why these are particularly difficult events for the authorities to organise - I remember the Heysel stadium tragedy - and we can therefore congratulate ourselves on the organisation of Euro 2000.
However, against this positive backcloth let us consider the Rotterdam incident, for it took place in the extremely serious context of the provision of access to these events for disabled people.
This should be carried out calmly and the disabled people made to feel welcome. Moreover, we were astonished by the brutality of the police in beating up journalists who were drawing attention to an extremely serious issue regarding the provision of access and assistance for disabled people.
I would stress that we are confident that the authorities had in no way encouraged such incidents and that it was the result of seriously inappropriate behaviour on the part of the forces of the law.
I therefore urge all the Members not to turn this into a national issue, for I consider that the content of the joint resolution is acceptable to all and can be adopted unanimously.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
Since several of you have made repeated references to the title of the item on the agenda, so that you do not waste any more time on an error, I will waste some time with a clarification.
The item on the agenda as approved by the House is 'Hooligans' .
The title of the resolution may be the one which you have mentioned, of course, but on the agenda it appears as 'Hooligans' , within the section on human rights.
I will take this opportunity to insist, for the record, that, in Castilian, 'hooligans' is an anglicism for a type of specialised, usually British, troublemaker.
Mr President, the joint resolution which we are about to put to the vote is, in my opinion, particularly well-balanced.
Notably, the Rotterdam incident does not alter our view of the human rights record or the quality of democracy in Holland, which I consider to be among the most liberal countries in the world, although it was treated as serious, both in terms of the shameful treatment of the disabled people and because of the violence against the journalists who were merely doing their duty.
Their nationality is of little importance.
The European Union, through its highest expression of democracy, the European Parliament, condemns the occurrence of such an incident within its borders.
This is the best approach to take on the matter.
Any national aspects will, where necessary, be dealt with by the governments concerned and are nothing to do with us.
On the other hand, particularly in its urgent resolutions, the European Union does not hold back in expressing stringent positions on the conduct of other countries or events taking place in other parts of the world where human rights are violated.
Would it not lose all credibility if it did not also criticise similar events within its borders?
Mr President, I can be brief about the championship itself: France is a fine European champion and the fear that the situation was going to get out of hand on a massive scale has at any rate been exaggerated despite a number of very regrettable incidents referred to by Mr Van Hecke, involving mainly English supporters
After the final - and the entire debate seems to focus on this part of the championship now, but I suppose, unfortunately, this is how it is - a number of incidents occurred which, in my view, are just not on, and I am mainly referring to the rough treatment of the journalists, which at times was too rough.
As I see it, stressed out police and stewards clearly went beyond their remits.
But there is still a great deal of uncertainty as to what happened before this and what caused it.
What exactly happened to the disabled Italian supporters?
Were people informed that so many would turn up? I am saying this as a regular visitor to De Kuip Stadium and I know that there is space for disabled supporters at De Kuip, but not for an unlimited number.
Did these handicapped supporters not want to be filmed or were they not allowed to be filmed? These kinds of questions need to be investigated and the Dutch Government has assented to such an investigation.
Until such time, until the outcome of the investigation, I will refrain from passing judgement.
Accordingly, my group will vote against any part of the resolution in which such a judgement has been passed.
I would strongly urge the Italian delegates, and also the Italian press, but mainly the Italian MEPs to refrain from drawing any comparison with the Heysel tragedy.
It is absolutely not worth it.
In this way, serious matters which need to be investigated would be called into question.
My view is: something happened, which is now being investigated, but I would urge you to keep a sense of perspective.
, Mr President, thank you for reminding us that in fact the title of the item on the agenda that we are examining is hooliganism.
Two months ago, I addressed Parliament regarding the need to take action against the crimes that hooligans would undoubtedly commit during Euro 2000.
The measures taken by the Belgian authorities served to limit the clearly racist, xenophobic and homophobic violence of the hooligans.
It is therefore becoming imperative to consider measures to deal with the instigators of such violent crimes, who are often manipulated by extremist right-wing movements.
It is still too easy for hooligans to move around with complete impunity within the countries of the European Union.
Instant sanctions must be taken in the countries where they commit crimes.
Those who are identified and on file as having committed assault must be banned from entering stadiums during major sporting events.
Supporters' clubs and football clubs must be made to take greater responsibility, as it must be said that they sometimes fan the flames.
The campaign by the French Minister for Youth Affairs and Sport, Mrs Marie-Georges Buffet made them take greater responsibility and this action has borne fruit.
I therefore believe that Parliament can provide a real impetus for the Member States and the UEFA to implement such measures immediately, as the red card, Mr President, must admittedly be applied on the pitch, but must also be applied with regard to hooligans, both in and outside the stadium.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, needless to say, all forms of violence should be denounced, including the outrageous expressions of hooliganism during Euro 2000.
Despite this, I am still convinced that the reprehensible incidents were blown out of all proportion, partly by the press and partly by politicians.
Because of this, we have been unable to emphasise sufficiently how extraordinarily well-organised Euro 2000 was, indeed the standard of organisation will turn Euro 2000 into an unforgettable experience for millions of people.
As representative of one of the host nations, I would like to congratulate everyone who was involved on the organisational side and in the enforcement of law and order.
The success of Euro 2000 has shown that small nations are capable of great things and this should not be overshadowed by the wanton behaviour of a minority.
All Member States should, in consultation with each other, take appropriate measures.
Not only was Euro 2000 a superb festival of football, it was also a festival of solidarity among the citizens of the European Union, whom it brought closer together.
Mr President, on Monday, the Liberal Group voted against including this item on the agenda and if I now consider the resolution, I believe we were right to do so.
Extending congratulations in a resolution is very civilised, of course, but hardly the task of this Parliament.
The issue of hooligans cannot be termed urgent because this phenomenon has been around for years.
I believe that, nevertheless, Parliament should look into this, but not as a matter of urgency.
I would now like to say a few words on the events which unfolded in Rotterdam.
Naturally, an investigation is necessary because the accusations are very serious.
If a television team was locked up all night, then this needs to be investigated thoroughly and there had better be a very good reason as to why this was done.
This inquiry is under way.
The Dutch Public Prosecutor is involved in this matter and so it is completely premature on the part of this Parliament to pass a verdict on the incident at this stage.
In my opinion, this is a long way off, and it is inappropriate to pass political judgement at a time when a Public Prosecutor is looking into a matter.
Consequently, I believe that the amendments pertaining to this matter should be rejected.
We could, of course, come back to them once it has become clear that human rights were violated, but I do think that passing such a verdict would be overstepping the mark at this stage.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to turn to Mr Heaton-Harris who, about a month ago now, thought that the sporting event at Charleroi would have to be cancelled: there would, he claimed, be terrible trouble.
I would say to him, very sportingly, as he was once a referee, that I was right to blow the whistle on him then.
Secondly, I believe that we should look at this matter in depth and that if, as the resolution indicates, we could achieve greater cooperation between the various Member States during an event such as Euro 2000, progress would be made.
If, in future, we could manage to prevent repeat offenders from attending other events, and if, finally, as Mr Fodé Sylla indicated earlier, we were able to monitor a subject such as that in order to develop new teaching on behaviour in stadiums, then sport, and not political concern, would win through.
I will end, Mr President, by hoping that the content and pace of my speech have been as you requested, that is, on a human scale.
Iraq
Mr President, the United Nations has been emasculated by two members of the Security Council on the issue of sanctions on Iraq.
Kofi Annan is a good and honourable man.
However, he should resign in the knowledge that the world is utterly opposed to the disproportionate severity of these sanctions.
The EU must speak out against sanctions which amount to virtual genocide.
The alleged purpose of the sanctions is to get rid of Saddam Hussein.
He is still there ten years later.
In fact, the real purpose of the sanctions is to control oil and provide a training ground for US and British pilots so they can ensure the survival of the military-industrial complexes in both the US and Britain.
On my recent visit to Iraq I saw children die of respiratory infections, diarrhoea, leukaemia, gastro-enteritis and malnutrition.
We must remember that this is a country that has the second largest oil reserve in the world.
Operating theatres have raw sewage dripping in, and out-of-date equipment.
We are witnessing the slow strangulation of a wonderful nation and a wonderful people.
I am a friend of Islam and I think we should stop, in this European Union and the European Parliament, demonising the Arabs and demonising Islam.
Mr President, we had originally submitted a text on the same subject and with the same purport, but this text gives a far more balanced view than the text of the so-called joint resolution.
I would have far preferred discussing a text which strikes more of a balance. Why is it then that this text has not been published?
We have withdrawn our signatures after all. In our opinion, the text we submitted originally would have formed a much better base for a discussion.
Mrs Maes, perhaps we do not understand each other very well, but if you have withdrawn your signature from the joint resolution, or have not signed it, the text remains alive and will be put to the vote in accordance with the rules in force.
Is this also being distributed? Is it available, because I have noticed that many MEPs have not seen this text?
Yes, of course.
We were not aware that there was the least problem with distribution, but if you say so, we will check and we will have the text distributed.
Mr President, Iraq was at war with Iran from 1980 to 1989.
During this time the USA and EU supported Iraq since we perceived Iran as the real threat to the Middle East.
Iraq invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990.
This was wrong and unacceptable.
The UN responded by passing Resolution 661 to impose sanctions on Iraq.
The UN action was justified.
The USA and Britain imposed a no-fly zone in April 1991.
In 1994, Iraq recognised the territorial integrity of Kuwait.
From 1991 to 1997, UN inspectors - UNSCOM - systematically and comprehensively inspected, destroyed and verified Iraq's capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction.
The UN representative reported to the UN in 1997 that UNSCOM's work had covered virtually everything about Iraq.
In 1998 the International Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iraq no longer had a nuclear capacity.
The oil for food programme started in 1996 has been excessively bureaucratic and incompetent, resulting in long delays in procuring essential medicines and food supplies.
Of the USD 28 billion worth of oil revenue over three years, only USD 7 billion has been utilised for imports and USD 12 billion remains frozen in a bank in New York.
If the sanctions were intended to destroy Iraq's military capacity, then they have done the job.
If the sanctions were intended to dislodge Saddam Hussein, this has not still been achieved after ten years.
However, ten years of sanctions have caused enormous suffering and hardship for the 22 million people of Iraq.
High infant mortality, decreasing life expectancy, increased incidence of cancer and treatable diseases, continue to devastate the social fabric of a country that once enjoyed a high standard of living.
The intellectual embargo has deprived doctors, teachers and other professionals of the advances in science and technology.
I believe the European Union must reassess its position in helping those suffering acute hardship.
There are six EU States - Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece - represented diplomatically in Iraq today.
These diplomats share the view of the UN Office in Iraq, WHO, Red Cross, and other NGOs that the EU can, through its diplomacy, achieve a breakthrough.
Our parliamentarians and Commission officials should go on fact-finding missions to Iraq to meet members of the Iraqi Parliament, EU diplomats, international agencies and NGOs.
Such dialogue will help to establish the facts as they are today and help identify how this deadlock can be broken so that sanctions can be lifted for non-military suppliers.
I hope that this House will vote in favour of this resolution.
Mr President, I am convinced that any type of embargo apart from an arms embargo is a violation of human rights and ineffective in combating authoritarian regimes.
My visit to Iraq made me even more intolerant of the fact that, in the name of the defence of democracy and the rights of the Iraqi people, oppressed by Saddam Hussein, we are killing a people and destroying a country.
This is intellectual genocide.
The head of the World Aid Program has said so.
We have seen the victims in the hospitals: children with their mothers who look at you with staring eyes and haunt your sleep; doctors who watch the agony, powerless to do anything.
The Oil for Food programme stipulates that any imported goods must be screened by the exemption committee; million dollar contracts are delayed for years for fear that the goods may have a dual use: medicines, spare parts, medical equipment and graphite-tipped pencils are all prevented from entering the country.
There are no airlines offering flights to Baghdad, although there are no UN resolutions banning such flights either, because the USA and the United Kingdom have declared a no-fly zone.
I call upon Europe to stop vacillating and suspend the embargo, with the exception of the arms embargo, unilaterally, reinstating civilian aircraft flights.
We must trust the Iraqi people to bring about democracy in Iraq!
One young girl from the Iraqi opposition, Rabye, said to me, while the bombs were falling on her village, 'You are even destroying our dream of building our own democracy ourselves'.
Mr President, if anyone needs any kind of proof that there is something seriously wrong with the continuing sanctions against Iraq, we just have to look at the number of resignations of high-profile people within the United Nations.
We can also note the words of Mary Robinson who has strongly condemned what is going on in relation to the sanctions.
What is happening is that victims, innocent people, women and children, people without any power, without any kind of control whatsoever, are being persecuted.
There is a war against the Iraqi people on which little concern has been focused, and I am glad that some people from Parliament have actually visited Iraq to see for themselves.
It is extremely important.
The illegal bombing by the US and Britain, which is not covered by any UN Security Council resolution, has no mandate whatsoever and is absolutely outrageous: it should not be allowed to continue.
How we can allow illegal bombing like this to continue is just beyond credibility.
The infrastructure in Iraq has been completely decimated.
Again, the victims here are innocent people who have no power whatsoever.
I also have to congratulate here some organisations in our communities who are doing something or are trying to raise awareness, and here I would mention those voices in the wilderness who are the sanction breakers - I think they are playing a major role and I would like to voice my support here for them.
We also have to look at the fact that in any kind of future measures against Iraq we should focus on the enhancement of human rights and democracy, and we should also look at the protection of the Kurds and in the north and the Shi'ites in the south in terms of guaranteeing them some sort of autonomy.
We cannot lose sight of them either.
Mr President, on 15 April this year, following a full debate with the Council and the Commission, we adopted a resolution that was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of this House.
In that resolution we called on the Council and the Commission to do their utmost to protect the life and health of the Iraqi people and to put an end to its suffering.
We called for the embargo on food and medicines to be lifted, because it hits the Iraqi people and not Saddam Hussein.
We called for an immediate stop to the bombing the USA and the United Kingdom is engaged on without a mandate from the UN Security Council, because again this hits and punishes not the culprits but the victims in Iraq.
At the beginning of that resolution we of course confirmed and underlined the Iraqi Government' s obligation to accept and encourage the United Nations' controls with a view to the destruction of ABC weapons and to trace the disappeared Kuwaiti citizens.
With today' s debate and this new resolution we are seeking to achieve three further objectives.
First, we want to address not just the Council and the Commission but also the United Nations Security Council.
Secondly, we propose that our Parliament should take the initiative in sending a fact-finding mission on the ground.
Thirdly, we reiterate the need for the United Nations, the World Health Organisation and the Red Cross to ensure that the most deprived and vulnerable people in Iraq can benefit from the oil for food programme.
Mr President, like Mr Andrews I speak this afternoon as one who regards himself as a friend of the Arab and Islamic world.
This resolution can only be supported if recital A and paragraph 1 are regarded as being at its absolute core.
We are saying that any relaxation of sanctions must depend upon Iraq respecting United Nations resolutions.
In particular we must ask Iraq to cooperate with the International Committee of the Red Cross on tracing the 604 Kuwaiti citizens who disappeared as a result of the illegal Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
If there is to be any EU visit to Iraq it must include a visit to those families in Kuwait who are still waiting to know ten years later what happened to their loved ones.
Any weaker position on the part of the EU will not help the people of Iraq, but will condemn them to perpetual tyranny.
Mr President, one minute is a very short time for such a serious topic.
I say serious, because we are talking about nothing less than the survival of a nation, and what must be called an international attack on immigrants, as it was once termed by Mr Chevènement, a French Defence Minister, against a nation which was trying to escape the new world order.
This attack does not bode well for the future.
This new world order, an expression coined by Mr Bush to conceal the interests of the multinationals and in this case the large American oil companies, is becoming increasingly intolerable for us.
In this respect, the silence of humanitarian organisations in the face of the situation of the Iraqis who are suffering and over a million of whom have already died by our doing is astonishing.
What a contrast and what hypocrisy between so-called humanitarianism and this holocaust that we are collectively carrying out due to simple cowardice in the face of American power, that great empire that this House in particular and Europe in general are incapable of opposing on any subject, as yesterday' s vote on Echelon showed once again.
The most serious thing, and I will end here, as there is undoubtedly far too much to be said here, is that for once, a Southern country was managing to develop, and the Northern countries, lined up behind Washington, have been unremitting in destroying it.
This is immensely dangerous and worrying for the new century.
Mr President, who could not feel sorry for the sorely tried population of Iraq? I would therefore like to think that it was this sympathy that was the driving force behind those submitting the joint resolution.
The political ramifications of their intention are, however, a missed opportunity. What is more, they are a complete disaster for the liberated Kurdish part of ancient Mesopotamia.
Allow me to be more specific.
Contrary to what is assumed in recitals B and C, Saddam Hussein, a latter-day Nebuchadnesar, took it upon himself to raze this old civilisation he admired so much to the ground.
This is evident from the first and second Gulf War and another five years, the 1991-1996 period, during which Baghdad categorically refused to cooperate in the oil-for-food programme, which led to a completely unnecessary lengthening of human suffering.
At present, the Iraqi Government is even allowed to export unlimited quantities of oil in order to procure humanitarian aid.
In other words, what is stopping Saddam from alleviating the suffering of his people?
In fact, what will happen with the reserved 13% for the Kurds in the unlikely event that the sanctions are lifted? In my view, the use of the strange term "intellectual embargo" in recital D is bizarre.
After all, the Iraqi intelligentsia has for decades strained under the intellectual embargo of Saddam' s Baath party.
The tyrant of the Tigris is only interested in one type of scientist: the developer of weapons of mass destruction.
It is precisely this obsession of Saddam Hussein' s which reveals the very risky naivety of Paragraph 3 of the joint resolution, because the lifting of the no-fly zone in the North of Iraq - remember this is the international guarantee for the Kurds against their arch enemy Saddam - will probably drive millions of Kurds to take flight once again. They know all too well what Saddam' s pledges are really worth.
Those tabling this resolution cannot possibly have it in mind to raise this awful spectre.
Hence my explicit vote against.
Mr President, let me say that I am shocked and horrified at the Commission reply on the issue of Iraq and the dismissive way in which they dealt with it.
Just let me quote to the Commissioner, and to the Commission, the saying of Oscar Wilde that in our dealings with life, destiny never closes her book.
Iraq deserves better than the Commission reply.
I am absolutely horrified.
I wish to express total dissatisfaction with the reply of the Commission.
That is all.
If you are going to be fair Mr President, let me say I express total satisfaction with the reply of the Commission.
Perfect, that is one in favour and one against.
We thank the Commissioner who does not want to speak.
Let us be brief and we will all move on.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Venezuela
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0615/2000 by Mr Di Pietro and Mr Sánchez García, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Venezuela;
B5-0627/2000 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and others, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the areas affected by the catastrophic floods of December 1999 in Venezuela;
B5-0634/2000 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on Venezuela;
B5-0642/2000 by Mrs Frassoni and Mr Knörr-Borràs, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the reconstruction of the areas affected by the floods in Venezuela in December 1999;
B5-0652/2000 by Mr Linkohr and Mr Menéndez del Valle, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the reconstruction of the areas affected by the floods in Venezuela in December 1999.
Mr President, today we have the opportunity to show our solidarity with the Venezuelan people, who last December experienced the consequences of a natural disaster which affected the coasts of the States of Vargas and Miranda and caused the deaths of 50 000 people.
We therefore insist on the importance of approving this resolution which, in summary, is the logical consequence of the report of the special committee which travelled to Venezuela to get to know the reality on the ground of this natural disaster, and also reflects the coherence of the European Union' s political commitments.
I hope it will thereby be possible to finance, in a significant way, the programme for recovery of the areas affected and that it will be drawn up according to the models for this type of action.
Furthermore, we should take account, for the purposes of coordination, of the programmes of financial aid of the Member States and the Community regions.
Mr President, as Mr Sánchez García has just reminded us, this resolution comes within the scope of the decision taken by the Conference of Presidents to send an ad hoc mission to Venezuela to assess the tragic consequences of December' s floods in that country.
This issue of Venezuela is serious and urgent.
It is serious because the losses have not yet been sufficiently quantified - but this tragedy has caused the deaths of more than 30 000 people.
It is urgent, Mr President, because the European Parliament' s mission took place last February and so far we have not been able to reach any final conclusions.
I believe this Parliament is stretching the bounds of its credibility.
I would like to take advantage of the presence of the Commission to ask the Commissioner how it has fulfilled the mandate which it received from this Parliament in the resolution adopted in January to assess the Community' s response to the tragedy in Venezuela.
I hope the Commission is capable of mobilising the necessary human resources to deal with the priorities indicated by this Parliament and I am sure that, if the Commission, as it has proposed in its preliminary draft budget for 2001, is going to be able to spend EUR 815 million in the Balkans, it will also be able to spend EUR 50 million in Venezuela.
Mr President, this issue raises a problem which goes much further than the resolution on Venezuela. The problem involves the preservation of Parliament' s capacity to respond to this type of situation.
We have to make it very clear what we want. Do we want a real Parliament or do we want a cardboard cut-out Parliament?
Do we want a Parliament which fully assumes its duties or do we want a Parliament which simply endorses the priorities of other institutions? Do we want a Parliament which does its duty or do we want a Parliament which simply signs cheques relating to the commitments of other institutions?
This is the debate surrounding the 2001 budget and it was the debate surrounding the 2000 budget.
Mr President, I simply mean that where there is a will there is always a way and that this resolution demonstrates a decisive commitment on the part of this House to show its will to help and cooperate. It aims to show that the European Union wishes to cooperate with the Venezuelan people and society.
Mr President. I am convinced that, on the basis of this will, we will find in this budget, which consists of EUR 100 000 million this year and will involve a similar amount in subsequent years, a way to provide for the needs of the victims of this tragedy.
Mr President, the three points which the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left wishes to make on the aid which the European Union can and must give to Venezuela as a result of the terrible flood disaster are: first, we should throw ourselves economically and technically into resolving the consequences suffered, and not reduce this aid, as the Commission intends, in order to fund another catastrophe, this time artificial, caused by us in the Balkans, in Kosovo and in Yugoslavia.
Secondly, we must ratify and apply the Kyoto commitments in order to reduce the emission of pollutants into the atmosphere, which lead to the greenhouse effect and, therefore, climate change and its adverse consequences.
Thirdly, the European Union must show solidarity with Venezuela, and with Latin America in general, so that we can counteract the negative effects of the great influence of the north of the continent on the rest of it.
Mr President, with regard to this resolution which speaks of solidarity with the Venezuelan people, I wish to express my total agreement with certain ideas.
Firstly, I would ask that aid should reach the people and groups who are most in need of it.
As a group we are clearly not opposed to this talk of SMBs and industries in general, but this eagerness to talk of these sectors seems excessive while we do not talk of other more needy groups.
In particular - as Mr Salafranca has pointed out - the effectiveness of the aid measures must not suffer as a result of a lack of human resources.
Secondly, we denounce the fact that something so essential to our group as incorporating the people affected into the drawing up and application of aid measures has not been accepted. This is necessary so that we do not find that things have been done which are not needed or not wanted.
Finally, last but not least, we should reflect on our methods of production and our consumption of natural resources, because this lies behind these catastrophes, and we should not be regularly lamenting them.
Mr President, I do not mean to give the impression that just because there is a particular sensitivity towards Latin America in this House, this should prevent us from also supporting the Commission' s efforts regarding Central and Eastern Europe and the reconstruction of the Balkans.
What does concern us at the moment is the abandonment of that area, which we have begun to notice over the last year, with the new Commission.
It seems as if Latin America has suddenly disappeared from the map of the Commission' s concerns.
Of course, we have had good experiences with the European Union' s contribution to Central America after the Mitch disaster, and we also saw a good initial reaction on the part of the Commission, which quickly allocated EUR 400 000 for emergency humanitarian aid to Venezuela when the disaster mentioned by previous speakers happened.
At the moment we know that the Commission has the possibility, the means and the resources, to provide more aid.
This type of disaster is unfortunately happening frequently and I have the impression that Latin America makes good use of Community aid.
We have the instruments, the means, the good representation and also a European presence in those areas.
We must remember for example that the European Union is the main foreign investor in Venezuela and that we have many cultural and social ties with those countries.
Therefore, I hope that the Commission views this Parliament' s requests with the best possible will so that, with the resources available, and with those which can be mobilised quickly, these requests can be granted and that a plan may be drawn up which is not limited to essential humanitarian aid, but which will help this country, which is making a great effort to rebuild itself for its own benefit, and probably also for our benefit, because the development of Latin America probably benefits the continent of Europe more than any other.
Mr President, more than six months have now passed since the tragic floods in Venezuela.
As a member of the European Parliament' s ad hoc delegation, I was able to witness the terrible effects of what is considered to be the worst natural disaster that has ever occurred in Latin America.
It was something that you had to see with your own eyes to believe.
As striking as the photographs and television pictures in the media were, they merely hinted at the true scale of the disaster.
We were also able to see the fantastic cooperation work that the NGOs are carrying out with people affected by the floods.
This emergency humanitarian aid provided by the NGOs could not have occurred without the Commission' s financial support and I therefore wish to praise all those who made it possible.
However, the priority now must be to reconstruct the whole area affected and to stimulate economic recovery.
A new plan for the region must include the rebuilding of homes and every kind of infrastructure and the provision of incentives for small and medium-sized enterprises, which were completely destroyed and many of which will have to start again from scratch.
I am aware that the task of reconstruction is colossal and that is perhaps why it has been so slow.
Only a few roads have been cleared.
Water and electricity supplies have been restored to some extent, but little more has been done, and the people who have been affected are despairing of the delay.
Thousands of them are still dependent on food aid to survive.
It is vital to replace the thousands of jobs destroyed by the floods.
The Venezuelan Government will need a great deal of support if it is to succeed in this Herculean task.
With regard to the task of reconstruction, which cannot be delayed, the Commission must offer the same level of support it provided in terms of emergency humanitarian aid for countries affected by Hurricane Mitch, or something similar.
We therefore urge the Commission to provide a significant financial contribution over the next five years.
Apart from a basic obligation to show solidarity, the historical ties that bind us to Venezuela and the stability of democracy in that country demand this.
First, let me stress that quite contrary to what has been suggested here, the Commission is very much aware of the political importance of Latin America and that in fact it has recently taken a number of initiatives that underline its great political importance for Europe.
Secondly, let me point out that in the case of the disaster in Venezuela, it is still worth considering cause and effect as well as responsibility.
And the Union did in fact provide extensive aid from the start and will continue to do so in future.
This aid is directed at two things.
First, it is aimed at supporting reconstruction in the federal state of Vargas.
It is already becoming a little easier to identify the needs here, which was not the case in the beginning.
I can understand people being impatient because progress is so slow in some areas.
But the Venezuelan Government has not proposed any projects to us.
That is not meant as some kind of covert criticism.
It is probably difficult for the Venezuelan Government to decide very quickly what the priorities should be.
So we first had to send a committee of experts to Venezuela to establish the priorities for ourselves.
The results are now before us.
In a few days' time we will forward a communication to the Council on the measures to be supported and the funding to be provided.
The second aspect - which in my view is even more important than reconstruction aid - is aid for the prevention of disasters. That means we want to play our part in defining and initiating management programmes in relation to the natural risks in the federal states of Falcon Miranda and Jarakui.
The disaster-prevention measures are very much in need of improvement, as we have indeed learned from this disaster in Venezuela.
I believe the best way we can help the people in the long term is for us to concentrate on that.
As for funding these two measures, that is a very difficult question, because it really is a problem for the Commission to be constantly confronted by the Council and Parliament with their wishes as to what it should do and where it should help; but unfortunately no-one tells the Commission where it is to get the money from.
After all, we cannot print it ourselves, as you know.
We will find a way to finance these measures too and will make realistic proposals, incidentally also proposals that will take account of what the country itself can contribute in view of the sharp rise in its revenue from oil exports.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5­0628/2000 by Mr Van Velzen, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the controversy involving the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia;
B5­0635/2000 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the resignation of Mr Pelinka, the Austrian representative on the Management Board of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia;
B5­0651/2000 by Mr Ford and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the resignation of Mr Pelinka, the Austrian representative on the Management Board of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia;
Mr President, I agree with Mr Watson, the Chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, who said in an interview that the urgency tabled by Mr Swoboda was the wrong course to choose and that he expected a rather more mature approach.
I agree with him because in an explanatory statement, which he presented to the House, Mr Swoboda refers to conflicts between the government in Austria and the head of the Monitoring Centre on racism that date back quite some time.
It was the time when Viktor Klima, an SPÖ member, was head of the Austrian Government and the government was SPÖ-dominated.
It is a delicate matter when a Socialist from Austria does this, but by no means urgent.
I endorse what Mr Watson said because here Mr Swoboda is also confirming to the present government that better relations are now being established with this Monitoring Centre.
He should be pleased about that, as I and many others are.
That again is no reason for urgency; and there is even less reason for urgency when I quote you what the head of this Monitoring Centre says in an interview she authorised.
She specifically praises Austria' s new policy towards foreigners and concedes to the government that there has, of course, not been a single xenophobic initiative, whereas there is much progress.
She says, much progress, which was not possible under the red-green government; and of course she also says that she is not being hindered in any way in her work.
So what is the point of all this, Mr Swoboda? As an Austrian Socialist you are obviously just trying to create a platform for polemics against Austrian.
That is shameful for an Austrian and should be condemned in the strongest possible terms!
Mr President, I am deliberately refraining from entering into these cheap polemics, especially on the part of Mr Pirker, but want to keep the discussion at a certain level and stick to the facts.
It is a fact that the Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia did indeed face difficulties in the first weeks, which were politically motivated, and that Mr Pirker in particular grossly insulted the head of the Centre, whom he has cited today as a witness to show how well things are going.
It is a fact - and I noted that in my first statement today; the ladies and gentlemen who talk so big were not even there on Monday - that things have, thank God, improved because Dr Winkler, the head of the Centre, has endeavoured, as has the new Austrian Government representative, to straighten it all out.
But it is also a fact that the situation remains precarious; and here I, like Dr Winkler, must also state that unfortunately not just the Austrian Government but also some other governments do not give the Monitoring Centre sufficient support.
There certainly is an urgent need to call on all the governments - as I propose - to support the Monitoring Centre.
But it is also a fact that, sad to say, the referendum announced for Austria, which representatives of the European and in particular the Austrian People' s Party who are sitting here in this Chamber opposed only a few days ago, could dangerously aggravate the situation and mood in Austria again; for it is reviving anti-European feelings that will certainly not do the work of this Monitoring Centre any good.
And that is why I want to state my view here and call on the government, on those responsible in that government, not to hold that referendum, so as not to stir up new hatred, not to reawaken an anti-European mood again - something a party like the Austrian People' s Party, which was always pro-European, is in fact unlikely to want.
I am firmly against that kind of anti-European mood and I place my hopes in this House.
Mr President, I will tell you immediately that the ELDR group refused to sign the joint resolution for a very simple reason: we find it a little over-emotional, while not forceful enough, and does not offer the possibility of a more political and more balanced choice in the name of Parliament.
It is because this resolution is too weak that we will not vote for it.
We consider that the problem associated with the resignation of Mr Pelinka is important enough not to be tackled by a resolution that is emotional but does not actually say anything and is extremely watered-down.
Allow me to address a comment to the GUE Group and the PSE Group.
I do not understand their agreement on the text in its current form, in relation to the initial text that they themselves introduced.
Consequently, we within the liberal group would like, and this is the wish of Mr Watson, his committee to be able to effectively take control of the matter and we would like to have very clear information on whether the Austrian Government has infringed Article 10 of the Treaty, that is, whether or not it has fulfilled its obligations with regard to the Monitoring Centre.
If it has not fulfilled its obligations, it is up to Parliament to take the appropriate action with regard to the Commission and the Council.
The main thing is to make it clear and today we are not clear.
Mr President, my group also supports the proposal by the chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs to treat this whole affair carefully in that committee.
Nonetheless, we will vote for this resolution because, unlike the earlier ones, it is an extremely moderate and responsible reaction to the statements by the head of the Monitoring Centre to the Committee on Home Affairs
The EPP Group also took part in the discussions and decisions on the present resolution.
So I am extremely surprised that the members of the Austrian People' s Party are unable to endorse this resolution, which merely expresses an initial concern and is an initial call on the Austrian Government, and have chosen instead to give us a taste of the way the Austrian Government treats its government critics.
Mr Pirker reads out some statements by the head of the Monitoring Centre but keeps silent about the terrible statements she made in committee, where Mr Pirker himself launched violent attacks on her, about the defamation of the Centre in the Austrian Parliament, about the systematic harassment, the lack of security provisions, the lack of support.
I am sad to see the ÖVP members also giving us a sample here of the way they deal with government critics in their own country; in fact attempting to present them as traitors to their country.
If you listened to Mr Pirker' s allegations that any criticism is criticism directed against Austria, you will see that this really is an appalling attempt to invent a conflict between the defence of human rights and patriotism.
That is a disgraceful attitude!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are debating a motion for a resolution that is lacking in substance.
It is difficult to identify exactly what the complaints are, which means we do not know precisely what we are discussing. Who has actually seen Mr Pelinka' s letter of resignation?
Who knows the real circumstances of his resignation? What is known in Austria about Mr Pelinka' s resignation is the fact that various versions are being circulated by various people.
What I know is the fact that legal proceedings are pending between Mr Pelinka and Mr Haider.
Under no circumstances is it the business of politics or of any parliament to go so far as to criticise proceedings before an independent court that have not yet concluded.
Every state governed by the rule of law provides for constitutional legal measures.
A policy that does not respect the independence of the judiciary does not, in the final analysis, respect the principle of the separation of powers and thus violates a basic principle of democracy.
Racism and xenophobia are a serious problem throughout the Union and one that must be taken seriously.
It must be combated by every means available wherever it arises.
What I expect of the Monitoring Centre is to take stock of the situation objectively and to look at it in comparative terms, so as to allow the policy-makers to react to it.
What I do not expect of the Monitoring Centre is interference in day-to-day political matters and to exercise its mandate with an ideological bias.
Because underlying the concept of racism and xenophobia there are people and their destinies, and they should not be used to put on some kind of political show.
What I oppose is that this simplistic motion for a resolution is also tabled by those Austrian Members who pretend to support my home country.
Mr President, the Commission is grateful for the valuable contribution Professor Pelinka has made as a member of the Management Board towards setting up the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia.
Yet it is the Commission' s common practice not to express an opinion on legal proceedings concerning individuals in the Member States.
That applies particularly to this case, which falls outside the scope of EU legislation.
Moreover, the Commission cannot express any views on the reasons that led Professor Pelinka to resign from the Monitoring Centre' s Management Board.
The Commission services have already requested the Austrian authorities to appoint a new member of the Management Board.
The Commission emphasises the importance of the independence of members of the Management Board, as provided for in the regulation on setting up the Centre.
I do not believe I need give you an assurance here, since everyone knows that so far, the Commission has done all in its power to support the Monitoring Centre in Vienna and will continue to do so in future.
We are firmly convinced that the Monitoring Centre plays an important role in combating racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
Let me specifically underline once again that the Commission attaches the greatest importance to ensuring that the Monitoring Centre will under all circumstances remain an independent body, enjoying the utmost autonomy in the performance of its tasks.
That concludes the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Before the vote on child soldiers in Uganda:
Mr President, we agreed a joint motion for a resolution, on which five groups collaborated.
Once the document was finished, a sixth group joined in.
I think it is contrary to our Rules of Procedure for a group to join in signing this motion without asking the others.
My group regards that as a breach of our Rules of Procedure and I would ask you, Mr President, to examine this matter.
Given that we collaborated on it, we will in fact vote for this resolution, yet I would ask you to ensure that the sixth group' s signature is deleted from this motion for a resolution.
We have had a look at this and as far as we are aware there is no rule which stops anybody signing another resolution.
Therefore the signature can stand.
But I would suggest that this be looked into for the future.
Before the vote on Venezuela:
Mr President, the same applies here as to the one I just spoke about.
I insist that you have this checked because it was just during this part-session that a member of our group wanted to add his signature to a motion for a resolution by other groups but first had to obtain written authorisation from the other groups.
We cannot have two different procedures being applied in the same week.
So I would ask you to investigate this matter and inform us of the results.
For the rest, we support this resolution because we helped draft it.
I fully understand what you are saying.
We will look into the matter, but there does not appear to be a rule at the present time.
Mr President, as you say, Mr Sakellariou, at the beginning of the part-session, presented us with four requests for amendments to the agenda which were all rejected, and now he wants to end his part-session with another request which, as you have already said, is completely inadmissible.
We could carry on this way, but we would be wasting time.
The President has already replied.
It seems to me that he is absolutely right.
I do not want any further debate.
We will look into this matter.
Vote
Mr President, I simply wish to express our enormous sadness at the news we have just received concerning a horrendous accident on the Spanish roads, in which a lorry has collided with a school bus transporting Catalan school children, with an initial toll of 20 dead and 30 injured, some of whom are very seriously injured.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Following the debates with the Council last night I was wondering whether this report is actually close enough to the original proposal for first reading procedure to be possible.
There are certainly a number of amendments where we need further clarification.
If we vote for them would this actually take the report further away from what this House is allowed to vote on? This concerns Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6, 18, 21, 33, 36, 40, 42 and 46, some of which directly imply policy down to individual schools in Member States.
I would like to hear whether this is actually a legal procedure for us to be voting on now.
All the amendments have been checked and approved by the services so we will vote on them now.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0180/2000) by Mr Mombaur on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Commission's second report to the Council and the European Parliament on the state of liberalisation of the energy markets (COM(1999) 198 - COM(1999) 164 - COM(1999) 612 - COM (2000) 297 - C5-0163/2000 - 2000/2097(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0169/2000) by Mr Radwan on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the 1999 Annual Report of the European Central Bank (C5-0195/2000 - 2000/2118(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0170/2000) by Mr Karas, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication on communications strategy in the last phases of the completion of EMU (COM(2000) 57 - C5-0104/2000 - 2000/2019(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0162/2000) by Mr Lambert, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year 1999-2000
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0181/2000) by Mrs Thors, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the activities of the European Ombudsman for 1999 (C5-0303/2000)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0141/2000) by Mr Atkins, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament - The creation of the single European sky (COM(1999) 614 - C5-0085/2000 - 2000/2053(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0155/2000) by Mrs Damião, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission report on the implementation of Council Directive 92/85/EEC of 19 October 1992 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the health and safety at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding (COM(1999) 100 - C5-0158/1999 - 1999/2151(COS)) Draftsman "Hughes procedure": Emilia Franziska Müller, Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
President. That concludes the vote.
Mr President, I simply wish to update the information I communicated to the House a few moments ago.
The accident which has taken place in Spain is really very serious.
The number of children who have died has risen to 27, and their families, to whom we wish to send our condolences, are from Cerdanyola del Vallés and from Viladecans, in Barcelona.
I will make sure that the President is fully apprised of that and that is so done.
Mr President, I do not know the extent of this tragedy, but if children are dead, I would perhaps suggest to the House that we observe a minute' s silence.
We need to have more information about the full extent of the tragedy.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Redondo Jiménez report (A5-0152/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Redondo report which regulates European Union interventions in the event of fires and atmospheric pollution.
This is certainly a positive measure.
I voted for the motion but I would prefer it if, in future, in implementing the proposal, we took into consideration the fact that many pensioners and elderly people live near forests and they are often the only people left in remote and countryside areas.
Fires are frequent in these areas and it would therefore be a good idea, or rather appropriate to use these people to help prevent fires.
. (PT) This report contains amendments to the current regulations on the protection of Community forests against atmospheric pollution and forest fires.
The amendments to the regulation on protecting forests against fires are particularly important for Portugal.
In fact, we must pay considerably greater attention to the Mediterranean woodlands that have been affected by forest fires, and this requires considerable financial resources for reforestation and for the necessary fire prevention measures.
For Portugal, where fires have destroyed large areas of forest, it is vital to increase appropriations in order to supplement national investment in building infrastructure, for example, and to help local authorities, private landowners' associations or wasteland management bodies to buy fire prevention equipment.
This is why the increase to EUR 77 million in Community appropriations proposed by the rapporteur as opposed to the EUR 50 million proposed by the Commission is so important.
It is also important to create a Community information system on forest fires so that the situation at any given time is more widely known. This will enable us to fight more effectively against forest fires and their causes.
I shall give my own personal view of the report on forests.
I know the Committee on Agriculture tells us that we are having the wrong debate in defending an increase in the budget in the context of these reports.
Personally, I consider that we have a political responsibility to send strong political signals to the Commission, the Council and the citizens.
In December 1999, part of the European Union was hit by terrible storms which devastated a large proportion of the forests in southern and eastern France and created despair among the victims, in particular small-holders.
I also know that we cannot rob Peter to pay Paul.
By voting for the rapporteur' s proposals, I wanted to contribute to the implementation of a true forestry policy in the European Union, as despite the vast CAP budget, forests, which are an integral part of agriculture, remain the poor relation.
.
(FR) We are discussing the two Council regulations establishing a form of systematic surveillance of forestry ecosystems which is unique in the world.
Regulation No 3582/86 is about the protection of forests against atmospheric pollution and Regulation No 2158/92 has established a framework for the protection of forests against fires.
The rapporteur proposes increasing the sums allocated to both of these programmes, whereas the Commission proposal seeks to cut them drastically.
The rapporteur' s attitude is an appropriate one.
It does seem logical to take account of the virtual doubling of the Community' s forested surface area since the last round of enlargement in 1998 and to fulfil the requirements of the European Union' s forestry strategy.
Admittedly, there is no legal basis in the Treaty for a common forestry policy.
We are not using this report to start up the debate again but simply to point out that the European Union' s forestry strategy is based on subsidiarity.
In other words, action is only proposed if it offers added value in relation to national action.
The problem is identifying whether there actually is added value.
Subsidiarity works in favour of Community action in this specific context.
It is true that the issues in all the forests of the Fifteen Member States are not identical.
So, the Nordic countries, which since 1998 have comprised most of Europe' s forested areas, are affected most of all by atmospheric pollution, stresses due to climatic factors and soil acidification whereas the countries of southern Europe are more subject to the effects of desertification, drought and fires.
These disparities must not, however, preclude the need to operate a monitoring system of this type at Community level, at this time when the interdependence of the stress factors acting on forestry ecosystems in general and as a whole has been acknowledged.
Increasing the financial allocation would, moreover, come at an opportune moment, because our forestry areas are threatened by fire following the terrible storms last December, and indeed many outbreaks of fire have already been reported.
If we are to prevent disasters of this type, then we must improve fire safety.
Now, when the Commission' s communication of 2 February 2000 advocates resorting to the all-out precautionary principle and a Community action programme in favour of civil protection instituted by the Council Decision of 9 December 1999 is waiting only to be implemented, is not the time to cut off funding for Regulation No 2158/92.
Combating atmospheric pollution takes on a new dimension in the light of the guidelines established by the Commission regarding climate change, biodiversity and sustainable management.
Ecosystem surveillance promises to be a multidisciplinary activity.
If atmospheric pollution has lost something of its extremely topical nature in the face of these priorities, it may be consistently integrated into the list of planet-wide challenges.
The heart of the problem is political, however.
Some Member States have expressed doubts as to the importance of forests, even though the forestry industry employs 2.2 million people in Europe, and forests cover 36% of the surface area of the European Union!
We have this vicious circle scenario. The regulations in question need political support.
In order to receive political support, however, the networks must be capable of detecting changes and indeed risks, and financial support is needed in order to prove the existence of such risks in scientific terms!
While awaiting the matter of extending these programmes beyond 2001, it is our political responsibility to provide them with financial support.
For the data gathered is intended to be used as technical justification for political decisions in areas where 'nothing to report' means 'no action necessary' .
- (EL) Forests play a huge role in maintaining fundamental ecological balances in the ecosystem of life itself.
Unfortunately, the protection and attention which they are afforded is not commensurate with their importance.
The major catastrophes which forests have suffered over recent years and the failure to react adequately in dealing with them are seriously jeopardising the ecological balance, as well as health, safety and numerous cultural and social values inextricably bound up with our forest heritage.
Mountain and forest areas, especially in the Mediterranean, have been seriously damaged by deforestation, fire, erosion desertification, abandonment, abuse and inadequate reforestation, with the result that tens of thousands of acres of forest land have been lost.
Allow me to bring to your attention the dramatic problem in Greece, which is at the top of the European league in terms of the numbers of acres burnt for every fire.
Only 10% of the surface area destroyed in Greece is reforested.
The remaining 90% is either abandoned or, more usually, is swallowed up and developed by economic interests (such as the tourist businesses generally encouraged by the government of the day), which take advantage of the fires - and/or are perhaps guilty of arson in starting them - the unresolved problem of land ownership and the fact that there are no forest land register or records of government-owned forests in order to improve their profits.
We have a wide variety of forests within the Community (northern, temperate, Mediterranean and tropical) and an equally wide variety of general and specific problems.
Not only has the EU's forest policy to date failed as a result of fragmented, one-off, inconsistent and incoherent action and the wholly inadequate funds provided; the Commission has now proposed further cuts in the already minimal funds available to protect forests from fire and atmospheric pollution.
The reason given for the proposed cuts is the reduced take-up of funds during the last period!
But the problems have not been solved.
On the contrary, they have multiplied.
Such a policy is not merely hypocritical.
It is aiding and abetting fire.
We shall not give up.
We call on the European Parliament to stand by its repeated votes and positions on the need to strengthen measures to prevent and fight fires and protect and enhance the value of our forest heritage in all areas of the Union.
We believe that the Community funds allocated to forests were and still are totally inadequate and we call for them to be increased in line with real needs and the importance of forests.
We really must take suitable initiatives in collaboration with national and local authorities and the agencies responsible and set out an efficient forest policy and develop direct and coordinated action so that the forests destroyed can be revived and reforested on the basis of the latest scientific data and methods, taking account of the biological, climatic and ecological conditions in each region and, we repeat, the EU and the national governments must provide the funds needed in order to create the necessary infrastructure and recruit sufficient personnel which, if Greece is anything to go by, are woefully lacking.
In doing so we shall be helping to ensure that the forests in these countries are protected, developed, restored ecologically and used productively.
Mr President, I abstained from the vote on the Arvidsson report on restrictions on the use of phthalates.
I abstained to toe the line of the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats, but also because I was uncertain for another reason: just before I came into the Chamber to vote I started to wonder what would happen to the firms which produce phthalates if we ban the use of phthalates, not everywhere on Community territory and in all cases, but only when they are used in toys.
Surely they will not use these phthalates for other purposes? For objects that might be used by pensioners or the elderly?
Or for some other purpose? I would be extremely concerned if this were the case.
I will not continue Mr President, because this is a public debate and I prefer to stop here.
g.
(SV) If Amendment 6 to Article 2 of the directive is adopted, the following explanation of vote from Parliament's Group of the Europe People's Party and European Democrats will apply.
The members of the Group of the Europe People's Party and European Democrats choose to abstain from voting on the legislative resolution because Amendment 6 to Article 2 has been adopted.
Reason: Marking toys designed for children between 3 and 6 years of age and childcare articles manufactured completely or partially from soft PVC plastic containing phthalates, and their packaging, with a warning label is very difficult and in reality is likely to be tantamount to an indirect, extended ban.
The content of the decision on labelling, therefore, goes beyond the scientific grounds for the directive.
.
(FR) I have a special interest in the matter of toy safety.
I was a rapporteur on this subject in 1992 and I am particularly interested in following legislative developments on the subject.
As for phthalates, the chemical substances used to plasticise PVC, I have always campaigned for proactive measures with a view to protecting, as indeed we ought, this particularly vulnerable group of consumers, i.e. children.
Experiments on animals have shown the toxic and carcinogenic nature of some phthalates, which can cause liver, kidney and testicular ailments in children that suck or chew on dummies, rattles or teething rings.
This identification of the risks gave parents legitimate cause for concern, and should have led to firm measures being adopted, meeting the requirements of the precautionary principle.
The least that can be said, however, is that the Commission' s reaction, albeit relatively prompt (referral to the scientific committee for an opinion, studies into toxicity, ecotoxicity and impact on the environment, the emergency ban decision and proposal to amend the directives concerned), was rather lukewarm in view of the issues at stake and in view of the objective of guaranteeing a high level of consumer protection and protection of human health.
What has the European Commission proposed? It has proposed banning toys containing one of the six offending phthalates that are intended to be put into the mouths of children under the age of three, and to put a warning on toys containing one of the 6 offending phthalates and likely to be put into the mouths of children under the age of three, and to revise the directive in four years' time.
This is, of course, completely inadequate.
It is ridiculous to provide for a ban only on toys and childcare articles intended to be placed in the mouth.
As every parent knows, young children put absolutely everything in their mouths.
We must therefore ban toys and objects containing phthalates which are likely to be put either totally or partially into children' s mouths.
The lack of reliable scientific information on the movement of these chemical substances within the body should lead us to implement the precautionary principle.
I should also like to point out that we should be particularly vigilant with regard to the substances used as substitutes for phthalates.
It is essential, furthermore, to bring the labelling of toys and childcare articles containing phthalates which are likely to be put in children' s mouths into general use.
To avoid encouraging children to suck or chew on their toys, we should add a clause to prevent flavouring substances being added.
We should envisage revising the directive in order to bring it up to date in the light of developments in scientific knowledge.
I am convinced that, given the information currently available, we should adopt an approach of the utmost caution.
I supported the amendments tabled by the Socialist members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
I shall conclude by pointing out that, as far as the case of toy safety is concerned, the regulations regarding EC markings are too ambiguous and should be clarified as soon as possible.
The threat that phthalates may pose to human health has not been proven scientifically.
For example, according to research undertaken in the United States by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, only rarely, if at all, among children is there a risk of exposure to harmful chemicals, as the quantities of phthalates in toys do not exceed that level which could be considered harmful.
As the quantity of phthalates that might possibly get into a child' s system from toys is so small, the study group is not recommending that phthalates be banned.
I myself do not support the principle of 'excessive force' and an extensive ban that is not justifiable in the light of scientific facts.
The toxic effects of phthalates are insignificant, and they do not irritate the mucous membrane or the skin.
Although it was found in the 1980s that very large quantities of phthalates caused liver tumours in rats and mice, official agencies in Europe and the United States have not confirmed that phthalates present a risk of cancer in humans.
In addition, I am sceptical about substituting phthalates with substances whose effects there is no research data on.
However, I support the idea of further research into those phthalates whose effects we cannot be absolutely sure about.
In practice the problem is a minor one, however, as the European toy industry has, in the main, stopped using phthalates.
Hieronymi Report (A5-0186/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the MEDIA report but I feel that, since pensioners and the elderly watch television more than anyone else and are therefore extremely interested in this European Union aid, it would be beneficial if they were able to watch a European television channel broadcasting European programmes.
This would make us more successful in preserving the culture of our nations, which is well-known in Europe, rather than only ever importing films from other States, especially the United States of America.
I therefore hope that my proposal will be taken into account when the document is implemented.
- (SV) The Swedish Christian Democrats have fundamental objections, based on the principle of subsidiarity as laid down in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, to EU funds being used in any way to develop, produce or market what are known as European films and film training.
These funds would be much better spent on the reconstruction of Kosovo, a European contribution of aid that has still not received its budgetary settlement after a year of internal budgetary opposition within the EU.
The idea of offsetting American dominance in film and the arts is understandable and lawful.
However, this is a job for the private film industry and the Member States themselves.
The European Union must instead resolutely dispense with tasks that do not relate to its key concerns.
Mr President, I should like to ask if the members could explain their vote in writing if reports are being discussed or, at least, to wait until the end if they are explaining them orally, as they are entitled to do.
Written explanations of votes at this time are not an expression of respect for the House for any of us.
.
(FR) We abstained from the vote on this proposal even though we are firmly convinced that a policy of exchange and cooperation between different countries in the field of education would contribute to improving the quality of education by promoting the intermixing of cultures and exchanges between the peoples living in Europe.
Such a policy would only be a factor in progress, however, if it were based on an education policy within the various states which aims to earmark greater resources for public education accessible to all.
At no point in the texts, though, is this priority stated, but more especially, in none of the countries of the European Union is it applied.
We are concerned that a number of phrases are indicative of a restrictive and utilitarian concept of a form of cooperation whose objectives would be dictated by the constraints of the market and initiatives by firms or private bodies looking for a workforce they could train and qualify according to their requirements.
Introducing the laws of the market into education, however, means keeping the best quality for a minority and allowing the quality for the majority to deteriorate.
We therefore voted in favour of the amendments warning against allowing the market to play too great a part in education.
. (PT) It is a well-known fact that defining the quality of education is a very complex political issue that depends specifically on the objectives set, the means to achieve them and the conditions that determine whether they can be achieved.
Cooperation at European level on quality assessment and on quality indicators should not therefore generate assessment models, since it is essential for us to maintain a variety of methods and approaches, bearing in mind the different national contexts and varying historical, social, cultural and political situations in each country.
Potential cooperation based on exchanges of experience in assessing the quality of primary and secondary education must therefore take account of the fact that this is a particularly sensitive area. It must fully respect the responsibility of Member States for the content of their education and for organising their education and training systems, as well as their cultural and linguistic diversity.
Mombaur Report (A5-0180/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the motion partly because one of the recitals states that competition does not prevent the States from imposing public service obligations in the general interest on the parties involved.
I would like to hope that, when this recital is implemented with regard to the provision of gas for domestic use, there will be a requirement to take into account the many people who have a very low income - including pensioners who do not have enough to live on - and that provision will be made for the free supply of a certain quantity of gas or another type of energy.
.
(FR) Overall, and in each of its comments, this report does nothing but extol the virtues of competition and the market economy.
Its author' s sole concern, under the guise of unifying energy markets in Europe, is to deliver this entire sector into the hands of private profit.
Or, more exactly, by separating electricity production and management of the distribution network, the author is prepared to allow states to manage all the areas that require a great deal of investment and offer very little profit, on condition that they hand the profitable areas over to the private sector.
Unification of energy production and distribution throughout the European Union, and the planning and rationalisation of these activities, may represent progress, but only on condition that the whole sector continues to be a public service exclusively concerned with satisfying needs rather than maximising private profit.
The rapporteur' s attitude is the exact opposite of this.
Were the 'liberalisation process' he advocates to come into force, this would be tantamount to a step backwards.
We have therefore voted against this report.
.
(FR) As a new Member of the European Parliament, let me say how shocked I am.
I did not take part in the previous legislature, which experienced the sell-off with regard to the notion of 'French style' public service, and I really do mean a wholesale sell-off similar to what happened to the transport, postal or even the telecommunications sectors.
In proposing to outline the situation as regards the transposition of the Directive of December 1996, on electricity, and of June 1998, on gas, the Mombaur report is patently expressing the ultraliberal philosophy of the Commission which, under cover of bringing about an internal energy market that is of the greatest advantage to the consumer, is demanding that these markets be opened one hundred percent to competition.
The process is always the same.
The Commission puts forward a minimalist directive on the basis of the argument that liberalisation can only be profitable in a context of deregulation. Next the supporters of 'ever more Europe' transpose the directive and go even further (at the start of the year, 65% of the European market had been liberalised although the directive required only 30%!) and, finally, the Commission comes back a second time to 'regularise' the de facto situation in a much more restrictive fashion!
It is all the more unacceptable, given that there are still problems!
What is the point of bringing about a single energy market when electricity and gas are not compatible (in terms of production and distribution, development of the market, or notions of public service)? How can one reasonably ask a service provider to ensure continuity of a public service, which is available on a fair basis, if this is not economically profitable?
By the same token, how can we ask the former monopolies to now become totally competitive, when they still have major investments to pay off, the product of yesterday' s political choices?
How can one reasonably demand ever lower prices in the sacred name of competition without challenging current requirements regarding nuclear safety? How can the national concept of public service be replaced by the Community concept of a general interest activity, which is far more restrictive?
I could carry on like this at great length.
Let me point out that it took decades of republican tradition to enable the gradual build-up of our public services.
Is it only going to take a transition period of four years to demolish them?
We were consequently unable to vote in favour of this report which expresses the will of the all-powerful Commission to go ever further and ever faster along the road of liberalisation.
Liberalism may well be worthwhile, but only gradually, in small doses, without definitively ruling out state interventionism, lest we tomorrow suffer the financial consequences of giving it up!
.
(PT) In the follow-up to the Lisbon European Summit of 23 and 24 March, which decided to speed up liberalisation in areas such as gas, electricity, postal services and transport, the European Commissioner responsible for Energy presented a set of measures seeking to speed up liberalisation in the electricity sector. These included the implementation of mechanisms for cooperation in overcoming problems that might potentially stall liberalisation, and negotiating access to the Community market with third countries.
As you will be aware, at the Santa Maria da Feira European Council, the Commission was asked to present a report by March 2001 on developments in the energy markets under the Lisbon strategy, so that we could assess progress in the liberalisation of the electricity market at the Stockholm Summit in March 2001. With the support of various governments, mechanisms were strengthened during the Portuguese Presidency with the aim of speeding up the process that was already underway with the December 1996 electricity directive.
This directive stipulated the gradual opening up of this market by 2003, whereas the 1998 natural gas directive stipulates that the final phase of the opening up of this sector should be completed in 2008. This has serious consequences for Portugal, and specifically for the State Electricity Corporation, its employees and for Portuguese consumers.
This action sidelines both the issue of employees' jobs in this sector and the interests of individual Member States, including the protection of a high-quality public service that serves the interests of consumers.
We should therefore totally oppose this report.
.
(EL) The purpose of this report is to justify liberalising the energy markets - mainly the electricity but also the natural gas market.
Basically, this means taking this strategically important industry away from the public sector and giving it to private-sector companies to run so that they can increase their profits.
The state then merely regulates the private monopolies and ensures that guidelines issued by the European Union are complied with and it is the country's economy and its people that pay the price.
The whole thrust of the report is geared away from serving the interests of the people - the interests of the man in the street - and growth in the national economy and towards serving the interests of large monopolies.
The report contains quite a few inaccuracies in its bid to present the liberalisation of the energy market in an attractive light.
For example, it is not true that competition has reduced prices and created jobs in Great Britain.
In the 4-5 years since electricity was privatised, prices have increased substantially, jobs have been lost and there is no longer a national, long-term electricity development programme.
Elsewhere, the same report admits that jobs have been lost as a result of liberalisation, but considers that new jobs will be created in non-productive sectors, on the stock exchange, in advertising, in financial services and so forth
According to a study by the Public Power Corporation in Greece, the present staff of 32,000 will be cut to 20,000 and numerous services which are crucial to both the PPC and the economy of Greece, such as the production of new technologies, power station studies etc. will be abolished as a result of the liberalisation of the electricity market.
Privatisation and liberalisation will push up prices, especially to consumers on the small Aegean islands, who pay a price per kilowatt/hour several times below cost.
It is also unacceptable that a public-sector corporation should be forced to allow private-sector companies to use its highly valuable transmission and distribution grid in the name of so-called competition.
If the EU really wanted healthy competition, as it itself understands the term, it would force the private sector to create its own grid and generating stations and compete with public corporations, rather than force the public corporations to "offer" their grid to their competitors.
This is simply a way of making it easier to shift assets to large companies.
It is for precisely this reason that an attempt is being made to separate sectors, thereby preventing public-sector corporations from operating with a view to optimising vertically integrated activities and become competitive.
Generating electricity is not the same as producing a simple commodity.
The energy sector is crucial to the economic development of a country and vital to its defence.
Consequently, liberalising the energy markets jeopardises both the security of a country and its economic growth.
This risk can clearly be discerned; as the report stresses, "In a frontier-free Europe, public utilities must operate in the single market.
These firms are no longer strictly national; nor are their shareholders".
The GUE/NGL MEPs have therefore voted against Mr Mombaur's report.
It is gratifying that the efforts to create a liberalised energy sector now look seriously as if they are to bear fruit.
Most countries are by now well under way with implementing extensive changes to the structures of their markets.
Some countries have already implemented full liberalisation, and I am especially pleased that Denmark is in the vanguard.
Denmark ought to make use of this favourable position and complete the liberalisation, as has already happened in Sweden, for example.
It is therefore unfortunate that the Danish Government does not apparently have any plans for the time being to take the final step towards full liberalisation.
Mr Mombauer' s excellent report hits home regarding several points.
In particular, it should be emphasised how important it is to take account right now of the candidate States' situation.
Liberalisation of the energy markets in the countries of Eastern Europe will require special arrangements, and particular account must be taken of the environment.
It is also important to draw attention to the fact that all electricity production should be transparent, and that special support for this must in no circumstances constitute a distortion of competition.
Radwan Report (A5-0169/2000)
Mr President, the 1999 annual report of the European Central Bank is not terribly forthcoming on the subject of the main question that all observers are asking: why has the euro, which was presented as a strong currency, turned out in the end to be a weak currency? Out of nigh on two hundred pages, the bank devotes just a single page to this subject, plus a tiny graph showing only the observed decline in the strength of the euro.
The only explanation given is the difference in economic health and structures between Europe and the United States.
Although that is true, it is not a sufficient reason.
It should be mentioned, first of all, that Europe is not a single country, with one people, one state, and one economic government and that, consequently, the euro is generally considered to be more vulnerable than a national currency.
Furthermore, it was launched at too high a level at the outset, precisely because it was evaluated in relation to the existing rates for genuine national currencies, even though it has none of their intrinsic qualities.
How do European leaders intend to combat this depreciation? Firstly, indirectly, by means of policies to promote growth, an approach we can only endorse.
At the same time, however, we see the European Central Bank raising interest rates, officially in order to combat a non-existent risk of inflation, but in reality in order to support the parity of the euro.
It is a double-edged sword, because, if it is used at the wrong moment in the cycle, it may cancel out the growth that they are trying to stimulate by other means.
The other dubious solution is the headlong rush to strengthen the eleven members of the euro zone, which is supposed to lead gradually to a single European economic government.
This will not change a great deal in the short term.
In order to deal with the root of the matter, we should have to deny the nations of Europe any autonomy whatsoever, but this is patently impossible.
In any event, a deadlock is being imposed on the system at the same time.
As I explained at a recent symposium of the French National Assembly, the Charter of Fundamental Rights is intended to serve, among other things, to put an even greater stranglehold on the peoples of Europe in relation to Community law and hence also in relation to the single currency.
This venture is helping to take us to a point where we lose our freedoms.
Mr President, surely you agree that these are not explanations of vote, but simply a continuation of the debate.
I still do not know how Mr Berthu voted, not that I am interested, but this is not an explanation of vote, this is just a continuation of the debate.
I voted for the Radwan report despite the fact that point 9 on page 8 calls upon Member States to speed up the structural reforms of the social insurance systems in wording which does not convince me.
Is it the usual request which, with these words, so often disguises the request to cut down on citizens' pensions in order to reduce the budgetary expenditure of national governments? If this is the aim of the report, I would stress that it should rather be interpreted as rationalisation to avoid wastage in social security benefits, for if they were administered more efficiently it would not be necessary to continually cut benefits and the pensions of the elderly throughout Europe.
The report we are now considering attempts to defend the monetarist policies of the European Central Bank, particularly on price stability, whilst forgetting that we do not currently have a continually falling interest rate. On the contrary, we are in a phase of constant increases, which have very serious repercussions on the incomes of less well-off families who use bank loans to buy their own homes, which is what happens in Portugal.
The rapporteur, who is delighted with the conduct of the ECB, considers that what is crucial is strict observation of the nominal convergence criteria in the Stability Pact, for applicant countries too, together with the policies linked with these criteria. These policies include wage moderation, the flexibility of the labour market and of social security systems and speeding up the liberalisation of the services and capital sectors.
The rapporteur even goes so far as to criticise euro area countries that have reduced working hours since, as he sees it, this attitude contributes to "rendering labour markets more rigid instead of more flexible" .
The rapporteur therefore puts himself in the position of defending the most refined form of capitalist neo-liberalism, at which we must protest most vehemently by voting against the report.
Karas Report (A5-0170/2000)
Mr President, we are discussing the European Parliament report on the information strategy to be adopted in the final phase of application of monetary union. I would like to make it clear to Mrs Peijs that I voted against this report.
This report reflects the concern felt by many leaders in the face of the public' s virtually total lack of interest in the implementation of the euro.
We are, however, eighteen months away from a crucial deadline: the withdrawal of national currencies and the start of the physical circulation of euro notes and coins.
So far, admittedly, progress has been relatively smooth for the euro, as the initial phase has principally involved technical experts, bankers, investment experts and stock market traders, who have all had adequate warning and who, moreover, are favourable to the idea on the whole.
In such circumstances, it is not surprising that the euro has been easy to establish in this phase.
From now on, however, progress promises to be a lot less smooth, since the euro is about to come up against the citizens who, more often than not, have not yet fully understood what is going to be expected of them and who are going to find themselves cornered by decisions which have already been taken.
In order to make up for this omission, the European Parliament is demanding that the information policy be stepped up, increasing appropriations by approximately 30%, to EUR 38 million per annum.
In order to deal with the complexes of decision-makers who might be experiencing doubts, it adds, somewhat ingenuously, that, to quote the resolution voted on, "according to Article 37(b) of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999, information policy is an autonomous action which needs no legal basis" .
In such circumstances, indeed, why should we hold back?
Let me mention, incidentally, that we have always challenged the Commission' s option to make expenditure commitments without a legal basis, and we also challenged this interinstitutional agreement which the Council was weak enough to accept in contravention of the customary principles of proper management of public monies.
Mr President, I will endeavour to comply with Mrs Peijs' wishes and keep my speech short. I will simply say that I voted for this report in the hope that, on 31 December 2001, all the pensioners will be presented with a calculator which will convert their own currency into euro.
Mr President, I am one of those MEPs who has tabled Amendment 7 with the request that the Commission's euro information campaign be restricted to those countries that are part of the area in which the currency is at present being used.
This means that Sweden, Denmark and the United Kingdom should remain outside the campaign while the krona and the pound are still the currencies of those countries.
It is a reasonable request that the EU not carry out tax-funded campaigns in Member States on sensitive internal political issues.
In the end, it is a question of tolerance for one another and of respect for each nation's democratic process.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of Mr Karas' s communication strategy for implementing EMU.
Introduction of the new common notes and coins will have considerable practical significance for individuals and companies, not only because the coins and notes are new but also because the 'new prices' have to be got used to once the present ones have been converted into the common currency.
Money is something in which it is necessary to have confidence.
It is therefore important that the necessary information should be made available, and more information should of course be made available than we receive whenever countries at present introduce new designs on notes and coins.
In our vote, we attached importance to information being provided in the individual countries by the Member States and to special agreements being entered into with the Member States concerning this issue.
We agree that it is right for the Danish Government not to have entered into such an agreement.
We look forward to a situation in which Denmark too can enter into such an agreement once the Danish people have hopefully said yes to the common currency in the referendum on 28 September 2000.
- (NL) My party, the Socialist Party in the Netherlands, has never been in favour of rushing through a common currency within the EU.
The euro is preventing us from regulating the economy by adjusting interest rates and exchange rates.
Furthermore, the so-called stability of the euro is financed by large cuts in unemployment benefits and in provisions for education, health care, housing and public transport.
I am therefore of the opinion that the euro is only convenient for businesspeople, lavish holidaymakers and MEPs, but not for the majority of people.
Insofar as there was ever faith in the euro, this faith has been eroded extensively since the euro has dropped in value compared to the Danish Kroner, the Swedish Kronor, the British Pound and the currency of many countries outside the European Union.
I can therefore imagine that those pro-euro now feel the need for a propaganda campaign.
The Karas report mainly intends to instil more confidence in the euro among the public at large by, inter alia, involving sports associations and education.
In addition, it intends to denounce the practices of swindlers and those increasing prices who are cashing in on the introduction of the euro.
I wholeheartedly endorse this part of the report, but I was unable to assent to the proposal as a whole.
I reject the Karas report in its entirety.
While the aim of familiarising Europeans with their future currency is a perfectly legitimate one, given that the decision to give up national currencies has already been taken (in conditions which I deplore), I am adamant in rejecting the propaganda this text puts forward in support of what Mr Karas terms "an essential, identity-building factor in the process of European integration" .
This text at least has the merit of exposing the outrageous untruth to which the supporters of a federal Europe resorted when they asked the French to ratify the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. At that time, the single currency was presented as a purely technical instrument to improve the operation of the economy in relation to the dollar and the yen, and as an operation that was perfectly neutral in terms of national sovereignty.
How far we were then from seeing it as the key element in the process of integration!
This text will be an essential weapon, let us have no doubt, for all the people in Great Britain, Sweden and Denmark fighting to safeguard their national democracies. The euro, even though its supporters in these countries deny it today, is in fact the instrument of warfare of a federal Europe rejected by the overwhelming majority of its peoples.
So when the honourable Members reject the amendment tabled by William Abitbol, simply asking that this integrationist objective be clearly stated in the Commission' s communication programmes, they are contributing to a propaganda operation which their voters will most certainly punish them for.
The resolution of the Karas report claims that women for some reason do not share the general enthusiasm which should have greeted the implementation of the euro.
This smacks of the unpleasant tones of revolutionary propagandists of every age, seeing reactionary plots between the cloth and the women in every household rejecting the bright revolutionary future.
It seems not to have occurred to anyone that it is perhaps because of their day-to-day experience of economics that women are more than reluctant about the transition to the euro.
This is a despicable attitude, which reveals the dictatorship of the orthodox thinking which involves branding the men or women that oppose the euro, or who merely show some reluctance, as ignorant, illiterate or uneducated.
This is where blind federalism takes us!
Lambert Report (A5-0162/2000)
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(FR) The annual reports from the Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions belong to the traditions of this House.
Parliament in turn responds to the reports from both these bodies with two reports of its own that do not vary greatly from year to year.
There is a new feature, however, this year. The Thors report, supported in particular by the work of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and Mr Söderman' s request, is attempting to give the Ombudsman a general right of access to all the documents that need to be consulted when investigating the case for a complaint.
We are opposed to this proposal, not because we reject supervision of the administration, but because such powers exceed the jurisdiction of an Ombudsman and approximate to those of a judge.
It is obvious, and we will certainly not deny it, that the frenzied Community administration and the ravages it causes cannot but add to the dissatisfaction of our fellow citizens and, hence, give rise to ever more appeals.
The proliferation of competencies, the diversification of spheres of intervention and the legislative bulimia of the Commission and the European Parliament will no doubt do nothing to make this phenomenon any better.
The Ombudsman and his colleagues are not, however, the right people to meet these challenges.
It is our political responsibility to cut such disputes off at source by giving our work precedence over issuing activist texts to justify our existence, with proper respect for the principle of subsidiarity which will prevent the European Union ruling on subjects that are none of its concern, and by ourselves, if necessary, making use of the authority we have in terms of supervising Community bodies.
Too often we have seen this House hiding behind expert committees because it refused to accept its own political responsibilities.
If we have to allow the Ombudsman to monitor administrative problems, we must, for our part, learn how, before and after the fact, to control the insane Community machinery which is running amok.
The excesses we must fight are often the product of the very nature of the current construction of Europe, something we must tackle at the very root.
Atkins Report (A5-0162/2000)
Mr President, do not tell Mrs Peijs that I am not doing my best to comply with her wishes.
I voted for the Atkins report because it is extremely important for pensioners, who do not have much time left, to arrive at their destination on time when they travel by air as they are always short of time.
This part-session has produced a rich crop of reports on transport.
I must, unfortunately, observe, however, that this sector is examined only from the Liberal point of view.
Mr Atkins' s report on the European Commission proposal on the single European sky goes along with this rationale of liberalisation at any price.
This was the cause of the French air traffic controllers' strike last week.
This was how they expressed their concerns about a purely commercial view of their profession.
I understand their action, and I can certainly not say as much for Mr Atkins, whose report urges the Commission to encourage Member State governments that currently tolerate a situation where national labour disputes disrupt air traffic to tackle the problem as a matter of urgency" .
It is pathetic!
No one can deny that the air traffic situation has deteriorated.
Air traffic corridors and airports are at saturation point, delays are common, with one in three aircraft behind schedule, and the whole business is accompanied by a trail of environmental and noise pollution.
I wish therefore to pay tribute to the determination of Mrs de Palacio, the Commissioner responsible for transport, in tackling the problem head-on in order to achieve the creation of a single European sky as soon as possible.
I disagree entirely, however, with the means she puts forward and with the report' s proposals.
The report proposes to introduce competition among air traffic control centres, taking away the link between regulatory authorities and operators.
The supervisory function would be carried out within separate companies whose capital would be open to air companies or private partners.
Such liberalisation would serve to jeopardise air transport safety, and this, of course, is unacceptable and contradictory to the EC Treaty, according to which improvement of transport safety is one of the chief objectives of common transport policy.
France would certainly seem to be the odd man out in Europe, where, in most countries, air traffic control is administered by agencies, under state supervision but open to private capital.
France wishes to keep these activities in the public sector.
The principle of subsidiarity must be applied here, and each Member State must retain control of the organisation of air traffic control.
This is essential, especially as the problem with delays is not caused by air traffic control, which is responsible for less than 25% of all delays!
In conclusion, I support the proposals to strengthen the role of Eurocontrol, the pan-European agency responsible for the management of the airspace of European states, be they members of the European Union or not, in its capacity as regulatory authority.
The report is wrong to underestimate this agency' s potential, but I have voted against a report which is completely unacceptable.
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(FR) I voted against Mr Atkins' report because it is totally at odds with the real world and is in keeping with an a priori ideological vision rather than with any concern to meet the real needs of our fellow-citizens and air transport users.
We cannot, of course, deny that there is a need to improve the situation of regulation and air traffic control in Europe in the spirit of the single European sky.
It is perfectly obvious that the aircraft in our airspace should not be on the receiving end of inconsistent, uncoordinated and complicated handling of their flight plans.
And it is true that, although some progress has been made with Eurocontrol, the time has already come to move on to the next phase and to improve the system, bearing in mind one absolute imperative: safety. Regulation and air traffic control must not be subject to the law of competition, but rather to the concept of a general interest service.
Moreover, the United States have never liberalised their own air traffic control, as this is managed by a single state agency.
That just goes to show!
The Atkins report, however, is entirely concerned with the goal of opening the service up to competition, even though it is hard to see exactly how it could be a source of private profit or how the profits made could possibly reflect its performance!
The pretext for driving forward this liberalisation, furthermore, is delays in flights.
This is certainly a situation that must be remedied, but, in order to be effective, we should really analyse the actual reasons for delays and the real solutions.
We should first of all note that there have been positive developments this year as delays have substantially reduced in France.
This indicates in the first place that we should make a distinction between temporary disruption (use of airspace by the military for Kosovo, the change in the control system, etc.) and structural problems.
We must also measure the problems due to the air companies or the limited European civil airspace with regard to the number of overflights.
Air traffic control does not play a very significant part in causing delays, in the final analysis, and, in any case, improvement of the system involves improving the organisation of the coordination of the various Member State control systems, supporting Eurocontrol in this role.
This should be the priority and the guidelines on the single European sky.
Unfortunately, the Commission does not appear to be on this track, and the Atkins report is even further off the mark.
- (NL) The aviation sector has traditionally been organised in a particularly liberal manner.
The reason for this is that governments compete with each other by building ever more and ever larger airports, and that apart from these airports, there is no need for creating infrastructure comparable to railways or motorways.
As such, since time immemorial it has been common practice in this sector for different companies to compete with each other for the same route.
Airfares bear out this freedom too.
There is no link whatsoever between the distance to be covered and the fare.
Where passengers are wanted, prices are low; where it is believed that there are more than enough passengers, prices are high.
There is little left to be liberalised in this sector.
Despite this, there are people who expect further liberalisation to be a panacea.
It is supposed to lead to cheaper flights, a wider range of flights and no more delays.
According to the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, this consideration is very one-sided and only serves two interests: that of airline companies and that of the consumer, whose only focus is more and ever cheaper flights.
In our opinion, a number of other aspects take priority over this, such as passenger safety, livelihoods and the working environment of the employees, environmental protection and the protection of the railway industry from price dumping and other forms of unfair competition.
There is little point in blaming the workers for everything that could cause irritation among passengers.
These workers are sometimes obliged to strike out of self-preservation.
Neither is this the fault of Eurocontrol, which has taken over a number of cross-border state responsibilities.
Safety should not come second to the pursuit of profit by companies which aim to take over Eurocontrol' s market.
The problem has far more to do with the excessive growth in aviation and price competition at the expense of long-distance rail transport.
The current proposals do not address this problem.
From this critical stance, we tabled 11 amendments.
Since it has transpired that a majority within Parliament does not support our stance on this, we were unable to assent to the final version of the Atkins report.
. (PT) Although this report deals with certain real situations, such as the increase in air traffic or the delays experienced on various routes, and although it is based on certain correct premises, specifically the need to guarantee and strengthen air transport safety, it nevertheless glosses over the underlying causes of these situations, which are inextricably linked with successive actions to liberalise air transport and with the unbridled competition that has resulted from this.
In particular, it draws hasty and mistaken conclusions, which lean markedly towards the liberalisation of airspace and towards the future control of this airspace by the main air transport companies.
Since it is true that effective cooperation is required and since technical and disciplinary measures are essential in this area, we do not support these guidelines, which are even more radically in favour of liberalisation than those suggested by the Commission.
If these guidelines were followed, they would exacerbate safety problems and would lead to greater social problems, in addition to raising questions about the sovereignty of each state over its air space. These questions are all the more relevant because this air space is shared by their respective military air forces.
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(FR) On 26 June 2000, French air traffic controllers went on strike to protest against the plans of the European Union to liberalise air traffic control. I should like to show my solidarity with this strike and with the demands of the air traffic controllers' unions.
The responses to the saturation of European airspace are pushing us into a headlong rush, with airports and airstrips proliferating, the working conditions of employees in the sector deteriorating and pollution on the increase.
We, on the other hand, are in favour of the harmonised development of transport on a European level, prioritising the fulfilment of real social needs, and opting for railways as the best solution for most needs, particularly for distances of less than 500 kilometres.
Liberalising air traffic control will not solve the problem of delays, since only 20 to 30% of delays can be attributable to air traffic control.
It is known that today the military have seized, in France for example, 80% of the available airspace.
Why has this never been challenged?
The Commission is using the delays as an excuse to move towards a split between a European regulatory office and the establishment of a privatised internal market for the provision of air traffic services.
Such measures, undertaken under pressure from lobbying by air companies, can be implemented only to the detriment of safety, especially given that the companies themselves will be able to put themselves forward to provide such services.
It is for all these reasons that I voted against this report.
Damião Report (A5-0141/2000)
I voted for the Damião report, Mr President, partly because I voted for the amendment which stipulated that women on maternity leave should receive a full allowance.
Maternity is not an illness.
This morning, the Italian newspapers contained the news that medical treatment for dogs and cats will be tax deductible.
If there is enough money to spend on dogs and cats, there ought to be enough for women on maternity leave, who are not ill but people who have the right to a full allowance.
Mr President, this report on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the health and safety at work of pregnant workers and workers who have recently given birth or are breastfeeding is very valid and is a step in the right direction. Point 11 in particular contains many positive proposals.
At the same time, I would like to warn against a development whereby we in the European Parliament end up devoting ourselves to social policies and social legislation, something which I think is, on all accounts, the duty of the Member States.
It is a very important part of the cultural and social identity which every nation and every country creates.
This is one of the most important questions of all in every election campaign in Sweden and in other countries.
Let this remain a national issue!
Mr President, the pregnant mother and her unborn child, mothers who have recently given birth and breastfeeding mothers need as much support as possible during this very important period, which is important not only to the individual mother and child but also to society, remembering the low birth rate and ageing population in Europe today.
Certainly companies have social responsibilities.
But surely governments should set an example, especially in those countries like my own where the role of mother and the family is protected in the constitution.
Unfortunately this does not appear to be the case in Ireland regarding paid maternity leave, facilities for breastfeeding and exemption from night shifts.
I give these examples to highlight the fact that just because a directive has been agreed it does not mean it has been implemented.
It is high time we stopped paying lip service to working mothers, their children and their families in our European Community.
. (FR) In this report, we voted in favour of the paragraphs which contributed towards protecting the working women, both in terms of their health and wages and in terms of children' s health.
It is, however, to be deplored that the report does not even propose to bring the advantages and rights into line with the countries where these are most favourable to pregnant women in work.
Moreover, we should not like our vote in favour of the specific protection of women night-workers during pregnancy to be interpreted as legitimising women' s working night shifts.
Quite the contrary, we wish to restate our opposition to night work, if it is not socially useful, not just for women, but also for men.
The prohibition of night work for women is a right acquired by the working movement in France.
To revoke this would be a retrograde step in social terms.
To speak of equality between men and women is hypocrisy.
This hypocrisy is intended to conceal the fact that the legislator is more concerned to reassure employers that their factories may be operated profitably than to guarantee the health and safety of employees.
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I abstained on Amendment No 2 submitted in the name of Mr Bushill-Matthews which called for the special needs of SMEs to be recognised when implementing Health and Safety legislation.
I have every sympathy with this desire but the amendment is superfluous as Article 137(2) of the Treaty clearly states that "directives in the social field including Health and Safety shall avoid imposing administrative, financial and legal constraints in a way which would hold back the creation and development of SMEs."
I believe therefore that the sentiments expressed in the amendment are already covered and it is unnecessary to repeat this in the report.
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(EL) Here we stand once again under a shower of good intentions which, even if translated into a set of positive proposals, are doomed to remain dead letter because they get nowhere near the nub of the problem and do not touch on the main trend causing the problem.
The European Parliament's proposal contains numerous positive proposals which are negated by its very inability to set out the problem of negative developments in labour and labour relations as a whole.
Because no attention is given to the main trend towards restructuring labour relations and reducing and abolishing the fundamental rights acquired by workers or framework labour conditions such as minimal working times and conditions, temporary and part-time employment and cuts in social security and protection, the resultant framework is completely negative and non-conducive to the application of any policy to protect working women during and after pregnancy.
We wish to point out and highlight the risks inherent in a strict prohibition on dismissal, especially under the present, extended regime of generalised atypical employment contracts and the indirect exclusion of pregnant women from jobs, a regime in which we need not just to maintain and consolidate but to increase maternity leave, define the maternity allowance more clearly and apply strict and more substantive controls on night work by pregnant and breastfeeding working women.
Not only must we strengthen the legal framework protecting the health and safety of pregnant women and rectify omissions and clarify ambiguities - the "Trojan horses" used to bypass and infringe legislation -, we also need to deal with the lack of political will on the part of national governments to apply the directive properly, a lack which is sorely in evidence from the sluggish state of control mechanisms in the Member States during the previous period.
A typical example is Greece, where there are no controls on employers' obligation to carry out an integrated written assessment of occupational hazards in the workplace, including a specific assessment of the hazards to pregnant and breastfeeding women.
Experience has demonstrated that reducing employability and "adaptability" to guideline Community priorities on employment issues renders any protection basically non-existent and cancels any individual arrangements in practice.
The problem is: what guidelines are being issued, what sort of employment policy is being applied?
And unfortunately, we have confirmation that the EU wants to make more drastic cuts to allowances and social insurance, to amend and downgrade provisions on dismissal and to reduce and abolish provisions to protect working conditions.
We must not delude ourselves as to the nature of employment policy and the social policy of the EU in general or the interests which it represents, which is why, despite sharing the EU's positive position on the protection of working women, we believe this is nothing more than yet another report of ideas and good intentions.
We therefore call on working women and men to continue their social fight for an overall change of policy and for a policy which centres on man and respect for his needs and dignity.
A fight geared primarily to the implementation of the principle of full and stable employment, with full, consolidated social rights for everyone.
Only such a framework will safeguard the rights of the particularly sensitive category of pregnant women and the rights and respect for life as something other than the raw material of profit, subject to the laws of costs, competition and inexorable market forces.
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(FR) We are in favour of all the amendments to the directive seeking to improve the protection of pregnant employees before, during and after their maternity leave.
The resolution proposes to remedy some of the omissions in the present directive and to harmonise European legislative systems to align them with those that guarantee the most rights.
We endorse such proposals in the name of guaranteeing employees' rights to health, especially as the proposed amendment of the ILO Maternity Protection Convention (Convention 103) reveals many retrograde steps, such as the exclusion of certain categories of women from entitlement to maternity leave, the minimum duration of maternity leave and the possibility of making a woman redundant during this leave.
A strict European framework must be established to protect pregnant women against any form of discrimination during recruitment, regarding issues of their working conditions, access to maternity leave or its duration: 20 weeks including 8 mandatory weeks after the birth.
Women must be protected against any wrongful dismissal and their former wage must be guaranteed.
Finally, night work must be prohibited for both men and women in sectors where it is not absolutely essential, rather than seeking to modify the conditions for pregnant women.
Short sea shipping
The next item is the report (A5-0139/2000) by Mr Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the development of short sea shipping in Europe: a dynamic alternative in a sustainable transport chain - Second Two-yearly Progress Report.
The rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, has the floor.
Mr President, in 1995, the Commission submitted the communication on the development of short sea shipping on the basis of the strategy which was formulated in the White Paper on the common transport policy.
The second annual progress report on this draft is now before us.
However, after five years, it has become clear that short shipping is still merely an empty promise which has not been kept, despite the verbal support by the Transport Council of 8 December 1999, which considered short sea shipping as a priority.
We are not trying to boost the popularity of short sea shipping out of idealistic motives.
It is a fact that transport shipping will increase by 70% in the next decade.
It is impossible to meet this growing demand by road transport alone.
Short sea shipping is therefore not a competitor of road transport, the train or transport using inland waterways, it is one of the modes in the transport chain.
It is in everyone' s interest to keep the irritation communities are caused by the constant drone of through freight transport to a minimum.
Transport should also be as clean as possible and in that respect too, short sea shipping meets high requirements.
Speed might not be the main feature of short sea shipping, safety is.
Weekend traffic bans and traffic jams are a curse to road transport.
In many cases, short sea shipping can provide a solution to these problems if it is used in combination with other modes of transport.
At the same time, I do not want to claim here that it is a panacea.
We will take the pressure off quite substantially if we try to make the best use of all modes of transport and combine them in the best way we can.
But in order to do this, a number of conditions do need to be met.
In its communication, the Commission makes a distinct reference to industry itself.
This is fine, but as rapporteur, I would like to add another dimension.
There are some very specific aspects where mainly governments at national, local or regional level can add weight and can give short sea shipping a boost.
In its communication, the European Commission provided a sound overview of the issue as a whole.
Parliament and your rapporteur have looked at the Commission plans with a critical eye and tried, in consultation with all parties involved, as befits a Parliament, to compile this report.
Industry was asked to raise practical issues which could, in their view, obstruct the development of short sea shipping.
We are still awaiting this report.
I would like to underline a few aspects.
Once again, short sea shipping can only take off in Europe if it is considered an integral part of the transport chain.
Connections with the hinterland in the form of rail, internal waterways and road are essential in this respect.
As such, it is important that short shipping is integrated with other modes of transport and this means that infrastructure will need to meet certain requirements.
Short sea shipping is also eminently suited to specialist transport.
Cars are a good example of this.
Innovation in the construction of specialist ships will prove decisive here and this could give our shipbuilding industry a shot in the arm.
The sector' s image is also important and must clearly be cleaned up.
The sector is suffering from excessive red tape.
Procedures last forever.
But increasingly, we can also point to many positive developments within the sector.
Industry should take its responsibility there, for example, in the setting up of regional promotion and marketing agencies, but the market cannot do this on its own.
Member States must lift obstructions.
For example, the road transport monopoly springs to mind, with the impact this has on the levels at which short sea shipping should pitch its prices to tie in with Bilbao' s short sea port.
At every level, excessive bureaucratic procedures and endless red tape accompany the cargo.
This puts short sea shipping at a disadvantage compared to other modes of transport.
Accordingly Parliament calls for this sector to be treated with the necessary flexibility, thus enabling this sector to acquire a better position in terms of affordability.
For example, we have in mind the introduction of exemptions from pilot service in ports where captains can demonstrate they have a high level of experience.
By the way, an irritating error has crept in to the erratum, where the experience of the pilot is referred to.
This should, of course, be the captain, otherwise this is complete nonsense.
The market is still fragmented at present.
This is why in its report, Parliament points to the need for a one-stop-shop approach to offering logistical transport services to end users.
These services should embrace all multi-modal transport services and should, in this way, counteract the fragmentation of the present services.
In my report, I also call for incentives from the Commission, which are needed to promote short shipping.
In view of the European connections, I would also ask for investment projects in mainly the Mediterranean Sea area and the ports along the Adriatic Sea.
Short sea shipping requires destinations.
You may have wonderful short sea terminals in Rotterdam, but you need to have a destination.
The setting up of these new lines requires critical mass and it could be one or two years before these resources are available.
The European Union will need to help out by providing cheap loans from the European Investment Bank in order to overcome this difficulty.
Furthermore, we are lacking information and statistical data on which industry can base its investments.
No one knows what we transport in what way, where to and in what quantities.
I believe that statistical data on what we transport where is one of the things we need as a matter of urgency in order to pursue a policy for transport, which will grow at an amazing rate in the next couple of years.
Mr President, on behalf of my colleagues Ripoll and Pérez Álvarez, who have worked on this report - but who are not able to be here - I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, on her marvellous report, in particular because it deals with a problem which is important for very real and practical reasons.
Furthermore, I wish to say that there are two things which I am regretting right now: firstly, that I am not able to hear the opinion of our friend Mr Fatuzzo on how short sea shipping affects the interests of European pensioners, and secondly, that so few Members are present because, considering the egotistical interests of this House, it is probable that one day they will regret not having found out about the issue of short sea shipping, because they will perhaps have to use it one day to travel to and from Strasbourg.
Turning to the background to the issue, I must tell Mrs Peijs that we have followed with great interest the developments and actions which in recent years, especially on the basis of the creation of the forum for the maritime industries, have been taking place in the European Union with a view to promoting short sea shipping as an alternative to land transport.
Both the Commission' s report and the rapporteur' s report illustrate the different comparative advantages of each type of transport, of which, in the case of sea transport, I would like to highlight the fact that the infrastructures are less saturated, the fact that they are less expensive, they consume less energy and therefore emit fewer pollutants into the atmosphere and they improve communications with the outermost regions of the European Union.
We consider - and I think we all agree on this - that the transfer of charges from land to sea transport should be taken as a priority objective of the European Union' s transport policy.
I would like to highlight the fact that in the last two years there have been a series of actions which have had positive effects on short sea shipping.
This has made it possible, as the Commission' s report points out, for intra-Community sea transport activity to increase by 23% between 1990 and 1997.
Nevertheless, this is a relatively modest increase - of only 3% cumulatively per year - and this is less comparatively than the increase over the same period in land transport, which has been 26%.
Consequently, rather than bringing the relative positions of sea transport and road transport closer together, the difference between them has continued to increase.
All of this indicates therefore that we not only need more vigorous quantitative measures but that we probably need a different qualitative focus.
Mrs Peijs' s report seems to us to be very balanced, but we would like to draw your attention to one of the key objectives for the promotion of short sea shipping: the simultaneous reduction of the time and direct cost involved in port operations for ships which provide this type of service.
In many cases, the port services - both with regard to the ship and the goods - are faced with no effective competition or with very limited competition and this means that there is often abuse of dominant positions, such as the imposition of obligatory services which are not necessary or are not even used, for example, piloting, towing, mooring and port handling, as well as the payment of very high tariffs.
What is certainly the case is that, apart from very few exceptions, transoceanic services do not have to face competition from roads and, in most cases, air transport does not offer any practical competition to them.
For all these reasons, we believe that, if the intention is to promote short sea shipping in a realistic and effective way, it is essential to reorganise the current provision of port services, by improving their efficiency and reducing their costs.
We should also bear in mind what this means for the economies of the areas in which there is a ship-building industry.
This means a revitalisation of the whole area, as is well known by the people who live in those cities, in those regions, in which the ship-building industry is a very active element in the local economy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I was asked: why are we so keen on short sea shipping at European level? The answer is: we have a vision.
We see large quantities of goods transported round our continent on safe, environmentally-friendly ships.
The goods are unloaded at the point where they can reach their destination via the shortest possible overland route.
That takes the burden off overland transport by adding another link to the chain of intermodal transport.
Of course we are still many sea miles away from making this vision come true, although some progress has been made over the past two years, as the report shows.
Mrs Peijs' good report describes the existing obstacles and the strategies for realising our visions. There was broad agreement in committee.
What can we do internally for short sea shipping?
I just want to mention a few things. In the technical field we can introduce more environmentally-friendly technology for ships' engines and specific terminals for express transhipment.
In the organisational field, and especially for cross-frontier transport, we can introduce uniform shipping documentation, simplified administrative procedures and fewer pilot services in cases where they are not absolutely necessary.
What can we do for short sea shipping as a link in the intermodal chain? First, we can improve the interfaces with other modes of transport by introducing modern systems of transhipment - especially to inland shipping - standardising containers, promoting transport logistics services for the entire transport chain and by many other means mentioned in the report.
I think we should also consider all these matters with a view to our pre-accession strategies.
Meanwhile we have the activity of the round tables.
The report says that an exchange of best practice would be useful.
That is true, for why have we been calling for some time now for a reference centre for intermodal transport. It would be sensible to engage in more research and above all to set up demonstration projects in the field of intermodal transport.
All in all the report offers a whole package of sensible proposals.
I hope that the next progress report in two years' time will tell us that we have moved a little closer to our vision, our vision of a successful intermodal transport system in Europe.
Mr President, there are three aspects of Mrs Peijs' excellent report that I would like to highlight and illustrate by way of example.
Although these come from my own constituency, I know they are representative of many similar regions.
First, intermodality and the need to optimise infrastructure links to the hinterland.
This week we have voted for environmentally-friendly measures designed to encourage more freight on to rail.
Good rail access into ports is vital in this context.
We have to accept, however, that there are times when it is roads that provide the necessary access into the hinterland.
I cite the placing on the TENs map of the A75 from Gretna to Stranraer, given its importance for sea transport to and from Northern Ireland.
Second, the extent to which outlying regions and islands depend on the sea for contacts with their neighbours.
We often look on the sea as something that separates communities.
We are better viewing it as a highway that connects them.
My group endorses Amendments Nos 1 and 4 accordingly.
I would add, though, that for environmental sustainability we should look upon connections between peninsulas in the same way.
In the west of Scotland the route from Gourock to Dunoon is twenty times as far by road as it is by sea and that from Tarbert to Portavadie is twenty five times as far.
Third, it is essential that we continue to recognise the lifeline nature of many short sea shipping routes.
I am not thinking just in terms of the need to sustain public service obligations in this context.
We also need to find other permissible ways of reducing the costs associated with transport to island and outlying communities.
Their economies are invariably fragile ones and it is just not good enough that the farmers on the Isle of Lewis have to pay twice as much for their hay as farmers living near Inverness.
I hope the Commission will take such points into serious consideration when developing policy in the area.
Mr President, in this group we welcome the Peijs report and we welcome the Commission's stance to which it is responding.
It is indeed true that short sea shipping is environmentally friendly and cost-effective, and it is indeed true that it supports the economic development of maritime regions; but we in Scotland call upon the Commission, therefore, to get its act together in respect of the forthcoming liberalisation of sea transport in the west of Scotland.
As Mrs Attwooll has just pointed out, we not only have island transport there but also important short sea links across what we call sea lochs and the geologists call fjords, where instead of going 150 kilometres up a narrow road over a mountain pass, you can take a boat across a narrow water.
If we were to interpret the regulation on maritime cabotage sensibly, we would say: Of course these peninsulas are functionally equivalent to islands, and public service obligations apply in these cases as well.
In that case it would be quite lawful for the state to support the services there.
In the same way, one could then take a holistic look at the package of routes across the west of Scotland, instead of breaking it up, inviting cherry-picking by private entrepreneurs who come in to take the few paying routes and make it harder to sustain the routes which are not profitable all the year round.
We want a holistic look at that kind of thing throughout Europe, we want an imaginative approach by the Commission.
It is six weeks since I put a question to the Commission asking if it would treat the peninsulas as equivalent to islands.
Earlier it had claimed intimate knowledge of the west of Scotland.
It still have not replied to that.
I ask it to reply as a matter of urgency.
Mr President, Mrs Peijs, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission' s communication on the development of short sea shipping in Europe and the very good report on it by Mrs Peijs give a realistic picture of the development of this environmentally-friendly mode of transport in Europe over the past two years.
The development and promotion of short sea shipping are a particularly important step on the way to developing a system of multimodal transport for the European Union and bordering regions.
Efficiency, cost-effectiveness, environmental compatibility and sustainability distinguish this form of transport from road transport and can offer a serious alternative in coastal regions.
However, it is also most important to improve the cooordination between the various modes of transport so as to bring out the specific strengths of each of them most effectively.
That is why the public and private sector must adopt a range of European, national and regional aid measures to adapt and develop the ports, which are the nerve centre of the transport chain, and target these measures at the specific requirements.
Furthermore; it is important to adapt the related technical and organisational aspects, such as administrative formalities and documents, customs and embarkation procedures, to ensure the rapid and smooth change from one mode of transport to another and from one country to another.
Other support measures should include special incentives for the development of innovative technologies, special pre-embarkation terminals for short sea shipping and integrating the ports in the development strategy for the coastal regions.
This is an important means of strengthening economic and social cohesion and the links between the centres and the peripheral areas in the European Union.
The integration of short sea shipping in the logistics chain of door-to-door delivery can be an effective means of sustaining the growing economic cooperation between the EU and its neighbouring states and satisfying the growing need for transport that accompanies it.
Mr President, I would like to say the following on behalf of Mr van Dam. Transport policy requires choices.
Sustainable transport policy requires even more, or at least other, choices.
The task which we in this House have is to facilitate the transport of goods and passengers in such a way as to keep adverse side-effects to a minimum.
The mode of transport we are discussing here, short sea shipping, has the reputation of being a mode of transport which can counter the negative effects of the transport sector, especially in terms of the space occupied and environmental pollution, in more than one way.
However, as Mrs Peijs rightly points out, the sector is not taking full advantage of the opportunities at the moment.
I would like to highlight a number of aspects.
We often hear that short sea shipping, and transport by sea in general, is an environmentally friendly mode of transport in terms of emissions per transported unit.
This is certainly true, relatively speaking.
However, progress made in this sphere in other sectors, especially road transport, is undermining this position.
If ports refuse to turn a ship, swift action is most definitely required.
Given the developments in the road transport sector as a result of new European emission standards for fuels, I am of the opinion that in order to boost the environmental performance of short sea shipping, we need to lay down a European directive concerning maximum permitted emission levels generated by ships' engines.
Furthermore, unlike certain fellow delegates, I am of the opinion that short sea shipping should not only supplement existing modes of transport, it should also operate as an alternative to intra-Community transport.
Given the problems surrounding distribution or with regard to reducing ECO points in Austria, we very much welcome an alternative route from North to South and vice versa.
Short sea shipping can take care of at least part of this.
A third aspect concerns the situation at ports.
If we want short sea shipping to become more competitive in terms of speed, we will need measures to simplify customs and (dis)embarkation procedures. The rapporteur is right to point this out.
If the sector then operates more efficiently and according to more up-to-date standards, it is vital to broadcast its potential.
In a number of countries, including the Netherlands, promotion offices have been set up successfully with this goal in mind.
It is therefore advisable for national or regional authorities to do their bit in order to develop this sector.
In short, Mrs Peijs' report is comprehensive and I would like to congratulate her on this.
If those involved take up their responsibilities, we are bound to conclude in a number of years what the Netherlands already knows: "Transport by sea, the best route" !
Mr President, to visitors from afar, the sea crossing to the Scottish islands is the stuff of romance, and indeed the beauty never fails to move both native and visitor.
But for those who live and make their living there, the island shipping services are both an essential lifeline and a costly hurdle to be overcome for their economic and social well-being.
The costs that impede are not only the fares, difficult as those often are, but also the inconvenience of pre-booking, of waiting in queues, of fitting in with timetables which provide low and variable frequencies; and then there are the risks of delays and cancellation due to weather or mechanical breakdown, or strikes which hold the islands to ransom from time to time.
There is considerable concern on the Scottish islands at the moment that the EU's competition policy, which requires putting these services out to competitive tender, will undermine these lifeline services even at their present level and add a further upward ratchet to the cost of living and of doing business.
We need to reassure those who live and work on these vulnerable islands and remote peninsulas that they have nothing to fear from bringing a measure of competition into the process for awarding these contracts.
Can I ask the Commission to do what it can to reassure the Scottish islands, the Scottish executive that is struggling with this situation at the moment and the Scottish Parliament, that it stands ready to make sure that this process works well, that it does not undermine but improves the shipping services in the Scottish islands.
Perhaps through Commission Verheugen I can pass an invitation to the Transport Commissioner, his colleague, Mrs de Palacio, to accompany me on a romantic trip to the Scottish islands.
Mr President, Commissioner, living as I do in a country with an extensive coastline and many islands - in fact I live on an island -, I have first-hand experience of the value of short sea shipping.
Of course, the basic sector is passenger transport, but the report under discussion focuses on freight transport in response to the Commission's communication.
It is worth noting that, although the volume of traffic carried by this form of transport has risen over recent years, road transport has fared better, meaning that special attention needs to be given to this more environmentally-friendly form of transport.
The current situation is still pretty off-putting for the public, which is given the impression that this is a fairly outdated, slow and complicated means of transport.
The development of maritime transport is further hampered by administrative procedures in need of improvement and delays, an incomplete infrastructure and the obscure fees levied by some ports, together with unnecessary mooring charges.
But we can still improve its image and turn it into a viable alternative solution for types of freight which can be transported by various methods.
I refer, of course, to places which are not restricted to maritime transport, such as islands, which must always warrant special attention.
The private sector has a basic role, but there are aspects of the market which call for intervention by public-sector agencies at regional, national and European level and even financial aid, so that islanders do not feel that they are second-class Europeans.
Developing cabotage has an immediate impact on social and economic development in our regions and hence on the cohesion of the European Union.
The rapporteur has obviously approached the subject matter in this spirit and has taken her work very seriously; as an islander I feel obliged to extend her my special thanks.
I should also like to thank Commissioner Verheugen who, I see, has put his headphones on. Thank you for your attention earlier on during the explanations of vote by the honourable members.
Mr President, Commissioner, at a time when we are trying to correct regional disparities, Mrs Peijs' s report is very opportune, since it deals with the matter of short sea shipping and asks Member States and the Commission to adopt measures to promote this type of transport.
As always, I would like to remind you that the regional and structural policy of the Union, as a whole, is a response to the specific disadvantages suffered by certain European regions, such as the so-called outermost regions.
Last March, the Commission presented a report which lays out a strategy aimed at the sustainable development of those regions and which includes various principal aspects, notably those regions' relations with the areas in their geographical vicinity, which, to a certain extent, largely condition their development.
Therefore, we believe that Mrs Peijs' s report is opportune, especially if it is reinforced by the amendment I have presented on the inclusion of sea transport between ports in the outermost regions and ports in the vicinity of those regions.
In this way, we could correct the error made by the Commission when it drew up the two-yearly report on the development of this type of transport, of employing an incomplete definition of short sea shipping.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, short sea shipping is the most economical, most efficient, and most suitable solution for remote regions.
I would like to thank Mrs Peijs for her interesting and excellent proposal.
In my own country, shipping is almost totally of this short sea shipping type: in other words, it is important to us in that respect.
We are unusual in that we only have a land connection with the rest of the EU in the north, so the importance of maritime traffic is enormous.
On top of everything, our railways have a different gauge from those found elsewhere in the European Union.
What is most peculiar about our situation is, however, that our shipping always comes to a halt in the winter unless certain measures are taken, because the sea freezes.
This has led to a situation where we have had to establish a special fleet to break the ice.
They are powerful ships: one ship' s energy is equivalent to that used by a whole city.
This being the case - as we have this hindrance to movement - we hope that this ice-breaking operation may be supported, as the obstacle has been ordained by the Lord, and we cannot do a thing about it.
It is also to be regretted that the effects on employment and welfare of this sort of traffic have not been highlighted sufficiently.
A cheap workforce is a huge risk in these circumstances, especially in the north, and especially in ice.
How can someone wearing shorts, who has no professional skill to his name, cope in minus thirty degrees and three metres of ice?
That is the problem. Aircrews are always well trained, but the same cannot be said of the cheap workforce that is employed on ships.
I expect the Commission to look into this matter.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mrs Peijs on a successful report.
There are many problems and bottlenecks with regard to transport in Europe: roads and air space are congested and the competitiveness of the railways is poor.
This week here in Parliament there have been many important reports on the subject of transport, all aimed at relieving congestion and reducing bottlenecks.
Mrs Peijs' s splendid report aims at exploiting the opportunities offered by short sea shipping.
It is an important addition to the reports on railways and air traffic.
We indeed need viable and competitive logistical chains linking road traffic, rail transport, short sea shipping and, in addition, modern information technology.
For remote countries across the seas, and that includes Finland, short sea shipping is an absolutely vital necessity, just as Mr Paasilinna there just said.
I wish to mention the importance of the suitability and availability of ports and port services.
Ports must be included in the Trans-European Network as part of the transport infrastructure.
For the measures proposed in the report to be implemented, good levels of co-operation will be required between the Union, Member States, players at local level, and companies too, as will genuine investment of time and money in short sea shipping.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
Quite clearly she has spent a lot of time on it and has brought a lot of problems to light.
We can see the different problems quite clearly from different areas of the European Union.
Each area has its own particular problem.
We have to recognise that it will take time to achieve our ultimate goal.
But there is no doubt that short sea shipping is something we must strive to achieve better than we have up to now.
It is certainly sensible to ship more goods by sea rather than by road.
It is more environmentally friendly, more acceptable in every way.
But we have to ensure that we get the balance right.
That is what the rapporteur has been striving for.
One of the greatest problems will always be the cost factor.
To be competitive ports have to be more efficient and for this they will certainly require more support.
I support Mrs Attwooll's appeal for the A75.
It recognises that we in Northern Ireland export goods across what is a very expensive stretch of water between Northern Ireland and Scotland.
It is our main outlet for all we produce.
From Scotland they trundle down to England.
There certainly could be a more efficient and environmentally satisfactory way of doing that but there is no cheaper way.
For our industry or agriculture to survive they have to be cost-effective.
We had a very good ferry service set up between Ballycastle and the south of Scotland which was forced to close recently because of lack of support and bureaucracy.
Mr President, Mrs Peijs, I should first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on the quality of her report.
All the previous speakers have said this, and, like you, regretted the fact that short sea shipping suffered from such a poor image in terms of its slowness and inefficiency, even though it provides one solution to traffic congestion, high infrastructure and environmental costs.
Moreover, in recent years, this form of transport has enjoyed an unquestionable success, even though it is not very well known, or not well enough.
It does however offer, as you said, advantages in terms of costs, energy, efficiency, regional cohesion, the environment and even intermodality, as it is an ideal means in the implementation of multimodal transportation.
Measures must therefore be taken at the earliest possible opportunity to step up the efficiency of dockside operations and reduce waiting times in port.
Speaking personally, I would insist on the public authorities playing a part, at regional as well as national and European levels.
There are, however, two points in your report that I have a problem with.
Firstly, the proposal to draw up a list of ports particularly suitable for short sea shipping.
I do not consider such a list to be necessary, as it entails a risk of penalising the ports which are not currently entirely suitable, but which are going to be modified in future.
Moreover, there is a suggestion that the logistical services offered to users should be combined in a single unit.
I am in favour of an information system but, personally, I reject the idea that a thriving major port should have central control of all the services.
Finally, I should have liked, as a member of the Industry Committee, to have heard someone say clearly that short sea shipping must not be considered as an alternative, but that indeed an intermodal strategy should be found, establishing complementarity between modes of transport.
In this context and in this spirit, the Member States should moreover harmonise their regulations so as to prevent distortions, which, particularly in the case of mainland transport, often cause hold-ups.
If we wish to achieve a multimodal system, it is important to have a set of means of transport and regulations that are, if not common to all, then at least perfectly harmonised.
Mr President, let me thank Mrs Peijs for her excellent report and for the work she put into it.
The report show that short sea shipping is an issue on which there is the widest agreement between you, the Member States, and the Commission and the agreement goes further.
I know of no one and no organisation which does not wish to see short sea shipping developed.
In the past we were guilty of talking short sea shipping down.
We mentioned its potential and by doing so implicitly said that it was not really doing very well.
But it is doing well.
It was not much publicised but short sea shipping was the only mode of transport which, during the 90s, could more or less keep pace with the development of road transport.
So we must give credit to the short sea shipping industry.
However there is always room for improvement.
The shipping industry is the first to acknowledge this.
Let me mention a few key issues in Mrs Peijs report.
We need a comprehensive approach to make this a genuine door-to-door concept.
It must be fully integrated in the transport chain and be offered through one-stop shops.
Several bottlenecks hamper the development of short sea shipping.
The Commission services are currently identifying these bottlenecks and potential solutions, together with the new Member States and industry.
One area which has already been identified is the diversity of documents required.
To create more uniformity, the Commission intends to present a proposal by the end of the year aiming to harmonise certain ships' arrival and departure documents.
The efficiency of ports is crucial for short sea shipping, and also by the end of the year the Commission will present a package of measures intended to enhance that efficiency through liberalisation.
Further, the old fashioned image of short sea shipping needs to be changed.
That was already mentioned in the debate and I appreciate that very much.
National short sea promotion offices should play an essential role in implementing this policy.
Some promotion offices already exist and the Commission encourages establishing further offices so that we can create a European network of promotion.
In the debate the question of Community grants was raised, and I would like to answer the question here.
The main source of Community grants to short sea shipping has in the past been the PACT Programme, that is a Pilot Action for Combined Transport.
Last year around 40% of the PACT budget was used to favour combined short sea shipping and that amounts to EUR 2.3 million.
It will even be more in the 2000.
We will increase the share up to 50%.
The DG responsible aims to continue this trend, so that short sea shipping will continue to receive its fair share of the PACT budget.
In the forthcoming revision of PACT this principle could even be incorporated into the legal text.
Mr Purvis, has asked me to pass an invitation to Commissioner de Palacio.
I certainly will do that and Mrs Palacio will enjoy a romantic trip to Scotland.
It would be even more romantic if you would invite me to accompany her.
Mrs Peijs, thank you for your work.
Thank you for ensuring that we all move in the same direction.
Let us all do it together, the Commission will certainly do its best.
Mr President, I should like to express my disappointment that on a matter on which I have had a written question before the Commission for more than six weeks, and which I raised in the debate, I have had no acknowledgement, far less a reply.
Thank you very much, Mr MacCormick.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Friday, at 9 a.m.
Civil dialogue
The next item is the oral question to the Commission (B5-0533/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the future financing of the civil dialogue.
Mr Pronk has the floor.
Mr President, I hope that, at this late stage, we will not be taking up too much time.
It is unfortunate that we now have to round up this important debate, which is important on its own merits.
If I can use this opportunity, I would just like to say that it would perhaps be sensible if in future, for example, we do not manage to vote on a Tuesday evening, we could squeeze in an extra round of voting, so that we do not incur further delays during the rest of the week.
You might be able to submit this to the Bureau for their consideration.
But this is, of course, not really related to these issues.
I do not need to add too many explanatory notes.
Firstly, it is indisputable that non-governmental organisations play a vital role in Member States, in the European Union and outside of the European Union. Everyone is agreed on this.
This is something which the Council states, and which is backed up frequently by the Commission and this Parliament.
Also, Article 136 of the European Treaty, in combination with declarations 23 and 38, underlines that cooperation with Wohlfahrtsverbände (welfare associations) is necessary, and these are also non-governmental organisations, of course.
The European Parliament has always put its money where its mouth is and has for some time, for some considerable time, created a line, B3 4101 in order to finance non-governmental organisations.
However, as a result of different provisions which have been agreed in conjunction with the Council, and following judgments by the Court of Justice, this line has now more or less expired after three years.
The European Commission has been aware of this for three years.
This is not the issue.
This issue is that so little is happening.
On the one hand, the great need is staring us in the face while on the other we see little in the way of specific action, except for the document which the Commission has issued and which we are specifically asking after.
The six million dollar question now is how we can translate the finely worded ideas we have all expressed into reality.
What I am saying on my own behalf, not on behalf of the Commission, is that bureaucratic issues are bound to crop up.
The reason for this could be that there are different Commission directorates involved.
NGOs are not restricted to one directorate general.
It could be that they are looking for a general angle and at the same time specific angles, but at any rate, this is all taking up too much time, as the budget lines are expiring.
This is also the reason why we are drawing the Commission' s attention to this issue this evening, in itself not a very appropriate time.
Speed is the main issue.
It is not so much the Commission' s intention which is at issue, but the speed with which certain things can be brought about.
We might otherwise run the risk of failing to implement not just a core task stipulated in the European Treaty, but also what has been stated by the European Council in Feira, because NGOs - and this is the only problem - are extremely sensitive, at least the majority of them, to breaks in payments to them.
They are far more sensitive to this than other organisations, and certainly Member States. This means that if we wait around for too long, the patient will die.
This is the serious concern which we have in our committee.
This is the reason why we are asking these questions and this is also the reason why we hope that the Commission will tackle this matter with due haste within the scope which the Treaty offers and within the generally benevolent climate which the Council and Commission have displayed in Feira, as witnessed by the European Parliament.
Mr President, I can be extremely brief.
I thought the response by the Commissioner was encouraging on its own merits.
I think he is right in stating that we in Parliament should make every effort not to obstruct procedures.
I should point out, however, that we in Parliament have tried our hardest, using all the means at our disposal, to keep those budget lines up and running that enabled us to continue financing NGOs.
This can only be stretched so far and speed is then of the essence.
I would like to make one last point following on from the official reply by the Commissioner on the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is, in fact, not so much the content of the present Treaty or present declarations which is at issue, in fact he is more concerned to adapt these declarations, presumably in such a way as to form a legal basis from them, so that a programme can be based on them.
This is the problem, in fact, and I would ask the Commissioner whether it would be possible to give this matter further attention within the Commission.
As such, we are thus not asking for a new treaty, but for some attention.
Finally, because we are of course involved in the development of NGOs in the new Member States, in the context of enlargement, we believe that this should be given extremely high priority.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists in support of Mr Pronk's words on behalf of the Committee as a whole.
I have to say that I was not totally satisfied by the Commissioners' responses, in that the documents that were referred to, with which we are familiar, as Mr Pronk said, need to contain time frames and rather more practical decision.
As we know, we have been discussing the issue for years.
Parliament has played a fundamental role in this dialogue, but it is now time to move on from dialogue and declarations to concrete action.
The Commission needs to start putting forward practical solutions, for otherwise the issue will never be resolved.
I can see a certain contradiction and I am concerned, and I believe I speak for the rest of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs as well, that behaviour within the Commission in relation to the issue appears to be somewhat contradictory.
The role of the non-governmental organisations in the democratic construction of the Union and the economic and social role they play in Europe, the entire social economy sector, the third sector, is now acknowledged in practice as well as in documents - if we consider that approximately nine million workers are employed in this sector - as a major sector of fundamental importance.
Well, the most recent decisions of the Commission - and I refer to the Directorate-General for Industry - have labelled this a negative priority - they have now invented the concepts of positive and negative priorities - and have abolished the 'social economy' operative unit.
In my opinion, this is extremely serious and leaves us extremely sceptical as to whether the declarations made repeatedly in this House, which we have heard on several occasions, will be followed by practical action in the right direction.
The NGO platform, with which Parliament and the Commission have maintained dialogue, and all those involved feel as if they have been taken for a ride, and I think that we parliamentarians also feel rather as if we have been deceived, when declarations are made saying one thing and then, in reality, practical decisions lead to another.
The absence of an interlocutor on the administrative side apart from anything else will make it all the more difficult to resolve these problems rather than making it easier.
So if we genuinely want to make positive progress, speed up the procedures and provide positive responses for the European citizens as well as the Non-Governmental Organisations, in my opinion, we need to rethink a whole series of decisions which have been taken and, most importantly, change them.
Mr President, many of us in the Group of Greens and the European Free Alliance have our roots in the NGO and activist movement, so it is very dear to our hearts.
Earlier today we discussed the annual report of the Committee on Petitions, that is the complaints end of the process of evaluating what is going on within the European Union.
The NGOs in our view act as part of the preventive process.
They provide a scrutiny mechanism, they provide a way of making sure that we do not lose aspects of the legislation that we are doing.
They make us think of new things and they are essential to our process.
They are one of the few organisations which are really active on the citizens' behalf and if we are trying to create confidence within the structures we are trying to build, their role is absolutely essential.
It is really important that they are there to counterbalance a lot of the business interests which do not seem to have financial difficulties in finding a path to our door, whereas for a lot of NGOs working internationally is enormously expensive.
The work we have been doing in various committees over the last few weeks on Article 13, the anti-discrimination article, would have been impossible without the input of those bodies.
So the need to sort out a clear legal basis for their participation, and hence their funding, is absolutely essential, because this body cannot work properly without them.
Reference was made to the applicant countries, and I would echo the words of my colleague, Mr Pronk, that the NGO and civil society movement in those countries is going to be essential if we are going to have a European Union based on values of justice and democracy.
I would urge that we find a way of establishing a serious and reliable funding mechanism for those organisations that represent the poor, the excluded and the discriminated against at least, so that they are not scrabbling for funds every year, wondering if they are going to survive so they can do the job they exist to do.
Mr President, in the last few years the EU has, of course, been given more and more significant powers in the social area, but it has not been given an awful lot of money for solving social problems.
As long as the Member States are of the basic opinion that social issues should be dealt with by the Member States themselves, there will be no rapid change.
We are, of course, aware that those funds which do exist are strictly budgeted for and that it is difficult to move funds around within the budget.
It is difficult to meet new needs while the Member States have this attitude.
For these reasons, I believe that it is particularly important for those of us who work in the EU institutions to concentrate on according much greater importance than we have until now to the non-governmental public organisations in Europe operating in the social sphere.
I am sure everyone can see that there is a need for transnational activities in the social sphere, too.
There is, therefore, a place for non-governmental organisations.
It would, however, be unfortunate, and that is perhaps the way the Member States see it, if the non-governmental social organisations were to be strongly bound, financially and politically, to the EU - more so than they are already becoming.
Their worth lies precisely in the fact that they are non-governmental and civic and are able to see social problems from a different perspective than the authorities. In that way, they constitute a complement or alternative to the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
I will take the opportunity to make a suggestion, despite there not being many people listening (there are only around six MEPs in the House).
I propose that the Commission try to set up a European fund for this purpose with the non-governmental organisations in the social sphere.
I propose that the Commission turn to the Council and the Member States to try to get them to contribute to such a fund.
This fund ought to be set up as an independent institution whose board of directors is made up of people from the social organisations themselves, together with researchers and experts in the social sphere.
One might imagine that such an organisation would escape some of the bureaucratic problems.
Financial supervision could be exercised by professional auditors.
I believe that if we set to work on a task like this with a certain diplomatic tactfulness, the Member States would react positively to the proposal.
I also believe that all other parties - the socially disadvantaged, the non-governmental organisations, the Member States and the EU institutions - would all be very pleased with such an institution.
Mr President, we must thank Bartho Pronk and the chairman of our committee for speaking about civil dialogue and relations between the Commission and NGOs, because, in the final analysis, the report and other contributions seem to me to be purely administrative and far removed from the practical reality, and this is exactly the impression I had, Commissioner, when you answered Bartho Pronk.
You told us that the Commission was active in meeting the operating costs of NGOs, but what we Members of Parliament want is to ensure that all NGOs, may be supported and funded on the basis of a number of practical projects.
For, nowadays, it is the major NGOs which have the opportunity to respond to a number of invitations to tender: Médecins du monde, Médecins sans frontières, the Red Cross and so on and so forth. That is my first comment.
You must be aware of the problems experienced by a good number of smaller NGOs in being able to respond to a number of invitations to tender.
The work they do in terms of relations and competencies is, however, just as important as that of the major NGOs, but some of them do not have the same administrative facilities that some major NGOs have.
Secondly, what we would also like to see is the needs of NGOs being satisfied before a major tragedy occurs.
Let me take just one example, the protection of childhood.
For four years, a number of Members of Parliament have been fighting for funding for associations working to combat child abuse.
Our attempts have been ignored.
It was not until the Dutroux case that we were able to obtain a budget line enabling two programmes to be run: Daphne and STOP.
Today, regrettably, only one programme is left, the Daphne programme.
I can tell you that, as experts on matters to do with small children, a number of NGOs would indeed love to be able to respond to specific invitations to tender.
Finally, I feel it advisable to simplify the procedures and that, in this connection - I do not know if this has to be a fund -, the Commission should, at least initially, make a service available to NGOs, enabling them to obtain information on the work carried out by other parties and, possibly, establish networks on certain topics in order, ultimately, to be able to submit tenders to the Commission when offers come up.
That, Commissioner, is what I wished to say.
We shall make progress in the social sector because we know that we have to make progress in terms of cooperation in that sector.
We need time for this.
This is precisely why, given that social matters are essentially part of the remit of NGOs, we must make progress in the matter of civil dialogue.
Mr President, Mrs Lambert and Mrs Ghilardotti are right.
The European social NGOs are playing a critical role in our work.
Anyone who went through the Article 13 discrimination package could see this.
Since the 1998 budget crisis which saw the freezing of funds destined for NGO work with some of the most vulnerable people in Europe and the developing world, much progress has been made.
The Portuguese presidency broke new ground and invited the European aid platform to the Lisbon informal social affairs summit and the French presidency is following suit.
These kinds of initiatives were recognised in the conclusions of the Lisbon summit.
But words are not enough and two years after the 1998 budget crisis, the difficulties continue.
There have been two years of consultations with NGOs and all the Commission has come up with is a discussion paper and two internal working groups which have hardly met.
Meanwhile NGOs, and I worked in the NGO field, are being squeezed by bureaucratic rules which were introduced to promote accountability and transparency but which in the end have created more red tape.
The troubles of NGOs Mr President are further compounded by this House when it makes difficult rules on co-finance requirements which are set with the tightest deadlines.
The one budget line that we had - B3-4101 has been scrapped and the Commission has failed to come up with a proposal for a legal base for the civil dialogue either through suggesting a Council regulation or a Treaty article.
Worse, the social NGOs have been told by the Commission that they will need to be funded through our new discrimination and social exclusion budget lines.
How can that be when the funds for those programmes have been reduced beyond what is reasonable?
A number of valuable social NGOs are facing serious crises because of the inaction of the Commission and the Council.
I saw one NGO which made an application for projects requiring eighty pages of budget sheets and so many supporting papers that one NGO application weighed over twelve kilos.
Mr President, that has to change.
NGOs are critical to our work and we must support them.
I would like to give warm thanks to all the Members who took part in this debate for their suggestions, as well as for their very strong criticisms.
I will pass them on and will raise them during the Commission' s debate.
Let me just reply briefly to two points.
The first concerns the legal bases and the financing.
Here we should not forget that one of the characteristics of a non-governmental organisation is that it should not be dependent on public funding.
Otherwise it ought to be called a governmental rather than a non-governmental organisation.
So I do not have very much sympathy for the oft-repeated call for governments or the Commission to assure the financing of non-governmental organisations in full.
All they can ever do is provide support and cooperate on projects.
That is quite fundamental.
A number of speakers have addressed the question of non-governmental organisations and enlargement.
I will answer them, because this matter is within my direct remit.
All the ideas I have heard put forward in this debate have long since become reality.
With our pre-accession aid, we are working very closely with the non-governmental organisations in the candidate countries; moreover our communications strategy, the organisational and financial framework of which has now been established, is also very much targeted at non-governmental organisations in candidate countries, since the aim is precisely to fully involve civil society in this important political process.
I will faithfully report everything else back to the Commission, without omitting to mention what I perceived to be the basically rather critical mood of this debate, and I can assure you that I myself will certainly urge very strongly that procedures are simplified and decisions taken more rapidly.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
(The sitting was closed at 9.08 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
Ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must inform you that it has not yet been possible to make available all of the language versions of the Minutes.
The approval of the Minutes for yesterday' s sitting is therefore postponed until all the versions are available.
The reason for the delay is that we have more than 200 pages of roll-call votes, which have cost Parliament' s budget the modest sum of BEF 4 million.
We are therefore currently producing the remaining versions.
I hope that all the groups will bear in mind how much requests for roll-call votes cost Parliament' s budget.
Therefore, when we have the remaining versions we will proceed with the approval of the Minutes.
Mr President, on a point of order I should like to draw the attention of the House to a very serious incident which occurred yesterday in my constituency of Sunderland, in England.
A fruit and vegetable wholesaler had his premises raided by police and trading standards officers, who seized the weighing equipment which he used to dispense his produce in the traditional British units of pounds and ounces.
Apparently this is now in contravention of an EU directive, although there is a legal doubt about this.
I hope the President will join with me in condemning this extremely heavy-handed reaction and write to my constituent offering the full support of the House in his fight against this nonsense.
If Members are wondering why the EU is so unpopular in the United Kingdom, it is because of incidents such as this.
Mr Callanan, I am extremely concerned about this very serious attack on British tradition, and it will be duly discussed.
However, this was not, in my opinion, a point of order.
Mr President, I just wanted to say something about the Minutes, although it is not yet time for them to be approved. However, it might be possible to make a correction to them already.
Yesterday, with Mr Karas' excellent report, I had intended to vote in favour of paragraph 5, a particularly good one.
I accidentally voted against it.
I would ask you to correct this.
This has been noted.
Mr President, I should like to ask you to instruct the Security Service to investigate what has been going on.
When I came into my office this morning, the door was open, even though I know for sure that I closed it last night, and my computer was switched on, even though I am quite certain that I switched it off last night.
I think that what went on there last night must be investigated at any rate.
Mrs Gebhardt, this is a concern that I share, because exactly the same thing has been happening to me for two days.
We will therefore notify our security services.
Mr President, I respect the fact that you cannot put the Minutes to the vote yet, but I would just like to comment on a matter which was raised yesterday.
At the beginning of the topical and urgent debate, we had a discussion on the application of Rule 146 of the Rules of Procedure, that is to say adjournment of a debate.
The President declared this not applicable to the topical debate.
I wonder how it is possible for a rule of the Rules of Procedure not to apply to a situation without it being further mentioned in the Rules of Procedure.
Rule 146 was clearly cancelled out in that instance. I would therefore ask whether the Committee on the Rules of Procedure or the President could explain in what instances Rule 146 would apply.
Yesterday' s incident caused a great deal of confusion.
Mr Maaten, Rule 50(6) stipulates that Rules 143, 144 and 146 shall not apply to those resolutions.
This means that the president of the sitting strictly applied the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, on the point that Mr Callanan raised a couple of moments ago, I suggest that instead of raising the matter with you he should raise it with the Queen of the United Kingdom as she seems to have an opinion on most European issues these days.
I have taken note of this peculiar point of order.
I would like to inform you that, as you are aware, yesterday a tragic road accident occurred in Spain, near Soria, in which 2 drivers and 25 teenagers died.
The President has decided to send our condolences to the families and to the respective authorities.
I think that this goes some way to satisfying the requests that were made during the debate yesterday.
Mr President, of course, the Catalan Members here today, such as yourself, Mr Gasòliba and I, are particularly affected by this tragedy.
Aside from the rightful decision by the President to send her condolences to the families of the victims, perhaps, Mr President, it would be helpful if that communication from the President urged all the authorities responsible for transport in the European Union once again to step up the application of legislation and the monitoring of safety conditions for the transport of both school children and pensioners, who have frequently been victims of such tragedies.
This will be done.
Mr President, you said that recorded votes cost 4 million from Parliament' s budget.
Could you ask the Committee on Rules of Procedure to look at the following point: we all respect the principles of power with responsibility and subsidiarity so every time a group asks for a recorded vote could a certain sum be debited from the budget allocated to it by Parliament?
Mr Newton Dunn, I am afraid to say that this is not an original idea.
It is not the first time that it has been discussed.
I think that there could be a better solution in the context of the reform of working methods that is currently being examined by the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents.
There are a few documents from a working group chaired by Vice-President Provan, which deal with these matters and which have now been passed on to the groups to be discussed.
Working Document No 4 specifically deals with the actual mechanics of the plenary session, and I think that would be the appropriate environment for this type of discussion and for making improvements to our working methods.
Mr President, I have the following question to ask: we have just received the printed version of the texts adopted.
We have received the bulky paper version with the numerous roll­call votes, but what is missing is the verbatim report of proceedings for yesterday' s topical and urgent debate.
Topical and urgent subjects of major importance are being postponed until Thursdays, certainly not without good reason, but urgent topics also need to be dealt with urgently as well.
We have taken the floor on many occasions.
I recall the subject of Tibet being discussed on the Dalai Lama' s 65th birthday yesterday.
The people are keen to hear that there was great unity here in the European Parliament, how this came about, and what the outcome of our debate was.
It has happened before in my experience that we have only had one opportunity to avail ourselves of the verbatim report of proceedings for the Thursday topical and urgent debate, and that was on the Wednesday of the following week.
Hence, the question: when will we receive the verbatim report of proceedings for these topical and urgent subjects of major importance?
Mr Mann, this week at least, the verbatim report of proceedings has been available to all Members from 10 a.m. onwards on the following day.
I would be surprised if today we were not in a position to do the same.
Vote
Mr President, although we consider the prospect of developing short sea shipping in Europe, as well as inland waterway transport, as something positive, Armonia Bordes, Chantal Cauquil and I have chosen, nevertheless, to abstain from voting on this proposal.
The report indicates that the large sums of money which need to be invested in order to develop the infrastructure will come from public funds, whereas the way in which the infrastructure is used will be governed primarily by the requirements for profitability and competitiveness of the private companies that, according to the proposal, should be its main users.
.
(FR) We know that short sea shipping is an integral part of the European transport system.
However, as the Commission report and the report of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism point out, short sea shipping is suffering from a poor public image in terms of its cost, slowness and inefficiency.
Nevertheless, this image no longer corresponds to the real situation and this mode of transport can provide solutions to global problems which are prevalent in this area in Europe.
I am thinking about traffic congestion problems, and high infrastructure and environmental costs.
During the last few years, progress has also been made and there has been a real increase in short sea shipping: from 1990 to 1997, a 17% increase in the tonnage transported and a 23% increase in the number of tonnes per kilometre.
While there is no doubt about its success, this mode of transport has not yet reached its full potential and maximised its hidden advantages: advantages in terms of cost since it is the most economical mode of transport; advantages in terms of the amount of energy consumed per tonne/kilometre; advantages in terms of efficiency since it is the most efficient mode of transport from the point of view of the amount of investment required in relation to transport capacity; advantages in terms of regional cohesion since it is the most suitable mode for servicing the peripheral regions of Europe; advantages in terms of the environment since it causes less pollution than mainland traffic; and advantages in terms of intermodal transport since it is an ideal way of developing multimodal transport.
We must therefore act quickly in order to contribute to its development.
In particular, we will have to develop joint investment programmes.
One of the priorities will have to be to increase the efficiency of port operations and reduce waiting times in ports.
I would stress the fact that the public authorities have a major role to play at regional level, as well as national and European level.
However, two points in my fellow Member' s report pose a problem for me.
They concern the proposal which seeks to draw up a list of ports which are particularly suitable for short sea shipping.
Drawing up such a list seems unnecessary to me and, in particular, runs the risk of penalising those ports which are not yet entirely suitable, but which are being converted for this purpose.
Moreover, a 'one­stop­shop' approach to the transport logistics services offered to end users is proposed.
While I am in favour of the idea that we need to find the means to set up an information system, I am against the service being centralised by a large port, which is already in a dominant market position.
Finally, I would have liked the report to have included the proposal made by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, according to which short sea shipping must be considered neither as an alternative to road transport nor as a competitive system.
The European Commission should therefore develop an intermodal strategy to achieve complementarity between the modes of transport.
In this context and with this in mind, the Member States should harmonise current legislation in order to prevent it from representing an obstacle to continuity between short sea shipping and mainland traffic, particularly as regards the total weight of rolling stock.
The proposal which is being put forward to us today therefore represents an important step in the right direction in the area of short sea shipping.
However, we still have a long way to go.
Combating serious environmental crime
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0178/2000) by Mr Di Lello Finuoli, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the Kingdom of Denmark with a view to the adoption of a Council Framework Decision on combating serious environmental crime [5343/2000 - C5-0078/2000 - 2000/0801(CNS)]
Mr President, the framework decision put forward by the Council merely reproduces the Council of Europe Convention of 1998 on the prevention of environmental crime, a Convention which has not yet been ratified by any of the Member States of the Council of Europe.
The sole purpose of this proposal for a framework decision is to speed things up, at least with regard to the 15 Member States.
In almost every country environmental laws are based almost entirely on very small fines, and this encourages those who are destroying the environment to maximise their profits by trying to avoid using all the modern techniques available to protect the environment.
And so, in recent years we have witnessed major disasters such as that of the Erika, which was a rust bucket used to transport crude oil by sea, or the pollution of the Danube with cyanide from Romanian mines.
And all this because, as I was saying, these big companies are guaranteed impunity, with the aim of maximising profits.
First of all, this framework decision allows European countries to raise fines to make this offence - environmental crime - unprofitable.
Indeed, until such time as environmental crime is paid for by the community and not by individuals, there is no hope of protecting the environment.
Another area where this framework decision impacts is that of encouraging European countries to adopt sanctions, or at least a system making environmental crime a punishable offence for legal persons.
Few European countries provide for the liability of legal persons in their criminal law, but others are taking steps towards this.
Italy too, in revising the new penal code, intends to make legal persons punishable, because today serious environmental crime is not committed by individuals but by large multinationals, which cause huge disasters simply because they do not invest in prevention.
European countries should agree on fairly general regulations soon and, in any case, raise fines so that these offences are not paid for out of the community' s pocket.
Another important aspect is the cooperation that this framework decision will bring about between countries: an information network enabling a rapid exchange of information and an agreement which requires environmental crime to be considered as a crime that may lead to extradition or for example the confiscation of property and profits, and which, in any case, makes these offences unprofitable.
I would just like to point out that the committee approved this report almost unanimously, with only one abstention, and all the political groups, from the PPE to the PSE to the Greens, contributed to improving it.
This report therefore expresses the point of view of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms, and, we hope, expresses the point of view of the European Parliament, which must ensure that the European countries at last adopt effective legislation on the protection of the environment.
draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. (SV) Mr President, as draftsperson of the opinion prepared by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the basis of the Hughes procedure, I am able to say on behalf of the whole Committee that we welcome the Danish initiative which, together with our amendments, was adopted unanimously in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
We consider that this initiative will be a useful instrument for combating those environmental crimes and their ever more common cross-border consequences which are, of course, a direct threat to the environment and also, therefore, to human beings, animals and plant life.
Serious environmental crimes are a common problem for the Member States because their effects are not confined to individual countries.
Therefore, we also ought to be able to take common measures to protect the environment as effectively as possible using the provisions of criminal law.
I would point out that this Framework Decision is to be made unanimously in the Council, and it has been agreed that it will be binding upon the Member States.
At the same time, it should be remembered that it is the Member States which decide how the results are to be achieved, that is to say which method is to be applied and which course of action adopted.
How is this to happen? Perhaps, for example, through efficient investigations promptly carried out, by sharing the information obtained in this way and by ensuring that these investigations are carried out by staff knowledgeable about the environment.
That is extremely important.
By means of administrative cooperation between the Member States, it is also possible to obtain such information as can be of use in enabling us to combat environmental crime.
I would also, however, point out something which we also emphasised in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, namely that we must also go in for preventive measures, that is to say measures to be taken before environmental damage has been caused and environmental crimes committed.
It is therefore also important for legislation to deal with environmental liability, that is to say the issue of who is liable, and for there to be effective legislation of this kind in the various Member States.
More knowledge, pure and simple, about the environment and details of relevant techniques are also, of course, required, as well as information on how to detect environmental crime, on the consequences of this and on the penalties that can be imposed.
It is important to try to cooperate as much as possible in this area.
Serious environmental crime is defined in this Framework Decision as 'acts or omissions which, under aggravating circumstances and in breach of the legislation, result in substantial damage to the environment' .
It is, of course, open to discussion how the definition in terms of the words 'serious environmental crime' and 'substantial damage' is to be interpreted, but that is no doubt as far as the definition goes, even if it is not recognisable in legislation outside the Member States.
We have looked at this definition of serious environmental crime in the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Because the definition is so vague, we consider it important to obtain as wide an area of application as possible in the proposed Framework Decision.
Moreover, combating serious environmental crime cannot only apply to private companies but must also apply to administrative crime, that is to say cases where the administrative regimes in the various countries, or in fact the governments, have brought about serious environmental damage either through negligence or irresponsibility.
We have tried to include such circumstances by means of Amendment 16.
Another important aspect is what is regarded as 'aggravating circumstances' if the organisation which has caused serious environmental damage has been inadequately insured and has been so, too, in connection with the risks entailed in the particular business.
What is at stake here is the issue of liability and the polluter pays principle, as well as the principle that the burden, consequences and risks should not be imposed upon others.
This may be found in Amendment 25.
Finally, I just want to say that we are on the way to taking joint action to protect the environment.
This Framework Decision is one step, like the Council of Europe' s Convention on the Protection of the Environment through criminal law.
The Framework Decision also states that this convention must be ratified as quickly as possible because it is significantly more detailed.
These steps are absolutely necessary, I believe, to deter environmental crooks and prevent irresponsible actions which cause serious environmental damage.
I am in favour of the Framework Decision and of the amendments which have been tabled.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I must begin by highlighting the excellent work that Mr Di Lello Finuoli has carried out on this report, which received, as he has already said, the almost unanimous support of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
I also wish to praise this initiative by Denmark, which seeks to ensure that a Framework Decision on combating serious environmental crime is approved.
We are all aware of the increasing scale and the frequent cross-border effects of this type of crime.
I must also mention one of the recent surveys by Eurobarometer, which confirms that the environment, together with security, health and unemployment, is one of the concerns closest to the hearts of the European citizens.
We therefore have an obligation to respond to these concerns, in a way that will guarantee the protection of the environment and public health, with a view to improving the quality of our citizens' lives.
The truth requires us to recognise that the European Union has made considerable progress in the area of the environment over the last five years.
Today, even from the point of view of the Treaties, we have already seen a balanced and sustained form of development taking place.
Under the terms of the Tampere conclusions, environmental crime is one of the areas specifically mentioned, on which efforts must be concentrated in order to establish common definitions, charges and sanctions between the various national criminal laws.
There is therefore a crucial need for joint action by the Member States in order to protect the environment under criminal law.
We in the Member States are facing a common problem, which, more and more, is having effects which go beyond the borders of the State in which the crimes are committed.
This makes it crucial that we implement concerted measures for protecting the environment under criminal law, which are in force right across the territory of the European Union. Either through criminal laws or through severe sanctions - and I stress the adjective severe - which are commensurate with the offence and which act as an effective deterrent.
Furthermore, as Mrs Schörling pointed out, there must also be a global course of preventive action, under which Member States can guarantee that companies whose activities involve a greater risk to the environment and which might have harmful effects on public health are properly informed about the environmental consequences of their activities and that they adopt the appropriate safety measures and precautions.
It is therefore imperative that the methods for combating serious environmental crimes are strengthened and coordinated between Member States.
To conclude, I wish to call on the Member States that have not yet signed up to the Council of Europe' s 1998 Convention on the protection of the environment, to adopt, under their national legislation, the necessary measures to do so as quickly as possible.
) Mr President, the harmonisation of Member States' criminal law on combating environmental crime forms a very serious part of the policy to create an area of freedom, security and justice and an essential supplement to any effective environmental policy.
I would therefore like to congratulate both the Danish Government on the initiative it has undertaken and the honourable members, Mr Di Lello Finuoli and Mrs Schörling, who have used their texts to broaden and specify the scope of the initiative.
Despite the Danish initiative being a positive step in the right direction, it does in fact have its weak points in comparison, for example, with the 1998 Council of Europe Convention.
This is because it focuses solely on criminal law and disregards questions of prevention, health, protection of cultural heritage and so forth.
However, despite its weak points and contradictions, the initiative is a positive one because it promotes the creation of a legislative framework which will allow for more coordinated joint action through a stronger Europol, mainly in tackling cross-border environmental crime.
It lays down minimum sanctions, particularly for cases in which the environment is sacrificed at the altar of profit.
I fully endorse this approach because, as we all know, the punishments laid down for environmental crime are grossly out of proportion with the effect which these crimes have on society as a whole.
However, we feel that the Danish initiative has not properly examined the Member States' legislation and will probably be difficult to implement because of the major discrepancies between them.
But I do agree with the reference to the liability of legal persons given that, by definition and by nature, the majority of environmental crimes are committed by corporations and industries.
I also feel that the reference to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is essential as I think that every proposal ought to take account of the prospect of enlargement.
Furthermore, I must stress the need for educating and training the personnel who will be responsible for investigating and prosecuting environmental crimes, the need to highlight preventative measures and the need for all the Member States to ratify the 1998 Convention of the Council of Europe. To date, not one Member State has ratified it.
I should also like to stress that the Member States will have to pledge to work together on this extremely important issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is both an incredibly complicated and, at the same time, incredibly important area.
It is a logical continuation of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Council of Ministers' summit in Tampere.
It is a classic area requiring cooperation.
When we look at the Danish text, as well as at Mr Di Lello Finuoli' s report and Mrs Schörling' s opinion, which are both excellent, we see, however, that it is an extremely complicated area.
We must have good coordination between the assistance agreement, which has recently been debated here in the Chamber, and the rules concerning money laundering.
I am not completely certain that the instrument is ready in every respect, but I am pleased that the attempt is being made to avoid duplicating the work of the Council of Europe.
We see that there are really three parts to the Danish initiative, plus the demand for ratification of the Council of Europe' s Convention.
It is important to have regulations in criminal law so that we can prevent environmental crime.
I personally believe that confiscation rules are more important than the demand for strict penalties and severe fines.
Experience shows that a very great deal can, in fact, be achieved by means of strict confiscation rules.
We have the old saw, 'Crime must not pay' .
As Mrs Schörling also pointed out, we must have close cooperation, including when it comes to the rules relating to environmental liability which we are to draw up and which are mentioned in Article 2 (a).
I am pleased that, in the opinion she has drafted, Mrs Schörling also takes up the question of animals, which does not surprise me at all.
I think that we in this Chamber should say loudly and clearly that this must be an instrument with which we tackle the disgraceful ways in which animals are transported.
We are quite surprised that the Commission, for example, has not set to and wanted to apply the existing rules.
Why is the Commission so passive - much more passive than in many other areas - when it comes to being the Guardian of the Treaties on the issue of protecting animals in transit?
Amendments 16 and 19 introduce interesting matters which I doubt would be a part of many other countries' criminal legislation.
They concern misleading information provided by local or national authorities, at the same time as the latter, in their turn, have been misled.
I think this is something we should study in the future.
I see this as a clear illustration of the current questions in Baia Mare and of the investigation which is under way there concerning who is really liable.
Who has misled whom? These are very complicated, very interesting and very important questions.
I am also pleased that specific vessels have been cited and that there is also a readiness to apply measures outside the territory of the EU.
We should nonetheless be aware that, if we do this, we must also define what constitutes the type of serious environmental crime we are talking about combating.
Mr President. I think it is accepted by most people that the existing laws are much too lenient and it is important that some sort of provision is put in place to ensure that criminal law cases are possible.
In the present situation there is no incentive whatsoever either for companies to clean up their act, to take responsibility to ensure that negligence does not occur.
This has a knock-on effect on other companies as well.
When it comes to taking legal action it is up to individual citizens themselves to take up these cases and that can be extremely difficult and expensive.
Of course, people can be up against big companies with huge amounts of power and resources at their disposal which makes it very very difficult in many cases for them to pursue these cases to the end and ensure that the companies pay the price.
They really are criminals who through negligence or through deliberate action are destroying the environment, affecting human health, affecting our flora and fauna and causing in many other ways long-term damage, all in the interest of profit.
Companies that manage land and sea transport, for example, have in many cases absolutely no sense of responsibility and it is essential for some sort of sanctions to be put in place to ensure that they are forced to act responsibly.
Governments should provide more information and make clear to the public the scale and effects of environmental crime because many sections of our society are unaware of this.
For example in relation to water, soil, our health, flora, fauna and indeed climate, it is extremely important that proper information is made available.
Moreover it is not just companies.
Sometimes it is national authorities who are actually flouting the law and behaving in an utterly negligent way.
I do not have to go any further than my own country to see that in many cases local authorities and so on are actually responsible themselves for environmental damage.
And, when it comes to enforcing the law in relation to companies that are operating in their area, they are negligent in that respect as well.
It seems that profit comes before the interests of the public and the environment.
That should not be allowed to continue and authorities who fail to enforce the law should themselves be held liable for the environmental damage caused as a result.
Whether it is deliberate or through negligence, at the end of the day it makes very little difference because the damage is done.
In many cases companies use the argument of negligence rather than saying it is deliberate but in fact negligence in its way is deliberate.
These firms knew the consequences and they should be held accountable for the complete and total cost of cleaning up the damage that they have caused wherever possible.
The other thing I would like to point out is that there are companies, such as British Nuclear Fuels, who have absolutely no sense of public responsibility or environmental awareness.
They have been causing pollution for such a long, long time the length of our coast by polluting the Irish Sea and putting the public in Ireland, and indeed on the west coast of the United Kingdom, at serious risk.
You only have to look at what happened in Chernobyl which again was due to a negligent attitude.
How long is that going to take to rectify? These situations can no longer be allowed in a world where we should be fully aware of the environmental problems that we are causing.
We have the technology, the know-how and the resources to ensure that these things do not happen.
The Erika is another example of negligence.
I would also like to support the last speaker who talked about animal transport.
This is deliberate exploitation and ill-treatment of animals and should be taken into account as well.
On an international level we have seen many many disasters in the past, just to take Bhopal as an example.
Cost-cutting and cutting corners caused the biggest environmental disaster in history.
That company still has not been held properly and legally responsible.
It was taken to court in India.
The head of the company was supposed to be arrested and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
He absconded to the United States where he has decided to stay and has not come back to face the consequences of his action, even despite warrants from Interpol.
Then there are the issues of forestry and fishing.
The malpractice of many fishing activities should be taken into account because it is also an environmental crime which has long-term consequences.
It is about time that we all faced up to our responsibilities because we have not only ourselves and our environment to think of but future generations as well.
The only way we are going to do that is to ensure that environmental damage is considered one of the most serious crimes in our society.
Mr President, it is not difficult to express one' s support for the analysis that has been put forward in this report.
The effects of environmental crime spread into the territory of many countries.
The importation and exportation of crimes does not recognise the EU' s external borders.
The crimes are often committed by a corporate body.
The crimes are often perpetrated in a spirit of profit-making.
The perpetrator makes the profit; external costs are left for others to pay.
You analysed the situation quite correctly: the environment must be broadly interpreted as people' s health, biodiversity and artistic and cultural heritage.
It is not hard to support a policy that makes it easier to combat environmental crime.
These crimes must be made unprofitable; they cannot be allowed to have merely financial consequences. They have to be prevented.
Publicity is also one way of combating environmental criminality.
Why do we not start by publicising, or demanding publicity for, the fact that the Belgian Government allows unclean waste water to run into the river in the city of Brussels?
Mr President, on behalf of the Italian radical members of the Technical Group of Independent Members, I would like to say that the Di Lello Finuoli report certainly contributes to improving Denmark' s initiative, and we therefore congratulate the rapporteur.
However, in addition to repeating the positive things that have already been said, it is important to stress some of the limitations of Denmark' s initiative, precisely to help us to take more effective action in the future.
Mrs Karamanou has already made an important point: in reality, the Council is not telling us what the current state of the Member States' laws is.
Now, my reaction may well be over-cautious, but I am very suspicious of those who say: let us raise fines, let us increase the sanctions, without, however, telling us what these fines and sanctions are.
I think it would have been appropriate for Denmark and the Council to have also given us a framework of sanctions, so that we could have seen what really are the most serious gaps that need to be filled and the most serious limitations of the European situation.
The part on criminal sanctions is, of course, important, and the European legal framework must surely be made consistent. Nevertheless, this is not the only question concerning respect for the environment and environmental disasters: we need to take a more comprehensive view of the matter.
We know, for example, that the levels of pollutant emissions are decreasing in the European Union, and they are decreasing because of the structure underpinning the way the economy operates.
Clearly, we also need to intervene with the criminal framework where real crimes are committed, but it is important for the criminal framework to be consistent with the rest of the legislation, administrative sanctions and provisions regulating the economy in order to make the overall framework consistent.
Indeed, administrative sanctions, which affect the effective costs of businesses, are often sanctions which have an even stronger preventive effect than criminal sanctions: the person in charge of a business or a company is unlikely to consider the risk of being arrested or of facing criminal sanctions when a tragedy occurs, while on the other hand, it is preferable if he or she is obliged, on a daily basis, to consider the higher expense that polluting processes entail.
Having said that, if, as many of the Members have said, the Council of Europe Convention is more comprehensive and more consistent, perhaps in these cases we should also ask ourselves how the European Union might be able to consider the Council of Europe texts directly in order to make legislation more homogeneous, both within and outside the Union.
I would like to make one final remark about the sensitive matter of the relationship between the State and pollution.
We speak of individuals and companies, whereas the state-owned companies or the State itself are often partly responsible for major environmental disasters.
This is something which should be taken into account, and I think that the initiative of Denmark and the Council does not do this directly enough.
I will end by extending my congratulations once more to the rapporteur, Mr Di Lello Finuoli.
Mr President, in all decisions and acts, it is sensible first to examine what has already been regulated and what else we are prepared to do or can do.
In the Council of Europe - and this has already been echoed by others - a convention was concluded in 1998 to fight international environmental crime.
However, most Member States have yet to sign and ratify this "Convention of the Council of Europe on the Protection of the Environment" .
Denmark has proposed that more far-reaching measures be taken at EU level to fight environmental crime.
Within the Council of Ministers, the only item which survived in the framework decision was that of criminalisation, and all Denmark' s other ideas have been taken out.
As such, the added value of such a framework decision has been nullified, since penalisation was already included in the Council of Europe' s Convention.
In more concrete terms, fewer countries have signed up to the framework decision than the Council of Europe' s Convention.
Hence it is preferable for various Member States to sign and ratify the Council of Europe' s Convention.
Needless to say, I welcome further steps at EU level, such as the Danish proposal.
My question to the Council of Ministers is whether it would be prepared to go this extra mile.
The European Parliament, however, is now caught in a dilemma. Should it issue a recommendation with regard to the Danish proposal or with regard to the Council of Ministers' amended proposal?
Since we only have the Danish proposal at our disposal, we will use it as our basis, although we wonder whether this is at all useful, because if the Council enforces the watered-down proposal, I for one will argue against laying down any EU framework decision at all.
Concerning the Danish proposal, I would firstly point out that this framework decision should mainly be considered as a supplement to the national approach to environmental crime.
This supplement must have a legal framework for an international approach, such as coordination, information exchange, reporting of crimes, central registration and criminal prosecution in international environmental crime.
In order to make clear what does and does not fall within the scope of the framework decision, a sound definition of environmental crime is vital.
I principally assent to the formulations proposed by Denmark, although I wonder whether the illegal trade in threatened flora and fauna could be added to the definition.
Even if we can agree on a sound definition, the application will be difficult in practice. Was the Erika disaster an example of environmental crime?
And what about the cyanide pollution in Romania? It was a clear case of extensive environmental damage, but do the other criteria apply too?
It is important that liability for these acts eventually falls to those responsible. It would be useful if this issue could be included in the White Paper on environmental liability.
Many of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs concern editorial changes, some of which are redundant.
In my opinion, it is better to give the Danish proposal to the Council our full backing than to propose minor changes of no real consequence.
I do, however, support additional ideas, such as providing information on the effects of environmental crime and court rulings.
Mr President, naturally I am interested in the European Commission' s view.
Could Commissioner Schreyer clarify this rather odd procedure which we have ended up with?
Mr President, on most occasions when my Irish colleague Mrs McKenna speaks in this House we would disagree, but on an issue like this we have far more in common than that which divides us.
I certainly recognise that the greatest environmental disasters occur as a consequence either of irresponsibility or the actions of those who are driven by the profit motive, irrespective of the consequences.
Regrettably such disasters affect many countries at the same time.
We know only too well that major environmental disasters respect no international frontiers.
In more recent times we experienced the problems caused by the pollution of the Danube with cyanide from Romanian mines, the Erika tanker break-up off the French Atlantic coastline and, from an Irish point of view, the continuing problems caused by Sellafield.
And of course in the not-so-distant past there was Chernobyl, the memory of which still haunts us.
Events such as this will continue to recur unless and until we establish the "polluter pays" principle in the fullest sense of these words.
Multinational firms will only change their behaviour when they are forced to pay heavily for their misdeeds.
They will continue to inflict damage on the environment when the rewards far exceed the punishment.
Their attitude is based on the simple belief that implementing restrictive environmental protection either harms their business activities or increases their financial overheads significantly.
Furthermore, any meagre fine they will be obliged to pay pales into insignificance when compared to the huge profits that they make.
I therefore welcome this initiative that acknowledges the international nature of environmental damage.
It recognises the need for strong punitive sanctions.
In particular the criminalisation of environmental damage will send a clear warning to those responsible for it.
If the Danish proposals were to be implemented, those who put unsafe vessels on our seas would think twice.
Others, such as the management at Sellafield, who deliberately conceal information and involve themselves in bad practices, be held accountable for their deeds.
And the chief executives and managers of the multinationals who make the important decisions displaying the callous disregard for the consequences would face the proposal of not only seeing their businesses maybe in some cases closed down because of heavy fines and seizure of assets and so on, but they themselves could face imprisonment.
I believe that this is a direction in which we must go but I would also like to make one additional point.
Proposals and actions in this field should not simply be confined to the territory of the European Union.
We have a responsibility to ensure that multinational firms are unable to transport their damage and their behaviour to the developing world because of restrictions that we may place upon them within the European Union.
We must also impose standards on European firms that operate in the developing world and seek international cooperation to have tough standards and sanctions applied on a worldwide basis.
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the Danish Government on taking the initiative to propose the Council framework decision that we are discussing, which aims to equip us with more effective tools for combating serious environmental crime.
We also congratulate the rapporteur, Mr. Di Lello Finuoli, who, throughout the negotiation of this initiative, has acted with great clarity and strength in relation to our shared principles and values, but also with prudence and flexibility, which led him to adopt several amendments incorporating various adjustments.
We are therefore arriving at a final proposal that we consider to be both reasonable and ambitious.
We welcome the fact that, by means of this framework decision, the European Union is supporting the Convention on the Protection of the Environment through criminal law that was approved in the Council of Europe in 1998 and which has so far not been ratified by enough States to enter into force.
In the European Union, only nine Member States have signed it, and only one has so far ratified it, which is still quite scandalous.
My colleague and compatriot Carmen Cerdeira contributed ideas and amendments that are now part of the text on which we are going to vote.
I agree with these and would like to highlight four aspects in which I feel that we have succeeded in improving the initial proposal during the parliamentary process.
The first aspect is that it is recognised that a country may act against criminals when the crime against the environment has been committed on its own territory, but also when it has been committed in another country, if the consequences of that crime affect the former.
The second aspect is that this ability to act has been extended and will affect not only crimes that have been committed, but also attempted crimes which, for one reason or another, do not have any effect, but could have had effects.
A third element is that it is applied to legal persons, when they are responsible, as it is they, rather than individuals, that commit the vast majority of serious environmental crimes.
The fourth element that I wish to highlight is that the financial and other penalties imposed for such crimes will always have to be greater than the benefit that the perpetrators would gain from them.
This will put an end to a situation in which, in many cases, it is not only cheap but actually profitable for them to commit a crime.
This is a good document, which we hope will be effective, but we also need to be committed to it.
Mr President, I would first like to join in congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Di Lello Finuoli, on his work.
I am pleased with this initiative from the Danish Government, which is based on the new procedure established in the Treaty of Amsterdam, in order to deal with the matter of ensuring better and greater protection for the environment in the European Union, something which should obviously not be limited by borders within the Union.
My colleague, Mrs Thors, has already expressed our favourable position with regard both to the report and to the amendments tabled by the respective committees, and I will therefore focus on three points.
For some time, I have been trying to ensure that the Commission deals appropriately with European forests, and I have seen the problems that have arisen as a result of the need to deal in a variety of ways with this issue which has a clear environmental dimension.
The first difficulty that I see in truly applying this proposal is in categorising environmental crimes, given the diversity within the Union.
The second matter is the need to consider the international dimension of the crime.
We have seen how difficult it is to find out who is ultimately responsible for many large-scale environmental crimes, but, furthermore, the set of legal responsibilities of the entities who, ultimately, appear to be responsible, really makes it very difficult to actually deal with these crimes from a criminal point of view.
I think that this will be an important task for the Commission.
We have to prevent criminal responsibilities from being blurred.
Thirdly, Mr President, I just want to say that it is essential that the field of justice and home affairs be communitised in the European Union, and this proposal demonstrates that.
Mr President, we in the United Left welcome this initiative from Denmark concerning the penalties which should result from environmental crime.
Clearly, there are quite a lot of Member States which have problems imposing effective penalties for this type of crime.
In my own country, Sweden, a great many reports of environmental crimes are now being made.
It is remarkable, however, how small a proportion of the reports subsequently lead to guilty verdicts.
When one looks at the consequences of these judgements, it has to be said that they are fairly light in many cases.
I do not think that this is in any way unique to Sweden.
These problems certainly exist in a number of Member States, and there are certainly many different reasons for this.
One reason may be a lack of knowledge and of resources for investigating environmental crimes through the legal system. At the same time, there is also still an outmoded view that environmental crimes are not as serious as other crimes and that environmental laws are not as binding as other laws.
If that is the case, then that is, of course, quite unacceptable.
Major financial interests are often at stake.
At present, it pays to commit environmental crimes because the risk of having a penalty imposed is so small.
What is perhaps most remarkable about this is that there are so few countries which can sue legal persons and hold companies liable.
Altering this state of affairs is perhaps the most important change which can be made.
Obviously, this is, in the first place, a responsibility of the Member States, and there should be international cooperation in this area.
Coordination as a result of this initiative is, of course, also necessary.
In addition to the fact that coordination reinforces the work done by the Member States, I would emphasise three other reasons for engaging in this.
The first is that many environmental crimes have international consequences, something which many people have emphasised in the course of the debate.
The second reason is that, if this Danish initiative is implemented, it will facilitate pan-European environmental cooperation in the Council of Europe and perhaps enable this convention to be complied with.
The third reason is that we all know that environmental law is that area of EC law which is least complied with.
An initiative like this might also lead to EC law being better observed in the environmental area which is absolutely necessary if we consider how certain directives are followed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Save the Planet!
This is a mission which we have to accomplish.
Sustainability is a really important concept, particularly in times like these.
We should try to set an example because the environment is a really important criterion for future generations.
However, I should particularly like to come back to Amendment No 3, which concerns the profit motive.
The profit motive is also something completely natural and sensible.
Companies in the red or countries which get into debt cannot pay the salaries which are desirable for employees and civil servants.
We are in favour of high salaries, so we also need to make profits.
At the end of the day, I also support small and medium-sized enterprises.
There are 18 million of them in the European Union, on which jobs directly depend.
Whether profits or long-term losses are made threatens the company' s existence and in particular, also the jobs it creates.
I should now like to come to Amendment No 8 and point out that criminal law is obviously not like occupational practice legislation.
I would have liked us to have obtained at least an opinion on this from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market because such issues are, after all, extremely important in principle and in my view, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy cannot deal with them conclusively on its own.
I should also like to make it clear that the company' s obligation to gain trust must be defined or interpreted in such a way that it must of course relate to the rules concerning the extent of the authorisation for the plant.
The individual company must, of course, be aware of the rules, so that it can then also comply with them.
On Amendment No 19, I should like to say that it can obviously only be taken to mean deliberately providing misleading information, and Amendment No 20 obviously only deals with financial gain.
On Amendment No 25, I should like to say that within the insurance industry it is in fact still not possible to calculate or insure pure environmental damage.
We would need it to be defined precisely.
I believe, nevertheless, that this proposal is by and large very sensible, especially when we think of enlargement with Central and Eastern European countries.
If we create a legal framework for the future now, it could be very useful to our thinking on the environment.
However, I am of the opinion that the criminal sanctions should first and foremost only be applied in the case of criminal intent or persistent gross negligence.
The threat of imprisonment is an approach that really threatens a person' s livelihood!
I should not like to put a worker behind bars and threaten his livelihood because on one occasion, he acts with gross negligence by not turning off a tap.
I would therefore suggest that we are extremely cautious with these criteria because this is obviously a very sensitive area.
We should also think very carefully how to optimise the best practice method in this instance, that is to say, best practice and benchmarking and offering incentives are an important basis particularly for environmental protection.
The European Union, in particular, has shown that a great deal can be achieved in this respect with numerous incentives, research and development, and consultation.
However, training and certification are obviously necessary too.
We have already spoken about EMAS this week.
If we follow this positive route via incentives, then we will really be protecting our planet.
Mr President, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group on this Danish initiative for a framework directive on combating environmental crime, I must say that I support the principle of this initiative.
Environmental crime, whether it be the illegal trade in endangered species of flora and fauna or their products, or whether it be the illegal export and dumping of toxic waste in other countries, either inside or outside the European Union, is a growing and increasingly a cross-border problem.
Those engaged in these crimes in the search for profit hide within the interstices of European law.
This cannot be allowed to continue.
It is important that we have legislation in place to protect us against serious environmental crime before we see further enlargement of the European Union.
At the moment, we have nothing to combat these crimes but derisory financial penalties.
We must impose prison sentences as well as serious financial penalties and orders for restitution when people are found guilty of environmental crimes.
We must identify as culprits not the victims who drive the lorries full of toxic waste, or hawk the products which threaten species, but those who make the decisions and who supply the goods, the big men and women rather than the little men and women.
As usual, of course, the devil is in the detail.
The Danes want harmonisation in criminal law, increased European cooperation, a register of expertise and know-how and the use of Europol.
Some difficulties exist in resolving all of these to the satisfaction of the 15 Member States of the Union.
All can be resolved, but some will have to wait.
It is probably too early at this stage, for example, to widen Europol' s remit without overloading the work of this important organisation.
This proposal suffers from the same problems we have too often in the European Union.
Without increased resources, Europol' s capabilities are limited, but I congratulate Mr Di Lello Finuoli on his report.
Mr President, yesterday we debated and voted on a report from the Committee on Petitions.
This year that Committee has dealt with a thousand complaints from citizens.
Forty percent of those one thousand complaints are associated with violations of Community environmental law.
Given these complaints we can appreciate the need for the proposal that we are examining, a Council proposal at the request of the Kingdom of Denmark, and also the need to approve the reports by Mr Di Lello Finuoli and by Mrs Schörling, from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
I believe that this report covers three important aspects.
Firstly, the request that the Council of Europe Convention on the Environment should not only be signed, but also that it should be ratified.
No state has ratified the convention so far, but that is not contradictory with adopting this report here today.
The report gives a quite correct definition of the parameters that are useful for defining the crime: repeated violations of Community law, the seriousness of the damage and, in some cases, putting profits before any other consideration.
We believe that the crimes are often clearly premeditated.
Of course they are, Mr President, even in the case of some environmental crimes that appear to be accidental.
I well remember the case of Doñana in Spain or of the Danube.
It was obvious that a reservoir containing such a large quantity of dangerous products near to a natural park such as Doñana could cause an accident at any time.
Secondly, Mr President, I feel that penalties are essential.
I am in no doubt about this.
Some of the Members here today shed doubt on the need for penalties.
I do not. I think that even the 'polluter pays' principle is a partial one.
Sometimes there are those who prefer to pollute and pay a small amount, which is much less than the profits that they will gain from committing the crime.
Penalties are therefore essential, and they need to be designed to act as a deterrent and to be proportional to the damage to citizens' quality of life.
Thirdly, the natural environment should be regenerated.
Mr President, is it not acceptable that, in the case of Doñana, public money should be being used to regenerate the area, while the company that caused the major damage has only contributed a small proportion?
It is therefore essential to regenerate the damaged environment, and also for legal persons to be liable.
Only in the United Kingdom, Finland, and Denmark are there rules that enable legal persons to be held liable.
To conclude, Mr President, I would like to mention cooperation between states, which is essential.
In the Committee on Petitions, we are aware of the terrible frustration felt by those citizens who take the trouble to report environmental crimes and see that, in Europe, we are incapable of coming to their aid in order to improve the natural environment in which they live and to prevent these crimes.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, many thanks to Denmark for this excellent initiative, and thanks too to the rapporteur for the good work.
It is definitely so that when the fines are small, environmental crime becomes lucrative.
But we have to remember that this branch of criminality also affects people, people within and outside the workplace.
The framework decision would prevent this sort of crime from being profitable.
In my opinion, however, the multinational giants are the big problem, and co-operation between the authorities is needed in this area, also so that these regulations might enter into force before enlargement.
The worst environmental crimes are those perpetrated by companies, for which it is just part of their business.
Some of these are repeatedly found guilty of these crimes.
It is just this repeated, intentional, environmentally criminal activity that is what we should be looking into.
I hope that the Commission will make a public register of such companies, as for them it has become just a part of their business.
Consumers and people in general could then bring public opinion to bear on the situation.
I come from a country where we can initiate criminal proceedings against a corporate body, and that has had an impact and preventive effect there.
It is obvious that the director of a company will take a more serious view of the environment, as it is possible that he will end up isolated from it as a result of having gone to prison for criminally abusing it.
I therefore think that when people start having to face the consequences, progress will be made in the matter both within the Union and in other respects.
Mr President, like everyone else, I want to join in the praise of the Danish Government which has taken this initiative.
It goes to show that there can be aggressive and progressive action in the Council when it comes specifically to environmental questions.
As we know, conscious and intentional misconduct by companies and individuals in environmental matters not only puts our countryside at risk but also endangers people' s lives.
I am quite convinced that if anyone says the word Teckomatorp in my country, Sweden, then everyone - or at any rate the majority of people - knows what the word signifies, even though it is an environmental crime which was committed more than 20 years ago.
It concerned a company which did not manage to deal with its poisonous waste but chose instead to bury it in the ground and in that way put a whole district at risk.
Unfortunately, Teckomatorp is not the only event of this kind, and many representatives here in Parliament have also witnessed other events which have occurred since then, not to mention the situation - akin to that in the Wild West - which prevails on our high seas.
Obviously, we must regard environmental crimes as seriously as we regard all other criminal acts.
Common definitions of environmental crime are therefore also needed.
I agreed with the draftsperson of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, Mrs Schörling, that, in order to prevent environmental crime, we also need effective legislation governing environmental liability.
Preventive measures are the best way of guarding against further crimes against our environment.
If we are to be able to investigate suspected environmental crimes efficiently and well, special knowledge is also required on the part of both police and prosecutors.
Otherwise, there is a danger of these crimes' not being properly investigated.
If these crimes are not detected quickly, they can remain unsolved or perhaps not have anything done about them at all.
In the few seconds I have left, I want to address the Commission directly with the request which, among others, Mrs Thors and Mrs McKenna mentioned in connection with the transport of livestock, instances of which occur every day within the Union and which are perhaps the most obvious environmental crimes we face today.
I should like the Commissioner to take this issue seriously on board and ensure that we get something done about the current situation.
I really believe we have the citizens of the entire Union behind us when it comes to doing something about the dreadful ways in which livestock are transported.
Mr President, honourable Members, I think I can say with regard to your last request that I would be happy to accept it along these lines.
The Commission takes the view that the initiative of the Kingdom of Denmark for a Council Framework Decision basically consists of two parts.
The first part should lead to any serious culpable breach of environmental legislation within the Community being punishable with criminal sanctions which are effective and act as a deterrent.
It puts forward a minimum standard with regard to criminal acts.
The initiative mainly focuses on this part, which in essence corresponds to the provisions of a convention which was adopted by the Council of Europe in November 1998.
Unfortunately, none of the Member States - and this has also been pointed out several times here - has ratified this convention yet. I can therefore understand Denmark' s initiative, which now seeks to deal with this issue afresh within the framework of the Community powers.
The second part, on the other hand, contains provisions on improving cooperation and the exchange of information between the law enforcement authorities and the courts of law of the Member States.
There is a lot to be said for an all­embracing approach to such issues of legal assistance and improved cooperation within the judicial field that is not limited just to environmental law.
In accordance with this, a Council working group - one speaker has gone into it already - is currently working just on the first part of the initiative, that is, on substantive criminal law.
There are already several initiatives and proposals on improving cooperation in criminal law matters, which are not limited to environmental criminal law.
A primary aim of the Treaty of Amsterdam and one of the Communities' general objectives is to improve mutual legal assistance, the exchange of information and other forms of cooperation between the courts and the public prosecution authorities of the Member States, in order to create a genuine area of freedom, security and justice.
What we need for this are very clear and transparent provisions, which are easy to deal with, and to which the individual authorities can quickly refer when applying the law.
The Commission takes the view that in order to achieve this and counteract fragmentation within the field of justice, the rules on legal assistance should have as much general applicability as possible.
Special provisions, such as in environmental law, should only be made when required and as an exception.
With this in mind, the European Judicial Network was established in 1998 through a joint action. It has started its work and is developing many activities to make legal assistance and the exchange of information easier.
Of course, the Commission takes the view that this must be developed further.
As well as the international convention already in existence on legal assistance and mutual recognition of judgements, further Community actions are planned in this area.
The Commission very much welcomes the first part of Denmark' s initiative.
Until now, the environment has certainly not been protected as legal property by criminal law in all Member States.
While some Member States have specified particular environmental offences in their criminal law, this is not the case with others.
A serious breach of environmental law is therefore not necessarily punishable in every Member State.
This is then naturally to some extent an incentive for cross­border environmental crimes.
The overall lack of enforcement in environmental protection cannot, of course, be corrected by criminal law measures alone, but here too, this framework decision would certainly provide new impetus.
In the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the question has already been raised as to whether the existing Community law of the first pillar already contains adequate obligations for the Member States.
On this subject, it must be said that the instruments of the first pillar frequently provide for sanctions, but these do not necessarily need to be in the form of criminal law.
Under the first pillar, it is in principle up to the Member States whether they regard sanctions of administrative law as adequate or whether they take up the sharper sword of criminal law.
I would like to mention one point, which still appears problematic from the Commission' s point of view, and which has also been mentioned in different speeches here, and that is the question of the punishability of legal persons.
The Danish initiative provides that legal persons must be made responsible under criminal law for serious environmental offences.
In the Commission' s view, however, account must be taken of the mature legislation of some Member States, which generally rules out punishing legal persons.
Comparable provisions of Community law merely provide that sanctions should be imposed on legal persons, which may then be entirely in the form of administrative law, and - as has rightly been said repeatedly - that the material damage caused is then punished by financial penalties.
This is also included.
On the question of financial penalties, I should once again like to point out the significance of the Green Paper - which the Commission published a few months ago - on environmental liability, which ultimately aims to include the environmental damage caused.
In the interest of the initiative' s chances of implementation, it may well be advisable to proceed in this case by talking about responsibility of legal persons without using the words "under criminal law" .
Irrespective of this, however, the persons responsible for serious environmental offences should, of course, also be subject to criminal law.
There was in fact unanimous agreement on this in this very interesting debate.
To conclude, may I say, on behalf of the Commission, that, unfortunately, we are repeatedly having to instigate infringement proceedings against Member States in matters of environmental law, and there is a large number of infringement proceedings pending in this self-same sector.
Unfortunately, this gives the overall impression that perhaps many Member States do not take the area of environmental protection and environmental law so seriously after all.
Against this background, the Danish initiative is very noteworthy and significant from the Commission' s point of view.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we were more than happy to endorse this report, because we believe that environmental crime is still being underestimated, that its effects often go undetected and liability is sometimes difficult to establish.
The dioxin scandal in Belgium started with the illegal dumping of a few litres of toxic spent oil from transformers which ended up in animal feed. In some cases, environmental crimes are not detected or are detected when it is too late.
Often, environmental officials draw up official reports which are subsequently 'filed away' within the legal system.
After all, fighting and prosecuting environmental crimes is not a priority for many Member States.
At any rate, cooperation in terms of criminal prosecution at European level still leaves a great deal to be desired.
This was once again borne out in this report.
We have established that as yet, Europol has no authority whatsoever to act.
What is more, the majority of Member States still need to ratify the Council of Europe' s 1998 Convention and environmental crimes are still not being penalised adequately in many countries.
If Europe wants to prevent and fight environmental crime effectively, Member States will need to adopt a consistent approach and will need to accept the instruments required to achieve this.
Mr President, this time I shall speak not only as representative of the Pensioners' Party, but also as a former sailor, because both the measures that we have discussed this morning concern the sea: the first, short sea shipping and the other, the environment, and the sea is often the victim of environmental crime.
This morning, a pensioner telephoned me from Liguria and said: "It is really hot.
I wanted to go swimming but I had to come home straight away because the sea was very polluted and full of tar.
So what are you doing for those of us who live in Liguria, in Genoa, and although we have the sea, it is polluted?" "Do not worry" , I said, "Today is Friday 7 July.
On Fridays we normally discuss fish, and today we are discussing the sea."
Now, just as I voted for the measure on short sea shipping ports - and I hope these will include Genoa, Imperia, Savona, Toulon and Marseilles - I also voted for the measure on cleaning up the sea, which is so important for pensioners and people who live on the coast.
Mr President, I came into the Chamber to vote against this report as a protest against the misleading and inaccurate comments made by Mrs McKenna in relation to the management of the nuclear reprocessing plant at Sellafield in the United Kingdom.
I see that Mrs McKenna felt so strongly about the matter herself that she did not bother to attend the vote.
I can only hope that the rest of the debate and the report are more accurate than Mrs McKenna.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
We will now proceed to the approval of the Minutes from yesterday' s sitting.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, yesterday, I gave an explanation of vote in writing on trafficking in human beings, and there is no record of it in the Minutes.
It will be duly corrected, Mrs Laguiller.
Mr President, it is only about a correction concerning the verbatim report of proceedings for Wednesday' s sitting.
That is to say, I have just learnt about this report and discovered the following in the process: I was interrupted by rounds of applause and heckling several times during my speech on the Radwan report about the European Central Bank' s annual report, particularly after the speeches made by several former communists from the GDR, when I described as absolute rubbish the solutions which they - the people who ruined an entire country - have put forward again here, and when I pointed out how important the European Central Bank' s independence is, particularly in view of nine out of twelve national governments in Euroland being red­pink­green.
There is no record of this in the verbatim report of proceedings.
Neither can I find any record in the verbatim report of my statement that it would be better for the strength of the euro if the electorate were to give the red-green governments, of which there are too many, their marching orders rather than imposing political sanctions against Austria. These represent an attempt to manipulate an election result that brought a government to power, which is now trying to create grey markets after 30 years of a socialist web of patronage and nepotism.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mrs Lulling, we are approving the Minutes.
The President has taken note of your correction to the Verbatim Report of Proceedings, and Parliament' s enthusiasm for your comments will be duly noted in the Minutes.
(The Minutes were approved)
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 10.40 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 7 July 2000.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, once again it is my sad duty to open our plenary sitting against the background of the violence in the Spanish Basque Country which has intensified dramatically over the summer.
A further seven victims have been murdered by an organisation whose strategy is clearly, henceforth, one of attempting to defeat democracy by the use of terror.
Let me give the names of the murder victims: José María Martin Carpena, a Popular Party municipal councillor in Malaga, whose widow and daughter are to visit the House tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.; Juan María Jauregui, the former Civil Governor of Guipuzcoa; José Maria Korta, president of the Guipuzcoa employers' association; Francisco Casanova, a Second Lieutenant in the Spanish army; Irene Fernández Pereda and José Angel de Jesus Encinas, members of the Guardia Civil in Sallent de Gallego; Manuel Indiano, Popular Party municipal councillor in Zumarraga.
On each of these sad occasions, I expressed our solidarity with the victims.
I have expressed our condemnation of these unspeakably barbaric acts.
I have also offered the Spanish authorities our support.
Today, Parliament as a whole, unanimous in spite of the range of our political affiliations, is honouring their memory, affirming loudly and clearly that terrorism is the very antithesis of democracy.
To deny the right to life is to kill liberty.
Not only is violence a solution to be condemned, it is also inefficient, as it isolates and excludes the perpetrators of such actions.
I propose a minute' s silence as a last tribute to these victims, as an expression of our support for their families and friends and, indeed, to all democratic men and women in Spain, and particularly in the Spanish Basque Country, who, despite the climate of terror, continue to believe in political dialogue, the fundamental values of civilised society and the ultimate victory of democracy.
Please stand and observe this minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
- Madam President, unfortunately I cannot agree with what you have said.
There is no truth except the whole truth.
A part of reality is not sufficient by itself.
The whole is the only real truth.
This is much more than a metaphysical quotation from Hegel.
We in Euskal Herritarrok also regret profoundly the loss of human lives and share with all Basque citizens the shocked feelings of our people at the moment.
Bertrand Russell denounced the obscenity of deliberately humiliating a nation, of making people crazy so that a straitjacket would be needed.
This is actually the Spanish Government's strategy towards the Basque country.
The action of ETA is a righteous expression of the struggle for recognition of something quite elementary.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso, in view of the circumstances, I must say, personally, and this is perhaps not quite in keeping with my duties as President, that I find your contribution quite unacceptable here.
(Loud applause)
Tribute
Addressing more particularly those Members of Parliament that were members of the previous legislature, it is my very sad duty to inform you of the deaths, this summer, of Vassilis Ephremidis and Staffan Burenstam Linder.
Many of you will have very clear memories of their time with us, of their particularly dynamic presence, and I have taken the liberty of sending condolences to their families on behalf of the House as a whole, of course.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
Mr Murphy, I note your statement.
I have indeed received your letter, and I have forwarded it to the quaestors, who will see what action needs to be taken in response to it.
Madam President, could I ask you to invite colleagues, when they make declarations of that type, to assure themselves that the Member concerned has been informed of such a declaration? It is very discourteous to make that sort of remark, openly in the Chamber, when the Member concerned is not present.
Mr McMillan-Scott, the problem I have is that I never know what subject the Member is going to raise.
In fact, that should really have been a procedural motion.
Madam President, I rise on a point of order on the issue of the recent industrial action at the French Channel ports, which caused major disruption yet again to EU citizens legitimately travelling between the United Kingdom and other Member States.
Is the House aware that the Strawberry Regulation permits expedited procedures for the owners of goods delayed by this type of action to receive compensation, but does not give the same rights of compensation to tourists and other travellers? Are you aware of the anger felt by citizens of this Union who seem to be regularly disrupted by these wildcat actions which are now taking place for the sixth summer running at the Channel ports?
Would you, Madam President, undertake to raise with the President-in-office and the Commission what action can be taken forthwith to stop this happening in future by strengthening the regulation, which I believe is No 2679/98.
Thank you, Mr Bradbourn, I shall happily take note of this comment.
Madam President, I am sorry to take the floor to raise an issue which is not a point of order, but I feel that I should explain what happened today to some interpreters, officials and MEPs.
All of us here today know what a problem it is to get to Strasbourg.
I, for example, need to take three flights, starting at half past seven in the morning, to get from Asturias to Strasbourg.
However, given that we arrive in Paris at 1.20 p.m. and the plane for Strasbourg leaves at 1.30 p.m., it is not acceptable to have a situation where, if the Madrid-Paris flight is delayed, we are left behind.
Some interpreters were due to work at 4.30 p.m. and were unable to do so, and some MEPs, such as Mr Medina, left the Canary Islands yesterday evening to arrive here today at 5.00 p.m.
If we arrive an hour late, they clearly cannot be expected to wait for us.
However, if we arrive in Paris ten minutes late, it is not right that nobody bothers to tell the next flight to wait for us.
This cannot continue, Madam President, because some of us have enormous problems getting here, specifically those of us who come from outlying regions.
I would ask you to speak to Air France.
Mrs González Álvarez, as you know, I am well aware of all these problems.
Believe me, I am continually informing the relevant authorities, both governmental and airport, of our problems.
You all received a questionnaire.
I should like to thank the 300 Members who sent in their completed questionnaires. These will enable us to get an overview of the situation, as the saying goes, and indeed, I have every hope of achieving tangible results, which is what we really need, not another committee or some other such thing.
We need real results which will change the conditions governing Members' travel to Strasbourg and I shall fight at your sides, believe me, in order to obtain them.
Madam President, during the last Strasbourg part-session I communicated to the Presidency the enormous concern in the Bay of Algeciras and the Campo de Gibraltar about the presence of an English nuclear submarine suffering from a serious fault in the cooling system of its nuclear reactor.
I am yet to receive any reply in this regard.
Madam President, we Andalusians are proud to receive this broken-down vessel in our waters, but we are very concerned about the United Kingdom' s stubborn determination to repair the fault there.
It is common knowledge, from the Royal Navy' s own documents, that this port is not sufficiently equipped for the repair of this type of fault.
We would therefore ask for your help so that a section of the European Union' s population may be protected from any possible risk.
To this end, I would ask you to take the necessary steps so that the said submarine may be towed away and repaired somewhere where there are sufficient safeguards, and so that we can thereby prevent the social alarm which is being caused.
Mr Bautista Ojeda, I should like to point out that next Thursday, in the topical and urgent debate, the safety of nuclear submarines will be discussed.
The Conference of Presidents specifically wished to widen the debate beyond the tragic accident of the Kursk.
This will be the appropriate opportunity for you to state your case.
I shall be happy to do so, Mrs Napoletano.
Indeed, we have already made representations on several occasions and, even if we were unsuccessful in changing the course of events, I believe we must continue to do so, and I shall do so wholeheartedly.
Madam President, as other Members have said, there is indeed a problem with air services to Strasbourg.
I should, however, like to remind those members that are such devotees of free competition, that since we deregulated airlines, it is no longer possible to subsidise them and to class services to and from Strasbourg as public service operations, and hence, many invitations to tender have failed to bear fruit because no airline has been prepared to offer flights which are considered to be unprofitable.
Madam President, I am not about to enter into this debate, but I would just like to draw your attention and my fellow Members' attention to another matter concerning this city, which is the extremely sensitive and worrying situation of a group of Hungarian gypsies who arrived in Strasbourg on 24 July, following persecution and racial discrimination in their own country, and who are seeking political asylum not only in our country, but also in other European Union countries.
I do not wish to go into the details of the situation, but the essence of the problem is of very direct concern to us since, on the one hand it provides a very tangible and specific illustration of the problems involved in applying the Copenhagen criteria, which require urgent solutions, and on the other hand, the problems that certain countries that are candidates for membership of the European Union have in fulfilling the terms of the treaty.
Then again, it also forces us to state, once again, that respect for minorities and human rights must be assessed in the same way and on a par with compliance with the economic criteria.
So, Madam President, and I believe you are in complete agreement with this opinion, which is also in line with the opinions adopted by this House on these issues, I should like to see the matter referred to the joint parliamentary committee, in this case the EU-Hungary Joint Parliamentary Committee, at your request, as a matter of urgency.
The group of 46 people who are here, Madam President, the Zamoli gypsies, are placing all their hope in the ability of this House to achieve progress in these matters.
Thank you, Mrs Gillig.
I shall write this evening to the Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, so that he can look into the situation.
Madam President, Mr Murphy was speaking about Mr Hannan' s ill-timed interference in the Danish election campaign.
It is not a problem for us Danes that the Conservatives have nothing to do in England, but are acting the fool in Denmark.
We just smile at them and say, "Heaven knows why they do not just mind their own business over in England and leave us to get on with our own business in Denmark."
Madam President, given that the Chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee is present, I should like to respond immediately to my fellow Member by saying that we are indeed going to hold a meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee this week, and I shall immediately contact the Ambassador, who is scheduled to visit us on Thursday, to see if he can offer some response to these questions as early as the Thursday sitting, and I am perfectly willing to invite my fellow Member to take part in our proceedings on Thursday morning.
Thank you, Mr Desama, you have pre-empted us, so I do not need to write to you.
Madam President, I am one of those MEPs who need to travel for 24 hours in order to be here by 5.00 p.m.
I say this because I have spent half an hour trying to talk about the Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 7 July of this year.
On Friday, 7 July, on behalf of the ELDR Group, I tabled an amendment to Mrs Peijs' s report, which was fortunately accepted.
However, the amendment has not been correctly translated into Spanish since, where it talks about the peripheral regions, I wished to refer, and I in fact did refer, to the outermost regions of the European Union.
Mr García, I apologise. We shall make the correction.
We had not understood that you wished to speak regarding the Minutes.
Lord Bethell, I have, myself, already made a statement on this subject because we are extremely concerned about the highly insecure situation of the winner of the European Parliament Sakharov Prize and we are monitoring this situation extremely closely.
Indeed, it is on the agenda for the topical and urgent debate on Thursday, i.e. the day after tomorrow.
Madam President, I also refer to the point of order that was raised about the nuclear submarine in Gibraltar.
I would ask you and other Members to bear in mind, when considering this issue and when it comes for debate that, although Gibraltar is part of the European Union, the residents of Gibraltar do not themselves have direct representation in this Parliament.
I would ask this House to give urgent consideration to the exclusion of those citizens and to secure their representation in this Parliament so they can bring their concerns to this House themselves.
Mr Perry, Members of Parliament will be able to express whatever opinions they see fit in the course of the debate.
They do have freedom of speech.
Madam President, some MEPs will probably be surprised to hear the reality of the situation, which is that Gibraltar is a British colony.
It is very odd that there are still colonies within the European Union in the year 2000, but that is the case, Madam President.
Mrs Lynne, thank you for making this point.
I noticed a number of quaestors applauding heartily, and so I do not for an instant doubt that they are going to draw up regulations along the lines you suggest.
To reply to what you said to me, the regulations are already in place.
European Parliament rules have been drawn up, and we are not abiding by them.
Mrs Banotti will give you an answer, but if the regulations have already been drawn up, then they must and shall be applied.
Madam President, I fear that I must say something that might upset some Members, but the ushers outside are afraid - and I use the word advisedly - to ask some Members to stop smoking, because of the kind of abuse they get when they try to do that.
I need hardly say that I am totally against smoking as an ageing ex-nurse.
I have personally gone round to both Members and visitors to ask them to put out their cigarettes.
The ushers themselves have tried their very best to be diplomatic, but they are subjected, and I use the word advisedly, to abuse by some smokers when they ask them to stop smoking outside the doors.
Members ought perhaps to be aware that this is not a very nice way of behaving towards the staff of Parliament.
Madam President, I should like to express my respect for those who do not smoke and to state there must indeed be routes which allow them to move through the Parliament building without being affected by smoke.
I should also like to express my respect, however, for those who do smoke, and to defend their right to smoke.
It is important for my mental and physical wellbeing that I smoke, and I must point out that if there were no ashtrays, we would be creating even more unpleasant situations.
There must be ashtrays, just as there must be separate areas in which smokers can smoke and non-smokers can feel comfortable.
Mr Graça Moura, what we need is for non-smokers to respect the rights of smokers and for smokers to respect the rights of non-smokers.
We will have a calm discussion with the quaestors in order to designate areas where Members who wish to smoke, and feel a real need, may do so reasonably while respecting the rights of those who are bothered and even made physically ill by the smoke.
I promise you that this is something that we shall certainly sort out.
Madam President, as a rule of thumb, when a person wishes to condemn irregular behaviour they should state the name of the offender and specify when the event occurred.
This complaining about the rude behaviour of entire categories - whether smokers, non-smokers, reds or whites - is disgraceful!
In my opinion, if a Member of the European Parliament is asked to put out his cigarette by an usher, it is his duty to acknowledge civilly that the usher is doing his duty and thank him for it.
These are therefore important matters.
Would Mrs Banotti, who has complained of such incidents of irregular behaviour, like to state the names of those responsible and those affected, for I will be the first to request that measures be adopted to protect ushers and officials who are doing their duty.
Having said that, it goes without saying that if some of the general rules are stupid or petty, then it will, of course, be much more difficult to uphold them.
For example, it would appear appropriate to place an ashtray at the point which marks the end of a smoking area and the start of a non-smoking area in order to avoid cigarette butts burning the floor, but this is a question of common sense.
In conclusion, Madam President, it would also be sensible for us to stop complaining and to behave in a manner befitting Members of Parliament.
Just as you do over the issues of flights and Strasbourg part-sessions, you are whining like the hoi poloi instead of behaving with the dignity of representatives of a sovereign Parliament!
Mr Pannella, let me reassure you straight away. The quaestors are not lacking in common sense, believe me.
Agenda
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda, as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents, has been distributed.
Relating to Monday:
The Group of the European People' s Party have requested that the vote on the report by Mr Valdivielso de Cué, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the MEDA programme, be postponed until the Brussels part-session in order to enable a number of technical problems to be resolved.
Madam President, the rapporteur, Mr Valdivielso, has just informed our group that the amendments are not yet all available in translation.
I do not know when they will be available, but if it were to be before tomorrow then - in accordance with our agenda - the vote would have to be taken as early as tomorrow at noon!
This is simply impossible because we need to discuss this in our groups.
Hence our request: if the groups still have sufficient time for discussion then the vote could be taken at the end of the week.
But if this is not guaranteed then it will just have to be taken at the mini-session in Brussels.
In any case, we insist, or at least we ask - as we have, of course, already decided - that the debate take place now without delay. After all, the Commissioner is here!
Madam President, I would like to speak against this proposal.
We had initially heard that it was not possible to vote on the Valdivielso report because Commissioner Patten was not here.
It now turns out that Commissioner Patten is here and it seems to me that any technical problem that there may have been, and I am aware of that possibility, could be resolved by the Parliament services within no more than 2 or 3 hours.
I would therefore ask that the vote on the MEDA regulation be included in this part-session and if the services really need one more day to resolve the technical problems, that the vote be delayed for one day.
However, it seems to me that the groups have debated this sufficiently, it has been on the table for too long now and I believe that there is no reason why it cannot be voted on during this part-session and in the presence, as we had asked so many times, of Commissioner Patten, whom I would like to thank for being here.
Mrs Terrón, there is clearly a technical problem here.
I have received confirmation that the amendments are not ready today because some of them still have to be clarified.
All the language versions will be available tomorrow morning.
It will not therefore be possible to vote tomorrow at noon because not all Members will have had time to see the amendments.
I think it would be reasonable if the House were prepared to postpone the vote until Wednesday. This would be in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, which stipulate that Members must have received the texts in their own languages.
I see that Mr Poettering agrees with this.
So, if the texts are indeed available tomorrow morning, we shall vote on Wednesday.
Relating to Tuesday:
I have received several requests to speak on this subject, which is perfectly understandable, but I can see that Commissioner Patten is asking to be given the floor and, if you permit, I shall give him the floor immediately before allowing other Members to speak because he may well have some explanations to give us.
I will tell my colleague, Commissioner Verheugen, of the views that have just been expressed, which I know are held by other Members of Parliament.
I am sure that he will want to respond fully and rapidly to the concerns which have just been raised.
I want to make two points absolutely clear.
These are the strong views of the Commission, including my colleague Mr Verheugen.
First of all, in our view, the enlargement of the Union, the incorporation of other European countries in the liberal order of Europe, is the number one priority that we face in the next few years.
In my view and the view of other members of the Commission, there is not only a strategic and economic argument but also a moral argument for enlargement.
We want that message to go out loud and clear to all the enlargement candidates.
Secondly, all of us have the task in the next few years of convincing public opinion of what I have just said.
Mr Verheugen was trying to make that point very strongly.
We have to go out and sell the case for enlargement to public opinion in all the Member States of the European Union.
It would be wrong if it seemed to some of our voters in the fifteen Member States that enlargement was an issue for the political elites of Europe.
We have to convince them that it is in their interests that we enlarge and that there is an obligation on us to press the case for enlargement.
That is certainly a cause about which I feel very strongly and which I know President Prodi and the rest of the Commission will be arguing with vigour and passion over the next few years.
The point that the honourable Member raised expresses a legitimate and understandable concern.
I will relay it to Commissioner Verheugen.
(Applause)
Madam President, I am very grateful to the Commissioner for his statement.
To some extent it addresses the matter and to some extent it fails to do so.
I think it is very important as a matter of public record that we should have a declaration in the clearest terms from the Commission in a body, that it is continuing to act as the essential European prime mover of enlargement.
I applaud the view expressed by the Commissioner that we all share the task of selling this historic challenge but I deplore the fact that someone as pre-eminent as Commissioner Verheugen, at least according to a number of newspapers today, should say the Member States should not leave the Commission to do the dirty job alone.
This language is not appropriate to the sensitivities and subtleties required in this historic debate and it constitutes loose talk which opens up an appalling prospect, not least in the hearts and minds of those who support enlargement, and especially in candidate States and in their capital cities.
That is why this matter is of exceptional political importance this week.
It is important to understand that a Commissioner, Commissioner Verheugen in this case, has a role to speak for Europe.
Of course he is a German politician, but the German Government is empowered and in a position to speak for Germany.
I believe it is entirely proper that Mr Poettering should demand that this issue be dealt with here this week and I would urge the Commission to give the necessary assurance, not only because I agree with the sentiments of Commissioner Patten, but because the world at large wishes to be reassured that there is no dysfunction at the heart of Europe on the question of enlargement.
Madam President, there was a lot of animated discussion in our group about the position Commissioner Verheugen has adopted, and our main conclusion was that transparency, more than anything, is now required in the negotiations on enlargement.
Our citizens need it and so does Parliament.
It seems to me that Mr Poettering' s proposal would serve the purpose well if we were now to create a little transparency, for it is just as Commissioner Patten says: enlargement must not be allowed to be merely an issue for the elite.
I can well understand why Commissioner Verheugen is somewhat vexed by the fact that candidate countries are being toured in the name of the Council and the various Member States and being promised that they can definitely join our club one year or the other.
Perhaps we can also talk a little about what part the Commission, the Council and Parliament should have in the talks that are now going on.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Poettering spoke here as a group chairman and not as a German.
I am speaking here as a German and as the acting chairman of my group.
Commissioner Patten has already outlined the Commission's views on Mr Verheugen's comments.
For me, that would actually suffice as a Commission position.
My group has always believed that not only the Commission as a whole but also all of the individual Commissioners must justify themselves before this Parliament, and this regardless of their nationality and regardless of any affiliation to a political party.
That is why we would welcome Mr Verheugen's being given the opportunity this week to clarify his remarks here before the European Parliament and, if necessary, also to amend them.
Madam President, I should like to declare myself in favour of Mr Poettering' s proposal.
I should like to say that my own group is in favour not only of "selling" enlargement or other major projects to public opinion but also of getting our fellow citizens closely involved in all the major phases of European construction, including by means of referenda.
We are, however, totally opposed to the idea of using the referendum as a sort of threat which could be abused by some "stirrers" , exploiting fears and, in particular, unwillingness to open up to others.
Consequently, in order to ensure that enlargement is a success in the eyes of public opinion in our respective countries and in the eyes of the citizens of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, I am in favour of dispelling any misunderstanding, and thus of giving Commissioner Verheugen the opportunity to offer Parliament a clear explanation.
Commissioner Verheugen should indeed come and address the House to offer some explanation.
We are not about to start a debate on this matter. I shall put this proposal to him.
I think the most suitable time would be on Tuesday, when the Council and Commission will be making their statement on the European Union' s priorities for external action.
Commissioner Verheugen was not scheduled to attend at that time, he was not expected, but Commissioner Patten and I shall insist that he makes himself available and comes before the House to offer some explanations.
Let me remind you, as if I needed to, of the formal sitting at 11.30 tomorrow morning on the occasion of the joint visit by Mr Avraham Burg, the President of the Knesset, and Mr Abu Ala, President of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
There is no need for me to stress the importance of this joint visit. The fact that I am stressing it should show you, as you might imagine, that I should like to see the Chamber as well attended as possible.
Let it be understood I am counting on all Members of this House, men and women, to attend.
Relating to Wednesday:
President.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has requested that the statement on human cloning should not conclude with a motion for a resolution being tabled.
Who wishes to speak in support of this request?
Madam President, my group believes that the issue of biotechnology - because we are not only talking about cloning - is an issue which not only concerns various Member State governments, but is one which is also of considerable concern to public opinion.
This is the case not only because of the advances being made in this area, but also because of the scientific, industrial, ethical and religious consequences of this matter.
We pointed out at the time in the Conference of Presidents, and we have said so publicly, that we believe that this is a debate which cannot be resolved through an urgent resolution.
We believe that it requires well-considered and serious work, and proof of this can be seen in the drawing up of the directive on biotechnology which has been going on for a long time. An attempt was made to finish it, for the second time, during the previous parliamentary term, and it is yet to be finished because it is still facing certain problems.
We believe that we must ensure that the work requested by Parliament of the Ethics Committee - which advises the Commission and Parliament - is speeded up and we believe, furthermore, that an issue as important as this, which involves various committees of this Parliament and which is generating enormous concern in many areas - frozen embryos, the patentability of cells which may be multiplied for the purposes of transplants etc. requires a temporary committee.
We have therefore accepted that this declaration should be made.
However, we do not believe that it is appropriate at the moment to vote on a resolution, drawn up as we go along, which may create problems and be divisive.
Madam President, I would like to speak in favour of Enrique Barón Crespo's proposal for the reasons he has outlined so eloquently.
Mr Lannoye, I can confirm that the Conference of Presidents did decide to set up a special committee to deal with all these matters.
Mr Liese, you very cleverly associated your speech to one of the Rules of Procedure to make it look like a procedural motion, but I have to say the connection was tenuous.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
Relating to Thursday: President.
I have received several requests for amendments to the agenda relating to topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
On the subject of Item 3, 'Human rights' , and Item 4, 'Burma' , the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has requested that the current Item 4 'Burma' be replaced by a new item entitled 'Temelin' and that the item on 'Burma' be brought forward into item 3 'Human rights' to replace the sub-item 'Fundamental freedoms in Iran' .
Madam President, I support this proposal and justify it on the basis of the fact that quite a lot has been said about Iran recently.
The situation is very delicate and a lot is happening there, but there has been discussion about it.
We would very much like to see a place on the agenda to discuss the nuclear power plant at Temelin, as in many Member States, especially in Austria, obviously, as it is next door to it, the situation is very tense.
I would like this proposal to make it possible to include the Temelin resolution on the agenda.
I shall therefore put the request from the group of the Greens to the vote.
We are talking about adding the item on the Temelin nuclear power plant. The item on 'Burma' would, however, be retained as this has been moved forward into item 3, 'Human rights' .
Instead, it would be the item on 'Fundamental freedoms in Iran' which would be taken off the agenda.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Still on the subject of item 3, 'Human rights' , I have received two identical requests from the Technical Group of Independent Members and the group of the European People' s Party to replace the sub-item entitled 'Turkish bombing in northern Iraq' with a new sub-item entitled 'Higher education and universities in Macedonia' .
Who wishes to speak in support of this request?
If you are looking for support, then I would be pleased to support this proposal from the PPE because it concerns an extremely positive development in Macedonia, which could in fact be further consolidated by a swift endorsement from Parliament.
I believe this to be a matter of great importance.
(Parliament rejected the request) President.
The order of business is adopted thus amended.
MEDA
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
Report (A5-0204/2000) by Mr Valdivielso de Cué - MEDA, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1488/96 on financial and technical measures to accompany (MEDA) the reform of economic and social structures in the framework of the Euro­Mediterranean partnership [COM(1999)494 - C5-0023/2000-1999/0214(CNS)];
Report (A5-0205/2000) by Mr Piétrasanta - MEDA (annual report 1998) on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Commission report: Implementation of the MEDA programme - 1998 annual report [COM(1999)291 - C5-0117/1999 - 1999/2120(COS)]
Mr President, certain circumstances could have justified postponing this report to a time when everything was available, including the amendments.
However, in any event, I believe that we, as MEPs, must take the work forward so that the MEDA report is not delayed at any time, with the resulting harm that that could mean for the countries concerned.
Having expressed these reservations, I shall summarise the MEDA programme.
I shall then give my opinion of the proposed regulation, as well as the report as a whole.
As is well known, the MEDA programme comes within the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, which was created after the Barcelona declaration of November 1995.
The Foreign Affairs Ministers of the European Union participated in that meeting.
This is an initiative which encompasses 27 countries from both sides of the Mediterranean.
On the one side, there are the 15 states of the Union and, on the other, Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and the Palestinian territories.
As for Libya, for obvious reasons, it only has observer status.
Our main objective, through this cooperation, is to forge links, especially in the numerous areas of common interest which we share with our Mediterranean neighbours.
To this end, around EUR 3 500 million have been invested over the last five years, shared between two broad cooperation formulae: bilateral and regional.
Specifically, this economic and financial aid must facilitate the completion of a free trade area by 2010, to which end aid programmes have been implemented, both for macroeconomic reforms and for sectoral reforms and structural adjustments.
We must remember that the ratio between the per capita income of the European Union and the MEDA countries is 1 to 10, that is to say a very considerable gap.
Therefore, in my judgement, it is logical that the sustainable economic development of the area should be our main goal.
In this regard, I must add that the commercial balance between these two blocks favours the European Union to the tune of EUR 21 billion.
Meanwhile, measures are also being considered to facilitate private investment in these 12 countries, which in 1994 amounted to EUR 3 500 million, particularly by means of updating legislation and administration, as well as by means of meetings between companies belonging to the MEDA countries and the European Union.
We should also remember that we are discussing an area of the world which is particularly affected by military conflict.
There is no point in listing the different wars being waged by many of the countries which are members of this partnership.
The MEDA programme seeks to clear the way towards a definitive and lasting peace in that part of the world by means, amongst other things, of economic stability.
We are talking about a population of around 230 million people which, given the current rate of growth, will reach 300 million in 10 or 12 years time.
There is a significant diversity of religions and traditions in all of those countries and this is one of the pillars on which the European Union' s work is based.
As you know, MEDA also includes a short- and medium-term action programme for the environment, which aims to reverse the current environmental deterioration in the area.
Turning now to an analysis of the Commission' s proposal, I think the proposal as a whole is insufficient, partly because of the criticisms made about the implementation of this programme.
The Commission principally defines three initiatives for achieving greater efficiency: on the one hand, making the decision-making process more dynamic, focussing the activity of the "MED Committee" on strategic planning and programming.
The national and regional funding plans will be adopted annually on the basis of indicative programmes.
It also proposes an increase in programming and implementation abilities, for which greater human resources must be provided.
Lastly, the Commission intends to scale down procedures in order to achieve more effective implementation and increase the percentage of programmes that are implemented.
Specifically, the intention is to develop common harmonised procedures for all aid programmes.
Finally, I wish to say that I believe this report is important because anything that helps the countries to the south of us, in turn, helps us.
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(FR) Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Valdivielso de Cué and congratulate him on his excellent work.
Broadly speaking, his report makes all the points which I, personally, consider important and also those which the Socialists consider important.
I should also like to thank Mr Piétrasanta, who has just given us a highly clear and pertinent outline of both the content of this report and the points which we were hoping that he would stress and mention.
The points which were missing from the Commission proposal and which were added by Mr Valdivielso de Cué are important ones.
Firstly, Mr Valdivielso de Cué added, and I congratulate him on this, a fundamental idea, namely the need to make a real commitment to the Mediterranean by granting this region aid comparable with that granted to the countries of Eastern Europe.
The countries of the South, rightly or wrongly, have the impression that they have been rather overlooked, even though everyone knows that the Mediterranean is one of the most sizeable divided regions existing in the world today.
The second idea which was restored was the harnessing of financial resources that were adequate to the challenges.
Reference was also made to the overall approach defined in Barcelona (and not just, as the Commission thinks, the structural adjustment dimension), the intensification of regional cooperation, particularly South-South relations, the importance of decentralised cooperation (contrary to the wishes of the Commission which would apparently like to do away with it), the maintenance of support for micro-projects, i.e. for NGOs and civil associations and the need to finance initiatives for industrial cooperation, particular for SMEs.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué has done excellent work on all these points.
I do, however, feel that one fundamental matter, immigration, has not been sufficiently taken into account by this proposal for a regulation.
The Commission' s proposal looks at the question of migration from a strictly negative point of view.
They make a very serious connection, and I say this weighing my words carefully, drawing a parallel in the very same indent between, on the one hand, the campaign (which I consider to be legitimate and necessary) against illegal immigration and in favour of repatriation and, on the other hand, the fight against drug-trafficking and international crime.
This intolerable attitude is an insult to the millions of immigrant workers who contribute to the wealth of Europe.
A distinction has been made, as I requested, but it is still insufficient.
I believe the time has come to consider a genuine policy of movement between the two sides of the Mediterranean, north and south.
Europe must, I feel, today establish a genuine co-development policy related to migratory flows, which should, Mr President, centre on a few simple proposals, such as the framing of aid policies for projects by migrants, devising instruments for channelling the savings of immigrants, the placement of students in training and the placement of young trainees.
Voting in favour of the amendment I have tabled would therefore, I feel, be a contribution towards giving immigrants legally resident in Europe the opportunity to be acknowledged as vectors of co-development for their country of origin.
Let me, in conclusion, quote Mr Prodi who said that immigration must become a factor in development.
Mr Valdivielso' s work has gone some way to achieving this, and I would like to see us go further still.
Mr President, we very much welcome these two positive reports and congratulate the rapporteurs and fully support the vital importance of the MEDA programme.
In this respect it is critically important that the funding should be properly applied.
I would urge the House to support the two amendments tabled to the Piétrasanta report in the name of this group.
As a member of Parliament's delegation to the Mashreq countries and Gulf States, I am concerned that the association agreements with these countries should be ratified as expeditiously as possible; the Jordanian agreement in particular is only slowly proceeding through the ratification process.
Our amendment urges the Member State parliaments which have not yet ratified the agreement to hasten this process.
Our other amendment refers to a degree of hypocrisy in our approach to developing a fully free-trade zone in the Mediterranean area.
As Mr Valdivielso pointed out in his speech, the EU has a large trade surplus with this area.
Yes, we call for a free-trade zone but when it comes to those products which these countries could most readily export into Europe - i.e. agricultural and food products - we maintain trade restrictions.
Our friends in these countries understandably question our sincerity.
I accept that free access to Europe for Mediterranean products poses problems for producers in our southern Member States, but surely this problem could be compensated at least to some extent in the CAP.
So our second amendment calls for the acceleration of progress to free trade for all products including food and agriculture.
I would appreciate the Commission's estimate as to the likely timing for achieving a full free-trade zone in the Mediterranean and how it intends to implement this.
I would urge my colleagues to support these amendments along with the two excellent reports under consideration.
Mr President, firstly, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Valdivielso and Mr Piétrasanta, and say that I share the views of Mr Piétrasanta and Mr Naïr.
The deep schism that divides the Mediterranean world is obvious.
The Conference of Barcelona was the European Union' s reaction to it.
We should now be working at a steady speed to achieve the aims established there, but that is not the case.
Many reasons have been given for this.
The MEDA programmes have always been surrounded by too much fuss, and they still are.
It is totally pointless to return dwell on this fuss.
I prefer to look forward.
The Commission has proposed a new MEDA regulation and in it asks us for speedier decision-making procedures.
We agree absolutely with this.
My group and Parliament - if we reflect the vote of the relevant committee - proposes to place more trust in the Commission so that it may decide on projects of less than EUR 5 million and we also ask that the Commission be accompanied by a Council advisory committee.
Of course, the Council and Parliament cannot expect the Commission to do things which they do not give it the power to do.
In this regard you have our support, Commissioner.
You also have our support - and this is expressed in the amendments we are tabling - in order to solve any problems relating to staffing and to management ability that you may have.
I would like to remind you, Commissioner, that the Barcelona agreements talk about an area of free trade and economic cooperation and of security and they also talk a great deal about the cultural and human dimension.
Commissioner, I believe that in order to develop these three pillars on an equal footing with one another, we must continue to show our confidence in Mediterranean society and, far from ending decentralised cooperation and small projects, we should implement these effectively and by incorporating all the players: entrepreneurs, unions, cities, NGOs, immigrants - as Mr Naïr pointed out - professionals etc.
I wish to believe that we share the aim of reducing the gulf between the, at least two, Mediterranean worlds.
To this end, Commissioner, we ask, and my group will act in accordance with this request in the budgetary debate, for the restoration in the regulation of the amounts allocated to MEDA, so that these will remain at least equal in real terms to those allocated during the previous period.
While the problems in the Mediterranean remain serious, and there has been considerable delay in implementing the Barcelona decisions that were designed to tackle them, we cannot accept a reduction in investment.
Mr President, I am pleased to announce that the Liberal Group' s vote is favourable to the reports by Mr Valdivielso and Mr Piétrasanta. However, I must admit that there are certain reservations in our group with regard to future budgetary proposals as a result of the difficulties which have arisen up until now in the employment of funds intended for the MEDA programme.
However, this issue would lead us into a discussion of the budget, which is not the main subject of this debate. The main subject of this debate is political and the issue is the fact the Mediterranean is one of the essential elements in ensuring the peace, stability and progress of the European Union itself.
Eliminating tension and promoting balanced development in the Mediterranean third countries leads to greater security, prosperity and prospects for the European Union.
Therefore, Mediterranean policy must be a fundamental pillar of the Union' s external action, which will benefit the European Union itself.
Furthermore, I believe that we must consider that officially, there are at least three Mediterranean candidate countries, and that, with regard to the conflicts which Mr Valdivielso has mentioned, the European Union has made a very significant contribution in recent years to solving them.
We are very close to reaching peace agreements to solve them definitively and this obviously requires a significant economic contribution for which MEDA is the main financial instrument.
The different aspects mentioned in each report must be taken into account because they make a wonderful contribution to achieving this.
Mr President, the MEDA programme is a crucial instrument for enabling us gradually to establish a genuine area of shared prosperity, as stated in the Barcelona Declaration.
The difficulties in setting it up, the impatience and even the disappointments it has caused our southern partners should nevertheless encourage us to look more deeply into the state of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership as a whole.
The southern Mediterranean countries need European aid, aid that demonstrates solidarity and which contributes to the development of their society. This aid must also reduce the disparities between the two sides of the Mediterranean, by putting an end to the existing relationship of economic domination, the most obvious and most unfair example of which is perhaps the system maintaining national debt.
What role does MEDA have to play in this? With more than EUR 3 billion in commitment appropriations for 1995-1999, MEDA I actually committed just over EUR 2 billion in its first four years and actually paid out EUR 553 million, or scarcely a quarter of the credits committed.
What a discrepancy between the aid promised and the aid actually provided!
This discrepancy is largely due to the fact that, as Mr Patten has often told us, the Commission lacks the human resources to deal with all the tasks that are assigned to it.
I am sure that I will not be the last person to call for further human resources if that will enable the European Union to shoulder its responsibilities.
The Commission proposals, moreover, are aimed at simplifying and speeding up procedures under the new regulation, even though removing from the outset individual States' ability to supervise projects would not necessarily be the best solution to achieve greater transparency.
More credit should be provided for smaller-scale projects.
Too frequently I meet people who have extensive experience of the local association movement, who feel let down by the procedures they have to follow in order to receive subsidies.
The Euro-Mediterranean partnership can only really be built by and for the general public, who themselves wish to achieve a partnership that is of real benefit to all citizens.
The MEDA programme also raises fundamental questions about our Euro-Mediterranean policy in general.
First and foremost, cooperation is concentrated essentially in the economic and financial dimensions and marginalises the social and cultural dimensions.
It is also time that we took greater account of the growing dissatisfaction with the practices of out-and-out free trade.
The social consequences we are seeing in the free trade area are cause for deep concerns, which cannot be ignored.
The social budgets of southern countries risk seeing the budgetary resources raised from customs duties cut to a dangerous level.
The growth in competition could eat away at the industrial fabric of these countries, which in some cases consists of vulnerable small and medium-sized enterprises.
Rather than so-called 'accompanying' measures, the economic systems in the South need real technological support.
The purpose of aid, furthermore, should be not only to convert businesses to comply with the criteria of profitability, but also to respond to the employment needs of the population.
While private sector development is heavily supported by MEDA, the public sector is largely forgotten, even though it responds to genuine needs.
To conclude, I should like to concentrate on two aspects of the reports which I support: really encouraging the participation...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, whilst appreciating the mental efforts of the two rapporteurs and the draftsmen of the opinions, I would like to emphasise how important it is for the EU to set political priorities.
In concrete terms: the laborious and monumental undertaking of EU enlargement simply does not allow for a similar tour de force within the European-Mediterranean partnership.
That is certainly not to say that there is no room for improvement in the Union' s Mediterranean policy as matters stand.
An evaluation of MEDA I and the wording of MEDA II clearly demonstrate the need for this.
In particular, this programme lacks cohesion and has been insufficiently implemented.
For example, to date, only a quarter of the commitment appropriations has been paid out.
It is right that a streamlining of the programmes and implementation should be proposed with a view to resolving the aforementioned shortcomings.
The sluggish pace of implementation is not the fault of the committees, in any case.
They are responsible for a delay of five months at most. No, it is the procedures within the Commission that are largely to blame for the delay.
Giving the Commission more financial latitude is not, therefore, the most obvious solution worthy of recommendation.
Transparency and control are important aspects that will enhance the quality of MEDA projects.
And the standard of quality required varies from project to project to this day.
It would appear from the conclusions of the European Council of Feira (19 and 20 June 2000) that the EU' s Mediterranean policy is founded on 'the partnership' .
I will quote in full from this document: "this partnership should be actively supported by both sides" .
Cooperation with a view to becoming good neighbours, increasing prosperity and eliminating poverty, and, not least, promoting good government and the constitutional state.
May these reports and this debate help to realise these lofty ambitions.
Mr President, I too wish to stress how important relations with the southern countries are for Europe, in particular with those in the Mediterranean Basin.
I share the view that enlargement of the Union to the East is causing us to underestimate the South and the crucial nature - crucial for our future, that is - of our relations with these countries.
We have been working in this area for almost ten years and for the last five, the significant MEDA programme has been available to us.
The way this programme has been implemented is far from ideal - to say the least - and that is why I share and approve of the objectives of the Commission reform.
That is also why I support the calls made by Mr Valdivielso and Mr Piétrasanta to redress the balance, for regional cooperation, for support for 'micro-projects' and for projects involving civil society.
It must, however, be clearly stated - and also made clear to the general public - that the financial objectives must match up to our speeches and there should be no question of accepting a reduction in credits relative to the previous period. This holds true whatever arguments and quibbles are put forward.
Lastly, looking beyond MEDA, we must not lose sight of the urgency of the problem of cancelling the debts of poor countries, the need to speed up the implementation of bilateral agreements and the need to promote new multilateral agreements.
To conclude, we must therefore improve the systems that are already in place. Above all, however, we must ensure that the proposals that have already been made, the positions that are adopted in our debates and the way we vote tomorrow are not seen and perceived by our Mediterranean partners as just so many negative messages.
There is a serious risk of this, and, if we wish to maintain a political presence, in the region, in conflict management and risk prevention, we must do more and better in the future than we have done in the recent past.
Mr President, in the development of relations with the Mediterranean, Europe cannot fail to give due importance to this geographical area of the world.
The economic boom in Far East Asia has changed all the parameters, and the Mediterranean Sea has become an important element in international trade, assuming major importance.
Trade and cultural relations have to be given priority for economic reasons; a cooperation process needs to be set in motion, but the development of countries which are developing at a slower rate than Western countries also needs to be promoted.
There must be political and commercial dialogue and cultural and financial cooperation.
This is what is important for the development of relations between the European Parliament and the countries of this area of the world.
The Mediterranean Sea is the testing ground for the European Parliament' s capacities to act outside the borders of the Union.
It is a well-known fact that the great Europe which is a dream of so many cannot be achieved without the political and economic involvement of this major, fundamental part of the Union.
Mr President, now that all the honourable members' wishes have been voiced, I feel we must resolve to make urgent changes to the way in which the implementation of the MEDA programmes is organised.
In particular, not only is there a need for transparency and streamlining, there is also a need for efficiency.
This requires ongoing dialogue with the regions that are lagging behind.
These regions must be able to prosper on the basis of their own potential.
That is why it is so important to have local sub-offices that can pursue this dialogue with universities, NGOs and local authorities.
That is preferable to having expensive technical assistance offices, and is also preferable to the divide and rule policy of the governments, who often put their own interests first, whereas we regard MEDA as an instrument for peace and democratisation and not just for economic well-being.
Mr President, while discussing the MEDA programme it might also be important to consider the balance that is supposed to exist throughout the Union.
It is obvious that the main instrument of the MEDA-Euro Mediterranean programme is a programme of tremendous benefit to the whole of the EU.
In the same way, we should recognise that cohesion between the Union' s central and northern regions and the neighbouring regions should be strengthened by means of a comprehensive solution similar to the MEDA Programme.
New initiatives to support cohesion policy, such as the Union' s northern dimension that stepped into the limelight during the Finnish presidential term, must also be seen as important projects for the Union as a whole, especially with regard to the challenges of eastward enlargement.
It is encouraging to see that, after a long period of twisting and turning, appropriations have been set aside in next year' s budget for the northern dimension.
It would be good to move on from here.
We need an enormous amount of additional financing, however, to be able to guarantee, in particular, the future of the small-scale programmes to strengthen cooperation with neighbouring regions.
The objectives of the MEDA programme were unfortunately not realised in the financial period that has just ended.
For various reasons, there have been problems with the implementation of appropriations, and the monitoring arrangements to prevent misappropriation have proven inadequate.
The European Parliament should concentrate on ensuring that the under-use of resources that has gone on for years should come to a stop and the internal monitoring of programmes made more effective.
This cannot be guaranteed merely by swelling administration.
Cooperation between the Commission and the agencies that implement programmes in the Member States must also be able to be made more effective through other means, for example, through water-tight cooperation between the European Investment Bank and the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have two things to say. The first is that I should like to thank both rapporteurs for their reports, which were well worth reading.
Secondly, I should like to say directly to the Commission: stick to your guns, stick to your guns with the Council! Because the real problem is that the Council, that the Member States, are forever wanting to have their say on a matter which the Treaty says is your responsibility.
Just imagine that the Americans had implemented their aid under the Marshall Plan after the war in such a way that for each sub-programme they had asked the Member States of the USA whether they, for example, ought to fund a reforestation project in the south-western part of Bavaria or not!
It would probably have taken until the end of the last century to disburse the Marshall Plan aid.
This is not what I want to happen to you.
Mr Patten, stick to your guns!
Parliament ought to support you on this.
The Council or the Member States have a right to be consulted, but they do not have a right to co-decision.
I suspect that this will also be the decisive issue for the Commission when history judges it one day.
You will be judged on enlargement towards the east, but also on whether you create your own room for manoeuvre in external policy.
Now we are not demanding a voice for the Commission alongside the United Kingdom or France on nuclear capabilities for example.
But where the budget is concerned, the European Union's own budget, you are the executive.
We should secure this position and defend it!
In Parliament you should have an ally here!
Mr President, as someone who lives in the Mediterranean, under the Mediterranean sun and who enjoys Mediterranean traditions and culture, I would like to speak up for the countries of that area.
The MEDA programme, which largely failed in the first stage, perhaps did not appreciate that the situation of the Mediterranean countries, given the direction that European politics are taking, is extremely difficult.
Many Mediterranean countries are less highly developed than other countries, and they face the threat of a single agricultural market, which they will not be able to cope with.
In this respect, I would like to refer to the wonderful article by Mr Riccardi of two or three months ago, in which he spoke specifically of the fact that, for reasons of scale, the Mediterranean countries do not attract investment.
It is extremely difficult in those countries to change the agricultural system and, nevertheless, they have to share their products with other countries of North Africa, of the mare nostrum, which belongs to everyone at the same time.
Meanwhile the greatest migratory impact originates from these countries.
Therefore, we must have a fair policy, and to this end the MEDA programme may be a start, although I believe that, in many cases, it is based on criteria that are important to the northern countries.
Firstly, it is not possible to set up a project without highlighting the great weaknesses of those countries such as, for example, water and desertification.
What European policies do we have to combat desertification? We have no clear policy on this issue.
Secondly, as far as culture is concerned, more importance is being attached to intermediaries than to the actual beneficiaries and producers of culture.
The same thing is happening with many other industrial projects.
Numerous NGOs have been created, forming networks with no obvious beneficiaries, when what southern Europe really has to do is wake up.
I therefore support a process of industrialisation based on innovation - we must not turn to the old industries but to innovation - and of supporting projects relating to technological innovation and training.
In this respect, I believe it is a mistake to turn to large projects.
They would simply make a few people richer. What Mediterranean Europe needs is to wake up, to leave behind its self-absorption and to exploit its own human resources.
This will only happen if we support multiple initiatives which together create awareness, a critical mass and a basic system so that, on that basis, many other small initiatives and businesses of all types may be created.
Some will be successful and some will fall by the wayside, but if we do not create a policy of multiple initiatives of many types, allowing society to express itself and take advantage of its resources, we will not achieve anything.
Mr President, Commissioner, the two reports in question, particularly Mr Valdivielso' s report, deal with one of Europe' s problems in great detail.
The Mediterranean' s location as a major geographical point in terms of the stability and security of our continent has already been mentioned.
This is all very well, but there is another issue underlying many of the points made in Mr Valdivielso' s report: a gap is forming between the absolute priority status of enlargement and the development of relations with the Mediterranean countries, which gives cause for concern.
The Mediterranean is, in actual fact, an area which is still marked by zones of real poverty, and it is an area where the standard of living and quality of life are such as to require a major European presence.
Whatever we are able to do to boost development of the private sector, to improve the conditions under which small and medium-sized enterprises operate, to modernise infrastructures and encourage the promotion of investments, industrial cooperation and trade, will be gratefully received, for hitherto there has been no support for the economic and production networks of the partner countries and industrial cooperation has played an extremely minor role due to the lack of direct support programmes and joint initiatives between European companies and partner countries.
Therefore, we need simpler administration, a more strategic approach and rapid execution of programmes, for this might actually benefit the small and medium-sized enterprises rather than consultancy firms or financial brokers.
I would like to end with a reference to the agricultural sector.
The establishment of a free-trade area in the Mediterranean is, of course, a goal to strive towards, but first we must analyse carefully the plight of Mediterranean agriculture and Mediterranean farmers, and, before we do anything else, we must use the common agricultural policy to rectify an extremely dangerous drop in the income levels of our farmers in precisely the poorest area of Europe.
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I am extremely pleased to be able to comment on these two important reports on one of the most significant programmes for which we are responsible.
It is clearly going to be a considerable political test for the Commission and for our whole partnership to try to ensure that we deliver more successfully on these programmes in the future than we have managed to do so far.
I thought that Mr Linkohr made some extremely pertinent and challenging points.
We will be coming back to that, not least when we have the opportunity of discussing the letter which the Commission will be addressing to the budgetary authority as a letter of rectification to the 2001 Budget, which will go right to the heart of the real resource problem we face, which creates so many political difficulties for us.
Let me comment first on Mr Valdivielso's report before dealing with Mr Piétrasanta's report.
Naturally, I welcome the fact - though I do not think his speech was quite so enthusiastic - that Mr Valdivielso's report is generally supportive of the Commission's efforts to reform the MEDA Regulation, though there are some criticisms.
Mr Piétrasanta's report is also favourable towards the 1998 MEDA Programme report.
I want to stress that the revision of the MEDA Regulation is a key element in the broader efforts we are making to enable us to deliver aid more effectively and to streamline our often excessively onerous procedures.
The Commission's objective in revising the MEDA Regulation is to streamline the decision-making process so that we can deliver assistance promptly, in line with the political priorities of the European Union in the Mediterranean.
The Commission proposes to reduce excessive scrutiny arrangements for individual projects in the Management Committee by introducing strategic programmes through the yearly adoption of national financing plans and a regional financing plan and simplifying decision making.
The simplifications that we have requested would bring MEDA programming procedures in line with those of other financial instruments of EU external relations programmes.
It makes no sense to treat MEDA differently.
I must underline that the Commission cannot hope to improve the implementation of the programme if it remains paralysed by cumbersome procedures.
The approval of the new regulation will allow the Union to lend real support to the Mediterranean countries in their structural reform process.
The economic growth of these countries is of key importance to their political and social stabilisation.
I should also note that the firm commitment of the Mediterranean partners themselves to economic reform would greatly facilitate the implementation of the programme and would trigger a significant rise in its disbursement rate.
We have an absorption problem with some of our partners.
It is difficult to spend the money as fast and as sensibly as we would like if we have not even agreed the Association Agreements, or to justify a situation in which we successfully negotiate an Association Agreement and then cannot get our partner to initial it.
We all have to move faster if we are to make a greater success of the programme.
We agree with the bulk of Parliament's amendments, particularly those which strengthen MEDA's strategic character.
In that spirit, we can fully endorse Amendments Nos 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 30, 33, 37 and 41 and we can partially accept Amendment Nos 4, 5, 6, 10, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 31, 35, 38 and 40 providing some slight verbal modifications.
That may save me a bit of work if I am doing the votes later in the week.
However we cannot support Amendment No 25, which proposes an individual examination of financing proposals by the MED Committee.
We think this is contrary to the spirit of our overall proposal on the revision of the MEDA Regulation, because we want to streamline and simplify procedures.
We cannot accept Amendment No 13, which would seek to include a financial reference amount for the period 2000 to 2006 in the regulation since this would clearly prejudge the results of the budgetary procedure as has been agreed in the context of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
We cannot accept Amendment No 21 which seeks the removal of direct budgetary support, nor Amendment No 27 on direct industrial cooperation and I should point out that the new enterprise policy of the Commission focuses on the improvement of the business climate rather than on direct tools of cooperation.
In addition, the Commission at this stage lacks the necessary resources for proper industrial cooperation.
Nor can we accept Amendment No 35 or part of Amendment No 40 on the expansion of decentralised cooperation so long as we do not have the necessary human resources to do the job in a responsible and effective way, but forms of decentralised cooperation will be pursued where possible within existing regional cooperation programmes.
Now let me comment briefly on Mr Piétrasanta's report.
I congratulate him and the other rapporteur, Mr Vandevielso, for the commitment and dedication which they have shown.
Most of the views expressed in Mr Piétrasanta's report and in the amendments are wholly in line with the Commission's efforts to reform the MEDA programme and our overall objective of streamlining procedures and accelerating delivery of aid.
We support the plea regarding the simplification of MEDA's management procedures and the strengthening of its strategic and integrated approach.
The report's appeal for an increase in Commission staff assigned to management of the MEDA programme is one we wholly support.
Enough staff to do the job is one of the key principles underlying the Commission's efforts to reform its external assistance services.
The increase will be, of course, pursued within the overall staff priorities of the Commission, and I note as well the report's request for the preparation of an annual report on human rights in the Mediterranean.
We believe this is something for the Council and the Commission to consider together.
We support the proposals for reinforced South-South cooperation and for more programmes backing small and medium-sized enterprises.
We are taking action on water management but we are not, I regret to say, in a position to support the micro-project proposals because again we lack the staff to manage them properly.
They are extremely resource-intensive in terms of management.
It will be apparent from what I have said that we are thinking very much along the same lines.
Our programmes in the Mediterranean are at the core of my agenda, along with the reinvigoration of the Barcelona process.
Let me make two final points.
First of all, I hope, the Commission will this week be agreeing a Commission communication on the revitalisation of the Barcelona process, which we will then, of course, wish to discuss with this Parliament.
Our funding of programmes in the Mediterranean between now and 2006 is probably the largest of all our programmes representing over 20% of our efforts externally.
My concern is that we should deliver that assistance more effectively and more rapidly.
I have told Parliament before of my surprise at the discovery that if we were to continue at the present rate of disbursement it would take us almost nine years to get through the backlog of our existing obligations in the Mediterranean.
That is simply not tolerable.
You cannot explain that to the people you are trying to help and it is very difficult to justify it to Europe's taxpayers.
Instead of our programmes enhancing the reputation of the European Union in the Mediterranean countries and around the world, it damages our reputation even though we are using taxpayers' money to do good.
So, the reform of programmes like MEDA goes right to the heart of what we are trying to do in the Commission.
The other point I wanted to make is this: at the informal meeting we had in Evian at the weekend we spent over three hours talking about external assistance and how effectively we do things as a Union.
I pay great tribute to the French Presidency for giving this issue the priority it has.
The Commission raised the issue in May when I set out our external budget for the General Affairs Council, the first time the General Affairs Council had ever discussed the budget for external relations, and when we put forward our proposals for reforms, so I think the issue now has the political priority it deserves.
But we will be tested by what we do with MEDA and what we do in the Balkans and by how these programmes actually work on the ground.
I cannot keep on coming back to this Parliament and saying we have terrible problems.
Parliament, the Commission and the Council have to be able to show that we are making a difference.
I hope that with the Parliament's understanding we will be able to ensure over the years ahead that our external programmes are as effective and rapid as we all want them to be.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Common Community diplomacy
The next item is the report (A5-0210/2000) by Mr Galeote Quecedo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on common Community diplomacy 2000/2006(INI).
Mr President, I believe that we all agree that in 2000, obviously, the Community already enjoys numerous and fundamental competencies in the external field.
The Maastricht reform reflects the aspiration, so often expressed in this House, that Europe should speak with one voice in the international arena.
With the CFSP, the Union' s external activity takes on a new dimension, definitively going beyond the economic field in order to participate actively in external policy.
However, the European Union repeatedly has cause to regret - we have been seeing this recently - that it cannot meet the requirements of external action.
Having said this, I wish to begin by saying that the objective of this report is not to seek a further increase in the competencies of the Union in the external field.
Those who wish to do that have other debates, in the field of institutional reform, in which to find expression for their aspirations.
All that we are proposing is to implement measures which will rationalise and improve the way in which the enormous external action of the Community institutions is carried out.
We propose basically to make decisive progress in three areas.
Firstly, by improving the training of Community officials intended to be involved in carrying out external actions.
The numerous officials in the Commission who deal with external relations, taking on competencies of prime importance, are technical specialists but in general they lack the prior diplomatic training, which is necessary to fulfil their duties.
We therefore believe we need to create a Community diplomatic college, which will provide Community officials intended for external action with a good diplomatic and international training.
To the same end, we believe it is necessary to provide an opportunity to link the national diplomatic corps, whose experience and long tradition are of great value, to our external action, and we therefore propose to implement a 'bridging' system between national external services and the Community external service.
Secondly, we wish to clarify and develop the legal status of the Commission' s current external delegations, their role and their relationship with the various Community institutions.
The Commission delegations have seen a dramatic quantitative and qualitative expansion over recent years.
Nevertheless, they do not function in the same way and their relationship with other institutions is unclear, since it is not regulated.
We therefore propose that the Commission delegations become Community delegations so that their relations with the Council may be closer, through the High Representative of the CFSP, as well as their relations with the European Parliament and its members, thereby guaranteeing greater efficiency and political control of their activities.
Thirdly and lastly, we intend to improve the coordination between the delegations and the external services of the Member States.
We need to promote this type of coordination, in order to prevent confusion and inconsistency, not to mention other deficiencies, which were plain to see at the informal General Affairs Council in Evian last weekend.
To this end we propose various mechanisms and, amongst other things, we envisage the possibility of joining together the missions of those Member States that agree to do so with the current Commission delegations, at the appropriate time.
Furthermore, this would represent a considerable reduction in costs.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr President, none of the proposals that have been put forward represent institutional reforms, and even less the ceding of Member States' sovereignty.
We are simply proposing a more effective use of the competencies which have already been granted.
We are not setting out to propose conflicting models of Europeanism, but simply to be more efficient.
Therefore, the rapporteur cannot support those amendments which would represent profound structural changes to the institutional architecture of the Union.
In particular, I would like to express my gratitude for the other contributions which, in committee and with tomorrow' s vote in Parliament, greatly enrich the initial proposal.
I would ask the various groups to vote in favour of this report and the European Commission to reflect the feelings of this House.
Mr President, first of all I would like to extend sincere congratulations to the rapporteur, Mr Galeote Quecedo, for his very important and also interesting report that has come at a very opportune moment.
If we look at how the tasks of the European Commission, and, in fact, those of the European Union in general, have developed, then we see that this relates to the new phenomenon of the candidate countries, the old phenomenon of the existence of trading partners and development regions, and the not so new phenomenon of Bosnia and former Yugoslavia.
These are areas in which the European Union, and the European Commission in particular, have an abundance of tasks before them.
A great deal of criticism of European effectiveness has to do with the way in which these tasks are organised.
The committees we have sent out there appear to echo the call for decentralisation that is often heard in other areas of the European Union too.
Decentralisation is needed to make decision-making more effective and also to ensure that when there is no pressing reason for something to be dealt with in Brussels, it can be decided on locally.
Naturally this will directly affect the way in which these European missions are assessed.
For example, the mandate of the European missions must be widened, which therefore means that they will need more personnel.
There have been some very embarrassing discrepancies between the possibilities open to the European missions, and those of the United States, for example.
Indeed this found expression in the number of people that could be employed locally through the European Union.
The European Union' s profile could be raised by putting Mr Galeote Quecedo' s plans into practice.
We must have real EU embassies that are at least some sort of a match for the United States embassies, especially in areas where it is the European Union that bears most responsibility.
Therefore we cannot tolerate having ineffective diplomats in situ.
I believe it behoves the Commissioner to look closely at who is proving effective and who is failing on that score.
I welcome the fact that there is contact between the European diplomats out there and the European Parliament.
Naturally this must proceed under the supervision of the Commissioner who has responsibility for these affairs.
This contact with diplomats appointed as special envoys by the European Parliament is, of course, also something we would heartily recommend.
We gladly subscribe to those aspects of Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report that could lead to us speaking with one voice.
Mr President, this report on a European Parliament initiative highlights an extremely important issue that we are facing, not only in the field of common foreign and security policy but in the context of enlargement of the European Union itself.
In the field of CFSP, notable progress is already being made, particularly in terms of cooperation in the area of defence.
A common military force is being created.
It would be strange - not to say dangerous - if the European Union did not at the same time strive to improve its common diplomatic instruments.
There is no excuse for lagging behind in this area, even if we take the factor of each Member State' s national interest into account as well as the almost purely economic nature of the history of the Community' s institutions between the Treaty of Rome and the Treaty of Maastricht.
Diplomacy at the beginning of the twenty-first century has indeed been marked by great events and processes that are giving it much greater scope than it has had in the past.
Amongst these I would highlight the globalisation of the international economy and the financial markets.
It is no exaggeration to state with all certainty that diplomatic activity is becoming more and more involved in the economic sphere and to say that, in turn, economic interests cannot be protected without diplomatic activity.
As is also well known, this situation is being played out against a backdrop in which the positions of the main players on the international political stage are being redefined.
The aims that provide the market with additional sensitivity or idealism, however, particularly the fight for a project which is able to reconcile the goals of economic development and those of social and political development cannot be reached unless there is a high degree of cooperation between the Member States at all levels, specifically at the diplomatic level.
What better instrument than diplomacy can there be for promoting objectives of peace and of reconciling national interests? The European Union must provide itself, as this report recommends, with more and better elements of common diplomacy.
It is quite clear that, amongst other obstacles, organising matters according to pillars and the fact that the European Union has no legal personality both make it more difficult to achieve this aim and forced this report' s proposals to perform some clever balancing tricks.
Nevertheless, we can, at no great financial or organisational cost, contribute to a better use of the diplomatic resources we already have in the European Union, to everyone' s benefit.
The wealth and diversity of diplomatic experience in the various countries of Europe is also recognised throughout the world.
It would be a mistake to think that any of the proposals put forward in this report could harm processes that are under way in the field of CFSP in general, or in the field of diplomacy in particular.
The underlying aim of this report, as we understand it, following on from several discussions held over a period of months, is to bring together all relevant current experiences and processes and to direct them towards a common goal, which is, by and large, to create a genuine common European diplomatic service.
Lastly, I should like to say that although one might criticise certain aspects of the report, I have no hesitation in recommending that you adopt it, and I hope that the proposals it contains are given the reception that they deserve.
Mr President, we in the group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party set great store by the fact that this is not an attempt to set up a single diplomatic corps to replace the Member States' external services.
Rather, it is a question of improving the quality of the external service the Community already has and of improving cooperation between that service and the Member States' external services.
There is no doubt that there is a need for improved training of this kind in the majority of Member States, and especially in the applicant countries which will, of course, soon need a sizeable staff of well-trained people.
We in the Liberal Group attach importance to the fact that what is at issue here is in-service training and not basic training. By that, I mean providing training to people who are already in service or on the way to joining the service.
And we attach great importance to the fact that the training should be open to participants from the national external services so that there is interaction between EU and national diplomats.
We have therefore tabled a number of amendments which we hope Parliament can accept.
It is debatable whether there is a need for a new institution with its own building and board of management, as well as a heated dispute about where the institution is to be located.
We would certainly prefer to support actual activities than just bricks and mortar, but we are able wholeheartedly to support the intention behind the proposal, and we hope that Mr Galeote Quecedo' s reflections will be given careful consideration in the Member States, the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, the majority of my group considers that, unfortunately, the unambitious and technical nature of Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report means that it fails to live up to its fine title of a common Community diplomacy.
In particular, I feel that it is a mistake to deny, as Mr Galeote Quecedo has done, that the political aim of his report is the gradual creation of a common diplomacy as the expression of a common policy.
This is to ignore the reality that what we have at the moment is a discordant, incoherent chorus of European countries and their 14 thousand or so diplomats, compared to the 3 500 diplomats of the United States.
We should simply supplement the 15 diplomatic corps with another, more or less competent corps, made up of European Union officials or, as is the case today precisely in Commissioner Patten' s entourage, national diplomats, possibly including more representatives from some countries than others.
I also feel that the debate on Commissioner Verheugen' s statements indicated extremely clearly that it is not possible for the Union to carry out its external activities in the context of such a lack of cohesion and such frustration caused by the confusion of powers and responsibilities.
Commissioner Patten, you have already spoken on this subject, Commissioner Verheugen will also do so, and then each of the Member States will give their opinion.
This means that the message we send to the European citizens can only be contradictory.
The group of the Greens/European Free Alliance will support Amendments Nos 5 and 6 tabled by Mr Dupuis, which introduce the political agenda of a common diplomacy and the proposal to start establishing European Union embassies in those countries where not all the countries of the Union are represented.
I hope that others will also support these amendments.
Mr President, our group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, broadly supports Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report, although it is also the case that certain sections of the group disagree with important aspects of it, as we will see later.
We feel that Mr Galeote Quecedo has carried out a profound, serious and ambitious piece of work, although it is also prudent with regard to current prospects.
The joint effort in committee by the various political groups demonstrates that common diplomacy is a concern felt by all of us.
In fact, our experience, acquired through visits to different parts of the world, highlights four worrying issues:
First: the scant and insufficient coordination of the Member States with regard to issues that must be addressed jointly whenever the interests of the European Union are at stake, and the minimal cooperation between the delegations of the European Union.
Also, we sometimes fail to exploit the rich diplomatic experience we possess in Europe and often there are worrying confrontations between these various diplomatic services.
Second: the accidental occurrence of contradictions in interventions by different countries on issues affecting the interests of the European Union.
Third: the insufficient coordination in the defence of points of view, interests and responsibilities of the European Union in international bodies of a political, economic, cultural nature etc., such as the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, the WHO etc.
Fourth: we have also noted that the presence of the European Union is weak in relation to its economic importance and also in relation to the significant presence of the United States.
We therefore believe it is important to proceed with the proposal presented in the report and, furthermore, to take more cohesive action, make a greater impact and make greater progress in that direction.
Hence the usefulness of the proposal to create a Community diplomatic college and also the importance, which appears in Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report, of the European Parliament playing an important role as trustee of the sovereignty and will of the European citizens in order to give content to this Community diplomacy and also give content to this prospect of constructing a European Union which creates peace, respect for international law and solidarity in the world.
Therefore, as I said at the beginning, our group will broadly support Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Galeote Quecedo report is interesting for two reasons: the first is that Parliament unashamedly reveals its true intentions in it, and the second is that nobody is paying it the slightest attention.
What is the real issue here? The real issue is nothing less than providing the European Union, which, by the way, is now simply the Commission, with those final attributes of a sovereign State that was lacking, i.e. a diplomatic service and the prerequisite for establishing it, which is legal personality.
Let us be logical about this.
The only reason for this college' s existence is to create a common diplomatic service and to do so in a completely transparent way, as outlined in the Galeote Quecedo report.
If those who back this report achieve their aims, the 'carving up' of our nations will thus have reached its logical conclusion, by once again adopting the old Monnet, Schuman and Delors method, which consists of creating a body in the hope that it will get around to creating its own role and content. The truth is, however, that so many preconditions have been left out that people may have the impression that we do not care what anyone thinks.
We are creating a diplomatic instrument without even thinking about the essential prerequisite of a common diplomatic policy.
This itself presupposes another prerequisite, which is that the common interests of the Member States must be defined. This prerequisite in turn presupposes another, consisting of defining a common link between Europe and the rest of the world.
If we are only talking about the three main powers, Germany, Great Britain and France, it is impossible to see what points would form the basis of our common interests and diplomatic policy, either on Western Europe' s relationship with the United States or on the role of NATO, subjects on which we are definitely not in agreement nor likely to be, or on the East - and here we have the thorny question of Russia and our relations with the Central European countries in general - or on the South, perhaps significantly less where the South is concerned, particularly in the context of the Mediterranean policy.
This is therefore a fraud, and the worst of all kinds of fraud at that, which is intellectual fraud, unless, that is, we accept that the diplomacy of the main power - the central power - can effectively be foisted on everyone else, which would actually amount to solving the problem.
Quite recently, at the UN 'Women 2000' conference, our Polish friends were able to see just how flexible common diplomacy really is when they were ordered to fall into line with the position laid down by the Union, or face delays in their country' s application for Membership.
We feel sure that the experience of our friends in Central Europe in the field of resistance to totalitarianism could prove useful to us some day, and furthermore, an illustration of this form of totalitarianism has been provided recently by the unacceptable quarrel that some people are picking with one of our fellow Members, Daniel Hannan.
Let there be no mistake, the idea of common representation at the United Nations is being used to attack the permanent seats held by certain Member States as well as the idea that there could be dissident voices in this world, such as the voice France tries very often to make heard with regard to the United States.
Ultimately, Europe can speak with one voice only if it has nothing to say.
This has been proved once again and it has also been proved that this Europe is not simply negating nations as individual nations - it is rejecting and annihilating Europe itself.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am sure that it will come as no surprise to our friend and fellow Member, Mr Galeote Quecedo, when I say that I am sorely disappointed by this report.
I feel that this is an over-cautious report, and yet it is already raising some people' s hackles.
It would have been better to address the crux of the matter and I am sorry that the report has not done this.
The issue of diplomacy is not merely a question of training diplomats and the status of delegations. The issue is of fundamental importance and there is a powerful taboo in this Parliament which we are never prepared to confront: that we have fifteen national diplomatic services, which have been strengthened over years of integration by gradually taking over the competencies of all the national ministries and which have become the real powers, the main power blocking any possible reform of foreign affairs and diplomacy, because it is their power that would ultimately be under threat.
They had no trouble delegating and taking the powers of the other ministries to the European level, but when it comes to their own power, it is a different question altogether.
Mrs Frassoni pointed out how ridiculous it is to have a situation in which we have 14 000 diplomats, whilst the United States has 3 000, with the cost/quality ratio of which we are fully aware.
We must address the issue of the diplomatic services and the issue of external affairs policy with the same approach that we used to achieve economic and monetary union, by establishing a gradual process of communitising external policy and the diplomatic services.
Unfortunately, the report does not address these issues.
Unfortunately, we are only proposing slight changes, which will just add a new level to the structures that already exist and we are in danger of ending up with bodies that are even more incapable of making the right decisions quickly.
In my opinion, the questions we must answer are these: do we or do we not want to communitise external affairs policy? Do we want to make the same huge mistake that we made by creating the figure of Mr CFSP and by restoring exclusive Community competence for external policy to the Commission or to a Vice-President of the Commission?
These are the real questions. I am rather disappointed that the report does not discuss these issues and somewhat surprised that the EPP has adopted this position given that, tomorrow, in another report on the Union' s political priorities, it will probably adopt a more forthright position on the communitisation of external policy.
I therefore urge our rapporteur and friend, Mr Galeote Quecedo, to perhaps incorporate some of the amendments that have been tabled and to ensure that a process is initiated, that an appeal is made to the Council and that, for once, our Parliament does not fall short of the position of the Council and the Commission, as unfortunately has been the case for the last ten years.
Mr President, wishful thinking sets the tone of this report in my view. Only occasionally does the rapporteur display any sense of reality.
This is very clearly the case in Recital O, in which he states that "the objective is certainly not to create a single diplomatic service to replace the foreign services of the Member States" . Yet at the same time, the entire document is suffused with the notion of - it would be safe to say, the passionate desire for - a Community diplomatic service for the Union.
The rapporteur rationalises his intention at the very beginning of his report.
In his words: "since the 1950s the Community' s external activity has expanded continuously" . Given that the Union' s vacillating behaviour in the Balkans during the recently elapsed decade of the previous century is still fresh in the memory, this robust declaration sounds extremely implausible to my mind.
Another important point raised by Mr Galeote Quecedo is that of "a lack of coordination" in the foreign policy of the EU Member States, which he believes to be essential to the "visibility and effectiveness" of the CFSP.
Does this really amount to nothing more than a coordination problem? As if the divergent national interests of the Member States had already been consigned to the European past!
The opposite is true.
The CFSP' s self-same lack of efficiency and visibility, as picked up on by the rapporteur, can be directly attributed to the divergent interests of the Member States.
The tension between fantasy and reality in the report also manifests itself in the proposal to set up a College of European Diplomacy.
Just how realistic is it to ask for "adequate funding to be provided in the General Budget" for this project when the current EU delegations are already having to contend with serious personnel shortages due to a lack of funds? Mr Galeote Quecedo makes the same point himself in his explanatory statement.
Mr President, the question I am dying to ask is this: to what extent do the Member States themselves actually share the rapporteur' s views?
At the end of the day, there is nothing skilful about spending Community money.
On no account does this typically European custom rule out legitimate and extremely useful prior enquiries as to necessity and effectiveness.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for producing this report.
As Mrs Carrilho has pointed out, this is the first own-initiative report which this Parliament is approving in the field of external policy during this parliamentary term.
It is odd to hear the interventions of certain MEPs who say that they find this report very timid, and of others who feel that it will put an end to the last redoubt of Member States' sovereignty.
I believe that this report represents a move in the right direction.
I believe that it limits itself to adhering pragmatically to the Community method and that it clearly demonstrates that joint diplomacy is one of the fundamental aspects of the visibility of the European Union' s external action.
I do not know if we can speak today of the European Union as the main economic power, the main industrial power or the main financial power in the world.
What we can say, without a shadow of a doubt, is that the European Union is today the main provider of development aid, and this means that the European Commission delegates play a very important role when it comes to representing the Community institutions and, in particular, the Commission.
This means that their specific importance in many cases, given the significant quantities they have to distribute, is greater than that of the ambassadors and of the Member States.
Therefore, Mr President, it is clear that anything which helps to improve the preparation and knowledge of the Commission officials will be an important element for the European Union' s external action.
The rapporteur has explained the main initiatives contained in his report: the creation of a common diplomatic college, the establishment of procedures for Commission delegates to be received in third countries - an initiative which Mr Patten has accepted in general terms and which I am pleased to see included in this report - and also the drawing up of an annual report on the activity of European Union delegates.
I hope, Mr President, that these initiatives will contribute effectively to the creation of a more visible and coherent external policy for European Union action.
Mr President, today we are discussing Mr Galeote Quecedo' s excellent report, on which there is a broad consensus.
Clearly, if we are to support the Union' s international activities, we need suitable mechanisms, knowledge and skills.
Equally clearly, these alone are not enough.
We also need policies.
In this sense, Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report remains within the limits of procedural rationalisation; it also remains within the framework of certain policies.
We often ask the question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Something of the sort hangs over today' s debate.
But we must be clear that there are no vacuums in life.
In this sense, moaning and groaning solves nothing in politics.
Having said which, the framework to which the Galeote Quecedo report belongs will always dictate the conditions both for rationalising procedures and for the prospects of common diplomacy.
In this sense, it moves within the bounds of technocratic rationalisation and goes no further than policy will allow.
However we, the citizens of Europe, who are striving for a better future for the people of Europe and of the world as a whole, have to realise that we need to intervene in these matters transcendently.
We need to move forward, we need to be guided by the logic of a positive dynamic balance, not a static balance which goes nowhere.
In this sense, there have indeed been huge vacuums in the CFSP and we have all acknowledged the fact and seen what is needed in order to put flesh on the bones of this policy, which is instrumental to the political development of Europe.
In this sense, the report translates the initiative of the European Parliament into a framework, into prospects, action and rationalisation.
In any event, if there is anyone here in this House - and I do not think that there is - who believes that Europe has no future, they can express it somewhat differently.
But I believe that the people of Europe and the large majority of parties and factions see Europe as a Europe with prospects, a Europe of peace, a Europe of cooperation, a Europe of social cohesion, a Europe of development.
And this sort of Europe cannot function if it has no prospect of a common foreign policy and defence and security policy, i.e. if it does not have the corresponding mechanisms.
Under these circumstances, the tiny foundation stone of this structure which the European Parliament is laying today represents a serious starting point and I think that it has created new momentum and better prospects.
I would like to speak on behalf of the non-federalists in our group who actually feel that Europe is centralising far too much and more and more powers are being taken away from people at local and national levels, basically without any proper democratic control.
There is quite a lot of double-talk here tonight.
On the one hand, people are saying that we are not talking about or aiming for a single diplomatic corps, but it is quite clear that the aim of this whole project is to have EU embassies abroad and to abolish national ones.
I am not being nationalistic and saying that I want the Irish Embassy, but there is a certain amount of danger in this, particularly because it is geared towards the common foreign and security policy, which is not in the interest of the developing world or of the peoples that have been persecuted and exploited by Member States of this Union.
You only need to look at the number of, for example, British embassies abroad.
Britain has twice as many embassies as either France or Germany.
It has a huge diplomatic corps which reflects its colonial past.
I have grave reservations about the idea of a common European embassy, given that in the past people fleeing persecution in certain countries were able to go into some embassies and seek asylum and get protection.
What happens if you have a single European diplomatic presence abroad? We abolish national embassies.
What would happen then if someone fleeing from persecution were to seek asylum or help from the EU embassy if it did not suit the EU's interests to support him or her?
I believe that there are grave dangers in what we are doing.
It is interesting to hear some people speaking today about the need for a higher profile and EU embassies to compete with the US.
This is all about competition.
It is about being able to compete with other superpowers.
I do not approve of the idea that Europe should create another superpower.
To do so would destabilise the global community.
Whereas, we should look for more cooperation and less competition.
The idea of competing with the US is completely unacceptable.
If you look at the report itself, it is geared towards facilitating the common foreign and security policy.
Not all Greens and EFA members in our group - the non-federalists - would support Mr Dupuis' amendments, because we believe that they are moving in the same direction and we would have grave reservations about that.
Mr President, although the European Union barely has a legal basis or status as an international political entity, the report and proposal under discussion suggest creating mechanisms which are suited solely to that sort of entity.
The proposal to create a Community diplomatic corps and a college of diplomacy is not intended to fill a vacuum in Community legislation.
In essence, this proposal, tabled no less as a proposal by the European Parliament, which is supposed to represent the people, is intended to deprive Member States of the facility to exercise an independent foreign policy which differs from the choices made by the dominant circles in the European Union, to the detriment of the people.
It is basically intended to abolish diplomatic representation of the people, of the Member States, and to replace it with diplomatic representation directed by the managing board of the European Union.
This proposal is intended to take all foreign policy matters out of the jurisdiction of national governments, far from any possible democratic control, and away from national parliaments, and is therefore in violation of national constitutions.
The Communist Party of Greece, as you know, is opposed to any further integration of the European Union and to the CFSP and the superpowers of Mr CFSP, the notorious Mr Solana.
We are opposed to measures which seek to convert national governments into powerless county councils, which is why we shall be voting against the proposal.
Outwardly, Mr Galeote Quecedo's report seems very reasonable, but on closer examination, we get a rather different picture.
If the proposals were pursued, we would have another building block in the construction of a European State.
There are many points of detail in the report which are particularly controversial, not least the idea of European Union embassies and the suggestion that the European Union should have "coordinated representation in international bodies such as the UN".
The implication of this is that the United Kingdom and France should give up their seats in the Security Council and make way for an EU representative.
I am alarmed at the anti-United States rhetoric which we have heard from a number of speakers, and at some of the other outbursts from other Members.
This is hardly the moment for the Commission to be encouraged to embark on yet another ambitious development of its role.
The Commission's external assistance programmes account for nearly EUR 10 billion this year, and the priority task of the Community delegations is to administer these programmes properly and efficiently.
Mr Patten has just made reference to this.
In his communication on the reform of external assistance, Mr Patten recognised, and I quote, "acute staff shortages have had a direct and negative impact on the speediness and quality of EC aid delivery".
He said that there is an urgent need to focus activities on core tasks and that additional staff needs will be concentrated in the area of project and programme implementation, in particular within delegations.
The clear conclusion is that the most important role of delegations is the administration of external assistance, not to try and run some additional diplomatic tasks.
Management personnel is what we need in the delegations.
There is no recognition of this in the Galeote Quecedo report.
Yes, the Commission needs to recruit a different sort of personnel.
Yes, it needs to give them improved, specialist training, but not for some new-fangled diplomatic service, but to get the external assistance programmes on the right footing.
Mr President, the informal meeting of Foreign Ministers in Evian has, in fact, already anticipated to some degree the excellent proposals in Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report.
As I understand it, it was agreed that the EU embassies in third countries and the embassies of the Member States should improve their level of cooperation and coordinate their development programmes, and that there should be far more joint action.
Now these are things we have already called for on countless occasions, and so I am delighted that Mr Galeote Quecedo has made a proposal that is very much in line with our wishes.
Mr President, last week, I was in Indonesia on a fact-finding mission and all I can say is that the EU delegation out there provided me with outstanding support. When I go on foreign trips, I always ask for a meeting to be arranged which will be attended by all the EU ambassadors, i.e. the ambassadors of the 15 Member States.
This occasion was no exception, and a meeting was indeed arranged.
And then there are complaints that the joint policy of the EU Member States is not in the limelight enough, and that although people in Indonesia know full well what Japan and the United States are doing there, they do not have a clear enough idea as to what the 15 Member States of the European Union are doing there. If I then ask: 'how do you coordinate your work, and how do you harmonise your activities, the answer is: 'that is not something we do' .
And I would go so far as to say that people seem to be in great fear of achieving a degree of coordination and harmonisation.
That is why I think it is so important that these agreements were reached in Evian, and why I welcome with open arms the fact that an EU college of diplomacy has been proposed.
The national diplomats should also be required to attend courses at a college of this kind, so that they understand how to take joint action at European level.
There is an urgent need for this.
It is not a question of wanting to outdo the United States, or Japan, for example, but what we do need to do is give Europe a much higher profile in third countries.
Accordingly, I have a great deal of time for Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report and I truly hope that the Evian proposals come to fruition.
Mr President, over a period of 150 years, missionaries and aid workers have fostered knowledge of international affairs and commitment in my own country amongst broad sections of the population.
It is important for each individual Member State to retain and extend the opportunities it has for asserting, through its government and embassies, the voice and commitment of its own people on international issues.
Embassies constitute one of the most essential and most obvious expressions of national sovereignty.
History shows how, for example, a country such as Norway fought to conduct its own diplomacy in its struggle for independence from Sweden.
By having its own embassy, a country can also provide important services to its citizens when they visit another country.
The embassy can provide them with a service in their own language.
At the same time, embassies constitute indispensable sources of information and centres of analytical work for the various governments of the countries concerned.
Mr Galeote Quecedo has done a very fine job, but I am sceptical about the following points: recital E concerning the establishment of a professional and permanent community diplomatic service; and recital P in which there is talk of setting up EU embassies in the future.
What exactly does this mean, Mr Galeote Quecedo and Commissioner Patten?
Paragraph 1 - the setting up of a College of European Diplomacy.
In which language is it to operate - in Spanish, English, French or in the languages of all the Member States? Paragraph 12 - in which I think the embassies of the Member States are being told that they are to issue joint statements of their views.
Is this not already clear to them under the framework of the Common Foreign and Security Policy?
Finally, there is talk of guaranteeing coordinated representation in the EU and other international bodies.
Sweden and many other countries have proud traditions in the United Nations.
Let us continue along these lines.
Mr President, I have taken the floor now spontaneously - as spontaneously as it is possible to do so in this Parliament - because a colleague from the group cannot be here.
But I am taking the floor as someone who until last April was a very ordinary civil servant in the German diplomatic service, and so people might perhaps think that I would be certain to be relatively sceptical about an approach of this kind because it will surely tend to erode the powers of national colleagues.
I am not sceptical, and I should like to warmly congratulate Mr Galeote Quecedo on his report.
I am, however, rather surprised at the strange scenarios depicted by some of the honourable members here.
What is this really about? Mr Galeote Quecedo actually made this quite clear: there is a remit for the European Union to be represented in third countries and this is about us being represented there better and more professionally within its terms; it is about our people whom we post there being able to work as effectively as possible within their remit.
I do not wish to offend anybody, but if I imagine let's say a former national civil servant from the Ministry of Agriculture in a Member State coming into the Commission at some point and doing really outstanding work internally, and then being appointed to head perhaps an external delegation or a Commission representation abroad, I think that this person would definitely still gain from learning what national colleagues will have perhaps learnt at a diplomatic college.
And I believe that this would allow the person to do their job even more successfully.
Similarly, however, I should also like to say that this remit will of course grow in conjunction with powers at European level.
In this respect, both the fears expressed by Mr Coûteaux on the one hand, and the hopes expressed by Mr Dupuis on the other, are certainly justified.
As the tasks broaden, so the power devolved to these representations will increase, but this is also what we, as a body, have all wanted.
Seen from this point of view, it is good if we already start making appropriate preparations now.
I believe that the report drafted by Mr Galeote Quecedo is a very good one.
Mr President, I very much welcome the interest that Parliament has shown in the external service, in particular, Mr Galeote Quecedo's report.
I want to assure Parliament that we will consider its recommendations very carefully.
I want to pay particular tribute to Mr Galeote Quecedo.
He deserves considerable respect for the very professional and open-minded way in which he has carried out his work.
I can say without any reservation that the Commission has benefited from the report and it is bound to make a permanent impression on the way we run our external service in the future.
It is already a subject in which we have been taking a keen interest.
I left a special meeting of virtually all our heads of delegation in Brussels early today specifically to be here for this debate.
When apologising for my early departure I was able to inform them of the close interest that Parliament takes in these matters.
The fact that we called all our heads of delegation to Brussels at this time is a sign of our determination to give a firm lead to the external service and to provide it with the career structure and the leadership that it deserves and needs.
Members will have seen the communication on the development of the external service that was adopted by the Commission on 18 July.
It recommends continuing to rebalance delegation staff between officials and local agents and continuing the regionalisation of our representation in a way that will free up 32 official posts immediately to be redeployed to delegations that need reinforcement.
The communication updates the list of priorities for the opening of new delegations and offices.
However, even though some of these are urgent priorities, our first concern must be to use available resources to reinforce some of our existing delegations.
The communication also describes the measures we are taking to devolve authority from Brussels to delegations in the field, known in jargon as "deconcentration".
This is closely linked to our efforts to reform our external assistance programmes.
The communication makes it clear that what it proposes is only a first step.
We intend to continue and to ensure the best use of the resources we have at our disposal on the basis of an evaluation of the workload of each delegation.
I want to make this point very clear because it is the backdrop to Mr Galeote Quecedo's report.
If we get through our reform proposals and if they are supported by the budgetary authority, in the SCR and the Bureau d'assistance technique combined we will have fewer people managing our external programmes, though we will have more than at present in the SCR.
But we will have fewer people in Brussels and more people in the field.
That is the balance we should be striking: to have more of the work done on the ground in our delegations.
We will be preparing a follow-up communication on the external services in the first half of next year.
Let me comment specifically on Mr Galeote Quecedo's report.
It makes recommendations in three main areas: the training of officials assigned to external relations, the legal status of delegations and coordination with Member States.
A number of the points raised by the resolution, for example on regionalisation and on the evaluation of our network of external representations, are already covered in our own communication.
The report stresses the role of the Commission and its delegations in the Community's external activities and it is, of course, essential that the Commission's external service be able to continue to contribute properly.
The first step must be to develop the training of officials in the Commission who deal with external relations.
I am delighted that the report puts so much informed stress on that point.
We have already made good progress but we need to build on it very fast indeed, particularly given the deconcentration that I have talked about.
We should try, as the report suggests, to benefit from the skills and experience of existing training institutions in the Member States.
We are already in contact with many of them and we will seek to deepen that relationship.
Whether it is now time to set up a college of European diplomacy is something that we will have to look at very carefully with Parliament, the Council and others.
We will certainly consider that proposal very carefully and it underlines the importance of training - language training, management training, all the other sorts of training that are essential in order to make our delivery of programmes and our representation overseas more effective.
On the legal status of delegations I should say that although delegations are formally delegations of the Commission they are under clear instructions to give all possible assistance to all the institutions of the European Union and indeed to Member States.
I am not convinced of the need to formalise this state of affairs since it exists already.
I do not want to complicate procedures further, but again I am open-minded on the issue.
We have made it absolutely clear to our delegations that they should regard themselves as working for the High Representative and for the other institutions of the European Union, both when it comes to reporting and when it comes to logistical issues.
On relations with the Member States, I wholeheartedly endorse the proposal for greater cooperation.
This is already our policy and the discussions this weekend at Evian very much concentrated on how best we can achieve that in practice.
In our 1998 communication on the external service, we made it clear that any Member State that wished to keep a presence in a third country without maintaining an embassy was welcome to use the Commission's delegations.
This has already happened on two occasions: in Sierra Leone by Germany and in Burundi by Austria.
There is already a considerable degree of cooperation between Member States' embassies and Commission delegations.
There are regular meetings at all levels.
Joint reports are produced, either at the request of headquarters, or on the initiative of heads of missions.
The Commission also supports and, when appropriate, seeks to participate in co-location projects where more than one Member State and/or the Commission agree to occupy premises jointly.
We have a programme of secondment of Member States officials and diplomats to our delegations.
There are ten in our delegations at the moment, with a few more due in the near future.
The restriction on the development of this programme is not lack of will on our part - I want to make that clear - but to some extent a lack of resources and also a certain reluctance on the part of the Member States to respond to our invitation to second diplomats to the delegations.
I want to underline the importance of coordination.
We have to cooperate better without finding ourselves in a situation in which everything we do is second-guessed, not just in Brussels, but in other countries as well.
All this discussion about coordination and about the future of the external service takes place against the backdrop of a treaty which talks about a common foreign and security policy, not a single foreign and security policy in a Union of fifteen Member States, each with its own foreign minister.
I strongly suspect that we will have fifteen foreign ministers in the European Union for the foreseeable future.
But what we have to do is make coordination and cooperation more effective, more meaningful and more professional.
A final plea.
In welcoming this report and in promising active cooperation in following its recommendations I must stress that if the external service is to carry out the role which Parliament wants for it, it must have the resources to do so; that is, not just resources to place officials in third countries but also to ensure that they are properly trained, that they are equipped with the necessary information technology and that they have secure means of communication.
Last and by no means least, it is very important that they are provided with adequate physical protection in what is an, often, very dangerous world.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, at 12.30 p.m.
EC investment partners financial instrument
The next item is the report (A5-0202/2000) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation regarding the closure and liquidation of projects adopted by the Commission under Council Regulation (EC) No 213/96 on the implementation of the European Communities investment partners financial instrument for the countries of Latin America, Asia, the Mediterranean region and South Africa (COM(1999) 726 - C5­0062/2000 - 2000/0034(COD)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have the great honour of presenting, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, this report on the liquidation of one of the projects which appears to have been more successful or which has been more positively appreciated in the field of North/South cooperation: the ECIP (European Community Investment Partners) project. This project is universally considered to have been successful, although, in company with many other projects, it did suffer from the delays which have built up in the external relations sector, delays with which we are all familiar and which Commissioner Patten has recently analysed in great detail.
In this case, we have almost 600 projects which were approved in due time and which are to be financed by the ECIP.
The Commission has therefore proposed - after a delay which we condemn in our report, caused, of course, by the events of 1999 - to extend, not the legal basis itself, but the existence of the technical assistance offices and the means which are essential for the management of the sizeable remainder of the ECIP - 590 projects - and to do so for two years.
I have to say, Commissioner, that the Committee on Development and Cooperation has been faced with the opinions of the other Parliamentary committees - the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control - on this matter.
As you will have seen, these two committees attempted to fence in the Commission, so to speak, and place greater restrictions on it, calling upon it to conclude the operation six months earlier and to submit progress reports earlier in the process than proposed.
We, the Committee on Development and Cooperation, have understood the Commission' s message, the request to assist the ECIP project - which, I repeat, has contributed, along with other projects, to the creation and growth of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises in Third World countries and has, in effect, raised the profile of the Union and enabled it to penetrate a new sector, which is therefore important to the Commission - and we have therefore decided not to go along with the more restrictive opinions of the other Committees or to make amendments to the Commission' s principal request to be granted two years to bring this major economic cooperation instrument to the best possible conclusion and to honour the agreements, signed before 31 December 1999.
However, at the same time, Commissioner, we have made a request: we have called upon you to inform Parliament of what the Commission intends to be the future of this instrument and to do so in good time for us to be able to reflect on the matter, together if possible.
We have seen that it is an effective instrument which has responded to real needs and has employed much more in the way of resources than the Community Budget funding.
We therefore call upon you to accept our amendment in order to make the co-decision procedure as rapid as possible and so that, if possible, we will be able to close the procedure in a single reading, so that you will be equipped with the means for action as soon as possible. Our modest request is that you inform us of your intentions before the end of the year.
We are aware of the differences of opinion and the possible conflicts of responsibilities between external relations and development and therefore between the responsibilities of the individual Directorates-General, and possibly even between the responsibilities of the individual Commissioners, but we are also aware that, during restructuring, the responsibility for external relations is extremely carefully reviewed by yourself, in particular, Commissioner, and by the entire Commission.
We have not, therefore, laid down a line of march. We have not laid down that the ECIP has to remain an autonomous instrument or that the ECIP can and must be integrated into a wider-reaching instrument.
We have merely requested that the faith we are placing in the Commission in granting it these extra two years will be repaid: this is our request, and I would ask you, Commissioner, to tell us now whether you accept the amendments which we have tabled.
Mr President, the Committee on Budgetary Control unanimously supports the objectives of the EC Investment Partners programme.
However, we do criticise the way in which it has been implemented.
The first point to note is that the Commission is currently operating in a legal vacuum, because the proposal to continue the programme - which has after all already been extended twice - was only tabled at the end of January, that is, one month after the regulation had expired, and will not be able to be adopted until late autumn.
We endorse the legislative proposal as a stopgap measure until the end of 2001, because we do not deny that, according to the figures published, 34 000 firms have been involved as partners, creating over 1 300 joint ventures and 42 000 jobs.
Nevertheless, the Deloitte & Touche appraisal report highlights a series of grave shortcomings which need to be tackled.
For example, procedures have become increasingly bureaucratic and cumbersome and therefore less business- and user-friendly, which has resulted in the accumulation of a backlog of payments and increasing discontent among financial institutions and enterprises because of delays in decisions and contracts.
Bad management and a lack of coordination between the ECIP Unit and the SCR also mar the Commission's reputation, as does the discrimination between financial institutions.
For example, the state-owned development bank of Denmark receives 38% of funding while Spain's only receives 23%.
As well as further points of criticism and three proposals for amendments, our opinion also contains questions which the Commission ought to take into account when it is deciding whether to continue operating the ECIP beyond 2001 or whether to incorporate it in a single investment facility, as Mr Dell'Alba has already mentioned.
Mr President, as somebody keen on helping countries to create jobs and transfer technology, I have to say that the ECIP programme is extremely good and, in principle, that was the objective.
But as my colleague and friend, Mrs Theato, has mentioned, it is full of worms.
It is almost as if the project was a wonderful, beautifully-wrapped box of chocolates, but inside was absolutely packed with worms.
The reason for that is simple.
If you look at Facility 1, it grants up to EUR 100 000 for simply identifying a potential joint venture.
So, clearly, when you look at Facilities 2, 3, 4 and 1b, you soon realise that the work was not done by somebody who was a banker, but by somebody who perhaps was a bureaucrat and knew nothing about finance and lending to projects which could be viable.
In short, I would say if such an instrument is ever to be invented and devised, it should be done with bankers and industrialists, people who know what they are talking about, not bureaucrats sitting in the European Commission.
Therefore, the sooner this project is wound up and the European Union saves money that is being wasted, the better.
I feel very strongly that such investment projects should be very carefully thought out with input from industry and bankers so that maximum jobs are created where they are needed and where there is wide coverage and public accountability and transparency.
When I was a member of the Budgetary Control Committee and met the people who were managing this project, I was not at all impressed with the knowledge that they had of running such an enterprise, and I come from an industrial and financial background.
Mr President, Commissioner, the report presented by Mr Dell'Alba refers to the winding up of one of the main financial instruments for Community aid to the private sector.
The Socialist Group supports all cooperation measures which, like this one, help to make companies, and economies in general, more dynamic, by means of private initiative.
The ECIP, whose projects are now coming to an end, has been particularly successful, as has been previously pointed out.
According to the external evaluation it has been subjected to, the ECIP has demonstrated a significant multiplier effect, creating jobs and joint ventures.
We now hope, Commissioner, that the future programme that will replace it will add better management to these positive effects.
Nevertheless, we have to say that although we are happy with the successes of this programme, we Socialist members of the Committee on Development and Cooperation suggest that the main objective of any instrument for aid, including those in the private sector, must be to reduce poverty in those countries, which is ultimately the objective of these instruments.
Wealth creation and the generation of jobs by means of companies financed through Community funds must benefit those populations in need.
The application of these instruments must take account of the need to achieve labour, social and environmental standards, otherwise it could be said that these instruments do not aid development but rather constitute subsidies to individuals.
We cannot say that in the evaluations control has always been exercised over the quality of aid via the ECIP.
For example, when a bank is established in a beneficiary country by means of ECIP funds, how can we be sure that these funds are directed towards attracting investment and not simply to subsidising the presence of the bank in that country? As the rapporteur has said, it is a question of framing Community aid within a broad strategy which includes the private sector, which the Commission does not refer to in its plan for reforming aid policy, despite the fact that attracting private funds is necessary for the development of many countries.
In this respect, we wish once again to repeat the question by Mr Dell'Alba to the Commission about its intentions relating to extending this instrument to the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, whose need for funds is also very great.
In short, we hope that this experience of the ECIP, which has been very important for Latin America, will serve to improve the programme replacing it, which, we have noted, has no clear role in the Commission' s plan for reform.
Coordination within the Commission is essential to improving the effectiveness of aid and, to this end, the different instruments must have one broad aim and one overall strategy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to those of us who have closely followed the evolution and development of the ECIP instrument throughout its short but intense history, it seems that the best way to summarise Mr Dell'Alba' s report is to highlight the message contained in the amendments of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, since they recommend the continuation of this financial instrument because it has been the best vehicle for establishing and strengthening Europe' s business fabric in the countries involved and, consequently, for creating employment.
Now that the agreement on free trade, political concertation and cooperation between the European Union and Mexico has just entered into force, it is a good time to remember that we should continue with this type of financial instrument which, in some cases, such as Mexico, has been used intensively and positively, and is ideally suited to strengthening commercial ties between particular blocks, such as the European Union and the countries involved.
Otherwise, the European Union would no longer be acting in accordance with its cooperation and development commitment, not only in the case of the countries of Latin America, but also in the cases of Asia, the Mediterranean and South Africa.
In short, we clearly support Mr Dell' Alba' s report, and we congratulate him on the clarity of his ideas when he deals with the need to continue in the future with the implementation of the ECIP, in my opinion, as a single instrument. We also hope that these ideas will be directed, after more than ten years of positive experience, towards making the bureaucratic process involved in the project' s implementation more flexible and rapid in order to allow for more efficient action.
In my opinion, this requires a strengthening of human resources in the Commission' s offices in the countries involved.
Mr President, the proposed ECIP development programme provides a pretty picture of the European Commission' s mismanagement.
Although this programme is heading in the right direction, i.e. technology transfer to developing countries, the Commission has, perhaps unwittingly, applied a brake.
The programme has been running for twelve years and the Commission has waited right until it is about to end before considering whether to carry on with it.
As with other programmes, the Commission has not looked into the consequences of a possible end to this programme, the implications for the continuity of actions already undertaken or for the situation affecting partner businesses and jobs.
It appears that, last year, the EUR 90 million that were budgeted for this programme were not even used, due to a lack of human resources available to study the dossiers, which are piled up on a desk somewhere in Brussels.
At the same time, the administrative procedures have become more cumbersome with every passing year, yet the personnel running the programme have not seen any increase in their staffing numbers.
Similarly, business partners were not informed of the possible termination of the programme.
Lastly, the criteria for the distribution of funds between the different foci of the programme, particularly the social rights of workers, have remained impenetrably vague.
In light of what I have just said, we ask the Commission to look into the means, firstly, of producing a rapid evaluation of the assessment and, secondly, of re-establishing the programme whilst improving its transparency and maintaining the level of its budget.
Mr President, I shall be voting against the Dell'Alba report, and more generally against the ECIP and MEDA programmes, which were basically designed to finance subsidies and loans to private companies investing in Latin America, Asia, the Mediterranean and in South Africa.
I protest at the fact that public money might be used - in any form at all - to generate private profit.
This project, which is supposed to focus on SMEs in the first instance, in reality often involves subsidiaries of huge multinational companies, such as banks, which take part in these programmes and profit from them.
The stated political aim of these programmes is to encourage the opening up of these countries' markets to European capital.
In the past, these poor countries were plundered and exploited by the capital of the great European powers in competition with one another.
All that has changed is the fact that the programmes now advocate coordinated action for this capital.
Capital that is invested through this programme is no more designed to develop poor countries now than it was in the past, since they are dependent on European capital.
These programmes are not designed to make the lives of the working classes any easier, but to exploit a cheap workforce over there in order to increase the wealth of owners and shareholders over here.
I therefore object to these programmes across the board, because in spite of a few hypocritical phrases about fighting poverty, they all seek to provide the imperialism of the great European powers with additional instruments for getting a foothold in poorer countries and then dominating them.
Mr President, we are holding a debate on an issue which is of relatively modest importance in budgetary terms, ambitious in its objectives, relatively encouraging in its results, inefficient because of its cumbersome management procedures, at times contradictory and, in short, there is clearly room for improvement in the future.
I must express my satisfaction at the frankness and transparency with which the committee has analysed the results that have been obtained.
It does not hide anything and I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Dell'Alba, because in a co-decision procedure he has rejected demagoguery and easy criticism in favour of the professionalism with which he has approached the drawing up of his report.
I hope that, in a co-decision procedure, the Commission will be sensitive to Parliament' s position so that we can begin the now urgent reform of this important financial instrument.
This instrument for the development of the private sector in developing countries is in accordance with the thinking which inspires the new position of the European Union in its cooperation policy.
We have already talked a lot about this in relation to the ACP countries and we must apply the same criteria in relation to the countries of Latin America and the southern Mediterranean.
The results obtained so far are encouraging.
More than 1 300 new companies have been set up, generating 42 000 jobs, and investment flows to the tune of EUR 3 500 million have been created.
Certain hopes and expectations, however, have been left behind.
We find it contradictory to say that fighting poverty is our priority and, yet we lack the information and indicators necessary to ascertain to what extent the most impoverished sectors have benefited from the aid.
Lastly, Commissioner, it is urgent that we reform the five current cumbersome procedures, none of which is of any real use, since they can clearly be improved.
Let me thank Mr Dell'Alba and the Development and Cooperation Committee very sincerely for their excellent work on the Commission proposal on the future of the European Community Investment Partners.
Let me commence with a bit of background.
The ECIP instrument operated successfully for 12 years, from 1988 to 1999.
More than 2 500 actions were approved in that period for a total amount of over EUR 290 million involving 1 400 joint ventures and EUR 4.3 billion in investment.
From 1991, the Commission sent annual reports on the implementation and on the results of ECIP to Parliament and to the Council, of which the last covered operations in 1999.
Parliament also received the independent evaluation report that was completed in December 1999, but, as honourable Members will know, from 1997 ECIP began to run into trouble.
The lack of sufficient staff to ensure the smooth management of an ever-increasing number of actions resulted in delays in the implementation of the programme, which in turn caused growing discontent among its beneficiaries.
These difficulties were compounded by the introduction of more stringent financial procedures needed to guarantee the proper use of the resources managed by the Commission.
They are typical of the problems we face, namely insufficient resources to do the job wedded to overly restrictive practices and procedures.
The Commission decided not to extend the instrument beyond 31 December 1999. This was a painful decision, but, I am sure, the right one - and to reappraise the instrument in order to prepare a redesigned programme.
This will allow better coordination with other similar European Union instruments and ensure improved management and financial procedures in the light of the new Commission guidelines on development policy and the management of external aid.
Mr Dell'Alba's report contains extremely helpful suggestions in this respect.
The approval of the proposed regulation will make possible the continued sound management of existing ECIP projects and their orderly closure and winding-down as they reach completion.
As far as the suggested amendments are concerned, the Commission agrees with Amendment Nos 1 and 2, which correspond with our views on the need to reassess, improve and redesign the existing financial instruments for the support of private investment.
As regards Amendment No 3, the Commission agrees with the principle behind it but is not in a position to provide the legislative proposals requested by Parliament by the end of this year.
We are presently engaged in a comprehensive review of all our existing financial instruments.
We need to be candid.
We need more time to present a properly thought through and fundamentally revised programme.
The Commission therefore proposes to evaluate all the options by June of next year and then make proposals.
The honourable gentleman has been generous, courteous and understanding.
He therefore deserves the assurance from me that the timetable I have set out is one we intend to observe, and I hope he will accept our determination to present our proposals within that sort of time-scale in good faith.
I wish we could act more rapidly, but to do the job properly we need a bit more time.
Let me finish by thanking the European Parliament for the support which the House has given to the proposed regulation on ECIP.
It will allow the Commission to bring this programme to an end in a responsible manner and to launch renewed and improved initiatives for promotion of the private sector in developing countries.
I am sure that we will have other future opportunities that will enable me to explain to some honourable Members why I do not equate that with nineteenth century imperialism.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, at 12.30 p.m.
Community humanitarian activities
The next item is the report (A5-0191/2000) by Mr Imbeni, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: Assessment and future of Community humanitarian activities (Article 20 of Regulation (EC) 1257/96) (COM(1999) 468 - C5-0044/2000 - 2000/2016 (COS)).
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking all my fellow Members from the various Parliamentary groups who have made a substantial contribution to the preparatory work for this report to express Parliament' s position on the Commission' s Communication on ECHO' s activities, on emergency aid and on humanitarian activities.
The committee' s unanimity regarding the report is evidence of highly profitable cooperation, and I hope that this will be reflected in the final vote in the Chamber tomorrow.
A discussion on ECHO, or humanitarian aid, will include mention of the worst tragedies and the greatest contradictions of our time. It will touch on war, natural disasters and the damage to the world' s ecology system, on the continued tragic ethnic conflicts and civil and military wars, on the basic injustice underlying the North/South relationship and the suffering, in particular, of the most vulnerable peoples; of women, children and the elderly.
And the truth is that the forecast for the next few years does not indicate an improvement in this situation.
I merely refer to a number of newspaper articles which have appeared during recent months on issues such as the fact that a totally unexpected part of the North Pole has shown signs of melting, the water poisoning in Bangladesh which is endangering safety, health and hygiene conditions for 25 million people, or the drought in many parts of Africa.
We must therefore be responsible and realistic, and, even more than in the past, we must plan action for the future to prevent natural disasters and to respond to the consequences of the tragedies often - almost always - caused by man.
These planning operations require an improvement in coordination at international level between the European Union and all the other parties involved in humanitarian aid, and greater cooperation within the European Union between the Commission and the instruments available to the Member States, in order to avoid the repetition of the frequent past cases - referred to in the Commission document and confirmed by the assessments - of duplication and repetition of action and, thus, wastage of energy and resources.
In this context, I find it unacceptable - and both my report and Parliament' s position are clear on this point - that ECHO should be reduced to a source of funding for initial relief operations and nothing else.
We need to act in a wider perspective. The objective of ECHO and of European Union activities must be, firstly, to increase preventive action and then, secondly, to link emergency and initial relief actions to the operations intended to re-establish minimum living conditions in places affected by natural disasters and wars, thereby providing humanitarian aid during the stage following provision of emergency aid.
The sums in question may well be limited, in terms of more general budgets, but we are talking about EUR 2 500 million which have been allocated over the last four years by the European Commission to non-governmental organisations (56%), United Nations agencies (25%), the Red Cross (11%) and other direct operations carried out by ECHO or specialised Member States agencies.
There we are. In my opinion, the Commission' s analysis compels us to act to further strengthen ECHO and to avoid the prevalence of certain positions present within the Council, which is divided over these issues.
Certain people in the Council are of the opinion that ECHO' s activities should be reduced, but I take the completely opposite view.
One very last point, Mr President: ECHO cannot be treated as an ATM service where international agencies or non-governmental organisations withdraw money and do not even tell the beneficiaries where the funding came from.
The European public and the beneficiaries should be told about this remarkable work by ECHO.
This is why we have proposed - and I hope that Commissioner Patten, who is not listening to me at the moment, will take this proposal on board with due consideration - that an information campaign be mounted to inform the public of our countries how our money is being spent and how our resources are being used, and we propose that this information campaign should not, of course, be financed out of ECHO funds but out of the ad hoc funds.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Imbeni, has done an excellent job.
There is no need to repeat anything.
I should like to expand on two problematic issues.
The first is a question of principle.
Humanitarian aid has to be provided regardless of what has caused the catastrophes concerned and irrespective of any other political objectives.
Its increasing politicisation in recent years is an unacceptable and, ultimately, also inhumane phenomenon.
But at the same time, it should also be noted that the growing number of catastrophes is not only due to natural events over which we have no control.
As it is, this cannot be said of wars, in which humanitarian aid has to be supplied, perhaps by ECHO.
An increasing number of natural disasters are clearly linked to the fact that we are placing ever greater demands on the global ecosphere and biosphere.
The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, has reported, for example, that we can already see a, "discernible human influence on global climate".
Our concepts of crisis management ought therefore, in my opinion, also to have a socio-political dimension and be integrated into development policy and, for example, economic policy strategy. Otherwise we will, in many cases, only be repairing the damage inflicted as a consequence of our own policy, and the people in the countries of the South, in particular, will suffer as a result of the disasters which we have caused.
The second problem is directly linked to the first and yet is of a very practical nature.
I call on the Commission - even if the extensive problem which I have just outlined is not yet resolved - to link the design, organisation and operation of humanitarian aid more closely to development policy.
The Commission has already made attempts to do this, which I feel still need to be stepped up considerably and freed of red tape.
An example of this is, in my opinion, the concept of emergency relief which is geared to development, which the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (Company for Technical Cooperation) is trying to put into practice.
Mr President, I should first like to salute Mr Imbeni, the author of this report, and express my appreciation of his work.
It is an excellent report which both identifies the main points of criticism and describes ways to ensure that ECHO is able to work effectively in the future.
We have had this office for humanitarian aid in the EU since 1992, and both evaluation reports - which form the main basis of the assessment, together with the Commission's report - contain high praise for ECHO in respect of its work so far, while identifying several very serious weak points.
Although the assessment of ECHO's work in terms of efficiency compared with costs, is very positive, there still remains the problem of the infamous 'grey area' in the time immediately following the events which trigger the provision of relief.
Humanitarian operations in this 'grey area' cannot be assessed on the basis of precise criteria, nor do they provide the information and recommendations required for future ECHO operations in the area.
It is therefore necessary, in my opinion, to improve disaster preparedness and step up the provision of disaster relief as a priority.
It should be noted here that the regional approach adopted by the existing DIPECHO instrument offers a possible solution.
At the same time, however, the lack of sufficiently flexible alternative instruments within the Commission is to be lamented.
The Commission needs to present a clear strategy for the role which the humanitarian aid provided by ECHO has to play as part of foreign and development policy.
ECHO does not have the necessary human resources to do the job of a planning headquarters.
Staffing levels are below those characteristic of other Commission departments and well below those in national administrations, which are known to invest considerably less in crisis prevention.
Here the appropriations, which currently stand at around EUR 7.5 million, therefore need to be at least - wait for it - quadrupled to allow the work to be done effectively.
It is particularly regrettable - and Mr Imbeni has already made this point as well - that when projects are developed and run through partners, around 56% of which are non-governmental organisations, they are not identified strongly enough in the public arena as European Union aid.
I believe that there is a considerable need for action here in the future.
The public has to be informed, but please not with the funds which are directly available to ECHO.
We should continue to pursue the positive initiatives here and use alternative sources of funding to defray the costs of informing the public.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Mr Imbeni because I believe he has produced a splendid report and, while we were debating it in committee, we were already in complete agreement with his proposals.
The Socialist Group believes that aid policy must be the flagship of the European Union' s external activities insofar as it reflects the ideas which must inspire the construction of the European Union, that is to say, solidarity and cohesion on a global level.
In these times of Commission reform, when many Community policies and procedures are being questioned, humanitarian aid has been evaluated positively by different bodies and, of course, on a political level, by Parliament.
It is true that there has been a lot of criticism of humanitarian aid.
However, we, who have seen and evaluated what ECHO has done, believe that its work has been very positive.
This report therefore serves to ratify the principle of humanitarian aid as a right for people involved in disasters and an obligation on the part of the international community, in which the European Union is a major player, in both quantitative and qualitative terms.
Nevertheless and with a view to the future, we must take some steps forward.
Firstly, we must overcome the so-called 'grey area' which was mentioned earlier, that is to say, the interregnum between the end of emergency aid and the beginning of the rehabilitation and development actions.
While this 'grey area' continues, in which nobody is administratively responsible, there will be people who do not receive assistance for no other reason than a lack of internal coordination within the Commission.
We have seen this in the case of Mozambique and other disasters.
Humanitarian aid did arrive, but during this interregnum it has not continued for rehabilitation and development cooperation.
Coordination within the Commission and complementarity with the Member States and other donors are factors which are fundamental to the efficiency which reform is intended to produce.
Secondly, it is urgent that we increase the number of staff dedicated to humanitarian aid activities.
The number of ECHO' s staff is not proportional to the importance of its work.
Thirdly - and this is closely related to the previous point - the budget for humanitarian aid must be increased proportionally with its political importance and the real objectives we wish to achieve and which can be counted in the most important terms: human lives.
In this respect, the Commission and the Council' s budgetary proposals are far from meeting what we believe to be the humanitarian needs.
Lastly, we must try harder and harder to improve the decentralisation and flexibility of relations with agents for humanitarian aid, fundamentally the NGOs.
An instrument was mentioned earlier, DIPECHO, which provides operative preparation for disaster situations.
We believe that it is essential that, when a humanitarian catastrophe occurs, whether natural or caused by man, instruments are already in place.
In this respect, we wish to highlight the importance of DIPECHO.
The Socialist Group supports the principles which govern humanitarian aid and its future in the terms which I expressed earlier.
We do not believe that this should become a token policy, but rather a flagship, together with development cooperation, of the European Union' s external action.
Mr Imbeni said earlier - I do not know if the Commissioner heard what he said because he was talking at the time, but it seems to me to be very important - that there must be an awareness-raising campaign on the significance of humanitarian aid, on what this humanitarian aid means to us, the European Union. Mr Imbeni also said that the costs of that campaign should not be met with money intended for humanitarian aid.
I believe that this point, the subject of an amendment which has been presented this afternoon, is important and deserves our support.
What could be more important than humanitarian emergency aid? In other words, saving the lives of numerous human beings by taking swift and effective action, making funds immediately available and ensuring that they are well-spent, whilst eliminating political deliberations and bureaucratic rigmarole.
Needless to say, the European Union has its work cut out in this respect.
More to the point, it can, and must, take a leading role in this field in view of the added value it offers compared with the individual States.
ECHO must become the central coordination platform for all Member States.
It must be equipped to this end, so that it can operate to best advantage, for this is about life and death and so only the very best is good enough.
This will entail extending and improving the staffing capacity, decentralising competences, formulating quantifiable objectives, systematic monitoring of the results, continuing to learn from past mistakes, and above all, improving coordination with the other offices of the Commission and the Member States.
In order to mobilise the necessary public support for emergency aid, it would be a good idea to give greater publicity to what Europe does and why.
Moreover, increased transparency would create an additional incentive to meet the highest demands.
The relationship between emergency aid, reconstruction and development is the same as that between the seed, the stems, and the leaves of a plant; one evolves naturally from the other.
And what this means in terms of ECHO, which is the seed, is that although it does not have to handle all the reconstruction work itself, it does have to make all the necessary preparations.
When it comes to the reconstruction and development phases, the Commission needs to bring its own staffing levels up to standard with all haste, and drastically reduce the procedures.
A number of speakers have already said as much this evening.
Only then will Europe be able to make a virtue of need.
Mr President, throughout the world, development aid is giving way to humanitarian aid.
Even here, the Directorate-General for External Relations is gradually taking charge of the areas that were formerly the responsibility of the Directorate-General for Development, with humanitarian aid compensating for the failures of external policy.
It is not just a question of providing aid, but also of restoring balance in the use of natural resources among all of the world' s inhabitants.
Unfortunately, humanitarian aid cannot play this role and must not serve only to bail out a liberal policy which at the same time murders the populations of the countries in receipt of aid.
Sustainable development is all but absent from the European Union' s humanitarian policy - we are quite unprepared for natural disasters and do little to prevent conflicts.
Systematic training in how to deal with earthquakes and floods as well as in preventing violence would be welcome in many parts of the world.
Instead of this, the European Union always reacts too late - once the disaster has been declared.
This lack of planning can be seen in the programmes of aid for health and nutrition, and gender issues are also ignored.
The connection between humanitarian and development policy, although crucial, is systematically missing.
It is important not to do just what is strictly necessary, but to prevent the effects of these catastrophes, and first of all, the factor that makes them worse, which is poverty.
We hope that cross-sector posts will be created in order to link ECHO and the Directorate-General for Development.
These could also initiate cooperation with other worldwide organisations in the field of humanitarian aid, beginning with those in Member States, since there is a considerable lack of coordination in their actions.
It is equally important that operating and assessment costs do not exceed 20% of ECHO' s budget.
Payments must also be made more rapidly.
Venezuela has been waiting since last December for the aid it was promised.
Even if we are satisfied overall with the European Union' s humanitarian policy, and if we are generally happy with Mr Imbeni' s report, this policy must, to a greater extent, be in keeping with sustainable development.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Imbeni on an excellent report, into which he put a tremendous amount of work.
I want to refer to the question of Third World debt relief.
We must be more forceful in our efforts to put the issue of debt relief for Third World countries on a permanent footing.
The Jubilee 2000 campaign helped to focus international attention on the debt issue.
The campaign has been instrumental in achieving progress in providing additional relief both at multilateral level and by major bilateral creditors.
Poor countries face unsustainable debt burdens at the same time as they are confronting natural disasters, famine and the HIV/Aids pandemic.
Debt service payments often exceed health and education budgets.
Surely there is nothing more important in developing countries than education.
If people have literacy and numeracy they are a danger to the leadership of the worst-governed countries.
The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have brought out an initiative as an official response to the major multilateral lending institutions and the need for debt relief.
We all know that the link between debt relief and poverty reduction needs to be substantially strengthened.
Debt relief programmes for Third World countries must be put in place permanently.
The joint United Nations programmes on Aids has already estimated that 95% of all HIV-infected individuals live in developing countries.
The effect of the Aids pandemic means that progress and development become more difficult.
We must address this problem urgently.
The Ugandan President has set up a massive programme to deal with the Aids pandemic in his own country. It is a great example for the rest of the African countries.
European Union leaders are meeting in Nice in December to discuss the reform of EU policy programmes.
I would once again call on EU leaders to address the need to control arms exports to Third World countries.
It is hard to believe that in the European Union, where all key economic sectors of activity are regulated and controlled by law, the export of arms to third countries seems to go unregulated for the most part.
This is a barbaric and hypocritical position.
EU leaders should have the courage to face up to the key defence manufacturers.
They would also win broader support from the citizens of the EU, who are seeking leadership on this issue.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to express my thanks and congratulations to Mr Imbeni for his excellent report.
I agree with him that ECHO has in the past been and can continue to be in the future an excellent instrument for humanitarian intervention in the world' s crises, and this aid must be given an increasingly higher profile and become one of the trade marks of European Union action, for so it has been in recent years, I recall, for example when there was an ad hoc Commissioner for ECHO in the Commission.
I therefore feel that this evaluation, which attempts to improve the image of the programme, is right and necessary, and it appears, to a large extent, to be the aim of the excellent Imbeni report. I have tabled two purely technical amendments to the report, on the subject of the visibility of the programme in particular.
We need to strengthen, develop and, I would argue, provide autonomous funding for this opportunity for the European Union to publicise ECHO' s activities, for it is an unknown fact, for example, that it contributes over 50% to the budget of the Commissioner for Refugees.
I therefore call upon the Commission to give very serious consideration to Parliament' s suggestions and to take the Imbeni report carefully into account when carrying out the restructuring which is to take place to make ECHO' s actions increasingly useful and effective in assisting the areas and peoples in the greatest need.
You may be certain, Commissioner Patten, that this report is of the greatest importance to Parliament.
In the Committee on Development and Cooperation we have dedicated a great deal of time to humanitarian aid policies and you know that on this issue, in general, you will always have our support.
Firstly, I must today express my gratitude to the officials in ECHO and the staff of the NGOs who, in extremely precarious circumstances, when everything is failing on the ground, are the first, the most self-sacrificing, and often the only ones to provide essential humanitarian aid.
I must remind you that in Rwanda, in Kosovo, in Mozambique, in Central America, the sacrifices, sometimes of their lives, of those working in cooperation with us, have been some of the most inspiring stories in the history of the European Union.
In the small amount of time I have for this intervention I must add that I agree with the Imbeni report and, in particular, I would like to highlight the following issues.
As has been said, we must clarify the so-called dilemma of the 'grey area' . We must clarify the procedures and, in some cases, the legal basis and the responsibility of each party, in order to make the management of ECHO more efficient.
I have already referred to the problem of human resources, as well as the problem of visibility, and the objectives must be clarified.
In certain cases, in Cuba for example - as you know, Commissioner - in the guise of humanitarian aid, programmes are implemented which are no such thing, but simply a form of concealed cooperation, sometimes for reasons of 'ideological solidarity' with the Castro regime.
For the future, it is necessary to improve management, increase cooperation with our partners, improve complementarity with the actions carried out through the efforts of Member States and, in short, frame the humanitarian aid actions of the European Union within the global strategy of our cooperation policies.
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Mr President, I should like to say at the outset that I welcome without reservation Mr Imbeni's extremely constructive report.
It is an excellent piece of work and both my colleague, Commissioner Nielson, and I are delighted by the arguments set out.
We are delighted by the broad welcome which has been given to the Commission's communication on its assessment and future plans for the Community's humanitarian activities.
Many congratulations to the honourable Member.
Humanitarian aid, as a number of honourable Members have said, is an extremely important facet of the European Union's external identity.
I am the first to acknowledge that we have a great deal to do to improve our performance.
But, it is also important that we should acknowledge the enormous amount of good that our help does, day-in day-out, often in extremely difficult circumstances, often in very difficult situations right across the world.
Whatever the faults - and it is our responsibility to try to put them right - let me pay tribute to what has been achieved and is being achieved by European Union aid and by the generous support of Europe's taxpayers.
We are the biggest providers of this humanitarian assistance in the world and it is important, occasionally, that we remember that.
We very much appreciate Parliament's support for the reforms we are seeking.
Much of the strategy which honourable Members urge on us tallies, marches very closely, with what we anyway wanted to do.
I would stress that however much we might all like to do more we have to focus our action, given the very limited human resources at our disposal, on getting right what we are trying to do already.
In this context, the Commission has decided to focus ECHO's interventions based on a definition of the term "humanitarian" which is, in my judgement, generous and flexible but is not infinitely elastic.
We believe it would be wrong to overload ECHO with an ever-growing number of tasks simply for reasons of administrative ease.
Both Commissioner Nielson and I want to help countries and peoples in emergencies.
But we also want to help them out of emergencies so that they can stand on their own feet again as quickly as possible.
We will address this through country strategies which bring together the various types of assistance, emergency, developmental and so on, as quickly as it is feasible to do so.
That in my view is the best kind of assistance and it is the wisest use of our taxpayers' money.
Let me add that we do not intend to make ECHO into an operational department which delivers aid from contingency planning to distribution in the field.
That is not, and never has been, where ECHO's strengths lie.
Such an approach would be ineffective and it would detract from the many advantages of ECHO's partnership approach which allows it, as has been said, to make funds quickly available to those who need them most.
The partnership approach also allows for real involvement of civil society at the outset of aid operations, and the value of that has been proven time and time again.
We will continue to choose partners on the basis of their efficiency and the availability of partners for the task in hand and bearing in mind, of course, their different comparative strengths and the roles they can play.
The NGO sector is an extremely important channel, but the United Nations and the Red Cross movement are also valued partners.
Thanks to this mixed approach to partnership when necessary, we will be able to send specific messages to the different political fora.
Mr Imbeni mentioned the important issue of visibility.
That is important.
We want Europe's voters and taxpayers to know what is being done with their money and in their name.
We have planned a Eurobarometer survey to gauge the current levels of awareness of ECHO in Member States and on the basis of that survey, which of course we will want to discuss with the honourable Member and others, we will be able to develop appropriate ways of increasing the awareness to which the honourable Member referred.
The humanitarian aid we give will continue to be governed by the principles of impartiality and non-discrimination laid down in our regulation and accepted by the humanitarian community worldwide.
It is an element of our external identity demonstrating that Europe can act worldwide with one voice and that it can make a difference on the ground.
As the biggest single source of humanitarian aid funding worldwide, as I said earlier, the European Union has a responsibility to be not just the biggest in terms of quantity but the best in terms of delivery.
That is our clear and ambitious goal.
I should like to end with just one reflection.
I do not come entirely new to the debate on these issues.
Over ten years ago I was the development minister in the country I know best, as we learn to say, and was responsible among other things for humanitarian assistance.
What has most depressed me about the international scene over the years is that, in practice, our ability to deliver humanitarian relief rapidly in the most unpromising circumstances has increased a great deal more than our ability to prevent that humanitarian assistance being necessary in the first place.
That raises serious political and environmental questions about issues such as humanitarian intervention which are going to dominate much of the foreign policy agenda in the years ahead.
But in the meantime we must make what we do in terms of humanitarian aid more effective.
The honourable Member's report will make a significant contribution to that .
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, at 12.30 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 9.15 p.m.)
Welcome
The Middle East
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the Middle East.
As you know, today' s debate is rather special because it will be immediately followed by addresses by the Speakers of the Knesset and the Palestinian Legislative Council who are here in Strasbourg and will be joining us in the gallery shortly.
I shall welcome them once they are here and, as you know, they will be making their official speeches to the House at 11.30 a.m.
Madam President, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by following you, Madam President, and the Speakers from the groups, in expressing the sympathy and sorrow of the Council, which condemns terrorism.
This is an issue which we addressed at our informal meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Evian on Saturday and Sunday.
I in turn wish to assure the inhabitants of Malaga and Mr Carpena' s widow of the European Union' s intention to fight on their behalf against the scourge of terrorism, which represents a real threat to our democracies.
You quite rightly decided, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, to address the question of the situation in the Middle East.
This decision was all the more timely given that this region, which has been the scene of a number of particularly striking events over recent months, is approaching what may prove to be an historical watershed.
What we in fact face is a turning point for the people of the region: for the first time there is a real possibility of an end to half a century of conflict between Israel and Palestine; but there is also a risk, if this hope is dashed, of a resurgence of violence.
The fact that the Speakers of the Knesset, Mr Avraham Burg and the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mr Ahmed Qurie, have agreed to come here together and address the European Parliament today at your invitation, Madam President, demonstrates the will for peace and dialogue which now drives both sides.
I also see their, to my knowledge, unprecedented visit as a gesture of recognition of the European Union' s unceasing efforts to promote peace in the region, a recognition which is also accompanied by high expectations of Europe.
We must live up to these expectations and this gesture, which I see as a sign of trust and hope, deserves to be welcomed.
I shall now endeavour to explain our analysis of recent developments and of the current state in the region and future prospects of the peace process.
We have witnessed a number of extremely important incidents in the Middle East over recent months, such as the Camp David summit and Israel' s withdrawal from southern Lebanon.
The death of the Syrian president, Hafez El Assad, under whom Syria became an important player in the region, occurred at the same time.
This rapid series of developments mainly concerns negotiations between Israel and Palestine.
The accession to power in Israel of Ehud Barak, who was elected on a platform of peace, and Yasser Arafat' s unstinting determination to keep the dialogue alive allowed the peace negotiations to resume, thereby helping to resolve the stalemate which had dogged the peace process for several years.
The Sharm el-Sheikh agreement signed on 4 September 1999 marked the start of a new stage in the peace process and the end of a long period of deadlock, if not retreat.
It specified how the clauses of the Wye River agreement, which had as yet still not been applied, were to be implemented.
It set out a new timetable for concluding Permanent Status negotiations and granted a de facto extension to the one-year interim period by setting new deadlines, which are due to expire shortly, on 13 September 2000.
As this deadline approaches, we are entitled to take initial, albeit provisional stock of the breakthrough in the peace process.
My first comment is that it has been possible to implement the main provisions of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, even if somewhat belatedly in relation to the original timetable.
The second redeployment was completed on 24 March 2000, i.e. just over two months after the original deadline.
Several hundred prisoners have been released, although the overall outcome is still not completely satisfactory.
Other provisions have not been properly implemented.
For example, the third redeployment has not taken place.
Only one of the two corridors planned between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has in fact been opened.
Land on the West Bank has continued to be colonised and expropriated, in violation of the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement, which prohibits any unilateral action designed to change the situation on the ground.
These difficulties, together with the depressed economic and social climate, have done much to foster tension in the territories which, on several occasions, has degenerated into violence.
As for Permanent Status negotiations, which were to follow an interim framework agreement, they stagnated long ago.
The parties had departed so far from their initial positions as to give the impression that it was still too early to hope for a compromise. The recent Camp David summit was held in response to this situation and, even though it did not achieve the hoped-for agreement, it did open new prospects on all aspects of Permanent Status and, as such, cannot be considered a failure.
On the contrary, it created new momentum.
I for one am certain that this outcome, which seemed unthinkable just a few months ago, would not have been possible without the personal commitment of President Clinton and Mrs Albright.
The progress achieved owes a great deal to their determination to bring the positions of both sides closer together and move the negotiations forward.
It is, of course, also - and above all - due to the political courage and sense of responsibility and commitment to peace demonstrated by the President of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Prime Minister.
It was in fact the first time that they had debated all aspects of Permanent Status without any taboos and neither hesitated in advancing and relaxing the positions of principle which they had hitherto presented as non-negotiable.
As we know, the discussions were broken off and, under the diplomatic rule which dictates that nothing is agreed unless everything is agreed, the progress achieved cannot be considered definitive in the absence of any overall agreement.
Peace in the Middle East may be in sight, but that does not make it a fait accompli.
The progress achieved at Camp David needs to be consolidated and final concessions are necessary, especially on the question of Jerusalem, refugees and, above all, the Holy Places.
Camp David opened up new possibilities.
We have no doubt that a solution can be found which takes account of the legitimate expectations of each party and the rest of the world, including for the Holy Places.
We therefore have an historic opportunity and the current situation is still extremely auspicious.
The Israeli Prime Minister, who was elected on a platform of peace, wants an agreement, and an agreement is just as much in his interests as it is in the interests of President Arafat, who has stood by his decision to become involved in the Oslo process.
As for President Clinton, he is more resolved than ever to use all his influence and the influence of his country to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion before the end of his term of office, i.e. by the end of the year.
This rather exceptional window of opportunity could, however, close again quickly and this is something we must guard against.
The American elections are approaching, as is the new parliamentary term in Israel, and could prove to be a delicate issue.
As for the deadline of 13 September set in the Sharm el-Sheikh agreement for concluding Permanent Status negotiations, it cannot be postponed indefinitely unless the negotiations show some tangible sign of progress and the prospect of an early outcome.
This exceptional opportunity must not be wasted.
If the hope raised by Camp David is to be made reality, the parties must, first and foremost, continue to be involved and to demonstrate the same commitment and will as they have shown hitherto.
Their leaders must make difficult and courageous decisions and everything must therefore be done to encourage the parties to continue unwaveringly along the path which they have taken in a bid to conclude a global and final agreement.
The European Union is prepared in this context to do whatever it can to guarantee that the efforts being made will be successful.
There are several aspects to its role, which it intends to continue to play in an active and constructive manner: encouraging the parties, helping to find solutions, supporting the implementation of agreements.
The Union never misses an opportunity to reiterate the importance of international legitimacy, its concern to see the United Nations resolutions applied, the basic principles which inform the peace process and its determination to encourage the parties to continue with the peace process through close, regular political dialogue with all the parties in the region.
You yourself, Madam President, noted the extent to which European positions are listened to and anticipated, scrutinised, dissected and judged sometimes as too timid, sometimes, on the contrary, as too energetic or ill-timed but, on balance, always as constructive and balanced when you visited the Middle East at the beginning of the year.
You also noticed how just how strong expectations of Europe still were.
It was this concern to affirm the role of Europe and meet the parties' expectations which prevailed when a special European Union envoy was appointed back in 1996.
Ambassador Moratinos - whom I greet and who has held this post for the last four years - has managed to give Europe a profile in the Middle East by cultivating daily contacts with all the leaders in the region.
This role of supporting, facilitating and mediating, which complements that of the United States, is coupled with a contribution to the collective debate to find new ways forward, break certain taboos and propose compromises.
The 1999 Berlin Declaration and the 1980 Venice Declaration are an expression of the remarkably unified views of the European partners and act as reference texts which have, I am sure, opened the way to historic compromises between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Finally, Europe has developed a cooperation policy with all the countries in the Middle East in a bid to create the right conditions for harmonious economic and social development and, at the same time, strengthen regional integration, which is crucial if peace is to gain a permanent foothold.
As a result, as you all know, Europe has underwritten nearly half the financial commitments to international aid to Palestine since 1993.
It is, of course, and I should like to stress this point, prepared to help with the full implementation of the agreements that have been concluded when the time comes.
It is still, without doubt, too early to discuss what an agreement on the Permanent Status of the Palestinian territories might look like; in any event, it will be solely up to the two sides to define this status through negotiation, which is the only admissible method.
However, the Camp David discussions give us an initial idea of what the outlines of a future agreement may be.
I should like to say in this context that, in our view, a Palestinian state will inevitably emerge, but it must be a viable, peaceful and democratic state.
It is the natural concomitant of the Palestinians' indefeasible right to self-determination and I am convinced that it is also the best guarantee of security for Israel.
This right to a state and, hence, to proclaim statehood must not be subject to any veto.
However, as the European Union has already stated, it would obviously prefer a Palestinian state to emerge from a completed process of negotiation.
But, as you know, it does not stipulate that this is a condition.
Its position on this question is as stated in the Berlin declaration of March 1999.
But all the efforts planned at the present stage, starting of course with the efforts made by both sides, must be geared towards concluding an agreement, an agreement which is, let me repeat, within arm' s reach.
As you may have noticed, even the Palestinians are now questioning the advisability, the conditions and, most importantly, the timing of their proclamation of statehood in the light of current developments.
The exchange of views between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Fifteen during the recent informal meeting in Evian, which I referred to earlier confirmed that the European approach in support of the peace process hitherto is the right one.
The urgent need for a decisive breakthrough on the Israeli-Palestinian front should not, however, distract us from the other aspects of the peace process, and it is this that forms a coherent global issue to which a universal, lasting settlement must be found.
An Israeli-Palestinian agreement is indispensable.
It is vital but it alone cannot guarantee peace and stability in the Middle East.
In addition, it is time, as the President of the French Republic recently stressed, for Syria and Israel to return to the negotiating table, given that the present status quo is in the interests of neither country.
Every effort should therefore be made, as quickly as possible, to broker an agreement between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Lebanon.
In this respect, there are prospects despite the contrasts in the present situation.
Israel' s withdrawal from southern Lebanon on 24 May of this year put an end to 22 years of occupation and, as a result, 're-dealt the cards' , as it were.
This withdrawal, which was certified by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 16 June, is a positive factor on more than one count.
First, it marks the implementation, the belated but full and unconditional implementation of Security Council Resolution 425 and therefore represents undeniable progress in this respect.
It went through under less inauspicious conditions than might have been feared and, more to the point, was not accompanied by the dreaded outbreaks of fresh violence.
We really must highlight the sense of responsibility which both sides demonstrated here.
So far, the difficulties have been overcome and it has been possible to implement the provisions of Resolution 425.
The question of Israeli incursions along the blue line was settled after two months of wrangling.
On 27 July, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1310 extending the UNIFIL mandate for a further six months.
On 5 August, the Lebanese Government agreed for the force to be redeployed in the former occupied zone and, since then, UNIFIL has set up a number of permanent posts in the zone and taken up its position along the Israeli-Lebanese border.
At the same time, the Lebanese Government went ahead on 9 August and deployed a mixed force of 1 000 men, 500 soldiers and 500 policemen in the former occupied zone whose mission is to maintain public order within Lebanon itself, but not to engage in any kind of border surveillance, despite its responsibility to do so.
The redeployment of UNIFIL and the Lebanese Government' s dispatch of a mixed security force to the south are, in our view, positive developments.
The situation along the border with Israel is, however, still volatile.
Incidents flare up along the blue line blue from time to time but have been relatively minor so far.
It is therefore in the interest of all the parties to avoid any incident which might provoke an escalation.
The Lebanese Government therefore needs to accept all its responsibilities here in order to create the conditions needed so that UNIFIL can exercise its mandate in full.
The situation in southern Lebanon can only be stabilised if this region, which has suffered enormously from the occupation and the war, is rehabilitated and reintegrated into Lebanon' s economic and social fabric.
The European Union is of course more than ready to help reconstruct southern Lebanon as soon as conditions on the ground allow.
It intends to give very precise expression to its aid to Lebanon at the donors' conference for the reconstruction of southern Lebanon which is scheduled for the autumn under our presidency.
Here too, the withdrawal of Israel from southern Lebanon and the gradual restoration of Lebanese sovereignty in the area are steps in the right direction.
In addition, the changes taking place in the region give cause, we hope, to anticipate a gradual change in relations between Syria and Lebanon; here too the situation is no less volatile and we are convinced that only an Israeli-Syrian agreement, in application of Security Council Resolution 242 and the principle of land for peace, will allow fair and lasting peace to be established in the region.
We must admit that circumstances do not appear to augur well for the resumption of negotiations between Israel and Syria, at least not in the short term.
The positions of the two sides, which we are all aware of, are still irreconcilable at this stage, even if the gulf between them does not appear as wide as on numerous aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In addition, the internal agendas of the Israeli and Syrian leaders appear for the time being to be monopolised by other political preoccupations, although the strategic choice of both sides is for peace, as was recently reaffirmed at the highest level.
During his investiture address on 7 July, President Bashar al-Assad indicated that he was anxious to conclude an agreement with Israel, reiterating that everything was negotiable except the line of 4 June 1967.
Ehud Barak, for his part, called on Syria to conclude what he called a 'peace of the brave' , an expression with which we concur.
There is therefore cause to hope that they will return to the negotiating table during the months to come.
My reading is that recent developments in the region are not linked solely to developments in the peace process, even if it does play a vital part.
Although still inadequate, regional integration is progressing slowly but surely.
It comes first and foremost within the wider context of the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean process, which is an expression of the European Union' s wish to develop a global strategy for this region which is so close to and so inextricably bound up with us.
A free trade area is being set up with the Union, to include all the countries of the Middle East and should - in fact we are sure that it will - help these economies to liberalise and modernise and integrate into the world economy.
Association agreements have already been signed with Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority and an agreement should soon be signed with Egypt.
Negotiations are under way with both Lebanon and Syria.
There is no doubt that, in its political dimension, the Euro-Mediterranean process, with the draft charter for peace and stability, not only economic but also social and human stability, will help to construct the 'post-peace' Middle East, the Middle East which we all wish for, because there is no alternative to the peace process which has now entered what we hope and believe to be a decisive stage.
Europe has followed the lead of the rest of the international community, especially the United States - and I shall end here Madam President - and intends to do everything to facilitate the decisions incumbent upon the main players, i.e. the Israelis and the Palestinians, who are answerable to their people and to posterity, and to foster the emergence of peace, a peace which we have waited so long for, wished for so hard and which is now within our grasp.
It is a great honour for me to welcome Mr Avraham Burg, the Speaker of the Knesset, and Mr Abu Ala, the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, to the official gallery.
Gentlemen, your joint presence in our House and the addresses which you will shortly give are a highly symbolic gesture.
I am sure that the debate which you are about to hear will give you an idea of the friendship which our Parliament feels towards your peoples and of just how concerned we are to see fair and lasting peace established in your region.
Madam President, I should like to begin by associating the Commission wholeheartedly with the moving remarks that you made yesterday about terrorism and about the courage of those who have been martyred for democracy and also with the remarks made this morning by Members of this House.
I should also like to say what an honour it is to discuss the question of a peace settlement in the Middle East in the presence of some of those who have it in their hands to bring about this historic development.
Naturally I very much agree with what the President-in-office has just said.
I do not intend to repeat all his arguments save, perhaps, to make one or two personal reflections on some of the comments the President-in-office has made and to add one or two other points, principally on economic issues.
The Camp David summit, whilst it did not manage to achieve a final settlement, did, as the President-in-office said, mark enormous progress.
I am sure we would all want to pay tribute to the skilful and persistent diplomacy of President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeline Albright.
Camp David helped to narrow the gaps between the parties to the dispute.
It helped to address and indeed to remove some long-standing taboos, for example, on the intensely difficult historical issues surrounding the status of Jerusalem.
Having travelled as far as that, it would obviously be a tragedy if the opportunity for peace that now exists more than ever before were to be wasted.
We stand ready, as the President-in-office has indicated, to help move things forward in any way we can and we are ready to do what we can to secure a settlement.
It is a great pleasure to see our own representative, who has done so much to ensure that the European Union's presence in the region is felt.
With time moving relentlessly on, there has inevitably been a growing amount of talk about Palestinian statehood.
The Berlin European Council Declaration remains the position of the European Union.
President Arafat has received wise advice to postpone the planned declaration of an independent Palestinian state on 13 September.
I want to repeat what was said in the Berlin European Council Declaration last March, that the European Union is convinced that the creation of a democratic, viable and peaceful sovereign Palestinian state on the basis of existing agreements and through negotiations would be the best guarantee of Israel's security and Israel's acceptance as an equal partner in the region.
That is our position.
As far as Syria is concerned, everyone recognises that President Bashar al-Assad needs to consolidate his position.
However, here too the differences with Israel are narrow and we think they could be bridged.
We will continue to do all we can to achieve this.
We have a key role to play in Syria in terms of actively encouraging economic reform and modernisation in the interests of Syria and in the interests of regional stability.
I had an extremely good visit to Syria, albeit too brief, earlier in the year, at which we significantly moved forward our dialogue on economic issues and on the assistance we can provide.
We want to respond to further requests from Syria for assistance in the reform process.
We will also be prepared to support strengthening of the rule of law, human rights issues and political pluralism.
As far as South Lebanon is concerned, there remains an enormous amount for Europe to do, not least as part of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
The European Union will assist with the reconstruction of southern Lebanon as soon as the Commission conditions permit.
The Lebanese Government must maintain order in the south and in addition it must translate its generic aid requests into concrete and realistic proposals.
We will outline our strategies as soon as these conditions are met and, as many Members know, we have had an assessment mission in the area to see exactly what we can do on the ground as soon as possible.
It will not surprise the House to know that we intend to work in areas like mine clearance where we have so much experience, areas which are vital to the restoration of normal economic life and decent social conditions in South Lebanon.
At the same time as we are preparing for a possible role in implementing any peace agreement, we are also focusing on the regional scenario after a peace settlement.
When conflict is a thing of the past, it is important to recognise that a peace settlement would transform everybody's prospects.
Sustained economic growth and economic stability are the keys to regional peace and consolidation of that peace in the years ahead.
People are more likely to support peace if they feel that their living conditions are improving.
However, at present, economic growth is stagnant, and unemployment is distressingly high, over 15 to 20% overall.
Disparities are growing both within the region and, as was said in the debate that we had yesterday on MEDA, between the region and the European Union.
In addition, the regional labour market will come under strong pressure because of high population growth resulting from the welcome incorporation of more women into the labour market and the future integration of Palestinian refugees into the economies of the region.
Regional prosperity, therefore, depends on serious efforts to promote economic growth.
Private investment will play a central role in that, but public investment will continue to be important, especially regarding economic transition, including harmonisation, internal liberalisation and regional cooperation, stabilisation and regional infrastructures.
I referred to the interesting debate that we had yesterday evening on MEDA and our attempts to speed up and simplify the regulation so that we can deliver our assistance in the region much more rapidly.
It is important to remember what the scale of that assistance is.
The European Union as a whole, the Commission, Member States, and the EIB, are responsible for about 50% of all the economic assistance in the region.
The Commission and the EIB are responsible for about half of that 50%, so we are responsible for about 25%.
Over the last few years our assistance in the region has been averaging about EUR 800 million, that is from the Commission and the EIB, about EUR 450 million from the Commission and the rest from the EIB.
That is a substantial investment in the future prosperity and well-being of the region, but I am still seeking to ensure that the resources available are spent more effectively and more rapidly.
I said yesterday that the Commission would be holding discussions this week, and I hope it is not presuming on its collective wisdom to say that we will be able to publish our proposals later this week.
We are discussing a Commission communication on the revitalisation of the Barcelona process, which everybody recognises to be extremely important.
In that document we will be stressing the vital significance of greater regional cooperation and more trade and cooperation between the countries to the south and not just between Europe and the countries of the South.
I hope that the document and its implementation will help to consolidate political developments in the region.
I repeat: this is clearly a historic opportunity to secure a peace that would bring prosperity as well as stability to our neighbours to the south.
We stand ready to help them in every way we can, politically and economically.
We stand ready to help them both to achieve peace and to build on the foundations that a peace settlement would lay.
Madam President, since the creation of the State of Israel, we have surely never been so close to a lasting and stable peace agreement in the Middle East.
The differences between the parties, however, have probably never been so profound.
The withdrawal of the Israeli troops from southern Lebanon, the will demonstrated by the new Syrian President and the clear progress made at Camp David - as has been mentioned here this morning - seem to offer us a panorama in which peace is actually within reach.
However, there are still potential pitfalls, which remind us that, we are as close to taking advantage of this historic opportunity as we are to the black storm clouds that will descend upon the region should the negotiations fail.
What we can we in the European Union do? Of course we offer our services by means of the European Union' s special envoy, Ambassador Moratinos, whom I welcome.
We undoubtedly offer a guarantee in terms of the future economic development of the region, which would no doubt result from the peace agreement, through our cooperation and investment, as Commissioner Patten has correctly reminded us.
We encourage the opposing parties to persist courageously with the negotiations, ignoring the most pessimistic, sometimes threatening, voices, which sometimes emerge from their respective countries.
We are grateful for the summary of the facts, the information communicated to us this morning by the Council and the Commission, and their good will.
However, we should ask ourselves whether this is worthy of the responsibility and aspirations of the European Union on an international level.
To speak with one voice, to aspire to a leading role not only economically but also, surely, politically, demands more of us.
No group is offering greater support than the European People' s Party to the governments promoting the peace process, especially to the United States.
No group is forcing itself to act with greater prudence than we are at this critical moment.
From this point of view we propose that next year, when we celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Conference which gave rise to this peace process, the European Union should once again bring together, in a repeat of the Madrid meeting, the leaders who participated in that Conference.
Meanwhile, we should reaffirm the European Union' s full commitment to the peace process and our willingness to honour our historic, economic and also political responsibilities in the region.
Madam President, first of all, I would like, on behalf of my group, to welcome the President of the Knesset, Avraham Burg, and the President of the Palestinian National Council, Mr Abu Ala, who are present in the gallery, and whose interventions we will listen to with great attention.
The presence of these two distinguished persons indicates that the peace process is not purely a process taking place between governments.
It is a process taking place between peoples and between parliaments, which democratically represent those peoples.
I would ask the two Presidents to deliver a message to their people: they have come here and they have seen how the representatives of peoples who have been age-old enemies and who have waged war for centuries, can work together and in peace, and can share values.
I believe that this is the fundamental message we can offer you.
I would also like to point out that, as well as the effort being made in terms of negotiations between the governments, which we must support, my political family, the Socialist International, is also trying to support and promote this process because both the Israeli and Palestinian leaders belong to our family and we feel profoundly committed to them.
We agree with the exhaustive analysis of the situation made by the President of the Council and I would simply like to repeat the message, to our friends from the Middle East, that we are committed to the peace process and to its development since the Sharm-el-Sheikh agreements, which led to the last major debate in the European Parliament.
We are approaching a deadline.
We Europeans understand the importance of deadlines and the need to pull out all the stops when deadlines approach, but we believe that the important thing at the moment is for both parties to persevere.
We welcome the efforts of President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright.
We consider ourselves to be committed to this process, and we welcome the presence here today of that tireless pilgrim of peace, Ambassador Moratinos.
Above all, I believe that we should point out the importance of what is at stake at the moment because, until now, there had been no real negotiation of the situation of the Palestinian refugees since 1948, the continuation of the Israeli settlements and the establishment of definitive borders.
Those are the very important and thorny issues which must be dealt with.
Another very important issue is the status of Jerusalem, which requires a compromise.
It is not only a political problem. It is a cultural, historical and religious problem.
Therefore, there is no room for a solution based on exclusive claims.
As some experts have said, on religious issues there are no half measures, but, if we are talking about the religions of the Book, which preach the love of God and our fellow man, it must be possible to find a solution between people.
Where Holy Places are concerned, there is no room for solutions based solely on sovereign rights and it is very important to take proper account of the various international formulae: I believe that the mediation of certain Arab countries, who are closely involved, may be of help.
Lastly, Madam President, I believe that, from the point of view of European Union action, we must try to strengthen the Euro-Mediterranean process, bring Syria out of its isolation, strengthen the process in the whole of the region and, above all, send a message to the Middle East which indicates that the European Union, as a union of age-old enemies, wishes to participate fully in the creation of a shared peaceful future in the Middle East.
Madam President, for lack of time, I shall merely focus on the relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
We all very much regret that the Camp David negotiations came to nothing.
This was most probably down to the fact that the time was not quite ripe for an agreement, as a result of which the gap between both parties could not be narrowed or could not be narrowed sufficiently at any rate.
We live in the hope, however, that a new foundation will be laid after a period of contemplation and reflection, so that we can pick up the peace process once again and herald a new era.
Indeed, we now have to ensure that the negotiations are resumed as quickly as possible.
Needless to say, the international community needs to lend a helping hand, together with the Arab States and the Muslim community.
As far as the European Union is concerned, we hope that it will speak with one voice and assume a more pro-active role - and I particularly refer to a more pro-active role in the political field - and will thus contribute to the peace process.
The EU owes this much to both parties and to the international community.
It is evident that, meanwhile, unilateral action from either side is to be discouraged, as this could well harm future negotiations.
We cannot tolerate violence in any form.
The negotiations must be resumed by means of an open, direct and genuine dialogue, and Europe has a major part to play in this!
Madam President, I have been present in Jerusalem as a provisional member of Parliament' s delegation for relations with Israel.
We met reasonable representatives of the Israeli Government but also, among the members of the Knesset, a dismaying number of implacable fanatics who maintain that Israel has all the rights and the Palestinians none at all.
It was therefore good that the Council' s representatives made it clear that the EU backs all current UN decisions.
What, then, do these decisions imply? Well, they say that there should be Jewish and Palestinian States in the area, that the whole of Jerusalem should be an international area, that all Palestinian refugees should be allowed to return home and that Israel should leave those areas which it has occupied.
It may therefore be noted that Israel is right in one respect, namely that there is to be a Jewish State.
That is what no-one now questions but, when it comes to all the important questions in the peace negotiations - that is to say, Jerusalem, the refugees and territorial considerations - the Palestinians in fact have international law on their side.
At the same time, everyone appreciates that the UN decisions cannot directly be implemented by peaceful means. Israel is opposed to this.
The Palestinians are prepared to compromise.
They are not demanding west Jerusalem.
They appreciate that Israel cannot receive between five and six million Palestinian refugees.
The Palestinians are prepared to make concessions over territory.
They are making concessions, which is splendid and necessary, but the Palestinians and Arafat cannot make large concessions of any kind without a revolt in their own ranks.
It is therefore important that the EU should stick by the Berlin decision to recognise a Palestinian State without conditions as soon as the Palestinians see fit to declare such a State, to which they are entitled.
Israel has the military power and US backing.
The Palestinians do in fact have international law on their side.
Let them also have the European Union' s full support, in the same way and to the same degree that the United States supports Israel.
Let the EU act as a sponsor for the Palestinian State, that is to say the democratic Palestinian State. This would also raise the EU' s standing in the world.
Madam President, my group asked for a major debate on the situation in the Middle East to be included in this part-session.
It also suggested that high-ranking Israeli and Palestinian leaders be invited jointly to the European Parliament.
We are therefore delighted by the initiatives taken in this direction and warmly welcome the speakers of the two assemblies who have honoured us with their presence.
At a time which everyone senses is decisive, what useful message can we Europeans send out to the peace process today? I tend to agree with what the President-in-Office said on the subject.
The first message, to my mind, concerns the issue around which the entire process turns, i.e. the Palestinian State.
I think the time is right to clearly reiterate the terms of the unequivocal declaration adopted by the Berlin European Council in March 1999, in which the Fifteen stated that they were ready to recognise a Palestinian State.
Did Europe' s recognition of this inalienable right lead the Palestinians to proclaim statehood without further ado? On the contrary.
It fostered the sovereign and responsible decision on the part of the Palestinian leadership to postpone the deadline and I am convinced that it is prepared to postpone it by a few more weeks to give negotiation a chance if it feels, between now and 13 September, that we are on the brink of an overall peace agreement.
So let the European Union clearly reaffirm the position which it took in Berlin and encourage the Palestinians to make precisely this gesture.
In the same spirit, Europe' s second message, in my view, should consist of a reminder of the basic principles from which negotiations can and should develop, i.e. the relevant resolutions of the United Nations, especially those relating to the withdrawal of Israel from all the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, or the right of refugees to return or receive compensation.
This sort of reminder would not in any way close the door to the compromises needed.
On the contrary, it would make the sovereign Palestinians responsible for seeking original, mutually acceptable legal formulae, together with the sovereign Israeli negotiators, on the basis of the principles recognised by the entire international community.
I think that Europe' s third message should contain a guarantee that the future global agreement will be implemented to the end, unlike - alas - all the partial agreements which have succeeded each other since Oslo.
The United States alone cannot provide this guarantee.
No one today knows the intentions of the future leaders of the Israelis and the Palestinians.
The European Union is therefore a unique guarantor, alongside the United States and Egypt, as the representative of the Arab world, that the commitments made will be honoured faithfully and to the letter.
These are the three wishes of my group with the hope that, as a result, Yerushalaim, which means in Hebrew: peace will appear.
Madam President, I have very mixed feelings about the peace talks that have been broken down at Camp David.
In any case, the extreme time pressure which the participants were under did not serve any immediate purpose.
In fact, I wonder what use this "diplomatic pressure cooker" approach has in terms of the final stage of the peace process in the Middle East? It is a tough peace process that needs to provide a lasting solution to the lengthy and complex conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians and between the Israelis and Arabs respectively.
Public opinions on the Israeli and Palestinian sides - invisible yet very tangible - were also very much a player within Camp David.
It is exactly because of this key factor on the home front that third parties, whether they are referred to as peace brokers, such as President Clinton, or very committed subsidiary parties to the peace process, such as the European Union, need to guard against exercising excessive pressure in the shape of a punishing time schedule.
Is there not a task here for the EU, namely to urge all parties involved to keep the so-called "windows of opportunity" open for as long as possible?
However, my mixed feelings about the failure of Camp David are mainly generated by the uncompromising attitude adopted by the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mr Yasser Arafat, and the enthusiastic response he received to this at home.
The home front hailed him in the Gaza Strip as the 'Palestinian Saladin' , complete with flags and banners.
In popular speech, Arafat has inherited this dubious Arab title of honour from Saddam Hussein.
It is exactly this Palestinian homage after Camp David 2000 which shocked Amos Oz, a recognised Israeli champion of peace and noted author. He put his bleak state of mind into words this summer in a probing newspaper article.
"I am sitting in my front room in front of the television and am watching the tremendous reception which Yasser Arafat is being given in Gaza just because he said 'no' to peace with Israel.
I watch in silence and amazement and I am reminded that the real Saladin made a solemn pledge to the Arabs never to make a pact with non-believers.
He would kill them en masse and throw them into the sea.
I can see Arafat in his grey-green military outfit.
An Arafat, dressed as Che Guevara and greeted as a Saladin: it breaks my heart" .
The author moved on to a crucial topic within the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiation: "the right to return" .
Earlier this week, Arafat reiterated this Palestinian political claim in the context of the meeting of the Arab League in Cairo: "We will not accept an agreement without obtaining all the rights we are entitled to pursuant to international resolutions" .
So this includes UN Resolution 194 which stipulates the right to return on the part of Palestinian refugees.
Madam President, I am also keen to give you Amos Oz' view of this increasingly poignant historical burden.
In his opinion, this "right to return" is nothing more than an "Arab euphemism" for the liquidation of Israel.
In the same breath, Oz adds that he is more than happy to grant the Palestinians the "right to their free and independent Palestine" but that this should not be at the expense of the existence of the Jewish State.
This is a view which will hopefully give Western politicians food for thought.
In the foregoing, my aim was certainly not to trivialise the suffering of the Palestinian people.
I wish them a life in peace and freedom with all my heart. However, this peace and freedom cannot be brought about if it is at the expense of other peoples' safety.
Madam President, as a representative of a Christian political party, I am not an unquestioning defender of Israel' s political interests.
This is a task which Israel' s leaders and citizens are more than capable of handling themselves.
In accordance with the Bible, God' s word, I consider the Jews as His chosen people, upon which lies the divine duty to be a "beacon for all peoples" .
Only in religious compliance with this requirement is a true Israeli-Palestinian settlement possible, on the basis of justice from Above.
Madam President, Europe has a special historical responsibility for the peace process in the Middle East.
This means proceeding with great sensitivity and not taking a schoolmasterly line or apportioning blame to one side alone.
The fact that the Foreign Minister himself responded to the last peace negotiations by stepping down, serves as a reminder to us that above all in Israel, which is the stable democracy in the region, every step taken by the politicians must have the backing of the majority of the Israeli people.
Nevertheless, we would do well not to forget that for all the fine words uttered, the crucial negotiations for peace in the Middle East take place in the USA and not in Europe.
Perhaps those EU politicians whose brief it is, have so far been unable to find the right way to act as genuinely neutral and productive mediators in this conflict.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, this is not the first time that the House has concluded that the situation in the Middle East is critical.
It is critical both for the Middle East itself and for the European Union because, apart from all the important issues which the peace process encompasses, it represents a new challenge for the common European foreign policy.
In other words, the European Union must play a more active, more systematic and more intensive role in projects in the region and, of course, in the peace process.
There are precedents for this.
Let us not forget that the highly important UN Resolution 242 was devised mainly by Europe.
So, to pick up on something very important which Mr Patten said, peace is not enough, we also need to monitor what happens, to see what the scenario is once an agreement has been reached, I think that the European Union should review its presence and involvement in the region.
Thus, as well as the special envoy, I think that the time has come for the European Union to set up a task force consisting of representatives from the Commission, the Council and, yes why not, the European Parliament - after all we have two eminent parliamentary representatives from countries in the region here today - to work out detailed proposals and positions on specific issues being addressed during the current peace process and on any issues which we need to bear in mind in the period following the agreement.
Mr President, I too would like to welcome the Speaker of the Knesset, Mr Burg, and the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mr Abu Ala.
I feel that this debate, from the Council statement to the speeches made by Mr Moscovici and Commissioner Patten and the majority of the other speeches, has shown that Europe is of one mind regarding this extremely sensitive period following Camp David.
I am sure that we all see that phase, or in any case a change in the situation as very important, and I am sure that the situation has not been compromised, although we realise that, if change does not come about, there is currently a serious risk on both sides that the extremist tendencies present in the two camps may prevail.
My opinion is that if we analyse the situation in the region thoroughly - and we have, indeed, talked about the withdrawal of Israel from the Lebanon, the situation in southern Lebanon and developments in Syria - we find that we are in agreement on this matter as well: I feel that this debate is evidence of the convergence of our views - of the agreement of Parliament, the Commission and the Council on the matter - and that Europe has already made a contribution.
The quality of its performance is debatable, but Ambassador Moratinos' role in the region and the Council resolutions have certainly been effective.
I have to give credit to Commissioner Patten, for his presence in the area and also in Syria - we were able to go to Syria when his mission was finished - had a lasting influence on the development of the situation in Syria.
We can draw encouragement from all this and from the continuing work of the Clinton government on this initiative.
Nevertheless, I do feel that, today, without professing to be telling anybody what to do and in respect for the two interlocutors and their positions, we should be asking ourselves what we can contribute.
I would like to end by suggesting that we could use regional cooperation as a solution to make a European contribution right now before the peace process comes to an end.
Mr President, will the United Nations Millennium Summit which took place this week be the last chance summit? I see it rather as yet one more chance for peace in the Middle East.
Six weeks after talks broke down at Camp David, Bill Clinton is due to meet Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat in New York tomorrow, after a month of intensive, albeit less media-attracting negotiation.
So hope of saving the peace process is not lost, even if it means setting aside the original timetable and, hence, avoiding at all costs any unilateral provocation which would ruin months of effort.
Everyone has his or her own interpretation of the outcome of Camp David and of the responsibilities incumbent upon either side.
Discussions have certainly never progressed this far before.
The gulf is still wide, although certain historical taboos have been broken.
But that is not enough.
We must now accept in our hearts what our heads have known and been dictating for a long time.
This is the price for peace.
To rely on the strength of symbols, on either side, is to hold on to a myth.
As for Europe, which intends to support the process, not to take sides, it hopes to be more, much more, than the region' s banker.
It is our historical and moral duty as well as our desire to become a full political partner very quickly, tomorrow if possible, and the simultaneous presence here of Avraham Burg, the Speaker of the Knesset, and Ahmed Qurie, the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, both of whom I welcome, cannot but augur well in this respect.
I fully endorse the statements by the President-in-Office and Commissioner Patten.
I cannot understand how they have ignored in their contribution the conditions in which the people of Iraq now find themselves.
The reasons for this are twofold: the continued dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and his oppression of Iraq's citizens and the continued imposition of sanctions of the most Draconian kind.
The war has always been about controlling oil and in my view little or nothing to do with Kuwait.
As for weapons of mass destruction, I agree that somebody like Saddam Hussein should not have control of them, but there are others in the region who should not either.
Look around the Middle East, and indeed the rest of the world, and what confronts us is an array of weapons of mass destruction, mostly supplied by the developed world, including the European Union.
The market in weapons is now so competitive that some of the most horrific despots are getting bargain basement deals for weapons of mass destruction.
It is a lesson to the Middle East that it is unwise to nationalise the oil industry.
It must be asked where did Saddam Hussein get the weapons from before the Gulf War and where is he supposed to be getting them from now?
I suggest that we should consider appointing a political envoy from the European Union to Iraq to see if we can broker some sort of peace, between the United Nations and Iraq, because the sanctions are genocidal in their effect.
Mr Moscovici, Commissioner Patten, I also would like to be associated with the words of welcome to our honoured guests, Mr Ahmed Qurie and Mr Avraham Burg.
It is understandable that Palestinians feel that right would have been on their side in formerly declaring an independent Palestinian state on 13 September.
They believe that the Oslo negotiations and the various Camp David discussions would have conferred legitimacy on such a step.
However, it has to be recognised that even if negotiations had progressed so far that the declaration of statehood was non-controversial, the future of Jerusalem was always going to re-ignite controversy once again.
Jerusalem is the key issue and it needs to be looked at in a new light.
It is a unique problem which requires a unique response.
Jerusalem should not be regarded as an Arab city or a Jewish city, a Christian city or a Muslim city.
Progress will only be made if it is agreed that it is a truly international city to which all traditions have a valid claim.
The governance of this historic city must be removed from any nationalistic or sectarian, in the best sense of that word, spirit and this governance must provide for equal access and rule for all.
Just as we were delighted to remove Berlin walls in Europe, we do not want to see similar walls erected in Jerusalem.
People from the furthest ends of the Earth have an affinity with Jerusalem and this must be recognised and honoured and not overlooked in the current negotiations.
With these few words, I would like to wish the discussions, if they do take place, all success and genuinely hope that they lay the basis for permanent peace in the Middle East.
Mr President, as far as the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is concerned, I have always counted myself among those in the House who say that it is up to the people of the region and their leaders to define the terms of their peaceful coexistence, just as it is up to them to make the efforts and sacrifices needed on both sides in order to do so.
As a European, I set great store by the Euro-Mediterranean balance and if, like many others, I have somewhat regretted the European Union' s lack of political clout in this process, I have likewise always refused to sit here in Parliament and play at being teacher, to coin a phrase.
Today, just a few days away from a peace agreement or a major crisis which could erupt in dramatic scenes of violence, we must give peace every chance to succeed by helping those on both sides who are taking huge collective and individual risks to bring about peace.
That is why I am in total agreement with the position stated by Pierre Moscovici and what I would say today is that we shall not help to bring about peace by taking sides in the debate and in the difficult negotiations under way.
As I see it, therefore, in the short time left to us, our message to the Israelis and Palestinians should be simple and straightforward.
It can be summarised in three points: we want a peace agreement in the Middle East, we shall support and guarantee a peace agreement once it has been signed and we shall use every possible means, including but not only financial means, to help ensure that it is implemented.
To conclude, we know full well that peace is always a difficult process.
Europe, torn apart over the centuries, knows that better than most.
Overcoming divisions and eradicating terrorism is easier to talk about than to achieve as we know only too well from the Balkans, the division of Nicosia and the bombs in the Basque country.
And yet, peace is the only way forward, as the Israeli-Palestinian negotiators are well aware.
So all we can say is, good luck, agree to peace and we shall be at your side, as we are now.
Mr President, I would like to welcome the Speaker of the Knesset - whose acquaintance I made during a visit to Israel a very short while ago - and the representatives of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
We all deeply regret the partial failure of the Camp David discussions, although we would like to thank President Clinton and Mrs Albright as well, who put so much work and brainpower into the talks.
However, we feel - and here we agree with the report - that this peace agreement which is being drawn up has increased the possibilities and that there is a way forward.
We feel that everything that can be possibly be done now and in the future, including in terms of equal opportunities, must be done and followed up: the Palestinian people has the right to self-determination, without prejudice to the rights of the State of Israel.
There is one more point which deserves our attention, Mr President, which concerns the city of Jerusalem, which is one of the most sensitive elements in the issue.
We must endeavour to preserve the religious, cultural and universal character of this holy city, and it must certainly not become the subject of haggling or the property of any one side.
It has been proposed that it become the capital of both States.
That would be ideal.
I would also like to touch on a personal, political consideration. Europe must make an additional effort, it must take further steps to gain and perform a political as well as an economic role.
We cannot limit our concern to economic issues or matters of water, the sovereignty of Lake Tiberias and so on and so forth.
We must not forget our political responsibility to history: the European Union has a responsibility as well as the Heads of the States of Israel and Palestine.
Europe must become a political body and negotiate to achieve peace in this case as well, doing everything in its power to ensure that lasting peace is established in the Mediterranean.
Mr President, I would like to reinforce Mrs Sbarbati's warning: right now we need more boldness. The European institutions need to be more courageous.
Together with the United States, the European Union now has the difficult and vital task of preventing either party from reverting to its past position and of assessing the possibility of finding a solution to the problems of the Palestinians and the Israelis.
With a view to this, I support Mr Galeote's proposal to hold a conference along the same lines as the Madrid Conference.
I will illustrate the importance of this with a historical reference: in the 1980 Venice Declaration, proposed by Ministers Genscher and Colombo, the Community first of all established the need for a solution to be found to the Palestinian question through negotiations.
At that time, Arafat was still regarded as a terrorist, he was barred from obtaining a visa to go to the United Nations headquarters in America and there was no general consensus regarding the diplomatic strategies to be adopted.
Following his visit to Rome in 1982 for the Conference of the Interparliamentary Union, things at last started to move and not only did Arafat obtain his visa but - following the preparatory work carried out in Oslo - the United States started to play an active part in the Palestinian question.
Today, there is no question about the fact that the United States' activity is vital, but I do feel that the European Union also has a part to play and that it must not forget the past, not in order to claim any right to rule, but to regain its essential role which, as Minister Moscovici pointed out, complements the activities of the United States in the search for a solution to the matter, a solution which is still a long way off.
I would like to end with a reference to what is known as the International Statute of Jerusalem.
By an International Statute I do not mean that the city would have an international administration, but merely that, as an international community, we must direct this initiative so that the statutory instrument - irrespective of who has territorial sovereignty over Jerusalem - commits all parties to a system of international control, so that every believer - whether Christian, Jew or Muslim - is, at last, guaranteed access to the holy sites.
Mr President, Arabs and Palestinians have committed terrible historical errors and injustices, but they have also paid the price for them.
For some time now, it is not the Palestinians who have been the most intransigence in the negotiations. Indeed, they have even given ground in the supposedly neutral area of basic concepts.
Given the cultural and religious importance of Jerusalem for the Islamic world, I believe that the Palestinian renunciation of all rights over that city - East Jerusalem - could lead not only to a backlash from broad sections of the Palestinian population against their own leaders, but also an international Muslim mobilisation against them.
Media and political circles are warning that the Palestinians could waste the historic opportunity of being able to negotiate with a Prime Minister such as Ehud Barak, who has dared to put the issue of Jerusalem on the table openly.
Nevertheless, it is also the case, in my opinion, that Barak and the right-thinking political and social sectors in Israel could lose the excellent opportunity to negotiate with a leader such as President Arafat if they do not fulfil the minimum necessary requirements.
In my view it is now necessary to adopt a formula which allows for this right thinking and I believe that the European Union is in a good position to contribute to this.
Mr President, I should like to thank the various speakers for their interventions and I should also like to welcome Avraham Burg and Ahmed Qurie, whom I have already had occasion to meet in Israel and Palestine.
You have all naturally focused in your interventions on the peace process and the negotiations, which are without doubt the key to progress in this region of the Middle East.
Allow me to repeat our point of view: Camp David created new momentum which clearly broke down the barriers.
We are, in fact, facing an historic watershed, an unprecedented opportunity, because the present climate, this combination of circumstances, is exceptional.
Each of the parties - and the American mediator, who is playing his part to the full - has an interest in reaching an agreement and is determined, I have no doubt, to do everything to bring one about.
And so, I repeat, we have an historic opportunity to put an end to this conflict which has lasted so very long.
Having said which, every historic opportunity has its historic risk.
Clearly, nothing is a foregone conclusion and additional efforts, imagination and courage are still vital.
Equally clearly, time is running out.
President Mubarak was in Paris at the end of last week and I think he used an excellent phrase which sums up the situation perfectly: 'peace is now or never' . What role, therefore, can the European Union play?
What does this role involve? Several speakers welcomed the role of the European Union; at the same time, I rather had the impression from their interventions that they regretted that it was not a more active role, which is perfectly logical.
We can always wish for a more active Europe.
I too wish for a more active Europe.
The French Presidency has vowed to have a highly active Europe.
It is in keeping with our historical approach and the way in which we intend to conduct the mission incumbent upon us today.
At the same time, however, you cannot rewrite history.
Nor can you act against the wishes of the players themselves.
In this respect, I note that it is the two sides themselves who have come to see us, who are requesting our help, our advice, our intervention and our assistance, and not just and not predominantly financial assistance.
Obviously they feel that we are playing a useful part although I am also aware of the extent to which they are sometimes able to show us the limits of our role.
So find ourselves between these two sides.
What does this role involve? It is exercised at three levels, as I have said.
The European Union intervenes in support of the negotiations.
It is in contact with both sides, through our intermediary, Mr Moratinos.
It constantly encourages negotiation.
It reiterates the principles of international law, which all of us, especially we Europeans, live by.
Secondly, the European Union makes a contribution to the debate on issues connected with the negotiations.
But here too, and this brings me back to the same point, both sides must want and ask for our contribution and sometimes we witness the sort of role-playing here with which we are all familiar.
And thirdly, we help to implement the agreements that have been concluded, as and when this occurs.
I think that we should already start to think about the Middle East which will emerge once there is peace, peace which we hope for and believe possible for tomorrow.
Whether or not this peace will last will also depend on how we go about strengthening ties between the countries in the region and developing their ties with us.
What can the European Union do in this context? There is all the action which Commissioner Patten summarised.
There is also the Barcelona process, which offers us a particularly suitable framework, provided that we make full use of its potential.
It is this Barcelona process - and this brings me to the end of what I have to say - which the presidency wishes to leave its mark on and to start on at the forthcoming Barcelona IV meeting.
I heard a call for a summit meeting here.
What we are planning at the moment is a ministerial-level meeting.
We sincerely hope, however, that developments in the peace process will make it possible to hold a meeting not just at ministerial level, but also at Head of State and Government level in order to set the seal, as it were, on the emergence of a new era in the Middle East.
This is where the presidency, with the Commission and, I am sure, with Parliament' s support, will be concentrating its efforts in the weeks and months to come.
That concludes the debate.
EU external action priorities
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the European Union's external action priorities.
We shall now suspend the sitting.
Formal sitting on the occasion of the address by Mr Avraham Burg, Speaker of the Knesset and Mr Ahmed Qurie, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Mr President, as you know I currently chair Parliament's delegation for the United States of America and I should like to raise a point of order under Parliament's rules concerning parliamentary delegations.
It has come to my attention that a group of parliamentarians from the EPP Group visited the USA in July.
Normally I would regard this as a private matter and not my concern.
However, in the programme connected with this visit the group is described as a delegation and in particular Mr Goodwill, MEP, is described as leader of the delegation.
I can make this programme available to you.
This puts the whole visit in an entirely different context.
There was a formal delegation which I chaired from Parliament to the USA in June and there is an understandable confusion when another group of MEPs some three weeks later arrive in the USA, to all intents and purposes also a European Parliament delegation.
I have reports that the comments of these parliamentarians were from the wilder shores of the EPP Group and were notable for their anti-European content.
I understand what you are saying, Mrs Read, and the presidency takes note of your comment.
We shall correct this mistake and keep you informed of the situation.
Mr Goodwill, I believe that what you wish to say echoes Mrs Read' s comments.
Mr President, on a point of order I can inform the House that in no way did the visit by Members from the UK, Sweden and Germany wish to be described as a delegation.
We were merely visiting the United States as a group organised from within our own national groups.
We did not represent the EPP Group, we certainly did not wish to usurp the role of the official delegation.
I contest the point made about the views expressed during that visit as being particularly extreme.
We represented the views of our national parties over there as well as the views expressed within the European Parliament.
I am very sorry, Mrs Read, but I cannot allow you to speak again, as we are already running late.
We all know what the problem is.
The Bureau and Parliament have already made a commitment to resolving this issue and you really cannot speak again.
Let us proceed to the vote.
Vote
- 1999/2120(COS) (Draftsman: "Hughes Procedure" ) (Parliament approved the resolution)
Report (A5­0210/2000) by Mr Galeote Quecedo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on a common Community Diplomacy (2000/2006(INI)).
(Parliament approved the resolution)
Galeote Quecedo (PPE-DE).
(ES) Mr President, perhaps you could give the Commissioner the opportunity to explain to the House what he intends to do with this Parliament initiative, bearing in mind the new code of conduct which governs relations between Parliament and the Commission.
I am extremely grateful for the courteous offer that has been made.
Last night we had the opportunity to discuss this extremely important report at some length.
In my speech I drew attention to the communication that we have already produced on the external services, but said that we will be coming back with a further communication in due course which will bear the imprint of this extremely important report.
In particular I should like to express our enthusiasm for the very sensible ideas put forward about training for our external services and also the arguments about coordination.
It is a very good report on an important subject.
We hope that it will be a beacon for all of us in the dark nights that lie ahead.
(Laughter and applause)
Report (A5­0191/2000) by Mr Imbeni, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: Assessment and future of Community humanitarian activities (Article 20 of Regulation (EC) 1257/96) (COM(1999) 468 - C5­0044/2000 - 2000/2016(COS)).
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution)
Explanations of vote
Dell' Alba report (A5-0202/2000)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Dell'Alba's report, and I would like to explain this decision here since it relates to the financial concerns of pensioners in general.
Since they have very little money, they are, in effect, very careful how they spend it.
Sadly, the Dell'Alba report does not take into consideration the proposals of the Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, who levelled severe criticisms at the report, which proposes to honour the outstanding expenditure laid down in a previous regulation on aid for certain European activities in Latin America, Asia, the Mediterranean and South Africa.
In my opinion, much more should have been done, and this should have rung genuine alarm bells for the Commission's activities.
Piétrasanta report (A5-0205/2000)
Mr President, I could not pass over the chance to give an explanation of my vote for the MEDA report, seeing as, this summer, after I had been to Spain, I had a holiday in Tunisia.
While I was there, a Tunisian pensioner came up to me - goodness knows how he had found out that I represent the Italian pensioners in the European Parliament - and he said to me: "I know that there is an aid programme for Tunisia as there is for all the Mediterranean countries, but what good has it done me, a pensioner in Tunisia? What are you doing to help us?"
I have, in effect, read Mr Piétrasanta's report in its entirety and I regret to say that certain actions are missing.
In addition to the various initiatives laid down in the MEDA programme - which, I hope, will be given much more funding than the EUR 3 475 million which were appropriated to it between 1995 and 1999 - I hope that measures will also be adopted to keep a check on how European Union funding is used and that a large proportion will go to the peoples of the African countries which border on the Mediterranean, including their elderly citizens.
The MEDA programme is the mainstay of financial cooperation under the Euro-Mediterranean partnership set up in 1995.
But the procedures are unwieldy and not transparent enough, the specification for the implementation of projects, which are too long...
Reform is urgently needed because these problems are throwing the entire process into disrepute and are seen as bad signs by the people of the Mediterranean, who did, in fact, originally welcome the Barcelona process with a certain degree of enthusiasm.
The Commission text is a good text because its purpose is to help simplify current regulations.
But we need more if we want to give our Mediterranean policy a new lease of life: we need to involve the people more by supporting decentralised cooperation, we need to improve the way in which the cultural and human dimensions are integrated, open the free trade zone to agricultural produce and monitor and support fundamental freedoms.
I fully support the rapporteur' s proposal that an annual report be drafted on human rights in the Mediterranean countries.
Galeote Quecedo report (A5-0210/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the report on a common Community diplomacy.
I have to say that my daughter, who was extremely happy to see European driving licences introduced and remarked at the time: "So Europe is making progress!" , asked me on this occasion: "But when will European embassies be set up in the countries we visit as tourists?"
Well, I would have liked the Committee's report to have been more decided, more resolute, and to have, at last, established single European embassies to replace the 15 national embassies in the 15 Member States and the other States throughout the world.
Sadly, this did not happen, but I hope that it will come about with the next Commission communication.
The Liberal Party' s five Members of the European Parliament support the efforts in this report to give better diplomatic training to those EC officials who work in the Commission' s delegations.
We have proposed - and had accepted - an amendment which emphasises that it is simply a question of in-service training and that the courses are to be open to diplomats from the national foreign services.
The Liberals do not, however, support the idea of setting up a new institution in the form of an EC College of Diplomacy. Nor do we want the present delegations to develop into EU embassies.
Therefore, the Liberals have today voted in favour of the report as a whole but abstained from voting on the above-mentioned points.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament welcome, and have voted in favour of, the initiative to improve the Community' s common foreign service.
We also support the initiative to give further training to EC officials engaged in external activities.
We are opposed, however, to setting up a college of diplomacy for training the staff.
It must be possible for such training to take place as, for example, in-service or on the job training.
We also make reservations about the Commission' s delegations developing into proper embassies.
That would create an unclear picture of which problems are to be solved by the national embassies.
We have abstained from voting because the aims of the report are unclear.
On the one hand, it contains a large number of proposals for improving operations in the EU' s present offices abroad. It is also established (in paragraph O) that the purpose is not to create a single diplomatic service for the EU to replace the foreign services of the Member States.
On the other hand, the whole enterprise smacks of efforts progressively to do precisely that, namely to create veritable EU embassies as a stage in the process of transforming the EU into a superstate.
This impression is powerfully reinforced by paragraphs P, 13 and 15, in which the talk is precisely of EU embassies, of coordinated EU representation in, for example, the UN and of Member States which so desire arranging for their diplomatic missions to be combined with the EU' s delegations.
Because we are in favour of practical improvements to the existing foreign operation, but absolutely opposed to the EU' s beginning to behave like a superstate in the world around, especially by stealth, we have no option but to abstain from voting.
Our countries have a special responsibility, being among the few democracies in the world.
In the same way as the United States, we must be in a position to take independent initiatives and intervene in those parts of the world where there is a need to defend human rights and to propagate democratic values.
Interventions of this kind should primarily take place with the help of economic sanctions but, depending upon the circumstances, military intervention may be necessary.
The prerequisite of the EU' s being able to assemble the required drive to complete these tasks is close cooperation, both economic and political, within the EU, including closer cooperation between the foreign services.
At present, statements from the Commission' s delegations are too dissimilar because of the divergent positions held by the Member States.
If the EU is to assert itself on the political stage, it requires a better coordinated foreign policy in which the EU countries are obliged to combine forces and to speak with one voice.
.
(FR) Mr Galeote' s report has the strange merit of indicating its real objective and logic fairly clearly, i.e. the creation of a single Community diplomatic service, while formally claiming the opposite.
The entire proposed arrangement in fact contradicts recital O, which states that the objective is not to create a single diplomatic service to replace the diplomatic services of the Member States.
I welcome Mr Dupuis' frank and coherent amendments, which at least have the merit of calling a spade a spade.
The subtle internal balances of the PPE probably explain the baroque nature of the structure being proposed to us.
This clearly pathetic ducking and diving is directly inspired by the Monnet-Delors method and all Mr Galeote has done is to propose a new variation on that theme, this time on diplomacy.
With this method, the institution creates the function, the container hides the content, the technique gives rise to the policy.
But now we have the key and know how to decipher.
When Mr Galeote proposes setting up a training college to mould Community super-diplomats and recycle national diplomats, giving the European Union an international legal personality and 'coordinating' representations, especially to the UN, we know full well that the sub-text reads: merge embassies, create a single Community diplomatic corps and communitise France' s and Britain' s permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council.
And of course, as always, the question of purpose, the question of content, the only question worth asking, is omitted. What are we creating with this new institution?
In this particular case, what foreign policy will this Community diplomatic corps serve? What common interests is it supposed to defend?
This is a typically Marxist approach.
We are waiting for the 'critical qualitative mass' which, we hope, will change the quantitative into qualitative at a certain threshold.
The common instrument is supposed to produce the common conscience, the common will, the common responsibility.
This cult of the quantitative culminates in a grotesque comparison between the number of American and 'European' diplomats, the number of 'European' diplomats having been obtained by adding up the numbers of professional diplomats attached to the foreign services of our various countries.
Must we reiterate that the United States are one and the same nation and the Member States of the European Union each have privileged links in the world, different and sometimes diverging experiences and affinities, and that it is this which so enriches European diplomacy? It is the complementarity of this individual expertise which can be used for a clearly-defined common objective which really serves European interests.
It is precisely these advantages which the single diplomacy being proposed to us will devalue.
In fact, we are eroding national will, despite the fact that it is the diplomatic driving force behind Europe and, at the same time, we express surprise when the increasing number of instruments and declarations is reflected merely by an absence of content and a general lack of interest.
The only positive aspect of this report might be its desire to rationalise the organisation and improve the professionalism of the European Commission delegations in third countries.
Experience has shown that these delegations are not always up to their real job, which is to implement Community programmes and agreements and monitor them on the ground.
It would appear that this job has now taken second place to other considerations, with Commission representatives too busy trying to obtain officially the usurped title of ambassador to oversee the proper implementation of the programmes which they are responsible for applying.
This last point apart, you will understand that we obviously did not vote in favour of the other, totally surrealist proposals in this initiative report.
Today we are admitting the absurdity and intrinsic weaknesses of a single currency which is not supported by any sovereignty.
And now we expect single diplomacy, conceived in the same back to front manner, to work or rather, not to work.
I welcome the initiative to improve training for EU officials working on foreign issues, but I cannot support the creation of a single diplomatic corps.
The Member States are responsible for foreign diplomacy, and I think there is a danger that transforming the Commission' s delegations into Community delegations with legal standing might lead to conflicts of interest with the Member States' national diplomatic delegations.
I cannot therefore vote in favour of Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report.
Imbeni report (A5-0191/2000)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Imbeni's report as well, for the European Union is certainly doing something extremely important in organising humanitarian aid for areas which have been struck by natural disasters or the effects of war.
Pensioners, whom I have the honour and the pleasure of representing, are among those who are most willing on these occasions to go and help the less fortunate victims of disasters. But what benefit has Europe drawn from this initiative which, among other things, cost EUR 813 million in 1999 alone?
Moreover, I would call upon the Commission to increase its expenditure, for it is extremely important for Europe to maintain a presence in the world and to give a high profile to its presence through, among other things, a symbol and greater publicity of this important activity.
Mr President, a single example, taken from the explanatory statement, illustrates just how laughable the report on the humanitarian activities of the European Union is.
The report cites the absence of operational tools, especially helicopters, as the reason for the lack of international aid in general and the lack of aid from the European institutions in particular, in dealing with the floods in Mozambique, whereas - and who could forget? - there was no lack of helicopters, aeroplanes, every type of transportation equipment and even means of destruction when it came to intervening in Yugoslavia or Iraq.
The only conclusion to be drawn from this is that the major powers, which are capable of mobilising huge resources in order to impose their hegemony on the rest of the world, are not prepared to make the slightest effort when it comes to saving human lives.
Under these circumstances, the pacifying declarations on humanitarian aid by the European institutions are shamefully hypocritical and we have no intention of backing them, which is why we abstained from the vote.
I wish to start by congratulating Mr Imbeni on the quality of his report.
This report is fully in keeping with the philosophy of our institution, which has always made its voice heard in the least well off countries, through its opinions, its resolutions or specific action to improve and develop humanitarian aid.
Since the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) was created at the beginning of the 1990s, Europe has taken its place as the biggest donor in the world.
However, despite legitimate efforts driven by historical links between certain European countries and developing countries, we are forced to admit that poverty is increasing throughout the world.
Today, half the world lives on less than two dollars a day.
This is unacceptable!
Has the money released been squandered? I do not think so.
Without the emergency aid provided by ECHO in order to deal with the natural disasters or serious crises which regularly hit the most vulnerable people on our planet, I hardly dare imagine the situation which we would have to deal with today.
Nonetheless, humanitarian aid needs to be rationalised.
In this respect, I welcome the fact that the House is calling for more coherent, more coordinated help and for greater collaboration between the various partners, such as the executive Commission, the Member States, the various associations or even the United Nations.
In addition, apart from humanitarian aid proper, we need to find ways of improving conflict prevention because 25% of the African continent is still being torn apart by war.
Finally, even if the problem of development is a multi-dimensional problem and the European Union does not have all the answers, we still need to continue and step up our action in order to lay the foundations for sustainable world development and help eradicate poverty.
In any event, this was the concept which inspired the work of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, which is why I voted in favour of the report presented today by Mr Imbeni.
Mr President, I would like, on my own account and also on behalf of my colleagues, to protest in the strongest terms, and have it put on record, about the article that Madam President had published in today' s edition of the Strasbourg daily newspaper.
In it, she voices her belief that it would have come to riots in Austria had the 14 EU States not imposed sanctions against Austria.
I utterly repudiate this.
In making this comment, not only has the President done the Austrian people an injustice, she has also abused her office, and thereby caused this House, an EU institution, a great deal of harm.
Mrs Raschhofer, I shall gladly pass your comments on to President Fontaine.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.23 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Vice-President, thank you for giving me the floor.
With your permission I would like to re-raise the point of order that I tried to make just before the votes this morning.
I will re-read the point that I wanted to make.
I currently chair the European Parliament's delegation for relations with the United States of America and would like to raise a point of order under Parliament's rules concerning parliamentary delegations.
It has come to my attention that a group of EPP Members visited the USA in July.
Normally I would regard this as a private matter, but in the programme for the visit, which I can supply to you, the group is described as a delegation and in particular Mr Robert Goodwill, MEP, is described as leader of the delegation.
This of course puts the visit in an entirely different context.
An official delegation from Parliament, which I headed, visited the United States of America in June.
I think that you will understand that confusion may well arise when another group of MEPs arrives in the USA some three weeks later as, to all intents and purposes, a second European Parliament delegation.
I know that there was a strong anti-European tone to their reports, and this, of course, is a matter for the EPP, but when damaging and derogatory remarks about the European Union stem from what is purported to be an official visit from the European Parliament, I feel that the matter should be raised here.
I would ask you as a matter of urgency to investigate whether Parliament's rules have been broken.
Could you also ascertain whether the Members concerned had a formal invitation from relevant bodies in the USA and intend to declare their visit in the Members' register of interests? I will of course pass on the other documentation that I have received.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, in the Minutes, in point 2, you can see at the end, after Parliament observed a minute's silence in memory of those who had died, the Minutes said: "Mr Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso spoke."
Actually there is no mention of what I said.
But if you look at the verbatim report you can see that there is a very important error which could mislead people.
The verbatim report says, at the end of my words: "The action of ETA is a righteous expression of the struggle for recognition" ... etc.
My words were: "The action of ETA is the enraged expression of the struggle for recognition of something quite elementary."
The right to exist as Basque.
You can understand that the difference is a very substantial one.
I would like to amend it.
I would ask for responsibility to be taken for that because if you look at the Spanish press today, everybody has taken these words as the real ones.
That is at least based on a reference but then some mass media in Spain, whereas I cited Hegel as a quotation, have put in Nietzsche and this is no coincidence at all.
I am afraid I am faced with a determination to put words into my mouth which I did not say.
That is my protest.
I would like to amend what is in the verbatim report.
To say in the Minutes that I spoke is not sufficient.
You must record the sense of what I said yesterday.
Mr Gorostiaga, if you feel that you have been misquoted, you have hereby been given the opportunity to report this.
This too will be included in the Verbatim Report.
We will of course examine how this has happened.
I am taking note of this now.
(The Minutes were approved)
Agenda
As you are aware, Parliament decided this morning to add a communication by Mr Verheugen on enlargement to tomorrow' s agenda at 5.00 p.m.
Mr Prodi, President of the Commission, has also expressed the wish to make a communication on this subject matter.
Since Mr Prodi is to leave Strasbourg by 5.00 p.m. at the very latest, I suggest bringing the Commission communication forward to 4.00 p.m.
The debates will consequently be resumed after the Commission communication until Question Time (Commission) which commences at 5.30 p.m..
Are there any objections to this?
Mr President, I wholeheartedly agree with what you have said, and also welcome with open arms the fact that President Prodi himself is to make a statement.
All I would ask - and the group chairmen in attendance will support me in this - is that the group chairmen are also given the opportunity tomorrow to make a brief statement of their position.
This has not been scheduled yet, but I would ask if it could be attended to, so that we too are able to make our positions clear.
There is no need for it to be a long statement, but the group chairmen must be given this opportunity.
I would urge you to arrange this accordingly.
Mr Poettering, Parliament is sovereign.
If, therefore, you express this wish and I feel that you do so on behalf of many, especially your own colleagues, then I have no objections to granting you this wish, and this means that the group chairmen will also be taking the floor.
Are there any objections?
Then the decision is as stated.
EU external action priorities (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the declarations of the Council and the Commission on EU external action priorities.
Mr President, many thanks for allowing me to continue this morning' s debate.
The Socialist Group has a need to recognise for itself that Europe' s position on the world stage has undergone a dramatic change since the fall of the Berlin Wall, when traditionally, foreign policy was adopted by national states which continue to play a major role, of course.
We also noticed that our own governments often thwarted each other in their efforts to adopt effective external policy.
We are now in a position where we can gradually see these governments taking joint steps and the European Union setting up a growing common foreign policy.
And in our view, and this was also explained very clearly by Mr Patten, with regard to those external actions, "foreign policy" involves more than traditional foreign diplomacy as we knew it but also touches upon concepts such as security - and embraces a much wider concept of security - the environment, conflict prevention, trade and relations in all kinds of areas.
It encompasses development cooperation and naturally the traditional tools of foreign policy. This has culminated in an enriched foreign policy for the EU and has also resulted in the integration of the Commissioner for External Relations, Mr CFSP, Mr Solana, and the Council who all have a particular role to fulfil.
It is unfortunate that Mr Solana was unable to be here to make a contribution of this kind.
We would actually like to emphasise that there are three priorities for which we need to find a balance simultaneously. Firstly, of direct concern are our neighbours, in other words eastward enlargement.
Our second priority is the strategic aspect within MEDA. This is the second area which touches upon traditional relations within NATO, the G7 and the other contexts within which we cooperate with America and the other traditional partners.
The third priority is easily forgotten but in our eyes essential, namely that of Europe as the bearer of values in the world, or, in other words 'a global player in a global village' . In this respect, it is essential to regard the fight against poverty as a key contribution in our policy, rather than according it a minor position within foreign policy.
Mr Patten, Mr Nielson, ladies and gentlemen, and the Commissioner for External Relations, you could, in fact, extract new value, new quality and effectiveness from this, working in tandem with Parliament.
We very much regret the fact that heading 4, the role of our Parliament and the tasks which we actually have to fulfil in the process are still being sidelined to such a degree.
All too often, we find that the Council follows its own line of thought and this is no longer the way in which we can market modern foreign policy which covers a wide range of issues.
We therefore hope that we can once again drive our message home. We hope that this new policy takes account of the budget and can be accompanied by an involved and powerful European Parliament that can have its say and is taken entirely seriously.
We would welcome a positive response from the Council and Commission with regard to this new policy in these matters too.
Mr President, I welcome the resolve that was shown here today by the French Presidency and the Commission in placing emphasis on enlargement as the key priority for the external action of the Union.
I hope that when we come to deal with the matter in the House tomorrow the Verheugen incident will have simply served as a timely reminder that we must get our signals clear and avoid giving mixed messages with regard to this strategic priority.
With regard to the matter in hand, I should like to pick up on a point made by the Commissioner earlier today when he talked about the attempt to make foreign policy more effective and to warmly welcome and subscribe to his view on the indivisibility of the Union's foreign policy.
If we take the Barcelona process, the Middle East peace process, our relations with the Western Balkans, our relations with Russia, clearly there is a vast area of policy to be covered and a wide variety of instruments.
It is clear that a successful foreign policy cannot stand on one pillar alone.
Even if the conduct of foreign policy - and in particular, the security and defence dimension of foreign policy - is essentially for government, it follows that because of the nature of the policy terrain and the instruments available it cannot be government's exclusive concern.
The Commission is right to demand its right of association under the Treaty and, through that, for this Parliament to demand its right of accountability and scrutiny.
A second general point I should like to refer to is in respect of the efficiency of policy.
Here too the new Commission - and in particular, Commissioner Patten - deserve to be congratulated, first of all for revealing to us the extent of the horror that much of the policy had become.
Let me recall one of the results of these inquiries: in the past five years the average delay in the disbursement of committed funds has increased from three years to four-and-a-half years.
For certain programmes the backlog of outstanding commitments is equivalent to more than eight-and-a-half years of payments.
That clearly is a farce in anyone's analysis.
It has to be said in fairness that the former Commission led by Jacques Santer was as much a victim as an author of this process.
This is an accumulation of an ineffective and inefficient system over years.
We welcome the commitment to an urgent review of that process.
On behalf of the Liberal Democrat Group I should like to lay particular emphasis on our distress at the code of secrecy rather than the code of transparency normally promoted by the Council.
Blanket secrecy is not the way to legitimise an evolving Community policy.
My group deplores the fact that this code of secrecy was slipped in during the Parliamentary summer recess, with no Parliamentary consultation and by written procedure.
It amounts to a form of intergovernmental conspiracy against citizens' right to know.
I want to hear from the Council today what role it feels it is prepared to accord to this House in terms of the scrutiny and accountability of issues which may be intergovernmental but which cannot stand on one pillar alone?
Mr President, as the European Union assumes new powers we might expect that transparency in this matter and parliamentarian monitoring would increase at the same rate.
Now, it would seem that the European security and defence identity is making dramatic progress in the wake of the Helsinki summit.
It appears, however, that the Council has been resorting more and more to the intergovernmental process in this, so much so that it has threatened even to bypass the Commission, something quite unheard of, as far as I am concerned.
The Commission must have a strong role to play in this process.
Just like my colleague, Mr Cox, I too strongly condemn the fact that, during the summer recess, the Council produced very significant restrictions on the public' s right to gain access to documents relating to matters of security and defence.
Obviously, nobody is claiming that confidentiality and even secrecy are not necessary from time to time, when it is a question, for example, of operational matters in defence policy.
But the Council' s decision seems to be leading to a situation now where the whole development of the security and defence policy in the political sphere can no longer be properly monitored, being, as it were, beyond that.
The public can no longer follow the development of security and defence policy, and neither can Parliament monitor it properly.
We here in Parliament have discussed this situation, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, in which I am involved in the discussion of the issue, is looking into whether Parliament should possibly take the Council to court on account of this decision, which is a clear violation of Parliament' s rights, and weakens our citizens' already barely attainable rights of access to documents.
I demand a clear explanation from the representative of the Council, and I would be very grateful if the Commission were also to comment on the situation.
I shall be very brief, Mr President, as I only wish to discuss one very specific aspect of the European Union' s external actions. I feel that, although this is a very specific issue, it nevertheless deserves our utmost consideration and is of great concern to us.
I am referring to the obvious trend towards placing less and less value, in terms of both our attention and resources, on cooperation with developing countries.
I realise, of course, that we have other objectives and that these too must be given the appropriate consideration.
Nevertheless, I think that, because of the expectations that are created, because of the European Union' s responsibilities and even because of the new problems facing developing countries, for all these reasons, taking account of these very important parts of the world must be a major factor in determining our actions.
I would emphasise one aspect in particular: we need, in this context, to have our own independent strategies that confirm the European Union' s position in this field.
This concern has arisen mainly as a result of the successive budgetary cuts in the field of cooperation which, to a certain extent, illustrate and endorse the fears I have just mentioned, which I feel we must lay to rest once and for all.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by addressing a brief remark to Mr Patten.
The document on which we are preparing to vote deplores the slide towards intergovernmentalism which is creeping into our common foreign and security policy and that this somewhat contradicts the Commissioner' s speech this morning, in which he said that foreign policy would remain a matter for national governments.
I therefore feel that the question should perhaps be broached with greater flexibility.
In politics, we never use the word "never" .
I think that the European Parliament is fairly reticent on this question, but Mr Brok' s intervention demonstrated that no one here in this House continued to feel that it was still possible and absolutely vital to communitise foreign policy.
I should like quickly to ask the President-in-Office two questions.
I was interested to read of a recent Franco-German initiative to unite consulates.
Does the Presidency-in-Office entertain the idea of rapidly communitising foreign policy and, more importantly, of giving a Union embassy the task of representing all the Member States of the Union in the fifty countries in which no Member State of the Union is represented?
My second question is this.
I was interested to note, Mr President-in-Office, your obvious lack of enthusiasm for the European Union/China summit, which pleases me greatly.
Does that mean that the so-called policy of critical dialogue with China is dead and buried and would you be prepared, as the President-in-Office, to address the question of the recognition of the Tibetan Government in exile at your next meeting with the Chinese if no agreement on the new status of Tibet is reached within a reasonable period of time?
Mr President, I believe it is important not to lose sight of the objectives pursued in the course of this debate. In my opinion, there are two:
Firstly, to guarantee more effective, coherent and visible external action on the part of the European Union.
What would be the point of having more than 40 000 officials in more than 1 500 diplomatic missions between the Commission and the Member States - twice the number the United States has - if our activity really is not sufficiently efficient, coherent or visible? I believe that Mr Patten expressed this very well in his intervention when he demonstrated that he had at least read the joint motion for a resolution which we have negotiated in Parliament.
Secondly, to take note of the fact that the days when the European Parliament simply rubber-stamped the priorities established by other Community institutions have finally been assigned to history.
Mr Moscovici, in the coming months we will have to make important decisions in the field of the nascent, embryonic defence policy. During the Balkan crisis the inadequacies of the European Union were made blatantly clear.
In the United States there is currently a great debate taking place concerning defence expenditure.
We will soon have to hold this debate here in Europe. We in Europe will not only have to consider this expenditure but also the structure of this spending.
The incompatibility and heterogeneity of the Member States' investments in this field - the national views - make this such a difficult debate that we will have to consider other added problems such as interinstitutional disputes.
This Parliament would clearly have preferred the figure of the High Representative to be answerable to the Commission.
Instead, it has been answerable to the Council , and this is something we have to accept, as we also have to accept that the Commission must play a role.
Mr Patten is right when he says that we have to clarify and resolve a series of tensions between the intergovernmental realm and the Community realm.
This dispute between the institutions must be resolved, and the European Parliament must not simply be serving at the table, but it also wishes to take its place in the kitchen.
Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, with my French colleagues in the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I naturally follow the external actions of the European Union with great interest.
In general we favour a strong European Union presence on the international scene.
That implies firm and unswerving commitment from the Council itself first of all.
You spoke of high ambition, Minister, and I was pleased to hear it.
But that also presupposes a Commission genuinely capable of action.
That is what the Commissioner wants and I hope he is getting, and will get, the political, administrative and financial resources he needs to put his ideas into practice and make the CFSP really effective and efficient.
But in this short speech, I want to focus on enlargement.
A recent interview with a German newspaper stirred up some turmoil.
For us, however, it is clear: there is no question of slowing down the enlargement process by introducing new requirements or a variety of delaying tactics.
On the contrary, we must do everything we can to move it forward, as you just reaffirmed, Minister, and of course that does not exclude either rigour or vigilance.
A slapdash enlargement would obviously be a great mistake.
Having said that, we are conscious of the problems due to public opinion both within the fifteen Member States and in the candidate countries.
Public opinion is very ill informed and can veer from irrational enthusiasm to a sense of discouragement to outright hostility.
A great deal of work undoubtedly needs to be done if the long and difficult process of enlargement is to have solid, clear-sighted and determined popular support.
Mr President, the foreign policy of the European Union can only be successful if it satisfies three main criteria: clarity, credibility and transparency.
Mr Patten, we will continue to push for this, even though you believe that we should at last put an end to the game of ping pong.
As far as I am concerned, it has started and can only finish if a constructive solution is found. Otherwise this will lead to further competition between the institutions.
I believe the speech you gave in Paris was significant in this respect.
It is true that there should at last be open discussion on how to pursue a truly coherent foreign policy.
The European Parliament will play an important part in this.
You said yourself that it will only be possible to achieve credibility - your second point - if the European Union employs all its capabilities, i.e. all three pillars, and particularly the first with its financial and economic means, in preventive conflict management, and if the EU promotes stability overseas by making proper use of its economic instruments and using its political means to achieve real cooperation.
After all, we know that we must take a considerably broader view of the issue of protection.
Protection of the environment, the individual and human rights cannot be secured through one pillar alone.
In the same way, preventive conflict management is not just about the deployment of a police force; it involves all three pillars.
As far as the last point, that of transparency, is concerned, my group has made it quite clear today that we do not accept, nor will we accept, that access to these documents should be restricted.
Transparency is Parliament' s watchword, and we will continue to demand it from the Council and the Commission alike.
We will revisit this theme at a later stage.
Mr President, I was interested to hear the President-in-Office mention the four priorities which the Presidency-in-Office envisages for the future in the field of foreign affairs and defence.
Two of these priorities also concern the resolutions, namely the selection of tools which are needed to achieve this and the development of the common foreign and security and defence policy itself.
Commissioner Patten, the Vice-President of the Commission, reacted to this in his own way and remarked that the European Union is in fact extremely resourceful.
The lion' s share of aid - two-thirds in fact - originates from our European Union.
Enlargement is on the agenda and he also mentioned the promotion of stability, at which point I started to have my doubts.
When he then mentioned the fact that the EU should have its own identity on the world stage, I thought: I would love to share this objective with him but in a way which would take account of European responsibilities.
Needless to say, this identity can only find expression in true European policy.
European responsibilities can certainly not be divided among fifteen to thirty or perhaps more Member States. This does not mean that there will be no Foreign Affairs Ministers in the Member States.
They will certainly be kept on, just like the Ministers for Economic Affairs or certainly those for Education. Once European responsibilities are identified, they should in any event not be divided up and they should also be truly based on a European vision and European values which we share here in this Parliament.
This is not about a simple bureaucratic division of powers between institutions or a power-crazed Parliament or such like.
This is about a practical solution: how can we solve the problems we have encountered?
This is about the fact that our policy was unable to prevent the suffering in Bosnia, which claimed hundreds of thousands of victims.
That is what this is all about!
We need to ask ourselves how we can prevent this. This is when we say as a Parliament: we need European policy; otherwise we will not succeed.
Mr President, first of all, I want to say thank you both to the French Presidency and to Commissioner Patten for their excellent contributions this morning.
The priorities established deserve all our support.
Time permits only a couple of remarks on my part.
I choose to concentrate on the deficiencies in the implementation of the Union' s development cooperation.
Commissioner Patten deserves praise for the openness with which he describes and has described the problems.
My own experience when, in a responsible post within the UN' s development programme, I sought cooperation with the Union at national level with a view to assembling and coordinating forces in different areas was that, as a rule, it did not work, either because almost every decision in the EU' s case needed to be taken in Brussels and also because of the lack of qualified staff within the area concerned.
All this made cooperation with the EU difficult and incredibly time-consuming.
The UN has its problems with bureaucracy and dilatoriness - I am the first to admit that - but, where development work and development cooperation are concerned, the EU was lagging far behind, in any case a few years ago.
The conclusion I draw is, first of all, that the Commission must radically decentralise the right of decision-making to national level.
"Brussels" , with all its administrative levels, must relinquish a large degree of control.
Secondly, it is important to ensure that the Commission has an adequate number of qualified staff to carry out the operations about which decisions are being made.
I know, Commissioner Patten, that this is the direction your politics are taking right now.
I would just emphasise that it is a matter of urgency.
If there are no rapid improvements, I fear that the Commission' s support for development cooperation will gradually disappear.
That would be a pity, given that well-developed multilateral cooperation has many advantages and that the Union needs such an instrument in order to be able to play a proactive role on the international stage.
Mr President, the President-in-Office's speech seemed to me to be rather on the biased and general side, but I found that Commissioner Patten's speech was realistic and focused well on the different problem areas.
We therefore now need to discuss the different issues.
Firstly, tomorrow marks the start of a major UN session where 159 Heads of State will be present.
In what form will the European Union be present and at what level? I feel that it is extremely important for us to establish ourselves at the very highest level and to make our presence felt.
A discussion on priorities should include economic policy, but our economic policies are all inward-looking and only concern the interior of Europe.
It is also just as important not to let go of development policy, for that creates stability and peace and has to target Russia and China as well as developing countries.
In my opinion, it is not right to ask us to choose between the Balkans and developing countries.
The Member States need to take these factors on board.
Working towards constitutionalisation of the European Union, one benefit of which would be institutional citizenship in international bodies, the creation of a European diplomacy as per the Galeote report, the cultural concern which we must take on board in order to avoid fresh incidents of colonialism, the support and valuing of democratic processes which have also been established in certain countries such as Iran, and the regulation of relations with NGOs, which could become the operational arm of the European Union - these options could all contribute to an effective political initiative for developing countries, an initiative which would assert the supremacy of European civilisation in terms of a quest for solidarity to improve quality of life and bear witness to respect for human dignity, celebrating it in every corner of the world.
Mr President-in-Office, this morning you mentioned the report Parliament has asked me to present on Turkey' s accession process.
I think I can announce the body of the conclusions today.
Like the Commission, Parliament salutes Turkey' s endeavours in drawing up a programme for developing its legal arsenal to comply more closely with the requirements of the European Union, especially in terms of respect for human rights.
At the same time we understand the stir caused among the various political parties and public opinion as it recognises the magnitude of the reforms that country must agree to introduce before it joins the Union.
We want our partners to know that the European Union has no intention of interfering in their domestic affairs, but is offering them a contract under terms now redefined under the accession partnership and the agreement on the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It is up to them to accept or refuse that contract.
In that connection, I believe we must have the courage to tell the Turkish people that there are at least two prior conditions governing its accession to Europe. First, respect for the need for identity.
This is being demonstrated across Europe by our fellow citizens all the more clearly because they have the greatest desire to protect their roots in the face of the ineluctable progress of globalisation.
Europe is resolute in recognising that need for identity, aware that its diversity is the source of its wealth.
That is why it insists on the rights, but also the duties, of minorities. That is the spirit in which the Union proposes to help Turkey find a solution to the Kurdish problem.
There must also be a solution to the Cyprus problem as soon as possible, because nobody in Europe would accept a wall continuing to divide it, like those of Berlin, Beirut and Sarajevo (amongst others), which have now, fortunately, come down.
Mr President, our debate today reveals a continuing difficulty at the heart of the European Union's approach on foreign policy.
Is the intention to give an enlarging group of European nations a stronger voice on the world stage and improve the coordination and effectiveness of their policies on a range of issues? If so, I can support this.
Or is the ambition to move towards a European state, with its own foreign and security policy backed by its own diplomatic service and army? This concept I wholeheartedly reject.
It is certainly not wanted by the British people, nor, I believe, is it wanted by many of the citizens in the rest of Europe.
They have never been asked in honest terms.
Mr Patten today reiterated his view that for the indefinite future there will be national foreign ministers.
But this is only half the problem.
What will be the content of their jobs in ten years' time if the EU continues on its present course? After all, once EMU is fully established there will still be finance ministers in the euroland countries.
But how much real responsibility will they have? Clearly there are many in this House who are quite open in their advocacy of a single foreign ministry for Europe and the Galeote Quecedo report which was voted on today with its proposals for a permanent Community diplomatic service is, I am afraid, a step in this direction.
I am also concerned by the extent to which many want to define European foreign policy in terms of its distinctiveness from the United States policies, sometimes even deliberate hostility to the United States positions.
A priority for the European Union must surely be to break out of this antagonistic mindset and instead seek, as a primary aim, to contribute to western solidarity.
The best forum for dealing with security policy issues is NATO rather than the European Union and the danger is that the common European security and defence policy, with its emphasis on an autonomous capability, will undermine the alliance which served us so well during more threatening times.
Mr President, some of us have asked the President-in-Office and Commissioner Patten specific questions.
I realise the debate has been particularly badly organised, being split into two halves, but could we at least have written responses?
This is certainly an option, and I assume that the Commissioner as well as the Minister would be prepared to reply to the Parliament in writing.
Unfortunately, I have to say that we have no time left today to continue the debate and allow responses.
At the end of these explanations, I have received six motions for resolutions in accordance with Article 37 (2) of the Rules of Procedure
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12 noon.
Financial year 2001
The next item is the submission by the Council of the draft budget for the financial year 2001.
I would also like to thank Commissioner Patten for being here.
Ladies and gentlemen, today, on behalf of the Council Presidency, it is my honour to present the draft budget of the European Communities, as drawn up by the Council on 20 July.
As you know, my colleague Florence Parly chaired that Council, but unfortunately she cannot be here today, so please accept her apologies.
First of all, I would like to pay tribute to the excellent work done by the Portuguese Presidency ahead of the Council' s adoption, at first reading, of the draft budget for 2001.
I would also like to highlight the excellent climate in which this budgetary procedure has opened.
This year, the provisions of the new interinstitutional agreement of 6 May 1999 have taken full effect.
The first session under the trialogue procedure bringing together the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission was held on 6 July, here in Strasbourg, and demonstrated its usefulness in terms of better mutual understanding of our respective positions and priorities.
The conciliation meeting between the European Parliament and the Council, which took place on 20 July, was, I think, very positive.
In particular, it became possible to find a great many points of agreement between institutions and make good progress on potential sources of disagreement.
I hope we can continue to work in the same spirit and produce a budget for the European Communities for the financial year 2001 which gives us the resources to meet the priorities and challenges the European Union is about to face.
Firstly, I want to set out the major guidelines which have determined the way the Council has drawn up this draft budget before going into more detail - though not at length - on the various categories.
In the first place, the Council has ensured proper funding, after identifying clear priorities and real needs, for the European Union' s various actions, especially those in the area of external relations, which we were talking about just now - albeit with a gap.
So the evaluation of the likely implementation of the appropriations has been taken into account for commitment appropriations.
The Council has also paid special attention to the development of payment appropriations, setting their increase compared with 2000 at a maximum rate of 3.5%, which in particular takes account of the capacity for implementation and the probable rate of payments entailed by the balances to be settled.
That growth, which is much higher than the Member States authorise for their national budgets, plus the forecast inflation for 2001, is a mark of the Council' s determination to ensure satisfactory financing of all European Union policies.
Finally, this draft budget remains totally in keeping with the interinstitutional agreement of 6 May 1999on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure.
In particular the Council felt it was absolutely essential to respect - and I stress this - each of the annual expenditure ceilings set by the financial perspectives which our three institutions, Parliament, the Council and the Commission, signed up to a year ago.
Those are the bases for the draft budget for the financial year 2001, drawn up by the Council on 20 July, to provide for EUR 95.9 billion in commitment appropriations, an increase of 2.7% over the budget for 2000, and EUR 92.5 billion in payment appropriations, an increase of 3.5% over the budget for 2000.
Particular importance has been accorded to the increase in the importance of appropriations for aid to the Western Balkans, a repeatedly affirmed priority and one I reaffirm here, because I do not accept the comment earlier about 'chaos' .
The situation is sensitive, but not chaotic.
There is work to be done, and work is being done.
The Council hopes to convert this priority into figures with a total appropriation 30% higher than in 2000.
The EUR 614 million adopted by the Council will ensure funding of all foreseeable needs.
I would add - and of course this is important in our discussions - that it has been possible to earmark such a significant amount without having to revise the financial perspectives aimed at strengthening category 4, as proposed by the Commission.
The Council has also ensured the funding of all the European Union' s other policy priorities.
Without launching into an exhaustive description of the Council' s draft budget, which is in any case the subject of the detailed explanatory statement circulated to you, I would now like to present the Council' s 2001 draft budget decisions in a rather more specific way, that is, by category of expenditure.
First, as regards category 1 of the financial perspectives relating to agricultural expenditure, the draft budget provides for an increase in commitment appropriations of 6.3% in relation to 2000 in order to fund the CAP reform agreed by the European Council in Berlin in March 1999.
Nevertheless, for sub-category 1a of the financial perspectives, covering CAP market expenditure, the Council decided on figures some EUR 330 million lower in total than those proposed by the Commission in its preliminary draft.
In fact, there is under-implementation of these appropriations every year.
The Council therefore felt that it could achieve a reduction by targeting some traditionally underspent budget lines.
By doing so, it is also demonstrating the will to make special efforts to achieve significant savings in the compulsory expenditure and not just in non-compulsory expenditure.
The savings made, in comparison with the Commission' s preliminary draft budget, do not prevent the Council providing for an increase, which also responds to Parliament' s concerns, in two budgetary lines: for the distribution of milk to schoolchildren, which I know has been the subject of massive correspondence for more than a year now, and promotion of product quality.
For expenditure related to rural development, taking account of the delays which have built up in the approval and implementation of national rural development plans, the Council felt that a margin of EUR 225 million, under the ceiling of sub-category 1b of the financial perspectives, could be earmarked.
The development of these appropriations, however, shows an increase of 4.6% compared with 2000, an increase which reflects the priority the Council accords the appropriations allocated to what now constitutes a second pillar of the CAP.
So the draft budget drawn up by the Council includes margins available under the ceilings of sub-categories 1a and 1b of the financial perspectives.
However, I want to specify that the Council is, of course, prepared to re-examine agricultural expenditure this autumn in the light of the content of the letter of amendment the Commission will be presenting and to reconsider, at that time, developments in market and rural development expenditure.
As regards structural actions, covered by category 2 of the financial perspectives, the Council has budgeted this whole category as commitment appropriations in line with the conclusions of the Berlin European Council of March 1999 and, in addition, it has renewed all the payment appropriations entered in 2000.
But it hoped to increase the Cohesion Fund allocations by some EUR 360 million over provision in the Commission' s preliminary draft, to take account of the forecasts for implementation of these credits in the Member States.
On category 3 of the financial perspectives relating to the funding of internal policies, the Council was primarily intent on ensuring the appropriate funding for the multiannual programmes while respecting, where applicable, the programming decided jointly with Parliament.
That is why it has accepted the amounts requested by the Commission in its preliminary draft budget for the framework programme for research and development as well as for the trans-European networks.
It has done the same with regard to the appropriations requested to improve the financial environment of SMEs and the start up of the LIFE 3 programme.
The Council believes the right amount has been identified to get the LIFE 3 programme off to a good start.
As regards the extension of the 'Employment' initiative, agreed by Parliament to strengthen the employment dynamic begun by the Amsterdam European Council, the conciliation meeting between the European Parliament and the Council held on 20 July demonstrated that this subject represents a priority for both our institutions for the 2001 budget, especially in terms of building on the conclusions of the Feira European Council.
However, the Council is waiting for the assessment of the previous initiative soon to be delivered by the Commission with a view to seeking agreement with Parliament about its funding in the context of a global agreement during the second reading.
Furthermore, it has identified a precautionary margin of EUR 208 million more than the one in the Commission' s preliminary draft budget, the objective being to have enough room for manoeuvre over and above a necessary margin under the ceiling of category 3 to deal with the new priorities shared by the Council and by Parliament, such as the 'employment' initiative I mentioned earlier.
I now come to the financing of the European Union external actions covered by category 4 of the financial perspectives.
I do not need to remind you, after the debate we had just now, of the high priority the Council accords to aid to the Western Balkans. Here, as I have already indicated, the draft budget provides for an increase of 30% in comparison with 2000.
The EUR 614 million adopted by the Council will be enough to finance all the foreseeable needs.
This figure is based on the only evaluation of needs currently available, set out in the 1999 World Bank report on rebuilding Kosovo.
Wishing to be pragmatic, the Council is renewing but not increasing the appropriations intended for Serbia, as it is not yet eligible for Community assistance beyond the aid for democracy and civil society included in this envelope.
In general, the Council would like to see the implementation of effective and credible intervention in the region, based on an analysis of needs, adaptation of levels and types of aid to the nature of those needs, and distribution of effort between all the bilateral and multilateral donors.
As regards the other budget titles, although the Council has maintained the major allocations, for a limited number of budgetary lines it has not retained all the appropriations the Commission asked for in its preliminary draft budget. I am thinking in particular of the TACIS programme, the funding of KEDO, the international fisheries agreements, the rapid reaction arrangements and the MEDA programme.
On the other hand, the Council has kept to the Commission' s preliminary draft for the vast majority of the other cooperation programmes.
However I want to emphasise, as regards the MEDA programme, that the draft budget provides for an amount of EUR 701 million which is higher than the annual average allocation over the period 1995-1999.
The reduction of EUR 150 million made by the Council in comparison with what the Commission is asking for, takes account of the stock of still unpaid commitments still on this programme, and that represents several years of implementation.
I take this opportunity to remind you of the Council' s determination to contribute to better management of the programme, an indispensable prior condition, in our view, to enhancing our efforts.
Despite this reduction - motivated by the need to reabsorb the outstanding balance - the MEDA programme naturally remains very important to the Council.
The French Presidency' s objective is to achieve the adoption of the new multiannual regulation for MEDA soon and it will in particular be listening to the European Parliament on this subject.
I would also like to reaffirm the Council' s commitment to the accession process for Cyprus and Malta, and here I want to congratulate Mr Morillon on the conclusions of his report, which he outlined earlier.
We look forward to reading the report with interest, not to say impatience.
Consequently we have followed the Commission by grouping the appropriations asked for together under the heading of 'pre-accession strategy' .
However we have not followed up the Commission' s proposal for a revision of the financial perspectives, transferring these appropriations to category 7, and we have kept them in category 4.
Finally, I want to express my satisfaction that agreement was reached at the conciliation meeting between the European Parliament and the Council on 20 July on the amount of the appropriations to be included for the CFSP, as well as the transfer of the administrative expenses for CFSP special representatives, to the Council' s budget, in accordance with the institutional agreement of 1999.
This agreement has given rise to the drafting of two joint declarations, one of which specifies that the sums included in the Council' s budget under the heading of CFSP administrative expenses should take account of their impact on the general position for category 5, while the other commits the Council to ensuring that the estimates for administrative costs anticipated for each new CFSP decision are transmitted in good time to the other branch of the budgetary authority.
As you can appreciate, the Council has therefore tried to fund the various priorities in the field of European Union external actions appropriately and in doing so it has earmarked a margin of EUR 184 million under the ceiling of category 4 of the financial perspectives.
In drawing up its draft budget for the administrative expenditure covered by category 5 of the financial perspectives, the Council has been concerned to stabilise current expenditure, while taking account of the exceptional needs of the institutions, especially as regards staff for the Anti-fraud Office and the Court of Justice.
As regards the Commission' s budget, the Council did not make any decision in July, as it was awaiting the letter of amendment from the Commission which has just been presented, so the Council will now be examining that proposal and applying the lessons from the reorganisation work headed up by Neil Kinnock.
The Council is ready to do whatever is necessary to examine this letter of amendment so that its incidence can be taken into account as from first reading by the European Parliament.
To that end, there is a margin of EUR 113 million under the ceiling of category 5 of the financial perspectives.
I wish to conclude this overview of the various categories of expenditure with the expenditure on pre-accession aid.
For these the Council has kept the Commission' s figure for commitment appropriations.
For payment appropriations, the Council has adjusted the Commission' s preliminary draft budget figure downward by EUR 300 million.
In line with the logic prevailing for the other categories, the Council has taken maximum account of the substantial underspend of these appropriations in 2000.
Despite this reduction compared with the Commission' s preliminary draft, the pre-accession payment appropriations recorded a strong increase of 10.8% compared with 2000, which again reflects the importance accorded this expenditure as absolutely vital to the proper preparation of our major political aim, the enlargement, a priority shared by the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission.
Naturally, I wish to take this opportunity to say that I am sure the discussion between Mr Verheugen and the European Parliament, tomorrow, will make it possible to eliminate a number of misunderstandings.
I know Günther Verheugen well, I know how committed he is to enlargement and how hard he is working for its success.
Before I end, I would like to take this opportunity to say how pleased I am about the agreement reached, at the conciliation meeting between the European Parliament and the Council on 20 July, on a statement on financial programming.
Under the terms of this joint declaration, the Commission will now be obliged to evaluate the financial consequences of each of its new proposals, in particular for categories 3 and 4 of the financial perspectives.
I am sure that will be a fundamental factor in clarifying the decisions of the budgetary authority.
Anyway it will undoubtedly mean better budgetary forecasting and should be extremely useful during future budgetary procedures.
To conclude this overview, which I think has been as brief as it could be, I think, the draft budget being forwarded to you offers a balanced compromise whereby the European Union' s priorities can be funded while absolutely fundamentally respecting the Berlin financial perspectives - and we all know that it was not easy task to define them.
The 1999 interinstitutional agreement established conciliation between the institutions in the course of the budgetary procedure, and we are all bound to benefit this year and in the future.
In this connection, I am pleased with the progress we were already able to make, even before adoption of the draft budget at first reading by the Council, in bringing together the points of view of the institutions.
It seems to me that the draft I have just presented to you draws a number of lessons from that conciliation.
In any case I hope it gives you a good foundation for starting your work on the budget and that it will contribute to the establishment of a budget for 2001 which respects the priorities of each of the institutions, one which is satisfactory in terms of our joint mission, fulfilling our responsibilities towards Europe and its peoples.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, you will shortly be adopting two regulations that are highly significant in budgetary terms, one being the regulation on budgetary discipline in the agricultural sector, and the other being the regulation on own resources, that is to say, the financing of the budget.
On behalf of the Commission, I am able to tell you that we are most satisfied with the outcome of the discussions, and are delighted that these two difficult matters will soon be resolved.
However, the Commission takes a dim view of the outcome of the Council' s discussions on Budget 2001.
Accordingly, I am bound to contradict the assessment of the President-in-Office.
At first reading, the Council concentrated largely on cutting payment appropriations right across the board.
The end result was the lowest draft budget of the past ten years, when considering the budget in relation to the EU' s Gross National Product.
Now I have already made it clear to this august Chamber on numerous occasions that the Commission considers budgetary discipline to be an extremely important guiding principle, but the Council' s approach, i.e. to cut payment appropriations irrespective of the level of commitments entered into in the past which are due for payment, does not constitute sound budgetary policy.
The Council' s draft budget would cause the following to happen: the payment of arrears, i.e. the arrears of commitments entered into which have not yet been paid, would continue to mount up.
The Commission, on the other hand, supported by Parliament, would like to achieve the reverse, that is to reduce the arrears.
I believe that since we are in the happy position in the European Union of having an economy with high growth rates, now is the time to cut the arrears back, not add to them.
The Council has cut payment appropriations in the agricultural policy sphere by more than half a billion euro compared with the Commission' s draft.
This beggars belief considering the fierce criticism that certain of the larger Member States have levelled at the Commission, because we proposed to release EUR 300 million from agricultural policy in order to make the necessary payments in the Balkans available.
Obviously the Council now considers there to be far greater scope for making cuts in agricultural expenditure, but it is not prepared to make the funds available for the new external policy priorities for the Balkans.
As happened last year, there was a very heated discussion on how much aid should be made available for the Balkans, and I would remind you that during the discussions on Budget 2000, the Council took the line that it would not be possible to release the appropriations for Kosovo in any case.
Indeed, all the appropriations for Kosovo have in fact been tied up already.
The Kosovo agency for reconstruction is proving highly successful in its work, and that is surely something we should all support.
I would like briefly to take up the matter of Serbia, which you also mentioned in your speech. The fact that no provision has been made for Serbia in the draft budget, or only to a very limited extent, sends out the wrong message in my view.
We find ourselves in a situation where we are competing in political terms with the dictator Milosevic, and we must convince the people that the European Union is willing to provide assistance.
I am standing firm on this: by the end of 2001 we should have EUR 800 million more at our disposal for the Western Balkans than we do at present.
Part of this could perhaps be made additionally available before the end of this year.
I hope to enlist your support in this matter.
Another word on foreign policy: the Budget Council has cut the funding for the Mediterranean programme - which is also something you mentioned - by EUR 150 million.
Putting these cuts into effect would no longer just be a budgetary policy measure though, it would also constitute a change in the foreign policy in this field, a renunciation of the Barcelona process.
The Commission believes this to be unacceptable.
Turning now to administrative expenditure, i.e. staffing expenditure: I would point out that the Commission did not request any new posts in its draft preliminary budget, apart from those for OLAF, the European anti-fraud agency.
We have now submitted a letter of amendment containing two key points: firstly a request for 400 new posts for the Commission with effect from the year 2001, and secondly, budgetary measures which will enable us to do without the vast majority of Technical Assistance Offices, as per Parliament' s request, and, in particular, that of the Committee on Budgets.
I have just this to say about the requests for more posts: at the beginning of this year, the Commission set up a working group under the leadership of the President of the Commission, at my recommendation, which examined the tasks performed by all departments and completed a critical examination of the staffing situation.
We ascertained where there was scope for reallocation of staff within and between the departments, with a view to improving the availability of resources for the key areas and for the political priorities, and in order to ascertain where we need to create new posts.
Our findings are now available to you.
The Commission has estimated that we need 1254 new posts for key activities and political priorities.
We can create a vast number of these 1254 new posts through reallocation, which will mean requesting a total of 717 new posts - 400 in the year 2001 and 317 in the year 2002 - particularly if we are to strengthen the areas of external assistance, health and consumer protection and environmental policy, as well as justice and internal affairs.
In addition, we have proposed a one-off early retirement scheme for 600 posts, organised in such a way as to have no impact on the budget, which would drastically reduce the need for new posts.
As an interim solution - particularly for the purposes of external assistance - we would ask the budgetary authority to allow us, until such time as a new administrative structure is created, to use the funding that has been available hitherto for the Technical Assistance Offices, for contract staff within the Commission.
We would also like to increase funding for the delegations, which are to be more actively involved in the administration of external assistance in future.
The Commission has learnt from past mistakes, which boils down to making clear the fact that the Commission cannot perform miracles; all it can do is make it its business to perform to a high standard.
And if we are to acquit ourselves well of our tasks, we need the necessary resources, including the necessary staffing resources.
On a final note, it is fair to say that there are very testing times ahead again for all those involved in the budgetary discussions.
I hope we all find the energy and patience we need during this period to meet each other halfway and bring these discussions to a satisfactory conclusion.
Many thanks, Commissioner.
We will certainly need energy and patience.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President, Commissioner, honourable members, as the last person to speak on this agenda item, all I can do of course is make a few points and reiterate a few things that have already been said.
But as you are all yourselves aware, repetition is the only way to learn.
First of all, I would like to thank the Council for the constructive cooperation it has provided throughout the year' s trialogues and in all the conciliation meetings.
However, it is not just the current Council Presidency that I should like to thank, but also the previous one, the Portuguese Presidency, for creating a thoroughly cordial atmosphere despite all the differences of opinion.
I shall therefore deliver the good news first: compared with this year' s budget, both the Commission and the Council - albeit only temporarily - have proposed a total reduction of EUR 144 million in the budgetary lines for employment.
But Parliament has already made it clear in its guidelines that the issue of job creation is very close to our hearts, and that one of our first priorities in internal policy is to fight unemployment in Europe.
This is our determined aim, our goal, and we gave renewed expression to it in our resolution of July.
We have always found the Council ready to listen, both under the Portuguese and now under the French Presidency.
Accordingly, not only did the Council declare, in the course of the conciliation procedure, that it was willing to support our job creation initiative through suitable instruments for small and medium-sized enterprises, we have also agreed to come to an understanding, in the course of the budgetary procedure, on an amount within the meaning of number 33 of the Interinstitutional Agreement, which we intend to use to achieve our goal.
So far, so good. So what exactly are the problematic areas?
Where do Parliament and the Council differ? In view of the limited amount of time available to us all, allow me to mention just two.
Firstly there is the manner in which the Council seeks to finance those policies where there is fundamental agreement.
As Parliament made clear last year, we believe it is necessary to undertake a multiannual revision of Category 4 in order to meet the requirements for reconstruction aid in the Balkans in a stable and secure manner.
The Council flatly refuses to countenance such a revision of the Financial Perspective.
It obviously prefers a hand-to-mouth existence. No revision!
That is the name of the game.
The Council has obviously made this its guiding principle, for how else are we to interpret the fact that it persists in refusing to commit the funds for the pre-accession countries Cyprus and Malta to Chapter 7 of the pre-accession strategy?
After all, that is where they belong logically, and in terms of content.
But the Council does not want there to be a revision, even if it is not bound up with a financial amendment.
As a Parliament, we now have an extremely difficult decision before us with respect to Category 4.
The second major bone of contention is the Council' s tendency to focus time and again, in the course of its budgetary readings, on payment appropriations alone.
The Commissioner made the same point.
I cannot say whether it is because of our institutional view, or whether it also says something about our personally held views, that we both majored on this in our criticism.
The Council' s declared aim was an increase in expenditure for 2001 of only 3.5% in comparison with the figures for the current budget.
The outcome is a draft budget in which the ratio of commitments to payments is no longer sound.
For example, on closer inspection, it is possible to discern that the commitments for 2001 are not matched with adequate payment appropriations.
In category 2, for example, the commitments are covered to a mere 2.1%.
In categories 3, 4 and 7 the situation looks better, but still not good.
In many lines of the draft budget, the payments do not even cover a quarter of the commitments.
In quite a few lines, no payments whatsoever have been earmarked for the commitments for 2001.
This no longer has a great deal to do with serious budgetary management.
I need hardly emphasise again that the Interinstitutional Agreement - which, incidentally, we concluded only 1¼ years ago - sets out as a matter of course, at various points, that there should be an orderly working out of the European Union' s expenditure, which should be regarded as being closely linked with the working out of the commitments.
In fact it means that a strict relationship should be preserved between commitment appropriations and payment appropriations.
The Council is neglecting this close relationship in the most criminal way.
Its aim is to reduce expenditure.
It argues that, at the end of the day, the Member States have to put their national budgets in order too.
That is all well and good, but it must not be allowed to bring our own common European budget into disorder from the very outset.
Aids
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on Aids.
The Commission attended the 13th International Aids Conference, which took place in Durban, South Africa, from 7 to14 July 2000.
The theme of the conference, 'Breaking the Silence', provided a framework which helped to strengthen national and international action against HIV/Aids.
The conference welcomed scientific progress in addressing Aids, especially news of the first efficacy trials for an Aids vaccine and the evidence that transmission of HIV from mother to infant could be largely prevented by cost-effective use of anti-retroviral drugs.
Also welcome was information on the many small-scale condom and safe sex empowerment education programmes that have proved their worth in stemming the spread of HIV/Aids.
I believe that the conference could have given more attention to the lessons of success stories as regards improving and expanding these prevention strategies because information and prevention is in fact the most important ways of fighting Aids.
Prevention is central to a successful long-term national, international and global response to Aids.
At the same time a full spectrum of care from basic treatment of opportunistic infections to entry retroviral therapy for HIV infection can no longer be denied to the vast majority of the millions of people infected with the virus.
The Commission welcomes the new initiatives being taken against HIV/Aids by some countries to produce cheaper generic drugs and would like to offer its support to help such countries provide technical assistance to other developing countries to enable them to pursue such initiatives.
Possibilities will be further discussed with the countries involved.
We recognise that the production of generic drugs could greatly improve access to care and treatment for HIV/Aids.
The statistics of the epidemic are frightening and still getting worse.
For example, one in four Zimbabweans will die from HIV/Aids, including one in three in the capital, Harare.
More than a million children are already orphaned by HIV/Aids in Zimbabwe, almost 10% of the population.
More than half the pregnant women in some areas in Botswana are infected with HIV, and a third of them transmit HIV to their new-born babies during delivery.
The conference opened up exciting new opportunities and partnerships that will enable people who are vulnerable to HIV infection to gain access to technologies and procedures to make care more affordable for HIV/Aids sufferers and invest in new technologies and products to prevent and treat HIV/Aids.
These opportunities must be exploited immediately, and the Commission intends to play its part.
It is accordingly discussing innovative approaches with its developing country partners as well as with other donors.
We can and must be doing all that we should do about HIV/Aids.
We can and must also do everything possible to combat other major killer diseases affecting poor people.
Malaria and tuberculosis, both of which kill more than a million people a year, must assume new importance in our work to reduce poverty and ill-health.
Accelerated action on the three key communicable diseases - HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis - has been addressed this year by a number of high-level meetings.
The Commission will shortly submit a communication to the Council and Parliament outlining proposals for accelerated action to improve access to proven key measures and commodities to develop active and effective delivery structures and systems for drugs and increase investment in research into and development of priority drugs and vaccines.
The communication points especially to the value of bringing condoms, bed nets and other preventive procedures to the poorest and most vulnerable more rapidly and on a sufficiently large scale.
The European Union accounted for 55% of global development aid in the social sectors in 1997 and has increased its support for health, Aids and population programmes from 1% of our total assistance in 1986 to over 8% at the present time, compared to an OECD average of 5.5%.
We are therefore focusing more and more on this field.
Total commitments of EUR 3.4 billion were earmarked for health, Aids and population between 1990 and 1998, none of which was offered as loans.
This is in clear contrast to the recent offer from the United States to southern Africa.
The Commission is holding wide-ranging consultations on options for accelerated national and international action and innovative approaches to address these diseases.
On 28 September, in collaboration with the WHO and UN Aids, it will be hosting an international round table.
The meeting will consider how a comprehensive approach at national and international level might tackle these three diseases and how we can make a difference.
Madam President, I should like to express my thanks to the President of the Council and Commissioner Nielson for the statement they gave today with regard to the huge issue of Aids, especially in Africa. When, in the early 80s, the full extent of the problem of Aids became clear, the Western world adopted a large number of policies in order to curb the illness and provide sound treatment to those who had contracted the disease.
A great deal of consideration was also given to prevention and consequently, in most Western countries, the illness failed to develop into the pandemic which was predicted in the 80s.
Each Aids victim, in Europe too, is one too many, but thank God there are not as many as was feared twenty years ago and survival rates have gradually increased.
How different is the situation in many Third World countries, especially in Africa!
There the tragedy has now exceeded everyone' s expectations.
Out of the 18 million casualties this illness has claimed worldwide, the majority lived in sub-Saharan Africa, where the average life-span has fallen to under 50 years and will fall still further to 45 years.
Millions of African children are already having to go through life without parents, millions of families have broken up, millions of children and elderly people are having to manage without the support and care of an ever dwindling part of the generation in between.
And this is only the humanitarian tragedy.
Then there is the socio-economic tragedy.
Economic development is faced with more and more difficulties, investments are not being made because staffing levels are insufficient, schools are losing their teachers and hospitals can no longer cope with the problems.
In fact, we have to conclude that much of what has been achieved over the past 25 or 30 years in terms of development has been cancelled out by the Aids tragedy, and this is something which should alarm us all the more as the largest provider of aid to Africa.
What could Europe, the Commission, the European Union do to help Africa? I believe it is not helpful to try to copy European policy in Africa.
The situation in many African countries does not lend itself to European solutions.
Instead, we should start with a few positive examples, such that those in Uganda and Senegal, where there are opportunities to stabilise the extent of the illness to some degree.
And in our opinion, three key concepts apply: information and prevention, affordable treatment, and care of those left behind.
Information and prevention are essential, and the use of condoms is extremely important in this context.
As far as treatment is concerned, I believe it is important for the pharmaceutical industry to find affordable alternatives to the medication which is of some help in our Western countries, also where transmission of the illness from mother to child is concerned.
And as for the care for those left behind, I would draw your attention to the many orphans this illness has already created.
Finally, the Commission has announced that it will produce a memorandum to solve the problems but, to my mind, we have done too little so far, and the unit which is responsible for this care is too small.
I therefore hope with all my heart that the memorandum which Commissioner Nielson has announced will offer us a new perspective, with more people at the European Commission who are prepared to tackle this issue, with more coordination at European level and, more than anything, with more funding, because that is what is needed to help Africa leave this misery behind.
Madam President, in my view an important step was taken at the Durban International Aids Conference: although prevention also remains essential for combating this plague, the issue of access to treatment was finally placed at the heart of the debate.
Durban made it possible to approach the essential issues - the price of medication and the development of generic medication - frankly, and move forward in our thinking about intellectual property rights and compulsory licences.
It was about time. The conduct of the big drug companies has too often contributed to imposing a two-speed treatment system: medication for the rich and despair for the poor.
That is why the initiative from the pharmaceutical laboratories on the price of medication, launched on the fringe of the conference, constitutes an encouraging beginning, as long as it was not just announced for effect.
The G8 Summit at Okinawa has also made it possible to set the seal on the commitment of the rich countries and set targets to lessen the ravages of Aids in Africa over the next ten years, but, unfortunately, the issue of resources was not really dealt with.
This very day a meeting should be taking place in New York, under the auspices of UNDP, between public and private operators to sign up to and finance the Aids action plan for South Africa.
There really is a feeling that people are finally beginning to ask the right questions.
Now perhaps the right answers should be provided.
Obviously the European Union is not standing on the sidelines of this mobilisation but I think we should step up a gear, and I heard the French Presidency express that hope.
We eagerly await the Commission' s communication, with guidelines and proposals for combating the major transmissible diseases: Aids of course, but also malaria and tuberculosis.
Aware that the time has come not just for reflection but for action too, we expect really concrete proposals permitting very rapid progress.
I am thinking, in particular, of the debates on industrial property rights and compulsory licences.
I am thinking of the development of the International Therapeutic Solidarity Fund launched to raise international funds to give poor countries access to the new therapies, which must expand.
I am thinking of the organisation of an international conference involving poor countries, the pharmaceutical industries, the NGOs and the donors.
Perhaps the round table of 28 September, organised by the Commission, in liaison with WHO and UNAIDS could be the first stage in setting that up?
Madam President, I am not going to repeat what has already been said, and said very well, and with very laudable intentions.
Rather, I am going to try to talk about facts.
I think the facts, today, are simple.
The facts are access to treatment and patient care.
UNAIDS itself acknowledges the ineffectiveness of the programme announced by the pharmaceutical laboratories, which were only trying to improve their image, in fact, and are now withdrawing when it comes to genuine negotiation of a reduction in the price of treatment.
The issue is no longer donations of medication, necessarily limited in time and subject to the selective interests of the laboratories, but adapting treatment price to purchasing power in the developing countries.
The European Union must urge the pharmaceutical multinationals to grant voluntary licences, a first step towards access to treatment for the deprived populations.
If that is not done, the European Union should impose respect for the agreements in case of medical emergency, and require the granting of compulsory licences, which would finally mitigate the problem of the price of treatment.
I think the agony of a whole continent takes precedence over special interests.
Madam President, I agree with Mrs Carlotti that the merit of the Durban conference was to make it clear that Aids is not being fought in the same way in Europe and in Africa.
Aids lays bare all the economic and social deficiencies of developing countries and grafts itself onto the more general problem of destitution.
Prevention cannot succeed unless it is accompanied by access to treatment.
So, and here I agree with the previous speaker, the pharmaceutical companies with the monopoly of manufacture and marketing of triple therapy and even AZT charge a high price for them.
We would not be having this debate if triple therapy cost a dollar.
And as the director of UNAIDS recognises, we need to increase the amount currently invested tenfold even to make a start on a real policy of prevention and social security.
Besides, medication cannot be distributed like sacks of rice.
Doctors, dispensaries and social support structures are needed.
And, by IMF dictate, poor countries are cutting public expenditure, in particular on education and health.
The European Union must contribute towards the rapid cancellation of the debt of African countries, which costs them 15 billion annually, so that those resources can be allocated to establishing the health infrastructure and new social programmes.
Finally, the research priority must be to perfect a vaccine.
Madam President, as a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I would like to express my distress at the outcome of the 13th Aids Conference in Durban, South Africa, which is at the very least alarming, and my deep concern for the future of the developing countries, particularly the African countries.
This new resolution supplements the resolutions tabled last year in Lusaka, Zambia.
However, sadly, the situation is tragic and has shown no improvement at all recently. On the contrary, it is assuming huge proportions if we consider that, in Africa, five people die of Aids every minute.
The statistics presented by the experts are tragic, including the substantial population decline and the dramatic decrease in life expectancy in Africa, which will fall below the age of 45 by the year 2015. In the sub-Saharan area, as many as 10% of the population will be affected by the virus.
I therefore feel that there is a need for the Commission and the Member States of the Union to make an ad hoc intervention, in consideration of the European Union's major responsibility precisely towards developing countries.
Indeed, I would argue that we should relate the cancellation of the external debt of the poor countries to the fight against the Aids epidemic, and it is precisely with a view to this that we support the request of the specific programme Debt for Aids contained in the resolution.
The Cairo EU-Africa Summit on debt cancellation procedures and the Durban Conference are, in fact, closely related.
The grievous impact of Aids on economic growth and the close relationship between the fight against poverty and the fight against Aids requires coordination and closer and more effective cooperation between the WHO, the World Bank and the United Nations, with the involvement of the civil society of the countries concerned, the local Churches and the non-governmental organisations.
Madam President, despite significant scientific progress in treating Aids, the Aids epidemic is still ravaging more and more poor countries, thereby compounding problems in dealing with its multiple and serious consequences.
There is no doubt that preventive measures and treatment over recent years have considerably improved patients' chances of survival in developed countries; however, the same cannot be said of poor countries.
The spread of the disease has exceeded every worst-case scenario, especially in Africa; as has already been mentioned, five people a minute die from Aids, which has now reached the point at which it is a threat to public health.
Every day, children infected with this virus are born in these countries due to a complete lack of suitable programmes for mothers-to-be.
Similarly, the cost of treatment is so high that few patients receive this, their rudimentary right.
In this context, I think that the proposed reduction in the price of drugs for the victims of Aids in these countries is extremely important and I should like to urge the Commission and the Council to support this endeavour by exerting pressure on pharmaceutical companies.
Similarly, a concerted effort must be made to develop integrated educational, preventive, treatment and welfare programmes for developing countries, at least until the vaccine is safe to use, which is what we are all hoping for.
Until then, prevention and therapy are the most important factors in controlling the spread and dealing with the disease and these are services which all citizens should receive, irrespective of where they live.
Madam President, everyone in this debate has emphasised the importance of preventive measures.
As we know, there is an old saying, prevention is better than cure.
With the approximately 15 years' experience we have had of this epidemic - I myself have been active in connection with both the UN and the Red Cross - I can, however, see that we have not listened especially carefully to that saying.
As long as ten years ago, it was extremely clear how serious this epidemic could become in certain developing countries, but too little was done both in those countries and by the international community.
It is debatable what the reasons are why this epidemic hit poor countries especially hard, compared with how it affected countries in our own part of the world.
It obviously has to do with poverty, with lack of information and education, with patterns of sexual behaviour and, specifically, with young girls' lack of education of a kind which would better enable them to resist sexual advances.
It also has to do, of course, with the shortage of money within the health care sector.
I welcome the fact that both Commissioner Nielson and the French Presidency now regard and describe the work on combating the HIV epidemic as a main priority.
Money is not enough, however. Instead, we must ensure that the Commission obtains a sufficient number of qualified staff so that it is not isolated employees who are trying to push ahead with these issues.
It is also important to have new kinds of cooperation with the pharmaceuticals industry so that we can produce not only vaccines, but also medicines.
This applies not only to HIV but also to malaria.
We need to be guided by innovative thinking in this area.
When, finally, we talk about partnership, it is, as Commissioner Nielson said, extremely important to seek out whatever proves to have worked and to support it.
There is a whole host of programmes which are crying out for money and where contributions from the EU could be of use.
We talk a very great deal about Africa.
I am afraid that, in five to ten years' time, the situation will be similar and very serious in parts of Asia.
I welcome Commissioner Nielson' s conference on 28 September 2000 and hope that it will lead to something of a crash programme for tackling these problems still more vigorously in the future.
I have received seven motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure, to wind up the debate on this statement.
Before closing the debate, I invite the President-in-Office to reply to the debate or at least conclude it.
Thank you, Madam President, for giving me a moment to say how moving it is to hear such powerful words spoken in this Parliament today, clearly demonstrating that we are of one mind in recognising that Aids truly reveals the state of poverty and injustice reigning on our planet. We Europeans have a moral obligation to mobilise and it comes through from all these speeches that we are ready.
We are very grateful to the Commission for preparing its communication which we impatiently await and which will allow us to pool our energies and unite in a determination to act.
The time for thinking really is over.
We must act without delay because this is an emergency, and the French Presidency stands ready to put that determination to act into practice at European level.
To respond to the immense challenge we face, we need to mobilise all the partners, as I said in my earlier remarks, which drew a wholly positive echo from Parliament.
I can tell you that the presence on the Durban platform of the Director General of WHO, the European Commission representative and the President of the Health Council created immense hope.
We have no right to disappoint that hope and I will be at your side.
We will meet the challenge together.
We must denounce campaigns of disinformation, combat obscurantism, but not abandon any field of action.
I believe we must be conscious always of the need to promote information and training, prevention, access to care and treatment, and research - particularly into vaccines and medication.
.
I just want to thank you for these contributions.
We are aware of the enormous challenge facing us.
Prevention works, but it takes time.
Uganda is a good illustration of this.
For us as donors, this means that we have to be able to show what I would call donor stamina.
We have to be able to continue and to support the right strategies.
Mr Mantovani said that we should forgive debt and use the money instead to combat Aids.
When we forgive debt, we have used the money.
You are suggesting that we use it twice.
That is a good innovative approach, but still not that easy.
This is, in fact, why I mentioned that the offer the United States has made is to make available on a loan basis USD 1 billion for buying medicine from US companies.
That is in my view not the right approach, because it will actually increase the already double problem of Aids and existing debt in African countries.
That is why I made the point that Europe is actually providing funding that does not increase the debt of our partner countries.
Finally, I would warn against the dream of a quick fix in terms of new medicine. We are supporting this.
We are trying to crack the code of protective rights for the companies but it is not easy.
In the meantime, the scale of the costs here makes it more necessary to emphasise prevention rather than cure.
A cure is still far too expensive.
I want to thank the President and the Commissioner for their understanding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at12 noon.
Creating a monitoring centre for industrial change
The next item is the statement by the Council and the Commission on creating a monitoring centre for industrial change.
I invite Mrs Péry to speak on behalf of the Council, and I know she will feel at home in this Chamber as she served as Vice-President of Parliament for many years.
Thank you, Madam President.
In 1997, the closure of one Renault factory near Brussels employing 3 200 people focused public attention on the negative consequences of industrial change.
After this, in response to the European Council, the Commission invited a high level group of experts to report on the economic and social implications of industrial change and make recommendations on ways to prevent consequences of the kind witnessed at the Renault factory.
In its report the high level group recommended the creation of an observatory.
This report has been endorsed by the Council.
It is true that mechanisms and structures for the anticipation of change exist in the majority of Member States.
But at European level there is no kind of observatory or mechanism to support policy makers and social partners in responding to these changes.
I am convinced of the need to provide European social partners and policy makers with a tool which enables us to adopt a forward-looking approach where industrial change is discussed at European level, with a view to managing it through positive and preventive action.
We have already discussed it three times in Parliament.
We really believe that there is an urgent need for a new structure, an observatory or whatever we like to call it.
The Commission has already proposed in the social agenda presented in 28 June 2000 to invite the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin - which is an existing structure - to put in place an information mechanism for change.
This mechanism could also serve as a forum on change.
What is the role of this mechanism? This information mechanism should assist the social dialogue between employers and employees and it could support public authorities by providing information data and analysis of existing information on industrial change.
We all agree that it must be a lightweight and cost-effective structure and that it must be established as quickly as possible.
The social partners indicated their interest in this mechanism in the forum of 15 July and committed themselves to finalising their approaches and presenting their ideas on the possible structure for this mechanism.
Of course we shall take their opinion into account before our final proposal.
My last point is that anticipation of change and response to it must be multidimensional.
Coordination across all policy areas has been central to the Commission's deliberations in this area.
So what we could say is that we can ensure that the employment DG will collaborate with other DGs, in particular the internal market, education, culture and enterprise DGs, to present an integrated approach for this mechanism.
We believe that the output of this mechanism will be available to support the decisions of EU institutions and EU partners and this could be done in a flexible way within the European Treaty.
Mr President, may I say from this side of the House as one who served in the last Parliament that it is a great pleasure to see Mrs Péry here in this Chamber in Parliament.
I would like to make several points about this issue of an observatory or monitoring centre.
First of all, existing bodies within the EU institutions are already doing this work and are capable of doing it.
It seems curious to me to propose another agency, more machinery, and more budgetary expenditure to duplicate work that is already taking place.
For example, the Joint Research Centre Institute in Seville that deals with prospective future technologies is looking at this area.
The Dublin Institute has been mentioned already.
Secondly, governments and other types of public sector organisations do not have a particularly good record or an aptitude for predicting change in industry, in commerce, in business and in enterprise.
Nor, in my view, should they try to do that.
Let the economy and market forces get on with it.
I am curious about the socialist emphasis on industrial change when we in the developed economies now live in a situation in which 20% or less of the work-force is employed in conventional industry and everyone else works in the services sector in the new economy.
I am surprised because that emphasis denotes unawareness of this particular form of change.
In other words, it is all happening, it has happened already and furthermore it has happened probably despite, rather than because of, the fact that governments second-guess what is going to happen and how it should happen.
Moreover, if there is a need for study on an academic or research basis, then it is surely better to use existing bodies.
By all means involve the two sides of industry in the research work, but let us not set up yet another EU agency or body.
In short, we should not try to reinvent the wheel.
Instead, we should leave the economy and the market to get on with it, since this is the best way to promote change and renewal and create new jobs.
I too would like to welcome Nicole Péry back here in the Chamber and perhaps I could say, Nicole, that we miss you particularly when we have extremely difficult votes to transact.
Perhaps you could pop back periodically.
I would like to say that the compromise resolution tabled by my group and others has been cut down to the bare essentials to make it absolutely clear what we are calling for, but even so there seems to be a tremendous amount of confusion over exactly what we are calling for and I would therefore like to spell out two things that we are not calling for.
First, we are not calling for the creation of a new expensive agency or institute.
The tasks we want a monitoring centre to undertake can be handled at the Dublin Foundation and/or the Seville Joint Research Centre at little extra cost.
Second, we are not seeking to stop mergers, transfers, restructuring or globalisation itself.
That would be a ludicrous notion, but we want to see a socially responsible and anticipatory approach to these developments.
We want the establishment of a coordinating centre for the monitoring of industrial change as a contribution to a more pro-active approach to the management of medium and longer-term industrial change in terms of its impact within the European Union and I would draw Mr Chichester's attention to the fact that service industries too are industries and we are looking at industrial change overall.
This would be a centre to gather information and intelligence from all possible partners and actors, business itself, institutions of higher and further education, the employment services both public and private, the social partners from all relevant actors and again I would say to Mr Chichester, we are not saying here that governments should try to predict change.
We want to work with all partners including business itself to try to assess the direction of change.
The task of such a centre then should be to channel relevant information on anticipated changes to decision-makers at all levels to help increase our overall capacity to prepare the policy changes necessary to harness the opportunities to be gained from the perceived direction of change.
This is not an idea we have plucked out of the air.
As both the minister and the Commissioner have said, this follows on from the Gyllenhammar High Level Group following the Vilvoorde closure by Renault.
The recommendation to create an observatory is one in fact that has been picked up in several EPP resolutions in recent months and I am therefore very surprised to see such a hostile resolution from that quarter here this week.
The Liberal and EPP resolution says that such a centre would try to interfere in the markets and in commercial decisions.
That is not the case at all.
This is not about interference in commercial decisions but about making sure that we maximise the chances of us all being winners rather than simply the passive victims of change.
But who knows, Mr Chichester, maybe even the world of commerce would benefit from the improved intelligence such a centre could provide.
My final point is this: the resolution by the EPP and the Liberals is factually incorrect.
It states that both Council and Commission have pulled back from the decision to create such an observatory, such a centre.
We have heard from both the presidency of the Council here today and from the Commission that they are actively pursuing the idea.
Your resolution is factually incorrect.
It is missing the point and I hope even that at the eleventh hour you will recognise a good idea when you see it, withdraw your resolution and support ours.
But perhaps I am a hopeless optimist.
Mr President, the debate is most interesting but, as you can see from the screen, Question Time is due to start at 6.10 p.m.
It does not matter if Question Time is late starting but can you guarantee that it will last one and a half hours because otherwise we shall run out of time and numerous questions on the agenda will not be discussed.
And, while I have the floor, I too am delighted to welcome the representative of the Council presidency to the House.
I greatly regret the situation, just as you do, because I am inheriting the problem.
The fact of the matter is, however, that I can only guarantee us one hour here.
I will communicate this problem - and you will probably do so as well - to the Conference of Presidents and to Parliament' s Bureau, because it may occur once as an exceptional case, but when it happens more than once we must tackle the problem and find a solution to it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner and Mrs Péry, it was agreed at the Lisbon Summit that fifteen European Member States would be developing a common strategy for a smooth transition to a new economy. This is in the interests of our citizens as well as industry.
The Liberal Group is totally against the setting up of a new administrative body that will further increase European bureaucracy.
A European Monitoring Centre for industrial change is at odds with the liberal principle that governments should not interfere in commercial decisions.
Do not pick the winners and let the winners pick.
That was also the conclusion at the Lisbon Summit.
I was therefore amazed to learn that less than three months after the event, both Mrs Péry, on behalf of the presidency and Mrs Diamantopoulou, on behalf of the Commission had completely changed tack.
I was really taken aback by this.
And there was I thinking we were dealing with reliable partners.
Remarkably, European government leaders, including those of social-democratic persuasion, do embrace the liberal principles and the new economy while in this House, the left wing falls back on old reflexes time and again.
The spectre of the repairable society is on the loose once again in Europe. Therefore, my group has also failed to achieve a compromise with the Socialist Group on the resolution before us.
Europe and the European economy are doing well.
The blessings of the internal market and particularly the introduction of the euro have given employment a shot in the arm.
However, some large Member States are fearful to take the required measures, as a result of which they lose out on the benefits to be gained from economic growth.
A new Monitoring Centre is no antidote to this.
This is not the first time that this Parliament is discussing political interference in industry and business management.
The same arguments crop up time and again.
I do hope this time is the last time.
Mr President, the European Union is facing far-reaching changes in our economy, globalisation, the new economy, the expansion of new technology and all kinds of demographic factors as well.
These developments have a major impact on employment, the balance between rich and poor, social exclusion and the environment.
There are all kinds of frictions within the labour market, we will have to adapt our education system and, at the end of the day, these developments also have all kinds of effects on individual companies, some of which are closing down while others are being set up again, etc.
However, one minute we are pulling out all the stops to fight unemployment and the next we are attracting employees from third countries in order to solve the problems within the labour market, for example in the care or ICT sectors, just to quote a couple of odd examples.
What we have noticed is that sometimes the policy is ad-hoc or belated and, in a sense, Lisbon, with its "dotcom approach" , is a good example of this.
We need to take a more consistent line.
Secondly we need involvement, involvement in the support networks, and this is the social implication that needs to be developed.
We are of the opinion, therefore, that in order to accommodate this development within industry and sectors of industry, the advice of the working party must be followed at a high level and a coordinating centre set up to observe these changes.
This centre should not be an unwieldy, new body but rather fall under the remit of an existing body.
This type of industrial change relies completely upon the full involvement of social partners, citizens and politicians at local, regional and national level.
Success will depend critically upon how well this change is managed. From this perspective, the Commission and Council should also ensure that topics such as the right to information and consultation, revision of the law on works councils and the role of employees and citizens in mergers and business closures with their serious social consequences can be brought up for discussion sooner rather than later.
This too seems to us to be essential for the purposes of managing industrial change.
We are not going to oppose the creation of a monitoring centre for industrial change.
The right' s unanimous opposition to it only confirms their rejection of the slightest transparency on the disastrous consequences for society of the factory closures and redundancies people have the nerve to present to us as inevitable responses to change.
But this monitoring centre can only be a statistical instrument, and not even an objective one, in this class society.
A monitoring centre cannot replace the political will to prevent big business sacking workers to make bigger profits.
Calling for social cohesion amounts to asking workers made redundant by a firm which is closing down, and unemployed people who are victims of restructuring, to endure their fate patiently.
Most of the mergers or restructurings are financial operations quite unrelated to industrial change.
And it is always the workers who have to pay the price, never the shareholders.
That is why I say to the workers that they can and must defend themselves, in particular by imposing a ban on redundancies on any company which is making profits.
Accumulated profits should be used to finance the distribution of work amongst all, with no decrease in wages, no precariousness and no flexibility.
I have received 7 motions for resolutions to close this statement, tabled in accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
My group would have preferred it if we had not concluded this, in itself interesting, debate with resolutions.
This is in response to the comments made by Mr Hughes.
I believe that the Council has indeed introduced new elements today. Judging from the discussion, the Council has made some progress.
The Commission statement was also extremely clear and, in my opinion, we should all examine it very carefully once again.
This would be the best way forward.
Secondly, it is true that we need to avoid excessive bureaucracy.
I fully share the view of my neighbour, Mr Chichester on this matter.
This is a key point.
However, I was also reminded of what happened to the Titanic.
It sank because there was no observation system for icebergs in those days.
Needless to say, after the sinking of the Titanic, such a system was introduced without delay.
Surely over the past few years, we have seen a few cases, also in respect of industrial changes, where a little prescience might have prevented the worst from happening.
I personally take the view that we could explore this route a little more, provided it does not lead to further bureaucracy, especially in our host country.
We are constantly being faced with all kinds of states of affairs, blockades and such like, and I believe it would be of great benefit if more objective information on future changes could be provided so that we could perhaps prevent a few mistakes from being made, as might have happened in the case of the Titanic.
I like the film, but I would hate to see it time and again.
Mr President, let me start with a quotation: 'Unregulated mergers, based merely on dominant capitalist concerns, have a devastating effect on the Union's social cohesion.
That face of the European Union is unacceptable to men and women who wake up one morning to discover that the company they work for has changed hands and that they are at the mercy of their employer's economic strategy options.
The effect on the lives of those people, their families and their entire region is traumatic and, let's face it, inhuman.
Among Parliament's various proposals, the idea of setting up an observatory for industrial change is of particular interest. In so far as such an establishment will be independent and will have appropriate resources to carry out its research, and its work is made public and can serve as a basis for democratic debate, it can make a powerful contribution to developing intergovernmental cooperation which, in this area of social policy, remains predominant.'
That is not a quotation from some irresponsible or lunatic left-winger.
I am in fact quoting our President, Mrs Fontaine, who made those statements at the Lisbon Summit on behalf of us all.
Now, listening to certain leaders of the uptight right, here, today, I wonder if these honourable Members of Mrs Fontaine' s group really want to spend their time giving the lie to what our President said before the Heads of State and Government in Lisbon.
Of course, Mr Chichester and Mr Plooij-van Gorsel tell us, respectively, to 'leave it to the markets' and 'not pick winners' .
We know the old refrain only too well, privatise profit and nationalise losses.
My friend Steven Hughes has explained that the Socialists and the two other political groups tabling a joint resolution do not want a bureaucratic monster.
We do not want a new institution or agency but - as Mrs Péry, the representative of the presidency, says, and I welcome her too - a light arrangement, a light structure, which could coordinate the existing work.
In fact, the Commission has plenty of documentation available, and Eurostat can provide very interesting statistics on industrial evolution in Europe and beyond.
There are the national governments and research institutes.
There must be no duplication of existing work but coordination of it and a report, at least every six months, which can be debated in the Council and in the European Parliament.
We do not want to be mere spectators of the progress of industrial and social change.
We want to shape the future, and shaping the future does not mean fighting a rearguard action or useless protectionism, but accompanying change.
We are for the new technologies, we are for the new economy, but we also want to help the old sectors adapt. Our aim is a pro-active policy.
We want to anticipate change, because the future, and especially the economic future, is being built now.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, I would like to put this debate into context.
As a native of Auvergne, I would remind you that just about a year ago we were debating the Michelin crisis in this Chamber.
Michelin announced massive redundancies in its European factories at the same time as record profits on the stock exchange.
At that time, in this very House, we were collectively engaged in reviewing European regulations on company mergers.
I would suggest to the Commission that it might be worth having another look at Directive 94/EC and Regulation 4064/89 to strengthen information to and consultation of employees before major change - a euphemism for redundancies - whether due to restructuring or merger.
A year later, as a first concrete step, we are offered a monitoring centre for industrial change.
Fine, but let it really serve the cause of the employees.
For that, two conditions seem indispensable. The Commission must be allowed to evaluate the implementation of the directive on collective redundancies and closures of companies, and make proposals so that effective sanctions can be applied in case of non-respect of regulations.
The two sides of industry must be associated with this initiative by means budgetary resources allocated by the European institutions.
Minister, it is a great pleasure to see you here again.
The new economy and globalisation are producing an acceleration of industrial change and Parliament has several times discussed this issue and has established -I myself was the rapporteur - a certain number of procedures and the European works councils, and has done work on information to and consultation of workers. We are awaiting the results of these, Commissioner, because you know we are very committed to them.
We have also established procedures like the participation of employees in the capital, profits and results of the company, all indispensable procedures during industrial restructuring and change.
Of course there is still a great deal to be done in this field, but it seems to me that if we need to improve this type of procedure, as my colleagues have said, and it is not uptight to say so - we now have bodies in Europe like the Foundation in Dublin and the European Agency for Health and Safety in Bilbao, with which our Committee on Employment and Social Affairs cooperates, that are in a position to evaluate the consequences of these industrial changes effectively.
And we should not forget that both sides of industry also have an indispensable role to play as regards industrial change at the European and the social level.
More particularly, I hope the existing bodies will be required to contribute to making industrial change increasingly transparent and, Commissioner, I hope the texts we are waiting for, on information to and consultation of workers, and the European company, will one day be submitted to this Parliament.
Mr President, Mrs Péry, Mrs Diamanopoulou, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Péry for the clarity with which she outlined the Council's proposal, which I fully support.
As has been said, the European Parliament has on several occasions, at times of crises, restructuring or conversion of production plant, decided by a large majority on the need for the European institutions and social dialogue partners to intervene early enough to be able to find all the possible solutions in order to avert avoidable serious social conflict and prevent the deindustrialisation of entire territories and the triggering-off of processes of serious social exclusion.
What Parliament was complaining of was the lack of information which would have made it possible to analyse these processes in due time and, more generally, to examine the changes taking place in production and employment in these firms before such an analysis lost its value due to the precipitous adoption of irreversible decisions.
I feel that the creation of a monitoring centre - a centre coordinating all the information useful for predicting restructuring and conversion processes - could be a valuable service for the Community institutions and facilitate social dialogue at European level.
For we are talking about a service activity, not a new institution, a service activity which would contribute to producing a high-quality, timely intervention which is the responsibility of the Union institutions alone.
Therefore, I call upon all those Members who voted on the resolutions on the restructuring processes, from Verwoord onwards, and especially those who voted on the Michelin affair in a resolution which explicitly provided for the establishment of a monitoring centre for industrial change, to show consistency on this occasion.
Mr President, with a tool such as this, it will, indeed, be possible not only to inform the workers concerned in advance and to explore the possibilities of averting or reducing redundancies - as stipulated by the Community Directive of 24 June 1992 - but also to facilitate at local and Community level dialogue which would make it possible to ascertain the existence of alternative solutions to those put forward by the companies. These could be partly implemented through public intervention as well as through initiatives to find alternative employment for workers whose jobs are under threat and, in particular, initiatives for the vocational retraining of workers.
This is the only way we will be able to ward off the danger represented by restructuring processes or mergers of large companies for large numbers of workers and for certain areas which are undergoing a radical process of decline or exclusion, particularly affecting young workers.
Without such a tool and without such preventative analyses, Parliament is destined to remain a centre of belated, ineffective claims.
Mr President, Mr Hughes says he does not want a new agency and yet his resolution plainly calls for a new agency and to deny it is merely playing with words.
He says he wants no interference in industry, and yet Mrs Diamantopoulou talks about preventive measures.
She clearly thinks that change is a bad thing.
She wants to keep loss-making industries on life-support systems when we should be releasing the resources of labour and capital so that they can work in viable new enterprises.
If we want to survive and prosper in the 21st century then we must welcome and manage change.
We must not monitor and prevent it.
So I was deeply disheartened to hear of this proposal for an observatory.
The rule seems to be: another day, another quango.
For the benefit of colleagues I should perhaps explain that a quango is a recently-coined English word short for "quasi non-governmental organisation", in other words, a new piece of bureaucracy, more money spent, more jobs for the boys, more patronage for their bosses.
And all for what? To produce fat reports which will be translated into 11 languages but which nobody will read.
We seem to have only two responses in the EU to any real or imagined problem.
We either create a new regulation without any concern as to whether existing regulations are working properly or we create an observatory.
Then we stand back proud and happy that we have solved the problem.
But we have not solved the problem.
We have simply postponed it.
We have wasted time and money and we have raised expectations which will not be fulfilled.
As with so many EU initiatives - I am thinking particularly of the proposed food standards agency - this observatory will simply duplicate the work of other organisations, of innumerable private research companies and accountancy firms, of academic and university institutes, of trade unions and chambers of commerce, and national and local government.
I put two questions to colleagues.
First, do we need this observatory at all? I think not.
But if we do, would it not be far quicker, cheaper and more cost-effective to commission one of our great European accounting firms to do the work? I am sure it would.
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(FR) Ladies and gentlemen, just two sentences.
I have listened carefully to the debate which has taken place in this Chamber.
What I want to say is that all those who support the idea of a European monitoring centre agree on its mission and its form.
I find that approach interesting.
A mission of information, a mission of exchange, and as to the form, the structure, a flexible, light, efficient structure, relying on existing structures.
I see Parliament, the Commission and the presidency united, so I shall leave here quite optimistic that the monitoring centre will come into being.
Mr President, I shall be brief because I know time is short.
It was a very interesting debate and there were two dimensions.
The first is the political one and the second is the technical one.
The political debate raised the question whether we should intervene in the new economy or not and I will make just a political point.
The new economy is not a natural phenomenon, it is a political phenomenon.
That is why there is a need for mechanisms and institutions - not to stop the changes but to manage the changes and to prevent their negative social consequences.
As regards the second dimension, the technical dimension, I agree with the EPP Group that there is no need for a new structure and I agree with all the others who say there is a need for a lightweight and flexible mechanism.
This is why we are not proposing a new institution or a new structure.
We are proposing to cooperate with the Dublin Institute and to take account of all the other resources (the resources of the Commission and other European institutions such as EUROSTAT and the European Employment Observatory, the evaluations and other studies we have); all these will be taken into account and this mechanism will support the social dialogue between partners, employers and the public and will support policy makers in managing this change.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0535/2000). We will examine questions to the Council.
You know that we have very little time.
According to the Rules of Procedure, for supplementary questions - which are not obligatory - you have 1 minute, but there is a Parliament recommendation that only 30 seconds be used.
I am not going to insist on 30 seconds, but I would ask you only to ask questions that are essential.
I must point out that Question Nos 1, 3 and 4 were included on the list of questions for the July Question Time but could not be replied to by the Council, because there was not sufficient time to translate them beforehand into all languages, and they are therefore being presented once again at the beginning of this part-session.
Since they deal with the same subject, Question Nos 1 and 2 will be taken together.
Question No 2 by (H-643/00):
Subject: United Nations General Assembly Special Session for Children What action does the Council intend to take in order to ensure that the EU makes a positive and constructive contribution to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session for Children, in September 2001, when all states will review commitments and goals set ten years ago at the World Summit for Children? Does the Council agree that it is important that Member States, the Commission and the Council have a coherent approach to this Summit?
Mr President, I really must thank Mr Moscovici for the quality and content of his reply and for the fact that the European Union feels that the international conventions of the United Nations Organisation, such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, should be ratified.
I should just like to observe, by way of a supplementary question, that ratification is extremely important, but often it is not enough.
Because, if I am not mistaken, the United States have ratified the new International Labour Organisation Convention on Child Labour but the convention is not being applied.
And where I think the minister needs to add to what he has told us is on whether the European Union, whether the Council will also demand at a practical level during the two days of contacts that the United States apply the provisions of the International Labour Organisation Convention and the United States convention on the Rights of the Child.
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(FR) It is true that the important thing is implementation, but it is difficult to implement a convention which has not been ratified.
That is why we want to start having a much more determined political dialogue with the United States on this issue and press for ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the United States.
We will also hold informal consultations to try to convince them of the need not just to ratify that convention but to adhere to it.
Question No 3 by (H-0627/00):
Subject: Involvement of labour and management In various Member States there is no dialogue of substance or effective cooperation between government bodies and representatives of labour and management on employment-related issues or, in a broader context, efforts to modernise the European social model.
The conclusions of the European Council held in Santa Maria da Feira referred to the need for labour and management to play a more significant role.
How does the Council envisage strengthening the role of labour and management? How will it monitor their involvement more effectively?
The Council has always regarded social dialogue as enormously important.
But you will appreciate that it is not up to the Council to advocate any particular model of social dialogue at national level, because that lies entirely within the competence of each Member State.
However, in terms of the social dialogue at European level, both sides of industry in Europe are already heavily involved in two aspects of Community action: coordination of economic policies, and the effort to implement the European strategy for jobs.
On the latter aspect, both sides of industry participate, with the Council and Commission, in the work of the standing committee on employment with a view to facilitating coordination of employment policies in the Member States by harmonising them with Community objectives.
Our social partners are also associated with the work of the committee on employment, consultation of both sides of industry in this context being informal.
As regards the efforts to strengthen the European strategy for jobs, when the employment guidelines are revised in 2001, both sides of industry, including those at national level, will be invited to play a more important role in their definition, and in implementing and evaluating the guidelines which fall within their scope.
The stress will be on modernising the organisation of work, education for lifelong learning and raising the employment rate, especially for women.
There are also grounds for suggesting that it is up to the Commission, pursuant to Article 138 of the Treaty, to consult both sides of industry on the possible orientation of a Community action before presenting proposals in the area of social policy.
As an example, the Commission has recently consulted its social partners on the possible orientation of a Community action on modernising and improving working relations.
As regards the modernisation of the European social model, both sides of industry will be associated with the work of the new committee on social protection, just as they are already associated with the work of the old committee on employment and the labour market and its successor, the committee on employment.
Following the conclusions of the Lisbon European Council, the Fifteen are due to adopt a European social policy agenda at the Nice European Council in December 2000.
That is an important priority for the French Presidency.
The working document for that agenda is a communication from the Commission adopted on 28 June.
There will be contributions to it and consultations on it under the French Presidency, and naturally both sides of industry are expected to be closely associated in drawing up the social policy agenda.
Mr President, I should like to thank the minister for his reply; I naturally endorse the fact that the importance and value of the social partners in shaping a new model are much greater than anyone can imagine.
But what I should like to ask is this: when a tripartite dialogue takes place between the two sides of industry and the national government, how far can the national government ignore what was jointly agreed and proposed by the social partners? Or, taken the other way, how binding on a government are proposals decided jointly by the social partners, who know better than anyone what the problems of society and the causes of unemployment are and what problems need to be solved in order to deal with unemployment, or how binding should they be on any national government?
Council.
(FR) Mr Folias, it would certainly be desirable to make things more restrictive, but this is not the route which has been adopted within the European Union.
On the one hand, there is the subsidiary nature of social problems and, on the other, the selection of a method we call the open method of coordination.
We are currently succeeding in reconciling the problems of economic coordination, the major objectives of economic policy, the problems of coordination in social terms, the guidelines for employment and the various methods, and the various bodies working on it.
I think that this is an approach which must be continued because, as we know, Europe is very diverse.
Europe must not and cannot interfere in everything.
At the same time, the involvement of both sides of industry must be continually intensified.
Mr President, the social partnership should be a forward-looking partnership.
The first priority should be to implement what both sides want for themselves, and I believe that dialogue is an essential and important prerequisite in this respect.
What do you perceive the role of the existing Economic and Social Committee to be in this context, and what changes do you think will need to be made here, to enable it to become more actively involved in the work in future?
The Council does not have any response to this question at this stage.
Question No 4 by (H-0697/00):
Subject: Professor A Pelinka and Austria Is the Council aware of the case of Professor Anton Pelinka who has had his work in the European Monitoring Centre deliberately impeded and sabotaged by the Austrian Government and who has consequently had to resign from his position as Vice-President and member of the Management Committee of the Monitoring Centre?
Does the Council not believe this to be a clear case of political interference of the kind many of us believed would follow from the entry into government of the Austrian Freedom Party?
Does the Council not believe that this case justifies the imposition of sanctions and makes it all the more important for the sanctions to be maintained?
The Council is indeed aware of Professor Pelinka' s resignation from his post as Vice-President of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia on 31 May this year.
However, the measures adopted by the 14 Member States on 31 January, which are going to be reassessed, or, at least, which are due to be reassessed in the light of the report of the Wise Men, are of a strictly bilateral nature.
As such, they do not implicate the institutions of the European Union and, consequently, the Council is not justified in declaring an opinion on whether or not they should be maintained.
As you know, three experts were designated by the President of the European Court of Human Rights on 12 July in order to check specifically whether the Austrian Government had contravened common European values since taking office on 4 February, and also to look into the decidedly unique political character of the Austrian Freedom Party.
The Member States will, of course, be very interested to peruse the experts' report when it is published, which, according to my information, should be very soon.
Mr President, I had the privilege of being a member of the Council of Ministers' Consultative Committee on Racism and Xenophobia, along with Professor Pelinka.
He was a highly valued if not slightly boring member, who tried to prevent us going too far in our recommendations and acted as a brake on some of us who were more enthusiastic about pushing forward.
Is the Council aware that the management committee of the Monitoring Centre has passed a resolution expressing regret at the resignation of Professor Pelinka and the events leading to that resignation and is the Council prepared to draw the attention of the Wise Men to this particular incident and ask them to include that in their report because it clearly seems to be a possible example of how our common European values are being undermined by the current government in Austria?
Mr Ford, I have my own personal opinion on the matter.
I imagine that you know something of my views as a member of the French Government.
They are known to Austria at least.
The fact remains, however, that I am speaking right now on behalf of the Council and, let me repeat, these measures are bilateral measures, not measures undertaken in the context of the European Union.
As far as the report of the Wise Men is concerned, it is, by definition, a matter for them alone. I have no doubt but that in the detailed study they make of the Austrian situation, after a number of consultations, they will be able to take the diversity of individual situations into consideration, or, at least, I hope so.
That, in any case, was the mandate given them.
I have listened to the French Presidency' s answer with a great deal of interest.
The Pelinka case is a very serious legal case which may be said to constitute direct interference with freedom of expression in so far as the legal apparatus is being used in practice to silence political criticism.
The Council has now explained that it cannot comment "in its capacity as the Council of Ministers" , but the French Government may perhaps comment in its own capacity.
Is this matter not thought to be serious and to need to be included in the assessment being made in the Wise Men' s report?
I believe that the stance of the French Government and even the French authorities on this matter has been known from the outset.
We were by no means the last to demand the bilateral measures which were taken.
The fact remains that I am speaking right now, let me repeat, on behalf of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and that those measures are not measures undertaken within the context of the European institutions but rather a set of bilateral measures undertaken by 14 Member States with regard to the fifteenth.
That, sir, is all I wished to say, and I repeat, once again, that, by definition, if we want the Wise Men' s report to be truly wise, we must allow them to work wisely, and not try to influence them one way or the other.
I place my trust in these important political and legal figures, especially the former Finnish President, Mr Ahtisaari, since he has shown in the past that he is capable of assessing complex situations.
Question No 5 by (H-0597/00):
Subject: Request for a documented assessment of the education of children in the countries applying for EU membership In view of the economic crisis and profound structural changes that the majority of the applicant countries in the enlargement process have undergone, will the Council say whether all children in these countries are receiving an education? To what age is education in these countries compulsory?
Is there any means of guaranteeing that all future citizens of the EU receive an education?
The Council is in possession of the latest statistics provided by Eurostat. I have them here and I am willing to offer them to the honourable Member.
The data refer to the now distant school year 1997-1998, and show that in 11 countries which are candidates for membership of the European Union, the duration of compulsory schooling is nine or ten years, i.e. until the age of 15 or 16, depending on the case.
It is therefore possible to estimate that the percentage of young people in education at 16 is approximately 90% and at 18 approximately 60%.
Reliable statistics are not yet available for Cyprus and Malta, and Eurostat has not yet begun to collaborate with Turkey on educational statistics, but it is, understandably, not a simple matter where retrospective data is concerned.
If she requires further details, the Honourable Member can also consult a collection entitled "Key Data on Education in the European Union" , produced by Eurydice in collaboration with Eurostat and published by the Commission in French, German and English.
Let me do a little advertising by announcing that the 1999-2000 edition is now available.
Finally, on the subject of the education of all European citizens, you should remember that it is up to every Member State and every candidate country to ensure that this objective is achieved.
Once more, I should like to make the statistics, in the form in which I have them, available to Mrs Gutiérrez-Cortines.
In fact, I have consulted the statistics and I have consulted the information provided by the European Foundation for Education, and I am surprised by the rosy picture they paint of the situation in the countries of the East.
The news we ourselves have received all indicates that, while the system has fallen, an enormous crisis has been declared.
There are problems in very many places. In rural areas, many teachers are in practice not being paid, and I do not believe that, with the crisis of structural change suffered in the rest of the system, education has been kept in the wonderful state indicated in the statistics.
It therefore concerns me that there is no way of searching or taking soundings.
It is clear that, beyond subsidiarity, even beyond formal legitimacy, there is a moral legitimacy, which is based on our commitment to ensure that in the rural areas, in the new Europe, in the new countries which are going to join us, not a single child should remain without access to education or be deprived of the right to education which they deserve.
I was basing my answer on the facts available to me, i.e. the statistics.
I am not willing to make a qualitative judgement which might not be justified.
Let me repeat to the honourable Member that I have available a table which, in effect, shows that what I have said includes the disparities.
There is an average, of course, but there are also cases of greater or lesser advantage, which undoubtedly illustrate situations at grass roots level which are not at all equal.
I can give you this summary table if you wish, Mrs Gutiérrez-Cortines.
Mr President, I should like to take advantage of the question by Mrs Gutiérrez-Cortines to touch on an aspect of tertiary education in candidate countries which affects young people not from these countries but from other Member States of the European Union, such as Greece, who attend universities in candidate countries in large numbers. My question to the President-in-Office is this: is there any thought, are there any prospects, are there any plans to extend the scope of the directive on the mutual recognition of tertiary education diplomas which applies to the Fifteen to the candidate countries?
And if so, when?
Will this be done once the accession procedures have been completed or could it be done earlier in order to solve the present problems? I understand that the President-in-Office may not be able to give me an answer right now but perhaps he could inform us if or when he has an answer.
Question No 6 by (H-0605/00):
Subject: Negotiating mandate covering the agricultural section of the free trade agreement with the Maghreb The Commission has submitted its proposal for a negotiating mandate for the free trade agreement with Morocco, Tunisia and Israel to the Council' s 'Maghreb' Working Party.
The proposal covers all theoretically possible liberalisation measures, from increasing quotas to reducing customs duties, with various formulas for handling entry prices.
What are the scope and substance of the mandate?
Morocco, Tunisia and Israel are the three partners of the European Union whose Euro-Mediterranean association agreements have entered into force.
These agreements include a periodic review clause for agriculture, according to which the parties undertake to plan for the increased liberalisation of their agricultural trade, with this process complementing the gradual dismantling of the tariff system in preparation for the setting up of the industrial free trade area due in 2010.
It is strictly limited to agriculture.
It does not, therefore, concern, for example, fisheries products which are dealt with as part of other negotiations.
The Morocco, Tunisia and Israel association agreements make provision for examination of the agricultural trade situation, as of 1 January 2000, with a view to the establishment of gradual liberalisation measures, beginning on 1 January 2001.
The negotiations which are due to open must therefore make it possible to strengthen this Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
They are also designed to achieve a better balance in agricultural trade with the three countries concerned, with regard to which the Union has a structural deficit.
The European Union is the prime outlet for the agricultural production of its partners, and takes up two thirds of their exports.
Currently, 95% of exports of agricultural products from Morocco, Tunisia and Israel to the European Union are exempt from customs duties.
On 20 July 2000, the Council approved the Commission' s negotiating mandate, which comprises general guidelines.
It is a matter of facilitating improved access to the markets of the partner countries for Community products and of greater balance in mutual preferences, including by means of exempting new products from customs duties.
It also defines the room for manoeuvre the Commission is allowed in restoring balance in trade and concluding negotiations.
At the request of the Member States, the measures which may give rise to concessions are strictly delimited.
The mandate therefore authorises the Community negotiator, if necessary, to grant the Mediterranean partners tariff preferences for new products or to improve existing concessions, while, however, taking the vulnerability of certain products and the mechanisms of the common agricultural policy into consideration.
In this respect, it specifies that the Commission is, in collaboration with the Member States, to carry out an assessment of the potential impact of the concessions on the economic and commercial interests of the European Union, and obviously the Council will not take a decision until it has consulted the results of this assessment.
Mr President, I am happy that the Council is also taking account in this negotiation of the sensitivity of certain regions and certain products, especially in the agricultural sector.
At the moment there are agricultural sectors in the Mediterranean and also in the outermost regions of the Community, which could be threatened as a result of the very generous proposed concessions by the Commission.
I would just like to repeat what I said and encourage the Council to persist in maintaining the greatest possible vigilance so that those sectors are not fundamentally damaged by overly-generous concessions.
I believe that this is exactly the philosophy which will be guiding our negotiations.
I can therefore only endorse what is more a compliment than a question.
Following the adoption, on 10 April this year, of the regulation regarding the implementation of measures intended to intensify the EU-Turkey customs union, on 13 June this year the Council adopted its common position on the proposal for a financial regulation on the implementation of actions to promote Turkey' s economic and social development.
This common position was sent to the European Parliament for second reading at the July 2000 part-session.
The Council awaits Parliament' s opinion with interest.
You know that, in December 1999, the Helsinki European Council recognised Turkey' s candidacy on an equal footing with the other candidates in terms of rights and obligations and decided to implement a pre-accession strategy for Turkey.
In Feira, the Heads of State and Government invited the Commission to submit proposals regarding the single financial framework for aid to Turkey and the accession partnership as soon as possible.
As you know, at the end of July, the Commission approved a proposal for a Council regulation on launching Turkey's accession partnership. It is on the basis of this regulation that the Commission will, at a later date, submit its proposal for partnership, but it will include the short- and medium-term priorities and objectives to prepare for accession in accordance with the model adopted for the other candidates.
The Commission will present its proposal on the implementation of a single financial framework at a later date.
It goes without saying that, in working out this partnership, the Council will pay particular attention to compliance with the political criteria for accession, particularly in the areas of human rights, rule of law and the legal system.
It will also ensure monitoring to verify that Turkish legislation is made compliant in this and in other areas, in order to ascertain that this is carried out in the same way as in the other candidate countries.
In this connection, it should be noted that preparations for the examination of Turkish legislation in all the areas of the acquis communautaire have been undertaken within the EU-Turkey Association Council.
In addition, the Feira European Council requested that the Commission submit a progress report to the Council on the work undertaken in this area.
I would like to thank the minister for his reply; however, I note that, whereas I specifically asked if the Helsinki criteria would be defined within the partnership, he evaded the question.
I should therefore like to repeat and specify and update my question.
The 15, and first and foremost the presidency, received a letter from Mr Gem a few days ago asking for the partnership between Turkey and the European Union which is now on the drawing board not to mention Helsinki Articles 4 and 9 relating to Greek-Turkish relations - in his words, border differences - and the question of progress on the Cyprus issue.
I should therefore like to repeat my question to the minister and again raise the issue which he evaded: will mention be made of the Helsinki criteria on the Cyprus question and Greek-Turkish relations or will Mr Gem' s proposals be accepted? What is the Council' s reply to Mr Gem?
I do not have a specific answer on this issue.
What I do recall is the European Council in Helsinki, as I took part in this discussion there, having just a short time before been on a brief diplomatic mission to Turkey and Greece, and the Helsinki conclusions are the ones which are binding upon us and upon everyone.
That is the general rule.
That is the basis on which we conducted our negotiations.
Minister, nine months after Turkey was granted candidate status in Helsinki, and irrespective of my opposition to Turkey' s accession, do you believe that there has been any progress with democratisation, which was one of the criteria for accession, or have you concluded that what we forecast at the time has come true, i.e. the Helsinki resolution has encouraged the Turkish regime to continue its inhumane policy?
What we have concluded, as you too can see, is that there has been no progress whatsoever in democratising the constitution and the penal code, parties such as the Communist party have been banned, the prison situation is festering, political prisoners are being treated inhumanely, new F-cells have been created for harsh, inhumane solitary confinement, lawyers who defend political prisoners are being humiliated, Kurdish villages in Iraq have again been bombed, more beatings have been carried out and arrests have been made in Diyarbakir, Istanbul and elsewhere for the events of 1 September, which is the international day of peace.
Similarly, not only does Turkey continue to occupy 38% of Cyprus following its barbaric invasion in 1974, contrary to repeated UN resolutions which Turkey disregards in the most provocative manner, but Mr Ecevit states that the Cyprus question was resolved in 1974 and refuses to apply resolutions to pay...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I do not share the viewpoint which seems to underlie your question, namely this opposition to the candidacy of Turkey.
Turkey' s candidacy was in fact made possible by a welcome rapprochement between Greece and Turkey, which, I hope, will continue, particularly under the enlightened leadership of the two great diplomatic leaders, Mr Papandreou and Mr Gem, both of whom I consider my friends.
Having said that, let me repeat, Turkey' s candidacy has been accepted on equal terms with regard to both rights and duties.
In order for Turkey to become a member of the European Union, it must respect its values and therefore make the necessary efforts.
At the same time, we must greet its efforts positively.
Nine months may be a long time for a human being to develop before birth, but it is an extremely short time for a candidate country.
Question No 8 by (H-0614/00):
Subject: US farm subsidies Has the Council of Ministers considered the recent substantial increases in agricultural subsidies provided for its farmers by the US Government, which now represent more than EUR 16 000 per farmer. Are these subsidies in violation of WTO agreements and does the Council propose to take any action on this?
I wish to raise the question with the President-in-Office of the change in American policy since we in the European Union changed the whole direction of the support we give to agriculture following the last round of GATT negotiations.
The United States Government has more than doubled the level of subsidies per farmer.
At the same time the European Union, in pursuit of its policies which were forced on us by the clearance group and the United States, has reduced its share of world markets in the dairy sector, in the cereal sector and in the meat sector.
I consider that since the American Government has doubled the level of aid that it extends directly to its farmers the European Union has in fact been wrong-footed and that the policy which has led us to a reduction in our share of world markets is in fact outdated and should be reviewed.
I shall not go into the details, but these are, in fact, the sort of considerations which justify our rejecting attacks which may have been made on the common agricultural policy and our own system, and that is also the reason why the European Union adopted an overall negotiating mandate designed to safeguard the social model and the farm model, not to mention the European cultural model, with regard to the WTO.
Rest assured that, as far as we are concerned, the mandate is still the basis for further negotiations.
It is true that extending qualified majority voting to European Union sectors of activity which currently require unanimous votes is indeed one of the major issues of the Intergovernmental Conference currently taking place.
This is a crucial issue of democracy.
In a democracy, decisions are agreed by the majority not by unanimity.
In this context, Article 151 is one of the provisions likely to be converted to the rule of qualified majority voting.
I am sure that Mrs Zorba would agree that it is still too early to ascertain what direction the proceedings of the Intergovernmental Conference are going to take, even though I would hazard that, quite possibly, consensus will be reached quickly regarding Article 151, for not everything can be a source of disagreement.
As regards the manner in which Article 151(4) of the Treaty has been applied, I shall simply respond by saying that respect for and furtherance of the diversity of the cultures of Europe remain at the heart of the entire Community structure.
Minister, everyone who knows that we urgently need a cultural policy in the European Union also knows - and I agree with you - that the Intergovernmental Conference represents a huge chance to change the unanimity rule.
The Intergovernmental Conference is not a procedure which is foreign or bears no relation to the Council and it obviously takes account of all points of view and all types of need.
It does not operate in a vacuum.
My question therefore is this: is the Council doing anything to change the unanimity rule and push for a change at the Intergovernmental Conference.
The more economic policies progress, the more we need to study their cultural impact and develop a structural cultural policy.
That was the meaning of my question; I do not think we should just stand around and wait because it may be too late by then and an agreement may not be so easy to reach.
The Council as such is not, by definition, a member of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I would urge you to trust the French Presidency of the Council and the European Council to further the cause of extending qualified majority voting.
Let me abandon my official role for a second to say that we would like to see qualified majority voting become the general rule and unanimous voting the exception, rather than the opposite, which is the case at present.
Question No 10 by (H-0617/00):
Subject: Cost of enlargement and Mediterranean agriculture In the light of forecasts and the most recent legislative proposals on Mediterranean agriculture, which concern products such as cotton, rice, fruit and vegetables, tomatoes, nuts and olive oil, among others, and will have adverse effects on employment and social development in these poor regions of Europe, and bearing in mind also the budgetary plans for EU enlargement, what will the Council do to ensure that Mediterranean agriculture does not end up bearing the brunt of the costs of the forthcoming enlargement?
I understand the concerns behind the honourable Member' s question.
I feel, however, the question itself contained observations of quite a different kind.
Regarding your preliminary remark: the ongoing reforms of the common market organisations for predominantly Mediterranean products are intended to enable these markets to adapt to competition outside Europe, which is often extremely fierce, and to stabilise the production of these items within the European Union.
The desired aim is, therefore, indeed to maintain employment in areas which generally offer few possibilities for conversion to the cultivation of other crops.
This is the spirit in which the Council will declare its opinion on the legislative proposals put forward by the Commission, when the time comes.
Moreover, the European Union' s Ministers for Agriculture, whose informal six-monthly meeting has been held from Saturday until today in Biarritz, have just stressed their determination, now more clearly than in the past, to focus in agricultural policies on boosting product quality and diversity.
You then went on to make reference to the impact of European Union enlargement on the budget. In my view, this is not directly related to the adoption of the CMO reforms I was talking about just now.
The impact of enlargement on the budget was the subject of intense discussion at the European Council in Berlin in March 1999 when the financial perspectives for 2000-2006 were drawn up.
For each year in this period, and for each heading, the financial perspectives give the expenditure totals as commitment appropriations, and the commitment appropriations laid down under the various headings of the financial perspectives are not interchangeable.
There is hence no question of enlargement-related expenditure being funded at the expense of agricultural expenditure under heading 1 of the financial perspectives.
I therefore do not see how future enlargement can be carried out at the expense of Mediterranean agriculture under the financial perspectives for 2000-2006.
When the time comes, most probably by 2005 at the latest, we will, of course, have to establish a new institutional agreement on the future financial perspectives, but I am sure you will agree that this date is still too far away for us to be expected, reasonably, to discuss the matter today.
Would you be prepared to make some sort of recommendation with a view to preventing the negative impact of enlargement on the Mediterranean? In truth, through his actions and proposals, Mr Fischler, the Commissioner responsible for Agriculture, has made the anti-Mediterranean impact of enlargement a reality.
It is a fact that the whole of the Mediterranean area is frightened about this.
As I can see that the Council is standing firm in its political will, and in order to prevent - as you say - anything like this happening, not through good intentions but through facts, I would like to ask you whether the French Presidency, before it ends, would be willing to make, in the way it considers appropriate, some kind of recommendation which would dispel these concerns, that is to say, which would ensure that Mediterranean production would in no way pay the price for enlargement.
This is not a subject that I am prepared to make impromptu comments on.
I can assure you of just one thing, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, and that is that, as far as we are concerned, the financial perspectives, which were the product of tough negotiating in Berlin, represent a framework which it would be extremely difficult for us to shift.
We do not wish to do so, and so, once again, we shall discuss the matter again in 2005.
Question No 11 by (H-0619/00):
Subject: Attack on Greek minority in the village of Dervitsani in Albania The Greek inhabitants of Dervitsani, a village in Albania, passed the night of 3 to 4 July 2000 in shelters after being attacked by anti-tank missiles from the neighbouring village of Lazarati.
The police who arrived on the scene failed to make any arrests.
This is not the first attack against the Greek minority.
The previous week the Council of Europe had recommended that the Albanian government take measures to protect the minorities living in Albania.
Given the fact that the Council of the European Union adopted the action plan for Albania on 13/14 June 2000, will the Council say what political measures it intends to take and what immediate measures it will promote in order to strengthen security in the region and ensure the physical safety and the fundamental rights of minorities in Albania?
The Council is aware of the armed attack upon the village of Dervitsani from the village of Lazarati which occurred during the night of 3 to 4 July 2000, during which automatic weapons and explosives were used.
According to the information available, the firing was carried out by a small group of people allegedly wishing to prevent the Albanian policy carrying out arrests in their village.
Even though the Greek minority was not the target of the attack in question, the attack nonetheless contributed to creating a climate of insecurity in the region.
The European Union supports the efforts of the Albanian Government to restructure and modernise its police forces in order to increase the security of Albanian citizens and of the region.
The Multinational Advisory Police Element in Albania, formed under the authority of the WEU Council and deployed in Albania since 1997, has widened and developed the scope of its mission following the adoption, in March 1998, of a joint action on the European Union' s contribution to re-establishing a viable police force in Albania.
Following the adoption of the action programme for Albania and the neighbouring region, the Council is currently examining the proposed measures in order to identify those which can be implemented speedily.
The action programme is basically devoted to matters relating to problems of migration and asylum.
The proposed measures do, however, include projects in the field of human rights and the protection of minorities.
The European Union is, moreover, already active in these fields.
Since Albania is eligible for an association and stabilisation agreement, its performance in terms of respect for democratic principles and human and minority rights and in terms of public order and the rule of law, are closely monitored by the European Union, I can assure you.
I should like to thank the Council representative for his reply.
However, the purpose of my question was to draw attention once again to the huge problems in the Balkans, problems caused by economic and social deprivation and, more importantly, the fact that there is no democratic infrastructure.
The attacks on the Greek minority were just one in a series of incidents which occur in Albania on a daily basis.
My question therefore, minister, is how far are you prepared to give real support to Albania so that the rule of law can operate?
We saw no such support in the action programme decided for Albania.
You place greater emphasis in the action programme on how to stop immigration and how to send refugees back to Albania, which is clearly not a safe country, than on how we can give his country the means to develop.
We seem to have promised the Balkans a great deal but are unwilling to put our promises into practice.
I should like answers to these questions, minister.
I share your view, Mrs Karamanou, that the incidents mentioned appear, at first sight, to indicate a general problem of security and public order in Albania rather than a campaign of deliberate attacks on the Greek minority.
This is a general problem which must be dealt with as such.
The action plan for Albania to which you refer is a High Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration action plan for Albania and the neighbouring region, adopted by the General Affairs Council on 13 and 14 June this year, intended, in effect, to define and coordinate European Union resources with a view to responding to the problems of asylum and migration in Albania and the neighbouring countries and, as such, it is not intended to promote the rights of any particular minority.
Nonetheless, the suggested actions do include projects or programmes seeking to step up democracy and respect for human rights and minority rights in general.
The Council working groups are currently proceeding to examine the various measures proposed in order to identify which of them could be implemented in the near future.
An interim report is expected for the European Council in Nice in December.
Question No 12 by (H-0622/00):
Subject: Reduction of TACIS aid to Russia The European Union has punished Russia for its military action in Chechnya by reducing aid paid under the TACIS programme.
At the Feira European Council it was decided to relax sanctions.
Under what conditions does the Council consider that the TACIS funds should be granted to Russia for this year and next year?
In the wake of the Feira European Council, the General Affairs Council on 10 July this year requested that the Commission resume preparations for an indicative TACIS programme in favour of Russian, to cover the years 2000-2003, and to draw up a proposal for a TACIS action programme targeted at the year 2000.
The relevant management committee is scheduled to examine these proposals on 17 October this year.
The priority objective of this programme will be to support the rule of law in Russia, complying with the democratic requirements of a modern democracy and benefiting Russian society as a whole.
Special attention is to be paid to supporting institutional and economic reforms, schemes undertaken for the democratisation and reinforcement of civil society and the protection and development of independent media.
Moreover, the Council has agreed to adopt further decisions on guiding cooperation with Russia and the use of the available instruments, in the light of the development of the situation in Russia.
I would thank the President of the Council for that answer.
I should like to ask a follow-up question: What conditions are being laid down for in fact providing this aid? Does the Council believe that the present situation in Chechnya is such that it is reasonable to provide this aid to Russia?
Yes.
In 2000, only EUR 34 million have been committed to date, following the reorientation of the Helsinki programme.
A second tranche will be allocated to aid in support of the reform process initiated by the Russian authorities recently in order to establish a genuine rule of law, which will bring the TACIS appropriations allocated to Russia in 2000 to EUR 92 million at the most.
The only answer I can give you regarding the budget released in 2001 is that it will depend on the decisions the Council is induced to make at a later stage in the light of development of the situation in Russia.
This situation will be assessed in relation to the criteria for the progress to be achieved in terms of institutional reforms, democratisation, the strengthening of civil society and human rights protection throughout the territory of Russia.
Examination of the situation in Chechnya will thus clearly be part of the assessment process.
Question No 13 by (H-0624/00):
Subject: Incidents at the Matosinhos market During the night of 22 June 2000, various groups - probably coastal fishermen from Poboa de Varsím and Matosinhos according to various sources - used blunt instruments to break open the doors of four Spanish lorries containing sardines in front of the premises of the company Docapesa S.A. at Matosinhos market.
They then removed the fish from the lorries and sprayed it with diesel oil or similar products in order to damage it permanently, while uttering threats.
Apart from the damage caused to the four companies concerned - one of them calculated that the damage to the fish amounted to nine million pesetas and the damage to the vehicles to 300 000 pesetas - incidents of this kind should not be allowed to happen (a similar incident involving mackerel occurred in 1998).
What steps will the Council take to prevent any recurrence of such incidents, which are against the law but in particular are contrary to the spirit and principles underlying the European Union? Does it plan to make any arrangements to compensate for the unfair and deliberate damage caused?
Mr President, the Council deeply regrets the incidents which occurred at the Matosinhos market during the night of 22 June 2000 and the losses incurred by the victims of these acts of violence.
It is important to stress, however, in this connection, that it is up to the individual Member States to ensure compliance with the regulations of the common fisheries policy and the free movement of goods, and to take appropriate measures within their national legislative systems. The offences in question should be punished in accordance with the terms of the criminal and civil law of the Member State concerned.
To this end, let me remind you that on 7 December 1998 the Council adopted Regulation (EC) No 2679/98 on the functioning of the internal market in relation to the free movement of goods among the Member States, establishing procedures for the Commission to take action to require Member States, who alone are responsible for maintaining public order, to quickly remedy serious barriers to the free movement of goods caused by the actions of private individuals.
Mr President, first of all I would like to say that relations between Galicia and the North of Portugal have always been special, because the Miño river has never marked a boundary, it has not separated, but rather united.
However, unfortunate events such as those which took place on 22 June, caused by a small number of people, must not become the general rule.
It is therefore important to adopt measures which will prevent, in all events, their repetition and that the sanction adopted by the competent parties shall serve as an example.
Therefore, those of us from the other side of the river - and we are all Europeans - wanted to know how this issue is being dealt with and whether exemplary decisions have been taken so that these events will not be repeated in the future.
I can only repeat my previous answer, namely that the maintenance of public order and any application of penal sanctions are a matter, respectively, for the jurisdiction of the police forces and the legal authorities of the Member State concerned.
Let me quote the relevant part of the Regulation, which stipulates that, "Where the Commission considers that an obstacle is occurring in a Member State, it shall notify the Member State concerned of the reasons that have led the Commission to such a conclusion and shall request the Member State to take all necessary and proportionate measures to remove the said obstacle."
I therefore feel - and I am not saying that in order to duck the question, as we say - that the honourable Member would do better to address the question to the Commission, which does have the necessary means to provide a reliable and up-to-date response.
Mr President, Mr Moscovici, very serious attacks have also taken place in Finland on one certain means of livelihood, namely fur farming.
The principle of the freedom to pursue a trade is firmly upheld in the European Union.
Now, however, one Member State, Great Britain, has just banned fur farming in its territory. Do you not think this might have harmful repercussions for the internal market in fur goods?
I would ask you to reply now, as President-in-Office of the Council, and not so much as a representative of the French Government. The French Government has already expressed its own views on the matter in the Agricultural Council.
I am answering on behalf of the Council and not on behalf of the French Government.
The situation you mention may share some of the features of the previous situation, but it is not the result of the same regulation, which is to do with fisheries issues.
I consequently feel entitled to ask you, please, to submit your question in the usual manner, i.e. in writing, and the Council will be pleased to respond.
I am not going to respond ad hoc to a question on such a difficult subject.
In support of the President-in-Office of the Council, I must point out that the Rules of Procedure for this Question Time state that supplementary questions must be closely related.
Question No 14 by (H-0625/00):
Subject: Public Council meetings One of the three goals of the French Presidency is to bring Europe closer to its citizens.
The logical consequence of this aim should, therefore, be to make Council proceedings more open.
How many fully public Council meetings will be held during the French Presidency from 1 July to 31 December 2000?
The French Presidency attaches special importance to ensuring that Council proceedings are accessible to the European citizens and that its legislative decisions are made in a transparent manner.
The public debates are, moreover, an established practice.
They lead to the European Union' s long-term evolution towards greater openness towards civil society.
Moreover, Rule 8 of the Council's Rules of Procedure provides for the organisation of public debates.
One of the top priorities of the French Presidency was, therefore, to draw up a list of public debates, covering a wide range of subjects, which was adopted by the Permanent Representatives Committee (COREPER) on 5 July 2000.
Two debates were held in July, a debate on the presentation of the presidency' s programme at the General Affairs Council on 10 July 2000, and a second debate on the presidency programme at the ECOFIN Council on 17 July.
I must specify that six further public debates are scheduled to take place before the end of the French Presidency: a debate on general interest services on 28 September 2000 at the Internal Market, Consumers and Tourism Council - I shall have the honour of chairing this council meeting; a debate on maritime safety on 2 October 2000 at the Transport Council in Luxembourg; a debate on noise protection on 10 October 2000 as part of the Environment Council; and a debate on information, consultation of workers regarding employment on 17 October 2000, as part of the Employment and Social Policy Council, again in Luxembourg.
On 9 November 2000, there will be a public debate on young people and Europe as part of the Education and Youth Council.
Finally, on 20 November 2000, there will be a debate on food safety as part of the Agriculture Council.
I should like to draw the attention of the Members of the European Parliament to the fact that a substantial effort has already been devoted towards informing the public about the Council debates organised.
Over 3000 detailed reports of the public debates have been delivered by post.
Furthermore, any interested parties will easily be able to access the Internet networks which deal with this subject.
In addition, television channels have the opportunity to broadcast these debates, in total or in part, via the 'Europe by Satellite' channel.
Finally, the French Presidency strives to make as much information as possible on all Council proceedings available to the public on its Internet website, as well as subject indexes for the main topics under discussion.
I want to thank the Council for its detailed answer.
In an ordinary democracy it is, of course, the rule that all decisions concerning new laws are made publicly in a parliament and that the debates too are held in public.
The curious situation in the Council of Ministers is that the public only has access to certain debates.
There is therefore an obvious risk of meetings being closed in cases where more controversial subjects are being dealt with.
I therefore wonder whether the French Presidency, given its high level of ambition, will hold any entire meetings in public, that is to say ministerial meetings which, from beginning to end, with all the debates and all the decision-making, take place in public, without the doors being closed for any part of them.
Quite the opposite.
I think I have shown that the French Presidency is determined to open debates up to the public as much as possible, and I believe that our programme is perfectly sound.
I should just like to remind the honourable Member of the different roles of the various institutions of the European Union.
It is true that the Council is co-legislator alongside the European Parliament, which does not fit into the pattern of the clear separation between executive and legislative power in the form that it may exist in a parliamentary democracy in the context of a State.
Let us be aware, at the same time, however, that the European Council is not just a legislative body but also an executive body, a function which, this time, is shared with the Commission, and that it undertakes a whole range of debates which have nothing to do with the legislative process.
Consequently, in the same way that these things are managed within a government, for that is what we are talking about here, the intergovernmental aspect, debates often take place in camera.
I am fortunate enough to be a member of the cabinet in the government of my country.
The French Council of Ministers in the Elysée Palace is not open to the press, nor is it filmed.
I consider this to be reasonable, as it is a context in which decisions must be taken which are then passed on to the citizens quite openly.
So there you are. It is because of this concept of the separation of powers that debates are designated as either open or closed.
I think that it is, quite frankly, to the Council' s credit that they have opened up some of these debates, running counter to what I was saying earlier about the operation of a government.
This is the situation we have, if we take the hybrid nature of the Council into due account.
Economic and social development of Turkey
The next item is the recommendation for second reading by Mr Morillon (A5-0206/2000) on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council regulation regarding the implementation of the measures to promote economic and social development in Turkey [7492/1/2000 REV - C5-0325/2000 - 1998/0300(COD)].
Mr President, the Council common position whose aim you have just stated has been referred back to Parliament for a second reading, not because of its content, but because of its form.
This could seem ridiculous, but it is not at all.
With regard to content, Parliament has agreed to commit EUR 135 million over the next five years to measures aiming to compensate Turkey for the sacrifices it has agreed to make in order to enter into a customs union with the European Union, and on this point there is no divergence with the Council.
With regard to form, we wanted to specify a number of areas in which the corresponding measures should be agreed as a priority, and the Council did not want to accept three of our proposals regarding the wording of a precautionary principle on the development of nuclear energy, in particular in earthquake zones.
The protection and recognition of the cultural identity of minorities and support for measures seeking to abolish capital punishment and, finally, perhaps most importantly, the development of any form of cooperation seeking to resolve the Kurdish problem.
I say that these matters of form are not trivial in a debate that precedes the one which is due to take place on accession in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy in October, and following which, in November, I shall have to present the report on the state of progress of the work and any changes in attitudes within the European Union and Turkey.
Since the way to accession was reopened in Helsinki, nobody has been able to say where this newly-cleared path will lead, nor how long it will take to reach the end.
I think I can say that there is a broad consensus for granting Turkey a privileged position for geographical, historical, economic and political reasons, but I would also say that this privileged position can and must be envisaged within the European Union itself just as much as in close cooperation with the Union.
I say that this choice belongs, by democratic right, to the citizens of the European Union whom we represent here, and to the Turkish citizens themselves.
I understand that this was probably your opinion, Commissioner Verheugen, and I think I can guarantee you the support of a large majority of my colleagues in this area.
The decision on Turkey' s accession is too important for the future of the European Union and Turkey for it to be made in veiled silence, or even in secrecy, behind closed doors.
Long debates will be necessary, both here and in national parliaments, which is why everyone agrees that the road will be long and hard.
As rapporteur on enlargement, I was convinced of this, not only by the richness and passion of the debates that have already taken place in Parliament, but also by observing the reactions in Turkey itself, both in government circles and in civil society.
I shall come back to these contrasting reactions in detail when I present my report.
Today, I shall simply come to the main conclusion.
The people of Turkey consider that entry into the European Union will require not only a painless revision of their legal arsenal and the partial loss of their sovereignty, to which they remain attached, but also a radical change in their habits and mentality, for which they do not seem prepared.
This is why Parliament has proposed the creation of a Euro-Turkish forum, bringing together qualified representatives of the Turkish community and those Members of the European Parliament that have been given the task, for in-depth discussions.
I shall repeat this proposal in my report and I think I can say that the Turkish Government is not hostile to this, but quite the opposite, it would seem.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the beginning of this long road, aware of the realities, I think the time has come to leave hypocrisy behind and not to continue to ignore the most important obstacles, including the Kurdish problem.
It would not occur to the French today to deny that a Corsican problem exists, even if the French citizens and their government are divided on the solutions. There is a Kurdish problem in Turkey.
The Council must not forbid the European Parliament to propose its contribution to the solution. If the text of this regulation is referred back for a second reading, it is not purely for a matter of form, but because Parliament refuses to accept this kind of political sleight of hand.
Mr President, I wholeheartedly concur with Mr Morillon' s suggestion that we abandon the hypocrisy with which we sometimes deal with certain real problems for reasons of political or other expediency.
There can, in my opinion, be no doubt that the issues covered in the three amendments rejected by the Council are real issues and that the Council position, or the sub-text at least, indicates a hypocritical disposition to sweep them to one side or underestimate their importance.
And yet, these three amendments, which reflect the firm views of the European Parliament, are all of fundamental importance and the rapporteur is right to insist that they be adopted: they contain a safeguard against the Turkish authorities' constructing nuclear power stations in earthquake zones, an express reference to the death penalty and a clear indication of Turkey' s obligation to recognise and protect the cultural identity of minorities, within the wider context of its obligation to respect the rule of law and human rights, and they highlight the undisputed Kurdish problem and the need to resolve it - but not, of course, by dropping Turkish bombs on civilians, as in the most recent bombings in the Kendakor region on 18 August.
I should like to hope that Parliament' s insistence on certain points being adopted will also help the Turkish side to understand, even if - as Mr Morillon rightly comments - it appears to be somewhat unwilling to understand, that the road towards Europe is not a one-way street of determination and patient understanding on the part of the European Union in the face of Turkey' s so-called special circumstances; it requires the same measure of determination on the part of the Turkish authorities and Turkish society to adjust to the rules of law and ethics which govern the European Union and which apply indiscriminately to all candidate countries; rules which, unfortunately, continue to be violated by Turkey, not only when it comes to the Kurdish problem and its democratic shortcomings, but also in numerous other cases, such as the Cyprus question and Greek-Turkish relations.
A real sea change in Turkey' s behaviour and attitude would go some way towards encouraging all those who, in a spirit of perhaps excessive optimism, opted to speed up Turkey' s advance towards Europe and would help to shorten the long and difficult road - to quote Mr Morillon once again - of Turkey' s admission to the European family.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like first of all to thank Mr Morillon very sincerely for the good work he has done and for his persistence in pushing through the demands and the most important amendments.
I am able to support him on behalf of my group, and I believe it must be possible to reach an agreement with the Council.
We are keen to use this instrument to promote economic and social development in Turkey.
Naturally, we hope that, parallel to this - and perhaps even as a result of it - political development in Turkey towards democracy and respect for human rights, in particular respect for its own Kurdish population, will also be strengthened, and the death penalty abolished.
However - and I have to say this again and again in this Chamber, and I also say it in Turkey- we are very dissatisfied with the pace of political development.
We could of course say that it is not our problem, and the fact that it is not prepared to make progress in this area more obvious and is not creating the political institutions for doing so is indeed Turkey' s own biggest problem.
Not so long ago, Turkey elected a new State President - a judge, and a highly respected one at that, and in fact with the support of the government. And what does the government do as one of its first acts?
Over the summer, it sends its new State President a kind of emergency decree with a view to restricting some of the rights of people in government service. Then it wonders why, as a former high court judge, the President rejects the decrees he has been sent and says that the matter in question is one which Parliament must deal with, as is in fact fully to be expected in a democracy.
Now, I have as little sympathy for Islamic militants as many others in this House, especially when they adopt the fundamentalist approach much in evidence in these regions and also manifested today in the debate between the Presidents of the Israeli and Palestinian Parliaments.
The issue in question is one which has to be settled on a legal basis.
It is just not on, using an emergency decree suddenly to remove all Islamic fundamentalists from office, as the government wants to do.
Is there really a problem here? Then it is one for Parliament to deal with.
The Kurdish problem has already been mentioned.
In that area too, scarcely any progress has been made.
Again and again, we see first positive, then negative signs.
Those who know that this is a crucial problem lack the courage to do anything about it.
You mentioned the Corsican problem.
I have to say that, in France too, the necessary courage is called for to tackle the problem after so many years.
I should like to see just a little of this courage in Turkey with a view to finding a real solution to the Kurdish problem too.
Of course, there are also other problems involving minorities.
The death penalty was mentioned.
How many times have we heard the conviction voiced that it must be abolished, and how long will it be before the relevant steps are taken?
The fact that Turkey is not taking these steps is something which cannot but disappoint those in this House - and I count myself among them - who would dearly like to see Turkey become a member of the European Union.
I nonetheless believe that, if we persist, we shall achieve what we have pledged.
Our pledges can, and will be, fulfilled, and precisely on the issue of promoting economic and social development.
We are now waiting with bated breath to see whether Turkey will push ahead with political development on its own initiative.
Mr President, our relations with Turkey should promote democracy, stability and consistency.
The path to those goals is partly by way of social and economic development, and the way to social and economic development is partly by means of foreign investment.
The Union' s finance package will be an incentive to further investment in Turkey and, in the process, will also promote and consolidate democracy and human rights.
We have seen this strategy succeed in former dictatorships in Southern Europe, we shall see it work in Eastern and Central Europe, and it ought also to work in Turkey.
Parliament should support this strategy, and we should, at the same time, insist that, before there can be any question at all about membership negotiations, the Copenhagen criteria should be met as these relate to democracy and human rights.
Finally, I would emphasise the need to rebuild the thousands of Kurdish villages razed to the ground.
This ought to be an express priority in our policy on Turkey, and we must insist that the Turkish Government too make it a high priority.
In the same way, we must insist that the rights of the Kurdish minority are respected, just as the rights of minorities are respected in the countries of the Union and in the other candidate States.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his recommendation for second reading.
He is very familiar with the situation in Turkey.
He is aware of the problems of this country and of the people who live there.
It is no secret that Turkey cannot be democratic in our sense of the word until such time as the economic and social problems there have been solved.
It is also widely appreciated that Turkey will not be able to get on top of these problems alone and without our aid.
The demands contained in the rapporteur' s amendments - he talks of the protection of minorities, rightly demands the abolition of the death penalty and calls for a solution to the Kurdish problem - are in no way conditions designed to stand in the way of aid.
Instead, they are valuable proposals for the necessary democratic reforms in Turkey. At the very end of the day, Turkey will benefit from these reforms being put into practice.
To that extent, we support the rapporteur' s recommendation and thank him again for the work he has done.
Mr President, just nine months - or perhaps I should say already nine months - have passed since the Helsinki resolution granting Turkey candidate status.
At the time, we predicted that this resolution would not help, as many maintained, to bring about democratisation and improved living conditions for the Turkish people and that it would only encourage the regime to exercise ever greater oppression.
Nine months later, we are sorry to say that we were right because, to tell the truth, we would have preferred to have been proven wrong.
Now the Council has proposed releasing EUR 135 million for the economic and social development of Turkey.
We fear that a substantial proportion of this sum will be used, despite any controls carried out, to strengthen the machinery of oppression.
Allow me to give you some facts and figures.
As we all know, despite promises made from time to time, the constitution is still seriously undemocratic, the death penalty remains, Turkish jails currently house over 15,000 political prisoners in inhumane conditions, which are now being modernised with the introduction of solitary confinement, provoking outrage in Turkey, including in the Law Society of Istanbul, which has issued a special paper condemning these measures. There were arrests recently during events for world peace day on 1 September, Cyprus continues to be occupied and, as we are preparing to release funds, Turkish Prime Minister Ecevit has said that the Cyprus question was resolved in 1974, i.e. with the barbaric invasion and continuing occupation, demonstrating his disdain for UN resolutions.
And, I would add, Mr Gem says the same about Greek-Turkish relations.
Some people would do well not to boast and brag because these Greek-Turkish relations constantly result in the Greek Government' s backing down and that in itself is a source of further tension.
So do you want to use this money as bait so that you can penetrate the Turkish economy even further, so that you can plunder the Turkish people' s wealth even more?
We do not intend to say give it or withhold it, we simply want to point out the conditions under which and the reason why this money is being given.
Mr President, I fully support Mr Morillon' s excellent work, as presented by him and supplemented by Mr Swoboda.
I do not therefore intend to repeat arguments which I accept overall.
However, I should like to make a few comments.
The strange nature of relations between the European Union and Turkey, which we have experienced for many years, from the beginning and throughout, is due to the political problem which we call Turkey.
Thus, 9-10 months ago, Helsinki set a procedure in motion, essentially with an eye to resolving the problem which we call Turkey.
In this sense, and because Commissioner Verheugen, the Commissioner responsible for enlargement, is here with us, and given that there is a whole atmosphere surrounding the text which will shape the partnership between the European Union and Turkey, a text which we shall receive at a later date, I am certain that he will advocate incorporating everything included in the Helsinki resolutions on human rights, on Cyprus, on the Aegean and on crises in the text of the Treaty rather than in the preamble.
Take a look at Turkey.
It is a law unto itself.
It radiates crisis on every side.
Those of us who live in the region are sick and tired of crises.
It is because of its political system that Turkey radiates these crises.
We recently heard statements by Turkish-Cypriots in Cyprus, who have at last come forward and condemned Turkey as an occupying force.
Only yesterday on the BBC I heard the head of a party of Turkish-Cypriots - Turkish-Cypriots, not settlers - half of whom have remained in Cyprus, appealing to the Turks to let them join the European Union. Turkey wanted to join and he felt that it should let them join earlier.
In this sense, given that these relations gamble with the political face of Europe and with Europe' s prospects and principles, I am certain that Commissioner Verheugen will want to assure us that the Commission, as the guardian of these principles, intends to base the integration process for Turkey firmly on these principles.
And I think that the main issue is precisely this process and this road.
Because I do not think, Mr Verheugen, that we can all agree to vote for parliaments, to vote for governments, on the one hand, and yet still have military rule dictating political terms on behalf of us all on the other.
From this viewpoint, the Morillon proposal is an encouraging prospect.
We, as Greeks, want Turkey in the European Union, we want a democratic Turkey, because a democratic Turkey will be the beginning of the end of crises in the region as a whole, crises which we have lived with for many, many years and from which none of us has profited.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Morillon, most sincerely for his most thorough report.
I am glad that we have been able to achieve far-reaching agreement.
I am also pleased that Parliament has responded very quickly to the common position unanimously adopted in the Council.
Above all, I am glad that Parliament is able to accept far and away the greater part of this position, as proposed by the Commission.
The report now proposes adding three points to the draft regulation.
I am able to tell you that the Commission shares Parliament' s view on these points. The Commission will therefore examine the relevant amendments proposed by the European Parliament, inform the Council as soon as possible of its position and ask it to conclude the legislative procedure.
A special importance attaches to this draft regulation for it constitutes the last of the three pillars of financial aid for Turkey, the others being the measures in favour of Turkey in the framework of the MEDA programme and the regulation issued by the Council in April.
All these financial resources are designed to support implementation of the pre-accession strategy. The purpose of the strategy is to equip Turkey for entering into negotiations.
That will only come about when basic political, economic and social reforms have been implemented.
Improvements in relations between the Union and Turkey following the European Council, meeting in Helsinki, have enabled us to speak openly and frankly with each other on all issues.
The strengthened political dialogue at all levels characteristic of the climate following Helsinki has made a decisive contribution to this state of affairs.
I also have to say that open and frank discussions which sometimes address painful themes and touch upon sensitive issues are indispensable if we want to travel all the way down the path which lies before us.
I should like to take the opportunity to re-emphasise that we await a firm commitment on the part of Turkey to continuing with the process of reform that has been begun.
A few weeks ago, Turkey signed both UN conventions on civil and political rights and on economic and social rights.
I believe that this is of a piece with the decision we made last year and may be regarded as a successful outcome.
I welcome Turkey' s signature of these documents as an important step in the right direction. However, I should also like to emphasise that it is now a question of both conventions quickly being ratified by the Turkish Parliament and of the commitments contained in these also being put into practice.
On my last visit to Turkey in July, I was informed in detail of an inter-ministerial commission' s report, then before the government, on the reforms needed if the Copenhagen criteria are to be fulfilled.
The report contains a host of proposed reforms for improving the human rights situation.
However, it is now a question of the Turkish Government' s putting the proposed reforms into effect within the framework of a consistent legislative programme.
I also expressly insisted upon this in the course of the discussions in Turkey.
As you know, the European Council, meeting in Helsinki, has confirmed that it is essential for Turkey firstly to comply with the political accession criteria if its relations with the European Union are to become any closer.
This will also be the theme in preparing the Accession Partnership which the Commission is to submit in the autumn of this year on the instructions of the Council.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Community audiovisual policy in the digital age
The next item is the report (A5-0209/2000) by Mr Veltroni, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - Principles and guidelines for the Community's audiovisual policy in the digital age [COM(1999)657 - C5-0144/2000 - 2000/2087(COS)]
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the document on the Community's audiovisual policy in the digital age, presented by the Commission, is important because this technological innovation has, to a certain extent, a direct bearing on our cultural future and therefore on sensitive issues such as pluralism and the quality of democracy in our continent.
The digital age and convergence of media will change everything: our way of gaining knowledge, communicating, working, producing and understanding.
There are risks - as there always are when innovation bursts forth - but the transition to digital technology will bring with it huge opportunities for pluralism and massive production possibilities for the system.
It is no coincidence that the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, proposed a few days ago to put digital television frequencies up for auction in order to speed up the process, revolutionising the prospects of the conventional management of the electromagnetic spectrum.
And it is also no coincidence that Mr Blair also proposed free distribution of set top boxes, perceiving that this would benefit both the economy and the information and cultural pluralism of his country.
Changes in technology bring changing perspectives and therefore changes in legal approaches as well.
The Community therefore has to keep up with progress and endeavour to ensure that digital technology fulfils its potential as an opportunity for culture, pluralism, cultural and linguistic diversity and for the European economy and technical innovation and research in Europe.
We consider that the instruments which have already been defined in the Commission's text will make it possible to achieve these goals.
However, the debate generated in Parliament, which has looked at different points of view and has pulled out all the stops, as did the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, in order to find a common point of agreement with the result that the report was adopted unanimously, proposes a limited number of nevertheless important supplements.
Firstly: the need for a rapid revision of the legal instruments governing the sector, in particular the "Television without Frontiers" Directive which has been in need of revision for a long time.
Secondly: in order to avert the risk of dependency of our cultural industry in the event of expansion, of growth of the number of channels, we would like to introduce the possibility of production investment in the audiovisual sector.
It is vital for the media to be financed but I feel that, following the example of certain countries, we should also provide for the television broadcasting companies themselves to set aside funds, dedicating a proportion of their revenue to the production of European programmes. I consider that this is a useful, important action for it both supports the industry and acts as an incentive for it.
Thirdly, monitoring the concentration of media ownership, in the future maybe on the basis of specific regulations at European level safeguarding pluralism, taking up once again the idea of a media directive and a body which would monitor at European level the application of the rules in this sensitive sector; in addition, a policy which, in the age of convergence, would also safeguard a universal service with regard to access to content, which is taken to mean non-discrimination and affordable access to services.
As the importance of the role of the public broadcasting service in the digital system is recognised, the service will, of course, have to be reviewed and revamped in the light of changes in technology, but it will also have to perform the function of guaranteeing the quality of services to a large public, which will continue for a long time to use its common or garden television sets and wireless reception on a daily basis; therefore, strategic recognition of the role of land-based digital television, whose growth can only be considered to be an opportunity here as well.
Finally, the report proposes a supplement to ensure that particular attention is paid to safeguarding cultural diversity, international negotiations and the need to consolidate the European audiovisual industry to make it competitive on the global market.
This is therefore the spirit of the report and its attempt to operate within the bounds proposed by the Commission's report.
The TDI Group has tabled amendments characterised by a different vision, a different legitimate cultural and political inspiration.
My opinion is that, if these amendments were to be adopted, the report would then be devoid of those characteristics which prompted agreement in the Committee, the very characteristics which are our basis for considering that the report could be a positive supplement to the Commission's report.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Tajani, as a member of the same delegation and the same committee, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate the Commission on the complicated content of its initiative, but we must not let go of the importance of regulating the audiovisual policy in the age of high technology in which we live and which will become more and more important for our lives in the near future.
Due to the complexity of the material and the short time available to me, I will restrict myself to a few recapitulatory statements which I consider essential and which I hope the Commission will take into due consideration.
The free movement of information and freedom of expression serve now to safeguard rights and freedoms and will always do so.
The citizens' confidence in the audiovisual service must be won through compliance with the principles of the protection of human dignity and of minors.
The area in question, which is constantly developing, is in need of detailed rules, but they must not be too rigid or they will rapidly become obsolete.
Technology and content cannot be governed by the same legislation: technology must be neutral and content must be regulated.
The system of funding must comply with the principles of proportionality and transparency and must not influence the market or competition.
Where a commercial activity is associated with a public service, the keeping of separate accounts will make the compensation for the service rendered transparent, making it possible to prevent any disguised State aid and to allow private firms to provide the public service as well.
No national restriction must be placed on transposition, in order to achieve genuine European harmonisation, both now and in the event of future growth.
Including self-regulation codes in the legislative framework will ensure transparency, responsibility and the equal status of public and commercial operators.
Clearly, in the context of new technologies, a situation where State subsidies to public service broadcasters are used for commercial ends must be avoided, as this would distort the principle of competitiveness with private companies instead of ensuring compliance with specific content obligations.
Lastly, we must guarantee multiplicity and pluralism of bids and provide all operators with the possibility of playing an innovative and leading role, thus liberalising access to public financing.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank Mr Veltroni.
As rapporteur, he has done some very good work, including work of a very cooperative nature, and I should like to thank him very much for that.
However, thanks are similarly due to the Commission which has provided an outstanding basis for the discussions between the Committee and Parliament.
The audiovisual sector basically faces the task of having to develop in two main fields.
Firstly, it is a means of generating future jobs. Secondly, however, it is also of great significance for securing cultural diversity and freedom of speech in Europe.
It is therefore important always to keep both perspectives in view.
I should like briefly to illustrate this by way of three examples.
Firstly, it is necessary to regulate content and methods of transmission differently and independently of each other.
We need a form of technology which can respond very quickly and very flexibly to the technological revolution.
I would just mention the buzz word 'Internet' at this point.
However, we not only wish to guarantee people universal access to all networks but also need to ensure that young people are protected and human dignity assured by means of legal regulations which, independently of the method of transmission, safeguard these values that are indispensable to us all.
Secondly, consider the level at which decisions are made.
Where the issue of technology is concerned, we need increasing cooperation among the Member States at European level.
When it comes to issues of content, however, we want to know that, in the first place, the Member States are willing and able to safeguard cultural pluralism and diversity of opinion.
Thirdly, television in Europe.
We have both commercial and public service broadcasting which both require clear statutory frameworks in order to be able to develop in competition.
We therefore say a clear yes to the protocol of the Treaty of Amsterdam on public service broadcasting and to the Member States' responsibility for commissioning and for securing finance.
We are also, however, saying just as clear a yes to the task of developing and promoting commercial television companies in Europe so that they can compete effectively worldwide.
That is the crucial precondition for safeguarding European cultural content, with the conditions of future technology in mind.
Thank you very much to Mr Veltroni for giving us such a valuable report.
It is a welcome clarification on where Parliament stands on digital and audiovisual sector issues for the forthcoming revision of TV without frontiers.
However, I want to confine my remarks this evening to public service broadcasting in the digital age because there are some very important public access issues that we need to address when defining the principles from the crossover in our current media to the development of digital broadcasting.
Defining the values and principles underlying public broadcasting gives us some difficulties anyway, as Member States, corporations, and broadcasters all have very different ideas of what public broadcasting constitutes.
However, this should not prevent us from defining it in the digital age, because these principles are very important to us all, and, as infrastructure has developed, so content is going to develop as well.
We are all being told that we are entering a knowledge-based society, and if that is the case, then knowledge in a sense becomes power that defines the powerless and the powerful, the information poor and the information rich.
Overcoming that divide, to my mind, should be one of the key points that we emphasise in this report.
There are a number of reasons why this is important to us from the perspective of European content.
First of all, if we are in a knowledge-based society, we need growth in knowledge-based and creative skills.
Secondly, we are a democratic society, and digital policy in the audiovisual sector can connect our local citizens to our citizens at the centres of power.
In terms of cultural richness and diversity, it is important both that we should have individual centres of cultural excellence and that we be bound as a European continent.
And, finally, we have to ensure that the switchover from analogue to digital is attractive to all of our citizens: that is the end which we should work to achieve.
Mr President, Commissioner, the airwaves are buzzing.
You cannot open a newspaper or put the radio or television on without being confronted by new developments in the IT or digitalisation sectors.
Things are happening fast, in fact they are happening at the speed of light, which is why my group is delighted with the communication from the Commission and with Mr Veltroni' s exhaustive report, which looks into every aspect of these new developments.
As the rapporteur rightly points out, the AV sector is an extremely important sector in terms of employment, but also in terms of freedom of expression, democracy and cultural diversity in Europe. But as far as the Liberal Group is concerned, that does not mean that Europe should set about regulating absolutely everything.
This would not be possible, and nor would it be desirable.
It is a self-aware sector and is perfectly capable of standing on its own two feet.
As the Liberals see it, for one thing this means that there is no need for yet another additional subsidy over and above Media Plus for the European film industry.
Complementary measures and cooperation with the business community, and fiscal measures, these are the key words of a more effective policy intended to increase the financial resources and to improve the marketing and distribution.
That is why we have requested split voting for Recital N. Nor are we in favour of quotas.
The TV operators must decide for themselves, on the basis of quality, what programmes they want to show.
It is not Europe' s business to regulate this, so no artificial protection.
The industry in Europe is more than capable of making interesting and quality productions that will attract viewers.
As I have already said, it is only the marketing and distribution that need to be improved.
On a final note: we attach a great deal of importance to the freedom of the user and therefore the same applies to parents. They have the right and the responsibility to decide for themselves what is suitable for their children.
So we do not need complex censorship and filtering systems in programmes.
It is often very doubtful as to where the boundary lies.
And we certainly do not want a legal framework, where the powers that be set the rules.
My group will vote accordingly.
Mr President, first and foremost, I must apologise on behalf of my colleague Mrs Echerer, who felt unwell and has gone to see the doctor.
So if I go over my allotted time slightly, I would like to pick up some of her speaking time.
Needless to say, I can only congratulate Mr Veltroni on his first-rate report, which, as someone has just said, has come at a good time.
In the past, as well as the present, Europe has taken a fairly progressive stance on the telecommunications front, when it comes to a European single market, and we are none the worse for that.
I believe it is high time for us to take a look at the content side of things, because, unfortunately, Europe is still lagging behind a little in this respect.
It is a marvellous idea to create a whole network that responds to the requirements of convergence, and which enables the public to receive information via a GSM, a computer or a television, but we must also be aware of what sort of information it is and, above all - and I am also thinking about what may be of positive value to our audiovisual industry - we must beware of being inundated by American products alone.
After all, the fact is that our European cinema, as I have said on other occasions, is light years behind, and we cannot allow this situation to continue indefinitely, particularly in the light of the history of European cinema.
I am not calling for quotas. I am calling for a European investment fund to be set up, which will enable the creative producers we have in Europe to at long last enter into real competition with America, in a manner which fully meets with the requirements of the free market.
No, this is not regulation, it would simply be a means of enabling creative producers to get down to work in Europe, and a way of avoiding seeing all the talent, intelligence and capital - for this is the new trend - disappearing over to Hollywood.
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner whether she does not think that the time has come to work on a new directive for the cinema.
Is it not time - since this is one of the distinguishing features of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, which I belong to, - for us all to sit down together one day and consider how we are going to rescue the European film industry?
And I repeat, this is not a petition for rules and regulations, this is taking a long, hard look at how films are made, for there is no mystery about it. Films cannot be made without a major injection of capital, and that is where we fall down in Europe.
I believe this presents a unique opportunity for the European Investment Bank.
Mr President, the Commission has set itself the short-term task of defining what a European audiovisual work is.
I am very interested by this definition, which naturally complements today's discussion.
The effect of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive has been that a large percentage of national works are still broadcast in each country, without managing to have these works circulated between countries.
The aim of defining European audiovisual works must therefore be to achieve the circulation of these works.
In this context, we agree that the cultural diversity that is advocated today is not a simple addition of the respective identities of each Member State, but the exchange and circulation of these identities.
However, the circulation of works, like the origin of their funding, will probably be insufficient to define the European audiovisual work.
The issue of the work' s content concerns us all.
What content can define a work, if it is not content founded on a pluralist approach to production? Partnerships are necessary for current and future audiovisual creation, but hegemonic strategies and monopolies are counter to creation itself.
There is nothing more dangerous than the current concentrations of operators who have both the broadcasting capacity as well as archives of material.
At a time of digital revolution and technological change, Mr Veltroni's excellent report clearly shows the economic and cultural need for a European audiovisual policy.
I would like to end by emphasising the essential points of this report.
What could protect diversity and pluralism better than a "universal service" ? What would ensure free access to information, entertainment and knowledge?
Public television is not a monopoly and should not be one. One of the goals of the public service, however, is the general interest, and for this reason it must be valued.
Public television channels are developing autonomously in each Member State, pursuant to Protocol 32 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, but they are agreed on taking on similar tasks, such as information, innovation, room for exchange and integration etc.
All that remains is to make their funding transparent, not so much to conform to rules on competition as to enable public service to really diversify its activities and enrich its services.
To put it plainly, not to die off in the digital age, but to perpetuate the accomplishment of its goals which should, it seems to me, constitute guidelines for the Community audiovisual policy.
Mr President, I would like to start by complimenting the rapporteur on managing to combine so many proposals in one report.
However, I would like to touch on a few points.
In the first place, I agree that there is a need for policy-makers and the law to be able, or rather to be as good as under obligation, to adapt to the speed of technological progress.
In the case of the audiovisual sector, clear and, most importantly, timely legal instruments will mean that the institutions are able to regulate these changes: to provide better protection for the public and for users, establish the necessary restrictions to protect minors, lay down new rules to protect copyright and set regulations in place before certain developments occur, such as the fact that electronic commerce will soon be taking place via the medium of television.
Moreover, we must not be intimidated but take pride in the entire audiovisual sector in the digital age as a great vehicle of freedom, information and movement of ideas.
We have a vast European heritage of culture and communications which must be fully exploited, and for this more funding will certainly be necessary, but this purpose could also be served by opportunities for discussion, such as the Forum proposed by the rapporteur: this would be an opportunity for discussion aimed at the creation of a future audiovisual policy which would take advantage of the infinite number of openings provided by the newest technology and use them to further progress towards the goal of producing increasingly high quality products.
Therefore, our objective is to achieve an interactive audiovisual policy where there is more participation in order to give expression to the countless individual characteristics and differences in which our great European identity is rich.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Veltroni, on behalf of the Italian radicals, I cannot support the positive view you have expressed of the report under discussion on the Communication from the Commission on the guidelines for the Community's audiovisual policy in the digital age.
I cannot support your view because the communication is a reproduction of the old European TV and cinema cliché: direct public intervention through State agencies, welfarism and disregard for the nature of the market, a cliché which is characterising the audiovisual sector more and more.
All this has been dredged up and 'modernised' to suit the new digital age of multimedia convergence and the extraordinary spread of the Internet.
The impression therefore persists that European audiovisual companies are incapable of growing or standing on their own two feet and that users are incapable of discerning from among the vast amount of multimedia products on offer which products are better and most suited to their needs, as if past welfarism and paternalism had not been responsible for the difficult situation in which the sector finds itself today.
Everybody - companies and users alike - would benefit from the freedom of choice provided by a bold opening of the market and State withdrawal.
Moving on to some specific points of the report under consideration.
The regulation refers to the separation of infrastructures and content, serving up for content the old regulations once again. But what does this mean?
Perhaps Mr Veltroni could enlighten us.
It may be, for example, that the intention is to extend the law governing the press, including related contracts and the need to be registered in the register of journalists and to be certified, to on-line publications. In my view, this would be a serious error.
Or to extend the current stifling TV regulations to all the other programmes which are broadcast via the Web. This would be a serious mistake, an illusion, for which the European companies and citizens would have to pay the price all over again.
The boom of the Internet was made possible by the State's inability to curb it with a mass of bans and regulations.
This was the right way for things to happen and it is right that they should remain that way.
With regard to intellectual property and copyright - another point covered by the report - I feel that it is pointless and damaging to the positive development of the Internet to strengthen the directive on copyright, as it is proposed to do.
Remember the Napster and the New Tell cases.
We consider that a critical revision of copyright ownership rights needs to be carried out in such a way as to facilitate and increase the transparency of the transmission of knowledge and products, and, on this point, the companies and the large corporations know that they will have to come to an agreement with the Web.
With regard to cinema, additional funding is requested for European cinema.
As Mr Veltroni is aware, there is a 50-year-old battle going on in Italy between the liberals, Sturzo and Ernesto Rossi, and those who want to continue with cinema subsidies.
We are of the opinion that the freedom of choice of the citizens to determine the success or failure of a film is also the best and most efficient way of ensuring the growth of the cinematographic sector.
We have tabled an amendment calling for a cost/benefit analysis of what has been done to date.
Lastly, on the subject of the privatisation of television, we call for a revision of the Amsterdam protocol which is referred to here as if it is set in stone.
The Financial Times has raised the issue of the privatisation of the jewel of European public television, the BBC.
Public television networks must be privatised or increasingly high licence fees will be imposed for new investments.
If we want to maintain a public service, the television broadcasting right must be auctioned off between all the operators: programmes will then be more efficient and there will be a saving for license payers.
I call upon you to consider the amendments we have tabled, which would change the intention of the report, following a system of aid incentives which has not worked in the past and will not work in the future either.
Mr President, I believe that the work carried out by the Commission and also by the rapporteur, Mr Veltroni, contains many important elements.
It is clear that a great effort has been made to introduce new issues and to take new steps in European audiovisual policy.
However, I believe that we still have a lot to do on certain points, both in the Commission and in Parliament.
We are very much lagging behind in relation to the huge changes taking place in the audiovisual sector, particularly as a result of digitalisation.
To fail to act would be like an ostrich burying its head in the sand.
I am sure that that is not what we want.
We all know that digitalisation began about five years ago and therefore this work on audiovisual policy is timely to say the least.
There are five points I would like to highlight because I believe that sooner or later they will have to be reviewed:
First is the definition of public service.
This is important if we want to have a public service in Europe in an environment which is truly competitive - and this can be seen from the audience for public services - and also for the good of the private audiovisual service.
There are still many issues to be resolved: one of them is the separation of the requirements established for each of these.
Secondly, it seems to me essential that there be a review of the "Television without Frontiers" Directive.
In this respect we are behaving like the aforementioned ostrich.
Thirdly, we must define in some way - and I believe that this document does not deal with this adequately - what is to happen with interactive TV services, what is to happen with the Internet on television.
The fourth point refers to the transfer from analogue TV to digital TV and its consequences for users in terms of the use and acquisition of new terminals.
Lastly, there is the implication of the laws on competition and mergers.
The audiovisual policy should tackle these points and also go into more depth in the field of competition.
Mr President, Mr Veltroni' s excellent report received firm support in Parliament' s Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, and the same seems to be happening here, too, in plenary.
The move into the digital age is a massive revolution for the media.
This technical development offers the consumer still greater opportunities for using audio-visual products, in terms of time, place, content and equipment. At the same time, it means a splintering of the media and more pressure on development and commercialism.
The audio-visual sector is of the utmost importance to competitiveness, employment, and culture, too, in Europe.
The Commission' s initiative in this is also very welcome, as is the clarification of roles in respect of the information society and the main areas of culture.
Amid this technological revolution it is vital to bear in mind the social and cultural importance of media communications.
It cannot be a matter of equipment or financial gain.
The importance of the equality of information must not be underrated.
For that reason, I wish to stress the importance of safeguarding public service broadcasting in the future as well.
In that connection we must honour the Additional Protocol of the Treaty of Amsterdam, according to which Member States decide how to organise public service finances.
We also have to make sure that people' s rights to receive information and cultural services in their own language are protected.
As a certain European historian said, a person' s native country in Europe in the future will be that person' s native language.
Television and film, as cross-border media, attract more interest than radio.
However, the importance of radio, particularly in minority language areas, should not be underestimated.
For radio to remain part of the digital age development it is important to establish a DAB standard for it.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about the "Television without Frontiers" Directive.
At the same time, we know that the transition to digital TV involves a risk of its being precisely TV with frontiers that we end up with. It will not be possible to watch the BBC in the Irish Republic.
It may no longer be possible to watch Swedish television as easily in Finland.
It has in the past been possible to watch television across national borders. It is difficult to buy digital cards for existing pay TV.
I appeal to the Commissioner to bear in mind the urgent request made unanimously by the groups in Parliament in conjunction with the reading of the technical directive on digital TV and really to examine this issue which has a very great deal to do with the fact that the copyright organisations have not agreed upon sensible conditions for selling TV rights.
I would therefore urge the Commissioner to bear this in mind.
At the same time, I want to support a good deal of what Mrs Iivari said about minority language areas.
Those of us who are interested in defining public service on a national basis must be watchful.
We must be careful that, for example, competitive aspects do not have the unfortunate effect of undermining our national right to define the kind of public service we want to provide. Not all languages are in fact equal in the EU in this respect.
Mr President, Commissioner, ever since they came into being, audiovisual means have been an important factor in ideological intervention.
Controlling them is of strategic importance in the digital age in order to mould consciences and a modus vivendi, because whoever controls them decides what information they should carry.
In the view of the Communist Party of Greece, they should be controlled by the public sector.
Not because we are labouring under the illusion that governments in a capitalist system will allow full and fundamental information, but because then we can have maximum possible social control.
The Commission, however, has relegated the public sector to the role of poor relation and market legislation to the role of basic regulator.
The purpose of this apparently anti-monopolistic policy is to create oligopolies, which will be equally unconducive to objective information but which will guarantee huge profits and more secure ideological orientation, with the flow of information controlled by a few European monopolies, to the detriment of any notion of freedom and democracy.
As far as we are concerned, the problem is not whether information will be controlled by American or European monopolies.
The real problem is that the people need to develop their resistance and enforce their right to fundamental information.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, digital technology is changing our lives, and this change is taking place whether we like it or not.
We have to make use of it and create the relevant statutory framework.
I should like to add to what the previous speakers have said by expanding briefly upon a few points.
The Lisbon Seminar on Digital Television, held under the Portuguese Presidency of the Council, unfortunately came up with little apart from an incomplete overview of the subject.
That is why I am calling for a Digital Europe initiative with clear plans for the harmonised introduction of digital television and the digitalisation of content.
Merely setting deadlines according to a motto to the effect that the whole of Europe is to go digital by 2010 is not enough.
Secondly, the industry should be given a fair chance to regulate itself along the lines of the code of conduct for added value telecommunications services in Austria.
Not everything needs to be over-regulated by the legislator.
Thirdly, audiovisual policy concerns infrastructure and content.
We know that, where the latter is concerned, we have fallen far behind the United States, despite quota rules.
Only those who provide exciting content for a large number of viewers are taken notice of.
We must therefore do everything to support European content suppliers and to make their work easier instead of more difficult.
Fourthly, the approach according to which content and infrastructure are closely regulated should be maintained.
In my own country, the blueprint for the media authority KOMMAUSTRIA presents an exemplary way of doing this in line with the eight draft EU directives we have on the information society.
We need to keep pace and ought not to lose any more time.
Mr President, the document presented by the Commission in relation to its policy in the audiovisual sector in the digital era includes, amongst other things, two ideas which I consider to be fundamental.
Firstly, we must safeguard the future of the dual system of public and private television, and it is essential that European public operators can make full use of the possibilities offered by the new information technologies.
Secondly, cultural and linguistic diversity is a fundamental objective of Community policy in the audiovisual sector.
To this end, I wish to propose that the Commission, in its action and aid, prioritise positive discrimination in favour of the audiovisual sectors of the regional and minority cultures and languages of the European Union.
A good way of favouring diversity is to give particular support to the weaker elements.
Similarly, I propose that Community legislation and the decisions of the Commission itself favour the idea that broadcasts of all mass events - ceremonies, shows, sport, etc. should be considered to be of general interest and can therefore be followed in all the languages of the European Union, including regional languages.
That is the only way we can make Europe into a true union of diversities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a glance at German cable television, where some 30 channels are now already jostling for attention, is enough to show that multiplicity is not the same thing as diversity.
In competition with commercial suppliers, there is easily a danger of succumbing to demands for mass appeal and neglecting less lucrative areas of interest.
That is why it is so important for audiovisual strategy to be linked to protection of the pluralism and diversity of opinion which are now the crucial bases for democratic opinion-forming, as well as for public service media to be guaranteed an equal opportunity to develop in the media market of the future.
There must be non-discriminatory access to this future market for all citizens, and there must also be non-discriminatory access for suppliers of all types of content.
Specifically, this means market transparency and preventing developments whereby economic power turns into the concentration of media ownership and finally into the abuse of political power.
These key considerations define the most important premisses for the further development of statutory frameworks.
Mr Veltroni's report makes important proposals in this area.
However, not everything can be regulated by law.
I should therefore like to address a matter which has still not been mentioned in this House, namely the acquisition of media-related skills.
You have to get to know your way around what the multimedia world has to offer in order to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff, select what is of value and hone your judgement.
The transfer of media-related skills must become a component of the Community' s audiovisual strategy.
To that extent, the Commission' s communication still does not go far enough.
Mr President, as Chairman of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, I would also like to personally acknowledge the extremely valuable work carried out by Mr Veltroni.
I am pleasantly surprised that such a major, essential measure has been able to obtain the unanimous consensus of the Committee, for I honestly did not think that it would have been possible.
Digitalisation will enable citizens to access a substantial quantity of new, innovative content and this is why I can only fully support Mr Veltroni's consideration that all this has implications for democracy, the organisation of Europe and the States and the quality of the communications that we provide for our citizens.
This is why I consider that the period of transition from the analogue to the digital system must be our opportunity to entice the user to sample a series of new programmes on offer, not just a mere duplication of the programmes currently available on unencrypted line-aside channels.
Mr O'Toole is right in saying that simulcasts would not make it possible to attract a group of substantial users and he therefore believes that a trial period for new audiovisual products on channels made available through digital transmission, possibly only over sections of territory, will enable operators and users to achieve the same objective.
The Commission is right to say that the system of funding adopted by the Member States must comply with the principle of proportionality and must not influence market conditions and competition in the Community in a way contrary to the interests of society.
In the audiovisual policy, the two fundamental criteria to be applied when drawing up provisions for funding are proportionality and transparency.
Transparency implies that the Member States should define a clear public service mission, that financial transparency should be guaranteed and that, if public service operators carry on purely commercial activities, separate accounts should be kept.
I consider that this separation has prompted the Commission to produce the best policy currently possible for the States and Europe, a policy worthy of the changing technologies and which will lead to the switchover of the entire system.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Socio-economic background of Erasmus students
The next item is the report (A5-0199/2000) by Mr Heaton-Harris, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the report from the Commission: "Survey into the socio-economic background of Erasmus students" [COM(2000) 4 - C5-0146/2000 - 2000/2089(COS)].
Mr President, it is not often that a politician of my calibre gets to speak to such a packed and huge audience.
I should like to thank all the interpreters for staying behind.
I understand that my speech leaked out to the rest of the Members of Parliament beforehand, hence their disappearance in mass numbers.
Many of the interpreters, I am sure, would have liked to have studied on a Erasmus course when they were learning their languages and studying at university.
I, as a British Conservative, often find fault - and it is very easy to find fault - with many of the programmes organised and paid for by the European Commission and the European Union.
However I have a soft spot for Erasmus because it is very difficult to find fault with that particular programme.
It seems to achieve some of the results that it actually expects.
This survey is a fascinating one, carried out in 1998.
It was fascinating that so many students actually bothered to take part in filling out a form and sending it back to the Commission.
The one problem, I suppose, with the results of the survey was that they were reported after we had decided on the Socrates II programme and the Erasmus parts of it.
We could have drawn some very useful information from this survey on the socio-economic circumstances of students on Erasmus courses at that time.
There are a number of interesting facts and figures.
I could bore you with them but they are all contained within the explanatory statement of the report and in the Commission report itself.
But there are a few that I have a great deal of interest in.
Certainly of the people who took an Erasmus course in 1998 and bothered to reply to the questionnaire 98% found that the programme was extremely positive or at least very positive.
Ninety-one percent were over the moon with what had happened to them on the course.
It is a shame that 57% of them experienced financial hardship as a result of their particular Erasmus course.
One wonders whether, when only half the money is being spent on the Erasmus places being taken up, (half are left open at the end of each year) the money could not be better redistributed within Erasmus itself.
When I initially tabled my report I put forward a few controversial ideas just to see if anybody bothered to read what was going on.
Fortunately two or three Members (and the Commission as well) did read them.
A number noticed little points that I had to then retract.
But one which is still there in point 4 of my report, which I would like to underline, is the part that condemns any internal discrimination practised in Member States.
If you had trouble getting on a higher education course in Austria for example, because you were of a certain race, this place would have been in a complete uproar.
But that is exactly what is going on in my own country at the moment, with English students who want to study in Scotland being penalised financially by the Scottish Executive.
So I really wanted to keep that in my report.
I sneaked it in there and it stayed pretty much hidden until now, and I would like to reveal it to the very few people who are in the Chamber tonight.
I look forward to my new Labour colleagues voting on this particular matter.
I believe it is slightly too late to ask for a split vote.
I have also tabled a couple of amendments.
One helps with a bit of punctuation, a bit of grammar on the particular passage in point 4, the second in point 6.
In the committee stage of this report part of a sentence was added which said: "considers that the survey's findings should be taken as an opportunity to review national higher educational policies".
I do not think it is in the remit of this report or this place or the Commission to ask for that.
So I have tabled an amendment which would delete that.
A third amendment which I have tabled has changed just one word in the English language version from "regrets" to "notes".
I really enjoyed working with the Commission and all the people that have helped me.
I would like to end by thanking those who helped me with this report, especially my researcher Nicky Smith, who waded through every single statistic.
We contacted every university and vice-chancellor in the UK and many across Europe to ask for their comments on this report.
I commend it to the House.
Mr President, Commissioner, I know it is very late and not a lot of people are here.
That should be no surprise to you, however.
It happens not only, thank heavens, where cultural and educational matters are concerned but also in many other areas.
I think, though, that, as you yourself have already said, quality speaks for itself.
You have briefly commented upon your report and your amendments yourself.
I am an Austrian and know from experience that, in Austria, there is very good access to all universities and courses of study.
I should also like to make it clear that we have no problem giving ethnic minorities access to these, either.
We certainly do not lag behind England, or Great Britain, in that area.
On the subject of the Erasmus programme, which is, after all, a part of the Socrates programme, I should like to say that - given the need not only to set up the programme but also to evaluate it - it is quite important to examine the efficiency of what is being offered and to carry out an assessment of the resources, if new knowledge is to be obtained and, above all, the defects in the programme removed.
It has already been said that new knowledge of this kind will unfortunately not have any impact upon the Socrates II programme.
I think we could have done to update things in this area, since 40% of the Socrates budget is, after all, being allocated to the Erasmus programme and, in that way, to students at European universities.
It was, and remains, the goal to make it possible for 10% of students to spend a part of their degree courses in other Member States.
Unfortunately, a figure of only 1% was achieved in the first year.
The participation rate has risen and is now just under 50% of the figure aimed at.
The report has shown that the reasons for this are both structural and cultural, as well as economic to quite a significant degree.
So far, there has been no success in complying with what is also laid down in the Socrates programme and giving a special boost to groups that are weak in socio-economic terms.
On the contrary, the programme is instead used by students whose parents have both a high level of education and a corresponding level of income.
Fifty-seven percent of Erasmus students had considerable difficulties financing their stay abroad.
I think there needs to be coordination between the Erasmus scholarships and the countries and the universities concerned. In that way, reform can be implemented and an information campaign launched in order to question, and shed some light upon, why so few people are able to participate in this programme.
Above all, it is a question of preserving equality of opportunity in all countries.
That is why it is worth showing some commitment.
I think that making equal opportunities available to young people is quite important for us all.
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur on this, his first report, which succeeded straightaway in achieving unanimity.
I feel this is a very promising beginning, although undoubtedly the subject lends itself to unanimity; indeed, I do not think that, amongst the impressive number of European programmes available to our citizens, there is a report that is as well-known and as much appreciated by the public, and not just by the students; recently, a grandmother stopped me in the street to thank me for what I was doing for her grandchildren, who were travelling abroad thanks to an Erasmus grant.
So, you see, these programmes also achieve the unanimity of the whole population and naturally, they can always be improved.
This year, 110 000 students are receiving the special attention that we give to all aspects of their Erasmus trip and to the smooth running of this section of the Socrates programme, and we thank Parliament for supporting this measure.
Admittedly, there are problems.
It is often said that only the children of fairly comfortably off families can travel as the others cannot live on this modest grant.
If we consult our statistics, however, 4 out of 5 Erasmus students were the first members of their family to study abroad, which does illustrate the role that this programme plays in the opportunities for mobility available in Europe to students of new social backgrounds.
Therefore, it is untrue that only children from privileged backgrounds can benefit from Erasmus grants.
Furthermore, even if the latter have more to live on because they receive additional help from their parents on top of their grant, in other respects it seems that these financial difficulties are the only criticism made.
Ladies and gentlemen, like you, I would have liked the amount of the loans allocated in the negotiations with the Council over the budgetary appropriations for the Socrates programme to be set at a higher level than they were since I am limited in my ability to increase Erasmus grants as much as I would like.
What conclusions can we draw from this? Well, quite simply, the national bodies with decentralised responsibility for student mobility have to take the national situation into consideration and adapt the grant policy accordingly.
I have asked the Ministers for Education, each in their own country, to take the necessary steps to grant supplements and advantages for Erasmus students in order to offer those who are not fortunate enough to have a benevolent father or generous grandmother the chance to travel too.
I also urge each one of you to contact the Minister for Education in your country so that he will do all he can to remedy this financial problem.
I have asked the ministers to make sure that a larger grant is given to the poorest students.
I have asked the regional authorities to make an effort to assist their students and I have asked university rectors to provide for financial resources within their universities to enable students on lower incomes to still benefit from grants, if they want to and if they are eligible.
I think that in future, I will once again have to request the help of all the national and regional authorities in this area. Furthermore, I shall consider this question in a moment as the French presidency wishes to develop a real action plan to foster mobility and together with the minister, Mr Jacques Lang, I have just set a specific meeting of the Ministers for Education on the theme of mobility.
On this occasion, we will not only talk about what we would like to do and what we should do in future, but we will cite examples taken from certain countries as models, but not necessarily at national level.
I will give you an example at random.
In one region of Germany, a regional Minister for Education has created a 'mobility' savings scheme in conjunction with banks and building societies so that parents, friends and families, instead of buying vast numbers of toys for children, invest in this scheme which will be available to the child when he is old enough to study abroad.
As you can see, there are good ideas, all sorts of good ideas.
I hope that the discussion on 'mobility' that the French presidency wanted will get this situation moving and that goodwill will be sought both at a private level and at regional, European and national levels so that the great success of Erasmus will encompass a growing number of students.
This is the price to pay for creating Europe, since students who have got to know another country within the framework of Erasmus, who have made friends in another country, at another university, are the true Europeans who will make European policy tomorrow.
A greater number of happy Erasmus students is in the interests of our society as a whole.
So let us all work together so that there will be a large number of them in future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Fisheries agreements
The next item is the joint discussion of the following reports:
by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (A5-0194/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation relating to the conclusion of the Protocol establishing the fishing possibilities and the financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Government of the Republic of Guinea on fishing off the Guinean coast for the period 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2001.
[COM(2000) 304 - C5-0315/2000 - 2000/0154(CNS)]
by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (A5-0188/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation relating to the conclusion of the Protocol defining, for the period 3 December 1999 to 2 December 2002, the fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for by the Agreement between the European Community and the Government of Mauritius on fishing in the waters of Mauritius [COM(2000) 229 - C5-0253/2000 - 2000/0094(CNS)]
Mr President, today we are discussing two new international fishing protocols between the European Union and third countries: Guinea and Mauritius, the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean.
These two agreements are different in terms of geographical location, dimension, fishing allowances and financial compensation. However, at the end of the day, they are two important agreements which will add to the already significant network of international fisheries agreements between the European Union and third countries, the basic pillar of the common fisheries policy, since it is essential to cover our supply requirements, both for the European consumer and for our industry, and it is also essential to do so by means of our own fleet.
The fisheries agreements with third countries therefore fulfil a crucial objective of the common fisheries policy, and they also contribute to employment and, in most cases, in European regions which are very dependent on this activity.
They therefore create commercial balance, employment and preserve the competitiveness of Europe' s own significant fishing fleet.
In its opinion on the 2001 budget, our committee has this afternoon approved the draft which our Vice-Chairman, Mrs Miguélez, had presented us, to increase budget line B7-8000 (International fisheries agreements) by EUR 7 million, thereby re-establishing the amounts in the preliminary draft budget presented at the time by the European Commission.
Morocco, Mauritania and Greenland are great negotiating challenges for the European Commission and we all hope that these negotiations will soon conclude successfully.
For the moment, we are happy today with the agreements with Guinea and Mauritius, which will cover important needs of different fleets, of different States of the European Union, in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Notable in both cases is the constant and worrying increase in the payments by shipowners while, curiously, these are not included in other agreements, as is notoriously the case with the agreement with Greenland.
For example, in the case of Mauritius, there is an increase in the amount that shipowners are to pay for licences, of EUR 5 per tonne of fish, that is to say, they are increased from EUR 20 to EUR 25, and there is also an equivalent increase in the case of catches by ship.
The European Union' s contribution is reduced by 29%, payable by shipowners which, in the case of complete exploitation of the fishing allowances, would mean a contribution of 23.5% of the total cost.
In the previous protocol it was 7%, that is to say, there would be an increase from 7% to 23.5% of the total cost payable by shipowners.
In this context we also wish to highlight the imbalances in the internal distribution of these fishing allowances by the European Commission amongst the Member States, as was the case with cephalopods in the agreement with Guinea.
Both agreements give significant support to the local authorities for the conservation of their own fishing resources and furthermore advocate agreements between states as opposed to private agreements - which is very important in agreements such as the one with Morocco, which we are trying to negotiate - as well as the contribution of the European Union to the establishment of modern control systems, which forms part of the conservationist position of the European Union in all of the world' s seas, in accordance with its internal approach to its own Community waters.
On the other hand, there is an important direct relationship between the financial compensation and the objectives and cooperation actions that have been agreed.
In the case of the agreement with Mauritius, we are talking about 50%, as opposed to 30% in the previous agreement.
As is so often the case, there is a lack of documentation for comparing figures and data between the protocols, although in this case we should thank the European Commission for including the minutes of the negotiations, in the case of Guinea, which makes more data available and ultimately makes the process more transparent. This is welcome and the European Parliament is grateful for it.
The Committee on Fisheries has voted in favour of these agreements, and this has become the norm, since it considers that they are both highly beneficial to both parties, that is to say, the European Union and the third countries.
The Liberal Group has now presented Parliament with an amendment of similar content to each of the reports which would mean - in the view of the rapporteur - that the common fisheries policy would cease to be common and would mean a departure from an important pillar of external policy. It would mean that only the direct beneficiaries of the agreement negotiated by the European Commission would pay for it, on behalf of the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
The rapporteur is against this amendment, since, if only those who benefit directly from Community policies are to pay for them, that would quite simply be a way of breaking up the single market and dismantling the European Union itself.
We are therefore in favour of both fisheries agreements, which we hope may continue in the future, and we are anxious, Commissioner, to be able soon to hold a debate in our Fisheries Committee, and to repeat what we are saying now, in relation to the extremely important fisheries agreement with Morocco.
Keep up the hard work - I can see from the conversation we had this afternoon that you are working hard - and I encourage you also to move forward with that important negotiation.
Mr President, Commissioner, in principle I approve the new protocols to the fisheries agreements with Mauritius and Guinea.
The Commission and the rapporteur have done some good work.
However, the effects of fisheries agreements upon the EU budget are not something to be sneezed at.
If we are to draw the correct conclusions, no more time must now be lost in involving Parliament, because trouble is brewing. Allow me to explain what I mean.
We are concerned here with mixed agreements.
It is not just a question of how many fish are to be obtained for how much money, but also about employing the precautionary principle to achieve the sustainable use of fisheries resources.
We want to help Mauritius and Guinea develop fisheries management, as well as offer financial support in the fields of education and research.
In Mauritius, for example, just under 50% of the total volume of available finance is to be used for these measures.
I myself consider it a good thing for us also to be promoting development measures in connection with fisheries.
Fisheries is the ideal field for such a combination.
Yet, in the Committee on Fisheries, we are repeatedly confronted by the issue of whether the price paid by the European Union to third countries for its fishing rights is not too high.
There is a danger of the European Union' s one day being ridiculed and taken advantage of internationally because of its generosity.
Moreover, to what extent are third countries now really all dependent upon EU funds? Bilateral agreements are increasingly coming into force because ship owners or others offer more money than the EU.
If the latter were to become a day-to-day occurrence regulated by the market itself, might not consideration have to be given to the question of whether the EU ought not progressively to withdraw from the current agreements and perhaps spend its subsidies in other ways?
Obviously, that would have to be compatible with the common European fisheries policy.
I welcome the agreements that are before the House.
Only, we ought not to be blind and, above all, not issue any blank cheques.
Mr President, the Socialist Group supports the proposal for a Council Regulation on the European Community fisheries agreements with Mauritius and the Republic of Guinea.
Both agreements fall within a general European Community policy based on our presence in the rest of the world.
The fishing sector forms part of the Community' s economy and, in order for the Community fleet to be able to fish and carry out its activity, the Community must reach agreements with third countries and international organisations, so that our fishermen can enjoy adequate fishing allowances.
Both agreements have been renewed regularly.
In the case of Guinea we have had an agreement since 1983 and in the case of Mauritius since 1989.
There can be no doubt about the cost-effectiveness of these agreements for the European Union, as demonstrated in the study commissioned by the Commission on their cost-benefit relationships.
Nor can we doubt the beneficial effects for the other contracting parties, in this case Mauritius and the Republic of Guinea.
Both countries gain valuable resources for their development in exchange for the fishing allowances which they grant to our fleet.
These are agreements which benefit both parties and which have been amended over time, being adapted to the demands of the sustainable exploitation of resources and of actions supporting the efforts of the authorities in the third countries to develop their own fishing sector.
The protocols that periodically renew the agreements have been adapted to the true situation, to the quantities of fish actually caught and the state of resources in those fishing grounds.
Despite reducing the quantity of catches in the agreement with Guinea, the economic compensation to be received by the African country will be maintained, since the new protocol increases the amount of the tariffs and the licences which must be paid by Community shipowners.
Therefore, the contrast with other agreements - I would like to highlight, for example, the agreement with Greenland, in which the shipowners do not contribute to its cost - is the all the more drastic.
In the case of Mauritius, it also reduces the volume of authorised catches and specifies the number of vessels authorised to fish.
The approval by the European Parliament of these two fisheries agreements sends a political message demonstrating our support for the signing and renewal of other fisheries agreements which are of much greater importance for our sector because of the number of ships and fishermen which depend on them.
I am referring in particular to the agreement with Morocco.
Seven hundred ships out of action is excessive, and 8 000 fishermen not working for 10 months are far too many, given that the contacts so far between the Commission and the Moroccan Government have offered little hope of success.
Everybody must do their duty and fulfil their obligations.
This institution has done so, with its Committee on Fisheries approving today, in a special meeting, the amounts proposed by the European Commission in the B7-800 line on fisheries agreements with third countries.
It now falls to the European Commission to negotiate hard in order to reach a reasonable agreement with Morocco.
We are still waiting for that to happen.
Mr President, may I first of all thank the Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, Mr Varela, for a particularly good piece of work on these reports.
In principle, those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party support the EU' s having fisheries agreements with third countries, but I should also like to point out that what we in the Liberal Group want - and this is why we have tabled a number of amendments - is for the fishermen or ship owners to make more of a contribution to financing the fisheries agreements.
It is, of course, only right that they should be involved in financing those agreements from which they themselves benefit more than anyone else.
The fisheries agreements are extremely important for certain regions in which, in addition to employment in the fisheries sector itself, there are a range of associated businesses wholly or partially dependent upon the fishing industry.
By means of the fisheries agreements, the EU is able to develop its activities in this sphere and exchange fishing rights with third countries.
The effect of the EU fleets upon fishing resources - in terms of structural policy and the financial situation - ought to be analysed much more than it is at present.
I want to conclude by asking the Commission to provide the Committee on Fisheries with a report on what for third countries are the positive and negative consequences of the EU' s fisheries agreements.
Mr President, last October I spoke here against the EU-Angola fisheries agreement.
My reason for doing so was simple.
All the evidence shows that agreements between the EU and third world countries have been conservation disasters.
They also seriously damage the indigenous populations.
This time we have proposals for agreements with Guinea and Mauritius, which will have similar effects.
In a way, that much is recognised in the current proposals.
More stringent checks are being called for.
Inspection vessels are to be provided, and greater note taken of the needs of local fishermen.
But that is not enough.
There is no guarantee that these agreements will be properly policed.
Policing of fishing effort in European waters is woefully inadequate, and it is therefore hard to believe that things will be any different in foreign climes.
In addition, British fishermen from the south-west of England to the north of Scotland are continuing to suffer greatly because of the common fisheries policy.
Fishermen are discarding thousands of tonnes of saleable fish and going bankrupt in the process, yet while this economic and conservation disaster is in progress, the EU is proposing to spend over EUR 7 million to give Greek, Spanish and Italian fishermen access to the waters.
By any standards, this is preposterous.
Not only will I vote against these proposals, but I shall urge my government to oppose them.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission' s two proposals on these two fisheries agreements, particularly the agreement with Guinea.
I should like to begin by highlighting and expressing my support for the innovations introduced by the current agreement, which dedicate 50% of the European Union' s total support to specific actions aimed at the sustainable development of the sector.
Amongst other new aspects of this agreement, I also wish to highlight the innovation of providing an additional premium of EUR 370 million in the event that the Republic of Guinea implements a range of actions designed to reduce its overall fishing effort.
As Guinea is a country with an annual available production of 250 000 tonnes of fish, and since its small-scale fishing fleet only has the capacity to catch 50 000 tonnes, this is clearly an agreement of mutual convenience, which avoids any conflict of interest and which also enables Guinea to obtain exceptional financing to develop its fisheries sector.
We see from this that, apart from the importance of fisheries agreements for the European Union, they can also be used as instruments for development in these countries.
As a Portuguese citizen, I am bound to regret the fact in this context that the Commission and the Council are so far behind in their negotiations on the agreement with Morocco.
I am also unhappy at the difficulties being raised over other Member States having access to fisheries belonging to Greenland, the agreement with whom has hardly been used, and which is shortly due for renewal.
It is nevertheless important that the requirements of supervision and control, as well as the programmes designed to control the reduction of the fishing effort are also imposed on the other countries that fish in the waters of these developing countries and not only on the Member States of the European Union.
I therefore ask the European Union, during its negotiations, to make an extra effort to ensure that this rule is applied to everyone and not just to us.
Mr President, sadly, all too often in the past, the reorganisation of the European fishing fleet has led to these ships being transferred to the African coast.
They was no limit on the extent to which they could be used there, which posed a serious threat, not just to the fish stocks but also to the livelihoods and the food supply of the people in the local area.
Accordingly, when we draw up these fisheries agreements, we should not just take account of the interests of the European fishermen, we must also bear in mind the interests of the local population.
The agreement with Mauritius concerns the tuna fish catch, but the situation is far more complex for Guinea.
European ships fish there for fish species that are used by the local fishermen.
It is encouraging to see that in both agreements 50% of the financial contribution will be allocated to developing the local fishing industry.
Control over how this money is spent is certainly prerequisite to the future extension of the Protocol.
Private contracts between European shipowners and the Guinean Government are often concluded without this form of assistance from the local fishing industry, and contribute to over-fishing due to a lack of controls.
A very worrying recent development is that small French trawlers are concluding contracts outside the fisheries agreement.
These trawlers will fish in the coastal zone, where they are a direct threat to local fishermen.
All Member State ships should respect an economic twelve-mile exclusion zone.
In addition, I feel it goes without saying that shipowners should contribute more to the costs of the fisheries agreements and that the tax payer should not be the one to subsidise this exploitation of fishing grounds.
Mr President, first of all I would like to compliment the Commission, and also our rapporteur, on the agreement reached.
The agreement takes more account of the developing countries themselves, in this case Guinea and Mauritius, than was formerly the case.
That is something in its favour and what it in fact means is that these agreements should actually fall to be considered under the codecision procedure with Parliament. Perhaps this will take place next year though, after the IGC.
I am critical of a number of other points.
I believe it is a sound agreement.
Clearly this agreement is extremely important to the countries of the south; after all, the southern fisheries agreements are directly responsible for 13 000 jobs in Spain and Portugal, among others.
The turnover is no mean feat either, amounting as it does to around EUR 485 million, in comparison with which, an agreement with Greenland, for example, pales into insignificance.
This means that the sums set aside for this purpose will also mainly be spent in these countries.
There is something to be said for this alone.
Historically, these countries had their agreements, but it would be a positive move if the business community itself were to make more of a contribution to this kind of agreement.
I mention this because a balance must be struck between developing countries and countries with a large fishing industry, but it is also necessary to strike a balance in the way funds are spent across the various fishing zones.
That being the case, I would point out that certain countries in the north, of which my own country is one, have great difficulty with the cutbacks they are experiencing in the multiannual orientation programme.
The honourable member from Great Britain has already described the problems the fishing sector is having to contend with there.
This simply means that when it comes to the fisheries policy, we must look with a critical eye at this agreement in order to ascertain where the interests lie and how the money is being spent.
It is quite clear that regional elements are going to play a more prominent role.
Let there be no mistake, I think this agreement is indispensable to Spanish and South European fishermen - that is the first point - but I think it is also essential for a regional policy to allow for restructuring of the fishing industry in the northern coastal areas, to offer scope for sound agreements with northern countries, and for it to be properly tailored to specific regional needs.
Mr President, it seems that the Commission is happy to ignore the requests of the Council and this Parliament - the former clearly expressed at the Council of Ministers of October 1997 - and delay the work on the guidelines for the negotiation of the fisheries agreements.
The protocol with Guinea-Conakry is a good example.
We expected the payment quota for shipowners to be increased, but it is intolerable that, in the Council working groups, the Commission is prepared to describe that increase as light, given that it means an ever-greater sacrifice for the fleet and that - I repeat - in the agreements with the northern countries, shipowners do not pay a penny.
Furthermore, the Commission has been prepared to ignore the principle of relative stability by casually removing from the Community fleet fishing rights that have been acquired in accordance with that principle.
The principle of relative stability is either sacred or it is not, and it cannot be untouchable in Community waters when the complete opposite is the case in the fisheries agreements with the southern countries.
The Commission says that it has taken away Spain' s allowances for fishing cephalopods because it did not fully utilise them during the last protocol, and it grants them to countries which had never fished there. That is all very well.
I have always argued for the total exploitation of the fishing rights granted, but in all waters, not just in relation to the agreements with the southern countries.
In the agreements with the northern countries they are completely under-exploited and there is no way that the fleets with the greatest interest in fishing there can do so.
Why do these differences exist? Could you please explain this once and for all.
Furthermore, what makes the Commission think that, because it did not utilise the fishing allowances during the previous protocol, it will not do so during this one, given that its cephalopod-fishing fleet which was fishing in Morocco has been out of action for nine months and there is no solution in sight? Mr President, all of this illustrates the mental and physical chaos of our Community fishing authorities, and it will only be resolved when the guidelines which I referred to earlier are established in a clear and agreed way.
Can I first of all welcome the report and congratulate the rapporteur for his work in bringing forward this report?
There is little doubt that fisheries agreements are coming under much closer scrutiny to determine what they achieve and what they deliver, not only for people in the European Union, but also for the countries with which they were concluded in the first place.
The rapporteur rightly mentioned the agreement with Morocco several times.
This agreement is causing tremendous concern to the people most directly affected and those who might benefit to some extent and has certainly prompted great disquiet in the Fisheries Committee.
I want to ask the Commissioner very straightforwardly and point-blank whether the Commission, and Parliament, and the European Union are being held to ransom by Morocco because of its unwillingness to agree.
Perhaps he could give an answer when he comments on the debate later on.
We cannot overlook the concern about fisheries agreements.
They are expensive and the amount of money involved is substantial.
The money has to be taken into account to a greater extent in the future, and we cannot pretend otherwise.
Yes, in the past the agreements have been acceptable, but we need a new approach and a new vision in the future.
In the longer term the Commission will have to cooperate with Parliament, because Parliament is concerned to determine how agreements can best be achieved.
Looking at what we have before us, I have to say to you, Commissioner, that the present situation cannot continue.
Yes, I support the proposal submitted and I will support the proposal that emerges, but I wish to stress that the principle cannot continue for ever and support in the future cannot be taken for granted as it has been in the past.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to say a warm thank you to the rapporteur, Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, for the two reports he has submitted today when the new protocol for a fisheries agreement between the European Community and the Republics of Mauritius and Guinea is up for discussion.
Where the first agreement with Mauritius is concerned, I am glad to hear that you support the new technical features, as well as the further amendments to this protocol as these relate, for example, to the distribution of costs, to the increased finance available for scientific programmes, to monitoring and control and to subsequent financing.
The agreement with Mauritius is a typical tuna fish agreement, involving a small number of fishing opportunities for line fishermen, and forms an important component of the EC network of tuna fish agreements in the Indian Ocean.
This new protocol is the fourth since the Framework Agreement came into force in 1990.
The three-year extension to the protocol creates fishing opportunities for 83 tuna fishermen and, by means of this protocol, the October 1997 guidelines of the Fisheries Council are to be included in the agreement for the first time, namely an increase in specific measures for developing the fisheries sector and a new distribution of the costs between the Community and the ship owners.
Among the most important features of the protocol is the fact that, in view of the small quantities of fish caught during the three years that the last protocol was in force, the authorised tonnage has been reduced from 7 500 tonnes to 5 500 tonnes, which will also lead to a corresponding reduction - namely of 29% - in compensation payments.
I can also inform you that 50%, that is to say half, of compensation payments are intended for specific measures to develop the local fisheries sector.
Measures in the fields of science and technology, including plans for monitoring and control, are to be financed.
In this connection, I should like to emphasise that the conditions for monitoring such measures have been improved by the fact that the authorities on Mauritius now have to submit a detailed report each year and by the fact that the Commission is able to review payments in the light of whether the various measures have in practice been carried out.
Licence fees for ship owners have been considerably increased, from EUR 20 to EUR 25 per tonne.
All in all, the protocol has led to a comprehensive redistribution of the costs between the Community and the ship owners, since the latter now have to bear 23.5% of the total costs compared with a previous figure of only 7%.
That is in line with the Council' s 1997 decision in connection with the third country agreements, whereby costs are to be distributed in a balanced way.
There are also technical improvements when it comes to catch notifications, the deduction of fees due and the procedures for taking catches on board.
If I understand you correctly, you also welcome the technical features we have introduced into the agreement with Guinea, especially the fact that, by means of a special premium, more attention is being given to the development of marine resources.
Since 1983, we have also maintained a Framework Agreement with the Republic of Guinea.
This agreement too is important for the European Union because it specifies fishing opportunities for trawler and tuna fishermen.
Within the framework of the agreements with various neighbouring States, particularly Senegal, Mauritania and Morocco, it also offers a partial alternative for the fisheries industry during the close seasons. It also, to some degree, offers an alternative to Moroccan waters.
I am therefore pleased to be able to inform you that the protocol with the Republic of Guinea contains important innovations, aimed especially at promoting the precautionary principle and the sustainable use of resources.
I should like specifically to mention at this point that a premium is to be introduced for the purpose of supporting the Guinean authorities in improving fish stocks in Guinea' s exclusive economic zone.
This premium will only be paid if Guinea can prove that its overall fishing activities have been reduced and that the agreed measures aimed at more stringent monitoring and control have been applied.
The idea is that we want to support Guinea in promoting bilateral fisheries agreements with other States and in reducing the number of private arrangements which frequently undermine sustained fisheries management.
What is more, 46% of the total aid package is now to be spent on the financial counterpart for specific measures such as scientific and technical research and the monitoring and inspection of fishing activities, as well as on supporting technical training and further education in the sphere of fisheries and on supporting participation in the work of international organisations.
Finally, the protocol provides for close cooperation between both parties in administering the measures.
Monitoring is to be facilitated by means of a detailed financial report and by the Community' s ability to review payments in the light of whether or not the measures have in practice been carried out.
Where your amendments are concerned, I should like to make it clear that the Commission can in principle accept the first two of these.
The Commission has to reject Amendment No 3 because it contradicts the current theory on protocols to fisheries agreements and affects the Commission' s negotiating powers.
Since the protocol constitutes an annex to the Framework Agreement, it can be regularly renewed without the need for any new negotiating mandate.
It goes without saying however that, with its leading role in the negotiations, the Commission will see to it that the negotiating guidelines laid down by the Council are observed.
The Commission must also reject Amendment No 4 because it contravenes the spirit of the Council' s 1997 decision calling for a distribution of costs between ship owners and the Community.
Many thanks for your attention.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
We have exhausted the agenda and ourselves, I think.
Ladies and gentlemen, I bid you goodnight.
(The sitting was closed at 11.25 p.m.)
Annex - formal sitting
Mrs Fontaine, President of the European Parliament, Members of the European Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by expressing my great pleasure at the dialogue we have had this morning on the peace process and Europe' s great interest in the success of this process and in establishing a climate favourable to this peace. Let me also express my great pleasure at seeing a great number of European leaders who have distinguished themselves in working and in continuing to work in a serious way in order to find a solution to the problem of the Middle East.
It is my very great honour, as President of the Palestinian Legislative Council, to accept your invitations to this significant meeting with the elected representatives of the nations of the European Union. I am delighted to address you today alongside Mr Avraham Burg, President of the Knesset, the Israeli national parliament, to give you a frank, clear and open picture of our hopes and sorrows, our suffering and the difficulties we are encountering at this crucial stage of the Middle East peace process.
We were hoping, and we continue to hope, to be able to meet the first years of the twenty-first century having prepared our region for a new era, an age free from struggle and bloody warfare, free from violence or terrorism, and to establish, with your help, a place, which we would like to safeguard and develop, favourable to peace and coexistence between the nations of a region which for so long has suffered the torments of awful bloody conflict and the murderous language of arms. Your great experience will prove invaluable in this.
Madam President, with great respect, let me mention your important visit to Palestine and to the Legislative Council.
Let me mention your laudable efforts to support us and to support the building of democracy by the Legislative Council in our country, on the one hand, and your support for the peace process on the other, and the invitation to Mr Burg and myself to establish dialogue with you.
It is my pleasure to inform you that I have worked together with Mr Burg, making modest but sustained contributions towards consolidating the foundations of cooperation between our two parliaments and devoting every possible effort to consolidating the peace process and making a success of it. I am deeply convinced that problems, however great, must neither defeat the dreams and ambitions of our peoples nor destroy their hopes of living in peace and security.
We promise that we shall continue our endeavours, with the help of the popular backing we have and your own support.
Madam President, throughout successive historic periods, the land of Palestine has experienced marvellous forms of human coexistence and religious tolerance among various communities and religions.
It has also seen the meeting and fraternal coexistence of the three monotheistic religions expressed in religious freedom, respect for faiths and the practices of different forms of religion. Palestine is thus the home of the prophets of peace.
Within its borders we have seen the development of the messages of God to the whole human race: Islam, Christianity and Judaism.
The Holy Land, and the neighbouring regions, blessed by God, should be big enough to accommodate all the monotheistic regions and to be the land of love and peace.
However, despite the divine blessing, this land has undergone many conflicts throughout history. The twentieth century, which saw the tragedy of the Jewish people in Europe, has also borne witness to the tragedy of the Palestinian people in their own country, when the rest of the world started to look for a solution to Europe' s Jewish problem in the land of Palestine.
In 1947, the United Nations Organisation proposed a plan for the partition of Palestine into two States, with the Jewish State to cover the greater part of Palestine and an Arab State to have the smaller part.
The Jewish State was declared on 15 May 1948, and was immediately recognised by the countries of the West, led by the countries of Europe and the United States, who granted this State all the necessary support while the Palestinian people continued to endure every form of privation, emigration, the enforced displacement of persons, and the lack of their own country, their own identity or their own State.
This situation contributed greatly to paving the way for violence and war.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the conflicts and the wars in our region have wrought havoc, causing destruction, desolation and enormous losses in human and material terms.
Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, the region experienced many wars and confrontations which caused death and destruction everywhere, reducing the region' s economies to war economies, undermining development operations in many countries and causing scientific and cultural backwardness in others.
The Palestinian people were the most seriously affected of the entire region, and have paid the highest price, politically, economically and socially.
Following the major problems related to Israel' s isolation from its neighbours, the permanent state of alert related to the state of war in the region and the harsh suffering of the Palestinian people remaining on Palestinian territory or becoming refugees abroad or in the camps, it was essential to take the initiative of finding an alternative to war and bloody conflict. Peace therefore became the only option which fulfilled the aspirations of the peoples of the region for stability and development, to live in peace and security.
In order for such a peace to be lasting and general, however, it had to be fair.
The peace process was launched in Madrid in 1991.
We took part in this process, driven by our sincere determination to arrive at a just peace throughout the region in general and between Palestinians and Israelis in particular. This process is based on Resolutions 242 and 338 of the United Nations Security Council, which stipulate the inadmissibility of acquiring alien territories by force.
It is also based on the search for a fair solution to the refugee problem and on the principle of territories in exchange for peace.
In accepting these resolutions, we have accepted that we shall have only 23% of the territory which Palestine had historically, and this is a major concession, let me stress, a major concession, which the Israeli political leadership refuses to admit into the negotiations on the permanent status, citing the intransigence and inflexibility of the Palestinians as an excuse.
In accordance with these principles, we have committed ourselves to the peace process, driven by the conviction that it is essential to put an end to this long, bloody chapter and to arrive at a just peace, which is something we are all hoping and praying for, after a long period of enmity and painful, destructive conflict.
Our priority right now is to resurrect these hopes which for a long time had remained missing or hidden, by preparing the environment and the regional economic and political climate for the establishment of relations of development and regional economic cooperation enabling the influx of investment and projects into this region of ours which has been exhausted by conflict and bled dry by the exorbitant cost of the wars.
The Washington talks and, similarly, those which took place in Oslo, led to an agreement in the form of a Declaration of Principles, the Oslo accords. The PLO exchanged mutual recognition documents with the Israeli Government, in what was in my view the most significant phase in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict in general and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in particular.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Declaration of Principles for the transitional period and for the talks on Permanent Status was drawn up on the basis of a defined philosophy and clear political principles, particularly UN Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and their implementation, the territories in exchange for peace and a timetable for the negotiations on the permanent status.
In addition, we also agreed to put the finishing touches to the stages of a gradual solution, starting with the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, at the same time as the gradual transfer of power and civil and security authority to the Palestinian Authority.
During this phase, presidential and legislative elections would take place in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip and the Arabic city of Jerusalem, Al-Quds. Supposedly, by the end of this period, all the territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip would have been handed over to the Palestinian Authority, except for the issues of the negotiations on permanent status, namely: Jerusalem (Al-Quds), settlements, borders, refugees, relations with other neighbours, and one item added subsequently, water.
This would be accompanied by the gradual establishment of a Palestinian administration provided with executive, legislative and legal bodies. All this was to be achieved in less than five years, by 4 May 1999, and to be crowned by the creation of an independent Palestinian State.
We accepted these accords and complied with their implementation, but unfortunately we encountered serious problems, and faced continuous attempts to break the agreements and to reject what had been agreed, and also non-compliance with the agreed schedule, particularly the third-phase troop redeployment, the withdrawal from the occupied territories and the release of all prisoners and detainees, which was supposed to be completed by the end of the interim period, on 4 May 1999.
So many elements relating to the transitional period have still not been implemented, despite the long period of time which has elapsed, increasing the suffering of the Palestinian people and jeopardising the entire peace process.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I belong to a generation which has lived through five devastating wars which have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people and have caused millions of people to be displaced far from their homes and their property. At the same time, I was a member of the generation of the Palestinian political leadership with an awareness of the values of the national struggle, without necessarily losing the ability to take on a good measure of courage, wisdom and objectivity, capable of looking for a permanent overall solution which would make it possible once and for all to put an end to murderous warfare and bloody conflict.
I had the opportunity to lead negotiations with the Israeli Government over the last eight years, from the initial Oslo negotiations up to the Stockholm negotiations which prepared the way for the recent Camp David Summit, via the second Oslo negotiations, the economic negotiations in Paris and the negotiations preparatory to the Wye River agreement.
I have often expressed my pride in what I have achieved together with my colleagues, the Palestinian peacemakers, led by President Arafat, our wise and courageous leader, with faith in the cause of peace and its inevitable victory, despite the obstacles on the way and the faintness of the glimmer of hope.
For several months we have been engaged in talks to establish permanent status, even before Israel has completed its commitments under the interim period. I must, however, express my feeling of regret and bitterness that the Israeli Government has not fulfilled the commitments undertaken for the interim period and that we have not yet concluded a permanent agreement.
I am also very regretful and sorry that the Camp David Summit did not have a successful outcome, especially since it came eight months after strenuous negotiations in the region, but also in Stockholm, in Sweden, and in Washington, and followed the considerable efforts made by President Clinton and his colleagues.
I feel that I must outline the nature of the Camp David Summit talks and the attitudes which informed them. With the Israeli team, we agreed upon a number of general principles, which are as follows: firstly, these negotiations are based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 and their terms; secondly, the key to the solution lies in agreement on a number of key issues: Jerusalem (Al-Quds), refugees, territory, frontiers, and security.
Thirdly, we agreed that we would not postpone finding a solution to any of the key issues: there must be agreement on all the issues or there would be no agreement.
Fourthly, agreement on each of the key issues, either in a framework agreement or in the definitive agreement, must include these three important principles: firstly, recognition of the principle, secondly, recognition of the mechanisms implementing the principle, thirdly, agreement on the time limit for the execution thereof.
We also agreed upon the need to obtain international guarantees for the execution of terms and an international instrument for arbitration in the event of a dispute.
What were our positions?
Although both parties, Palestinians and Israelis, made considerable efforts to reconcile their positions, both during the talks or during the Camp David Summit, I must regretfully inform you that there is still a great gulf and that it will still take a lot to bridge that gulf.
As far as Jerusalem is concerned, let me tell you briefly that the Palestinian position is based on the fact that Jerusalem is part of the Palestinian territory occupied in 1967.
The same rules applied to the other Palestinian territories must also be applied to Jerusalem. Israel must recognise Palestinian sovereignty of Jerusalem and, in return, we are willing to discuss any Israeli concerns about the city, whether regarding Jerusalem as an open city, or about freedom of worship and freedom of movement within Jerusalem, or any other Israeli concerns.
The Israeli position, however, still continues to hinge on the following point: the unified Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel regardless of all the proposals which have been put forward.
Let me now take this opportunity to inform you from the rostrum of the European Parliament that, although we cannot reach an agreement on the issue of Jerusalem, we Palestinians agree that both parts of Jerusalem, East and West, should be a unified Jerusalem, an international Jerusalem, and it should not be the capital of Israel and Palestine alone, but of the whole world.
You will be aware that the United Nations Organisation, the Security Council, adopted Resolution 181 to make this holy city the city of the three monotheistic religions, the city of those that believe in one God, and decided that Jerusalem would be an international city which belonged to all the nations of the world.
Moreover, I would say that if there is a great gulf between us, it is on the issue of Jerusalem.
On the subject of refugees, we consider, and I think you agree, that every person is entitled to return to their home and to their property.
On that basis, we consider that any solution must involve Israel accepting its legal, moral and political responsibility for the emergence of the refugee problem.
Otherwise, any solution would be truncated or incomplete.
The Palestinian position in this respect is based on international resolutions on the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and to their property, and their right to compensation in accordance with Resolution 194 of the General Assembly of the United Nations, and on the determination of procedures, obtained following agreements, enabling them to exercise their right to return.
The Israeli position has moved away from the fundamental issue, refusing to discuss the principle of return or substituting proposals for solutions mentioning humanitarian operations limited to reuniting a few families or establishing an international compensation fund which Israel would participate in alongside other States.
In the light of these differences, the gulf on this issue still remains, and it was not possible to bridge it during the Camp David Summit, or at the end of it.
On the issues of territories, borders and security, our position is that confirmed by resolutions with international legitimacy, based on the inadmissible nature of the occupation of alien territory by force.
In addition, these resolutions call for the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces from Palestinian territory occupied since the June 1967 war, for the 4 June border effective before the outbreak of hostilities to be respected.
This is the case with Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon.
The issue has now been raised with regard to Syria.
We have also demonstrated our willingness to accept minor adjustments to borders, in the common interest, on condition that such changes are mutual in terms of value and surface area, and while stressing the international resolutions which stipulate that the activities of the Israeli settlements on Palestinian land are illegal.
We have also stated that we wish to collaborate and cooperate with the Israelis in accepting the presence of international forces at borders in order to maintain peace and security, whereas the Israeli position, on the other hand, clings to the principle of annexation. Israel wishes to annex three major settlements in the north of the West Bank, as well as the settlements in Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, in the south and in the Jordan valley, as well as other territories which will be under Israeli control, and for a specific time at that, which will split the West Bank up and leave it under Israeli control, in the final analysis.
On another security issue, Israel would like to keep its forces in the Jordan valley, at borders and at the crossing points.
This is a further factor in maintaining the division between the two parties on this subject.
I should like to address my friend and colleague, Avraham Burg, to say that Israel was created on the basis of a Security Council resolution and not on the basis of a precept in the Torah.
Consequently, if we do not respect international legitimacy, the international community will suffer from the failure of a solution to the Middle East conflict.
Ladies and gentlemen, the overwhelming majority of countries, including the European Union, have recognised the international resolutions that the Palestinian solution is based on.
You will doubtless note that the Palestinian demands to arrive at a fair and lasting solution are not extremist or intransigent, as it has suited some people to claim.
Our positions have actually been rather flexible.
What we are claiming and what we are defending is no more than the very minimum of the national Palestinian rights that have been recognised, set out and consolidated by international resolutions.
We are not asking any more than our right, but we are hoping that the decent people of the world will not give up on this either.
That it the situation up to and after Camp David.
There is still this gulf, this gap, between us, but we promise you that we shall continue with the process regardless of the problems.
Whatever the case, our strategy is peace and our objective is to work to achieve it.
We do, however, want a peace that is just, and a peace that we can defend and safeguard, a lasting peace for our children, our grandchildren and all future generations.
At this time, speaking from the rostrum of the European Parliament, sharing our problems and our future prospects, we can only express our considerable appreciation for the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation which is starting to gain ground thanks to the consolidation of economic, social, political, cultural and parliamentary relations, with a view to responding to the interests of the nations of this region.
We consider this collaboration, which benefits from your contribution, to be one of the main pillars of peace, stability and prosperity.
It is also our pleasure to express our high regard for Europe' s political and economic support for the peace plan in the region in general, and for the Palestinian people in particular, and also our appreciation of Europe' s increasing role in consolidating world peace and pushing forward the peace process in our region and throughout the world.
We sincerely hope that Europe will play an increasing part, an independent, effective, neutral and objective part.
We are very appreciative, for example, of the position which the countries of the European Union adopted at the time of the Berlin Declaration in March 1999.
Europe has always had an important role to play throughout the world.
We welcome its involvement in the Middle East peace process.
Having abandoned its colonial heritage, the unified Europe must now play a part which is in keeping with the tradition of its culture and civilisation, calling for the principles of freedom, emancipation and human rights in a free and independent country.
Madam President, in conclusion, from the rostrum of the European Parliament, let me address Mr Avraham Burg and, through him, the members of the Knesset, and the people and government of Israel, to tell them that one does not often have the opportunity to make peace and that it is an opportunity which must not, therefore, be missed.
There is not such a great price to pay for peace, so let us pay it!
We are talking about rights, justice, legitimacy and international law.
From this same rostrum, I turn to Mrs Fontaine, President of the European Parliament, and addressing all of you too, the nations and governments of Europe, I am asking you to lend us your assistance in establishing peace and respect for the foundations of the law, justice, legitimacy and international law.
Only then will you be able to assess the situation.
From this rostrum, I would also like to address my own people, the Palestinian people, to say that peace is a great battle which awaits us.
With patience we shall reach a successful conclusion.
I am confident that, with your help, we shall reach a successful conclusion.
I thank all of you, and let me convey the greetings of President Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leadership and my fellow members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and our hopes that we will continue to receive your assistance and your support.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Thank you, Mr Ahmed Qurie, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council,
for your compelling speech. I shall now give the floor to Mr Avraham Burg, Speaker of the Israeli Knesset.
Mr Burg, you have the floor.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my sincere opinion that we have just witnessed a very moving moment that will, perhaps, one day be seen as a historic moment.
There is not a great deal more that I wish to say.
I should just like to thank our friends for both having opened their hearts to us, each in his own way, Mr Abu Ala with his determined realism and Mr Avraham Burg with his infectious enthusiasm.
You have told us clearly and frankly of your hopes.
You have also given us your analysis of the problems which remain.
Mr Abu Ala reminded us of the gulf that remained, but Mr Avraham Burg also said that he preferred the frustrations of negotiation to the atrocities of war.
This is something we have taken on board.
We have had confirmation, as if indeed it were necessary, that both of you are men of dialogue and that you are also good friends - and this is something I think is very important - and leaders who are determined and passionate to achieve this peace which can only be achieved with your help and between you, this peace which both your nations are waiting for, and which we too are waiting for.
I must thank you, too, for outlining the possible avenues regarding the extremely sensitive matter of Jerusalem.
Mr Abu Ala, you put forward the idea of according Jerusalem international status, and Mr Avraham Burg, you mentioned the idea of restoring the sovereignty of Jerusalem to God.
These are all, of course, avenues which we have considered with great interest.
I think the main thing right now is to acknowledge that various avenues are open.
The European Parliament has always considered that Jerusalem' s definitive status should be internationally recognised.
I shall take the liberty, in conclusion, of referring to an episode from a book which I have been reading by Uri Savir, the chief Israeli negotiator in Oslo.
When he met you, the Norwegian negotiators introduced you as 'enemy number one' , and yet after the very tough negotiations, you went to visit him in Tel Aviv, and you went for a walk on the sea front, he says, away from all the media pressure, and, ahead of the thinking of the time, discussed how, after the historic breakthrough in Oslo, you might establish a sustainable and equitable peace, as you have said.
The time for that has come.
You have clearly understood that you will have the European Parliament at your side, and that is why you are here today. Believe me, the European Parliament will spare no effort both as a whole and, more particularly, through its three interparliamentary delegations - the delegation for Israel, chaired by Mr Gerardo Galeote Quecedo, the delegation for the Palestinian Legislative Council, chaired by Mrs Morgantini, and the delegation for the Mashreq Countries and the Gulf States, chaired by Mr Michel Dary - to offer you our most active assistance, particularly, moreover, in developing Euro-Mediterranean dialogue, which we hold to be an essential complement to the enlargement of the European Union to Eastern and Central Europe.
So, my dear friends, in conclusion, may I simply wish you Shalom and Salaam!
(Loud applause) (The formal sitting was closed at 12.55 p.m.)
Mr President, I would like to make what I consider to be a very important point.
Yesterday, I came to Strasbourg on Olympic Airways flight 165 from Athens to Frankfurt.
When the plane arrived at Frankfurt airport, it was immediately surrounded by German police.
Nobody spoke anything but German, and we were not allowed to leave the plane without showing our passports to the German police.
I remind you that Greece, as well as Germany and France, are countries that belong to the Schengen area.
The worst thing is that this was not an exception; this, I was told, is something that happens systematically at Frankfurt airport when planes arrive from Greece.
As a Member of the European Parliament, where we have so often voted on Schengen, I believe that, although there is legislation for the free movement of people, the fact that, in reality, this legislation is being systematically violated by the German authorities is an insult to, and undermines, our work.
As this concerns the free movement of Members of the European Union, I would like the President of the European Parliament to take the appropriate measures to ensure that we come to Strasbourg in a way that befits people who belong to the European Union and to Schengen.
Mr Alavanos, I consider that our President shall forward the text of your speech to the authorities of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Frankfurt airport authorities so that - and I do not know what the grounds might be for the current practice - we receive at least some sort of explanation or, alternatively, this procedure, which, I agree with you, has very little to do with the Schengen provisions, ceases to be used.
Mr President, on Monday, in my absence and without any prior notification, Mr Murphy, the leader of the British Socialist Group, raised a question about my involvement in supporting the Danish anti-euro campaign.
He was very careful not to accuse me of anything but has none the less contrived to give the impression that I am somehow under suspicion.
I should like to put on record that my involvement with the Danish referendum has been entirely separate from my work in this House and that I have never infringed any parliamentary rules.
Unlike the Danish "yes" campaign, the "no" campaign cannot rely on taxpayers' money or subsidies from the European Union.
It is outrageous that Mr Murphy should have sought to give the impression that I am under investigation when he has failed to produce evidence or even make any allegations against me.
It cannot be right for Members to be subjected to this kind of baseless innuendo.
I would ask you to insist that Mr Murphy either accuse me outright or apologise.
Mr Hannan, Mr Murphy is, of course, free to decide whether and how to respond to your speech.
Mr President, we very frequently complain about the Council's attitude towards Parliament.
I would like to highlight an incident of a completely opposite nature which took place yesterday during the debate on EU external action priorities.
We had the reports from the President of the Council and the Commissioner followed by a debate took place.
At the end of the debate, due to the presidency's total lack of flexibility, the President of the Council and Commissioner Patten were not able to respond to the numerous questions which had arisen from quite an intense debate.
Now then, I cannot understand this Parliament for complaining about the Council's behaviour.
Yesterday, the President of the Council was in the Chamber from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. while the number of Members of Parliament present was not great - and, in actual fact, we prevented both the Council or the Commission from replying to extremely important questions posed by Members.
This does not seem to me to be very polite, and I would go so far as to describe it as verging on the downright rude.
Mr Dupuis, I doubt that this situation was due to lack of flexibility on the part of the presidency on duty. It is more likely to have been a mistake, a misunderstanding between the Chair at the time and the Council and Commission representatives.
Mr President, I am very surprised at what I heard from our British fellow MEP, Mr Hannan, for he presented himself in the Danish media as a Member of the European Parliament.
If he were there as a private individual, he should have let this be known in the Danish campaign.
All things considered, I think Mr Hannan should stay at home in Britain and mind his own business, and leave us to get on with it in Denmark.
We have no use for people like that acting the fool in Denmark.
Mr President, I do not want to detain the House too long but I think that Mr Hannan protests too much!
I made a very simple request to the President on Monday.
The President agreed to my request and referred the matter to the Quaestors.
But while Mr Hannan is here in the Chamber this morning, perhaps he could give us a guarantee that he will be making a new entry in his declaration of financial interests to say where the money has come from.
The Danish people have a right to know in advance of the referendum on 28 September where the "no" campaign funds have come from.
Now then, we cannot continue with the debate and we cannot turn this Chamber into an annex to the discussion leading up to the Danish referendum either.
We now know the essence of the issue.
Everyone will do what they think best.
Right to family reunification
The next item is the report (A5-0201/2000) by Mr Watson, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive on the right to family reunification [COM(1999) 638 - C50077/2000 - 1999/0258 (CNS)]
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mrs Klamt, who was the original rapporteur designated by the committee which I have the honour to chair to look at this issue.
Mrs Klamt did a very considerable amount of work on the proposal for a Council directive on the right to family reunification.
She deserves the credit for the work that has been done. I wish to congratulate her on that.
I have inherited this particular cornucopia as chairman of the committee because Mrs Klamt felt at the end of the votes at committee stage that she could no longer support the text as it stood and therefore I am presenting it to the House today.
I would like to commend the European Commission on what is an extremely well argued and well presented report, drawn up in record time considering the relative lack of resources of the departments concerned and the demands laid down at the European Council in Tampere last year.
The Commission has come forward with an excellent draft directive which will permit third-country nationals legally resident in a Member State of the Union to reside in another Member State as is required if a true area of freedom, security and justice is to be established.
The Commission has said, quite rightly in my view, that the goal of zero immigration mentioned in past Community discussion was never realistic and sought instead to put forward realistic proposals for the protection of the rights of third-country nationals in accordance with the many international treaties that have been signed by Member States, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international covenants of 1966 on civil and political rights and on economic and social rights.
Very clearly, the importance of legal immigration is recognised.
The importance of the family as a unit is also recognised and the importance of making a success of the integration of third-country nationals residing lawfully in EU Member States is the whole basis of these proposals.
We have in my committee considered a number of contentious areas, not least the question of the right to bring in ascending relatives.
The Commission proposal quite clearly recognises the difference of legal treatment between descending and ascending relatives.
It is evident that, in the context of the international legal framework, mention must be made of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
This convention requires states to ensure that the child is not separated from the parents.
There is no similar convention dealing with ascending relatives, but it is clearly the case that if we wish to live up to our humanitarian ideals we must provide the opportunity for third-country nationals to bring dependent relatives in the ascending line into their family units.
This has been a matter of some debate within the committee.
I am pleased to see that a number of amendments to the final report have been put forward; in particular Amendments Nos 18 to 23, which propose a compromise on this matter.
May I briefly introduce some of the amendments that the committee's report puts forward.
Amendment No 3 looks at the need for data and recognises that in order to have an effective evaluation of the situation in the Member States, the Commission will need more information from the Member States.
Amendment No 5 deals with relatives from the ascending line.
This has now been overtaken in a sense by the compromise Amendments Nos 18 to 23.
Amendment No 6 recognises the very real problems that the administrations of the Member States currently have with the workload created by the demands of family reunification.
Amendment No 9 allows each Member State to introduce more favourable provisions than those set down in the directives, and insists that these new rules will not lower current standards of protection.
Amendment No 11 deals with the grounds on which a Member State may deny the right of entry to a relative, namely on grounds of public policy, domestic security and public health.
Our amendment seeks to insist that any Member State wishing to refuse entry on those grounds provides very clear justification.
I do not wish to comment on all of the 66 amendments put forward to my report, but I would say that this is a very complicated area.
Parliament had relatively little time to look at it and inevitably not all of the compromises which were necessary to reach a favourable outcome were achieved in committee.
I would therefore urge Members to look carefully at the amendments that have been tabled in plenary to reach the compromises which will allow us to go forward in an effective and humanitarian way.
Mr President, my task as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market was a relatively easy one compared with that of the honourable members in the committee responsible, and I would like to congratulate them all on the outcome, even if we do have to discuss a few compromise amendments in plenary today.
The reason I said that my committee' s task was an easy one, is because the proposed draft directive raises few difficulties from a legal viewpoint, and nor is there a great deal of room for manoeuvre when it comes to framing policy.
I would also like to say how impressed I am with the logistical quality of the draft directive, which certainly cannot be said of all the Commission' s draft directives.
Pursuant to the new Article 63 of the EU Treaty, it is now the Community' s task to settle the matter of family reunification, and the Community must take these measures in accordance with the provisions of international law, in particular the European Convention of Human Rights and the other instruments of international law already mentioned by our committee chairman.
The right to respect for family life is a universal human right.
It is not divisible and cannot be reserved for EU citizens alone.
This would be a dubious line to take, particularly as we are concurrently working on a European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
If Community provisions are now to be put in place for family reunification, we also need to close incomprehensible and, in some cases, absurd gaps in the existing legislation.
This particularly applies to the right of EU citizens themselves to live together in their home land with family members originating from a third country and not to be in the position where the only way they can live with them as a family is to avail themselves of freedom of movement and settle in another Member States.
Therefore this directive is only too welcome from a legal viewpoint, and it is to be hoped that neither Parliament, nor, more importantly, the Council, will make any changes to the substance of the Commission' s original draft.
Mr President, I am sorry to hear Mrs Klamt' s words.
I wanted to begin by congratulating the Commission and Commissioner Vitorino on this proposal which seems to me to be very complete, well constructed and timely, coming almost a year after the Tampere Summit.
We must clarify today in this Parliament whether we want the immigrants and refugees who live amongst us to do so legally with their families, giving them the opportunity to live a normal life and to integrate fully into our society, or whether we are going to continue to feed the myth that they are provisional co-citizens whose final destiny is to return to the hypothetical homes they came from.
This issue is so important that we must make an effort to reach a consensus.
All of our groups were in agreement in committee, apart from the PPE Group.
I would like us today to send a message to the people who live amongst us that they can do so with their right to live as a family recognised.
Mr President, this is the intention of my group, although I would also like to ask the Commission, on behalf of my group, to think twice about one aspect included in the current directive.
We have also applied these rules we are debating to people who are under alternative protection.
Unfortunately, the European Union does not have homogenous criteria. There is no harmonised asylum policy.
Therefore, there are very different situations in many countries, and on this minor point I would agree with Mrs Klamt.
It is not a question of rejecting these people - they have the right to live as families - but of the Commission thinking twice about it and of their being subject to a future directive which would include persons under temporary and alternative protection, while we await the future harmonisation of the Union' s asylum policy.
Otherwise, I congratulate the Commission and I hope that it receives the full support of this House.
Mr President, the ELDR Group is backing this report as one of the essential building blocks in constructing the area of freedom, security and justice and in following up the Tampere Summit, which rightly made it a priority to establish rights of free movement for legally resident third-country nationals.
This is an injustice which needs remedying.
Like Mrs Terrón i Cusí, I am surprised at the stance of the EPP Group, which normally puts a lot of emphasis on family values and yet today is undermining the family by opposing reunification, which will assist the social integration of these legally resident migrants.
This seems to us perverse.
To take up some specific points in the report, first of all on the inclusion of beneficiaries of subsidiary protection.
We will wait to hear Mr Vitorino, but it is rumoured that the Commission will accept amendments to take these beneficiaries out.
The ELDR Group would regret that because we think that, like refugees, beneficiaries of subsidiary protection should be in.
They are long-term residents, they are not analogous to beneficiaries of temporary protection.
We will listen to the debate because our overwhelming desire is to get the bones of this proposal through.
On ascending relatives, we consider that Amendment No 20 is superfluous because there is a general right in Article 9 of the proposal to apply a non-discriminatory means test to all entrants.
However we are willing to look at that if it assists in saving the report.
It is important to be absolutely clear on unmarried partners.
The proposal will not force Member States to give legal recognition to unmarried partnerships, but if they do they must treat unmarried partners like spouses.
There has been a lot of misinformation on this, not least stirred up by the Conservatives in the United Kingdom - tabloid headlines about outrageous plots by the EU to force the UK to accept refugees' gay lovers.
That is stirring up homophobic prejudice and I deplore it.
Mr President, we are going to vote on a report today that has caused a political stir in certain EU States.
The Commission and Commissioner Vitorino have done some sterling work here, and I would like, on behalf of my group, to take the opportunity to thank them for it.
The European Council confirmed, at its special summit in Tampere, that the European Union must ensure that third-country nationals are treated fairly.
The Commission has taken this resolution forward.
This directive is conclusive as it stands, and should be transposed with all haste.
Sadly there were, and still are, reservations against including refugees benefiting from temporary protection in this directive, and against recognising same-sex relationships as the basis for family reunification.
This debate demonstrates once again that, unfortunately, integration and migration policy is still a controversial issue in the European Union.
There is, after all, a great deal to be considered.
Nevertheless, we must make it possible for people who live apart from relatives who are third-country nationals, to be brought together.
Therefore, in principle, this is an initiative that deserves everyone' s support, particularly where it concerns children, and these self-same children - irrespective of whether they are the offspring of refugees or immigrants - should have a future in the European Union.
However, opinion is being stirred up against this directive in the political arena.
It is to be hoped that the majority of honourable members will support the directive put forward by the Commission as it stands.
I know that my fellow socialist members are awaiting a statement from Mr Vitorino, in the hope that refugees' interests will be sacrificed for the sake of this directive, under pressure from quite a number of EU Ministers for Home Affairs.
I regret this decision, and the fact that Ministers for Home Affairs appear to carry more weight in this Parliament than the honourable members, who are expected to act according to their consciences.
For this reason, I reiterate my call for us to support the Commission' s directive and at last set down a marker for an up-to-date, modern and humane policy of integration.
I hope the Socialists will refrain from making this deal with the Conservatives.
Mr President, I would like to commend the Commission on its serious and balanced work. Too often, when we broach the subject of immigration, passions, excesses and political ulterior motives prevent us from reflecting objectively and making progress.
In dealing in depth with the issue of the right to live as a family, and in defining the precise conditions for its application, the text enables us to hold a real debate.
Far from casting suspicion a priori, as is often the case, on those who wish to live with their spouses and children, the text recognises the legitimacy of such a right even if, in fact, this right must now apply equally to homosexual couples and to all other categories, as the honourable Member has just said, especially in the case of asylum seekers.
The text also takes into account that nowadays there are several types of families in our society, especially certain forms of cohabitation, and that we cannot therefore discriminate against immigrants who live in the same way.
In recognising this, the text helps to give real meaning to the term 'integration' .
Through harmonising legislation in Member States, this draft directive will provide protection and legal stability for immigrants and will above all prevent them from being subjected to national political fluctuations.
I therefore hope that subsequent work by the Commission and Parliament will take its inspiration from this example.
Perhaps we will then be able to talk further on the equality of rights and the often positive contribution made by immigration, in dealing with issues that are vital for integration and the fight against the unemployment, insecure employment, violence and discrimination, of which immigrants are often victim.
Immigration is not a problem.
Yet we must resolve to talk about the real problems such as the imbalances between the North and the South that often force men and women to flee from poverty.
We must also recognise that the waves of immigrants towards the countries of the European Union have been more or less constant for a couple of decades.
In other words, by implementing restrictive laws, Member States have not succeeded in reducing the overall number of entrants; they have simply reduced the number of legal immigrants while increasing the numbers of illegal immigrants by declaring them illegal.
By underpinning these values, this draft directive will not only have positive consequences for immigrants and their families, but it will also be a symbol for refuge and integration.
I sincerely hope that we will be able to follow the same line of conduct in subsequent work.
Mr President, whilst expressing my continued dismay at the ongoing prejudice shown towards Austria by the 14 other Member States, I have this to say about the report currently under discussion. I regret the way in which it was handled in the committee responsible, as this has led to the rapporteur being unable, in the final analysis, to identify with the outcome, causing her to withdraw her name.
A rather singular occurrence. As I see it, constructive and well-founded amendments proposed by the rapporteur - which she has expounded and justified again today, and which I am therefore in a position to refer to - as well as by other members of the committee, were simply swept aside and not handled properly, for reasons of political ideology.
In assessing this improper conduct, I would refer - on behalf of Austria, among others - to the decision taken by the conference of the heads of provincial governments on 17 May 2000, whereby all the new Austrian heads of the provincial governments rejected the draft directive in this form, unanimously and in fact right across the political divide.
I am sorry that the committee has behaved in this way, because I believe a sledgehammer approach does the cause more harm than good, particularly in an area as sensitive as this.
Mr President, Commissioner, the present document, like the report, is a labelling con.
The wording on the outside belies the actual contents of these documents.
We would be delighted to endorse family reunification measures, for this would be deeply humane and would also be key to an integration component, but what we have is something entirely different.
This is about initiating sociopolitical debate on how far the circle of those entitled to family reunification can be extended beyond the core family.
You include a proposal relating to unmarried partners, whose parents and children would be allowed to join them, according to which, testimonies from the country of origin would be enough to satisfy you as to the authenticity of a relationship, regardless as to how it appears.
This would mean that children or parents joining members here would have the same rights as EU citizens in the educational, employment and social spheres.
The traffickers in human beings and the document forgers will thank those of you who support this proposal, and you can rest assured that the general public' s response will be one of indignation.
You also include a proposal relating to multiple marriages, i.e. the first wife is to be accepted along with the children and relatives in the ascending line. However, you also make the point in this document that naturally it would be possible to bring another wife and her dependants in, if this were necessary for the sake of the child' s welfare.
This begs the question as to how much wider the door is to be opened to uncontrollable immigration?
As far as we are concerned, the proposal under discussion is unacceptable.
It lacks an overall frame of reference, a statistical basis and there is no differentiation. You are also overstepping the mark in respect of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which requires the integration capacity of each of the Member States to be taken into account.
We have no intention of voting for this document unless it includes our amendments and follows our political line.
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, I am of the firm opinion that this draft directive is a major step forward.
That said, restrictive conditions are still being placed on the process of family reunification.
I believe we should be highlighting the fact that, in the final analysis, it is unemployment and insecure employment that should be banned and not the right of immigrants to live with their families only if they can provide evidence of adequate means and a roof over their head.
For the nationals of a country, society makes progress slowly, but it does make progress, witness the PACS vote in France, but the notion of the family in the case of immigrants is inflexible.
The laws in force provide for the right of residence to be revoked if there is a break-up in the matrimonial household, effectively outlawing divorce, and, as has just been said, homosexual couples are still not recognised.
Under the pretext of combating polygamy, second spouses and their children are condemned to illegality and to even greater dependence.
Family reunification must be liberated from the archaic conditions that still exist as a result of fanatical immigration control.
In conclusion, Mr Watson' s report has fortunately made real progress following the work in committee on the initial report by Mrs Klamt.
I am bound to say that, when I hear Mr Gollnisch' s racist, reactionary and unacceptable comments, I want to vote for this report. It is a question of dignity.
Mr President, I would like to begin by warmly congratulating the European Commission and especially Commissioner Vitorino, on its extremely constructive legislative proposal on the issue of family reunification.
At last, Europe is on the move, after decades of zero immigration and, more especially, after so many years of refusal by Europeans to grant third-country nationals residing lawfully in the European Union their fundamental human rights.
Recognising the right to family life is one of the basic conditions for the integration of refugees and migrants in the social life of the country in which they reside.
Unfortunately, those in this Parliament who extol the virtues of the family and hold it up as the highest ideal happen to be the very people who undermine it. This is exactly what is happening with this draft directive on the reunification of the families of refugees and migrants.
Self-righteous hypocrisy is the main feature of this wing of the European Parliament, and we have experienced it again and again.
Yet I would like to say that I understand the qualms of many governments, including my own, concerning this draft directive.
Indeed, countries such as Germany, where millions of refugees and migrants have sought refuge, are shouldering an enormous burden.
But at the same time I would like to point out and to highlight the enormous contribution that refugees and migrants make to the economic development of our countries, through their work and through taxation.
The social burden that is referred to by the critics of the proposal may be reduced if refugees and their family members have the right to work, as provided for by the Commission proposal
Finally, I would like to point out that this directive sets out the minimum requirements, and governments retain the right to put in place better conditions for the reunification of families.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is the first time since the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force that the European Parliament has been consulted on a Commission proposal for a Council directive on the matter of the lawful immigration of persons originating from third countries.
It is therefore a sign of the profound institutional changes introduced by the Treaty and given top priority on the European political agenda by the Heads of State and Government at the Tampere European Council.
The Commission has decided that a proposal on family reunification should start us off on this journey, this considerable effort to construct a common European immigration policy.
I should also like to begin by explaining why we have chosen this subject - in answer to a critical observation from Mrs Klamt, whom, regardless of our differences of opinion, I should like to congratulate on the work she has carried out as the first rapporteur for this matter.
I believe family reunification is a concept that is thoroughly coherent with the commitments that all the Member States undertook several decades ago in the sphere of international law.
From the reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the international convenants made under the United Nations in 1966, to the European Convention on Human Rights itself - in all these instruments of international law family protection is upheld as an essential factor for ensuring social peace.
I do not believe anybody can deny that family reunification is also an important instrument for the integration of immigrants from third countries into their host societies.
This has indeed been repeatedly recognised by the bodies of the European Union.
That is, since 1993 the Council has been devoting constant attention to the subject of family reunification.
It must also be recognised that family reunification is significant in numerical terms because it is today one of the main causes of immigration into the countries of Europe.
The directive is not creating this flow of migrants; what the directive intends is to regulate a situation that already exists on the ground.
Those who refuse to see that this directive aims at setting up legal rules to respond to a situation that already exists on the ground and try to blame the Commission for inventing a new flow of migrants are therefore being unfair in their analysis of the actual situation that we are addressing.
That is why the Commission decided that family reunification should be given priority treatment over other forms of lawful immigration.
It is not a matter of deciding on entry and residence for economic purposes, or the immigration of workers, or the immigration of students.
As we see it, it is a matter of regulating a different form of admittance in response to values - that is, family protection - and a strategic political objective: the promotion of the integration of third-country nationals who are already living lawfully in the Union into their host societies.
We are basing our approach on a principle which is debatable, but without any evidence to the contrary I believe it can be demonstrated.
This is that family reunification is a factor which promotes the personal stability of the immigrant, since family life is always an important instrument for integration into the host country.
The Heads of State and Government at Tampere in fact unanimously stressed the need to ensure equitable treatment for third-country nationals who are lawfully resident in the Member States of the Union.
They also stressed that a more dynamic integration policy needs to be developed in parallel, and that this policy should aim at offering third-country nationals rights and duties comparable to those held by the citizens of the Union.
These, then, ladies and gentlemen, are the values and political commitments upon which the Commission has based its proposal.
I should also like to point out that the Commission has proposed an initiative in which family reunification is seen as a right.
This is not, however, an absolute right of the third-country citizens who reside in the Union' s Member States, and reside there lawfully.
Instead it is a right subject to conditions, whether procedural in nature or material conditions regarding the definition of the status of the family members in the country to which they have been admitted and regarding the rights that they enjoy.
I am willing to discuss all the implications of this proposal, also because the French Presidency considers this subject to be central during the six-month term for which it is responsible.
For our part, we are also willing to introduce an amended proposal as quickly as possible so that we can achieve a positive outcome during the French Presidency.
I should like to thank all the Members who have taken part in the debate.
Here as in the Commission it has been a lively, at times even passionate debate, because it deals with a sensitive issue on which, naturally, each country puts forward a very strong case for its own situation.
It is difficult to find common ground at European level.
Above all, however, this debate has one fundamental feature. It is no longer a debate on statements of intention: it is a debate on rules, binding legal provisions, which will have to be implemented.
It is therefore natural that it should be a lively, even passionate debate, and one in which there are divergent views.
The Commission considers your opinion to be of the utmost importance.
And I should like to congratulate Mr Wilson on the job he has done in presenting a report under the difficult circumstances in which this debate has taken place.
I should like to explain to you all what the Commission' s position is on the more difficult political issues in this directive.
First, the scope of the proposal: the Commission believes that refugees should be included within its scope, because from a political viewpoint it would be incomprehensible if economic migrants were granted a right to family reunification that we did not grant to refugees recognised under the Geneva Convention.
I accept, however, that it is necessary to exclude the beneficiaries of temporary protection or subsidiary protection.
This is not a matter of going back on a question of principle.
I am convinced that a certain kind of beneficiary of temporary or subsidiary protection should also have the right to family reunification.
I do recognise, however, that the lack of harmonisation of this concept at European level and especially the Commission' s intention to submit a directive on temporary and subsidiary protection to Parliament and the Council next year will allow us to deal with the right to family reunification in that directive very soon.
We therefore accept an amendment to the proposal excluding beneficiaries of temporary or subsidiary protection.
Where issues relating to the concept of the family are concerned, I should like to make it very clear that in this proposal the Commission is not interfering in the matter of defining the concept of the family.
This proposal fully accepts that each Member State has the competence to define what a family is, as well as the issue, for instance, of unmarried partnerships.
This proposal does not say that all the Member States will be obliged to recognise unmarried partnerships and accept unmarried partners under all circumstances.
We are simply saying that in those countries where unmarried partnerships are placed on an equal footing with marriage in domestic law for their own nationals, these unmarried partnerships must also be recognised for the purpose of family reunification for third-country nationals.
I should therefore like to state clearly that there is nothing in this proposal favouring family reunification for polygamous marriages.
I am sorry, but the text is quite clear!
It is not possible to apply for a second wife to come!
Only one exception is made: for the children of the second marriage if the interests of the child so justify.
But how could you explain treating the children of a second polygamous marriage differently from the children of a first marriage or the children of an unmarried partnership? I am not a subverter of moral values, but I think we have to keep the interests of the children in the forefront.
Finally, Mr President, the Commission is willing to accept a number of other amendments and other modifications regarding the rights of family members, the conditions and clarification of the conditions for family reunification, the situation in which the person being reunited may acquire independent status, and concerning procedural rules.
Full details will be given before the vote is taken.
I should like to conclude by saying that this is, of course, an exercise that will give rise to debate.
The debate with the Council will not be easy, just as the debate with Parliament has not been easy.
I respect the opinions of all Members.
I should like the final opinion of Parliament to have as broad a support-base as possible.
And I hope - regardless of our differences of opinion, which are to be expected and, may I say, useful and essential for democracy - that once this directive has been adopted, we may all be able to pool our efforts to solve the essential question that we have before us. This question is how we can create a clear and transparent legal framework that will ensure the integration of lawful immigrants into their host countries and we must do so because this integration is the key to the success of a common European immigration policy.
Thank you Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Movement and residence of EU citizens
The next item is the report (A5-207/200) by Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Internal Affairs, on the Commission report on the implementation of directives 90/364, 90/365 and 93/96 (right of residence) and on the Communication from the Commission on the special measures concerning the movement and residence of citizens of the Union which are justified on grounds of public policy, public security or public health [COM(1999) 127 COM(1999) 372 - C5-0177/1999, C5-0178/1999 - 1999/257 (COS)]
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank all of you who have, through your comments, contributed to fuelling this debate.
Before embarking on an explanation of my report, I would like to start by asking you a question that I cannot get out of my head.
This is in my view the crux of the problem described in my report and will determine the way we vote.
This question is: what in fact does European citizenship really mean? Is it just a simple expression aimed at selling Europe, or do we really want to add content to this term?
Today, for the majority of us who live in Europe, European citizenship is still a concept that is devoid of meaning.
If we want Europe to be more than a vast free trade area, we must take action to ensure that European citizenship goes beyond the status of a concept and takes root in the everyday life of the citizens of Europe.
This is the context in which I wish to place this debate.
The directives that have been examined concern Community nationals, but they must be modified in favour of third-county nationals.
The report aims to sum up the reality of the freedom to move and reside in the European Union.
With reference to the EC Treaty, my report was written with due regard to Article 14, concerning free movement of persons, and Articles 17 and 18 concerning European citizenship, which entails the right to move and to reside freely throughout the territory of the European Union.
Although Member States have made great progress in ensuring the free movement of goods, services and capital, it is clear that we are no nearer to achieving the same for people.
I will start by filling in some of the background and the content of the directives. Initially, freedom of movement was reserved for people who were economically active.
In June 1990, the Council adopted three Commission draft directives to extend this right to all Member State nationals, even if they were not economically active.
I will just give the broad guidelines of these directives.
For retired people and other non-economically active people, the right of residence is open to those who have health insurance cover and adequate means.
For students, the right of residence is subject to the condition that the student is enrolled at a recognised educational establishment and that he is covered by sickness insurance.
In both cases, spouses and dependent children may accompany the holder of the right of residence and may work.
The transposition of these directives was doubly problematic.
On the one hand, the directives were transposed extremely slowly throughout the Union.
What is more, the Commission had to initiate fourteen infringement procedures.
The Commission concludes that 'for too long, EU citizens have been denied some of their rights or been faced with unjustified administrative difficulties due to the incorrect transposition of the Directives' .
Let us now proceed to a concrete assessment of the situation.
This right to free movement and residence, which is confirmed in the Maastricht Treaty, is violated by economic considerations. The notion of adequate means is incorrectly interpreted by governments.
What income is to be taken into account when evaluating means? What evidence must be provided?
How does one take into consideration a progressive financial situation which sometimes depends on the help provided by the spouse? Because the acceptance procedures are long and difficult, it is often necessary to take out a second health insurance in the host country.
When you are not in salaried work, it is difficult to obtain a residence permit and the instability of the professional situation is added to by the short-term nature of the residence permit once it has been obtained.
With regard to special measures justified in the name of public order, the Commission gives examples of many cases of incorrect interpretations, such as criminal convictions that justify systematic deportation and expulsion.
Finally, administrative procedures are too long - more than six months - and become very costly when frequent renewal is necessary, as the period of validity is normally two years rather than five.
I will now present the main measures advocated with a view to overcoming these problems.
Our first proposal is to ask the Commission to prepare a framework directive, which would adopt a position based on the fundamental right of free movement and residence rather than on a sector-specific approach which necessarily leaves room for ambiguities.
It will still be possible at a later date to implement a whole raft of specific measures to help citizens depending on their particular situation.
This reworking of the existing directives must dissociate the fundamental right of movement and residence from any economic considerations.
These measures must be concomitant with simplifying administrative procedures and providing documents free of charge.
Until these mechanisms can be put in place, a transitional measure may be to introduce a one-year residence permit for all applicants.
Harmonising social protection systems and pension systems is vital.
Finally, in the case of special measures justified by the notion of public order, we can only call on Member States to narrow down their interpretation, to put an end to the double penalty and to protect certain categories of people from expulsion.
I would like to finish by clarifying a number of points.
Rights must be attached to the individual and the individual must take the rights with him wherever he goes.
Third-country citizens living and working legally in a Member State must benefit from the same rights as European citizens.
Furthermore, it is a pity that the Council has not followed up this proposal of citizenship and residence.
In conclusion, I hope that I have persuaded you to support this resolutely citizen-centred approach of freedom of movement and residence, which is a fundamental issue for awareness of a European identity.
At a time when discussions about the future of Europe are hitting the headlines, and when we are examining a future charter of fundamental rights, we must support any project aimed at providing an area of freedom, justice and equality, where all the residents and citizens who contribute to the construction of Europe must have the same rights.
Perhaps it is time that people acquired the same rights as the products they consume.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur.
We are dealing here with a long-overdue overhaul of a number of directives relating to rights of residents of the non-economically active.
My starting-point, as was the rapporteur's, is that we should give European Union citizenship real meaning.
The Treaty statement that every citizen should have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of Member States and the reality are still far apart.
I draw on the experience of a number of language students from other Member States in my own constituency.
They received a standard letter from our local social security office asking them to attend for a two-hour interview and to bring with them as many items as possible on a non-exhaustive list of about twenty documents such as a passport, bank statements, or household bills to "establish their identity".
When I enquired further about this I was told that it was not an EU matter, because the same letter would be sent to UK residents.
In what circumstances I cannot imagine.
And, the two hour time-scale, even more ludicrously, was supposed to save them from a car parking fine in the local car-park!
I would not want to see any citizens treated in the same way as these students.
The history of the directives that deal with the rights of residence of the non-economically active is an unhappy one: non-implementation, infringement proceedings, a patchwork of different and burdensome requirements.
You can move a sack of potatoes around Europe more easily than a citizen can move.
If we are to appeal to our citizens and the basic right of free movement is to be real, then simple, fast codification of this area of Community law is long overdue.
Then, and only then, will the Treaty statement on European Union citizenship become a reality instead of mere words.
Mr President, we are great talkers about human rights in the EU, but in practice it is often the case that citizens' rights are synonymous with money.
Those who have work and can support themselves are protected by legislation, but there are large groups of people who do not have work of their own and who therefore do not have rights.
This may apply to students who have to prove that they have a proper place at university or to pensioners who have to prove that they will be taking their pensions or own capital with them if they move.
It may also apply to third-country nationals and especially to relatives who are third-country nationals and who are not allowed to accompany the breadwinner when he or she obtains work on the other side of the border.
This means that those who are weakest economically are still discriminated against.
The report proposes significant improvements for these groups, which in practice are larger than one might think.
They are to be given better opportunities to move and an extended right to take up residence in other countries.
In this connection, I would also point out that the right to move within the labour market and the right of residence are not the same thing.
Nowadays, there are many workers who are sent on short-term contracts to work in other Member States and who do not receive any right of residence at all.
For those who do not have a secure income or other means of support, the right of residence is almost nil.
Freedom of movement for labour is protected by the legislation of the internal market.
For the majority of people, it is more important, however, for their right of residence, including their right to stay on, to be protected.
This means that people are not compelled to move even if they cannot support themselves.
Radical improvement is needed in this area, and it would be as well to tackle this problem now, at a time when the Member States' economies are looking better than they once did.
.- (DE) Mr President, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery 's report addresses the problems that the Commission mentions in its report on how matters stand with regard to the application of provisions on residence rights.
Yet, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery would like to see the scope of application of these residence rights extended to third-country nationals.
The Committee on Petitions was asked to submit an opinion because it is a special committee that is directly concerned with the problems facing the general public.
Unfortunately, there are still far too many infringements of the rights of EU citizens; I wholeheartedly agree on that score.
Firstly, Member States are wavering when it comes to implementing Community law provisions on residence rights.
In particular, subordinate authorities in the Member States are unfamiliar for the most part with the relevant provisions.
Secondly, the problems associated with the recognition of diplomas are hugely restrictive.
What use is the right of residence to me, if I do not have the right to exercise the profession I am trained in, in the host country? Thirdly, a failure to adapt the provisions on freedom of movement, and the social security rules, to the changing labour market, is causing problems.
It is simply not acceptable that I could fail to be reimbursed for medical treatment abroad merely because I do not have the correct form.
Mr President, we have provisions governing EU citizens' right of residence in other Member States, but even now, they are not being fully applied.
We are constantly hearing of cases where EU citizens are unable to reside in another Member State.
Therefore, let us urge the EU Member States to implement the existing Community law provisions without delay, before we consider extending these rights to third-country nationals at any rate.
Mr President, in the event that the amendments we are presenting to Mrs Boumediene-Thiery ' s report are not accepted, my group will vote against it for reasons which I believe to be fundamental.
The directives under debate today refer to the free movement and residence of students as well as people who have ceased professional activity or who are economically inactive and who, furthermore, receive disability or old-age pensions or subsidies - all of them Community citizens - as well as the exceptions laid down in another directive on expulsion for reasons of public order, security or public health.
The problem is that Mrs Boumediene-Thiery widens the scope of these directives to include citizens of third countries.
For example, section 20 of the resolution extends family reunification to non-Community families and their relatives in ascending and descending lines, who are not dependent on the resident, which would increase admission without restrictions.
Furthermore, to treat unmarried couples on the same terms as married couples, which does not raise many problems in the case of Community citizens, given the diversity of the legislation, does raise problems in the case of third country citizens because there would be very real problems recognising stable cohabitation.
It would give rise to so-called marriages of convenience or false marriages, and that amounts to fraud..
Furthermore, I believe that all the false logic which is used when referring to migrant workers has no place in this debate, not so much because of the subject matter but rather because it is not appropriate for the study of these directives.
As the Commission says, the level of information needs to be improved so that European citizens are crystal clear as to what their rights are with regard to moving freely within the internal market, with clear, concise and specific rules and using communication technologies such as the Internet, the television, or local and regional media.
Commissioner, the suggestion that replies to parliamentary questions should reach our various citizens by means of the methods of communication considered appropriate, does not seem to me to be a good procedure.
I think that it is impractical, apart from anything else because not even MEPs always read those replies.
It is also necessary to eliminate the absurd amount of paperwork needed to justify the nature and size of the pension.
I believe that an identity card for pensioners and the use of computers should replace these cumbersome forms of authorising payments.
The same would apply to students.
In order to facilitate their mobility, we should free them of unnecessary costs and make their residence compatible with their periods of study or apprenticeship.
Finally, I would also like to point out that it makes no sense to link public order, as section 6 of the resolution does, with the Schengen area in a proposal aimed at the citizens of the European Union, who are not governed by the Schengen legislation but by Community directives, in particular those relating to public order.
In order to update the legislation, I believe it is necessary to revise the texts by means of a new regulation and simplify the obstacles to free movement and to the residence of Community citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to begin by thanking the European Commission for its sustained efforts in keeping the right of residence - within the context of the free movement of persons in Europe - high on the agenda; this is once again borne out by these two communications on the right of residence.
Secondly, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on her report.
She has opted for a broad approach, Mr Hernandez Mollar, and her report covers right of residence for all citizens, including the economically active and those from third countries, topics which are, in fact, covered by proposals already submitted.
My group supports this approach because, despite all initiatives from the Commission, despite the Veil report, despite the action programme and despite the legislative initiatives, the proposals remain on the Council table with very little happening to them.
Within the framework of this debate, I should like to home in on four specific points.
Firstly, it has become apparent recently that the European labour market is relying increasingly on mobility; an ever dwindling number of companies manage to fill their vacancies.
It is therefore quite astounding that there are still that many obstacles with regard to the free movement of persons and right of residence, especially where temporary contracts, part-time jobs and the unemployed who look for jobs abroad are concerned.
Secondly, my group keeps an open mind on European citizenship. To us, this means that the non-economically active, the retired and students should also be entitled to a right of residence, subject to certain conditions, of course.
The obstructions which some Member States are creating at the moment do give us the strong impression that some Member States do not want to embrace the European citizenship idea at all.
Thirdly, we aspire to create a citizenship which does not discriminate according to the type of relationship citizens choose for themselves.
Whether they choose to live together, and whether they are single, gay or lesbian, they should also be able to claim right of residence in those countries where these types of relationship are recognised; if not, we would be denying thousands of people the right to live in families.
And finally, we embrace a vision of citizenship which is also open to people from third countries, residents of the European Union, legal immigrants and permanent residents, without discrimination.
We therefore give this report by Mrs Boumediene-Thiery our unconditional support.
We hope that the Commission will continue to adopt a hard line against infringements and the pitiful transposition of EU legislation in the Member States, but above all I hope from the bottom of my heart that the Council will finally pluck up the courage to tackle the free movement of persons full-on.
Mr President, there has thankfully been a change in European Community law over the last 30 years from freedom of movement of persons being seen as purely an economic issue - functional mobility - to it being seen as a personal right.
This has meant a lot of rhetoric about a citizen's Europe but not much change in the mentality or administrations of the Member States, as Mrs Wallis has pointed out.
In saying that, I am not overlooking the economic benefits of free movement.
Mrs Boumediene-Thiery's report points out - and I congratulate her for its quality - that facilitating mobility promotes dynamism and economic competitiveness.
So why does the Right ignore this? But the real bottom line for Liberals is whether the Member States believe in and respect the notion of European citizenship, not only allowing the citizens of a Member State and their families to move around but also conferring such rights, to the greatest extent possible, on legally resident third-country nationals and their families - which unfortunately were not covered by the Commission report.
It is very aggravating when the Council of Ministers and individual governments wring their hands about the low turnout in European elections, launch campaigns with balloons and plastic bags about people's Europe and seek to win citizens' votes in referendum campaigns, but still maintain obstructive red tape when those citizens have the cheek to assert their European legal right to move freely.
Those rules are far too complicated anyway.
We need a complete overhaul to streamline and make crystal clear the unimpeded exercise of free movement.
It is not too much to ask.
As Mrs Wallis said, it should be as easy for people to cross borders as it is for widgets or potatoes.
We support Mrs Boumediene-Thiery ' s report.
It is indeed time that we respected equal rights and abandoned the rationale of suspicion towards immigration.
Member States take it upon themselves to refuse the right of residence to foreign students, even if they are enrolled at a recognised educational establishment, if they believe that they have changed direction or are not progressing quickly enough, which should be a decision left to the university authorities.
This rationale of suspicion gives rise to obsessive references to the need for public order and the scandalous practice of double penalties.
For the same crime, in addition to prison, foreigners are systematically and automatically expelled from a Member State.
This banishment violates the principle of equality before the law that is enshrined in Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Finally, it is important to facilitate the granting and renewal of permanent residence permits, as a residence permit of very brief duration leads to employment of very brief duration, discrimination and exploitation.
Finally, the time has come to promote a European citizenship that is based on residence.
The right to vote must be extended to non-Community nationals if we want to get rid of xenophobia and racism in Europe.
Mr President, as the rapporteurs who have just spoken said, although the right to free movement is deemed to be one of the most important aspects of the fundamental right of European citizenship, it is a right which is all too often subject to restrictions, and the large number of petitions to the European Parliament on precisely this subject are testimony to this.
I would first of all like to focus on a point strongly emphasised in the report: the need to fight against all abusive and excessively restrictive interpretations of the concept of public policy by some Member States.
For example, someone who has lived in a country since childhood or, at any rate, for a large number of years, and therefore has cultural, social and family ties in that country, should not be deported unless he or she is convicted of a crime which is deemed to be, in effect, a serious offence, under the criminal law of the country of residence.
Sadly, this is very often not the case.
Another point which I would like to focus on concerns the members of certain royal families, such as the Italian royal family, for example, which, despite the fact that it does not pose a threat to national security, cannot fully exercise its legitimate right of free movement.
I feel that the time has truly come to make a genuine attempt to tackle these issues and remove the barriers to free movement once and for all, for the very reason that - as has already been said - potatoes and goods appear to have greater freedom of movement in Europe than the citizens.
Freedom of movement and residence is a right enshrined in European treaties and granted to all citizens and should only be denied in exceptional cases when there is a real threat to public safety.
It is therefore all the more extraordinary that 50 years after the signing of the Convention of Human Rights, which ironically was signed in Rome, and one year after the Treaty of Amsterdam upholding such rights, that one European family, which for a thousand years has been involved with the continent's history, is being denied the fundamental rights my colleague has mentioned.
The Watson report demands such rights for family reunion and the Boumediene-Thiery report for freedom of movement and residence, even for third-country nationals and even for convicted criminals.
This family, as mentioned, is the former royal house of Savoy in Italy and lesser violations are also being committed against the royal houses of Austria and Greece by their governments.
The thirteenth transitional article of the Italian Constitution, absurdly labelled "transitional" but still in force after 53 years, is not only a violation of European treaties, but also sexually discriminatory in that it applies only to male royal descendants, no matter how far removed, of the constitutional monarch King Victor Emanuel, deemed guilty of signing unacceptable wartime fascist laws.
Ironically, descendants of Mussolini are not only allowed to live in Italy but one actually sits in the Italian Parliament.
This article is shameful and obsolete and all Members of Parliament, even those with anti-monarchist feelings, should join me in calling upon the Italian government to allow an innocent European family to return to their native land, where it poses no conceivable threat to public safety or the stability of the Italian Republic.
We can only call for European citizens to have more rights if all their rights are upheld irrespective of origin and without discrimination.
This issue goes far beyond individual families and goes right to the heart of the Union's respect for its own laws and treaties.
Either we have a European Union based on law or we do not.
I therefore commend my Amendment No 14 to this House.
Can I congratulate Mrs Boumediene-Thiery on her report on special measures concerning the movement and residence of citizens of the Union which are justified on grounds of public policy, public security, or public health.
It is a very good report.
Unfortunately, in two minutes all I can do is talk about some of its failings.
Firstly the Commission has failed to deal with the issue of the 12 to 14 million third-country nationals living legally in the Union who currently suffer discrimination and, outside the Union's island States can move freely de facto but cannot do so legally, which of course creates situations in which they are exploited and used in illegal ways.
With all due respect for the rapporteur, I have to say that we also have a problem with a number of areas that she has not dealt with, one of which is the issue of football hooliganism.
I am generally in favour of free movement but I think it needs to be limited.
I do not normally believe that persons who have not been convicted of crimes should be prevented from moving freely, but there is a European problem that is being ignored at European level.
Europol should be used to prevent the free movement of people who have been convicted of football-related crimes to ensure that they do not cause the same kind of trouble as at previous World Cup and European championship tournaments.
I also believe that the provisions should be invoked on the grounds of public security to prevent the free movement of German neo-Nazis who produce Holocaust denial material in Denmark with the clear intention of reimporting it into Germany, where it is illegal.
I hope that the Danish Government will use the provisions in this instance.
Equally, we need to make sure that the system is not abused.
I naturally hope that the free movement of people who have the misfortune to be HIV-positive is not restricted in any way on grounds of public health.
I agree with Mr Tannock in principle.
Of course the royal families of Europe should be allowed to move about freely.
However, I disagree with his priorities.
When we ignore the rights of 12 to 14 million legal residents, then the rights of two families are comparatively insignificant.
Mr President, I should like to begin by agreeing with all those who have pointed out that the matter we are discussing concerns the very essence of European citizenship.
We might say that this right contributes towards a practical and concrete expression of the concept of European citizenship, in that the great challenge facing us at the moment is to turn this legally recognised right into a practical reality that is implemented in citizens' everyday lives.
I also agree with those who have pointed out that the transposition of these directives has taken place too slowly, or even incorrectly in some cases.
In addition, we must also face up to the difficulties arising out of implementation of the directive on special measures concerning the movement and residence of citizens of the Union which are justified on grounds of public policy, public security or public health, in that there should be guidelines not only for the Member States, which have so far interpreted the provisions of the directive in quite a variety of ways, but also for the citizens regarding the rights conferred on them.
The Member States may impose restrictions on the right to free movement of Community citizens, particularly in matters of entry to and expulsion from their territory as well as the issuing or renewal of residence permits, where this is justified on grounds of public policy, public security or public health.
Member States cannot, however, abuse such prerogatives in a European Union based on the rule of law, respect for human rights and particularly respect for the European Convention on Human Rights as well as, soon, a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It is for this reason, then, that these measures of exception to free movement have been subject to restrictive interpretation.
Finally, Mr President, I should like to express my agreement with my colleague Hernández Mollar when he gave his support to the proposal from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market to try to integrate the various texts into a single regulation. This could be implemented directly and would be a primary document on European citizenship, which would offer all the necessary information not only to citizens regarding their rights of citizenship but also to the government departments in each Member State that have the task of implementing existing legislation.
Mr President, Commissioner, in company with Mr Hernández Mollar - whom I would like to thank for his enthusiastic support for Amendment No 15, tabled by myself - I feel that this document must be rejected if the European People's Party's amendments are not incorporated.
I support Amendment No 14, tabled by Mr Tannock, which upholds the free movement of the heirs to the Italian and Greek thrones and supports the monarchy.
Personally, in tabling Amendment No 15, I support the pensioners, for although the measure facilitates the movement of non-EU citizens, it does not remove the difficulties facing its own citizens, particularly its disabled citizens, who wish to travel within Europe.
At Bergamo Orio al Serio airport, as I was leaving to come to Strasbourg, I met a pensioner - a very old lady who is 80 years old - who told me that she wanted to go to Paris to visit her daughter but that she could not do so because she would lose her Italian State pension which is her only means of support.
Another person, who is totally handicapped, said that they wanted to go to London but that they could not do so because they would have lost their pension.
Yet another person, who is disabled - in a wheelchair, no less - told me that he would have liked to go and visit his brother but that in doing so he would have lost his incapacity allowance.
Therefore, our goal must be to bring about the free movement of pensioners and disabled citizens in Europe.
Mr Fatuzzo, you have made me think very carefully about where I shall travel to in old age.
Commissioner Vitorino has the floor.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I would like first of all to congratulate Mrs Boumediene-Thiery and all those who have taken part in this debate.
Indeed, I think that, for the Commission, the establishment of European citizenship has created a new legal and political environment and, for our part, we intend to draw all the practical lessons we can both in the legislative field and in the field of day-to-day public administration.
The Commission is counting a great deal on the support of the European Parliament when the time comes.
With regard to the motion for a resolution that you have just presented, I would simply like to address two or three comments directed at the Commission.
The three directives on the right of residence of the non-economically active have, I am sure, enabled thousands of European Union citizens to benefit from this right without encountering any particular problems.
However, there are still cases where these directives are incorrectly applied.
I can assure you that the Commission always intervenes - and tries to do so strictly under all circumstances - even if its intervention is not always obvious. If agreement is not reached, the Commission does not hesitate to notify Reasoned Opinions to the Member States concerned.
Citizens' complaints that meet with a satisfactory administrative response through extra-judicial procedures can be counted in their hundreds.
The action of the Commission also applies to the laws of Member States.
One could, in my view, cite several cases where this intervention has brought about modification of the legislation of Member States and sometimes even the examination, by the Court of Justice, of issues to which it has provided positive solutions.
There is no shortage of examples either concerning the Member States' improper use of the notion of public order, especially that leading to the expulsion from their territory of nationals from other Member States.
I can assure you, however, that the number of these cases is now very low and that, with regard to such cases, the European Commission never fails to take the necessary measures pursuant to Community law.
Nevertheless, it cannot be claimed that the strict application of Community law is sufficient to eliminate obstacles to the free movement of European Union citizens, bearing in mind the huge number of obstacles that persist due to the shortcomings in Community law. These shortcomings have already been identified in the second report by the Commission on European citizenship and in the report by the High Level Group headed by Simone Veil, which was presented to the Commission in 1997.
Moreover, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this morning we debated the directive on family reunification and that the Tampere Conclusions require the Commission to present a proposal on the recognition of entry, admission and residence conditions and on the legal status of third-country nationals within the European Union legally.
We are currently working on this.
For all these reasons, the Commission shares the opinion expressed by several Members of this House on the need for a global reworking of existing texts within the context of a single legal instrument, which will organise and guarantee the unimpeded exercise of the freedom of movement and residence.
This reworking, which moreover is included in the Commission action programme for 2000, is already in preparation.
It is based on the idea that entitlement to the right of free movement and residence must be dissociated from any prior reference to the economic situation of the beneficiaries in order to be attached henceforth to a concept and a status resulting directly from the importance of European citizenship.
The unique status of a European Union citizen necessarily creates the need for a unique general system of movement and residence in response to the demand to enrich the content of European citizenship in accordance with the political aspirations of the Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Environmental effects of certain programmes
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0196/2000) by Mrs Schörling, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position (C5-0180/2000 - 1996/0304(COD)) for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment.
Mr President, I am very pleased that I have been entrusted with being rapporteur for the second reading of the SEA Directive which I believe is an important step towards a new form of behaviour in environmental policy.
I want to thank all my fellow MEPs in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, together with the Commission and, in particular, the Portuguese Presidency for the excellent way in which they have cooperated.
This draft directive concerns strategic environmental assessments which, in brief, involve a systematic process for identifying, analysing and assessing the influence and likely effects of plans and programmes upon the environment.
The assessments are to be carried out at as early a stage as possible in the planning process, partly so that alternative solutions might be found before the decision-making process is taken any further.
Environmental reports are to be written and made available to the environmental authorities, the public and environmental organisations, which are also to be given sufficient time within which to respond to the reports.
This is a very important directive for the whole of the Community' s environmental policy if a tool is to be obtained which makes it easier to comply with the commitments to sustainable development and compliance with the precautionary principle which have been made in the Treaty and in other agreements.
A modern environmental policy worthy of the name must do everything to ensure that damage to the environment does not occur and that effects upon the environment are minimised.
What often happens nowadays is that attempts are made to identify and repair damage once it has occurred.
As early as at the planning stage, we must learn to use policy areas, plans and programmes to avoid and reduce the negative effects and influence upon the environment.
The SEA Directive constitutes a very important step towards an approach of this kind.
Unfortunately, this draft directive makes no mention of policy areas, in spite of the fact that they figure in the Commission' s original draft from 1991 and in spite of the fact that all researchers in this area actually take it for granted that policy areas too must be included in a strategic environmental assessment.
It was not possible to achieve this in the Council, but the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy considered that policy areas too must be included in the review to be carried out in five years' time.
This has been discussed in Amendments 2 and 21.
A crucial argument when the Commission finally tabled this proposal in 1996 was that the assessment at project level enters the decision-making process much too late.
In actual fact, this is one of the main points in the directive - that an environmental assessment should be made early on in the decision-making process.
At first reading, the European Parliament had quite a lot of points of view. The proposal was thought to be heading in the right direction but in many areas, it did not go far enough.
Parliament tabled 29 amendments, of which 15 are more or less to be found in the common position.
If the SEA is to be a genuinely useful tool, the directive must be sufficiently broad in scope and the environmental report and the assessments must naturally be of very high quality.
In the common position, the Council has now made the text worse in a number of areas, specifically when it comes, for example, to the scope of the directive and the definition of what it is to cover.
The Commission too was very, very critical of the common position because it was far too limited in relation to the original text.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has tried to restore something of the balance, for example by means of Amendments 6 and 7 which broaden the scope of the directive by not limiting it only to plans and programmes linked to EIA projects.
We do not permit whole categories of plans and programmes to be exempt.
Nor can we accept that financial plans and the whole of the defence sector are exempt from strategic environmental assessments.
This is discussed in Amendment 10, which also proposes that structural funds must also of course be covered by strategic environmental assessments next time around.
Other amendments which improve the directive concern greater transparency and openness to inspection and the need also to cooperate and consult with countries outside the Community.
I personally am very surprised at Amendment 26 from Mr Nassauer and 29 other MEPs who want to reject the common position.
This possibility was not mentioned at all in the Committee' s discussion.
Clearly, they are fully entitled to make this proposal, but do they really think that the EU' s environmental policy is something extraneous which is not in any way binding? Should the European Parliament just not bother about the text of the Treaty, the Cardiff Agreement, the Fifth Environmental Programme and so on?
I really do not think that the proposal is a genuinely serious one.
Amendments 11 and 31 also worry me a little.
Amendment 11, in particular, says that the Member States should define at what level SEAs are to be carried out if plans and programmes are part of a hierarchical system.
In this way, the whole idea of arranging an SEA is called into question, so I hope these amendments do not go through.
Mr President, this is a small but significant measure to extend the duties of Member States to carry out strategic environmental assessments on the planning framework as well as on the actual plans where the implementation would or could have a significant impact on the environment.
All Member States voted for the common position, but some made it clear that they would go very little further than that.
Our task is to clarify and to amend responsibly and on behalf of the PPE-DE Group I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Schörling, on the work she has done and the consultation she has had with us.
We will however be rejecting some of her amendments, notably those that seek to extend the system to all financial plans, to defence and civil defence, to consultation beyond what is reasonable and to the general policies she has just mentioned, which become more of a wish-list than firm proposals.
However, we agree that it makes no sense to exclude projects financed wholly or partially by the European Union, especially structural funds, and we certainly agree that it makes sense to talk to neighbouring states outside the European Union.
We agree that there should be adequate reporting back, not only on the environmental risks identified by the assessment, but on the action it is proposed to take to mitigate or remove them.
We also of course have to consider Amendment No 26, in the name of some of our German colleagues, which rejects the common position.
I understand the concerns of colleagues from Germany and some parts of Italy.
These result from the way in which some governments and regional governments have chosen to implement the assessments.
These governments are giving environmental assessment and Europe a bad name for what are entirely excesses of their own making and they need to look carefully at their domestic policies.
But this is a subsidiarity measure which leaves the details to Member States.
It is not the big hand of Europe extending control to local planning matters.
It does, however, ensure that particularly at our respective borders our planning takes account of the environment quality within and across our borders when planning frameworks are being agreed.
We believe that to be a good thing and my PPE-DE Group will therefore not be supporting Amendment No 26 and will vote for the common position.
We shall then vote for the amendments we supported in committee and for one further clarifying amendment which has been submitted since, but we shall oppose the amendments which we believe are a step too far in terms of what is desirable, practical and acceptable.
Mr President, the directive we are about to vote on represents a major step forwards.
The obligation to carry out an environmental impact assessment at an extremely early stage of town and country planning activities does, in fact, make it possible to incorporate environmental concerns fully right from the conception of town and country planning plans and programmes.
The Union has at last realised that we can no longer restrict ourselves to merely picking up the pieces following damage caused by short-sighted planning, but that the damage must be averted as early on as possible.
The amendments approved by the Committee on the Environment substantially improve the Council's common position.
Firstly, it was upheld that, in order to exert any real influence over national customs, the scope of the directive must be as wide as possible.
In this context, I feel that plans and projects financed from the Structural Funds must without exception be governed by the directive, seeing that, in practice, they represent all the programmes implemented, particularly in regions whose development is lagging behind.
Secondly, the principle of consultation and provision of information to the public and the organisations concerned throughout the assessment process, in compliance with the Aarhus Convention, has been reestablished.
I therefore feel that this is a sound text overall.
I understand the concerns of the Members coming from countries organised according to a Federal State model, who fear that the local authorities will be overloaded with work, but I feel that the amendments, particularly Amendments Nos 19, 29 and 31, are sufficient to avoid an overlap between the two directives and still ensure respect for the environment.
Mr President, every day it is drawn to our attention that the environment is changing.
Last Sunday, I was listening to a Swedish radio programme which said that, in central Sweden, people would have to adjust to the fact that rainfall would increase by 50 per cent over the next few years.
In one way or another, environmental questions are always the subject of public opinion nowadays.
They must therefore feature in a better way in political work, too.
I therefore want to congratulate Mrs Schörling on a very good report which proposes that environmental aspects must be taken into consideration at an early stage.
In principle, environmental issues must permeate all activities, economic activity above all perhaps.
When it comes to plans, building projects etc, it is of course important, as proposed in this report, to take account of environmental aspects as early as possible so that mistakes and increased costs can be avoided and the right solution found as soon as possible.
I think it is extremely important and commendable that Mrs Schörling should propose that the scope of the directive should be broadened.
It is a matter of urgency that economic activity should be included in the environmental assessment.
It is transparently obvious to the EU, which invests a very large part of its budget in the agricultural sphere, in regional policy and in the structural funds, that these areas should be examined from an environmental point of view.
We cannot go in and do this directly but should do so as quickly as possible whenever new plans come out.
It is unreasonable to do what is at present done with EU funds and to support such activities within these sectors as are opposed from an environmental point of view in other contexts.
We must try to create a system in which we think in environmental terms from the very beginning, even when it comes to economic problems.
This is a major and important issue.
I realise that large sections of this House do not agree with me, but my group and I completely support Mrs Schörling in this connection.
Mr President, I am going to refer briefly to four points which were fully debated in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
We are basically in favour of the proposal of the Environment Committee and its rapporteur.
With regard to the inclusion of some of the sectors in the directive, in particular the extractive industry and the defence industry, we believe that they should not be left out.
Provided, of course, that the necessary precautions are taken.
I would also like to stress the importance of the inclusion of the management of water resources.
An ambitious government plan will be presented soon in Spain, the National Hydrological Plan, which will have a clear impact on the places where it is put into practice.
We feel it is essential that these assessment studies should be carried out.
Also very important to us is the role of the public, i.e. transparency.
There is a directive on the right to information, No 313, which has been repeatedly ignored by the Member States and by local and regional authorities.
Likewise, we must include the quality of the studies and the issue of health amongst the significant sectors affected.
High environmental standards and good health are very closely related.
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate and in so doing acknowledge the positive role of Parliament in setting the agenda for the highest standards of environmental protection.
There is of course a cost factor in environmental management, but equally an economic return, which not easily quantified but exists none the less.
The proposed directive, which requires an environmental assessment before the adoption of a regional or county plan, makes good environmental and economic sense.
Far too often in the past we have seen costly development plans collapse because of environmental considerations that were not addressed at the initial planning stage.
Finally, I would appeal to professional planners to use their common sense by taking account of the views of public representatives and community groups.
A textbook approach of the kind seen far too often has not always served to meet citizens' requirements in this important area.
Planning must not become the sole preserve of those who have an academic qualification.
Elected Members must exercise greater care and concern when drawing up development policies that will ultimately affect Union citizens.
Mr President, strategic environmental impact assessment is an instrument which allows governments to assess whether policy proposals, plans and programmes are compatible with the concept of sustainable development.
In this way, we can ensure that environmental concerns form a more integral part of the economy. Indeed, decisions at macro-economic level too should be accompanied by a preliminary strategic environmental impact assessment.
It is therefore important for public administrations to be very aware of the usefulness of this exercise in order to prevent environmental damage as far as possible.
It is equally important for us to clearly outline which plans require environmental impact assessments and which do not.
The Council has dealt with this extensively.
I am in favour of submitting policy proposals, including environmental impact assessments, to public administrations.
In that case, a public administration may decide to scrap a plan, programme or proposal, call these off in good time or replace them by environmentally-friendly alternatives.
On the other hand, there is a substantial risk of too many plans and programmes being subjected to environmental impact assessments.
If extensive studies are carried out of plans and programmes whose impact on the environment is negligible, then this is a waste of energy.
What is more, the instrument as such is being weakened.
So in this light, including all financial plans, as proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection would therefore be going too far.
Mr President, the best way to integrate environmental issues with all areas of policy is to get the environmental perspective in the picture at the earliest possible stage.
In this way we will avoid the problems we have at the moment with regard to harmonisation of the use of land, financial activity, and the expectations of the public.
There is in existence a strategic evaluation of the impact on the environment that applies not only to town planning but also agricultural, transport, travel and energy sector programmes, among others.
In order for us to be able to harmonise all these important aspects and proceed in an environmentally and socially sustainable way we need plans that are sufficiently long-term in nature: long-term inasmuch as they act as genuine guidelines for separate and independent measures.
In this connection I have to thank the rapporteur for her excellent work.
It is quite natural that Structural Funds programmes, plans and measures should be included in any examination of this issue.
It is also important that we take the proper course of action at different levels, and not act in too complicated or bureaucratic a manner, but take account of the new information we get all the time.
In this respect there has perhaps been too much anxiety about overlap, but I hope that, after this debate, this report will be as successful as possible as far as this is concerned.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a new instrument and it accords with Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which concerns the integration of environmental policies into other areas.
It is a delicate flower and we all want it to be a success.
I also want it to be well received by my electorate back home.
Hence I sometimes ask myself the questions that they ask themselves.
When I look at the Council' s proposal, I assume that people will ask themselves this: how can the EU introduce an assessment regime that excludes the plans and projects financed by the European Union itself?
This is completely unacceptable, and that is precisely how I see it.
The scope of application must be extended to include areas that are financed by the European Union.
Secondly, the people of Germany, in particular, may well ask themselves why the assessments are to be carried out at state level, national level, regional administration level, and at local level, which will drag the procedures out.
This is indefensible in my view.
It is the real issues that count, not having the same thing assessed at every level.
Therefore we must make it clear that a duplication of effort must be avoided.
Accordingly, Guido Sacconi' s Amendment No 31 has my unequivocal support.
A third question the people may ask themselves is this: why is nothing happening now that an assessment has taken place which may have raised certain issues? Therefore we must make it clear that the regulation is binding.
We certainly cannot have a situation where an assessment is carried out and the findings are then filed away, never to be seen again.
We need a binding commitment to the effect that any findings will be acted on.
Therefore, I emphatically support Amendments Nos 17 and 18, which provide for us to make the transposition of environmental protection measures following assessment a little more binding in nature.
With this in mind, I wish Mrs Schörling' s report every success.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur for her constructive approach and for being open to dialogue with all the interested parties - including the Commission - which I hope will finally enable us all to achieve a positive result in relation to this directive.
I would also like to highlight the quality of the report which we are debating today and I would like to talk about what I see as the most significant problems raised in the various amendments that have been tabled and the interventions of the various Members. My sincere thanks for all your comments and points of view.
Of the key questions, I would firstly like to mention those amendments which involve broadening the scope of the future directive.
The joint position clearly distinguishes the plans for which the strategic environmental assessment is obligatory from those for which it is necessary to make a selection, a screening.
The Commission is inclined towards this approach, provided that the joint position is improved, because we believe that otherwise it would be insufficient.
Firstly, there must be a balance between the plans for which the strategic environmental assessment is obligatory and those for which we have to make a selection.
Secondly, the scope of the directive must, in any event, be sufficiently broad and systematically include those plans which have a significant impact on the environment.
This is why the Commission enthusiastically supports some of Parliament' s amendments which broaden the scope of this directive and do so in a balanced fashion, such as, for example, the second and fifth sections of Amendment No 5, which have been mentioned by the rapporteur and also by some other speakers, such as Mrs González, which proposes also including extractive activities.
We also support Amendment No 6.
Nevertheless, we believe that some amendments go too far and propose the strategic environmental assessment for plans which will not probably have a significant impact on the environment.
For example, section 4 of Amendment No 5 would make these assessments obligatory for all the plans for the sectors listed in the directive.
The third section of Amendment No 10 would mean an unnecessary burden for the Member States.
Some amendments limit the directive' s scope even further and actually contradict what I have just said.
Certain amendments would reduce the scope, such as Amendment No 3, which limits the scope to the plans financed by the EU, or Amendments Nos 11 and 31, which allow States to choose the level or levels of planning with which these strategic environmental assessments will be carried out.
This would exclude many plans which have an impact on the environment.
Now, if Parliament were to adopt these amendments together with those which broaden the scope to plans with no significant impact, it seems to me that we would end up with a text which is inconsistent with itself.
These amendments seem to be inspired by the fear of the assessment being duplicated.
In my view, this fear is not sufficiently justified.
Planning is usually carried out at various levels and each one has its own specific characteristics.
The carrying out of assessments at various levels of planning is not a duplication of the assessment, especially given the safeguards contained in Articles 4, 5 and 10 of the joint position which are intended to prevent just the kind of duplication which Mr Lange, for example, referred to.
Thirdly, I would point out the amendments which establish the procedures for planning and programming the screening and the definition of the scope of the assessment - Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 13 - and which require the screening to be carried out on a case by case basis, with the participation of the public in all cases.
I believe that the objective of the screening and the definition of the scope of the assessment is to determine, quickly and efficiently, which plans and which environmental problems are the most relevant.
Establishing the best way to deal with these issues will require practical experience.
We therefore believe it is too soon to establish that all circumstances justify a screening and a broad scope.
We therefore believe that, by incorporating the provisions on the screening and the definition of the scope into their national legislation, Member States would be liable to exceed the requirements of the directive and, for that reason, we will not accept these amendments.
Nor will we accept the amendment which implies a rejection of the joint text - Amendment No 26 - which contradicts the other approaches.
I do not believe it is necessary to point out that this directive on the strategic environmental assessment is a key instrument for integrating the environment into policies and for promoting sustainable development in the European Union.
I believe that a rejection of the joint position would deal a serious blow to these principles which are at the heart of the Treaties and which must inspire all our policies.
I understand that this may seem insufficient to some of you, but we must appreciate that sometimes it is not always best to seek perfection.
I believe that we should seek something acceptable, which would be a step forward, rather than reach a deadlock.
Mr President, having carefully examined all the amendments, I can tell you that the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 5 (sections 2 and 5), 6, 12, 28 (section 1) and 29.
Amendments Nos 9 (the part which refers to the requirement to justify that the strategic environmental assessment is not necessary), 10 (sections 1 and 2), 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24 and 25 are acceptable in principle, providing that there is some rewording of its content.
The Commission cannot, however, under any circumstances, accept Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5 (sections 1, 3 and 4), 7, 8, 9 (in the part on the requirement to justify the need for a strategic environmental assessment), 10 (section 3), 11, 13, 14, 16, 19, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28 (section 2), 30 and 31.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues
The next item is the report (A5-0213/2000) by Mr Bouwman, on behalf of the parliamentary delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive [C5-0348/2000 - 1998/0249(COD)] on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are debating a directive intended to fight marine pollution, and this will not be the only one this year.
I am, of course, referring to the Erika directives which are due at a later stage.
It would perhaps be a very nice start to the season and the French Presidency if this directive, along with the outcome of the conciliation between the Council and Parliament, in particular, were to be adopted today in Parliament.
That is why I would like to say a word of thanks to the representatives of the Council, as well as to the Portuguese Presidency, which had a role to play, and also to the French Presidency, the Commission and the members of the conciliation committee, who were involved at the last stage.
As we have already discussed, at the heart of the proposal is, of course, the duty on the part of ships to report and to deliver waste.
Ports are required to draw up waste-processing plans and to ensure that there are waste-processing plants or organisations that implement these plans.
This is to prevent the problem of marine pollution from escalating to an even higher level than that at which it already stands.
A recent study by KIMO Coast Watch has shown, for example, that there is still a growing volume of waste on beaches, that the sea is still being polluted and that state-of-the-art technology is being used to discharge sludge into the sea.
If we consider the waste processing plants which already exist in a number of ports, there is even a downward, rather than upward, trend in waste deliveries.
Officially, according to MARPOL and other conventions, waste is required to be handed over.
In practice, however, it appears that this does not happen.
This was the reason why the Commission was right to come up with a directive which was the subject of conciliation not so long ago.
It might be useful, in this context, to highlight the outcome of the negotiations because, at the end of the day, we made a certain investment, and we must assess this investment jointly in order to be able subsequently to decide in this House whether or not we can go along with it.
Eventually, what mattered most was the fee system, which is, in itself, not unimportant.
It is important because we hope that by means of a fee system - leaving to one side the attendant obligations for a moment - ships will be coaxed into delivering waste.
This is why we have had long debates with the Council, and the Commission was a great help in ensuring that the financial incentives were incorporated into this system in one way or another.
Parliament' s suggestion was for a figure of 90%, which we would like to collect by means of port dues in one way or another.
During committee discussions, we took a more lenient approach but, ultimately, decided to start the negotiations with this figure.
For a long time, the Council had decided neither to incorporate the word "significant" in this sense, nor to include the percentage figure.
However, certainly in the light of the review clause which has already been the subject of discussion, it is important ultimately to specify the amount.
You may well ask yourself why this percentage would be of any significance? For the simple reason that if we were to endorse and adopt the polluter-pays principle, each and every ship could then pay at the port but could also decide simply to dump the waste at sea.
In other words, this principle is not very effective in this case.
This is why we have abandoned it and believe that a fee system as explained should be introduced.
We support the percentage which has now been agreed upon, or at least the interpretation laid down in the Commission statement, namely 30%, certainly in the light of the review clause which has been adopted.
In this clause, it is agreed that, three years after the entry into force of the directive, it will be examined whether the volume of waste delivery has increased or whether a situation has been created which requires either a higher percentage level or a review of the system.
We can go along with this.
It may be useful to indicate that we were able to reach agreement on the 25% of inspections to which we aspire, as well as a provision for delays which can arise when waste is being delivered.
In the main, national legislation prevails in this context.
A few exceptions have been made for small ships, not so much on the basis of the length but on the basis of the number of passengers they carry i.e. twelve.
This means that, although they do not have a notification duty, they must, of course, deliver waste.
Small ports will need to make a considerable effort to accommodate this directive in the foreseeable future.
Finally, I should like to note that, with regard to traditional sailing ships, whose exemption we initially secured by drafting a specific list, we have now decided to apply the Marpol convention to them with regard to sewage.
I would like to thank everyone, and my fellow committee members, in particular.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, the PPE-DE Group is very pleased with the end result - one reservation aside - because the new directive will ultimately enable us to make progress in marine protection, and in establishing a level playing field for the Union' s ports.
The significance of the directive resides first and foremost in the fact that all Member States will be obliged to ensure that port reception facilities are set up, within the next two years, in all ports subject to this requirement.
Captains will also be obliged to use these facilities.
We hope that the rationale behind these two commitments will lead to a reduction in the amount of ship-generated waste deposited illegally in the sea, thus strengthening the marine environment and also improving competition between ports.
I believe that the conciliation procedure was successful in the end, for we did at least manage to secure our demand for ships to have to pay a significant contribution towards the costs of the facilities, irrespective of how much they make use of them.
Parliament would rather have succeeded with its demand for 'significant' to represent at least 90%, as this would have satisfied us, and there would no longer be any financial interest whatsoever in simply dumping waste at sea.
After all, if ships had to pay anyway, then they might as well use the facilities.
Sadly, the Council could not bring itself to accept this logical, no special fee provision, hence our reservation against the directive.
And we hope that if it becomes apparent that ships are continuing to discharge waste into the sea, the Commission will propose an amendment at the revision stage in three years' time.
Having said that, Madam Vice-President, we are grateful to you for the fact that your statement - which is, after all, of crucial importance - does at least, in effect, secure a bottom line of 30% as the amount agreed by the Council and Parliament, and we are relying on the Council to act on your statement accordingly.
Secondly, as my honourable friend has already said, we have scored two other victories for marine protection and the citizens of the European Union.
Firstly, we have stipulated that 25% of all commercial shipping will in fact be obliged to undergo inspection, in order to ensure that waste disposal is being carried out in accordance with the regulations.
MARPOL is all well and good but not when it stays on the bookshelf!
We will only be able to protect the sea if we actually monitor whether waste disposal has taken place.
Secondly, we have put pressure on the Member States to meet their obligation to actually set up these port reception facilities. We have ensured that Member States will be required to introduce compensation measures, in case ships are forced to remain in ports unnecessarily, simply because there are no waste disposal facilities available, or they are inadequate.
In this way, although the ships will have to pay, they will also be protected.
Mr President, on a final note, I would like, on behalf of my group, to thank the committee chairman, Mr Hatzidakis, and the rapporteur, Mr Bouwman, for their committed and successful handling of these negotiations.
Thank you very much, Mr Jarzembowski. I would have been surprised if Mr Piecyk had not wanted to speak for three minutes!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Parliament has enjoyed co-decision power with regard to transport issues, for example.
In this way, differences of opinion between the Council and Parliament, which are a regular occurrence, need no longer be settled unilaterally.
This procedure has proven to be worthwhile in practice.
The conditions for the delivery of waste by ships at Community ports have been the topic of many a discussion.
On previous occasions, Parliament had stressed the importance of including certain elements and, fortunately, the Council has, sometimes after pressure has been put upon it, taken on board the significance of these points.
Right until the very end, however, there has been one main contentious issue, namely the ships' own contributions toward the cost of collecting waste.
The European Parliament was of the opinion that the user should cover the lion' s share of the costs that he has given rise to but made provision for a scale of different charges and made every effort to discourage illegal dumping in the process.
Accordingly, it came up with a percentage level for own contributions which far exceeded 50%.
The outcome of the negotiations is nowhere near the agreed percentage, which is regrettable.
However, I do believe that simply quoting a percentage is a step in the right direction.
This is why I will be backing this report, albeit not with much enthusiasm.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for having invested so much energy in this project.
Mr President, Vice-President of the Commission, this is perhaps the first time I have addressed the European Parliament without having to express any worries or concerns about the subject of the debate. I am fully in agreement with the outcome of the conciliation procedure and I would like to commend both Mr Bouwman and the other Members who sat on the Conciliation Committee and Mrs de Palacio and her services for ensuring that we worked together to achieve this positive outcome.
I think that the outcome of our work will finally help to improve the quality of our seas, tourism and the quality of life of the citizens of Europe.
It is a step forward.
I believe that we are now protecting the environment more effectively than hitherto, although I do admit this could have come about in a better way.
But, here we are. If we see that the new system is not working as effectively as we believed it could work, we can review it.
Since we had to go to conciliation, as Chairman of the Conciliation Committee, I would like to take this opportunity to say that I would prefer to avoid such procedures as far as possible.
But this requires the Council, which must abandon its tradition of secrecy, to cooperate better with the European Parliament and to speak more openly. Only in this way can the work of the Commission and our own work progress more quickly, especially in our own committee, where there are many issues that directly affect our citizens.
I hope that this tradition will change under the French Presidency.
In any event, we are all in favour of better cooperation and the speedier progress of the work of the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament.
Mr President, as a new Member of the European Parliament and as a permanent member of the Conciliation Committee for the first time, I have to say that I was satisfied with this procedure, which saw representatives of the main institutions of the European Union making every effort to achieve a happy medium, that is to say, between the possible and the feasible, bearing in mind existing conditions and possibilities, which are of course not the same for all Europe' s ports.
Especially with regard to fees, the important thing is that agreement was reached that the ships would pay part of the cost of waste disposal regardless of whether they use the port facilities or not. This will prevent difficulties arising for many ports and ships.
It is clear that this substantially reduces the incentive to discharge at sea. It also leaves each port the option of having its own charging policy.
Let us not forget that the European ports in the Mediterranean face competition from the ports of North Africa, whereas the Baltic or North Sea ports do not face any competition.
What is more, the possibility of amending the system to cover additional costs, should this prove necessary during its implementation, is guaranteed.
The essential thing is that, by approving the joint text under debate, we will have a directive that will protect our seas and coastlines from pollution caused by ships, and we will also have enhanced the image of the European Union as a standard-bearer for environmental policy and as an example for the rest of the world to follow.
Mr President, after a fight lasting many years, we are now to take the crucial decision on reception facilities which will make it possible, for example, to leave waste oil in port instead of dumping it in the sea.
This is obviously an extraordinarily large step in the right direction.
At the same time, it is worrying that, right up to the end, there have been those who have tried to thwart what is obviously the right step.
This is shown by the fact that a third reading has been required and that a conciliation committee has had to be set up, as well as by the lack of commitment on the part of large sections of the Council of Ministers.
It also has to be said that what we have achieved today is a compromise.
In the original proposal, almost all portions of the costs were covered by port fees in accordance with the system which has been in existence for a long time in parts of the Baltic.
This means that there was an economic motive for a vessel to leave waste oil in a port rather than dump it in the sea.
Now, only portions of the cost are to be covered in this way, while an extraordinarily large part of the cost is to become a further additional cost for the ship owner.
In my view, it remains to be seen what effects this will have.
I believe it is very important that we should be prepared to keep track of developments and make further decisions on this, if need be.
The evaluation envisaged in the Conciliation Committee' s proposal and the monitoring of vessels which is to take place are therefore extraordinarily advantageous.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bouwman, for his efforts over quite a long period of time in negotiating this very satisfactory proposal which will - as all colleagues have said so far - significantly reduce the amount of pollution dumped illegally into the seas around Europe.
Let us pause and reflect on the scale of the problem.
Mr Bouwman quite rightly referred to Erika.
This was indeed a tragedy of enormous proportions, with significant and perhaps enduring consequences, but the amount of deliberate spills from oil tankers along all our coasts dwarfs the amount of oil that was spilled from Erika.
It is that problem that this particular proposal aims to tackle.
I am delighted that it will, by ensuring that the Member States provide adequate facilities at all their ports, that their ships and masters are obliged to use them, that the fees system is fair and balanced and above all that 25% of ships are inspected to ensure these requirements are met.
I particularly welcome the three-year review, because my only concern is that Member States should implement this legislation that they have now signed up to.
As Mr Jarzembowski will know only too well, on port state control several Member States still do not inspect 25% of ships.
If they cannot do it on that, what is to say they will do it on this? That is our challenge to them: to make sure they adhere to the very worthy agreement that we are hopefully going to be endorsing this week.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Bouwman on the publication of this text, which had been uncertain for a long time.
This is indeed a very important date in maritime history.
A number of our colleagues have said that this text is a precursor to the Erika package and, in many respects, it aims to solve a problem that is even more serious. This problem concerns acts of ecological piracy, when ships discharge waste at sea, discharging hydrocarbons and a huge amount of waste onto our shorelines.
It is also a victory for Parliament over the Council' s reluctance to imposing a common-sense fee-paying system.
The principle of polluter pays is not working in the case in point, because the polluter cannot be identified.
If we want to settle this issue, we must move towards a universal fee system, which will be mandatory and not linked to the act of waste treatment.
I am among those who, in their capacity as French Members of Parliament, have made every effort to ensure that this text is published, even acting against the sympathies of their government towards this text or against its reservations.
I am among those who welcome this compromise.
But this compromise cannot be allowed to become a let-out. It must be implemented and its implementation must be strictly monitored at the level of the Member States.
In this connection, I would like to give you the position of a Frenchman who has worked so hard, despite the reluctance of his government.
It is clear that this text currently favours large ports and puts small ports, which are not equipped, at a disadvantage.
I therefore call on the Council to help Member States equip small ports, possibly in the framework of the Structural Funds, or in the form of some kind of loan, because small ports are also important elements of national and regional development and of regional and local economies.
And I believe that, if we provide small ports with waste treatment plants, we will secure the success of this directive.
Mr President, first of all, I want to congratulate the rapporteur on a commendable result.
I do not normally make a habit of doing this here in Parliament but, since there is good reason for doing so on this occasion, I would thank the rapporteur and the others who have worked on this report.
As Mr Stenmarck said, we are familiar with this system from the cooperation that has taken place in the Baltic.
Since March 1998, the Baltic Recommendation has taken such a system for granted.
I should like to say, however, that the agreement is in certain respects a disappointment in the perspective of what has happened in the Baltic.
I should also like to refer to the law we have passed in Finland which stipulates that the fee ought not to depend upon how much waste the vessel leaves at the port.
In Finland, we have had such a system for waste oil since 1 June.
In that respect, the agreement is a disappointment.
In the last few days, we have learned that, even when it comes to grey water and pollution which is eutrophic in its effects, intentional and unintentional discharges from vessels are the main sources of pollution in the Baltic.
We are used to the fact that the polluter-pays principle does not operate in the case of oil, but there are problems too when it comes to eutrophy caused in other ways.
We are aware that everyone has been exposed to tough lobbying from the port organisation in Europe which has consistently set its face against this proposal.
The outcome is, therefore, nonetheless a good one.
However, it will be extremely important to follow up the proposal.
The Commissioner is known to have a major interest in the sea and in obtaining a clean environment.
It is important that the follow-up should be carried out seriously so that any supplementary measures can be taken, if need be.
This is a first step, but I would observe that it is important that we should have stricter conditions for the Baltic, which is perhaps far and away the most sensitive inland sea in Europe.
Mr President, the report by Mr Bouwman, which is the outcome of a long process, has in the interim become even more topical in France because of the shipwreck of the tanker, the Erika, on the occasion of which the Minister for the Environment did not see fit to interrupt his holiday.
This report goes some way to preventing marine pollution because it deals with ships that discharge waste at sea.
These acts are not covered by the media in the same way as shipwrecks, but they nevertheless make up most of the pollution of our seas.
We must however recognise that Community legislation would not be necessary if the Member States of the European Union, who are all signatories to Marpol, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, had taken the necessary steps.
Nor is it enough to accuse unscrupulous shipowners or captains; we must bear in mind that it is often impossible to discharge waste inside the ports, due to the lack of appropriate facilities. The problem of waste storage is also extremely difficult to solve, as this in turn gives rise to the problem of waste treatment.
Nevertheless, it is difficult to believe that, in an age when agricultural installations are monitored by satellite, it is so difficult to monitor a ship discharging waste at sea.
We will, however, vote for this report, because it seems to be moving towards better prevention of pollution and because, wishing to remain at a general level, it leaves Member States a certain latitude in their choice of implementation tools.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very happy to be here today to participate in the debate on the approval of the directive on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues.
Like previous speakers, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Bouwman, on the excellent work he has done.
During this time he has combined steadfastness with flexibility and intelligence to achieve a result which is acceptable to all the institutions and which will serve to make our seas cleaner.
I must tell you, for example, that this summer, one of the items in the news in the country I know best, Spain, involved the southern coastlines being affected by the pollution resulting from oil tankers cleaning our their holds in international waters.
This is one of the 100 000 cases which occur throughout the year on Europe' s coastlines.
What we have to do is find out how we can, if not end, then at least limit as far as possible, given the capacity we have, these harmful effects on our seas. In order to end it, we would have to reconsider Maritime Law which, to a large extent, originates from the maritime situation of the 17th and 18th Centuries, which bore no relation to the current situation.
I believe we have made a great deal of progress which will noticeably improve the marine environment in the face of the deliberate contamination by certain ships - because not all of them do this sort of thing - of our coastlines.
The current version of this directive has the support of everybody.
It has the support of the shipowners because it provides them with waste facilities, which already exist in some European ports but unfortunately not in all of them, particularly not in the smaller ports, where the Member States will have to make significant investments.
This version of the directive has the support of the ports, because it means that their investments in this type of facility will not put them at a competitive disadvantage, which has unfortunately been the case at times, since some ports have made considerable efforts and others have not.
It has the support of those sectors which are most sensitive to the problem of residues and the fight for sustainable development.
I believe that the whole of this House and also the representatives of the Council and the Commission are included in this group, not only the ecologists, but all those who are concerned about this type of problem.
We believe that issues such as the planning of residue management, the ships' delivery obligations, prior notification, the controls - 25% of the controls -, fees which incentivise the use of port facilities for cleaning the holds of ships, will necessarily contribute to a reduction in marine pollution.
This directive, of course, enjoys the support of the three institutions, the Commission, the Council and Parliament, because we know that it will mean something positive for our citizens.
It would have been very sad if we had been unable to reach this agreement, which was so longed-for by everyone.
I would like to thank the Council for its flexibility and its constructive will, and Parliament also, especially the rapporteur, for the work carried out over this period and during the conciliation procedure.
The Commission has obtained some commitments which have helped this agreement. These commitments enable us to specify that "significant" means that at least 30% of the costs of the cleaning of holds in ports must be covered in a general sense, whether or not these port facilities are used.
If over the next three years we see that the Member States' actions are not sufficient and the desired results are not obtained, the Commission reserves the right to present a new directive clearly establishing a minimum percentage which must be covered by the general fees or by an obligatory cleaning fee in the various European ports.
It is also the Commission' s responsibility to verify that that control of 25%, another key element of this directive, is carried out by the Member States.
I would like once again to thank Parliament for standing firm on the need for a strengthened mechanism for reviewing the fees system, which will undoubtedly allow us to move forward and make a detailed study of the current system which we have implemented and the consequences for the environment.
Mr President, it has already been said in the debates that we have suffered from the impact of the Erika tragedy, but the cleaning out of holds is equivalent to more than one Erika each year on Europe' s coastlines.
We are, therefore, taking a great step forward today.
This does not mean that we are not going to move forward on issues relating to oil tankers and safety in the transport of polluting materials, such as oil and its derivatives, issues which we hope will not only make progress in this House and the Council, but which will also be supplemented by means of additional initiatives which, as the Commission has stated, will be presented shortly.
Thank you very much, Mrs de Palacio.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.00 noon)
Madam President, can I impose on your goodwill and Parliament's goodwill for a moment in welcoming to the diplomatic gallery a delegation from Kazakhstan? They are in Parliament today and tomorrow to raise awareness of the former Soviet empire's nuclear testing programme which impacted not just severely but hugely on their country.
They had 607 nuclear explosions in the atmosphere between 1949 and 1990.
This has left part of their country completely devastated and I hope Parliament will give them a sympathetic hearing in the seminar they are holding here this afternoon.
They have a huge problem in raising world awareness of this former Soviet problem.
We shall also be discussing the problems of the submarine that sank, another part of the nuclear legacy that has been left by the Soviet Union.
Thank you, Mr Provan. I am very happy to welcome this delegation.
Votes
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Report (A5-0213/2000) by Mr Bouwman, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues [C5-0348/2000 - 1998/0249(COD)]
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0206/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the Council common position with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council regulation regarding the implementation of measures to promote economic and social development in Turkey [7492/1/2000 REV - C5-0325/2000 - 1998/0300(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Morillon)
De Palacio, Commission.
(ES) Madam President, the Commission can accept the three amendments proposed by Parliament on second reading, corresponding to Mr Morillon' s report.
(The President declared the common position approved (as amended))
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0196/2000), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment [5683/1/2000 - C5-0180/2000 - 1996/0304(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Schörling)
Madam President, in relation to this report, we can accept Amendments Nos 1, 5 (sections 2 and 5), 6, 12, 28 (section 1) and 29.
We can accept in principle, with some modifications of the text, Amendments Nos 9 (the part relating to the requirement to justify that the strategic environmental study is not necessary), 10 (sections 1 and 2), 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24 and 25.
However, the Commission cannot accept, that is, it rejects, Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5 (sections 1, 3 and 4), 7, 8, 9 (the part relating to the requirement to justify the need for a strategic environmental assessment), 10 (section 3), 11, 13, 14, 16, 19, 21, 22, 26, 27, 28 (section 2), 30 and 31.
(The President declared the common position approved (as amended))
Report (A5-0204/2000) by Mr Valdivielso de Cué, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Council regulation amending regulation (EC) No 1488/96 on financial and technical measures to accompany (MEDA) the reform of economic and social structures in the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership [COM(1999) 494 - C5-0023/2000 - 1999/0214(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0194/2000) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation relating to the conclusion of the Protocol establishing the fishing possibilities and the financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Government of the Republic of Guinea on fishing off the Guinean coast for the period 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2001 [COM(2000) 304 - C5-0315/2000 - 2000/0154(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0188/2000) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation relating to the conclusion of the Protocol defining, for the period 3 December 1999 to 2 December 2002, the fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for by the Agreement between the European Community and the Government of Mauritius on fishing in the waters of Mauritius [COM(2000) 229 - C5-0253/2000 - 2000/0094(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0201/2000) by Mr Watson, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive on the right to family reunification [COM(1999) 638 - C5-0077/2000 - 1999/0258(CNS)]
Before the start of the vote
We have a speaker to oppose the motion.
Madam President, I cannot understand what the PPE wants.
I understand that some Members are against the directive we are going to vote on, but the vote in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms was in favour of this directive by a clear majority.
This morning we held a very fruitful debate with the Commissioner and I believe that, almost a year after the Tampere Summit, not to approve the first proposed directive on harmonisation in justice and internal affairs in the field of immigration, presented to us by the Commission, would be inexplicable and there is no justification for it.
I understand that there are Members who are totally against the right of immigrants to live as families, but that is not the majority position of this House, as was reflected in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms.
I therefore ask that we go ahead with the vote on this Commission proposal.
Thank you, Mrs Terrón i Cusí.
I will ask our rapporteur to express an opinion, if he wishes.
.
Madam President, I oppose referral back to committee.
I note that nobody from Mr Gollnisch's group at any point in the committee raised any questions about the definition of regroupment, or of family, or of control.
This matter has been debated fully in committee and debated here in plenary this morning.
I see no reason not to proceed to a vote.
I owe you an apology, Madam President, because I suspect you do not have in front of you the view of the rapporteur on all of the different amendments.
If that is the case I would very happily, before the vote, explain to the House my position on the amendments put forward by the committee.
But as for the amendments put forward for plenary, because they have been the subject of last minute debate, I will leave all of those to the wisdom of the House.
Thank you, Mr Watson.
That is very clear.
(Parliament rejected the request for referral to committee)
Before the vote on the Commission proposal
Madam President, forgive me for butting in at this point.
I have a question for Mr Vitorino before we come to the final vote.
You said this morning that you would endorse Amendment No 19 at today 's vote.
I just wanted to confirm that you will indeed accept Amendment No 19.
Madam President, I would like to ask the Commissioner if he would advise us which of the amendments which have been adopted this morning he will accept before the final vote on the legislative resolution.
Madam President, I have to say that the vote was conducted at such a speed that I was hard pressed to keep up with your capacity to reach a decision.
On the amendments that have been adopted, the Commission has its doubts about Amendment No 9, and I believe we should reconsider our position.
I promise to think about it.
As far as Amendment No 19 is concerned, which has been adopted, and which seeks to keep refugees within the scope of the draft directive, but to exclude from this directive on the right to family reunification people who benefit from temporary protection or subsidiary protection, I maintain the position that I expressed before this House during the debate.
We believe that we must keep within the scope of this directive only the refugees who are recognised by the Geneva Convention.
Issues regarding the family reunification of people benefiting from temporary protection and subsidiary protection must be examined in an autonomous legal instrument that the Commission, by the way, is currently preparing, and which it will present to Parliament and the Council next year.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0658/2000) by Mr Luís Queiró, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, on EU external action priorities
Before the start of the vote
Madam President, given that a political group which did not participate in the negotiations of the text in question has signed the text, I would ask you, before the vote takes place, to give the appropriate instructions to the relevant administration service so that this kind of abuse does not happen again.
We must accept that all the groups have the right to express themselves in the House, but the text, in principle, belongs to the groups which negotiated it.
If anybody wants to attach themselves to it, they must have the agreement of all the groups which have produced the text.
Madam President, the compromise procedure is an ad hoc procedure that is not covered by the rules of our Parliament.
But once a text has been tabled, it is up to any Members who wish to do so to adopt it.
I therefore think that the objection raised by Mr Barón Crespo is not a valid one.
Madam President, the MEPs and groups have the opportunity to express themselves in the House, but the proposal belongs to those who produced it and must not be unduly appropriated, since this may give rise to confusion over such an important issue and over possible unwanted alliances with the far right.
Mr Barón Crespo, as you know, there is no Rule of Procedure that specifies this detail, but it is customary that those who have presented the text agree to sign it.
This has always been the case in this House.
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on EU external action priorities
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on the creation of a monitoring centre for industrial change
Before the start of the vote
Madam President, I would like to ask my colleagues in the PPE Group and the ELDR Group if they intend to maintain their motion for a resolution, which contains flagrant untruths.
The discussion we had yesterday evening showed that both the Commission and the Council support the creation of a monitoring centre for industrial change.
Moreover, Madam President, you yourself requested it at the European Council in Lisbon on our behalf.
We cannot vote on a resolution when the groups say that neither the Council nor the Commission approves of the idea of creating a monitoring centre for industrial change.
It is a flagrant untruth and I believe that it is only logical that both groups should withdraw their motion for a resolution.
I do not see any sign of them doing so.
Yes, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, you have the floor.
Madam President, there is no reason why we should withdraw this resolution, and we have no intention of doing so.
(Parliament rejected the joint motion for a resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0653/2000), by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on the creation of a monitoring centre for industrial change
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0656/2000) by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel and Mr Clegg, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the creation of a monitoring centre for industrial change
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0209/2000) by Mr Veltroni, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions 'Principles and guidelines for the Community' s audiovisual policy in the digital age' [COM(1999) 657 - C5-0144/2000 - 2000/2087(COS]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0199/2000) by Mr Heaton-Harris, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Tourism, on the report from the Commission - 'Survey into the socio-economic background of Erasmus students' [COM(2000) 4 - C5-0146/2000 - 2000/2089(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0207/2000) by Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of Directives 90/364, 90/365 and 93/96 (right of residence) and on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the special measures concerning the movement and residence of citizens of the Union which are justified on grounds of public policy, public security or public health [COM(1999) 127, COM(1999) 372 - C5-0177/1999, C5-0178/1999 - 1999/2157(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Explanations of vote- Bouwman report (A5-0213/2000)
Madam President, the stir which the Bouwman report has caused shows quite well the chaos European decision-making finds itself in and what kind of complex compromises are being struck as a result.
Parliament was divided between supporters of two different solutions.
Eventually, a majority was achieved for one of the solutions, a majority which also encompassed the Group of the European United Left.
In normal administrative relations, this decision by Parliament would be final; not so in the European Union.
A conciliation procedure had to take place.
This procedure between the Council and Parliament resulted in a compromise which is rather noncommittal as long as it is not accompanied by a Commission statement.
This statement explains how the Commission interprets the word "substantial" in Article 8 (1).
Substantial appears to mean 30% here, but this cannot be made explicit in the text itself.
From the outset, there was a battle between a majority which supported 90% and a minority which was in favour of 0%.
This has now resulted in a percentage which is nearer to 0 than 90 and which may not be made public.
Everyone is now agreed that ship' s waste and cargo residues can no longer be discharged at sea but there is substantial disagreement about how this ship' s waste is to be collected and, more to the point, how this collection should be funded.
Around the Baltic Sea and the North Sea, preference was given to funding based on a general levy for each ship. This should prevent anyone from seeking financial gain by not delivering waste at officially designated sites.
Around the Mediterranean Sea, however, there was preference for payment according to the waste collected.
Instead of developing both systems separately to start with and comparing the respective environmental effects, attempts are now being forced through to arrive at one solution for all.
This is prejudicing the northern model.
It would be better if, instead of applying an overall EU solution, this matter could be regulated according to which particular sea was involved.
Without the European Union, it would have been easier to reach an agreement between groups of separate countries for each sea.
In this case, the presence of the European Union is not conducive to finding a joint, cross-border solution.
Despite this, my group has voted in favour because this regulation is better than nothing.
I hope a review will take place within the next couple of years so that the original intentions of the Bouwman report can be brought to bear.
Madam President, pensioners and the elderly like the sea to be clean and so, as representative of the Pensioners' Party to Parliament, I voted for the directive which aims to clean up the sea, especially in the vicinity of ports.
I still remember what used to happen when, as a child, I used to go swimming in the sea in Genoa, my native city. We would often come back up the beach covered in tar like the character in the washing powder advertisement, Calimero, who is always black all over and rightly complains about this.
This directive at last provides for waste collection from ships as they berth in ports, and this is a positive step.
I voted for the report, although it would have been better to regulate what goes on in the Mediterranean ports of the other States as well.
We give so much money to the countries which border on the Mediterranean through programmes such as MEDA: we should request that they set up waste collection systems in their ports as well!
I had the opportunity to express my views on this subject during the March part-session. At the time, it was a very topical subject, as the debate on marine safety in the wake of the wreck of the Erika was at its fiercest.
Today, the debate is calmer, but no less important.
The people of Europe are deeply concerned about the pollution of the seas and the coastlines of the Member States.
The European Parliament echoed these legitimate concerns and amended the directive proposed by the European Commission on the management of waste discharged by ships in such a way as to make Member States aware of their responsibilities.
As an alternative to the principle that the polluter pays, which has proved to be ineffective, Parliament suggested establishing a system whereby all ships would pay a fee whenever they called at a port, whether they used the waste disposal facilities or not.
This fee would help finance 90% of the cost of these facilities.
This system would encourage ships to deliver their ship-generated waste and cargo residues to the port reception facilities rather than discharge them at sea.
It was clear that the Council would not accept such a proposal.
The discussion was then continued, quite logically, within the Conciliation Committee.
Those negotiating on behalf of Parliament and the Council reached the following agreement: all ships calling at a port of a Member State shall contribute significantly (a statement from the Commission annexed to the text considers that this means at least 30% of the costs), irrespective of actual use of the facilities.
The share of the costs which is not covered by that fee, if any, shall be covered on the basis of the types and quantities of ship-generated waste actually offloaded by the ship.
In addition, the Commission shall, within three years of the implementation, submit a report evaluating the impact of the variety of cost recovery systems on the marine environment.
It will, if necessary in the light of this evaluation, submit a proposal to amend this directive by the introduction of a system involving the payment of an appropriate percentage, of no less than one third of the costs of port reception facilities, by all ships calling at a port of a Member State irrespective of actual use of the facilities.
I am satisfied with the compromise we have reached.
This directive is a significant step in establishing a more effective strategy to protect the marine environment.
We are now in the final stages of drawing up this draft directive. Although I am not entirely satisfied with the outcome of the conciliation procedure, I nevertheless accept this compromise which, I am bound to say, is to the credit of the European Parliament and to its skill and maturity in dealing with the legislative process of the European Union.
Aware of the unacceptability of discharging waste at sea and the behaviour of crews who profit from a dramatic accident to discharge their own waste with total impunity, thereby adding to the pollution of the seas, the European Commission proposed focussing its action on installing reception facilities for ship-generated waste in European ports.
All ports must be equipped with such facilities and, in addition, all ships calling at one of these ports must pay a fee towards the cost of collecting and treating this waste, irrespective of actual use of the facilities. Parliament took the view that this fee should cover 90% of the cost but, following the compromise reached with the Council, this was reduced to at least 30%.
This is just a first step. It recognises the polluter-pays principle.
It is a necessary step, but it does not go far enough.
Let us make no bones about it.
If we really want to clean up our oceans and preserve the natural balance for future generations, we must take more radical measures, especially concerning payment for these facilities and the need to avoid distortions in competition between ports. In a word, we must establish a public service for the treatment of waste.
For the time being, I can only recommend that Parliament accepts the results of this conciliation procedure.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is satisfied that, at the suggestion of the rapporteur, who is a member of the group, tighter controls are going to be placed on the establishment of port reception facilities for ship-generated waste.
In particular, it is important that a tax is imposed on each ship to cover at least 30% of the cost of these facilities.
It is not a question of creating 'ecological boats' that are able to treat all their waste at sea, essentially by means of incineration. Such conduct, which cannot realistically be controlled, in fact enables antipollution legislation to be bypassed: allegedly incinerated hydrocarbons and domestic waste are discharged into the sea; there is no selectivity and this only adds to the greenhouse effect.
These proposals are in line with the proposals of the next marine pollution control Directive, for which I shall be drawing up the report on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Furthermore, they provide for the homogeneous behaviour of ships within European maritime space, and they go some way to establishing the necessary facilities in European ports and to financing these facilities.
These provisions must be accompanied by rigorous control and the behaviour of ships must be monitored using the Equasis and Galileo systems, the speedy implementation of which the French Presidency has resolved to promote.
Morillon recommendation (A5-0206/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the recommendation.
I went to Turkey as a tourist this summer to visit the city discovered by Henrich Schliemann, the mythical Troy of the Iliad. While I was there, an elderly Turkish pensioner who had recognised me approached me and, while we visited the ruins of Troy together, he asked: "But why is it that, when the Morillon directive was debated, the amendments requesting Turkey not to build nuclear power stations or, at least, to ensure that its nuclear power stations do not cause pollution, to resolve the Kurd issue and to abolish the death penalty were not adopted?
Why was it that these points were not incorporated into the document?"
This is my minor criticism of the document we have voted on.
Madam President, I voted against the recommendation because I feel that the provision of aid was not made sufficiently conditional upon a genuine renewal of the Turkish State, genuine safeguarding of human rights and genuine protection of minors.
Of course, countries who are in need of aid should receive assistance, but, on the other hand, it is appropriate to ask them to respect these principles first.
The European Parliament must insist on the three amendments:
on excluding nuclear energy in the earthquake region of Turkey, as far as the system of production is concerned;
on protecting cultural identity and abolishing the death penalty;
on contributing to the solution of the Kurdish problem.
That is why I voted for these amendments.
I believe however that the European Parliament should not have changed its stance on the amendments of the first reading: Article 5 (criteria for Turkey' s accession), Article 15 (suspension of cooperation with Turkey if there are obstacles to the issues of democracy, the rule of law, human rights, the protection or minorities), Article 35 (annual report on the protection of democratic principles, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms, compliance with international law).
Unfortunately, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy of the European Union crumbled under pressure from the Council, which is promoting an unprincipled realpolitik with the Turkish regime, thereby depriving Turkish citizens of a boost towards democracy, which could be given by the European Union.
The integration of Turkey into the European Union is naturally of considerable interest to European big business, for which the European institutions, including Parliament, are the mouthpieces.
The European Parliament could at least take advantage of the parallel desire of the Turkish Government to enter the European Union to demand such basic measures as the abolition of the death penalty, democratic freedoms and the cessation of the repression of the Kurdish people.
But, even in these areas, the report uses wordings so toned-down that they mean absolutely nothing. Their avowed concern is not to 'offend any sensibilities' .
The sensibility that must not be offended above all is that of the Turkish government, which bombs, devastates and tortures the Kurdish population.
And, whilst the rapporteur of the European Parliament struggles to find a way of highlighting human rights without upsetting the soldiers who trample them underfoot, a Franco-German-Belgian consortium, as was recently reported in the press, is preparing to supply Turkey with a munitions factory.
This is infinitely more revealing of the true nature of the relations between European big business and the Turkish dictatorship than all the insipid claptrap on which we are asked to give our opinion.
During this part-session, the European Parliament has plumbed the depths of hypocrisy.
In the space of 24 hours, you are going to approve a financial package of tens of millions of euros for Turkey and condemn this self-same country for bombing the Kurdish populations of northern Iraq, in violation of another country' s airspace.
And when I say condemn, I greatly exaggerate the import not only of the text but also of your intentions.
What has happened to the respect for human rights, which must condition who the European Union helps or cooperates with, and which you adapt to suit your own ends?
In this particular case, it seems to have sunk without trace and your conscience seems to change with the wind.
It is time your deeds reflected your words.
That would be a pleasant change and, above all, it would give European policy greater coherence and authority.
Schörling report (A5-0196/2000)
Madam President, I voted for this report which introduces strategic environmental assessments and therefore provides for particular focus on environmental issues when public works are being built, for I support all that contributes to the beauty of nature and countryside etc., which is important for pensioners as well.
Nonetheless, the report does have some shortcomings.
When States decide to build public works, it should be left to the State in question to decide without excessive regulation whether a public works project is sufficiently environmentally friendly.
This is because public works need to be erected rapidly and elderly pensioners do not have time to wait too long!
This text has been lurking the procedural labyrinth for nigh on 5 years.
Although we did not support the amendment aimed at rejecting the Directive, our aim was clearly not to reward those who, in the Commission, the Council and Parliament, had worked on this text for years.
We are not here to legitimise the often strange desires of the technocrats in Brussels to legislate on anything and everything.
We rejected this amendment because companies need a clear framework within which to act.
The sticking point is the scope of the directive, that is, the very definition of the 'plans and programmes' .
The mandatory part of the scope applies to plans and programmes supporting authorisations for projects in sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries, energy, industry, transport, waste management, water management, telecommunications, tourism, town and country planning or land use.
This mandatory part is supplemented by a selection mechanism, so-called 'screening' , undertaken on the initiative of the Member States (the non-mandatory part).
I acknowledge that protecting the environment and taking it into consideration when evaluating policies is a necessity and even an obligation.
But the Member States, in the name of subsidiarity, are in a better position to ensure that this is carried out properly. We will not support amendments aimed at enlarging the scope of application of the directive, as it must be limited to the plans and programmes that are likely to have significant repercussions.
How annoying it is when attempts are made on all sides to give greater powers to the European Union at the expense of the Member States.
In this case, under the guise of concern for the environment, the rapporteur wants to take charge of all the policies of the Member States.
The importance of taking the environment into consideration when evaluating policies is not in doubt, but to apply the same procedure to it, especially one that is imposed by the European Union, is inconceivable.
We have confidence in the Member States and we defend the common position. The 'environment' alibi is nothing more than the instrument the European Union uses to extend its control in all policy areas.
We are well aware of the powers of the Union, and we know its arsenal.
It uses the environment to infiltrate everywhere; it uses our water pipes to spread its tentacles into national policy.
We say no to this.
Like a number of other delegations, France has stated clearly that it does want the scope of application to be extended to national policies.
Valdivielso de Cué report (A5-0204/2000)
Madam President, I voted for this document, tabled by Mr Valdivielso de Cué, on the new regulation on the MEDA programme.
I am wholeheartedly in favour - and not just because I am here representing Italy - of all initiatives which bring the Mediterranean countries closer together.
Better still, I would like to see an increase in the MEDA regulation' s financial appropriations.
In my own small way, I have created an association of pensioners' parties from the Mediterranean states in order to emphasise how important the Mediterranean is for Europe and the countries bordering on Europe, since countries in Africa and the East which are on the Mediterranean border on Europe too.
This is why I voted for this report.
European Union policy towards the countries of the Mediterranean is geared not only towards developing these countries but also towards increasing the influence of big business.
And these are indeed the purposes served by the MEDA funding programme.
The creation of a Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area has no other purpose than to make it easier for European industrial products to infiltrate the markets of these countries and to simultaneously place the riches of these countries under their predatory regimes.
Appeals to the consolidation of democracy, the rule of law and human rights are nothing more than the European Union' s customary excuse for meddling in the domestic affairs of other countries.
The structural adjustments that are reinforced from within MEDA are primarily aimed at imposing on these countries the laws of the marketplace and domination by the economically powerful.
The end result is that these countries sink even more deeply into the mire of underdevelopment and become satellites of the European Union due to unequal partnership agreements.
The Communist Party of Greece is a strong advocate of cooperation between peoples based on equal conditions and without interference by one country in the domestic affairs of another.
It especially emphasises the responsibility of developed, capitalist countries for creating the current situation in underdeveloped countries, which is a result of its continuous pillaging of these countries.
This is one more reason for developed countries to help underdeveloped countries to develop their productive base and to increase the standard of living of their inhabitants.
As both the previous MEDA programme and the proposed amendments fall far short of the above-mentioned objectives, the MEPs from the Communist Party of Greece will be voting against the report by Mr Valdivieslo de Cué.
Europe is going to expand eastwards.
This is written in Agenda 2000.
But Europe has a fluid border to the south, conditioned by its geography.
Boats and rafts arrive along its borders in southern Italy and southern Spain.
They are loaded and sometimes overloaded with Albanians, Turks, Muslims - men, women and children from all the countries around the Mediterranean.
It is a tidal wave that is going to grow year by year.
Europe is going to be submerged, even though at El Elejido in 1999 and in just a few other places, the settled populations have reacted against this flood of nomads.
Not wanting any roll back and unable to achieve containment, European leaders are logically seeking to prevent these nomads from leaving their home countries.
And this is the aim of the common-sense MEDA programme.
Sketched out at the European Summit in Cannes in June 1995, established by the Barcelona Conference of November 1995 in the form of a Euro-Mediterranean partnership, and implemented by the MEDA Regulation of 23 July 1996, this Mediterranean policy of the European Union is based on a few regional and national investment projects.
It is a meagre amount: EUR 3.3 billion from 1995 to 1999, from Morocco to Gaza and the West Bank, even if, by adding to it the EUR 3.6 million in loans from the European Investment Bank, the financial contribution is greater than the EUR 4.4 billion given by the World Bank.
It is a meagre amount, not only because, in reality, these EUR 3.6 billion in commitment loans are in fact reduced to a collective payment of just EUR 648 million, but also because this step is not commensurate with the size of the problem.
Admittedly, it is good to have moved from bilateral aid to a global, multilateral approach.
Admittedly, for 2000-2006, MEDA II will increase loans of less than 47.1% to arrive at a financial package of EUR 8.5 billion.
European farmers would be happy with an increase that was twice, three times less than that.
But that does not constitute a Mediterranean policy.
A Mediterranean policy is not more programmes and more officials in Brussels to manage them.
A Mediterranean policy that is up to the demographic, environmental, climatic, Islamic and cultural challenge is a grand strategic vision, establishing, integrating, stabilising and organising the Mediterranean around original and intergovernmental institutions with major common sectors to explore: water, the environment, migration, deforestation and so on.
Under these conditions, and with a method and integrated institutions such as a High Secretariat for the Mediterranean, one can talk of a budget, as there will be strategic projects and not tactical sprinklings of small amounts.
But we must act quickly, very quickly, before a colonised Europe has nothing more to share than the decline of peoples who have been deprived of their culture.
The partnership between the EU and the southern Mediterranean States comprises a range of positive elements.
It should be further developed and deepened.
However, the report on the reform of the MEDA programme does not set the right tone on a number of counts.
The European Union is fixated with the idea of concluding free trade agreements with the southern Mediterranean countries, although, paradoxically, they only have a one-sided liberalising effect.
Such agreements have a particularly negative impact on the financially disadvantaged, as existing free trade agreements have shown.
The report concedes that free trade agreements carry this risk.
Why else would it describe, and call for, support measures, with a view to alleviating the negative impact of free trade?
If the risks attending the free trade strategy are acknowledged, but it is pursued nevertheless, then the social, environmental and cultural components of the programme will only ever have repair and damage limitation status, when they ought to be the guiding principle for such agreements.
Furthermore, in order to qualify for subsidies, the MEDA countries must satisfy the Bretton Woods institutions (for example the IMF). These self-same programmes are notorious for having anti-social strategies directed purely at liberalisation.
The aim of the EU-Mediterranean partnership must be to redress the balance between the northern and southern regions of the Mediterranean area, improve people' s quality of life and promote understanding between the inhabitants of the various regions.
But if free trade becomes the guiding principle, these goals will become nothing more than window dressing, and a handful of wealthy people will once again be the ones to benefit.
I also protest against the fact that the EU-Mediterranean partnership is being misused as an instrument in order to prevent people from migrating from this region to the EU.
For a while now, the European Union has had the 'fight against illegal immigration' and the 'repatriation of 'illegal' refugees written as objectives into treaties with the Mediterranean States, as well as into every agreement with one or more third countries.
In this way, each individual agreement adds one more brick to fortress Europe.
This report is another example of the EU policy of pulling up the drawbridge where immigrants and refugees are concerned.
The countries of the southern Mediterranean region have been declared as the forecourts to fortress Europe.
It is their duty to ensure that 'undesirable persons' do not get into the EU.
I ask myself how the EU can insist on the partner states in the Mediterranean showing respect for human rights and the freedom of the individual, when it does not respect the rights of immigrants itself, gives these people illegal status and wants to keep them away from Europe at any price, even if it leads to their being killed.
This report safeguards, once again, the free movement of goods, services and capital.
Once again, freedom and human rights are trampled underfoot.
I will therefore vote against it, despite the fact that it contains a number of positive elements.
I voted in favour of Mr Valdivielso de Cué' s report, because the Euro-Mediterranean partnership must be based on a MEDA programme that is fully efficient and successful.
As Member for a town that looks on to the Mediterranean, I hope that the Euro-Mediterranean partnership is given comparable resources for the period 2000-2006 to those given to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
In implementing the MEDA programme, the simplification proposed by the European Commission and intensified by this report are beneficial.
If we consider the appropriation of funds in the first MEDA programme, how can we justify the fact that only a quarter of the appropriations have actually been paid and that it takes an average of four years for payments to be made? This kind of problem harms our credibility on the international scene and gives European taxpayers a terrible impression of the way in which Community institutions use public funds.
We cannot be satisfied with such a record.
The best we can do now is to back the amendments proposed by the European Commission.
Aid to Mediterranean countries must be provided quickly and efficiently, in line with the European Union' s political priorities.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué' s report, which proposes that the administration and management of projects should be decentralised, that the MED committee should be given new guidelines, and which insists on improving cooperation between the European Union and its Member States, makes a significant contribution to improving MEDA.
Increasing the European Parliament' s participation in MEDA' s decision-making process is another point that I believe to be crucial.
I also deplore the fact that, on an issue as important as changing the MEDA regulation, Parliament only has the right to state its opinion by means of the consultation procedure.
With the amendments that we are proposing in this report, the MEDA programme will have simplified, decentralised and transparent implementation procedures.
I now hope that the Community budget will provide this programme with financial resources that match up to the political ambitions that we are publicly stating for the Mediterranean area.
The European Commission has committed itself to increasing MEDA' s staffing levels, with a view to reaching similar levels of human resources enjoyed by other major programmes such as PHARE and TACIS.
When it comes to looking at the budget for 2001, the European Parliament must ensure that this commitment is translated into action.
With regard to the appropriations allocated to the MEDA programme, I hope that the financial package reflects the political will - which the Council and Parliament have both been trumpeting - to make the Euro-Mediterranean partnership one of our priorities for external action.
Amending the MEDA regulation with a view to improving the decision-making process and simplifying the procedure for implementing projects is an important stage in the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
I shall do my best to ensure that the vote on the MEDA budget is another stage confirming the importance we attach to the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
Varela Suanzes-Carpegna reports (A5-0194 and A5-0188/2000)
Madam President, I voted for Mr Varela' s report on the Republic of Guinea fisheries agreement, even if prawns and tuna will not look very favourably on this report which regulates catching them.
I gave Mr Fernández Martín my opinion when we were talking about the Canary Islands, and he quite rightly said: "Yes, but prawns do not vote, besides which I am a fisherman."
Madam President, this report has shortcomings, in that it gives money to the Republic of Guinea, on the one hand, to help replenish fish stocks and reduce the number of fish caught, and, on the other, to send European Union fishing boats to those seas to catch prawns and tuna.
Well, I think that this is a form of colonialism which must be stopped.
With regard to Mr Varela' s second report, on the Mauritius fisheries agreement, I did indeed vote in favour, Madam President, but I must emphasise that it was not an easy decision.
Why? Because the Committee on Development and Cooperation tabled an amendment asking for fishermen' s wages and, I would add, their pensions to be monitored.
Unfortunately, this amendment was not adopted.
Now, with this document, we are about to conclude a trade agreement, and we are giving away Union funds but are not requesting to be able to monitor the fishermen' s contracts.
In my view, that is not a good move.
Watson report (A5-0201/2000)
Madam President, I would like to explain the votes on behalf of the ELDR Group.
Our overriding objective was to get this very important report through as the first report communitarising European Community immigration laws and as a matter of justice to third-country nationals.
We have therefore shown solidarity with other like-minded groups and Members.
We supported the Socialist Group amendments to remove beneficiaries of subsidiary protection in the light of the Commissioner's pledge to bring forward a proposal covering them as well as beneficiaries of temporary protection.
We would have preferred beneficiaries of subsidiary protection to stay in as a matter of principle, because they are long-term legal residents, but we decided to assist the passage of the report.
Similarly, we abstained on matters concerning ascending relatives, because, wherever possible, we wish to remove objections so as to secure a clear majority for the report and recognise that the inclusion of such relatives raises particular problems for some Members.
Some of us in my group, however, would have liked us to express a more generous stance.
Mrs Malmström and Mrs van der Laan have asked me specifically to mention them in this connection.
My group has deliberately voted to include unmarried partners if the Member State concerned legally recognises such partnerships, as I think three currently do.
We think it to be only justice not to interfere with a domestic decision on legal recognition of such partnerships.
Madam President, I voted against the Watson report, as did the whole of the Group of the European People' s Party, not just because the amendments tabled by the group - of which I have the pleasure of being a member - were not adopted, but also because the pensioners are tired of seeing European Union territory increasingly filling up with third-country nationals who do not have the means to live.
This document lays down that relatives of immigrants who live in certain European Union Member States may come and join their relatives - which is excellent and I agree with this - if the latter have an income equal to the minimum social security pension.
But just one person living on the minimum social security pension goes hungry.
How can an immigrant with such a low income make all his relatives go hungry?
Although the Watson report on the proposal for a directive on family reunification is excessively liberal, it has just been adopted by the European Parliament, with a large majority of 323 votes to 212.
This vote shows just how European MEPs and the Commission, which drafted the original proposal, are both failing in their main duty, which is not to satisfy the whole world, but to protect Europe' s citizens.
This vote also confirms what we have always said about communitising immigration policy by means of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is being applied here to the particular case of family reunification by means of Article 63(3) of the Treaty on European Union: the transfer of decision-making powers from national level to European level is being used not to strengthen nations, as some have claimed in order to deceive voters, but instead to demolish their defences more completely.
The proposal for a directive on family reunification, as approved by the Watson report, proclaims a Community-level law on family reunification which, in legal terms, does not yet exist at this level and which, in our opinion, should not be made law.
The truth is that the host State does not force the immigrants to move there.
This is a decision taken by the immigrant himself, and if he is received into that State, it is not his place to claim the right to bring in other people.
One notes, moreover, that the preamble to the proposal for a directive refers virtuously to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to the international covenant of 1966, which recognise that "the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State" .
At the same time, the so-called Convention which is drafting a Charter of Fundamental Rights for the European Union is stubbornly refusing to take this principle into consideration.
It appears then that recognition of the family as the natural and fundamental group unit of society is useful when it serves to justify family reunification, but is no longer useful when it could serve to support European families.
The proposal for a directive approved by the Watson report is not content to proclaim this non-existent law.
It gives the title 'applicant' not only to legal immigrants but also to people who have refugee status.
Moreover, the beneficiaries of family reunification are not just the applicant's spouse and children under 18, but also the unmarried partner who is in a stable relationship with the applicant, which will include homosexual couples when the Member State' s legislation treats them in the same way as married couples for legal purposes.
The directive also includes children of full age who cannot reasonably look after themselves, as well as the relatives in the ascending line of the applicant, their spouse, or even of their unmarried partner.
It is quite clear that the floodgates are open wide and that the aim is to encourage immigration on a massive scale that will change the very nature of European societies.
The political classes in each country could probably not have voted for such a text, because they are too closely watched by the public.
They have therefore shifted the responsibility over to Brussels, which is now forced to do their dirty work behind closed doors That is the real job of Europe today.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament welcome the initiative concerning common rules for family reunification, although we have nonetheless voted against a number of points, including the one-year rule.
As a result of this and in view of the Danish reservation in the legal sphere, the Danish Social Democrats have declined to vote in favour of the final proposal.
The MEPs of the Left regret that, because of the Danish reservation, the Danish Government has not been able to influence the directive and is the only government not to have the right of veto, just as we regret the fact that, unlike other countries, Denmark will not make more demands of immigrants to Denmark who wish to reunite their families and require them to be self-supporting and to have somewhere to live.
The draft Directive' s proposal concerning the right to family reunification after one year would not be any problem if, in common with other countries, Denmark were to make such demands, as expressly laid down in the draft directive.
In that case, it would not be the local authorities' task to support and find homes for the people concerned, as it is at present.
As matters stand, the one-year rule cannot, however, be practised in Denmark without significant problems.
We therefore decline to vote on the report, regretfully because we should like to see a common policy, especially in the field of asylum.
.
(FR) Following the progress made at the Tampere European Council in October 1999 on a European area of freedom, security and justice, and at a time when we are discussing the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the report we are debating today is of the utmost importance.
It concerns the issue of family reunification.
This right is currently only recognised by international legal instruments, specifically the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of 1950.
At national level, situations are extremely disparate.
Family reunification enables the family unit to be protected and makes the integration of third-country nationals into Member States easier.
It was therefore crucial to incorporate the law on family reunification into Community legislation.
The European Commission' s proposal therefore sets out to establish a law on family reunification for nationals of third countries who are legally resident in a Member State, as long as they fulfil a certain number of financial and procedural conditions.
I welcome the work of my fellow Members of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, who have made a considerable effort to combat the extremely limiting and conservative vision of the first rapporteur.
They have produced a text that is close to the European Commission' s basic proposal which, in my opinion, is on the whole quite satisfactory.
Consequently, those belonging to one of the following categories will benefit from the law on family reunification:
third-country nationals who are legally resident in the territory of a Member State and who have a residence permit, which is valid for at least one year.
refugees, regardless of how long their residence permit is valid, or European Union citizens not exercising their right to free movement.
Those entitled to claim family reunification are:
the spouse or non-married partner of the applicant (including same-sex partners); although it should be noted that the provision covering non-married partners only applies in Member States where the position of non-married couples is comparable to that of married couples;
the children of the couple, whether they are married or not, and whether they are born within marriage, out of wedlock or are from a previous marriage;
the children of one of the spouses or partners are covered, on condition that the latter have actual custody and responsibility;
relatives in the ascending line, when these people are in the applicant' s care as well as children of full age who are also dependants.
I speak on behalf of myself and my 28 colleagues from the British Labour Party.
We have been pleased to vote and to support this report even though, for a variety of reasons, the United Kingdom Government has exercised its right to opt out of this initiative.
As members will be aware, the UK Government was party to the conclusions of the Tampere European Council.
There are, however, various practical points and issues regarding sovereignty which the UK takes very seriously and which means it is not appropriate or possible for the United Kingdom to be included at this time.
However this does not lessen the commitment of our Government to the principles of the report and the underlying values inherent therein.
Indeed it is the government's stated intention that the UK should not be seriously out of line with our European partners in this important area of immigration policy.
Labour MEPs have therefore voted in favour of this report and remain supporters of the principles of family reunification.
Of all the countries in the European Union, it is Luxembourg that has the highest proportion of foreign nationals amongst its population, i.e. 37%.
The majority of these foreign nationals, i.e. 87%, are from EU countries.
However, for some time now, the proportion of immigrants from third countries has been increasing more rapidly than that of EU citizens from the 14 other Member States.
Our labour market depends on the presence of immigrants, although the most severe bottlenecks in our labour market are offset by cross-border commuters from France, Belgium and Germany.
Almost a third of the work force, 80 000 people that is, are cross-border commuters.
Over half of the working population does not have Luxembourg citizenship.
These figures illustrate the interest my country has in a sound immigration policy, and, needless to say, in the important aspect of family reconciliation.
It is, of course, one of the Commission 's tasks, particularly following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, to propose measures on the entry into, and residence, in the European Union, of third-country nationals, primarily with the undeniably admirable aim of bringing about an approximation of the legal provisions of individual Member States on the conditions governing the admission and residence of third-country nationals.
The Commission is right to comment, in its proposal for a directive on the right to reunification, that the presence of family members facilitates normal family life, thereby creating greater stability and enabling the individuals concerned to put roots down in the host country more successfully.
We are aware, and regard highly the fact, that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international conventions recognise the nuclear family as the basic social unit, which deserves protection and support.
Against this background, and notwithstanding the fact that some international agreements do not make provision for the right to family reunification, in principle, I still welcome the Commission proposal for a Community legal instrument in respect of family reunification.
However, we do not want absolute chaos, and neither do we want to create new opportunities for gangs of human traffickers.
Above all, we must ensure that these provisions take the absorption capacity of each Member State into account.
This would certainly not be the case if we were to endorse the report of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, in its present form.
The rapporteur was entirely justified in withdrawing her name from the report, which was adopted in committee by 25 votes to 13.
A directive of the kind proposed by the majority of the committee responsible is simply unworkable, dangerous and counterproductive.
Only the amendments put forward by my group and the original rapporteur, Mrs Klamt, could have persuaded me to vote in favour of this report.
I am wholeheartedly in favour of family reunification.
But how is the family to be defined?
How many spouses, in the case of multiple marriages, how many children, partners, dependants in the widest sense of the word, or bogus spouses, should a single, legally resident third country national, be entitled to bring into the European Union? Ten, twenty, a hundred, depending on their own traditions and religion?
Humanitarian considerations should undoubtedly play a part, but the whole thing must still be manageable and controllable.
Above all, we must ensure that this European directive does not land the individual Member States in a situation which they are no longer able to control.
Naturally, where Member States already have more generous provisions, they should be able to retain them.
My main objective in drafting this statement was to warn against carrying matters to excess, and the unforeseeable consequences thereof, but without wishing to compromise the principle of family unity.
Nothing could be further from the truth!
The report mainly concerns two different groups : refugees and citizens of third countries, and their right to be reunited with their families in EU countries.
As Swedish Christian Democrats, we believe that these groups ought to be dealt with separately.
The right of refugees to be reunited with their families ought to be dealt with in the same way, but in a separate directive.
The family is our society' s most important building block, and we must therefore stand up for the right to a family life.
Above all, children' s right to be reunited with their parents must be protected, but the right to family reunification ought in certain cases (for example, when there are serious health reasons) to apply also to relatives in the ascending line, as well as to children who have come of age.
It is also only right that, following death or divorce for example, relatives should have an automatic right of residence in the host country, just as they should be given the right to work and receive an education in that country.
With these reservations and qualifications, we support the report.
- (DE) Despite the fact that it confines itself to refugees under the Geneva Convention, I intend to vote in favour of this report.
The Commission proposal will do nothing to advance the cause of the vast majority of homosexuals or refugees granted temporary or subsidiary protection.
However, particularly from a German perspective, it represents an improvement in the situation of those refugees who are in a position to facilitate the legal entry of others, under the 'family members' heading.
And that is not the only reason I will be voting in favour. Despite the fact that we Germans now hoist the flag against the extreme right almost on a daily basis, it is the German Minister of the Interior, Mr Schily, of all people, who has spoken out against this immigration-friendly legislation.
He is afraid that millions of immigrants will come to Germany if the directive comes into force.
In saying these things, he is playing into the hands of those who aim to drive these 'millions' of people out of Germany - dead or alive - using violent methods.
As a result, not only will our commitment to fighting the extreme right become a mask of hypocrisy; it will be turned on its head.
Madam President, could we not do as we used to, which was to name all those who wished to submit their explanations of vote in writing so that we could leave.
This is an unacceptable situation.
We are forced to hang around for half an hour after the votes to say that we are submitting our explanation of vote in writing.
We used to have a different system, which was better organised.
There is no need to get angry, Mrs Lulling.
As you know, it is extremely difficult to shout at the top of one' s voice to read out the names of Members who wish to submit an explanation of vote in writing.
Our staff check if the Members are indeed present and we note all written requests without having to read them out.
A check is made that the Member is in fact in the Chamber at the beginning of the explanations of vote and I therefore only call out the oral explanations.
You are therefore free to go.
I have been sitting here for almost half an hour waiting for my name to be called because I was informed by the services that I had to be present in order for my explanation of vote to be taken as written.
I do not understand the problem.
Why is it that our services cannot give us simple and straightforward information? I indicated that I wanted to make my explanation of vote in writing and I was told that I would have to be here for the vote in the first instance and that I would have to wait until I was called to indicate that I wanted to make it in writing.
Why have I had to waste half an hour here?
Mr de Rossa, I have been told that this was a misunderstanding.
You were told that you had to be present for the vote.
I thought that this had always been the procedure, not that you had to wait for all the explanations of vote.
Madam President, I was told quite explicitly that I had to be present to indicate that I wanted to make a written explanation of vote.
When I was not here on a previous occasion I was rapped over the knuckles for not being here.
We cannot continue this discussion any further, but I promise you that we shall clear this up in the Bureau, first of all so that every President of the sitting applies the same rules for the explanations of votes.
I personally feel that the best approach is to check that Members are present for the vote so that they can leave if they are submitting their explanation in writing, and so that the explanations of vote in writing by Members who have not taken part in the vote are not counted.
I think that this is a good system, but first I would like to look into the matter with the other Vice-Presidents who, as I do, preside over the votes.
Thank you for your understanding.
Creating a monitoring centre for industrial change
.
(FR) I wish to express my support for establishing a new task, entrusted to a European Union agency, with a view to studying and more particularly to anticipating industrial change.
This would send out a powerful political message, demonstrating the will to react to these changes, which are caused by various upheavals, resulting particularly from economic and financial changes, the development of new technologies, international competition and the globalisation of trade.
It was at the Luxembourg Summit in November 1997 that we realised the importance of looking more closely into these phenomena so as to avoid suffering them again and to counter their negative consequences.
This idea led to a meeting of a group of experts, better known as the Gyllenhammar group, which was given the task of studying the economic and social implications of industrial change.
The conclusions reached by this group persuaded the Cardiff European Council in December 1998 to accept the creation of a monitoring centre for industrial change. We are finally debating this proposal today, and I hope it will be put into practice in the very near future!
Over the last few years we have seen a huge increase in the number of relocations, restructurings and mergers, which has greatly changed the face of European industry and which has had serious repercussions for employment and for economic and social cohesion.
Member States that are ill-prepared for these changes have experienced them too many times and have tried to pick up the pieces, as best they can, under the sometimes disapproving eye of the European Commission, which has not hesitated to condemn more than one Member State for some misdemeanour involving state aid!
The first victims of these unforeseen changes are, of course, the employees, who, in spite of increased growth and an improvement in the overall economic situation, still live in a climate of insecurity.
Indeed we have recently seen companies making redundancies even when they are making profit, because they have to restructure and merge, with no thought, of course, of fulfilling their obligations to inform their employees and to communicate with them!
I take this opportunity to appeal to the Council, which is blocking the proposal for a directive on informing and consulting workers!
To sum up, this monitoring centre must be used as an instrument for anticipating industrial change.
We will then be able to adopt the measures necessary to prepare employees better, particularly by offering them training with the aim of adapting them to the business sectors of the future!
I support the proposal contained in the resolution which seeks to include the right to lifelong training in the Charter of Fundamental Rights!
The centre' s studies will, of course, be widely distributed.
I deplore the decision of the EPP, ELDR and the UEN to vote against the PES resolution to set up a European Monitoring Centre for Industrial Change.
Such a centre would serve to create a more proactive approach to medium and longer-term industrial change which would benefit all those concerned - Commission, European Parliament, social partners, government and local authorities.
Such a centre could be incorporated into an established body or foundation through the enlargement of existing competences, as proposed in the PSE resolution.
That some Irish members should vote against such a proposal is incomprehensible given that the European Foundation for Living and Working Conditions in Dublin would be in line to carry out such work.
The huge industrial changes of recent years that have resulted from the increase in globalisation, new technologies and social transformations have given rise not only to economic growth and new production sectors but also to a growing number of company mergers, closures and relocations, which have resulted in the loss of local markets, unemployment, the degradation of social and labour protection systems, greater social exclusion and enormous human suffering.
It is, therefore, extremely important that a European Monitoring Centre for Industrial Change should be set up with the aim of stimulating a more active and responsible approach to industrial development, with the participation of both sides of industry, with a view to helping to avoid the most irksome consequences of industrial change.
It is equally urgent, however, that the Commission should hasten the review of Directive 94/45/EC on the setting up of a European Works Council and Regulation (EEC) No 4064/89, so as to ensure greater participation by workers' organisations prior to decisions on the concentration and transfer of undertakings and a greater guarantee of protection and defence of workers' rights.
EU external action priorities
We will be voting against the joint resolution on EU external action priorities because we believe that it promotes even further removing from Member States any possibility of implementing their own foreign and defence policies and incorporating these policies into the common foreign and security policy that has taken shape.
And this, by means of a European Parliament resolution! The common foreign and security policy has already left its mark in the shape of political and military interference in the domestic affairs of third countries in order to further the imperialist interests of the European Union, contrary to every interpretation of international law and to the interests of the citizens of the European Union and other countries.
This happened just recently, in the case of Kosovo, and Yugoslavia more generally.
The militarisation of the European Union, the arms race, the harmonisation of military weapons and the war industry, the imposition of the will of the mighty in the jungle of 'globalisation' and the free market, are diametrically opposed to the visions and struggles of the people for peace, a political and peaceful solution to conflicts and the rule of international law.
It is clear that this policy goes hand in hand with the recent decisions taken by the Council to prohibit all access to documents concerning defence and security policies.
The general orientation of these decisions is to keep citizens of the Member States of the European Union from the centres of decision-making and to prevent them from interfering with developments. Barriers and hurdles are being placed in the way of the popular movement, national parliaments and the European Parliament alike, so as to prevent them from exercising any form of democratic control.
What particularly worries me is the fact that, through fundamentally violating its own treaties, the European Union is attempting to by-pass its own internal rivalries by indirect means.
It is seeking to support the interests of European big business, to conquer new markets, and to support the euro, even by taking military action.
The New Order is placing new demands on people and on the less developed countries in order consolidate its supremacy.
In practice, a policy is being promoted which faithfully serves big business, sides with the USA, submitting to its orders, and promotes the New Order against the interests of the people.
This makes it easier to understand why the European Union is not troubled by the barbaric invasion and continued occupation of 38% of Cyprus and by Turkey' s bombing raids in Iraq.
The issue for me is not only whether and how the joint actions will be funded by the community budget, but to stop this policy, which is disastrous for people and peace alike.
The issue is not whether Mr Solana or other representatives of the CFSP will make annual announcements to the European Parliament, but for the people of Europe to take their fate into their own hands and to intervene effectively to impose peace, brotherhood and international cooperation based on the common good.
The joint resolution restricts itself to the two issues I have mentioned, which are of secondary importance, and comes to the arbitrary, and especially dangerous, conclusion that the 'intergovernmental system' which is at the root of the EU' s foreign policy, is the reason for the failure of the common foreign and security policy and that its success depends on its communitisation.
This disorients people and makes them prey to the unaccountable dictates of big business.
For all the above reasons, we believe that the 'joint' resolution in question demonstrates most dramatically how urgent it is for people to organise joint resistance and their opposition to this criminal policy, and to take the initiative and act.
Veltroni report (A5-209/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the Veltroni report also and above all because, as representative of the Pensioners' Party to the European Parliament, I am aware that pensioners and elderly people spend a lot of time watching television.
However, I would have liked this report to include a recommendation for the establishment, at last, of a European television programme.
The citizens of Europe have the right to see that Europe exists, and we have the means to show them - easily - through European television programmes.
Moreover, it would be appropriate to regulate the television companies of the States of the European Union in order to allow all the political bodies in the different States freedom of expression, for this is not always the case at the moment.
Madam President, I voted against the motion because this policy still contains worrying elements of statalism and welfarism.
There is no genuine opening for competition and, most importantly, provision is continuing to be made to subsidise the cinema industry without taking into account what it produces.
Thus, we will continue to give money to directors who produce appalling quality films which nobody wants to see but who nonetheless receive payment even from those who refuse even to watch the trailers.
The Veltroni report on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport is certainly an improvement on the Commission communication on the 'principles and guidelines for the Community' s audiovisual policy in the digital age' .
The important aspects of the intervention of the European Union are:
1) The global competitiveness of European industry, especially in relation to the USA, must be combined with a guarantee of pluralism and cultural diversity.
2) The increased effectiveness of the measures contained in Directive 89/552/ÅEC on 'Television without Frontiers' , concerning the promotion of European works.
3) The promotion of linguistic diversity.
4) The protection of minors using new programme control methods.
5) The creation of a European forum on cooperation in matters of transparency and the development of strategies to address market concentrations.
6) The support of the public audiovisual sector with the option of broadcasting on a global scale.
7) The promotion of an internal market for the cinema with the issue of a new directive.
I shall be voting for the Veltroni report, as it is a considerable improvement on the Communication from the Commission. But I do have two reservations.
The first has to do with the notion of rivalry, which may justify major concentrations and groupings of audiovisual media in the name of becoming stronger than the Americans, and may extend the Berlusconi phenomenon. The second concerns the lack of compliance and control mechanisms to ensure that the political aims of the European Parliament do not once again remain mere wishes, which is often the case with the successive amendments to the 'Television without Frontiers' Directive.
I am extremely pleased with this report on the Commission communication, which seeks to lay down the principles and guidelines of Community audiovisual policy, in order to adapt it to the digital age.
Such adaptation is actually crucial, given recent developments in digital technology.
We will only achieve this if we respect the principles governing this field, which are:
the protection of pluralism:
to achieve this task, I once again stress the fact that, as provided for in the protocol annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, public service broadcasting plays a central part in safeguarding pluralism as well as cultural and linguistic diversity.
the possibility of targeting intervention to provide strategic support for services of general interest:
the public must be guaranteed access to audiovisual services on the basis of criteria such as universality, affordable costs and non-discrimination.
the maximum protection for those producing audiovisual works, and hence the possibility of providing better protection for intellectual ownership rights, copyright and related ownership rights:
the effectiveness of copyright protection is jeopardised in the digital age.
Respect for intellectual property is nevertheless a source of vitality in the audiovisual and cinematographic sector and the proposal for a directive on copyright and associated rights in the information society must therefore be speedily adopted, both to protect created works and to ensure that they are accessible and can circulate freely.
the increased protection for users, who will be covered by various safeguards depending on the different services that they use:
I approve of the idea of stepping up experiments with programme filtering systems and other methods of parental control for the protection of minors.
To conclude, I wish to stress that a revision of Directive (89/552/EEC) on 'Television without Frontier' is crucial.
We must strengthen the provisions on the circulation of European works and on independent production in order to make them more effective.
The obligation of public and private television broadcasters to allocate a proportion of their annual net income to investment in production and to the acquisition of European audiovisual programmes, including films, works aimed at minorities and ones made by independent producers, must be included in this piece of legislation.
Heaton-Harris report (A5-0199/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the Heaton-Harris report, which deals with the movement of university students within the European Union.
However, a survey has been carried out which highlights a factor which I consider to be extremely negative: precisely half the university students who had the right to benefit from the ERASMUS programme did not take up the offer.
This means that there is definitely something which is not working properly!
I would in any case like to stress that, in voting for the motion, I would also like to express the desire for a programme soon to be established in Europe, not just for the movement of young students between universities but also for the movement of elderly people who study at the university of the third age, who would welcome the opportunity to take part in exchanges with their sexagenarian, septuagenarian and octogenarian or even older peers from other States of the European Union.
.
(FR) I am pleased to have the opportunity today to speak about this report, which was drafted in response to a request by the European Parliament in the framework of negotiations on the revision of the budget for the first phase of Socrates, in 1998.
This socio-economic investigation, which was carried out during the latter part of 1998, is based on the answers sent in by around 10 000 students who participated in "mobility actions" during 1997-98.
The Erasmus programme was set up in 1987 as part of the Socrates programme, and absorbs 40% of the total Socrates budget. Erasmus seeks to encourage the mobility of students by developing the European dimension of education and by enabling young people to carry out part of their studies in another Member State.
The Socrates programme entered its second phase with the decision of 24 January 2000.
It is, moreover, a pity that this report took so long after the Socrates II programme was formally adopted to publish its conclusions, which, as a result, could not be taken into consideration.
Everyone is agreed on welcoming this initiative, thanks to which 90 000 students every year take up the opportunity to study abroad.
More than nine out of ten of those students claimed to be very satisfied with their stay abroad, both from the educational and the socio-cultural points of view.
It must be admitted, however, that the participation rate is still low, given that this programme involves 18 Member States.
This is what the Commission inquiry has shown: only 1% of students took part in Erasmus mobility programmes in 1998.
We therefore still have a great deal to do if we are to achieve the target of 10%, which the programme is aiming for.
We must therefore try to discover the reasons for such a low participation rate.
The survey does provide us with some answers.
We see that more than 57% of Erasmus students encounter financial difficulties.
It is nevertheless young people from privileged backgrounds who go abroad, which is an unacceptable form of discrimination, which we must combat by allocating special aid to the less well-off socio-economic categories.
Many problems remain in the field of the recognition of qualifications.
As Member for a border area, I regularly meet graduates who are distraught because the courses they have studied in another Member State are not recognised.
I shall conclude by appealing to the French Presidency to include all of these factors in the study paper that it has asked the Vision group to undertake on transnational mobility in education. This study paper should lead to the presentation, at the Nice Summit, of an action plan which seeks to overcome the obstacles to this mobility.
We are delighted that this report, to which we contributed several amendments, has been adopted.
We now hope that the Commission and the Member States will take the necessary steps to make the Erasmus programme more accessible to students from economically less well-off groups, particularly by optimising coordination between national financial support for higher education and Erasmus grants, with a view to promoting social equality in access to the programme and the widest possible take-up.
We cannot continue to accept that the overall participation rate in the programme is barely above 50%, and that even so, some 57% of Erasmus students have been affected by worrying financial problems.
As the report points out, it is regrettable that the Erasmus programme has essentially benefited students from social groups whose parents have a high level of qualifications, are relatively well-off, and/or come from countries with higher levels of government support for students.
Hence the need for measures to help achieve its initial objective of enabling 10% of all Community students to spend part of their degree course in another Member State, and not just 1% as happened in 1997/1998, making it accessible to students from economically less well-off groups.
Boumediene-Thiery report (A5-0207/2000)
Madam President, 'in cauda venenum' as the Romans used to say: 'the sting is in the tail'.
I voted against this report, and I was right to do so. An amendment was rejected which I had tabled, which called for disabled people, the blind and partially sighted, the hearing-impaired, seriously ill people and the very elderly, who as such receive benefits and pensions from the Member States, not to be treated according to current European Union regulations which stipulate that if they go to a Union State which is not their country of residence then they cannot receive their pension.
In practice, a disabled person cannot travel within the European Union - from Italy to the United Kingdom, from France to Germany etc. because, if he moves and changes his country of residence, he will no longer be entitled to the benefits on which he depends to live.
When will we put an end to this injustice?
It is our view that all immigrant workers living and working in any European Union country must have the same rights and freedoms, particularly the freedom of movement, as European Union nationals.
Despite the report' s limitations in this respect and although we do not agree with the entire text, we did vote for the report because the measures it recommends represent progress in relation to the current deplorable situation of immigrant workers and migrant workers who are European Union nationals.
I would add that the extreme right' s fiercely racist opposition to this report confirms our views in this direction.
Since 1957, the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community has contained provisions designed to guarantee the free movement of workers within Community territory.
Various Community instruments have enabled this right to become a reality.
In 1990, two directives (90/364/EEC and 90/365/EEC) have extended the right of residence by defining general principles and rules for workers who have stopped work.
A third directive (93/96/EC), adopted in 1993, contains specific provisions for students.
Since 1993 and the Treaty of Maastricht, any Member State national has the right to move and reside freely in the European Union (Article 14 of the EC Treaty), and this right forms part of European citizenship (Article 18).
The report we are discussing today seeks to provide an overview of the implementation of the directives on the right of residence of students, pensioners and other non-economically-active members of society as well as to study the special measures concerning European Union citizens' moving and settling for reasons of public order, security and health (Directive 64/221/EEC).
With regard to the first section, we must admit that although the directives in question have been transposed, in some cases painstakingly, into national legislation, many obstacles remain, which must be overcome by adopting a raft of specifically-targeted measures.
To mention one problem with which I am very familiar, that of students, I think it is crucial that we provide them with better information on their rights if they wish to study in another Member State.
We also need to solve the problem of the recognition of diplomas, which is proving to be a significant issue in certain professions.
With regard to the second section, there are many problems in the way Directive 64/221/EEC has been implemented.
The Treaty allows Member States to impose limits on the free movement of persons for reasons of public order, public security or public health.
The Commission is aware, however, that Member States are interpreting these concepts in a totally different way, often too broadly, and it stresses that they must be applied in accordance with the principle of proportionality.
The Commission also stresses that these concepts must only be applied in the face of a genuine and sufficiently serious threat, which would affect a society' s fundamental wellbeing.
In any event, these concepts must comply with the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
It appears that, in order to resolve these difficulties, we will need to adopt a framework directive to organise and guarantee the unimpeded exercise of freedom of movement and residence.
An overall redrafting of the existing texts will make this possible and will have the advantage of putting an end to the current inequalities of treatment in the various Member States.
Only when these conditions are met will we enable nationals of Member States to gain awareness and to give substance to this concept of European citizenship, which for many is still nothing but a hollow shell.
The approval of the report that the rapporteur has presented to Parliament is heartening, but I cannot say the same for most of the proposals for amendments that have been raised in the House.
The principle of the free movement of persons, included in the Treaty of Rome fifty years ago, still encounters many difficulties in its practical implementation.
As mentioned in the report, the implementation of the directives on the right of residence of students and retired people (90/364, 90/365 and 93/96) is clearly unsatisfactory, and the same is true for the directive on migrant workers.
Workers in 'atypical' employment - part-time, short-term, etc. face residence problems in the host country.
In addition, as the rapporteur points out, there are at present millions of third-country nationals residing lawfully in the European Union who often find themselves deprived of the right to free movement and residence.
Hence it is essential that the Member States and the Commission take the necessary steps to ensure that the rights of migrant workers are upheld and to improve their situation.
With regard to students and retired people too, it is essential to speed up the bureaucratic process and to facilitate the free movement and residence of these citizens of the European Union in any Member State.
I have no objection to our attempting to resolve the outstanding problems associated with the right of residence of EU citizens, who are, after all, at liberty to move freely throughout European Union territory and reside wherever they choose, particularly when they are pensioners or students.
However, I am unable to support this report in principle, because it takes advantage of the situation, with a view to demanding freedom of movement and establishment for all third-country nationals who have the right of residence in a Member State.
There are millions of third-country nationals who fit this description, and it is completely unacceptable to saddle other Member States with the consequences of giving freedom of movement to millions of people, without taking the individual Member States' absorption capacity into account.
Many people have doubts about admitting Malta to the European Union.
If the demands made in the Boumediene-Thiery report in respect of freedom of movement for third-country nationals were to be met, this would have a far more serious impact than if we were to grant the citizens of the candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe freedom of movement and establishment, without a transitional period, which is something no one in their right mind would consider.
If we really want to fan the flames of xenophobia within the Community, then I can think of no better way than to support the excessive and unreasonable proposals contained in the Boumediene-Thiery report, which thank God, was adopted in committee by only 23 votes in favour to 15 votes against.
It is asking too much of the other Member States as it is, for the German Government to allow several million third-country nationals resident on its territory to hold German citizenship in addition to their own.
In so doing, with a single stroke of the pen, it creates several million new EU citizens entitled to freedom of movement and freedom of establishment, and in fact they even have the right to vote at local and European elections. Yet at the same time, your colleague Mr Verheugen, is calling for a referendum on eastwards enlargement.
What about our right to a referendum against Germany' s being able to decide completely independently, and without reference to the other Member States, to present us with several million more EU citizens?
We cannot cope with the consequences of such generosity, as well intentioned as it may be, because it will be open to exploitation, particularly by gangs of human traffickers.
I say 'yes' to a rational immigration policy that we can sustain, but 'no' to the chaos that the Boumediene-Thiery report would inevitably cause.
The catalogue of problems and obstacles associated with the rights of European citizens who move about within the European Union or reside in a Member State other than the state in which they were born, as well as third-country nationals legally residing in a Member State of the European Union, is so enormous that, for many people, the much vaunted right of 'free movement' is either non-existent or is a continuous and never-ending hurdle race.
Students, retired people, certain categories of workers, especially those in 'atypical' forms of employment, and in part-time employment, are called upon to confront a whole host of difficulties and problems concerning residence in the host country. This is due to the sheer volume of formalities for the issue and renewal of residence permits and other difficulties associated with providing evidence of sufficient means.
In reality, not only does the notorious 'European area of freedom' not exist; it is so inextricably bound up with financial criteria that the right of residence, while recognised as an 'inalienable' right, is only granted to those who are financially independent.
In other words, we are dealing not only with the complete distortion of concepts but also with the utter derision of hundreds of thousands of European citizens and their families.
What is more, if we add to this the unacceptable phenomenon of the abusive interpretation of the concepts of public order and security, not only is the free movement and residence of people simply undermined and contravened in many cases, but it also becomes the springboard for the violation of fundamental and individual rights such as the right to the protection of personal information.
On the pretext of public order, the Schengen Information System stores, transmits and processes personal details in violation of the Treaties, Community law and international law.
We would also like to highlight the numerous cases of expulsion for economic reasons or for reasons of general prevention. In none of these cases is there anything to warrant regarding these people as belonging to sufficiently serious categories to justify their violent deportation.
For reasons of the fundamental protection of human rights and of the dignity of European citizens and third-country nationals legally residing in the European Union, it is essential that residence procedures are simplified in such a way that the unimpeded exercising of this right can be organised and secured and that inequalities and violations of basic democratic principles can be removed.
Member States must simplify and relax as far as possible the necessary procedures and formalities for students and retired people regarding the issues of adequate means and the granting and renewal of residence permits.
The granting and renewal of residence permits must be simplified for migrant workers, and social security and medical care systems must be simplified so as to put an end to the discrimination suffered by these workers.
Family reunification must also be made easier by simplifying the residence conditions for family members, and by simplifying the system for granting and issuing residence permits, if the applicant meets the necessary conditions, for at least 5 years.
Finally, an end must be put to the abusive appeal to public order, which turns European citizens into 'usual suspects' for reasons other than public security, in blatant violation of the rule of law, the Declaration of Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.50 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, in the approval of the Minutes it says that I said I had been deliberated misquoted.
I did not state that.
It was just a possibility, not a statement.
That is important.
I would not say that the transcription was deliberately badly done in any case - that was only a possibility.
In the Minutes it sounds as though I am making an accusation.
I would not dare to say so, because I have no proof at all.
It is merely a possibility.
Is that clear?
We take note of your observation and, of course, as you know, it is the verbatim report which testifies to what has been said.
It will therefore clarify whether you said one thing or another.
Mr President, in fact I was trying to amend the verbatim report of proceedings because in the Minutes it said only that I spoke, nothing else.
Concerning the verbatim report I put the accent on the fact that there was an expression that I had not used.
That was the problem.
You can write to the services to correct your words.
Apparently the services understood something else.
But you are entitled to correct your words.
Mr President, colleagues were shouting and so it was very difficult to hear what I was saying.
Right now there is no problem.
At the time Spanish colleagues were shouting so it was very difficult to hear.
That is why I cannot say...
Mr Gorostiaga Atxalandabaso, the plenary does not adopt the verbatim report of proceedings.
We adopt the Minutes.
So if you have a problem ...
(The President was interrupted) Please, respect the presidency.
We take note of your remarks on the Minutes.
You can write to the services to correct the verbatim report.
That is all.
(The Minutes were approved)
Telecommunications mergers
The next item is the Commission statement on telecommunications mergers.
Mr President, on behalf of my group and all my colleagues I would like to welcome Mr Monti to the House today for what is a very timely discussion on the regulatory regime for telecom, bearing in mind that we are now moving into the very important consideration of the telecom package.
I want to briefly pick up on some of the crucial points that he made.
It is quite clear to all of us that the whole world of electronic communications is presenting us with a regulatory challenge, but it is clearly presenting you, Commissioner, and the competition authority with unprecedented challenges, given the speed with which technology is advancing.
Many of the ideas related to market share are also changing very rapidly.
In the telecom field, it is clear that market share can change hands much more quickly than in some of the major industries that have been regulated in the past.
I was delighted that your approach is to try and avoid putting a brake on innovation by excessively firm controls.
That is extremely important.
I would like your assurance that you will be developing the expert capability to what is undoubtedly going to be an increasing workload in looking at future mergers.
We understand from the Peers Group report that you are going to be awarded an extra 92 posts.
It will be interesting to hear how you envisage your service developing in this direction.
The second point which will come through in our consideration of the telecom package, is that in this very fast-moving world there is concern within the industry and amongst investors that excessively rigid targets in terms of market share thresholds for investigation - and that can be too much or too little in many cases - should not be allowed to inhibit your consideration of areas where there is a genuine competitive issue at stake.
Could you perhaps address these points when you respond to our debate later on?
Mr President, could I start my contribution by offering my congratulations to Commissioner Monti and his officials for the scrupulous and professional way in which they dealt with the proposed MCI Worldcom - Sprint merger.
I would particularly to thank him and his officials for trying to see trade unionists from all over the European Union and indeed from the United States of America, who had an opportunity to put their views.
Without doubt, one of the consequences of mergers and takeovers is the effect on employment and I know that the Commissioner, within the confines of the Treaty, is sensitive to this.
What also needs to be stressed is that there are special technological reasons why a concentration of ownership, the potential abuse of a dominant position, is so serious.
In most other industries such a concentration or potential abuse might be temporary, but in this field if any one company does secure such a strong position it will almost certainly have it, if not forever, then at least for a very long time.
In your presentation, Commissioner, you mentioned the danger of one company gaining control over these markets.
This really is a dilemma for Parliament and for the Commission.
We accept the near inevitability and in many cases the desirability of mergers and takeovers, but we also see the potential and actual dangers.
Parliament is consistent in its view that we do not want to put any obstacles in the way of competitiveness and innovation.
We welcome the position that you have taken on this particular issue.
One other small point: much of this competition is between the European Union and the United States of America.
I know you are well aware how crucial it is for Europe to lead in the two important spheres of third generation mobile telephones and digital television and I hope that you will continue your efforts to keep that lead, which is so crucial to jobs, employment and prosperity in the European Union.
I would like to take up the subject just touched upon by the previous speaker, namely the transatlantic aspects of telecoms liberalisation and particularly paragraph 6 and 7 of the draft resolution, which refers to the unfortunate initiative by Senator Hollings to restrict the transfer of licences to telecoms companies which are more than 25% state-owned.
This seems an ironic lurch towards a protectionist position at the very time when here in Europe and in this Parliament we are about to embark upon a debate on the latest raft of measures which, in my view, would make the European Union telecoms market the most liberalised and the most open market in the world going way beyond many if not all of the commitments into which we entered in GATT and the WTO.
This is politically if not technically an unbalanced situation which merits the attention of this House.
Whilst I have some philosophical sympathy with Senator Hollings and his colleagues who consider that state-owned companies have some hidden and sometimes explicit advantages over their privately-owned competitors, the way in which Congress in the United States is trying to address this issue is contrary to both the spirit and the letter of US multilateral commitments.
I would ask fellow Members, when considering the latest raft of telecoms measures in the weeks to come, not to allow this to go unnoticed or for that matter unchallenged.
Mr President, Commissioner, I remember how, around the middle of last year, when the merger of the American companies Time Warner and America Online was announced, there were people who described that event as an early beginning of the third millennium as far as its cultural and technological aspects were concerned.
At that time, comparisons were made.
In the United States, 40% of homes had access to that network of all networks known as the Internet, whilst in the European Union, that figure hardly reached 20%, and that percentage was only surpassed in a few of the Union' s Member States, which were more advanced in terms of technological development.
I believe we need to make progress and take more action specifically on that issue. We must not have two types of society, second- and first-class citizens, those who are technologically advanced and those who are technologically backward.
We must provide all citizens with access to this new information society.
However, as we make more effort in terms of the concentration of companies and of developing the European market, we must take account of the dangers caused by a lack of security in telecommunications.
I am thinking of the Echelon affair, which is very much related to this kind of issue.
In Europe, we must ensure that there is security, because that is a human right.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the fact that the Commission and the US Department of Justice have blocked the proposed MCI Worldcom - Sprint merger, and were also delighted to hear that the US Government is not inclined to approve the AOL - Time Warner deal.
The Internet must continue to be a means of communication for all.
We must therefore prevent the telecommunications and media giants from being able to occupy a dominant position.
Competition law is an effective tool to this end.
However, mergers also have an impact on employment and social cohesion.
Telecommunications and media are not crisis-ridden industries; they are an expanding sector.
Objectively, this makes it easier to take account of sociopolitical and employment policy aspects in merger decisions.
Since the mid-nineties, the Federal Communication Commission in the USA has, in the case of several merger decisions, secured commitments from the companies concerned to increase the number of employees, improve quality of service, and do more to look after the public interest.
Therefore we fail to comprehend why, in the welfare state of Europe, competition law should rule the day.
We are calling for the EU to introduce binding social clauses into the mergers approvals process.
Apart from the competition law test, we need additional criteria for the purposes of merger decisions, for example: firstly, the companies should give a binding commitment to preserving or raising the level of employment.
Secondly, they should improve the quality of service for large sections of their customer base.
Thirdly, they must implement to the letter, the mechanics of the European social dialogue and the provisions of the directive on informing and consulting workers, as they make the transition to the new merged company.
Fourthly, the merger must bring added benefits when it comes to furthering the public interest.
This relates to such matters as the need to safeguard a comprehensive and modern universal service, and requirements in terms of data and consumer protection.
That is the only way to guarantee that competition policy will also strengthen the European social model in the new economy.
Mr President, at the outset I would like to say that I welcome the Commission's publication of the new telecom directives and regulations on 12 July.
This is part of the ongoing framework programme to improve the quality of telecommunications services in Europe.
Parliament and the Commission are right to be adamant that the Union must improve its telecommunications network.
It is fair to say that the United States is possibly three years ahead of the Union as regards the use of the Internet.
On the back of the new directives which are being enacted in the telecom sector, the European Union will catch up with the US sooner rather than later.
This is also in line with the conclusions of the recent European Council meeting in Portugal.
EU leaders pointed to the need to improve our overall telecommunications services.
I support the recommendation that all schools in Europe must be equipped with the Internet.
From an Irish perspective, I am particularly satisfied that this programme is advancing at a very swift pace.
There has been much talk in national and international media about the auctioning of third-generation mobile phone licences in Europe.
Certainly, the auctioning of these licences in Germany and Britain has secured large amounts of money for the respective national exchequers, but who ultimately is going to pay for these phones? I strongly believe that consumers, once again, are going to be forced to bear the high cost of these licences.
Commissioner, I do not envy you your task in general, let alone in a new sector such as the telecoms sector whose dynamics are so unpredictable that it is particularly difficult to make decisions regarding competitiveness and mergers which, from a traditional perspective, do not always work to the advantage of the companies of a sector such as the telecommunications sector which has to develop in Europe to make its companies more competitive, and frequently do not work to the advantage of consumers either.
For example, in the case of Microsoft, when it was considered that Microsoft had reached the most dominant position possible, another operating system such as Linux would threaten its monopoly without any interference from the U.S. Department of Justice at all.
I would have liked to talk about the Vodaphone/Mannesmann case and its rather problematic implications for the France Telecom Orange case, and express my fear that the Community authorities, certainly including Parliament, might be tempted or give way to the instinct to intervene officially and issue excessive regulations to govern the sector.
Today Parliament - and I call upon the Commissioner to take note of this - adopted, with very little opposition, including our own, a document calling upon the Commission to promote the establishment of a body to prevent market mergers liable to prejudice pluralism.
The resolution was on multimedia, but the telecommunications and multimedia markets are one and the same and I feel that we should exercise extreme caution when intervening in the concentration and restructuring processes taking place in this sector.
For the good of ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Clegg has already expressed his broad support, on behalf of the Liberal Group, for the Commission' s proposals, and his concern about certain specific aspects relating to the United States, as has just been mentioned.
I would like to highlight the concern about an aspect which appears in the Liberal Group' s original motion for a resolution, whose first section refers to the need to reject any political interference in the Commission' s competition policy.
If we apply this to the issue in question, the telecommunications sector, it is a well-founded concern given the cases which arose in Spain, a few months ago, involving the merger of Telefónica with a Dutch company, in Portugal and in other sectors in France.
It worries us that there is still government interference in the actions of companies who are seeking appropriate dimensions and competitiveness at a European level.
We therefore support the Commission' s proposals and we would like to draw attention to this aspect.
Mr President, the records for company mergers have now been broken in the telecommunications sector, with mega-mergers in Europe and on the other side of the Atlantic.
These operations involve billions of dollars, and benefit consumers, who are also employees facing company closures, relocations and redundancies.
The telecommunications sector has become a symbol of capitalist globalisation, which forces it to bear the cost of this race towards ever more enormous deals.
The Lisbon Summit made several references to the information society. This is something which can indeed enable considerable progress to be made.
There is no doubting that this is a challenge!
Nowadays these changes are generally matched by a dismantling of social rights, an increase in part-time work and flexibility at work.
Nor can we ignore the consequences for the freedom of information, cultural diversity and public services.
The Commission banned the merger between MC Worldcom and Sprint solely because it might threaten free competition.
At a time, however, when the European Union is making employment a priority, mergers should also be seen in light of their consequences for employment and land-use planning.
We should also increase the employees' and union organisations' rights and powers on the boards of European companies and perhaps even give them a right of veto in the event of restructurings or mergers.
Lastly, common regulations should be promoted so that the information society benefits all citizens and is based on equality of access, freedom of information and cultural diversity.
May I welcome the Commissioner to Parliament today on behalf of all of us.
We all appreciate the importance of your task in the competition department of the Commission.
It is perhaps the most important task of the Commission to maintain free competition and make the market work across the European Union.
In the telecoms context it is vital to ensure that consumers get all the benefits the free market can offer them, particularly the low-cost Internet access.
The way to deliver that low-cost Internet access, vitally important for the creation of a European E-economy to the people of Europe, is through liberalisation and free competition.
We used to regulate the telecom sector through national regulators, but these will wither away in future because we are moving towards a single, global regulator, namely the market.
The market is the most effective regulator, providing the best protection for consumers and giving consumers more power than any number of Commission consultation groups.
In future we shall want to give the competition mergers department, more work, because the market should play an even bigger role in telecoms than it does at the moment.
We want to see an end to the advantages inherited by some of the old state monopolies.
I hope you will apply competition law and merger law toughly, but always ensure that you look at each merger on its own merits.
Just because it may produce a big player or a big corporation it is not necessarily wrong for the market or anti-competitive.
We have to remember that Europe probably will need some large corporations if it is to reap the benefits of the Internet revolution.
Mr President, I would like to take up what Mary Read had to say in her intervention, when she discussed the impact on jobs and employment.
It is simply not the case that the workers in our regions and constituencies are forever waiting with bated breath for us to liberalise previously protected sectors.
The reverse is often true.
We are going to have to answer a whole host of employees' questions about local public transport operatives over the next few weeks and months.
We, the representatives of the people, must provide these answers, and not the Commission, which will talk to the union leaders if need be.
One thing is for sure, unrestricted liberalisation and the opening up of markets, are no panacea.
However, market opening in the telecommunications sector itself, demonstrates that market opening can bring benefits for consumers in the form of falling prices and access to new services.
It has brought about rapid advances in technology, which, at the end of the day, will lead to an increase in jobs, even high-quality jobs in the major sectors.
The globalisation of our national economies has had a major stimulating effect on the liberalisation of telecommunications markets in Europe, and, conversely, has furthered development at international level.
It goes without saying that we need a certain number of commercial giants to be able to hold our own as a global player.
But this must not of course lead to new monopolies in markets and market sectors.
We need to adopt a rigorous competition policy with regard to commercial organisations, in order to ensure that no single company gains a dominant hold in the new market block formed by the telecommunications and multimedia sectors.
That is why we should support the Commission' s decision in matters such as WorldCom and Sprint.
We also hope that it will adopt a similarly rigorous approach where Time Warner and AOL are concerned.
Above all, though, the Commission must use its efforts to modernise competition law, particularly in respect of the regulation on merger control, as an opportunity to adopt an extremely rigorous approach to its reform undertakings too.
We hope this will not prove to be to the detriment of competition policy.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Members of Parliament who spoke for their interest in these issues, for the appreciation they have generously shown for the Commission's activities and for their support.
Please excuse me, for I shall have to be extremely brief in my answers.
Mr Harbour, you identified one crucial point, namely preventing market trends from disrupting innovation.
This is indeed one of our key concerns.
You referred to the outcome of the Commission's peer group preview.
I am delighted that the peer group has understood the needs of competition policy so clearly.
We are beginning to form ideas about how to deploy additional resources within the competition DG but we must first secure the support of the budgetary authority.
Mrs Read, among others, supported the decision we took in late June about MCI WorldCom-Sprint.
That decision was based on a great many considerations, including some input from the trade unions, although this in no way led us to depart from regulations.
Mrs Read and other Members of Parliament mentioned some sectors in which Europe has a lead, for instance third-generation mobile telephony and digital TV.
One particularly effective way to maintain a lead is to make the market run efficiently.
That is why we insist so much on rigorous enforcement of competition policy in the light of the market situation in Europe, irrespective of the nationality of companies.
When companies establish or consolidate a dominant position without proposing the necessary remedies, we have no option but to block a merger and recently did so in a case involving two European companies, Volvo and Scania, which, indeed, are based in the same Member State.
We would have done the same in another case in which one company was European (Pechiney) and the other North American-Canadian (Alcan), but the merger was withdrawn.
In addition, we took similar action in the recent MCI WorldCom-Sprint case, where both companies were American.
We have established excellent cooperation with our American counterparts at the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission.
Talking of the US, several Members have drawn attention to the risks of the Hollings Bill.
This is simply a proposal, and I hope that it will not become law, although this depends on your American opposite numbers.
However, if it were to be adopted I would consider it a disturbing sign of protectionism It would be unfortunate if liberalisation, which has taken such giant leaps forward in the US, Europe and elsewhere over the past few years, were to start going backwards in the US.
Moreover, the bill is, in our view, clearly incompatible with the USA's WTO obligations and other basic telecommunications agreements and the Commission through my colleague Pascal Lamy has certainly made this very clear to our American counterparts.
The Commission also resolutely opposes any such legislation in our Member States.
To dispel Mr Gasòliba i Böhm's anxieties, the Commission alone has the power to consider Community-scale mergers.
When a Member State wrongfully intervenes, the Commission is ready to challenge such an intervention, as it proved in one case last year in a decision addressed to the Portuguese Government.
Mr Ortuondo Larrea, Mr Markov and Mr Rapkay referred to the very important AOL-Time Warner case.
You will appreciate that I cannot say very much now.
The deadline for the Commission's decision is 24 October.
The hearing on this merger is taking place today and tomorrow in Brussels.
We expressed our concerns on 22 August when we issued our statement of objections to the parties.
There is nothing else I can add at this stage.
Mr Gallagher and another honourable Member referred to the allocation system for third-generation mobile telephone licences.
The auctions will increase the number of mobile telephone operators in the Union.
More players mean more competition, so we can only welcome the outcome of the auctions from a competitive standpoint.
We will obviously make sure that the consortia put in place will not lead to concerted practices because membership will vary from country to country.
It has been pointed out that the sums paid to EU governments to obtain licences are too high and that making it necessary for the operators to recoup their initial investment would lead to higher prices for consumers and perhaps limit the development of new advanced mobile telephone services.
But this is not a competition law issue as such, whereas trying to introduce restrictions on competition in order to make it easier to recoup the cost would be sanctioned by competition law.
However, irrespective of the system used - auctions, beauty contests or whatever - the precise rules of a beauty contest or an auction can require scrutiny to ensure, for example, that incumbents are not favoured and that non-discrimination, transparency and proportionality are guaranteed.
So even though Member States are free to choose either a beauty contest, an auction system or a mixture of both, they must still comply with competition law and the sector-specific telecommunications legislation on licensing and with the state aid rules.
In this context I could mention that the competition DG is currently looking into a complaint against the Netherlands, jointly with the information society DG.
They are also looking into a complaint against France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany and finally, we are also investigating a UMTS auction under the state aid rules.
So we are trying to be vigilant as all of you urge us to be.
Mr Della Vedova is afraid that the Community authorities will attempt to overburden the development of this sector, which is going to become so important for the European economy, with regulatory constraints.
I can assure him that, as far as regulations are concerned, the Commission is trying to keep constraints to a minimum and, that it is for precisely this reason that it considers that it is important for competition policy to play a major role.
As far as pluralism - also mentioned by Mr Della Vedova - is concerned, I can only point out that, under the current European system, Member States can adopt measures to protect pluralism.
This is recognised in the merger regulation as one of the legitimate grounds for Member States to intervene, provided, of course, that the purpose of the intervention is to protect pluralism.
I note that Mrs Villiers urges us to apply competition law toughly.
I hope we will live up to your expectations in the future, without being prejudiced against size as such.
We have to examine situations case by case.
Size can sometimes create problems.
Even smaller operators can create competition problems and then we have to intervene.
Finally, several Members - Mrs Read, Mr Markov, Mrs Ainardi, Mr Rapkay - have recognised and stressed the beneficial impact of the development of this sector on employment, but also expressed some concern about the social impact of mergers.
I must be very brief at this stage.
This raises two issues.
As to the general effect on employment, I firmly believe that if competition is maintained employment tends to benefit.
This has clearly been the case in the telecommunication industry.
Even though incumbents may have laid off some workers, liberalisation has created a large number of new entrants which are creating new employment.
The Commission is extremely keen that workers' rights should be safeguarded.
The whole deployment of Commission policy instruments and the assessment of concentrations is limited purely to the aspects covered by competition law.
However the Commission welcomes the involvement of workers' representatives in the merger control process.
Representatives have a right to be heard at all stages of the procedure.
I know from experience that their views are a valuable input for my services.
I am increasingly convinced that rigorous competition is a key component of a social market economy, be it in the traditional sectors or in the new sectors and - I stress both adjectives - social and market economies.
Thank you very much, Mr Monti, for your detailed reply.
I have received 4 motions for resolutions, in accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure, to end the present statement.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Thursday.
Human cloning
The next item is the Commission statement on human cloning.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, recent progress in the field of life sciences provide considerable prospects for their application, but also raise ethical questions which are of great concern to the general public.
It is becoming increasingly important to anticipate these ethical questions so that they can then be integrated into a broader dialogue between science and society.
In its statement of January 2000, the Commission highlighted the fact that a genuine European research area can only become a reality if we also promote a European area of ethical values, which are shared throughout Europe.
With this in mind, the Commission plans to adopt initiatives such as strengthening the links between ethics committees across Europe and the exchange of good practice in the ethical assessment of research projects.
Therapeutic cloning, or to be more precise, the use for therapeutic purposes of embryo stem cells obtained by cloning techniques is one example of the ethical questions raised by the rapid scientific advances that have been made in the life sciences.
This technique for therapeutic cloning is a particularly sensitive issue, for obvious cultural, religious and ethical reasons.
The report by a group of British experts, published on 16 August, recognises the considerable importance of research into human embryo stem cells and their therapeutic application.
This report recommends authorising research in this area, and particularly the use of embryos produced by cloning, using the technique of nucleus replacement, whilst recommending a clear legal and ethical framework.
The publication of this report has led to many people across Europe expressing their views and has enabled a genuine debate to be held at European level, beyond the scientific circles concerned.
As President Prodi announced recently in a press statement, the Commission, far from remaining silent, hopes that an enlightened debate will ensue, in close cooperation with the European Parliament.
Respect for the national identity of Member States led the Treaty on European Union to give Member States the prerogative to legislate on ethical issues.
Legislation and gaps in legislation vary greatly, which reflects the range of very different sensibilities in the countries of the European Union.
Community action in the field of biotechnological research is nevertheless increasingly based on the most rigorous fundamental ethical principles, out of respect for national sensibilities.
This applies to Community legislation on the patentability of biotechnological inventions, which is expressly based on respect for the fundamental principles that guarantee human dignity and integrity. This legislation also affirms the principle that the human body, at all stages of its formation or its development, including germ cells, as well as the simple discovery of one of its elements or of one of its products, including the partial sequencing of a human gene, cannot be patented.
This legislation does not allow for the patenting of reproductive human cloning and the sale of embryos or parts of the human body.
Whilst the directive regulates the conditions in which an invention based on biological matter may benefit from the protection of a patent, its aim is not, however, to set the conditions in which the research itself may be carried out.
With regard to research, the European Commission has, for many years, given its support to the field of biomedicine.
The fifth framework-programme, which was adopted using the codecision procedure, respects fundamental ethical principles and is based on the opinion issued by the European Ethics Group prior to the adoption of the framework-programme.
Research involving cloning techniques for reproductive or therapeutic ends is therefore quite explicitly excluded.
Animal cloning is also limited to ethically justifiable purposes, to ensure that operations are carried out without causing unnecessary suffering
The framework-programme, which also has a proactive role, is currently supporting the studies in bioethics looking at the potential risks and benefits of cloning technology.
Furthermore, complementary approaches to therapeutic cloning attempting to develop new techniques for cell therapy are underway, particularly through major projects using adult stem cells.
This research is being carried out with respect for fundamental ethical principles and for the relevant national regulations.
I should like to emphasise that the ethical aspects are, as a matter of course, taken into account when proposals are assessed and that a thorough ethical review is undertaken for proposals involving more sensitive ethical issues.
The Commission looks forward to hearing the opinion of the European Group on Ethics this November on the use of adult stem cells.
This group has shown its independence and its considerable competence in issues that are both highly sensitive and also extremely technical.
Like previous ones, this opinion will, of course, be extremely important for the framing of Community research policy.
In more general terms, the high level group of experts on life sciences, recently established at my behest, must help us to construct a genuine dialogue on the life sciences between the world of research and society at large.
The symposium, which is being held by this group on 6 and 7 November in Brussels and to which, of course, I invite all Members of this Parliament who may be interested, represents an important stage in establishing this dialogue.
Therefore, although the Commission has no plans to legislate or harmonise in the field of ethics, it does wish to contribute to the debate, fully respecting the diversity of Europe' s cultures and sensibilities.
This is also one of the objectives of the European research area, which is gradually being developed.
I wish to ask a question regarding the agenda.
Mr Busquin has just made a statement about cloning.
When will the debate on this subject be held?
At 5 p.m. in other words, immediately after the debate on enlargement.
Comments by Mr Verheugen concerning enlargement
The next item is the communication on Mr Verheugen' s statement on enlargement.
I welcome President Prodi to the Chamber and I thank him for being present.
I must warn you that President Prodi will have to leave us at 4.35 p.m. to travel to New York for the Millennium meeting.
We are nevertheless grateful to him for having made the effort to take part in this debate and, without further ado, I shall give him the floor.
Madam President, today offers an important corrective opportunity and an important step forward in this debate.
I am extremely pleased to see the President of the Commission here and I hope that Mr Prodi, as President of the Commission, will assert his presidential leadership on a regular basis in that way on strategic issues such as enlargement.
I therefore especially welcome his statement today.
I accept Commissioner Verheugen's explanation that he was speaking in a German context and in a personal capacity.
However, as the Commissioner responsible for enlargement, he does not now have the luxury of speaking in a personal capacity.
The fundamental problem when we give mixed messages or perhaps poorly expressed or ill-judged messages is that we risk conveying the wrong message.
From the way in which this interview was received and commented upon that has clearly happened here.
On the matter of a referendum I accept his explanation.
However the underlying thesis is correct.
We do need to take the public with us and if that was his point it is a valid one.
As to Member States leaving the Commission to do the dirty work, I hope that does not refer to the work of enlargement.
I am sure that implication was not intended.
If, Commissioner, you meant that some statesmen in our governments like to go on central European tours and announce that enlargement is on its way but then leave the details to the Commission, you should say so plainly and we will back you up when you confront the Council with this.
(Applause)I would ask the Commissioner in fairness to withdraw his remarks on the European Parliament finding itself unanimous in only one respect, namely in opposing the Commission.
That cannot be substantiated.
The Commissioner's relationship with our Parliament and its committees has always been constructive and positive and it should remain so.
Such a slur on our interinstitutional relationship must not be allowed to stand.
(Applause)
Madam President, I would like to thank the President of the Commission and Commissioner Verheugen for having consented to this discussion with us.
This is an excellent opportunity for us to embark on a serious and honest debate on the issue of enlargement, and we can also consider together how we can include our citizens in the discussion.
Nothing is more important than this.
I can understand how the Commission might be rather irritated by the way the Council sometimes approaches the issue of enlargement.
The Council has been incapable of proposing a concrete enlargement plan and in this it really has to rally its forces.
Neither is it of any benefit if state leaders travel to applicant countries and make hollow promises that membership is just around the corner.
This is not serious enlargement work.
Obviously, public confidence can be restored, but it will mean that first the entire negotiations process must be made more open.
Furthermore, national parliaments must be involved in these discussions, and we now have a good opportunity to say that we too in the European Parliament debate this matter regularly.
And then we have the idea that we might organise referenda on the results of enlargement. It is certainly not quite the right time to contemplate this, as we will really have to have the courage to tell people that eight years have passed already since the present applicant countries were invited to join the European Union.
Eight years have passed, but hopefully we will be bold enough to tell the people that this process is now far advanced and is irreversible.
A referendum in itself is an absolutely splendid way of involving the people in making decisions.
I would like to thank Commissioner Verheugen for having had the courage to utter the word.
Even in Germany they should, in my opinion, consider dismissing historical fears that referenda might be generally dangerous.
Now let us just consider this Charter of Fundamental Rights.
At present, a Charter of Fundamental Rights is being drafted, but does it contain one single genuine right of involvement on the part of the ordinary citizen? Why have we not started to discuss pan-European referenda or, for example, the right of citizens' initiative, which, for example, they have automatically in Switzerland?
I can understand why the Swiss do not wish to join the Union before such fundamental rights are also guaranteed to them as citizens joining the European Union.
This is a task we can embark on together, so that we can really establish a People' s Europe. It is also the best way to dispel idle fears, because people have to enlighten themselves, they have to talk, and they have to acquire knowledge and information.
In other words, people' s direct rights are vitally necessary in general, but in this case I do not think we can start to vote on enlargement now.
Madam President, President Prodi said 'Public opinion is not sufficiently convinced' and other Members have said the same thing.
The truth of the matter, which is serious, appears to be that the public is not sufficiently convinced because Europe is too concerned with specific issues concerning the individual States and is not doing enough to combat the major problems such as unemployment, migration, human rights, the renegotiation of the world's financial system, the financial bubble, relations with the United States and Europe' s capacity to build a healthy economy and exert its own influence in the world.
We have to realise that the European citizens are afraid.
Therefore, if we want enlargement to work to the ultimate benefit of present and future Member citizens, we will have to start involving the citizens in political and institutional processes, not unconditionally as you said in your speech, President Prodi, for there is one condition and that is that enlargement becomes a genuine benefit both for those citizens who are currently Members of our European Union and for those who, we hope, will join us as soon as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Italian Radicals are certainly not going to criticise anyone for proposing to organise a referendum on an extremely important issue.
It was, of course, a mistake, which has caused problems for the Commission and for all of us as the European Union, in the face of the legitimate hopes of the peoples of Eastern Europe who, after 50 years of Communist dictatorship, which we did nothing to combat, now, I believe, have the right to be part of the European Union.
I would now like the Members to carry out an examination of conscience, and I would ask both the Commission and Parliament what is going to happen at the Biarritz and Nice Summits, whose agendas contain such major issues about which absolutely nothing is being done.
No progress is being made on the matters of the institutional reforms; most importantly, nothing is being done to make good the commitment we have made in past years to extend enlargement to the countries of southern Europe - I refer to the Delors I and II packages.
Then we want to achieve enlargement without spending a penny more than our current budget, which is already less than sufficient for the 15.
These are major issues and your interview, Commissioner, caused some consternation.
I hope that these statements will set us off along the right road again, but the real problems remain unsolved: what reforms and what financial means are we going to use to bring enlargement to Eastern Europe with genuine success?
Madam President, I had understood that Mr Verheugen was going to give a full explanation of the interview that he gave to the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
One important point he made was that he felt that, in his opinion, there should have been a referendum in Germany on the introduction of the euro.
Well, it is not too late.
Does he still think that German public opinion should be tested on the euro and what does he think the result would be?
Thank you, Commissioner Verheugen.
If there are no further interventions, this debate is closed and we shall continue the debate on human cloning.
I wish to thank Commissioner Verheugen once more and to welcome back Commissioner Busquin.
Human cloning (continuation)
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that every person who is motivated by faith in man, right from the very first moment of his existence, must be guaranteed the unconditional respect which is morally due to the human person in its entirety.
Therefore, we must state, loud and clear, our opposition to experiments which involve the destruction of human embryos. An embryo is already a human person with a very specific identity, and every action which is not intended to benefit the embryo is an act of violence against the right to life.
Parliament must reiterate what it has declared many times in recent years, including last May.
It is immoral to use human embryos for research, for those very operations to which the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, has allocated public funding, those operations which have been approved by Tony Blair' s British Government.
Sadly, it would appear that commercial interests are driving scientists to explore types of research which involve shortcuts and disregard all consideration for the protection of human life, which we consider to start at the moment of conception.
The human body is not a possession, it is nothing to do with 'having' , it is to do with 'being' , with being a living person, and it cannot therefore be reduced to a machine made up of components and gears, materials and functions.
What people are trying to achieve is almost an attack on life; it is the opposite of the ethic of love of man and his body, even in that initial stage of being alive, of being in the world, the human world, with that body which is himself.
To the extent that those who take human embryos and disembowel them, removing the mass of cells inside and extinguishing their life, contrive to say that there is no-one inside, for if there were somebody inside they would be worthy of love or, in a loveless world, they would at least have the right for their human dignity to be respected. Otherwise, the world would consist of violence, brutality and cynicism.
Ladies and gentlemen, to oppose destructive research on embryos is not just to adhere to religious principle, but to uphold a principle of civilisation as well: the absolute ban on one man being master of another which should still be at the very heart of our civilisation.
We cannot allow man to have such great power over his fellow man.
But this does not mean that we are against research, quite the contrary.
Alternative research is possible: research on the stem cells present in adults and on cells removed from the umbilical cord immediately after birth, for example.
In addition to all this, research is indeed being carried out on adult cells and looks likely to yield results.
Many research scientists are involved in alternatives to cloning and they are about to form major national research groups to work in this specific area.
Lastly, we propose that a temporary committee be set up to study these issues.
We would like there to be in-depth studies of new issues thrown up by the life sciences, on the condition that it is clear that the positions adopted by Parliament cannot be renegotiated.
It is those positions which the Commission must take as its starting point to assist us in producing well-founded recommendations.
Mr President, Article 1 of the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights states that the dignity of the person must be respected and protected.
Article 3 states that in the cases of medicine and biology, the following principles must be respected: the prohibition of eugenic practices, specifically those that are aimed at human selection; the prohibition of making the human body or any of its parts a source of profit and the prohibition of the reproductive cloning of human beings.
Such formal statements are not necessarily sufficient.
Scientific advances are mind-boggling.
The speed at which scientific research progresses is sometimes difficult for average humans, and even for politicians, to comprehend.
This rhythm of progress in the techno-sciences, that is, in the marriage of science and technology, raises ethical questions that have major consequences.
This applies above all to the new mastery of living mechanisms.
In this respect, the British government' s proposal to refer legislation which seeks to authorise some scientific research into therapeutic cloning, including the human embryo, to the parliament at Westminster has led to all sorts of reactions and comments, both positive and negative.
Certain political groups in this Parliament are proposing a vote on a supposedly 'urgent' motion for a resolution.
The Socialists are of the view that such issues are too important for the future of medicine, biology and human society, and because they are so important, this Parliament should carry out a more thorough job than a resolution adopted at top speed.
This is not the gunfight at the OK Corral: This is not about being the first to draw.
This morning' s discussions on the monitoring centre for industrial change showed that this Parliament is capable of voting on everything and its opposite in the space of a few minutes.
The Socialists are unhappy with this type of vote, which looks more like Russian roulette than serious parliamentary work.
We would like to see a calm discussion of a vital problem, covering the opportunities opened up by genetic engineering and also the lines that cannot be crossed in this field.
This raft of issues concerns various standing committees in this Parliament.
This is clearly a cross-sector issue, which deserves to be dealt with by a special temporary committee, which has the task of calling in experts and of holding hearings of opposing views so that we can have an objective debate, which is not skewed in advance by deeply-embedded prejudices.
I shall end, Mr President, by asking you, by asking all of us, to take this task seriously.
We are prepared to withdraw our motion for a resolution if the other groups do the same and to try to work constructively together.
I welcome the Commissioner's statement and particularly its measured and considered nature.
The ELDR resolution that has been tabled takes the same view.
We do not want a quick, ill-conceived reaction to events that have taken place in my country and the announcement made by the British Government.
These are serious matters and reflect our citizens' deep concerns but we should appreciate the full context of the UK announcement, acknowledging the subsidiarity principle to which the Commissioner referred.
It is only a proposal, not a decision, and it follows a very careful and considered report by the chief medical officer's expert group on cloning.
The matter has been under consideration for two years - too long, say some commentators, when measured against the lives of people with cancer, Parkinson's disease or organ failure who might be aided by this research.
The experts' group merely proposes an extension to existing UK rules on the purposes for which embryos can be used in research.
I emphasise this is an extension to existing rules and controls in this very, very delicate area.
We must respect the there are deep and genuine public concerns on both sides of this argument and this is what our resolution tries to do.
The British Government has recognised that in its proposal because it will be the subject of a free vote, possibly later this year.
I believe, although it is not my party's government, that the British Government has been measured and considered in its response.
I ask this Parliament to be measured and considered in the way it deals with this important issue.
Mr President, once again we face a fundamental ethical debate on developments in biotechnology as applied to humans.
There are two opposing views in play: the first refuses to turn the human being and more specifically the embryo into a tool and is concerned at the potential risks for human society of the widespread use of certain techniques such as cloning.
The second view considers that the right of those suffering from serious and hitherto incurable illnesses to be able to benefit from the potential of medical research takes precedence over any other consideration.
The British Government, without any prior consultation with other countries - and I emphasise this point - has apparently opted for the second approach, by declaring itself to be in favour of therapeutic cloning.
The idea behind this decision is that therapeutic cloning, that is, the cloning of embryonic cells that are undifferentiated from human embryos available for research and production is a promising way forward.
Even if this idea is well-founded, it is nonetheless true that this option gives human embryos the status of stock cells for medical use and involves the production of embryos, first for research purposes, and then, probably, for production.
I feel that it is extremely important to make two observations at this point.
First of all, I would remind you of the Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights and Bio-Medicine, adopted in Oviedo, in April 1997.
It is probably fair to criticise this convention for its vagueness on a number of points, but in Article 18, it states quite clearly that the production of human embryos for research purposes is prohibited.
There has been consensus on this point throughout Europe until quite recently, but this consensus has just been broken by the position adopted by the government of the United Kingdom.
My second observation is that, according to several experts, and as Mr Busquin, Commissioner for Research mentioned earlier, there are other routes open to respond to the legitimate expectations of those who are suffering from serious genetic illnesses.
In particular, there are routes that do not require the production of embryos by cloning, but which use adult cells.
Why then, given this scenario, should we immediately rush into something that is ethically and socially questionable?
To conclude, I believe that the knowledge that has been acquired in gene therapy could be promising for humanity, but that they are also full of potential risks and are open to serious abuse.
We therefore need a rigorous legal framework and clear legal guidelines.
Upholding the ban on human cloning, rather than establishing it in the first place - I am talking about upholding the ban - is crucial in this respect.
Our Parliament has the responsibility of restating this, not by rushing into anything, but simply by remaining consistent with our earlier positions.
Mr President, two hundred years ago, Doctor Cabanis, a philosopher of the Enlightenment, proposed to dare to reconsider and improve on the work of nature. His idea was that, having demonstrated such great curiosity about how to make the animal races more beautiful and better, how shameful it was to completely neglect the human race, as if it were more crucial to have big, strong oxen than vigorous and healthy people and to have sweet-smelling peaches rather than wise and good citizens.
Mr Cabanis' dream is today close to becoming reality. His dream has a name: eugenics.
This dream is in fact a nightmare.
This nightmare takes on many guises, each one more monstrous than the last, whether it involves prenatal diagnoses, for example, which serve to destroy embryos affected by Down' s syndrome to avoid the trouble of eradicating the disease itself; whether it involves the production of excessive numbers of embryos that pile up in freezers; or whether, finally, it involves the cloning of human beings.
These embryos are human beings, whose lives are sacred.
They are people.
It is our duty to respect their dignity.
What good are our grandiose declarations on human rights if we then treat human dignity with such scorn, and in the secrecy of our laboratories, at that?
There is no doubt at all that the cloning of human beings would mark the birth of a new form of slavery, in which test tubes take the place of chains and laboratories the place of galley-ships.
Our bleeding hearts will, of course, reproach us for refusing to give scientific research the resources it needs in order to progress and even worse, to cure our illnesses.
I do not accept this form of intellectual terrorism.
Furthermore, I am almost inclined to think that in the minds of all these people, research is nothing but an excuse to conduct experiments befitting a sorcerer' s apprentice.
As the wife of a doctor, I am extremely concerned that such research should be allowed to develop.
In this respect, it would probably be more appropriate to ask scientists to conduct further research into the possibility of obtaining differentiated stem cells for therapeutic purposes, particularly from adult organs.
In order to combat those whose dream is to conquer the mystery of life, we have the right to protect the dignity of all human beings by strictly prohibiting the cloning of human beings.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in his speech just now, Mr Fiori made things very clear: he stated clearly that this is a matter of likening religious principles - his own - to the principles of civilisation.
For my part, I believe that what the institutions must affirm is the principle of secularity, and they must confirm that what may seem morally unacceptable to some must not by virtue of this be legally discounted.
We must make the difference between the law and religious principles clear.
If we do not observe this principle, then I fear that there will be no hope for us.
Mr President, to return to the matter in hand, we are aware that, in the face of new ideas - even new ideas which seem promising in terms of treatments for illnesses affecting millions and millions of people - the normal, conventional reaction always kicks in: to ban, to crusade, to shout 'Barbarians!' without even stopping to ask whether the ban can work, whether it would work or whether we are in a position to ensure that it is observed or to monitor it.
It is the same reaction as that which has been aroused by normal social phenomena for a long time now, in matters of abortion, migration or even drugs.
We declare a ban and then we wash our hands of the matter.
It is my opinion, however, that the responsibility of policy-makers - which may be more difficult, more complex - is to regulate certain issues, set limits and avoid situations out of a western.
This is the mandate of the institutions, independently of the religious consciences of any of their Members, where applicable.
It is for precisely this reason that we, the Radicals of the Bonino List, feel that we can just about support the compromise of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
We want to try and reduce the gap between science and politics, to endeavour to govern new phenomena secularly together with the pragmatism of experimentation and successive approximations, without immediately launching into prohibitionist campaigns which we already know to be ineffective.
What we are doing now, exactly as we did in the case of illegal abortion, is merely sparking off, once again, the medical tourism of millions of people who will seek treatment on the black market elsewhere.
What I am saying is extremely serious and fills me with concern. Watch out: when applied to science and social phenomena, prohibition has never worked.
I believe that it is our responsibility to set the limits, or take on board the risk of setting the limits, of successive approximations without trying to impose any ethical principles - in the case of those who have any - or principles of civilisation.
The real civilisation of the institutions is the civilisation of secularity, experimentation and discussion.
Mr President, I must apologise for my absence earlier. I had notified the services that I would be temporarily unavailable.
Mr President, my group disapproves of the decision taken by the British Government on the cloning of human cells.
In our view, it does not take account either of European legislation on this matter or of the opinion that the European Union' s ethics committee is in the process of drafting on the consequences of research in cloning.
We wish to state our support for prohibiting any research into human cloning and we oppose any commercial exploitation of biotechnological inventions that involve cloning.
Having stated these general positions of principle, the debate is only beginning on the attitude we should adopt towards biotechnological research, both in order to fully weigh up its ethical implications, but without running the risk of slowing down work which is likely to bring about improvements in human health.
Given the extremely sensitive nature of these issues, which concern civilisation itself, my group does not wish to see resolutions adopted in haste.
Instead, we have from the outset stated our support for the establishment of a temporary committee on cloning and on biotechnological research so that we can hold the hearings necessary for adopting a position with a full understanding of the issue when the time comes.
This is why my group has not signed any of the compromise motions for resolutions that have been submitted to us today.
At this stage, each of us will speak according to his or her conscience about the principles that I have just stated.
Mr President, in January 1998 we held a debate on the Council of Europe' s Protocol which contained a ban on human cloning.
I then expressed the fear that countries such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which refused to sign the protocol at the time, were probably not in favour of imposing an outright ban.
This is less than two years ago.
Meanwhile, the British Government would like to permit therapeutic cloning of embryos for research.
I cannot help thinking that the boundaries are forever being extended.
Initially, there was a complete ban; now cloning is allowed on a therapeutic basis but not for reproductive purposes.
As if this would explain and justify everything.
What then is the big difference between therapeutic and reproductive cloning of human embryos? And what do we do if we are put under pressure soon to apply the research findings in the pharmaceutical field, or to clone for reproductive purposes?
As far as I am concerned, every new human being is a gift of God.
Any form of human life should be treated with respect.
This is also the only way to safeguard human dignity.
The treatment of the human embryo as a consumer article, supposedly justified by the argument that this is in the name of research, fills me with disgust, especially because there are other ways of cloning stem cells.
I do wonder why this option is taken, despite all the ethical concerns which exist worldwide.
I would urgently call on the British Government to reconsider its far-reaching decision and would ask the British Parliament not to back this proposal.
Mr President, a proud man wants to play God.
He refuses to acknowledge that he is only a creature.
He wants to be the creator.
The issue before us today is a battle between creation and man's discoveries.
There are scientists so arrogant today that they are already patenting their discoveries, as if they had stumbled upon their own creation.
Dr William Hesseltine, the chief executive of Human Gene Sciences Inc., has already patented 100 human genes and his company has submitted applications for 8000.
They argue that human cloning is about the promotion of health.
I am arguing today that human cloning is about the wealth of certain scientists and their companies.
Some scientists have taken the lunacy of Hitler's fascism from the battlefield and are prepared to validate it in the laboratory.
Parliament needs to reject this and as a member of the British Parliament I will be voting against it in my own Parliament.
Mr President, you should listen to the Commissioner!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt whatsoever that biotechnology and genetic engineering are highly significant fields these days.
They will continue to gain in importance in research, and in terms of their many applications.
No one doubts that either.
But is this difficult field, with all the hopes and fears it brings, being handled in a manner that is beyond reproach? I suspect not.
Today' s debate is positive proof of this suspicion.
As a Parliament, we are reacting too hastily to a legislative proposal in a Member State of the European Union, which caused consternation amongst the public a few days ago.
And what form has this reaction taken? A quick glance at draft resolutions on the table reveals that all Parliament has been able to do, in its haste, has been to reiterate its already frequently expressed stance on critical fields of research and the application of biotechnology and genetic engineering.
That is all very well, but it is not enough!
We must make biotechnology and genetic engineering, but above all bioethics, one of the European Parliament' s key concerns.
I am not alone in calling for this; I have the backing of my group.
The people of Europe want to see more foresighted commitment from us in this area.
We cannot afford to be overtaken by events any longer.
We must no longer be in the position where - huffing and puffing to catch up - we find ourselves commenting on developments that are already at an advanced stage.
The European Parliament must point the way, so that biotechnology and genetic engineering develop for the benefit of mankind, rather than being to its detriment owing to the transgression of ethical boundaries.
Therefore we should vote overwhelmingly to adopt the proposed committee, which will form the basis for far-sighted legislation.
We must be aware that biotechnology is bound up with what is presumed to be the greatest revolution in medicine and technology.
This revolution must not be attended by irresponsibly conceived legislation.
We must appoint the best experts to advise the Council and ensure that there is consistency in the legislation across the Member States.
The ethical issues and the need to protect human dignity, in particular, are so important that we cannot afford to leave them at the mercy of fragmented, possibly even contradictory pieces of legislation introduced by individual Member States.
We must get to grips with all the ethical issues raised by medicine, technology and science, as a matter of urgency.
The appropriate parliamentary committee must therefore get down to work as quickly as possible.
Our vote will set this in train.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, biotechnology is currently one of the most promising technologies which can bring about a breakthrough in the medical world.
Putting an end to cloning techniques in Europe will only shift research elsewhere, for example to the United States or, in the worst case, to countries whose ethical standards are worse than those in the European Union.
As a result, expertise, research activities and employment will drain away to overseas countries.
Furthermore, the products will end up back on the market in the European Union anyway.
What is this really about?
Who are we to deny people the right to recovery?
Would it not be too easy to ban promising technology with great potential on ethical grounds?
Is not every person entitled to health and welfare?
Who has the right to put the label of ethics on it? I can tell you that I, along with the Liberal Group, will be giving this resolution my wholehearted support.
Mr President, we have the awful situation where one EU Member State permits therapeutic cloning, which we have always been critical of.
The people of the European Union are expecting the European Parliament to take a stance on this.
I think it would be irresponsible if we were draw a veil over the issue by saying: 'just to pacify you, we will set up an interminable debating society, or a temporary committee.'
We must take a stance on this decision, which is to be taken in the course of the next few weeks - yes as soon as that- without further ado, and then of course we must state our position on the issues we can expect to deal with in the future.
But on no account must we gloss over this by failing to make our feelings known and by trying to conceal things in committees, which will disconcert the public.
I believe that what is happening now is of crucial importance.
If we accept therapeutic cloning, then we will be opening Pandora' s box.
It would bring the nightmare scenario of cloned and made-to-measure human beings that much closer.
The arbitrary distinction between reproductive and non-reproductive cloning is semantic sleight of hand.
The term 'therapeutic cloning' is equally problematic, because there is no question of it being a therapy.
Cloning, including therapeutic cloning, is the first step along the way to human beings being regarded merely as biological material.
It is indefensible to deliberately - I repeat, deliberately - create life in order to use it as research material.
This conflicts with human rights.
We are also dividing up the concept of human dignity when we deliberately produce embryos in order to have a ready supply of spare parts.
That is why Parliament must use its power to act.
Commissioner for Research, I am also expecting you to make an unequivocal statement today, on how you propose to proceed when a Member State disregards the resolutions of Parliament and the Council.
We need a clear signal, and I feel it would be a sad day for politics if we were to cast aside all our ethical misgivings out of loyalty to Blair.
Mr President, cloning and patentability are and must remain illegal wherever human beings are concerned.
There is no difference between cloning for therapeutic purposes and cloning for reproductive purposes.
The end cannot justify the means when human dignity is at stake, for human dignity must be respected above all things.
The use of human embryos to produce organs can therefore in no way be justified.
In fact, when an embryo is used in this way a potential human being is eliminated, which clearly contradicts the value attached to the declared goal of saving other human lives.
It would certainly be a different matter if mere stem cells were to be used rather than embryos.
In our opinion, it is ethically wrong to attempt to alter the nature of the fundamental rules of the origins of life.
We must stop and reflect on the possible implications of upsetting the laws of nature.
The precautionary principle must be invoked and applied to the possibility of cloning for therapeutic purposes.
Indeed, it is no coincidence that the 1998-2002 fifth research and technological development framework programme excludes the financing of projects which involve the cloning of embryos for reproductive purposes and does not provide for funding research into cloning for therapeutic purposes.
In respect for the differences of opinion on the matter, we feel that it is vital to lay down ethical standards based on respect for human dignity in the biotechnology sector.
We call upon the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies to take the risks of going beyond certain limits into due consideration, for once these limits have been passed anything appears legitimate if human dignity is not respected.
I hope that, as President Prodi maintains, Europeans will be able to unite on the basis of common values.
To this end, the Commission must facilitate an open debate aimed at finding the right balance between ethical inflexibility based on the refusal to exploit the human body for commercial ends and the obligation to meet the need for medical treatment.
We call upon the Council to take up the initiative of organising an international convention on the use of live tissue to prevent human embryos being marketed and used for unnatural purposes.
It is important, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that we do not create another species of human being in the same way that we appear to be provoking natural and environmental disasters.
Mr President, it is a pity that none of the British delegates who support the government' s stance have taken the floor.
It would have been interesting to hear their arguments too, because I am quite sure that they must have had a few thoughts on the matter .
In Great Britain, it has been permissible, since 1990, to experiment on embryos up to fourteen days old.
I believe this is the next logical step.
Why does Great Britain behave differently to the continent? That is certainly an interesting question.
The difference obviously does not depend on which government is in power.
It was a Conservative Government before, and now they have a Labour Government, and yet nothing has changed.
Why is public opinion in Great Britain unlike that on the other side of the Channel? It would be entirely appropriate to discuss this kind of issue during this debate, because we have the privilege of being in the company of delegates from the four corners of the European Union.
That was the first comment I wanted to make.
Secondly, I wanted to say how impressed I was with Mrs Bonino' s comments.
It really struck a chord with me.
I too would advocate that we should allow ourselves to be guided by the laity in matters of principle.
The State is not religious, but it has a duty to respect religion.
I too have respect for whether someone is Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish or whatever.
But I also want my opinion to be respected.
However this is only possible within a lay context.
Claims of infallibility have already done Europe untold damage.
We should endeavour to leave this behind.
No one has a monopoly on ethics.
People who see things differently are ethical too.
Incidentally, we have seen time and again how bans are watered down in practice.
Everyone could cite examples of this.
That is why I am firmly convinced - whatever we decide here - that in a cosmopolitan society performing research from a variety of perspectives, knowledge will out.
At the end of the day, we will have no choice but to deal with this knowledge in a responsible manner by trying to circumscribe it.
Mr Wurtz, a ban on any type of research may be called for, but it would be extraordinarily naïve to believe that this ban would be observed.
In the final reckoning, we will have no choice but to lay down boundaries.
I feel as many other people do about this issue.
The thought of embryos being meddled with and experimented on makes my hair stand on end.
There are certainly boundaries.
But practical experience has shown me that at the end of the day, it will probably not be possible to do a great deal more than simply circumscribe everything.
There is no need for us to take action at present.
We still have time.
We need to think very carefully about how we are going to proceed in this matter.
We have committees for this purpose, and sometimes reading a good book has its uses.
An important European value that we all, whether lay or religious, purport to share is that any experimentation on a human being should only be for their exclusive and direct benefit.
We depart from that principle at our peril and here we clearly have departed from it.
We cannot experiment on human beings at any stage of their development and we certainly cannot mass-produce embryos for experimentation.
The next stage will be commercial exploitation, which our own bio-patenting directive allows for.
The UK authorities argue that in spite of ethical doubts the cloning of human embryos is necessary because it is the only way to help patients suffering from various diseases.
Many scientists dispute this and recommend more research with adult stem cells to achieve the same results in curing diseases.
Can we not get together and find a way of dealing with stem research without experimenting directly on human beings? I hope this House agrees that this is a value that Europe was built on.
This is an emotive subject, not least because of the title 'Human cloning'.
Stem cell research would be a less tendentious title. But my purpose is to ask for calm reflection and consideration of the facts and the implications for us the human race, for our health and well-being, for the future of science and the health industry in Europe and, by no means least, for our spiritual well-being.
So let us get some facts straight.
Fact: human reproductive cloning is banned in the UK.
There is no intention to change this and the UK industry has no intention of carrying out human reproductive cloning now or in the future.
The research use of embryonic stem cells is a short-term response to a scientific need to discover ways of reprogramming adult cells.
Fact: stem cell research is tightly regulated under a stringent act of Parliament by the highly respected and rigorous Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.
It would perhaps be a good idea if other Member States were to have something similar.
Fact: there have recently been interesting advances in adult stem cell research, but there still remain significant disadvantages compared with the unique characteristics of embryonic stem cells.
The aim of research in embryonic stem cells is to find ways of using adult stem cells which overcome these disadvantages.
So we come down to the basic dilemma.
Is an embryo up to 14 days old a living being with the full rights of a living person or of a foetus? Rightly or wrongly, the UK and the US legislation have permitted this type of research for ten years and many benefits have resulted.
And after consulting world-wide for many months the Donaldson report recommends extending such research for therapeutic purposes.
The choice is yours, colleagues.
You have to be true to your conscience and your faith but also consider the future well-being of your neighbour.
Caring for your neighbour is also a Christian enjoinder.
He may have Alzheimer's or Parkinson's or diabetes.
Mr President, this is a serious and complex subject, which has been brought to the fore by the British decision.
It should also be pointed out that national legislation on this issue varies enormously, which can lead to uncontrolled practices, but these practices, as Mrs Grossetête said just now, may make us question the value some countries place on the reality of the principle of respect for human life from the embryonic stage, stated in Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which forbids the production of embryos for human purposes.
The difference between provisions shows how complex the debate is and raises several questions that merge into one another. What does respect for life mean?
What does the pre-embryo mean in relation to the embryo?
Do we have the right to authorise research into the embryo for therapeutic purposes?
Where do the stem cells come from?
Should embryos be cloned?
Do stem cells come from foetal tissue as well as from adult tissue?
Do we have the right to create embryos for any purposes other than for life itself? In the face of serious illnesses, which are currently incurable, do we have the right to prevent research being carried out, which we are told may bring hope?
All of these questions are laden with consequences and concern the meaning of life itself.
This is why we must have dialogue, especially within the European bodies, and I regret the fact, Commissioner, that President Prodi gave a sneak preview of his interventions on Monday to the press before he shared them with the European Parliament.
I must say that his comments were very cautious and carefully measured on this issue.
Secondly, I think that in order to hold this debate, Parliament should create an ad hoc Parliamentary committee which, could, in the first instance, quickly take the initiative of hearing experts from all disciplines, both from Europe and from across the Atlantic.
This debate must also, however, be held in the public domain.
That is why I propose that European 'assises' for bioethics be launched and there should finally be a provision which allows us to frame practices in this area at a time when we are pointlessly establishing monitoring centres.
I propose that a European Agency for reproductive and biotechnological medicine be created.
.
(FR) Mr President, I feel that I should respond, because Mr Liese asked a specific question during the debate.
His question concerned the fifth framework-programme.
On this issue, it is quite clear, as Mr Liese surely knows, as it is clearly stated in the fifth framework-programme, since it is subject to a codecision procedure, that research involving cloning techniques for reproductive and therapeutic purposes are quite explicitly excluded.
As a result, in the framework-programme, this is clearly completely excluded at the moment.
I simply wanted to clarify this point, Mr Liese, since you asked the question.
With regard to the debate, on the other hand, as I said in my introductory speech, the Commission would like to enter into a debate with Parliament on these issues which are, as we have seen, very complex and very interesting.
I have received eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0535/2000). We will examine questions to the Commission.First part
Question No 41 by (H-0613/00):
Subject: Cooperation with drug counselling networks Cooperation between the Commission and the networks it promotes has deteriorated significantly since 1998: contracts between the networks and the Commission are often not concluded until the projects have already been under way for months.
The Commission nevertheless insists that the projects should begin on the strength of nothing more than a provisional written notification.
Payment of instalments by the Commission is sometimes delayed for years.
All the networks are affected by the ever-growing bureaucratic burden and, above all, by the Commission's failure to make repayments, and are very much hampered in their work.
Some associations have even had to close down because of delays in payment by the Commission.
Why has the Commission not succeeded in recent years in providing the networks it supports with contracts and instalment payments rapidly and in parallel with projects?
The Commission shares the concerns of the honourable Member about the problems relating to contracts and payments for the drug prevention networks subsidised by the Community action programme on prevention of drug dependence.
These problems have several causes.
Firstly, it is clear that there has been a human resources problem in the Public Health Directorate in Luxembourg, which deals with this work.
In short, the staff complement has been insufficient to deal with complex procedures and often inexperienced beneficiaries proposing too many small projects.
This situation was aggravated last summer when a decision was taken in the light of the report of the Committee of Independent Experts to end the contract with the technical assistance office which helped in the implementation of this programme.
Secondly, a large number of small projects are implemented under the anti-drugs programme, placing additional strain on the already limited human resources at our disposal.
During the last five years, the average size of projects in terms of co-financing granted by the Commission has been EUR 180,000.
Thirdly, experience shows that participants in the network have had little understanding of the Commission's contract and payment procedures.
In many cases, therefore, the Commission has had to make repeated requests to the drug prevention networks for missing documentation needed to finalise contracts or produce payments.
Fourthly, in the light of experience with subsidies from the Community budget and the criticisms of the Court of Auditors, greater rigour may have been brought to bear on the documentation relating to contract costs, resulting in knock-on effects on the timing of payments.
In responding to these problems, I am taking a number of steps.
The Commission's proposal for a new public health framework and strategy highlights the need for clearer objectives and more efficient management with a greater impact on key priorities.
Therefore, fewer but bigger projects will be co-financed in future, making for more efficient use of the human resources needed to manage implementation of the programme.
As the budgetary authority repeatedly stresses, we must match resources and priorities more realistically in the future.
In addition, as you are aware, following the Commission's recent review of its staffing needs, a request for additional posts is being put forward to the budgetary authority, including a significant increase in posts for the health and consumer protection DG.
If the budgetary authority agrees, a number of these posts could be allocated to tackle the kind of problems which we are discussing today.
The inexperience of contractors regarding financial control requirements will continue to necessitate significant advice and other inputs from already limited staff resources.
The Public Health Directorate intends to carry out an information campaign to help contractors to understand the Commission's procedures and requirements more clearly.
On the issue of red tape, the departments concerned are currently reviewing their documentary requirements with the aim of simplifying and speeding up payment procedures without neglecting the necessary financial control measures.
As a result of the measures already taken, the situation has been improving, and I expect it to improve further so that contracts can be agreed more quickly and payments made in accordance with the Commission's 60-day rule.
Should you have any specific points to make, perhaps you could provide me with the relevant information in writing, and I will certainly raise them with my staff.
Commissioner, I am pleased to hear that certain measures are to be taken.
Nevertheless, I call into question the fact that when the Commission encounters problems with the partners participating in particular projects, it attributes at least half of these problems to the partners themselves.
I have information to the effect that even small project partners are in full possession of the facts about the contracts and know exactly what they have to submit.
I have had a case described to me where the same paperwork was submitted on three separate occasions, but the Commission still maintained that it had never received this paperwork.
I therefore wish to put in another request for the application procedure to be attended by extremely clear guidelines laid down in advance.
I have encountered problems of this kind before, not just in the drugs sphere, but with many other partners that work with the Commission and seek co-financing.
It is not only in the drugs sphere where the application procedure takes such a long time and is so complex, and I believe the problem does not lie wholly with incompetent, small project partners, but can also be put down to the fact that the requirements set by the Commission are not clearly formulated.
The question remains as to whether we really want to cut back on the small organisations within the European Union, when it is important to support drugs projects - including those in the regions - using a whole range of approaches, specifically in this area, but also in general.
I believe it would not be in our interests to only give large organisations a chance to move things forward in this sphere, rather our aim must continue to be that of promoting a variety of organisational structures.
That would be a wholly misguided attempt at a solution to my mind.
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In relation to the first issue raised, I do not suggest that the problem lies wholly with, as you say, incompetent project partners.
What I am saying is that is the reason for some of the problems that have arisen.
It is something I am concerned about and am seeking to address by making sure that there are clear guidelines, as you suggest, so you and I are fully in agreement on that point.
With regard to the size of projects, since 1996 a total of 149 projects have been selected for over EUR 25 million, with an average amount of EUR 180 000 per project.
Under the new health strategy we will reduce the number of projects and increase their value and impact, thereby using our limited human resources more effectively.
It does not always follow that smaller projects are better than bigger projects, but if human resources are applied efficiently it will be for the betterment of the projects concerned.
Question No 42 by (H-0629/00):
Subject: Scientific advice concerning phthalates Will the Commission now release the statement agreed on 25 November 1999 by the CSTEE (Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment) on that committee' s view of the misinterpretation by the Commission of the scientific advice on the subject of phthalates, the statement being referred to in the minutes of the Scientific Steering Committee' s meeting of 10 December 1999? Will it indicate who in the Commission is responsible for this failure to follow accepted practice on the publication of all minutes, reports and agreed statements by scientific committees, and will it indicate who was responsible for delaying the publication of the main minutes of the CSTEE meeting of 25 November 1999 until April 2000?
Thank you for giving the opportunity to clarify the issue that is the subject of your question.
As referred to in the minutes of the plenary meeting of the Scientific Steering Committee of 10 December 1999 the chairman of the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment informed the SSC about the SCTEE's intention at its plenary meeting of 25 November 1999 to attach a statement to the minutes of the meeting, clarifying the interpretation of its opinion on phthalates in toys.
The minutes of the meeting under discussion would normally have been adopted at the occasion of the next SCTEE plenary meeting which took place on 4 February 2000.
However, at that plenary meeting several committee members considered that the minutes were in general too long and requested the secretariat to follow the format of other scientific committees.
Following this request the committee decided to postpone the adoption of the minutes to the next plenary when the draft of a more succinct version would be available.
This inevitably delayed the process of adoption until the subsequent plenary meeting held on 11 April 2000.
Once approved its content was immediately made public on the Internet - in the course of that very week in fact, as is the usual Commission practice.
There has accordingly been no failure in publishing the minutes.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his reply although I have to say that five months is a long time to wait for minutes.
What I say now is no reflection at all on the Commissioner himself, but I hope that he would accept with me that science must inform our decisions on risk and how to manage it.
In this case the science was less than adequate.
It was not validated by peer review and so on.
So when it came to the Science Committee and the chairman's views it was significant that his advice - in his words - did not justify a banning action.
The resulting ban on other phthalates had nothing whatsoever to do with children's toys or teething rings.
This exercise brought into some disrepute the precautionary principle.
That principle only holds good if the decisions are scientifically irreproachable.
It was not a happy experience and I hope the Commission would agree that both the Commission and Parliament have a lot to learn from this experience.
I fully agree with the honourable Member when he says that science must inform our decisions and that is what happened in this instance.
The relevant committee produced its report, as it is required to do in its area of responsibility which is of course risk assessment.
That information was passed on to the Commission, since it is one of the EU institutions responsible for risk management.
The Commission took the view, having regard to the advice contained in the documents sent by the relevant committee, that phthalates or toys designed to be placed in the mouth posed an immediate and significant risk to babies under the age of three.
The Commission made a clear assessment of this issue.
I submitted emergency proposals to the Commission as I am entitled to do under the General Product Safety Directive and my colleagues agreed that this was the appropriate to action to take in the circumstances.
My colleague, Commissioner Liikanen, has adopted a more long-term approach to the whole issue of phthalates and placticisers in toys and so on.
I wish to say once again that I agree that science must inform our decisions, and that, in my view, is what happened in this instance.
As the author is not present, Question No 43 lapses.
Question No 44 by (H-0688/00):
Subject: Water needs in the Middle East The constantly increasing demand for water in the Middle East is set to play a significant part in relation to the outlook for cooperation and understanding among the peoples of the region.
After a three-year break, the Steering Committee of the Multilateral Working Group on Water Resources (MWGWR) for the region began work again in 1999 and adopted specific programmes on the saving and use of water resources in the Middle East, with EU funding.
The issue of water in the Middle East was also discussed in the context of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, and the Israeli side has also raised the subject of further funding for such programmes.
What policy will the Commission pursue on this matter, with a view to promoting cooperation among the peoples of the region and averting conflicts arising from water needs?
Water will be a crucial issue for the Middle East in the coming decades.
The region has the lowest per capita availability of water anywhere in the world and it is steadily decreasing.
Water is indeed one of the main issues of the Middle East peace process, not only in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians but also between Israel and Syria.
The Commission's policy focuses on the various dimensions of the water question in the Middle East, the security as well as the economic, environmental and social dimensions.
Just and comprehensive water agreements between Israel and its neighbours, sustained by effective regional cooperation, are necessary for lasting peace in the region.
The Commission is an active participant in, and a main donor to, the multilateral water working group of the MEPP.
As a concrete contribution we have committed another EUR 4 million in 1999 for the completion of the regional water data banks.
We also promote the concept of a regional cooperation structure.
The Council's special taskforce on water in the Middle East has met with the Israeli, Jordanian and the Palestinian water commissioners and is actively coordinating EU water policy.
The Commission's policy aims at helping the region to achieve a sustainable management of the scarce water resources in combination with assistance to explore new resources.
Current water management and consumption in the Middle East cannot be sustained.
Estimates suggest that in the overall Mediterranean region agriculture absorbs over two thirds of total national water consumption, while accounting for only one third of GNP and labour.
This discrepancy is even sharper in the Middle East.
Therefore assisting reform of domestic water policies in the countries of the Middle East is a priority.
Indeed the Euro-Mediterranean Foreign Ministers Conference in Stuttgart in 1999 decided to make water a priority for the partnership.
As a first result the EUR 40 million action plan adopted by the Euro-Mediterranean ministerial conference on local water management in Turin in October 1999 would provide a further opportunity for cooperation in this sector.
A call for proposals will be published soon.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your answer.
In addition to highlighting the seriousness of the problem and its effect on the Middle East peace process, my question was aimed at regarding the lack of water resources as a serious political issue.
We all talk about the impending crises over water shortages.
Something must be done.
Commissioner, what initiatives are you going to take to formulate rules of international law in the management of water resources so as to eliminate any hotbeds of local and regional political antagonism, seeds of crises and a peculiar type of imperialism?
Your answer to the Israel - Syria question should go somewhat beyond; to the Tigris and to the Euphrates, to Turkey and to Syria and elsewhere.
I believe that rules of international law must be established to manage water resources. These rules must contain clear conditions for all the countries involved, through which rivers that cross more than one country flow.
This must also apply to lakes that belong to more than one country.
The Commission is supporting crucial water projects in the Palestinian authority and in Jordan through MEDA.
The most recent example is Community support of EUR 5 million in grants for the project management of the Greater Amman water sector improvement programme, plus a substantial loan from the European Investment Bank.
Apart from the support we give to the multilateral water working group, I can mention the Euro-Mediterranean water information system three-year action programme.
The European Commission contributed EUR 1.2 million towards its implementation.
The Euro-Mediterranean conference on water management in Marseilles on 25 and 26 of November 1996 was organised on the initiative of the European Commission and the French Government, with the support of the city of Marseilles.
The International Office for Water took charge of the secretariat.
So the Commission is constantly involved in this project, has been for some time and continues to be.
I agree that it is a matter for concern that rules on the transport of animals are not being sufficiently enforced in certain areas.
While Member States are responsible for the day-to-day enforcement of Community legislation, the Food and Veterinary Office of my Directorate-General undertakes specific control and inspection missions to check that Member States apply Community legislation in an effective and a uniform manner.
These checks have revealed certain shortcomings in the compliance of some Member States with the Community legislation.
As a result, infringement proceedings based on Article 226 of the Treaty have been opened against certain Member States and others are under evaluation.
I will shortly present a report to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation in the Member States of the Community legislation on the protection of animals during the last quarter of this year.
The report will show that Member States currently have difficulties in fully implementing Community legislation.
As the conclusion to the report, I intend to present proposals to improve the transport of animals, address the difficulties I have referred to, ensure inspection by the FVO and provide for infringement proceedings if appropriate.
As soon as possible, several basic issues of the directive should be evaluated on a scientific basis, notably data concerning travelling times, stress related to loading and unloading operations and loading densities.
In this framework, measures to encourage the slaughter of animals closer to the places where they are raised also merit examination.
I conclude by assuring you that animal welfare is very high on the agenda of the Commission.
I look forward to further discussion when I present the report on transport in the next few weeks.
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your reply, but I would like to say very briefly that, now, as the EU is enlarging to the east in accordance with a very tight timetable, and they have been transporting horses from the Baltic countries, among others, into the EU area on journeys of up to a hundred hours long, I think it is quite odd that at the same time we are calling on applicant countries to adhere very closely to the guidelines and legal provisions.
In our own territory, however, we allow such violations that - as has been seen in public - are simply inhumane, considering we are supposed to be a civilised western Europe.
I would like to highlight this and ask what sort of timetable is now in place for real action, taking into account the fact that we have to put our own house in order before new Member States join the EU?
Although I cannot give you a specific timetable, I do assure you that infringement proceedings have already been opened and others are now being evaluated.
The situation is under constant review, I have had a number of discussions with the Director-General of my DG, who is an expert on transport, and I am drawing on his expertise.
You also draw attention to our relationship with the applicant countries.
The Commission believes that the most effective way to achieve a widespread improvement in animal welfare standards is to work towards an international consensus.
The long-distance transport of horses has been discussed with heads of veterinary services in the central and east European countries currently negotiating accession to the Union.
A protocol of action to improve the protection of the horses and donkeys transported over long distances was agreed in April.
The first results of the implementation of the protocol will be discussed at a specific meeting with all the competent authorities of the accession countries at the end of September this year.
So I can give an assurance that this issue is high on the list of priorities in my service and we will be monitoring it closely and pursuing it actively.
Mr President, it would be interesting to know if the Commission is intending to have research carried out in this field, based on the best practice model.
Are you intending to create incentives, with a view to ensuring that live transport is carried out in such a way that is actually tolerable for the animals concerned?
I am satisfied from the advice that I get from my service and the other information that is made available to me that any measures that are necessary are being taken.
On that basis, the directive is being amended to improve the protection of animals during transport, providing in particular for additional measures to protect the horses with a mandatory unloading and fixed resting period for commercial consignments of horses passing through a border inspection post of the Union.
I should like to ask a related question regarding the banning of Staffordshire terriers in Germany under their dangerous dogs law.
Many of my constituents in the United Kingdom are writing to protest against this German law banning certain breeds of dogs which appear to pose no threat to public safety.
Given the pets' passport project at European level and a right for pets now to move freely within the European Union as a result, does the Commission have any legal competence to intervene and protect animal welfare and, in particular, these domestic pets in Germany, of which there will be a needless slaughter potentially and possibly even extinction of a fine breed of British dogs?
Commissioner, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, this is not a supplementary question.
We could invite Mr Tannock to ask this question during the next part-session, but if you wish to reply to it, you may do so.
As a matter of courtesy to the honourable Member I would say that had you given me notice of this question I would probably have been in a better position to give you a comprehensive answer to it.
I am the Commissioner responsible for animal welfare. There is a competence to deal with these issues relating to animal welfare.
If such issues are brought to my attention and come within the relevant directive, then action can be taken.
The only practical suggestion that I can make to you is that if you would like to write to me and give me specific details of the issue that you have raised I will have my services examine it and deal with it.
Question No 46 by (H-0600/00):
Subject: Communication on children's rights Following the Commission's statement to Parliament to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in November 1999 when it indicated that it would be publishing a Communication on children's rights, can the Commission now give Parliament a definite timetable for the publication of the Communication? Given that the United Nations General Assembly's Special Session (UNGASS) on children will take place in September 2000, what is the Commission's plan for coordinating EU and Member State input to the Special Session?
Is the Commission prepared to acknowledge that, in view of the special session, a Communication on children's rights is of the utmost importance?
I would refer the honourable Member to the letter dated 20 June which she and a number of her colleagues received from President Prodi on this very subject.
In his letter the President made absolutely clear the Commission's commitment to all measures which safeguard children's rights and mention a number of areas both external and internal where the Commission was active on these highly important matters.
However, the President also sought to situate the Commission's action in these areas, as in others, in the context of the Treaties' revision.
He acknowledged that competence for action concerning children remains primarily with the Member States given the lack of a clear legal basis in the Treaty for the Community to safeguard children's rights in terms that go beyond the existing framework.
In the current framework the European Commission has already undertaken a considerable number of initiatives to protect children's rights as in the Daphne and Stop programmes which fall under my competence.
The Commission is also pursuing action in the social and educational field with a view to improving the situation of children.
Further evidence of the importance we attach to this subject can be found in the fact that it was the Commission which undertook the initiative to include a specific article on children's rights into the charter of fundamental rights.
The draft article concerning the protection of children incorporates the main principles of the New York Convention as the right to such protection and care as is necessary for their well-being and consideration.
We will continue to insist that the charter foresees the prohibition of the employment of children.
In his letter the President also expressed the view that it could indeed be useful for the Commission to evaluate if all Member States have pursued the content of UN Convention on the rights of the child.
Although all the Member States have ratified the Convention, its implementation varies widely and the views of the Member States on how to best protect children's rights diverge to a considerable extent.
It is my conviction that such an evaluation might represent a useful contribution for the participation of the Union in the special session of the United Nations general assembly in September 2001.
The Commission believes that its ongoing actions in favour of children, its active advocacy for an appropriate inclusion in the charter of fundamental rights and its support for this idea of having an evaluation as described represents evidence of its commitment to this important subject.
As you know, I am a great admirer of yours and I am sure that you were as uncomfortable repeating your answer today as I was hearing it.
I know of your own personal commitment but actually you have not given me any clear indication of what the Commission is actually going to do in the UN conference which is taking place in a couple of weeks time.
Having listened to the extent of plans that the Commission has in relation to animal welfare, I can only wish that they had similar plans in relation to the welfare of children.
Accepting the legal limits within which you have to work, could you in fact give me any indication that anybody from the Commission for example is going to be present at this United Nations conference in September? In what context and are they proposing to make any input into the conference?
I will answer with pleasure.
As a matter of fact, we are both talking about the same thing, which is the United Nations Special Meeting of the General Assembly on Children's Rights in September 2001 next year.
Since we are talking about that my approach is that we should have a study to evaluate how the United Nations Convention on Children's Rights has been implemented in our Member States.
This study should be completed in time to be used as basis for the Union's participation in the United Nations Special General Assembly next year.
I am sure that we can count on the support of the incoming Swedish Presidency in the first six months of next year.
It has already made it clear, that it will be making children's rights a top priority.
So I think I have explained what action we propose to take and when we propose to take it.
Mr President, does the Commissioner agree with me that there seems to be a new and growing abuse of children which is within the competence of the European Union? Children are being used by mothers from eastern and central Europe on the streets of our cities for begging.
They are mostly coming into the Union as refugees.
Either they should be taken into care or the begging is unjustified because they should be receiving social benefits from the state.
This is something perhaps which should be added to the list of child abuse which we as a Community ought to be looking into very carefully.
I share the concern of the honourable Member in the sense that begging is an activity where children are forced, sometimes by their own family, to act against their dignity.
As you know, the responsibility for protecting the dignity of children falls, above all, within the competence of the Member States.
Nevertheless we are now launching a debate on a specific legislative initiative to define the list of crimes against children.
I will consider your suggestions with an open mind.
Question No 47 by (H-0606/00):
Subject: Absence of passport controls in the Schengen area In the Commission's view, how has the absence of passport controls under the Schengen Agreement worked during the European football championship in the light of the mass arrests made in Brussels and Charleroi?
First of all, it should be pointed out that many of those involved in the incidents that occurred in Brussels and Charleroi, come from one of the European Union' s Member States, the United Kingdom, which is not a member of the Schengen area.
These are therefore people who, when travelling to see football matches at Euro 2000, were subject to checks carried out at the external borders of the Schengen area.
It should also be borne in mind that for the duration of Euro 2000, the Belgian and Dutch Governments made use of a safeguard clause in Article 2(2) of the Schengen Agreement, which lays down that, when public order or national security are threatened - and in my view, the fear generated by these cases of 'hooliganism' certainly meets these criteria - a Member State may decide that, for a limited period, national border controls, adapted specially for the situation, can be implemented, even at internal borders within the Schengen area.
The Belgian and Dutch Governments adhered to the prior consultation procedure laid down by the Schengen Agreement.
The controls that are envisaged therein were temporarily reintroduced at internal borders, but this was not carried out in a systematic way.
These were targeted checks, specifically based on information supplied by the Member States in the framework of police cooperation, concerning supporters likely to pose a threat to public order.
Establishing controls at the external borders and, temporarily, at the internal borders of the Schengen area is not the same as closing a border or systematically turning away people who wish to enter the territory in order to attend a football match.
In accordance with the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Union' s citizens have the right to move freely through the territory of Member States. Restrictions may be imposed, however, for reasons of public order and in individual cases only, i.e. when the person concerned represents a genuine and sufficiently serious threat to society' s fundamental wellbeing.
This is why I say that Community law does not allow for a collective restriction to be imposed.
Having the nationality of a given Member State and wanting to attend a football match are not sufficient grounds for being turned back at the border.
This is why an assessment of the measures for cooperation between the authorities of the Member States concerned is already underway and why this joint exercise aims to learn the lessons of Euro 2000, in order to see how police and judicial cooperation can in the future be improved in terms of combating hooliganism.
I should like to thank Commissioner Vitorino for his answer.
I supported Portugal as well as I could there at King Baudouin' s Stadium in Brussels, but France won in the end in a match in which it has to be said that France had the better team.
I was gunning for Portugal for as long as I possibly could, though.
As I say, thank you for your answer, but I should still like to ask a follow-up question.
A lot of people find it appalling that, here in Europe, there are riots, hooliganism, aggressive language and violence such as are unknown in connection with sporting events in, for example, the United States.
I know that Great Britain is not a signatory to the Schengen Agreement, but that day may come.
Do you think that the measures we are now taking are adequate, and what lessons can be drawn for the future? Perhaps next time, Portugal will also be in the final.
I do not consider there to be any link, whether direct or indirect, between Portugal' s defeat and the outbreaks of hooliganism.
It is a fact of the game that sometimes luck is not on your side.
In any event, Portugal will be hosting Euro 2004, and that is why, for Euro 2000, the Commission supported several practical initiatives for police cooperation in order to try out new methods of cooperation and to learn lessons from them.
We are now in the process of assessing those measures.
As soon as the report is available, it will be discussed and legislative measures will be adopted at European level, which is our objective - to adopt measures at European level that are capable of supporting this police cooperation in the fight against hooliganism.
I am currently awaiting this report.
As soon as it is ready, it will certainly be made public and the debate on what initiatives need to be taken will begin.
I have a follow-up question also concerning the Schengen Agreement and exemption from the requirement to carry a passport.
As the Commissioner surely knows, the Nordic countries are to become signatories of the Schengen Agreement in March of next year.
It has emerged that, in future too, Swedish citizens who are to travel within the Schengen area will have to carry their Swedish passports with them because Swedish ID documents do not state the country of which they are citizens, as required under the Schengen Agreement.
What was promised as a union with exemption from the requirement to carry passports still makes the latter compulsory for Swedish citizens.
I wonder if the Commissioner can confirm that, once Sweden has entered into the Schengen Agreement, the latter' s regulations will, in the future too, require Swedes to have their passports with them when they travel to other countries within the Schengen area.
What are your views on this?
Mr Sjöstedt, I would say that this matter should be seen from a different angle: that of creating common standards for travel documents, whether they are passports or identity cards.
That these common standards should exist is laid down in the Treaty, and the Commission has a proposal at an advanced stage of preparation for the adoption of common standards for the instruments in question.
I cannot give you a fixed timetable, that is, I cannot guarantee that these documents will be adopted before the expected date for the integration of the Nordic Passport Union into the Schengen free movement area.
What I can guarantee is that we are working hard at formulating uniform standard models of documents that will solve problems such as the one the honourable Member has just indicated.
Question No 48 will be replied to in writing.
Question No 49 by (H-0692/00):
Subject: European police academy What stage has been reached in the plans for a European police academy, with regard to virtual networks linking existing bodies and the creation of an actual academy at a particular location?
The European Council of Tampere of October 1999 called for the establishment of a European police college for the training of senior law enforcement officials which should start as a network of existing national training institutes.
Considerable progress has been achieved so far.
The Portuguese Presidency submitted a draft Council regulation at the end of June 2000.
The French Presidency aims at adding a Council decision adopted by the end of this year.
This would make it possible to meet the deadline of having the European police college in place by 2001, as mentioned in the Commission's scoreboard on justice and home affairs.
A number of Member States are in favour of creating the European police college as a permanent network of national training institutes.
Other Member States regard the current presidency proposal for a network as a temporary stage on the road to an institution at a fixed location.
The Commission has, from the beginning, insisted that the European police college will become a fixed institution after having functioned as a network for an initial period in line with the Tampere conclusion.
This has led to the draft regulation now containing the following approach.
From January 2001 the European police college is set up as a network of national training institutes, a virtual academy.
It will function in this form for three years.
After that period a decision will be taken on the form in which to continue with the European police college.
The Commission continues to take the position, however, that the draft regulation should contain a clear obligation for the European police college to become a fixed institution after having functioned for a few years as a network.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his precise answer and substantial input in this matter.
In the meantime, I have been appointed rapporteur for the subject and I am sure that we will work closely together with a view to moving matters on.
But the question I have is this: is the Commission still planning to conduct a study into the feasibility of making this college a fixed institution? Because as you know, the European Parliament has called for this to be a fixed institution and not a virtual academy.
Are you proposing to conduct a study on the feasibility aspect? You can rely on receiving our full backing for this.
There is a first study on feasibility by the General Secretariat of the Council which was the basis of this current draft resolution of the Council.
But we intend to promote our own initiative in the area just to make sure that we will have all the necessary information to take a further step ahead as soon as possible.
It is urgent to have that second step in order to make the European police college a fixed institution.
The Commission will not drop that idea.
Thank you very much, Mr Vitorino, for your replies this afternoon.
Question No 50 will be replied to in writing.
Questions to Mrs Diamantopoulou
Question No 51 by (H-0647/00):
Subject: Social security in a stronger European economy One of the European Union' s main tasks in the 21st century will doubtless be to ensure that due importance is attached to the social dimension by comparison with the economic and political dimension.
Common social policy objectives must be defined and attained in order to ensure that the process of increasing integration and the forthcoming enlargement is supported by the European public.
Can the Commission say whether it will take action with a view to the increased harmonisation of social security systems, which still differ widely, and the harmonisation of professional qualifications in all areas?
Is it correct to assume that the EU' s extremely sparse powers in the fields of social policy and employment will be expanded in the future?
Mr President, the two basic issues are whether we intend to harmonise social policy and whether the power of the Commission will be extended to cover social policy issues.
I will start with the Lisbon Council resolution, which made clear reference to the need to combine the policies of competitiveness and social cohesion, the need to update the social model, to invest in people and to combat social exclusion.
Under the Treaties, it is naturally impossible for the Commission to put forward policy on issues relating to social policy But we feel that, in the wake of Lisbon, there is agreement within the Council, and the Council has unanimously decided to cooperate in the field of social policy and to extend the method of open cooperation to issues such as social exclusion and social protection.
I am bound to say that the agenda that was tabled in June, in relation to which there was special cooperation with Parliament and with the rapporteur of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Mrs Van Lancker, accurately describes the measures and actions relating to social policy under the Treaty, but it also categorically states that the harmonisation of social polices is not on the cards.
Harmonisation is deemed to be impossible.
But our objectives can be achieved using methods such as social dialogue, the Structural Funds, especially the European Social Fund, which has a large budget, mainstreaming, political analysis, research and, finally, legislation.
In July 1999, the Commission presented a communication entitled 'A Concerted Strategy for Modernising Social Protection' .
This put forward a two-pronged approach.
The first is to combat social exclusion and the second concerns future cooperation on issues of social protection and pension systems.
To achieve these goals, the Commission is giving priority to the enactment and implementation of social indicators, which are necessary to assess polices, to specify objectives relating to poverty and culture, which will be discussed during the course of the French Presidency, and to reach agreement on axes concerning the viability of pensions.
Commissioner, thank you very much for providing these clarifications.
Allow me to express the wish that is dearest to my heart in the form of an additional question: what special measures will the Commission endeavour to take in the future, with a view to working towards the harmonisation of the social security systems, professional qualifications and the social dimension in all areas? It was extremely interesting to hear how matters stand in this respect, and to learn that the trend is more positive than it has been hitherto.
However, I believe we must convince the people of the European Union that freedom of establishment is not a hollow expression which ultimately applies in full to tourists, rather, they must understand that for people who work, or have worked - firstly in terms of the insurance system and then in terms of the pensions system - freedom of establishment is a reality, and not a hollow expression.
I believe we must join forces to this end, in order to try and persuade the Council to frame policy in this area that is more transparent, progressive and forward-looking.
Mr President, I would agree with the general approach taken by the honourable Member, but I would like to remind him of the margin for manoeuvre of these policies at a European level, especially since they are national policies. Secondly, according to our studies, there are such major discrepancies in the structure and organisation of pension and social security systems that it is impossible to talk about harmonising them.
Thirdly, regarding the rights of workers as they move from one country to another, there are already two regulations in existence.
In July, the Council of Employment Ministers held an in-depth debate on changing the regulations for workers living in one country and working in another. But I must emphasise that these systems are so different that the difficulties in bringing about the harmonisation you propose are virtually insurmountable.
Mr President, Commissioner, the harmonisation of social security systems would require harmonisation of the financing of social security, or, in practice, the harmonisation of taxation, not just with regard to its technical framework, but also its levels of taxation.
We all know that consensus has still not been reached on this as far as policy is concerned, and that that is not going to come about quickly.
For that reason I believe that a policy like this of taking small steps at a time is quite in order in this matter, and I would also ask how one aspect of this one-step-at-a-time policy is going, in other words the directive on a single market for additional pensions.
The directive was supposed to have come from the Commission for a reading in the European Parliament in July, and now we have heard that it is probably being postponed until September.
It may also be that it will not get discussed throughout the whole of the French presidential term.
Could you give an update on this directive on a single market for additional pensions?
Mr President, I would like to say that this directive, which is being prepared in collaboration with other departments and other Commissioners, such as the Commissioner for the Internal Market and Competition, is still being developed. I will be able to give you a more complete text at a future sitting.
We are currently at the debating stage.
Question No 52 by (H-0649/00):
Subject: European social non-governmental organisations The role of European social NGOs as an important link between Europe' s citizens and the Commission, Parliament and Council is increasingly recognised in areas such as social policy, trade, development and the environment.
What plans does the Commission have to propose a legal basis for civil dialogue between the EU' s institutions and organised civil society?
It is clear that, during the preparation of the White Paper on a new form of government within Europe entitled 'Spreading Democracy within Europe' , one of the basic issues is the role of civil society in the new forms of democracy that will be operating in Europe and in all Member States.
The level of cooperation and the forms of collaboration between the Commission and NGOs are of particular concern to all Ministers without portfolio whose programmes are implemented through NGOs and who have, I would say, a special burden to bear in the social field.
As you know, a dialogue is taking place today based on the working document submitted by the Commission on the Commission and NGOs and the construction of a stronger partnership.
This dialogue aims to enable us to come up with new proposals on issues such as the representativeness of these organisations and issues of a procedural nature such as their funding and operation. Within the framework of this dialogue, on 30 March 2000 I met members of the platform of European NGOs and a dialogue took place, which focused on two categories of issues.
The first category covered the proposals they put forward, which were invaluable for the social agenda.
The second focused on issues concerning the representativeness and the organisation of NGOs in the social arena at a European level, the financial problems they are faced with and the special procedural difficulties they have in obtaining funds. Related issues included the quality and the specifications of the services they offer.
I am bound to say that their contribution to this dialogue was extremely significant.
Just a short time ago, in June, a meeting took place between the official group of the Secretariat-General and the platforms of European social and developmental NGOs, and we believe this dialogue will soon come to an end. After assessing the current level of cooperation and the institutional framework within which the NGOs operate, the Commission will be in a position to put forward a new, integrated proposal, consolidating their statutory role and their ability to function.
Thank you, Commissioner and I certainly agree with the substance, particularly of the early part of your answer.
I welcome the fact that NGOs are funded through the exclusion and anti-discrimination action programmes.
But I have one specific question: why are only eight or nine NGOs, as far as my information is concerned, funded through these two lines?
Secondly, NGOs feel that they are being unfairly denied access to core funding.
My information is that they are being pushed into project funding and 18 environmental NGOs, for instance, are receiving from the Commission funding towards their running costs.
It occurs to me that two years after the 1998 budget freeze, it might be time now for the Commission to respond to what are very clear needs from the European-based social NGOs for core funding to cover their running costs.
As you know, concerning particularly social issues and NGOs, there were some rules concerning the size, the representativeness and the results of these NGOs.
We know that in this social field there is a huge number of NGOs and it is very difficult for the Commission DG to know with which of them they can cooperate.
Sometimes there is confusion at national level.
So we have decided to establish the criteria and to agree with NGOs the criteria on the basis of which we can select the NGOs we can work with.
This is why we must solve the problem of the issue of representativeness, and the issue of the network to be established at European level.
Question No 53 by (H-0675/00):
Subject: Employment in Greece In its answer to my Oral Question H-0778/99 on the Greek action plan for employment, the Commission stated that the Greek Government recognised the problem concerning the difficulty of recording fluctuations in employment and unemployment and had therefore undertaken, first, to reorganise the country' s public employment services, second, to establish effective centres to promote employment and, third, to introduce a system of computerised employment cards and to employ appropriate computerised systems to monitor all these policies.
What is the unemployment rate in Greece at present?
To what extent is the Greek Government meeting the undertakings it gave regarding the above-mentioned matters? Can the Commission provide statistics concerning the number of jobs created as a result of the implementation of the employment programmes, in other words how many of the unemployed have found work?
According to statistics provided by Eurostat, the unemployment rate in Greece in 1998 was 10.7%, whilst the European average during the same period was 9.9%.
For the moment, Eurostat does not have statistics on Greece for 1999 and forecasts for 1999 were 10.4%.
It is clear therefore that there are no appropriate statistics recording fluctuations in employment, which makes it difficult to assess the policies and measures being implemented. The new action plan for employment and the new measures announced by the Greek government based on this new action plan for employment are a move in the right direction.
There are significant undertakings concerning, firstly, the organisation and coordination of statistical services in Greece with those in other European countries and of Eurostat. It is clear that, without a statistical base, it is difficult for us to put in place specific policies.
Secondly, there is an undertaking to speed up the reorganisation of public employment and statistical services. This reorganisation will be completed by the end of 2001.
The Commission does not have any information on the number of unemployed who have found work through the various employment programmes in Greece. That is why there is also an undertaking to continuously assess the existing training programmes, together with the Commission, to ensure that those who pass through these programmes are adequately monitored.
I would just like to say that the tabling of your question coincided with the announcement of recommendations for all Member States.
The most fundamental recommendations concerning Greece are, firstly, to make changes to the statistics, the indicators, the studies and the employment services. Secondly, tax disincentives and other disincentives militating against the provision of community subsidies for entering the labour market will be examined in detail.
Thirdly, training and the participation of social partners in this process will be promoted.
Fourthly, business enterprise will be encouraged and procedures to create new companies will be simplified.
Finally, cooperation between social partners will be encouraged and the organisation of labour relations will be brought up to date, at the same time guaranteeing flexibility and security.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I have more or less the same statistics as you. Indeed, I am this very moment holding in my hands the latest Eurostat report of 5 September 2000.
The figures are more or less as you gave them.
What I would really like to highlight is the following: for many years now, Commissioner, long before you were appointed to your post, I have been trying to find out - even a rough estimate will do - how many people have found work as a result of these employment actions, and I still have not succeeded.
What prospects do we have of finding out at some point, albeit from one action if not more generally?
Secondly, you said we would have the results by the end of 2001.
But I think it is totally unacceptable that there can be a debate using these figures, which have been collated throughout the European Union, month by month, category by category, and only the column referring to Greece is empty.
I just wonder what we can discuss on this basis.
I apologise for having to say this, but I have run out of patience.
Greece is going through a period of transition which, I would say, equates with the first period of the policies concerning its accession to EMU.
It is clear that certain areas that have been mentioned have suffered delays in relation to other countries.
I agree with you that especially the part about statistics is extremely important, not only for the assessment but also for the implementation of policies. The undertaking in the employment action plan is a clear undertaking.
The recommendations make specific reference to this. The Employment Guidelines for 2000 give priority to the action plan.
It is one of the issues to which the Greek Government has made a commitment. I hope that this time next year we will be in a better position.
Madam President, personally I like you, but I have to say that I do not like the Greek Government, especially concerning its stance on employment. The results speak for themselves.
And I think that what you have said thus far also speaks for itself.
How can anybody shape employment policy when they do not know what employment is, when they do not know how many people have found work thanks to training programmes?
I want to focus on one thing. I want to ask you a specific question so as not to have a long discussion about this.
Specifically on training, what do you believe and what do you propose asking the Greek Government to change in the 2000-2006 period by comparison with the previous period, during which we all have the impression that things were not going well, despite the fact that the statistics were not accurate?
The information that does exist even shows that things are getting worse.
So what will change in the 2000-2006 period?
Before I start, I would like to point out that, for historical and political reasons, every country has a different starting point and that, in the framework of the Third Community Support Framework, the next five years will be a great opportunity for all countries to assess strategies and funds alike.
With specific regard to training, to which you made reference, as you know, in Greece there is the EKEPIS [National Certification Centre for Vocational Training], a certification centre set up with the approval of the Council, which has had very satisfactory results and has made some positive assessments. Over the next period it will complete its certification procedures.
In other words, it will certify trainers and programmes, which has hitherto not been carried out.
Secondly, training must be geared towards the choices made by a country in a service and information society. In other words, the fields covered by training must be linked to the choices made by the country.
Thirdly, the establishment of centres to promote employment must be completed.
So far, 24 have been established.
We must have at least 100, according to the plan that was drawn up at national level.
These centres must distance themselves from the classical provision of services for the unemployed and must come into line with the models that we already have in the European Union. These models relate to the individualised provision of services for the unemployed.
And of course the system of computerised employment cards must be implemented for monitoring to be successful.
The action plan for employment for 2000 contains these undertakings.
The funding is available for these programmes and my opinion is that, during the 2000-2006 period, training programmes must be geared towards the specific points I have mentioned.
As the author is not present, Question No 54 lapses.
Questions Nos 55, 56 and 57 will be replied to in writing.
Questions to Mr Fischler
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, the registration application in respect of whole virgin honey, which is at issue here, is not in accordance with the requirements of the legal provisions currently in force in the Community.
In particular, the application of this designation is contrary to 1974 Directive 409, which is presently in force.
Therefore, it has not been possible to date, to grant the Italian application for protection by means of a 'certificate of specific character' within the meaning of Regulation 2082.
However, as you are aware, there is a proposal to amend this directive.
As soon as the Council and Parliament have amended the directive, and a designation of this kind is permissible, it will at last be possible to bring the assessment of the application for the aforesaid honey to a successful conclusion.
I am very grateful for your precision, Commissioner but I have to say that I am not satisfied.
If I am not mistaken, as I said in my question, the Commission expressed a favourable opinion.
I am aware that, since then, the common position on the directive has been redefined and that Parliament is expecting to hold a debate on the subject.
However, it would appear that the reference to regulation 2082/90 may be a departure from the directive and that the directive and the regulation could be considered to be separate channels.
I would therefore ask you to clarify this point, or I will not be a bearer of good news for the Italian farmers.
Mr President, Mr Sacconi, that is easy enough to explain.
We cannot introduce protection of origin for a product, when to do so would be contrary to Community law provisions.
Therefore, it is absolutely essential for this amended Community regulation to come into force first, because this will rule out any conflict.
It will then no longer be a problem for us to grant the protection sought by the Italian Government, or the region concerned.
Question No 59 by (H-0609/00):
Subject: EU funding to Coillte According to a European Court of Justice ruling of August 1999, Coillte has illegitimately received EU loss of income forestry grants under forestry funding Regulation 2080/92 amounting to £6.5 million from 1993 to 1999.
The European Court ruled that as Coillte, the Irish semi-state company responsible for forestry development, was a 'public entity' , it was not entitled to such payments.
In light of this judgment, is it the view of the Commission that Coillte is not entitled to further payments of £30.5 million of funds as part of the next round of forestry funding under Regulation 2080/92?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Mckenna' s question boils down to whether Coillte is entitled to receive co-financed grants from the agricultural fund, specifically the guarantee section, in order to offset loss of income in forestry developments, under Regulation 2080/92.
I would like to point out that there has been no judgement from the Court of Justice on this specific issue.
However, it is true that the Commission classifies this company called Coillte as a state enterprise, because it is owned by the Irish State.
It is therefore not entitled to loss of income grants.
According to Article 2, paragraph 2, letter b of the Regulation on Forestry, these grants are reserved for farmers and other natural or legal persons under private law.
The Commission will therefore refuse to co-finance grants paid out, backdated to 1 August 1996.
A total of some EUR 4.8 million was paid out in 1997 and 1998.
The Irish Government contested this financial rectification in so-called mediation negotiations.
The arbitration body is still working on this and has not resolved the issue conclusively as yet.
The Commission has taken the stance during these negotiations that, to date the Irish Government has failed to provide any evidence that Coillte should be classified as a private company.
The Commission is unable either to confirm the sum of GBP 6.5 million quoted by Mrs Mckenna, or that of 30.5 million, which obviously relates to future payments.
However, the Commission will adopt the same stance it has adopted to date with any future applications.
I am very glad to hear the Commission's reply because the funding that Coillte has was set up by the state, it was the state that set Coillte up.
It is a semi-state company and it is responsible for forestry development.
Now it actually used the money it was getting from these interest payments on land that they were purchasing.
What is interesting as well as that the chairman, Ray MacSharry is a former European Commissioner for Agriculture and he is still refusing to acknowledge the fact that Coillte is a public entity and that it is not entitled to such payments.
At a recent meeting with Coillte I was told that the government is gong to challenge this decision.
I believe it is actually a waste of taxpayers' money to challenge it because I think it is quite clear to anybody with an ounce of common sense that they are not entitled to this money.
What is really devastating is that they have actually prevented the people who should have got the money from rural depopulation for ensuring that people who did lose income actually got the money and I would like to see the Commission ensure that Coillte get no more money because they were not entitled to it in the first place and that they have to pay it back.
They are now saying that the state will have to pay it back which is not acceptable either.
Mr President, there is really nothing I can add to that.
What Mrs McKenna has just had to say describes and elucidates precisely the Commission' s position.
There can be no question of a State as an entity, and in this case, as the 100% owner of a company, being a drawer of income, and therefore it cannot suffer loss of income either.
It is therefore evident that this money must be paid back, and that this company must not receive any fresh funding.
In addition, I would point out that this mediation procedure is not equivalent to an arbitration procedure, instead it merely represents the opinion of an institution that was set up by the Community.
However, the findings are not binding on the Commission, as we have already mentioned on more than one occasion here in Parliament.
On the other hand, each party is, of course, at liberty to go to the European Court of Justice, but we have no authority to decide on the matter.
As the author is not present, Question No 60 lapses.
Question No 61 by (H-0618/00):
Subject: Cost of enlargement and Mediterranean agriculture In view of the forecasts and the most recent legislative proposals for Mediterranean agriculture covering products such as cotton, rice, fruit and vegetables, tomatoes, shell nuts and olive oil, which will have a highly adverse impact on employment and social progress in these poor areas of Europe, and bearing in mind the budgetary plans with a view to EU enlargement, will the Commission say how it intends to ensure that Mediterranean agriculture does not in fact end up footing the bill for future enlargement?
Mr President, I feel this question is important because it gives me the opportunity to clarify certain matters.
This is because a connection has been made between the manner in which the southern States and their products are dealt with, and enlargement.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, you have my word that the proposed reforms in the sectors you mentioned in your answer have absolutely nothing to do with enlargement.
Indeed the proposed schedule for enlargement has been drawn up on the basis of the commitments that the Commission entered into, once the Council had enacted the necessary regulations.
The reforms result from the need to guarantee the efficacy of CAP instruments, taking into account the full extent of market development.
The Commission' s reform proposals will ultimately serve to implement the European agricultural model in these sectors.
It is about securing sustainability in the full sense.
We want to bring the economic, social and environmental goals in these sectors into line with each other.
Naturally, employment and social progress, particularly in the rural areas in the Mediterranean region, will play a very important part in this.
Since the common agricultural policy under Agenda 2000 is, as you know, based on two pillars, and the implementation of the new development plans for rural areas, especially in the Objective I regions has made a significant contribution to the achievement of these goals, I feel it is quite clear what conclusions are to be drawn from this.
.
The Financial Perspective, which the European Council agreed on last year in Berlin, strictly distinguishes between the commitments for the 15 Member States and the additional funding earmarked for the candidate countries. Therefore, there is at present no possibility whatsoever of funds earmarked for the 15 EU States being appropriated as expenditure for future Member States, the candidate countries that is.
Therefore, as I see it, the concern voiced here is completely groundless.
Commissioner, perhaps you could give me a clearer reply to the following question, which is extremely important for enlargement:
Does the Community legislation applicable to candidate countries from the moment they join, the so-called acquis communitaire, include, in your view, the aid and financial support of the CAP?
Mr President, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I assume that when you talk about support, you are referring primarily to the direct payments provided for in the market organisation, and which constitute a major theme in the enlargement debate.
You are right in principle.
All Member States will have to respect the same acquis communitaire in the long run.
Therefore, there can only be one common agricultural policy and not two different ones.
But you yourself know only too well - and this has been the case hitherto for any country acceding to the EU, be it Spain or Portugal, or any other State - that the accession treaty, which does in fact constitute a primary right, contains transitional arrangements, which of course allow for departure from the acquis in some cases.
That is, after all, the point of having transitional arrangements.
As such, it will not be possible to answer the question as to when the Member States-to-be will actually receive their full quota of direct payments - as provided for in the common market organisation - until the enlargement negotiations have been concluded.
After all, it is precisely this issue that the enlargement negotiations are focussing on.
Question No 62 by (H-0633/00):
Subject: Subsidies for growing tobacco Tobacco growing in the European Union is subsidised to the tune of millions of euros per year while at the same time over half a million EU citizens die each year of diseases caused by tobacco.
The subsidies paid for tobacco growing should be redirected so that they encourage current tobacco farmers to go over to growing healthier crops.
How does the Commission propose in future to amend the basis for the allocation of structural fund aid so that large-scale tobacco growing can be halted in the EU? What does the Commission consider would be a realistic timetable for carrying out the necessary changes?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström' s question covers old ground as I see it.
I would remind the House that the Commission presented Parliament and the Council with a report on the common market organisation of tobacco as early as 1996.
The report pointed out that this sector makes a decisive contribution to maintaining the viability of certain regions within the Community, some of which are highly disadvantaged, and where there are few alternatives.
In the light of an inquiry at the time into the social and economic consequences of abolishing Community subsidies for tobacco cultivation, the decision was taken not to go down this path.
However, this was also because there was evidence to show that subsidising tobacco cultivation has practically no effect on tobacco consumption, and thus on the risk to EU citizens ' health.
This led to radical reform of the tobacco sector in 1998.
The key aspects of this reform were as follows: firstly, there was an improvement in quality, in particular, tobacco growers switched over to low-nicotine and low-tar varieties.
Secondly, research activities have been stepped up, financed by the Community tobacco fund.
The appropriations for said fund were doubled.
One of the main objectives of this research is to investigate the possibility of switching from tobacco cultivation to alternative activities.
Thirdly, with a view to encouraging farmers to go over to other crops, the reform measures also made provision for a mechanism whereby quotas are repurchased from farmers who are willing to give up tobacco cultivation.
In this way, these farmers are offered money, as it were, in order to facilitate conversion to other crops.
The provisions laid down in the tobacco market organisation can also be supplemented within the framework of the support measures for rural development.
On a final note, I would just like to say that the Commission will of course assess the reform measures taken.
We will provide the European Parliament with a report on the functioning of the amended market organisation by 1 April 2002.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am grateful for your replies.
This is a question of redirecting aid in support of other products.
I have made these comments on many an occasion, as nothing rocks mankind so much as tobacco, which kills so many.
Regarding the analyses you refer to, I would like to know on what sort of objective analyses they are based, as I am concerned about the health of all of us and, similarly, the livelihoods of tobacco farmers.
We should be able to change their means of livelihood and keep them at that economic level where they can produce health products for all of us.
Mr President, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, I am sorry that there was no interpretation at the beginning.
To be brief: naturally I would be only too pleased to send you the analysis that was carried out at the time.
The social implications, and the effect on income were also assessed during this analysis.
I will gladly make the documents you have requested available to you.
Is the Commissioner aware of research at the Scottish Crop Research Institute in Invergowrie near Dundee that shows that tobacco plants can be genetically modified to accept the implanting for multiplication of potential anti-cancer vaccines? It is quite ironic really.
Would it not be desirable to redirect the European tobacco-growing industry towards such benign purposes and to further promote this type of research?
Mr President, Mr Purvis, I have to be quite honest with you, and tell you that I have not been informed about the results of this research; perhaps because it was conducted primarily for health reasons, and therefore falls within the remit of the Commissioner responsible for health.
But I am keen to acquaint myself with them.
Only, irrespective of whether these results are positive or less than positive, as I see it, it is imperative that we - and we must never forget this - convince smokers of their importance, with a view to encouraging them to buy cigarettes that meet these requirements.
It is not the tobacco growers' problem, because they will inevitably grow the kind of tobacco the market demands.
Perhaps the best all-round solution is to carry on as I have been doing for the past 15 years - I too was a smoker in the past - and not smoke at all. Then the problem will only exist on a very small scale.
Mr President, preventive health care is a major priority for everyone here in this House.
We know that tobacco growers in the Member States have different priorities.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission the following question, although I have always been, and still am, a non-smoker: does the Commission not think that if tobacco cultivation were to be completely discontinued within the European Union with immediate effect - as called for by a fair number of people - people would just carry on smoking regardless because tobacco products would be imported into the EU?
Commission.
(DE) Mrs Schierhuber, when you look at the balance of trade in the tobacco sector, you notice that the vast majority of products - and especially tobacco - used in the manufacture of cigarettes, are already imported.
The only difference is that, we are trying, as it were, with the aid of the common market organisation, to produce some of the tobacco that people consume anyway, ourselves, so that we do not have to import everything.
In so doing, we are giving some families the opportunity to draw an income from this type of cultivation.
I am absolutely convinced that the health problem, which undoubtedly exists as a result of tobacco consumption, can only be brought under control if we alert consumers as to the effect smoking can have on their health.
There will be no decline in tobacco consumption until we have succeeded in driving this message home to consumers.
We are deluding ourselves if we think we can control the problem from the supply side.
In economic terms, the only way to achieve this is to alter patterns in demand.
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler, for your replies.
Questions Nos 63 to 109 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.25 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Water policy
The next item is the report (A5-0214/00) by Mrs Lienemann, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee on the Council directive establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy [C5-347/2000 - 1997/0067 (COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that together we have produced a useful piece of work in this water framework directive.
We have produced a useful piece of work; it may be a collective compromise, but it is a compromise which incorporates stringent requirements, which I think will clear the way for a qualitative and quantitative leap in water management.
In the long term, our fellow European citizens must enjoy high quality water everywhere, whether surface or groundwater.
This compromise was made possible by active commitment, by the balance of power that the European Parliament was able to create, by the participation of all the groups, in particular the shadow rapporteurs who assisted me, and by Mr Provan, the chairman of our delegation in this difficult conciliation procedure.
I would, however, also like to thank the other participants who are, of course, the Commission, which had to play the role of intermediary and technical innovator, and did so extremely rigorously and effectively, the Commissioner and also all the staff of the Commission.
I would also like to thank the Council, especially the Portuguese Presidency and their Minister of State, Mr Pedro Silva Perreira, who made this agreement possible.
I have all the more reason for saying this, because this directive certainly requires a greater effort on the part of the southern European countries than it does from other Community countries with easier access to water.
In which areas has significant progress been made?
Firstly, the directive is strictly binding in legislative terms.
Second, the implementation of measures concerning the issue that we in Parliament considered absolutely crucial, that is the elimination of priority hazardous substances and a complete end to discharges of such substances.
You are aware that this House wanted our directive to be compatible with the commitments given under international conventions, in particular OSPAR, as stated in the directive.
The arrangements introduced will clear the way for a list of priority substances to be gradually drawn up every 4 years, that is, priority substances which must be reduced in quantity, and priority hazardous substances, which must purely and simply be eliminated.
Third, there was the important and sensitive matter of groundwater.
We were faced with the problem of producing a rigorous definition of what we called good groundwater status.
In order for this good status to be specified, it was decided that a 'daughter' directive should be drawn up, that is, a directive that will implement the framework directive.
Parliament was rather afraid that the new directive would provide an opportunity to delay requirements to combat pollution and immediate measures to prevent the pollution of groundwater.
This is why we wanted, and secured, the stipulation, first of all, that if the directive were not approved by the Members of the European Parliament, the Member States would draw up rules guaranteeing good groundwater status.
If the Member States did not do this - it is a kind of Sword of Damocles - if 75% of the level laid down in the applicable pollution standards governing good groundwater status is reached, then the Member States will have to reverse the trend.
In general, the directive takes account of Parliament's determination to ensure that action by the Member States enables any upward trends in the pollution of groundwater to be reversed.
So you see, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that in this way we have come up with a system that enables us to make significant progress, and not just in terms of the main principles, but also in the overall effectiveness of the decisions that have been made.
Nonetheless, we shall all have to be vigilant.
Firstly with regard to all the daughter directives, which will implement the framework directive.
We shall be involved in the codecision procedure to determine the list of priority substances and priority hazardous substances.
A first report has already been examined by the Commission and a rapporteur has been appointed.
The second major task for this House will be the substance of the framework directive on groundwater.
In short, I think we have done the bulk of the work.
We will continue to work together, but I have a feeling that at the dawn of the 21st century, with this framework directive, Europe is entering a new age where the protection of water, that most fundamental resource, will become a priority in terms of policy and the behaviour of all those involved, whether they be farmers, industrialists or consumers.
In any event, this is the intention of our directive and I have no doubt that the Commission and the Member States will ensure that it is implemented.
Mr President, with the outcome of the conciliation concerning the Water Framework Directive, we are completing what, for the European Parliament, has been a tough but successful piece of work lasting ten years. At the same time, however, we are, as a result, standing on the threshold of new tasks that are at least as important.
Since the end of the 1980s, a range of Commission proposals had been submitted to the House, aimed at revising existing directives and made necessary by scientific and technical developments.
When those of us in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy initially examined the proposals, we found that no effort had been made to coordinate their provisions or the concepts behind them.
In June 1995, and at our group' s insistence, the European Parliament' s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy held a hearing of experts on the European Union' s water policy.
The experts' statements confirmed our concerns.
The Council and the Commission complied with the call for comprehensive European water protection legislation to be drawn up.
The idea of the current Water Framework Directive was born at that time.
In February 1996, the European Commission tabled its proposals in the form of a communication.
In a very comprehensive report, our fellow PPE-DE Group member, Mr Florenz, has clarified the European Parliament' s aims and identified the current shortcomings.
In the light of the discussions between the Commission and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, the Commission proposal of December 1996, which had been produced under great pressure of time, was supplemented in two stages in 1997.
The definitive, official Commission proposal was finally ready in February 1998.
By working together closely in this way, Parliament and the European Commission gradually moved towards a consensus, a process also helped by the intensive discussions during the first and second readings in the European Parliament and the conciliation procedure.
I should particularly like to thank the Commissioners responsible, Mrs Bjerregaard and Mrs Wallström, and especially the Commission officials involved, for this constructive cooperation.
In Parliament' s view, the result we now have before us is a great success of a kind which would still have been unthinkable two years ago.
This success is reflected in the removal from the statute books of the hitherto fragmented EU legislation in the field of water protection, the coherence of the relevant water directives at EU level, the legally binding nature of the measures taken pursuant to Article 4, the shortening of the deadline for complying with the aims of the directive, the satisfactory way in which the issue of costs has been settled, also in accordance with Ireland' s wishes, the introduction of the combined approach whereby limit values and quality objectives are established with a view to reducing the levels of pollutants, significant improvements over the common position regarding the requirements for groundwater protection and, finally, the inclusion of the goal and the definition of the OSPAR Convention with no stipulations in terms of time.
I should like once again to make explicitly clear in this connection the particular importance we attach to reconciling Community law and international conventions, albeit in such a way that the substance of international conventions does not automatically become legally binding in Community law.
Finally, mention should be made of the guarantee that codecision will apply in connection with future procedures.
Welcome as this result is, we cannot, however, rest on our laurels.
The Water Framework Directive now needs to be put into effect.
I should also, of course, particularly like to thank the Portuguese Presidency and, finally and most especially, the rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann.
Our shared success has only been made possible by her incredible commitment and the huge amount of time and energy she put into her work.
It was a pleasure for me to cooperate with a colleague in this way.
My own special thanks go to you, Mrs Lienemann, and our own staff here in Parliament.
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mrs Lienemann, the rapporteur, very much indeed, as we can all see how committed she was to this work.
In addition, Parliament got its own point of view across quite well, especially with regard to the important issue that, at last, we have the prospect of attaining a situation in which hazardous substances can no longer get into groundwater supplies.
In my opinion, it should be as clear as day that when we know a substance is dangerous, in no case should it be able to get into groundwater, as water, apart from anything else, is a very important resource for people in terms of health.
Obviously it is just regrettable that the deadlines for implementation are an unreasonably long way off.
All in all it has to be said that in certain fields of industry in the European Union we have made progress.
In many areas, for example, the community and industry have played their part relatively well.
Agriculture and forestry, however, are still problems, with their diffuse discharges.
More needs to be done about this.
Regarding consumers it is naturally important how consumption is controlled, and here charges and taxation are of prime importance.
For that reason, it is a bit hard for me to understand how people can even begin to think that water could be a commodity paid for out of general taxes, as it is only through charges that consumption can be controlled really sensibly.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the Edinburgh Summit nearly ten years ago, Mr Kohl and Mr Major assured one another that there was no need for a European water policy.
If the Spanish wish to pollute their water, they should do just that.
But the tide of deregulation has turned.
In 1996, the Commission proposed the ecological water directive, which did not amount to more than five pages, however.
We now have a substantial legislative document of 60 pages, with 90 pages of appendix.
This is thanks to cross-party cooperation, between the groups within the European Parliament. I would especially like to thank Mrs Lienemann, but also Chris Davies from the liberal group and Mrs Schleicher from the Christian-Democrats.
The Greens feel that 80% of this document has been a success.
What was disappointing was the water price policy.
What is successful is the fact that we have a new principle for chemical substances.
Chemical substances are no longer banned because they are also harmful to human health, but in line with a new principle that harmful substances do not belong in the water.
I think we can be proud of this.
Mr President, the conciliation has been quite difficult. This has to do with the fact that the subject is itself both extensive and technically very complicated.
It also has to do with the fact that the positions of Parliament and the Council were far apart when the conciliation began.
The fact that the result has turned out as well as it has is largely due to the tireless and committed work done by the rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann, whom we wish to thank.
The directive could, of course, have been still better and beefed up even more, for example as far as the timetables are concerned.
That would have been desirable.
Yet, it is obvious that the European Parliament has gained most and that the Council has had to give most ground in the negociations that have taken place.
The clearest proof of this is that the rules are binding, something which Parliament had demanded.
In certain respects the directive forms a framework whose contents are still unclear.
This is especially true in the case of the phasing-out of dangerous substances.
This is an issue upon which further work will be done in the daughter directives.
Crucial to how the directive will operate is the question of how it will be implemented and monitored.
All in all, the foundations have been laid for a coherent water policy and for long-term improvements in water quality.
We shall therefore be happy to vote in favour of the proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to say that I am making this speech on behalf of Mrs García Orcoyen, who was unable to attend this sitting.
Tomorrow's approval of this framework directive will represent a great step forward on the road to the cohesion and harmonisation of the legislation of the Member States with regard to the quantity and quality of their water.
In this last stage of the long parliamentary process undergone by this directive, in particular during conciliation, the European Parliament has been able to present a united front in defending its arguments before the Council.
The rapporteur's superb coordination and the will to reach an understanding shown by all the political groups have made this final text possible, and it has been improved in basic aspects such as the legally binding nature of the objectives without omitting to take account of the various problems in the Member States.
I must also congratulate the Council on its flexibility in the face of the criticisms put forward by Parliament, and the Commission for its effective mediation.
Tomorrow, a new and equally important stage in the directive' s development will begin, in which the European Parliament must continue to participate extremely actively in monitoring and controlling the fulfilment of objectives and deadlines and the drawing-up of reports or legislative acts derived from the directive.
One of the weakest points to have become apparent during the drawing-up stage must be strengthened: the incontestable need for more and better means of technical advice for subjects which, like this, require highly specific knowledge, and in which the social and economic cost of a small calculation error can be great.
Finally, I would like to emphasise what makes this directive a real tool for sustainable development: the balance achieved in the consideration of water as an extremely valuable economic resource and as an essential element in the conservation of European ecosystems.
The development of this directive may provide an important meeting point in the much-reviled relationship between economy and ecology.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Water Framework Directive contains many positive initiatives in favour of comprehensive and integrated water protection.
Yet the objectives are timid, vague and extremely long term.
We cannot wait 30 years for the European Court of Justice to decide whether or not the environmental objectives are in fact legally binding.
The Member States have been called upon to improve the quality of our water quickly in order to achieve the objectives in 15 years' time.
Where groundwater protection is concerned, Parliament has unfortunately bowed to the interests of industrial agriculture and recognised its right to go on polluting the environment to the same degree.
It is now also the responsibility of the Member States to ensure that existing standards are not undermined, the yardstick by which the success of the Water Framework Directive will be measured.
Any more kow-towing to industrial agriculture would lead in the longer term to our most important drinking water resources being destroyed once and for all.
We are pleased, however, that the Greens have achieved a great breakthrough when it comes to emissions of dangerous substances, which now have to be identified on the list of priority substances.
In this area, we must make genuine efforts to meet the OSPAR objectives as well and to avoid what is an incalculably serious risk to health and the environment.
Mr President, the forthcoming Water Framework Directive is based on the justified principle that citizens of the European Community are entitled to use drinking water on a daily basis.
This should be provided for by law.
A simple, uniform and coordinated Community law on the protection of water and groundwater is to be welcomed.
Important directives such as those on protecting the food we eat, on municipal sewage disposal, on plant protection and on nitrates are being revised and redefined on the basis both of ecological criteria and criteria of origin.
The tasks are therefore broadly defined.
As a farmer, I advocate the closer involvement of those who represent the interests of professional groups and serious consideration of their criticisms.
Farming, forestry, fisheries and, in particular, the horticultural industry should also be involved in the decision-making process so that the required combination of voluntary restraint and state regulation is achieved.
The calls for zero limit values can hardly be met by means of legislation alone.
Transposing the directive presents a genuine challenge for the Member States of the European Community.
I agree with the rapporteur: it is only through cooperation that success can be achieved.
Mr President, Commissioner, it was a very turbulent night sitting in which Parliament, the Council and the Commission agreed upon a common water policy for all Member States.
Parliament' s really quite significant victory consists in the fact that this directive is to be binding.
Let us remember, however, that until the very end a number of Member States vehemently resisted any requirement that they should manage their own water resources more carefully and in an environmentally more conscious way in future.
However, it was splendid to see the way in which the Members of the European Parliament transcended all party differences and quite clearly agreed that there should be no common position without a legal requirement.
A further important victory for MEPs involved the protection of groundwater.
Dangerous substances must completely have disappeared from groundwater within 20 years of the Directive' s publication. Will we achieve this objective?
It now remains for whatever dangerous substances are meant here to be listed in an annex to the Directive, and it is already clear to me that there will certainly be further heated discussions on this matter.
I believe, however, that the great objective of protecting Europe' s groundwater for future generations is not in dispute.
The process of re-thinking has taken place: a considerable victory for the political process and a considerable victory on behalf of our children.
I am pleased that there has been a satisfactory outcome to the conciliation procedure with regard to the important report dealing with numerous technical issues on water policy, an outcome which we owe to the persistence, competence and motivation of our rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann.
Over the next quarter-century, we will make more progress in this field in the protection, good management and renewal of this resource than in the discovery and exploitation of new deposits.
I would like to make two points to emphasise the importance of integrated water management:
firstly, I would like studies to be carried out on the establishment of a federal "water and environment" management system in the various countries at European Union level,
second, we must ensure that the proposals of the directive are implemented and encourage them, not only at European Union level, but also in the aid that we give to third countries in the form of "water" projects, the impact of which lies in a hydrographic ecosystem affecting the countries of the European Union, but also those that are part of the MEDA agreements, for example, which must be taken account of in the MAP projects and even in others, like the Upper Nile basin or Switzerland.
Mr President, the commitment that has been obtained on the text of the new Water Framework Directive is generally positive, even though it contains certain controversial aspects, worthy of criticism, which can nevertheless be ironed out when the various studies, action plans and draft regulations provided for in the text we have just approved are drafted.
It is a positive development that water management requirements are to be integrated into a single system - hydrological basin management, which is based more on geographical and hydrological areas than on administrative and national borders. This is a particularly important issue for Portugal, whose main rivers are shared with our neighbour, Spain.
Equally positive is the statement that water is not a commodity that should be bought and sold like any other. This means, of course, that special measures must be put in place to protect a commodity that is publicly owned, whilst safeguarding the interests of the population, in particular, domestic water supply and agricultural activity, especially small farms and family-based holdings.
The final text does state that Member States can attend to the social and economic effects on the affected area as well as the geographic and climatic conditions. This will enable Member States to deal with their different situations by means of established exceptions, which may nevertheless prove to be insufficient to cope with agricultural situations in the South, particularly where Portugal is concerned.
We shall nevertheless pay close attention to the way this policy is implemented in practice in the years to come.
Mr President, this is a framework directive with ambitious targets for the protection and improvement of water quality, taking account of the polluter-pays principle.
We will not have the entire picture until the relevant daughter directives are in place over the next few years.
Water pricing policies by the year 2010 will have to provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently.
The new paragraph 4 of Article 9 will allow for the continuation of the established practice in Ireland of not applying water charges to the domestic water sector.
You can only govern with the consent of the people and by 2010 domestic water charges could well be acceptable to the Irish electorate.
At the moment, it is a hugely politically-charged issue.
I thank my colleagues for their understanding, particularly Mrs Schleicher, who represented our case with understanding through all stages, especially at conciliation.
The principle of subsidiarity in relation to water pricing policy is jealously guarded in Ireland, but public opinion will probably change by 2010.
If we do not apply household or domestic water charges by then we will have to explain our action to the Commission.
There is growing appreciation in Ireland that clean drinking water is a scarce resource and that all services, particularly the cost of distributing clean water to all households, have to be paid for.
At the moment the central exchequer or the taxpayer, is paying for this, yet many do not benefit.
Many have to pay to sink their own pump in Ireland and pay the electricity charges.
Many are on group water schemes which are not part of the public water supply and have to pay dearly each year for the privilege of rather questionable quality water being distributed to their houses.
So we are talking about a question of equity and changing public opinion and we appreciate the matter being left to the Irish Government to decide and to influence public opinion.
Mr President, I believe that today we are witnessing an important act.
We are coming to the end of a long road on which there has been a long battle, long discussions, but in the end, some positive agreements and constructive positions on the part of the three institutions, the Council, Parliament and the Commission, which have made this agreement possible.
As with any agreement, some will think it too little, others too much, but there is a middle point, a balance that is acceptable for the diverging points of view of those who have worked all this time.
Furthermore, they have carried out serious work on a highly complex subject.
On behalf of my colleague, Mrs Wallström, I would like thank Mrs Lienemann for her kind words. As rapporteur for all this work, she has played a leading part and carried out a colossal task, with the persistence and tenacity of her principles which, combined with a dose of realism, have enabled this agreement to be reached.
As she herself points out, and this is no minor issue, a subject such as water demonstrates the diversity of Europe, with its radically differing characteristics between countries.
In some countries, vast expanses have under 400 millimetres per year, that is, semi-arid zones, while in others the average far exceeds 2 500 or 3 000 millimetres.
The focal point of this directive, in which water is considered as a whole, a total flow, with no distinction between surface and groundwater, which is the mistake that was made for a long time, is the right focal point and implies a step forward.
The effort to keep our aquifers in the European Union as clean as possible, or as unpolluted as possible, is a key effort if we want to guarantee balanced development, sustainable development and a habitable Europe for future generations.
On this subject, I have to say that a moment ago one of the Members referred to conversations between two European leaders.
Yes, some may still pollute their aquifers, but some have been polluting them for some time, for example with huge pig farms.
I do not want to go into detail, but people in glass houses should not throw stones.
Mr President, I would like to point out that monitoring and follow-up are essential to this directive.
Monitoring and follow-up that, subsequent to the flexibility and realistic approach that abound in all the articles of the directive, will undoubtedly allow us to guarantee the cleanliness of our water.
This is absolutely essential as, in short, there is no life without clean water.
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commission what is happening with the 1991 Directive on ecological water quality which has so far not officially been withdrawn by the European Commission.
One further request, both to Parliament' s President and to the Council and the Commission: the texts are still deficient in so far as the specialist terminology in the specific languages is not correct.
I would ask for this to be re-examined, for the terminology in each country is quite distinct.
It is a problem which the translators could not solve because the text is so specialised.
It would be a poor show if the legal texts did not contain the correct and necessary terminology.
I would therefore ask for this matter to be looked into again.
In the German version alone, I have found more than twenty mistakes.
I happily leave it to you to examine this matter.
Mr President, with regard to the directive on ecological water quality, to which I believe Mrs Schleicher is referring, this framework directive incorporates all the essential elements of the proposal on the ecological quality of water and I understand that the latter has already been withdrawn.
If this is not the case, it will be withdrawn in the near future.
With regard to the translation problem, what Mrs Schleicher is referring to is a very important factor as the terminology is indeed highly technical in this field and a suitable translation is essential.
I shall simply pass on these observations to the competent departments and the translation departments in particular so that, if appropriate, a more detailed revision of the specific terminology and definitions contained in the directive may be carried out.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
End-of-life vehicles
The next item is the report (A5-0212/2000) by Mr Florenz, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a Council directive on end-of-life vehicles [C5-258/2000 - 1997/0194 (COD)].
Mr President, the compromise that has been reached is a great success for environmental and consumer protection.
It is the first time that manufacturers' liability for waste has been up for debate at all, and the fact that manufacturers' liability is soon to become a reality is to be welcomed.
The compromise reached on heavy metals is also a giant step towards an environmentally friendly strategy for dealing with the flow of materials.
I believe that this outcome, which is also excellent from a green point of view, will help encourage the motor industry to be more innovative and to begin to develop cars which can be recycled more easily.
However, the compromise is also a slap in the face for our Chancellor and, more precisely, for the German car industry, particularly Volkswagen which has unfortunately tried to stand in the way of this Motor Directive.
I also hope that the rapporteur, Mr Florenz, will draw the relevant lessons from this debate and, when it comes to the Directive on Electronic Waste - which is again concerned with manufacturers' liability - will also, in actual fact, try to act in the interests of the consumer. I hope too that we do not allow ourselves to be put under pressure by individual industrial interests.
Mr President, our group is quite satisfied with the result of the conciliation, even if there is always, of course, room for a little further progress.
Our objective has always been to obtain as soon as possible a comprehensive system for recovering end-of-life vehicles, with stringent demands in terms of recycling and a ban on dangerous substances.
We also wanted manufacturers to be held completely liable, so that it is the manufacturers who take financial responsibility for recovery.
Once this decision has been made, the position in a few years' time will be quite close to what we had wanted to achieve.
What is worth noting, as far as the conciliation process is concerned, is the fact that Parliament has unfortunately slowed down this development towards manufacturer' s liability instead of speeding it up.
It would be quite alarming if Parliament were to exchange roles and, instead of making the running, hand over that role to its opponents.
Mr President, as the rapporteur and Mr Lange have already said, the positive outcome of this legislative procedure is useful, not just in terms of what the directive lays down but also because it marks the start of a process and there is the prospect of a gradual change across the entire manufacturing process in a sector as important as the automotive industry, and a review of the entire process, from vehicle design through to the choice of new materials and components to make proper recycling possible.
Not only is manufacturing reconciled with environmental protection, but we are taking the first steps along the road which has been defined as the environmental conversion of the economy, in what is, I repeat, such an important industry.
Of course, we have only achieved this result after complex negotiations with car manufacturers, who have at last agreed to bear the financial burden of scrapping cars as from 2007.
Lastly, it is important to highlight another point too, which is of a more specific political-institutional nature.
Let us be honest, we are all aware that we started the conciliation procedure from very opposed positions - there was even a certain amount of interinstitutional tension between Parliament and the Council - with many national differences in terms of both experience and interests.
And yet, thanks to the commitment and sense of responsibility of all concerned, we reached a consensus in a difficult, major and highly controversial field, and in doing so we have added another building block in the construction of Europe. At this point in time, in terms of the more general debate currently underway, this is a significant result.
Mr President, Commissioner, with regard to end-of-life vehicles, we have reached a sound compromise.
For the first time, European legislation defines manufacturer' s liability in no uncertain terms.
In 1994, the packaging directive provided for liability to be shared between the government and manufacturers.
This has proved ineffective in practice.
We are now dealing with manufacturer' s liability in the case of end-of-life vehicles.
I welcome this for it will be in the interests of manufacturers to produce their cars in such a way that they can be recycled more easily.
Unfortunately, the text stipulates that the manufacturer will be wholly or mainly responsible.
This means that systems will be set up which differ from country to country, which is unfortunate, as this runs counter to the internal market idea.
In the case of the electronic and electrical waste directive, this must be regulated more effectively.
We need to move towards individual manufacturer' s liability.
My own country, the Netherlands, has a great deal to learn in this respect.
Mr President, it is true that the legislative procedure has been long and difficult, and I have said so.
It should be noted that the Commission's initial proposal was presented in July 1997.
During this prolonged procedure and in spite of the complexity of the legislation, it has been possible to solve a series of problems thanks to the colegislators and, once again, to the three institutions' will to come to an agreement.
I am therefore pleased with the agreement on a joint text, reached on 23 May this year at the Conciliation Committee.
I would particularly like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Florenz, and to the members of the said committee.
I am sure that the joint text represents a good balance between the need to guarantee a high level of environmental protection and the legitimate concerns of the various participants.
I would, however, like to emphasise three statements that the Commission will make when it adopts the directive.
The aim of these three is to make some clarifications which the Commission considers to be essential.
Firstly, the provision laid down in Article 5(1) does not oblige the Member States to establish separate collection systems with special funding requirements, but allows them to use the existing waste collection systems.
Second, with regard to Article 5(3), it is the responsibility of the Member States to decide which producers, concessionaries and collectors must be registered in accordance with the framework directive on waste or in a new register created specifically.
Third, I would like to clarify that Article 7(1) does not lay down requirements, conditions or additional criteria in relation to the technical inspection of vehicles.
Generally speaking, this text constitutes a significant step towards sustainable production and consumption, a model for future Community initiatives in the field of specific waste management such as, for example, the directive on electrical and electronic waste, to which reference has been made.
Many thanks, Mr President.
Once again, I congratulate all the speakers and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Florenz, on the work carried out.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Air transport and the environment
The next item is the report (A5-0187/2000) by Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - Air Transport and the Environment [COM(1999) 640 - C5-0086/2000 - 2000/2054 (COS)].
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating the Commission on a very timely and far-reaching communication which explicitly acknowledges the rapidly growing environmental impact of air transport and clearly recognises that this growth is unsustainable.
Before coming to the proposals contained in my report, it would be helpful to remind ourselves of some of the key issues in this debate.
Essentially, the problem can be expressed very simply: aviation is growing at an unsustainable rate.
It is a serious environmental threat and not only is it a problem, but we are actually subsidising that sector, which is making the situation very much worse.
In terms of aviation growth, air traffic is forecast to almost double in the next 15 years.
When you think what that means in terms of congestion and environmental impact, then clearly that is a nightmare.
To take a case that I know well in the UK, the government's own air traffic forecasts which were published in June this year show total passenger numbers at UK airports rising from 160 million in 1998 to 400 million in just over 20 years' time.
That increase of 240 million is equivalent to four new airports the size of London Heathrow or eight new airports the size of London Gatwick.
Obviously the environmental consequences of such expansion would be totally unacceptable and these projections only serve to show the nonsense of assuming the possibility of continuous exponential growth.
What are the environmental impacts of this growth? On the noise side, we know that as far as ordinary people on the ground are concerned those changes that have been introduced to make individual aircraft quieter are actually in danger of being cancelled out by the increasing frequency of each noise incident.
On the emission side, air travel is the world's fastest growing sources of greenhouse gases which cause climate change.
That may only count for 3% of total emissions today, but by 2050 it is projected it could account for up to 15% of total global emissions or even more.
You would think that litany of environmental problems, coupled with a projected growth that is clearly unsustainable, might have produced some measures to discourage the exponential growth of this sector, but not a bit of it.
On the contrary, global aviation policies are actually encouraging the unrestrained growth of this sector.
Aviation is massively subsidised.
Unlike motor vehicles or trains, airlines pay no tax on their fuel.
Indeed it has been calculated that the European aviation sector receives about EUR 30 billion in subsidies every year.
To mention some of the key points of my report very briefly: on noise, current noise standards for new aircraft have actually been in existence since 1977 and there is therefore an urgent need for more stringent standards.
I am recommending that the EU uses the World Health Organisation's own guidelines for Community noise to develop new guidelines for daytime and night-time exposure by 2003.
On emissions, a perfectly feasible target for the developed countries would be to reduce all greenhouse gas emissions from aviation by 5% on 1992 levels by 2012, which is the first budget period according to the Kyoto Protocol.
This would be a first step to reverse the current exemption of international aviation from responsibilities.
On subsidies, the report makes it clear that in principle we support the taxing of aircraft fuel at an international level, but we recognise that there are political difficulties with this because of the need to get international agreements at ICAO.
In the light of those political difficulties, we are proposing instead an environmental charge based on the polluter-pays principle.
In fact, such a charge would be a more subtle instrument since it could actually be calculated to reflect both the amount of fuel used and also, by factoring in the efficiency of the aircraft's engine, the amount of pollutants generated.
Indeed the political difficulties of introducing such a measure would disappear since it is perfectly within the rights of the EU to introduce a levy on all flights starting from airports in the EU.
One final but very important point, you will hear the airlines say that all this is very well but it should be undertaken by ICAO, the international body.
The fact that it is an international body means that it moves at a very slow pace and what the Commission communication proposes - and what I endorse in my report - is the principle that some of the more industrialised regions like the EU should be able to move more swiftly towards more stringent standards than other regions like the developing countries.
This does not spell the end of ICAO.
What it does is to introduce some flexibility into ICAO which is perfectly consistent with other international organisations.
Others do just the same thing.
The reaction of the airlines is to ask why we are picking on them.
In fact, clearly the opposite is the case.
The airlines have been getting away with not paying their way for over 50 years.
Meanwhile, other Members of this House are quick to claim that the measures I propose will have devastating effects on the European aviation sector.
That is nonsense.
An environmental charge along the lines I have described would not have adverse effects on competition because it is levied on all airlines using EU airports regardless of their origin.
They claim it will have crippling effects on the European economy and that too is nonsense.
The aviation sector is responsible for some jobs but it should not be forgotten that making aviation pay its way in terms of taxation will create thousands of jobs in other sectors.
So I commend this report to you.
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that all Members of this House care deeply about the environment despite the fact that the rapporteur and members of the Greens would have you believe otherwise.
Environmental concerns must, however, be balanced against the needs of the aviation industry to ensure its success in the future.
I was disappointed with the report from the Commission, not least because it was so negative towards aviation.
Unfortunately this has been built upon by the rapporteur.
I would like to assist honourable Members by pointing out the following information: air transport is responsible for generating 25 million direct jobs world-wide.
In the United Kingdom alone aviation is responsible for supporting nearly 500 000 jobs.
The United Kingdom transports GBP 35 billion worth of exports, maintaining unrivalled access to global markets and contributes around GBP 3 billion per annum to the exchequer.
If multiplied by the number of countries in the European Union one can see and understand just how important this industry is to our economies.
In terms of environmental impact, aviation uses less than 8% of the land required for rail and less than 1% required for road use.
In practical terms, aside from maritime transport, aviation is the only form of international transport now transporting a third of all goods world-wide.
Over the past 15 years CO2 emissions have declined by 70% and unburned hydrocarbons by 85%.
Aviation is responsible for just 2.5% of CO2 emissions.
Short-term measures are available, such as tackling the 44% air traffic flow management delays and 30 bottlenecks which take place over France, Italy, Spain and parts of Germany.
National governments must take action now.
They should also tackle land planning around existing airports and take responsibility for their decisions in the past.
To suggest that either a tax on kerosene, which is internationally exempt from tax for the aviation industry, or VAT on tickets or aircraft purchases is the answer is incorrect.
The industry already pays all its infrastructure charges, some of which go towards environmental improvements.
It is not subsidised.
Finally, if Mrs Lucas' proposals were passed, they would decimate the aviation industry: aviation, tourism, businesses and the aerospace industry.
Their supporters would love to abolish cheap flights.
In short, they would make Europe uncompetitive and give Americans and overseas carriers an unfair advantage.
I would hope in future the proposals from the Commission are thought through more carefully.
Otherwise its members may find that flying to or from Brussels or Strasbourg or on holiday, for that matter, with a European carrier may not be an option.
Mr President, allow me to start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Lucas.
My group has not proposed any further amendments for this plenary discussion.
This means that we agree with the thrust of the report, and I would like to dissociate myself somewhat from the comments made by Mrs Foster, suggesting that the Commission proposals or those included in the report would spell disaster for aviation.
I do not think you should try to block a sound environmental policy by making this type of threat.
The Commission statement on aviation and the environment is a first step towards better European legislation.
This is needed given the growth in aviation and, along with it, the growth in environmental pollution caused by it.
We therefore endorse the key points of the Commission proposals.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists is all for imposing European rules on the aviation industry and making it pay for the environmental pollution which it causes. As Mrs Lucas has already stated, we do not want aviation to be given preferential treatment.
But today we are merely tracing an outline.
What conditions must European legislation meet?
We will then look forward to the further regulatory and legislative proposals which will also contain the details and specific standards.
So what are the guiding principles of the Group of the Party of European Socialists? We are at any rate of the opinion that rapid growth in aviation leads to the creation of more and better train alternatives, to give an example in terms of short-distance travel.
I believe that the shift from one mode of transport to another which is more environmentally-friendly is of great importance.
We do not think that capacity growth in aviation is unlimited.
Secondly, we would like European noise standards: in the interests of the public and to discourage competition between certain airports.
Noise at night should, in our opinion, be given more attention and we share Mrs Lucas' view that, in the development of standards and more detailed rules, the standards of the World Health Organisation should come first.
Accordingly, we are expecting ambitious proposals from the European Commission.
The third point naturally relates to emissions, the emission of pollution to be precise, which, in our view, should be tackled as well.
This is also why we support the principle of a tax on kerosene.
However, the viability of these ideas and proposals is questionable.
As stated in the report, we would like international consultation and further research.
Since the outcome of this research is uncertain, we support the fall-back position, as formulated in Paragraph 20 of the report, in the form of a European environmental levy.
In the final analysis, what matters is for us to follow the Kyoto agreements, and aviation should contribute substantially in this respect.
We prefer to have effective agreements on noise and emission worldwide, but should these not materialise, we certainly will not rule out a European policy.
I believe that that is also an important element in the report, and it has been formulated clearly in our view.
We hope that international consultation will bear some fruit.
Should this not be the case, we feel that we should be able to table European rules in a few years' time.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her report.
It is indeed the case that aviation is growing rapidly.
I share Mrs Foster' s view that aviation is a major economic sector, a sector which provides services which are irreplaceable up to a point.
At the same time, however, it is abundantly clear that such a sector also brings with it a number of adverse environmental effects, such as noise and air pollution, and that we need to invite the sector to take a pro-active approach in dealing with this issue as quickly as possible, more so than is the case at present.
Both the Commission statement and Mrs Lucas' report provide guidelines as to how this can and must be done.
I would like to highlight a few points.
It is clear, as Mr Wiersma has already stated, that the different modes of transport - road, train, etc. and also aviation - must be treated the same way as much as possible, which is not the case at the moment.
There are specific reasons for this, but something must be done about the matter.
I believe that it is clear that, in tackling the problems of noise, standards, tax on kerosene, etc, we should certainly at the present time opt for a worldwide approach.
A regional approach is premature at the moment, and I am pleased that the rapporteur has amended a number of her points in the original text to this effect.
In my opinion, the European Union does not need to take any unilateral measures at the moment, if I can put it that way.
There are important negotiations under way, Commissioner, which will have a positive outcome, or at least we can still be hopeful of this.
I believe that this is a factor of importance.
Another important point is that noise must be tackled by means of a package of measures.
Hence my amendment to provide details of these measures.
I have also tabled an amendment to develop a common method of measurement which will enable us to curb competition between different airports, as referred to by Mr Wiersma.
It is, of course, important for competition between airports not to have any adverse effects on the people who live in the vicinity and on the environment.
I believe that this is a factor of importance and that is why we need European regulations in order to prevent competition between the different airports.
Mr President, at the present time the United Kingdom has rates of fuel duty which are spectacularly higher than in other parts of the European Union.
One of the effects of this is particularly detrimental to the peripheral parts of the country.
It has a disproportionately distorting effect on competition, affecting local firms in the periphery competing against large multinationals in the UK.
That is an important caveat to put down about ways in which fuel taxes can distort local economies.
I do not think there is a good environmental argument for trying to drive most of the population of the United Kingdom into the bottom south-east corner.
I did not enter politics to repeat the Highland clearances.
That said, it is also clearly absurd to exempt aviation from the duty to diminish greenhouse gases and ozone depletion and it is also a good thing to look towards an equality of taxation across the European Union, as Mrs Lucas has done, rather than grossly distorting differentials between different parts.
I have considerable reservations about how this will work in practice, but we should welcome the principle that Mrs Lucas has put forward.
Mr President, the fight against noise pollution and gaseous emissions is a just fight, which we support, as it pursues the objectives of citizens' well-being and environmental quality.
Nonetheless, the reduction of these noise or gaseous emissions must be limited to the commendable search for technical solutions that are to everyone's advantage.
It must not serve as a pretext for other objectives in the field of tax or for extending the competence of the Commission.
The latter should instead concentrate on correctly carrying out its already vast range of tasks.
In these circumstances, we cannot accept the instigation of this eco-tax.
This first step towards a European tax will only affect passengers, once again, without achieving any of this report' s objectives.
Our citizens are already squeezed hard by taxes and, at a time when the Member States are trying to reduce taxation, a European tax could put our businesses in a difficult position in relation to their competitors, in particular American businesses or others, with numerous disastrous consequences for employment.
We cannot accept this.
Furthermore, we demand that tax subsidiarity in favour of the Member States be observed.
Europe, rather than artificially swelling its budget by means of this tax, should use this budget more effectively, with respect for the freedom of the individual.
The political dependency of the Member States depends in large part on their freedom in terms of tax.
The eco-tax will solve nothing.
This is a purely ideological measure, with no direct effect on the environment.
We would prefer a rational measure that respects the interests of the individual and favours economic development while fully respecting the environment.
Mr President, we know that traffic emissions are one of the greatest environmental problems we have and they have also proved to be one of the hardest to get rid of.
That is because the volume of traffic is growing even faster than the economy.
In this sense the problems of air traffic are still greater because we have to find global solutions for them.
On the other hand, we have heard that the Kyoto Protocol does not contain provisions concerning air traffic emissions.
Furthermore, air traffic problems are not discussed in the directive on ceilings for emissions which is under consideration.
Being in this situation we really have to channel greater efforts into the work that is done in ICAO and its environmental protection committee, which drafts international environmental norms.
This is a regrettably slow process, but we have to be able to set objectives that are sufficiently ambitious in scope and create negotiating mandates to be able to make progress accordingly.
In my opinion it would not be a bad idea if the developed, industrialised countries, including the European Union, were to set an example in this matter.
It is important to develop engine technology, as a decline in the volume of traffic is not foreseeable.
We will have to have recourse to different acts, environmental taxes, charges and administrative measures, for example regulation of departure and arrival times, taking account of the fact that rail traffic exists alongside air traffic in areas where long distances are not a hindrance, and that must be developed.
Mr President, I would like to emphasise the importance of the aim to use efficient, alternative transport, in place of short flights, which was mentioned in this report.
For example, high speed trains, and, in some cases, short sea crossings offer a more environment-friendly alternative to short flights.
This will be vital to ease congestion at airports and for environmental reasons too.
Replacing short flights with alternative forms of transport will make room for long haul flights, for which there is no alternative.
In Parliament we discussed several reports before the summer recess that aimed at improving the competitiveness of railways and sea transport.
In addition to improving rail and sea transport competitiveness, we also need to take other action.
One possibility is an environmental charge specially designed for air traffic.
It should be introduced in such a way that the charge would be less for the unavoidable long haul journeys than it would for short flights for which there is a more environment-friendly alternative.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report is the third in a series which deals with the air transport situation.
Whilst the previous two focused on the freedom and growth potential within aviation, this one highlights the downside, justifiably so, in my opinion.
As I have already indicated when we discussed the Atkins report, the measures which are currently being drafted for aviation only provide short-term answers.
They cannot provide a lasting solution for the problems of congestion and environmental pollution.
This report looks beyond the near future, which is why I would like to congratulate Mrs Lucas.
It is not an unnecessary exercise to indicate the pre-conditions within which aviation should function, both in terms of space and the environment.
This, however, does require sufficient expertise and alternatives.
At present, there is room for considerable improvement with regard to both of these aspects.
This should not deter us, however, from sketching the outlines for the future and to expect this to be done internationally.
This report sets the right tone for this, especially for the benefit of the Commission.
Despite our positive attitude to this report, there are a number of elements which, in my opinion, do not belong in a report such as this one.
I am referring to the amendments tabled by the Group of the Greens and the regionalists. They may seem like a kind gesture, but these matters are better dealt with by the Member States.
Mr President, this Parliament would not be able to function without aviation, which according to some might not be such a bad thing.
But we need to focus all our efforts on how we can minimise the effects of the rapid growth within this sector on the environment.
I would like to highlight a number of points.
In my opinion, the European Union should support the ICAO process.
Only within the context of this international body is it possible to discuss tighter rules for noise generated by aircraft.
We should however urge caution.
Proposing new standards has a huge impact on the European aviation industry as a whole.
In concrete terms, a standard considerably stricter than the current one would mean that out of the present European fleet of 3,300 aircraft, 1,067 would need to be replaced.
Such a rapid and forced decommissioning would make it practically impossible to replace these aircraft with new ones, due to, among other things, the small production capacity for new aircraft.
We only have two manufacturers.
The consequences for European aviation are not hard to imagine. It would need to surrender part of the market to its competitors, and it is very questionable whether this would benefit our safety.
Furthermore, it would lead to a considerable reduction in employment, with all the problems that this entails.
Air fares would go up.
I am very aware that this would be a bonus for some, but do remember that, for airline passengers who need to travel short distances, there is still no real alternative, contrary to what one of my fellow MEPs just stated, to the effect that we would all much prefer to see such passengers travel by train..
Member States and my country in particular, the Netherlands, are extremely slow in introducing high-speed trains which could form a viable alternative for short-distance travel.
Aircraft manufacturers should be put under considerable pressure to build cleaner and quieter aircraft. That is why the new standards cannot be put on hold forever.
We will try to exert this pressure at international level but we will run out of patience at some stage.
Finally, I would like to say a few words on noise-sensitive airports.
In my opinion, measurements should be taken in a truly objective manner and complaints from those living in the vicinity should not be the only point of reference.
An international standard needs to be established, but some airports, which do not cause any pollution whatsoever to those living in the vicinity, should be exempt so that they are not hindered in their development.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think we are all convinced that we have an obligation and a duty to protect the environment and contribute to sustainable development with an environmental policy that has seen its importance increased subsequent to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I agree with the Commission on drawing up more stringent standards on noise and also on establishing transitional provisions to satisfy the needs of the regions that are confronted with noise pollution problems.
We also believe that it is essential for us to participate as one in the 33rd assembly of the ICAO in autumn 2001, speaking with one voice because, without a doubt, there is strength in unity and on subjects as important as the tightening of standards against noise it is vital.
It would also be important to ask the Commission to present proposals for the introduction of economic incentives aimed at achieving a reduction of the negative effects on the environment.
Naturally, what we do not agree on is the unilateral establishment of tax on kerosene, as a unilateral decision without the backing of the ICAO would have a minimal impact on the environment, would create legal problems, would damage competition among European airlines and would consequently affect users, who would see their tariffs rise.
It would also be essential that, before taking any measures with regard to the adoption of taxes on the aviation industry, a study should be carried out on the costs and benefits that these measures would imply.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasise the importance of efficient management in the aviation industry in reducing pollutants, placing the emphasis on improving airport management and clearly supporting the creation of a single European sky, by means of which we would also undoubtedly contribute to reducing environmental pollution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to give Mrs Lucas credit for her report.
I mean her original version.
She is right when she points out that if the volume of air traffic continues its rapid growth it will be absolutely necessary to take measures to control the problems it causes.
It is part of sustainable development to reduce emissions and bring noise levels down.
The report gained the support of everyone in the committee.
The amendments made to it, however, throw the baby out with the bath water.
The original report was a natural extension of previous EU legislation, but if the amendments are adopted it will mean enormous financial losses for European companies that have taken investment decisions on the basis of EU acts.
For example, the time span for noise reduction is very long.
The time that passes between the decisions taken and implementation can be up to two years.
But now some excellent aircraft which have just been modified in accordance with Chapter 3 would have to be scrapped in four years' time.
The citizens and companies of the Community must be able to have confidence in legislation, as continual shifting of the goalposts undermines long-term plans.
The resultant costs weaken the area' s air transport competitiveness as compared with airlines outside the EU, and, at the same time, in fact, makes it harder to adopt environment-friendly technology in the airlines based within the EU.
What is economically realistic about demands for new technology in the name of environmental protection to replace aircraft which are still serviceable and in good condition? On the contrary, this sort of action will constitute a burden on the environment, as materials will have to be produced and aircraft built before the economic lifetime of existent equipment is up.
In addition, scrapping serviceable aircraft will mean an additional burden on the environment.
Drafting radically new regulations on aircraft noise has to happen globally and under the auspices of ICAO, and careful, long-term community and town planning consequently has a key role in this.
Finally, I would like to remind everyone that increasing fuel tax in the air transport industry would bring with it an added burden for those who live in sparsely populated countries.
A long journey is a long way to go.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to congratulate Mrs Lucas on the report that is the basis for our debate today.
As we are all aware, the environmental consequences of air transport have recently attracted a great deal of interest.
At local level, the debates surrounding airport development are increasingly determined by environmental considerations relating to noise abatement and air quality improvement in areas surrounding airports.
Many citizens living in these areas believe that much more could be done to improve their situation and that is what they are demanding.
Furthermore, the long-term impact of gases from air transport on climate change is undoubtedly a cause of concern in the world today, as is the impact of other types of emissions.
The air transport system must therefore be handled globally and coherently, from an environmental point of view, that is, we must also take account of aspects relating to the activity of air transport.
We must try to reconcile interests that are not always easy to reconcile as air transport undoubtedly involves economic interests that are characterised by high investment costs which require a long life span before they are paid off.
For example, an aircraft requires a much longer life span than other types of investment in order to be adequately paid off.
This requires a stable operating environment with no ups and downs or modifications that change the rules of the game and may have disastrous economic consequences for the functioning of aviation companies.
A sector based on extremely expensive technology, with a rapid rate of growth, has an immediate effect on employment in ancillary sectors, such as research, industry and tourism.
In my opinion, trying to safeguard the environment by simply slowing down growth in the aeronautical sector and the air industry is not a valid option.
But there is no doubt that the public, not only people in the surrounding area who suffer most directly from certain types of pollution such as noise or even emissions, but the public in general, who want sustainable development and quality of life, has a right to demand action from us to guarantee this type of growth that should be the European model.
In its communication on air transport and the environment, the Commission maintains that the aviation industry needs to increase its efforts to improve the environmental quality of new aircraft being built.
If the current rate of growth is maintained, the improvements needed to compensate for the anticipated environmental impact of the increase in air traffic will not be made.
I know this message is not well received in many parts of the sector but, without a doubt, in the medium and long term there is no solution but to look for an alternative unless we want air transport to become a victim of its own success.
The Commission, however, is aware that the air transport sector is correct in saying that before carrying out environmental measures, a serious in-depth study must be done on the economic and social repercussions that these measures will have.
I have the impression that today, those most concerned by the environment are accepting, little by little, but more and more, the fact that in order to develop a definite environmental policy, account must be taken of the balance between the cost and effectiveness of the measures proposed.
The report we have before us considers these fundamental issues and takes account of both the need to reinforce environmental protection beyond routine efforts and the profitability analysis factor.
I would like to thank Mrs Lucas for the efforts made to achieve flexibility, as it is clear from her amendments that this is not exactly what she would like as a report, but she is looking for a compromise that makes parliamentary approval possible.
For example, what she says on kerosene seems to me to be a reasonable way of presenting this problem, which undoubtedly cannot be solved at European level, but at world-wide level and by the ICAO.
For it is in aviation, ladies and gentlemen, the industry in which globalisation is more evident than in any other, that these issues must be resolved.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for the support she gives the Commission in the report, and say that we find ourselves at a difficult stage of the debate on new noise standards and on legislation which gradually eliminates the noisiest aircraft, within the framework of the ICAO.
On many occasions, we have indicated our preference for an international solution to these problems, and the Commission has noted with satisfaction the positive development of the United States' stance in relation to the standardisation process that is taking place in the ICAO.
I have to say that the legislation on the so-called "hushkits" , with regard to the noisiest aircraft, adopted in its day by Parliament, the Council and the Commission, was based precisely on the fact that the United States had adopted unilateral measures outside the ICAO.
There is no doubt that it is within the ICAO that this work needs to be done.
We shall coordinate the actions of the various Member States within the CAEP, given that it is the Member States that are the signatories of the ICAO, and I hope that Parliament will support initiatives such as the single sky, to which Mr Ojeda referred, which, naturally, will also have consequences for kerosene saving, if it can be implemented, and the improvement in the allocation and general management of slots.
Mr President, once again I thank everyone for the work carried out in trying to obtain a realistic and flexible text that is acceptable to the various parties.
We await Parliament's vote, to which the Commission will pay great attention.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Tyres for motor vehicles and trailers
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0218/00), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 92/23/EEC relating to tyres for motor vehicles and their trailers and to their fitting [C5-0220/2000 - 1997/0348(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr De Roo).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to talk about noise generated by car tyres.
Noise is an environmental and health problem which is underestimated.
Tyres cause a nuisance to one third of the citizens in Europe who complain about it, compared to one quarter of the citizens ten years ago.
The problem of noise is therefore escalating, especially road and aircraft noise.
At first reading, the European Parliament was wrong not to react to the feeble proposals from the European Commission.
For example, the European Commission' s proposal did not contain a review clause.
All environmental proposals made by the European Commission contain a review clause, but not this one.
This is hardly surprising given the fact that this proposal was drafted by the DG for Industry.
In the Council, this environmental matter was wrongly dealt with by the Ministers for Economic Affairs and the Internal Market.
It should have been dealt with in the Council of Ministers for the Environment.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has tabled 4 amendments with 32 votes against 10 votes.
With regard to ordinary passenger cars, we suggest that the limit is reduced by 2 decibels.
The German independent inspection body, TÜV, has tested numerous existing car tyres. They all meet the ineffective noise limits proposed by the Council.
A reduction of 2 decibels is technically possible without jeopardising safety.
This has also been confirmed by experts of the Swedish institute for roads and traffic.
With regard to vans and lorries, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection also suggests reducing the noise level by 2 decibels.
Vans and lorries produce more noise than ordinary cars.
This is why it is important to make the necessary changes here too, and I hope that a number of the Christian-Democrat MEPs will be able to vote in favour of this.
The tyre industry has been given until October 2005 to meet stricter noise limits.
This seems ample time to me.
More is required, of course, in order to reduce the noise from road traffic.
The noise level from 'fluisterasfalt' [silent asphalt], as it is termed by our Flemish friends, or 'ZOAB, zeer open asfaltbeton' [very open asphalt concrete], as we like to refer to it in the Netherlands, is probably 20 decibels lower than that from cobblestone roads.
Our motorways are no longer paved with cobblestones, but a reduction of 3 to 5 decibels is possible by introducing this type of asphalt everywhere.
We will be returning to the problems of noise when we deal with the directive on noise.
Silent asphalt and a change of tyre could help reduce the noise level by 6 decibels, which may not seem a great deal, but one should remember that decibels are a logarithmic table.
This means that the noise level can be cut by more than half without reducing the volume of traffic.
Cars inherently cause a large number of environmental problems.
More than 10 years ago, the European Parliament introduced the first generation of catalytic converters and, two years ago, the second generation of catalytic converters appeared in the Langen/Hautala report on the motor oil programme.
As a result, air pollution caused by cars and lorries will drop by 70% to 90% in 2005 and 2007.
Similarly, we found a sound solution to the recycling of end-of-life vehicles in the Florenz report.
There are now two major environmental issues left to tackle at European level.
The first one is noise, which I have dealt with extensively, and the second one is the CO2 or the greenhouse problem.
With regard to CO2, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has suggested that the European Commission submit a legislative proposal to reduce the rolling resistance of tyres by 5%.
This means that 5% less fuel will be used and that the emission of CO2 will also fall by the same amount.
I would welcome a positive reaction from the European Commission.
Mr President, Commissioner, the general lines along which this Directive is discussed are of little concern to me.
I am no lawyer and am not in a position to judge.
What is true is that insufficient account has so far been taken of environmental interests.
Just in the last three days, the car and tyre industries have indicated in this Chamber that their options may well be open when it comes specifically to car tyres.
My group is not at present overly concerned about whether the figure is to be 1, 3 or 4 decibels, but we should like to make it clear that we want positively to force the tyre industry to act and do more of what is required of them in this area.
The motor oil, car and recycling industries have made a lot of things possible where road use by individuals is concerned.
In contrast, the tyre industry has largely refrained from taking action.
It is in this area that we want them to do some catching up.
We shall doubtless at some stage also have to talk about alternative road surfaces in Europe.
I believe that this is a positive way of forcing the tyre industry to act.
I should therefore like straight away to forestall some of my fellow MEPs who now and again stand up jokingly and say that Mr Florenz wants a reduction of two decibels where possible but is accepting a 10 metres longer braking distance in return.
Obviously, we want to maintain standards. We expect innovation.
We expect the tyre industry to employ young engineers of both sexes and finally to go some way towards meeting people' s justified demands to be exposed to less noise in their homes.
That is a task we have set ourselves, and I hope that the Commission will be prepared to cooperate.
It is possible, as we shall see in one or two years' time, that the industry will be able to achieve these objectives of ours by the year 2005.
If that were not possible, I am the very first to concede that we need to broaden our field of operations somewhat.
But the industry must be forced to act, and that is what we shall be campaigning for at the present time.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is a well-known fact that you are not entirely averse to cars yourselves and also enjoy driving.
It would therefore be a jolly good idea if, merely by being fitted with new tyres, our own cars were to cause 40% less noise and, at the same time, use 5% less fuel and also emit less CO2.
This is the road we should be going down.
There are already tyres whose specifications are well below the values proposed in the common position when it comes both to tyre noise and to the rolling resistance which is responsible for petrol consumption and CO2 emissions.
There are even tyres to which the Federal Republic of Germany awards a Blue Angel as a sign of environmental friendliness because they are a model of quiet operation and give rise to low petrol consumption.
Now, these tyres are not particularly unsafe.
On the contrary.
Michelin and Dunlop tyres even make for shorter braking distances while remaining quiet and preserving fuel economy.
I am therefore wondering why this Parliament cannot summon up the courage to say that whatever is now already state of the art technology is what we demand by 2005 for all tyres, particularly those fitted to private cars.
I should therefore like strongly to request that we adopt Amendment No 1, through which we call for limit values not only for tyre noise but also for rolling resistance, and that we adopt, in particular, Amendment No 2 in connection with quieter tyres.
I would ask you to consider that this does not yet mean the end of the negotiations.
We are entering into the negotiations in the Conciliation Committee with the Council, and we shall then see what emerges.
However, we must also have room for manoeuvre.
Mr President, before I start on the subject of tyre noise, may I make a more general point to the Commission.
They are bringing forward far too much legislation and, with legislation, quality is usually in inverse proportion to quantity.
We talk of doing less and doing it better.
In fact we do more, and we do it worse.
Now turning to tyres.
I little thought when I came to this House that I would end up defending the Commission's position - and yet the Commission has done its homework.
It has consulted with the industry.
It has come up with a proposal that sets challenging, but achievable, targets which protect the environment whilst also recognising the interests of road users and tyre makers.
Some of our colleagues are seeking to sabotage this careful work by demanding arbitrary and ill-considered decibel reductions.
In some cases their figures are achievable, in others not.
But they have forgotten that changes in the production specifications of tyres affect not only noise, but also grip, safety, fuel economy, cost and durability.
They may end up with quieter tyres that are expensive, that wear out quickly and that allow cars to slide off the road and crash into trees!
Let me speak plainly.
More road users will die if Mr de Roo's amendments are passed.
The electors I represent will not thank us.
We are being far too prescriptive.
It is our job to set a broad legislative framework in the public interest.
Instead, we seek to micro-manage a highly technical and complex industrial development programme, a task for which we have neither the time nor the skills.
I call on colleagues to reject the amendments and support the Commission proposal.
Mr President, I welcome this proposal.
It is long overdue.
Certainly the amendments to it by my colleagues Mr de Roo and Mr Lange are moving in the right direction.
Since the first publication of this directive back in 1997 the manufacturers have moved to meet the Commission standards.
I understand the desire of my colleague, Mr de Roo, to take the standards further.
However, I have to sound a note of caution.
Firstly, tyre standards are not the only problem.
The nature of the road surface is just as important and in particular circumstances like noise hotspots in urban areas perhaps more important than trying to change the tyre standards.
In many cases a better solution is to change the road surface and not the tyre standards.
Secondly - and in my opinion of paramount importance - is the need to balance the problem of tyre noise and tyre safety.
Whilst we are tonight seeking to adopt new tyre standards to reduce tyre noise we are not making any progress at all on tyre standards for the grip or adhesion of tyres on the road.
Despite good and serious proposals being put on the table some considerable time ago by the UK, they have not yet been agreed or seriously considered.
Our failure to agree tyre safety standards creates an unacceptable level of uncertainty with regard to this vital question.
For that reason I am particularly concerned about the potential effects of Amendments Nos 3 and 4 and their impact upon tyre safety, especially for vehicles such as buses and trucks.
In the circumstances I feel bound to say that I personally cannot give my support to Mr de Roo's Amendments Nos 3 and 4.
I suggest to him that they are premature and I would ask the Commission to reject them.
Mr President, Commissioner, my thanks go to Mr de Roo for the work he has done.
The reduction of any kind of noise is important both for people' s health and their comfort.
For that reason, I feel very positive about the Council' s common position with regard to tyre noise.
I am by no means acting as spokesman here for the tyre industry, but, having watched that industry very closely, I nevertheless wish to express my concern about the effect the amendments will have.
The tyre industry is a very fiercely competitive industry, and one that is competitive on a global scale. It is responsible for some very thorough development work and, owing to the nature of tyre technology, it is progressing slowly but surely.
The situation will become untenable, however, if there is an attempt to bring in changes too fast, as would seem to be the case on this occasion.
If things move too quickly it will mean immense technical problems for the industry, with unnecessary extra costs, which will be reflected in the prices of the products.
The consumer is always the one that has to pay.
An adequate transition period, however, will guarantee that the new requirements are taken account of at the development stage.
Any other course of action would be a waste of resources, because it would take on average three to four years to develop a new tyre model.
The issue becomes especially problematic when we consider that a tyre is a very delicate product in terms of balancing its individual properties.
It is not really just black and round, as the layman thinks.
When one property of the tyre is improved, it affects the others adversely, so tyre design is really a question of optimising compromises.
For example, a broad tyre holds well on asphalt, but tends to start skimming over water easily.
On the other hand, a narrow tyre works well on snow.
If a tyre' s noise properties were to be essentially improved it would above all impair its ability to hold the road in wet conditions.
I want my fellowmen to drive on safe tyres, above all.
I wish the tyre industry and the EU legislators would get together and draw up a realistic timetable for the excellent objectives outlined in this report.
Mr President, the aim of this proposal for a directive is to limit tyre/road noise without sacrificing grip and therefore road-holding and braking safety.
In preparing the proposal, the Commission consulted several bodies independent from the manufacturers, who worked with experts from the Member States for a long time in order to find the appropriate level of strictness on decibels for the various categories of tyres for cars, vans and lorries.
As a result of this extensive prior consultation of experts, the Member States have unanimously approved the level of strictness chosen in the proposal as a common position.
The European Parliament itself showed its satisfaction with the level of strictness of the proposal and did not table any amendments.
First of all, it should be noted that the quality of the road surface is, to a great extent, up to 6 decibels, responsible for the noise generated by tyre contact.
It should also be made clear that the Commission is continuing with the measures launched two years ago to combat the various sources of noise, covering every sector of activity of the European Union.
Now, at the second reading, 4 amendments have been tabled.
Amendment Nos 2, 3 and 4 propose the reduction of noise thresholds by 2 decibels.
If this reduction of 2 decibels were implemented today, more than 70% of tyres currently on the market would not pass the test.
Manufacturers would therefore be obliged to urgently modify the structure of the tyre and the hardness of the rubber by reducing the grip.
Until grip requirements are applied, these three amendments are therefore unacceptable.
This correlation between noise and rolling, tyre grip and fuel consumption is rightly at the centre of the concern expressed in Amendment No 1.
This concern is currently the subject of the search for a consensus in a working party for the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, a working party monitored by the staff of the European Commission.
This matter is also the subject of discussion in the Transatlantic Business Dialogue to promote the emergence of a Global Type Standard GTS 2000.
The European Commission is following this work with the intention of transposing the results into Directive 92/23/EEC in order to determine the correct balance between safety, noise and resistance.
Unfortunately, however, the proposed timetable is too strict.
The wide range of products covered and the problem in all its complexity must be considered.
It is for these reasons that Article 3, as worded in the common position, stipulates that the requirements on grip and on rolling resistance shall be integrated with the noise requirements in the extended timetable of 24 and 36 months respectively, following the entry into force of this directive.
Amendment No 1, which proposes to legislate again on two occasions within a period of one year after the entry into force of this directive, is not acceptable.
Due to the complexity of the methods of measuring grip on dry and wet surfaces and rolling resistance and due to the wide range of products, the results of the experts' work will not be available before 2002.
The Commission will then be able to amend this directive in order to include grip on dry and wet surfaces and rolling resistance for all categories of tyre.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Dangerous substances and preparations (azocolourants)
The next item is the report (A5-0168/2000) by Mr Bakopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending for the nineteenth time Council Directive 76/769/EEC relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations (azocolourants)[COM(1999) 620 - C5-0312/1999 - 1999/0269(COD)].
Mr President, the proposal for a directive which we are debating today is designed to restrict the marketing and use of azocolourants used in fabric dyes and leather goods.
The reason for the restriction is that there is good cause to believe that these substances are carcinogenic.
The annex to the directive contains a list of fabric and leather products in which the use of these suspect substances is banned.
Several countries have already introduced similar bans in their legislation and most companies established in the European Union fall into precisely this category.
However, we need a directive in order to harmonise the internal market and prevent such unilateral regulations.
Finally, as is only to be expected, the directive also contains an analytical method for detecting banned azocolourants.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy accepts the principle on which this directive is based.
The amendments, which were adopted unanimously, therefore represent an improvement.
I should like to refer to just two of them.
The Committee on the Environment takes the view that the list of products in which the use of azocolourants is banned, as contained in the annex to the directive, should not be open.
It should be a complete, closed, precise list of named products.
This will avoid arbitrary interpretation of the directive and, as a result, a wide variety of applications, which would run counter to the principle of the single market, which this directive has been introduced to protect.
That is the purpose of Amendment No 3.
The second amendment to which I should like to refer is Amendment No 2, which introduces recital 7a, exempting hand-made oriental carpets from the directive.
The reason for the exemption is that, because these carpets are hand-made, spot checks are, by definition, impossible, while separate testing of each carpet would seriously damage the product.
Especially in cases - and they are not infrequent - of hand-made artefacts and/or works of art.
Importers are, however, advised to develop a quality mark.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mrs Müller tabled Amendment No 6, on time, rewording the previous recital 7a and proposing that the exemption from the scope of the directive for oriental carpets should expire on 1 January 2006.
I think this proposal is sensible and propose that it be accepted.
Finally, Mr Ferrer tabled Amendment No 7, again on time, proposing that the list of 21 azocolourants in the annex should include another substance, in addition to the two inserted in Amendment No 4.
However, the substance which Mr Ferrer proposes is already included in the annex.
Obviously, this is an oversight and I do not therefore propose that it be accepted.
Mr President, Commissioner, this is a small and modest report, an amendment to a directive that I, however, believe is an important and significant example of the great success of the awareness and information policies and of the fact that the regulation often comes after society has sorted itself out.
The fact that practically all manufacturers and producers in all the Member States have removed the products we are now trying to remove indicates that there are now many mature areas in which ideally we would not have to establish legislation, and would not find ourselves in situations like this.
I would therefore like to emphasise, so that it may be taken down in the Minutes, that we must work to this formula where possible in a mature society and a mature industry.
I think the exclusion of oriental carpets is marvellous, as I believe it is good that flexibility in favour of art and beauty is entering into the spirit of a legislative machine that often forgets small details.
Furthermore, as far as I know, people do not normally tend to eat carpets, and therefore this level of risk could be avoided.
I repeat, I believe it is positive for us to work towards progress, for society to be one step ahead of us and that all we have to do is ratify what has already been recognised.
Mr President, in response to the rapporteur' s intervention, I should like to clear up one small point.
The amendments to this report were tabled by myself.
I just want to straighten that out because Mrs Roth-Behrendt' s name was mentioned.
Azocolourants are dyes which release cancer-causing aromatic amines if they come into contact with human skin or with the mouth cavity.
That was also the reason why a number of Member States issued interim regulations to protect consumers, as well as the reason for the Commission' s initiative, which we are discussing this evening, whereby azocolourants are now to be prohibited throughout the EU and a ban placed on imports of these substances from third countries.
The draft we have from the Commission nonetheless has some gaps in it which compromise safety and which, in my opinion, need to be closed.
That is the purpose of my amendments, to which a large majority of the committee agreed.
We are mainly concerned with adding two further amines to the banned list because they have since been categorised as carcinogenic.
Moreover, the general description of the area of application that has been given is too vague.
We want an exhaustive, clearly defined list for the purpose of creating clarity and legal certainty.
By means of the voluntary stamp of quality and the interim deadline of 1 January 2006, we have also succeeded in taking account of the special problems presented by the oriental carpets industry and, in spite of these problems, in also including hand-made oriental carpets in the directive in the medium term.
We have also provided for an option whereby, until such time as new testing methods have been validated, two methods can be applied which take account of the differing demands which materials make upon the testing method.
With the adoption of these amendments, which have been decided upon by a large majority of the committee, any vagueness and lack of clarity in the directive would, all in all, be removed.
In this way, the directive would do justice to the demands which will have to be made upon it in view of the risk of actual damage to public health.
Mr President, I would like to thank Members for their interest in this subject and especially Mr Bakopoulos, the rapporteur, for his constructive work.
Certain azocolourants used in textile and leather pose the risk of cancer for consumers and workers, as has been said.
Following an opinion of the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment confirming such risks, the Commission proposed in December of last year a directive restricting marketing and use of certain azocolourants which could pose a risk of cancer if they come into close contact with the skin.
The Commission proposal for a directive would introduce a ban on the use of certain azocolourants in textile and leather articles that come into close contact with the skin.
The colourants concerned are xylidines which may release any of the 21 cancer-causing amines listed in the proposed directive.
Furthermore, textile or leather articles dyed with these same xylidines may not be placed on the market.
The test methods to be used to show compliance with the provisions are specified in the proposed directive.
The proposal provides not only for the protection of consumers' and workers' health.
It also addresses an internal market issue.
At the present time, the internal market is fragmented, as some Member States are already applying national bans.
The proposed directive would harmonise the rules of Member States.
I would stress that the proposal is based on the results of independent studies on the risks of azocolourants and of the costs, benefits and trade effects of the proposed restrictions.
It also takes account of the opinion of the competent Scientific Committee on Risks.
I believe it is a proportionate measure.
The Commission is unable to accept those Parliament amendments which would extend this ban by replacing the proposed list of examples of product categories covered by an exhaustive list by covering articles other than those made of textiles and leather and by including other amides.
Amendments Nos. 3, 4 and 7 of the Committee on the Environment are the ones I refer to.
The Commission feels this could not be justified on the basis of the current knowledge about the risks.
Nor is the Commission able to accept amendments that would introduce a second testing method to show compliance with the provisions.
This applies to Amendment No 5 of the Committee on the Environment.
These would make it more difficult for suppliers, especially in the Third World, to show compliance as the method proposed by the Commission is the method most widely accepted and used.
However, the Commission can accept that when available a more reliable standardised testing method could be introduced.
The Commission can accept in principle an exemption for handmade oriental carpets from the example list of product categories covered by the proposed directive as the risk from such carpets is likely to be low.
However, the Commission cannot accept that the exemption is only temporary.
To summarise our point of view, we can accept Amendment No 1 of the Committee on the Environment.
We must reject six amendments, namely Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the Committee on the Environment.
However, the Commission can in principle support parts of Amendment No 3.
We wish to carry on the dialogue with Parliament.
I am convinced that we can reach a constructive solution.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Undeclared work
The next item is the report (A5-0220/2000) by Mrs Glase, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission communication on undeclared work [COM(1998) 219 - C4-0566/1998 - 1998/2082(COD)].
Mr President, this is a most useful report on a very important issue.
There are some parts I do not like, such as for instance paragraph 13 which promotes tax coordination.
I am proposing to table an amendment on that because, as the rapporteur knows, this is a subject particularly dear to the heart of UK Conservatives.
But the overall thrust of the report is very good.
There is another report out today which was an annual report from the Commission, referred to in today's Financial Times under the wonderful heading "Brussels demands labour reform".
To quote briefly from the article, "In its assessment of countries, the Commission will tell France that, like Germany, it must reduce 'fiscal pressure' on labour and reduce the 'administrative burden on companies'."
Certainly anything that promotes labour flexibility, liberates enterprise and reduces burdens on business must be good for the economies of those countries and for employment.
But it also addresses this problem of undeclared work.
The higher the tax, the more the red tape, the greater the incentive not to declare work.
I should like to make one further suggestion.
Countries with the highest undeclared work may well be recording the highest official unemployment figures, thereby attracting the highest offsetting regional funds.
This is perverse and it is in all our interests to address the problem.
Reducing tax and red tape would be a splendid start.
I urge Member States to follow the Commission advice and also to note the Glase report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a clear need for action on the issue of undeclared work in all the Member States, for there have not so far been many successes in combating it.
All the more reason, then, for me to welcome the Commission' s communication on undeclared work because it gets the discussion going at European level.
In this way, I now come to a core demand of this really excellent report by Mrs Glase.
We must unreservedly include the fight against undeclared work in European employment strategy.
With problems of this complexity, we need to exchange views, learn from each other and, in accordance with the tried and tested motto for our employment strategy, always seek best practice.
We must take a close look at the issue of undeclared work in order to be able to combat its various causes efficiently.
I would warn against over-simplification, three forms of which I would also at this point immediately oppose on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
The first point concerns the repeatedly made assertion according to which undeclared work is in the first place traceable to unduly high taxes and social security contributions.
I would say to my fellow MEPs in the conservative camp that things are really not that simple. Let us take Austria and Italy, for example.
In Austria, taxes are significantly higher than in Italy.
In spite of that, there is very much more undeclared work in Italy.
High taxes and social charges are therefore only one reason among many.
Or look at Scandinavia.
There, taxes and social charges are somewhat higher still.
On the other hand, the amount of undeclared work is comparatively small.
This no doubt also means that the quantity of undeclared work also has something to do with social acceptability, that is to say with a society' s social coherence.
Undeclared work must no longer remain a mere peccadillo.
Secondly, I should like to reject the argument that making the labour market more flexible would reduce the amount of undeclared work.
This would-be panacea does not in fact work.
The Thatcher era in Britain taught us that.
The amount of undeclared work rose then, despite the fact that the labour market was made more flexible and social charges were reduced.
Making the labour market more flexible is something which no doubt only works if correspondingly high social standards can be maintained.
Thirdly, undeclared work is not primarily the result of illegal immigration from third countries.
On the contrary, the majority of those who engage in undeclared work are our own citizens.
As Mrs Glase' s report shows, we need a sensible policy mix at national and European levels.
As a part of this, public authorities throughout the EU must also be jointly liable for ensuring that no contracts at all are awarded to companies whose quotations can quite clearly be traced back to the existence of undeclared work.
In the same way, companies need to be jointly and severally liable towards their sub-contractors.
However, we also want a right of class action which could help the trade unions, in particular, to take proceedings against those suspected of not declaring their employees or only partially declaring them.
Mr President, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Mrs Glase for her report, which is extremely efficient.
It is a very complex report which I described in committee as cautious in parts: cautious for reasons of necessity, if we consider that employment policy concerns the Member States, and therefore does not afford the European Parliament, or, by extension, Europe, genuine, practical competence in this matter.
So we are faced with a real, substantial difficulty to overcome.
As Mrs Jöns has just said, what we now need to do is develop a new strategy which looks at the entire question of work and employment from a global viewpoint, and calls upon the Member States first of all to make their situation public with regard to employment and undeclared work.
So far, we do not have detailed documentation for all the States; that is, we do not know the extent of the problem in all the Member States.
We do not know the extent of the problem in the States which are hoping to join the European Union either.
It is a complex issue: the percentage is increasing every year in line with the gross domestic product; we have a remarkably high average of 15% across the countries of the European Union.
This figure should make us think.
In any case, for all of us, illegal and undeclared work constitutes, by definition, an abuse of those who need to work, not least in terms of the tax burden which should ensure solidarity.
This is, therefore, a crime against society, which we as legislators must address, within the limits of our direct competence in this field.
However, there are specific recommendations in the report, for example specific procedures which could be implemented in order to fight the scourge of illegal or undeclared work.
I tabled some amendments, which have already been accepted by the rapporteur, and I will therefore not dwell on them.
I would just like to use the rest of the time available to mention an amendment which is particularly important to me and which I believe people found difficult to assess objectively: the amendment on illegal child labour, which I will summarise now.
It is claimed that child labour does not exist in Europe, but that it might exist - as has been stated - in Italy and southern countries.
This is not true!
Child labour exists everywhere: among immigrants or third-country nationals, among all those young people who drop out of education before they reach the age of majority, who are exploited, underpaid and untrained, thereby constituting a serious problem of exploitation and undeclared work because they do not have a qualification which can be used to ensure that they are adequately paid.
Lastly, the issue of illegal work also concerns children under 15 years old!
So let us not pretend that this problem does not exist in Europe, because it does exist, and Parliament should speak out resolutely on this matter too, in order to confirm the social, democratic and political maturity of this House.
Mr President, when we talk about undeclared work, let us not forget that we are talking about construction workers, who more exposed than anyone to bad weather and accidents at work, and that our discussions concern the outcasts working in sweatshops, deprived of any social status, often including the right to residence.
To these people we must also add workers in the new economy, whose working hours, time between shifts, and salaries are subject to the hazards of excessive insecurity and flexibility.
In short, we are talking about a form of exploitation in the workplace, which admittedly is detrimental to public finances due to lost revenue from tax and social contributions, but we must never forget that we are talking about the exclusion to which, according to the Commission, between 10 and 28 million citizens of the European Union are reduced.
Far from stigmatising these victims, we should be concerning ourselves with a specific type of employer criminality.
Lumping together those offering this type of work and those accepting it is inappropriate, even shocking.
The report that has been submitted to us is not entirely free from reproach in this respect, and nor, what is more, is the Commission's communication.
What should we do? Integrate undeclared work into the labour market or adapt the job market to the existence of these excessively flexible types of work?
I fear that proposals consisting of reducing taxes and contributions and increasing the flexibility of the job market will only lead to even greater deregulation of the labour market, at the risk of these precursors of excessive flexibility eventually becoming legitimate.
As the report that has been submitted to us indicates, poverty fosters the prosperity of the black economy, obliging employees and the self-employed to accept it.
Staunchly fighting for the creation of quality activities and jobs, paying attention to working conditions and limiting insecurity are the surest methods of reducing the attractiveness of undeclared work in all sectors.
Measures also need to be taken to prevent certain conditions for sub-contracting and the award of public contracts from leading small businesses or the self-employed to seek illegal ways of achieving the profit margins forbidden to them by contractors.
We do not need to regulate less, but rather to give greater resources to the authorities responsible for monitoring work.
In some States, the Labour Code stipulates that every illegal contract must be re-classed as a full-time, permanent contract.
That would certainly be a very active policy and a strong incentive for the employers concerned to regularise the situation.
Mr President, there are different types of undeclared work. It can be difficult drawing the line between undeclared and properly declared work.
Sometimes, the blame has to be placed upon individuals who do undeclared work in order to dodge paying tax.
The serious cases of undeclared work are those that are organised as such.
More often than not, many workers are involved, and the reason is that there are employers who organise, lead and distribute work that will go undeclared in order to keep wage costs down and reduce taxes for themselves.
That is the heart of the matter.
In many quarters, organised undeclared work is well-known, both among the local population and the authorities.
In those cases where no action is taken against such work, this may be because unemployment is high and poor people have no alternative to being exploited by employers who do not declare their employees.
There is also a tax argument which plays a big part in Mrs Glase' s thinking.
This subject has already been taken up in the debate.
Mrs Jöns observed quite correctly that in those regions and countries where the level of tax is fairly - or even very - high, where the labour market is well organised and where workers have strong unions, there is almost no undeclared work at all, at least not in any organised form.
If Mrs Glase and her group want to reduce tax in order to make undeclared work less profitable, this is as good as saying that they want to legalise the economic calculations behind undeclared work and make them the general rule.
It is like increasing the speed limit on the roads to reduce the number of drivers who break the law by driving too fast, or like legalising the drugs trade to reduce the amount of illegal drug dealing.
I was quite shocked to read the rapporteur' s original report in which she proposed that all employees in European workplaces should be forced to carry electronic cards so as constantly to be monitored by the authorities.
I believe it is the employers who organise production and take on workers.
If anyone is to be compelled to carry electronic cards, it is therefore these employers, who are responsible for the work that is done.
My group and I believe that fighting unemployment and poverty is the best, and in fact the only, way of properly combating organised undeclared work.
Improved wages are a much better remedy than lower taxes and other concessions to irresponsible employers.
Mr President, I think we should begin by congratulating ourselves not only on the quality of Mrs Glase's work, but also on the fact that this subject has come before Parliament.
We are living in a Europe that is increasingly closer to its citizens and therefore we cannot omit to concern ourselves with employment, as employment, together with health, is one of the main concerns of the citizens and, I dare say, especially of those who are unemployed because they have lost their job or perhaps never had one.
We should ask the question whether those who are working in the hidden economy, working on the black market or, to use the most common term, carrying out undeclared work, really have an adequate job? I do not think this is the right time to detail the harm done by undeclared work to the public funds and those carrying it out, due to their own position of insecurity, and to other employers, competitors or otherwise, and society in general.
The economic causes of undeclared work, increased income for workers, the opportunity to save on tax and social contributions or the reduction in costs for the company, are not unrelated to its existence and a significantly higher rate of growth than that of the legal or official economy.
To refer briefly to the sectors or groups in which undeclared work has the most scope for expansion, we need to include multi-job situations where the income obtained from this illegal work is supplementary; economically inactive people who have greater flexibility in terms of time and the case of the unemployed who want an additional income, often turning down offers of legal work.
We must also consider the situation of illegal immigrants who cannot carry out other forms of work.
In addition to these easily visible situations, it is assumed that there are also many cases of production decentralisation, outsourcing or subcontracting which, in a less direct, less visible way, can lead to undeclared work.
A situation which must be prevented and which I would like to consider is that of the new type of work via the Internet, teleworking, part-time work, which can be an easy breeding-ground for undeclared work.
Mr President, we must anticipate this, as Europe must opt for secure, stable, quality work, and undeclared work is neither stable nor secure and nor, of course, does it demonstrate solidarity.
Mr President, we must welcome the Commission' s decision to address the problem of undeclared work and I too should like to congratulate the rapporteur on managing to clarify certain aspects of such a complex issue.
It is precisely because this is such a crucial issue that I should like to make two comments.
It is true that this is not just some sub-issue; it is a central issue which impacts on the efficiency of individual policies in the taxation, insurance and employment sectors.
With the rapid spread of undeclared work in industrialised countries, this phenomenon has ceased to be a typical feature of third world countries, for which the International Labour Organisation several decades ago coined the term "informal sector" , which is not the same as "black" or illicit work.
That is a mistake which I would ask the Commission to take into account.
What we are witnessing, in fact, is the emergence of two productive systems and two social models.
One in which producers operate by analysing the responsibilities and costs imposed by the system and another in which they operate to the detriment of the former and society as a whole.
What we must understand is that the future success of European initiatives in the employment, insurance and tax sectors depends on the way in which this issue is resolved; in other words, this issue is of equal importance to employers, workers and the rest of society.
Secondly, I think that the general reference to undeclared work or to certain general categories is the weak link in the approach to the problem: we all know that undeclared work cannot be dealt with as a single phenomenon and needs a policy which is differentiated by sector and sub-sector, depending on the people supplying it and the nature of the individual problem.
The various categories of people which supply it, such as immigrants, minorities, children, women, moonlighters etc. cannot all be dealt with in the same way.
There is a thriving undeclared sector and there are instances which only partially constitute undeclared work.
Then there is the matter of bogus self-employment and certain new forms of employment.
All these problems require innovative solutions; bans are not enough.
Mr President, the good news is that Europe has not run out of work.
The bad news is that, more and more often, work goes undeclared.
Failing to declare work is no mere peccadillo.
The wide-boy in the local pub who brags about ripping off the State should no longer be indulged.
In Germany, for example, work is being lost due to illegal employment and, for every ten thousand jobs, DM 240 million is lost in taxes and social security contributions.
In her splendid and balanced report, Anne Glase estimates the volume of undeclared work in the EU at between 10 and 20 per cent of GNP.
People who engage in undeclared work are to be found not only among the unemployed and among those who have entered the country illegally and have to suffer at the hands of those who profiteer from unemployment.
They are also to be found among part-time workers who, in addition, are working at night and in the evenings on their computers, as well as among the self-employed who do additional work they do not declare.
Those affected by this are small and medium-sized businesses which, unlike competitors who operate illegally, obey the law.
Jobs cannot be safeguarded in this way. Nor can new ones be created.
What is to be done? Firstly, abuse of the rules governing work must be punished, with fines for those who engage in undeclared work and for those who employ others to do such work.
Those who hire workers who do not have work permits should be excluded from being awarded public contracts.
Moreover, they should expect to receive custodial sentences.
Secondly, thorough checks, including cross-border checks, by the relevant authorities are necessary.
Town clerks' offices must cooperate with factory inspectorates, and tax offices with immigration authorities, preferably in task forces.
Thirdly, incentives to abuse the system must be reduced.
Taxes and social charges payable by companies must be significantly reduced, as must VAT on labour-intensive services.
Fourthly, it is particularly important that there should be more awareness-raising campaigns in order to convince all relevant target groups that undeclared work needs to be combated.
It is extremely damaging both socially and economically.
Acting illegally is anti-social.
I should like to thank Mrs Glase for her excellent report.
The Commission has opened the debate with its communication on undeclared work in the spring of 1998.
We are pleased to say that it has stimulated debate both with the European institutions and within Member States.
The time has come to bring together the fruits of this debate.
Therefore I especially welcome Parliament's initiative in taking up this issue now.
The Commission's communication focused on the policy strategy to tackle this important problem.
It has highlighted the need for an integrated approach to combating undeclared work, involving both preventive measures and sanctions.
These deal with the two dimensions of undeclared work: it can be viewed as an issue of individuals taking advantage of the system and undermining solidarity in the process or as the outcome of greater flexibility in the labour market and slow adaptation of existing legislation.
I am pleased to see that Parliament has agreed with the Commission's analysis.
Parliament also seems to share the view that the main action has to be taken at the level of Member States.
Indeed it is the mix of the situation in the labour market, the tax and social security mix, as well as the social acceptance, that determine the level of undeclared work.
For that reason, the action that can be taken at Community level can only be minimal and has to be clearly targeted in those fields where the Community can have an impact.
The Commission is also convinced that undeclared work should be dealt with within the framework of the Luxembourg process.
We believe that undeclared work should be actively taken into account in the national action plans for employment.
We are working with the Member States to ensure that this is so.
We welcome Parliament's support in this.
However, the Commission can have an impact in developing a standard methodology to describe and record the extent of undeclared work and to assess its impact on the economy and on social solidarity.
This we have done with the Communication in 1998 and we will continue to do so.
Indeed the Commission is now carrying out a study on different measures used to combat undeclared work in selected Member States in order to identify good policy mixes.
Results of this study will be presented in a conference at the end of the year.
However, to have annual monitoring and reporting on this problem would be heavy procedurally while not adding much new.
We must not forget that undeclared work is a deeply rooted phenomenon.
Changes take time.
To keep this item on the agenda and to ensure that progress is reported we would suggest a triennial reporting exercise.
The Commission agrees with the analysis of Parliament that women, while not the majority of undeclared workers, often operate in situations of greater insecurity and exploitation.
Within its possibilities the Commission will continue to monitor the situation and report on it within the framework of existing reports on the principle of equal treatment.
That is very important to the need to maintain momentum in introducing and reinforcing equal opportunities for women and men.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 p.m.)
Mr President, on a point of order. Questions to the Council are no longer being answered in the time stipulated.
Despite being warned on two occasions, the Council has not answered European Parliament questions.
Would you please ensure that the Council fulfils its obligations in this area as well?
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
Your request and your comment will be dealt with appropriately.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Regarding the questions that will shortly be put to the Commission and the Council, you will be aware that the French Government, confronted by the fuel crisis that has gripped France along with the rest of Europe, took a number of measures yesterday which will drastically alter the conditions of competition and the basis of the fight against the greenhouse effect, and which will, therefore, have an immediate and serious impact on Europe.
Mrs Loyola de Palacio had an extremely interesting article published in the French press this morning on this European crisis.
Would it be possible for her and/or the Commissioner for Competition to speak during this part-sitting in order to tell us how the Commission intends to react to the fuel crisis, and how the Commission and the Council intend to prevent an outbreak of fiscal dumping in Europe and prepare Europe to deal with this crisis?
Of course, Mr Lipietz, the point that you have raised is very topical and very urgent, but the agenda has already been fixed, and therefore, I think it will be quite difficult to satisfy your request, although the President will do everything possible to deal with it.
Mr President, the honourable Member's request concerns a matter of importance.
The President has very clearly ruled out the possibility of a debate this morning.
I shall tell Mrs de Palacio and Mr Monti that Parliament would like to hear them and, together with the Presidency, we shall decide on a suitable time.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for making yourself available.
Sport
The next item is the joint debate on:
the Council statement on doping in sport and sport in society;
the Commission statement on football player transfers;
the report (A5-0203/2000) by Mrs Zabell, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Community support plan to combat doping in sport [COM(1999) 643 - C5-0087/2000 - 2000/2056(COS)]];
the report (A5-0208/2000) by Mr Mennea, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the report from the Commission to the European Council: With a view to safeguarding current sports structures and maintaining the social function of sport within the Community framework - The Helsinki report on sport [COM(1999) 644 - C5-0088/2000 - 2000/2055(COS)].
Mr President, doping is not a new problem. It did not even start this century, but comes from the last century.
In fact, the first death from doping took place in 1896, when a cyclist took drugs.
The first measures against doping, however, began to be taken after the first Helsinki Olympic games in 1952, but it was in the Tour de France of 1998 that the problem became too big and the serious fight against it began.
In fact, we have already heard this morning that it is a priority for the French Presidency, the Council and also for the Commission.
We have to assess why this problem exists and why doping has increased so much in recent years.
On the one hand, it is worth mentioning the over-commercialisation that is affecting sport, as well as the saturation of sporting calendars and greater demands on sportsmen and women, both physical and mental.
Before, the motto of sport was that of Pierre de Coubertin, 'the important thing is taking part' .
Now, however, it seems that whoever comes first wins, whoever comes second loses, and the rest just take part.
On the other hand, we should not forget that, these days, an increasing number of tests are being done, many of them outside competitions, and this also means that, logically, more cases of doping are being discovered.
However, it is very important to distinguish between the two types of doping: on the one hand, there is intentional or planned doping, that is, a team plans which substances the sportsman or woman needs to take, and when, in order to improve his or her physical performance.
Logically, this is more common in sports with greater financial resources.
On the other hand, there is accidental doping, which often does not even improve the sportsman or woman' s physical performance.
This tends to be more common in sports which have few resources, so that often public opinion does not even realise what has happened.
Obviously, we have to fight both types of doping, although each one should be approached in a very different manner.
Combating intentional or planned doping is much more difficult.
Police cooperation plays a very important role, because we should not forget that the trafficking of doping substances is worth EUR 1 billion per year.
It is also important to listen to sportsmen and women when drawing up sporting calendars or planning a competition or trial. Sometimes, we ask them to do more than is physically possible without turning to external help.
Overall, we need to fight doping globally.
It is not an isolated problem for one Member State and therefore the presence of the European Union in the World Anti-Doping Agency is absolutely essential.
Combating accidental doping is much easier.
It is mainly due to the lack of information among sportsmen and women, and the report therefore proposes that there should be an indicator on the boxes of pharmaceutical products, consisting of five Olympic rings and a traffic light.
Thus, when buying a drug, sportsmen and women will be able to clearly see the red traffic light indicating the risk of testing positive, or the green light which indicates that there is no risk, or the amber light indicating that there may be a risk and that they should contact their doctor or a specialist for advice.
This is very important, because we now have fifteen Member States with fifteen lists of prohibited substances, and in each country there can be a different brand name for the same drug.
For this purpose, we ask for the intervention of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency.
However, even though the types of doping are different, sportsmen and women receive the same treatment and from the moment that they have a positive result they are considered to be guilty, with no right to prove their innocence and without an assessment of whether the doping was intentional or not, as occurs with other things in life.
We also call on the European Commission to request that the Fifth Framework Programme carry out research into doping substances and their impact on the health of sportsmen and women, detection methods and the natural limits of hormones that can be produced by the human body.
With regard to laboratories, it is very important that they comply with ISO standards on uniform methods for collecting and analysing samples, and also that there should be protection and confidentiality, both in collection and in dealing with the case, in order to preserve sportsmen and women' s right to honour and privacy.
Finally, I will mention penalties.
When a person other than the sportsman or woman has taken part, such as a club, an association, a federation, a doctor, a coach, etc., that person should also be subject to a penalty, exactly equal to that given to the sportsman or woman, because we should not forget that the person with the shortest working life will always be the sportsman or woman.
Mr President, ten days before the start of the Olympic Games, the spectre of doping is hovering over Sidney.
The International Olympic Committee cannot be serious with its talk of 'clean' Olympic Games when we all know that 1,000 syringes of erythropoietin were stolen from a Sidney hospital a month ago and when one legend of the Olympic spirit after another now openly maintains that there are anti-doping tests for every banned substance only the International Olympic Committee prefers to bow to pressure from big business than to apply them.
Minister Buffet, who has addressed us so eloquently here today, stated in Le Monde on 4 August that the basic ingredient missing in the fight against doping was strong political will.
But it would appear to be difficult to exercise this will when there is the pressure of commercialisation and the pressure, encapsulated in the thoughtless and superficial motto of the Olympic Games, to be 'faster, higher, stronger' .
It is even more difficult to exercise this political will when the supply of banned substances is much more in demand, with a turnover, as we have heard, of a billion euros, although this turnover is much higher - much, much higher - if we include the mild doping which is spreading through gyms, beauty centres and God knows where else.
We need to bring our political clout to bear as quickly as possible, we need to harmonise lists of dangerous substances, methods of testing for the new substances which industry is constantly producing, we need to apply sanctions, we need to find out who is responsible and apply sanctions.
Of course, the European Union needs to take a more active role in the World Anti-Doping Agency, precisely as the President of the Council described, and I agree with him.
I should like to finish by saying that this World Anti-Doping Agency is quite simply an observer in Sidney today.
And, as long as we are just observers, nothing will be done in the fight against doping.
Mr President, sport is a popular activity.
We have just had Euro 2000, the Olympic Games are about to start, and, what is more, there are an increasing number of people who enjoy sports as a leisure activity.
It is healthy and brings people together from all walks of life, irrespective of age or race.
This is, of course, extremely important in a society which increasingly focuses on the individual.
At the same time, as has already been pointed out, there is also a downside to sport, namely violence around the pitches, the use of doping, an increase in the use of performance-enhancing substances - also increasingly so in amateur sport - and the huge pressure on sportsmen and women due to the major economic interests involved.
This is why we welcome with open arms the fact that the European Commission has taken it upon itself to highlight the social aspect of sport and to examine how the economic dimension of sport can be reconciled with the educational and other roles that sport fulfils.
The PPE-DE is entirely behind this objective and has tabled amendments to give this initiative a boost.
It has, more specifically, submitted proposals to step up the support given to sports organisations, in order to invest in people, in team spirit and to improve the legal framework underpinning sport, as all we have at the moment is the declaration to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
With regard to a few specific problems which sport is having to contend with, I would like to say the following on the issue of transfers.
The Bosman ruling has mainly hit the smaller clubs, as the Commissioner has already pointed out, especially in the smaller countries, such as the Netherlands where I am from.
These clubs invariably need to make major investments in training and education without sufficient backing or compensation.
We therefore hope that the Commission, in tandem with the sports organisations, will produce proposals which will make amends in the short term.
The sports federations, such as UEFA and FIFA, have also submitted proposals to this effect.
Doping is a huge, international problem, as already pointed out by the rapporteur, who has drafted an excellent report, and it is therefore vital for there to be international cooperation in this respect.
We will need to agree internationally on what we take doping to mean and will need to refer to the World Anti-Doping Agency.
It would be useful if pharmaceutical products could be labelled with a 'doping-safe' logo and a warning, and we would also welcome a more pro-active preventive policy.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, the Group of the Party of European Socialists asked the Commission to make a statement on the topical subject of football transfers and for it to be added to this joint debate.
I welcome the statement made by the Commissioner, which has our support.
I recommend that, in future, she should come to Parliament before so many leaks occur from the Commission administration, which forced the Commissioner to face the press with great courage and determination, not afraid to tell them the truth.
It would be better if they came to Parliament first and had our support.
The subject of transfers is perhaps an example that sums up the current situation of sport.
There are two reports, the Zabell report and the Mennea report, drawn up by Olympic champions.
On the eve of the Sydney Olympics, I would like to recall that the first, and perhaps the best, contribution to peace made by Europe, that is, by ancient Greece, was precisely the Olympic Games.
They talk of sport as a citizen' s right, with a social and cultural function.
There is a component of transfer fees that is justified in terms of the contribution that is made to training and preparing sportsmen.
This makes sense and needs to be regulated, and we need to support young people and small clubs so that they can promote themselves.
Another dimension is the big business involved, which in many countries is becoming the second largest sector in the economy.
We are dealing with uncontrolled, unsustainable long-term speculation.
A major club in my native city made the biggest transfer in football history - EUR 70 million.
The person involved has said that it is absurd, and the chairman of the club has said that it is in a very grave economic situation.
If we were applying the rules of economics, we would have to act differently.
Therefore, I think that the Commission should act.
It has managed to make FIFA begin to see sense.
My group and I would like to show our support for the Commission and we maintain that action has to continue that will really express and guarantee this right of Europeans.
Finally, I would like to point out that there has been talk of the collapse of the world of football.
In the United States in the 1940s, under anti-trust legislation, the same measures were applied in Hollywood as those that the Commission is proposing.
But Hollywood did not go under. Quite the opposite.
We now have a considerable economic problem in coping with the clout of the American film industry.
Therefore, keep going, Commissioner.
I welcome the fact that the Zabell report tries to address the problem of intentional doping and proceeds from the presumption of innocence based on the charter of human rights.
Unfortunately, UK athletes - Linford Christie, Dougie Walker and Gary Cadogan - were not presumed to be innocent by the International Athletics Association.
Despite evidence, based on research by Aberdeen University, that nandrolene could be produced by a combination of dietary supplements and vigorous training, Mark Richardson is still waiting, eight days before the Olympics, in the Olympic village not knowing whether he is going to compete or not.
Linford Christie has campaigned throughout his career against doping in sport.
He would not do anything now to jeopardise that.
These cases demonstrate the need for the World Anti-Doping Agency to harmonise disciplinary procedure that would safeguard the rights of athletes but, at the same time, swiftly punish those who knowingly take drugs and are guilty of taking drugs.
Mr President, doping is symptomatic of the inverted values of our societies, in which the end has come to justify the means.
It is primarily a form of cheating, with individuals cheating themselves as well as cheating others.
That is why there is a need to establish a vast education programme to reinstate the true values of sport and to make it,once again, a school of life and an example for our youngest generations.
At every level, including the very highest, sport should be an opportunity to teach the virtues of endeavour, courage, team spirit and respect for others.
The Commission was right to remind us that one of the first causes of the increased prevalence of doping lies in the commercial implications of modern sport.
That is why our reflections should focus more sharply on the possibility of imposing stiffer penalties on the various economic operators who encourage doping or profit from it.
Finally, the reason why sport has assumed an important and indeed a central place in our contemporary societies is perhaps because it has become the only means open to a nation to demonstrate its greatness.
Perhaps the nations ought to rediscover other ways of projecting their greatness and their pride on the world stage, and I cannot help thinking at this moment of national currencies, which are an essential attribute of a country's sovereignty and grandeur.
Today, as the euro, the currency of the Euro-optimists, plummets, it is an urgent necessity that all nations should be able to keep their own currency, just as they keep their national sports teams, of which they are so proud, with no need of artificial stimulants.
Mr President, I also thank Mr Mennea and Mrs Zabell for highlighting the crucial role that sport is now playing in all of our lives, I have to start by saying that sport's importance as an industry is well known, but for sport to become just another industry would be a mistake and a great loss to our society.
We are all living longer, and sport is occupying a greater part of our time.
It is there not just to revitalise our bodies but also our minds and our souls, and we have to recognise the importance of that fact in European legislation.
I therefore support the call for a legal basis that will put our powers on a par with those of the very important international sports organisations.
Europeans share a love of watching and participating in football, from Newcastle through Dortmund to Barcelona, but it is important that local people should be inspired to join their clubs.
I would therefore say that the most enduring teams should be built up from scratch and not simply bought up.
The system needs well-run machinery consisting of clubs of all shapes and sizes and degrees of professionalism and we need to take the opportunity to reform it.
I support, therefore, Commission statements and the Commissioner's action on this matter.
Sport has a huge potential.
It has shown that it can build understanding and fight racism.
Let us do more work in sport to bring our communities together.
It has shown that it has the power to encourage disabled athletes to succeed.
Let us show that we share their pride and build joint events for them and able-bodied people.
Violence on the field has been the bad side of sport.
Let us work to ensure that sport is violence-free.
Doping, finally, is a symptom of the over-commercialisation of sport.
As our teams head off to Sydney they are under more pressure than ever.
We have to set up facilities that fight doping on an international basis because, as we have seen, one false accusation can ruin a career or cast a shadow over an exemplary career, such as that of Linford Christie.
Therefore, we support these reports and hope that they will provide the foundation for us to move forward into the next phase of European sport, a community spirit to build the industry and the potential of sport in Europe.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Mennea, for this extremely valuable report.
Sport fulfils a major social role in our society; that much is clear.
Professional sport fulfils this role too and has great social significance.
I have tabled an amendment to Mr Mennea' s report, naturally with his consent, proposing a possible alternative to the transfer system.
I happen to believe that the performance on the pitch which we are discussing, in other words the job performance, is no longer proportionate to current remuneration levels.
For this reason, I believe it is merely a commercial activity which should be distributed evenly.
I would like to know whether you have a response to this.
Secondly, on behalf of a large number of fellow MEPs, I have requested the final decision with regard to reforming the transfer system to be postponed.
You commented on it yourself a moment ago. The reason being that UEFA, together with a large number of national football federations, is organising a meeting during the next part-session in October and I would ask you to attend, together with Mr Monti.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, no sportsman or woman takes drugs unless he or she has a financial interest in doing so.
There is no doubt that doping is changing sport and that sport will be changed due to doping, which means it will become absolutely ludicrous if we do nothing to prevent it.
The combination of enormous and disproportionate financial, media and sponsoring interests surrounding sportsmen and women puts so much pressure on them, and the intensity of sport is so great, that in order to maintain their level of competitiveness and the pace imposed on them by sporting calendars, sportsmen and women tend to use prohibited substances.
Without limiting the length of competitions and without having obligatory rest time, it will be very difficult to eradicate doping.
However, we should not forget that sportsmen and women are also human beings who can fall ill or injure themselves, and will therefore need drugs and additional help to combat the stress under which they place their bodies, which is why false positive tests are the order of the day and will brand the sportsman or woman concerned forever.
What we need to do is to harmonise criteria, have a single list of prohibited substances, homogenise tests, have warnings on drugs and do more research.
Ladies and gentlemen, we need to reinvent sport, because as it is at the moment there is a battle for glory, but also for money and sponsorship.
In order for it not to disappear, we need to go back to the traditional values of sport, in which people compete for one reward only - a medal.
NGL). (EL) Mr President, we live in an era in which Europe is moving towards federalisation.
We might say that sport has got there first, that sport built structures before we were able to do so at political, economic or other levels.
Why? Because sport had its roots in ancient Greek Olympia, sport had prophets such as de Coubertin, and sport allowed peoples to meet in peace.
Europe was at war but, at the same time, it had common sporting structures and common sporting rules.
Today the tables have turned: we are preparing to review the Treaty, we are increasing the number of common rules and common principles and our works and structures, while sport is falling apart.
Why? Because big business calls the shots, because major financiers are involved, because the mass media are backed by strong centres of power and because, in my view, intervention by the European Union is inadequate and misguided.
By intervening in sporting issues solely from the point of view of competition, the European Union has, in essence, strengthened this trend and this attitude.
I think we are at a turning point.
Thank goodness we have President Buffet and the French Presidency which, I think, has taken up and taken a leading role in the matter of unifying and developing and strengthening our sporting structures.
I think that Mrs Reding also has a positive part to play on behalf of the Commission in changing the way in which the Commission intervenes.
In this sense, I think that we can avert what is happening in the basketball federation today and what we can see will happen in all the other sports tomorrow, and maintain the unity of sport and its contact with society.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on their work, which I fully support.
I think we all agree on the role and importance of sport which, at both competitive and amateur level, is an excellent tool for the education and social integration of both players and spectators.
Of course, sport is also an extremely important economic phenomenon and, as such, it must follow and comply with certain market rules, as indicated in the famous Bosman judgment.
However, as has already been pointed out this morning, sport must preserve its unique features, which are primarily of a social and cultural nature.
Precisely to avoid sport being reduced to nothing more than a business, we must call, loud and clear, upon the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference at Nice to expressly insert a significant reference to the institutional recognition of sport into Article 151 of the Treaty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have three closely connected items on our agenda today.
But the problem is that media interest will focus not so much on the Mennea and Zabell reports as on the Commissioner's announcement.
I think that is a pity.
We are now more worried about the apple of Germany's eye, football, than about what is really at stake today.
I have no hesitation in supporting the two Commissioners whose task it is to implement the Bosman judgment.
If FIFA had done its job, the Commission would not have needed to get involved in this.
I hope that FIFA recognises that and will now finally come up with something that the Commission can include in its proposals, as long as they do not run counter to the Bosman judgment.
So I think that everyone has a job to do here.
As regards the reports, I would like to say that, in view of the big business sport has become, the social and educational importance of popular sport needs to be highlighted.
There is a danger that sport as a whole will sooner or later be badly hit by rules on competition.
We would like to prevent that, which is why the Mennea report quite rightly calls for a reference to sport in Article 151 of the Treaty as an aspect of culture.
I, myself, called for this in my report back in 1996.
That resulted in a declaration at Amsterdam, which was by no means enough.
That is why I am supporting the fact that this is finally being introduced now.
That report also called for the Commission to declare a European Year of Sport.
A European Year of Sport would be an important stimulus, and I hope that the new Commissioner will now take this up.
I am delighted that Mrs Zabell has covered some broader ground in her report on doping and that she has also stressed the abuse of young sportsmen and women, and has given an impetus to jointly tackling doping.
I would like to congratulate the Commission on having joined this Anti-Doping Agency now, so that it can genuinely give an impetus to a harmonised approach towards combating doping on behalf of the Community of Fifteen.
I wish it every luck.
Mr President, Commissioner, sport is, of course, being discussed by a wide range of people and social groups right now, as the Olympic Games begin in Sydney.
The reports we have before us also provide a basis for debate.
The question that inevitably comes to mind is this: what has happened to the idealistic image of sport which is still being portrayed? It is all too easy to be complacent and attribute a very important social and unifying role to sport, where fair play is held up as a model for our interaction with each other, be it at work, in politics or whatever.
However, both reports show very clearly that sport has become a powerful and extremely tough economic force, and sportsmen and women are its tools.
They are programmed to achieve peak performances on particular days and during particular weeks, with ever shorter gaps in between, and they have to function like machines.
In order to overcome human weaknesses, which cannot always be calculated, and to achieve perfect functioning, people resort to doping substances, and it is now becoming harder and harder to detect their use.
In this way, young sportsmen and women cause damage to themselves, to their health, to their personal development and, last but not least, to sport as an ideal.
Top sportsmen and women are a role model for thousands of young people and thus have a very strong impact on popular sport, which, as I see it, is the level of sport that most needs to be encouraged.
A sense of fair play and social interaction are still easy to find at this level.
But bad examples such as violent incidents, doping scandals, million-dollar contracts and bankruptcies are also destructive at this level.
We need to create legal bases to stem these negative trends.
I welcome the fact that the WADA is now active, and that it is there to combat the worldwide problem of doping.
Measures are needed against violence and racism in sport, in order to guarantee that sportsmen and women and sports fans are protected against rampaging hordes of hooligans and racists.
There is also scope for top sportsmen and women to do more on their part and to make it clearer than they have until now that they want nothing to do with 'fans' like these.
It should be our job to give sport a new role in a changed society, with new and modern technical and medical facilities, and in this way to preserve its values.
I believe that a European Year of Sport could stimulate this debate and make a substantial contribution here.
Mr President, after congratulating our colleagues Mrs Zabell and Mr Mennea on their reports and the suggestions they contain, of which I very largely approve, I shall make do with two observations.
Firstly, I should like to stress the need for Community participation in the World Anti-Doping Agency, which would enable the European Union to make a vigorous and coherent contribution to the struggle against doping.
Secondly, as I did yesterday, I plead again today for the inclusion in the Treaty of a legal basis relating specifically to sport.
I am thinking here of a compatibility clause of the sort that exists in the cultural and environmental domains, a clause that would make it possible to take due account - and I stress the word 'due' - of the specific nature of sport in the formulation of the general policy or specific policies of the Community.
Mr President, Commissioner, the reason why the Commission submitted its proposal is to stop players being treated like a commodity, which can be bought by clubs because they are good players and, more to the point, because they can be sold on to other clubs for a great deal more money. I welcome this proposal with open arms.
Needless to say, this will cause problems, certainly in the short term, for smaller clubs in smaller footballing nations, such as the Netherlands.
But holding on to the current system would not solve the problem either.
A more structural solution would be if the media millions were better distributed.
I therefore hope with all my heart that the large clubs will realise that ultimately, without the small clubs, their future will be bleak too.
I would like to say the following on the transfer system. I back the Commission proposal but I do hope that it will make provision for recovering training expenses for players between the ages of 18 and 24, as, for example, is being proposed at the moment by FIFA, the international football association, and FIFPRO, the organisation for players.
I very much hope that UEFA, the European football union, will go along with this request and will stop being the last, self-appointed defender of a system which has created such absurd situations in the first place.
Mr President, sport, like culture, education and health, is gradually being hijacked by commercialisation and the so-called law of the market.
Three million people dancing attendance at major sporting events and huge profits for business have eclipsed the athletic ideal.
Fitness training and sport as a daily exercise and popular sport are in dire straits.
As long as the winners see 'sport plc' thriving, doping will increase, transfer fees will increase - another form of human trafficking in a modern capitalist society - and the problem of violence at football stadiums and various other signs of degeneration will increase.
Despite acknowledging that the main reason for the increase in doping is excessive commercialisation, the Commission is doing nothing to combat it.
How could it, when the entire structure of the European Union is built on the principle of 'there is nothing which cannot be bought or sold' ? It confines itself to half measures.
Studies, codes of conduct with passing references to controls.
If they intended, and really wanted, to combat doping, they would have already done so.
But it is not in the interests of the International Olympic Committee, the international federations, the sponsors who invest in sport or the pharmaceutical industry.
The two reports do contain positive elements, but they go so far, in the Zabell report, as to state that the pharmaceutical industry cares about the health of athletes and, in the Mennea report, as to suggest that Member States adopt practical measures in their legislation to encourage private investment in sport.
Unless we crack down on commercialisation, unless we erect barriers to speculation by big business, unless we introduce basic and efficient controls, nothing will change in sport.
We do not expect the European Union to take any such action, so we are struggling to develop a popular movement which will fight for modern sport to rediscover the principle of 'a healthy mind in a healthy body' .
Mr President, the over-commercialisation of sport has clearly led to the exploitation of many young athletes.
Proven cases of doping in sporting competitions have diminished the reputation of many sports in the eyes of the public.
At last, the International Olympic Committee has faced up to its obligations to combat the widespread use of drugs in sport.
Up to 2500 drug tests will be carried out during the Sydney games.
I welcome the IOC's announcement that heavy penalties will be imposed on sportsmen and women caught using drugs in Sydney this month and in the future.
The way to stop the use of drugs in sport should be coordinated on a worldwide basis.
The Union must continue to work through the World Anti-Doping Agency to ensure that uniform and structured guidelines are implemented for all sporting activities.
In conclusion, we should recall that the Treaty of Amsterdam emphasises the social significance of sport, but the European Union has no powers under the Treaty to take action on sport.
That is an issue that should be addressed in the ongoing discussions on the reform of Union policies and initiatives.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone acknowledges that sport is a means of personal development and a special opportunity to meet other people.
But does everyone see and recognise the different purposes of participation in sport? For some, it may be a question of keeping fit.
For others, it may be part of their personal education process, while for others it is the presentation of a spectacle or a quest for victory at all costs.
We all know that sport is a tremendous instrument of national cohesion and of social integration.
However, we are also aware that sport can sometimes be accompanied by horrific acts of violence, abominable racist outbursts and unacceptable strident nationalism.
And for all of these reasons, we cannot accept the idea that sport should be considered in its economic dimension alone.
Voluntary organisations and individual volunteers are every bit a part of the sporting world, and it is surely thanks to them that sport is alive in our countries and that mass sport will be able to survive in future.
Not every human act can be priced with a pocket calculator.
The effect of that approach on human relations is too dangerous for us to remain silent.
Where there is no money to be won and no obligation to show a profit, there may quite simply be the desire to share these special opportunities, and sport undoubtedly has its place - indeed its foremost place - in such encounters.
This quest for human bonds in an increasingly commercial society contains the seeds of resistance to the commercialisation of the world and of human relations.
We cannot accept this excessive striving for profits to the detriment of human development.
The protection of young sportspeople is a priority of the French Presidency.
It is our priority, and we must demand the prohibition of commercial transactions relating to these young people.
We must also, of course, provide for the introduction of sport into the Treaty - if not in the short term, then at least in the medium term.
It is certainly a challenge, but we must accept it for the sake of coming generations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, both rapporteurs speak from experience, as is evident from their first-rate reports.
As far as Mr Mennea' s report is concerned, I have attempted to highlight three points in the amendments which I tabled, and which have fortunately been adopted in the final motion for a resolution.
One is the importance of sport as a mental activity in order to learn a number of social skills.
Secondly, sport helps us appreciate activities in forma pauperis which involve minority groups that deserve more support, also at European level.
My third point serves as a warning against the yawning gap which can arise between top sport and smaller sports associations on the one hand and professional and amateur sport on the other.
In both cases, one very much relies on the other.
As to the question of whether sport should be dealt with at European level, I certainly believe it should.
Therefore, this report does not mark the end of the game, quite the reverse.
The role and impact sport has in society have become so enormous, and the entire sports scene is undergoing such change, that as far as the social debate is concerned, we are only just in the first heats, if at all.
The European Parliament needs to ensure that it is not left on the sidelines in this debate, but plays an active part so that we can help decide the shape of the game.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, action has to be taken in three directions.
First and foremost, we must wage a relentless fight against doping.
The financial and political commitment of all the countries of the European Union to the World Anti-Doping Agency is imperative, but it is not enough.
The most important thing is that governments should arm themselves with proper structures to combat doping.
France has marked out the path, and I should be interested to know how the President of the Council sees the interaction between the Agency and national initiatives.
We must also combat the excesses of the transfer system, especially the trade in young professional sportsmen.
Finally, we must strengthen the real driving forces of sport, namely the federations and sport at school.
I support the efforts to secure recognition of the key role of sports federations and to protect them from the depredations of financial and media giants.
Young people must be the main target in the rehabilitation of sport.
I support the call made by Mr Mennea in his report for sport to be accorded a higher status in the school curriculum as well as his plea that the specific nature of sport be enshrined in the Treaties, otherwise we shall tend to see sport as little more than another domain of free economic competition.
Is humanity regressing towards the decadence of ancient Rome?
Is competitive sport once again becoming a gladiatorial conflict, waged now by robotic humans armed with the latest bio- and cybertechnology and funded by politico-financial interests? The time has come for politicians and sporting authorities to exercise their responsibility.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam Minister, I am speaking on the Zabell and Mennea reports today in my dual role as a Member of the European Parliament and as president of a professional basketball club which takes part in the major European competitions.
I wish, first of all, to express my thanks and congratulations to the two rapporteurs for their excellent work, and I should also like to highlight the action of our colleague Doris Pack, who paved the way for the negotiation of the protocol on sport which is annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Doping is a scourge from which sport has to protect itself.
It undermines both fair play and genuine competition, and endangers the sportspeople who indulge in it.
I am personally shocked by the ease with which young sportsmen and women can supply themselves with performance-enhancing drugs, without being checked at all, through the Internet or in certain countries of the European Union.
Mrs Buffet has been tackling this issue in France, and I congratulate her for it.
Nevertheless, this evil can only be rooted out if it is combated at European and global levels, and I encourage the Union to work with the World Agency to that end.
The European Union must also rise to the challenge of the modernisation of sport.
The European Commission is questioning the system of transfers between clubs, believing it to be contrary to players' freedom of movement.
But the Commission is totally ignoring the distortion of competition between Member States, the social and fiscal disparity among professional sportsmen, which encourages the best of them to migrate to certain countries.
We in France should know, because out of our pool of 22 players for Euro 2000, no fewer than 20 have gone off to play in other countries of the Union.
This phenomenon falls under the heading of social and fiscal dumping, but the Commission, for all its high principles, does nothing to combat it.
Professional sportspeople are also preyed upon by numerous agents who have exclusive rights to negotiate their employment contracts.
Not only do the agents charge the players; they are also paid by the clubs, from which they extract commission, and I have first-hand knowledge of this.
These agents hand over their protégés to the highest bidder, like common merchandise, after having whipped up competition for the players' signatures in order to raise the bidding.
The abolition of transfers will induce agents to break their clients' contracts several times in the course of a year in order to earn new commission each time a new contract is signed.
The system of agents must be brought under control by the Union, or perhaps even scrapped.
I shall conclude by adding that sport must be brought within the scope of the Treaty Establishing the European Community.
I therefore appeal to all those who govern us, particularly to the French Government, which is currently guiding the work of the European Union, to ensure that the Intergovernmental Conference to be held at Nice in December confers a share of responsibility for this matter upon the European Union and involves Parliament in the implementation of this initiative through the codecision procedure.
Mr President, sport has become a magnificent form of international entertainment.
It is a source of inspiration for millions and huge sums of money are involved in it.
Thousands of Finnish people travel to Hungary to see Mika Häkkinen drive, while a Vietnamese hotel receptionist asks the right way to pronounce the name Jari Litmanen.
The importance of sport and exercise both for societies and for individuals must not, however, get buried under professionalism and commercialism.
Exercise is educationally important and vital for health.
Sports societies bring people together to do self-sacrificing voluntary work.
Along with the positive aspects, we have to remember the flip side of the coin - drugs, violence at sports events and the negative elements associated with player transfers.
To prevent these we need joint action on the part of the Union and a legal base for sport.
As we shape sports policy we have to take account of sport' s various structures.
For that reason, we must ensure that we continue to listen to sport' s NGOs at the Olympics in the wake of the sports conference held in 1999.
Finally, I would like to turn your attention to the need to improve levels of gender equality in sport and exercise.
The European Woman and Sport network conference held in June in Helsinki made recommendations which I hope will be taken into consideration at both national and Union level.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their exhaustive work, and I want to express my heartfelt thanks, too, to the President-in-Office of the Council and the Member of the Commission for their excellent speeches at the start of this sitting.
Mr President, the powerful role of sport in economic, social, and cultural terms and in terms of health cannot be denied.
It is incomprehensible why sport lacks a legal base in the European Union.
The European Parliament must frankly force the Commission and the Council to look at themselves in the mirror.
The status of sport must have a watertight definition produced for it at the next intergovernmental conference so that sports organisations can participate in decision-making on sport themselves.
As huge sums of money are involved in major sports, common rules and regulations should be drawn up to take account of the system' s basic pillars, sportsmen and the organisers of sporting events.
The interests of team-game players must be safeguarded, all the while honouring the principle of the free movement of labour, not forgetting financial reward for the so-called trainer associations.
We have to find a balance in the question of televising the most important sports events, one between the economic power of the organisers on the one hand, and the so-called public service principle on the other.
When we talk about drugs we have to make a clear distinction, as we do when it comes to any other discussion on sport, between keep-fit exercise and major sporting events.
The ethical problems associated with the latter are known to all.
Too little attention has been paid to the spread of the use of drugs among ordinary people who do sports, proof of which lies, for example, in the trade in banned substances which is rife in gyms generally.
The problem can be considered on a par with the narcotics problem, especially the use of synthetic drugs, so, simply out of concern for public health, the EU must do its bit to beat the problem.
Thank you Commissioner.
With regard to what has just happened, I am sorry, but, as you could see, it is very hard to make a speech when the Members are in the Chamber to vote.
I am sorry, but many Members did, however, listen attentively to you.
Some of them even gestured to me to resort to an Olympic sport - gavel-throwing - in order to silence certain other Members who were making too much noise.
Unfortunately though, I only have one gavel: I would have needed 80 or 100 to throw at all the Members who were not listening to your speech.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
I am sure the President would be prepared to convey her views to the appropriate authorities in the manner which you indicated.
The Heads of State and Government, meeting in the UN, observed a minute of silence in honour of the peacekeepers who died and I think it would be appropriate if this House did the same.
(The house rose and observed a minute's silence)
Mr President, I wish to support the sentiments expressed by Mr Seguro and to draw the Commission's attention to this issue.
On various occasions throughout this year I have emphasised the potentially premature nature of the new policy being adopted by the European Union towards Indonesia, given that it is particularly clear that there is a degree of uncertainty.
This has unfortunately become clear in recent weeks.
I have addressed various questions to the Commission on this subject, and the seriousness of yesterday's events, together with other facts such as the infiltration of militias into East Timor, clearly demonstrate that the situation is not yet safe.
The European Union must, once more, make its views known to the Indonesian Government as forcefully as possible, in particular through the channel of the European Commission.
We understand the difficulty of the situation in Indonesia, but it is essential to demand that the Indonesian Government should exercise its authority on its own territory.
We will only be able to change our attitude towards that country once democracy is effectively ensured in Indonesia and self-determination and peace are guaranteed on Timor.
I know that Viviane Reding is a very robust parliamentarian, as well as now a Commissioner and I am sure she managed to cope with it, but I take the point.
It is perfectly appropriate to make her an apology in writing.
Vote
This report has some positive aspects, in particular the restatement of the binding nature of the proposed measures to protect water quality.
But by granting deadlines, in particular a 20-year time-limit for banning discharges of hazardous substances, the report makes a nonsense of its own resolution.
That time-limit is equivalent to authorising undertakings to discharge their toxic substances for another 20 years.
Moreover, it is not made sufficiently clear that it is up to polluting undertakings to pay for any damage they have caused.
As for charging for water, the only decision that would be in the interests of the public would be a ban on all private profit-making from the supply and distribution of water, but that is not even mentioned in this report, which, in pillorying Ireland for its practice of publicly financing water provision, is instead at pains to stress the commercial nature of this vital substance.
That is why we abstained.
Although I support the report, I wish to make known certain reservations pertaining to same.
Ireland's derogation for domestic water charges is not as strong as I would want it to be.
The key provisions - Art. 9, paragraph 4 - state that a Member State "shall not be in breach of this Directive" if a decision not to introduce domestic water charges based on "established practice does not compromise the purposes and the achievement of the objectives of this Directive".
It follows from this paragraph that a decision not to impose water charges would be in breach of the Directive if it can be linked to the Irish Government's failure to meet the new standards.
I have no confidence, given the Irish Government's failure to date, that they will reach the standards set.
.
I support the Conciliation Agreement which has been agreed by the European Parliament and the European Council on the Framework Directive on Water.
This Directive provides a framework for consolidating legislation which has been in existence at national and European level concerning the whole area of the safety of surface water and ground water.
The core elements of this Directive ensure the protection of surface water, coastal water, internal waste and ground water now and into the future.
The European Council, which represents the fifteen Governments of the EU, originally did not include any provisions relating to the elimination of hazardous substances in this new Water Directive.
I am supporting this Conciliation Agreement, which guarantees that the elimination of hazardous substances will now feature in this Directive and addresses this imbalance.
From an Irish perspective, we make the working assumption that the elimination of hazardous substances includes the prohibition on discharging radioactive substances as well.
Water pricing was always going to be a sensitive aspect to this Directive.
This Directive now calls on Member States to take account of the principle of the recovery of the cost of water services, including environmental and resource costs, in accordance with the polluter-pays principle.
Member States must ensure by 2010 that water pricing policies will provide an adequate incentive for users to use water resources efficiently.
Member States will be allowed on an exceptional basis to opt out of the obligation of cost recovery if this is based on established national practices.
Water pricing policy is also a taxation issue.
Under existing EU Treaties such tax changes require the unanimous support of all EU Governments.
It is only right and proper that this matter of taxation is left in the domain of Member States, which must have the final say as to what taxation policies, at local or national level, it wishes to pursue.
As a result of the implementation of this Directive, the safety of water quality standards in Europe will substantially improve.
.
(DE) With its communication "Pricing policies for enhancing the sustainability of water resources", the European Commission is seeking to harmonise and give practical form to the economic provisions of the EC framework directive on water resources.
The Commission's proposal to monitor observance of the break-even principle by means of price surveillance is aimed at those EU Member States that still heavily subsidise their water industries.
In contrast, in Germany the break-even principle is already being implemented, as is monitoring of unfair practices by the cartel office and by local authorities.
Against this background, the framework directive on water resources and the Commission proposal on water pricing should not be used to create further layers of bureaucratic supervision in Germany.
Furthermore, the provisions on the charging of environmental and resource costs associated with water use are aimed at those Member States that still make excessive use of and pollute their water resources, and therefore not at Germany, where exceptional efforts are already being made in this respect.
The provisions of the framework directive on this point do not, therefore, provide any grounds for introducing a universal water or sewage tax in Germany, for example.
In view of the non-binding nature of the economic provisions of the framework directive on water resources and the Commission communication, there is a danger that there will be a considerable delay in implementing these provisions in the countries actually being targeted, if they are, in fact, implemented there at all.
If, as has already been the case with the transposition of other directives, Germany, the 'model pupil' , goes its own way, this would heighten the distortions in competition between the national water industries in the EU still further, thus running counter to the aim of the directive, which is to create a uniform framework for Europe's water industry.
Germany has to learn to implement EU provisions in accordance with the objectives of the directive, not as individual Länder would like.
With the EU framework directive on water resources we will once again see individual countries going their own way.
The framework directive on water has finally been adopted - very welcome news.
Ever since 1997 the European Parliament has been calling for the piecemeal nature of water legislation in Europe to be brought to an end.
After nearly four years, these rationalisation attempts have finally borne fruit.
The conciliation between Parliament and the Council of Ministers, the final stage in the legislative procedure, has enabled what I consider a balanced and satisfactory compromise to be reached.
The discussions were difficult, but I am happy that the Council finally agreed to make the main objectives of these new rules binding.
Our Parliament could not have endorsed a text which was nothing more than a statement of intent.
The PPE/DE Group has always taken an ambitious and realistic stance.
In my view, it was essential for this new framework directive to guarantee, in the future and for the sake of future generations, improvements in European water quality.
Henceforth, water management in Europe will be based on the principle of a hydrographical district, a body that goes beyond the administrative boundaries of Member States and takes account of the real water situation in Europe.
The objective is gradually to eliminate discharges of hazardous substances, within 20 years of their identification.
That is a realistic compromise between, on the one hand, Mrs Lienemann' s initial position in favour of a zero level of discharges into water and, on the other, the position of the Council, which was opposed to any binding objective.
A list of what are called 'priority' substances will be submitted to the European Parliament in the near future.
That will be a vital step and I hope our Parliament will be able to follow the same line as today.
Under the polluter-pays principle, the Member States will have to incorporate environmental costs in water pricing.
That is real progress.
Water is a vulnerable and invaluable natural resource.
Public health and long-term supplies are at stake just as much as biological diversity and landscape conservation.
For all these reasons, I voted for this text.
Nevertheless, I am sorry that we could not keep the article allowing Member States to transfer water in the form in which we had adopted it at second reading.
That kind of project complies with the principle of regional cohesion and solidarity that we have always upheld.
In that sense, it deserves strong EU support, in the context of promoting trans-European networks and regional policy.
All proposals aimed at improving the environment in Europe are to be welcomed.
Trying to incorporate piecemeal water policies in one framework directive represents a considerable challenge.
The binding commitment the European Union has made to its Member States to eliminate discharges of hazardous substances into water within 20 years is certainly a step forward, even if 3 years are enough for certain chemical products.
Although we welcome the introduction of water management plans based on hydrographic basins, we must remain vigilant when applying these policies; here I am thinking particularly of the project to divert water from the Rhone basin towards Spain.
In that specific case, priority should be given to water management and the water savings that can be made, before massive projects to transfer water from one hydrographic basin to another are proposed.
The European Union now also needs to consider water pricing.
It is unacceptable for multinationals alone to fix water prices, on the pretext that they are providing a technical water management service.
This directive represents a step in the right direction, but there will have to be more precise rules to reduce water pollution upstream.
Florenz report (A5-0212/2000)
Mr President, I voted in favour of the Conciliation Committee' s definitive decision on the directive on end-of-life vehicles.
I voted in favour, not just because pensioners and elderly people who have reached a certain age feel that their fate is similar to that of cars, but, above all, because it is right and proper that, at last, thanks to Europe' s initiative, a solution has been found to the problem of where to put cars when they do not work any more.
I would, however, suggest improving on our decision, by providing for the payment of a deposit when a new car is purchased, to be returned when the old car is brought back.
I welcome the agreement which has been secured between the European Parliament and the European Council which represents the fifteen Governments of the European Union on this specific directive.
We know that each year within the EU there are up to nine million vehicles that are scrapped on an annual basis.
This directive, which will now be enacted uniformly across the European Union, will ensure that cars will be disposed of in the future in a more environmentally friendly manner.
All vehicles within the European Union must now be fully recyclable by the year 2015.
This is only right and proper because the European Union has both national and international obligations to implement more environmentally friendly legislation.
Up to 75% of all metallic components in new vehicles can be recycled as metal scrap.
This process should and must continue in an effort to promote higher environmental standards.
This directive aims to increase the scope for vehicle recycling and to encourage the re-use of car components.
This can be achieved by improving the construction of various commercial motor vehicles and by setting up dismantling facilities throughout the European Union.
The common position established the right for the last owner to return a vehicle to a treatment facility free of charge.
There is an obligation on manufacturers to bear the whole or a large part of the cost of implementing these measures and for them to take back end-of-life vehicles at no charge to the last owner.
It was agreed at conciliation between the European Parliament and the fifteen Governments of the EU that this provision should now apply from 1 January 2007.
However, any Member State within the EU is free to implement this specific provision of this directive earlier than this date.
Car manufacturers, the suppliers of materials and equipment manufacturers must make an effort to limit the use of hazardous substances.
We must all ensure that recycled materials can be used in the manufacture of cars at the design stage.
The European Parliament and the European Council at conciliation have also agreed that all vehicles placed on the market after 1 July 2003 should not contain any heavy metals such as cadmium or lead.
Car manufacturers must also provide information on the rate of re-use, recycling and recovery of used cars which will be achieved within the coming years.
In conclusion, I have had much representation in Ireland on the need to take cognisance of the special vintage car industry in Europe.
At the request of the European Parliament, collector's vehicles will now be expressly excluded from the scope of this directive.
This is very important in light of the key social and economic role the vintage car sector plays in promoting tourism across the length and breadth of Europe.
We conservatives seldom vote against conciliations.
We cannot, however, support the compromise reached in the conciliation group concerning the way in which end-of-life vehicles are to be dealt with.
The compromise contains retroactive measures, and we cannot back a legislative text which alters the rules retrospectively.
Retroactive legislation affects competition and is unacceptable from a legal point of view.
.
(FR) I have spoken several times previously on this complex subject involving quite considerable economic interests, but also, and above all, the protection of the environment.
The proposal for a directive on end-of-life vehicles, submitted in 1997, is aimed at preventing the creation of scrap from vehicles and promoting the re-use, recycling and recovery of vehicles and their components, so as to reduce the amount of scrap produced by end-of-life vehicles that are dumped or incinerated without any energy recovery.
The European Commission' s strategy is based on measures such as increasing the percentage of re-usable components, ensuring an adequate number of collection points for end-of-life vehicles, achieving a number of objectives regarding the re-use and recovery of end-of-life vehicles, checks on the use of certain heavy metals in vehicle manufacture and ensuring that the cost of disposing of end-of-life vehicles is not borne by the last owner.
The negotiations came up against stumbling blocks on several points.
The difficulties focused on producer liability and the treatment of heavy metals.
After several hours of conciliation, the negotiators managed to reach agreement.
On the question of producer liability, the directive stipulated that the last owner would be able to return an end-of-life vehicle free of charge and required producers to bear a substantial part of the cost of treating end-of-life vehicles.
The compromise provides that for new vehicles, i.e. for those put on the market after 1 July 2002, producers should be liable from that date.
For existing vehicles, i.e. vehicles put on the market before 1 July 2002, producer liability would begin in 2007 rather than 2006.
The directive would also allow Member States to introduce these provisions before the dates specified.
On the question of heavy metals, the Council and Parliament have agreed that vehicles put on the market after 1 July 2003 should no longer contain heavy metals such as cadmium, lead or hexavalent chromium.
The two delegations reached agreement on the exceptions set out in Annex 2 of the directive.
Apart from that, I am glad that Parliament' s call for vintage cars to be excluded from the scope of the directive was favourably received.
.
(FR) The compromise that came out of the conciliation procedure, the final legislative stage, is the result of hard negotiations between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
Far from being satisfactory, I see it merely as a first step, although it does, in some respects, go in the right direction.
While I welcome the figured objectives that have been set (by 2006, 85% of the weight of vehicles produced after 1980 is to be recycled, re-used or recovered, and 95% by 2015) I regret the hypocrisy of some of the provisions advocated by the PSE and supported by the Socialist and Social-democratic Governments.
The Council of Ministers has, in fact, remained inflexible about allowing the owner to return his end-of-life vehicle free of charge.
That is a demagogic provision.
It may well be based on goodwill towards the consumer, but it is totally unrealistic.
In fact, the directive stipulates that the cost of treatment will be borne entirely by the producers. The latter are bound to pass on at least part of these costs to the purchase price of new vehicles.
So, far from encouraging the purchase of a new generation of less polluting vehicles, this measure is a hidden bonus for those who own the most polluting old vehicles.
The Council of Ministers finally responded to the wishes of the MEPs, who had been calling since the first reading, for vintage vehicles to be expressly excluded from the scope of this directive.
The amendment I tabled and supported has, in fact, been fully incorporated into the final text.
In wider terms, this directive is not ambitious enough.
For example, it says nothing at all about the problem of the dumped cars that disfigure the landscape.
Despite the polluter-pays principle, it is the taxpayers who bear the cost of removing them.
It is a pity that neither this directive nor the directive on the disposal of waste has concerned itself with this problem, which, after all, has disastrous environmental effects in much of Europe.
De Roo report (A5-0218/2000)
Mr President, following this directive, tyres will be quieter: cars, lorries and road trains will make less noise as they drive along roads and motorways.
That is good news, because pensioners like peace and quiet.
Nevertheless, four weeks ago, Mr President, I was crossing the road near the Gare du Nord in Brussels, and a shiver went down my spine because it was night, you could have heard a pin drop, and I saw a tram pass behind me in complete silence.
Thankfully, God wanted me to be here so I could give my explanations of votes and I was not hurt.
But are we really sure that less noisy tyres are really in everyone' s best interests?
We can only congratulate our colleague, Mr de Roo, and support him in his efforts to include noise pollution in the context of protecting the environment.
Unfortunately, the impact of the increase in road traffic density is not limited to pollution from end-of-life vehicles and their recycling, something that has not yet been resolved in spite of its worldwide nature, or to the damage and harm this does to the air we breathe, or even to the serious resultant global warming.
Road traffic also produces considerable, incessant noise pollution, which millions of people living beside roads and motorways as well as the humble pedestrian have to suffer on a daily basis.
So, the purpose of Mr de Roo' s proposals is to highlight a form of pollution that is generally overshadowed by others, and here we support him fully.
But let us not forget that we must also set out more general requirements in relation to pollution from cars, which are becoming increasingly prevalent in developed societies and in our towns, and let us put pressure on the Commission to introduce policies to shift traffic off the roads and onto the railways and public transport.
The Strasbourg tram is a clear illustration of this.
.
(NL) For a long time now, the use of cars for transporting people and goods has been such a matter of course that we have given little thought to the effect this has had on many people and the environment.
We only saw the economic gain and how convenient it was for the car driver, not the drawbacks.
Exhaust fumes and the lack of traffic safety were accepted as part of the deal, as well as the noise cars generate.
Fortunately, over the past few years, this attitude has started to change.
Many cities give bicycles and trains more space and restrict the freedom of cars.
This does not end the problems caused by cars and lorries.
The number of cars is still on the increase, as is the proportion of freight transport by road, and with it, noise pollution.
Looking at it through the eyes of the car industry, it is evident that manufacturers will pass the buck.
They will look to the road owner - in general the Government - to increase safety and to reduce environmental pollution.
As long as the car industry succeeds in doing this, they, themselves, do not have to look into reducing pollution caused by cars, or incur any additional costs as a result.
In their opinion, noise pollution should be countered by using 'very open asphalt concrete' , a road surface which, however, can turn unexpectedly slippery overnight when frosty.
What matters now is that a choice should be made between the interests of the car and the car-tyre industries on the one hand, and the interests of the public and the environment on the other.
Far too often, we see that the short-term interests of powerful industrial groups are given priority, whilst the majority of our electorate increasingly sets different requirements for political decision-making.
Protecting the quality of our life, rather than making a fast buck, is gaining in importance all the time.
This contrast was highlighted once again during the debate on car tyres.
Mr De Roo was right in demonstrating that the regulation proposed by the Commission will not sufficiently improve matters, and that it is technically possible to reduce pollution by a few decibels.
This simply requires the political will to put sufficient regulations in place, to monitor compliance with the regulations and not to allow too much leeway.
The Group of the European United Left has constantly backed Mr De Roo in this.
We regret that his reasonable and self-evident proposals cannot count on the general approval they deserve.
Mankind moves, and moves other objects.
Movement creates noise.
Our amazing age of movement, to which we also owe our sense of freedom, is a noisy one.
It is our freedom that creates noise.
The states, and also industry, are working to combat this noise pollution, which can cause illness.
The industry endorses the legislator' s resolve to make transport, the movement of people and goods, which is a cornerstone of free movement, safer and less polluting.
We are aware of the progress made in road holding, in resistance to wear and tear, in reducing fuel consumption, but for known technical reasons the investments in research and technology do not yet allow all the rapporteur' s demands to be reconciled.
Global performance is estimated according to a range of often conflicting criteria that are well-known to tyre-manufacturers.
Yet we chose not to support the rapporteur because the amendments he has proposed will adversely affect safety, our safety, the life span of tyres and their road-holding properties.
We condemn these amendments, which would lead to what I would also call a nonsense in industrial terms.
Yet again, the Union is putting the devil in the detail.
And I will never cease to be surprised at the areas the Commission pokes around in and finds reason to legislate on.
Noise in all its forms may well be a scourge in our town centres, around our airports, on our roads, yet surely we should put road safety first.
Anyway, what do we find most annoying on a day-to-day basis?
Is it the muffled sound of tyres in contact with the road, or the sudden acceleration of vehicles and the roar of powerful motorcycles? It would be better to do some in-depth research on road surface noise and dangers.
Let us not lose our sense of priorities and, what I would term, legislative efficiency.
Bakopoulos report (A5-0168/2000)
Mr President, I also voted for the Bakopoulos report because it is certainly right to exercise a certain amount of caution when placing products on the market which could be harmful to us all.
But I would suggest that we are going too far with these directives, and that we are taking up too much of Parliament' s time discussing such technical subjects, such technically important subjects. Would it not be preferable to authorise the Commission to decide in a single directive which new harmful elements should be marketed, thereby avoiding spending so much time on each occasion that this comes up, going through the procedures to ban the placing on the market of new products yet again?
AIDS:
We voted for the joint resolution on AIDS, because if it produced any effects, and there is no guarantee of this, it would mean progress.
Yet we do not always agree with the wording, in particular of the recital that implicates only the African Governments or cultural and religious traditions that obstruct the effective implementation of anti-AIDS measures. That may be true, but at the same time it is a way of concealing the responsibility of an entire health system dominated by pharmaceutical trusts and the race for profit.
The reason people die in Africa, as in many poor countries, of malaria, bilharzia, tuberculosis or even just measles is not because of religious obstacles but because the people who are ill can afford neither medicines or care.
Telecommunications:
We voted against the joint resolution on mergers in the telecommunications sector.
This resolution, in fact, does away with any idea of public service in considering that this sector, like others, should be based on 'an open market economy with competition' .
Moreover, the vague reference to the 'guarantee of growth and employment' will certainly not protect workers against the likelihood of redundancies as a result of future mergers.
No binding rules are being envisaged to prevent companies from laying off workers on the pretext of restructuring, whereas the truth is that they are seeking to boost their profits.
Furthermore, obviously we do not propose to join in the ode to 'effective competition' contained in this resolution.
Once again communication is being regarded purely as a commodity from which to derive the highest possible profit.
We reject that approach, which disregards people' s social needs.
The ever-increasing influx of private capital into public operators that have become multinationals is now encouraging these operators to wage a ruthless economic war.
This means a way of sharing out the world markets that gives priority to the more profitable areas and leads to unfair pricing, quite apart from job losses and job insecurity for hundreds of thousands of workers.
The national and European political authorities must therefore impose public service constraints on all these operators, whatever their origin, for example:
for fixed telecommunications: lower charges for local calls, which in France make up 83% of the average bill of private individuals;
for mobile communications: in addition to lower charges, total coverage of the territory, even if it means using satellite links in inaccessible places;
for rapid Internet access: in addition to a radical reduction in charges, a timetable for the complete coverage of the territory.
At a time of indecent, record profits, that is how to include communication among the fundamental rights respected by a quality public service.
Human cloning:
Mr President, the majority of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has voted in favour of this resolution.
In the debate in the Chamber yesterday on cloning, I heard a number of people more or less clearly defending cloning for the purposes of medical treatment, on the grounds that this would be quite different from cloning for reproductive purposes.
Unfortunately, there is a tendency now to engage in a new semantic debate or strategy of this kind which would lead to a watering down of the moral implications of cloning human beings.
Those who do not wish to permit any form of cloning would be viewed as immoral in the sense that we would be allowing people to suffer from diseases such as Parkinson' s which would be curable if only the ban on gene technology were lifted.
This is a completely absurd assertion which I think ought to be withdrawn.
Researchers throughout the world have said that Parkinson' s disease and other serious illnesses can perfectly well be cured by other methods.
We also heard Emma Bonino say that politicians must take risks, but we in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance believe that it is our absolute duty as elected representatives to identify the risks and to be careful.
In this connection, I should also like to ask the Group of the Party of European Socialists why they have not called on Tony Blair to withdraw the whole proposal, but are content to request that a committee on biotechnology be set up.
We must observe the precautionary principle, in this case more so than ever.
We must ask ourselves the most important question of all.
For what purpose should we clone human beings? I believe we must realise that there is a race going on in the field of genetic technology, which means that there is a great risk of overstepping the limits in a quite horrifying way.
The technology is developing incredibly fast now.
We cannot just content ourselves with this debate.
Rather, we must push the debate further and speed it up, whilst also observing the precautionary principle.
I was one of the 237 MEPs who voted for the resolution tabled by the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats on human cloning.
Science has always had two sides to it: it has always been the case that discoveries can be used for our benefit or against us: the wheel can be used to move us around more quickly or to kill people; revolvers can be used to defend or murder people; atomic energy can improve our lives or make atomic bombs.
In the case of cloning research, I wonder whether, in actual fact, a decision has already been made to do something to harm humanity rather than waiting for unbiased research to generate scientific results and only then deciding how to use them. It would have been better if Europe were able to decide and not just one Head of State.
Mr President, given the conflicting viewpoints on the therapeutic cloning of humans, we can imagine that a great deal of restraint will be needed when applying this new technique.
Commercial and industrial cloning, or cloning in order to create people with certain characteristics is unacceptable in everyone' s book, and rightly so.
Nevertheless, we are today dealing with two conflicting points of view.
Within the GUE/NGL Group, it has been left up to the conscience of the individual members as to how they wish to vote.
In my opinion, the difference between the views of the Christian Democrats and the Greens on the one hand and the Social Democrats and Liberals on the other hand is that the former emphasise the penal implications for the medical profession, whilst the latter focus on the need for further research into the effects.
I myself endorse the latter.
A solution needs to be found for people who need a new heart, a new kidney or liver, as well as for people suffering from Parkinson' s disease.
This too is a question of ethics.
My party, the Socialist Party in the Netherlands, exercises utmost reserve with regard to cloning and genetic manipulation.
From this perspective, I have been able to support the alternative put forward by the Social Democrats and Liberals rather than that put forward by the Christian Democrats and Greens which goes for all-out rejection.
Moreover, it appears as though it will be possible, within the next couple of years, to use the recipients own brain stem cells to grow organs which are not rejected by their bodies.
I very much prefer this technique over and above the circuitous route developed in Great Britain, which is based on the reproductive technique.
Mr President, together with the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities and the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, I voted in favour of all parts of the resolution from the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats.
I am extremely pleased about the decision taken.
At the same time, I am concerned about the narrow majority by which the resolution was adopted: 237 votes in favour, 230 votes against and 43 abstentions.
I presented a text concerning the unique, equal and inviolable dignity of human life when the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which was adopted almost unanimously by this Parliament, was referred to us for consideration.
It is important that we be guided by the view of human life which has characterised this Europe of ours for more than a thousand years.
Civilisation and humanity show their character most clearly in the way in which they treat life when it is defenceless.
We must say no to the cloning of human beings.
Human beings are subjects, not objects.
Mr President, I think it is a great achievement in human rights terms that we have succeeded in giving a signal with this resolution - a signal that it is not acceptable for embryos to be deliberately created for research purposes.
And I think that this resolution makes it clear that human life must not become a kind of consumer item.
But I, too, am unhappy about the small majority in favour of this motion for a resolution.
I hope that this is just because of tactical games on the part of the Socialist Group.
I have to say that I think their behaviour here has been shameful.
There have been calls for a temporary committee without it being made clear that Tony Blair is delaying his decision until this committee comes to a conclusion.
This smacks of contradiction.
It is shameful, to say the least, to ditch all your principles out of loyalty to Blair.
I would like to stress once again that we have always said that this is about 'therapeutic cloning' .
We have the alternative of using human stem cells to achieve the same result.
But I also hope that the Commission will now have the courage to act on the demands we have made in this resolution, by refusing to grant research funding to establishments which use these means directly or indirectly.
Mr President, this morning our group discussed our attitude to paragraph 5 of the motion for a resolution on cloning, which states that there can be no difference made between cloning for reproductive purposes and any other sort.
The matter is a controversial one and depends very much on one' s chosen perspective.
There are two points of view, with no real great difference between them.
In the first place, technically speaking it is a question of the same sort of procedure.
Secondly, philosophically speaking, if the action is examined from the point of view of the foetus, there is no difference at all.
In either case it is being used as a tool, as something to use, and not as a living being with intrinsic value.
Everyone is touchingly unanimous in their opinion that cloning for purposes of reproduction is unethical.
My own profound concern relates to what grounds we have for preventing it, and I am someone who has studied philosophy.
Are our arguments later to be abandoned on the basis of the fact that we actually already clone anyway, technically speaking?
Does our purpose matter in the end, if the deed is the same? I voted against Amendment No 5 today only because, in my opinion, it would have required justification.
However, I do not think that there are any grounds for making a distinction from the point of view of technical methods or the foetus.
For that reason, discrimination such as this cannot be approved without the proper kind of thorough discussion.
.
(EL) My group, the European United Left, did not support either of the two motions.
We disagree with the proposal by the European People' s Party because, behind its total opposition to human cloning, it is merely taking up its familiar stand against abortion.
On the other hand, we are not covered by the Socialists' position because it does not take a stand against the decision by the British Government, which has paved the way for cloning for medical purposes, thus giving the American administration the green light to take similar action, as demanded by the biotechnological industry.
We believe that, without wasting any time, what we can do today on such a complicated and difficult issue is to set up a temporary parliamentary committee on bioethics to give us the basis for a substantiated, in-depth discussion of the problem of medical embryonic research resulting from human cloning.
Therapeutic cloning entails creating an embryo by cloning only to destroy it afterwards, in order to remove cells for medical research purposes and, later perhaps, with a view to curing currently fatal diseases.
So the intention cannot be said to be a bad one.
The method, however, is highly questionable, for at least two reasons. First, a life is created (either by using a surplus embryo originally destined to create a new human being, or by using a cloned embryo), and then it is destroyed to save another one.
Do we have the right to create in this way categories of sub-humans that can be manipulated at will? Quite obviously, I think not.
Secondly, although everyone agrees that human cloning must be condemned in general, some people are trying to draw a distinction between 'reproductive cloning' (aimed at reproducing a complete human being), which would be banned, and 'therapeutic cloning' , which could be authorised under supervision, subject to certain limits, and provided it is not carried out for commercial purposes.
But that is an artificial distinction, since it is based on the intention behind the cloning, whereas the act itself is identical in both cases: therapeutic cloning also essentially involves the reproduction of embryos by cloning.
All cloning is by definition reproductive.
The cloning of embryos for research purposes, or even the mere use of surplus embryos for these purposes, would amount to crossing an invisible boundary beyond which the exploitation of human life would become acceptable.
We would be entering a different society, one contrary to our values.
One solution to this dilemma would be to speed up research into the possibility of obtaining stem cells from adult organs, which could be clearly earmarked for therapeutic purposes, as called for in the resolution tabled by our fellow Members, Elisabeth Montfort and Nicole Thomas-Mauro.
That kind of procedure would be acceptable, since it is comparable to organ donation.
Looking ahead, that suggests that perhaps our current questions concern only a transitional stage in the research.
At any rate, we hope so.
Unfortunately, the working party, which has dubbed itself a 'Convention' , responsible for preparing the first draft of a Charter of Fundamental Human Rights is about to take a wrong turning here.
Article 3 of the draft, as it stands, confines itself to prohibiting 'the reproductive cloning of human beings' , i.e. it perpetuates the false distinction that we reject.
I tabled an amendment on this point, together with a few other Members, but although it was worded in very moderate terms, it has not, to date, been accepted.
Really, from whatever angle we look at this Charter, it is impossible to find any virtue in it whatsoever.
Throughout the ages, mankind has had to consider how to guide scientific developments so as to bring them in line with ethical and social choices.
This issue is all the more sensitive when it concerns human beings and genetic foundations.
We must, therefore, be extremely cautious, without going so far as to be obscurantist.
Given the present state of our knowledge and of the ethical debate, and in view of the UK Government' s unacceptable authorisation of human cloning, the first thing we must seek is a total and absolute moratorium on all experiments in human cloning.
The second, after hearing the opinion of the European Committee on Ethics, is to define clear guidelines that guarantee human dignity.
As they stand at present, I do not like any of the resolutions submitted by the groups.
The Socialist Group is not calling strongly enough for an immediate stop to all human cloning.
The PPE Group seems to be making a final judgment on such sensitive points of discussion as the distinction between reproductive and other cloning.
In my opinion, however, I think it would be useful to obtain an analysis from the European Committee on Ethics on these points, in order to clarify the issues.
The urgent nature of the subject should have demanded an effective approach:
an immediate and absolute moratorium;
in-depth reflection and a very wide-ranging basic debate prior to a directive laying down the rules to be adopted.
That is not the case with the resolutions put to the vote today.
I will therefore abstain on these motions for resolution.
There are some issues on which political differences should be set aside, not to make it appear as though a consensus could be reached but because they face everyone right across the board.
And if there were to be only one such issue, without doubt it would be the defence and promotion of human life and dignity.
Over the past few decades, scientific research has made enormous strides and given hope to those suffering from illness or disabilities and to their families.
Yet at the same time, some of this research and some of the scientists involved in it seem to have lost sight of what I would call a just and sound scale of values.
It is therefore up to those responsible for the common good, especially in the moral and political field, to put right certain abuses.
This applies to the British and American decisions to permit, respectively, cloning and the use of what are called unplanned 'supernumerary' embryos, in both cases for therapeutic purposes.
This raises a great many, closely related, problems.
There are not two kinds of cloning, reproductive and therapeutic. We must continue to prohibit the creation of human embryos endowed with the same genetic make-up as another human being, for whatever purpose.
Indeed, no human law that is not criminal can ever deny the fact that the embryo represents the beginning of life.
So it is unjustifiable to destroy an embryo under any circumstances, even to cure someone who is ill, for how could anyone decently justify destroying one human being in order to cure another?
Similarly, and more generally, life is an indivisible whole, it is present from the moment of conception and as such, is no longer subject to any human wishes.
Does the recognition of life depend on whether it is planned?
Certainly, as responsible individuals, the potential parents have to give some thought, before conception, to having a child; but once conceived, that child exists and any manipulation of it, let alone planning its destruction for whatever reason, is an infringement of its fundamental rights and, in the worst case, a crime.
It was a good thing that our Parliament took a clear stance on these abuses and thus, even if against the wishes of some of its Members, opted for life.
- (DE) I abstained in the vote on the PPE/Greens/EFA motion for a resolution on human cloning.
I think it is right to take a stand against the decision taken by the British Parliament.
It has been stressed that the European Parliament is standing by its decision to ban cloning, and consequently also to withhold all funding for clone research.
However, I regard paragraphs 6 and 8 in particular as very dangerous, because the medical claims being made for biotechnology are taken at face value here, although the results so far have at best been contradictory.
By calling for further research into gene therapy and other forms of genetic engineering, the European Parliament is treading on very thin ice, particularly as there is not a word about the risks or about unsuccessful experiments, nor are they subjected to any kind of political assessment, all of which would cast some doubt on the unreservedly positive claims being made.
This expression of the European Parliament' s views on the cloning of embryos may represent a success in the short term.
However, I fear that totally uncritical calls for more medical genetic engineering could in the long term completely undermine this success and even reverse the situation completely.
They could open the door wider for technology whose implications are completely unknown.
The recent decision by the Governments of the United Kingdom and the United States of America to allow the cloning of human embryos, in order to create 'spare part stores' for bones and vital organs, raises huge questions and problems.
This decision was taken before giving due consideration to numerous crucial medical, moral and social issues.
No one disputes the fact that rapid developments in genetic and molecular biology have opened up new paths for science, reduced the gulf between the impossible and the feasible and given us hope that we can combat the diseases and illnesses which are the scourge of mankind.
At the same time, however, and precisely because biomedical science has incalculable potential and a tremendous ability to penetrate every aspect of human life and development, turning dreams to nightmares, both the scientific community and society as a whole at all levels need to address the urgent and vital question of who should have control of this new, highly powerful scientific 'weapon' and why?
Where capitalism in its most unadulterated and depressing form and the unbridled market economy rule, there is a fine, indiscernible line between the scientific motives and speculative madness of the multinational pharmaceutical monopolies.
It is criminal for issues which impinge on human existence itself, on life and death, to be commercialised beyond the bounds of any social or political control.
The rapid rate of advance in this area, with crucial questions unanswered and matters of capital importance pending, is fraught with danger, given the huge economic interests hiding behind this endeavour.
The 'therapeutic cloning' plan will be the spark that kindles the fire since no one can guarantee that limited and specific use will be made of cloning.
The cloning of embryos could become the 'Trojan horse' which rekindles attempts to clone or 'counterfeit' human beings, with unpredictable and possibly dramatic consequences for the human race, and it must be averted.
The biggest risk is not inherent in the power of science but in the erroneous and uncontrolled exploitation and application of science.
And when these activities are conducted in the context of the profit motive and its obscure interests, then we must be especially attentive and constantly vigilant.
Lucas report (A5-0187/2000)
Mr President, this is the second time today that we have talked about a report which will help us all to sleep, particularly the elderly.
How could we not support this report which aims to reduce the noise of aeroplanes which come and go from airports surrounded by the homes of many people, who are certainly disturbed at night but also during the day?
However, allow me to put forward a proposal pertaining to this: that, in future, we try to build lots of small airports in isolated, uninhabited areas instead of a few enormous ones in state capitals.
At a time when France has entered a conflict with the main users of diesel oil (truckers, farmers, ambulance drivers), which risks spreading around Europe with the escalation in fuel prices, at a time when negotiations have begun in Lyon on implementing the Kyoto Protocol, with all its provisions that need to be adopted in The Hague to combat emissions of greenhouse gases, we can see how far we still have to go at all levels to shift away from modes of transport that pollute and damage the environment towards environmentally sustainable ones that make a real contribution to the fight against greenhouse gas emissions.
In that sense, Mrs Lucas' report sets out the positive measures that will help reduce pollution in air transport including, in particular, the phasing out of the loudest aircraft.
At the same time, it raises practical and political problems, namely the obstacles of air transport policies and their adverse environmental impact.
Europe' s measures to reduce greenhouse gases are being blocked by the fact that it has excluded air transport, a major CO2 producer, from the Kyoto Protocol and the plans to reduce pollutants.
A tax on kerosene, environmental charges, zero VAT rating of air tickets: these are all points that need to be considered in order to establish fair competition between the different modes of transport.
My group has just voted in favour of the Lucas report, because of the following considerations. A massive warming of the earth's atmosphere in coming years because of emissions of carbon dioxide and other harmful gases was recently forecast, once again by the World Wide Fund For Nature.
This calls for an immediate response in the form of a rational policy and an economic system that is not solely geared towards short-term profit.
With an estimated share of 15%, air transport is, of course, not the only cause of air pollution and by no means the most important. However, bearing in mind the forecast doubling of air traffic by 2015 within the EU alone, it is positively essential for the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament to take joint measures to limit the environmentally harmful impact of air traffic.
These measures need to cover the whole range of harmful impacts, including emissions, noise, and poor air traffic management and town and country planning, and to take account of the economic interests of airlines in a balanced way.
We support setting rigid limit values for emissions and noise pollution and the EU initiative being called for at the forthcoming 33rd ICAO Assembly.
And should the outcome of the ICAO Assembly be unsatisfactory, we are therefore also calling for the EU to set its own limits.
Measures of this kind can and must encourage the air transport industry to develop new technological solutions, and more efficient, cleaner and quieter jet turbines.
The twentieth century has witnessed some tremendous technological progress, especially in the field of transport and other long-distance communication.
This has created two holy cows: the car and the aircraft.
Those who seek material gain from cars or aircraft are prepared to subordinate everything to their freedom to use these modes of transport, and overlook the adverse effects on their fellow human beings and the environment.
Aviation and airports have now become a privileged sector. They are largely exempt from taxes and environmental rules.
This is why they can offer their services comparatively cheaply, even if the airfares are high on journeys governed by a near-monopoly.
For this reason alone, aviation can win the unfair competitive battle against the railways, which have lost a large part of their share of international passenger transport to other modes of long-distance travel, especially aviation.
As a result, cross-border railways are having to rely increasingly on privatisation plans and major investments in the high-speed network.
These measures, however, have a number of detrimental effects on the public and the environment, effects which would not have emerged without the competition from aviation.
It is high time that aviation met normal environmental requirements of the kind that are in place for all other sectors, in order to protect the public and the environment against noise, emission of harmful substances and risks of accidents.
Should this render aviation companies less profitable or hinder the enormous growth in air transport, this would not be a disaster, but rather a necessity.
Mrs Lucas has made a few modest steps in the right direction and these are largely in line with what my party, the Socialist Party in the Netherlands, endorses.
- (SV) We abstained from voting in the final vote on Mrs Lucas' report.
We share most of the points of view presented in this about the need for a more vigorous policy to combat the negative effects of aircraft upon the environment. We cannot, however, support paragraphs 20 and 23 of the text.
These propose a direct right of taxation for the EU in this area, together with the standardisation of national legislation on country planning.
We are firm opponents of these proposals.
Immediate, radical measures are urgently needed in order to protect the environment from the adverse impact of the ever increasing use of air transport.
However, the Commission proposal approaches the problem from the angle of competition and the profits of the aviation industry and the airlines.
As a result, it fails to deal with immediate priorities and, more importantly, only addresses in vague and general terms the problem of permissible limits on emissions of greenhouse gases and the definition of new, or at least improved, standards and rules which need to be applied at local and regional level and promoted at international level.
Similarly, it only contains vague, unsatisfactory proposals on reducing permissible noise levels, especially in the vicinity of airports during the day and, more importantly, at night.
A whole series of basic issues, such as land use around airports, improving air traffic etc. has been ignored, issues which are important factors in dealing with the environmental impact of air transport.
The Commission proposal is mainly money-driven.
Instead of forcing aerospace companies to develop research and apply newer, more environmentally-friendly technologies, it backs measures to boost revenue by introducing new taxes on aircraft purchases or changing the VAT arrangements for airline companies or the tax on kerosene, all of which can easily be passed on to the final consumer.
Attempts to reduce the number and times of flights by increasing the price of tickets, in conjunction with constant efforts to erode labour costs and safety specifications, are merely ways of maintaining, if not increasing the profits of the aviation industry, not measures to reduce the adverse environmental impact of air transport.
Typically, no mention is made of liberalising the air transport market, which is exacerbating not only the environmental impact, due to restricted controls on old, inadequately maintained aeroplanes, but the very safety of flights and passengers.
Zabell report (A5-0203/2000)
Mr President, this report refers to the fight against doping in sport.
Unfortunately, the international sporting authorities have not been able to halt or even combat this extremely serious scourge.
Doping in sport is like a priest who sins or a tone-deaf musician.
It is unthinkable that in sport, which stands for honesty and competitiveness, there are athletes who win because they use drugs.
I therefore voted against this report because it does not go far enough in calling for a genuine change in the fight against doping.
We should set up a European anti-doping agency instead of waiting for a world-wide agency to do what an individual state cannot achieve.
How can so many countries be persuaded to agree?
Mr President, with regard to the Zabell report, I would like to make it clear that I only voted for the amendments which require a legal basis, while I voted against the report as a whole.
Indeed, current events show that the policy adopted by the World Anti-Doping Agency is a failure, and Europe should not have associated itself with it since it is a policy made by others and for which we should not have to bear any responsibility.
It is a shame that Europe has not understood this, and that today and over the coming years it will find itself involved in a very tough fight, where it will have to use much more incisive, firm and hard-hitting means.
I have tried, drawing on my wealth of experience, to make the Members of the European Parliament understand this.
I am sorry that many of them have not fully grasped what I have been trying to make them understand throughout this part-session.
.
(NL) Playing sports is good for us.
After all, playing is in our make-up and benefits our health and sense of well-being.
But unfortunately, the enjoyment we derive from sport has come under pressure over the past decades and has been marred by a persistent and one-sided focus on performance and ever greater commercial interests.
The use of doping in sport must be seen against this background.
In my opinion, the phenomenon of doping cannot be considered in isolation but forms part of the commercialisation of a leisure activity.
As a result, the discrepancy between amateur and professional sport has become far too pronounced.
Sport is high on the agenda in the Commission' s Helsinki report.
In the resolution too, sport is commended as fulfilling a social and integrating role which brings people closer together.
It is regrettable that many major sports events show signs of the opposite.
Not for nothing did the Dutch chef de mission, Andre Bolhuis, nickname the Olympic Games in Atlanta the Olympic War, probably because these games involved thousands of police and because of the hostile atmosphere which the American public and their media created with regard to overseas sportspeople.
If we are to counter these expressions of hostility, which we also encounter during international sports events in our countries, sportsmanship needs to be placed at the top of the bill once again.
The focus on performance and commercial interests should disappear very much into the background.
This would at the same time create a much better climate for fighting the use of doping in the most effective way possible.
In the area of sport, the Treaty does not accord any direct powers to EU institutions.
Accordingly, the involvement of the Community in fighting the use of doping should be low-key.
The sports sector is organised in its own unique way and national federations and unions still play a key role in this.
Consequently, I do not agree with the request to include a reference to sport in Article 151 of the EU Treaty.
After all, pressing for a Community-wide sports policy runs counter to the subsidiarity principle.
Although the resolution we voted on a moment ago does contain positive elements, I cannot support it mainly for the aforementioned institutional reason.
I am very glad we were able to hold a discussion in this Chamber on the serious public health problem of doping in sport.
I must congratulate the European Commission on the action plan it has proposed, together with the rapporteur and Mrs Buffet, President-in-Office of the Council.
Under the terms of the Olympic Charter, sport must embody "a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play" .
Doping in sport runs totally counter to that ideal.
Yet doping products are widely used by professional sportsmen and women, but also by amateurs.
This scourge, whose true scale is difficult to measure, is a complex phenomenon that poses a serious risk to the physical and psychological health of the sportsmen and women.
It is also a form of cheating that is contrary to the sporting ethic.
Because of that, we must take stronger European Union action to combat this phenomenon.
I therefore support the inclusion of a legal basis in the Treaty that would allow for Community action in the field of sport.
I know that this issue is giving rise to much discussion, which will in fact help fuel the debate to be held in the European Sports Forum in Lille on 26 and 27 October. I will, of course, take part in it and give my views.
Apart from that, I endorse the call for the Commission to step up research into the causes of doping in the various sports disciplines, even though we know that one of the main reasons for the spread of doping lies in the commercial profits that are now linked to sport.
Under the Fifth Framework Research Programme, the European Union will have to conduct more research on doping substances, on methods of detection and on the health impact of using doping products.
I think it is also vital to launch information campaigns on the risks associated with doping products.
These campaigns should be aimed primarily at young people and be conducted with the help of athletes with an established reputation.
Since doping must be combated at international level, the creation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is without doubt a vital step forward.
This agency, set up in 1999, is currently operating under transitional procedures that leave something to be desired in terms of transparency and independence.
I am glad to say that the French Presidency has undertaken to improve the way it operates.
Let us restore the true value of sport.
Above all, sport must be regarded as an educational and social activity that encourages team spirit, solidarity and loyalty and helps combat racism and xenophobia.
We are voting against recitals I, J and K and are abstaining from voting on paragraph 2.
In different ways, these three recitals and this paragraph are urging the Commission to integrate sports policy into the texts of the Treaties.
Sports policy is a policy area characterised by its cultural context and framework and ought not therefore to be covered by the texts of the Treaties.
Sports policy is an area in which the Commission clearly ought not to have powers.
In our opinion, such powers are covered by the subsidiarity principle and ought to be exercised at national or lower levels of political decision-making.
We are abstaining from voting in the final vote.
Mr President, I voted for the Mennea report on sport because it contains a large number of positive elements and, in particular, because it highlights the importance of continuing the current practice of organising sporting events for disabled people.
I hope that this report will lead to the introduction of subsidised sporting events for the elderly.
If competitors were grouped according to age, in the same way that boxers are grouped according to weight, we could organise sporting events for people over 30, 40, 50 or 60 years of age.
Mr Mennea would certainly win another Olympic medal if we held events on the basis of age.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Members who voted for my report.
In my opinion, Europe has today taken a step forward in its approach to the world of sport.
Our task is still far from complete, for sport is continually changing and Europe cannot afford not to follow these changes.
I hope that the work which we have begun today, here in the European Parliament, will soon be completed.
I would like to make it clear that some of the points I had proposed were not approved, such as the status of sportspersons and the sporting contract etc.
I hope that Europe will soon become more mature from this point of view and take into consideration those points which were not included.
Mr President, I voted against Mr Mennea' s report, which is no reflection upon Mr Mennea.
I remember his time as a great sprinter, and I was delighted that someone from a European country was able to end American dominance of the sport.
I voted against Mr Mennea' s report because I am quite adamant that, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, sport is not a matter for the European Parliament.
By turning sports issues into political issues, we do a disservice both to sport and to the idea of drawing the peoples of Europe closer together. I believe it is downright harmful, as well as wrong, to try to create a legal basis in this area.
On the basis of the subsidiarity principle and given the sort of society I want to work for, I believe in sport' s own ability to deal with these issues in national and international associations.
Let us unite behind this idea.
I also believe that the Bosman judgment has done very great harm to football and that the sporting community has every reason in the future to ask the European Parliament and the European Union to keep away from this area.
Let these issues be handled at national level and by the sporting community itself.
At a summit in Davos, Zbigniev Brzezinski, President Carter' s adviser, spoke about the need to use sport, show business and entertainment as a pressure valve for the millions of marginalised people that unrestrained free trade produces every year in a general free market economy.
A word was even coined for this new version of 'bread and circus' .
It is 'tittytainment' , formed from the American slang for breasts and the word entertainment.
The lesson was learned and the idea of sport as an entertainment, as an industry and as the opium of the impoverished masses of the world, took off.
There is an endless succession of world cups, European cup finals, Grand Prix competitions, the Olympics of Helsinki and Sydney, football, tennis, races, car rallies and horse races.
All this is done in the name of the social function of sport, which produces healthy minds in healthy bodies, to the point that the Treaty of Amsterdam now includes a declaration on sport emphasising "its role in forging identity and bringing people together" .
Indeed, we all know that, thanks to sport and to the Olympic Games, the Peloponnesian War never happened, that Athens and Sparta truly loved one another and that the circus brought the gladiators together.
From the evidence of the Heysel stadium, with its death toll, to the British hooligans at the UEFA Cup in Copenhagen and elsewhere, not forgetting the case of Nivel, the French policeman murdered by German supporters, let alone the Turkish 'tourists' , the French PSG and others, it is quite obvious that sport makes people more sociable, tolerant and cooperative and fosters all those other qualities which have been promoted so well by the French suburbs and inner cities, since the World Cup, through the festive bonfires created by setting fire to cars.
Nor did high-level sport produce dozens of cases of rape and sexual attacks in the Olympic village in Atlanta; and French tennis champion, Nathalie Tauziat, who wrote a book criticising the very emotionally charged atmosphere behind the scenes of the tennis courts, was obviously eliminated from the French team selection in Sydney in the name of the team spirit and significant social values fostered by sport, according to Mr Mennea, the rapporteur for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
Once this balm and these nice sentiments have been applied to the galling wounds of real life, our rapporteur becomes well aware that sport is not a cultural phenomenon but a political and strategic instrument used to enslave the citizen, who is made to forget the loss of his civic powers through a form of televisual training developing age-old instincts.
Share-capital companies, sports-club factories, from Manchester United to AC Milan, not to mention the US basketball and golf circuits, doping, the industry of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs, which have left Pankov' s Germany and the Soviet Union to spread throughout the world, Adidas, Nike and other sponsors who want to see results, transfers to the tune of dollars beyond our wildest dreams, the EU Court of Justice' s judgments, including the famous 1995 Bosman judgment that everyone criticised but that ensures the free movement of young sportsmen and women and sports merchandise, the huge commercialisation, the alleged re-broadcasting rights and the collusion between sport and business - that is the real face of the industrialised world of sport that comes under our Community legislation.
It is from that manipulated world that we must protect real sport, the amateur sport practised in thousands of clubs, which have limited resources and survive thanks only to the devotion, ability and generosity of a huge number of voluntary workers.
That is where we must put our public funding, instead of investing it for the benefit of the tin gods of world stadiums.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.36 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, I wanted to express my concern as some facts are liable to be misinterpreted.
With regard to the urgent debates, we argued in favour of the inclusion of the Temelín nuclear reactor because this is a topic which is very much in the spotlight at the moment.
However, I would ask you if we could move on to the debate on Iran as soon as possible.
This remains necessary due to the relentless violation of human rights - the execution of the death penalty by stoning springs to mind, as well as the constant disruption of international television programmes.
We voted in favour of Temelín but we believe that a debate on Iran is just as imperative.
Mrs Maes, Iran is to be covered in the debate on human rights, as is the Temelín nuclear power station.
I hope that this will meet your concerns.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Nuclear submarine accidents
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5­0704/2000 by Mr Sakellariou and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on nuclear submarines;
B5­0707/2000 by Mr Belder, on behalf of the Europe of Democracies and Diversities Group, on the sinking of the Kursk submarine and the danger of nuclear pollution in the former Soviet Union;
B5­0709/2000 by Mrs Thors and Mr Väyrynen, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the sinking of the Kursk submarine and the danger of nuclear pollution in the former Soviet Union;
B5­0717/2000 by Mr Posselt and Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats, on the sinking of the Kursk submarine;
B5­0725/2000 by Mrs Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the danger of nuclear submarines;
B5­0736/2000 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, on accidents involving nuclear submarines;
B5­0738/2000 by Mr Sjöstedt and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the sinking of nuclear submarines.
Mr President, together with those who submitted the joint resolution, I, too, would like to express my deepest sympathy to the relatives of the Kursk nuclear submarine crew who died.
May they find comfort and strength in God, who can only truly gauge their sorrow and will gladly relieve their suffering.
The dreadful humanitarian disaster involving the Kursk once again brought home to the Russian population and to us how dangerous the consequences of accidents involving nuclear-powered installations and craft can be, and how important it is to comply with nuclear safety regulations.
This awareness-raising process has been set in motion, not least thanks to - and I would like to stress this here - those directly involved: Russian citizens and social organisations with a sense of responsibility.
Their names are no secret. Not only do they deserve our respect, but also all the European support we can provide.
How irresponsible, on the other hand, is the way the Russian authorities, fronted by the country' s military apparatus, deal with atomic energy?
And that for as long as we can remember.
The nuclear contamination of the village Muslyumovo, in the southern Ural, with plutonium - and this is as long ago as 1949 - is a poignant example of this utterly reprehensible behaviour.
According to a lady in the village, in the old days, mothers would contract leukaemia at the age of fifty.
The same fate would befall their daughters at the tender age of twenty; nowadays, their grandchildren suffer from this deadly disease as young as two.
The joint resolution is absolutely right in highlighting the considerable nuclear risks which the dozens of scrapped nuclear submarines of the Russian northern fleet constitute.
For the city of Murmansk and direct surroundings, I would like to add one major danger to this huge, potential risk to both the public and the environment, namely the cargo ship Lepse.
Since the early sixties, this ship has served as a warehouse for atomic waste originating from nuclear-powered ice breakers.
Due to the Lepse' s bad condition, its nuclear cargo should be transferred to and made safe in special containers ashore.
At least, that has been the plan for years.
Why has nothing been done about it? The answer is simple.
It is down to the irresponsible attitude of the authorities, which refuse to meet the financier of the project, i.e. the European Union, halfway on two essential points: signing the agreement whereby Russia shoulders the responsibility for the activities, and the tax-free import of the required equipment for the operation.
This is a striking example of Russia' s official stance in urgent matters of nuclear safety.
The nuclear scandal in Moscow, which dates back to 1995, is also salient in this respect.
At the time, the director of the scientific institute which developed nuclear, Chernobyl-like reactors, came up with an 'enlightened' plan to increase the budget of his institute by providing heating for the houses in the vicinity by means of the institute' s research reactor.
The neighbourhood was tipped off in time and the whole plan was called off.
In fact, the reactor was closed down.
And how did the director Jevgeni Adamov fare?
He made it to Russia' s Minister for Atomic Energy and is dreaming of another, far more profitable project, a real money-spinner: Russia as collection and processing point for foreign radioactive waste.
May this serve as a warning to Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is deeply touched by the recent disaster involving the Kursk submarine and shares in the grief of those left behind and the Russian people.
In addition, we are greatly concerned about the nuclear time bomb and ecological disaster waiting to happen in the Barents Sea, involving the Kursk, but also other ship wrecks which are still located there.
It is therefore of utmost importance for Russia to join forces with international organisations for nuclear safety, and I would ask the Commissioner to press Russia to take responsibility and inspect the still active nuclear submarines, adapting them to better safety requirements if necessary.
There are plenty of international experts who could help Russia take stock of the problems and dismantle the nuclear waste present in the submarines in the Barents Sea.
Needless to say, Russia must exercise complete openness and cooperate fully. Russia is also financially responsible.
Could the Commission or Commissioner explain to me in what way the European Union can help Russia in the dismantling of shipwrecks and how it can stave off the nuclear radiation risk for our EU citizens?
Mr President, our prayers and sympathy go to the 118 sailors and their families.
They deserve our solidarity.
But it must also be considered that we have a major concern in connection with the Kursk disaster, namely the situation in Russia.
We need to be quite clear that President Putin and the Russian authorities covered up a lot of the circumstances surrounding this accident.
Facts were suppressed, falsified or hushed up.
But in one interview he spoke the truth when he said that the Kursk accident was symptomatic of Russia's condition as a whole.
This is a situation that we finally have to face up to.
We have to see the reality for what it is.
This is not just about nuclear safety and the nuclear submarine fleet, it is also about a mass of highly developed arms technologies for which there are no appropriate control and safety measures.
That is why it is of the utmost importance that we should do everything to ensure transparency finally reaches Russia.
It is only because of Mr Nikitin, and the independent media, which face increased repression, that we heard about the disaster at all, four days after the event.Thanks to international support, it was at least possible to avoid the very worst and I hope that it will also be possible to find a solution.
But that is not a satisfactory state of affairs.
That is why they need not only our help, but also frank talking.
What is called for is some plain speaking and an offer of cooperation that does not just mean reaching for our cheque book, but also includes developing the rule of law, democratic processes and independent media in Russia.
The most important point is to educate and support all democratic forces, all the independent media, the administration, the judiciary, and young politicians, especially those in local government, so that Russia becomes a partner with whom we can safely live together in Eurasia.
I do not want to go into other issues such as Chechnya and a host of others at this point.
Kursk by itself is symptomatic of how disasters in Russia can have a direct environmental and political impact on our part of Europe.
That is why it is very much in our interest to make sure that Russia gradually becomes a democratic state where the rule of law prevails.
What we are witnessing at present under President Putin is instead a retrograde trend which is a matter of great concern to us.
So we have an enormous responsibility here.
Mr President, as other Members have already said, the Kursk accident demonstrates that even ten years after the end of the Cold War, military objectives are still considered more important than human life.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express my deepest sympathy for the families who have been bereaved of their fathers and sons.
We know that it is not impossible that more people will yet be affected by this accident.
Everyone is aware of the dangers posed by two nuclear reactors lying on the sea bed.
However, no one knows how great the danger and the insidious impact on people's health will be.
I therefore believe that we can only draw one conclusion from this accident: we have to finally admit that despite the end of the Cold War we - in both the East and the West - are still arming and rearming ourselves, and this is incredibly dangerous and will lead to people being killed. So we must finally put an end to this.
There can only be one response to this accident, and that response is 'disarmament now' .
This disarmament will only work if it is applied equally by the East and the West.
That also means that it has to be pursued jointly, in cooperation. It must not mean that people like Alexander Nikitin, who take part in this and thus help to fight the continuing dangers to humanity of the Cold War and of armament, are eliminated.
I call on the Commission to make it crystal clear to the Russian Government that we will not accept further legal judgments against Nikitin or tolerate his being put on trial again.
Mr President, our Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left entirely shares all the considerations and proposals regarding nuclear submarine accidents, which are a sad legacy from the Cold War.
In order to show that it is not all one-sided, I am bound to refer to the situation of the British submarine which broke down on 12 May in Sicily and has been in Gibraltar, the only British colony in the Mediterranean, since 19 May.
The situation is causing a great deal of alarm among the population, because, according to the Royal Navy' s own regulations, within a radius of 10 kilometres there is danger, within 100 kilometres there is still potential danger, and the submarine may only be repaired in category 'X' docks.
The docks in Gibraltar are type 'Z' .
I find the neo-colonial behaviour on the part of the United Kingdom, which solved the problem by replacing a 'Z' with an 'X' on a piece of paper using correction fluid or an eraser, very strange.
I think that it is important that the Commission and the Council demand that this submarine goes back to the United Kingdom and that they ensure that safety standards are complied with.
Mr President, the sinking of the Kursk has - mainly as a result of Russia' s inadequate response - brought home to us the disastrous heritage of 70 years of Soviet power.
The golden era of Communist nomenclature has generated a climate of such contempt towards people in the old Soviet Union, with so few standing a chance of survival in the present day, that this is why we are now facing this terrible disaster.
This is at the heart of our resolution.
In my opinion, the fact that the GUE Group is now tabling amendments which attempt to divert the attention away from this disaster by introducing a regional problem of a completely different nature displays very little taste indeed.
It is, in fact, downright impudent.
The European Union and European Parliament will need to put their foot down when it comes to the Kursk salvage operation. We will need to be involved in these operations, partly on humanitarian grounds.
The recovery of the Kursk also highlights another problem, namely that of a large number of obsolete nuclear submarines in Russia, as well as the nuclear waste in the same northern region.
The European Union and European Parliament will need to make it clear that it is in Europe' s general interest, and as such in that of Russia, to lay this matter to rest sooner rather than later, firstly on behalf of the relatives, whom we offer our deepest sympathy, and secondly for the benefit of the nuclear situation in Europe.
This is what our resolution is about.
Mr President, we are talking about the tragedy involving the Russian submarine Kursk and we do of course share all the considerations of this joint resolution on the subject.
However, we must add immediately that, in order to gain credibility, the European Parliament and the European Union in general cannot ignore the fact that within its own territory there is a situation of serious nuclear risk as the result of a submarine accident, even though it is not, of course, of the tragic nature of the case of the Kursk.
I am referring to the case mentioned previously by my colleague Mr Marset, the British submarine Tireless, which has been anchored in the port of Gibraltar since May, where the intention is to repair it.
It is a port which, has been pointed out, does not have the technical conditions or the location for repairing this type of vessel.
The port is only equipped for repairing merchant ships, not warships and much less nuclear submarines.
The problem cannot be solved by simply reclassifying it, because that reclassification could affect the technical conditions.
But the problem is that the safety standards include emergency plans and special action for the population within a radius of ten kilometres, which in this case means around 200 000 people.
That is something that cannot be improvised overnight, among other things because the population cannot be moved.
We must criticise the deplorable attitude of the British Government, but even more so the attitude of the Spanish Government, which maintained a deplorable and shameful silence on this issue until they were forced into a timid reaction by the protests from the inhabitants of the area.
I would like to conclude, Mr President, by saying that I am not in the habit of raising issues of domestic policy in this Parliament.
But this is not a matter of domestic policy, but one of European security, it is a matter of European decency and I am raising it here in order to provoke a reaction from this Parliament and from the authorities of the Union in general in order to remedy this intolerable situation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, and along with my colleague Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, we join others in offering our condolences to the victims of the Russian nuclear submarine, and in asking for greater cooperation between the European Union and the Russian authorities in order to prevent a further disaster.
Obviously, we believe that the European Union has sufficient arguments to ensure such cooperation.
We would also like to express our concern - as other speakers have done - because, unfortunately, the matter that we were to discuss, that of the very serious, terrible and fatal accident of the submarine Kursk has led us to deal with the problem of a nuclear submarine in Mediterranean waters, in European Union territory, in a British colony.
This is causing very serious and justified alarm, due to a serious breakdown in the nuclear reactor, and because, among other things, European Union directives are not being complied with.
We think that there is a need to take urgent action.
The European Union must intervene, and this nuclear submarine needs to be urgently transported to a British base to be repaired under the proper conditions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as has been said, a British nuclear submarine has been moored at its Gibraltar base since 19 May.
The smallest breakdown in the cooling system of a nuclear reactor can never be considered as insignificant, as it contains heavy water with radioactive isotopes.
Moreover, the United Kingdom has knowingly failed to comply with Community regulations in terms of radiation protection, exposing its citizens in Gibraltar and those in Algeciras Bay to a very high probability of contamination, as it is now, and not last May, that it is recognising the extent of the breakdown.
In this case, there has been a violation of Community law.
We complained that Russia took four days to inform the European Community about its accident.
We took two months.
I suppose that the booing that we received from some British Members when we criticised the situation in this House was also directed at the citizens of Gibraltar.
In this House we criticised the lack of information for the population in the area and of reliable and official news from the United Kingdom.
In the same way, we criticise something which is a reality: the United Kingdom, faced with considerable social pressures in the country, has decided to transfer its base for nuclear submarine operations and repairs to Algeciras Bay, without respecting its own standards, which do not allow it to have this type of base in highly populated areas.
Equally, we deplore the contemplative attitude of the Spanish Government, which only reacted when the pressure and concern reached a maximum.
For the above reasons, those of us from Andalusia ask this Parliament, and its President, far beyond the bilateral diplomatic interests of the Member States, to carry out the appropriate consultations and negotiations to make it possible to immediately transfer this submarine to bases that have sufficient security conditions to repair it and thus to put an end to the public alarm that has been created.
The Commission shares the deep regrets expressed in the resolutions on the accident involving the Russian submarine the Kursk in the Arctic Bering Sea on 12 August and the loss of the lives of 118 seamen.
We were particularly concerned about the policy of the Russian authorities in the first days after the accident on foreign assistance and information provided to the Russian population and the wider public.
Russia is ultimately responsible for devising and implementing a plan to manage its nuclear waste and spent fuel, and the resolutions, therefore, quite rightly call upon Russia to use all available resources, including its own specialists.
The Commission considers that the international community should offer the necessary assistance to Russia.
It has already launched a number of assistance projects under various Community programmes.
Improved radioactive waste management in north-west Russia is one of the explicit priorities included in the new TACIS regulation covering the next seven years.
The Commission welcomes any action that would increase the budget funding to be used to reduce the ideological threat in north-west Russia and in particular to enable laid-up nuclear submarines to be dismantled more quickly than 10 of the North Fleet's 100 disused nuclear submarines moored at various based in north-west Russia have been dismantled so far.
Besides the submarines, spent fuel from a number of nuclear-powered icebreakers also adds to the ecological risk.
The lack of storage capacity for spent nuclear fuel remains one of the major bottlenecks in dismantling operations as a whole.
Community-backed activities are studies to design and cost a storage facility in north-west Russia or in the southern Urals.
In the light of these studies, the international community, perhaps including the European Community, might later finance the construction of such a storage facility.
To speed up dismantling, the Community is supporting the design, construction, and licensing of a transport and storage tank for damaged spent fuel produced in the operation of nuclear submarines and icebreakers and currently stored under primitive conditions.
The Commission is also involved in a number of studies aiming to improve radioactive-waste management in north-west Russia.
Before concluding, I would like to stress the importance of international coordination in this immense task.
To give two examples, the Commission is serving in the IAEA-sponsored contact expert group.
The group's work might eventually make it possible to draw up a comprehensive strategy and key investment projects that should be supported by the international community and, together with a number of donor countries, the Commission is currently negotiating an agreement with the Russians.
This agreement, known as the 'Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme', is intended to overcome obstacles to international aid stemming, for instance, from tax exemptions and nuclear liability.
The Commission hopes that the Kursk accident will bring about real progress in these negotiations and, in particular, strengthen the resolve of the Russian authorities to conclude the agreement.
Mr President, I would like to know whether the Commissioner has anything to say on the issue, which also relates to nuclear submarines, of the Tireless in Gibraltar.
It has been raised by five Members in this House and he has not said anything about it.
I am concerned: is it that he is deaf? Is it that he does not know what to do?
Mr President, we are talking about nuclear safety, and I repeat what was said by my colleague, Mr Marset Campos: we hope that the Commissioner will say something about our problem, a problem in the European Union that is affecting citizens from two Member States.
.
I took the liberty, on behalf of the Commission, of responding to the issue that we have on the agenda.
I find that quite natural.
Discussion of other subjects would have to be covered by other means and under a different agenda item.
I will be suggesting to my colleagues that we answer your questions in writing.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 5.30 p.m.
Burundi
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5­0660/2000 by Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on Burundi;
B5­0711/2000 by Mr Van den Bos, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the agreement on peace in Burundi signed in Arusha, Tanzania;
B5­0718/2000 by Mr Johan Van Hecke, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats, on the situation in Burundi;
B5­0726/2000 by Mrs Maes and Mr Rod, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the situation in Burundi;
B5­0734/2000 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, on Burundi;
B5­0739/2000 by Mr Vinci, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the Arusha agreement and the transition to democracy in Burundi.
Mr President, why do so many Africans struggle when it comes to sharing power? If the principle 'the survival of the fittest' applies, leaving the weakest with nothing, then there is something fundamentally wrong.
If, on top of this, the fittest constitute the minority, then conflicts are bound to ensue.
As long as ethnic groups exclude each other and refuse to cooperate, there is precious little hope.
Only national reconciliation can offer some hope and this is certainly true of Burundi.
Following Mandela' s remarkable efforts, peace seemed to be on its way at last.
Unfortunately, the fighting has not stopped and some parties have refused to sign the peace accord.
Every effort must be made in order to ensure that the new negotiations are a success.
Maximum pressure must be brought to bear on Hutu rebels to take part in the peace process instead of following the destructive instructions issued by the likes of Mr Kaliba and Mr Mugabe.
In order to ensure that all parties are involved, it is of utmost importance for the political leaders to receive personal protection, and it is high time that the violence against innocent citizens, both on the part of the government and of the opposition, came to an end.
If the fight continues, human rights continue to be violated and parties fail to get involved, there can be no talk of fully resuming European aid.
Greater willingness on their part to make peace will lead to greater willingness on our part to help.
The mediators must bring about initiatives to demobilise the parties so that they can ultimately unite in one army.
As soon as the cease-fire is achieved, the Burundi refugees must be able to count on help from the international community to provide them with a safe shelter in Burundi.
On a final note, for lasting peace in Burundi, it is crucial that peace in the Congo region is established.
Only if Africans are willing to share power does this continent have a future.
Mr President, if we start from the principle 'better a deal that is flawed than no deal at all' , then it is true that Arusha constitutes a step forward in the Burundi peace process.
All credit for this has to go to Mandela, who shuttled between the different parties for months in order to get them not only on speaking terms but also around the negotiating table.
But the accord is not perfect.
Indeed, there is still no cease-fire and the fights around the capital of Bujumbura simply continue.
The two main Hutu rebel movements in the army, which are responsible for the best part of the violence, were not involved in the negotiations.
As such, the next phase in Nairobi, the meeting between the armed troops on 20 September, is probably more crucial than Arusha.
It is regrettable that the accord does not look beyond the regional context.
The neighbouring countries Congo and Tanzania, from where the armed groups operate, must also be reminded of their responsibilities.
Indeed, the question arises as to whether Mandela has not analysed the Burundi conflict too much from his own South African context.
It is correct that some Tutsi parties have used the risk of annihilation of the minority as an excuse to maintain their supremacy.
But this does not take away the fact that this risk in Burundi is real.
This is why we need to demand sufficient safety guarantees to protect the minority and make sure that in the event of any elections, there is no incitement of ethnic hatred.
Finally, Mr President, I do believe that Europe should resume the provision of semi-structural aid, especially in the areas of education and health care.
Otherwise, there is a risk that we will be held partly responsible for the death of thousands of innocent citizens; a thought to which I, as a Christian-Democrat, cannot reconcile myself.
Mr President, I fully subscribe to the entreaties of Mr Van den Bos and Mr Van Hecke.
With 200 000 fatalities in Burundi, Commissioner, there is clearly a need for a peace deal or a peace accord.
However, I fear that the peace accord has been brought about because it suited the Heads of State at the time.
Maybe they should have dragged the negotiations out a while longer in order to gather everybody around the table, because I am aware that as long as the key players, both on the Hutu side and Tutsi side, do not meet, there will be no real peace.
I do welcome the fact that some movements, which were at one time some of the most implacable, have now gathered around the table.
This is why I have good reason to believe this peace accord sets the tone for the future.
I now wonder how the European Union can best fulfil the desire for peace expressed by so many people in Burundi.
To start with, I believe we will need to step up the pressure in order to achieve overall peace in the Great Lakes region.
I cannot shake off the impression that various African leaders are still too self-seeking to be able to work steadily towards peace in Congo and the Great Lakes region.
A second point is the contentious resumption of aid.
I have always regretted the notorious boycott of Burundi, particularly as it was so selective.
I now hope that we can make some real headway by means of clearly-defined peace projects and development of democracy, which we can underpin with structural aid.
Mr President, as a militant supporter of the Lutte ouvrière party in a country that played and still plays a shameful role in Burundi and in Rwanda, as it does in the whole region of central Africa, I cannot remain silent in the face of a resolution that strings together phrases supposedly in support of the people of that region while, in fact, concealing the despicable role the major powers played in the massacres carried out by the armed bands of the two conflicting ethnic groups in that region, the Tutsis and the Hutus.
Without even going back to the responsibility of the former Belgian colonial power deliberately sustaining and exacerbating the hostilities between the two ethnic groups in the two countries, today the part that both French and British interests played in the civil war is public knowledge, just as it is public knowledge that the French army was directly responsible for mobilising and arming the Hutu extreme right, which was responsible for real genocide.
And successive French Governments, on the right as well as on the left, were not even willing to do what the Belgian Government did, namely acknowledge their responsibility for this situation, although obviously that in no way lessens the crushing weight of that responsibility.
I therefore want to register my opposition to the hypocrisy of the major powers and express my solidarity with the people of Burundi and Rwanda who, over and above their ethnic rifts, over and above the responsibility of their own leaders, have paid a heavy price for the large imperialist powers' domination of Africa.
Mr President, over one hundred years ago, European colonial powers divided tribal lands in Africa to establish national boundaries.
African countries inherited the legacy of tribal conflict as major tribes sought to dominate national politics.
Some examples are the Afars and Issas in Djibouti, the Kikuyu and Luo in Kenya and the Hutu and Tutsi in Rwanda and Burundi.
I believe the EU has to focus on how the ruling elite, the Tutsis in Burundi, can be persuaded to reconcile and cooperate with the majority Hutu to achieve peace.
The EU must insist that neighbouring countries do not interfere in Burundi and EU aid to them should be conditional on their cooperation.
This Parliament and the European Commission can help Burundi and this resolution is a very good step in that direction.
Mr President, I am very happy to be speaking at the request and on behalf of Mrs Sauquillo. We would first of all like to thank Nelson Mandela, who once again truly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize which has been awarded him.
I would like to stress that the Arusha Agreement does not represent the end of the war, for peace has not yet been established, but the agreement does exist and requires an immediate initiative from the European Union.
The initiative must include the following elements: we must send a message to those who have signed the agreement to urge them to persist and keep going along the road they have chosen; we must send a message to those who have not yet signed the agreement to remind them that there is no alternative to peace, that the only alternative to peace is to continue with the suffering caused by colonial inheritance, death and oppression; we must also send a message to the neighbouring countries to request that they refrain from interfering in the domestic affairs of other countries and must contribute to and uphold the peace process.
The European Union's initiative must include financial assistance, for genuine, stable peace processes need assistance if they are to evolve into stable democracies.
After last minute amendments and a nine-hour delay, the majority of the parties involved in the two years of talks signed a scaled-down peace agreement in Arusha on 28 August.
The Commission welcomes the signature of the peace accord as an important preliminary step in the long and difficult process of negotiations to end the conflict between Burundi's majority Hutu and minority Tutsi population.
However, as has been said in this discussion, some very important questions are still open, such as that of the cease-fire, which is the main gap in the agreement, the amnesty, the composition of the national assembly, the duration of the agreement and the transitory government leadership - no minor issues.
In spite of the number and the importance of these questions, the signature does represent an important event which puts an end to the Arusha process but not to the negotiations as such.
These will continue, mainly in Bujumbura, hopefully ensuring a higher ownership of the process by the Burundians themselves.
This has been a problem in the long process on many occasions.
The refusal to sign the agreement by the extremist parties is of concern to the Commission and every effort should be pursued to urge them to do so.
Two Tutsi parties added their signature to the agreement on the following day.
Cease-fire talks are organised for 20 September in Nairobi.
The regional presidents Moi and Thabo Mbeki stress their importance.
Successful conclusion is seen as a prerequisite for the start of the implementation of the peace agreement, deployment of UN peacekeepers and full restoration of development cooperation.
The European Community, at this stage, is ready at the technical level to gradually resume a full-scale cooperation programme in coordination with other donors.
Beyond a EUR 48 million rehabilitation programme whose implementation has started, the EC is finalising the procedures for the release of EUR 50 million STABEX funds to relaunch the rural economy.
A strategy paper is being prepared by the Commission to support the peace agreement implementation concentrating on demobilisation, social and economic reconstruction of Burundi and state reform.
Finally, the Commission is going to hold an informal donor meeting at technical level in Brussels on 15 September.
Its purpose is to report on the programme implementation, to improve coordination between donors, to prepare a common strategy to contribute to the peace agreement implementation and to prepare a high level round table of parties and donors which should take place in Paris this autumn.
We are organised to step up the actual cooperation.
I can tell Parliament that we see this as a good case to try and demonstrate how to better manage the transition from the phase of humanitarian assistance to the building up and gradual introduction of forward-oriented long-term development cooperation.
We are giving all the signals we can to organisations like the UNHCR, and also to other donors, to try and get well organised, as you can hear from what I have said.
Coordination is extremely important because we are still in a situation where the right balance and the right kind of signals to the parties in the process in Burundi are as important as the euros we are mobilising.
This is a very focused effort, trying to do things right.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 5.30 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, the resolution that we have before us today is not intended in any way to criticise the key actors namely the Bhutanese or Nepalese Governments in the process of finding a solution for the 96 000 Nepalese speaking Bhutanese refugees living in the camps.
There have been 17 000 children born in those camps over the last ten years.
This resolution seeks to encourage initiatives and action and ask the Commission to help perhaps with financial mechanisms to support the re-settlement of these people.
We welcome the fact that Japan has donated USD 1.3 million to the refugees, and that USD 1 million has been forthcoming from world food programmes.
But the people in those camps would prefer to be re-settled back in their homelands and not have that money.
They sent us this memorandum asking our support for action to solve their problem and to have justice.
In it they say "we pray at your end, honourable European Parliamentarians, that justice may prevail on us".
That is what we are doing here today.
Let us hope that our resolution will bring some justice to these people, will help them re-settle in their homelands and achieve some results.
Mr President, earlier this year, I had the honour to be part of a delegation from the European Parliament to New Delhi and Nepal.
Arising from our visit and in particular our visit to the refugee camps in eastern Nepal, the delegation gave a commitment that they would do everything possible to raise the issue of the continuing plight of the Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.
I would like to assure the Members of the House that the refugees are fully aware of, and greatly value and appreciate, the earlier efforts of the European Parliament in drawing attention to their situation.
This was clearly demonstrated to us during our visit to the region, and our resolve to continue to encourage an agreement now between Bhutan and Nepal is as strong as ever.
The influx of Bhutanese refugees into Nepal began in late 1991 and the fear of diminishing international attention, therefore, is always present.
The refugees have been waiting for the last ten years for an amicable and permanent solution to the crisis.
As Ms McCarthy has said - very many of them want to go home.
There have been numerous bilateral talks but so far a final political settlement has not been secured.
In New York, the United Nations Millennium Summit is taking place as we speak and it offers the Prime Ministers of Bhutan and Nepal an opportunity to come together and to demonstrate their commitment to the ideas of peace and tolerance by agreeing to an early solution to the problem of Bhutanese refugees in Nepal.
This would be a fitting way to mark the UN's Millennium Summit.
I hope they will be given every encouragement to do so.
One of the crucial issues to be decided is the definition of the family unit for verification purposes.
Nepal has accepted a compromise put forward by the UNHCR who has been playing an important role in seeking to help to resolve the impasse.
I strongly urge the Bhutanese authorities to accept the compromise so that field verification can begin immediately.
While the European Union remains one of the major donors, both the UNHCR and the World Food Programme are finding it increasingly difficult to raise funds to run the refugee camps.
I would urge international donors to continue to make sufficient funds available to permit the running of the camps during the negotiation and the verification process.
At the same time, I would expect the donors to insist that the Bhutanese Government facilitate a rapid repatriation of the refugees.
I very much welcome the news conveyed to the House by Ms McCarthy of the generosity of the Japanese people in this particular respect.
We were assured that bilateral negotiations would be speedily concluded and that actual verification in the camps would begin last July.
That agreement regrettably is still outstanding.
I therefore reiterate once more our appeal to all those concerned to take the necessary political initiatives to achieve a lasting solution to the unacceptable plight of the Bhutanese refugees, of whom over 17 000 have been born in the camps.
Mr President, I think first we must thank the chairman of our delegation for relations with South-East Asia, Mr Gerard Collins, who has just spoken and to whom we owe this resolution, for the efforts he has made over the past months to try to resolve an issue which is not really that marginal, since it concerns tens of thousands of people who are now destitute, and have often been so for years.
I also want to say that Mr Collins had the support of the entire delegation, Mrs McCarthy, Mr Thomas Mann and all the other members, and I hope the Commission will follow up Parliament' s unanimous position and that we will see rapid results.
I think the ball is in Bhutan' s court, but it is now up to the Commission and the Council to put pressure on the Bhutanese Government.
Aside from this question, I want to draw attention to a matter that concerns us all and concerns our future.
Yesterday we voted for the Galeote Quecedo report on a common Community diplomacy, which in the end was reduced to a report on a future college of common diplomacy.
That is not much.
It is not much when we know that there is no Commission delegation in Bhutan, when we know that there is no Commission delegation in Nepal, but when we also know that no Member State has an embassy in Bhutan.
That certainly does not make for increased contact, nor does it make it easier to take diplomatic action to help solve this particular problem and other more general ones.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the report you adopted.
It does not mean the communitisation, even in part, of our common foreign and security policy.
Is it really that inconceivable that in a country such as Bhutan, where we have no embassy, we could have a Commission delegation that also acted as an embassy for the 15 Member States? Is that really impossible?
Is it beyond your powers of imagination?
That is the question I wanted to ask you.
Mr President, we in the European Parliament's SAARC delegation had an opportunity in April to see for ourselves the conditions in which tens of thousands of refugees have been living for years in the camps in eastern Nepal.
The assistance from the European Union and the international organisations is quite respectable, but no one can guarantee long-term financial aid at that level.
It is high time that substantial agreements were reached.
Bhutan and Nepal are not neighbours, but they are close to each other in spirit.
Both are kingdoms, both have parliamentary systems with short histories, one is Buddhist and the other is Hindu.
Both are aware that lasting conflict will paralyse their national and economic progress.
Bhutan criticises Nepal on the grounds that its constant changes of government make it incapable of action.
That has changed.
Nepal accuses Bhutan of not being ready to adopt effective solutions.
I hope that will change.
The undertakings given by the Bhutanese Foreign Minister when he visited us in Brussels on 8 June have been honoured, as crucial negotiations began mid-year.
There is agreement on the four categories of people living in the refugee camps.
However, there has to be a common definition of the term 'family' for the purposes of the compromise put forward by the UNHCR, which Mr Collins has referred to.
Nepal has already agreed.
We are also appealing to India to stop primly holding back.
It is linked with both neighbours through agreements and economic ties.
There are 6 million Nepalese working in India.
The borders are open, and there are no asylum problems.
I am very familiar with the charter stipulating that bilateral conflicts should not be resolved at SAARC level.
Nevertheless, the largest democracy in the world does have the greatest influence in the region and bears some humanitarian responsibility here.
Some movement is discernible.
The Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats is putting its faith in far-sighted people of good will in Thimphu, in Kathmandu, and also in Delhi.
We are hoping that the talks in New York between the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the Prime Ministers of Bhutan and Nepal will lead to a decisive breakthrough.
Mr President, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance can only lend its firm support to this resolution which, as the Members who have direct experience of this tragic situation have said, shows our institution's concern for a region which may well be far away but whose human tragedies cut us to the very heart.
As previous speakers have pointed out, a great deal has already been achieved and more will be achieved in the future, and it is our hope that the outcome of the forthcoming talks will be positive.
For my part, I join with Mr Dupuis in calling upon the Commission and the European Union as a whole to make diplomatic advances towards the countries which are most affected by this crisis.
All that remains is for me to state that we too will follow future developments in the situation closely.
Burma
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I regret having to speak once again to defend the cause of Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi.
This is not only the defence of a person who suffers for having fought for democracy and freedom, but also of what she represents in a whole population' s fight to achieve those things.
Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi deserved the recognition of the international community by being awarded the Nobel Prize, the Sajarov Prize from this Parliament and the Prize for Freedom from Liberal International.
Now she is being denied the most basic freedoms, along with those who follow her in the difficult process against dictatorship, to which Mr Dupuis has already referred.
All these people are in an unacceptable situation.
Therefore, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party supports the proposals of the corresponding resolution and, in particular, I would like to draw attention to paragraph 8, which asks that both the United States and the Commission and the Council impose the appropriate political and economic sanctions as long as there is no process of democratisation in Burma.
Mr President, we are once again debating the difficult situation in which Burma' s elected President finds herself, as well as the aggression displayed by that country' s military regime.
I believe that over the past two years, we have submitted as many as five or six resolutions on the situation in Burma.
It is almost intolerable that a President, elected more than ten years ago with 80% of the votes behind her, who offers peaceful protest against her country' s military regime, should receive insufficient support to truly adopt the role which she deserves in her country, in order to fight a military regime which rides roughshod over human rights and the rights of minorities.
This is despite the fact that she receives verbal support - by Mr Clinton only a few days ago -and the fact that she has received both the Nobel Prize and Sakharov Prize for her peaceful protest.
The national economy stays afloat thanks to drugs.
Burma, the world' s second-largest drug-producing country, after Colombia, has dismantled its own parliament, has had numerous parliamentarians killed and imprisoned in the process, and forces its minorities into slave labour, especially in the construction of infrastructure. However, it still benefits from investments, including investments from European countries, such as those of the French oil company Total and the Dutch hydraulics industry, and there has been no attempt to block this kind of investment, either on the part of the EU or on the part of national Member States.
I am not actually in favour of economic sanctions, but in some cases - I am thinking of South Africa and Chile in the eighties - it is necessary to stop cruelty in its tracks.
In my opinion, the European Union and the United States should agree on a strategy against Burma.
I believe that Burma should be isolated politically and economically and that real, effective pressure must be exercised; if not, we sanction violent opposition. People elsewhere have commented: look at Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi.
She has now been in peaceful protest for twelve years and still she is being sidelined and placed under house arrest, and her people are being arrested. And what happens?
The international community looks on and does nothing.
I would ask the European Union to enter into talks with the United States in order come up with concrete ways of helping her, and in order to ensure that she and Burma' s parliament can re-establish democracy in Burma.
Mr President, I should like to support what the other speakers have said.
It is ten years since the NLD won a huge majority of seats in free and fair elections, but despite that, democracy has been suppressed from every angle and at every opportunity.
I believe that the recent readmittance of Burma to the Asean and EU-Asean meetings was a major mistake from the start.
Burma has done nothing since being readmitted to Asean to show that it deserves it.
There should be a serious rethink of this policy.
Burma should be excluded.
I also believe that the European Union could do a lot more.
Aung San Suu Kyi has asked for sanctions but we have done absolutely nothing about this.
Even the United States has at least halted new investment.
Why is the European Union not ensuring that sanctions are imposed? We have to do everything we can to try and stop the forced labour and the human rights abuses.
As the resolution says, we should discourage any kind of tourism to Burma.
That should be supported.
Mr President, I agree with many of the comments that have been made so far by Mrs McKenna and Mrs Maij-Weggen on the situation in Burma.
However I would also like to refer to the specific case of a constituent of mine, which provides a good example of the brutality of the present Burmese authorities.
In September 1999, James Mawdsley, from the north-east of England was sentenced to 17 years' solitary confinement in a Burmese prison.
His mother is currently travelling to Burma hoping to see him.
His crime, according to the Burmese authorities, was to enter the country and attempt to draw attention to the human rights abuses taking place there.
The charges against him were trumped up.
For example, he was alleged to have entered the country illegally and yet British embassy staff have seen his passport, which is stamped with a Burmese immigration stamp showing that he had arrived completely legally.
British Government ministers and staff have been making constant efforts to draw the attention of the Burmese authorities to his plight, but with no success.
I ask Parliament and the Commission to do all they possibly can to secure his release.
Mr President, I would like to make it clear that the fact that Iran has been replaced by Burma in the debate on human rights does not mean that my group is not deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Iran.
We will continue to concern ourselves with that situation.
However, the current situation and the scandalous decisions being taken by the Burmese military Government and their appalling behaviour simply make it essential for the European Parliament to take a stand on this.
We are full of respect and admiration for the non-violent action, the remarkably consistent action being taken by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi and also by the members and politicians of the National League for Democracy. They have earned our unreserved respect, and we wish to assure them that they have our support and that the European Union, together with the international community, will do everything it can to help to restore human rights, or to be more accurate, to introduce human rights, democracy and also the rule of law in Burma.
We are certainly still pinning our hopes in San Suu Kyi.
Her continuing campaigns show that her voice cannot be silenced and that we in Europe, therefore, also have a duty to do everything to ensure that her voice is heard not only here in Europe, but also in America and above all in Asia.
She bears the hopes of the persecuted and the repressed, and also of the many men and women used as forced labour.
She also bears the hopes of those citizens who opted for democracy, the parliamentary system and the rule of law before 1990.
We must call on our partners, the ASEAN States, but also other states in Asia to do everything to bring about a change in this 'transitional government' as it so cynically still calls itself.
That is why I think it is right that we should take stronger economic sanctions.
The EU has acted correctly here.
We now need an institutionalised dialogue, and a debate on Burma should be right at the top of the agenda of the Laos Summit, to make it clear that both ASEAN and the EU bear some responsibility for events in Burma.
Violations of human rights in Colombia, particularly the case of Fr. Brendan Forde
Mr President, this Parliament has discussed the situation in Colombia many times.
The situation in Colombia is that of a latent civil war in which, over several decades, the violence has taken on a structural nature.
This latent civil war was complicated a great deal as a result of the development of drug trafficking, with Colombia becoming a country where drugs are produced and transported to the rest of the world.
In that situation, there are various groups who use violence.
I am referring not only to the paramilitary organisations and the guerrillas, but also to the drug trafficking organisations.
At times, even military units use violence and violate human rights.
In a situation of this kind, the attempt to establish peace zones, for example through the peace communities established in the rural region of Urabá, has faced great difficulties.
In fact, recently there have been murders in these communities in Urabá, specifically in the region of La Unión.
Their leaders have had death threats, and death threats in Colombia are something to be taken very seriously, because they tend to be carried out.
There is really not very much this Parliament can do.
We of course support the efforts of the Colombian Government and other organisations to achieve peace, and we reiterate our desire and interest in the European institutions cooperating with the Colombian Government in helping to maintain peace.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Medina Ortega said, we too must reiterate the unfortunate position of the conflict in Colombia, and highlight that in the Peace Community in La Unión, in the region of Urabá, there have been three murders since 1997.
Fortunately, the Colombian Government has decided to pursue those responsible and punish them accordingly.
But the fact is that, since 1997, there have been three murders, the most recent on 8 July of this year, and the Peace Community of La Unión and the Intercongregational Committee for Justice and Peace, including the Irish Franciscan priest Brendan Forde, have had repeated death threats, despite their position of remaining neutral and contributing to bringing peace to the area.
We think that this situation again requires the strongest possible action on the part of the European institutions.
Both the Commission and the European Parliament have a series of opportunities for this in cooperation with the United Nations Human Rights Office and also through the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia.
We urge the Commission, obviously in cooperation with Parliament, to provide the Colombian Government with all our political force and capacity for pressure so that finally the desired peace can come to Colombia and these tragic situations of assassinations, deaths and murders do not happen again.
I had the honour last year of visiting this beautiful, tormented country and it is a privilege accorded to us here in the European Parliament to be able to raise our voices to defend the rights of people a great distance from here.
I also had the honour of meeting many of the human rights activists in Colombia last year.
This year we have heard in Ireland, as is obvious from the concern expressed by Irish colleagues here today, of the danger facing Father Brendan Forde, a Franciscan working in the small village of La Ùnion who has chosen to remain with his parishioners at considerable danger to his own life.
He is so isolated he probably will never hear of the debate here today.
He has to go eight miles before he can find a telephone to communicate with anybody.
For that reason, it is our privilege here to raise our voices to demand that his life and the lives of those living in his community are protected and to make sure that the Colombian Government is aware of our concerns.
Madam President, first of all I would like to express my grave disappointment at the resolution which we have before us.
My group, the Green/EFA Group, signed the amendment, but we were appalled that the amendment and the resolution does not go far enough.
They do not cover a number of serious issues like Plan Colombia and the grave human rights abuses that are taking place in the country.
It has been stated by many human rights organisations that human rights abuses by paramilitaries have the support of the armed forces and that the murder of the poor people in rural areas is as a result of this.
Most of the Colombian military forces continue to be implicated in serious human rights abuses and their aiding and abetting of paramilitary atrocities are basically ignored by the Colombian authorities.
The US State Department has consistently reported that Colombia's armed forces have taken measures to punish human rights abuses in their ranks.
Plan Colombia will result in USD 1.3 billion from the US being allocated for mainly military purposes.
Many human rights organisations believe that the plan will worsen conditions for poor rural populations and will certainly increase political violence.
It is going to irreversibly damage the people and the environment and it will not solve the drugs problem.
There was no consultation on Plan Colombia with the Colombian people, which is unacceptable.
I was in Colombia last year with NGOs and I can tell you that the situation there is really grave.
The Colombian soldiers continue to actively encourage the paramilitaries responsible for human rights violations and it is clear that the United States and Colombia have acted against the interests of the people.
I believe that this should have been part of the resolution.
The only group that wanted to address Plan Colombia and the whole human rights situation in Colombia was our own group.
That is really unfortunate and a gross abdication of our duty to people all over the world.
Mr President, when President Pastrana appeared before this Parliament he committed himself to working for peace in his country, but he forgot to mention three quite important issues.
Firstly, the high level of responsibility of the Government itself, which covers up violations of human rights, torture, kidnapping and murders committed by paramilitary groups in collusion with the army.
Secondly, that such serious problems as cocaine growing and violence can only be solved through peace talks with the FAR and the ELN.
And thirdly, that he was preparing Plan Colombia for military intervention in the area with the United States, going behind the backs of European and world opinion.
For these reasons, and given the danger represented by Plan Colombia of Latin America becoming another Vietnam, we need to act with three specific proposals.
Firstly, that any aid to Colombia from the European Union will be granted once a peace agreement has been signed between the Government, the FAR and the ELN.
Secondly, that the European Union must condemn Plan Colombia and demand that the solution to the conflict be a negotiated and peaceful one, in order to avoid this escalation of military action.
And thirdly, the European Union must demand that President Pastrana puts an end to all violations of human rights by paramilitary groups in his country, and that the sad world records of thousands of victims that are reached each year should come to an end.
Therefore, allow me to also add - as has already been said, but I think that it is worth saying it specifically - that the European Union should establish a human rights observatory in Latin America, associated with the United Nations observatory that already exists.
Because there are so many countries, but above all Colombia, that fail to guarantee respect for democracy and human rights, it is our responsibility to give adequate help to the region, which has such importance for us and for the world.
Mr President, could I say directly to Commissioner Nielson that I wrote to you on 18 August expressing my concern about the life and the plight of Father Brendan Forde, the Irish priest whose life is currently under threat in the complex political circumstances that pertain in Colombia.
Could I add to that the name of one young man born and raised in Ireland, Tristan James Murray, whose mother comes from my part of Ireland in Wexford, and his Colombian colleague, Javier Nova, young environmentalists missing since July.
We all have concerns that Plan Colombia might escalate the conflict and increase the influence of the guerrillas out there.
Please ensure that aid from the EU, and indeed American aid, is used as it should be used, not to increase the attacks by the militia against the peace communities in the name of trying to take out the guerrillas.
Father Forde is staying where he is because he is trying to protect his community.
His life has been threatened; he has been given twenty days to get out and the International Red Cross will support all we are saying about it.
We have to raise the international profile of all the people, including the communities whose lives are under threat and we trust Commissioner Nielsen you will do all you can for us.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, two minutes are hardly sufficient to relate the appalling figures which describe events in Columbia.
I will mention but a few, listed in the last e-mail I received from Amnesty International: 50 civilians were killed last month by paramilitaries; 400 civilian massacres took place during 1999; 3 500 victims of police crimes; 1 000 abductions; 250 000 Colombian civilians have been thrown out of their homes for political reasons.
In addition, there has been another massacre in the rural community La Unión, the third in three years.
We have a moral obligation to declare that this massacre was perfectly planned, that, nowadays, everything that happens in Columbia happens for a reason.
So what can we do?
Wait for the next massacre in La Unión or another village to produce yet another resolution expressing our grief or, as some of the Members have suggested - and rightly so - make our voice heard, loud and clear? In my opinion, Parliament must now find the courage to make its voice heard, for, to make reference to Amnesty International once again, all the parties taking part in the conflict are responsible for the violations of human rights in Columbia, but one of them - the paramilitaries - has a greater responsibility.
Indeed, the paramilitary groups are crushing the civilian population in a lethal vice.
As has been pointed out, President Pastrana appeared before this House and offered to make a substantial effort to bring all the parties to dialogue.
It is Parliament's responsibility to call for a system of rules and rights to be re-established, within the Colombian State, most importantly, as well as condemning the current situation in Columbia.
The paramilitaries act in agreement and in cahoots with the army, which in many cases - including this one - draw up the death lists.
To date, there has been no serious attempt to bring the heads of this alleged paramilitary army to justice - for example Carlos Castaños, who continues to broadcast his interviews on Colombian radio with impunity.
We therefore reiterate our support for a peaceful solution and, without hypocrisy, we call upon the Colombian Government to reflect upon the tragic actions of the paramilitaries.
Lastly, we call upon the Commission and the Member States to employ all the appropriate political resources to preserve the security of the civilian organisations involved in upholding human rights.
Mr President, as Manolo Medina said, once again we are talking about Colombia.
In this case, in order to ask for protection for the Irish Franciscan priest Brendan Forde and his colleagues.
However, the last time a human rights defender was assassinated in Colombia was in May.
His name was Ramiro Zapata.
25 human rights defenders have been assassinated in the past year and a half.
In recent years, 3 000 activists from Unión Patriótica have died.
Luis Guillermo Pérez, also a human rights defender, insists that there is a plan, called the Hundred plan, to assassinate up to one hundred human rights defenders.
I think that this is a catastrophe for Colombia.
Let us hope that this human rights defender is exaggerating.
But if what he says is true, it is a catastrophe for Colombia.
I think that the European Union should have its own initiative, its own strategy, separate from any military venture, as that of the United States appears to be, in order to make life more bearable for the people of Colombia.
Mr President, once again this Parliament, which has an inescapable and irrevocable commitment to human rights in Colombia and the whole world, has to express its concern regarding the situation in that country and, specifically, the death threats received by the Irish priest Brendan Forde and his community, which we firmly reject.
The European Union, Mr President, should, in my opinion, do something more than expressing its concern, demanding the safety of its citizens and reiterating its support for the peace negotiation efforts initiated by President Pastrana with the paramilitary groups.
It is now time to move from words to actions so that we do not just carry on making purely rhetorical statements.
I would like to point out that President Pastrana was the first foreign Head of State who wished to appear before the plenary session of Parliament in this legislature.
He now needs a specific response from the European Union that shows solidarity on the three fronts that he has opened up: the process of negotiation of the armed conflict, combating drugs, which we should approach from a point of view of shared responsibility, and strengthening institutions, with a particular appeal for the defence of human rights.
I would like to recall the words of President Pastrana in this Parliament: "I believe that a decent and democratic future is not possible without a culture of respect for fundamental rights.
I know that in the course of the protracted internal conflict in Colombia these rights have suffered serious violations, and this must not continue.
I am totally committed to the defence of human rights."
The reality that is currently devastating the country is quite different, Mr President.
Therefore, I think it is important that the Commission tells us what resources it has in order for the Community to respond to this problem, because, in the draft budget for 2001, no reference is made to the response that Mrs González Álvarez mentioned a moment ago: a genuine response from the European Union itself.
How does the Commission intend to respond, to show solidarity with the conflict that is devastating the country?
British soldiers held hostage in Sierra Leone
Mr President, unfortunately, kidnappings in Sierra Leone are once again in the news.
This time it is the kidnapping of eleven British soldiers by the West Side Boys militia.
To this we must add the attacks carried out by this group of rebels with the aim of extending their area of influence, which have cost the lives of three members of the pro-governmental forces.
These are actions that the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats strongly condemns and which the European Parliament should also condemn. At the same time, it should also demand the immediate and unconditional release of the soldiers who are being held hostage and show its support for the Government of Sierra Leone, and for the UNAMSIL and British army forces who are working to consolidate peace in that country.
It is still a precarious peace, which is demonstrated by this kidnapping.
That is why we cannot just stop at words of condemnation, but we must move on to action and also demand that the Lomé Peace Agreements are complied with and that all the militias are disarmed.
However, as long as poverty continues to rule in Sierra Leone, until the trafficking of diamonds is put to an end once and for all and the arms trade is ended, there will be no chance of peace for this tortured country.
The European Union must therefore use every means within its power, not only in order to help fund the peace process, but also, above all, in order to make it possible to establish living conditions that make peace irreversible.
We therefore need a generous and coordinated policy of development cooperation, especially in the field of education.
This is why a budgetary effort is being requested for this policy, as a policy that will contribute to ending the blight of poverty.
But, above all, we need decisive action on the part of the European Union, the Member States and the whole of the international community in order to put an end to diamond trafficking in the area.
As long as a country' s natural wealth is only benefiting warlords, that is, as long as diamonds enable the paramilitaries to have sufficient capital to provide themselves with arms and continue their activities, peace will be nothing more than an impossible dream.
Without peace, development will only be a Utopia.
Mr President, Commissioner, hearing these accounts of misery related each time we meet here in Strasbourg makes me wonder what we can actually do to help.
In Sierra Leone, not only are UN soldiers and British soldiers taken hostage, a complete nation has been held hostage for years We are accessories to this, if only through the diamond trade.
On 5 July, the Security Council instituted an embargo on diamonds from Sierra Leone.
The European Union should now pull out all the stops in order to make this embargo happen and to stop all trade in blood diamonds.
I believe that, for this reason, it is not sufficient to curb the diamond trade in Sierra Leone.
We should also continue to support the Government, but I also believe that support for the war tribunal is absolutely necessary.
We need to put an end to the immunity from punishment whereby people can use weapons to kill their fellow-citizens.
Mr President, of course I feel sympathy for the 12 British soldiers captured in Sierra Leone by one of the armed gangs plaguing the country.
They, too, are the victims of a policy whose main victim is the people of Sierra Leone.
But primarily, that policy is a result of government action, of the action of the UK Government supported by all the major western powers, especially France, and the UN.
I find it disgusting that the resolution makes no mention of the United Kingdom' s past and present role in that country.
After plundering and exploiting the region, that former colonial power rigged the elections and imposed a government that mainly represents its own interests.
Its machinations are one of the main contributing factors in a barbaric civil war in which it is implicated directly, by its diplomacy and by the naval pressure it is exerting, and indirectly by the behaviour on the ground of the troops of its former African colonies, which is just as dreadful as that of the armed gangs.
These armed gangs, including the RUF, certainly do not represent the interests of the people of Sierra Leone, in terms either of their methods or their objectives.
But, however great their responsibility for the misfortunes of their country, it does not match the cynicism of the British ministers and high dignitaries.
To conclude, we will vote against this resolution, which conceals a colonialist policy that is hardly in keeping with today' s world.
Mr President, I rather object to the efforts made earlier by the Spanish left to make political capital out of Gibraltar on the back of the tragedy of the Kursk.
HMS Tireless is safe in British territory and the repairs will be carried out to the highest safety standards.
On the subject of Sierra Leone, I further object to the statement by the previous speaker, but there is a wider point that I would like to make concerning the British Government's role.
We warned the British Labour Government months ago about the dangers of an open-ended commitment of British troops to Sierra Leone.
Our troops should have been given a clear and finite mission with a realistic exit strategy from the start.
The present unacceptable situation is a clear consequence of mission creep and political indecision and provides a clear lesson for the future.
Mr President, the situation in Sierra Leone has been the subject of our urgent debates on several occasions, and we have always dealt with it by encouraging peace talks, national reconciliation and aid for the displaced population, and by calling for an international criminal justice system that can try those responsible for the genocide that is being committed in that country.
Today, we are not faced with a merely political issue, but with a criminal act that falls under a criminal code.
We are talking about a kidnapping carried out by criminals who have no political links, either with the members of the former military junta or with any of the groups that signed the peace agreement in July 1999.
Their demands are limited to a request for a group of prisoners to be freed and for the revision of a peace agreement that is supposed to be putting back together a country that has been torn to pieces.
The victims of the kidnapping undoubtedly have a great deal of political significance.
The international presence in Sierra Leone is a good example of the perseverance on the part of the international community in seeking world peace.
Therefore, taking on that responsibility, we are in support of the European Parliament addressing the Government of Sierra Leone today and calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the British soldiers who have been taken hostage.
Turkish bombing in the north of Iraq
Mr President, this is a truly distressing affair.
Possibly the most important founding principle of the European Union was peace and those who seek to join the Union must try to conduct their domestic and their foreign affairs in as peaceable a fashion as possible.
Turkey, as we appreciate, suffers from an extremely vulnerable border and it is a particular problem for it to establish the requisite stability and peaceful circumstances that its integration to Europe properly requires.
As a part of the pre-accession phase of Turkey's candidacy, we should try to establish a functional forum where military as well as civilian and economic issues should be shared between us.
Turkey's membership of NATO presents many of our Member States with a special responsibility in this respect.
The development of a common European Security and Defence Policy should be seen as a pretext, and also as a bridge, for us to reach common positions on ways to combat terrorism while respecting fundamental rights.
If we are able to succeed in creating such a practical forum, we should be able to expect that this sort of sad critical incident will be put firmly in the past.
Mr President, Turkey is one of the NATO countries and is applying to join the European Union. It has signed all kinds of international Treaties, including those protecting human rights, banishing torture, etc.
Nevertheless, Turkey continues to bomb the Kurds who live outside its borders, in northern Iraq.
Commissioner, I think we should be quite plain about this.
Matters will never improve without a clear, political and peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem, and Turkey should realise this.
I believe that stabilisation - and we at least hope that peace in the Middle East is inching nearer day by day - will only happen if a solution is found to the Kurdish problem.
We naturally want to express our sympathy to the families hit by bombings, most recently in August, and we demand the greatest respect for international borders.
If this respect is not forthcoming, it will be a continual source of misery.
War will never lead to peace.
Mr President, the mother of a victim of the bombing who was interviewed on television asked "How is my child to blame?"
Why should women, children and defenceless civilians always be the victims of military action? Over 32 people were killed and 40 were injured in the bombing of Kurdish villages by the Turkish military in Kendakor on 15 August.
This is a bloodbath and a crime against humanity.
It is a sign of the Turkish Government's attitude towards peace and towards the Kurds at a time when the Kurds had made a peaceful gesture.
As a spokesperson for the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs has confirmed, Turkey from time to time carries out operations against the PKK, who have now, for the third time, declared a unilateral ceasefire.
I would like to know why arms are being delivered to Turkey right in the middle of the pre-accession process, and why arms factories are being built.
Why were the human rights organisations and World Peace Day banned on 1 September? Is it really possible to accelerate the democratisation process using weapons and arms?
The answer is no.
The best way to achieve peace is a peaceful solution of the Kurdish problem and respect for human rights. Why is that mothers always have to suffer?
Can we not help to foster fellowship and peace between the Kurdish and Turkish peoples? I welcome the MEDA programme, which states that all state, legal, political, cultural and social discrimination against the Kurdish population by the Turkish Government should cease.
Granting EU financial aid to Turkey should be tied to solving the Kurdish problem, and this aid should be devoted to overcoming the economic and social underdevelopment of the Kurdish region.
Bombing civilian populations should no longer be allowed in this century.
I wish to condemn this inhumanity and want to see an end to this crime. Those guilty of such crimes should be condemned.
I call on the Council and the Member States to consistently condemn the bombing of Kurdish villages and to make representations to the Turkish Government for them to start negotiations with the Kurds' democratic representatives for a political solution as soon as possible.
That is the fast track into the EU.
Mr President, this will be the third time that I have spoken in the House during this part-session on various aspects concerning Turkey and its relations with the European Union.
This will have given me an opportunity to address a number of points that I will be taking up in the report this Assembly has asked me to draw up on enlargement to Turkey and its accession to the EU.
I will not go back over that but I do want to give my opinion here.
If it turns out that the bombardment of Kendakor on 15 August was carried out by the Turkish army, we will have to encourage the Turkish Government gradually to reduce the role its armed forces continue to play, on the pretext of combating terrorism, in areas likely to cast serious doubt on the credibility of Turkey' s wish to join the European Union.
There seem to be signs that the fight against terrorism is being won and I sincerely believe that the time has come to take this kind of decision.
Simply because the military has that force, it cannot and must not, except in times of emergency, have the power of decision on the use of force.
My 40-year military career has fully persuaded me that cedant arma togae, let war yield to peace.
Mr President, the joint motion for a resolution on the Turkish bombing in the north of Iraq was tabled by five of the European Parliament' s political groups.
That proves the importance our Parliament attaches to respect for international law and human rights in that part of the world and its extreme vigilance when a candidate country for EU membership, in this case Turkey, is concerned.
Indeed, we cannot allow northern Iraq, which is an area of limited sovereignty by virtue of international decisions, also to become an area outside the rule of law, an area where anything goes and where, on top of that, the presence of observers is entirely prohibited.
The legitimate fight against terrorism does not justify collective acts of punishment, victimising the Kurdish inhabitants of entire villages.
Disproportionate reprisals of that kind should be banished forever from the military arsenal of a civilised country.
Mr President, as my colleague Mrs Uca said, it is unacceptable for a country that wishes to become a member of the European Union to bombard defenceless people, kill more than 30 civilians and injure more than 40 people.
We think that the least that can be asked of a country, in these circumstances, is that it respects international law.
And of course, we also must condemn the hypocrisy of some Member States which, breaking the code of conduct for exporting arms to countries that could use them in the way that Turkey did in this particular case, export arms there.
We think it is hypocritical to condemn the event and then to send arms so that it can happen again.
We also feel that the European Union should monitor each of the candidate countries primarily with regard to human rights.
Otherwise, it is not acceptable for it to become a part of this Union.
Firstly, on the refugees in Nepal, the Commission fully shares the concern of the honourable Members about the state of the refugees living in the camps in eastern Nepal and, like them, is calling for an early and permanent solution.
New impetus and political will are needed from both sides to find an appropriate solution.
Above all, arrangements should be agreed for those who wish to go back to Bhutan voluntarily.
Technical solutions cannot be found unless the negotiators are firmly resolved to reach agreement.
The Commission acknowledges the results achieved by Mrs Ogata, the head of the UNHCR, for instance, when she visited Bhutan and Nepal last May, and the commitment of both sides to find a viable solution soon. I have also talked to government representatives from both parties.
They also seem determined to find a solution.
Mrs Ogata's and the visit of a European Parliament delegation in April this year have been instrumental to genuine progress.
However, the Commission regrets that the formula for verification in the camps has not yet been agreed, despite recent expectations that an agreement would be found.
In its regular contacts with the Nepalese and Bhutanese authorities the Commission has invariably stressed that this problem must be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
The EC is a major donor of humanitarian aid to the refugees and to date has spent more than EUR 11 million.
The Commission has used every opportunity to urge both sides to achieve tangible results.
It has repeatedly stated its commitment to provide the necessary resources to facilitate reintegration and resettlement of the refugees once real progress has been made.
A number of EU Member States have made the same commitment.
In the current financial year the Commission will supply EUR 1.5 million in assistance to the camps via the UNHCR.
The risk that funds might run short should be avoided.
This is completely manageable, given the amounts involved.
It is our responsibility to prevent it.
The Commission is looking forward to assessing the results of the forthcoming discussion between the Prime Minister of Nepal, Mr Koirala, and the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Bhutan, Mr Zimba, due to take place in the UN General Assembly on 11 September.
Moving on to the recent events in Burma, on 18 May the Commission deplored in this House the continued violation of human rights by the Burmese military machine.
We referred on that occasion to extrajudicial killings, the imposition of forced labour, the forced displacement of local populations, the repression of political opponents and the prevention of the full functioning of legitimate political parties.
We also condemned the restrictions on the freedom of movement of Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of the National League for Democracy and the routine practice of arbitrary arrests.
At the same time, the Commission expressed its support for the common EU position on Burma and for the decision of the April 2000 General Affairs Council to strengthen this common position.
We use every possible opportunity to press our Asian partners to urge the State Peace and Development Council to enter into a substantive dialogue with the democratically elected representatives and the ethnic minorities.
The aim must be to arrive at a mutually agreed solution to the present situation, re-establishing respect for international standards of human rights in Burma.
Several speakers this afternoon have mentioned tourism.
The EU has already clearly expressed its support for Aung San Suu Kyi's call on people from all civilised countries to refrain from tourist visits to Burma.
We encourage our citizens to respond accordingly.
The most recent developments in Rangoon provide perfect proof, if proof were needed, of the validity of our condemnation of the military regime's unacceptable practices.
The unwarranted seizure and subsequent detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and senior members of her party, together with local youth leaders, last Saturday, cannot in any way be justified by claims that they need 'protection' .
Nor can such treatment be justified by unsubstantiated allegations of conspiracy.
This was a simple exercise in thuggery by an administration acting in panic.
The Commission therefore joins its voice to the calls from all over the world for an immediate end to the house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi and her senior colleagues, the immediate restoration of normal channels for diplomatic access to the leadership of the National League for Democracy, the immediate release of the local youth leaders currently held without charge, and an immediate end to the illegal surveillance of private telephone conversations by democratically elected political representatives in Burma.
On the human rights situation in Colombia, our attention has been drawn on a number of occasions to the murders of innocent civilians in Colombia.
Impunity for the perpetrators of such atrocities has almost been systematic.
We have also seen a dramatic increase in death threats against people providing assistance on the ground to more vulnerable groups.
For example, we have been informed that serious threats have been made against the Irish priest Brendan Forde, who is working in one of the regions most affected by violence.
The Commission deeply deplores and condemns this situation and calls all parties in the conflict to respect humanitarian law and principles.
The Commission also supports the peace efforts promoted by President Pastrana.
It will do anything in its power in order to promote support for lasting peace in the country.
As regards what has been said in the debate this afternoon, in my view more guns are not a shortcut to a solution for Colombia but will merely add to the problems.
The Commission fully shares Parliament's concerns over the recent kidnapping of eleven British soldiers in Sierra Leone.
We hope the ongoing efforts to secure the release of the remaining six soldiers are successful.
We would like to express our solidarity with the soldiers and their families.
The Commission is concerned that incidents like this and the abduction of UN personnel could hamper attempts to put the peace process back on track.
We would welcome any decision by the United Nations Security Council to strengthen the UN force in Sierra Leone.
The Security Council's resolution of 5 July this year banning the illicit trade in diamonds from Sierra Leone has now been transposed into Community law.
This ban, as well as the ban on arms sales to other groups which has been in force since 1997, must be strictly implemented.
The Commission calls on all parties concerned - and that, of course, also includes the diamond industry in Europe - to support the UN's sanctions committees in achieving this end.
The Commission remains supportive of the Government's attempts to restore peace to the country and to implement programmes of economic recovery.
With funds from the European Development Fund support is being provided to demobilise and reintegrate ex-combatants within the framework of a wider reconstruction and rehabilitation programme.
Economic recovery is being assisted through a EUR 8.2 million programme of budgetary support and a technical assistance programme supporting improved public financial management.
Within the next few weeks the Commission will be seeking approval for a rehabilitation and reintegration programme of EUR 30 million, a health sector support programme of EUR 28 million, a programme of post-conflict budget support of EUR 34.75 million and a support programme to the Ministry of Finance of EUR 4.5 million.
As regards humanitarian assistance, the Commission, through ECHO, is continuing to finance programmes in support of displaced and refugee communities through international NGOs and the UN.
Since the beginning of 1999 ECHO has provided some EUR 26 million of assistance covering the supply of medical aid, therapeutic feeding, water and sanitation and psycho-social support for children affected by war.
This is especially important, given the terrible situation for child soldiers and children in general in Sierra Leone.
In addition, this funding has specifically covered support for amputees and refugees and internally displaced populations.
As regards northern Iraq, the Commission shares the concern expressed in various draft resolutions about the latest operations by the Turkish Air Force and the resulting civilian casualties.
The Commission has noted that the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs is looking into the incident and into possible compensation.
The upheavals caused by each incursion of the Turkish military into Iraq undermine the efforts to stabilise the area and inflict unnecessary suffering on the Kurdish population.
They have suffered enough.
What is needed for a return to normal life in the area is stability, peace and support for economic development.
Over the past few years, the Union has repeatedly stressed the need to respect the integrity of Iraq and its border with Turkey.
These latest border violations again do not solve the problems in Turkey, or anywhere else.
In our view, a peaceful dialogue between the parties is the only viable path to lasting stability in the area.
I have noted carefully what Members of this House have said this afternoon about their expectations in relation to Turkey, not least regarding its future place in European cooperation, and I certainly share their views.
Mr President, I would like to say that, with regard to the situation in Colombia, we put a question to the Commissioner, who answered that the Commission supports the peace efforts being made by President Pastrana.
I asked him whether the Commission would complement this rhetorical support with any kind of support that did not just consist of words.
I realise that this is perhaps not the time to discuss this, but I would like the Commission to answer us, even if it is in writing.
I will be happy to augment what I am saying now by more thorough comments in writing.
My immediate response is that we have to be careful, to put it plainly and directly, not to be cast in a role as simply providing funding for activities that we may not agree with 100%.
We also have to take care to be sufficiently focused on poverty and doing something that really is to the benefit of the most disadvantaged groups.
So what we are doing now and what we will do in the future, financially speaking, in Colombia, will have to be tailored very carefully against that background.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 5.30 p.m.
Temelín nuclear power station
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0708/2000 by Mrs McNally and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the Czech nuclear power plant in Temelín;
B5-0723/2000 by Mr Flemming and Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats), on the Temelín reactor;
B5-0732/2000 by Mr Echerer and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the nuclear power plant in Temelín;
B5-0745/2000 by Mr Papayannakis and Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the nuclear power plant in Temelín.
Mr President, I am taking the place of Mrs McNally who has had to go back to the United Kingdom this afternoon.
The European Union with the support of this Parliament has already done much to raise the technical and operational safety of Soviet-type nuclear reactors and to create independent regulators.
As I understand it, what is being done at Temelín has already been done in Finland and there is similar upgrading work in hand at Kozloduy in Bulgaria with the support of a Euratom loan.
What I would like the Commission to confirm, if possible, is if the work at Temelín follows the recommendations of twelve inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and that it will, in fact, create safety standards equivalent to those in our Member States.
That is the assurance, or reassurance, that the public in the European Union requires.
We have had many messages from the Czech authorities this week.
They claim that most of the actions which we request in this resolution have already been carried out and that the remainder are, in fact, under way.
Is the Commission in a position to confirm that this afternoon, and if not, will it undertake to supply its views on this matter with urgency to the Industry Committee of the European Parliament?
Mr President, many EU Member States have a very friendly relationship with the Czech Republic, and even one based on family ties.
But I believe that in a good family you can also say things that do not suit other members of the family.
Nuclear power stations in the European Union have the highest safety standards in the world, and a candidate country that wants to commission a new nuclear power station must, of course, comply with those standards.
It is right to say that evaluating safety standards at Temelín is a matter for the Czech nuclear regulatory authority.
But it is also true to say that during the accession partnership with the Czech Republic, the Commission has identified the implementation of Community legislation on environmental impact assessment as a priority, partly because of Temelín.
Nevertheless, although the Czech Republic signed the agreement on cross-border EIA, the Espoo Convention, in 1993, it has still not ratified it.
Now, all of a sudden, trial operation is to start at Temelín, with undue haste and in a few days' time, before Germany and Austria, which are neighbouring countries, have received the information requested and before the deeply concerned population of the neighbouring countries has had an opportunity to consider the position and make their objections known to the Czech authorities.
That is what the Espoo Convention stipulates, and it is, after all, valid EU legislation.
I call on the Czech Government, indeed I implore it, to take seriously the fears not only of people in neighbouring countries, but also within its own borders.
The reactors at Temelín are a Soviet design, VVER1000, and there is nothing Westinghouse can do about that.
Please just think about Chernobyl.
I appeal once again to the Czech Government to act voluntarily now in just the same way as they would have to act if they already belonged to the European Union and were a member of our great European family.
Mr President, I would first like to thank my colleagues for their constructive and objective cooperation, which has resulted in this joint motion for a resolution.
In the course of 13 project modifications, environmental impact assessment has been simply disregarded.
As Mrs Flemming said, it is a long time since the Espoo Convention was signed.
It should have been ratified by the Czech Parliament at the beginning of the year and transposed into national law, but this has been indefinitely delayed without any reasons being given.
Despite this, the constant concerns about safety expressed by the public, in the press and also in private discussions are not being taken seriously.
During the last bilateral meetings between Czech, Austrian and German experts on 2 and 5 September this year, it was once again stated that Temelín does not meet German safety standards and would not, therefore, receive an operating licence in Germany.
My fourth point is that electricity from Temelín is not intended for internal consumption: it is intended for export, and at dumping prices at that.
Fifthly, the safety of European citizens is at stake here and our responsibility towards them should be adequate grounds for action.
The Commission says that we do not have any legal options here.
Well, the Commission has known that for a long time.
Did the Commission expect that somebody would just pull a legal measure out of the hat? No.
I expect that the Greens' view will be the well-established one that safety and nuclear power stations are two incompatible concepts.The fact of the matter is that there are eastern European nuclear power stations and western European nuclear power stations.
Double standards are being applied here, and that must stop.
Our friends in the Commission have to accept that you cannot use legal measures alone to solve every single problem.
I therefore expect the Commission and the Council to demonstrate together the same strong and combined political will that the European Parliament is displaying with this motion for a resolution.
I would like to comment on the Technical Group of Independent Members' amendment, which does not include any sensible or new requirements apart from a hint at compromise.
I cannot vote for this policy.
It is simply populist to gloss over the long-standing failure or lack of interest on the part of politicians towards this issue by threatening a veto - it will not have the desired effect and it will not create a constructive basis for negotiations.
The safety of Europe's citizens and, thus, confidence in the Community should be a priority for us all.
Our motion for a resolution is enormously important for the people of Europe and above all for the Czech public.
I hope that we will not disappoint them.
Mr President, this issue should not even be a subject of urgent debate.
I deplore the cynical Green exploitation and misrepresentation of the situation.
Interference in the internal affairs of a candidate country with the political blackmail of a threat to veto accession to the EU is wholly unacceptable.
I regret that people in Austria have allowed themselves to be ruled by emotion, not rational scientific argument.
The Czechs show every sign of behaving responsibly and properly according to internationally accepted standards, and we should leave them to get on with it.
Although I signed the joint motion as instructed by my political group, I intend to vote against this resolution.
Mr President, as the third Austrian to speak, I was starting to worry that I would have nothing to add.
But having heard Mr Chichester, I think it is worth reiterating that we have to pay serious attention to the wishes and concerns of the people of Europe, and of Austria in particular, as regards nuclear energy. This applies especially to the Temelín nuclear power station.
My group is supporting this motion for a resolution on Temelín for reasons of principle, because we take the people's concerns seriously and because many of us have, for a long time, been actively fighting against nuclear energy in the East and in the West.
The political battle against the Zwentendorf nuclear power station in Austria has had an enduring formative influence on me personally, so I did not need to be convinced by the conservative arguments in the Austrian media over the last few days which I have followed with surprise and sometimes with quiet amusement.
Like Mrs Echerer, I oppose the single, very vaguely worded amendment, because I believe that the phrase 'high level' does not mean anything, because the Czech Republic itself is surely aware of the need for a high level of safety.
I therefore fully support the motion for a resolution before us and oppose the amendment.
Mr President, I should like to confess to the Members of this Chamber that I feel rather ambivalent about this issue.
On the one hand, I am an old opponent of nuclear power and have for many years been a member of the board of the Swedish Nuclear Power Inspectorate. On the other hand, I am chairman of the Delegation to the Joint EU-Czech Republic Parliamentary Committee.
I should therefore quickly like to say three things.
First of all: concern about nuclear power means that safety will not only be good but that it will, at all times, be as good as it possibly can be.
Secondly, the same rules naturally apply to the Czech Republic as apply to other candidate States and, in the long run, to Member States.
Thirdly, this resolution ought to be seen as part of an open dialogue with the Czech Republic, a dialogue we are conducting within the framework of the Joint Parliamentary Committee but which ought also to be possible to conduct in our respective parliaments.
We must broaden out this debate, which is part and parcel of our democracy.
This ought not, however, to lead to hard feelings between the Czech Republic and the Member States of the EU.
I hope that the Czechs are able to give positive answers to all the questions and that a favourable solution can in that way be found to this problem.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you would think that we would all have learnt some lessons from the accident at the Chernobyl reactor.
In that case, the radiation was not confined to the Ukraine, nor was it simply a bilateral problem.
I know that there are both advocates and opponents of nuclear power in the European Union, and that there is no common line.
And, above all, there are no uniform safety standards for nuclear power stations.
There is an urgent need for action here if our credibility is to be maintained.
However, after the Chernobyl experience we have to ask if it really is possible to bring a nuclear power plant, Temelín, on line in the heart of Europe when it still has significant limitations in terms of safety.
The Czech Republic is trying to present us with a fait accompli in commissioning Temelín.
If you will forgive my saying so, this sort of behaviour falls far short of a spirit of partnership.
Edmund Stoiber was quite right when he said today that it is a matter of following the house rules.
A resolution was adopted in the Austrian Parliament this Tuesday by all the parties - all the parties, mark you - emphasising that approval could only be given to the completion of the accession negotiations if the Temelín plant is retrofitted.
I wish to make one thing quite clear: we support the accession of the Czech Republic to the EU.
But the conditions must be right.
I call on you to support our motion for a resolution, the content of which is identical to the four-party resolution adopted in the Austrian Parliament.
After all, it must be our objective for nuclear power stations to have the highest possible safety standards.
Mr President, I shall also be voting for this resolution, which I consider to be reasonable.
If it can help to defuse the battle of words between the two sides somewhat, than it will certainly have served its purpose.
I regret that the Czech Republic is unable to defend itself here and present its case, as it is always good to hear both sides of such a complicated argument.
However, in the same spirit of openness I would also like to say that I do not think it is right for the Austrian Government and Parliament to be delivering a kind of ultimatum here.
That is not the way we have handled these things in the European Union up to now.
It is quite evident that there is a problem, but if we start issuing ultimatums then the next thing will be that a delegation will arrive representing displaced persons and demand that the Czech Republic can only join the Union if the Benesch Decrees are withdrawn.
And then some other group will come along demanding something else.
You have to be careful with ultimatums like this.
There are other ways of solving such problems.
But I would also like to suggest to the Czech Republic that they should pay serious attention to the concerns expressed by the German Association for Nuclear Safety.
That was another point I wanted to make.
My last, but important point, is one for the Commission.
We hear a lot about environmental impact, and that is fine.
But we also have the Euratom Treaty.
Article 37 of that Treaty effectively stipulates that the Commission must be kept informed about any plan for the disposal of radioactive waste in any form whatsoever.
The Commission also has to determine whether the implementation of such a plan is liable to result in the radioactive contamination of the water, soil or airspace of another Member State.
I know that the Czech Republic does not yet belong to the European Union.
Nevertheless, I would be interested to know what the Commission's view is in relation to this article, and whether it considers that the Czech Republic has respected it.
It would be interesting, as Gordon Adam has already asked, to know what its view is on the environmental impact assessment.
Mr President, Mr Linkohr's comments are not quite correct.
I will gladly let you see the text approved by the Austrian Parliament.
It does not contain any kind of ultimatum or any hint of blackmail, and I, too, have made it quite clear now that we cannot and certainly do not want to compel anyone to do anything.
We request, we appeal to the Czech Government to act in accordance with current European law and quite simply to observe the Espoo Convention, even if they have not ratified it yet.
The Commission has been following the political debate on the Temelín nuclear power plant with great attention.
It has repeatedly stressed the importance of candidate countries adhering to a high level of nuclear safety in line with relevant Council resolutions.
The Commission is actively participating in the deliberations of the Council aimed at assessing and ensuring a high level of nuclear safety in candidate countries as a key requirement for accession to the European Union.
The responsibility for licensing nuclear installations lies with the Czech nuclear regulatory authority.
The Commission has cooperated with the Czech authorities in order to reinforce the authority's capacities.
The Czech authorities have ensured that the operating licence for Unit 1 of the Temelín nuclear power plant will not be issued until all outstanding problems are solved to the satisfaction of the nuclear regulatory authority.
According to current Czech legislation, an environmental impact assessment is required before the operating licence is issued.
The Commission expects this provision to be enforced by the Czech authorities.
Mr Adams asks whether the Czechs took account of the IAEA's inspections and views.
The answer is 'yes' .
The IAEA has reviewed the modifications made to the safety systems by the Czechs following the IAEA's programmes.
The IAEA concluded that the issues were properly addressed by the Czechs.
That is the information I am able to supply on this subject.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a few minutes' time, at 5.30 p.m.
Fires in Europe
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0703/2000 by Mrs Malliori and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the forest fires in Europe;
B5-0724/2000 by Mr Hatzidakis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the fires in the south of the European Union;
B5-0723/2000 by Mrs Isler Béguin and Mrs Frassoni, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the forest fires in Europe;
B5-0737/2000 by Mrs Muscardini and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, on the fires in Europe;
B5-0746/2000 by Mrs Ainardi and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the fires in the Mediterranean regions;
B5-0747/2000 by Mr Korakas and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the fires in Greece.
Mr President, the fires which again destroyed huge tracts of forest in the Mediterranean this summer are mainly the result of the rise in temperature and prolonged dry weather, not to mention of course criminal cases of arson.
Climatic changes, which are happening more and more rapidly, impact on the entire ecosystem.
Scientists have pointed out the risks inherent in our inconsiderate treatment of the planet, one of the results of which is extreme meteorological phenomena.
Southern Europe has been set alight more and more frequently over recent years.
The Mediterranean has become a high risk area and needs special measures.
In my country, Greece, more than 500 fires broke out this year, most of which were dealt with minimal disruption.
However, there were, unfortunately, also occasions on which the fires got out of control, causing death and destruction.
I should like to express my sympathy to the families of the victims and the injured in all the countries which faced similar problems.
I think, Mr President, that a European strategy on the conservation of forests is our political responsibility and an immediate priority.
I also think it essential that we reinstate the budget line for natural disasters.
The Commission should exert its influence to ensure that Member States introduce stricter legislation on changes of land use, compulsory reforestation following fires, suitable training on fire-fighting for those in positions of local and regional responsibility and a public awareness campaign on the benefits of forests and how they can be protected and to encourage volunteers fire-fighters.
Mr President, every September we return to the House and take tragic stock of the number of victims and the extent of the damage to forests as the result of fires.
The fires are, of course, the result of climatic changes and the weather which prevails in the Mediterranean during the summer; they are also the result of criminal offences.
There may also be other causes, such as refuse tips and, of course, the lack of certain administrative structures, especially the lack of an overall, coordinated approach to fires, exacerbates the damage which they cause.
So what proposals can we make? First and foremost, both the Member States and the Commission need to update the regional development programmes and action to prevent, restore and reforest.
They could use the Interreg Community initiative, for example.
Similarly, forest registers are desperately needed; this will help to protect and recover our ecological heritage and fight land speculation.
However, what we need is coordination and cooperation at European level and I call on the Commission to propose that a European fire prevention centre be set up in order to conduct systematic studies and introduce new technical methods to prevent and fight fires.
And to go one step further: the time has come for the Commission to draw up an integrated defence strategy to coordinate national action and measures against natural and man-made disasters, in line, of course, with the principle of subsidiarity.
I trust that these proposals will elicit a positive response from the Commission so that we can protect our forests more efficiently.
Mr President, indeed, like a chronic recurrent disease, the summer of 2000 will once again have suffered the ravages of fires raging through millions of hectares in our country and our continent and even causing the tragic death of a number of firemen and local residents.
This scourge is the result of criminal action: the blame lies with irresponsible arsonists who should face deterrent penalties, and with unscrupulous developers prepared to use any means possible to get hold of land on which building is forbidden, who ought to be deterred by a whole range of legal means to prosecute them.
But there are also other reasons for this affliction: they include the lack of any inventories of economic activities, such as agro-pastoral activities in Corsica, and the lack of any real approach, on the basis of geographical databases, to a kind of rural planning that makes the most of natural resources and reduces the risk of fires spreading.
Lastly, and above all, there is the lack of any genuine environmental education that goes well beyond the necessary prevention and awareness-raising campaigns.
So this summer epidemic is curable, Mr President.
It is vital to bring a new balance into some of the land-use policies, such as stock farming in Corsica, and to allocate subsidies on the basis of economic and preventive factors.
These upstream provisions cannot replace the need for downstream investment in adequate fire-fighting equipment in sufficient quantity to be deployed in all the EU countries.
The citizens concerned are counting on the Commission to take practical action.
Mr President, this year, the fires in the Mediterranean, and in Greece in particular, broke all previous records.
I believe that the area destroyed by the fires was twice as large as at any other time and a great many people were killed despite the fact, of course, that the Greek Government was well prepared and despite the fact that Greece now has some of the best fire-fighting equipment, aeroplanes and human resources in the world.
What it has proved is that reaction is not enough.
We need to be pro-active.
That is what we all say, but none of us does anything.
It is a complicated issue and, of course, it concerns local authorities and the national government.
What can the European Union do?
What it can do, Mr President, is to apply a more active basic policy with more coordination and increased intervention. It can examine the weaknesses of the common agricultural policy, which to all intents and purposes destroys the motivation of people living in and from forests and drives them away.
The common agricultural policy subsidises pasturing on burnt ground, subsidises animals which graze on burnt ground, at the same time as our forests are trying to reproduce naturally.
The European Union should also, of course, review its approach to and priorities for investments.
We have been crying for a land register for a long time now, especially a forest register and forest maps, which need to be supported as a matter of priority over everything else and, of course, any other development and investment measures which boost the development of forests as forests rather than a commodity and which enable people who live off the forest to stay there.
That is the best form of prevention and the best form of protection.
Of course we shall still have fires and, with what is happening to the climate, we shall no doubt be unfortunate enough to witness more and more serious phenomena.
But it is in our hands to try and do what we can to forestall the known causes at least.
Mr President, Portugal has also been affected by these tragic forest fires which have been the result either of natural causes or of criminal acts motivated by base economic interests.
We know that this matter is primarily the responsibility of the Member States, which need to organise themselves and build up their own control and prevention resources.
We also know that they should give priority to actions of this kind, and to national afforestation projects, under their national regional development programmes.
It is also necessary, however, to back a European forest strategy with technical and financial resources in order to strengthen and complement national resources.
With this in mind, I would like to highlight the proposal contained in paragraph 12 of our resolution, which aims to create a European Fire Prevention Centre, and I would like to take the liberty of suggesting that it should be located in Portugal.
The Commission deeply regrets the loss of human life as well as the ecological and economic damage caused by the recent forest fires in Europe.
The principle of subsidiarity has been mentioned in this debate.
We have to avoid raising too many expectations and overloading the Commission with tasks.
We must be careful not to promise things we cannot deliver.
Frankly, there has been enough of that in the past.
We should be careful, when entering into discussions such as this, not to automatically assume that the Commission will solve the problem.
We can and should do something, but I wanted to make that cautionary remark.
To get to the core of this discussion, the question of an emergency aid budget line, the Commission is considering proposing a legal basis for such a line at the moment.
However, the Commission might consider financial support for the restoration of the forestry production potential on the basis of the rural development regulation, No 1257/1999.
According to the Greek authorities, the financial contributions from the agricultural funds are not sufficient for a substantial contribution to be made to the restoration work.
The Commission therefore invites the Greek authorities to present proposals for the amendment of the development programme so that the necessary appropriations can be considered.
I should like to draw your attention to EC Regulation No 2158/1992, under which preventive action in relation to forest fires may be financed.
Each Member State should verify that all the necessary steps have been taken to reduce the risk of fires to a minimum.
New Commission initiatives are already in effect, or will shortly become effective.
A proposal for a Council decision establishing a Community mechanism for the coordination of emergency civil protection action will be considered by the college in the near future.
This will aim to improve the mutual assistance between Member States.
It will also have an important side effect in that it will help third countries to manage unexpected emergencies or disasters they would not be able to handle by themselves.
Through this coordination mechanism Member States will be invited to identify groups which can intervene at short notice at the scene.
The Commission recently initiated a satellite-based project to improve information on operational fire fighting centres in the Mediterranean region, with the aim of determining the levels of risk from day to day.
We will consider whether this could lead to a system for early detection of forest fires.
The Commission is also encouraging Member States to reinforce their intervention capacities.
The Regional Fund and the Cohesion Fund have already contributed substantially in the period 1994-99.
The national authorities should provide for the necessary financial resources to consolidate this action for the period 2000-06.
In general, the decision on the acquisition of such fire-fighting equipment will remain the responsibility of the Member States.
Self-tuition workshops on fighting forest fires are also planned.
However the Commission does not have enough resources to extend its activities beyond that.
The Structural Funds can be used for restoration after natural disasters and advantage has been taken of this possibility in recent years.
Mr President, like some other Members of the House, I have just been alerted to developments in the situation in northern Afghanistan where, after two months of relentless offensives, the Taliban apparently took the town of Taloqan last night, with a heavy toll of military and civilian victims.
It is obviously too late to table an urgent resolution on this issue.
But I would ask you, Mr President, to forward to the Conference of Presidents a request that the Council and the Commission make a statement to the House at our forthcoming mini-session in Brussels on what action the European Union could envisage to help find a political solution in Afghanistan and put an end to these senseless bloodbaths.
Thank you very much, Mr Morillon, we will pass on that request.
Mr President, I would like to support Mr Morillon's suggestion.
I would like to emphasise - and I am now speaking on behalf of my group also - that we consider the Council Declaration on this subject to be very important, and I request you to forward it to the Conference of Presidents.
I will gladly do that, Mr Sakellariou
Mr President, following the vote, I would like to ask the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets to tell us whether he has at his disposal the appropriations called for in paragraphs 12 and 14 of the motion for a resolution on fires in Europe for which we have just voted.
I got the message very well, Mr Wynn.
Situation in Fiji following the coup d'état
The next item is the Commission statement on the situation in Fiji following the coup d'état.
Commissioner Nielson has the floor.
The release of the hostages on 13 July, the arrest of the rebel leader and his main associates on 26 July and the efforts of the Government to reinstate law and order give some cause for satisfaction.
However, there are still serious worries about the future of Fiji.
First and foremost, the use of violence by certain ethnic groupings to impose their rule on other communities is unacceptable.
Secondly, a democratic government must be re-established.
The present interim government has no democratic basis.
There should be a clear blue-print for full restoration of democratic principles and practices.
The 1997 Constitution, which lays down the principle of equal rights for all Fijian citizens, must be reinstated.
This process should be finalised very quickly.
The time-frame currently being proposed, two or three years, is far too long.
The fundamental ethnic antagonism in Fiji must be resolved.
Multiracial cooperation and harmony must become a reality.
This might require international mediation.
If we are to be realistic, we must support every possible step on the way to stability without losing sight of the scenario I have just outlined.
The international community and the donors of aid to Fiji agree on these principles.
As far as the EU is concerned, the Council has informed the Fijians of its request to begin consultations under Article 366 of the Lomé Convention, which calls for a thorough examination of the situation on the basis of information to be supplied by the Fijians.
Further input will be provided by the report of an ACP ministerial fact-finding mission to Fiji which took place in mid-August and which was led by the Foreign Minister of Papua New Guinea.
Furthermore, the Commission received first-hand information from the legitimate Prime Minister, Mr Chaudhry on 31 August.
We are now at the beginning of the consultations.
Measures under Article 366 will be taken if the consultations fail to produce an acceptable solution for both sides in the discussions.
All that can be said at present is that the measures, if any, should not harm the poor and those already suffering from the severe economic crisis triggered by the events.
Poverty-related projects should, consequently, continue.
In conclusion, I hope that the coordinated effort of the international donor community will have the desired effect on the current government in Fiji.
Even if we achieve our aim of restoring democratic principles and a government chosen in fair and equal elections within less than two years, this will be only a first step for the solution of the Fijian problem.
A strong long-term effort is required from all parties and, in the first instance, from the Fijian Government and the communities, to work on the entrenched prejudices and anxieties so that racial cooperation and harmony can be restored and become a reality in Fiji.
This is absolutely essential and there are no alternatives to that reality.
Mr President, the events that have unfolded in Fiji over the past few months seem to be taken straight from a soap opera.
Unfortunately, they are for real. What is more, Fiji is an ACP country which enjoys considerable benefits thanks to the sugar protocol with the European Union.
It is almost ironic that the new partnership deal, which considers democracy to be of paramount importance, was signed in Fiji at a time when that country was hit by a coup d' état.
It illustrates, once again, how fragile democracy is, even in regions where it seemed to be an established value.
But the Fiji story is more complicated than that.
There is a delicate balance of power between the indigenous population and the population of Indian origin, who make up 44% of the population.
The army plays a dubious role.
The attacks on Indian properties could apparently take place undisturbed and without any intervention by the body of officials responsible for order. In fact, certain elements within the army openly chose the side of the army taking part in the coup.
There are the recent revelations about the role of Mr Speight in the lucrative timber industry, which put the whole matter in a completely new light.
According to recent information, he was apparently discharged as chairman of the state enterprise which manages mahogany plantations, and earlier in the year, he was in danger of missing out on a major contract for the development of hardwood.
All this seems to suggest that personal and economic, rather than political, interests were behind the coup.
Be that as it may, Speight' s undemocratic behaviour has plunged a whole country into a deep political and economic crisis.
Tourism, which represented one third of the gross domestic product, has dropped to less than one fifth.
Ethnic tension is once again mounting.
Thousands of inhabitants of Indian origin are still on the run, and the events in Fiji are also prejudicing the promising dynamic in the region which was to culminate in the Pacific Regional Trade Agreement.
The European Parliament which, in its agreements with the ACP partners, makes strict demands regarding democracy and human rights, can and must condemn such a course of events.
We need to continue to demand that the safety of all citizens be guaranteed and that any form of ethnic division and provocation be penalised.
Speight should not be let off the hook.
Above all, we must work towards the return of true democracy within the meaning of the 1997 Constitution, which guarantees equal rights to all inhabitants of Fiji, and it is true that elections must be called as soon as possible.
A three-year transitional period is not acceptable.
If the interim government fails to restore democratic order within a reasonable period of time, sanctions must be considered, preferably 'smart' sanctions, and structural aid must be suspended.
Consultations on this matter will be starting in September.
I do hope that the Commission will stick to its principles and will not succumb to political or economic pressure.
As we are about to embark on a new major partnership agreement between Europe and its partners in the ACP, it is of paramount importance not to create a precedent.
Mr President, I generally welcome the comments both of the previous speaker and Commissioner Nielson who made a statement on behalf of the Commission.
I am not as convinced as he is that the violence is actually over in Fiji.
I had the opportunity last week, along with a number of colleagues from various parties and groups here, to meet with Prime Minister Mahendra Chaudhry who reported to us that violence against the Indo-Fijians is still continuing in Fiji.
Secondly, I disagree that there is a fundamental ethnic antagonism in Fiji.
It seems to me, if one looks at the origin of the coup d'état, that one should follow the money rather than the ethnic relations.
I welcome the fact that Article 366 of the Lomé Convention has been invoked.
If we look back at the history of what has happened in Fiji, we see a sweeping electoral victory by the Fijian Labour Party in the May 1999 General Election when they won, with their supporting parties, 58 out of the 71 seats, ousting the incumbent right-wing government.
Following that, there has been a systematic attempt to destabilise the new government led by elements of the former governing party and extreme nationalist gangs under the flimsy pretext of protecting indigenous interests.
It is interesting that, although Mahendra Chaudhry is an Indo-Fijian, twelve out of the 18 members of his cabinet are, as it were, indigenous Fijians and a majority of indigenous Fijian MPs actually supported the Government.
The destabilisation operation was financed by sections of private enterprise, frightened by the government's radical programme of social reform and poverty alleviation and by its close association with the trade union movement.
This financing was led by corporate groups bidding for the right to exploit mahogany and native hardwood forestry.
The police and the military singularly failed to protect and defend the government.
Alongside George Speight and his gang, when the people's coalition government were taken hostage on 19 May, were members of the armed forces' counter-revolutionary warfare unit.
What has happened in Fiji is nothing less than a coup d'état by the military industrial complex.
In fact, it is another Chile written small.
As a result, the 1997 Constitution has been ripped up.
A government has been imposed in power by the military that it is effectively controlled by those supporting the coup and the military is trying to offload the blame by prosecuting one small section of those involved, namely the gang around George Speight
I believe Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers must back the proposals by the Labour led people's coalition for reinstatement of the 1997 Constitution and, in the spirit of national conciliation, for the formation of a grand coalition for the government in Fiji.
Unless this is achieved, unless the slide towards a form of apartheid in Fiji, where Indo-Fijians who comprise nearly half the population are rapidly becoming second-class citizens, driven from their homes and jobs, is stopped, then we should demand support for sanctions against the current government.
We should support the moves by Premier Helen Clark from New Zealand for a concerted action at bilateral, regional and global levels, which should include, as Mr Van Hecke said, 'smart' sanctions targeted at those involved in the coups, denying them the freedom to travel, freezing foreign assets and threatening them when they are apprehended with the consequences of the UN Hostage Convention.
Second, Fiji should be banned from all international sporting and cultural events.
Third, there should be a denial of all economic and military assistance to and through the present government.
The issue of Fiji is important, not only in its own right, but because it will set a precedent as to whether semi-clandestine coups-in-waiting along similar lines will see the light of day and whether Europe and the rest of the developed world is prepared to tackle the issue of indigenous rights - the Third World's variant of the racism that is threatening us all.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the coup in Fiji in May of this year was not the first one.
It was preceded by one in 1987 which resulted in exclusion from the Commonwealth.
This does lead me to believe that the tension, possibly ethnic in origin, must go far deeper than we might like to think.
Then too, tension between the indigenous people of Fiji and Indo-Fijians was at the root of the problem and, needless to say, with Indo-Fijians accounting for 44% of the population and the indigenous people accounting for 64%, two peoples of more or less the same size are involved.
I can imagine that the removal of prejudice, as you referred to earlier Commissioner, is not a matter of course in such situations.
Moreover, unemployment promotes tension, and the legally elected government was driven out by the military coup.
What concerns me more than anything is that this conflict could spread to other islands with similar problems and similar tensions.
This is, in fact, the opposite of what we have in mind and to which reference has already been made: the establishment of a great Pacific Regional Trade Agreement between 14 nations.
If we are not careful, this will be the first major conflict in the Pacific and this may well affect the situation in the region for a few decades to come.
All this makes me wonder whether this coup is merely the thin end of the wedge.
It also makes me wonder what the European Union' s prevention policy actually consists of.
What can be done in order to put such a country back on the road towards being a democratic, constitutional state, no longer in a crisis situation and with the guilty parties brought to justice, as has been requested with good reason?
We should also press for the safety of all citizens - this seems basic to me, especially in a country where thousands of people are on the run in their own country - as well as for a parliament which should be re-convened this autumn, and for a democratically elected government.
Some of our motions for resolution also include the requirement that the opposition should take part in the government. This, of course, presupposes an agreement, which has not been concluded since the multi-racial constitution of 1997, which was seemingly approved by everyone at the time but which cannot, however, be applied in practice.
The European Union is Fiji' s key trading partner and provider of aid. How can we translate this role into effective peace mediation?
Could we not appoint a genuine mediator or mediating body in consultation with the UN and the Commonwealth? The Kotonu conventions provide for a partnership for development and peace, and the Lomé conventions also provide for procedures, especially Article 366, which has already been referred to.
These procedures should be applied with due care, intelligence and maturity.
We invite the Commission to come back before the end of the year to report on the developments in Fiji and the region as a whole and on the efforts which the European Union has made.
Mr President, the events of the past few months in Fiji are not an isolated incident.
They are more than the sum-total of a crazed, racist businessman, a disloyal army, the interests of timber merchants, and politicians who accept that the democratically enacted constitution has been invalidated.
The events have everything to do with the relationship between people and state in general and with the history of Fiji and the composition of its population in particular.
European colonialism caused workers from other parts of the then British colonial empire to move to Fiji, as a result of which the 44% of people of Indian origin have now started to form a near-majority of the population.
The original Fijian population has never had a say in the matter but has meanwhile been faced with the reality that the composition of the population has changed beyond recognition.
Descendants of those newcomers rightly feel that they are a part of the established population of the group of islands, with equal rights, whilst a large section of the original population still struggles to come to terms with this new status quo. The situation is in many ways comparable to that in Surinam, Guyana, Trinidad and South Africa.
Indeed, European colonialism brought peoples of very different origins together in those regions too.
The peoples involved had nothing in common in terms of language, culture and religion and there are also striking differences in their appearance.
They very often live as closed groups juxtaposed to one another within the same territory, but largely in separate settlements and urban areas.
In these countries, there have often been harsh clashes between these peoples.
Sometimes, part of such a group believes it is superior, but often the clashes are about the ruthless protection of interests and the distribution of goods in short supply among competing groups.
These competitors need the same land, the same jobs and the same houses, whilst everything is in short supply.
In South Africa, this situation even led to an atrocious system of inequality and oppression, referred to as apartheid.
Meanwhile, the people of such countries have come to the conclusion that all people are equal and that they have no choice other than to join forces.
But this does not take away the fact that closed groups continue to live side by side without real integration.
Politicians and adventurers who wish to set peoples against each other still have plenty of scope.
That is the key difference compared with the current states in Europe. The latter are generally united with one people, one common history, one language and more or less one culture.
This is true of old countries, such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal but is also true of relatively new countries such as Poland, Italy, Germany and Romania or of very new ones, including the Czech Republic, Slovenia or Lithuania.
Precisely because these countries are incontrovertibly linked to the people who live there as a large majority, they can be open to minorities and newcomers and maintain their democracy.
But in European countries, too, there are unpleasant recollections of former newcomers who came as soldiers, robbers and privileged groups of businessmen and who put the people at a disadvantage.
Very often, people these days would prefer to see the descendants of these newcomers leave their country or else wish that they had completely adapted.
From our European perspective, we recognise the right of the Israeli and Palestinian states to exist side by side, as was illustrated once again very clearly this week during the remarkable visit of the presidents of both parliaments.
It is impossible to live there in peace in one state but people can quite easily co-exist as good neighbours.
Fair enough, Europe is to blame and should help solve the problems.
But that does not take away the fact that the situation which has arisen in Fiji is completely unacceptable.
The equal rights of the large Indian minority, the constitution and parliamentary democracy must be restored.
Those who use racism to their advantage must be punished and at least be excluded from political power, the refugees must be able to return home, and violence must come to an end.
The multi-racial constitution of 1997, which came about following a previous coup d' état after lengthy negotiations, must be restored without delay.
Mr President, I speak as a friend of Fiji, as someone who has followed events there for many years.
I have friends and acquaintances there and have been there.
When I spoke to the politicians the last time I was there three or four years ago the one thing they were all pleased about was the new constitution which had taken four years to put together, and when I saw the events of recent times my heart sank because I knew the consequences for that country.
I should like clarification from you, Commissioner.
From what you said, I assume you are saying no sanctions, that it is a matter of wait and see and giving them time to sort themselves out before we take any action.
I would like clarity on that point.
I do not want to walk away from here just assuming that; it would be helpful if you could be more explicit.
Mr Ford has called for Fiji to be banned from all sporting events.
My sport happens to be a minority sport - rugby league football - and in October or November the World Cup will be taking place in the UK and in France.
Fiji will have a squad there as part of the World Cup.
The Australian Government wants them banned.
The Australian Government thinks that Fiji should not take part in this competition.
If you speak to the players, whether they be Asian, Polynesian or Melanesian, they will say they want to play, of course.
My specific question to you, Commissioner, is would the Commission advocate sporting bans at this time or not?
It may be quite useful for us, as politicians, to be confronted with the question of whether sports and politics should have anything to do with each other or not.
It is a very useful exercise in analysing the extent of our principles and whether or not there are human activities that should be quite independent.
Sport today is not only sport, it is also business.
For that reason the world of sport has created more difficulties for itself than used to be the case in more innocent times.
As far as I am informed, unlike the line you say they are following with rugby, the Australians, when it comes to participation in the Olympic Games are maintaining a clear distinction between politics and sport.
We have no specific view in the Commission as to one event or another.
At this moment we are engaging in the dialogue of the Lomé Convention, so at this stage we have not drawn conclusions.
In answer to your more general question, there may very well be broad sanctions, but it depends on the outcome of the dialogue.
This dialogue is well-organised and systematic based on the beauty of our relationship with ACP countries.
It is not just a donor-recipient relationship.
We have the background of a system to work from.
This system is put to work in the given situation.
The options are open.
We have both the stick and the carrot.
We are actively drawing into this debate the regional ACP partners and giving the authorities in the country in question a say in the discussion.
But it is an extremely critical situation.
It contains all the dilemmas that situations like this normally present.
It is not easy to find out what the right thing to do is but we are doing everything to mobilise pressure for a rapid, irreversible return to democracy.
This is also the reply to Mrs Maes.
We do have a very important role as a trading partner and donor in Fiji and this creates a serious framework for the present discussion with the people in power in Fiji.
As regards coming back to the Parliament, I would say that I am always of course willing to go to the Development Committee and discuss any issue.
I would certainly like to have an opportunity to go more into detail before the end of the year if this is something the committee would welcome.
I can fully concur with everything Mr Ford said.
It is really tragic what is happening.
Also, as others said, the risk of a negative spillover in the region should also be taken into consideration when we are deciding what our measures should be.
One important measure that was taken - and this is a comment for Mr Van Hecke - was to call off the signing ceremony planned for Fiji.
So it is not the Suva Agreement that will govern our future relationship with the ACP states.
We went to Benin instead of Fiji in the summer and that, in fact, was a strong measure from both the EU side and the ACP side that it was taken as a natural thing that we could not sign the new agreement in Fiji.
So, in political terms we have already sent a strong message.
Mr President, in the joint compromise resolution there is a reference to setting a deadline at the end of November for a restoration of democracy.
Would the Commissioner accept that is a suitable target and a suitable deadline? Otherwise, the danger is the current government in Fiji will go on negotiating forever, but never come to a conclusion.
If we reflect on the ethics of picking a date, that date is far too late, but the operational, practical idea of fixing a date is to put meaningful pressure on the partner in the discussion.
I am not sure that particular date is meaningful.
We have partners in the ACP Group who are part of the process of convincing and putting pressure on Fiji to do the right thing.
I would not like to dictate a date just like that.
I prefer to have my partners in the south well on board in the process, also taking into consideration the risk of the negative spill-over in the region.
I would not be willing to accept a specific date at this stage.
There is a tactical necessity not to create the problem.
The debate is closed.
I have received five motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure .
The vote on these motions for resolutions will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 6.40 p.m.)
Tribute
I am afraid I have to start today by announcing the passing away yesterday of our fellow member, Mr Günter Lüttge, who died after a serious illness.
Mr Lüttge became an MEP in 1989 and was mainly involved in transport policy.
I suggest we observe a minute' s silence in his memory.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, referring to the text adopted yesterday and the issue of human cloning, item 8 in the English version, paragraph 11, reads 'considers that any temporary committee set up by this Parliament ....'.
It does not actually say that such a temporary committee should be set up.
Could we have some guidance as to what the presidency will do about this particular section of the resolution?
I shall submit this to the Conference of Presidents, Mr Adam, and you will be notified of the outcome.
Mr President, my name does not seem to be on yesterday's attendance list although I did actually sign in.
Mr Bowis, that will be duly corrected and amended.
Mr President, following up the point that Mr Adam made, I presume you will report back at the beginning of the mini-session on the result and, of course, if there is a proposal for the establishment of a temporary committee this House will have to vote on it.
That will be the course of action, Mr Ford.
(The Minutes were approved)
European Year of Lifelong Learning (1996)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have the report before us, undoubtedly so that we can make improvements to it, as the rapporteur, Mrs Gutiérrez-Cortines said.
I also think, however, that we ought again to use this morning' s discussion to raise awareness once more and to make people aware of education again.
We are all delighted with the new achievements of our age: travel, the Internet, mobile phones and simultaneous television broadcasts from the other side of the world, as we are now experiencing again with the Olympic Games in Australia.
These are all achievements, but also signs of the time and of the society in which we live: the information age, the information society, the age of knowledge, technology and globalisation, to mention but a few designations.
All are characterised by a very rapid pace of change and by an enormous number of transformations, indeed revolutions, which have been triggered, and continue to be triggered, by the new knowledge.
The dissemination of information and knowledge is now incomparably faster and more extensive than it was even a few years ago.
People must be prepared for this vertiginous and fascinating roller coaster of change.
From the earliest days of childhood, from schooldays in fact, the key words have been lifelong learning.
That tenet is now only half the truth, however, and it cannot remain so, for the processes of change and transformation in society, in the world of work and in the environment are by no means over after school or after training, but continue and become still more marked.
Human beings must therefore learn to meet these challenges themselves and to adjust to lifelong learning.
Only in that way can we all, in future, also participate in the fine achievements of our age, that is to say, hold our own in the ever more rapidly changing competitiveness of life - both personal and professional - and both seize and help to create opportunities.
In order to help these insights come to the fore throughout Europe, 1996 was designated the European Year of Lifelong Learning.
With relatively modest financial resources of ECU 8.4 million from the European Union, a much welcomed ECU 34 million was raised for the project with the help of partner countries from the European Economic Area: Liechtenstein, Switzerland and Norway.
In many congresses, seminars and PR events, there was constructive discussion in all areas of society of the necessity and opportunities for rethinking education in the direction of lifelong learning.
These are opportunities - especially for Europe and European integration - of which we can avail ourselves here and now: knowledge of other languages, other cultures, other ways of life, everything that is so important for us as Europe grows together.
The European Year of Lifelong Learning set us thinking in a way which must be continued and consolidated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the traditional concept of education was that students would cease learning when they left school.
It is true that a small elite would continue to create, pass on or acquire new knowledge and ideas, but for the great majority, leaving school meant the end of formal education.
Things have changed radically.
Learning has become broader and longer.
New methods and sources for acquiring knowledge and training have appeared.
Anyone who does not keep up with this progress, these new requirements, risks becoming marginalised, undervalued in his or her professional life, risks losing social status and suffering intellectual impoverishment.
It is said, and rightly so, that we are becoming a society of information and knowledge.
The great philosopher Nietzsche, however, warned us that it is impossible to found a civilisation on knowledge.
This warning should give us food for thought.
Although, today, there is no alternative to scientific progress and to the increase in knowledge and information, the truth of the matter is that lifelong learning cannot be reduced simply to the acquisition of useful skills. It must be part of a culture, of a set of values that provide meaning for mankind' s life in society.
Lifelong learning and training has therefore become an indispensable factor that states, educational bodies and the public themselves can no longer underestimate.
Holding the European Year of Lifelong Learning and Training was an important step and a symbolic moment in raising the awareness of the European people with regard to this new state of affairs.
The theorising that preceded and continued throughout the European Year of Lifelong Learning and the considerable interest it raised in schools and citizens' groups made a major contribution to this.
'Lifelong learning and training' has definitively entered the vocabulary of politicians, educationalists and businesspeople.
Even more importantly, these words have also become part of everyday language.
Lifelong learning and training has also become an instrument in the fight against academic failure, students giving up on education and illiteracy.
It is therefore a good cause.
For these reasons, this initiative was valuable, timely and fruitful.
Its objectives were achieved and what was lacking in funds was compensated for by the harnessing of goodwill and by the number of people who signed up to it.
The line between people' s first educational experiences and later opportunities has now been crossed.
Education...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express the Liberal Group' s support for the report by Mrs Cristina Gutiérrez-Cortines, which, as she herself mentioned in the introduction to her report, is not, and should not be, considered to be purely a formality, a summary of the application of the European Year of Learning in 1996, but rather as an analysis that serves to make a series of proposals on what the standing of education should be in its various fields, including the fields of lifelong learning and vocational and technical training, which deserve special attention.
This coincides with the ideas expressed a few months ago at the Lisbon and Feira European Councils, when all the Member States pledged to develop a series of measures at European Union level so that, during this decade, the European Union can become a leading society at international level and achieve the levels of competence that North America has today, particularly in technological areas.
To be precise, the key element in the process to achieve this level of competence lies in training, education and in a society with levels of excellence that lay the necessary foundations for progress to be made in the most technologically developed and advanced fields of scientific and technological innovation.
The report by Mrs Cristina Gutiérrez-Cortines, and she has also mentioned this today, shows the imbalances that still exist in the field of education between the level of the European Union and national level, that is, on the one hand we want action in education at European Union level, but on the other, the Member States do not want to give up their competences and establish true cooperation on an educational level.
It is true that there are some programmes that we always use as references, such as Socrates or Leonardo, but in precisely these programmes, we must recognise the lack of sufficient resources to achieve the scope and effect that we would like.
Finally, I therefore recommend that you pay particular attention to points 16, 17, 18, 19, 23 and 24, which constitute a good guide for the achievement of these higher levels of education at European Union level.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to congratulate our rapporteur on her excellent work and also on the commendable way in which she cooperated in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
Philosophical and literary texts, as well as popular wisdom, tell us that 'you are never too old to learn' .
The 'Lifelong Learning' initiative was a perfectly proper one and the result of a wise decision, aimed at doing justice to the demands of the twenty-first century and at enabling people to adjust to these demands.
It is mainly the early phases of life which, right into our own time, have been, and remain, the time for education and training.
The importance of lifelong learning cannot, however, be limited to the spheres of education and training policy alone.
Its success also depends, in large measure, upon labour-market policy and upon the successful dissemination of science and technology.
Lifelong learning begins where schooling, or basic education, leaves off, and this is where the first and, in my view, also the greatest weakness of this wonderful initiative is to be found.
Lifelong learning can only work if there is a change to the way in which, and above all the pace at which, basic education under the original educational systems is adapted.
In a knowledge society, one of the main functions of schooling should be to offer students methods they need to gain access to large amounts of information, to understand this information and to transform it into knowledge. Syllabuses, or the means by which learning has so far been imparted, must be fundamentally altered.
I do not of course want to interfere in the nation states, but this is, nonetheless, an idea which we ought to explore communally in this European Community.
Instead, the direction taken should be an individual one, but with social components.
We need to learn more about arguing critically, about increasing students' self-confidence and about increasing their ability to express themselves in language.
Skills of this kind will become ever more important alongside instrumental skills such as the ability to write, to acquire other languages and to do arithmetic.
One goal must be to enable pupils constantly to update their knowledge and skills so that they are neither able nor willing to view a diploma or certificate as the end of a learning process or as a seal of approval upon something finally completed.
Our society must break away from the outdated system of school, work and pension.
Lifelong learning begins, then, with the reform of our schooling.
The individual must learn for him or herself.
That is not something it lies within our power to bring about, but we can do a lot to help bring it about, for the population of Europe is not, of course, just a human resource for the European labour market, but a wealth of marvellous individuals.
Allow me to give a personal example by way of conclusion. I know a joiner in a small suburb of Vienna where the prejudice is still somewhat commonly held that anyone who works with their hands must not be very well educated.
This joiner is between 40 and 50 years of age, speaks four languages and is known as something of a philosopher.
A Europe of people like that would be my ideal.
Mr President, in Finland we ordinary people say: 'All in the good time of the powers-that-be.'
We could say the same in connection with this, as the political balance sheet for the Year of Lifelong Learning (1996) is yet to be reckoned.
In spite of the time wasted, the rapporteur regrets that the qualitative assessment of the implementation of the theme year programme is imperfect.
The number of opportunities can surely be counted in a shorter space of time than this.
In a seminar on the European paper industry held here in Strasbourg on Wednesday a representative of employees in the industry turned our intention to an important issue.
When we purchase hardware, it is always an investment, but when we acquire software labelled 'company staff training' , it is not considered to be an investment.
The rapporteur has justifiably emphasised this.
Training has to be considered to be an investment and not a running cost.
We must stress the importance of the fact that lifelong learning also involves an all-round educational element and not just a professional one.
Far too often training is too biased in its scope, and that is especially true today of information society development. Electronic programs are complicated and get more so all the time.
Those who master the language of software often do not understand the language of its content.
Can I ask something that is being asked in Finland now?
A man speaks six languages, but what has he got to say? A person might speak the language of computers in the information society, but perhaps he has nothing else to say.
It is only noughts and ones anyway.
In this, we are clashing with the eEurope strategy, which the Commission prepared for the Lisbon summit.
Much attention was paid to hardware in it, but little to that software which we call training software.
The public must be trained, not only to use computers, but also to use them for their own benefit.
People must know how to use computers for beneficial and essential purposes so they can improve their own way of working and take better control of their lives.
Nowadays, everyone must have the necessary reading and writing skills to use the various forms of electronic media to their advantage.
This new sort of literacy has to be taught to many adults starting at the beginning.
When, under the eEurope programme, the aim is in place to bring a computer cable into every home, that will increase democracy.
These days, democracy is created by everyone having equal access to a diverse array of information.
For the information to be fully exploited we have to remember that learning is also a social event.
Training cannot be left to depend on the eEurope programme alone: we also need social communities for it.
As no one knows everything, an individual must be able to decide for him/herself what is worth knowing.
If the state makes that decision it is just a step away from propaganda and indoctrination.
When we examine EU programmes, which are often mean the same kind of thing for everyone or contain demands for conformity on the part of everyone, we see we are turning the EU into a totalitarian federation.
We need lifelong learning and all-round educational knowledge, so that we can counter the attempt by the European Union to create a European totalitarian state and be its politburo.
Mr President, I hope I will not strike too discordant a note, but it seems to me this debate has been excessively self-congratulatory so far.
When I picked up the agenda and read the phrase 'Year of Lifelong Learning' it seemed to me that this was an oxymoron similar to the phrase 'military intelligence' .
A year seems a short time for the project.
The question is: how valuable are these 'Year of ...' enterprises when applications for funding have to be submitted within three months and everything will have to be carried out in one year. I have been at the receiving end of such systems, both as a university teacher and when I was involved in an educational and social charity.
From the point of view of people trying to do the job, these challenges, at very short notice and with very little explanation of how applications are to be made and what criteria are to be applied, can do at least as much harm as good.
One can always point to the fact afterwards that the money was spent and other money came in and that good things have been achieved; but could things have been done better? Both the Committee reports - the Committee report and the subsidiary Committee opinion - draw attention to the fact that the assessment methodology used by the Commission was not very exact and the criteria set were not particularly clear.
This is not to say we should not do these things, but we should do them better and reflect very carefully on what can best be done at Community level and what at lower levels, not even at Member State level or in autonomous regions within the Member States, but right down at the level of schools, colleges and universities.
My constituency has just come through a serious crisis in its educational assessment, partly due to a lack of proper consultation with classroom teachers.
Grandiose ideas issued from on high and not adequately and rigorously tested at the sharp end will always fail, sometimes with damaging consequences for individuals and for society.
Subsidiarity matters, especially in a field like education and lifelong learning, and we forget that at our peril.
Networking can be useful in disseminating ideas for best practice, but we must not delude ourselves that a Year of Lifelong Learning will make a real difference.
That can only come from the commitment of the people on the ground.
Those are the people we must respect and encourage and support.
We are all in favour of lifelong learning, but let us not be too self-congratulatory when the evidence is so thin.
Lifelong learning is something we all look upon with the greatest benevolence. We can hear that especially from this discussion.
When it comes to taking action, however, the situation is often the reverse.
I agree with the rapporteur who criticises the Commission' s efforts on behalf of lifelong learning during 1996, the year of the relevant campaign, together with the slipshod evaluation which followed.
Lifelong learning is a phenomenon requiring a lot of resources.
It demands new thinking on educational policy and calls for financial resources to be prioritised.
Allow me to begin by commenting on the new thinking required.
In our education systems, we specialise in the contrary, that is to say self-enclosed educational courses, limited by time and with heavy emphasis upon the final examination.
Lifelong learning requires the opposite, namely continuity and courses of long duration.
It is no longer enough to educate for the immediate needs of the workplace.
Now, it is a matter of educating people for life.
We therefore need new forms of organisation in education.
We need new educational ideas and tools.
Perhaps the greatest problem is that which many other speakers have raised, namely access to money.
We need to allocate much greater resources to education than we have done up until now, both to the workplace and to the public education system, as well as to other areas.
There must be money to pay for the costs of education and also to replace income in the form of wages, especially in the case of those who need to study full-time.
It is especially important to be able to finance the fairly long study periods which may be required if people are to be able to move from traditional sectors to new areas of the labour market.
Because access to money is always a problem, I think that quantitative objectives are required in connection with expenditure on adult education.
Consideration might be given to earmarking a certain proportion of companies' production costs for this purpose, a specific percentage of the State budget, a particular portion of normal working hours or, if appropriate, a certain number of the individual' s working hours. Alternatively, other similar quantitative measures might be made use of.
The Swedish Presidency, which will begin on 1 January 2001, has said that lifelong learning will be one of its priorities.
I think we could call upon the Swedish Government to propose just such quantitative objectives for lifelong adult education.
Many speakers here in the Chamber have agreed about the need to set financial priorities.
Perhaps we could issue a joint statement to the Swedish Presidency on this issue.
Mr President, Gutiérrez-Cortines' report states that the Union administration' s besetting sin - its slow start to getting measures off the ground - afflicted the theme year of lifelong learning.
National coordinating bodies suffered from such matters as materials arriving late and there not being enough of them.
Furthermore, things moved slowly when it came to using the Internet.
That naturally made it hard to implement the theme year programme.
Unfortunately, the situation appears to be the same with the Socrates programme 2 that has just started.
Messages of concern are coming from national agencies that the agreements between them and the Commission are still not finalised and there is a lack of certainty about payment.
This cannot help but be reflected also in the implementation of the adult education component, Grundvik, which forms part of Socrates.
That is a pity.
The administrative problems associated with Socrates have to be resolved swiftly for the Union' s input into lifelong learning to come within reach of the people.
Training and education are being seen more and more clearly as European resources.
They do not mean just vital items of expenditure.
Hopefully the change in attitudes will also be reflected before long in the Union' s budget.
But the Year of European Languages, organised for next year, will have to persevere in the same way, appropriations being as meagre as they were with the Year of Lifelong Learning.
Parliament, however, did its best to establish a legal basis in time for the measures to be effected.
Although training comes under the principle of subsidiarity, its European dimension is strengthening all the time.
European success in global competition is built on skilled and involved people.
Lifelong learning is essential in the fight against unemployment and exclusion.
It is justifiable that the report adopted by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport should contain a request to the Commission to apply the notion of further education, not only at the level of advanced know-how and skills and universities, but also in traditional professions, particularly the craftsmen trades.
Lifelong learning, as such, is often seen only as a necessary regeneration of the workforce.
It should, however, be a fundamental right of every citizen, leading not just to improved professional skills, but also to human growth, happiness and understanding.
The facilities modern technology offers for learning can be brought within everybody' s reach.
That opportunity must be taken.
Mr President, paragraph 16 of Mrs Gutiérrez-Cortines' excellent report calls for training designed to correct school failures.
It would be far better if we could avoid that sort of failure.
The saddest case of all is a school leaver with no qualifications to his credit descending into hopelessness.
A situation which becomes sadder and sadder as the occupations available to those with no qualifications become scarcer and scarcer.
The reason is often that the young teenager is discouraged from learning by the rigidities of an education system that sticks to established lines and tries to fit square pegs into round holes.
I appeal to the Commission to look favourably on a research programme into the use and development of aptitude tests to identify at an early stage - 12 or 13 years old at the latest - what a young person is going to be good at, no matter what that profession, occupation or job may be.
Schools have to respond by providing courses at which young people will succeed.
Success encourages further ambition.
It means satisfied, enthusiastic teenagers instead of discouraged troublemakers.
It means school-leavers with light in their eyes, with excitement about the future, able to contribute to society.
It means school-leavers with a passport to a better and more fulfilling life.
Nothing is more vital to the future of Europe than the young people who are going to build that Europe.
There is not one young person who cannot play his part.
We have to enable this sadly wasted potential to be mobilised and to succeed.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Explanations of vote
Mr President, I voted for this important document, and its importance has been stressed by all the speakers, particularly by Mrs Echerer who said: 'You are never too old to learn', by Mr Posselt, who is so eager to support the elderly that I could give him a Pensioners' Party membership card, and by Commissioner Barnier himself, who has assured us of his strong commitment in this area.
However, Mr President, as representative of the Pensioners' Party to the European Parliament, I call for words to be translated into action.
The elderly in the Member States have no opportunity learn, have no help from national states and are not even allowed to use school buildings, which accommodate children in the morning and could accommodate old people in the afternoon.
Mr President, my reference to Communist dictatorships has clearly triggered feelings of great agitation in an MEP from the extreme left.
I should therefore like to say that today' s vote has been very important.
The people in his party, the PDS, are clearly determined not to learn anything new for the rest of their lives.
I am therefore very pleased that we have adopted this report by a large majority.
Mr President, lifelong learning must be a responsibility not only of the European Commission and the European institutions but also, and especially, of the Member States.
I voted in favour because I believe that tax advantages for professional and private education must be placed centre-stage so that educational sponsorship, in particular, becomes a possibility, too.
Incentives must be created so that, in order to take some of the pressure off the system, foundations can take over educational establishments and sponsorship can be broadly based.
I also believe, however, that we ought to set an example at European level.
Every year, we ought to devise and evaluate training and further education syllabuses for our officials and politicians to enable us to measure how we are meeting our own needs for professional development.
Mr President, the Communist Party of Greece is in favour of a state lifelong learning system, since it will give workers the chance to improve their knowledge and professional skills as well as their contribution to society as a whole and their standard of living.
However, the model being promoted by the European Union merely attempts to patch over the shortcomings in an education system which turns out disposable workers who are unable to keep up with developments in the productive process.
Workers are forced to pass their entire lives in a vicious circle of work, unemployment, training and so on and so forth.
Despite identifying certain shortcomings in the system, Mr Gutiérrez-Cortines' report fails to go far enough in analysing the causes or suggesting remedies, which is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece abstained from the vote.
.
(FR) I should like to begin by stressing that access to a good level of education and training is the right of every individual in order to develop his potential and ability to fit into the economic, social and cultural environment.
This fundamental fact has fuelled debates at the European Council meetings in Lisbon and Feira.
We further acknowledged that this right must be adapted to cater for the advent of the information society.
New information and communications technology do indeed have serious repercussions on teaching methodology.
It is now acknowledged that education and training should be a lifelong process and so, throughout these summit meetings, the Commission and the Member States have been encouraged to define coherent strategies and practical measures in order to make lifelong education and training accessible to all.
Some parties had, however, begun to consider this subject well before that, since, even in 1996, the Commission proposed to the Council and to Parliament that the year 1996 be declared the 'European Year of Lifelong Learning' .
The purpose of this year was to make European citizens aware of new concepts in academic and vocational education and to conduct joint discussions with all the operators involved in the role and the stakes of education and training at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
Given the high stakes involved, I can only, like our rapporteur, deplore the fact that the budget for the European Year of Lifelong Learning was limited to EUR 8.4 million for the fifteen Member States and their three partners in the EEA.
By the same token, we must deplore the flagrant lack of qualitative data in the Commission report. The Commission should therefore improve the quality of its reports in future.
In future programmes, their work should concentrate on defining with greater precision the various concepts and aspects of vocational and lifelong training.
They should also speedily implement action programmes and specific measures in the context of a lifelong education and training strategy.
The implementation of such measures must be coordinated with the Socrates II and Leonardo programmes.
It is up to us to ensure that all citizens can benefit from this training in new technologies, as there is a great danger of seeing a 'digital divide' being established between the men and women who have the means to access this technology and those who do not.
The entire debate on the place of universal public service in new telecommunications networks is also involved.
Thank you, Mr Alyssandrakis.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 10.10 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 8 September 2000.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
Thank you, Mr Tajani.
We shall consider the best way of passing on this entirely justified protest.
Madam President, I asked for the floor to raise the same point.
I would be grateful if you could pass on Parliament' s concerns, its fierce condemnation of this act and its sympathy to the young Catholic teacher who was so brutally attacked because of his Jewish origins.
I shall be very happy to do that.
Madam President, I too would like to support Mr Tajani and all the other Members who have spoken on the subject in their condemnation of the racist attack on a Christian teacher of Jewish origin which has taken place in my country, in Verona to be precise.
These incidents are incomprehensible, and not only must they be condemned but the perpetrators severely punished.
Madam President, I too would like to support Mr Tajani' s statement, which has been echoed in speeches from a number of different quarters and parties.
On behalf of the party which I represent, the Alleanza Nazionale, I therefore join you all with the utmost solidarity in severely condemning incidents which make us ashamed to be European.
I feel that the sensitivity of this Parliament, in which right and left are united on this matter, will contribute to combating such shameful incidents and eradicating them once and for all.
I have not yet received this recommendation by the Quaestors.
That is why it has not yet been placed on our Bureau' s agenda.
Once I have received it, the Bureau will, of course, examine it very carefully indeed.
Thank you for that information and clarification.
I do not think this is the time and place to enter into a debate on this issue.
As I said in my reply to Mrs Morgan, as soon as I have officially received the recommendation by the Quaestors, the Bureau will examine it most carefully, together with all its implications.
Madam President, in a moment, we will be listening to a communication from the Commission on the fuel crisis, and I am pleased that the Commissioner is able to attend.
We all know that she will not be staying for very long as she is leaving for Luxembourg later on this evening to visit the Transport Council.
This should not prevent us, however, from entering into an extensive and searching debate on this issue and going over the short hour that was originally scheduled.
Madam President, I express the view of many MEPs when I say that I regret that we have to deal with this issue in such a short space of time.
The issue concerned has thrown the whole of Europe into commotion and may well do so for the foreseeable future.
The time allocated is really far too short and, on behalf of many MEPs, I felt I had to express my dissatisfaction in public.
Of course. It is a source of regret to me, too.
Madam President, I would just like to return to the problems associated with the constituency weeks.
What I find very strange is not so much the payments, but the fact that a constituency week has been scheduled just before spring half-term in certain Member States or just before carnival week in a number of other Member States when people are off work on the Monday and Tuesday.
In opting for a constituency week at this stage, you ought to have made it coincide with carnival week instead of the week prior to it.
I would ask the Bureau to reconsider this.
Thank you.
These incidents are wholly to be regretted and condemned, and they cannot but encourage us to be extremely vigilant.
Order of business
Mr President, you have just said that we will be starting at half past eleven tomorrow.
That is a most unpleasant surprise because many of us have flights which we can only just make with the earlier voting time, the standard voting time here in the House.
It is a huge problem, it is immensely difficult to find seats on other flights in the evening or even on the following day.
I should therefore like to request that we either keep to a standard voting time or, if not, that we be given more notice.
I should like to request that we keep to a standard voting time, i.e. eleven o' clock.
An alternative proposition is that we start half an hour earlier at 8.30 and then have the voting time at 11 o' clock.
Yes, exactly.
There is no need to vote perhaps, if everyone agrees with this proposal to begin tomorrow at 8.30 a.m. and hold the votes at 11 a.m.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Madam President, you asked if any Members wished to make any comments on the agenda.
I did in fact want to take this opportunity to tell you that I had no objection to Parliament discussing the racist crimes and offences committed against foreigners by people of European origin.
If I am to believe the relevant committee in my own country, they amount to approximately thirty per year out of a total of almost four million crimes and offences, including a million committed by foreigners against native Europeans.
I suggest that the two issues be examined concurrently.
I think it is really a question of equity.
Since racism is unfortunately a universal phenomenon, racist crimes and offences committed by foreigners against Europeans ought also to be investigated.
Yes, I think that would be best.
Madam President, not only do I think it is important we keep tomorrow' s debate on the fight against racism in the form proposed, but in addition, many of our fellow MEPs are now well aware of the fact that no country in Europe is immune from the increase in the xenophobic and populist vote.
In the course of tomorrow' s debate, I should like us, on the basis of what many of our fellow MEPs have said today, to be able to agree upon at least one amendment, namely that, within the confines of this Parliament, no MEP may make racist remarks.
If we succeed in ensuring that, at least in this Parliament, no one can stoop to making racist remarks, then our words and our actions will carry much more weight outside Parliament.
I think that is the best way to respond to Mr Gollnisch.
Measures to be taken following the fuel crisis and the rise in oil prices
The next item is the Commission statement on the measures to be taken following the oil crisis and the increase in the price of oil.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Vice-President of the Commission, on this issue there is a European problem: we do not have a European policy in this area and the Vice-President has recognised this fact.
Furthermore, this is a policy which requires much perseverance as well as investment and resources, because the problem, in relation to energy, is that 'we only remember Santa Bárbara when it thunders' , that is to say, in normal conditions, as Mrs de Palacio has pointed out, consumption tends to increase, and in a society where the car is king, this means a trend towards greater dependency.
In the medium and long term, I believe that the course of action described by the Commissioner, in line with what the Commission had proposed, should be maintained, monitored and strengthened, taking advantage of the development of sustainable energy, reducing dependency on oil, managing, for example, to break up the compartmentalisation of certain national markets and I am thinking, for instance, of the development of the railways as a complement and an alternative to the development of road transport.
None of this, however, is going to resolve the current situation.
That is to say, we need a virtuous policy, but at the same time we are now facing a particularly complex situation in that there are a series of professions who are in a very difficult position and which, as forms of Community-scale protests are developing in Europe, has lead to blockades and disorder and disparate reactions from our governments.
I would like very briefly to point out that, in recent times, thanks to more rigorous budgetary management, there has been talk of lightening the tax burden.
The people do not therefore understand why this cannot extend to oil products.
We must be able to understand this reaction and, at the same time, we must explain to our citizens the reasons for our decisions.
It is true that compensatory measures are required.
It is very important that we manage to improve the situation of transparency as well as anti-monopoly measures, which are the responsibility of the Commission, because somebody is benefiting: OPEC has increased the price, but does not take more than 5 or 6 dollars per barrel.
Above all, we must try to see to it that our governments react jointly and that, finally, we create a European energy policy that is in keeping with the common economic and social area.
Madam President, Commissioner, you made it quite plain: we remain vulnerable.
Energy is not cheap.
It is a scarce commodity.
We seem to have forgotten that, once upon a time, we paid as little as USD 10 for a barrel of oil.
We did not ask ourselves the questions which we probably should have asked and which we are asking ourselves today.
Commissioner, you also mentioned that we have seen prices rise for the past eighteen months. I wonder why the European experts and powers that be did not meet sooner to establish, when prices first started to rise, how things would develop, how this could be prevented from continuing and how we could avoid getting to the point where we are today.
Commissioner, you also stated that we should respond as a united front but we now see that every country has caught "the French flu" .
There is a lack of internal coherence, both in the reactions to the protests - protests which I can often understand very well - and in defending the currency, as well as a lack of external coherence in our attitude to OPEC.
We have to admit that a price of USD 10 per barrel of oil is just as abnormal as one of USD 35 and you are well aware that, while a price of USD 10 may be attractive to ourselves, it is not viable globally.
These are facts which we all seem to have forgotten for the time being.
I believe we ought not to do this in future.
You have listed the main strands in your communication which you published in the first week of September.
They are sound, and cover transport policy, energy policy and environmental policy.
I hope that, this evening in Luxembourg, you will manage to persuade people to adopt the same line because we need to emerge from this crisis now. We need to ensure that the next crisis is not as deep and can be held off for longer than we might anticipate.
At any rate, initiatives should be tabled at European level and a minimum level of cooperation guaranteed in order to help the most needy, as you stated yourself.
This is why I believe that a cut in the general tax burden, as proposed by my party in Belgium, is to be preferred to a specific tax burden on fuel.
What we must not do, whatever happens, is to say to people that energy could become cheap, as this would be the wrong message altogether.
Mr President, we should not wonder at all that we are once again in the midst of a fuel crisis.
This is the third one, and since 1979 energy policy has been little more than a series of failures.
A lot has been said about switching to a sustainable energy policy, but precious little has been done about it.
I welcome the ideas that have been put forward here today by the Commissioner.
Now transport ministers really do have the opportunity to make a definite U-turn in energy policy in the direction of a sustainable energy economy.
Road transport has increased from a 50% share of all transport in 1980 to an 85% share in 2000.
If we were now to reduce fuel taxation generally, this would be very much like lowering the price of heroine on the drugs market.
The end result would surely be that there would be more drug addicts than before and a greater crisis.
We should not be making these kinds of mistakes now.
Nuclear power is not an alternative either in this situation, as only 10% of electricity is produced using oil, and, besides, all the development work going on with regard to new vehicles, for example, is based on the idea that the cars of the future are perhaps more likely to run on hydrogen, but certainly not on nuclear energy.
Our group has today proposed an integrated programme such as this to serve as the European Union' s new energy policy programme.
We want to start implementing this also with regard to the budget, and we are proposing a new budget policy called " New Energy Sources" .
We want to promote energy saving, for example, and better construction technology for homes and buildings.
We also want the European Union to have powers to manage the new energy policy.
We require the issue of energy to be included in the Treaty and have its own chapter there, and we want to stress how important it is to rid ourselves of the requirement of unanimity with regard to taxation.
For almost ten years, we have been trying to establish a common energy tax in the European Union.
Commission Members have come and gone, but this problem has always remained unsolved.
In the short term we have to help the direct victims of this oil crisis, but it has to be done with the proper care and focus.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is my impression that this so-called fuel crisis reveals a number of structural problems which the European Union and the fifteen Member States should be dare to examine in every possible aspect.
The first of these problems concerns our relations with the South, in the event the producer countries.
Did Europe worry, at the beginning of last year, about the disastrous consequences for the economies and populations of a number of these countries when the price of a barrel of oil fell to less than USD 10? This was hailed as good news when, in fact, the situation was just as worrying as an increase in the price to USD 34.
We need to establish a genuine long-term partnership between these countries and ourselves.
And then, all the other root causes of the current situation need to be looked at: cases of speculation, the inadequate stocks in the United States and the fall in the value of the euro.
The second problem revealed, in my view, by this crisis is the lack of coherence between our strategy choices within the Union.
The talk nowadays is of giving priority to rail over road transport and going in for piggybacking.
That is basic, a real social choice and an ecologically responsible act in the strongest sense of the term.
But for how long has exactly the opposite strategy been adopted, with road transport being pushed hard at the expense of rail? Europe is so little prepared for this development that, today, you still have to change trains between France and Italy because the value of electrical current supply in the two countries are incompatible.
The third fundamental problem illustrated spectacularly by this crisis is the extreme difficulty many European leaders have in making an accurate assessment of grass-root demands.
They have not seen, or have not wanted to see, the serious problems which this rise in fuel costs presented for people obliged to use their cars or dependent upon domestic fuel oil.
Our fellow citizens are not prepared to shoulder the burden of this economic crisis, and they are protesting at the way in which countries have indulged the oil companies, even though the latter have been quite shameless in the profits they have been making.
More and more pressure is going to be exerted in favour of a reduction in fuel tax and an appropriate levy on oil companies' profits.
The majority of my group is of the view that the Fifteen ought to take radical environmental measures, effectively promoting rail transport while responding, in the present context, to this legitimate social expectation.
In so doing, they would also do Europe what I think is a currently much needed service.
Mr President, the excessive rise in the price of oil is not without its causes, but there is a risk that, because of its own large share of responsibility for these causes, Europe will not take account of them.
The prime cause is the increase in production prices due to the oligopoly carefully organised by the oil-producing countries.
The short supply of oil has been exacerbated by the sanctions against Iraq, the unjust and immoral continuation of which may be in the interests of the American oil companies but is contrary to the interests of Europe.
The second cause is the depreciation of the euro and, therefore, of all the participating European currencies.
It was valued at USD 1.18 when it was launched.
It is now valued at only USD 0.85.
We were promised a strong currency.
It was a lie, and now we are having to foot a much higher bill.
The third cause is the excessive, even insane, taxation practised by the Member States, and this proto-socialist policy has been continued, if not actually initiated, by conservative governments.
It is maintained under pressure from green organisations which are hostile to the motor car because it represents freedom for the individual.
It is taxation of this kind which multiplies the increase in farm gate prices by a factor of 3, 4 or 5.
The alignment of our foreign policy with that of the United States, the depreciation of the euro as a currency and the increase in taxation due to pressure from green campaigners are the three causes of the increase, which we deplore but for which our institutions bear a very heavy responsibility.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the last fortnight, we have seen a real euro-shambles where transport is concerned, with a petrol shortage, road blockades, mass protests and governments disabled.
You really would have thought you were back in 1973 after the first oil crisis.
And that is not counting the plummeting euro and the explosion in the price of a barrel of crude oil, factors not anticipated in the past oracular pronouncements by self-styled experts on Europe.
Largely predictable though it was, this crisis is as much the responsibility of the oil producers as of government.
Many varied solutions have been put forward, for the situations and the reasons for them are different from one country to another.
Many of these solutions are perfectly rational and obvious and, occasionally, ideological such as restrictions on vehicles or the eco-tax but, as you reminded us, none of these is a panacea that will in itself sort out the situation.
It should be remembered that what chiefly distinguishes the fuel question is its relation to currency and taxation issues and the way it goes on to affect urban and rural planning.
For, if this crisis affects people in their working lives, it also affects people in their private lives, especially in rural areas where the car is still too often the main means of transport and communication and the one to which people resort.
It is a situation resulting from the gradual withdrawal of public services which has not been offset by private operators, who are much too concerned with maximising their profits.
Strategies relating to taxation, the currency and urban and rural planning are matters for each Member State and each Member State alone, in accordance with the sacrosanct principle of subsidiarity.
To conclude, we want to see lower fuel tax because, at present, it is too much of a burden on the people of Europe, in both their private and working lives.
However, there are additional strategies open to our Member States.
The European Union must leave the latter free to exercise their sovereignty in making judicious strategy choices when it comes to energy savings, supplementary forms of renewable energy, the redistribution of freight to the railways and rivers and the development of public transport and the opening up of rural areas.
Mr President, this is actually the third oil crisis we have had, but it contrasts sharply with the other two.
They were political crises of man-made origin, and they came about in 1973 and 1979 with the fall of the Shah regime.
For fifteen years now there have clear indications and studies - for example, Global 2000, the report compiled for Jimmy Carter - to the effect that there would be a real shortage in raw materials by the turn of the century.
In other words, the third oil crisis we are experiencing now, is here to stay.
Whether the price drops again in the short term is of no consequence because there will be a steady upward trend in the long term.
It even says in Colin Campbell' s study - anyone interested in having a copy can get one from me - that there will be a shortage of raw materials, i.e. oil, in the early years of the 21st century, the reason being that the production curve has passed its peak.
I therefore believe that even demonstrations are onto a loser, because you can only squeeze so much juice from a lemon.
We will still have oil, but it will not come cheap.
In other words, the price of oil will rise to between USD 40 and 60 in the future.
There are enough studies to this effect. Even if they should prove to be wrong, now is the time to consider and analyse them.
Nor is it an OPEC crisis, because only 40% of the oil produced comes from OPEC countries; the remaining 60% comes from non-OPEC countries.
If this was just a man-made crisis, the other oil producers could redress the balance.
Mr President, let us put this matter in perspective.
This is not as much of a crisis as the 1970s.
It is as much a taxpayer' s crisis as an energy crisis.
It is not acceptable for governments to put the blame on OPEC, on oil companies, on peaceful protesters, on other political parties, or even on the European Union for protests about levels of taxation that are too high.
In the UK, tax takes 75% or three-quarters of the price of a litre of petrol or diesel and that is the responsibility of the government, no one else.
Energy supply is more elastic than demand.
We learned this in the 1970s, when higher prices brought more oil fields into production yet did not reduce consumption in the transport sector.
High taxation raises revenue, but fails to cut consumption.
Nevertheless, the price increases and the tax protests are timely, to remind us both about our dependence in Europe on imported energy and about the difficulties we face in achieving environmental objectives such as CO2 emission reduction.
If taxation of energy is to be used for pursuing environmental aids, then the policy has to be transparent and consistent so as to carry public opinion with us.
Where policies are perceived as unfair and inconsistent, as in the UK, then protests will enjoy widespread popular support.
To put fuel taxes up so much as to make industry uncompetitive while reducing taxes on domestic household energy consumption, is crazy politics and bad economics.
Let us not be beguiled by arguments about harmonising taxation, because harmonised taxes under socialists have only one way to go and that is up.
That is not what the taxpayers and consumers of Europe want.
Mr President, the explosion in the prices of oil products illustrates the need to make the euro into a genuinely international currency.
The Americans, like ourselves, are suffering an explosion in farm gate prices.
Since barrels of oil are paid for in dollars, the increase has a greater impact upon countries whose currencies have lost ground against the dollar.
Among these currencies are the euro, the Danish krone, the British pound and a lot of other currencies.
Mrs de Palacio has just emphasised that Europe is the world' s biggest oil importer.
Given this status, it is not right that it should continue to pay for its imports in dollars.
The Socialists are asking the Commission to encourage European oil importers to sign contracts in euros.
An initiative of that kind has a chance of succeeding.
Producers know that the dollar will be certain to lose value against the euro.
For producers, contracts made out in euros could become an insurance against an inevitable economic downturn in the United States.
A word about monetary policy.
The ECB has recently justified keeping tight control of its key interest rates by referring to the inflationary pressure created by the increase in oil prices and in rates of exchange.
According to the ECB, monetary policy cannot remedy this situation in the short term.
Economic policy cannot offer a solution to the rise in oil prices either, and must, in addition, be subject to a rise in the cost of capital.
The ECB says that imported inflation is also a form of inflation to be combated.
I would conclude by saying that the price of oil will be brought down neither by increasing the cost of investments nor by reducing the purchasing power of the people of Europe.
Rather than soothing inflationary fever, is not the ECB' s treatment in danger of damaging the health of the European economy?
Mr President, current petrol and diesel prices strike at the very heart of transport companies and threaten their existence.
Such prices are unacceptable.
I believe we must temporarily reduce the various tax burdens to an economically and socially sustainable level.
Bear in mind that we are not the ones that set the tax rates.
As a European Union, we have set minimum rates of taxation for motor vehicle and mineral oil.
It is the Member States that have the room for manoeuvre.
They have pushed it to the limit, and now we are facing this crisis of high oil prices, they must drop these prices and coordinate them.
We cannot have a situation where, rightly or wrongly, one government caves in but another does not, and where companies in one country have distortions in competition to contend with that companies from another country do not.
They get the same prices in the same market but their costs are different.
This is an intolerable state of affairs for the transport sector.
Madam Vice-President, I would suggest that you go to Luxembourg and tell the Transport Ministers, firstly that we need concerted action, and secondly, that we need to see a reduction in costs for the transport sector.
Thirdly, we do not want the Transport Ministers to make empty promises that will be scotched by the Finance Ministers in two weeks' time.
The decisions reached by the 15 Member States this evening, or in the course of the next few days, must be upheld.
They must translate into action.
Some Ministers bemoan the fate of the transport sector, whilst others refuse to reduce or amend taxes. Such two-faced behaviour is unsupportable!
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, we have been sleepwalking for decades.
British Conservatives still are but it is time to wake up.
We have two choices.
One is a bad choice and that is to adopt a short-term fix and cut taxes, abdicate our government responsibilities.
We cannot avoid the other choice and the real question which is: How do we use a finite resource when demand is increasing and we have environmental promises? The rational choice is to stop the profligate use of petrol and diesel and to change the behaviour of the public and of those involved in transport.
Let us lower and enforce speed limits.
We must lower our dependency on imported petroleum products.
We must adopt alternative fuels - biodiesel, fuel cells, gas and electric cars.
Let us realign the Fifth Frame Work Programme in its mid-term towards much more research into and development of those alternatives.
Let us put more money in the budget, change the decision on programmes like SAVE and Altener.
We do not need a new budget heading.
These heading exist.
Let us put more money in them.
Let us negotiate - but as the European Union - because stability is in the interests not only of oil - importing countries but also of oil - exporting countries.
Good luck, Commissioner, when you go to Luxembourg.
Mr President, yes, Mrs Palacio, you are absolutely right - what we need is dialogue.
Yes, we must increase the financial support, and yes, we oppose cartels and monopolies.
That is all quite true.
But reducing taxation and other things - which, funnily enough, is what certain Members to my left have suggested - is no way to solve the problem.
That would lead nowhere.
OPEC and the oil producing countries will immediately move in to close this gap.
They have a political and economic hold over us.
What chance do we stand against this?
(Heckling from Mr Jarzembowski) Have we reduced our consumption? No.
Mr Jarzembowski, who has just spoken - he can shout loudly, and so can I as it happens - says that there must be a paradigm shift where traffic is concerned.
There is more road transport than there was ten years ago.
It is high time this was changed.
We need a paradigm shift where transport is concerned.
There needs to be more transport via rail and water - let us make it happen.
We need to be less dependent. Let us pursue a common energy policy, for example.
You, Mrs Palacio, and we MEPs, should call for a common energy policy to be incorporated into the Treaty.
We are still lacking such a policy.
So who is guilty of blocking it to date?
For example, what we need to do, Mrs Palacio, is to get rid of the link between gas and oil prices.
You could do that in tandem with the Commission.
Why are gas prices linked to oil prices? There is no reason why they should be.
You are the obvious person to bring this about.
We can do all of these things.
There are many things we can do, which the Member States have failed to do so far.
We can use these opportunities.
Unfortunately, I am speaking too fast for the interpreter, and I apologise for this.
Right now, there must be no falling out between groups on the right, and those on the left or in the centre, above or below.
The OPEC States will watch from the sidelines, smile indulgently, and put the prices up.
(Heckling from Mr Jarzembowski)
We must show a united front, and the same goes for the Ministers meeting in the Transport Council - and you, Mr Jarzembowski, would do well to shout less loudly and at last get round to doing something in your transport committee.
Mr President, I would to thank all the Members who have spoken in the debate and point out that there is largely a broad consensus on our approach to this issue.
Ten dollars per barrel of oil was far too low a price and, furthermore, it had negative effects on our economies, although this seems more complicated to explain.
On the other hand, 35 dollars is too high a price for us to bear.
That is why we have to try immediately to persuade OPEC to increase production in order to lower the tension over prices, so that we can really fulfil that "target band" and make the markets more stable.
We should not once again - as the spokesman of the Socialist Group said a moment ago - forget the problem and 'only remember Santa Bárbara when it thunders' , but we should maintain our action over time.
In the Directorate-General for Energy we have been working since November on the medium-term strategy for energy, and I therefore hope that we will be able to present a quality document in the coming weeks.
We are seeking a medium-term view, which is combined with a review of the Union' s transport policy because it is a fact that energy is a crucial component in transport.
Much of our energy is destined for this specific sector in particular.
This means coordinating the energy policy.
I would like us to try to communitise this, but, in the mean time, we must coordinate the energy policy of the Member States.
It is also necessary to continue making progress on transport policies and we must avoid, as a result of a crisis such as this, suddenly changing our transport policy and energy policy which has been established over recent years.
We must be coherent.
We must not therefore use the method of lowering taxes as a solution to this circumstantial rise in oil prices.
Perhaps, in a very limited way, some countries may resort to that method, above all because there may be an exception in the directive on hydrocarbons.
We could probably consider certain proposals such as postponing the ecotax, but what we cannot do is propose one thing and then its complete opposite.
I repeat that we must have a minimum degree of internal coherence in our policies.
Energy and transport policies are medium- and long-term policies, which cannot be modified under pressure from very specific circumstances, which I am sure are going to change within a year and a half or two years although, no doubt, we will not return to prices of 10 dollars per barrel.
However, they are going to change simply for market reasons, even if OPEC does nothing. Furthermore, OPEC is prepared to act and I hope that it does so and does so well.
Nevertheless, these long-term measures cannot absolve us of our current responsibilities, responsibilities, which we all share, which range from safeguarding the freedom of movement to complying with Community rules.
But it is also the responsibility of the governments to take measures to alleviate the difficulties and provide solutions for the sectors that are most affected.
We are talking specifically of the transport sector and now, in the Council of Transport Ministers, I hope we will reach some agreements.
There are also problems in the fishing and agricultural sectors, without forgetting that there is another whole series of sectors affected by these difficulties.
We must work on issues such as energy saving, renewable energies, research into biofuels and the use of biomass.
Before the end of the year we will produce a regulation on buildings which this House can deal with.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must now leave you because I am running a little late for the Council of Ministers in Luxembourg.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
So you keep a few Ministers waiting - it could be worse!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Secretariat for joint supervisory data protection bodies
The next item is the report (A5-0225/2000) on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the Portuguese Republic with a view to the adoption of a Council Decision [7381/2000 - C5-0230/2000 - 2000/0804(CNS)] establishing a Secretariat for the Joint Supervisory Data Protection Bodies set up by the Convention on the Establishment of a European Police Office (Europol Convention), the Convention on the Use of Information Technology for Customs Purposes and the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement on the gradual abolition of checks at the common borders (Schengen Convention).
Mr President, I have no doubt that in the age of new communications technologies, in the age of the Internet, which is well under way at the beginning of this new century, we legislators are faced with a very exciting challenge: to protect people from intrusion and from attacks on their private life, their dignity or their reputation.
The protection of these rights is recognised in numerous legislative texts of a universal nature, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of a transnational nature, such as the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Liberties, or of a national nature, such as the constitutions of the Member States, but the legislative diversity in this area requires that efforts be made in terms of the harmonisation and unification of criteria.
The majority of countries are beginning a legislative process to prevent violations of people' s fundamental rights, such as the right to private life, and this right is also expressly included in Article 8 of the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We are therefore facing a legislative challenge of unquestionable importance, which must regulate to ensure that this right is respected and the exceptions which, in a democratic society, it is necessary to establish in order, as the Convention of the Protection of Human Rights says, to safeguard public security, defend public order and prevent crime.
The report which I am presenting to Parliament aims to analyse one of the many aspects involved in this legislative task: the creation of a single secretariat for the three supervisory bodies for the protection of data from Europol, Schengen and customs information, within the framework of the third pillar and in the field of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters enshrined in Chapter VI of the Treaty.
The Council' s proposal for a decision is correct but is, in my view, timid and does not go far enough.
In this delicate field of data protection we must achieve two fundamental objectives: transparency in the future functioning of the secretariat and the independence of its work.
I do not believe that either objective is fully guaranteed in the Council' s proposal, hence the content of the amendments I am proposing, which have been accepted practically unanimously in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights.
Justice and Home Affairs. I wonder whether it is a positive thing, in terms of transparency, to have three joint data protection bodies within the third pillar?
I believe not. I therefore believe that the final objective should be the establishment of a single body corresponding to a single legal framework within the European Union and that that body be provided with its own budget and staff, even exceeding the normal distribution between pillars, taking advantage of the option provided for in Article 42 of the Treaty of the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament is currently examining and debating the consequences for personal and economic relations in the European Union of the discovery of a possible spying network known as the Echelon system, and is also studying a regulation on the protection of physical persons in the processing of data by the institutions of the Community.
We are furthermore now examining this proposal for the third pillar.
As we will see, these are different aspects of the same problem.
I therefore believe that this Parliament must go further than the Council' s decision, which, as I have said, falls short on aspects such as the election and appointment of the secretariat, its dismissal or the guarantee of professional secrecy in its functioning.
Independence is another basic element which is not sufficiently guaranteed in the Council' s proposal.
Parliament is the institution which must guarantee its independence, by means of the democratic control which legitimately corresponds to it.
That is why in the future the body should be appointed by Parliament and the secretariat of the three bodies would enjoy more independence if the costs of staffing and the resources needed for its funding were to be included in section 8B of the general European Union budget, as I propose, and not in the Council' s budget.
Let us not fool ourselves, financial independence is essential to guaranteeing functional independence.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are legislating in a field which is fundamental to the future of our interpersonal, economic and commercial relations.
Our challenge is to create a balance and compatibility between the right to privacy and the right of free access to information.
The introduction of new technologies, computers and telecommunications has broken down barriers and transcended borders.
There has been a genuine revolution in commercial, social and personal relations which have a real effect on the daily lives of citizens: health, advertising, banking transactions, or even aspects which relate to the security and defence of citizens, and of States themselves, can be jeopardised if there are no rules to guarantee the correct transmission and storage of the data which today circulate with total freedom and which are not immune to the serious danger of indiscriminate use.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Hernández Mollar on the excellent report he has presented to us, which the Group of the European People's Party endorses and which gained the almost unanimous support of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
This is a small step forward, but one which signals the beginnings of a strategy for harmonisation which, we hope, will be enacted under the third pillar.
We are thus beginning to move towards harmonisation, with the creation of a joint secretariat for the various supervisory bodies.
We hope that a set of common regulations for supervision and for a single supervisory body can be adopted in the medium term.
This is crucial if we are to guarantee that the public' s fundamental right to privacy is respected, safeguarding the legal principle of fair and equal treatment for all citizens. Laws must be applied and interpreted according to the same criteria, providing the same level of data protection.
In fact, there is no justification for the existence of three separate joint supervisory bodies.
Today, in addition to national supervisory bodies, there are also these three joint supervisory bodies, each with its own secretariat.
The question is: can this system really guarantee effective protection? I do not think it can.
These bodies therefore need to be merged into one single entity as soon as possible, with legal personality and its own budget, which will ensure that it is impartial and independent from the other institutions, as Mr Hernández Mollar has just said, and he is quite right.
This is a matter of protecting the interests and rights of our citizens.
There is also a vital need to create a single legal framework in the European Union to provide citizens with sufficient guarantees, essentially by preventing the improper use or dissemination of personal data and by remedying the shortcomings in the current system of protection.
The constitutions in force in the various Member States recognise the right to privacy. Furthermore, Article 8 of the Union' s draft Charter of Fundamental Rights also expressly upholds every citizen' s right to the protection of personal data concerning him or her.
The very fact that different laws exist in each country, however, raises various problems that can be overcome by adopting minimum standards which will make it possible to harmonise these national laws, thereby guaranteeing that citizens' fundamental rights are respected, and specifically the right to privacy and the right to freedom of expression and of information.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the increasingly complex nature of society and of economic life, backed up by ever more powerful technology, is creating new situations which threaten the individual rights of our citizens and leave them unprotected. This requires us to establish appropriate mechanisms for protecting our citizens from potential abuses of these rights.
The current system, which is designed to protect people' s privacy and which guarantees all citizens' inalienable right to privacy with regard to the computerised processing of their personal data, is widely considered to be inefficient. This is because in addition to national data protection supervisory bodies there are still three joint supervisory bodies in the European Union, each with its own secretariat.
In order to combat this duplication of supervisory bodies, which leads to inefficiency, the Portuguese have drawn up an initiative for a proposal with a view to the adoption of a Council Decision to create a single secretariat for the three joint data protection supervisory bodies.
In the current circumstances, it is generally accepted that this is a viable solution which would reduce the problems caused by the existence of three data protection supervisory bodies within the Union.
The rapporteur' s suggestion that a single data protection supervisory body should be created, with a single secretariat, with legal personality and its own budget is also to be welcomed.
This would create ideal conditions for achieving our stated aims of protecting our citizens' private life and individual freedoms, without, on the other hand, impeding the free flow of information, which is the hallmark of modern societies.
The rapporteur recognises that it is not feasible to set up this single body in the European Union in the short term, and refers in his report to establishing it in the medium term, under the third pillar.
Whilst I congratulate the rapporteur on his work, I should also like to draw your attention to the risk of postponing the creation of this authority for years and years.
It might have been wiser for the report to have set a fixed and reasonable deadline for this body to be established, which would give more force to the proposal put forward by the rapporteur and the European Parliament.
Mr President, rapporteur, I welcome any initiative that aims to improve data protection for the people of the European Union.
However, there are serious problems with the EUROPOL and Schengen Conventions, and as regards customs cooperation.
One of these is the inadequate level of protection for data collated and processed in the institutions.
As far as I am concerned, it goes without saying that the proposed secretariat must be independent of the institutions requiring monitoring, as is borne out by the fact that it has its own budget.
Yet still I cannot vote in favour of Mr Hernández Mollar' s report.
I ask myself this: why should bringing all those who have been responsible for data protection hitherto, together in one secretariat headed by one General Secretary, lead to improvements in data protection merely because it is certain to lead to savings in this sphere?
Bringing these officials together under one roof will not guarantee better data protection.
Taking an overall political view, I see Portugal' s initiative, together with the report, as being one more step along the way towards improving coordination between Schengen and EUROPOL.
When it comes to the problems associated with the aforesaid conventions, inadequate data protection is the least of our worries.
Both EUROPOL and Schengen will add hugely to the construction of fortress Europe.
Fundamental human rights such as the right to freedom of movement, the right to asylum, or in many cases, even the simple right to human dignity, will be compromised, and these institutions will support and control this.
Therefore, I cannot vote in favour of an initiative that may bring about a mild improvement, when it will also help legitimise these institutions as a result.
Since I am basically critical of EUROPOL, and Schengen in general, and I believe that having one General Secretary instead of three does not equal better data protection, I intend to abstain.
Mr President, this report deals with issues which are of very great importance to personal privacy and data protection.
Within the EU, extensive registers of personal data are now being compiled in which very sensitive personal information is stored.
At the same time, it is obvious that these registers are inadequately supervised and insufficiently secure.
Those of us in the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left are obviously keen to improve data protection and supervision.
We therefore support the idea of introducing a single independent supervisory authority with proper powers and resources.
To that extent, we are in favour of the basic ideas in this report but we wish, however, to point out that it is important to construct this supervisory authority on the basis of the skills possessed by the Member States in this area.
A new supervisory authority must be able to cover all the relevant registers, including the Eurodac register which has a major role to play in the EU' s asylum policy.
Refugees are an especially vulnerable group, and information contained on a register can be a direct reason for deporting people and so have serious consequences for an asylum seeker.
It is therefore especially important to be able to see to it that the register contains accurate information, that the asylum seeker is provided with information about his or her rights and that there are opportunities for appeal.
Moreover, the Sirene organisation established under the Schengen agreement must be covered by a new supervisory authority.
By and large, the relatively little known Sirene can send any personal data at all between Member States at short notice, as well as combine data relating to ordinary police matters with that concerning state security and policy on refugees.
The whole of the Sirene organisation suffers from a palpable lack of public and parliamentary control.
We already have significant experience in this area when it comes to dealing with the Schengen agreement' s large register of personal data, SIS.
That experience is unfortunately very disheartening.
The Joint Supervisory Authority, or JSA, has had quite inadequate resources. Moreover, it has been denied access to important information in SIS.
This may be seen from the JSA' s first annual reports. In spite of the difficult working conditions, the JSA reveals serious deficiencies in SIS, for example incorrect information on file, instances of Member States' illegally copying information and inadequate procedures for gaining access to registers.
This is completely unacceptable.
In order to obtain effective data protection, more than effective supervision is required.
More basic changes are needed when it comes to the rules governing the registers.
One requirement is that registers of criminals be distinguished from registers of refugees and registers kept to protect state security.
These different areas must not be covered by joint organisations and registers.
Public and parliamentary control must be reinforced, especially when it comes to Sirene and Schengen.
Moreover, clear limits must be set for what may be recorded in Europol' s investigation register, founded upon Article 10.1 of the Europol Convention.
At present, the scope of the register goes far beyond what is necessary.
People who are not suspected of crimes may be registered, and sensitive personal data about political views, religious affiliation and sexual orientation may be recorded.
That is unreasonable.
A central place must be given to personal privacy and legal rights.
Mr President, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Hernández Mollar, for his valuable work in drafting this report.
In matters of data protection we have to make the difficult compromise between the protection of privacy, the safety of our citizens, and the stability of the Single Market.
A basic pre-condition of a market in a Europe with no internal borders is that information flows unhindered and fast.
As the visible supervision of the movement of goods and services has come to an end, the importance of so-called invisible supervision has grown year after year.
The rapid exchange of information between official bodies is the only chance we have of preventing criminal exploitation of the benefits of this free movement.
The level of data protection in today' s bit streams is still not adequate in the European Union.
The fundamental human right of confidentiality as far as mail is concerned is being jeopardised, for example through criminal activity and inquiries carried out using email systems.
The rapid growth in ecommerce in particular is posing new threats to the protection of data concerning our citizens.
For example, the theft of credit card information and the abuse of personal ID are growing dramatically in the information networks.
In addition, databases established for purposes of marketing, which contain details of people' s way of life and consumer habits, are often in conflict with basic rights which are there to protect privacy.
It is reasonable to suppose that the work of the various data protection bodies working now in the EU area can be made more effective through centralisation.
The founding of a joint body with respect to the work of Europol, customs control and the ordinary fundamental rights of EU citizens is an excellent idea.
At the same time, however, we must ensure that there are adequate resources available.
The workload is increasing at a ferocious rate.
And one must clarify ways of making data protection cooperation more effective between the Secretariat to be created and the national authorities.
The independence of data protection bodies is the key to success here.
Supervision always leads to difficult interpretations of a situation, the outcome of which many players may well wish to influence, owing to purely financial interests.
Because of this, the bodies will have to work in close cooperation with the EU and national courts of justice.
The European Parliament must monitor closely the work and accountability of the official Secretariat to be set up from a position of impartiality.
Mr President, ladies and gentleman, first of all, the Commission wishes to thank the rapporteur, Mr Hernández Mollar, for the excellent report that he has presented and acknowledge that our participation in this debate has been made easier by the fact that we broadly agree with and support the approach he has proposed.
The Commission is pleased with the initiative that has been taken by the Portuguese Government, as we feel that it will contribute to our efforts to rationalise, in a sensible way, the administrative support provided to the bodies responsible for supervising and guaranteeing data protection established by the Europol Convention, the Convention on the Use of Information Technology for Customs Purposes and the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement.
The Commission shares the rapporteur' s view that a single supervisory body needs to be created for these three instruments, because a single supervisory body would ensure that the principles of data protection are applied more coherently, both under the Schengen Convention and the Convention on the Use of Information Technology for Customs Purposes. The creation of a single supervisory body would also prevent an undesirable duplication of work.
Similarly, the Commission agrees with the idea that a range of common essential principles on data protection needs to be established and can be implemented as uniformly as possible throughout the third pillar.
It is true that there are currently shortcomings in the Community legal framework in this area.
We are pleased that a specialist Council Group has initiated the debate on these common general principles and also that the French Presidency has already made it clear that this issue is one of its priorities.
We must recognise that this is not an easy task, not only because of the sophistication of the technology, but also because it is particularly important for us to find a solution that strikes a balance between safeguarding citizens' rights and freedoms on the one hand and on the other, having the instruments needed to ensure that the democratic rule of law is respected and that we can effectively fight transnational and organised crime.
I feel sure that our first task must be to define these common principles, which can then be translated into the various legislative instruments that we will need to adopt in the coming years under the third pillar.
This approach also involves - as various speakers have already pointed out - introducing, either under the Europol Convention or under new laws based on the Schengen Convention, clear and transparent principles of democratic and judicial supervision, which will guarantee the fundamental values on which a Union governed by the rule of law must be based.
Perhaps the most difficult issue that this report raises is the problem of deciding whether a separate budget heading should be created for the joint secretariat.
The Commission agrees with the rapporteur' s assertion that it is extremely important to guarantee the independence of this secretariat in relation to the Council itself.
The idea that we are therefore advocating, even if this issue can potentially only be resolved in the long term, is to create a separate budget heading.
Nevertheless, we understand that for the moment, the Council' s prime concern is that the creation of a new budget heading could cause delays in setting up a joint secretariat.
So in practical terms the Commission understands the Council' s desire to use existing financial structures, but only as a provisional measure.
In the event that the Council decides to uphold its position, the Commission will back Mr Hernández Mollar' s proposal, which is to reiterate the recitals put forward by the rapporteur so as to make it quite clear that these are merely provisional financial arrangements pending the creation of a single supervisory body responsible for data protection under the three conventions.
To conclude, I am delighted that this report and its underlying principles have received such widespread support in the European Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Eurodac
The next item is the report (A5-0219/2000) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens ' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of finger prints for the effective application of the Dublin Convention (renewed consultation) [8417/2000 - C5-0256/2000 - 1999/0116(CNS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, we are able to celebrate a ten-year anniversary almost exactly to the day.
Almost exactly ten years ago to the day, we started discussing which country should in fact be responsible for processing asylum applications.
Then the Dublin Convention came into force.
Yet, to this day, we have failed to make Dublin truly enforceable, in other words, we have been unable to establish a suitable instrument of control.
We have been discussing the fact that we need an instrument of this kind, for years, but so far to no avail, and tomorrow we will have our one and only chance to actually complete Eurodac.
I would be delighted if we could.
A great many Council Presidents, who have held office in the intervening period, would be delighted too, and everyone has promised that they will make it an absolute priority to try and make Eurodac a reality.
This has been a long, drawn-out business, and it concerns an important issue.
Why do we need Eurodac and what can it do? Eurodac is a system that will enable us to compare fingerprints and ascertain in an appropriate manner, which country was the first point of contact for the refugee, and, as such, which country is responsible for processing the asylum application.
This will also allow for a distribution of the burden amongst the Member States. And, of course, it is also an instrument that will be used to establish if an applicant has submitted asylum applications before.
In other words, it is also an instrument for fighting abuse and illegal activity. It is an instrument that we both want, and need, to have at all costs.
As I said, it has been a long, drawn-out business and the last time we discussed it in Parliament was December 1999.
The vast majority of us were agreed, firstly on the fact that we must get Eurodac up and running, and secondly, on the conditions under which it should be implemented.
Above all, we have seen eye to eye with Commissioner Vitorino throughout, and I would like to thank him, because he has moved heaven and earth to enable Eurodac to at last become a reality.
Parliament established that the implementing powers would be conferred on the Commission, in accordance with the provisions of the EC Treaty.
However, immediately after we had taken this decision, the Council met in December and, for reasons which we do not understand at all, shelved these joint proposals from Parliament and the Commission, and reserved the most important implementing powers for itself. Consequently, because there had been a substantial amendment, this required reconsultation of Parliament, i.e. we have had to review the situation, albeit only in respect of the relevant points, i.e. Articles 22 and 23 alone.
We confined ourselves to these areas in committee, with the exception of Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, who sparked off a new discussion.
I do not know what she was hoping to achieve in this way.
The object of the exercise was simply to deal with Articles 22 and 23.
The new proposal relating to these articles accommodates the Council' s wish to retain sole responsibility for the most important implementing powers, i.e. those regarding the collection, transmission and comparison of fingerprints, those for the blocking of the data concerning applicants for asylum, and those for drawing up statistics on asylum applicants.
There was unanimous agreement in committee that we should stand by our original proposal and reject that of the Council. Why?
For two quite crucial reasons. Firstly, the Council' s move is contrary to Article 202 of the EC Treaty, which establishes the principle that the implementation of the rules which the Council lays down shall be conferred on the Commission.
This is particularly important in this case.
The Commission could take a far more impartial - i.e. it would be less likely to accommodate specific national interests - and objective line when it comes to implementing this regulation. Therefore we as a Parliament support this.
There is also a second reason as to why we oppose the Council' s proposal.
It works against Parliament because it excludes us, because there is no longer a comitology procedure, and because we will no longer have access or entitlement to the information we need.
This proposal would whittle away Parliament' s rights.
For these two highly convincing reasons, we are in favour of the proposal submitted by the Commission and Commissioner Vitorino, to the effect that implementing powers should be bestowed on the Commission, and I would urge you all to attend tomorrow' s vote.
This will be our opportunity to make Europe a safer place, and to take action against abuse.
Let us seize this opportunity and use this chance to at last make Eurodac a reality.
I should very much like to support what Mr Pirker has just said.
As a past Minister for Immigration and Asylum in the United Kingdom, I am well aware that the confusion with regard to determining which country should deal with any particular application has been an immense problem and one that has created a considerable level of friction between Members of the European Union.
Unless it is tackled urgently, it will continue to be an area of friction as we look at the enlargement process.
The Dublin Convention in itself has always been important but it is the flaws in the Dublin Convention and our failure to administer the Dublin Convention properly, which has caused issues to arise which could even threaten the human rights of some of the applicants and individuals concerned.
All the countries that are signatories to the United Nations Convention of 1951 are well aware of the criteria for determining whether someone should be granted the extremely valuable and significant status of a refugee and I hope that nothing we ever do here would affect the right to make an application within those criteria.
However - with new technology, with new travelling arrangements, and indeed with people who want to abuse the system using that technology - it has become more and more difficult for the authorities to treat people in an appropriate and fair manner in handling their cases.
Eurodac has to run hand in hand with the reform of the Dublin Convention and I am somewhat concerned at the attitude that the Council has adopted in the past.
Mr Pirker has spoken of the delays that have occurred and the numerous times that this vital issue has been reconsidered.
My feelings are clear: if the Council wishes to reserve powers to itself when the information from Eurodac should be available to this democratic body, Parliament, then that is unacceptable.
That is all the more reason why we need to treat this matter with urgency, why we need to resolve it, and why Parliament should continue to play a strong role in the future in the superintendence and monitoring of vital issues relating to the granting refugee status to those who might apply.
I fully support Mr Pirker and I hope we make strong moves now to conclude this matter in the interests of everybody.
Mr President, as the rapporteur, Mr Pirker, has said, this Parliament has already expressed its opinion more than once on the proposed Eurodac Agreement.
Last time it expressed its opinion on the proposal as a whole and I believe that the position Parliament adopted was very close to what the Socialist Group wanted.
I wish to defend Parliament' s position, which this House voted for a few months ago in relation to the Eurodac Agreement.
I therefore believe that we are now being consulted on an amendment which the Council is introducing in this communication, and that it affects the allocation of competences for this action by the Council.
The Treaty established that the Commission must have responsibility for implementation - for Eurodac also, we believe - and also established that Parliament can supervise what the Commission does.
This still does not seem sufficient to us, and we hope that, at least in the legislative and supervisory field, we can have further competences.
For this reason, my Group is tomorrow going to abstain in the vote on all the amendments which do not relate to this change to the Council' s communication.
We are going to abstain on those amendments which we feel have already been approved by Parliament and which are already included in this Parliament' s previous report.
We are going to abstain for reasons which I imagine are very different from Mr Pirker' s reasons for voting against it, but we are going to abstain in order to maintain the position which Parliament has already expressed.
However, on behalf of my group, I would like to express my support for the amendments proposed by Mr Pirker, for the reasons which I have already expressed, because I believe that the previous proposal was better and because I believe that the Commission must take this project forward.
I hope that it does so taking account of Parliament' s decision and it is important that tomorrow' s vote shows Parliament' s strong support for the previous proposal.
Mr President, we are developing a third pillar on the basis of policies which have been intergovernmental and which must become Community policies.
I believe it is very important for Parliament to support these first actions we are taking and also to support the Commission so that it can play the role accorded it by the Treaty.
The ELDR Group fully supports Mr Pirker in his insistence that Article 202 of the Treaty should be followed in its general rule that implementation powers for this regulation should be conferred on the Commission.
He is absolutely right to argue that the Commission is in a stronger position to take an impartial view which does not bend to accommodate specific national interests and therefore it is arguably more capable of drawing up adequate data-protection safeguards.
Secondly, although Parliament may have its arguments with the Commission from time to time, we do have a much better chance of exercising democratic supervision if the Commission has the implementing powers than if the Council has them.
This is because the regulatory committee procedure, coupled with the interinstitutional agreement, entitles Parliament to receive draft implementing measures.
And when - rather than if - we achieve codecision in this area, this will enable Parliament to require the Commission to re-examine the measures if the implementing measures are exceeded.
We would be foolish, as a Parliament, to rely on the Council' s goodwill rather than on rights which we possess if the Commission has the implementing powers.
That is why my group will abstain on some of the amendments of substance which would alter the substantive details of the Eurodac regulation.
My group supported these amendments when the focus was on the substance but at this stage it is better to concentrate on the issue of whether the Commission or Council has implementing powers so that we in Parliament state loudly and in unison that our interests lie in backing the Commission.
That is the only issue that we ought to concentrate on now and, perhaps with some slight regret, we feel that Parliament' s position needs to be slimmed down to Mr Pirker' s points on comitology.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are now facing a fairly unusual procedure which deserves a detailed explanation so that everyone can vote in the full knowledge of what is explicitly and implicitly at stake in this matter.
Last November, the majority of the European Parliament adopted a report on the creation of the Eurodac system.
Following this vote, the Council modified its proposal for a regulation, stating that the Eurodac system for comparing fingerprints should be established and administered by the Council rather than the Commission.
This important change is the reason why this report is being re-examined by this Chamber.
In the opinion of our Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, it was the Commission rather than the Council that should be given responsibility for administering this new facility, Eurodac.
Indeed, the Commission quite rightly emphasised that, as the only Community institution of the Union, it ought to have responsibility for administering a Community programme like Eurodac, and not in any circumstances the Council, which is an intergovernmental body.
We wholly support the Commission on this.
However, the new proposal being examined today has not taken any account whatsoever of the amendments Parliament has voted in favour of.
Whether it be about specifying 18 years as the minimum age at which an applicant for asylum can be registered on the Eurodac database, about erasing personal data once legally recognised status has been acquired or about substituting the expression 'third-country national' for 'alien' , the Council has not seen fit to take account of Parliament' s opinion and has been supported in this by the Commission, which has also declined to take account of it.
It is in view of this situation that I am today asking you again to uphold the vote which Parliament wisely held last year.
This means voting on the text adopted by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, which includes the amendments relating to the lower age limit of 18 years, the erasing of personal data in the case of any applicant who has achieved legal status and the use of the expression 'third-country national' rather than 'alien' .
The amendments to the report proposed by the Group of the European People' s Party, to which the rapporteur belongs, should therefore be rejected.
I really find it difficult to understand how anyone can remain silent and avoid taking sides and consider taking fingerprints from 14-year-old adolescents to be a legitimate action, when it is something which contravenes all the international treaties in force, particularly those on the rights of the child.
When it comes to erasing personal data, it is just a question of being sensible.
Once the applicant concerned has obtained legal status, there is in fact no justification for retaining the personal data and fingerprints of someone whose situation has been regularised in law.
That would be to view him as a potential criminal.
It is not solely in the future Charter that the protection of fundamental rights, close to our hearts as it is, becomes an issue, but also in every European text, where we must be vigilant in their defence.
What is at stake is Parliament' s credibility in the eyes of those who already have a lot of difficulty putting their trust in us.
The people of Europe find it incomprehensible, and surprising to say the least, that the European Parliament should one day come out in favour of a report only, a few months later, to go back on its decision and vote in favour of a radically different report.
How can our electorate have confidence in a Parliament which changes its views according to the way the wind blows and which is incapable of facing up to the Commission and the Council which do not, for all that, have the democratic legitimacy with which we have as an institution.
That is why, ladies and gentlemen, I would today ask you to vote in such a way as to reaffirm last November' s vote and to adopt the report in the form presented to you by the committee.
It is in adopting coherent and consistent positions that Parliament will enhance its stature.
Mr President, today' s debate has its pitfalls inasmuch as we are being asked to amend, or to refuse to amend, a system, namely the Eurodac system, which our group has comprehensively rejected.
The Eurodac system is part and parcel of a general tendency to criminalise and penalise immigrants and those who are being persecuted the world over.
It reveals the true face of liberal Europe, which is setting itself up as a besieged fortress.
How can anyone imagine that it is by means of repressive laws that the starving of the earth are to be prevented from coming to Europe, even at the risk of their lives, as has been seen recently at Dover and in Gibraltar.
On the contrary, it is, as we all know, these combined weapons of criminalisation which force thousands of foreigners to become illegal immigrants who then fall victim to smugglers, slave merchants or unscrupulous bosses who grossly exploit them.
Regularising the status of illegal immigrants en masse is the way to put a spoke in the wheels of all these dealers in human misery.
It is these combined weapons of criminalisation which will erode our own freedoms, as witness the French Presidency' s plan, which we shall have to express our opinion on. This plan is aimed at cracking down on anyone who comes to the aid of an immigrant without the proper papers.
It is because of these weapons and because of this strategy that, today in France, a boy of Tamil origin is imprisoned with his mother in the Aranc detention centre waiting for a judgement from the Minister of the Interior and, in all likelihood, his expulsion from the country.
Recording people' s fingerprints on computer is an attack on individual freedom.
It systematically treats asylum seekers as suspects and puts a question mark over the confidentiality of the documents held by the bodies responsible for examining their applications.
It infringes the legal protection due to refugees in being applied even to 14-year-olds.
It contravenes the International Declaration on the Rights of the Child and, in particular, Article 10 of this.
Who, among you here, would dare take the fingerprints of a young lad of 14? The Eurodac project makes criminals of immigrants without proper papers, often deprived of legal status because of the differences in the laws between one European country and another.
It fundamentally violates all the international conventions protecting human rights.
With this project, Fortress Europe is guilty of failing to assist refugees who are in danger.
This is hardly a surprise coming from a liberal Europe which equips the Ankara dictatorship with combat helicopters at the same time as rejecting Kurdish refugees.
At a time when a wave of racism and xenophobia is forming across Europe and when consideration is being given to drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights, you ought to reject Eurodac, with or without amendments.
It is our own freedoms that are at stake.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Radical Members of the Bonino List, I would like to express concern and strong opposition to a Europe which, especially in its gradual creation of a so-called Area of Freedom, Justice and Security, is following the intergovernmental road, which only incorporates elements that are repressive and destroy freedoms and trample underfoot the rights of the citizens of the European Union and the Member States.
The Eurodac incident is an example of this: without having defined any kind of European political asylum policy at all, the Member States, through the Council, created the Dublin Convention, which legalises mutual backscratching as regards applicants for asylum and the examination of their applications for political asylum in our Member States.
At this point, in order to bring the Convention into operation, the Council promoted the creation of the Eurodac system, and initially made the Commission responsible for its implementation.
However, it then decided to go further and extend electronic fingerprinting to illegal immigrants, removed the management responsibilities from the Commission, and took them directly upon itself.
In the face of this confusion, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs is right, through Mr Pirker' s report, to restore these responsibilities to the Commission and to make other amendments of substance which we fully support.
Having said that, since we do not, however, support the basic bureaucratic, repressive approach sustained by the Council and abetted by the Commission, which is reflected in the Dublin Convention and the EURODAC system, we will vote for the amendments of substance tabled by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs but against the legislative resolution, for it leaves the way almost completely open for this absurd piece of legislation which introduces the systematic compilation of police records on refugees and illegal immigrants at European level: a legal, political and humanitarian atrocity.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to speak about the issues underlying the proposal for a regulation, which have been so thoroughly studied and discussed in committee and in this Chamber, a process that culminated in the vote on Parliament' s opinion last November.
It is nevertheless worthwhile saying, in line with the views of the rapporteur Mr Pirker and of the Commission itself, how incomprehensible we find it that in the new text, the Council proposes to reserve to itself responsibility for implementing the Eurodac regulation, which departs from the system previously envisaged, in which these powers would fall to the Commission.
We are unhappy with this, firstly because Parliament, as has already been pointed out, is seeing its rights diminished, specifically its right to remain informed.
In fact, the Commission is, in general terms, obliged, under the terms of Article 7 of the decision on comitology, to keep Parliament informed of committee proceedings and whenever the Commission transmits relevant measures or proposals to the Council.
With this new text, this prerogative is clearly undermined.
Secondly, there is a lack of legal coherence and above all a lack of legal justification in these transfers of competence.
Article 1 of the decision on comitology has not been respected and therefore this course of action breaches Article 202 of the Treaty, since this article contains no provisions that would justify this procedure being adopted in this specific case.
Our view is that the generally accepted status of the Commission is still valid: it is the guardian of the treaties, equidistant from each of the Member States; it is autonomous, independent and the defender of the common good. It is the Commission rather than the Member States that is responsible - transcending borders and national peculiarities - for drafting laws that provide adequate protection on issues involving fundamental freedoms.
The Council has demonstrated its lack of confidence in the Commission.
Without wishing to appear perverse, perhaps the Council is looking for a legal fight over this issue, which would clear the way for an almost certain application to the European Court of Justice to delay the universal implementation of the new Community legislation in progress on the right to asylum.
Sometimes in politics, things are indeed what they seem!
Unfortunately, Commissioner, and this is not your fault, this is a matter on which you cannot allay our fears.
Mr President, I am grateful to Commissioner Vitorino for his work.
I speak for some Members on this side of the House in saying that there are concerns about this report.
We are not one hundred percent happy.
We wish we were not at this stage today, but I look at this from the point of view - which I share with several colleagues, that we do not want asylum seekers to be seen as criminals.
Criminals have their fingerprints taken and we need not automatically or in any way assume that asylum seekers ought to be put into this category.
Many of them are escaping from terror, from torture, from other experiences.
We want to make certain that at our frontiers they are not put through similar experiences and practices again.
I accept what Mr Kirkhope said a few minutes ago, that there are frictions and difficulties with the system which need to be sorted out.
Other colleagues have referred to the issue of fingerprinting 14-year-olds, which has been very sensitive and very emotive.
On this side of the House we are realistic.
That is why we are looking for the safeguards that have been put into the report.
It is why we would prefer that there be parliamentary scrutiny in the question of Commission versus Council.
We believe that Parliament is there to safeguard citizens and make certain that the asylum policy is carried out in the fairest possible way.
With those reservations and I know I speak on behalf of several colleagues - I will be following Mrs Terrón' s line.
We wish the Commission well in this work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all the Commission wishes to thank the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and especially Mr Pirker, for the speed with which the renewed consultation on the Eurodac project has proceeded, as well as for the quality of the proposals that have been presented.
I should like to begin by reminding honourable Members that the Tampere European Council requested that the Eurodac system be completed as quickly as possible.
We can conclude from this report that the Commission and the European Parliament have played their part in this task most speedily.
What is under discussion today is merely a new consultation on the specific issue of comitology.
I am not going to comment again on the fundamentals of the Eurodac system, but I would like to remind you, and particularly Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, that following the debate in the European Parliament the Commission submitted an amended proposal.
Although it is true that this amended proposal did not include all the amendments approved by the European Parliament, it must at least be recognised that some of the suggestions made by Parliament were incorporated.
Therefore, on the only issue which is still under discussion - comitology - the Commission wishes to remind Parliament of the position it adopted towards the Council: we disagree with the Council' s decision to reserve to itself the power to lay down most of the implementing rules here.
This factor was crucial in the commitments that the Commission made to you, the European Parliament, with regard to our reasons for being prepared to participate in a Eurodac system.
One of the crucial factors is that, if the system is managed and implemented by the Commission, there is a guarantee of effective control by the European Parliament.
Some of the doubts as to the legitimacy of the Eurodac system could be dispelled by bringing these two elements together, with responsibility for the management and implementation of the system falling to the Commission and democratic control to the European Parliament.
Secondly, it is our view that the Council' s decision is not properly underpinned by the principles and criteria governing the actual comitology rules.
We will therefore continue to state our position to the Council, which is that we would have a win-win situation if the solution adopted were the one for which the Commission has always fought.
Lastly, I should like once more to make it clear to Parliament that we have not used these doubts or this quarrel about interpretation in relation to Eurodac as an excuse for inaction: the Commission has already submitted a working paper on revising the Dublin Convention, which it has in fact sent to the European Parliament.
It is our view that the shortcomings and errors in the workings of the Dublin Convention show precisely why we need a European asylum policy.
I am particularly pleased to be able to tell you that the Commission has today given substance to a key aspect of the Tampere mandate on asylum by approving a proposal for a directive on minimum rules for a common procedure for requests for asylum.
This shows that we are not working on a piecemeal basis; we are putting together a jigsaw puzzle, a jigsaw that involves revising the Dublin Convention.
Another piece of this jigsaw is the decision that we have adopted today, to propose a directive on minimum standards for a common asylum procedure, and another piece is the preparatory technical work on the Eurodac system, which has not stood still, but is continuing. This work can, of course, only be carried out when there is a clear and unassailable legal basis for developing the Eurodac system.
Once again, I would like to thank you - even the honourable Members who have criticised the Commission - for the support expressed by various political groups for the Commission to manage and implement the Eurodac system.
We are prepared to take on this challenge, in the hope that the Council will listen to us.
Minimum safety and health requirements for the use of work equipment
The next item is the report (A5-0222/2000) by Mr Skinner, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending for the second time Directive 89/655/EEC concerning the minimum safety and health requirements for the use of work equipment by workers at work (2nd individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16 of Directive 89/391/EEC) (important text for the EEA) [COM(1998) 678 - C4-0707/1998 - 1998/0327(COD)]
Mr President, I feel obliged, and I would like to do so courteously, to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, on his sensitivity, his excellent report and his willingness to accept the proposals - which I believe are well put together - of the Group on whose behalf I have the honour of speaking.
All of this means that we have a text which enjoys broad consensus, and not only amongst the two main Groups, since this consensus has been forged through constant communication with social operators, entrepreneurs and workers, via the trade unions.
I believe that consensus is necessary in a field in which the safety, health, integrity and the very lives of workers are at stake.
Very recently I was going for a walk around my town, Vigo, in Galicia, in the north west of Spain, when I happened to see a large works sign.
The works involved the renovation of an old square in the town' s historic quarter, and the sign said: "This company respects the law.
It uses safety equipment and devices.
If you are not familiar with them, do not enter the site.
Inform us of any situation of risk.
Please help us to fulfil the legal obligations for protecting the safety and health of workers" .
I mention the contents of this works sign and the advice, legal requirements for third parties and those with an interest in the works, because I believe that it represents a summary of the requirements of a good policy on health at work.
A good policy on health at work must begin by being preventive and the idea of prevention must to a large extent include awareness, not only on the part of workers and employers, but also on the part of society as a whole.
Unfortunately, every day we hear news of accidents at work.
We know very well there is no such thing as zero risk, but we are also aware that society must not cease in its efforts to prevent risk being turned into accidents.
When an accident happens, the responsibility may perhaps fall to the employer, because they have still not been convinced that money spent on safety is an investment. Or perhaps it may fall to the worker, because they ignore the risks, or because of a lack of caution, or because adequate measures or precautions have not been taken, mainly in activities such as construction, in which the temporary nature of works and of the sector itself - a bridging sector, between primary activity, mainly agricultural, and the industrial and service sectors - require even more precautionary measures.
Or it may perhaps fall to the administration itself through the insufficiency, and therefore ineffectiveness, of the inspection, advisory and control services responsible for informing, advising and, where necessary, penalising non-compliance with the employment legislation.
Health and safety at work, especially where the risk is very high, is the responsibility of society and of all the sectors concerned, and the whole of society must assume its fair share of responsibility and commitment.
The employer should consider money spent on safety at work as an investment.
The worker should take full precautions, demanding and arguing for the use of preventive and protective mechanisms, as well as the good practices of companies.
States and governments should amend the measures for the promotion of preventive actions, for the inspection of the measures to prevent accidents, and also for the replacement of the administrative and political methods for combating accidents at work.
The old model of penalties, which has shown itself to be insufficient and ineffective, should be replaced with a method providing stimulus and incentive, by intensifying action in all companies or activities with the highest number of accidents, and also by offering benefits and advantages to companies with the lowest number of accidents and the highest spending on prevention and awareness.
Furthermore, the Commission and the Council should set minimum conditions which may seem strict to some, but which will allow working conditions to be improved and the health and safety of workers to be protected, harmonising legislation in a market operating with the free movement of workers.
In this way, European citizens will see Europe as being closer to them, a Europe that addresses their problems, concerns and interests.
Mr President, I wish, first of all, to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, for his efforts in moderating and reconciling the various interests so that Parliament can make a positive, consensual contribution to improving this excellent Commission proposal.
Negligence in work organisation, a lack of appropriate equipment for personal and collective safety, the low level of training and the high number of self-employed workers are the main causes of the high level of injuries and deaths in the workplace.
The risks inherent in the building industry are even greater when compared with other, similar sectors.
Over the last 50 years, business activity has increased apace, and immigrant workers and sub-contractors are used to a great extent.
Apart from the aspects that have already been mentioned, the problems of communication and organisation are getting worse, and there is a tendency for the safety of everyone on building sites to be neglected, and for responsibility to be watered down.
It can never be stated too strongly that all the directives relating to the health and safety of workers and particularly the definition of responsibility contained in Directive 89/655/EEC are in force. These state that the employer, the owner of the site, is responsible for any accidents that happen there, and also for preventing them.
The person responsible for the safety of the site is obliged to carry out a risk assessment and to ensure that checks on safety equipment used by everyone with access to the site, regardless of their job, employment status or length of service, have been carried out.
The risk assessment has been carried out at a snail' s pace in the European Union, and this second revision is a positive sign that we really want to support and encourage.
Even looking at the matter from a purely economic point of view, it is extremely worrying to note that in the European Union, in 1996, out of every 100 000 workers, 4 229 took more than three days' sick leave as a result of accidents in the workplace.
In that year, four million seven hundred thousand accidents took place.
Although fatal accidents have decreased by 13%, which is to some extent linked to Community action between 1994 and 1996, there were still 5 549 deaths in 1996.
It is estimated that the damage caused to the European economy in that year was around 146 million working days lost.
It is particularly relevant to the debate on the directive that I mentioned earlier that, although the construction industry does not have the highest number of accidents, it does have the greatest number of fatal accidents, comparable only with the road haulage sector.
Europe cannot at the same time consider itself to be the world' s leading social model and yet allow people to count for little and for their lives to be reduced to mere statistics.
Men, especially young men under the age of 25, are the main victims of accidents in the workplace, but the probability of death as a result of an accident increases with age and is highest for those between 55 and 64 years old. This probability is highest in smaller companies - with up to 50 employees - and for self-employed workers, for whom the accident rate stands at 73.1% of all accidents in the workplace.
This illustrates the need for measures to be adopted in professions with a high turnover of workers: measures which focus on young people' s qualifications, multidisciplinary solutions involving training and qualifications and the quality of SMEs in some sectors.
Since the famous survey conducted in 1907 in the United States, when identification, compulsory registration, cause of death, the employer' s age, the worker' s age, name, circumstances and the accident itself were studied to establish costs and duties enabling workers to be better protected...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, as a number of speakers have already mentioned, falls from heights are among the most serious categories of industrial accident and, by means of this report which is a stage in the elaboration of the directive on minimum safety and health requirements for the use of work equipment, we are setting to work on doing something about the problem.
On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I should like to say that, overall, we regard the result as progress.
The main features of the rules we are proposing to introduce in this area seem to be clear and, at the same time, appear to take due account of the fact that businesses will have to be able to make the rules work in practice and on a day-to-day basis.
For we need to remember that, however commendable and laudable the purpose behind what we are adopting, the consequences will not necessarily always be as we hope, and our objective must therefore always be to formulate rules which are as simple and precise as possible and to ensure that there is room for the flexibility needed in the labour market.
I believe that our rapporteur, Peter Skinner, has striven to find this balance between the desire for clear rules and the need for flexibility and diversity. He deserves a lot of thanks for this, as well as for his method of working. aimed at building consensus.
However, I believe that it will also be important in the future to work on reducing the risk of accidents by acquiring greater knowledge of how such accidents happen. How many accidents are we talking about?
When do they occur?
How do they happen?
What can we do to prevent them? I believe that the work begun with the European Agency for Health and Safety in Bilbao will make a positive contribution to a reduction in the accident figures as we find the answers to these questions and use them constructively.
This is a proper path to go down: the authorities cooperating with the two sides of industry.
Mr President, Commissioner, the report before us has been commended by everyone as being useful and necessary.
It concerns the use of ladders, scaffolding and ropes, working at heights, and, from time to time, alongside dangerous drops.
The background to this report is, of course, the many accidents which have occurred in the past and the inadequacy of directives to date.
This is why it is useful and necessary to have this report, although it has been a long time coming. However, all credit to Mr Skinner for finally managing to complete it.
Despite this, it is a problem report in a way, not because it is causing something to be done, but because the sector we are dealing with is extremely diverse.
It covers people working in the service sector, maintenance sector, painters, window cleaners, etc.
Working at heights is not always for long periods of time but often for short spells.
This means that the definitions we use should be specific rather than vague, and that the provisions we make should be enforceable, which is far from always being the case.
I have already indicated that some descriptions are vague, including those describing "short duration" and "low level of risk" , for example, whilst the assessing of risks involving only a couple of people has been over-regulated.
We have managed to discuss some of these instances within the committee and these sections have been deleted from the report, which has led to an improvement.
I welcome the progress made and we should be able to continue in the same vein.
Let us examine a number of aspects, such as scaffold bearing surfaces.
Needless to say, they should be securely fixed but it is not always possible to brace them against movement, as long as they do not slip.
Mobile scaffolds must be prevented from moving about, but this cannot always be legislated for sufficiently.
You cannot have red lights everywhere.
Portable ladders must be anchored down and be solid, but they must remain serviceable.
This is why we have proposed requesting split voting for a number of amendments. In this way, everyone will have the opportunity to propose improvements on the vulnerable sections of the directive.
Mr President, I think it outrageous that the problem of accidents due to falls at work can give rise to some much opposition and cannot be sorted out more quickly.
Yet, the rapporteur himself reminds us how urgent the matter is when he quotes a figure of 500 000 accidents per year in this sphere alone, leading to at least 40 000 cases of seriously injury and around a thousand deaths.
As the rapporteur is careful to point out, however, building firms are opposed to regulation of any kind and, as a result, the report carefully avoids implicating them.
Technical defects in scaffolding and other systems do cause accidents in the workplace, but the main cause is production rates, working hours and poor conditions.
The report asks for employers to make arrangements at least to limit the carnage, if not to put an end to it.
If emergency measures were to be agreed, forcing employers to make such arrangements, then I should immediately be all in favour of them. I doubt, however, if that would be possible, so respectful is this Parliament of employers' interests.
Meanwhile, capitalist exploitation continues to exact a heavy toll among tens of thousands of employees in terms of their health and, sometimes, their lives.
Mr President, we support and value Mr Skinner' s work, although we do feel that, given the premises and, above all, the implications of the issue, he could have been a little more incisive, in view, moreover, of the fact that eleven years have passed since the first directive on the subject was produced and of the shortcomings of its amending directive which entered into force five years ago.
Of course, we are aware of the greater or lesser sensitivity towards these issues shown in the positions adopted within this very Parliament and elsewhere, and of the concerns raised regarding legislation which is more stringent or would involve greater costs for businesses.
However, as the rapporteur points out, we must consider just how much a worker' s life and health is worth.
In effect, occupational accidents continue to be the scourge of the world of employment in all the countries of the European Union, although there is a higher incidence in certain sectors.
This can certainly be explained by the many factors which contribute in various ways to increasing or reducing the size of the phenomenon, but we are now faced with an indisputable cause of injury, which is present in all the Member States, and which is sadly responsible for as much as ten percent of all occupational accidents, namely falls from heights.
It must be said that the Economic and Social Committee' s opinion certainly laid out, clearly and precisely, not only the scale of the problem but also and above all the solutions to be adopted: Mr Skinner has not failed to build on this foundation, taking as a starting point the need to consolidate the relevant terminology used, to improve the way work is organised and to provide specific training and information for the workers involved.
It must also be pointed out, however, that the solution should nevertheless be implemented via the preparation and issuing of more precise, and more stringent guidelines on prevention by the Commission, making it possible, among other things, to overcome the problem of the fragmentation of responsibilities in this area and, at the same time, to provide, along with more binding controls, for a system of incentives, particularly where small- and medium-sized businesses are concerned, to ensure that occupational safety rules are implemented efficiently and effectively.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Mr Skinner for his commendable report on this complex issue of health and safety requirements for the use of work equipment, and also for being willing to adopt important proposals put forward by the PPE-DE Group.
Mr Perez Alvarez has already gone into this.
I am not happy on every count.
A certain amount of amendment will be necessary prior to the second reading, but the PPE-DE Group is prepared to accept the report overall.
The report in its present form even takes account of objections raised by small- and medium-sized enterprises, and calls for experts to be involved, but, of course, only where the setting up of ladders and scaffolding equipment at the workplace is concerned.
As is surely the case with all legal texts at national - and at regional level for that matter - some of the phraseology might raise a smile, if you can call any of it a laughing matter that is.
The smile certainly drained from my face when I read the European-wide statistics on accidents in the workplace, and on hearing them just now.
I do not intend to go further into the facts and figures, as we have already heard a great deal on that score.
But there is one fundamental point I would like to make.
Safety measures are not the only things that cost. Continued payment of wages, sick pay, invalidity, widows' and orphans' allowances are a drain on business and on the national economy.
This is how productive a moderate social policy is.
Preventive action is also better, cheaper and more humane than a social policy that deals with the consequences.
It is no good shutting the stable door when the horse has bolted; you need to make sure it is shut to start with.
'But what about subsidiarity?' , goes the common cry.
This principle is not meant to render Europe completely inert!
I like the definition provided in Quadragesimo anno the best: subsidiarity - gives right of way in cases of doubt to smaller living entities and to solutions reached by social partners, in the face of State, or - I might well add - EU rulings.
But if the smaller entity is unable to perform its tasks in the interests of the public good, then the larger entity must step in.
This explains why so many European minimum standards were laid down in the EU Treaties in the eighties, when Christian Democrats and Conservatives had the monopoly on power in Europe; in other words, it is a Christian Democrat affair.
Incidentally, health and safety regulations have been organised at international level since the industrial revolution in the 19th century.
The great Conservative British statesman Benjamin Disraeli was one of the pioneers of health and safety regulations.
Continental Europe took its cue from England, adopted these laws and also enshrined them in international conventions, doing so from the very outset.
In view of globalisation and Europeanisation, there is without doubt a need for the European social dimension in the 21st century.
We want to Europeanise the economy.
We have the single currency.
It cannot be the answer to deal with social policy at a purely regional, or even provincial, level.
Minimum standards mean subsidiarity.
Each country can frame its own health and safety regulations provided that European minimum standards are observed.
We PPE-DE Group Members are opposed to European maximum standards.
In Germany the picture is completed by legal acts introduced by the social partners.
There are German standards and health and safety regulations for the workplace.
We also have statutes such as legal acts governing professional trade associations, not to mention the accident prevention law.
Incidentally, it is all very well for people to be critical - for stylistic reasons among others - of the fact that we have a whole host of detailed regulations.
I tell you this though; a fraction of these practical regulations would do the citizens and workers of the Member States a greater service than reams and reams of fancy talk and great ideologies.
Mr President, as the rapporteur' s fine report points out, the figures recently published by the European Agency for Health and Safety at Work, whose headquarters are in Bilbao, indicate very differing results in relation to work accidents between the various Member States, owing to the fact that the States are not applying uniform statistical criteria.
It is therefore urgent that we establish harmonised standards at Community level so that we can have comparable data and assess the results of preventive policies in each European State, community or region. We must do this to ensure that we do not have first- or second-class workers, or lower, but that all workers are protected by safety regulations and requirements of the same quality.
It is also the case that we need more site inspectors so that companies will sufficiently respect the regulations, but it is just as true that the public institutions and companies must begin by setting an example in all of this. Nevertheless, even today, many activities and workplaces of public bodies do not have the required plans for prevention of work-related risk that are laid down in Community directives.
I would therefore like to call on all the European public managers to make an effort to be the first to comply with the regulations, so that managers in the private sector cannot use institutional laziness as an excuse.
The Commission has proposed an amended directive on health and safety at work.
This report suggests it should be longer and more detailed.
UK Conservatives believe that we should vote against it for that very reason.
This is not a question of whether or not health and safety at work is an important issue.
Of course it is.
It is not a question of whether or not the recommendations in the report are sound.
Many of them are and Peter Skinner has put a lot of thought into his work.
It is a question of how the European Parliament should be spending its time and be seen to be spending its time.
It is a question of what Parliament should be looking at as its priorities.
It is a question of whether it should be for the Commission and for the European Parliament to prescribe the fine detail of people' s working and waking lives.
There is a problem in the UK, but not confined to the UK.
The EU is seen to be interfering.
The European Parliament is often seen to be interfering even more.
It is not seen as focusing on the big issues.
Our constituents ask us why they should vote for anybody at the European elections. They ask: what are you doing for us?
What shall we answer? We have the opportunity to tell our people that we do care about the big issues that they care about, that we can help deliver a better peace, security, prosperity, environment and quality of life - issues that can genuinely be helped best at a European level.
Or we can answer that the EU, through the Commission and Parliament, is about deciding whether or not it should be legal for one person to stand at the bottom of a ladder holding on to it while another person climbs up it.
This is the issue that we are discussing today.
Let us oppose this latest example of red tape from the top.
At some time or other, Parliament must give a clear signal as to its true sense of purpose, its true priorities.
I say: Let it be now.
I am very grateful to be able to follow my colleague, Philip Bushill-Matthews, because I share many of the concerns he has expressed.
I think that this proposal reflects no credit on the European Union or on this House.
I think if the European Union - and indeed if the European Parliament - wishes to be taken seriously by the people of Europe then this is exactly the sort of legislation which it should cease to enact because we all know that health and safety and workers' safety is a priority for all Member States, and so it should be.
But there is no justification for a Europe-wide standard on this issue.
There can be no reason why Member States, acting in a uniform way, would necessarily be able to tackle this problem more effectively than individual Member States and, above all, there can be no reason for taking such a close interest in ordinary aspects of people' s working lives.
It can make no sense to legislate on how Europeans are permitted to climb ladders.
This should not be the priority for this House.
It is too great a level of detail for this House to involve itself in and it will merely lead to the ridiculing of the European Union because this is just the sort of interference which is deeply unpopular with many citizens across the European Union.
Instead of engaging in this sort of interference, we should be addressing those issues where it is constructive for Member States to work together and develop some common standards.
A common and uniform and centralised standard on how you climb a ladder is not necessary and it is an undesirable interference with the way people run their work environment.
We can trust the people of Europe to decide for themselves how they climb ladders.
I believe that it is not necessary to conduct a risk assessment every time it is proposed to use a ladder.
As anyone working in the home can tell you, ladders are used very commonly and very frequently and, yes, there are accidents but I do not believe this kind of directive will ever eliminate those accidents.
All it will do is add yet another layer of European bureaucracy and red tape to be dealt with by a business community already suffocated by the weight of red tape.
As my colleague has said, it is time for a change.
It is time for this Parliament to start addressing the issues which are of concern to the citizens of Europe and to stop addressing itself to detailed questions where it can be of no assistance in actually securing worker protection.
In fact, all it is doing is bringing itself and the European Union into disrepute and burdening European businesses with a layer of cost and bureaucracy that they can ill afford.
I have to express amazement at the two speeches we have just heard, one from Mr Bushill-Matthews and the other from Mrs Villiers.
They seem to be engaging in a self-fulfilling prophecy.
They deplore the fact that the European Parliament is regarded as involving itself in trivia and generating red tape and yet they spend their time issuing press releases describing very important pieces of health and safety legislation as nothing but trivia and red tape.
It is hardly surprising that the British media project the sort of image that they describe.
This is a very important piece of health and safety legislation, building upon the corpus of such legislation that we have adopted at European level over the last twenty years.
It is not trivial for the families of the 500 000 people who fall from heights at work every year.
300 000 of those accidents are serious enough to cause the employees to be absent from work more than three days.
40 000 of those falls are very serious and 1 000 result in deaths.
Try to explain to the families concerned that this is a trivial issue.
It is not.
It is a very important issue and survey after survey, including those in Eurobarometer, and surveys of SMEs including by the last British Government have shown that SMEs themselves recognise the importance of good health and safety legislation.
I deplore the fact that the consensus we have had in this important area of policy has been broken in this way by a small minority in the EPP.
It really is absolutely deplorable and we should all - right across the political spectrum - make it clear that we will not tolerate that sort of behaviour from that minority.
It is described as bureaucratic. But read the directive itself, read the proposal.
Is it onerous? Is it burdensome?
Does it require detailed voluminous risk assessments before work is carried out a height? No, it does not, it is a very easily understood, readable, implementable directive and it should be described in that way.
It should be described as making a valuable contribution to preventing injury and deaths within the European Union.
Please do not engage in this trivialisation and then come along here and hypocritically express surprise that this institution is being held in ridicule.
You are the people who are causing that.
Stop it now, please.
Mr President, first of all I would like to say that my delegation intends to back the Skinner report on the Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending for the second time the Directive concerning minimum health and safety requirements.
The key issue of health and safety protection for workers is a matter of concern to us all.
No one is prepared to expose themselves to the accusation that they are anti-social, and it is undoubtedly justifiable to have minimum regulations in the European area.
It also accords with the EU Treaty, and so we will give the rapporteur the respect due to him.
But I am at a loss as to why MEPs manoeuvre themselves time and again into predicaments where they either face the accusation of being of an anti-social disposition, or else risk becoming a laughing stock.
I certainly cannot see why mature adults should be dictated to on how they should climb ladders, or get down them, or why a risk assessment should have to be completed before a ladder is used; or why there should be an instruction to the effect that, two people should not climb a ladder at the same time, if at all possible, or even one stating that time spent up a ladder should not exceed half an hour, or - a peculiar refinement - 25% of total working hours.
The Skinner report will go down in parliamentary lore as 'the ladder report' , and the people of the European Union will justifiably ask themselves whether we do not have anything better to do than produce legislation on things they take for granted, which should in fact be a matter for in-house experts and have no place either in an EU directive or an associated report produced by the codecision-making Parliament!
In fact this is not the first time that a report with a social component has contained such absurdities.
When MEPs have to rack their brains over matters such as the physical constitution of Europeans, in order to establish standards for the average size of tractor seat, or the conditions under which panicled tomatoes - the Austrian word is Rispenparadeiser - can enter the market, this shows an MEP' s job description, but also the raison d' être of the European institutions, in a poor light, to say nothing of the fact that such detailed provisions and over-regulation can become counter-productive.
The same applies to national legislation on protection for workers, incidentally.
Despite all the financial incentives, protective measures of this kind are apt to deter employers from taking on apprentices, thereby contributing to youth unemployment rather than helping to alleviate it.
In addition, however, the Skinner report raises the fundamental question as to what Europe should do and what it should not do. In other words, it is about competences and the judicious application of the subsidiarity principle.
We cannot, and must not, evade the issue any longer.
This is not just because of the Intergovernmental Conference and the organisational form of the European Union, which must find a satisfactory solution in view of the forthcoming enlargement.
This issue has to do with the acceptance of the Union by the people, which is the subject of much complaint. We need more Europe where internal and external security is concerned, more Europe when it comes to looking after our interests in the global competition, in currency policy and in the completion of the single market.
But what we do not need is a Europe that makes inroads on the autonomy of governments, regional administrative bodies, and lastly, the individual, and which takes away the individual' s right to an opinion.
I therefore intend to use this report as an opportunity to highlight the demand for a debate on competences after the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, let us be absolutely clear about the fact that there is no one in this Parliament who wants anything other than the best.
Let us make it clear that no one in this Parliament wants anything other than that the number of accidents, especially fatal accidents, should fall in all workplaces around our splendid continent and in our Member States.
Let us, however, at the same time make it absolutely clear to one other - and I am addressing a number of speakers here - that different answers can be arrived at to the question of what is the correct level of political decision-making at which to make these important decisions.
After listening to Mr Hughes, to the British Labour Government and also to others in Britain, I am extremely confident that they are deeply committed to finding answers to these questions.
After listening to Mr Menrad, I am very confident that the German Christian Democratic Party is thoroughly engaged with these issues in Germany.
I can guarantee that all seven parliamentary parties in Sweden, especially my own Christian Democratic Party, are concerned about the matter.
I can also assure you that public opinion and the trade unions are very committed to the issue and want to enact laws which will lead to a very significant reduction in the number of deaths due to industrial accidents.
What is it, then, which leads us to believe that it is at the level of the European Parliament, representing countries with more than 15 national parliaments, that the right forum for decision-making is to be found? In the light of the subsidiarity or proximity principle, allow me to express my doubts about the extent to which this issue is suited to being dealt with specifically in the European Parliament.
Amendment 14, paragraph 4.2.2, for example, reads as follows: 'Before portable ladders are brought into service, their feet shall be prevented from slipping by securing the stiles at or near their upper or lower ends, by any anti-slip device or by any other arrangement of equivalent effectiveness.
As a priority, ladders should be secured firmly using all possible means.
Ladders used for access should be long enough for their uprights to protrude sufficiently beyond the access platform.
Ladders in several sections shall be so used as to ensure that they are secure.
The holding of the ladder by another person as a safety measure shall not be allowed.'
This text is well meant and perfectly in order legally.
I can absolutely assure you that, at home in Mora in Dalarna, where I live, as well as in the Swedish Parliament and also in all other national parliaments, these matters are being carefully looked into.
In view of the subsidiarity principle in the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, is it right of the European Parliament to legislate at this very high level of detail? Instead what we ought to be doing is aiming for a directive which specifies our objectives.
In that way, we can allow the Member States themselves, their people and their elected representatives in national parliaments and governments to be responsible for the existence of regulations ensuring that working life does not involve unnecessary risks.
Allow them to determine how to frame the rules so as to fulfil the requirements of the directive in the best way.
National legislation is being enacted in this area to add to the existing national laws.
The two sides of industry are also extremely active in this area.
We Swedish Christian Democrats shall be voting against this report on the basis of the subsidiarity principle.
Mr President, I am glad to see the tradition of speaking to the Commissioner is still alive and well.
I am particularly pleased with the comments she has made.
I hope that Parliament' s amendments will be adopted tomorrow as I am sure they will be, despite the elements in this Parliament which do not seem to want to join in and that we will have an interesting discussion with the Council.
I wonder if the Commissioner would join me in deploring the way in which this report has been treated, with parts - notably the ladders - being isolated and suggestions made - by Mr Bushill-Matthews for one - that this is something that is futile if not childish.
Commissioner, I hope you will agree that this is a Treaty obligation for us all to look at.
The basis is Article 138, which was previously Article 118a - and if I am right, we must look into the costs - administrative and otherwise - for small-to-medium-sized businesses, as laid down in the Treaty already.
This is a small-to-medium-sized-business-friendly piece of legislation, but more importantly it is friendly to the workers who have to use this equipment.
That is why the legislation is there and is to be applied across the European Union.
If only Mr Bushill-Matthews had been here when I first started, he would have heard some of the arguments which I wish to place before this House as to why it is important to have EU legislation.
It is a great problem when you do not hear the arguments, but you merely come in with your own loaded thoughts.
Indeed, it is a great shame, and I hope that Mrs Villiers will come back some time and perhaps pay a visit to our committee so she can hear some of the debate about this report as well - because I noticed that she disappeared soon after she made her point - maybe we will read about that in the papers as well.
Finally, I would like to say to Mr Bushill-Matthews, who is here, that the journalist on the Daily Mail, to which you sent your press releases on this report, rang me back and asked me about a specific amendment that contained your phraseology and your words, which he said was the nonsense part of this whole directive.
Perhaps you can correct him instead of correcting us.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Thursday, at 11 a.m.
Competition rules
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0217/2000) by Mr Evans, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication on competition rules relating to horizontal cooperation agreements [C5-0304/2000 - 2000/2154(COS)].
Mr President, perhaps I can begin by saying the introduction of the title of our debate no doubt had many Daily Mail journalists salivating, but the issues that we are considering are fundamental issues that go to the heart of what the European Union is all about.
That is the development of a true, single market; because if we were able to achieve a true, single market, not only might we find more unanimity within this Chamber, but we should be well on the way to serving our constituents by ensuring that we achieve real economic progress in Europe.
Therefore, this particular piece of legislation falls within that context.
There are a number of ways in which competition policy is important in driving this agenda forward.
The Commissioner, and I congratulate him for it, has seized the initiative in terms of the application of state-aid policy; we will be debating that in the second session in Strasbourg in connection with another report which I am currently taking before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The other major area that Commissioner Monti has been busy with is the modernisation of competition policy itself.
We are awaiting the outcome of the Commissioner' s review of over 100 responses to his White Paper on the reform of restrictive trade practices and the abuse of market power.
Earlier today I heard that we may receive the result before the end of this month; perhaps we will hear more from the Commissioner about that in due course.
The reform that we are looking at, according to the Commission itself, forms part of the overall agenda of reform.
Within that context, I want to say to the Commissioner that business is looking for a number of things.
It is certainly looking for the things that the Commission was seeking consultees from about whether the current regulations have become too legalistic, too bureaucratic and could be simplified.
I have no doubt that the Commissioner' s proposals will achieve that simplification.
Business is looking for the development of confidence in the whole range of new mechanisms which the Commissioner is seeking to bring forward as part of its overall reform package.
I would therefore ask the Commission how he sees this specific reform, which is not controversial, in the context of his wider reform of competition policy which, as he well knows, might be generously said to be slightly more controversial.
May I turn to some of the detailed areas in the particular proposals that the Commission has asked Parliament to comment upon.
Firstly, I welcome this process.
The Commissioner is inviting Parliament to express its views in relation to the paper that was produced in April of this year.
In essence there are a number of areas where, having agreed with the thrust of the reform being taken forward, I feel that the Commission might give the matter further thought.
Firstly, I would like the Commissioner to explain why there is a contrast between the treatment of horizontal restraints and vertical restraints.
I would like the Commissioner to indicate whether, in due course, it is his intention to see further exemption categories specified in the legislation.
I have indicated that businesses are strongly of the view that the duration of exemption in the cases of research and development should be expanded up to a period of ten years.
Since the Commission' s own papers make it clear that horizontal cooperation agreements are generally not made in order to work against the interests of consumers, I would be grateful to see what the Commissioner' s response is in that particular area.
I would also be grateful to have clarification of the position regarding trade supplies, not least because that is an issue that troubles Mr Berenguer Fuster.
I know he has tabled amendments in relation to that.
I am particularly concerned to ensure that we take all steps to avoid a re-nationalisation of EU competition law and I would be grateful to hear what reassurances we can have from the Commissioner in that area.
Finally, business would prefer a lengthier transition period; they would also prefer the Commission to look at more than just the market share in assessing market power.
For these purposes what the Commission proposes may be appropriate, but deciding market power solely by assessing market share is too inexact a science.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Evans warmly for his report, and also for his statement just now, which has already placed this report and the Commission' s statement in the wider context of the necessary reform of competition policy.
We know how rapidly the world economy is changing and so we are also aware of the increasing importance of research and development, the value of cooperation between companies, and the need for companies to specialise, and hence also the need for specialisation agreements.
Competition is not an end in itself, as far as we are concerned, it is a means of achieving growth and employment, and if, like the Commissioner and ourselves, you champion a functioning single market organised along the lines of the social market economy, you do not favour unlimited competition, but competition governed by the necessary principles of political organisation, keeping in mind that we have a responsibility towards the future and our fellow human beings.
The point has already been made today that these are very welcome reforms, that there is a need for companies to work together, and that the statement affords companies greater freedom as regards their cooperation agreements, and will allow for simplification, flexibilisation and liberalisation.
That is what we have on the plus side.
We are also critical of some aspects, and there are certain things we would like to see.
The rapporteur touched on some of them, and I would like to explore them again.
Firstly, Commissioner, we believe that, in view of increasing autonomy, the people hanker after legal certainty.
I therefore ask myself whether treating horizontal restraints and vertical restraints differently will really lead to greater legal certainty, or whether it would not be better for both, to have a block exemption regulation.
Secondly, it is our wish that the exploitation of the results should not be restricted to five years, but should be extended to ten.
We urge you to make it perfectly clear, by including them in the guidelines, that reciprocal, or unilateral agreements on supply - 'trade supplies' for short - are not affected by the ban laid down in Article 81(2), and we take the view - which is also expressed in the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs - that you ought to consider the definition of market share.
Which market do we mean? The buying market, the selling market, the national market, the regional market?
We all know that the market is in a constant state of flux for the businesses concerned, and we also fear that guidelines 122 and 141 will set an arbitrary market power threshold of 15%.
We feel it is important to increase this threshold, just as we believe that the length of the transitional period for introduction of these regulations should be increased to at least two years, so that your aspirations are fully realised.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Evans on his wonderful report and point out once again the large extent to which we have agreed on analysing the reforms of Community competition law as a whole, as well as the social consequences of competition.
It is true that the great beneficiaries of an appropriate competition policy are the consumers, the citizens as a whole.
We should not see this regulation as something that exclusively concerns companies; it is of interest to all of us as citizens.
We also agree on our positive assessment of the Commission' s attempts to modernise and reform Community competition law.
We must congratulate Mr Monti and the whole of the Commission on having the courage and bravery to complete a reform - which the Commission is determined to do - a reform that was started years ago.
I have said in other interventions that, in my opinion, it is not only necessary but also takes us in the right direction.
The Commission' s chosen path is the right one.
Having been in force for 40 years, Community competition law had begun to show signs of exhaustion.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the competition rules included in the Treaty, and in the law derived from it, have contributed significantly to the growth of a culture of competition, and have been fundamental to the creation of the single market.
On the other hand, the Commission' s decisions and the judgments of the Court of Justice have enjoyed well-earned prestige in terms of achieving this aim.
We must not forget, however, that those rules were initially alien to European law.
The European legal tradition, especially the continental tradition, concentrated more on aspects relating to unfair competition; the free competition elements were imported from the United States.
A Spanish business academic - Professor Garrigues - explained very graphically that the American soldiers who came to Europe to fight in the Second World War brought 'antitrust' legislation in their rucksacks.
Now, those positive aspects could not disguise certain deficiencies which had traditionally been demonstrated by the experts.
Perhaps the best-founded criticism referred to the rigidity of the rules.
It is true that it was perhaps necessary at the beginning to apply the rules so rigidly, because new rules had to be applied, imported from the United States, in accordance with the continental legal tradition.
I must add here that it is no surprise that Mr Evans' assessment and concern does not coincide exactly with that of his colleague in the Group of the European People' s Party, Mr Karas.
Mr Evans is behaving more like an Anglo-Saxon lawyer, while Mr Karas has demonstrated the usual preoccupations of continental lawyers.
I believe that this reform is more along the lines of Anglo-Saxon law and, despite being a continental lawyer, I agree with it.
I am not so concerned about legal certainty as some people.
Nevertheless, it is true that what was acceptable twenty or thirty years ago is not necessarily acceptable today.
Today, the single market is a reality and the culture of competition is sufficiently widespread.
Change was therefore necessary.
It is no longer possible to apply competition rules which do not take account of the economic analysis and a consideration of the market' s power.
In the field of vertical restrictions, the new regulations on exemption by category and the guidelines for their application have been approved.
The time has now come to introduce reform in the field of horizontal restrictions.
In this area, the Commission is now presenting us with two proposals for regulations, one on research and development agreements, and the other on the regulation of specialisation agreements, accompanied by guidelines.
It should be noted, as the report does, that there is now an noticeable difference with regard to the treatment of vertical and horizontal restrictions since, in the case of vertical restrictions, there was a single regulation and guidelines which covered all the possibilities to which that regulation applied.
With regard to horizontal restrictions, however, there are guidelines which are, to a large extent, broader than the two specific aspects regulated by the two proposals for regulations.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has presented Parliament with five amendments which express some of our concerns.
Of these, I would draw your attention to our concern at the fact that crisis cartels are not dealt with. They were included in the previous legislation and have disappeared here without sufficient justification.
I would therefore ask you to vote in favour of these amendments.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, as a result of the reform, the Commission will be able to focus on tackling the conduct of those who hold power in the market, because it is that conduct which is genuinely anti-competitive and damaging to the market.
I repeat that in this sense we are in agreement.
It seems that we will finally be able to say goodbye to an over-rigorous and over-formal approach and welcome economic analysis into European competition law.
Mr President, in the proposals which he has formulated in the report under discussion, our rapporteur, Mr Evans, is calling for the Commission to relax the competition rules for horizontal cooperation agreements between companies operating at the same market level.
It would therefore appear that the Commission has a keener sense of fair trading than the European Parliament, despite the fact that, logically-speaking, the opposite should apply.
It is the European Parliament which should be more sensitive to the social impact of competition policy.
Especially as, even though we have the most stringent fair trading legislation, the real world in which we live is a world in which large monopolies abuse dominant market positions, in which mergers, take-overs and acquisitions by corporate behemoths are a daily occurrence, giving rise to monopolies of global proportions which almost always lay off thousands of workers and have a huge impact on employment and which then monopolise wealth-producing resources, markets and consumers.
It is precisely because the real world is thus that we should be more careful and stricter when it comes to ensuring that horizontal cooperation agreements are treated and controlled in the same manner as mergers and vertical restraints.
This being so, we are unable to vote in favour of the proposals calling for policy restrictions to be relaxed, as proposed by the Commission.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Evans on the quality and weight of his report.
I would also like to express the Commission' s appreciation of Parliament' s consistently constructive attitude to competition issues, which we consider to be an important tool in the framework of the social market economy to which Mr Karas referred, the ultimate aim of which, as Mr Berenguer Fuster stressed, is to protect the consumer.
Mr Berenguer has also grasped perfectly the line which the Commission intends to take, which is to focus more on economic analysis in developing competition policy, but, at the same time, as Mr Karas, Mr Evans and others have requested, we are endeavouring to provide the greatest possible legal certainty for businesses.
Today' s debate concerns a major aspect of our attempts to modernise competition policy.
On the one hand, the Commission has drawn up a revised version of the block exemption regulations on research and development and specialisation agreements, and, on the other hand, it has prepared draft guidelines on the applicability of article 81 to horizontal cooperation agreements.
In this way, it is the Commission' s intention to codify the relevant case law and working practice as they have developed on the basis the evaluation of individual cases over all these years, without making any major changes to the criteria for evaluating horizontal cooperation agreements on the basis of Community law.
These documents are therefore intended to clarify the criteria used to implement competition policy in this field, certainly not to alter them.
I would like to stress this aspect, because there has been some criticism of the Commission' s proposal that it is masking a thorough revision of the line taken regarding the horizontal cooperation agreements.
These allegations are completely unfounded.
It is generally understood that agreements signed between competitors are likely to restrict competition to a much greater degree than other types of agreement.
This is certainly the case where agreements between competitors are intended to set prices, divide up the market or limit production.
We are certainly not attempting to make anybody think that horizontal agreements, which have severely negative implications for competition, will in the future be regulated less rigorously.
However, in the absence of basic restrictions, it is necessary for the agreements to be examined in their economic context, so that it can be ascertained whether they would have a negative effect on the market.
There is, however, clearly a need to update and clarify the regulations on horizontal agreements for two fundamental reasons: firstly, because these regulations represent a response to the present economic reality, for businesses have to react to increasing pressure from competition and adapt to a market which is in a constant state of flux.
Cooperation can often be a way to share risks, save on expenditure, pool expertise and speed up the launching of innovations onto the market.
It is an important tool, particularly for small- and medium-sized businesses.
Consumers will benefit from these economic advantages, but only if effective competition is maintained on the market.
Our second reason for revising the legislation in this area is the fact that clarification of the norms is essential for the success of our undertaking to modernise competition policy, an undertaking whose scope the rapporteur, Mr Evans, has grasped fully, and for this I am grateful to him, as I am for his reference to state aid, which is another, no less important element of competition policy.
The line taken is similar to that recently adopted on vertical agreements, and primarily responds to two objectives: preventing the Directorate-General for Competition having to examine cases which have no bearing on competition policy, and enabling the businesses themselves to establish whether or not an agreement would restrict competition and whether it would be eligible for an exemption.
The draft resolution shows that Parliament supports the aims of the reform.
The questions raised by you and others contain extremely valuable suggestions.
I am now, already, able to inform you that I intend to incorporate the majority of these suggestions.
I shall, in particular, recommend to the Commission that it adheres to your opinion on three major points in respect of the block exemption regulations. Firstly, the maximum duration of the exemption for research and development agreements should be extended beyond the current limit of five years.
However, a compromise does need to be reached between the businesses' interests in exploiting the results of their own research and the public interest, in guaranteeing competition on the new markets.
I shall therefore propose to limit the duration of the exemption not to ten but to seven years.
Secondly, the restrictions concerning the possibility of parties exploiting the results of research and development projects carried out jointly should be as few as possible, in order to encourage the movement of knowledge, which is instrumental in both technical and economic progress.
I shall therefore propose, on the basis of your comments, that, as a rule, these restrictions be allowed to intervene only where they are to be applied to businesses which are not in direct competition.
Thirdly, the transitional period should be extended.
In this we can take the block exemption regulations on vertical agreements as an example and set a period of 18 months.
Then, with regard to the guidelines, we will certainly be able to comply with your request to operate a clearer distinction between the guidelines for horizontal agreements and those for vertical agreements, and to be clearer in our handling of industrial supply agreements.
The Commission intends to adopt the definitive version of the block exemption regulations and guidelines before the end of the year.
This would avoid a legal gap forming after the current regulations expire, but it would also contribute considerably to keeping Community policy up to date.
Mr President, this debate has touched on a number of other important, interesting points.
I do not have the time to comment on all of them, but I would just like to make a couple of observations.
Mr Theonas, you raised the question of mergers.
The care with which the Commission has exercised its powers in the area of merger control cannot have escaped you.
As we are required to do by the regulation, we are adhering rigorously to the criterion of prohibiting mergers where they would lead to the creation or consolidation of a dominant position.
Often, this is not the case - there is no danger of it happening - partly because the businesses are aware of this requirement and propose remedies which can, on occasions, be extremely effective.
Mr Evans raised the question of trade supplies.
I agree that the treatment of industrial supply agreements needs to be elaborated in the guidelines. This will be done in the chapter on production agreements.
Crisis cartels, Mr Berenguer, aim directly at reducing output and raising prices; they therefore always have a restrictive effect on competition.
That does not exclude the possibility of such cartels being exempt under Article 81(3).
It would, however, only be possible after an individual examination of the case and the merits of the agreement.
That is why it would be inappropriate to include these agreements in the guidelines.
Finally, how does this all fit into the broader modernisation effort? First of all I can confirm to Mr Evans that I expect the Commission to be able to adopt a proposal for a regulation to reform Regulation 17 of 1962 before the end of this month.
That reform involves the elimination of the notification system.
This, however, Mr Karas, should not reduce the legal certainty for companies.
In order to ensure this, the Commission is clarifying its present substantive rules.
We have already done so for distribution - vertical agreements - and we are now doing it for horizontal agreements.
Our block exemption regulations and notices will give companies more certainty on the contents of our rules and in self-assessing their agreements in the spirit of an overall modernisation effort.
This cannot be considered a renationalisation of competition policy but, more than in the past, it will benefit from the cooperation of the national in the cooperation of the national competition authorities and the national courts in the general effort of applying EC competition rules.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Thursday, at 11 a.m.
Environmental dimension in the development process
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0215/2000) by Mr Wijkman, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the Commission' s opinion on the European Parliament' s amendments to the joint position of the Council on the proposed European Parliament and Council regulation on measures to promote the full integration of the environmental dimension in the development process of developing countries (amending the Commission' s proposal) [C5-0283/2000 - 1999/0020(COD)].
Mr President, the regulation we are now to be discussing concerns the prior conditions for ensuring that, under the European Union's aid policy, better account is taken of the physical environment and of basic natural resources in conjunction with various development projects.
This is an important issue because we know that economic growth can often have damaging consequences for the natural environment, either when natural resources are exploited, in the course of industrial production itself or when products are used.
Environmental damage has harmful effects on public health.
It is in danger of destroying biological diversity and may also entail damage which jeopardises the long-term productive capacity of natural systems.
When and if that happens, the health of our economies is also affected.
By thinking in preventive terms and by choosing methods and techniques which interfere with the environment as little as possible, growth can be combined with proper consideration for the environment.
That is important in our own countries, but we still have a long way to go throughout the European Union.
It is also important, of course, in the developing countries, especially in connection with the development cooperation initiated by the European Union.
The requirements for integrating environmental considerations include extensive method development work and demonstration projects, as well as education and training, both of the Commission' s staff and of affected personnel in the recipient countries.
The regulation we are discussing lays down detailed rules for this and makes a nice large sum of money available.
This matter has been debated by Parliament twice before.
At the last reading, there were significant differences between our own points of view and the proposal adopted by the Council.
Conciliation was initiated, and we are now seeing the result of this.
From Parliament' s point of view, I think we should greet the result of this conciliation with great satisfaction.
We have achieved what we were aiming for in a number of important areas.
Allow me to mention three important examples of these.
First of all, the budget is near enough double the size of the original amount. We have gone from EUR 50 million to EUR 93 million.
Secondly, the degree to which the Member States were to be involved in the implementation itself was a major issue.
Parliament' s approach to this question was to opt for the least possible involvement, that is to say to make the Commission chiefly responsible for the implementation itself and to evaluate it subsequently.
The compromise we have reached means that there is to be joint decision-making only in the case of activities involving more than EUR 2.5 million, when active participation on the part of the Member States is actually required.
That is a good thing, in my view.
If, as it ought to be, our aim is to simplify the provision of aid, remove the bureaucracy surrounding it and, in that way, close the gap between promises and commitments, on the one hand, and the activities carried out, on the other, it is essential that the Member States should interfere less in operational activity.
With the conciliation we have achieved, we have taken a welcome step in that direction.
Thirdly, we demanded at the second reading that the regulation should not be limited in time, that is to say that this type of activity should be planned on a very long-term basis.
Now that the development process is to be evaluated after four years and decisions then taken about the future, I think, however, that we should be satisfied.
Once the evaluation has taken place, we shall have every opportunity to establish guidelines, and more detailed guidelines than today' s, for this important activity.
I therefore recommend that Parliament approve the result of the conciliation.
Mr President, this draft regulation is one of the first regulations in the sphere of development policy to be adopted by means of the codecision procedure.
The European Parliament has done justice to the weightier responsibility it bears by virtue of its increased decision-making powers.
Many people felt that this regulation should be passed as quickly as possible, which has meant Parliament having to distance itself from many of its proposed amendments.
The path we chose was undoubtedly the right one.
We were able to make a few improvements to this draft regulation.
One of the most important improvements - the rapporteur has already mentioned it - is that the potential activities provided for by this regulation are to be adequately funded.
It was a great achievement on our part to secure an increase in the funding from EUR 54.4 million to EUR 93 million - i.e. it was practically doubled - even though we know that we would need a much larger amount to do justice to the importance of this issue in terms of our common future.
But that would lead to a general political discussion, which would of course be beyond the scope of this regulation.
Our proposed amendments enabled us to make a number of changes to Article 3, which is concerned with the nature of the measures to be carried out.
I am disappointed that Parliament' s proposed amendment was not adopted, because it advocated dispensing with bank guarantees or credit safeguards if need be, in order to make the range of applicants and the target group as large as possible.
Despite everything, I believe this represents a great achievement on Parliament' s part, and also on the part of the rapporteur.
Mr President, eight years after the Rio conference, where the countries of the United Nations acknowledged that development and the environment were inextricably linked, the European Union is finally adopting regulations to ensure that the environment is integrated into the development projects of developing countries. Although we have cause to congratulate ourselves on the financial contribution agreed in the course of the conciliation - and I should like to thank the rapporteur on behalf of my group - the budget in question is still modest, given the considerable needs and still greater expectations of the populations concerned.
Are we not merely salving our consciences by granting just a little more than EUR 15 million over a period of six years to developing countries in Africa, the Caribbean and South America when we are aware of the social, economic and ecological conditions in these underprivileged lands?
This budget line, designed to promote the full integration of the environmental dimension in the development process, will be of no significance whatsoever if the environmental dimension is neglected in the case of other projects.
I would like to remind you that sustainable development which integrates the environmental dimension fully is still, more than ever, the only model of development able to meet the requirements both of the underprivileged countries of the South and the polluted countries of the North.
On behalf of the Commission, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Wijkman, and the members of the conciliation delegation on having put together a compromise package which the Council has already formally adopted.
The Commission supports the proposed regulation currently before you.
It considers it a valuable instrument for carrying out strategic and pilot activities in the field of the environment.
It is, of course, a supplementary instrument to the others at the disposal of the Commission.
Fortunately, our activities in the field of environment and development are not limited to actions funded under this regulation.
We are mainstreaming the environment in everything we do.
Hence, we intend to use it in a strategic fashion focusing, in particular, on support for the various international environmental conventions.
Plans to finance projects which will meet the objectives of the regulation are already advanced.
Once it has been formally adopted and funds made available we will proceed to finalise agreements for their implementation.
However, time will be against us since we are fast approaching the end of the financial year.
Once more, I wish to thank Parliament for their work in ensuring the passage of this regulation and the interest that many Members have shown.
I am confident that the regulation will provide us with a useful tool for ensuring that the environmental dimension is fully taken into account in our development cooperation.
Sustainable management of forests in developing countries
The next item is the report (A5-0216/2000) by Mr Fernández Martín, on behalf of the Parliamentary delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on a joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council regulation on measures designed to promote the conservation and sustainable management of forests in developing countries [C5­0284/2000 - 1999/0015(COS)].
Mr President, with this report on the regulation on the conservation and sustainable management of tropical forests and other types of forest in developing countries, and with the previous report by Mr Wijkman, Parliament is reaching the high point today, with the corresponding vote tomorrow, of its first exercise of its new codecision competences in the field of cooperation and development.
It has taken the procedure a long time to come to an end, since we have spent almost three years on the first and second readings and on the debate in conciliation.
As rapporteur, I would like to express my satisfaction that such a long period has been fruitful and has enabled us to reach an agreement on the text of the regulation which I am today asking Parliament to vote in favour of.
We started from very different positions.
Basically, the differences between Parliament and the Council concerned the budgetary funding of the programme, the timetable and commitology.
Parliament had proposed, in previous stages of the procedure, numerous amendments which the Council and the Commission have accepted and I must say - it is fair to recognise this - that the Commission' s management of the previous programme, its high level of execution and its good results, have meant that the rapporteur, with the support of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, has been able to persuade the Council of the need to maintain the programme with a sufficient degree of funding to guarantee its success.
The tropical forests and their various functions and usefulness to humanity can contribute to a large extent to the achievement of the Union' s aims, not only in terms of development and the environment, but also with regard to its objectives of fighting poverty and sustainable economic and social development.
With the regulation, the European Union provides appropriate financial and technical aid with a view to promoting conservation and the sustainable management of tropical forests and other types of forest in developing countries, so that the forests may play their role as generators of wealth and social development with the sustainable environmental criteria which is expected of them at local, national and international levels.
The regulation says that the sustainable management of the forests must seek to improve the living conditions and well-being of the populations within the limits of the capacity of the ecosystems, maintaining the natural heritage and its biological diversity.
This must be done by promoting the active participation of the populations which depend on the forests and the local communities in the creation of policies and planning in the field of development.
To this end, it is necessary to improve coordination and the flow of information between Commission projects - those that the Commission will present in the coming years - and those of the Member States, in order to achieve more coherent actions and therefore a more efficient use of resources.
In terms of the budget, we should be pleased that, after the restrictions which, in general, have resulted from the plans for reconstruction in Kosovo, we now have a contribution of EUR 249 million, having started with an initial Council proposal of EUR 9 million, for a period of 6 years, from now until 2006.
This will provide sufficient funding to fulfil the objectives, at least with the same efficiency with which they have been fulfilled during the period which is coming to an end now.
Nevertheless, in the field of commitology the differing positions of Parliament, especially the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and the Council are well known.
Our position is more inclined towards giving greater competences to the Commission in this area.
We have not managed to reach an agreement, since this agreement is waiting for the problem to be dealt with globally.
However, at least the Committee on Development and Cooperation can feel satisfied because, on this question of commitology, an agreement has been reached which will allow us to establish the necessary budgetary estimates and a precise timetable for maintaining up-to-date information on the strategic guidelines and the priorities for implementing actions for the coming years.
To sum up, Mr President, this is a sound agreement for a sound programme for the conservation of the tropical forests.
Mr President, not only is the present draft regulation on measures to promote the sustainable management of tropical forests and other forests in developing countries, very closely associated with the previous regulation in terms of subject matter, the political pressure and the political arguments used to rail-road this regulation through as quickly as possible are also reminiscent of what happened the last time round.
In this case too, we opted for a conciliation procedure, notwithstanding all the prophecies of doom, and I believe we substantially improved the content of the regulation in the process.
The active participation of the local communities and those who are directly affected, in the development of the national forestry policy and development planning, is now one of the objectives of the regulation, and this represents a major step forwards in terms of content, to my mind.
Parliament has managed to secure adequate funding.
The Council' s proposal earmarked a ridiculously low sum of EUR 63 million for the period between 2000 and 2006.
Parliament demanded EUR 249 million for the same period and achieved it, making the point very clearly in so doing that it is unacceptable as far as we are concerned to play the reconstruction in the Balkans - as important as it is - off against EU development policy and development cooperation.
It is vital that the Commission reports back to Parliament annually on the guidelines and priorities it has worked out.
Together with Article 11 of this regulation, which lays down an annual reporting obligation in respect of financed projects and measures, this provides us with the basic tools we will need to draw attention, in good time, to disturbing trends.
Mr President, my feeling is that the conservation of tropical forests should certainly be brought about through funding, contributions etc., but above all - and this is why the report appealed to me - it should involve the participation of the local peoples, providing them with ideas for a future for the forest and genuinely sustainable forest management.
A few years ago, the magazine 'Nature' featured a study into a Peruvian forest and the best way to exploit it.
This forest, like all tropical forests, boasted remarkable biodiversity: it contained a good 270 plant species in a single hectare, whereas a European forest can have as few as six or seven species per hectare.
Now, this rich biodiversity - which, moreover, is not confined to plant species - has a financial consequence which is in itself truly impressive.
However, there are different ways of accessing this potential source of revenue: for example, it is possible to cut down all the trees and sell the wood, which would bring in FF 5 000 plus another FF 15 000 from using the land as pastureland - which is what usually happens - or for crops.
In this scenario, the land becomes poor in humus and desertification soon follows.
On the other hand, another approach could be to exploit the produce of the land, such as fruit and the produce of the underwood, and to operate a system of controlled tree felling, which would produce an annual income of FF 2 000. In this case, the income would be regular, practically perennial.
This is just one example to illustrate that I am a firm believer in the principle of providing services, technical information and advice on a modus operandi to these peoples, so that they can sustain their forests themselves, for I am sure that it is in their interest to operate in this way rather than conducting mass tree-felling operations and laying waste to vast numbers of these areas which are so valuable for our planet' s atmosphere.
I would like to end by quoting an aphorism from Chairman Mao' s Little Red Book - which, although it is no longer popular can still be useful on occasions. It reads: "Do not give a fisherman fish; teach him how to fish better" .
On behalf of the Commission, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur for his work on this regulation.
I congratulate Mr Fernández Martín and the other members of the conciliation delegation for their efforts to achieve a satisfactory conclusion on the tropical forests regulation.
The Commission supports the proposed text before you.
As with the environment budget heading we intend to use the tropical forests budget heading strategically and in coordination with actions funded under the other instruments at the disposal of the Commission.
At international level I envisage this regulation to be an important tool for the Community to promote the conclusions of the UN intergovernmental forum on forests.
This area, as has been clearly expressed in these contributions, is crucial for biodiversity, for climate, and for our conscience in handing over an Earth that has these qualities to future generations.
Anybody who has had the thrill of being in a real tropical forest will never forget the experience and we should certainly not deny our children that.
Once more, I offer my congratulations to Parliament for this successful conclusion and I also wish to express my appreciation for the input it has made during the first and second readings of the regulation.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Complementarity on development cooperation policies
The next item is the report (A5-0227/2000) by Mrs Ferrer, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on complementarity between Community and Member States' policies on development cooperation [COM(1999)218 - C5-0179/1999 - 1999/2156(COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the increase in poverty, despite the gradual growth of world GDP over recent decades, the current tendency of Member States to reduce the funds intended for official aid to development in favour of direct investment, of which only 1% goes to the least-developed countries - which increases the gulf which separates those countries from the rich or developing countries - and the conviction that the globalisation process may increase the difficulties of the poor countries, are all factors which demonstrate the urgent need to improve the effectiveness of policies on development cooperation.
In the field of democracy and respect for human rights we are also very far from the desirable parameters: coups d' états, violence, wars and violations of human rights are still realities in the least-developed countries. We must therefore contribute to correcting this situation.
In this context, it is essential to strengthen the complementarity of policies on development cooperation implemented by the Community and the Member States.
Firstly, because complementarity enables us to take advantage of the synergy resulting from a coordinated approach in the actions to be implemented, not only by the European Union but also by all the international donors, which will improve the impact of those actions.
Secondly, because it contributes an element of added value to the Member States' interventions, which will help to optimise the resources destined for development aid and to achieve better results.
Thirdly, because it would improve the visibility of the European Union and make its development policy more credible, which will allow it to exert the political influence it deserves as the main provider of funds - let us remember that between half and two thirds of development aid comes from the European Union - and both the NGOs and the recipient countries would like this influence to be greater given that nobody is more sensitive than the European Union in the field of social justice and human development.
Lastly, improving complementarity is important because the Treaty on European Union clearly establishes that the Member States and the Community must coordinate their policies on development cooperation and harmonise their aid programmes.
That is why we must take a positive view of the Commission' s presentation of the communication on the complementarity of Community and Member States' policies on development cooperation, since the measures it proposes may contribute to removing the obstacles which hinder significant advances in this area.
In general terms, it can be said that the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and myself, are in agreement on the broad approach of the document and on the measures it proposes.
Nevertheless, I would like to make some specific points. The first is that I consider that the Commission should have taken account of the fact that complementarity is not an isolated element, but should rather be dealt with within a context of a global strategy which also addresses the issues of coordination and coherence, since coherence is inseparable from coordination and complementarity, and, without coordination, complementarity is not possible.
Therefore, I believe that, in order to really improve the impact of European development policies and safeguard the credibility of the Union, it would have been much more appropriate and would have made things much clearer if these aspects had been tackled jointly within the framework of the communication on development policy, since that would have better highlighted the essential and inseparable nature of these elements in relation to the formulation of a development policy in accordance with the Union' s objectives.
My second point relates to the very concept of complementarity, which must not be viewed as a protective principle for preserving the competences of the Member States in this field, but as a manifestation of a political will to unite our efforts to improve and contribute more effectively to implementing the objectives of our policies on development cooperation.
Furthermore, the need to ensure the unity, coherence and effectiveness of Union action in the field of external policy - which is also laid down in the Treaty - must extend to development policies, since these are an integral part of the Union' s external action.
The Commission should therefore take the initiative and make a qualitative leap in that direction in order to allow the European Union to establish its strategic priorities in the field of development aid.
Thirdly, I must say that it will be difficult for measures to strengthen complementarity, alone, to achieve the desired results.
For that, the political will of the Council must, as a precondition, make progress towards greater integration in the field of cooperation, because what has hindered the progress of complementarity has been above all the fact that the Member States define their development cooperation policies more in accordance with their geo-strategic economic interests and their colonial pasts than with the objectives of the Union in relation to development.
Lastly, we should repeat that, as well as the operative measures to improve the management of programmes, with which - as I have said - the Committee on Development and Cooperation is in agreement in principle, we believe that the Commission should take the responsibility for reflecting and making proposals, which is an essential requirement if the Union wants to direct aid not only towards promoting the economic growth of the beneficiary countries but also so that that growth will reach all sections of the population, thereby fulfilling its commitment to the development of peoples and, therefore, its commitment to peace, since, without development, peace will always be difficult to attain.
In any event, and to sum up, I would like to reiterate the timeliness of this communication - even though we would have liked it to have been part of a global package - and say how fitting the measures are and that, together with the measures also proposed by the Committee on Development and Cooperation in my report, we hope that they will help to guide our action, providing better operational management.
I should repeat once again that the Council must show signs of political will, without which it will be very difficult to make the principle of complementarity a reality.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Ferrer on having produced a balanced report.
It is important that we recognise the role of the EU and the extent of its influence.
We demand coherence and coordination.
I would similarly like to say how satisfied I am that the importance of the work of NGOs, which work independently of governments, is being acknowledged and taken into account in development cooperation with the express purpose of strengthening civil society as a result of such cooperation.
I also think that the recommendation that coordination should take place within the framework of the strategies selected by the target countries themselves is a healthy approach to the issue.
When we speak of development cooperation, in the same breath it is a salutary exercise to remind ourselves that development cooperation is not an objective in itself.
The objective is for the less developed countries to be able to sort out their affairs themselves, take responsibility for their own development, and act as societies in a manner that is just. And instead of hindering these opportunities, we should try to help put things right.
At EU level, this means, for example, that our policy should not encourage countries to survive on the basis of just one product.
Only those countries whose economy is in decent shape can benefit from globalisation.
Those developing countries that struggle along on the basis of one product will run into difficulties.
At EU level, we must also see to it that our values are reflected in our policy on development cooperation.
Conditionality must have its place.
Thus, we cannot aid countries that show no interest in their citizens' human rights or democracy.
In other cases we have to confine ourselves just to humanitarian aid.
I would also say it was vital that the EU should have a human rights secretary, in the manner of the Ombudsman, whose job would include observing the human rights situation in the less developed countries.
At EU level we must really be aware of the political effects of aid, as we already know from experience that aid can be damaging.
In fact the risk is considerable.
We have to develop the sort of aid that by its nature prevents conflicts, and does not fuel them.
Aid must be directed in such a way that it brings benefit to the worst-off of all.
Crises caused by environmental problems must be able to be predicted, and aid should not be given in such a way that it stirs up conflict over natural resources.
We have to learn to recognise those societies in which the risk of violence is associated with state-induced terror.
In channelling aid we have to see to it that it does not prop up undemocratic state structures.
Through the conditionality of aid we can prevent corruption and the oppression of certain groups.
I know that the issue is not simple and that conditionality is an arduous and cumbersome exercise, but positive conditionality, as it is referred to, can achieve a lot. Experience has shown it.
For that reason the EU should not shy away from it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, before this debate we would have liked to ask the Council a question on the policy of complementarity. We tried to, but we were unable to.
It has not been possible, and we regret this because the truth is, Commissioner, that on this matter you are not alone. There are also the Member States and the Council.
In any event, I believe that the report which Mrs Ferrer has presented this afternoon is a sound report and, as she too has said, we would have liked to have a joint text.
We are dealing with development policy in a piecemeal way and this prevents us from having an overview.
Her report can, however, be considered to be an important contribution.
This report is of an importance which transcends the material scope of development aid policy.
As well as being a requirement of the Treaty, complementarity between Community aid policy and that of the Member States, is an invaluable instrument for helping the Union and the Member States to progress along a common path in the field of aid.
We Socialists believe that development aid policy in general must be the flagship of Community external action and yet there is no such complementarity, apart from a few pilot projects.
We are failing to use a mechanism which would to such a large extent maximise the resources, which are becoming scarcer, dedicated to aid as the political result of a joint effort, despite the repeated requests of this Parliament and the repeated resolutions of the Council itself, which basically has ultimate responsibility in this area.
Complementarity is currently expressed in operational coordination on the ground and in the commitology procedure in Brussels.
With regard to the former, I have already said that it is only applied in certain pilot projects.
As for commitology, I will give you an example of how this is not working either: the Latin America committee has only met twice this year, instead of on a monthly basis which used to be the case and which would be necessary for it to work.
Some of the programmes approved by this committee, such as the regional programme for the reconstruction of Central America in relation to Hurricane Mitch, are still to be implemented.
There is a clear lack of political will to implement the measures which we decide on in Parliament, and that leads to inefficiency in the achievement of our political objectives, to a gradual paralysis of the functioning of the European institutions and to a bad image which, as the previous speaker said, is sometimes projected to the public.
Complementarity with the Member States, coherence between Community policies and coordination between departments must form the basis of development aid policy if this policy is to fulfil this Parliament' s minimum requirements in terms of efficiency.
There are problems with the diversity of instruments and the duplication of procedures, but the real problem is the lack of political will.
As has been said before, the States must overcome their individual tendencies - which often reflect their concerns about former colonial relationships or other factors - and commit themselves to a common European project.
If we do not adopt this policy, we will not be efficient in terms of development cooperation.
The Commission now has the opportunity to include these elements in its reform and the Council has the historic responsibility to involve itself in the definition and implementation of Community policies.
Both institutions can rely on the strong support of the Socialist Group in Parliament in relation to development aid policy.
The policy of complementarity between national and Community policies has a total of 16 players (15+1).
Coherence between Community policies and coordination between departments within the Commission are intended to create what we wish to be the Union' s development aid policy, with the aim of improving the efficiency of European aid by helping to optimise the use of resources, both human and financial, and to make the European Union more visible, thereby making it more efficient and giving it a greater presence in the international community.
We hope that all of this will be introduced with the reform and that we will have coherent, complementary and coordinated policies in order to achieve greater efficiency.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Ferrer' s report deals with the Commission communication on complementarity between Community and Member State policies on development cooperation.
I share her disappointment that we are discussing this in isolation.
Instead, we should be having a searching debate on a global strategy for our cooperation with the Southern countries, which involves the triptych of complementarity, coordination and cohesion, also known as the three Cs, where Europe continues to fail so miserably. This, in fact, also goes for the Member States, because the European Member States simply refuse to take these values on board and prefer to stick to their own neo-colonial ideas.
The lack of efficient Community development cooperation therefore serve the Member States as an excellent alibi for not having to attain complementarity, and certainly not coordination and cohesion.
Some Member States make the bold claim that the Community should not adopt development policy but should delegate everything to the Member States.
We certainly do not share this view.
Anyone who is genuinely concerned about fair-minded world relations in terms of development must admit that, all too often, the Member States' own strategic and economic interests prevail over development interests.
At best, they try to mitigate or alleviate the effects of economic policy pursued by the rich countries in the fields of globalisation, our need for raw materials, minerals, oil, etc.
There is no doubt that we want poor countries to be included in the general economic and cultural developments in the world in the interests of the populations concerned and not only in the interests of the industrialised world.
This is why we need to free ourselves from these neo-colonial dynamics and relations which feed dependency and destroy the environment.
We need to abolish poverty in the world.
This requires a global, multilateral strategy, which, first and foremost relies on the coordination of Member State and Community development policy in every country, in every recipient country and at international level.
This is more important than complementarity.
There is no doubt that a more coordinated policy would have a far greater impact.
The contrast between the high level of European aid, which accounts for more than half of all aid globally, and the little political impact, for example upon ending armed conflict and severe violations of human rights, is really poignant.
If coordination and complementarity were already in place in the recipient countries, donor countries would prefer to hoist their national flags there too.
Is the Council actually prepared to change the system of comitology? This, in my opinion, is a sine qua non.
It will be a real challenge for the Commission to delegate EU responsibilites to our delegations based out there.
If this fails, then opponents of the joint development policy are bound to press for abolition full stop.
With regard to coordination at international level, we would welcome a European approach which can be different from that of the IMF and the World Bank.
We do not want to be an extension of the Bretton Woods institutions.
We want to play a leading role in the world.
This is why these Member States should stop telling their electorate that nothing in Europe ever works.
It is high time they acknowledged their own share of responsibility for these failures, but we should do the same.
Mr President, we share the rapporteur' s view that, pursuant to Article 177 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, the European Union fulfils an auxiliary role in the field of development cooperation.
From this article, it is clear that there is no question of replacing the Member States' development policy.
The EU aid policy is determined by the fifteen Member States and financed by contributions from the Member States, as established in the EU Treaty.
In theory, this is a solid basis for a decisive and clear DC policy, with implementation to match.
In practice, however, both leave something to be desired.
The payments, for example, pose a problem.
On the whole, two visions are to be distinguished between in the DC Council: that of the Northern Member States, which consider DC to be a valuable area of policy and which are, by and large, of the opinion that the EU DC is lacking in terms of quality, and that of the Southern Member States which consider DC to be merely an instrument of foreign and economic relations.
These discrepancies are marginalised all too easily by the EU in the complementarity and coordination proposed by the rapporteur and the Commission.
The reason why the Council and Member States suffer from a lack of 'political will' , as highlighted by the rapporteur and Commission, can therefore be found in this fundamental difference in approach to development cooperation.
This is why at EU level, it is impossible to develop cohesive policy in this area.
Finally, the Treaty terms the EU' s DC as supplementary to the aid from Member States.
In our opinion, this means that the Commission should provide the added value over and above what the Member States can offer, such as granting emergency aid in emergency situations such as natural disasters and wars.
Long-term programmes, on the other hand, fare better within bilateral, often historical relations between developing countries and Member States.
In any case, the Commission should not act as the sixteenth bilateral donor, which is the case in practice.
The European Union could, however, help coordinate Member State aid and intervene if the Member States fail to take any action.
We therefore partly endorse the view that European coordination and complementarity are important, but we do not conclude from that that EU DC coordination adds something to what should be the actual objective, namely coordination which unites all relevant donors, preferably under the guidance of the recipient country or, if this is not possible, under the guidance of the UN or the World Bank.
We will take a stance to this effect in the discussion on coordination and complementarity.
Mr President, the fine report which my compatriot, Mrs Ferrer, is presenting us with today addresses a problem which has been highlighted on numerous occasions and, at the same time, the urgent need to resolve it and open up new avenues in the relations between the united Europe and the third world.
The problem I am referring to is the notable lack of harmony and coordination in development cooperation action and policy between the European Union and its Member States, on the one hand, and between some of the Member States themselves, on the other.
What has been described and condemned by many authoritative voices and, in particular, by organisations that work in this area - and also by our own Parliament - is that over the years the different Member States have been acting independently in the field of cooperation, often according to individual national views and interests, sometimes honourable and sometimes less so, but in any event without any significant effort to be coherent and fairly distribute roles, not even in terms of providing mutual information and even less in terms of coordination.
To sum up, there has been no effort to act rationally and efficiently so that the available resources, which are always limited, are not wasted and instead yield the best possible results.
Furthermore, until very recently, the required effort has not been made to reasonably coordinate Community policy in this field with the policies that at the same time were being carried out by the 15 Member States, although this is certainly not exclusive to the area which we are dealing with.
It was truly regrettable to see how Community actions were being implemented, sometimes without even an awareness of what each of the Member States was doing in relation to the relevant countries or sectors.
The result was, and to a large extent still is, so far, disparate actions, overlapping in many cases, and even the duplication and incompatibility of what each of us is doing.
This is absurd and is something of a disaster.
This situation was naturally unsustainable and was one more problem to resolve, but that need has become all the more blatant and urgent given that the very process of European construction, the reforms and the progress of the Union, are making it essential that we act on the international stage as one country, with one voice, and given that it is an undeniable priority for the viability of our project that we implement a common foreign and security policy.
In our opinion, anything we can do in the field of development policy is but a substantial part of this foreign and security policy.
That is what Mrs Ferrer demonstrates, and the heading of her report highlights the key concept of complementarity.
This is not the first time we have discussed this issue in Parliament, of course.
The faults which we had noted were too obvious not to have been raised in previous debates.
Nevertheless, by taking account of a situation which is particularly pressing, but also particularly favourable, we are taking an important step forward and we are doing so at a time when both the Commission and the Council seem convinced that we have to adopt specific measures in order to leave behind the previous situation and produce the coherence which will enable the resources which Europe intends for development cooperation to be more substantial, in both qualitative and quantitative terms.
Furthermore, in this way, we will achieve for Europe a much more decisive role in the challenge, which is of such concern to us, of creating a fairer, more balanced and therefore more stable world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am taking the same line as my predecessors, because, unfortunately, we cannot conceal the fact that the public image of European development cooperation bears no relation to the enormous amount of financial support that the EU itself and its Member States gives to the countries of the south.
Although the EU is by far the largest donor, it comes off far worse in terms of people' s perceptions than do the large multilateral organisations, such as the UN and the World Bank.
Approximately 60% of all financial aid comes out of the European pot.
Complementarity, coherence and coordination are the notorious three C' s at the centre of the debate on European development cooperation.
The European Commission' s financial housekeeping, which revealed a considerable amount of unspent funds, played no small part in re-igniting the reform debate.
Theoretical transactions do little to help our case though. Nor can it be denied that there have been successes that should be shouted from the rooftops.
Above all, it is practices that must change, which requires the necessary amount of political will on the part of all those concerned.
Take Mozambique and the deployment of ECHO, for example.
Right at the very start of the flood disaster at the beginning of February, ECHO rushed to the aid of the most vulnerable with EUR 750 000.
Since then, a further EUR 9.65 million have been made available as emergency aid, and EUR 21 million are to be provided in addition, to deal with the consequences in the medium-term.
There was a rapid reaction from the Member States too.
The European Union and its Member States have provided a total of EUR 85 million in aid, whereas the UN contribution brought the overall international package to only EUR 115 million, including the European funds.
What we are lacking is the aforementioned three C' s.
Coherence can only be achieved if strategies and measures are brought into line.
Complementarity and coordination are important pre-requisites for creating synergy.
The juxtaposition of multilateral and bilateral development cooperation, on the other hand - which is in evidence in countries besides Mozambique - leads to completely unnecessary frictional losses, as I saw for myself when I visited the country a few weeks ago.
Mrs Ferrer' s report contains a whole host of proposals and demands that deserve our unqualified support.
I would like to highlight three points in particular: complementarity, coherence and coordination must be brought together in one uniform strategy because they are interdependent.
The political leaders and the civil society of the partner States must have their decision-making powers strengthened, as must the EU delegation posts in situ, which is already happening with the elaboration of national indicative programmes within the scope of ACP cooperation.
This will also require there to be improved cooperation between the delegations of the European Union and the diplomatic services of the Member States, which is a matter for the Council.
We need to redouble our efforts, in order, not only to further coordination between the EU and the Member States in this sphere, but also with the international bodies.
Since we provide the lion' s share of the funding for development cooperation, we are also entitled to clear recognition on the operational front and in terms of public perceptions.
There have certainly been positive moves in this direction, but they must be developed, and consolidated in a definitive frame of reference.
At the same time, we must overcome the burdensome legacy of colonial history, or the geo-strategic interests of individual Member States.
The lack of political will on the part of the Member States represents the greatest obstacle to us being able to practise the three C' s satisfactorily, because they have no real interest in efficient, harmonised development cooperation, thereby tarnishing the European image and preventing us from optimising our potential as regards development policy, which reflects badly on the Member States themselves more than anything.
Those in the European capitals ought to learn that strengthening Europe' s standing can do the same for their own image.
I believe that complementarity and EU coordination are among our most important tools for increasing the effectiveness and impact of EU development cooperation on the ground.
I therefore welcome Mrs Ferrer' s report.
Parliament and the Commission share the same considerations and agree on the approach.
We agree that we now need to see results.
We need to increase internal EU coordination, country by country and sector by sector, following the 1998 guidelines on operational coordination.
We should help partner countries in their efforts and reinforce the role of EU coordination as regards wider global coordination between donors, whether they be the World Bank, United Nations organisations or bilateral governmental or non-governmental organisations.
The Commission has already taken the first step.
We have adopted a harmonised framework for the elaboration of the country strategy papers.
We will use this framework in future programming exercises.
The country strategy papers will guide us when reviewing our assistance programmes.
They will indicate how Community assistance fits in with what other donors are doing.
These country strategy papers are the first practical tool, not only for improved donor coordination and complementarity, but also for overall coherence of development cooperation policy with other EU policies.
The country strategy papers should also steer us in the right direction for achieving an optimum division of labour between the Commission and Member States.
Collectively, we should be able to respond to most of the essential needs of partners in the developing countries.
The move towards sector-wide programmes will greatly facilitate this process.
I also hope it will produce greater cost effectiveness.
However, if we are to succeed in this, our Member States must join forces and participate in this exercise.
The quantitative aspect of how much each and every Member State is mobilising and putting into this effort is also part of our collective success or collective failure.
Let me comment on some details of your report.
Firstly, I note that at several points in the resolution, the issue of complementarity is placed within a broader framework connected with a need for greater consistency between the various policies of the EU. I agree.
This is the reason we speak about the policy of the three Cs: complementarity, coherence and coordination.
On coherence - which we have often discussed - we have now established the coherence focal point in the Directorate General for Development.
It has been operational since the start of this month and we are using it and we would like others to do the same whenever a problem seems to exist concerning coherence.
I should also mention that today is a big day for coherence in our development policy and trade policy.
The Commission, having talked about quota-free or duty-free access for essentially all products from least developed countries; has decided to drop the word "essentially" .
From today the Commission has a clear policy.
It is now up to the Member States.
We are offering, for all products, quota-free, tariff-free access for the least developed countries.
This is a very good decision.
Secondly, I welcome your wish to strengthen coordination between the Community and the Member States in international forums and at international conferences.
We, in the Commission, share your concern.
It is paramount that we improve the effectiveness and visibility of the EU at international level.
This has been demonstrated at several conferences: we work well together and we represent a constructive progressive force at global level.
I have been invited to participate in the development committee in the World Bank.
No Commissioner has tried that before.
Next May we are organising a conference with Unctad, in this Chamber, on the least developed countries and we are also organising a conference with WHO and UNAIDS on 28 September concerning malaria, HIV-AIDS and tuberculosis, the three major communicable diseases.
We also work well with our partners at multilateral level.
Thirdly, specifically relating to the recommendations of the motion for a resolution, I welcome your support especially on two essential issues: firstly, human resources and, secondly, the role of management committees in development cooperation.
The lack of human resources is a serious and real problem that for too long has been ignored.
It has come back to haunt us and now requires action.
We are continuing our efforts at the Commission to improve the effectiveness of our services.
We are radically changing how we do things but this is not enough.
We also need the human resources to match our programme resources and ambitions.
Your support here will be crucial when the budgetary decisions have to be taken.
As regards the Member State committees that work in parallel with the Commission in the management and implementation of the development programmes, we believe that their key role should be to discuss political priorities and overall strategy with us.
It should not be to micromanage the process or examine individual projects as is, unfortunately, still the case.
We need to find more effective ways of working together.
The support of Parliament is also vital.
It was said in the discussion here that some Member States want to dismantle what we do collectively.
I do not think this is the case.
In any case, Member States warmly welcomed the overall policy statement which is the basis for what we do.
We also have a clear commitment on the ninth EDF and the financial perspective.
Compared with any other major worldwide donors, the Commission - and what we do together in Europe - is backed financially in a much more predictable and solid way.
This also puts a heavy responsibility on our shoulders but, the basis is that we are not only the biggest but also the most predictable and stable donor to work with.
In conclusion, I should like to thank the rapporteur again for her excellent work.
This is a very useful report and I am determined to move forward on complementarity and will use the new tools available: the country strategy papers, the new and improved programming systems and a more effective management of external assistance, which also includes greater responsibility for our delegations in third countries.
I am confident that the European Parliament will provide us with the necessary support in these endeavours.
I look forward to continuing to work with you in an open and constructive manner.
The reform process is now moving.
We know what kind of battles to fight and, with your support, we are also going to win them.
Today we can be proud that we are doing all this and, hopefully, tomorrow we will also have reason to be proud of how we are doing it.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.55 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Trade in goods resulting from the processing of agricultural products
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0228/2000) by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation No 3448/93 laying down the trade arrangements applicable to certain goods resulting from the processing of agricultural products [COM(1999) 717 - C5-0095/2000 - 1999/0284(CNS)].
Mr President, the proposal for a regulation before us relates to the scheme specifically covering exchanges of non-Annex 1 products with third countries, the main provision of which is for the granting of export refunds in respect of incorporated agricultural products.
Annex 1 of the Treaty defines the list of products eligible for a COM under the CAP.
These are basic agricultural products and products that have undergone initial processing.
Non-Annex 1 products are those that have been processed a second time.
The problem which has now come fully to light and which the Community has to deal with as from this year is the fact that, because of the consolidations granted by the Community under the Marrakesh agreements, refunds are no longer sufficient in relation to needs.
The Commission cannot be said to have been overly imaginative in seeking solutions to this difficult problem, where a lot is at stake for our manufacturers and processors of agricultural products.
Other than simply withdrawing certain products from the list of those eligible for refunds and in that way causing difficult administrative problems for the sectors concerned, one solution alone presents itself, as usual: that of extending the system of active improvement which allows agricultural raw materials to be imported at the so-called world market price, as long as the processed products in which they are incorporated are re-exported.
No alternative solution to the system of refunds on agricultural products has been seriously looked into.
Other windows onto the subject, opened by certain Member States such as Germany and Austria, were immediately closed again, since any alternative proposal was declared out of hand to be incompatible with the constraints to which we have subjected ourselves under the GATT agreement.
In the circumstances, we obviously have to give primary consideration to the size of the sector concerned and to the volume of exports.
Rapidly increasing exports of non-Annex 1 processed products alone represent 25% of total exports of products from the food and agricultural sector as a whole, and 2.5 million jobs, widely distributed among the different countries of Europe, depend upon this single sector.
For these products, additional access to agricultural product refunds at least constitutes a partial, quick fix solution which, in the absence of alternative proposals, makes it possible immediately to guarantee the competitiveness of non-Annex 1 products.
The parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has maintained that the ways in which the additional agricultural product refunds were applied should be determined in such a way as effectively to enable companies to have recourse to these within the acceptable limits laid down by the supply balances. In this way, it would be possible to maintain a sufficient quantity of refunds for companies which cannot make use of these, either in order to avoid GMOs or because of the unavailability of raw materials on the world market or the lack of staff or appropriate infrastructures.
That said, agricultural product refunds present a range of risks and disadvantages.
First of all, a disadvantage in terms of principle: agricultural product refunds do, indeed, by their nature circumvent the Community' s expressed preference.
The European agri-foodstuffs industry ought to be encouraged to give preference to Community raw materials.
This implies that, despite the extension proposed to us, the agricultural product refunds ought definitely not to become a structural tool but ought to remain a residual scheme and a last resort solution, to be implemented only when there is a real shortage of refunds.
That is why we are proposing a series of amendments which ought to be taken into consideration overall to reinforce this residual character of the agricultural product refunds.
We believe that any extension to the agricultural product refunds should be subject to very strict supervision and follow-up.
That is why we are in favour of establishing quotas for the scheme.
That is why we are also proposing that, at the end of the first year in which the scheme has been implemented, the Commission should present the European Parliament with a precise interim report providing, in particular, an update on the situation regarding each COM concerned.
In that way, we shall have a tool of superintendence and control with which to ensure that agricultural product refunds are of limited availability, that the amounts concerned are no more than are really needed, that they do not have an adverse effect upon our own producers of raw materials and that they are not concentrated upon a limited number of COMs at the risk of destabilising these.
A second disadvantage of the system of agricultural product refunds is the particular complexity and the cumbersome procedures it imposes upon SMEs in particular.
The latter ought to be given easier access to these refunds, which remain more straightforward to administer, and, in this context, they ought to be exempted from presentation of certificates up to an adjustable ceiling of EUR 50 000 per year.
Bear in mind that the refunds, particularly for processed food products, are far from being reserved solely for large businesses.
They play an essential role where SMEs are concerned.
These, then, are the component elements of a genuine monitoring tool which we think it essential to implement in order to ensure that the new agricultural product refunds are operating in accordance with the objectives which justify our agreeing to them.
In the longer term, however, there will only be a lasting solution to the issue we are to deal with today as a matter of urgency if, when the WTO agreements next come up for renewal, Community negotiators receive clear instructions to the effect that adequate account must be taken of the interests of our non-Annex 1 products and that the close links forged by our processing industries with our producers of agricultural raw materials and their countries must be maintained and consolidated.
Mr President, the Commission' s plans to slash export refunds will cost the EU' s food and drink processors an estimated EUR 145 million per year.
It is particularly galling that the decision to impose these cuts was taken without consultation with this House.
Export refunds are not a subsidy.
They compensate the food and drink industry for sourcing their raw materials within the EU at higher prices than can be obtained on world markets.
It is astonishing that the Commission chose to single out German fruit yoghurt, Scotch whisky and pharmaceutical products for these cuts, apparently for no better reason than the belief that these are wealthy industries which do not deserve assistance.
Other sectors, such as pasta, confectionery and some dairy products that also receive export refunds, have escaped relatively unscathed.
This is deeply unfair.
The cuts are damaging to EU industry and they will destroy the competitive advantage of our agri-foodstuffs sector and they will destroy jobs.
The Commission' s scheme to compensate food processors for losing out on export refunds, by encouraging them to seek inward processing relief on a range of commodities from outside the EU, is both muddle-headed and inept.
Not only does the scheme encourage processors to import grain and other raw materials from outside the EU - once again to the direct disadvantage of our beleaguered farmers - but it also involves a mountain of red tape and bureaucratic complexity which will virtually exclude SMEs from this scheme.
The Commission must devise a new system.
Those food and drink exporters who through adding value to their products, constitute a vitally important part of the EU agricultural economy must receive alternative compensation exactly equivalent to the value of the export refunds they have lost.
To do otherwise will place EU food processors at a massive competitive disadvantage on world markets.
Export refunds are essential to ensure the international competitiveness of non-Annex - I processed food.
In addition, the food and drink processors in the EU purchase around two-thirds of all their agricultural produce within the 15 Member States.
This deliberate attack on non-Annex - I export refunds further undermines our farmers who are suffering their worst recession in decades.
It is also a direct attack on the fastest growing export sector within the EU, our processed food sector.
We are committed to 36% reduction of export refunds over six years and we are nearing the end of that period under our obligations in the GATT Uruguay Round Agreement.
However, these cuts should not be targeted in such an arbitrary manner on a small number of industries, as the Commission has chosen to do.
Access to IPR offers only a very unsatisfactory and temporary solution.
I congratulate Mr Souchet in drawing up a good report in the face of Commission intransigence on this issue.
He is fundamentally correct in describing the Commission proposal as a temporary measure.
There is no doubt that the whole system now needs to be dismantled and rebuilt in a much more sensible and less complex manner, in line with our WTO and GATT requirements.
Mr President, this proposal relates to an extremely delicate area.
We simply have to note that, basically, the system of inward processing breaks with the principle of European preference or, if you like, the system of Community preferences.
This is a very delicate area and, furthermore, the system of inward processing, in its application, is extremely complex and slow and therefore harms numerous small- and medium-sized businesses.
In this delicate area, our decisions, as politicians, should be directed towards maintaining the competitiveness of the European food industry in the world and towards strengthening the close links between the processing industry and the producers of raw materials.
The greatest responsibility in this area falls to the Commission.
We require a creative and flexible Commission, capable of judging changes in the markets, measured and, at the same time, imaginative.
We need a Commission which gives priority to the European farm model and the defence of small farmers, but the truth is that so far all the Commission has demonstrated in this area has been its opacity, its discretionary approach to legislation and very little else.
As for the European Parliament, Mr President, both the Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development and its chairman, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, have worked seriously and prudently on this difficult report.
Mr Souchet has produced a wonderful report, and I congratulate him on his work as rapporteur.
He has been correct, specifically in his proposals to limit and rationalise the use of the system of inward processing by adapting it to the situation of the markets, the regulatory framework and the budgetary framework.
All of this is correct, as well as his demands for exemptions in favour of small exporters.
Many thanks, therefore, to the rapporteur and the European Parliament, and I hope that the Commission will improve its work in this area.
Mr President, the Commission is proposing changes to trade arrangements for processed agricultural products.
The purpose is to end subsidies and restrict them by means of a certificate.
There are two fundamental courses of development behind this: on the one hand, the pressures caused by the liberalisation of world trade on reducing export aid and, on the other, the EU' s internal budgetary pressures mainly associated with external relations.
The food processing chain and, ultimately, the farmers, are going to foot this bill.
Already the market situation is putting immense pressure on the European producer.
In addition, costs are rising thanks, for example, to higher fuel prices and increasing environmental and other obligations.
Profitability in production is shaky, and this rather pointedly begs the question as to whether agricultural production in Europe makes sense any longer.
Our committee and the European Liberal Democrats believe that the EU must safeguard the profitability of the production chain.
The Commission is proposing selective deterioration.
We are, however, in a position of constraint.
It may be necessary to act in this way, but certain principles have to be adhered to in this issue.
The changes must take account of small companies active in this sector of industry.
For example, in the country I represent large export companies simply cannot exist, owing to the country' s small population.
There should be some flexibility in setting the restrictions in respect of export aid procedures.
For that reason, the wording of Amendment No 8 is justified. It provides a degree of flexibility, especially for small companies.
I would also like to make the comment that by replacing cuts in export aid with inward processing and additional procedures the effects will be unevenly spread, in that a heavy burden will fall on the remoter EU countries in terms of transport costs.
For that reason I agree with the rapporteur that, in the long run, these procedures will not work.
This is a question of temporary solutions only.
Our group supports the committee' s amendments.
Mr President, when the Commission' s proposal landed on the table we rubbed our eyes a little in disbelief.
'Active processing trade' - what on earth does that mean?
Once I had immersed myself more deeply in the subject, I was amazed to learn what this was all about.
It had been clear up until now: industry buys products produced in the EU and is then given export refunds in order to be able to compete on the international market.
Now the Commission is saying that there is no longer enough money, however, because we entered into a commitment in Marrakech and now we are going to have to rethink the situation.
Then they have a brainwave to the effect that industry will no longer buy agricultural raw materials on the EU market but on the world market instead, which the EU, for its part, will export its raw materials onto, and in dumping its goods will also be partly responsible for world market prices.
They think that industry will now be able to buy there, local products will stay where they are, and industry will then make refined products from the aforesaid local products and bring them onto the world market.
We were absolutely convinced at first that there was no chance of this working.
Then we gave the issue every attention in committee, but the view I have just described to you is that of the Commission.
Subsequently, we tried to discuss whether or not it would be possible to sell products produced within the EU at world market prices, as the chemical and pharmaceutical industries do, so that, at the very least, the products we sometimes have an abundance of - although we do not produce surpluses overall, there is an abundance of produce in certain sectors - could be reduced.
But no, they did not want to float this idea at the WTO negotiations.
An apparently elegant solution was being proposed, which undermined the WTO negotiations somewhat.
There is a passage in the explanatory statement of this regulation which states that the Community preferential arrangements must not be undermined, nor must there be disturbances to the European market.
When I buy products elsewhere, which are available here in abundance, then of course I cannot assume that there will be no disruption to the market.
It seems to be a compromise solution, and my group is unable to accept it in its present form.
I would like to offer my compliments to the rapporteur.
Mr Souchet is someone who can always be relied upon to speak up for agricultural interests. His approach may, from time to time, be a little on the traditional side for my taste, but I am full of admiration for him.
You have done your level best for rural farming in Europe, and that is the spirit in which we will vote for the proposed amendments that we put forward in committee.
We endorse your report, but we intend to reject the legislative resolution.
We had to draw the line at this point, at the very least, because, overall, we do not think it is a balanced and reasonable solution, and on the whole, we feel, and fear, that if this mechanism is implemented, prices within the EU will come under direct pressure once again.
We will lead the next discussion we have on prices and the next discussions we have about whether prices of our products within the EU are pitched too high.
But what we in fact need to discuss, is whether the sale prices on the world market call for a price discussion, because no one in the world can produce goods in an environmentally and socially responsible manner under these conditions.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Souchet, makes a number of accurate comments as regards the impact of the proposed amendments to Regulation 3448/93 laying down the trade arrangements applicable to certain goods resulting from the processing of agricultural products.
If the proposed amendments are accepted and the inward processing arrangements are opened yet further, Community preference, which has already deteriorated, will no longer apply in practice and it will be more difficult to place processed Community agricultural products on international markets; small- and medium-sized units relying on Community agricultural produce and Community export refunds stand to lose and large processing units buying cheap raw materials from third countries stand to gain.
The brunt of this adverse impact will be felt in the Mediterranean countries, including Greece, because these are the countries which produce these products and most processing units in these countries are small- or medium-sized.
It would be an affront, having created such an unfortunate situation, if we were to accept the proposed amendments to the regulation, even on a provisional basis, i.e. until the WTO agreement is completed, on the pretext of safeguarding employment and the value added.
That is why, despite the fact that we agree with many of the rapporteur' s findings, we disagree with his conclusion on the opening of inward processing arrangements, even on a provisional basis, precisely because we believe that, under present circumstances, provisional measures will turn into permanent measures and will exacerbate the situation.
Mr President, according to this regulation, the Commission is stuck with a limited budget, and this is due to a complex of three reasons: firstly, the guaranteed prices for agricultural products of European origin; secondly, export refunds to companies which sell these agricultural raw materials in processed form on the world market; and thirdly, the agreements within the WTO.
Mr Souchet is right in pointing out that it is not so much the limited budget but rather the WTO rules which are playing tricks on the Commission.
In the case of shortages of raw materials on the internal European market, the food industry can import these from the world market without any import duty and under inward processing arrangements, as has been the case to date.
But the regulation changes the essence of inward processing.
A shortage of raw materials no longer justifies the use of inward processing, but rather financial motives, namely reaching the WTO ceiling.
Suppose there was a surplus of cereals on the internal market whilst the ceiling of refunds had been reached.
Inward processing would then open the door to cereal imports from the world market.
There is a very real danger that the relationship between the food industry and the farmer then changes from one of partnership to one of competition.
European farmers are not just producers of agricultural products; very often they also maintain our cultural landscape, but at a price.
We should be very much aware of that price, which is passed on to the food industry.
It requires creativity to find sound solutions for farmers and industry within the strict boundaries of the World Trade Organisation.
It is inevitable that some industries will lose their export subsidies in the process.
A number of industries process only a small proportion of their agricultural products into finished products.
It is unfair in my eyes that they should complain, especially in view of the high profit margins they submit each quarter.
Small exporters, on the other hand, deserve more protection.
We back the amendments which have their interests in mind.
Together with the rapporteur, we would call on the Commission to keep a close eye on the balance between agriculture and the food industry in Europe during the forthcoming negotiations within the framework of the WTO.
Mr President, the Commission' s proposal to reduce refunds for processed agricultural products and to make inward processing easier carries considerable risks. I shall highlight just three of them.
The first is that this proposal is not driven so much by the restrictions imposed by the WTO, but particularly by the well-known budget restrictions currently being applied in the European Union, specifically due to the need to reallocate means and resources to commitments that the Union has given in the field of external affairs, notably Kosovo.
These objectives are not under threat.
They will have to be addressed in a transparent way during the major debates on the European Union' s options.
What is not acceptable is that little more than a year ago, the Financial Perspectives up to 2007 were approved, and now, a few months later, resources that had been earmarked for agriculture are being withdrawn.
The second risk is that the increasing use of inward processing could put us in the extremely dangerous situation of no longer producing many agricultural products within the European Union, since it would be more profitable to import them in their raw state, process them and re-export them.
Only a few sections of society would benefit from this and it would spell disaster for agricultural communities.
In the long term, the European Union' s dependence on external supplies in a sector as strategically important as food production would make the Union as a whole extremely vulnerable.
It would therefore be a foolish mistake to think that the practice of inward processing could be a lasting solution.
The third risk relates to our negotiating strategy for the Millennium Round.
This week, the Commission has approved a document on the competitiveness of our exports, which reveals its fundamental position on the various types of export aid.
The Commission' s position is quite clear: the European Union will not in future accept reductions, within the WTO, only in support for export refunds - there will also have to be reductions in all types of support provided by our main competitors in the international markets, ranging from export credits to food aid and state-run businesses.
All this will have to be "put on the table" and reduced under the GATT rules.
The European Union' s stance on this issue is totally correct: all types of aid which have a similar effect must come under the WTO rules, not only the refund system used by the European Union.
It is in this context of external pressure that the European Union is applying in the framework of the GATT, that is, the WTO negotiations, that it seems to be a mistake to have presented this proposal at this time.
To conclude, I should simply like to thank Mr Souchet for the tremendous job he has done, which we greatly appreciate.
Mr President, in complimenting Mr Souchet on his work, I express my disappointment and concern with regard to the Commission proposal to reduce subsidies worth EUR 145 million per year to the food and drink industry.
This proposal has serious implications for Ireland' s dairy sector and will result in a serious loss of trade, particularly in the area of the reprocessing of dairy products.
I fully support the rapporteur in his proposals that the measure should only be introduced on a temporary basis and that aid should be introduced to cushion the effects on the sectors which are most affected.
I have given the example of Ireland' s dairy industry and would ask the Commissioner to examine the implications for this sector in particular.
I also support the provisions in Mr Souchet' s report which states that we must ensure respect for the European agriculture and food production model.
It is only right and proper that we negotiate a new regulatory framework for exports or products not covered by Annex I as part of the WTO Millennium Round.
Mr Souchet is correct when he states that the decision to cut export refunds for certain products is unacceptable because such arrangements originally contributed to the management of the internal market.
This situation in fact was validated by the World Trade Organisation.
I believe that the proposed opening of on additional facility for raw materials that have access to inward processing arrangements will not be sufficient to cover the food industry supply and export requirements.
Long-term, Europe needs to exercise greater vigilance in relation to world trade - which is now under consideration - and how decisions taken there impact on our processors and on our farmers.
There is sufficient evidence that our competitors in the world market, particularly the United States and New Zealand, are not always as committed to adhering to the rules as are the EU Member States.
With the proposed enlargement of the European Union to central and eastern Europe, we must take a strong hand in safeguarding our European objective which, of course, is to develop agriculture as a major and competitive player in world trade.
Already our competitors have demonstrated their negotiating skills in this crucial area of international policy.
Mr President, you really have to rub your eyes two or three times when you read what kind of proposal the Commission has come up with by way of a solution to these problems, which have been discussed time and again.
It is absolutely true what Mr Souchet, as rapporteur, and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development have had to say on the subject.
They have my unequivocal support.
On the other hand, however, there can be no doubt that the bottleneck in the budget and also the special WTO agreements represent a completely new challenge at the end of the day, particularly where export refunds are concerned.
Who would have thought, even as little as a year ago, that we would be facing this conundrum, and having to weigh up the interests of agricultural product processors against those of the farmers who produce the products.
If the Commission is now looking for a way to resolve this export bottleneck in products that are not covered by Annex I, then it is certainly responding to a need. Yet there is not the slightest suggestion in the Commission proposal that the problems facing the raw materials producers, i.e. the farmers, have been registered.
I am in complete agreement with Mr Souchet.
Thank you very much for all the work you have put into the report.
He rightly complains that the Commission is offering no alternative courses of action.
One thing is for sure though, there must be no restriction in the availability of raw materials at competitive prices, and at the end of the day, agricultural policy cannot be devoted exclusively to the protection of the raw materials producers.
But then nor should the burden fall on one side alone in agriculture, or have to be borne by individual products.
There are agricultural products that almost pay for the export refunds themselves, at the end of the day, owing to contributions from the producers, i.e. the farmers.
Sugar is a case in point.
The farmers' contributions go into the general melting pot of the EU budget on the revenue side, and if export refunds are cut then these contributions will decline too.
As I said, sugar is a particular case in point.
I feel we must give special consideration to this issue, and give it priority where export refunds are concerned.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Souchet, on his report, because there was only one possible response to the Commission proposal, which was not a good proposal, and that was a powerful parliamentary response, which is what we have.
I am extremely pleased with it.
It is also providing us with the opportunity to examine the situation we currently find ourselves in, as we are being forced to adapt regulations on two counts, which means that we sometimes need to adopt working methods which are not our own.
The first point is agreements reached at WTO level and the second one could be the budget.
I would like briefly to explain both, starting with the WTO rules.
It is becoming clear - poignantly so - given the price level in the EU but also outside, that we still need refunds, and there is also an indication that the difference in power between producers and farmers worldwide and those who sell their products is still far too pronounced.
As long as this is the case, we cannot in fact do without refunds.
This will also need to be spelled out clearly during the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
The second point concerns the budget.
It does not seem right to me to use this in the argument regarding the refund regulation and processed agricultural products. Why?
Because the European Union has, for a number of years, awarded refunds to Member States because it simply was unable spend it all itself.
Surely, this cannot be the argument.
Secondly, Parliament made it abundantly clear in its report on the 2001 budget, which was adopted in the Agricultural Committee, that there is extra scope within the framework of the financial agreements of Berlin.
In these agreements, a number of proposals have been made for a number of export certificates in order to solve this problem. For example, an extra five million has been proposed for cereals in the form of spirits, an extra ten million for cereals and rice, eleven million for sugar and isoglucose and eleven million for processed dairy produce.
So the money is available and the solution should thus be in sight.
The fact remains that the agricultural policy is, in principle, there for the benefit of farmers.
This is why it has been framed with the European rural areas in mind.
The fact that this regulation is necessary also illustrates the close relationship between the processing industries in Europe and the farmers.
In this sense, an interim regulation is essential.
But I should add that, quite clearly, we should drive home the message to the processing industry that, first and foremost, we rely on products which are grown within the European Union.
In addition, I should also call on the Commission to give due consideration to small- and medium-sized businesses.
In many heavily agricultural regions, jobs are already thin on the ground, so it is precisely those companies that should be able to cope with this type of regulation and should, in that sense, be given more attention.
On behalf of the Commission and in particular my colleague Mr Liikanen, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Souchet, and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, for the preparation of your report.
I hope that your deliberations will lead to a consensus that opens the way for a rapid implementation early in the new budgetary year.
We all agree on the need to promote the Union' s processed food industry competitive position.
Export refunds are an important instrument in sustaining the industry' s competitiveness by compensating for high prices of basic agricultural products in the Union.
However, both budget constraints and commitments under the WTO severely restrict available refunds that will no longer be sufficient to cover the industry' s export opportunities.
It is for this reason that the Commission has proposed, within a balanced package of specific measures, an additional facility of inward processing relief - IPR - that will help compensate for the industry' s loss of international competitiveness.
The Commission can agree with your proposed Amendments Nos 2, 6, 10, 13 and 15.
The Commission can broadly agree with the purpose of Amendments Nos 1, 3, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14 but does not consider them entirely appropriate for a number of reasons.
For WTO negotiations, a specific mandate from the Council is required therefore the present regulation does not seem to be the appropriate means of determining the Union' s position.
This relates to the first of the amendments.
Furthermore, some amendments could entail an administrative burden related to implementation and control that would appear disproportionate. This concerns Amendments Nos 3, 11 and 14.
The threshold for exempting small exporters from the export refund certificate system has already been increased to EUR 50 000, which concerns Amendments Nos 7 and 8.
The remaining flexibility under the 2000 budget has already been used, which relates to Amendment No 9.
Finally, the Commission is not ready to accept Amendments Nos 4, 5, 12, 16 and part of Amendment No 1.
As a general rule, the Commission does not support discrimination among individual products concerning the possibility of access to inward processing relief.
This relates to part of Amendments Nos 1, 4, 12 and 16.
Moreover, the use of C-sugar in processed products for export is not possible under current market organisation: this concerns Amendment No 12.
Operators importing products under the IPR do not receive any refund for the export of processed goods, so the assumption in Amendment No 5 is incorrect.
Mr President, permit me to address two comments to the Commission.
Firstly, the Commissioner said: in view of the "high prices of basic agricultural products in the Union" .
Perhaps the Commission could get used to the following version: in view of the "low world market prices caused by dumping" , because otherwise we risk creating the impression that the agricultural pricing system within the EU is pitched too high.
No, it is too low on the world market because farmers cannot produce at this price.
Secondly, this is a report according to Article 37.
We reserve the right - I will discuss this with the other groups - to refer this back to committee, because what you have said, your assumptions that is, will of course put paid to the efforts made by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. It is then highly likely that we will enter negotiations.
I am just saying this now to give you food for thought.
The honourable Members here will then be able to make their feelings known in the discussions.
I just wanted to give you advance notice.
Mr President, thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to do so.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Thursday, at 11 a.m..
Enforcement of civil and commercial judgments
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0253/2000) by Mrs Wallis, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a Council regulation (EC) on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters [COM(1999) 348 - C5-0169/1999 - 1999/0154(CNS)].
Mr President, I speak first on behalf of the committee and will speak later on behalf of my group.
In finally presenting this report to plenary on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee, there are many people I should and will thank, but there is one whose inspiration I would especially like to mention because I hope it will set the scene for our debate tonight.
As a young lawyer in London in the early 1980s, I was privileged to work with a then elderly German lady, who was one of those remarkable German-Jewish immigrés who came to London in the early war years and entered the English legal profession.
This amazing lady not only qualified as an English solicitor, having previously qualified in Germany, but, as a true European of her own generation, she also obtained a doctorate from the Sorbonne the title of which was the mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments.
She inspired me with an interest in this area of law and as she gradually retired and handed over her practice, I became more and more familiar with the workings of the Brussels Convention as it came into force in the UK.
I hope she would approve of where we have got to today, and how the European Union is now able to allow lawyers to move and practise in other Member States by choice rather than force of circumstance and that by this regulation our committee will further assist a step forward in giving greater access to justice to our citizens across Europe.
I want to use this occasion to say something about the importance of what we are doing here.
The original EC Convention on Jurisdiction and Judgments of 1968 was an important landmark in this field of international private law, marking a departure from a previous patchwork of mainly bilateral treaties between various countries.
For the first time, by way of an intergovernmental convention, the EC gave itself a special, unique and comprehensive regime of recognition and enforcement.
We are now participating in the next important landmark in that process - seeing what was a convention become a Community act, a regulation, in one fell swoop bringing a previous area of private international law into Community law and more importantly into the internal market.
How fitting that it should be our committee, with its new competence in this legislature bridging the themes of legal affairs in the internal market, that should have had to deal with this new Brussels regulation.
The committee has been at pains throughout this process to point out and highlight the importance of the internal market dimension of this proposal which gives us a chance to ensure even more strongly than before that our businesses and citizens can have confidence that contracts and obligations they enter into across the Union will be upheld by a common framework of procedural law on jurisdiction and enforcement.
We are making progress towards a system of civil law and justice that will give ease and certainty of access across Member State boundaries, at last beginning to make a reality of the area of freedom and justice proposed at Tampere.
The issue that has, of course, taken most of the committee' s time and attention has been the fact that this proposal for a regulation has coincided with the growth of e-commerce which in itself offers enormous opportunities to business and consumers within the internal market.
The committee has, as the Commission will be well aware, grappled long and hard with the issues raised in Articles 15 and 17 of the proposed regulation. That is to say where there is a dispute between a business and a consumer, whose court should the parties have recourse to.
These two articles, in whatever combination, have to be read together.
The Commission proposal in line with previous consumer protection legislation took the view in dealing with Article 15 that all such disputes should go to the consumer' s court whilst willing to defer to a general proposition that contracts concluded at a distance should fall under this category.
The committee has been searching for a way of protecting Europe' s growing e-commerce sector and especially small businesses from exposure to 15 different and diverse legal jurisdictions.
The committee has therefore opted by a small majority in favour of the option of Article 17a which modifies the general principle in Article 15.
This modification allows parties in a B to C contract to contract in favour of the seller' s jurisdiction.
This was felt to uphold the freedom of contract of the parties but addition there is another element to which I will now turn.
I believe the committee' s most fundamental contribution to this debate will be the introduction of the reference of such B to C disputes to ADR or EDR.
This has been generally agreed to be the best way to neutralise the difficult discussion about whose jurisdiction can apply.
There can be no doubt that the Brussels Convention made enormous strides in simplifying the jurisdiction rules applicable to cross-border disputes but they are still a lawyer' s dream and a litigant' s nightmare.
They have not created real ease of access to justice.
The opening up of a simple effective system of cross-border disputes is the committee' s goal in introducing the concept of ADR and we welcome the way in which this has already been picked up and worked on by the Commission.
There was also agreement in committee that in this evolving area we remain deeply concerned as to the impact of legislation on Europe' s e-business.
Therefore, in line with the E-commerce Directive, we have asked for a two-year review.
I have covered the main aspects.
I wish to conclude with a note of thanks to my colleague on the committee, especially to our chairman who I know feels as passionately as I do about this area of law, whatever our differences, but my biggest set of thanks must go to the committee secretariat and to Mr Robert Bray for all his help and advice throughout this process.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur of her presentation for what is a very fair and balanced report.
On behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, I am pleased to be able to deliver this opinion, on behalf of my colleague, Mrs Hazan, who unfortunately cannot be with us tonight.
My committee considers it important to give a positive response to this Commission proposal, which strives to make the recognition and enforcement of judgments between Member States almost automatic.
Not only does this regulation build upon the judicial cooperation between the States it marks an attempt to put the citizen at the heart of the Europe - the citizen, not just big business, money brokers and others, with perhaps profit purely as their motive.
My committee also considers that the provision of the regulation which seeks to protect the weaker parties in a contract should be approved. This will enable consumers, workers and insurers to be safeguarded by effective European regulations that can be automatically applicable across the Member States.
Following this logic, it seems clear to us that there are no legitimate grounds to exempt e-commerce transactions from consumer protection rules.
The rapporteur has referred to this, but e-commerce is an area which is set to grow.
To differentiate between the rights of those buying on line and those shopping in the high street would go against the valuable work that the European Parliament and the EU in general has already done in championing the rights of the citizens.
E-consumers, in common with all weaker parties to a contract and indeed European citizens in general, deserve and should be given the right to a fair hearing.
Finally, my committee welcomes the introduction of alternative dispute resolution procedures and hopes that this regulation can enter into force as soon as possible.
Mr President, please allow me to begin with a few words in my capacity as Chairperson of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Rarely have I felt as proud of my position as I am today in relation to this report, due to the work that has been carried out in committee over the last year.
The fact that it has taken a year does not mean that Parliament has not been interested. On the contrary, there has been intense and fruitful debate between the members of the Committee, as well as people from the academic world and all the interested parties.
I warmly congratulate Mrs Wallis on having made this work possible, as rapporteur, and of course I thank the secretariat of the Committee on Legal Affairs for the work they have done and, in particular, as Mrs Wallis has also mentioned, the work of Mr Bray.
We have had disagreements, Mr President, but I am sure that whatever the result achieved in this House tomorrow, the work of the Committee on Legal Affairs will have moved this issue forward significantly.
I shall now continue, Mr President, on behalf of the PPE.
As you well know, and as the rapporteur has reminded us, the main question being debated deals with judgments by the competent court on contracts concluded with consumers on the Internet.
I would like to say once again how proud I am at the balanced and detailed nature of this report. It proposes pragmatic solutions, which are likely to increase consumer protection and at the same time allow businesses, in particular small- and medium-sized ones, which make up the social fabric of Europe, to offer their services and products to consumers resident within the internal market.
The internal market must be a genuine domestic market, both for businesses and for consumers.
As for the consumer, it is proposed that the scope of the special system be extended to those who sign contracts at a distance within the internal market with no distinction whatsoever between directed and undirected activities and, as the rapporteur has highlighted, it incorporates the extrajudicial resolution of disputes into the regulation.
With regard to the promotion of cross-border electronic commerce, it is proposed to allow businesses, under certain very specific and very restricted circumstances, to insert jurisdiction clauses which the consumer could accept.
Mr President, I am convinced that Parliament' s opinion will have a real impact on the Justice and Home Affairs Council.
In fact, as Mrs Wallis has said, Parliament has done what neither the Commission nor the Council has dared to do, which is to hold a realistic debate on the basic question, on the protection of consumers in the 21st century, not the protection of consumers in the 19th century, nor the 20th century, with all the interested parties and taking account of all the interests involved.
When we examine the history of this issue, we realise that the Commission, in making its proposal, has limited itself to a draft review of the Brussels Convention, carried out by a committee of experts before the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, i.e. when this was an intergovernmental matter, very close to international public law.
Furthermore, Mr President, that committee worked alone, with no transparency, with no interministerial consultations and without consulting the interested parties.
It is clear that the Justice and Home Affairs Council expected that, given the weak institutional powers of this Parliament in this field, even after Amsterdam, the final adoption of the regulation by the Council would be a mere formality.
The clear unwillingness of the Justice and Home Affairs Council to open a debate on this question indicates that in recent times Parliament has been subject to every type of pressure.
After more than one year of discussion in the Committee on Legal Affairs, I can say simply that the arguments levelled against its report lack foundation and are more the result of intimidation and demagoguery than of basic reasoning.
Let us look at this briefly.
Some people are trying to politicise the debate, hoping that that will create a left-right division, trying to take the consumer hostage, saying that the report would prejudice their protection.
This argument is both demagogic and unjustified and is ultimately based an antiquated form of protection, which is ineffective and grounded in a nationalist view that runs counter to European construction.
The solutions that have been adopted offer much more protection than those proposed by the Commission or - and here I disagree with Mrs Wallis - those presented to Parliament, which in reality limit the protection solely to consumers targeted by an Internet site, by a business.
Pseudo-legal arguments have also been put forward, such as the supposed incompatibility with the directive on abusive clauses or with the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice.
Well, there is no incompatibility with that or with anything else and allow me to quote the report, issued by the SANCO Directorate-General on 20 September 1999, which says, and I quote in French because it is the only version that exists: "The jurisdiction clauses are therefore possible and legal, within the meaning of this proposal, provided that certain conditions are guaranteed" .
It continues: "It is therefore necessary for the consumer to be clearly informed before signing the contract" .
It is precisely for this reason, Mr President, that the Committee on Legal Affairs requires strict conditions of transparency.
It is therefore not true that this report goes against an intended Community objective.
Lastly, and perhaps this is the most cynical of the arguments, people say: "Well, this creates difficulties for small- and medium-sized businesses, but they should be insured" .
That is like saying: "There should not be firemen in towns or cities.
If a house burns down, the owners should be insured" .
We must create good legislation, which is balanced for everyone.
To end, I disagree with Mrs Wallis' solution, despite the fact that we have shared this adventure, because I believe that at the end of the day her solution does not offer more protection to the consumer, since it only protects the consumer which a company has targeted.
A lawyer could spend years and years pondering which jurisdiction should apply in the case of active or passive sites or directed or undirected activities.
In conclusion, Mr President, it seems to me that in this field of judicial cooperation Parliament must send a clear signal to the Council and the Commission that it will not accept being sidelined or manipulated by dogmatic arguments that represent purely nationalist interests.
Instead, by dint of its thorough work, Parliament has here a great opportunity to demonstrate that pragmatic and reasonable solutions can be found to rebalance this proposal whatever the result tomorrow in this House.
Mr President, we all know that the development of the Internet as a shopping channel can bring great benefits: new opportunities for small businesses, for Internet start-ups and opening up the single market to our consumers right across 15 Member States.
It can lead to lower prices for them.
It can lead to a range of choice and we all support that, but we also know from surveys by national consumer councils, particularly in my Member State, that consumers do not yet have sufficient trust and confidence in the new technology to shop on-line.
I am pleased to see that businesses recognise that consumer confidence is critical to the growth of this small-business e-commerce network.
They recognise it is a precondition for persuading the consumer to shop on-line and therefore our key objective has to be to encourage that trust and confidence which in turn will benefit business by broadening their customer and consumer market base.
It is regrettable that in committee this debate has declined in some ways to business versus industry.
Both business and industry can gain from a common sense approach to this.
We can only recognise the full potential of business-to-consumer e-commerce if sufficient trust and confidence is there.
The way to persuade those consumers to take the plunge is to ensure that their rights are intact and this has to include, in my group' s view, the right to take action in their own national court.
There is a view that consumers are only engaging in buying CDs, books, low-value items, but of course we know that e-commerce is taking off in such way that soon they will be buying financial services, they will be buying cars.
In my constituency they want to buy cheaper cars from France and the Netherlands.
These are serious amounts of money and, as we encourage more consumers to go on-line, we really must give them the right to sue in their own courts so that we do not expect them - particularly poorer consumers - to go to courts abroad.
In reality we know that regulating the e-commerce world in the interests of both business and consumers requires a more innovative approach.
It needs a fundamental legal framework with innovative, non-legislative solutions and that is why I support Mrs Wallis' proposals: looking at the potential of ADR systems, looking at trustmarks, supporting small businesses in voluntary codes of good conduct, and finding mutually satisfactory ways to solve disputes.
Internet service providers have a role to play in this.
America Online, for example, runs its own merchant business programme where it guarantees to support the consumer in getting legal redress from any of the businesses that use them as a provider.
The reality is that none of these systems, of course, are in place in Europe, nor are they even really developed.
Even in the US, where only 8% of websites have trustmarks, there are still considerable problems gaining legal redress.
ADRs, therefore, cannot be a replacement for legal remedy.
The consumer cannot be bound to lose his right to go to court by contracts, as inserted in the report that is before us from the Legal Affairs Committee.
More work needs to be done in the area.
We need to create trust but, until these new systems are in place, there is no reason why consumers should not enjoy the same rights on-line as they do offline.
I cannot deprive my constituents of their right to sue in their own courts.
They are entitled to their own system of justice and we have to continue to support that.
We do not support jurisdiction clauses because my group also believes that these are in contravention of the unfair contract term legislation, by causing significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations under contract to the detriment of the consumer.
This we believe would create more legal uncertainty, more court cases, more money perhaps for lawyers, but that cannot be in the interests of business or consumers.
I am very pleased that in my country the CBI has backed Mrs Wallis' approach.
It is a sensible position in helping us to work with business and consumers that we can ensure that court action is only the last resort and we can find better ways to resolve disputes.
It is a matter of some regret to me that members of the Legal Affairs Committee seem to have forgotten that it is our committee which bears the responsibility for the legal protection of the consumer.
It cannot, therefore, be right that we respond to the challenges of the new world of e-commerce by seeking to limit or constrain those rights.
This will send a bad signal to consumers. It will not support e-business development and it will mean that we will not develop the e-commerce business-to-consumer sector.
I appeal, therefore, for some common sense in this debate.
I know that no legislation is perfect.
We are all struggling in the e-commerce world to get legislation that is right, to get the right balance between self-regulation and a regulatory framework which gives minimum guarantees.
That is why I believe also that this two-year review clause is sensible.
It will allow us to look at legislation, how it is impacting on SMEs and now it is impacting on consumers.
The idea of setting up a case book and collecting evidence is an excellent idea.
We now have to work to find practical and effective ways to resolve disputes. This cannot be at the expense of consumers.
The opinion on this report revolves around Articles 15 and 17.
I now speak on behalf of my group, in respect of the amendments tabled by them and other political groups.
The shared aim of all of us is to try to find a balanced way of protecting consumers and shielding SMEs from differing Member State jurisdictions.
This problem has been exaggerated totally out of proportion.
From the evidence available, such cross border B to C disputes are few and far between and the hope is that most of them will now be weeded out by ADR systems.
But, where they go beyond that, it is the consumer who is most disadvantaged.
The bigger businesses will be able to afford legal assistance.
The astute and sensible SME can insure for a modest premium.
That leaves the residue of unsuspecting businesses that may get involved in a transaction outside their Member State.
In these circumstances it is not unreasonable to build on the previous content of Article 15, use the concept of "directed at" , acknowledge that this is a concept also found in American jurisprudence and utilised by WIPO.
It is not simple but it has been used and there is no simple solution here.
This, in combination with a modification to Article 17, which allows freedom of contract to choose ADR but respects existing consumer rights in the form of the unfair contract terms directive, presents a much more workable, legally certain package that will promote confidence.
It is a mark of the balance that we have achieved in these amendments that they have won the support of the CBI in my own country and more than partial support from consumer organisations.
They certainly prefer this package to the committee one.
What I did not refer to when I spoke previously was Parliament' s role in this legislative process.
We are consultees.
We know from what has been said on this subject by Commissioner Byrne that he will not accept the type of formulation proposed by the committee at Article 17a.
I believe that Commissioner Vitorino shares his view.
From the Council' s perspective, the UK Government expressed a similar view.
It seems unlikely that a French Presidency, which is highlighting consumer affairs, will take a different view.
We could say that, because we are only consultees, we can say what we like.
We are merely signalling a political direction but it is important that we should signal a legally certain and workable solution, not one that will create as many problems as it seeks to solve.
Parliament should behave responsibly as a grown-up legislator, not as a petulant child.
We have the opportunity to build on the already substantial achievements in the committee' s final report.
I hope that we will go further.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Wallis, for her persistence.
It has been a long and hard road.
The European Commission has made a proposal which would ensure that consumers would have the right to take action in their own national courts and legal disputes arising from cross-border e-commerce transactions.
Amendments from the Legal Affairs Committee before Parliament would take that right and make it subject to unreasonable conditions and I cannot support those amendments.
The amendments shift the balance in the report towards traders and away from consumers.
Consumers can agree - prior to the conclusion of the contract - that they cannot bring proceedings against the other party in the courts of the Member States where they are domiciled.
The main problem with this approach is that it assumes that consumers first read the small print in such contracts and, even if they do, that they fully understand the implications of agreeing to forego the right to sue in their own courts and the differences in relation to costs incurred, legal systems, the choice of language used and so on.
It is unlikely that the average consumer understands or is aware and we cannot agree to their full legal rights being abrogated in this way.
I agree with Mrs Wallis that Commissioner Byrne was right to say that he would not accept this, and I hope that Commissioner Vitorino feels the same way, because this would be a disastrous outcome.
The committee did, however, agree to take a coherent approach to the law relating to the internet.
Under the proposal, key information contained in the court files in the Member States would be copied, using a standard form, to a centralised database for on-line access by interested parties.
Such a system will also promote the convergence and coordination of the different national legal systems and enable parties to check on the status of trading partners and suppliers, especially in an age of on-line trading.
This European causebook is very much to be welcomed and I hope that we will be able to support this report.
I want to compliment Mrs Wallis on the preparation and the presentation of her report.
I broadly welcome this report and I want to focus in particular on Amendment No 20, Recital 26 (new), which states that the Commission will consider proposals for the establishment of a Centralised Electronic European Union Causebook and Judgment Registry Database.
This has been justified very clearly in the report.
It is pro-citizen and it is pro-consumer and I would strongly urge the Commissioner to consider this proposal favourably, particularly in view of the fact that it is so pro-consumer and pro-citizen.
I would strongly urge the Commission to consider it favourably as we now live in a global network with a global economy, global companies.
But we have yet to establish an infrastructure to enable the Brussels Convention, as amended and extended, to benefit our EU consumer citizens and to attract inward investment.
It is necessary to establish the causebook which has been inspired by a proposal from an Irish lawyer, Twinkle Egan who has worked diligently on this initiative for some years.
At the expense of repeating myself, this will ensure that it is to the citizens' advantage.
This system has the advantage of having already been vetted by many reputable institutions including the International Bar Association.
The system has the attraction of being capable, of extension, to synchronising the international legal system of the global world in which we now live and trade.
The system would enable citizens of the Community and others to have prompt and easy access to authoritative and up-to-date information in relation to the existence and progress of trans-border litigation in which they may have a legitimate interest.
This system would also provide efficiency in obtaining and enforcing judgments within the EU.
Mr President, Commissioner, unlike many other MEPs, I am not in the habit of routinely thanking the rapporteur. I only do so when there is a reason.
Today, we do have reason for thanking Diana Wallis for displaying what has most emphatically been the patience of a saint and the stamina of an athlete in drawing up this report.
I want to emphasise that the majority of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party supports her and the amendments she has tabled on the Group' s behalf.
I also want to point out that the debate has been frustrating to some degree. If the same energy had been put into developing confidence-building systems instead of into lobbying which has not always been very professional, I believe that a lot would already have happened to create the confidence and confidence-building systems which are required if consumers are to have the courage to begin trading.
One great merit of this piece of work is the importance which the rapporteur and Parliament attach to consumer-friendly dispute-resolution mechanisms and the pressure they have brought to bear in order to obtain these.
This is important, and I do not believe that the same weight would have been given to this issue if this work had not been done.
As has been repeated a great many times, the biggest dispute, as we all know, has been about which court is to have competence in matters relating to electronic commerce.
This is an issue which will set a precedent, and that is why we have seen such vigorous lobbying.
It is a question with which we shall be confronted many times in connection, for example, with tax issues and cyber crime.
We must resolve the issue of which is to be the competent court.
I believe that there is a lot to indicate that, in the future, we must have clearer rules specifically in connection with places of domicile.
We cannot proceed as often on the basis of where events have taken place. This also emerged yesterday from our seminar on cyber crime.
What is to be taken as the domicile address? That is why it is important that we should establish today that it is the consumer' s domicile address which matters in the end.
Finally, I should like to ask those who are going to support the majority of the committee in the vote how they can look consumers in their own countries in the eye when the latter become aware that the view of the majority of the committee will, in practice, lead to their being denied access to their own courts.
I should like finally to strike a biblical note.
I once met an old man who said, 'I am in no doubt at all that, when I speak to my God, I can speak in my own language. I also hope, however, that the same will apply in the courts I may be called before' .
I would like to join my colleagues in thanking Mrs Wallis for her tremendous effort and work on this very difficult brief and I also want to support the call by my colleague, Pat the Cope Gallagher, and my other Irish colleague, Nuala Ahern, with regard to the establishment of a centralised European Union Electronic Database on case-law, put forward by Twinkle Egan, a barrister from Ireland.
However, when we look at the difficulties which have arisen with regard to this report, when we look at the disparate views - the so-called purists on behalf of the consumers or the other so-called purists on behalf of business and e-commerce - we sometimes forget that a lot of small- and medium-sized enterprises are consumers themselves, who will be trading with larger companies or larger suppliers and who deserve the same protection that I, "as an individual" or anybody else, as an individual consumer, would have.
Therefore, what is most of all required within the new framework is certainty with regard to the protection available and the responsibilities of the people who are trading on-line.
I look to other legislation to see what analogies or what benefits can be drawn from it.
Under the various insurance directives, for instance, non-national insurance companies are required to have an agent in each Member State to deal with insurance claims that may occur in that Member State.
Why not put in place a similar requirement on on-line trading companies?
Likewise, under the consumer credit directive, the provider of the service is required to inform the consumer of certain rights, certain entitlements, certain get-out clauses as well.
It is not difficult to transpose that kind of ideology into a direct consumer-service-provider relationship also.
That is why, more than anything else today, we need to put this regulation in place.
We do not need to defer it any longer.
We do not need to put any more mud into the water.
We need to enable Europe, which is lagging behind in e-commerce and Internet business worldwide, to put in place new arrangements with regard to creation of on-line business and the protection of consumer rights and also to ensure that Europe takes its rightful place at the top of the world trading system of Internet and on-line businesses.
That is why it is important that we should support the general opinion, agreed by the Legal Affairs Committee and as proposed by Mrs Wallis, concerning those areas over which there has been some conflict, I take note of what Commissioner Byrne said recently in his speech about the other opportunities.
No consumer, "as an individual" or as a company, can be denied the ultimate right to take legal action but that does not mean that this should be the first course of action.
There should be an agreed dispute-resolution mechanism available at local level, which can reduce the cost of settling consumer disputes because, as has been pointed out by many speakers this evening, there is the question of added costs with regard to resolution of disputes.
Finally, I would once again like to thank the rapporteur and the Commission representatives for their work and remind all Members that there is another way under the Brussels I Convention and we can put other mechanisms in place.
Let us agree on this report and then make changes in other areas as they come before us.
As Mrs Wallis knows only too well I have not agreed with a number of things that she has said during the time she has been rapporteur for this important report but I would like to put on record my appreciation for the very considerable work and effort she has put into what she has done for this Parliament.
As spokesman for the British Conservatives and the Legal Affairs Committee, I want to begin by endorsing the remarks made by Mrs Palacio, chairman of that committee.
The process of which this debate is a part is, as has been explained already, a component of the so-called Amsterdamisation of the Brussels Convention.
It is an unusual process but one in which Parliament has to give the message from its consultation that the Brussels Convention must not merely be transformed into a regulation it has to be brought up-to-date to meet the needs of the contemporary world.
The Convention itself is old: it antedates my own country' s joining the European Economic Community.
It goes back to an era before not only the Internet but even before the commercially available personal computer.
It is therefore tragic that the Commission and the Council have been so timid in getting to grips with the reality of the modern world for we are in a world which is moving away from that of national jurisdictions into the world of networks.
In the world of networks traditional jurisdiction-based disputes-resolution procedures are of no real help to consumers and traders when things go wrong.
It is for this reason that the jurisdictional aspects and arguments must be squeezed out of disputes.
ADRs which are a form of bona fide privatised law, agreed upon by the parties and legislators, must be the first and the main means of resolving disputes.
They cannot merely be the pre-trial steps before a disappointed consumer takes refuge in his own legal system for, if they become that, myriads of SMEs will boycott the Net for business, thereby reducing their own profitability and their contribution to society and the national exchequers.
It will seriously reduce Europe' s citizens' choices, thereby reducing their quality of life and standard of living.
I hear my opponents say: there is Lord Inglewood representing the forces of reaction, flying in the face of the Community' s honourable tradition of consumer protection and arguing at variance with the detailed terms of existing European Community consumer protection legislation.
Taking the latter point first, I argue in the way I do because existing legislation no longer meets the consumers' needs.
After all, a later statute succeeds its predecessors and, if the form of protection the consumer is given needs overhauling, earlier legislators cannot and do not stop the draftsmen and their successor legislators.
When it is time for change then it is the time for change and that time is now.
The world has moved on.
We have got to move on with it and nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the debate we have had about the so-called directed website.
Such a thing is a contradiction in terms since the Net is a shop window at every terminal link to the network and, to argue in some contrived way, that a site can be directed at some and not others is linguistically facile, commercially nonsensical and technologically illiterate.
We have an opportunity tomorrow to vote for the 21st century, its consumers, traders and citizens by voting for the committee' s report or we can look at the future and then turn our back on it and find superficial comfort in the last century by voting for the amendments.
We, in my delegation and in this group, shall be voting for the 21st century' s solutions to 21st problems and supporting the committee' s report.
Mr President, I respect your tenureship of the chair and I yield to no one in that, but I wonder how you can justify the fact that you indicate a time and then in the case of several speakers absolutely ignore it.
I do not cast any judgement over the previous speakers or the substance of their remarks, but, if people have been allocated a period of three minutes, to give them 50% more is insulting to those people who have spoken earlier and have kept rigidly to their time.
I wonder whether you could justify why you have decided to ignore the clock?
I have not ignored the clock and I am very concerned that some Members may be abusing my tolerance.
In general, Members have respected the time limits for their interventions and, in any event, they have expressed their points of view.
I accept responsibility for this anomaly, which is going to be positive since we are going to gain time - if we do not waste it with points of order - and it is not going to set a precedent.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, could I first underline the fact that Mrs Wallis has spared no effort in submitting this report for discussion.
The report, as it was approved within the committee, is in my view a fine example of a document which has struck a fine balance between the interests of all parties, both small- and medium-sized businesses and consumers.
It would be regrettable if this balance were to be disturbed by tomorrow' s vote, besides which, it is highly unlikely in my view that the Council would be able to agree on the tabled amendments.
Allow me to explain why.
The terminology, as it is currently before us, is clear.
We talk about 'contracts concluded at a distance' , terminology which, even to a lay person, is far more transparent than 'directed activities' , as is currently used in the amendment.
Let me illustrate this with an example.
If a French winegrower recommends his crémant in French, a French consumer may well enjoy protection under the Brussels convention, because the winegrower' s 'activities' are 'purposely directed in a substantial way' , but the English, Belgian or Italian consumer will not enjoy this protection because the activities were not purposely directed in a substantial way to those consumers.
This creates considerable legal uncertainty and will lead to various procedures having to be thrashed out before the courts where each case will need to be examined individually to establish whether the activities were purposely directed or not.
Secondly, it is crucial in my opinion that the report offers parties themselves the opportunity of building a competence clause into their contracts.
Contractual freedom is a fundamental principle.
If we deny a party contractual freedom and, with it, the constitutional right to go to court, I can foresee various procedures needing to be instituted on account of denial of justice.
In my view, the Brussels convention is of major strategic importance for the development of e-commerce within the internal market and it will also have a major impact on the success or failure of small- and medium-sized businesses.
I therefore hope that this report, as approved in the committee, will be adopted in its unamended form in the plenary tomorrow.
Mr President, as I have said in this Chamber on previous occasions, I have the privilege of working in a very interesting Legal Affairs Committee and being one of the few non-lawyers on the committee.
Diana Wallis as a distinguished international lawyer has been the ideal person to work on this very complex file.
I would like to thank her for the way she has done it and the way she has so freely shared her knowledge with us.
I have certainly learned a great deal from it.
I want to pick up on what is a central point for me: we are, as my colleague Lord Inglewood said, trying to reflect a new world in which we want small businesses to take advantage of the most powerful, international marketing tool that they have ever been offered.
There are many business that we want to use the network, the Internet, to sell to consumers all over Europe.
Many of those small business will have no experience of exporting, they will not have a network of lawyers, they will be uncertain themselves about how they are going to deal with consumer complaints.
The way that the committee has finally structured its approach strikes exactly the right balance.
Let us be clear, that what we have proposed in these alternative jurisdiction clauses is not something for the larger businesses.
Large businesses, even medium-sized businesses, will have offices all over Europe, they will have lawyers, they will be able to deal with consumers in that respect.
The basis of consumers being able to go to the court of their domicile to receive justice in the event of disputes still remains intact.
Listening to some of the speeches you have heard this evening, you would think that option was under threat.
We have had Mrs Ahern - I am sorry she is not here - saying it will be a disastrous outcome if the committee' s report is voted through.
I fundamentally disagree with that.
What we have done is offer small companies the alternative of doing something else.
They can offer consumers alternative jurisdiction but only under very specific conditions.
A double lock is built in there, because they must agree to incorporate an alternative dispute-resolution mechanism before they can use the alternative clause and the terms must also be made very clear to the consumer concerned before he accepts them.
Let us think about this on-line world, ladies and gentlemen, and those of you who have shopped on-line will know that you are offered the conditions and you must positively accept them.
You press the button, you move your mouse, you make a conscious decision.
How many of you, when you last had your gas or electricity bill, turned it over to look at the small print - the conditions? How many of you realised that you were accepting them?
In the on-line world, we must think differently. We are thinking in the old world here - some of our colleagues are thinking in the old world.
What we need to do tomorrow is to accept the committee' s report and move forward.
That is our role as a grown-up legislator: to think about new ideas, encourage change and not necessarily, as Lord Inglewood said, go along with an accepted wisdom that has been with us for many years.
Mr President, Commissioner Vitorino, it is important for the e-commerce market that we can conduct pan-European trade in an electronic environment.
No barriers to the market should be set up, either legislative or technological.
A Europe without borders is to the benefit of consumers.
If the amendments made by the committee to the report now being discussed were to be rejected tomorrow, the future of ecommerce in Europe would be in jeopardy.
Ladies and gentlemen, as nice as it would be for the employment situation for our legal profession, it would be an enormous burden for small- and medium-sized enterprises in Europe to take account of the legislation that exists in all EU countries and the signatories to the Locarno Agreement when they are engaged in e-commerce.
Presumably this would also mean that any respectable companies that want to be responsible and look after their consumers' interests, will not become involved in ecommerce at all.
As a result, there will be less on offer to the consumer as a whole, as Lord Inglewood earlier mentioned.
On the other hand, irresponsible rascals would remain in the market and they would look after the consumer only until the clink of money is heard in the seller' s bank account, and no longer.
Ladies and gentlemen, according to a proposal by a consumer organisation, marketing could be directed at just one country or just certain markets, which is not technically possible in the world of the Internet.
The electronic world knows no national frontiers.
Besides, this would discriminate against consumers, as the consumer must have the right to order products from anywhere to go anywhere.
This kind of interpretation would probably also run counter to the principle of the free movement of goods and services as referred to in Article 49 of the Treaty of Rome.
A company engaged in e-commerce cannot normally even know what country the consumer is in.
It would therefore be impossible to require a company to find out beforehand about the consumer protection legislation that exists in the customer' s country, as that country could be anywhere.
Instead it would be reasonable to create alternative procedures for resolving disputes.
The e-commerce players should, however, have the right to choose between normal court procedures or an alternative way to resolve the dispute.
I would also ask the Council and the Commission to still take time to reflect whether it would be worth considering this charge-back mechanism, which Mrs de Palacio mentioned again in her amendment to the report.
It could increase bureaucracy from the point of view of the consumer.
In this the committee' s position is not absolute but it would seem that the majority in this Chamber support it and that tomorrow it will be upheld as Parliament' s position, which is a good thing.
About 18 months ago the Council of the European Union nodded through a draft of the new Brussels regulation which essentially rubber-stamped old principles supposedly in order to apply them to modern conditions, but without thought, without real discussion and without consultation, I hope, whatever the result of the vote tomorrow, that both the Commission and Council will take note of the very extensive discussions and debate which we have had in this Parliament, which have taken account of the concerns both of business and consumers.
I disagree with Mrs Wallis' suggestion that, because of some criticism from David Byrne of the result reached in the Legal Affairs Committee, we should give way now.
I would say it is our democratic duty to stand up for what we believe is the right solution for consumers and for e-commerce in the European Union regardless of whether that gives distress to Mr Byrne or not.
I would give my wholehearted support to the conclusion reached in the Legal Affairs Committee.
It is a common-sense balance between, on the one hand, protecting consumers and, on the other hand, ensuring that those same consumers have access to the low prices and wide choices that are available with the truly competitive market.
We have to decide, in a new era where physical location has become almost meaningless, where a dispute is eventually litigated, where a dispute is eventually solved.
To allow consumers and businesses the freedom to make that choice themselves is the most pragmatic and the most common-sense solution and this gives the maximum certainty both to business and to consumers.
It does not strip consumers of their pre-existing rights.
It gives them choices and it reflects their enhanced status in a new Internet world, which gives them more power and more choices than ever before.
If small businesses are driven out of the market because of the proposals from the Commission or if we adopt Mrs Wallis' amendments tomorrow then it will be consumers who suffer because it will leave them at the mercy of the large global players and it will deprive them of the low prices that they deserve under the new Internet economy.
Even more importantly, it will also threaten the new economy and the e-economy in the European Union.
We are sadly far behind the United States and, if tomorrow we support the amendments proposed by Mrs Wallis, we will stay far behind the United States.
With the Commission' s proposals, we certainly have the worst of both worlds.
We have uncertainty and legal risk for business without genuine consumer protection, because in many cases the right to sue in your own home court may be illusory if you cannot enforce the judgment without going overseas and incurring the same inconvenience as if you had to go overseas in any event to litigate this issue.
The Legal Affairs Committee has come up with a pragmatic solution.
It is a common sense balance to a difficult issue and I would appeal to the House to support the resolution as put forward by the Legal Affairs Committee.
Thank you very much, Mr Vitorino, for your extensive intervention.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Thursday, at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.15 p.m.)
Mr President, I should publicly like to reject and condemn the botched procedure, although I do not know if it has been adopted by the Conference of Presidents, the Presidencies of the Council and the Commission or the Presidency of Parliament, for dealing with an issue as important and far-reaching as terrorism in Spain.
This may be in line with the Rules of Procedure, but it is neither ethically nor democratically acceptable for such a crucial issue to be dealt with using a procedure that does not provide for a political debate on a specific proposal for a resolution to which all of the interested parliamentary groups can present amendments.
As I see it, the procedure adopted asserts that a written declaration presented by five Spanish Members of the European Parliament - who are fully within their rights to do so - can become the official position of Parliament. If this were the case, however, it would amount to a position adopted selfishly, by the back door and almost by stealth, so as to prevent other groups and Members from having the chance to present amendments or changes with the aim of achieving a broad consensus on the text.
Mr President, representatives of the Council and the Commission, might I be so bold as to say that what has happened today is a huge political mistake, and that something as important as Parliament' s position on terrorism will not have the broad support of everyone, since there will be some who, whilst unequivocally rejecting and condemning terrorism...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I am very sorry Mr Ortuondo, we are now taking note of the fact that you do not approve of what has been decided.
However, this is a decision taken by the competent bodies of this Parliament.
We have taken note of your opinion.
Let us turn to what we should be talking about, namely the Minutes, as Mr Ortuondo did not comment on the Minutes.
Who wants to comment on yesterday' s Minutes?
Mr President, I would like to draw attention to a deplorable state of affairs at the European School I in Brussels.
Thousands of children and young people - most of whom are the offspring of our officials - have not had any lessons since the end of June.
They have, as yet, been unable to start the first term of the new school year.
It was originally scheduled for 7 September.
Several days previous to that, it was postponed until today, and now the parents have been informed once again that the term cannot begin because some major building work has yet to be completed.
The renovation work has been going on for years at this school, and the asbestos problems are a familiar tale too.
Yet no alternative arrangements were made for the children.
I urge the President of our Parliament, in conjunction with the Commission, to ensure that this disgraceful state of affairs is not resolved at the children' s expense. I cannot believe what is going on!
School attendance is compulsory and yet the children are unable to fulfil this requirement.
Mrs Schleicher, it would be particularly tragic if children were to suffer because it is impossible to receive an education.
I am taking note of this and will pass it on, at your request, to the Bureau and other competent Parliament bodies.
We will see what we can do.
Terrorism in Spain
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on terrorism in Spain.
This debate is opened on behalf of the Council and Commission.
I have been informed that Minister Paul, representing the Council, is still on his way and hopes to arrive here very shortly.
He is on his way here on the train from Paris and, as the sitting started early, is unable to attend at present.
But I assume that Commissioner Vitorino is ready to make his statement now, and we will wait and see whether the Minister will be arriving shortly.
If this is the case, I should like to give the floor to Commissioner Vitorino, who will be speaking on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, do you not think that it would be a better idea - and I say this, of course, as a point of order, not as an intervention - if we waited a few more minutes for the Minister to arrive? It would be difficult, you understand, for me to respond to the representative of the Council if he did not have the opportunity to speak first.
I therefore suggest that the sitting be suspended for less than 10 minutes, until nine o' clock, which is the time the Minister is due to arrive at Parliament.
Mr Galeote, I hear what you are saying.
By way of apology on behalf of Mr Paul, I would like to point out that his train from Paris is due at 8.20 a.m.
We expect him here any minute.
I would prefer it if we embarked on today' s proceedings rather than adjourn, in view of today' s punishing schedule and the fact that the House decided yesterday to vote at 11 a.m.
I would actually like to ask you to make a start.
We have heard the Commissioner' s statement.
We decided yesterday to start at 8.30 a.m., and it would therefore be odd if we were to suspend proceedings at this stage.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Member States of the European Union are unanimous in condemning terrorism, whatever the motives of the groups of criminals carrying out terrorist attacks, and so the Council of the European Union is just as firm in its condemnation of all the forms of terrorism carried out on European territory.
I should like to point out that at the Summit of the Heads of State and Government which was held on 19 and 20 June this year in Santa Maria da Feira, in Portugal, the Council expressed its outrage at the tragic events related to terrorism in Europe and vigorously reaffirmed its commitment to continuing to fight terrorism at European level and to stepping up and intensifying cooperation between Member States in this area.
Since France currently holds the Council Presidency, at this point I would particularly like to express our solidarity in the face of the terrorism in Spain, which is the most deadly in Europe at the present time.
Clearly, the European Union cannot possibly tolerate Spanish terrorists using the construction of Europe as an alibi in order to justify their claims.
In no instance can violent nationalism be compatible with the ideals of the European Union.
Combating all forms of terrorism is therefore a priority for the European Union in order to achieve the area of freedom, security and justice set as a goal by the Heads of State and Government at the Tampere Summit in October 1999.
Of course, alongside the multilateral cooperation implemented by the European Union bodies, there is also particularly effective bilateral cooperation, and we have recently seen the results of French and Spanish operational cooperation.
It is the role and the responsibility of the European Union in combating terrorism in general, and therefore also terrorism in Spain, which I wished to discuss this morning in my capacity as co-chairman, together with Elisabeth Guigou, the French Minister of Justice, of the Justice and Home Affairs Council.
If you will allow me briefly to outline the story so far, the cooperation between the Member States of the European Union on internal security originated in 1976, at the time of the Trevi groups.
These informal groups, which met every six months, were, from the outset, a reflection of the determination to have police cooperation in a number of areas, including on terrorism, which was of particular concern to the members of the Trevi I group.
Cooperation in police matters, an idea developed at the Trevi Conference, led to the establishment of a network of liaison officers.
The implementation of this network, undoubtedly the most effective cooperative network, was the result of the action programme adopted in Dublin in June 1990 by the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs of the twelve Member States at that time.
It involves exchanges of information between experts posted in specialised departments in the various Member States.
These liaison officers are responsible for exchanging information, but also for supporting the relevant departments in an advisory role.
I think it is safe to say by now that this network of liaison officers has very clearly demonstrated its effectiveness by facilitating the smooth running of police inquiries in real time.
In the context of cooperation on justice and home affairs, a specific counter-terrorism working group was also established, subsequently, by the Maastricht Treaty.
This Experts Group on terrorism was confirmed by the Treaty of Amsterdam, clearly demonstrating the need for a body within which the representatives of the fifteen Member States have the opportunity to meet to exchange views and cooperate.
The work of this group was what led the Council to adopt two important decisions which I would like to remind you of.
In 1996, the Council adopted a Joint Action establishing a European Directory of specialised counter-terrorist competences, skills and expertise, and stipulating that it be maintained.
Moreover, at the end of 1999, the Council adopted a recommendation on cooperation in combating the financing of terrorist groups.
I should also at this point mention the role played by the European Police Office, Europol, in combating terrorism.
From the outset, the Convention of 26 July 1995 establishing the European Police Office stipulated that this police cooperation body would be competent to deal with 'crimes committed or likely to be committed in the course of terrorist activities against life, limb, personal freedom or property'.
The initial wording of the Convention stipulated that Europol' s mandate would be extended to terrorism within two years at the latest of the Convention' s entry into force, which was on 1 October 1998.
As you know, there is a Europol department dedicated to combating terrorism.
This was a request from Spain and so, naturally, a leading official from Spain was given the job of managing that department.
In view of the criminal activity undertaken at that time by some terrorist groups, the Justice and Home Affairs Council, which met on 28 and 29 May 1998, took the decision to authorise Europol to bring forward its counter-terrorism activities and have them begin on 1 January 1999.
Finally, I cannot, of course, fail to mention the current priorities of the French Presidency of the European Union in the area we are discussing this morning.
In particular, the French Presidency wishes to improve and intensify the cooperation between Member States, but also to extend this cooperation yet further to include the candidate countries.
This is both legal and police cooperation, which will no doubt one day lead to the harmonisation or unification of criminal charging systems.
The Spanish Government, for example, would like a European arrest warrant to be established.
Among the priorities of the French Presidency I should particularly like to mention the initiative to establish a programme of information and measures to be undertaken in order to prepare for the accession of the candidate countries to the European Union.
This approach is intended to enable us to increase our knowledge of their counter-terrorism organisations and to increase awareness in countries which do not a priori have any specific experience in this field.
In order to draw up an accurate picture of the terrorism situation within the European Union, and this is the second priority of our presidency, we wished to continue the practice of providing an opportunity at each meeting of the working group of exchanging information on recent developments in terrorism in each of the States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is this system, with a combination of bilateral and multilateral cooperation, which very recently, in fact just a few days ago, made it possible to achieve some remarkable successes in the fight against terrorism in Spain.
Thank you, Mr Galeote, for your contribution.
The fact that this is the way things are done is extremely tragic and difficult to take in.
Mr President, although I imagine that you were about to suggest the same thing, I, on behalf of everyone here, ask you to call for a minute' s silence for this latest victim of democracy, this time in Catalonia.
(The House observed a minute' s silence) President.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is hard to return to the agenda, but we will have to do so.
It is important for a Parliament to speak out in public on this kind of matter.
Mr President, I was probably the first to hear about the terrorist attack this morning at 7.40, so I have known about it for a while now.
The attack happened in Catalonia about three or four kilometres from my house and it appears that the situation is worsening since, even though ETA have already killed more than 800 people, they have committed yet another atrocity, even as we speak.
No political objective justifies the use of violence.
We can but express our wholehearted condemnation of terrorism and particularly at a time when the terrorists seem so intent on destroying us.
We must therefore, once again, strongly reiterate our firm and cooperative position as the Commissioner said, in support of a strong democracy, given that terrorism constitutes a direct threat to our core values.
We should like to express our solidarity with those who have been affected and also, in particular, our hope for peace.
In the wake of the latest atrocity, the debate is especially difficult for this Member, and this is something I commented on to four of the five people that signed the declaration against terrorism in Spain.
I pointed out to two of them that the signing of the declaration may prove difficult for some due to the content of one of the paragraphs, the second paragraph in fact.
This paragraph rejects dialogue with any group that tolerates terrorism or that is involved in it.
The reason I spoke to the authors of the text is that I think they need to find a formula on which everyone agrees.
One might wonder why the second paragraph of the text as it stands is proving so difficult to sign.
The reason is because it calls into question the culture of peace and the culture of dialogue.
What is more, if we renounce dialogue the Northern Ireland peace process would not be possible, the Middle East peace process would not be possible and, the Member of the European Parliament, Mr John Hume, would not have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and I think it is important his work receives recognition.
If ETA does not give up its weapons, we shall not give up ours.
If ETA refuses to renounce violence, we shall refuse to renounce the law and dialogue, which are our weapons.
We have no others.
This is why I strongly urge those that presented the declaration - as I have done so in private and do so now publicly - to do all they can to enable us to sign it, because any position that is adopted on terrorism requires universal backing.
On the other hand, if this declaration is supposed to stem from the 1997 declaration adopted by Parliament, which spoke of dialogue in positive terms, it would seem strange not to have recourse to it, and in particular, to the eighth paragraph in which Parliament considers dialogue in positive terms.
Mr President, we should all be in a position to sign the declaration.
Nothing justifies the use of terrorism and nothing justifies the failure of democratic forces to adopt a united front in the face of it.
Mr President, I understand that there are several debates taking place concurrently and that it is probably easier to speak when one is independent of any particular political group, but everything appears to be moving in favour of political dialogue and the clarification of what we are discussing here, as well as the objectives of the written declaration that has been presented.
Today is pointless already, after all that we have heard about the significance of ETA terrorism, its devastating effects on the population, its outright assault on the democratic values enshrined in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and in the Statute of Guernica, that cost the countless efforts and sacrifices of the Basque and Spanish people as a whole to achieve.
We have heard from those who fought against the Franco dictatorship, who are present today and are to be commended, but there are others, now dead, who no longer have a voice and can no longer participate in political dialogue.
This is why the issue must be clarified here today, and why I must respond to the various interpretations of what constitutes political dialogue.
Quite clearly, over and above natural political differences political dialogue must exist, a political dialogue between people and organisations that respect and defend the values of democracy and freedom.
Political dialogue cannot be achieved when, with one hand, or at a given moment, people call for dialogue and with the other, they turn a pistol or a bomb on those with whom they are supposedly in talks.
(Applause)No one can be invited to join in this dialogue.
Political dialogue should take place between democratic parties, whether they be nationalist or not, with Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya, with Convergència i Unió, with the PNV, with Eusko Alkartasuna, with Izquíerda Unida, with the PSOE, with the governing Partido Popular, and within the institutions, transparently and clearly, on behalf of the people and answering to all Spanish citizens.
We cannot, however enter into the kind of dialogue that the proponents of violence are calling for, as that kind of dialogue is not permissible in a democratic and open society.
We are aware that problems and any political, economic and social contradictions can be resolved through dialogue and through decisions taken by democratic institutions. However, we must not use dialogue as a universal rhetorical remedy that is also open to those who perpetrate and advocate violence and to those who bemoan the deaths as though they were traffic accidents when they are in fact cruel murders committed against children and defenceless people, as in the name of democracy, this is unacceptable.
I think these people should remain silent and I hope they hear my message and adopt a more moral approach to the problem, as opposed to violence.
(Applause)Dialogue cannot serve to cover up violence and terror, nor can it mean surrender in the face of crime. Political dialogue is only possible when the bombs cease to go off, the guns are silent and democratic values have been accepted.
We wholeheartedly reject the call for dialogue and the meekness that both lead to dictatorships and concentration camps.
We are, however, in favour of responsible and democratic dialogue in order to achieve peaceful coexistence and to strengthen democracy, which is so essential to us.
(Applause)
Mr President, on behalf of the British Conservatives, I should like to offer our strong support to the Spanish authorities in their fight against terrorism.
The United Kingdom has suffered from terrorism for over 30 years.
Indeed, there was another incident in London last night, and I offer our condolences to the latest victim of terrorism in Spain.
In order to defeat terrorists, it is essential that government should be unambiguous in the message that it sends out and that public opinion should be kept resolute.
Terrorists should be given no hope of achieving their objectives by force, no comfort that they will avoid punishment for their awful crimes and no hiding-place.
In particular, no European Union Member State should provide sanctuary for terrorists so they can mount attacks on another state.
I am afraid the UK experience has in fact been largely negative on all these counts.
We support the Spanish Government and security forces in their tough stance against ETA terrorism and express solidarity with the Spanish people and in particular, those that have suffered directly as victims of terrorism.
(Applause)
Mr President, I should just like to say two things: firstly, we all need to draw on the things that have been said; and secondly, that we realise when we are playing into the hands of those of whom we are so critical, by making noise while others are talking.
Mr President, we all in fact need to know who is playing into the hands of whom, given that in this democratic Parliament words are what count above all.
We democrats cannot prevent the terrorists from murdering us, but we can and must stop them from insulting us, and both democrats and freedom fighters have been insulted here.
Mr President, over and above the dialogue with the perpetrators of violence, over and above the rejection of all terrorism, a rejection with which we wholeheartedly agree, I believe that there is something fundamental lacking in Spain, and that is dialogue between the Basque Government and the Spanish Government, dialogue between the Partido Popular (PP), the Socialists (PSOE), the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and Eusko Alkartasuna, the latter two of which are both governing parties in the Basque Country.
Our decision not to sign this declaration is not the result of the fact that there is no dialogue with the terrorists, a position we understand, it is rather because there is no dialogue between the democrats which, over and above the cruelty of the killing, is the fundamental problem.
Parliament needs to facilitate dialogue between the democrats.
The President of my country, Galicia, once said that Europe no longer constituted an international affair and Mr Mayor Oreja said that he did not want international mediators.
I stand by these two statements made by the Partido Popular party and make the point that Europe is no longer an international affair in our view and Parliament must mediate politically, not between the terrorists and the government, but between the Basque Government and the Spanish Government, between the PP and the PSOE and the PVN-EA, as this is what is presently lacking in Spain, over and above the terrorist violence.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an extremely sensitive issue.
If we return to the procedure, I should like to give the floor to Mr Gorostiaga first.
I wanted to end the debate a moment ago, but given the nature of the topic, I am being indulgent, yet I also have to be neutral.
I would request the next speakers, if they want to raise a procedural point, to keep it extremely brief, and I would ask the honourable Members to remain as calm as possible.
I shall now give Mr Gorostiaga the floor on a procedural motion.
Mr President, that honours you greatly.
You are really democratic because you accept free speech.
It is not the problem really; these people do not accept that there is another possibility: namely that the Basque Country has the right to its own identity in Europe.
That is what is impossible for the Spanish democrats to accept.
The debate is closed.
I should like to thank the Council and Commission for their input.
Racism
Mr President, there must be a common and effective EU contribution to the success of the UN World Conference Against Racism next year and its European preparatory conference next month.
The EU has a human rights duty and competence to make all different, all equal, a reality.
It can and must forcefully tackle race discrimination and xenophobia making the EU a world leader in the celebration of multicultural and ethnic diversity.
Let us do it with wholehearted political conviction, not just as a diplomatic exercise.
This question and motion outlines ways in which racism must be documented and prevented and sanctions implemented.
Getting effective sanctions means firstly exploiting EU powers for anti-discrimination laws and agreeing the Article 13 Race Directive in record time sent the right signal of determination.
Effectiveness also means stepping up intergovernmental police and judicial cooperation under Article 29 of the EU Treaty and ways to do that are explored here.
We want to hear that the Member States will sign Protocol No 12 of the European Convention on Human Rights which makes discrimination a direct infringement of the convention on the occasion of the convention' s fiftieth anniversary in November.
Other Members and Groups with many helpful amendments which I will accept, but there are some I cannot accept.
Firstly, I regret that the opportunity has been taken to identify specific countries and parties as especially bad e.g. Amendments Nos 1, 3, 5 and 6.
The trouble with singling out some countries but not others is that you do not make a comprehensive assessment.
I therefore appeal to the sponsors of these amendments to consider withdrawing them.
In particular I would appeal to Mr Ford to withdraw his Amendment No 1 even if I have sympathy with it since it would be a pity if a motion on these very important European and world conferences were derailed over Austria.
Mr President, scarcely a day goes by without a news report of right-wing extremist acts in central Germany.
Citizens' initiatives, various religious denominations and other social groupings have been warning against right-wing extremism for years.
It is there in the East and in the West, even though the acts are perpetrated by a minority.
In the East, right-wing groups no longer regard themselves as a minority, but believe they hold centre stage in society, and they have cult status among young people.
Silence breeds consent right across the social divide, which means there are certain zones in EU cities where the right wing holds sway and not the state.
There may well be various reasons as to why this is so, e.g. people were brought up in a totalitarian state, many people in the East suffer from a lack of self-esteem, there is high unemployment, and young people feel they have no future prospects, but we must not dwell on these explanations and instead, take action at long last.
A Europe founded on the inviolability of human dignity and which guarantees freedom of movement, must take a zero tolerance line with right-wing violence.
So it is time to break our silence over the right-wing violence that has become an everyday occurrence in parts of the European Union, even if we stand accused of running down our own countries.
We need a tolerant government and the pro-active financial support of local groups and players, and of those who have the courage to stand up for their beliefs.
Europe must be seen to fly the flag on this issue.
It must provide these groups with outside support, so as to encourage them to continue to stand up for their own convictions against the right wing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to answer Baroness Ludford' s question point by point.
The Council and the Presidency attach great importance to the European Conference against racism "All Different, All Equal" which will be held in Strasbourg between 11 and 13 October 2000, in preparation for the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism.
In this context, the Presidency is sparing no effort to achieve the utmost cooperation and coordination between the Member States of the European Union in the preparations for the conference in Strasbourg.
There is already very active coordination of efforts between Member States, in addition to the many preparatory meetings which have taken place.
At this stage, the Council does not, at this European Conference in Strasbourg, intend to present a position common to the fifteen Member States, according to the terms of Article 34(2).
I think it is important, however, that the coordination between the European Union Member States should continue in order to avoid a situation where they are expressing divergent views on the various issues raised.
The Council does intend, and I must stress this, to present a common position at the World Conference which is due to be held next year in South Africa, and work on finalising this common position has already been set in motion.
In order to coordinate their positions ready for the European Conference, the Member Sates will, of course, take account of the very useful recommendations given in the document provided by the Commission departments on 17 April.
As to the resources to be implemented in order to ensure maximum synergy between the work carried out in this area by, on the one hand, the United Nations High Commissioner's Office for Human Rights and, on the other, the Council of Europe' s European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, but also the European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia, I would like to remind Baroness Ludford that, on 21 December 1998, the Council adopted a decision relating to the conclusion of an agreement for the purpose of establishing close cooperation between the Council of Europe and the European Monitoring Centre, and that the cooperation between these two institutions has actually been very fruitful.
Moreover, research is underway into how to establish closer links between the High Commissioner' s Office and the European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia.
I should, further, like to point out that on 21 June 2000, the Council directive was adopted, implementing the principle of equal treatment of persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin.
Because of the duplication that now exists between this directive and the proposal for a directive on the creation of a general framework promoting equal treatment in employment and work - the directive on discrimination - racial discrimination was withdrawn from its scope, but let me remind you that the scope of this proposal for a directive is a great deal more limited than that of the directive previously adopted, which covers not only the sectors of employment and work but also social protection, welfare benefits and education, as well as access to goods and services and the provision of goods and services.
Next, work on the Community Action Programme to combat discrimination is well underway within the Council and I can safely state today that, if the European Parliament issues its opinion during its first part-session in October, the Council will be in a position to adopt a political agreement on this text on 17 October, so that the text could be adopted before the end of the French Presidency, enabling the programme to be launched, as anticipated, on 1 January 2001.
Finally, on the subject of the 1996 Joint Action concerning action to combat racism and xenophobia, in May 1998 the Council examined a report on Member States' compliance with the obligations upon them under the Joint Action and decided that the implementation of this Joint Action should be re-examined in 2000.
Let me point out that the Presidency is currently making arrangements for this review which will assist the Council in assessing the overall effectiveness of the Joint Action and in ascertaining which features need strengthening.
I hope, Baroness, that I have given as full an answer as possible.
Mr President, there were two monsters in Ancient Greek mythology which killed and swallowed people, Scylla and Charybdis.
The two monsters in Europe today are terrorism and racism.
And these, unfortunately, are the subject of our debate today.
Odysseus overcame both monsters, but he needed ingenuity, persistence and courage.
Today, the political, democratic leadership of Europe has to play the role of Odysseus.
Sixty years ago, we lived through one of the worst wars in the history of mankind.
The idea behind the European Union was to create institutions which would guarantee peace and significant steps were taken in the years which followed.
Unfortunately, the clouds of racism are still hovering over Europe.
There are numerous dimensions to the fight against racism at European level.
One such dimension is the EU' s basic policy of deepening its policies, i.e. strengthening social cohesion in Europe and ironing out differences, and another is its enlargement policy, i.e. strengthening countries which have problems.
As far as anti-racist policies in particular are concerned, I should like to refer to quite specific policies and measures.
In 1996, the Council approved a joint action on judicial cooperation between Member States on questions of racism.
We are about to enter the second stage of this joint action.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is a really important weapon in Europe' s institutional arsenal.
Articles 29 and 13 allow us to adopt quite specific policies.
Article 29 allows us to combat racism and xenophobia by cooperating in the area of justice and security, in order to create a single area of freedom and justice.
In Tampere, the policy for measures in this sector was evaluated and decided and we are now moving more towards measures relating to this sort of crime via the Internet.
Secondly, two directives have been proposed on the basis of Article 13; the directive on racial discrimination was voted through by the European Parliament and the Council in record time, a mere six months, and is now part of European legislation.
The purpose of the second directive is to combat all forms of discrimination in the workplace and this will be debated during the French Presidency.
Of course, laws alone are never enough, which is why the Commission has proposed an anti-discrimination programme which allows governments, non-governmental organisations and local authorities to work together on innovative policies and to exchange best practices in the fight against racism.
The European monitoring centre in Vienna is an important institution, the purpose of which is to provide objective, reliable, comparable data on racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism and to act as a basic design tool at both European and national level.
The monitoring centre has already drawn up studies on the extent of racism and on manifestations of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in various Member States, in order to analyse their causes, repercussions and results and has examined examples of good practices which are working in certain Member States.
The monitoring centre is setting up a coordinated network of non-governmental organisations and organisations which can work together at European level in order to address questions of xenophobia.
Similarly, it can make recommendations to the Community and the Member States in connection with policies which should be pursued and it has already been working with the German Government.
Finally, the Strasbourg conference is a very important event.
The Commission is also involved from the point of view of theoretical and political proposals.
We have already submitted two documents incorporating all the experience and proposals on how to combat racism at Community level, together with our experience in matters of education, training, research and policy for young people in order to address these matters.
There is financial support for the conference as regards non-governmental organisations because we believe that they can play an important role, over and above the role of governments and, of course, we are negotiating for support for the involvement of non-governmental organisations in the regional conferences to be held in Chile, Senegal and Iran.
Honourable Members, we must never forget that the European Union was constructed in order to prevent a recurrence of the racist atrocities which we lived through 60 years ago.
Policy is based, at European level, on an institutional arsenal which we strengthened with the Treaty of Amsterdam but in which there is still room for further effort, by creating structures to study and analyse this phenomenon and support governments, by supporting a European network between various agencies so that they can increase public awareness and, of course, by exchanging and supporting national policies on education, the mass media, policies for young people and information at national level.
However, we must say, and this is important, that all these policies, this entire philosophy is based on one principle: zero tolerance in Europe towards racism and zero tolerance of the reason for any operation based on racism.
Mr President, racism is indeed a scourge affecting our society.
It is even one of the most appalling human failings, and no one has a monopoly on it.
Often, it is the product of fear, ignorance, foolishness and selfishness, but also of institutional cowardice.
If a society wishes to call itself truly civilised, it has a duty to track down, prohibit, punish and eradicate racism by means of education and prosecution.
Europe wishes to be a civilised society, and has the opportunity every day to show that it is.
Parliament is required to give an opinion on the European Union' s position at the World Conference Against Racism.
Our position must be clear, intelligible and specific.
Our position must be clear, without going into unnecessary details.
Personally, I am all in favour of brief texts.
It must be up-to-date, i.e. it must take account of the new means of communications which can also be used as media for the expression of racist views.
Our position must be intelligible. That is to say, it must be structured around the major key ideas establishing a method: the identification of racism, particularly with the aid of our partners, the NGOs or our own monitoring centres, the punishment of racism, with the idea of zero tolerance and, of course, the prevention of racism.
Our position must be specific. That is to say, beyond the universal value of the fight against racism, there must be a specifically European message, for, let us be clear about this, Europe has often been the home of racism.
We can, moreover, even see the revival of racism in some European Union countries.
In such instances we have a duty to remember and a duty to be vigilant.
Our message must be an ambitious one.
We must be a role model.
As the Commissioner pointed out, we do not lack the resources to combat discrimination or racism in general.
We are currently drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights, the first article of which prioritises human dignity.
That, I believe, is the reason why the PPE has become involved in framing this text.
We want to ensure that it is rid of all the pointlessly contentious dross to do with the current situation and free of any additions which do not contribute to the formulation of the text.
In this, as the Commission, the Council of Ministers and Parliament, we have a shared responsibility and we want to be very scrupulous about this common approach, as Europe' s credibility, at this World Conference Against Racism, will depend, above all, on our assessment of the situation and on how credible we are on our own territory.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that this debate serves as a timely continuation of the debate we held in Parliament first thing this morning on the issue of terrorism in Spain.
Today we learned of the death, very near to where I live, of another person who worked of his own free will in the world of politics: a local councillor.
I say that this debate is a timely continuation of this morning' s debate because, as John Hume has so often reminded us in Parliament, all conflicts are linked to the notion of difference, all conflicts focus on what we do not accept in others.
John Hume has also reminded us on many occasions in Parliament that the European Union is and must continue to be an example of conflict resolution.
One could say that the European Union today is the practical expression of the exact opposite to the notions of terrorism and racism.
This is why I believe that Europe has to go to the World Conference Against Racism having adopted a strong and common position, a position that has been tried and tested on other occasions, the first of which was the application in the European Union of the United Nations Convention of 1965.
However, Mr President, I think there is another, more important issue that we must tackle without delay.
We cannot allow the radicals in Spain - in El Ejido - in Italy, Germany or Austria to take the initiative in this field.
We must talk to the people of Europe and we must - as has been achieved in the directive against discrimination - make progress on all of the other objectives of the Tampere European Council.
Lastly, I should like to congratulate Baroness Ludford on her report and let her know that we intend to seriously examine its proposals.
We have to accept that these days Europe is a more pluralistic place than it used to be and we must let the world know that we are pleased that this is the case.
Mr President, 'They died because they looked different, thought differently and lived a different kind of life.'
So read the title of an article in a daily newspaper on right-wing extremist violence in Germany.
I do not intend to recount how many times Jewish cemeteries have suffered arson attacks and desecration, or describe to you the various racist attacks that have taken place.
Racism in Germany and in Europe constitutes one of the greatest challenges our society has to overcome.
Not only does racism put the minorities living amongst us at risk, it also jeopardises the values our societies were founded on after dreadful experiences.
The European Union is the product of this development.
We can only welcome the fact that the United Nations have seized the initiative and will hold a World Conference Against Racism next year.
We must make use of this opportunity and make a clear European contribution to this conference.
I very much regret that my colleagues from Germany are not present in the Chamber at the moment to join me in sending out the message that racism does not stand a chance, either in Germany or Europe.
Mr President, from the racial persecution in El Ejido, in Spain, to the murder of Mozambicans in East Germany, everywhere incidents of racist violence are inflaming passions in the heart of Europe.
We often condemn the perpetrators of such violence.
I think it is high time that we pointed the finger at the people who provide the ideological weapons to arm them, the soundbites.
As we know, the parties of the extreme right build themselves up by exploiting social problems, job insecurity and unemployment. This is what we must fight, and we must also, where necessary, combat the spineless consensus between traditional political parties, on the left wing as well as the right, which helps gain them more sympathisers.
As you ought to know, the extreme right gets into power only by exploiting and stressing our weaknesses, the areas we neglect.
All those who repeat their words and their ideas are therefore giving them credibility, and all those who think they can moderate them by involving them in public affairs are making them commonplace.
It is not possible to understand the strategy of the parties of the extreme right by looking only at their hatred of foreigners. Instead one must look at their overall social programme, their homophobic utterances, and their anti-cultural attitude.
It then becomes clear that their strategy is one of homophobic statements, attacks on culture and on workers' rights, opposing the right to strike, opposing the self-determination of workers.
We should also avoid the situation of women being banished from the world of work due to the establishment of a 'wage' for mothers, as we have seen recently.
The only possible response is a hardline attitude.
We have only succeeded in combating the Front National effectively in France because we never had any government alliance.
In Europe, we must make massive investments in education, prevention and combating job insecurity, and we must reaffirm the fact that non-European residents have the same rights as European residents.
I shall conclude by thanking Commissioner Diamantopoulou for making the comparison between terrorism and racism, because I consider that it is an attack on the physical dignity of persons, and as such is intolerable.
The Europe of tolerance and opposition to hatred versus the Europe of violence and indifference: this is what is at stake at the conference.
Mr President, this is a valuable report, but it remains to be seen whether it will actually be followed up by those responsible. It is valuable, although there are some omissions: for example, there is no mention of one form of institutional racism, the denial of the right of self-determination of peoples.
Sadly, the European Union has much to learn in this area: it has conferred the status of candidate country on Turkey, which denies this right, in the same way, moreover, that China denies this right to Tibet, and yet the whole world is in favour of improving relations with China for economic reasons.
In relation to this report, I would like to focus particularly on Amendment No 6 - which I hope will be rejected - which cites the political movement to which I belong as a racist party.
Now, there are very strict laws against racism in Italy.
The judiciary is by no means lenient towards my political movement: our secretary has been convicted on several occasions and prosecuted a number of times, but never for racism. The party leaders, and I myself, are under investigation on grounds of separatism, which is punishable by imprisonment, but no member of my movement has been either convicted or brought to trial for racism or acts of violence.
I therefore do not understand why we are being accused of racism.
I belong to the Lega Nord, not to Mr Haider' s movement, and I therefore fail to understand why the two should be confused.
I reiterate: in Italy, my movement is not currently arraigned on charges of racism and has never been convicted of racism in the past, and I therefore fiercely reject this accusation.
The statements of those jokers who persist, year in, year out, in asserting to the contrary, are pure fabrication.
Mr President, last Friday, the German Lower House discussed adopting a more hard-line approach in order to fight right-wing extremism at home.
This was an opportune debate at the appropriate level.
The spokesperson of the Greens, and as such a fellow member of the party of Mrs Schroedter, who submitted the oral questions, argued on that occasion that there are no easy solutions for combating right-wing extremism.
However, to him, the many initiatives against right-wing extremism from the citizens in the new federal states offer a ray of hope.
This Green representative sounds all in all less gloomy and less alarming than his colleague within our own EP ranks.
In saying that, I have no intention of playing down the genuine concerns of Mrs Schroedter with regard to society' s current aversion to foreigners, if not downright xenophobia in the east of Germany.
Considerably more East Germans than West Germans seem to think that too many foreigners are residing within their own territory and even feel exploited by this group.
A remarkable state of affairs, given the sobering fact that hardly any foreigners live in East Germany.
They make up between 1 and 2.5% of the population over there, according to a recent German press source.
It seems logical that this paradox is very much playing on the minds of the Germans.
It is exactly this crucial factor at home that I miss in Mrs Schroedter' s written introduction to her questions.
By way of background to racist violence in the new federal states, she quotes the "dramatically high percentage" of racist attitudes among the population, including the fact that racism is being elevated to "a kind of youth culture" .
This reasoning immediately brings to mind an obvious follow-up question: why do racism and right-wing extremism thrive within the territory of the former German Socialist state of workers and farmers, the GDR, of all places? Our fellow MEP, André Brie provides a clear and plausible answer to this.
The writer of the Frankfurter Allgemeine' s leader quoted him approvingly yesterday as saying: 'One of a number of causes of right-wing violence is definitely to be found in the GDR.'
The German commentator, Lutz Rathenov, is bringing this viewpoint even more into focus: 'The GDR used to treat foreigners in a way which right-wing extremists would dream about these days.'
This attitude is, to this day, leaving its mark in the east of the united Germany.
According to Rathenov, right-wing extremism cannot be eradicated as a localised and clearly identifiable evil. Instead, a social norm has emerged for which the Federal Republic is ill prepared and for which it is partly to blame.
Which West German negotiating partners of the GDR were concerned about the fate of the Vietnamese immigrant workers in East Germany at the time? In the words of Rathenov, did it bother him as a Christian Socialist negotiator, that, in the event of their becoming pregnant, these Vietnamese women were forced to have abortions?
Overcoming the GDR complex within the Federal Republic, namely the feeling many East Germans have of being second-class citizens, will take time.
As an antidote to East German right-radicals, neo-nazis and skinheads, insider Lutz Rathenov is making an interesting proposal: 'There are places where young people should be sent abroad en masse for a couple of years.'
On a voluntary basis, I think Europe would be prepared to finance this proposal.
Mr President, unfortunately, a number of delegates here in this House are using this extremely important debate about racism to place themselves on an imaginary list of good and evil.
Whilst those of a left-wing persuasion define their position at a comfortable distance from Stalinism, Communism and left-wing extremism as if it were the most natural thing in the world, they are evidently incapable of recognising the difference between the right, right-wing extremism and fascism.
However, those who, as a matter of course, only ever lay responsibility for crimes against humanity at the door of their political opponents, are committing the fatal error of simply using those very crimes to absolve themselves of all blame.
No one in this House becomes an anti-fascist by denouncing their political opponents as fascists.
One cannot escape one' s own history and one' s own responsibility that easily.
Finally, a word to Mr Ford, who unleashed the customary tirade of hatred against Austria in his proposed amendment.
Perhaps next time he could get his political facts straight, because that is not how the European Council responded.
Austria still belongs to the European Council, and no one spoke to us on that occasion.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what is this debate actually about? Quite simply, it is about the difficult task of finding a position which the European Union, i.e. the European Parliament, can agree on as regards a strategy for dealing with racism, and then representing this position at the world conference.
The Commissioner has made constructive proposals on a sensitive issue, as has the author of the motion for a resolution, Mrs Ludford, and we will support them in this.
But this debate should never be misused for other purposes.
I am sorry to say that certain delegates have repeatedly done exactly that; for example there is one who only makes reference to one region in the fight against racism, thereby giving an exaggerated impression of the problems which exist on a European and worldwide scale.
Mr Ford defamed my country, Austria, in his statement.
He told me he had not read the Wise Men' s report, but that did not stop him from writing in his statement, with reference to the report of the Three Wise Men, that the problems of racism and xenophobia would endure.
Had he read the report, he would have found that that is patently untrue.
There are no problems there of the kind he describes.
On the contrary, the report registers a very positive response to the government, because it is pursuing successful counter-strategies, some of which go beyond the standards set by other EU countries.
I have here motions for resolutions that call, in general terms, for budgetary lines to be increased, without saying to what end, and without specifying which activities are to be the beneficiaries of this funding.
Some of the demands are excessive, such as those calling for the level of immigration to be increased, and for illegal entrants to the Union to be placed on an equal legal footing.
These are all things that work people into a state of panic, given the sensitivity of the issue.
What we really need is a plan for tackling the root causes, immigration policy strategies that take account of integration capacity, and of an individual Member State' s absorption capacity, also strategies leading to a common asylum policy which help refugees whilst tackling abuse, and measures promoting integration.
We ought not to be so superficial and submissive in our dealings with this issue. The matter is far too serious for that.
As I see it, there is a great deal to be done, and those who want to work constructively on this issue are invited to take the proposals put forward by Commissioner Diamantopoulou and Mrs Ludford as their true example, and to disregard, or give a wide berth to unsuitable debates in plenary session, with a view to making progress in this area.
Mr President, as a Radical and a European Federalist, an anti-fascist and an anti-communist, I put to you this question: which is worse in terms of racism: the programmes of extremist right-wing parties or the practical policies of European governments, which are prohibitionist and repressive on matters of immigration, drugs, new forms of employment and everything else? Which is worse?
Parliament has no trouble appeasing its conscience on this matter, making solemn declarations and financing useless initiatives and monitoring centres.
But racism should be fought by basing our societies on rights and freedoms, whereas Europe is growing into an anti-democratic, prohibitionist society which is repressive in all areas, with the result that it has become fearful to the point that it even wants to ban opinions and parties.
This is the road to ruin.
In the United States of America, where, in 2050, whites will be in a minority, there is an American Nazi party and there is a candidate for the American presidential elections from the Nazi party, but no one thinks of banning it, no one is afraid, because the weapons of democracy and freedom are being used to combat racism.
This is how racism must be fought, and this is how we must fight it in Europe.
Mr President, Mr Schulz called me a racist.
Thank you, Mr President, for giving me the opportunity to respond.
He described himself as a representative of a country notorious for its perpetrators of fascism.
I would never use such an expression, even though many members of my family were murdered during the Holocaust.
I would ask Mr Schulz, as a representative of the country notorious for its perpetrators of fascism - his own words - to cite just one, just one, racist comment that I have made in the course of my career in politics.
If he is unable to come up with one, then would he please apologise, not for criticising, but for vilifying my character.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think we can safely say, from what we have heard this morning, that extremism and racism are two of the most important issues we have to deal with at present.
The past few months in particular have seen a whole spate of racially motivated criminal acts in Germany.
The events that took place in Dessau, Munich, Ludwigshafen, Düsseldorf are of such concern to us primarily because violent acts were committed against defenceless people with great indifference and coldbloodedness.
The fact that the crimes were committed in all these different places, however, shows that racism and right-wing extremism are not problems specific to East Germany, but are to be found throughout Germany, indeed throughout Europe.
It does not help matters though, Mrs Schroedter and also Mr Schulz, to want to concentrate on tackling this problem in the new German Länder, singling these regions out for attention.
It is true that the propaganda peddled by these groups, which have long been active in the old Länder, has, I regret to say, fallen on fertile ground in the new Länder in recent years, and that we undoubtedly need to take appropriate action.
But hysteria makes for a poor counsellor.
What we need is to show a united front in the fight against violence, but also to have faith and confidence in the ability of state and society to rid us of this monster.
It is in no one' s interests to assert that over 10% of people in the new Bundesländer are of a racist disposition, or to disparage them as such.
16 million citizens cannot, and will not, allow themselves to be labelled as such all because of the activities of an extremist minority.
Our citizens have done nothing to deserve this, and nor, more to the point, have our young people, the vast majority of whom are tolerant and open-minded.
I would expressly like to draw attention to the various actions undertaken by the inhabitants of the new Bundesländer over the past few weeks and months, which have demonstrated repeatedly that they feel a great deal of solidarity with the victims of these crimes, and that we will not tolerate xenophobic machinations and acts of violence in our country.
Mr President, there has been some interest in my commitment to Austria.
I have to say to Mr Pirker that I have been interested in what has been happening in Austria for some time.
I was there in 1986 protesting about Mr Haider' s discrimination against the Slovene speaking minority in Corinthia.
While I accept, of course, that individual members of the Freedom Party may well be impeccable and upstanding individuals, there is a phrase that those that lie down with dogs get fleas.
So it may be unfortunate that some people who have chosen particular political parties get labelled in that way but it is their own ultimate responsibility.
Can I congratulate Baroness Ludford on her report.
She has put a great deal of work into it.
I have to say, however, and it is not her fault, that there are sins of omission as far as I am concerned.
Commissioner Diamantopoulou made the point very clearly that there are two monsters facing us here in Europe, terrorism and racism.
We have to recognise that those monsters exist and I am not sure that we do in this particular resolution.
There is still a view that there is not really any racism in Europe.
If there is any racism, it is fairly small and, if it does exist, it is the fault of the victims.
I reject that.
We have had in East Germany the assassination of a Mozambique man, attacks on migrant workers in Spain, an attack on a Jewish professor in Italy, and the continued rise of racism within football that was presented to us yesterday by those people who are campaigning around the " Show racism the red card" slogan.
We have had the recent condemnation of a terrorist bomber in the United Kingdom, David Copeland, who killed gay people and non-gay people in a gay bar and, of course, we have had the effective sacking of Professor Pelinka from the Observatory by the Austrian Government.
If Europe wishes to play a central role in the World Conference Against Racism it has to start seeing itself as others see it rather than as we would like to be.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I come from Leipzig, from East Germany that is.
I have seen often enough how right-wing extremists have harassed - or attempted to harass - foreigners, or even those who hold different beliefs.
But I have also seen the other side, and how courageous men and women have defended themselves.
It is wrong to picture East Germany as being predominantly right-wing extremist in its leanings.
The vast majority of people are open-minded and tolerant, and an ever-increasing number of them are prepared to nail their colours to the mast.
I believe it is also wrong to maintain that the young people are right-wing extremists.
The issue is more complex than that, for although, Mrs Schroedter, it may be precisely these young people that grab the headlines, they do live with their parents and exist within a social sphere.
In other words, if we want to solve this problem then we must do more to educate them politically and to communicate values to them, and more still to encourage them to stand up for their beliefs.
Over the past few weeks, the German Government has made an additional DM 70 million available for just such projects.
I feel that is a very important sign.
Likewise, for me personally, the fact that consideration is being given to banning the NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany) sends out a very important social signal.
We Germans will not submit to being terrorised by a minority.
It is our democracy that is being put to the test here.
Speaking as a European, I beseech you not to write East Germany off as a region.
I myself, together with many other people throughout Germany, condemn right-wing extremism and xenophobia, and we need the support of the rest of Europe in our fight against it.
Mr President, allow me to start, in this highly topical debate, by supporting what Mr Sylla said yesterday before the order of business, i.e. that we must begin by combating manifestations of racism here in this House and that we must stamp out the racist language to which the far right wing of Parliament frequently resorts.
However, whether some of us like it or not, Europe is already a multiracial and multicultural continent and no racist is going to stop people intermingling and intermarrying.
Unfortunately, the ideologies to which millions of human lives were sacrificed are again taking centre stage.
In fact, today, they are even worse, because apart from the basic racist ideology, they include religion and culture and propagandise racial, linguistic and religious purity together with genuine cultural identity.
The sad thing is that the proponents of racial violence are young people up to the age of 20, most of whom have not completed their education or who do not have a profession.
The package of measures which Commissioner Diamantopoulou has already presented is, in my view, an integrated proposal and may provide a convincing response to the racism and xenophobia which we are witnessing today in the European Union.
That the state and political leaders have a responsibility goes without saying.
However, the media still have an important role to play by promoting the variety and richness of contemporary multiracial and multicultural society and, instead of dramatising and distinguishing crime by immigrants from crime in general, could present the positive contribution made by immigrants.
We also need to take immediate action to include the consequences of and the fight against racism in school curricula and in teacher training courses.
We also need to mobilise political circles in the way suggested by the Commissioner and other honourable Members.
Mr President, I asked to speak out of turn because I feel that I have to set the record straight.
Europe is based on principles of freedom, justice and respect for human rights and it is not entitled to discounts either internally or with its negotiating partners, still less for commercial or economic reasons.
I should therefore like to make it clear that, as far as Turkey' s candidature is concerned, the criteria have been laid down quite clearly.
Negotiations on Turkey' s candidature will only commence once we feel that it meets the Copenhagen criteria.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Diamantopoulou.
I have received one motion for a resolution pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Organised crime
The next item is the oral question (B5­0476/2000) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, to the Council, on a Council action plan to prevent and combat organised crime.
Mr President, honourable Members, this debate is about fighting crime - organised crime to be precise - which is now responsible for at least one in four of all crimes, and which makes huge profits from drug crimes, trafficking in human beings, insurance and credit card fraud, and from other activities.
These ill-gotten gains are laundered and go into circulation in the legal economy.
In so doing, they undermine our national economies, and in view of corruption, also erode our social systems and states.
We therefore need to muster all our resources and bring all our strategies into play, so that we are appropriately equipped in our fight against organised crime.
So we need these measures, and this proposed plan of action has special significance, because it sends out a signal to the people of Europe that Europe is not just an economic and currency union, but in the interests of its people and the Member States, it must also be built up into a union of security.
An action plan of this kind will undoubtedly help to achieve this objective.
But we must take the necessary European rules of the game into account when putting plans of this kind into practice.
That is what happened with this action plan, and so I submitted a parliamentary question back in the spring, at the time of the Portuguese Presidency, which has applied itself very diligently to this issue, but has failed to play by the rules.
Indeed the Presidency promised that Parliament would deal with the action plan, the opinion would be awaited and then incorporated into the action plan, and only then would the action plan be put into practice.
The erstwhile Portuguese Presidency failed to keep its promise and this led to the question being asked that we are dealing with today.
The criticism is justified, for more reason than one.
Firstly, because the failure to involve Parliament has taken us a step backwards, not just to the days before the Treaty of Amsterdam, but long before the Treaty of Maastricht, because according to Chapter 6, Parliament must be involved in every case.
But even the Treaty of Amsterdam demands openness and transparency and so, as a body representing the interests of the citizens, Parliament should have played a full part in the proceedings, as per the undertaking it received here from the Presidency at the beginning.
Another broken promise.
The question I would like to ask the French Presidency is how it intends to handle this, i.e. whether it will involve Parliament in the framing of long-term strategies, as provided for by the Treaty, await our opinion and then develop strategies that are in keeping with Parliament' s proposals.
However, the action plan content has also been subject to criticism, which has to do with the fact that recommendations have been drafted and numbered from 1 to 5 in order of priority.
Yet these lists of priorities have not been drawn up solely on the basis of urgency and absolute necessity, but very often, I regret to say, on the basis of feasibility, and I will give you an example.
The freezing, or confiscation, of the ill-gotten gains of organised crime was only given a priority rating of 3, even though we all know that money is the driving force behind organised crime, and so the freezing, or confiscation, of these assets should have been given a priority rating of 1.
There are other examples I could mention.
I therefore call upon the French Council Presidency to rethink this list of priorities and to reorganise it in terms of real priorities, rather than ranking the objectives according to how difficult they will be to accomplish.
We also feel that we need to develop preventive measures, and we have submitted concrete proposals to this end.
They range from reviewing legislation in terms of the impact it has on preventing organised crime, to preventive measures aimed at deploying technical instruments too, with a view to nipping organised crime in the bud.
For example, these include higher security standards for credit cards or electronic immobilisers for cars.
So what we are talking about is a whole host of concrete proposals, and as a Parliament we are aiming firstly, to be fully involved in the process, and, secondly, for our proposals to be incorporated into the action plans, i.e. the long-term strategies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council of course shares the view that it is important to ensure a wide exchange of views and information and maintain consultation between the institutions of the European Union.
The Presidency has also committed itself to involving Parliament to a greater extent in the work undertaken in the field of justice and home affairs, in particular by means of regular participation in the meetings of your parliamentary Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
The Council is bound, nonetheless, to comply with the terms of the Treaty.
The legal framework does not, in fact, allow it to consult Parliament on strategy papers currently being studied within the offices of the Council.
On the other hand, as you know, on 21 December 1999, the Council sent Parliament the strategy document on organised crime drawn up under the Finnish Presidency, expressly specifying that it wished to keep Parliament informed right from the start of discussions on this document.
What is more, at the meetings of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the Portuguese Presidency informed Parliament of the work being carried out and of the reasons why the Council deemed it urgent to continue with the procedure for the adoption of the strategy document.
In particular, the Presidency explained that the previous action programme, for 1997, had already expired and that the European Council had requested that it be followed up.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Council is not unaware that, in response to the strategy document, Parliament is currently working on a new document on organised crime.
We are pleased to see the work carried out by Parliament.
As in the case, moreover, of Parliament' s response to the 1997 action programme on organised crime, the Council fully intends to study your reports carefully during the implementation of its own strategy and to take the views expressed by Parliament into account.
In this respect, the Council suggests that Parliament give its opinion on the level of priority to be given to the various recommendations made in its document.
In accordance with the commitments made during the Portuguese Presidency, the Council will keep Parliament informed on a regular basis of the debates currently taking place in the field of justice and home affairs.
It was indeed the Portuguese Presidency which demonstrated a clear intention, through its initiatives, to pay special attention within the European Union to the prevention of organised crime.
In this respect, the Council confirms that it will strictly apply the Treaty when consulting the European Parliament on any action resulting from an initiative of the Member States or the Commission.
Mr President, I should like to thank the French Presidency for its clear and unequivocal words and - I think I speak on behalf of the whole Parliament here - I welcome its concern on the matter, something that the Presidency-in-Office once again demonstrated today during the debate on terrorism.
Mr President, there is in fact one thing that the people of Europe are unable to comprehend, and that is why criminals in Europe enjoy all the advantages of the freedom of movement, whereas those who legitimately fight crime are hindered by the issue of borders.
This issue is also of concern to Parliament, as the representative of our citizens, which is why, ever since the start of this debate, Parliament has been acutely aware of the need to make progress in this area.
Mr President, the Treaty of Amsterdam marked the beginning of the so-called 'communitisation' of many policies, but not those relating to criminal matters in both procedural and substantive terms.
The reasons behind this are not always immediately obvious to the people of Europe: they are rooted in our legal cultures and in the differences between our legal cultures.
However, Mr President, over and above these deep-rooted differences lie the most deeply-rooted common principles which ultimately boil down to something as simple as the need for trust between Member States.
The construction of Europe is based on the mutual trust that exists between Member States and the mutual recognition of similar levels of protection regarding fundamental rights, legislation and basic principles.
This is why - and here I recall the ever enlightening and splendid words of Commissioner Vitorino who called for common definitions to be established in the field of organised crime and similar rules to be laid down regarding the sentences imposed and the time served - this is an issue that must be studied in the long term, as the idea of "vérité en deçà des Pyrénées, erreur au delà" [all that is truth this side of the Pyrenees, all that is falsehood beyond], cannot hold true.
We cannot afford such luxuries in this area.
In the meantime, Mr President, we are making progress in the area of trust and mutual recognition and the Council has submitted a proposal that is supported by the various Member States.
As we are in the process of reaching this last stage of development, we must firmly ensure that an order or resolution pronounced by a judge in a Member State is automatically recognised and implemented by another Member State.
In other words, an arrest warrant for a terrorist should take effect immediately without the need to go through the highly complex extradition process - which is still complicated between European States - so that the terrorist or criminal can be taken immediately to the State that wants them and where they have committed their crimes.
This, Mr President, is what we urge you to do and what we hope will soon become a reality.
Mr President, I should like to thank the French Presidency for its very clear statement.
Our priority in criminal matters is combating crime, particularly money laundering.
France' s request for a joint Council of Ministers for Justice, Home Affairs, Economic Affairs and Finance devoted to combating money laundering, was therefore extremely interesting.
Let me also draw your attention, at this point, to the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters to combat organised crime, tabled by the French Presidency in order to remove the obstructions affecting the work of judges.
Studies indeed show that impressive amounts of criminal proceeds are amassed by organised crime and reinvested in the world economy.
In this way, criminal organisations infiltrate the economic fabric of states and can, if they so wish, destabilise our economies by taking control of commercial companies.
Legal and police cooperation is absolutely vital in the fight against organised crime, particularly the trafficking of human beings, the sexual exploitation of children, and money laundering.
The Member States must define common penalties and adopt a consistent overall policy.
We cannot, however, discuss penalties without discussing crime prevention, and clearly we must implement programmes for educational and information purposes, directed, in particular, at the citizens of our own States but also at the populations of third countries.
Criminal organisations can find themselves in a position of strength thanks to the financial operations they carry out in order to launder criminal proceeds. The fight against organised crime is an important undertaking, where we must not fail.
The victims expect a great deal of us and this is a challenge we must accept.
The Europe we want to build is a Europe of rights.
One of these rights is the right to security for all.
Mr President, the Liberal Group believes - with all due respect to yourself, Minister - that the Council of Ministers is looking foolish once again.
Perhaps not according to the letter of the Treaty but certainly according to its spirit, Parliament must be involved in any proposed policy measure.
This is simply the spirit of the Treaty of Amsterdam and our rapporteur, Mr Pirker, was absolutely right to point this out.
I can perhaps interpret the Minister' s response as a promise that this kind of procedure, whereby the Council of Ministers decides upon a policy document without involving this Parliament beforehand, will not occur in future.
I understand why it is happening.
The presidency' s term is only six months and every presidency is keen to flex its political muscles.
This is how it goes.
However, this Parliament cannot accept this as an excuse for being kept in the dark.
I would now like to turn to European crime prevention.
The Liberal Group believes that, in addition to all kinds of practical measures which are included in the document, it is, in particular, high time that criminal prosecution was improved by means of European cooperation.
This does not appear to be happening.
I would like to take this opportunity to argue once again in favour of setting up a European public prosecution office.
Although this is required as a matter of urgency, it has not been provided for in this plan, nor has it been mentioned at Tampere or on the scoreboard.
This is a missed opportunity. In fact, the scoreboard, in the field of crime prevention, refers far too often to documents which Commissioner Vitorino is to issue, studies which are being carried out, guidance documents and such like.
Documents are not what we need to fight crime.
Instead we need to tackle crime head-on.
Mr President, it will take time to harmonise the penal systems.
Therefore, all the Member States must immediately harmonise the concept of international organised crime and introduce penalties against it.
Organised crime is more than terrorism, trafficking of dangerous drugs, abduction, arms trafficking, money laundering etc: now, more than ever, it includes the trafficking of human beings, who are sold and exploited like slaves, and the sexual exploitation of children.
In our quest to develop legislation which is common to all the Member States, and lays down penalties for international organised crime, there is a particularly urgent need to find a way of regulating the Internet, in order to prevent an information tool, created to bring men and cultures closer together, becoming increasingly used by organised crime as a means of communication and expansion.
In the face of the thousands of Internet sites with turnovers of millions of euros, which sell children and exploit them sexually, Parliament, the Commission and Council must think carefully.
For genuine freedom to exist, it must be regulated, for otherwise it becomes an abuse of power, and, in this sense, the organised crime of the underworld is much more powerful than governments or our speeches, which flow forth in abundance in defence of the weaker members of society but which have hitherto proved completely incapable of containing evil.
This is why we reiterate the need for the Member States to acknowledge the reality of international organised crime and to harmonise their penal codes in this specific field immediately.
This matter must also be included on the Nice agenda, for it is a subject which closely affects the citizen and is also urgent, both because the situation in the Member States has reached dramatic proportions - witness even this morning' s events and the extent of the bloodshed on European territory in recent weeks - and because, with enlargement on the horizon, there is an urgent need for a solution to be found to the problem of organised crime.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank Mr Pirker for this excellent initiative and to express my support for the positions that he has already adopted.
I should also like to congratulate the French Presidency on their statement to us.
I think that most of us recognise the need for greater coordination and closer cooperation between Member States on the issue of fighting the world of crime.
This action is a common responsibility, given its international dimension, as such criminal organisations generally operate across national borders because of the high degree of mobility they have and even take advantage of restrictions on jurisdiction, loopholes in the law, and of the differences between national administrative and criminal justice systems, exploiting the anomalies of the various systems.
Organised crime in the European Union has seen significant developments over the last decade, requiring action essentially in the areas of computer crime, crime involving trafficking in human beings, drugs and arms, terrorism, child pornography and money-laundering as well as corruption and fraud.
It is crucial for the European Union to adopt a harmonised definition of organised crime that covers all of these areas.
The fight against this type of crime therefore requires urgent action.
This is a fight which must engage us all and which must be able, specifically, to count on the participation of the European Parliament in defining the strategies to adopt and the priorities to set.
I would ask the honourable Members to sit down, because the debate has not yet finished; alternatively, if you wish to talk, please go outside, as it is actually quite difficult to hear what the speakers are saying.
The respect we owe them requires certain minimum conditions to be met so that they can speak and be heard.
Mr President, it is a matter of deep concern that, yet again, the European Parliament has not been consulted on the Council' s intended action plans for the prevention of and fight against organised crime.
The European citizens, who, every day, live through the drama of all forms of petty and serious crime - from international drug trafficking to the sexual exploitation of children, from the trafficking and exploitation of human beings to illegal immigration - who live in towns which are unsafe or even dangerous, would like to be able to express their opinions and to lay claim, democratically, through their representatives at the European Parliament, to their rights and priorities of security and the fight against crime.
Most importantly, Parliament should be able to give a voice to the defenceless, and I am referring to the many children who are victims of violence or sexual abuse and the many adolescents who are ensnared by drugs.
Clearly, the fight against the sexual exploitation of children and that against drugs - to quote but two examples - are genuinely extremely difficult tasks, but they are priority issues, and it is certainly not acceptable, as the Council advocates, for priority to be dictated by feasibility rather than urgency,
I have received one motion for a resolution pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
Mr President, I would ask you to turn your attention briefly to a letter which we received from Mr Balfe, on behalf of the College of Quaestors, in which, referring to the car-free day tomorrow in Brussels, he has requested the Brussels authorities make an exception for the area around the European Parliament. He would like to ensure that a limited number of cars are able to drive from here to Zaventem and to the railway stations, for example.
It is extremely easy to travel by rail from here to Zaventem, which is what we did last time with the Swedish delegation, or to travel to the station.
No problem at all.
I would ask you to raise this matter and find out whether others are agreed on this proposal.
We, for our part, certainly are not.
I am sure the Quaestors have noted the point you have made.
Vote
Mr President, first of all I should like to say that I am astounded at the vote on Amendment No 16 because, as far as I was aware, it had been withdrawn, but, more especially, I should like to request that my report be referred back to committee pursuant to Rule 69(2).
Indeed, at the end of last night' s debate, the executive committee' s position seemed rather confused on many very specific points of our amendments.
Yet these are important amendments.
We are therefore anxious to see the committee improve its proposal taking more amendments into account, yet we do not, however, wish to hold up proceedings, as we would like to see a vote during the next part-session in Strasbourg.
I am therefore requesting, Mr President, that my request for referral to committee be put to the vote.
Mr President, I would like to support the rapporteur' s motion.
We have given our utmost attention to this report in committee and feel that our proposed amendments substantially improve this regulation.
So far, the Commission has not seen fit to adopt these improvements.
I hope we will be able to reach an accommodation in the compromise negotiations, which we will then vote on in October, because no group wants a blockade.
We want this regulation but we want it with our improvements.
It is the old story: Article 37 provides the basis, we have no power of codecision and so we make sure that we influence the proceedings.
I hope the honourable Members will recognise this and give us their backing.
Mr President, on a point of order.
During the debate late last night there were at least ten speakers who all raised points very critical of the Commission.
I felt very sorry for Commissioner Nielson who had to respond as duty Commissioner and who read out about half a page prepared by Commissioner Liikanen.
Clearly this is very complex subject and Mr Nielson did not appear to really know what the Commission position was.
That is why we are now in this situation of sending this back to committee.
This a very unsatisfactory way of doing business.
It was like a dialogue of the deaf last night.
It is not a satisfactory way of proceeding for Members to be here late at night, making very critical points and receiving a non-response of this nature.
(Parliament approved the request)
Report (A5-0253/2000) by Mrs Wallis on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on a proposal for a Council regulation (EC) on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (COM(1999) 348 - C5-0169/1999 - 1999/0154(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0220/2000) by Mr Glase on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Commission Communication on undeclared work (COM(1998) 219 - C4-0566/1998 - 1998/2082(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0217/2000) by Mr J. Evans on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the competition rules relating to horizontal cooperation agreements (C5-0304/2000 - 2000/2154(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0227/2000) by Mrs Ferrer on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation on communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on complementarity between Community and Member State policies on development cooperation (COM(1999) 218 - C5-0179/1999 - 1999/2156(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0766/2000) by Baroness Ludford on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the European Union' s position at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism
On Amendment No 12
Mr President, I propose that the words 'which have not done so' should be inserted after the words 'the Member States' , in that Italy, for example, already has stringent legislation against racism in place, and I am sure that absolutely nobody in my country would consider that it needs to be changed.
I do not feel that the request should be addressed to all the States in general: it should be addressed to those whose legislation falls short.
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment) On Amendment No 15
Mr President, to continue along the line of reasoning followed during the work on this draft resolution in committee, I would like to table an oral amendment. It is for Parliament to decide: either we insert the words 'and left-wing' between the words 'right-wing' and 'extremism' , or we remove the word 'right-wing' altogether, and simply refer to 'extremism' .
(More than twelve Members objected to the oral amendment; the President therefore declared it inadmissible)
Mr President, I requested the floor before just to say that Mrs Ludford has done a very good job as rapporteur for this report, which has been discussed in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs in more than one meeting.
I would ask, nevertheless, that we please stick to what has already been discussed and to the list of votes.
These are all very interesting political games but the procedure is that we hold the debate and vote afterwards.
We do not hold a debate during the vote.
You are right to call these political games.
If the people objecting now really cared about racism, they would have come to the committee meetings and put down amendments.
On Amendment No 16
Mr President, I would like to make the same proposal for Amendment No 16 as for Amendment No 15: to mention both sides of extremism or not to mention either.
Moreover, as I would not class myself as one of those who do not participate in committee work, I would like to remind the House that it was we who tabled the amendments and point out that we maintained a very balanced line in committee.
You could have made that oral amendment but we have already voted on that amendment.
I have asked for the floor on a point of order, Mr President, because I have been trying to request to be allowed to speak for half an hour now and, as usual, you only look at one side of Parliament and not the other at the expense of democracy.
My point of order is this: you said that we have voted, but what was written down was an oral amendment tabled by Mr Fiori.
If you or your officials do not follow the correct order you are an extremist - right-wing or left-wing, it does not matter - in any case nothing but an extremist!
And there is no democracy here!
You are all buffoons!
Mr President, this is a plea for everyone to calm down a little on the subject of this debate on racism.
I know it is a subject that arouses great passion, but we are not talking about extremism here. This is a debate about racism.
Nowadays, the perpetuators of racist crimes and actions belong to the extreme right wing.
It would be another matter if the debate were about extremism.
So, for five minutes, let us calm down.
We know what we are here to discuss, so let us keep our tempers and let us get on with the debate.
(Loud applause)
Mr President, as representative of the Pensioners' Party in the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, I voted for this report.
It is a report which is intended to assist developing countries in preserving the environment.
This is a fine aim which also concerns the less well-off and elderly people who live in developing countries.
The entire world has been focusing on consideration for the elderly in the past few days, with the Jubilee of the Elderly celebrated by Pope John Paul II, which greatly encouraged the little Pensioners' Party as it was an example of genuine interest and commitment shown towards the elderly throughout the whole world, including, in particular, those in developing countries.
While I wholeheartedly support Mr Wijkman' s report, particularly the budget allocation obtained through conciliation, I am concerned to see, firstly, that the significance of sustainable development has not been understood, and also that the environment need not necessarily be taken into account in all development projects for underprivileged countries.
For how is it possible to plan development time limits or strategies without seeing them in the context of environmental protection? How can we even dissociate development from the environment?
Moreover, the conditions valid for the development strategies of Third World countries should also apply to the growth strategies of developed countries. The advocates of untrammelled liberalism will surely not fail to see these environmental safeguards as further restrictions upon, or obstacles to, the difficult economic emergence of these underprivileged countries.
What, though, would be the point of an economic take-off which would destroy the environment of a country, sacrificing its ecological potential? The cure would be worse than the disease.
The deceptive salve of a purely economic recovery would soon wear off, overtaken by the gangrene of spasms in the environmental arena, and thus the health arena, and ultimately, the social arena.
After sacrificing their ecological potential in attempts to achieve an economic take-off, once the first flush of the positive benefits had faded, such countries would find themselves even poorer than before, with even more limited development prospects.
The contradiction in terms, however, is patently obvious. Every day we can see examples illustrating the lesson that purely economic development could not possibly be sustainable.
It would be a flash in the pan, destined to burn itself out.
The very concept of development implies an extended period of time, the long term, and this concept of time implies the concept of the natural environment, the preservation of the human environment.
If, today, it is respected by this kind of civilisation and way of thinking, then, tomorrow, it will safeguard that of future generations.
Fernández Martín report (A5-0216/2000)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Fernández Martín' s report because it is always a good thing when the European Union intervenes to assist the less-well off peoples of developing countries, although I would be happier if there were to be changes in European Union policy regarding aid in certain sectors to developing countries.
For example, a pensioner friend of mine, a joiner by trade, asked me why, "instead of giving all this money to those countries to preserve their tropical forests" , we did not "make people buy fewer bedrooms and less furniture made from wood the production of which entails cutting down tropical forests?"
I agree with him. In this way we might achieve more and spend less.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on whose behalf I am speaking, completely supports the report by Mr Fernández Martín on the conservation and sustainable management of tropical forests and other forests in developing countries.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is pleased to see the increase in the budget allocated to protecting tropical forests.
In view of the alarming, relentless way they are being devastated, this sudden interest on the part of the European Union looks like a good start, but it is still quite a modest one considering the actual restoration requirements.
Until now, indeed, the only attention paid to tropical forests has been a mere selfish reflex on the part of Westerners anxious to safeguard the forests that are the lungs of our planet, in a last ditch attempt of our industrialised societies to bind the wounds, without considering the indigenous peoples living in and off these forest areas, who are condemned to be sacrificed to the profits of the industrial groups exploiting their resources.
We have the appalling example of the gold mines in French Guiana, which are laying waste to vast swathes of forest, causing the death of the flora, fauna and the indigenous peoples, which are all suffering from the mercury contaminating their soil, their sap or their bloodstream. This is a phenomenon that is continuing on a daily basis.
The argument of concentrating entirely on economics as a last, desperate springboard for the development of Third World countries, which are unable to afford the luxury of environmental safeguards, is mere pettifoggery.
There is no sustainable development except in the context of the responsible use of the environment.
Similarly, we must point out the fallacy of the assertion of commercial interests that their forestry clearance activities contribute to combating the greenhouse effect.
While claiming the same noble motive of environmental conservation, all that such theories are seeking to safeguard are the interests of a few major industrial groups.
In the Hague, the European Union must refuse to be drawn into this trap, which would make it possible for tropical forests to be treated like coal mines and shamelessly exploited and for States to be released from their obligations in terms of combating the greenhouse effect.
Skinner report (A5-0222/2000)
Mr President, as representative of the Pensioners' Party, I was very happy to vote for the Skinner report, which lays down safety measures to prevent occupational accidents.
My friend and fellow party member, Mr Bushill-Matthews, called for the report to be rejected.
In response, I would say to him, in his absence, that if the Member States had managed to curtail fatal and serious injuries then I would have agreed with him.
However, the number of fatal occupational accidents has increased in recent years and an ever increasing number of people are being widowed or orphaned due to occupational accidents, particularly in the construction industry, where this directive is intended to reduce the number of accidents.
I therefore feel that it is right and proper for the European Union to intervene in cases where the Member States are not managing to achieve sufficient success in important areas such as the reduction of occupational accidents.
UK Conservatives voted today against the Skinner Report, for the reasons given in my speech to the House the day before.
However, despite what I said in that speech, my comments were deliberately misrepresented by subsequent speakers from the UK Labour party, presumably for the same domestic party political reasons which dictate so much of their comments to the House.
Stephen Hughes accused me of regarding Safety issues as a trivial matter: I have never said this nor thought this.
Peter Skinner said that I had apparently complained to the British press that people were being told they needed to be trained to go up ladders, but the only reference to training was alleged to be an amendment from me.
This was also untrue.
My amendment followed on from existing wording about training, and merely added that workers should be made aware of their own responsibilities for safety together with those of their fellow workers.
The Socialists asked for a split vote, which retained the training reference but removed my helpful amendment.
It is important that untruths are rapidly rebutted.
This explanation of vote is necessary in order to correct the record.
We have abstained from voting on Mr Skinner' s report concerning minimum safety and health requirements for workers' use of work equipment at work.
This is an area in which the EU ought not to have so much influence.
We are basically well disposed towards the European Union.
As Swedish Liberals, we view European integration as an opportunity for finding solutions to cross-border problems concerning the environment, trade, movement across borders, human rights and conflict management.
On these issues, the European Union gives Europe' s democracies a chance to show the world that cooperation leads to peace and increased prosperity.
We also believe in the principle of subsidiarity, according to which decisions are to be made as close as possible to the people they affect.
That is why we are actively pushing the issue of a constitution for the European Union, through which the distribution of responsibilities would be clear to everyone.
It must be made perfectly clear to all citizens that the EU should stick to the issues it knows best, namely cross-border issues.
All other questions ought to be dealt with at local, regional or national levels.
We are convinced that it is not at EU level that legislation on, for example, how ladders are to be used in jobs above ground- or floor-level is best enacted.
How scaffolding is to be erected and jobs carried out must be decided in the light of national conditions.
For us, it is important that the EU should instead concentrate on a small number of areas in which it can really be of use.
This is not one such area.
In a common market and a cooperative European enterprise based upon common values that put people' s best interests first, it is only fair and right to require certain minimum standards for workers' safety and health.
As Christian Democrats, we therefore support the principles behind Mr Skinner' s report, but we cannot accept the detailed regulation at EU level which is the result.
Directives ought essentially to be aimed at establishing goals, not at regulating the details and describing the path to the goal.
Requiring at European level that employers should take necessary measures to guarantee workers' safety is only reasonable.
However, it is unreasonable to regulate in detail at EU level how such safety is to be achieved.
It is high time we took the subsidiarity principle seriously and allowed detailed regulations to be adopted at the lowest effective level.
Allow the Member States themselves to decide the best way of framing the rules so that the directive' s required objectives are met.
In certain countries, this can be done by means of national laws. In others, agreements concluded between the two sides of industry can be envisaged.
Against this background, we have chosen, as Swedish Christian Democrats, to vote against the report.
. This proposal typifies the belief of this assembly that, for every ill in society, the solution is a new law and - when that fails - to create another.
The success or otherwise of a law depends on the nature of its enforcement, and the skill/experience of enforcement officers, which cannot be addressed by this directive.
This was recognised in 1972, when the Robens Committee Inquiry on health and safety in the UK, addressing the dynamic of excessive resort to law-making and its effect on enforcement, observed: ". . . the sheer mass of this law, far from advancing the cause of safety and health, may well have reached the point where it becomes counter-productive."
The response by the government of the day was the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974, a highly effective legislative model reducing the law to a few simple principles and duties, spearheaded by a new enforcement agency.
Although these developments were hailed as a major contribution to health and safety at work, the Commission has consistently undermined this Act.
Ever since it began legislating in this area, it has confused the issue, making enforcement progressively more difficult.
It should desist now, and this assembly should reject this directive.
Hernández Mollar report (A5-0225/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Hernández Mollar report because pensioners and elderly people are extremely concerned by what might happen to them with modernisation and the development of electronic and computer science.
The elderly are used to writing by hand - in beautiful script - wherever possible, and they are used to traditional filing systems and are afraid that the storing of all their personal data in public pensions institutions will one day lead to some electronic initiative being taken against them, resulting in the reduced protection of their specific civil rights.
They therefore call upon the European Union to step up their interventions to protect personal data on citizens which the authorities manage to obtain one way or another.
- (DE) Data protection is a typical example of one area where it makes real sense to create central control points.
The existing juxtaposition of countless Community data protection regulations, which are called any number of different things to boot, is neither conducive to effective legal protection, nor does it make for a transparent legal situation.
The continued existence of national control points is beyond doubt.
Legal protection must be provided as close to the citizens as possible.
Not only will the amalgamation of Community control points have a positive effect in terms of transparency and legal clarity, it will also help keep costs down.
At long last, a constructive, truly expedient measure at Community level.
Pirker report (A5-0219/2000)
Mr President, as representative of the Pensioners' Party in the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, I also voted for the Pirker report, particularly because of Amendment No 13 - which has been adopted - tabled by the rapporteur, which provides for permanent erasure from the central database of the names and electronic fingerprints of those who, having arrived in our States without refugee status as yet, are then recognised as persons who should be permitted to enter the country and are accorded refugee status.
This is an example of consideration for the dignity of human beings and their rights, and pensioners, who suffer a great many injustices, know just how important that is.
I shall begin my speech by reminding you that the Eurodac system for comparing the fingerprints of asylum seekers and certain other categories of alien was created in order to facilitate the application of the Dublin Convention, a text which makes it possible to determine the State responsible for examining the asylum applications received in one of the European Union Member States.
This Convention was signed on 15 June 1990.
The report under discussion deals with this Eurodac system and the way it operates. The Council is proposing to alter this in a direction which is not at all acceptable to Parliament.
Specifically, the Council has proposed to take the task of setting up the Eurodac system for the collection and comparison of asylum seekers' fingerprints (the Eurodac database is used to determine the country that was the asylum seeker' s entry point and whose task it therefore is to examine the asylum request) away from the Commission and entrust it to the Council itself in order to regain jurisdiction over it.
The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs of course rejected this Council proposal.
The rapporteur, quite rightly, pointed out that under the EC Treaty, the Council may, in principle, confer implementing powers on the European Commission, but only in "specific cases" can the Council reserve the right to exercise these powers itself and, clearly, this is not applicable in the case in point.
Furthermore, Parliament would lose the right to be informed and would have to rely completely on the goodwill of the Council, and this is, of course, completely inadmissible!
The proposed revised wording for Articles 22 and 23 of the Eurodac regulation, which is what has currently been referred to Parliament, was therefore rejected by the committee which proposed, instead, an amendment endowing the Commission with the unconditional right to exercise implementing powers.
I, of course, unreservedly support this position.
Once again, the European Parliament finds itself dealing with Eurodac, i.e. the system intended to prevent multiple asylum applications.
It will always be essential for a system of this kind to be subject to democratic control.
Accordingly, it is incomprehensible as to why the Council should want to alter the procedure in such a way that will deprive Parliament of all its information rights.
That being the case, we support Mr Pirker' s report.
However, I would point out that this courtesy does not extend to the committee' s proposal to raise the age limit.
The Danish Social Democratic delegation wishes to express its full support for setting up Eurodac for the purpose of comparing the fingerprints of asylum seekers and certain other foreigners.
Eurodac will be an effective tool for ensuring that the Dublin Convention operates effectively.
In compliance with the Danish opt out in the legal sphere, we have abstained from voting in the final vote in view of the chosen legal base for the regulation.
We were very pleased to note that, at the Council meeting (legal affairs and the internal market) on 29 October 1999, the Danish Government stated that it wanted to participate fully in Eurodac cooperation on an intergovernmental basis.
On 19 November 1999, the European Parliament adopted its position on the proposal for a Eurodac regulation.
In the document that was approved by Parliament we called for several amendments, among others, that the minimum age for taking fingerprints be set at 18. We also expressed our concern regarding the extension of Eurodac' s scope to third-country nationals and illegal immigrants, whose situation, in our view, has nothing to do with the application of the Dublin Convention.
The Socialist Group voted accordingly in that particular Parliament vote and hopes that the Commission and the Council will accept our proposals.
The reason why Parliament is once again debating the matter today is because the Council has amended the original proposal regarding the conferring of competences for implementing Eurodac, so that such competences, as provided for in the Treaties, will no longer be conferred on the Commission but retained by the Council.
Mr Pirker, the rapporteur, opted to comment only on the part of the report that had been amended.
The Socialist Group accepted this proposal, which is why we, together with the Liberal Group, abstained from voting today on all of the amendments that do not refer to this new consultation.
We welcome the outcome of the vote regarding the conferring of competences which, as we and the vast majority of Parliament understand it, should be given to the Commission.
We should like to reiterate the fact that we hope that the Council and the Commission will take the two positions adopted by the European Parliament into account when it comes to making the final decision on the Eurodac regulation.
Wallis report (A5-0253/2000)
Modernising the Brussels Convention is legally in order.
However, we believe that, in the future too, it should have the legal status of an intergovernmental tool.
Where consumer rights are concerned, we believe that consumers should be entitled to bring claims in their place of domicile in the event of disputes relating to electronic commerce.
It is absolutely essential to the growth and functioning of e-commerce within the European Union, to strike a reasonable balance between the legitimate concerns of the consumer and those companies that want to use the Internet for e-commerce purposes.
The compromise reached in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market does exactly that in our view.
Providing the consumer with comprehensive information on the company' s terms of business particularly with regard to the legal aspects, safeguards the consumer against cheating, on the one hand, and protects the companies against unreasonable risks, on the other.
E-commerce offers the Member States of the European Union hitherto undreamed-of possibilities in terms of creating jobs for the professionally qualified.
This reform will undoubtedly help to achieve this goal in a way that is not to be underestimated.
Out of respect for the Danish opt out in the legal sphere, the Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have abstained from voting in the final vote on the proposal.
Glase report (A5-0220/2000)
Mr President, 'illegal work' could also be referred to as 'underground work' .
When I told my pensioner friends that this matter was under debate, they urged me to do all in my power to ensure that they are not left underground for too long - they have trouble breathing - and to bring them up into the open air.
'Why underground?' , you may ask, Mr President.
Sadly, this is the situation.
Some pensioners are forced to work 'underground' - i.e. illegally - because, in certain States, it is not possible to receive both a salary and a pension.
If we want to combat illegal working practices we must also permit pensioners - who live on low, paltry, starvation-ration pensions - to receive a regular salary in addition to a pension, or else they will be forced to remain underground, where they could well end up suffocating.
Mr President, the report claims to combat undeclared work, but the sole concern of the rapporteur is the conditions of competition between employers, not the situation of the workers forced to work in the black economy.
The things that force workers increasingly to accept just any old job are this economy of yours, unemployment, and poverty.
These workers are the first victims, the principal victims, of undeclared work, in personal and social terms, as they are grossly exploited, subjected to terrible working conditions and terrible wage conditions, and deprived of any legal sickness and accident insurance.
So it is scandalous to attempt to blame them for their own misfortune, even in part.
In the report' s explanatory statement, the author even has the temerity to wonder if some of the reasons for the black economy are not the excessively low retirement age, the excessively short working day or "inflexible employment legislation" , by way of suggesting that if legal working conditions were reduced to the level of those in the black economy, then bosses would have less reason not to declare workers.
If Parliament truly wished to combat undeclared work, it would have to begin by proposing that any employer guilty of employing a non-declared worker should be forced to employ that person under an open-ended contract.
We did not, of course, vote in favour of this report for, while pretending to protect victims, it in fact absolves the slave drivers, including a number of major firms which are completely unaffected by economic penalties.
Everyone is united in condemning non-declared work, or the black economy, as it is commonly called.
At the same time, however, many people resort to using this cheap workforce.
The figures speak for themselves, as the 'black economy' is equivalent to between 7 and 16 percent of the figure of the GDP of the European Union.
Quite obviously this is intolerable in our Member States which are facing persistently high unemployment rates which are still high despite a clear downturn in recent years.
I further endorse the rapporteur' s insistence that combating the black economy is to a great extent a direct contribution towards combating unemployment.
I am well aware that finding solutions is not an easy matter.
It is clear, nonetheless, that the Member States would be well advised to coordinate their efforts in order to establish a proactive strategy to combat this scourge.
The first requirement is for a list of the most affected sectors and the main categories concerned to be drawn up within each Member State.
This survey must be followed up in a practical way by implementing measures appropriate to each situation. These measures are to be included in action programmes.
These programmes must then be incorporated in national action plans related to the Employment Guidelines in order to establish mutual transparency and assess the effectiveness of the actions undertaken.
There is, moreover, a clear link between the level of taxes and deductions, and the extent as well as the growth of the black economy.
Member States must therefore devote some effort to reducing the taxes and deductions that weigh down on employment.
The reduction in VAT rates for services that are highly labour intensive, a sector where undeclared work is particularly prevalent, a step that Member States are entitled to take under the Council Decision of 28 February 2000, will most certainly have beneficial effects on the fight against the black economy.
Like the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I would like to see the Member States that do not yet use this option review their decisions.
That is why I voted in favour of this report, which represents a further step in achieving a social Europe.
The spread of non-declared work is not down to workers opting to supplement their incomes but to the determination of firms to milk only the most profitable sectors.
The other sectors, where profits are considered to be less extensive or less quick, are contracted out.
Such sub-contracting effectively promotes the outsourcing of work.
Bringing "greater flexibility to the labour market" (point 11 of the motion for a resolution), making "efforts to reduce tax and contribution levels" (point 11), and promoting "flexible working hours" (point 26) will not be sufficient to reduce the extent of undeclared work.
It is not the workers who should be held responsible but rather the capitalist economic logic which must be fought for it continually endeavours to reduce labour costs, particularly by eliminating employers' social security contributions.
Mrs Glase' s report does not live up to the expectations aroused by the explanatory statement, which, for once in this place, I found to be exceptionally perceptive.
Indeed, we agree with the rapporteur that one of the causes of the black economy is the insane level of taxation on work, the bureaucratic formalities and red tape required of firms, the removal of checks at the internal borders of the European Union, and Lord knows what else.
We do, however, deplore the fact that not once does this report mention the obvious link between the massive illegal immigration afflicting this continent and the explosion of undeclared work.
Nor does it mention the very great extent to which the Europe run by Brussels is responsible for establishing and exacerbating the causes of the black economy.
We therefore abstained on this report.
Undeclared gainful employment is just a euphemism for illicit work.
It is a problem all Member States face to a greater or lesser extent, and it exists for all sorts of reasons.
And there are mountains of regulations for tackling illicit work. Of course these are only effective if they are implemented in conjunction with supervisory and punitive measures.
But introducing new European regulations is no way to go about tackling the problem of illicit work.
A new phase of Brussels-inspired regulating mania would be neither use nor ornament in the fight against illicit work in the Member States of the European Union.
Illicit work must be tackled at the roots.
Why, for example, are people prepared to do illicit work when it does not entitle them to social protection? Why are employers prepared to take on illicit workers when they cannot offset the wage costs against tax?
Our rapporteur, Mrs Glase, rightly states in her report that the fight against illicit work is a task which cuts across a whole range of policy areas, such as finance, the economy, social issues, the labour market, and justice.
Illegal immigrants are engaged in illicit work, but industrial law regulations are not the way to go about tackling this problem.
Illegal immigration must be prevented, and many Member States are too lax on this front.
It is pointed out in the report that a particularly high number of illicit workers are women, principally in the service industry.
Particularly where domestic servants are concerned, employees are only too willing to pursue, and employers are only too willing to countenance, undeclared gainful employment; in the employer' s case because it cuts down on the administrative burden, and in the employee' s, because they can avoid paying tax and social contributions.
The collective taxation of spouses is a fundamental reason as to why - in my country at any rate - domestic servants simply do not want to be registered.
In addition, the amount of paperwork involved is a stumbling block to the lawful employment of domestic servants , particularly for elderly private individuals.
We certainly did not solve the problem in Luxembourg, but under the terms of the employment plan, we have released employers of domestic servants from the administrative burden, and I believe that the payment of a net wage to personnel of this kind represents a substantial improvement.
Naturally I voted in favour of the report, but I also wanted to point out that positive, tax-related and other measures are a more effective way of tackling illicit work than new, European prohibitive measures, particularly where women are concerned.
I would like to start by assuring you that we support Mrs Glase' s work.
It is, in effect, a clarion call for the Member States to combat a scourge which is, moreover, proliferating but increasingly being ignored, and which not only harms the economy and checks social policy but also hampers employment policy.
However, three points are worth noting.
Firstly, given precisely the different ways in which the Member States interpret the concept of undeclared work, the explanatory statement attached to the report would appear to shed more light on the subject than the text itself.
The second point is the - by now constant - call for the two sides of industry to be flexible and responsible.
'Emersion' contracts aside, in addition to the initiatives adopted by the Member States to combat undeclared work which are to be included in the national employment plans, as the rapporteur requested, it would be interesting to find out how many allegedly joint flexibility initiatives have indeed induced both sides of industry to be responsible and how many have, in practice, been successfully implemented to date.
The third point concerns a type of working relationship which the rapporteur does not mention even in the explanatory statement, but which nevertheless, in Italy at least, is likely to become as common, if not more common than undeclared work. I refer to that type of relationship which appears on the surface to be completely legal and have impeccable recruitment procedures, but which, in reality, is characterised by abusive terms and conditions and protection and penalty clauses which are the product of what are termed 'pirate' work contracts concluded by colluding trade union associations.
In this regard, we feel that the study into the situation for the different categories of work, requested by the rapporteur, must take this last factor into account as well, and that quality parameters should then be defined so that work relationships can be genuinely above-board.
.
(EL) The plague of undeclared work is spreading through all the Member States of the Union at an alarming rate, especially in the less developed regions.
This grim form of exploitation is afflicting ever larger social groups as the result of poverty, which is spreading like wildfire, and also as the result of the increasingly indifferent laws of the market and the unaccountability of big business, which provokes and exacerbates it.
The anti-labour economic and social policy pursued by the European Union is a determining factor in the rise in undeclared work, which is growing much faster than the mainstream economy.
The hidden economy is becoming more and more important in the Member States, allowing companies which evade tax and national insurance payments to rake in huge profits.
The constant harping on at summits and in other Union institutions about the need to reduce the famous "non-wage labour costs" is encouraging companies to implement this reactionary approach on their own initiative, by generalising undeclared work and extending it to a surprisingly large number of workers.
Intense efforts to make the market and terms of employment more flexible, the barrel of the gun of unemployment and poverty pointed at workers' heads, the huge influx of immigrant workers to whose illegal status the system turns a blind eye and which are the booty of exploitive capitalist mechanisms which plunder their labour in sweat shops in order to boost their profits, create the "unhealthy" social conditions which force workers to take employment with no social cover, exiled from any trade union activity or government protection.
Health and safety conditions, terms of employment and working relations are dictated solely by employers, who take grossly unfair advantage of workers' needs and minimal negotiating skills and make a tidy profit from their long working hours.
Immediate measures are needed in order to wipe out this plague - measures which include the strictest punishment for employers and companies using this form of employment and which do not put the sacrificer and the sacrificed on an equal footing.
We need agencies and institutions to keep a close eye on companies.
Special protection must be given to the groups which are easy prey to unaccountable employers: the young, women and, more importantly, immigrants.
Undeclared work only has a positive impact on employers, or rather their profits; it has multiple negative repercussions for both workers and society as a whole.
Less employment, lower national insurance revenues, lower tax revenues and, at the same time, increased social and public-sector spending.
Unfortunately, the European Parliament report under discussion goes in completely the wrong direction; it basically backs employers and calls for even more neo-liberal measures on the job market, ostensibly in order to wipe out undeclared work.
It basically advocates legalising and generalising undeclared work, and hence completely upsetting employment relations, at the expense of all workers, which is why we are voting against it.
Resolution on racism (B5-0766/2000)
I would like to express my disappointment and dismay at the PPE' s vote on the resolution on the World Conference Against Racism.
Yesterday the PPE spokesman approached the Socialist Group to ask us to withdraw my Amendment No 1 because, if it were accepted, they would be unable to support the report.
After much soul-searching in the Socialist Group we decided that we would withdraw that amendment in the interests of getting the largest majority possible in Parliament against the forces of racism, the extreme right and anti-Semitism.
I have to say I do not know what conclusion to draw because it is clear from the vote that, in fact, after making that promise the vast majority of the PPE actually voted against the resolution.
It is not clear whether they were lying or whether they were confused.
I am not sure which is worse.
What is clear is that some of those weeping crocodile tears yesterday for anti-Semitic attacks in Italy in order to get cheap publicity, today voted in a way that could only give aid and assistance to the racists, the anti-Semites and the extreme right in the European Union.
Mr President, on behalf of my Group, I should also like to express our disappointment at our failure to successfully conclude this matter, in spite of all of the efforts we all made so that the European Union could adopt a strong position, with the backing of Parliament, on something as important as the World Conference against Racism.
We did all we could to achieve this as, in my view, did Mrs Ludford, the rapporteur.
In addition to this, Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should like to say that I found the references one member of Parliament made to our support of radicalism and the extreme left, wholly unacceptable, as indeed was the reference made to the idea that the terrorist group ETA, which a few hours ago murdered someone in my home town, is an extreme left-wing group.
These people have an exclusive and partisan vision of nationalism and have nothing to do with any of us, or any European socialists, or with any ideology that is not based on exclusion and racism.
Mr President, what a heated debate this has been on racism!
We have seen the left stand up and then the right, then the left again, then the right again, both of them armed, luckily only with words.
As representative of the Pensioners' Party, I abstained in the vote on this report. And why is that?
Is the Pensioners' Party on the left or the right? I have always maintained that the Pensioners' Party is for justice, for fair measures and for fair actions, and that party political ideological formations should take a step back and be more practical.
The Pensioners' Party is against all forms of racism, whoever the perpetrator, it is immaterial whether they come from the right or the left - but I urge both the right and the left to take a step backwards - for somebody has to - and to ensure that real social developments are made in our lives, whoever they are intended to benefit, and that ideologies are, at last, laid aside once and for all.
- (DE) The amendments put forward by the honourable Members Ford, Ceyhun, Boumediene-Thiery, Sörensen, Schroedter and Lambert seek to perpetuate a notion which the Wise Men have unequivocally rejected.
A desire to link the issue of racism with the situation in Austria represents an attempt to defame the country of Austria.
Many of those who do more than propose amendments by way of voicing their criticism of the situation in Austria, come from countries in which hostels for asylum seekers have been set on fire, right-wing extremists are on the march and gaining in influence, problems to do with minorities and foreigners go unresolved, and a great deal more.
You will not find anything of this kind in Austria.
The report compiled by the Council of Wise Men has confirmed that standards in Austria are above the European average, even in the most sensitive of areas.
Yet you seek to lay all the blame at Austria' s door, and turn a blind eye to the Balkans in your own backyard.
Instead of apologising to the Austrians for the injustices they have suffered on account of sanctions, you just carry on fanning the flames of resentment.
If that is your idea of a united Europe, then that in itself is of great concern to me.
Incidentally, we intend to vote in favour of the resolution put forward by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, with regard to the reference to the resolution of 16 March, but not only are we not prepared to vote in favour of the related resolution of 3 February this year, on the formation of the Austrian Government, we demand an apology from the European Parliament.
This resolution is a fine declaration against racism.
On the same day, the majority of MEPs voted in favour of the amended version of the fingerprinting system Eurodac, which further criminalises immigrants seeking to move to the European Union.
There would have been a different outcome if the vote on Eurodac had been truly anti-racist.
Therefore, all we can expect from this anti-racist resolution is fine words, and no change in the policy of criminalisation pursued by a Big Brother state.
The Radical Members of the Bonino List have voted against the resolution on racism because we feel that the way the fight against racism is conducted in Europe jeopardises fundamental rights and freedoms such as freedom of expression, opinion, thought and information.
These rights are currently being eroded away, and the very basis of democracy and the rule of law is under threat from the series of campaigns the States and the Union conduct every time there is an emergency, be it racism, terrorism, organised crime or the use of the Internet for criminal ends.
In this respect, we should learn from the United States, which is the country which affords the greatest protection for this freedom.
If we think that we can combat a phenomenon by banning it or restricting rights or fundamental freedoms or by ideological crusades, then we will achieve exactly the opposite effect: with regard to freedom of expression, with regard to drugs, prostitution and immigration, but also, as this Parliament well knows, with regard to Austria and to the rights of Members to band together to form a technical group.
We Radicals consider that Parliament and Europe must also learn from their past, which lives on today through prohibitions, be they right-wing, left-wing, socialist or extreme right-wing.
Resolution on organised crime (B5-0506/2000)
Organised crime in the European Union enjoys competitive advantages; in particular, the problems associated with mutual assistance in law enforcement and the procedural obstacles frustrate the process of criminal prosecution.
The recently concluded agreement on mutual assistance in law enforcement constitutes a first step towards reducing the unfair edge certain countries have over others.
In principle, we welcome the action plan put forward by the Council, but we also join the committee in criticising the Council over its consultation obligations.
However, we reject a European-wide standardisation of criminal law provisions.
Not only would an undertaking of this kind be almost impossible to achieve because of the way criminal law systems vary from Member State to Member State, our energies would also be better invested in preventive measures.
That concludes the vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.30 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 21 September 2000.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the sitting on Thursday, 21 September have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I shall keep to the subject of the Minutes.
For some strange reason, my name is missing from the register of attendance.
I would ask you to correct this and would at the same time take the opportunity to point out that it has been possible today to come here to Strasbourg from Finland in just nine hours.
That is almost a personal record for me this autumn!
Yes indeed, Mrs Thors, we shall amend the Minutes accordingly.
(The Minutes were approved)
Presidency communication on the situation in the Middle East
Ladies and gentlemen, in the last few days, as you know, Jerusalem, other towns and the Palestinian territories have been thrown into a state of unrest, and there have already been many victims.
Earlier today, helicopters bombed targets in Gaza, thereby making the situation worse.
I should like, on behalf of the European Parliament, to express my deepest outrage at this new outbreak of violence, and to express our heartfelt sympathy with the families of the victims in their sorrow and suffering.
At a time when the peace process is at a crucial stage, making real but precarious progress, Ariel Sharon' s visit to the Dome of the Rock cannot be seen as anything other than provocation.
As this sad state of affairs shows, the status of Jerusalem is one of the keys to peace in the Middle East.
The city bears the weight of powerful symbols for all three monotheistic religions.
Attacking such symbolism is tantamount to rejecting the will for peace and hindering the search for a solution that is acceptable to all parties.
We do, however, know that, on both sides, there are men of peace who wish to forge ahead.
The joint visit by Mr Ahmed Qurie and Mr Avraham Burg, Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council and Speaker of the Knesset respectively, in this House during our September part-session proved this once again.
On the matter of Jerusalem, they displayed an open-mindedness and a willingness to listen that gave us hope.
As this part-session of the European Parliament opens, I call on the international community to do all it can to piece together the threads of dialogue as soon as possible.
The European Union has reacted already.
I would like to see it increasing its efforts, and the European Parliament will play a full role in this.
I would ask you to observe a minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would first of all like to support your words and express our complete agreement with them.
Please allow me to propose, on behalf of my group, that this very important issue, which involves the responsibilities of the European Union, as you have correctly pointed out, be included in the debate which we are going to hold tomorrow in connection with the Biarritz Summit.
The situation in the Middle East will clearly be one of the issues dealt with at this summit, even though it is informal.
I would also like to stress, as you have rightly pointed out, that there has been unacceptable provocation by a leader of the Israeli extreme right known for his extremist activities in the past.
I also believe that we must address our Israeli friends in the frankest possible terms and tell them that a democratic and legitimate government, such as theirs, cannot use gunfire and tanks to fight children and youths throwing stones.
This is absolutely disproportionate and in no way helps the peace process.
Madam President, I believe that, after the visit - on your invitation - of the Presidents of the Israeli and Palestinian assemblies last month, we have sufficient moral legitimacy to address our partners in the Middle East in the strongest terms, while offering them our services.
Madam President, I sent you a letter on behalf of my group requesting an amendment to the agenda on the issue which you have just addressed in a most dignified way.
Since Mr Barón Crespo has raised the subject, let me make my point on the matter immediately.
In my opinion, since Parliament issued a very timely joint invitation to the Speakers of the Knesset and the Palestinian Legislative Council a month ago, specifically in order to indicate its willingness to become involved in promoting the peace process, we cannot, as Members of this Parliament, remain silent today.
In words with which I identify completely, you described the tragic situation developing right now in Palestine and in Israel.
I fully understand that, tomorrow, Mr Prodi, the Council, and ourselves, or some of us, will be speaking in the general debate.
We cannot, however, possibly limit ourselves to dealing with this tragic matter alongside a number of other very important matters, thus making it possible for a first person to discuss the Charter, the next to discuss the French Presidency and the Biarritz Summit, a third to bring up the Danish 'no' vote in the referendum on EMU, and only then have a fourth, on the subject of the Middle East.
This would not do justice to the matter.
My group and I therefore suggest that, tomorrow if possible, or another day if necessary, we look into finding a way to devote an hour to this extremely important subject, and to adopt a resolution.
It this were to prove impossible, I suggest that we should at least have a question on the subject in our topical and urgent debate.
In any event, I would expressly ask that we make it impossible for anyone at the end of this part-session to claim that Parliament as such did not follow up your splendid statement and declare itself in favour of a return to peace in Israel and in the Middle East.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you agree, I shall introduce a sort of procedural motion.
We have not yet moved on to the discussion of the agenda.
I did receive the request you sent me.
I suggest discussing whether or not we should enter this subject on the order of business for Tuesday when we move on to the agenda.
In the meantime, I have to deal with a series of procedural motions, which we shall finish first.
I have a few statements to make to you, after which we shall discuss the agenda.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the events in the Middle East are a real tragedy.
I am very grateful to you for raising this subject.
My group fully supports the substance of what you have said.
As to how we should deal with this serious matter here in this Chamber, I think it would be appropriate if the problems in the Middle East were to be raised tomorrow in the debate with the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission, either by individual Members or by political group chairmen or whoever speaks on behalf of the groups.
I do not think that we can change the whole agenda, as we have a great many topics to consider this week.
I also have last Thursday's events in Belgrade in mind, and would like to suggest that we should include the Middle East peace process in tomorrow's debate on the Biarritz Summit.
That seems to be a very appropriate way of dealing with this problem.
Madam President, my group is also, naturally, extremely shocked by the events that took place over the weekend in the Middle East.
Of all the proposals that have been made, I would like to offer my support primarily for that of my colleague, Mr Wurtz, to find a suitable point in time when we can ask the Council - and possibly also the Commission - to propose a resolution.
It would also suit our group if Parliament were to make its own statement regarding this issue.
Everyone has certainly tried in all manner of ways to highlight the importance of this question; nevertheless, I think his proposal is this time the most valuable and the most appropriate one in this situation.
Thank you, Mrs Hautala, but, as I explained to Mr Wurtz, you are anticipating our discussion on the agenda somewhat.
Madam President, on a point of order.
Your words echoed the sentiments of everyone in the House and certainly of my group.
It is important that we discuss the issue and that it should be treated as an issue in its own right and not as part of a longer list of issues, where we are trying to deal with so many points before Biarritz.
If we could in some way find a way of looking at this item separately, my group would greatly appreciate that.
Madam President, on 21 September last, a farmer of the town of De Panne, which is Belgium' s westernmost point near the French border, came across 45 refugees on his land one evening, 15 of whom were children.
These people were received and cared for by that town, but quite remarkably, they claimed to have been dropped across the border by the French police.
The police had picked them up in Calais, taken them from Calais to the Belgian border and had no qualms about subsequently dropping them off in Belgium. A very strange business, all the more so because, according to other witness statements, it appears that this is not the first time this has happened.
Fortunately, this incident has been settled at the highest level between the French and Belgian authorities, and it appears that they found a way of discussing it.
However, to my great surprise, I was informed by a Belgian that it is not just the French who get up to these tricks, but also the Dutch and Germans.
When I asked him if the Belgians do the same thing, he confirmed this and said, now and again.
This leads me to conclude that everyone still has the standard European reflex, namely to pass on their problems to their neighbours.
In my opinion, it is high time that we, as European legislator and as European Parliament, at least pressed for a European reflex.
Just as Europe did too little during the oil crisis, it is also making its presence felt insufficiently with regard to this disturbing problem.
Thank you, Mr Sterckx, we take note of your statement.
Madam President, I wish to speak on a completely different subject, but as this Parliament knows, the Convention entrusted with the task of drafting the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union has just completed its work, and this is cause for satisfaction.
Yet, while our own institution has done so much to ensure the successful completion of the work of the Convention, particularly by, on many occasions, making its premises available to the Convention, I am sorry that today, as our plenary part-session in Strasbourg is opening, it was not possible to organise the formal hand over of this Charter here in Strasbourg, in conditions worthy of it, now that the work of drafting it has been completed.
In my view, this would have been a powerful, symbolic act for our institution, and I think it is a pity.
Madam President, as Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, transport and Tourism and as a Greek Member of Parliament, I wish to raise the subject of the sinking of the Express Samina last Tuesday.
So far there are 79 dead and 2 unaccounted for.
This was a truly dreadful and horrific accident in which the human factor - the negligence of the crew members - appears to have played a decisive part.
Nonetheless, there are serious indications that Community law has been violated, especially as regards the registration of passengers and compliance with the safety standards set out in Community directives and I think we should therefore start by welcoming the reaction of the European Commission, which is already investigating whether or not Community law was complied with.
We here in the European Parliament must undertake as quickly as possible to examine the Commission' s proposals on safety standards at sea, especially the so-called Erika package, which contains the Commission' s proposals on safety at sea following the accident last year involving this tanker.
I also think that we and the Commission should look carefully to see if the timetable for Directive 98/18 on safety arrangements for ferry boat passengers can be reduced, given that some of the provisions in this directive last until 2009.
In this context, there should be no derogations for Member States, such as the present derogation for Greece for ferry boats over 27 years old.
I also consider that it is wrong for Greece to have a derogation as regards liberalising transport by 2004 because this erodes safety standards in Greece, in my own country, even further.
I think that competition can help standards to improve.
The European People' s Party has tabled a motion along these lines and I trust that all the political groups will agree to debate it, given that it concerns an extremely important matter.
It concerns the death of 80 of our fellow human beings.
Before giving Mr Watts the floor to speak on the same subject, I would just like to inform you that directly after this dreadful disaster I did of course write to the President of the Greek Parliament, Mr Kaklamanis, in order to express, on behalf of the House, my deep sadness and our solidarity with the families of the victims.
Madam President, following the tragic events of last week in the Aegean, yesterday's suspension of over 60 Greek passenger ships which do not comply with EU laws is, I am sure, welcomed by the whole House.
In addition to passing on our condolences - which I am glad to note you already have - and our gratitude to all those involved in the rescues in those tragic events, could the President ask next week's Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism to investigate why 79 people had to die before these ships were banned?
That committee needs to ask urgently why Member States are ignoring EU maritime safety laws - it is not just Greece.
We need to ask that committee to review why certain Member States are granted lengthy opt-outs from those maritime safety laws.
Madam President, thank you for the message of sympathy which you sent the speaker of the Greek parliament in the wake of this unprecedented tragedy in Greek waters.
It is true that there are shortcomings in the application of regulations both, national and European, and the Greek government is addressing this matter with the utmost diligence.
As far as the 65 ships which have been banned from sailing are concerned, we should, I think, clarify the fact that these ships would have been banned from sailing on 1 October anyway, even if 79 people had not died.
These are two separate issues; the IMO regulations happened to expire on 1 October and, as a result, these ships were classified as unsuitable.
That is why they have been banned from sailing, not because these people tragically lost their lives.
I think, Madam President, that this is too serious an issue for the opposition to capitalise on and it is too serious to be addressed in an urgent debate followed by a simple vote, which is why the Socialist Group will vote against entering it for urgent debate.
This does not, of course, mean that we were not shocked by the tragedy or that, as a government and as the Socialist Group, we shall not do everything humanly possible to increase the safety of ships in the Aegean, which has three and a half thousand islands and a huge number of ferries and, however serious this accident, compared with the number of voyages made in the Aegean every summer, it is one accident out of a huge number of successful sailings.
Having said which, it is of course tragic, and the time has come to re-examine shipping conditions in Greece and in Europe in far greater detail; but this does not mean that Greek seas are any less safe than the seas of any other Member State.
Madam President, in a comment on the Danish 'no' vote on the euro, you expressed the view that the 'no' side had appealed to an irrational fear.
If you had been better informed, you would have known that your description applies to only approximately 20% of Danes who voted 'no' , and then only on a rough estimate.
For the overwhelming majority of those who voted 'no' , the vote was about democratic legitimacy to make decisions concerning our economic policy.
There was a specific desire to avoid a situation in which important decisions are taken on as uninformed a basis as that unfortunately underlying your own pronouncement.
The Danish people want a far clearer demarcation line between what the EU is to concern itself with and what the national parliaments are to continue to decide on.
As early as December in Nice, however, majority decision-making is to be introduced in the social and labour-market spheres, as referred to in Articles 42 and 137.
If, subsequently - and with Article 42 as a basis - the circle of people covered by Regulation No 1408 is enlarged, and if majority voting is introduced under Article 137 on, for example, the criteria for granting unemployment benefit, this would have major consequences for both social and labour-market policy in Denmark.
We are the only EU country which finances its social contributions through taxation, and we regulate our labour market through agreements.
That is simply the basis for the way in which we have organised ourselves.
One reason for the 'no' vote on the euro is that we want the Danish Parliament to retain the power of decision-making in these areas and that we also want it to continue to do so after Nice.
Madam President, thank you for the condolences which you sent on behalf of the European Parliament; you spoke for all of us.
Unfortunately, these 79 or 80 victims fell foul of large, profit-seeking shipowners.
However much some people are trying to blame the crew, the fact remains that the vessel was over 35 years old, that it should not, in fact, have been sailing and that it sank extremely quickly, preventing more people from being saved.
The unaccountability of shipowners is and always has been defended by successive Greek governments.
This is not the first time, it is the umpteenth time that victims have died and not one Greek government has taken steps to prevent further accidents.
Finally, I should like to say that I was impressed by the Socialist Group' s refusal to discuss the matter in an urgent debate.
Apart from the fact that we cannot go into the issue in depth in an urgent debate, this accident was too serious, 80 people lost their lives, and I think that the European Parliament in particular is obliged to take an immediate position.
Madam President, I would like just briefly to return to the tragic situation, referred to by Mr Sterckx, experienced by refugees living at a number of borders in Europe today, and to inform you that about a week ago I paid a visit to the Sangatte centre opened by the French Government and run by the Red Cross.
This centre accommodates refugees attempting to enter Great Britain, apparently attracted by more favourable reception conditions, and also because of the greater problems in entering at other borders.
I should like to inform you that this centre processes an average of between 800 and 1000 refugees a day, from all over the world, particularly from Iran, Iraq and one region in Turkey, namely the Kurdish region, and the centre has received 16 000 refugees since opening eleven months ago.
This is a direct result of the lack of harmonisation in the conditions for reception and the status of refugees in Europe.
Admittedly, the French and Belgian case referred to earlier is an important one.
This must not, however, be allowed to dull our determination. Instead, it should increase it.
I have written to Commissioner Vitorino to this effect, in order to convey our determination to have a joint European policy on this, indeed our demand for this, before further tragedies have a chance to happen.
Madam President, thank you very much for allowing me to speak last, despite having been the first Member to request the floor.
First of all, I would like to congratulate you on your statement on the tragic events taking place in Jerusalem.
I cannot say the same about your remarks to the Spanish press during your recent visit to Madrid, when you said that nationalism means war.
Although that opinion was shared by the late Mr Mitterrand, I believe it to be narrow-minded and intolerant rather than open and democratic.
To use the phrase from the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy: "a nation is a group of people of the same origin who speak the same language, have a shared tradition, a shared territory and an awareness of the same destiny", and the same dictionary defines nationalism as "the devotion to a nation of the natives of that nation", and there is nothing more natural, more human, and more keenly felt by the citizens than devotion to one' s nation.
Madam President, I accept that there is aggravated nationalism, extremist nationalism and violent nationalism.
However, we cannot put all forms of nationalism into one pigeonhole.
There are more than a hundred historic peoples in Europe who can be classed as nations, and there are millions of people in Europe who are nationalists and are devoted to their nation.
Nationalism is also the devotion to and the defence of the nation state.
Madam President, I ask you to respect the nationalists in this House, who are moderate, peaceful and democratic.
I ask you to respect the historic peoples of Europe and the hundreds of millions of Europeans who consider themselves democratic and peaceful nationalists.
Madam President, I am happy to inform the House that, together with the other two Spanish Vice-Presidents of this Parliament, I had the honour and privilege of accompanying Mrs Fontaine on her visit to Spain and was moved to witness her brave and firm commitment which offered an example of the democracy and values which this House defends.
When Mrs Fontaine used the words alluded to by Mr Ortuondo, she was talking about the exclusive, reductionist and xenophobic forms of nationalism which put race, territory or blood above the principle of democracy.
That is what Mrs Fontaine was referring to, because, as I have said, I witnessed the whole of her visit.
If Mr Ortuondo, as a nationalist, is not involved in that type of nationalism, then he has nothing to worry about.
Madam President, I am most surprised by the Socialists' refusal to vote on the shipping tragedy which killed 80 people. I think that the European Parliament has a duty to hold this simple vote which says what?
Precisely that we are calling on the Commission to look at the larger picture, which is safety at sea in the European Union. Who can possibly be opposed to that?
That is what we are calling for, that is what the motion is calling for.
Is that so bad? I think we should all vote in favour and then get on with examining safety at sea in the European Union.
That is the factor which we want quantified, Madam President.
Mr Trakatellis, this is something the House is going to decide upon in a few moments, when we come to setting the agenda.
Madam President, I have just come from the last meeting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in Brussels.
Those rights are very important, but one of the basic rights of the citizens of the EU is to have free movement for themselves and the goods which some of them may wish to carry.
For the last few weeks many of them have been unable to enjoy these rights as a result of various disruptions at a number of border points, including the Channel ports, but inland as well.
We were warned by DG II that there might well be difficulties today.
Many of us, therefore, changed our travel arrangements.
I saw members of the Commission this summer to ask them about compensation which is paid, where claimed and appropriate, to those who carry goods and are blocked from doing so.
But under our regulations there is no provision whatsoever for citizens - either on tourism or business - to claim such compensation.
I asked for an urgency this week.
I appreciate that there are many other urgent matters to consider.
The Conference of Presidents turned down my request for this urgency, but this matter continues day after day, week after week.
I ask you, therefore, to press the Commission to bring forward regulations as quickly as possible to give citizens the same rights as those that carry goods, in the event of them being prevented from enjoying the free movement to which they are entitled.
Thank you, Mr Kirkhope.
I shall gladly take note of your request.
Madam President, after listening to my Danish colleague, you can appreciate the fatuous level at which the debate was carried on in Denmark, a debate which led to a 'no' vote.
However, a decision was made, and we must respect this.
I should therefore like to take this opportunity to wish Mrs Ulla Sandbæk luck with her victory, for it is not of course only silly British Conservatives and Jürgen Haider who have seen this as a good result.
Today, a working group of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights reports on the case of my constituent in the North-West of England, Mr James Mawdsley, a human-rights campaigner who is imprisoned in Burma, and it is widely expected that this United Nations group will conclude that the Burmese authorities have contravened international law in holding him.
Within the last few days the British Consul has discovered that in reward for his protests against being kept in solitary confinement, prisons guards have subjected him to three days' worth of beating and left him with severe facial injuries.
Tonight we will be debating the Asia-Europe summit, and I have no doubt that the resolution we eventually adopt will emphasise our commitment to human rights.
Mr Mawdsley is just one amongst millions of people in Burma who suffer at the hands of the Burmese authorities.
I ask you in communicating the eventual conclusions of this Parliament to bear in mind our concerns for this one individual whose treatment symbolises so much that is rotten in that country.
I shall of course do so, Mr Davies.
Madam President, the racist incidents in Germany since the last part-session sadly mean that I have to raise this issue again.
A junior staff officer in the German Army has since then been dismissed because of racist comments, and three police officers in Cologne have been suspended from duty for swearing at a Tunisian taxi driver, knocking him to the ground and kicking him.
Two children were slightly injured in an arson attack on a hostel providing temporary accommodation in Wuppertal in which a Molotov cocktail was thrown at the building.
A racist motive is suspected and further inquiries are being made in that direction.
A number of people suspected of having committed this attack have already been arrested.
In Düsseldorf, a group of up to 20 people attacked and injured a black person who had spoken out against vulgar racist comments and was consequently beaten up.
In view of all this, I can only repeat that these incidents are directly connected with racist policies.
So there can no longer be any question of treating migrants or people whose appearance is different as criminals. Quite the opposite - it is precisely racist incidents of this kind that must be regarded as criminal acts.
Thank you, Mrs Schröder.
Agenda
Madam President, I am not going to repeat everything we said earlier.
I shall simply refer to your statement, for the reasons you, yourself, clearly outlined.
I think that it would be appropriate at this time for Parliament to express an opinion on this situation which is characterised by what you, yourself, rightly termed the initial 'provocation' and also by this military repression, of a quite unheard of violence, which has already led to the deaths of about 40 people, including children, in conditions which each of us has been able to observe on the television.
Today, then, anything could happen, the hopes of a lasting peace are in danger of being dashed, and so an initiative from Parliament is urgently needed.
I, in fact, initially proposed - and I continue to support this proposal in principle - that we interrupt our debate on enlargement, tomorrow, between 5 and 6 p.m., in order to take advantage of Mr Moscovici' s attendance on behalf of the Council, as he could make a statement which would be followed by a debate and a vote.
If, after consultation, the various groups see this option as presenting major drawbacks, despite my personal preference for this alternative, then there are two other possibilities, either Thursday morning when Mrs Péry is present or even Thursday afternoon when Mr Solana is present.
The most important thing, in my view, is that Parliament should be able to express its opinion, that we should hear what the Council has to say, and that we should be able to continue to be involved in the Middle East peace process.
All other aspects are secondary.
Mr Wurtz, we are currently talking about the Tuesday sitting.
I would remind you that Mr Moscovici will still be in attendance between 5 and 6 p.m. on Tuesday.
Would you like to withdraw your request and postpone it until Thursday? Please clarify matters.
Mr Barón Crespo, we are not going to go through the whole debate again. Many Members have already expressed their opinions in the form of procedural motions.
If, however, Mr Wurtz wishes to maintain his request regarding Tuesday, then I shall ask for a speaker against the motion, and you are perfectly free to speak in this capacity.
If Mr Wurtz proposes a compromise solution involving postponing his request until Thursday, then that will conclude matters for the Tuesday sitting.
I think I am correct in saying that.
I propose postponing my proposal until Thursday afternoon when Mr Solana is present.
Thank you.
I have no further requests relating to Tuesday.
Relating to Thursday:
I therefore propose that we add the question of the Middle East peace process and the recent incidents to the debate with Mr Solana.
(Parliament gave its assent) Concerning the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance, and more specifically item 4, 'Macedonia' , I have received two requests from the Confederal Group of the European United Left for this item to be replaced by an item entitled 'Prevention of the Paris-Baghdad solidarity flight' or, if this first proposal were not adopted, by an item on the 'Tragedy of the Greek ferry Samina' .
Madam President, the big problem is always that if you receive one proposal after the other, not everyone is aware of the other proposals.
The aim of the PPE-DE' s proposal is to raise a major issue, such as item 5, which allows us to discuss the shipping disaster in Greece at length.
I wanted to stress this point.
Yes, this is an important point to make when the Members are voting.
Having said that, I shall now put the request to replace the item on 'Macedonia' with an item on 'Prevention of the Paris-Baghdad solidarity flight' to the vote.
Madam President, since my group' s position in relation to this painful issue has been mentioned on many occasions, I would like to say that I believe that this has simply been a question of voting on the timeliness of the debate, because Parliament is united in its solidarity with and condolences for the families of the victims.
My group is in favour, as are all the others I suppose, of this issue - which is already included in relation to maritime safety in the relevant committee of Parliament - being examined with the greatest possible urgency.
Still on the subject of Thursday, the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance have requested that Mrs Klass' s report on the vegetative propagation of the vine be postponed to a later part-session.
I have received a request for a roll call vote on this.
Madam President, I should just like to take a few seconds to explain why we are asking for this postponement.
This is a controversial report which adds the issue of GMOs to a subject which the Commission did not cover.
What is more, the report is scheduled for discussion on Thursday evening with a vote on Friday morning.
We were under the impression that votes on controversial reports were not to be held on Friday mornings.
Mrs Auroi, you have spoken in support of the motion, as is perfectly proper, and I now expect that Mr Poettering will want to oppose the motion.
Madam President, I certainly would like to speak against that.
This report has already been deferred on several occasions, and it is not often that the Council of Ministers and my group agree, but the French Presidency has specifically asked for this report to be considered and voted upon this week.
If the Presidency is seeking to achieve something reasonable, as it is in this case, then we support that, and that is why I am requesting that it should remain on the agenda.
(Parliament gave its assent) Relating to Friday:
Mr MacCormick, regarding the order of business for Friday, your request was not delivered within the stipulated time limit and as a result, I must inform you now that it could not be taken into consideration.
There are not, therefore, any amendments to the agenda for Friday.
Nonetheless, I am still willing to give you the floor on a point of order if that is what you really want.
Madam President, I note on Friday that the oral question on language teachers which came on our agenda extremely late has got no attached motion for a resolution.
I appreciate that the request I put in for that to be added arrived too late in the rather chaotic circumstances of this Monday.
This is an important matter, and I would ask if after that debate closes a deadline can be fixed for motions for resolutions to be lodged on that topic.
Unfortunately, Mr MacCormick, this is just not possible.
I am sorry, but it would contravene the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, I should like to request that the following correction be made to Thursday' s agenda: under topical and urgent debate, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is correctly referred to in Greek as such, which has been the official name of this state, at least until now.
However, in four languages which I have here, Italian, English, German and French - and there may be others - it is referred to as Macedonia.
I think that errors such as this should not recur in our official documents and that we should use official names, at least those which still apply.
I would therefore request that Thursday' s agenda be corrected and that this point be borne in mind for every document circulated officially here in the House.
Mr Souladakis, you are quite right, we will make the amendment.
It is true that it is not an accurate description.
European system of national and regional accounts (taxes and social contributions)
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I must firstly express my satisfaction at the proposed regulation on the principles for registers of taxes and social contributions in accordance with the criteria of the European system of national and regional accounts (ESA 95).
I say 'satisfaction' because the approval of this regulation takes us closer to a transparent system which is comparable in the various Member States in relation to the calculation of the public deficit.
I must say that, in general, the joint position of the Council largely includes the criteria of the European Parliament' s position.
I say 'in general' because, even though, thanks to the notable absence of some MEPs on the left, the benches on the right managed to introduce an amendment on the possibility of the Council considering agreeing to an adaptation period for the application of the regulation, the Council interprets that the Member States will have the right to request this delay of the application of this transitional period but that, in all cases, the Commission will be able to reject that postponement if the request is not sufficiently well-founded.
When we talk about a unified Europe in an economic and financial sense, this unification must clearly be carried out on the basis of honesty and transparency, because no other method is acceptable, and the regulation - which I hope will be approved - has precisely the virtue of eliminating those practices, which unfortunately are very wide-spread in certain Member States, which tend to disguise - so to speak - situations of deficit, by using various different accounting methods.
Therefore, on the contrary, we will take the direction of seriousness in accounting in order to prevent behaviour - as I have said - which is less than transparent, if not fraudulent.
I therefore repeat that the joint position of the Council must be supported, in my opinion, because this regulation introduces a mechanism for adapting to the European System of Accounts 95 which ensures, effectively, comparability and transparency in the public accounting of the Member States in areas as sensitive and important as those relating to the calculation of the public deficit.
This approval also ensures that the right to request adaptation periods is counterbalanced by the right to reject such a period if it is not well founded.
Finally, I must ask the Commissioner present today, because I have asked this repeatedly, to express, in this plenary session, an effective commitment to this Parliament for the presentation of an offprint to the regulation in relation to the registers and calculation of VAT own resources, because - I must remind you - the approval of the joint position was, in my view, linked to this commitment.
I therefore repeat this request here in plenary session.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is an aspect of Mr Knörr' s report which is of particular interest to my group.
As you know, Commissioner, in its part-session of April this year, Parliament approved, at first reading, an amendment on the transitional right in its application which said that the Member States could request a transitional period from the Commission of no more than two years to adapt their accounting systems to the provisions of this regulation.
In its subsequent communication to Parliament, the Commission said that it accepted that amendment provided that it was interpreted as meaning that it had the capacity to reject, 'where necessary' , a request submitted by a Member State.
Although it is doubtful that an explanatory statement of a Commission communication can repeal the text in question, the expression 'where necessary' , Commissioner, could be interpreted as a discretional power on the part of the Commission to reject a well-founded request from a Member State without the Commission having to justify its decision.
Precisely to prevent such a situation, my group has tabled an amendment which says that the Commission will grant the said period provided that the Member State in question can demonstrate the existence of objective criteria which hinder the immediate application of the provisions of the regulation.
Needless to say, Commissioner, this amendment has the sole purpose of dealing with this type of situation in an objective way and subjecting it to a regulated, and not discretional, procedure on the part of the Commission.
Since this amendment, Mr President, is the only one to have been tabled, and in order to simplify the procedure and speed up the approval of this recommendation, my group would be prepared to withdraw this amendment if the Commission, Mr Solbes, makes a statement accepting the content of the amendment, which, I repeat, simply intends to ensure that this type of request is dealt with objectively and that it is subjected to a regulated procedure, preventing the possibility of discretionary behaviour on the part of the Commission.
Mr President, as both a member of the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats and representative of the Pensioners' Party, I feel that this is a major, necessary measure and that it has come at the right time.
Not only does it, obviously, deal with accounts and allow Parliament to keep abreast of the Member States' accounts - which is very important, as we know - but it also puts paid to the habitual practice of various States of the Union, especially the State which I represent in this Parliament, namely Italy, whose accounting system is wont to resemble a conjuring trick, particularly where taxes and social contributions are concerned - social contributions which are extremely important for pensioners.
Conjuring tricks are performed: money appears and disappears at the drop of a hat.
For example, we are told that the contributions paid in by workers are not sufficient for the State to be able to give them a large enough pension.
Very often this is untrue, and there must have been some real conjuring tricks going on if a State is able to tell workers who have worked all their lives and have finally reached the point where they are entitled to their hard-earned, longed for pensions that there is no money left to pay them.
This is a lie: the accounts have been fiddled.
So roll on the adoption of the Knörr Borràs report!
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank all the speakers for their comments.
It is clear that the aim of this action, as Mr Fatuzzo has said, is to try to ensure that the figures correspond to reality as far as possible and that there is no underestimation of national public deficits.
The work carried out by Parliament and the Council has been enormously useful.
The Commission fully approves the joint position of the Council, which now includes the various amendments tabled by Parliament at first reading.
However, two points have been raised which to a certain extent are still to be clarified.
The first one refers to Article 7(2), that is, the possibility that the Commission may have a certain margin for discretion with regard to the granting of transitional periods.
In this case, all the Commission requires is that those periods be genuinely justified.
We are therefore perfectly able to accept that the Commission should commit itself to granting these requests provided that the Member States involved can objectively justify that it is difficult for them to immediately apply the provisions of the regulation.
We believe that the game of clarity should apply on both sides.
The Commission clearly must not deny these periods when there is objective justification for them, but it is essential that the objective justifications exist if a transitional period is to be granted.
Otherwise, we would not be serving the objective of the regulation.
The second point refers to the setting of VAT and the calculation of VAT own resources.
With regard to the amendments which were presented at the time on this issue, the Commission is clearly committed to taking a different route, since we have no difficulty with the basic idea.
On this specific point, I would like to point out that the Commission had committed itself on second reading to presenting another proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation to deal with this specific issue, and today I can tell you that the Commission approved its proposal on 20 September and it has been forwarded to Parliament and the Council.
I therefore hope that this issue will be resolved as soon as this new regulation is approved.
It simply remains for me to express my satisfaction at Parliament' s support for the work of the Commission, and to thank the rapporteur, Mr Knörr, for his cooperation and his excellent work in relation to this text.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Risk capital
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0235/2000) by Mr Skinner, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: Risk Capital: Implementation of the Action Plan - Proposals for moving forward [COM(1999) 493 - C5-0320/1999 - 1999/2208(COS)]
Mr President, risk capital is essential for job creation, since between 80% and 90% of funds raised from venture capital goes towards hiring people. SMEs account for 66% of total employment in the Community, SMEs and start-up businesses and venture capital therefore need to have easy access to each other.
Although European venture capital has grown rapidly, we still remain considerably behind the US.
With this in mind, I welcome the importance attached to the Lisbon Summit on venture capital.
Although progress has been made, it is also less focused on the high growth and job creation sectors of information technology, biotechnology and healthcare.
Coordinated action is needed and necessary at both EU and Member State levels in these areas.
In order to achieve this, we need to create a regulatory environment conducive to risk capital. A number of regulatory measures need to be introduced.
A directive on supplementary pension funds needs to be considered urgently and not put on the back burner; we also need an update on EU accountancy rules, a single prospectus for pan-European capital fundraising and the directive on late payment in commercial transactions needs to be implemented on time.
Similarly, the reform of the European patent system seems absolutely essential in this area, as an early adoption of this directive is needed to create an online database to help SMEs check whether or not patents exist and how they can apply for them themselves.
SMEs - foolishly perhaps - disregard the patenting system.
We need to lighten the administrative burden on SMEs, and measures to reduce the stigma on bankruptcy are long overdue because, although there is a wide range of funding instruments available, SMEs and entrepreneurs seeking funding for their new ventures continue to face difficulties.
A website could be created to help overcome this at European level.
There needs to be a review and rationalisation of Community instruments supporting risk capital.
This needs to be more coherent and better integrated between the Commission, the Member States, the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund.
The EIB, the EIF and the European Commission also need to broaden their support for risk capital investment to a wider range of institutions and more innovative instruments, for example, business angels.
Evidence in the US suggests that informal venture capital provided by such people is up to five times as much as with formal procedures.
Similarly a Community-up approach to risk capital is essential.
Risk capital investment needs to go out to everyone, to all regions and to all communities.
Public authorities here as in elsewhere also have a key role to play in providing risk capital and financial support in areas where the private sector will fear to tread.
Initiatives such as mentoring have helped in these areas.
I praise the Prince's Trust in the United Kingdom for the work they have done.
Finally, the lack of entrepreneurial culture and insufficient human resources and training and the lack of high-tech SMEs are all factors which need to be addressed in order to develop risk capital.
It is my belief that the EU has far more potential than is being realised at present.
In order to unlock this potential we need to make changes, not only to the regulatory environment but also to the culture.
It is essential that we realise the importance of risk capital to growth and employment and review the ways in which risk capital can be rationalised, simplified and made more accessible.
Essentially, we need to take the measures which I have outlined and which have been outlined by the Commission and others in order to achieve a joined-up approach to raise the level of risk capital in the European Union and to extend the job-creating benefits to all parts of the European Union.
As regards the new amendments which have been resubmitted after the committee vote, I am not in favour of Mr Tannock's Amendment No 1, but I approve Amendments Nos 2 to 9.
Of Amendments Nos 10 to 20, I only approve Amendments Nos 14, 17 and part of Amendment No 18.
I welcome the views of everyone in my committee and I believe we have a real consensus.
I hope to maintain that by supporting the amendments I have just mentioned.
Mr President, may I begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, for the excellent work he has done in drafting this report.
As the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the shadow rapporteur for the EPP-DE Group on this matter in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mr Skinner who has been very successful in collating the views of parliamentary committees and political groups and putting them on paper in a harmonious and balanced manner.
In the communication on risk capital, the main political message was that risk capital is essential for job-creation, raising productivity and supporting growth in Europe.
I would like to express this even more strongly than the Commission did.
If we really want the European Union to achieve the ambitious goals of the Lisbon Summit, it is absolutely essential to improve the functioning of the single European risk capital market.
Companies in the European Union, especially in growth industries like the hi-tech and bio-tech industries, cannot achieve their full potential without better access to risk capital.
Efficient venture capital markets are also a precondition for the development of entrepreneurship in Europe.
In that sense I fully agree with Mr Skinner when he says that it is of the utmost importance to give SMEs open and fair access to the new risk capital markets.
According to a recent study mentioned in the Commission communication, this is also a very efficient tool for improving employment, since between 80 and 90% of funds raised from venture capital normally go towards hiring more people; in other words more risk capital allows us to use our human capital more efficiently.
In fighting unemployment, concrete measures to alleviate the tax pressure on labour are also urgently needed.
I also want to emphasise the importance of reducing the costs and administrative procedures involved in setting up a company and getting back business after bankruptcy.
At the moment there are too many possible entrepreneurs outside the economy, just because of inadequate insolvency rules.
The present communication shows that even if some progress has been made Europe still has some major weaknesses, particularly when compared with its main competitors.
Mr Skinner said that both the amount and allocation of risk capital remains sub-optimal compared to the United States, and unfortunately this overall gap is widening all the time.
That should make us a little worried about the timetable proposed by the Heads of State and Government in Lisbon.
We should ask ourselves whether the deadline of 2003 is too late for Europe.
I welcome the view put forward by Gordon Brown and others that we should think about accelerating the timetable, in both the risk capital action plan and the financial services action plan. We should at least make sure that some progress is made this year.
I therefore totally support Parliament's view on point 23, calling on the Commission to keep us regularly informed about recent developments.
The proposal for a directive on supplementary pension funds is essential for the growth of venture capital in Europe.
The Employment and Social Committee wanted to make a reference to the findings of the recent report on supplementary pensions, particularly on the prudential rules.
Institutional investors such as insurance companies, investment funds and pension funds play an increasingly predominant role in providing risk capital.
Pension funds in particular have been gaining in importance in the last decade as the demographic changes increase the need for retirement products.
The shift in favour of more performance-orientated instruments has also increased the need to reform the system.
The developments over the last few days with the single currency have been unfortunate.
The euro will never be strong or attractive enough if the European economy is not strong and attractive.
The risk capital action plan is one of the political choices we have already decided to make.
Now we only have to make sure that we make it fast enough to use the current window of opportunity.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as we have already heard, this is a very good report.
It covers all the key points as regards promoting a risk capital culture in Europe.
This is particularly necessary given that efficient risk capital markets play a very important role in creating jobs on the one hand, and on the other, in increasing productivity, in financing rapidly growing companies and in creating new businesses.
The report indicates that 66% of all jobs in the Community are in SMEs and that 80% to 90% of funding secured through venture capital is used to hire staff.
We therefore need more capital for investment in job-creating, growth-intensive SMEs, and also for research and development and for business start-ups.
These are the key points.
Precisely because we are way behind the United States in this field, we are also calling on the Member States and the Commission to support more money - that is more risk capital - to provide start-up capital and capital for the early part of a company's life.We want to cut down on red-tape: the one-stop shop model should be the rule in all countries, and we should take advantage of the new media here.
We also want to see a tax system which at the same time promotes innovation and encourages private individuals to invest capital in businesses.
I therefore also welcome the agreement reached in Lisbon to introduce a benchmarking system so as to promote the best of the many ways of encouraging risk capital and to make further progress in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, for his very prudent report, which comes just at a time when we need a fresh impetus in the risk capital sector within the European Union.
The acceleration in the pace of company growth, start-ups by highly innovative businesses and the terrific speed of industrial change all require more efficient risk capital markets.
More support is needed for growth.
Although there has been rapid growth in venture capital here over the last five years, Europe is still way behind the United States in this area, especially in the high-growth areas of information and biotechnology, and also in the area of health care, including preventive health care, a totally new field that is constantly growing.
In addition, venture capital can be used to create modern social services, an area that should not be overlooked. These services will be particularly needed in the future because of the growing numbers of older people.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs took a special interest in types of supplementary pension funds and the prudential rules these require.
Because of increasing life expectancy, ever more new financial products are being created in the field of old-age pensions.
This means that pension funds are playing an ever-greater role in providing risk capital.
But social security systems, however they may be constructed, therefore particularly need special regulations and supervisory and codetermination bodies when it comes to funding, so as to strengthen confidence in these new systems and products.
That is why it is also necessary for all interested parties - including the European Parliament, the social partners, the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund - to participate in a continuing dialogue.
It cannot be said often enough that the European Union involves pooling our strengths.
We must use all the financial instruments at our disposal to rapidly develop the market and to increase the volume of risk capital investment in the EU, so that risk capital is put to use in a way that genuinely creates jobs, thus benefiting all stakeholders.
Investing in new business start-ups will also create jobs.
If these are to be successfully built up, employees will have a key role to play and will act as a driving force.
Employee participation systems linked with codetermination mechanisms therefore need to be in place.
This is of vital importance for a variety of reasons.
To sum up, I would like to emphasise once again that the Commission communication, combined with the report, can potentially provide a strong impetus for combining forces in the risk capital sector.
Mr President, as we all know, the European Parliament has, in successive reports and motions for many years now, expressed its interest in and sensitivity towards small and medium-sized enterprises and their problems.
It has used various means to highlight the important role of small and medium-sized enterprises in creating jobs and introducing technological innovations.
However, this much-vaunted interest on the part of the Member States' governments and the Community institutions is pure hypocrisy since, to all intents and purposes, small and medium-sized enterprises are unable to access funding programmes, unable to take advantage of technological invention and technological modernisation programmes, unable to take advantage of staff education and training programmes and unable to do anything about their unfair treatment at the hands of the tax authorities.
These problems could be addressed by revising the banks' humiliating lending criteria and by making full use of associations of enterprises and chambers which promote technological development programmes and school education programmes.
The Commission' s action programmes have done little along these lines; and yet, in the Commission' s announcement and Parliament' s report, here we are promoting options which are mainly of interest to big lenders and, more to the point, we are doing so on in the name of small and medium-sized enterprises.
It is a public outrage to propose promoting a single European capital market, ostensibly to serve the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The same applies to proposals for single European pension funds, to proposals that insurance fund reserves be channelled into high-risk financial investments and to tax cuts on profits.
Certainly, solving problems in connection with the unfair treatment of small and medium-sized enterprises by the tax authorities, simplifying and modernising patents and reducing excessive administrative expenditure and start-up formalities for small and medium-sized enterprises are steps in the right direction.
But we consider that satisfying the demands of big lenders in the name of small and medium-sized enterprises is provocative and we shall vote against it.
Mr President, unemployment within the European Union is, at more than 9% of the population eligible for work, still relatively high.
The development of the risk capital sector in Europe will mainly encourage small and medium-sized businesses to attract capital.
This is a development to be welcomed as it is exactly this sector which has so much potential for creating employment.
I would urge the European Commission to bring the process of adopting the directive on additional pensions to a conclusion.
Subject to rules of prudence, institutions must have complete freedom of investment.
In addition, Member States must ensure that paid pension contributions are exempt from tax so that a new source of private capital can be tapped.
But the availability of capital is not the only threshold.
Often, it is the infamous web of rules and regulations, red-tape and formalities which stop small businesses from taking on staff.
Many Member States thus have the major task of setting structural reform in motion and taking down unnecessary barriers.
With a view to the desired reform of the European patent system, I should like to bring the Commissioner' s attention to the European Patent Office' s trilingual system, which engenders distortion of competition.
It should therefore be possible to submit an application in every official language of the Union.
I believe that, without a doubt, the equal treatment of languages de jure is in the interests of small, innovative businesses and also complies with the EU Treaty.
Another concern, expressed - rightly so, in my opinion - in Paragraph 22 of the motion for a resolution, relates to the possible patenting of natural materials, such as genes and plants.
The principle that life is a gift of God and is not property acquired by people, should be respected at all times.
Mr President, the Skinner report is to be welcomed.
Who dares wins!
Unfortunately, there are far too many European companies to which this expression does not apply.
We may be good in terms of inventiveness, but we are bad when it comes to successfully putting our inventions into commercial practice.
All too often, rights of exploitation go to American or Asian companies before SMEs in Europe have the courage to exploit inventions themselves.
Young entrepreneurs in particular often have no idea how to obtain equity capital.
Our tax and administration systems create special problems.
These systems are far too complicated and are often incomprehensible, so that companies of this kind face frustrating obstacles.
We should therefore support all the calls for reform of tax systems and administrative structures.
The present undesirable state of affairs needs to be changed as soon as possible, and the Austrian Government has already taken the initiative in this respect.
Stamp duty on stock-exchange transactions has therefore been abolished with immediate effect and the tax allowance on employee share ownership has been doubled.
It would be good if these measures could also be adopted by other governments instead of waiting until the EU requests them to do so.
Mr President, the rapporteur and all the other Members who have spoken in this Chamber have quite rightly stressed that more efficient risk capital markets have an important role to play in supporting economic growth, creating new and long-lasting jobs and promoting a European knowledge society. This of course also applies to encouraging SMEs and promoting entrepreneurialism.
These are objectives that are repeatedly highlighted as being cornerstones, not only of our economic policy guidelines, but also of our employment policy guidelines.
The proposed implementation of the action plan is the right way to go and is part of the structural reforms still needed in Europe despite all the progress made in implementing structural reforms in the markets for products, capital and services.
But there is more to be done here.
It is a good thing that this clearly emerged at both the Lisbon Summit and the employment forum. Above all it has also become apparent that the European Investment Bank will play an additional positive role.
Mr Skinner was right to draw attention to that.
Furthermore, the Commission communication also indicates, and this was also quite rightly taken on board in the report, that we have still not made sufficient progress in building an integrated pan-European risk capital market, and that this is a weak area for the EU.
The figures speak for themselves.
Risk capital investment in Europe has more than doubled over the last four years, but only EUR 7 billion was invested in Europe, compared with EUR 12 billion in the USA.
If we compare investment during the start-up period of companies, the picture is even clearer, with EUR 1.6 billion in Europe against EUR 4.5 billion in the USA.
Europe's equity markets for high-growth companies may have grown significantly, but in comparison with the US NASDAQ we are just dwarfs.
We are all aware of the problems involved, but we are faced with obstacles that seriously stand in the way of our taking a risk-based and entrepreneurial approach.
I have in mind not only cultural barriers, but also red tape, approval and licensing procedures, difficulties for SMEs in simply filing patent applications and having patents granted, not to mention the cost of maintaining patents, and also uncoordinated tax systems.
An entrepreneurial Europe needs rewards and opportunities which benefit everyone.
So we must fully support the demands that have been made.
There is also room for even more commitment.
I would like to mention that expert networks also have an important and positive role to play.
The provision of risk capital is an important area, but it is not the only issue in business start-ups and expansions: there is also the question of what working capital is available.
Lastly, I would like to stress that this is an area where women entrepreneurs should benefit from special support, and I wish to emphasise that we, the European Parliament, should be calling on the Commission to monitor progress in this field by means of benchmarking and a scoreboard process.
Mr President, I welcome this report on risk capital, because I agree that it represents an opportunity to obtain essential funding for research, development, production and market penetration for new products, which in turn can, of course, create more jobs.
We agree on many points, such as the provision of public and private risk capital, ways of making it more accessible, prioritising the availability of risk capital for SMEs, favourable tax treatment for ploughing back profits into risk capital funds, and simplifying and minimising the cost of patent applications.
However, the overall concept also gives rise to some criticisms.
Firstly, if this is primarily about SMEs in underdeveloped regions, why is there such a sharp focus on innovative services? I would also like to see investment in new products in innovative manufacturing sectors as a means of promoting regional development.
Secondly, it is no use having genuinely good intentions as regards investing in new business start-ups and in research and development, and pumping risk capital into these areas, if the process of opening up new markets, which is highly costly for SMEs, is not included. I say this because that is where SMEs face the greatest difficulties once they have a product - penetrating the market.
Thirdly, why should public risk capital only be applied in areas which the private sector is reluctant to finance? It follows that this simply means keeping higher loss risks in the private sector and reserving high-profit areas for the private sector.
This amounts to a distortion of competition which puts public risk capital at a disadvantage.
Fourthly, how can you guarantee that the greater involvement by pension funds in risk capital called for in the report may not lead to pension contributions being lost, which would run counter to the contributors' objective of ensuring a secure retirement?
Fifthly, it remains unclear why mergers on the capital market should have a positive impact on the availability of risk capital.
Experience suggests the opposite.
The fewer suppliers there are, the less competition there is and the higher costs are.
I too should like to congratulate Mr Skinner on his excellent report, which addresses an issue that I consider to be of the utmost importance.
If the European Union wishes to establish itself as the most economically dynamic region in the world, as was decided at the Lisbon Summit, it must ensure that investments, particularly in SMEs, which create jobs and which support growth sectors, are given the necessary funding.
We wish to promote a dynamic spirit of entrepreneurship in Europe, but there are still countless difficulties blocking the path of people wanting to become entrepreneurs and to carry out profitable projects.
The problems requiring rapid resolution throughout the European Union range from the administrative aspects, such as the often pointless bureaucracy which wastes time, energy and money, to the provision of funding.
Venture capital companies have a major role to play in this field and the European Union must make more rapid progress if it wishes to catch up, in particular with the United States, which is currently far ahead of us.
We feel that the Commission' s proposal is a step in the right direction, although I also think that we must move ahead more quickly, as stated in the amendment requesting the Commission to submit an action plan for 2000 in the field of risk capital and to adopt an integrated approach that combines all the Community instruments in a coherent way.
First and foremost, Europe needs to focus increasingly on the merit of projects rather than on the personal wealth of entrepreneurs, as still happens.
If the banks' practice of requiring personal guarantees from individuals is highly debatable, it is quite unacceptable where venture capital businesses are concerned.
There is still a need to give entrepreneurs easier access to venture capital, and this requires much more active and efficient provision of information on the way in which it is used.
(start of speech inaudible) ... which will be of benefit only to that minority of the population which has capital to invest and move around.
The package of proposals just provides one more illustration of the fact that the European Union has been built exclusively in order to favour the movement and investment of large amounts of capital and, as a corollary, small amounts.
Yet this concerns the majority of the population, as it is their money that the European institutions count on using in order to fund the measures to facilitate private investment.
The people who do not own capital but who pay the bulk of taxes, largely through indirect taxes such as VAT, will therefore have to fund the subsidies and tax deductions envisaged for investors and the tax advantages granted to stock options.
The plan is to favour pension funds, but that inevitably means favouring pay-as-you-go schemes.
The money which ought to be used to provide a decent retirement pension for all will then be used to enable a minority to make greater private profits.
We consequently refute, in its entirety, an approach designed to take even more money out of the pockets of the working classes that form the majority of the population in order to siphon it off towards holders of capital.
Mr President, I would firstly like to point out that the Commission is pleased to have received the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I thank Mr Skinner and Mrs Kauppi for their comments.
Both clearly support the Community strategy for the development of risk capital in the European Union.
I believe there is a clear consensus on the important role to be played by risk capital as a driving force for economic growth and, consequently, for employment.
As the honourable Members know - some speakers have mentioned it - the European Council at Lisbon paid particular attention to promoting our efforts to implement risk capital in such a way that the action plan will be finished in 2003.
Some of you have referred to the possibility of speeding it up.
There is no doubt that this speeding up will depend on the Member States' ability to implement certain measures.
Remember though that the action plan for risk capital predates Lisbon, since it dates back to 1998.
However, past circumstances do not matter as much as what we intend to do for the future.
In this respect, I would like to inform you that the Commission will be sending a communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the progress made with regard to risk capital in accordance with the Lisbon objective.
The communication will include a mechanism for comparative monitoring and assessment to provide precise knowledge of what is happening in each of the Member States, and to allow us to draw relevant conclusions and to introduce, into those countries which consider it appropriate, the best practices which have been adopted in others.
An important factor that has been mentioned is the growth in risk capital during 1999. This is clearly essential.
If we analyse the figures in absolute terms, we should be very satisfied with this result.
Nevertheless, and some of you have highlighted this, when we compare it with the figure in the United States, we have to acknowledge that the difference is significant. Our fundamental objective must be to reduce these differences which still exist in comparison with the United States.
To this end, it is crucial that we carry out a range of concrete actions, and the first and most fundamental is the integration of the European Union' s risk capital market.
Some of you have referred to two specific examples which I would like to highlight - pension funds and the possibility of a more effective Community patent - which allow risk capital to be better used.
As for pension funds, I will tell you that, this week in principle, the Commission should approve a proposal for a directive which offers pension funds greater opportunities to invest in securities throughout the Union.
We are clearly talking about supplementary pension funds and not about an obligation to invest in this way.
We are talking about removing the current obstacles and, therefore, there should be none of the problems you have mentioned with regard to future risks.
Clearly, the opening up to risk capital will require scrupulous behaviour on the part of managers so as to minimise any possible risks.
With regard to the Community patent, I simply wish to say that, back in July, the Commission approved its proposal on this issue.
We believe that it is a fundamental instrument for reducing costs and safeguarding and increasing legal certainty in those innovative companies operating within the Union.
The Community patent will no doubt cause practical problems - some of you have mentioned such complex issues as the linguistic rules - but this is not, unfortunately, a problem which we can discuss at the moment.
Nevertheless, these two specific issues must not lead us to forget other aspects which you have highlighted, such as the improvement of the economic, regulatory and legislative situation, which is essential if risk capital is to be as dynamic as it is in the United States.
The regulatory, administrative and fiscal burdens of investments in risk capital are one of the obstacles in Europe and, in this respect, as in the field of cultural barriers, which certainly exist, the existence of that information, with a comparative situation in the various Member States, should give us more detailed knowledge of the good practices in each of the various Member States. We will thereby achieve better practical results which, in the end, will result in a speeding up of the use of risk capital in the countries of the Union.
Some of you have mentioned the problem of public funding in the case of risk capital and we certainly have to clarify the compatibility of that public funding with all the legislation on competition.
Some of you wondered why public funding had to be merely a supplement to private funding.
This is not a desire to exclude anything, but simply a desire to use the available resources in the best way.
It is not reasonable for public funding to compete with private funding when it comes to financing risk capital projects, and we should use that public funding for those types of project which are most difficult to finance through the private sector.
From the point of view of the Union itself, we are considering the best way to use the available instruments, especially the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund.
Around the middle of October, the Commission will also publish a second communication, which we will send to the Council and Parliament, in which we will analyse the various financial instruments managed by the Commission and the future outlook on the essential issue of risk capital.
In conclusion, I would say that I consider the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to be an excellent and important contribution, and it is enormously constructive, in terms of the efforts to develop the risk capital market.
It is satisfying to see that the recommendations of this committee largely coincide with our proposals for risk capital action plans, and I would like to thank the rapporteur and all the members of the committee for participating in this debate.
Mr President, it is customary to be able to respond to the Commission if at the end a question has been ignored or not fully answered.
We believe that the European Union is a virtual desert as far as venture capital is concerned and that this needs to be addressed urgently.
There are perhaps only one or two countries amongst the 15 where it really operates.
The rest of them, I am afraid, are virtually asleep.
Even in those countries where it does operate it operates in a different way from the system across the Atlantic.
At the very least, issues like the pension fund can be introduced fairly quickly.
These issues must not to be put on the back burner.
Mr Skinner, this is not a point of order but a final comment which you have made outside the agenda.
In any event, if the Commissioner wishes to make any comment at this point, he has the floor.
Mr President, a very quick reply.
I believe I have mentioned the two issues raised by Mr Skinner.
With regard to speeding up the timetables, it falls to the Member States to take the necessary measures to implement the action plan.
As for the Commission, we are now going to present the first report on what has been done, which will no doubt serve as an incentive for the Member States to act by comparing their actions with those of others.
Given the Commission' s responsibilities, it is difficult for us to do any more than that.
With regard to pension funds, and I shall say this again for the record, the Commission intends to approve a regulation on them next Wednesday.
We are therefore already speeding up the process.
Thank you very much, Mr Solbes.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Third Asia-Europe Meeting in Seoul, 20-21 October 2000 (ASEM III)
The next item is the Commission statement on the third Asia-Europe Meeting in Seoul on 20 and 21 October (ASEM III).
Mr President, the third meeting of the ASEM process will take place in Seoul in three weeks.
It is a fortunate coincidence that the meeting is taking place in Korea soon after the historic Korean summit, which opened the way to reconciliation and future reunification.
This will clearly have significant positive effects for security, not only regionally but also globally.
This meeting will mark the maturing of a process which began four years ago in Bangkok.
This process complements our bilateral relations with our ten Asian partners, as well as our relations with ASEAN, and contributes to the process of integration in Asia and in Europe.
The ASEM process is built on three pillars: the political, the economic and the cultural.
The ASEM process has aided the ASEAN + 3 process, bringing North and South-East Asia even closer together.
Its structure of meetings between Ministers for Finance, Economics and Foreign Affairs, as well as the summits, follow the ASEM model.
In the Union we also had to, and still have to, learn how to efficiently manage a process which seeks to promote political dialogue in order to deepen the economic relationship between the two regions and increase personal and cultural contacts.
The process is based on a relationship of equality.
By stressing the original idea that this process of dialogue should be developed as a process between equal partners and kept as informal as possible, without an institutionalised secretariat, we have managed, despite certain difficulties, to convince our Asian partners that we wish to have equal relations with them, going beyond any donor-receiver relationship with them or any post-colonial standpoint.
This approach is especially important in terms of our efforts to consolidate, deepen and broaden the political dialogue.
While our Asian partners prefer to deal with questions which unite us, excluding all others, we have argued for a broader agenda, excluding nothing.
Our partners have accepted this principle in return for a guarantee that wisdom and common sense will prevail when it comes to selecting the issues for discussion.
Human rights are most problematic, of course, together with the rejection of intervention in internal affairs and other arguments which are familiar to us.
Nevertheless, the statement by the presidency of the meeting and the framework for cooperation between Asia and Europe will clearly mention this problem.
I would also like to add that, within the broader framework of the ASEM process, we are holding a constructive series of seminars on human rights organised jointly with the Asia-Europe Foundation.
Security problems, which are of particular importance in the region, will play a considerable role in the process, and it is worth mentioning the publication of a separate declaration on the Korean peninsular as an example of this.
The leaders will also deal with the fight against cross-border crime, especially in the light of the recent Dover tragedy.
The exploitation of illegal immigrants, women and children, particularly in the virulent sex industry, will not only be a subject for debate, but also initiatives will be taken to combat this scourge of our times, which is linked to poverty and insecurity.
In the field of the economy, 1993 was a significant year, since it was the critical moment when our exports to Asia exceeded our exports to the United States.
The second ASEM meeting, which took place in London in 1998, successfully overcame the crisis.
We supported our Asian partners and we adopted concrete measures, such as the significant commitment on trade and investments which reversed the earlier trend and led to a considerable commercial deficit with our partners.
The creation of a trust fund, the establishment of a European financial network of experts and the adoption of two action plans to assist trade and promote investments are other concrete measures which show that Europe is concerned about Asia, not only in the good times but also in times of crisis.
The coming meeting will allow us to assess the results of our efforts and confirm that we have made progress in the pursuit of greater operability and efficiency.
Furthermore, the leaders will discuss the implications of the new economy, globalisation, the lessons learnt from the crisis, the creation of a trans-European-Asian superhighway to improve contacts between research institutes, and discuss the influence of the new technologies on economic life, including the measures to deal with the ever-greater knowledge gap.
As a result of the current global situation, the availability of energy supply, including oil, has been added to the agenda.
The need for a general, multilateral legal framework for the commercial system, such as the World Trade Organisation, and the need to keep it functioning in the era of globalisation, will also be a key issue in the leaders' discussions.
This is part of our strategy to make progress on the consensus in favour of an immediate start to a new global round.
It is important to fill the cultural vacuum between our two regions.
The need to increase awareness, to spread knowledge with a view to stimulating understanding, and eliminating false ideas have been important objectives of the ASEM process since its beginnings.
The Asia-Europe Foundation has contributed considerably to this objective.
The leaders will therefore decide on other initiatives to increase the exchange of students between the regions, to modernise educational structures, to intensify cooperation in the development of human resources and exchange points of view on recent socio-political events.
In this regard, we regret that our Asian partners are still not prepared to consider the creation of a social forum, within the ASEM process, which represents civil society in the same way that the Asia-Europe business forum represents the business community.
This proposal originates from the organisers of the forum of the peoples.
From an organisational and logistical point of view, the Korean Presidency will publish a Presidency statement which will address - together with the problems discussed by the leaders - issues such as the reform of the United Nations, disarmament, arms control, the fight against AIDS etc.
The final text will reflect the discussions between the leaders, but good work has already been carried out.
Therefore, the presidency will update it in accordance with its responsibilities during the meeting.
The Seoul declaration on the Korean Peninsula, which I mentioned before, recognises the importance of recent progress and approves the policy of introducing North Korea into the international community with a view to the peaceful unification of the two Koreas.
Finally, the 2000 framework for cooperation between Europe and Asia, an updated version of the first one, adopted at the last meeting in London, outlines the objectives and procedures which will govern the ASEM process over the next decade.
In contrast to the last version, the importance of human rights and cooperation in safeguarding the environment have been added, to give just two examples.
The only outstanding problem is the question of qualification for membership, with regard to which the European partners have so far been opposed to attempts to introduce certain limits which could be interpreted as excluding certain partners from future participation.
In summary, please allow me to stress that the most important characteristic of the ASEM process - in my opinion - is the establishment of a regular dialogue at the highest level by means of six-monthly summits prepared at the periodic meetings of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs, Economics and Finance, not to mention the numerous meetings of high-level officials and experts which also accompany them.
Dialogue with our Asian partners has become a normal event, which does not depend on economic euphoria or pessimism resulting from a crisis.
The ASEM process is a clear expression of the Union' s absolute commitment to our Asian partners, on an equal footing, and does not only deal with economic matters but also with the important political and personal dimension.
Given Asia' s importance to Europe, and vice versa, mutual learning and the dissemination of knowledge, the establishment of a network between leaders and peoples will help to put into practice the theme chosen for ASEM III, that is to say, working together for prosperity and stability in the new millennium.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Asia is one of the regions of the world where the European Union's potential in terms of political influence has not been fulfilled.
This is not intended as a reproach, it is simply a statement of fact.
This becomes apparent if you go to that part of the world as an EU representative, when you will find, for example, that no one is satisfied with a statement that you are representing the European Union - you will always be asked which Member State you come from.
It is a way of judging how important you are.
And where the European Union has not achieved its full potential it is also possible that it has not assumed its full responsibility either.
That is why the ASEM process is so enormously important.
I think I can say that the Commission largely has Parliament's support in promoting this process.
The Commission can, to a very large extent, count on Parliament's support for its overall approach and for the agenda it has drawn up.
So one of the most important things today is to make the European public aware of the ASEM process.
However, our partners in Asia do not understand that, in practice, we are very inward-looking. The issues that most concern us are the Intergovernmental Conference, enlargement and, when the occasion arises, problems on our political doorstep, such as the Middle East.
But they do not understand the fact that we are not fulfilling our potential when it comes to all those issues that are important for global welfare and peace.
People's expectations of the European Union are enormous.
They envisage a strategic European presence in Asia, yet we are certainly not in a position to provide that in the foreseeable future.
It is obvious what lies behind this: an awareness of the constant presence of the United States of America and of the growing importance of China.
They would like to see Europe providing a counterbalance.
We must seize this opportunity and in fact this is a chance for us to win support for our principles there.
This is something else that can be achieved through the ASEM process.
Mr President, I believe that the question is now no longer whether this century or this millennium will be a European one or an Asian one - no, what matters is for both regions to join together in a new partnership.
So it is right that the European and Asian Heads of Government should continue to meet through their informal multiple-theme dialogue, and it is particularly important for them to do that in Seoul this year against the historical new background of the possibility of reunification.
There is still insufficient interest in mutual understanding between these two regions of the world, although economic and trade policy, and a shared interest in a security partnership, do exist.
But these two major regions need to understand each other better and coordinate their affairs so that they can successfully focus on their shared priorities and make some real progress with regard to the reform of the United Nations and the WTO in relation to monetary and financial stability, and also concerning other important issues on the agenda of the International Labour Organisation.
The successes of the last two summits in Bangkok and London cannot disguise the fact that the ASEM process is not sufficiently dynamic.
Bangkok was all innovation and smiling faces, whereas London provided an initial response to the Asian crisis.
Normality in EU-Asian relations is now needed, so that we can finally see some concrete cooperation meaningful to the public.
Cooperation should range from the fight against money laundering to environmental commitment and confidence-building measures in security policy and to commitment to food and water supply safety. It should also embrace our successes in the fight against organised crime, and - you are quite right about this, Commissioner - in combating trafficking in human beings, sexual exploitation of women and abuse of children.
The exchanges between schools, universities and business people are most promising, and the Asia-Europe Foundation is doing sterling work.
However, what is at stake now, in 2000, is what ASEM can really achieve and should be able to achieve, and what is best organised at ASEM level.
The Vision Group has produced an excellent model here, and one that should be put into more concrete terms.
ASEM has certainly done the right thing in focusing on the three pillars of political, economic and cultural cooperation.
But we need more than that if we are to make progress in security policy under the OSCE process in Europe and also as regards territorial issues in Asia or human rights and democratic issues in Burma and elsewhere, with a view to stabilising the region.
It is also vital for the increasingly important issues of company delocalisations, employment standards and other social issues to be discussed in a social forum which meets at a level comparable with the Business Forum and which facilitates the dialogue between politicians and the social partners on industrial relations and social standards.
We really must create a forum of this kind.
But we as Members of the European Parliament are also interested in reviving the Europe-Asia parliamentary dialogue.
We have organised the first meeting between European and Asian Members of Parliament here in Strasbourg.
Now that Europe has taken the first initiative, the ball is in our Asian colleagues' court.
Why should Japan or China not run with this ball? It is a pity that in Europe interest in developing closer links with Asia is not as strong as interest in cooperation with other regions of the world.
So a parliamentary dialogue also means the public at large becoming involved in cooperation in civil society.
We all need to see this as a task for the future, because both these regions of the world have a great deal to say and do.
Mr President, the Europe-Asia Meeting is different to other kinds of dialogue, in that ASEM' s set-up is informal, which we appreciate in the case of this dialogue of eminent strategic importance.
It also covers different dimensions and embraces politics, economic affairs and culture.
How can we marry all of this together? This is not straightforward, and we believe that the ideal starting point would be Commissioner Patten' s excellent speech on this subject back in July in Korea.
I would like to outline three points at this stage. Firstly, we Liberals attach great importance to economic cooperation, an often undervalued factor, not only over there, but also here.
If we learnt anything from the economic crisis in Asia, it is that liberalisation, with a greater level of economic transparency and sound protection of foreign investments, is effective.
If there can now be joint initiatives within the WTO, then that is an extra bonus.
The second point is cultural cooperation. The exchange of scientists and politicians, as Mrs Randzio-Plath mentioned a moment ago, is extremely important in our view.
This Parliament should play a role in this, too.
In addition, I should like to underline the role of the Asian-Europe Foundation in Singapore.
I am in favour of renewing their mandate provided this is attended by the necessary financial resources.
The third point is political dialogue: ASEM is the ideal forum for raising issues, including disturbing ones.
We will be at the negotiating table with the People' s Republic of China and discussing its ban on the Falun Gong, and its system of arbitrary administrative detention and imprisonment for political reasons which is still in existence.
All matters of this kind should very definitely be raised.
Mr President, ASEM' s enlargement to include India, among other countries, is under discussion.
In any event, Burma cannot be considered for this enlargement scheme.
The treatment of Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, since we have just talked about the British human rights activist James Maudsley, is more than enough evidence that we cannot enter into a dialogue with this regime at this stage.
We would rather go into partnership with Taiwan, and it would be nice if the People' s Republic of China and the Republic of China could take a leaf out of the book of North and South Korea in their attempts at conciliation.
Mr President, the forthcoming Europe - Asia Summit in Seoul offers a valuable framework for dialogue and the strengthening of political, economic and cultural cooperation between the two participating regions.
There are several countries in East Asia which would like to see Europe step up its presence in the region.
This in itself offers a very favourable basis for the gradual development of cooperation between the two regions.
I would, however, urge all participants to reach a consensus on incorporating clear commitments in the principal documents in Seoul to respect human rights in the region.
Greater attention must also be paid to child labour to guarantee that this practice can be eliminated as soon as possible both within Asia and elsewhere.
Europe and Asia must work together to intensify the battle against drug trafficking, money laundering, international crime, terrorism and the sexual exploitation of minors.
It is very important that an agreement is struck during the next round of World Trade Organisation talks between our two collective regions.
On this latter point, I would like to state that Asia's fragile economic recovery is complicated by the region's delicate political situation.
It is sometimes forgotten that the unprecedented period of economic growth over a quarter of a century in Asia was predicated on a sustained period of political and strategic stability.
Much of this stability does not exist in the region at this time.
The Korean peninsula is a source of continuing strategic instability.
The rebuilding of East Timor is still an ongoing process.
More Asian countries could play a role in providing additional aid for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of East Timor as a matter or urgency.
Certainly much discussion is going to be needed to stabilise relations between the new Taiwanese government and the People's Republic of China.
All interested parties should note that political stability must be in place before key economic developments can take place, and I wish all the participants in the conference in Seoul this month every success.
Mrs Randzio-Plath suggested that there should be greater focus and emphasis on the European-Asian parliamentary dialogue.
As Chairman of this Parliament's delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia I would very much welcome that.
It is not sufficient that we only meet once every five or six years for a Parliamentary dialogue between the representatives of this Parliament and the representatives of India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Butan - these are just countries covered by the particular delegation that I happen to be Chairman of.
I would appeal to Mrs Randzio-Plath, who has a strong input in the Budgetary Committee, to help provide the finances to enable this delegation - and others where such a step would be meaningful - to increase the frequency of these meetings.
Mr President, first of all I should like to tell Mr Nassauer that while we must regret the fact that the European Union has a low profile in the countries of Asia, we must also admit our own responsibility to a certain extent and acknowledge our missed opportunities.
For example, a month ago we voted on Mr Galeote Quecedo' s report on diplomacy and foreign policy.
This report does not in fact deal with diplomacy and foreign policy but instead confines itself to tackling the question of the postgraduate training, if you will, of European diplomats, or future diplomats.
Another missed opportunity.
On the matter of ASEAN, we ought to ask ourselves what type of relations the European Union has or ought to have with ASEAN.
Firstly, we cannot ignore the very different concepts of integration in the European Union and within ASEAN.
There is no political integration, not even the prospect of political integration, between the ASEAN countries, nor should we forget, as I feel some previous speakers seem to have done, that the governments within ASEAN are all very different: we have totalitarian or dictatorial regimes, even hardline dictatorships like China, alongside democratic countries.
It is not, therefore, surprising that there is, in this context, no real integration or genuine political dialogue.
The European Union should perhaps look into the problem and return to good, sound bilateral relations which could be appreciably different according to whether they involved a democracy or a dictatorial or totalitarian regime.
I also think that the optimism shown regarding the Korean reunification process is somewhat excessive.
The one swallow that you might see in the summit between the President of the Korean Republic and the leader of the dictatorial regime of North Korea does not definitely mean that winter is over for the citizens of North Korea.
Let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that in the course of the last five years, somewhere between two and four million people have died of starvation under this idyllic regime.
Similarly, I find it intolerable that the European Union, in its dialogue with Asia, should avoid the question of India, which is a democracy, with a population in the order of that of its neighbour on the other side, China, but not the same type of government, and which does not have the same special relationship with the European Union.
Like Mr Maaten, I feel we cannot carry on ignoring the question of Taiwan for much longer, not just in the process underway between Taiwan and the People' s Republic of China, but also within international cooperation schemes, even though I am not one of those people who think that these are very effective.
I therefore feel that we cannot continue to disregard this Chinese monster, which is slowly changing into a Communist dictatorship, a new, national Communist dictatorship.
We have had a forty-year Cold War between the Soviet Union and the democratic world, and I think there is an urgent need to avoid wasting opportunities like these summits to lift the lid on this major problem.
Finally, Mrs Randzio-Plath, I should like to say that if we wish to step up parliamentary cooperation, we can only do so with the democratic countries in this region, i.e. with countries that actually have parliaments.
If there is to be any parliamentary cooperation at all, then it must be with such countries and not with the officials of the Communist Party of China or other countries in the region.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his input in this debate and for his sound plans.
I very much back the idea of strengthening economic, cultural and political ties with ASEAN and ASEM.
I also believe in involving the NGOs, mainstream society and the citizens of those countries.
However, I would like to focus on the political contacts and comment on two countries in that area, namely Burma and Indonesia.
Burma is without a doubt ruled by one of the world' s cruellest dictatorships.
Ten years ago, a military regime pushed the elected President, Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, out of office, dissolved parliament, drove out, imprisoned and even killed numerous members of parliament, and subsequently applied extreme terror in its treatment of the population and minorities.
The European Union has taken a number of measures with regard to Burma, but to no avail.
Not so long ago, Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi was once again restricted in her freedom, a number of key fellow party members were rounded up and Western human rights representatives found themselves in hot water in Burma.
Nothing appears to be working.
This is why, in line with previous EP resolutions, I should once again like to argue in favour of adopting a harder line in conjunction with the ASEAN and ASEM countries.
I would now like to turn my attention to Indonesia, which is having difficulty moving back towards being a democratic constitutional state.
Wahid' s government is of good will and is genuinely trying to undo old-style practices in the short term.
But there are hardened opponents.
These include corrupt members of the old Suharto clique and disloyal sections of the army, as well as paramilitary militia and aggressive Muslim fundamentalists.
Meanwhile, Indonesia is dealing with a total of one million refugees internally, 130 000 of whom are in Timor and 300 000 on the Moluccan Islands.
Especially in the Moluccas, where aggressive Muslim groups are spreading death and destruction, the situation is plainly disastrous.
With more than 5 000 killed, tens of thousands wounded and more than 300 000 refugees, the large Moluccan community in the Netherlands - 50 000 EU citizens - is worried out of its mind.
The European Union must support the democratic forces in Indonesia but at the same time fathom out how it can help Indonesia to defy the negative forces in Indonesia - certainly in the Moluccas, because so many Moluccan European citizens are so terribly worried.
Mr President, I thank Commissioner Solbes for his statement.
I sometimes feel that Asia, ASEAN and ASEM are the Cinderellas of Europe's foreign relations, receiving far less attention than they deserve on issues of industrial economic, financial, political and security matters.
I welcome the promise that we have here to change that situation.
I am not sure about the proposal for exchanging politicians - who would we get in exchange for Mr Haider and Mr Le Pen?
There are three main points I would like to make.
Firstly, events in Seattle and Prague show that it is no longer possible for many of the key global issues to be negotiated behind closed doors by small groups isolated from daily life.
I welcome the parallel ASEM People's Summit 2000 and the proposal in the compromise text that this should be institutionalised for future ASEM meetings.
I also welcome the proposal for the re-establishment of the joint parliamentary meetings of MPs from the ASEM member countries.
Secondly, like Mrs Maij-Weggen, I want to talk about Burma.
I am very pleased that, while Burma is a member of ASEAN, it is not a member of ASEM and in the past ASEM has called for the restoration of democracy in that sad country.
We continue to hope that the military regime in Burma will eventually recognise that the only way forward is by dialogue with Aung San Suu Kyi rather than by confrontation.
We hope that the Member States will continue to monitor that.
Thirdly, this summit is being held on the Korean peninsula in Seoul.
We have seen a historic breakthrough as vital as the ones we have seen in the past in Northern Ireland and in the Middle East, with Kim Dae-jung and Kim Jong-il having the political courage to hold the first summit in this sadly divided peninsula.
Yet we have seen recently in both Northern Ireland and the Middle East how fragile these peace initiatives can be.
We urge the Commission, the Council and the ASEM member states, both from Asia and from Europe, to do what they can economically and politically to aid and assist this process further.
Europe can play an important role as honest broker.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should just like to say a few words to emphasise our great concern about Timor and to urge that this issue be specifically tabled on the agenda of the forthcoming summit.
I am sure that we all remember the tribute paid here almost a year ago to Xanana Gusmão, who received the Sakharov Prize in this House.
We have an ongoing responsibility to Xanana Gusmão, to what he stands for and to the people of Timor.
Recently, the situation there has grown worse and, therefore, the tough message that I wish to convey to the Commission, and which I would like to see conveyed most forcefully to the Indonesian authorities, is that any positive developments in our relations with their country are dependent on Indonesia being able to provide effective guarantees for peace and freedom in Timor.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to make three short suggestions about open dialogue.
Firstly, a proposal for political dialogue.
We have already spoken about Indonesia, East Timor and Burma.
I would like to mention the situation between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan.
I believe we should make it clear that the election of the new Taiwanese President is a historical opportunity to overcome the differences on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and we should do this.
As Europeans we should also, at long last, have the courage to open the EU liaison office in Taipei, because Taiwan is a major economic force with which we have very close relations.
But there is the matter of political dialogue.
My second point is that we should be economically open, and we also have to tackle difficult topics sometimes.
We should take the opportunity of being in Seoul to stress once again that the subsidies Korea grants to its shipyards are unacceptable.
They put jobs throughout the EU at risk.
It is not acceptable that we assisted Korea during the ASEAN crisis by means of IMF loans and suchlike, only for Korea still to be subsidising its shipyards, which is creating unjustifiable problems for our own shipyards.
My third point is one that affects not only us but also the countries of Asia.
As has already been mentioned, we need an interparliamentary dialogue, a dialogue between the European Parliament and the parliaments of the 10 Asian states.
You quite rightly mentioned that one of the key points at the Asia-Europe Summit will be the wide-ranging dialogue, that is to say the expression of various different interests on the part of Europe and Asia.
It is not acceptable for these interests only to be the subject of exchanges between governments and officials, with academics and journalists generously being allowed to participate.
Members of Parliament also need to take part in this process - this is no longer a question of pure foreign policy.
These are all political issues which significantly affect the situation in individual countries, and so Members of Parliament must be involved in this.
When the Japanese Members of Parliament come to see us in Strasbourg in November, Mr President, we will ask them to see if the next meeting between Members of the European Parliament and Members of Parliament from the Asian countries can, if at all possible, be organised in Japan.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank all the speakers for their contributions to the debate and make some brief comments.
In the economic field, I must remind you that we have two action plans in place, one to aid commerce and the other to promote investments, both of which are very active.
With regard to the social aspects, we proposed a new body at the time - the social forum - which would represent civil society.
As I pointed out earlier in my presentation, the countries of Asia have not unfortunately been in favour of that proposal, which is something we regret.
With regard to parliamentary cooperation, I would like to remind you that there have been two meetings: one in the Philippines and the other in Portugal, on cooperation between young parliamentarians, in which European parliamentarians have also taken part.
We will consider any additional interparliamentary relations to be enormously positive.
With regard to the comments on certain specific countries, I would like to point out the following: first, with regard to Myanmar, it is clear that it is not a participating nation in the ASEM process and nor is there any intention to admit it into that process.
This situation is discussed every time there is political dialogue, and the circumstances are clearly not conducive to moving in that direction.
As for India, I would like to remind you that there was a first summit between India and the European Union last July, outside the framework of the ASEM.
With regard to Indonesia, which has also been an issue of special interest, there is regular dialogue, within the ASEM, in which we always insist on the need to promote the democratic process and, to this end, President Prodi has already sent a message to the Indonesian President so that progress may be made on this point.
Our political support for Timor is clear and we provide what we consider to be significant humanitarian assistance.
Lastly, with regard to the very topical problem of our relations with Korea and, in particular, in relation to the shipyards and subsidies for ship building, I would like to remind you that this is an issue which is outside the framework of the ASEM but which, nevertheless, is not a forgotten question in our relations with Korea.
It is the subject of constant and tough discussion.
These debates continued last week and I agree that the subsidies currently being granted are completely unacceptable.
Mr President, I have not had any feedback on my comments regarding the Moluccan Islands in Indonesia, where problems are more serious than in Timor at the moment.
There are 300 000 refugees, probably 10 000 killed and tens of thousands wounded.
Surely the Moluccas cannot be overlooked in the ASEM negotiations.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner once again how it is intended to tackle this problem.
Mr President, I simply wish to say that, when I referred to the promotion of the democratic process in Indonesia, I clearly meant all the problems relating to human rights and, especially, the issue of the Moluccas, which is a subject of particular and constant concern.
Thank you for clearing up that matter.
That concludes the debate.
I have received six motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will be taken on Wednesday.
Seaports and inland ports
The next item is the recommendation for a second reading (A5-0232/2000), from the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No. 1692/96/EC as regards seaports and inland ports as well as project No. 8 in Annex III (6658/1/2000 - C5-0271/2000 - 1997/0358(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Piecyk).
Mr President, I would like to make a general comment about the procedural position here, as it seems to me a classic example of how codecision should not be conducted.
Following the first reading in Parliament, it took a year before we received the Council's common position, which takes almost no account at all of Parliament's views. And now, because of the timescales involved, such as the intervening summer recess, the situation is that Parliament has virtually no alternative but to repeat its position at first reading, with the result that we will all be merrily wending our way to the conciliation procedure.
This really is not how the codecision procedure should be conducted, at least not in my opinion.
I am directing this comment to the Council: since Amsterdam there has been an ever increasing flow of legislative work on transport in particular.
We would save time, money and energy procedurally speaking if the Council could appreciate and accept that a common position is not the end point of the decision-making process.
It is an important stage in that process, but the process then continues and it must then come before Parliament.
What is this all about? During the first trans-European network round, the issue of ports remained unresolved.
At that time, the Commission undertook to prepare an appropriate proposal on ports.
It has done that and has also extended the proposal to include not only seaports, but also inland ports and intermodal terminals, including Project No 8 of the 14 major projects in Essen, which is to be modified.
Parliament has welcomed the Commission's approach of bringing together seaports, inland ports and terminals, because these are interrelated interconnection points in the transport network.
The Council has only accepted certain parts of Parliament's proposals and totally departs from Parliament's criteria for interconnection points.
I wish to concentrate on the most important aspects.
First, seaports. Parliament would like the criteria here to be a traffic volume of 1.5 million tonnes and 200 000 passengers, and also, as a vital and key criterion, a connection with another trans-European network.
The Council wants a maximum of 1 million tonnes without a connection to other trans-European networks.
However, this means that in my own dearly beloved Schleswig-Holstein, the region I come from, a place like Langballigau, which has at most one bridge and two bollards where a ship can tie up, has overnight turned into a European seaport, which is pure nonsense.
Parliament simply cannot allow something like this to go through.
In the case of inland ports, Parliament would like the criterion to be an annual traffic volume of 500 000 tonnes, as against the Council's criterion of just 300 000.
The result is that an additional 200 smaller ports would be included. There would be so many and they would be so small you would need a magnifying glass to find them.
That is not acceptable.
I believe that if we are talking about a trans-European network, the seaports and inland ports involved should meet minimum requirements for European transport functions.
Parliament has endorsed the inclusion of intermodal terminals, whereas the Council completely disagreed with this, although terminals will of course have a far more significant part to play in future European transport policy than they perhaps do at present.
Ports are in competition with each other, and that is a good thing.
But in order to guarantee a level playing field Parliament requested that we should not be promoting superstructure investments but, at most, investment in infrastructure.
The Council has so far not been able to accept this basic concern, and neither has the Commission, by the way.
So we must work together to find solutions that will ensure a level playing field in terms of infrastructure.
One point that I welcome here is that the Council has evidently accepted the modification of Project No 8.
Parliament is in agreement with this.
However, this also means that the Council has finally accepted that codecision should also apply to the 14 important Essen projects.
Whatever we agree tomorrow will ultimately have to go into the conciliation procedure.
I would specifically like to acknowledge the French Presidency's efforts to establish a common approach at this early stage.
The Council is being somewhat obstructive here.
My thanks also go to the Commission's officials, who have already been very helpful on this.
Nevertheless, it would have been good if everything could have proceeded a little faster than it has in the event.
And last but not least I would like to thank my fellow Members in the committee, who have all pulled in the same direction.
I would like to comment on Amendment No 15.
The peripheral areas have been omitted from the English translation again, it is the original German version that applies.
I hope that the Sittings Service will put this right so that the peripheral areas are once again referred to in all versions.
And I would once again like to sincerely thank my colleagues in the committee for their cooperation.
I hope that after tomorrow's vote we will be able to move promptly on to the conciliation procedure and not drag things out for the full six weeks.
Mr Piecyk, I took note of your opening remarks about conciliation.
I hope you will be able to come along to the seminar on 6 and 7 November, when you might wish to make those points.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my group would first like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Piecyk.
He has consistently re-presented what we jointly agreed upon at first reading. He has translated it into a clear and easily understandable report.
The main theme of this report is that if we are looking at European ports as part of the trans-European network, then we need a policy which provides for ports relevant to Europe's needs to be incorporated into that network.
And they can only be relevant to Europe's needs if they are connected to other transport systems in the trans-European network.
Furthermore, the small amount of support that we give to trans-European networks must in that case, of course, also be directed to port infrastructure and not just towards port superstructure.
This report is quite clear on that point.
The corresponding amendments were also unanimously adopted in committee.
I would like to comment on two additional points.
If we do not concentrate on those ports that are really relevant to export and intra-Community trade, then we will face a situation in which all ports, including all yachting harbours, are classified as European ports. In that case the greatest danger would be a scattergun approach, not concentrating resources.
This is also recognised in our regional policy, which Commissioner Barnier has referred to.
We must point the way, but we can only do that if we support key projects in a truly consistent way instead of adopting a scattergun approach and subsidising all and sundry.
My second point is about the competitive situation not only between ports, but also within a single port.
So if we were all allowed to provide state aid for buildings, van carriers and so on, there would be unacceptable competition between private and state companies operating at the same port, and also between different ports.
That is why we need a clear pan-European policy on ports which really does respect competition.
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, this report on the Council' s common position by our fellow Member Mr Piecyk, in its final version as adopted by the parliamentary committee, is indeed a very serious piece of work; it makes a number of fundamental proposals with a view to including intermodal terminals in the network, applying equal terms to all ports as regards the eligibility of investments, applying stricter criteria and conditions for including seaports in the trans-European network and supporting inland ports.
There are, therefore, what would appear to be reasonable increases in freight and passenger traffic volume thresholds.
Of course, putting each type of proposed measure on an equal footing will cause problems unless objective requirements are also put on an equal footing.
For example, as regards the subject under discussion, an extensive hinterland which is currently served by a large number of ports could start channelling traffic to just a few of them in order to ensure that they meet the more stringent eligibility criteria. If, for example, there are two ports, one could be promoted over the other.
However, if a relatively small or medium-sized island is currently served by just one port, how is it supposed to increase its traffic?
Objectively-speaking, it cannot do so; is it therefore right that a country with a lot of islands which necessarily has many such ports cannot benefit from the same advantages for its port infrastructure? And what about the cohesion we are all fighting for?
And the provision in the Amsterdam Treaty for the special treatment which island regions obviously require?
My speaking time is running out, Mr President, and I shall finish there; but before I do, as we are debating shipping, I too should like to express my deep-felt sorrow at the loss of life of our fellow human beings who were travelling on one of the many ships needed to serve the many Greek islands, which obviously therefore require a great deal of specific interest on our part.
This interest needs to be manifested constantly as there will always be numerous islands with natural features which we cannot change.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, I wish to thank the rapporteur for some very thorough work with regard to this important issue.
The purpose of the trans-European networks is to link up different regions of the EU, so that the common market may function effectively.
The rapporteur, however, has viewed the matter mainly from the angle of large ports.
The number of tonnes given for freight are important, but they do not always tell the whole truth.
The kind of freight also has a decisive impact on volume.
In the peripheral regions ports are particularly important, although the volume of freight and number of passengers are smaller than in central areas.
For example, the proposal to raise the volume in tonnes of freight to 1.5 million in respect of seaports and to change the classification of ports will not, in the opinion of our group, serve the development of the trans-European networks.
This would mean that the ports in the TENs would be concentrated on the densely populated central areas, and many sparsely populated peripheral regions would accordingly remain outside the TENs.
The other travesty here is that only international traffic is included in passenger numbers for TEN ports.
For example, ferry traffic between Scotland and Northern Ireland accounts for 1.8 million passengers a year, but these ports would remain outside the TEN if just international traffic were to be included.
This service is not just important as a link between Scotland and Northern Ireland, but it is also important for the Irish Republic.
Smaller, important ports and the Union' s internal passenger traffic must also be taken better account of.
For that reason, our group opposes Amendments Nos 3, 4, 5, 9 and 10, among others.
In this respect the Council' s position would serve the development of trans-European networks more effectively.
Mr President, I would like to say a few words, first of all thanks to Mr Piecyk, who had to finish this report in a very short space of time, and who burnt the midnight oil more than once in the process.
The Green Group has a love-hate relationship with transport.
After all, transport creates pollution but there are certain modes of transport which create more pollution than others.
This means that we do not wholeheartedly endorse all elements of the TENs, but we do if they involve the development of the less polluting alternatives, for example the development of ports, the development and promotion of inland shipping and the use of intermodal terminals.
With regard to that element of those ports, if you consider the Council' s viewpoint on ports - and this has been put in more than one way - the quantitative criterion used is, in my opinion, too sweeping and too vague, which results in a situation in which some ports in the German Wadden area and some in the Netherlands, such as the port of Scheveningen, which is a small fishing port, have now been elevated to the status of ports which would be required to play a role in the trans-European network.
This is simply taking things too far, in my book.
In this sense, I wholeheartedly support the rapporteur' s view, but I should add that, actually, if you look for something which is also lacking in the Council' s position, then I would say that the Council is underplaying the significance of intermodal terminals and, above all, the multimodal terminals, for they are much talked about in this Chamber.
As a result, we are lacking the qualitatively sound arguments for incorporating ports, often located on the fringes - as was mentioned a moment ago - into this scheme.
In addition to the quantitative criteria, a number of qualitative criteria will need to be developed.
But we will soon be entering conciliation when we will need to consider this issue in depth.
I am delighted that at least the rapporteur has put this intermodal transport - Mr Jarzembowski worded it very well - very much on the agenda.
I believe that this will become one of the bones of contention which we will hopefully - with or without a conference - be able to bring to a successful conclusion.
I am extremely pleased that, in addition to this, all of the reports on strategic effects have been included.
I hope that they will not be the sacrificial lamb of the conciliation procedure.
As for the superstructure and its funding, I can understand very well why we are not incorporating superstructure, the definition of which is, in fact, far from agreed, into a non-transparent and vague financing method for ports.
The port structure and its correct definition is the first step, a superstructure the second.
In my view, we should be looking at how we can add more detail in the meantime.
Mr President, the European Union boasts great variety, yet we have a tendency to centralise everything and make it uniform.
This is once again illustrated by Mr Piecyk' s report on seaports and inland ports.
This report and these amendments, in fact, deal with a number of very different situations.
As before, when we were discussing reports on marine pollution and air traffic, we need to draw a distinction between North and South, large and small, and policy which is driven by profit and that which is driven by environmental considerations.
It is therefore not easy to use the same yardstick to assess all ports across the European Union.
According to some, the report and its amendments enable small ports to strengthen their position, ports which are indispensable for the accessibility and survival of islands and remote coastal areas.
Based on this viewpoint, every small port and every ferry port which handles a great deal of tourist traffic should feature on the European list.
Port policy would then mainly focus on offering support to peripheral regions.
However, in Europe' s most densely populated area around the North Sea and the Channel, there are major ports, including that of my home town, Rotterdam.
They are caught up in a bitter competitive battle, partly brought on by the fact that they are offering as many facilities as possible to transport companies at the lowest possible rates.
Rotterdam wants to remain the world' s largest port and competes with Le Havre, Dunkirk, Zeebrugge, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Bremen and Hamburg for the same cargo volumes.
There is even a notion that Rotterdam should be a "mainport" where all goods reaching the European west coast from other continents must be transhipped to vessels which distribute them to the surrounding ports.
Other large ports too are striving for growth and dominance.
This competitive battle is at the expense of the environment and at the expense of the financial elbowroom of the large cities.
European port policy should be able to do something about this and should be able to distribute the cargo volumes over a larger area.
Unfortunately, I have not been able to find initiatives to this effect in any of the proposals.
Mr President, the trans-European networks are intended to link the different regions of the European Union, not only as a means of transport, but also as a way of sharpening the competitive edge and hence of increasing employment in certain regions.
The emphasis is on routes between different Member States.
Logically, this means that attention will be focused on projects with cross-border implications.
The transport situations within the different Member States are far from identical.
Whereas in the southern Member States, road and rail are the key modes of continental transport, the more northerly countries prefer to rely mainly on water transport.
Against this background, it goes without saying that the TENs mirror these modes of transport and the interaction between them.
Moreover, those modalities which cause least harm in terms of space and the environment must be included in the TENs without fail.
This is my frame of reference for Mr Piecyk' s report which deals with the position of ports in the TENs.
Very often, seaports are the first and last ports of call for cargo in Europe.
The link with the hinterland can be made in different ways.
This means that virtually all goods which pass through those seaports must change mode of transport at least once.
Transhipment and, along with this, transhipment terminals are what are needed.
Ruling these terminals out in the TENs certainly does not benefit any mode of transport.
I therefore subscribe to the rapporteur' s views in this respect without any hesitation.
In order to ensure that TENs are used for what they were set up for and in order to maintain an overview of them all, it is impossible to include all EU ports in the network.
A certain minimum number is therefore inevitable.
In my opinion, the criteria formulated by the rapporteur in this respect fit in best within the framework requested by the EP.
In summary, the rapporteur has made proposals which I hope the Council will take to heart.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on his good report.
I am not going to highlight the parts of the report on which we agree, but I would like to point out a couple of issues which worry me and also worry certain other Members.
Firstly, I must say that I come from a group of islands in the Mediterranean - as the rapporteur well knows - and we have the impression that the large ports are being promoted, mainly the northern ports as opposed to the southern ports.
The small ports, and mainly the ports in the outlying regions and the islands, are rather being left out of this promotion of marine transport.
What I would like to see in this case is recognition for example, that it would be beneficial to apply to the ports the division which is carried out in the case of airports of different categories so that we can concentrate, not on the categories of ports, but on the specific projects.
That is to say, the project that is being presented, its objectives and all the actions implemented within that project.
I believe that would be the right approach.
In our case, in the Balearic Islands - I come from Palma de Mallorca - the port of Palma would be included in the proposals in Mr Piecyk' s report, but other ports in the same islands would be left out and this would lend support to air transport.
Air transport would become the best way to transport goods and passengers to certain islands and outlying regions.
We are currently trying to promote marine transport as an alternative to air transport, and this is therefore an issue to be considered.
Having made these points, which are differences of opinion rather than disagreements, it only remains for me to express our support for this report and to congratulate the rapporteur.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, on his rapid and wonderful work and I would like to point out that I have just received a report from Friends of the Earth which makes a comparative study which I consider to be of interest.
The distance from the port of Pasajes, in the Basque Country, to Vlissingen, in Holland, is approximately the same whether one travels by sea, road or rail.
A cargo of cars and caravans can easily be transported on a small ship of two thousand tonnes, instead of the 204 lorries or 7 trains with 102 wagons which would be required to transport the same load.
The results of the three systems, with regard to total external costs, in terms of road congestion, accidents, noise, atmospheric pollution and climate change, vary considerably: EUR 74 000 for the ship, EUR 130 000 for the lorries and EUR 99 000 for the railway.
I believe we should draw the conclusion that sea transport is the most appropriate solution and it should receive public resources as a priority. I also agree that we should select the most important ports - as Mr Piecyk points out - as well as those which conform to intermodality and, above all, the ports which allow us to make the greatest savings in terms of environmental costs.
With regard to the other conclusions of the report, I agree with Mr Piecyk that the Council' s position is more restrictive.
Some will consider it to be broader, but I believe that it is more restrictive in relation to the effective use of European funds intended for that purpose.
I, too, would like to congratulate the rapporteur, who has produced a major report in a short space of time.
It has already been pointed out by almost all those who have spoken that, in effect, the situation with regard to transport - particularly sea transport - and seaports differs widely throughout our Union: the situation in northern countries differs from that in southern countries, in terms of dimensions and the volume of freight and passenger traffic.
However, if we wish - and we do, for we consider it absolutely essential - sea and river ports to be included in the system of trans-European networks and to have their own system, then we must by necessity establish a hierarchy and a classification list for this system.
Now, I come from a country which boasts 8 000 km of coastline and would therefore benefit greatly from having as many of its ports as possible included in the "European port" category. However, we have to be prepared to stick our necks out and take what could be difficult decisions for the very reason that, if the strategies selected do not genuinely identify areas and ports with these characteristics, we will be in danger, considering, amongst other things, the lack of funding - we shall have to talk about this in any case for only EUR 400 million are available - we will be in danger of undoing any good work, in danger, that is, of being ineffective.
One issue remains to be resolved - which I consider important and which other Members have raised and should therefore be at the centre of the conciliation process - and that is the issue of the islands and the outermost regions: in other words, the issue of those situations in which, even where a port does not meet the volume criteria we have laid down, its activity cannot be allowed to suffer as a result.
Mr President, since the trans-European networks came into existence, I have been championing waterways and shipping, so you will not be surprised if I now express a slightly different point of view.
Where competition is concerned, the market plays the key role in the development of seaports.
That much we are all agreed upon, and we should not interfere with that base.
I therefore request as a matter of urgency, even if Georg Jarzembowski is sitting next to me, that Parliament should reconsider its decision of March last year.
Parliament wants the criterion to be an annual freight traffic volume of 1.5 million tonnes, but it is ridiculous to ignore the potential of ports with a volume of at least 1 million tonnes, especially if they meet the strategic requirements of the trans-European networks.
We should therefore have faith in market forces and give smaller ports a chance too.
We want to promote short sea shipping, but that means we also need smaller ports, which have a valuable role to play here.
They act as interconnection points, small ones perhaps but important interconnection points.
And are you telling me that you want to argue about half a million tonnes and exclude smaller ports?
What would a minimum traffic volume of 1.5 million tonnes achieve? According to the documents I have it would mean excluding 30 European ports, above all those in peripheral areas or coastal areas that are structurally weak.
That cannot be in our interest.
Investment in the trans-European network only makes sense if we create genuine networks covering wide areas and bringing advantages for the public throughout the European Union.
A forward-looking maritime strategy should not be exclusive, it should be inclusive.
I therefore ask the rapporteur and the others who have spoken to give this their learned support.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Piecyk for his work.
The issue of inland ports and intermodal terminals is very complex and I would like to stress that a broad consensus has been achieved.
We all agree that the trans-European network must be a multimodal network.
We also believe that we all agree that it must include the main points of connection, and that we consider that the current provisions of the trans-European networks on ports are not satisfactory and that strengthening the role of ports within the network will also serve to consolidate the trans-European networks.
I believe that Parliament and the Commission broadly agree on most of the areas under discussion.
We agree that the inclusion of too many ports in the network may affect this concept of 'trans-European' and that, therefore, the most strategically important inland ports should be included.
I also believe that Parliament and the Commission agree that inland terminals are an important part of the network and play a fundamental role in the whole process.
We are not discussing economic aid today, but I would like to mention on this point that we believe that this economic support should be utilised correctly and not be directed towards superstructure projects which may, at the end of the day, have a negative effect on competition.
Nevertheless, there are certain points on which it will be difficult to make progress, since, while we can make progress between Parliament and the Commission, we should not forget the fundamental role of the Council in this decision-making process.
I shall make some comments about the main amendments.
Amendment No 4: to increase the threshold for inland ports from 300 to 500 tonnes.
This proposal is perfectly acceptable to the Commission.
Mr Piecyk' s report justifies this idea by saying that the trans-European networks should not have to include an excessive number of installations.
For the Commission, the ideal solution would be to only include ports which, as well as complying with these limits, are equipped with transhipment facilities.
We believe that this point of view is not accepted by the Council, but we consider that the quantity is not sufficient in itself.
We believe that we have to introduce both qualitative and quantitative elements.
Seaports: Amendments Nos 5, 9 and 10.
We could also accept the idea of increasing the threshold to one and a half million tonnes or two hundred thousand passengers and we could also agree to the removal of classifications by categories implemented by the Council.
This point will certainly be the subject of further debate by the Council.
Amendments Nos 6 and 7 reintroduce the map of inland terminals and are acceptable to the Commission.
However, we believe that the most important issue is to highlight the fact that inland terminals are an integral part of the network, and it does not seem relevant to us whether they appear on a map or not.
We consider that to be a problem of secondary importance.
The important thing is clearly that they form part of the network.
We feel that perhaps the intermediate solution could be to abandon the map of intermodal terminals and draw up more precisely, more thoroughly, if you like, the guidelines emphasising that intermodal terminals form part of the network, and not to enter into a debate on the map, which would make things more difficult.
The problem of superstructures excluded from Community funding: Amendments Nos 8 and 10. The Commission can also support these amendments and it is true that, nevertheless, we believe that this debate may raise some difficulties.
We support the aim of the amendments but, nevertheless, we cannot support their wording.
On the one hand, because we believe it is inappropriate to talk about the funding of these guidelines and, secondly, because we do not believe it is necessary to make this reference.
It is the case that the types of project which Parliament is referring to when it talks of superstructures are not included in the projects of common interest and do not therefore have funding.
This is therefore, to a certain extent, an unnecessary debate.
A comment on Amendment No 15: as an objective, this amendment is acceptable to the Commission.
We believe that the idea is correct, although we believe that here also we should analyse the wording with a little more care in order to prevent problems.
Lastly, with regard to Community spending and public aid and the issue involving competences, we believe that it is also important, that it should be debated in the future and, to this end, we believe that we should work to reach a solution on this and the other remaining problems, taking account of the interests of all parties, and we believe that agreement is possible on the basis of Parliament' s excellent work.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
National and international road traffic
The next item is the report by Mr Hatzidakis (A5-0231/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 96/53/EC laying down for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorised weights in international traffic [COM(2000) 137 - C5-0164/2000 - 2000/0060(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, this is a highly technical subject, aspects of which affect the daily life of European citizens, not to mention the single market itself.
In the current situation, the legal limits for the maximum authorised length of passenger vehicles are very different in the EU Member States.
In 7 countries, the limit is 12 metres, in one country it is 13.7 metres, in two other countries it is 14.5 metres and in 5 others, it is 15 metres.
This legal limit has not explicitly been harmonised at a European level since it was not included in Directive 96/53.
Up to now, only 12-metre buses can circulate freely in the whole EU territory.
On a request from the Council of Ministers, the Commission has worked on a proposal to include passenger vehicles in Directive 96/53, not only in order to harmonise the length of rigid buses but also to create a clearer situation regarding removable attachments on buses and trailers.
This work resulted in the present proposal.
I should point out that, even in countries in which 15-metre buses are officially allowed, in practice they are refused entry or are sent back at the border.
In this sense, we can say that this proposal is an attempt to resolve the problem by introducing single market rules for the whole of the European Union.
Obviously, the length of buses is dictated by commercial considerations.
A 15-metre bus can take about 67 passengers, i.e. 16 more than a 12-metre bus.
Obviously, competitive considerations push some operators in the direction of longer buses.
In cases where full-loaded buses can circulate, it is preferable, for environmental reasons, to use longer buses.
Finally, this proposal creates a clearer situation as to the removable attachments on buses, mostly ski boxes, which have to be included in the total authorised length.
I personally agree with the compulsory three axles on buses longer than 12 metres, which are likely to exceed the maximum permissible weight per axle.
Three axles give better circulating conditions and cause less wear on roads.
Other proposed measures, like considering the maximum length of a bus and trailer as the same as a truck and trailer, are also satisfactory.
The total of all of these is a maximum of 18.75 metres.
It should be noted that, from 1 January 2000, the maximum width of buses was increased from 2.50m to 2.55m.
Adaptations of the maximum length of rigid buses will very probably bring about a demand for a similar change in legislation for rigid trucks designed to transport goods, although there may be not an overwhelming demand for such vehicles.
Key criteria to ensure manoeuvrability of buses are the turning circle and the outswing.
These criteria are set out in Directive 97/27/EC relating to the masses and dimensions of certain categories of motor vehicles and their trailers.
Although this directive allows derogation by the Member States, it is important to stick, at the European level, to these criteria, which should apply also to the longer rigid buses as proposed in this directive.
The reason is that buses - both inner-city buses and coaches - often have to operate in narrow streets in city centres during the rush hours, when many other vehicles, motorbikes, bikes, and pedestrians are on the road.
If there are problems for 15-metre buses to circulate in some places, such as historic town centres, narrow streets etc., local or national authorities should indicate the restrictions, which have to be observed; I think this is a satisfactory arrangement.
I should like to refer to three amendments adopted in committee.
The first makes provision for a transitional period during which the use within national territory of buses which are currently permitted but do not comply with the new requirements of the directive will be allowed.
If this period were to end on 31 December 2009, it would be very short, given that it would severely limit the service life of buses longer than 12 metres which are already licensed.
The effect would be to impose unacceptable financial burdens on businesses which had registered or introduced vehicles in good faith before the entry into force of the new directive.
The second amendment states that it ought to be made clear that these provisions apply to rigid buses, not articulated buses.
Increasing the maximum authorised length of buses with two axles is intended to make it possible to use removable attachments such as ski boxes on 12-metre buses.
This increase will also challenge bus manufacturers to use alternative materials and designs to reduce the weight of the vehicle, so that buses which are longer than 12 metres but well under 15 metres can also be manufactured and registered as two-axle vehicles.
The third amendment concerns removable attachments, such as ski boxes, and cornering.
It sets different requirements from the directive because it considers that application of the proposal submitted by the working group for transport to amend the Directive 96/53 with regard to the measuring method and the limit values for outswing would result in the maximum length of buses being limited to 14.6 metres.
This is contrary to the length of buses with at least three axles set in Article 1 of the directive.
Buses would be 40 centimetres shorter.
As far as the proposed amendments are concerned, I cannot agree with Amendment No 4 by the Liberals because, as I said to the Commission, it is not in keeping with the spirit of the directive.
As far as Amendment No 6 proposed by the Socialists is concerned, I can consent to this straight away.
As regards the other two amendments proposed by the Socialists, Amendments Nos 5 and 7, calling for derogations of up to two years, I consider the transitional period to be excessive.
I would appreciate clarification from the Socialists and from the Commission before taking a stance, but a two-year transitional period seems excessive to me.
I might perhaps be able to discuss a shorter period of time if, of course, the Commission agrees.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by offering my thanks to bus manufacturers, operators and drivers.
When it comes to road safety and environmental sustainability, they are first-rate.
Two and a half years ago the European Commission published a report on the use of 15-metre buses and coaches, in which it referred not only to distortions in competition between transport companies in various EU Member States, but also, I am pleased to say, offered prospects of greater safety and improved comfort.
Today, we finally have before us a directive to this effect, one that I have been calling for on an almost monthly basis since then.
Particularly in view of the present heightening of distortions in competition because of unilateral decisions by many Member States on energy pricing, as a result of which Europe has lost credibility in the eyes of a large section of the public, we urgently need to point the way here.
Let us give some positive signals: first by harmonising permissible maximum lengths for rigid buses and rigid bus-trailer combinations, secondly, by clarifying the situation as regards removable attachments such as luggage trailers and skiboxes, and thirdly, by bringing the cornering test in line with scientific and technical progress and also with the current version of the ECE Regulation, which has been tried and tested since 1996.
Furthermore, it is totally in the spirit of subsidiarity that Member States are to be granted a long transitional period, up to 2015 to be precise, during which the use within national territory of buses which are currently permitted but do not yet comply with the new requirements of the directive will be allowed.
And of course local and regional authorities remain at liberty to impose restrictions on 15-metre buses in places where there are traffic management problems, such as narrow streets in historical town centres.
However, national protectionist measures going beyond this are not acceptable.
I would like to thank the rapporteur and to congratulate him, and I ask you to vote for Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 6.
Mr President, I broadly welcome this proposal because it completes the former directive, it helps to avoid unfair competition and it takes account of safety issues.
But we are concerned because we would prefer to be making progress on more environmentally-friendly forms of transport, such as railways, rather than continuing to increase road capacity.
As far as the amendments are concerned, we support the transitional periods for buses still running, that is, Amendment No 1, and also for industry, to enable industry to comply with the new conditions.
I would say to Mr Hatzidakis that the 24 months for industry is less than was allowed in the original 1996 directive when the transitional period was four years.
This time, industry is happy with two years.
They do not have to take it up, it is there in case they require that amount of time.
In addition, we are in favour of the proposal to keep buses of more than 12, but less than 15, metres with two axles, still serving public transport in some Member States, since this does not, as far as we are concerned, jeopardise safety.
Finally, we strongly support the Commission's position on Article 1.3b which corresponds to Annex 1.1, 1.4 and 1.5 of the 1996 directive.
We believe this is the best guarantee for safety.
The PSE Group does not support Amendment No 3, as the proposed new test does not ensure proper manoeuvrability and does not therefore fully meet acceptable safety requirements.
Mr President, Commissioner, the objective of the directive before us is to ensure that, in future, buses can circulate freely in the whole EU territory; this is a sound initiative which is backed by my group.
The ELDR Group also welcomes the principle that longer buses which have a maximum length of 15 metres and which also have to meet the same safety and weight standards should now be allowed in all Member States.
For the free movement of goods and services, it is necessary for matters of this kind to be harmonised in the transport sector too and for industry to be able to rely on there being a level playing field.
In our eyes, the opportunity created by this directive of introducing longer buses on international routes is efficient.
It is also profitable.
More capacity makes transport more efficient in the operational sphere, and this means that both transport company and consumer stand to gain from this.
Longer buses also make a more efficient use of roads possible and this means that the environment benefits.
Despite this, my group also has reservations about the proposal, namely with regard to Article 1(3a).
There is also the risk of over-regulation, which is the case, in our view, with the obligation for all buses longer than 12 metres to be fitted with three axles, irrespective of the use made of those buses.
In our opinion, this constitutes an infringement of the freedom of the manufacturer who must be able to decide, in consultation with the customer, how many axles are required to meet the safety standards and demands in terms of weight, because by no means do all buses and coaches carry the same load; think of VIP coaches, for example.
This means, in practice, that the running costs must not be compromised unnecessarily by fitting a third axle, which is not necessary, strictly speaking.
As many seemed in agreement with this during the committee meeting, I have, on behalf of my group, re-tabled the amendment to this effect.
Mr President, I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to the rapporteur who managed to add more definition to the directive and give it more practical relevance.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are debating the subject of buses and the fact that different practices were applied in a number of European countries with permitted lengths ranging from 12 metres to even 15 metres.
Apart from anything else, it is useful to harmonise this area as far as possible.
The previous speaker mentioned a few beneficial effects this may have in terms of efficiency, safety and the environment.
This is exactly where there is room for improvement.
Environmental standards are of course being applied to certain modes of transport, in this case road transport.
The European standards for trucks spring to mind, which can bring about a shift in the relationship between road and, for example, rail in terms of environmental benefits.
It is not always the case, however, not by a long chalk, that these standards are applied.
If we consider for a moment the subject of longer buses and the environment, then a situation can arise, as depicted by Mrs Sanders-Ten Holte, of cheaper and more efficient transport where small businesses may have greater earnings in this field and make more profit.
However, prices drop which inevitably means that buses are used as an extremely cheap mode of transport, as is very much in evidence at the moment.
In other words, I can condone the lengthening of buses based on environmental and other considerations, but there are also a number of side-effects which are being overlooked, in fact, by this directive and which cannot be dealt with here either, but to which we would like draw attention.
Giving industry some space to catch up seems justified in my opinion.
Three axles, as Mrs Sanders-Ten Holte indicated, are not always necessary, but what is necessary is to draft a sound directive.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly credit must go to Mr Hatzidakis for his proactive approach in his report.
European bus measurements may seem a trivial matter, but it is no such thing.
Our objective of a dynamic single market can only come about if all players comply with the same regulations.
Competition, which is a prime mover in the arena of real development, will begin when transport companies can offer cross-border services.
There are no Greek bus companies in our country, Finland, but the Scots have already got a firm foothold.
Stinginess pays off.
In order to continue the positive spread of competition we must harmonise bus standards.
Uniform measurements will also mean cost saving for manufacturers, which will be reflected in fares and the pockets of EU citizens.
The present directive is inadequate because it leads to too much diversity with regard to buses in the various Member States, which will make the drafting of safety standards difficult.
The tragic news from Greece recently unquestionably obliges us to address the matter of creating and complying with safety regulations.
The Commission is right in its proposal to allow 15-metre buses.
The more people there are on the bus, the cheaper it will be to travel, to say nothing of the atmosphere that increases exponentially as the number of passengers grows.
The use of long buses is furthermore recommended for environmental reasons.
If we support group travel it will reduce congestion in built-up areas. A few half-empty cars take up the space of one bus carrying sixty people.
The rapporteur, Mr Hatzidakis, is right that it would be unfair to call for the transition period with regard to buses already in operation in domestic traffic to end by 2009.
People will not feel favourably disposed towards the EU if we start scrapping buses that are still in perfectly good condition, before their time.
At the same time we would easily destroy the belief the entrepreneur and the man in the street have in the common sense of EU decision-makers.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mr Hatzidakis for the excellent work he has carried out on this proposal of great technical complexity.
The Commission is pleased that the report points out the need to seek a balance between the commercial aspects and those linked to competition and, at the same time, guarantees technical progress on the one hand and safety on the other.
We share these objectives, of course.
The aim of the text is clear and has already been mentioned here: to establish a uniform regulation for the dimension of rigid buses in transport services.
The current legislation is very varied, very disparate, and there seems to be a clear need for harmonisation.
In order to fully understand what I am going to say with regard to the Commission' s reaction to the various amendments, it should be made clear that the proposal, in our view, aims to authorise a maximum length of 15 metres throughout the European Union, provided that two requirements are complied with: firstly, that buses of between 12 and 15 metres have three axles - an important issue which I will discuss later and which has led to some debate - and, secondly, that buses are manoeuvrable, that is to say, that their manoeuvrability is in accordance with Community legislation.
Let us start with the first requirement: the three axles.
The problem of the three axles, in the Commission' s view, is fundamental if we wish to guarantee that, despite the size of these buses, the weight is distributed evenly and does not create problems for the road infrastructures.
This is the fundamental point.
We can understand that there may be a debate on whether all buses are the same or not, but we believe that excess detail in relation to specific solutions would, at the end of the day, be the worst formula.
We believe that the three axles for buses of over 12 metres represent the simplest formula, which will best resolve the problems.
That is the reason why Amendments Nos 2 and 4, which seek to reduce that requirement by establishing that the third axle is only obligatory in the case of buses of more than thirteen and a half or even 15 metres, are not acceptable to the Commission.
We believe that that would have negative effects - as we have said previously - on the infrastructures.
The second requirement of our proposal is that the buses pass a specific manoeuvrability test.
What manoeuvrability test? Well, the same conditions that are currently laid down in Directive 97/27, which also link this test to manufacturing standards.
We believe that this is a key point and it is also the reason why the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 3, since it seeks to establish different standards of manoeuvrability, which are less rigorous that those that currently exist.
They would clearly be easier to comply with, but they would introduce risks from the point of view of the safety of this type of vehicle.
Amendments Nos 5 and 7 are not acceptable to the Commission either.
In both cases, they seek to have the directive enter into force at a later date.
This clearly presents practical problems in the sense that, if we want to accelerate the construction of the internal market, anything which speeds up the process is positive, while delays, on the other hand, would create serious difficulties.
Accepting Amendment No 6 would also cause certain problems, since we do not consider that it has sufficient technical justification.
Nevertheless, it does seem reasonable that buses of 15 metres, which are already authorised and which do not conform to the above-mentioned requirements, that is to say, the three axles and manoeuvrability, nevertheless should benefit from a transitional period and that that transitional period should be longer than the one initially laid down.
The original proposal was a period lasting until 2009.
The Commission considers that that exemption is perhaps excessively restrictive and we could accept the idea that the directive would allow them to stay in use until 2015.
Many thanks, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.50 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, yesterday we decided - and this is also recorded in the Minutes - to hold a debate on Thursday on developments in the Middle East.
However, we did not set a deadline for tabling motions for resolutions.
I would request that we set such a deadline, both for the actual motions - this could be today at 6 p.m. and for amendments, where we should try to set the deadline for as late as possible tomorrow, so that we can take into account any results from the meeting between Ehud Barak and Yassir Arafat tomorrow in Paris.
I would ask that we set this deadline and that it be as late as possible.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has requested that the debate on the situation regarding the Middle East Peace Process, that was timetabled for Thursday afternoon, be closed with a motion for a resolution.
I will now put this request to the vote.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Preparation for the informal European Council in Biarritz of 13/14 October/Charter of Fundamental Rights
The next item is the joint debate on the statements by the Council and the Commission on preparations for the informal Biarritz European Council (IGC) of 13 and 14 October 2000, and the following oral questions:
B5-0538/2000, by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to the Council, and
B5-0539/2000, by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to the Commission,
on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
You can tell from the applause, Mr President, just how much your intervention was appreciated.
Thank you very much.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I am with you completely, Mr Prodi, when you highlight the limitations of the current intergovernmental model, and I would go even further in my criticism than you.
It is, in many ways, a timeworn, if not fossilised system that we must leave behind.
But the way forward certainly does not lie in the centralisation of powers in the hands of the Commission.
In my view, it is the institutional system as a whole, including the Commission, that should be transformed, and the new factor that must lie at the heart of these changes are the operators that form part of the social movement, the citizens, those people who were notably absent from your speech.
I would urge you to listen very closely to what I say next.
"Ordinary people have realised that a certain model of public administration ... has reached its limits."
"This crisis of governance has hit the Union head-on."
"The Union was founded and is still being constructed behind closed doors rather than in the open."
But "Europeans are less and less willing to be presented with a fait accompli."
"What has to become democratic is the whole process, from pinpointing the basic problem to implementing and assessing the solution."
"A case of ... letting the key players and interests play a greater part."
This is "the political challenge confronting Europe today" .
These are not my own words.
They are taken from a document that was commissioned by your predecessor, President Santer, almost two years ago from the Commission' s own Forward Studies Unit, before being shelved.
I nevertheless find it extremely clear-sighted.
Our ambition should be to convince the people of Europe to join together in their diversity and thus become masters of their common destiny.
It is my belief that if we are to succeed we need a participatory democracy, social advances, bonds of solidarity, designs for civilisation and ethical inspiration.
I have heard no mention of these this morning.
In short, we need politics in the true sense of the word, since it is on this that the future of Europe hinges.
Madam President, the decision of the Danish people on 28 September on participation in the European currency regime will undoubtedly figure at the Biarritz European Council meeting.
EU Member State governments must now seriously reflect on what has happened in Denmark.
The Danish decision comes two months before EU leaders are to meet in Nice to reform existing EU treaties and policies.
I support the enlargement of the European Union.
It will help consolidate democratic and civil structures in eastern and central Europe, expand market economies and help build a European continent at peace with itself.
However, EU Member State governments face difficult choices.
We cannot deny that the Danish people used the recent referendum as a test of confidence in the structures of the European Union.
The referendum in Denmark had more to do with the direction of the European Union and future political integration than actually participating in the Euro currency itself.
Serious concern was expressed among Danish voters that the elimination of tax vetoes within the European Union would dissipate future social security benefits.
I do not necessarily support this.
However, the point remains the same: namely that the European Member State governments, the European Commission and the European Parliament have a serious battle on their hands to persuade the 370 million citizens of the European Union that greater political and economic integration is the way forward for the European Union.
This is the core issue.
If Member State governments push the issue of political integration too far in Nice, we will have real difficulties in securing approval in the referendums which will have to be held in various European Union countries.
Any reform of European Union treaties must be fair and balanced.
It must protect the interests of the smaller Member States, and we must not help build a two-tier Europe where larger Member States run the European Union at the expense of the smaller Member States.
We must also protect national cultural and linguistic diversity.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, Mr Moscovici, it is precisely the Charter of Fundamental Rights that will, at Biarritz, provide the solutions to institutional problems.
Granted, this text may seem commonplace at first sight, but it takes on great meaning in the light of topical events.
The protection of human dignity and liberty, cited in the preamble, would resonate loudly in Palestine, for example.
And in Article 21, it may seem like verbiage, especially in our 15 Member States, to worry about discrimination on the grounds of religion or ethnic origin, when elsewhere twelve-year-old boys are being shot like so much vermin precisely because of their religion. It could even be seen as insulting to these adolescents, who actually face discrimination and death.
We need a sense of perspective, a sense of the proportionality set out in Article 48 of the Charter, before voicing off from our own standpoint as relatively well off in human rights terms.
It is, moreover, this sense of perspective that will provide the solutions at Nice, since it will at last be possible to enlarge the Union to include, for example, the Poland of Copernicus and Pope John Paul II or, at a later date, orthodox Russia, the eastern sentinel of the Christian world, and it will be possible to do so without disrupting operating procedures.
All we need do is apply the philosophical principles set out in the Charter.
Therefore, in the name of the respect for national identities set out in the preamble, there must be a Council of Ministers which unanimously agrees with the fundamental freedom of nations.
In the name of respect for the equality of all men, living together as a State, there must be at least one Commissioner per Member State and, lastly, in the name of prohibiting the types of discrimination set out in Article 21 of the Charter, there must be no two- or three-speed Union, because all the members of the same family living in the house called Europe must move into the future together without leaving anyone behind.
That is what the Charter stipulates.
Let us not violate it before it is even applied.
Mr President, judging by what I have heard recently, one could be forgiven for believing that nothing of any great importance happened on 28 September.
It nevertheless seems to me that Denmark has just given us a lesson in democracy.
The Danish people seized this opportunity to send us an unequivocal message, and we should be thankful for it.
In saying no, the Danes have shown that Europe cannot be built without, or against the wishes of, those for whom it is a day-to-day reality.
They have shown that Europe is currently on the wrong track.
Indeed, rather than being an inclusive Europe, it seems to be becoming a Europe for the few.
Let us not, for all this, slip into caricature.
Rejecting one type of European model does not make one anti-European.
It would be a crass mistake to think that it did.
It is essential, on the eve of the Biarritz Summit, for the European Heads of State and Government to fully grasp the message addressed to them.
Beyond the Danish 'no' vote, it is a call for a genuine Europe of differences, based on respect for peoples and for their diversity. This is what constitutes the real wealth of Europe.
This right to difference and to respect is what must underpin any debate on institutional affairs, particularly at Biarritz.
This is vital if we are to stop Europe drifting off course as it is now, seeking an identity somewhere between harmonisation and standardisation, which Europeans, quite justifiably, find so difficult to accept.
Unfortunately, this would seem to be the path that the Intergovernmental Conference wants to follow, by focusing on the extension of qualified majority voting.
The environment, for example, will not be protected more efficiently as a result of our wanting to impose a policy that ignores economic realities and peoples' needs.
Let us therefore take advantage of the current discussions within the IGC to redefine, at last, a system that has reached its limits.
The current desire to extend qualified majority voting will not bring Europe closer to the citizens.
On the contrary, it will leave those who do not accept the single mindset by the wayside.
These internal tensions will not strengthen Europe' s hand in international negotiations.
Just how many different speeds will there be in the Europe towards which you want to lead us?
Here are just a few of the many avenues which could be explored.
We need, for example, to agree to and facilitate subsidiarity.
Europe must limit its responsibilities to those that the States cannot effectively assume alone.
The principle of the free movement of goods and persons should promote trade and exposure to other cultures and other ways of life, rather than standardising everything.
We need to hand the initiative back to the political arena and restore the initiative to the people.
We must, in conclusion, listen to the people more closely, respect their opinions, and seek to understand why it is they are turning their backs on Europe as it is now.
Then we will all be able to move forward together.
Mr President, "nel decimo anniversario dell'unificazione tedesca", as you said, Mr Prodi, the European Union Summit will be held in the Basque country, a country torn to pieces.
The southern part under Spanish rule is split into two autonomous regions: Navarre and the so-called Euskadi.
The northern part under French rule has no official recognition whatsoever, despite the clear will of two thirds of the citizens and elected representatives to have a Basque département of its own.
How can the European Union meet in Biarritz to announce a new declaration of fundamental rights for European citizens whilst the most elementary rights of the Basque people, namely language and self-administration, are thoroughly denied? Mr Prodi, can we, the Basques, live in Europe without our internal iron curtain?
Mr President, I wish firstly, as other previous speakers have done, to congratulate President Prodi on his speech.
The applause that rounded it off clearly demonstrates that when there is a specific political objective, this Parliament can be relied upon to support it.
I would also like to congratulate Mr Moscovici.
Mr Moscovici brilliantly presented the issue which I am going to focus on, and nobody will be surprised that I am going to focus on the question of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
His intervention was wonderful up until the final minute when I did not understand what he was saying.
Why do I say that he gave an extraordinary speech? Because he acknowledged something which we are all satisfied with.
The Convention method has worked and the truth is that it has been something of a miracle.
I am not so surprised, but some of you will say that a Christian Democrat who does not believe in miracles is not a good Christian Democrat.
Therefore, I do believe in miracles and the convention has been a miracle.
Personal representatives of the governments, MEPs and national MPs, together with the Commission, reaching an agreement on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, in ten months, seemed an impossible objective.
We have done so, however, and I believe this is wonderful news for the European Union.
It is wonderful that today we are celebrating the tenth anniversary of German unification and it is wonderful that we are today just a few years away from a great enlargement of the Union.
The method has therefore worked, and so has the content of the Charter.
Mr Moscovici has said so very expressively.
The content of the Charter is good.
At the Feira European Council, President Guterres told us: "Do not worry about the legal value. Concentrate on the content of the Charter.
Create a good Charter ".
We have done so. I have not read any criticisms of the content of the Charter.
Previous speakers have spoken well of the Charter because it is a good Charter which brings together the classic rights of the nineteenth Century and the modern rights of the twenty-first century.
It is a Charter for the citizens, who have participated actively in its creation.
It has been said here that this has been a virtual reality Charter.
We now have a situation where, having created a Charter with good content and by means of an original method - and here I am reaching the last part of Mr Moscovici' s speech - we are now told that we are going to announce it and then wait and see what happens in the future.
The argument of the President-in-Office of the Council is that there is a risk that the Charter will not be accepted by all the Member States as legally binding.
That is a risk, it is true.
But I believe things are changing, Mr Moscovici.
I believe that at the beginning many governments had serious doubts, but now they have changed their minds.
There are some - the Spanish Government has said this very clearly recently - who are in favour of incorporating the Charter into the Treaties.
However, even if what you say is true, and there are some governments who do not want it incorporated into the Treaties, I must say very clearly that the citizens of Europe and the Members of this Parliament have the right to know who those governments are.
We have the right to know. We must be told who does not want the Charter in the Treaties.
Mr President of the Council, I therefore encourage you to continue the aims of a predecessor of yours in another convention and the French Presidency should have de l'audace, encore de l'audace et toujours de l'audace [boldness, again boldness and ever boldness].
Mr President, what should Biarritz do with the Charter? It should clarify what it means by proclamation.
What is a proclamation? Perhaps it is a glass of champagne and a string quartet, perhaps it is the first building block of Europe's constitution, but all this should be clarified.
Parliaments are not used to proclaiming things.
Secondly, Biarritz should reconsider the question of the European Union signing up to the existing European Convention.
Thirdly, it should consider future revision and a procedure for revising the clauses of the Charter in future.
Finally, it should request the Commission to launch a widespread campaign to inform the public of this great project.
Mr President, in the referendum on the euro last week the Danes said no to the Europe of integration, no to the Europe of the super-state, and yes to a Europe of diversities, yes to a Europe that respects national democracies.
The Biarritz Council and, three months hence, the Nice Council, which are to discuss the European institutions, must draw a significant conclusion from this.
The response to enlargement is not increased supra-nationality, or an increase in powers, seated in Brussels, that are binding on all the Member States of the Union or even just on certain states that have joined together to form a hard core.
The second lesson is one for the people of France, and, without doubt, one for other nations too.
My compatriots voted for the single currency in 1992 because they had been told that this could work without a super-state.
Well, that is not true.
This is now quite evident with the slump in the euro.
In 1992, the French came to a decision on the basis of spurious information.
They must now, in the light of experience, come to another decision, but this time on the basis of frank and comprehensive criteria.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as President Prodi will remember, the Italian Radicals voted against his appointment last year.
I do not know whether we would have done so, Mr Prodi, had you given then the speech which you have delivered today before the European Parliament.
You have highlighted - and I applaud you for this - all the shortcomings of the process of European integration which have hitherto come to light and the implications for Nice if the method and spirit which, sadly, have pervaded recent Intergovernmental Conferences continue to prevail.
Mr Barón Crespo was right to remind us that you were one of the signatories of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which established the position of Mr CFSP, and I would add to this that your government was one of the staunchest advocates of creating the new position held by Mr Solana which, despite his personal qualities, is highly irregular in legal terms.
This is why your condemnation today of the intergovernmental method, which Parliament has never ceased to view as one of the principle causes of Europe' s impotence at both internal and international level, is even more welcome.
If we continue with this method, President Moscovici, enlargement will not come about and, in Nice, you will at best be able to start all over again - you could even try holding another Intergovernmental Conference.
President Prodi, as other speakers have already said, the Commission needs to firmly reassert its role as the driving force behind European integration, and today, you have set down the broad guidelines for this.
Continue in this vein, speak out loud and clear at Biarritz and at Nice, draw on the wise, sensible positions adopted by the European Parliament on this matter, and this House will certainly not fail to lend you its full support.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, the questions which Mr Napolitano asked the Council and Commission on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs bear witness to a view of the Charter, which, unfortunately, our group is unable to share.
It is quite unnecessary for this Charter to be established when it comes to stepping up the protection of fundamental rights in Europe.
This is also the view of experts in the field of European constitutional law.
If the Charter were to form part of the Treaties, this would be at the expense of the authority of the Council of Europe and of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
In the long term, this is almost bound to lead to a competitive battle and conflict of interests between the European Union and the Council of Europe.
A legally binding Charter is not only unnecessary, it even threatens to harm the enforcement of the fundamental rights.
In order to ensure that these fundamental rights in Europe are protected effectively, all that needs to happen, now and in future, is for the European Union to join the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
In this way, we will ensure that the EU institutions are actually monitored externally at the same time.
We would therefore be in favour of the Member States discussing the European Union' s accession to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms as one of the subjects within the framework of the IGC.
Negotiations regarding the Charter could, as far as we are concerned, be scrapped.
We are all the more convinced of this when we take a closer look at the text of the Charter, which stipulates that the Charter is only suited to function within one European state.
As a Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, we hope, however, that such a federal state will never see the light of day.
Mr President, personally I am pleased that following the lifting of the sanctions within the Union normal relations have been resumed, apart perhaps from a few minor exceptions which are not worth bothering with.
I can therefore attend to the subject of the Charter of Fundamental Rights with a glad heart.
People's opinions may well differ on the text which has been drafted.
They might judge it to be satisfactory or less satisfactory; they might also consider it - compared with the huge effort involved - to be rather wanting.
But they can make one objective statement: the actual aim will not be achieved for as long as this Charter is not accorded legally binding status.
Until then it will in fact do nothing more than pay lip service to these ideals.
Whether, incidentally, another Convention would be a suitable way of addressing the considerably more complex issue of a European constitution remains to be seen.
The involvement of the national parliaments is obviously to be welcomed.
Personally, however, I think it is doubtful whether a reasonable result can be achieved on this difficult issue working from such a broad basis.
As far as Biarritz is concerned, I should like to point out that it is not far from there to Nice, but neither - more importantly - is it very long now.
The question of whether the Member States will be able to agree on a new treaty in Nice is still completely open.
The attitude of the French Presidency - that they would rather have no treaty at all than a bad one - is sensible in my opinion.
However, people's views on what makes a good or bad treaty are still miles apart.
In addition, the French Presidency is not escaping criticism from leading European diplomats because of the way in which it is conducting the negotiations.
But it is precisely the conduct of this French Presidency which will determine whether especially the smaller Member States take the impression with them from the negotiations on the Intergovernmental Conference that less value is attached to their reservations and positions than to those of the large Member States.
Mr President, the Charter has been a successful venture for all concerned and primarily, I believe, for Parliament.
I see three benefits in it.
The first has been the method selected, that of the Convention, which took the form of a judicious blend involving the competent representatives at national and European level, even if there was an extra guest at the table, as Commissioner Vitorino underlined.
The three musketeers were in fact four, but they have indeed enabled a method to be set in place that we should turn to in the future to move matters forward within the European Union.
The second benefit has been the work carried on by the committee.
Tribute should be paid to Mr Méndez de Vigo for the work that he has done.
In particular, we have seen the significant weight that the EP Delegation has in any case been able to carry with regard to the amendments approved.
The third benefit has been that of the good work done by Parliament, something that any parliament would welcome.
The quality of those who have spoken before me makes it unnecessary to linger on this point, but it is true that there is a real added value.
The scope of the Charter respects the principle of subsidiarity and it was no easy task to draw up a text that was balanced in legal terms, but still attractive and accessible to the citizens.
The counterpart of this threefold benefit is a threefold responsibility.
The first responsibility concerns our comments.
I believe that we must look beyond the frustrations inherent in any consensus in order to praise this Charter, rather than dwelling on what we would have liked to have seen and still envisage.
The second responsibility is that of adopting the Charter.
I would like to think that Parliament could, in November, adopt the Charter of Fundamental Rights with all due formality, because it is traditional for parliaments to act as the custodians of public freedoms, and the European Parliament must seize the opportunity to demonstrate this.
Lastly, the third responsibility is to follow up on this Charter, and we must show tenacity in this regard.
We have voted, by a very large majority, for a resolution that calls for this Charter to be incorporated into the Treaties.
I am aware that we already have a lot on our plate at Nice, and I am not convinced that it would be wise to ask for actual incorporation as early as Nice.
What we can at least call for at Nice is a very precise timetable for the eventual incorporation of this Charter, even if, as legal experts have confirmed, it will have legal effect as soon as it is adopted by this House and by the Heads of Government, as there is nothing to stop the Court of Justice referring to it.
The end result is therefore a text that will be of great value within Europe, as many people have stressed.
It is an asset for the people of Europe.
I personally take pleasure in imagining that it could one day act as the preamble to a Constitution yet to be written.
Lastly, with regard to the world outside Europe, I believe that human rights are the true message to come out of Europe.
We now have a European handbook to send to our partners in their concentric circles - first to those who wish to join us and then to those with whom negotiations are being held.
Mr President, the meeting in Biarritz is the half-time point in the struggle for a new Treaty.
Unfortunately, the match has so far been goalless and not very exciting.
The people of Europe are waiting impatiently for results.
The candidate countries are waiting for positive signals showing that the way to membership of the Union is, despite everything, becoming shorter.
In the Member States, we are all waiting for the Council of Ministers to show the political courage and will really to reform current cooperation.
It is difficult at present to see whether that will is to be found.
The negotiations concerning the new Treaty take place too often behind closed doors.
The French Presidency therefore has a big responsibility for ensuring that genuine and tangible results are achieved in Nice, and the new Treaty must really create a European Union for new Member States.
The institutional issues need to be solved and a clear mandate provided for continued work on a European constitution which is citizen-friendly and comprehensible.
The Charter must be incorporated into this constitution, and I hope that a signal to this effect will be given in Biarritz.
For us Liberals, it is an obvious fact, and one that needs to be crystal-clear, that the present intergovernmental conference must be the last before new Member States are admitted.
Unsolved issues about the future of the European project may not be used as justification for further postponing our historic task to unite Europe.
The EU will never be ready, but the candidate countries must participate actively in future discussions.
The Convention method is perhaps more suitable than these intergovernmental conferences we have had in the past.
Expectations prior to the meeting in Biarritz are running high.
We all long for signs of progress.
It is time to score a few goals in order to maintain hope and to sustain interest in the match as a whole.
Mr President, I believe that body language can sometimes speak louder than words, but I do hope that Mr Moscovici' s distracted and condescending demeanour during this debate is not representative of the attitude of the Council of which he is the President-in-Office.
I am sure that this is not the case, and I hope that those countries which have welcomed President Prodi' s speech with relief and enthusiasm will be able to take steps in the run up to Nice to ensure that it is a genuine success.
I would just like to focus briefly on the appraisal of the Convention method.
It is quite true that it is an improvement on an Intergovernmental Conference, but - take note, ladies and gentlemen - even the Convention was forced to achieve consensus on every single word and, in the end, particularly during the concluding phase, it turned into a sort of Intergovernmental Conference II: our Praesidium had to negotiate with the Member States instead of, or as well as, Members of Parliament.
I therefore feel that, once again, the obligation to achieve unanimity on every single part of the Charter as well as on the final result will prove extremely hampering when we come to evaluate the content of the Charter itself.
Mr President, Mr Prodi has referred to the referendum in Denmark, the outcome of which I believe reflects a malaise that extends far beyond that country.
Many European citizens are questioning the point reached by the Union, its objectives and even the logic of integration.
We say that there is a crisis of confidence with regard to the institutions, and I feel that this crisis is due in particular to the disparity between the expectations of society and the ability to live up to them.
While growth continues apace, inequalities have become increasingly intolerable.
The call for equitable distribution has become even louder.
There are also great expectations as concerns cooperation, transparency and public debate.
We must learn to listen more closely.
Despite the method adopted, which I welcome, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which should be the social foundation stone of the European Union would not seem to match up either to the expectations or to the objectives set.
Despite the constructive changes made in the final draft produced by the Convention, there is still great disparity between the contributions made by citizens' associations, their hopes and the results actually achieved.
I would even go so far as to say that this Charter contains many ambiguities.
There is still time to enhance it and, in doing so, to be far more receptive to the proposals made by many associations, trade unions and the progressive movement. The same applies to the priorities of employment, social integration and lifelong learning - highly important objectives that have been set, but whose realisation has foundered on the cold logic of the stability pact, on the dogma of liberalisation.
Following on from what my fellow Member, Mr Wurtz, has said, I would like to stress the extent to which the vital reform of the institutions should address the issue of making the Union more democratic.
There has been one gaping omission in all the remarks made on the subject of how it would be possible to create institutions enabling citizen participation. This is the prerequisite for a Europe of the peoples that is built to last.
Mr President, I have only one thing to say in response to the President of the Commission' s speech: bravo!
We know that things are not going well and it is better to admit it openly.
The negotiating side of things has hitherto proved disappointing and yielded negative results: to our knowledge, on not one point in the total 75 cases of unanimous voting has total agreement been reached, and in Italy, for the first time, a recent survey has shown that, in one of the largest regions, the North East, Europe is falling out of favour.
The truth is that Europe resembles an aeroplane taking off: either it accelerates and keeps rising upwards or it falls to the ground.
And so, President, you who bear the greater responsibility, forge ahead right to the very end.
You are committed, as are we, to absolute coherence, but there are two things which have to be done: firstly, you must make it clear immediately that, if Nice is a failure, there will be an internal crisis which may well involve resignations from the Commission, if necessary, and secondly, you must make it just as clear that enlargement is impossible without prior thorough reform.
Europe is in danger of being defeated by compromises, not crises.
When such crises are triggered by opposing views they are healthy.
Mr President, like all top class cyclists, President Prodi knows the right moment to break away from the pack.
This is what he has done this morning in this speech which has given us all fresh hope.
I would like to focus on two facts which produce opposing reactions: satisfaction at the Convention and bitterness at the outcome of the referendum in Denmark.
These are two different results which, however, I feel are closely related and herald new times.
Almost 90% of the population took part in the Danish referendum, a level which bears unequivocal witness to the citizens' interest in contributing to European decision-making.
On the other hand, the result, which we fully respect, may be an indication that the citizens do not yet feel in tune with the European ideal.
The problem may well be a general one.
It must be admitted that, after 55 years of Community life, there may well be a lack of feeling of belonging to anything other than a merely geographical Europe.
The internal borders of today and the single currency of tomorrow are certainly useful, necessary symbols which will affect citizens' everyday lives in a practical way and contribute to reinforcing the European ideal, but they will not fulfil the citizens' call for greater heed to be paid to their views and for greater representation of their interests and, above all, of their hopes for the future.
As we know, the objectives set at the current Intergovernmental Conference do not meet this demand fully, although the reform of the weighting of votes and the extension of qualified majority voting are steps in this direction.
For a long time now, we have been talking about a post-Nice period during which institutions and operating procedures need to be reformed more effectively, also and especially with a view to enlargement.
I and many others feel that the experiment of the Convention should be repeated, and that the formula adopted should be refined as we go along, so that the hope recently expressed by President Chirac that the reform processes will increasingly serve the purpose of bringing our institutions closer to the citizens will be fulfilled.
The Convention was a Europe-wide success in terms of the formula adopted, the significant results achieved within the time allowed and the sense of accountability shown by all the participants.
Let us endeavour to promote this model to ensure a future in which our hopes for Europe are realised.
Mr President, I too am proud of the text of the Charter which is being submitted to the Biarritz Council.
It is the first time that the indivisibility of fundamental rights has actually found expression; something for which a case has been made in the international arena, since the human rights conference in Vienna in 1993.
I have argued strongly in favour of including social, economic and cultural rights alongside the traditional fundamental rights.
This came to fruition.
I do have two minor criticisms I would like to make.
The Presidency has failed to carry out the wishes of the vast majority of the Convention, who wanted an unambiguous reference to the revised social Charter of the Council of Europe to be included.
I think this is unwise, but I assume that the European Court will make up for this in its interpretation of social rights.
Last-minute changes have been made to the text of the article on collective action and the right to strike.
I will not go into detail.
Commissioner Vitorino knows exactly what I am referring to.
I expect that he will include corrections and clarifications in the memorandum.
As an ex-trade union negotiator, I am used to defending the outcome of negotiations.
Do not, therefore, expect me to come up with a whole list of points which are lacking or which have not been formulated as well as they could have been.
I believe that we have a sound Charter before us.
Its aim is to marry the entire breadth of European policy with the standards and principles of the constitutional state and of the social welfare state.
This was the Cologne mandate and this is also what the Charter can do, whether it becomes binding or not.
Naturally, the Charter must be incorporated into the Treaty and it should form the basis of a European constitution in future.
But some Member States need slightly more time to get used to the idea.
Those at the back of the queue threaten to dictate the pace, but this is no reason to relegate the Charter to the bin if it cannot be made binding right away.
On the contrary, I believe we need to throw our entire weight behind the next step.
So, I would suggest to Mr Moscovici not to ease off.
The Charter should become a live instrument, both legally and politically.
On a legal plane, I can think of forms of enforcement other than direct enforcement by the European Court on an individual basis.
For example, in the Council of Europe and the ILO, there is a wealth of experience in terms of reporting procedures, expert committees and the collective right of complaint of trade unions and NGOs, and it is through these means that the Charter can be monitored from a legal perspective.
Just as important is the fact that the Charter can establish itself as a political project as a means of involving people in Europe.
The discussion which Mr Verheugen sparked with his statement on a referendum was a painful demonstration of how bad communication is between Brussels and the citizens.
Similarly, the Danish referendum can be taken as a motion of no-confidence.
I would like to promote the Charter as a Charter for setting a wide social debate in motion about what kind of a Europe we want.
Mrs Pintassilgo and her Committee of Wise Men suggested this back in 1996.
NGOs and trade unions are ready for this, as has become evident from the enormous commitment they have shown to the process so far.
Let us hold on to this commitment and build on it.
Last week, the Benelux governments proposed in an IGC memorandum that next year, under the Belgian Presidency, a plan for giving direction to Europe' s will have to be laid down which addresses these points, such as the anchoring of the Charter, but also the discussion on reforming institutions and authorities, which Mr Prodi was referring to.
I think it is a realistic timetable to propose a project for the future of Europe under that Presidency, and the Charter will have a role to play in this.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, this is an important passage in the history of Europe, in the history of the world as well as of the Union.
The drawing-up and approval of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, together with an Intergovernmental Conference which may lead to decisive changes and enlargement are historic events which may leave their mark on the start of this new century.
There is, however, the possibility that the full potential of this decisive episode will not be realised if the Charter is not made legally effective, if the Intergovernmental Conference does not carry out the reforms and if, as a consequence, enlargement becomes liable to hold back political integration.
The dilemma in the hearts of a great many citizens who want a political Europe, not just a great trading entity, is this: if the Intergovernmental Conference fails to produce the desired reforms, should we still proceed with enlargement? Indeed, if we were to continue along the road to enlargement whatever happens, as is to be desired, closer cooperation would be our only hope.
Therefore, this last prospect should certainly not be restricted by pre-set limits but rather, while remaining within the bounds of an accepted legal and institutional framework, enable the Member States who are ready to do so to set off along the path of deeper political integration, leaving the way open for the others to join them when they consider the time is right.
We must allow everyone to follow his own political project in the Union, in a harmony of differences which, after all, has already proved to be a winning solution in the history of the European Union.
Mr President, like many in the House I very much welcomed what Mr Prodi said to us this morning, both about the architecture of the Union and its institutions and about the Charter of Rights.
I am one of those who believe that adopting the Charter, even in a declaratory mode, will be a welcome step forward because it will certainly lead in due course to a charter that is fully legally binding.
I should like to draw the attention of the House and the Commission to the question which will arise this Friday when we are discussing the rights of the lettori, the foreign language lecturers in Italian universities.
Here we have a situation where rights possessed by citizens of the Union have been denied for twelve years and more.
It is no good agreeing a Charter of Rights at the highest level if individual citizens who are wronged by a state have no effective remedy.
We insist, therefore, that as well as the commitment to the Charter we have heard from the Commission today, it also commits itself to protecting the rights of individual citizens.
Mr President, the proposed Charter of Fundamental Rights does not mean that citizens' rights are to be reinforced.
It adds nothing over and above what is at present implied in the EU' s, the Member States' and the Council of Europe' s policy in this area.
This is also clear from Article 50 of the Treaty.
Seen from a Left perspective, there is a lot missing from the text of the Charter.
The Charter can therefore only be seen as an attempt to transfer responsibility for citizens' rights from the institutions in which they at present reside to the European Union.
It is a development which we reject.
It is aimed only at driving the EU towards a federal constitution.
We believe there are better alternatives, namely for the EU to sign and, in that way, be subject to the Council of Europe' s convention in this area.
This would also reinforce pan-European cooperation in this sphere instead of weakening it, as there is a danger of the EU Charter doing.
Mr President, the result of the Danish referendum ought to be understood free from false interpretations.
The Danish 'no' vote is not isolationist or nationalistic in character.
It is not a sign that a majority of Danes are saying 'no' to European cooperation or that the Danes are not carefully informed about the ins and outs and development plans of the European Union.
A majority of Danes have said 'no' , as they did in 1992 and 1993, to more European integration, 'no' to surrendering more sovereignty and 'no' to the tools which serve these purposes, that is to say the euro, majority decision-making and a European constitution.
Allow me to stress that the 'no' votes were delivered by voters right across the political spectrum. Even half of the ruling Social Democratic Party' s voters said 'no' .
It should not be imagined that the European project, of which we have heard the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi give such a clear description, could have convinced the Danes and persuaded them to vote 'yes' .
The Danish Government and the parties in favour of the euro have done everything in their power to explain away the integration and surrender of sovereignty that are under way.
In order to pacify a people who have been independent for a thousand years, it was declared that 'the Union is as dead as a doornail' .
If the Danish Government had spoken as clearly as Mr Prodi and Mr Poettering did in this Chamber today, there would have been many more people who voted 'no' .
Allow me, therefore, to say to you all: those who want more in the way of union must go further down that road alone.
Denmark, and all free Europeans who are allowed to hold referenda, will say no thank you.
Mr President, I am sure that the informal Summit of Biarritz will not yield any breakthroughs at this stage.
We are counting on Nice to fulfil this requirement.
However, what the summit can do is to prepare the groundwork for Nice, and this is why this debate is certainly useful to get across our parliamentary message.
With regard to Biarritz, I desperately hope that the Amsterdam leftovers can be resolved very quickly.
Concerning the number of Commissioners, we believe that one Commissioner for each Member State is enough, and Parliament needs no more than 700 MEPs.
Furthermore, and this brings me to the most important point, all EU legislation must be subject to qualified majority decision-making combined with - and this is a compelling point - Parliament' s right of codecision, because I have heard rumours here and there that these two do not automatically coincide.
What I would also call for, however, is to look beyond immediate concerns in Biarritz.
We know all too well that the present Treaties are inadequate and that the Union will need a better and different structure in future, a more constitutional structure which clearly distinguishes the powers of the Member States and those of the Union.
In this respect, President Prodi set the right tone in my opinion.
I would like to make a brief comment on the Charter.
I had the honour of being involved in the preparatory work for the Charter.
I would first of all like to thank Mr Roman Herzog and Mr Inigo Méndez de Vigo for their sterling work and for the way compromises were struck time and again.
I would also like to commend the role of Commissioner Vitorino. The outcome was sound.
The Charter provides for the dignity of the citizens, the ban on capital punishment, the citizens' liberties, education, labour and enterprise in all Member States, the very exhaustive anti-discrimination article, which is even more exhaustive than the one in the Treaty of Amsterdam, and the equal treatment of men and women; not only in traditional areas of work, remuneration and social security, but also in all areas of the Union. All this represents a step forward.
I hope with all my heart, and I must say this quite emphatically, that an opportunity will arise when this document can be incorporated into the Treaties at some point in the future.
Mr President, I would like to end by making a final remark on Professor Prodi' s cry from the heart.
I have to say that his warning, a well-meaning one at that, to stop confirming and developing intergovernmental trends, has really struck a chord with me.
These only exacerbate the EU' s anti-democratic disposition. Mr Prodi has put an emphatic stop to this kind of action, which has hopefully resonated with Mr Moscovici, and I truly hope that this trend can be broken and reversed at the Councils in Nice and Biarritz.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, rarely can a Presidency of the European Union have been so burdened with challenges and chock-full of events.
These challenges are, in essence, the Intergovernmental Conference and the preparation for enlargement, which are of course interconnected.
The events are the problems currently being experienced by the euro, the surge in oil prices and, on a different level, the hopes for a transition towards democracy in Yugoslavia.
In other words, the French Presidency's task is no easy one.
We, as elected representatives, are at least as responsible for encouraging it to make progress in the face of adversity as we are for relaying the messages that we receive from public opinion in each of our countries.
These are, first and foremost, messages of concern at the economic and social problems that we are experiencing, in spite of a period of sustained growth stemming from years of efforts by all our fellow citizens.
During this French Presidency of the Union, we expect a firm unified response from the 15 Member States to these issues, which are of prime concern to our fellow citizens, one that will enable a rapid reversal of these trends.
Should this fail to materialise, we should not be surprised if public opinion proves sceptical about Europe, or even rejects it.
Then there are messages of encouragement concerning the IGC negotiations in preparation for the enlargement of the Union.
These are, as we know, very tricky negotiations and raise fears of a setback or a watered-down agreement in Nice which, as you have already acknowledged, Mr Moscovici, would be even more serious.
The European Parliament, and the peoples of Europe it represents, expect the extraordinary European Council Meeting in Biarritz to mark a leap forward, a political wake-up call for the Heads of State and Government.
The policy of one step at a time no longer suits the scale of the challenges that confront us, but your determination on both counts is evident in your statements.
Let us restore a human dimension to Europe. Incorporating the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Treaties would be a major step in this direction.
Let us, as a Europe of 15 Member States, organise ourselves in order to be able to welcome those countries who are knocking at the door into the fold under respectable conditions.
Let us at last find the clarity of vision to define the borders of Europe.
I started by mentioning the events in Yugoslavia.
If only we could draw from the courage and perseverance in adversity shown by our friends in Serbia, Europe would be able to make better headway and be more readily understood and supported by its citizens.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, in experiencing the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the European Parliament we are seeing history in the making.
The completion of this work is an important milestone in the history of the European Union, particularly for the people who live there.
The work of the Convention under the leadership of the former German President, Roman Herzog, is to be welcomed.
At this stage I should also like to thank Dr Ingo Friedrich who played a leading role in our group's contribution to the work of the Convention.
But I should like once again to ask a very clear question here: do we want to create a charter of all immutable and inalienable human rights? Or do we want a wish list containing everything that would be nice?
Are free education and free access to a job centre fundamental rights on the same footing as the right to life or human dignity?
In Germany an extensive list of fundamental rights already existed in the Weimar constitution which, however, because it was so extensive, degenerated into a simple set of targets which could not be legally enforced.
That must not happen here. We want to ensure that the fundamental rights of the European public are genuinely protected.
With an eye to recent events, the issue of petrol prices also seems to me to be particularly noteworthy.
The current situation, which is intolerable, particularly for many independent haulage firms and for agriculture, does in any case need to be improved.
It is not enough for the finance ministers to swear in Versailles that they will not lower taxes, only for the countries where the protests are loudest to give in afterwards.
The Intergovernmental Conference - to address a third subject - on the reform of the European institutions is also of decisive significance for us in Parliament.
Majority voting can only be extended in the Council if at the same time the European Parliament's powers of codecision are widened.
Any other procedure would mean a huge democratic deficit.
Responsibilities must be clearly delimited.
Provision for social, cultural and charitable causes must be included in Article 87 so that the future of these important institutions can also be permanently safeguarded.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, as has often been said in this House, the Charter of Fundamental Rights is the end result of genuine democratic cooperation.
Representatives from both our own parliament and national parliaments and governments worked on it.
This cooperation produced an excellent result, in spite of some misgivings.
We might ask whether this model of successful cooperation should be continued in the future?
Many of our citizens feel the European Union is distant and bureaucratic.
Their distrust of the Union must be taken seriously.
We have to pay particular attention to relations between the people and the Union' s institutions.
For that reason, I am very glad that the Charter on Fundamental Rights emphasises the principle of transparency, although it could still be put in stronger terms.
Despite the demands made here today in this House, it would appear that the Charter is not going to be made legally binding, but is merely to be a political declaration.
I use the word 'merely' , although I believe that, despite its declaratory nature, the EC Court will have to apply the Articles of the Charter in their judicial practices as self-binding principles, with which the interpretation of the court must naturally be in harmony.
In this way they will gradually become de facto legally binding legal norms.
The Charter is an indication that the Union bears a responsibility for and cares about human rights.
For the implementation of human rights to be monitored in practice also, however, the Union must have clear rules regarding possible sanction mechanisms to be used against Member States.
At present, the Council is talking about incorporating such mechanisms in Article 7.
An agreement on procedures in itself is a good thing, but we must make sure that the system cannot be used as a political weapon.
According to ancient Finnish wisdom, you should examine a person first before hitting him.
At present I feel there is a danger that if the proposal by the Belgian Government on these sanction mechanisms were to be implemented, we would be hitting first and examining only afterwards.
I hope that the sanction mechanisms will be discussed further before the summits at Biarritz and Nice.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the European Parliament delegation in the Convention and the President of the Convention, Mr Roman Herzog, for their committed work.
The drafting of a European Charter of Fundamental Rights is an important and necessary step towards a Europe which is close to the people.
Some people think that it is possible to create an internal market in Europe without agreeing on fundamental values and principles.
The majority of the European Parliament has never supported this view.
For example, with the directive on patenting biotechnological inventions - which was, of course, supposed to be primarily an internal market directive - we did not allow this directive to be adopted without fundamental ethical principles being enshrined in it, and without particular techniques which offend against human dignity being prohibited from patenting.
Where modern genetic engineering is concerned, in particular, this was an important step towards establishing common values in Europe.
The Charter is a further - certainly much more important - step.
Many parts of the draft which we have before us are excellent.
But the draft is worth improving precisely in respect of the protection of human dignity and the protection against its abuse by modern technologies.
The wording is imprecise in some places, and I am particularly concerned that Article 3 of the draft Charter only prohibits the reproductive cloning of human beings.
This can be interpreted as a step backwards compared with previous European legislation.
In the directive on patenting biotechnological inventions, the cloning of human beings is prohibited as a whole, Commissioner Prodi, because it offends common decency and law and order - so it is not only the patent that is prohibited; the technique is too.
Commissioner Busquin very kindly assured me of this once again in a letter this week, and that is why it is dangerous for us now to be weaker in the Charter than in existing European Union legislation.
This is not our delegation's fault; it is not Roman Herzog's fault: it is the fault of the governments of the Member States.
That is why pressure needs to be exerted on them once again to introduce an improvement at this point in the text.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the approval of the courts in Luxembourg and Strasbourg, the Convention has put together a draft Charter of Fundamental Rights which is remarkably balanced, and has delivered it into the hands of the Council.
Where does the added value of this Charter lie? Firstly, it lies in the fact that a basic set of fundamental rights has been distilled from more than 30 legal sources which are currently in force.
Secondly, it lies in its transparency for the public, who now know what rights they have in respect of those who create and apply European law, and in its transparency for those who do precisely that, draft or apply European law.
They too now have a clear idea of the rights which they have to respect.
Thirdly, the Convention has not confined itself to restating old rights - even the Council of Europe has recognised this - but has identified new dangers in connection with old rights and included them in the text: in the areas of crime, biotechnology, data protection and administration.
The Charter therefore guarantees a greater level of protection than the European Convention on Human Rights - this needs to be said to all those who are asserting the opposite here in the plenary - and it formulates political and social rights in a balanced way.
It is the first declaration of human rights of the new millennium and the most modern charter of human rights available anywhere in the world.
It makes it clear to people that the European Union has always been a Community of values.
Even so, the EU will have to do a great deal to keep it that way.
Mr President-in-Office, I would ask you in all seriousness just to consider the following: if you now wish simply to go back to the Cologne Decision and reflect at your leisure on whether this should be incorporated into the Treaties, what encouragement will those who disregard human rights draw from the fact that we are hesitating to do this? What Mr Baron Crespo said is right: why waste time?
All this is about, after all, is making law which is already in force more visible.
Mr President, we have just had a debate that was both interesting and productive.
I too would like to welcome Mr Prodi' s forceful and meaningful intervention.
I have of course noted - and this is cause for great satisfaction - that the European Parliament is almost unanimously content with the Charter.
This is not surprising because it has itself contributed to it, and because it is consonant with some of its values.
That lends great weight to this text, and to the European Council as concerns furthering the Charter.
I have noted your appeals and invitations to press ahead, to take advantage of the momentum generated and carry it to Nice and beyond.
It is in this light that I will attempt to briefly reply to your interventions.
Mr Prodi has spoken in favour of preserving the Community model, which met with great approval throughout this Chamber, and I would like, in my turn, to welcome this speech which will doubtless continue to be viewed as a major one.
I agree with him on the need to maintain the institutional balance and enhance the role, in political terms, of both the Commission and the Council.
I agree with him that the Commission must continue to play a pivotal role as guardian of the common interests of the Community.
I agree with him on the need to guard against a return to intergovernmental methods, which some find appealing.
However, without wanting to enter into a dialogue with him on a matter that will warrant further debate, I would also like to share with him some of the Council' s reactions.
We must bear in mind the Community as a whole.
The originality of the institutional system resides precisely in the sharing of responsibilities, relying on procedures that are sometimes subtle, but which are, I feel, tried and tested ones.
Would it not be worth defining the responsibilities at each level in the decision-making process more clearly, rather than seeking to proceed with a legal allocation of powers on the basis of a traditional federal model? Would we not then be closer to the model than the founding fathers intended?
A second observation.
There are certain areas in which the sovereignty of the Member States could not be called into question without this conflicting with the spirit of European integration.
On this issue I would like to indicate, if not my disagreement, then at least some slight differences in opinion on two points.
The first concerns the common foreign and security policy, and the suggestion to integrate the High Representative for CFSP into the Commission.
You will be aware that this was a deliberate decision taken in Amsterdam to clearly distinguish the two roles, with the High Representative, as opposed to the Commission, not speaking from a completely independent viewpoint, but under a remit to coordinate the common foreign and security policies that lie within the competence of the Member States, and there we should leave perhaps ample scope for an intergovernmental approach.
CFSP, for reasons as much to do with history as with the nature of this area, will doubtless be the subject of coordination between Member States for some time to come.
Perhaps one day we will have to abolish this function, but that day has not yet come.
It is time, instead, to intensify this function.
The second slight difference concerns the euro.
The recent fluctuations in this currency have revealed the need for a more political style of governance, of management.
For all that, we should not, I feel, steer clear of strong intergovernmental cooperation, cooperation in respect of economic policies, when seeking solutions.
As I see it, reasoning in terms of governance, there is a need for both the Council and the Commission to have a firm hand on the tiller and, in this case too, to ensure that the Community as a whole is catered for.
That is why I believe it is very important for the Chairman of the Eurogroup - which we chose to set up - to continue to play a full role in this area.
There are many of us who want a federation of nation states, which means that each state must find the position that best suits it.
A variety of opinions only serves to improve the quality of the debate, and I believe that we have just heard a very important speech.
I was pleased to hear, Mr Napolitano, that we agree on the fact that we must not go too quickly, or risk jeopardising the Charter.
You suggest that the Charter could provide the springboard for a future constitution, and why not.
But we must reach agreement on what to put in this constitution.
I am anxious to reassure Mr Poettering of my ability to chew gum while still listening carefully to what he has to say.
He was quite right to emphasise the distance we have travelled since the fall of the wall and the reunification of Germany ten years ago.
I hope now that democracy has gained a foothold in Serbia.
He wanted the Presidency to outline the way forward at Nice.
The presidency is, of course, aware that things will not come to a halt at Nice, that we must look to the future and handing over the baton.
Once again, let us not take future debates as a pretext for not reaching - and this is not your suggestion - decisions that should be taken today within the IGC. It is clearly the aim of the Biarritz Council to contribute to these decisions, to prepare them.
Mr Barón Crespo emphasised that the Charter was a fine document and one to be proud of. Why then does he want to put it under glass?
I believe that we must not forget, quite simply, that some Member States - it is not my job to name them - have already had to overcome considerable resistance and reluctance in getting this text accepted, which is why I am being, if not prudent, then at least patient, as I believe is necessary.
As concerns the IGC, I do not fully share his point of view.
I do not feel that we have reached a standstill, but rather that signs of a renewal are apparent. I moreover hope that these signs will be even more pronounced at Biarritz.
As for the future, perhaps the method will indeed have to be reviewed, to comprise, perhaps, a convention rather than an IGC, even if it should perhaps not become a system.
Mr Lannoye welcomed the view that I expressed with regard to a European constitution.
I do not know whether, as one of the speakers said, I am representative of my institution, and must say that this is my own personal opinion.
To my mind, the majority of Member States do not wish to start work on a constitution for the time being.
On the contrary, Evian showed that there was considerable resistance to doing so.
Mr Wurtz regretted that the citizens were not taken into account more fully, that there has been no attempt to find a way of consulting them more extensively.
I for my part believe that it is precisely for this reason that the Convention method is a good one and that ample use should again be made of it in the future.
The rapporteurs have already stressed the quality of the debate and the need to progress further, and I can only agree with them.
I will now reply to Mr Méndez de Vigo.
I am not a Christian Democrat, so I do not believe in miracles, but I do want to salute the European Parliament as such, because it has made a major contribution to this project.
It has been no miracle, but the fruit of labour.
Should one proclaim the Charter and see what happens, at the risk of it not being accepted throughout the Union as legally binding?
Mr Méndez de Vigo has asked me which countries would oppose it.
I repeat that I am not here to name names. It is not the task of the President-in-Office of the Council to look for scapegoats, but rather to seek consensus and compromise.
I would thus like to tell him that we should perhaps wait until the Council has discussed this Charter, and then we will be able to see whether we can proceed further, and more quickly, with it.
I would respond in the same vein to Mrs Berès.
She has said that the text of the Charter should not be altered one jot and that the Convention should have the final say on it.
I would take a slightly different view, because the Convention should not be placed before any of the institutions. But I would indeed like to see the package remaining intact at Biarritz, because I genuinely fear that not doing so would spark damaging debates.
She also made an extremely worthwhile suggestion concerning the link between the Charter and discussions over a future Article 7.
I approve her suggestion, which I feel to be one that will enable us to progress, without going as far as incorporation, and to make a clear reference to the Charter. I will propose that we look into the idea of inserting such a reference, for example in Article 6.
However, we still need, and I say this to the EP members of the Convention, to persuade the members of the European Council to do this, which will by no means be easy.
I do not wish to reply in detail to the speakers, and moreover have no time to do so.
I would simply like to emphasise that we do intend to be more receptive to associations' expectations.
One could indeed wish for more and for improvement, but I honestly believe that we have made a good start.
The satisfaction that this Chamber has shown in the Draft Charter is a powerful indication that there has been transparency, an opening out, that the method is a promising one, and that we have also gone some way to meeting the aspirations of the citizens, which are reflected in the method.
Mrs Sudre voiced the concerns of our fellow citizens over the economic and social problems that have given rise to Euro-scepticism.
That was not the subject under discussion today, but I must take the opportunity to remind her that, while it is true that the French Presidency has a major assignment to fulfil on the institutional front, it also has strong priorities in respect of the citizens.
I would not want these priorities to be overshadowed by the institutional priorities.
I could mention, for example, the social agenda which is a priority for us, or the setting in place of something that I would not call an economic government, but economic governance, to address these problems.
I will end by saying let there be no doubt but that the French Presidency intends to give the European Parliament all the attention it deserves, and that I will be in this Chamber on 24 October to report on Biarritz.
I would add that we want to work in the complete transparency you desire, and to carry on with the regular exchanges that we have held with you since July.
This would seem to me essential if we want Biarritz to be a successful European Council, which is to say one that paves the way, under respectable conditions, for success in Nice, for it is the Nice Council that will determine the shape and the success of what follows.
That is why I invite you, in spite of everything, not to throw yourselves headlong into the future, as this is a future that should be built step by step, and stone by stone.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your kind accolade and thank you also to those who have gently reproached me for not making this speech earlier.
In reply, I would say that, before making a speech, one must identify all the major factors at work, familiarise oneself with them and weigh them up, for political discourse must always be realistic, respond to the real weight of the forces at work and relate to the aims we all set ourselves.
I delivered this speech today because I can see that the hazards which have combined in recent months to threaten Europe have aroused in us a common determination with the potential to produce tangible results in the future.
In today' s debate, I associate myself with the words of all those who have spoken - Mr Moscovici, Mr Napolitano and the heads of Groups - on the importance of the Charter of Fundamental Rights: this is something innovative and, moreover, unhoped-for.
However, we cannot stop here: in addition to making the solemn political proclamation of the Charter, we need to assume a clear position regarding its incorporation into the Treaty of the Union.
But we must also ask ourselves: into which Treaty?
As you are aware, the Commission has proposed to start work on a clearer fundamental treaty, placing greater emphasis on citizens' rights and defining the respective responsibilities of the Union and the Member States or, in the many cases where the responsibilities remain unchanged, to specify them more clearly.
This is a feasible undertaking, and the University of Florence' s study would serve as an excellent basis from which to start work.
I would stress that this undertaking is not only legally possible but also a political necessity.
I therefore hope that the Nice European Council will associate itself with this project and decide to launch it as a practical project rather than an accomplished fact once, of course, the reforms of which we are currently in need have been adopted.
I do not want to go into the details of the reforms today for I want to talk principally about the method: the Community method, the institutional triangle, mutual boundaries of responsibility.
I would also like to make it quite clear that I have not given up on the matter: I have provided a careful analysis of the powers at work. Only where proposals have been made have I mentioned them, and I have presented them simply as proposals.
I have therefore defined not only the major role of the Commission but the roles of all the institutions and I have also stressed - and I reiterate this once again because it is even more important - the need to mobilise the people and their consciences.
The document on the forms of government which we have prepared and will present to you provides for this need, for it is a way of mobilising both institutions and consciences and it is an extremely important task.
Then we will have to go to Nice and implement the programme which we have prepared.
I repeat: we cannot be content with minimalist solutions.
We fully support Mr Moscovici' s words: a minimalist Nice is unacceptable.
After Nice, however, we are under an obligation to move resolutely on towards enlargement, establishing the timetable, defining benchmarking methods and setting goals, and in all this we must follow the Community method, which allows the peaceful coexistence of the different countries and different ways of thinking but also enables them to belong to our single European entity.
We must work on closer cooperation and make it simpler and more effective in order to bring this about: closer cooperation is the immediate, simplest way forward if we are to take that additional step towards integration, the need for which has been confirmed by the many powerful speeches which I have heard today.
I would like us to use closer cooperation to generate fresh potential for Europe.
If this is what we all want, we must be ruthless in combating any trend towards the fragmentation of responsibilities or decision making.
This does not mean that everything has to happen at once.
I have been coherent and firm in my intentions but also realistic, outlining the stages of what can be achieved today and what must wait until tomorrow.
In saying this, Mr Moscovici, I have no intention of giving the Community total control.
I have a very strong sense of subsidiarity which is deeply rooted in my own life, and I shall respect it unfailingly.
Even when I outlined the changes which are necessary, for the future of course, including the CFSP issue which you have mentioned this morning, I specified that change must take place within the framework of a specific Statute and described a way in which we might in time achieve this goal. I was certainly not for a moment advocating that we violate existing legislation.
However, I also specified clearly that, as things stand at the moment, we can achieve extremely important objectives through the Community method as it is today, for example, to improve our action in the Balkans.
I feel that it is a matter for our consciences to consider how great and yet how fragmented our undertaking is in the Balkans, and the sparsity of the results of the first stage of this undertaking at least, due to our fragmentation.
Another example, as I have said, is the energy policy: how great is our desire and how great is the need for a common energy policy, especially now that, in place of the national oil companies, we have a genuine market which must be managed within the context of coordination of the market as a whole.
I have given you some realistic, genuine examples and outlined a way forward, avoiding utopian aspirations.
Everything I have said has been relevant and realistic.
In recent months, the view that neither Parliament nor the Commission has democratic legitimacy has been voiced all too often. I say to you now that, from now on, I will not permit such talk ever, ever again.
Parliament and the Commission have been far too patient in this regard: Parliament in that you are legitimately elected by the European people and the Commission in that we have dual legitimation, legitimation by the people through Parliament and the trust you place in us and legitimation by the Member States through the Council.
These are the bases of our power and legitimacy.
Thank you for your kind attention.
I would just like to end, if I may, on a lighter note. I have been reading the sports pages recently, conscious that subsidiarity applies in full to sport.
I certainly do not want to go overboard on this point, but I was pleased to note that in the Sydney Olympics, the first dope-free Olympics - I am informed - and therefore Olympics which we can define in the spirit of De Coubertin, the 15 countries of the Union won 239 medals and the United States of America only 97.
If we were then to make a similar comparison between the 12 countries of the euro and the dollar area, the result would be an overwhelming victory.
I would like to thank the athletes for their performance, which would appear to be a good omen for the future of us all.
(Loud, sustained applause)
Thank you very much, Mr President of the Commission.
I have received one motion for a resolution in accordance with Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure to close this debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.15 p.m. and resumed at 12.30 p.m.)
Vote
Mr President, this report was postponed by this Parliament because human rights are being violated in Chechnya and international standards are not being adhered to, and in the knowledge - related to this - that a war is being waged against this people.
Now this report has appeared on the agenda without there being a discussion on the human rights situation in Chechnya.
This is astonishing because in September in the UN the subject of Chechnya was on the agenda and was not satisfactorily concluded.
Last week in the Council of Europe there was a big discussion with the Russian delegation, the vote on the basis of a report by Lord Hewitt was not able to go ahead and the matter was postponed.
Why is the European Parliament suddenly putting this subject on the agenda and acting as though nothing were amiss in Chechnya? I move that this report be postponed.
Yesterday evening my colleague, Mr Solbes, told Parliament that the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 13 and 14.
The Commission can partially accept Amendments Nos 5, 8 and 9.
Amendments Nos 10, 11 and 15 are acceptable in principle.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 12.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0231/2000) by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 96/53/EC laying down for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorised weights in international traffic [COM(2000) 137 - C5-0164/2000 - 2000/0060(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0235/2000) by Mr Skinner, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication "Risk capital: Implementation of the action plan - Proposals for moving forward" [COM(1999) 493 - C5-0320/1999 - 1999/2208(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0767/00) by Mr Napolitano on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs on the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights
.
The draft regulations of the UN/ECE for approval of motor vehicle headlamps and other special equipment is only significant in terms of Parliament's participation in the drafting of Community legislation on harmonising motor vehicle standards throughout Europe.
These standards are drawn up on the basis of the Revised Agreement of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) of which the Community became a contracting party in March 1988.
Consequently proposals are submitted to Parliament under the assent procedure, meaning that Parliament can no longer table amendments, as directives in this area were adopted as single market legislation under the codecision procedure on the basis of Art.100a TEC.
However, this reduction of Parliament's influence is acceptable given the highly technical nature of the issues concerned and the Commission's endeavours to inform the EP in good time of plans to draw up new regulations via its competent Standing committees.
I will vote to approve the draft regulation.
Quisthoudt-Rowohl report (A5-0048/1999/REV 1)
.
Technical cooperation with Russia while the Chechen people are suffering a full-scale genocide is a cause of shame for the European Union at a time when this House has greeted the final version of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
How can we ignore what is happening in Chechnya after the unanimous reaction against the killings of Palestinians?
Is this not a case of double standards?
I voted against this report. Not because I would object to scientific cooperation, but because of the explanatory statement.
Mr Putin owes his election victory to the bloody war of extermination against the Chechen people.
He is currently continuing this genocide and moreover he is also trying to completely eliminate the freedom of the media and the rule of law in Russia, which, as it is, barely exist.
.
(IT) I abstained in the vote on the proposal for a Decision concluding the agreement between the European Community and the government of the Russian Federation because the proposal fails to deal with the extremely important area of cooperation over the removal of antipersonnel mines and the conversion of the firms which produce them.
This is a particularly important point, also in view of past dealings between Russian and Italian firms, such as, for example, those directed by the former senator Claudio Regis, a well-known manufacturer of criminal devices such as these.
A thorough, comprehensive agreement should have included a reference to this issue as well. Since this proposal does not, I have abstained in the vote.
Knörr-Borràs recommendation for second reading (A5-0230/2000)
.
(FR) National accounts are magical.
With a few aggregates, GDP, GNP, consumption, income, capital formation, etc.
They provide a small-scale model of the economic life of a country, making it possible to calculate tax pressures and the percentages of public deficit or indebtedness.
This is to say that it is a major instrument in managing economic, budgetary and fiscal policy.
It is the means by which the Maastricht criteria find application, and by which, above all, the European Community identifies the VAT own resource and especially its fourth resource based on GNP.
It is, however, essential for the procedures for drawing up these national accounts, both in the transactions described and the institutional sectors summarised, to be identical from one country to the next.
Otherwise, quite obviously, it is not possible to make a comparison.
Hence the need for common principles for recording taxes and social contributions within the Fifteen.
That, in a nutshell, is the subject of the Regulation being discussed here.
It standardises the mechanisms of the integrated economic accounts within the European system of national and regional accounts.
This European System of Integrated Economic Accounts, which dates back to 1970, was amended again in 1995.
A great many problems arise.
Should one assess revenue, for example, on the basis of the taxable event or on collection of the tax?
It is known that in France, for instance, the figure for tax receipts varies according to whether you use the statistics of the Direction générale de la comptabilité publique or those of the Comptabilité nationale.
It is therefore all the easier to imagine the possible variation from one country to the next.
Especially since it is in States' interest to 'cheat' and understate their basic taxable amount for VAT or the GNP levy.
Indeed, the reports of the European Court of Auditors continually comment on understating of this type, from Greece to Portugal.
In the case in point, the amendment of the 1996 Council Regulation before us, the Commission proposes to register taxes and contributions by taking account primarily of the revenue actually collected, rather than the tax calculated as due on the basis of the taxable event.
The Commission also proposes to apply a coefficient to the 'non collectable' percentage in order to avoid understating the true level of deficit, compared with the Maastricht requirements.
While it all seems purely to do with technical matters, there are nonetheless considerable political implications.
Piecyk recommendation for second reading (A5-0232/2000)
Mr President, before I left for Strasbourg to come to this part-session, a pensioner from Cremona, a town in the Po Valley on the River Po, asked me to tell him when it would at last be possible to sail on the Po.
In order to do something to meet the expectations of this pensioner, who is called Giuseppe Italia, lives in Cremona and would love to be able to sail on the Po, I voted for the Piecyk report, which concerns the expansion and development of sea and inland ports and intermodal terminals.
I feel that it is extremely important for us to decide to develop inland shipping networks, for it would greatly reduce the intensity of heavy goods traffic travelling on roads and motorways and the damage it causes.
Hatzidakis report (A5-0231/2000)
Mr President, I voted for this report, not just because of Mr Hatzidakis' remarkable abilities as Committee Chairman and expert on European Union transport regulations, but also because, as the representative of the Pensioners' Party in Italy, I am pleased to note that, by allowing 15-metre-long buses, which can hold 67 instead of 50 passengers, to travel on European roads, the cost of travelling would and will be reduced for elderly people who travel by coach, not just to come here to Strasbourg but also to travel anywhere in the European Union, in the manner which we already encourage but should do still more to promote.
.
(FR) We had nothing against the declared intention of this report to standardise disparate national legislation on the maximum legal length of passenger vehicles, quite the opposite.
It must, however, be stressed that the proposed measures are not justified by passenger safety or the rational organisation of transport but by 'commercial reasons' , i.e. profits for road haulage undertakings.
Standardisation would therefore be implemented by establishing the European legal length in line with the maximum provided for in the specific legislation.
The European institutions contribute alongside the national States to promoting road transport over rail transport, yet this preference is damaging in ecological terms and wasteful in social terms.
A policy which worked towards the rational, efficient and safe organisation of transport ought to prioritise investment in the European public rail service rather than confining itself to standardising the conditions of competition between road transporters, that are principally concerned with maximising their private profits.
We did not, consequently, vote in favour of this report.
The result of the voting in this House makes the objective of the directive - which was recognised and supported by all the speakers and the Commission - unattainable.
The rejection of Amendment No 3 means that, although the directive regulates maximum authorised lengths, it does not harmonise maximum authorised widths or heights for attachments such as skiboxes.
Much more crucial, however, is the fact that the testing rules for cornering are not aligned with the current version of ECE Regulation 36.03 which has been used in practice since 1996.
Instead the reference is Directive 97/27/EC which is based on an obsolete version of ECE Regulation 36.03 and is undergoing review within the Commission.
This is tantamount to failing to adapt to technical and scientific progress, and it means that an old testing method which is not fit to be used in practice will have to be applied.
This will make it impossible to authorise the rigid 15-metre buses!
I voted in favour of the report in the hope that Directive 96/53/EC will be immediately brought into line with the amended Directive 97/27/EC (once it is updated).
The statement made by the Commission representative following the debate, that he will be rejecting all the other amendments apart from one, left me rather shaken.
For me it shows how superfluous a debate is if the Commission is not willing or able to reconsider its position or react to the debate.
- (NL) Two buses or one articulated bus are more expensive than one long, rigid bus.
I have seen these buses in the Finnish town of Tampere.
The roads there are wide and as straight as an arrow.
The buses can pose a risk to cyclists and pedestrians in low-traffic urban areas and on windy country roads.
Moreover, without a compulsory second rear axle, they can destroy roads on soft soil, such as the Dutch peat polders.
It is therefore entirely justifiable that a number of EU Member States only permit buses up to 12 metres.
If these countries are forced to allow 15-metre buses, they will need to install extra road signs everywhere around the country.
These buses may have access to that country, but in practice, they will be unable to reach many places.
According to those in favour, such buses are not only cheaper and internationally deployable, they are also more environmentally-friendly because they use less fuel per passenger.
This is why my group did not oppose the proposal initially within the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
It now transpires that these proposals are mainly a cost-saving exercise, at the expense of safety.
That is the main reason why I intend to reject the proposals.
Skinner report (A5-0235/2000)
Mr President, I believe - and this also emerged clearly from the way in which people voted - that this is primarily about the fact that having losses recognised for tax purposes is a fundamental prerequisite, especially for small companies, because they risk a great deal of private capital.
To risk personal capital, in particular, is a highly precarious business.
That is why a facility to carry forward losses and enter them in the accounts would have a significant impact.
Mr President, I voted for the Skinner report, as I explained during the debate before the vote, because I feel that risk capital is important.
However, I would like to describe it as hope capital: it does not seem appropriate to describe as risk capital a financial initiative which is intended to improve the fate of pensioners and elderly people by making their pensions more secure.
Let us call it hope capital instead, as I proposed to Mrs Kauppi, who agreed with me.
I hope that, in the future, we will also be able to change the name of this financial initiative for the investment of pension funds intended to benefit not only the elderly, but also small and medium-sized enterprises as well.
.
I welcome this excellent report from my colleague Mr Skinner.
At Lisbon the Special European Council stated that "efficient risk capital markets play a major role in innovative high growth SMEs and the creation of new and sustainable jobs".
The Heads of State and Government therefore agreed a number of measures to promote the development of risk capital in the European Union, with a deadline for implementing the Risk Capital Action Plan of 2003.
The Commission Communication is an acknowledgement that concrete measures need to be taken to create a genuinely European and highly liquid risk capital market in the EU.
The report supports the Council's and Commission's approach and emphasises that a number of regulatory measures need to be introduced, namely on pensions, cross-border prospectuses and a Community patent.
He also calls for benchmarking to spread best practice across the EU.
. (NL) This proposal puts economic growth above equality for all.
America is taken as a case in point, worshipping as it does at the shrine of venture capital and profits.
It pins its hope on the model-function of multinationals in the fields of biotechnology and health care.
Opting for direct government aid when acquiring risk-bearing starting capital for innovative companies means that this aid must mainly be funded by those paying taxes and pension premiums.
This proposal sees companies first and foremost as benefactors, which have the welfare of society as a whole in mind and must be remunerated for it accordingly.
In reality, they often have more in common with gamblers who hope to tap into goldmines.
It is only natural then that they should carry the entrepreneurial risk themselves, rather than passing some of it on to the community.
My colleague Mrs Armonie Bordes cuttingly pointed out yesterday that only a minority benefit from deploying community capital and pension premiums for entrepreneurial risks.
Those on the lowest incomes suffer the most.
As I see it, that is a good reason not to vote in favour of the agreement.
Resolution "Charter on Fundamental Rights" (B5-0767/2000)
Mr President, on behalf of my group I want to state that the implementation of a new EU Charter of Fundamental Rights will certainly raise the status and visibility of human rights in the European Union.
It is stated in Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam that fundamental rights exist within the Union and must be respected.
Citizens from the candidate countries in central and eastern Europe can also draw inspiration from such a charter.
However, we should recall that the European Convention on Human Rights, which all Member States have signed and adopted in their national law, has now been operating for nearly 50 years and works hand in hand with the UN Declaration on Human Rights.
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg adjudicates on possible human right infringements in signatory countries.
The European Convention on Human Rights has been a proven success.
The citizens from Member States of the countries of the ECHR have confidence in this convention and jurisprudence has built up around it.
Our primary concern with regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights is that it must not conflict with the European Convention.
This in itself would lead to greater legal uncertainty, which would be highly unwelcome.
The division lines must be drawn between the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
The most difficult problem facing this new charter is not its actual content but whether it has legal status.
A binding and all-embracing charter with completely legally enforceable rights could result in difficulties at a later stage.
Certainly in Ireland constitutional amendments would be necessary if elements of the draft charter were to be legally enforceable.
Referenda might also be needed in other Member States.
This could lead to further uncertainty and failure to ratify at Member State level.
We did not vote against this resolution because we did not want our votes to be confused with those of the extreme right, which objects to a number of fundamental rights even being affirmed or opposable to the sovereignty of States.
We have absolutely no intention, however, of endorsing the Charter itself, as it is still vague on such basic human rights as the right to employment, a decent wage or accommodation, rights which affect the majority of the population, and is also vague regarding the social protection and freedom of movement and residence of third country nationals.
It is quite specific, on the other hand, regarding the right to property and freedom to conduct a business, affecting primarily the capital-owning minority, the right to exercise this and to abuse it.
The recognition of freedoms and human rights is nothing more than a recommendation of principle without being legally binding, i.e. without being made obligatory for the Member States.
The European institutions are, however, quite capable of making binding decisions, such as, for example, the authorisation of night working for women, when such decisions are harmful or when they lead to pointless hassle. This is not, however, the case for basic rights such as the right of all employees to strike or join unions.
The Charter will, consequently, be used more to enshrine the current practices, including the reactionary practices, of the national States than to represent genuine progress.
Mr President, I, too, welcome this Charter, particularly the improvements made towards the end in adding "social" and "the rights to the elderly" to the Charter.
It is important that the Charter addresses three audiences.
Firstly, it addresses our citizens and tells them that this is not a Europe that simply does things to them but does things for them and respects their rights in carrying out its activities.
Secondly, it sends a message to the applicant states saying that what they are joining is a community of values.
That is an important message, given the history of some of the countries that wish to join us.
Thirdly, it sends a message to the institutions of the European Union, that in carrying out their existing functions which will not change as a result of this Charter, they have a wider range of obligations to take into account.
It makes clear the duties they have to respect in exercising their existing powers.
I hope that the Heads of Government and the Heads of State meeting in Biarritz will take this seriously and consider making it a binding document but if not, at the very least, ensure at Nice that it becomes a declaration annexed to the Treaty of the European Union.
Mr President, I voted in favour of this Charter, not least because of the influence which our colleague, Ingo Friedrich, and Professor Herzog have exerted on its content.
I would thank both of them for their magnificent efforts.
Of course there are some things which I have to fault.
There is no reference to God in the preamble, no clear definition of marriage and the family, no rejection of all forms of human cloning and no rights on native countries or ethnic groups.
But it has to be said that this Charter is a step in the right direction.
The achievement of the colleagues whom I named just now and others has been outstanding here.
Hence our "yes" in the hope that this is only a first step and that improvements can be made in the next few years.
Mr President, I abstained from the vote on the resolution on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union because I consider that this Charter is still extremely unsatisfactory, despite some progress.
In particular I deplore the fact that in the Charter, social rights are emphasised less strongly than economic rights.
Since I find this Charter generally unsatisfactory, I am opposed to its being incorporated into the Treaties. We must not elevate an unsatisfactory Charter to a higher level.
Mr President, at last we have a Charter of the rights of the European citizen with an entire article - Article 25 - dedicated to the elderly.
If, as I hope, this article becomes part of the Treaty of Nice, the elderly will at last be protected by a constitutional Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I know that many of the representatives of the Committee which prepared the Charter contributed to this success.
I would like, in particular, to thank Mrs Van den Burg, a Dutch Social Democrat who, together with others, worked particularly hard on Article 25.
I will always welcome and applaud support for pensioners and the elderly, from whatever quarter it comes.
- (DA) The Swedish and Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the request to the European Council to arrange for the Charter of Fundamental Rights to be incorporated into the Treaty at its summit in Nice in December.
We have made it known in previous votes that we do not want this to happen, mainly because we do not want to see more topics on the agenda at the Nice Summit than is compatible with preparing the Union for enlargement.
We are pleased to note that the Convention has succeeded in producing a draft Charter.
Basic human rights are one of the foundations of the EU.
It is therefore absolutely crucial that there should be a dialogue with the people of Europe about these basic issues.
We believe that, as a political document, the Charter is a good point of departure for this wholly necessary dialogue, which is now about to begin.
We do not, however, believe that the latter can be concluded in Nice in less than three months, for which reason alone we cannot vote in favour of incorporating the Charter into the Treaty at the Nice Summit.
.
(FR) Scarcely has the 'body' entrusted by the Cologne Council with the task of drafting the Charter of Fundamental Rights completed its work than all the federalists, particularly in this House, go into collective raptures about the results.
The content of this document, they say, represents a fundamental step forward for the protection of citizens' rights in Europe, to the extent that the matter should be referred to the Intergovernmental Conference and the Nice Council should decide to enshrine it in the Treaties.
As to the form of the procedure, the same parties find extraordinary virtues in the working methods of the body, which included representatives of the European Parliament, the national governments, the national parliaments and the Commission, to the extent that they request the same set-up be used, after Nice, to draft a future European Constitution.
As a member of the European Parliament delegation to this body, having worked, together with my fellow members, on the matter for eight months, I must say that the Charter of Fundamental Rights could well, in fact, have represented an added value for Europe but that, as things stand at present, we can derive no satisfaction from either its content or the working methods which governed its drafting.
As I stated in the proposal I submitted to the Praesidium of the body, from the start of the work, peoples' rights are already adequately protected in Europe, both by the national legal systems and by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which is an extension of these.
We have no need of an extra instrument, intended primarily to strengthen the supranational authority of the Community institutions.
What I would suggest we do need is a Charter of the Rights of Nations reminding us of the citizens' primordial allegiance to the democratic will expressed in the national context and affirming that the European Union is an association of nations.
A text of this type would be extremely useful, not just in re-establishing the true meaning of democracy, but also in making the institutions ready for the future enlarged Europe.
This is not, however, remotely the route that the Convention took.
There has been a fundamental contradiction in the draft since work commenced, a contradiction which it has never been possible to eliminate. On the one hand it affirms that its provisions "are addressed to the institutions and bodies of the Union" , but on the other hand many articles mention purely national competencies which have nothing to do with those of the European Union.
The real scope of application does not tally with the declared intentions, fostering some formidable ambiguity regarding the nature of the Charter.
This text may initially seem benign, since it basically reiterates existing rights, but if it were to be incorporated into the treaty and to be made binding, as the European Parliament is urging, it would automatically tend to standardise national legal systems in Europe; it would give the Court of Justice disproportionate power; it would promote increased centralisation around the European institutions; it would restrict every nation' s margin for autonomous decision making.
It would thus impel us towards a standardised Europe, the like of which most political leaders claim they reject.
Even on the hypothesis that this draft gives rise to nothing more than a simple political declaration, we cannot accept it as it stands.
We cannot conceive of a political declaration at the European level which does not make any mention of the key role of the national democracies, the rights they enshrine, nor of the implications for European institutions.
This questionable draft, deliberately biased in favour of federalism, is the product of a poor working method which promoted confusion at every level.
There is no doubt but that the body entrusted with drafting the Charter was made up in an original manner, but, from a legal standpoint it did not represent anything more than a Council working group.
Yet, from the outset, it dubbed itself the "Convention" , in spite of my protests, and subsequently continued to act as if it were a sovereign body, ranking higher than the institutions which had appointed it, and even nations.
It went on to operate according to a so-called 'consensus' method, i.e. without ever voting, even by way of indication, without ever being able to ascertain exactly who was for or against a particular provision, and without it being clear who, in the event, had decided to adopt, reject or amend it.
Finally, the hearings that were conducted were determined in an arbitrary fashion according to the candidates that were present (or invited to attend?), and it would be impossible to claim that they provided a true and accurate reflection of the societies of the Member States.
The Convention was thus a muddled system, generating irresponsibility, and not particularly favourable to well-ordered democracy.
The final adoption of the draft Charter intended for submission to the Council, on 2 October this year, represented a monumental work of ambiguity, since apparently a number of members agreed on condition that it was a political declaration, whereas others agreed on condition that it was a binding text, and they skirted around this critical divergence in the same way that they skirted around the existence of an opposition to which I myself belonged.
The federalists so successfully took advantage of this confusion that it is not surprising to hear the European Parliament today requesting that, after Nice, another identical body be set up to draw up a European Constitution.
My Group is opposed to the idea of a European Constitution, intended to override national sovereignty, but it is also opposed to setting up a system of negotiating as badly organised as that of the Convention on this subject or any other.
.
(FR) The Convention entrusted with the task of drafting the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union yesterday completed its work in Brussels at the end of a formal sitting which enabled all the delegations (European Parliament, Commission, national parliaments and government representatives) to express their approval.
President Roman Herzog was therefore able to officially convey the final draft to the French Presidency in readiness for the Biarritz Summit.
The European Parliament will give its opinion on this text at a later date by giving their formal assent.
Today, the two oral questions addressed by the chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Napolitano, to the European Commission and the Council, give us an opportunity to discuss the legal status of this Charter and, above all, to restate our determination to make the Charter binding and to have it incorporated into a treaty.
We already expressed this desire when we voted on the last resolution on this subject on 16 March 2000.
We are well aware that there is a great deal of reluctance and that there is a great risk that we shall see a purely declaratory Charter adopted.
To avoid such a pass, which would disappoint the legitimate expectations of the citizens of Europe, we had to look to an alternative solution.
That is why I voted in favour of this resolution and supported the amendment tabled by the chairwoman of the French Socialist delegation, Pervenche Berès, urging the Biarritz Summit to ask the IGC to examine all the ways in which the Charter might be incorporated into the Treaty, as a preamble, protocol or a reference to the Charter enshrined in Article 6, which stipulates that the European Union is based on the principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as on the notion of the rule of law.
The latter formula would make it possible to make the text binding in nature while, for the moment, avoiding a debate on the constitutive character of the preamble option.
That would be an interim solution which would make it possible to work towards a binding Charter in the long term.
In terms of content, this Charter obviously does not go as far as I had hoped.
Incidentally, a number of not insignificant victories are attributable to the European Socialists.
I am thinking of the inclusion of such rights as the right to strike, the right to work, the implicit reference to European trade unions, the entitlement to housing allowance.
Certainly, the content of this Charter must be improved.
This is the reason why we must support the debate right up to the Nice Summit.
In this respect, there is another amendment which seeks to specify that the Convention should continue to be the only body authorised to draft the Charter until it is definitively adopted (in order to put a stop to the urges on the part of this or that institution to amend it).
I shall conclude by emphasising that the Charter of Fundamental Rights must be seen as the central element in the process required to endow the European Union with a proper constitution, which, as far as I am concerned, is still a priority objective for the next three to four years.
The CSU's Europe group welcomes the tabling of the final draft of the Charter of Fundamental Rights because it summarises and makes visible the fundamental rights which the public are entitled to in respect of the institutions and bodies of the EU.
However, we can only agree to the Charter being incorporated into EU or Community law if the EU's powers are first clearly described and delimited.
The Charter aims to provide comprehensive protection of people's fundamental rights and different sections go completely or partly beyond the jurisdiction of the EU.
We reject the fundamental rights included in the Charter which are appropriate but which do not justify granting the EU corresponding powers or conferring on it a duty to protect or act.
The CSU's Europe group supports the horizontal provision which makes it clear that no new powers are being established for the Community or the Union.
In some parts of the Charter additional significant shortcomings are to be found, which ought to be remedied before the Charter is proclaimed:
· The Charter should not be overloaded with detailed rules; these should remain the preserve of subordinate law.
· In the section on social rights no clear line is drawn to show when the rights are defensive rights or rights to participation or protection.
· The statement on the provision of social care is the responsibility of the Member States.
· We wish to see the inclusion of a right to a homeland and to protection from expulsion.
- (SV) We believe that the EU ought to subscribe to the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is naturally in order for the Heads of State and Government of the EU Member States, meeting at the Nice Summit, to make a political declaration on human rights.
We have abstained from voting in the final vote on the resolution because paragraph 1 implies that the Charter is to be binding.
Contrary to the majority of the European Parliament, since Helsinki I have been of the opinion that the Intergovernmental Conference would have more than enough to do resolving the issues left over in Amsterdam.
Developments have shown that the various wishes expressed to extend the agenda of this Intergovernmental Conference are still whistling in the wind.
There is no guarantee even that a solution will be able to be found to the three "left overs" plus the problem of closer cooperation.
That is why the hope that the Charter of Fundamental Rights will have life breathed into it in Nice is a vain hope. This is a state of affairs which we liberals deeply regret.
.
(FR) A Convention, made up of 62 delegates from the governments of the fifteen Member States and members of European and national parliaments draws up a Charter of Fundamental Rights for over 380 million Europeans.
This Charter lags some way behind the European Convention on Human Rights, and behind national conventions or treaties.
It is an accurate reflection of the liberal Europe which is being built.
On subjects as basic as women' s rights, immigrants' rights, the right to education, the right to accommodation, the right to employment or a decent wage, this Charter is often inadequate and occasionally retrogressive.
Because social rights are fundamental rights for a Europe that respects democratic and social rights and freedoms, we champion the idea of another charter to protect workers, women, foreigners, those excluded from society, national minorities.
This Charter should be drawn up by the social movement, not by an inner sanctum of elected representatives.
Because we think that the process of European integration warrants a genuine democratic public debate, there can be no political construction of Europe without social rights or democracy.
This is why I did not vote in favour of this draft Charter.
I shall be voting for an alternative charter by participating in the demonstrations in Biarritz on 13 and 14 October and in Nice on 7 December 2000.
.
(IT) We are aware that the process of institutionalising the Union also requires definition of the concept of European citizenship and the institution of common values such as freedom, governability and stability.
We would like to believe that the Charter of Fundamental Rights is genuinely intended to strengthen the competences of the Union and not those of the Member States, as the Convention stated when starting its work.
Yet we are somewhat perplexed by the combined effect which would be produced by the Charter having binding authority over the Community countries, as the European Parliament requested on 26 March of this year, and the as yet incomplete and inorganic content of even the last draft presented, despite the commendable amount of work put in.
A striking example is workers' rights.
A further area of confusion is the potential overlap of legal systems implemented by the supranational Courts: the European Communities' legal system and the human rights system, although the latter derives from a Convention which does not make sufficient provision for social and economic rights.
In other words, we would not like the pursuance of a noble, if unsolicited goal to serve, in the medium-to-long term, not to consolidate and expand those rights which the national constitutional charters and practices fully guarantee at present, but to undermine them.
Pending further clarification, we therefore abstain from the vote.
.
(FR) I voted against incorporating the version of the Charter of Fundamental Rights we have before us into the Treaties.
I would indeed have like to have seen a moratorium on this Charter to enable work to continue on it, as a great many non-governmental organisations in the various countries of the European Union have proposed.
On many points this Charter lags behind the advances made regarding rights and freedoms in France and in other European Union countries, and many international texts.
It cannot serve as a basis for the establishment of a European constitution.
Not only does it not include any new rights, particularly social rights, but it also lags behind in terms of the status and place of immigrants and workers as well as public and private freedoms in general.
That concludes the vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Progress towards accession by the 12 candidate countries
Mr President, Presidents, Commissioner, rapporteurs, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, let me thank you for organising this debate on enlargement. I have two reasons for welcoming this opportunity.
Firstly, because the enlargement of the European Union, as Mr Brok has just said, is not just another priority, not that I need to remind the Members of this House.
It is the backcloth and the goal of all the activity of today' s European Union, a political goal that conditions all our work, beginning, of course, with the work of reforming the institutions.
I would agree with you in not wishing to separate this morning' s debate from this afternoon' s.
In this respect, I wish to congratulate the European Parliament on the work accomplished in the reform of a report devoted to each of the twelve candidate countries which have entered into negotiations, and an overall report by Mr Brok, which I shall have the opportunity to comment on in further detail in my speech.
I feel, then, that on the basis of the work undertaken by previous presidencies and by the Commission, the French Presidency will be in a position, or so I hope, at least, to offer a quite precise overview of the accession process at the European Council in Nice.
I therefore propose, in order to make a useful contribution to this debate, to tell you quite specifically what the French Presidency is doing during these six months to achieve the results I have just mentioned.
Our first guideline is that we must, of course, go as far as possible in the accession negotiations in order to draw up a report that is as accurate as possible, in Nice, country by country and chapter by chapter.
With this in mind, let me firstly remind you that we plan to organise for each candidate country two negotiation meetings for alternate members and one at ministerial level, split into two phases, on 21 November and 5 December, back-to-back with the meetings of the General Affairs Council.
The French Presidency will immediately inform the committee which you chair, Mr Brok, of the result of these negotiations, come Tuesday afternoon, according to the tradition that has developed between us.
As you know, the Helsinki European Council stressed the principle of differentiation between candidate countries, and both the Presidency and I feel the Commission are truly working, hand in hand, on this matter as regards conducting the negotiations. I would like to emphasise in this House the complete convergence of our views with those of Commissioner Verheugen and I must congratulate him on the very high quality of his work at this point.
This means, then, that each candidacy must be assessed and shall be assessed, in short, on its own merits.
That is the wording adopted.
I shall not, of course, go into the details of each of these negotiations. I shall perhaps leave that to the debate on the twelve reports which is to follow.
I do, nonetheless, wish to outline in a few words the extent of the work undertaken along with those who, for ease of reference - though, like you, I thing this must come to an end, but using the terms 'Luxembourg Six' and 'Helsinki Six' does describe the timing of the events - I shall call the 'Luxembourg Six' , in inverted commas.
With these six countries, all the chapters of the acquis communautaire bar one, the chapter on the institutions, have been opened, though some have been closed temporarily, between 12 and 16 depending on the country, and others are still being negotiated, between 13 and 18 depending on the country.
I therefore feel that we are beginning to get a fairly clear picture of the problems that remain in each of these negotiations, both from the point of view of the candidate countries and from that of the European Union itself. I think these can be divided into three categories.
Firstly there is the matter of adopting the acquis. What stage are the candidate countries at?
How in practical terms can we assess the commitments they are making as part of the negotiations and their ability to effectively transpose the acquis? That is why, just like the European Parliament, the French Presidency wished to have access to the tracking schedules for monitoring adoption of the acquis, updated regularly, it being understood that the basic principle of the negotiations must continue to be the wholesale adoption of the acquis.
Next there is the matter of the transitional periods. This is obviously related to the previous issue.
As you know, the candidates have expressed a number of requests to this effect.
This, moreover, is a sign that the accession negotiations have clearly entered a new phase and that henceforth, as the French Presidency wishes, we should go into substantive discussions.
In this respect, I should like to point out that the Council has, on the basis of an initial document from the Commission, initiated a consultation process which should enable the European Union to make progress in the negotiations.
Finally, of course, there are the negotiating positions, concerning the most difficult chapters of the acquis, taking particular account of their budgetary implications for the European Union.
I am, of course, thinking of the common agricultural policy and the regional development policies.
I have said, and I have no problem saying it again here today, that the French Presidency will not duck any of the problems that are raised. This does not, of course, mean that we shall have the time and resources to deal with each of them.
As far as we are concerned, however, imparting a new dynamic to these negotiations means, particularly with regard to the issue of transitional periods, we shall do all we possibly can in order to make progress pragmatically.
Next, let me say a few works on the 'Helsinki Six' , in inverted commas once again, who entered into negotiations at the beginning of this year.
By the end of our Presidency, half of the chapters of the acquis will have been opened to negotiation.
We in fact expect, in absolute agreement with Commissioner Verheugen, to enter into negotiations on 42 new chapters, i.e. between 4 and 9 according to country, just like the Portuguese Presidency before us.
This should enable the best candidates to catch up the members of the Luxembourg group quite quickly and perhaps indeed, as early as next year. We know that this is a wish which some of you have expressed quite clearly in Parliament.
Obviously the work carried out by each of the rapporteurs and by the parliamentary committees will serve a useful purpose in providing fuel for our own discussions.
Let me now mention the second guideline along which the Presidency hopes the enlargement process will develop in these six months.
I have just mentioned the very important technical work under way for three years now and I have also said that, with regard to at least some candidate countries, we shall very shortly have a quite precise overview of the remaining problems.
We think the time has come to take this work to a more political level by combining all the information available to us.
That is why we are organising a substantive ministerial debate, which will take place at the General Affairs Council on 20 November on the basis of the precise documents to be provided by the Commission concerning, in particular, the candidate countries' adoption of the acquis and the progress that each of them have made.
Regarding the basis of this debate, the Presidency will have the necessary elements available to enable the Heads of State and Government in Nice to have a serious discussion regarding the continuation of the enlargement process.
This too is the spirit in which the French Presidency has decided to organise two meetings of the European Conference, bringing together the 15 Member States and the 12 + 1 candidate countries - twelve that have already entered into negotiations and one candidate.
One of these meetings will be at ministerial level, on 23 November this year, in Sochaux, and the other will involve the Heads of State and Government in Nice on 7 December.
These meetings will be primarily an opportunity to inform the candidate countries of the state of progress in the reform of the institutions, which is of great interest to them as it concerns the European Union that they will be joining but also, of course, to initiate a political discussion with these countries regarding the operation of the enlarged European Union.
It is not, of course, impossible that the candidate countries will seize this opportunity to once again bring up, as you said, Mr President - the subject of the dates for enlargement.
This is, of course, a perfectly legitimate question, but it is one that must be answered quite properly and precisely.
I should like to point out that, in a sense, this matter has already been settled, as the Helsinki European Council set the 1 January 2003 as the date when the European Union should be ready to accept the first new members, i.e. the ones that are the best prepared at that time, on condition, of course, that by that time a proper treaty has been signed in Nice and ratified by the national parliaments.
This date of 1 January 2003 is by no means a random choice.
I see no reason to go back on that decision either way.
Personally, I remain convinced that, in the debate on the date of the first accessions, the European Union must avoid - with very great respect to the European Parliament - trying to make an impact so often.
Everyone understands the value of giving the candidate countries a deadline, as an objective and a mobilising factor.
The date of 1 January 2003, which is the only one on which the European Union has agreed, is, however, both for the candidates and for ourselves, an extremely ambitious objective and this is the deadline to which the Presidency will be working.
Far be it from me and from each of us, I feel, to think that we will have completed all the negotiations in 2001, enabling the results to then be ratified in 2002.
This is not the issue and, for a number of candidate countries, as we know, the negotiations will take a few more years yet.
It is true, however, that the work which has been undertaken, and which we wish to boost, should make it possible, by the end of the year 2000, both to have a better appreciation of the overall balance in each of the negotiations and also, at least for the most advanced candidate countries, to clearly identify the problems to be resolved as a priority in order to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion.
What I therefore propose is to work towards this, bearing in mind that, with a view to 2003, we shall have to examine which candidates are ready to join us at that time.
Finally, let me say a brief word on Turkey which, as far as the European Union is concerned, is now clearly part of the enlargement process and is the thirteenth candidate for accession.
I am aware, furthermore, that Mr Morillon is currently drawing up a report on this country, and we await this with interest.
We cannot but be pleased that, in Helsinki, a number of obstacles with regard to the recognition of this country' s candidacy were overcome.
At the same time, we are well aware of the continuing obstacles to this accession, starting with the issues related to respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in this country.
Admittedly there has been some progress, but they are still a long way from fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria.
Once again, on this point too, in agreement with the Commission, the French Presidency will strive to achieve results in two areas: firstly in the adoption of an accession partnership, which is necessary both for Turkey and for the European Union, and then the implementation of the financial regulation which will enable the European Union to honour the commitments it has made to this country, and that we would like to see adopted by the end of the year.
I share your view, Mr President: the European Union must not have a mean-spirited attitude or a narrow-minded mentality with regard to enlargement.
Enlargement is a historic undertaking.
Enlargement is a wide-ranging goal which we must approach with a great deal of generosity and with vision.
Let us, however, at the same time be aware that the conditions for success must be laid down, both in relation to the candidate countries, in relation to public opinion, and in relation to what we all want, i.e. to maintain sound common policies.
Enlargement is our future, on condition that the acquis communautaire and the common policies which we all value highly are not thereby weakened or watered down.
That is why we must advance resolutely, declaring ourselves in favour of enlargement while establishing the conditions for it to succeed.
I am quite ready, of course, to follow the very important debate we are all involved in here today.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, honourable members, I welcome the opportunity for an in-depth debate on progress in and prospects for negotiations on the enlargement of the European Union.
I should like to thank the rapporteur of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, Mr Brok, for his clear, comprehensive report.
My thanks also to all the other rapporteurs.
Despite differences of detail, a common basic line is beginning to emerge.
This debate offers a welcome opportunity to consolidate our resolve to enlarge.
The development of Europe has entered a phase in which, now more than ever, we need clear objectives and decisive action.
Our two major tasks, internal reform and external enlargement, are closely interconnected.
Both tasks are indispensable per se but they need to be resolved together if they are to be resolved correctly.
I should therefore like to establish straight away that the cornerstone which will allow the enlargement project to be completed is agreement on the institutional reforms of the EU.
Unless they are reformed, our institutions will suffer a heart attack and will no longer be able to fulfil their purpose.
A successful outcome to the Intergovernmental Conference in Nice in December will pave the way for more pro-active negotiations.
But success does not depend on the time factor alone, however important it may be.
A specific outcome is needed from the Intergovernmental Conference if we are to do justice to the tremendous pressure for adaptation.
An unsatisfactory outcome or even failure in Nice would have fatal consequences in the candidate countries by playing into the hands of the eurosceptic movements in these countries.
Populists will stand up and maintain that the EU has finally made it clear that, in truth, it does not want any new members.
Action speaks louder than words when it comes to countering such arguments!
The present and largest enlargement round in the history of European unification is a morally-imperative, strategically-needed and politically-feasible move.
This project has already made considerable progress and there is no turning back.
There is no single case in the negotiations in which it is a question of "if" ; it is only a question of "how" and "when" .
Enlargement is the only answer to the two main historical changes which we have witnessed in our lifetime.
It is perhaps a coincidence, and if so it is a happy coincidence, that this debate is being held on the 10th anniversary of the completion of German reunification.
German reunification should also be seen as a part of and as a precursor to the wider objective of European enlargement; the events and developments which made German reunification possible also made it possible for us even to sit here today in this House and contemplate the admission of ten central and eastern European countries as members of the European Union.
That is the reason why enlargement is the right response to the end of the Cold War and the break up of the Communist bloc.
How are we supposed to explain to the people of Europe who only gained their freedom and self-determination in the last decade that the advantages of European integration are only available to those who happened to be on the "right" side of the iron curtain after 1945.
We will not permit any new division of Europe.
We do not want to replace ideological demarcation lines in the form of insurmountable frontiers with a new demarcation line, a demarcation line separating the haves from the have-nots in Europe.
But that is not all that is at stake.
We want to extend peace and stability to the whole of Europe.
But not just any old stability. The Soviet empire gave the impression of being stable both to the outside world and internally for decades, but this stability had long been rotten and crumbling, precisely because it was not based on democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the protection of minorities.
It is no coincidence; on the contrary, it is virtually a cast-iron rule that we only have peace and stability in Europe where these values have been put into practice and where Europe is already unified or is in the process of unifying. Peace and stability in Europe are the basis for a happy future for all the people of Europe.
And if they do not apply throughout Europe, then they are in jeopardy throughout Europe.
The second major change which we are witnessing and to which Europe must adjust is the meteoric speed at which the economy is moving towards a global market and global competition. This change offers us huge opportunities and the more we pool our strengths and interests, the better use we can make of them.
An even bigger common market will make us stronger.
Extending the euro zone will strengthen the euro.
A larger community will have more weight when it comes to mastering global tasks.
The enlargement of the European Union is not a post-dated cheque which has yet to prove that it can be cashed.
The advantages are already there; they are visible and everyone stands to gain. I am firmly convinced that, without the prospect of European integration, the systems of central and eastern Europe would not have been changed as quickly or as successfully.
When we see that the countries in the enlargement process have already stabilised their democratic systems in a short space of time, then that is their achievement.
They alone have taken the courageous decision to shake off bureaucracy and a planned economy and create open societies, modern democracies and workable market economies. But they have also done so because the prospect of membership of the European Union gives them hope of solidarity with the people of Europe and because they are being offered a firm political and economic foothold.
The advantages of political change can already be accurately anticipated from economic developments. The candidate countries of central and eastern Europe used to be on the fringe of the world economy.
In the meantime, their foreign trade with the EU has risen to between 50 and 70%.
We are achieving high foreign trade surpluses with all these countries.
That translates into higher tax revenues, higher national insurance contributions and, most importantly, more jobs.
The forecasts for growth in the area as a whole are extremely auspicious.
Growth is expected to be well above the current EU average over the next ten years.
These fast developing new markets create new supply and new demand; it is an all win situation for both sides right from the start. I do not think there is any particular need to stress at this point that these promising economic prospects are based solely on quantifiable and political stable framework conditions.
The prospect of enlargement has resolved centuries-old conflicts, settled border problems and defused minority issues.
These achievements deserve a positive response.
I am certain that we all agree that these people, who have gone to so much trouble, should not be disappointed. I am therefore delighted to be able to tell you that the both the quality and speed of the enlargement process improved during the first year of the new Commission.
The process has already acquired a momentum of its own and is now unstoppable.
Allow me to recapitulate the principles which guide us and which are non-negotiable.
First: we are preparing the new members for full membership with equal rights. Enlargement will not create an à la carte Europe or second-class citizens within the Union.
New members must comply with all the conditions of accession.
There will be no political discounts.
Secondly: each country stands on its own merits in the enlargement process.
No geographical or political groups are being formed.
The terms Luxembourg group or Helsinki group are merely technical terms in order to differentiate between the countries invited to enter into negotiations in Luxembourg in 1997 and those which did not join until Helsinki in 1999. But that does not alter the fact that each country will only be ready for accession when it has made the necessary progress.
Thirdly: we are abiding by the principle of differentiated negotiations. Chapters are opened and closed depending on the current state of preparations and actual progress in negotiations.
Fourthly: this results in another principle whereby the countries which joined later have a fair chance of catching up with those that began earlier. I wish there to be no doubt about the fact that we cannot help them catch up by slowing down negotiations with those who are already further ahead.
We can help countries catch up, but not by putting their neighbours on hold.
The Commission will be presenting its progress report for the year 2000 and a new strategy paper on 8 November.
Work is still under way.
The reports for previous years set high standards which we want to maintain. These are reports, not report cards, and I too shall avoid any form of ranking of candidates in the future.
The reports are intended to help candidate countries continue with the necessary reforms and rectify persistent shortcomings. They are also intended to help the EU institutions monitor their success and to act as a basis on which negotiating strategies can be further developed.
Without wishing to anticipate the results, I can report on some of the trends in the new reports today.
There has been progress on a wide front in securing the political criteria.
I cannot see a risk of any one country descending into authoritarian structures.
Neighbourly relations are developing well and quickly.
Democratic basic values and rules are securely anchored. We shall, of course, continue to monitor potential risks and unresolved questions, which is why we are keeping a careful eye on the situation of national minorities and why we are working on concrete measures to overcome social discrimination, especially against the Roma people, in a whole series of countries.
As far as the economic criteria are concerned, there has been clear progress here also. Nearly all the countries now qualify as market economies, even if the process of economic reform has not yet been fully completed.
But that does not only apply to the candidate countries.
A number of countries have made such good progress with the second economic criterion of their ability to compete in the single market that they are fast reaching the point at which they are ready for accession.
As far as the third set of criteria is concerned, i.e. the ability to adopt and apply the whole acquis communautaire, a great deal still needs to be done. I am not criticising the fact that the public administration is often very weak and that the legal system does not yet offer the degree of legal security which we require in the Community.
Obviously, changes in this area take longer than elsewhere.
The work of creating institutions and structures is not yet finished.
Above all, we need the right people.
They need to be found, trained and, most importantly, the money must be there to pay them.
High priority is already being given to these questions in the pre-accession strategy and we shall step this up. We need to be sure that the acquis communautaire is fully applied in practice, not just on paper.
I should like to mention a problem in this respect which requires particular attention and is a matter of great concern to me.
I refer to the widespread corruption in a not insignificant number of countries.
Of course, I am aware of the specific social and economic causes of corruption.
But there is also corruption in places in which there is no ready explanation in the form of pitiful levels of income. I do not hold with corruption as a sort of folkloric factor or as part of the cultural heritage.
In modern societies and modern economies, corruption is a cancerous sore.
The disease grows and spreads to what is still healthy tissue.
Weak administrative structures, a lack of legal security and corruption are also negative location factors which deter foreign investors and hamper fast economic development. Obviously, the huge economic gulf between the Member States of the European Union and the candidate countries can only be closed if there is a constant flow of direct foreign investment to the candidate countries.
The pace of the negotiating process itself increased considerably again last year.
I should like to clear up a misunderstanding which sometimes creeps in when we talk of the pace of negotiations.
The pace of negotiations cannot simply be extrapolated from the number of chapters dealt with.
The content of the chapters in question is also a deciding factor.
All outstanding chapters, with the exception of institutions and miscellaneous were opened with the countries in the Luxembourg group during the Portuguese Presidency: a total of 174. At least 84 chapters will have been opened with the countries in the Helsinki group by the end of the French Presidency, i.e. nearly half.
I reckon that all outstanding chapters will also be opened with at least four countries in this group next year.
We are now entering a new phase.
Our intention now, during the French Presidency, is to start with negotiations in the stricter sense of the word, by which I mean decisions on applications, transitional periods and derogations. On 8 November, the Commission will present more detailed thoughts on the principles which should inform how we deal with derogations and how the corresponding decision-making process should be organised.
I should like today to mention two sets of problems.
Transitional periods, which affect how the internal market functions, and problems relating to comprehensive investment programmes.
As far as the internal market is concerned, we must ensure that transitional periods are kept to a minimum in terms of both time and content. Where major, long-term investments are needed in order to attain EU standards, we must bear in mind that even the present members claimed long transitional periods in such cases.
As regards the current situation in the monetary union, I should like to remind the House that monetary union forms part of the Treaty and, hence, part of the negotiations. All the candidate countries are keen to accede to monetary union and accession to monetary union is governed by special terms in the Maastricht Treaty.
In other words, membership of the EU does not automatically lead to membership of the euro zone; on the contrary, the special criteria must be met.
In any event, membership of the exchange rate mechanism comes first and requires a separate decision.
It will not be long before we step up negotiations; as a result, we shall be concentrating on the outstanding - in some cases very complicated - issues: agriculture, the environment, regional policy, internal and legal policy and the budget, to name but a few. In preparation for this, the Commission is working on a new monitoring system which will allow us to assess the state of progress in negotiations and actual implementation in each country accurately at any given time.
I should also like to say a few words on a subject which is very close to my heart: how best to sell the project "Enlargement in the societies of the Member States and candidate countries" to the public.
That we have a communications problem can hardly be doubted, even if surveys do not convey a very accurate picture.
The Commission has suggested a communication initiative in order to improve this situation.
The legal and financial conditions for it are in place and we are in the process of deciding on the exact content.
This initiative will basically be decentralised; i.e. it will be implemented in the Member States and in the candidate countries on the basis of their specific needs and circumstances. We are therefore looking to coordinate as closely as possible with the programmes of national governments, Parliament and other institutions.
Because of limited financial resources, we are being forced to develop concepts addressed directly at opinion formers and multipliers.
Buying media space is hardly an option.
We must therefore count mainly on the involvement of all types of social groups and on the commitment of individuals. That instantly implies that the whole process needs to be democratised.
Any communications strategy which fails to address what really moves people is doomed to failure. We must therefore identify what people associate with enlargement, what hopes and expectations and what concerns and dangers.
Propaganda of any sort will not get us anywhere.
We need political answers to political questions and we need to get them across properly.
What sort of questions do I mean?
Will there be waves of immigrants and what impact will this have on job markets? How will the competitive status quo between current and new Member States in border regions change?
Will there be environmental and social dumping?
What are the implications of open borders for the fight against crime and, finally, how will we pay for it all?
We have good answers for all these questions.
Enlargement will reduce the number of immigrants.
Problems which may arise in the early years can be controlled using intelligently-configured transitional periods. We must help border regions to make use of the new opportunities and meet the new challenges.
The Commission is already working on the relevant proposals.
There will be no environmental or social dumping because the new members will have to adopt our standards. Enlargement is good for the environment.
Enlargement is also good for the level of social security in Europe.
Border security and the fight against crime will also be governed by our standards and will benefit from European cooperation. Here too things will become better, not worse, as the result of enlargement.
The costs of enlargement are set out in the current financial perspectives and will be reflected in the budget. No more can or will be disbursed than is allocated in the budget.
Allow me to summarise the message to the citizens of Europe. Enlargement represents our only chance to change the course of European history and to secure peace, maintain stability and open up huge, new, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for all the people of Europe.
Enlargement is not a magical mystery tour.
It will be prepared as thoroughly as is humanly possible.
We would be embarking on a magical mystery tour if we were to abandon the project or postpone it indefinitely.
We have a window of opportunity.
It is open now.
It will not stay open for ever.
There are risks.
No-one can avoid that.
But that should not weaken our resolve.
It would far riskier if we failed to do what needs to be done.
(Applause)
Mr President, President-in-Office, Commissioner, I am extremely pleased both with the tone of this debate today and with the level of consensus that is emerging among the key groups in the House, a consensus which my Group subscribes to.
The challenge of reunification, even more perhaps than that of enlargement is so great that it suffuses and surrounds every debate in this House: this is why there is such depth and intensity to all our debates, including this morning's debate on our own need to prepare for this extraordinary challenge.
To create a common space of freedom, security and of values by free choice is something without a parallel among democracies in all of our history.
It is a matter of the utmost importance and yet has curiously attracted very little public attention.
When we look at Eurobarometer statistics, we see that 60% or so of those who expressed a view say enlargement is not a priority, while only 27% say it is a priority.
Moreover, the statistics are getting worse, not better.
In the largest state of the Union, the Federal Republic of Germany, only 20% say enlargement is a priority.
We as politicians must take possession of this debate and not simply leave it to the bureaucracies, for though it is indispensable to discuss the details of the acquis, this is not sufficient to engage the public.
We need a dialogue of politicians and therefore we need to avail ourselves of all the information possibilities that Commissioner Verheugen spoke of in his very reflective and elegant speech today.
We need, as Mr Hänsch has said, to provide ourselves with information about the cost of non-enlargement, not simply in terms of finance and budget, but of security as well as, of course, socio-economic measures.
It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the American President, who once said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Much of our debate about fears about enlargement is based on exaggeration, but in order to confront the populists who exaggerate, we must connect with popular politics through reflection.
We need the Commission's help here, because even though we have the will, we sometimes lack the ammunition.
In respect of the principles involved, we of course support differentiation; of course, we support the principle of equality that there should not be a Europe of different classes of citizenship.
My Group has 23 visiting MPs, our "virtual MEPs", sitting in the gallery now: I welcome all of you to this debate in the House.
Finally, the critical thing now is to move to substantive negotiation, and we are making that important step.
The critical thing is not to allow frustration to grow among the candidates - that they are always in the anteroom but never quite in the chamber.
That is what we must accomplish in this debate, that is the result we must pursue.
People joke that after the collapse of the Berlin Wall enlargement is always just five years away.
We must show they are wrong.
Let us take the first step in that direction during this mandate.
Mr President, the purpose of today' s discussions, in the opinion of my group, must be that we restore faith in the idea that we are in earnest when it comes to enlargement.
It is true that in talks with the countries involved in the first stage, which have lasted two years, we have not yet got around to dealing with the most difficult issues and we have not yet seriously managed to discuss agricultural policy, Structural Funds or issues of freedom of movement.
Our job here today is to speed up the process whereby we can begin to discuss these issues.
The process has to some extent lost credibility as a result of this sort of hesitancy and groping around in the dark.
If we look at what is happening in our own Member States, we might say that quite often the remark is reiterated that, in fact, accession on the part of the new countries will only be by their own efforts.
This should not be, however. We really must demand of ourselves, and the European Union too, significant changes as far as the Union is concerned.
If we look at what is happening in the applicant countries we notice that they are not just awaiting membership enthusiastically.
Let me mention Estonia, as an example.
Estonia is a small country, which belonged to a sort of union.
There they are very careful to point out they are unwilling to rejoin any sort of bureaucratic union.
We also have to take this criticism seriously.
Our group requires target dates to be set at the Nice summit or immediately afterwards, by which negotiations on membership should be concluded.
This is vital for us, the European Union, in order for us to be able to set targets for ourselves with regard to completing our own internal reforms.
Commissioner Verheugen mentioned corruption, but I would like to mention the fact that we cannot infect future Member States with bad administrative practice either.
We must also take our own administrative reforms very seriously if we also wish to root out corruption in future Member States, as transparency and good administration are the best guarantee that there is no corruption.
Secondly the target dates are necessary because we must boost the efforts of the applicant countries in their quest for membership.
Our group believes that it is quite possible, if we are so determined, to include the first group of applicant countries already in the next European parliamentary elections, if there is determination on both sides to do so.
Each country must obviously be appraised on its own merits individually.
The next natural opportunity would be the European parliamentary elections that follow in 2009, but we would like to push for as many countries as possible joining in 2004.
We support the Commission in its quest for a realistic, serious and honest debate on the political questions of enlargement.
Commissioner Verheugen, you may rely on the support of our group when you say you want to find real political answers to real political questions.
It is gratifying to hear your policy in this matter.
Finally, I would like to speak about financing.
Our group does not entirely believe that the present level of financing agreed in the financial framework is sufficient, and so we are prepared to discuss any amendment to the financial perspectives.
One quite simple way to proceed would be - as funds have been set aside anyway for five new Member States after 2002, if they happen to join the Union - to use these funds in future for this support preceding membership.
Above all we need commitment and that is what the European Parliament, for its part, must demonstrate in this debate and when taking decisions.
Mr President, our Group, the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, shares many of the considerations and opinions on enlargement contained in Mr Brok' s report and we appreciate the enormous effort he has put into his courageous report.
However, we disagree on some important issues.
Our support for enlargement goes without saying.
We are also in favour of a European Union that includes Russia, and which therefore includes all the countries which have built - albeit in conflicting ways - this historical, cultural, economic, social and political reality known as Europe.
The only condition would be - in our view - that they share our democratic values and respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Our disagreements with a portion of Mr Brok' s report range from points of detail to others of greater importance.
We do not agree with Recital A where it says that Europe was divided by the Soviet occupation because, as everybody knows and as any history book will tell you, the division was a consequence of the Yalta Conference and the intransigence of Truman who was determined to follow a policy of confrontation.
Furthermore, there are six basic aspects which worry us because of the method employed.
Firstly, we are against the 'regatta principle' , which seems more like an entrance examination which every teacher puts their pupil through when it would have been better for the pupil to sit the exam in stages and to a previously established timetable, which would have aided the rapprochement of the two societies, thereby preventing the adverse consequences we are now seeing.
Secondly, given the reality that the neo-liberal economic model established in Maastricht leads to the paradox of growth with more inequalities, the most likely outcome of the incorporation of these countries is greater unemployment and inequality, as is already happening.
We should change our economic model in advance so that the cost of enlargement is not even more serious social inequality.
Thirdly, the great differences between European agriculture and that of the majority of the candidate countries mean that the current common agricultural policy should have been improved in order to ensure both the viability of our agriculture and the successful completion of the agricultural reforms in those countries.
Nevertheless, everything is moving in the opposite direction owing, amongst other things, to the World Trade Organisation, which complicates everything.
Fourthly, and in relation to the use of FEDER funds, we believe that there should be more effort to show solidarity, and that is not happening, and the forecasts therefore seem to us be insufficient.
Fifthly, we also feel that the budgetary forecasts are not sufficient, since this is the first time that a major enlargement is taking place with a budgetary reduction and we only have to look at what happened in the case of the reunification of Germany to see that, in fact, a greater economic contribution is needed in order for this process to be successful.
Sixthly, we believe it has been a mistake to link enlargement in practice with the prior integration of these countries into NATO.
This damages the Union, its future independence in relation to the United States and also a common European defence and security policy, since it also introduces risks with regard to Russia and other countries.
We are therefore in favour of some aspects but not of others.
We shall not be voting in favour of the Brok report, but certainly not because we are opposed to the idea of enlargement, which is, quite obviously, a historical inevitability, just as it is a geographical inevitability.
Even the very name 'Europe' , by definition, includes all the nations from the Atlantic to the Urals, although this has apparently been forgotten by a tiny part of the continent, the most prosperous and, in many ways, the most arrogant part, which appropriated the name half a century ago.
Our opposition to the Brok report is not an indication of ostracism of our partners in Eastern and Central Europe, or southern Europe, quite the contrary, it means that this report sets conditions which are absolutely intolerable, with regard to countries which have been European for centuries and of which we should not be making any other demand whatsoever except, perhaps, for the one condition that political pluralism be respected.
We can understand there being political conditions, given a political undertaking such as European cooperation.
We cannot, however, accept economic and social conditions especially as they are so stringent that they are continually pushing back the deadlines and consigning the States to upheavals that are ruinous for their economic and social structure, to the sole advantage, perhaps, of the German patron, who alone may be profiting from the current lack of organisation in Central Europe.
To take just one example, the example of Poland, which moreover is particularly dear to us, it is, unfortunately, only too obvious that opening up frontiers too suddenly is likely to cause its agricultural structures to be ruined very quickly.
One quarter of the jobs in Poland are provided by this sector. Last year the rural population increased by 5% in relation to the previous year, and if we wish to bring it in line with our model, then we are simply going to well and truly kill off what is still one of the best assets this country has, not to mention the social problems we shall be inflicting on a very large part of the population.
On all these subjects, the Brok report confines itself to discussing adaptation and reform.
In the final analysis, however, there are two possibilities, either we dictate a forced march rate of change and we disrupt most of the candidate countries, or we wait until the conditions set are fulfilled thanks to natural development, and that means postponing accession until the Greek calends.
In actual fact, the thing we are rushing into is the very model of the construction of Europe, by which I mean to say the simultaneous integration of all sectors of activity whatever the traditions or special characteristics of the individual sectors, which once again has turned into a trap.
Because we wished to do away with borders in just a few years, because we chose to disregard the differences between nations and their respective systems, we have arrived, once more, at a sort of all or nothing, a choice between two equally dreadful evils.
Obviously, we should have chosen a political Europe, designed as a body for ongoing dialogue accompanied by a few à la carte cooperative agreements, as the programmes Eureka attempted previously.
This would have been the option of a confederal Europe, which would have respected the frontiers of all parties, respected each nation' s rate and manner of development, and finally would have respected Europe as a whole.
As far as the issue we are discussing today is concerned, this would have enabled us to welcome new countries as and when they applied to be candidates, as in NATO, moreover, for let us not delude ourselves, ladies and gentlemen, as far as we are concerned, the political battle is lost to the United States, who, by using the flexible method of political and military alliance, long ago ensured the enlargement of Europe, but to their advantage.
It will be a long time before the matter of enlargement is settled, since it depends on our being able to backtrack on the ideological, and indeed rather puerile, concept of uniform integration, not to say the melding of all our nations into a compact whole that runs contrary to geographical and historical realities.
That just shows you how pessimistic we are, for our part, so great is the blindness of the European institutions careering headlong along the most pernicious routes, and so great the blindness of the European Parliament which is incapable of issuing an opinion on the burning issues of the day, such as, for example, the unrest in Palestine, where a supposedly democratic State is murdering children in the streets on a daily basis. Instead, this Parliament is losing itself in wearying fancies at the expense of perpetual division.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has done well to insert Mr Brok' s excellent report immediately after this morning' s debate on the Biarritz and Nice Summits.
There is no point in pretending: this whole scenario described in such detail by Mr Brok and analysed point by point in the specific reports which we are going to hear conflicts with events in the field of negotiations, which are intended to ensure that the current European Union adapts its structures and institutions in preparation for the challenge of enlargement.
In company with a large number of other Members, I greatly appreciated President Prodi' s declarations and I took note of Mr Moscovici' s words when, with diplomatic caution, he too warned us not to expect much in the way of results over the next two or three months.
We hope that results will be achieved and that another Intergovernmental Conference will not have to be held in order to prepare adequately for enlargement.
However, this factor indisputably pervades and conditions the whole of the rest of the architecture, all the prospects for the future, this acquired right which the peoples and countries of Eastern and southern Europe now have to join the European Union. For the countries of Eastern Europe, I would say that it takes the form of a sort of compensation for all the years that they had to suffer a dictatorship, which, despite being established in Yalta, was still a dictatorship for very many years.
I would now like to emphasise another point: I feel that a major factor is own resources, as has already been stated. The Brok report hints at this, although rather diffidently.
However, it also notes the fact that we have a ceiling of 1.27%. We are well below this figure and the governments of our countries are reluctant to even approach it.
Now, in the previous enlargement processes, particularly when Spain and Portugal joined the Union, we were in possession of a very powerful budgetary tool, for the Delors I and Delors II packages provided an impetus which made it possible for struggling economies to make up for lost time.
This political will is currently absent, and I feel that that is the central factor to be stressed in the debate on enlargement.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the EU' s top priority at the dawn of the 21st century is the major historic project of its eastward and partly southward enlargement.
This debate aims to underline this.
Unmistakably, the personal commitment of the rapporteurs of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and the productive exchange of ideas in those circles, point in the same direction.
The key year for this undreamt-of opportunity of close political cooperation within the Ancient Occident is the 20the century' s miracle year of 1989.
As a former journalist, I hold special memories of that year. The words "We are back in Europe" resounded on the streets of East Berlin, Prague and Bucharest.
The way in which this almost universal feeling found expression in Central and Eastern Europe in the late 80s still merits our gratitude to this day.
Ten years have now passed since the fall of the wall and the dismantling of the Iron Curtain.
The enthusiasm for Europe in the East has made way for fairly harsh criticism.
The reason is clear.
The road to the European Union, towards accession, is too long for the candidates.
Marek Belka, economic advisor to the Polish President expressed this growing impatience and displeasure in very direct terms, when he said that the European Union expects them to implement the necessary reform measures at break-neck speed, yet fails to give them a target date for accession to work towards.
His sentiments have been echoed by the President of the Hungarian national bank, who claims that the European Union must give off the right signals.
Otherwise, Eastern Europe' s suspicion that Europe does not really take the issue of enlargement seriously might well end in a dangerous disappointment with regard to the Brussels pledges - according to my Hungarian spokesperson.
How can we do away with these Eastern European reservations about the European Union? I propose we do this by adopting a dynamic twin-track policy.
The EU should make the necessary institutional preparations at the earliest opportunity in readiness for a good number of new Member States, and present these countries at long last with a realistic accession strategy.
As for this strategy, I have in mind a phased enlargement in relatively small rounds of genuinely suitable candidates, spread out over a period of fifteen years or so.
In this way, the European Union would run less risk of pre-empting the Copenhagen criteria than would be the case if no fewer than ten candidate countries were to join simultaneously - an idea which has already been floated.
Would this automatically remove in one fell swoop the considerable concerns which the EU Member States and the candidate countries have with regard to the enlargement process?
Of course not. This is why I particularly like Amendment No 40 tabled by Mrs Malmström to the Brok report.
She is asking the European Commission to carry out a major study into the cost of non-enlargement, plus to indicate what the economic gains and losses would be in the long term if enlargement were to be turned down.
In addition, Mrs Malmström is urging the European Commission to give the European citizens plenty of information, because they need to be kept informed at all times of the current enlargement process, which has the overarching goal of Europe' s reunification.
Such a vulnerable position, or rather, such political accountability would certainly do Brussels credit. It would also be an example worthy of imitation for the negotiating partners of the European Union in the East.
Then the course of enlargement would truly run smooth, with public opinion forming its crucial social basis.
On a final note, Mr President, the gains and losses of the EU' s eastward enlargement should not be deciding factors.
If we are going to value the postponed enlargement, the postponed liberation of the other part of our continent properly, and if we wish to draw lessons from both world wars in the previous century, then we will have to roll up our sleeves and start helping, and be prepared to make sacrifices.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Council and the Commission have asked for the floor once again.
I allowed the groups' spokespersons to speak for longer than planned, without paying too much attention to the speaking time, due to the importance of the debate.
I would therefore ask the Minister and the Commissioner to take account of this and adjust their speaking times accordingly.
Mr President, I have just one brief clarification and question to put to the Commissioner, with whose presentation I personally agree.
We can only define the accession scenario if we ourselves undertake to be ready by the end of 2002.
According to the motion presented here, the EU institutions, the Member States and the candidate countries will all help to ensure that we are ready before the European elections in 2004.
That is what the motion says. That is not defining a scenario, it is endeavouring to achieve it.
Perhaps this wording would allow us to reach a common position so that we can make the necessary effort.
Mr Brok, I have no problem whatsoever with this motion because it states quite clearly what our common policy is.
We will be ready as of a certain date.
We hope that everyone else will also be ready by that date.
We shall help them to be ready by that date.
It is just that, as things stand, I cannot guarantee that they will be ready.
Thank you very much for that clarification, Commissioner.
The various rapporteurs will now speak.
Mrs Carlsson has the floor first.
Mr President, today when I flew from Stockholm, in over Germany and then drove on down to historic Alsace, I could not help but feel grateful for this Europe of mine.
I was born at a time when, and in a place where, there has been no direct reason for thinking of war and calamity.
Before I was born, freedom and democracy had triumphed over oppression and the insanity of war, and a European Union was being formed.
Today' s young people take peace for granted, and mistrust has been exchanged for reciprocity.
There have been strains but, on the whole, peace and trade have established a closer association between people, now further consolidated by means of the currency union.
Today, when we are celebrating the united Germany and discussing Parliament' s attitude to the enlargement process, it is important to have an historical perspective in order to be able to look a long way ahead and understand that today' s generation of politicians too have perhaps at least as important decisions to make in favour of freedom, peace and democracy.
Few people believed that it was possible to reunify Germany.
Everyone was surprised by the dynamism of that process, which was so skilfully handled by Chancellor Kohl.
Without his strong support for peace, Europe would have looked different today.
What began with individual people' s courage and longing for peace led to the odious Wall' s being torn down stone by stone.
Approximately ten tears later, we therefore now have a responsibility to history to join together in completing the reunification of Europe and strengthening the integration process.
It will totally change the EU.
As I see it, there are, however, no other alternatives and nothing else is more to be desired.
If today' s European Union does not succeed with further enlargement, it will not be living up to its own ideals.
In that case, it will, in my view, have failed in its mission and purpose.
I have been entrusted with the task of acting as rapporteur where Estonia is concerned.
In Sweden, we stood Monday after Monday in a number of squares around the country in order to show support for our Baltic brethren during the liberation process.
Our support and commitment continue - to a large extent, for our own sake.
More powerful cooperation is needed when it comes to our common sea, the Baltic.
We have a lot to gain from more trade and more interchange.
The Baltic States are small coastal States bordering on a powerful neighbour.
They possess a rich source of culture, diversity and potential which the united Europe cannot do without.
Each one of the countries is to be judged on the basis of its own merits. They are not to be judged en masse or on the basis of some special geopolitical position they might occupy.
It must be the results of the negotiations which count.
Enlargement ought not to be postponed because of the need to keep to timetables.
As may be seen from the report, I am enthusiastic about what a country can achieve in the course of ten years of reform work.
I am impressed by the political consensus that exists and by the leadership exercised by Prime Minister Mart Laar.
The EU has a lot to learn from Estonia' s free trade agreement, the route the country is taking towards the new economy and the work it is doing on integrating its Russian-speaking population.
Obviously, the foundations of the EU must not be weakened and the candidate countries must comply with Community legislation.
However, many politicians in the EU seem more concerned with developing the Union still further and with raising standards.
There seems to be no let-up in the desire to devise detailed regulations.
This creates new obstacles for the candidate countries.
As I see it, the enlargement process ought not to be dragged out unnecessarily.
It is now that we are in a position to secure common values and benefits.
As a conservative, I am incredibly thrifty with taxpayers' money.
Through increased cooperation in combating, above all, cross-border crime and environmental destruction, we can make enormous gains.
The environment is the area which will constitute a stumbling block in the negotiations.
As I see it, decades of mismanagement due to planned economies and the inherent irresponsibility of communism are not Estonia' s fault and should not be a reason for delaying membership.
If it completes the negotiations effectively and purposefully, Estonia has a good chance of becoming one of the Union' s new Member States.
I should like to express my gratitude for the good will with which my report was received by the committee.
The only amendment which has already been tabled is covered in my report, but I am pleased that the Greens wish to emphasise the importance of treating citizens equally.
Finally, substantial progress is important if energy and will are to be demonstrated in the negotiations.
I am a little concerned about the way in which Parliament has handled this report on enlargement.
Many of the amendments and the committee' s proposals in the Brok report go beyond the level of what is required in the EU at present and may be seen as new hurdles.
All credit to the rapporteur, Mr Brok, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, who has tried, albeit without success, to get some focus into the report.
Parliament' s task is now to reduce, not increase, the obstacles to successful enlargement across all borders.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we consider the progress made by Latvia since independence to be a real success story.
In 1991, Latvia was still a province of the Soviet Union; since then it has built up a basic democratic order and its own state, introduced a market economy and created new ownership rights, to mention just a few points.
Imagine if such radical economic and social change had taken place in your own country in such a short space of time.
Only then, I think, can you have any notion of what the people of Latvia have achieved over recent years.
In this context, it would be positively humiliating if the European Union failed to get started on the reforms needed in order to be able to receive the central and eastern European countries, Malta and Cyprus; and those who continue to apply the brakes here are merely demonstrating that they are much less capable of reform than any of the candidate countries, especially little Latvia.
They are simply not entitled to chide this Baltic country like a stupid schoolboy.
We would also be belittling the achievement of the Latvian people if we postponed accession indefinitely after Nice.
Negotiations with Latvia did not start until after the Helsinki summit.
Nonetheless, it is, in my opinion, in a position to move forward to the first enlargement wave in the enlargement process.
The critical comments and the proposals in my report for urgently needed progress in administrative and social reform are designed to bring Latvia quickly and successfully into the European Union.
In the present circumstances, one thing is clear: the key to this is to be found in a transparent administration at all levels.
This does not just mean a law for the civil service; it also means giving young civil servants opportunities and paying them a decent wage.
The basis for this must be a clear code of conduct which excludes corruption and, hence, gives citizens confidence that there is a truly independent administration taking decisions for the general good.
Any such administration must be in a position to adopt the acquis quickly, to develop a stakeholder society and to provide proof of efficient auditing of accounts.
This would enable Latvia to obtain more European assistance.
As you all know, I have been calling for pre-accession aid to be correlated more closely with the mechanisms of the European Structural Funds for a long time now.
I still fail to understand why two yardsticks always seem to apply here.
Whereas we take decentralised invitations to tender for granted in our development areas, ISPA projects are decided in Brussels.
Whereas we, in the meantime, are required to prove that the social partners are involved and that regional or local authorities help to implement resources, this arrangement is still not applied in the candidate countries.
How are the people there supposed to experience the people' s Europe in situ? A communications strategy is not enough, however good it may be.
It is still hot air, Mr Verheugen; the actual agencies responsible for the project have not even noticed it exists.
It is not enough; the whole strategy needs to be geared more to the citizens.
It is of paramount importance for the candidate countries to be more involved in the area of employment policy.
The process of economic change and fast transition has not only brought successes; it has also resulted in social differences, increasing regional disparities and huge hidden unemployment, which is why these issues must take priority in the pre-accession strategy.
I see an urgent need to focus more on structural measures here and not to postpone implementing freedom of movement as a response to unemployment in Latvia.
It is our job to continue to support Latvia with the integration of the Russian population.
We should also bear in mind that the burden which we have laid on Latvia, namely to build ramparts for the European Union, - that this hurdle cannot be supported by infringing the principles of human dignity, including the human right to asylum.
That applies to both Latvia and the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, my report on Lithuania' s application to join the European Union closes with the following sentence: It is still too early to establish a position on when and with whom Lithuania should accede, but efforts should be aimed at making possible a broad first enlargement wave in which Lithuania is included.
Lithuania applied to join the Union on 8 December 1995.
Accession negotiations commenced in February 2000.
Lithuania' s target date for accession is 1 January 2004.
The assessment of the political criteria for meeting accession requirements is - I hope all will agree - without question unreservedly positive.
This month, on 8 October, Lithuania will be holding parliamentary elections.
Whatever the outcome of these elections, we may safely assume that the main parties will lend their unwavering support to Lithuania' s accession to the European Union.
Lithuania is on its way to joining the World Trade Organisation.
Before I go on, a quick update: negotiations between Lithuania and the WTO were successfully concluded yesterday, meaning that Lithuania expects to join shortly following ratification.
Today the Lithuanian economy is on the mend.
There was negative fallout from the Russian economic crisis in 1998, due to the high level of trade with Russia, and the gross domestic product was still falling in 1998 and 1999.
The macro-economic situation is now stabilising.
Lithuania has considerable potential for long-term economic growth.
The International Monetary Fund has forecast growth of 2.1% in the gross domestic product this year.
There is a good chance of this, but particular efforts are still needed.
Policy still needs to concentrate on creating the right conditions for innovation and modernisation in key sectors of the economy.
The fact that the Lithuanian currency is still pegged to the dollar is also important here, because as the dollar rises, so too does the value of the litas against the euro.
As a result, revenue from exports from Lithuania to the euro zone is down and, similarly, producers are of course facing stiffer competition on the domestic market from exporters in the euro zone.
There are plans to peg the litas to the euro in the second half of 2001.
As I said, despite a number of shortcomings and weaknesses, Lithuania has made good progress in the economic area and is only a short way away from a working market economic.
As far as the Ignalina nuclear power station is concerned, there is no doubt that the two Chernobyl-type reactors need to be decommissioned.
Lithuania voted an energy strategy through parliament at the end of 1999 and, in May of this year, the Seimas passed a law to decommission unit 1 in 2004.
A decision on the decommissioning of unit 2 will then be taken in 2004.
I am most grateful to Commissioner Verheugen for clarifying the question of the closure of nuclear power plants.
It is an important point here too.
Now to Kaliningrad.
This issue requires a special effort and, in my view, cannot be dealt with purely as a problem on the fringe of the issue of the accession of Lithuania and Poland.
In the widest sense, what is at stake here is cooperation between the European Union and the Russian Federation.
The point at issue is whether Kaliningrad should be enclosed and cut off or included in the development prospects for the region.
The multi-faceted problems and the dangers inherent in the social and economic crisis in the region will not be averted, let alone solved, by isolating it.
Our motto in this case must be: stabilisation through cooperation.
That is the only way of giving Kaliningrad a chance to improve its development potential.
Lithuania is playing a positive role here.
Lithuania and Russia recently presented proposals for joint projects in various areas under the NIDA initiative. The EU is being asked to adopt them in the Northern Dimension action plan.
Ways of fostering good neighbourly relations need to be found in the interest of the region as a whole.
And also in the interests of cooperation between the European Union and the Russian Federation.
Mr President, Commissioner, Poland, the country for which I am rapporteur, is the largest and most important of the countries which are preparing to enter the European Union, but it is also, as we know, the most problematic, so much so that there have been rumours that it might be excluded from the first group, the group of countries which are to join the Union first.
These rumours are groundless and I am pleased to be able to tell you and, most importantly, our Polish friends, that we met with the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Lamberto Dini, yesterday, and he categorically denied ever having heard such a possibility being voiced during international meetings.
Poland will join the European Union when both it and the Union are ready, but it will certainly be part of the first group.
Having said this, we must not deny that there are difficulties, and my report is in fact a summary of the progress made and the difficulties encountered along the road to accession.
The Warsaw government and parliament have done their utmost in recent months to speed up the transposal of Community legislation.
The Polish authorities have also recently carried out major reforms and, although the Commission' s last annual report on Poland' s progress towards accession was somewhat negative, I hope and trust - and in this I am reassured by Commissioner Vergheugen' s words just now - that the report which is published in a few weeks time will be more encouraging.
Nevertheless, as I was saying, there is still a great deal to do in Poland in terms of administrative reform, industrial restructuring and, of course, comprehensive structural change right across the agricultural sector.
Therefore, in order to overcome these obstacles, to resolve these issues, the Poles - like the citizens of the other candidate countries - need incentives.
If, for example, we place a question mark over whether it will be possible for the citizens and workers of candidate countries to move freely across the European Union right from the word go, if we want to continue to deny the citizens of Eastern Europe recognition of that right which is one of the fundamental principles of the Union, then we are further diminishing support for the difficult reforms which must take place before they can join the Union.
This brings us to another sore point: public support, both within and outside the European Union.
Support from the public is poor and fades with the passage of time, as Pat Cox and many of the Members who spoke after him pointed out, so roll on the information campaign announced by the Commission, although I must say that the amount of funding allocated to this campaign did seem rather low.
Despite the words of the Commissioner, who declared himself passionately in favour of enlargement, Brussels sometimes gives the impression that it is trying to slow down the process, and this is reflected in the attitude of the candidate countries whose citizens become despondent and confused.
We must convince the citizens of both Europe in its present form and the Europe which is to come, the Europe of the future, the enlarged Europe, that the costs - which are heavy and onerous - are still less than the benefits which will come in the immediate future.
Many of us feel that it would have been a good idea to specify the dates for accession in order to encourage the countries and give them a sense of our continuing support.
In the past, specifying dates has served to speed up the integration process, but it was difficult to come to an agreement on this point and so we decided unanimously to refrain from discussing the dates in our individual reports but to give a - if the truth be told - rather vague indication in Mr Elmer Brok' s report.
In Poland, there is talk, at least at official level, of 2003. Even if accession does not come about in 2003 it must take place as soon as possible, and we must make every effort to make it happen for we are in debt to those countries - the countries of Eastern Europe - which are as European as the countries of Western Europe and whose only crime, as the Commissioner himself pointed out, was to find themselves, through no fault of their own, on the wrong side of an artificial line across the middle of our continent.
There are too many promises which we have made to Poland, the countries of Eastern Europe, the former Communist countries, and failed to keep.
'Rid yourselves of Communism,' we said, 'and we will help you' .
They got rid of Communism and we did not help them.
So we cannot be surprised if, faced with the increasing divide between rich and poor and the spread of crime, prostitution and drugs, an increasing proportion of the citizens of these countries have reached the point where they would prefer to revert to the old regime and live under a Communist dictatorship.
Should this trend gather momentum, it would be clear confirmation that our policy for Eastern Europe has failed.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us do our utmost to avoid this.
Mr President, country rapporteurs are sometimes accused of being unpaid ambassadors of their candidate state and of being blinded by their love.
There is that risk and I am going to try to prove the opposite is true in the case of Slovakia.
Rapporteurs who take their work seriously develop close contacts.
This is how understanding and compassion grow.
Slovakia is not an object but a country where people actually live, people who are ambitious yet extremely frustrated and who, in the language of meetings, are weighed down by a long and punishing agenda.
I do not want to encumber this agenda any more, nor do I want to lighten it.
A badly prepared Slovakia cannot become a member of the European Union.
We are in the middle of the negotiating process.
Slovakia belongs to the so-called Helsinki group and would naturally like to reach the premier division.
This is where that country should have been classified all along, but relations with the European Union were strained under the previous government.
We support the ambition of the current government.
Slovakia has not been condemned to the second division and it is logical that it should like to join together with the Czech Republic.
The Slovak Government is trying to carry out an overtaking manoeuvre.
We will assess this based on our criteria.
Slovakia does not really gain from political exemptions either.
The requested reform is needed.
Next year, Slovakia must seize its chance.
Then we will have the really important negotiating chapters to deal with.
My report, which is before us today, contains some points of criticism which can nearly all be lumped under the same title of implementation.
Many aspects have been regulated well, and still are, at least on paper, but when it comes to translating them into practise, that is where the problems arise.
In fact Slovakia is not alone in this.
I would like to list a few issues in no particular order.
Slovakia is the transit country for many criminal activities.
Policing must be stepped up, also in tandem with the European Union, and more investments must be made to improve border control.
The government has set up an anti-corruption programme which has my admiration and appreciation.
I applaud it, but we are waiting for the assessments with concrete results.
As Commissioner Verheugen said before, the fight against corruption is a key priority, because corruption undermines democracy and also deters foreign investors.
The situation of the Roma people leaves a great deal to be desired. This has been mentioned more than once already today.
More funds are needed to implement existing government proposals.
Once again, the plan is there, but the implementation has not quite got off the ground.
Moreover, Slovakia needs to hold an open debate on how people perceive the Roma people.
A distinction must be drawn between judgment and prejudice; otherwise we will continue to have a lack of understanding, which will stand between them and us like an invisible wall.
The Law on the Use of Minority Languages is a large step in the right direction but the technical implementation of this act has been inadequate.
I am also critical of Slovakia' s capacity to govern and its organisation of financial control. This was, in fact, confirmed when we debated other countries.
I would also call on Slovakia to set up an active regional policy because the socio-economic discrepancies within that country are still far too pronounced.
Now for the good news, because this actually eclipses the bad news.
Slovak democracy is developing at a steady pace, which has not always been the case.
We have noticed a great deal of improvement in macro-economic terms.
The Commission reports have so far been very positive.
The level of improvement has even been such that Slovakia has been admitted to the exclusive club of the OESO, and I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to Slovakia on this achievement.
I believe that this decision came into force last week.
The privatisation of public companies, including banks, is on the agenda.
The reform of the legal system, as requested, is in full swing and the agreements on the closure of the nuclear reactors are being respected.
I would like to concur with Commissioner Verheugen in this respect.
The acquis is also being implemented at a satisfying rate.
Moreover, the government is constantly working on maintaining social consensus - this is in itself a different matter - an important point in most enlargement countries, because without social consensus, it will not be possible to implement the heavy reform programme, and as is apparent in Slovakia, this can also be done in a way which is successful because the support for EU membership is still very strong in Slovakia.
What Slovakia must now do is to bite the bullet.
The overtaking manoeuvre which I mentioned a moment ago can now be carried out.
The problems I mentioned are not insurmountable.
Over the past few years, Slovakia has developed a new dynamic which will enable the country to move towards the European Union quickly and effectively and to turn its accession into a success.
On a final note, I would like to take the liberty of making one comment on Slovakia' s home affairs policy.
We do not make a habit of interfering in home affairs, but there are proposals to call for early elections in Slovakia. There has even been a referendum to gauge whether people are in favour of this.
It is, of course, up to the Slovaks to decide.
I believe it would be harmful to Slovakia to organise elections at this point in time.
It would once again delay the accession process, which has happened before under the Meciar administration.
It would be wise, therefore, if the present administration were to try to complete the task in hand.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that it would be right and proper to begin my intervention by referring to the fact that, today, 3 October, we are celebrating the first ten years of German reunification.
This extraordinary event, symbolised by the fall of the Berlin wall which separated two blocks of countries and also divided one nation, to a certain extent represented a pioneering step in the process of European enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe.
Despite the difficulties, the contradictions and the social and economic disparities, which, as everyone knows, still exist between West and East Germany, the truth is that a project for a collective future of peace, freedom and development triumphed. This would probably not have been possible if the voices advocating caution and those that supported a particular kind of technical and bureaucratic rationalism had not been pushed into the background.
The European Council, which met in Copenhagen following this reunification, decided to integrate into the European Union any associated States of Central and Eastern Europe that wished to join.
The 1993 Copenhagen Council made it clear that the accession of the countries from Central and Eastern Europe would depend on their meeting the obligations that are part and parcel of membership of the Union.
In other words, these States would have to fulfil a range of economic and political conditions that were considered to be essential prerequisites for their integration.
On 30 March 1998, a negotiation process was finally opened with the first group of countries, including Hungary, the country which is the subject of the progress report now under discussion in the European Parliament.
I think I can say that this report, which has been duly discussed and improved upon in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy where it received unanimous approval, describes and analyses extremely thoroughly the current stage of Hungary' s path towards accession, in its dual approach to the issue.
Firstly, Parliament has used it as a tool to assess the periodic report drafted by the Commission in 1999 on Hungary' s progress.
Secondly, the report serves as both an expression and the result of the vision that the rapporteur has been putting together on Hungary' s current situation.
In this speech, I propose to highlight and discuss the six aspects of Hungary' s changing situation with a view to its accession to the European Union, which warrant specific mention.
First of all, in terms of fulfilling the political criteria that were laid down in Copenhagen, Hungary' s situation is, by and large, satisfactory. We have seen a consolidation of the democracy which is strengthening the positive trends that have already been shown.
The problems that do remain are not therefore related to the exercising or safeguarding of civil or political rights but involve fighting more effectively against some less positive aspects.
In this context, the issue of integrating the ethnic gypsy minority into Hungarian society has been central to the discussions held in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
In our opinion, efforts to abolish all discrimination against the Roma community must be based on a raft of positive measures which have, in part, been launched by the Hungarian Government as part of a medium-term action plan which is supported by the PHARE programme, particularly in the field of education and in specific programmes to improve employment and housing.
These policies must lead to the free and unforced assimilation of individuals belonging to the gypsy community.
This was the idea that we wished to convey in this part of the report and, therefore, we cannot fully agree with the wording of Recital c, which is the result of an amendment approved in committee and emphasises the fact that a situation of segregation still remains in children' s education, as does severe discrimination in various sectors of society, the economy and the public sector. This is not borne out by my own observation of the current situation.
Secondly, it is worth raising the issue of Hungary' s economic situation, which has seen improved growth and made Hungary the economic leader in the region.
Public finances have been cleaned up and we have seen a marked improvement in the balance of payments. The pattern of consumption has changed as a result of higher salaries, lower unemployment and a reduction in the rate of inflation.
Thirdly, with regard to agriculture, which has a lower level of productivity than in the European Union, we need to ensure that the agricultural market is fully opened up to the capital that is necessary for land privatisation, for the modernisation of farms and marketing structures and for improving yields.
The prohibition on non-Hungarian citizens buying farmland is, however, an obstacle to setting a fair price for this land.
Fourthly, there is the topical issue of the fight against organised crime, specifically crime that has its roots in Russia.
The high level of crime and the considerable implications of this type of crime are perhaps Hungary's most serious domestic issue, despite the fact that the Hungarian Parliament has already voted in favour of a raft of measures on money-laundering, on longer sentences for drug-trafficking and prostitution, on confiscating funds and on a witness-protection programme for informers.
My fifth point, which concerns the adoption of the acquis communautaire, is that we must acknowledge the fact that Hungary is continuing to act in a balanced way.
Finally, there is the issue of the environment and the problems of cross-border pollution resulting from Hungary' s geographical situation.
The pollution that we have seen in the Danube and Tizsa rivers, caused by cyanide leaks in Romania, is a classic example of this situation.
I would like to say a final word in order to voice the concerns of some of my colleagues in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy regarding Soviet-made nuclear reactors.
This issue needs to be addressed seriously but within a broader framework that covers not just Hungary but also the other candidate countries that still operate this antiquated and relatively unsafe technology.
I am therefore pleased to see that it has been addressed in Mr Brok' s general report on enlargement.
It now only remains for me to ask my fellow Members to ensure that we have an enlightening debate and a vote which contributes, both in its outcome and in the way it is expressed, to a meeting between the old democracies of the West and the new Democracies of the East, for the sake, ultimately, of the European Union' s enlargement process.
The rapporteur for Bulgaria, Mr Geoffrey Van Orden, has asked me to speak on his behalf since he has to attend the defence debate at the Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth, England, today.
Bulgaria has made great progress in her preparations for accession.
The current resolution and report focus on certain of the more controversial issues, namely nuclear safety, border controls, the treatment of minorities and the question of corruption.
Economic issues will be dealt with later.
Bulgaria is anxious to join the European Union and NATO.
It has already demonstrated its commitment to regional security and stability through practical and political action, as was evidenced during the Kosovo conflict when Bulgaria sided with NATO allies, possibly to the detriment of her own short term interest.
The after-effects of the conflict, particularly the obstruction of the Danube, damaged the Bulgarian economy and it is only right that urgent assistance should be given by the international community.
But Bulgaria has made a wider contribution to regional security through the mechanisms of the Stability Pact.
Turning to another aspect of security, Bulgaria has also made great strides in tackling border control, with the ambitious target of bringing border policing up to Schengen standards by 2001.
This has been achieved by a fundamental reorganisation of the border police, once a demotivated conscript force; it is now a professional volunteer service.
Much of this has been carried out with assistance from the European Union.
The security of Bulgaria's borders and the effectiveness and integrity of its policing is of vital interest to the Union, bearing in mind Bulgaria's situation on the main through-route into Western Europe from Asia Minor and the Middle East.
Within its borders Bulgaria is addressing the problem of minorities.
The Bulgarian Government has made efforts to overcome the problems of exclusion of the large Roma community, comprising roughly 4% of the population.
Much more needs to be done.
It will take time for the benefits of the fundamental changes in Bulgaria to be felt by the population as a whole.
Meanwhile, in a more open society with greater opportunity, people need to be assured that those in power, whether in government or in administration, are exercising their authority for the benefit of the country as a whole.
Democracy and the market economy are vibrant forces in Bulgaria, but they are still young and need to be sustained by the confidence and trust of the whole population.
The suspicion of corruption is a most destructive force and it must be tackled as a matter of urgency.
This is nowhere more true than in the case of nuclear power, where legitimate concerns over nuclear and environmental safety are in danger of being hijacked by the anti-nuclear power lobby.
In recent weeks we have all been reminded of the perils of over-dependence on oil and the need for diversity in energy provision.
The Kozloduy nuclear power plant accounts for half the internal power generation in Bulgaria.
Safety considerations must of course remain paramount but other factors must also be taken into account in determining the country's most suitable long-term energy strategy.
I wish to emphasise how important it is that Bulgaria should be assessed in its own right in terms of its progress towards early membership of the European Union.
If Europe is to embrace this historic opportunity for enlargement, removing the divisions created by the Soviet occupation and the communist experiment, candidate countries must be given a chance to accede within a reasonable timeframe.
This applies to Bulgaria.
Finally, I would like to mention a dark cloud that hangs over Europe and here I speak personally.
23 years ago Bulgarian secret agents went on a murderous rampage in Western Europe, attacking certain individuals, including my friend Georgi Markov, the well known writer and broadcaster, who was murdered in broad daylight in a London street.
Former Soviet agents have admitted their part in this dastardly crime but documents have been found incriminating Bulgarian citizens as well - Bulgarian agents of the communist government.
No progress has been made in solving the crime.
Successive presidents promised to take action but nothing was done.
I will not myself be able to vote for this report unless progress is made in solving the murder of Georgi Markov.
- Mr President, Romania's people welcome wholeheartedly the European Union's Helsinki decision to incorporate Romania in the first wave of the current enlargement countries.
Indeed, 80% of Romania's people believe that Romania belongs in the European Union.
Perhaps it is no coincidence that those same public polls show that the European Union Ambassador is the second most popular person in Romania today.
Since last December, therefore, there have been many encouraging signs.
Acute poverty has been a key problem in Romania since 1990 and under the present government, the economy is at last showing real signs of improvement.
The substantial loans from the World Bank and the IMF and the European Union show that success.
The current Prime Minister, Mugur Isarescu, is himself on secondment from the Central Bank and therefore has excellent relationships with the international financial institutions.
The better economy should increase a still fragile public confidence in the democratic institutions and de-politicisation of the civil service must be a high priority.
Romania enjoys a free press.
This must be encouraged and supported.
Tackling corruption at all levels will assist in building a free and open civil society.
Romania nearly fails on the Copenhagen criteria with regard to children.
Here we must remember that the collapse of the Soviet Union has left thousands of children in desperate straits throughout the Union; children whose families have given way unwillingly to pressures, children who have been institutionalised wrongly, children who are treated cruelly, children who die needlessly, children who are adopted by other countries illegally, children whose only future is to be exchanged for hard currency or household goods.
Central and Eastern Europe and the West Balkans are a prime source for the international child slave trade.
In Romania the government, with the active support of Commissioner Verheugen, the World Bank and the United Nations, have given us an opportunity to establish good doctrines and best practice in the region.
The formation of a high level group is something that I commend to my colleagues.
Romania has many strengths.
It has a unique and flourishing culture. It has an established artistic and musical heritage.
It has strength in adversity. Members will recall that our helping Kosovo was timely and was of great importance.
This will be reflected in the coming challenge of the OSCE which Romania adopts in January 2001 and perhaps in 2002 when Romania's probable membership of NATO will be reviewed.
We all applaud Romania for the Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals it has won in the last fortnight.
We must look forward to Romania becoming a full and active member of the Union without undue delay.
I therefore commend my report and its proposals to the House and urge Romania to make haste to implement the acquis communautaire and the Copenhagen criteria and become a member of the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, your rapporteur endorses the contents of the Commission' s report on Slovenia and notes that the criticisms expressed in 1998 gave the Slovenian authorities a salutary shock, prompting them to speed up adoption of the measures necessary for accession to take place.
This change of pace has placed Slovenia among the countries whose preparations to enter the Union are most advanced, and so, in my opinion, it is highly likely that this country will be one of the first to join.
Certain issues are still to be settled, of course, but they have been discussed on various occasions both at meetings between the parliamentary delegations and in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy. They are the subject of amendments which we are going to discuss tomorrow and include the closing down of duty-free outlets before the end of the year, the restructuring of public companies and the adjustment of banking law and the insurance sector, and, more generally, the modernisation of the entire sector of the administration of justice, which has to guarantee independence and impartiality, and all the public administrations.
I call upon the new parliament, which will take up office a fortnight from now, and the new government to make these matters a priority.
We must insist on a timely, appropriate information campaign for Slovenia as well, in order to make all the citizens aware of the benefits of joining the European Union.
Parliament could contribute actively to these initiatives by opening documentation units and involving the public through schools and via their cultural, professional, social and working environments.
Parliament' s resolution of April 1999 stressed the convergence of the positions of the European Union and Slovenia on economic policy and security, and in this past year Slovenia has indeed made a major contribution to the Stability Pact for South-East Europe.
Slovenia supported the action of NATO and the Member States during the war in Kosovo and, considering the difficulty of making such a decision, this can be taken as evidence not only of the important role played by this country in the region but also of the convergence of its interests with those of the European Union.
I would like to take this opportunity to invite Commissioner Verheugen to make representations to the Commission and the Council of Europe so that the European Union can revise its position and invite the Serbian opposition, which has just won the elections, not to stay away from the second ballot, for that would be to hand Milosevic a virtual victory on a plate without a political fight, potentially providing him with dangerous grounds for remaining in power.
The stability of the entire south-east region depends on the disputes that divide different, neighbouring countries being resolved. It is therefore important for the Slovenian authorities to come to a swift agreement with Croatia in order to bring all bilateral disputes, particularly border disputes, to a close.
This will ensure greater stability, improve the climate for bilateral relations and provide all the peoples concerned with enhanced opportunities for economic development.
Mr President, the report on the accession of Cyprus, which I am honoured to present to you, in comparison with the series of reports which you have heard about this afternoon, includes a special political aspect.
This is a candidate country where a third of the territory has since 1974 been occupied by the Turkish army and where, because of a particularly impervious line of demarcation, the fundamental principles of the European Union cannot be applied across all of the territory.
The report which it is my honour to submit, which was also unanimously adopted in committee, observes that the part of the territory controlled by the legal authority fulfils the Copenhagen political criteria.
Cyprus has a viable and prosperous market economy and should not encounter any particular problems in adopting the acquis communautaire.
I have a duty to point out, however, that transposing the acquis communautaire is taking too long and that Cyprus, like other candidate countries moreover, should tighten up its administrative, fiscal and legal systems.
I am convinced that Cyprus' accession could serve as a catalyst and a driving force in finding a solution to the political problem of the division of the island.
Perpetuation of the status quo following the Turkish invasion of July-August 1974 is not acceptable to the European Union.
We therefore support the proximity talks which are currently being conducted under the auspices of the United Nations.
We must however also point out that the definitive solution, a fair and lasting solution, must fully comply with both the relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions, with this being, quite simply, the international law in force, and also the principles governing the European Union.
I am thinking, of course, primarily of the political principles, but also the principles of freedom of movement and of establishment.
Now that both Cyprus and Turkey are candidate countries, the Cyprus conflict ceases to be peripheral to Europe but rather an internal Community conflict.
We must therefore have recourse to every means possible and to every asset available to us.
Immediate confidence-building measures are essential as a way out of the current deadlock.
The presence of one soldier for every six civilians, including the Turkish colonists, in the occupied zone of Northern Cyprus is unique in Europe, and even in the world.
Your rapporteur therefore proposes that the series of confidence-building measures and measures to dismantle the status quo should begin with the demilitarisation of the island, something that has, in fact, been demanded by a number of Security Council resolutions since 1983.
The Turkish Cypriot community has nothing to lose and indeed has everything to gain from accession.
Both its security and cultural identity will be fully respected.
Simply belonging to the European Union guarantees certain rights.
Europe must become a responsible player in finding a solution to the Cyprus question.
To this end, a key role will fall, without prejudice obviously to the Commission' s own role, to our High Representative for the CFSP, Mr Javier Solana.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
(DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of parliament from Brandenburg, an East-German Land, allow me to stress at this point how proud I am to act as spokesman for my committee in this debate.
You might say that I represent a region which, ten years ago, represented a good part of enlargement to the east - I too lived on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
Allow me also to say at this point that I have a great deal of respect for the citizens of the central and eastern European countries who, ten years ago, had the courage to go into the streets and start this process.
They deserve my thanks, as of course do the Member States of the European Union at the time and the Commission and Parliament, for the solidarity which they have always demonstrated with our regions.
I am speaking on behalf of the Industry Committee - to abbreviate its full title - on the areas of industry, external trade, research and energy.
This is a broad political field which includes highly explosive smaller issues and covering this broad spectrum for the twelve different candidate countries from central Europe, Malta and Cyprus was a huge challenge.
Allow me to comment on a few focal points.
Industrial change in the industrial sector is already in the final stage, although it remains on the agenda and needs to be implemented more intensively.
This change places heavy demands on the people in the candidate countries but, at the same time, it guarantees their future and their children' s future.
The economic changeover is not for the EU' s sake, a point which needs stressing.
The competitiveness of their own country is at stake, irrespective of whether or not they join the EU.
Three points need highlighting in the industrial sector. First: industrial structures must continue to be adapted at least as quickly as hitherto.
Secondly: there must be guaranteed improvements to and simplification of the legal framework for market access and financing.
Stability fosters economic success.
Thirdly: supplementary measures, such as training people, social protection and hence social stability, and an active job market policy are also extremely important.
In the trade sector it must be stressed that a national trade policy is incompatible with EU-membership.
It is vital for trade policy between the EU and candidate countries to be coordinated pending accession and this is being done to an increasing extent.
A few comments on new technologies: these countries too are moving from an industrial to an information society.
This process runs in parallel to enlargement.
If we are to have a common information area, we must make huge joint efforts in this sector.
The information society is important to old as well as new sectors.
The public sector should set an example in the central and eastern European and in the other candidate countries.
Research must be strengthened overall, especially in new technological sectors, and it is vital for these countries to be included in the European networks.
Allow me to make one more comment on the energy sector, which has already been addressed once today.
Energy generation and distribution must continue to be made more efficient, while complying with environmental standards.
The whole European energy market will change on accession. The energy mix will no longer be the same.
A sensitive area has already been addressed today. I refer to nuclear energy.
The most important aspect is compliance with current safety standards and the agreed closure of unmodernised plants.
I too should like to stress on behalf of my committee that I am not in favour of linking accession dates to closures.
They are two separate issues.
However much some people wish it did, diversifying out of atomic energy does not form part of the Community acquis.
Hence, if we are to be honest, we cannot keep setting up new hurdles in these areas.
The process of change and the momentum of this process of change will cause structural adjustment difficulties on both sides.
Particular attention - and here I agree with the previous speaker - needs to be paid to border regions.
Although there are excellent medium-term prospects for the border regions within the European Union, huge adjustment difficulties will need to be overcome in the short term.
We already have experience of both from enlargement to Spain and Portugal.
We - the Member States first, but also the EU - have a duty to provide suitable support for border regions.
On balance, our conclusion is this: the candidate countries have already gone part of the way.
The EU must continue to give them permanent support and must not neglect its own duties as regards structural change, including that of the institutions.
Mr President, Commissioner, social policy is a cornerstone of the social model within Europe.
It is also a productive factor which contributes to economic development, and although the candidate countries have made huge efforts in this respect, a great deal of effort is still required in order to reduce the developmental chasm between the European Union and the candidate countries to acceptable proportions.
To give you a few examples: their wages are four times lower than ours, their purchasing power is two and a half times less than ours; and only Prague and Bratislava equal the EU' s average standard of living.
Compared with the European Union, participation in the labour market in Central and Eastern European countries is approximately five percent lower, and about twenty percent lower in the case of women.
Child mortality in Eastern Europe is double that in Western Europe.
In Romania, child mortality is, in fact, four times higher than that in the European Union.
Technologically too, there are still discrepancies between East and West: there are four internet connections per one thousand inhabitants over there, as opposed to sixteen over here.
If the idea of swift accession is mooted - and the date of 2003 has been mentioned, even if the Commissioner does not want to commit to that date as yet, but that does stop some Western European governments from putting that date forward - this will presumably involve transitional measures or periods, and that is still a grey area. What procedure, for example, will be used to decide on these transitional periods?
If the acquis communautaire has not been completely transposed, or cannot be fully transposed, or if it has not been implemented in practice, on what basis will a decision then be taken as to what part of the acquis communautaire must be implemented at all events, and what part, further to research and interpretation, could be subject to a transitional period, if necessary? We would welcome some clarification in this area.
We should not be blinded by the percentage figures of community law transposed into national legislation.
One example is the social dialogue.
Social dialogue is not so much a matter of establishing and recognising social partners, but mainly a problem of culture, of familiarity with employers' delegates and employees' representatives, of experience with providing information, consulting, debating and negotiating.
What I am trying to say is that despite the transposition of a number of directives, these are not always carried out in reality.
Finally, enlargement is not just a game of words, because we cannot improve the human rights situation in Tibet just by translating the human rights declaration into Tibetan.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is not just transparency in the transitional stage which is needed for accession, Mrs Smet; flexibility and imagination are also needed.
But one thing is certain: the remarkable efforts and absolute determination of the candidate countries to join the European Union must be incentive enough for us to get ready and able to enlarge.
Thus, any measures which help to improve the process of rapprochement must be taken much more energetically and with better coordination management now in the pre-accession stage.
The Commission should not be left to fend for itself here.
This comment is addressed to the Council and of course to us, the Member States, precisely because the rates of growth in the candidate countries are in fact far lower than those forecast in 1997, when we first debated this question. We should therefore be more conservative, Commissioner, in our future forecasts.
Far better to err on the side of caution.
However, we should all be clear on one thing: continuous economic growth is the basis for social development.
And, in turn, social development is needed if we are to stabilise the European social model and ensure that this model is not jeopardised.
However, we live in the real political world and are therefore bound to make provision for transitional arrangements in various political sectors in order to prevent negative frictional losses during the accession process.
In doing so, we help both the candidate countries and the Member States themselves.
For the job market and employment policy, that means that Member States bordering candidate countries need flexible, intelligent transitional arrangements in the first stage for the free movement of workers, especially border commuters, but only until such time as the difference in the standard of living in the candidate countries has improved to the point at which no migrationary movements or unrest are expected.
Border regions need stability.
That means that we must use the first stage following accession to jointly iron out social differences, especially if we are to be able to jointly build up confidence-inspiring relations in border regions.
Our opportunity lies in the fact that a successful socialisation process can prevent protectionism and nationalism.
This is especially important in border regions, where several cultures clash.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the EU' s enlargement, to include ten Eastern European countries and the two Mediterranean countries Malta and Cyprus, is upon us.
Negotiations involving the European Commission and the governments of those twelve countries are now under way.
Three major stumbling blocks in these negotiations are the environment, agriculture and free access of employees of the new countries to the labour market of the old Fifteen.
With regard to the environmental aspects, I have drawn up a report on behalf of the Committee on the Environment.
Only once before has Europe faced a similar dilemma.
This was nearly ten years ago when the GDR became part of Germany.
The European Commission then spelled out that the internal market rules would apply as from day one of the GDR joining the EU.
Very often, Europe' s environmental rules were subject to five-year transitional periods.
In that situation, West Germany backed the former GDR financially on a massive scale, by no less than DM 150 billion annually.
The ten new countries in Eastern Europe can only dream of having a rich sugar daddy such as that.
At present, the EU spends approximately EUR 500 million annually on the environment in the twelve new countries together.
In order to meet all 200 environmental EU requirements, all Eastern European governments together need to spend another EUR 120 billion.
In this light, it is understandable that they are applying for longer transitional periods of ten to fifteen years in order to accommodate those expensive environmental requirements.
This means that the environment in Eastern Europe will not undergo any noticeable improvements until fifteen to twenty years from now.
This is an unacceptable period of time.
It is logical that the Environment Ministers of the new countries will be putting the brakes on after their countries have joined the EU, whether their political persuasion is green or conservative.
They will argue that they should first of all introduce the old EU environmental requirements before Europe adopts new environmental requirements or tightens existing ones.
In order to solve this dilemma, the Committee on the Environment has proposed that the inexpensive cheap environmental requirements, such as environmental effects reporting, environmental information, animal welfare, the habitat and bird directives, should be effective from day one and that five-year transitional periods should be introduced for the expensive environmental requirements.
Environmental aid will need to double in order to help the new countries.
If longer transitional periods prove necessary after all, the European Commission should table these requests to the Environmental Committee.
The proposal which has attracted most controversy is that which stipulates that the old, soviet-type nuclear power stations have to be closed down from day one.
In the negotiations held so far, it has been agreed to leave this type of extremely dangerous power station, such as that in Lithuania, in operation until 2009.
Mr President, we might be inclined to think that when new countries join the EU, this automatically means that they will have to introduce more stringent rules to protect the environment and nature.
This may be true in part, where the protection of the environment is concerned, but when it comes to protecting nature, it is a different matter.
The candidate countries want to experience quick economic growth, even if this is at the expense of previously stipulated nature protection policy.
Of those candidate countries, it is mainly the Eastern European countries which have a rich tradition of identifying and protecting nature reserves.
Accordingly, their decision in favour of rail transport, which takes up less space and emits less polluting substances than road transport, was a sound one.
This head start has been put at risk over the past decade, mainly by the impoverishment of a large section of the population and by the wish for a new, car-oriented infrastructure.
Some candidate countries would like financial support from the European Union for projects which will need to be abandoned once they join the Union.
One example is the motorway in Bulgaria between Sofia and Thessaloniki, which cuts right through the vulnerable Kreshna gorge.
In some countries, the state of the natural world and of the environment is treated much like a state secret.
This is why it is important for the citizens of those countries to become actively involved.
The fact that non-governmental organisations for the protection of nature, the environment and animals are set up and developed, therefore, deserves our active support.
Any transitional periods which postpone compliance with nature and environmental requirements could also freeze and obstruct the policy within the EU' s current Member States.
The next few years in Eastern Europe might well see the depopulation of rural villages and the large-scale purchase of agricultural land for mechanised production-intensive farms.
In addition, new industrial sites are being built.
And the transport of arable produce and stock breeding products over long distances will take off in a big way.
This also applies to the inhuman transport of live animals to slaughterhouses.
Watercourses, hedges and stone walls, which are the traditional land dividers in the countryside, have already been partly destroyed by large-scale collectivisation, but the remainder thereof is now also at risk.
The habitat directive and bird directive will not apply to the new Member States until the areas and animals to be protected have been listed in an appendix.
This requires swift action so that these directives can enter into effect as from day one.
We need to try to protect the countryside and the natural areas from any negative impact.
I welcome the broad approval from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and I hope for the same from Parliament as a whole.
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Mr President, when Pandora opened her box all the ills of mankind were released.
Sometimes, in health terms, that is how it must have felt when the borders opened after the Iron Curtain was ripped apart.
We had a two-way traffic of bad habits, many of them linked to health.
Bad habits of course move fast and good practice moves more slowly afterwards.
Many of those bad habits were linked to health - infectious diseases, some drug-resistant and some we thought we had seen the last of.
And there was drug abuse, the horrors of Aids and syphilis and the problems of tobacco and alcoholism.
That would happen with or without enlargement.
You cannot erect some new curtain, some cordon sanitaire, to protect west from east and east from west.
Enlargement or no, it is in our mutual and collective interest that such problems are dealt with.
It is my belief that enlargement can help that process.
Since the 1950s in Europe we have introduced standards on health and safety and over the years we have extended competences and standards from public health to health promotion, tobacco to blood safety, rights from mobility of doctors and patients to human rights and laws such as those for mental health.
Pharmaceutical companies have been regulated, medicines for people and animals licensed, and a range of measures taken in research, dissemination of good practice, education and training.
We are building a compendium of directives and regulations on matters wholly germane to health, such as pollution, emissions of radioactive and other dangerous substances, waste disposal, water, air, soil quality, food safety and novel foods and product liability.
Now we are moving to a requirement for health impact assessments for all major legislation.
It is a long list and one that is often more honoured in the breach than in the observance by Member States.
There is a message for EU governments and indeed for the Commission: for governments on compliance and the Commission on enforcement.
More importantly there is a message for all of us who are interested in enlargement: we need to use all the channels available to us to support progress among the accession countries.
That is why my report devotes a lot of its recommendations to the need to encourage the Phare programme to do more in the health field and to bring the countries into partnership now in the health action programmes and other areas.
This includes bringing the European Investment Bank into the partnership.
Mr President, with enlargement on the horizon, today' s debate forms an excellent opportunity to reiterate what the representatives of the European people regard as being the key points.
I will focus on the area of consumer protection, as I am responsible for this particular section in the report and resolution.
When the European Union is enriched with many millions of Central and Eastern European citizens in a few years' time, these countries will also add as many consumers.
Although the acquis communautaire on consumer protection is relatively limited, consumer interests touch upon many other areas of policy.
I therefore believe that the ultimate goal we should strive towards with regard to these countries, these new accession countries, is for the consumer to become a fully-fledged partner in the market economy, which will help bring about a sound social mainstream.
In order to reach that position, it is necessary for structured consumer organisations to be in place.
These consumer organisations should be independent from national governments and should, in my view, be given more encouragement by the EU, but also by Member States and other NGOs.
There are three other areas which I would like to outline briefly. First of all, the area of telecommunications.
Telecommunications and technological developments only surpassed by time itself should not be kept from the consumers of the enlargement countries.
They should not lag behind.
So I would call for a concerted effort in that field.
In fact, the same applies to the financial sector.
In conjunction with industry, we should make extra efforts to set a sound form of organisation in motion.
Mr Bowis echoed this very sentiment a moment ago: food aid and food safety are top priorities, not only for the public, but also because the internal market will soon need to take these products into consideration.
European unification has a great deal of potential with many opportunities which we must seize with both hands.
- (DE) Mr President, honourable members, we all know that the agricultural sector is one of the most difficult sectors when it comes to enlargement.
But there is no point in running scared; the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development takes the view that, if we estimate pre-accession aid correctly, we can do it.
However, we must be clear about a number of things: structures in candidate countries vary considerably; in fact they could not vary more, which is why everything we do must be geared to the structures which currently exist in the individual Member States.
In the import-export sector, only Hungary has a positive balance of agricultural trade with the EU-15 at present.
All the others import more agricultural goods into their countries than they export to the Union.
That should give us food for thought, because so many of our farmers are afraid that, if we unify, we shall all go under because they are all fully paid-up agricultural economies.
That is not the case.
The dangers lie elsewhere altogether.
We in the Committee on Agriculture are firmly convinced that we should give these countries as much as we can from SAPARD resources and that we should give it to the right agencies.
We need to restock structures in the positive sense, from abattoirs and dairies to processing.
It makes no sense to import pig carcasses into the EU-15, create the added value here and then send the finished products back to the shops in these countries.
That way they will never be able to stand on their own two feet.
Everything we do to start this process now will save money later.
We must also clarify openly and honestly in discussions with these countries, that the common agricultural policy does not imply that the same payments have to be made everywhere from day one of membership, without checking if there are price losses in the individual product segments.
That would be unfair to other structures in the EU-15.
This can be reasonably regulated with reasonable phasing-in.
Then, of course, there is the problem of transitional arrangements.
In the veterinary sector, in the phytosanitary sector, these countries need transitional periods of 10, 12 or even 15 years.
Obviously that is out of the question.
And because it is out of the question, it is important to do what we can now so that any unavoidable transitional arrangements needed can be as short as possible.
It is better to introduce measures now than to start a long fight five minutes before accession.
All these purely agricultural matters should not obscure the fact that the following applies in the agricultural sector: Unless institutional reforms are properly regulated before the first candidate countries accede to the EU, there will be much that we are unable to regulate as we would like to.
Of course, no-one will be surprised to learn that the Committee on Agriculture takes the view that the important area of the agricultural economy, which continues to account for almost half the budget - and this will basically remain the case -, should come under the codecision procedure.
I have been instructed by our whole committee to express this view emphatically for the attention of all the agricultural ministers in the Member States, irrespective of which political hat they wear, because that is where those that are holding back and oppose this are to be found.
The future Member States, our candidate countries, are joining a changing common agricultural policy and it would be a poor show of parliamentary democracy in practice if they continued to be excluded from the democratic process of shaping the future common agricultural policy in an area which is far more important to them than it is for most of the fully paid-up Fifteen.
That is a most important point.
And I have something else to say: we need to say this loud and clear to our member governments, especially our agricultural ministers, in the first phase of the Intergovernmental Conference.
We shall have a fight on our hands in some areas; we already have.
It is a question of money.
The assumption is that we did not want to grant them the same blessings of the common agricultural policy in euros.
That is wrong.
But justice does not mean that everything is measured with the same yardstick.
It means that every candidate country will receive aid, according to its needs, which puts it on an equal footing with the Fifteen.
And that does not mean that the same numerical sums must be paid per hectare, per tonne or per head.
That is not necessary and would create injustices.
On balance then, we have nothing to fear, but we must reform, otherwise accession will not work in the agricultural sector.
. (ES) Mr President, enlargement is essential for the construction of a strong and united European continent.
The economic and social cohesion laid down in the Treaty, the basis of the policy of European solidarity, must be one of the basic elements of that construction.
However, we must not forget that, after enlargement and as a result of the low standard of living in the candidate countries, the average Community GDP is going to be reduced by at least 18%.
The immediate consequence will be that more than 20 of the current Objective 1 regions will exceed the ceiling for receiving aid - 75% of the Community average - without having increased their income in real terms.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not always able to clearly explain these pitfalls to our citizens nor propose clear and acceptable solutions.
Somebody said here today that enlargement is not a priority for 60% of the people consulted by the latest Eurobarometer.
The report on the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism - of which I am rapporteur - has therefore had to play a dual role.
Regional policy, the policy of European solidarity, is, of the common policies, the one which is most familiar to the citizens and one of the most valued.
My report on the committee' s opinion therefore talks not only of what the candidate countries have to do but also of what the European Union has to do.
The candidate countries must now embark on their own regional policy, develop the appropriate administrative structures, move ahead with the process of decentralisation and regionalisation, open up channels for participation to local and regional authorities and to social agents and create effective programmes of transnational and cross-border cooperation amongst themselves and with the Member States. They must do all of this because, after enlargement, we will not only have to combat the inequalities which those countries have inherited from the past, but also those which are being created at this very moment.
This is not only a result of their internal policies, but above all because of our investments, European investments, or, if you prefer, Member States' investments, which are accentuating the internal differences between the regions of those countries to the highest possible degree.
That is why my report encourages them to create their own regional policy and move forward in this process.
My report is also bound to discuss the European Union and has to demonstrate that the European funds for regional development cannot continue to be granted on the basis of a simple distribution of money between regions or districts.
If we do not establish priorities from a continent-wide perspective and straightaway, we will waste precious time, a few very important years in the task of constructing a strong and united continent.
It is essential, ladies and gentlemen, to create a genuine European regional planning policy, of which the Structural Funds are a component, an element, but which gives rise to ambitious actions in favour of balanced and integrated development of the European area in its different dimensions.
It is necessary to develop this European plan, link it clearly to regional policy and to the reform which is going to be implemented in 2006.
We must begin to discuss this integrated and polycentric European development.
The moment to move forward will perhaps arrive after the next Intergovernmental Conference.
The European Parliament and its Committee on Regional Policy, which also has competence in the field of transport and the Trans-European Networks, is aware that it is necessary to coordinate the different Community sectoral policies in favour of a global policy of regional planning.
The European Commission works on the basis of this same hypothesis and will put forward some of its proposals in the second triennial report on cohesion which it will present to Parliament in December.
We know that this is perhaps not the ideal moment politically, but there is also a need to discuss the current financial perspectives negotiated at the Berlin European Council, which do not seem to us to be sufficient to confront the challenges of the regional policy and the economic and social cohesion of an enlarged European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, cohesion and European citizenship are one and the same thing.
Helmut Schmidt and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing put it another way: the only way we can create realistic and viable integration is through political will and socio-economic conditions which are almost identical.
Mr President, allow me to start with a preliminary comment, not on the subject of Austria, but on another political matter.
The French Presidency changed its political presence here in the House prior to the reports on the two candidate countries of Cyprus and Malta.
I trust that this is not an indication of how the grande nation intends to treat small partners; it would be the wrong signal.
But now to the right signals.
Elmar Brok rightly started his intervention by saying that we all stand to benefit from enlargement, especially those of us on this side of the current external borders.
Commissioner Verheugen, you rightly stressed that it was no longer a question of if, but of how and when enlargement will take place.
But it is precisely with the "how" and "when" that we need to ensure that enlargement is prepared carefully and implemented seriously, in order to guarantee its success.
The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has tried, within its remit, to take account of two sub-sectors which Mr Brok addressed and which must be borne in mind if enlargement is to be a success.
We have just heard something about the "carrot" in the regional policy and promotion sector.
If that is our classification, then transport and tourism come in the "stick" category, because in this sector we have a huge amount of acquis and it will be a question - and I shall come back to this - of actually applying this acquis.
But first a reminder that transport infrastructure will be instrumental to the success of enlargement.
A huge internal market with over 500 million European consumers needs transport routes if it is to function.
Some of the infrastructure is already in place, at least in one half of the future Union.
Here we have developed and are in the process of improving the basic infrastructure needed in the form of TEN.
We must make similar arrangements and, more importantly, we must forge connections with central and eastern Europe.
The TINA report covers these prospects.
The financial perspectives make provision for some of the funds.
Whether or not they will suffice remains to be seen; in any event a sound basis has been laid for the candidate countries with PHARE, ISPA and other funding programmes.
But there must also be a sound basis and it is particularly important for the infrastructure to be created in the candidate countries, in order to ensure that acceptance of the Community acquis is not and does not just remain acceptance on paper.
The committee has basically endeavoured in the individual transport strategies to highlight the most important aspects.
There are two very important aspects in connection with road and rail transport which deserve special mention here: as regards road transport, which has already been liberalised and opened up to an extensive degree, care must be taken to ensure on accession that the provisions of Community employment, social, fiscal and tax legislation are actually applied in each Member State because, if they are not, this will lead to distortions of the market in the European Union and in the candidate countries which, where possible, we shall then have to spend a great deal of money rectifying.
Similar early action is needed and will be needed in order to join the western and eastern European railway network and render them compatible.
We must ensure that the present rail infrastructure in central and eastern Europe is not replaced by road transport, resulting in a great deal of effort at a later date in an attempt to put things right.
Internal waterway transport will be important for environmental reasons, because we must get heavy freight off the roads and, if it cannot be carried by rail, then we must use waterways.
Once Malta and Cyprus join, the Union will have the biggest merchant fleet in the world.
It is important that it should not just become a flag of convenience and that all measures prescribed in the acquis are taken to ensure that safety is writ large.
We do not want to live through another accident like the Erika.
There is a series of further points which the Regional Committee has mentioned in its report.
I hope that the candidate countries and we too will take them to heart.
Mr President, I would join the chorus of those who say that the forthcoming enlargement is now the main task of the EU.
If this does not succeed, then nor shall we.
We could make ourselves comfortable in our little club, but its whole raison d' être would then be lost, and we should not be able to secure the large perspectives of peace, freedom and stability.
Nor shall we succeed, however, if we do not appreciate that enlargement should, first and foremost, be for the benefit not only of a few people but of all people in the candidate countries, or in any case the majority of them.
And with all due respect for what is being said and written in Parliament, a broad democratic base is something we do not have.
I therefore also listened very carefully to Commissioner Verheugen' s words about 'selling' the EU to the candidate countries, for the majority of Central and Eastern European countries - if not all of them - have, of course, said that they want to hold referenda, or in any case have not said that they do not, and I personally think that this is a good idea.
One should be clear, however, that there is undeniably a danger of people voting 'no' .
So what were the problems Mr Verheugen thought were of concern to citizens? He mentioned migration, competition, social dumping, prices etc..
All obviously real concerns, but I think there is one thing which overshadows all others, that of how they can survive as countries, nations and States. Now, I am, admittedly, talking partly against the background of the fact that I come from a small country which has just voted 'no' in a referendum.
This 'no' will now be analysed carefully in the days to come.
There is no doubt at all that right-wing forces have been involved. We have also seen who has paid for the advertisements.
Egoism and, especially, populism have also played their part. Nor, certainly, has the falling rate of the euro helped things in the right direction.
Even though there are, of course, many of us who are aware of the historical basis for the euro and of what the whole thing is about, it has not been enough to convince people.
But having said all that, it is questions about how we can survive as a State that have occupied people' s minds.
How is one to get around the fact that it is really politicians in the big countries such as Germany and France who make the decisions? I think it is incredibly important that we bear this factor in mind when negotiating with the candidate countries.
I can fully guarantee you that, in those countries, the spectre of union is very easy to conjure up.
They have in fact experienced it at first hand for a very long time.
Another lesson from Denmark, which is directly relevant to the Committee on whose behalf I am speaking, is that everything suggests that there are far more women than men who have voted 'no' .
If we are not to risk a repeat performance in the candidate countries, it is crucial that we be clear about the fact that enlargement should not be of benefit only to men but also be of benefit to women.
I believe that, up until now, all objective investigations have shown that the transition to a market economy has had a greater impact upon women than upon men.
A great deal of pressure has been placed upon traditional social values in the former planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe.
The rapid restructuring of the old State-run industries which is at present taking place has of course resulted in serious unemployment for both men and women, at the same time as the private sector has still not managed to fill the vacuum. And, as I say, the figures suggest that there are a great many women who have become unemployed.
Even in countries such as Lithuania, where there is an economic upturn, it is not women, but men, who get to fill the jobs in the private sector.
For one reason or another, it is evidently thought that men are the ones who really possess the entrepreneur gene.
We therefore need to realise that women are much more vulnerable in this process of readjustment and therefore much more vulnerable in relation to the Union project as a whole than we have indicated up until now.
I would strongly urge the Commission to be alert to this in all its negotiations with the candidate countries.
If we do not secure jobs for women, if we do not ensure that the non-governmental organisations are there to talk about the Union project, then we can forget all about obtaining a democratic endorsement.
We shall not succeed. It is therefore also important, of course, that, in connection with enlargement, we ensure that the legislation on equality is implemented sensibly so that the enlargement we are all hoping for - and I would here point out that one of the countries in which there is most support for enlargement is in fact Denmark - can also in actual fact take place.
This cannot, however, happen by itself, and I would very much urge that attention be given to the position of women.
Mr President, the aim of the Brok report, as with other reports on this subject, is to get the message across that the candidates are welcome, although we do not hide the fact that the groundwork leading up to their joining is a momentous task.
This is why the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats is of the opinion that all amendments and viewpoints which implicitly tighten criteria and raise barriers to accession should be scrapped or voted against.
This is how we came to go through the text, and attempted to cut down on certain items in the process.
Our message to the accession candidates is the following: do not get overwhelmed by the number of reports and dossiers before us.
All we have done is to make an attempt to give you sound advice as best we could, with the best of intentions, and in many cases we have succeeded in doing just that.
Within the Union institutions, the views on enlargement continue to be positive and you must therefore contradict every ambassador from your countries who believes otherwise.
The Commission has cherry-picked its officials for the task in hand and Parliament remains passionate about this project, which is the best proof that the political climate has not been so favourable for a century.
I have already warned colleagues in Central Europe about this; when the tone sobers down, then this is only proof that we are moving from the honeymoon period into a life of domestic normality within Europe.
It is all starting to become very real, and this requires both negotiations on specific practical matters as well as level-headedness.
The PPE-DE does not want to take on the responsibility for pacing accession from the candidates because we cannot set any dates in this respect.
People, especially from the relevant countries, often ask about accession dates because they would so much like to share some of the responsibility for these dates.
We should not do this as this is outside our remit.
We can at best promise accession scenarios and, in fact, we must draft these anyway in order to clearly mark the path to the Union.
We can also pledge to make every effort to make accession or ratification before 2004 possible, so that at the 2004 elections, some candidates will be seen to take part in these Parliamentary elections.
Needless to say, all of this will also require thorough institutional reform - and this by 2003.
We must keep this date in mind for our own sakes.
The President-in-Office of the Council replied that this reform cannot, of course, take place without involving the citizens.
Thinking along constitutional lines, I thought he was validating the right of Parliament to monitor these reforms democratically.
After all, we have been given the citizens' mandate to do this.
But I am not sure whether the Minister was thinking along such constitutional lines.
Reform is not the only change we need, of course.
We want an effective communication policy which enables the citizens in the European Union and in the accession countries to take part in the political debate in a meaningful manner.
Policy in this respect is still not sufficiently in tune with democratic standards.
There are now forces in the Member States, both present and future, which want to exploit existing uncertainties.
We all know it: to play on people' s fears is an electorally useful exercise and parties which have no political goals other than gathering seats, like to indulge in manipulating people' s feelings of uncertainty.
This is inexcusable.
Mr Burenstam Linder, a former Swedish colleague of mine who was an expert in this field, explained to me that any enlargement of the European Union, whenever it took place, has always resulted in an excellent cost-benefit analysis on the part of the new participants and those already in the Union.
It makes little sense to start to doubt in public the value, including the direct value at a material level, of this enlargement.
Unfortunately, there are too many parties at the moment which have shed their ideological feathers and, as a result, display too little ambition and too much materialism.
President Havel from the Czech Republic recently mentioned in his speech to the IMF the lack of spirituality in our culture, the lack of standards and goals which transcend the pursuit of immediate gain.
We can gauge our Parliament' s depth and spiritual engagement by the way it handles enlargement.
The tasks facing us in this debate are so great that they spell out the importance of political views.
Do we react as overfed Westerners who only care about our own fast-growing prosperity and certainties or do we take a wider view? A wider view of the kind that was held at the start of European integration by its pioneers.
Well, Mr President, let us spread the word that it is precisely these new opportunities arising from enlargement, to include former dictatorships and countries under totalitarian regimes, which can help us broaden our horizons.
I hope our debate will give the new candidate states a shot in the arm.
Mr President, Commissioner, I only have two minutes and must dispense with references to honeymoons.
Nonetheless, I should like to thank the general rapporteur, Elmar Brok, who is also chairman of the committee, for the farsightedness and astonishing sensitivity with which he has conducted the debate, including and most importantly, in committee. As a result, we can now take up a coherent position for the European Parliament which is supported by all political groups.
After such a comprehensive debate, I should just like to address and highlight two questions, which now have no or the wrong meaning in the public eye.
The first is the question of the reforms needed in the European Union itself.
As a result of the Intergovernmental Conference, the conditions needed in order for the European Union to be able to enlarge will be in place.
All too often we stand with raised finger pointing in the direction of the candidates and lecture them on their obligations, when what we should do is point in our own direction and understand once and for all that, when it comes to fulfilling obligations, our turn comes well before theirs.
The second point concerns the setting of dates.
I am resolutely in favour of setting one date, i.e. the date by which the European Union will have completed its reforms and will therefore be ready to receive new members.
To set a total of a further twelve dates would, in my view, be irresponsible, for the reasons which numerous speakers have cited here today, and would increase the candidates' frustration rather than motivating them.
Mr President, those of us in the Liberal Group have recently been receiving visits from future MEPs from the candidate countries and, let me tell you, they are impatient.
They see support for this massive peace project dwindling, both in the current Member States and in their own countries.
We should remember that it is not only for their sake that we should enlarge the Union. It is, to a large degree, also for our own sake.
We are so preoccupied with what we should demand of them and with what we can teach them.
We should perhaps concern ourselves a little more with what they can rightly demand of us and with what they can teach us.
They are proud of their new-won freedom and democracy and their impressive economic growth, and remember that it was not we who obtained freedom for them. They did that for themselves 11 years ago when they amazed all the diplomats and observers by seizing the opportunity to break the Communist yoke and, in that way, also paved the way for German reunification.
We believe we must teach them about democracy, but do you not think that countries which have experienced dictatorship know better than we do what is important in democracy?
What we need, of course, is for the new Member States from the East to help us keep to what is the purpose of it all, namely a Union of free and sovereign Member States in which the freedom of the people and the nations is given pride of place.
They can perhaps teach us to use the proximity principle somewhat better.
If there are rules which are unsuited to the new countries, then it is perhaps the rules which should be adapted and not the new countries which should adjust.
If there is a need for long transitional arrangements on certain points, then let us have long transitional arrangements.
If there is a need to postpone the free right to acquire land and property for family use, then let us do that.
The most important thing is to get the new countries around the table with us, so that they can be involved in shaping Europe' s future.
That is important not only for them but also for ourselves.
Mr President, we must have a clear timetable for enlargement post-Nice.
The group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is calling for negotiations with the first group of countries to be completed by the end of 2002, so that the first accessions can take place before the next European elections in 2004.
I must say, in all honesty, that I am rather astonished, Mr Verheugen.
Was it not your suggestion to set clear timetables with interim and target dates after Nice on the basis of the progress reports, in order to motivate rather than delay reforms? We know ourselves from monetary union how important that was.
There is another reason.
Common environmental standards and social rules can only be implemented if these countries are full members.
We know that from Temelin.
As far as I am concerned, it is out of the question to have to use additional resources from category 8 from 2002 as part of the pre-accession strategy here.
Mr Verheugen, in my view it is pie in the sky to believe that the liberalisation of trade alone can modernise agricultural production and strengthen rural development.
In truth, it needs far more measures, which should be much more financially focussed and improved under the SAPARD regulation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are gathered here today to discuss the applications for membership of the European Union from twelve European countries: ten in Eastern Europe and two from the Mediterranean, Malta and Cyprus.
These countries see the present European Union as a guarantee of future prosperity.
Some of them, a short while ago oppressed by Communism and subjugated by the Soviet empire, or still divided by military occupation like Cyprus, also see it as a guarantee of independence and security.
Well, quite frankly: they are wrong.
They are wrong because prosperity is not generated by the European Union and its 80 000 pages of directives and regulations.
For where are the millions of jobs promised by the Maastricht Treaty?
Prosperity is created by restoring economic freedoms and nothing else.
Nor is freedom and security created by the European Union - as Austria, on the one hand, and the Balkans, on the other, know full well - because the European Union is, alas, totally subservient to the United States Government and the nations which have just recovered their sovereignty are soon going to realise that, tomorrow, they will be asked to renounce it in the name of subservience to the supposed world order.
Today, then, to these European nations, where the right wing have not ceased to defend national freedoms at a time when almost every other political persuasion put up with their enslavement, we are tempted to shout a warning, "Do not enter this house which is already suffocating us.
Now that you have just emerged from your former prison, do not rush to enter a new one.
Do not make an irreparable error. Mr Verheugen told you on behalf of the Commission that there is no going back.
He also told you that expressing a point of view other than his was to indulge in populism.
Populism is how technocrats choose to denigrate the will of the people when it is expressed in a direction which does not suit them.
Remember, then, to safeguard the expression of the will of your peoples, now that they are free at last, since tomorrow they may, like the Danes, wish to free themselves of this yoke."
If, however, the candidate countries were to persist in their intended course, we would confine our reservations to this brotherly warning.
We should certainly not wish to give some false impression that we were in some way hostile to these nations that belong to our family, these nations that are European in terms of their peoples, languages and geography, that are Christian by faith and Western by civilisation, and, we hope, immune to all modern forms of totalitarianism, including those that are now approaching, after decades of terrible suffering.
So, if you really do want to, then come on in!
But hold your heads up high and do not let yourselves be impressed by the speeches on corruption which the Commission representative has just addressed to you, for there is not one European Union Member State that is in a position to preach to you.
Do not let them inspect your human rights record at a time when the Council Presidency aims to remove the Member of the European Parliament, Jean-Marie Le Pen, from office after an unfair procedure.
Either refuse to enter or enter with your head held high, unabashed, and thereby become our companions in misfortune.
Mr President, yesterday six States, today fifteen and tomorrow twenty-eight, but what sort of a Europe are we building? Have we managed to establish the Europe of diversities which the peoples of our countries are hoping and praying for?
This is more than a question; it is a real challenge, and it is up to us to accept it.
Reducing enlargement to the adoption of the acquis as we are currently doing, means indulging in the highly technocratic exercise of making the candidate states take on thousands of Community regulations, while being incapable of implementing them ourselves.
The increasingly strong reservations expressed by our peoples and Denmark' s recent rejection of the euro serve to remind us of that.
Now that we are engaged in reviewing the Treaties, some States are already calling for a new reform.
Once again, this constant groping around shows either that we do not know where we are going or that we know only too well and that it is too shameful to mention.
It would be just as irresponsible to wish to go further.
Quite rightly, the Commission has stressed the risk of quality and speed being incompatible.
I think specifically that in going too quickly to six then to fifteen we have displayed our inability to build a Europe which respects the disparities between its initial members.
Is it reasonable to move ahead in the same manner? I do not think so, and we therefore refuse, today, to follow you down this road which, in the long term, will do nothing but smother the hope of a lasting peace on the continent of Europe.
Tomorrow will tell.
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall now stop for a break and something to eat and shall resume at 9 o' clock.
I trust that there will be a full turnout!
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Progress towards accession by the 12 candidate countries (continued)
We now continue with the joint debate on progress towards accession by the 12 candidate countries.
Mr President, Commissioner, many people form the impression that enlargement of the EU is a project which is going to cost an incredible amount of money.
That is not an entirely correct description of how things look in reality, as noted as early as during the Berlin Summit in March 1999 when the budget guidelines were drawn up.
It was then clearly shown that we can in fact tackle enlargement successfully within the EU' s budget.
In the opinion on the Brok report, for which I was responsible and which has been backed by the Committee on Budgets, the conclusion is the same.
The vast majority of international investigations point to macroeconomic gains in connection with enlargement.
This applies to the candidate countries, but in fact it also applies to all current Member States.
To these should be added all the other advantages which cannot be measured in figures or assessed in economic terms.
Through enlargement, we shall be participating in the largest common market in the world, with almost 500 million people and 25 per cent of world trade.
We shall obtain increased competition and a more rapid process of reform in Western Europe too.
Better conditions for economic growth will be created throughout Europe.
Albeit in a somewhat longer time-scale, we shall be obtaining a common currency for the whole continent.
Together, we shall be able to solve Europe' s cross-border environmental problems.
We shall acquire an extended and stable democracy and, with it, opportunities for enduring peace on what has been a constantly war-torn continent.
The composite picture of enlargement does not therefore point to insuperable costs but to gains, however the calculations are carried out.
They are so great that enlargement ought to be undertaken as soon as it possibly can be.
Mr President, Slovenia has succeeded in achieving the majority of the short-term priority objectives of the pre-accession partnership and this positive evaluation is helping to provide fresh impetus for the negotiations.
I am focusing on Slovenia because I have been involved in that country' s accession process and because it is a fine example of how realisation that the end is in sight can speed things up.
There are only a few days to go before the Slovenian general elections.
This is not the most opportune moment for it to focus on foreign policy and the interchanges between the different parties could become heated and exploitative.
However, with the exception of insignificant minorities, no political group is questioning the principle objective of the Slovenian policy which is to join the European Union as soon as possible.
The political line therefore remains unchanged.
The speeches of all those who have contributed to today' s debate on enlargement paint a not-dissimilar picture.
The report on Slovenia presents us with a problem which is also part of the Czech question, the Croatian question and the situation of other nations.
However, at various different stages, always during or immediately following the Second World War, measures were adopted which do not clearly meet the Copenhagen criteria, given the prevailing spirit at the time, and yet the political and ideological architecture of the period, including the peace treaties, was founded on precisely those laws.
The third amendment to the Slovenian document, for example, welcomes the Slovenian Government's intention to ascertain whether the laws and decrees currently in force, which date from 1943, 1944 and 1945, are in conflict with the Copenhagen criteria.
Internal battles are being sparked off in the individual countries over these issues.
While an amendment, as we said, welcomes the Slovenian Government's intention to ascertain whether the laws are in conflict with the Copenhagen criteria, the Slovenian parliament' s Foreign Policy Committee, which has decision-making power, stresses that the bases established between 1934 and 1935, upon which Yugoslavia was created, are fundamental, and requests that the Slovenian Government firmly enforce this position in its entirety, that part of the country ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, people have spoken about a very fast timetable in the discussions on enlargement.
On the other hand, it has been demanded of the new Member States that, prior to accession, they should have adopted and implemented the whole of the acquis communautaire and that the transitional periods should be few and brief.
There is an irreconcilable conflict between these points of view.
Some have suggested that this conflict should be resolved by offering the applicant countries membership of the EEA first.
This is not a realistic idea.
The EEA would not suit the applicant countries and, besides, they will be satisfied with nothing less than membership of the European Union.
Rapid enlargement of the EU is a political inevitability.
That is why I have asked and I am now asking why we could not change the terms of membership.
We could specify a basic version of the acquis, which would contain core parts of the EEA agreements and a common foreign and security policy.
In addition to adopting and implementing this basic version, the new members would obviously have to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria, agree to adopt the acquis in its entirety as a longer-term objective, and commit to the political goals of the Union.
In this way we could create preconditions for membership of many or even all the applicant countries in the next few years.
In splitting the body of EU law in two, the level of integration achieved by the present Member States could be guaranteed and cooperation could be further enhanced.
If the Union were to enlarge rapidly it would have to decentralise dramatically, as was stated in the ELDR Group' s position on enlargement.
Thus, the tasks and competence of the Union would have to be curtailed and it would then concentrate on the core issues that can only be dealt with at EU level.
This would mean that the Union would obviously also become differentiated, so that some present Member States would move further along the path of integration than others.
A Europe of enlargement would be one of both decentralisation and differentiation.
Talk about the fast accession to the Union on the part of the applicant countries is just empty words unless the conditions of membership are changed.
Mr President, the members of the Communist Party of Greece do not intend to vote in favour of Mr Brok' s and the other reports; not only do they state that people in candidate countries have much to gain from integration, they also support the way in which they are preparing for integration, by assimilating the acquis communautaire and, more importantly, promoting wholesale privatisation, the reversal of everything society has fought for and much else besides.
However, this form of preparation, as experienced at grass roots level, is having exactly the opposite effect.
National sovereignty and independence are being eroded, multinationals are wading in and unemployment, poverty, wretchedness, corruption, pornography and trafficking in human beings are rising to new heights, while governments are generously offering up health, education, culture, industry and the agricultural economy in return for the support of the new, often Mafia-style master class of the USA, the European Union and ÍÁÔÏ.
It is for these reasons and, more importantly, because of our own experience in Greece, that our opposition to the enlargement of the European Union is meant as an expression of brotherly solidarity to the workers and people in general in the candidate countries.
We call on these people to join with the people of the European Union in fighting a European Union which exploits and interferes, including militarily, which fleeces the people of their wealth and the fruits of their labour and which abolishes the social rights for which they have fought so hard and sacrificed so much for so long.
We call on them to fight for a different Europe of all the people, a Europe without this inhumane side, in which people will defend their destiny and live with each other in peace, freedom, comradeship and mutually beneficial cooperation.
As far as Cyprus is concerned, despite the fact that the Poos report contains much that is true, we feel, in addition to the foregoing, that the process of integration into the European Union and the decisions taken at Helsinki will not only fail to resolve the problem of the occupation in accordance with UN resolutions; they will legitimise the occupation and the definitive partition of the island.
And, for the record, we note that the question of the withdrawal of the occupying army was hardly even touched on when the occupying force was granted candidate status.
Finally, because there has been much talk today of the tenth anniversary of the reunification of Germany, I should like to ask the Council and Mr Verheugen if they have any idea when this unified Germany intends, having occupied Greece, to pay the loan needed for war reparations.
Mr President, I want to focus my remarks on the orphanages in Romania.
I believe that the Romanian Government has problems in estimating the number of orphans who are presently in the orphanage system in that country.
In correspondence received by the European Commission delegation office in Bucharest from the Romanian Government it is estimated that there are between 100 000 and 140 000 orphans in Romania at present.
The brutality of the Ceausescu regime ensured that so many children were orphaned in Romania since the late 60s.
There are up to 100 000 people employed within the Romanian orphanages themselves.
This is a complicating factor when one addresses this issue.
I visited Romania at the end of July to see at first hand the workings of one of the largest orphanages which is in northern Romania.
It is clear to me that the institutional, ordered regime which operates in that country results in many long-term health consequences for orphaned children.
It was also clear that the staff who work in Romanian orphanages need further child care opportunities.
Many of the orphanages in Romania are old, antiquated buildings.
New, modern facilities such as those built by the Romanian Challenge Appeal are going to be needed if the quality of life for orphaned children is going to be improved.
I visited two of these houses that I can recommend to anyone.
I saw at first hand what benefit these homes - and they are homes - are bringing to the orphaned children.
It is imperative that the accession negotiations between Romania and the Union detail exactly what the Romanian Government needs to do to improve the standard and quality of orphanages in that country.
It is not sufficient to make commitments. They must act.
I had the opportunity of meeting with non-governmental organisations in Romania which are working with the orphanages.
I publicly commend the work of these and, in particular, the Romanian Challenge Appeal based in Birmingham and others from Ireland supported by a number of people including Daniel O'Donnell, the Irish entertainer, who has pledged GBP 1 million and has raised that in Ireland and other parts of the world.
It is people like this who have done so much.
We must ensure that Romania is not allowed into the European Union unless it addresses this issue.
Mr President, I take my hat off to the general rapporteur and his team.
I regard the report as a great achievement.
Not only will enlargement affect human beings, it will also have an impact on the plant and animal kingdom.
This all-round view demonstrates the enormous complexity of the issue of enlargement.
There are many individual aspects to be taken into account.
The Committee on Fisheries wants to have its say, but has no intention of putting a brake on things.
We have some quite specific proposals.
We are not going to start back at square one, but we do insist on upholding the Community patrimony, which is of course known as the acquis communautaire, as does the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
After all, although the Brok report contains ten points concerning the agricultural policy aspects of enlargement, the common European fisheries policy goes unmentioned.
Now that is a real Community policy, and an all-encompassing one to boot. It encompasses all aspects of our daily life and directly affects the European labour market.
The consequences of failing to take the fisheries policy into account could prove disastrous and should not be dismissed merely by referring to solidarity amongst the nations.
Unfortunately, so far, the report has failed to take account of these aspects, apart from the fact that the unanimous opinion of the Committee on Fisheries reappears as the annex.
That is not enough.
We therefore call upon the rapporteur, the Commission and the Council to supplement the agricultural policy section with the fisheries policy section, for example by changing the title 'Agricultural Aspects of Enlargement' to 'Agricultural and Fisheries Aspects of Enlargement' .
It should not prove difficult to make the necessary editorial changes.
After all, the Committee on Fisheries believes legal provisions and information obligations, for example, to be of fundamental importance too.
I would urge you to support the relevant amendments.
Mr President, I would like to make another comment about Poland.
The Polish people believe that the country will be ready for accession with effect from 31 December 2002, and Poland has certainly made great strides since the accession negotiations started in March 1998.
There are already a number of progress reports available to us, and Parliament, which plays an important part in this process, has repeatedly made its feelings known on the subject.
Parliament supports the Commission' s strategy, according to which, each candidate state should be dealt with and assessed on the basis of its own progress and merits.
However, there are also problems requiring a cross-border solution.
In Mr Gawronski' s report, the Commission is urged, by the rapporteur among others, to examine measures for furthering development and for strengthening the synergy between Poland, Lithuania and the Russian region of Kaliningrad.
I feel it is entirely reasonable to ask this of the Commission, and that the Commission' s response should be to put forward a proposal.
I have already made this point once this afternoon, on another occasion.
All in all, when it comes to the question of how positive people are about the enlargement process, it is worth pointing out that opinion polls in several candidate states show that enthusiasm for accession to the EU is on the wane.
Not in all countries but in several.
That comes as no surprise, because a whole decade has passed since the historic turning point of 1989/1990, and there is still no comprehensive information and communication strategy for the people.
Mr Verheugen said the same this afternoon.
Now, all hopes and expectations are pinned on France.
Above all, the Nice Summit must clarify whether, and how, the EU, for its part, can get itself completely ready for enlargement in good time.
When the current Intergovernmental Conference finishes, institutional reform should create the necessary institutional conditions for an enlarged EU, i.e. for a Union comprising 25 Member States or more.
It is absolutely essential for an enlarged European Union to be able to function effectively and have the capacity to act.
Not only does the success of the French Presidency depend on it, the progress of the entire enlargement process is at stake for all concerned, including Poland.
Mr President, let us no longer use the word enlargement, but rather talk about accession, or even better, the reunification of Europe.
The candidate states have spared no effort to meet the requirements.
It is clear, though, that some countries have made more headway than others.
This is why it is impossible to set a general date of accession; each country is welcome as soon as it has met the Copenhagen criteria, either before or after the European elections.
It is remarkable that the national documents are often far more upbeat than the Brok report.
We do not do the candidate countries any favours by scaling down the requirements or making out that the situation is better than it is.
A great deal still needs to be done.
This includes issues such as democracy, the constitutional state, decentralisation, the fight against corruption, EU regulations, industrial changes, consumer protection, environmental measures and agricultural reform.
The EU must pull out all the stops in order to support the candidates in these areas and not raise any new barriers, of course.
And all parties must aim for the shortest possible transitional periods, if any at all.
It is better to have a sound accession at a slightly later date than a premature one which proves inadequate.
I have noted a dangerous trend.
Frustration in the candidate countries is mounting because they feel the accession process is taking far too long.
And at the same time, there is growing resistance to accession among the population within the Member States.
And even the European politicians have insufficient insight into the negotiating process.
If this situation does not change, the whole reunification will be up in the air.
I would therefore call on the government leaders to assume their responsibility and to stop this trend in its tracks.
They must enter into a dialogue with their own people, and thereby convince them of the huge importance of peace, stability and prosperity across the entire continent, and of the historic importance of the reunification of Europe.
Commissioner Verheugen, as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I took advantage of the opportunity to visit the countries that want to accede to the European Union.
It is rumoured that you are no stranger to these countries yourself.
I believe you will join me in my assessment that a great deal has happened in these countries, but that this can largely be attributed to their own efforts, also on the financial front.
The EU largely makes its presence felt as a result of reduced agricultural products, which drive the prices down in these countries.
This is particularly true of the time we had the pig crisis, when pigs that were almost paid for finally ended up in Poland, having gone via the Soviet Union.
The debate intensified as a result. When we now talk in terms of liberalising trade, the so-called zero option, then this is because the Commission did not satisfy Parliament' s demands early on, for it to refuse point-blank to grant export subsidies to the applicant states.
People in these countries - and especially in Poland - are now discussing what has become of the compensation payments.
The Polish people are asking themselves whether they will receive these payments once they are members of the EU, or whether they are regarded as second-class citizens.
I have tried to impress on them that it will take a good deal longer yet, and that in fact it will not be discussed until after their accession, which will be several years hence.
I have told them that it is more important for the time being, to concentrate on the structural funds. It would be a good idea if Poland were to request an increase from SAPARD, and perhaps a modification too, in order to tailor these funds more effectively to the conditions, in Poland in this case, but the same applies to the other candidate countries.
Just to compare: Poland has EUR 168 million available to it in SAPARD funds.
The compensation payments amount to EUR 1.5 or 1.8 thousand million, are widely dispersed, and will do nothing to aid the development of these countries.
It would make sense if we were to fulfil Poland' s demands for us to increase these structural funds now, and if we were to adapt our instruments and also begin to incorporate the compensation payments into the structural funds, at the next agricultural reform, which will take place earlier, by my reckoning - or at least the planning stage will - than the accession of these countries.
We would then share a common goal with these countries in the common agricultural policy, and it would also enable this agricultural matter to be settled once and for all by speaking to Joschka Fischer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question of enlargement is a multi-faceted question and cannot be covered in two minutes.
I shall therefore confine myself to the subject of Cyprus.
My congratulations to Mr Poos on such a thorough and objective report.
Mr Poos brings a European vision to bear on the subject of Cyprus.
I think that the Poos report will set a precedent for the European Parliament and I am sure that the House will support it unanimously.
When Cyprus was still a British colony, a poet wrote, "Masters you have changed many, hearts you have not" .
Cyprus' s heart has always beaten in time with Europe.
Cyprus is Europe, it is part of its history and it is time the island came into the European fold.
Cyprus has close links with the people of the eastern Mediterranean and integrating the island will heighten the Union' s profile in this vital area.
Cyprus will be a sort of bridge with the countries in the area.
I have no need to raise the economic dimension, it is covered thoroughly and dynamically in the Poos report and the reports by the other institutions of the European Union.
I would merely remind the House that, of all the candidate countries, Cyprus comes first as regards meeting the economic criteria and qualifies for immediate membership of EMU.
Cyprus will have no trouble adjusting to the acquis communautaire.
The Poos report notes that the State operates smoothly, respect for human rights and freedoms form the cornerstone of the social and cultural tradition of the island and the country' s social structures are, first and foremost, humane structures.
There is still, of course, the question of the partition of the two communities.
However, I am sure that, with good will and the help of the European Union, a solution can be found which will allow the two communities to live together peaceably and prosper, as they have done for centuries.
The Poos report rightly stresses that both communities will enjoy the benefits of membership of the European Union.
The Greek-Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots have nothing to divide them.
It is foreign intervention which is to blame for the partition of the island.
Let us hope that the island will soon reunite within the extended family of the European Union.
Mr President, I join with my colleagues in their broad support for the concept of enlargement.
It is a natural progression for existing EU Member States and, when fully operational, will contribute significantly to the economic and social development of the entire European Union.
As a member of the Maltese delegation and, coming as I do from one of the most peripheral islands in Europe, I support the country's application for membership.
From an EU perspective, Malta's admission will bear further testimony to the goals, ideals and aspirations of the European Union's founding fathers.
Malta's application for membership, after a disruptive start, is now fully back on course and in my view meets the Copenhagen criteria for membership.
It has considerably more work to do in meeting the requirements of the acquis communautaire.
Nevertheless the speed with which Malta has addressed the enlargement requirements is a positive indication of its commitment to European integration and its desire to be a full partner in the European project.
I support the view of the rapporteur that Malta should be admitted to membership in the first tranche of enlargement and that negotiations should be completed by the end of 2001.
I wish the negotiators continued success with their work in this important area.
Mr President, in my committee, very few things are subject to Community law.
In other words, a great many issues are based on subsidiarity, and that is how it should stay.
Accordingly, we have confined ourselves to a handful of issues and I only intend to pick out two particular aspects.
The audiovisual sector is very important.
We have established that the candidate countries have simply not made enough effort on the legislative front, and the legal provisions governing the audiovisual media fall a long way short of meeting the requirements of the acquis communautaire.
That was my first point.
My second point is that there has also been precious little effort made to approximate the legal provisions on the intellectual property front, i.e. with regard to copyright.
We have also addressed the issue of minorities, because the integration of these minorities - including their linguistic integration - in these countries, is also of significance.
We have included a number of comments concerning the Russians in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and concerning the Roma in the other countries.
Criticism and questions aside though, I would also like to highlight a positive development.
In fact we have some positive feedback for you on the educational and cultural front.
For years now, we have had links with these countries through the Tempus programme, and likewise, for a year and a half now, they have been entitled to participate fully in the educational, cultural and exchange programmes for young people.
I believe we have been truly successful in building bridges here.
We must not concentrate on economic matters alone, for it is in the very areas I have mentioned that we must find common ground and build on it.
Indeed it is already there.
I would like to make the honourable members aware of how unsatisfactory it is that the exchange under the Socrates programme always involves people from Eastern Europe visiting Western Europe, and that we must encourage our young people to visit the countries of Central and Eastern Europe instead.
Only then will we truly find common ground in Europe.
Mr President, today' s debate concerns the major challenge at the turn of the millennium: to unite Europe in order to create peace and security, together with social, economic and environmental development.
Unfortunately, these sentiments have had to yield to technical arguments in the course of the negotiations.
The requirement for becoming an EU Member State is that of complying with the basic Copenhagen criteria.
Negotiations must, in the first place, be aimed at easing the way to accession by the candidate countries.
Naturally, they must comply with EU legislation, but I think it is sometimes rather hard to say that these countries must do this from day one.
There are Member States of the European Union which have not in actual fact complied with everything, in spite of their having been Member States from the beginning.
This debate has been going on in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
It is being said in certain quarters that a country must meet the requirements before it becomes a Member State.
I think it is important to note that the condition of the environment will not improve as a result of these countries staying outside a little longer.
Instead, we ought to try to help them as much as possible and as early as possible, as well as perhaps opting to accept rules that specify rather longer transitional periods.
In this context, it is a question of rousing public opinion in favour of enlargement.
We cannot afford to lose more of the momentum that existed at the beginning of the Nineties.
We have already lost quite a lot of this.
I believe it is a matter of urgency that those of us in this Chamber, in the Commission and in positions of national leadership should take responsibility.
We must no longer hide behind democratic considerations and say that we must listen to public opinion.
It is time to lead European opinion in the right direction.
It has more to do with political objectives and political will than with technical solutions.
We must explain this to people in the candidate countries and especially in our own Member States if the enlargement process is to be successful. And there is no time to waste.
Mr President, enlargement will not be achieved in a controlled and organised way in accordance with the timetable the Commission is proposing.
The talks do not need to reach a conclusion at the end of 2002 simply for the sake of political ambition, if the problems are not solved by then.
We must keep political urgency at bay.
The biggest problem is the different level of development of the countries.
The best illustration of that is the reunification of Germany.
In Germany the economic, social and cultural differences have not been as great as those among the present Member States and many of the applicant countries but the process has nonetheless come to cost EUR 600 billion.
Where will we find the money for still much greater sums, to reduce the much greater differences in levels of development?
Commissioner Verheugen' s idea of a referendum on enlargement was heavily criticised, and the reason is obvious: those who have to pay cannot be let to decide on the matter.
I propose that the model for enlargement be the same that was implemented in connection with the previous round of enlargement. The applicant countries first should join the European Economic Area, where they can harmonise their economies with that of the EU, without political commitments or coercion.
Mr President, first of all, as Socialist rapporteur for the report on Romania, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent report.
I believe that Romania has embraced the challenge of a transition to an open democratic market economy.
It has successfully embraced reforms which are essential to secure a more prosperous and safer future.
As both the Commission report and Baroness Nicholson's report acknowledges, some progress has been made in improving conditions for some minorities.
Romania has ratified major human rights conventions such as the European Convention on Human Rights and the revised European Social Charter.
But ratification is not enough.
What matters most is implementation of the rights contained in those conventions.
I also believe that the Commission wrongly defines minority rights solely in terms of the Roma and Hungarian communities.
The rights of these minorities are essential to a free, open, democratic and European Romania, but I am also particularly concerned about the rights of other minorities such as the groups listed in Article 13 of the TEU: those who suffer from discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religious belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.
Laws do not in themselves solve the problems.
Indeed, the Romanian Upper House refuses to act on removing homosexuality from the penal code.
This is nothing short of scandalous.
Blatant discrimination occurs in other countries such as Poland and Malta.
In Poland recently, the former President, Lech Walensa, told a campaign rally, 'I believe these people (gays) need medical treatment.
Imagine if they were all like that!
We would not have any descendants.'
That is as ignorant as it is misinformed and we must make every effort to ensure that when we look at the accession countries human rights and the treatment of the minorities are at the top of the agenda.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Elmar Brok, and all the rapporteurs who examined the files on the individual candidate countries.
Even though they contain the odd contradiction, this range of texts gives us the opportunity to draw up a detailed and customised progress report on the negotiations.
At the same time, they enable us to gauge the extent of the work accomplished by the Commission and its departments in the context of screening and the negotiations.
We now, Commissioner, impatiently await your own progress report on the subject.
The accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and Malta, provides us with a historic opportunity to unite all the nations of Europe on the basis of shared ideals, and to make the whole continent a more stable place.
As a member of the delegation to the EU-Latvia Joint Parliamentary Committee, I should also like to briefly mention this specific case, by way of example.
Significant steps have been taken in Latvia towards meeting the political criteria.
Admittedly, some progress still has to be made in other areas, such as, to mention just one area which the rapporteur, Mrs Schroedter, did not raise, the modernisation of legal procedures and infrastructures.
Nonetheless the political authorities in Latvia are unquestionably determined to bring the process of reform to a successful conclusion, and this bodes well for the future.
In the face of the twofold challenge of both the enlargement, which must enable Europe to come to terms with itself, and the institutional reform, which must increase democracy and efficiency within the institutions, the European Union now, as it often does, stands at an important turning point in its history.
The institutions, the Member States, and all of us, have to live up to this challenge, also in relation to the fears of public opinion in our own countries and to rediscover the inspiration, the ambition and the vision of the founding fathers of Europe.
Mr President, do excuse me for arriving late.
Unfortunately, I am still at a loss as to how to find my way out of the maze of garages by the shortest route.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to address a problem that is largely to be found in the Baltic States, in particular Latvia and Estonia.
It concerns the existence of a relatively large Russian-speaking ethnic group, supplemented by people from Ruthenia and the Ukraine.
The vast majority of these people are there as a result of a decade of occupation, which is why they keep themselves very much to themselves.
In the course of the last few years, it has been possible to bring about a distinct improvement in the situation, due in no small part to the influence of the European Institutions.
I would remind you that only a few years ago, the language law contributed to the negative assessment.
I would also ask you to cast your minds back to the great difficulties attending the nationality law, which had to be amended and tailored to European standards.
These legal hurdles have now been overcome, as a result of which, many Russian-speaking citizens are now prepared to recognise the citizens' rights and duties, both in Latvia and Estonia, which are the countries worst affected.
It is a process that is having very mixed success, but it still inspires great hope, because it will mean that these citizens will also become citizens of the Union in the future, and will therefore be called upon, in a special way, to establish ties with their homeland, where their forefathers come from.
I have a shrewd idea that these citizens will become agents of cross-border cooperation in a future enlarged European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too should like to thank and congratulate Mr Brok and the other rapporteurs, but I would mainly like to focus on Slovakia and the policy on minorities, to be more specific.
Respect for the cultural identity of a community, even if that community constitutes a minority, increases the self-respect of those who belong to that community, and that self-respect is needed if they want to take their own self-development seriously.
This wish for emancipation and self-realisation then motivates people to give something back to the community.
This is the philosophy one should adopt when looking at minorities - that would be far more positive.
In many enlargement countries, these minorities are labelled as problems. This is the case for the Roma people and others.
This is also true of Slovakia.
The report - and I am referring to that by Mr Wiersma now - considers a fundamental change of attitude with regard to the Roma to be essential.
This says something about the long road ahead, but the Hungarian minority also fears that, despite the 1999 Law on the Use of Minority Languages, it will remain curtailed in its social, cultural and economic development.
I come from Belgium, a country where language laws have been unable to solve the problems between the peoples; it takes more than that, education from the top down, including universities.
This required more autonomy.
I am only referring to this to illustrate that simple solutions do not generally help solve complicated issues.
There is no doubt that the diversity of cultures and peoples in Central and Eastern Europe, and in the Balkans, is, within the framework of a unified Europe, being given new opportunities, but at the same time, Europe will also need to realise that a problem such as the Roma, for example, is a problem of a nation without a country and that is our problem too.
We cannot simply pass the buck to Slovakia, Romania or the other countries.
Mr President, I have no intention of digging over old ground a month before the next progress reports are due to be published.
As shadow rapporteur for Lithuania, on behalf of my group, I would, however, like to congratulate Mrs Hoff on her report.
Above all though, I would like to bring various expectations and reservations that I have, to the attention of the Council, which, I am sorry to say, is largely absent.
Unfortunately, it seems to me, that for all the fine words and industrious opening and closing of chapters, the Council is not applying the political pressure needed to drive this enlargement process forward.
There is a risk that the window of opportunity referred to by Commissioner Verheugen will simply be allowed to slam shut, because the first loyalty of the protagonists in the Council, in particular the Heads of Government, is to their national agendas, and sadly they do not have the ambition to raise their own profile for the sake of the whole of Europe.
Since Helmut Kohl, Europe' s citizen of honour, stepped down from the European stage, Jean-Claude Junker is the only other Head of Government I can think of off the top of my head, for whom the European project is a matter truly dear to their heart.
Nonetheless, I call upon the Council as a whole to demonstrate the political leadership we need to do justice to the size of task.
Put aside any thoughts of replacing the principle of 'Each according to his/her merits' with that of 'Each according to his/her merits, but not until my elections are over' .
This applies both to the French Presidency and to the German Bundestag elections.
There is no reason to delay the conclusion of negotiations until after these elections.
Those who subordinate historic decisions to petty national, or even party political considerations, will not earn their place in the history books.
I urge you to set a deadline in Nice by which you intend to conclude negotiations with those candidate countries - naming no names - that have made the most progress.
Let us all stop asking them for things that do not fall within the scope of the acquis communautaire.
Whilst there are certain honourable members here who should heed this, the message is intended primarily for the ears of the national Council delegations attending the negotiations.
The way individual governments allow particular lobbyists to manipulate and take advantage of them to a certain extent, in the course of negotiations, is sometimes unworthy of them.
Again I call upon the Council to show political leadership and give the candidate countries a specific deadline in Nice, which they can work towards.
Incidentally, the French farmers and all their counterparts will still be there, before and after every election!
Mr President, I would like to begin by talking about Bulgaria, which in recent years has made notable progress in its transition to a free market democratic society, but not without economic and social problems.
Nevertheless, Bulgaria now has an economy which is developing at a steady rate.
This is not reflected, however, in a balanced improvement in the standard of living of the whole population.
Perhaps a constructive dialogue between the government, the opposition parties and social representatives could provide a positive impetus to move things in the right direction.
This dialogue would also contribute to the creation of the necessary administrative capacity for the effective management of the country, creating structures which do not currently exist and reducing cases of corruption.
Many countries have faced similar problems at some time in their development and can advise Bulgaria in order to help it to overcome those problems it is facing at the moment.
In Bulgaria, 20% of the active population is out of work.
In addressing problems such as this, which have no easy solution, it is essential to create an environment conducive to the work of industry and to there being competitive economic structures.
Bulgaria also has an important geopolitical role to play in the future of the Balkans.
Its cooperation with the international community during the Kosovo conflict, and its balanced role at that time, are of great importance for the whole region.
In fact, Bulgaria uses its position as a bridge between Central Europe and the Balkans in a way that is fruitful for everyone.
The European Union must continue to help Bulgaria in its progress towards joining the Union and, of course, to ensure that the planning of that aid becomes even more decentralised.
Mr President, having talked about Bulgaria, I would not want to end without a more general comment. I would like to restate our support for enlargement.
If we want the process of enlargement to take place in a serious and honest way, we will have to give a commitment to two essential issues.
Firstly, that enlargement should take place hand in hand with a deepening of the Community.
The Intergovernmental Conference must therefore be an effective step forward on the road to political union.
Secondly, the Union should tackle enlargement with sufficient budgetary resources.
Enlargement will thereby have credibility in the eyes of those who want to be with us in the future, and credibility in the eyes of our public from this very moment.
Mr President, I intend to concentrate on the democratic aspects of Malta' s accession.
What happened in Denmark has demonstrated that, as matters stand, the EU' s grasp of democracy meets with criticism and rejection on the part of the citizens - and I would say these are citizens who take a special interest and are well informed.
Malta is only to be allowed four MEPs, if the proposals tabled by Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen are anything to go by.
If the Leinen proposal is adopted, then this will lead to discrimination against the small countries and against the new small parties in the smaller Member States.
This will reduce the political diversity of debate.
If Malta is only permitted four MEPs then this will further entrench the two-party system over there, which has been founded on confrontation for decades, and it will hinder political innovation.
Malta should be represented by a minimum of six MEPs, like the other smaller Member States.
Democracy is not just about majorities, more than anything it is about minorities being given commensurate codecision powers.
I hope that is the spirit in which Malta will accede to the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 'from problem child to model pupil' , that is how we could characterise the determination of the Slovakian government and the Slovakian parliament to swiftly tread the path to EU membership, and to spend the past two years making every available effort to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria.
We hope that the Slovakian parliament and the government will pursue this course resolutely and find the patience they need to overcome opposition and strengthen the Slovakian people on their way to Europe.
It follows from this though, that there must also be privatisation and restructuring of the economy.
The banking and financial sector must be completely reformed, and fiscal consolidation must be continued.
The dialogue between the social partners, the other groups within civil society, the government and parliament will play an important - and as we see it - positive part in the process.
The small and medium-sized enterprises must be the main beneficiaries of economic diversification.
In the long term, Slovakia should earn an ever-increasing amount of its foreign currency from economic sectors that have nothing to do with the processing of oil, or weapons production.
We welcome the fact that there is now close cooperation between Hungary and the Slovak Republic.
We are particularly delighted that Slovakia has made a start on granting the Hungarian and the other minorities rights, which are gradually approaching the standards prescribed by the Council of Europe.
It is important for this condition to be fulfilled if Slovakia' s membership of the European Union is to proceed smoothly.
Incidentally, the Slovakian government is making remarkable efforts to modernise the state apparatus and to bring on the peripheral regions.
We have noted with satisfaction that the Slovakian parliament is conscious of what needs to be done for Slovakia to be able to accede to the EU, and has set about trying to accomplish this systematically and rapidly.
We are also aware that, being a transit country in Central Europe for those on their way to Western Europe, the Slovak Republic has a special duty to take a pro-active stance against trafficking in human beings, and to fight corruption and organised crime with even more determination than before, and we have noted that the executive judiciary has been further strengthened by recent changes in the law.
On a final note, allow me, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, to thank our rapporteur, Mr Wiersma, for his excellent and comprehensive report, and to assure him of my group' s support.
Mr President, Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, enlargement beyond the former Iron Curtain is the work of peace.
Peace brings hope and war destroys it.
As we are demanding obedience to the law and an end to corruption of the applicant countries, we ourselves also have to establish the principles of equality and honesty.
But differences in income among us have only grown, as has the information gap in many cases.
Enlargement should not be achieved, however, by choosing the new NATO countries first.
That would be tantamount to compliance with the logic of the war machine.
Neither can we base enlargement on the idea that a given applicant naturally has priority over another as if, without it, the whole process could not start at all.
The applicant countries must have equal status and their accession must depend only how much progress they have made.
Certain notorious parties offering a shortcut are like dishonest judges at a sports competition.
The Union will not be ready to accept new members if our unemployment rate remains as high as it is.
It will inevitably lead to conflict, and even more instability caused by extremist movements.
This is where we have to set to work.
We must bring down the iron curtain that exists among us, as getting rid of social and educational inequality is a much more important condition than all the weight of the votes of the Commission or the Council.
The ignorant and the excluded cannot make up the information society: they are a sure sign of its failure.
I wish to warn all those who are ripping the Union in two, into an inner circle and the rest.
We are just doing away with a divided Europe, and we are not going to create a new one now.
The best way to simplify bureaucracy is to concentrate on those issues for which we must find a solution together.
In the Member States and the local authorities it is essential to take decisions on those matters that relate to these common problems. Otherwise we will be moving towards a terrifying, controlled society, ruled by an ever-darkening core.
Mr President, I suggest that the Commission give Parliament its assessment of how the internal preconditions of enlargement are developing, in the light of unemployment, exclusion and digital discrimination.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Romania will certainly not be among the countries that accede to the European Union in the first round, but it just goes to show that the Commission hit on the right strategy when it decided to put twelve countries on the same footing as negotiating partners, and then to determine, on the basis of certain criteria, which countries should become members and when.
Firstly, this allows us to dispel any fears our citizens may have that twelve countries, extending as far as Bulgaria and Romania, are to join the European Union in one fell swoop, overwhelming it in the process.
At the same time, we can argue that a country has to meet a set of very clear standards before becoming a member.
All this is to be found in the report by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, and on behalf of my group, I would like to thank her warmly for this report.
Romania did not set out on the road to Europe until a very long time after the fall of the Iron Curtain.
The democratic government has only had since 1996 to catch up on all the things that other countries were able to make an early start on, and with that in mind, it has achieved a considerable amount of success these past four years.
A word about how matters stand on the security front: Romania was one of those countries that gave Europe, and the Atlantic Alliance its backing during the Kosovo conflict.
We should therefore take this opportunity to think about sending out a signal.
If Romania' s accession is not going to be for some time yet, then the Atlantic Alliance should give thought to incorporating Romania into its mechanisms earlier than originally planned.
The same goes for our European security and defence policy.
Since we are aware that Romania and Slovenia have already been involved in discussions on the first round of NATO enlargement, as countries applying for NATO membership, NATO must not allow its enlargement process to come to a standstill.
We can use Romania to lend weight to our argument when seeking to impress on our citizens that it is in our interests to stabilise Europe.
After all, Romania will form part of the European Union' s external border in the future.
It is an important factor in the stabilisation of the Balkans as a whole, and of the region of South Eastern Europe as a whole.
That being so, it is in our interests to extend our system of rights and freedoms as far as Romania, and this is certainly an argument we can use in a critical debate with our public.
If we do not give countries such as Romania and Bulgaria any hope for the future, the situation will remain unstable and that is no good to Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, what with the enlargement reports which are the subject of today' s debate, together with the Brok report and the debate on institutional reform, today can be described, without fear of exaggeration, as a day for celebrating Europe in the 21st century.
The reports all contain many positive points and we can now safely say, enthusiastically and without fear of exaggeration, that it is time to move on to the next stage.
The reports are steeped in optimism and the grumblers need to make way.
We need to look at the wood, not the tree.
History and politics are marching hand in hand.
Now is the time to move up a gear.
Now is the time for Europe to go forward and meet its destiny and put ideological flesh on the bones of enlargement.
Allow me now to move from the general to the specific question of the last two islands in the Mediterranean which are island states, Cyprus and Malta, which have now set their cap at membership of the European Union.
If any area of Europe is ready, they are, especially Cyprus.
From this point of view, it is here that the logic of enlargement will be judged not only on the basis of economic or other criteria, but also on the basis of respect for more general principles which should govern our perception of the future of Europe, a Europe of peace, a Europe of the people, a Europe of states, a Europe of equality and a Europe which respects human rights.
In this sense, I think that, if anything, it will be Cyprus on which Europe' s ability to look itself in the face politically will be judged.
Cyprus and Malta will prove to Europe that it accepts enlargement on general terms, not for reasons of geographical symmetry, but in order to achieve the political integration of united peoples, united cultures and united prospects.
Mr President, the debate that has taken place today will be remembered as one of the most significant demonstrations of the European Parliament' s work on the enlargement process.
I wish to express my gratitude, mainly to the authors of these two reports, but also to Mr Moscovici and Commissioner Verheugen, for their interventions.
They managed to be both realistic and pragmatic in their analyses, without losing sight of the far-thinking objectives that give real meaning to the European project.
Despite the obvious differences in points of view, we have seen broad consensus on the fundamental aspects of the issue.
Amongst these, I would highlight the following: the full inclusion of each new country in the European Union means complete commitment, bringing together economic convergence and partnership in a political project.
This project has various characteristics which the candidate countries and current Member States absolutely must respect, otherwise enlargement will do nothing but dilute our current strengths.
Amongst the characteristics that must define the identity of the European project, the most prominent are cohesion and solidarity between Member States, democracy, the ethic of responsibility, the social dimension and equal opportunities.
Lastly, Mr President, the fact that this debate is taking place at a time when Germany is celebrating the tenth anniversary of its reunification should give us food for thought.
We have exorcised the ghosts of the past.
Although the twentieth century was marked by the greatest possible disunity in Europe, with two terrible wars, the twenty-first century will see the peoples of Europe unite, if we want this to happen.
They will unite in a common project, which is unmistakably a project of peace between Europeans and between Europe and the rest of the world.
Mr President, I come from a country, Sweden, in which there is still quite a lot of scepticism about the EU project.
People do, however, rally in large numbers around one issue, namely that of enlargement.
One might well wonder why.
I believe that the opportunity for transforming the EU into a form of pan-European cooperation lends legitimacy to the enlargement process.
The gains are mainly to be found at the political level.
It is fantastic that countries on this continent which only ten or so years ago were divided are to make joint decisions on matters of common interest in the near future.
This transformation has benefits in terms of democracy and provides the opportunity to create peace and stability in the future.
It has to be recognised that it is about joining forces economically, but this can also give rise to major economic gains in the future as our market increases and there is increased growth in Europe.
We shall see benefits in terms of the environment.
I myself live close to the Baltic, which matters to us all.
When we devise common rules which improve the environment, we create better conditions of life for the future.
That is our common task.
The report states that each country must accede to the EU on its own merits.
It is important that this should happen and that a country should be able to become a member of the EU when it is ready to join.
We now have two tasks before us: firstly, to encourage the Member States not to abandon their efforts, which is why we need to present a target date soon; and secondly to lead the debate with the people in our own countries so that this project enjoys legitimacy in the future too.
Mr President, Commissioner Verheugen said this afternoon that there would be no social or environmental dumping as a result of enlargement.
I believe this is an important goal and all those involved must do their bit to ensure that we achieve this goal.
The points raised by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy in the Brok report are the steps we need to take to this end, and it is essential that we take them if we are to counteract any slowing of the pace on the European environmental policy front.
My group therefore supports the proposal to limit the transitional periods in the environmental sphere to a maximum of five years.
Our political demand is for the problem areas of water, air and waste to be made a priority.
If transitional periods are to be granted, then it would be both necessary and helpful to include realistic interim goals in the accession treaty, and to regard failure to attain these interim goals as a violation of the treaty.
Parliament must be given the information it needs to be able to assess the situation in the candidate countries.
Annual reports from the Commission allow us to follow the implementation process.
The issue of nuclear safety is one of the major challenges facing the enlargement process.
The efforts that have already been made in this sphere demonstrate that this is another area where the enlargement process represents a golden opportunity to achieve greater security in the candidate countries, and indeed in the whole of Europe.
This translates into greater security for the people in the candidate countries and greater security for all the people of Europe.
Nuclear power stations of first generation Soviet construction are a particular danger as far as Europe is concerned.
We call upon the candidate countries to shut down those of their nuclear power stations that they cannot refit, by the date of accession at the very latest.
I have three particular nuclear power stations in mind, and they are Bohunice, Ignalina and Kosloduj.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot afford to underestimate the importance and potential implications of this historic opportunity to unite our continent and live in peace.
As politicians, we must give this momentous process our unequivocal support, even though there are still many aspects to be discussed and negotiated.
The political vision endures.
The responsibility that we parliamentarians bear at this time must enable future generations to live in peace and freedom on our continent.
The standard of living will rise in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as a result of a market-orientated economy, and underpinned by democratic forms of government.
Even though it will not be easily won, we have chosen the right path.
We Austrians are particularly interested in and affected by enlargement in view of our geographical position.
I personally remember the Iron Curtain only too well, because my farm was only a few kilometres away from it.
I would still much rather face the problems that have arisen as a result of opening the borders, than have to continue living with my back to the wall of the Iron Curtain, as we had to for decades.
As well as giving enlargement unequivocal support, I would stress that it should take place as soon as possible.
Agriculture, in particular, has an important role to play, because far more people are employed in this sector in the candidate countries than they are in the EU.
We must tell the candidate countries that they must make the necessary structural changes, so as to be competitive in the future market, and they must increase the number of employment opportunities available in rural areas.
The SAPARD programme provides an excellent opportunity to this end, and I welcome with open arms the fact that the Commission has already approved six programmes.
Transitional periods and arrangements should be kept as short as possible, but one thing I would stress is that the acquis communautaire must be adopted in full.
Particular attention should be given to health, plant health and, above all, the environmental conditions and issues that are so important to us as consumers, and also as farmers, so as to maintain consumer confidence.
The reform of the common agricultural policy must form an efficient basis for the multifunctional activities that the farmers perform in all areas.
The fundamental alignment of the European agricultural model and the development of the rural area will not produce a conflict of interests between the farmers of the EU and those in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
We want to solve problems together and go forward into the future together.
Mr President, it is essential for us to adopt a positive approach to enlargement.
The environment, for example, is an area that will benefit enormously from enlargement, along with many others.
Nevertheless, it will mean we will require clear rules governing the way enlargement takes place.
It is vital for the environment that we have a well-defined arena for transitional measures and that it is clearly stated how to proceed during the transitional period.
We speak a lot about how enlargement should be financed.
We have assets allocated in the budget according to the requirements of Agenda 2000, but we have to take care that the funds we need, which are required particularly in the area of the environment, are available specifically prior to membership.
The funds have to be channelled more strongly to action preceding enlargement than is presently the case according to the proposals in Agenda 2000.
Only in this way can we ensure that the acts will be implemented.
And, in addition, we really must see to it at the same time that the proper administrative practices are in place.
Overall the costs of enlargement have been highlighted very considerably in public debate.
So it was very cheering to hear Klaus Hänsch, speaking for the PSE Group, hope that he Commission would make a real appraisal of the effects of enlargement, including the economic impact if enlargement were not to take place.
Just consider the costs we would incur if the divide were to continue, and what this would mean both socially and in terms of the environment.
Mr President, our task in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, was primarily to assess the situation in the candidate countries with regard to the internal market and the relevant legislation.
But, as has been stressed repeatedly here today, since this concerns one of the key aspects of European enlargement, and the progress made here can only really be assessed with reference to detail, I would again express my regret that we are having this enlargement debate at a time when the Commission' s progress reports 2000 are as yet unavailable.
Only on the basis of these could we form a just impression of the progress made in the individual States. We must therefore content ourselves with a rather sweeping assessment that probably does not give an accurate reflection of the situation in the individual States.
We can take it as read that considerable strides have been made, particularly since the last reports were published.
As Vice-President of our joint parliamentary committee with the Czech Republic, I can vouch for the fact that this is true of the Czech Republic, but I assume the same applies to a number of other States too.
The internal market is a key component in the success of enlargement and it is therefore clear to me that we must tread extremely carefully when it comes to exemptions and transitional periods.
However, in common with our rapporteur, Mr Wuermeling, I believe that it would not be in the interests of either party to the treaty for there to be no transitional periods, and being a delegate from a border region, who, like Mrs Schierhuber, owns a farm in the vicinity of the Czech border, it is a matter of concern to me that the formation of close, common economic areas should be managed without any major problems, and lead to a positive outcome on both sides.
I would like to close with a comment from the report by Mr Schröder, which pleased me enormously, and which, as I see it, also captures the spirit of what Commissioner Verheugen said at the beginning of this debate.
Although the following statement by Mr Schröder only relates to the Czech Republic, I believe the same applies across the board: 'Many weaknesses that are still discernible in the Czech Republic are the legacy of decades of dictatorship.
This being so, politicians from the part of Europe which after the Second World War enjoyed a happier fate, - and this is particularly true of Austria - would be well-advised to be moderate in their criticism of the countries such as the Czech Republic.'
Mr President, I am pleased to be able to make my two-minute contribution to this hotch potch of a discussion, which, given the time of day - and I intend to spend one of my allotted minutes on making this criticism - certainly underlines how little regard we have for the importance of the issue.
It is simply disgraceful that we are debating the enlargement and expansion of the European Union - which affects 100 million people - at midnight.
We ought to stop and think whether it is right for our parliamentary debate on this issue to be treated as if it were a kind of afterthought.
It is little wonder that the people beyond these walls do not give us the respect and attention befitting a Parliament, when that is how we behave.
I will now use my second minute to talk about Slovenia.
I am delighted that the report has turned out to be so positive and that Slovenia - and as leader of the delegation I was able to check this out repeatedly, and in fact the Commissioner was there with me on more than one occasion - has made truly enormous efforts to fulfil the criteria.
There are certainly still a few things to be done and there are still a few issues that need to be clarified.
After all, the Copenhagen criteria are not just something static that countries have to achieve once and then keep to; they are to be used, or rather, applied on an ongoing basis.
We in the European Union also undertake regular checks as to whether human rights are being upheld in the proper manner everywhere.
In this sense, it is a process of development, which we follow attentively, but we hope that Slovenia will continue to hold this positive position and that it will be in the first group.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have picked the right moment to discuss enlargement.
The fact that there has been a reunited Germany in the European Union for ten years now, bears witness to the solidarity between us. Other countries should now be given the chance to share in this, even though enlargement is not just about solidarity.
The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism incorporated its position on the Rack report into the Brok report.
As a Social Democrat, there are three points I would like to highlight.
Firstly, we need a more ambitious transport infrastructure programme for the candidate countries.
That is why the Financial Perspective does not appear to us to go far enough, because there is a huge disparity between the diagnosed infrastructure requirements and the financing instruments made available by the Union, together with the candidate countries' own means, and it will only be possible to implement public private partnership financing models to a limited extent.
However, it is politically unacceptable for there to be development periods in excess of 50 years.
Secondly, the transeuropean corridors are defined intermodally.
We should make a virtue out of something that was born of necessity; i.e. there was a need to localise major trends in goods and passenger movements. In other words, we should keep the integration of modes of transport in mind right from the start.
In addition the traditionally robust sector of goods transport by rail should receive the most support.
In this way, we might avoid having to implement as many regeneration measures at a later stage, as we are having to do in our own countries now.
Thirdly, we want transitional periods for goods transport by road, which will enable there to be a gradual opening up.
They could even start in the pre-accession period.
It is in the interests of both sides to achieve economic and social balance during integration of the transport markets, because we are already waiting with bated breath as to the consequences of distorted competition on our roads.
Mr President, it is to be hoped that the fact that the issue of equal opportunities is the last point to be discussed in the report on enlargement, is no reflection of its status, although it sometimes looks that way.
It is therefore all the more important that equal treatment for men and women should be incorporated into the acquis communautaire as a fundamental human rights issue, and that establishing the necessary institutions in this sphere should be a crucial precondition to the implementation of the acquis communautaire.
Accordingly, equal opportunities must be accorded the same importance, and be discussed with the same level of commitment as all the other issues that feature on the agenda of the accession negotiations.
The candidate countries' legislative programmes and guidelines must include implementation mechanisms that allow for equal opportunities and clearly prohibit discrimination.
We must facilitate this process through dialogue with the European Parliament and back up from experts, and through the involvement of NGOs, associations and organisations, and financial aid.
The public and private institutions in the candidate countries must strive for equal opportunities in all political spheres, and involve issues specific to women in all social, economic and cultural areas.
It is well worth setting up public advice centres for women, which offer women on-the-spot advice, help and mediation.
Special attention must be given to employment policy.
Equal access to education and training, and in consequence of this, the same pay for the same work, is a must.
The candidate countries should also be encouraged to participate in the Community programmes for equal opportunities, and particularly those concerned with violence against women.
It is statistically proven that since the détente with countries of Eastern Europe, there has been a 10% increase in violence against women there.
Likewise, business is booming in the brutal trade in women.
Both the EU and the candidate states should now be doing their utmost to condemn and fight these forms of violence and the trade in women.
A great deal of progress has already been made, I am glad to say, but these countries must not direct all their efforts at economic harmonisation alone.
Mutual respect, consideration for, and fair treatment of, each other, must form one of the main pillars of our European Community.
Mr President, for Sweden' s Christian Democratic Party, eastern enlargement is the EU' s main priority.
After two horrific world wars and fifty years of Communist oppression and dictatorship when - in the name of an oppressive class struggle - democracy, religious freedom, the environment and our Christian and universal dignity as human beings were trampled on, it is now finally time to unite our continent and our part of the world.
I want to address Commissioner Verheugen personally with a few comments but, before that, I wish to affirm that we Christian Democrats in Sweden have never doubted that Mr Verheugen wants to see enlargement towards the East and that the criticism that has been directed against him has been partly motivated by malice.
I should now like to comment on the following points. Firstly, allow each candidate country to negotiate on the basis of its own merits.
Let it be worth a country' s while to be ambitious in achieving the EU objectives.
Secondly, say no to the big bang idea of incorporating candidate countries simultaneously as a large group, since that would militate against the principle that each country should be admitted on its own merits.
Thirdly, gradually devise target dates for each candidate country.
Fourthly, demonstrate strong European solidarity by means of financial contributions in favour of better environmental conditions in the Eastern countries, bearing in mind the appalling environmental legacy from Communist times from which they suffer.
Fifthly, and so as to be able to admit new candidate countries, make no new demands for a further intergovernmental conference and for further Treaty changes after Nice.
Sixthly and lastly, ensure that existing Member States display solidarity and discernment regarding deepening cooperation so that we do not create an EU again divided into A, B and C teams.
Let us unify Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Brok, and the rapporteurs of the individual reports on each candidate country for their extremely thorough and balanced work.
In particular, I trust and hope that, understandable difficulties notwithstanding, the negotiated procedure with Bulgaria and Romania will proceed smoothly and without delay so that, once the necessary conditions are in place, these two Balkan countries can join the European Union, thereby consolidating progress, security and peace in south-eastern Europe as a whole.
Finally, I would especially like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Poos, and to express my satisfaction at the success of accession negotiations with Cyprus, which have advanced further than with any other candidate country, with 16 chapters already dealt with, which doubtless augurs well for an auspicious final outcome.
Naturally, we all hope that the Cyprus question will be resolved in the meantime in accordance with the UN resolutions and the summit agreements, so that all the indigenous - I repeat indigenous - population of the island, Greek-Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot, can enjoy the benefits of membership.
If, however, the universally-acknowledged constructive stand of the Cypriot Government notwithstanding, this proves to be impossible due to unwavering refusal on the Turkish side, then I believe that the European Union should not allow the integration of Cyprus to be held hostage to Turkish intransigence and that, on the contrary, it should immediately accept the Republic of Cyprus as a member of the Union pending integration of the island as a whole at a later date, as happened with one of the founder members, the anniversary of the unification of which we are celebrating here today.
Finally, I should like to take this opportunity to endorse the thoughts and concerns of many of my fellow members regarding the need for an assiduous and long-overdue examination of the question of the borders of Europe and, consequently, of the extent of enlargement, and the need, if any, for a special report on the subject by the European Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as the last speaker, I would like briefly to go into four particular points again.
Firstly, as we see it, enlargement is not merely an obligation.
It is true that we are motivated by moral considerations, but we are also committed to enlargement owing to deeply held political convictions.
Enlargement is a win-win situation. Both sides: the Member States of the European Union and the candidate countries, stand to benefit from enlargement once it has taken place.
Secondly, enlargement - both the enlargement of the European Union and that of the Economic and Monetary Union - is about fulfilling criteria.
There are the Copenhagen criteria to be fulfilled on the one hand, and those of Maastricht on the other.
It should be made clear to all countries that accession to the European Union is not quite the same thing as accession to the Economic and Monetary Union and to the euro zone, and that there are different deadlines.
It is clear that there is to be no opting out of the Economic and Monetary Union, and no bargaining during either set of negotiations.
Thirdly, we must do our utmost to prepare the European Union for the enlargement process, by 2003, in the spirit of the splendid speech made by President of the Commission, Mr Prodi.
Fourthly - and it is very important to me to make this point by way of conclusion - notwithstanding the pacts that are to be fulfilled, the enlargement process is a political process.
It is about people' s hopes and fears, opportunities and risks, prejudice and fact.
We must accord this political process the historic importance it deserves and enter into discussion with the citizens.
We need to politicise the politics of the enlargement process if we are to have the ability to engage in meaningful conversation with the citizens.
The enlargement process and the Economic and Monetary Union are not just a matter for the European institutions.
I call upon the Member States and all public mandate holders and media at all levels to become more actively involved in this process, because only then will we be able to do justice to public confidence in these initiatives, the objects of which are in the interests of us all.
That concludes the joint debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 10.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, with regard to yesterday' s debate on Slovakia, I should like to point out that Belgium and other countries have introduced a visa requirement for Slovakia.
I regard that as discrimination.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in his policy statement yesterday, Mr Prodi, the President of the Commission, said that whoever weakened any institution of the European Union weakened the Union as a whole.
We have, of course, debated the relations between the Commission and the Council here.
I should like to refer to the relations between Parliament and the Council and to highlight the fact that there have recently been considerable delays in the Council's replies to our written questions.
Let me cite two examples.
In September 1999 I asked a question on the subject of Hombach.
It was answered in February 2000.
I submitted a written question on the subject of European flight safety in February 2000 and am still awaiting a reply.
Whoever weakens any institution weakens the entire Union.
I have the impression that the Council in particular has now decided to ignore questions from Parliament.
That is unacceptable!
If we are to preserve the balance between the institutions, I believe we must take steps to ensure that this defect is rectified.
Thank you.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
There are none.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, this very day we are going to enthusiastically approve - and with great interest in my case - the reports on enlargement involving candidate countries such as the Czech Republic, which is the subject of Mr Jürgen Schröder' s report.
However, I must express my concern - and I ask that the Presidency communicate this to the Prague authorities - at the fact that two young Spaniards, Gaizka Azcona Cueva, 22 years old, and Mikel Oliva Martínez, 21 years old, have been detained arbitrarily since last Tuesday - nearly ten days.
It is worrying that this can happen in a country which is going to join the European Union.
Mr Marset Campos, we shall certainly take note of your statement.
I am sure that Mrs Fontaine will do all that needs to be done.
Agenda
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has requested that the debate on the oral question to the Commission on the rights of language teachers, which is currently scheduled to take place on Friday morning, be postponed until the next part-session.
I give the floor to Mr MacCormick, who will present the request on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Mr President, the question concerning language teachers which has been put down for this Friday comes from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
It was the intention of those who tabled that question in the committee that it should come before the House accompanied by a motion for a resolution.
We are discussing a serious matter.
From time to time it is rightly said in this House that a citizens' Europe would be a Europe in which rights were properly enshrined in the law of the Union.
That would be no good if rights already in the law can be flouted by the Member States.
Twelve years ago the Court of Justice gave a judgment against Italy in the case of the foreign language lecturers.
There have been two further judgments since then and the rights of these lecturers have not yet been satisfied.
In my opinion, and I say it in the presence of a former attorney-general of Ireland, the Commission has not yet shown sufficient resoluteness in pursuing this matter.
It is important that we have a question and debate with a resolution at the end of it.
I ask it to be sent back to committee for preparation.
We have now heard Mr MacCormick' s proposal, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Does anyone wish to speak in favour of this request?
Mr President, it may surprise you to learn that I do indeed wish to raise a point of order. I note from the Minutes that the aforementioned ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I am very sorry, Mr Wuermeling, but the Minutes have been approved.
I asked three times if there were any comments and the Minutes are now deemed to be approved.
I am genuinely sorry, but I must stop you there.
I was asking if anyone wished to speak in favour of the committee' s request.
Mr President, I rise to support the request by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market that this item be delayed until the next part-session in order to provide the opportunity to propose the inclusion of a resolution on this subject.
Excellent.
Does anyone wish to speak against the proposal?
No one does.
I shall now put the request from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for a postponement to the vote.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Animal nutrition
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A5-0257/2000) by Mrs Paulsen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on a proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on undesirable substances and products in animal nutrition (COM(1999) 654 - C5-0344/1999 - 1999/0259(COD))
(A5-0256/2000) by Mrs Paulsen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on a proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 1995/53/EC fixing the principles governing the organisation of official inspections in the field of animal nutrition and Council Directive 1999/29/EC on undesirable substances and products in animal nutrition (COM(2000) 162 - C5-0165/2000 - 2000/0068(COD)).
Mr President, today we are to discuss, and perhaps vote on, a total of three reports which deal with this subject, two of them mine.
They constitute the first steps on the long, long road towards ensuring food safety for all 370 million inhabitants of Europe.
We might well hope that, before the whole of this package is in place, there will be very many more of us, as citizens, who are affected by these rules.
This is the first step, and it is now also a question of establishing incredibly important principles before the work as a whole begins.
The first of my reports concerns foreign substances in animal nutrition.
The most important changes which the Commission has proposed and which I support are to the effect that the directive should include absolutely every imaginable product intended for animal nutrition, including products used to feed what I call small animals, that is to say cats, dogs, guinea pigs etc..
The rules are designed to apply in the first place, however, to feedingstuffs for those animals we eat ourselves.
After what has happened in the European market, it ought to be crystal-clear to us all now that, as human beings, we get to eat what we give to our animals.
The other important principle is the so-called dilution ban.
This means that, if a batch of raw materials for foodstuffs has unduly high limit values, it should not be diluted down in undamaged batches in order in that way to escape the limit values.
The Commission' s proposal removes those rules which entitle local and national authorities to local derogations.
My report supports this.
We know that the foreign substances in question are very rarely acutely poisonous substances, but are long-term and long-lived substances which can build up, such as dioxin and aflotoxin and heavy metals such as cadmium, lead and mercury.
We know that the levels of these substances are constantly increasing in our food chain.
The percentages are increasing slowly and continually in the earth, in feedingstuffs and in food. It is therefore important that we start the preventive process by removing a portion of these products from the chain.
The percentages must not constantly increase in the body throughout life.
We know, for example, that, in the long term, cadmium obstructs the kidneys in both animals and human beings.
We know that dioxin and aflotoxin are carcinogenic etc.
I totally agree with all the proposals tabled by the Commission on this issue.
Moreover - and this is important because it is to come up at the vote - the Commission wants to introduce something called an intervention level.
For all these substances, there is, as it were, a natural background level of constant 'white noise' . We shall never escape this altogether.
We have therefore set a limit value which may not be exceeded. The intervention level is a level at which vigilance is to be exercised and provides an opportunity to launch an investigation when it is discovered that a substance in a product or in a geographical area is increasing above the background level but still remains below the level at which it must be banned, that is to say the limit at which we must intervene.
This is a crucial and important point in preventive work.
In the long term, it is very important that we should be able to begin an investigation in peace and quiet and try to stop the increase in a particular substance before it reaches this emergency limit value.
This is something which everyone at each stage in the food chain should in fact help with.
If we let the matter rest until the limit value has been reached, the measures to be taken become very drastic.
It is then a case of catastrophe intervention of the 'dioxin in Belgium' type.
It is important for us to apply the precautionary principle in such a way that we can cope successfully with increases in foreign substances.
In both of these re-worked draft directives, I have tried to use a form of language which is readable.
A legal text should be precise enough for it to be possible to comply with it.
I also believe, however, that it is Parliament' s responsibility to try to produce laws, rules and regulations in the European Union which can be understood by our fellow citizens who have to comply with them and who need to read them.
I have therefore made a lot of the language more straightforward and tried to simplify matters and make them crystal-clear.
When it comes to limit values, which must be set extremely rigorously in the future to check unwelcome developments, I would ask you to take account of the problems which low limit values, for example for dioxin, will mean for, for example, fishing communities in the Baltic, in parts of the North Sea and probably in Mediterranean coastal areas.
I would also ask you to take account of farmers whose fields border either very busy roads or industries which have contaminated large areas.
Many of these instances of poisoning or cases in which heavy metals were dispersed occurred before there was sufficient environmental awareness and before it was known what the effects would be.
We cannot find the culprits.
I would ask that we take account of these individual fishermen and farmers in future because they are innocent and are being hit by financial ruin.
When it comes to the directive on the official control of the field of animal nutrition, it is important that we really do have a form of inspection which is implemented and which is the same throughout the European Union.
If inspection is not complied with and we are not in a position to inspect the inspectors, then all the thinking being done in connection with the safety of our fellow citizens will be undermined.
The people of Europe cannot, however, properly rely upon such control' s really being carried out if there are major differences of approach between Member States and regions.
The second thing we must take into consideration is the fact that differences in the application of these inspection rules will mean serious disruption of the internal market.
There will be a price to pay for safe food at every stage in the chain.
It would therefore be dangerous if certain countries, areas or industries were to be able to escape inspection and compete over prices at the expense of safety.
That would be an extremely undesirable situation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we should bear in mind the fact that one of the new features in the White Paper on food safety was the 'farm to table' idea, which made farmers directly responsible for the quality and the safety of the animal and vegetable raw materials that they produce.
Almost a year after the publication of this paper and following many food crises, many of them linked directly to animal nutrition, Mrs Paulsen' s report is the first investigation of the role of animal nutrition in food safety.
This is something we must all welcome.
One of the strong points of the proposal is the principle of non-dilution, which prohibits using healthy feedingstuffs to dilute a batch of animal feedingstuffs contaminated by, for example, dioxins.
This is the position Mrs Paulsen, from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, has adopted.
This was also my position as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture.
The amendments proposed by members of the Group of the European People' s Party, Mrs Klass, Mrs Jeggle and Mr Sturdy, have made it possible to reintroduce dilution in the proposal adopted by the Committee on Agriculture.
As I personally am not prepared to sacrifice food safety on the altar of the agri-food lobbies, I have withdrawn my name from the report.
Try as I might, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot understand the Group of the European People' s Party which, despite the successive crises, involving Belgian chickens contaminated by dioxins, French sewage sludge in animal feed or Dutch sump oils in cooking oil, wishes to continue to poison European consumers to some extent.
Their idea is that we should not have to destroy a batch of products just because it is contaminated with dioxins!
It would be much better to add healthy products until an acceptable level of pollution is reached.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Group of the European People' s Party, now that we have the White Paper, the precautionary principle and the principle of food safety, the only acceptable level of pollution in feedingstuffs for animals that will end up on our plate is the zero level measureable today. This is because dioxins are products that build up in the body.
If we were to continue to allow dilution, this dioxin present in animal feedingstuffs would first build up in the animal, and then, to an even greater degree, this toxic product would gradually accumulate throughout the consumer' s body.
We must therefore join Mrs Paulsen and the Commission and adopt the principle of non-dilution in order to make animal nutrition safe and to effectively protect European consumers.
With regard to inspections, the Commission' s proposal for a directive on inspections in the field of animal nutrition stems from the report by Mr Staes.
This reiterates and specifies the factors that are essential if we are to overcome the kind of aberration seen in the dioxin crisis in the summer of 1999.
This report seeks to prevent poor coordination between national and European institutions.
As draftsman of the opinion, I approve of the main amendments proposed by the Commission, such as the establishment of national contingency operational plans, giving the Commission the option to adopt interim protection measures, the obligation on Member States to inform the Commission as soon as contamination or serious risk thereof is detected, and the creation of a legal basis in this field.
It should be emphasised that inspections must take place on three levels in order to enable an emergency system to be established.
The first level of inspection is the responsibility of the animal nutrition producing companies themselves as well as the farmers, who ought to be the most directly concerned with ensuring the quality and safety of the products that they use.
The second level, of course, involves the Member States, who are responsible for carrying out inspections of food safety.
The third level, which is the subject of this amendment, establishes the Commission as the supreme guardian of food safety, authorising it to intervene in emergencies, without necessarily consulting Member States, and to adopt any interim measures necessitated by the emergency.
This is all well and good, but Parliament must nevertheless identify its new role in this process.
A slot must therefore be provided, at least at the end of the process, for the Commission to inform Parliament of the decisions that it has taken.
What will the role of the European food agency provided for in the White Paper be, once it is up and running? We must ensure, on the other hand, that this process does not cause the Member States, businesses or producers to shirk their responsibilities.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we want to guarantee the safety of animal feed and human foodstuffs, and to that end we need a workable European regulatory framework.
The crises of recent years have made everyone, including ourselves, more keenly aware of the situation.
One thing must be clearly emphasised: the dioxin crisis was the result of criminal infringements of the existing rules and regulations.
The time has come for a review of the directives on food safety.
In all our deliberations, however, we must be mindful of the entire supply chain; in other words, we need what Mr Glavany, the French President of the Council, has called a quality pact between society, industry and agriculture.
The correlation must be seen, from natural production via industrial processing to marketing.
When setting maximum values, we must remember that nature has its own set of laws, that harvests vary from year to year and that farmers are ultimately harmed by environmental effects over which they have no control.
For that reason I call on the Commission and the Council to create liability provisions which protect farmers and their land, by which I mean that they must make the compensatory regimes workable and ensure that the provisions are based on the polluter-pays principle.
The 1999 Directive was well thought-out, and it has already scored its first success by demonstrably reducing pollution levels.
For that reason, I am starting to wonder whether we actually need tighter rules. What I think we really need is action against criminal offences.
I should like to inform the House that Amendments Nos 41, 42, 43 and 44, which the PPE-DE Group tabled, have been withdrawn.
What is new in the present proposal is that it gives Member States scope to operate with action thresholds, which would enable them to use their own discretion as long as the established ceilings were not exceeded.
In the context of a necessary European regulatory system, such discretionary scope surely entails a risk to producers as well as jeopardising trade and transactions.
There are dangers, and from this dangers in the internal market as well.
A prescribed European regime must therefore lay down the line that we all have to follow.
It is absolutely imperative that undesirable substances which are extremely toxic should be neither traded nor used in mixtures, and the withdrawal of the amendments does nothing to alter that position.
Farmers have a right to flawless animal feed.
Their economic success depends on healthy livestock.
No rules can achieve anything if they cannot be strictly and comprehensively enforced.
That is why the PPE-DE Group advocates effective controls, and we echo the rapporteur' s call for the food safety auditors in the Commission to be able to conduct unannounced on-the-spot inspections in close and constructive cooperation with the inspectorates of the Member States.
Mr President, "healthy and properly monitored from stable to table" . That is now the phrase that sums up the policy on protecting consumers and the food chain that the European Union wanted.
This was absolutely vital.
The dioxin crisis that struck Belgium over a year ago made a deep impression on people all over Europe.
This crisis not only cost billions of euros, but also resulted in even more suspicion about what we eat.
More than ever before, the public is calling on us to act and is demanding strict standards, which will guarantee healthy food.
This directive is the first link in a long series of decisions to be taken on food safety.
What can I say in one minute?
Very briefly, we must insist on Amendment No 37, concerning dioxins.
The standards that we are demanding are, admittedly, extremely high but, until more accurate scientific studies are available, we must not take any risks.
PCBs and dioxins are toxic substances, even in very small quantities.
Our rapporteur expressed what we should think of the principle of dilution. This would, to my mind, be an appalling message to send to consumers and producers.
More than ever before, this consumer needs reassurance.
This directive will contribute to food being, as I said before, healthy and of high quality from the stable to the table.
This is what the public demands.
Mr President, I should like to join all the other Members who have congratulated Mrs Paulsen, both on the quality of her report and on her openness to the various amendments that have been tabled.
I would like to state at the outset that when we talk about undesirable substances and products, we immediately tend to think of dioxins and PCBs, but there are also heavy metals and, more generally, long-lasting organic pollutants which are by and large, as we know today, hormonal disrupters. In other words, even tiny amounts of these substances can have an effect.
We must therefore adopt limit values, which are arrived at realistically, since our environment is already polluted by this type of substance, but which, at the same time, must also be as low as possible in order to limit the risks.
I find it quite strange that the Commission' s proposal does not specify any limit values for PCBs and that it proposes limit values for dioxins only in the case of citrus pulp, which is really quite bizarre.
The truth is that this is the result of a disastrous event that occurred two years ago. Incredibly high levels of dioxin were found in citrus pulp from Brazil due to the drying process to which they were subjected.
Where heavy metals are concerned, there are many inconsistencies.
The value limit for fish meal, for example, is different to the level proposed for non-marine animal derived products.
On all these matters, my Group has tabled amendments, which, broadly speaking, have been accepted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy - to whom I am grateful - despite the vote against by the PPE-DE Members.
I hope that the latter will change their minds for the plenary sitting, because I cannot see any arguments that could justify the inconsistencies in the Commission' s draft proposal.
I therefore think that, given the prevailing attitude in the House, we can face the vote with confidence and hope to achieve a majority, which will enable us to put our point of view across at second reading.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mrs Paulsen on her report.
The detection of dioxins in citrus fruits that have been imported into the Community to serve as animal nutrition revealed the loopholes in current legislation on inspections.
The public is worried and is demanding guarantees.
Any threat to animal health will also automatically endanger human health.
Zero risk is, of course, impossible, but an early warning system must nevertheless be put in place.
Member States must, moreover, pay close attention to monitoring the implementation of texts.
On this point we are in agreement.
We do not think that it acceptable, on the other hand, to take advantage of this opportunity to extend the already myriad competences of the European Commission even further.
It is all a pretext for further harmonisation as if viruses, germs and polluting particles were subject to the concept of freedom of movement.
Let us dwell for a moment on the profound thoughts of those who are obsessed with harmonisation.
If there are germs, let us harmonise health services!
If there are risks to food safety, let us harmonise what we eat through a common nutritional policy!
Let us harmonise away and, to monitor the outcome of all these acts of harmonisation, we shall have nothing less than the obedient uniformed Community crack troops to ensure that our way of thinking is properly implemented, because our Member States are naughty little rascals we need to keep an eye on!
Well, we will not put up with this cult of harmonisation any more!
Today, this idea of bringing everything into line, which is completely cut off from reality, is leading some people to call for spot checks, with no warning to the States in which Brussels has no confidence.
This is unacceptable.
But remember, ladies and gentlemen, that the legitimacy of our Community institutions and our own legitimacy depend entirely on the will of the peoples whom it is our duty to represent.
It is time to break with a misguided interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity, which attempts to increase Brussels' s hold on our nations a little more each day.
The amendment tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is today emblematic. You intend to destroy the sovereignty of our States by any means possible.
Did you not hear the political warning given on 28 September by the Danish people?
Or do you think that there is "something rotten in the State of Denmark" ? Maybe you have the same idea of democracy as the revolutionary Pierre-Louis 'Prieur' de la Marne, who told the Convention under the Terror, "The people must be made happy, despite their wishes.
The people must be forced to be free" .
Our citizens are fed up with being forced to be happy, of being hampered a little more every day in their activities by petty, pernickety and stifling red tape.
You ignore people' s sense of national allegiance and the role of the nation-state and the 'single mindset' which you embody is out-of-date and dangerous.
It is smothering the idea of Europe.
So for goodness' sake, save Europe, by ceasing to offer up harebrained and fanciful ideas to the idol of harmonisation.
Mr President, I hope that the future will bring increasingly frequent and effective dialogue between the different elements in Parliament, for once again, this morning, I was listening to Members speaking, and can be little - or rather no - doubt that the position of the European People's Party was misinterpreted.
We do not oppose the Paulsen report - we fully support it.
There is a significant reason underlying our contribution, particularly regarding Article 5, which stems from the fact that, although this is a major, coherent instrument, its scope is still limited, for it concerns production measures and does not deal in any way with the commercial side of things.
As a result, we European consumers will find ourselves continuing to buy meat and milk and their derivatives that are produced on the world markets using animal feedingstuffs which are in no way subject to the thresholds and limit values defined by the European Union, under a system which allows raw materials to be acquired on the international markets, where producers are free to mix all types of ingredients and formulations before selling their products on Union territory.
We are calling for a comprehensive assessment of the issue precisely in order to afford better protection to farmers.
In actual fact, a major measure such as the Paulsen report ends up having the adverse effect of opening the market to production systems whose quality is not sufficient to comply fully with the limits and threshold values which we require.
This was the reason for our discussion in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and, when all is said and done, we would not like a repetition of what usually occurs, which is that when it comes to major measures it is always the farmers who pay the price, when they are the only guarantors of a production/agricultural land ratio which Parliament must preserve at all costs.
I therefore invite all the Members to discuss the issue responsibly. We have absolutely no desire to defend specific interests; we simply want a compliant production system which does not involve going outside the market with measures of this kind.
Mr President, it is the duty of this Parliament and this Commission to protect the health of all citizens of the European Union.
That is what we are trying to do in this report, on which I congratulate Mrs Paulsen.
Certainly the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy was the correct committee to bring these proposals forward in view of what we have heard.
We have had to learn lessons from the dioxin scandal.
The Commission has now proposed deleting the derogation for compound foodstuffs and having the option of fixing action thresholds below the maximum permitted limits in cases of real emergency.
Like the rapporteur, I believe that there is a case for doing all these things and for looking at the substances she referred to when they are not in themselves toxic but show increases in the aggregated levels.
Animal feed, which has proven to be unsafe, should certainly be removed from the food chain.
That is not just a precaution, it is common sense.
I want to sound one note of caution.
Common sense has two sides.
If we are going to propose that, for example, there should be a tenfold reduction in the materials which are permitted to enter the European Union for blending down by approved food manufacturers, we ought to be certain that there is a sound scientific basis for that proposal.
The Commissioner will know that in my country the Independent Advisory Committee on Animal Feedingstuffs was worried that such a ban may actually drive out blending-down procedures into the world outside the EU where they are less likely to be correctly monitored and controlled for any future entry into the Union.
The committee agreed that there needed to be upper limits for undesirable ingredients, above which the materials would have to be destroyed.
By the second reading we need to have the Commission's view on how the risk assessment will be carried out.
That is a very simple request which is not connected with any specific amendment proposed this first reading.
It may well determine, however, how we can vote at that stage.
I suspect it will also determine how we are able to make the case which the Commission quite properly wants to make for clean food in Europe, outside the European Union, to those third country exporters who will be affected by the new levels and to the WTO, if any challenges to what we are doing are mounted there.
We look forward to hearing from the Commission how it will demonstrate that its response here is not only precautionary - which it clearly is - but also proportionate.
Mr President, I agree with the idea that legislation in this sort of area needs to be all-embracing and comprehensive, but, as a farmer, I do not agree with everything in the report, for example, that farm-produced animal feed should also be covered by the measures.
I think it is something that cannot be practically applied or monitored.
For that reason, we should look into legislation which is reasonable in the sense that it could be monitored and implemented in practice.
The sort of legislation that cannot be monitored or implemented in practice will naturally erode Parliament' s credibility, as will the fact too that we should draft such legislation.
I will cite Amendment No 18 as an example.
How can we monitor what a domestic animal roaming freely drinks or where it drinks?
The basic idea is right.
Legislation must be all-embracing and comprehensive, but it must also be such as can be put into effect and monitored in practice. The application of legislation to feed produced on a farm is something that cannot be practically implemented or monitored.
Otherwise I do agree very much with this overall policy and the basic idea behind it.
Mr President, we can only obtain safe and healthy food by taking account of the whole chain, that is to say the way in which we cultivate our crops, the soil we grow them in and the seed we use, as well as the conditions in which we breed our animals and the nutrition and water we give them.
Residual poison, pollution, poor animal husbandry and poor hygiene will result sooner or later in sick animals and, consequently, also in an increase in illnesses among human beings.
Unfortunately, a lot of inherited knowledge and farmers' lore has been lost in industrial agriculture, where animals have been reduced to production units and commodities.
I am convinced that, with ecological agriculture, we should not have had the major problems we have today.
The situation is now as we find it. The two proposals we are discussing today, concerning foreign substances and products in animal feed and official control of these, are therefore necessary and welcome.
These proposals also mean a step towards a complete package of measures in favour of food safety.
I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Paulsen, on the consistent way in which she has worked to improve the Commission' s text and on the insightful knowledge she has displayed.
I am pleased that the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats have withdrawn the amendments concerning the problems associated with dilution.
That saves me a very great deal of speaking time.
However, it would be unfortunate if, for example, Amendments 39 and 40 were adopted, for this would mean that the opportunities for Member States to intervene quickly to combat newly discovered dangers would disappear.
Experience has of course shown that it is precisely this that we need to do.
We need to act incredibly quickly because people' s health is at stake.
We must also constantly bear the precautionary principle in mind.
I support the rapporteur' s proposals but shall vote against the amendments tabled by the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats.
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate, which highlights the important role of the European Parliament in the crucial area of food safety, public health and environmental standards.
It is in the interests of farmers and consumers to restore consumer confidence in food.
In this very sorry saga, farmers have in many cases been the innocent victims of circumstances beyond their control.
Central to this very wide debate is the White Paper on food safety which will for the first time propose an ethical framework putting Europe and its Member States at the forefront of world food safety.
It has been brought about by the clear and unequivocal concerns of 370 million consumers in the European Union on the safety of the European food chain.
Member States must conduct specific target inspection programmes in the implementation of these directives.
They will be required to inform the European Commission when a serious risk of contamination is detected.
The Union must also, by means of directives, establish a legal basis to harmonise the transmission of information on feed controls and food safety.
I should like to comment briefly on the directive concerning undesirable substances in products and animal nutrition.
The chicken dioxin crisis highlighted the shortcomings in Community legislation and animal nutrition.
It will end the possibility of authorising the use of raw materials for animal food in excess of the maximum limits laid down.
These directives are part of the most radical shake-up of the Community's food safety hygiene rules for at least 25 years.
The new regulations will merge, harmonise and simplify very detailed and complex hygiene requirements which were previously scattered over numerous directives.
We have all learned our lesson from the food crisis of the 90s.
I am confident that with this systematic set of uniform rules we are laying the groundwork for filling the gaps in the existing legislation and enhancing food safety throughout the food chain.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the wake of numerous food scandals, consumer awareness has heightened very considerably.
In the domain of EU consumer policy, I believe 'from stable to table' has few rival claimants to the title of Expression of the Year.
If, however, we want to apply this principle of transparency consistently, our commitment must stretch from the farmer' s pitch fork to the consumer's table fork.
Consumer safety begins with animal feed, with its ingredients, the declaration and, last but not least, the official inspections.
These three reports place us on the horns of a dilemma.
As far as feed content is concerned, let me say that food safety is a highly sensitive issue.
If scientific studies come out unequivocally against the use of certain substances, the precautionary principle must apply.
I doubt, however, whether we shall succeed in introducing a zero-tolerance threshold.
That would be dubious consumer protection and, what is more, it would surely be impracticable.
I believe it would undermine the very legislation it was intended to reinforce.
As for the declaration of feed materials - the open versus the semi-open declaration - our dilemma is surely between consumer protection and economic viability.
With today' s analytical methods, Commissioner Byrne, any recipe is as transparent as can be.
Any manufacturers who therefore wish to discover precisely what a competing company is offering its customers have long been able to acquire this information.
I should like to conclude by dealing briefly with two problems relating to the declaration.
The number of those who seek precise details on ingredients is relatively small, according to my research.
This brings me to the other point.
The full declaration certainly costs money, and the farmer ultimately has to foot the bill.
The official feed inspections are the final link in the chain of transparency in the sphere of animal feed.
Unfortunately, however, despite all our efforts, it will never be possible to completely eradicate criminal practices.
For my own part, finally, the quality of our food concerns me less than the eating habits of our citizens in general.
Mr President, this directive forms part of the consistent set of measures which is planned actively to render all stages of the food chain safe.
We must attempt to improve food safety and to rule out any crises which not only put the confidence of the consumer to the test but also bring the entire agricultural sector into disrepute in the long run.
The discussion on Mrs Paulsen' s sound report was emotionally charged at times, and I believe that now, with this discussion behind us, we can assume that, although the requirements prescribed for the feed industry are strict, we can ensure that by admixture, the quality will change in future.
I believe that the consumer is not prepared to wait for this to happen and I also have the feeling that, whilst the compound feed sector is still creating problems at the moment, it is ultimately the farmer, in fact, who ends up footing the bill for the damage done to consumer confidence.
I therefore welcome this regulation, because I believe that food safety is a question of choice. This means that, in this case, the interests of producer and consumer, farmer and product buyer must go hand in hand, and I have a feeling that the derogations provided for in Articles 6 and 7 make it possible not only to take a more flexible stance on certain points but also to adopt a harder line at the same time.
Mr President, the directives before us relate to the Union' s aim to restore consumer confidence in European food, and, at the same time, public confidence in the Union' s ability to act in this matter, which is one that affects the lives of our citizens.
Marit Paulsen has played a very creditable role in this work by drafting her report on undesirable substances in animal feedingstuffs and the monitoring of feedingstuffs.
In practice it is impossible to demand that animal feedingstuffs should contain no undesirable substances at all.
Now we are confirming the maximum quantities beyond which a batch of feed could not be used.
The Commission is proposing at the same time that the option of diluting a batch of feed that exceeds the maximum levels with one that does not exceed them should be abolished.
This sort of practice has fortunately been unknown in the animal feedingstuffs industry up till now in many Member States.
The Commission' s proposal is a welcome one, and clearly preferable to the amendment tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which would allow the practice of dilution to continue.
Dilution would simply lead to unhealthy effects in the use and treatment of raw materials.
The committee proposes the Commission' s proposal on this matter should be put into practice.
After the committee meeting I really felt we needed just to extend a helping hand to the producer.
The farmer must obviously be compensated for the destruction of a batch of feed that is so contaminated that it is unfit for use, just as in the case, for example, of the destruction of animals with TSE.
Compensation is necessary, although it is obvious that farmers themselves are concerned about the wellbeing of their animals.
The committee also adopted the amendment we tabled, reminding everyone of the division that exists in respect of rules for feedingstuffs produced on farms and commercially produced feedingstuffs.
The good quality of the former is regulated by legislation on hygiene and the directive on undesirable substances in animal nutrition is most essential with regard to the latter.
This division should also be maintained in the future.
If hygiene legislation is inadequate in this area it will have to be amended.
Mr President, today the House has discussed three very important proposals with implications for food safety: proposals on undesirable substances, inspections in the field of animal nutrition and finally the marketing of compound feedingstuffs.
Individually and collectively, these three proposals will address major shortcomings brought to light by the dioxin crisis.
Turning to the first proposal on undesirable substances, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Ms Paulsen, and the draftsman, Ms Auroi, and the committees for their very comprehensive report.
The proposal amends the current legislation on undesirable substances. It forms part of the work programme of the Commission, which was welcomed by Parliament and the Council.
The main principles of the proposal are: the introduction of the principle of non-dilution, the deletion of possible derogations for local reasons, the introduction of the possibility of establishing action thresholds besides maximum limits to act as an early warning tool and the extension of the scope of the directive to fix maximum limits for undesirable substances in feed additives.
This proposal will without doubt enhance the safety of feed.
Prohibition of dilution will reduce the overall contamination load of animal feed.
Operators at every stage in the production chain will be forced to put systems and practices in place to ensure that the feed materials and feedingstuffs they produce are safe.
It will encourage a proactive approach to reducing contamination in the feed chain.
I am therefore very pleased that Ms Paulsen's report endorses these main principles of the Commission proposal.
The Commission can accept many of the amendments proposed in the rapporteur's report.
However, let me first address the amendments with which the Commission cannot agree.
Amendment No 18 explicitly proposes to include water in the definition of feedingstuff.
I fully agree that the same rules concerning the quality of feedingstuffs have to apply to the quality of water consumed by animals.
Although the definition does not preclude water being considered as feedingstuff, it is clear from the Community legislation that water has not until now been considered as feedingstuff, as is clear from the fact that Council Directive 96/25 of 29 April 1996 on the circulation of feed materials, containing a non-exhaustive list of the main feed materials, does not include water in the list.
The Commission cannot, therefore, accept this amendment, but will consider it in the context of a future amendment to that directive.
Secondly, the Commission cannot agree to Amendment No 27, in which Parliament proposes to delete the possibility of defining acceptability criteria for feed materials which have undergone certain decontamination procedures.
In my opinion this amendment misses its purpose.
In any case the Commission cannot accept an amendment which would prohibit decontamination.
However strict quality criteria need to be laid down at Community level for these decontamination procedures.
Amendment No 33 deletes the possibility of exporting non-complying consignments to the country of origin.
The Commission cannot accept this amendment.
The possibility of re-exporting non-complying consignments to the country of origin should remain open.
However, in order to meet Parliament's concern the Commission accepts that it is appropriate to insert an additional provision that re-export is possible after informing the competent authority of the country of origin and receiving assurances that the contaminated lot will be safely disposed of
Finally, the Commission cannot accept Amendment Nos 35, 36 and 37, proposing to amend the maximum limits for cadmium, mercury, lead dioxin and PCBs in certain feedingstuffs, since amendments to the annexes have to be based on a scientific risk assessment and have to be made by the Commission following the committee procedure.
In relation to PCBs, work is currently being undertaken by the relevant scientific committee.
It is expected that this committee will report in October, by which time we will be in a position to consider what appropriate action can be taken under comitology.
The Commission will review the current provisions concerning cadmium and mercury as a priority and will ask the Scientific Committee for Animal Nutrition to provide a scientific risk assessment for these heavy metals.
This has already been done for dioxins and PCBs and it can be expected that this scientific risk assessment will become available, as I said, in October.
On the basis of these scientific risk assessments the Commission will propose to the Member States appropriate measures to limit the presence of these substances in feedingstuffs.
The European Parliament will, of course, be fully informed.
More generally, it is appropriate that the provisions of the annexes are periodically reviewed in the light of the developments of scientific and technological knowledge.
Amendment No 38 is unacceptable as it falls outside the scope of this directive.
Amendments Nos 39 and 40, proposing to delete the possibility of establishing an action threshold are similarly unacceptable.
These action thresholds will act as early warning tools, alerting competent authorities and operators so that they actively prevent further contamination of the feed chain by identifying sources of contamination and measures to avoid repetition in the future.
Amendments Nos 41, 42, 43 and 44, proposing to reintroduce the possibility of dilution under certain conditions of contaminated feed materials are also unacceptable.
I understand, from the contribution from Mrs Klaß that these amendments are being withdrawn.
I am glad of that because they go against the main principle of the Commission's proposal, namely total prohibition of dilution of contaminated feed materials.
In order to protect public health it is important that the overall contamination of food and the feed chain is reduced to a level as low as reasonably achievable. Dilution does not reduce the overall load of contamination in the food and feed chain.
However, I noted also the objections in Council to the total prohibition of dilution, but I am convinced that an acceptable solution can be found in order to prevent feedingstuffs becoming the waste bucket for contaminants.
In the second stage we will be able to address the issues raised by Mr Whitehead in relation to these particular matters.
Having extensively explained why the Commission cannot accept the Amendments Nos 18, 27, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 and 44, I am glad to say that the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34 and 45, as these amendments constitute an important clarification of the Commission's proposal with the understanding that with some of these amendments, in particular Amendments Nos 3, 4, 30, 34 and 45, further editorial changes may improve the text.
Regarding Amendment Nos 20, the Commission can accept the insertion of a definition for consignment but the proposed definition itself needs further consideration as does the need to include other definitions.
To conclude, I wish once again to thank Mrs Paulsen for the excellent report which can be supported by the Commission to a very large extent.
Now I want to turn to the second major proposal for discussion today with important implications for food safety.
Once again I would like to thank Mrs Paulsen and Mrs Auroi for the broad support given in their reports to the Commission proposal concerning controls in animal nutrition.
This proposal is the follow-up to one of my first commitments to improve food safety and provides for a system to exchange information in the field of animal nutrition, with particular reference to a rapid alert system and a legal basis to enable the adoption of safeguards measures for products produced within the Community and also the obligation for the Member States to have in place contingency plans to deal with feed emergencies.
Considering the amendments tabled for adoption in this plenary session, I appreciate Parliament's support of the proposal.
On behalf of the Commission, I can accept Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 18, 23, 25 and 26 because they provide clarification and increase transparency.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 2, 14, 17 - the first sentence in particular - and 19 concerning the deletion of the adjective "serious" when clarifying a risk for consistency with our general policy laid down in the General Products Safety Directive.
In other terms, not all risks need immediate action at Community level.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 5 and 22 on the rapid alert system as they are currently worded.
The Commission agrees to the addition in Amendment No 5 of the reference to changes in the current rapid alert system and I quote "after certain changes".
This should be sufficient, considering our commitment to establish a rapid alert system covering all the food and feed chain in the new proposal on the food authority.
In principle, I am not against Amendments Nos 15, 16, 20 - last paragraph - concerning the change from "decontamination" to "rendering the product harmless" however we will introduce some editorial changes in relation to that.
On Amendment Nos 17, I accept the principle that the use of dangerous products shall be prohibited and that they should be recalled.
The amendment needs editorial changes to make clear that these actions are within the responsibilities of the Member States.
We cannot accept Amendment No 21, second indent, (a), because there is a linguistic misunderstanding: "cross-contamination" is the appropriate wording to be used.
I accept Amendment No 24, subject to editorial changes, in order to make clear that the possibility for the Commission to carry out inspection "without prior notice" only refers to operators and not to the competent authorities.
Finally, we cannot accept Amendment No 27 introducing in the recitals, reference to civil and criminal liability in the event of loss or damage.
It is not necessary.
The basic Directive 95/53 already stipulates in Article 19 that penalties for non-compliance shall be commensurate and have a deterrent effect and when a responsibility is proven in the court civil and/or criminal liability apply.
Overall therefore, the Commission can fully accept 15 of the 27 amendments.
I am grateful to the rapporteurs and to the honourable Members of the committees involved for their substantial support.
I hope that our cooperation will continue with the same positive results when this proposal is discussed at the second stage.
Compound feedingstuffs
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0233/2000) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 79/373/EEC on the marketing of compound feedstuffs (COM(1999) 744 - C5-0020/2000 - 2000/0015(COD)).
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has the floor.
Commissioner Byrne, in this directive on the marketing of compound feed we find our old problem lurking, namely the question of open declarations.
It is gratifying for me personally to be able to serve as rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, since this problem has been with us now for decades.
As Mr Böge knows, in our time in the Landjugend, the young farmers' association in Germany, we used to discuss this, because there were open declarations at one time.
They were then abolished to suit the interests of the feed industry.
The computer put together the cheapest feed mix at current prices, and so that the consumers - in this case the farmers - were not irritated by the constant changes in ingredients, the required information was reduced to the basic components, which were the carbohydrate, protein and fat contents.
That certainly covered the substance of the compound feed.
The computer worked this out, but it was no longer clear which ingredients made up this substance.
We always stressed the need for openness.
Then we would hear the most specious of arguments - it was impossible to prove, it was too difficult, it would distort competition - all the things we are hearing again today.
Then, in the Committee of Inquiry on BSE, we demanded for the first time, and here I quote from a recommendation made by the Temporary Committee of Inquiry on 6 February 1997, "... the inclusion in labelling of a mandatory explicit declaration for feedingstuffs by their manufacturers, which should facilitate the clear identification of components and of the origin of ingredients, and on user instructions."
This was our view, but the recommendation was not adopted by the Commission.
We then pressed this point again in the temporary committee which was created with a view to following up the recommendations on BSE, but the Commission asserted in 1998 that declarations were already open.
Not even the BSE scandal could compel it to subordinate the interests of the compound-feed industry to those of public health.
Then we had the dioxin scandal on top of that, and it was fortuitous that the Commissioners had to introduce themselves to Parliament at that very time, as you will no doubt recall, Mr Byrne.
And those who drafted your remarks on this point and the remarks of the other Commissioners were wise enough to include an indication that you were in favour of open declarations. We immediately started probing.
We asked whether you really meant it. Yes, you did mean it, and now we have a draft on the table, a draft that is entirely in line with our wishes.
We have tabled a few small amendments.
I should also like to thank Mrs Roth­Behrendt, who drafted the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
We accepted the bulk of your amendments in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, but the substance of the Commission draft is fine, and we shall support it in this form.
The compound-feed industry, however, has been trying yet again to exert influence through the Council and to overturn the principle of open declarations.
I assume that they will not succeed this time.
What is most clearly apparent is that components are no longer lumped together into categories.
That has been the worst part of the present regime, because it meant, for example, that the term 'fats' could cover all sorts of fat and that there was no indication at all as to the origins of the fat content.
The same applied to protein.
In the Committee of Inquiry on BSE, we had always objected to the evident inclusion in feed mixes of animal protein, in the form of animal meal, not as a means of meeting the required percentage of protein but to reduce production costs and to increase the nutrient content as cheaply as possible.
And we all know the results of that.
Commissioner Byrne, we are highly satisfied.
This is a report and a regulatory procedure based on codecision.
I hope that we shall reach agreement with the Council and that the final outcome in the form of our joint draft, which the Commission presented and to which we have added, will be upheld, so that we can say, "Yes, it took years, it took decades, but open declarations are now enshrined in the law of the European Union". I should find that particularly gratifying.
Mr President, what I enjoy most about this House is that I am always learning new things.
Today, for instance, I learned that, at the time when my esteemed colleagues Graefe zu Baringdorf and Böge were in the Landjugend - in other words until very recently, in a manner of speaking - there were open declarations.
So that in itself has already made my morning.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, the rapporteur from the committee which was ultimately entrusted with responsibility for this report, said that we have long been pressing for this open declaration and that we have redoubled our exhortations to the Commission on the marketing of compound feed since the BSE episode.
He rightly praised the Commission for its more or less prompt fulfilment of its mandates.
The Commission's proposal is sound, and I am convinced that we shall muster enough agreement within the House on the few amendments to be able to stand up to the Council on this issue.
I entirely fail to comprehend why the manufacturers of compound feed - who have spoken to many of us, as you know - believe that resistance against open declarations will achieve anything.
It will get them nowhere.
As we have all been saying in our speeches, whether here in the House or in our home constituencies, we must begin to win back the public trust that we have lost, and we must be unstinting in our efforts to do so.
That entails a host of measures.
One such measure is the introduction of open declarations, and an open declaration is not merely an indication of the percentage of various content categories or generic classifications but clear and precise details of the ingredients contained in the feed mix.
It is unacceptable to have 'starch' , 'fats' or 'protein' on the packaging; the manufacturer must state which protein and which fats are in the mix.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf made that quite clear.
But we need more than that, which is why both the Agriculture Committee and the Environment Committee have stated once again, rather in the fashion of a Tibetan prayer wheel, that we need a white list.
We need a white list of the additives and ingredients that are authorised for use in feed mixes.
The Commission has pledged itself to work on this list and has also said it is not something that can be done in a couple of days.
We do not expect that either.
What we do expect, however, is that the Commission will give us regular updates and that it has an approximate timetable for the accomplishment of this task.
After all, it would be unacceptable if, in the meantime, we were plunged back into a situation in which the Commission had to write to the Member States to find out how the Directive on sewage sludge was being interpreted.
We will have none of that!
We must have a clear and unequivocal white list, and both committees - the Agriculture Committee and the Environment Committee - have reiterated that point.
It naturally means a large investment of time and money in monitoring, which is why both committees have stated that manufacturers also have an obligation to provide evidence.
This obligation involves furnishing precise details of the composition of compound feedingstuffs on request, and is designed to shift some of the burden of proof as well as to minimise the cost of monitoring in the Member States.
We naturally have no wish to spend vast amounts of time and money on monitoring and to be constantly setting off to conduct inspections all over the place.
So if we were to do what we intend, if we were to implement it quickly and then pass quickly through the codecision procedure too, that would certainly be a huge step forward, and I feel sure that we shall be very strong and united in our dealings with the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, speaking for my group, I assume that the report on the proposal for a directive on the marketing of compound feedingstuffs will obtain the consent of the European Parliament.
I also expect the Commission to stipulate the necessary measures along with a strict timetable in order to ensure that the directive is applied in the Member States of the Union.
The basis for the introduction of open declarations, in other words the full listing of all feed materials, differs extremely widely between Member States.
The standards are scarcely comparable, let alone transferable.
In the long production chain for compound feedingstuffs, there are sharply divergent degrees of interest in the traceability of feed materials.
The BSE scandal was the worst and most notorious example.
Farmers are still suffering today from that utterly criminal failure to protect consumers.
As we have seen, it took years to rectify matters.
Let me say categorically that the application of the numerous necessary rules and regulations on the control and monitoring of feedingstuffs must, in my opinion, proceed from the premise that transparency for the consumer is paramount.
When it produces its own report, the Commission can prove that transparency is not a modern word for bureaucratic procedures and that danger exists, since the legal provisions on food safety are supposed to cover the entire soil-plant-animal cycle.
The report does not make it immediately clear to everyone precisely whom or what this transparency is intended to benefit.
Let me finish by stressing that the report, like the labelling of beef, will come down on the side of the consumer more than on that of the production chain.
Given the surplus production in Europe, this is the safer bet and will pay dividends in the long run.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after the issue of the composition of feedingstuffs for animals, if we are to eliminate mercury, lead, arsenic, DDT, etc., we must address the question of the way in which these products are marketed.
This is, of course, all due to the BSE tragedy that turned into a real saga, with several episodes.
Mr Böge dealt with the episode of the committee of inquiry in 1997, there was the episode of the ban on British beef, the episode of the labelling of meat and now we have the episode of labelling animal feedingstuffs.
Of course, farmers have the right to know what their cows are eating and the right to know whether their pigs are eating car sump oil, which contains dioxins.
Food must therefore be labelled to show the precise contents.
This is a simple thing, but for ten years, we have sat and twiddled our thumbs.
Admittedly, there are labels that tell half the truth, stating "contains oil" , but that could mean fish oil, vegetable oil, tallow or grease.
Common sense, as our rapporteur said, would suggest that labelling should make a clean sweep and list all the ingredients.
On this issue, however, we have been told that the intellectual property of manufacturers' formulas must be protected, that monitoring compliance would be difficult, that the label would be covered with the list of nutritional values and raw ingredients and that the contents would vary according to the market in which they were sold.
In short, then, people have tried to win some time.
Today, we have found a good solution, although nothing has been said about animal feedingstuffs containing GMOs, such as soya flour.
Nor has anything been said about the responsibility of manufacturers, particularly in Britain, who were primarily responsible.
Even if we are pleased with this progress, however, how can we forget that before we finally adopted measures it took ten years and 80 deaths, and in two years' time we may well yet discover a zoonosis, a health disaster?
I do not know, Mr Byrne, if the European Commission is at risk of dying from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, but given the slow pace of your lives, I can take pleasure in the fact that you will surely not die of a heart attack.
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that this Commission proposal is most welcome.
Indeed, it addresses a long-standing concern of Parliament, which has at times, in 1997 and 1999, asked for a review of current legislation on the marketing of compound feedingstuffs.
We all agree that there is a need for compulsory labelling that clearly indicates the various components of compound feedingstuffs and their nature.
We shall not, of course, complicate matters and demand unnecessary details on the labels, but we shall demand everything that is essential, such as an explicit, open declaration strictly indicating the percentage of each component and its intrinsic nature.
As we all know, these measures are fundamental for increasing consumer confidence.
There is in fact a general lack of confidence, which is particularly marked in relation to intensive production processes, not only in meat production but also in fish farming.
It is possible, through clear, transparent and responsible labelling, to give consumers this confidence.
This subject was in fact discussed during the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, and the conclusion was that the Council' s position was unfortunately rather timid in this respect, rather fainthearted, showing that ultimately the ministers had not learnt much from the past.
It is essential that the Commission and the Council should fight for these same rules to apply to all partners worldwide, especially in the framework of the World Trade Organisation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a surfeit of scandals has shaken public and consumer confidence.
In the interests of farmers and consumers, we need clear and transparent rules for animal feed too, but it should be said that farmers are always the first to suffer when abuses occur.
As far as the directive on undesirable products and substances in animal nutrition is concerned, let me say from the outset that we need a more workable solution here which strikes a fair balance between the interests of producers and those of consumers.
We must create a realistic statutory framework.
Contaminants which affect human and animal health are unacceptable.
You know I come from a Member State where very high and strict standards are imposed, which I fully support, and those standards have certainly proved their worth.
As far as checks on feedingstuffs are concerned, I should like to state that the problem is not so much the lack of a European legal framework as the failure of the individual Member States to transpose the existing provisions.
I cannot but warmly welcome the pressure for the creation of a European information system for food crises, the standardised transmission of information on the monitoring and safety of animal feed and the dissemination of information on cases of contamination and of damage to public health and the environment.
I take a more critical view, however, of the escape clause which would give the Commission the scope to take measures of its own without consulting the Member States.
Lastly, I should like to say a word or two on the conflict of competence between the Agriculture Committee and the Environment Committee.
I believe the specialised knowledge and the powers of judgement of the members of the Agriculture Committee on farming matters, and hence on animal nutrition too, are beyond question and that the Agriculture Committee is therefore the body which is best qualified to arrive at a practical and practicable solution that the farmers in question will apply and which consumers will understand.
For that reason, subjects such as animal feed really ought to be dealt with under the direction of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
What we feed our livestock is just as important to us farmers as it is to the consumers who subsequently buy our meat.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur for his efforts and praise the important work of the institutions in their approach to animal health which also, of course, facilitates the protection of human health.
This proposal falls within the framework of the legislation intended to strengthen the rules on feedingstuffs, included in the White Paper on food safety.
Therefore, Parliament, as well as the Commission, demands mandatory labelling which specifies the composition - as a percentage by weight, as Mr Cunha said -, the quantities and the origin of the ingredients of the feedingstuffs, rather than indicating the categories of the ingredients with no further detail, such as, for example, by proteins or by oils and fats, which has had so much to do with previous scandals such as the cases of BSE and dioxins.
The demand that manufacturers provide proof of the composition of foods, and that there be an exhaustive and up-to-date list of authorised raw materials and rigorous controls of suspicious materials - and their immediate withdrawal from the market - must from now on be essential issues for us.
I am grateful that this matter is finally coming to its conclusion and that we are going to have a solution as swiftly as possible.
Mr President, the proposal before us and the rapporteur' s reaction to this proposal are a step in the right direction but, at the same time, they expose the weak structure of European enforcement.
But let us begin with the good news.
The Commission proposal to lend more transparency to the information given on labels and on feed content, so that everyone knows where they stand, is a step in the right direction.
It is also what we want, namely trust between the producer and consumer.
The tighter measures which the rapporteur announced in his report and which encompass, for example, an exhaustive list of products, for which he calls on the Commission for help, is an interesting proposal and will only reinforce this policy.
A second, necessary step in this process is to have exact data at one' s disposal.
It is unfortunate, however, that we are still not, in fact, taking matters one step further and establishing certain labelling obligations with regard to energy and foodstuffs, too.
This is the good news.
The bad news is that those who tamper with cattle feed will not - now or in future - specify on the label whether the product contains dioxin or substances which have not been effectively processed.
That means that in Europe, there is definitely room for improvement with regard to policy on enforcement, but also on penalties, and it means that whoever tampers with animal feed or food commits a crime.
You could say that you can put anything on paper, but in the final analysis, power will also need to reside in enforcement and penalties when the rules are broken.
Finally, I would like to note that, with this legislation, Europe is probably going a great deal further than many other parts of the world.
It imports a great deal of its cattle feed from the developing countries, among others, and the question remains of how we can put our legislation on the agenda at WTO level and how we can solve this problem in an adequate manner, because it very definitely creates a difference in cost price compared to other parts of the world, and this will also need to be given due attention within the Commission and in future discussions with the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I regard this amendment of the Directive on the marketing of compound feedingstuffs as a step in the right direction on a long road.
Its aims are clear and undisputed.
The first aim is to create traceability of foodstuffs back to their origins, in other words maximum transparency.
The second is to restore consumer confidence in European food products after the BSE crisis and the dioxin scandal.
I believe that reversal of the burden of proof, as proposed in Amendment No 4, is absolutely essential if these aims are to be achieved.
The food industry has the necessary information to hand.
For those outside the industry, it is sometimes utterly impossible to obtain this information.
The present proposal is the first in a series of initiatives based on the White Paper on food safety.
It is a start.
The Union certainly cannot rest on these laurels.
A long road lies ahead of us.
I would like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and their rapporteurs, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, for having examined the Commission proposal and delivered their opinion on it and to the Members of Parliament who have spoken this morning and have warmly welcomed these proposals.
I am pleased about that.
As stressed in the report by these two committees, this proposal was initiated by the European Parliament out of a concern to improve both traceability and the provision of information through the labelling of compound-feeding stuffs.
The Commission proposal does not enjoy the unanimous support of all parties concerned.
In the Council, a very substantial majority of Member States is opposed to the introduction of an obligation to systematically indicate on labels the precise composition of the compound feedingstuffs intended for productive livestock.
If a compromise were to be reached, it would be highly desirable to give stock farmers the opportunity to obtain all the information they desire on the composition of the feedingstuffs used to feed their animals.
In my opinion, this is a legitimate right to information which must be satisfied.
As far as the amendments presented are concerned, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4 and 5 that improve the Commission proposal.
However, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 2 calling on the Commission to present, forthwith, a proposal setting out an exhaustive list of the materials authorised for feeding animals.
I must stress that the Commission is in no way opposed to the actual principle of drawing up an exhaustive list of materials.
The Commission is convinced of the usefulness of a positive list.
In this connection, I would like to quote from the White Paper on Food Safety which states "The materials which may or may not used in animal feed production, including animal by-products, need to be clearly defined."
A positive list of feed materials would give the clearest response to the current lack of definition of feed materials, however, it goes on to state: "This task is complex and time-consuming.
In the short term, the current negative list needs to be rapidly expanded and the Commission is committed to working towards a positive list over the medium term."
Regarding the timetable, there is no way that a proposal on a positive list of materials can be envisaged before the end of 2002.
The procedure whereby this can be done is the amendment of 1996/25 to convert the current non-exhaustive list of feed materials into an exhaustive positive list.
This can be done by codecision under Article 152.
Any updating of that list would be accomplished by comitology.
I hope that Parliament will understand that the Commission cannot agree to give commitments on timescales which cannot be reasonably kept.
Finally, in relation to Amendment No 6, this amendment is not acceptable as it falls outside the scope of this directive.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11.00 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.55 a.m. and resumed at 11.00 a.m.).
Madam President, unfortunately I have to inform you and the House of a new tragedy at sea.
A few days ago, a French vessel, the An Oriant, based in Brittany, was shipwrecked.
Eight of its crewmembers died.
Yesterday, the fishing vessel Arosa, which was flying the British flag - and like the An Oriant, was fishing in Irish waters - was also shipwrecked. The majority of its crew were Spanish.
The result could not have been more horrendous, Madam President.
Of the thirteen crewmembers, only one survived.
Five bodies have been found and the rest have disappeared.
On my own behalf and on behalf of my colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries, I would ask you, Madam President, to send Parliament' s condolences to the families of the victims and to the local authorities in both Brittany and in Marín, Galicia, from where the majority of the victims came.
I also wish it to be noted, Madam President, that the European Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries, which it is my honour and responsibility to chair, is very sensitive to these accidents at sea.
This is demonstrated by the fact that we are currently producing a very significant own-initiative report, the rapporteur for which is our vice-chairperson, Mrs Miguélez, on the causes of accidents involving fishing vessels in the European Union.
Mr Varela, I have taken your words to heart and I can assure you that I will pass on your message.
Vote
I wanted to point out to you, ladies and gentlemen, that the quaestors have taken a decision to prohibit mobile phones in the Chamber.
I have no doubt that you will follow their instructions.
- Following the vote on recital A(2)
Swoboda (PSE).
(DE) Madam President, I only wanted to ask whether we all agree that the order of the paragraphs should be changed - I refer to the first vote - as the Socialist Group requested.
You did not take a vote on that.
Mr Swoboda, we quite agree.
When we vote on these paragraphs, I shall ask if there are any objections to inserting them after paragraph 1.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, may I just make a brief comment.
In connection with human rights, only a brief mention was made here of the Romanies.
During the IMF Summit, people came out of prison with broken ribs.
This means that they had not been allowed to exercise their rights of free speech and freedom of assembly.
This report does not ....
(The President cut the speaker off)
I am afraid, Mr Schröder, that I cannot reopen the debate at this stage of the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0244/2000) by Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the European Parliament resolution on Slovakia's membership application to the European Union and the state of negotiations (COM(1999) 511 - C5-0034/2000 - 1997/2173(COS))
With regard to Amendment No 3
Mr President, I would like to make an editorial change to an amendment which I tabled.
It concerns Amendment No 3.
Where it says that this should lead to "a certain level of political autonomy" , this should read "a certain level of cultural autonomy" .
Are there any objections to this oral amendment being tabled?
Mr President, I believe the change made by Mrs Maes is a very judicious one.
The term "political autonomy" had thrown me. What does it mean?
But as Mrs Maes now points out that it should read a certain level of cultural autonomy, I can go along with that.
My recommendation with regard to this amendment was negative at first, but I would now like to change this into a positive one.
(Parliament gave its assent to considering the oral amendment ) (Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0248/2000) by Mr Queiró, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the European Parliament resolution on Hungary's membership application to the European Union and the state of negotiations (COM(1999) 505 - C5-0028/2000 - 1997/2175(COS))
Before the start of the vote
President.
Mr Queiró wishes to table an oral amendment, in his capacity as rapporteur.
Mr President, the reason for this amendment concerns the fact that recital c) highlights the persistence of segregation in children' s education and serious discrimination in the various sectors of Hungarian civil society, from the economy to the public sector, which in its seriousness does not correspond to my perception of the current situation, which I have had the opportunity to observe as rapporteur and during my visits there.
The formulation that I now propose does not try to hide or deny the existence of discrimination against the Roma community, which unfortunately still exists, but it stresses the need to adopt a set of positive measures leading to the free, unforced assimilation of the Roma into Hungarian society.
The recital would therefore read as follows: "recital c) whereas insufficient attention continues to be paid to the situation of the Roma, whereas discrimination against the Roma must be tackled seriously by the Hungarian Government through the adoption of a set of positive measures that may lead to the free assimilation of the individuals belonging to this community, whereas it should be possible to find a solution given that a Minorities Office has been set up and medium-term legislation has been passed which will help them to become integrated into Hungarian society,".
I must just point out to the House that this last part is taken word for word from the recital as laid down in the report and approved by the committee.
Are there any objections to this oral amendment being tabled?
I would remind you, ladies and gentleman, that we cannot debate an oral amendment.
All that the Presidency is asking you to do is to state your opinion on whether the oral compromise amendment should be voted on or not.
(The House objected to voting on the oral compromise amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0241/2000) by Mr Van Orden, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the European Parliament resolution on Bulgaria's membership application to the European Union and the state of negotiations (COM(1999) 501 - C5-0024/2000 - 1997/2179(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0247/2000) by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the European Parliament resolution on Romania's membership application to the European Union and the state of negotiations (COM(1999) 510 - C5-0033/2000 - 1997/2171(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
President.
We shall now adjourn the voting in order to make way for the formal sitting.
(The sitting was suspended at 12 noon and resumed at 12.35 p.m.)
Mr President, my intention is to combine the three amendments tabled by the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats in a new formulation, which would make Recital A a new paragraph. I propose to call this paragraph Paragraph 1 and therefore to renumber all the subsequent paragraphs accordingly.
The new wording of Recital A, which would become Paragraph 1, and which I propose to the House, would read as follows: 'Whereas Slovenia must continue to meet the Copenhagen political criteria also in those areas where questions remain open, as specifically mentioned in the Commission' s 1999 report.'
This is the wording jointly agreed with those who tabled the three amendments of the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats. It combines the three amendments and turns Recital A into a new paragraph, to be called Paragraph 1.
Are there any objections to taking this oral compromise amendment into consideration?
Mr President, I should just like to clarify the point that there is no longer a recital A but, by agreement with Mr Martelli, a new Paragraph 1.
You are quite right.
That is how the rapporteur explained matters to us.
(The House gave its assent to taking the oral compromise amendment into consideration) (Parliament adopted the resolution)
Welcome
Vote (continuation)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Explanations of Vote - Brok report (A5-0250/2000)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, I am very pleased to announce that I voted for the resolution on the procedure for admitting these important new States to the European Union.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Brok for his report and to stress the emphasis which, in the process of integrating all these States into the European Union, must be placed on precautionary measures ensuring that the pensioners and elderly people of all these States which are going to join the Union are given their due worth, so that their right to life and to the means necessary to support them - that right which was sadly taken away from them with the end of Communism, when their pensions became worthless - is preserved.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Brok on what is a full and very interesting report.
From reading his report it is clear that if three conditions are met, there is every reason to be optimistic that we can make a success of enlargement.
These three conditions are firstly that the Commission makes a success of its own pre-accession strategy, particularly in the areas of regional policy, agricultural policy and environmental policy.
Secondly, that the candidate countries continue to make the good progress that they are making towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria and towards the full and complete enforcement of the acquis communautaire in advance of accession.
Thirdly, perhaps the most difficult, that the Council agrees new institutional arrangements that allow the Community to function efficiently, effectively and democratically after enlargement.
The Brok report gives us grounds for satisfaction, but no room for complacency.
Almost all the reports on the twelve countries that are candidates for membership of the European Union express satisfaction with the progress that these countries have made in order to fulfil the necessary conditions. The rapporteurs choose to ignore the fact that all of these countries are riddled with social inequality, that the standard of living of the majority of the population is very low and that unemployment is rife in all of these areas.
They underestimate the ethnic minority problem. They say nothing about the resurgence of nationalist tendencies, and do not even bother to name the large Turkic-speaking minorities in the Balkans, and the ethnic Russians in the Baltic States, in order to avoid having to comment on the ordeal imposed on such people as a result, for example, of their being denied the right to citizenship.
Even if these countries, in particular those in Eastern Europe, are integrated, this will occur in line with the balance of power. By this I mean they will have a subordinate role in relation to the three great powers: Germany France and the United Kingdom, either individually or all together.
The economies of these countries are already at the mercy of the law laid down by the great European trusts.
Integrating these countries into the Union will do nothing to change the nature of these relationships in any way.
So, whether we limit the European Union to 15 countries or enlarge it to 27, it will always be a creation designed to serve the interests of capital, and the workers of Europe have no hope of improving their situation.
That is why we voted the way we did.
So that there should be no doubt about the fact that we are sympathetic towards admitting the new applicant countries, we have voted in favour of Mr Brok' s report.
We nonetheless think that there are a number of factors in the report that are particularly open to criticism, as well as in the overall negotiations in connection with enlargement.
We find much to criticise in the fact that the EU is going in and setting the agenda for internal factors, as well as linking participation in Economic and Monetary Union with the coordination of social policies.
I refer in particular to paragraph 19 of the report' s draft resolution in which it is stated that the European Parliament 'emphasises that acceptance of the provisions laid down regarding Economic and Monetary Union rules out any possibility of opting out and represents a commitment to a global, irreversible political project ... which does not mean mere membership of a currency area but which greatly entails coordination of economic and social policies' .
The process of European integration has moved on apace in recent years.
Enlargement towards the countries of Eastern and Central Europe (CEEC), Cyprus and Malta has been called an 'historic task' for the European Union.
This phrase gives us an idea of the scale of the issues that have been grafted onto the process.
Extending the European Union, at least in the first stage, to more than 100 million new citizens, will provide new impetus for the development and integration of the European economy as a whole.
The accession of new Member States will provide the Union with further weight and influence on the international stage.
At the same time, there are still considerable difficulties to overcome, particularly in terms of budgets.
The first wave of new Member States could increase Europe' s population by more than a quarter, taking it to almost 500 million people, whilst the total GDP of the European Union would increase by only 5% at the most.
Despite the enormous efforts that these countries have made, integrating them into existing structures and programmes will be a particularly tricky task.
The report we have been debating today seeks to provide an update on the progress that has been made in accession negotiations with all the candidate countries.
The report urges the Commission and the Council to ensure that the principle of differentiation, as defined in Helsinki, is implemented to the letter, so that each country is judged on its own merits.
The candidate countries themselves must continue their efforts to strengthen their administrative capacities for the implementation and enforcement of the Community aquis.
They are also asked to build up effective financial control and audit procedures in order to effectively control the use of the pre-accession funds.
Furthermore, they would under no circumstances be able to demand an opt-out clause in the context of the EMU.
We are making many demands of the candidate countries, but at the same time, the European Union too has its duties: it is obliged to implement the reforms necessary for enlargement.
The forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference is due to look at improving the European Union' s institutional framework.
To return to the budgetary aspect, I think it is crucial that we study the budgetary consequences of such a large number of new Member States joining before the end of the current financial cycle in 2006.
Lastly, I wish to stress the fact that the enlargement process must be a gradual one, following the pace at which the candidate countries are making the necessary changes.
That is why I, like several of my fellow Members, do not feel it would be wise to set deadlines.
I should also like to remind you that this process must not cause us to neglect the cooperation with the countries on all sides of the Mediterranean to which we are committed!
.
(ES) In the current context and given that we are beginning to hear enlargement being questioned in certain quarters, it is important that this Parliament sends a clear political signal in support of it.
That is why I have voted in favour of the Brok report. This is an excellent report which, as well as analysing the progress made and the difficulties still facing the countries with which negotiations have begun, also serves as a reminder to the public of the political and ethical commitment which the European Union, this Parliament, has made, not only to the candidate countries which wish to share our European history, and have the right to do so, but also to the political project of European integration itself.
I believe that enlargement will not only favour the prosperity and economic growth of the candidate countries and, by extension, that of the current Member States of the Union, but will, above all, also provide a guarantee of peace and stability in Europe and thereby offer the European Union the opportunity to finish the task of ensuring peace in Europe, which began fifty years ago.
We must remind those people who have no sense of solidarity and are concerned about the economic cost of enlargement, that the prize of peace fully justifies this cost.
As we have already seen in connection with the integration of Western European States into the European Community, agriculture and food is one of the most complex areas of negotiation.
Each enlargement has required long-term preparatory measures as well as transitional and special arrangements, often lasting for several years.
I believe that we are right to expect the applicant States of Central and Eastern Europe to implement similar special and transitional measures.
We should also do well to remember that, because of the great economic and social significance of farming and its output, a competitive agricultural and food-supply structure will be a vitally important factor in the success of these countries' transformation and restructuring processes.
Agriculture is a domain which is largely regulated on the basis of uniform binding European rules and regulations.
National powers are greatly restricted.
Whether we like it or not, almost 50% of the EU budget has to be spent on the maintenance of this agricultural policy.
It was decided in Berlin to allocate approximately EUR 3.1 billion a year to the gradual integration of the applicant countries for the period from 2000 to 2006, which amounts to a total of about EUR 21.8 billion, and to earmark a further EUR 58.1 billion for enlargement from the year 2002.
From where we stand at present, this financial framework will not suffice in resolving the complicated processes involved in the forthcoming round of integrations, especially from the point of view of ensuring that they are socially acceptable.
The financial framework for the enlargement of the Union, however, can only be facilitated through a rise in the current Member States' contributions and not through constant cuts in planned expenditure on the various Community policies.
This is a truth that has to be told.
The opposite approach would drive a wedge through the farming community and endanger the social development of rural areas throughout Europe.
According to an old German saying, if the farmers are thriving the state will thrive.
There is a great deal of wisdom in that saying, and it is still applicable today.
.
(FR) Since its inception, the European Union has sought to bring peoples closer together.
Although it may be difficult to have the various sensitivities, histories and, sometimes, contradictions live side by side, enlargement must adhere to this concept of peace and take part in the creation of a community that transcends ancient geographical and ideological borders, guided by common values and rules.
Nevertheless, in order to prevent Europe becoming nothing more than a free trade area, the European Union must provide clear answers to the institutional, social and economic questions that enlargement is bound to raise.
We must, as of now, adopt a pragmatic approach to the implications of a Europe not of 15, but of 25 or 30.
We must respond in an appropriate way to this enlargement which will considerably increase the number of poorer regions, and think carefully together about the risk of accentuating imbalances in Europe, in order to ensure that Europe does not become one huge heterogeneous mass.
This is why we must show imagination in reformulating the criteria for granting structural aid, in order to guarantee appropriate support for the poorest regions of the candidate countries, as well as those in the current Member States.
For this reason, I hope that the outermost regions, six out of seven of which always feature amongst the ten poorest in the EU, benefit from the Structural Funds, no longer just according to the sole criterion of GDP but also according to geographical, demographic and, especially, social indicators.
Enlargement must not be financed by the poorest regions.
This concept must guide institutional, economic and financial reforms throughout the accession process.
Only on these terms will it be understood and accepted that the principle of solidarity, which aims to improve economic and social cohesion within the EU, will become a reality.
Mr Brok' s report addresses the concerns I have just shared with you and, consequently, I voted in favour of it.
The real political objective of the EU' s enlargement project is the economic and political subjection of the applicant countries' people.
It is about formalising a system which allows financially strong EU companies to dominate neighbours in the East and South, at the same time as the EU develops into a military superpower.
The most important task for the Popular Movement against the EU is to internationalise popular resistance to the overall EU project.
We voted against this report, but not because we are opposed to the principle of European enlargement.
On the contrary, we feel that integrating peoples that have the democratic means to discuss and resolve this type of issue would be a positive step.
The European institutions are not in the least bit interested in the opinion of the peoples of Euroep, whether they are Members of the European Union or not.
French workers have no more had the chance to say what they think about the Charter of Fundamental Rights than the people of Lithuania have about joining the Union.
What this report is actually proposing is to enlarge an economic market.
The criteria laid down at the Copenhagen Council in 1993 on democratisation or the ability to withstand competition actually strengthen the hand of unrestrained, destructive capitalism, in the guise of acquis communautaire.
The rapporteur is furthermore forced to acknowledge that "the changes taking place in the candidate countries have led to social problems and in particular to marked social stratification and in some cases high unemployment."
The various structural adjustment plans demand forced privatisations in all strategic sectors: finance, insurance, industry, education, and public services, etc., and impose budgetary restrictions.
Ultimately, underdevelopment is on the increase and there is an explosion in poverty even in countries such as Poland and Hungary, which are meeting their targets for 'growth' .
So where is the 'progress' for the populations of these countries who have never been consulted?
For years, in this House, we have been constantly proclaiming the perversity of this Europe of yours, which is centralising and bureaucratic one day and federalist the next, this Brussels-ridden Europe which, despite its fine proclamations, denies national identities and cultures, the history of the nations of Europe and history in general.
Because we reject this Europe in the interests of the French people, we cannot in all conscience endorse its enlargement to include the countries and the peoples of the East, which have only just emerged from Communist dictatorship and cannot yet know what a technocratic and totalitarian trap it is that they are wanting to enter.
We want another Europe, an alternative model of European integration, a Europe that is great, the Europe formed by the cooperation of independent sovereign nations, whose aspiration is to include all the countries of Europe, just the countries of Europe.
The Europe we want is a real Europe as opposed to your pernickety, pen-pushing Europe, a Europe of freedoms as opposed to your centralised eurocracy, a Europe of the nations as opposed to your undifferentiated 'europoidal' jumble, a Europe of the people as opposed to your Europe of civil servants and technocrats.
I abstained from the vote on Mr Brok' s report because the fundamental question of our peoples' agreement to EMU was never raised.
Consequently, in most Member States, neither the citizens not the parliaments have deliberated on the principle and conditions of enlargement.
The issue of time limits is crucial both for the citizens of the countries of the East and for the European Union.
A number of major preliminary conditions must be lifted.
Until the definition of a political and social Europe is made clear, not only in order to overcome the obstacle of the proper technical operation of the decision to be taken at 23 months but also in order to define the framework of the values, common social and citizenship models, enlargement will entail running more risks than it creates opportunities.
There is a risk of the European Union being watered down politically and of social dumping, and, lastly, that the project of European integration will be reduced to the creation of one large marketplace, an area of free competition.
That particular plan is one that the public rejects.
It is a dangerous route.
A headlong rush into enlargement, under such conditions, would be liable to aggravate the sidelong shifts towards the populist and fascistic which are appearing here and there.
As a matter of urgency, we must unambiguously consult the national parliaments and the citizens.
As a matter of urgency, we must review the time schedule.
As a matter of urgency, we must set a framework for social convergence, harmonising social standards upwards.
As a matter of urgency, we must intensify political cohesion and give the Charter of fundamental rights a legal status.
Enlargement must be considered in this new context and a transition strategy must be defined.
Less would have amounted to more!
I abstained in the vote on this never-ending resolution on enlargement because I believe that Parliament would be doing a disservice to the politically important and worthy cause of eastward and southward enlargement of the European Union to the south and east with this semi-digestible screed of paper.
I even fear that this collection of country reports and comparative reports will prove counterproductive, particularly in the countries that have applied for membership of the European Union, and more especially in the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The impact of this long-winded resolution of 127 paragraphs, indeed, is liable to be in inverse proportion to its length.
We should have made do with the country reports, adding at most a short, yet succinct resolution.
Our purpose, after all, should be to send the right signal from here, saying that we want these countries' accession and that it should not be delayed, but also making it clear that enlargement must be economically, socially and financially manageable, both for the applicant countries and for the Community.
A realistic approach to manageability is not procrastination - it is quite the opposite.
For many good reasons, not least among which is the desire to safeguard a lasting peace, we want the unification of the whole of Europe, which is the only way to exclude the wars that my parents and I have experienced.
That, in a few words, should have been our message today.
We cannot and should not expect the applicant countries to go further than we ourselves have been able to go in implementing the established body of Community law and practice - the acquis communautaire.
Reading the section of the resolution entitled 'Enlargement and Equal Opportunities' , which states that the adoption of the Community acquis in the area of equality is a sine qua non for accession and makes other demands of the applicant countries, I have the impression that all this could be interpreted by those countries as the ultimate bid to block their accession.
They should know that in this domain, to which I attach great importance, the Community has not actually come very far.
On paper, a great deal has been achieved in the area of equality of treatment and equal opportunities for men and women, but how do things stand in practice?
It so happens that we have a report on equal opportunities for men and women on the agenda for this very sitting, a report which once more illustrates how stunted the body of Community practice still is in this particular area.
So it would be nothing less than arrogance on our part to expect more of the applicant countries in this domain than we ourselves have been able to achieve in the 25 years since the adoption of the first directives relating to equal opportunities.
This is my view, and the purpose of my abstention was to emphasise that this Parliament would have done better to produce less paper but more substance.
I also wanted to send a signal that would be properly understood in the applicant countries, to convey the message that we are in favour of accession but that we, like they, must first be in a position to create the necessary conditions for their membership.
When I look at what has been done so far to that end at the Intergovernmental Conference, I feel that we have little cause for pride and that we should put our own house in order before imposing prior conditions on the applicant countries, especially when we ourselves have been unable to satisfy these conditions.
in writing. (SV) Enlargement of the EU is a reunification of the Europe which was divided for a long time.
The EU' s Member States have an historic task which consists in welcoming the countries of Eastern and Central Europe into European cooperation.
Enlargement ought not, however, to be regarded as a problem, but must be seen as an opportunity for deepening cooperation on cross-border issues which the States cannot solve on their own.
The governments of the EU countries, like the European Parliament, have a significant responsibility for ensuring that the necessary reforms are carried out without delay so that enlargement becomes a reality.
Preparations for enlargement are going slowly.
Europe' s leaders must therefore begin to show the political will to accept the challenge posed by enlargement.
Clear dates ought to be established for when the negotiations should be completed.
Stopping the enlargement process now would be like turning the clock back ten years.
That would be fatal for European integration.
One of the most important reforms which must be implemented is a thorough reorganisation of the common agricultural policy.
The current system of subsidies, grants and quotas must be replaced by free trade and adaptation to the market.
Reform of agricultural policy is necessary not only for economic reasons, but also so that European agriculture might be characterised by efficiency and good quality.
An extended EU must not create A and B teams in Europe.
If Europe is to become whole, the objective must be for all Member States to participate in all areas of cooperation.
Obviously, freedom of movement must also apply to the countries of Eastern and Central Europe from their first day of membership.
I have voted for the whole package on the enlargement of the EU eastwards for the following reasons:
1. because I regard this process as a political necessity, and
2. because I wanted to send the applicant countries a positive signal, since they have made considerable progress on the charted course towards accession.
Despite the problems which undoubtedly exist and which actually affect the present EU Member States more than the applicant countries, I believe that these are outweighed by the opportunities which this enlargement process offers.
As a member of the EU-Slovenian Joint Parliamentary Committee, may I say that I believe the progress made by Slovenia in incorporating the acquis communautaire is exemplary, a view that is corroborated by the report.
I beg to differ slightly from the rapporteur in my assessment of the outstanding restitution claims and of the state of the legal system, because I know from my experience as an East German that, ten years after the unification of the two German States, the same difficulties still exist in the federal state of Brandenburg too.
Objectively, this complex process can take up to 20 years to complete.
I cannot subscribe in any way to the amendments to this report that have been tabled here in Parliament, because
it has already been noted on several occasions that Slovenia is satisfying the Copenhagen criteria,
the question of decommissioning the nuclear power plant is not part of the acquis, and
while the legacy of the Second World War can certainly be regarded in diverse ways, we can hardly expect the results of that war to be brought into line with political positions that were articulated 50 years later in the Copenhagen criteria.
The enlargement of the European Union to include the ten countries of Eastern Europe plus Malta and Cyprus is a great project.
For indeed, who could deny entry into the European House to States such as the Poland of Copernicus and John Paul II, the Hungary bullied in Budapest in 1956 or the capital that has become a symbol, Prague, when popular democracies threw the Head of State out of the window and crushed the nation of Jan Palach, sacrificed in the name of freedom.
It is, however, precisely because of this harrowing past that our affection for our European brothers in the East, might induce in us some unease at seeing them, having just emerged from the bureaucratic totalitarianism of the Soviet Empire, fall into the clutches of another form of totalitarianism, just as bureaucratic, that of the free trade empire of untrammelled ultraliberalism.
Is it really in the interest of farmers in Poland or Hungary to condemn themselves to becoming redundant within two decades of entering the Union?
Is it really in the interest of the Greek Cypriots, who, like their fellow countrymen in Thrace, have known for more than a century what Turkey signifies, to become members of a European Union which will tomorrow allow their former torturers to travel freely and reside freely in their land?
This is why I and my fellow Members of the European Parliament from the Front National would like to spare the nations of Eastern Europe the mistake of being 'disintegrated' within the American-European Union.
Everyone has free will, however.
We are warning them, as friends.
We shall welcome them, as friends.
As friends, however, we are too dubious about the wisdom of their decision not to refrain from putting them on their guard.
The size and breadth of the problems raised by enlargement are incompatible with the duplicitous language that has been used about it within the European Union.
It is in fact totally unacceptable that doors should have been opened and that candidate countries should have been given false expectations, while at the same time, with the aim of effectively postponing enlargement, an insurmountable tangle of difficulties and conditions should now be put in the way of its implementation, or obstacles should be raised that have been known about since the beginning, to the extent that proposals have already been put forward to analyse the costs of non-enlargement.
We, for our part, have always stood by the logic of truth, however hard it may be to accept.
That is why, even though we do not object to enlargement in principle, we have always argued right from the start that a definitive position on this will depend on the conditions in which it actually takes place.
We say this because we have never ignored the fact that obstacles to its implementation would arise at all sorts of levels, and it is true and inevitable that to overcome them will require strong political willpower, new financial means, and above all a thorough analysis of its effects both on the current Member States and on the candidate countries, particularly at the institutional, economic, financial and social levels.
By way of example, let me repeat that it will not be acceptable to us if it takes place at the expense of the less highly-developed Member States - as suggested by the failure to review the financial perspective - or if it entails an institutional change such as the one that some people are advocating.
I would like to echo the positive opinion expressed by my group regarding Mr Brok's report, and emphasise the political priority which must be given to the European Union's decision to enlarge, a priority which cannot be conditioned or diluted by any reasons other than the rigorous assessment of whether the candidate countries fulfil the criteria laid down by the Community acquis.
In addition to this, I would like to stress three points. Firstly, enlargement cannot be separated from a coherent policy of openness and attentiveness on the part of the European Union towards the east and the south.
Cooperation and friendship with the former USSR nations and the Mediterranean must progress alongside the enlargement process.
Secondly, enlargement inevitably involves revision of the European Union's financial perspectives, which were conceived and established before the prospect of enlargement was even on the horizon.
A larger Europe with more tasks and responsibilities will require fresh, increased financial resources.
The urgent need therefore arises to revise the financial perspectives and to increase the financial allocations for pre-accession operations.
Thirdly, the implications of enlargement for the Union's regional policy cannot be overlooked.
The policy of cohesion is, at present, necessary and will continue to be so with regard to a large number of regions which are currently classified as Objective 1 areas and which are to be removed from this category after enlargement.
We must henceforth seek out new types of measures and new tools to benefit all the areas which are lacking in infrastructures and service networks such as, for example, the south of Italy.
The enlargement of the European Union is a great project.
A Europe of this type would be a guarantee of peace and would signify the rejection of any ethnic nationalism.
The prospect of uniting nations around a common political project, on a democratic basis and in order to promote the prosperity and welfare of the various peoples is an exhilarating one.
This must be the objective of a greater Europe.
What is shaping up at the moment, however, is unfortunately more like the formation of a purely economic and liberal Europe, without any real political power which might democratically decide on major political, economic and social objectives.
The problems and hold-ups we encounter in our endeavours to make our common institutions more effective, more democratic and closer to the citizens are a striking illustration of this.
In such circumstances, if we take the fast track to enlarging Europe, this will be detrimental to the interests of the peoples and their social rights.
I therefore abstained from the vote on this report.
Enlargement has been a recurring theme in our debate and our discussions today: each one of us, even those who have not spoken, will surely have been moved to reflect upon what Europe means for them, for their party and for the State that they represent.
For me, enlargement is not a question of whether to endorse the entry of certain countries into Europe.
Europe and the European Union are two different things: the European Union is a political entity conceived 50 years ago whereas Europe is a geographical, historical, political, cultural and social entity whose origins lie in the mists of time.
To become part of the European Union one needs to apply, whereas one becomes part of Europe by birth, through a blood tie which unites all the people of this wonderful continent.
Let us not forget this when we discuss enlargement. We are here - and this is right and proper - to assess economic, political and social criteria, but we must be careful not to empty of all significance an act which is in many respects inevitable and preordained.
Take Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic, to mention but a few of the 'candidate' countries: how could we deny that they share our history, our culture and our origins?
This is not, of course, an invitation to shirk our responsibilities: we cannot forgo evaluating the transposal of the Community acquis, just as it is necessary for the Union to make good the commitments it has made to these States under the pre-accession strategy.
We must not underestimate the need for healthy pragmatism in our handling of this extremely delicate transition stage, to avoid unnecessary clashes of principles.
In general, we are all in favour of enlargement, but this will only fully come about when the candidate countries have carried out the necessary structural reforms, when the European Union's institutions and decision-making processes are capable of handling such a situation and, most importantly, when we at last realise that Europe is not a question of political status but, more than anything else, a story of roots and common history, blood, sweat and tears, dreams and visions, which unite us above and beyond political and economic issues.
Carlsson Report (A5-0238/2000)
Mr President, I am very pleased to be able to announce that I voted for the measure on Estonia's application for membership of the European Union.
I would like to take this opportunity to extend a greeting to the pensioners and elderly people of Estonia, in the hope that we will look after their interests once they join the European Union.
I would stress, in particular that, as Mrs Carlsson's report states, 99% of all Estonian companies are small and medium-sized businesses.
This is certainly positive and we should congratulate the Republic of Estonia on this and its other merits.
Opening up the European Union to new members will increase stability and wellbeing on the continent we share.
It is therefore very positive that accession negotiations with all applicant countries have made progress.
The applicant countries must be able to join the European Union according to the headway they have made.
In the talks, therefore, the principle of differentiation must be applied.
Bunching the applicant countries geographically and staggering their accession dates according to regional criteria are unacceptable.
Enlargement will also benefit the present members of the European Union.
Its political and macro-economic benefits will be greater than the additional costs the Member States will incur.
The EU already benefits from the growing surplus in trade with the applicant countries.
It is to be hoped that the governments of the applicant countries will continue strengthening their administrative capacity so that the EU' s acquis communautaire can be implemented in these countries prior to accession.
Estonia' s rapid progress in preparing for membership is especially positive for Finland.
Our neighbouring country has struggled with determination over the last decade to meet the criteria of membership.
With respect to the question of Estonia' s minorities, the important language law, which was passed in June 2000, is in accordance with all international norms.
Furthermore, the economic transition process has been a positive one.
A speedy solution to the questions that remain is to be hoped for from the point of view of all parties.
The government of Estonia should pay added attention to the fight against corruption and drug trafficking.
I welcome the Carlsson report on Estonia's application for membership of the European Union and share the majority of conclusions that she draws.
I note that Estonia now meets the Copenhagen criteria and is making good progress towards fulfilling the acquis communautaire.
Once the European Union has adjusted its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason for Estonia not being admitted to the Union.
I look forward to early Estonian membership.
Schroedter Report (A5-0239/2000)
Mr President, both on behalf of the Pensioners' Party and on my own account, I voted for the report on the Republic of Latvia's application for membership of the European Union.
I would like to take this opportunity to extend a greeting to the pensioners and elderly people of Latvia, who, I am sure, will find the European Union particularly attentive to their problems.
I would mention the low birth rate - 7.5 per thousand, which is highlighted in the Schroedter report - a problem which aggravates the situation of the social security pension system. I hope that this matter will be more successfully resolved by the Republic of Latvia than it has been in certain countries of the European Union.
I welcome the Schroedter report on Latvia's application for membership of the European Union and share the majority of conclusions that she draws.
I note that Latvia is making progress to meeting both the Copenhagen criteria and meeting the obligations of the acquis communautaire.
If Latvia continues to make progress and the European Union adjusts its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason why Latvia should not be admitted to the Union.
I look forward to Latvia joining the Union in the not too distant future.
Like the rapporteur, I should like to express my pleasure at the considerable progress which Latvia has made in recent months in order to be included in the first wave of enlargement that the European Union is shortly to experience.
Even though this good report masks an occasionally disparate real situation - Mrs Schroedter' s report highlights the difficult situation of rural areas or again the slowness of the necessary adaptation of public administration - the fact remains that Latvia has, nonetheless, reoriented its policy in such a way as to become, unquestionably, a member of the European family in the way this is usually understood in this Parliament.
And it is this feeling - or lack thereof - much more than meticulous analyses of the accounts, which should, when the time comes, govern our choices regarding enlargement as European integration ceases to have any meaning if it is no longer primarily political.
The pettifoggery intended to alter the frame of reference used to view events when they run counter to the slightly too rigid technocratic and monetary dogma - this House' s astounding indifference in the fact of the outcome of the Danish referendum is a splendid, worrying example of this - should not be used as a benchmark for a debate of this importance.
Latvia is entitled to its place in this forum, not only because, on the whole, the progress it has made has earned it the right to this 'allocation of confidence' that is essential in order to successfully concluded negotiations of this type, but more especially, and above all, because Latvia is at home in Europe as a European country.
And so, in agreement with the observations and comments made by the rapporteur, I therefore welcome this dialogue and the prospects it gives rise to.
I hope that Latvia will have the opportunity to add the wealth of its own special characteristics to a European Union which I too hope will, in the meantime, have opted to reorganise itself into a coherent political body that respects nations and their sovereignty, rather than a muddled board of shareholders of unequal standing that have lost sight of their primary objective, which is to build a strong, independent Europe.
Hoff Report (A5-0240/2000)
Regarding the stage reached in the agreements on Lithuania's accession to the European Union, I would like to take this important opportunity to extend a warm greeting to the pensioners and elderly people of Lithuania.
As the rapporteur, Magdalene Hoff, declared, it is important for the Ignalina nuclear power station to be closed down, as it is particularly dangerous.
I hope that, as the Republic of Lithuania has agreed, this nuclear power station will indeed be shut down.
I welcome the Hoff report on Lithuania's application for membership of the European Union and share the majority of conclusions that she draws.
I note that Lithuania is making good progress to meeting both the Copenhagen criteria and meeting the obligations of the acquis communautaire.
If Lithuania continues to make progress and the European Union adjusts its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason why Lithuania should not be admitted to the Union.
I look forward to Lithuania joining the Union in the not too distant future.
Gawronski Report (A5-0246/2000)
Mr President, I was very pleased to be able to vote for the report on the current status of Poland's application for membership of the European Union.
I would like to take this opportunity to extend a greeting to the pensioners and elderly people of Poland, some of which belong to a Pensioners' Party which is similar to the Pensioners' Party which I represent in the European Union.
I must emphasise the importance of Mr Gawronski's report.
I feel that, out of all the States which have applied to join the Union, Poland is the one which most deserves our support and our commitment for, without Poland's crucial initiatives, Communism would not have ended and we would not be discussing this issue today.
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I welcome the Gawronski report on Poland's application for membership of the European Union and share the majority of conclusions that he draws.
I note that the Poland is making excellent progress towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria and fulfilling the acquis communautaire.
If the Poland continues to make progress and the European Union adjusts its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason why the Poland should not be admitted to the Union.
I look forward to early Polish membership.
As far as some of us are concerned, Poland' s accession to the European Union will symbolise deliverance. In this Europe that General de Gaulle had once described as a 'cathedral' , Poland has a unique but well-deserved place.
The historic, cultural and even emotional links which my country has maintained for centuries with Poland make us French perhaps more sensitive than others to the nature of the welcome which should be reserved for a nation which, almost single-handedly, sums up all the glories and all the tragedies in the experience of this continent of ours.
Regarded for far too long as the prime battleground for neighbouring aggressors, who always saw the annexation of Poland as the first stop on their expansionist itinerary, the unwilling arena for one of the most abhorrent tragedies in history, and subsequently left for decades to oppression by a totalitarian regime which, encouraged by our culpable silence, thought that it could finally quash Poland' s legendary spirit of resistance, Poland has never ceased to demonstrate forcefully the values of freedom, courage and independence, all those shared values that form the foundation stone on which our construction of a political Europe is supposed to stand.
We therefore have a duty to embrace Poland as a Member as soon as possible and treat the country as it deserves, as one of our Members for all time. Spare us the doubtful audits and requirements for standardisation that are so inopportune.
Blinkered application of these would exacerbate rather than improve the situation in this country. With 25% of the population employed in agriculture, Poland is not Luxembourg, and the debates on the candidate countries' adoption of the Community acquis sometimes take on a surrealist tone, unless we accept the outrageous idea of a multi-speed Europe where, of all the disparities between peoples, only economic disparities actually counted.
No, Poland deserves better than a conditional welcome. Its past is its best passport, and its dignity its best argument.
Most of all, this country, which has ceaselessly fought against all hegemony, will bring us a new but, at the same time, experienced insight enabling us to parry the risks of any new imperialism, even that apparently inoffensive one - which may yet be a harbinger of the worst perils - of noble sentiments and a quiet conscience on the cheap.
In welcoming Poland to our common home, the European Union will be doing justice to a newcomer, justice that has been denied to it for far too long.
Jürgen Schröder Report (A5-0245/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the report on the current status of the Czech Republic's application for membership of the European Union and I would like to take this opportunity to extend a greeting to the pensioners and elderly people of that country.
I hope that they will receive the European Union's help and support in those issues facing all the elderly people of the Czech Republic following the fall of Communism and the resulting devaluation of their currency and thus their pensions.
I would stress, as Mr Schröder stated in his report, that inflation in the Czech Republic has fallen from 10.7% in 1999 to 2.1% this year. This is evidence of the Czech Republic's clear determination to join the European Union and its commendable commitment to this goal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I particularly welcome the amendment tabled by the Green Group to the report on the Czech Republic' s accession to the European Union.
The Czech Government' s attitude is unacceptable.
At a time when there was mounting concern about the safety of putting Temelin into operation, it had declared that henceforth it intended deeds to speak louder than words.
The German environment minister put his finger on the problem in a recent interview.
He asked whether the Czechs want to join the EU in a community spirit or a spirit of defiance.
At present, all the signs seem to indicate that defiance rather than reason is the mainspring for the Czech Government' s actions.
If the Czech Republic joins the Union without the considerable safety risks of Temelin being resolved, it may well prove difficult in future to persuade other candidates for accession to take the nuclear safety requirement seriously.
Furthermore, I think it is quite crucial to check whether the Benes decrees and AVNOJ provisions, which were used to justify persecution, robbery and murder, are compatible with European Union law.
We would welcome their repeal as signalling an active process of coming to terms with the past and as a step towards creating a new basis of understanding between peoples.
, in writing. (DE) I rejected the report on the 'Czech Republic' s application for membership of the European Union and the stage of negotiations reached' because Parliament rejected the amendment submitted by the honourable member Matti Wuori.
A disproportionately large number of breakdowns occurred during the preparations for putting the nuclear reactor Temelin into operation. In addition, environmental sustainability tests are not being carried out to an adequate extent, and the central parts of the reactor have not undergone crucial monitoring by international experts.
I welcome the Schröder report on the Czech Republic's application for membership of the European Union and share the majority of conclusions that he draws.
I note that the Czech Republic is making excellent progress towards meeting both the Copenhagen criteria and fulfilling the acquis communautaire.
If the Czech Republic continues to make progress and the European Union adjusts its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason why the Czech Republic should not be admitted to the Union.
I look forward to early membership for the Czech Republic.
Wiersma Report (A5-0244/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the report on the current status of Slovakia's application for membership of the European Union.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my hope that Slovakia's accession to the European Union will alleviate the situation of Slovakian pensioners and elderly people, a situation which is extremely damaging to the interests of all the citizens, particularly the elderly, in that their pensions are not sufficient to provide an adequate standard of living.
As Mr Wiersma said in his report, I would stress the progress made in the Slovakian Republic in the area of the protection of minorities.
It should be noted, in particular, that it is permitted to use the Roma language in 57 districts where the Roma population exceeds 20%.
I welcome the Wiersma report on Slovakia's application for membership of the European Union and share the majority of conclusions that he draws.
I note that Slovakia is making progress to meeting both the Copenhagen criteria and towards fulfilling the acquis communautaire.
If Slovakia continues to make progress and the European Union adjusts its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason why Slovakia should not be admitted to the Union.
I look forward to Slovakia joining the Community.
Queiró Report (A5-0248/2000)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Queiró's report on the current status of Hungary's application for membership of the European Union.
The European Union must also be attentive to the standard of living of Hungarian pensioners and elderly people, for they were hit hard by the demise of Communism in that the value of their pensions fell to next to nothing.
I have no doubt that the European Union will make every effort to resolve their problem.
Of particular note in Hungary is the considerable increase in machine and tool production brought about by an increase in exports.
Well done to the Hungarian Republic!
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I welcome the Queiró report on Hungary's application for membership of the European Union and share the majority of conclusions that he draws.
I note that Hungary is making good progress towards meeting both the Copenhagen criteria and meeting the obligations of the acquis communautaire.
If Hungary continues to make progress and the European Union adjusts its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason why Hungary should not be admitted to the Union.
I look forward to early membership for Hungary.
I abstained from the final vote on this report.
I share the concerns of the European Member of Parliament who, quite rightly, before the vote, discussed the situation of the gipsies and the injustices they suffer in Hungary.
The existence of serious discrimination against this community, one of the most victimised communities in Europe, is a key element casting doubt over whether Hungary is truly committed to making Europe an area of peace, democracy and prosperity for all its constituent populations.
Van Orden Report (A5-0241/2000)
Mr President, the Pensioners' Party voted for the report on the current status of Bulgaria's application for membership of the European Union.
I welcome this opportunity to extend a warm greeting to the pensioners and elderly people of the Bulgarian Republic.
I would like to remind the inhabitants and, in particular, the government of the Bulgarian Republic that, as Mr Van Orden stated in his report, the Kozloduy nuclear power station must be closed down. Since this verdict has been given repeatedly, it would be as well to close it down as soon as possible.
I call upon Bulgaria to comply with our request.
The Van Orden report on the accession negotiations with Bulgaria expresses the support of the European Parliament for the integration of Bulgaria into the European Union.
It correctly underlines the fact that improving the conditions of the Roma, reforming the legal system, cracking down on corruption and upgrading environmental policies will help to ensure that the accession negotiations move forward.
Of special importance is Paragraph 13 on the widespread support across the European Union for Bulgaria' s removal from the list of countries requiring a visa for travel into EU Member States.
There continues to be a lack of movement in the Council on this, as there is in the case of Bulgaria. Finally, the European Union must openly address the difficulties faced by Bulgaria, which are due to the political and economical destabilisation of the Balkans, the increase in the price of oil, and the international devaluation of the euro, to which the Bulgarian currency is linked by law.
Finally, concern must be shown for whole swathes of society in Bulgaria, who are being particularly oppressed because of the austere public policy the country is pursuing as part of its accession strategy.
I welcome the Van Orden report on Bulgaria's application for membership of the European Union and share the majority of conclusions that he draws.
I note that Bulgaria is making good progress to meeting both the Copenhagen criteria and meeting the obligations of the acquis communautaire.
If Bulgaria continues to make progress and the European Union adjusts its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason why Bulgaria should not be admitted to the Union.
I look forward to Bulgaria joining the Union in the not too distant future.
Nicholson of Winterbourne Report (A5-0247/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the report on the current status of Romania's application for membership of the European Union. Romania is a country which, like the other States of Central and Eastern Europe, deserves to become part of our great family although, as we are aware, there are problems, particularly as regards the widespread corruption present in many areas of public life.
Sadly, this phenomenon is not restricted to Romania alone, but I particularly hope that the Romanian authorities will distinguish themselves by eliminating this fault as well - which is particularly apparent in their preparations for accession to the European Union - and respect civil rights.
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I voted against this report because the record of the Romanian Government in child care and disabilities rights remains totally unacceptable.
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I welcome the Winterbourne report on Romania's application for membership of the European Union and share the majority of conclusions that she draws.
I note that Romania is making good progress to meeting both the Copenhagen criteria and meeting the obligations of the acquis communautaire.
If Romania continues to make progress and the European Union adjusts its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason why Romania should not be admitted to the Union.
I look forward to Romania joining the Union in the not too distant future.
Martelli Report (A5-0242/2000)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Martelli's report on the current status of Slovenia's application for membership of the European Union.
I would like to extend a particularly warm greeting to the Slovenian pensioners and elderly people, who are represented in the country's government by the Slovenian Pensioners' Party, which won 5% of the votes at the last elections.
Pending a similar success in Italy - hopefully in the near future - I hope that the problems of the Slovenian pensioners and elderly people will be resolved too. I may add that it would be as well for Slovenia to withdraw all claims and cease all animosity - which, regrettably, have recently come out, here and there, in certain major statements - in respect of the Italian Republic.
I welcome the Martelli report on Slovenia's application for membership of the European Union and endorse the conclusions she draws.
I note that Slovenia has made excellent progress towards meeting the Copenhagen criteria and is making good progress towards fulfilling the acquis communautaire.
Once the European Union has adjusted its institutional structure and policies in order to cope with enlargement I can see no reason why Slovenia should not be welcomed into the Union.
I hope Slovenia will be in the first group of new members.
Poos Report (A5-0249/2000)
Mr President, considering that Cyprus is one of the Mediterranean countries which lies in close proximity to the many Central and Eastern European States and that Italy juts out into the Mediterranean as the President of the Republic, Mr Ciampi, recently declared in a formal sitting of the Italian Parliament, I am particularly pleased to note that the report emphasises the fact that Cyprus' preparations are sufficient for it to join the European Union.
I feel that this step and the entry of Cyprus into the European Union will prove extremely important in terms of bringing peace to this tortured island in our Mediterranean.
Mr President, my vote on the report on Cyprus should be seen as a protest against its lack of balance, because I am not opposed to the entry of Cyprus to the European Union.
On the contrary, I am keen to see Cyprus in, but I could not accept this unbalanced report, especially paragraph 4, and the failure to insist on at least on the desirability of having a political settlement prior to accession.
In addition, the report called for the repatriation of settlers which presumably includes their children born and raised in Cyprus.
Whatever the solution on settlers, and it is a thorny issue along with land restitution on both sides, this is too harsh without giving a qualification.
The European Parliament has failed in its duty to reflect a balanced approach which I very much regret.
Of course the Republic of Cyprus is the internationally recognised state but we should do more to recognise the rights as well as the duties of the Turkish-Cypriot community.
The Poos report on the accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union contains a number of positive points:
it unequivocally recognises the legal authorities of the Republic of Cyprus;
it underscores the fact that the accession negotiations are independent of the political settlement of the Cyprus question, thereby ensuring that Cyprus will not be a hostage to Turkey;
it highlights Turkey' s responsibility and that of the Turkish Cypriots in not resolving the Cyprus question;
it deplores the presence of the Turkish troops in Cyprus and the provocation this causes;
it raises the issue of the return of the refugees and the repatriation of the settlers.
This is a balanced and fair position, which the Council of Ministers must take into serious consideration.
I regret I cannot support the Poos report on Cyprus.
The fourth round of Cyprus proximity talks took place in New York from 12-26 September.
The parties have agreed to meet next in Geneva on 1-10 November.
The UN settlement process has now lasted since December 1999 without a break, longer than any of the previous attempts to solve the Cyprus problem.
The UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Cyprus, Alvaro de Soto, said at his press briefing on 26 September that a "qualitative step forward" had taken place in the fourth round of talks.
He emphasised that, while there is still a long way to go, the two sides had engaged in substance during the talks in a way that they had not done before.
He observed that new ground was being broken, which might cause nervousness in some quarters. But he looked forward in the coming months to building on the progress that has already been made.
He also noted that the UN was already in contact with the EU in order to ensure that there was no clash with the goals of the United Nations process.
As Mr de Soto noted, we do not expect progress to be easy, and the success of the UN process is far from assured.
The UK position is that it is vital for us to do everything we can to show our support for the Secretary-General's efforts.
Unfortunately some of the comments made in the draft report on the application by Cyprus for membership of the European Union by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy are not helpful.
The use of polemical language and the one-sided impression given of MEPs' views risks undermining the process.
I therefore hope that MEPs will do all they can to encourage the European Parliament to express its support for progress in the UN settlement process, based on the continuing goodwill of all parties in that process and that they will ensure that the European Parliament does not produce statements or take positions which might cut across that process.
As a member of the Delegation to the EU-Cyprus Joint Parliamentary Committee, I am pleased to have this opportunity to express my opinion on the progress Cyprus has made in the negotiations for accession to the European Union.
The European Commission' s assessment is very positive.
Cyprus meets all the Copenhagen political and economic criteria.
To date, 16 out of 31 chapters have been closed and the efforts of the Republic of Cyprus to meet all the criteria are ongoing.
Cyprus may therefore look forward to becoming a member of the European Union in the near future, and any objection to this membership on the grounds of the special situation of the island would not be defensible either politically or morally.
This is, moreover, made clear by the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council, which affirm, in the final analysis, that solution of the 'Cyprus question' is not a necessary precondition for accession.
In this connection, I would hope that the talks conducted under the auspices of the United Nations will be able to come to a successful conclusion enabling the Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations to enjoy the advantages of membership of the European Union in the context of a reunified republic.
I would also like to urge that the European Union, through its High Representative for the CFSP, should get involved to a greater extent in seeking a negotiated solution in order to put an end to the partition of the island, in application of the United Nations Security Council resolutions.
The European Union does have the capacity to make a key contribution to the security of the Cypriot communities in the context of a peace settlement.
It can help resolve the problem of the controlled return of refugees and the repatriation of colonists, and can make a considerable contribution to the development of the northern part of Cyprus, after reunification and after the withdrawal of the Turkish army.
It is essential to initiate projects involving both communities and to encourage dialogue between both parts in a new spirit of trust.
The European Union must convince the Turkish Cypriot community, which comprises approximately 89 000 members, that they should get involved unconditionally in the accession talks. It is in their direct interest.
Indeed, Cyprus' accession should benefit both communities and should enable the Turkish Cypriots to make good their economic backwardness. Their per capita income is three times less than that of Greek Cypriots.
It is therefore essential for Turkish Cypriots to express their point of view on the accession negotiations.
It is not going to be an easy task, given the lack of good will on the part of the Turkish Cypriot side and of Turkey.
Even if recent events in the region do not encourage optimism, the European Union must continue to bring its weight to bear in the talks seeking an overall settlement of the Cyprus question.
. -The Verts/ALE Group supports the report by Mr Poos on the accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the EU.
It regrets nevertheless that its amendment on the issue of the settlers has not been adopted by the House.
It is absolutely impossible to solve the issue of the settlers who arrived in Northern Cyprus from Turkey a long time ago simply by sending them back, as the report suggests.
It is unfortunate that the EU takes a one-sided position on such an acute and difficult question.
Proximity talks are not proceeding as we would have hoped.
We are convinced that initiatives at all levels are required if to break the deadlock which have been reached in negotiations.
We hope that the perspective of early membership of the EU and the easing of contacts by means of "bottom-up" communal projects that the EU promised to promote and finance can give a positive impetus to the solution of the "Cyprus question".
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I warmly welcome Mr Poos' report on Cyprus's application for membership of the European Union.
I note that Cyprus is making good progress in incorporating the acquis communautaire thus allowing accession negotiations to move swiftly along.
Like the rapporteur, I too welcome the Helsinki Council agreement not to make a solution to the division of the island a pre-condition for accession.
There is no doubt that the accession of Cyprus to the Union will strengthen the influence of the European Union in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
From the economic point of view, the accession of Cyprus should not pose major problems, since it is a country with a market economy and a high standard of living.
I look forward to seeing Cyprus among the next group of new members.
Stenzel Report (A5-0243/2000)
I note with interest Mrs Stenzel's report on Malta's application for membership of the European Union.
Malta meets all the requirements for membership of the European Union and there is really only one obstacle to full membership.
That obstacle is the divided nature of public opinion and the political parties on the desirability of membership.
The Maltese Government should ensure that a constructive dialogue takes place with all sections of their community to ensure as wide a consensus as possible on the issue of membership.
Providing that consensus is reached I look forward to Maltese membership of the EU.
Paulsen Report (A5-0257/2000)
Mr President, what remains to be said on the subject of food safety and the precautions to be taken in order to avoid further instances of contamination or further food crises?
Mrs Paulsen' s report grasps the extremely serious nature of the situation but does not go far enough in view of the stakes involved.
The outrages - one no longer dares to speak of mere infringements or minor abuses - in the industrial agro-food processing chain in the context of liberalism, competition and the frenzied thirst for profits, have actually proved lethal, even criminal, it must be said.
Deliberate violations of health, criminal and even moral codes by doctoring the laws of nature and tampering with animal species and animal physiology are conducted without being subject to any surveillance or appropriate regulations or any justified penalties.
Yet we consumers are the last stage in the food chain, and hence the final recipients of the abuses and counterfeits in the food industry.
Should we be surprised, then, to find ourselves the victims of these, and even, unfortunately, to yield to them? It is irresponsible and fraudulent to disregard the infinite complexity of the workings and relationships within the industrial agro-food chain in order to admit that it is no longer possible to monitor and separate out exactly what is going on in order to apply appropriate penalties.
Every link in the chain must be responsible for what it produces and for its precisely identifiable role.
The safety bolt guaranteeing this discipline lies in the Commission' s determination to ensure that consumers are provided with consistent quality, at all levels, in the products available on the market.
So, in refusing to accept the inclusion of genetically modified foodstuffs as undesirable products, the European Parliament has taken the responsibility of being completely out of step with the public and the people that elected its Members, as consumers are proving to be more and more reluctant on the matter of GMOs, going so far as to reject them outright when they do have the opportunity to identify them in food.
Nor should we be surprised if the agro-food industry leaps headlong into this breach and banks totally on animal feedingstuffs to consume their GMOs.
The ball is now in the Commission' s court. It must make good its omissions by proposing and implementing urgent measures in response to the perfectly justified concerns of consumers.
Mr President, the wholesomeness of feed materials and feedingstuffs is, of course, very important to the Pensioners' Party, and so I voted for the Paulsen report.
To be honest, I have to say that up until yesterday I did not know whether I would give an explanation of vote, but then, as I was leaving Parliament yesterday evening, together with Mr Andria and Mr Speroni - whose first name is Francesco and who is therefore celebrating his name day today, and I wish him and all the other Francescos present in this House a very happy day - I started to feel dizzy, to vomit and to be affected by other such symptoms.
I was, alas, the victim of an - albeit mild - dose of food poisoning, brought on, I regret to say, by eating at the European Parliament.
What, therefore, will happen if the animals we eat also start to suffer from fainting fits and dizzy spells, as I did?
We must prevent any inclusion whatsoever of undesirable substances in animal feedingstuffs.
Food safety requires that we must increasingly pay the closest attention to feedingstuffs, given the close links that exist between animal nutrition and human nutrition.
That is why the amendments to Directive 1999/29/EC are so important, to ensure that it will cover all products in whatever form that are liable to be used in animal nutrition, both those intended for the production of raw materials for consumption and those for domestic animals not intended for consumption.
Another positive step is the ban on diluting batches of products that have higher levels of undesirable substances than the established maximum limits with non-harmful products in order to get around the established maximum limits.
With regard to the setting of maximum limits, several aspects must be taken into account, such as the continuous appearance of new chemical products and the need for periodic reviews based on precise scientific analyses and verified experiments, or even in certain cases the need to compensate market operators, especially farmers in particular situations when they are in no way to blame for the contamination of the products used in animal nutrition.
It is important that a full, detailed declaration of the ingredients of compound feedingstuffs should become mandatory to guarantee their safety, by means of clear, transparent labelling which will allow stock farmers to make their own decisions on feed purchases.
As we all know, back in 1997, in the aftermath of the BSE crisis, Parliament called for legislation to this end, and this call was reiterated after the scandal in Belgium last year when dioxins were found in feedingstuffs.
It is also important that an exhaustive list of permissible feed materials should be drawn up and that manufacturers should submit on request proof of the composition of feedingstuffs on the basis of internal company documentation.
RC B5-0768/2000 (ASEM III)
We have voted against the joint resolution based on a recital which, behind its hypocritical wording, suggests that relations between Asia and Europe are conducted between equal partners.
Most Asian countries still bear the scars from their past 'partnerships' with the major powers, particularly those in Europe.
Was the centuries long relationship between Great Britain and India a partnership between equals?
Or that between France and its colonies in Indochina? Or that between China and all the great powers that attempted to dismember it into areas that suited their respective interests?
In addition, in very recent times, the poor masses in a number of countries in South-Eastern Asia have had to pay a high price for their 'partnership' with the speculative capital interests which have swarmed all over their region.
In view of the past, in view of the current economic relations between the developed major powers and the poor countries of Asia, speaking of 'equal partners' for the future is, at best, a pious hope, and, more probably, a means of concealing exploitative relations behind pseudo-democratic and pseudo-humanitarian phrases.
It is precisely because we are in favour of developing genuinely fraternal cooperation relationships between genuinely equal partners, between all the countries of the world, that we have no intention of endorsing this double talk by voting in favour.
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I would like to add my voice to those condemning the acts of violence against one of my constituents, James Mawdsley from Ormskirk in Lancashire.
I welcome the vote by this Parliament deploring the flagrant violations of James' rights under UN international law.
Mark Rowland of Jubilee Campaign will be absolutely delighted that the European Parliament has joined the UN in condemning his treatment.
We must continue to condemn human rights abuses in Burma.
We, as elected Members, are outraged that 51 democratically elected members of the NLD are in prison, victims like James, of inhuman and cruel abuse.
James' only crime was to speak up for and campaign for human rights and democracy in Burma.
He should be commended for his efforts, which have caused him and his family such torment.
We must urge the ASEM countries in this resolution to pressurise the military regime in Burma to restore democracy.
That concludes the explanations of votes.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.22 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Discrimination and equal treatment in the workplace
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0259/2000 by Mr Cashman, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing a Community Action Programme to combat discrimination (2001-2006) (COM(1999) 567 - C5-0046/2000 - 1999/0251(CNS));
A5-0264/2000 by Mr Thomas Mann, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the proposal for a Council directive establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation (COM(1999) 565 - C5-0068/2000 - 1999/0225(CNS)).
Mr President, Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam has been described as a sleeping giant.
It forms the basis for Europe-wide measures to combat discrimination.
My job was to consider the framework directive on employment and occupation, which will lead to major changes in company practice.
The experience gained with the Anti-Discrimination Act in the USA ten years ago gives some idea of what lies ahead for Europe.
That is why it is quite essential for the groups listed in Article 13 to be effectively protected against discrimination.
At the same time, the workers' legitimate interests need to be considered.
No wonder the French Presidency of Council described this issue as one of its priorities.
Discrimination must be combated in the early stages, in cases of an intimidating, hostile or offensive environment.
And all the players must be involved.
Human resources can only be utilised to the full in a climate of peace at the workplace.
That produces an economic and social dividend.
Some undertakings reject applicants for continuing and ongoing training on the pretext that they are too young or too old.
Older people are discriminated against by being squeezed out of working life or by setting an upper age limit for recruitment.
Job applicants who come from socially disadvantaged families or urban backgrounds or who are disabled are often not accepted.
The disabled are rejected on the pretext that the clients or staff cannot be expected to stand the sight of them.
The underlying intention is simply to save paying for the necessary measures of assistance for the disabled.
The employers then claim that hiring disabled people represents what is called undue hardship.
In the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs we defined "reasonable adjustment" very precisely in Article 2(4), together with the circumstances under which undertakings cannot reasonably be expected to pay the costs involved, i.e., if they are too small or their turnover is too low.
I certainly support the call by associations representing the disabled for a separate directive.
That directive could consider the differences in detail, for instance the fact that someone whose mobility is impaired has quite different problems from, say, someone who is mentally disabled.
A few important points in the directive are, firstly, the rules on the burden of proof.
Article 9 of the draft directive states that persons who consider themselves discriminated against, whether as unsuccessful job applicants or as dismissed workers, can seek legal remedy.
They need only go to a court or competent authority to establish the facts of discrimination.
The respondent, however, has to prove that he did not discriminate and must be able to provide documentary evidence.
To ensure that small and medium-sized undertakings in particular are not faced with an unreasonable logistical and financial outlay, we are seeking a limitation period of six to twelve months.
Secondly, the right of associations to initiate proceedings.
The Commission proposal, under which associations may only initiate proceedings with the complainant' s approval, has to be welcomed.
Only associations, organisations or legal entities representing the interests of employees and the groups protected by Article 13 should be entitled to initiate proceedings.
Thirdly, the mediating agency.
In the event of disputes, independent mediating agencies must be set up to consider the interests of both the employers and the employees.
Many problems may well be resolved internally, before going to the lengths of legal proceedings.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs decided by a majority that these agencies should be set up in the EU Member States rather than setting up a central body at European level.
Fourthly, the involvement of the two sides of industry.
Since they are mainly responsible for settling questions of discrimination at the workplace, the social partners are best placed to work out viable solutions.
And, of course, the NGOs should be involved, although the autonomy of the social partners must not be put in question at any time.
Fifthly, religious communities, perhaps one of the most sensitive areas of our directive.
The question is whether Member States can allow different treatment when it comes to religion or belief. I think they can!
These communities make vital contributions to society in terms of social facilities such as nurseries, hospitals and educational institutions.
They see the danger of having to hire people who do not identify with their values and convictions.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs voted by a large majority in favour of the compromise under which different treatment does not represent discrimination in cases where religion and belief are major requirements for the performance of a job.
Equal treatment and non-discrimination are fundamental principles of the EU.
We will find out at tomorrow' s vote whether we manage to build bridges, following the excellent cooperation of all the rapporteurs on this article - and let me just mention Mrs Swiebel as standing for all of them - and after the intensive discussions with the Commission and the Council Presidency.
There is a real chance that we will persuade the Commission and the Council to incorporate many of our recommendations.
. (NL) Mr President, the directive and the Action Programme on equal treatment bear witness both to a policy which is based on principles and to a practical policy.
Indeed, equal treatment is a fundamental constitutional right which forms one of the cornerstones of the European Union.
They also form part of a practical policy because directives and action programmes encourage the Member States to fight discrimination on the basis of the same guiding principles and because the Commission can fulfil its role as Guardian of the Treaties but also as a pioneer in the social debate.
The above also highlights the link between both instruments, the directive and the Action Programme.
Not only do the social activities which underpin the social programme complement the directive' s legal framework, they also need to generate the extra information, the expertise and the support structure to complement and improve this legal framework.
I hope to illustrate the need for this in the rest of my speech.
The two proposals which the European Parliament is discussing today are both based on Article 13 of the EC Treaty.
This Article 13 has now taken on a central role in the equal treatment framework of the European Union.
It thus follows in the footsteps of the current Article 141, formerly Article 119, which lay - and still lies - at the basis of European legislation to combat sex discrimination.
There are, however, major differences.
First of all, we are dealing with a different decision-making procedure involving the European Parliament which, with regard to the implementation of Article 13, cannot yet fulfil its role of co-legislator.
Secondly, a whole raft of pieces of legislation has now been drafted concerning the equal treatment of men and women, the oldest dating back 25 years.
An overhaul of this legislation is therefore overdue.
This summer, the Council adopted a directive to combat discrimination on the basis of race or ethnic origin.
This directive provides a higher level of protection, and is wider in scope, than both existing equal treatment legislation on men and women and the draft directive which we are discussing here today.
We in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs have always argued that this fragmented approach gives the wrong political signal, as if there might be some sort of hierarchy in discrimination.
A patchwork of anti-discrimination rules also has a detrimental effect when it comes to drafting coherent legislation and also forms a threat to what has been achieved in European equal treatment theory.
I am delighted that this viewpoint has been taken on board by the rapporteur.
I would therefore like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Mr Mann for his open attitude and for the constructive consultation we have entered into.
Partly thanks to this, we now have a large number of legal, technical amendments before us which aim to guarantee a level of equal protection against discrimination on the basis of race on the one hand and on the basis of religion, handicap, age and sexual orientation on the other.
This touches on topics such as indirect discrimination, harassment, positive action, burden of proof, etc.
The role of the so-called independent monitoring body is also called into question.
As already stated, the level of protection concerning the fight against sex discrimination should also be brought into line with the highest standard.
This is the gist of the directive against race discrimination which was adopted recently. Fortunately, the Commission has provided for this by submitting its proposal for reparative legislation.
The European Parliament, in its role of co-legislator, will be able to get its teeth into this shortly.
I would at this stage like to offer my services to the appointed rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, in this respect.
The current picture is also fragmented in terms of scope or area of application.
The directive on race discrimination has the widest scope, and mainly applies to social life outside the labour market.
The existing set of directives concerning sex discrimination pertains to labour, remuneration and social security, whilst the current measures against discrimination on the other grounds specified in Article 13 apply to a much narrower area.
I am delighted that the Commission pledged its willingness this summer to compile a draft directive also to combat sex discrimination outside the employment sphere, but I cannot understand why such an announcement for the other grounds of discrimination has not yet been forthcoming.
This is the background to Amendments Nos 19 and 35, which contain a horizon provision ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I, too, congratulate both the rapporteurs, Mr Cashman and Mr Mann, on their excellent work.
This package of legislation will open a new and radical chapter in the EU's history of commitment to securing equal opportunities and combating the modern scourge of discrimination.
This Parliament will send a clear message in our vote to all our citizens that we intend to improve Member States' record in ensuring respect for equal treatment, irrespective of age, race, disability and sexual orientation.
For individuals in my constituency this legislation is long overdue.
However, I regret that some of the Christian Democrat Members in the Committee on Legal Affairs, in voting against the employment directive, saw it as unnecessary because it would, and I quote: "restrict freedom of choice in private life". But I ask you: whose freedom?
The freedom of those who continue to discriminate against individuals? That is a freedom that this House should not seek to protect - it is neither Christian nor democratic!
In addition, their view is that cases of discrimination are not so numerous as to warrant any legislation.
Perhaps they ought to talk more to their local constituents and those who suffer from discrimination.
It is also best to give local examples to show how this legislation is relevant.
In my constituency a retired head teacher from Manchester who is over 70 years of age, with much experience, was appointed to serve on the police authority by Manchester City Council.
Following a complaint about her age, she was told she was too old to take up the position and not eligible, according to the current British Police Act.
This legislation, therefore, is good for individuals like her.
UK employment legislation will now have to be reviewed to ensure that ability, not age, determines who gets the job.
Indeed the Home Secretary, Jack Straw, is now reviewing the legislation to remove such anomalies of discrimination.
Discrimination, in whatever forms it exists, whichever group it affects, is wasteful and unacceptable, as the Confederation of British Industry has said.
Again I quote: "some enlightened employers are realising the potential of employing people from right across the board, from all walks of life.
In another company in my constituency, B&Q, the grey revolution has begun.
In Macclesfield one of their stores is staffed by only over 50 year olds and their oldest employee is 86!
I think that is a very good example to follow.
This legislation will encourage employers to seek to use the talents, the ability, the experience of all people in our society.
It is the biggest overhaul of discriminatory legislation that we will ever see in Europe and back in our own Member States.
Yes, it will create changes in employment law, yes, it will create changes in general legislation and for the courts, but I do not believe this Parliament or the European Union can shy away from making those changes which will open up a world of opportunity for groups which have suffered for too long from the cancer of discrimination.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate the Commission on the initiative to develop Article 13 of the Treaty further.
After so many years of talk, we finally have an initiative to tackle discrimination in different areas more effectively.
I would also like to congratulate Mr Mann on the results of his work on the present report.
It is a sensitive topic.
Everyone is agreed that discrimination should be fought but opinions differ as to how, to what extent and by what means.
Discrimination can have different consequences for men and women.
I am pleased that what is now before us affords women better protection than the existing directive on the principle of equal treatment, especially with regard to vocational training, employment and employment conditions.
I should like to highlight the importance of a person in whom employees can confide within an organisation and the importance of an independent body to which people and organisations can turn in the event of complaints concerning discrimination and intimidation.
Positive experiences have been gained in this respect in the Netherlands.
I also welcome the attention given to the problem of discrimination against the elderly.
It is a growing problem, especially since the number of elderly people is growing in our society and they happen to be the most dynamic generation of elderly people ever.
I would like to end by commenting on Article 4 (2) concerning discrimination on the basis of religion and belief, which is a sensitive area, particularly within our Group.
It touches upon the theme of pluralism, the importance of which to the proper functioning of our democracy is recognised by many.
But in the discussions on pluralism, most of the time we talk about doing justice to the different opinions of individuals.
There is far less openness towards, and thought for, individuals wanting to express their opinions through organisations, for, in those instances, there is hardly any respect for pluralism but, rather, intolerance and discrimination, especially with regard to organisations founded on religious or ideological bases.
I applaud the recommendation of the Mann report to offer ideological organisations the opportunity to prescribe the functions required of staff with this background in mind.
It is a compromise, but one which enjoys wide support within Parliament.
I urgently call on the Commission to adopt this recommendation and to do justice to the tolerance and pluralism desired by the representatives of so many States.
Mr President, no sensible person can think that the European Parliament does not have to concern itself with discrimination, even if, in the case in point, it is a matter of rewriting and expressing our opinion on a report proposing a decision for the Council of Ministers which will do whatever it wants to anyway.
That is the reason why the PPE-DE Group would perhaps have preferred are more compact and occasionally more intelligible text, which at least avoided some of the repetition, for, as the saying goes, 'He who grasps at too much loses everything.'
Indeed, parts of this text refer, in particular, to equality between men and women, giving rise to a specific policy or quite novel concepts such as gender-specific perspectives, or concepts which occasionally, and this is one of our fears, extend the scope of discrimination too far.
The fact remains that the report tabled by our fellow Member, Mr Cashman contains many good things, particularly the space accorded to NGOs.
I think it most important to rely on the support of this network of partners, but we must be selective in our choices and, especially, avoid being exclusive.
In committee, I have had occasion to make a stand against the fact that there may also be experts outside NGOs that have something to say.
Need I point out in this House that the principle role, particularly in terms of education, belongs to governments.
Finally, this Community policy, Article 13, does not lead to a situation where the solution lies necessarily in more money.
I believe the solution lies in analysis of the use of the money, and not necessarily in making unlimited appropriations available.
Finally, we in the PPE-DE Group place great hope in the policy of assessment and coordination, and one of our proposals is that the fight against discrimination should give rise to a specific report to be presented before Parliament, which will account for the money and the use of the Community money which has been invested.
Finally, and this is my concluding remark, the definition of the causes which has been given and, indeed, adopted in the Charter which we shall have to adopt in November, is an acceptable one, making it possible to resolve a great many tensions within the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if tomorrow, the entire House adopts the viewpoints held by the competent committees with regard to the directive, I am convinced that the new directive on equal treatment in the workplace will be an excellent directive, which will have an enormous impact on the elderly, the disabled, homosexuals and lesbians in their battle against discrimination in the workplace.
My group therefore lends its unqualified support to the report and we would particularly like to thank the co-rapporteurs, Mr Thomas Mann and Mrs Joke Swiebel for their sterling work and also congratulate them on the excellent cooperation within the respective committees.
I would, in fact, like to seize the opportunity also to congratulate Mr Cashman, because although directives are important, action programmes are, of course, essential too in terms of the support they lend to directives.
The speed with which the institutions have deployed the new Amsterdam powers, Commissioner, show that the European Union is still in the vanguard of equal opportunities, and I would like to extend my express thanks to the European Commission for this.
Moreover, I hope that the French Presidency will be indulged and that this directive and the action programme will now be approved.
I would like to air a few concerns regarding this directive which are of particular importance for my group.
Parliament rightly chose to play the trump cards which we already have in the form of existing directives on equal treatment, those on gender and those on race and ethnic origin, and I am particularly pleased with the sound descriptions of indirect discrimination, positive action and the principle of shared burden of proof.
We were also right to decide against including sex discrimination in this directive because there is already a separate European directive on sex discrimination, which will, in fact, be revised further to the Commission proposals and which is founded on a much stronger legal basis, about which Parliament, in fact, may decide in codecision.
What is important, however, is that the European Parliament should advocate that double discrimination, which often victimises older women and disabled women, should be tackled here.
Thirdly, my group applauds the decision to delete the non-exhaustive list of so-called justifications of differences of treatment on the grounds of age.
This would only open the floodgates to so-called discriminations already warranted in advance.
We are also delighted with the provision in the directive which stipulates that equal treatment for the disabled also means that companies are expected to make the necessary adjustments within the workplace.
Finally, Commissioner, I would like to say how excellent this work is.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for the cooperation, but our task is not finished.
Let us hope - and I am relying on you, Commissioner - that the European Commission will now come forward with proposals, pursuant to Article 13, to fight discrimination on grounds other than those to be found in the workplace.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, both rapporteurs have done an excellent job, for which I want to thank them here on behalf of my group.
The fact that so many different forms of discrimination exist in our societies confirms the importance of the Action Programme that is the subject of Mr Cashman' s report.
The Action Programme is a key instrument for supporting the Community in developing a common strategy to combat discrimination.
We cannot accept seeing women and men still not having equal rights at the dawn of the 21st century, seeing the disabled socially marginalised, or people being excluded from society because of their sexual orientation and branded as different.
The right of all human beings to equality before the law and protection against discrimination is a basic right.
That basic right is fundamental to the ability of any democratic society to function.
Legal provisions are an important component, but cannot be the only one, in the fight against discrimination.
The Community must supplement them with political and practical programmes that can actually be implemented.
So we must support grassroots initiatives, improve information about discrimination and underpin the political programmes.
Only then can we effectively combat discrimination in all the fields of human life.
That has to be in the interest of all of us!
In that spirit I call on my fellow delegates, especially those on the Conservative benches of this House, to endorse the two rapporteurs' reports at tomorrow' s vote.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that this Action Plan is a major step forward in the fight against discrimination, partly because, in these so very complex times, in the highly complex societies we live in, discrimination takes many other forms which are ever more unexpected and give ever greater cause for concern
I would like to focus on one point of the Action Plan which, as I said in committee, I feel leaves large gaps: the inclusion of Turkey.
It is not that Turkey should not be included in this Action Plan, but we are financing a State - which I may define as criminal - without any insistence at all that these funds should be used to eradicate the worst form of discrimination, namely discrimination against the Kurdish-speaking Turkish citizens.
Therefore, we are providing funds for Turkey to use as it likes without any obligation to eliminate the worst form of discrimination, which is a combination of all forms of discrimination in that, if there is discrimination against Kurds in general now, discrimination against Kurdish women, people of Kurdish origin with deviant sexual tendencies and disabled people of Kurdish origin will soon follow.
There you are. We would have liked to compel or, at any rate, prompt Turkey to eradicate the genuinely widespread discrimination currently practised in that State.
We are therefore extremely confused regarding this point, and we call upon the Commission to ensure, when monitoring the ways that the funding is used, that Turkey is not merely pretending to wipe out or combat more minor forms of discrimination without making any effort at all to fight that basic discrimination which, when all is said and done, is at the root of a great many of Europe's misfortunes.
Mr President, on behalf of the Bonino List, I would like to express our great consternation at the Member States' approach to the issues of discrimination, racism and xenophobia.
During the last part-session, Parliament adopted a resolution on the fight against discriminatory, violent and repressive racism. This resolution stated that racism is a crime which can be committed not only through actions but also through statements or the publication of messages, and called for more legal instruments to prosecute political parties whose programmes jeopardise the principles of non-discrimination.
We are convinced - for our history, your history, the history of Europe makes it plain - that your strategy of prohibition and repression which is based on restricting freedom of expression and association, on strengthening repressive tools such as the police, social monitoring and telecommunications, on allocating funds and on creating monitoring centres, will create the perfect conditions for a fresh explosion of the phenomena that you wish, or say you wish to combat.
I would like to remind you that the first action of the members of the Bonino List this parliamentary term was to promote a proposal for a resolution on the fight against discrimination based on sex.
We applied for funding through Action Plans, which usually amounts to aid to NGOs, which are often reduced to little more than state-controlled bodies. We did not call for illiberal or illegal reversals of the burden of proof.
We have proposed a number of amendments to the Mann report, amendments which make some of the points referred to more democratic and more liberal and ensure that they advocate civil liberties. The amendments remove the reversal of the burden of proof, the involvement of employers' associations in dialogue between the two sides of industry and limit sanctions to civil and administrative penalties, not criminal penalties.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would remind you that whenever prohibition has been applied in Europe it has been necessary to take a step backwards.
It happened in Germany when you wanted to oppress the pro-nazi parties, it happened with Austria recently, and you were forced to step back, and it happened with the Technical Group of Independent Members.
After all, as the great democracies of the English-speaking world teach us, racism and discrimination must be fought with liberal democracy, not by restrictions and the gradual erosion of freedom of opinion, freedom of expression, freedom of association and economic freedom.
Mr President, this afternoon, we are discussing two of the three Commission proposals in which anti-discrimination legislation on the basis of Article 13 of the EC Treaty is proposed.
As it happens, my group has never been in favour of including Article 13 in the Treaty, not because we condone discrimination but because we believed it was undesirable to raise this topic to European level.
A great deal has already been regulated in this field, both internationally and nationally.
The European Commission is rather reticent in its proposals, but from the amendments tabled by the European Parliament, it does appear that there is a desire to go a lot further: there is call for an overarching European anti-discrimination policy, whereby the policy of national States is monitored by the Commission.
The idea does not appeal to me at all.
Why would a centralised Europe do better than a national government, which is much closer to its citizens and enjoys a far greater degree of democracy and supporting power?
A sensitive issue is the clash with other constitutional rights, such as freedom of religion and belief, and the right to respect for privacy.
I have a feeling that these rights are being infringed upon by Article 4 of the Commission proposal and the amendment tabled in this respect by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Religion and belief are not separate entities.
Faith is, by definition, professed within a community and, by extension, will find expression in people' s attitude to life.
This is why organisations, schools and nursing homes which express a particular identity have been established by and for people who share the same belief.
Managerial and executive staff will give corporate shape to this belief.
Could the Commissioner explain why the Commission is not taking this on board?
The amendment tabled by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has not done a great deal to clarify matters.
It appears to be putting more distance between beliefs and practical attitude to life and, as a result, institutions are even further restricted in living out and maintaining their own identities.
Absolute freedom of religion is impossible, as is absolute equality.
Discrimination in the sense of treating people as inferior, taunting them and putting them at a disadvantage is an evil that must be eradicated.
But we must be careful that, in striving to protect the weaker members of society, legislators do not oppress other groups that hold certain minority beliefs.
This would breach major guarantees in the Treaties and constitutions.
Mr President, I will confine my remarks to religious belief and homosexuality.
The President of Italy addressed this House today and I was interested when he said that it was not the aim of this Union to negate national values.
Some of the matters before us today are destructive to national values.
We have a proposal that elevates homosexuality to the same position as holy marriage.
To achieve that, vast numbers of religious people who believe the holy scriptures are to be discriminated against in a most sinister and dictatorial manner.
What about those people whose religious beliefs are based on the holy scriptures, their churches, schools, organisations and hospices? You might not like it that they believe the scriptures, you might not like what the scriptures say, but they have a right to hold those views.
The Bible makes it perfectly clear that those who abuse themselves with mankind cannot enter the Kingdom of God.
Some in this room would say that is bigotry.
But that is what these people believe because they are tied and anchored to the holy scriptures.
They also believe what the Apostle Paul said, that acts between men and men are unseemly and are the result of lust not of love.
How can these religious people be forced to employ those who, by profession and practice, advocate such anti-scriptural behaviour? Are there going to be safeguards written into this legislation for those that believe that sex should only be between male and female within the marriage bond?
These proposals strike a blow at the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of the home and they should be rejected.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are all glad that there is an Article 13 in the Treaty of Amsterdam because it finally puts an instrument in our hands and gives us the task of creating a comprehensive programme to combat discrimination.
The Commission has submitted an Action Plan until the year 2006.
It is very ambitious, highly committed and very concrete in terms of its objective, actions and individual measures.
It is a programme that deserves full support and I am convinced we will be successful if we pursue that programme.
I do, however, have problems with Mr Cashman' s report, which is peppered with 17 proposed amendments. I want to raise several points in it that worry me.
First there is the proposed wider-ranging definition relating to the implementation of the programme, which goes beyond the comprehensive definition.
I think that would create greater uncertainty because we would no longer know who could actually be assisted in line with the Commission programme.
That produces the risk that the insufficient resources will then have to be spread too thinly over too many actions.
I fear for the effectiveness of this programme.
My second point is the problem that NGOs, important as they may be, are being asked to be involved in implementing the programme regardless of their size, nature and activities.
Over and above this, they are also being asked to be responsible for monitoring; and if the NGOs are core funded up to 90% by the Union, the problem is compounded if the NGOs monitor themselves.
I do not think we should ask too much of anybody.
What we ought to do at all events is to give full support to the Commission' s highly committed programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this week is an important week as far as the debates in this House are concerned.
Yesterday, we discussed the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and today, in discussing Community initiatives, we are debating the matter of combating discrimination.
We are thereby boosting the positions of the European Union regarding the practical situations experienced by European nationals in connection with discrimination and equal treatment.
I should like, straight away, to emphasise the importance of these two texts: on the one hand, the directive, acting as it does on the state of the law and, on the other hand, the action programme, because it makes it possible to implement effectively new practices intended for adoption on a widespread basis.
In this regard, I cannot accept the muddle that some parties are making of the necessary anti-discrimination measures, equal treatment and the mention of other cases of prohibition.
I do not think we can mix things up in this way.
The proposal for a directive discussed in the Mann report is a key one, and I should like to discuss it briefly.
It seeks to boost the principle of equal treatment at the same time as reducing the number of opportunities for exemptions, which we think excessive.
Let me return to the subject of the exemption for religion.
I should like to express our reservations on this difficult issue and restate our commitment to the principle of secularism, especially in the context of the fight against discrimination.
This seems fundamental to us, particularly after incorporating the questions of activities in the social or health fields.
The desire for action is a matter of jurisdiction, not religious belief.
One last word on the discussion which may ensue on the need to maintain statistics on the subject.
They are essential. Let us beware, nonetheless, lest these statistics be used against the men and women they concern.
Mr President, Commissioner, our group has evaluated both reports with positive results and would, in particular, like to emphasise the fact that we have all focused on the need to expand the programme's scope with a series of amendments - which, in actual fact, have led to another survey on discrimination - intended to guarantee equal treatment to all people, irrespective of their sex, race, ethnic origin, religion, personal convictions, age or sexual orientation.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party has assessed all this with positive results, particularly focusing on the activity of Parliament, which insisted, in addition and above all, on preventive action as well as good practice.
We felt that the objectives relating to enhancing in-depth understanding of the issue and its new forms, scale and development and, most importantly, action supporting those who have to implement these good practices, were entirely convincing.
Yet we were even more impressed by fact that, at the end of the report, provision was made for an evaluation of the outcome of the processes and programmes, for this is also a guarantee of fairness, impartiality and transparency.
I would especially like to focus on the opportunities provided for the Member States, who have to concentrate on high-quality actions, to work autonomously.
This means that, for the first time, a different line is being adopted: we are not doling out funding left, right and centre but evaluating the quality of the operations and insisting on high quality; the operations themselves must then be monitored and their results published.
I feel that this is a highly positive and constructive process, considering, also, that the results can be made available to the public and used to improve the quality of subsequent actions.
I too would like to touch on the issue of exception made for religious organisations.
I am pleased that it has been raised in this House.
In effect, I feel that this is a mistake and that the exemption warrants discussion and reflection.
I would just like to highlight a point once and for all.
In my country, Italy, a teacher colleague of mine who was Catholic by religion but taught in a State school was dismissed because she became pregnant, she did not have an abortion and she was not married.
Given that such a thing is possible, I would ask you whether it would have happened if the religious authorities were not endowed with this discretionary power? I would add that, paradoxically, if this teacher had had an abortion, no-one would have realised anything and she would not have lost her job.
Instead, having shown respect for the sanctity of life and her right to motherhood, she was dismissed, a victim of discrimination.
This, in my opinion, is disgraceful. If she had been a man, I may add, she would not have had to worry about what she did in her private life since a way has not yet been found to make men pregnant!
Mr President, combating discrimination and passing legislation against it means acknowledging that is exists and that many forms of it are in a sense 'decriminalised' because they are so commonplace.
I therefore, obviously, welcome today' s directive, whose application must also become the norm.
I shall therefore confine my remarks to the limitations which, I feel, still remain in spite of everything. Firstly, the burden of proof.
The directive takes a step forward in shifting the burden of proof but does not go as far as to reverse the situation.
Yet, should the law not provide the victims of discrimination with better means to escape the isolation they too often find themselves in?
How is it possible to think that a job applicant, rejected in such circumstances, has the same resources as a firm, especially a large undertaking, to defend himself and prove that he has indeed been a victim of discrimination? Moreover, if it were compulsory for firms to prove that their practices were non-discriminatory, they would doubtless think twice on the matter when recruiting.
I am thinking particularly here of the discrimination affecting third-country nationals, but also the second-generation children from immigrant families.
There are many examples of this in France.
Given an identical curriculum vitae, identical education and identical career, a young person with a French sounding name has four to five times the chance of being recruited than a young person with a North African sounding name, and twice that of a young person with a Portuguese or Spanish sounding name.
This is the hierarchy of discrimination.
In a Europe that is supposed to be multicultural where diversity is respected, we must ensure that our deeds live up to our words.
Let me end on the subject of the exemption granted to religious bodies. I would like to say that I consider the exemption of Article 4(2) to be very dangerous and perhaps even a legal cover for the most reactionary ideas.
Earlier, the idea of abuse of the provisions was mentioned. I feel that this may provide a major foothold for those most reactionary ideas.
Mr Paisley' s objectionable intervention earlier with regard to homosexuals bears witness to this.
Mr President, my Group and I identify as victims of discrimination, on the grounds of our beliefs, in this very House, since we are prevented from forming a political group as everyone else is authorised to do, and we therefore wholeheartedly applaud the opportunity to set up a programme to combat any form of discrimination.
Not just discrimination against men and women at work.
In France, for example, men are not allowed to teach in primary education. That is a case of blatant discrimination.
The question is, however, far more significant in philosophical, legal and sociological terms.
Legally speaking, there are general texts condemning discrimination everywhere.
Yesterday, for example, the Charter of Fundamental Rights condemned discrimination, not just racial discrimination but even, according to the Charter, discrimination on the basis of birth.
In affirming the principle of equality, all the constitutions of the world virtually establish a principle of constitutional jus cogens, since discrimination is prohibited everywhere.
On the other hand, however, for forty years there have been texts in existence which are actually based on discrimination.
In Geneva in 1963, the first of these, UNCTAD, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, established the principle of compensatory inequalities or, in other words, discrimination.
Our own Lomé Convention itself is based on discrimination in favour of the Caribbean and Pacific States.
Our entire dispute with the United States, moreover, has arisen because we wanted positive discrimination in favour of our own ACP banana producers whereas the United States wanted an egalitarian system which would serve the interests of multinationals.
Europe itself, with the GSP, the System of Generalised Preferences, which leads us unilaterally to give up our customs duties to the benefit of a whole series of States, is based on discrimination.
And the national laws in our 15 countries also practice discrimination, including the Socialist France of the Socialist Mr Jospin.
In 1999, with regard to New Caledonia, a preference was established with regard to employment on the basis of ethnicity, on the basis of race.
So New Caledonia operates a preference based on skin colour.
In the urban suburbs of French cities, there are tax free zones, based on ethnicity once again, for these areas are dominated by specific ethnic populations.
And that is without mentioning the United States where, thirty years ago, the Supreme Court invented the principle of 'affirmative action' . On a sociological basis, moreover, there is discrimination according to birth.
In this House, Mrs Ana de Palacio Vallelersundi has a sister who is a Commissioner in the European Commission.
If she were not born Ana de Palacio Vallelersundi, do you think the two sisters would now be in these two places?
Not everyone in the Olympic Games gets through to the final. There is no right entitling a person to go to the Olympic Games.
So, in sociological terms, there is the risk of abuse.
The principle of non-discrimination is a fine one, Mr President, but it also has a flip side.
I must therefore warn you, the situation is not as simple as you may imagine. This principle of ....
(The President cut the speaker off.)
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteurs, Mr Cashman, Mrs Lynne and Mr Thomas Mann, and congratulate them on their work on the reports on the anti-discrimination programme and equal treatment in employment and working conditions.
As shadow rapporteur for the European People's Party in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I welcomed the Council's decision to establish a Community Action Plan to fight discrimination. I feel that the great step taken towards consolidating the new powers conferred by Article 13 of the Treaty establishing the European Community in order to fight this very phenomenon of discrimination is satisfactory.
In general terms, I agree with the emphasis placed on the development and growth of cultural tools to fight discrimination: in my opinion, we must combat discrimination with a culture of non-discrimination, making up-to-the-minute, accessible information available to all the citizens of all the Member States.
In fact, information and awareness campaigns are vital in this area: they must act as hammers to forge new mentalities and bring about a new way of thinking and behaving, in order to drive out those prejudices which are still widespread and to ensure equal rights for all citizens.
However, I consider that the overall funds allocated to this programme are inadequate and I call, in particular, upon the Commissioner to secure an increase in funding.
The amount should be at least equal to the sums made available for the preparations for this programme, to make it possible to implement it fully and effectively.
I would remind you of the additional cost of implementing the programme in respect of the more vulnerable categories such as the elderly, people with varying abilities and the older unemployed.
These categories represent 25% of the Union's population. This is a potential which must not be underestimated and the integration of these categories could prove beneficial to the economy as well.
Mr President, the proposal for a Council directive establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation extends the ban on discrimination beyond reasons of race or ethnic origin to other reasons which are used as a motivation for discrimination and which are mentioned in Article 13.
The directive under consideration covers the gamut of salaried employment and independent occupations and professions.
The report by Mr Mann was adopted almost unanimously by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. This was due both to his consummate preparation and his willingness to cooperate on the necessary amendments.
For that, I congratulate him most sincerely.
The first positive aspect of the directive is the comprehensive way in which it tackles discrimination, which is especially important for the proper implementation of the directive.
The directive has a second advantage in that it revalorises the experiences gained from the ban on discrimination on grounds of sex and uses the same tools and concepts, for example direct and indirect discrimination, effective legal protection and shifting the burden of proof.
What is more, it revalorises the tradition of urging positive action aimed at compensating for disadvantages in order to integrate specific persons into the labour market.
These aspects of the directive, together with the fact that, a short time ago, Directive 2000 was adopted, are proof of the avowed will of the European Union to guarantee an open society, free from predetermined categorisations and, most importantly, from the stigma of racism, which has its roots deep in European history.
It is not by chance that the Action Programme gives priority to understanding the phenomenon of arbitrary discrimination, thereby seeking to tackle the issue at its very core, which is covert racism.
This arises partly from fear and partly from a well-established tradition, which, it must be said, is one of the negative aspects of European civilisation and one of the main causes of unrest, both civil and between nations.
That is why this directive must be incorporated into our cultural development.
Mr President, when I listen to the cries of rage from Mr Martinez of the Front national, I feel that we have a real need to use the type of directive which has been proposed.
These texts mark a step forward.
They are going to give the anti-racist associations and the trade unions greater control regarding instances of discrimination, but I feel that now it is going to be necessary to make application of these directives, and compliance with labour law, mandatory by stepping up the number of inspections and by penalising offending employers.
This means harmonising the acquired rights in a positive way in order to protect the weakest and most oppressed on the labour market and not, for example, in the name of equality, authorising night work for women.
It is going to be necessary to prohibit, at last, the repression of the union movement, in the form it is tending to develop in Europe, in the French postal service for example.
Finally, I feel that, as employers, States should provide an example by doing away with discrimination against the recruitment of non-Community employees in the public service, as this type of discrimination condemns the immigrants they do employ to endless job instability.
Genuine socio-economic integration, however, presupposes the equality of rights which cannot exist without better political representation, and for that we should have to regularise the situation of illegal immigrants and grant all immigrants the right to vote.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive we are debating today on equal treatment in employment and occupation clearly expresses the will and the endeavour of the European Union to adapt its social model to new economic, social and cultural realities, and that is why we welcome it with particular satisfaction.
Implementing the directive is certain to improve the quality of life in European society.
It will also contribute to enhancing the image of Europe in the eyes of the rest of the world, which is watching us especially closely, by actively demonstrating that Europe is continuing to work hard to protect human rights and to promote solidarity and democracy.
But whether these aims will succeed or not depends on the contents of the directive being understood, on Member States acknowledging its importance and value, and on its correct and unequivocal implementation.
That is why I believe that support will be given to the amendments that are concerned with monitoring its implementation. The amendments relating to informing citizens inside and outside the workplace, informing and educating social partners and economic and social operators, and training those who work in the public sector and the legal and legislative bodies of the Member States will also be supported.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Diamantopoulou on this important proposal for a decision and also Mr Cashman and Mr Mann, who have enriched and broadened the scope of action for combating discrimination.
Today, we voted with a large majority for the reports on enlarging the Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and Malta. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to emphasise just how important it is that we support the attempts made by these countries to combat discrimination and to accept the multi-cultural nature of modern societies as a necessary condition for peaceful coexistence between peoples.
The applicant countries must be given every assistance in meeting the Copenhagen criteria and in integrating as full and equal members into the European Union.
Special attention must be paid to the countries of the Balkans and to Turkey. More resources must be made available to them in order to bolster their attempts to strengthen their democratic institutions and to eliminate discrimination, especially discrimination that is rooted in race or ethnic origin, or religious conviction, which has caused so much pain and bloodshed recently and taken so many human lives in the Balkans.
I just wonder how much in fact we have learned and how wiser we have become as a result of the events in the Balkans, which were primarily caused by religious fanaticism.
That is why I believe we urgently need to give the Balkan countries adequate resources and to promote measures to prevent and combat discrimination at its source. This can be done through the education system, the mass media and also by giving much more power to NGOs.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as is well known, many forms of discrimination still remain in the European Union, specifically in employment and professional activities, even though they are prohibited under Article 13 of the EU Treaty.
It is therefore important to press forward with the two legislative initiatives that are now being debated, while improving them in certain respects and increasing the funds set aside for financing the programme, thus reflecting the political importance of this fight against discrimination.
It is not enough for equality to be guaranteed in law.
As we all know, the causes of discrimination must be rooted out right from the start - and the work of prevention is just as vital - through information, education and training in the promotion of equality and the fight against prejudice, changing attitudes through the various forms of positive action, particularly favouring groups that are discriminated against, or by appealing to the relevant authorities whenever employers persist in discrimination.
With regard to the burden of proof, it is important that it should be up to the employer to prove that there has been no violation of the principle of equality, whereas the worker should only have to present the case of discrimination of which he or she has been the victim.
Mr President, Commissioner, part of the debate proves that we, in fact, need a directive, because if people claim here that Europe is meddling in a centralist manner in an area which should fall under the remit of the Member States, knowing what has happened in many countries of Europe - even yesterday on television, there was again a whole raft of reports of attacks on Jewish synagogues, a report on the rape of a woman of foreign origin etc - they must have some nerve claiming that Europe does not need a directive on anti-discrimination.
Groups which are in the firing line are those groups which peopled the concentration camps during the Second World War, namely people of certain religious beliefs, for example Jehovah' s witnesses.
I am thinking of people of a particular race: Jews, gypsies, etc; I am also thinking of the disabled, people who could no longer keep up, the elderly; all these people were at risk of being put in a concentration camp.
This is also true for homosexuals.
So those who claim here that Europe does not need to lay down in a directive the values which we all aim to defend are mistaken.
We do need this to happen and we must give out this signal to the outside world.
Belgium is holding local elections on Sunday.
We have agreed with all democratic parties that we will be forming a cordon sanitaire against the extreme right.
This means that none of these parties will form a coalition with the extreme right.
This is an extremely important decision and we feel supported by directives such as these, which is of great importance.
Commissioner, I should like you to carry on undeterred, as we desperately need this decision.
Mr President, there is no hierarchy of discrimination.
I welcome this directive as the first-ever EU law introducing Europe-wide rights for our 37 million disabled citizens, an end to the back-door route to legislate for disability rights and a tribute to the disability movement which has campaigned for this day.
In particular the agreement of the principle of reasonable accommodation, pioneered in Sweden and Ireland, will now ensure that employers across Europe adapt their workplaces, acquire specialist equipment and amend their working practices so that disabled employees really do get a fair chance.
It might simply mean lowering a light switch by a metre but, for the wheelchair user it makes the difference between a job or no job.
I thank Mr Mann for his support on this point.
I also thank my colleague, Mr Cashman, for accepting my amendments on the action programme which will guarantee European money to cover the extra cost of disability, to promise information accessible to all, and to ensure that disabled people can speak for themselves.
Two more messages.
Firstly, to all MEPs, remember that we achieved a strong directive combating race discrimination, for which I was proud to act as co-rapporteur, with action against incitement, for the right to go to court, to empower NGOs, to shift the burden of proof.
Do not meddle with these hard-won gains.
Secondly, to the Commissioner, I know you will not today be able to accept my Amendment No 56 on procurement, but in your reply I ask you to promise this House that you will bring forward new legislation to link the power of the public purse to companies' compliance with these laws.
Please also tell us that it was a mistake for the Commission to propose core funding for only one European NGO representing each discriminated group.
This legislation is about valuing diversity.
Do not ignore your own words by denying deaf people, people with learning difficulties, and self-managed organisations of disabled people the possibility even to sit at the table.
Mr President, if one thing singles out European society from the other societies of the world, it is precisely its sensitivity and commitment to the fight for freedom and human rights.
However, I would like to say that this fight is not the exclusive property of the left.
Sometimes, with cheap demagoguery and a progressivism which it cannot even define, the left tries to confuse the public with hypotheses which sometimes lack any content and are sometimes inadequate for the task of structuring society in accordance with certain values which our Group will always champion.
That is what differentiates some benches from others.
Article 13 is the starting point for a new EU objective: to combat discrimination or inequality in the treatment of citizens for the reasons listed therein.
The action programme seems to me to be a serious programme.
It is almost acceptable in its original form because, essentially, it is directed at something fundamental, that is, educating European society in the value of the human being, of whatever type.
I believe that this is the central nucleus of the programme.
I therefore consider that it is necessary to commit the public and private sectors to this task and, to this end, I believe that the public sector must provide an example.
Public administrations and schools must be a model in the fight against discrimination and the same must be required, naturally to an equal extent, of the private sector.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, the media must also play an important role in this task.
Unfortunately today, certain sections of the media, such as television and the Internet, do not contribute through their programmes and advertisements to the dignified and respectful treatment of the sectors of society who most need that cooperation, such as, for example, women and children.
The objective of also increasing the awareness of the media with regard to this task therefore seems to me to be a very good one.
Mr President, I should like first of all to say thank you to Mr Cashman and Mr Mann for the two reports.
It is incredibly important that we should now secure implementation of the package which is the first and interim realisation of Article 13 of the EC Treaty.
In that way, we should be taking an important step towards removing discrimination against minorities in the EU and the applicant countries.
I should therefore like to emphasise two important points.
First of all, I believe that, if the initiatives for combating discrimination that we are now putting in place are to succeed in practice and on a day-to-day basis, it is crucial that the NGOs which represent the minorities affected should be involved as much as possible in the work.
Otherwise, the initiatives will not succeed in the real world.
The second thing I want to point out is that, with this first package, the Commission has unfortunately committed a serious error by itself putting reasons for discrimination in order of priority.
Only racial discrimination is to be prohibited in all areas of society in general. Discrimination for other reasons, for example because of handicap or sexual orientation, is only prohibited when it comes to employment and occupation.
Grounds for discrimination should have equal status.
Discrimination is equally offensive, whether it occurs on the basis of race or sexual orientation. I therefore wish strongly to support Mrs Swiebel' s proposal to the effect that the Commission be obliged to correct this error within the next three years.
I can see that the Commissioner is here today. Today is therefore a good opportunity to confirm that this proposal will be followed up.
Mr President, I should like to underline what my colleague Mr Hernández Mollar has just said.
This fight against discrimination is a fight that mobilises us all and it cannot be an exclusive banner for any political group in this Parliament.
Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam threw up a challenge for the European Union agenda, which gave the Community specific powers to initiate a variety of actions to combat discrimination, so as to ensure the same level of protection for all disadvantaged groups.
I should like to congratulate the Commission on the important step it has taken in initiating this process of implementing Article 13 through the package of proposals that it has presented to combat discrimination.
Experience has also shown us that the promotion of anti-discrimination legislation is essential but it is not enough.
Such measures must be accompanied by preventive work and efforts to change behaviour and attitudes. Clear proof of this comes from the results of a fairly recent Eurobarometer survey, which showed that one in three Europeans, roughly 33%, regarded themselves as very or fairly racist.
It is crucial that we teach and promote respect for multicultural diversity in Europe.
I should also like to stress the importance of involving the countries applying for membership as much as we can in these Community actions to combat discrimination.
Mr President, I welcome this Commission initiative, but I would like in particular to congratulate Mr Cashman and Mr Mann on their excellent work in producing these reports.
Given the large number of discriminatory actions, decisions and attitudes which still appear today in Europe, I am pleased with these reports which we are debating today and which contain certain points which I feel to be particularly noteworthy.
Firstly, we must insist on the need to bear in mind, when implementing the concrete actions of this programme, Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is the pivotal instrument in the fight against discrimination in the European Union.
Secondly, we must highlight the particular discrimination suffered by certain social groups, women, the disabled, immigrants, homosexual men and women, the elderly and ethnic minorities and, within these groups, we must insist on the importance of monitoring and implementing concrete measures in the fight against cases of multiple or double discrimination, which occur especially in the case of women.
We therefore have to stress the need to integrate the gender element into all areas of the fight against discrimination and, in parallel, I wish to ask the Commission to make a clear and decisive effort to achieve coherence between the directives, recommendations and programmes against discrimination, giving this House a leading role in the establishment of priorities, the carrying out of an assessment of the effectiveness of the actions proposed today in this programme and the revision, if necessary, of the actions and decisions taken within this action programme.
Lastly, the European Parliament must be kept informed, taking account of the reports and opinions produced by this House, and we must highlight the importance and necessity of truly making use of the opinion and participation of the NGOs and associations - and providing them with the necessary resources - since they are without doubt the key to the success of the measures adopted.
Mr President, discrimination on religious grounds is as unacceptable as any other form of discrimination.
We have seen the tragic results in Northern Ireland and in the Balkans.
It simmers away under the surface in several parts of our European Union.
Nevertheless the spiritual dimension is a vital dimension of our European way of life.
It is a clear fact of our European history that we have a large number of religions and each of those religions has various and diverse churches, denominations and trends.
It is important that they should be able to uphold their beliefs.
I welcome the rather obvious fact that priests and ministers can be restricted to the relevant faith without promoting accusations of illegal discrimination.
But that is not enough.
We must support Amendment No 37 by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, which also exempts any restrictions on the religion or faith of persons who come directly into contact with members of that faith in education, social welfare or health care, for example, teachers in denominational schools, doctors and nurses in hospitals and hospices, visitors to inmates in prison, counsellors and carers for children, old people, teenagers and married couples, where these socially desirable services are provided by religious bodies.
A spiritual dimension is vital to Europe.
We must avoid absurd tangles of red tape, which will only succeed in reducing Europe to a purely materialistic, politically correct but pointless entity.
Ladies and gentlemen, at the time of the discussions regarding the Treaty of Amsterdam, we were delighted, myself in particular, at the inclusion of Article 13 on discrimination on the basis of sex, race or ethnic origin, religion or philosophical convictions - non sectarian, I might add - handicap in any form, age or sexual orientation.
This was, moreover, the basis for proposed measures to combat discrimination.
These proposals involve two draft directives and one action programme intended to support the efforts of the Member States.
It is extremely difficult, of course, both for me and for my fellow Members, to give a precise opinion on measures of such great significance in just two minutes.
As regards the Mann report on equal treatment in employment, and let me congratulate the rapporteur, I shall confine myself to pointing out that I am, personally, satisfied that it has been possible to reduce the number of permissible exemptions to a minimum.
Some possibilities have been retained, however, which I must admit I find somewhat shocking.
One such is the possibility of derogation on terms of religion.
The provision according to which the notion of professional, essential and crucial requirement may justify exemptions on the grounds of religion is not, in my view, acceptable.
As a confirmed secularist, I could not possibly endorse it.
In the same vein, the exemptions authorised on the basis of age must be treated with the utmost vigilance since, in practical terms, that often leads to the exclusion of the oldest employees.
On the subject, now, of the programme to combat discrimination, the Commission' s proposals are satisfactory.
Some aspects needed clarifying, and now they have been.
I congratulate the rapporteur on this and, in conclusion, I shall vote in favour of these reports, with the exception of the point I raised just now.
Mr President, the right to equal treatment and protection against discrimination is one of the fundamental human rights.
It lies at the very heart of everything we believe in in the European Union.
I subscribe to the objective of the present proposal of extending this right to include the professional environment.
I am aware that there are also arguments in favour of guaranteeing European legislation for equal treatment within one market.
But beyond that, I am beginning to find myself at odds with the rest of the opinions in this House.
In my view, Parliament has overdone it when it comes to the rather restrained legislation which the European Commission would have wanted to submit.
Surely this proposal has been drafted with the intention of applying it within an economic sphere of business and trade?
It is simply not practical if you run a small business, and someone discovers after twelve months that he was discriminated against in a selection procedure which involved forty candidates, to keep each and every file from that period and then investigate exactly what happened during that selection procedure once more. They might not even remember the candidate involved.
Surely this is not acceptable.
Why do we in Parliament never think about the practical implications of the legislation we draft? I hope something can as yet be salvaged in the process with the Council and Commission which is to follow.
I would now like to make a request to the Commissioner.
Commissioner, the inquiry has been followed up by a fiche d'impact.
In my view, this fiche d'impact - and I am involved a great deal with small and medium-sized businesses in this Parliament - is one big scandal.
It amounts to one official having spent one afternoon behind a desk dreaming up all kinds of positive effects which in no way tally with reality.
I call for a real fiche d'impact: an actual enquiry into the consequences for small and medium-sized businesses of this directive as it has been laid down by this Parliament, and not a would-be story made up by some official who has never set foot in a business, and I would welcome this before this directive becomes legislation.
Mr President, the draft Council decision establishing a Community action programme to combat discrimination initiates the process of implementing Article 13.
This is a task of major importance, the positive effects of which will be felt directly or indirectly, sooner or later, in the life of the Member States in the form of concrete programmes and measures or even amendments to legislation. These have been demanded by changes in our societies, and governments have often not been able to respond to them satisfactorily.
The civilisation we share asserts its greatness through respect for the rules of an open, tolerant and liberal society, with its inclusive and multicultural dynamics.
Yet even today the generous idea of granting each citizen the greatest possible freedom, provided it is compatible with the same measure of freedom for others, still comes up against obstacles - some de facto, others de jure.
In the face of dogmatism, prejudice and ignorance, which even today condemn so many of our fellow citizens to sub-citizen status, Europe draws on its best qualities: our tradition of enlightenment and emancipation for individuals and groups.
The family, for instance, remains a foundation and a pillar of our society.
But how many of the Member States of the Union still embrace in their legislation static and dogmatic concepts of the family, discriminating against unmarried partnerships and, in a particularly shocking and anachronistic manner, against those partnerships composed of homosexual couples? The family should be seen today, ultimately, as a community based on affection rather than the civil effect of a contract blessed by religion.
The fight against discrimination that we are discussing today means above all the affirmation of inclusive citizenship, more demanding than the exclusive citizenship of the past, historically linked to the origins of democracy and the republic.
Mr President, Commissioner, what we are now in the process of doing is translating Article 13 of the Treaty into practical politics.
We did this first with the proposal concerning discrimination on the grounds of race and ethnic origin, and now we are moving on to the action plan and discrimination in the workplace.
I want to begin by thanking both rapporteurs, Mr Mann and Mr Cashman, for their quite excellent reports.
I want to pause and consider a special group, namely the disabled.
I have taken an interest in this issue since I was a member of the Swedish Parliament and we carried out a major investigation which resulted in a proposal to combat discrimination in the workplace.
We then looked at unemployment, which at that period was generally very low in Sweden, and compared it with unemployment specifically among the disabled.
At that time, we had an overall unemployment figure of 2 per cent among the population as a whole.
Among the most severely disabled, unemployment stood at 70 per cent.
It is still the case that the most severely disabled barely figure in the labour market. They are discriminated against at the present time.
This type of legislation is therefore needed, and often it is only minor measures that are required.
We often talk about the internal market and young people' s opportunities to study and work throughout Europe.
But what is the situation for young people who are disabled? What opportunity do they have to work in the internal market, to study in different countries and to pursue their personal development?
We are at present discriminating in this area. It is therefore important that we tackle this discrimination.
This should be done in relation to a number of areas. The disabled are also discriminated against when it comes to gaining access to restaurants and cultural institutions.
The matter must therefore be followed up.
One final point. The disabled are incredibly important when it comes to organisations.
Because organisations are important in this process, I hope that the amendment which I tabled, to the effect that more than one organisation should have a share of the grants, and which was adopted by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs will also be that amendment which is finally adopted.
As you know, last November the Commission proposed a broad package based on Article 13 with two directives and a programme.
One of the directives has already been adopted in record time, and I am quite optimistic that the other one will be adopted during the French Presidency in November.
The debate in Parliament was extremely interesting, and you have already highlighted the political importance of this directive.
In terms of social solidarity, human rights and social justice, and in terms of the internal market, it is very important to understand that we must have the same minimum social standards in all Member States and in the applicant countries in the future as well.
I would like to thank the two rapporteurs, Mr Cashman and Mr Mann, for the excellent work they have done.
I would also like to thank the committees involved for their support and cooperation in getting a coordinated view in such a short time.
It is important that the Community action programme is adopted by the Council this autumn so that we can avoid a gap between it and the preparatory actions which we are currently running.
I can accept a number of your proposals.
In particular I welcome the amendments you have made on mainstreaming and on the issue of multiple discrimination.
I will also accept the amendments you have tabled to bring out the importance of preventing discrimination, as well as combating it.
Prevention is the key to a long-term strategy.
I also agree with the emphasis you have placed on doing what we can to meet the special needs of people who have difficulties in participating in the programme.
This will necessarily include efforts to make all the documentation around the programme as simple and as accessible as possible (on which you have also proposed amendments).
I am aware of the difficulties and of the complication of the forms of these projects and I will try to simplify them.
I can also agree to highlight in future the importance of NGOs, both as partners and as target actors participating in the actions themselves.
It will be important to involve as wide a range of types and sizes of NGOs as possible to make sure that we benefit from the experience of these people who work every day with these issues.
I can accept your proposals to write into the body of the decision the limit of 90% for the co-funding of such NGOs, and we can justify this proposal because there are many particularities in these NGOs.
In short, therefore, I can accept either as drafted or in spirit Amendments Nos 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 18, 21, 41 to 45, 47, 50, 58, 59, 62, 64, 65, 66 and 67.
I can also accept parts of Amendments Nos 3, 14, 16, 31, 33, 35, 38, 40, 55 and 57.
I am unable to accept the remaining amendments for a variety of reasons.
Some are not in conformity with other legal requirements, for example the amendment concerning the committees' arrangements.
Some are simply not compatible with the Commission's objective, such as focusing the annual report on the implementation of the programme rather than on a particular aspect of the fight against discrimination itself.
Others risk creating an imbalance in programmes by an over-concentration on a particular aspect; others again are not necessary to achieve Parliament's objective, as the ideas are either implicitly or explicitly already included in the decision, such as those on drawing on the experience of third countries.
As regards Mr Mann's report, I would like to comment on the main amendments tabled before Parliament today.
There are three categories of amendment.
The first one concerns disability, religion and age.
The second category aims to clarify the text of the Commission proposal and the third category consists of a large number of amendments which try to bring this proposal in line with the directive on racial discrimination adopted last June.
As far as the first category is concerned, disability, religion and age, the specific problems facing disabled people are acknowledged in the current draft where the provision to reasonably accommodate the workplace to the needs of disabled people is specifically foreseen.
This is a key provision for achieving equal treatment for people with disabilities.
I welcome your clarification on the terms "reasonable accommodation": you use the word "adjustment" and "undue hardship".
Your proposal is very useful, as discussions in the different institutions have shown that these terms were not fully understood.
Now it has become clear that a number of factors such as the cost involved, the financial resources of the organisations and the possibility of obtaining public funds will determine if their accommodation would impose a considerable burden on the employer.
I would like to clarify that the valuation of the economic impact in SMEs is not just the work or job of a civil servant.
We use as a basis the statistics at European and national level, we use surveys and we have comparisons with the impact in the USA where there are surveys and results after a long period of implementation of directives like this.
Another key issue concerns religious organisations and the possibility of using the genuine occupation requirement clause in Article 4(2).
However, this provision should not give rise to discrimination on the sole grounds of disability, age or sexual orientation and we must be very clear on that.
I welcome your reference to this question in Amendment No 37.
I can also agree to the idea of extending the wording of Article 4(2) to include organisations providing services in a religious environment, as we realise that the wording of the Commission's proposal was very rigid.
In my view, with these two additions, the scope of the proposal becomes clear.
On the contrary, I cannot accept Amendment No 38 which proposes to delete from Article 5 the list of differences of treatment on grounds of age, which could be justified.
This is not in line with our proposal.
The Commission's intention is to create workable rules for companies while at the same time prohibiting instances of discrimination which are arbitrary and not objectively justified.
However, I understand that this is a very sensitive issue.
The Commission is ready to simplify the wording of Article 5 for better understanding of this provision.
Regarding the second category of amendments, it aims to clarify the text of the Commission's proposal.
In particular, Amendments Nos 9, 10 and 20 propose the removal of the reference to discrimination based on racial and ethnic origin.
All three can be accepted for reasons of legal consistency.
I also accept the references to the 2000 employment strategy, to personal and self-realisation, to discrimination as an obstacle to free movement of persons, to the clarification of the personal scope of the directive as being applicable to third country nationals, to the clarification of the burden of proof and to the simplification of the information provision.
These references are contained in Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9, 12, 34 and 47.
The Commission can accept the spirit of all these amendments.
I want to turn now to the third category of amendments.
I can accept the spirit behind all these amendments but in some cases there is a problem with the wording.
However, there are a number of other amendments which I cannot accept, either for technical reasons or because their detailed nature runs counter to the purpose of the Framework Directive.
I would like to refer in detail to those amendments which I cannot accept because they present political or legal difficulties.
You have addressed the important question of contract compliance.
This kind of provision is not appropriate in a directive on a framework proposal.
I agree that it is very important and I pledge that it will be a communication: we will examine this in the text of the communication we have already announced in the social agenda.
Secondly, I have raised the issue of monitoring and statistics.
We all know that this is very important, but I must stress that in some Member States the collection of this kind of data infringes constitutional provisions on the protection of privacy.
So I cannot accept your proposal on Amendment No 43, but I agree with you that, without monitoring, it becomes extremely difficult to know what progress is being made and the action programme will explore what can be done at Community level.
I cannot accept your references in Amendments Nos 21 and 45 to natural and legal persons and non-formalised groups of persons, as this employment proposal only applies to individuals.
It is clearly a legal problem.
You propose in Amendment No 52, by analogy with the directive on racial discrimination, to incorporate a provision on independent bodies to monitor compliance with the provision of the directive.
I also have difficulties with Amendments Nos 19 and 35, in which you propose a time-frame of three years in order to equalise the scope of the discrimination legislation for all the grounds referred to in Article 3.
It is impossible to refer to this time-frame in a directive, but the implementation of the action plan will help us to see how we can move forward with the other amendments.
To summarise, I can accept, either as drafted or in spirit, Amendments Nos 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 23, 24, 26, 30, 34, 40, 49, 50, 51 and 54 and also parts of Amendments Nos 7, 9, 13, 20, 25, 29, 36, 37, 41, 42, 46, 47, 48, 58, 59, 60 and 61.
This very large number of accepted amendments proves the excellent cooperation between the Commission and Parliament.
In conclusion, some Members of Parliament referred to the need for cooperation about, or the implementation of, directives like these in the applicant countries.
This directive must be part of the social acquis in the applicant countries.
It is the first time that we allow joint projects in this action programme.
Applicant countries can cooperate with the Member States and submit joint projects and joint proposals and this is very important for them and for us also.
Some of the Members have referred to the particular problems that Turkey has with the Kurdish language and the problems in Turkey.
I consider that the Community could support and select any kind of project that the Turkish Government submitted in the framework of this action plan.
I had to reply to more than 50 different points and amendments and I am very optimistic that these amendments will be adopted during the French presidency.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Arms trade code of conduct
The next item is the report (A5-0211/2000) by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Council's 1999 Annual Report on the Implementation of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports (11384/1999 - C5­0021/2000 - 2000/2012(COS))
Mr President, it may have passed some people by, but the fact that I am able to stand here and lead a debate on the Council's annual report on arms exports is really quite sensational, firstly because for years this Parliament called for a code of conduct in arms exports and was told it was an impossible dream.
Yet we have a code, thanks largely to the initiative of the British Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, proof once again that where Parliament leads today, the Council will eventually follow.
Secondly, when the code was agreed cynics said it was too weak and it would not work.
Yet it is clear from the annual report that it has worked better than all expectations, including those of the Member State governments who approached this project with great suspicion.
The code of conduct has led to greater mutual understanding, greater transparency and a greater convergence of Member States' policies.
Furthermore non-EU countries are queuing up to associate themselves with the code.
Clearly the more global the code the more effective it will be.
Thirdly, it was also feared that the code would be implemented in secret.
Yet today, thanks to the Finnish Presidency, we are able to discuss the annual report.
So great progress has been made in a short period of time.
That I welcome and I congratulate everyone involved.
Effective and coherent EU policy on arms exports is essential if the EU is to pursue its external objectives, particularly given that we have so many areas of instability on our borders.
You cannot claim to respect democracy and human rights if you do not act to stop weapons of murder and repression falling into the wrong hands.
You cannot seriously pursue conflict prevention and peacemaking without controlling arms exports, particularly small arms.
You cannot expect public support for peacemaking operations if our troops face death from weapons which we have ourselves supplied.
At the same time the European defence industries remain strategically and economically important to the EU.
In order to survive they need to continue their consolidation and rationalisation.
A common arms exports policy is essential to this process.
That is why the framework agreement signed by the six Member States in July was so important.
Despite the enormous progress made, there are areas where the code of conduct needs to be strengthened.
The Council annual report itself identified the need for a common list of military equipment to be established.
This was agreed in June and progress has been made on the list for paramilitary, public order, and internal security equipment.
I wholeheartedly welcome these developments.
The code, however, is only a political commitment between Member States.
It should be legally binding.
Article 7 of the code commits Member States to prevent exports being diverted to undesirable end users.
Yet end user regulations vary enormously from country to country.
They should be better coordinated and more effective.
As a starting point we need a Community-wide database of information on licences and sensitive end users.
It is clear that many weapons find themselves in the wrong hands because of the activity of arms brokers.
Yet most countries have little, if any, control over them.
In my own country I would need a licence to own a shotgun but not to set up as an arms broker in my garden shed.
This is wrong and I welcome the British Government's announcement last week that it is to stop.
We need to control the activities of arms brokers throughout the EU.
I was stunned recently to discover that there are up to 300 arms brokers in the south-east of England alone.
Modern civilisation is rightly offended by this unregulated trade in death.
That is why progress has to be made on the German presidency proposals to control arms broking.
That should be a priority now.
Lastly, the greatest safeguard against abuse of arms exports is transparency.
The annual report is a large step forward but its transparency depends on the transparency of the national reports which it is created from.
Some are better than others.
Since 1997 my own government has published annual reports on arms exports which have been praised for their transparency.
I urge all other governments to do the same.
I commend my report to the House.
I urge the Council to act on my recommendations in order to enhance the EU's commitment to global peace and stability.
Mr President, I have to confess to a certain nostalgia for the times when the European Parliament - and the various pacifist movements and trade unions - used to call urgently for dedication and action in order to steadily reduce arms manufacturing, and we would discuss ways of converting military production into civilian production.
I still feel that this must be our approach, that we must not give in before the inevitability of war and conflict and that the defence policy must not provide for large-scale arms production, but that Europe must adopt an defence policy of intervention where it is not weapons that count but the ability to intervene peacefully in order to find non-violent solutions to disputes.
That said, since I am a dreamer whose feet are firmly on the ground, I will hold onto my dreams and work towards their realisation.
I feel that it is important, as stated in the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy itself, which is attached to the report, that the code of conduct - and we can deduce this from the annual report which we examined - has led to steps forward in the area of controlling and rationalising arms exports from the European Union.
In this sense, the Titley report is particularly efficient and highlights not only the merits but also the omissions, the innate limitations of the Council's report and of the feasibility of implementing the code of conduct.
I would like to emphasise certain points which appear to be particularly important: making the code of conduct legally binding, actively working towards drawing up an international code of conduct on the transfer of arms, making implementation of the code of conduct more transparent - in order to better assess its effectiveness - for example, providing information relating to the number and type of weapons for which licences have been granted and to the identity of exporting countries and countries of destination, conducting checks on intermediaries and brokers, putting an end to the current practice of selling European Union arms in areas of war or where human rights are blatantly violated.
Another major point is the ban on exporting, promoting and selling equipment and expertise which is, in practice, to be used for the purposes of torture.
There are a great many other important points, but I would just like to end by saying that transparency dictates a greater involvement of national parliaments at decision-making level and the participation of NGOs.
Mr President, Commissioner, in taking the floor on the extremely difficult subject of arms sales, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the manner in which he has managed to clarify matters for Parliament in the outstanding and comprehensive explanatory statement in the motion for a resolution which is being discussed today and which will be voted on tomorrow in this House.
This statement focuses on the fear shared by the majority of our fellow Members, that arms of all kinds manufactured by the European Union may, if exports are not effectively controlled, be used by countries or armed groups that do not respect international law or human dignity.
This is a not insignificant risk.
The rapporteur was right to point out that, without such control, we have a situation where military personnel from EU Member States, acting in a peace-keeping capacity, have, in the recent past, been confronted by weapons manufactured and supplied by EU companies.
Mr Titley is right, however, to point out in addition that the future of the European defence industry, which is essential for pursuing the European Union' s peace and security objectives, will depend on the coherence between the policies of the Member states, particularly as regards exports, and that this should lead them to work towards drawing up and expediting the publication of a code of conduct based on the terms given in the legally binding agreement signed in July by six of the Member States.
This is the objective of the Titley report, and that is why the Group of the European People' s Party endorses the report.
That is also why it opposed those of the amendments tabled by our fellow Members in order to demand planet-wide general disarmament, with the European Union to set the example.
In consideration of the situation of the world today and of this continent, following the end of the cold War and the breaking of the balance established by the dread fear of weapons of mass destruction, such an attitude would be highly irresponsible.
Since this dream, as you rightly termed it, Mrs Morgantini, still remains today in the realms of utopia, as I fear it will for a long time to come, we should, as proposed, highlight instead the positive results that have already been obtained by applying the code of conduct and propose all the measures that are desirable and applicable in order to improve the efficiency of this method.
I believe the report under consideration will contribute to this objective.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur once again.
Mr President, this Parliament has always argued in favour of improving EU laws on arms export and, partly as a result of these pleas, we now have a code of conduct which we are able to debate today for the first time.
The PSE Group sees this as a good start but a code is no law.
We continue to strive for legislation which is more binding and more up to date, in view of the developments within the arms market and in the arms industry.
So, as far as we are concerned, we would emphasise the wording in Mr Titley' s report about also making the code legally binding.
Having said this, I would naturally like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Titley on his excellent report.
He has scrutinised the code most comprehensively and has prepared a report for us which we can now readily discuss.
One central point, of course, is that arms export policy should not develop in isolation.
It must form an integral part of the common foreign and security policy.
After all, it is an instrument of foreign policy which can and must contribute to the Union' s external policy which we would all like to bolster.
The European Union is currently developing a military arm within the second pillar.
This requires more cooperation in the field of arms production and arms export.
I hope that the bigger players in the arms export industry can see this as well.
May the improved cooperation between six Member States, which came about recently, serve as a case in point.
I would still like to underline that, within that framework, one of our objectives is to improve the so-called end-user regulation.
We feel we should continue to work on this code and ensure that it can lead to a common arms export policy in due course.
The rapporteur is also right to highlight a number of persistent problems in the field of arms export.
The proliferation of light weapons remains disconcerting, even close to home, in the Balkans, for example.
In a sense, these arms have come to symbolise anarchy in many areas worldwide.
The EU would do well to grant this more priority.
There is of course also a direct link with organised crime, which is actively involved in the arms trade.
This can only be tackled through increased cooperation.
I wholeheartedly back Mr Titley' s plea to grant the candidate states a more prominent role.
I would also like to include the Balkans in this.
Much of the so-called illegal arms trade is channelled through these regions.
As Mr Titley pointed out - rightly so - the code can be made more transparent by providing more and better information.
I would like to underline this, also on behalf of my group.
Unnecessary secrecy surrounding arms transactions must disappear.
Here too we should continue to fight for more transparency.
It is only by having hard facts that we can assess whether the EU Member States actually practise what they often preach, namely work on more security within and between countries.
Mr President, its undeniable merits notwithstanding, the report is very technical and sticks to the paradigm and framework of military security, and it lends disproportionate weight to considerations relating to the defence industry.
There are only faint rumblings in the background when it comes to armed conflicts and human suffering.
We must extend our study, on the one hand, not only to matters of binding agreements, but also to instruments other than those intended specifically for military purposes, voluntary disarmament, conversion, and making the work of the police and customs authorities more effective, and, on the other hand, the applicant countries just mentioned by Mr Wiersma.
The code of conduct, as part of a common foreign and security policy, will also be binding on the applicant countries.
We would also like the important NATO country, Turkey, which is also an important market, to be mentioned in this connection.
It is only by complementary action such as this that we can move towards a more sustainable security in Europe and the world, one that is founded on disarmament and stability.
Mr President, where Mr Titley' s report in general is concerned, I basically share the points of view presented by Mrs Morgantini and others.
I shall here simply discuss a quite special issue concerning the draft resolution.
Recital R of the report talks about the ... 'development of a common defence policy in the context of the CFSP and the establishment of a European Security and Defence Identity within NATO' , and paragraph 1 e talks about the EU' s weapons policy' s having to 'contribute to the development of a Common Defence Policy' .
Mr President, these are wordings which have to be totally unacceptable to those Member States which are non-aligned and which want to remain so.
That applies to my own country, Sweden, and I accept that it also applies to other non-aligned States within the EU.
Sweden does not believe that activity within CFSP can be described as a defence policy because it does not involve any common defence obligation corresponding to NATO' s paragraph 5.
CFSP covers crisis management activity outside the EU' s borders and nothing which can be described as a common defence policy.
Sweden participates actively, too actively I am inclined to say, in the development of a common weapons policy, but that is something different.
The situation is not improved by Mr Titley' s writing about a common defence identity within NATO.
As is well-known, Sweden is not a member of NATO. Nor, as far as I know, does it have any intentions of becoming a member.
All Swedish Members of the European Parliament obviously have to vote against the two above-mentioned wordings, and I also expect Parliament as a whole to reject them. If that were not to happen, the Swedish Government would, of course, have to lodge a protest against Parliament' s openly repudiating Sweden' s non-aligned status.
Mr President, I read Mr Titley' s remarkable report with very great interest.
If you allow me, I would like to elaborate on two aspects.
In the explanatory statement, the rapporteur lists four "essential criteria" which European policy needs to satisfy in the field of arms exports.
The third criterion, the needs and challenges of the European defence industries, and to a certain extent criterion 4, the development of a common defence policy, are potentially and factually at odds with criterion 1, namely the consistency of the Union' s external action, whereby its objectives regarding conflict prevention and promotion of human rights prevail.
After all, the European arms industry needs to export, and these exports often end up in countries which are not serviced by successful competitors for a variety of political and strategic reasons.
Unfortunately, practice has shown that these are often countries which should not be supplied with arms in the interests of conflict prevention.
Think of the warring parties in Congo and countries in the Middle East.
On the basis of this consideration, I would argue in favour of clarity: which criterion prevails in the event of the criteria quoted by Mr Titley clashing?
Secondly, the rapporteur is completely right in putting his finger on the sore point of supervision by national governments of the conduct of their own arms dealers.
Not the slightest obstacle is put in the way of these dealers, as long as they only use the telephone to set up deals between parties in other countries.
A useful addition to Mr Titley' s practical proposals could perhaps be the introduction of a licensing system to finance the trade in weapons used in war, as well as to settle arms deals.
Monitoring the money circuit is bound to make it more difficult to avoid arms trade regulations.
At the same time, when the financial flows are monitored, it means that governments use one and the same yardstick, unlike in the present situation, where they are intent on monitoring the real flows whilst turning a blind eye to the virtual, financial flows.
Mr President, this is an interesting and important debate.
I apologise that I shall not be able to be here for the end of it, but I have already been struck by the number of contributions to the debate by people who know a great deal about the subject, including Mr Titley.
I would like to thank him very warmly for the excellent report, which addresses a number of extremely complex issues.
I can assure him that the Commission has read his report with very great interest and I hope that Member States have also done so, since so much of the action is in their hands.
We certainly stand ready to collaborate with the Member States to ensure that the report's recommendations are sensibly implemented.
Mr Titley has highlighted an essential element of the CFSP.
Indeed, as ESDP becomes operational, issues such as arms exports must be seen as forming part of a comprehensive approach.
Our aim must be coherence and that I take to be a very important underlying message in the report.
The EU code of conduct establishes a set of detailed principles governing conventional arms exports.
These aim at preventing the export of weapons to governments which abuse human rights, to areas of conflict or to regions engaged in arms races.
It is clear that the ultimate responsibility for arms exports belongs to national governments.
But the arms trade is currently dealt with in the context of the common foreign and security policy, with which of course the Commission is fully associated.
The code has been in existence for one year and, as acknowledged in the first annual report, Member States' initial experiences of its operation during this period were positive.
The code has already increased mutual understanding of Member States' policies, it has established an efficient consultation mechanism and it has encouraged dialogue on the implementation of its provisions.
It is undeniable, however, that there are grounds for further strengthening of the code and its implementation, as Mr Titley has mentioned.
The aim of the annual review is to identify such potential improvements.
Any amendments to the code must enjoy the support of all Member States.
In this respect we welcome the adoption of a common list of military equipment covered by the code during the Portuguese presidency, as requested by this report.
The Commission services are currently exploring the possibilities of drafting EC legislation on non-military items to which the provisions of the code should apply.
This would certainly include instruments which can be used for torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
A few weeks after the adoption of the code, the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Cyprus plus Iceland and Norway issued a declaration aligning themselves with the criteria and principles in the code.
Since then many of those countries have made considerable efforts to comply with the code.
We share Mr Titley's concern that associated countries should take the necessary steps to attain European Union standards in the field of arms exports.
The Commission services, in the course of their regular meetings with associated countries, continue to encourage them to abide by the code's provisions and fully implement its criteria and to monitor their compliance.
Furthermore, the European Union is interested in broadening the acceptance of the main principles contained in the code so as to cover the world's main arms exporters.
The European Union is committed to combating the destabilising accumulation of small arms in many parts of the world.
The Commission, in close collaboration with the Member States, was actively involved in the drafting of the European Union joint action on small arms and light weapons.
We fully intend to strengthen policy in this area as part of a coherent approach.
We agree with the rapporteur that further efforts are needed in establishing common rules for controlling the legal trade and for eradicating trafficking and smuggling in such arms.
We are committed to providing financial and technical assistance to countries, international organisations, regional arrangements and NGOs, as proposed by the joint action.
A number of projects are currently in progress or under consideration.
Under the EU project in Cambodia, technical, administrative and financial support is provided to the government and to selected NGOs for actions aimed at promoting the control, collection and destruction of weapons.
The European Union is currently considering the continuation of the project beyond its expiry date in November of this year.
We are also supporting Operation Rachel, a joint South Africa/Mozambique operation, on the collection and destruction of small arms.
Other projects are under consideration in South Ossetia and West Africa.
The Commission attaches great importance to the 2001 UN Conference on the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.
In this respect it is going to be necessary to build credible EU common positions in the coming months.
We will continue to consult closely with our partners during the preparatory process and we will work together towards the adoption of effective guidelines for the conference.
These could result in politically or legally binding instruments and a comprehensive international programme of action for the small arms problem.
The point I believe is to see our efforts in this regard as part of a comprehensive approach to arms policy in general and as part of the overall endeavour to make ESDP coherent.
May I thank the rapporteur again for his excellent report, which provides a great deal of useful guidance on how to develop our policy in this extremely important area.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is suspended until 9 p.m.
European research area
The next item is the Commission communication on the European research area.
Mr President, Ladies and gentlemen, today the Commission adopted a Communication that is important for the future of research in Europe.
It proposes guidelines for future Union research activities, for the period 2002-2006, and more especially for the Union's future Research Framework Programme.
The aim is to define the specific contribution that this will make to the creation of a European Research Area.
By means of its Resolution of 18 May 2000, this Parliament lent its firm support to this project, which is now being put into action.
A group of representatives from the Member States has therefore been set up to deal with the issues of benchmarking and the mapping of excellence, and this group is currently working with the Commission.
A methodology and indicators have been defined and will be presented at the next Research Council.
The initial results will be presented to the European Council meeting scheduled for next March, which aims to address general economic and social issues.
But it is clear that the Union's Research Framework Programme also has a more specific role to play.
Before it can do so, however, there is a need for a comprehensive review of its design, the conditions under which it is implemented and, more specifically, its methods of intervention.
The guidelines set out in the Communication adopted this morning have been defined with this in mind, on the basis, in particular, of the conclusions of the report on the five-year assessment of research programmes, drawn up by a panel of independent experts, and the mid-term review of the Fifth Research Framework Programme, carried out by the Commission.
The guidelines have been defined in such a way as to enable European research to be structured more efficiently via the European Union's research programme.
They are based on the following principles: a switch from an approach centred on individual research projects to a broader approach, based on a set of cohesive actions of which European Union measures will constitute but a part.
A real concentration of efforts in areas where action at Community level will generate a plus: that of European added value.
Such areas would be pinpointed by applying criteria for defining this added value in terms of creating rankings and exclusion.
The introduction of types of intervention of longer duration; half-way houses between support for projects and institutional financing, the use of the variable geometry instruments available under the Treaty, and, more specifically, European Union participation in national programmes, as provided for in Article 169 of the Treaty.
In tangible terms, there is, among other things, a proposal to have recourse to formulae such as the networking of national programmes through support for the mutual opening-up of programmes and, above all, European Union participation in programmes carried out in a coordinated fashion; the creation of European networks of excellence by networking existing capacities in the Member States around joint programmes of activities; the carrying out of large targeted research projects conducted by consortia of companies, universities and research centres, on the basis of overall financing plans; greater backing for regional and national efforts in support of innovation and research conducted by small- and medium-sized companies; reinforcing and diversifying action in support of research infrastructures of European interest; the increasing and diversification of mobility grants and, in general terms, measures in the field of human resources.
These new methods of intervention are the result of new methods of management.
They will significantly enhance the impact of the measures taken under the current framework programme to increase the scale of projects and to simplify procedures.
The guideline document adopted today is designed to trigger debate immediately, beginning with debate within the institutions.
On the basis of the outcome of this debate, the Commission will present its formal proposals for the Research Framework Programme for 2002-2006, next February.
These proposals will become part of a series of specific Communications, each of which represents a contribution to the establishment of a European Research Area.
I will have be able to present these guidelines in detailed fashion and discuss them at length at the meeting of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which is scheduled for 12 October, but I look forward to hearing Parliament' s views on this document.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I can see that you are tackling the task of bringing in the framework between 2002 and 2006 in a very efficient and workmanlike way.
You say that you intend to concentrate on projects where there is considerable European added value and that you will therefore be applying criteria.
Could you tell us a little bit more about what those criteria might be? Could you also say how you envisage the role of the Joint Research Centre in undertaking an evaluation of technological foresight programmes which might indicate to us the sorts of areas where this European added value might be most useful?
Mr President, I have a question. In the Committee on Budgets, the European Parliament has earmarked 10% of resources for small and medium-sized undertakings.
So what is the picture in this new area, especially as regards cooperation between the research institutes, the major research institutes, between groups of undertakings, small businesses and individuals? Does the programme go into that question specifically?
Mr President, Commissioner, in your communication on the European research area you also referred to the poor mobility of researchers and to the problems within Europe.
Hence my question: do you intend to follow up this communication on the European research area with legislative initiatives, with a view, for instance, to improving mobility as well as social protection during periods spent abroad?
Mr President, I would like to respond succinctly to the various Members who have spoken, by saying that I hope that next Thursday's debate will be more in-depth.
First of all, I would like to reply to Mrs McNally: the issue of European added value formed part of the criteria for calls for proposals, which already comprised a series of elements such as, for example, the multinational dimension, the fact that there are several Member States, the fact of these being projects which were more or less European in scale.
These were therefore elements which already existed.
But to date there had not necessarily been any form of ranking or factors dictating exclusion.
This ranking is precisely the characteristic that we want to enhance, and it is dependent on the level of the method of intervention.
There is a need to strike a balance between a genuine ranking and avoiding additional bureaucracy.
This is the discussion on criteria that we will be having with the Member States, of course, and also with Parliament.
As regards the Joint Research Centre, the idea is to make this a key centre for common reference, for joint expertise.
It has an important role to play.
You are well aware of the need to centre the actions of the Joint Research Centre on areas in which it can fulfil this role of European added value, by virtue of the fact that it does not depend on the private sector and is independent of the Member States.
As regards the issue of SMEs, we have, of course, been careful to ensure that SMEs play a part in the framework programme, as was stipulated in the budget decision.
Only this afternoon I witnessed a fine demonstration.
I do not know whether you have seen the new types of fireman' s helmet that have been developed as the result of a partnership between German, French and Dutch firms and the TNO Research Centre, which constitute a new generation of fireman' s helmet developed by SMEs.
This is a very striking example of what we have achieved in this area.
With regard to the actions that we propose, page 16 of the policy paper sets out the new ways in which we are thinking of working, with greater decentralisation towards associations and towards national structures.
Lastly, as concerns mobility, Mr Linkohr, you will be aware of just how much this issue, and all its social implications, is of concern to us.
The Mobility group has been set up at Commission level, with the various Member States, and is to hold its first meeting on 20 October.
This group consists of the representatives of Research Ministers, but also actual Ministers for Social Affairs and Home Affairs, to overcome obstacles to mobility, such as problems concerning pensions and freedom of movement on European territory.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his introduction but I am still left with a few questions.
You said that you have a total shake-up of the framework programme in mind.
We have tried to do this with the fifth framework programme and, as it now transpires, with very little effect.
In a resolution quoted by yourself, which was adopted in this Parliament on 18 May and for which I was rapporteur, I recommended multi-disciplinary teams for research, since innovations often occur on the cutting edge of different disciplines.
I cannot find any reference to this in your report which I have now read and which you adopted this week.
My second point, Commissioner, is that you recommend the European Union to take part in national programmes.
I have also written that, in Europe, we need to move away from techno-nationalism, but once again if the framework programme is what we are concerned with, this Parliament - and I repeat this very Parliament - plays a crucial role, and how will Parliament' s role take shape if we apply variable geometry?
Commissioner, I would like to draw your attention to a very long-standing issue for whoever has been involved in research.
In discussions and contacts I have had with the research community, especially in Greece, there is great concern about whether the Commission is in favour of downgrading basic research.
At least that is what seems to be coming out of the budget debate in Greece, and many people are calling upon the European Union to make its views clear.
Is this true, and at the very time the United States appears to be doubling its funding for basic research? If it is not true, should basic research not be intensified in all countries, large or small, in line, of course, with the value placed on their centres and researchers?
Mr Busquin, thank you very much for your Communication, which shows that you are being very swift in giving effect to the proposals for guidelines that you have set out with regard to the common research area.
I would like to ask you whether you consider that it will be possible to launch, as early as 2001, pilot actions regarding the preparation of the Sixth Framework Programme, and, in particular, the networking of research that you have talked about.
I would also like to ask you to award particular attention to the relations between the STOA Unit and matters that concern your Directorate for which you have responsibility, because problems exist in this regard.
Many research-related matters selected by the STOA Unit are then poorly received by the Commission departments.
This issue should therefore be discussed with you, particularly in connection with the Joint Research Centre (JRC).
Lastly, I would like to ask you whether we could quite rapidly develop research activities within a Euro-Mediterranean context, since you recently had a meeting at Capri with the Research Ministers of countries from both sides of the Mediterranean, and because this is an issue of great concern to Parliament.
Mr President, I would also like to welcome Mr Busquin's statement.
Many of the ideas that we discussed in the report from the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy have been taken on board.
There are two points that I would like Mr Busquin to explore a bit further with us this afternoon.
The first is that he specifically mentioned in his statement EU participation in national programmes.
Could he expand a little on what he envisages and say whether that will entail the EU partly funding national programmes and acting as a coordinator or will the JRC become one of the actors in a broader research network on an equal basis, for example, with other national research teams.
I would also like to press Mr Busquin on a point that Mr Piétrasanta made, because I do not think he answered that and it was a point that I certainly supported.
Can he confirm that he will be considering some pilot programmes in 2000-2001 in order to develop some of the networking concepts ahead of full implementation?
Mr President, Commissioner, I have three points to make.
First, I was glad to hear you say the management is to be improved.
Indeed, the management of the programmes is sometimes rather creaky.
What concrete steps do you have in mind here?
Secondly: research is constantly changing our society and the consequences of research change our society.
What is the position of socio-economic research in the European research area?
Thirdly, the ECSC Treaty will be expiring in 2002.
At that point considerable funds will be available for coal and steel research.
Will that research be incorporated in the sixth framework programme? To what extent will there be coordination, and how much power of codecision would Parliament have on what happens here?
Commissioner, I would like to thank you for being here today and for your statement.
The Commission appears to be moving quickly towards shaping the European Research Area.
I have two questions: firstly, the term 'added value' that you used, although this is not the first time it has been used, refers to economic criteria for the development of research and may lead to the commercialisation of research.
Without wishing to pour scorn on the commercial and practical side of the use made of the results of research, I am somewhat concerned that this will become the prime criterion.
Could you possibly allay my concern?
My second question relates to the centres of excellence.
Does the Commission have any criteria in mind for choosing these centres of excellence?
Mr President, Mr Harbour and Mr Piétrasanta - I apologise for not having replied to your question - firstly, as concerns pilot experiments for 2000-2001, we will make every effort to accurately assess the feasibility of certain elements, including that of networking.
As you will see in the policy paper, discussions are already underway on two or three issues, which will be put into effect as of next year, bearing in mind, of course, the constraints associated with legal aspects of the Fifth Framework Programme.
A degree of flexibility can, however, be shown in respect of certain issues.
You will have three examples of this in the policy paper, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to discuss this matter again soon.
As regards the question that you refer to, you have spoken of participation in national programmes.
I believe that this will be one of the key issues.
If I am unable to give you an immediate reply on this today, it is because it was precisely my intention, in this policy paper, to invite the Member States to adopt a position, for there will never be a European Research Area if it stems solely from the will of the Commission.
The Commission and the framework programme only account for 5% of research-related public expenditure.
There can therefore be no talk of a European Research Area if we are only responsible for 5% of that research.
That is why it is important that on the 16th, at the meeting of the Ministers responsible for science, the Member States undertake to open up their national programmes.
At that juncture, the contribution that we can make will consist of providing some sort of coordination.
The States who agree to open up their programmes will foster coordination and mobility within a relationship yet to be defined - on a project by project basis, of course.
Not all the projects will be opened up; some will be easier than others to integrate at a European level.
In response to Mr Lange, I would like to say that we are already beginning to take management measures.
There is Mr Gerold' s report, certain elements of which I am still waiting to receive, but I can tell you now that, as it says in the policy paper, there is a need to increase the size of projects.
We currently find ourselves somewhat overwhelmed by a host of projects that are too small, which make administration cumbersome, and which exacerbate constraints and lead to errors.
With regard to social and economic research, it is quite clear that there is a place for this.
There will be an entire chapter on science, society and the citizens.
We are going to draft a Communication on this subject.
I indeed feel that, in Europe, research and development must be conducted with the citizens.
There is a whole series of avenues that must be explored in the field of social and economic research, in the fields of foodstuffs, new technologies and, in particular, biotechnologies.
As regards the ECSC programme, you will be aware that an agreement has been reached, and that research will continue.
It will not, until there is a proven need to the contrary, be totally incorporated into the framework programmes.
It will retain its specific character.
This, moreover, is the wish of those who negotiated the ECSC research programmes with the Commission.
In reply to Mr Alyssandrakis, I feel that commercial issues should not be allowed to predominate.
In any case, the type of research that could be labelled 'disinterested' , which is to say research that has no commercial goal, is often the type of research that produces the best results in economic and basic terms.
I believe that everyone now realises the need to maintain an area which guarantees freedom of development to researchers, independently of purely commercial imperatives.
Your question is very relevant, but we will have to wait to see what happens in practice.
We do not intend to push commercial issues to the fore in all fields of research.
Much targeted research has a highly prominent commercial aspect, but there are also more basic forms of research which serve general European Union policies and, at times, also have beneficial spin-offs for commercial interests.
Lastly, as regards centres of excellence, we are at precisely the point of preparing the applicable criteria.
I would nonetheless like to emphasise one sentence which you will see in the policy paper that I feel to be very important, because the issue of centres of excellence has prompted many questions.
It is inadvisable to define what exactly is excellent and what is not.
We therefore feel that we should refer to the terms as they stand in the policy paper, namely the 'networking of capabilities for excellence in the public sector (in particular university teams) and private-sector centres of excellence, which would be achieved with long-term joint programmes of activities' .
This is therefore a bottom-up operation to be carried out not with hyper-centres, but with different teams working as part of a network.
High-performance European- and international-level teams which link up to work as a network, regardless of where they are based.
The information technologies now available make this quite possible, whatever the size of the teams.
Thank you very much, Mr Busquin.
That concludes this item.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0540/2000).
We will examine questions to the Commission.
First part
Question No 1 by (H-0726/00):
Subject: Budgetary implementation of the Cohesion Fund The Cohesion Fund's budgetary implementation rate has in recent years been extremely high.
Given that the amendments to the rules governing this Fund have been extremely limited in scope (unlike those affecting the Structural Funds), how can the Commission justify the fact that the rate of implementation for the first half of 2000 is lower than 1%?
I am very pleased that Mrs Torres Marques has asked this question because it gives me the opportunity to sum up, before the plenary session of the European Parliament, the situation with regard to Cohesion Fund commitment appropriations, which affects not only the country for which she is a Member but also other countries - Ireland, Greece and Spain.
I would also like to state my concern at the very low level of commitment of Cohesion Fund appropriations at the end of August - only 16%, Mrs Torres Marques - and, while things have changed for the better since the end of August, I would like to reiterate this concern, which I shared with Parliament' s Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on 11 September.
Meetings have been held with the Greek, Irish and Portuguese authorities to ask the governments of these countries to speed up their presentation to the Commission of their Cohesion Fund projects.
We have received a set of projects from Spain which give me cause to hope that, in the case of this country, there will be a complete implementation of appropriations for the year in progress, subject, of course, to these projects fulfilling the requirements in terms of technical expertise.
In the case of Portugal, Mrs Torres Marques, but above all in the case of Greece, the number of projects received does not give me the same cause to hope for a satisfactory implementation of appropriations.
Please understand me when I say that I would not wish to be misunderstood in the slightest by you or any of the MEPs concerned.
I do not want to point the finger or hand out good or bad marks.
It is my responsibility to manage as rigorously and as actively as possible the European Union' s second largest budget, that for Regional Policy and the Cohesion Fund.
I have to report not only to the Court of Auditors and to the tax-payers, but also, first and foremost, to the European Parliament, which is responsible for budgetary control and for adopting this budget, and I believe that it is my duty and role to say what is happening, at such times as I judge fit, and to do so in a transparent manner, with respect for the budgetary authority of which the European Parliament forms part.
There are reasons why so few projects have been submitted to the Commission to date.
On the one hand, as a result of the efforts made to commit all the appropriations at the end of 1999, there was inevitably a very sharp drop in applications for the financing of new projects at the beginning of this financial year.
On the other hand, as this is the first year of the new programming period, I have to say, and this is an objective assessment, that the Cohesion Fund countries, including your own, have centred their efforts on Objective 1 programming.
I have, in fact, publicly stated, notably at Lisbon in the presence of the Prime Minister and Mrs Lisa Ferreira, that the Commission was extremely satisfied with the quality of the work carried out by the Portuguese authorities in conjunction with the local authorities as concerns Objective 1 programming.
However, due to the very major efforts made it has been impossible to make a simultaneous and commensurate effort in respect of the Cohesion Fund.
I would like to say to the countries concerned that they now have to make this effort and swiftly present a sufficient number of tangible projects. Otherwise, there will be a risk of certain Cohesion Fund appropriations made for the financial year 2000 being lost for ever.
Indeed, contrary to the provisions of the interinstitutional agreement on the Structural Funds, no form of rebudgeting in subsequent financial years is provided for in the case of the Cohesion Fund.
Those countries that are Cohesion Fund beneficiaries should therefore be under no illusion that there is little time left for projects to be submitted and appraised under the budget year in progress.
That is the point that I wanted to make as clearly as possible, Mrs Torres Marques. Thank you for providing me with the possibility to do so.
Many thanks, Mr Barnier, for coming on behalf of the Commission to answer this question, which is very important to us.
But I think, Mr Barnier - and I am sorry to say this - you are not very well informed.
Perhaps the lack of staff you have just mentioned exclusively devoted to the Cohesion Fund - who did exist in the former Commission - prevented you from having more concrete details.
According to the details I have, and after what you said in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Planning, I know that Portugal has already submitted projects that exceed the Cohesion Fund in both the transport section and the environment section.
You know that this fund has always been very well managed by the four countries and has always had 100% take-up rates.
You must be very concerned to know why countries that have always complied so well seem not to be complying now.
I think the ball is in your court: your staff have the details, but they must be allowed to provide an answer.
What I am afraid of, Mr Barnier, is that the Commission may be taking the opportunity to cut the Cohesion Fund appropriations in the 2001 budget.
We will not accept that!
Commissioner, I would like to ask you two things.
You quoted a figure of 2.6% for Portugal.
Could you give us the figures for Spain and Greece?
My second question is this: besides the Cohesion Fund, there are also the Community Support Framework, the Structural Fund, regional programmes, etc.
From which countries have you received definitive projects, and which programmes from which countries have you already approved?
I am unable to provide you, off the cuff, with details of the projects being conducted under the Community support frameworks for countries that are eligible for Objective 1 funding under the Structural Funds.
I provided all this information to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on 11 September, but, if you really wanted, I could arrange for this information to be transmitted to you this evening or tomorrow, in the form that it was submitted, in all transparency, to the competent Committee on 11 September, under a month ago, for all the countries concerned.
I have no major worries, regarding Objective 1 funding, for any of the countries concerned, nor any major worries regarding Objective 2 funding: things are moving forward and, by and large, discussions on the Single Programming Documents are already under way.
I believe that negotiations are in progress on 83 of the 102 SPDs to be signed, although I am only speaking from memory.
Why am I laying the emphasis on the Cohesion Fund? Because, once again, the General Regulation treats the Structural Funds (Objectives 1 and 2) and the Cohesion Fund differently, and because, if I were forced to, I could not enter into reprogramming in the case of the Cohesion Fund.
There would therefore be a risk of losing the money.
That is why I am sounding the alarm without, I repeat, pointing the finger at any particular countries, because planning everything in one year for the seven years to come makes major demands on regional and national administrations, national governments and Commission officials.
You asked me to give you the figures for the other countries.
As at 26 September, the level of appropriations committed stood at 26.2% for Spain, 4.9% for Greece and 2.6% for Portugal.
No appropriations had been committed at that date for Ireland, but the situation in that country is a special one.
In overall terms we had, as at 26 September, committed 17.6% of the Cohesion Fund appropriations.
Question No 2 by (H-0730/00):
Subject: Fuel duty The current level of fuel duty in the United Kingdom is very substantially in excess of that prevailing in any other Member State.
The burden imposed by this tax is especially heavy on remoter parts of the country, in particular the Scottish Borders and the Scottish Highlands and Islands.
This has a severely distorting effect on competition as between small and medium-sized undertakings in these localities and multinational or other large-scale undertakings operating throughout the United Kingdom, as between tourist industries in these localities and hotel chains concentrated in large centres nearer to mainland Europe, such as London, and as between farmers and fishermen in remote parts and farmers and fishermen more advantageously located.
Will the Commission therefore carry out an inquiry into the question whether the excessive level of fuel duty in the United Kingdom constitutes a breach of competition law under the Treaties and is therefore illegal. What action does the Commission intend to take on this matter?
The question raised by the honourable Member is extremely topical but, in order to be able to give a clear answer, I have to remind you of the origin of Community law on fuel tax.
In 1987, the Commission submitted several proposals on indirect taxation in order to abolish the fiscal borders as part of completing the internal market.
Regarding duty, the aim of the Commission was to achieve complete harmonisation of taxation on mineral oils within the Community by introducing a unique duty for each type of product.
Had these measures met with approval, unfair competition, as intimated by the honourable member today, would almost certainly have been ruled out.
However, this proposal instead met with heavy protest from certain Member States.
In 1989, the Commission submitted a new proposal which was to offer more flexibility.
That proposal which, in addition to minimum rates, also provided for narrow rate bands and target rates, was once again rejected by the Member States.
Eventually, in 1992, the Member States unanimously decided on the introduction of a Community system of tax levies on mineral oils which only provided for a minimum tax rate for each type of mineral oil on the basis of its use; i.e. as fuel for motor vehicles, for industrial and commercial use or for heating.
I would thus like to underline that the Community minimum rates have not been reviewed since 1992 and that today, in practice, duty levels often far exceed the Community minimum rates and also differ greatly from country to country.
As the honourable Member pointed out, the duty on fuel and diesel used as motor fuel which applies in the United Kingdom is the highest in Europe, but duties on fuel oil and kerosene, at least if - and insofar as - these are used for industrial and commercial purposes or even for heating, remain far below the highest values applicable within the Union, as is also the case with the duty on heavy fuel oil.
It is thus a mixed bag and it is not the case that all duties on mineral oils are higher in the United Kingdom than elsewhere in Europe.
Finally, if duties on mineral oils are laid down at a high level, this does not lead to non-compliance with Community regulations in terms of competition.
Government aid, on the other hand, could exist, as a form of government aid, only if certain specific sectors were to enjoy exemptions from general regulations, and the compatibility or otherwise of such aid measures with the Treaty would then have to be examined.
This concludes my response for the time being.
Mr President, I am grateful to Mr Bolkestein for his very careful answer to my question, but I am not quite sure that he has answered it fully.
To make matters clear, as the Commission will know, this question was tabled before the protests began and it was prompted by complaints from people in my constituency.
For example, there is a company on the island of North Uist which is engaged in quarrying and road maintenance.
It seems a very good idea that there should be small- and medium-sized enterprises that are able to tender for and compete for road maintenance work on islands of that kind.
It is good for employment and for social cohesion.
If the fuel costs of a company like that are more than double those of multinational companies with other bases elsewhere in Scotland which can bid for the same contracts, obviously this severely distorts competition, to the disadvantage of outlying communities.
I appreciate the points Mr Bolkestein made and I know that the principal rule in the treaties prohibits charging foreigners more than home companies, but the general law of fair competition in Europe ought to apply and where levels of taxation are totally disproportionate we should look at the effect competition law can have on the situation, despite the general rule that these matters are the prerogative of Member States.
Mr President, I would say to Mr MacCormick that the Commission has no means of influencing the level of excise taxes for mineral oil products in Member States.
I want to be clear and insist on this point, because, as I said in my answer in the first instance, the Commission has made several attempts to get Member States to agree to the harmonisation of excise taxes precisely to avoid distortions in trade which may arise as a result of the differences therein.
Mr MacCormick will realise that these attempts by the Commission have been rejected by the Council.
Therefore once again, the Commission has no instruments to get Member States to change the level of excise taxes.
That is the first point that I would like to repeat and insist upon.
Secondly, as Mr MacCormick knows, where Member States favour by fiscal means a certain sector of industry, they thereby infringe the rules on state aid, in this case fiscal state aid which is akin to a subsidy.
Mr MacCormick rightly strives for equality of treatment and equal and fair competition.
If a particular sector or region is favoured through fiscal means then the laws of fair and equal competition are infringed and the Commission, in the form of my colleague Mr Monti, will take action.
Thirdly, Mr MacCormick will know that there are a certain number of derogations from the principle of certain and definite levels of excise taxes. These derogations stem from Article 8(4) of Directive 92/81 of the European Union and are approximately 100 in number.
These derogations are called the 8(4) derogations.
At the moment, the Commission is looking at all these derogations and examining whether they should be prolonged and if so, for what length of time.
In the course of this examination, the Commission will also answer the question of whether such derogations are an infringement of the Treaty rules on state aid, because obviously a derogation may border upon fiscal state aid and if there is an overlap, there may be a case for the Commission to take action.
Returning to the case in point, which had not yet come to my attention, I assume that the conditions under which large and small companies operate are connected with the excise taxes for the minerals oils that they use and as long as the excise taxes are similar or more or lessthe same for these various sectors of industry, there is not much scope for the Commission to intervene.
I hope that I am clear in this.
If I have not persuaded Mr MacCormick, I hope that I can do so perhaps after this meeting.
Mr President, the reason that prices differ between the islands and the mainland has nothing to do with excise duty.
Excise duty is absolutely identical in all parts of the United Kingdom.
I should like to ask this: is the Commission aware of a recent highly reputable Swedish academic study which has demonstrated that taking all costs into account, transport costs in the UK are in fact average compared with the European Union as a whole? Taking account of non-wage labour costs, the cost of licensing and insuring vehicles and road tolls, the UK is no more expensive to drive in than any other part of the European Union.
Given the Community's commitment to meeting its Kyoto commitments, I wonder whether the Commissioner would accept that the best way of doing so is by higher fuel duties, as opposed to raising the other transport costs.
If you want to conserve fuel, the way to do it is through fuel duty, not other forms of taxation.
I would say to Mr Martin that there is obviously a connection between the price of any kind of fuel to the consumer and the demand for that fuel.
That is the price elasticity of demand. It is a mechanism which I suppose is familiar to Mr Martin.
Although the precise shape of the elasticity curve is something we may debate, the fact that it exists is certain if one looks at the oil-intensity of the economy and how that intensity has changed.
Since the oil crisis in the 70s is has approximately halved.
There can be no doubt that in the longer term intensity plays an extremely important role.
If, therefore, Mr Martin bears in mind that if we want to attain the aims and purposes of the Kyoto Agreement and a high price of oil to the consumer would be beneficial to that end, then he has the logic of economic reasoning behind him.
The logic of economic reasoning supports the statement made by Mr Martin.
One may, of course, expand on his wish - which I deduce from his words - to comply with the undertakings which we entered into in Kyoto, by saying that other forms of energy may also help us attain that aim.
For example, nuclear energy is a very clear case in point.
It is not part of my portfolio to deal with energy, and particularly not with nuclear energy, but since Mr Martin has embarked upon an economic line of reasoning then I feel free to make this remark.
There are other sides to this picture.
If one increases the price of oil, one influences economic growth in an adverse manner.
In both the Western world and for developing countries calculations have been made which show that an increase in the price of oil - USD 5 per barrel or USD 10 per barrel - means that economic growth will suffer by 0.2% or 0.5% or whatever.
So it is not a simple picture.
Kyoto is important. We all want to achieve that.
The high price of oil is conducive to achieving that end but there is also a negative factor on economic growth with its attendant consequences in the form of more unemployment.
It is not a simple picture. I would caution Members - insofar as that may be necessary - against a one-sided approach to this whole problem.
Mr President, I accept the Commissioner's very balanced arguments about Kyoto and the economic repercussions thereof but we are talking here about particular problems in peripheral and remote areas.
If the Commission has no instruments to influence levels of excise taxes in Member States, and if favouring certain industries is not allowed under the competition rules, surely where a region suffers special disadvantages because of peripherality and remoteness, it would only be a case of equalising matters, not of giving any special preference if there was some differential in excise taxes permitted in those special and particular circumstances?
I should like to say to Mr Purvis that the matter of natural, regional disadvantages is probably a matter for the national governments since a part of their electorate lies in those outlying areas and peripheral regions.
They may also fall under the competence of my colleague, Mr Barnier, who spoke to this Assembly a little while ago.
From my point of view, I look after the fiscal matters of the Union, insofar as I am allowed to do so by the Member States.
It would not be right if I said that a geographical advantage were to be achieved by fiscal means so, to that extent, I must disappoint Mr Purvis.
However, if he comes to me with a particular case in point, a particular region, or whatever if may be, then I would be happy to raise the matter with my colleague, Mr Barnier.
Question No 3 by (H-0743/00):
Subject: Budget line for minority languages The budget line of the European Union for minority languages was introduced in 1983 and increased steadily to reach a peak in 1995 with EUR 4 million.
Since then the appropriations have been cut, for no apparent reason, with the result that in the current year they amount to EUR 3.5 million.
This is all the more surprising in that the European Union is moving closer towards enlargement to the East and the question of minorities is becoming increasingly important as a result, particularly in the context of a proper exchange of information.
Furthermore, activities hitherto - for example, the creation of an online network for regional and minority languages, operated by the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages and the three Mercator centres - have had a very positive response.
Can the Commission therefore state what level of appropriations are intended for promoting minority languages for the coming year, and whether any increase over 2000 is envisaged?
Mr President, in response to the question asked by the honourable Member, I would like to say that the preliminary draft budget, which was adopted by the Commission on 10 May, includes an appropriation of EUR 1 million for the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages and for the Mercator centres under the budget heading A-3015.
The Commission has not entered in the budget any specific appropriations for the financing of projects directly intended to promote regional or minority languages, for reasons that I will now attempt to explain.
The Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999 between Parliament, the Council and the Commission on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure specifies that appropriations relating to activities with no legal basis - as with the case in point - for projects concerning the promotion and safeguarding of regional and minority languages and cultures, may be entered in the budget for only three financial years at the most, and on condition that the establishment of a legal basis for them is subsequently envisaged.
Bearing in mind this limitation, and in view of the scope for financing projects concerning minority languages as part of the European Year of Languages 2001, the decision was taken not to enter specific appropriations in the budget for 2001 but to consider the possibility of providing a more sustained form of support to the future of these languages, and this within the framework defined by the 1999 agreement.
In other words, I am relying very much on the European Year of Languages to set things in motion and to enable us, at the end of that year, to come together and arrive at a lasting solution that does not oblige us to return to the lists each year and do battle to obtain funding.
It should nevertheless be noted that regional and minority languages and cultures are eligible for support under a number of other programmed actions.
For example, preparatory activities designed to encourage the use of digital content on worldwide networks in order to promote linguistic diversity in the information society - Culture 2000, MEDIA - insofar as the projects proposed contribute to the achievement of the objectives of these actions.
While no amount is specifically set aside for minority languages as part of these activities, this does not prevent these programmes being used for that purpose.
Mr President, thank you, Commissioner, for that information.
Of course I would have liked you to be more like Santa Claus and tell me now how much extra money we will have to produce in future for the minorities and for promoting minority languages.
Naturally, I am aware of the legal framework.
I want to look at the issue as a whole and ask, in that context, whether in future we might not be able to draw on the Structural Funds.
A few weeks ago, the Braunmüller Verlag published a book by Dr. Christoph Pan entitled "Volksgruppen in Europa - Ein Handbuch" [Nations in Europe - a Handbook], which listed some 60 minority groups in the European Union, 300 in the continent of Europe.
Out of a total of 750 million inhabitants, 100 million belong to minority groups.
If the Central and Eastern European countries were members of the European Union, we would have another 50 or so minority groups on top of the existing 60 in the European Union of Fifteen.
Dismantling the internal borders is certainly a substantial step forward, but we must be able to prepare these minorities.
Would it be possible to fund that through the pre-accession programmes and the Structural Funds?
Mr President, I am sure my parliamentary colleagues know that the Structural Funds - and this is something new - earmark very substantial funds for cultural activities, for both I and Michel Barnier considered it important to ensure that the Structural Funds do not invest only in roads and airports but also in people.
But the fact is that applications to the Structural Funds have to come not from the Commission or the European Parliament, but from the governments.
So in the event that the governments want to use the Structural Funds for the development and promotion of minority languages, they can do so.
Of course, it is also most important for the national parliamentarians to urge their government to take action.
As the author is not present, Question No 4 lapses.
Question No 5 by (H-0762/00):
Subject: Campaign against child sex tourism Since 1998 ECPAT Sweden has been running a project for a code of conduct for tour operators against child sex tourism with a view to persuading tour operators to undertake to eliminate demand for this type of tourism.
As the project also covers Germany and Austria, it has been receiving 60% EU funding since November 1999.
A new decision by the Commission is required to continue financial support after November.
No new application procedure for assistance has yet been initiated. There is therefore concern that funding may cease.
As I assume that action against child sex trafficking is one of the Commission' s priorities, will a new application procedure be initiated to carry on funding the ECPAT project?
I will answer the questions from Mr Sacrédeus and Mrs Theorin on the same subject together.
The Commission agrees on the importance of the fight against child sex tourism.
The Commission will pursue its actions to protect human dignity by preventing and combating violence against children, including child sex tourism, in the field of cooperation in justice and home affairs.
Last spring and summer the European Commission carried out a general review of its activities and human resources.
On 26 July 2000 the Commission concluded that it needed more than 1 200 extra posts to be able to manage all its tasks.
In the past the Commission's executive tasks have increased while its political and legislative work has decreased in relative terms.
In July the Commission decided to reverse this trend and reduce its executive tasks in order to have sufficient human resources for the political, legislative and conceptual tasks.
For a wide range of sectors this means the reduction and phasing out of activities.
In particular activities financed by small budget lines will be reduced because they are very intensive in terms of human resources.
The sex tourism information and awareness campaigns have had an important role to play.
However, in view of the lack of resources and in line with the general trend of cutting small budget lines, these activities will be phased out.
Thus the Commission will not make new financing commitments next year.
Nevertheless the Commission will do its best to use appropriations for these activities in this year's budget.
I have instructed my services to find the most efficient solution in the next few weeks.
Discontinuing support for the information campaign does not, however, mean that the Commission will abandon its other activities to protect children against violence and abuse, notably the STOP programme.
The Commission is preparing a proposal to renew the programme later this year and child sex tourism will be one of its concerns.
The Commission is also preparing legislative proposals on the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography in accordance with the conclusions of the Tampere European Council.
Proposals will seek to approximate definitions, offences and penalties and the extra-territorial application of Member States' criminal laws on sexual exploitation of children.
In this field Member States have a major responsibility.
Nevertheless the Commission will, in close collaboration with the Member States, continue to play an active role in developing and maintaining a coherent European policy to protect children against violence.
I should like to thank Commissioner Liikanen for that answer, even though I am not entirely happy with it for obvious reasons.
I wonder if the matter has been shunted backwards and forwards between different EU Commissioners without anyone in the end taking real responsibility for the issue.
Tasks of that kind do exist.
The second thing I want to ask about is whether you believe that the matter has been handled in an acceptable way.
Thirdly, how, in the light of enlargement towards the East, do you interpret the decision to remove resources from a practical fight in Sweden, Austria and Germany against child sex tourism when we know that there are special problems involving the sex trade and trade in human beings in a large number of the candidate countries?
Fourthly, President of the Commission Prodi recently attacked the power of the Council of Ministers.
What would you think if, during its Presidency, the Swedish Government demonstrated this power by taking action to reinstate economic support for ECPAT Sweden?
I should first of all like to emphasise that, in the previous Commission, it was Anita Gradin who was very active in this area.
She was responsible for issues of justice.
It was also therefore quite logical. It was an important activity, and I value the work she did.
I have also spoken with her.
Where concrete financing proposals are concerned, it is not possible for me to adopt a position here, because we must respect the normal procedures.
As I said, I have asked my officials to find a solution which would enable us to use the current budget grant, that is to say the money we budgeted for the year 2000.
I nonetheless believe that we have to find a partner who operates internationally.
Thirdly, each presidency must clearly have its own programme.
If such a situation were to arise, we should have to discuss it later.
I want to say again, however, that we must concentrate our efforts on this area. At the same time, it is important to do so at a more political level and to concentrate on the Stop programme which covers the same area.
It is obviously a good thing if the Commission has re-thought this issue.
It would be devastating if support for the work on combating child sex tourism were to be withdrawn.
That cannot reasonably be the EU' s policy.
Every year, more than one million children are forced into prostitution.
These children are increasingly exploited by tourists and businessmen who, remarkably often, come from Europe.
The fact that the major paedophile scandal in Belgium is now no longer making the headlines in the media does not, of course, mean that the child sex trade has disappeared.
Support for ECPAT is incredibly important.
It is completely in line with the Council' s 1999 decision concerning efforts to combat child sex tourism and with the resolution adopted by Parliament as late as March of this year.
To withdraw support for this work would therefore be to go both against the Council' s and Parliament' s demand for priority to be given to the fight against the child sex trade.
How the Commission is to solve the problem technically is, I think, a matter still to be resolved, but the main thing is that this important work should continue to receive support from the European Union.
I have thought of a number of different possibilities.
One of these is to cooperate with the World Tourism Organisation, or the WTO.
This is therefore not the same WTO we most often talk about.
The World Tourism Organisation acts globally, not only in industrial countries but also in the developing countries where these problems exist today.
We have still not made any decisions, but we hope to be able to take measures either with the WTO or with some other organisation in order to finance the project this year.
I know that, as you mentioned in the discussion, the Swedish organisation has already cooperated with the WTO in the past, so these two organisations know each other well. I hope that we can find a solution in conjunction with the WTO and in such a way that the three remaining months of this year may be sufficient for activating this budget line.
Question No 6 by (H-0781/00):
Subject: Euro Can the Commission say whether it has carried out any investigation into the cost of adapting European undertakings to the Euro, what the outcome of that investigation is likely to be and what will be the average cost to each European firm, in particular small firms, of adapting to the changes required by exclusive use of the single currency as from 1 January 2002? Will provision be made for any Community financial contribution for European Union undertakings (especially those in the weakest position) in order to lessen the burden posed by the forthcoming changes?
Some experts in the field believe that there is a risk that it will prove impossible for undertakings to adapt their computer systems and software in time. This would jeopardise their operation, and might force them to return to conducting all their business on paper.
Does the Commission share this view, and what action will it take to prevent such problems?
Second part
Questions to Mr Byrne
Research shows that the creation of the single currency entails significant overall economic benefits.
That is why the introduction of the euro should be seen as an investment rather than a cost for the economic operators involved.
Research on the potential changeover costs for individual undertakings would only provide a partial view and could be misleading.
As regards compensation, the Member States and the Commission take the view that the public authorities and the private economic operators will each bear the costs of the changeover in their respective fields.
The Commission believes that all undertakings will be able to prepare themselves in time for the final changeover to the euro, including the adaptation of their computer systems and software.
However, the present state of preparation is a matter for concern.
Indeed many SMEs are still not fully aware of the implications of the changeover for their businesses, particularly as regards the legal tax and accounting rules and their software.
The Commission and Member States are currently stepping up their efforts to provide information to remedy this situation.
I would like to thank the Commissioner, who spoke succinctly yet unequivocally on the issue.
The problem is that SMEs, as well as large enterprises of course, are being asked to shoulder the burden in order to benefit from the introduction of the euro. But the question is whether the SMEs can bear this burden without appropriate support.
If they cannot, although they may reap benefits later on, the result will be that they may close down, as we were told during a seminar that was held in Brussels three months ago.
This must be addressed, as we are talking of millions of SMEs throughout Europe.
Since the Commissioner doubts whether sufficient progress has been made in respect of information and preparation, I would also like to ask whether he has any statistics on what percentage of the changeover has been completed in SMEs - let us stick with them - in the different countries, and I would especially like to ask if he has any details on Greece.
Mr President, our plan is to discuss this issue in the Commission next week.
Mr Solbes is to present a communication on special measures to accelerate the changeover to the euro.
I am sure that Mr Solbes who is responsible for this matter will come to the details and I will transmit your message to the Commission next Wednesday when we take a position on the matter.
Mr President, what interests me most is how the euro-debate will go on from here, after the referendum in Denmark, and what changes the Commission intends to make to the information strategy?
I am not sure that this is supplementary to Mr Marinos' s question: it is very broad.
In any event, Mr Liikanen may answer if he wishes or is able to, but it is a very broad question.
On the basis of what I have said, Mr Liikanen may decide.
Mr President, very briefly, 11 countries have accepted the euro.
For them everything continues as usual.
These countries are preparing everything to change their notes and coins.
This philosophical political discussion is no longer on the agenda, but in general we can discuss the dangers of a referendum, but perhaps in some other context.
As the author is not present, Question No 7 lapses.
Question No 8 by (H-0724/00):
Subject: Foodstuffs hygiene and hunting The Commission has recently submitted proposals concerning foodstuffs hygiene, COM(2000)438.
The provisions are extremely comprehensive and touch upon various rules affecting hunting.
Has the Commission assessed the effect of the proposals on reindeer husbandry and elk hunting in Sweden and Finland? Do the requirements relating to hunting, for example of elk, also cover the treatment of meat for own consumption?
Mr President, the proposal on food hygiene referred to by the Member in question is a consolidation and simplification of the existing set of hygiene rules contained in 17 different directives.
These include Directive 92/45 of 16 June 1992 on public and animal health problems relating to the killing of wild game and the placing on the market of wild-game meat which already lays down a number of hygiene rules with respect to wild game.
With the new proposal, the existing food hygiene rules have been simplified. They are presented in a clearer way and unnecessary detail has been deleted.
The proposed rules are definitely less extensive than the existing rules.
Within the proposal on food hygiene the rules on meat from hunted animals are a minor but important part.
It must first be emphasised that the proposal on the hunting of wild game does not apply to reindeer nor is it the intention that it should cover meat that is destined for the hunters' own private consumption.
The proposal gives more responsibility to the hunter for judging the fitness for human consumption of wild game meat that is directly delivered to the consumer.
The proposal aims to ensure that hunters are able to make a judgment about the safety of such wild-game meat.
The Professional Hunters' Association would play an important role in ensuring that the hunters have the qualifications to make such a judgment.
This applies also to moose.
The impact of the proposal is limited.
Already at present there is an obligation in Finland to present moose that is shot and sold to restaurants for inspection by the competent authority and some Member States already apply the rules as proposed.
The proposal has been elaborated in close consultation with the Federation of Field Sports Associations of the European Union.
It is believed that with the increased responsibilities for the hunters, consumer confidence in food safety are increased.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his answer, and I have a supplementary question.
The fact is that elk hunting is extremely widespread in Sweden and Finland.
Tens of thousands of people hunt elk, and the meat they obtain is an important contribution to their households.
Most people who hunt use the meat themselves.
It is consumed within their own families or by friends, acquaintances or relatives.
I should like a guarantee from the Commission that under absolutely no circumstances will the rules in this document apply to meat consumed by people for their own household needs.
Meat of this kind must be exempt from these rules.
If these rules were to be applied to meat consumed by people within their own households, this would constitute a bureaucratic disaster for elk hunting.
I am happy to be able to give the honourable Member the assurance that these rules will not apply in circumstances of private use.
Question No 9 by (H-0738/00):
Subject: Live animal transports A new Commission report on a mission that it carried out in France in November 1999 and a recent investigation in Italy by Compassion in World Farming and Animal Angels, show that several Member States are still not properly enforcing Council Directive 91/628/EEC on the Protection of Animals During Transport (as amended by 95/29/EC).
It emerged from this report that some transporters are failing to stop and give animals rest at the places which they have indicated on their route plans.
The report also notes serious breaches on vehicle standards and maximum journey limits regarding animals arriving into and travelling through France.
Would the Commission indicate the Member State from which the animals and vehicles referred to in Section 5.4.2 of the report come, and the Member State from which the animals mentioned in Section 5.3.1 of the report come? What sanctions is the Commission taking against France and these Member States?
I share the concern that has been expressed that rules on the transport of animals are not being sufficiently enforced in certain areas.
While Member States are responsible for the day-to-day enforcement of Community legislation, the Food and Veterinary Office of my Directorate-General undertakes specific control and inspection missions to check that Member States apply Community legislation in an effective and uniform manner.
Under Community legislation, transporters of livestock must submit a route plan in advance to the competent authority of the place of departure when the journey exceeds eight hours.
On their return, the transporters must send back completed route plans to the same competent authority.
The competent authorities of the place of departure must check in particular that completed route plans have been returned and verify that the journeys have been carried out according to the plans.
During the mission referred to, carried out in France in November 1999, it was found that the route plans stamped by the competent authorities of the place of departure were not properly implemented and that travelling time limits were often exceeded.
The FVO mission report mentioned refers specifically to transporters whose journeys originated in Ireland.
Concerning France, the Commission is waiting to be informed about the actions taken by the competent authorities regarding some of the recommendations of the FVO mission report, especially of the action taken to ensure that route plans are properly used and signed.
A reminder has been recently sent to the French authorities.
Irish authorities have been informed of the findings of the FVO and details of the deficiencies detected have been sent.
The Commission is currently monitoring the situation in both cases.
If it appears that a Member State repeatedly fails to enforce Community legislation, the Commission would consider opening an infringement procedure under Article 226, as has already been initiated against other Member States in relation to the protection of animals during transport.
I will present a report on the implementation in the Member States of the Community legislation on the protection of animals during transport to the Council and to the European Parliament.
The Commission's report will include the findings mentioned in the FVO inspection reports.
When this report has been concluded, I intend to present proposals to improve the transport of animals and the problem of insufficient enforcement of the travelling time limits will be addressed.
In conclusion, I assure you that animal welfare is very high on the Commission's agenda.
I look forward to further discussion of these issues when I present the report on animal transport in the next few weeks.
Thank you for that response and for outlining the theory of what is meant to happen with this directive.
As the Commissioner has indicated, the reality is often quite different.
I want to ask in particular about the border post of Gorica between Slovenia and Italy.
Over the years the Italian authorities have ignored the requirement of the directive and have done almost nothing to alleviate the suffering of live animals arriving from Eastern Europe.
The latest complaint submitted by the Euro Group for Animal Welfare in April this year resulted in the Commission agreeing, at long last, to take out infringement proceedings against Italy.
I would like the Commissioners to say a little bit more about the specific issue of infringement proceedings against Italy.
What is the progress of this? Has it started and, if not, when will it?
In relation to candidate countries I can tell you that meetings have taken place with them in relation to this issue of transport of animals and preliminary agreements have been reached.
The view of the Commission has been made known and noted.
In relation to Italy, I have had an informal conversation with the relevant minister on this issue.
He has indicated to me his concern to ensure improvements in the area.
We are considering infringement proceedings in relation to this Member State but no such proceedings have been initiated as yet.
This is a related question.
Perhaps it is not related to the issue of the transport of animals over long distances, but to that of transport to abattoirs and what happens before then.
By adopting a number of reports, we in Parliament have embarked upon the long road towards making food in Europe safe.
When does the Commissioner intend to produce draft directives to make animal husbandry safe, that is to say the breeding of animals, how we treat the animals we eat, how we transport them to abattoirs etc.? When will these directives be part of the long chain?
.
As I indicated, the Commission is currently working on a report on the operation of an animal transport directive in the Member States.
This report is at an advanced stage of preparation and will, I hope, lead to further proposals for improvement in the existing situation, in particular in the existing directive.
We discussed this issue previously at my meeting with the Green Group.
The report will be transmitted to Parliament in due course.
Question No 10 by (H-0755/00):
Subject: Adverse effects of imports of genetically modified seeds on cotton cultivation Imports of cotton seeds contaminated with small quantities of genetically modified seeds originating chiefly from the USA have caused serious problems for cotton growing in Greece and will have adverse long-term consequences.
These problems have arisen because the EU and the Greek government have deliberately neglected to set up the necessary Community or national legal framework to prevent imports of seeds and propagating material contaminated with genetically modified organisms from third countries.
Since the above omission has still not be rectified, despite the adverse consequences it has caused, will the Commission say what measures the EU intends to take to prevent imports of seeds and propagating material contaminated with genetically modified organisms in future ?
Under the current Council Directive 92/20 on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms, products containing or consisting of GMOs may not be placed on the market unless consent has been given under the provisions of this particular directive.
Although this is not yet reflected in the relevant Community seeds legislation, this principle would apply also to those seed lots of conventional plant varieties of the different genera and species, including cotton, which contain impurities of EU-unapproved genetically modified seeds. Member States are responsible for inspection and control to ensure compliance with Directive 90/220.
The Commission White Paper on food safety has foreseen the need to amend the annexes of the existing directives on the marketing of seeds in order to first of all lay down the growing conditions and other requirements for purity concerning the adventitious presence of genetically modified seeds in seed lots of traditional plant varieties and secondly to lay down the details of the labelling requirements for seed of genetically modified plants.
The Commission services are currently preparing a draft Commission directive covering these issues and including cotton seed.
However, in this year's spring sowing season the Commission was informed of interceptions of imported seed of conventional varieties of different species including cotton containing traces of GM seed.
The Member States concerned reacted differently with regard to the interceptions.
As far as the measures taken by the Greek authorities are concerned, I would also refer to the answer given my colleague, Mrs Wallström, to Oral Question H-742/2000.
The Standing Committee on seeds and propagating material for agriculture, horticulture and forestry has discussed a plan for coordinated and harmonised interim action in respect of GM seed impurities in seed of conventional varieties.
Under this plan the Member States would immediately organise testing of a significant number of seed lots of conventional varieties to determine the presence of GM seeds until the coming into force of related new Community legislative measures.
A set of criteria was identified to establish a common approach for sampling and testing for the presence of GM seeds and for appropriate action in the case of detection of GM seeds.
The criteria are currently under discussion.
This interim action plan is designed to cover the period until the coming into force of related new legislation in order to avoid an unsatisfactory situation similar to that earlier this year in the forthcoming sowing seasons.
Our question was clear: what measures is the Commission taking? The Commissioner has told us about some general measures that are going to be taken.
But he did not mention a single substantive, practical measure to prevent the importation of GM seeds.
How are we to interpret this? Of course, we may get an expression of wishes, as today, and of good intentions.
But there continues to be a lack of any practical measures to prevent imports from the United States and from third countries of genetically propagating material infected by genetically modified organisms.
I take the view, Commissioner, that you should ask, for example, that cargoes are accompanied by a supporting document, a certificate from a reliable, accredited international body or laboratory to testify that the imported seed lots are free from GMOs.
But you are not asking for anything like this.
This is a practical measure which you could introduce immediately.
I am pleased to report the Standing Veterinary Committee responsible for seeds held a number of meetings in June, July and September on this particular issue with a view to reaching an interim agreement between Member States as to how to deal with this kind of situation, pending the enactment of the legislation that I referred to.
Active consideration is therefore being given to this issue and an attempt is being made to seek agreement with Member States as to how to address this particular problem.
That, in my view, addresses the short-term aspect.
The long-term aspect, referring to the issues you identified in your supplementary question, is the subject of ongoing work at the moment in my DG and the particular issues you referred to - issues such as labelling and traceability - are being addressed.
These are important and complex issues which deserve full consideration and I am happy to tell you that they are being considered in that light.
Question No 11 by (H-0774/00):
Subject: Health and safety warnings relating to the private use of visual display units Further to my exchange of letters on this issue with Commissioner Byrne, can the Commission give a firm commitment that it will further examine whether a Directive is required to provide health and safety advice to parents and teachers whose children/pupils use computer equipment either at home or at school?
Can the Commission give an indication as to when it will announce the results of its examination of this area? Finally, can the Commission comment on the progress made by Member States who, pursuant to Council Resolution of 17 December 1998, were encouraged to consider developing voluntary agreements between manufacturers and consumer associations on the production of informative and consumer-friendly operating instructions?
This is a matter which, strictly speaking, falls largely within the competence of my colleague, Mr Liikanen.
However, having consulted with his services, I am in a position to inform you that essential safety requirements concerning computer equipment to be used privately or in the working place are prescribed by a directive relating to electrical products, the Low Voltage Directive, as well as by the Directive on Radio Equipment and Telecommunication Terminals.
Specific standards have been developed by standardisation bodies on a number of these safety aspects.
There are also some safety requirements for eye protection at work in the Directive on the Safety in the Workplace but none yet for private use.
Moreover, the Council recommendation on the limitation of exposure of the public to electro-magnetic fields is applicable to safety aspects of computer equipment.
Concerning these aspects, the Commission has already prepared a mandate for the standardisation bodies to draft standards on the use of computers over long periods.
As far as advice to be given to parents and teachers, whose children and pupils use computers, is concerned, manufacturers are obliged, under the present legislation to provide an instruction for safe use of the equipment if deemed necessary.
The general product safety also puts an obligation on producers to provide consumers with information on risks.
This autumn the Commission will ask CENELEC to consider the development of standards on the effect on eyes of display units and computer screens for private use, as well as the inclusion of information and warnings for parents and teachers on this aspect.
Ergonomic aspects will also be assessed to find if action at Community level is needed.
At this stage the Commission does not consider that a specific directive is required to cover the issue of warnings for parents identified by the honourable Member.
Standardisation can meet the concerns expressed.
This is the same approach which has been followed to address, for example, the specific needs of the elderly and the disabled in relation to information and communication technologies.
For the more general question on the follow-up by Member States to the Council resolution on operating instructions for technical consumer goods, it should be noted that this resolution is addressed to Member States and to the economic operators and does not involve any specific follow-up by the Commission.
However, the Commission will ask the Member States to provide information on the follow-up given the resolution.
Mr President, I am grateful to the Commissioner for that information and for some signs of progress in the study of this issue.
Would he agree with me that it is a false distinction to draw here, however, between safety in the workplace and safety in the schoolroom or safety for a child working at home?
Is it not the case that there should be at least as much consideration given to the safety of people in the latter environment, particularly since, in the time since the 1999 directive came in we know a great deal more about the possible harmful effects of ionising and non-ionising radiation on young people?
From a logical point of view I entirely agree.The difficulty in this issue is that the Commission and the European institutions have far greater powers in legislation governing the workplace than in, for instance, legislation governing private homes.
The answer to your question is that the Commission's powers do not extend that far.
Questions to Mr Patten
As the author is not present, Question No 12 lapses.
Question No 13 by (H-0728/00):
Subject: Maryam Arubi sentenced to death by stoning for adultery Is the Commission aware that Maryam Arubi (30), found guilty of adultery, was sentenced to death by stoning under the Iranian penal code based on the Islamic sharia? Could EU representatives and representations abroad take this serious human rights situation in Iran into account when the forthcoming UN resolutions are being prepared and adopted, including those being drawn up at this moment for the Millennium Summit?
Maryam Ayubi's case is extremely disturbing.
As the honourable Member knows, Iran's penal code is based on Islamic sharia law.
The death sentence is widely used.
The Iranian authorities are well aware of our opposition to the death penalty.
We have repeated that position on numerous occasions.
In February 2000, the European Union asked Iran to introduced a moratorium on the death penalty in the wake of death penalties handed down against four student leaders.
We have no reports as to whether the death sentence on Ms Ayubi has been carried out.
According to European Union diplomats in Teheran, however, no death sentence by stoning has been carried out in Iran during the last three years.
The Commission is very concerned at the poor human rights record in Iran in general.
The Iranian authorities are well aware of the importance we attach to these issues.
The recent parliamentary election in Iran will we hope offer an opportunity to develop a more productive dialogue on human rights with the Iranian government.
In doing this we will regularly review the progress of reform in Iran including in the field of human rights.
In the third committee of the 55th session of the UN General Assembly a resolution on Iran is being prepared and the presidency has informed Member States of meetings with the Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Commission.
Consultations are continuing to determine the European Union's position which will of course reflect our deep concerns regarding the situation in Iran.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission for being receptive to my question.
It seems incredible that today, in the year 2000, in a world which is globally interconnected, women are being sentenced to death for adultery.
If Maryam did not live in a theocratic regime she would be free, she could enjoy the right to life, but as she lives in Iran, she will be stoned to death.
The Spanish Prime Minister - Mr Aznar - is to make an official visit to that country in October.
Perhaps he will shake hands with President Khatami.
Commissioner, is it not inconsistent for us to form friendships and ties with regimes which violate human rights in this way, to the point of stoning its women to death?
This is the thirteenth time under the Khatami regime.
Is that not inconsistent? You know as well as I do that there are many ways of exerting political influence.
What will the Commission do in this case?
Whatever the allegations made against Ms Ayubi or against anyone else, nothing in my judgment can justify the death penalty, let alone the death penalty by what is called lapidation which is a rather cleaned up way of referring to stoning.
It has to be said that if we avoided any political contact at all with governments or regimes whose human rights record we profoundly disapproved of, there would be a lot less foreign travel by governments and heads of government.
It is only by talking to people like President Khatami that one is able to get across our deep human rights concerns.
My own view is that we should continue to argue our position on human rights with considerable vigour.
We should do that bilaterally with the Iranian government and, where appropriate, in international fora and we should certainly give every encouragement to those more moderate elements in countries like Iran who believe, as the honourable Member and I do, that human rights are universally valid and not some colonial implant.
Question No 14 by (H-0745/00):
Subject: Burma Aung San Suu Kyi, the opposition leader and Nobel Prize winner, has ended up under what amounts to house arrest, and all contact with outsiders has been forbidden by the country' s military rulers.
The EU has deplored her treatment and might cancel a planned delegation visit to Rangoon later this year.
Does the Commission take the view that constructive engagement with the Burmese Junta has any value? In view of what Aung San Suu Kyi continues to endure, will the Commission' s view be that the EU should not attend the EU-ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on 12-13 December 2000?
I am delighted to say that I agree with you Mr President, and agree with the honourable Member.
The record of the Burmese regime remains appalling.
Like Members of this House and decent civilised people the world over, the Commission deplores the continued violation of human rights by the military regime in Burma, in particular the extra-judicial killings, the widespread imposition of forced labour and forced displacement of local populations, as well as the repression of political opponents and the prevention of the free functioning of legitimate political parties.
The regime's treatment of the Nobel Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, is all of a piece with their treatment of the Burmese people.
The dignity and courage with which she responds is an inspiration to all of us and a symbol of hope to the people of Burma of a brighter future.
I join with the honourable Member in expressing my admiration of Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow members of the NLD.
Today Aung San Suu Kyi is now under de facto house arrest.
Even when this is relaxed, as we hope it soon will be, she will be far from free as we are now wearily familiar with the array of wholly unjustified restrictions that the regime maintains on her freedom of movement.
These restrictions apply sometimes in an even more draconian way to the National League for Democracy.
The NLD is a legal political party but it is subject to continual harassment and its members are routinely subject to arbitrary arrests.
I am particularly concerned by reports that party members, waiting with Aung San Suu Kyi at Rangoon station two weeks ago, were attacked and even chloroformed before being evicted from the station premises.
The Commission remains convinced that a lasting solution to the current situation must be based on agreement between the regime, the democratically elected opposition and the representatives of the ethnic minorities.
Aung San Suu Kyi has long pressed for such a dialogue.
We continue to support fully the desire of the General Affairs Council to establish a meaningful political dialogue with Burma in order to express forthrightly the European Union's concerns and to press for change.
The agenda for the EU-ASEAN ministerial meeting in Vientiane in December is due to include an open discussion on the situation in Burma with our ASEAN partners.
It offers an opportunity to express our concerns firmly, directly and in detail to the representative of the SPDC.
The EU's attitude towards that ministerial meeting in Vientiane and indeed, whether it should take place at all, or at what level the EU should be represented at it, will depend on developments in Burma between now and December.
We will be watching developments closely but we should also be clear that the December meeting is about the EU's political relations with ASEAN as a whole.
We do not want to permit the generals in Rangoon to be allowed to hold that relationship hostage.
We are determined not to let the behaviour of the regime in Rangoon prevent us from developing our relations with the other nine members of ASEAN.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for that comprehensive answer.
Can I assume from your answer that the Commission still believes that constructive engagement has any value? After the catalogue of terrible events that you have just given us, it seems to me that constructive engagement has seen its day.
Do you not think that we should now be exploring other ways of tackling the problem of our relations in Burma?
Should we not be looking at investment issues as the French Government are doing?
Should we not be challenging the whole tourism issue as the British Government has been doing? If the European Union is not prepared to call for economic sanctions then why not, for instance, suggest that the SPDC should be challenged in the UN and its legitimacy as the Government of Burma challenged in the UN General Assembly?
I wonder if you consider that a viable option for the Commission and the Council at this time?
As the honourable Member knows, we have taken a number of tough measures in relation to the regime covering issues like visas and assets.
There is a serious argument about whether one should go further.
Speaking for myself, though I have always wanted to go to Burma and particularly to see Bagan, I would not dream of going to Burma in the present circumstances and I would advise other people similarly.
When it comes to the overall question of trade and investment, I will be absolutely candid with the honourable Member about my assessment and about my concern.
My assessment is that the main reason why there is not more investment in Burma is the policies pursued by the regime there.
So long as a regime like that is behaving in that way, it would be extraordinary if anybody was to think that it made much sense to invest there.
My other problem, whenever I think about or talk about sanctions, is a concern about how smart sanctions ever are in practice.
The living conditions of people in Burma, thanks to the appalling government under which they suffer, are bad enough as it is and I would not like to do anything that made those living conditions worse.
So I am reluctant to go further on trade or to advise further action on trade or investment.
As for further declaratory political action, I am always prepared to consider the case for that.
This is where the whole question of whether or not it is worth engaging in a dialogue is one that has to think about very carefully.
For example, if we were to send a commission still to Rangoon we would only conceivably consider doing so if there was a guarantee that a delegation could meet with Aung San Suu Kyi, if there was a guarantee that it could meet with her party colleagues, if there was a guarantee that it could also meet with the ethnic minority leaders.
In those circumstances it may well be that a mission would be justifiable.
One has to discuss issues like this with the balance of advantage very much in mind as to whether or not it really is going to provide some discernible positive effect if one connects with people who pursue policies which most of the rest of the world regards as being appalling.
One last point.
I think it is very important that the ASEAN countries themselves put pressure on Burma.
Burma is exporting instability to the rest of the region, it is exporting drugs, it is exporting HIV/Aids, and I hope the rest of the region will do what it can to change policies in Rangoon.
I was very glad that the Commissioner mentioned the ethnic minority groups and the need to open a dialogue with them.
In practical terms can he tell us what, if anything, the European Union can do about a policy which has been virtually one of genocide over many years towards the Karen, Shan, and other minority groups?
Mr President, apart from the political measures that we have already discussed, the most practical thing we can try to do is to provide some humanitarian assistance.
We have been trying to do that through NGOs.
There are many living in wretched conditions outside the country in refugee camps and others living in wretched conditions within the country.
I hope that we will be able to continue to provide humanitarian assistance to them, but obviously what is most important - this would encourage them to return from Bangladesh and from other countries in the region - what is most important is that there should be a political settlement which recognises those rights as well as the rights of those who were democratically elected over ten years ago and whose election was swept aside by the generals.
Question No 15 by (H-0769/00):
Subject: Democracy in Kosovo What is the Commission' s view of the local elections in Kosovo and the development of the various democratic forces in the run-up to them, and what are the region' s medium- and long-term political prospects?
Mr President, the Commission fully supports the decision of the UN Secretary General's special representative for Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, to hold the Kosovo municipal elections on 28 October and the efforts of the UN mission in Kosovo, UNMIK, to organise these elections.
Within the UN mission, OSCE Pillar III of UNMIK has lead responsibility for the elections.
EU Member States provide the bulk of the OSCE budget, and the European Commission has also provided EUR 5 million for equipment for the registration process.
The European Commission has full confidence in the ability of UNMIK to implement the results of the municipal elections in the short and medium term.
The elections are an important step in involving the people of Kosovo in the running of their own communities.
Commissioner, first I want to ask about the Commission' s approach to the preparations for these elections, whether there is (a) any support for the parties, (b) training of local politicians and (c) support for the media in connection with the municipal elections?
So these are the three points in relation to support.
Moreover I think that following the Serbian elections, Kosovo must also be given a democratic platform beyond the municipal level. So I would like to ask the Commissioner when he thinks a general election could conceivably be held in Kosovo, since that would surely be necessary in order to create a negotiating partner for Serbia with a view to a future settlement in this region.
The most important thing for the stability of the region is that what everybody recognises was the election result in Serbia or FRY ten days ago is recognised by Mr Milosevic who, if he was to recognise that election result, would be out on his ear immediately.
That would have a considerable effect on the whole region.
As for elections beyond those for the municipalities, we must take one step at a time and ensure that the elections for the municipal administration are properly conducted and involve the people of Kosovo more in managing their own affairs.
One thing we can all be certain of is that the electoral process in Kosovo will be fair, unlike the electoral process in Serbia.
The OSCE is responsible within UNMIK for the election organisation and for the sort of issues which the honourable Member referred to.
It is worth recalling that EU Member States, as OSCE members, pay about 67% of OSCE's budget.
That does not count any other bilateral donations that they may be making to particular projects.
We have provided from the Commission EUR 5 million for registration and identity card equipment.
When I was in Kosovo the other day I was very struck by those who told me that the initial stages of the election campaign had been conducted with considerable professionalism and style. They referred to some of the election meetings, for example, that they had gone to.
Maybe they do not yet have decorous televised debates with Jim Lehrer, with everybody avoiding being rude about one another, but they certainly have started their election campaign with a good deal of brio.
I hope that will continue, that the election process will produce results in which everybody in Kosovo from every group will be able to feel that they are sharing in the administration of their local communities.
I would like to dwell a little on the answer given by Mr Patten on the elections in Serbia.
I happened to be there together with 200 other election observers from 52 countries.
Regardless of the opinion one may have about the regime there, I have to say that the elections were beyond reproach.
I can tell you that these elections were conducted democratically, and were better than elections in our own countries, which I have happened to take part in or observe on many occasions.
The issue, Commissioner, is not whether Mr Milosevic will accept the outcome of the elections.
The question is whether the leader of the opposition, Mr Kostunica, will accept the results, and whether he will go to a second round next Sunday in order to complete the elections and to give the people of Serbia, the Yugoslavian people, the opportunity to decide on their future, without interference from you and without interference inside Serbia.
As regards Kosovo, it would have been better had it taken part in these elections, which were simultaneously presidential, parliamentary, regional and municipal elections.
This is how the European Union could help to remedy the situation, and also by putting an end to the genocidal sanctions which are still in place today.
I must put the point very gently that I am not sure that many people in Europe would recognise the description of the elections in Serbia which has just been given by the honourable Member.
Even fewer people in Serbia would recognise the description of the electoral process which has been given.
The people of Serbia - including, I suspect, Mr Milosevic - know perfectly well who won the elections on the first round, which accounts for the fact that Mr Kostunica not unreasonably has argued that the election process should now be recognised and he should enter into the responsibilities for which the people of Serbia have clearly elected him.
The sooner that happens and the sooner Serbia can rejoin the European family the better, as far as I am concerned.
Whether, when that happens the honourable Member will be looking back nostalgically to the days of Mr Milosevic, we will see.
Most of us believe that Mr Milosevic has played a signal and criminal part in the instability which has wracked the region for the last decades, which has produced countless deaths, misery and impoverishment.
The sooner he goes the sooner the people of the whole region can look forward to a brighter future which will include rather fairer elections than the ones that Mr Milosevic recognises.
That concludes Question Time.
Questions 16 to 44 will be replied to in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.45 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Arms trade code of conduct (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A5­0211/2000) by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Code of Conduct on arms exports.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Titley on his report, as others have done earlier today.
As many of us said at the time in 1998, we saw the code of conduct as a very important first step towards having common and responsible arms export policies.
But we saw it as a beginning and not by any means the end of the process.
It is important to recognise that, at a time when our European concerns can seem somewhat abstract and rhetorical, controlling weapons is a real way in which Member States' governments, the Commission and Parliament can demonstrate the positive benefits of being able to work together here for a common approach to arms control.
Now we have to look at how we can further strengthen that code of conduct and in particular make it legally binding.
We see dealers buying Cold War weapons in Eastern Europe, flying them into African war zones and creating terrible suffering.
It is important to develop ways in which EU candidate countries can be brought into the information exchange and into consultation mechanisms.
Candidate countries should also be involved in discussions on the further development and strengthening of the code.
Secondly, it is important that we reach a common understanding of what the code's criteria actually mean in practice.
The acid test of the code will be whether it deters undercutting.
There should be in-depth multilateral consultations before one country can grant a licence that another has rejected.
In a democratic Europe we have a right to know which countries are selling arms and where.
Therefore all Member States have to publish arms reports.
What we would like to see is a consolidated European report which should be published and scrutinised by this Parliament.
All proposed transactions organised by arms brokers should be subject to the licence approval of national governments and all countries should require all arms broking activities to be licensed.
Finally, arms fuel conflicts all over the world.
We urge our governments in Europe to tighten up the controls on the movements of these lethal weapons.
Mr President, the European defence industry is important, but at least as important is world peace.
Mr Titley' s report provides a balanced response to this recurring theme.
It argues in favour of better and stricter controls in the arms trade and greater transparency.
It is, for example, necessary to develop better marking and tracing techniques for arms, by analogy with car coding.
This must be done in a harmonised manner and at international level.
Only in this way can obscure and illegal practices be traced and penalised more easily because - and this appears to me to be the key problem - the discrepancy between the legal and illegal arms trade is becoming increasingly smaller.
The globalisation of world trade makes arms cheaper, more readily available and more difficult to trace.
According to Oxfam, fifty-five percent of the total trade in light weapons is illegal.
Needless to say, a stricter code of conduct only makes sense if the Member States assume their own share of the responsibility.
In certain air- and seaports, arms control leaves a great deal to be desired.
In addition, cooperation with candidate countries must be stepped up in this area.
They may subscribe to the code, but in certain cases act as the hub of the illegal arms trade.
Some will claim that the code of conduct is not ambitious enough, but it is better to have a code of conduct which is flawed than not to have one at all.
In any event, future annual reports should contain more complete and transparent information, and the code of conduct should become legally binding in due course.
This code of conduct is a first step in the direction of greater coherence, but I share the rapporteur' s hope that we will not leave it at that.
Mr President, the real solution to the whole problem of arms exports and arms production is that we should convert to non-weapons production.
We are in the 21st century now.
The technology and expertise that is available should be used for something constructive in society, something that will benefit people rather than something that is going to annihilate and destroy people.
We should be focusing on the conversion to non-weapons production instead of on how we will compete with the other weapons manufacturing countries around the world.
Countries with very few resources and very little money are coerced and forced into buying weapons when they should be using that money for social and health problems in their own countries instead of contributing to insecurity in the region and in many cases to the abuse of their own people with these weapons.
We only have to look at Indonesia and the fact that the European Union could not wait to lift the arms embargo, or to not reinstate it.
That was deplorable.
If you look at the other countries in Europe which are now getting involved in the arms industry it is extremely disturbing.
I come from Ireland, which has a track record of non-weapons production and no involvement in the arms industry.
Now I find that contracts for arms and components for arms are increasing every year.
In Northern Ireland, where there is a so-called peace process one of the big companies that has come there and been welcomed with open arms is Raytheon one of the biggest arms manufacturers in the world.
That is a complete contradiction in terms.
We should tackle this.
We should keep the arms industries out.
That is not where we should be providing jobs.
We should be providing jobs for people in something that is constructive and positive for society.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that we are debating the code of conduct is a positive step.
Nonetheless, several legitimate questions arise.
Is it possible for those who used their weapons in Yugoslavia to murder civilians, destroy buildings and bridges, and cause irreparable destruction to the environment, and those who murdered, and continue to murder, children in Iraq, to be really interested in arms control? Is it possible for those who acknowledge that the European arms industry is important both economically and strategically to be sincere when they say that the external actions of the European Union must be inspired by the values of democracy and the protection of human rights?
Rather, as has already been said, they are far more concerned that their weapons will end up in the wrong hands, or that their acts of aggression will accept enemy fire from weapons they have made themselves.
But the weapons are already in the wrong hands, and we would be deluding ourselves if we believed that procedures such as the code of conduct could put a stop to the acts of aggression and crimes of the new order of things.
We are convinced that the existence of the code of conduct is not the result of the philanthropic feelings of those who inspired it, but of the intensified resistance of people against the barbarity of imperialism.
We place our hopes for a world without conflict and weapons in the universal, peaceful and, more generally, popular movement.
Mr President, special attention deserves to be paid to the European Parliament' s first report on the export of arms since the Member States adopted a Code of Conduct on this matter in 1998.
If the European Union' s action beyond its borders is to be coherent in the way that the European Parliament never tires of asking that it should be, must not the priority of the arms-exporting States, in a sphere ultra-sensitive to public opinion, be that of simultaneously paying attention to human rights, conflict prevention and the European Union' s external security?
Our rapporteur, Mr Titley, is proposing a bold resolution to Parliament.
He emphasises the entirely inadequate nature of the code of conduct which, it should be remembered, is non-binding.
The code ought therefore to be made legally binding.
Controls must be tightened up, and the ultimate use to which exported arms are put must be strictly monitored In a word, the trade in death must stop.
The supervisory mechanism must above all be extended to the light, small calibre arms used in a great many regional and ethnic conflicts throughout the world, which are often turned against the civil and military personnel of EU countries.
Finally, Mr Titley proposes cooperating with the United States - and why not, I might add, with Russia and China too? - in order to devise a common approach to conventional arms export controls similar to that established for chemical weapons control.
The five permanent members of the Security Council, who are supposed to watch over our security, should listen to these proposals and negotiate an arrangement truly worthy of the twenty-first century as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I fully share the hope and the opinion of Mrs Morgantini and Mr Brie, whose first amendment clearly states that the Union' s aim must not merely be to establish a code of conduct on arms exports, but to work for international disarmament and to end the arms race altogether.
This should be the European Union' s fundamental objective.
Whatever the case, arms exports exist and it is therefore useful and it is a step forward to have a code of conduct on arms exports, which sometimes run counter to the principles that should be the identifying features of the European Union: conflict prevention and the defence of human rights.
We should therefore take this opportunity to make the code more efficient and to ensure that our young soldiers engaged in peace missions do not have to confront, as they occasionally do, arms exported by the European Union.
There are four issues which we should examine thoroughly.
Firstly, given the diversity of policies within the Fifteen Member States of the European Union on controlling arms exports, we should seek to bring about the extension of the binding agreement that was signed by six Member States in July of this year. There should be greater transparency to improve monitoring of this trade, a legally-binding code and, finally, Mr President, a ban on the manufacture, promotion or sale of any equipment designed for torture, cruelty or the death penalty.
Mr President, I believe that the Titley report and the code of conduct, which we are debating together today, are two initial steps in the right direction. Of course, we must regard them as just a starting-point.
I would like to make a few general points, which I think may contribute to the debate.
The arms trade is characterised by the fact that the major purchasers are poor countries, which seem to be able to find the money for arms but not for anything else.
This should trouble us, since the money comes from smuggling, from the sale of drugs and from a compliant banking system. But the sale of weapons is often made easier by the dealers themselves.
I believe that it is not enough for us to seek out the end user.
We must seek out the producers, who must be made to defend themselves and to explain what they have done with their entire weapons production, because usually weapons smuggling starts with the producer and not with any other sector.
I would like to add that, in addition to the countries of the European Union, all the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe that have close ties with the EU, Cyprus, Canada and others have contributed to this positive development.
However, Amendment No 21, which I do not agree with because of the way it is worded, gives me the opportunity to say that Turkey, to which this amendment refers, must send a representative to appear before this House to explain its position to us. This may seem like a different issue, but it is not.
We cannot take practical decisions based on false information and distorted realities.
This relates to the specific statement made about Turkey' s behaviour in this regard.
Anyway, I repeat what I have already said: Parliament cannot waste time debating an issue without a representative from the Turkish Government providing answers to our questions. Without these answers, we are simply struggling to take practical decisions based on false information and assessments.
Mr President, I do not know whether to laugh or to recoil in horror at this report.
If it were adopted, it would show up the European Parliament for what it is and for what it is good for.
We have a situation in which the sale and manufacture of arms constitute a massive waste for humanity, a situation in which the market for this highly individual trade consists of present, future and potential wars of a kind which tear the world apart, and in which arms expenditure and local wars are an exacerbating factor in the underdevelopment of a large part of the planet, and yet the European Parliament proposes to regulate, and lend moral legitimacy to, a trade that has no use for ethical codes and regulations.
The report even has the temerity to present arms exports as a means of preventing conflicts, combating poverty and promoting human rights.
The weapon used to target and kill a Palestinian child in cold blood is no doubt a product of the duly regulated, ethical arms trade, as no doubt were the bombs dropped upon the former Yugoslavia and the fragmentation mines left in Africa.
Given that armaments are the flagship product of international trade and a huge source of profit for a number of large industrial groups which like to think they are respectable, the only role left to the European Parliament is that of attaching the fig leaf of hypocrisy to the traffic in arms and the loathsome state of affairs which enables it to thrive.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Separating financial control functions
The next item is the report (A5-0260/2000) by Mr van Hulten, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending the Financial Regulation of 21 December 1977 and separating the internal audit function from the ex ante financial control function (Article 24, paragraph 5, of the Financial Regulation) (COM(2000) 341 - C5­0293/2000 - 2000/0135(CNS)).
Mr President, I am pleased to see so many members of the public here today because, as everyone up there can see, there are very few people down here at this time of night.
Today's debate marks an important step in the reform process that was initiated by the Prodi Commission just over one year ago.
It is the very first legislative proposal to be considered by this House as part of the reform package.
The proposal to separate the internal audit function from the ex ante financial control function flows directly from the recommendations formulated last year by the Committee of Independent Experts, which Parliament endorsed in my report of 19 January of this year.
This draft legislation is more important to the future of the Commission than its less than thrilling title suggests.
In its first report the Committee of Independent Experts stated that internal control and internal audit were entirely separate - even conflicting - activities, which do not belong in the same department.
They reached the conclusion that a priori control and internal auditing are activities which employ completely different techniques and address completely different concerns.
The arrangement whereby they have been kept together within the same DG should be reviewed.
Internal auditing must play an effective supporting role in the service of the Commission so that the latter can exercise its responsibilities.
With that aim in view, the human resources allocated to internal auditing should be greatly increased.
In addition, internal auditing must take its place independently.
The Court of Auditors took the same view in 1997, when it wrote that there was a latent conflict between the power to grant approval - and thus expenditure - and the responsibility for subsequently evaluating the same expenditure in accordance with the criteria for sound financial management.
The Commission's fast-track proposal seeks to implement the recommendation of the Committee of Independent Experts by creating an internal auditor who operates separately and independently from the financial controller.
I have no doubt that its implementation will be one of the keys to the success of the reform package announced by Vice-President Kinnock in April.
I am proud of the fact that the Committee on Budgetary Control has been able to agree unanimously on a draft opinion within a very short period of time.
Many thanks, therefore, to the other members of the committee for their help and in particular to Mr dell'Alba, whose work as rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets proved invaluable.
Let us hope that the Council will now take a leaf out of our book and develop the same sense of urgency.
While our committee welcomes the broad gist of the Commission's proposal, my report presents a number of changes which must be made in order to make the proposed separation of powers work.
I cannot help but feel that in the race to produce a proposal within the time limit set by the Reform White Paper, the Commission failed to focus properly on the detail.
The changes proposed by our committee are designed to clarify the Commission's text, to impose certain minimum reporting standards and to tailor the text more closely to the specific circumstances of the different European institutions, all of which are affected by any changes to the Financial Regulation.
First, the division of responsibilities between the financial controller and the new internal auditor must be clarified.
It is not enough to state that an internal auditor must be appointed.
The Financial Regulation must also contain a job description.
Our committee's amendments seek to draw a clear distinction between the role of the financial controller who remains responsible for ex ante financial control, and the internal auditor, who is responsible for ex post control, and in particular reporting on the quality of management and control systems.
Secondly, the Commission's proposal would have the effect of making the appointment of an internal auditor compulsory for all institutions.
While this makes sense for an institution with a large operational budget or those with a relatively large administrative budget, such as the European Parliament and the Council, it does not necessarily make sense for the other small institutions which have a financial control staff of no more than four.
While these institutions must have the option of appointing an internal auditor, it is sufficient to impose certain minimum audit requirements on the financial controller.
It must be clear, however, that this distinction can only apply during a transitional period.
When the recasting of the Financial Regulation is completed, hopefully within one to two years, it must apply fully to all institutions.
Some members of the committee have argued that the appointment of an internal auditor should be made compulsory for all institutions at this stage.
Of course such a notion has superficial appeal, but if it leads to the appointment of at least 20 additional officials without a clear prospect of direct efficiency gains it should be resisted.
It is important, however, that institutions which do not employ an internal auditor take the job of internal audit seriously.
I was surprised to discover that in at least one of the smaller institutions no audits were carried out by the financial controller despite the clear requirement to do so in the Financial Regulation.
The third change to the Commission's proposals contained in my report is therefore the spelling out of a minimum reporting requirement.
One of the problems Parliament has faced in recent years is a lack of standardised information on financial control from the institutions.
I therefore propose that both the financial controller and the internal auditor should produce annual reports detailing their activities.
Finally, institutions must learn from each other instead of constantly reinventing the wheel.
My report proposes that the annual internal audit report produced in one institution should be made available to all other institutions to enable them where appropriate to apply the conclusions arrived at elsewhere to their own management and control systems.
As I have already reminded the House, this proposal is only the prelude to a full recasting of the Financial Regulation.
Parliament has not yet received the official text of the proposal but we have been able to see a preliminary version of the text and although I hope the full text will be forwarded to Parliament soon I also understand the Commission's wish to ensure that the text is legally and linguistically watertight.
It is a very substantial document.
Some in Parliament have already referred to it as the "beast", but it is going to be one of the most important items of legislation before us during the term of this Parliament.
One of the key changes advocated by the Commission is the abolition of the system of ex ante financial control.
This proposal does not meet with unanimous approval in this Parliament as, the Commissioner well knows.
Many Members are concerned that the existing system of financial control will disappear before a new system which now exists only on paper has been proven to work.
We have therefore asked the Commission to give us an undertaking that during the transitional period which is about to begin the system of centralised ex ante control will be maintained and will not be affected by the introduction of the internal audit function.
I would ask the Commission to confirm today the undertaking it has already given Parliament in relation to this point.
I would, however, like to make my personal point of view very clear.
I welcome the proposed change in principle.
As the Committee of Independent Experts pointed out last year, most of the irregularities highlighted by the committee stem from decisions approved by the financial controller, that the supposed quality guarantee provided by the approval is a myth and put forward two strong arguments for changing the system.
First, ex ante checking, whether it be universal or based on sampling, is unlikely to be a cost-effective process.
The effort put into checking all transactions is clearly disproportionate, while sampling is unlikely to have sufficient deterrent effect.
The second and fundamental principle is that any retention of ex ante control runs up against the crucial objection that, de facto if not de jure, it displaces responsibility for financial regularity from the person actually managing expenditure to the person approving it.
Although the Court of Auditors has never explicitly backed abolition of centralised ex ante financial control and we have yet to hear its views on the proposal at present before us, it has raised the possibility of moving to a different system.
In its 1997 opinion it wrote: "As for completely abolishing the requirement of prior approval, this would not be acceptable unless it were to be replaced by other procedures that provided at least equivalent safeguards and that could also involve financial officials other than the financial controller."
The Commission's challenge will be to convince Parliament that it can create those safeguards.
Mr President, this evening, we are discussing the tightening of controls on expenditure by the European institutions.
An important topic, I might add, as Europe has a bad reputation among its electorate in this area. Too much European money disappears to unknown destinations, both at Brussels level and within the Member States.
The objective of the Commission proposal we are discussing today is to separate the internal audit function from the ex ante financial control function.
The Van Hulten report is right to define further the discrepancy put forward by the Commission and sets the right tone for exchanging best practices among institutions.
There might be some reservation with regard to the exception Mr Van Hulten makes in his report for smaller institutions where the appointment of auditors is concerned.
However, I can understand the pragmatic reasoning behind this idea.
I too believe that the staffing levels in those institutions are too low to warrant extra manpower.
I would like to pay special attention to one point in particular, namely the fact that the separation of ex ante control and the audit may not have any bearing on the position of ex ante control.
After all, these are administrative-official institutions where the option of ex ante control remains an absolute necessity.
This does not mean that permission must be gained from the financial director for the purchase of every single pencil.
What it does mean, however, is that an assessment is carried out, according to modern methods on the basis of risk analyses, to find out in what cases of expenditure ex ante control is absolutely essential.
It also means that ex ante control must still be required when the services request this.
If this possibility were not to exist, this could lead to a situation in which people no longer dare take decisions.
Also important is that the ex ante control continues to be carried out independently, admittedly in a decentralised manner, but certainly not under the Director-General of the Directorate-General under scrutiny.
In summary, independent audits are compulsory but cannot be carried out without modern and efficient ex ante control. The two are strictly separated but jointly responsible for the sound supervision of the European institutions' expenditure.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Socialist Group in this House supports Mr van Hulten' s report and therefore also the unanimous decision and proposal from the Committee on Budgetary Control.
So - nothing against an independent, internal audit service, to which we are giving the green light today with Mr van Hulten' s report!
A professional audit is an essential component of modern management in the public and private sphere.
However, a good audit is not in itself a miracle cure.
I will not name any names here, but one could give a whole list of companies where renowned auditing firms have attested that all is well, only to find a few weeks or months later that they have collapsed.
That is why I find it worrying that the Commission is obviously still intending, as before, to introduce the new audit service not as a useful complementary service but as a substitute for the traditional financial control.
As previous speakers made clear, that means it is on a head-on collision course with a majority in this Parliament, which after all is responsible for scrutinising and assessing the Commission.
Nor, unfortunately, is the independence of the new audit service beyond all doubt.
Under the so-called fast-track procedure we are discussing today, the Commission guarantees that independence, but the draft document on the general reform of the Financial Regulation, of which we already have a provisional version, is a step back again in that respect.
Why, for instance, Commissioner, does the Commission not want to grant the internal auditor the power to initiate proceedings before the European Court of Justice in the event of his independence being impeded? And is the independence of the internal auditor not also impeded if - even before he is appointed - a fait accompli is established by recruiting his staff in advance?
We have other examples of where that leads.
We need only think of OLAF. Here too the Commission faced the new director with a fait accompli by simply transferring the entire team of the former UCLAF task force to OLAF, even though it was clear that some of the officials were totally unqualified for the job.
Result: the new director may come from the outside, but he immediately finds himself ensnared in a system that is already firmly established.
I hope we will not see a repeat performance here!
I can understand the Commission wanting to show that it can produce quick results; but when you talk to Commission officials, you get the sense of a mood of growing depression over the past months, and not only among the so-called losers, for of course some people are bound to lose out in any reform.
Like several Member States, I think there is still some doubt as to what this general reform will cost at the final count or what benefits it will produce.
We are still starting out from the simple idea that in the end the purpose of reform is to achieve greater efficiency.
Today we still do not know whether it will and until we do I would advise this House to take a rather sceptical view of the European Commission' s reform process.
After all, we owe it to our voters!
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur.
I have a feeling that these kinds of topic, and this report, are right up his street, and I would almost go so far as to say that it is not a coincidence that this sitting is so well attended this evening.
The proposal under discussion is a direct result of the report by the Committee of Independent Experts.
An internal control service is to be set up.
Yet, my group feels it is too early at this stage to make a final decision on centralised ex ante control or decentralised ex ante control within the Directorates-General themselves.
We need to give this some more thought and weigh up the pros and cons very carefully.
I also believe that, as far as this is concerned, we need the advice from the European Court of Auditors.
We cannot make a decision until we have the proposal on the new financial regulations, and within the framework of the discussion on these new regulations, a number of aspects will need to be laid down definitively.
We will be backing all amendments which help clarify the division between financial control and internal audits, as currently proposed.
We are also in favour of providing information more effectively.
In our view, there is one note of discord in the report, although this is not the view of the entire group, and that is the question: should internal control only be set up in respect of the Commission, the Council and Parliament, or should it also extend to smaller institutions?
In my opinion, it should also apply to smaller institutions.
This may not be practical - it is indeed the case that only a few people deal with financial control in those institutions, but the principle that the person who gives ex ante approval also self-assesses after the event is wrong.
These two activities should always remain separate.
This also applies to smaller institutions even though they have fewer staff.
If we lay something down for large institutions, the neutrality principle proposed by the Committee of Independent Experts should then apply across the board.
I am not in favour of making any exceptions to this rule.
Otherwise, my group is able to support all the rapporteur' s amendments, especially those which stipulate that annual progress reports should be compiled.
Public opinion is so sensitive in this area that I feel this Parliament should deal with this topic every year, and not only at the discharge stage.
It should also deal with the question of how matters can be improved in terms of control, and, in the light of public opinion, we cannot do enough about this.
Mr President, our group also supports the rapporteur and thanks him for his good work.
I think the Committee on Budgetary Control held important discussions on this subject and the Commission would certainly be well-advised always to draw on that committee' s authority during the further reform process.
I believe that constructive cooperation really can make a contribution to improving the reform.
We believe it is urgently necessary to modernise the management.
We support the Commission' s steps in that direction.
But we also have some criticism regarding the question of final control.
We too believe there is a need to look again at the situation with regard to the independent final control.
All this has to be brought together again in the form of overall responsibility on the part of the Commission.
We also support those groups that are already thinking about extending the reforms to the small institutions.
I believe the administration has to be modernised at European level in all the institutions.
Parliament certainly still has something to learn too and there is room for improvement in its own procedures. We hope that in general with this process we will manage to restore European public confidence in the European institutions.
In future, the administration must be able to react more quickly.
We expect great gains from that.
In the past we often found that excessively lengthy decision-making processes disappointed the applicants and led to a loss of confidence in the European institutions.
Modernisation can do much to allay that.
But the annual audit report process is also important; it must not be confined to the discharge but must be continuous, in the form of annual reports through which we pinpoint where progress can be made, so as to restore confidence at that level too.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr van Hulten' s report was very broadly endorsed in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
No doubt the same will happen during the vote here in plenary.
So, my compliments to Mr van Hulten, but may I also ask the Commission to interpret this endorsement correctly.
By it we are showing that we continue to support the reforms it has embarked on.
We want these reforms.
They must lead to greater transparency and efficiency in the handling of the taxpayers' money and help improve the control systems. We need these reforms so that we can manage substantially to speed up the payments to the legitimate recipients of aid and at long last reduce the number of budgeting errors the Court of Auditors criticises every year.
Setting up an independent - and I emphasise the word independent - audit service is a step in the right direction and responds to Parliament' s requests in its January resolution on the reform of the Commission.
However, we want this audit to complement rather than replace the traditional financial control.
That is another thing this House decided in January and confirmed again in the 1998 discharge.
Unlike the internal audit, the traditional form of financial control checks budgetary processes even before agreements are signed and payments made.
These ex ante controls are essential because, unlike their national colleagues, the Commission officials have wide discretionary powers in many areas of financial decision-making.
Independent counter-checks are essential in order to avoid errors.
If in future these audits are conducted decentrally and in a targeted manner for risk areas, we will also manage to prevent the controls from being too unwieldy.
It is essential for the financial controllers to remain independent, which means they must not come under the same directors-general they are checking.
In short, the controllers must not be under the orders of those whom they are checking!
Parliament has repeatedly made that clear too.
Unfortunately, we are still waiting in vain for a signal from the Commission in this respect.
I would ask the Commission to take the necessary steps together with Parliament!
That is in the Commission' s interest too.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr van Hulten on this very thorough report, which has deservedly received the unanimous support of the other members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I wish to say, Commissioner, that this report is only an interim measure, which means that it is the first step towards building a bridge between our present system of control and the system that we would like to achieve through the reform.
The draft version of the reform of the Financial Regulation is still not available in all languages.
Furthermore, the White Paper states, quite unnecessarily, that at the end of the interim period, the Council will be able to take into account whether or not the Financial Regulation has been approved.
The need for legal certainty requires us to bring forward the deadlines for this interim period, which has given rise to many reservations in this Parliament, since it seems that we want to have our cake and eat it; in other words, we want to move ahead, but without giving up the precautions that are currently in place. There are overlaps, which means that responsibility is being diluted.
Expenditure is doubling but there is no assessment of posts, and so many people are doing the same thing.
The staff involved are neither being given responsibility nor being motivated. This interim period, as stated in the White Paper presented by the Committee on Budgetary Control, is being extended indefinitely.
I urge you, Commissioner, to ensure that the interim period ends as soon as possible.
We know what we want and it is the will of this Parliament, but it is crucial that the transitional period should not be extended beyond what is strictly necessary.
I therefore feel that, when it comes to drawing up and suggesting the agendas for the Presidencies, you should not ask us to head straight for the objective we wish to achieve, regardless of the time needed to make the changes in the audit.
There has also been a certain carelessness, of which I am sure the Commissioner will take note, so that we will, as soon as possible, achieve the aim of this reform which we began with the van Hulten report.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Schreyer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Parental control of television broadcasting
The next item is the report (A5­0258/2000) by Mrs Angelilli, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee: Study on Parental Control of Television Broadcasting (COM(1999) 371 - C5­0324/1999 - 1999/2210(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner Reding, ladies and gentlemen, this report on the possibility of establishing parental control of television broadcasting in order to protect minors tackles an issue which is extremely important and topical, all the more so when we consider the growing number of television programmes on offer and the increasingly wide and increasingly uncontrolled distribution of the Internet.
To this I would add two further observations: on the one hand, the number of minors with direct access to televisions and computers is constantly increasing and, on the other, there is a worrying increase in the broadcasting of violent images - portraying all possible types of violence - both in television programmes and over the Internet.
For example, last week in Italy, a racket trafficking paedophile pornography via the Internet was uncovered.
This discovery was then broadcast on the television network. However, some of the images taken from the sites investigated were also shown, causing great consternation amongst the citizens over the unscrupulous use of such pictures, which are or were certainly inappropriate and harmful for the minors who were watching television at the time.
To return to the report, as you are aware, the European Commission is preparing a report on the implementation of the 'Television without frontiers' directive, to be published in the next few months. Guidelines and considerations on the protection of minors must be included in this report in an appropriate manner.
I would also like to point out that Article 22, Paragraph 2 of the directive explicitly specifies that all the Member States must take appropriate measures to ensure that broadcasts by television broadcasters do not include any programmes which might impair the physical, mental or moral development of minors, in particular programmes that contain pornography or gratuitous violence.
Therefore, we are all aware that, in practice, this is certainly not a simple undertaking.
However, in the light of these considerations, our task is to define the objectives which we can reasonably expect to achieve in order to be able to establish genuine, reliable protection for minors.
Firstly, we must identify all the technological systems in order to be able to manage in an informed manner the increase in the broadcasting via television or Internet of material which could be considered harmful to the psychological development of minors: I refer, in particular, to filtering systems and programme classification systems.
However, we must also take into account the introduction of the digital system, which will facilitate the use and broadcasting of such programmes.
Secondly, we must specify that, in addition to the technological control systems which I have mentioned, a further two elements are essential to prepare the ground, so to speak.
Firstly, we must promote the development at national level of information and awareness-raising policies targeting families and the world of education in general.
Secondly, we must encourage producers to take responsibility for the quality of television programmes and broadcasters to take responsibility for broadcasting procedures for these programmes.
Clearly, we cannot attempt to harmonise legislation on the protection of minors in that, under the principle of subsidiarity, each Member State is sovereign in this matter, but also because cultural and moral concepts and therefore views on these issues differ widely from country to country: for example, there are differences in the definition of who exactly is a minor and the definition of violence, etc.
However, having said this, if we are to produce more than empty words to protect children we do need to provide clear recommendations on the protection of minors in the media context.
I would like to summarise the proposals made in this report which I feel are most important and most viable in practical terms: firstly, the setting up of an group of experts consisting of high-level individuals appointed by the Member States to contribute to the definition of common criteria for the protection of minors in the media context; secondly, the establishment by all the operators in the sector of a code of self-regulation in respect of the protection of minors; thirdly, the possibility of promoting filtering systems and making them available for use on both television programmes and the Internet.
I would like to end by saying that, in accordance with the vote which took place in committee, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 1 and 4 tabled by the liberal group or Amendments Nos 5 and 6 tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, whereas I welcome Amendments Nos 2 and 3 tabled by the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are debating a report that gave rise to much controversy when it was discussed in our committee, all sparked off by the term subsidiarity.
But at a time when we not only have a surplus of audiovisual offerings but also excess consumption of these offerings, we cannot retreat behind the word subsidiarity. As politicians, we simply have a responsibility, in all the areas in which we act, to protect young people from that surplus.
At a time when we are witnessing so much violence, hatred and intolerance in all our countries, we surely have to ask ourselves where it is coming from.
Now, I cannot say: it all comes from television. But no doubt much of it can be traced back to the excessive consumption of these television offerings, some of which incite to hatred and intolerance, including intolerance towards other nationalities.
So we must give serious thought to how we can check this.
We have a responsibility towards minors!
Subsidiarity is to be welcomed.
And we want to preserve it; but I beg you, let us not hide behind it.
It is our job to do something, and indeed we have already tried to introduce this kind of protection of minors with our first "Television without frontiers" directive.
I am thinking now of Mr Hoppenstedt, who fought for the V chip.
But what can we achieve with that kind of technological barrier?
Not much; children usually know how to handle it better than adults, which means we really must think very seriously about how to remedy this situation.
We do not intend to replace anyone who is doing a good job at national level, but we do want to introduce common criteria and minimum requirements at Community level and propose rules that help people effectively to implement measures to protect minors in their country.
Of course I also think that we are not in a position, either as politicians or as technicians, to tackle this problem on our own.
Far more important than all this, of course, is the role of the teachers and the parents, and handling this medium correctly.
Television and the Internet have to be learned and, of course, also taught.
So what we are doing today is just a small part of the job that society as a whole has to perform.
I believe we must bring up our children to enjoy this medium in the right way and to get parents to encourage their children to watch suitable programmes and disregard the less suitable ones.
That is why we should do both, do our job as politicians and urge society to do its bit.
Unfortunately, I cannot endorse the Liberals' demands.
I find them too liberal and not really geared to the interests of the minorities we are considering here.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Pack, how much television violence can a child tolerate? The question is not nearly as easy to answer as some people think.
And that is one of the findings that has come out of the highly commendable "Study on Parental Control of Television Broadcasting" that is the subject of the Commission communication.
Despite an impressive number of international studies, there is still no clear evidence of any direct link between violence and media consumption.
Someone may commit a particular act under the influence of an image seen on the media, but that does not mean that the cause of that act is also to be found in the media image.
That is a most important finding, for we must not overshoot the mark in our legitimate concern for the well-being of children and young people and, in particular, we must not mistake the real causes of the sad reality of youth violence.
Youth violence is the result of a build-up of several factors, such as experiencing violence in the family, suffering serious social disadvantages, having poor chances for the future because of lack of education, which leads to frustration, which in turn finds its outlet in violence.
That fits in with the experience I myself have gleaned during ten years of voluntary jury service at a number of juvenile courts.
Technical measures to control television offerings cannot resolve these problems.
Fortunately, however, the vast majority of children and young people grow up in an environment free of all these types of problem.
That is the best youth protection there can possibly be.
Here we see parents who are committed to passing on their own moral values and life experiences to their children.
As a rule these are rooted in a particular cultural, social and societal background.
Systems of parental control must therefore also leave room for individual action on a pluralist basis.
That is also what the Commission is seeking to do, with reference to the findings of the study.
Basically, the report we are to vote on here also supports that approach.
At the same time, of course, no-one disputes that media images can influence moral values.
But we must make it equally clear that even if we place our confidence in a differentiated supply of filter systems, that in no way takes away from broadcaster responsibility.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport has therefore called in so many words for the programme and provider responsibility to be established.
That is and remains mainly the task of Member State legislation, although it certainly does not preclude a consensual agreement on certain basic values in a dialogue with all concerned at European level.
Finally, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport also considered it important to urge the Commission to extend all youth protection measures to multimedia offerings of all kinds, since images of violence and other harmful content are certainly no longer confined to conventional television.
Europe' s children have been surfing the Internet for a long time now, and they are doing so more and more.
It is more important for the children and their parents to learn to use the media properly than to introduce legal restrictions and electronic filters. That is an educational and social task.
Mr President, Mrs Pack is right.
We are concerned here with the proximity principle.
The EU is facing a number of challenges - enlargement towards the East, the intergovernmental conference and the Treaty in Nice.
These questions are at the top of the agenda.
The problems relating to democracy and to the EU' s closeness to the people are other crucial issues.
It is a question of the EU' s political legitimacy in the eyes of the people - and time is rather pressing.
I believe that solving these problems is a prerequisite for the success of the European project as a whole.
In his splendid major speech yesterday, President of the Commission Romano Prodi mentioned that, for the sake of the EU' s political legitimacy in the future, it will be necessary to produce a list of those subjects the EU is to deal with and those which the Member States are to deal with.
I entirely agree with the President of the Commission about the need to prepare such a list along the lines of a constitution, and I am quite clear about the fact that the subsidiarity principle must be reinforced and that the EU must therefore refrain from making policy on the wide range of areas in which the political problems are not of a cross-border nature.
The EU should stick to the key political issues.
In so far as the President of the Commission has had any ideas about which areas belong where, I hope that he shares my view that issues of parental control of children' s television viewing do not belong on the EU' s agenda.
On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I have therefore tabled a number of amendments, the purpose of which is to limit the effects of this report in so far as it may be adopted.
Allow me finally to emphasise that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is also concerned about the increase in the number of TV programmes containing sex and violence.
We are also convinced that these programmes are in no way of benefit to viewers and certainly not to children.
But, all other things being equal, I think it is the job of parents to prevent their children from seeing that sort of thing at home.
Mr President, our sitting is not being broadcast on television!
It would be good for the world to be able to see your imposing figure presiding over the House, and a live television programme broadcast at this time of day showing our alluring Commissioner would be just the thing.
But there are no television cameras here. We are not being filmed.
Sadly, as the previous speakers have said, our televisions show scenes of violence and rampant sex, some of which feed money into the State coffers through the infamous advertisements publicising sex chat lines, and yet we, the European Union, ban the sale of toys containing phthalates - and rightly so for they are dangerous if children put them in their mouths. It is not enough to leave parents to keep watch over their children: we ban the toys!
That is what we do. And why, in this case, then, do we not just ban all programmes which are harmful to us all?
Oh, no.
In this case, we leave parents to keep an eye on their children. But consider how often are parents at home, how often they have to go out.
We should also ban mobile phones, the WAP phones we hear so much about, which all the youngsters will soon be carrying about town, putting their lives at risk from traffic because they are watching television programmes and absorbed in material from all the different States of the European Union displayed on their mobile phones.
I do not, therefore, agree with the words of the Liberal Member who has just spoken.
I am afraid that the heavens and the satellites will soon be raining signals from all over the Union down on all our States.
And it is therefore important for a European directive to be adopted to prevent the transmission of harmful material.
Mr President, Commissioner, our children access and use televised, printed and new media on a daily basis and as a matter of course.
Information from all over the world and from every sphere of knowledge is delivered to the home in record time and our children can communicate all around the world on an everyday basis.
At the same time, a huge selection of different entertainment programmes is available to them, usually without any controls.
Aside from all the positive aspects, we must not disregard the negative side-effects of this ease of access.
Children are being faced day by day with a growing wave of media brutality and violence, which is simply too much for them, especially because no limits are imposed on these offerings.
So all those concerned, starting with the children, via the parents, the teachers, the countries, the European Union and, beyond them, the suppliers and producers must come to grips with this question and learn how to deal with these offerings and their effects.
The public must be made more aware of the effects of this constantly growing wave of violence and support measures must be taken.
Parents are in particular need of help here, and in the following form: parameters to protect minors in the media context throughout the European Union, the introduction of filter systems available at low cost, legislation to protect minors and assumption of responsibility by the media, enterprises and private and public-sector providers.
These measures must not be restricted to television but must apply to all accessible media.
The candidate countries must of course also be integrated in this process even at this stage.
Since the media market is a matter of supply and demand, i.e., a question of hard business, the providers pay no attention to the consequences of various offerings.
All that counts is the ratings.
So we must introduce protective mechanisms that are impossible, or at least not easy, to circumvent.
Furthermore, I believe programmes that help reduce and overcome violence and aggression should also be on offer. No doubt they could not be marketed so spectacularly and would therefore produce lower ratings, but in return they could make a considerable contribution to damage limitation and to combating the adverse effects.
We are responsible for ensuring that our young people can shape a future society in which violence and aggression are not presented as hip or cool or as examples to be copied but as deeply reprehensible.
We have to match up to that responsibility by adopting the appropriate directives and providing the necessary support.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one Sunday evening a fortnight ago in the South of France, Johan, aged 17, and Robert, aged 16, murdered their childhood friend, Romain, with a firearm and a baseball bat, for no reason or motive, just like on TV.
Arrested very soon afterwards, they told the police, "It' s funny, they don' t get caught that easily on the telly."
They also said that they wanted to see what it was like to kill someone in real life.
This occurred not far away and not very long ago.
It happened on 17 September, close to home, in Europe.
There is no question of simplifying matters or engaging in generalisations, even if we do have a limited time for speaking in the European Parliament, but there are a great many examples.
It may be remembered that, a few years ago, Oliver Stone' s film, 'Natural Born Killers' , generated the same controversy by giving rise to copycat crimes by youngsters in the United States and France.
So when I hear some people stating in debates in committee that there is nothing to prove that television violence in all its forms may have a harmful influence upon children, I am, to put it mildly, surprised.
We are often alarmed at the television programmes our children watch.
The on-screen violence of all kinds to which children are subjected, whether it be on television or through the computer, has short-, medium- and long-term consequences.
The purpose of this report is to help us, as parents and grandparents, to protect minors and to provide us with a tool enabling us to make better, informed choices for our children.
Just how is that an attack on the principle of subsidiarity? The audiovisual media continue to be the exclusive domain of the Member States.
At no point does the report suggest potential harmonisation.
At the very most, the talk is of tentative convergence.
With regard to the protection of minors in the media context, the definition of common criteria is therefore, of necessity, minimal, given the cultural, moral and social variations in our Member States.
Establishing minimum criteria is the very least the European Union can do for its children.
I would also support the rapporteur when she explains the need to make sure that all families are guaranteed the right to an affordable filtering system.
That being said, these devices must not, and cannot, exonerate broadcasters and educators from fulfilling their responsibilities.
Children will very quickly learn to manipulate these filtering systems better than ourselves.
Legislators - and I have almost finished speaking now - cannot regulate everything, but they must occasionally remind everyone what their rights and duties are.
I believe that that is what we are doing today.
Mr President, I should like to thank both the European Parliament and its rapporteur for the important work which has been done on this issue.
I remember that, when the V-chip was discussed in this House, I was among the MEPs who banged their fists on the table and demanded that parents have the opportunity to exercise supervision.
The Commission shares the view expressed in the report that cooperation between Member States and the Commission is essential if minors are to be better protected over the next few years.
This does not mean harmonisation.
No one wants this, no one has talked about it and no one intends to implement it.
The idea is to draw up minimum rules.
I am the last person to attack subsidiarity.
I defend it, because it is essential.
Subsidiarity must serve some purpose, however, and not act as a screen.
I am convinced that, when it comes to protecting young people, we are in prime position of responsibility, and I am also convinced that there are ethical considerations more important than the strictly legalistic ones.
With regard to the introduction of a self-regulation code, it should be noted, particularly in terms of the technical aspects, that, in a number of Member States, broadcasters have already introduced coding systems for television sets to enable parents to cut off the power.
The Commission is also consulting the Digital Videobroadcasting Group, or DVB, about the technical aspects of systems for protecting minors, particularly digital filters.
Like Parliament, the Commission also thinks that each family ought to have access to these filtering devices at affordable prices.
As you know, however, no effective systems are yet to be found where television is concerned.
However, filters are available to the public for use with the Internet, and this should speed up the development of similar filters for television, especially digital ones.
In short, when more programmes are put on the market, parents will have the technical means of preventing their children from watching certain broadcasts.
Let us not, however, forget the ethical and legal aspects.
The problem is certainly not to be solved at the touch of a button or just by pulling a plug.
As has been said in this House, journalists, programme makers and broadcasters are also responsible.
I should like to remind you that the Commission has adopted an action plan designed to promote safer Internet use and also to make users more aware of the problem.
I think too that, even if this public awareness campaign relates to the Internet, it will also have a knock-on effect on television programmes.
It is true, as Parliament acknowledges, that the Member States do not share the same ideas about what minors should or should not be permitted to see.
The report considers there to be good reason for aiming at progressive convergence, even if it is premature at this stage to define the criteria involved in such convergence.
Although I do not think it is feasible to adopt uniform criteria, I think it is our responsibility to arrive at some classification of the contents of television programmes, while leaving parents the option of deciding whether the programmes may or may not be watched by minors.
I should also like to say something in response to the contents of a national television channel which showed offensive pictures on the pretext of providing information.
Let me tell you that, in journalism, there has always been an ethical code and a system of self-regulation for applying this code, and this has operated quite well, I have to say.
There are always exceptions, when things go wrong, but exceptions are precisely what they are and all the more shocking for being so.
In my opinion, the profession has to be made more responsible so that it takes responsibility itself for the content of broadcasts and for what will and will not be shown.
I myself was a professional journalist for twenty years.
I will tell you something: journalists cannot write and show everything they know about or are aware of, or divulge all the information they have, because it may do a lot of harm to third parties.
In its report, Parliament also invites the Commission to encourage the creation of a think tank with the job of drawing up a memorandum containing the basic legal principles applied in the Member States for the purpose of protecting minors in the media context.
The Commission will respond to this invitation because, as you know, we are due to table the 'Television without frontiers' directive again in 2002, with a view to testing the water.
I think it will be very important, in that context, to launch a broad debate on our society' s responsibility where the media are concerned. When I say society' s responsibility, I am thinking not only of European governments but also of political responsibility at national level, the responsibility of media practitioners and the responsibility of parents and of society in general.
I am also very aware of the remarks made about education, about training in the interpretation of images and about making younger people more aware of the need to approach the media in a critical frame of mind and not to watch any old thing, at any time and in any way.
I would also say that the industry has already devised an international system of self-regulation called the Internet Content Rating Association, in which the Commission participates.
Consideration could be given to encouraging the creation of a similar initiative covering audiovisual content.
Your thoughts on this matter would be welcome, as they would be in the context of 'television without frontiers' .
Where, finally, the protection of minors is concerned, I should like to point out that there is a Council Recommendation of 24 September on promoting national frameworks designed to ensure comparable and effective levels of protection of minors and of human dignity.
There are plans for the Commission to prepare a report for Parliament and the Council on the measures taken by the Member States to apply this recommendation.
The objective of such a study will be to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach proposed, an approach based on the principles of self-regulation, and my officials have just set the work in motion and have sent a questionnaire out to the Member States.
One thing is certain, I think.
The problem will not be solved through technical, technological or other such measures. It is society as a whole which has to assume responsibility.
We are in the process of assuming our own share of responsibility.
Let others assume theirs and, believe me, I shall call for everyone to play their part in applying a solution.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Reding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Education and training: mobility within the Community
The next item is the report (A5­0255/2000) by Mr Robert J. E. Evans, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the proposal for a recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on mobility within the Community for students, persons undergoing training, young volunteers, teachers and trainers (COM(1999) 708 - C5­0052/2000 - 2000/0021(COD)).
Mr President, this report covers a very important issue and one that has been prominent in my post bag for nearly six years.
If we are serious about the European ideal, we have to be able to ensure that it is easily sold to those who are convinced about the concept and those who are not.
I was a teacher for 16 years and now, as an MEP, I have spent a lot of time in schools, colleges, and at conferences arguing for just this sort of action.
It links in with many positive initiatives over the last few years with which we are all familiar - Socrates, Youth for Europe, Leonardo and so on.
Young people in general are very positive about the European Union.
They do not have the problems often associated with other age groups.
They are used to multicultural and diverse communities.
But confronted, as they so often are, by factors that work against the European ideal, they rely on their own experiences.
We have to ensure that the experiences of young people - students and others in the educational world - are positive.
Nothing will be more damaging to their developing views, than if a report such as this fails to make progress or if it fails to deliver greater mobility or if it fails to at least start to demolish the barriers that confront educational mobility today.
Back to the beginning.
When it first presented its report, the Commission accepted that its recommendation was less than satisfactory.
I understand that it even considered withdrawing it.
Since then, a great deal of work by my own staff, by Parliament's staff and indeed by the Commission's own staff, to all of whom I pay warm tribute, has presented us with what I thought, until today, was perhaps a worthy if not perfect report, certainly one that was satisfactory and would go some way to achieving my aims.
Today, and at the eleventh hour, the Commission have advised me, albeit indirectly, of its difficulties. Firstly, I understand that the Commission now believes that all references to researchers to be outside the legal base as provided for under Articles 149 and 150.
I ask the question: why is this information only available on the 4 October?
Why has someone waited until now to come up with this? Was this legal advice not known when on numerous occasions I discussed its inclusion with members of the Commission staff?
Indeed, when Mr Mantovani and I and the whole Social Affairs Committee were encouraged to progress the case, why was I told that the researchers would be the subject of a later Commission recommendation if there is no legal base for it? And why in 1996 did the Commission publish a Green Paper - Education, Training and Research - if there was no legal base for it?
Was that, I ask, not a waste of Commission and Parliament time and indeed money, then and now.
No-one has more respect than I for Mrs Reding and her Commission staff so I am sure that tonight in her response she will be able to address the particular points that I raise and that she will not present a prepared statement.
I will now turn to some of the particulars which I addressed in the report - details which were defined and honed in response to discussions with a huge number of parties, from students to ministers, teaching unions to government, representatives from several, if not all, the countries.
The report seeks to remove legal and administrative, and indeed cultural, barriers to mobility.
It promotes the wider use of a variety of financial means of assistance.
It tries to promote an EU-wide area of qualifications and specifically to make the lot of third-country nationals easier regarding mobility.
Specifically my report replaces the worthy international generalisations by, in effect, repatriating the decisions to the Member States.
I tried to make sure that the report only covers areas over which Parliament and the Commission has jurisdiction.
I have endeavoured to ensure the recommendations with any fiscal implication are limited to a bare minimum.
As with any Parliament report, experience has shown that there is little chance of anything happening, or at best little possibility of uniformity across Europe, if there is no monitoring.
For reasons which I understand, but which will have the effect of neutering the whole report, the Commission will, I am led to believe, be rejecting Amendments Nos 46 to 51.
Indeed, they have already press-released it to the effect that they are going to do so.
Commissioner, I say to you that without an action plan, without any indicators to see who is doing what, and how well they are doing, without assessment of progress, there will be so many discrepancies, so many complaints, so many letters in your post bag, so many students and teachers knocking at your door, and indeed so many MEPs lobbying you, that I suggest you will wish, even allowing for the constraints under which you work, that you had accepted the amendments I proposed and which I hope Parliament will accept.
In conclusion, I was both pleased and flattered when this report was referred to by President Chirac in his speech to Parliament some weeks ago.
If the French Presidency are now serious, then I suggest that Council will have to work very hard to salvage both their and the Commission's reputation as a matter of urgency for I suggest the failure to endorse this report in its entirety will send all the wrong, and very confusing, messages to important groups of our society.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
(IT) Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on this proposal for a recommendation, I would like to express my satisfaction at the end document, which was the result of a joint effort by Mr Evans, Mrs Martens and myself. I would especially like to thank Mr Evans and Mr Martens for their fruitful cooperation.
During the nineties the Commission produced several recommendations on the issue but no practical solutions were found.
I therefore hope that, this time, a solution will be found once and for all, so that mobility throughout the European Union - of students, young persons undergoing training, young volunteers, teachers and trainers - will become one of the crowning glories of the European Union, putting paid to that paradox whereby it is easier for goods, capital or services to move within the European Union than it is for the citizens themselves.
The problems to be resolved vary from country to country: for example, regulations differ on matters of social security, study grants, right of residence and taxation, and there is no system for the mutual recognition of qualifications and work placements.
Then there is a dearth of information on opportunities for mobility and there is the barrier of the lack of knowledge of languages.
I would draw attention, out of the amendments tabled, to the inclusion in this recommendation of the specific category of researchers, since this category was originally included in the Green Paper.
I am firmly of the opinion that, rising above the problems of organisation and coordination, which cannot be avoided for they are a result of the reorganisation of the directorates-general of the Commission, it is vital to support and foster research in Europe, for research is a fundamental vector for the growth, international competitiveness and development of the Member States, particularly if we compare the situation with that of the United States and consider the negative implications of mobility problems which are driving young researchers to go to the United States rather than attempt to move within the European Union.
This is why the category of researchers should be included, Mr Evans.
I therefore call upon the Member States to make every endeavour, alongside the Commission, to resolve the bureaucratic and other problems of mobility, and to set specific goals in the form of a two-yearly action plan and a final report.
This is the very minimum necessary if we are to achieve that area of freedom which is the basic right of every European citizen.
Mr President, in my capacity as draftsperson of the Committee on Petitions, I should like to congratulate Mr Evans on his excellent report on the mobility of students, researchers and persons undergoing training and to thank him for having taken the concerns of our committee into account.
Of all the petitions we receive, many relate either to mobility within the European Union, and in particular that of students, researchers and persons undergoing training, or to the recognition of qualifications.
The difficulties encountered by the petitioners are due, on the one hand, to the lack, or the complexity, of legal texts and, on the other hand, to governments' failure to respond to the seriousness of these problems.
The Commission needs to draw up a list of the problems encountered by European citizens, particularly with regard to the issues of freedom of residence and freedom of establishment and, most especially, with regard to their right to work, study and obtain recognition of their qualifications in other Member States.
This list must be accompanied by practical measures such as the establishment of objectives to be achieved by the Member States and the obligation on the latter to prepare periodic reports on the progress achieved.
Student mobility would be improved if the periods of study completed in each Member State, together with the qualifications and certificates acquired, were to be fully recognised within the European Union.
The European Commission should take ambitious initiatives designed, in the short term, to provide for the reciprocal recognition of academic qualifications between Member States.
By responding to the problems of daily life, this European Parliament and Council Recommendation should make it possible to bring Europe closer to its citizens, in particular its youngest citizens who should be the forces involved in creating a European identity.
Mr President, the 1996 Green Paper on mobility lists the obstacles to mobility.
Four years down the line, we have to recognise that very little has been done.
There are still major obstacles, for example in the field of social security, health cover, extending residence permits, taxation, etc.
I lament the fact that, as a consequence, young people are prevented from gaining experience - study, work or other experience - in another Member State.
It is about time that Europe turned its attention once more to the sound implementation of programmes such as Socrates and Youth for Europe.
It is thanks to these programmes that young people can come into contact with the thinking, the language and the culture of other countries.
This is why these programmes which promote student mobility are so crucially important.
After all, the experiences which these people gather contribute to a broader understanding of European cultures, they enhance professional experience and the command of languages, encourage familiarity with the European patrimony and increase the chances of finding employment.
This is why thresholds need to be lowered on behalf of students, volunteers, university teachers and researchers - yes, I include researchers in this as well.
In line with the 1996 Green Paper on mobility, this group should also benefit from the recommendations in this report.
I believe that the European Commission was wrong to exclude them.
As is apparent from the report by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, there are still many thresholds, and during my work visits in my country, I hear many complaints every time, not only about the obstacles to mobility, but also about the implementation level, the red-tape involved in applications, the number of bodies which carry out the same inspections and late payments.
Some outstanding payments date back as far as 1996.
The French Presidency has prioritised improved mobility for this target group.
Mr Evans has done sterling work and thanks to sound cooperation, the Culture Committee approved the report on mobility unanimously last month.
This is a sign that the continuous obstacles to mobility which stand in the way of students, volunteers, university teachers and researchers should be swiftly removed.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, promoting the mobility of students, trainers and teachers is being seen as an ever more important part of the European strategy.
It was given attention, for example, in Lisbon last March at the summit there, in which matters of employment, social participation and the information society were focused on.
In the Lisbon conclusions, mobility was recognised as an essential element in the information society and in the promotion of lifelong training.
Robert J. Evans' s report therefore discusses an extremely important issue.
The greatest credit goes to the rapporteur for an approach based on the point of view of the public and the practical problems involved.
Mobility is not to be promoted by noble objectives but by removing the day-to-day obstacles.
I hope that the main amendments adopted by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport will be received positively by the Council, as they deserve to be, and that legislation is speedily brought into effect.
When it comes to student and teacher mobility, experience shows that the real problems of mobility are not found so much in the area of educational administration, but with the social, tax and immigration authorities.
Problems with regard to retaining social security benefits, transferring benefits, and taxation still hamper mobility within the Union.
Questions of responsibility have also been raised, especially when it is a matter of on-the-job learning.
Regarding our own problems in the education sector, we cannot steer away from the difficulties there are in approving study credits.
Students are still pretty much dependent on the good will of the lecturers.
If that is missing, study abroad might unduly extend the actual length of time a person studies.
I am very glad that the rapporteur pays attention in his report to the opportunities for nationals of countries applying for membership to be included in the recommendations on mobility.
The most serious problems at present concern those coming from non-member countries.
Improving their status will be an effective way of building a common Europe.
What is also important in this report is the attention given to the equal treatment of those who are the most disadvantaged, for example, the disabled.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking Mr Evans and Mr Mantovani for their work.
This is an important report, although it does leave major question marks and give rise to serious doubts in certain areas.
This report is a natural full stop to the conclusions reached in the Green Paper, which highlighted the remaining barriers to mobility, mobility which is not, as Mr Mantovani said, simply a question of goods and capital but must indeed be mobility of persons, with all the spiritual, human and cultural wealth which they can take to the different countries and thereby enrich them.
Our group - the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party - has tabled amendments which include the category of researchers in the recommendation: we are therefore in favour of including researchers.
Moreover, we would stress that, although the proposal is certainly a firm step in the right direction, in our opinion, there are certain gaps which will require us, or rather the Commission, to work on eliminating all the remaining barriers of an administrative, legal, linguistic and cultural, but also financial nature. At the same time, it needs to produce active measures firmly promoting the teaching of at least two Community languages in every country and developing and supporting the cultural and linguistic education of our young - and not-so-young - citizens.
This should include the use of new methods and new technologies.
We also agree that there is a need to give all those who participate in this mobility system clear, comprehensive information regarding their social security rights. In addition, we agree that direct and indirect taxes such as the tax payable for renewal of residence permits should be abolished immediately.
Certainly, as Liberal Democrats, we agree that this mobility system should be extended to include the candidate countries as soon as possible, and we would like to express our regret at the continuing delay in the mutual recognition of qualifications, an issue with which Commissioner Reding is quite familiar and which we know to be very important to her.
Commissioner, we call upon you to act incisively within the Commission on this unresolved matter, so that, in full respect for national powers and sovereignty, we will indeed be able to talk of a Europe of peoples, a Europe of citizens, but also a Europe of culture.
For if Europe is not a Europe of culture, it will never be Europe!
Mr President, I would like to join my colleagues in thanking the rapporteur for the tremendous work which he has done on this report and also to congratulate the members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Petitions who have drafted opinions.
This is a very sensitive subject because, as my colleagues have already pointed out to the Commission and Council, a lot of hindrances are put in the way of students, lecturers, people undergoing training and volunteers with regard to mobility within the Community.
Freedom of movement for persons, goods, services and capital is enshrined in our treaties and yet young people, who are the future of the European Union and perhaps have fewer prejudices than some of us adults are denied opportunities because of the bureaucratic barriers put in their way.
The SOCRATES Programme was mentioned as one example of this.
A survey carried out by the Commission in 1998 on the ERASMUS Programme, covering 10,000 students, showed that less than 50% of the available places were actually taken up on a full-time basis and that over 60% of the students who took those courses encountered financial difficulties.
What this highlighted was that unless some serious remedial action is taken on the financing of the ERASMUS Programme and the kind of support that is made available to students, there will be inequality between those whose parents can afford to send them and those whose parents cannot.
I spoke on this issue in this House in the last session, but I would once again urge EU education ministers to grasp the nettle and make sure that proper initiatives and proper funding are put in place.
I would also call on the Commissioner to ensure that in the next round of proper funding is available for the ERASMUS Programme.
One point I would like to raise finally while we are on the subject of mobility is the ongoing case in one of the Member States of the European Union with which I have been involved for the last five years, namely the question of foreign lecturers in Italy.
Despite several opinions from the courts, recommendations from Commissioners and actions at Council level, nothing has been done to regulate the position of these foreign lecturers whose status was reduced by the Italian education minister.
Action needs to be taken to ensure that those inequalities do not continue.
I would commend this report to the House and recommend support for the amendments put forward by Mr Evans.
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish, informally but nonetheless from the heart, to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Evans and Mrs Martens, as well as the draftspersons of the opinion, because to my mind, these issues have not been addressed so directly, sincerely and authentically for a very long time.
I believe this to be political honesty, even if it is not pleasant to hear.
We have spoken many times about mobility and the shortcomings that exist in its regard.
I would say that in Europe we are currently living in a climate of considerable moral fraud.
Fraud, not necessarily in the eyes of the law, but certainly moral fraud, because we are sending students to other countries and then we give no recognition to their studies and nor do we give them certificates.
This is moral fraud, in which we are willing partners.
What can we do? I think that we can do a great deal.
As the Commission and Parliament, we can demand compliance from programmes that are funded by the Commission.
We cannot allow universities not to recognise qualifications.
Europe' s universities, in France, Spain and elsewhere, are autonomous and have the power to decide whether they will recognise diplomas and the subjects that have been studied.
Universities that do not comply, however, must forfeit their subsidies.
There must be clear checks and monitoring, even if only of a sample, and above all, a web site, where students can register their complaints.
This is not expensive at all.
We are not only protecting the rights of young people, since the same applies to researchers.
It is pointless to talk about lifelong learning if we ignore researchers.
Mrs Reding, Mr Busquin and his Directorate-General are not doing anything about the training of researchers, nor about the recognition of postgraduate qualifications or about doctors' training.
This has today created a void in the European Union and unless the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport addresses the problem, Europe will probably not be in a position to compete in the media, in the cinema or in research in information technology.
Our human resources are our only future in a world in which there is no more valuable commodity than knowledge.
We cannot allow this field to be taken away from us, even if this makes things uncomfortable in terms of the European Parliament working closely with the Commission.
I think we should ask Mr Prodi to do everything possible to ensure that young people studying abroad do not feel like orphans and that researchers are not left without support, at the mercy of what their rectors decide.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is our declared aim to make Europe into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge society in the world, an economic area that is able to achieve sustained economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.
So we must make every effort to close the existing gap between words on paper and the actual, practical difficulties the European citizen still encounters every day.
Here, the European dimension in the field of education and training plays an important role.
We must, therefore, ensure that the freedoms laid down in the Treaty such as the right of residence and free movement, do not remain empty words.
Transnational mobility is not just an occupational and economic requirement but calls for a forward-looking basic approach.
Precisely for that reason I am still very surprised to see how many obstacles remain to greater mobility and flexibility in Europe.
We therefore call for research workers to be included in the scope of the recommendations.
We call for measures to dismantle the existing obstacles and to ensure that persons undergoing training can enjoy social security and other benefits, to prevent the risk of double taxation, to promote the learning of at least two Community languages and to develop means of financial assistance.
Finally, we call for measures to create greater transparency in the recognition of qualifications, periods of study and training.
We call on the Commission to play a more active role in promoting the mutual recognition of training certificates, which advance mobility and flexibility, so that we really can achieve our declared aims.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Reding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.12 p.m.)
Address by Mr Ciampi, President of the Italian Republic
Mr President, it is my great honour to welcome you to the European Parliament.
I hope I will be forgiven for mentioning the excellent memories that I cherish of my official visit to Italy last March, the especially warm welcome I received, that you gave me, Mr President, and the depth and clarity of your approach to Europe.
Your visit today comes at what is a crucial time for European integration.
We do of course have good cause for rejoicing in this regard, and we were talking about this a few seconds ago, following the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights last Monday by the groups that make up the Convention.
We are conscious, Mr President, that you have promoted this Charter right from the outset.
You even believed in this project at a time when it was, for some, more a utopian dream than a tangible prospect.
On many occasions, you have reiterated your desire for the Charter to be granted genuine legal effect.
Even if the future of this text is now in the hands of the European Councils at Biarritz and then at Nice, this House looks forward to the results of these negotiations with a sense of optimism.
This optimism has been heightened in recent days by the numerous interventions that we have heard from the Member States.
But now is also the beginning of a key stage for the Intergovernmental Conference.
At Leipzig on 6 July, you issued a call for a vision for the future of Europe, based on a draft constitution.
We would like to join with President Chirac and Minister Fischer in saying how much we value this move.
It is one that has initiated a genuine political debate on the future of Europe, and I have no doubt that your speech today will provide us with an opportunity to take this debate still further.
Mr President, you can be sure of this Chamber's commitment to this great European project.
We, for our part, are sure that we can count on a telling contribution from your country, whose actions have always been decisive each time that a major step is taken towards European integration.
Equal opportunities
The next item is the joint debate on:
the Council statement on: Equal opportunities; equal participation by men and women;
the report (A5-0198/2000) by Mrs Dybkjær, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the Commission annual reports 'Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in the European Union - 1997, 1998, 1999'.
Mr President, Mrs Péry, Commissioner, the reports that the Commission has drawn up on equal opportunities in 1997, 1998 and 1999 are very important documents and the reference to the Treaty of Amsterdam is a significant step forward.
Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, covering equal opportunities for men and women and Article 141 covering positive measures for employment are a guarantee for women that should take effect in all the policies of the European Union.
We are aware that women do not participate sufficiently in the decision-making process in politics, business or unions.
They have a much smaller share in the labour market than men, a difference that is particularly accentuated in some countries, especially in southern Europe.
They do not receive the same pay for equal work, with the difference reaching almost 30 % in the private sector.
We know that measures for combining family and working life particularly favour women, although research is still needed into the current situation of the family and the role that women play in it, which is no longer the traditional role, because society has changed a great deal, and at the same time, so has family structure.
It is essential that research should be carried out on the real situation of women in the various Member States in order to guide the policies that need to be made if we are to achieve greater equality between men and women.
In order to integrate gender policies into all programmes, we must be aware of the situation from which we are starting and the objectives that we wish to achieve with particular policies.
Because what really count are the achievements and the advances in the situation of women.
We are aware that the majority of unemployment in the European Union is among women.
In order to achieve full employment, therefore, we need to have positive policies directed at women, which will consist both of creating jobs and of preparing women for the new jobs - information society, new technologies - in which they can play an entirely equal role to men.
The percentage of women in work in the European Union is much lower than that in the United States and Japan, a level that only some northern European countries come close to.
If we take into account the candidate countries, the problem becomes more serious as the levels of women workers in those countries are even lower. Therefore, the objective of equality between men and women should be included in all programmes.
Women have decided that they wish to work, that they wish to make their work compatible with their family life.
Women wish to take part in decision-making processes, in politics, unions, and business, and we know that the contribution of women is positive for everyone and for the progress of society as a whole.
European Union policies should help them to take part in order to achieve greater equality between men and women.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, contrary to what the annual reports which we are discussing here might seem to suggest, European women' s equality policy did not originate three years ago, but dates back much further to at least twenty-five years ago.
Its launch was accompanied by a great deal of legal creativity, audacity and lashings of political power of persuasion.
If one examines women' s equality policy now, it seems to me, as we are all gathered here - and, of course, most of the people attending and taking part in the discussion are women - that while we are all naturally trying our utmost, we are also aware that European women' s equality policy is threatening to lose its momentum.
It has become an issue for which you have strong feelings neither for nor against.
To put it mildly, it is in a conceptual and political vacuum.
The reports we are dealing with here seem to reflect this mood.
There is a great deal of activity, reasonable sums are being spent, fantastic conferences are being held, everyone does all kinds of wonderful things, but we do not know where it is all leading. Is this policy a success?
Is it useful to draw the goals nearer? We cannot verify this, for - and the rapporteur also mentioned this in her report - the goals of the policy are not clearly defined and cannot be measured.
What we need to do, therefore, is to formulate our goal more clearly, so that we know whether we are successful or whether the instruments we deploy are successful. We also need to define the problem more clearly and identify the problem which the policy is trying to solve.
Twenty-five years ago, we were able to talk about social discrimination of women as a group and about unequal treatment. Does this definition of the goal or problem still apply?
Is it still appropriate? What are the groups in society for which this definition is still appropriate?
Is it not the case that the gap caused by this social discrimination has been partly bridged for certain groups and that others groups are doing very well indeed, in other words, that a kind of sham women' s equality has been created? In short, I would very much like us to address the question as to what the problem facing women consists of.
What is the problem which the policy is trying to solve? Can we reframe this using a more modern approach and can we apply a theory and set of policy instruments which will breathe new life into the policy, so that we do not continue on the same path?
I may be critical, but it might be useful to shake up the house of cards, which women' s equality policy in Europe does appear to be, where we are all frightfully nice to each other and say everything is so wonderful.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, I should like to start by thanking our fellow MEP, Mrs Dybkjær for an excellent report and welcoming her back to Parliament after her recent weeks' campaigning.
We know that Lone Dybkjær did what she could.
I am a man in an EU within which men and women do not have equal opportunities.
It is worth repeating that.
Sometimes, some people - even colleagues in this Assembly - seem to believe that they do have equal opportunities, but they do not.
Just as some people have said, it is enough to look at this Assembly: the majority are men, the majority of those making decisions are men, and when the European Council meets it consists solely of men.
There is one female Head of State in Europe.
It is therefore gratifying that the European Parliament is represented by a woman in these contexts.
More women are needed in decision-making positions, because it is quite simply unacceptable that so much human ability is being lost.
Women do have the ability - and without imposing quotas.
This week we have taken a great step closer to a reunited Europe.
Emphasising how matters stand regarding equality in the candidate countries is a particularly important task in the membership negotiations that are currently in progress.
Some problem areas: women often have two jobs, unemployment is higher among women, childcare has deteriorated, there are too few women in decision-making positions, violence against women is on the increase in many candidate countries and several candidate countries are at the centre of the increasing trade in women.
What can be done? Rapid membership of the EU will provide economic strength, better conditions for women and greater freedom of choice.
The chapter on equality must be accorded equal importance in the membership negotiations.
There must be no transitional periods.
We must monitor whether the directive on equality is really being incorporated into legislation.
Mainstreaming is very important in the internal policies of the candidate countries, too.
An ombudsman for equality issues should be introduced, and in the candidate countries too.
The EU should pursue a campaign to combat violence against women throughout Eastern and Central Europe.
The EU should also take the initiative and organise a UN convention against the trade in human beings.
I started by talking about my male status.
Perhaps this issue of gender needs to be pointed out in this Assembly.
On the basis of my own experience, if I may speak personally, I am convinced that Paragraph 15 of the resolution - stating the importance of men' s involvement in, and access to, good childcare - is the most important paragraph by far if equality and equal conditions are to be achieved for men and women.
I should like to conclude by saying that equality begins in the home.
If we cannot share tasks and responsibility in the small world of the home, there will never be real equality in the big world outside, either.
Mr President, Mrs Péry, Commissioner, the position of, and relationship between, men and women in society has changed dramatically over the past decades.
The number of dual earner households has grown considerably.
Given this development, we applaud a policy which contributes towards the equivalent development of men and women in line with their talents and interests.
The present report, however, puts forward an exaggerated interpretation of the principle of equality.
The diversity or differences with regard to men and women are still not being given enough consideration.
There is also the freedom of the individual to consider.
As a result, the freedom of choice for women, which they strive for, can very easily fuel frustration and renewed forms of repression.
I therefore find it telling that the report is seeking to establish a numerical balance between men and women across all sectors of society, for example in the labour market.
The choice of training and profession for men and women will depend on their own personalities, talents and interests.
To respect and value these differences shows that we still have our feet firmly on the ground.
The campaigns launched by the Dutch government to encourage girls to select more exact science subjects and so-called male professions, have failed miserably.
A European repeat of these debacles appears completely pointless to me.
I just have to get something off my chest. I find it shocking that the representative of the Council should mention the fact that equality should be enforced, yes enforced, would you believe, in the home.
I do hope that she shares my view that the government has no right to intervene in the private sphere.
In addition, the report undervalues transductive labour.
Bringing up children, especially transferring standards and values, is of vital importance to our society.
Whoever denies mothers the freedom of choice to bring up their own children unpaid, will be presented with the bill later on in the form of youth crime and vandalism.
The idea that women lag behind in paid work compared to men should certainly not be considered as inequality, because it is based on a one-sided, woman-unfriendly vision.
After all, it is the cool, rational, enlightened thinking which advances human beings as independent, autonomous creatures and downgrades women to being the second sex.
When one adopts this thinking as starting point, it is easy to see why one could be in favour of women' s equality.
This choice, however, does not offer any guarantees against evil, suffering or injustice.
At best, it sustains other types of suppression.
Human beings are independent and responsible creatures placed in relation to God, their Creator, on the one hand and their fellow human beings on the other.
This means, among other things, that men and women interrelate and need each other in order to do themselves justice as men and women.
This is exactly why keeping marriage and family completely out of the picture in this report represents a lost opportunity.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was certainly a sensible initiative on the part of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities to compile a report on the Commission' s annual reports concerning equal opportunities for men and women in the European Union, covering the period from 1997 to 1999.
These reports have confirmed what we were all already fully aware of. The situation is far from hunky-dory when it comes to equal treatment and equal opportunities for men and women within the EU, despite the fact that the first equal treatment directive concerning equal pay for men and women came into force as long as 25 years ago, and Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome, which came into force in 1957, made provision for the elimination of wage discrimination against women.
That was over 40 years ago.
After all, we are already discussing the Fifth Action Programme on the equal treatment of men and women.
Mrs Dybkjær' s report contains another long list of demands and wishes directed at the Commission, particularly in respect of inquiries, which I do not, however, necessarily consider to be indispensable.
But we all know only too well where the real problems lie, and that the lack of political will - particularly in the Member States - the lack of willingness on the part of the social partners, the hesitancy of the political parties when it comes to involving more women in the decision-making processes, and also -let us be honest about this - the mentality of many men and women, are responsible for this unsatisfactory state of affairs.
Once again, we have been left in no doubt on that score.
What I do not see in this report, Commissioner, are calls for the Commission to at last get round to following up Parliament' s very specific proposals.
We have a far more pressing need for concrete legislative proposals from the Commission, than we do for studies and fine declarations and speeches.
Firstly, improvements are called for in the existing directives, for example those covering equality of opportunity in the sphere of social security, with respect to public and company schemes.
I would remind you, in this connection, of our report on the splitting of pension rights in the event of divorce, as a result of which, payments for surviving relatives and the retirement age are to be included in the 1979 directive.
I would put you in mind of the overdue improvements made to the 'caffeine-free' free directive of 1986 concerning equal rights for self-employed people, including spouses that help out - those millions of invisible workers, most of whom are women - and whom are engaged in small and medium-sized agricultural enterprises without any form of social security.
Five years ago, we unanimously adopted an excellent report on this subject, one of our demands being a framework statute for spouses that help out in the family business.
There were two sessions of round-table talks organised by the Commission, and we have not heard another word since.
That was three years ago.
What we really need is for the Commission to at last come up with concrete, legislative proposals, instead of frittering away time and money on reports and inquiries, and wasting time that would be better spent on worthwhile legislative work.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities would also do well to take this advice to heart.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Nicole Péry for giving us high hopes of the French Presidency, which has made great strides with its law on equality.
Electoral lists comprising 50% men and 50% women could be worth emulating.
However, we are still awaiting the decision regarding a formal Council of Ministers.
Unfortunately, we are only ever referred to other Councils of Ministers for a decision.
We do not want to wait any longer.
Other speakers have made the point: we want political action.
It is high time for decisions on equal pay for equal work, i.e. for Articles 141 and 13 to be implemented.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights has to be more than a fine proclamation.
What we need are concrete implementation measures that will enable people to reconcile a career with family life.
The Fifth Action Programme will assist us in this, but we as a European Parliament have already come some way ourselves.
We have created a network of committees on equality with our female counterparts in the national parliaments, and in November, we will be meeting our female counterparts from the Member States, as well as those from the candidate countries.
We did the same thing, incidentally, in New York, at the Beijing + 5 Conference.
I was the rapporteur in Peking and the co-rapporteur in New York.
The Polish women were very grateful to us for making it clear that the representative who was there at the time most definitely did not reflect the views of Polish women.
I met with some very positive responses there.
I would like to remind our President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, of the important speech he made here.
There must be no glass ceilings in the European edifice.
The European Parliament employs 30% women, which is the highest percentage rate of all the institutions.
The Commission has 25% women, so at least there is an upward trend.
The European Court of Justice could do better, as only two of its fifteen judges are women.
Yes, and the picture looks very gloomy in the Council on the equal opportunities policy front.
All I can say there, is that the Council is what you might call a developing country where equality for women is concerned.
We have every reason to be concerned.
We have heard that the previous Council Presidency first restructured and then scrapped the Ministry for Equality.
That gives us great cause for concern, and we expect that as well as stepping up the pace in matters of equal opportunities policy, there will also be concrete measures.
Mr President, the Commission reports on equal opportunities are very welcome, but unfortunately, as the rapporteur said earlier, in a practical sense they are not very useful as real measures of success or bases on which to build future programmes, because they are too descriptive and there is not enough analysis of successes and failures.
One of the vital requirements for improvements in the position of women is firstly to know exactly what the current situation is.
That means we need accurate facts and figures.
Then the evaluation reports can use clear criteria and give us an objective analysis of progress or the lack of progress.
After all, one of the main criticisms that I receive from grassroots women's organisations is that when applying for financial support from the European Union, they have to make very detailed predictions about their future work and its outcome.
Yet in reports like this, we do not have anything like the same detailed information.
We need to ensure that information and activities reach women in their own communities, and one effective way of doing that would be by developing and promoting real life case studies which reflect a positive image.
I try to look at these reports from the point of view of women in Wales, the constituency I represent, and consider how they are affected by this kind of progress and how they can get access to and use this kind of information.
I would support the request of the Committee on Women's Rights in this report for a major study of women in the EU and in the candidate countries as a starting point for future work.
A lot is being done by women's organisations, by governments, by the European Parliament and the Commission.
We have heard from the Minister of the progress that has been made in France and we can learn a lot from this.
Greater involvement by women at all levels of government and in all areas of life is essential for deepening democracy and achieving and maintaining peace.
We should be encouraging better dialogue with women everywhere - after all the European Union is seen as a pioneer in terms of equality legislation.
The reports are welcome and the progress they outline is a step forward, but until we really begin to exchange good practice and base our work on real statistics, we are not in a position to judge whether we are on the right road to achieving real equality between women and men.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Péry, ladies and gentlemen, as the Commission' s reports acknowledge, major issues still remain to be resolved in the field of equal opportunities for men and women.
In practically every sphere of activity, serious inequalities still exist.
Despite the differing situations in Member States, there are generally fewer women in the labour market, they are most affected by unemployment, including long-term unemployment, and by casual labour, part-time work and atypical, insecure and badly paid work.
Women' s average salaries are still lower than men' s, by around 28% on average, which is a contributory factor to women making up the bulk of the poor and to preventing them from participating in social and political life.
Since we know that quality employment that provides rights is a fundamental factor in guaranteeing equality between men and women and in guaranteeing women the same kind of independence as men, it is crucial that we study the causes of this situation and adopt the necessary measures to overcome it, specifically through policies on employment, training, education and on infrastructures for supporting the family and children, giving priority to this issue at a practical level and not just making declarations of intent.
With regard to participation in the decision-making process, either at political level, in the business world or in the trade union movement, women are still in the minority.
Whilst this situation can be explained to some extent by the difficulties women face in the labour market and within the family, it is also true that political parties must shoulder their democratic responsibility to guarantee equal opportunities for women to participate in political life and in the decision-making process itself, in order to put an end to the scandalous situation that still exists at the beginning of the new millennium.
Madam President-in-Office, thank you for coming here today to tell us about the French Presidency' s interesting initiatives.
I should like to dwell in particular on two terms: articulation between family and work and parité au quotidien.
These concepts and what they stand for are gaining ground in French society and I hope that this interest will be exported to the rest of Europe.
I also wanted to congratulate you on your initiative in introducing the female dimension into the Councils because, as we see on a daily basis, women' s issues are special issues, not just a necessary dimension to every policy.
As far as the Commission reports are concerned, Commissioner, we received them with interest and we examined them in the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
However, I have to say that we were dissatisfied with the descriptive nature of the reports and trust that future reports which come under your responsibility will contain a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the results.
On other words, we need a breakdown of the indicators applied, detailed statistics comparing the situation in the Member States, an analysis of cultural differences in the various European societies and an indication of the factors which act as disincentives to the developments we are seeking and to the development of a European nationality for women which, as we can see on a daily basis, for example from the recent referendum in Denmark, is a sector which we need to address.
My final comment concerns the situation of women in the countries preparing to join the European Union.
Because of the course of our own history and our experience from the policies which we have applied, we have an obligation to help them and I therefore feel that the Commission and the Council should call on the Member States to adopt the mechanisms which allow equality to be applied to all their policies.
We have both a political and a moral responsibility for these countries trying to find their way into Europe and for the cohesion of the enlarged Europe which we are preparing.
Mr President, welcome back to Parliament, Mrs Péry.
Thank you for your considerable commitment and for the work you have made a point of doing in the interests of equality.
We are especially looking forward to your succeeding in implementing a policy of alternate listing of women and men in decision-making.
That is really excellent.
I would just like to raise a couple of issues which I believe should, as a matter of urgency, be a part too of the Council' s thinking and of the work it is doing.
It concerns not only women in the European Union, but also women in the candidate countries.
In the candidate countries, the social exclusion of women has been substantially greater than that of men. It is therefore women who have been hardest hit.
Many of them have lost their jobs and, with this, comes violence against women, sex discrimination and the trade in women.
Many women are lured to Western Europe with promises of a better life, but the reality is the opposite.
They often fall victim to acts of violence and some are forced into prostitution.
Consequently we must demand and support preventive programmes and specific measures, such as strict legislation, witness protection schemes and information campaigns.
However, the fact that the existing laws are not enforced and new ones are not created means that the governments of Europe are indirectly allowing the Mafia to continue with its activities.
This is therefore an incredibly important issue for us to get to grips with.
In this area therefore, the Council, especially its men, has a tremendously important job to do in leading Europe in the fight against the Mafia that trades in women, for this slave trade is not something that responsible politicians can push aside, shrug off or ignore.
We have a political responsibility to abolish this slavery of modern times.
In conclusion, I would like to say something about the men - and it is the men that I address.
When I talk about 'the men' , I mean the men with power.
It is Prodi, Chirac, Jospin, Schröder, Blair, Persson and the others who must become involved in this, namely all 15 of our heads of government.
Mr President, the recitals of this report highlight aspects of gender inequality.
Women are forced into temporary work, they are far more exposed to insecure jobs and unemployment, and on average they are paid 30% less than men.
Unfortunately, the proposals that follow do not measure up to the challenge of those recitals.
Firstly, because the majority of them are about creating monitoring centres, collecting statistics and carrying out studies.
Gender inequality is not exactly a new phenomenon we are just discovering, needing to be studied.
As regards work, we cannot seek equality and continue to develop insecurity, flexibility and part-time work.
That is part-time work that women are forced into, because 70% of them would like to work full-time.
Today we are witnessing the pauperisation of wage-earning women all over Europe, including France, where 15% of them live on less than FRF 3 650 a month.
Worse, so-called equality is sometimes turned against women: for instance, in France today the incorporation of a directive is going to make night work legal for women.
A strange notion of equality.
Other choices could have been made; night work for men could have been banned instead, when it is not required to meet society' s needs.
In conclusion, fine words and nothing concrete.
That will not be enough.
That is what we will be saying in Brussels on 14 October with the World March of Women fighting against violence and for real work for all.
Those are the essential conditions for real equality.
Mr President, I would like to thank both Mrs Péry and Commissioner Diamantopoulou for being here today.
From the reports and speeches that we are considering today we can deduce, as many of us already knew, that the problem of equal opportunities is a structural problem and that in order to deal with it we need global strategies, because as women we are not a category or a homogenous social group or indeed any sort of group.
In the European Union we are currently running the risk of our debate being elitist and of the progress only reaching some of the more informed and more privileged women, leaving behind the rest, who are young women, immigrant women, single mothers, victims of the white slave trade, etc.
They suffer from multiple discrimination.
We cannot continue with an elitist debate, we cannot continue to have progress only benefiting those women who enjoy greater opportunities.
Our efforts need to be directed at the women who have the most problems, who are certainly the majority in the European Union.
We therefore need to assess the real situation of women, we need to draw up indicators and we need to make our political action binding, so that progress really reaches everyone and not just a few.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish first of all to congratulate the French Presidency on initiating this debate. I should also particularly like to congratulate our former Vice-President, who is fully aware of the problems we face in this House and of the great interest that the European Parliament takes in the debate on issues of equality between men and women.
As the Minister quite rightly said, we are discussing a political issue of the greatest importance and it is crucial that Europe understands that we are arguing that equality is just such an issue.
I should also like to congratulate Mrs Péry, as a French politician, on the coherence shown in her own country, which amended its constitution to include equality between men and women. It also then succeeded in introducing and approving a law to implement this.
Not all countries have managed to follow France' s example, which I hope will bear fruit elsewhere.
I should like to say, Mrs Péry that I consider the fact that you are organising a Council of Ministers for Women' s Affairs and that every government in the European Union has one member responsible for equal opportunity issues to be of the utmost importance.
This is the only way in which 'mainstreaming' can be introduced across the board in government and in which the equal opportunity policy will gain the high profile necessary to give it substance.
I shall end, Mrs Péry, by asking you a question.
As the Ministry of Equal Opportunities in Portugal is now defunct, who will represent my country at the meeting on 27 October in Paris?
Mr President, I will not reply individually, except to Mrs Torres Marques, because her question is really direct and personal.
I was indeed sorry to see that Maria De Belém Roseira was no longer the representative.
She was very active during the Portuguese Presidency, but it is not up to me to make that decision, it is up to the Minister for Employment, whom we have invited to the conference on gender equality.
I will now respond generally on the issues, rather than give individual answers to any one of you.
Several of you have said gender equality policy did not start a year, two years, or three years ago.
Obviously not, and as someone involved with associations for social change - because I too, like many of you, have some thirty years of involvement with these associations behind me - I know how hard the social movement, the feminist movement and the intellectual movement, naturally, have worked to move this issue forward, and today we take our places in roles of responsibility in our institutions.
The history of the women' s movement goes back way over fifty years: I sometimes remember Olympe de Gouges, who dared to call for a declaration of women' s rights and gender equality, and was condemned to the scaffold in 1793.
Of course the history of feminism is very long.
My second comment is about inequality in the world of work.
Ladies and gentlemen, political will is clearly not enough to eliminate every possible social inequality overnight, especially in the world of work.
Management, the unions and the market have a role to play, but we do what we can by expressing a political will.
I can tell you in one sentence what I am doing about it: I have wasted no time proposing a law to improve equality in the world of work.
This is currently being debated in Parliament, and I have introduced a provision, which obviously does not suit everyone in my country, but which is compulsory and will compel each company or profession to negotiate on equality in the workplace every three years, covering salaries, conditions of work, career prospects, and access to lifelong training.
My third comment is about your doubts: plenty of speeches, plenty of documents, plenty of reports, but not enough actual progress towards quantified targets.
It is true that the reality in the European Union is that we have to take decisions as Fifteen and we differ culturally in relation to these issues.
Nevertheless, I believe in the need to fight for quantified targets, and to implement policy through indicators.
I did not mention this in my speech, but I am fully intending to propose a feasibility study on the gender institution to the Ministerial Conference, because we need an instrument for monitoring those indicators, and for exchanges of good practice.
Fourth point: the issues of the future.
Two of you mentioned new social rights, new fiscal rights.
I can tell you that will be the central theme of the Swedish Presidency, and I shall be following it with great interest, because the progress made will certainly inspire French action.
Fifth point: the Charter.
It is true that while much has been done compared with the initial stage of this document, we might have hoped for something more dynamic on decision-making.
I have not lost hope, however, of improving the text.
Sixth point: enlargement.
In New York I took the liberty of making myself clear on that issue on behalf of my country.
I shall be just as clear today, on behalf of the Presidency.
The candidates really must be helped to come up to the level of the acquis communautaire.
That seems clear.
Excluding gender equality from the acquis communautaire is unimaginable, and of course we shall be just as vigilant on that issue as on the others.
Finally, violence, prostitution, the grip of the Mafia.
If Mrs Diamantopoulou wants to take a European initiative, because we have done things before at Community level to combat violence, I shall be there to support her.
Mr President, what we refer to here and what has been referred to for a century as the women' s problem is approached from two different angles, as the debate here in the House today has demonstrated.
The first reasons that the structure of the social and economic system is to blame for present inequalities and the policy of the European Union and of all the national governments is based on this reasoning.
The second approach says that women, themselves, are to blame for the inequality which exists in society.
This reasoning often leads to absurd distortions, one of which was heard here today, i.e. that the way in which women voted in Denmark was determined by some particular female chromosome and not by the social differences which they experience on a daily basis.
Honourable Members, Mrs Péry, the President-in-Office, has given us a superb analysis of the priorities of the French Presidency, which we all believe will be particularly important priorities.
I should like in my brief intervention to confine myself to the report.
The 97, 98 and 99 reports are not simply working papers.
They are political tools.
I should like to remind the House that the Commission' s legislative proposal due for debate calls for annual reports from the Member States on the subject of positive action because we really do believe that these reports are political tools for three reasons.
Firstly, they give us a picture of the situation.
As you will have seen, the reports contain analytical tables, data on each Member State and tables on all the individual sectors.
Secondly, because they allow us to make a comparative assessment of the Member States and a comparative assessment of the overall progress of the European Union over time.
Thirdly, because they form the basis for strategy, both for the European Union - even in the Charter of Fundamental Rights the fact that we had a picture of the current situation played an important role - and at national level, given that the Member States are able to use the comparative assessment to set national targets.
In my view, the reports which you have at your disposal concentrate on and highlight three issues. The first is the participation of women in decision-making.
The average participation of women is 18.6% in Europe, 28.9% in regional parliaments and 30% in Parliament and there appears to be a very minor increase in the order of 0.6% from one year to the next.
The second interesting comment concerns the wage differential between men and women which, at European level, is hovering at the unacceptable level of 23% to 24% and, in some regions of Europe, is as high as 40%.
The third interesting statistic concerns domestic violence, the violence which women suffer at European level.
I fully accept the comments in the report and the recommendations by Members who have spoken of the need to change the nature of the report.
I have taken your comments on board and I see that we need to concentrate on analysing data, especially the results of successful strategies and successful initiatives at national and European level, in order to give the report a strategic slant.
However, I need your help here.
My services face huge problems collecting data from national governments.
There are several countries, although one could cite examples for all countries, where it is impossible for us to collect statistics, where it is impossible for us to collect their experiences and results at national level from innovative policies in time.
I believe that, if you work together with your national governments, you can help the Commission to collate this data quickly, so that it in turn can present an analysis of them in the sort of report which you require.
Finally, as far as enlargement is concerned, it is of course, as Mrs Péry has said, a question of acquis communautaire.
However, I would stress that, in working with each of the candidate countries, we have been closely monitoring the question of sexual equality, as regards both the legislative framework and the creation of institutions which can support the application of these policies.
As you know, we have starting signing joint reports with each candidate country in order to monitor their adjustment to employment policy on an annual basis.
They contain an entire chapter devoted to the participation of women.
I should like, once again, to thank Mrs Dybkjær for the excellent, in-depth work contained in her report, which will be most useful to us in our next report, and I should like especially to thank the French Presidency and Mrs Péry for being so pro-active on the issue of equality during their presidency.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Community customs code
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0254/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code (6995/2000 - C5-0267/2000 - 1998/0134(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi).
Mr President, Commissioner, this morning we will approve the Council common position definitively adopting this reform of the Community Customs Code.
It could be thought, given that Parliament has not tabled amendments to the Council common position, that we have before us a perfect text.
That is not the case, but it is a satisfactory text and, having given it great thought and following an extensive debate, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market decided not to table any amendments.
What are the reasons for this? We need a little history.
The reform of the Community Customs Code was enshrined in Article 253 of the current code and a reform was planned for before 1 January 1998.
We are therefore somewhat behind schedule.
This reform is important because it aims to re-examine the Community Customs Code in accordance with the progress of the internal market and of administrative techniques.
It is therefore an important and urgent reform in a sector that, as we are all well aware, is the real core of European construction.
Building a common customs system has been one of the major achievements in that progress towards European construction.
The proposal aims to simplify customs processes by means of computerised or paperless declarations, to make the rules more flexible, to improve the procedure for collecting duties and to provide a more solid basis for applying the principle of good faith to imports that are subject to the preferential regime, establishing legal instruments that enable us to combat fraud and offering greater legal security.
At first reading, in the Paasilinna report, Parliament adopted thirteen amendments of varying importance, which also met a variety of fates when they subsequently went to the Council.
In its joint position that was definitively and unanimously adopted, the Council incorporated eight amendments and rejected five.
I am not going to comment on the eight amendments that were adopted, as we are all in agreement with them.
I am going to discuss the five amendments that were not incorporated.
Three of them - Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 7, referred to the commitology procedure.
These amendments need to be considered in the new context of the interinstitutional agreement, and therefore, Parliament can agree to not insisting on these commitology amendments given that they have been superseded to a certain extent by the new interinstitutional framework.
With Amendment No 15, Parliament wished to introduce a recital urging the customs authorities to apply customs rules correctly, to establish monitoring measures in order to ensure that it was applied consistently and to facilitate action against fraud.
The Council considered that it was not drafted suitably in order to be included in the Community Customs Code and pointed out that there is a Green Paper - which is currently being converted into rules - specifically for combating fraud.
We were therefore also able to accept this amendment not being incorporated.
Finally, Amendment No 11 requested that this modification to the Community Customs Code enter into force before 1 January 2000 and is, therefore, no longer valid.
Aside from these amendments, it should be considered that the common position modified the original text on which Parliament had agreed on two important points: the first is Article 220, in which the Commission aimed to maintain a longer period for conducting the investigations that could lead to a prosecution for fraud or a wrongful declaration.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, following a long debate, considered that it was not reasonable to maintain legal uncertainty for a period of six years, and that three years, which is the period set, is a more reasonable period of time for establishing, with the appropriate means and the average proceedings, whether or not there were irregularities in a declaration.
With regard to the modification of Paragraph 6 of Article 215, it should be said that we are dealing with a deeper issue, because the intention is that the additional declaration could be made anywhere in the European Union, especially wherever in the European Union the undertaking in question has its headquarters.
On this point we consider that, given administrative and technical advances, instead of making an amendment on the legislative text, we preferred an amendment to the draft resolution that I hope the Commission will be able to accept. In a subsequent reform of the Community Customs Code, this will enable this idea to be incorporated, which is one that we feel is important and deserves to be promoted and supported by the European Parliament.
Mr President, in the increasingly open economic climate in which the European Union must operate, and given the need to establish trade relations that ensure the competitiveness of undertakings, it is crucial that we establish a legal framework that sets the same rules of play for everyone.
In this sense, the Community Customs Code is an essential support for the European Union' s trade policy, as well, as we are already aware, as being an essential instrument for protecting the Union' s financial interests.
The progress made on the internal market, the gradual growth in trade due to the increasing opening up of the markets and the progress of the information society mean that the Community Customs Code needs to be brought up to date with the development of Community and international trade.
Hence the need for and the timeliness of the reform that was proposed at the time with the aim of simplifying and rationalising customs procedures, precisely in response to the demands of the new realities that I have mentioned.
On the other hand, it was also necessary, as I understood it, to establish effective monitoring measures to ensure the uniform application of customs procedures across the whole of the Community and to prevent unfair competition and the opening up of loopholes that could facilitate fraud.
At the time Parliament therefore introduced some amendments with the aim, on the one hand, of guaranteeing the possibility of conducting customs procedures by means of computerised declarations, but without this unwittingly opening up the back door to fraud. On the other hand, the aim was to ensure that customs rules were applied correctly and consistently across the whole of the Community, in order to prevent situations of unfair competition.
As the rapporteur pointed out, however, neither the Council nor the Commission adopted the specific amendments that I have mentioned, because, among other reasons, they considered that they did not add anything to the proposed text and that fraud should be combated outside the Community Customs Code.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, as the rapporteur pointed out, accepted that approach, and therefore decided not to re-introduce the amendments.
I personally continue to believe, however, that the text that was adopted by Parliament at the time responded much better to the new realities that had arisen from the internal market and the liberalisation of the markets, insofar as the elements of clarification and monitoring that were introduced by the amendments that were not adopted were a better guarantee that the rules would be complied with and that the same procedures would be followed when applying them.
I must therefore regret that they were not taken into consideration, although I also understand the position of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market - the position of the rapporteur - of not re-introducing the amendments because, ultimately, what really matters is that the Community Customs Code and the proposed reforms move forward and that the legal framework is established.
Let us hope that in the future we will at least be able to achieve those guarantees.
Mr President, I believe that both the rapporteur and Mrs Ferrer have highlighted the main points of Parliament' s position and the legislative procedure to date, and they have pointed out how the Council, Parliament and the Commission have worked together in order to arrive at a text that is correct and acceptable to everyone.
I think that, once again, the conciliation procedure, which means agreement between the institutions, is working properly.
However, there is an amendment that the Council rightly rejected.
It is Amendment No 15, on fraud.
A Customs Code is not the place for establishing rules on fraud.
That is something that depends on the correct functioning of administration and, clearly, in a legislative debate we should not be discussing the subject of fraud.
Taking advantage of the fact that the Commissioner responsible for the internal market, Mr Bolkestein, is here, I would like to point out that a few years ago the European Parliament established its first committee of inquiry, which was to investigate fraud in the transport of goods.
There was a report by Mr Bouwman, an excellent report that we adopted, in which considerable fraud was revealed, for example, in the case of tobacco.
There were goods, particularly tobacco, which were entering through a non-Community country in the European Economic Area zone, going through the Community zone and then mysteriously leaving the Community zone on paper, but without actually leaving.
Currently, for example, there has been a drop in the price of bananas in the European Union.
It seems that multinational companies are placing their excess bananas, those that they do not sell in the United States and Europe, in Eastern Europe. From Eastern Europe, certain 'charitable' organisations, that is mafias, introduce these bananas, which were practically given to them, into the Community market, competing with the prices of legal importers and Community producers.
We could also mention the ongoing fraud in tomatoes, in which we see prices being continually undervalued because goods are being introduced through certain Community ports without authorisation.
Therefore, while recognising, as the Council and the Commission have said, that this amendment was not appropriate in this case, I would like to, once again, take the opportunity to point out that the procedures for monitoring imports in the European Union are not working, that fraud is being committed and that this fraud is not only bad for Community taxpayers, but also for the functioning of the internal market, and even for loyalty to third countries.
If we want third countries to accept commitments, the European Community must be the most zealous in ensuring that its own rules are being complied with, because if a country has the opportunity to place products in the Community by means of smuggling, why is it going to bother to negotiate with us for any sort of concessions?
I therefore welcome the fact that we have reached an agreement on this subject.
I think that the modifications are very positive, but I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission for greater vigilance and for stricter measures on fraud in Community customs.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, although it is true that the text is flawed, as the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the rapporteur have already underlined, I would still venture to suggest that this legislative resolution is an example of transparent, simplified and efficient Community legislation.
After all, in the Community Customs Code, a successful attempt has been made to harmonise and simplify legislation in a transparent manner, which surely must always be the objective.
I can only applaud the Customs Code, and I am, therefore, somewhat more positive than Mrs Ferrer, for example, for it indeed forms the basis of various areas of Community policy within the framework of Community action of the national customs authorities.
The goal to achieve simplified yet quality communication whilst building in a sufficient level of flexibility with regard to the basic rules, thus improving the procedure for collecting duties and offering a higher degree of adjustment of the provisions with regard to offering goods at customs, meets one of the requirements of the single market, and that has been achieved in this case, so much so, in fact, that many countries have drawn on this model in order to speed up the process to be able to take part in international trade.
In broader terms, the Community Customs Code is one of the most important legal instruments for establishing the amount of outstanding duties and to establish to whom these are due.
The code forms the legal basis for levying these duties and, as such, one of the key instruments for protecting the financial interests of the Community and for ensuring the smooth running of the Community policy in different areas.
In short, I believe I can safely say that the administration now has all the possible levers at its disposal in order to fulfil its task efficiently and within the timeframe provided, and I assume that the European Parliament can invite the administration to make the results of this legislative resolution felt as soon as possible.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commission to adopt a position on the request made in the legislative resolution for the appropriate measures to be taken in order for there to be a modification of the Community Customs Code, as mentioned by Mr Beysen and as I have also expressed.
Mr President, may I start by extending a warm thanks to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for the work it has carried out on the basis of Mrs Palacio' s report This report encompasses all the questions which formed the subject of debate at first reading in March of last year.
I welcome the major overtures which have been made with regard to this dossier, which has been the subject of long and intense discussions within the Council.
I am pleased to note that it was possible to dismiss the reservations expressed by Parliament due to issues of comitology with regard to various proposals.
This opens the door to a major reform of economic customs systems, on which, in fact, Parliament will be informed in detail in the next couple of months prior to approval.
In the same way, the amendment tabled by Parliament regarding paperless declarations, adopted by the Council, will enable Member State customs authorities to have state-of-the-art automated administration equipment at their disposal.
Thanks to the initiative taken by Parliament at first reading, the most wished-for outcome within economic circles was the compromise of good faith, as a result of which it will be possible to strike a better balance between the operators' need for legal certainty and the need for efficient protection of the financial interests of the Community.
That has been, as is known, the outcome of a long debate in the Council, during which debate the Commission staunchly defended its view.
It comes as no surprise that this point forms an integral part of the dossier and that the dossier has been approved unanimously.
Taking into consideration the delicate position in which the dossier now finds itself, I am of the opinion that the outcome of a conciliation procedure, assuming that the debate were extended, would have been quite uncertain.
It is true that the Commission would have wished to take matters one step further.
But it can at the same time validate the result achieved and keep some points of its proposal in reserve, which can then be brought up for discussion again at the appropriate time.
In this spirit, the Commission is able to endorse the positive balance-sheet of this legislative operation.
It would like to thank Parliament and the committee chaired by Mrs Palacio, in particular, for the efforts made and interest shown by Parliament and the committee with regard to this dossier.
Finally, in direct response to the question raised by both Mr Beysen and Mrs Palacio, I can confirm, on behalf of the Commission, that we will be only too pleased to meet and carry out that request.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.50 a.m. and resumed at 12.05 p.m.)
Vote
Mr President, I wanted to speak before you took that vote to explain why I wanted Members to vote against the amendment.
Yesterday the whole position changed with the position the Commission has taken on the legal base.
But it is too late now because you have just taken the vote and Members voted in favour of it.
We will just have to press on.
I am sorry about that.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I am sure the Commission and the House will have noted what you said.
Welcome
Vote (continuation)
We will look into that.
Mr President, this is on a mistake in translation too, though not as important as the one just mentioned.
In Amendment No 24, the words 'difficulté injustifiée' in the French version are a mistranslation.
I trust this will not change the way we vote, but the French translation really must be checked.
The words in the English version are the authentic ones.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0260/2000) by Mr van Hulten, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending the Financial Regulation of 21 December 1977 and separating the internal audit function from the financial control function (Article 24, Paragraph 5, of the Financial Regulation) (COM(2000)341 - C5-0293/2000) - 2000/0135(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0211/2000) by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Council's 1999 Annual Report on the Implementation of the EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports (11384/1999 - C5­0021/2000 - 2000/2012(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0258/2000) by Mr Angelilli, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the Commission communication 'Study on Parental Control of Television Broadcasting (COM(1999) 371 - C5­0324/1999 - 1999/2210(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0198/2000) by Mrs Dybkjær, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities on the Commission annual reports "Equal Opportunities for Women and Men in the European Union - 1997, 1998, 1999 (COM(1998) 302 - C5­0106/1999) (COM(1999) 106 - C5-0289/2000) (COM(2000) 123 - C5- 0290/2000 -1999/2109(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Explanations of vote- Recommendation for second reading Palacio Vallelersundi (A5-0254/2000)
- (DE) Experience shows that the economic operators want to have the option of paying import duties in the place where their headquarters in the Union is located.
We Independents therefore support - above all, in the interests of enabling the Internal Market to function successfully - the demand of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, for the Commission to draft a legislative proposal concerning the place in which the customs debt was incurred.
Report Evans (A5-0255/2000)
Mr President, I voted in favour of the Evans report.
I would like to start by congratulating the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Mr Mantovani, on the substantial amendments he tabled to the Commission communication, a communication which, among other things, relates to the movement of young students and young researchers within the European Community.
I said 'young', and therefore the pensioners and elderly people, whose interests I am trying to protect, should not have to concern themselves with this directive.
But time waits for no man: one day the young people will become old people as well; the young researchers will also grow old and, it is to be hoped, pensioners.
I therefore welcome the amendments which call upon the Commission to treat periods of study and research as if the students and researchers were paying social security contributions, as this will increase the pensions of students and researchers.
Mr President, in my opinion, Robert J. Evans' s report is very important and I voted in favour of it.
The right of freedom of movement of European citizens is still being violated in many ways.
Students in particular often encounter barriers and difficulties in Member States that should no longer occur under EU legislation.
Studies by the European Commission show that needless red tape is causing problems for students from other EU countries.
Residence permits are granted for just short periods of time and it is awkward and costly to renew them.
There are some unfortunate situations.
In Spain students are required to deposit - in a Spanish bank account, note - special sums of money that act as a guarantee in order to rent accommodation.
It is also complicated to arrange for students' families to move.
Recently it came out that certain estate agents handling rented accommodation in London would not accept a foreign, for example, a Finnish, guarantor that ensured the Finnish student' s rent would be paid.
European rights of citizenship do not seem to carry much weight in this situation.
This is not the first time I have expressed my views on mobility for students and teachers.
We were already condemning the financial difficulties facing Erasmus students during the last session.
Everyone agrees that this mobility must be encouraged in the name of the free movement of persons, but also and especially because of all the benefits to the young citizens of Europe and hence the European Union.
Unfortunately, in practice, the obstacles are still there.
That is what the Commission proposal deplores and the Evans report confirms.
According to the recommendation, based on Articles 149 and 150 of the Treaty, Member States need to be encouraged to adopt measures which will steadily remove the existing difficulties, and the citizens of the Union should be offered a platform of rights leading to real mobility.
While this proposal is a step in the right direction it still contains a number of gaps which the Evans report remedies.
Thus, it includes researchers within the scope of the recommendation.
I think that this is crucial, given that its importance is constantly emphasised in the context of building a European research area.
Mr Evans also demonstrates that people hoping to benefit from programmes in this area need to be better informed about their social security entitlements.
Knowledge of foreign languages is accepted as a necessary precursor to mobility.
Remember that 2001 has been designated European Year of Languages.
It is therefore vital to promote the learning of at least two Community languages, to encourage linguistic and cultural preparation prior to any mobility measure.
Then there are the scandalous taxes on renewal of residence permits.
These must be regarded as an obstacle to be eliminated.
The report also stresses the need to eliminate obstacles to mobility, be they legal, linguistic, cultural, financial or administrative.
I call on the Member States to coordinate the formalities to be fulfilled for enrolling in the establishments of other Member States.
I am especially thinking of deadlines.
To illustrate my point, I need only refer to a case brought to my attention last Friday.
A young man who had passed his Baccalaureat was refused registration in Belgium, because he had missed the deadline by three days!
It is very difficult for French Baccalaureat candidates to meet a deadline of 15 July when they only receive their results in mid-July, and must then obtain recognition of their qualification - recognition which, in my opinion, costs far too much - not to mention the young people who have to re-sit and who are penalised by a year in some cases because of that.
This is just one example among many.
I shall end by mentioning one of my pet subjects, mutual recognition of qualifications.
To avoid repeating myself, I refer you to my earlier speeches.
Mobility inside the European Union is one of the essential conditions for enabling European citizens to feel that they are full members of this Europe we are gradually building.
This is more than a symbol; it is a reason, a driving force, for belonging to the European culture and model we are proclaiming.
That is why I shall vote for this report. It lays down conditions to enable people travelling inside the Union to do so free from restrictions on their rights, their social security, or other benefits.
This report is all the more important because it comes at a critical time for the European Union, a time of enlargement.
Mobility for all, including nationals of third countries legally resident in Union territory and students and teachers acting independently - outside the Socrates and Leonardo programmes - is one of the fundamental values of the Union which we must uphold so that the candidate countries know exactly what kind of Union they will be joining.
.
(PT) Despite the fact that the European Union recognises the rights of Member States' citizens to freedom of movement, to the provision of services and to residence, there is considerable difference between what the texts say and the reality experienced by many people. Examples of this are the disparities in health care cover, the risk of dual taxation, the random nature of social provision, the lack of recognition of professional qualifications and the complexity of legal texts, which make it very difficult for the ordinary man or woman to know exactly what their rights are.
As the rapporteur said, the Commission appears to be aware that, unless concrete measures are adopted, certain fundamental freedoms that are enshrined in the Treaty, such as the right of residence and the right of free movement, are, in practice, in danger of becoming mere statements of principle.
The Commission must therefore adopt ambitious measures to guarantee the right to reside and settle, and, amongst others, the right to work, the right to study and the right to have one' s qualifications recognised in Member States other than one' s own.
- (SV) While in principle we adopt a positive view of the European Parliament and the Council' s recommendation on mobility within the Community, we would like to state the following:
We believe that, from the point of view of equality and justice, it is very important that third-country nationals resident within the EU should have the right to utilise the provisions of Community legislation on the same terms as the Union' s own citizens.
We also believe that, to a great extent, the Member States themselves should be allowed to decide on the taxes to be collected.
Healthy competition will reduce the tax burden on businesses, encouraging entrepreneurship and therefore the creation of job opportunities.
In this way, the states' loss of income due to tax competition may be offset by the fact that more people are paying income tax.
We are therefore opposed to Amendment 38 concerning the introduction of common tax regulations for volunteers.
I strongly endorse this report from my colleague, Robert Evans, designed to boost mobility amongst students and others involved in training across the EU.
He is right to emphasise the need for further action to overcome bureaucratic problems relating to residence rights and right to emphasise the needs of disadvantaged groups such as the disabled.
I support his desire to see research workers included in the proposal and his comments about the importance of involving countries preparing to join the EU.
I hope when this report comes back for second reading we are able to note that the Council has incorporated the rapporteur's sensible amendments.
The two-fold approach of education and examinations for master craftsmen diplomas or certificates is prerequisite to future economic success.
Mobility and life-long learning must go hand in hand with assuring a high standard of education for our young students and working people.
Report Cashman (A5-0259/2000)
Mr President, I was prompted to vote for the Cashman report by the words of the Chairman of the Pensioners' Association of the municipality where I live - Curno, in the district of Bergamo, Italy - who said to me, 'We have absolutely no way of safeguarding the interests of the elderly.
We would like to put forward proposals to prevent them being poorly treated as, sadly, frequently occurs, but we do not have the money to do so.
Once a year, the mayor of the village invites us all to a lentil supper, similar to the lentil stew Jacob gave Esau in the Bible. That one meal is all we get the whole year, but there is nothing practical we can do about it.'
So, roll on the financing for the actions to combat age-discrimination provided for in the Cashman report.
That is why I voted for the motion.
We Independents welcome the action programme proposed by the Commission for fighting discrimination.
But we vehemently reject the proposal submitted by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs to set up another special unit for the implementation of this programme.
Discrimination cannot be tackled by creating additional administrative bodies; but solely by changing people' s attitudes.
Communicating traditional values such as tolerance and respect for diversity can do far more to help achieve this goal than the most detailed annual report on the various forms of discrimination.
Report Mann (A5-0264/2000)
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, I would like to draw two points requiring clarification to your attention.
I will deal firstly with Amendment No 15.
This amendment highlights a procedure concerning the acquis communautaire.
The Association Agreements concluded between the European Union and the candidate countries, and those which have yet to be concluded, should incorporate regulations banning discrimination against groups protected under Article 13.
It is all the more crucial for this step to be taken if certain candidate countries have minorities that require protection on the employment and occupation front.
Secondly: Amendment No 18.
The amendment refers to the fact that many Member States have provisions in place that could lead to discrimination against homosexuals seeking employment.
However, the amendment does not emphasise the importance of criminal law provisions in dealing with such behaviour.
It takes the form of a recommendation, in as much as it states that the Member States should annul these provisions.
In phrasing it this way, the principle of subsidiarity is upheld.
This does not fall within Europe' s sphere of competence.
I was slightly disappointed that we did not have the opportunity to get majority support for the need to set a limit on the storage of documents.
I had proposed six to twelve months.
As I see it, that would be realistic in operational terms.
I worked for companies for many years.
We were unable to achieve this.
What we did manage to achieve though, and what pleased me enormously, was that we were able to make it abundantly clear that special regulations must be introduced for religious communities, because we must make it possible for people to identify with the idea behind and the fundamental aims of these communities.
We scored a major common victory there, to my mind, and we also finally managed to secure regulations benefiting the physically handicapped.
I am delighted that people have been so willing to compromise today, as indeed our voting has shown.
I would like to thank you all again most warmly for your excellent teamwork.
Mr President, I have been a Member of the European Parliament for 15 months now.
Today, 5 October 2000, did not start well, but it has become the happiest day of my time at Parliament, for today Amendment No 62 to Mr Thomas Mann's report has been adopted.
I strongly supported this amendment, which reads: "no discrimination as regards access to health care, welfare benefits, and economic assistance shall be permitted on the grounds of the age of a disabled person" .
In my opinion, this is an extremely important result: it shows - if I may be permitted to rejoice at this, Mr President - that there is some point to my being here.
I would like to thank the Members who helped and supported me - for I could not have achieved this result alone - Mr Speroni of the Lega Nord, Mr Thomas Mann, the rapporteur, from the European People's Party, Mrs Lambert of the Group of the Greens and Mr Helmer from the British Conservative Party.
They have risen above party politics and shown that, when an amendment is right, they will support it, whoever the author.
I have not voted for the Mann report because, while it is indeed necessary to seek equal treatment for people in employment and occupation, it is also necessary to refrain from pushing zeal to the point of abandoning all protection of freedoms and all respect for the rule of law.
For example, Article 9(1) of the proposal for a directive, provides that when persons who consider themselves wronged because the principle of equal treatment has not been applied to them take action, they need only establish a presumption of discrimination before the court; making it incumbent on the defendant, that is, the employer, to prove wrongful accusation.
This article has been slightly modified by an amendment from the European Parliament, which complicates the wording, but does not alter the general thrust.
If this directive were adopted, it would then be up to the accused employer to prove his innocence, not up to the accuser to provide evidence for his claim.
Thus, the usual principles of the rule of law are being gradually altered under the influence of an extremist approach to combating discrimination, with the European Parliament and Commission only too happy to join in and poke their noses into every national law.
Yet again, we cannot approve of this shift, which is also going to be boosted by the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, because its present wording extends the anti-discrimination clause that the Treaty of Amsterdam has already introduced into European law.
During the Treaty of Amsterdam negotiations we were delighted with the inclusion of Article 13 on discrimination on the grounds of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age and sexual orientation.
That kind of provision bears witness to the Community' s commitment to promote a more just, more egalitarian society, and above all, it has opened the way to appropriate Community action aimed at contributing to the fight against discrimination in general.
It means the efforts made by the Community to promote gender equality can be completed by attacking new grounds for discrimination.
It gives new and significant impetus to Community action in an area where a certain legislative acquis and fruitful cooperation with civil society exist.
That is the basis on which measures to combat discrimination have been adopted.
The proposals consist of two draft directives, covering discrimination in employment and discrimination based on race and ethnic origin, and an action programme intended to support the efforts of the Member States.
As regards the parallel directive on equal treatment irrespective of race or ethnic origin, the Council succeeded in reaching political agreement after the European Parliament revised its opinion on the issue.
We have therefore had to vote on the directive on equal treatment in employment and the 2001/2006 Action Programme.
To explain my votes, I would first say that the right to equal treatment and protection against discrimination is a fundamental human right.
But while this right has been recognised, it is very far from being converted into reality, hence the advantage of adopting determined and coordinated measures at European level.
As regards the Mann report on equal treatment in employment, I shall limit myself to emphasising my satisfaction that the grounds for derogation have been successfully reduced to the minimum. Otherwise the door would be opened to abuses contrary to the aim of this directive.
Certain possibilities remain and I have to admit I am unhappy about them.
These are the grounds for derogation in matters of religion.
The provision for derogation on religious grounds on the basis of the notion of essential and direct occupational requirements carries the risk of broad interpretation.
As a confirmed secularist, I cannot associate myself with that.
Similarly, I am concerned about the derogations authorised on the basis of age, as older people are particularly at risk of discrimination in relation to employment.
As regards the action programme to fight discrimination, the European Commission' s proposal was broadly satisfactory.
There were some deplorable gaps and inaccuracies which have been corrected, with my support.
I felt it was essential to broaden the scope of the programme in order to ensure the implementation of Article 13 of the Treaty.
I am also very pleased that harassment will in future be regarded as a form of discrimination and that there is recognition that discrimination must be prevented, not just combated.
It was important to reaffirm the need to associate the candidate countries with this programme.
Everyone is well aware of the problems faced by certain minorities in those countries.
My final comment relates to the budget for this programme, EUR 98.4 million. That figure is obviously inadequate given the actions envisaged.
In conclusion, I support the spirit of these proposals and I have voted for most of them, the exception being where they are in contradiction with my secularism.
The SNP welcomes this directive and its aim to end discrimination in the workplace.
The unfair treatment of workers on the grounds of race, religious belief, disability, age or sexual orientation can in no way be justified in a modern and socially just Europe.
This directive gives Member States a great opportunity to enhance the rights of workers across the European Union.
The SNP is pleased to support this legislation, which is in line with our party's policies of ending discrimination in all its guises and of positively backing measures to ensure equality of treatment for all citizens.
Moreover the SNP sees this legislation as a means to fulfil the underlying objectives of the European Union in recognising that equality in the field of employment helps combat social exclusion and assists the EU's aims of permitting the free movement of its citizens.
Amendment No 18: the directive under discussion concerns a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation and the over-generalised wording in Amendment No 18 is not relevant in all aspects to this directive.
It is manifestly clear from the justification for the amendment that the purpose is also to interfere in provisions on age that apply in Member States, which, in any case, are fully justified for reasons of psychological development, and they do not have any kind of impact in the job market.
For these reasons I voted against the amendment, although discrimination in employment and occupation in all its forms must be opposed.
Amendment No 37: the form the committee have proposed for Article 4.2 of this directive is good and could ensure there is a significant degree of continuity in the wider social activities of religious organisations, which is a basis for all European socio-political thinking, and is still an important part of its activity in practice.
In addition, the wording proposed by the committee reconfirms the vitality of the individual culture and customs of small, immigrant communities, among others.
For these reasons I voted in favour of the amendment.
Our colleague, Thomas Mann, has invested a great deal of work in a report on the proposal for a Council directive establishing a general framework for equal treatment in employment and occupation.
His report was adopted unanimously in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
However, we then had 13 improvement amendments to consider, in addition to the 60 contained in the Mann report on the directive proposed by the Commission.
There is a saying we would do well not to ignore in our efforts to amend the Commission proposals, which are actually well thought through as a rule, and this is how it goes 'what is better is the enemy of what is good' .
That is only common sense in fact.
One could not help but wonder if common sense had always prevailed in the drafting of certain, no doubt well-meaning, proposed amendments that were now before us.
If the directive is to be adopted and implemented, it must not be encumbered with a literary approach and wishful thinking, which have no place in a legal document.
That is most certainly true of the amendment which proposes that this directive should end the sexually discriminatory practice of stipulating that only male personnel can wear a tie.
If absurdity could kill then the authors of such an amendment would definitely no longer be with us.
I think it is also going too far to expect employers to provide statistics on all aspects of their employment of people falling within the scope of this directive.
The authorities already have their work cut out.
This brings to mind another sound rule of thumb: 'no one can achieve the impossible' .
I also think that we can do without the entire contents of the new Article 12 (a).
The Commission rightly refrained - on the basis of the subsidiarity principle, of course - from instructing the Member States to set up new institutions for monitoring the application of the principle of equal treatment, which could be consulted by every conceivable, and inconceivable, group of people or association etc, requesting free handling of their complaints, and which could even be granted access to confidential personnel files.
Despite all the inconsistencies and superfluous proposals, which do nothing to help the cause, I did not want to vote against the report at the final vote.
But here too, I feel that 'less would have been more' , and the Commission proposal, without the superfluous amendments, is the better and more logical instrument for ensuring equal treatment in employment and occupation, which is, after all, what we want.
I warmly welcome this proposal to establish a framework to combat discrimination and ensure equal treatment in employment.
The areas covered are access to employment and occupation, vocational training, promotion, employment conditions and membership of certain bodies.
The proposal covers both direct and indirect discrimination.
Harassment is also included within the definition of discrimination.
With regard to disability, the principle of equal treatment entails the identification and removal of barriers in the way of persons with disabilities who, with reasonable accommodation, are able to perform the essential functions of a job.
While the proposal continues to allow differences of treatment on the grounds of age they have to be objectively justified.
The proposal also allows positive action to redress gender imbalance.
These proposals deserve the serious attention of the Member States and the other Community Institutions.
The EPLP has voted for the Mann report on equal treatment in discrimination because it is firmly committed to the principle of combating unjustified discrimination and is broadly supportive of the overall objectives behind this proposal.
However the EPLP has strong reservations about the following areas.
On disability, whilst we welcome the principle of the proposals, the UK are justly proud of our own disability discrimination legislation, but we do not want to impose our model on other Member States.
However, we do want to ensure the directive lets us continue with the approach in the Disability Discrimination Act, although we recognise that some relatively minor changes may be required.
On age, the EPLP welcomes the principle of fighting age discrimination in employment and training.
This is a very complex area and the proposals are far-reaching and ambitious.
However, we feel it is important that the Community has legislation which is clear and workable.
On religion/belief, the EPLP welcomes the principle of protection on these grounds.
For the UK this would end the anomaly whereby two non-major Christian groups (Jews, Sikhs), receive protection both from direct and indirect discrimination under the UK Race Relations Act as they are recognised by the courts as ethnic groups as well as religious groups.
Under some circumstances, Muslims receive protection, but only in cases of indirect discrimination, whilst Afro-Caribbean Muslims, white Muslims and indeed Christians, receive no protection at all.
However, the UK is one of the most religiously diverse populations in the European Union, so it is important that the proposals are right.
The EPLP is concerned to ensure that the directive will permit Section 60 of the UK Schools Standard and Framework Act 1998 to remain unaltered.
On sexual orientation, we welcome the principle of the Commission's proposals to fight discrimination on this ground.
Further Concerns:
Much of the text will need further clarification before it is finalised.
We have concerns about the unclear definitions of 'reasonable accommodation' and 'undue hardship' in Article 2(4), and the possible contradiction with the public procurement directives in the amendment on Article 55.
Several areas of difference with the race directive should be eliminated, such as the definition of indirect discrimination in Amendment No 21, the defence of rights in Article 8, the text on victimisation in Article 10, and Article 11 covering dissemination of information.
We also feel that the directive should be clear about which differences of treatment on the grounds of age are permissible and which are not.
We have concerns about several elements which appear to be overburdensome: notably application of the legislation to volunteer workers in charities and to public posts, and also compulsory collection and monitoring of statistics.
We are concerned about the inclusion of health, social security and assistance as there are considerable national differences in how these matters are handled and whether they form part of the employee/employer relationship.
There are also elements which, we feel, should be left to Member States such as overall implementation, provision of training to particular age groups of workers, the nature of a mediation system, and how SMEs are to interpret the directive.
Finally, some elements should be permissive rather than mandatory to cater for different Member State practices.
We believe that the negations to come will provide an opportunity to tackle these issues and we look forward to enactment of the directive and the benefits it will bring to workers in the UK and other EU countries.
I voted against these reports because they enshrine within them the principle that sex perversion is elevated onto the level of holy marriage and sex only within the marriage bond.
They also discriminate against people and organisations who believe the Holy Scriptures to be the Word of God, the only infallible Rule of Faith and Practice, forcing such believers to employ those who propagate and practise acts of sex totally against the scriptural ethics.
It is on this issue alone that I voted no.
Broadly speaking, the Christian Democrats welcome the proposal for a directive establishing a general framework for employment equality.
However, we feel that the committee' s amendment concerning statistics divided according to target group - i.e. based on the existing reasons for discrimination, such as race, ethnic origin, age, religion or belief, as well as sexual orientation - is far too great a violation of integrity.
We have therefore decided to vote against this amendment, but we support the report as such.
Report Van Hulten (A5-0260/2000)
I have abstained on the van Hulten report because I do not think we should increase the number of controlling authorities within the European institutions.
This 'control frenzy' actually leads to officials being freed from responsibility, to a situation where everyone tries to palm off responsibility on the controllers, and the controllers of the controllers.
The European Union suffers from a bad image among many citizens.
Rapporteur Van Hulten expressed the following view in an interview with a Dutch weekly magazine, "It is called Europe, it is in Brussels and is corrupt."
Thanks to the action taken by a "whistle blower" and the Committee of Wise Men, corruption has been brought out into the open.
In the interview, Mr Van Hulten is right in saying that we will not be able to draft a positive agenda until we have solved problems such as fraud, waste, but also a lack of efficiency and effectiveness in decision-making.
The financial reform, more specifically the establishment of an internal audit department, is conducive to the European Union' s effectiveness.
Rapporteur Van Hulten is right in filling in the gaps in the Commission proposal: what is needed is a clear definition of the distribution of responsibilities between financial control and internal audit.
But if Mr Van Hulten would like to dedicate himself to an efficient and effective Union, we, along with the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, cannot see why he should exempt smaller institutions, such as the Committee of the Regions, from internal audit duty.
This view is at the expense of transparency of the financial regulation.
Naturally the number of transactions in the smaller institutions is smaller than in the large ones - the 800 000 transactions performed annually in the Commission eclipse the 10 000 transactions performed annually in the Committee of the Regions.
But this only says something about the staffing levels of the internal audit department and nothing about the financial significance and hence usefulness of such a department.
This is the reason why I have applied for split voting on Amendment No 3. In this way, it will still be possible to include the obligation of an internal audit department in the proposal.
Although the rapporteur shares my view that all institutions must be given equal treatment, he would like to postpone this equal treatment until the definitive review of the financial regulation in eighteen months' time.
In my view, if the opportunity presents itself to step up efficiency within the EU institutions, each day that passes while we are waiting is one too many.
To set up an internal audit office in the institutions will naturally require effort, but that effort will remain the same, whether it is made now or in the future.
The image of Europe is not served by the efficient operation of the large EU institutions alone; in many respects, it is probably the small ones that make all the difference.
Report Titley (A5-0211/2000)
I am sure, in common with all my colleagues, we support the proper management and control of arms exports in the European Union.
We have many examples of how uncontrolled and unscrupulous arms exports have exacerbated many of the conflicts in the past century and even into the present time.
We, in Europe, along with our colleagues across the globe, have to see that the mistakes and greed of the past are not repeated.
The reasons of my vote on this report relate, in the main, to the question of closer European Union relations with NATO and also the onward rush to a common defence policy.
Many will speak about peace and conflict resolution while at the same time will be making deals to sell arms to combatants.
If this two-faced policy were stopped then many of the difficulties could be overcome.
As stated at the outset, I am in favour of greater control over arms exports, but this issue should not be confused with other political initiatives.
Even if we sympathise with the idea of regulating the European production and export of arms politically, we are sceptical about the Titley report, mainly for the following reasons.
There is no link between the development of the arms industry and EU cooperation in the area of military policy.
The EU has decided to develop a joint military capacity in order to fulfil the so-called Petersberg objectives (crisis management and conflict resolution outside the territory of the EU), but it has no common defence policy.
The individual EU countries are members of NATO and the WEU, or else are non-aligned.
Policy on arms exports must start from that point, and a distinction must be made between supervising an arms industry developed for political reasons (namely crisis management) and arms exports for purely commercial reasons. In our view, such exports ought to be kept to a minimum and, in the long term, completely abolished.
We are particularly opposed to the wording of Paragraph R and Paragraph 1 d) and e) of the report, to the effect that the development of arms exports should lead to the development of a common defence policy and the establishment of a defence identity within NATO, and that the arms industry should benefit from the EU' s developing a common code of conduct on arms exports.
We welcome the initiative for codes of conduct for arms exports.
Many of Mr Titley' s proposals and comments in the report represent improvements to the Council' s original report.
Nonetheless, we have decided to vote against Mr Titley' s report for the following reasons:
The report means continued recognition of the importance of a strong European military capacity instead of placing the emphasis on the need for disarmament and peace.
The report sees arms export controls primarily as a method of avoiding awkward situations for Europe' s military industry and not as a way of achieving disarmament and peace.
Moreover, the report discusses European arms exports as a way of solving future local conflicts in the immediate vicinity of Europe.
Despite the request from the Group of the Greens, the rapporteur has also consistently failed to discuss Turkey which, through its membership of NATO, is in practice excluded from the codes of conduct.
The report also means that Europe' s war industry is regarded as an economically important industry, and that is an indefensible perspective on an industry whose primary task is implicitly to kill and annihilate people.
As long as the European Parliament is unable to make the logical connection between the production and sale of arms and the continued global military destruction of the environment and human life, we cannot support reports such as this.
support this report from my colleague, Gary Titley, and agree with him that responsible arms trade practices form part of the "acquis communautaire" and therefore candidate countries should be actively involved in the further development of the Code of Conduct on arms exports and that this should be legally binding.
I particularly share his view that there is a need to establish common rules and effective EU controls to combat illegal arms trafficking and to control the legal trade in small arms and light weapons.
I trust the Member States will give this considered and early attention.
The world would be a safer place without weapons.
I am therefore in favour of a code of conduct which renders it impossible to produce and export arms and which results in arms factories switching over to the production of useful commodities.
From this perspective, I have read Mr Titley' s proposals and examined to what extent his text contributes to a world of peace without weapons.
In general terms, I endorse the small steps forward, even if they do not, by any means, completely lead to the solutions put forward by myself.
It is a different matter if such a small step forward puts a spanner in the works when it comes to reaching real solutions.
I believe that the choice today is not between complete freedom in the arms trade and this code of conduct.
If these were the two options, I would endorse the code of conduct as the lesser of the two evils, the underlying rationale being that something is better than nothing.
However, the real choice is between this code of conduct and a complete ban.
The code of conduct is based on the assumption that the arms trade will continue to exist and that European arms production must be promoted.
The excrescences are being regulated because it is they that draw attention and instil indignation.
The issue of the arms trade itself remains out of range.
To me, this is a reason not to support the code of conduct.
- (SV) It is good that the European Union wishes to implement a code of conduct to restrict arms exports.
However, I cannot accept the introduction of the requirement of a common defence policy and a European security and defence policy within NATO.
Sweden is neutral and does not intend to enter into any defence alliance.
Consequently, I cannot support these viewpoints, expressed either in Recital R or in Paragraphs 1 c, 1 d and 1 e.
France, Germany and Great Britain, together with the USA, are the main arms dealers feeding the planet' s conflicts: in Africa, where 10 states are at war, and in Asia, between India and Pakistan.
The European states have sold arms to Indonesia, whose army is implicated in the massacres in Timor and the Moluccas.
France is selling helicopters to Turkey, which is waging war against the Kurdish people, and aircraft to China and Taiwan, not to mention the scandal of the famous Taiwan frigates.
In the recent past, France was an accomplice to the genocide in Rwanda by delivering any amount of small arms to the regime perpetrating the massacres.
No one has yet insisted that the European Union and France answer for that.
The resolution is not seeking to reduce arms sales radically to promote a policy of disarmament, but just to regulate them in order to guarantee greater profits for the industrial groups.
There is no such thing as a bloodless war.
There are only wars that kill.
This hypocritical resolution seeks the implementation of a 'European code of conduct' while simultaneously declaring that the defence industry is 'economically and strategically important for the EU' .
We take the view that the restructuring of the defence industry should not be motivated by the political ambition to create a common defence policy, but by the strategic and industrial requirements of the major companies and Member States involved.
On this basis, link-ups between European and North American companies are as much to be welcomed as between European companies.
While we can support a code of conduct which sets out a level playing field with a set of rules to which we can all voluntarily adhere, we do not wish to encumber industry with more unnecessary regulations.
In particular, we do not support the proposal, in Paragraph 9 of the resolution, that the code of conduct should be made legally binding.
Our objections to this are four-fold: the possibility of yet another range of activities being justiciable in the European Court of Justice is opened up; the possibility of obtaining agreement by other arms exporting countries outside the EU to an international code of conduct will be that much more difficult and unattractive if it is legally binding; if legal sanctions are involved there is a danger that some of those involved in the arms trade will be less open in their activities; there may be reluctance by some countries to place arms orders with European states which are encumbered by legislation, particularly when a long-term after-sales support relationship may be involved.
While there is much that we can agree with in this resolution there are a number of fundamental flaws and this is why we have abstained in our vote.
Report Angelilli (A5-0258/2000)
Children are the first victims of violence on television.
We all now recognise the impact and the harm which the daily and increasing bombardment of violent television programmes and similar multimedia products wreaks on young people, who are less discerning because their critical faculties are not fully developed.
The Commission text and the report contain a number of accurate findings as regards the adverse impact on the psychological makeup and developing personality of children and, consequently, on the dangers in store for tomorrow' s society as the result of their watching these programmes and using these products.
However, their proposals are confined to watersheds and programme classification and, in adopting the Oxford University report on television programme filtering devices, which parents have to buy before they can use them to protect their children, are targeted specifically at digital and subscriber television.
Once again, the delicate and sensitive issue of the protection of our children, i.e. the members of tomorrow' s society, are being hijacked by commercialisation and the profit motive.
The entire onus of protecting children is on the parents and the question of the actual production and broadcasting of programmes which are harmful to children is hardly even touched on.
And, assuming that they can afford these filtering devices, how are parents supposed to protect their children from so-called children' s programmes, the majority of which contain scenes of violence and some of which are scarier than horror films? And how are they supposed to protect them from the violence which inundates multimedia products and the Internet?
The Commission communication acknowledges the problem but proposes no specific measures because it is blinkered by the philosophy of market liberalisation and competition, and any proposals which it makes fail to get to the heart of the harsh reality - a reality especially harsh on children - of the unaccountability of multinationals which, in their lust for profit, are indifferent to the impact which their programmes and products have and which not only shift the entire responsibility to parents but even expect them to buy new products to protect their children.
The only reference to companies is to do with a code of self-regulation.
We do agree with a number of interesting proposals on protecting children in the Angelilli report, such as the need for a detailed study into the moral and legal aspects of the protection of minors.
I have today voted against Roberta Angelilli' s report on the communication from the Commission on an investigation concerning parental control of television broadcasting. If I do so, it is not because I am opposed to the report as such but because I should like to send a clear signal to the effect that the EU and the Commission should concentrate on their core tasks.
It is not a task for the EU but for the Member States to take initiatives in this area.
There are enough other pressing tasks for the Commission to expend its energies on.
As the father of two small children, I have taken a particular interest in the results of the study on parental control of television broadcasting.
Under the provisions of Article 22b(2) of the 'Television without frontiers' directive (Directive 97/36/EC of 30 June 1997, amending Directive 89/552/EC), the Commission was required to conduct an inquiry into the advantages and possible disadvantages of measures designed to facilitate control by parents and educationalists over the programmes minors can watch.
I am delighted this study has been completed.
The legal and ethical framework does indeed vary from one Member State to another in line with national traditions and culture.
There is no single European definition of a minor nor is there full agreement on what is or is not harmful to minors watching certain television programmes.
Everyone agrees, however, that it is in the public interest to make a decisive stand against the wave of violence and other content dangerous to young people which is flooding television programmes and audiovisual services transmitted via networks, in order to protect the psychological balance of minors.
Minors are different from adults.
They are more vulnerable, less able to exercise critical judgement and at greater risk of being disturbed.
Like the rapporteur, I believe measures intended to protect young people from violent and harmful programmes should not be limited to traditional television but should apply to all media.
I also think it is essential to put the emphasis on teaching children media skills.
So there is a need to strengthen national and regional awareness-raising campaigns on the protection of minors in the media context, involving families and the education world.
Also, television programme filtering devices must be sold at prices affordable to all.
At the same time, such measures obviously do not imply that the service providers should in any way be relieved of all responsibility for the content they broadcast.
Given that issues linked to radio and television are the responsibility of the Member States, I support the request made to them that they and the Commission lay down in law the responsibilities incumbent on the media companies.
I also think it is essential for European Union television operators to draw up a code of self-regulation for the protection of minors.
I end by congratulating the rapporteur on his excellent work.
I welcome the main provisions of this report, which highlights once again the importance that the European Parliament attaches to the protection of our young children in Europe.
This report confirms that it is in the public interest to protect children from viewing excessive television violence and other programmes that may produce harmful effects.
The subject of this report is both highly specific and highly complex.
Any further analysis of specific technology such as filtering systems will have to take account of the advances in technology which are evident today.
This report is based on the principle of common sense.
It is premised on the need for television broadcasting to take responsibility for the protection of minors by means of a self-regulatory code which should apply throughout the European Union.
A committee of experts will also be constituted at a European Community level with the mandate of drawing up a memorandum setting out general principles for the protection of minors in the media context.
It is now incumbent on the European Commission and the European Parliament and all interested parties to work together to see how best young people can be protected from viewing excessive television violence.
I would hope that the key television broadcasting organisations, both from the private and the public sector within the European Union, will engage positively in this process.
Certainly we must recognise that technology is changing rapidly within the television sector within Europe.
Digitalisation of old analogue television networks is taking place across the length and breadth of the participating Member States of the EU.
This, too, will lead to greater challenges for legislators to put in place the necessary protective measures to guarantee that young children are protected from viewing wholly violent and inappropriate television programmes.
I will be working closely at national European level to ensure that EU governments implement the necessary legislation to put in place the necessary protective mechanisms which I have addressed.
I should like to congratulate Mrs Angelilli on the proposals in her report on developing control mechanisms to protect children from watching violent and other broadcasts which are unsuitable for their age.
I agree with them completely; however, I should like to point out that this is a minor issue at a time when there is a major issue at stake. What I mean is that these proposals are contained in a non-binding Commission communication, while the binding "Television without frontiers"; directive (97/36/ÅC) to which they refer is being infringed time and again by almost every Member State.
Under these circumstances, it is essential that all the Member States comply with Community legislation as quickly as possible.
Furthermore, I have ascertained from a personal investigation in the relevant Commission services that eight Member States (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and the UK) are applying Community legislation, while the rest (France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands and Luxembourg) are infringing it one way or another.
I also agree with my fellow Member that these measures should not be confined solely to television and should also apply to the Internet, which no longer has any reason to "envy" television, now that its multiple applications include film projections.
If all these proposals are to be translated from theory into practice, we need to create filtering and classification mechanisms which allow parents to select the programmes which are suitable for their children.
Encouraging industry to move in this direction through international collaboration and increasing parents' , teachers' and children' s awareness will act as a catalyst.
Report Dybkjær (A5-0198/2000)
This third annual report on equal opportunities for women and men in the European Union sets out the highlights and successes of the year 1998.
It must be said that although equality between women and men has been proclaimed by law, the facts are there to remind us that the discrimination and difficulties women face unfortunately persist.
Women are the most vulnerable to unemployment.
The 1998 report makes a special study of the phenomenon of unemployment and the economic impact of under-employment of women.
It also analyses the measures taken to incorporate employment policies strictly focused on women or policies to restrict gender discrimination in employment, for example, in employment contracts, types of employment and remuneration.
Moreover, women are often in 'flexible' jobs; temporary contracts and low salaries are typical in sectors where women employees are in a majority.
Women' s careers are often unstable, and they can only acquire experience with difficulty.
That situation is often illustrated by low levels of social protection and precarious living conditions.
Women are also over-represented in 'typically female' occupations but under-represented in jobs with responsibility and in the professions.
Furthermore, women are not as well represented as men in rapidly growing sectors such as information and communications technologies, with women tending to occupy the lowest level in the hierarchy.
It is therefore crucial to restore balance by establishing education and training policies specifically geared to young women.
Gender disparity is also prevalent when it comes to wages and salaries. Figures available for 1995 show that for the European Union as a whole, the hourly wage for a woman is only 73% of that for a man doing equal work.
I therefore fully support the rapporteur in urging the Commission to pursue its efforts and in particular to strengthen the 'strategic' nature of its annual reports, by assessing the effectiveness of policy initiatives rather than contenting itself with describing them.
I also think it is necessary to stress that Community standards of respect for women' s rights and equal opportunities should be implemented in the candidate countries even before they join.
Finally, I invite the Member States to pursue the dual strategy advocated at Community level, involving mainstreaming and specific actions for women.
Interestingly, this is the first time that the need for the Commission' s annual reports to go further in its evaluation of the efficacy of political initiatives has been identified.
What we have before us is a motion which, although not lacking in proposals for studies and research, stops well short of a real approach which will highlight crucial problems not yet resolved and the new problems which are beginning to threaten existing rights and achievements, together with their real causes.
Women are still one of the most vulnerable sections of society, whose rights are rudely trampled underfoot by the current social and economic system.
That is what we should have acknowledged first, then we would not have had such a knee-jerk report singing praises and dispensing declarations of intent.
Equal opportunities at work, equal social participation, equality in health and elsewhere are impossible within a framework of reactionary policies offensive to human dignity as a whole, without equal social prospects, in a society of unemployment and underemployment, with no welfare state, a society in which human values are costed and commercialised.
Social rights and social achievements are not expanding; on the contrary, they are increasingly being eroded on the grounds that they are too expensive.
The flexible, elastic forms of employment generously offered to women are not a sign of progress; they are sleights of hand by the economically powerful in a bid to counteract the economic crisis and safeguard competitiveness and excessive profits at the expense of workers and women. And the first victims are women, who still get less pay for the same work, who still tend to occupy inferior, unskilled jobs, who face more problems and who have unequal access to the job market.
They are the first to fall foul of cuts in public spending, privatisation of the health sector, the right to health care and medical attention - never mind the right to prevention and information programmes.
They work in conditions which are bad for their physical, mental and spiritual health, conditions which affect women more than men because they have to juggle so many duties and take on double and triple social roles.
Even the report acknowledges that, "In addition to their general failure to substantiate the impact of policies and programmes, the reports also fail to discuss the factors behind continuing inequality."
How can progress in resolving women' s problems and offering them institutional protection against all forms of discrimination be planned and strengthened within the framework of a social and economic system which commercialises and subjects everything to the rigours of public financial policy and the quest for greater profit? A policy of fundamental protection for women cannot be implemented unless we redirect and radically restructure our social development model.
In the face of plans and practices to exploit and oppress, in the face of discriminatory tactics, we call on women to enforce and claim their demands together with men within the framework of a wide grass-roots battle front in each individual country.
Although it has some positive points, this motion merely skirts round the problem.
We fear that its proclamations and good intentions are, yet again, no more than 'lame excuses' .
That concludes the vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.06 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Peru
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0777/2000, by Mr Medina Ortega and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the crisis in Peru;
B5-0780/2000, by Mr Di Pietro, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the situation in Peru;
B5-0784/2000, by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the crisis in Peru;
B5-0790/2000, by Mr Lipietz and Mr Nogueira Román, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/ European Free Alliance, on the crisis in Peru;
B5-0792/2000, by Mr Marset Campos and Mr Di Lello Finuoli, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the crisis in Peru.
Mr President, I have here a speech I gave on 9 April 1992, in which I referred to the coup, the so-called self-inflicted coup, by President Fujimori, and at the time I said that it was not acceptable for a democratically elected president to relinquish his legitimacy by relying on the armed forces.
Since the last electoral farce, Fujimori has lost his legitimacy and not only that, but he has lost the political support that he previously had.
At the moment, the question that arises is the future of Peru, of knowing whether the country will be able to get out of the difficult situation in which Mr Fujimori has now placed it.
Various political groups have presented a joint draft resolution in which we basically ask President Fujimori to go, but to do so in such a way that, through a process of clean and democratic elections, democracy can be consolidated in that country.
Secondly, we ask the institutions of the European Union to help the democratic process in Peru, which is something that they are capable of doing.
We are also asking for a delegation from the European Parliament to go to Peru in order to monitor the development of events on the ground.
We hope that Fujimori does not make things worse, that he makes this transition possible and that in Peru there will not be the same situation as there currently is in Belgrade, with a popular uprising that is practically on the streets.
Therefore, I think that if the European institutions and the European Parliament help the Peruvian people at this difficult time, we could contribute to the stability of the country and to the consolidation of democratic institutions across Latin America.
Mr President, Peru is currently going through a period of uncertainty, and we all cherish the hope that the current situation will be resolved through a process in which all civil and political rights are guaranteed, which will help to strengthen and consolidate democracy and peace in Peru, a country that has suffered 25 000 deaths in the last fifteen years.
The European Union, which is the leading cooperating country in economic terms and the main investor in Peru, with figures exceeding 6 000 million dollars in the last seven years, must maintain its cooperation based on the democratic clause established in the third and fourth generation agreements with the countries of the Andean Pact. These are based on universally recognised principles of respect for pluralist democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
Also, the European Union must, with maximum care, invite all the Peruvian democratic forces to take part in dialogue in order to achieve commitments guaranteeing the exercise of civil and public rights and freedom of expression.
Mr President, the Peruvian people' s desire for peace, democracy, justice and well-being is coming closer to being realised with the resignation of Mr Fujimori.
The adverse effect that North American backing for him has had on those desires must be neutralised by another influence, a positive influence in favour of human rights and full democratic progress, coming from the European Union.
For this reason, we feel it is necessary to highlight two aspects of the joint resolution that we are presenting.
The first aspect is that the European Union should deny asylum - and not negotiate with other countries either - to a figure such as Montesinos, who is responsible for terrible crimes against humanity. The second is that a delegation should be sent from the European Parliament to Peru with the purpose of assessing the prospects for democratic progress and for peacefully overcoming the present problems, so that our contribution will be a very positive one.
Mr President, I would prefer it if, for once, we could have a debate on Latin America following well-prepared discussions in the committees, rather than it being part of some urgent procedure or other.
It seems to me that we only ever deal with events in Latin America on a case by case basis, but otherwise pursue a very reticent policy.
It is a shame, because the continent merits more attention.
As far as Peru is concerned, a number of speakers, and also our resolution, have pointed to the fact that President Fujimori' s forthcoming resignation offers scope for a fresh start.
I am not so sure whether this will be the case though, because there have already been one or two disturbing developments on this front, and I will only be convinced once Fujimori has actually stepped down or been voted out of office.
I therefore think it is extremely important for the European Union to get fully involved with this country, and with the situation in Peru, for example by maintaining an orderly dialogue with the forces of opposition.
I would like us to send the delegation that we wanted to send to the elections - which then failed to take place for reasons we are all familiar with - to Peru now, with a view to supporting those who are working towards democratic reform in the country.
And if that were to be the outcome of this afternoon' s sitting, I would be more than satisfied.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that the events in Peru are evidence of the world of difference that there can be between the formal meaning of words and their tangible weight.
The term in question is the word 'democracy'.
Peru has a parliament which has been elected by universal suffrage and a president who has used the powers of persuasion of the army to violate all constitutional precepts.
I feel that this resolution marks a key point in Parliament's political initiative.
I would like to focus briefly on one of the subjects covered by the report: the call for Parliament to send a delegation.
The European Union has got to do something and do it quickly.
The process of democracy needs to be consolidated, but consolidated with political instruments and human resources.
We must ensure that, when Peru reaches its goal, it has candidates who are capable of rising to the challenge and responding to the Peruvian people's demand for political renewal and genuine democracy.
Mr President, Commissioner, this is why I strongly support the call for Parliament to send a delegation, not just to act as a witness should something go badly wrong, but, for once in its history, to support a country which is seeking a democratic way forward.
Mr President, the need for the resolution on the situation in Peru has made two things clear.
The first is our frustration at having to return to the vigilance over democracy and human rights in Latin America, which was of major concern to Parliament in the 1980s and which diminished in the 1990s with the emergence of democratic governments in most countries there.
It is also frustrating because, in addition to the situation in Peru, other attempts at aggressive populism are creating appalling dictatorships, which confirm our worst fears and mean that we must target Latin America once again in our vigilance over democracy.
Let us be quite frank: this resolution highlights the feeling that Europe' s influence on that sub-continent has weakened.
Europe felt that its conscience no longer required it to intervene after the switch to democracy in the 1990s and did little for those countries, apart from giving advice on models of economic integration.
Opening up our markets was symbolic - with the exception of beef from Argentina, because of BSE as we know - but there was very little technology transfer, cultural and political relations existed in name only, and career training and investments in added value made little progress.
Europe did not take the opportunity provided by the fledgling democracies to promote development and social justice in Latin America to help these countries to break their almost exclusive dependence on accumulating capital, which is based on drug trafficking.
The situation with Peru and Mr Fujimori has not yet degenerated into a disaster, Mr President. There are signs of disillusionment and the situation should serve, for the moment, as a warning.
In order to avert a disaster, it is absolutely crucial that Europe takes its politics to the American sub-continent as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the conditions under which elections were held in Peru in May this year, were unacceptable.
Against this background, the Commission gave its support to the Organisation of American States, whose brief is to monitor a range of significant democratic reforms that the government and opposition had agreed on.
The European Union emphasised only very recently, in a declaration, that President Fujimori had seized the initiative with his decision to call fresh elections.
This initiative could prove to be an important step in the direction of democracy, but only if he refrains from employing the tactics that he has announced he is going to use in these elections.
If this opportunity is to be made use of, a whole range of serious shortcomings are going to have to be overcome.
These are shortcomings that became apparent during the previous elections.
If these weaknesses are not dealt with, there is a risk that the next elections will be extremely dubious too.
The Commission therefore supports the Organisation of American States in the continuation of its work as per the schedule agreed at the time, and this notwithstanding the difficult conditions and numerous imponderables that weigh heavily on these forthcoming new elections.
The Commission, in tandem with the Member States, is currently examining how we can best help, in practical terms, in the preparation of these plural and democratic elections, and, if need be, as observers of the process.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.00 p.m.
Afghanistan
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0776/2000, by Mr van den Berg and Mr Sakellariou, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Afghanistan;
B5-0778/2000, by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Technical Group of Independent Members, on the situation in Afghanistan;
B5-0781/2000, by Mrs Dybkjær and Mrs Malmström, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the situation in Afghanistan;
B5-0785/2000, by Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the situation in Afghanistan;
B5-0789/2000, by Mrs Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the situation in Afghanistan;
B5-0793/2000, by Mrs Ainardi and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the position of women in Afghanistan.
Mr President, I think we owe a great deal to the man behind this resolution, General Morillon.
It is an important resolution because Afghanistan and its desperately suffering people, and especially its children who are blown up by mines and its women who face appalling discrimination, deserve far more attention from us.
Thanks to this motion for a resolution, which has found broad consensus, Parliament is taking a firm position.
As the resolution states, the fundamental political challenge is to put pressure on Afghanistan' s large neighbour, Pakistan, as a means of trying to influence the situation in Afghanistan, I would also add the other large neighbour, the People' s Republic of China, with which Pakistan has excellent relations and collaborates at military and nuclear level.
We also know that there is extensive cooperation between those two big countries, Pakistan and the People' s Republic of China, at the level of the political nomenklatura and the local mafia as regards drug trafficking.
We know Afghanistan is not far away, and we know it is the world' s largest producer of opiates, so we can well imagine the role played by these political mafias, which are not necessarily simply political, in the expansion of the drug trade.
We also know that the policy of the United Nations, especially that of UNDCP and Mr Arlacchi, is a disaster.
Despite the millions of dollars invested in Afghanistan in the course of the last few years, production has doubled.
To summarise, I think pressure needs to be exerted on Pakistan and the People' s Republic of China, all funding needs to be withdrawn from Mr Arlacchi and UNDCP so that these prohibitionist policies on drugs do not end up encouraging production and trade in drugs, because that is what is happening now.
Mr President, earlier in the day we had a debate about the rights of women in the European Union, and we also touched upon the question of the new candidate countries.
In facing a decision like this about the Taliban regime, it has to be said that it has really been a luxury, purely and simply, to discuss the other issues, when one considers what is happening in Afghanistan.
Ever since I first heard about the Taliban regime, I have been appalled.
I find it completely incredible that such things can still be going on in the year 2000, and not only do we not intervene, but we cannot, in reality, do a vast amount about them.
In war, there will clearly always be a large number of innocent people who suffer distress or die, and very often it is, of course' women and children and old people who are totally defenceless in a wide range of situations.
What is happening here, however, is in fact even worse.
It is a far more systematic form of oppression than is to be seen in normal war situations.
It is far more systematic and far more violent in relation to a particular group of women.
It appears as if it is simply a question of groups of men who find themselves in a world in which nothing else counts but their own solidarity and their own oppression of women.
I therefore also think it good that the decision should include some clear and explicit points about the position of women in particular and should draw attention to how necessary it is for us to try to help prevent the Taliban regime from continuing with its wholesale discrimination against women.
Is Afghanistan condemned to sink back into the dark ages and suffocate slowly under the Taliban yoke, in the image of its women under the weight of the obligatory chador?
How many more deaths and displaced persons do there have to be to pierce the veil of our political indifference?
How many more tons of drugs injected into the veins of young people worldwide must we deplore? Must we wait until state terrorism is fully established, wait for the victory of Jihad, the application of the expansionist will of religious fanatics to the whole region, before we Members of the European Union finally agree to get involved, as is our duty?
The long offensive carried on by the Taliban, with quite open support from Pakistan, is now cutting off the peoples of the Northern Alliance from a supply route essential to their survival.
The international community can no longer content itself with burying its head in the sand, and conducting 'wait-and-see' diplomacy.
I think I speak for many people here when I declare our rejection of a comfortable neutrality, making a theory out of passivity and justifying blindness.
We protest at the sort of neutrality that tends to put the protagonists on the same level, stacking the daily atrocities of the Taliban regime on the same shelf as the armed resistance of Commander Massoud.
Massoud is seen as a war leader, but how could it be otherwise after so many battles? But for those who know him and have seen him at work, he is also a man of dialogue and unification.
He sees himself as the champion of a tolerant Islam.
He can be a man of peace.
Massoud insists that there is no military solution to the Afghan problem. He is right.
We must act urgently to find political solutions which respect the values underpinning our Union.
That is the thrust of the resolution drafted by all the groups, which I have the honour of defending here.
Essentially it calls on the Council Presidency to bring its influence to bear to put an end to foreign interference in that country.
It calls on the Commission to take stock of the humanitarian aid measures intended for the Afghan population so that this aid reaches everyone.
Finally it insists, and this is the essential point, that the European Union coordinate its initiatives with those of neighbouring countries to impose a solution whereby peace, stability, and respect for international law and the most elementary human rights can be re-established.
We are well aware that this will not be an easy task, but here I would like to quote the motto of a great European, William of Orange: "Hope is not necessary to engagement, nor success to perseverance."
Mr President, Afghanistan has the worst human rights record in the world, both in terms of the number and the severity of the violations committed.
The predicament of Afghan women is a particularly apt case in point.
Women cannot go to work, girls cannot go to school, women cannot walk freely down the street, and they are stoned, to name but a few examples.
There is not a single human rights organisation working in Afghanistan.
It is the country that has the most mines.
It is a country where there is no hope for the children.
75% of the boys and 90% of the girls do not go to school.
It is one of the poorest countries and there is a forgotten war going on.
I feel this all goes to show just how important this resolution is.
On balance, it is clear that the international organisations and the UN are not doing enough as matters stand.
In other words, the conflict is far more complex, there is no solution in the offing and yet, as we all agree, there is an urgent need for one.
The EU has an important task before it in this respect.
It could bring its ideas on non-military conflict management to bear.
There are a few examples I could mention: the monitoring of weapons exports and small arms through to the end-user, so that we do not secretly aid and abet the conflict out there, support for non-governmental organisations and women' s organisations based there, which are courageous enough to take action despite the hopelessness of the situation.
In particular, in light of the above, it is absolutely imperative that the Member States grant asylum to all those who flee Afghanistan, as a matter of course.
It would do the EU' s image no harm at all if it were to get a political initiative off the ground in the United Nations, with a view to finding a peaceful solution to the conflicts in Afghanistan.
Mr President, the recent Taliban offensives must obviously concern us.
Terrible suffering has been caused by this conflict.
I, too, support the joint resolution, of course.
But I want to join previous speakers in emphasising two concerns.
The first issue is the position of women. It is not something we can get used to it.
We must never trivialise it. They still endure appalling conditions: they are denied access to work, health care and education.
They live in destitution and permanent insecurity.
They are regularly victims of stonings.
They are suppressed in the true sense of the word.
All Afghan women, whatever their age, are faced with systematic violation of their most fundamental rights.
That is why I also believe they should be entitled to the right of asylum.
The European Union must renew its solidarity with all Afghan women in their struggle at home and abroad against the Taliban regime.
The second issue is that the Taliban are clearly seeking international recognition, on the grounds that they now control virtually all of Afghanistan.
So peace, stability and respect for rights can only be re-established through a political solution.
Greater involvement of the European Union is definitely needed.
And in that search, I believe it is vital for the Council to reinforce the restrictions it has decided on.
There can be no recognition by any Member State, as long as Afghanistan maintains its policy of violation of human rights, notably its systematic discrimination against women.
The Commission should also take much stronger emergency humanitarian measures for the people, doing everything possible to enable the NGOs to provide aid to Afghan women and involve them in their activities.
Mr President, today, just as and even more so than in the past, the tragic military success of the Taliban has meant that hundreds of thousands of women are subject to severe repression and are denied medical assistance, education, the possibility of supporting themselves and the freedom of movement.
Around a million people, most of them children, have been mutilated by anti-personnel mines.
The urgent resolution to be put to the vote today calls for the concerns voiced by Parliament on many occasions to be translated into further practical initiatives.
There is one point which I must stress in particular.
There has been a budget heading for the funding of mine clearance and prevention programmes for many years now.
Funding has been allocated for 2000 and will be provided for 2001 as well.
We need to take immediate action to prevent thousands of children inadvertently triggering tragic explosions while they are playing in the fields, and receiving disabling wounds.
We can do this. The operations have been endorsed and are viable, but the funding is being held up by bureaucracy, by the need to assess previous actions and by confusion over the responsibilities of the different departments.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, look up from your texts, find out what is going on outside the realm of documents: thousands of children are in danger.
Rise above sluggishness and uncertainty.
Yes, carry out all the assessments you want to, but, in the meantime, let the funds for 2000 reach their destination and you will be saving the lives and preventing the mutilation of a great many unfortunate people.
Mr President, maybe it is not useful or politically correct to point out who supported the Taliban at the start, when they were aiming to achieve the power that they now have in Afghanistan.
Other Members have already spoken of a million displaced people, a million people mutilated by landmines, thousands of women deprived of their most basic rights, such as the right to education, health, work, or to move around freely: it must be terrible for many of these women, who are accustomed to education, to a secular way of life, to be confined to that area with no freedom.
And we do need to take this into account in the European institutions, as well as the fact that drug cultivation is used to buy arms.
This morning - and I will shortly conclude, Mr President - a code of conduct was approved on the sale and trafficking of arms.
I do not think that this code will be useful unless it is effective in preventing weapons from reaching the hands of people who are committing very serious violations against human rights, as these people are.
Mr President, we all know by now that we should not entertain any illusions with regard to the nature of the present regime in Kabul.
We only have to cast our minds back to the events in Afghanistan this summer.
The Taliban launched a new military attack on their northern opponents in the middle of the worst drought this poor country has had since time immemorial.
This drought has resulted in a drop in harvest by an estimated 2.3 million tonnes of food.
This essentially renders a quarter of the total Afghan population dependent on grain supplies from the World Food Programme.
It was in just such a tragic situation that the country' s radical Islamic rulers revolted against the UN' s so-called bread programme in the capital of Kabul.
This was a project that was due to benefit 28 000 war widows, no less.
The Taliban' s excuse? There are countless bakeries which offer employment to women.
Despite this - at least in western eyes - inhumane policy, the Taliban is seeking international diplomatic recognition.
They seize on cooperation in the return of millions of Afghan refugees, sponsored by the United Nations, as official global acceptance of their unbearable tyranny.
It remains very much to be seen whether this religious barbarism is really sufficient for us to form a closed international containment front against the hosts of Jihad conspirator, Osama bin Laden.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the current intensification in the armed conflict between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance is extremely disturbing.
Increasing numbers of people are fleeing from the fighting.
Some sources put the number of displaced people at 90 000.
Many of these are now seeking sanctuary in makeshift camps in the mountains in the north-east of the country.
The conditions there could go badly downhill when winter sets in.
In the light of this development, ECHO, the Commission agency for humanitarian aid, is currently working hard to put together a package of emergency aid to the value of EUR 3 million, in order to support these displaced people with medical supplies, food, and the means to get through the winter.
In addition, ECHO has already made EUR 5.7 million available this year for the victims of drought in Afghanistan, for mine clearance in the north of the country and for the resettlement of refugees.
The victims of drought are also due to receive a further EUR 3 million.
I would like to take the opportunity to say, in response to Mrs Paciotti' s comment, that naturally I will not hesitate to inquire within the Commission today as to what has become of the funding for mine clearance and what is going to become of it.
Should I find that there are bureaucratic stumbling blocks here, as you put it, then you have my word that I will do all I can to overcome these obstacles with all speed.
The honourable Members are well aware that the Commission has a long-term commitment to the Afghan refugees and those who have been displaced within Afghanistan itself.
Between 1991 and 2000, the Commission made a total of EUR 400 million available for refugee aid, humanitarian emergency aid and food aid.
A significant slice of this was earmarked for mine clearance and associated information campaigns conducted by UN agencies, European or Afghan non-governmental organisations.
With its common position on Afghanistan, the European Union is supporting the United Nations' special mission in Afghanistan, and the efforts to achieve peace undertaken by the General Secretary' s special representatives.
The Union has resolved to make an effective contribution to the restoration of peace and stability in the country, and it is as plain as day that this will not come about until human rights and fundamental values are given full recognition.
Accordingly, the common position roundly condemns the ongoing discrimination against women in Afghanistan and other human rights violations that take place there.
As long as the Taliban leadership continues to be as ambiguous in its statements on opium cultivation as it has been hitherto, the Commission refuses to support any anti-drugs projects in Afghanistan.
That said, it will give staunch support to the neighbouring countries, so as to improve their chances of tackling the drugs problem.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.00 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, I am speaking to confirm the agreement of the various political groups that have tabled a motion for a resolution on the kidnapping of a Spanish Jesuit in Colombia and to inform the House that we have decided to withdraw it in view of the fact that the person has been freed.
Two other Community citizens have also been freed today.
Therefore, I am not going to discuss the draft resolution, as it no longer exists.
Nevertheless, Colombia is clearly a country that deserves our attention.
But as Mr Linkohr was saying, the problem with Latin America is that we only concern ourselves with these countries when there are problems.
I think this is a good time to highlight the need for the European Union to draw up a comprehensive policy on Latin America which could perhaps prevent these countries from regularly going through the crisis situations that some of them have experienced.
Mr President, I would like to reaffirm what my colleague, Manuel Medina, has just said.
Fortunately, in this particular case, we can welcome the fact that the Spanish Jesuit and other Spaniards, as well as other Community citizens, have been released.
It is also true, however, that Colombia, which we frequently discuss here, has several problems.
At the moment, for example, there is a Colombian priest, Oliveiro Medina, who is in Brazil.
His extradition to Colombia could put his life in danger because we have already seen, in the last resolution on Colombia that we discussed, that more than 24 human rights defenders have recently been murdered there.
Unfortunately, we all hoped that we would not have to discuss Colombia again.
Unfortunately, we may have to discuss it again, but I think that the European Union should have a fundamental role - as Manolo Medina was saying - in Latin America in general.
And reducing budgets for Latin America is not going to help us to play the role that we should be playing there.
Mr President, I would like to share in the happiness of my compatriots and fellow Members who have talked of their satisfaction at the freeing of the Spanish Jesuit Alejandro Matos and of other Community citizens.
We cannot forget that, in the past year, 2 075 people have been kidnapped in Colombia by the guerrillas, and we must express our concern for the violent situation that it is experiencing, particularly in the north, in the Santander region - a jungle region whose border with Venezuela is, moreover, very easily penetrated - where the constant clashes between guerrillas and paramilitaries are increasing, with many road blocks and frequent murders.
I therefore think that we should reiterate our support for a peaceful solution to the Colombian conflict, in which the actions of the drug cartels have a dramatic influence.
The European Union must therefore support the initiatives by President Andrés Pastrana, aimed at achieving a negotiated peace between his government and the guerrilla groups, the FAR (Revolutionary Armed Forces) and the so-called National Liberation Army.
Mr President, the issue of Colombia is something that really has not been properly addressed in the European Union.
Even the Red Cross is leaving there because neither the paramilitaries nor guerrillas respect international humanitarian law.
This highlights that the wrong approach has been taken in relation to Colombia.
Signing peace agreements is all very well, but first and foremost we have to have respect for humanitarian law.
That is not happening there.
Not so very long ago there was a resolution on the situation of the peace community in San José de Apartado.
That was less than a month ago.
Since then the situation has got even worse for the community there.
At the very least five people have been killed.
We have to address the role that the paramilitaries are playing and also the role that the state is playing in this.
It really is not acceptable that people are being persecuted out of their homes, out of their land and that the world is standing idly by and letting this happen.
The state involvement has to be addressed as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission, in common with Parliament, welcomes the release of the Spanish Jesuit priest, Alejandro Matos Castro, last week.
We call upon the guerilla groups to release the other hostages.
We urge them to eschew kidnappings in future and to respect international humanitarian law.
The Commission is deeply concerned about the escalation of violence in Colombia, particularly in respect of the massacres perpetrated recently by paramilitary forces in the so-called peaceful communities of San José de Apartado.
We urge the Colombian government again to investigate the precise circumstances of these crimes.
The Commission deplores the ongoing human-rights violations in Colombia and entreats the warring parties to continue the peace talks and work towards a lasting peace in Colombia, based on a negotiated solution.
In this context, I would emphasise that the Commission supports President Pastrana' s efforts to secure peace and will do everything in its power to promote lasting peace in Colombia.
In particular, the Commission would like to have some say in the process when the European Union puts together an aid package in support of the Colombian peace process.
The Commission has already offered to coordinate the measures for a package of this kind, and is planning to approve a considerable amount of funding for this package as early as in the next few days.
Furthermore, the Commission has proposed organising in Brussels a follow-up meeting to the Donors Conference that took place on 7 July in Madrid.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.00 p.m.
As several speakers have indicated, I can inform you that after good news from Colombia about the release of the Jesuit priest, and following agreement between the political groups, the motions for resolutions on this issue are withdrawn.
Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0779/2000, by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Technical Group of Independent Members, on Macedonia;
B5-0782/2000, by Mr Haarbyr, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on Macedonia: law on higher education and universities;
B5-0786/2000, by Mrs Pack and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on FYROM: law on higher education and universities;
B5-0788/2000, by Mr Lagendijk and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, law on higher education and universities in Macedonia.
Mr President, I would like to take up what Mr Dupuis had to say.
I believe that when the audience in the stands sees ARYM up there, they will actually think this refers to a different country.
ARYM means Ancienne République Yougoslave de Macédoine, i.e the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Quite simply, that means 'Macedonia' .
The dispute about the name is a dispute between Greece and the country of Macedonia.
Of course we all hope - and that includes the Greek MEPs here - that this dispute will soon be settled.
We have seen how the difficult situation in Macedonia has steadily worsened where the treatment of the Albanians is concerned.
All of those who, for a long time now, have been going in and out of this country, have kept up the pressure for this problem to be resolved.
However, I would also stress that this problem is nothing new: it is the legacy of the Yugoslav period, when the Albanians were always discriminated against, including those in Macedonia.
Unfortunately, it was, of course, the case that the problem was not resolved under the last government, in the run-up to 1998.
Therefore, we are all delighted that a genuinely sound solution is perhaps at last to be found to this problem of higher education.
The illegal foundation of Tetovo university many years ago produced great tension in Macedonia, which I am sorry to say, could not be defused over the past few years.
We owe a duty of care to the students to ensure that this problem is resolved. After all, these students had, or have, diplomas that serve no purpose in the outside world.
Therefore, I believe we owe it to the young people to find a solution to the problem, and have now paved the way to this end.
As a delegation, we have always insisted that a solution should be found to this problem.
Now at last we have found it.
Not us, but the government under Prime Minister Georgievski, and also the Albanian leader, Xhaferi, and above all, the representative of the Council of Europe, Max van der Stoel.
This outstanding cooperation has led to a draft bill, which was adopted by the majority in Parliament.
In common with Olivier Dupuis, I bitterly regret the fact that the opposition parties - which formed part of the government up until 1998 and could have resolved the problem - have closed their minds to this draft bill without offering a better solution themselves.
I am particularly at a loss to understand the behaviour of the Albanian opposition party, which has deliberately closed its mind to the necessary solution to the Albanian problem in Macedonia.
The fact that the Socialist opposition refused to support this must have been against their better judgement, but that sometimes happens with the opposition, and not just in Macedonia.
We are now awaiting the necessary aid for the transformation of Tetovo university into a private university whose diplomas will then be recognised.
All those who want to see an improvement in the inter-ethnic relations in Macedonia, in the interests of stabilisation, must now do their bit to help solve this problem and ensure that a private university actually becomes a reality.
That is what this urgent procedure is all about today.
People from different ethnic backgrounds must be able to live together in Macedonia.
This could provide a good role model for the neighbouring countries and help to stabilise the entire region.
Mr President, it makes a nice change in this Parliament to be able to reflect on positive developments in south-eastern Europe, and very often the subject is Macedonia where, despite all the problems this country has to deal with, the two largest groups of the population co-exist in peace, even form a coalition government and have now adopted a new act on higher education.
That is a breakthrough on an issue which has caused a great deal of problems for a long time.
At long last, the Albanians now have the opportunity to attend university courses in their own language and within the official education system of Macedonia.
That is a real step forward for Macedonia.
As far as I am concerned, it proves to all neighbouring countries that education does not only have to spread hatred, as is often the case these days, but that it can also serve as a cradle for a peaceful, multi-ethnic society.
That is a development which, in my view, deserves unqualified support from the European Union.
Finally, I would like to spend a moment on something which, normally speaking, I do not think belongs in a European Parliament, namely the role of a fellow countryman.
I am proud of the fact, that this time round, the role of Mr Max van der Stoel, the High Representative for minorities of the OSCE, has proved crucial in this issue.
Mr President, I would like to echo Mr Lagendijk' s praise of Mr Van der Stoel.
I believe it is extremely important for the outside world to send positive vibes to Macedonia.
That does not mean to say that the Macedonian people are not sufficiently alert themselves to be able to deliver something in this area.
The former President, Mr Gligorov, was already a shining example of non-ethnic thinking, and the new President, too, has gained the trust of all groups of the population in Macedonia.
In my view, it is an extraordinary achievement on the part of the Macedonians to be able to settle the issue within their own borders.
It appears to me that cooperation between Slavonic Macedonians and especially Albanian-speaking Macedonians is an extremely important topic which could manifest itself in the fight over the important initiative to establish a university in Tetovo.
This initiative has been on the cards for years and still there is no talk of official recognition.
Fortunately, this initiative is now being backed by a parliamentary majority, as a result of which a key problem in the inter-ethnic relations has been solved, not only because it is so important to teach in Albanian at the universities, but especially because it considerably enhances the social position of the Albanian-speaking Macedonians.
It attracts a new class of students to higher education.
It is also significant in terms of the presence of Albanian speakers in the official apparatus, a presence which is currently lagging far behind what should actually be the case.
It appears to me that the recognition of degrees from Tetovo university is a major step forward.
In time, the university should also be funded by taxpayers' money only. After all, the Albanian speakers pay taxes and are just as entitled to a share when it comes to paying for education.
I, myself, was educated at a university which was a 'Free University' , free from church and state influence, yet government-funded.
I have to say that I still believe this to be a great bonus and it also proves that the state respects the country' s own particular educational sphere.
The outside world should do all it can to help the Albanian speakers integrate in their country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group proposes to support the present motion, which we have also signed, because I believe it is right for the European Union to support the solution that has been found in Macedonia and which accommodates the Albanian population.
I would have preferred it if we could have found a solution that all the parties in Parliament could have voted for.
We would rather leave it to the Macedonians to discuss where the process broke down, Mrs Pack.
I have it on good authority that they were only trivial issues, and that the government could have accommodated the opposition in this respect.
I do not know.
I do not think that is the be-all and end-all.
What matters most is that a solution is found which we can all subscribe to.
Even though this notion is unpopular in this House - indeed the prevailing mood is the smaller the unit, the more divided the systems, and the more separatist the movements, the better - I would like to make the point here, which is one we have also discussed at some length in the delegation with our counterparts from Macedonia, that we must be clear about the fact that their own Albanian-language institutions should help to promote social cohesion in Macedonia and not create divisions.
That is an important aspect we should not lose sight of.
Mr President, General De Gaulle spoke of the "paix des braves" i.e. the peace of the brave, in the era of Franco-German reconciliation, by which he meant that patriots on both sides had been able to achieve a lasting settlement.
That is exactly what has happened in Macedonia.
Therefore, I also believe that this reconciliation is sustainable, but that the government, which has very courageously found a solution to the university issue and to many other issues, needs visible signs of its success, and powerful support, else peace throughout the region will be under threat.
That is why it is so important, firstly, to find a solution to the name problem.
When Greece, of all countries, again puts forward a proposal to call it Slavo-Macedonia, it really is asking for trouble, because that is precisely what the Albanians would regard as being another example of exclusion tactics.
Secondly, I take the view that it is very important to quickly bring the stabilisation agreement to a successful conclusion, and thirdly, I believe that it is very important to support Macedonia as a role model in the region, so that it has a stabilising effect on its neighbouring countries. It is also imperative for free, country-wide elections to be held as soon as possible in Kosovo, in order to ensure that forces with unequivocal democratic legitimacy come to power there - and not just at local level - which will truly have the interests of the Kosovo Albanians at heart.
I am sure this would defuse no small number of problems in Macedonia, too.
I feel Macedonia has every chance of becoming a type of Switzerland of the South-East, and we should give it massive support on this journey, and reject anything that could lead to a relapse into nationalism and chauvinism, which, I am sorry to say, certain forces in the country are currently trying to provoke for tactical reasons.
Mr President, no one can deny that what has been achieved in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia over the last eight years is nothing short of a miracle; not only has this tiny country managed to keep out of the armed conflicts in the region, it has also made serious efforts to modernise its economy and society, set up democratic institutions and respect human rights and the rights of minorities.
Without doubt, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is helping enormously to promote peace and security in the region and we trust that the last problem in its relations with Greece will shortly be resolved in a way which respects the dignity of both countries.
I welcome with the utmost satisfaction the new law on higher education, which will create the conditions needed for the Albanian-speaking community to set up a private university.
I am convinced that this tiny country in the Balkans deserves the undivided support of the European Union and I trust that an association and stability agreement will be signed before the end of the French Presidency.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure we are all agreed that the stability and even long-term viability of Macedonia is dependent on Macedonians and Albanians being able, in the long run, to live together in peace there, and it is therefore in the interests of Europe to provide all the support we can in order to strengthen this peaceful coexistence and make it a lasting proposition.
That is why the Commission has repeatedly urged the Macedonian Government to resolve the outstanding problem of higher education in the Albanian language.
The Commission welcomes the passing of the new law.
The Commission is working with the OSCE High Commissioner for national minorities, Max van der Stoel, with a view to providing financial support for the implementation of this important law.
Perhaps I could use this opportunity to say that the cooperation between the Commission and the High Commissioner, Mr van der Stoel, has already got off to a good start.
Our combined efforts have enabled us to solve a similar problem that existed in two other European countries, i.e. Estonia and Latvia, and I am grateful to be able to take this opportunity to say that our cooperation with the OSCE High Commissioner in this respect has been extremely constructive and valuable.
I believe the same will apply to Macedonia.
The Commission is intending to make EUR 1 million available for the current year, under the national programme for Macedonia, in order to support the implementation of this law.
The funding allocation is provided for in the financing proposal which is to be put forward today - possibly this very hour - to the PHARE administration committee.
If the Member States adopt this financing proposal, a financing agreement will be concluded with the government and a detailed project will be drawn up in close cooperation with Mr van der Stoel in the coming weeks.
The PHARE funding made available for the year 2000 under the national programme could also be used to support the university in the coming academic year, i.e. in 2001 and 2002.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.00 p.m.
Samina ferry disaster in Greece
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0783/2000, by Mr Katiforis and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the sinking of the Greek ferry;
B5-0787/2000, by Mr Hatzidakis and Mr Trakatellis, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the sinking of the vessel 'Express Samina' ;
B5-0791/2000, by Mr Korakas and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the sinking of the vessel 'Express Samina' .
Mr President, Commissioner, all the political groups have now agreed to debate this issue and have tabled a joint resolution. I think this is extremely important, as is the fact that the Socialists have changed their initial position, because the sinking of the Express Samina has not only shocked Greece, it has shocked the whole of Europe.
We are not debating here merely in order to express our sorrow; the main subject of our debate is what happened, why it happened and how we can rectify the situation, how the Commission and the European Parliament can help from now on to ensure that the same does not happen again in the future.
There can be no doubt that the human factor played a decisive part.
However, there are aspects of the accident which, in my view, prove that Community law has been infringed.
The directive on the registration of passengers was infringed.
The Minister has admitted as much, the Prime Minister admitted as much yesterday in Parliament and I hope that the Socialist Group in the European Parliament will admit as much.
The directive on life-saving equipment, life-jackets and life-rafts was infringed.
Mr President, on Sunday, three hours before the deadline for applying Directive 98/18 expired, some 50 Greek ships were taken out of service by the Ministry of Merchant Marine.
What amazes me is that the Government and the company both insist that the Express Samina complied with all the safety requirements.
In other words, had it not sunk, it would still be sailing.
The government itself says so.
So what are we calling for?
We are calling mainly for three things.
Firstly, full application of Directive 98/41 on the registration of passengers. Secondly, a shorter timetable for Directive 98/18 so that there are no longer any derogations for Member States, as has been the case to date with Greece.
Parliament consented at second reading under pressure from the Greek government at the time.
Mr Stenmark remembers and can testify to this. And, of course, we are calling for an end to the derogation for Greece on cabotage, the monopoly and oligopoly arrangements governing transport by sea.
Greek cabotage operators are running their new ships on the routes to Italy, where there is competition, and their old ships on the Greek routes, where there is no competition, and that is how safety standards drop.
I should like to point out that all the Greek MEPs have now reacted against this situation.
We do not consider that everything is a mess in Greece; there are some very good ships and the overwhelming majority of Greek seamen are very good at their job.
We have tabled the motion as an expression of our awareness of the issue and our intention to fight for Greece to adopt even higher safety standards than the European Union in order to correct this negative impression of our country.
Three amendments have been proposed by the GUE/NGL Group, one on shipping registers, one on working conditions and one on an in situ investigation by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
We disagree mainly on technical grounds, which I do not have time to go into now, but would be happy to explain privately to my fellow Members.
The problems are technical rather than political: for example, as far as shipping registers are concerned, the resolution already contains a reference to them and there is no need to repeat it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we voted against a resolution on the sinking of the Express Samina under the urgent procedure the other day because a judicial inquiry is already under way in Greece and the Greek Government had already made a number of statements on what needs to be done.
We feel that the word of the European Parliament needs weight if it is to be more than passing comment. Besides, our Parliament does the same every time a sad incident such as this happens.
Must it continue to do so? Someone said in the House the other day that we do not want to debate shipping safety.
But has there ever been or will there ever be an in-depth debate in 2 or 3 minutes under the urgent procedure? In deference to the House' s decision the other day, we sat round the table and thrashed out a joint text which, I admit, was only made possible by the cooperation and good faith of all the groups.
This final text expresses our sorrow, which was expressed at the start by our President, Mrs Fontaine, and takes account of the statements by the Commission and the call on the Greek Government for full information and a full investigation, which has already begun. It also stresses the importance of applying safety regulations and our scepticism about all forms of derogation.
But, surely, this is precisely what our proactive Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism is doing and - as we all know - it needs serious and often time-consuming dialogue and procedures in order to decide what needs to be done on each occasion. Is it that easy to decide what needs to be done about shipping under an urgent procedure?
Nor was the need for urgent procedure justified after the event, given that the compromise text contains no references which might have been misunderstood as urgent party politics against the Greek Government, precisely as the result of the good faith which, as I have said, was demonstrated on all sides.
So the question remains.
What have we gained from the text which would have been lost had the resolution not been urgent?
Be that as it may, Mr President, we have agreed to this joint proposal for a resolution, which we support as it stands, urgently, and we of course disagree with the amendments tabled, again urgently, for the reasons which I have stated.
And as far as shipping is concerned, in deference to the memory of the innocent victims of the Express Samina, we shall support and take the lead in any action which targets personal safety and environmental protection and tries to do more than just make an impression.
Mr President, that I personally am saddened and angered by the sinking and on behalf of its victims does without saying, although I suppose that we shall never completely do away with accidents at sea and shipwrecks. But what really irritates and angers me are shortcomings, imperfections, derogations and the problems which this sinking has brought to light and that is why we need to debate them; I do not know if it will be under the urgent procedure but, in essence, it must be as quickly as possible.
And they do not only concern Greece.
We need to debate and to call, as we do in the resolution, for the absolute application - with no derogations - of Community legislation, which is inadequate and needs to be enriched; we need to call for and encourage modernisation and improvements in port infrastructures, crew training in modern equipment, crews which, I should like to add, Mr President, are among the most experienced in the world.
Of course, we also need to reorganise and refine administrative monitoring, control and sanctioning procedures.
Mr Papoutsis has already "dismantled" a very important directorate in his ministry, the Directorate of Merchant Ship Surveys.
It is only a very small first step, I know, and other steps are needed.
And because all this concerns Greece, which has the biggest shipping sector in the European Union, it basically concerns the safety of all types of shipping throughout the Union.
Which is why we are impatient to receive the recent decisions finally taken by the Council and we are impatient to receive them in legislative form in Parliament also, which is why we feel that it would be useful if a parliamentary committee were to go to Greece and work with the authorities, agencies and professionals to see where the difficulties lie - it is the most experienced country when it comes to shipping - so that it can assist the European Parliament in helping to improve, enhance and introduce stricter legislation for the safety of shipping throughout Europe.
Mr President, I too shall, of course, start by expressing my deepest sorrow and solidarity with the families of the victims and with those who survived along with the memory of their terrifying ordeal.
Of course, accidents at sea happen, human errors are made; but what is most important, Mr President, is for us to see, when a human error is made, if the right action was taken before and after the error.
In other words, in the present case, if the right inspections were carried out and the right certificates issued for the ship, if the life-jackets were in the right places, if the crew was doing its job.
There is a whole series of things which need looking at right away, especially if Community legislation was also infringed.
In my view, the Greek competition committee has never acted in cases in which it should have acted.
Of course, I know it is not a matter for the Commission, because the Commission acts in cases of competition at European Union level, but my question is this: how is it possible for a competition committee appointed by the Minister, a committee already in place, to have done nothing and to gradually have allowed a shipping monopoly to emerge? And, as we know, monopolies, be they private or state monopolies, are a bad thing.
In the present case they are bad for both freight and passenger shipping.
It seems to me that the factor which needs to be quantified here as the result of this tragic incident, is what needs to be done at European Union level, because the bigger picture is the safety of shipping in the European Union.
I should like to say, as far as the resolution is concerned, because there are a number of amendments, that my amendment on shipping registers is covered in the text, it is already there.
As far as my amendment on working conditions is concerned, there is a directive on this and the wording of the amendment is less satisfactory than the text.
And finally, the visit by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism is not, I think, the answer to our prayers; it is up to the European Commission to investigate and ascertain if a Community directive has been infringed, to hurry up with the case law which we want to see in order to make shipping safer and, finally, to do whatever needs to be done and, as I said, to investigate the matter of this famous competition committee.
That is what we are waiting to hear from the European Commission.
Mr President, I too would like to express my deepest condolences to the family of those killed tragically in this ferry disaster, but also pay tribute to those involved in the rescue effort, not least of course, the Royal Navy.
On behalf of the Socialist transport team, I regret the fact that this debate is taking place as an urgency.
It could be more properly debated in committee next week, but that was the decision of the House which, of course, I respect.
What we certainly do not need today, or indeed next week, or in the future, is a point-scoring exercise between our Greek colleagues in the run-up to the general election in Greece.
That serves no one's interest.
This is not a concern solely for Greece.
It is a matter for Europe as a whole.
This was an accident waiting to happen.
Some of us have worked on the issue of ferry safety for many years, not least because other ferries in other parts of Europe have also sunk with a tragic loss of life, be it the Herald of Free Enterprise, the Scandinavian Star or, of course, most notoriously of all, the Estonia in the 1990s.
All these demonstrate that ferries are not safe enough.
In our view, this tragedy could well happen again.
Not because we have too few laws in Europe, but because the laws are not properly enforced.
It is not just Greece.
There are other Member States that do not comply with maritime safety laws and if I may, I will name some: Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland and the Presidency, France, are all failing to implement the port-state control directive.
I hope today, and in the coming days and weeks, we will hear from the Commission on what action they propose to take against these Member States that do not take maritime safety seriously.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to join the name of my own group in expressing sympathy and solidarity with the families of the deceased and the survivors of the shipwreck and gratitude also to those involved in the rescue operations.
It is human nature to be the more affected by a tragedy the closer it comes to one.
If I speak with special feeling in this debate, it is because over the years Greece has become another home to me.
I have had many opportunities during this time to observe just how skilful Greek seamanship can be.
But the issue cannot be localised in this way.
In recent years many other lives have been lost at sea in our waters, not only by way of major ferry disasters but, on all too frequent a basis, from amongst our fishing communities.
That is why we have to address issues of maritime safety more generally and in the constructive way suggested in this motion.
I, too, would put particular stress on the need to implement properly the legislation we already have.
I would ask that we become even more cautious than we ever have been before about allowing derogations from future legislation where matters of safety are concerned.
Nor are such issues important only for those of us who come from areas where the sea is our highway or our place of work.
They are important for us all, even when we are not immediately affected.
This is so, if only because, in the words of the early English poet, John Donne, any man's death diminishes me because I am part of mankind.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I, too, should like to add our condolences to the families who have lost loved ones in this tragedy.
Our thoughts are very much with them at this particular time.
As a Member who represents Scotland, I feel a particular sadness and concern too about these events.
Although Scotland and Greece sit at the furthest edges of the European Union, we nevertheless share a common topography.
Both our countries have many island communities around our shores and as such the people of Scotland's islands felt a particular sense of shock following the recent events in Greece.
Our island communities depend on ferry services as an absolute lifeline.
These ships provide transport for passengers and goods and ensure the sustainability of some of Europe's most remote and fragile communities.
It is the duty of Member States to make sure that the owners and operators of ferries are aware of their responsibilities for the safe passage of people and goods.
We are fortunate in Scotland not to have directly suffered the type of tragedy to hit Greece but we are only too well aware that our waters are some of the most hazardous in Europe.
We have many concerns about the forthcoming tendering process which is under way.
I should like to ask the Commission for some assurance that in tendering for lifeline ferry services, or indeed any ferry services, safety is given its highest priority.
In the cut-throat world of tendering, all too often companies can be pushed into cost-cutting measures and I would not like to see safety measures being sacrificed.
It is simply not acceptable to the northern and western isles of Scotland, nor for the potential North Sea to European mainland crossing which I hope will be established in the not-too-distant future.
Our citizens deserve the best of safeguards in sea transport.
The trade unions who represent the men and women who work on ferries, as well as representatives of our seaboard communities, ought to be involved in discussions at the pre-tender stage, so that they can play a role in ensuring that safe practice is not sacrificed for the sake of profit.
Mr President, allow me start by expressing by deepest sorrow and sympathy for the victims of this tragic sinking.
It has been argued, including here in the House that the human factor was to blame.
This argument is the least unacceptable.
The fact that the ill-fated ship was 34 years old and was not included on the list of ships which - and this too is wrong - were exempted from the additional inspections required under Directive 98/18/ÅC, is positive proof of the unaccountability of the shipping industry which always finds a way, for which governments and regulatory authorities are to blame, of getting round even these generally inadequate regulations, at the expense of passenger and shipping safety.
The legal framework for shipping in Greece and in the European Union in general has proven to be inadequate and dangerous and we need new, stricter rules, especially for very old ships, rules without derogations.
Equally dangerous is the modus operandi of the regulatory authorities and the shipping register which, by operating as a private, profit-making company, is basically controlled by the very shipowners it is supposed to be controlling.
Even the tragic shipwreck has not thrown up any useful conclusions.
On the contrary, innocent victims are being exploited in order to promote shipowners' wider objectives.
Hurrying to suspend cabotage in Greek seas, as earnestly called for, including in this joint resolution, will intensify profit-seeking competition between the shipping companies, with even more tragic consequences for passengers.
We call on the European Parliament not to approve the suspension of cabotage by rejecting the reference to it in Paragraph 5 of the joint resolution, on which our group has requested a separate vote, and for the European Parliament to approve the involvement of crew representatives in regulatory authorities and shipping registers and the manning of ships in line with the real needs of cabotage by approving the amendments which we have tabled.
Mr President, my group would also like to express its condolences to those involved in the Samina Express disaster.
Such a disaster is always a sad event, especially if it could have been prevented.
Let us therefore hope that the inquiry into the cause can give us a clear picture of the situation, at which stage it will be possible to take adequate measures.
Judging from the survivors and those involved, we can already draw two conclusions.
Disasters at sea are often caused by a lack of maintenance and a lack of staff who are both able and aware of their responsibilities.
It is particularly tragic since this tragedy can also be put down to the lifting of EU legislation.
I am pleased that the Greek government has now nullified this exemption.
The European Union should be very wary when granting exemptions to EU legislation, particularly when public safety is at stake.
I would, in this light, refer to two other southern countries that would like to join the European Union in due course.
The quality of both ships and staff under their flags is rather more notorious than renowned.
We cannot afford to make the same mistake again.
On a final note, I would just like to say that great human suffering forces us to draw lessons from this tragedy.
It is unfortunate that we still have to learn the hard way.
This resolution points us in the right direction.
Mr President, as you are aware, Bavaria, more than any other German Land, has an extraordinary affinity with Greece.
This had its effect in the 19th century, during the wars of liberation.
The first Greek king was a Bavarian, and it also has its effect in the present day, in that a particularly large number of people from Bavaria go on holiday to this beautiful country.
There are particularly large numbers of Bavarian tourists in Greece.
Therefore it came as a double shock to us to have to see these terrible pictures and hear this dreadful news. It was a shock because families suffered so badly as a result, and because we mourn the loss of human life, but it was also a shock because it revealed a flagrant disregard for safety.
We must be aware that when something like this happens, the credibility of the European Union also comes into play.
Time and again, we rightly complain that there is too much of a centralising drive in various areas.
We criticise any attempts to formulate a common European tourism policy, which some people here want.
That is something we can confidently leave to the Member States and regions.
According to the principle of subsidiarity, tourism policy is something that should be devolved to Member State level.
But what people in all countries must be able to depend on in equal measure, are safety standards.
That is precisely why it is one of the European Union' s most important tasks to ensure that exceptions are no longer made where safety standards are concerned, as has obviously been the case here.
We must be in no doubt that, particularly in an era of cross-border mass tourism, whether it be tunnels - where there was a spate of disasters last summer - or ships, which have been involved in a great many disasters in recent years, people expect to be able to depend on safety standards within the European Union.
Human error happens all over the world.
Greek sailors are excellent and famous for being of a high standard.
But what we must realise is that when it comes to technical standards, there is, I am sorry to say, a degree of chaos in this region.
This is the point at which the European Union and the European Parliament must take direct responsibility.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission shares the deep sorrow and consternation felt throughout Greece over this horrendous accident. The Commission has expressed its sympathy to the families of the victims and the Greek government.
Unfortunately, this is not the first accident of its kind in European waters and, as I am sure you know, the European Union took decisive measures after the last serious ferry accident, the Estonia disaster in 1994.
A series of far-reaching provisions was introduced in order to improve the safety of ferry passengers.
As you will recall, the purpose of the provisions introduced at that time was to ensure: first, that passengers are registered.
Secondly, that harmonised safety standards are applied, including in relation to stability and rescue equipment for inland traffic in the European Union.
Thirdly, that compulsory surveys and investigations are carried out after accidents.
Fourthly, that social standards are maintained on board and, fifthly, that the shipping safety code is applied to ferry operator companies.
As a result, domestic and foreign voyages by passenger ferries to or from Union ports are covered by a complete legal framework.
It is the Commission' s job to monitor the practical application of this legal framework within its remit as set out in the Treaty.
The Commission therefore contacted the Greek authorities as soon as the Express Samina went down, requesting clarification of the application of Community law.
The Commission asked the Greek authorities to check if the ships required to adopt the Community' s safety standards by 30 September had in fact done so.
As a result of the check requested by the Commission, 60 ships were taken out of service pending proof of compliance with standards.
The Commission fully endorses the European Parliament' s view that safety regulations applicable to passenger ferries now need to be tightened.
The Member of the Commission responsible, Vice-President De Palacio, therefore intends to include the question of revising the current directive on safety standards for passenger ferries in its work programme for 2001.
The Commission also intends to conduct a detailed examination of passenger transport liability regulations, in order to ascertain if they need to be changed.
Finally, I should like to stress that the Commission is convinced of the need to make European legislation on the safety of passenger ferries a top priority and to ensure that this legislation is applied strictly and uniformly throughout the Community.
Only thus will we contain the risk of a repeat of such accidents.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.00 p.m.
Honourable Members, we have finished the last debate and there is a short time left before the start of the debate and statement by Mr Solana, the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy on both the situation in the Middle East and the elections in Yugoslavia. We shall therefore take a short break.
Mr President, as you just said, the debate with Mr. Solana is not due to start for another 25 minutes, despite the fact that there are a great many urgent questions which cannot now be dealt with.
We have finished early nearly every Thursday afternoon over recent weeks.
There is nothing on the agenda this evening after the vote on the Plumb report and tomorrow morning' s agenda is almost non-existent.
It seems to me that a curious discrepancy is starting to take shape.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, there were considerable delays.
Question time with the Commission started nearly one and a half hours late and yet Thursday' s agenda is disappearing before our very eyes.
The question which I wish to raise and which I would ask the Bureau to clarify is if, having done away with Fridays, certain parties are now trying to do away with Thursdays.
We all know that you strongly advocate Friday sittings and you are perfectly within your rights to do so.
I think your point deserves discussion.
We have taken note of it and I personally shall ensure that this aspect is discussed in detail at the next Bureau meeting.
The sitting was suspended at 4.36 p.m. and resumed at 5 p.m.
Situation in the Middle East - Elections in Yugoslavia
The next item is the statement by the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy on the situation in the Middle East and the elections in Yugoslavia.
We are delighted to welcome Mr Solana, and I shall waste no time in inviting him to speak.
Thank you, Mr Solana.
Like Mr Solana, Commissioner Verheugen will be speaking on the two issues on our agenda this afternoon, which is to say the Middle East and the elections in Yugoslavia.
Afterwards the Members of Parliament who have put their names down will speak.
I think the groups have arranged that they will speak on the first issue initially, and then on the second.
Madam President, Mr Solana, Commissioner, I take part in this debate with certain reservations because I do not want this Parliament giving the impression that it is sitting in judgment, casting anathema on this or that person when, after such great hopes were raised here only a month ago, we face the dramatic consequences of this new explosion of violence in the Middle East.
I have agreed to be spokesperson for the Group of the European People' s Party because, like my colleagues in the group, I think it is essential to ask the Council, the Commission and you, Mr Solana, to spare no effort - you have just committed yourself to that - to help restart negotiations to secure the peace so long awaited throughout the world, in Europe, but especially there, on the spot.
I know from experience that it is a lot more difficult for an army to win peace than a war.
I know that the transition from fighting to peacekeeping requires troops who are capable, not of unleashing violence from their weapons in the conquest of an objective, but of controlling that violence.
That requires special training, standard now for soldiers in European Union armies, because we are lucky enough to be at peace.
The forces of Israel and Palestine are not so lucky.
It is up to us to take our place beside the United Nations and the United States of America and, in close cooperation with them, to continue tirelessly supporting all those who have the determination to succeed at the price of the necessary concessions.
And I have one question, Mr Solana: surely the time has come for an intelligent and courageous initiative by the European Union on the status of Jerusalem? We all know that is the crux of the matter and we have not forgotten the interesting proposals we have heard on this subject in this very Chamber, which deserve our support.
Madam President, I want to begin by expressing my deep sympathy with those families who have been affected by the latest bloody events that have taken place in the area we are talking about.
Like others, I also want to express my concern about what is happening and, at the same time, say that, whenever this area is talked about, the impression given is really one of crossing a minefield and of its not taking very much to provoke a reaction, almost no matter what is said.
I too, however, must urge both the Commissioner and Mr Solana to do everything in their powers to press for the successful achievement of a ceasefire agreement, so that the bloody events in question might be brought to an end.
If that does not happen, a chain reaction might be triggered, in other countries too, which might prove to be uncontrollable.
A minor example of this is the events that took place yesterday in Copenhagen when a peaceful demonstration turned violent. Happily, no-one was killed as a result, but unfortunately a number of people were injured.
What we in the EU must and shall do, therefore, is continue talking in terms of negotiation, negotiation and, again, negotiation, so that those windows which are now open do not close before we have achieved a result. A peace agreement is needed now.
Otherwise, there is a strong possibility of things ending in disaster.
Madam President, my contribution today is not based on all kinds of theoretical analyses but on my own experiences over the past week, because I happened to be in Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip when the disturbances took place.
On that basis, I would like to make three observations.
Firstly, I would like to comment on Mr Sharon' s provocation on Thursday.
It was clear from the outset that the issue was one of internal party-politics, namely the battle between Sharon and Netanyahu.
In my view, what is far more damaging is the fact that this provocation was condoned by Prime Minister Barak, who, in my view, either made the huge mistake of wrongly gauging the implications of Mr Sharon' s visit, or made a conscious attempt to bring the whole situation to a head.
Secondly, I would like to turn to the disturbances at the Al Aqsa Mosque on Friday.
The next day, I talked to various people who visited that Mosque and it is really incomprehensible that various men in their fifties and sixties - i.e. not those throwing the stones - were shot at in the Mosque.
Talking of provocation, I find it extremely shocking that the Israeli Government should shoot people who were praying in the Mosque on Temple Mount on the Holy Day of the Muslims, and I believe that the international community was entirely justified in its condemnation of the incident.
My final comment concerns a visit to the hospital in Eastern Jerusalem the next day. In fact, I have quite a few observations regarding that visit.
I found it extremely shocking to see that during the disturbances, an ambulance driver was shot.
In another incident which I witnessed with my own eyes, an ambulance driver was shot in the foot from a ten centimetre range as he was trying to come to the rescue of some people. The most shocking of all is the fact that the Israeli police and the army used fragmentation bullets.
These are bullets which, upon contact with the body, shatter into dozens of pieces. They are banned internationally, even in battles amongst soldiers; yet they are now used against citizens.
My conclusion is that the Israeli Government has applied excessive force which has been widely condemned, and rightly so.
My question to Mr Solana and the Commission is the following: what could the European Union do in very concrete terms in order, first of all, to substantiate the international inquiry into these disturbances, and secondly, to bring the peace process back on track?
Madam President, Mohamed was one of the many babies killed by the Israeli army. Eight years on from the signing of the peace agreements, the army still occupies over 80 % of the territories.
The settlers have opened fire.
How can we describe these new massacres and this Palestinian rebellion. More stone-throwing youths?
It is more than that. The Palestinian security forces are also firing.
The explosion had been brewing for months: it is difficult to believe in peace when you consider that the number of settlers has grown from 141 000 to over 200 000 since the signing of the peace agreements; when you cannot find work to support your children, which is the case of my friend Talal who works as a builder in the settlements, maybe even on the land which used to belong to his family; it is difficult when the soldiers stop you from moving around.
Ariel Sharon was the catalyst but the responsibility also lies with the government which allowed him to visit the holy site and did not stop the soldiers firing on the crowd.
While condemning all forms of violence, we cannot make any parallel between the Israeli violence and the Palestinian violence.
On the one hand, there is a state and an army occupying a territory in breach of all international laws and, on the other, there is a people who is tired of suffering and humiliation.
This is not the work of Hamas: it is the uprising of a people who have had enough of being oppressed and are not being given satisfaction even by their own leaders and decision-makers.
It is the revolt of the Palestinians who live in Israel who are not only demonstrating their solidarity with their brothers but demanding to be treated as citizens with full rights and to be allowed to live free from discrimination in Israel.
We must play our part in bringing the violence to an end and re-establishing negotiations: the fighting must cease, the Israeli soldiers must be withdrawn, there must be an international inquiry, at which Europe must be present, and the Palestinian people must be protected.
It would be enough for the European Union and the UN to make it clear that the UN resolutions, starting with resolutions 338, 242 and 194 on the return of refugees to their homes, apply.
This would in itself have a major impact and could change Israel's - by now - firm conviction that it can always do whatever it likes with impunity.
The right of the State of Israel to exist and to security is very important to us, as are the Israelis themselves who, together with the Palestinians, are currently demonstrating that they have had enough of occupation and enough of this violence.
But the rights of the Palestinian State are no less important.
In my opinion, Europe can and must do a great deal in this direction, and it must be clear and resolute.
It is true that peace is achieved through dialogue but rights have to be respected, and here rights are not being respected.
It is not a question of the Israelis making concessions; we must enforce the law.
.
Madam President, I shall be very brief, very clear and perhaps a little emotional.
The latest reports I have received - and I regret I may have to leave Parliament to go to Paris immediately - are that the parliament building has been taken over by the demonstrators in Belgrade and the television building is now in the hands of the opposition.
The situation in the central part of Belgrade is extraordinary, and we may be very close to the last moments of a regime, as the British Foreign Secretary said.
I would like to ask Parliament at this critical hour to issue a statement of support for the brave people who have, today, defended freedom and liberty in the streets of Belgrade, echoing the support which we Europeans gave not many years ago to sustain those people in other capitals who were also fighting for their freedom.
That has allowed us to start a new process in the European Union, opening the doors to those countries which, for historical reasons, are not part of this institution.
We would like to see them here in this Parliament as soon as possible.
Let us hope that this moment is the moment of truth, and that freedom will be in the streets of Belgrade soon.
I have been recalled by the Presidency to be in Paris as soon as possible.
I would ask you to allow me to leave forthwith: I hope you understand that my obligation right now is to be with the Presidency of the European Union to try to tackle the complicated situation we will be faced with over the coming hours.
(Applause)
Madam President, the bloody confrontations which have taken place in the last few days in Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Israel are particularly serious, because of the high numbers of victims and also because they have brought renewed talk of exclusion as regards the State of Israel, talk that we thought belonged to the past and which is dangerously irresponsible.
The violence, the unacceptable provocation, the disproportionate reaction against the Palestinian people must not become a pretext for questioning the fundamental right of both peoples, Israeli and Palestinian, to have a state to ensure expression of their nationhood.
Some of the statements that have been made - here, even, and elsewhere - are disturbing. They are not likely to make negotiations any easier, quite the contrary.
The events of the last few days demonstrate exactly how fragile the peace process is.
So we must do everything possible to douse the fire as quickly as possible.
The only effective way of doing that is through intergovernmental talks and Mr Solana, who has just left us, is right to concentrate his efforts in that direction.
And here I want to pay homage to the resolute diplomacy of the United States, France and Egypt in particular.
The main lesson to be drawn from these grave troubles, the source of which has been Jerusalem, and more specifically the Temple Mount and the Al Aqsa Mosque Compound, is that as long as the negotiations on Jerusalem and in particular on the Holy Places are put off, peace cannot be definitely assured.
It is absolutely essential to end the dangerous deadlock where each side considers it unthinkable that the other should have sovereignty over the Holy Places.
So, negotiations should concentrate on the possibility of making the most sensitive areas neutral, and why not revive the proposal made here on 2 September by the Chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Mr Ahmed Qurie?
As you will remember, he told us that the major differences over Jerusalem lay at the heart of the failure of Camp David, and made the following proposal, with particular reference to UN Resolution 181, and I quote: "we Palestinians agree that both parts of Jerusalem, East and West, should be a unified Jerusalem, an international Jerusalem, and it should not be the capital of Israel and Palestine alone, but of the whole world." .
I think this avenue ought to be explored as soon as possible, because until the Jerusalem question is resolved, it will continue to be the source of periodic confrontations likely to degenerate in the same way as the tragic events we are currently witnessing.
Madam President, there is no doubt that Europe would be well advised to seize the opportunity presented to us here by the Chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Thank you for that proposal, Mr Barón Crespo, and for your confidence in me.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have one minute to put my position on an issue which has been close to my heart since 1967. The evidence seems to be that the State of Israel has no intention, and never has had any intention, of negotiating seriously with Palestine and granting it all the powers of a sovereign and independent nation.
The State of Israel sees many advantages in this situation of latent conflict and does not hesitate to make use of them.
Whatever the alleged good intentions of certain Israeli leaders, nothing has really changed for the Palestinians.
Colonisation of the occupied territories is increasing.
The economic dependence of Palestine is increasing.
Access to the Muslim Holy Places is being made more and more difficult.
The Palestinian leaders are in a no-win situation.
The fact is, they either accept perpetual talks, generally under the auspices of the United States, and endorse the expansionist policy of the State of Israel or, with the aid of other Muslim countries and their traditional friends, they create a new and more favourable balance of power.
This new balance of power calls, in particular, for the immediate proclamation of a Palestinian State, the use of oil as a weapon and more organised recourse to legitimate defence.
Madam President, the peace process in the Middle East is extremely fragile.
Such a situation requires tact.
Provocations such as those initiated by Mr Ariel Sharon, must be refrained from.
However, violence is not a legitimate response to provocation, and calling on the population to use violence certainly is not.
If the European Union wants to be a reliable partner in the peace process, it will have to unequivocally condemn provocations and calls for violent action.
To this end, my group has tabled two amendments to the resolution to that effect.
It is not acceptable only to condemn Israel if the Palestinian leadership is still using violence as a possible tool in the negotiations.
It is heartrending if children are sacrificed in a battle which should be settled around the negotiating table.
The position of Jerusalem is a moot point in the negotiations.
I call on this Parliament to follow the Biblical line: pray for peace in Jerusalem so that the Jews and Arabs can live together in peace.
Madam President, over the last few days, we have watched the dream of peace in the Middle East disintegrate.
The horrifying pictures of children running for cover being killed and of civilians being fired at from tanks and helicopters give us just a tiny glimpse of the hell which could be in store for both sides, Israel and Palestine, if they fail to conclude and implement the peace process as quickly as possible.
That is the most important aspect at the moment, not apportioning blame and condemnation.
The European Union should do everything it can to serve this objective and the potential inherent in it.
However, I am not prepared - as I have been urged on several occasions, purely in order to appear fair - to refrain from calling the events of the last few days by their proper name or from making the same demands on both sides, as if the provocation and force were divided equally between them. Or should I call on the Hamas leader Scheich Yassin to refrain from his possible intention of visiting the wailing wall on the Sabbath in order to provoke the Jews praying there?
Should I perhaps call on the Palestinian army to withdraw its tanks and helicopters from Israeli towns and villages and stop firing on civilian Israelis? Should I perhaps call on the Palestinian army not to shoot any small Israeli children cowering behind walls and trying to take cover behind barrels?
I am not prepared to engage in this sort of fairness. But I am prepared to call on my fellow members in the House to have the courage to call a murder a murder and to condemn provocation as provocation and not as counter-productivity, as Mrs Albright said, in order to gloss things over, purely to appear fair towards both sides.
In this respect, I am most grateful for the clear statement made by my fellow Member Mr Lagendijk.
Madam President, I think the text of this resolution is a perfect demonstration that Europe will never act as a mediator between Israel and Palestine.
Once again, there is confusion between, on the one hand, a democratic State doing its best to deal with an extremely difficult situation and, on the other, the institution at the heart of Palestine which, under provocation certainly, immediately takes up arms to shoot at the Israeli forces of order.
That is happening again today, and that is what will prevent, and has prevented Europe from acting as mediator in the Middle East all these years, leaving the United States to fulfil that role alone.
Finally, regarding Serbia, I would like to tell Mr Barón Crespo that he and his group might at least have the good grace to keep quiet on the subject, given that throughout the previous parliament his group was willing to go to any lengths to block any action designed to bring Milosevic to justice, and when a majority was achieved it was not with the support of the Socialist Group.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is slightly bizarre that we should be discussing Serbia in this Chamber at a time when the Serbian parliament building is going up in flames and hundreds of thousands of people are on the streets.
Despite this, I would like to make an attempt at explaining why I am positive and optimistic about the outcome at the moment.
There is of course the support of hundreds of thousands of people - the figure of one million has even been mooted - who are prepared at this moment to put themselves at risk in order to support the opposition and to help Mr Kostunica against the wishes of Mr Milosevic.
There are also the latest reports on the role of the police, which, as has been apparent for some time, have been in doubt as to whether to continue to support the regime, and which, as it appears from the first reports now coming in, have opted to side with the demonstrators; according to the latest reports, the same could happen with the army.
There is also the fact that the chairman of the state broadcasting corporation has resigned, this being a signal, I believe, that he refuses to act as the extension and mouthpiece of the Milosevic regime any longer.
I would like to make two minor observations with regard to the future.
I wholeheartedly support the proposal and appeal by Doris Pack to reach the decision quickly, in fact as quickly as possible, to lift the sanctions, because these have done far more harm than good.
I would also like to say - and this is more of an appeal to the Council, but I am sharing it with the Commission and Parliament for now - let us not just make fine declarations with regard to the aid which we will soon be willing to grant to Serbia, but let us also make room for this cause in our own budget, the European Union' s budget, so that we do not end up concluding that we can only help Serbia by taking funding away from other projects in the Balkans which need our support.
Finally, I would like to propose that a delegation from Parliament visit Serbia at the earliest opportunity, and once a new Yugoslavian government has been installed, so that we, in tandem with this new government, can make plans for the reconstruction of a new Serbia.
Madam President, I am wondering how we can help democratic Yugoslavia, considering the way in which events appear to be, or we hope they are, unfolding now.
Our group has confidence in our President and in the declaration which we have agreed she should make.
However, Madam President and Commissioner, we need more than pretty words.
Do not say in general terms, "Serbia belongs in Europe" , which is, after all, something which you have only recently discovered.
We refer to Yugoslavia but it is no help to Mr Kostunica if we appear to be implying that Montenegro, for example, will secede.
And to ensure we do go beyond pretty words, do you intend to propose as quickly as possible that Yugoslavia, by that I mean democratic Yugoslavia, be included in the list of candidate countries for the enlargement of the European Union? We at least hope that you do.
Madam President, Slobodan Milosevic' s latest polling box fraud comes as no surprise to us. It is an electoral manoeuvre which is ad nauseam reminiscent of an extremely poor political reputation.
Precisely this unfeeling attitude is also making us fear the worst - and current events are bearing out the words written by myself only a few hours ago.
Is the Yugoslav President really making way for his opponent and probably lawfully elected successor, Vojislav Kostunica, without any bloodshed? A pressing question indeed.
Along with the Serbian population, the Western world would be only too happy with such a switch in power in Belgrade.
However, a sense of relief should not be attended by reckless carelessness.
The European Union and the United States are being warned about this from various quarters in the region.
They consider Kostunica - in terms of ideas - just as much a Great-Serbian nationalist as Milosevic, with all that entails for the Montenegrins and Kosovars.
In summary, should Kostunica take Milosevic' s place, the West would do well to make aid strictly dependent on his concrete efforts to establish a constitutional state in Serbia and Yugoslavia.
Madam President, I hesitated before asking to speak again because I noticed that your press secretaries just handed you something and I thought perhaps you had received the latest news.
If you have not, I would be grateful if I might briefly read out the following release from the German press agency timed at 17.53 hours.
It says: several dozen members of the special police have joined with the demonstrators in Belgrade.
All the police deployed to guard the state television building stormed by the protestors, have laid down their combat weapons and have allied themselves with the demonstrators.
This was reported on Radio Index.
Apparently at least one police station in the city centre has joined the protestors.
That was the latest at 17.53 hours.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that today may well turn out to be a historic day in this Parliament, possibly ushering in the end of one of the last buttresses of a totalitarian dictatorship in Europe.
It is of course difficult to determine how long the Serbian population will need to continue fighting before Milosevic will actually disappear off the scene.
A unanimous stance on the part of the Serbian population has proved extremely important, as it will continue to do so for the next couple of days and weeks.
This means, at the same time, that the European Union too will very much need to form a united front.
In this context, I deplore the fact that the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs, fortunately abandoned by almost all parties in the Lower Chamber, adopted a stance out of the blue which goes against the unity of the European Union and against the wishes of the opposition in Serbia.
I believe this displays a lack of earnestness, and is at the same time insulting to his office. It also signals an excessive drive to stand out from the rest, to the point where the life of people could be at stake.
I believe it is also important to establish at this time on what basis the High Representative and the Council will need to adopt their positions.
Will it be by largest common denominator, or on the basis of a large majority in the Council, which should not be difficult to achieve with regard to this issue?
In addition to establishing unity in the Union, this is also, of course, about recognising the fact that Kostunica has won the presidential elections.
I wonder if the Commissioner has planned any steps in this respect to demonstrate that we really do consider Kostunica to be the only lawfully elected representative of the Serbian people, and the only partner with whom the European Union is involved as from today.
Naturally it is difficult to mention budgets at this early stage.
The High Representative explained this only a moment ago, but what we can do is to selectively lift sanctions by way of sending a message to the Serbian electorate.
The neighbouring countries will take a great interest in this too.
I hope that the Council, in conjunction with the Commission, will take clear measures in this respect in the short term.
It is not easy to gauge Serbia' s future.
As we have already witnessed all over Central Europe, constitutional states and democracy do not blossom automatically after a revolution.
Nationalism does not automatically disappear if a democratically elected president can be found.
We should therefore remain level-headed and focused in our attempts to create openings for a development which will bring Serbia nearer to Europe, also from a moral-political point of view.
Vote
Mr President, if you will allow me, I would like to explain why I have abstained in the vote on the resolution regarding the Middle East.
I believe that in delicate matters such as these, preference should be given to a diplomatic stance and, as far as the specific content of Paragraph 4 is concerned, it does not comply with the standards for a balanced resolution, in my view.
Especially with regard to the committee of inquiry, I would like to stress the fact that it should be an internationally constituted committee of enquiry and that its competences must be clearly delineated.
Mr President, there is a problem with the German urgent debate file - I do not know if the same applies to the other language versions - in that it only contains the proposed amendments of the GUE group but none of the motions for resolutions and not even the joint text.
That is a serious error.
If I had not been given information by Mrs Langenhagen, who is a first-class shipbuilding and shipping safety expert, I would not now know what I was supposed to be voting on.
Please ensure that this does not happen again.
Statement by the President on Yugoslavia
Mr President, I wish to comment on this morning' s agenda, which, as you know, is particularly lean, even though extremely important events are taking place in Europe and it is most striking that we have held an entire part-session without having a single debate on the single currency.
Last week, on 24 September, an extremely important referendum was held, in which the Danes rejected the single currency.
Yesterday, the European Central Bank raised its intervention rates by a quarter of a point, which led to a further fall in the euro' s value.
There are two conclusions to be drawn here. Firstly, the public will never take any interest in our debates if Parliament persists in side-stepping discussions on every important issue.
Secondly, the euro is an artificial currency and it would be a disaster to make a complete changeover to the euro in the present circumstances.
Mr President, I just wanted to draw attention to the huge pile of documents we needed for voting this week.
I would like to congratulate the honourable Members.
We have all been very industrious.
(Laughter, applause)
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
Loans for projects in Croatia
The next item is the report (A5-0237/2000) by Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision amending Decision 2000/24/EC so as to extend the Community guarantee granted to the European Investment Bank to cover loans for projects in Croatia (COM(2000) 289 - C5-0336/2000 - 2000/0122(CNS)).
Mr President, the European Investment Bank grants loans to non-EU countries, guaranteed by the European Union. The bank guarantees individual loans freely in accordance with its own criteria and not the precise guidelines laid down by the EU.
However, the Union has fixed a ceiling for the loans it guarantees.
The loans are not guaranteed one hundred percent and the Council decided in December 1999 to guarantee just 65% of the final total for loans for the period 2000-2007.
For the rest the bank must itself obtain other forms of security or cover the risk itself.
In practice there is no risk and the European Investment Bank would even be prepared to lower the percentage the EU guarantees.
There is a special Guarantee Fund in the Union budget for loans from the EIB.
For each guarantee, funds are transferred from a special reserve into the Guarantee Fund, with a maximum amount decided in the finance frameworks contained in the interinstitutional agreement.
In 2000 a maximum of 204 million euros can be transferred from the reserve to the Guarantee Fund.
Technically 9% of the sum for EIB loans should be transferred from the reserve into the Guarantee Fund, a figure representing 65% of the nominal value of the loans.
The Guarantee Fund in the budget is also used for macroeconomic aid to non-EU countries.
It is a cheap way for the Member States to grant development aid.
These loans are granted on political grounds to the EU' s humble partners and they are guaranteed one hundred percent by the Guarantee Fund, unlike the Investment Bank loans.
In macroeconomic aid it is often a question of the EU' s share in an overall package in which other sources of aid are the World Bank and the IMF.
Generally, financial aid to non-member countries is granted in accordance with the economic and political behavioural criteria set by the IMF - the more guarantees are given for Investment Bank loans, the less macroeconomic aid can be granted, and vice versa.
The Guarantee Fund can also be used to guarantee the Euratom loans to support the development of core industries in non-member countries, although no transfers from the reserves to the Guarantee Fund have had to be organised for these sorts of loans in recent years.
In December 1999 the Council decided the maximum amount for guarantees for the Investment Bank for the period 2000-2007, and produced a list of non-member countries that would be entitled to receive aid.
The European Parliament adopted a position on the matter in a report by Mrs Rühle in autumn 1999.
As Parliament has been heard, the matter is no longer being discussed in Parliament with regard to the terms and conditions of the guarantees.
Parliament must today decide a very simple matter: whether Croatia should join that group of countries to which the European Investment Bank may grant loans with an EU guarantee.
Croatia is no longer at war and democratic change has taken place there.
So there are good grounds for the country joining the group of borrowers, just as there are to increase the ceiling of the EIB mandate.
If Parliament could table amendments to the Council Decision it would certainly remind us of Croatia' s unemployment and social problems, which are the result of that country being put on a slimming regimen, but there is no legal basis here for such amendments.
The same problem of legal competence will also apply in the decision to be discussed soon in Parliament regarding Turkey joining the group of those countries receiving loan guarantees given by the EU to the European Investment Bank.
Parliament is bound to have a lot of conditions it would like to impose on loans to Turkey, but at the time we will be making a decision in practice with regard to just one word.
Today we add Croatia to the list of those receiving guarantees and then it will be Turkey' s turn.
In this connection we will at the same time make it known to the Commission that next year the Guarantee Fund reserves will not be sufficient for guaranteeing the loans we can expect.
Mr President, this proposal for a Council decision with a view to extending, for the first time, the Community guarantee for the European Investment Bank undoubtedly has a truly extraordinary scope.
Before commenting specifically on the issues raised by this proposal for a decision, I should like to express our support for it, since it endorses Parliament' s position on relations between the European Union and Croatia.
For this very reason, I wish to state from the outset that I share the concerns expressed by the rapporteur a few minutes ago on the situation of the loan guarantee reserve, whose narrow margin could cause problems should any unforeseen events occur.
There is one decision that must be put in a dual context. We should consider Croatia' s situation firstly from a strictly political point of view.
We must welcome the new political direction that is being taken there, following the legislative and presidential elections.
The European Union must encourage Croatia to remain firmly grounded in democracy and the rule of law and there is no doubt that this encouragement must be translated into action involving financial support to improve the economic situation there and to enable the Croatian people to make the necessary sacrifices to balance out the fundamental deficits in their public accounts.
The EIB can and must play a leading role in the region, but this powerful financial instrument serving the external policy of the Union, whose activities, in accordance with the mandate provided by the 1999 decision, cover more than sixty countries, must match its actions to those of the Commission.
It must also be made clear that the Commission cannot distance itself from the recent agreement that was reached in the tripartite dialogue in July, when a commitment was given to the effect that every new proposal' s compatibility with existing financial programming must be substantiated in the financial statement.
From the operational point of view, I believe that both the loan guarantee reserve that has been provided for in the current financial perspective, and the functioning of the Guarantee Fund require an improvement in the mechanisms for achieving the objectives of quality and efficiency in Union loans that are given budgetary guarantees.
In this sense, the rapporteur' s analysis strikes me as being an admirable starting point.
It does not seek to cast doubt on the budgetary protection plan nor on the role of the EIB.
The Interinstitutional Agreement provides for a series of three-part dialogues to take place within the budgetary procedure.
Given this context and bearing in mind the narrow margin of the loan guarantee reserve, which is set at EUR 200 million per year, there is no reason why we should not discuss the priority uses of this margin in coming years.
Our aim is clearly to improve the efficiency of the European Investment Bank. In order to achieve this, the Commission must ensure that the most thorough assessment possible of its activities will be carried out.
We cannot content ourselves with saying that we have a reliable system of guarantees.
In the budgetary procedure for 2001, our political group has maintained a strategy of pursuing a marked improvement in the quality of expenditure and an improvement in the mechanisms for monitoring its performance.
It is time to call for the same objectives with regard to the activities of the EIB.
What is clear is that Parliament cannot restrict its role to passively assimilating the information supplied to it by the Commission and the EIB, or to giving its blessing to the decisions of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by the Committee on Budgets under discussion, which recommends extending the Community guarantee given to the European Investment Bank to loans granted to Croatia, deals with two important matters.
Firstly, the political situation in Croatia has improved dramatically.
The new government is committed to political and economic reform.
That is an opportunity for the European Union to continue once more with cooperation, which was interrupted in 1995 when Croatia began military action in Krajina.
The other message is contained in Croatia' s still very difficult economic situation.
For years the country practised an economic policy based on plundering, which has left the new government to shoulder the burden of a depressed business sector and an unemployment rate of more than 20%.
The rapporteur, Esko Seppänen, says quite rightly in the explanatory statement in his report that social conditions in Croatia are difficult and the Community' s contribution to the reform process should also have a positive impact on the social dimension.
An important political change was seen in Croatia in the parliamentary elections that were held earlier this year.
The country' s inhabitants showed by voting that they demanded democratic change.
The new government was made up of a democratic frontline of six parties, which has a firm majority in the country' s parliament.
The government has indicated it is rapidly recognising the values of European democracy and the rule of law.
In foreign relations it gives priority to the integration of a Euro-Atlantic framework.
In its programme, the government is committed to such matters as a respect for human rights and the rights of minorities, the repatriation of refugees, improved relations with its neighbours, and considerable economic reform.
Legislation is already in place to achieve these aims.
Developments in Croatia have swiftly led to closer relations between the EU and Croatia after a gap of several years.
Between the Union and Croatia there is an advisory working party in place, whose purpose it is to offer Croatia expertise and technical assistance in negotiations on contractual relations.
According to the Commission, talks on the Stability and Association Pact with the country should be started as soon as possible.
The Council decided in August that the Tempus 3 programme, which relates to higher education, should extend to Croatia.
In July the Commission freed 10 million euros to support the repatriation of refugees.
The proposal under discussion contains a target figure of 250 million euros in EIB loans for Croatia for the period 2000-2007.
With that sum, it is proposed to finance basic infrastructure projects and environmental investment, the development of industry and SMEs, housing reconstruction, urban renewal and tourism.
The plans are in accordance with projects that were put forward by Croatia at the Regional Funding Conference held in March.
Croatia' s leaders are committed to difficult but necessary economic reform.
The cure will be hard to endure, but, hopefully, the loans now being spoken about will help to soften the negative effects of economic reform on the lives of the people.
We also have to remember that Croatia has good industrial manufacturing plants, a qualified and trained workforce and excellent opportunities for the development of tourism, for example.
According to a survey by the Commission the country' s competitiveness in European markets could be strengthened enormously with a raft of consistently applied and ambitious structural reforms, but at present many Croatian businesses still have problems competing in the free economy.
The events in the Balkans and the future of the region are burning issues.
This week, in the wake of the Presidential elections, we have followed the situation in Yugoslavia with bated breath.
The winds of change are blowing in Belgrade too.
The international community has already indicated it will support the Serbian nation and sanctions are being lifted.
The European Union and the European Parliament have every reason to support positive developments in the Balkans.
Instability in the region is a threat to Europe as a whole.
We know that nationalism and poverty mean war.
Ahead of us there is a massive amount of physical and spiritual reconstruction to take place and we also, for our part, have to clear the barriers to effective assistance.
Unfortunately, interinstitutional discussions on next year' s budget - in particular section IV on financing - still appear to be very difficult for the time being.
Hopefully, the signs of hope in Croatia and now also in Yugoslavia will encourage us to find a solution to the problems of the budget and its financial perspectives.
Mr President, last night we discussed the topic of Serbia and the revolutionary changes that are taking place there.
In somewhat less dramatic style, Croatia changed governments last year.
In any event, the election victory of the opposition was given the same recognition.
This is why it is possible to pick up where we left off in 1995.
The chances of achieving a stabilisation and association agreement have now been looked into, and it is expected that negotiations on this topic will begin before the end of this year.
A delegation of the European Union has been primed for action, and as you know, the Summit at the end of November will take place precisely in Zagreb, in order to give Croatia the message that the country is welcome in European Union circles.
This is why it is necessary for the economy to be rebuilt.
In its recent past, Croatia has witnessed dramatic changes for the worse and widespread corruption.
Let us not forget that, until recently, Croatia was the classic example of a privatisation programme which had got completely out of hand, and which benefited only one individual.
This whole process will need bolstering, which will require enormous investments - investments in infrastructure, in the environment, but also investments in very risky operations.
As we all know, setting up small and medium-sized businesses in that kind of country is risky.
Things can go wrong, and this also applies to the reception of refugees, an investment goal which was lacking from the rapporteur' s report, unfortunately.
These too are risky investments.
It is therefore only justified that the mandate of the European Investment Bank will be increased by 250 million.
The European Union is acting as guarantor.
But this is exactly where the problem lies, because we are now at the same point where we were last night when we were discussing the subject of Serbia, namely the fact that the Council underestimated the actual cost to be incurred in the Balkans last year in Berlin.
As a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, I know that the members of the Committee on Budgets have criticised me and my colleagues for continually wanting more funds for the Balkans, and for having to enter into negotiations with the Council, which is not always that easy.
But there is very definitely a real problem.
I mentioned it yesterday when we were debating Serbia and I am repeating it here.
It is not acceptable that the rift between the pledges and promises made by the European Union on the one hand, and the reserved funding on the other hand, should be as huge as it is now threatening to become.
Having spoken fine words yesterday and having granted this guarantee today, the European Union cannot afford to arrive in Belgrade empty-handed tomorrow.
I would therefore urge the fellow Members but also, and mainly, the Council, to stick as closely as possible to the Commission' s proposal during the next couple of months of negotiations on the budget for next year and subsequent years, the reason being that, in my view, the proposal still provides the best estimate of the total cost in Croatia, but also in other parts of the Balkans.
I would now like to turn my attention to the overall programme for the Balkans.
I support the amendment by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which is right in saying that this loan is important, but that, in the final analysis, the overall programme, given the necessary financial backing, is more important.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his report and explanatory comments.
I am sure we are all agreed that Croatia must be given political assistance, but political assistance also entails financial support, because political stability is always a prerequisite to social and economic stability. This can only be achieved, of course, if there is an appropriate level of investment in this sphere.
There is not a moment to lose if the fall in GDP recorded for 1999 and the increase in the budgetary deficit in Croatia are to be halted and reversed. In the final analysis, the only way to achieve this is through Croatia developing self-supporting economic cycles.
The contribution under discussion, which would take the form of an EIB loan in excess of EUR 250 million for the period from 2000 to 2007, may not prove to be a milestone, but it would certainly help the process on its way.
The course of action proposed by the Commission and backed by the report is the inevitable outcome.
However, the problems that have come to light and which are as yet unresolved, are something else altogether.
It is generally the case that new political challenges demand increased financial outlay, but not - I might add - at the expense of others.
Therefore, we must think in general terms - and hopefully arrive at positive political decisions - firstly, about increasing the reserves for the guarantee fund, and secondly, about the fact that it must not be left solely to the Council to determine how the residual margin is to be used, and thirdly, about establishing binding criteria for the effective deployment of the EIB loan, so as to be able, at the end of the day, to monitor whether this package is actually consistent with the necessary objectives for which it was intended.
Mr President, these days, we cannot talk about Croatia without seeing it in the context of its neighbour Serbia, where the people are now finally throwing off the yoke of the authoritarian government clique.
A clique which referred to itself as socialist, but managed to stay in power for more than ten years by using fascist methods alone.
Along with legal inequality for the opposition and overt state violence, this also manifested itself in the fact that fear was instilled in the people of Serbia vis-à-vis the big bad world outside and that people who criticised the regime were proclaimed traitor to their own country.
The same formula has been applied in Croatia over the past ten years.
Croatia is not one of the states we have been discussing this week as being potential future candidate states of the Union.
In many respects, the position of that country is the same as that of Slovakia, which is now a candidate state.
Up until 1918, both regions were rebellious sections of Hungary and boasted their own language, culture and identity, but were thwarted by the official state authority.
International pressure forced them thereafter not to become fully independent, but to join new large collective states which were intended as melting pots for minor Slavonic peoples, but they never managed to integrate properly.
When half a century ago, Croatia and Slovakia became nominally independent for the first time, they became vassals of the Hitler regime.
In 1945, the outside world agreed that these states should cease to exist permanently.
With the benefit of hindsight, this was a silly move.
Ignoring the wish of those peoples to be able to make independent decisions, provided the breeding ground for aggressive and authoritarian nationalism for years, a nationalism which had little consideration for the tragic legacy left by the Nazi era and which was hostile towards other peoples and democracy at home.
People hid behind Tudjman and Meciar because they saw this as the only guarantee for being treated as equals vis-à-vis their neighbours who used to rule over them.
It is only now that all their reasonable demands have been met and nobody doubts the right to independence any longer, that nationalism is fading away and normal political alliances are emerging.
The nationalists recently lost political power in both countries.
This could serve as a lesson for other strongly nationalist regions.
The only way to eradicate nationalism is to meet all reasonable demands of those nationalists.
There is now every reason for treating Croatia in the same way as Slovakia and other Central European countries which can join the European Union if they so wish.
The damage done by the war has not yet been cleared, as we witnessed recently.
The country' s road infrastructure is vulnerable because Dalmatia and Slavonia form the two halves of a pair of scissors, as it were, with Bosnia being wedged in the middle, which, particularly in West Herzegovina, is also populated by Croats.
The environment in the large population concentrations in Zagreb, Rijeka and Osijek is at risk.
This set of circumstances will probably necessitate huge investments, which will not be repaid until later on in the form of tourism and new industry.
This is why it would be useful to make the necessary arrangements at this stage.
Along with the rapporteur, I do wonder whether the funds will be made available in real terms, especially now it appears that Serbia will also be needing large funds shortly and the Union' s budget is not being increased.
There is little point in the European Union making pledges to crisis areas and candidate states left, right and centre, which it cannot meet.
As far as Croatia is concerned, there is every reason to set up a financial arrangement.
The comment which my colleague Mr Papayannakis made yesterday about admitting Serbia to the European Union should also apply to Croatia.
Mr President, first of all I must declare a personal interest, I have a son-in-law who was, and is, a refugee from the Krajina in Croatia.
Even if it is now technically possible to return, much more has to be done to make the return of Serbs to Croatia and the Krajina in particular positively welcome.
Much physical restoration is required in that sad part of Croatia.
We in the European Union must insist that this is positively encouraged and not just a nominal gesture.
Our financial contributions should be on that condition and I would appreciate a reassurance from the Commission that this aspect will be taken into account.
My second point refers to Serbia itself.
Even if there is the happy, democratic outcome, which we hope for in Serbia, there will still be great resentment resulting from what happened with the Kosovo campaign and our recent relationships with Serbia.
This will not be overcome immediately.
We in Europe must be prepared to rise above any peevish reactions to those sentiments.
The top priority, not just for Serbia but for all the Balkans including Bulgaria and Romania, is to restore normal transport links in the whole area and bring Serbia with all its hurts back into the European fold.
Mr President, I wanted to be here not just to state that I voted for this aid for Croatia but, above all, to have the chance to express my satisfaction, as others have today, at the democratic events taking place in Serbia at the moment.
After many years of difficulties for this people - all kinds of difficulties - we are at last, extremely democratically, beginning to welcome Serbia back into the community of the peoples of the European Union.
I hope that negotiations will soon get underway and, as with Croatia, that aid will also be granted to the Serbian people, who deserve our greatest respect.
Thank you, Mr Fatuzzo.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 9.45 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday 6 October 2000.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, the Minutes of the Parliamentary sitting tell us that the issue was raised in this Chamber of the racist attack made on a teacher in Verona.
The Minutes also say that Parliament condemned the incident and, in particular, expressed its solidarity with the teacher.
I would like to inform you that the teacher in question invented the whole story and has confessed that he was not the victim of an attack at all but that his wounds were self-inflicted.
What this amounts to is that we have all been taken for a ride.
I just wanted to inform you of this, seeing that this hoodwinking of Parliament by the teacher from Verona is recorded in the Minutes.
Mr Speroni, this information does not, most probably, require any amendment to the Minutes, but I take note of your comment nonetheless.
Are there any further comments on the Minutes?
(The Minutes were approved)
Statements by the President
Madam President, it is quite right that the municipal elections in Himara were marked by violence and fraud at the expense of the Greek minority living there.
That this happened is beyond question.
We have the findings of international organisations which monitored the elections.
Albania is a country whose own minorities have suffered persecution at the hands of other countries and, as we all know, the international community reacted to this persecution.
It should not repeat inside its borders what it suffered outside its borders; that is, I think, the first lesson in democracy which we should bring to the attention of this country, which is starting to establish an internal democracy.
I should like the European Parliament to take note of these violations and, of course, to call for repeat elections in Himara.
Madam President, in connection with your words on the Middle East, I would like to announce an initiative conceived by some of the female Members of Parliament - Nuala Ahern, Pasqualina Napoletano, Ana Palacio Vallelersundi, Ulla Sandbaek and myself - who have asked other women to go with us to Jerusalem to meet with Palestinian and Israeli women who, in recent years, have never stopped trying to communicate with one other and build bridges of peace. And so, in this spirit, we invite the women of the European Parliament to be part of this delegation.
We will make an appeal on Tuesday and Wednesday and collect the names and signatures of those women who wish to be part of the delegation. Our intention is to build bridges of peace between women in places where violence prevails.
Madam President, I would just like to inform the two Greek speakers that the next meeting of the South-Eastern Europe delegation - in the course of which we will also receive representatives from Albania - will also address this issue, and I am certain that with Mrs Pack in the chair, we will approach the matter objectively.
Indeed, Mr Rübig, I shall do so.
Madam President, I understand that you will shortly be announcing the decision of the French Government to terminate my mandate as a Member of the European Parliament.
I believe that this is a grave injustice and a penalty which is out of all proportion to the minor incidents which served as a pretext for it.
I received no notice in order to prepare my defence.
I was not permitted to waive my parliamentary immunity and I did not have the benefit of any of the defences that even a guilty party would have.
I believe that the European Parliament has the opportunity in this case to, perhaps, demonstrate its ability to come to the defence of its own dignity.
Madam President, there are more victims of ETA, but there are also more victims of the Spanish repression: more arrests, more people tortured, new dispersals of political prisoners jailed in the Basque country.
All in all there has been more suffering for Basques and Spaniards; certainly the Spaniards and Basques are fed up with the present conflict.
It is not surprising if they express their profound dismay more and more clearly because, with the exception of the Spanish Government, no one believes in the benefits of the ongoing strategy.
Can the European Parliament give up hope of ever finding a democratic . . .
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, I do not wish to be repetitive, but the situation requires it.
You are aware of the situation in Campo de Gibraltar, where there is a damaged British nuclear submarine.
As we have feared and supposed since the start, according to the technicians, the significance of the damage is increasing daily with the passage of time.
I ask you, Madam President, to do everything possible to speed up the procedure under way in the Committee on Petitions concerning a protest document that has been presented by more than thirty social groups and NGOs against this situation, in which there has been a blatant failure to comply with Community regulations on radiation protection.
Madam President, if I have understood correctly, we are at present establishing our Agenda.
Our Rules of Procedure do not admit any points of order at this juncture.
According to the Rules of Procedure, we are allowed procedural motions pursuant to Rule 141 and points of order with reference to the Rules of Procedure pursuant to Rule 142, but not, in any manner of speaking, points of order, especially not to make the kind of representations we have just heard.
Apparently, just anyone can stand up and say whatever they want when the Agenda comes up.
When oh when, Madam President, are you going to apply the Rules of Procedure and nothing but the Rules of Procedure?
Let me answer you, Mr Goebbels.
This is a problem that everyone chairing a sitting has to deal with.
The problem is determining whether a matter is grounds for a procedural motion or not.
I feel that if we stop to discuss whether, every time a Member wishes to speak on a procedural motion, it actually complies with the Rules of Procedure or not, then we shall waste a great deal of time.
I think applying the minute rule is the least damaging solution, in the final analysis, as we have, in fact, seen.
Madam President, pursuant to the second paragraph of Rule 7(4) of our Rules of Procedure, the President is bound to refer the matter to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market before ratifying the decision of the French Government.
The Council of State ruling, which you will perhaps be invoking as a defence very shortly, was issued by a body which has no jurisdiction in the matter, whereas French law stipulates that only plenary is competent to rule on the subject of the mandate of a Member of the European Parliament.
In the course of this procedure, Madam President, the parliamentary immunity of our fellow Member, Jean-Marie Le Pen, has been violated from start to finish.
I do not see how you can cite the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as you did a short time ago, without actually implementing it in the exercise of your office.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the topic of violence is given priority status in this Parliament and that is how it should continue to be.
Further to your appeal and your expression of sympathy with the families of the victims of violence, we too would like to show our solidarity with all those who are protesting today against the violence of ETA in so many places in the Basque country.
That is why, after approval of this agenda, we intend to hold a small, peaceful demonstration, which will take a few minutes, in front of the Parliament building, together with all colleagues and delegates in this House who wish to attend.
Madam President, it is not possible to let Mr Gollnisch impugn the supreme administrative court in France without responding. If he respected the rule of law, he would respect its jurisdiction.
As for Mr Le Pen, what an affront to the dignity of the European Parliament and for any true democrat to hear Mr Le Pen using the word 'dignity' !
Do you see, Mr Goebbels?
Is this actually a procedural motion or not? Believe me, we could spend hours and hours debating the point.
Madam President, between 3 October 2000 and yesterday, at least seven memorials were desecrated, eight people were subjected to racist attacks, four hostels for asylum seekers were set upon, and seven synagogues, Jewish cemeteries or memorials were desecrated in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Just because, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are supposed to be discussing the order of business does not mean that we have to take orders as to our business.
A number of Members of Parliament have had a fantastic dream, this I can understand.
They have dreamt of building the kind of federal state envisaged by Chairman Spinelli, for instance, or turning our Treaties into a constitution.
Well, today, acknowledging that the jurisdiction of the European Parliament is subject to a State, regardless of which one this is, and has a bounden duty to terminate the mandate of one of our fellow Members, would be to admit that Parliament is not a sovereign assembly and must yield to national legal or government authorities.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have the opportunity to take a great step towards your dream, one I do not, however, personally share.
Simply by acknowledging that the European Parliament has the discretionary power to settle the matter of the termination of the mandate, you will have gone some way towards achieving your federal dream. Otherwise, Madam President, in yielding to the authority of others, you are effectively taking a step backwards.
Madam President, I am astounded, all the same, that the case of the termination of Mr Le Pen' s mandate has not been dealt with, or even mentioned, by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, considering that this is the first time under either the Third, Fourth or Fifth Republic that we have had a French Member of Parliament thrown out of office for a matter of a minor offence.
A whole series of violations of the law - not just French law, but also European law - have taken place and I feel it would be a grave mistake not to refer the matter to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market or to hear Mr Le Pen' s side of the case.
Agenda
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 19 October 2000 has been distributed.
Relating to Monday: I have received a request from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance to defer Mrs Klass' s report, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the marketing of material for the vegetative propagation of the vine, to a later part-session.
Mr Lannoye wishes to speak as the author of this request.
Madam President, Mrs Klass' s report has already been deferred twice.
We would, however, like to request that it be deferred for a third time for political reasons.
The fact is, this apparently technical report, which does not seem to make any great changes of a political nature, is extremely important insofar as it introduces the possibility of carrying out genetic engineering in viticulture and hence ending up with genetically modified viticulture.
We think, given that for the moment we are at the conciliation stage with regard to the framework directive on GMOs, that it would be wiser to await the conclusion of these conciliation proceedings and to deal with this problem once the framework has been clearly defined, which should, in principle, be in the month of January.
We therefore propose postponing examination of this report.
Mr Lannoye has just presented his Group' s request.
Is there a speaker to support this request?
Madam President, as we have already told the rapporteur and the House repeatedly, there is an important piece of legislation on the release of genetically manipulated or modified micro-organisms, namely the report by David Bowe, which we are currently dealing with in the conciliation procedure.
This is the fundamental piece of legislation and it forms the basis for any other piece of legislation governing genetically modified plants.
It is therefore only sensible, and indeed, right and proper, to wait until the end of the conciliation procedure, which will not be for another six weeks or so, and then take decisions on all the other pieces of legislation.
I therefore support Mr Lannoye' s amendment.
We shall now hear from the rapporteur, Mrs Klass, who, I believe, is opposed to postponing the report.
Madam President, I am against postponing the report, and I question the way in which this House works.
The report was adopted in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development by a good majority and with only two votes against.
We are now embarking on a discussion about the release directive 90/220, which is inappropriate.
We are referring here to the release directive, and according to the conciliation procedure, that is precisely what the speeches will focus on.
We are doing exactly the same as we have already done in the case of forest and plant material, i.e. we are making reference to the horizontal directive.
Not voting on the report will lead to delays.
It will obstruct the trade in vine material in Europe, and so I believe that in the interests of the single market for Europe' s vine propagators, we must vote on our report.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Relating to Tuesday:
Mr Poettering, in tomorrow' s debate, every speaker will be free to raise any issue and to address both the Council and the Commission.
Announcement of the removal of Mr Le Pen from office
Ladies and gentlemen, I must inform you that on Thursday, 19 October 2000, I received official notification from the competent authorities of the French Republic of a ruling by the Council of State on 6 October 2000 rejecting the appeal lodged by Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen against the decree of the French Prime Minister on 31 March 2000 terminating his mandate as an elected representative to the European Parliament.
I must inform you that, since that time, I have received a copy of a request for clemency for Mr Le Pen presented to Mr Jacques Chirac, President of the French Republic, by Mr Charles de Gaulle, Mr Carl Lang, Mr Jean-Claude Martinez and Mr Bruno Gollnisch.
I shall give the floor to Mrs Ana Palacio Vallelersundi, chairperson of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, to give us her views on the matter.
Madam President, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, having deliberated at its sitting of 15 and 16 May, agreed to recommend that the announcement in plenary of Parliament' s confirmation of the removal of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen' s mandate be suspended.
I repeat, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market recommended that this announcement be suspended until the deadline period that Mr Le Pen was given for appealing against the French Council of State had expired or until a decision by the latter.
And I am quoting word for word from the letter dated 17 May that you yourself, Madam President, read in plenary.
As you said, the Council of State rejected the appeal and we were duly informed of that rejection.
There is therefore no longer any reason for delaying this announcement in plenary, which is an obligatory act according to primary law, specifically paragraph 2 of Article 12 of the Act of 20 September 1976.
The request for a reprieve that you mentioned, Madam President, does not alter this situation, as it is not a legal appeal.
As its name indicates, it is an act of the Prince, which does not affect the decree from the French Government which, in accordance with the recommendation of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, must be announced in plenary.
Thank you, Mrs Palacio.
Consequently, pursuant to Article 12(2) of the Act of 20 September 1976 on the election of representatives to the European parliament by direct universal suffrage, the European Parliament hereby takes note of the notification by the French Government of the termination of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen' s mandate.
Mr Le Pen, please leave the Chamber forthwith. In order to ensure that these proceedings go ahead in an orderly manner without affecting the dignity of either this House or your own dignity, I propose to suspend the sitting for ten minutes.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.40 p.m. and resumed at 5.50 p.m.)
Request for waiver of Mr Pacheco Pereira' s immunity
The next item is the report (A5-0304/2000) by Mr MacCormick, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the request for the waiver of Mr Pacheco Pereira' s immunity.
Madam President, this issue arises from a request (announced by yourself to the House on 17 February) by the appropriate Portuguese authorities seeking a waiver of the immunity of Mr Pacheco Pereira in respect of proceedings in Portugal concerning words spoken on a television programme some years ago.
The television programme involved a discussion about the respective roles of politicians and journalists.
Mr Pacheco Pereira in that debate made remarks about a third party not participating in the debate, to which the third party took exception.
Initially, public criminal proceedings were initiated but these were dropped and there is now a private action taking place before the Cascais First Criminal Court.
This is therefore a case involving the exercise of freedom of speech in a political matter.
The immunities of Members of the House arise under Article 10 of the Protocol of the Privileges and Immunities of the European Communities.
The substance of this, for our present purpose, is that Members of this Parliament enjoy in their own Member State the same immunities as would be enjoyed by members of the national parliament of the state in question.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, having looked into the matter, is satisfied that, upon an issue of the kind before us, Mr Pacheco Pereira, were he a member of the Portuguese Parliament, would enjoy immunity which could be waived only by the Portuguese Parliament.
Therefore, under our rules, he enjoys immunity which can be waived only by decision of this Parliament.
It is important that I should underline the point that immunity is not conceived as an advantage to a particular Member, which she or he may waive or assert as she or he chooses.
Rather, it is an immunity asserted by this House as a whole, in the interests of preserving the conditions of effective, democratic politics and argument and of enabling this House, through its Members, to discharge its function properly in an all-Europe democracy.
Therefore it is for the House to decide whether the immunity ought to waived or not.
We do not do this arbitrarily.
We do it in accordance with precedence and practice established over many years.
The concluding section of my report ought to be read out: "It is indisputable that Dr Pacheco' s comments on a television programme on the press qualify as part of a political debate and therefore Paragraph 1 of Article 157 of the Portuguese constitution would be applicable.
Under that provision he would have enjoyed immunity were he a member of the Portuguese Parliament.
Accordingly, he does enjoy immunity as a Member of the European Parliament in respect of statements made and opinions expressed in the television programme to which the case relates."
It has been the practice of the House to insist upon upholding immunity in all cases where to deny it would be to inhibit political activity of a legitimate and democratic kind.
On that ground, therefore, the Legal Affairs Committee has unanimously come to the conclusion that, after considering the reasons militating for or against the waiver of immunity, we recommend that the immunity of Mr Pacheco Pereira not be waived by Parliament.
Madam President, the case of Mr Pacheco Pereira has been carefully examined by the Legal Affairs Committee: the recommendation, which was approved and which is tabled before the House today, is not to reject the request for waiver of Parliamentary immunity.
The reasons and justifications for this are given in Mr MacCormick' s excellent report, and the grounds are the following: influences deriving from nationality or affiliation to a particular party cannot, and must not, be permitted; the legal basis must be sound and final; immunity is not a Member' s personal privilege but a guarantee of the independence of Parliament and its Members in relation to other authorities; the date of the alleged deed and the personal desire of the interested party to relinquish their immunity are of no importance.
The reference made in the Protocol to national legislation does not mean that the European Parliament is being passed over but is in connection with the procedure, while every Parliament - including, in the case in point, the European Parliament - preserves its authority in its autonomous decisions.
When all is said and done, Mr Pacheco Pereira was performing a political activity and cannot therefore be considered responsible for any crime.
That is the position of the European People' s Party. We would also like to point out that, if Mr Pacheco Pereira had been Italian, proceedings would have been brought against him without the European Parliament knowing anything about it.
The Italian judiciary does not ask for authorisation when the person in question is a Member of the European Parliament and ignores every principle of the respect due to this institution.
Some Members of Parliament have already been taken to court during this parliamentary term without a request being put forward for waiver of parliamentary immunity.
Personally, I was not able to intervene to condemn these actions in that it concerned members of my own party who have always been political targets, and my involvement would therefore have appeared exploitative.
However, the incident has been repeated again, and this time, although the Member concerned is a member of the European People' s Party, he is not from the same political party or persuasion as I am in Italy.
Proceedings were brought against Mr Cocilovo without Parliament being informed, indeed in contempt of Parliament.
This is an extremely serious matter, Madam President, that you cannot ignore.
The autonomy of the European Parliament is at stake!
Madam President, I certainly do not require the two minutes allocated to me because, after the explanation from Mr MacCormick and the additional explanation by Mr Zappalà, from the point of view of the Group of the Party of European Socialists of the European Parliament, there is no doubt that Mr Pacheco Pereira' s immunity should not be waived.
I would say that this is a really trivial issue, a few comments by a politician on a television programme, which have resulted in a criminal action that has no grounds, and which are covered by the Portuguese constitution and by application of Community rules on the waiver of parliamentary immunity.
In short, here we have all the ingredients for Mr Pacheco Pereira' s parliamentary immunity not to be waived and, therefore, the Group of the Party of European Socialists agrees with Mr MacCormick' s proposal that Mr Pacheco Pereira' s parliamentary immunity should not be suspended.
Social policy agenda
The next item is the report (A5-0291/2000) by Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the social policy agenda [COM(2000) 379 - C5-0508/2000 - 2000/2219(COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, may I first and foremost thank my fellow MEPs and the Commissioner together with her offices for the excellent cooperation we have had in the framework of this report, and may I also seize this opportunity to express my gratitude for the contributions of the many NGOs, the social partners and the experts who have helped us formulate an ambitious social agenda on behalf of Parliament?
It has often been said that 'social policy is a productive factor' and this is true, for a society with greater social cohesion is also a society which performs better.
However, social policy does have its own rights; social policy must ensure that inequalities are ironed out, that social cohesion is promoted and that people' s quality of life improves.
That is why this social agenda deserves a far more prominent position in European policy.
The Lisbon Summit has given us the opportunity to lend more weight to social policy; we must seize that opportunity with both hands.
It was with great delight that I noted that the Commission and the French Presidency want an ambitious social agenda, and I believe, Commissioner and Minister, that we fully endorse the objectives.
I would therefore like to use some of my speaking time in this debate to draw attention to a number of points which Parliament would like to reinforce in this agenda.
The first point relates to the strategy.
The social agenda must raise the profile of social Europe among the citizens, and that is why we are in favour of defining measures, priorities and instruments more clearly and with greater intensity.
We must be able to see where progress is being made; this progress must be measurable and the social agenda must be afforded centre stage in the political discussion at European level.
Hence our urgent appeal in favour of the introduction of a social scoreboard, similar to the one already in use in the internal market, which details specific measures, expiry dates and deadlines.
Hence also our appeal in favour of having social agenda discussions at the annual spring Summit.
Secondly, I would like to comment on the instruments.
It is true that the open method of coordination, which has been used within the sphere of employment since Luxembourg, has brought fantastic new openings in fields which up to now were only subject to national authority.
We would therefore ask that this method be reinforced and, as has now been decided by the Social Affairs Council, be applied to combat social exclusion and poverty.
Furthermore, we would very much like to see this major innovative method being deployed to make progress in the modernisation strategy of social security.
Thirdly, there is a 'but' .
Stressing the importance of this open coordination method does not mean that this method should replace social legislation, because we should lay down social rights in Europe too. We should have the nerve to formulate minimum social standards and draft social legislation which is necessary within the framework of a European internal market.
Parliament is of the opinion that the Commission could lend a helping hand here and there, for example where individual and collective workers' rights are concerned, where more security in new types of labour are concerned, or as regards the protection of health and safety relating to new risks in the workplace.
In addition, we believe it is crucial that the European Commission should take the initiative to re-establish the link with the ' 92 recommendations in order to underpin Member States' efforts to guarantee everyone a right to a reasonable income.
Only then can the fight against poverty be efficient.
Needless to say, the social partners are major players when it comes to achieving this agenda, where lifelong learning is concerned for example, or the organisation of working time, and new forms of work, and we hope that they will be prepared to negotiate within all these fields.
However, Commissioner, if this consultation does not yield results, we would also ask the Commission to use its right of initiative to the full.
I would like to finish off by making two remarks: as we endeavour to achieve the European social agenda it is essential to establish a close partnership, a partnership between institutions, and with the Member States, the social partners, but also with the many social NGOs which have a key role to play in the realisation of the agenda.
Here too, we believe that Europe should take an initiative as a matter of urgency to reinforce this dialogue with the citizens and the dialogue with the social NGOs.
Finally, social policy should not be viewed in isolation. It must be integrated into all EU policies.
I am convinced that Europe will only be social when a social dimension is added to economic policy, competition policy, external policy and the entire enlargement discussion.
I hope, Minister, that the Council will be inspired by Parliament' s expectations, and I hope that you will succeed in setting ambitious goals at the Nice Summit for a European social agenda, which we can work towards together over the next couple of years.
Mr President, the proposed social agenda sent out a political message which did not go unheeded.
This issue provoked intense interest in societies throughout Europe and the Committee on Women' s Rights has taken account in its opinion of the numerous proposals submitted by representatives of non-governmental organisations and civil society in general.
We hope that the application of the social agenda will also give citizens the chance to feel part of social Europe and to realise that the European Union intends to take positive action to continue raising standards of living, rather than merely guaranteeing minimum levels.
We must also make it clear that the social agenda does not intend to impose a uniform social policy but to coordinate, support and boost national policies within a global framework for social development, because all Member States currently face common challenges, which are naturally of varying proportions, such as working structures, discrimination against citizens and gender inequalities.
The Committee on Women' s Rights maintains that the social agenda must focus all its ideas and projects on the qualitative and quantitative participation in the job market of women of all ages and from all social strata and must therefore give priority to any measures which facilitate access to work, the sort of measures to which we refer in our opinion, such as making it easier to combine professional and family lives or other personal choices.
The Committee on Women' s Rights also proposes that women of all ages and from all social strata should have access to an adequate and dignified system of social protection.
We must not forget that women are always the first to fall prey to economic crises and the majority of our fellow citizens who are victims of social exclusion and poverty are women.
In our opinion we also support dialogue and cooperation with civil society, especially women' s organisations in countries preparing to join the European family, because here too we must anticipate uniform development which follows in the footsteps and adopts the rationale of the rest of Europe.
Before I give Mrs Péry the floor, on behalf of the Council, I have a few comments to make.
This is Mrs Péry' s third visit in succession to Parliament, and we welcome this.
That was the first point I wanted to make.
The only explanation I have for this is that the culprit is always drawn back to the scene of the crime.
Mrs Péry was Vice-President for some years, sat in this very chair, and we were always in a very safe pair of hands during difficult votes.
All the more reason why I am delighted to see you here today, Mrs Péry.
Mr President, today we are debating social policy.
I would like to warmly thank Mrs Van Lancker and Mrs Kratsa for the huge effort they have made in order to set down thoughts from within Parliament on paper.
I would like to make two observations in this regard.
Firstly, we used to debate the social action programme, and an action programme implies that something is done.
We are now discussing the social agenda and this could mean that something is done, but not necessarily, and so this is one of the aspects which we need to continually bear in mind.
We are dealing with a Socialist-inspired Council, so chances are that there will be a lot of talk and little action.
I hope I will be proved wrong.
What matters is that something is put on the agenda and that something is done.
This is the aim of this report and we have tried to emphasise this in a number of amendments.
Today we are discussing social policy, as the rapporteur pointed out earlier.
In our Group, we have always set great store by the social market economy as a basis for everything we do, also within the framework of the European Union.
Fortunately, we have largely managed to bring about the common market.
We have also managed to bring about a few things in the social sphere, but not everything, and this was because the Treaty of Amsterdam had not taken effect at the time; so, in this light, the social action programme or this social agenda is of particular significance.
We need to try to list and identify the gaps left in the system, and at least put them on the agenda.
The importance of drafting an agenda is that we can include items which we hope the Commission will develop further.
A number of such points are included.
It would have been very wrong on the part of this Parliament not to make any mention of these points, but I am aware that we have not yet solved all the problems related to these points.
It is thus something which we are passing on to the Commission for further examination.
I would now like to turn to the point of open coordination which I believe is crucial.
In fact, I would also like to refer to the recommendation made by Mr Cocilovo, which admittedly is not being discussed here but which will be voted on later.
In particular, his recommendation responds to Parliament' s observations on employment.
This is why little mention is made of this in the present report.
However, these two recommendations should actually be seen as one entity for the picture to be complete.
I think there are some problems left unsolved, but these will need to be addressed in the course of the votes on the amendments.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Van Lancker on producing an excellent report.
I have heard from some quarters that having read the report, they agree with the diagnosis but not with the prescription.
I take the view that unless we follow this prescription then the prognosis is not good for the stated aim of the social agenda, which is to make sure that social policy has a full and equal place alongside employment and economic policy.
This is the prescription we need to follow.
For the Socialist Group there are many very important points in this report.
For us the open coordination method is very important.
We want to see it strengthened in relation to employment.
We want to see it also applied to social exclusion and social protection.
I am glad to hear what Nicole Perry had to say to us today in that respect.
Open coordination seems to be regarded by many as a soft option and I have no doubt that is why it is being supported in certain quarters.
It cannot be a soft option.
We will insist at every possible opportunity that it has to entail indicators and benchmarks and proper peer-group review and that there should be a part for Parliament in that procedure.
We also support social dialogue but we insist that the Commission should manage that procedure properly and that where negotiations fail we should have an expeditious introduction of legislation where necessary.
Paragraph 14 lists a number of points we think are important.
I cannot go into them all in the time available but let me stress for us the importance of those paragraphs relating to the need to update the framework of legislation relating to restructuring.
Again I was pleased to hear what Nicole Perry has said today.
I have not heard similarly encouraging things so far from the Commission in relation to, for example, the need to update the European Works Council Directive, or relating to collective redundancies and transfers.
We also, of course, place considerable emphasis upon the general framework relating to information and consultation to make sure that industrial change is managed with social responsibility.
Mr President, as far as the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is concerned, it is crucial that the Europe of the future should also be a social Europe.
The political task is therefore to find the best way of achieving that objective.
For us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, it is important that decisions should be taken as close to the people as possible.
This applies especially to labour market and social policy.
At the Lisbon Summit this spring, the EU' s Heads of Government adopted a far-sighted vision for the development of a social Europe.
Importance was attached to promoting the EU' s position in the knowledge society, as it was to open coordination in pursuit of common objectives, but with flexibility and freedom in the choice of resources.
This was established as a leading principle.
In its communication, the Commission has found a framework for the social agenda which I think admirably reflects the spirit of the Lisbon Summit.
In our view, open coordination is the correct route to go down if we are to secure a social Europe.
There may be a need for legislation in some areas, but we have no need for a host of bureaucratic and constricting rules which bring European cooperation into discredit without producing real results.
I also want to express my appreciation of the major effort which Mrs Van Lancker has put into drawing up the report.
Her contribution has been very constructive, and if my Group is sceptical about a number of the main elements in her report, that is because we disagree politically, and that is, of course, understandable.
We do not therefore share the report' s predilection for legislation at EU level.
There are a number of areas in which we feel that too much detail is gone into.
I want to emphasise that, in the EU countries, we have different traditions and different problems in the areas of the labour market and social policy, and the decisions of the Lisbon Summit acknowledge this.
The Commission' s proposal strikes a good balance.
Technological development and new methods of organisation call, of course, for flexible cooperation in which we concentrate more on objectives and on achieving results and less upon rigid regulation.
Open coordination of this kind is not necessarily devoid of obligation.
Of course, it must be binding, but it must be constructed from the bottom up and not developed by us specifying a host of rules and quotas centrally.
Specifically, open coordination must be open both in the choice of resources and in the way in which everyone concerned is involved.
It is therefore important that more public interest be created for open coordination and that the latter should be focused on to a greater degree, whether it be in employment policy or with regard to the issue of social exclusion which we are now addressing and to which open coordination can also be applied.
It should not be secretive.
The process should be much better known, and it is here that I think Parliament has something to offer.
It can make the process more transparent and give it more public focus.
Mr President, first of all, I should like, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, to thank Anne Van Lancker and congratulate her on the quality of her report both in terms of its content and the inclusive way she strove to work on it.
The apparently technical term 'social agenda' in fact covers the day-to-day realities experienced by our fellow citizens.
We must both respond to the urgent situation and give practical shape to what has been called the notorious European 'social model' .
We have no right to miss this deadline unless we intend to shatter the expectations of all the citizens and the collective movements they have formed, which are the groups most motivated to establish a European Union which is a community of citizens.
The issues to be discussed select themselves: we simply need to respond to the urgency of the situation and bring in legislation to match the declarations made at the Lisbon Summit.
We must give the people of Europe the tools and the public policies they need in order to fashion their own place within Europe, in order to ensure that their fundamental rights, including social rights, are safeguarded.
The urgency of the social situation and the need to defend the European social model call for initiatives that aim to establish rights: the right to an income, the right to a wage, the right to decent pensions for all within the European Union.
Implementing the ambitions for society declared in Lisbon calls for an effort on the part of the Community, an action plan to create jobs in services, especially those related to the information society.
As far as that is concerned, the directive proposed in the report in order to guarantee the social protection of new forms of working is essential.
It is also important to ensure quality in health, an improved social situation, and an improved environment for everyone - the third system - and tax and legislative measures are essential in order to ensure both the economic longevity and the visibility of this emerging economy of solidarity.
We support Anne Van Lancker and Mrs Péry when they propose to quickly adopt the 1998 directive on employee information and consultation and to revise the European Works Council Directive.
The fundamental notion of the general interest ought, moreover, to spur us all to approve the proposal to include recitals relating to employment in the regulations and decisions on the mergers currently dictated by considerations of competitiveness.
These three examples intended to combat poverty, support the development of activities for job creation, social liaison and quality of life, and to improve employees' rights, should harness the support of a Parliament that is anxious to propagate the dream of a Europe of the Citizens, although these same citizens currently all too often feel that Europe is a machine commercialising all human activity.
A number of amendments betray the terror of some of our fellow Members who get their erasers out as soon as they see the word 'legislation' . Are they going to go and explain to the people of Europe that Parliament deems it necessary to vote through directives to protect investment and liberalise general interest services, but not to define and regulate what has been described here as the labour market?
Such a rejection of legislation, moreover, leads to a plain rejection of negotiation. We even have one amendment that goes as far as proposing to eliminate the objective of concluding European collective agreements between the two sides of industry.
It is in this area that we can, in our opinion, find the kind of old-fashioned ideas attributed to those who expect a brave new world to spring out of a free market.
Mr President, there really is a need for a social agenda in Europe after many years of neo-liberal economic policy which has lead to unemployment and social exclusion everywhere, including in my own affluent country, Sweden.
Begging has returned to our large towns after having disappeared from them as long ago as the immediate post-war years.
Even the private charitable organisations and their soup kitchens appear to be needed again.
I must therefore welcome the purpose of the Commission' s work and of Mrs Van Lancker' s report.
Many of her proposals are extremely commendable and deserve our full support.
Genuine social initiatives cost a lot of money, a factor which I think is discussed far too little in the report.
These resources must come mainly from the Member States.
It is therefore the social authorities in each country upon whom demands must essentially be made.
Governments must set aside more resources, more social workers must be appointed and more resources must be given to the voluntary social organisations. Otherwise, the result will be fine words without any practical content.
Mrs Van Lancker' s report presents the Commission and its legislation as the real engine of social work.
I believe that the impetus must come from below and that it is a question of providing aid at a problem level.
The Commission can obviously make an important contribution, but the social problems have their roots in local conditions and must be handled with great sensitivity for the practical conditions concerned.
The Commission can help set a high standard, but it is social workers, the unions and voluntary activists we must pin our hopes on, and not officials in Brussels.
Finally, I would just add that I am not a co-author of Amendment No 35 as stated in the document with the amendments.
On the contrary, I am very critical of the amendment.
The name Figueiredo should be there instead of my own name.
The Secretariat must have made a mistake, and I would ask for this to be corrected.
Mr President, I welcome the publication this year of the new European Union social policy agenda for the years 2000-2005.
This received fresh impetus at the Lisbon European Council meeting of the European Union leaders earlier this year.
Key priorities in this agenda include the following: an increased role will be given to the social partners in terms of drafting EU directives and regulations.
Employee relations will be improved.
There will be continued European Union support for local job creation programmes. New EU mechanisms for mediation, arbitration and conciliation will be drafted.
A new EU charter for small businesses will be put in place.
There will be improved coordination of policy programmes in the area of the information society.
And there will be a modernising of telecommunications services and Internet-related activities.
From an Irish perspective I would like to say to the Members of the House that one of the reasons why there has been such strong economic progress in our country is the fact that we have had a system of social partnership in place since 1987.
This has meant that the government has worked closely with the trade unions and employee groups on a whole range of economic and social activities in an effort to secure broad agreement in matters such as pay and conditions for employees in Ireland.
This has certainly helped to reduce industrial unrest in our country and has contributed to increased inward investment programmes from abroad.
I would also welcome the commitment of this policy agenda to the modernisation of telecommunications services.
The European Union must take advantage of the new and evolving technologies which are coming on stream at this time.
I welcome the publication of the new framework programme of telecommunications regulations and directives which was published in July of this year by the Commission.
Parliament is presently deliberating on seven different telecommunications regulations and is due to give an opinion on these matters before Christmas.
As regards e-commerce, it is fair to say that the United States of America had a head start on the European Union.
However, the European Union is catching up fast and the implementation of a broad range of telecommunications directives and regulations would certainly assist in this process.
Finally, I would like to commend the Commissioner for consumer protection, Mr Byrne, for his efforts in trying to secure an agreement on how best to move forward on regulating a vast structure for e-commerce transactions now and for the future.
Mr President, for almost half a century European integration has been based on the economy.
Indeed we spoke of a European Economic Community.
The priority was given to setting up a common market, with the principle of the free movement of property, goods and capital, the establishment of rules governing competition between firms and state aid.
Social policy served to mitigate the most damaging effects of economic policies.
The provisions enshrined in the Treaty of Rome were confined to the principle of equal pay for men and women (Article 141) and the freedom of movement of workers.
The Commission communication and Mrs Van Lancker' s report have the merit of remedying this imbalance by acknowledging the interaction between social and economic policy and employment policy.
Mrs Van Lancker' s report is an ambitious one.
The rapporteur effectively asks the Commission to intensify the agenda, chiefly in the following areas: Employment, with the framing of a European pact for employment and social cohesion, as concerns lifelong training and the introduction of prior cross-border testing of social and fiscal legislation.
Next, in the area of social dialogue, this intensification would be expressed by adopting a directive on employee information and consultation, and the European Works Council Directive, with a revision of the directives on redundancies.
Finally, in the area of social protection, it would take the form of pursuing a strategy of convergence.
It is a veritable catalogue of measures which is more a declaration of intent than a plan that could be implemented in the medium term.
In conclusion, the objective of giving new impetus to European social policy in the face of globalisation, enlargement and an ageing population is a laudable one.
It demonstrates that economic competitiveness and social cohesion are not mutually exclusive.
The method used, on the other hand, seems more debatable.
Regarding the financing of NGOs and their participation in Community policies, there is still no legal basis in the Treaty, paragraph 13.
Similarly, with the new social agenda, there is a desire to pass legislation at Community level, at the risk of harmonising to minimum standards and short-circuiting social relations within the Member States.
Before we continue with the agenda, there is something I would like to say.
Due to the fact that we have wasted another 40 minutes today on a debate about the Rules of Procedure, we are now hopelessly behind schedule.
I must therefore ask you to stick religiously to your speaking time, so as to ensure that the sitting now proceeds in an orderly manner.
Can you please discuss within your respective groups whether it is constructive to have forty minutes of moaning and groaning at the beginning of every sitting, before getting down to business.
The only people that suffer are you, who want to engage in political debate.
Mr President, if the rapporteur will allow me I will start by saying where I agree with her and - if the rapporteur will forgive me - that may not take long.
Of course, colleagues and I share her ideals for a better standard of living for all the peoples of Europe, for a better quality of life and for promotion of social inclusion.
Where I part company is on her proposals or - as Stephen Hughes said - her prescriptions to secure that end, because her proposals will lead us further away from those ideals rather than towards achievement.
Various speakers have talked about the Lisbon Summit today.
That was hailed six months ago as a very important summit.
Mention was made there of a new direction for Europe: moving away from the social regulation agenda of the 1980s towards enterprise, innovation, competition and employment.
However, the report says something slightly different: whereas Lisbon calls for a reform of the social model, it calls for reinforcement; whereas Lisbon calls for liberation of enterprise and more flexibility, the report proposes four new or amended directives and a number of legislative initiatives.
The report sets out the standard Socialist solution throughout the ages of legislation, legislation, legislation.
What we need to pursue our common goals is not more regulation, but less.
We do not want more burdening of business, we want less.
We do not want more unemployment, we want less.
The original Commission proposal was much better left unamended - congratulations Commissioner.
I propose that we leave it unamended and we reject the report, otherwise we will give the clearest possible signal that Parliament is continuing to pursue the old agenda.
Surely it is time to move on.
Mr President, the Commission has tabled a very ambitious proposal, and I should like to take this opportunity to thank the Commissioner for combining great understanding of national differences with considerable determination, without which this would never have been anything other than a pretty piece of paper.
I should also like to thank the other Anna for the substantial work she has done on this matter, something we could not have done without.
The debate today and in the Committee shows that there are major political differences and major differences in ambition in this area, and I think it good that these differences should be clearly brought out.
In this way, people have a clear choice when they vote at the next parliamentary election: a choice between those who want to see a social Europe and those who merely want the EU to regulate the internal market.
A choice between right and left.
Our fellow MEPs from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and, in particular, from the British Conservative Party, have re-tabled a series of amendments which would genuinely weaken the ambitions of this social action programme.
Every time legislation is proposed, these Thatcher-inspired neo-liberals embark upon an ideological crusade.
Europe does not deserve dogmatism, however.
What Europe needs is for us to assess pragmatically what regulatory tool will be the most effective in the practical situation.
In some cases, we need the open coordination method.
On other occasions, it is better for the two sides of industry to negotiate their way towards an agreement.
We must not, however, be afraid to use legislation if this is what is required for us to achieve our objectives.
I also want to raise another practical issue which this strategy has focused upon.
This is the need to come up with a definite strategy for the working environment which would give us the opportunity to devise a coherent policy in this area.
Within the area of the working environment, too, we must make a practical assessment of which tools are best for solving the various problems.
Here, too, dogmatism is not the way forward but, rather, finding pragmatic solutions to real problems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that the Lisbon Summit has presented us with a picture of a future Europe which cannot, which must not be purely an economic Europe, but which must be a genuine political entity.
And in order to be a political entity, Europe must have a cultural and social, as well as economic structure.
In my opinion, therefore, the proposal presented by the Commission on the social agenda is extremely positive.
However, I do agree with almost all of Mrs Van Lancker' s report - and for this I am grateful to her - for I do not believe that when Mrs Van Lancker makes a specific reference to clear objectives, proposals for specific instruments and, in particular, precise deadlines, that she is reverting to the socialist logic of old, as somebody has suggested today.
It is rather that she is simply reverting to a longstanding need, the need for cohesion in a situation which, from this point of view, is becoming increasingly difficult to regulate because it lacks any form of harmonisation.
In discussing a Charter of Fundamental Rights and advocating a European Constitution we cannot shy away from certain issues: we have to insist that all the necessary measures must be taken, even if this means producing more accurate legislation.
I do not believe that Mrs Van Lancker intends to create laws to regulate absolutely everything; I feel rather that she considers it necessary, when coordinating actions do not produce the desired results, when the citizens encounter inequalities between the States and when there is no social harmonisation, to bring about this harmonisation.
The issue of open coordination must therefore be tackled alongside a comprehensive action to develop social legal bases, for without them we will not be able to persuade the States to harmonise a social policy which upholds equality and equal opportunities.
Mr President, now that we have had a return to growth, it is crucial for the European Union to provide itself with the means to meet expectations in the social sector.
The Commission communication highlights a raft of ambitious objectives, such as full employment, equal opportunities, training, etc., but there are many contradictions between the European Union' s declared ambitions and its political decisions.
Among other aspects, let me cite the concern for productivity, which generally involves wage moderation as a priority.
I would therefore like to join my fellow Members in congratulating Anne Van Lancker on her report, which opens up new perspectives, with an approach which aims for greater precision and greater coherence.
Her report appreciably builds on the Commission' s proposals by suggesting the harmonisation of social regulations and the coordination of national social legislation.
It calls for a genuine European agreement to be framed in favour of employment and social cohesion and proposes initiatives on the gradual reduction of working time prior to retirement, the introduction of a minimum wage and cross-border supervision in relation to social and fiscal law.
This is all a specific encouragement to go beyond laudable intentions and actually take practical action.
Moreover, at a time when a great many employees of major European industrial groups face redundancy plans in the context of mergers and restructuring, I think it important for the report on the social agenda to take a stand in favour of taking social clauses into consideration in competition policy, in favour of directives to this end and in favour of a revision of the European Works Council Directive as well as the directive on redundancies.
This, I feel, is part of the consistent approach which we are lacking.
I am pleased to see, furthermore, that Mrs Van Lancker has included a number of amendments tabled by my Group, particularly that on factoring in the social dimension of enlargement and incorporating the right to strike into Community legislation.
Together with my Group, I have tabled some amendments criticising the Commission' s approach calling for the adoption of wage restraint.
I advocate the reduction of working times without a concomitant reduction in salaries.
Having said that, I support Anne Van Lancker' s report, which has the great merit of adopting an ambitious social policy backed up by specific objectives which go beyond the usual purely formal declarations.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Van Lancker, who has supplemented the Commission's already excellent report with amendments tabled by myself.
Naturally, I am very pleased about this: it is just a pity that the amendments which are most important in my opinion have not been included.
I listened with pleasure to Mrs Péry' s brief summary of the Council' s social policy, which I firmly support.
I am very familiar with the project and support all the work carried out by Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou to date. She will remember that I asked her, one day, whether her attitude to pensioners' issues was that of a fairy godmother or a wicked stepmother.
Up until now, I feel I can say that she has been a fairy godmother: two weeks ago, she announced that the Commission had programmed a special undertaking to resolve the problems of pensioners by extending the directive on pension funds and via the proposal to regulate these European pension funds in such a way that they are used to benefit workers who have hitherto paid a large part of their salary to the State, to the different States, and who would have liked - and this is what I propose - their funds to be properly managed, just as, I am sure, Mrs Diamantopoulou manages the finances of her own family and as every bank, every British bank, in particular - and on this point I agree with Mr Bushill-Matthews - has done thus far.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two people here today who deserve special congratulations, one being Anna Lancker, for her outstanding report, and the other being Anna Diamantopoulou, for her outstanding submission.
It is an ambitious agenda, and I still have a clear recollection of the painfully slow progress that was made during the last legislative period in the sphere of social protection.
The Council was not even prepared to discuss the matter at the time.
What is clearly new is that we have adopted an employment policy, based on the Lisbon Decisions, indeed an employment policy that should be of a qualitative nature.
We do not want over-regulation - and I say this to the British delegate who spoke before - but the diversity of modern contracts of employment requires new forms of social protection, and not the rules of the nineteenth century.
We also stand to gain a great deal from having a constructive and effective policy mix between economic and financial policy, and, not least, from developing the social economy and the services sector.
What is not so new, and the subject of repeated demands, is lifelong learning - which is something even the smallest Member States have done something about - as are the long overdue reforms to the European factory committee law, the legal protection of nursing and expectant mothers, and freedom of movement.
I would like to raise a criticism in connection with the lack of initiatives produced in response to the new challenges we face in health and safety at work, employee participation and labour relations.
Of course, I was delighted to see the French Presidency show such commitment to the issues of childcare, family and women' s policy.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that all three people responsible - in the Commission, Parliament and the Council - are women.
But what we need now, in tandem with this, are instruments that allow for the involvement of fathers.
That would be a new departure.
Besides, this agenda should send out a signal to the candidate countries, and I therefore wish it every success.
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the citizens of the European Union expect more than just vague commitments that are then forgotten and which are rarely converted into binding instruments or decisions that bring about a real improvement in the quality of their lives and of their work.
In order to dispel any lack of confidence, this social agenda must enable objectives and policies that have been postponed for years to be put into practice. The Council must not leave various specific proposals that have been postponed year after year simply hanging in the air.
I have in mind proposals on decisions that are crucial to improving the rights of working women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, and vital for improving workers' collective and individual rights, including the right to information, consultation and participation, specifically in the framework of the European Company Statute and of the European Works Council. This is necessary from the point of view of guaranteeing workers' rights and preventing redundancies as a result of successive mergers and relocations by multinationals in various European countries.
As the rapporteur, Mrs Van Lancker, emphasises, although social dialogue is important, it must produce tangible results.
Otherwise, the Commission will have to propose legislative instruments and the Council will have to approve the measures needed, specifically by amending macroeconomic policies and the Stability Pact, in order to give credibility to our fight against poverty and social exclusion and to our efforts to defend good quality jobs with respectable salaries and to advocate reforms that give employees dignity.
Mr President, I think that the social policy agenda is positive for everyone.
I think that harmonising the social policies of the different Member States cannot do anything other than benefit all Europeans.
It will be particularly beneficial in all aspects relating to employment, which, since the Lisbon Summit, we know is a priority for the whole of the European Union.
I would like to particularly stress the benefit which, in terms of employment, can be obtained by women through giving them improved access to employment with guarantees in terms of working time and salary.
I think that there is also a great advantage, if we succeed in getting the directive applied, modified and updated, with regard to maternity leave: for women to receive help during maternity and for maternity to be protected when women have to continue working during that period.
I also think that it will be very positive in terms of helping women to reconcile family and working life.
It is going to enable women to continue in their jobs without neglecting their family obligations.
Neither can we forget what the e-Europe initiative means for new jobs, new technologies and the information society, where I think women have an important role to play.
These are new jobs where people can work from home with regulations that help to reconcile working life with family life.
All these coordinated social policy actions will also help to combat poverty and social exclusion.
I think that we should all welcome the arrival of this social policy agenda.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, the Commissioner and Mrs Péry on this presentation of the social agenda.
I consider the social policy agenda to be an extremely important political document which identifies instruments, sectors of intervention and timeframes and guarantees positive, dynamic interaction between economic, social and employment policies.
These instruments are intended to adapt the European social model in line with the changing reality.
I fully support Mrs Van Lancker's report and I would like, in particular, to stress a point which has, moreover, already been raised by both the rapporteur and Mrs Péry in their speeches, and that is the need for all the instruments to be genuinely implemented at European level, and therefore for application of the open coordination method to go hand in hand with reinforcement of the legal dimension.
This is what happens in many countries.
In conclusion, I would like to give an example: last week, the Italian Parliament adopted a new law on welfare which was proposed by a Minister - a woman, like the three representatives of the three institutions. This is tantamount to a revolution, for the old law on welfare had been in force for over 100 years.
Mr President, the Commission draft on the socio-political agenda contains many positive concepts such as full employment, quality of work, social quality and modernisation of social protection.
But it lacks substance to some extent.
Mrs Van Lancker' s outstanding report makes good the deficiencies of the Commission draft as regards content.
We support a pact for employment and social cohesion, a European action plan for employment with a view to boosting the social economy and local employment initiatives, social regulations for new forms of working such as tele-working and new forms of self-employment, the minimum wage, and guaranteed income.
The European Union has already stood idly by for far too long, watching poverty and social exclusion take hold in the Member States.
Indeed Mrs Van Lancker' s proposals for improving the information available to, and participation of, female employees, and for social clauses in public contracts, mergers and international agreements, are long overdue.
We object to the fact that the Commission and the Council are unwilling to make additional resources available for the social agenda.
Social quality cannot be achieved free and gratis.
It sometimes seems to me that the concept of modernisation is often tantamount to the undermining of social protection.
Extending people' s working lives is not modernisation, no more so is funding pensions by freezing or lowering the statutory pensions level, and advising people to take up investment opportunities on the financial markets.
We need modern, European social harmonisation, not deregulation.
Mr President, I have one minute and three points to make. Firstly, I should like to thank Mrs van Lancker on the work she has done in producing this excellent report.
As for my second point, I wish to restate my Group' s fundamental convictions.
The working areas opened up in the social agenda must be given a coherent, and certainly conciliatory, legal framework: The policy of convergence and the policies of coordination which have been initiated, and also supported by legislative measures, when necessary, which in turn should be reinforced by genuinely stringent monitoring methods.
As for my third point, there are some rights that have simply been glossed over from the viewpoint of a social Europe: the right to a minimum income, the information and consultation of employees, the European collective agreement.
These are points which, we know, are contested by the conservatives in Europe, but to which we, in our Group, attach great importance.
Minister, Commissioner, we must continue to adopt an ambitious approach on these issues.
I hope, Minister, that in Nice the French Presidency will succeed in pushing through an ambitious social agenda, since embarking on the construction of a social Europe is still the great hope of all our fellow citizens.
Mr President, I should like to extend my special thanks both to the rapporteur, Mrs Van Lancker, and the French Presidency for the excellent cooperation which we have enjoyed to date.
I shall try very briefly to pinpoint a few political aspects of the four areas touched on in greater or lesser detail by all the speakers, i.e. the new political approach in the social agenda, secondly the content, thirdly the means and fourthly the procedures.
As far as the political approach is concerned, we need, I think, to highlight two new elements.
The first is that, since Lisbon, the new approach to social policy is to deal with it not as a product or by-product of economic policy, but as a policy in its own right which needs to be exercised in tandem with economic policy and the employment strategy.
In other words, this is the only way for us to deal with Europe' s objectives of competitiveness, given our constant concern for enterprises and the economy, and social cohesion, given our constant concern for our citizens and their welfare.
The second element in the new approach is quality.
Quality as a new political concept to deal with working conditions, employment relations and the services of the social state.
These two political approaches underpin the entire content.
What are the basic strands which make up the content?
There are three. A set of projects and proposals on employment.
I think that what we are endeavouring to achieve through the employment strategy, by strengthening and enriching it as we progress - because the entire social agenda is a process of dynamic change - is to support competitiveness and entrepreneurship in the European Union and flexibility on the job market, alongside security, mobility and new working models, and to support and analyse new social partnership models and the impact of competitiveness and major restructuring on employment and the social state.
The second strand to the social agenda is a set of projects on social policy.
Here I would like to refer to the proposal for combating poverty and exclusion, the new work which we have started on pensions and social protection, policies for people with special needs and, more importantly, I would like to pinpoint a particular political aspect, i.e. the need for a new approach to social policy.
We must not simply calculate the cost of social policy, which is often seen from several political angles as an obstacle to economic development; we must calculate the cost of not implementing social policy.
I think that this analysis will give us new, interesting results and approaches.
The third strand in the content is enlargement.
To be brief, social policy, the new social standards and harmonisation of the social legislation of candidate countries with the Member States are one of the most important features of the enlargement procedure and we must not lose sight of that.
This brings me to the third area which has engaged our attention today and throughout our cooperation: the means.
I think that the discussion on deregulation and legislation, i.e. do we or do we not need legislation, is old hat.
Clearly we have a fairly complete legislative system in Europe, but changes on the job market, changes in the economy, changes in the environment due to globalisation and the information society are throwing up new requirements.
When we need to deal with these new requirements with legislation, we shall not, of course, have any hesitation in doing so.
If we can deal with them in other ways and with other methods, we shall do so.
The proposal for a scoreboard, for a specific method for monitoring the social agenda, is a huge challenge.
The problem is that, because of the legal basis which it has in the Treaty, the social agenda does not constitute a set of laws, a set of directives with specific steps for the Member States.
It is still hard for us to define European objectives which are equally valid for all the Member States because the situation on the ground varies.
We therefore believe that, in the first instance, common European indicators, a project which is now nearing completion, and national objectives, i.e. the need for each country to have its own scoreboard and carry out monitoring, are a step along the road to providing us with specific results.
Finally, as far as procedures are concerned, I really must congratulate Parliament on its initiative in starting a dialogue with the civil society and the important contribution which this dialogue made to the agenda, as well as highlight the discussions which took place with Parliament, with the Member States and with the social partners at European and national level; this is how we were able to combine national idiosyncrasies and ensure, above all, that the Agenda is not merely ambitious but flexible and efficient.
And one last comment: the question of sexual equality runs right through the social agenda as regards both the political approach and the content and means.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your interesting speech.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.30 p.m.
Community framework strategy on gender equality (2001-2005)
The next item is the report (A5-0294/2000) tabled by Mrs Eriksson, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the Programme relating to the Community framework strategy on gender equality (2001-2005) [COM(2000) 335 - C5-0386/2000 - 2000/0143 (CNS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to see you all here.
The Commission' s communication affirms that democracy is a fundamental value of the EU Member States, the EEA States and the candidate countries, as well as a key part of external relations and development cooperation in the Union.
It also affirms that real democracy requires all citizens, women and men alike, to participate and be represented equally in the economy, decision making and social, cultural and civil life.
There are major deficiencies in all these areas.
The Commission therefore proposes to tackle the problem with a combination of measures.
In tandem with integrating equality perspectives into all policy areas - what is normally called gender mainstreaming - specific measures for women will be implemented.
I fully endorse that strategy and approach and consider that it is not an exaggeration to say that no efforts to promote gender equality are of lasting value unless women' s rights are strengthened at the same time.
This work has gone quite quickly despite the fact that it took a little time at the beginning.
The Committee has submitted 49 amendments.
At the beginning we had 126, which indicates that we are incredibly committed. I am very pleased about this.
We believe, for example, that it is very important for the Commission to guarantee maximum openness around this programme so that all interested parties can keep abreast of proceedings throughout the implementation phase.
It is also incredibly important, not to say fundamental, that the various Community actions, the framework strategy and the Member States' measures complement, and do not counteract, each other.
This is, of course, also the Commission' s and the Council' s express ambition.
The Commission has now identified five focus areas of strategic importance.
I have no objections in this respect, nor has the Committee.
We have come up with a new shock proposal, which is really a reiteration of what was stated in our opinion on the budget.
We believe that 40 per cent of the Structural Funds should be earmarked to focus on women' s conditions and needs.
The Commission' s proposed measures should be expanded to include reviews of individual access to medical and health care and to social security and pensions, an analysis of shortcomings in the organisation of work and perhaps also a study of the significance of a general reduction in working hours.
What we have just recently discussed here in this Chamber are, of course, the social issues, and I wish once again to emphasise the repeated observation that over 50 million EU citizens are, in fact, classified as poor and that a large majority of those are women.
This is, of course, something which needs not only to be observed but also to be combated, and with the help of vigorous measures.
We have had a lot of detailed discussion of various assessment procedures. I shall not go into any more detail here.
Rather, I just wanted to mention it. We have touched upon the idea that the plan must be to increase accessibility and also scope for active participation for non-governmental organisations.
Discussions have been held as to how the candidate countries can be incorporated in the programme in a natural way.
We have also discussed what we must do in order not only to give a mention to women in the developing countries but also to be able to do something practical in this area.
During the final phase of the journey, I have been in very close contact with people in both the Commission and the Council.
We naturally want to include the strategy in the Council decision, too.
What we mean in the Committee by strategy is, of course, not the Commission' s opening gambit, but that strategy beginning as from paragraph 2 ( 'The Strategy' ).
I am saying this so that no mysterious or technical procedures cause this to be misunderstood, for no less than seven different amendments in the same spirit have been tabled.
In other words, the Council too must adopt the Commission' s strategy. It is therefore important that non-governmental organisations should obtain influence in the course of implementation.
One amendment is to the effect that it should be possible to hold an annual debate here in Parliament, together with the Commission.
This perhaps affects only the Commission and Parliament, but I am very grateful indeed for the fact that you, Mrs Diamantopoulou and you, Mrs Péry are here, and I am very much looking forward to hearing your points of view on all the amendments.
Commissioner, we waited with a great deal of anticipation for the Commission' s communication on the strategy which it intends to apply to gender equality over the next five years.
Unfortunately, the time available to us in committee did not give us a chance to process either the communication or Mrs Eriksson' s report although, having said that, we did make every possible effort to respond to the objectives set by the European Commission.
We do, of course, agree with the Commission' s justification of the need to integrate the question of equality into all aspects of European policy as well as adopting special measures. We also trust - and here we agree with the rapporteur - that the Commission will present a detailed budget for the programme, especially as regards the allocation of funds between the five high-priority areas.
At the same time, we must stress the need for complementarity between the measures and main lines of approach in the areas of economic life, equal participation and representation, social rights, the civil society and the roles and stereotypes of the two sexes.
We trust that the programme will be open to all of society, that knowledge of it will spread far and wide, especially in women' s organisations, that it will provide an opportunity for dialogue and for raising awareness in all the decision-making centres in all the Member States and that numerous agencies will have the chance to make good use of it.
Women will then feel close to Europe and Europe will benefit from the interesting and innovative ideas which will be formulated as a result of their connections with this programme.
We think it is extremely important to promote a positive image of women and visibility of their work and importance.
We think that these projects will help women gain self-confidence in their role.
Finally, we trust, as was said during the previous plenary when we debated older parliamentary reports, that we will have an evaluation procedure of substance and consistency.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Eriksson on an excellent report and the Commission on an excellent strategy for gender equality.
It encompasses all those areas where action is needed and, if successfully coordinated, could make a real difference to women in all aspects of their everyday lives.
This could work if the framework strategy were an integral part of the programme, as an annex to it.
This would ensure the implementation of the programme and I therefore support the comments made by the rapporteur earlier on.
There has not been a shortage of good ideas or good plans to achieve equality in the past but their implementation has often failed.
This time the Commission is putting forward a new approach.
It is very welcome but it is only valuable if it can actually be made to work.
That means also reaching women in their own communities.
The involvement of local and regional authorities in this process is invaluable.
They are the largest employers across the Member States and the central providers of education, training and economic development and, as such, they are key players in achieving equality.
I hope due regard will be paid to them in the final programme.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, no one is disputing that we should strive for greater equity between men and women.
For too long, women' s role has been despised.
In this respect, the Napoleonic Code, which was framed in France at the beginning of the 19th century and exported to every corner of Europe, must shoulder a large share of the blame.
Women must once again be given a place that is in keeping with the vital importance of their vocation, and I am not entirely sure that Mrs Eriksson' s report makes any contribution towards this.
All the same, the texts before us are not entirely lacking in quality.
So, Amendment No 2, presented by my own committee, grants single fathers the same rights as single mothers. Equality and fair treatment must work both ways, that is the ideal.
I am delighted, moreover, that improvements in childcare facilities are planned in order to better support the reconciliation of professional and family life.
This report does, however, give some cause for concern.
Amendment No 18, for example, which seeks to support action by candidate countries to combat discrimination must not afford any opportunity to foist on them social choices alien to their culture.
In this respect, in New York, very distinct differences between the European Union and Poland emerged.
By failing to respect Poland' s social choices, the European Union would be taking a very peculiar, and very disturbing, view of pluralism.
Furthermore, Amendment No 19 on establishing an audit of equal opportunities within the public budget is extremely debatable.
Indeed, the way the concept of discrimination has been manipulated makes it, in many respects, an empty formula used by a whole collection of sorcerer' s apprentices in order to achieve their ideological ends.
It is high time we broke with an ideological vision of woman' s place in society.
In this area, as in many others, it is essential for public authorities to exercise true pluralism in selecting their associates.
It is not right for a handful of women, expert in making claims of society and living on intravenous injections of public monies, to monopolise the role of speaking on behalf of women.
In this respect, I cannot but endorse the decision by the Committee on Budgets to break the monopoly held for so long by the European Women' s Lobby.
I should like to see this House confirming this bold change of course.
A decision of this type would be like a breath of fresh air to the strange alliances which too closely bind a number of pressure groups to the European Commission and to some political groups in this House.
The women' s movement can only be strengthened by such a decision.
I could go even further, and say it would be ennobled by such a decision.
This is something my Group will take into consideration in its final vote.
(Applause from the UEN Group)
Mr President, we are aware of the progress that has been made in recent years with regard to the situation of women, particularly the legislative progress, but there are still situations of real inequality in everyday life.
The low level of representation of women in political and economic spheres and gender-related violence are two clear signs that structural discrimination against women is continuing.
This programme will undoubtedly help to ensure that the concerns, needs and aspirations of women are taken into account in all policies.
The current situation requires that positive action measures in favour of women be implemented.
The objectives that the programme sets out in five specific areas will help to ensure that all the action taken will be associated with at least one of those areas.
Participation in economic life, which women should enjoy under equal conditions to men, employment, which is the basis for all equality and integration, and achieving the 60% target proposed at the Lisbon Summit, would also solve other problems.
The inclusion of this objective in all Community programmes, within the framework of the Structural Funds, should be effected in accordance with Community legislation.
Equality in participation and representation, balance in the decision-making process, greater participation in political life, whatever the process adopted, in order to achieve an increase in the participation of women, until we reach the 40% figure proposed by the Commission.
Equal access and full enjoyment of social rights for women and men, which would mean ensuring that the legislation is applied in the social sphere in terms of maternity leave, maternity protection, working time, employment contracts, etc.
Equality between women and men in civil life, allowing women to fully enjoy human rights and fundamental freedoms.
We especially need to guard against and eradicate trafficking in women and domestic violence.
We need to encourage a change in the roles and stereotypes associated with gender, which will also help to solve some of the other problems above.
In relation to this objective we will support the organisation of awareness campaigns and a European Equality Week in cooperation with the Member States, as the Commission proposes.
We think that it is very useful to create a web site, not only due to the increasing use of computerised media, but because this will help women to familiarise themselves more and more with this new world from which they must not be excluded.
Something that we think is of particular importance is the evaluation of the programme ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are now discussing Commissioner Diamantopoulou' s second tour de force.
With the framework strategy and the new action programme in place, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities - working under intense time pressure, and restricted to only a few official languages - has now, with a great deal of good will, introduced 60 proposed amendments.
I hope that the President-in-Office of the Council, Nicole Péry, will be able to get through the programme in the Council in November. I hope there will be no repeat of the fourth action programme, when the erstwhile Federal Government under Helmut Kohl halved the budget, no less.
Time is pressing.
Women are still not adequately represented in politics and in economic decision-making processes.
According to EUROSTAT, approximately 77% of the recipients of low wages are women.
Depending on the country and sector, women earn up to 30% less than their male counterparts.
The framework strategy must be brought to bear in this regard as well.
All the equal opportunities initiatives should be coordinated under one roof and translated into the five, specific, strategic goals.
Other speakers have made the same point.
That would be the logical way to implement the gender mainstreaming concept.
I am expecting the male protagonists to at last get down to work and do their bit to counter inherited notions of gender roles and stereotypes.
We also want to see the leading politicians on our side, and call upon President Prodi, the Council, and the Ministers, to take full account of the gender aspect, for example in the context of the European Union' s foreign relations, and particularly where the enlargement process is concerned.
More emphasis should be placed on establishing links between women' s organisations, which is something I called for back when I was rapporteur for the interim report on the fourth action programme.
Our parliamentary committee plans to stage a conference on this specialist policy area, together with the parliamentary committees of our Member States and of the candidate countries, in November in Berlin.
I am hoping that this will provide the necessary political impetus for the implementation of the programme and framework strategy.
This is where Europe will again lead the way in the fight for women' s rights in Europe.
Mr President, following the first four action programmes for equality between women and men, it was a good move on the part of the Commission to innovate by proposing a Community framework strategy for equality and a programme to implement this strategy and make real progress towards equality.
There is great need of this, even though a quarter of a century has passed since the first Community directive on the equal treatment of men and women with regard to pay.
I find the Commission' s new approach to be a very positive one, and the proposal for a decision for the 2001-2005 programme to have been well considered.
Unfortunately, the report by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities is no improvement on the text put forward by the Commission.
It overeggs the pudding, and includes unconsidered and indigestible proposals, worded in such a way as to make a first-year law student' s hair stand on end.
In committee, I had tabled a raft of amendments intended to do away with the worst of the incongruities, particularly those that demonstrated an outlandish mish-mash of strategy and programmes.
The Commission has produced an excellent text.
It is a very serious mistake, in politics, to mix strategy up with tactics or with programmes.
As is so often the case in reports by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, we have here a report including the ideological claims of the left wing coalition, the gauche plurielle, in this Parliament, like the claim that measures eligible for programme funding in a transnational context should include the analysis and assessment of, I quote, "the significance of a general reduction in working hours" .
Do we really need to waste any of the paltry EUR 53.45 million in appropriations to cover five years on such an analysis? I think not.
I am also of the opinion that the appropriations for the European Women' s Lobby, budget line A 3037, should not be included in the appropriations committed for the programme and I hope that the Commissioner will favour the amendments that I and the other members of my Group have tabled, above the rapporteur' s own far-fetched amendments.
Mr President, I think it would be a great shame if Nicole Péry were not also to seize the opportunity to state her opinion now that she is here, so that we might hear her points of view, too.
Mrs Eriksson, Mrs Péry has not asked to speak and I cannot force her to. I cannot order the President-in-Office of the Council to take the floor.
In any case, I feel that we should thank her for following the debate, especially since she was not scheduled to be present during this discussion as well.
However, I see that she is preparing to leave now.
Mr President, I should like to thank and congratulate Mrs Eriksson, who has endeavoured in the short time available to respond to the need for us to accept the programme as quickly as possible, so that we can avoid a vacuum between the fourth and fifth programmes and can start implementing the fifth programme in January.
This programme is an important document for the Committee on Women' s Rights, which is why it provoked a great deal of interest and, of course, it forms part of the more overall strategy which was discussed with the Committee on Women' s Rights, the Committee on Social Affairs and the Council.
It is the familiar 5-pronged strategy of participation of women in economic life, at the decision-making centres, in social policy, in civil society and in human rights, together with the new model of gender equality for the mass media and education.
Our cooperation with the committee was excellent, which is why we can accept a large number of amendments, either to the letter or in spirit.
Specifically, we accept Amendments Nos 2, 4, 5, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 28, 32, 43, 46, 48, 49, 51, 55, 56 and 59.
We are also able to accept parts of Amendments Nos 3, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15, 20, 27, 35, 37, 45, 50, 53, 57 and 58.
I think that the large number of amendments accepted is illustrative of the meeting of minds between the Commission and the Committee on Women' s Rights.
I should like to make two comments on the amendments which we are unable to accept, mainly for technical and legal reasons rather than because of a difference of approach.
First, as far as the strategy is concerned.
It is not possible for the entire strategy to form part of the Council decision, but I agree that some amendments could be made to the wording of the articles in order to make it perfectly clear that this strategy has been taken into account and forms the basis on which the programme will be implemented.
Secondly, as far as the specific percentage to be earmarked from the Structural Funds is concerned.
I should remind you that a regulation was voted through last year which clearly sets out how items are allocated and we cannot use a programme to change the regulation which already exists.
I must stress that we absolutely agree on the need to focus on complementarity between current actions and programmes and, of course, on the important role which non-governmental organisations must play in designing and implementing these programmes.
And I should like to stress, in the light of certain comments, that the women' s lobby really does play an important coordinating role at European level and that there are no protests or complaints in the Commission about exempting certain organisations; on the contrary, European organisations as a whole are able to take part in all the programmes, such as this programme, EQUAL, the programme to combat discrimination, the programme to combat exclusion, DAPHNE or STOP.
Major European women' s organisations therefore clearly have access to all the programmes.
I really do believe that the strategy behind this programme, the main objective of which is to implement mainstreaming in all policies, is a huge challenge for all of us, both at Commission level, with the cooperation between the individual committees which we need in order to obtain a final result, and at national level, with the need for horizontal action in every ministry so that the women' s policy becomes a horizontal policy.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Competition policy
The next item is the joint debate on the two reports tabled on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy:
(A5-0290/2000) tabled by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, on the XXIXth report on competition policy - 1999 [SEC(2000) 720 - C5-0302/2000 - 2000/2153 (COS)];
(A5-0281/2000) tabled by Mr Evans, on the Commission's eighth survey on State aid in the European Union [COM(2000) 205 - C5-0430/2000 - 2000/2211(COS)].
Mr President, I very much welcome the Commission' s report.
It is a splendid piece of work that Commissioner Monti and his staff carried out last year.
In my report on the twenty-ninth report on the Commission' s competition policy, I expended particular energy on the problems concerning mergers and the repayment of State aid.
I did this for a number of reasons.
Firstly because, in the course of last year, I was approached on a number of occasions by companies which have felt a certain degree of powerlessness in connection with rulings on mergers, especially in relation to those cases in which they have needed to appeal to the Court of First Instance against the Commission' s ruling.
With regard to State aid, moreover, problems apparently still exist with ensuring that unlawfully paid State aid is paid back to the national exchequers.
Let us begin, however, with mergers. One consequence of EMU is, of course, that we see more and more mergers.
I also think the time is ripe for re-assessing whether the procedures and sets of rules we have at present are as good as they could be.
The world is not, of course, always so easy for those who have to follow the rules and procedures we are involved in devising.
I think it is necessary for clear rules to be devised for what is called the relevant market.
It is important to distinguish between what may be called the peripheral areas of Europe and what may be called the heart of Europe.
It is especially important to put this distinction in place before enlargement, for it can be difficult for the smaller countries in the peripheral areas when companies wish to merge, because the latter quickly become large players in their own market.
It is not especially appropriate that larger companies in small countries should be prevented from merging for, in that way, their opportunities to compete globally are reduced.
I should therefore like to remind you that we do, of course, have existing rules to take care of those circumstances in which companies exploit their important and possibly dominant market positions.
We therefore need not perhaps be so afraid of mergers.
After all, it is not a crime for companies to merge.
Another thing I feel very strongly about is the need to arrange for mergers to go through more quickly.
I am thinking here, in particular, of those circumstances in which a company wishes to appeal against the Commission' s ruling.
Quite simply, a period of between 25 and 35 months is too long in our global village for getting a case through the courts, and what is very time consuming is having the documents of the case translated.
That is not good enough.
We owe it to our companies to offer them the best conditions so that they are able to plan their production and, especially, their future.
On the subject of mergers, I have two questions for you, Commissioner Monti.
Would it be possible to consider different possible solutions for separating the Commission' s functions of judge and prosecutor? For example, could there be a panel of independent experts during the second hearing so that it is not exclusively people from the Commission who assess individual merger cases?
I also have another idea, even if it is perhaps a touch outside your sphere of authority. Might not a committee of experts or an expert tribunal, specialising in companies, be set up in the department of first instance at the court in Luxembourg?
In Denmark, for example, we have a special maritime and commercial court dealing exclusively with issues relating to companies. I would also take the opportunity of asking the Commissioner to explain why one of the most trusted merger specialists has left the Commission.
The other subject I raised in my report is that of State aid and the repayment of State aid which has been awarded unlawfully.
I make no secret of the fact that I feel very strongly about tightening up on the repayment of State aid which has been awarded unlawfully, especially since this is another area it is important to sort out before enlargement.
It is good that State aid to shipyards in Europe should be phased out as per 1 January 2001, even if it is extremely problematic that our shipyards should continue to have to compete with the South Korean treasury.
In the light of the latest development, I can appreciate why the Commission has, with good reason, adopted a harder line on South Korea.
I am wondering, therefore, if you could report on the very latest developments, Commissioner, even though I am well aware that you only have limited time available.
I also want to take the opportunity to ask Commissioner Monti if and when a public, efficient and properly functioning register of State aid may be expected to be put in place and, in the same vein, when the long-promised scoreboard is to become a reality.
Finally, I want to emphasise that, for me as a liberal, it is crucially important that companies can be sure of being dealt with properly and efficiently in all areas, so that there are no hitches where companies' future legal certainty is concerned.
I should also like to thank my fellow MEPs in Committee for the splendid way in which they have cooperated in connection with my report.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Riis-Jørgensen for her contribution and for her cooperation in relation to these two reports.
They have been taken in joint debate because common issues apply.
I endorse much of the agenda that has been set by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen.
I should like to begin somewhat unusually by congratulating the Commission on a document it published back in June 1999 - the Community rules on state aid, what I might call the "idiot's guide" to the operation of the state aid scheme.
It is helpful in that it sets out the Treaty provisions, the definitions of state aid and also the exemptions from the ban on state aid.
In the course of preparing my report, I have had to struggle with that particular conundrum.
There are those in this House who will wish to emphasise the exemptions; however, I wish to make it clear that for the most part the operation of state aid works against free competition within a single market.
The single market is essential in terms of promoting the interests of consumers.
They must have a wide variety of high-quality, competitively priced goods and that, ultimately, is the reason for pushing forward with the single market and, along with it, free competition, because it is to the benefit of all our citizens.
Turning now to the eighth survey: although there has been a reduction in the overall level of state aid during the period concerned, this can in fact be attributed to a minority of Member States and, taken overall, ten Member States have seen levels of state aid increase.
I know that is a matter of concern to the Commissioner and it is certainly a concern I share.
I therefore welcome the indications we have received from the Commissioner that he anticipates that by July of next year we will be seeing progress in relation to the delivery of a state aid scoreboard and register.
That is important in terms of the need for transparency.
I would ask him how he sees the debate on enlargement in view of the fact that, on the one hand, we must ensure that we have a common regime across all states within the European Union and, on the other hand, it must be the case that some of the candidate countries have particular difficulties in adjusting to new open market conditions.
I would also make the point to Commissioner Monti that it is important that in the next survey we see a rather larger section on the financial services sector.
I should like to congratulate him on a speech he made in Barcelona in September - and I am very grateful to his staff for sending a copy of the speech to me - devoted as it was to his view on the synergy between state aid control and the financial services sector.
But in due course we must see rather more of that in the state aid report itself.
I also would wish to see changes in the way that the state aid report is put together in order to ensure it is able to take account of future developments.
For instance, during the period of time of this report, no state aid was given to the coal sector in the UK and yet we all know that significant aid is currently being proposed by the UK Government.
I should like to say in that context that I am very strongly of the view, as is the steel industry in very many parts of the European Union, that the steel aid code, which it is not planned to extend beyond 2002, needs to remain in place in order that all businesses are aware, in the current difficult circumstances for the steel industry, that a strict regime will be applied within the European Union, which is not discriminatory as between one country and another.
I take this opportunity to ask the Commissioner for some information regarding two cases within the United Kingdom where the Commission has currently instituted action - if indeed it is the case that action has been instituted.
There are the cases of the universal bank proposed by the UK Government to assist post offices in the UK and also the venture capital schemes in the regions of the United Kingdom.
I understand he has asked for information concerning this.
It is quite clear that throughout the report itself much attention has been directed not just to the past but also to Commissioner Monti' s proposals for future reform of competition policy.
That is an issue which will be coming before Parliament in due course.
Commissioner Monti will be very well aware of the concerns that are shared by many people who support his proposals for reform but feel that there need to be answers in relation to issues like jurisdiction shopping, legal certainty, the role of national courts, dialogue between the national competition authorities and the Commission itself, as also issues of staffing within the Commission.
Those are matters that we will consider in debates in due course and for which - I am delighted to inform the Commission - I have been appointed Parliament' s rapporteur.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the lavish amount of speaking time we permit ourselves for debates of this kind, I want to dispense with the preliminaries and address Commissioner Monti directly.
Commissioner, you know that for some time now, there has been a substantial consensus in this House on competition issues.
This means that the entire House supports the Commission in matters of competition policy.
With the passage of time though, I have begun to wonder whether the Commission is not, in fact, gradually losing its sense of perspective where individual decisions are concerned, or whether it even wants to prejudge fundamental decisions in entirely different political fields under the mantle of competition.
I will cite one of several examples, and it is one that is currently the subject of intense debate in other regions besides my own.
It concerns the subsidisation decision or non-subsidisation decision in relation to the coal industry.
I will take the precaution, Commissioner - in case you should want to point out that this in fact falls within Commissioner Palacio' s remit - of saying that I am addressing the Commission as a whole.
I would also draw your attention to the fact that the coal issue is raised both in the competition report and in the subsidy report that we are discussing today.
I expect the Commission to uphold its agreements.
I do not expect it to abuse judgements from the Court of Justice in order to withdraw from these agreements.
I will reiterate what I have already said repeatedly in debates of this kind: competition is not an end in itself.
When a decision is to be taken in matters of competition policy, account must be taken of the social, structural and industrial implications, and if this is not done then competition policy will degenerate to the level of pure ideology.
If the aspects I mentioned are taken into consideration, and one considers the net product chain of the state-of-the-art technology, then the subsidy licences that have fallen due for coal mining must be granted without delay.
This does not just apply to the sphere of energy policy; it applies right across the board.
Competition is important but it is not the be-all and end-all.
To sum up, what we need is to strike a balance between competition rules and acting for the public good.
This must be the guiding principle in all areas.
Commissioner, I want to take up what I said at the beginning.
The support is still there.
But if you carry on in this vein, you risk losing the support of not insignificant sections of the House.
I dare say that is unlikely to help matters overall.
Mr President, I am going to talk about Mrs Riis-Jørgensen' s report.
I want to begin by congratulating her on a very good report.
One of the absolutely basic principles of EU cooperation is that competition between different companies, products, countries and regions should work well and be fair and correct, as well as be for the benefit of consumers.
Allow me to begin with something said by Adam Smith, the father of economic liberalism, in 1776, to the effect that people in the same industry seldom meet for pleasure or diversion without their conversations' ending with a conspiracy against the general public or some device for raising prices.
Certainly, a good deal has happened in the last 200 years or so, but we have the same aspirations today.
If the internal market is to operate, we must have active institutions which look after issues of competition.
Commissioner Monti is to be congratulated in this respect.
Paragraph 16 of Mrs Riis-Jørgensen' s report talks of increased legal certainty where applications for mergers are concerned, together with more effective and shorter timeframes within which to appeal before courts.
This applies particularly in view of the fact that, in dealing with mergers, the Commission has something of a double role.
The Commission both supervises and applies the rules of competition.
This double role makes special demands in terms of openness, control and predictability.
The second paragraph I want to mention is paragraph 18.
It is of general relevance, but its point of departure is the planned merger between motor manufacturers Volvo and Scania.
As is well known, the Commission opposed this merger, which in turn led to an extensive debate about how the rules of competition operate and how market shares are to be calculated and assessed.
A clearer definition and further discussion are needed in this area.
As long as the internal market is not complete, it is mainly large companies in small Member States which can lose out in competitiveness to companies elsewhere in the world. How are large companies with large home markets to be able to merge and compete in a global market if the EU' s rules make this impossible?
Coming as I do from a small country, I myself am very pleased, therefore, that the Committee should have adopted the amendments I proposed in this connection. I hope that the Commission is now also prepared to broaden the discussion and shed more light on the rules of competition on the basis of these assumptions.
Commissioner Monti, on behalf of the Italian Radicals, I too would like to thank the rapporteurs for the two sound reports they have produced, which commend both your work and the work of the Directorate-General for Competition.
I would like to take this opportunity to raise a few general points regarding European competition policies and also the competitiveness and opening-up of the European markets, not in order to deny any progress made thusfar, but with a view to the future.
In my opinion, a particularly regrettable factor, if we want a genuinely open and competitive market economy to develop, is still the presence of large numbers of powerful public companies in sectors which have already been formally liberalised or which are currently going through this process.
I could mention, for example ... let me see ... the State monopoly of retirement pensions, but I will restrict myself, more pertinently, to firms operating in the sectors of general interest services.
It is my view that, in these sectors, competition and the market are being severely hampered by the fact that the State is both regulator and operator.
I know, Commissioner, because I have had occasion to read and hear your views on the matter, that your response to the objections is that the articles of the Treaties do not provide for any distinction between the public or private nature of firms.
However, we cannot be satisfied with this response if we want Europe to become a more competitive and more open market in the future and - dare I say it - if we study carefully certain situations which are developing, in which even the current rules would allow us to intervene.
The whole of Europe is experiencing the growth of an aggressive State capitalism which has resulted in a series of private companies being taken over by State monopolies or former monopolies, in any case by companies which are firmly in public hands, companies which are State-owned.
We have heard the justification many times; it is always ready to be trotted out - we must ensure that our companies and their assets retain their value through the privatisation process - meanwhile privatisation generally becomes more and more delayed instead of facilitated.
And, naturally, these are clearly statements to which the ears of the various Ministers for the Treasury in Europe are extremely sensitive.
In all cases, these are public companies whose financial prowess derives from their past and present positions of monopoly rather than managerial expertise.
In many cases, they are companies which operate entirely or in part with considerable legal monopolistic reserves.
Truly, Commissioner, can we not perceive in these cases the existence of State aid, concealed to a greater or lesser extent, or abuse of a dominating position?
Or again, the transfer at the very least of the distorting effects of the dominating position from one sector to another?
Or, lastly, the ever increasing consolidation of the positions of the incumbents which will make it difficult for newcomers to enter the various markets after liberalisation? By way of example, Deutsche Post has recently gained control of DHL International and is operating under a monopoly for dispatches up to 200 grams, and then, on a more general note, we could cite the diversification of the State postal companies in other sectors; EDF (Eléctricité de France) has taken over companies in Britain, Sweden and Finland, France Telecom has taken over Orange; on the Italian side of things, Enel has taken over Infostrada and, still in the Italian context, we could mention the various companies owned by local authorities which are behaving in a similar fashion.
Lastly, Commissioner, there is the case of the public financing of State television under the alibi of financing a public service, which is a concept that is fading fast.
Of course, there is the Treaty of Amsterdam, but I wonder whether the constraints imposed by the governments on the excellent work of your predecessor should, in any case, be justified as a way of exempting these companies from European competition rules.
Mr President, we welcome the modernisation of the competition policy which, in terms of set-up, has undergone little change since the sixties.
This overhaul is all the more imperative since nearly all of the Member States have now established a sound, independent competition authority.
I do not share the concern expressed by quite a few fellow MEPs with regard to the re-nationalisation of policy.
If we want to avoid a chaotic and unwieldy bureaucracy in Brussels, then we have no choice but to embrace decentralisation.
I am delighted about the special attention being paid to the position of large undertakings in small Member States in Paragraph 18 of the motion for a resolution.
These are the ones experiencing major adverse effects from infringements of the internal market or from the continued existence of borders within the internal market, because their 'home market' cannot sufficiently absorb these blows.
What are the Commissioner' s objections to lending the concept of 'relevant market' a predominantly EU-wide dimension in the event of mergers?
I would also like to draw the Commissioner' s attention to the environmental significance of soil decontamination projects.
Naturally, we endorse the polluter pays principle.
But this principle certainly cannot always be applied, especially in the case of large or substantial soil decontamination projects, because we will then end up with contaminated soil well into the next century.
Given the staff shortages in your Directorate-General, Mr Monti, it is not logical to accord a great deal of attention to this. It seems to me that the effect of these projects on the competitive sphere is rather minor.
Finally, the book by your predecessor, and former Commissioner, Mr Van Miert, entitled "Mijn jaren in Europa" [My years in Europe] gives some idea of the blackmail-like tactics which a Competition Commissioner comes up against.
It speaks volumes.
I hope you are affected by this to a lesser extent, but I fear the worst.
I therefore wish you all the strength and wisdom you will need to keep your chin up over the next couple of years, and I look forward to reading similar memoirs by yourself in due course.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to say a warm thank you for the reports we have heard about today, and which do not just record what happened in the past, but also pick out the central themes of the present debate, and even incorporate the Commission' s plans.
Competition is not, as has already been said, an end in itself.
It must serve the interests of consumers, companies and local conditions.
Competition is therefore always a means to an end.
It is a vital cornerstone of our model, in terms of political order, of the socio-economic market economy.
I stress this point because the market cannot regulate everything, which is why competition is not completely unrestricted, nor should it be.
We therefore need two things: firstly, in the interests of increased transparency, we need to make the public aware of all the approved subsidies that influence competition, and secondly there must be areas of our day-to-day lives and behaviour which are not subject lock, stock and barrel to the dictates of European competition policy.
The sports sphere or the numerous non-governmental organisations in the social and health spheres, to quote two examples.
Who, like us, says 'yes' to a functioning internal market, must also have the courage of their convictions to say 'yes' to European competition policy.
Therefore, we welcome the modernisation of competition policy, which is initiated and then maintained by a stream of new proposals.
The Community' s competition policy has been given a new European and international dimension.
In view of the enlargement process and globalisation, it is playing an increasingly important part in economic relations within and outside the European Union.
I therefore welcome the modernisation going on within the Community on the one hand, and the fact that European competition policy now extends beyond Union borders.
On a final note, we need a more precise definition of the relevant market because, increasingly, the market is not the national market.
We need to promote the citizens' awareness of competition policy, so that they recognise the advantages.
We also need to step up debate in the European public arena on the relevant proposals, because they are frequently misunderstood.
What I mean - and this is directed at the public, not the Commission - is that its decentralised application must not lead to renationalisation, but must instead lead to Europeanisation.
When you delegate responsibility, you must take care not to surrender your key responsibility!
Lastly, boosting the citizens' autonomy must not create legal uncertainty, rather, European competition policy must well and truly leave its mark on the thoughts and actions of the people beyond the institutions.
We still have a lot to do on that score, Commissioner!
Mr President, today no one disputes, and of course I am not going to do so, the fact that state aid alters the conditions for competition and is a damaging element that encourages inefficiency in undertakings.
This is certain, but if each and every one of us is honest, we have to admit that in our public life we have often defended state aid when an undertaking has required it in order to establish itself, for example, in our constituency, or in order to prevent it from closing.
I began by saying this in order to highlight what is associated with some positions and to point out that when we are trying to issue a European Parliament opinion on the annual report on state aid, the Group of the Europe People' s Party tries to conduct an ideological debate in this House on state aid in which it aims to go further than anyone and to demonise all types of aid.
This happened last year with the Jonckheer report, and this year, despite the more flexible position adopted by Mr Evans, it has continued to arise, perhaps in order to present the Socialists as some sort of outdated interventionists who use measures that are as damaging for the market as state aid.
I have already had the opportunity to express that state aid is a transfer of public money to private companies and, therefore, that as Socialists we should also be against it.
However, we cannot deny the obvious and we should recall that the Treaty does not forbid all types of aid, so some types that are aimed at objectives such as social cohesion, regional cohesion, the environment, etc. should be permitted.
If that is the case, and it is, why does the Group of the Europe People' s Party refuse to accept amendments that cover that point? The same occurs when the report insists, following the Commission' s line, that aid for coal did not serve to secure the future of the industry, but in the same paragraph they refuse to accept a sentence, also from the Commission, saying that this aid was necessary in order to mitigate the social and regional impact of the restructuring of the sector.
In this respect, it is difficult for us to agree with a report which, although it reflects part of the truth, refuses to include another part of the truth.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Evans and Mr Karas have highlighted the significance of state aids and competition policy very clearly in this debate.
In future we must remember that there are national aid schemes, in respect of internal competition, for example, which are especially important and valuable in countries with low population densities and where distances are long.
I wish to raise one issue in this regard, that of transport aid.
I am thinking here of my own country, for example, where the distances are long.
In the north the price of fuel is 0.2 euros higher than in southern Finland.
In addition, shipments of raw materials, animal feedingstuffs and similar goods are especially important as far as internal competition is concerned and issues of major importance in order that state aids may continue to support them.
They are especially significant with regard to the regional economy and employment, and I hope that in future this can be made clear, so that these aids, these internal aids, which affect regional development and the regional economy, in which transport aid is a key example, might continue.
Mr President, Commissioner Monti, ladies and gentlemen, a European, open, competitive and coordinated market economy needs an effective competition policy.
Without a properly administered competition policy, neither the European Union' s economy nor its external manifestation, in the form of the euro, will ever be able to achieve its full potential.
Only a company that is competitive in the Internal Market without State aid can also be competitive in the global market.
However, in shaping European competition policy we have to ensure that it does not limit the opportunities for companies to succeed in the wider, global economy as well.
As Mrs Riis-Jørgensen quite rightly emphasises in her report and speech, there is a danger, particularly with regard to the small Member States, that too narrow a concept of the market is used to define a dominant market position, which makes it harder for companies in small Member States to become sufficiently large players in the area of global competition.
Besides, a dominant market position is not even a problem unless there is evidence that this position is being abused.
Only if the dominant market position leads to adversity with regard to consumers and competitors must we tackle the situation using stringent measures, as you, Mr Monti, have done.
As Mrs Riis-Jørgensen states in point 15 of her report, we have to focus on the harm caused as a result of measures restricting competition, and not so much on what sort of economic players are involved.
Special account must be taken of the position of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Small-scale State aid might be more harmful to an SME than people think if the market is a small one.
For that reason it is good that this report of Mrs Riis-Jørgensen' s also emphasises the importance of this.
In his report, my colleague, Mr Evans, thanks you, Mr Monti, for having got to grips with the issue of State aid policy.
Massive amounts of State aid are still a problem in many sectors.
Although State aid may, on the surface, seem a good solution, when viewed in the longer term it very rarely produces lasting positive results.
I certainly do not want to condemn all State aid.
There is also aid that is necessary, as laid down the Treaties.
In the long run, however, levels of State aid will have to fall.
State aids lead to the postponement of inevitable structural change, to the distortion of competition, and breed inefficiency.
In a sense, State aids prop up Potemkin villages, which at some stage will come crashing down.
Then it is the private consumer and the taxpayer who foot the bill.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all let me express my deep disagreement with the excessively liberal, if not actually ultraliberal, tendencies of the report by our fellow Member, Mr Evans.
Hearing him deny the fact that state aid was reduced in the period 1994-1998, even though the Commission itself acknowledges this reduction, is already bizarre, to say the least.
It is all the more serious, however, to see him, in an almost obsessive way, stressing the exceptional nature of state aid, even though the Treaty itself provides for the use of such aid in order to achieve the objectives set by the Treaties, such as in matters of the environment or social cohesion, and even though the European Commission itself recognises that some policies cannot be sustained solely by market forces. These, I feel, are adequate reasons for me not to support the report as it stands.
And, even if I can relate to the demands for increased transparency on the subject of state aid, and for Parliament to be kept informed with regard to the monitoring of aid approved by the Commission, I shall nonetheless continue to argue in favour of maintaining state aid in order to develop social cohesion, research, innovation, environmental protection, in order to compensate for shortfalls in the market, in order to promote European competitiveness in the world, in order to combat the fraudulent machinations of competing countries, such as Korea in the sphere of shipbuilding.
Let me add that state aid must be supervised strictly according to the terms of the treaties and not in accordance with the prevailing liberal ideology.
Between the omnipresent State, which no one wants any more, and the completely absent State, which is nothing more than a modern-day law of the jungle, this concept which many term the European social model forces us to continually seek a balance between those things that can be governed by the market and those which public authorities have a duty to regulate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are also to discuss the Montfort report this week, which Parliament wants to use to promote an entrepreneurial way of thinking.
It is therefore particularly apt to acknowledge three things in this debate.
Firstly, the fact that a European Charter of Fundamental Rights has now been drafted, Article 16 of which establishes the right to entrepreneurial freedom. Of course, this right demands strict competition law, because only this will guarantee fair competition.
It protects consumers and investors.
Secondly, it is only right that we should acknowledge the highly commendable book by Karel van Miert, which tells us about the means employed by entrepreneurs to bring pressure to bear on other entrepreneurs.
Thirdly therefore, I would like to congratulate the Commission and its staff on the actions and decisions they have taken in the field of competition law, previously under Karel van Miert and now under your overall control, Professor Monti.
Against this background, you have reworked a communication on services of general interest and set out the legal situation once again.
This statement contains three important messages.
Firstly, the Member States have the right to define everything that belongs under this heading.
Secondly, the Member States have the right to inject supplementary funding if it would otherwise be impossible to maintain these activities.
And thirdly - and this is highly relevant to this debate - there must of course be no areas which are exempt from competition law.
It is therefore possible to see why renationalisation would spell trouble. It must not annul the general validity of Community law.
Hence those articles in the motions for resolutions which point to this fact, including the need for transparency, are particularly valuable.
Professor Monti, I would like to make a suggestion in this respect. You really ought to clarify, at an earlier stage, that start-up aid - the administration of which varies substantially from Member State to Member State, in the sphere of renewable energies for example - will enjoy confidentiality protection, at least for the duration of its lifetime, even if, in the meantime - which is what I am hoping will happen - the Union as a whole upgrades its support measures.
, draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
(ES) Mr President, I would first like to apologise for having arrived late.
Secondly, I would like to welcome the work done by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, with whom I have had an excellent and constructive relationship.
And obviously, Mr President, although my opinion refers to the Commission' s 29th report on competition policy, it is inevitable at such a time that we will look to the past, but for no other reason than in order to learn for the future.
It has been said - and I am only going to pick up on what has been said so far - that competition is presently the big word in our society, it is the great catalyst for the development of our society, particularly of our European society.
In short, we see that industry entered into competition following the Treaty of Rome, that this competition was also extended to services on the basis of the single market and that, with the euro, it extended to financial services. We see that now, driven by international competition and by the new technologies, the large telecommunications sector is being dealt with.
Finally, even royalty sectors, the real enclaves of sovereignty, of State royalty activities, are coming under competition policy.
Therefore, Mr President, we need to recognise that, with Member States that are ceasing to be producers and becoming regulators, the Commission policy needs to change, and in this sense, this report is part of that important development.
In its opinion, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market did nothing more than highlight something which has been said and repeated: that we need clear rules, because this is the only way of knowing what the rules of play are.
We cannot leave everything to the market with no regulation at all.
What we need are clear rules and - I stress - rules that are of a sufficient level or category.
In any event, interpretations or interpretative communications are no good.
And also, of course, that the Commission' s policy, which we welcome and support in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, should not be shaped, in this process of decentralisation, to the detriment of small and medium-sized businesses, to the detriment of the citizens.
I will end with a phrase from John Rawls, the philosopher of law: inequalities are always justified when they increase the level of the system and support the weakest without affecting fundamental rights.
Commissioner, knowing how far this goes in the universal service, in public service, is the great challenge for the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Parliament in general for the great interest that it has once again displayed in matters of competition.
Mr heartfelt thanks to Mrs Riis-Jørgensen for her valuable contribution as rapporteur of the XXIXth report on competition policy.
A big thank you to Mr Evans as well, for his excellent report on the rules governing State aid to the steel industry and on the eighth survey on State aid in the European Union.
All three reports assume considerable importance in the light of the efforts the Commission has made to increase the transparency of its competition policy and to explain what it is doing to the citizens.
On the subject of explaining competition policy, I would like to say that I am extremely pleased with the success of the first two European Competition Days, which were held in Lisbon on 9 June and in Paris on 17 October this year.
The idea was conceived in this Parliament and developed by Parliament and the Commission.
My feeling is that, together, we are making progress in helping the citizens to understand this policy.
I would like to stress that I fully agree with much of what has been said and with very many of the points contained in the resolutions.
Mr President, in the time available to me, I would like to focus on the following three points: the modernisation of Community competition law, the practical application of competition rules in 1999 and State aid.
On the subject of modernisation, I will attempt, within the constraints imposed, to respond to some of the extremely interesting points which have been raised.
The annual report on competition policy emphasises the need to modernise the legislative and interpretative framework of Community competition law in the areas of both monopolies and State aid.
I will not go into the details of the reform projects which have recently been completed or are still being developed, for they have already been the subject of a specific consultation process between the Commission and Parliament, or will be in the future, in the constructive dialogue which is so valuable.
With regard to State aid, in my opinion, the entry into force, in 1999, of the Rules of Procedure was a considerable step forward.
They increase transparency and establish the deadlines for adopting the decisions on State aid.
As far as monopolies are concerned, the Commission adopted a proposal for a regulation on the matter on 27 September last.
A great many observations made by Parliament during consultation over the White Paper were taken into account even as early as at the stage of drawing up the proposal.
Particular attention was paid to the concerns expressed by Parliament regarding renationalisation and legal certainty.
I would therefore like to assure Mrs Palacio, Mr Karas and the other Members who spoke on these points that the regulation takes their concerns into ample consideration.
I am now waiting for the commencement of the second stage of dialogue between our two institutions on these legislative proposals and I am sure that it will be as constructive as the first stage.
As you know, on 9 and 10 November, the Commission and Parliament are jointly organising a conference on this reform in Freiburg, a conference proposed for the first time precisely in your resolution on the White Paper.
My second point is the application of the competition rules during 1999.
In the year in question, there were an unusually large number of cases requiring the use of considerable resources and which were closed by formal decisions.
One of the things I appreciate is your call for an increase in human resources.
The Commission has continued to intervene resolutely, particularly where cartels and abuse of a dominating position are concerned.
As in the debate on mergers, since time is limited and I prefer to attempt to answer some of the specific questions, I will not mention the major - albeit numerous - interventions we have made.
The third point is State aid.
I am happy to note the support which Parliament continues to lend us in relation to the eighth survey too.
I welcome Parliament's proposals on the future development of these information tools, which will include the register and the scoreboard as well as audits.
I confirm to Mr Evans and the other Members who have spoken on this subject that we will be ready to present the initial versions of the register and the scoreboard - Mrs Riis-Jørgensen also upholds this idea - before June 2001, and I am confident that transparency will be an important additional tool for the application of the legal instruments governing State aid.
Mr President, I would now like to focus on at least some of the specific points raised.
Several Members - Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, Mr Schmidt, Mr Blokland and Mrs Kauppi - have posed the problem of large companies operating in relatively small countries.
Could we not relax the definition of the relevant market there, when it comes to merger operations? Well, if the relevant market, on the basis of the analysis conducted, happens to be national in scope, you must realise that doing what you suggest would amount to discrimination against the consumers and customers in those national markets.
What we have to work together for is to gradually establish in the marketplace the reality of a single market going beyond the national market.
Otherwise we would be serving our purpose of helping competition and the consumers in a perverse way.
I add, in relation to the specific Volvo-Scania case that I am sure underlies many speakers' remarks, that both companies have been able to reach solutions that make their own further international growth compatible with the protection of the interests of competition and consumers in those markets.
Should we introduce a panel of independent experts to assess mergers? The recourse to external expertise can be useful and already takes place in a number of cases.
But the Commission should not and will not give its ultimate responsibility of taking decisions to an external body.
It belongs to us.
It may, on occasion, be uncomfortable, but this is our task.
Concerning the problem of one DG Competition official who resigned, I have already expressed my regret about that resignation.
Further increasing the right of defence, the transparency of the procedures, including the enhanced position of the hearing officer, is something to which I am very much attached and upon which I am reflecting, taking into account several inputs including the useful ideas provided by that official before he resigned.
As far as Korea is concerned, Mr Lamy, who will be coming here during the course of the week, will be better placed to update you on the latest developments.
I can only, for my part, state my conviction that any extension of operating state aids to shipyards would not be the appropriate response to a situation that requires other types of intervention.
Mr Evans, I very much share your concern on the issue of state aids to financial services.
We will pursue that point with determination.
Mr Rapkay, it has been extremely important for the Commission to have the support of the European Parliament in pursuit of its competition policy and I do not feel that this support may fade away.
Looking at the resolutions we are discussing today, I see the Commission' s policy as very much in line with a vigorous implementation of those resolutions.
In the area notably of state aids, it must not be thought that the Commission believes in a pure or ultra-liberal policy.
State aids have their place but it is a fact that in many cases the concrete manifestation of state aids goes well beyond what the Treaty allows and what the guidelines allow.
But believe me, I certainly see competition policy as an instrument of a social market economy.
The stronger the implementation of competition the better the market tends to be.
There is full scope for social aspects provided they are not mixed up in a non-transparent way with the functioning of the market.
Mr Della Vedova, the presence of public companies raises competition problems and - although it is possible and I have, of course, to confirm that the Treaty provides for neutrality with regard to private or public ownership - it is possible to intervene in the event of distortion: the instruments are those which you mentioned, the instruments on the control of State aid and on the abuse of dominant positions.
You mentioned Deutsche Post: for example, procedures are currently in progress at the Commission on Deutsche Post in respect of both these areas, and I can assure you that the Commission does not intend the Protocol annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam on public television broadcasting to create a condition preventing appropriate control of State aid on this matter as well.
In this regard, and as far as State aid is concerned, I refer you to the Communication adopted by the Commission on 20 September on services of general economic interest.
Mr President, I think I have exceeded the time allowed to me.
I apologise to those to whose questions I have not had time to respond.
I would, however, like to end by quoting the report of the Legal Affairs Committee.
It states, Mrs Palacio:
All too often Commission decisions in the field of competition are presented in the press as defeats for national interests rather than victories for the internal market and for the consumer.'
Our intention is to have more and more of these victories and to be more and more able to explain them to European consumers and to European citizens.
Of course, Parliament has a very important role to play in this respect.
Mr President, I would just like to set the record straight for the benefit of the Commissioner.
I would not presume to speak on behalf of the whole of Parliament, and certainly not in advance of a vote on the matter.
I merely want to clarify that I spoke here on behalf of the second largest group, and expressed a real concern of ours, and if you heard Mr Caudron speak, then you would be aware that this is not something I alone am concerned about, because it is also something that bothers another MEP.
And so I only spoke on behalf of my Group, and not for Parliament as a whole.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments
The next item is the report (A5-0277/2000) by Mrs Sartori, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission report to the Council and to the European Parliament on the review of the single facility providing medium-term financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments [COM(1999) 628 - C5-0307/2000 - 2000/0807 (CNS)].
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I am tabling a proposal for a resolution on the Commission's report on the single facility providing medium-term financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments.
The financial assistance is currently governed by Council Regulation No 1969 of 1988.
This mechanism can be activated either at the request of a Member State or under Article 119 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, a provision which remains in force during the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union for the States which are covered by a derogation, currently Denmark, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
The regulation and the proposal for a regulation have merged two mechanisms (medium-term financial assistance and the Community loan mechanism intended to provide medium-term financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments) into a single facility providing medium-term financial assistance.
This proposal changes the mechanism' s ceiling.
The fact that, at the moment, only three countries can benefit from it suggests that the amount hitherto available - EUR 16 billion - can be reduced.
At the same time, however, past experience tells us that we cannot reduce it by very much, for the very reason that the last time the mechanism was used, in 1993, the loan was for EUR 8 billion.
Therefore, although the increase in convergence of States reduces the likelihood that the mechanism will be used, it must still have sufficient resources to meet the simultaneous needs of several countries, should this be necessary.
This is why we propose to reduce the amount available from EUR 16 billion to EUR 12 billion.
This resolution also envisages the possibility of considering creating a special mechanism providing financial assistance to the balance of payments of the candidate countries.
Clearly, this is a possibility for the future and therefore does not have a bearing on the present situation, but it is a possibility which I considered that we could at least examine in some depth so that we will be prepared should these issues arise.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Sartori for her report, which we have found very valuable.
The aim of this Commission report is to provide a basis for examining the single facility providing medium-term financial support and for revising it, should this prove necessary.
The financial mechanism implements Article 119 of the EC Treaty, which only remains in force during the third stage of economic and monetary union for the Member States which are not participating in monetary union.
The last assessment was carried out in October 1997 on the basis of a report drawn up by the Commission.
On that occasion, the Council endorsed the Commission' s position, which recommended that the mechanism should be continued, and decided that a further assessment, carried out according to the same procedure, would be necessary in the light of the changes linked to the commencement of the third stage.
The Commission is therefore bound to submit a report to the Council so that the Council can carry out this additional assessment of the mechanism.
The report makes three principle recommendations.
Firstly, the single facility should be continued in that it is an instrument implementing Article 119 of the Treaty which will continue to apply to the Member States which are not part of the eurozone; until they participate in the single currency, these Member States, in a similar way to the new Members of the Community, are liable to encounter problems with their balances of payments and therefore to wish to have recourse to the mechanism under consideration.
In view of the current level of economic, financial and monetary integration, the likelihood that these Member States will encounter difficulties related to the balance of payments is extremely low from the institutional point of view, but the mechanism must, nevertheless, remain in force.
Secondly, the possibility of having recourse to funds contributed by other Member States to finance the loans granted under the mechanism should be eliminated since, for various reasons, it has never been used.
In future, recourse to the capital market should be the only option available.
Thirdly and finally, the drop in the number of Member States who could now apply for this form of financial support and the need to cover the potential borrowing requirement of new Member States justify lowering the mechanism's ceiling from EUR 16 billion to EUR 12 billion.
The Economic and Financial Committee has drawn up an opinion which it sent to the Presidency on 14 July 2000.
The Committee considers that the conclusions of the analysis of the single facility performed by the Commission are in line with its positions.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Vegetative propagation of the vine
The next item is the report (A5-0195/2000) by Mrs Klass, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 68/193/EEC on the marketing of material for the vegetative propagation of the vine [COM(2000) 59 - C5-0090/2000 - 200/0036(CNS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful for the fact that we are, after all, to have the opportunity to discuss the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 68/193/EEC on the marketing of material for the vegetative propagation of the vine, and I also hope that tomorrow' s vote will have a positive outcome.
In terms of area, production and consumption European wine growing is in a leading position globally.
In several Member States wine growing represents a significant proportion of total agricultural production, and in many regions this sector is a crucial source of agricultural income.
Wine growing frequently takes place in areas in which other forms of agricultural activity would be difficult or impossible.
Wine growing is a very varied and dynamic sector characterised by long-established traditions and ancient cultures.
The vine propagating material provides the basis for optimal grape and wine production as regards quality, excellence and quantity, and establishes these factors over a period of 25 to 40 years.
It is thus extremely significant and it is essential to guarantee optimum reliability in terms of quality and trueness to variety.
The trade in, and marketing of, material for vegetative propagation of vines has, up to now, been laid down in directive 68/193/EEC dating from 1968.
The directive contains a number of provisions which up to now have allowed Member States to make unilateral exemptions from some of the rules, and the directive has already been amended several times.
I welcome the Commission' s proposal for amendments, which has grouped the amendments needed clearly in a single document and has also included new amendments arising from new developments and knowledge: as for example those concerning new types of propagating material for vines produced from herbaceous cuttings and in vitro propagation.
The desired consolidation of the single market is very much to be welcomed.
There is an urgent need to change or abolish old or outdated provisions so as to remove existing or potential barriers to trade.
As far as I am concerned, French vine propagators should also be in a position to propagate vines for the German or Italian market, and vice versa.
The specific characteristics of wine production and its further development, in particular in technical and scientific areas, make it essential to stipulate detailed technical provisions which will contribute to the smooth operation of the internal market, improve marketing prospects and also protect the legitimate interests of consumers and producers.
Accordingly, the Commission should publish a Community Catalogue of varieties, compiled on the basis of notifications from the Member States.
This will bring greater trading security for European wine growers.
Many amendments contain a better definition of terms such as 'genotype' , for example.
Accompanying paperwork and controls are important, and the Commission must ensure that only one document is required for each party, wherever they happen to be in Europe.
High-quality and healthy vine propagating material is playing an increasingly important role these days.
The report has taken on a particularly explosive character in the past few weeks.
This is because the Commission is proposing to create a legal basis with regard to genetically modified varieties.
The Commission proposal refers to Council Directive 90/220, which is to regulate all genetically modified material, as a horizontal directive.
We have done the same with respect to forest and plant material.
However, the fact that directive 90/220 is still undergoing the conciliation procedure should not stop us from proceeding in taking exactly the same approach with vines as we have done with forest and plant material.
All the amendments that are currently being introduced with regard to directive 90/220, under the conciliation procedure, will be applicable to vines at a later date.
There is no genetically modified vine propagating material available on the market as yet; however, research is ongoing.
The question as to whether genetically modified vines will be granted a permit at some future date, or whether this idea will be rejected by the wine producers and the wine trade, does not form part of today' s discussion of the directive.
I am sure we will have the opportunity to discuss these matters at length on another occasion.
The directive under discussion today guarantees that traditional vine varieties, which are characteristic of wine growing in the different regions, are to be maintained and protected.
Traditional wine growing is our strength in the European Union, and so it deserves our support.
I would therefore urge the House to assent to the report as it stands, and hope that this will enable the European internal market to be brought into play for vine propagating material.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the reason we wished to defer this report was that we wanted to ensure consistency in the work of the European Parliament as it influenced the course of European policy.
The revision of GMO Directive No 90/220 is at the conciliation stage right now.
It would be completely inconsistent not to wait until the end of this procedure before including references to GMOs in our directives and regulations.
That is why, at the proposal of the draftsman of the opinion, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has unanimously voted to do away with all the references to GMOs in this report.
And please do not tell us that we are barking up the wrong tree, and that this revision does not have any implications concerning GMOs, since a regulation of this type already exists for forestry.
At the moment, we consume wine, but we do not yet feed on the wood of our forests.
Contrary to what the executive committee and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development would have us believe, this revision slyly but irremediably introduces genetically modified vines.
This is a clear indication that the European Parliament would, indirectly, give the green light to GMO experiments in the field of vine propagation or improvement.
Why the rush? It is not at the request of the winegrowers or wine merchants or vineyard owners.
On 5 July, some of these issued the Beaune declaration, expressing their great concern at the introduction of GMOs into their sector.
We have received a reply from the confederation of producers of registered designation of origin (AOC) wine, saying, "We support the position of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, as it offers the guarantee that European regulations are not going to permit the implementation of procedures to authorise the sale of genetically modified wine-growing materials which may be harmful to the brand image of wine growing."
Just who is going to benefit from this amended regulation which includes GMOs?
The question - and the answer, of course - will have to come from the Commission, who must also tell us whether it is intending to continue to pave the way for us to end up with GMOs on our plates, and now in our glasses too.
This is something that they are achieving, unfortunately, with the assistance of the French Presidency, in a way that is completely out of step with the way European consumers feel.
The previous directive proved to be relevant and effective in enabling, firstly, products to be standardised and the internal Community trade in vine cuttings and plants to develop substantially in recent years.
It now needs to be revised to take into account developments in phytosanitary regulations and scientific and technical progress, particularly in the field of in vitro propagation.
The draft text presented by the European Commission, as amended by the European Parliament Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, proposes some interesting advances. I shall cite the most significant here.
The current draft rules out any possibility of any of the Fifteen Member States enjoying a unilateral exemption from the terms of the directive.
This provision, which was not laid down in the initial version of the directive, is preferable as it makes it possible to avoid barriers to trade and to facilitate the movement of propagation material within the European Union.
The material produced by in vitro herbaceous cutting propagation techniques, which by now have been sufficiently mastered were, of course, not covered by the 1968 directive.
The new text introduces provisions recognising special characteristics.
While research into a propagation material that is more efficient in health terms is of benefit to the user, it is important that this approach does not create a barrier to trade.
The draft amendment seeking to guarantee freedom to market throughout the European Union material that complies with the minimum requirements of the directive should be approved unreservedly.
Finally, we must ensure that the new provisions on genetically modified varieties are in every respect compliant and compatible with existing texts, or texts in preparation, in this field.
Should this regulatory mechanism need to be expanded or clarified, it would be preferable to delete the provisions relating to this point from the draft directive.
We have reason to believe that the new or updated terms of the proposed directive offer a satisfactory response to the expectations of workers in the vine nursery and wine-growing sector and that they should contribute towards improving the quality of the proposed material and make it easier for the competent authorities to supervise the movement of vine cuttings and plants carried out by the institutions responsible for this.
The regulations proposed by the directive, moreover, favour the production of diversified plant material by offering the best health guarantees, which is a basic requirement, in order to effectively support the restructuring of the Community vineyard sector, which is a key point in the new COM in wine-growing.
Mr President, the need for a new directive revising the conditions for the marketing on Community territory of material for the vegetative propagation of the vine has become urgent.
The base legislation in force dates from 1968, a long way back, and a great deal of progress had been made in this sector since then: new materials have been tried out, often using natural methods and sometimes genetic modification.
Hence the urgent need for a modern regulation which recognises these new possibilities available to European vine growers and, at the same time, protects traditional varieties of vine.
It is my opinion that the Klass report should be adopted, particularly in view of the additional guarantees provided by amendments such as that tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development which clarifies the reference to directive 90/220, in the form in which it is going to be amended in respect of GMOs.
Another amendment, tabled by Mr Garot and myself, refers once again to the precautionary principle and provides for the protection of those traditional forms of vine which would otherwise be overtaken by new experimental varieties.
I also feel that, abiding by this precautionary principle, referring to the possibility of genetic modification, means, for example, cutting down on the intensive use of phytosanitary treatments.
The amendments tabled by Mrs Auroi and the Chairman of our Committee on Agriculture and Rural Developmen, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf as a further guarantee precisely of experimental varieties, are precautionary.
From this point of view, I therefore consider that Mrs Klass' report follows the right lines in a sector which is in urgent need of new legislation, a key, strategic sector for agriculture and the European wine industry.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what is the point of turning a technical report into a potential oenological disaster. The determination to amend the directive on the marketing of material for the vegetative propagation of the vine may look like a laudable initiative to update a rather technical text, which is 32 years old.
Personally, I find the ' 68 vintage rather a fine one, but apparently the Commission has decided to modernise.
The very first lines of the Klass report clearly stress the value, not just the economic value but also the cultural value, of grape and wine production.
Everything, then, could be for the best in the best of all possible European wine-growing worlds.
Well, as it turns out, that is not the case.
The Commission has taken the opportunity of updating matters to open a Pandora' s box, even though this was something that not one European producer was looking for.
While the Commission appears to be overcome with combined GMO and cloning fever, Mrs Klass goes further and goes into convulsions, compounding the GMO issue with all the genotypes she sees all around her.
It must be said loud and clear, there was absolutely no need to stuff the articles of this directive with references to directive 90/220, which is currently being revised, unless the intention was to promote genetic manipulation in vines at all costs.
And please do not tell me that this was done to anticipate this directive' s being revised or because GM vines do not exist except in laboratory experiments!
Commissioner, Mrs Klass, listen to the opinions of the experts from the Institut national des appellations d'origine, the French National Appellations Institute.
The INAO has, on the basis of the information currently available, issued a blanket ban on the use of GMOs in any area whatsoever, which would therefore include, and I quote, genetically modified wine varieties and rootstocks. Would you care to read the Beaune declaration presented by the winegrowers of the Burgundy region?
Do you wish to show the industry that Europe is working for better quality and respects the precautionary principle? Commissioner, withdraw the recitals and the articles incorporating GMOs and cloning into this draft.
Mrs Klass, take out your amendments and let the relationship between GMOs and genotypes be clarified by the scientists.
There is a second problem area, Mrs Klass.
You restrict the practice of grafting to herbaceous cuttings alone.
In so doing, you protect what goes on in your own region, but rule out the grafting of hardwood cuttings in the winter period, even though this is the grafting technique that is the most widely used in Europe.
This amendment should, therefore, be withdrawn.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, in order to respect the precautionary principle in both spirit and letter, should the articles and amendments which I have just mentioned not be withdrawn, then, as the wine growers themselves demand, we would have to fall in with the opinion of Marianne Isler Béguin, and the Committee on the Environment, and vote against them.
Mr President, rapporteur, I would like to congratulate you on your report.
There has been some turmoil lately, and I believe the genetically modified organisms will, of course, be inclined to dispute the purport of this directive.
But in all fairness, it has to be said that no one is forced to use genetically modified material.
It has had no place in viticulture so far.
I am fundamentally opposed to genetically modified organisms and am a wine lover, and I would very much like to stick with the wine we have been producing to date.
I therefore welcome the fact that we have placed additional emphasis on traditional, regional types of wine.
When it comes to genetically modified material, I take the view that the reference made in this report to directive 90/220 secures legal protection.
Any prospective changes, will, and must, be made to this end.
In addition, Mrs Klass, it is, however, important to stress the political dimension as well as the legal aspect, particularly where viticulture is concerned, and - providing we manage to do so - to keep viticulture free of genetically modified material if at all possible.
I hope that the wine growers will have no truck with GMOs, for their own sake, because we know that consumers strongly disapprove.
I hope this will inspire us to rule out the possibility of having genetically modified vines.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the rapporteur, Mrs Klass, for their extremely positive reception of the Commission' s proposal.
The Commission appreciates the wide consensus on its proposal.
Its aim is to strengthen the internal market in the sector in question, to update the legislation in the light of technical and scientific progress which has taken place since it was last updated and to ensure that authorisation for genetically modified varieties can only be granted if the appropriate steps have been taken to avoid endangering human health or the environment.
With regard to the third point, in its current form, the proposal contains references both to the development of a specific procedure for assessing the risk to the environment, which is similar to the procedure laid down by directive 90/220 in terms of the risks to man and the environment, and to the criteria and assessment principles laid down in Regulation 258/97 on novel foods and novel food ingredients.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has tabled 26 amendments.
The Commission is able to accept the majority of them, that is 24 out of 26 amendments, as they are currently worded or with minor changes relating to the way they are worded or presented.
For example, the proposal to recognise the specific characteristics of the genotype, referred to in Amendments Nos 4, 12, 15, 16 and 20, will be incorporated by changing the wording of the text.
The genetic diversity of the varieties with genotypes which are suitable for specific local environments will be taken into consideration in discussions on the appropriateness of continuing the possibility of marketing material for propagating these varieties, on the basis of Article 3, paragraph 5, point A of the directive.
With reference to the other two amendments, Amendments Nos 2 and 18, we can only partially accept them for the reason that certain aspects are unjustifiably aggressive towards other countries - Amendment 2 - or because the reference to the Commission' s obligation to provide greater resources should a common catalogue of varieties be compiled - Amendment No 18 - is superfluous.
Lastly, we can accept Amendment No 27, tabled by both Mr Lavarra and Mr Garot.
I am happy to be able to inform you that we can also accept Amendments Nos 35 to 40, tabled by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, which are intended to reinforce the transposal of the safety and management requirements according to directive 90/220.
However, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 28 to 34 tabled by Mrs Isler-Béguin and others, for they would involve revoking the entire part of the directive which contains references to the GMO varieties and the related risk assessment.
Moreover, these amendments have already been discussed but not accepted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We cannot accept Amendment No 41, tabled by Mrs Schierhuber, either, for it concerns an excessively detailed definition in the light of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
If we were to accept this amendment, we would be running the risk of creating artificial barriers to trade, which would be contrary to the principle aim of the proposal for a directive which is to consolidate the internal market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention and, once again, thank you to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr President, if you permit, I should like to ask the Commissioner to give an opinion on the amendment put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, Amendment No 1.
The response is affirmative, Mr President. The amendment has been accepted.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 9.17 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I see from Item 13 of the Minutes, entitled 'Communication of the announcement of the removal of Mr Le Pen from office' , that you presumed to speak on behalf of Parliament, and that the chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs presumed to speak on behalf of that committee.
I would simply like to point out that Parliament was not in itself called upon to give an opinion.
As for Mrs Palacio' s interpretation of events, I have a great deal of respect for the chairman on a personal level but none at all for her interpretation, which derives from a prior decision by the Committee made when it chose to postpone ruling on this issue.
While the Council of State was in the process of examining the appeal lodged by Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, the committee in no way refrained from discussing the consequences of this appeal, nor even from assessing the decision taken.
This situation seems to me all the more serious since while French law expressly stipulates that a ruling from the Council of State concerning a Member of the European Parliament must be given in plenary session, it was only pronounced in this case by two sub-sections, which constitutes a serious breach of Mr Le Pen' s rights.
As a result, I consider that Article 7(4) of our Rules of Procedure has not been respected.
Mr Gollnisch, I can assure you that procedures have been respected absolutely, in both the spirit and the letter of Article 12(2) of the Act of 20 September 1976.
The only issue open to debate is whether or not I should have taken note of the decree terminating Mr Le Pen' s mandate as soon as the French government notified me of it.
As you know, the Committee on Legal Affairs advised me to wait for the decision from the Council of State, which I did.
However, everything was done exactly by the book, and in conformity with the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, the Minutes state that I spoke on the situation in Spain.
I spoke on the repression in Spain and the situation in the Basque country, which is totally different.
I would not speak about ETA terrorist acts and say I am speaking about the situation in Spain.
This has not been fairly reported in the Minutes.
I would say that I spoke on the situation in the Basque country and about the Spanish Government' s repression.
You can check it in the verbatim report of proceedings.
Madam President, I speak with regard to Item 14 of the Minutes on the waiver of Mr Pacheco Pereira' s parliamentary immunity.
We opposed this waiver, Madam President, which answers the question that you were just asking, in the name - to quote from Paragraph D of Mr MacCormick' s report - in the name of the "independent nature of European parliamentary immunity compared with national parliamentary immunity" .
I would remind you that the Greek word for such independence would be 'auto nomoi' , which means 'having its own laws' , and as the rapporteur says "its own rules" .
It follows that, if the Parliament has its own rules concerning the waiver of parliamentary immunity and if its discretion is not limited when the national authority requires that immunity be waived, then it is even more true that, this being so much more minor an issue, it also has its own rules when it is required to terminate a Member of Parliament' s mandate. It has its own laws, its 'autonomy' , it has discretionary powers and its discretion is not limited.
Yesterday, Madam President, you had discretionary powers, as did Parliament, and there were no limits on this discretionary power.
That was the legal error on your part, Madam President.
Mr Martinez, you have jumped the gun on the vote on the report concerning Mr Pacheco Pereira.
I would remind you that the vote is to take place at 12.30.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, on a point of order.
Following the Danish referendum will you now write to the Danish Prime Minister to congratulate the Danish people on having struck an historic blow for freedom, democracy and the nation state? The euro was meant to symbolise the strength and unity of Europe ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
This is not a point of order, Mr Helmer.
At least in this case, that is very clear.
Informal European Council in Biarritz (13/14 October 2000)
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the Informal European Council in Biarritz, held on 13 and 14 October 2000.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to return to this House - as the French Presidency undertook to do on 3 October - to present the results of the Informal European Council in Biarritz to which, Madam President, you, as ever, made a highly valued contribution.
As I have mentioned previously, most of the time available was taken up with the institutional reforms currently being examined at the Intergovernmental Conference, which I think was as it should be, and I will therefore begin with them.
As to the IGC, I believe that work at ministerial level had already progressed as far as it could before Biarritz, and this Informal Council thus came at the just the right time to consolidate certain advances and to lay down guidelines for the final phase of the work, on which we have now embarked.
At Biarritz we established, first of all, and I believe that this is fundamental, a general consensus on the need to bring about an ambitious treaty at Nice. I have christened this the 'Biarritz spirit' .
Next, tangible progress was made on qualified majority voting and closer cooperation.
Lastly, there came what I will call the opening up of a substantive debate at the highest level on the two most sensitive issues: the re-weighting of votes and the Commission, which has enabled us to truly enter into discussions on these two tricky issues.
Let me expand on the issue of qualified majority voting.
A fairly broad consensus was reached on over half of the items under discussion, while ways of arriving at potential solutions to sensitive issues were also outlined.
Thus, while certain deep-seated reservations persist concerning taxation, some form of progress will still be possible thanks to the technical adjustments that the Presidency is to look into with the help of the Commission.
We have established that there is a clear desire to open up to cooperation in the area of combating tax fraud, and this is no small thing.
I feel that we should also be able to make headway in the field of social affairs, on the proviso that we do not tamper with the principles that underpin the various national social security systems, which gives us some room for manoeuvre.
Progress will also be possible in the field of external trade policy, but only when we find a way of dealing with the most sensitive issues on a specific basis and also avert a backdoor extension of Community competences.
In the field of justice and home affairs, I am optimistic that a solution will be found concerning judicial cooperation in civil cases.
On the other hand, issues relating to asylum, visas and immigration are still proving much more sensitive.
Lastly, certain other problems remain, not least in the field of non-discrimination and the environment.
Significant progress has thus been made even if certain advances still have to be consolidated.
Concerning closer cooperation, all the Member States now agree on the value of this and acknowledge the need to inject flexibility into the arrangements for putting it into practice.
Equally, they are all in agreement that these arrangements must remain open and accessible, that there is no question of moving towards a two-speed Europe, that the institutional framework of the Union must be respected and thus, in particular, the role of the Commission and that of the European Parliament, and, lastly, that there is a need to preserve the Community acquis, which is to say the internal market and cohesion policies involving closer cooperation.
Finally, in the field of foreign, security and defence policy, I believe that specially tailored measures must be pinpointed in order to cater for the specific nature of the issues involved.
Concerning the Commission and the re-weighting of votes, two issues which are closely interrelated and politically charged, the discussions revealed a consensus on the need to make the Commission stronger and more effective. Having said that, I must admit that not a great deal was actually said, because there remains a very marked rift over how this is to be achieved.
Some Member States advocate setting a definitive ceiling on the number of commissioners, in tandem with a rotation of posts among the Member States on an equal footing, while others champion a system of one Commissioner per Member State, without ruling out the possibility of a radical restructuring of the college.
Both options remain on the table, and must be assessed in the light of their potential for ensuring that the common interests of the Community are safeguarded.
Concerning the weighting of votes, the two well-known systems also remain on the table: a simple re-weighting, in favour of which a narrow, very narrow majority is emerging, or a double majority system, but with alternative options, a double simple or double re-weighted majority, in other words a type of 'demographic safety net' .
It is clear that we will only be able to take a decision on these issues after negotiations have come to a close; nevertheless, discussions based on detailed proposals must continue in order to prepare for the final decision at Nice.
Work will now continue in a very intensive manner up to Nice, on the basis of the informal guidelines adopted by this European Council.
We thus have a little under fifty days left.
The preparatory group therefore met yesterday to work on qualified majority voting and on closer cooperation, on very concrete bases.
It also went into greater detail in its work on amending Article 7 of the Treaty in accordance with the positive guidelines laid down at Biarritz.
The preparatory group is to play a full role up until 19 November, the date of the next ministerial level meeting.
We will therefore hold a total of six ministerial-level working sessions between now and Nice. Four of these will be mini-sessions and two will take the form of a conclave, and we expect to turn all these occasions to good account in order to keep alive the Biarritz spirit.
Finally, a word on a related subject, but one which I know to be of fundamental importance for the European Parliament: the Charter of Fundamental Rights. I can tell you that the European Council unanimously commended the quality of this text, which can therefore be formally proclaimed at Nice in the form that it was transmitted by the Convention.
The matter of its incorporation into the Treaties was quite rightly not dealt with at Biarritz.
It is nevertheless clear that the majority of Member States are not yet prepared to do this, and it is my belief - this is not my wish, but simply my impression - that it will only be possible to formally raise this issue further down the line.
I will now turn to international issues, which were also very much to the fore at Biarritz.
You will all be aware of the events that were going on at the time this Summit was held with, on the one hand, the situation in the Middle East, and on the other the political changes in Serbia, which found expression in the visit to Biarritz by the new President of Serbia, Mr Kostunica.
I will not dwell on the events in the Middle East.
I will simply point out that, right from the outset, the European Union has called on both sides to strive to put an end to the violence, to reopen dialogue and safeguard what had been achieved at Camp David, and the Biarritz European Council called both sides to a summit meeting.
The European Union continued to make its voice heard, the voice of reason and conciliation, at Sharm-el-Sheikh, where it was represented for the first time by Mr Solana, the High Representative for the CFSP - a fact that I would emphasise as I do not subscribe to the opinion that Europe is playing a diminished role in the Middle East, but actually one that is becoming gradually more important again.
Unfortunately, it has proved impossible since Sharm-el-Sheikh to implement the agreement worked out there, and the tensions on both sides remain considerable, to say the least, with the European Union therefore monitoring the situation with the greatest of vigilance.
We must recapture the spirit that reigned in the Oslo Agreements, and this is the ambition of this Presidency, all the Member States, the High Representative, and the Commission and Parliament.
The second event that stood out at Biarritz, for the right reasons this time, was the return of democracy to Serbia and, more than this, the repercussions of the political changes in Belgrade on relations between that country and the European Union.
I am sure that the events leading up to the investiture of Vojislav Kostunica will still be fresh in your minds. This investiture and these events have seen a completely new political order being installed in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, opening the way to the democratisation of the country and, let us hope, a more widespread reconciliation in the Balkans.
The European Union has honoured its commitments and responded to this political turnaround at the meeting of the General Affairs Council on 9 October, at which it decided to lift the sanctions, including the oil and air embargoes, imposed on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1998, with the exception of course of sanctions directly aimed at Mr Milosevic and his entourage.
President Kostunica therefore accepted the invitation from the Presidency to go to Biarritz and have lunch with Heads of State and Government. At the joint press conference he held alongside the French Presidency, Mr Kostunica expressed his heartfelt joy at being welcomed into the European family, for this is exactly what is happening.
The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will, of course, very soon benefit from the instruments that have been set in place by the Union to cover the entire Balkan region, beginning with the CARDS programme and also the activities of the European Agency for Reconstruction.
Furthermore, the General Affairs Council confirmed the Union' s intention to contribute to re-establishing navigation on the Danube and to actively participate in modernising infrastructures in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia within a regional context.
Moreover, without prejudice to a needs assessment and the coordination of economic and financial assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which are to be the joint responsibility of the European Commission and the World Bank, the Biarritz European Council decided to grant the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia initial emergency humanitarian aid totalling EUR 200 million.
Lastly, and I will end here - this is without doubt the most important decision in the medium and long term - the Union has decided to provide this country with a political prospect by proposing that it conclude a stabilisation and association agreement along the lines of those currently being negotiated with the other countries in the same region.
It was precisely with this in mind that President Kostunica was invited, as you will be aware, to take part in the summit meeting between the European Union and the countries of the western Balkans, which is to be held in Zagreb, at the instigation of the President of the French Republic, on 24 November.
These are the issues that can be singled out concerning the developments and situation in Serbia and their repercussions for the Union.
I feel that the important thing was for the Union to very swiftly communicate to this country not only a tangible message of encouragement but also, and I would stress this point, the political prospect of its full and comprehensive integration into the European family.
I believe that this message has been clearly given.
We can only hope that the process of democratisation is able to continue under optimum conditions. These, in a nutshell, were the results of the Biarritz European Council which was, and I say this in all sincerity because I believe it to be true, highly productive and therefore of great value to the step forward that the Union is of course still to complete.
Madam President, firstly I praise the European Council for accepting the draft Charter as definitive.
From what we know of the performance of the Prime Ministers and Presidents at Biarritz on the trickiest questions of Treaty reform, the Charter will probably become the greatest trophy at Nice.
So why is the French Presidency trying to suppress the question of the installation of the Charter within the Treaty?
President Chirac, with his usual capacity for surprise, said in his press statement that the Charter' s legal status would be a question for the Swedish Presidency. What does that mean?
What on earth is Sweden supposed to achieve that France cannot? Surely it is for the European Council at Nice to consider whether the Charter should be inserted inside the Treaty.
That is what the IGC is for.
I would urge the French Presidency quickly to reassess its position on that central point.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the enlargement of the Union is a means of increasing stability and safety in Europe and of promoting tolerance and democracy.
However, it is just as vital that there is reform of the Union' s institutions so as to ensure that the stability of the Union itself does not go under in a climate of indecisiveness on the one hand and public indifference and repugnance on the other.
This would require majority decisions in the Council to become the rule, and likewise, codecision for Parliament, in agricultural matters, for example.
I welcome the declaration of fundamental rights, but it has to be improved in order to better accommodate the citizens' expectations, and it has to form part of a European constitutional process.
It must be integrated in the Treaty.
The development of a credible and democratic Europe requires more involvement from the citizens, the regions, the small and large Member States, more decisiveness on the part of the Commission and a reinforcement of the role of Parliament, but especially the will of the Commission to play its role on behalf of the Union, and this is what we failed to do in the Middle East, for example.
Peace must be achieved for the sake of those killed, especially on the Palestinian side and, in order to recover the spirit of Oslo, we must go back to basics.
Israel is entitled to peace and safety but the Palestinians, who had to give up a large part of their land for this, are entitled to their own state, as enshrined in UN resolutions 242 and 338.
The election of Mr Kostunica is without a doubt a sign of hope to all democrats, but at the same time, the issues of future stability push themselves to the fore in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, for peace in the Balkans is fragile and we will need, with immediate effect, to have the means at our disposal to secure reconstruction and future stability in a democratic process.
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, while progress has been made on closer cooperation and the extension of qualified majority voting, deep-seated disagreement persists, as you yourself have underlined, concerning the composition of the Commission and the weighting of votes in Council.
It is indeed a fact that there are still major differences of opinion between larger countries and the smaller countries, which fear the stronger countries setting up a type of cabinet.
So, in speaking of the Biarritz spirit, I believe that in essence Biarritz reflects the complexity of the challenges facing the Union.
I view it as expressing, along the line of other summits, even if it was an informal one, the contradictions that exist between social requirements and citizens' demands, the expectations of the peoples of Europe, and the free-market rationale that continues to hold sway in the European Union.
There is a pressing need to work out a new design for an enlargement that unites rather than divides, that involves the candidate countries in the work of the Intergovernmental Conference and pays far greater attention to the social dimension of enlargement.
I would therefore reiterate my Group' s commitment to a reform that guarantees balance between the European institutions and also between the Member States, and in doing so smaller countries being marginalised.
A reform that also increases transparency and democracy and at last enables the general public to participate in the drafting of European policies.
Biarritz also saw the unanimous adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and, yes, there was indeed great ambition and a novel method.
For the first time in a document of this type, civil, political and social rights were placed on an equal footing, with a commitment to establishing a Community of human values.
I do not for all that share in the Presidency' s satisfaction, and can only regret the fact that the content of the Charter fails to live up to requirements and expectations, not least as regards social issues.
I would also express the wish of my Group and of a good many NGOs to see the Charter evolve and continue to improve, in order to guarantee, amongst other things, more effective protection and rights for the citizens of the European Union, for employees, for the citizens of third countries and for the socially marginalised.
The Council would truly satisfy the expectations of European citizens if it were to launch a widespread consultation of individual communities and national parliaments, culminating in a charter that genuinely met people' s needs.
Finally, concerning international issues, I, like others here, am keen to hail the return of democracy to Serbia.
It is very important, as part of the process that has started, for the Union to contribute to the reconstruction, stability and promotion of human rights in all the countries of the former Yugoslavia.
Concerning the Middle East, all the signs following Sharm-el-Sheikh are that the peace process depends on certain undertakings being honoured, beginning with the full and comprehensive implementation of the UN resolutions, an end to Israeli colonisation of the occupied territories, the right of displaced Palestinians to return to their lands, and the recognition of a Palestinian state which has East Jerusalem as its capital.
I too hope that Nice European Council is a success and welcome the fact that the peoples of Europe, and large numbers of associations, NGOs and trade unions are investing time and effort in preparing for it.
Madam President, at the Biarritz Council we saw emerging, from behind the real or supposed quarrels between larger and smaller countries, a different but equally real type of rift between those who want to speed up European integration and those who want to preserve a design for a European Union that respects Member States and national democracies.
The first group would seem willing to engage in ultrafederalism within a hard core of States, and the referendum in Denmark seems to have strengthened their convictions on this.
My Group would like to warn them against this.
By persisting in this approach, they would probably cut Europe in half, and even more surely would cut themselves off from their own nation.
For the referendum held on 28 September was not simply an expression of the Danes' refusal to be run by a European superstate and their desire to preserve their national democracy.
It also mirrored the feelings of many citizens in other Member States, even if these feelings are sometimes more abstract given the lack of a means to convey them.
Were their voices heard at Biarritz? One might well doubt it, in view of the fact that the most clear-cut decision taken during the Biarritz Council was to proclaim the Charter of Fundamental Rights at Nice.
The ultimate goal of this Charter, should it become binding, would be to strip each national democracy of the right to itself determine the rights and duties of its own citizens.
Worse still, the major concern of those promoting the Charter actually seems to be how to make it binding without first having it ratified by the national parliaments.
The decision that it will be proclaimed at Nice has already been taken solely by the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
The Commission subsequently informed us, in its Communication of 11 October, that the Charter could be rendered binding through the case law of the Court of Justice, still without any say from the national parliaments.
It will therefore have been possible to strip the nations of Europe of their most fundamental right without ever openly having asked their citizens for an opinion.
It is thus impossible to claim that Biarritz genuinely listened to the demand, as expressed in the referendum in Denmark, that national democracies be respected within the Union.
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not share Commissioner Barnier' s optimism about maintaining the Community system at Nice.
It seems to me that we are moving in the opposite direction.
We had a second pillar, then we had a third pillar, and now we are in the process of constructing a fourth pillar on defence, while a de facto fifth pillar also exists on economic and monetary union.
On the other hand, the major points of balance between European institutions are slowly being broken down.
We have a Commission that is weakened and, rather than dealing with such fundamental issues, Parliament is waxing lyrical on somewhat surreal themes, such as a charter that has absolutely no legal basis and which no authority will be entrusted with enforcing, when all of our fifteen Member States have their own charters of fundamental rights.
While this Parliament holds forth on constitutionalisation, the real issue is - and I would stress this - that of the balance of power within the Commission.
I cannot agree with you, Mr Poettering.
The issue is one of not turning the Commission into a second Council by ensuring that each Member State is represented. The issue is that of turning the Commission into a genuine supranational body, an authority for the European Union.
These changes can of course only work to the disadvantage of the smaller States, as might be suspected judging from the manoeuvring of some larger States, who are banking on scenarios for the reweighting of votes and the composition of the Commission and speculating on the future composition of the Commission in order to earn themselves a little extra room for manoeuvre with regard to reweighting.
The real issue is that of giving the Commission, by means of elections, a genuine legitimacy that relates directly to the citizens.
The only way to make Commission stronger is to have the President of the Commission elected by direct universal suffrage and also - why not? - the Vice-President with responsibility for external relations, in order to at last remove this area from the second pillar.
This is the only way to restore a true balance between the various institutions of the European Union.
But we refuse to talk about such things.
We bring the question of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into our nation-oriented arguments, but fail to consider the fact that the future of Europe hinges on a Commission that is able to represent all its citizens and not the Member States as in the past, and one that has not been transformed - along the lines sketched out today - into a second Council, where all sorts of haggling become possible and no authentic expression of common European is able to emerge.
We must therefore urge everyone to return to the roots of our Union, to have the courage that Giscard d' Estaing and Helmut Schmidt showed when deciding on the election of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage in 1976 and in 1979, and to decide that in 2009 we will finally have a President of the Commission who is also the President of the European Union.
Madam President, the Biarritz Summit was a breakthrough for reinforced cooperation.
The heart of the matter is that the élites who are keenest on integration want to be able to make decisions without broad democratic support.
There is no longer any need to take account of those countries in which referendums are required before sovereignty is handed over.
In future, it will be possible to have proposals rejected in referendums and adopt them in any case.
Any countries which vote against will sooner or later be pressurised into following suit.
The pattern is familiar from cooperation on issues of legal policy.
First of all, the pioneering countries implement a form of Schengen-style cooperation, and the legislation is subsequently transferred to all the countries.
The most stubborn countries are made a special offer.
They can have the legislation sent to them by fax without exercising any contributory influence.
What they cannot do is avoid the legislation, no matter how many people vote no in the referendums.
Elites in all the countries are also joining forces against their own voters.
Those who stand apart from reinforced cooperation are really being given the same freedom as the back seat passengers in a car.
Reinforced cooperation is like an eel trap. There is no way back, but only ever more integration, more centralisation and more Brussels, without the corresponding democracy.
The Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities wants to see a freer and more flexible Europe in which there is no pressure to be a part of every development and which is characterised by democracy instead of regimentation: a Europe of democracies and diversity.
Madam President, I still remember well the pitying smiles of those delegates who favoured an ambitious agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference, when I suggested to them back in February this year that we could count ourselves lucky if it proved possible to find a solution to the famous Amsterdam leftovers.
What stage are we at now, eight months on and with the Biarritz Summit behind us? Apart from hoping to make progress in the matter of extending qualified majority voting, in truth we have not made a great deal of headway.
A new Treaty is just as distant a prospect today as it was eight months ago.
Indeed it is clear that the question of the leftovers is going to be a fairly hard nut to crack.
There is no prospect of any agreement to my mind.
However, if no solution is found to the key issues, then it will not be possible for work which is at a more advanced stage - for example with regard to the reform of the European Court of Justice - to be included in a new Treaty.
Similarly, the stock phrase used by the French, that it is better to have no treaty than a bad one, is unlikely to reinforce anyone' s faith in the attainability of an ambitious goal in Nice.
.
(FR) Madam President, I would like to contribute to this debate by recapitulating on some of the interventions, rather than by replying to them.
I have very little to add to what Commissioner Barnier has said, except perhaps to mention a slight difference of opinion over meteorology.
The weather at Biarritz was in fact quite bad that weekend.
I know the Basque coast very well and was rather disappointed for those participating.
One might have expected somewhat better weather conditions, but I feel that the climate inside the European Council, at which I was present from start to finish, was a little better than the Commissioner has said.
In this respect I would like to respond to what Mr Poettering has said about the rift between the larger and smaller states.
It is true that we arrived at a juncture where marked differences of opinion were evident in the ministerial discussions.
The intention of the Presidency was, on the contrary, to help ensure that this debate could go ahead in an open manner, in such a way as to enable us to move on from it, without the very same rift opening up again. Judging from the feedback on the most crucial discussion, the one that took place when the Heads of State and Government met for dinner, it did indeed force matters into the open so that solutions could then be sought.
You can in any case rest assured, Mr President, that it is the genuine desire of the Presidency of the Council to seek out a compromise that suits everyone.
Accordingly, the President of the French Republic, the President of the European Council and the French Prime Minister asked me to visit, before the President of the French Republic, the ten countries which are currently asking for only one commissioner.
I immediately went to see the Belgian Prime Minister yesterday evening and moreover believe that he too can sense the Biarritz spirit.
The determination to heal the rift between the smaller and larger countries is an integral part of this spirit.
I do not, in this respect, share the feelings of the Chairman of the Group of the European People' s Party on the possibility of 'one Commissioner per Member State' .
I am aware of the criticisms that you have addressed to the German Chancellor.
I am no more qualified than you to meddle in German internal affairs, but feel that this position is extremely consistent and if I am not mistaken also moves into line with what the Commission wants.
A strong and effective Commission means a Commission that has even greater legitimacy by virtue of representing the general interest of the Community, and not by dint of a perceived intrusion of the intergovernmental phenomenon into the way it operates.
When we proposed a rotation on an equal footing, it was precisely to show that the idea was not to pit the smaller and larger countries against one other but that, in a Commission with a ceiling on commissioners, those countries which we incorrectly refer to as 'large' and those that we equally incorrectly call 'small' would be represented on a perfectly equal footing.
This is the clear position of the French delegation, and this is clearly the preferable solution.
What I noted in Brussels yesterday, was that an idea is beginning to gain credence, that of having one Commissioner per Member State, which will probably be adopted at Nice, perhaps placing a ceiling on the number of commissioners at a later date.
I therefore believe that we will clear up this ambiguity and that we must do so while effectively ensuring that the Commission continues to be a strong body.
In fact, as Mr Barnier has said extremely clearly, a Commission packed to the rafters and representing the Member States alone would lose credibility and legitimacy.
I share the Commissioner' s views.
The objective is truly one of strengthening the Community framework.
In order to do this, I would reiterate, in the same vein as my response to Mr Prodi at our last meeting, that we must upgrade each of the institutions: the Commission of course, the European Parliament of course, and the Council too.
This is the balance that we must strike.
I would also like to reassure Mr Poettering as to the actions of the French Prime Minister.
The day after Biarritz, the Prime Minister, as some of those present can testify, appeared in person - something that does not always happen - and at length before the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, the parliamentary body that brings together members of the national parliaments, the European parliament and the parliaments of candidate countries.
Furthermore, the French Parliament held an hour-long question session that was broadcast at peak viewing time and was specifically dedicated to topical European issues, and thus to the results of the Biarritz European Council, during which the Prime Minister spoke at length. You know how things work in the media.
You might say something on Monday or Tuesday, but this does not necessarily mean that you will be questioned about it on the Thursday.
You can therefore rest assured of the French Prime Minister' s resolve as regards this Presidency issue.
I would like to briefly return to matters of external trade policy, as this is a very serious matter.
France' s stance on this is no secret, and neither are the positions of a number of other Member States who feel that, when it comes to the field of services, especially cultural matters and even more particularly audiovisual matters, a cautious approach is called for since issues of identity come into play, and I am talking about issues of identity and not exceptions.
Mr Barón Crespo asked several questions which primarily concern the link between qualified majority voting and codecision.
I am aware that this is an issue which the European Parliament quite rightly views as very important, and must make clear to the House that I only dealt with the bare bones of the issue of course, given the limited speaking time available to me, but that this issue does not present any difficulties.
Moreover, as I to some extent hinted at during our debate prior to Biarritz, the Presidency sees the extension of qualified majority voting as going hand in hand with codecision.
As I am sure everyone here will be pleased to hear, that does not currently constitute a problem area for the Intergovernmental Conference.
I would also like to return to the issue of the number of Members of the European Parliament.
This issue was partially settled at Amsterdam in Article 189 of the Treaty, which set a ceiling of 700 MEPs.
We have started to exchange ideas on this question, from which it has emerged that all the Member States want to maintain this ceiling after enlargement.
One delicate issue is still to be resolved, that of how to allocate seats within this ceiling.
I can state that a number of delegations, those from Germany, Britain, France and Italy and also from Holland, would like to see a proportional reduction and others a linear reduction.
We shall have to see, as this will clearly be a sensitive issue.
I would just like to express my disappointment at the fact that the European Parliament has dispensed with drawing up the report that it had announced and which was to have been the subject of an oral question today.
Indeed I feel that this would have helped the Member States and not least the Council to form an opinion, as no one could have more definite ideas on this matter than the Members of the European Parliament themselves. Perhaps it is not too late to do this.
I will end with the questions asked by virtually all the speakers concerning the binding nature of the Charter, and am anxious to make myself clearly understood on his matter.
Firstly, all the members of the European Council are happy with the Charter, both from the standpoint of the method used and from that of its content.
I will very quickly repeat that the Convention method is an innovative one which enables several legitimate authorities to be combined, the national parliaments, the European Parliament, the Commission and the governments. It is therefore something on which we could perhaps draw in the future when addressing other issues.
The content of this Charter could indeed be interpreted in several different ways: the glass is either half full or half empty, it is a compromise.
I see this compromise as a rather dynamic, gradual and progressive one.
This text will stand out because it is clear and because it is accessible.
It is the first European Union document that the citizens can consult without feeling completely alienated from its content.
That really is something valuable, as was emphasised by all the members of the European Council.
There remains, of course, the question of its legal power.
I will make no secret of the fact that we are engaged in a process, one in which we are well versed, of having the Charter proclaimed by each of the three institutions.
It has to be said that within the European Council there are a number of delegations, and I might even say a large number of delegations, that are opposed to the Charter being binding in nature, and therefore to it being incorporated into the Treaties as early as Nice.
Given the circumstances, how could one possibly imagine that this constitutes a forward development?
We will strive for this change, as our Presidential role dictates, but I would not want to lead Parliament to believe that developments that cannot come about will come about.
I do not think it will happen.
It seems to me that we must adopt a gradual approach to this matter: see to it that this Charter is proclaimed at Nice by the three institutions and then go into its legal future since I, like many people here, believe that it will indeed be the preamble to a future constitutional treaty, but let us then address this as a constituent issue.
In reality only one process or one procedure is still to be addressed and that is the reference to Article 6.
I have already had occasion in this House to tell you that I was in favour of this.
Little was said about the issue at the European Council, but I had the impression that one delegation - you can probably guess which - was reticent, as it is opposed to the Charter having any legal effect or being in any way binding.
Lastly, in response to Mrs Ainardi, I see it as very difficult and even quite dangerous to open up the Charter package and discuss its content again, as I do not know what the end result of this re-examination would be.
I strongly believe that this would be taking a step backwards rather than a step forwards.
Now that we have this Charter, let us accept it for what it is, as the stage we have reached today, a first step that is subsequently to be confirmed and developed by taking others, whether in respect of its content or its legal status.
Madam President, the speech by the President-in-Office of the Council gives me the opportunity to remind him of two things: first, that this Parliament - as far as I know - has not given up on drafting a report on the number of Members of this Parliament in the Treaties. In other words, we might yet please him by providing this report he is so keen on.
Secondly, the position of this Parliament has never been that the Charter was to be the preamble to the Treaties.
This idea has appeared from somewhere but it is not the position of the European Parliament.
When we talk of insertion we do not mean that we want it to be the preamble.
In any event, Madam President, I believe that Biarritz has contributed something very positive, and that is the unanimous approval of the Charter.
A second very positive thing was the adoption of the Charter in its entirety.
It also seems possible to me - and we are talking about policy - not to put the Charter on ice, to use Mr Barón Crespo' s expression, but to entrust it to the Swedish Presidency for its incorporation to be studied.
I believe that now, in this policy of forward movement, the inclusion in Article 6(2) of the Treaty on European Union is very important, as there is no sense - and I do not wish to be inconsistent - in the European Union deciding not to provide a legal basis in the Treaty for the Union to be able to adhere to the European Convention on Human Rights and, at the same time, talking in the same paragraph about the interpretation of fundamental rights based on this same European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.
It therefore seems that mentioning the Charter in the Treaty of Nice is something that makes perfect sense.
I therefore believe that with the resolution on which we are voting tomorrow, we are giving a very clear mandate to our two representatives, Mr Brok and Mr Tsatsos, to enable them to present a proposal to this end at the Nice Summit.
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I have three comments to make.
Firstly, one sometimes had the impression that at Biarritz there was an obsession with the debate between the smaller and the larger states.
In a certain sense all this is quite natural.
We are at last in the process of reopening the issue of major institutional balances and the way they would work within an enlarged Europe.
The institutions on which the European Union is currently based were set up for three large countries and three small countries.
This balance has not been revised since then.
Indeed, the magic of the European Union is precisely its ability to foster alliances between small and large countries in the common interest.
However, if the notion of a common interest is to work, each country must find its proper place.
Everyone knows that if a larger Member State does not feel itself to be adequately represented and feels unable to make its voice heard as loudly as it should be within the European institutions, it will look elsewhere, which is in the interests of neither the larger nor the smaller Member States.
That is the reason why we hear so much talk of smaller and larger states.
Beyond this, it would seem to me that the Biarritz Council scored several points on this issue, which is crucial to the future of the European Union and its decision-making procedures, and we can only welcome that.
The second issue that I would like to address is that of decision-making.
Basically, if the European Union is not in a position to take decisions, it will no longer be in a position to govern.
The markets alone will do this.
So, if we want to be able to govern and decide matters, then decisions must be taken by a qualified majority, including those on non-discrimination.
No one in this Parliament would understand it if no agreement on this issue was reached at Nice.
I ask you in all sincerity, at a time when the Union is providing itself with a Charter of Fundamental Rights, would the Heads of State and Government reject the idea of decisions in this area being taken on a qualified majority?
That would seem to me to be bordering on the ridiculous and I hope that headway can be made on this matter between now and Nice.
However, in parallel with the debate on qualified majority voting, there is the debate on closer cooperation.
On this count, I consider it insufficient to say that the Community method must be safeguarded.
We must say how, while remaining well aware that certain issues still have to be settled.
We need to have further debate and focus our thoughts in this respect.
We can say yes to Parliamentary control of closer cooperation, but how can this be put into effect without recreating conditions that are so restrictive that they do not allow this cooperation to be developed? These are questions that we still have to answer.
Lastly, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I believe that I have never as an MEP given up on anything so long as a glimmer of hope remained. We have taken on board what you said concerning the timetable for incorporating the Charter into the Treaties.
For all that, it is essential that the Treaty adopted at Nice should include a reference to Article 6, for at least three reasons.
Mr Méndez de Vigo has already referred to the content of Article 6 and to the inappropriateness of there simply being a reference to the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, in its Communication of 11 October, the Commission has just spelt out, quite correctly, the extent to which a judge to whom this Charter is submitted would be in a position to uphold its content, and would not be able to act as if this document did not exist.
Consequently, should the Heads of State and Government say nothing at Nice, they would be leaving the door open to what others have called 'government by the judges' .
Finally, it does not seem to me particularly rational for the President-in-Office of the Council to say that the Swedish Presidency will subsequently look at the action the Fifteen Member States want to take with regard to the Charter' s legal status.
Are we to imagine that discussions on the drafting of the Treaty will reopen straight after Nice and that a new process of ratification by the fifteen national parliaments will then be embarked upon? I believe that to be unrealistic.
There is a pressing need to equip the Union with a point of reference based on the content of this Charter.
I hope we can still convince people of this and make progress, in order to win the day on this issue at Nice.
The meeting in Biarritz was typified by very strange happenings.
It therefore comes as no surprise that governments clashed on essential issues.
After all, they are now discussing the redistribution of power in Europe, but especially at this stage, it is vital to have a sound presidency that seeks consensus.
Unfortunately, France acted more as a spokesperson for its own interests and for those of the large countries than for proposals which could bridge those contradictions, even if Mr Moscovici is now trying to convince us that the opposite is true.
If the French Presidency carries on like this, the IGC will fall flat on its face on Nice' s hard pebble beach.
It is of major importance for each Member State to continue to be represented in the Commission.
A hierarchy becomes inevitable, as this is also what tends to happen in national governments.
Even once the present candidate countries have joined, each Member State must be able to retain one junior or senior Commissioner.
It is highly suspicious that the large Member States, which are behind intergovernmental cooperation, would argue in favour of a small Commission in which they themselves would not always be represented.
A rotation system of this kind would lead to a serious weakening of the Commission' s position and that is exactly what we want to avoid.
If the large Member States ask for the votes in the Council to be redistributed to a certain degree, then that is a reasonable request, but if they over-react, they will antagonise the small countries.
In addition, majority decision-making goes, by definition, hand in hand with codecision; it is totally unacceptable to us to separate the two.
Reinforced cooperation works very well with a minimum of eight Member States.
For foreign and security policy, we could possibly do with fewer.
It is difficult but certainly not impossible to reach agreement in Nice.
But the French Presidency should not act as strangely as it did in "Bizarritz" .
Madam President, Commissioner, President-in-Office of the Council. I have two minutes and two messages: one on the Charter and one on taxation policy.
Concerning the Charter, you have just replied in a very well reasoned manner, but my Group is nonetheless anxious to say to you that the work must go on.
Work must continue, first of all, in respect of the content, if not now then at some time in the future at least, because we need more than just fine words.
From the outset the Convention worked on the assumption that the Charter would be binding.
As a result, we negotiated on an a minima basis and we have a minimal Charter, particularly as regards social rights.
I can cite two practical examples: on the one hand we shifted the emphasis from the right to work to the right to engage in work and, on the other hand, a number of social rights that are covered in the revised Social Charter of the Council of Europe are not included in the Charter.
Faced with this paradox of having negotiated a binding charter and then ended up with a minimal text and a non-binding charter, there is a real need, as some of the other Members have said, to take a series of decisions at Nice.
A first course of action would be that of Article 6.
A second course of action would be to actually establish a timetable at Nice and a clear method for rewriting the Treaties and incorporating the Charter into these Treaties.
A third and final course of action, which no one has talked about but which seems to me very important, is the need to also incorporate a revision clause into the Charter so that we have a dynamic rather than a static text.
Concerning taxation policy, Mr Barnier has quite rightly said that qualified majority voting is the criterion for an ambitious Treaty.
I have to say that Article 93, in the form in which it has been drawn up by the Presidency, does not enable us to address even a straightforward debate.
If we want to pursue the objectives that the Union has set itself, that of reducing taxation on employment and taxing pollution, and that of preventing damaging tax competition, which are two of the Union' s common goals, we must make it understood that the only solution is joint sovereignty between the Member States and not tax competition between these States.
The wording of Article 93 becomes all the more critical considering that, once the first wave of new states has joined the Union, it will be all the more difficult for us to progress towards qualified majority voting.
Mr Moscovici, Prime Minister Jospin had the extremely good idea of enlisting the aid of a economic analysis committee.
This committee has just produced a study entitled 'European Issues' . If you read through this study, you will see that the conclusions it comes to on taxation policy issues are the very ones that I have just set out.
Madam President, this Chamber has seen many hypocritical speeches today, as many of our number are convinced that nothing actually happened at Biarritz, apart from the obvious fact it was raining, which we would all agree upon.
It was a wasted opportunity, first and foremost with regard to the expected institutional reforms.
Everyone knows that nothing will come out of the Nice Summit, because there is too much disagreement between the various governments of Europe.
It was also a wasted opportunity for the Europe of fundamental rights, which was supposed to be a beacon for the world.
Indeed, the Charter falls some way short of the texts already in force.
It even constitutes a step backwards in social matters in that it fails to recognise the right to employment or to a minimum wage, the right to retirement, to housing, or to abortion.
It ranks social marginalisation in the category of assistance, and not in that of fundamental rights that are binding on employers or on States.
In reality, it once again proves that this Europe is being constructed against the interests of its peoples, and this is what tens of thousands of protesters will be saying in Nice on 6 and 7 December, and I hope that many of us will be there with them.
In the second that remains, and since we are talking about fundamental rights, I would like to express my indignation at the silence and complicity of most of the Member States and institutions with regard to the ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people, with whom we should be showing a little more solidarity.
Madam President, let us be clear about one matter: the single greatest challenge facing the Union is the reform of the EU institutions so that the enlargement process can take place.
We all know that enlargement of the Union cannot take place until decision-making procedures within the key institutions are reformed; however, such a reform process must be fair and balanced.
It must protect the position of smaller Member States within the Union.
It must also protect cultural, linguistic and national diversities.
It is clear from the debates that have been taking place across Europe, including those in Biarritz, that larger Member States are seeking, in part, to bully smaller Member States to reform the European Union in line with the direction taken by larger Member States and in accordance with their wishes.
This is an unacceptable situation.
Let us reflect for a moment on the ratification procedure for any newly revised European Union treaty.
It is constitutionally imperative for a referendum to be held in Denmark, Portugal and Ireland before any treaty can come into force.
If the European Treaty accepted at Nice completely dilutes the influence and representation of smaller Member States, it is going to be very difficult to sell it and secure approval for it in referendums in these three countries.
Decision-makers within the governments of the larger Member States should remember that seeking the approval of the citizens in a referendum is not a mere technicality or a rubber-stamp operation.
One has to convince the citizens in these countries of the clear merits of any new European treaty.
It must strike the balance between ensuring that the enlargement process can proceed and ensuring that smaller Member States retain a strong voice in the decision-making procedures of the European Union.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the Informal Council Meeting at Biarritz raised hopes that in-depth consideration would be given to the preparation of the Nice summit, which is to lead on to the reform of the European institutions.
Besides the external issues that punctuated this meeting, nothing else emerged from it bar the genuine inability of the European institutions to make any headway on institutional matters. It was as if the idea was to better conceal the absence of any consensus on this issue and the inability to form a diplomatic counterbalance to the United States, which is acting as a mediator in the Middle East, even if it is quite laudable to want peace in the world, not least in this war-torn region.
Above and beyond this bitter admission, this Europe so often promised, which seeks to be close to and receptive to the peoples of Europe, would actually seem to me to be moving further away from this goal.
Is wanting to get involved with everything and everyone, beginning with what is happening outside our border - when even the United Nations, whose task this actually is, cannot successfully do this - not a negation of this Europe which is supposed to be closer to the citizens?
We would like to see similar zeal for action in the field when there are disasters in Europe, such as the storms of December 1999 or the sinking of the Erika.
One might wonder whether such an approach is relevant in terms of coming up with real solutions.
As is the case at every summit, the newspapers reported on the hope and anguish raised by this summit, the prelude to the Treaty of Nice.
Our debate today also has the same ring to it.
The negotiators see the fact that there are malcontents on both sides as proof that they are on the way to striking the right balance.
But in the end, as Commissioner Barnier has said, the aim is not to enhance the lives of our fellow citizens but to ensure the survival of the Community structure.
Four revisions in fifteen years have not improved matters, and now we are expected to believe that a charter or a constitution might do something to change things.
On this basis, how can the Community act as a diplomatic entity on the international stage?
In conclusion, let us begin to do together those things that we can do well or better in line with our peoples' wishes.
Then and only then will it be time to deal with everything else.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, on the subject of the situation in the Middle East, two months ago this House was unanimous in praising the commitment to peace shown by Avraham Burg, the speaker of the Knesset, and Ahmad Qurie, the President of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Since then, those who preach hatred and advocate violence seem once again to have won the day.
We would be failing to understand the origins of this crisis if we imagined that fears which have reigned for generations were to give way to lasting peace, a prelude to reconciliation, without further ado.
If the European Union is to continue harbouring the ambition of playing a part in securing this peace, as is its vocation, it must first of all keep its head, and then bring all its weight to bear to facilitate the task of the decision-makers of that region who are firmly resolved to move towards peace.
First we have to keep our heads, which means that amid all the emotion and horror it is not our job to castigate one side or the other.
Then bring all our weight to bear, which means that the Union must speak with a single voice, which unfortunately was not the case last week at the tenth extraordinary session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Bringing all its weight to bear also implies not contenting ourselves with advocating a renewal or intensification of economic aid under the pretext that only by raising the standard of living in the region will we be able to help establish a lasting peace.
Such a solution would only have an impact in the long term. Faced with the emergency situation that now exists there, this is clearly no longer sufficient.
We are well aware that Jerusalem is the nub of the issue.
Well, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, since the High Representative is now participating in the negotiations, which is something we all welcome, I would ask you whether the time has not come for a powerful initiative from the European Union, which might offer its services to both sides in order to arrive at a status for Jerusalem that both find acceptable and, why not, to ensure that this is enforced.
Mr President, with just seven weeks to go to the Nice summit, the time has come for clarity and open debate.
How do things stand at present? We still have no agreement on the modus operandi for the European Commission, on how votes are to be weighted in the Council, on what should be done about the principle of qualified majority voting or on proportional representation in the European Parliament.
In other words, today - I repeat, today - there is a risk of the so-called Amsterdam left-overs becoming Nice left-overs unless we take some decisive action right away. And that is not all.
The future of the Charter of Human Rights appears to be in the balance, even as an insert under Article 6, as suggested by the European Parliament at today' s sitting, as does the institutional fate of support for European political parties.
Clearly the constitutionalisation of the Treaties will have to be postponed to a later date.
There are, of course, some issues on which progress of a sort is being made.
The first is reinforced cooperation, where significant progress has been made.
Of course it is, on occasions, clear from the debate that this institution is viewed in some quarters not as the answer to the flexibility which Europe needs but as a sort of future defence to safeguard their interests vis-à-vis future members of the European Union.
Progress has also been made with Article 7 on combating violations of the basic values of the European Union.
So what are the deeper historical implications of these developments? My purpose in listing them is not to disappoint, but because we still have time to act before Nice.
The leaders of Europe have not formulated a clear vision.
They have not clearly formulated their final philosophy.
Sometimes the intergovernmental conference looks like an anxious administrative bureaucracy trying to share out power.
This does not convince the man in the street.
We are not managing a bank or a shop.
We are leading people and that calls for a slightly different approach.
Enlargement has turned from a dream into a nightmare for some people, who fear that it might upset the balance of power.
But we are unlikely to achieve the desired result with a purely bureaucratic approach.
I am also worried by the minimum response to Parliament' s call for democratisation.
I am worried that the changeover to qualified majority voting is not directly linked to codecision with the European Parliament.
But we still have time, miracles do happen in politics and I personally am keen to see a few happen in Nice.
Mr President, there are many important issues which must be solved.
The Biarritz and Nice Summits might nonetheless be described as a battle between those who want to build the 'EU State' quickly and those who see the EU as a form of intergovernmental cooperation and as a unique form of Community decision-making.
What is really worrying, however, is that what might be called a form of blackmail is being perpetrated against those who, when it comes to reforms, do not wish to go further than they have been authorised to do by the Member States.
They are often accused in the press of delaying or even preventing enlargement towards the East.
It is, rather, those who are demanding extensive reforms prior to enlargement who are guilty of that.
What is needed is to act responsibly now and, in Nice, to concentrate on resolving the issues left over from Amsterdam: Let every country have a Commissioner.
Re-weight the votes in the Council, but not in accordance with the principle of double majorities.
Stop the formation of a permanent vanguard of core Member States to lead the development process and instead respect all Member States.
The fact that people are not to be given the opportunity successfully to keep track of developments is worrying, as is the fact that there are those who oppose a genuine principle of transparency, something which is absolutely basic to democracy.
Nor should we miss the chance of lending legitimacy to the Charter, which can be done by involving the people.
I am glad to see that the Swedish Presidency will be contributing to this.
Mr President, At the Biarritz Summit, there was obvious antagonism between the smaller and the larger Member States.
If they were to be complied with, the large countries' demands for increased power in the Council and Parliament would upset the whole balance within the EU and mean that the small countries would have to pay for the whole cost of enlargement.
A Union of this kind would be centralised in character and give the small countries less influence than that which the United States' s two-chamber system gives to small federal states.
Nor would the Union become more efficient.
Instead, all Member States must be prepared, upon enlargement, to surrender a proportionate amount of influence.
In Sweden, supporters of the European Union have always justified EU membership by saying that it would give us influence.
Now, the moment of truth has arrived in which we must be prepared to defend the little influence we have.
I should also like to say that there is something remarkable about the fact that France, as the country holding the Presidency, consistently uses its position to promote its own national interests.
Mr President, in our plenary sitting in September we experienced and shared moments of optimism and hope with Abraham Burg, speaker of the Knesset, and Ahmed Qurie, President of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
A month and a half later, what we are now sharing is great concern over the way events are developing.
On the one hand, there is the decision by the head of the Israeli government to put the peace negotiations on hold due to the violence in the area and focus on the creation of a government of national unity with the head of the opposition, Mr Sharon.
On the other, there is the feeling that paramilitary militias and fundamentalist agitators have taken over the streets and taken the initiative in the territories under the control of the Palestinian National Authority.
What is certain is that it is in difficult times such as these that the historic stature of political leaders is measured.
Right now, Mr Barak and Mr Arafat must make their people understand that it is only through dialogue at a negotiating table, with painful concessions on both sides, that the conflict can be definitively resolved.
The international community, and in particular the European Union, must persevere with their efforts to avoid a confrontation which would, moreover, constitute an extremely serious source of global instability.
From a European perspective, for the first time since the Madrid conference, the European flag has been on the table in the peace process.
The unity of action at a given moment has made it possible for the work and prestige of one of the Member States in this area to be used to the benefit of all.
And while we are immersed in the institutional debate we could ask the European Commission to show creativity and political decisiveness in order to make progress in our integration in the second pillar as well.
Does the French Presidency not agree?
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to say a few words on the subject of the Middle East and Yugoslavia, also in connection with contributions from previous speakers.
The dramatic developments in the Middle East have of course caused a huge backlash and emotions among the European public and here in Parliament have inevitably run high in the wake of the violence of the past few days and the large number of victims - and rightly so.
Following the summit meeting in Sharm-el-Sheikh where all parties involved were present in order to find a way to freeze the violence and to re-open the dialogue between Barak and Arafat, we established that it is very difficult - even if, for a fleeting moment, it seemed as if it were possible - to halt the violence.
At the moment, it appears that the voice on the streets is stronger than the will for peace.
Nevertheless, we all know that there are huge numbers of citizens, both in Israel and in Palestine, who are simply finding out - in the hope of peace - how tough life is as long as peace has not really been established.
That is why we back Mr Galeote and Mr Morillon in saying that it is up to us, as the European Union, to do our bit in order to give peace a chance.
We have had the protagonists, namely the Speakers of the Knesset and the Palestinian Legislative Council, in our midst.
That was at a time when the spirit of Oslo and the spirit of Camp David were alive, even if Camp David had just collapsed, it was, so close to peace, nevertheless alive.
This is not the case today, but we did witness that the Arab leaders have been willing to show restraint.
We have witnessed that Mr Solana has managed to secure a stronger position in the peace process on our behalf.
I believe it is right that today, we once again have a joint resolution before us from all parties in which we recognise - with due consideration for maintaining an equilibrium - that both parties must restore the peace; we as nations cannot do that.
But we need to make every effort to give them international support in order to give them that opportunity.
This message could also be conveyed by the French Presidency.
We would also like to ask the French Presidency to re-deploy the entire Mediterranean-European partnership as an instrument in the forthcoming ministerial meeting in Marseilles.
For dialogue in the region must of course be held on a wider platform and if all players take part, there is a chance that both nations will find a way to peace from within.
The other point I wanted to raise is the topic of Yugoslavia.
Needless to say, we in this Parliament can only rejoice at the victory of the Yugoslav people and the election of Mr Kostunica as President.
It was a choice in favour of democracy. It was a choice for Europe.
The sanctions have been lifted.
The European Agency for Reconstruction has been deployed and so has the CARDS programme.
The humanitarian programme has been extended to include refugees and other people who have been driven out of their homes.
The republic is being given the opportunity to take part in the stability and association process.
It is also being given the chance to participate in the stability pact and, along with this, to establish contact with their counterparts in the neighbouring countries, to recognise the sovereignty and, as such, to pave the way for a democratic process.
We believe that the democratic process within Yugoslavia can only be viable if it is also respectful towards the neighbouring countries, and recognises their sovereignty too.
It was a good, major step forward to make those EUR 200 million available for the Federal Republic.
At the same time, we would ask the Council to operate in the same spirit during the budget negotiations for 2001.
For without adjusting the perspective in chapter IV, we will simply allow Africa or Asia to foot the bill once again for something we should attempt to set up ourselves in Yugoslavia in terms of democratic values.
Let us apply the same generosity of spirit which you, the Council, have shown this year with regard to 2001.
In the Group of the Party of European Socialists, we therefore urge you to apply the spirit which you managed to apply previously in the budget negotiations, to the budget negotiations for 2001.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is certainly to be welcomed that account was taken in Biarritz of the need for coordination in the sphere of energy policy, which is of such crucial importance to citizens, the economy, growth and prosperity.
There is really no point in Member States going it alone in this respect; the fact that the Community is totally dependent on energy says it all.
The package of measures proposed by the Commission with a view to increasing energy efficiency and saving energy, is therefore constructive, and likewise the investigations into cartel problems with the oil companies.
It is not just the cartel of oil-producing countries we should be concentrating on though, but also that of the oil companies.
We wish the French Council Presidency every success at the negotiations in Riyadh, on which occasion, as I see it, these States would do well to ensure that oil prices do not rocket any higher, if only for reasons of self-interest.
Setbacks in economic growth within the European Union have repercussions for the global economy.
We should also take a look at our own situation, however.
It is important to take a step forward on the European energy taxation front, such progress having been blocked hitherto by the unanimity principle.
With that in mind, Parliament is expecting the Nice Summit to take a step in the direction of qualified majority voting in those areas where taxation policy is disrupting the proper functioning of the internal market.
Biarritz did not manage to dispel all the storm clouds attending our mission to promote the democratisation of the European Union.
The Council Presidency wants to abolish the cooperation procedure and replace it with the consultation procedure.
This procedure is unacceptable from a democratic and integrationist perspective.
Nor is it to be tolerated with regard to Economic and Monetary Union; on the contrary!
This is precisely where we must advance the cause of the codecision procedure.
If the project is not yet viable, then we urge the French Council Presidency to seek progressive institutional reforms and measures which will enable Parliament to participate.
At the very least, it must be possible to agree on the detail of a common position on these matters in Nice.
But we say 'no' to replacing the cooperation procedure with the consultation procedure.
That would be a retrograde step.
That is why action is called for!
Mr President, in this debate on the informal summit in Biarritz, I would like to focus on the IGC and the Charter.
Concerning the IGC, I would like to highlight three points.
Firstly, the issue of majority decision-making.
As I understand it, the French Presidency has presented 45 articles and topics with regard to majority decision-making.
This is looking reasonably promising, provided that this number is not cut down to 35 or 40 topics in Nice.
But of particular importance is the fact that those topics which will fall under the scope of qualified majority will also fall under the scope of codecision with the European Parliament, and this issue does not appear to be an open-and-shut case.
Indeed, if this does not happen, both the national parliaments and the European Parliament will be sidelined, and the democratic rift will widen rather than narrow. Surely that is the last thing we want.
Secondly, the issue of the number of Commissioners.
Like Mr Brok, I would like to stress here once again that one Commissioner per Member State is absolutely vital to give each country a place in the European executive.
As for the number of MEPs, nobody is in favour of more than 700.
Would it then not be useful to work on the basis of the new numbers during the next elections in 2004? If new Member States then join, the new numbers can be applied and we will automatically remain under the 700 mark, for if we overstep the mark once, I do not think we can go back.
And finally, the Charter.
I gather that the document was well-received at Biarritz and that it can be adopted following a number of legal clarifications and subject to an official declaration at the Summit in Nice, to be incorporated at a later stage in the Treaties.
In my opinion, the Convention did sterling work and I am proud to have been part of this Convention.
The sooner the document can be incorporated in the Treaties, the better, because in that way, the Treaties will gain a constitutional dimension and the citizens will be drawn closer to Europe, because it will mean that a piece of legislation specifically for their benefit has got off the ground.
Mr President, Mr Moscovici, Commissioner Barnier, although no progress was made at the Biarritz summit in the area of essential structural reform of the Union, I have faith in the ability of France, as the country holding the Presidency of the Council, under the leadership of her innovative President Chirac, to pilot structural solutions too in a direction which will cause the stream of development to continue to flow and which is acceptable to all at Nice also.
However, we have to express our concern that there were cries of defiance in certain matters.
The impression that spread to the citizens of Europe via the media was that there was conflict between the small and large countries.
The Union cannot develop as a Community of 27 members if we cling to the notion that it is mainly a system of intergovernmental cooperation in which the Union' s bodies are merely responsible for implementation or control matters in a very loose way.
Already there are numerous examples of how just one country can obstruct matters which almost all countries consider to be important.
It is the large countries just as much as the small that bear the responsibility for this sort of thing.
Examples include the European company, the pan-European liberalisation and privatisation of the postal services, which is stumbling along, the opening-up of competition in the energy sector or the commencement of the harmonisation of taxation.
A cautionary example of inappropriate behaviour is offered surprisingly by Austria, which has just experienced unjust treatment itself, as that country is warning its neighbour, the Czech Republic, against using its nuclear power plant at Temelin.
The Union does not now need visionaries with tunnel vision leading up to the year 2030, but problem-solvers that can see the problems that enlargement over the next 3 to 8 years will bring with it, and see the solutions to them.
Solutions have to be found within the circle of the Union' s institutions through the discovery of a more flexible approach, if necessary by empowering part of the Union to engage in more essential cooperation, by strengthening the position of the Commission, and by switching in the main to a system of qualified majority decisions.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights proudly conveys what European values are, but it is fruitless to create an artificial controversy with regard to its rapid and binding constitutionality.
In this too it is time which must bring decisions to maturity, for example, among ourselves in the Nordic countries.
Thank you, Mr President.
I would like to make some brief comments to set the seal on this debate, but first want to thank each of the speakers, to whom I have listened very attentively, for the quality of their interventions and their candour.
To put it briefly, everybody has touched on the 'larger states and smaller states' debate, and I would like to join Mr Moscovici in saying that I feel that this is an inappropriate way of describing the division that exists.
It is not that we are unaware of this division or act as if it did not exist.
I simply feel that we have to move beyond and rise above it by means of proposals that ensure a more efficient functioning of the Community model in the spirit of the Treaty of Rome.
On an issue that I regard as critical - that of the Commission itself - I have heard Mr Van den Bos echo the concerns of Mr Poettering regarding the place that is to be occupied by one or other country within the Commission.
Ladies and Gentlemen, none of the options that are on the table would entail a country 'losing its Commissioner' , even if I feel that this to be an inappropriate description if one recalls that the Commission is an independent body.
Under every option, each country will have at least one Commissioner.
The question we must answer is whether all the countries will have a Commissioner at the same time, and thus whether we are to have a big - and one day a very big - Commission that will inevitably have been restructured, or if they are all to have one Commissioner but not necessarily at the same time.
In the latter case, the question we must answer is when will this principle of a rotation which treats both larger and smaller states on a strictly equal basis come into effect.
Each option has significant consequences.
Whatever the scenario, there will therefore be a major reform of the way that the Commission operates, and I feel that we must in the coming weeks make careful use of the time still available to us in order to assess the implications of each option before taking a decision at Nice, the aim being, I would repeat, to preserve within an enlarged Europe the effectiveness, credibility and if possible collegiate nature of the Commission.
A further word on the Charter. The Commission has been an active participant in the open discussions entered into via the Convention.
I am thinking in particular of my friend and fellow Commissioner, Antonio Vitorino, who was very active throughout these discussions.
I would point out that right from the start the Commission indicated that it was in favour of the idea of giving legal effect to this Charter.
Personally speaking, I feel that the minimum could be, to echo what Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mrs Berès have said, a link with Article 6 of the Treaty, which could be established as soon as Nice.
I nevertheless feel that we cannot stop there and that we must take things further after Nice.
Mr Berthu talked about this Charter as if it were a thunderbolt that had dropped out of the sky.
All the same, we did make reference to the intelligent and open work that culminated in this Charter, in which national parliaments representing national opinions participated.
The national governments participated fully and have all approved this text.
We are thus talking about an open piece of work which has not fallen from on high or been imposed from above.
That is why in the final analysis it has met with general approval.
Both Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Barón Crespo have mentioned the European Parliament.
I would like, in my turn, to confirm that we will be talking about Parliament during these negotiations.
It is one of the points that have been broached in the discussions and I honestly feel that, beyond what we are able to achieve in the negotiations themselves, anything that the European Parliament itself can quite clearly say on the way it is to be structured after enlargement will be very useful to us because it will enlighten our work and the work of the Member States.
Finally, a word on the Biarritz spirit or climate: Mr Dupuis has surely misunderstood what I said.
I am not of aware of having shown myself to be overoptimistic.
In any case, I spoke of purpose and determination.
I do not yet know whether we will achieve real reform at Nice, and one sufficient for a Union that has 27 Member States and quite clearly may subsequently have many more, provided that the democratic process in the Balkans is consolidated and strengthened.
In any event, the Commission has its place and is striving to secure genuine reform.
I simply said, Mr Dupuis, that success or failure, genuine reform or inadequate reform, would be assessed on the basis of whether the Community model - which does indeed, Mr Moscovici comprise the three institutions you mentioned, but others too - would emerge from Nice weakened, intact or strengthened.
We are striving to strengthen it, and this is a way of allaying the concerns of many Member States, and not just the smaller Member States, on the place and the role that they will occupy within this Community model.
I have specifically mentioned some of the factors that will enable us to ascertain immediately whether the reform is sufficient or not.
The extension of qualified majority voting and codecision to real issues, the preservation of Article 250 in its current form, the place and role of the Commission in closer cooperation, in respect of more than just the first pillar: these are some of the factors that will allow us see straight away whether we are talking of success or failure.
On this point I must make it quite clear that I totally agree with what Elmar Brok and Professor Tsatsos have just said.
Lastly, as Mr Barón Crespo and Mr Poettering have just suggested, I believe that we must indeed raise the debate to the political level and the correct level, that of the final decision, which is to say the level of Heads of State and Government.
I am personally very pleased that the discussions at Biarritz were marked by the desire to come up with genuine reform.
This was my impression at least.
My interpretation of the climate and the weather at Biarritz might well have differed from that of Mr Moscovici, who doubtless knows the Pyrenees better than I do. It was cloudy and it was windy, but what I really wanted to emphasise was the tone of the debates, and their invigorating and purposeful nature.
This was what struck me personally, and gives me some confidence that there will be genuine results at Nice.
Finally, I would like to thank Mrs Randzio-Plath for her intervention.
I can reassure her and state that we, like the Presidency, are determined to press ahead on the basis of the proposals made by Mrs de Palacio concerning European energy policy in the areas of reserves and conservation and support for renewable sources of energy, not least during the negotiations which we have just been talking about in the context of the IGC on the extension of qualified majority voting in environmental matters.
The Commission is striving to make progress, is doing its job, on all these issues. I know that in this matter, just as in the matter of maritime safety which I mentioned earlier, which was discussed at some length at the Nice European Council, we can count on the resolve of the current French Presidency of the Union.
That concludes the debate.
I have received seven motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will be taken on Wednesday.
Constitutionalisation of the Treaties - Reinforced cooperation - Island status
The next item is the joint debate on the:
Report (A5-0289/2000) by Mr Duhamel, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on constitutionalisation of the Treaties (2000/2160(INI));
Report (A5-0288/2000) by Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on reinforced cooperation (2000/2162(INI));
Oral Question to the Council (B5-0542/2000) pursuant to Rule 42 of the Rules of Procedure, by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on Article 158 of the EC Treaty concerning island status;
Oral Question to the Commission (B5-0543/2000) pursuant to Rule 42 of the Rules of Procedure, by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on Article 158 of the EC Treaty concerning island status.
Mr President, before I in turn discuss the two excellent reports presented by Mr Gil-Robles and Mr Duhamel on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which both have an institutional or constitutional dimension, allow me to begin this speech by responding to Mr Segni who brought up the status of the islands.
Mr Segni, as I myself returned only two days ago from an official working visit with Mr Hatzidakis to one of the larger islands of Europe, Crete, I was able to assess the sensitivity associated with the dual handicap of underdevelopment and remoteness, even without a handicap that I personally know better than most, due to my previous posts, i.e. the handicap of mountainous regions that often goes hand in hand with remoteness.
I would therefore like to assure Mr Segni that, like him, the Commission itself has noted certain discrepancies between the various language versions of Article 158 of the Treaty.
Clearly, these linguistic differences are prejudicial to a clear interpretation of the text as, depending on which version you consult, either all or some of the islands could be concerned.
However, Mr Segni, I personally do not think that there can be any ambiguity as to the content, as the text of Declaration No 30 annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam specifies that Community legislation must take account of the structural handicaps relating to islands and that specific measures in favour of such regions may be undertaken where justified.
Island status as such is not a criterion for eligibility.
And that, I understand, is what you are lamenting.
Disadvantaged islands are, of course, covered by cohesion policy.
This is the case of many islands that I visit within the scope of Objective 1 or the cohesion appropriations, due to the very fact of their socio-economic situation and in accordance with the criteria laid down by the Structural Fund general regulation.
Mr Segni, I have decided to instigate a study on the socio-economic situation of the islands, in order to assess the situation and get as precise a diagnosis as possible of these island regions and I myself will present the results of this study, which I hope will be available during the second half of 2001.
I will say in passing that these results will complement the debate that I also intend to instigate in 2001 on the cohesion report, an important public debate in which the European Parliament will take part and which will enable me to prepare the guidelines for the future regional policy for the period 2006-2013.
As for the idea you suggested of introducing this debate into the IGC, frankly, Mr Segni, it seems to me that, taking account of the scope and difficulty of the other subjects on the agenda of this Intergovernmental Conference, it would be more appropriate to rectify the text according to the procedures laid down by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, as in previous cases of clerical errors in the articles of treaties, in order to standardise the different language versions of this article quite precisely.
But I understand that, behind the linguistic aspect, your question expresses another concern.
With regard to this, I have told you of my intention, at least before being able to respond and if the governments agree when the time comes, to get a clearer and more objective view on the basis of the study that I am going to commission on the situation of all the islands of the various Member States of the European Union.
I would now like to discuss, in turn, the two reports presented by José María Gil-Robles and Olivier Duhamel.
On the report on reinforced cooperation, I must remind you that it is not a simple matter, and Mr Gil-Robles is well aware of this as he had to fight for it.
At the very beginning of the negotiations, this issue was not on the agenda.
We all fought, and I thank the Portuguese and French Presidencies for coming to realise that we had to add this issue of reinforced cooperation to the notorious three leftovers from Amsterdam.
Thus, on content and form, I am pleased to see, that the positions of the European Commission and the European Parliament are very close.
After this IGC, Mr Gil-Robles, I think the instrument of reinforced cooperation will be more clearly defined and, if I may use this expression, more 'workable' in relation to the current content of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
For the Commission, there are five essential components of reinforced cooperation.
It must take place, as you said yourself, within the institutional framework, with a suitable role for each institution: that is the first point.
It must remain open to all and, as I said earlier, it must be an instrument of association, integration, and definitely not an instrument of exclusion: that is the second point.
It requires strict conditions, but also practicable conditions: that is the third point.
Guarantees are needed for those not, or not yet, participating in reinforced cooperation: that is the fourth point.
Finally, the fifth point: reinforced cooperation must not be seen, as is sometimes the case, as a way of concealing or hiding a lack of agreement on qualified majority.
As far as I can see, these two issues, although they are sometimes related, basically have nothing to do with each other.
I think that the report presented to you today, ladies and gentlemen, echoes these five features.
It is important to ensure that this reinforced cooperation remains within the framework of the European Union and respects the roles of the institutions, in particular the Commission and the European Parliament.
Furthermore, Mr Gil-Robles, most of the delegations to the negotiations in which I am participating agree that the future treaty should recognise an enhanced role for the Commission and the Parliament in implementing reinforced cooperation.
We now need to work together to ensure that this intention or direction actually becomes reality.
I am therefore prepared to support the request in José Maria Gil­Robles' report aiming to enhance Parliament' s role and I support the idea, at least, of replacing the consultation of the European Parliament in the first pillar with its assent.
However, in our opinion, the roles currently envisaged by the presidency in its very latest proposals regarding the procedure for i.e. the CFSP, are still inadequate as they stand.
That is why, yesterday, when we were discussing various points, I put forward a number of amendments which will usefully serve to specify or enhance the role of our institutions and the place allotted to them according to the pillars, in the context of implementation of reinforced cooperation.
We must ensure that the required coherence between actions under the three pillars is also strengthened, a task that will fall primarily to the Community institutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, reinforced cooperation cannot, and must never allow the acquis communautaire to be unravelled in any way.
I would remind you that the procedure can be simple, with a qualified majority and the withdrawal of the veto, because we want to maintain strict conditions.
Strict conditions, moreover, such as those laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, which we think must be maintained, may justify or allow for simple procedures.
I completely share Parliament' s wish for the fundamental principles to remain unchanged, but I have noticed, Mr Gil-Robles, a willingness on your part to make some of these conditions more flexible, as in point 11 of your resolution, and I would like to exercise a certain amount of caution in this respect.
Finally, we all agree that reinforced cooperation should not - I have said this before and I will say it again - become a characteristic feature of the European Union.
It must remain a mechanism that the Member States may use only when all the other possibilities for progress on the road to integration involving all Members have been ruled out or are not feasible.
Reinforced cooperation must not, therefore, become the universal cure-all in order to conceal our weaknesses.
To be more specific, I think that reinforced cooperation cannot be designed as an alternative to qualified majority voting, which remains and will always remain, in the view of the Commission, the main subject under negotiation.
That concludes my comments on the report presented by Mr Gil-Robles.
As a final comment, and this refers to the report presented with great passion by Olivier Duhamel too, I should like to say that the report on reinforced cooperation and Mr Duhamel' s report are both equal to the reputation of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
I would therefore like to congratulate the members and the chair of the committee, Mr Napolitano.
Moving on to the second report, which we welcome most warmly, Mr Duhamel.
We think your report provides an excellent starting point for the discussion of the constitutional work that we are to begin immediately after Nice.
Despite this remark, let me say from the outset that our duty, here and now, for the Intergovernmental Conference to succeed, is to concentrate all our energy and all our efforts on the IGC agenda as it stands, in particular when extended to reinforced cooperation. We needs must do this because we are a long way short of the target.
Mr Duhamel, you will undoubtedly agree with me that if Nice is not successful, there will be no room, or at least no credibility, for consideration of the future of European integration, at least within the current framework.
We must therefore succeed in Nice, and open the doors to enlargement and to new and future reforms. First of all, however, the objective of these negotiations is to get the door open.
Yet, inevitably, certain questions are now being asked, so forcefully by yourself, for instance, and must be asked in Nice, even if they are not the subject under debate at the Intergovernmental Conference.
I think that Nice could be the beginning of the next stages of discussions on several related topics.
First, the reorganisation of the Treaties.
I thank you for the positive reference you made to the study by the European Institute in Florence that we commissioned, and I also noted Mr Moscovici' s constructive approach in this respect.
I must, however, remind you that we had commissioned a report on the basis of the existing legislation and this is what we were given, but naturally, as soon as the contents of several hundred articles and several Treaties are assembled into 93 articles, since it is possible to work on the basis of the existing law - as, I think, the Florence Institute did - the legal interpretation of this new text is bound to be different.
This is a good piece of work that constitutes a basis available for the future exercise of reorganising the treaties.
That is the first point.
The second point is the legal nature of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a matter which, as the Presidency said, may well not be answered in Nice.
But, like many of you, we think that this work cannot be left at that and we must, perhaps in Article 6, give this Charter legal force. In any case, I will fight for that.
My third point, finally, is the possible clarification of the definition of competences within the European Union.
I know that Olivier Duhamel' s report essentially slots into a wider perspective: that of a constitutionalisation that would go way beyond the current institutional framework and which would only be completed in the long term.
It seems to me, however, that we need to clarify the current legal and institutional situation first of all, which is what your report also proposes as a first stage: "a reorganised Treaty" , as you say in point 9 of your resolution.
Like you, Mr Duhamel, I think the European Union should be equipped with a clear, simpler fundamental text.
It is a necessary and feasible task.
We are not talking about changing the institutional framework established by the Treaties, and certainly not about increasing the competence of the European Union, but about making European construction more user-friendly.
It is essential for European democracy, our primary reason for uniting, as you reminded us, that the citizens have access to a constitutional treaty, a text which, according to the wish of Vaclav Havel, all the children of Europe can learn at school without difficulty.
The important work carried out at our request by the European Institute in Florence, to which I have referred, shows that it is legally possible to assemble all these essential elements in a single text comprising a small number of articles.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the drafting of this fundamental text could be the opportunity to provide answers to other questions of a constitutional nature which will be asked in Nice and which I mentioned just now: the legal nature of the Charter and the clarification of competences.
Is a reorganised treaty, enriched with other elements of a constitutional nature, already a constitution or must this expression be reserved, as you yourself recommend, Mr Duhamel, for a new fundamental text which would be drafted according to new methods? The word "Constitution" does not scare me, I even think I have used it in your presence, ladies and gentlemen, at the very beginning, when I was not yet an official member of the European Commission.
I raised the issue of the constitutionalisation of the Treaties during my hearing before the European Parliament, prior to the investiture of the Commission.
I would like to assure you of my personal availability and even my passion, Mr Duhamel, which will be at least equal to yours, in order to participate in this work.
I also agree that we should move as far away as possible from the references that you yourself rejected, in the context of our work on this subject: on the left, those of Karl Marx and, on the right, as you said, those of Joseph de Maistre, even if the latter, I would like to say, while stating my disagreement with a number of his writings, at least had the merit of being from Savoy.
I would therefore like to indicate my availability and that of the Commission to work in the direction you wish, working through the process of constitutionalisation stage by stage.
In any case, ladies and gentlemen, one thing is clear and must remain so: none of the questions we are discussing can constitute a condition to be achieved prior to the enlargement of the European Union towards the Mediterranean, Baltic, Eastern and Central European countries that are currently candidates.
The Commission is not in favour of calling another Intergovernmental Conference before the first round of enlargement.
The reform of the institutions needed to enable this enlargement to take place must be carried out now and there must be no Nice leftovers, in any case definitely not the Amsterdam leftovers.
Then there would no longer be any preliminary work at all on our part.
The conclusions of the European Council in Nice could announce, in the way you recommend, a mandate and timetable for the work on matters of a constitutional nature.
Again, I think that any discussions after Nice should be open to all, to the Member States and the candidate States, in a suitable form that we shall have to define.
Finally, I think that the Commission, which has participated actively in the work of the Charter and which is participating actively, as is proper, in the work of institutional negotiation, will, after Nice, also have to play its part in the collective brainstorming that is related, quite clearly, moreover, to another exercise which we have undertaken on governance.
Ladies and Gentlemen, my wish is that the Commission, in accordance with the other institutions, should mark out the route to be followed.
It is ready to do so by means of a report to be drawn up following Nice on these matters of clarifying competences and simplifying the Treaties, which could be available before the end of the Treaty of Nice ratification period.
As for the continuation of the work, I will also say that the report you presented, Mr Duhamel, contains many very interesting ideas.
Like you, the Commission was impressed by the quality and form of the work of the Convention which drafted the Charter of Fundamental Rights and I think that this method is one worth continuing and from which lessons can be learnt.
You mentioned the idea of a referendum to be held simultaneously in all the Member States.
This too, I feel, is an idea of great symbolic and democratic significance, and I think it is worth looking into.
Mr Duhamel, you spoke with great passion, and that is what this subject requires, given the resistance and reluctance shown by some.
In fact, a great deal of passion is needed here, and that is what we need now, too, in order to make a success of the institutional reform.
We need a great deal of passion, both on your part and on ours, in order to make a breakthrough.
By way of a thank you for the response, and the amount of attention you are giving this constitutional debate, let me remind you of the additional dimension it has in relation to all the complex matters we are working on in the context of negotiations for institutional reform, such as qualified majority voting and the weighting of votes, which are subjects that are not easy to understand and which must be explained to the citizens.
The issues of a possible constitution, a fundamental treaty, the clear definition of competences and the Charter all have one common feature: the fact that they have a political and a democratic dimension, I was about to say a citizens' dimension.
These will give the Nice talks, even if they have to be gone into in further detail after Nice, that citizens' dimension which the European Union needs.
It has been my opinion for a long time that the main failing of the construction of Europe is that it is a matter for the elite. Admittedly it is sometimes handled with courage and tenacity, but it remains in the hands of the elite, behind closed doors, to some extent, as far as the general public is concerned.
The worst scenario for the construction of Europe in the days to come is that this silence will be maintained, as silence is what fuels fears.
This silence encourages all sorts of demagoguery and all sorts of anti-European campaigns.
We must break this silence and initiate debate involving the public, and it is by means of initiatives such as yours, Mr Duhamel, initiatives which can speak to the hearts and minds of our citizens that we shall be able to contribute towards redressing this democratic deficit.
So that is also why I wished to thank you, as well as to thank you for the form and the content of the initiative you have taken.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Duhamel report has provided us, the European Parliament, with the opportunity, barely two months before the European Council in Nice, to reiterate our position on the further development of the European Union, and in so doing to take account of the need for the EU to become primed for action on the enlargement front over the next few years, as well as to demonstrate to our citizens the medium-term prospects of the European Union.
Commissioner Barnier, you made this point a moment ago, and rightly so.
The Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats will therefore use its large majority to vote in favour of Olivier Duhamel' s outstanding report, which focuses on the essential aspects.
During the first phase, we will need a constitutional treaty that will amalgamate the existing foundations of the Treaties of the European Union currently in force, in a clear and comprehensible manner.
At the same time, however, this constitutional treaty should be elaborated in such a way that it renders the common values of the European Union comprehensible, incorporates the fundamental rights of the European citizens laid down in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and improves the composition, role, and modus operandi of the European Union' s bodies, looking beyond the Nice Summit, thereby improving their efficiency.
What this European constitution will also need to do is clearly establish the distribution of tasks between the Member States and the European Union, inject the dynamism of European integration into those areas where it is badly needed, and provide for joint action to be taken, for example in the sphere of foreign and security policy.
It is also important, in this context, to respect and safeguard the lowest layer of democracy and local self-administration in the EU Member States.
We must not, as has already happened with a number of directives, end up with an interplay of European and national bureaucracies which restricts and overrides the citizen' s ability to shape policy at a local level.
We therefore propose that local self-administration should form an integral part of a future European constitution and would urge you to endorse this proposed amendment.
Mr President, I would like to focus on the report by Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, which duly establishes the European Parliament' s position on the fourth of the major issues to be addressed by the current IGC.
It outlines the framework within which reinforced cooperation is to be developed and sets out the conditions that govern it.
This framework must be enforceable both on the countries that want to participate in closer cooperation and on those that are not participating in it or at least not from the start.
Reinforced cooperation must therefore respect the principles set out in the Treaties and be conducted within the single institutional framework of the Union.
On the other hand, it must not constitute a barrier to trade or precipitate splits in the common market, breaks in the links of solidarity and cohesion between the Member States or, as Commissioner Barnier has said, an unravelling of the Community acquis.
The implementation of reinforced cooperation must not result in new bodies being set up to swell the ranks of the European institutions.
In stressing this point, the joint memorandum from the Benelux countries, as well as Mr Gil-Robles' report, rejects the idea of having a specific secretariat or directorate for each and every closer cooperation initiative.
Openness and transparency must be ensured under all circumstances.
No Member State should ever be refused the chance to participate, at any time, in an existing area of reinforced cooperation, and this guarantee must be extended to include future Member States.
The rapporteur is quite correct in firmly stressing the need for the Commission' s powers of initiative and the participation of Parliament, at least on a consultation procedure basis, to be the norm whenever there is reinforced cooperation.
Moreover, reinforced cooperation within the three pillars will initially have the objective of moving further towards European integration.
It may also prove essential if we are to overcome persistent obstacles.
On the other hand, should the effect of this reinforced cooperation be to destroy institutional balances, to exclude the Commission and to throw off the democratic control of the European Parliament, it would not be achieving its aims and it would be better to dispense with it.
Mr President, the interested citizen who wants to know how the EU is run is scarcely going to pore over the Treaty of Amsterdam as bedtime reading.
If by chance she should nonetheless do so, it is doubtful if she would be any the wiser.
Not even very committed EU cognoscenti could easily plough through those Treaties which in fact regulate a whole range of our common activities here in Europe.
The Treaties are difficult to understand, at times contradictory, difficult to read and uninspiring.
Beautiful and important European values are jumbled together with technical clauses in an unholy mess.
This is really quite unacceptable.
If we want to increase knowledge about the European project, as well as commitment to it, there is a minimum requirement that it must be simple to find out how the Union is run and why it is run in that way.
That is not the case today, a fact which Mr Duhamel' s report does an excellent job of bringing out.
Following the Nice Summit, which we all hope will be successful, it is important to take this next step in order to create a more democratic Union.
It is time to review the Treaties.
For my group, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, it is important that, to begin with, the European Treaties should be made more citizen-friendly.
This means simplifying, rearranging and pruning them.
The proposal from the Florence institute suggests a place to start, but the next step is to create a proper European constitution.
The people of Europe need, deserve and, according to opinion polls, want a common constitution clearly expressing the EU' s values and objectives and clarifying the division of power and responsibility both between the institutions and between the institutions and the Member States.
People' s rights ought to be regulated by incorporating the conclusions from the Convention.
This is an exciting process.
It is certainly not simple, but it is incredibly important.
Naturally, people must be enabled to participate in this work, especially citizens of the candidate countries which will hopefully be members in a few years' time.
The work must under no circumstances be used as an excuse to delay enlargement.
A constitution is a matter for the whole of Europe.
Work on the constitution ought to be informed by an ambition both to simplify matters and to remove some of the tasks carried out by the EU.
This is necessary if the EU is to be able to function in the future.
A clearer distribution of powers is required, as well as a clearer definition of the subsidiarity principle.
We learned a very great deal from the work of the Convention.
It is a working method which, with certain changes, ought to be used to give people a still more important place in the process.
A future European constitution must not be a product off the Brussels drawing board.
Vaclav Havel said in this Chamber, and Commissioner Barnier quoted him recently, that he wanted to see a European constitution which could be handed out to, and understood by, every eleven year-old in Europe.
I think that is a very commendable objective.
The decision to embark upon the work must be taken today.
It is a hopeful sign that the French Presidency is favourably disposed to this.
I shall now do what I can to convince my fellow countrymen to run with the ball during Sweden' s Presidency.
Mr President, Mr Duhamel' s report, which we are discussing today, is a very important one to my mind.
After all, it concerns the all-important question of how the process of European unification is to be further developed.
It is about the future of the European Union.
As is well known, opinion on this differs widely in the various Member States and amongst the various forces of society.
This is also replicated in my own group.
As I see it, this diversity of opinion is indispensable, and also enriches the process, because if we want to build a common European house, we must keep a close eye on whether everyone is keen to live there and also accepts it as their own.
The previous round of European elections showed us just how far the Union still has to go to achieve this goal: low election turn-out, prejudice, justifiable frustration at the lack of democracy and transparency, over-regulation, bureaucracy and opaque decision-making processes.
Unfortunately, none of this has changed yet.
But there is an extremely urgent need for radical change.
Our Parliament, as the only institution of the Union to have democratic legitimacy, has a big responsibility to lead the way in this respect.
Which is precisely why I welcome this report.
We need to simplify and reorganise the Treaties as a matter of urgency.
The text of the Treaties must be comprehensible, above all from the point of view of the citizens.
We need to instigate a constitutional process.
The Nice Summit must pave the way for this by granting the necessary mandate, initiating a procedure and setting a timetable.
Having said that, Mr President, I am more than sceptical about one particular aspect. Firstly, I do not think we will be able, realistically speaking, to adopt the constitution called for in the report in time for next elections in 2004, and secondly, nor should we in my opinion.
After all, it is unacceptable for the fifteen Member States alone to discuss and decide on a constitution, when we all know full well that by the end of this decade the European Union will have 27 members.
As I see it, there are three key points: firstly, we need a truly wide-ranging public debate in all the Member States.
Secondly, the candidate countries must be directly, and fully, involved.
Thirdly, I am absolutely convinced that a constitution could only have democratic legitimacy if it were to be made the subject of a Union-wide referendum, because what this in fact amounts to is something akin to the re-establishment of the Union by its citizens.
Should we do otherwise, then I do not think a Europe of the citizens will be within our reach.
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe has very real problems, such as poverty, unemployment, taxation, and lack of security, yet what is proposed instead of addressing these issues? A constitution!
That is strange enough in itself, but what will this constitution bring? In its form, so much hot air!
In its content, nothing but jiggery-pokery!
As to the results it will achieve, a disappearing trick!
The hot air as regards the form is to be found, for example in paragraph 11 of the French version of the Duhamel report, a constitution against, I quote, "a backward step" going backwards.
But a backward step is always backwards!
Paragraph 20 speaks of a constitution to discuss, and I quote, "their shared future together" .
But if this future is shared, then obviously they are together.
Paragraph 8 states that the constitution will deal with, and I quote, the "issues not settled" .
Well, outstanding accounts may be described as 'not settled' , and there may be answers outstanding, but not issues.
According to paragraph 4, we need a constitution because the Treaties are "unreadable and invisible" .
If it is unreadable, people must have attempted to read it, so it cannot be invisible, and so forth.
What is so serious about Mr Tautology' s report is the fact that he is proposing a constitution based on jiggery-pokery.
First our nations are abused by this sort of constitutional rapist fiddling with their equality.
In the enhanced European house, some nations will be sitting at the military, monetary, and possibly tax, tables, and others will be left out.
In an à la carte Europe, we will then have some nations eating from the set menu.
That is why reinforced cooperation means reinforced exclusion.
As nations cannot withstand this attack on their equality, democracy is being abused.
Paragraph 8 of the constitutional resolution states that Europe' s constitution must be adopted, and I quote, "with no risk of the process being blocked" and, as paragraph 7 of the Duhamel report says, "without a referendum" there can be no democracy. And that is where the jiggery-pokery becomes abuse.
The rule of unanimity with the sanction of a veto, if required, is the last bastion protecting the smaller nations and sovereignty.
Because it proved impossible to simply do away with the rule of unanimity, it is being sidestepped by means of reinforced cooperation, which is nothing more than the abuse of sovereignty. Who stands to benefit from this?
The unemployed?
Pensioners on EUR 700 a month? Street children?
The Palestinian children of European society? No, it will be the elite that profits from this, the caste which goes by the name of Olivier, Pierre, Dany, all their fathers' sons, the oligarchy.
That is why men and women prefer Zidane and Schumacher, because at least with Zidane, they have the dream of breaking out of the social Palestine in which you imprison them, whereas, with Prodi, the prospect every morning, every evening and every day is gloomy.
Mr President, a whole host of names has already been found for the instrument of reinforced cooperation, presumably with a view to making it more comprehensible to the citizens.
It is not the name though, but the practical form it takes, that will decide whether it will serve the interests of the European Union.
The report by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs argues that differentiation can only be deemed to serve any purpose if it is conceived as a process which allows for exceptions to the rule.
However, it seems to me that the report inclines in the opposite direction.
I have always rejected any form of differentiated integration for reasons pertaining to legal theory, but also for pragmatic reasons, believing that it would allow a majority of Member States to determine the direction of policy, and deny countries joining at a later stage any codecision rights in these matters.
I still clearly recall how, in the time before Amsterdam, in what was still the institutional committee, discussions on flexibility went on for weeks.
The arguments against and the warnings about a multi-speed Europe, are still ringing in my ears.
No one has been able to explain to me yet why things are any different now.
Mr President, I intend to talk about islands.
When the intergovernmental conference in Amsterdam inserted a special reference to islands into Article 158 on economic and social cohesion, adding the word "islands" as a special category under the regions which deserve particular attention within the context of cohesion policies, we here in the European Parliament who had first fought for this development thought that it marked the start of a new era for island regions.
This conviction was strengthened when declaration No 30 to the new Treaty of Amsterdam was adopted, stating that the intergovernmental conference recognised that island regions faced different problems due to their island status which, because they were permanent problems, hampered their economic and social development, adding that the intergovernmental conference also recognised that Community law should take account of these problems.
Unfortunately, our hopes were dashed because, in addition to all their other problems, islands are paying the price for the different translations of the point in question.
According to the first version, the text covers all islands, whereas according to the second version, it only applies to islands with problems.
Obviously the second version is incorrect, first because regions lagging behind economically are, in any case, covered by the Structural Funds and, secondly, because if this interpretation were correct, there would have been no point in adopting declaration No 30.
As chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, I should like to reiterate that the European Parliament has always highlighted the fact that island regions are at a permanent disadvantage by reason of their isolation.
Commissioner Barnier, who was in Crete last weekend and whose position I welcome, saw the ships tied up in the harbours in Crete.
They have been tied up for five days now and their cargo is not being moved.
The cost of transportation from an island to the mainland is three times the cost of transportation by road.
Farmers are often forced to cultivate a product and, if the product does not do well, it is destroyed.
A kilo of oil, which is a staple product of the Greek islands, costs less than a packet of cigarettes.
And let us not forget that these people sometimes die on small islands when the weather prevents them from being moved to the mainland.
We must therefore move in this direction.
Mr President, despite your final statement, which we would like to be of consequence but we fear will be otherwise, the criticisms made a while ago by this Assembly regarding the current Intergovernmental Conference have proven to be justified.
Firstly, with regard to the method, which is a tired, lifeless procedure according to public opinion, which in fact marginalises the other institutions of the European Union and in which governments are victims of their own labyrinth.
Second, with regard to an inadequate agenda, which has left out issues that are particularly relevant to the future of the European Union and its citizens' interests.
In spite of everything, however, at least the agenda has included one very important point, reinforced cooperation, which must be seen as an incentive for progress and not for dispersal or creating cabinets.
We must ask for maximum progress to be made in this field in a coherent manner - as indicated in Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado' s excellent report - seeing reinforced cooperation as a last resort that would make it possible in all areas in which decisions are not taken by a qualified majority and also with regard to the CFSP and defence, for the permanence of the single institutional framework to be guaranteed, for a sufficient critical mass of countries to take part in it and, of course, for it to be open at all times.
This will help to stimulate European construction beyond this IGC and possibly in spite of this IGC.
In order to achieve this objective we must ask the Nice Council to open up the important reformist approach that can bring together political consensus and public support.
I am referring to a constituent process of the European Union that would form a new stage - as proposed in the Duhamel report - first by simplifying the treaties and then through a new political instrument creating a system to put an end to the democratic deficit within the European Union. This would be a system of government in keeping with those we use to run our national affairs, beginning with the separation of powers and other principles of the rule of law.
We need a constitution for the European Union, and this constitution must start right now by including the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the new Treaty in Nice.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the point raised by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and Mr Segni on the status of the islands which are part of the European Union is an old, controversial issue which clearly cannot be limited to purely linguistic points.
The issue is a political one and must be tackled and resolved once and for all as such.
I find it difficult to understand how it is that the Treaty can call for social and economic cohesion to be achieved if, years on, we have still not succeeded in eliminating the ambiguity of the treatment reserved for the islands, which is due to the contradiction between Article 158 of the Treaty and Declaration 30 on the island regions, annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Can we not, at last, put an end to this ridiculous line of reasoning which decrees that some islands shall be disadvantaged and others privileged solely on the basis of how far they are from land? I represent the constituency which contains the two largest islands in the Mediterranean - Sicily and Sardinia - and I can say in all honesty that both islands are severely disadvantaged in structural terms precisely because they are islands.
I will end by calling upon Parliament to make every effort to ensure that the Intergovernmental Conference restores to the islands their right to grow and develop.
Mr President, we have heard that progress was made at Biarritz on closer cooperation.
I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Gil-Robles, on a clear lucid report setting out Parliament' s position.
My British Conservative colleagues support moves towards greater flexibility.
We have reservations on the abolition of the veto and progressive elimination of the pillared structure so we shall be constrained to abstain on the overall vote.
Minister, it is recorded that on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution - an event that was to have such desperate consequences throughout the world - the Russian Orthodox Church was engaged in complex discussions on the design of vestments during Lent.
This is an apocryphal story to illustrate the dangers of dwelling on the detail of technical matters to the extent of obscuring the massive challenges to be faced.
I hope the Treaty of Nice is achieved and seen to be a success and that closer cooperation is included as a welcome move in the direction of flexibility.
But will it be sufficient to ensure that enlargement takes place within the timetable envisaged?
Mr Moscovici, will the Nice Treaty really be welcomed and acclaimed in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Tallinn and Ljubljana? Unless this is the case, it would not be a victory, merely another missed opportunity.
I hope that the French Presidency will find a more efficient and imaginative way of assuring the candidate countries and the public throughout Europe that we are not only addressing important technical issues but above all the political necessity to provide our continent with stability through the certain and guaranteed enlargement of our European Union.
Enlargement, Mr President, forces us to face up to the question of whether we intend to move towards purely economic Union or to continue in our endeavour to achieve political Union.
In my view, the unity of Europe cannot but be political.
A simple single economic area, even with a single currency, is no replacement for political Union.
We cannot put this sort of limitation on our ambitions because that would presage the break-up of the Union, even of economic Union.
Obviously, it would be best if we had or if, in Nice, we could set up institutions to take single common decisions by a suitable majority, possibly a double majority of populations and Member States, which are binding on us all.
No such institutions exist, or at least not to the required extent.
Even if all the demands of the French Presidency for qualified majority voting are accepted, large areas of political cooperation will remain uncovered.
Reinforced cooperation is therefore a de facto requirement, not as an ideal solution, it is certainly not that, but as a practical solution in a time of need, of vital need.
We must accommodate the Member States which are willing and have the power to move forward and block the Member States which are not willing to move forward.
The danger, however, is that reinforced cooperation will break up the unity of Europe through the back door, resulting in a patchwork of intergovernmental cooperation.
Cooperation must therefore offer all the guarantees proposed by the rapporteur, be open to all the Member States, respect the spirit of the Treaties and not undermine the acquis communautaire.
We need Parliament to control these issues, but I share the view of the President-in-Office that control must not turn into a new veto.
If, therefore, we insist that Parliament must be able to exercise preventive control, we will have to confine ourselves to controlling questions of legality, not political expediency.
In addition, the initiative of the Member States ought to be non-binding; more importantly it cannot be subject to a Commission proposal for an initiative because that would do away with the initiative of the Member States.
Mr President, two brief observations regarding the reports on our agenda today.
With regard to the Gil-Robles report, I can simply say that it is an example of sound work carried out by our Committee and that the vast majority of our Group will support the report.
The Duhamel report took a long time to prepare and its content is substantial and interesting. I would like to highlight two amendments tabled by our Group.
The first amendment concerns the duration of the Convention' s work.
In our opinion, the new Constitution should even be ready to enter into force by the next European elections.
Two years of work should be more than sufficient and we hope that the majority of Parliament will support Amendment No 37.
The second point concerns the difference between the first and second stages.
We feel that it is essential not so much to simplify and consolidate the Treaty as to turn it into a succinct Constitution which all the European citizens will find readable.
I therefore feel that it is not really feasible to divide the work into two stages.
In conclusion, I would in any case like to thank the two rapporteurs for their work and to assure them of the support of my Group.
Mr President we are at a crucial juncture, firstly because the report by Mr Gil-Robles, which I will cover in just one sentence, enables us to identify and support opportunities for closer cooperation and to dispel the risks and, from that point of view, it is a very good piece of work.
Nevertheless, I would like to concentrate on the Duhamel report, to emphasise how much progress the idea of a constitution has made, including in this House.
Everyone, or almost everyone, who has spoken has done so in support of this idea and we feel that this is already a huge victory.
Why are all these people fighting and militating for the idea of a constitution?
They are doing so in order to ensure that Europe becomes a democracy. In other words, all the decisions that are now trapped within the so-called intergovernmental debate, discussions in the corridors of power and behind-the-scenes diplomacy, all these decisions that are taken behind closed doors and shrouded in obscurity will become the business of the citizens, the general public, European public opinion.
We, of course, take the view that this is the purpose of the constitution, over and above the already positive purpose of clarifying the Treaties.
As a result of the Duhamel report, we finally have a credible script.
Even if this two-stage process is not ideal, at least we can see where we are going.
My last point is that, when it comes to drafting the Constitution for real, the key point will be to determine wherein the legitimacy of the European authority lies, and, in our opinion, it must come from the peoples, from our citizens and their representatives, the European Parliament and perhaps the national parliaments.
Democracy is the power of the people.
Mr President, I should like to say a few words to the effect that, in my opinion, the Duhamel report is a truly excellent document, which makes quite substantial progress.
In fact, I wish it went even further and explicitly discussed a constitution and not merely a framework treaty, a type of treaty, a single treaty or a treaty of treaties, which nevertheless incorporates the Declaration of Fundamental Rights.
I concede, however, that the political situation has not been conducive to going that far and I therefore give my unreserved support to the Duhamel report currently before us.
At the same time, there is one point I would like to highlight. I do not think it is right that we should call for or move towards the requirement for a compulsory referendum in every Member State to approve the specific amendments that have been proposed.
In Portugal, for example, we did not hold a referendum to approve our membership of the European Community or to approve the Maastricht Treaty. These issues were approved by Parliament, in the context of effective representative democracy.
I fail to see why we should force all Member States to hold referendums, regardless of whether these form part of their traditions or not.
That is my only reservation.
In any case, I warmly congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Duhamel, on his excellent work.
Mr President, the question tabled by Mr Napolitano on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, refers to a very real issue and I think Commissioner Barnier' s response and that of the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Moscovici, were very clear.
That is, there is an error in the Italian version of the text resulting from an incorrect translation.
Consequently, the description "less developed" is applied to the island regions as well as to the other regions and, according to Mr Barnier' s proposal, what is required here is the amendment of the Italian text of the Treaty, in accordance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention.
On the other hand, I believe that we should welcome the information that Mr Barnier has just given us; he has proposed a study of the specific problems of the island regions, in accordance with Article 158 and Declaration No 30, appended to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I believe that this would actually be enough to solve the problem raised by the question by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
Mr President, the European Union' s achievement has been to interpose a European-wide transnational legal order between national and international law based on the Treaties which, as the European Court of Justice has pointed out, have some of the characteristics of a constitution.
No-one would hold up the existing structure of the Treaties as a model of their kind and it must be in the interests of the politician, administrator, businessman and citizen to simplify their structure.
The proposals in the Duhamel report which do that must be welcomed.
The second part of his report is more ambitious and hence contentious, questioning the mechanics of the way in which the Treaties - and hence the quasi-constitution - is changed.
It is true that to an English common lawyer this is unknown territory. But to those in the United States, Canada or Australia this is much more familiar ground.
It is an important topic which requires serious attention.
I say to my own countrymen that it should not be dismissed out of hand.
Rather, while I am far from convinced by a number of the detailed proposals in the report, I welcome the debate it opens because it raises important questions which require thought-through, considered and dispassionate answers.
Mr President, as the last speaker, I too should like to congratulate Mr Duhamel on his excellent work and Mr Gil-Robles on his work.
We have had an in-depth debate on two issues which, although different, converge at one point.
And both reports basically deal with the manner in which the European process is to continue; the manner in which the framework and the vision of Europe are to be shaped still further.
Mr Gil-Robles' proposals on reinforced cooperation are, on balance, positive.
At the same time, Mr Duhamel' s proposals for a constitutional charter for the European Constitution, a constitution of which we are in dire need, are also fundamental.
And now a word to the President-in-Office, Minister Moscovici.
The European Parliament has tabled important proposals.
Now what we need is for the summit in Nice to demonstrate the political will to ensure that the Nice Treaty combines these proposals, and other proposals formulated on other occasions, into an integrated institutional framework which allows the European process to advance properly and the European Union to welcome the new Member States in a positive and sound manner.
I have received a motion for a resolution pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the reports by Mr Duhamel and Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado will take place shortly.
The vote on the resolution on the oral questions with regard to the status of the islands will take place on Wednesday.
VOTE
Mr President, with regard to Amendment No 3, the votes were 72 for and 56 against.
Since the honourable Member said she would vote against, this amendment is repealed.
That does not alter the outcome.
I am quite clear about that in my mind.
Mr President, I was seeking your clarification of the Rules on the set of circumstances that were just raised.
If a machine is not working, is it the case that a vote that is entirely disregarded? If so, it seems to me that is a matter that may require of an amendment in the Rules of this House.
It clearly is the case that the intention of the House was, by a tied vote, not to carry that particular measure.
Mr Evans, it is, pursuant to the Rules, for the President to decide whether the result was valid or not.
Needless to say, the President always hopes that all voting machines are working.
Should a machine not be in working order, this does not in any way affect the conclusion reached by the President that this vote was carried out in a lawfully valid manner, and I obviously have no intention of changing that conclusion.
These are the rules.
Neither do I intend to change the Rules of Procedure.
That is how it is.
I do not want a debate on this.
The rules, ladies and gentlemen, are crystal clear.
Mr President, I know you hope all the voting machines were working.
I am afraid mine did not, so that made the majority "two" , not "one" .
That is making matters too complicated, Mr Howitt.
I will not take this into consideration.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I am sorry to rise again on a point of order but I do so to challenge the ruling you made earlier, not in the context of the debate but in the context of the Rules of this House.
If there is an equality of votes and if the honourable Member did vote, even though her machine did not work, then the procedure in any parliamentary assembly is that amendment falls.
Therefore, in those circumstances I want you to tell me which part of our Rules suggests that your ruling is right, when clearly it is not.
Mr Atkins, that is not how we are going to do things here.
The rules are crystal clear.
We held a small procedural debate on it a moment ago.
Virtually all Members of the House are familiar with this rule.
The President decides on the validity of the votes.
I am interested to hear that other parliaments do things differently, but in this Parliament, our rules apply.
Mr President, I am able to dispel an illusion that certain MEPs have.
During the vote, which is the subject of the dispute, I voted against by mistake; I actually wanted to vote in favour.
I have already notified the Registry.
There was therefore more than one surplus vote.
Mr President, what is being asked for here is a recipe for chaos.
As we have heard, some people voted the wrong way, some people' s machines did not work.
The Rules as they stand are quite acceptable and ensure that you will not have a situation where some people have not voted, where some people' s machines did not work. We cannot change the Rules.
Otherwise it would make things quite impossible: when we have a very tight vote with only a difference of one or two votes, there would be people jumping up all over the place saying their machine did not work, they did not vote, or whatever.
It is better as it stands.
Mrs McKenna, you are absolutely right.
I believe we can now close the subject.
The vote was clear.
The result was established by the President.
It is valid.
There is nothing to add to or detract from this.
I suggest, honourable Members, that we do not discuss the matter any further.
Mr President, it is now almost 2 p.m.
Could you ask the House if wishes to continue voting or if it wishes to stop?
.
(FR) Behind the convoluted wording of this text, there is an outline of a raft of measures, all harmful to workers.
What is the meaning of the expression "the deadline within which Member States are required to guarantee unemployed individuals a chance to access an active employment measure should not exceed two years" , if not a threat to unemployment benefits?
What is the meaning of "the introduction of the opportunity to move towards retirement gradually, via part-time work" , if not a threat to the age of retirement, which is already far too high in many countries?
There is no ambiguity about the repeated calls for making flexibility in employment more common.
With regard to the passage on work experience in companies, apprenticeships, joint work/training contracts, it aims to make more widespread a practice already adopted by many States which consists, on the pretext on helping workers or unemployed young people, of making a partially or completely subsidised workforce available to employers.
The icing on the cake for the property-owning classes is the report' s recommendation of something already practised by many States, which is "the contributions in respect of fiscal and parafiscal charges" by the authorities on "domestic work" , which clearly means taxpayers' subsidising the maids and chauffeurs that the rich are likely to hire.
Texts like these confirm the fact that the role allotted to the European institutions, including Parliament, is to be of service to the narrow band of the well-to-do.
It significant that the report reiterates that full employment is one of the Europe' s key objectives under its strategy for economic, employment and social policy. Nevertheless, we must also ensure that we move beyond vague statements and make genuine changes to our macroeconomic and social policies in order to make real progress towards full employment and good-quality jobs.
It is also significant that the report restates the need to discourage children from dropping out of school early, by giving appropriate support to those with educational problems and raising the age for compulsory education or training to 18. At the same time we must adopt those measures needed to guarantee access to high-quality education and to training geared towards all young people, paying particular attention to lower-income families and those from the most vulnerable parts of society.
This also requires sufficient budgetary appropriations, which are still not forthcoming.
The report does well to state the need to reduce gender gaps with regard to employment, unemployment, pay and sectoral segregation by 50% in the Member States over the next five years. It is also crucial, however, for there to be a real improvement in good-quality jobs, in salaries and in professional development, which we have not yet seen.
Recommendation for second reading - Trakatellis (A5-0268/2000)
I welcome the EP' s adoption of the Trakatellis report as it provides for the setting of high standards of quality and safety of blood and blood derivatives.
EU citizens are entitled to expect the highest level of safety with blood products.
It is imperative that we safeguard the health, safety and confidence of patients, users and third parties and set conditions on placing such products on the market.
We must at the same time seek to guarantee continuity of supply of safe products at affordable prices to both individual citizens and public health authorities.
There is an Italian proverb which says, literally: "laughter makes good blood" .
Pensioners and the elderly - who, like everybody else, would like to have a healthy circulation - therefore approve of the fact that, every so often, I am able to introduce a lighter note into our proceedings, such as this preamble to my explanation of why I voted for the Trakatellis report.
My reason for voting for the report is, of course, that pensioners and elderly people are greatly concerned with their health, for it is they who are most frequently hospitalised, and they therefore welcome not only the movement of goods but also the healthy circulation of the blood.
Souchet report (A5-0228/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Souchet report which is intended to further facilitate the process of turning agricultural products into packaged agricultural products.
As you know, pensioners, like children, love eating jam.
I am telling you this because it would be a good idea for the European Union to facilitate the processing of agricultural products further, in order to make it possible for surplus products such as oranges, citrus fruits and other produce to be made into packaged food products - and I stress the word packaged - which could then be used both for the people of the European Union and for other peoples, especially those who do not have enough food.
MacCormick report (A5-0304/2000)
We have voted in favour of Mr MacCormick' s report seeking to uphold Mr Pacheco Pereira' s parliamentary immunity.
It is not that we think that the purpose of immunity is to place any Member of this House above the law, but because it is, in certain cases, necessary in order to protect the institution and the independence of its Members in the face of measures of persecution.
Many of us noted the very important development, in section II, paragraph D, on the "Independent nature of European parliamentary immunity compared with national parliamentary immunity."
It is because parliamentary immunity is independent that our institution has the power to review requests for waiver, particularly with regard to 'fumus persecutionis' i.e. the presumption that criminal proceedings have been brought with the intention of causing the Member political damage.
If we have the power to review requests for waiver, then we have all the more the right to consider breaches of parliamentary immunity, when this is attacked without such a request even being presented!
If European parliamentary immunity is independent, the French authorities ought to have consulted us regarding the waiver of Mr Le Pen' s immunity.
We ought to have studied the outrageous reversal of the concept of flagrante delicto which those authorities committed.
Before passing judgement, the French Court of Appeal and the Council of State ought to have notified the Court of Justice in Luxembourg that the question had been referred for a preliminary ruling.
In the absence of these crucial formalities, the President of the European Parliament clearly ought not to have allowed a criminal trial instigated in completely invalid conditions to have any effect on Mr Le Pen' s mandate.
This is the legal course that our Parliament should follow in order to be consistent with its principles and its legal code, as well as with the letter and the spirit of the treaties.
A great many of us here would like to hear this stated by the Court of Luxembourg, which is the guardian of the law.
Klaß report (A5-0195/2000)
Mr President, I voted against the Klaß report.
This is because it confirms the possibility of turning traditional vines into GMO vines and therefore the possibility that, in the future, we will be drinking genetically modified wine.
I asked the pensioners who sent me here to the European Parliament to represent the Pensioners' Party whether they would like to drink genetically modified wine.
They replied: 'If genetically modified wine were to cure me of my liver trouble or to prevent me getting liver trouble, then I would be quite happy to drink it.
Otherwise, why should I agree to drink wine which is different to the wine our ancestors always drank?'
Mr President, in the course of this discussion on the Klaß report, I have been unable to comprehend why some people have persistently confused the terms 'genotype' and 'genetic modification' .
This has actually hampered the discussion because 'genotype' is a prototype in wine, and wine growing is an extremely varied and dynamic sector characterised by long-established traditions and ancient cultures.
Vine material provides the basis for optimum grape and wine production in terms of quality, class and quantity.
Therefore we need these types of vine in order to preserve the variety of the wine, in terms of characteristic flavour, and to prevent cut-price enterprises from undermining this regional variety of vine propagating material and working against it.
I am particularly disappointed at the European Parliament' s vote on the report on the reproduction of vine plants.
I am disappointed that Parliament has neither understood nor tried to understand the message of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and of the Greens, who have tried to draw attention to the underhand way in which the executive committee acted in order to water down the issue of GMOs in its reports so that we will end up with vast amounts of them on our plates and in our glasses.
No, I have not got the wrong debate. The Greens are perfectly in tune with public opinion and consumers, who are concerned about future food products.
The Greens are in tune with wine growers, producers and merchants who are worried about the introduction of GMOs into vine plants.
By refusing, by 397 votes to 115, to back the amendments proposing to withdraw the references to GMOs, the European Parliament has failed in its role of guardian of the precautionary principle and is guilty of allowing GMOs to be infiltrated into vine plant reproduction through the back door, in contempt of European regulations.
In my country, Greece, vines are extremely important; they are an integral feature of the landscape and have been bound up with its culture and economy for centuries.
And, Greece is the only Member State which produces and exports raisins.
Material for the vegetative propagation of the vine must meet high specifications both from the phytosanitary point of view and as regards certification of the variety or clone, since it is the initial material which a vine-grower wishing to produce high quality vine products and safeguard his income will use to start a vineyard.
We all know that the directive on material for the vegetative propagation of the vine needed amending, because huge changes have taken place in the 32 years since it was drawn up, both on the market and in the technical and scientific area.
The changes dictated by the situation on the ground and the requirements of the sector need to be made, but they need to be made in a direction which serves producers and consumers and the report does not move in this direction.
To be precise, there is no scientific proof that genetically-modified vine varieties pose no risk to human health or the environment and the fact that authorisation may be granted only if all the appropriate steps have been taken to avoid endangering human health does not constitute a safety valve.
At no point does the report clarify either who will grant the authorisation or what controls will be carried out.
Given that research into genetically-modified products has been developed and is controlled by a number of large multinational companies which are only interested in increasing their profits and have no interest in protecting human health or the environment, the precarious nature of the supposed authorisation and controls, which are riddled with holes, gives even greater cause for concern.
It is proposed to allow material for the vegetative propagation of the vine which meets reduced specifications to be marketed when temporary difficulties arise without, however, specifying what these difficulties might be.
Or even, by way of derogation, for standard material for vegetative propagation to be supplied when demand cannot be met from other categories.
The main point here is that material for vegetative propagation which meets reduced specifications gives a poorer quality vineyard, thereby jeopardising the vine-grower' s income, while suppliers are in a win-win situation because they are able to sell poor quality products.
As far as the definition of the clone is concerned, it is inadequate because, basically, the clone is a sub-division of the variety with special characteristics which have to be made known and the definition given does not cover this.
We note that a newer, more complete definition has been issued by the committee of vine experts.
As far as new scientific techniques such as in vitro propagation are concerned, reference should be made to the fact that meristem propagation is excluded from in vitro propagation of material because, as we all know from numerous years' experience and experiments by institutes, mutations occur when these points of the plant are used.
In this proposal, economic interests have prevailed over other considerations.
When that happens, this very often has unforeseen adverse implications.
In a number of Member States, growing grapes constitutes an important economic sector, especially since they are used to produce alcohol.
To some, alcohol, like tobacco and drugs, is a product which can cause a great deal of harm to the users and the people around them; to others, it is mainly a source of employment which can generate large sums of money.
The proposal to amend the directive on the marketing of vegetative propagation material of the vine is being justified as a tool to reinforce the internal market and to bring a 30-year old regulation up-to-date.
However, it also seems to be about widening the scope for genetic manipulation.
Yesterday, the proposal of the Greens and Social Democrats to postpone the decision on the Klaß report until a broader decision-making process on the genetic manipulation of plants is in place, was turned down by a narrow majority of this Parliament.
For me, this is a reason not to vote in favour of the Klaß report, certainly not at this stage.
Riis-Jørgensen report (A5-0290/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Riis-Jørgensen report, although it does have some shortcomings.
Yesterday, I overheard Mr Smith, an Englishman talking to Mr Rossi, an Italian. They are old friends and work in the same profession: they both work for furniture factories.
Mr Smith' s salary is ITL 2.5 million per month whereas Mr Rossi earns less: only ITL 2 million per month.
The reason is that Mr Smith' s pension contributions are low whereas the amount paid by Mr Rossi is very high.
But why? This situation is due to the fact that British pension laws make workers' pension contributions bring more return than Italian laws.
I therefore put it to you, Mr President: are not such discrepancies in contributions also a restriction upon free competition in the European Union?
We must give credit to the explanatory statement of this report for stating, quite openly, that, "Competition policy is clearly one of the most important policies of the European Union." This is really a polite euphemism for the true state of affairs.
The sole purpose of the European institutions is to try to set some rules for competition. Even if it is regulated, the law of the jungle still applies, which means that, whatever industrial or financial groups hold sway, working class consumers and workers are always the victims.
It is significant that the only aspect of State aid to businesses that perturbs the rapporteur is "distortion to competition" and not the fact that this aid always means that the majority of the population is being robbed to help major companies generate private profit for their shareholders.
With regard to company mergers, which the rapporteur hopes that the Commission will assess, such an assessment should describe not only the competitive advantages and the additional benefits that companies gain from them.
It would also be useful if the assessment showed how many redundancies they cause, because all the mergers that have been authorised by the Brussels Commission have led to restructuring or, in other words, redundancies.
These mergers may have brought profits to the shareholders in the companies involved, but they have also cost their workers, their families and society as a whole very dear.
In April 1999, the Commission proposed a wide-ranging reform of the Community system of competition with regard to the application of Article 81 (prohibiting agreements between undertakings) and Article 82 (prohibiting the abuse of dominant position).
The rapporteur generally welcomes the proposals in the Commission White Paper on this subject but is apprehensive of the possible implications of the reform, which aims principally to decentralise the implementation of competition rules.
She feels that abolishing the notification and authorisation systems and enhancing the role of national legal systems in disputes concerning Community competition law will lead to the renationalisation of this policy.
While we would not all agree with every aspect of EU competition policy, it has certainly been a successful policy over a period of 43 years and it has helped to prohibit the abuse of dominant positions by companies within the European Union.
I would not like to see a situation where the primacy of Community law with regard to the implementation of EU competition rules and regulations was threatened in any shape or form.
The uniform application of EU competition laws throughout the EU must be paramount.
Therefore, I welcome the call by the rapporteur to the European Commission to provide additional guarantees concerning the application of competition law within the Member States.
This will include, in particular, involving the European Parliament more closely in drawing up and implementing competition policy and monitoring the quality of legislation on competition within the various Member States of the EU and the applicant countries to the EU.
There must be clear mechanisms set up for allocating cases between national authorities and the European Commission in order to prevent shopping around for the most advantageous legal system which might be available for various legal applicants.
In principle, the decentralised application of Community law can only be a success if there are strong commitments given that this will be uniformly applied across all the territories of the European Union.
This report reflects the European Commission' s policy of giving priority to competition policy, even when, in the name of this policy, workers' fundamental rights are threatened, or privatisations go ahead. These privatisations turn public-sector companies that are accused of enjoying a monopoly into effective private monopolies and often undermine public services that are essential to improving people' s quality of life, which is what has happened in Portugal.
The social dimension is totally absent from the report and the rapporteur even goes so far as to state that "when examining whether a conduct restricts competition, focus should be on the harm caused to competition, not to the competitors."
Its view is that that "competition cases should be based on economic analysis" .
The report also advocates mergers between companies, even between those on a large scale, on the pretext of international competitiveness, but it ignores any social consequences that may result from this situation.
We therefore felt bound to vote against the report, which is what we did.
Jonathan Evans report (A5-0281/2000)
Mr President, in order to explain the reasons for my declaration with reservations in favour of the Evans report, I would like, this time, to tell you about a conversation between Carlo and François. They are the same age, 50 years old, and they have been doing the same job for the same number of years.
Carlo has invited François to dinner.
'Why are you inviting me to dinner?' asks François.
And Carlo replies: 'I am inviting you to dinner because, although I am still a young man - 50 years old - I have been given early retirement by my government.
Tomorrow I am not going to work, I will become a pensioner, because my country, Italy, has a system of early retirement.
However, I know that you will have to continue to work for another 10 years.
That is why I am inviting you to dinner.'
I put it to you once again, Mr President: is this not also a State aid which should be included in the survey?
Mr Fatuzzo, I am unable to answer that question, for this is an explanation of vote.
I am not the executive but rather the President of this House at this moment in time.
During the debate yesterday evening, I welcomed the work of Mr Evans, but I was immediately bound to express my deep disagreement with the rather too liberal, not to say ultraliberal, tenor of his report.
Not only did Mr Evans deny the fact that state aid was cut in the period 1994-1998, even though the Commission itself acknowledged this reduction, but, even more seriously, he continually and obsessively dwelt on the exceptional nature of state aid, even though the Treaty envisages the granting of such aid in order to achieve the objectives established in the Treaties, such as the environment and social cohesion, and even though the Commission itself acknowledges that certain policies cannot be supported by market forces alone.
Hence my recommendation last night not to endorse the report as it stands.
Whilst I could agree with the requests for increased transparency regarding state aid, and for the European Parliament to be informed about the follow-up to aid approved by the Commission, I called for state aid to be maintained in order to develop social cohesion, research and innovation or environmental protection, to offset gaps in the market, to promote European competitiveness in relation to other countries and to confront the fraudulent machinations of competitor countries, such as Korea in the field of shipbuilding.
I added that the supervision of state aid should be carried out within the strict framework of the Treaties' provisions and not according to the prevailing liberal ideology.
I believe that, somewhere between the 'all-powerful state' , which nobody wants anymore, and the 'non-existent state' , which is simply the modern form of the survival of the fittest, this thing that many would call the 'European social model' requires us to look for the balance between what can be regulated by the market and what state authorities should regulate!
That is why I put forward and voted for the Socialist Group' s amendments.
As the right forced them to fight, I did not vote for the report.
State aids have been traditionally used by Member States as instruments of industrial and social policy.
Notwithstanding the move towards greater deregulation within the European Union, state aids can still play a constructive role in achieving social and economic progress.
I am a member of the European Parliament for the constituency of Connaught/Ulster.
This whole region has been classified as an Objective 1 area for the seven-year period 2000-2006.
If a particular region is accorded such classification then the businesses which set up in that region are entitled to receive a higher percentage of state aid than within a non-Objective 1 region.
In fact, one can recall that 40% grant aid is available for fixed investment costs for new businesses setting up within the Objective 1 region in Ireland.
There can also be a further top-up arrangement of 15% for fixed investment costs for small and medium sized enterprises.
For the purposes of this grant aid, a small and medium-sized enterprise is a company that employs less then 250 people.
Permission to grant such grant aid to companies setting up in the Objective 1 region serves a very positive economic and social purpose.
It ensures that the further drift from rural to urban areas may be arrested.
It also ensures that greater inward investment can take place into this region in an effort to bolster job opportunities for young people growing up in such areas.
I welcome the recent statement that radical changes are now being implemented by IDA Ireland in terms of attracting more jobs to the Objective 1 region in Ireland.
IDA Ireland has been reorganising that focus so as to win half of all new jobs from Greenfield Projects in the Objective 1 region over the coming three years.
This re-focus is beginning to take effect and given time and the implementation of the Government' s Programmes on Infrastructure, as outlined in the National Development Plan for the period 2000-2006, the IDA is certainly confident that it can reach this target for new projects in the Objective 1 region.
There are too many regions presently at a disadvantage from an uncompetitive infrastructure and from the lack of the business support services which are needed if the required level of new and modern business investment is to be achieved.
I believe the Regional State Aid Guidelines which have been put in place to help job creation in the Objective 1 region can be implemented in their entirety and will redress regional imbalances which exist in Ireland and elsewhere.
I would also point out that many Irish-speaking areas within the constituency of Connaught/Ulster and Udaras Na Gaeltachta will also be playing a pivotal role in creating new industries in the Objective 1 region over the coming years.
My opinion of paragraphs 4, 17 and 18 is positive, but is negative on paragraph 2, on the other hand.
State aid should certainly not serve as an incentive for companies to relocate from one Member State to another.
That would only encourage companies to use government funding to make labour more flexible by constantly moving to the areas with the lowest wages, worst working conditions, lowest prices for land and the most backward environmental requirements.
I drew the attention of the European Commission to this issue in July 1999, and received a positive response.
I therefore agree with the thrust of paragraph 4 which supports this viewpoint.
I am less pleased with the idea expressed in paragraph 2 that state aid should not go up.
That aid could well be indispensable to the protection of the environment and public services and to guaranteeing equal income levels for people living in economically disadvantaged regions.
I back the criticism voiced with regard to tax exemptions, which fuels unfair competition in favour of aviation, as compared with other modes of transport, and I also support the incentives to save energy and look into renewable energy sources.
My final verdict is therefore positive.
Unbridled competition has become the latest neo-liberal fad.
The principle of market rules as the sole form of social regulation tends to do away with man and his creativity as individuals in the economy and the productive process and, more importantly, is indifferent to man' s prosperity and only interested in the welfare of enterprise.
Everyone knows that, even if the rules of competition are transparent and apply to everyone, not that this ever was or ever will be the case, not everyone has access to those rules on equal terms, with the result that the familiar law of the jungle applies, might is right and monopolies rule OK.
Sometimes, when the consequences of this policy cause an outcry, state intervention, aid and other economic and fiscal incentives come along and go some way to restoring the situation.
Intervention does not even break the surface of the capitalist system and often supports selected companies and businesses.
However, it is not these "deviations" that are being targeted in the desperate attempt to abolish state aid; its purpose is to increase the profits of strong companies and consolidate their position on the market without any danger from new competitors.
The less developed regions of the EU, the less developed sectors and the poorer social classes know that, without state intervention, the development differential will increase steadily at their expense.
They know that, without a strong, productive and efficient public sector, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.
They also know that the economy is being restructured and the public sector sold off not for their benefit but in order to support big business and increase its profitability.
Selling off the nation' s silver is one of the quickest ways to weaken the grass roots factor and minimise the means at its disposal.
In other words, apart from increasing profitability, it also hands big business an important political weapon to combat grass-roots demands.
We find the constant pressures and concomitant institutional measures, such as the proposed state aid register and scoreboard, unacceptable.
There is a danger, once the EU is safely in control of large state aid, of its turning its attention to small-scale aid on the pretext of the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Big business is showing, in the choices it is making, that it is seriously worried about the possibility of competitiveness controls by the Member States, not by the Commission of the EU.
The intolerable situation being forced on workers by the choices made by large companies and the EU is already causing widespread reaction.
The number of demonstrations against "globalisation" and the rule of the uncontrolled laws of the market is increasing rapidly.
Attempts to erode measures to protect workers still further, the attack from all fronts on the rights which they have fought for, in conjunction with attempts to minimise the specific weight of the public sector and the balancing function which state aid can exercise, do nothing except increase grass-roots dissatisfaction and leave workers no choice but to fight and resist.
That concludes the votes.
(The sitting was suspended at 2.06 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
2001 budget procedure
The next item is the joint discussion on:
the report (A5-0300/2000) by Mrs Haug, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the EU draft general budget for 2001: Section III, Commission, (C5-0300/2000 - 1999/2190(BUD))
the report (A5-0292/2000) by Mr Ferber, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the EU draft general budget for 2001 (C5-0300/2000 - 1999/2191(BUD))
Section I, European Parliament;
Section II, Council;
Section IV, Court of Justice;
Section V, Court of Auditors;
Section VI, Economic and Social Committee;
Section VII, Committee of the Regions;
Section VIII, Ombudsman
the report (A5-0251/2000) by Mrs Rühle, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the ECSC draft operating budget for 2001 (COM(2000) 360 - C5-0340/2000 - 2000/2060(BUD))
the report (A5-0236/2000) by Mr Colom i Naval, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the Interinstitutional Agreement on financial statements.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ECSC Treaty will expire in June 2002.
In other words, the year 2001 will see the last full annual budget, and will also form the background to the assessment of the Commission proposal and the proposal that we are in the process of submitting to Parliament.
The Commission has proposed that the appropriations should be increased to EUR 190 million, as compared with EUR 176 million the previous year.
This corresponds, or rather, comes very close to what Parliament proposed during the previous budgetary procedure, i.e. EUR 196 million.
Therefore, we emphatically support this proposal, although we feel the breakdown of allocations could be better.
We believe that changes are called for here, and would urge the Commission to look into this.
It is the situation with regard to administrative expenditure that we are most concerned about.
We suggest a cut in redeployment aid, aid for research and social aid, and I intend to be more specific here. In other words, we do not approve of cuts in the sphere of research.
On the contrary, we feel that there should be increased efforts in research, particularly in view of the candidate countries.
As a result of enlargement, coal production will double and there will be a significant increase in steel production, and we believe therefore, that we urgently need a modernisation and restructuring process.
We must step up our efforts to this end, and we need research into environmentally sustainable technologies.
We suggest that as soon as the ECSC Treaty has expired and the appropriations have been transferred into the EU budget, the candidate countries should be given the opportunity to participate in the coal and steel research financed by the Community, following the example of the SOCRATES and LEONARDO programmes.
We believe this to be an important proposal, in terms of achieving environmentally sustainable, modernised steel and coal production in Europe, and also with respect to the financing of these areas and the conversion measures.
Secondly, we want a review of the relationship between he social measures and the redeployment aid.
The social measures were cut from EUR 31 million to EUR 29 million in the Council' s proposal. We cannot comprehend this.
We believe that it is imperative for structural redeployment aid to be provided in this area.
The level of employment has dropped from 15% to 5% since 1999, and it is vital that we respond to this.
On the other hand, we do not believe that the redeployment aid can be cut.
Its capacity has not been fully exploited in recent years.
In 1999, for example, only half of the allocation was actually used. However, the Commission, in making this increase, wants to cover the whole period up to June 2002.
This seems odd to us because there will still be an operational budget in the second part of 2002, and so we are calling for a review of the relationship between redeployment aid and social aid.
In addition, we want there to be a review of the administrative expenditure.
Parliament has been proposing cuts for a long time now.
In view of the decline in ECSC activities, and the conversion, it is debatable as to whether we can really still justify having an administrative budget of this size.
Another important point I would like to make is that once the Treaties have expired, we no longer want a separate regime for the ECSC, but feel that it should be integrated into the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
The Commission has echoed this proposal, and we are now prepared to support it.
Maintaining a separate entity would entail extra costs without achieving any added value, and instead we should set up a specialised sub-committee operating under the framework of existing EU structures.
Furthermore, we propose that Parliament should be kept informed on a regular basis.
In a statement before Parliament in 1973, the Commission undertook to accept the binding nature of Parliament' s positions with regard to the ECSC.
We expect this commitment to be transferred to the new structures.
Thank you, Mr Colom i Naval.
Modesty has prevented you from ending the list of rapporteurs with your own name.
It is now my great pleasure to welcome to this Chamber a brand new minister from my country, who will be speaking in his capacity as President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, honourable Members, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your welcome.
It is with no little emotion that I stand before you for the very first time in this magnificent hemicycle, which is laden with so much meaning. I am honoured to be participating in this part-session of the European Parliament, which will examine - and I am sure adopt at first reading - the Community budget for 2001.
This is a unique opportunity for me in more ways than one, as Florence Parly, the French Secretary of State for the budget and chairman of the French budget committee, is unable to be here today. She has asked me to send you her apologies and to speak on her behalf.
The examination of the budget is an important aspect of parliamentary life.
The budget is also of major importance to the governments and citizens of Europe since it sets out Europe' s broad guidelines for action in 2001.
In Brussels last week I was able to see for myself the high level of consultation within the trialogue, and so now I am here today.
I would like to say that this budget procedure has been conducted in an excellent atmosphere so far.
The meetings that we have, in more than one instance, held together, proved to be beneficial and enabled a better mutual understanding of our respective priorities.
This partnership between the Council and Parliament on budgetary matters should be developed further.
I hope that the budget discussions can continue in the same vein so that we can come up with a budget for the financial year 2001 that equips us with the resources to meet the priorities and challenges that await the European Union.
You are called on today to decide on a budget that has already been amended at first reading by the Council.
I would therefore like to quickly remind you the broad guidelines that the Council wanted to give to the 2001 budget.
I would also like to emphasise the Council and Parliament' s common objectives, which will in my opinion enable these two arms of the budgetary authority to arrive at an agreement.
On 20 July, the Council adopted a draft budget that marked a 2.8% increase in commitment appropriations and a 3.5% increase in payment appropriations compared with the budget for 2000.
In growing by 3.5% for the year 2001, the draft Community budget is being increased by a far greater margin than the Member States are permitting themselves for their national budgets.
This increase is also far above the inflation rate forecast by the Commission for 2001 of plus 1.8%, which shows how committed the Council is to financing European Union policies.
This draft budget constitutes a balanced and realistic compromise.
The Council did not opt for a tactical first reading, which would have consisted of adopting a hard-line stance on stabilising Community public expenditure and resulted in contentious budget negotiations with Parliament.
I view this as an outmoded approach.
The Council voted through, at the first reading, the appropriations that it felt to be justified for 2001, without taking into consideration any tactical concerns would only work against the objective of the sound allocation of appropriations, which is the objective that the Community institutions must pursue.
The Council' s draft budget enables the financing of all the European Union' s policies and priorities to be reconciled without imposing an excessive burden on the Member States, who I would remind you are currently in the process of bringing their own public expenditure under control.
In identifying margins for manoeuvre, notably as regards the ceiling set for heading 3 and heading 4, it is also been the Council' s intention to let Parliament, which has the final say on non-compulsory expenditure, set out its priorities without calling into question the Council' s priorities.
So I would simply like to stress the salient points of the Council' s draft budget.
First of all, the draft budget provides for priority aid to the Balkans, which will receive 30% more funding than in 2000.
The EUR 614 million that the Council have voted through will enable us to finance all the foreseeable requirements, and include an initial aid package to Serbia totalling EUR 40 million.
The Council has shown that the granting of significantly higher amounts to the Balkan region was in fact possible without a revision of the financial perspective.
Furthermore, the Council shares Parliament' s view that the revision proposed by the Commission cannot be envisaged concerning another issue, namely that of expenditure on agricultural markets.
The Council has stressed that there can be no tampering with the ceiling on CAP expenditure.
Secondly, the financing of all the Union' s other public expenditure priorities is accounted for by the common agricultural policy, for which funding has been increased by 6.3 % with a view to financing the reform of the CAP.
Structural measures have been stabilised at a very high level.
All the programmes that have been adopted jointly by the Council and Parliament conform to the programming that they decided upon together.
I am keen to point out that the 'employment' initiative constitutes a priority not only for Parliament but also for the Council, following on from the conclusions of the Feira European Council.
We must, of course, first wait for the Commission' s assessment, but will do our utmost to reach an agreement with Parliament at second reading within the context of a more general compromise on the budget as a whole.
I would now like to swiftly describe the way the Council voted on each budget heading.
Concerning the CAP, or heading 1, the significant 6.3 % increase in appropriations is the result, as I have said, of the Berlin Agreements reforming the CAP.
The Council brought the appropriations envisaged for 2001 down to below the level provided for by the Commission, which had envisaged a 7.6 % increase, due among other things to the habitual under-implementation recorded every year in the field of agricultural expenditure.
There was an under-implementation of EUR 660 million in 1999.
I would like to point out that the increase in expenditure on the common agricultural policy enables us to offset the fall in the agricultural prices for the benefit of consumers. I am actively involved in agricultural programmes in France and am therefore in a position to appreciate the efforts that you have made in coming to this agreement and honouring the commitments that farmers throughout Europe want to see.
The reform of the CAP will also enable us to enhance the standing of European agriculture within the scope of WTO rules.
In the long term, this reform will enable us to contain agricultural costs more effectively.
Concerning the cutback of EUR 225 million in the field of rural development, the Council' s position is a response to the cumulative lags in national rural development plans.
The Commission acknowledges these lags and there can be no doubt that they will have major repercussions on the implementation of appropriations in 2001.
Expenditure under this heading has nevertheless been increased by 4.6 %, reflecting the fact that this second pillar of the CAP constitutes a priority.
Concerning structural operations, overall, the amount set aside for these in the 2000 budget has been maintained.
I would remind you that the 2000 budget provided for a very high level of structural funding.
Within this category of expenditure, however, the Council has adjusted the balance in favour of the Cohesion Fund: giving the Cohesion Fund an extra EUR 360 million over and above the preliminary draft budget, which has been taken away from the Structural Fund, as a result of the implementation estimates submitted by the Member States.
On the subject of internal policies, the Council has increased the margin set by the Commission for heading 3.
The Commission proposed a margin of EUR 137 million below the ceiling, but the Council has upped this to EUR 208 million.
The Council is not trying to vote through additional cutbacks, but rather to allow for a sufficient margin of appropriations with a view to the adoption, between now and the time the budget goes to second reading, of amounts that cover the Council and Parliament' s shared priorities, such as the employment initiative, to which you are firmly committed.
Concerning large-scale multiannual programmes such as the FRDP, the Framework Research and Development Programme, the Council has respected the appropriation schedules approved by Parliament.
With reference to external actions, or heading 4, the Council has adopted a budget that conforms to the European Union' s overall priorities, including that of aid for the Western Balkans, which is one of its undisputed priorities.
The Council nevertheless considers that this awarding of priority should not lead the EU institutions to discard the principles of effective and credible intervention: a requirements analysis, the tailoring of aid levels and arrangements to fit the nature of these requirements, and a fair division of contributions from all the bilateral and multilateral aid donors.
The Council has not deemed it desirable to take up the programming proposed by the Commission, either in the proposal for a framework regulation or in its preliminary draft budget for 2001.
The Council considers that an allocation of EUR 614 million, which translates as a very major increase of 30% over 2000 should cover the needs of this priority, particularly since aid arrangements are set to change from emergency aid, which is by definition for rapid use, to more structural forms of aid, the commitment of which is generally more complex.
This outlay makes the European Union the leading contributor to the reconstruction of the Western Balkans.
I would point out that this expenditure forms part of the overall body of aid granted by the various other donors and financial institutions.
The MEDA programme and the Euro-Mediterranean partnership as a whole quite clearly also remain a priority for the Union. The EUR 150 million cut in commitment appropriations proposed by the Council in no way casts doubt on this.
In fact, the level of commitment appropriations for the MEDA programme is not an issue, since the delay in payments under this programme now runs to over eight years, as Commissioner Patten has stated.
The Council' s main concern, therefore, is to improve the way that this programme is managed.
An increase in the actual payments made under the MEDA programme and the implementation of projects in the field will depend on just such an improvement.
An agreement has been reached within the Council and with the Commission concerning the arrangements for managing this programme.
All that remains to be determined is the multiannual amount.
However, I am anxious to stress that MEDA is only one facet of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, which also comprises other measures and which calls for reciprocal efforts to be made by the partners.
The improvement and development of this partnership also numbers among the priorities of this Presidency of the Council.
Concerning heading 5, the rationale adopted by the Council consists of stabilising current expenditure at the level of inflation while also granting supplementary funds for exceptional expenditure by the institutions.
Regarding the Commission' s letter of amendment which proposes, as has just been mentioned, the creation of 500 new posts in 2001, the Council has voted through the creation of 400 new posts.
In approving the Commission' s proposal, the Council wanted to make a connection with the internal restructuring that the Commission is carrying out in accordance with the White Paper.
However, the Council does not intend to issue the Commission with a blank cheque, since the arrangements for early retirement and the creation of posts in the years to come are yet to ratified.
We must hold further discussions on this subject with Parliament after the first reading is complete.
Concerning pre-accession, heading 7, the increase in appropriations under this heading is the highest for any of the headings in the draft budget for 2001, at almost 11%. This reflects the fact that this category of expenditure constitutes a priority for the Council, as well as for Parliament and the Commission.
Before you reach your decision on this draft budget, I would like to emphasise that the Council and Parliament share a number of objectives on which agreement could well be reached by our two arms of the budgetary authority.
I will give you two examples: amounts outstanding and financing of aid for the Balkans.
These two issues often feature in discussions between Parliament and the Council and if we are not careful could well generate tensions between the two arms of the budgetary authority.
I am nevertheless convinced that, although Parliament and the Council would seem to take different approaches to these issues, they actually have common objectives and interests which could see agreement being reached.
First of all, the amounts outstanding.
This term is used to describe appropriations that were committed during previous financial years but which have not yet been paid out.
This means that there is quite a time-lag between the authorisation to commit the expenditure and actual payment, which is quite natural in the case of infrastructure financing and multiannual programmes in particular.
Amounts outstanding have nevertheless risen to such a high level that the reasons for this have to be sought elsewhere.
One response, the one that your Committee on Budgets suggests that you adopt, consists of saying that the high level of amounts outstanding can be ascribed to a shortfall in payment appropriations.
The solution would thus be to significantly increase the level of payment appropriations in order to pay all the commitments outstanding.
This solution is doubtless well-intentioned, but would be ineffectual.
The Community Budget does not need any more payment appropriations.
The Community Budget has never suffered from a payments crisis, as is proved by the fact that the every year the Commission records a high level of unutilised appropriations.
In 1999, appropriations totalling EUR 2.2 billion were not utilised, and in 1998 this figure stood at almost 3 billion ecus.
Raising the level of payment appropriations by more than the 3.5% decided by the Council would in no way help to reduce the RAL.
Such an increase would be meaningless, since you have the appropriations available.
The solution to the high level of amount outstanding actually lies in adopting a different approach.
What we in fact need is to more efficiently tailor the sum total of commitment appropriations voted through to real needs and to the capabilities of beneficiaries to absorb and utilise these appropriations, an improvement in programme management, as we have proposed regarding the MEDA programme, and revision of the commitment system within the ambit of the reform of the Financial Regulation.
I would like this House to take these comments into consideration.
It would in fact be pointless to vote through a significant increase in payment appropriations. This would also run contrary to the goal of an efficient Community Budget being pursued by the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
What we really need are joint discussions on the causes of the high level of amounts outstanding and on the means of rectifying the situation.
I now come to aid for the Balkans.
Due to the recent, very welcome changes in Serbia, this is now one of the Union' s priorities in the field of external relations.
It is also a priority of the Council and Parliament, which have just reached agreement on an emergency aid package worth EUR 200 million.
I think I can safely say that the Union was efficient in its financing of all the requirements connected with the Balkans in the year 2000, as the Community Budget enabled us to swiftly respond, among other things, to the acceleration in the timetable for reconstruction in Kosovo.
Concerning the forthcoming programming of heading 4 of the Budget, the Council wants to see a serious assessment of requirements being performed with a view to validating, or invalidating, the political valuation of the CARDS programme.
Inasmuch as this is possible, the Council is keen to base the level of multiannual global budgetary funding, including that granted under the 2001 Budget for reconstruction in the Balkans, on a technical needs analysis.
I will now turn to an important question and the topic of many behind-the-scenes conversations at Parliament and in the Commission. Will we have to revise the financial perspective in order to be able to come to the aid of the Balkans?
This question was also asked in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 6 May 1999. I sometimes hear it said that the Council is so committed to the Berlin financial perspective that it will not even hear talk of a possible revision.
That is not the question being asked.
Others say that the Commission and Parliament see the revision as having a symbolic value in respect of the Balkans and as proving, moreover, that the Berlin financial perspective is inadequate.
This to me is also taking an extreme view.
The Council is taking a calm approach to the revision of the financial perspective.
It is committed to the provisions of the Interinstitutional Agreement as a whole, which comprise the financial perspective and the possibility of its revision.
However, I would simply like to say that three steps must be taken before any revision of the financial perspective.
The first is the assessment of needs, the second an examination of the margins available within the framework of the existing ceilings, and the third the possible use of budgetary tools that can be harnessed prior to any revision, such as that of flexibility.
At this stage the Council does not see the revision of the financial perspective as being a prerequisite for financing reconstruction in the Balkans.
In conclusion, I hope that we do not see the financial perspective taking on a symbolic value that it does not have.
The Council will spare no effort to meet the needs of the Balkans, not least by granting significant funding under the budget.
The budgetary resources that the European Union allocate to the Western Balkans will have a symbolic value, but not as a result of the financial perspective having been revised or not.
This matter must not be used for the purposes of a publicity campaign.
If aid to the Balkans can be provided within the framework of the financial perspective, then the main thing is for it to quite simply be provided.
Following this brief overview, I would like to state once again that the Council is anxious to continue working in close cooperation with Parliament, as it has done from the very start of the budget procedure.
The draft budget already incorporates the many results of the consultations between the Council and Parliament.
Discussions will now continue between your institution and the Council and the Commission.
I hope that these extensive discussions will enable the 2001 budget to be a sound budget.
Mr President, it was splendid to hear the Commissioner' s criticism of the Council when it comes to foreign policy.
When we see a dictatorship in the Balkans superseded by the hope of democracy, we cannot lock ourselves into disputes about the Budget. Instead, the budget frameworks, - the so-called financial perspective - must be adjusted.
We cannot simply take all the money from other areas of foreign policy.
We have already this year exceeded the foreign policy budget by 400 million.
Let us now be far-sighted enough to give the Commission the opportunity to plan ahead.
Circumstances have also revealed the need for the so-called 'rapid reaction facility' , as proposed by the Commission.
The money must not be placed in the reserves with the risk of the Council' s blocking it, something which would of course lead to the Commission' s not being able to plan ahead.
Remember Romano Prodi' s major speech in this Chamber a few weeks ago.
We shall support his and Chris Patten' s attempt to strengthen the Commission' s effectiveness by means of parliamentary scrutiny and the necessary parliamentary control to which the Council and Mr Solana are not of course subject.
I should therefore ask both the Council and the Committee on Budgets here in Parliament to think in terms of foreign policy and not only in terms of budget strategy when they concern themselves with foreign policy.
BudgetaryControl. The Committee on Budgetary Control considered tabling a number of amendments to this year' s budget, looking at the implementation figures of the current and previous years budgets alongside the corresponding analysis contained within the revenue and expenditure account and balance sheet.
We also looked at the Court of Auditors' special reports.
Whilst these are drawn up pursuant to Article 248(4) of the Treaty for the purpose of discharge, we actually think there is some value in our committee and the Committee on Budgets looking into them and looking at how the money is being spent in the current year in areas where the Court of Auditors found problems in the past.
Looking at the evaluation reports, the Commission has produced a lot of documentation concerning the preliminary draft budget, for example for 2001, which included a working document presenting summaries of results of a number of mostly external evaluations.
Those were carried out at the request of the Commission itself and referred to the financial year 1999, the most recent one for which the final data was available.
The material was obviously useful for both the preparation of the 2001 budget and for the 1999 discharge.
So the committee would like to recommend to all the specialised committees concerned to take into account the results of those evaluations.
In the end we tabled a very short paper to the Committee on Budgets with a number of recommendations which we hope will be taken on board.
The House will no doubt be aware that I personally have taken an interest in the budget and tabled a number of amendments.
I look forward in the future to seeing roughly the same sort of exercise and trying to get rid of a number of very small and more insignificant budget lines, as well as making this House and the Commission much more efficient, do less and do it better.
Mr President, as draftsman for the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, I have no problem asking this House to vote in favour of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets on the initiative of either our committee or the general rapporteur, Mrs Haug.
I observe, in particular, that following our requests, the Committee on Budgets has proposed a substantial increase in the credits made available to the European Fund for Refugees, funds which the Council had rather imprudently, not to say rather stupidly, cut.
I should also like to point out and to endorse the very clear increase in appropriations earmarked for funding measures to combat and prevent discrimination. This has been a priority of the European Parliament and the European Union as a whole since the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Finally, I am delighted to note that, in the field for which my own committee is responsible, no less than four new budget lines have been proposed for our approval.
The first of these is for the implementation of a pilot project intended to fund an information campaign within the fifteen Member States against the criminal scourge of paedophilia.
The second is for aid to victims of human rights violations in need of treatment in specialised institutions.
The third is intended to fund measures in preparation for a programme to combat drugs trafficking, and the fourth sets up the funding for actions to be carried out conjointly with third countries, primarily Morocco, with a view to better controlling the flow of immigration.
Let me express just one regret, in conclusion.
The Committee on Budgets did not see fit to adopt my own committee' s proposal to increase the resources to be made available to the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia based in Vienna.
I think this is a mistake which must be set right.
At a time when racist and xenophobic acts are gaining ground, scandalously, in a number of European Union countries, I think it crucial to boost the financial means needed to set up a technically reliable network for the collation of information throughout the Union.
I think that, were they to support this amendment, my fellow Members would be setting in place a technically fair and politically timely act.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the vote in the Committee on Budgets was rather unsatisfactory from the point of view of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
As much as I, as a member of the Committee on Budgets, appreciate the work undertaken by this committee, and as impressed as I am by the labours of the Committee on Budgets' rapporteurs, as rapporteur for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, it is imperative that I highlight two proposed amendments, which the committee is resubmitting to the plenary, and which are by no means insignificant, despite the small amounts involved.
Firstly, I understand why people want to give the Commission a grilling on its information policy.
Many delegates feel that the Commission' s information policy, particularly where PRINCE is concerned, has not brought the success people were expecting.
In addition, the Commission' s promise to work closely with Parliament on this issue has left a great deal to be desired.
In many Member States, where the Commission operates information bureaux, it is not possible to reach a broad cross-section of the public through holding conferences for experts.
However, using the reserve instrument to impose a total blockade, is not the right way to go about things either.
In view of the fact that euro banknotes and coins are to be introduced in 2002, I cannot accept the decision to place the appropriations from PRINCE in the reserve in financial year 2001.
When could be a better moment to invest in information campaigns on the euro, given that uncertainty surrounding the exchange rate losses between the dollar and the euro, and the introduction of euro banknotes and coins, has never been so high? In view of the shortcomings of previous information campaigns, we could, if need be, accept a 50% reserve by way of compromise, so as to give the Commission the opportunity to lend an innovative approach to its information strategy, or give it fresh impetus.
Secondly, I see people have been fighting tooth and nail over the mini budgets in the A30 lines.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has requested expert reports on this, with a view to receiving appropriate advice from the European Central Bank on the financial aspect.
Should a compromise solution be reached on this issue in the time remaining, which supports the important work undertaken by the EMAC Committee, then we can arrange things accordingly, otherwise our committee will keep an open mind on the matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is a Community of law, because European law is observed and upheld.
The European Court of Justice takes care of that.
In so doing, it has made a considerable contribution to the success of the whole integration project over the last forty years.
The European courts are currently facing major obstacles in their efforts to uphold European law, because they do not have the necessary funding available to them.
There are 1600 cases pending before the European Court of Justice, and the backlog in translation work runs to 120 000 pages.
As such, the European Court of Justice has become a sticking point for legal certainty.
In fact, back at first reading, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market argued strongly in favour of rectifying this deplorable state of affairs and helping to reinstate the citizens' right to see their European laws upheld, and to avoid the EU falling into disrepute as a Community of law, on account of delays.
I am extremely grateful to the Committee on Budgets and the competent rapporteur for endorsing this line of argument and supporting our proposals.
In particular, we will again recommend, at second reading, that 60 new posts be created at the European Court of Justice, and, in addition, that the necessary funding be made available in the budget.
We also propose that EUR 3 million be set aside, with immediate effect, in order to enlist the services of freelance translators.
In implementing these measures, we aim to get legal supervision back into full working order, restore people' s faith in the legal certainty of the EU, and strengthen the European Union as a Community of law.
Mr President, this is my first year in the European Parliament and I have been struck during the course of this budget debate by the contrast between rhetoric and delivery.
Last year when we were discussing the budget, we had politicians in the Member State governments who were posturing on the issue of renewable energy, whilst at the same time proposing major cuts to the Save programme in this Parliament.
I found that to be a curious position.
But here we are yet again, twelve months later, in a situation in which ministers from Member State governments have come out of summits, preening themselves over their ambitious targets for research, while the draft budget prepared by the Council makes total cuts in payment appropriations in the research subsection of the Fifth Framework Programme of no less than EUR 100 million.
So there really is a stark difference between delivery on the part of the Council, and the rhetoric that the Council uses.
My committee has mandated me to make that point and we will certainly, in a sense of discipline, be aiming to see at least one half of that cut in payment appropriations being restored in the plenary vote.
I take this opportunity to congratulate Mrs Haug on the work done in the Committee on Budgets, particularly the work done to restore lines in relation to small- and medium-sized enterprises, again cut by the Council.
That has been a priority of our committee and a priority of this Parliament.
Again, it is difficult to reconcile the rhetoric of the Council with its proposals in that area.
The proposals put forward by our committee and supported by the Committee on Budgets are much better.
It would take more than the one minute I have left if I were to go into all of my committee' s views in relation to the Meda programme.
We know the difficulties.
Commissioner Patten has outlined them to us, but there is important work to be undertaken within the area of the Meda programme.
We only have to look at our television sets to see the difficulties in the Middle East to be reminded of that each and every day.
I am also the draftsman for my committee on Mrs Rühle' s report on the ECSC budget.
Let me briefly touch on a number of items there.
We are of the view that there should be much more emphasis on developing research. I saw that strain in her report as well.
We want to see it increased by 10%.
The priorities should be clean technology, environmental protection and remediation and safety for the future.
Mrs Rühle agrees with me on that, so again in that area there is consensus within this Parliament which, I am bound to say, all too sadly is not often shared by the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it makes no sense at all to me. They decide, in Lisbon, to do their level best to return to full employment as soon as possible, they lament the fact that there is social exclusion, and they profess to want to tackle all forms of discrimination, yet when it comes to drafting the budget, it all gets swept aside by the Commission and the Council.
Our citizens, not to mention this House, have had enough of this policy of merely paying lip service.
We in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs favour a thrifty budget too, but not in this way.
I am therefore pleased, and would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the Committee on Budgets, and above all, the general rapporteur, for the fact that we have at last worked out a joint plan on how to rectify the difficulties attending this draft budget, with a view to accommodating Parliament' s clear priorities, and boosting employment and social cohesion, although, naturally the situation still leaves something to be desired from the point of view of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
It fills me with confidence that together, we have managed to save our employment initiative for local engagement, which was launched last year, because this is the initiative that supports new employment policy measures at local level, whilst involving all players, NGOs included.
The Commission' s attempt to abolish this initiative showed out-and-out disregard for the political will of Lisbon and the priorities of this House.
I also welcome the fact that, in future, we will aim to do more for health and safety protection in the workplace again.
The new initiative for small and medium-sized enterprises will illustrate best practice in this sphere, and lend added value accordingly.
Naturally we would have liked to see the action programmes for combating social exclusion and discrimination better provided for, so as not to disappoint the expectations that Article 13 has given rise to amongst the public, and also the NGOs.
But then every committee has simply had to accept compromises on that score.
However, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs feels there is a more serious problem still to be addressed, namely that the budget makes no provision whatsoever for the observatory for industrial change.
Therefore I say again to all those who denigrate this project: firstly, no one wants a new, expensive agency.
Instead, the agency in Dublin should only be entrusted with the relevant tasks.
Secondly, the observation point' s task would be to collect information, so as to assist the process of industrial change.
No more and no less.
Anyone who maintains that part of its job would be to block mergers or halt globalisation, does so for purely polemical reasons.
And so I hope that when it comes to tomorrow' s vote, we will still achieve the majority required for the observation point in Dublin
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment on this year' s budget, I want to acknowledge the difficult framework in which it has been constructed and the serious pressures upon all of us.
I would like to pay tribute to the work done by the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, in trying to resolve some very difficult questions this year because of the immense pressures that have been brought to bear upon the budget at a very late stage.
We must have the courage of our convictions and insist upon finding the very modest finance needed to fulfil our key objectives.
In that regard, I would draw the Commission' s and the House' s attention to the following issues.
The first is the decision by the Committee on Budgets to place into reserve the monies agreed for the Life programme.
This was an astonishing decision and left many of us feeling that this whole very important programme had simply become a football in a game between the Budgets Committee and the Commission.
It demonstrated that those bodies did not recognise the importance of this programme to the environment.
We need to reverse that decision in the vote this week in the House and make those funds immediately available, because there is an enormous demand for their utilisation.
The treatment by the Budgets Committee of several agencies has been proven to be unfair and unjust this year and in past years, in particular the refusal to increase monies to the Drugs Agency.
If it is supported by the House this week, it will put a stop to the recently begun programme for the approval of orphan drugs for rare diseases.
Unless that funding is restored in a vote this week in Parliament, I would anticipate a very serious situation arising and considerable distress to many people in Europe.
A similar injustice has been done to the Environment Agency, given its increased workload as a result of enlargement.
In future years a more thoughtful, consistent and sensitive approach to the financial needs of the agencies will be needed and I hope the approach of treating them all the same, which has prevailed in previous years, will now be dropped.
They are the main objectives of the Environment Committee.
They can be achieved with an absolutely minuscule amount of finance.
It is the duty of the House to give those points their support in the vote this week, to demonstrate its continued commitment to protecting the environment and improving public health.
Mr President, on behalf of my Committee, I would like to make a few observations, starting with rural policy.
The agriculture committee subscribes to the Berlin Agreement, also with regard to rural policy, but notes at the same time that spending is suffering delays, and we have established that in a number of cases, vis-à-vis the Council and Member States, the limits of what is possible are being tested with regard to the agricultural funds.
That is a pity; it would be preferable if, in spending the budget, the actual objective were achieved, namely if the switch were made from countryside to multifunctionality and greater market orientation.
I wanted to share this observation with the Council, in particular.
The second point I wanted to make relates to the budget for agriculture and horticulture.
It is reported to have increased by 6%, partly due to the switch-over.
I have to add, however, that sugar policy, for example, is now again the topic of debate, also within the Commission.
I should in any event like to urge the Commission to support Commissioner Fischler in this respect, for the best way to stay within the financial limits is not to put the future of sugar policy at risk again, at least not before 2006.
The third point pertains to European agricultural policy as it is now before us in the budget proposals.
We have noted that although it may be focused on the social objective, it is, as a result, biased slightly too much in favour of the home market, in contrast to, for example, the power pattern which has unfolded in the United States and Australia, which is mainly aimed at greater market access, and into which a great deal of money is pumped.
The budget per farm in the United States is currently three times higher than in Europe.
That means that as far as the course which we are setting for the budget is concerned, the question is whether market orientation should not be given a higher profile.
Commissioner Fischler has set the tone for this on a number of occasions.
This could be further developed but requires collaboration from the Council as an absolute necessity.
This also means that, with regard to the European agricultural budget, namely multifunctionality and rural development, consideration must also be given to landscape and animal welfare, and that close collaboration in those areas is needed.
In fact, there is room for improvement here too, for example with regard to the tobacco policy.
In conclusion, the agriculture committee is of the opinion that we should remain within the confines of the Berlin Agreement, and as such, I, as draftsman of the opinion have to advise against Amendment No 206 with regard to the vote in this Parliament.
, draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries.
(ES) Mr President, I join some of my fellow Members in congratulating Mrs Haug on her report.
I know that it has not been easy and we therefore thank her even more, if possible, for her work.
The common fisheries policy, ladies and gentlemen, represents a very small part of the Community budget: we are talking about barely a billion euros.
This is not enough to meet the challenges of the Common Fisheries Policy, to finance the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance, the fisheries agreements and our participation in international organisations, to monitor the implementation of the CFP, the common organisation of the market for fisheries products and aquiculture, research into the fishing environment and the compilation of data which is essential for the implementation of the CFP.
The Committee on Fisheries, which shares with the Commission the principle of budgetary stringency, has accepted the limits set by the latter in its preliminary draft and has indicated its concerns in certain budget headings.
We have asked an indicative appropriation of EUR 2 million to be approved for an information campaign on the CFP.
An information campaign disseminating the principle on which the CFP is based - the sustainable exploitation of marine resources - is essential.
Quality products must be highlighted, conservation standards, such as the observation of minimum fish sizes, must be circulated and we must explain to consumers the health benefits of eating fish.
The Committee on Fisheries has approved another amendment increasing the appropriations intended for controlling and observing fishing activities in Community and third-country waters.
We have criticised the shortcomings and the marginal role of the Commission in the policy of control and observation and we therefore believe that this policy must be supported with an increased budget.
The primary aim of the Committee on Fisheries' petitions is to improve the CFP' s potential for maintaining and creating employment.
Whilst employment may be the European Union' s priority policy, fisheries, as another economic sector, cannot remain on the sidelines.
The CFP is tremendously important for maintaining employment in the peripheral regions, which are very dependent on fishing.
Our priorities are, and must be, to consolidate and increase international fishing agreements and to improve safety and working conditions within the sector and conserve resources.
The cheapest jobs, ladies and gentlemen, are those that do not need to be created because they have not been lost.
It is better to support activities that already generate jobs than to have to invest vast amounts later in creating new industries.
In conclusion, I would particularly like to mention a topic with regard to which Parliament is to issue its assent.
I am referring to the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
The Committee on Fisheries asks that line B7-8000 should include an entry of EUR 125 million to cover the financing of this agreement for the year 2001.
All parties must assume their responsibilities and fulfil their obligations.
The Commission in its executive capacity must negotiate with weighty arguments to achieve a reasonable agreement with Morocco and the Council and the governments concerned should provide a political impetus for this negotiation.
Mr President, I also wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, for her excellent work in preparing the draft budget.
She sat in on our committee and, to her credit, took our committee' s proposals into consideration.
The goal of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism is to improve the employment rate particularly by supporting SMEs and exploiting the opportunities offered by the Information Society.
The committee stresses the importance of good and disciplined financial management, the simplification of administrative procedures, and the successful outcome of projects.
Our committee supports the Commission' s proposals and rejected the Council' s cuts to payment appropriations saying they were unjustified.
Our aim is to deal promptly with the arrears and get the new programmes swiftly and effectively under way.
The focus with regard to traffic is on the development of the trans-European transport network.
Only symbolic appropriations are earmarked for transport safety, sustainable transport systems and combined goods transport.
I would hope for an improvement to this situation in the years to come, as the accident rate varies from one Member State to another to a surprising extent, and, for example, there should be more exchange of ideas when it comes to good transport practice.
The Community should also be investing in developing travel and tourism, particularly by supporting SMEs in this field.
Our committee believes that the Commission should table a new proposal for a programme to support travel and tourism.
Support from ISPA, which is designed for preparations for enlargement, should be used to part-finance the launching of projects, so that limited resources can be used effectively.
Mr President, right at the start I would like to thank Jutta Haug, as budget rapporteur, for the cooperation she demonstrated in dealing with appropriations relating to culture, youth, education and communication in the budget.
I am especially glad that we have been able to safeguard financing for the Socrates, Youth and Culture 2000 programmes that were decided at the end of last year.
The Committee on Budgets has also shown understanding with regard to financing the Media Plus programme, which is still open.
Hopefully we will rapidly achieve harmony between the Council and Parliament.
The success of audio-visual production is an important part of the European strategy.
I am sorry, however, that the Committee on Budgets voted to enter in the reserve Commission appropriations for information activities.
Hopefully this problem will be put right in plenary.
Very little has been allocated to culture in the budget.
In all the EU spends just under two euros for each citizen on training, youth exchange programmes, culture projects, and support and information with regard to audio-visual production.
On the other hand, almost a billion euros have been set aside for premiums for tobacco production, i.e. nearly three times as much as for the Socrates, Youth and Culture 2000 programmes put together.
In its discussion of the budget, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport has, as so often at other times, been worried about budget payments management.
Decisions on applications for support have taken a long time and payments have been delayed.
We have to find a remedy for this.
The citizens of the Union must receive a good, efficient service.
That is vital for the programme aims to succeed but also for the legitimacy of the EU.
Direct support via Class A policies for national and cultural organisations, which pursue European interests, this time too aroused passion, despite the modest amount of the support.
We in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport tried to remain within the framework of the proposed appropriations, so that we ourselves might set out priorities as befits a special committee.
We were not entirely successful in this.
Neither has the Committee on Budgets completely honoured our priorities, but it did, happily, increase appropriations slightly.
It is important to see that the Committee on Budgets took a positive attitude towards the request of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport to have the Commission give an account of the financing of organisations hitherto, so that we might establish fairer and more open rules for this.
I wish, furthermore, to turn our attention to the financing of Euronews.
Both the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport and the Committee on Budgets think it important to guarantee that the financing stay at its present level.
I hope that the will of Parliament will be taken into consideration in talks between the Commission and Euronews.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the budget determines the image of Europe and is the exponent par excellence of the European Union' s priorities.
It is by means of the budget that the European Parliament can and must realise its ideals.
Unfortunately, year after year, Member States have passed on most of their responsibilities of providing aid to Bosnia and Kosovo to the European Union.
Each time, this was at the expense of European aid to the poorest countries.
Year after year, Parliament has protected the interests of the poorest countries in the European budget, and with moderate success, even though this has not been enough.
The European Commission struggled to come to terms with the extension of priorities, and this has led to unacceptable gaps in the implementation of commitments which were made under pressure of ever larger budgets for support to foreign aid and cooperation operations.
Today, we are viewing the 2001 budget with the Serbian population very much at the forefront of our minds.
There is no doubt that Europe has to make a crucial contribution to the reconstruction of Serbia, and hence to the stabilisation of the Balkans.
The wish for peace and cooperation stability is of historic importance.
But Europe itself is responsible for what is required to integrate Serbia in the democratic world.
We cannot and must not present the bill for this to the poorest countries.
Europe, operating today as a global player, must also do its bit to reduce poverty.
This is not a situation in which we can opt for 'either-or' ; it is a 'both-and' situation, i.e. both aid to Serbia and the Balkans, and aid to the poorest countries.
What does this translate into in terms of the 2001 budget?
Even in 1999, as much as EUR 3.2 million was refunded to the Member States because those resources were not spent.
Even our most generous estimates of what will be required for Kosovo and Serbia in 2001 will not exceed the EUR 3.2 million, far from it.
So we have the means.
The issue of the budget can thus be reduced to a purely political issue, and in subsequently weighing up the political options in an honest manner, the effectiveness of aid needs to be explored.
If we do not want to pursue symbolic policies, we need to think and act in a result-oriented manner.
In the final analysis, it is not about what we budget for, but rather about whether our money ends up at the right place and with the impact we had envisaged.
This is where we hit a major problem.
For years, the Commission has been unable to spend the funds we have budgeted for.
For example, with regard to our aid to Mediterranean countries, we have a backlog which has accumulated over many years of budgets.
The Commission is now working on activity-based budgeting, which will enable us to prevent these problems from happening again.
In essence, activity-based budgeting should mean that for each budget line which is set up, the means are determined which are necessary to actually implement that budget line.
Once we have assured ourselves that what we budget for can actually be spent, we will subsequently need to ask ourselves whether the aid actually ends up where it is needed the most.
I am of the opinion that we need to make a mental switch.
The budget which we determine mutually, must reflect our priorities, must be understandable to the citizen and must also be goal-oriented.
We have therefore proposed that, where relevant, we should include concrete output targets in our budget lines.
These will indicate what sectors, in our eyes, must benefit directly from the aid which is budgeted for in certain regions.
This is why we have ensured that the aid for education and health care is doubled, and that is necessary to ensure that the aid ends up with the people who need it the most.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, I would like to ask for Parliament' s support so that the amendments already approved by the Committee on Budgets may be definitively approved.
They are not exactly what we had asked for, since in some cases the amount we had requested has been reduced but, on the whole, we are satisfied because we believe that there will be continuing concern to facilitate the promotion of women and equal opportunities by the following means:
Information initiatives for the common agricultural policy - where women play an extremely important role, without recognition for their work - through the EQUAL programme which is intended to make it easier to employ women within the Community strategy for equal opportunities. This is the report that we examined yesterday and which, sadly, has been referred back to committee today.
Secondly, the incorporation of women into the information society, which is extremely important for the future; financial assistance for women in Central and Eastern European countries, in the MEDA countries; the fight against sex tourism in third countries, where there is a huge problem which affects women in particular; and the promotion and defence of the fundamental rights and freedoms of women.
We must also bear in mind that all this is related to the fight against domestic violence, which is taking place under the DAPHNE programme.
All in all, we would like to see these amendments approved.
We hope that this will be the case.
I would like to cite another amendment related to women' s organisations: the committee approved an amount for the European Women' s Lobby.
A group of MEPs then presented an amendment to the Committee on Budgets - which was approved - with a view to extending this budget heading to other women' s organisations in order to show our pluralist approach and respect for all options and all political affiliations in the European Union.
We also hope that this heading will be approved.
For this budget heading we in the committee had asked for a larger amount than was allocated in the end, but all in all, as I said before, we are satisfied and we are hoping for final approval.
Mr President, in previous years' debates I spoke for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, where we heard from Mrs Iivari this afternoon.
Very little money indeed is spent.
I totally support the remarks made by Mrs Iivari which draw attention to that problem.
I speak this year for the Committee on Petitions, where we spend even less money, indeed hardly any money at all.
Maybe that is as it should be.
Certainly as the budget rapporteur I commend the good relations we have had with Mr Ferber.
In speaking this afternoon I commend to the House those budget lines that are dedicated to the work of the Petitions Committee and the European Ombudsman.
A prime responsibility of any elected parliament is to protect the interests of the individual citizens against the executive.
In our case we have to ensure not only that the Commission respects European policy but that the Member States do so as well and fulfil their Treaty obligations. They are not always ready to do so.
There are no better guardians of the Treaties than the European citizens.
An important way that the citizens can ensure that their concerns are addressed is by appealing either to the Ombudsman or petitioning Parliament.
It is a cheap process for us; for the citizen it is free.
Compare that to redress through the courts of law.
I urge the House to see that the Ombudsman has adequate staff to do his job properly and the Petitions Committee has adequate tools to do its job properly.
In particular, this year we have asked - and I believe we will have the support of the House - to ensure that there is adequate money to see that we have a proper interactive database so that Members, staff and citizens can address their concerns and see how they are progressing through Parliament.
There has already been good progress.
At the moment it is just the citizens who cannot access the database.
I hope they will very quickly have that possibility.
I should like to draw attention to the fact that the issue we are petitioned on is the question of fraud and mismanagement of money in the European Union.
We need to be aware of that.
But I would like to say to Parliament this afternoon that we should not lose sight of the fact that the EU spends just 1% of GDP and much of that is administered in the Member States.
If we are looking for waste and fraud, it is not just found within the European Union.
Over the last few weeks in Britain alone I have monitored what the press has been saying about cases of fraud, waste and mismanagement in Britain: social security fraud - GBP 4.5 billion; serious fraud offices investigating 81 cases covering GBP 1.4 billion; housing benefit fraud - GBP 185 million; giro cheque fraud - GBP 240 million.
In just one month I have found those cases.
Only last weekend we learned that General Abacha of Nigeria laundered GBP 4.5 billion through the banks in London without the proper authorities knowing about it.
So certainly we must make sure that we have our affairs in order in Europe but anybody reporting these issues should never forget that it is not just the European Union that needs to address those issues seriously.
Mr President, I would like to start by giving my warmest congratulations to our two rapporteurs who have prepared our debates today on behalf of our committee.
They have both done an excellent job for us and I know it is not easy to coordinate the position of others, having been a rapporteur myself.
The context of our debate today is that we must use whatever opportunity we have in our budget to make sure that our European institutions are ready for the next stage of enlargement, both in terms of the institutions' structures as well as improved policy management.
I turn first to Parliament' s budget.
Our rapporteur, Mr Ferber, was absolutely right that we should avoid placing posts in reserve in view of enlargement at this stage - the motto should be "more haste, less speed" .
We in Parliament should coordinate with the other two institutions on what we should be doing in terms of enlargement for translation, interpretation, buildings and personnel and we should work out a joint plan between us.
Our administration should be very prudent about the linguistic sector.
We are after all thinking of enlargement for ten countries and not just five so we need to take a broader view.
Secondly, I have a specific comment on category 4 and on our external policies.
We know that our debates on the budget will address this on many occasions. But I would like to pick up on the comments of the Commissioner, Mrs Schreyer, who said that there are a number of instruments, a number of means by which we can come to terms with what is requested for this year, whether it be the flexibility instrument or indeed the negative reserve, where we could perhaps find the credits available for this year despite the problem of how to manage that in practice.
We must remember that there are other means than necessarily revising the financial perspective.
But of course my group will be at one in saying we must resolve this problem as soon as possible so as to give a long-term perspective of how the European Union' s aid is going to be used in MEDA and in CARDS.
Let me turn to the overall strategy.
This is the first budget debate for a considerable time without a substantive issue of dispute between Parliament and Commission.
The framework agreement between our two institutions is now in operation even if it is disputed by a few of our Members.
No discharge is outstanding, the reform process started by the last Commission under the strong urgings of our Parliament has been taken up in earnest by this Commission.
Some progress has been made but there is a long way to go.
It is this background which is crucial to my group' s approach to the 2001 budget.
Having always been in the vanguard for change in the European institutions, for example with our support for never giving discharge for the 1996 budget, we are now absolutely determined that the reform process will not be lost as larger and more political issues begin to dominate our agenda in the run-up to the Nice summit.
We focussed our efforts on three specific areas: better execution of the budget, more effective management of European policies and successful implementation of the reform package with particular reference to the new posts requested by the Commission.
Before coming to that, a word on the position of the British Conservatives.
To the surprise of many in my delegation, we established a core strategy unanimously at the beginning of September and the 400 amendments introduced by some of my colleagues came as somewhat of a surprise to many of us in the Budget Committee.
While some had a legitimate purpose - to improve financial control of this House over the budget, many more had a destructive intent - not to save money, but to delete very worthy organisations such as the European Union Youth Orchestra.
As it turns out, the moderate face of conservatism has for the most part prevailed over the more ideological and unacceptable one.
There are some 30 amendments now retabled over and above those of our core strategy.
I personally did not put my signature to them because one or two of them still go a little too far.
Yet a healthy majority of the Conservative delegation wishes to play a constructive role in the European process - unlike one or two Members who can only think of deconstructing what is here.
This brings me to our group' s strategy, because at the core of our belief is the wish to get value for money for the European citizen.
We want to be sure that funds set aside for specific purposes in the budget will be spent and not accumulated year after year.
This is why we have called for a strategy from the Commissioner to deal with the backlog of commitments, in particular in external policies, by the end of 2003.
It is my hope that the Council will also be able to agree this strategy.
It includes a limitation on the duration of commitments for which agreement will be required by the Council.
Mr President of the Council, my group could put more payments on the line if we were certain that policies were being better managed.
Secondly, we have established reserves in several parts of the budget where we think management of the available funds is weak, in particular setting aside large sums in external policy and for the final amount to be agreed between the two arms of the budgetary authority based on the idea of the performance reserve.
We think this is a good idea, because if you see things are running well than that is where you put your credits.
You do not put it on those programmes which are not running so effectively.
Thirdly, and linked to these items, is the request for more posts.
We understand that there is a need for more personnel, but what is of most concern to us is that we do not grant this request until the reform process of the institutions is well under way.
It is difficult to see how more posts will solve the problem of management if there are still antiquated and complex procedures both in the Commission and Council for dealing with the many programmes.
Mrs Schreyer came forward with an interesting suggestion which we should consider about the idea of a performance reserve in category 5, so that some posts would be available and we could then give more as the process improves.
This is why we have called for a trialogue as soon as possible once this reading is complete, so that we can get down to the substance of the discussions.
Greater efficiency within the Commission and more effective policy management over the life of the current financial perspective will give more confidence to the European citizens that their taxes are being put to good use and is the only way to ensure that the EU can achieve the wider goals of consolidation within its boundaries after the Nice summit and the gradual enlargement of the EU to the east.
We are looking to rebuild people' s confidence in our institutions.
Europe' s interests will not be served by having a weak Commission and an itinerant Parliament.
On the contrary, we must work for a Parliament which campaigns for openness, efficiency and effective democratic control of the European institutions.
Thank you very much, Mr Elles.
You actually had five minutes.
Although you may not realise, you generously gave two minutes to Mr Bourlanges.
In any case, the Presidency wanted to praise not only your eloquence, but also your good faith, because we are sure you thought you had seven minutes.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, first of all I would like to extend warm thanks to the four rapporteurs who have done the groundwork for today.
They have really excelled themselves and I feel this merits the recognition of the House.
We are delighted to have found a basis for negotiations and a mood for negotiation, particularly as regards the Council, given that last year, we had a rather strained atmosphere to contend with, and this produced tension. The present mood allows for objective and focussed work, because instead of drawing up battlelines, we endeavour to actually solve the problems facing us.
However, of course this also means coming clean with the tax payer and those who listen to us, on a whole range of points, so as to give them a realistic picture of the conditions we work under.
Parliament has demonstrated repeatedly over the past few years that extreme financial prudence is the bedrock of our work.
It is pure fiction to maintain that all we have ever been interested in is spending as much money as possible.
That is not our approach!
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you only have to consider the fact that over the past five years, we have kept within the ceilings by EUR 15 billion, to realise that Parliament is at pains to deploy its funds as efficiently as possible.
What we are not prepared to do though, is to simply dismiss out of hand, things we believe to be necessary, and which have been recognised as necessities following negotiations with yourself and the Commission, when there are new items on the agenda.
We cannot have a situation where people who place their trust in us are let down in favour of the next ones in the queue.
And so we must think about how to solve this problem.
In the past - and we attach a great deal of importance to this - we have always kept to our mutual decisions under the Interinstitutional Agreement and the financial perspective.
If the rates of increase seem to be high this year, then this is due primarily to the fact that the sharpest rates of increase are to be found in the sphere where we have the least say, i.e. agriculture.
It is not that I want to complain about this.
There has been a corresponding change in policy, and this must be financed accordingly - that is not what I am complaining about - but nor do I expect the President-in-Office to then stand up in this Chamber and say that there has been a huge increase, and comment that the Member States are financially prudent, whilst Parliament wants to push expenditure to the limit.
That is not true, because you are the one primarily responsible for determining compulsory expenditure, and that is precisely where the figures are so high!
When you look at the figures - a 6.3% increase in compulsory expenditure and, by your own admission, a 0.23% increase in our areas - then you will see who is really being financially prudent, so as to be able to pursue their policies, and who is responsible for the increases.
With all due respect for the fact that the national Finance Ministers have set out to reduce their national debts and actually cancel commitments entered into in the past, so as to safeguard opportunities for future generations, I would point out that Parliament has commitments from the past too!
We are not in a position to accumulate debt.
Perhaps that is just as well.
But we have made promises in the past, or rather made announcements and formulated common policies that will in fact need to be converted into payments at some stage.
We cannot have a situation where we talk in a very relaxed manner about commitments over the years, and repeatedly make these promises, but then, when it comes to paying up, say that we are now unable to afford it and will have to cut back a bit in this area!
I believe it is very important for the Council members to register the fact that payments are commitments entered into in the past that will actually have to be honoured.
We can approach this in two ways with these payments.
Mr Elles made the point that we could of course reduce the commitments and retain the payments, which would enable us to honour the commitments at some stage.
But that would mean having to scrutinise our policies and cut back on them.
I make no bones about the fact that the policies we agreed on formed the basis of the Interinstitutional Agreement and the financial perspective.
They are important to us.
These things mattered in the past, but they still matter today - now that we have a different political climate within Europe - particularly as there is so much at stake.
We want to tackle unemployment for example.
One outstanding achievement to come out of this budget is that we are prepared to join forces to support small and medium-sized enterprises, which create the most jobs, thereby benefiting Europe' s economy.
We want to do something for them, and provision has been made for this in the budget in terms of actual figures.
We want to do something to combat social exclusion, and to help the weakest of the weak.
One of the policies we have opted for in the agricultural sector is to move away from a system of direct subsidies towards enhanced support for rural areas.
This is a key priority in Parliament' s book, particularly as we have a right to a say in such matters.
We intend to make sure that this area, more than any other, is given a boost.
We have made it our business, over the past year, to see that all the funds allocated for this sphere were indeed taken up, because it is vital to frame the necessary policies for rural areas and for the people who live there.
We are more than happy to work with the Council and all the others, on this.
I say this as a Social Democrat.
It is traditionally said of the Social Democrats that as a party, they are not the natural representatives of farmers or rural areas.
I will tell you now that we most certainly are, because we believe in equal opportunities.
We have other priorities on the foreign policy front.
We want to combat poverty, wherever it happens to be in the world.
We want to drive democratisation processes forward, and we want to strike a balance between the traditional political fields of foreign policy now before us.
We believe that a constructive approach to eastward enlargement should go hand in hand with a well thought out and properly financed Mediterranean policy.
These two policy areas must be in harmony with each other.
Anyone who pursues eastward enlargement, must also be aware that as far as we are concerned, the Mediterranean is also an important part of the geopolitical situation we have to engage ourselves in.
Something else we have had to deal with latterly, and which has caused us a great deal of problems - thankfully I would say, because they stem from the fact that a democratisation process is underway - is the situation in the Balkans.
When you, Mr President-in-Office, then say this must be financed from existing budgetary funds, I would ask you to consider just one thing: this year alone we have made 200 000 flexibility instruments available, and supplemented this with EUR 180 million from the emergency reserve.
Therefore, this year alone we will have included EUR 380 million in fresh funds in the budgetary lines and made it available.
This problem will occupy us for the next six or seven years, and probably even longer.
When we see that we have already committed EUR 380 million in fresh funds to this area this year, then I am completely baffled as to how, if we estimate that we are going to need EUR 5.5 billion for Serbia over the next seven years, for example, we are going to be able simply to produce it out of thin air.
This would be impossible!
We are prepared to take a look at our budget and see where we could improve our effectiveness.
This would go hand in hand with the reform of the Commission, which, as it happens, has already set us thinking about how we can make our policies more effective overall.
One strategy is to create reserves, and then we must enquire closely, before we make the money available, as to how matters are to be taken forward.
A second strategy is the one used by the Commission, i.e. the reform process within the Commission is being reinforced by making the appropriate number of staff available, so that the steady stream of additional tasks we have taken upon ourselves in the past, can actually be implemented.
The worst thing that can befall us is to arouse hopes and then have to disappoint them.
With your permission, I will again make the point, in the light of a current discussion, that over the past few years, and again this year, Parliament has discussed whether, people who are affected by natural disasters can receive aid from Parliament' s budget.
Let there be no mistake, I think it is criminal to give people who have been affected by natural disasters the impression that we have the means to solve all the problems they face as a result.
If we only include a few million in the lines - that is about all we can manage - it is just a stalling tactic, because when the people actually come to need it, we withdraw it again.
When there have been one or two disasters at the beginning of the year, all we need to tell people at the end of the year is that we are sorry but we do not have anything left for them.
There are people in northern Italy who need our help at the moment, but if they were to turn to Europe, we would have to tell them we were sorry but we do not have any money left because we spent it back in January, February or March.
That is completely irresponsible.
That is not the kind of perception we want people to have of Europe.
When we announce something, or promise something, when we say we are able, and want, to help, then we must be in a position to follow this up.
We must organise our political structures accordingly.
We must go through what we define as being the central aspects of our policies with a fine toothcomb, and we must work together to see that our proposals are properly financed.
As Socialists, we expressly offer our cooperation.
I am looking forward to the forthcoming discussions with the Commission and the Council, and hope, in the interests of the citizens of Europe, that we reach some positive conclusions.
Mr President, Mrs Jutta Haug and Mr Markus Ferber have been involved in an enormous task in drafting next years' EU budget.
I wish to congratulate them and, at the same time, thank them for their constructive cooperation.
Similarly, I would like to thank Mrs Rühle and Mr Colom i Naval and, in particular, the Chairman of the Committee, Terence Wynn.
The budget for 2001 is the second budget during this present programming period.
It continues the budget policy that was outlined in the Interinstitutional Agreement of over a year ago.
My own group is satisfied that strict budgetary discipline was adhered to in the drafting of the budget.
It is right that the committee should have made a special point of focus the reduction in expenditure commitments that are in arrears.
Structural Funds are one year in arrears and the Media programme, for example, is actually eight years in arrears.
Administration in the EU has been inexcusably poor, since, for example, last spring around EUR 3 billion of unused funds were returned to Member States.
Mr President, the focus of the budget has been on education and culture, employment and the promotion of SMEs.
We are satisfied with this arrangement.
At present massive unemployment is the scourge of the EU.
For that reason, it is appropriate to increase significantly the financing of unemployment initiatives.
Support for SMEs also aims at reducing unemployment, as it is they that create new jobs most effectively.
The most difficult problems in the new budget concern external action.
The basic reason is Agenda 2000, in which there are too few funds for the construction of the Balkan region.
Over the centuries the Balkan region has been Europe' s powder keg and that is the case today too.
However, just EUR 1 850 million were set aside for the development of this region at Berlin, while EUR 4 500 million were spent during the previous period.
The Council reduced funds for the Balkans by EUR 200 million, although there is a massive amount of reconstruction work to be done in the wake of the NATO bombing.
If the EU and the Member States intend to keep their promises regarding the reconstruction of the Balkans, that must be clearly visible in providing finance and not just in proclamations.
The Balkans war, months of bombing and the tremendous devastation that followed will lead to bitterness and hatred that may even last for generations among the inhabitants of the region unless the EU also takes responsibility for the reconstruction work.
The Committee on Budgets has taken a constructive stand on financing.
It wishes to commence talks with the Council in which all the opportunities of the Interinstitutional Agreement would be exploited to solve problems.
The committee is also aiming at a multiannual financial framework for both the CARDS and the MEDA programmes.
This would serve to lessen the yearly conflict that has tainted the preparation of the EU budget in the last couple of years.
Mr President, it is with these remarks that I would like, on behalf of my group, to support the policy of the Committee on Budgets in next year' s budget.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to echo the congratulations extended to the rapporteurs.
Our group will support your proposals for the most part.
However, we oppose the GUE' s strategy, which submitted a proposal out of the blue in the Committee on Budgets yesterday, to reject the budget.
In view of the pressing problems we face in Serbia and Kosovo, we do not believe this strategy to have any serious political intention.
Even though we endorse many of the points of criticism directed at the Council, it is clear that a strategy of this kind would lead to a politically untenable confrontation and undermine the credibility of the European institutions.
Like the budget before it, Budget 2001 had almost insoluble conflicts to contend with: on the one hand the pressure of consolidation and cost-cutting policy, as agreed under the Interinstitutional Agreement, in order to secure the financing of the enlargement process, and on the other hand, the acute financing needs of the Stability Pact for the Balkans.
This conflict is heightened further, in our view, by the Council' s policy of casually promising everyone aid, and constantly intensifying internal conflicts by making promises of money without thinking seriously about the financing implications.
I must say that is how many people on the outside view the Council' s policy.
Instead, Parliament is expected to honour these promises by repeatedly finding new ways to make cuts.
In this way, Parliament' s political room for manoeuvre in the budget is being systematically undermined.
We will end up being nothing more than the Council' s assistants in the implementation process.
This situation cannot be allowed to continue in our view.
However, there is no easy solution.
It is a fact that the forthcoming round of enlargement will put the Community severely to the test.
Financing is a balancing act between needs - financial requirements in the new Member States and financing opportunities for the donor countries - and there are limited public funds.
Naturally there is a need to budget carefully, we support this and should not try to get round it.
We are also aware that many projects and programmes are discredited owing to mismanagement.
We urgently need a long- and medium-term strategy, so that important areas such as MEDA and the Stability Pact for the Balkans are not played off against each other.
We fear that Parliament' s present proposal, which we largely endorse, will expose us to this risk.
We fear that the flexibility reserve is probably not being used to finance MEDA, as it should be, but instead, is being employed, at the end of the day, to offset further financial need in Serbia.
We hope to be able to develop a common strategy over the next few weeks in order to counteract this.
We also urgently need a common strategy for improving management.
This will entail a corresponding increase in staffing levels, and here too we are critical of the committee' s majority decisions.
We fear that the majority of the committee members have used the wrong tactics.
Demands for improved performance also imply a need for more staff.
As far as we are concerned, linking the demand for improved performance with the demand to place staff in the reserve at the same time will not wash with the public.
We are also critical of the decisions taken with regard to the LIFE programme.
We are hoping that the majority of MEPs will have second thoughts about this on Thursday and vote accordingly, and that we will succeed in reclaiming LIFE from the reserve.
And so finally, to recap: all in all we would like to thank the rapporteurs, Mr Ferber and Mrs Haug, for their valuable work. There are two or three points that we differ on, but we hope to reach agreement on them yet.
Above all, we call upon the parliamentary majority to again think carefully about whether all the staff - i.e. all 400 posts - should really be placed in the reserve, or whether it would not in fact make sense to come to a different vote on this matter.
Mr President, Commissioner, the French Presidency of the European Union is coming to an end at the time when Parliament is voting on the budget for 2001.
There is one fact which must be noted, and which we must, as French Members of Parliament, deplore, and that is that the Council has failed with regard to one of the traditional responsibilities of French politics, its responsibility to the farmers of Europe, with a cut of more than half a billion euros in heading 1.
It is also, unfortunately, true, as a number of people in this Chamber have commented, with regard to the Mediterranean countries, with a swinging cut in funds for the MEDA programme.
This has got to be the worst possible message to be sending out to our friends and neighbours around the Mediterranean at the time of enlargement.
We can only, in such circumstances, support Parliament' s attitude and the back the amendment in favour of MEDA, restoring the appropriations of the preliminary draft budget, in the same way that we must be pleased at the significant increase in agricultural expenditure and the special place given to the second pillar of the CAP, promotion of the countryside, while, however, deploring the position of the Committee on Budgets, which rejected almost all the amendments from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development seeking to compensate for the Council' s drastic cuts in the fruit and vegetable sector and also in the pig farming sector.
In the field of external aid, will we ever be able to realise the hopes of President Kostunica who in recent days has been most forthright in declaring that the fact that France held the Presidency of the European Union at these moments that are so critical for the people of Serbia and the continent as a whole was the work of Providence? The amount of aid allocated to the Balkans might give him to think so, with both the EUR 200 million released from the 2000 budget as emergency aid and the appropriations for 2001 which, even so, represent an increase of 30% over and above the 2000 budget.
That being the case, the level of funding allocated to Kosovo is not without certain problems.
In view of the appropriations which could have been committed for the first months of the year 2000, questions can be asked as to Kosovo' s real capacity to absorb the EUR 350 million planned for 2001. Most of all, however, the victory of the Serbian President forces us henceforth to recognise Belgrade as sole discussion partner for all decisions, all intervention, and all routing of aid via the provinces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The European Union no longer has any alibi since the fall of Milosevic.
The policy of aid for the Balkans must now concentrate massively on Serbia, a region impoverished by our bombing raids last year and by our economic sanctions which hit it so hard.
The aid we propose to contribute must safeguard rather than threaten the Serbian national identity.
We should, therefore, remember that both Kosovo and Montenegro form an integral part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Let us therefore put an end to direct aid to these provinces - occasionally without a legal basis, as we saw in this Chamber not so long ago in the case of Montenegro - direct aid that serves primarily to fuel the separatist movements.
In conclusion, we must clearly remember that, as far as we are concerned, aid for the Balkans in no way justifies requests for revision of the financial perspective.
The bottom line of every budget year shows a surplus, indicating that the amounts of appropriations we have voted on do not correspond to the real needs of the situation.
It is possible to make substantial savings, either by saving the monies arising from the under implementation of certain programmes, or by the European Union' s at last taking a decision to stop using budget lines for the purposes of pro-Europe propaganda.
But in that case, unfortunately, there are many examples: special treatment given to associations with declared federalist aims or to the many NGOs whose roles, philosophies and operations are highly questionable, the funding of European political parties, via the sums swallowed up in the Prince programme, in an attempt to convince the citizens of Member States of the validity of the euro at a time when the European currency is experiencing a loss of confidence widely shared by Europeans, from our Danish friends right up to the managers of the European Central Bank.
Mr President, as usual, I am speaking on behalf of the Members of the Bonino List, and I would like to start by echoing the congratulations to the two rapporteurs on the work they have done in recent months and, in general, congratulating the Committee on Budgets on its work.
Mr President, when one hears Mr Wurtz' s ornate, well-argued and well-considered reasoning, it is difficult not to agree with at least the underlying argument, if not the method he recommends.
Of course, we too are convinced that, if Parliament and the Council do not assume their responsibilities in terms of the need to deal with the budget, first and foremost tackling the use of the flexibility instrument but, also, revising the financial perspective, it will be difficult not to agree with the view that we are going to be running away from our responsibilities with a heavy conscience because we are not able to make good our undertakings, either those made in Biarritz or those which have been made with many other partners over the years.
We do not agree with the method, which is why, in this first reading, we place our confidence in the rapporteur' s approach, in spite of what happened last night in the Committee on Budgets, in the hope that this will constitute a basis for effective discussion with the Council in-between the first and second readings.
However, the issue raised by Mr Wurtz is clearly central.
In my opinion, if we do not revise the financial perspective, we will be being irresponsible towards both ourselves and our partners, especially in the 2001-2006 period.
Mr President, the EU' s budget is the Union' s choice instrument to define political areas of interest as well as core areas.
In this process, we as Parliament need to ensure that we serve the interests of all European citizens.
These may be citizens who would like to see the Union develop into a federation, but also citizens who are sceptical about Europe, as demonstrated recently by the Danish population.
Unfortunately, Mrs Haug has adopted a political line which only takes account of the supporters of a federal Europe.
A line in which she, like her predecessor Mr Bourlanges, is attempting to break through the financial ceiling.
Over the past few months, Commissioner Patten has repeatedly pointed to the Union' s enormous payment backlog.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur still has not grasped that this is why we must tread water for the time being.
"Let' s do better with less" , as Commissioner Patten said, is lost on her.
Budget policy needs to instil public confidence in European policy.
The fact that this confidence is lacking is obvious from the drop in the currency value of the Euro, which, since its launch, has lost nearly 30% of its value compared to the Yen and the American Dollar.
That confidence will not grow by ploughing even more money into the budget, but it will if the budget is implemented efficiently.
For this to happen, difficult choices have to be made, but unfortunately, it appears that the rapporteur is not prepared to make these choices; instead, she has opted for the easy way out by increasing the budget.
The refusal to set priorities is most prominent in the area of foreign and security policy.
Naturally we too are in favour of giving aid to the Balkans and Serbia.
But the money for that aid can be freed up by setting priorities within foreign policy.
What are the core tasks for the Union and what tasks belong to the Member States? A Union which does not dare make choices will create more distance between itself and its citizens, who do need to make choices in their personal budgets.
Setting priorities is being dodged by abusing the flexibility instrument.
It is quite justified to deploy this instrument for new, unforeseen expenditure and is therefore the principle par excellence in the case of the sudden revolution in Serbia.
The rapporteur' s proposal to use this principle for MEDA, however, does not meet the 'new' or 'unforeseen' requirement, and is all the more surprising in the light of the fact that spending levels have not been reached in the MEDA programme.
Although the rapporteur attended the meeting of the Committee on Budgets yesterday, she failed to draw lessons from the credit transfers which were being discussed.
It appeared yesterday that 25% of the amount budgeted for 2000 for Latin America was not used and is now being transferred for aid to Kosovo.
Mr Bourlanges made the cursory note that the 2000 budget for Latin America had probably been somewhat too generous.
There is therefore leeway in foreign policy, i.e. category 4, and the proposed increases of the appropriations budgeted for for Latin America are not based on fact.
The Council agrees with the creation of 400 posts which, according to Commissioner Patten, the Commission needs in order to eliminate the backlog of payments.
In the light of this, it is not justified that the Council should considerably reduce the category 4 payments.
We must give the Commission the opportunity to eliminate the backlog by increasing its staffing levels.
Finally, Mr Heaton-Harris was right to refer in his amendments to the onesidedness of many European programmes, in which the citizen is treated to a propaganda-like tale on European integration, and at the expense of the citizens themselves would you believe.
The Union must realise that certainly not all citizens dream of far-reaching integration.
Programmes of the Union should therefore adopt a more neutral tone, so as to prevent one specific political hue being put across at the expense of all citizens.
Democracy cannot be reconciled with a dictatorship of the majority.
Mr President, one of the principles governing the budgetary process for 2001 is that of saving money.
It is just as well, given that of the 15 Member States only 7 are likely to be able to present a positive balance sheet for the year 2000.
There is therefore little prospect of us receiving additional revenue in the form of higher contribution payments from the Member States.
We have certainly got our priorities right in Budget 2001. To that extent, the rapporteurs are to be congratulated.
It is a fact that the unemployment rate is too high in Europe, particularly as this affects the weak members of society, i.e. young people, women and the long-term unemployed.
We must therefore support all the measures designed to boost small and medium-sized enterprises.
We need more entrepreneurs in Europe, who, in their turn, will create more jobs.
There should be no question of Europe failing to keep the promises it makes.
The truth though, is that many European politicians promise funds that they, or their committees, then fail to make available at the end of the day.
I am referring to the absolutely crucial payments required by the Balkan countries, which the Council has now cut back on.
However, it is also unacceptable that many of Europe' s priorities are financed in such a way that the poor are ultimately the ones to suffer.
It was therefore both right and important that the Council' s extensive cuts in agriculture, totalling EUR 55 million, were corrected again.
But at the end of the day, Europe' s priorities will only be financially viable in the long-term if Europe' s economy goes full steam ahead.
The tax burden must therefore be reduced in percentage terms, and only an economic upturn and accompanying economic growth will secure increased state revenue.
In addition, our administrative systems must be modernised, and it is our duty to lead by example.
I therefore hope that the newly created budgetary line - which a few people, myself included, have been critical of - for financing the European parties, is not used to award funds to those who have already squandered away funds made available at national level and are now in fact in debt.
I also hope that the conditions attached to the establishment of 400 additional service posts within the Commission will actually be fulfilled.
I hope that in the course of further negotiations with the Council these principles will actually be upheld, and that in this way, we will be able to jointly adopt a budget for 2001 that benefits the citizens.
Mr President, it is only right that I should begin by commending the work of the various rapporteurs.
As I was able to observe most closely the way in which Mrs Haug dealt with the issues within her remit, I wish to bear witness to the sensitivity and balance that she demonstrated throughout the process.
Rather than carrying out a technical analysis of the budget or an interpretation of the amounts provided for in the respective 'revenue' and 'expenditure' columns, Parliament should concern itself with the quality of both expenditure that has been released and expenditure that has been proposed, which specifically requires an assessment of the criteria for the use of appropriations and also an assessment of their impact.
On the basis of this understanding, the Group of the European People' s Party - European Democrats wishes to highlight the following aspects:
the level of budgetary implementation;
the degree to which policies that have been laid down are implemented and the results achieved;
consistency between the legislative process and the budgetary options;
progress in reforming the Commission.
In the context of these objectives, a raft of measures is proposed for next year, which in our opinion will help to improve the current situation.
Firstly, with regard to the low levels of budgetary implementation, in particular of expenditure classified as "non-compulsory" , a special requirement is introduced for requests to the Commission for explanations.
It has to be acknowledged that as long as the explanations requested are not forthcoming or are unsatisfactory, the appropriations in question cannot be used.
Furthermore, unless the budget appropriations are used effectively, how can we talk about improvements, which are so necessary in certain categories?
The second point is that there must be greater speed, transparency and efficiency in administration given the systematic increase in the RAL, that is in amounts still to be paid. This results from the increasing disparity between commitments that have been entered into, payments that have been authorised and payments made, particularly under category 4 - "External Actions" .
The needs are self-evident, we have many commitments, the importance of external cooperation in asserting the European Union' s presence on the world stage is obvious, and there is a very low implementation rate for various programmes.
The MEDA programme, which focuses on the Mediterranean basin, a geographical area of the utmost strategic importance, is a good example of our inability to implement our programmes.
We need to make up ground in MEDA and guarantee greater efficiency in Serbia, for example, whilst at the same time effectively implementing the European Union' s traditional policies in this field.
With a view to resolving current bottlenecks, a general reserve should be created under category 4 - a performance reserve - which will be used in proportion to the extent to which the various items are implemented.
Furthermore, we hope to see a revision of the Financial Regulation which will set a definite deadline of two years, for example, as the maximum period between the authorisation for payment and payment itself. Failure to comply will result in the sums involved being withdrawn from the budget, as already happens in other categories.
The third aspect to be emphasised is that if we wish to see greater coordination between the European institutions, we should promote, in theory and in practice, the integration of the Commission' s legislative programme and the budgetary process, as well as informing Parliament in advance of decisions by other institutions that may have an impact on the budget.
Fourthly, with regard to the reform of the Commission' s procedures and staffing policy, we must distinguish between issues relating to new admissions and the desirable - as far as we are concerned - creation of a permanent and compulsory early retirement system.
Fifthly, if we value initiative and responsibility, we must promote the creation of a programme aimed at businesses and at business people.
By preserving this strategic approach in the way we address the budget this year and in years to come, the European Parliament will fully play its role in the budgetary process.
Parliaments only truly represent their electors, a crucial aspect of democracy, when they refuse to simply rubber stamp other people' s proposals.
Thank you very much, Mr Wynn.
We would particularly like to thank you for making us smile and even laugh about a subject as serious as the budget.
That is something for which we should always be thankful.
The debate is closed.
It will resume at 9 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0548/2000). We shall examine the questions addressed to the Council.
Question No 1 by (H-0709/00):
Subject: Enhanced cooperation What progress is the Council Presidency making on enhanced cooperation, and could it give examples of areas in which it would apply?
I believe that Mr Duff was present this morning when we discussed the European Council in Biarritz.
What is more, in his capacity as rapporteur, he asked a question just after the group chairmen.
He has also heard and read Mr Gil-Robles' s report on reinforced cooperation, and my own response to this.
I therefore think he has understood Biarritz' s findings on the matter, which are rather encouraging, and the Council' s quite positive response to Parliament' s and his own suggestions.
Thank you for the answer.
I certainly absorbed the messages of Biarritz and I was encouraged by the things that occurred there.
I would just ask Minister Moscovici two further questions.
Firstly, would he agree that it would be more sensible to restrict the use of closer cooperation solely to those issues where unanimity applies within the Council? As he appreciates, this is a growing feeling within Parliament.
And the second question concerns the reaction of the candidate countries to the debate inside the EU Union concerning closer cooperation.
Do you find that they welcome the prospect or are they perhaps frightened of it?
.
(FR) Our objective is indeed to safeguard what lies at the heart of Community policy, i.e. the internal market and the cohesion policies, reinforced cooperation.
Matters are, therefore, perfectly clear. We wish to adhere to the acquis communautaire, but at the same time we should not have regulations that are too inflexible.
It is true that qualified majority voting is the main thing, but we must have some flexibility.
We shall have to take note of the reactions of the candidate countries.
Firstly, I think it important that procedures should work properly with 15 Members, which is already a complicated matter.
It would be a far more complex matter if there were 27 Members, but, as you know, the French Presidency is going to convene the European Conference on two occasions. There will be a ministerial meeting, firstly, in Sochaux, on 23 November, and there specifically we shall have a debate on institutional reform in the context of an enlarged Europe, and on the second occasion, on the morning of the 7 December at the European Council in Nice.
The French Presidency is probably rather keener than others to get these countries involved.
Having said that, to make matters clear, reinforced cooperation does not mean a two-speed Europe.
We have specifically stressed that an open and inclusive approach was needed, and no one should be afraid of reinforced cooperation.
The 'small countries' , for example, to use a quite inappropriate term, should not feel themselves excluded from reinforced cooperation or that reinforced cooperation means some sort of exclusive vanguard, centre of gravity or pioneer group.
All it means is that there is a certain flexibility to enable specific policies to go ahead, even if some countries cannot, or do not wish to, participate, and what is true for the European Union' s Member States is also true for the candidate countries.
No one must feel as if they are in a carriage being towed along by a kind of runaway train.
This is not some sort of Directory.
Question No 2 by John Cushnahan lapses, as the author is not present.
Question No 3 by (H-0714/00):
Subject: Cost of the activities of the 'Three Wise Men' in Austria Which funds are being used to cover the costs of the activities of the 'Three Wise Men' , who have been deployed by the Portuguese Presidency to assess the situation in Austria?
My answer is very simple.
The Council played no part in this matter and the Community budget was not used in any way.
The expenditure committed in order to fund the task of assessing the Austrian situation was actually funded in its entirety at national level by Austria' s 14 partners within the European Union.
The Presidency did, of course, make a contribution to this.
Mr President, Minister Moscovici, one question the public, and also quite a number of MEPs have been asking themselves, is: what was the role of the embassies in this connection?
Given that there is an embassy representing each of the 14 Member States in Vienna, why was it necessary to have the Three Wise Men look into something that the embassies could have monitored themselves on a daily basis? Did the embassies fail in some way?
Did they fail to retrieve the reports?
Did the relevant governments fail to read the reports?
We really cannot avoid this question. Perhaps it would have sufficed to read one or other newspaper, but I would be most grateful if you could provide me with a brief analysis of the role of the embassies.
This question makes me smile a little.
In my opinion, ambassadors are quite simply there to represent the government of their country.
They must, of course, pass local information back to their government, but the question here was to find a solution to a situation where fourteen Member States had taken measures with regard to the fifteenth for the political reasons that are familiar to you.
I therefore think it was quite appropriate, in this context, to ask an external authority, that was not morally implicated, to undertake this task.
I think Austria has no call for complaint regarding what has been done, quite the contrary.
I would add that if any individual country had followed up on their ambassador' s report, then perhaps the solutions advocated by the experts' report would not have been applied.
As they deal with the same subject, Question Nos 4 and 5 will be taken together.
Question No 4 by (H-0715/00):
Subject: Colombia Is the Council aware of the most recent massacre, which resulted in eight deaths; on 8 July 2000 in Colombia in a place called La Union, and has it investigated the possibility that the atrocity was committed with the full support of the Colombian Government? Has the Council held discussions on this event?
If so, does it propose to make any formal protest?
Question No 5 by (H-0776/00):
Subject: Violation of human rights and dismantling of paramilitary groups in Colombia Paramilitary groups have stepped up the murders of farmers, journalists, trade unionists, political leaders and human rights activists over the past few months.
Ramiro Zapata was the latest of 25 human rights activists to be murdered and, recently, the Colombian press condemned the paramilitary groups' "Plan 100" to kill one hundred human rights activists.
The government has recognised the "accidental" killing of six children in Puerto Rico on 15 August.
Furthermore, Colombia has not assembled the units that the European Union asked it to create to fight the paramilitaries.
What measures is the Council taking or prepared to take to make aid to Colombia conditional on the Colombian government showing significant progress in respect for human rights and in firm action towards dismantling the paramilitary groups?
Yes, generally the European Union regularly condemns in the strongest possible terms the serious human rights violations which, unfortunately, are still being committed practically every day in Colombia.
The matter to which Mr McCartin refers, however, has not been specifically referred to the Council, and the Council has not mentioned the matter as such in its discussions.
While supporting the efforts made by the Colombian Government to make progress in the peace process, the European Union has stressed, and continues to stress, that government' s necessary commitment to respect for human rights in Colombia.
The European Union has also appealed for the commitment of all parties to seeking a negotiated solution to the conflict, without which it would be impossible to establish any lasting peace.
It is up to the Colombian authorities to define the practical means by which the Colombian Government might undertake to dismantle the paramilitary groups.
Recommendations from regional organisations and the experience of neighbouring countries will doubtless be able to assist in defining these means.
On several occasions, the European Union has affirmed its willingness to support, to the extent that it can and with the most appropriate means, all efforts to secure a peace agreement.
Following the international meeting on the Colombian peace process, held in Madrid on 6 and 7 July 2000, attended by Mr Solana, the representative of the 15 Member States and the Commission, the European Union is currently looking into practical opportunities for cooperation with Colombia.
In this respect, a Joint Declaration should be read by France' s representative, on behalf of the Presidency, on the meetings in support of the peace process scheduled to be held in Bogotá on 24 October 2000, which should, in particular, stress the need to support the rule of law and the fight against the causes of violence, to boost aid for the victims of violence, to defend human rights, protect biodiversity and the environment, and step up consultation and regional cooperation.
You may rest assured, finally, that respect for human rights, and the promotion of human rights, are, in any case, a key component of the European Union' s cooperation with third countries.
Mr President, I want to thank the President-in-Office for his reply which was very comprehensive.
I am a bit happier with the attitude of the Council today than I was in July because, as on many occasions in situations of crisis, the European Union seems always to be the last authority to arrive on the international scene and make its voice heard.
I also appreciate the expertise of Mr Solana in South American affairs and I recognise that we have made some progress.
Nevertheless, is the Council aware of the amount of money that the European Union provides, something like ten times what the United States provides for development cooperation throughout the world? Yet when a crisis occurs, whether in Africa, South America, the Middle East or the Far East, it is the United States and not the European voice that is heard.
Does the President-in-Office recognise that we are failing to capitalise on the resources that we provide?
I am not unaware of amount of money the Americans are promising in aid for Colombia, for example, the bulk of which is earmarked for activities to combat drugs trafficking.
This is something I am aware of, even if this plan is occasionally criticised, for instance, by NGOs.
At the same time, from my own experience, I think you are somewhat mistaken in making such a generalisation.
As far as Africa, the Middle East or the Mediterranean are concerned, the European Union is in fact the largest donor.
But in that case we are in a rather peculiar situation given the historical links between the United Sates and the continent of South America.
We are, nonetheless, paying a great deal of attention to the way this situation is developing.
Thank you for the information, Mr President, and thank you for giving me the floor.
Many of us believe that the problems in Colombia, as in other Latin American countries, stem from the issue of whether or not peasant-farmers own land.
In 1984, 0.2% of landowners in Colombia owned 32% of the land.
In 1997, this figure stood at 45%, and today will be even higher.
This is the problem, in addition, in many cases, to the actions of the paramilitaries, who force the peasant-farmers to move by means of indiscriminate killings.
Here we have three cases in different parts of the country: In the village of Carmen, 500 people were forced to move by the murder of 14 peasant-farmers.
In the port of Buenaventura, 20 peasant-farmers were murdered.
Far away, in another area called Ciénaga, there have been over 200 murders since the paramilitaries moved in a year ago.
The question, Mr President, and I shall end here, is whether there is a solution that would exert greater pressure than that proposed by the President in his statement and whether the aid we are going to give will be entirely different from that of the United States, in other words, not intended for crop-spraying, but for crop replacement and also for social, rather than military, purposes.
Let me briefly say that I am taking note of the explanation you have just given, but I should like to specify that the European Union hopes to set up its own programme of socio-economic and institutional aid for the Colombian peace process, and we shall readily return to it when we have made more progress in this area.
Mr President, I want to address the question of the paramilitaries' involvement in the La Unión massacre.
Would the minister agree that by and large it is clearly known that the paramilitaries concerned act as proxies for the Colombian Government? Is he not concerned, therefore, that Plan Colombia intends to provide military aid to the Colombian Government, use military resources to spray crops, allegedly drugs crops, and that the European Union is expected to come in and mop up the problem with a social policy programme?
This is an inadequate response by the European Union. We should not be agreeing to Plan Colombia on that basis.
I should just like to confirm my previous answer.
While taking the honourable Member' s comments very seriously, I still think that this aid is useful and should be intensified.
Mr President, will the President-in-Office join me in expressing regret at the killings on 9 July 2000 of two of the young men of the Atlantis Ecological Group: Tristan James, grandson of the founder of the group, Jenny James, who lives in Colombia, and Javier Nova, the boyfriend of one of Jenny' s young daughters, who were brutally murdered by a renegade group of Farc rebels when they returned to the area they had both lived in for most of their 18 years to visit relatives there.
When Mr Moscovici answers Mr De Rossa that he is sensitive to what he says, why is it that when the General Affairs Council on 9 October particularly referred to a European plan for Colombia, the European Commission subsequently issued a communication on 18 October which uses the words "Plan Colombia" , with its military aid and with its aerial spraying of crops which have been condemned by the Panamanian Interior Minister, Winston Spadafora, the Venezuelan Minister, José Vicente Rangel and governments in Peru, Equator and Brazil? Will he today repeat that the Council will not support Plan Colombia, as Mr De Rossa and I and every civilised Member of this House want?
I think I have already answered this question.
The Council is not here to make comments on every aspect of this extremely sensitive and painful issue.
With your permission, Mr President, I shall confine myself to the answers I have already given.
It is the duty of the President of the sitting to guide and interpret the questions and it is then at the discretion of the President-in-Office of the Council how to discuss or respond to them, except where the questions are nonsensical or have nothing to do with the subject.
Then I will exercise my responsibility.
Mr De Rossa has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, when you mention the text of the supplementaries and the President-in-Office' s response, could I remind the President-in-Office that the original question specifically related to the massacre in Colombia, whether or not the Council has had discussions on this event and if it plans to make any formal protest or not.
The questions that I and other Members asked are very specifically related to the situation in Colombia.
It is not adequate to say that you are not in a position, and it is not your role, to go into this kind of detail.
The question asks you to go into detail.
Why accept the question at all if you are not going to go into the detail?
Mr De Rossa, I have to tell you that the Rules of Procedure do not allow for responses from Members, but merely their questions.
Afterwards you may deal bilaterally with the President-in-Office of the Council, either in writing or in person.
Let me make myself clear.
A question was asked of me, and I answered that question.
I specifically stated - and this will have been noted in the Minutes - that the incident you refer to in your question has not been specifically referred to the Council and that the Council has not mentioned the matter as such in this debate.
I had, therefore, answered your question.
I should not like you to think that the Council does not answer the questions asked of it.
At the same time, it is just not possible to undertake an ad hoc debate on matters like this, which are, let me repeat, extremely complex ones.
I utterly respect what the Members of Parliament are saying.
It is just that I am trying not to indulge in demagoguery.
I would ask you all to comply with Questions to the Council in accordance with the rules for this procedure as they are laid down.
As far as possible, the debate should not be academic and theoretical.
I would therefore ask that when you put further questions, they are specific questions on the matter in hand.
As they deal with the same subject, Question Nos 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 will be taken together.
Question No 6 by (H-0718/00):
Subject: International financial transactions At the next annual meeting of the IMF, does the Council plan to propose that the IMF Committee should study possible arrangements for introducing a Tobin-type tax on international financial transactions with a view to combating speculation and stabilising currency markets?
Question No 7 by (H-0719/00):
Subject: Management of the revenue generated by a Tobin tax Does the Council believe that management of the revenue generated by a Tobin tax on international financial transactions (the value of which is estimated at between USD 50 billion and USD 250 billion per year, depending on the tax rate applied) should be entrusted to the UN, or should the setting up of a specific body responsible for levying and distributing the revenue which such a tax would yield be considered? What should the priorities be for the allocation of such resources (e.g. access to drinking water, protection of the environment, cancelling the debt of the poorest countries, vaccination programmes, access to education)?
Question No 8 by (H-0720/00):
Subject: Tobin tax How does the Council intend to help future governments deal with the emerging crisis in national taxation because of tax competition and off-shore financial centres, and would it consider new streams of taxable revenue such as currency transactions?
Question No 9 by (H-0721/00):
Subject: Political and technical obstacles to the introduction of a Tobin-style tax The Council is well aware of the broad support and growing popularity enjoyed by the proposal for a Tobin-style tax.
With reference to any discussions it may have held with the Ministers for Economic and Financial Affairs of the EU Member States and of third countries, will the Council Presidency say who is opposed to this measure and what the main political and technical obstacles are to the introduction of a tax of this kind?
Question No 10 by (H-0722/00):
Subject: Consideration of the merits of taxing international financial transactions Is the Council Presidency willing to open a discussion within the Council of Finance Ministers (ECOFIN) on the merits of imposing a tax on international financial transactions within the exchange market in order to combat speculation and the destabilising effects which the latter has on the economies of entire countries?
Would the Council be willing to consider establishing a 'Tobin area' at European Union level, i.e. imposing a Tobin tax on Europe' s financial markets, which account for 50% of world currency-exchange transactions?
Question No 11 by (H-0725/00):
Subject: Viability of Tobin-type taxes at European level In view of the recent report issued by the French Minister of Finance indicating that Tobin-type taxes would not be viable if introduced by a single Member State, what steps does the French Presidency propose with a view to securing the viability of such taxes at European Union and global level?
Question No 12 by (H-0735/00):
Subject: Tax on financial transactions In recent months there have been growing calls for a tax on financial speculation, with ATTAC committees (association for a tax on financial transactions and aid for citizens) springing up in France and Europe, as well as the amendments tabled in the French National Assembly and Senate.
This movement raises fundamental questions, such as the respective roles of man and the world of finance in today' s economy.
Does the Council not think that a Tobin-style tax would be desirable in the interests of restoring balance in this area?
Question No 13 by (H-0815/00):
Subject: Tobin tax and the international financial architecture In the Presidency' s view, which European institution would be most appropriate, in the context of international economic and financial relations, to promote the introduction of a Tobin tax and, should the circumstances arise, to administer such a tax? What impact would the introduction of a Tobin tax have in terms of combating worldwide currency speculation?
No, I shall try not to give you too academic an answer, but you put me in a difficult position in asking me these questions because we could easily spend more than one evening answering, and in any case we shall no doubt be overrunning the allotted hour with the questions that are coming up.
This matter raises questions of the objectives to be pursued, and questions of philosophy, of convictions and of analysis.
Indeed everyone applies their own convictions and their own analysis in expressing their views on this subject.
I should just like to say, once again, speaking on behalf of the Council, that the Council is perfectly aware of topical events and the importance of these issues.
The creation of a Tobin tax is an attractive option, one championed by many Members on both the left and right wing, by a variety of political and non-political organisations, non-governmental organisations, university groups.
I shall therefore beware of giving a definitive answer to this difficult question.
I should just like to stress some of the practical problems which may give rise to debate, since this is the Council' s position.
Firstly, I think everyone recognises that this tax, known as Tobin tax could operate properly only if applied at world level.
It must be noted, however, that while it may be possible to seek a consensus within the European Union, no such consensus exists within G7, especially within the OECD, regarding levying a tax on exchange transactions.
We are even aware, and this is an economic line of reasoning, that if there were a broad consensus, then a limited number of financial places would have a real interest in adopting an uncooperative attitude and refusing to apply the tax on transactions within their territory.
The question that I must ask those who advocate the Tobin tax, therefore, is exactly how we can offset that risk that would exist that speculative activities would shift location to tax havens, since this is a phenomenon which must be avoided if such a tax were to be adopted.
I should also like to have answers to the question of what influence it would have on the volatility of the exchange markets, particularly what would be the effect of a tax of 0.1 per thousand on speculators expecting devaluation in the order of 20 to 50%.
There would, besides, be a risk of this tax being bypassed due to the high level of innovative performance in the modern financial world.
The real question I have, then, does not concern the objectives of the Tobin tax, i.e. regulation of the exchange markets, making these markets more ethical by using them to fund development, but rather on our ability to ensure that these mechanisms are effective.
Once again, this does not indicate my opposition in principle to the idea, as I am not opposed to it, certainly on a personal basis.
At the recent meetings in Prague, and at the meetings of the G7 and the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC), in its capacity as Presidency of the European Union, France proposed focuses for reform intended to provide a response to the concerns behind the, now old, proposal of establishing a Tobin-type tax.
The communiqués of the G7, the IMFC and the statements of the IMF Director-General, Mr Köhler, moreover reflect the sympathies that exist in relation to the policy guidelines promoted by France, particularly as regards ordered financial liberalisation and combating money laundering.
This fight, which is one of the priorities of the French Presidency, was expressed at both the Justice and Home Affairs Council and the Ecofin Council, and recently in a combined meeting of these two Councils.
I am aware that I am unable to respond fully right now to the question asked.
I suppose you expect the Council to simply say yes.
I think the question is a little bit too complex to give a simple yes or no answer, because while we may approve of the principles, there is still the outstanding matter of the practical arrangements, not to mention the existence of a consensus between the 15 Member States.
Mr President, I do not refute your own personal convictions.
It is just that we get the impression, and your answer testifies to this somewhat, that the Council Presidency is not being very proactive in dealing with this issue.
You mentioned the uncooperative attitude of the tax havens.
Do you not think, by analogy with what the European Union is proposing to do concerning the tax havens adjacent to it or within it and on which the Commission and also the Council have the means to exert pressure, particularly in order to put an end to money laundering, do you not think that the European Union should, within international fora, be at the forefront of a movement for a code of conduct seeking to eliminate or at least restrict the operations of tax havens at the international level? I think this is within the realms of possibility and we should like to see the Presidency of the European Union adopting a clearer stance on this issue.
I must act prudently, not in general but in using terms such as 'code of conduct' .
Just as much as in the case of the Tobin tax, the debate is ongoing. Just as much as in terms of combating money laundering and tax havens, the Presidency is displaying a great deal of resolve and the Ecofin Council in particular has adopted a draft directive to combat money laundering.
This is therefore a key policy guideline which, without constituting an alternative to the project for the Tobin tax, is perhaps more realistic in the short term and is one which the current Presidency values extremely highly.
Indeed we hope that this will prove to be one of the main practical achievements of this Presidency.
Mr President, just now you mentioned those opposed to the Tobin tax, particularly G7.
Let me remind you that our allies include fervent supporters of this tax.
In one of its resolutions, the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, held in Brussels from 9 to 12 October, referred explicitly in recital C and in paragraph 21 to the creation of a Tobin tax.
In paragraph 26, moreover, it called for the establishment of an international arbitration organisation to cancel the debts of the countries of the South.
Mr President, could the Council not consider ways to help cancel the debt of the countries of the South, given that the ACP countries are asking for a solution similar to the Tobin tax? Would it not be possible to reinitiate discussions on this, given that we have committed ourselves, under the Cotonou agreements, to helping them to find ways to arrange the cancellation of their debt?
I think this is an interesting suggestion too, one that warrants looking into, but at the same time I think you have to understand the ambiguities we are liable to face.
As James Tobin said himself, the greater the product of this tax, the more it will have missed its target, as this will indicate that short-term speculative amounts have not been eliminated.
Mr Tobin is himself opposed to the principle of using this tax to fund development other than as a secondary objective, as a tax intended to restrict and even prohibit certain types of transaction cannot at the same time seek to provide ongoing funding of development schemes.
This is the principle, with which economists are familiar, of focussing an instrument on a single objective.
We do have to consider a number of questions calling for specific answers, particularly on the subject of funding development, and clearly efforts must focus on the improvement and the quality of state aid for development, the development of trade, strengthening international financial institutions, and the issue of debt must be considered in depth once again.
Mr President, President-in-Office, there happens to be a section of the Finnish government' s programme which refers to sources of taxation such as these.
I would now like to ask you whether you have discussed matters in your role as representative of the Council with the Finnish government, so that new sources of taxation may be found and support be gained for this idea, which I understood you looked favourably upon, and whether the Council could summon together those still scattered powers that would enable new sources of taxation to be proposed. You mentioned the question of tax havens and money laundering in connection with this.
Could you compile a new package of reforms from this on behalf of the Council?
Not having had the privilege of chairing the Ecofin Council I cannot answer your questions, particularly on the links which may exist between the French Presidency and the Finnish Government.
I am sorry.
I am not entirely convinced by all your answers.
In the first place I take exception to the argument that any tax tends naturally to reduce the consumption of the factor on which it is levied. It is true for all taxes and today there is no tax where the taxable activity has completely ceased.
People have not stopped working just because there is income tax. They have not stopped polluting just because there are taxes on pollution, and they are not about to stop transferring money from one country to another just because there is a Tobin tax.
So, clearly, the revenue from this levy will not be zero.
It will all depend on its level, but there are a number of possible strategies and I agree completely with you that the objective of funding is secondary to the objective of combating speculation.
The thing that astounds me is your claim that a minor amount cannot have a deterrent effect on speculation.
The minor amount you mention is precisely in the same order as the daily variations in the euro/dollar exchange rate, and this is something we are attempting to combat by other, infinitely more costly methods.
I should just like to repeat what I was saying, which is that the influence of a tax of this kind on the volatility of the exchange market has not actually been proven.
I think that, in spite of everything, fluctuations in the euro/dollar exchange rate are, unfortunately, higher than this sort of value, and it is true that we have to deal, in the long term, with speculators who expect far greater devaluation.
Indeed this is what has happened in the case of the euro over the year, whether we like it or not.
Mr Lipietz, for instance, is too fine an economist not to realise that economics is just another form of political science.
I am not really convinced by your answer for the simple reason that you yourself are aware of the counter-arguments which you have mentioned and yet, on 18 July, in the French daily newspaper, Libération, you put your signature to an opinion column, along with seven other Ministers of the French Government saying, "We must at European and international level find the means to implement a tax on financial transactions as soon as possible."
So what has happened since then?
Was it the report by the Minister for the Economy and for Finance, the administration of the Treasury, which so effectively expressed the usual arguments of those opposed to the Tobin tax which thwarted the political will demonstrated in the stance adopted in your newspaper article? Who is going to win the day, Bercy - as we refer to the Minister of the Economy in France - or the determination you expressed back then?
Surely the time has come to stop passing the buck?
At national level, we are told to refer to Europe. Now, at European level, we are told to refer to the G7 or the OECD.
Surely the time has come, specifically, to submit a proposal to the Council and the Commission so that we can issue a coordinated position from the various countries of Europe which will support the position of the other G7 members, such as Canada, for instance, which is ready to implement a Tobin tax as long as we ourselves are moving in this direction?
Please forgive me, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking shop with our internal French business here.
You have before you not Pierre Moscovici the militant or even Pierre Moscovici, speaking in his capacity as Minister, although I have attempted to introduce a few personal remarks in relation to the position prepared for me.
I am supposed to be speaking on behalf of the Council, the Council being the body uniting the ministers of the 15 European Union Member States.
I have indeed, therefore, attempted to include a few comments in my capacity as Minister where these do not contradict what I might have written as a militant politician in a French daily newspaper, but you must understand that I must also play my official part here today.
I am, moreover, delighted that Mr Harlem Désir, who, if you did not already know, is in the same party as myself, would be willing to sign the same declaration as myself.
That is not always the case.
Mr Moscovici, you can see that the eight questions come from the left of the Chamber.
Therefore, they sometimes cannot distinguish the President-in-Office of the Council from a militant.
I also excuse them, but we shall apply the Rules of Procedure.
I have three brief questions for Mr Moscovici. Firstly, will he come and speak to us as a militant on a future occasion?
Secondly, is he aware that the recent Labour Party Conference passed a document which overwhelmingly said that they would work with its international partners and all stake-holders towards addressing the concerns raised by advocates of the Tobin Tax and introducing new mechanisms for international stability and better global financial regulation? And thirdly, as he says he can neither say yes nor no at the moment, is he willing to argue for the European Union to conduct a study of these matters so that in future we will be able to say yes or no, and be able to make some sensible contribution to the UN Financing for Development Conference that is coming up at the beginning of 2002?
There are any number of places where I am willing to express a militant opinion.
It is no secret that I am a member of a left-wing government, a left-wing coalition, and I belong to a political party, the Socialist Party, and as such, it is true - forgive me, Mr President - I frequently have the opportunity to meet my friends on the left wing in this House. I have noted that these people are ones most ready and, for the moment, the only ones to discuss the Tobin tax.
In many respects I feel sympathetic to their ideas, but the fact is that in this place, now and every time I address you, I have to represent the Council during Question Time.
So perhaps we should arrange some other type of meeting.
As regards the question you addressed to the Council, i.e. the idea of study, please be assured that I shall convey your idea, most sympathetically, to the chairman of the Ecofin council, who incidentally is also a Government Minister, and perhaps this will also answer Mr Harlem Désir' s concerns.
I shall, of course, continue in the same vein, especially as I feel we must consider that this debate bears witness to the fact that increasing numbers of people, particularly within the European Union, are wondering about applying stricter control to financial speculation and also about the ability of the political authorities to intervene in this economic sphere and the extravagant powers of the multinationals.
Further to the comment which Danielle Auroi made just now on the subject of the countries of the South, I would add that there are some expert estimates which provide some interesting figures, for instance, a range between USD 50 and 250 billion, which could be recovered by a Tobin-type tax, whereas, at the same time, the UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] amounts to USD 40 billion per annum, which would be sufficient to guarantee minimum living conditions for the hundreds of millions of deprived people in the countries of the third world.
So, at a time when people feel that politics does not have the ability to intervene in the economic sphere, and also more generally in the role of European construction in order to alter its conduct of international relations, do you not think that a measure of this kind could contribute to restoring confidence in the political world' s power to act and, hence, could it not serve as a message sent out to the countries and the peoples of the South?
Once again, I am anxious to curtail the philosophical, ideological and political elements of my answer.
I should just like to repeat, once again, the fact that in discussing the Tobin tax, we must also question the conditions for the effectiveness of such a tax.
I myself pointed out the reservations which Tobin himself expressed, in the final analysis, regarding his own instrument, particularly in terms of revenue.
Indeed I think it crucial to organise, at some venue or other, debates where the arguments for both sides can be presented.
I know that there are many people on both sides, both in favour of and against the Tobin tax.
I think we should perhaps attempt to get outside the too narrow area of preferences in order to also ask economic questions.
The basic question I would like an answer to, and I am speaking as an all-round figure which includes my militant persona, is what are the conditions necessary for it to work.
Mr President-in Office, you said at the start of your speech that this matter could be discussed endlessly here in Parliament. You are quite right and I would also like to remind you that we have already once discussed this subject in great detail, and these very same colleagues of mine asked the same questions before.
The reason why we have been quiet here on the right is therefore that we have already examined these matters once and, in our opinion, we do not need to talk about the same issues over and over again in this Chamber and use up our precious time doing so.
I would like to ask you, however, if I have interpreted things correctly in my understanding that France, in her role as President of the Council, has no intention of proposing new measures to adopt the Tobin tax, or do I take it that in this it is not so much a question of political will but simply that you also there on the left side of the House have come to the conclusion that it is impossible?
The adoption of the Tobin tax on a global scale will be impossible.
Forgive me, I did not quite understand the last part of the question.
I take note of the fact that, fortunately, moreover, there are proponents of the Tobin tax on all sides of the house. This sets my mind at rest somewhat.
I should not like people to think that it is a peculiar form of madness affecting only one side of the brain or indeed one side of the House.
As for the rest, I should just like to add that France has indeed looked into a number of areas of reform with a view to answering the concerns behind the proposal to establish a Tobin-type tax, even if questions of how it is actually going to work remain unanswered.
I do agree with you, however, we could be discussing this for a long time to come.
As the author is not present, Question No 14 lapses.
Question No 15 by (H-0729/00):
Subject: Spread of BSE It appears that BSE is more contagious than was generally thought and that several other animal species can carry the disease.
In recent months the disease has been detected, inter alia, in various areas of France.
How does the Council intend to prepare for the spread of BSE, and what principle does it think should be adopted for compensating livestock owners in its decisions on budget expenditure?
The number of cases of BSE, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, that have been identified in Europe over the last few years is, as we know, a major area of concern.
The Council is more than ever anxious to take every step possible in order to eradicate this disease.
I should like to specify briefly that the recent increase in the number of cases identified does not mean that the epidemic is spreading wildly.
It is, rather, the case that things are coming to light as a result of the increasingly widespread performance of tests on cattle carcasses which proves that the epidemic has, nonetheless, not ceased.
On 7 January 1999, the Commission put forward a proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation seeking to consolidate the texts previously adopted by the Commission as precautionary measures in order to establish rules for the prevention and supervision of certain forms of BSE.
This proposal is based on the recommendation of the International Office of Epizootics on Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy and the various scientific opinions available.
This was designed to offer consumers a guarantee of a very high level of protection.
The European Parliament delivered its opinion on the Commission proposal at first reading, during the sittings of 15 and 19 May 2000.
It adopted 48 amendments, 40 of which were accepted by the Commission.
The Council is actively involved in examining the Commission proposal and these amendments with a view to managing in the near future to issue a position on this.
Moreover, in anticipation of adopting this directive on the prevention of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, a decision on the prohibition of the use of material presenting risks as regards these diseases was taken in June 2000, in order to stop any further spreading of the epidemic and in order to guarantee the highest possible health protection standards for the consumer.
The decision therefore applies to the production and commercialisation of products derived from animals that are made from or contain materials from animals of bovine, ovine or caprine species.
The specified risk materials for compulsory removal and destruction from now on are the following: "the skull including the brains and eyes, the tonsils, the spinal cord and the ileum of bovine animals aged over 12 months" ; "the skull including the brains and eyes, the tonsils and the spinal cord of ovine and caprine animals aged over 12 months ... and the spleen of ovine and caprine animals of all ages."
There are additional restrictions which apply to the United Kingdom and Portugal.
The Council, of course, is careful to monitor development in scientific findings and in the implementation of rapid diagnostic tests.
These can then be taken into account in the text of directives on the prevention of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies which the Council is to submit to the European Parliament.
The Council has not received any Commission proposal on compensation for farmers.
For the time being, as you know, applications are to be made to national budgets in procedures for the compensation of livestock farmers.
Mr President, I thank the minister for his reply to the first part of my question, but his answer to the second part, which concerned compensation, was not entirely relevant.
New cases have cropped up in France and, as a result, whole herds have been slaughtered.
Now I would like to ask, while the French representative of the country holding the presidency is here, whether this slaughter of cows will be paid for out of the EU budget or will you be paying for them out of your national budget, and whether, in your opinion, it is indeed appropriate that they should be paid for out of the EU budget.
And I should like to add another question. According to a press report today mad cow disease has been discovered here in the Vosges region.
Can France give the Members of the European Parliament assurances that nobody will catch the disease from the meat they eat here?
I have not read this morning' s papers yet, but I believe I can make a sincere case to promote French beef in general.
I am just answering back after your sally.
On a more serious note, as regards the idea of the possible compensation of farmers, I can only repeat the information available to me, which is to say that the Council has, for the time being, received no proposals from the Commission on this subject.
To put it quite plainly this means that no Community funding is planned at this stage.
Thus, for the time being, any procedures for compensation for farmers must be addressed to the national budgets.
My question follows on from the last point Mr Seppänen made.
This matter has been reported on recently in the UK and indeed a British Government adviser said that she would not recommend that her children eat French beef because, she alleged, in France older cows are still making their way into the food chain, parts from the nervous system are still being used in products such as sausages in France and there is still contamination of animal feed.
There is also statistical evidence that there is an increase of BSE in France and Portugal.
Will the Council ask the Commission to ensure that all necessary public health measures are being enforced in all 15 Member States, to ensure this disease is finally eradicated from the European Union?
I should not like to get into this very acrimonious debate or to get involved in bilateral French-British considerations.
I think this is not the right place and I am not the right person to discuss such matters.
I would just like to assure Mr Martin that the Council, which I am representing here, does indeed wish to ensure that measures are undertaken in all the countries of the European Union.
This is something other than a bilateral dispute. Moreover, that dispute - to put on my French hat for a moment - is one that we regret and we would have preferred not to have had to initiate it, even though we thought it necessary for consumer safety.
In the press recently we have been able to read that a number of European Union documents mentioned an 'accidental share of 0.3% of animal meal' , whether this was acceptable or not.
I should like to know, specifically, since this question has arisen, if this accidental 0.3% share is becoming an authorised 0.3% share for animal meal. If this were so, it would truly be an underhand way of subverting the precautionary principle which we are attempting to implement here.
Mrs Isler Béguin will pardon me if I do not wish to go into great detail in response to a debate on BSE which has a justifiable place in this House after entering into a debate on the Tobin tax.
I do not have any information other than that I have already given you.
I shall refrain from commenting on press articles concerning Community documents with which I am not familiar at the present time.
As usual, however, I can assure you that we shall give you a specific answer if you put a specific question to us.
Mr President, on a point of order would it be possible to reinstate Question No 2?
I was at a foreign affairs meeting when this question came up.
Unfortunately I had no prior notice that it was coming up because I have been in Sri Lanka for the last month heading an EU mission to observe the elections.
I beg your indulgence to hear the answer please.
I must tell you, Mr Cushnahan, that the document is distributed to all Members in their pigeonholes and that the secretariat of each political Group receives them on Mondays.
There is a rule: when you are not in the room at the appropriate time, the agenda continues.
The final question, therefore, is by Mrs Isler Béguin.
Question No 16 by (H-0731/00):
Subject: Ban on oil tankers in the Strait of Bonifacio The Strait of Bonifacio is an extremely dangerous passage for shipping.
And yet more than 4 000 vessels sail through it each year.
The Corsican and Sardinian coastlines on either side are of exceptional ecological and historical value, as acknowledged by the 1993 Franco-Italian agreement, which prohibits French and Italian merchant ships carrying hazardous products from travelling through the strait.
Far too much use is made of this passage by international shipping, in the hope of gaining no more than four hours, with all the risks it entails for vessels, many of which are in poor condition.
How many potential Erikas sail through it each year? When can we expect the next disaster?
Will the Council undertake to extend the existing ban to all vessels, whatever country they come from, and to introduce binding measures to protect the marine environment?
As it stands, Community legislation on the maritime transportation of dangerous or polluting goods concerns the minimum conditions required for vessels bound for, or leaving, Community ports.
These vessels are therefore bound to provide the Member State authorities with information on their itinerary and their cargo.
Furthermore, the directive on inspection by the port state requires Member Sates to inspect foreign vessels entering their ports in order to check that they are compliant with Community and international legislation on maritime safety, protection of the marine environment and working and living conditions.
Regarding international traffic in transit, international law stipulates, subject to certain reservations, that the vessels of all states have the 'right of innocent passage' in territorial waters.
The coastal states, however, while respecting this 'right of innocent passage' , are authorised to set a number of requirements in order to ensure the safety of shipping and protection of the environment.
In this context, the Commission has announced that it would present a proposal for improvement of the supervision of maritime navigation off European coasts.
Already, following proposals by France and Italy, the International Maritime Organisation, IMO, has adopted two resolutions, which have been in force since 1 December 1998, on establishing rules for shipping traffic in the Strait of Bonifacio and making it compulsory for vessels entering the strait to identify themselves.
It should also be pointed out that, following the wreck of the Erika oil tanker, the European Union has taken the initiative of encouraging, within the IMO, studies about replacing single hulled oil tankers with double hulled oil tankers.
The Council also recently issued favourable guidelines on the draft directives amending the 1995 directive on the inspection of vessels by the state port, and the draft on vessel inspection bodies.
These two drafts, which are currently being examined by Parliament under the codecision procedure, are further aspects contributing to reducing the risk of pollution.
I should, moreover, like to point out, as Commissioner Barnier did this morning, that these maritime safety issues, on the basis of a Commission communication, were dealt with in a totally positive fashion at the informal European Council in Biarritz, after the French Prime Minister simply asked the Commission to bring forward, if at all possible, the cut-off date for authorisation of single hulled vessels from 2015 to 2010, which seems quite a reasonable request, in any case, and a perfectly realistic ambition.
Thank you for your answer, Mr President, but the question went rather further.
We monitor, and we are familiar with, the work done by the Commission and the Council on the Erika 1 package, but regarding this strait, which is notorious in the two countries concerned and within the European Union as a particularly tricky passage, one often used by large vessels in order to gain just a few hours at the risk of some old tub' s running aground and causing a disaster, I should like to know, and more especially the inhabitants of Corsica and Sardinia would like to know, if it will be at all possible, and if you have any such plans, to issue a ban, pure and simple, on large vessels, containers, using the Strait of Bonifacio.
In my answer I mentioned the sensitivity to this issue in France and Italy which led the two countries to propose that the International Maritime Organisation adopt two resolutions on establishing routes for shipping traffic in the Strait of Bonifacio and requiring vessels entering the strait to identify themselves, which we know goes beyond the terms of civil law. These resolutions were adopted and came into force on 1 December 1998.
I should moreover like to point out, however, that there are other constraints upon us.
Regarding international traffic in transit, international law, particularly the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, stipulates, subject to certain reservations, that the vessels of all states have the 'right of innocent passage' in territorial waters.
However, the coastal state may - in accordance with the terms of the Convention and other rules of international law - adopt legislation and regulations on innocent passage in territorial waters that may have a bearing on the following aspects: shipping safety, regulation of shipping traffic, conservation of the coastal state environment, the prevention, reduction and control of pollution.
This is what we wanted to do in this context.
However, and this is a complete response to your question, any ban on all ships passing through the Strait of Bonifacio would have to be agreed at the international level and be subject to an international convention.
Any action by the two governments concerned is therefore limited by this international law.
Mr President, I have just one additional question.
What constitutes 'innocent passage' by a passenger boat through a strait like this?
Excellent question.
Thank you for asking.
As the time allotted to Questions to the Council has run out, Question Nos 17 to 46 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
2001 budget procedure (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the 2001 budget procedure.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur.
Along with other speakers, I have the impression that this year' s budget is particularly complex.
Some sections of the budget are difficult to implement.
I therefore believe that, in principle, we ought to support the Commission proposals for revising their staffing policy.
I, however, will vote in favour of the so-called performance reserve, for I believe that it is necessary that, at this stage, we obtain some more information, and in my view, that information should detail the conditions of early retirement and the consequences for staffing levels if some time in 2004, or maybe earlier in 2003, we will be recruiting officials from Central and Eastern European countries.
Finally, I also endorse the observation made in the Haug resolution that we need to pay bills on time as soon as possible, because the Commission will not come out smelling of roses if this situation continues for much longer.
I would also like to say a few things about agriculture.
In my opinion, the Commission has put up a poor show and the Council has compounded the situation by beating the Commission down on its agricultural expenditure schedule right at the start of this year in the Council meeting of July of this year.
We agreed on an ad-hoc procedure a few years ago which stipulated that we would determine agricultural expenditure more or less at the end of October in the lettre rectificative and yes, that is the long and short of it.
It escapes me how the Commission can give this estimate as early as February and the Council in July.
It amounts to no more than a stab in the dark and I believe that, if we agree on a set amount and if there is an added amount in Berlin, we should also try to fulfil that agreement.
The main point of discussion is category 4.
How can we finance emergency aid for the Balkans? I am in favour of it.
I believe we ought to do something in Serbia and the western Balkans as a matter of urgency.
The key question is, of course, how to finance this?
I am not a fan of artificially increasing certain budget lines so that we subsequently have to say that we need to exceed the financial perspective.
I would prefer us to first of all try to find the funds within the financial perspective.
If necessary, we could always look further afield, but at this stage, I have no reason to assume this.
I would like to say a few words about the budget implementation. I wanted to make two points, in particular.
I have just received a letter today from the Commissioner on the implementation of the SOS helpline, which, sadly, is desperately needed in Europe.
The Commission does not label this as information policy, but social policy.
Seen in this light, it does not belong in a line as voted by Parliament.
I would question that, for I think that it is just as much information policy as it is social policy, and I therefore hope to return to this topic within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development shortly.
The second point I wanted to make concerns quality policy for agricultural products, for which Parliament earmarked 50 million of the budget last year.
This has never been more topical.
The Commission made very little effort to implement this policy, which is deplorable.
Mr President, the European Union' s budget for next year has been prepared in difficult circumstances.
That is the fault of the Council.
The problems are the same as last year.
The previous European Parliament made this Interinstitutional Agreement, which was binding on this Parliament, a couple of months prior to the commencement of this parliamentary term, and it specified too low a ceiling for category 4 expenditure.
Then it was not known that the Council and the Commission would be promising aid for the reconstruction of Serbia and Kosovo, to come out of this money.
The political commitments made to the forces of opposition in the area of the former Yugoslavia must now be redeemed.
In this particular case that means revising the ceiling for category 4.
If the Council does not agree to that, Parliament will have to terminate the Interinstitutional Agreement on so-called budgetary discipline.
New money is needed in the budget for Serbia and Kosovo.
It is not right that the assistance to the poor in the area of Yugoslavia should be paid for by the poor in the area of the Mediterranean, Russia or other poor countries, although the Council would have it that that is precisely how we should go about matters.
I would like to focus attention on the fact that there seem to be sufficient amounts of European Union money for financing political parties at European level, but not, for example, for the prevention of unemployment.
I am astonished at the proposal that Europarty support should be paid for out of the Commission' s article in category 3.
That would mean that the Europarties would be getting support twice over.
If they have not hesitated before to misappropriate the European Parliament' s resources to finance their own work, we can only imagine that they are continuing to do so, although they might be receiving subsidies from the Commission. Or does someone believe that the Europarties are being made to pay rent to Parliament or pay for their own communications costs here?
Our group takes a mainly dim view of Europarty support and its abuse in the future.
Mr President, this year' s budget is, in my opinion, neither very negative nor very positive. Why is this?
Clearly, although, on the one hand, a constructive relationship has been maintained with the Commission, thanks to Commissioner Schreyer and to Mr Wynn who chaired the Committee with the patience of a saint, on the other hand, the Council tried to monopolise our budget completely. It may have arrived at the same result but, in political terms, it certainly did not acknowledge the results achieved by our Committee on Budgets.
Going so far as to hold back on the decision on the operations in Kosovo and Serbia at a time of such pressing urgency while advancing mere formal issues is certainly not a good image for the Community to be presenting to the rest of the world in political terms.
I would nevertheless emphasise, in particular, that, six months ago, one of the political priorities was stressed in this Chamber.
I quote the exact words of Parliament' s resolution: 'The European Parliament requests the Commission to pay special attention to structural problems of an economic or social character caused by natural disasters and to look favourably on measures to help solve these problems; Stresses the need to re-establish line B4-3400 (urgent aid for natural disasters within the European Union) so that urgent needs can be addressed immediately, fully respecting the principle of subsidiarity' .
Well, none of this has been achieved.
Quite the contrary. At a time in which, with the approach of enlargement and the euro crisis, we need to reinforce the bridges created over the last 50 years between the peoples of the European Union and the Union itself, a Community intervention to assist the peoples who are victims of natural disasters is, at the very least, politically appropriate, and is morally urgent.
The same Mr Casaca, who tabled an amendment similar to mine which has my full support, pointed out in a letter - which you have all received - that paradoxical situations have arisen in the past and are in danger of arising in the future, in which urgent operations to assist disaster-stricken areas within our Union are carried out by American marines rather than by Europe itself.
This is just one of the potential situations. Another scenario is that the Member States are left to do entirely as they please.
By acting in this way in the name of subsidiarity, the Union is, in actual fact, shirking one of its responsibilities, as it has in recent weeks both in northern Italy and in Spain.
My observations are frequently criticised for lacking a legal basis. Well, I am going to give you a few references.
How many entire families are at death' s door?
Is one of the Union' s objectives not to protect health and safety? This is part of Title 13 of the Treaty.
How many entire road and other transport networks are becoming unusable? Is one of the Union' s objectives not to make them usable once more?
That is what Title 5 of the Treaty says. We could also cite Title 7 and Title 8 of the Treaty on industries and firms which are forced to close down.
Are we not going to jeopardise the common economic and employment policy? I refer you to Title 2 of the Treaty.
As for harvests which are wiped out in the space of a few days, does this not come under one of the pillars of the Union?
So let us stop trying to hide behind a pointing finger and do something instead! Where is the problem?
Does this House really feel that a Community intervention in this sector would be contrary to the principle of subsidiarity? I do not think so, and I feel that it is morally right to support the amendment upon which we are going to vote on Thursday.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our budget for 2001, with its EUR 92.5 billion in payment appropriations adds two new items to the traditional features.
As far as new features are concerned, in the first place, it is the first time the budget has been presented in functional terms, classed by programme and not just according to administrative divisions, with 19 policies covering 200 activities, which is the system currently used in most countries. France is currently carrying out reforms to this end.
The second new feature is the shift in the battleground the budget war is waged on.
What we have had so far is a war over compulsory or non-compulsory expenditure or over the maximum rate of increase. Now the war between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, the two budgetary authorities, is tending to shift towards the revision of the financial perspective, which has, in fact, been revised 38 times since the Delors package, and towards a battle over category 4, i.e. external action.
As regards the traditional features, apart from the problems of ensuring that the projections are honest ones, we have, first of all, the problem of budgetary cuts for European farmers, with EUR 300 million of agricultural aid and EUR 225 million of appropriations for rural development cut.
There is nothing for beekeepers, who were asking for a mere EUR 15 million, even though it is possible to increase expenditure for the Balkans by 30%.
The second traditional feature is the way ideological allies are fêted.
We have the whole kit and caboodle of subsidies for associations working with drugs, xenophobia, immigrants, the Jean Monnet House, the exile council, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, even the PRINCE campaign. EUR 38 million are being cast away on the campaign on the euro.
Finally, the third traditional feature is the budgetary funds poured into foreign preferences.
There are poor people in Europe too, even if only retired farm workers.
It is shocking to see Mr Wurtz and Mr Fodé proposing amendments to give appropriations to Chile, Australia, South Africa.
Charity begins everywhere except at home. We are even throwing EUR 250 000 away for the WTO 'world parliament' .
I hope, Mr President, and this is my concluding remark, that we are at least going to cut the EUR 50 million budget lines financing the Israel-PLO peace agreement.
I hope that not one single euro will go to the Israeli army so that they can buy bullets to kill Palestinian youths on their own soil.
Mr President, in the Haug report the sentiment is expressed that the Commission, in close cooperation with Parliament, is responsible for providing information to the European citizen about the policies of the European Union.
But Parliament has another responsibility: it is to represent the concerns of the citizens of Member States to the European Union, something which appears to be discouraged here.
It will be not unknown to some Members here that my party, the UKIP, seeks the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union.
What Members will not be aware of, though, is that according to recent opinion polls, that is now the majority view of United Kingdom subjects.
As an MEP who cares about that majority, how can I endorse the spending of GBP 11.5 billion of UK taxpayers' money - that is our current annual contribution - when it does not have broad public approval?
In the UK at least, the Commission is synonymous with fraud and waste.
The Court of Auditors has refused to sign off the accounts for five years running, and OLAF has indicated that financial controls have not yet significantly improved, and that the Commission reforms are stalled. Therefore, what assurances are there that controls are now going to be in place to make sure that Member States taxpayers' money is well spent?
What assurance can the Commission give, when the Court of Auditors comes to look at the expenditure for 2001, that this budgetary allocation will have been spent wisely and correctly? When other Members are also expressing their concerns about the way monies are to be spent - for example the Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left has just decided unanimously to lodge a motion to reject this budget - can anyone at all give me a reason why I should change my mind and give my vote to this budget?
Mr President, the problem with the 2001 budgetary year is more one of quality than of quantity.
We all know that there was no category relating to external action in the financial perspective adopted in Berlin.
The military action against Serbia, aid for reconstruction, the foreseeable fall of Milosevic.
A lot of need and little money.
However, the financial perspective was a success because it was, at the time, the only possible agreement between 15 Member States.
The Interinstitutional Agreement that resulted from the Summit was good news for the powers of this Parliament.
External needs reveal the shortages in category 4.
However, what emerges most clearly now is the huge problem of the under-utilisation of all categories of spending: in rural development, in the Structural Funds, in the major external aid programmes.
What is happening in the European Union budget? With what was not implemented in previous years we could fund another year without fresh resources.
In any national, regional or local administration, such under-utilisation would put the heads of some of those responsible on the block.
In the European Union, we do not even know who is responsible.
Therefore, in the European Parliament, we will propose new measures, not so much aimed at seeking new funding - which we already know cannot be implemented under current conditions - but at establishing new institutional commitments that will improve the quality of spending and ensure that not a single euro is wasted.
And you, Commissioner, will have to revise the commitology agreement, even if it seems impossible.
The efforts of the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, to incorporate the suggestions of our Group on that subject deserve a great deal of gratitude.
We should recognise that she is being a very reasonable rapporteur and that she is seeking consensus.
In the medium term we will see the importance of the decisions that Parliament is beginning to take today.
It is true that, if the Council took an intransigent position, it would make things difficult in such important areas as the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument for MEDA, the management committees, increases in payments in order to absorb the remainder that needs to be paid or the extension of the N + 2 planning procedure to external actions.
If the Council took a flexible position, we could reach an agreement at second reading in order to close the budget.
Let us remember that the European Parliament has accepted a very low category 4, it has accepted a revision of the financial perspective being a possibility rather than a political priority, it has accepted a considerable cut in the European Union' s external aid. In short, it has agreed to play on a field that extends the Council' s budgetary prerogatives to the detriment of our own.
But they cannot be extended ad infinitum.
Today we are also debating the Colom i Naval report on the Interinstitutional Agreement, in which the Commission undertakes to present Parliament with all the necessary information for initiatives that have financial implications.
Now, in 2000, after more than 15 years of parliamentary history, is when this initiative comes to Parliament.
Well we hope that there will be a similar undertaking from the Council.
The European Parliament is the other branch of the budgetary authority and, despite this, it is the press that often informs us of the Union' s new financial commitments made in the European Councils.
Then, when the commitment has already been announced and made, they just have to ask the Commission and its Commissioners to make a gap in the budget and Parliament to accept it.
This cannot continue either, it is not good for anyone, not for the Member States, not for the institutions, not for the European Union.
What credibility can a European Union that operates in this manner have? How can our policy have credibility?
Members of the Council, wherever you are, I consider myself to be a very moderate Member, who always defends the path of interinstitutional cooperation, both with regard to the budget and to any other matter.
We are now at first reading and you have enough time to seek full agreement with Parliament.
Consider the fact that, in European policy, as in any other field, sometimes the moderate options cease to be the majority options.
My congratulations to all the rapporteurs and also to Mr Ferber, the rapporteur for the other institutions with which we are most concerned. There are three major issues which we should be concerned about in relation to the budget for other institutions.
Firstly, how far does this budget improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the institutions?
Secondly, how far does it increase transparency and accountability to the European citizen? Thirdly, how far does it plan and prepare for the future of the enlarged Union?
On the first point, I believe that this budget continues to apply the principles of budgetary rigour, budgetary prudence, improving efficiency, more effective budget control, better use of resources and a general tightening up, which are all vital to increase the confidence of the EU citizen in the institutions.
There are obviously in this budget exceptions for the Court of Justice, which are clearly justified.
Here the circumstances are exceptional, with an increased number of court cases and a huge backlog of translation, but in all the other institutions, rigour is applied.
Having said that, the principle of budgetary rigour can be developed further in every area.
In the case of Parliament, how can we talk about budgetary rigour and still base ourselves in three different cities, in three different Member States? We need to be seen to be practising what we are preaching.
Without wishing to give offence to our host city here in Strasbourg, our monthly part-sessions in this city are a manifest waste of time, money and Parliament' s ability to be effective and efficient.
This equally applies to the separation of Parliament' s administration between Luxembourg and Brussels.
If anyone needs convincing, just look at the evidence.
This resolution clearly shows that discontinuing the Friday morning Strasbourg sittings will lead to savings of some EUR 1 million.
Just imagine the savings that could be made if Strasbourg part-sessions were stopped altogether and Parliament was based solely in Brussels!
But it is not just the Treaties that need to be reformed.
The parliamentarians need to put their own house in order, especially in relation to the daily allowance paid to MEPs during constituency weeks.
I believe strict guidelines are necessary.
My group believes that Parliament' s Bureau needs to review its decision and also to draw up a full list, with clear criteria, for those exceptional cases where Members can draw a daily allowance for their presence in Brussels during constituency weeks.
Furthermore, we parliamentarians also need to address the issue of the statute for assistants.
This is long overdue and now urgently needed.
Too many people in this House have been prevaricating on this question for far too long.
If Parliament is ever to establish a reputation for transparency, a statute for our own assistants is indispensable.
All the institutions need to embrace reform whole-heartedly.
What we need is action and not just empty words in this area.
This is not just true of the issue of Parliament' s seat; reform of the European institutions needs to be brought about as quickly as possible.
The Commission is starting to get its own house in order and it is crucial that the other institutions are seen to follow suit.
In particular, the other institutions should follow the Commission as quickly as possible in implementing activity-based budgeting.
We can only be transparent and accountable if all the decision-makers are clear about the budget and what lies behind the budget.
One of my greatest frustrations over the last year is that it is so difficult to get behind the bureaucratic presentation of budget lines.
The system is anything but transparent.
It is designed to obscure rather than enlighten and I have been disappointed by the attitude adopted today with respect to activity-based budgeting.
But of course it is not enough to encourage reform in each institution separately.
Real savings can only be made if the institutions work together.
I fully support the emphasis in this resolution on improving interinstitutional cooperation, like the proposal for an interinstitutional recruitment office, which will provide real gains in efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
There needs to be greater vigour and determination for the Parliament, Council and Commission to cooperate as closely as possible on issues such as translation, interpretation, libraries and buildings.
Nowhere is it more important than for us to demonstrate value for money in the buildings policy.
This is one area that has come under considerable spotlight both from the media and from the general public.
We really need to develop a strategy to ensure there are no cost over-runs in the future and that they are suitable for the main users, including full accessibility for people with disabilities.
This strategy has already been introduced by Joan Colom i Naval, the Vice-President for buildings.
What we need to do now is turn this into a comprehensive blueprint design brief, so that we do not have any future problems.
Finally, what I find disappointing about this report is that it does not focus strongly on the need to plan and prepare for the future, especially in relation to the enlarged Union.
I think we will regret that we have not made even greater preparation for enlargement in this budget.
To conclude, whilst we are making significant inroads with this report on the first issues I highlighted - efficiency and effectiveness - on the second and third - transparency and accountability and planning for the future - we could have been even more ambitious.
Mr President, in submitting the Budget for the coming year, the Commission has this time chosen a new method of presenting the figures.
Instead of simply showing expenses distributed among accounts, the new-format Budget shows more clearly what we are getting for our money.
We have the expenses distributed among policy areas and according to activities.
It is a good innovation whose aim is more than purely educational.
The educational aspect lies in the fact that we shall all be better able to see what we are getting for our money.
As elected representatives, we are of course delighted with any move to make the Budget more easily understandable.
When, however, expenses are allocated according to activity, this also paves the way for the Budget' s being seen more in terms of a political tool, in which the distribution of expenditure reflects clear political priorities.
This spring, Commissioner Chris Patten illustrated this by asking why the EU was appropriating more money to cleaning up after Hurricane Mitch in Latin America than it had appropriated to developing the Russian economy.
That is the sort of question we must ask ourselves when we study the Budget, for it is of course questions of this kind that our voters will quite rightly be asking.
With the new format, it has therefore become easier to understand and take in the whole picture, but the new activity-based budgeting must also mirror the reform process whereby the Commission establishes a simplified form of administration involving delegation and a clearer allocation of responsibility, and this is of course something more difficult to achieve.
There are major organisational changes under way, and there is a need for a new culture involving both a genuine desire to accept responsibility for implementing the individual parts of the Budget and acceptance of the fact that there are consequences if the responsibility is not fulfilled.
I wish the Commission every possible success in these endeavours.
As Commissioner Schreyer has already mentioned, there are many political announcements coming out of this year' s Budget: the reorganisation of agricultural policy, new structural programmes, measures to ensure better implementation of the structural policy, and steps designed to follow up the decisions taken at the Lisbon Summit for creating a stronger and more competitive EU and for combating social exclusion.
These are important topics, but the topic which deserves most attention of all is, of course, foreign policy.
There is a great need for EU aid in both the applicant countries in the Third World and in the Balkans.
In the middle of the Budget procedure, the happy day arrived and Milosevic had to step aside, and the many promises of economic aid to Serbia must now be fulfilled.
All of us - the Council, Parliament and the Commission - agree that we must be thrifty, and we have all kept dutifully below the established ceiling for expenditure.
So the discussion about how we are to obtain the money for Serbia does not have to do with any unwillingness to remain within a financial framework.
I do not think our electorate will appreciate technical justifications in terms of the Budget for the fact that we cannot in harmony find the money for Serbia and the Balkans without reducing our efforts in other countries.
There is no popular demand to the effect that there must be no revision of the financial perspective.
There is, however, a popular demand that we solve the problem of how best to provide aid to Serbia.
So let us therefore find a solution which will last for several years so that, next year and the year after that too, we do not have to go through this discussion as to how we are to find money for reconstruction in the Balkans.
Mr President, may I first of all express my admiration for the rapporteur.
It is astonishing how, in the course of the many sittings we have had, you have juggled the various aspects of this difficult material.
I feel quite dizzy sometimes, and I have to make sure I am keeping up.
I should really like, however, to set another priority. I recall that during the last legislative period - when, if I remember rightly, you were a budgetary expert in the Berlin regional parliament, Commissioner Schreyer - we discussed whether we could manage with the 1.27 limit, given the problems and tasks facing us.
Enlargement was the issue at stake.
At that time, the efforts on behalf of Kosovo and Serbia were still not even in the pipeline.
We discussed whether we should call for this framework to be expanded.
With the budget and also with the draft budget for 2001, we are now a good EUR 20 billion below this 1.27 margin, and I should like to make it clear to my fellow MEPs that it does not make sense to engage in useless expenditure.
Nor, however, does it make sense for a Parliament to restrict itself in the Budget and yet always to meet countries' demands and to make proposals as to how everything might be achieved at a time when policy is being extended and the Budget trimmed.
Another area I wanted to address is that of agricultural policy, where most of the savings have been made.
I am adamant that it is not that too much money has gone on agriculture and the countryside.
Instead, it has gone into the wrong channels in recent years. Those of us in Parliament have a strong vested interest in what is, or is not, politically apposite.
In this connection, I should like to call attention to the fact that - specifically through the law relating to budget discipline which I would describe as a law designed to safeguard the budget - compulsory funds for agriculture are changed into non-compulsory funds in cases in which, on the one hand, the funds are insufficient and countries have had to grant additional appropriations but in which, on the other hand, the Commission is required, whenever this framework is in danger of being too restrictive, to make proposals to ensure that these appropriations are to no degree exceeded.
I think there are dangers in our continuing always to exploit agriculture for more resources, in our cutting back on it little by little and in our basing the next allocation on what has now of necessity been saved. In this way, we slowly embark upon a slippery slope whereby the money we urgently need for rural development is lost.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, budget debates ought really to be highlights of parliamentary life.
I think that is still a long way from being the case, however.
The Berlin Council has proceeded on the basis of an upper limit for the Budget of 1.135%.
The Commission is now quoting a figure of 1.07, and the Council wants a figure of 1.05.
1.27 is really the Agenda figure.
This is happening at a time when, as is well known, expenditure on the Balkans is increasing.
The total quoted so far of EUR 200 million for Serbia hardly even begins to meet the real needs.
Almost the same sum has already been donated to the election campaign.
The NATO war destroyed too much and left too much suffering in its wake.
The new political forces, which meet with this Chamber' s approval, have the task of engaging not only in political work but also in construction work and of removing the debris from the NATO war in the form of ruined factories, schools, hospitals, bridges and other structures.
I would particularly emphasise that we must accept responsibility for the fate of everyone in the country, including more than 500 000 refugees in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
No other country has accepted so many refugees.
Parliament is now being called upon to ensure that restraint is exercised in areas of social policy and to restrict funds for development policy at a time of increasing world poverty.
This already shows that the European Union' s ability to acquire the States of Central and Eastern Europe as new members not only depends upon reforming the institutions but also - and, I think, to a very much greater extent - challenges the European Union' s ability to deliver.
Unless a different budget policy is pursued, the very accession of these States will cause the poverty line to run still more deeply in Europe.
What is needed are neither speeches nor explanations, but practical and social action on the part of a European Union now acting as a single unit and in which Parliament is required to make its own contribution.
I welcome the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this important debate and to dwell on the importance of the agricultural budget and its relevance not just to farmers but to society in general.
Those with an interest in developing a sustainable agricultural sector will be aware that the central thrust of recent reform as agreed in Berlin is a continuing move from commodity support to direct income support for farmers.
So it is both a social and an economic measure and it is designed to bring prices into line with world trade, while at the same time attempting to retain the European model based on family farming.
A point not always made is that this sizeable budget provision is not just confined to support for farmers but is also a factor in the provision of cheap food for European citizens.
In some areas of agricultural activity, such as bee production, EU support represents the profit margin which in effect means consumers enjoy a quality food product at production costs and regretfully, as demonstrated in recent years, sometimes below the cost of production.
In Berlin last year it was agreed that the budgetary provision for agriculture for the period 2000-2006 will be over £506 billion, that the 15 Member States of the European Union will continue to contribute 1.3% of gross national product to the overall annual budget - which of course includes measures to finance the proposed enlargement of the European Union, a proposal which I and my other colleagues fully support.
We fully support the concept of enlargement and the provision of sufficient resources to make the applicant states' transition to membership meaningful.
Despite what has been agreed, I sometimes wonder if it is possible to achieve this objective within existing budget constraints without undermining the agricultural budget necessary for a sustainable rural sector in existing Member States.
In this regard I believe that we have to act as politicians; we cannot expect to be magicians in a situation where there may not be sufficient funds to develop the economies of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe along the lines that the existing Member States would want to see them developed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you see before you a frustrated Member of the European Parliament.
Frustrated because, after lengthy debates within the Committee on Budgets and after the commendable efforts of the general rapporteur, to whom I must pay tribute, I cannot see exactly what Parliament' s intentions are regarding the key problem of the revision of the financial perspective.
By and large, we have two standpoints, that of the Council which persists in wishing to fund the new requirements of Kosovo and Serbia from the budget total established in Berlin without revision, and that of the Commission which is proposing to revise the financial perspective in order to finance these new requirements without seriously affecting the other policies, particularly the MEDA programme.
To date, Parliament has always been in favour of avoiding redistributing funds within category 4 in order to finance the new requirements.
It therefore declared itself in favour of revising the financial perspective.
Today we feel that it is continuing to fight on this line, but not down to the last bullet.
In spite of the rapporteur' s bolder proposal, we have voted in a text which does not mention the word "revision" , as if it was too vulgar a term, the r word rather than the f word, nor does it mention amounts, as if it were possible to reach any negotiated solution without specifying the amounts involved.
I am concerned, and since I belong to a group that occasionally remembers that it was once Christian Democrat, I should like us to be faithful to the word of the Gospels and let your yea be yea and your nay, nay.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would, of course, like to thank all rapporteurs.
I believe they have worked very hard.
Every time, it is a feat of strength if the budget can be brought to a good close and I believe congratulations are in order here.
A budget is always more than a mere juggling with figures.
Behind each figure, behind each budget line, behind each allocation, there is a policy to be adopted, there are political goals, huge expectations and, more than anything, people.
I was able to experience this first-hand over the past two weeks when, during a trip in the Western Balkans, I visited Kosovo and Bosnia.
And I happened to be in Pristina when President Kostunica was welcomed in Biarritz with the necessary pomp and circumstance and was handed EUR 200 million in the form of winter aid there and then, no strings attached.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, that was a political act which was not particularly received well by the Albanian Kosovars.
I was asked why the Union does not seize the change of power in Serbia to put permanent pressure on the new regime, even if it was to set those 914 people free who are imprisoned in Serbian gaols forthwith?
And I am telling you loud and clear: Kostunica must be given his chance here and I therefore hope that he will give amnesty in the next couple of weeks or months, but meanwhile, I do want the introduction of those two new budget lines, democratisation and reconstruction, to be accompanied by political conditions, both from a political and budgetary perspective.
As far as I am concerned, Serbia should not receive any funding without giving us the guarantee of more stability and absolute respect for the rights of the Kosovars, the Montenegrins and for respect of the Dayton Agreement of November 1995.
For it is true that my visit to Bosnia taught me that the situation there is very problematic indeed.
All the people I talked to over there applauded the switch of power in Serbia, but they all feared a reduction in the financial resources at the same time.
A euro can only be spent once and may this serve as a caution to both you, ladies and gentlemen, as well as the absent Council.
There is a great deal to be done in Bosnia.
Just think of the return of the refugees and the clearing of mines.
I have visited the project.
Those people need funds urgently for if the mines are not cleared, the houses cannot be rebuilt and the economy of this very fragile state cannot be made viable.
A reduction in the financial resources translates in less stability in the Western Balkans.
I therefore back all efforts, together with Mr Lagendijk, to inject maximum funds in the Western Balkans.
If necessary, category four should be broken down in our view and the financial perspective should be reviewed.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to see Europe remain a political dwarf and I certainly do not want another war in the Western Balkans, at less than 1 500 km from here.
Let us therefore, in the capacity of budget authority, assume our political responsibility.
Mr President, the Council really has surpassed itself in its proposed draft budget 2001.
Demands are increasing, whether we like it not, and yet the Council, year on year, has reduced the overall size of the budget.
As a percentage of European GDP, it has fallen from 1.27% to below 1.05%.
This has dramatic repercussions on funding for agricultural policy, social policy, employment, research and a whole host of other areas of economic, social and development policy, at the expense of the regions in the Union lagging behind and at the expense of the broader social classes.
In the final analysis, it is immoral to cut spending on agricultural policy, on the MEDA programme and on the socially excluded, in order to find the resources to finance the European Union' s commitments in Kosovo and Yugoslavia.
It was not the farmers and the poor in the Mediterranean who decided and went ahead with the NATO bombings, but it is they who are paying for the damage.
The damage in the Balkans needs to be restored, but it should be paid by for those who were responsible for it.
This budget is unacceptable.
The European Parliament has just one way of showing that it has self-respect and respect for the people in the Member States and that is to accept the amendment tabled by our group and reject the entire budget.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I only want to express an opinion on a part of this Budget, namely that relating to Serbia.
The elections in Yugoslavia have shown two things: that the people have finally had enough of the dictator Milosevic and that they have confidence in Professor Kostunica.
The challenge faced by the new President is, at the same time, a challenge to us Europeans.
The process of democratisation has only just begun.
The retreat of the old Serbian government and the formation of a transitional cabinet of experts, as well as the election of the new Serbian parliament on 23 December of this year, are important prerequisites for replacing the old socialist-communist nomenclature in the Republic of Serbia, just as it has already been replaced in Montenegro, and for opening the door to democratic changes.
Important institutional decisions have already been made in the last ten days.
The independence of the Yugoslav national bank has been secured.
The customs administration has finally ceased to be an instrument of corruption.
It is now also important that the trade sanctions should be lifted by the EU as quickly as possible.
Commissioner Patten, who is in Belgrade today, ought to endorse the proposal made by those who exercise responsibility in that country, to the effect that all trade sanctions should be lifted and that firms associated with war criminals should be blacklisted.
In order to safeguard the success of the democratic forces in the elections, as well as Kostunica' s initial successes, we must do something.
The Yugoslav economy is completely ruined.
Our fellow MEP, Mr Modrow is no longer here, but he should be listening.
The economy has, in the very first place, been ruined because of incredible mismanagement on the part of Milosevic and his wife Markovic, who was, and is, also chairman of the Communist Party and to all intents and purposes the head of a large mafia.
In the second place, it has been ruined by the sanctions imposed upon the country because of Milosevic and, to a small degree, by the NATO bombings.
It is incredible that a country which formerly exported food can now no longer feed its people.
Winter is coming, and there is a shortage of gas, oil and heating equipment.
The fact that, following Kostunica' s election, the Serbian parliament immediately lifted the restrictions upon prices which had until then been frozen, led to a price explosion, which might cause people to misunderstand the policy pursued by Kostunica who, however, had no influence at all upon this decision.
Political stability depends upon the improvement of living conditions.
To put it simply: the people of Serbia ought neither to freeze nor to go hungry this winter.
That is why I most particularly welcome the fact that our fellow MEPs from the Committee on Budgets have made every effort to provide the emergency aid of EUR 200 million for this year, Mr Modrow, and not for next year, there still being two and a half months of this year left.
With these funds, we could show that Europe is the real partner in this region.
The latest elections contributed a further 80 municipalities to our democratic contacts at local level, so that we have a sufficient number of intermediaries at this level too.
Those responsible for politics and the economy in Serbia emphasise again and again that they do not wish to become dependent upon our help, but that they need our help now in order to alleviate need in the short term and that they will then need help to help themselves introduce a social market economy in the medium and long term and in order also to make necessary foreign investment possible.
I was very pleased today to hear Professor Kostunica officially acknowledge as crimes his predecessor' s actions against the Albanians and accept responsibility for these.
I am sure that the Albanian political prisoners will also be released soon.
Professor Kostunica deserves our support.
I am also sure that this Parliament will concur with this judgement of mine when he has spoken before us in this Chamber on 15 November.
The fact that it has today, at the same time, been decided to give EUR 175 million to poverty-stricken Kosovo shows that we do not forget the old challenges when new ones arise.
I very much hope that in the debate on the CARDS programme, which of course covers our financial commitment to all these countries, we show the same level of commitment and give each country its due.
If south-eastern Europe is to be a stable region, then individual States need to be stable, too.
Mr President, just two final touches to add to the 2001 budget, which are totally unconnected.
Firstly, I would like to say something about the backlog of payments which each year causes headaches as a result of the Council' s eagerness to cut payment appropriations, with the aim of obtaining this absurd and false saving, which looks very good on the national balance sheet, but which in reality only produces what we call a burden for the future, because it is clear that what has been committed to - commitments entered into - in previous financial years has to be fulfilled.
And what we have heard today from the Council, according to which there have not been any problems with payments, is not true.
It is not true, and I would have liked to have been able to remind Mr Patriat in person that in 1998 payments were even suspended for the Social Fund because EUR 1 million were lacking for the Structural Funds.
This is something that has been repeated.
There have always been a great deal of problems with payments.
Having said this, and also taking into account that the Commission itself has admitted that for 2001 applications from Member States for payments for the Structural Funds exceed the predictions of the PDB by EUR 8 000 million, I think that it is now time for the Council to start considering very seriously that we should do something about payments and not increase the backlog of payments.
I would also like to express my concern about the fact that the various Youth Parliaments have been included in the Socrates programme.
I am in no doubt about the reason for the existence of these parliaments, but there is no harm in pointing out that the Socrates programme derives from a legislative codecision procedure between Parliament and the Council, and that decisions such as this set a serious precedent which will, in the future, allow the inclusion of comments on programmes of any type of action that do not fit in elsewhere.
I think that this distorts the legislative procedure for adopting programmes and, above all, the content of those programmes.
Mr President, the current financial perspective clearly does not reflect our existing priorities and commitments.
The mainstay of Parliament' s strategy should be to force the Council to guarantee that new resources will be allocated to new objectives, in order to prevent these new objectives from being implemented using resources earmarked for existing priorities.
The European Parliament is fully entitled to call for the financial perspective to be revised, all the more so in the light of the draft budget proposed by the Council, which has shamelessly given us, in relative terms, the lowest budget in the last ten years.
If the financial perspective is not revised, we will inevitably be caught up in "financial engineering" , in redeploying resources and in cuts, either in general expenditure, social and environmental spending or in cooperation.
It is also true that in spite of this, appropriations for the Balkans will still be inadequate, not to mention the horizontal reserve, which will result in unacceptable constraints on cooperation policy, on the Cohesion Fund, or even on the issue of Timor, where the European Union has given firm international commitments.
We clearly appreciate certain aspects, specifically the fact that the year 2000 amounts for development policies have been retained.
This is not enough, however, to change our negative overall view of the draft budget, because it is inadequate. Hence our demand for the financial perspective to be revised.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about a Budget with some EUR 96.8 billion in commitments and EUR 94.7 billion in payments from Parliament' s point of view.
Far below the ceiling for own resources, therefore.
I believe that what matters is to use the 2001 Budget for a budgetary and administrative consolidation of the European Union while fulfilling the commitments which have been entered into, including those relating to the common agricultural policy.
The basis for doing so is to be found in the decisions made in connection with Agenda 2000.
I would also state very clearly in this Chamber that anyone who goes beyond this fails to understand the processes of adjustment and the structural changes at present under way in agriculture and in rural areas and will provoke a debate which might lead some day to Brussels' being told: we are sorry, the Commission is no doubt responsible for foreign trade and for competition law in the area of agricultural policy, but responsibility for everything else must again lie with ourselves because we are no longer going to allow the structures concerned to go downhill.
We have had to resort to the reserves in the different areas.
We do so not for the fun of it but because we want to make an impression and to see to it that responsible use is made of Parliament' s priorities.
We would not need to use these reserves if, for example, following an amendment to budget law or to the budget regulations - of the kind which certainly takes place at national level - the Committee on Budgets were to have the opportunity in future to block and freeze funds in the current budget year, if this were necessary and if Parliament' s views had not been taken sufficiently into account.
I want to say very clearly that, with regard to category 4, we on the one hand stand by the international political commitments which have been entered into and accept the new challenges.
For us, however, it is crucial that, on 15 November, the Commission should submit - as we shall demand that it do - a clear, detailed and intelligible report on how we are dealing with the commitments entered into so far and with the total arrears in payments.
I strongly advise the Commission to produce a thorough report so that we do not have to return to this problem area over the next few years.
Until these figures are available, there will be problems in releasing the general implementation reserve of some EUR 650 million.
Until this point has been clarified and discussed in detail, I flatly refuse to speak about any revision of the Financial Perspective.
It must also, of course, be made clear to the Council that it also has its share of responsibility for the deficiencies in the way that many external programmes have been handled.
I would state very clearly that we want to finance the programme for the Balkan region on the basis of the assessment to date, that is to say, however, not exclusively under heading 1 and not exclusively by revising the Financial Perspective, but by means of thoroughly sound multiannual financial planning.
I want to mention one final point which is also part and parcel of this issue.
In view of past experience, we want to help create a new culture of responsibility and administration at European level.
We say yes to 400 new jobs in 2001.
However, we would say just as clearly to the Commission that, before we are prepared to negotiate at all concerning the second tranche for 2002, we need a careful discussion and analysis of how, while respecting the substance of the acquis communautaire, Community law can be simplified, something which may save jobs both at Community level and within the Member States.
In the same way, we need a careful analysis on the part of the Commission of how, in the course of the enlargement process, European administration is to be developed.
So that we do not have to discuss these problems again in the next budget year, we should call for this right now so that the Commission is given a clear signal regarding the homework it has to do in the course of the next six months.
Mr President, it is a promising development that, this year, we are close to sharing the Council' s views where most of the important points are concerned and that we can show budgetary discipline but still uphold most of Parliament' s priorities.
As a Europhile Social Democrat from a Eurosceptic country, I think it is necessary to show that the EU is making efforts which are important to citizens.
In this connection, efforts are required to solve the major social problems, for example unemployment.
The development of technology in small companies is also a key issue.
It looks as though we are going to succeed this year.
The most significant task still to be accomplished relates to the Balkans, of course.
It is unfortunate that the Council wants to cut back on aid to the Balkans, with the exception of Serbia, by almost a quarter compared with the Commission' s proposal.
There are no objective grounds for this proposal.
With the decisions to transfer EUR 175 million to Kosovo and EUR 200 million to Serbia, we have hopefully managed to finance the most acute needs in those countries, but we must not run the risk of people in, for example, Bosnia or Macedonia feeling that we are failing to keep our promises to them in order to be able to provide aid to Serbia.
That is particularly important, bearing in mind that there is money for efforts in all these areas.
The finance ministers did, of course, receive significantly larger sums of money back from last year' s Budget.
A stable solution is now required when it comes to these contributions and, to a still greater degree, to the long-term planning for the whole of the Western Balkans which is now necessary.
If we cannot find any other ways, we must be prepared to revise the Financial Perspective on the understanding that this is being done for the express purpose of finding resources for the current areas within category 4 and not for any other purposes.
For ourselves as Swedish Social Democrats, it is also important to point out that we must now emphasise Budget discipline in order gradually to create space for enlargement of the EU, which is perhaps the most important political task for our generation.
We therefore also believe that, in future, we must further reform agricultural policy in the direction of lower costs and that we must definitely remove expenditure such as aid for tobacco cultivation, which makes no sense at all.
Mr President, unlike Mr Bourlanges, I am not frustrated by this procedure but I must say that this must be the most mind-numbing budget I have known in the Committee on Budgets for years.
Whilst there are so many underlying problems, there is relatively little evidence of this in this House, which might be unfortunate.
It is perhaps a kind of transitional year, a year wedged between last year' s nerve-racking events and those which may lie ahead next year.
In any case, not a great deal has happened.
There is, of course, one crucial event, namely that a start has been made with category four and with looking at ways how we will deal with it, but it is not yet entirely clear whether we have managed to resolve this, partly because the Council refuses to have sufficient input in the attendant thought processes.
The guiding principle has always been Berlin, Berlin, Berlin, but listening to the Minister, it appears that Berlin is out of the frame.
In fact, it is not in the picture ... or even in the credits.
It is as if Berlin never happened at all.
In addition, as Mrs Dührkop already pointed out, there is the fact that there are indeed problems with payment credits.
The Minister simply had his facts wrong.
We in the Social Fund have had problems with payment appropriations.
We should not forget that we are still in the initial stages and that a problem with payments will always occur later on.
Agricultural policy is also working out in our favour, because the euro is so low, which always leads to certain benefits.
It could well be the case that next year or the year after, we will all of a sudden have an enormous need for payment appropriations.
And then I will be interested to see if the Council is prepared to make the necessary credits available or if they will come up with a different excuse why it cannot be done.
This is the risk, in my view.
The system assumes that the payment appropriations more or less simply follow the spending patterns, but the Council adds its own mechanism, and it is that mechanism which threatens to undermine Berlin, despite the fact that Berlin is under way in real terms.
I would like to add one more thing.
I do believe that the Committee on Budgets should be careful not to intervene too often or too horizontally in proposals put forward by the expert committees.
In my view, things have got somewhat out of hand this year and serious deliberation is what is now needed.
Mr President, we are to make decisions about the EU' s Budget at first reading.
This means, however, that we are only at the beginning of the Budget process.
That is important to note because we are at present at a stage entailing an unduly large increase in the EU' s Budget.
If the increase were to be carried out, this would mean further increased costs for all households within the EU.
For Sweden, this would involve approximately EUR 65 million.
I believe that most people are prepared to accept this, on the understanding that the money is used in the right way.
Where the present proposal is concerned, I am not however certain that people think it will be.
It is therefore a question of using the time well.
This applies, of course, to the Committee on Budgets and to the European Parliament, which have to do the necessary prioritising, but it is above all the Council of Ministers which has a clear responsibility.
The increase is inexplicably high in category 1, that is to say the EU' s comprehensive agricultural policy about which the Council of Ministers has the last word.
We are talking about an increase of more than six per cent, both for payments and commitments.
At the Council meeting (Budget), which takes place at the end of November, initiatives ought, in my opinion, to be taken to produce a significantly lower rate of increase for category 1.
If the Council does this, it will also be more credible in coming back to Parliament with a demand for corresponding measures to be taken.
Prioritising is important in all Budget work.
This applies to enlargement in accordance with the decision at last year' s Berlin Summit, as well as to our efforts to meet our commitments in Serbia.
By adopting the necessary priorities in the Budget, we shall tackle both of these historic commitments successfully.
As I see it, we shall be able to do this within the framework of the Financial Perspective backed by the European Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I join in congratulating all the rapporteurs.
It is only right to highlight the efforts that the general rapporteur, Mrs Haug, has made in seeking an intelligent consensus, which I hope will not be frustrated.
But I would like to focus my comments on the ECSC operating budget, which needs to be examined in the light of the fact that we are on the threshold of the expiry of the Treaty.
Its final amount is modest and correct.
Our group relates the strategy for the general budget to the quality of spending and efficient management, and this also extends to the ECSC budget.
I share the concerns and opinions that the rapporteur, Mrs Rühle, mentioned this afternoon regarding the sections on research and social measures.
But what is also important is to insist that the allocations are used correctly.
A sector such as steel, thanks to technological research and development, has ceased to be an industry that only generates basic products and has become one that puts semi-processed products on the market with added value.
Therefore, sustaining and increasing research programmes in that sector is a key issue today, with the ECSC instruments, and in the future, when they disappear.
On the other hand, it is important for the peace of mind of thousands of workers, and compatible with the overall amount planned, that the level of aid planned for this financial year for the social chapter for coal should be maintained.
The ECSC operative budget for 2001 does not move away substantially from the line taken in recent years.
It therefore takes on the same faults.
You only have to look at the amount entered coming from commitments that have not been implemented.
This is not very serious with the expiry of the Treaty very close on the horizon, but it would be worrying if the post-ECSC legal framework maintained the possibility of prolonging such practices.
We are therefore paying close attention to the proposal for a decision on the financial consequences of the expiry of the Treaty.
The Commission will have to look at a transparent mechanism so that the European financial institutions can, at the correct time, evaluate what is remaining from the ECSC and be protected from any possible failures to pay by debtors and so that, through a system of public competition, maximum profitability can be achieved.
Mr President, one of the great privileges of parliamentarians is to talk about the budget.
As an old House of Commons man I am delighted that we have this opportunity here today.
There is an old saying: "No taxation without representation" .
However, when we look at the development budget there are all sorts of peculiarities which we should concentrate on.
We accept that there is waste and inefficiency in the development budget.
I know that the Committee on Development and Cooperation is looking very hard at it.
So is the Committee on Budgets.
There was a reference earlier to Hurricane Mitch and money going to the people in those little islands.
In fact no money has gone to the people in the little islands because we could not get our act together and help the people who needed the money.
But my main point is about the ACP.
Two weeks ago we had the ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly.
It is no longer a joint assembly.
It is now a Joint Parliamentary Assembly. And that brings me back to my original point about representation and taxation.
Now 35 Members of Parliament from 35 different countries come together twice a year as Members of Parliament to discuss development and mutual cooperation.
Yet when you look at this joint assembly, it does not actually control a budget.
Yes, it is a parliamentary assembly but it has no budget to control, because the EDF budget which we use for the ACP is apparently controlled by the Member States.
During my time in the House of Commons not once do I recall any debate about the EDF budget and I doubt whether there is any debate in the Member States about the EDF budget.
So who does debate, as elected representatives, the EDF budget? I suspect no-one.
The Commission proposes and disposes.
We have a parliamentary assembly which does not have a budget.
We should look at this again.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to add a remark to what Mr Deva has just said.
It is one of the real scandals of Europe that sums amounting to billions from the Member States have still not been placed under the control of the European Parliament and made subject to this Chamber' s budget law.
No-one controls this money, and this is entirely the responsibility of the Member States and of the Council and, Mrs Rühle, also of the red-green government in Germany which, despite having previously stated otherwise, is also not now prepared to take this step.
Secondly, reservations were expressed a few weeks ago in terms of what would happen if a movement really were to arise in Serbia. Would the European Union be in a position to act in this matter at all?
We had, it was said, not set aside any of the money we had generously promised.
I believe that, in the last few days, the European Union has shown, faster than the United States and faster than the Member States, that it is in a position to respond appropriately to such a situation. Moreover, Parliament has this week, and before the Council too, reached important decisions to enable the developments which Doris Pack discussed actually to occur, namely the arrival of the initial sums before Christmas of this year and a situation in which people sense that the efforts on behalf of democracy are worthwhile.
That leads to my third remark on what now faces us.
I am concerned that, while our common foreign and security policy progresses ever further, becomes ever more skilful and even acquires a 'Mr CFSP' , and while we are also further developing the European security and defence policy and coming up with practical measures, we are, in the long term, spending less and less on foreign policy measures.
Special attention has again been given in this Chamber to the fact that we are beating a retreat from Latin America, Asia and Africa, and particularly from Latin America.
In the long term, it is therefore just not on to talk more about foreign policy and less about international solidarity.
We need to bring about changes in this area.
It is not right that the Budget should penalise other regions of the world, and it is also necessary for the Commission to bring about a situation in 2001 in which Commissioner Patten' s declared view prevails, to the effect that the money should flow more rapidly.
Mr President, I should like to join with Mr Pronk in asking you to look critically at the preliminary decisions of the Committee on Budgets regarding the deliberations of the specialist committees, in my own case the preliminary decisions on health and environmental policies.
For example, subsidising tobacco cultivation in the EU is simply no longer justifiable.
As you all know, this special form of cultivation is subsidised each year to the tune of EUR 1 billion, despite the fact that there is no market at all for European tobacco within the EU and it has to be exported.
What is more, we are working right now on the new directive on tobacco cultivation, the main objective of which is of course to explain to the consumer the harmful effects of smoking upon health.
This is supposed considerably to reduce tobacco consumption within the EU.
To go on subsidising tobacco cultivation at the same time is a downright contradiction in terms.
Instead, these subsidies must be removed step by step, though on condition that the farmers concerned are given structural aid for the purpose of switching production to other goods.
At the same time, budget funds from the Research and Information Fund ought to be made available for the purpose of researching into alternative forms of production for farmers who at present cultivate tobacco, and this is something we want to see happen.
I think these measures are at present the most sensible solution where the tobacco issue is concerned.
I am no dreamer.
I know that this proposal is not at present capable of winning a majority, but I should like to call upon as many fellow MEPs as possible to vote in favour of this package of measures in order simply to set an example so that we might finally make some headway on this issue.
Another important point relates to the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products in London.
This definitely requires an increase in its budget, for we ourselves have of course given it a new additional task. This agency is to promote the development of medicinal products - so-called orphan drugs - for rare diseases.
This has already been reported on today.
We ourselves have therefore arranged for corresponding legislation which did not come into force until April of this year.
It is merely being consistent now also to ensure that our decisions can be put into effect and that this agency' s funds are increased.
On the other hand, it would not be in our interests to support agencies whose work we cannot see as being of any discernible consequence and which do not produce any visible results.
In our view, that is the case with the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen.
The Committee on Budgets has also recognised this.
It is not a question of regularly increasing the funds of any old agencies but of promoting work of proven value.
This is what I am asking you to do, and I am asking you to vote accordingly.
Mr President, Commissioner, I come from Spanish Algeciras, opposite Gibraltar and not far from Morocco.
I have seen the fishing boats tossing in the harbour, a picture which spoke volumes, vividly illustrating the enforced inactivity of the fishermen. Or was it, or is it, an illustration of our own incapability?
The fishermen are inactive, tired and disappointed. For eleven months, there has no longer been an agreement with Morocco.
Mr Fischler is negotiating hard, but unfortunately without success so far.
Inhabiting, as they do, a region in any case lacking in infrastructure, the Andalusians are alarmed. Four thousand ships lie at anchor.
The Committee on Fisheries is alarmed, too.
Who is responsible for alternative jobs in the EU? Under which Budget heading can we pay for possible forms of restructuring?
The new Finance Agreement is of no use, and I see that mistrust of EU politicians is growing.
A serious, robust and optimistic Budget is therefore all the more necessary.
The combination of need, scope of action and flexibility is a whole new chapter.
The Committee on Fisheries takes a lot of flack.
It is very often a target of multiple attacks for financial and political reasons.
Unjustly so.
We are open to justified criticism from our own ranks, too.
However, we also want to be listened to and, in the field of employment alone, we speak for as many as 41 000 jobs, for which there are no alternatives.
Of course we are dependent upon a significant amount of imports.
It is true that the market is increasingly looking for private sales channels, but we ought not to evade our socio-economic duty.
We therefore at least need adequately worded fisheries agreements, provided that they have been assessed convincingly.
We therefore agree with the division into compulsory expenditure without reserves and into the token entry with reserves which take effect whenever we want to sign new agreements, namely those which do not come into effect until next year.
I am confident of a positive vote in this area, that is to say in the fisheries area as a whole, for I believe that only this will constitute an expression of our common political will.
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate tonight.
It is probably the most important Parliamentary debate in a twelve-month period, when we debate the budget.
It is rather ridiculous that we have to fight to put forward the points of view of the regions we represent.
Those who are in charge of the future of this Parliament would do well to recognise it is a one-day debate they require, not a two-day debate on the budget in future.
I say without apology that I am going to address the effects that the European Union has had in my region.
I want to make it very clear that the European Union, insofar as Northern Ireland is concerned, has had the most direct and positive influence imaginable.
It has been good for Northern Ireland.
It has been positive for Northern Ireland and has delivered for Northern Ireland.
The peace and reconciliation programme which was brought about by three Members of this Parliament in conjunction with the former President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, has been very positive for Northern Ireland.
The partnership boards have been a success in that area.
They have been innovative and have introduced new ideas.
They have also brought about a bottom-up philosophy that had never been appreciated before.
I also have to make it very clear that we now have a fledgling new regional government in Northern Ireland of which my party leader, David Trimble, is the First Minister.
It is trying to build a new future.
You have to understand that Northern Ireland, throughout the last 30 years, through the terrorism, has suffered tremendously.
We are trying to find new ways forward.
We are trying to find ways in which we can work together.
We are trying to find ways in which we can put things together to support each other.
I would ask that we be given the flexibility to achieve that possibility, to achieve the jobs, to achieve the employment and to be able to put the people of Northern Ireland back to work again, back to work in real politics rather than looking into other reasons as to why they may want to disagree with each other.
That is the objective.
It is something we all have to look forward to.
I want firstly to thank Parliament, secondly to thank the Committee on Budgets for their continued support and understanding for my region.
I pay tribute to them for that.
Thank you very much, Mr Nicholson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
Protection of personal data
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0279/2000) by Mrs Paciotti, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by the institutions and bodies of the Community and on the free movement of such data (COM(1999) 337 - C5-0149/1999 - 1999/0153(COD))
Mr President, in countries with a high level of technological development, the protection of privacy is always more at risk, and therefore appropriate safeguards must be established.
The countries of the European Union are at the vanguard in the protection of privacy compared to systems adopted in other parts of the world, especially those countries which have implemented the two directives, Directive 95/46 and Directive 97/66 - on the protection of individuals with regard to the protection of personal data.
The European model considers the protection of personal data to be a fundamental right guaranteed by legally binding rules, based on the principle of peoples' self-determination of data, that is the principle whereby everyone must be able to decide whether and how personal data concerning him can be collected and used.
In this model, respect for standards and procedures is guaranteed by an independent authority and final jurisdiction lies with the judges.
Since a great deal of personal data is also collected and processed by the institutions and the Union' s bodies, the system of guarantees contained in the European model must apply to them as well.
Therefore, a rule laying down the right of everyone to the protection of personal data concerning him, which must be processed fairly for specific purposes on the basis of the consent of the person concerned and subject to control by an independent authority, has been included in Article 8 of the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
Moreover, Article 286 of the Treaty establishing the European Communities, introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, lays down that Community acts on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of data - that is the two above-mentioned directives - apply to the institutions and Community bodies and that an independent supervisory body responsible for monitoring the application of such Community acts must be established.
The proposal for a regulation which is being examined by Parliament today implements these provisions, transposes the Community legislation and establishes the office of European Data Protection Supervisor, thereby providing appropriate, tangible guarantees of this fundamental right.
Over months of work and with the constant assistance of the Commission, we have attempted - and we can inform you that we have been successful - to produce a detailed regulation responding to the concerns voiced by the Council and by the Parliamentary committees responsible for assessing the regulation and formulating opinions.
The willingness of all the institutions concerned to discuss the matter resulted in exemplary cooperation which, it is my fervent hope, will make it possible for us to reach a consensus at the first reading.
The many joint amendments reproduce the majority of the solutions identified by the Council, and these already take into account the proposals made during the Parliamentary debate.
Acceptable solutions have therefore been reached, for example regarding the appointment of the European Supervisor and the Assistant Supervisor, which is to be agreed by Parliament and the Council from lists of names drawn up by the Commission following a call for candidates.
With the unanimous support of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, your rapporteur nevertheless insists upon certain amendments which, for example offer a novel solution to the much-debated subject of the scope of the regulation.
It is restricted to the Community context but a form of protection is provided for in respect of the activities of the institutions outside the first pillar; this solution is obtained by referring to the rules for the protection of privacy relating to the right of access to documents, governed by Article 225 of the Treaty establishing the European Communities.
In fact, Article 225, unlike Article 286, is also referred to in the Treaty on European Union.
Provision is also made for cooperation with the national supervisory authorities and with the authorities established in the third pillar, with a view to coordinating and gradually harmonising the entire regulation of this sensitive area.
Moreover, provision has been made for an autonomous budget heading, in accordance with the prevailing system for the European Ombudsman, in order to provide a greater guarantee of the independence of the Data Protection Supervisor.
I am confident that our untiring work will win the full approval of the European Parliament and the Council.
Thus, for the first time, codecision will apply at the first reading to an extremely complex text which is full of technical difficulties on the particularly sensitive sector of the protection of civil liberties.
The very technical complexity of the text suggests that it would be a good idea to postpone the vote until the next part-session in order to allow an accurate check to be carried out on all the different language versions, for this has not yet been carried out.
If this result is, as I hope, achieved, this will be due to the mediating capacities of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council, the positive contribution of the Commission and the sensitivity to public interest and the rights of the citizens displayed by the Members of Parliament of all the political groups which contributed to the adoption of the report by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs. I would like to thank them all publicly.
Mr President, the protection of personal privacy is a fundamental human right.
Every day, a host of personal data, for example in connection with telephone conversations and payments on the Internet, is recorded and put into circulation.
Personal data circulates within the EU in particular.
This proposal for a Regulation lays down sound bases for the protection of privacy.
Freedom of movement requires effective crime prevention, which is less successful without effective protection of privacy.
According to the proposal, the EU must not handle data concerning ethnic origin, political views, religion, health and sexuality at all.
Data concerning criminal backgrounds and security measures may only be dealt with if special conditions are fulfilled.
Such data may only be handled for legitimate reasons and if the individuals concerned are informed about the data.
I have been calling for a long time for independent European supervision of the protection of privacy, without new bureaucratic structures.
I think that Mrs Paciotti has come up with a successful proposal for a European supervisor able to guarantee the rights of individuals in relation to the institutions, to carry out supervision and to provide the institutions with advice.
At the same time, we must of course maintain and develop the cooperation that exists between the Member States' own data authorities.
It is important to establish a system that works and to merit people' s confidence.
The protection of privacy must therefore be developed.
The protection of personal privacy is included in the new EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
In the future, we may perhaps be able to go to court for further protection in this area.
Those of us who stand for European values in a Eurosceptic country are now being given further arguments in favour of the EU, namely more effective protection of privacy, which is important for the citizens of a modern society.
Even if this matter has been rather difficult to deal with, I nonetheless want to congratulate Mrs Paciotti on a very good report.
I hope, however, that the model which we have used in this Chamber and which has somewhat hindered MEPs from participating on a broad basis will not act as a guide to the way in which we are to deal with these issues in the future.
Mrs Paciotti has been very successful in uniting all the institutions. I therefore want to congratulate her, and I hope that the Chamber will support the report.
Mr President, our group considers that this is on the whole a good result and especially welcomes the fact that the area of application is extended to include the whole of Community law.
These rules are to apply, in particular, within the second and third pillars.
We welcome the wealth of initiative and invention which has characterised this work.
We should like to thank the rapporteur.
We think that the institutional solutions are very good.
We are not talking about some form of collegiate body but about a supervisor and assistant supervisor.
It is important to ensure that, important as data protection is, this must not mean limited access to documents within the EU' s institutions.
The European ombudsman has unfortunately been compelled to point out that the Commission has used data secrecy as a reason for limiting access to information about who had taken part in a meeting intended to sway the Commission.
This is an example of the misuse of data protection, which must not occur.
I really do hope it is ensured that the regulations will not be applied in that way.
We must also be aware of the fact that the European ombudsman and the data protection supervisor will be on opposite sides of the fence.
We must not be surprised if they sometimes end up in public discussion with each other.
The fact that their tasks have not been combined is extremely positive.
To some extent, this is an automatic transfer from the old Directive 95/46/EC.
In this connection, I want to take the opportunity to ask the Commissioner when revision of the general directive on data protection is to begin. There is, of course, an obvious need to revise this directive with a view to modernising it, so that it meets those needs mentioned by Mrs Cederschiöld.
Data protection on the telecommunications network ought also to be reviewed.
Finally, I want to point out that, as a Finnish citizen, I have realised that the European Parliament is the only institution - the only elected body - to supervise the Commission' s decisions when it comes to the level of data secrecy in third countries.
We are aware of the famous case in which such supervision was applied.
The European Parliament is the only body which can democratically supervise decisions by means of the committee procedure which exists.
I now see that my own country is to alter the law relating to personal data which deprives elected representatives of any influence at all over the Commission' s decisions.
I therefore welcome the constructive dialogue we have established with the Commission, together with the appropriate committee procedure which will guarantee citizens' security.
Ladies and gentlemen, fifty years after the start of the construction of Europe, it is high time for the European Union to at last endow itself with a supervisory authority designed to protect the people of Europe from the potential abuses related to the multiplication of computer-based files containing personal data.
The exponential growth of the European Union' s tasks and jurisdiction, and the proliferation of Community bodies, mean that we must have a precise legal definition of the citizens' rights, and these should cover the transfer of information between European Union institutions and bodies.
Under the codecision procedure, the Council submitted a proposal for a regulation to the European Parliament on the basis of Article 286 of the EC Treaty.
This article specifies that data protection should be effective within the European Union by 1 January 1999.
Nigh on two years later, we have not yet brought matter to a conclusion. This means we should not get embroiled in a lengthy codecision procedure which would delay the implementation of this instrument even longer.
This is what Mrs Paciotti has done, and I really think our rapporteur has done a truly remarkable job.
Let us get to the heart of the matter.
The main bone of contention between the European Parliament and the Council is to do with the jurisdiction of this future supervisory authority.
Should it confine itself to the first pillar, i.e. the purely Community bodies, institutions and legal standards, or should it cover all Union-related provisions, i.e. the second and third pillars, such as Schengen or Europol? We think it obvious that the risks related to the private lives of citizens and the misuse of citizens' personal data are far greater in the context of the third pillar, which at present is subject to little or no judicial and parliamentary control, than in the context of the first pillar, which falls within the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice.
In my opinion, it is clear that we would be closing our eyes to the problem if we set up an authority of this type to cover just the Community area, while the main problems arise and will, in future, arise due to third pillar bodies too.
Are you aware, for instance, that the Schengen system has amassed over ten million files on almost one and a half million citizens, and that Europol, whose sphere of competence is being incessantly expanded, has a central database of information from the various police forces of the fifteen Member States, all this supervised only by an authority with neither the powers nor the resources available to it to enable it to carry out another task properly.
The report which we are to adopt does not reflect this ambition.
The scope of the regulation adopted on the basis of the report is limited to the first pillar, i.e. to Article 286.
The second and third pillars will not be covered by this regulation and will therefore remain impenetrable, to the detriment of citizens' basic fundamental rights.
In addition to the restrictive reading of Article 286, however, it would have been possible to take Article 255 of the Treaty as a further legal basis in order to expand the scope of this regulation.
Indeed Mrs Paciotti attempted to do so by including a reference to this article in Article 12 of the regulation, but the Council refused to entertain this possibility.
There are many other problem areas which require some pragmatic evaluation if they are to be practicable.
In the end, though, our rapporteur is well aware of these problems and is anxious not to add another two years to the existing backlog.
We shall therefore offer her our support, in spite of everything, in the hope that the Council and, in particular, the Commission will be careful not to take advantage of the weaknesses of the text in order to attempt to make nonsense of it.
They must, furthermore, seek to implement means for the protection of personal data in the second and third pillars too at the earliest possible opportunity.
It is dangerous, in any case, to allow bodies such as Europol or the Schengen system to develop without parliamentary or judicial control.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report.
Effectively, the problem arises from the exclusions and exceptions in the protection of personal data with regard to the second and, in particular, third, pillars, but also from the exceptions already laid down by the directives as regards police activities and activities related to national security.
Like Mrs Boudemiene-Thiery, I feel that these activities give the greatest cause for concern in terms of citizens' privacy.
In my opinion, the rapporteur has done everything feasible to extend the possibility, at least of cooperating and probably of exerting influence on this matter, and so we fully support her report.
Having said that, I would like to take advantage of the fact that the Commissioner is here to say that it would appear appropriate to concern ourselves not only with protecting citizens in respect of new technologies but also with the use of these technologies to increase the European citizens' means of intervening and interacting with the European institutions.
I feel that other directives should be applied, in a similar way to the directives on privacy in the context of the Community institutions, such as the Directive on electronic signatures, in order to allow the citizen to interact telematically with the institutions as well, by means of petitions, appeals to the Ombudsman, competitions and appeals to the Court of Justice.
This would increase the channels for protecting the citizens - an extremely important element - but also make it easier for them to act, to be active and to interact with the institutions.
This point is not, of course, made in the Paciotti report, but I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to raise the issue.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, while I congratulate Mrs Paciotti on her excellent work, I would also emphasise the need to move quickly in this field, which was, in fact, the purpose of completing this dossier at first reading.
In today' s modern society, a huge volume of personal data is collected, recorded and processed every day.
The European public' s concern about whether its privacy is being protected or not is therefore quite legitimate, as are its hopes that a balanced solution will be found to safeguard and guarantee their rights and freedoms.
Neither of the two directives currently in force in the European Union to guarantee protection against the improper use of personal data applies to the Community institutions. It is therefore a matter of urgent necessity for us to put into practice what was agreed in Amsterdam and to approve a regulation that gives individuals rights protected by law.
This regulation must also set out the obligations in the field of data processing incumbent on those responsible for such activities within the Community institutions and bodies. Finally, we must have a regulation that creates an independent supervisory body responsible for monitoring the processing of personal data undertaken by Community institutions and bodies.
We must move ahead with the creation of this supervisory body - the European Data Protection Authority - in the hope that in the medium term, it will be given new powers including those currently exercised by other supervisory authorities. We also hope that it will create a single secretariat that will ensure that all cases submitted for monitoring are treated in the same way.
The Commission would first and foremost like to highlight the commitment we made to the citizens of Europe to ensure protection of the personal data processed by the institutions of Europe.
We are approximately two years behind schedule in relation to the date set in Article 286 of the Treaty establishing the European Communities, hence the urgent need to reach agreement on this matter.
The Council, with the crucial encouragement of the Presidency, succeeded in overcoming the problems raised by a number of delegations, to ensure that the proposal for a regulation will most probably enjoy the unanimous approval of the Council.
The European Parliament, in turn, demonstrated great determination in order to enable a decision to be made at first reading, and I should like to express my appreciation and my thanks to your rapporteur, Mrs Paciotti, who has spared no effort, with the support of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, to ease the path of this agreement.
By taking the Council proposal as a starting point and encouraging that a solution acceptable to all three institutions regarding the scope of the regulation be adopted, Mrs Paciotti has to a great extent made the way clear for agreement at first reading.
The Commission has, in turn, also played a part in initiating and mediating between the Council and Parliament.
The Commission also decided not to hold up the adoption of an instrument that is significant for the protection of citizens' personal data.
Even though it considers that the outcome is not completely satisfactory as far as it is concerned, the Commission in turn decided to adopt the text produced as a result of the discussions in the Council and Parliament as reflected in the Paciotti report, and will therefore reject any other amendments to its original proposal.
More specifically, the Commission' s position on the amendments contained in the Paciotti report is as follows.
Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4 to 10, 12 to 40, 42 to 54, 57, 58 and 60 to 64 reflect the Council text on the points to which the Commission can give its assent.
These amendments are therefore acceptable.
Amendment Nos 55, 56 and 59 differ from the Council text, but they were the result of a political agreement between the rapporteur and the Council Presidency.
Since the Commission has decided not to obstruct the adoption of the regulation at first reading on the basis of this compromise text, it will accept these amendments.
Amendments Nos 3 and 11 differ from the Council text, but they were the result of a political agreement between the rapporteur and the Council Presidency.
The Commission has decided not to obstruct the adoption of the regulation at first reading on the basis of this compromise text, on condition that a statement be included in the Minutes recording its legal position at such time as the Council approves the regulation.
If this statement is made, the Commission will accept the scope of the regulation being limited exclusively to first pillar activities.
It will also highlight the need to subject personal data processing under the second and third pillars to clear legal regulations.
In the view of the Commission, it will be possible to adopt such regulations on the basis of Article 286.
It therefore reserves the right to propose legislative initiatives to this effect.
The Commission further reserves the right to subject the processing of personal data carried out under the second and third pillars to the principles contained in the regulation until such time as the regulations applicable to said data processing be implemented.
The Commission considers that the wording of Amendment No 41 is not compatible with its right of initiative, and therefore rejects this amendment.
Amendment No 69 is a correction to Amendment No 41, presented by the rapporteur, Mrs Paciotti, in consultation with the Commission and the Council Presidency, with a view to safeguarding the Commission' s right of initiative.
The Commission supports this amendment, and I should like to thank Mrs Paciotti for tabling it.
The European Data Protection Supervisor will in fact play a leading role in Community institutions' respecting the provisions protecting citizens' personal data.
It goes without saying, then, that his opinion on the legislative proposals to do with the protection of personal data will be very valuable insofar as it will be a major contribution to the legislative debate between institutions.
It goes without saying, moreover, that the Commission, in framing such legislative proposals, must be free to make the appropriate proposal at the time it thinks right.
Amendment No 69 would seem to be acceptable to the Commission inasmuch as the wording does not entail a challenge to its right of initiative.
The Commission, therefore, understands this amendment as obliging it to consult the European Data Protection Supervisor after adopting its proposal.
The text would be improved if it were amended to make that clear, perhaps this can be done when it is proof-read.
In any case, the Commission will make a statement to this effect when the regulation is adopted in the Council.
In order to honour the political agreement made with the Council and the rapporteur to enable the regulation to be adopted at first reading, the Commission rejects all other amendments which were not part of the Paciotti report adopted by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, except for Amendment No 69 which is a correction to Amendment No 41.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Bolkestein.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Outermost regions of the EU
The next item is the report (A5­0285/2000) by Mrs Sudre, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission' s report on the measures to implement Article 299(2): the outermost regions of the European Union (COM(2000) 147 - C5-0247/2000 - 2000/2135(COS))
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(FR) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me first of all thank the members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism whose comments and amendments have contributed towards enhancing the report which I am presenting this evening.
The present and future fate of the seven European regions most remote from the continent has given our committee the opportunity to unanimously adopt a constructive and balanced document, the product of lengthy consultation.
The Azores, the Canaries, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Madeira, Martinique and Réunion form a separate category whose uniqueness has now been recognised by the Treaty of Amsterdam on the basis of an innovative concept: they are defined as 'outermost regions' .
The Treaty recognises that the outermost regions have a difficult economic and social situation, aggravated by special handicaps which, because they are continual and combined, are extremely prejudicial to development in these regions.
This is the reason why it is essential to ensure the widest possible application of the current rules and to use the most appropriate instruments to solve the practical problems faced by these regions and, where necessary, derogations adapted to the regional situation, without this posing any serious threat to Community interests.
The report published by the European Commission on 14 March 2000 is not, strictly speaking, a response to the demands of national and regional authorities in the outermost regions.
The Commission specifies that it is unable to provide answers to all the questions; it often confines itself to proposing guidelines intended to continue and consolidate certain established instruments and further reserves the option of looking into the problems on a case by case basis.
Article 299(2) primarily expresses a political will, supported on repeated occasions by the European Council and, today, by the European Parliament.
The chief objective of my report was to remind the European Commission of this political will in order to put an end to the unfortunate impression of reluctance or inertia that we are currently getting from the Commission.
As a matter of urgency, therefore, the staff complement of the Interdepartmental Group attached to the Commission Secretariat should be strengthened at the earliest possible opportunity in order to ensure that all proposals for acts which are general in scope are accompanied, when considered by the College of Commissioners and on the basis of Article 299(2), by a simplified sheet outlining their potential impact.
My report urges the Commission to prepare a genuine multiannual work programme, accompanied by a detailed timetable, giving the most comprehensive details possible of the measures planned, and providing all the essential guarantees concerning the provision of the resources required to ensure the viability of the measures and to ensure that the measures concerned are taken on a long-term basis where they are intended to deal with intrinsic handicaps.
In order to rule out any misunderstanding concerning the Commission' s reluctance to make full use of the scope afforded by Article 299(2), I propose that an enlarged forum for dialogue should meet annually and an annual report should be drawn up.
In response to the Commission, my report specifically investigates a number of areas falling within the scope of activities of the European Union. I shall give just a brief overview of these this evening.
The Commission has acknowledged that the agricultural and fisheries measures need to be revised or upgraded.
However, this second revision of the POSEI regulations will take place in a very difficult budgetary climate which may have a major bearing on the substance of the programmes, particularly the level of aid granted.
By way of example, in its draft budget for 2001, the Commission has proposed an outrageous cut in the budget for implementation of POSEI, giving rise to an acute sense of disquiet among the many agricultural producers in the outermost regions, on whose behalf I am speaking before you today.
In addition, we need optimum coordination and use of all the instruments available at Community level, in particular the Structural Funds, state aid schemes and tax and customs policies.
The success of the new Community policy to assist the outermost regions calls for action geared to the strategic areas of the world economy: transport, energy, the environment, the information society, research and technological development.
In this way it will contribute to promoting economic and social progress thanks to an increased level of employment.
The geographical situation and island status of the outermost regions must enable them to become active frontiers of the European Union.
Moreover, there is an urgent need to initiate an analysis of the impact of the new ACP-EU Partnership Agreement, signed in June 2000 in Cotonou, and other international trade agreements with a view to assessing their repercussions for the outermost regions and drawing up measures to compensate producers in those regions liable to face additional competition which they are unable to withstand.
To conclude, finally, with a subject that has a bearing on our immediate future, the process of enlargement is unquestionably an essential element in the construction of Europe, but an evaluation of its implications must be undertaken as a matter of urgency as of right now in order to prevent the aid duly allotted to the outermost regions and the projects resulting from the implementation of Article 299(2) being brought into question.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mrs Sudre, has done a good job on her report on the outermost regions.
On behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, I would like to thank her for the way that she took on board our amendments and points of view, both in the spirit and in the actual text of the report.
From the point of view of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, what I would like to point out is that, in actual fact, we can only treat equally what is equal.
It is an attempt to establish an entirely uniform legal order for these outermost regions, which are separated from the rest of Community territory, from mainland Europe, by thousands of kilometres, and which are divided into small island regions with very difficult conditions for raising capital and for transport, which prevent the general rules for competition in the regions from being applied.
I would therefore like to draw attention to paragraph 21 of Mrs Sudre' s report, which indicates that, with regard to state aid, the application of the third paragraph of section a) of Article 87 should be automatic, because the reason behind the differences in that section stems from the aim of achieving equality in the competition system.
Only through a general derogation in favour of the outermost regions will companies located in those regions be on an equal footing with companies located on mainland Europe.
I must also point out how Mrs Sudre' s report refers to the need for specific tax and customs provisions for the same reasons.
When regions are so distanced from the continental nucleus, trying to automatically apply the tax and customs rules that are applied in the continental nucleus would mean putting those outermost regions at a disadvantage.
For example, on the subject of transport, in paragraph 26, the application of the rules on state aid to the ports and airports in a system of free competition would mean depriving those regions of the essential public service of ports and airports, which in outermost regions would never be a normal private activity, but an essential public service activity.
The Commission has sent a communication, which is a programme, a sort of timetable for what is going to be done.
We hope that the Commission will carry out this timetable or programme and, above all, we hope that the great institution that the Commission currently has, the interdepartmental group, will remain in contact with the outermost regions, informing the central authorities of our needs and our specific problems.
I therefore congratulate Mrs Sudre, and we wait with great interest for the Commission' s proposals to be developed into rules, so that the specific characteristics can soon be taken into account, as established in paragraph 2 of Article 299 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have a genuine admiration for the report by Mrs Sudre so what follows is in no way critical of it or of her.
Nonetheless, it illustrates what I believe is a much more widespread problem about the relationship between reports and opinions, particularly those of a non-legislative kind.
For example, in this report only 25 words survive of the conclusions unanimously adopted by the Committee on Fisheries.
The bulk of the section dealing with fisheries actually consists of an amendment to the motion for a resolution tabled in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
There is nothing the Committee on Fisheries would object to in the paragraph concerned.
Indeed, it covers certain issues more explicitly than the opinion does.
On the other hand, some significant points in the opinion do not figure in the final version of the resolution.
Given the importance of fisheries to the outermost regions, I can only be saddened by this.
I appreciate that differences of perspective mean that it will not always be possible to reconcile views expressed in the lead committee and other committees.
My concern is rather that we do not currently have any standardised mechanism for making an attempt to do so.
I am asking, therefore, whether the President of Parliament would be prepared to look at ways in which improvements could be made, for example, by consultations prior to voting or by adjusting the order in which votes are taken.
Without such improvements, we risk losing the benefits of a great deal of expertise, not just to our own detriment, but also to the detriment of those we seek to serve.
In the meantime, and on this particular report, I would respectfully request both the Council and the Commission to look at the conclusions that are not contained in the motion for a resolution, as well as the ones that are.
Mr President, for the European Union this is simply one more debate of the many that we hold.
For the outermost regions this is the most important debate that the European Parliament can hold concerning them.
In fact, what we say here today and how we vote tomorrow will be front-page news in the seven outermost regions, and the news reports on the regional television channels will report extensively on what we say and decide here.
For many Europeans, some outermost regions are nothing more than a holiday destination on the map.
This may even be the view of some of our fellow MEPs of the outermost regions.
For those of us who are speaking here tonight on behalf of our native regions, this is a very negative view, and, of course, a deeply mistaken one.
Behind this idea, beyond our landscape and an exceptional climate, is the social and economic reality of regions that are among the least developed in the European Union, with the highest levels of unemployment and with huge structural problems that impede our development.
For more than a decade the European Commission has been aware of our problems and our particular characteristics.
This is the first debate that the plenary session of the European Parliament has held about our regions since the Treaty of Amsterdam included a new article on them.
So far, since an interdepartmental group was set up for the outermost regions under the presidency of Mr Delors, we have travelled a long and fruitful road, and I must express the deepest gratitude of the Europeans from the outermost regions to those who have presided over that group.
The Commission document for implementing paragraph 2 of Article 299 of the EC Treaty is a good document, and our rapporteur, Mrs Sudre, has done well today by offering us an excellent report.
With this Article and with the measures taken in order to implement it, we have a legal basis that until now we were lacking, and a good tool for our development.
Mrs Sudre has succeeded in putting together a balanced report that includes many of the amendments - more than 100 of them - which were tabled for the initial draft report.
One of these amendments proposes the implementation and application of the policies of the financial instrument for fisheries.
What I wish to highlight here today, Commissioner Barnier, is that, for the outermost regions, while Community law fully applies, it is essential that those rules be modulated and adapted in order to stimulate rather than impede their economic and social cohesion with the rest of the European citizens.
The internal market and the rules that govern it do not benefit the outermost regions to the same extent that they benefit Europeans on the continent.
The natural limitations of our island markets, thousands of kilometres away, mean that our businesses have difficulty being competitive: problems with transport, communications, supplies, running costs.
This is why we have so many problems generating wealth and creating employment.
Our unemployment levels are among the highest in the European Union.
It is therefore necessary to implement a series of measures which Margie Sudre' s report covers in detail.
In our view these measures need to go beyond regional development policies, because our shortfalls and handicaps are structural, not temporary.
We will always be far away and we will always have difficulties because of the fact that we are islands and because of our landscape, which is beautiful but also harsh and difficult to overcome.
We are not asking for subsidies.
We want to have tools that will enable us to develop.
The outermost regions bring Atlantic, American and African dimensions to Europe, which enrich our cultural, political and economic diversity, of which we are all rightly proud.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Sudre, we must bear in mind that the opportunity for us to debate here in this House today on the subject of the outermost regions is the result of a process of slow maturation.
The fact is, even though, as early as the Treaty of Rome, reference was made to the French overseas departments, we had to wait until 1989 and the programme of options specific to the remote and insular nature of these regions, the notorious POSEI programmes, for the European Union to at long last acknowledge that the permanence and combination of structural handicaps affecting the outermost regions justified special treatment in comparison with the other regions of the Community.
Eight years later, the Treaty of Amsterdam with its Article 299(2), the subject of our discussion today, gave rise to the hope that one day the terms 'growth' and 'employment' would mean the same thing throughout all European territory.
So, it has been a long wait, and the hopes expressed by our peoples have built up throughout this long wait.
I therefore feel entitled to confess that I felt rather disappointed when I read the Commission communication.
Ladies and gentlemen, the time for stating good intentions is behind us, what we need is practical action and we need it now.
We need a specific timetable, one that will be respected.
We need real financial commitments, not, as we have in the 2001 budget, POSEI appropriations that, at the moment, have been cut by 25%.
Most especially we need guarantees that this action will continue in the long term, because the handicaps of these regions, as listed in Article 299(2) - remoteness, insularity, small size, difficult climate - are not about to disappear.
I am therefore pleased that the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has adopted a bold and ambitious stance on state aid, tax schemes and the implications of enlargement.
I am pleased to see that the committee has adopted the bulk of the amendment I tabled.
I should, moreover, like to pay tribute, at this point, to the rapporteur, Mrs Sudre, for her open-mindedness and her consultative approach, which made it possible, with everyone joining forces, to successfully complete a report which offers our regions real hope.
Indeed I am convinced that the young people of our regions can actually glimpse a way out of the tragic unemployment which so drives them to despair, if we do manage to shift from a basically financial strategy, necessary, admittedly, but inadequate, to a more comprehensive strategy based on real recognition of our unique characteristics.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the outermost regions are already the very emblem of the diversity, and hence the wealth of the European Union.
Tomorrow they may become a laboratory providing the finest illustration of the effectiveness of the experiment of the European social model.
We need audacity, intelligence and compassion.
I have no doubt but that the proposals which the Commission will submit to the Council will be characterised by these qualities.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to congratulate Mrs Sudre for her excellent and very successful report.
At the same time I bring greetings from Mr Sánchez, who would have liked to be here at this debate, but has not been able to attend yet, owing to illness.
He has always stressed the importance of this report and worked hard in its favour.
The European Union must see to it that the outermost regions are involved in the Union' s development.
Adapted action, which is meant to support the outermost regions, is justified as a result of the unfavourable conditions that prevail in these areas. This is especially the case when the regions in question are very dependent on just a few or even just one source of livelihood.
In talks between the European Union and external countries and international organisations attention must also be given to the special sensitivity associated with certain products in remote regions.
Neither may EU enlargement be allowed to cause these regions to fall outside the sphere of influence of regional and structural policy.
Our group is also in favour of broadening the scope of Article 299(2) of the EC Treaty, which will strengthen the positive achievements of the POSEI programmes in remote areas.
Owing to permanent unfavourable factors the special status accorded remote regions and the special assistance they should receive are justified, although differences should not be evened out by means of permanently defined versions of Internal Market rules and permanent entitlement to structural funding.
In my opinion, it is very important that the outermost regions are integrated into the trans-European transport, energy and telecommunications networks.
It is also necessary to look into the possibilities of new measures targeted at remote areas that would complement the policies and actions at present being implemented within the European Union' s own area.
The economic development of the regions must be supported through, for example, various direct and indirect taxation solutions.
Mr President, Commissioner, as Mrs Sudre rightly emphasises in her very commendable and extensive report, it is indisputable that the outermost regions have five characteristics which put them at a permanent or very long-lasting disadvantage.
Firstly, their geographical proximity to non-EU States and simultaneous membership of the European Union.
Secondly, their relative isolation because of their great distance from Europe.
Thirdly, the very small size of the local internal market.
Fourthly, geographical and climatic conditions which militate against the development of endogenous potential.
Fifthly, economic dependence upon a few products in the economy.
This inevitably leads to a situation in which these objective handicaps can, also in the longer term, only be offset, with a view to achieving cohesion, when the necessary financial resources are made available on the basis of Article 299, paragraph 2.
Through this article, the outermost regions should be so placed as not to be subject to permanent reductions in their budgets as a result of the Budget debate.
Just as you, Mrs Sudre, as the representative of the outermost regions, rightly call for solidarity, I would also request solidarity on your part where the interests of the Objective 1 regions are concerned, in the sense that no reductions in funds should be implemented for as long as the regions concerned are still handicapped in comparison with the developed regions of Europe.
The proof of the pudding is whether, in contrast to the agreement on how best to proceed expressed by most of the groups today in the Budget debate, we want to meet new political necessities not with new money but at the expense of policies which have still not been implemented.
This question will become that much more relevant the closer EU enlargement towards the East becomes.
I am convinced that it is now already clear that, without a change to the Financial Perspective, it will not be possible to solve this problem.
Allow us simply to act according to the proverb, 'Do not put off till tomorrow what you can do today.'
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Parliament is helping by means of this report to relaunch a policy for the outermost regions, as laid down in Article 299(2) of the Treaty.
The hesitations and the occasional contradiction we have seen in the Commission' s action in this field recently would therefore be at odds with this.
All of the Treaty' s articles must be complied with and all of them must be guaranteed effective implementation. Article 299(2) can be no exception.
There are therefore grounds for commending the position adopted by the European Parliament and to praise the balance, competence and experience demonstrated by the rapporteur, Mrs Sudre, and the contribution made by all those who worked together with her, particularly the other seven Members from the outermost regions.
Because I am under pressure of time, I will try to highlight the fundamental aspects of the report.
I feel that as well as promoting the fairness that underpins changes in policy, systems of derogation and specific measures, in other words dealing in the same way with things that are the same and differently with things that are different, the important thing is that in my region, as in the other outermost regions, people should be able to live in dignity. This requires involvement in productive activities that guarantee a growing degree of self-sufficiency.
Since the economy of the outermost regions is classed in Article 299(2) of the Treaty itself as being dependent on a single product or on a limited range of products, we must provide incentives for potential diversification and, at the same time, create better conditions for producing what people actually have the means and the ability to produce.
What cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to happen is that we help to eradicate the few comparative advantages that we have.
In the Azores, our main product is milk.
If we are to take Article 299(2) of the Treaty seriously, I can only hope for an improvement in our framework for producing what we actually have the means and the ability to produce.
Mr President, Parliament, and in particular its Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, has been the driving force for approving specific policies and programmes for the outermost regions.
The unanimous approval by the members of the Committee on Regional Policy of the report presented by Mrs Sudre demonstrates the European Parliament' s adherence to one of its most important commitments.
I should therefore like to congratulate the rapporteur and the Committee on Regional Policy on their excellent work.
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the legal basis of these specific policies was established and their scope was increased.
One of the areas in which this approach has had the greatest impact is agricultural policy.
By means of various partial derogations from the principles of the CAP, and through the implementation of specific programmes for agricultural development, we have been able to see an end to the desertification of archipelagos such as the Azores. Those living in rural communities on the islands have also seen an improvement in their living conditions.
The experience of almost a decade and the new challenges created by developments in the common agricultural policy suggest that these programmes should be revised in order to sustain the ability of these regions to survive in the new climate of competition.
The Treaty specifically stipulates that economic dependence on a small number of products is one of the factors on which the European institutions are bound to adopt specific measures for the implementation of common policies.
The dependence of agriculture and the whole economy of the Azores on milk production is unparalleled anywhere else in the Union.
All of us in the Azores therefore hope that the Commission, in view of the Treaty and in view of Parliament' s position, will rapidly propose the necessary changes to the way the CAP is implemented in the Azores.
Mr President, Commissioner, had the Treaty of Amsterdam not included Article 299(2), we would not be here today, debating this excellent report by Mrs Sudre, whom I wish to congratulate on her outstanding work.
This legislation really is of considerable importance.
Under this article, the outermost regions obtained recognition by the European Union of a genuine right to be different, a right to be dealt with on a specific and special basis reflecting their unique situation, a situation that is completely different to that of the rest of the European Union.
This is now recognised legally and constitutionally and no longer, as was the case until Amsterdam, simply through declarations annexed to the Treaties, which had merely political status.
It should be noted that this right to be different is nothing more than a demonstration of the principle of equality, which also requires different treatment for anything that is different.
I reject reactionary and populist interpretations of the principle of equality, which seek equal treatment for things that are not the same.
Article 299(2) is therefore a crucial instrument in various way: firstly, in helping to promote equal opportunities for European citizens who are resident in the outermost regions. Secondly, it is crucial to promoting full and successful integration of the outermost regions into the European Union and into the dynamic of the single market.
Thirdly, this article is crucial to enabling the outermost regions to respond better to the challenges posed by globalisation and by the enlargement of the European Union, to which they are particularly vulnerable. This is the only reason we want Article 299(2), not in order to secure any privileged status for ourselves.
Mr President, Commissioner, the qualitative leap represented by Article 299(2) must be matched by an identical qualitative step forward in the special treatment that the European Union must give to the outermost regions.
Furthermore, this must go beyond POSEI, the Programme of Options Specific to Remoteness and Insularity.
This qualitative leap must be reflected in the definition and implementation of a global and coherent strategy by the European Union, which is what Mrs Sudre' s report has rightly proposed.
The outermost regions and the citizens who live there have high hopes for the European institutions' action in implementing Article 299(2).
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Sudre.
I think that she has done a magnificent job and also that she has shown imagination, calm and a capacity to reach agreements and compromises in order to present a document to this Parliament and to the Commission which I think can be useful and effective.
Commissioner, I think that you are perfectly aware of, and sensitive to, these issues, due to the fact that you come from a region with specific problems.
There are three regions in Europe whose citizens face specific problems: mountain, island and the outermost regions.
These citizens enjoy a positive and enriching diversity, and they demand to be given the right to enjoy the same opportunities as other citizens from continental regions.
For this they need specific treatment, which is expressed through a will for durability in the series of measures.
We cannot debate a whole series of circumstances and imagine that, once that ideal and idyllic point, let us call it, has been reached, it will no longer be necessary to adopt more measures for the treatment of these three areas and particularly of the outermost regions that we are discussing today.
We want different treatment to be maintained.
We want to continue to be an area - or areas, in this case - that requires specific treatment.
The European Union and you, Commissioner, need to be aware that this treatment is worth sustaining.
This is the message that I wanted to put across, as well as once again congratulating Mrs Sudre and all the members of the various committees, which have enabled us to get as far as this report today.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Barnier.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12 midnight)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like my name to be added to yesterday's attendance register.
I can prove that I was also here for the roll-call vote, but I had not entered my name.
Your name will be included, Mrs Rothe.
Mr President, I wonder if this might be an appropriate time to mention an issue that arose yesterday during voting time.
It will be recalled that there was one particular vote in the plenary session on my report that was resolved by a majority of one vote.
I do not want to reopen that issue.
The Presidency declared that closed and I fully accept that.
But following that decision a whole range of Members in this House began to indicate that machines had not worked and so on.
It has occurred to me overnight that if the result of a vote is declared and there is within the Rules no provision for the issue to be reopened at all, given the alarming frequency with which a whole range of machines do not work, this could create serious difficulties.
If there were a technical difficulty and a whole block of votes in one part of this House were not counted, the outcome of the votes would call into question the whole efficacy of the decisions that we make.
I wonder whether in fact there should be some provision in the Rules for that.
I hope that you will feel that is a genuine point of order.
I remember the situation perfectly, Mr Evans. We will put the matter to the Bureau.
I will, of course, inform the President of what you have said.
Mr President, parallel to that point of order could it be also borne in mind that the interpreters are very kind to us and sometimes they do not translate "my machine failed to work" as "I failed to work".
Mr President, I rise on a matter concerning the meeting today of the College of Commissioners, under Rule 38 or 64.
I would like to request that Commissioner Lamy makes an emergency statement to this House as to why he is avoiding parliamentary scrutiny on a paper known as "everything but arms".
This has profound implications for this House, for ACP countries and for Europe as a whole.
I say profound implications because this House wants more and more democratic accountability.
This particular issue will not only affect this House, but most of the European Member States, particularly those that have such products as bananas - which are very topical - rice and sugar.
Mr Lamy should make this statement today to make sure that we do have democratic accountability.
It appears that he has no wish to discuss this issue with Parliament.
It is of great importance.
Mr President, Mr Evans has just referred to yesterday morning' s vote, specifically to the vote at which certain amendments were adopted by a majority of one.
I believe it is as well for Parliament to keep to the current Rules because, as another Member rightly said, very often it is not the machines that did not work but the Members that forgot to vote; if we were able to correct a vote after the event, we would never see the end of it.
We had a good example in the final vote on Mr Evans' report.
If I had known that the total number of abstentions and votes against was going to be greater than the number of votes in favour of Mr Evans' report, I would have asked my Group to vote against that report and it would not have been adopted.
So you can see how absurd the situation would become if a vote could be reconsidered, and I think we would be well advised to go on abiding by our Rules as they stand.
In any case, ladies and gentlemen, we will discuss the matter at the next Bureau meeting.
Mr President, I just wanted to clarify, for Mr Goebbels' benefit, that I am not raising an issue about individual Members pointing out problems in relation to just their machine or whatever.
I am concerned about the possibility of a general failure of numerous machines and rules which would then call the decisions of the House into question.
Let me also assure Mr Goebbels that I do not object to matters being decided by a majority of one.
The British Labour Government was defeated by a majority of one in 1979 and I never objected to that.
(The Minutes were approved)
Food safety
The next item is the report (A5-0272/2000) by Mr Bowis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission White Paper on food safety [COM(1999) 719 - C5-0136/2000 - 2000/2082(COS)].
Mr President, I beg to move the adoption of the report in my name on the White Paper on food safety.
It gives me great pleasure to do so.
I should also like to refer to the 19 amendments we have before us on this report.
I accept 16 of them.
The three that I do not accept are Amendments Nos 14, 16 and 17, and I prefer 15 to 5 and 10 to 6.
As Feuerbach said: "der Mensch ist, was er isst", man is what he eats.
We are what we eat - and sadly that is true in my case.
I am clearly what I eat.
More seriously, as a result of eating badly some people suffer long-term illness and indeed some people die of food poisoning their bodies.
Over recent decades we have seen many scandals: olive oil, contaminated wine, mineral water, beef, dioxins and sludge.
We have learned the new vocabulary of e-coli, salmonella and listeria and so on.
We have had scare and scandal leading to fear, panic and public enquiry.
Our constituents around Europe look to us to reassure them that the food they eat is safe and the water they drink is drinkable.
They have lost faith in the current machinery and mechanisms to control and remove risk from "farm to table", in the phrase that is so often used.
The truth is that you cannot eliminate risk.
That is not within our grasp.
Risk will always occur from animal feed and crop sprays of agriculture to the processing of food, transport, refrigeration, storage and retailing.
And then the risk goes on to our own home, our kitchens, our larders and to our cooking skills and habits in those kitchens.
If we cannot eliminate risk, we can at least take action to identify it and manage it.
New action is needed.
We must put into place a framework of legislation, guidance and good practice on food, feed, pesticides, dioxins, labelling, additives, novel foods and so on.
Alongside that framework we need a new body to restore public confidence and the respect of Member States.
My report proposes the establishment of a European Food Safety Agency which should be authoritative, independent, objective, accountable, transparent and intelligible.
Its focus must be on safety and its method must be science.
Its task is risk assessment and then giving advice on that risk management.
The Commission's task is risk management and control.
Parliament's task will be the scrutiny and monitoring of both.
We have a rapid alert system.
That needs to be improved but it can only be swiftly accountable to Parliament if it continues to be run by the Commission.
Nevertheless it should be physically and operationally close to the EFSA.
Its remit should be extended to cover feedstuffs as well as foodstuffs.
The director of the ESFA is key.
His appointment must be by the Commission, but after a hearing by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, probably involving other committees such as the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
There needs to be an annual report and presentation to Parliament and risk reports coming to the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
The board needs to reflect the range of relevant experience in production, processing, retailing, consumption, law and so on.
Scientists need to give a report on assessment to the board who then makes sure that it is in terms the consumers understand, add any recommendations on risk management and submit it to the Commission and to us.
We need close working with national food safety authorities and with international bodies.
We need to see the work of the current five scientific committees and the Steering Committee subsumed within this.
It will be within a small headquarters, professionally run, accessible to the Commission and Parliament, although the site is not for now.
I thank my colleagues of all parties and all Member States.
I thank them for the constructive dialogue we have had.
I thank the Commission and its staff.
I thank the Council and the French Presidency for their messages of support.
I thank Parliament's secretariat.
We have here a proposal which can work to improve the safety of our foods, to restore the confidence of the public in our respective nations.
I hope that Parliament will endorse it.
(Applause)
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
(ES) Mr President, Commissioner, it is difficult not to agree with this document presented to us by the Commission, as it is full of good ideas and good intentions.
The rapporteur, Mr Bowis, has drawn up a superb report, which highlights the importance of an excellent, independent food authority, which would have responsibility for risk assessment, but not for risk management or crisis management, which must be the competence of the Commission, as must legislative proposals.
Both this food authority and the legislative proposals being proposed, which aim to guarantee food safety, will receive the support of this House, Commissioner.
But I would like to draw attention to a fundamental issue: the best possible legislation and an excellent, scientifically unimpeachable food authority are not enough.
We may have other food crises and, each time this happens, consumer safety will be endangered, as will the credibility of the institutions and the interests of the agricultural sector and the agri-foodstuffs industry.
And, what is more, if crisis management is inadequate, the problem uncontrollably spreads and worsens.
Food safety is not an ancillary issue: it affects public health and the stability of the food market.
I therefore ask the Commission what it plans to do in order to make the objectives of the White Paper reality.
Recent experience has shown that the series of crises is not due to a lack of scientific knowledge nor to a lack of ad hoc legislation.
The problem has been that somebody has been dishonest and has continued to be so due to inadequate controls.
Such was the case with the company that manufactured polio vaccines in the United Kingdom using bovine foetal serum, prohibited since 1999, and with the distribution via a French agri-foodstuffs distribution chain of one thousand kilos of meat from herds contaminated with BSE.
All in all, Commissioner, along with the authority, the relevant Commission services must, in collaboration and coordination with the Member States, establish a system of efficient, standardised controls throughout the food chain, and the network of food laboratories in the European Union must be improved and their work coordinated with the Commission.
I assure you that this is the best method, as it is preventative.
Mr President, the Commission proposal and the report by Mr Bowis deserve our unqualified support.
Food must be safe and must be pure.
We must be certain that the carcasses of BSE cows do not end up in the food chain.
We must be able to rely on the fact that salmonella is being tackled.
But that confidence is being shattered time after time.
The more than eighty measures from the White Paper are therefore indispensable.
Setting up the European Food Safety Agency is a major step in the right direction.
Its key task is providing scientific advice, for the discussion on food safety must be pure too.
Emotions run high where food is concerned: against globalisation, large-scale production and genetic modification, and in favour of local produce, tradition and diversity.
Those emotions are often justified, but we must ensure that they do not become a cover for protectionism.
Whilst acknowledging the boom in ready-made food, we must also adopt a pro-active approach.
The new food must be of quality, the ingredients traceable, and labels must offer honest information.
Consumers deserve a choice.
The food authority must provide objective information to both consumers and decision makers.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I would like to highlight a few points.
Decision-making must be clear and transparent.
As duplication of the work and of scientific research must be avoided, we need to collaborate with national research institutes and the joint research centres.
In addition, food safety is a matter for the entire food sector, from the farmer right down to the consumer.
Sound communication between consumers, producers, the retail trade, workers and transporters is crucial.
So is attention to diversity in the SMEs.
Strict requirements and effective control are indispensable, but competition should be kept clean in the process.
Finally, my Committee argues in favour of a strategy for third countries and candidate countries.
Food safety is a global task; we should not cut ourselves off from produce from the United States or developing countries.
We must work towards a joint agenda.
I would just like to thank the rapporteur for his constructive contribution and for his willingness to take on board the recommendations from other Committees.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has carefully considered the White Paper on food safety.
It reached conclusions similar to those of the committee responsible.
We also agree with the Commission's acknowledgement that in the interest of the public, food safety should be given particularly high priority.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights accordingly made a raft of proposals which are also included in the Bowis report before us.
In view of the limited time available, I propose to cover just two key points.
First, there is no doubt that legal provisions in the field of food safety and animal feed safety need to be simplified.
We are therefore looking to the European Commission to put forward a basic legal framework.
Within this framework, the corresponding legal instruments need to be systematically put in place in such a way that health protection stands out as the most important objective.
Second, the European public are right to demand that their health be given top priority.
Furthermore, they are right to demand that they have an important say, through their Parliament, when food and animal feed safety with a view to protecting their health is at stake.
That is why the envisaged European Food Safety Agency can only have Articles 95 and 152 of the EC Treaty as its legal basis, with special attention being paid to its powers.
Mr President, let me begin by warmly congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Bowis, and let me also inform the Commissioner, David Byrne, that we appreciate the proposals he has put before us in this White Paper and the relations he has established with Parliament with a view to preparing the best possible legislation in the field of food safety for the future.
Today we are discussing a White Paper and it is useful to define a few first principles.
I think we have to be very specific about the role of the future European Food Safety Agency, which is to assess and identify risks in coordination with the existing national agencies.
We must make it clear, however, that the rapid alert system and the implementation of the measures must fall within the field of political responsibility.
That is where the European Commission, the Council and the European Parliament come into play.
The second principle is that it is important for this Agency to be highly independent and we must guarantee that independence.
It is therefore vital to allow the EFSA to act on its own initiative.
It must be independent with regard to the Member States, the European institutions and the agro-food industry.
I have tabled an amendment on levels of risk.
I have also had an opportunity to discuss this with Commissioner David Byrne.
In some cases we find that the public perceives or imagines risks where these are simply rumours, and it is our duty and responsibility to communicate with the public in order to lay these rumours to rest and restore consumer confidence.
When we are faced with a potential risk, it is important to apply the precautionary principle.
Lastly, in the event of a real risk, we must take urgent preventative measures.
To conclude, the brief of the European Food Safety Agency must be confined to food safety.
There is no question of extending it to cover product quality or labelling.
We must not confuse food risk assessment with questions of product quality.
At all events, the European Parliament and the European Commission are firmly resolved to restore consumer confidence.
Mr President, quite often a parliamentary colleague is given a report and you envy him or her.
By the time the report is presented you envy them no more.
That is not the case with Mr Bowis.
He has carried this whole debate through with considerable elegance, charm and willingness to compromise, which is why the committee was able to adopt 12 compromise amendments, supported by almost all the political groups.
We have a stark reminder this week of why we are all here and why this legislation is going through in the report in my own country - the Phillips Committee of Inquiry into the disaster, indeed scandal, of BSE.
That came about in our national herd because of negligence and the indictment against those responsible, civil servants as well as ministers, will be set out for the world to see tomorrow.
It will not be a day when we look with any particular pride at the procedures we then had.
Those procedures have now been amended and changed and we have our own Food Standards Agency.
To have such a body introduced in the European Parliament as part of a raft of similar measures, which will increase our concern and care for food safety in the European Union, is a good outcome to what has been a sad tale.
I will mention briefly the key amendments which I commend to the House and the Commissioner and which I hope we can see voted through today.
Obviously the title is important and Mr Bowis has accepted that.
This has to be called an "authority" because in English and most other languages, that conveys a body which has the power and ability from time to time in the process of risk assessment to use its best judgment and not merely to be the agent of what others would wish it to do.
One of the amendments that was passed allowed it to issue own-initiative reports.
On the still vexed question of how far we should go in allowing it to look at nutrition, and indeed to offer advice and to be consulted by those whose primary concern is risk management, we have also said that where the issue of safety is involved, these issues also should at least be within the remit of the opinion and the advice of this food standards authority.
We have also said that the national food safety agencies and the consumer bodies in the Member States of the European Union should be fully consulted in the processes we are now embarked upon.
That is because we need to carry right across the European Union the full support and weight of the public, the stakeholders and indeed, of course, the Member States for this authority.
That means that they have to accept that the rapid alert system must be improved immediately and extended to animal feed.
Yet again this week we have had another example, with infected beef in France finding its way on to the shelves of Carrefour, of how hard it is to catch those who have scant regard for food safety issues.
We want the EFSA to have a board which has a balanced representation of people in consumer affairs, public health and all possible areas of scientific and agricultural knowledge.
We want them to be people whom we can respect and who can declare their interest.
Of course many of them will have had links with the food industry, links with science elsewhere.
That is understandable and natural, but we need to know how and who and where and we should be able to do so.
We want an annual report to this House and we want the director, when he or she is appointed, to be available to the Committee on the Environment and indeed the Agriculture Committee and to this House in general to report back.
When that has happened I would say there is one last thing we must do.
We must wait patiently for the Commission to come forward with legislation on other matters in the food safety area - PCB standards, food labelling, allergy labelling, action on nutrition policy and the amending legislation we need for processed baby foods and infant formulae.
These things are inextricably linked with what the food authority will be doing.
Finally, we will also be supporting a number of the new amendments, certainly Amendments Nos 11-13, 7-9 and we wish to have a free vote on Amendment No 14.
We consider some of the others superfluous, but generally speaking the broad consensus there has been throughout in this House on this report should be carried through into the vote.
Mr President, Mr Bowis has done an extraordinary job as rapporteur on this major and complicated issue.
In fact, there are a whole lot of important and, on the face of it, conflicting objectives to be achieved in this matter of food safety, including that of safety itself.
In this connection, I should like to speak up for cheap food of the kind which families with children buy and which children and young people eat.
We are also concerned with the freedom to develop food and the food sector and also with the conservation of Europe' s cultural heritage.
A central aspect of this is to ensure that the rich heritage of traditions can be preserved.
I therefore want to give my support to Amendment No 15.
I nonetheless believe that one issue has not been properly discussed, namely the need for uniform regulations to be followed up by uniform and thorough supervision.
It should not be forgotten that, viewed as a whole, the food sector is the biggest workplace in the European Union.
We must ensure that the regulations are complied with in the same way throughout the European Union. Otherwise, we interfere both with safety and free competition in the internal market.
I should like to repeat this: ensure that the regulations are properly complied with, the length and breadth of the Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, "der Mensch ist, was er isst" , you are what you eat.
Those, ladies and gentlemen, were indeed the first words I spoke in my maiden speech last year with reference to the Belgian dioxin crisis.
Those are also the words with which Mr Bowis began his explanatory statement and speech in this Chamber.
This is an immediate sign that Mr Bowis and myself, along with the Environmental Committee, are largely on the same wavelength, and I thank Mr Bowis for the very constructive collaboration of the past few months.
I would like to make four observations.
The report is right to draw a distinction between risk analysis on the one hand and risk management on the other.
It is against this background that I would first of all like to say that food safety guarantees hinge on strict inspections organised by the state, and those inspections are only as strong as the weakest link.
If the weakest link breaks, the inspection process will collapse like a house of cards.
This means that all inspectorates must work together well and, often, insufficient attention is paid to the inspectorates which inspect animal medicines; this is the pharmaceutical inspectorate in my country.
I also regret, therefore, that that inspectorate will hardly be involved - if at all - in the future operation of the European Food Safety Agency.
After all, experience has taught us that ineffective inspection of animal medicines and ineffective inspection of the prescribing behaviour of vets can lead to scandals.
So I would like to flag this up as an issue.
Secondly, the Bowis report clearly states that the European Food Safety Agency is responsible for risk analysis.
We should be very aware that this agency will only be a strong partner in the Food Safety Agency safety debate once it has acquired respectability in the course of the years.
This respectability will be gained, not through laws or legislation, but through integrity, academic brilliance, neutrality, duty to be accountable, transparency and comprehensibility.
I therefore urge that, when scientific opinions are being weighed up, minority viewpoints also be published each time.
After all, science is not something static, it is ever fluid, and the debate on the six American hormones has been sufficient evidence of this.
I also welcome the farm to fork approach.
I would even go one step further and argue in favour of the seed to spoon approach.
That means that when Food Safety Agency safety is examined, all products are taken into consideration, and I would refer to Paragraph 11 of the resolution in this connection.
Fourthly, Parliament is right to highlight in Paragraph 17 that the rapid alert system must be extended to cover all food safety aspects, including animal feed. It is only right that we should call for the swift introduction of a positive list, Commissioner.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is only the beginning; we have a long way to go yet.
We must realise that consumers must regain their confidence in food and that is a fundamental human right.
I hope that in the coming months and years, we will be closely monitoring the Commission during the implementation of the White Paper.
Mr President, first of all, we too naturally support all the compromise and composite amendments jointly decided in the Committee on the Environment which, I trust, will be adopted by plenary.
However, Mr President, I should like to highlight two points here.
The subject which we are debating clearly illustrates just how superficial and empty our debate on the political unification of Europe is.
This is no paradox.
A real food safety agency will never get off the ground, unless of course it has strong political backing.
Mr President, we are talking about legislation, initially about application, we are talking about responding to danger, about measures, policy changes and comparing imports - i.e. controlling the safety of products coming in from outside. My question is: who is going to do all this?
The national authorities?
But the crises which occurred in the past were generally covered up by the authorities in the Member State. Need I remind you of the United Kingdom's policy on BSE?
What agency is going to be able to exercise controls, carry out investigations and propose measures on behalf of the whole of the European Union? I, to give a minor example, would love to know what the agency now being proposed would have done about the mad cow crisis in Britain, about the dioxin crisis in Belgium and about the genetically-modified cotton and foodstuffs, such as cotton seed oil, in Greece.
Not much, I think.
Unless this agency comes up to the standards which will give it political teeth, I do not think it will achieve much.
The best case scenario is that it will work alongside the Environmental Agency, which does an excellent information job, but which freely admits that the environmental situation in Europe has not improved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe is afflicted by serious public health crises at regular intervals.
These crises, such as BSE and dioxin, have become a real problem for society and lead to a loss of consumer confidence in the food they eat.
The latest events have brought that home to us again.
The Member States have risen to the situation, like France, which has set up a national food safety agency.
Today the European Commission is proposing the creation of a European Food Safety Agency, responsible for analysing all public health risks.
Sound scientific knowledge is certainly essential to help assess the risks linked to the food chain, from the farm to the table.
Any initiative to help identify these risks is therefore a move in the right direction.
But is that not approaching the problem the wrong way round? As it often does, the Commission is proposing regulatory measures to remedy or alleviate the adverse effects of a policy for which it is frequently jointly responsible, without in any way questioning its own basic approach.
Thus, European requirements relating to traceability, which are good measures, have been made all the more necessary now that we have abandoned checks at our internal or Community borders.
Similarly, the European Union is seeking to protect biodiversity and to safeguard ecosystems with its Directives on habitat and on birds, but without questioning the emphasis on high agricultural productivity, which, after all, we know to be the main cause, together with urbanisation, of imbalances in ecosystems.
In fact it is precisely this emphasis on high productivity that exacerbates food safety risks: the specialisation of farms, most of which practice intensive farming, the need to fall in line with American market prices, and therefore to seek the lowest costs wherever possible, especially for animal feed, the transportation of animals, frequently across great distances, and the various components of the food chain from the farm to the table are all risk factors for public health, yet we prefer to cure the disease rather than prevent it occurring.
That is a serious state of affairs.
Nonetheless, under these circumstances, the European Food Safety Agency has an important part to play in conducting scientific risk analysis.
But let us make sure we leave it to the Member States to manage these risks and to apply the precautionary principle in a reasonable and proportionate manner. That will be a guarantee of effectiveness.
Indeed, who better than the Member States to carry out adequate local checks?
Who better than the Member States to distinguish genuinely dangerous products from those deriving from our different food cultures, even when they pose no health risk at all? Anyway, there is no such thing as a zero risk, nor is it even desirable, given that completely aseptic conditions are no guarantee of food safety.
Finally, who better than the Member States to inform the public of the risks linked to this or that product?
So let us entrust the European Food Safety Agency only with conducting scientific risk analysis, in liaison with our national agencies.
Let us require excellence and independence of it.
Let us ask it to make recommendations to the political authorities responsible for risk management.
And let us not, therefore, give it responsibility for running the rapid alert system and for communication with the public.
Lastly, we must beware of standardising our food cultures.
Each of our countries, and especially France, is proud of its gastronomic culture and local products.
That is one of the areas of diversity that makes up the richness of Europe and its quality of life.
Let us guard it jealously.
Mr President, it is clear that there is considerable enthusiasm for the establishment of a European Food Safety Agency, as our rapporteur would prefer to call it.
In the UK, as in many other countries, we have now set up our own agency amidst similar enthusiasm.
It started work this year and many had high expectations of it.
However, with the advent of Mr Byrne's ambitious proposals, it would seem that this national initiative is to be absorbed into the EU structures.
In this, we are obliged to Mr Bowis.
In his report he confirms the subordinate nature of the British agency when he remarks that "It is essential that the Commission coordinates its various departments including . . . national food agencies."
As an aside, I must express my puzzlement about how a Conservative MEP can apparently embrace so easily the absorption of yet another British institution when his party stands on a platform of being opposed to further integration.
This notwithstanding, it may come as a surprise to Members that I support the concept of a pan-European approach to food safety, which is embodied in the concept of the EFSA.
Despite so often being branded as a "little Englander" by my British colleagues, I have no difficulty in acknowledging that germs know no boundaries.
However, if germs fail to respect national boundaries, they will, and of course do, fail to respect EU borders.
Thus, despite the enthusiasm for yet another EU agency, any effective control programme must look beyond the limited vision of a mere 15 states.
It must take a wider perspective.
In this we are fortunate.
Since 1984 we have had the highly effective World Health Organisation's surveillance programme for the control of food-borne infections and intoxications in Europe, based in Berlin at the Von Ostertag-Institut.
Interestingly, unlike the little Europeans who are so often behind this EU project, the WHO's concept of Europe originally embraced 32 countries, which included the former Soviet Union and has since expanded to include all countries from the Urals to the Atlantic, from Iceland to Israel.
Not only does the WHO cover Europe it also has a wider remit across the whole planet and this is important.
If one charts the progress of the main food-borne diseases which currently affect Europe, most actually made their first appearance in the Americas.
For instance, to name but one, the recent threat of E. coli O157 probably emerged in South America.
It then spread to the USA, then to Canada, thence to Australia and Japan, before significant outbreaks occurred in mainland Europe - the first one being in Germany.
As a result, many of the control initiatives which have subsequently been adopted in Europe, have originated in other countries, particularly the USA.
Risk assessment must start where the problems starts.
Therefore, if one acknowledges the need for a transnational agency to bolster the efforts of individual agencies - and indeed I do - then any such agency should not only deal with Europe: it must have a global reach taking in global information.
That is precisely what the WHO does for us: working with its regional organisations in a wholly integrated manner.
This cannot be achieved by an EU organisation.
Given that the WHO programme remains properly funded and supported, there would appear to be no need whatsoever for yet another agency, especially one with such a limited reach as the 15 Member States of the European Union.
Food safety is far too important for it to become yet another excuse for EU integration.
It displays the very worst of the European Union, because the perception is one of control freakery.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the White Paper on food safety is a long overdue response to incidents like the BSE and dioxin crises, which deeply undermined consumers' sense of security and destroyed their confidence.
I particularly want to comment on two points.
First, the creation of a network amongst Europe's research institutions is absolutely essential if we are to achieve our objective.
But we need to avoid a situation in which the future European Food Safety Agency and, for example, the Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin have overlapping responsibilities and powers.
Not only the Commission, but also every Member State must be legally able to call upon this agency.
This makes sense if the European Food Safety Agency is also to be able to operate independently of the Commission and if, whenever necessary, it is to take prompt crisis management action.
However, the conditions for appealing to the Agency must be drawn up so that efficient and swift action is guaranteed.
Second, a universal system for tracing the original ingredients of all food must be created.
This principle must be consistently adhered to when the planned review of EU legislation on food labelling is carried out.
That is the only way to regain consumers' confidence in food production, which has been destroyed.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur, Mr Bowis has produced an excellent report, and in many areas I would like to reinforce what he has said.
Establishing an efficient and independent European Food Safety Agency is very much to be welcomed, not least because of the various food scandals to date.
Food safety is a fundamental requirement for consumers, because they want to eat healthily, and we have to ensure that this is possible.
The Agency's central tasks will therefore be risk assessment and risk communication, an early warning system with the assistance of the five food committees all working together, excellent public relations work with consumers on food and food safety issues, and optimum networking with scientific institutions and control agencies in the Member States, so as to guarantee controls on the ground from producer to consumer.
In order to rebuild and strengthen consumer confidence, food safety and regulations need to be taken into account in legislation governing fertilisers, plant health products, medicines, the environment and waste.
Reliable risk assessment requires comprehensive analyses and reference measurements.
To make scientific results comparable across Europe, the measurement techniques applied need to be standardised and harmonised.
An appropriate infrastructure is required for testing food and in particular toxic substances in animal feed.
The Joint Research Centre's Health and Consumer Protection Institute is currently also carrying out pan-European quality and safety checks on food, and is amongst other things testing food for contamination and carrying out reference measurements for agricultural products and foodstuffs.
Substantial financial means are needed for all these measures.
It is therefore advisable also to involve and take advantage of the European Union's existing institutions, and if appropriate extend them. The funding necessary for this needs to be made available by 2002.
I have tabled an amendment on this subject, and I hope you will support it.
Mr President, I feel very pleased today and grateful both towards the Commission, for having embarked upon the work on better food safety, and towards Mr Bowis and the whole of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
I am grateful for the constructive cooperation we have had and for the willingness to compromise that has been shown for the purpose of producing a good report.
We are now hoping for Parliament' s support, and we hope that the Council and the Commission will accept our proposals.
Together with the bureau responsible for food and veterinary issues, other scientific bodies and national authorities, the food authority must create a comprehensive system.
Just as Mrs Paulsen said, all Member States and all companies, many of which are multinational, must comply with the legislation. If they do not, there must be a system of sanctions at EU level.
I therefore want to discuss Amendment No 16.
When food safety is threatened, both public health and the common market are placed in jeopardy.
We must consequently make such changes to the EU Treaty as to ensure that the Commission is given the option of imposing sanctions in the area of food, just as it has at present in the area of competition.
The food authority ought to be able to propose suitable measures to the Commission in this connection.
Mr President, I too have the pleasure first of all of commending the Commission for its White Paper on food safety, which is a good proposal, and Mr Bowis too for having done an excellent job of improving and fine tuning this proposal. What is more, he has published a document containing a practical resolution, the justification for which is both humorous and easy to read.
It is not often that we read documents such as these here in Parliament.
My group shares the Commission' s and the rapporteur' s view of how the independent Food Safety Agency' s responsibilities are to be apportioned.
We believe that its main task must be that of assessing food safety risks and that its core activity must be that of providing scientific advice.
Naturally, the legislation must also be strengthened, and caution and responsibility must be the watchwords of everyone without exception, permeating the whole approach to food and enabling the entire food chain to be covered.
Food must also, as far as possible, be produced in accordance with ecological principles.
What we really need is a comprehensive strategy for dealing with food at every stage of its production.
We are concerned with issues such as GMOs, additives, labelling and so on.
I hope that the Commission will really provide for such a strategy.
My group supports most of the amendments.
I think that Amendment No 17 is particularly important, stating that the consumer organisations must be consulted.
Since recital J states that industry and food producers must be consulted, I believe that a balance is needed in this area.
Mr President, the sheer number of food scandals and the debate about using genetic engineering in food production have undermined the present food safety system.
Optimum food safety standards and falling consumer protection standards cannot be reconciled.
So something else is needed here, and I believe that too.
But I am in favour of most responsibility remaining with the Member States.
The Community is the world's largest importer and exporter of food.
This sector has an annual turnover of EUR 600 billion and employs 10 million people.
I support everyone involved, be it in a political, administrative or other capacity, who is working on a "food for all" strategy.
The developed industrialised nations are also best placed to make the greatest contribution here, through sustainable and varied food production.
The White Paper is a political paper for those in positions of responsibility in food production.
A zero-risk policy is not really practical.
That is why the preventive measures in the White Paper constitute the real action plans.
What is more, there is no European flavour here.
National peculiarities should not only be respected, but actually encouraged.
This is where the only weak points in the White Paper on food safety lie.
Certain questions remain unanswered, such as: what will the relationship be between the Food Safety Agency and consumers? How is it to be financed and how will it cooperate with the Member States?
What about liability?
Up to now, of course, it has been the innocent parties who have paid. The Commission will have to provide more concrete answers to these questions in its continued work.
Mr President, we value the work carried out by Mr Bowis because, in addition to placing the subject in the right context, it raises important questions to which solutions must be found in the course of time.
The usefulness of the authority to be established is undeniable, both in terms of monitoring and in terms of prevention, for which, in any case, the precautionary principle does not provide adequate practical guidance.
A reliable legislative framework, the definition of acceptable risk and the practical safeguarding of local food and production diversities are aspects which still require attention, together with those of small and medium-sized businesses and the training of their employees.
A further aspect is the organic revision of the labelling rules for both wholesale and retail selling, which will at last provide the consumer with correct information regarding products' traceability and make it possible to identify where responsibility lies in the event of risk or crises.
Moreover, it has been said, and rightly so, that the authority will not be a political body and that, particularly in the event of a problem arising, it will report to the Commission and the Member States.
How this works in practice will become clear when the authority has to act.
Its legal status, authority and interaction at European level with other technical and scientific bodies whose responsibilities currently partly overlap with the authority being established also need to be defined.
In short, it will be important to see how its independence and transparency are reconciled with the fact that no current resources have been allocated to it, with its subordination to the Commission, on the one hand, and with its authority to act autonomously and the membership of its board of directors on the other.
Lastly, the intention to identify priority actions and class them in order of importance is certainly positive. However, while such actions are so long awaiting definition, they do not make up for the need to define a comprehensive European line on food policy and food safety, which will give the many European diversities another opportunity to display their unity.
Mr President, rapporteur Bowis started his explanatory statement on his report with a quotation from Ludwig Feuerbach, which he also repeated this morning: "der Mensch ist was er isst" (You are what you eat).
I do not share this viewpoint, for we know that a human being is more than just a body.
The fact that food safety rules have been around for a long time is evident from the Bible, as God prescribed these to His people of Israel.
However, it is appropriate to qualify the concern which people have with regard to food safety.
I would like to counterbalance the quotation from Feuerbach with one from the Lord Jesus himself: "What goes into the mouth does not make anyone unclean; it is what comes out of the mouth that makes someone unclean" , namely what we all say.
In modern society, the choice of food is enormously varied.
We mainly eat tasty food, even if we know it is unhealthy.
Strangely enough, however, there is huge panic amongst the public if something goes wrong with food production.
In order to win back their confidence, extremely drastic measures are taken, the necessity of which in terms of safety might be questioned.
Could a European Food Safety Agency have prevented a dioxin crisis and a BSE crisis?
In my view, drafting new legislation is not the right response to non-compliance with existing legislation.
The setting up of independent inspectorates in the Member States which can enforce the law on the spot should therefore be given priority.
The same applies to the rapid alert system.
Member States need to ensure that this system works well and they need to inform the European Commission in good time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the Bowis report forms a solid basis for further work and I believe, Commissioner, that there is now not one single reason why you, so to speak, could not produce the legislative proposal tomorrow, for the large majority of Parliament is now agreed on the way forward. Mr Bowis, the fact that it is such a large majority, is partly and mainly thanks to you.
You are an extremely skilled diplomat.
I will not dwell on the heart of the matter, since we are all agreed on that.
I would like to bring a few minor aspects to the fore.
I have tabled an amendment which is not unimportant, in my view, although Mr Whitehead suggested it was redundant.
The authority must be independent and that is why I think that 'close ties' , as stated in Paragraph 12, should actually not be allowed, not with anybody - not with consumer associations or anybody else.
I therefore believe that your Amendment No 11 and my Amendment No 17 are perfectly reconcilable.
Secondly, in addition to the authority, there are a number of important things which need to happen.
I would single out two of these: we urgently need PCB standards at European level, as well as a positive list of ingredients of animal feed.
Commissioner, I would say that there is no time to lose and, ladies and gentlemen, our role in the European Parliament is also vital for, by studying the annual report and interviewing the director of the authority, we will need to ensure that the authority works, because if it does not, if it does not do its work properly, we will end up footing the bill politically speaking.
I believe that is something which we will need to keep an eye on in the years ahead.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for assembling the amendments of all the groups - as other members have said - in the compromise amendments.
I think he is pursuing an obvious objective which is - as he says in his document - that of guaranteeing the high levels of food safety that should exist, and a second objective that derives from the first, which is to say that of restoring credibility in the eyes of the consumer, which has been somewhat dented by scandals.
I would like to remind you of one that occurred in Spain, the rape seed oil scandal - the consequences of which are still apparent now, after more than 20 years - but also the BSE scandal, the dioxin scandal and the latest worrying scandal in the United States regarding the release, for use in food products, of transgenic sweetcorn that would seem to be unsuitable for consumption.
I believe the rapporteur's proposal to act on three levels is very important.
The first level is to create a food authority or agency, founded on the principles of integrity, transparency and independence - independence, amongst other principles, is essential. The second is to introduce clear, accessible priority legislation, and the third is to cooperate with agencies in the other Member States, non-governmental organisations, consumer organisations and international bodies.
Therefore, as Mihail Papayannakis said, we too are going to approve and support the report.
Mr President, I would like to join with other colleagues in complimenting the rapporteur, Mr Bowis for his very constructive and very logical approach to this particular problem.
May I say, by way of a light note, that when I listened to Mr Blokland introducing some biblical quotes I felt he had elevated the status of this debate to a new plane because there were times when we thought that nothing short of divine intervention would help us resolve the matter.
However, having said that, I believe it is to the credit of this Parliament and Commissioner Byrne that food safety now dominates the European agenda.
Our citizens expect and are entitled to a vigilant and positive response.
In my view, nothing less will restore consumer confidence in an important policy area both for producers and consumers.
We have all learned our lessons from the food crisis of the 1990s.
I am confident that by putting in place a systematic set of uniform rules we are laying the groundwork for filling the gaps in the existing legislation.
This would clearly enhance food safety through the food chain.
The reform of European Union food laws would be carried out at the level of the European Union.
We want to avoid a situation where there may be a renationalisation of food purchasing within the European Union.
One of the central elements of the reform of the common agricultural policy is to avoid the renationalisation of the CAP in any shape or form.
That is why it is so important that food safety laws are enforced at European Union level.
For this reason also I welcome one of the core elements in the White Paper on food safety which would lead to the setting up of a new European Food Safety Agency.
This authority would have responsibility for scientific evidence and the communication and management of all risks relating to food safety.
Another issue which will confront us over the coming months is that of GMOs in food production and we must be open to the potential of biotechnology.
In this respect it could be a serious mistake to assume that biotechnology means poor quality or unsafe food.
For example, GMO foods offer the opportunity to reduce the levels of pesticide residues and improve nutritional quality, it would be negligent to ignore these advantages.
However, I fully support the introduction of clear, non-technical and standardised labelling in the context of GMO food products.
Moreover, no food products which are genetically modified or contain genetically modified ingredients should be allowed into the food chain until they are fully tested, and only then with clear labelling specifications.
Mr President, the fact that the White Paper on food safety has no intrinsic legislative value does not in any way detract from the dual purpose which it undoubtedly serves.
First of all, it embodies the commitment to completely and comprehensively overhaul legislation, to set up an independent Food Safety Agency and to organise inspection better.
It also has symbolic meaning.
It can and must signal the start of a new beginning.
From now on, the policy will be tackled in a coordinated and integrated manner and will embrace the entire food chain.
I welcome the fact that rapporteur Bowis, who has done sterling work, has opted for a positive approach to the White Paper.
His report does not so much propose amendments as establish emphases.
For example, it is right to stress that the food authority should first and foremost concentrate on food safety.
Nevertheless, I hope that there will also be room for collating knowledge in the field of linking food patterns to health.
After all, policy should not only focus on preventing damage to health, but also on obtaining health benefits.
A second justified emphasis is the request for consideration to be given to regional and cultural differences in the food supply and to the role of the SME and the traditional trades in question.
I would in this light urge you to recognise the specific value of the SME and traditional trades in the extensive package of legislation.
A third emphasis is required which is as yet missing from the report but which we can introduce via Amendment No 12.
Both the White Paper and the Bowis report mention communication on the one hand and procedures in emergency situations on the other, but there is no attention to the internal and external crisis communication which is so desperately needed.
It can nevertheless - and we have first-hand experience of this in Belgium - be a determining factor in managing the extent of a crisis and in whether consumer confidence in the institutions survives or not.
To conclude, let us hope that the Member States might join in the vision shared by Parliament and the Commission, and that, above all, they will assume their responsibility, not only as constituent parts of the Council, but also as a body which must ensure that inspection in the field is carried out efficiently once the European measures have been transposed in national legislation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the White Paper on food safety has laid a firm basis for better food in future and I am also hopeful of more environmentally-friendly and people-friendly production of food.
The rapporteur, along with many MEPs in the Committee, including myself, have placed the focus on the food authority and this is regrettable to some extent.
Regrettable, because good food, safe food particularly benefits from clear legislation.
But I also understand that the many crises in Europe, and I also refer to my own country, have shown that we mainly need something to hold on to.
The policy needs an anchor so that clear choices can be made and the consumer needs to have confidence.
This is why we need this food authority and this is why we are right to set the necessary store by it.
It is important for this food authority to be able to function independently.
We have spelled this out very clearly in the report, and I am absolutely delighted about it.
It is also important for the food authority to be able to prioritise, to work pro-actively and to make recommendations to those who are responsible for risk management.
I rather regret that the title only refers to food safety.
I can understand if food safety has to be the point of departure, but surely links must be established with other areas, such as the environment, health and such like.
I hope that an energetic, future authority can get this dynamic going.
Finally, I believe that, at this moment in time, during this political discussion, we should not focus on the place of establishment.
I am quite convinced that this leaves the population completely cold.
Mr President, as the representative of the European Liberal Democrats, I would like to thank the Commission sincerely for its White Paper, with its ambitious objectives.
It is necessary to move forward swiftly and with flexibility in these matters.
This is in the interests of consumers, but also, at the same time, the food chain in Europe.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has now come to adopt a reasonable policy, as there is now the desire to create a scientific, authoritative body from the Food Safety Agency, which would have responsibility for risk assessment and keeping the public informed.
It is important that risk management itself will continue to be the responsibility of the Member States and the Commission and thus the object of political supervision also.
For us to be able to restore consumer confidence in the safety of food and maintain it, the Food Safety Agency must start its work with adequate public resources.
Self-sufficiency and the independence of the unit will serve the interests of European consumers best.
For that reason it would be best if the agency did not function under the auspices of the Commission but independently and as a body that is physically separate from the Commission.
The agency must be located somewhere well-connected in terms of transport and information technology, and the area in question should have a good reputation in the area of food safety.
Support from the surrounding scientific community will also be an important factor when choosing a location.
For that reason, I support Amendment Nos 14 and 19, which express a desire for principled guidance in deciding a future location.
The White Paper, which Mr Bowis' report broadly endorses, does not define an imperative policy, which is a great pity.
Yet, the creation of a European Food Safety Agency is a very positive step.
However, as some Members have said, we must guarantee its independence.
That means providing it with adequate financial and human resources.
For our part, we believe that a tax on agro-business profits would be a way of releasing these resources.
In order to respect the principle of transparency, we must also authorise the referral of cases to the agency by the unions and the various professional associations, in relation to both consumption and ecology.
Sound scientific risk assessment, coupled with an effective strategy of communication with the public, cannot by themselves stamp out the food crises.
That is something of a technocratic view, which makes the mistake of overlooking the cultural, social and economic dimensions of food.
We need a stronger political will to resolve certain crises.
Take the current mad cow disease crisis.
We should be able to ban the incorporation of animal meal in feed and withdraw the licence of food manufacturers who do not respect these rules.
Mr President, I congratulate John Bowis on his excellent work.
I have on many an occasion throughout this process thought that we were lucky when we chose him to draw up the report.
He has withstood the pressures he has come up against in this emotional issue extremely well.
I would also like to thank Commissioner Byrne for his cooperation.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy followed Mr Bowis' s advice and decided not to adopt a position on the location of the Food Safety Agency.
In my opinion, that was a wise policy.
It is, however, important to define what we expect from the Food Safety Agency and what sort of criteria should apply in selecting its location.
In the interests of the citizens of the Union as a whole, it is to be hoped that these criteria will be implemented.
They include good reputation in the field of food safety, independence, and good scientific infrastructure incorporating the best available technology and good transport and telecommunications links.
Amendment No 19, which I together with Mr Nisticò and Mr Fiori, as well as many others, tabled on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, states these criteria clearly without taking a stand on any particular location.
These criteria will all be essential tools in realising the common aim to restore consumer confidence in European food safety as soon as possible.
In talks, there has been a call for the agency to be located in a city in which one of our Institutions is located, as, otherwise, it could not be supervised.
This sort of argument is puzzling and worrying and in fact removes the foundations on which the idea of integration is built.
I do not think we can in all seriousness say that only an authorised body that is located in the midst of the Community can reliably carry out the task it is entrusted with.
There must be other reasons for the euro' s low value than the fact that the European Central Bank is situated in Frankfurt.
I myself do not think this way and trust in the strength and basic principles of European integration throughout the EU.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mr Bowis on the huge effort which he made in his report to take account of everyone's view and for agreeing that we should also refer to the more general concept of food.
The White Paper on food safety is a proposal which aspires to restore consumer confidence in the entire food chain.
Consumers are quite right to demand food which poses absolutely no threat to their health and the quality of which meets certain criteria and specifications.
Consequently, legislation on food issues should cover the entire spectrum and extend horizontally.
Allow me to highlight a number of points.
The early warning system has proven to be less than efficient and the Member States bear a great deal of the responsibility for this.
I think there should be specific deadlines by which the European Commission must be notified if there is any cause for concern.
Stricter, more efficient controls are needed in the Member States.
As far as the European Food Safety Agency is concerned, the fact that it is independent should be highlighted; then it will be able to assess any imminent risk and propose measures for managing the risk and helping to shape final political decisions.
Similarly, the Agency should ensure that there is transparency by giving all interested parties access to information.
I think that transparency and independence are the sine qua non for proper, safe food, which is what we are all aiming for.
Mr President, recent incidents which involved meat from sick cows ending up in the food chain in the Netherlands and France, as well as the debate which has flared up again in Great Britain, underline once again the need for tighter monitoring and inspection of food production.
Winning back the public' s confidence in food safety is more important than for food safety alone.
After all, this is about the confidence of the citizen in the government.
This is why the new European Food Safety Agency must become a powerful and independent body which does not only inform the public but is also given specific powers to propose effective measures in good time and to investigate problems in the event of a crisis.
We therefore have an organisation in mind which is as slim as possible, and not a large bureaucracy.
In addition, part of the body' s efficiency will consist of transparent decision-making and the swift publication on the Internet of its studies and recommendations, as happens with, for example, the Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin, which is running extremely smoothly.
The public is entitled to this.
It is also important to build on the work of existing organisations, such as EMEA and FAO, because duplication must be avoided.
Finally, the European Government should not escape its responsibility.
In the final analysis, decisions must be taken by the European Commission, and Parliament must, for example by means of a discussion on the annual report, remain involved in the work of the agency.
On a final note, President Prodi created huge expectations in the run-up to his presidency, and Commissioner Byrne and rapporteur Bowis were asked to flesh these out in their White Paper.
I believe they succeeded in this extremely well, and we shall now welcome legislation in this field as soon as possible.
Mr President, while the European food chain is one of the safest in the world, poor practice, and indeed recent scandals, have set an agenda to which our Commissioner, Mr Byrne, has responded admirably.
My compliments to him and indeed to our rapporteur, Mr Bowis, for a very logical and rational approach to the problem before us today.
The EU must have the highest possible standards of food safety for its citizens.
Food safety and public health are key political priorities.
We must be able to trust those who set out to advise us - farmers, food manufacturers, processors, retailers, government, consumer advisory groups, scientists, an endless list.
It is essential that we have a body of science as a reference point, whether we are consumers or policy-makers or even contributors to the food chain, and that we know what is an acceptable balance between risk prevention and informed consumer choice - it is all about balance.
Safety and security does not mean sacrificing choice, or indeed cultural diversity, and one of the most interesting amendments of the Committee on the Environment, which supplements and strengthens the report, is on the preservation of the European cultural heritage with regard to local food specialities.
Risks therefore need to be identified early, assessed scientifically and nipped in the bud.
European action is appropriate because in a single market risk does not stop at national borders.
The EFSA should play an important role in the existing Rapid Alert System, which should be improved and extended to cover all areas of food safety, including animal feed.
I welcome the fact that there is broad agreement on the main principles: that a new scientific body responsible for food safety risk assessment should be established, that it should be independent, accountable, transparent and subject to the needs of objective research and of commercial confidentiality and that it should provide the public with accessible and comprehensible information.
Most important of all, it should gain the respect of its peers, the confidence of the public and the willingness of Member State governments to accept its conclusions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the White Paper on food safety is the Commission's response to the public's increased sensitivity in this area.
The limited quantity of food we still allow ourselves must first and foremost be healthy, taste good and be produced in an environmentally sound way in consumers' eyes.
There are many aspects that need to be addressed in talking about food safety and if we want to guarantee it.
There are already very many organisations and institutions, not to mention associations and initiatives, concerned with food safety.
In the European single market, which implies free trade and movement of goods, we are increasingly faced with the issue of legislative jurisdiction and responsibility for controls in this area, which is so important for the European public.
The Commission is now proposing the creation of a European Food Safety Agency.
I welcome this proposal, but at the same time I have certain questions about the powers, remit and influence of a European authority.
These are the same questions that we considered in committee.
I would therefore like to compliment Mr Bowis on his excellent and well-balanced report, in which he has brought together a wide variety of ideas.
The Agency's responsibility should be for risk assessment.
It should carry out assessments and work with bodies in the Member States.
Transparency is particularly important, and is required by the public.
They want to be kept informed.
That is why the Agency has to ensure that the public has easily accessible and understandable information.
The Agency is intended to work closely with existing institutions, but that also means that information, statistics and data should also be mutually accessible.
Other people's experience and findings can be pooled with our own, and findings can be assessed at pan-European level.
We do not want everyone reinventing the wheel.
But we can also learn from each other's experience here.
That is how I see the future role of a Food Safety Agency.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to offer my congratulations to Mr Bowis as rapporteur.
We have heard various fine phrases quoted about diet.
Let me offer one more: variety in moderation.
The selection found on overflowing shelves has long since made this a genuine option.
But the creation of a new authority or agency cannot change the eating habits of many members of the public, or the way we prepare and store food, or people's inadequate knowledge about preparing a balanced diet.
Making food safer does not remove the need for consumers to act responsibly.
Commissioner Byrne, it sounds to me as if we will have fewer and fewer producers but more and more inspectors.
I am worried that Europe is again in danger of creating an overblown bureaucracy that is incapable of taking action.
How exactly will the Agency's powers be divided with national inspection authorities? I am concerned that this will be another millstone round our necks.
This new authority will not strike a blow for freedom in terms of consumer policy.
Who will be suing whom in future food scandals?
We are always discussing the division of powers in the context of enlargement of the European Union.
But this concept also plays a key role in food safety.
Strict application of the "polluter pays" principle will remain essential in repairing economic damage in future.
The consistency of the White Paper on food safety leaves something to be desired in places.
The timetable for achieving its objectives varies greatly according to the wishes of many stakeholders.
So we will not stand in the way of establishing this body any more with today's debate.
However, I do believe that we should not raise our hopes too high by imagining that this body will be a cure for all ills in future.
Mr President, my colleague Mr Bowis has played a fine hand with the cards which he has been dealt.
But I intend to ask whether those cards should have been dealt at all.
Over and over in this House we discuss the details of proposals which have been put before us but we fail to ask whether those proposals should be there at all.
We already have food safety agencies in most Member States.
We have scientific committees advising the Commission.
We have the World Health Organisation in Geneva.
What will a European Food Safety Agency add? It will largely duplicate the activities of existing agencies.
Its main function is public relations.
It is driven by the desperate need to persuade a sceptical public that the European institutions are delivering something - anything - of value.
Would the new agency have prevented the British BSE crisis or the Belgian dioxin crisis? As Mr Blokland rightly says, almost certainly not.
We need to recognise the law of diminishing returns.
As we create new levels of bureaucracy and spend ever more money we get less and less in return.
We are told we cannot question the value of money spent on human health.
Yet, as politicians allocating finite resources, we must ask these questions.
Would the vast cost of this new agency be better spent on cancer research or smoking prevention or road safety? Almost certainly these areas would deliver better value in terms of lives saved, yet no one is prepared to ask the question.
I turn to the question of location for the agency.
In my view its main task should be to coordinate better the work of existing agencies.
The heads of national agencies should constitute its board.
These people should continue to sit at their own desks, in front of their own computers.
The location of the agency should therefore be not in Barcelona, Helsinki or Italy, but on the Internet, in cyberspace.
It would be efficient, transparent and accessible.
This would be a truly twenty-first century solution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in contrast to the previous speaker, I would like to say in the clearest terms that the White Paper on food safety before us today provides a springboard for action by the institutions of the European Union, for achieving the highest standards in food safety and for regaining consumer confidence.
After all, there are good reasons why we asked for this paper.
Of course, there have been very different approaches, as the discussions in recent months have demonstrated.
That is why the rapporteur deserves great praise, because he has managed to pull together very different approaches and ideas into a clear report.
There have even been widely conflicting views about the main point of the White Paper, the creation of a Food Safety Agency.
I will not deny that when the White Paper was published, I spoke out against the Agency.
If when it comes to the vote I - and I expect a substantial majority - argue in favour of this Agency, I would nevertheless advise the Commissioner not to be deceived.
There are many doubts and critical voices.
You should take Parliament's proposals seriously and concentrate the Agency's work on scientific tasks and risk analysis.
I particularly wish to stress that the Agency and the present system of advisory committees cannot exist side by side.
There must be clear arrangements governing the Agency's cooperation with the Joint Research Centre in Ispra and the Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin.
You must prevent several institutions carrying out similar work in parallel.
As regards the actual structure of the Agency, it must be clear how it is to be financed.
We in Parliament welcome and wish to encourage a financing plan. What staff numbers are required?
What is an appropriate timetable for setting up an authority of this kind? You should also use the White Paper to enforce strict rules in the Member States.
If the proposals for over 80 legislative measures are much the same as the hygiene rules I have now received as rapporteur, then I am very optimistic.
However, Commissioner, when it comes to the provisions on labelling, please think again about your ideas ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, developing an independent European Food Safety Agency is a major objective which must be achieved in conjunction with the national structures responsible for monitoring.
We must, however, ensure that in the wake of the debate on the White Paper, the fear of a bureaucratic Europe which concerns itself with the quality of products without doing anything effective to combat fraud that threatens the health of the consumer is not reinforced in the mind of the public.
I, too, congratulate Mr Bowis on his report and I would just like to highlight one point.
A strategy which covers the entire food chain, from farming to production and distribution, could facilitate further economic concentration to the detriment of smaller companies and companies producing typical products, without creating any real advantage for the consumers.
Small companies producing typical products are the jewel of many European regions.
The objective of food safety can and must fit in with this grass-roots situation which, as a large number of Members have stressed, is of cultural as well as economic value.
Mr President, I would like to extend my genuine congratulations to Mr Bowis on his sound report on the White Paper for food safety.
It is a very loaded topic which, after the European food crisis, has led to heated debates, and Mr Bowis managed very well to incorporate this debate in his report.
In the Netherlands, the debate has focused on a European Food Safety Agency, which could be seen as Europe' s answer to the American FDA.
In fact, that is how it was launched by the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, when he took up office.
The White Paper which is now before us and the Bowis report both take an agency as their only starting point, an agency attended by an extensive package of tasks in the form of accompanying legislative measures designed to restore confidence.
Upon careful examination of the White Paper in the Member States and here in Parliament, it will then be given legislative status in the form of a new draft directive.
The tasks will then involve independent scientific research, advice, independent inspections and a rapid alert system, but definitely coordination too, in order to restore confidence.
I have concerns regarding those independent inspections.
Why? In my view, there should be better guarantees for coordination with Dublin, and it should also be possible to carry out inspections in the Member States without prior permission.
Amendments have been tabled to that effect.
Legislation, standards and laying down rules remain within the remit of those institutions authorised for those purposes in Europe. Those are the Commission, as initiator, and the Council and Parliament as legislator.
That does not take away the fact that I am left with one huge wish.
I would have liked so very much to have drawn a comparison with the EMEA, and I also wanted to include notification and product approval as part of an agency' s remit.
I hope that this will be given due consideration in the new proposal.
First of all I would like to express my thanks to the many Members who have contributed to this report.
As you are aware, the Commission attaches the highest priority to its strategy on food safety.
I must give special thanks to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and its rapporteur, John Bowis, for producing this opinion with such a degree of consensus and pay particular tribute to him and to the other Members of this House who have taken the time to discuss these issues with me and with my officials.
The consequence is that we have achieved this excellent measure of consensus which is yet another notable example of the cooperation that can exist between our two great institutions.
The Commission's White Paper on food safety sets out a major and ambitious programme of legislative reforms to complete the EU's farm to table policy.
Taken together with our proposals to establish a European Food Safety Agency, the programme will make a major contribution to the health protection of our citizens as well as to the restoration and maintenance of consumer confidence in food safety.
European consumers have every right to expect the highest achievable food safety standards and our ambition is to develop systems that deliver this.
A food safety chain from farm to fork, correctly regulated and effectively controlled, is the road to building high levels of confidence in the European food supply.
In this respect the Commission is already hard at work on its programme of legislative reform set out in the White Paper.
Several proposals are already before the Council and Parliament: for example, the package of proposals recasting and updating the hygiene legislation.
As an aside, I can say of the speakers who referred to the need for sensitivity in relation to the promotion of local food specialities and traditional foods that this issue is addressed in the hygiene legislation.
We are also working on a number of major reforms in the systems of control implemented by the competent authorities in the Member States and at Community level.
In this regard, the Commission will adopt proposals for a revised control regime in the period ahead.
The White Paper reiterates the Commission's commitment to basing its proposals for consumer health protection measures on sound science.
Indeed, the food authority is conceived as a point of scientific excellence at the service of the Community in its broadest sense: consumers, the institutions and Member States alike.
The food authority will also need to be visible to the general public and be the authoritative voice in matters relating to the scientific aspects of food safety in Europe.
The Commission intends to adopt a proposal for a regulation establishing the overarching principles and objectives of food law, which will provide the framework for future health protection measures relating to food.
This proposal will put forward the establishment of a European Food Safety Agency which will provide the Community with advice on scientific and technical issues and thereby enable the Commission to give effect to the general principles of food law.
Our intention is to adopt this proposal in the Commission on 8 November 2000.
This schedule continues to reflect the importance the Commission attaches to the matter and is broadly in line with the timescale set out in the White Paper which envisages that the establishing legislation will be enacted in 2001, leading to the establishment of the food authority in 2002.
I only wish we could do better in terms of time.
I know, Mr President, that you share my views in this regard.
I look forward to the fullest support from Parliament in dealing with this most important piece of legislation in the shortest possible timeframe.
I have followed Parliament's debate on the White Paper with great interest.
I am encouraged to note the high degree of agreement between Parliament's views as expressed in the draft report that you have debated, and the White Paper itself.
This will facilitate the Commission's task in bringing forward a balanced proposal that takes maximum account of the views of Parliament and the many stakeholders in the area of food safety.
You will appreciate that I cannot promise to take on board all your views, but my record before this Parliament will demonstrate that I will do my utmost.
I have previously acknowledged in Parliament and other forums what I regard as an important issue for the fullest acceptance of our ideas for a food authority: the role and involvement of Parliament itself in enacting the legislation establishing the food authority.
I would like to put it on the record today that I remain committed to Parliament having a full codecision role in the enactment of this legislation.
It is right and proper and I support Parliament's desire to see Articles 95 and 152 of the Treaty employed to this effect.
In conclusion, I would like to express my appreciation to you, Mr President, your rapporteur, Mr Bowis, the shadow rapporteurs, the Committee on the Environment and the other committees who have contributed, and the House as a whole for bringing to a close this chapter in our collective endeavours towards improving Europe's food safety regime.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Anti-personnel mines
The next item is the joint debate of the report by Mrs Bonino (A5-0286/2000) on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on Action against Anti-Personnel Landmines (COM(2000) 111 - C5-0158/2000 - 2000/0062(COD));
and the following oral questions:
B5-0544/2000 by Mr Miranda on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, to the Commission, on landmines;
B5-0545/2000 by Mr Brok on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, to the Commission, on landmines.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the first time that Parliament has tackled the issue of anti-personnel landmines.
Far from it. In recent years, this issue was one of the driving forces which led to the signing of the Ottawa Convention.
A campaign was initiated by certain non-governmental organisations and then taken up by the Red Cross, Europe and the Union as such, and it turned into something approaching a model international campaign.
This was one of the most rapid agreements to be signed in the history of international agreements: it is the only agreement to have been ratified within a year by forty parliaments, thus becoming operative.
The most recent meeting in Geneva noted considerable progress in the area of de-mining as well as awareness of the issue.
Certainly, much remains to be done, and this is why we must all welcome the Commission's proposal as a positive step.
Moreover, I hope that this capacity to exert pressure and the speed with which the Union tackled the issue of anti-personnel landmines might serve as an example for the ratification of other agreements which have always been extremely important to Parliament, such as the establishment of the International Tribunal for Crimes Against Humanity, not to mention the moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
Turning to our report, I welcome the Commission's proposal as positive, and I have to say that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Development and Cooperation have worked extremely hard in order to improve it - if this was possible - on certain points in particular.
I would just like to mention a few of these points which, with regard to Parliament's proposal, seem important and, in any case, represent a tangible step forward in this matter.
Firstly - and we hope that Parliament will support us in this - we stress the need to destroy the stockpiles of anti-personnel landmines still held by many countries, including signatory countries, because we feel that Parliament often talks about stockpile destruction as preventative action without really knowing what it is referring to.
The second point has to do with a whole series of elements - which I hope Parliament will approve - regarding budget lines.
Commissioner, in addition to further simplifying your proposal - thereby arriving at three budget lines: one general, one relating to research and one relating to humanitarian landmine clearance - we have further simplified the proposed comitology, and we hope that Parliament will approve this, considering that an advisory committee will suffice instead of a management committee, for the very reason that, in the interests of coherent interpretation, we feel that the Commission is responsible for implementing the budget and must account for it with total transparency.
Another important element is that Parliament is not asking for anything general but requests EUR 200 million over the period 2000-2006, plus the funds to be allocated to research, plus the humanitarian heading, for we are indeed - we hope - talking about action and not just a resolution.
Experience has taught me, Commissioner, that without funds it is difficult to achieve anything tangible from any point of view.
Moreover, precisely because the sum is so large - EUR 200 million - a considerable increase on past provision - we would like the Commission to establish an internal unit for anti-personnel landmine action, precisely in order to increase the transparency and cohesion of this activity.
From this perspective, these seem to me to be the characteristic elements facilitating responsible management and transparency. We will come to the political side of the report later.
The final point concerns the amendments.
I restate my position opposing Amendments Nos 10 and 19, in the interests of budgetary cohesion and, with regard to Amendment No 29, I call for split voting in order to improve the formulation throughout the text, for I feel that it has suffered from some misinterpretation.
I would like to thank you, Mr President, Commissioner, and the hope that all these innovative proposals will not only be adopted by Parliament but also taken into consideration by the Council and the Commission.
Mr President, even in common parlance the word 'mine' indicates danger, and if an Italian describes someone as 'una mina' they are calling that person a loose canon.
The European Union must be united in its action and ensure that the production of landmines is stopped, that all stockpiles are destroyed and that the ground is cleared of mines, and that assistance and means of social and economic inclusion is provided for their victims, who include many children, while safeguarding the development of the community affected.
In this sense, there must be a sharp focus on the issue and actions must be undertaken to further raise awareness in order to prevent the matter fading into obscurity.
Both the report and the opinions of the Committees, which we are presenting today, stress the driving role played by Parliament and the European Union in the abolition of landmines and in the provision of financial aid to the UN.
As Mrs Bonino said, very clearly and explicitly, the Commission's proposal for a regulation is a further step forward.
We have tabled several amendments intended to achieve greater clarity and transparency and to consolidate and rationalise the budget lines and our endeavours in the areas of mine clearance and stockpile destruction. These endeavours are carried out in conjunction with many NGOs, to whom all credit is due for convincing people that it is impossible to defer the issue any more.
The Union does, however, have a weak point - a number of weak points - namely that we need to put pressure on Finland, which has not yet signed the Ottawa Convention, and on Greece, which has not ratified it, or Europe will lack credibility when it promotes the adherence of all countries to the Convention and raises the question - which we have also raised in the oral question which we are going to put to the Commission - of whether the candidate countries have to sign the Ottawa Convention before they become Members of the Union.
The Unmine Monitor report for 2000 clearly shows the progress achieved through the Ottawa Convention.
There has certainly been a reduction on a world-wide scale in terms of production and trade and stockpiles etc., with a fall in the number of victims, although the figures are still too high.
A great many issues remain unresolved, especially since countries such as the United States have not yet signed the Convention and countries such as China and Russia hold enormous stockpiles.
Europe must find a way to ensure that these stockpiles are eliminated from history but linger in our memories as a reminder that we must stop killing people with our lethal products.
Mr President, we are all aware - in fact this has just been mentioned by Mrs Bonino and Mrs Morgantini - of how tragic the results of the use of anti-personnel landmines are and how serious the problem is given the large number of landmines that remain in place and primed on the ground.
Some say there are 70 to 100 million of them.
Hence the importance and timeliness of the Ottawa Convention, under which the international community is to take concerted action to put an end to this tragedy, which affects the poorest countries most of all.
Difficulties do remain, because certain major countries - which have already been mentioned - have not yet signed the Convention.
In this respect we can only regret the fact that one Member State, Finland, has not yet signed and another, Greece, has not yet proceeded to ratification, as Mrs Morgantini has just pointed out.
This raises the first question: the need for the European Union, especially the Commission, to do everything possible to encourage non-signatory countries to sign the Ottawa Convention.
It would be desirable if the Commission could tell us what it intends to do in this area, particularly with regard to the countries applying to join the European Union.
But of course its authority in this field will be greater if the Council and the Member States explicitly state that the European Union will under no circumstances in its external relations use anti-personnel landmines or help in their use.
It is, however, essential to ensure the greatest coherence and coordination between the actions taken by the European Union and those taken by the Member States.
In this field, too, the Commission can and should play an invaluable role, and it should tell us what it proposes to do in future in this context.
The Community actions to be taken in this field must also benefit from adequate budgetary support if they are to be as effective as possible.
The Commission' s draft regulation seems too vague.
We are firmly in favour of setting up a single budget line for action against landmines, except for research and food aid, and I believe it would be beneficial at the same time to set up a central unit coordinating all actions in this field, as mentioned by Mrs Bonino.
As for the actions to take, it is essential to guarantee that existing landmines - the enormous landmine stockpiles - will be destroyed so as to prevent them from finding their way onto the black market.
It is equally essential to put an end to their production.
Other mine-clearance or victim-support actions will be of little use if we continue to produce and trade in landmines.
We must act first in the area of prevention.
Afterwards we must invest more in research, especially research into the detection of mines placed in the ground.
Lastly, it is crucial that we reinforce mine-clearance action by ensuring the effectiveness of the actions taken and by giving priority to the countries that respect the Convention, just as it is also essential that we guarantee victim rehabilitation measures.
I would also like the Commission to explain in greater detail what it intends to do in these fields, bearing in mind past experience and the important role that the European Union has taken on in this area.
The field of action is, of course, vast and requires funding and great political will.
The challenge is enormous, but the extent of this tragedy demands that we make an enormous effort and commitment to put an end to this situation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we all know what the consequences of anti-personnel mines are, even if there may often be important military justifications for them in individual cases.
They result in immeasurable suffering, especially among civilians and children.
But they also often destroy countries' long-term development potential by contaminating entire regions.
For this reason it is extremely positive that the Commission and the European Union are tackling this subject as a whole and wish to ensure that a coordinated policy is adopted in this area.
Our question to the Commission is intended to encourage it to continue down this path and to strengthen this initiative still further.
I say this because we do indeed need coordination between the efforts of Europe and other international players, areas benefiting from development funds or actions directly administered by the Commission.
Proper mine-clearance equipment therefore needs to be arranged and we need to finance research work on detection and clearance, and on equipment that is simple to use on the ground, which is particularly helpful for developing countries.
There is also great potential for coordination in relation to personnel deployment, by which I mean both military personnel and civilians.
My committee also suggests that you should consider seeking special deployment arrangements in cooperation with Eurocorps, making it possible for Europe to take the lead here.
We also certainly need to designate priority areas for mine clearance so as to create special focal points.
Not all countries have yet signed the international conventions, nor have they been ratified by all countries, for a wide variety of reasons.
I believe that we therefore need to wage a campaign to make those in positions of political responsibility weigh up what the military benefit of mines is and what the consequences are for the people and the region.
By weighing things up in this way they will realise that arms of this kind should no longer be used and that we should help these countries to find political alternatives to using such mines.
I also believe that there must be a proper political framework in these regions so as to give such governments the political power to escape from this vicious circle, which means that, ostensibly, in trying to provide protection for themselves they ultimately harm their own population in the long term.
I must therefore encourage the Commission to regard this not just as a technical starting point for providing some kind of financial support, but also as an important opportunity to create a political framework with a view to securing an improvement here.
I should like to express my appreciation for the ambitious and constructive attitude of Parliament which is clearly reflected in the report by Mrs Bonino on the draft regulation, reinforcing the European Union's contribution to the fight against anti-personnel landmines.
It is no surprise that a report by Mrs Bonino is such a powerful and important document.
I am grateful but not surprised by the tone of the report.
After all, the European Parliament took the lead in the Union in the fight against landmines.
It was Parliament which first raised, in 1996, the issue of a horizontal budget line and of a proper legal base to provide a single platform for the wide range of actions that we undertake in this important field.
Parliament was instrumental in galvanising the Union into taking a proactive role at the Ottawa Conference in 1997, which led to the conclusion of the Convention to ban and eradicate landmines.
It is the challenge of implementing that Convention to the full which led the Commission to reflect on how to reinforce the contribution of the European Union to the battle against landmines.
The result of that reflection is before you in the form of a proposal for a regulation.
I should also like to mention the key role played by civil society, by highly motivated non-governmental organisations and, in particular, by the international campaign to ban landmines.
Their efforts are essential for the successful implementation of the Convention and their pressure on governments around the world has contributed tremendously to the encouraging record of ratification and accession.
Over the last eight years we have contributed over EUR 200 million from the Community budget to the fight against landmines.
In 1999 alone the Union spent more than EUR 100 million of which EUR 30 million was for Community projects, far more than any other international player.
Some Members of the House may have seen the brochure that we prepared for the Ottawa Convention review conference last month, which shows the breadth of the interventions that we are making, covering every corner of the world and every aspect of mine action.
I particularly commend the work of the Joint Research Centre.
Being the largest contributor to this cause is not enough.
The objective of the draft regulation is to allow us to define a strategic, overall approach and to measure our efforts against well-defined targets on the road to our common final objective of a world free of landmines.
Before I comment on the excellent report before us on the draft regulation I should like to make a few general remarks in reply to the interesting and valuable speeches made by Mr Miranda and Mr Brok.
Of course we share the objective of universalisation of the Ottawa Convention.
The European Union has a clear position, set out in the 1997 joint action on extending signature and ratification of the Ottawa Convention to as many countries as possible.
But I cannot hide this fact: the Union's powers of persuasion in seeking to achieve this goal are obviously somewhat limited by the remaining difficulties of some Member States in signing and ratifying the Convention.
This is, to follow the speech of the honourable Member, a point which we put with some regularity to those Member States.
Clearly, the granting of European Union mine-action support can work as an important lever to get potential beneficiary countries to sign up to the Convention.
The communication and the draft regulation provide for a degree of conditionality in this respect, but we should not be too dogmatic.
We have to acknowledge the specific situation in certain countries.
We should not penalise people who need our help, even if their governments are not yet sufficiently committed to the implementation of the Convention.
It is the usual dilemma that we face.
It is a dilemma which the honourable Member has expressed with considerable eloquence in the past: the challenge we have again and again of providing humanitarian assistance is people where the humanitarian assistance is very often needed as a result of the actions of their governments.
But we cannot penalise people when they have a lousy government.
As for the applicant countries, we would expect them to support the joint action which I have just referred to.
This is not Community acquis in the strict legal sense of that term, but we will obviously encourage them to do away with mines in their defence, to stop manufacturing mines or trading in them, and to sign and ratify the Mine Ban Treaty.
If I may again follow a point Mr Miranda made earlier, I am particularly keen that we should also look at projects to destroy the existing stockpiles of landmines.
It can be difficult environmentally and it is expensive but we should give that some priority in the future.
I should like to draw Parliament's attention to the Slovenia International Trust Fund which, in only two years of operation, has set up a regional mine-action programme with support from the European Union, the United States and a number of other countries, with projects throughout the Balkans.
After the events earlier this year in Zaghreb and the more recent events in Belgrade, we must hope that the future of south-east Europe is free of the setting of landmines.
Enhancing coherence between Community and Member States' action, to which the honourable Member referred, is at the very heart of the communication which accompanies the draft regulation.
We have adopted a flexible, coordinating approach rather than a rigid, centralising one.
Mine action is most effective when it is tailored to the conditions which are specific to each situation.
That is why we do not propose to pool all mine action, even within the Community framework, in a single programme and a single budget line.
Instead, we are proposing to set up an expert group with participation from Member States, from non-governmental organisations and from the other relevant players.
The intention is that this group should assist the Commission in drawing up an overall strategy for mine actions.
Turning now specifically to the Bonino report, I would like to comment briefly on the very few amendments by Parliament which the Commission has some difficulty in taking on board in their current form.
Some of them I have already touched on in my reply to the honourable Member.
Firstly, as I have already mentioned, I think it would be a mistake, well-intentioned but nevertheless counter-productive, to make accession to the Ottawa Convention a hard and fast condition for European mine-action assistance.
It goes without saying that we will only rarely agree to give assistance to countries which have not signed up to the Convention.
But there are bound to be cases where, for political or humanitarian reasons, we wish to assist populations, despite their governments.
So I would argue against Amendment No 18.
While I understand and respect the ambition behind the proposal to concentrate all funds for mine action under the horizontal budget line, with the exception of ECHO and research lines, I am not convinced that this gives us the necessary flexibility to maximise the effectiveness of European Union interventions.
It may be that over time the horizontal line will attract more attention and more appreciation, but we also need to maintain the link to broader national or regional programming through the geographic budget lines and regulations.
I myself would say no to proposed Amendments Nos 3, 16 and 21.
For the same reason I am confident that the human and administrative resources requested for the central mine action policy team are sufficient to guarantee the proper implementation of the regulation.
We do not want to add new layers to our bureaucracy; a small team and proper networking can achieve the same results.
I would propose to say no to Amendment No 17.
Similarly, we do not want to create another committee, be it management or advisory.
Parliament knows that there are far too many of them already and as the House knows, under our proposals for the reform of EC external assistance, we hope to move away from the heavy handed scrutiny of individual projects and instead focus our discussion with Member States on overall strategies and programming.
It is what we are agreeing to do on MEDA, for example.
This will be done in the various existing geographic committees.
Instead of adding another one to the list, we propose the creation of an expert group which will give us a forum going beyond government experts where we can discuss and where we can define overall mine-action strategy to be applied horizontally and to be reviewed every year.
Therefore the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 8, 22, 23, 25 and 29.
Finally, on the contracting of mine-action projects, I would caution against the introduction of stricter limitations to the participation in our tenders.
As well as pursuing local capacity-building and ownership, we must be able to draw on the best existing expertise and material wherever it is available.
In most cases that will be within the European Union, but we may exceptionally have to turn elsewhere.
I cannot accept Amendment No 19.
I will not go through all the many amendments proposed by the honourable Member, which the Commission can readily accept and which will in my judgment significantly improve the draft regulation.
These only confirm the sense of purpose and ambition which we all share.
We have a lot of work still to do if we are to achieve the objectives of the Ottawa Convention to eradicate these mines within the next decade.
The adoption of this regulation constitutes a small, but in my judgment an important step along that road.
I hope that we can rely on the continued support of Parliament for the successful outcome of the legislative process.
Mr President, some of us have been involved for many years in trying to overcome the scourge of anti-personnel landmines.
It is an issue that has caught the public imagination in many of our countries.
Governments have expressed their commitment and pledged large sums of money.
NGOs have sprouted up in response to the need and yet, some four years after the first United Nation's landmine conference in Geneva and over a year after the entry into force of the Ottawa Convention, we must recognise that many countries and thousands of people, usually in the poorest regions of the world, are still terribly afflicted by anti-personnel landmines and unexploded munitions.
Why is progress so slow? It seems to me that the problems are threefold.
Firstly, we need to be focused in our aims.
The anti-personnel landmine campaign should not be used as an opportunity to attack western governments, particularly the United States, western military establishments, or western industry.
For the most part, western governments are not the problem but part of the solution.
We should concentrate our political attention on the real culprits: warring factions and irresponsible governments who have shown no concern about civil populations and who use anti-personnel landmines as indiscriminate weapons of terror.
More importantly, practical mine action should focus on the priorities: making areas safe where the suspected presence of mines is a bar to resumption of normal life and economic development, and assistance to mine victims.
Secondly, the international community needs to improve the coordination of its efforts both at the global level and particularly within the afflicted countries.
The fact is we still do not know the true extent of landmine infestation and we do not know how effective efforts to clear mines have been.
A rapid stocktaking exercise needs to be conducted in each of the most afflicted countries so that we can see more clearly what needs to be done.
Thirdly, we need to ensure that money is spent well.
I take some pride in the fact that the European Commission is the world's largest supporter of mine action.
This is an area where, in view of the European Union's capacity for coordination of efforts by many countries, an application of large resources to the problem should be more effective.
There are many reasons why the rhetoric has not been matched by reality.
In a way, the landmine case characterises the wider failure of the Commission to make effective use of the resources at its disposal.
The Commissioner for external relations has previously recognised that the Commission's external aid programmes have been an embarrassment.
The Commission needs to improve both the quality of its programmes and their speed of implementation.
Things are beginning to move in the right direction under Mr Patten's leadership.
The Commission communication and the regulation on anti-personnel landmines are very useful documents, but they omit two key elements, which Parliament's amendments seek to correct.
Multiannual funding for mine action must be concentrated on a single budget line and there must be a properly resourced unit within the Commission, specifically responsible not just for the policy framework but also for the planning and implementation of mine action, including contracts.
Top-level commitment, proper direction and management with responsibility are the keys to the effective use of resources.
Let us have no more gestures but real action and tangible results.
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists shares the pride which Mr van Orden expressed a moment ago in the role of the European Union.
A number of years ago, I visited a school class in Kabul, Afghanistan, and witnessed how children were told about the different types of landmines.
And when I saw one of those landmines in the shape of a butterfly, I realised that landmines are designed so that children will play with them and get hurt, and it also gave me an insight into the moral value of those who manufacture this kind of product.
I also saw then that the awareness campaigns in schools as well as amongst the population are the most effective tool to prevent victims.
A substantial proportion of money should be earmarked for this. On behalf of my group, I welcome the relevant amendments with open arms.
Secondly, it is obvious that we are often fighting a running battle, for while these mines were being cleared in Afghanistan by all kinds of associations, others were being re-laid elsewhere.
And I am also casting my mind back to northern Mozambique, where I worked alongside organisations of handicapped people, injured by landmines, who got involved in the clearance and removal activities.
This taught me two things.
First, you have to involve the local population.
People, even if they are injured, can manage a variety of things themselves.
Second, I understood that the main aim of landmines is not to kill but to maim, and this makes this moral issue so loaded.
When I arrived in Angola, I saw the Norwegian People' s Aid, and they used a method by which, together with the local population, they traced where the mines were and cleared certain areas very strategically.
I took two things away from that experience: you need the experts, in this case the old soldiers of the Norwegian People's Aid and the local population - a crucial component - and you then need to clear the mines strategically.
The toothbrush methods, which are extremely expensive and time-consuming, are not always appropriate. It is better to clear strategic regions, so that new life can be breathed into the local economy, etc.
This got me onto the idea of not working with the national Angolan authority or via complex structures in the first instance, but of simply working with the authorities through strong NGOs among the local population in a well-organised manner, as is being attempted in Angola.
At the same time, one realises that new landmines are being laid in Angola, and this brings me to the point which Mr Patten highlighted.
Commissioner, you said that you were against a number of amendments.
I believe, however, that if you were to study them again with more care, you would find that there are a few amendments you quoted which, in my view, concern the awareness campaigns, transparency, access for NGOs, as well as things which are going well at the moment but which could run more efficiently.
I believe that you need not be afraid of the amendments tabled by Parliament in this respect.
We do not want more bureaucracy or comitology; instead we want to create more room for you, we want things to be done efficiently, and I believe that our priorities in this respect are not a million miles apart.
You may want to re-read a few paragraphs to see if all these points are really ripe for the bin, which is not so easy to admit for an English person.
I believe that, as far as that is concerned, you and Parliament are on the same side.
The Socialist Group feels part of this massive international anti-landmine campaign and we, together with other MEPs here, are proud of this.
Mr President, anti-personnel mines are abominable beyond belief. Their purpose is not to kill but to disable and cause the worst possible pain and distress for the victims, their families and their countries.
Think of the Soviet 'toy' bombs in Afghanistan.
They are, unfortunately, incredibly cheap to produce and wildly expensive to find and destroy.
It will take a hundred years to have them removed, and more and more of them are being scattered.
It was the Liberal, Jan Willem Bertens who raised the matter five years ago in Parliament, and I think this Parliament can really pride itself on having set the ball in motion so that we are now on the way towards a ban on mines.
We can also point to the very major and effective contribution the European Union is making on this issue.
More still can be done, however.
There are machines which can clear large areas of mines in a short period of time.
I have seen such a machine in Kosovo, but it was idle and not in use.
Mrs Bonino and Mr Patten are right in saying that it makes obvious sense to destroy the stockpiles, because the cost of destroying a stockpiled mine is only a hundredth of that of destroying one which has been transported to a place where it is difficult to find.
Mrs Bonino and Mr Patten are also right to say that Parliament and the Council should not interfere with the administration, and I listened carefully to Mr Patten' s remarks on this point for he obviously thinks we should interfere still less.
I agree in principle.
We should refrain from getting involved in the administration.
We should instead criticise the Commission if it does not engage in proper administration.
We should not, however, be controlling the Commission from a distance.
That is a mistake this Parliament is constantly making.
The Commission must have the freedom to exercise its powers, and we for our part should be free to slam the Commission - if I may use that expression - if it does not do the work well.
Finally, I should like to thank Mrs Bonino.
It is refreshing to have such an experienced rapporteur.
Thank you for a good report.
Mr President, very rarely from within the established power structures does anything new emerge.
The ban on anti-personnel mines has led to a process that is an excellent example of how NGOs and the European Parliament have been able to define and pursue with determination aims the statesmen either shun or consider unrealistic.
In the wake of the breakthrough at Ottawa we now have to ensure that the Union and its Member States attend to the continued action that is vital both in bilateral relations and internal legislation and maintain a leading role, as political will is being strengthened and sustained, so that the agreement is signed and ratified comprehensively, and by my own country, Finland, also.
It must also be made a precondition of EU membership for the candidate countries, i.e. become incorporated in the acquis communautaire.
The report under discussion and, in particular, the splendidly expressed opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation create the prerequisites for continued action, with the emphasis on actual mine clearance and attendant operations and not on seeking exotic and extremely costly technological solutions.
Biosensors are proving to be very promising in this regard.
The Brok resolution, for its part, offers a political dimension to this work and the questions for oral answer put to the Commission by Mr Brok and Mr Miranda offer guidelines that are of major importance.
All the institutions of the EU must work on their own initiative and in a way that the poor countries that suffer worst from the mines problem are effectively included in the programme.
The main responsibility for monitoring will naturally fall to the Commission, but we must all play a part in ensuring that joint voluntary work to remove this scourge worldwide is concluded as quickly as possible.
We can leave behind us a world without mines.
Mr President, our group has a history of calling for the entire spectrum of measures and action needed, from suspending production to destroying stocks, stopping trading, clearing mine fields, rehabilitating victims and raising public awareness.
However, I should like to make the following comment: the number of mines placed increases in direct proportion to the international community's inability to find political solutions to major problems.
When, for example, a country feels insecure along its border with another country, its government will take recourse, wrongly of course, to the easy option of a minefield.
When the international community cannot deal with the poison of nationalism and confrontation or help find political solutions, those involved will be more willing to take recourse to minefields.
We must bear this in mind because it seems to me, as far as the Balkans are concerned, that the West and the European Union must take their share of the responsibility, as the result of their political interventions, for the fact that half the Balkans are a total minefield.
I would like to end by saying that special action is needed in the Balkans and I should like to use this platform to say that the Greek Government should ratify the Ottowa Convention at once.
Mr President, the Cambodians call mines 'everlasting sentinels' .
These death traps, set off by chance by the victims themselves, sometimes many years after a conflict is over, are real time bombs that hinder the social and economic recovery of whole regions and the rehabilitation of the victims themselves.
As a signatory to the appeal for a world without mines, I fervently support Emma Bonino's report, because it is heading in the right direction.
Two years after the signing of the Ottawa Convention, the stockpile of mines remains, alas, an impressive one, at least as far as those that have been recorded is concerned.
For those that have still not been recorded, it is time to invent new methods of detection and identification.
It is essential for the European Union's financial input to complement national schemes.
Moreover, the European Union as a whole and the candidate countries must sign the Ottawa Convention and, more importantly, ratify it.
A very great deal is at stake here, for while war may have its rules, common law for some and codified law for others, the use of anti-personnel mines is not covered by them.
Eliminating them is no longer a military problem but a humanitarian issue.
Europe cannot confine itself to acting as provider of funds.
It is up to Europe to take the lead in considering the most appropriate mechanism, prior to deploying any new weapon.
Then it is up to the States to support the process in international fora.
To conclude, Europe must support and deepen the Ottawa process to ensure that we do not have another weapon creating dozens of victims every 20 minutes, as is happening now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I strongly support the Community's initiative against anti-personnel mines.
I only have to picture children mutilated by mines to reach the very personal conclusion that every euro spent on opposing this madness is money well spent.
One point that NGO representatives have criticised in conversation with me is the combination of military activity with NGO work found in points 11 and 15 of the resolution.
In the course of many years' work, the NGOs have won people's confidence and respect, and I fear that such a combination could compromise the independence of the NGOs and permanently damage their relationship of trust with people in need.
People have a justified mistrust of uniformed personnel, born of many years of war.
We should therefore do everything we can to provide continuing support for the work of NGOs.
Mr President, I will speak very briefly during my allotted minute, just to express regret that the Council is not represented at such an important debate, although it is quite obviously the institution with the greatest scope for action in the field our Members are discussing at this moment.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mrs Bonino personally for all her work.
The Ottawa Convention represents an important step in the international campaign to ban the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines.
I therefore very much welcome the fact that this new regulation is to implement that convention with an EU strategy for improving the coordination, coherence, transparency and control of these actions on mines.
The European Union also has to live up to its claim to play a leading role in this area.
The Austrian Federal Government has always given this subject the highest priority.
As we have already heard today, Parliament has been dealing with this subject for many years.
Parliament is the driving force behind all these efforts, and I believe that we should step up these efforts still further.
At this point I wish to specifically stress that we need to call upon further States to sign or promptly ratify the Ottawa Convention, so as to assist international coordination and rehabilitation of mine victims.
First and foremost, the EU Member States should sign the Convention.
I regard this as a duty of solidarity within the European Community.
Mines are of course a great obstacle to reconstruction in these countries and to the return of refugees.
As long as this danger exists, it will be very difficult to persuade people who have fled their homes to return.
The European Union is often the most important contributor to financing de-mining actions, and international actions are carried out in the relevant countries.
The problem of anti-personnel mines is too big for the regions directly affected, and also for the refugees in the areas involved, so that without international cooperation it is not possible to provide effective support here.
The international community must adopt a coherent and coordinated approach.
Further progress needs to be made with support for de-mining programmes, assistance for mine victims, and research and technological development.
It is imperative for a ban to be imposed on producing mines in the EU and on exporting mines from the EU.
This objective should be an absolute priority for us all.
Mr President, I am pleased that we finally have European legislation, in the form of a regulation, on anti-personnel landmines and that today we have a good report on the subject by Mrs Bonino.
In the previous term of office - as we have heard - the European Parliament approved the commitment by the European Union to fight against one of the cruellest, most lethal, most cowardly weapons in existence.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation - as Mr Patten has said - introduced a budget line in 1996 dedicated to de-mining.
However, this heading line nonetheless unfortunately decreasing in inverse proportion to the emphasis we are placing on this matter here.
Given that we are now approving the budget, I will linger a moment over the figures that worry me.
This year the figure was EUR 8,100,000.
For the coming year, the Council and the Commission have agreed to reduce the total to EUR 7,400,000 and Parliament proposes an increase of EUR 3 million compared with the year 2000.
These figures are not much to solve a problem that affects 110 million people in 64 countries, 26,000 victims of mutilations every year and, vitally, the many children who are described in countries such as El Salvador as the broken children, as these children are maimed, missing their hands, arms or legs.
I therefore ask that the importance of increasing this amount be conveyed to the Council, which is not represented here, and to the Commission, given that unfortunately, for each mine that is cleared, between 20 and 50 others are laid.
At the current de-mining rate it would - as was mentioned earlier - take well over 100 years to clear the planet of anti-personnel landmines.
I therefore ask that, although it is not enough, account be taken of the amount proposed by Parliament and that it should contribute to respecting the Ottawa Convention and I ask those countries that have not signed it or ratified it to do so.
Since various comments have been made, I would like to specify that although the Minister is not present, the Council is represented by senior civil servants, who will of course pass our words on to him.
Mrs Bonino, one minute in which to talk about a report which really speaks volumes about your commitment is very little, but I am happily in agreement with most of the conclusions of the report, including the implied criticism of those countries which have still not ratified the Ottowa Convention.
My own country took all too long to do so, unfortunately.
There is a problem in the report.
In my opinion, there is a tendency to try to relieve the CFSP of civil assignments.
I believe it is healthy to strengthen the civil obligations of any organisation which has military activities.
What I mean in actual fact is that, in addition to carrying out their normal developmental and humanitarian activities, the Council, the CFSP and the Member States should be required to match any amount spent on military activities with at least a corresponding amount for civil activities, for example mine clearance in the relevant areas.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing a very sad subject today.
I am sure we are all at least in agreement that anti-personnel mines should be outlawed worldwide.
I would like to subdivide this topic into three major areas.
The first area is that of prevention.
I am sure we in this Chamber agree that existing mines, and especially anti-personnel mines, must be destroyed.
When I think of the problems and the events in developing countries, such as those in the ACP area or in Central America, it is evident that things cannot continue like this.
Another point I regard as vital is that we need to tackle the black market, especially in Africa.
The second important area for me is follow-up action.
In this area we have to pay special attention to de-mining programmes and humanitarian actions.
In particular, research initiatives in this area need to be supported, especially those concerned with technology for detecting and clearing mines.
However, nor should we ignore the fact that the European Union, and in particular the European Parliament, is increasingly in a position to check more effectively where the money we intend for this purpose is actually going.
The third area I have in mind concerns specific measures that ought to be proposed, examined and implemented.
I believe that we should pay special attention to the victims of mines.
These are, for the most part, private individuals, civilians, children and child soldiers - another topic that we have already discussed.
With regard to children who have been mutilated in this way and therefore need long-term care, there is now the possibility of providing "growing" prostheses, which in Europe ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, what we are basically doing in today's debate on the Bonino report, an excellent report, is codifying measures to deal with an extremely serious international problem.
The Titley report, which we voted on a few days ago, basically represents a second step forward on questions of common foreign, defence and security policy which will, I believe, slowly but surely build up into a global policy for the European Union with flesh on its bones in the form of uniform terms and uniform rules.
I think that time will prove that those who took the initiative were right and we will stop seeing charity workers alongside children with their legs blown off, given that the policy should work as a policy of prevention rather than repression.
It is no coincidence that most mines are to be found in crisis areas, i.e. in areas where a different sort of initiative could have been taken in order to resolve the crisis.
Now to a question which was touched on in connection with my country, Greece.
I am certain that the Greek Government will not delay in ratifying the convention in question, given that it has already signed it as a country.
However, we must bear in mind that it will do so despite the fact that 'neighbouring Turkey' does not have the best of intentions vis-à-vis Greece.
This is, unfortunately, a fact of life and was brought home to us again recently, last week in fact, during NATO exercises, which were seen as an opportunity for a different kind of policy in the form of a show of intransigence.
But let us hope that the future will bring a solution to these problems.
Be that as it may, I believe that the majority vote which this report will receive here in Parliament will strengthen it to the point at which even those who do not have eyes to see or ears to listen will see and will listen.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I support Mrs Bonino's report, which provides for greater efficiency and transparency, and on which the Committee on Development and Cooperation has given its opinion.
I would like to thank her for her outstanding work.
I witnessed the suffering of mine victims with my own eyes during and after the war in Bosnia, in 1992, 1995 and 1999.
Many victims are small children, who suffer terrible trauma and appalling mutilation, and whose lives are destroyed before they have even started properly.
Every child that we can protect from death or terrible injuries because of mines, be it in Bosnia, Africa or elsewhere, makes all our efforts worthwhile.
I would also like to sincerely thank the non-governmental organisations for their commitment.
I would briefly like to comment on one point, and this concerns our amendment to the motion for a resolution.
There is no worldwide consensus in favour of banning anti-vehicle mines.
They are still regarded as essential protection against armoured vehicles throughout the world and within NATO.
No one should seek to belittle the achievements of Ottawa by saying that anti-vehicle mines should have been included.
In that case the Convention would certainly have been doomed to failure from the outset.
With regard to the enlargement of the EU, the candidate countries absolutely must sign the Ottawa Convention.
The USA, Russia and China should be urged to sign the Convention.
Greece and Finland should ratify the Convention as soon as possible.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I would dearly like to see all mines banned throughout the world, as they are some of the most diabolical and repulsive arms that exist.
Unfortunately, however, we are not in that utopian world.
Mr President, one day in December 1992, a young shepherd in Mozambique forgot the risk: he thought it had gone with the coming of peace.
That over-confidence cost him his left leg.
Two kilometres away from a hamlet in Bosnia, in 1999, a sign indicated the presence of mines in a field, but this did not stop a little boy going there.
For him it was a place to play, like any other.
Indeed, every time a war ends, people leave the refugee camps to return to their villages, hoping to lick their wounds and attempt gradually to rebuild a normal life.
But a mine is impervious to peace agreements and continues, inexorably, to do its job.
Even though 139 states have now signed the Ottawa Convention, mines are still doing their job of destruction.
Every 20 minutes somewhere in the world a mine will explode, bringing death or mutilation.
Of course, the Geneva Conference has brought some progress and we must stress that positive trend, for it really is the result of the determined battle the NGOs have long been waging.
However, the progress made should not blind us to the reality, and that reality is a total of 27 people killed and another 41 mutilated every single day.
The reality is 250 million mines in the arsenals of 105 countries.
Even last year, mines were used in 20 conflicts, mainly in Europe.
So I welcome the work done by my fellow Members, Emma Bonino and Luisa Morgantini, who have once again brought the political debate into the heart of this Parliament.
They make it clear how much we still need to do.
For my part, I want to highlight the need to adopt the convention universally so that it may become a total success, firstly by ensuring the compliance of the laws of the various states, so as not to have yet another example of an international agreement that fails to be applied.
We must indeed put pressure on those European Union countries that have not signed it, like Finland, or not ratified it, like Greece.
Why not consider sanctions, Commissioner, against those who do not respect the agreements? Why not include a clause on accession to this convention in the enlargement conditions?
You replied to all that a moment ago.
I know there are still differences of opinion on this or that amendment.
Yet I would ask you to look at them more carefully, because some of them are acceptable to the Commission.
Whatever the outcome, we will all of us together show that we are determined to fight against what has to be called 'a cowards' war' .
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, war is a cruel way of solving people' s differences.
It is tragic when the civil population suffers as a result of its leaders' lack of skills and experience.
The Ottawa Convention, which restricts the use of mines, is a very worthwhile endeavour.
Too many children have lost their lives or become crippled while playing in a danger zone.
The EU' s aid programme is necessary and I fully back it.
It is our duty to help nations that are suffering as a result of political mistakes made long ago.
In some countries there are more mines than there are truffles in France, and both are as hard to find.
Although I am in favour of ending the misuse of mines, I do wish to raise the issue of the problems that Finland has in this connection.
Finland has not signed the Ottawa Convention, and reference has been made to that quite often here, as in the case of the previous speaker also.
The criticisms, however, are sanctimonious and based on ignorance.
Ladies and gentlemen, just look at Finland.
The country is sparsely populated and it has a land border with Russia that is more than a thousand kilometres long.
The history we share with our neighbour has often been full of anguish.
We must fall back on the old Roman truth: the best way to keep the peace is to prepare for war.
The mines are an essential part of Finland' s defences. They cannot be used to conquer other countries, but are only used for purposes of defence.
All the mines in Finland are safely stored and are not exported to other countries. Their use is subject to stringent discipline.
I would like to stress this. Furthermore, all the mines are easy to remove in the wake of any conflict.
Finland cannot be put in the same category as many less developed countries, where the use of mines is very random and the inevitable consequences of that are evident.
It must be realised that Finland spends large sums of money on mine clearance in other countries.
In practice, this means removing mines with Finnish equipment, providing assistance for victims, and the destruction of mine stores.
This work supports the EU' s efforts.
Finland has already, for its own part, taken responsibility for the world' s mine problem.
This must, nonetheless, come about in such a way that one' s own country' s security is not compromised as a result of political pressures.
Welcome
Anti-personnel mines (continuation)
Mr President, years ago when the international campaigns for landmine-clearance began, it used to be said that landmines were the poor countries' atomic bomb.
Despite the time that has passed, this apparent exaggeration may still unfortunately serve to describe the situation.
There can be no development without safe roads, without suitable land for cultivation and without places where children can play freely.
That is why the European Union joined and has come to play a leading role in the international campaign started by the United Nations, as has already been mentioned by the previous speakers.
We can now clearly see the merit of the proposal put before us, upon which Mrs Bonino has based her report.
I support this report and any other initiative to restate the role of the European Union in this objective.
I must stress that for this to occur the effort of the European Union must be more cohesive, bringing in Finland and Greece; the European Union must coordinate all its power to exert international pressure on those countries that have not yet accepted the Ottawa Convention; and the European effort must become more effective, for example through an increase in funding, taking into account the need for safe mine clearance, the systematic destruction of existing stockpiles and the further development of advanced mine detection and clearance technologies.
This effort must also be made more effective through coordination and monitoring of the processes, giving NGOs a more extensive role to play.
Lastly, I hope that among the future tasks of the European common military force will be the training of technicians, particularly of people with a local interest in the eradication of landmines.
Mr President, the Finnish Government last debated the question of anti-personnel mines on 14 June 1999.
At the time it was decided to look into how Finland might be a party to the Ottawa Convention in 2006 and replace anti-personnel mines with other defence methods by the end of 2010.
The Finns are involved in international cooperation with regard to mine clearance.
Experts from Finland and Finnish clearance vehicles have taken part in clearance programmes in Cambodia for two and a half years, and in Mozambique and Kosovo for one year.
As party to the convention, Finland complies with the regulations in the amended Mine Protocol in the Convention on Conventional Weapons 1996, which came into force in December 1998.
Finland does not feel it is militarily threatened.
However, we are the only EU country to have a land border with an external superpower that is more than a thousand kilometres long.
Finland herself is responsible for her credible defence arrangement.
Until a replacement military arrangement, which costs approximately half of Finland' s defence budget for one year, is in place, anti-personnel mines will remain a part of the defence arrangement.
In Finland, there is not one anti-personnel mine that has been placed in the ground.
Finland has never engaged in the export of anti-personnel mines and none have been manufactured in the country since 1981.
All the mines are in storage.
In Finland, no harm has come to civilians or Finnish soldiers from Finnish anti-personnel mines since the period of clearance that came in the wake of the Second World War that ended in the 1940s.
Finland is one of the unfortunately few countries in the world that sign and ratify international agreements only when they can meet the conditions they contain to the last letter.
And that is how it will also happen with regard to anti-personnel mines.
Mr President, we have never before spoken with so many people and such little attention in the House.
The large-scale production and use of anti-personnel landmines is an appalling phenomenon, not only due to its consequences, but also because it demonstrates worrying cruelty, perversity, hypocrisy and the paradoxical dehumanisation of a good number of those with responsibility for humaneness and for ensuring its progress.
The figures in the reports by Mrs Bonino and Mrs Morgantini are frightening and, while reading them, many of us reacted with a deep feeling of shame as people dedicated to politics, and with cynical pessimism with regard to the human condition itself.
We are talking about millions of people killed or maimed, between 70 and 100 million mines that could explode at any time, anywhere in 60 countries.
The reports give less emphasis to the fact that the majority of those mines were manufactured outside the countries in which they are buried.
Nor is emphasis given to the fact that the list of countries most seriously affected mainly comprises developing countries.
Fortunately, emphasis is placed, however, on the fact that the mines constitute a fundamental obstacle to the development of these regions in addition to a lethal threat of death and distress.
(Interruption by the President to request silence)
Courage is needed in the face of the reality with which Mrs Bonino and Mrs Morgantini present us if we are not to fall victim to despair.
Fortunately, their reports also include a long list of the actions currently under way to put an end to the folly of anti-personnel mines, to oppose their production and proliferation, to eliminate them, to compensate the damage caused by those that have already fulfilled their cruel purpose, to clear and free from their effects territories so unjustly maltreated.
And here, as in other contexts, the actions of the European Union and Parliament itself give reason for confidence, for reconciliation with our own kind, as with this step forward, this Commission regulation that we are trying to improve in this parliamentary procedure, reaffirming our commitment and our hope.
This perspective will guide our amendments and our votes.
Our efforts over all these years have been to this end, including in 1998 when the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe, over which I have the honour of presiding, awarded its annual prize to Mr Axworthy, Minister for Foreign Affairs in Canada, for the efforts of his government which took concrete form in the Ottawa Convention.
Mrs Bonino, of course, received this same prize in 1999 and her report today is further proof that those of us who supported her candidature were right to do so.
To close the debate, I have received one proposal for a resolution, pursuant to Article 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Vote
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolutions consecutively)
Report without debate (A5-0085/2000) by Mr Mastorakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation concerning the distribution of authorisations among Member States received through the Agreements establishing certain conditions for the carriage of goods by road and the promotion of combined transport between the European Community and the Republic of Bulgaria and the European Community and the Republic of Hungary [COM(1999) 667 - C5-0335/1999 - 1999/0264(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0286/2000) by Mrs Bonino, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on action against anti-personnel mines [COM(2000) 111 - C5-0158/2000 - 2000/0062(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0291/2000) by Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission Communication on the New Social Agenda [COM(2000) 379 - C5-0508/2000 - 2000/2219(COS)]
Van Lancker (PSE), rapporteur.
(NL) Mr President, before we commence with the voting, I would like to ask you if you could ask the services to revise the language versions in the final version with due care.
Problems have arisen with the translation of the words "aanpassing van de werktijd" [adaptation of working time] and the words "gecombineerd werken" [multi-salary employment].
I would ask you to ask your services to refer to the original French version.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to embark on a historic vote on a highly symbolic document, namely the European Constitution.
Yet it really would be a pity if we voted on a report littered with legal implausibility, with formal trash.
That cannot be our legacy to history.
I therefore propose, Mr President, that we refer this report back to committee, for cleaning up, so that this historic vote is not polluted by formal inconsistencies.
A request has been made, pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, to refer the report back to Committee.
Could I now hear one speaker for the request and one against, if there are any. Otherwise I will put Mr Martinez's request to the vote.
Mr President, I think that as far as trash is concerned we have had an example of this in Mr Martinez' s statement.
I do believe that today the far right is indeed talking trash in regard to the establishment of European democracy and that the Constitution will be a step towards building that democracy.
(Parliament rejected the request to refer the report back to Committee)
Following the vote on Amendment No 33:
Mr President, we have a slight problem with the wording.
We have just improved Paragraph 19.
But as a result of this little textual substitution we have let fall by the wayside an important principle that the European Parliament has always called for.
The fact is that, whatever our opinion on either side, whether we are for or against a constitution, we all agree that our Parliament should give its assent.
Thanks to this substitution, the term found in the original paragraph has been left out.
So, with the agreement of Olivier Duhamel, the rapporteur, I suggest incorporating this principle in the last line of Paragraph 20, which would therefore read as follows: "from the moment the process is initiated up to the approval (after receiving the assent of the European Parliament) of the final version of the Constitution" .
We would add these eight words.
That addition would bring Parliament into line with all its debates and all its votes.
Are there any objections to the inclusion of these eight words read out by Mr Onesta?
There are no objections? Good, then let us proceed to the vote on this amendment.
Mr President, this is not an oral amendment to Amendment No 8.
It is an oral amendment to the original text.
You have just said to Amendment No 8 (or so I understood from the interpretation).
That is not the case.
It is a direct oral amendment to the text.
Mr Duhamel, there are no objections from the House to the oral amendment and it has therefore been adopted.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0288/2000) by Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on reinforced cooperation [2000/2162(INI)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0808/2000) on island status
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0802/2000) on anti-personnel mines
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0285/2000) by Mrs Sudre, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission report on the measures to implement Article 299(2): the outermost regions of the European Union [COM(2000) 147 - C5-0247/2000 - 2000/2135(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0272/2000) by Mr Bowis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission White Paper on Food Safety [COM(1999) 719 - C5-0136/2000 - 2000/2082(COS)]
Mr President, I am very pleased to inform you that I voted for Mrs Bonino's report, which very commendably aims to contribute to averting the injuries sustained in peace time from these means of destruction.
I would, however, like to add that it would be appropriate for Parliament to concern itself with the real causes of the damage caused not only by anti-personnel mines but by all the weapons used by the human race.
The responsibility for these actions lies above all in the insanity of the Heads of State and Government of many of the world's states, and in the insanity of too many citizens who believe they can resolve their problems through war.
This must end.
Mr President, our group voted in favour of this report.
It is extremely important and we commend the European Parliament which played a very important role in the campaign to ban anti-personnel mines.
The NGOs have played a fundamental role.
They have pushed for a long time to get this through while some governments were very reluctant, saying it was unrealistic.
But if the will is there a lot can be achieved.
Governments must take a leading role and be forced to sign the Convention.
They must insist upon the new applicant countries signing the Convention as well.
When you look at what is happening around the world, it is intolerable that long after wars have ended people continue to suffer as a result of landmines.
Innocent civilians, women and men, and particularly children have been maimed and killed as a result of a weapon that was in place long after the war ended.
The idea that industries make money out of such inhumane materials is quite unacceptable.
Someone mentioned earlier the other weapons that are produced.
We must look at the production of all weapons, not just landmines, especially in the European Union since we must look outside our own front door first.
It is not acceptable or ethical that we are providing jobs or making money with things that kill, maim and injure people.
We should seek alternatives.
The idea that technology, know-how and money is spent on creating weapons that destroy people and the environment is unacceptable.
The move on landmines shows that progress can be made towards a humane society which does not profit from death and destruction.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the report on action to be taken against anti-personnel mines.
The Commission' s communication sets out what actions the Community has already participated in to combat the use of anti-personnel mines.
Denmark has participated in humanitarian mine clearance on a number of occasions when the intervention concerned has been civil rather than military.
There has therefore been no conflict with the Danish opt-out in the field of defence.
The actions were financed with resources from many different budget lines.
The Commission therefore proposes that initiatives be taken to set up a horizontal budget line.
Parliament supports this solution because the present structure, with many different budget lines, is not transparent and does not contribute to coherent intervention.
It is still uncertain what legal base the Commission wants to propose for this initiative.
It is therefore also difficult right now to predict whether the initiative will clash with the Danish opt-out.
It will, however, be annoying if Denmark cannot participate in a project whose purpose is completely to do away with the feared and inhumane anti-personnel mines in the course of the next ten to fifteen years.
I strongly support the EP's decision to take positive action against anti-personnel landmines.
There is a an obligation on the part of the EU to take a stance against weapons which are aimed at non-combatants, the victims of which are largely non-combatants.
Also, the blanketing of large areas of territory makes it impossible for the growing of food many years after conflict has ended.
Even if we support the main intention of the report, we do not in any event agree with the ways described for achieving its aim.
We perceive a problem in the CFSPs being 'relieved' of responsibility for civil actions.
What is more, a serious policy for peace and security could better be achieved if CFSP resources and the Member States' resources for military action were to be supplied in a ratio of one to one, with increased appropriations for humanitarian actions.
Finland is aiming to become party to the Ottawa Convention in 2006 and replace anti-personnel mines with other military systems by the end of 2010.
At no stage has Finland exported anti-personnel mines to other countries.
Finland has produced and stored anti-personnel mines exclusively for its own defence needs.
Defence expenditure in Finland has traditionally been amongst the lowest in Europe.
The decision to give up anti-personnel mines presents an enormous challenge to Finnish national defence.
Anti-personnel mines are a weapon of defence. Or can someone tell me how anti-personnel mines could be used in an attack?
They play a major role in the Finnish defence strategy. Replacement programme solutions are being planned for discussion, in connection with a new investigation into defence, to take place by the year 2005.
Still to be examined are questions of financing, replacement systems and methods, and the effects of solutions on the development of defence doctrine.
Finland will continue with its participation in international cooperation relating to both the aim on a total ban and mine clearance.
As a small country, we too have headed the fight against the use of landmines.
Europe is in the vanguard of the mine-clearing and destruction programmes.
This is also why I endorsed the Bonino report.
I would like to draw particular attention to a technology for tracing mines which has been tailored to this field.
After all, one in a hundred mine-clearers will sooner or later fall victim to this activity, as a result of inaccurate detection methods.
The use of bio-sensors, such as trained dogs and rats, appears to yield particularly good results in practice.
Yet, the financial resources are mainly earmarked for developing high-tech military detection techniques.
Van Lancker report (A5-0291/2000)
Mr President, as a member of the European People's Party and, more importantly, as a member of the Pensioners' Party, and although none of the amendments I tabled in Committee were accepted, I can only vote for Mrs Van Lancker's report, particularly since point g thereof calls upon the Commission to establish a minimum pension for all the citizens of the European Union.
We in this Parliament discuss tyre pressures and the length of vehicles, but we have not yet succeeded in grasping how important it is for there to be a common regulation throughout the 15 Member States establishing a decent minimum pension.
This is why I voted for the report.
I want to welcome the work done on the social agenda by the French Presidency and by Martine Aubry, in terms of both form and content, and I therefore offer warm congratulations to Mrs Van Lancker.
This agenda, which goes back to an initiative by the French Presidency, is a genuine programme of work for the next five years.
It is in keeping with the decisions of the Lisbon European Council, whose main conclusions relate to establishing a more competitive knowledge-based economy and achieving full employment.
It was drawn up in consultation with the European institutions and the NGOs, which were kept fully involved.
The Van Lancker report takes account of some of the proposals made by civil society and experts at the joint conference on the subject between the European Commission and the European Parliament on 21 and 22 September 2000.
So this agenda sends out a strong political message to European citizens, who all too often perceive Europe as merely the creation of a large market.
It highlights the existence and reality of the European social model, but also the need to bring it up to date.
We do not have the right to disappoint our citizens.
The social agenda must therefore be very ambitious in order to confirm that social, economic and employment policies are closely interlinked and interacting, and that they must have equal status in the Community policy triangle, with the aim of improving the social quality of life for all.
Indeed, social policy must be a policy in its own right, with its own objectives.
It cannot be seen solely as an adjunct of economic and employment policy or as a by-product of creating a large single market, and even less as mere "dross" .
In the five years to come, we will have to create quality jobs, anticipate and manage the adjustments to the new social environment, draw on the opportunities offered by a knowledge-based economy, modernise and improve social protection, promote social inclusion, encourage gender equality, reinforce fundamental rights and combat discrimination.
I welcome the adoption at Nice of this social agenda, which, together with the Charter of Fundamental Rights, shows that we have reached a turning point in European integration, which, at present, seeks to strengthen the social and civil fabric of the Union.
The European Union as a political and economic entity is growing from strength to strength.
However, economic achievement is not the sole criteria to judge European Union legislators.
It is incumbent on all of us to ensure that key social problems within our community are solved and tackled head-on.
In this regard, I welcome the acceptance by the European Commission of the Irish Government' s Human Resources Operational Programme for the seven-year period 2000-2006.
This is a very fair and balanced social programme and is one of the very central planks of the Irish Government' s National Development Plan for the seven-year period post-1999.
It will ensure that opportunities will be given to those who are unskilled and uneducated.
Particular emphasis will be placed on putting in place schemes to help the long-term unemployed as well as to help those who are early school leavers.
There is also a recognition in this plan, which is reflected in the EU Social Policy Agenda 2000-2005, of the need to ensure that re-training opportunities are given to people in the existing workforce.
The EU Social Policy Agenda recognises that re-training opportunities must be given in the field of technology and Internet activities for the existing workforce.
Technology is changing so rapidly that if the European Union is to keep a competitive edge then our European Union workforce must be equipped with the necessary computer skills.
Adaptability of the workforce and the encouragement of entrepreneur skills are also central planks of the Irish Government' s plans for the next seven years.
For this policy to be a success at home and for it to succeed within the broader European Union context then it is an imperative that second-level and third-level institutions put in place policies to implement entrepreneurship in Europe.
This report represents a major step forward on the road to building a social and employment Europe.
It draws on the Lisbon Summit conclusions, with a view to achieving an agreement at Nice on establishing a European Social Agenda, as a foundation of European social policy for the next five years (2000-2005).
It offers a global and coherent vision of what a genuine social policy could look like, by linking economic, social and employment aspects.
It uses all the instruments that now exist at European Union level - the Social Charter, the employment chapter, the legal base of Article 13 - to combat all forms of discrimination, etc.
Our rapporteur endorses the European Commission's proposals, while supplementing them with a call for stronger European social legislation.
He calls for the role of the social partners concerned, and dialogue with them, to be reinforced in the framing of legislation.
However, in the event of dispute, our committee urges the executive Commission to make use of its right of initiative and to propose adequate legislation.
It is important to achieve a more social Europe, therefore to have more European social legislation.
Furthermore, the rapporteur asks us to support the Member States in their endeavours to establish a minimum wage and the right to a minimum pension so that every individual can live in dignity.
I can only urge you to support this report, which, like the Charter of Fundamental Rights, embodies the values we share and that ensure that our Union is not just reduced to a market.
The report concerns the socio-political agenda for the next five years.
It contains a series of proposals we wholeheartedly support for improving social conditions and workers' conditions.
We appreciate the rapporteur' s words on the open coordination method which respects the Member States' independence on socio-political issues and is founded upon voluntary harmonisation and coordination.
We are, nonetheless, concerned that the report at the same time contains proposals to the effect that the Commission must be the engine for developing social policy in Europe, meaning growing supranationalism in this area too.
If the legislation concerning labour market and social policy is to operate well, it must be the end result of a process of change that develops from below and reflects the variety of conditions and experiences in Europe.
I wish to state that I voted against Mrs Van Lancker' s report.
Rarely do such conservatively socialistic reports find their way into the European Parliament plenary sitting as this report of Mrs Van Lancker' s on the EU' s socio-political programme that we voted for.
In her programme declaration, Mrs Van Lancker says she would like to implement all those measures whose very implementation people sought to prevent by voting in a non-socialist majority in the European Parliament in the last elections. I repeat, 'prevent' .
I shall be quite appalled if the Commission really intends to support these totally unrealistic, almost absurd demands, which have just been approved.
Parliament' s proposals could not be more at odds with the aims of Lisbon.
At Lisbon the mainly socialist leaders of the EU governments declared aloud their aim to make Europe the world' s most dynamic and competitive economy.
If Mrs Van Lancker' s proposals are adopted we shall definitely be stepping back light years in terms of our ability to achieve the important, ambitious and indispensable aims of Lisbon.
What then does the good lady propose? According to Mrs Van Lancker, working hours in Europe must be shortened significantly, the body of EU socio-political legislation must be increased substantially, the levels of social protection in Europe must be raised massively, the power of the Trade Union movement increased and supranational labour market negotiations made possible, labour organisations must be given greater rights to be heard, and socio-political influence must be a priority in all sectors of the economy, in competition policy and in public procurements.
I might just remind my colleagues of the wise words of the Chairperson of the CDU, Angela Merkel, who said that in politics we need more sociability, but sociability is not the same thing as socialism.
I cannot resist the pleasure of indulging in terms, or rather coining phrases, worthy of those used in the report in order to condemn your repeated e-pocrisy regarding employment and social protection.
So you can rave on forever about the information society, which will resolve every last problem once everyone, from babes in arms to grey-beards, not forgetting illiterates, will have an email address even if they cannot afford to pay for the computer equipment to consult it.
In fact, in your e-Europe efforts will be made to provide everyone with this equipment once the computers start looking at the users more than the users look at the computers and once they start drawing up reports.
Your endless ravings are not quite so funny once we realise that their purpose is not the welfare of European citizens but ever more and more laws, directives and regulations from Brussels.
Your concept of open cooperation is a reversion to an institutional system dominated by Commission officials.
The only thing that is truly open, wide open, is the possibility of extending the powers of Brussels to infinity, without ever referring back to square one and the Treaties.
You are proposing to give Brussels powers to manage and define minimum social protection, flexible work, which means exploiting the worker, imposing cuts on working hours, which freezes wages and handicaps enterprises, and an absolute stranglehold on social dialogue, like Aubry in France.
That is why we will abstain on this report: for even if we welcome its display of concern, however spurious or even belated, for employment, we cannot in all decency approve its practical proposals.
We have voted against Mrs Van Lancker' s report on the social policy agenda.
The Commission' s proposal for a new social policy agenda is a good document.
The Commission' s work defines a number of areas within which cooperation and coordination between the European Union' s Member States is important.
The Commission' s new political agenda proposes a framework in which all important actors can play a role and in which the differences between the national systems are respected.
The Commission will use its right of initiative and support the Member States in bringing necessary changes about.
Mrs Van Lancker wants Parliament to decide whether to alter the Commission' s proposal, mainly through, firstly, adding a number of areas to which legislation is applicable and, secondly, through establishing a number of rights at European level.
Mrs Van Lancker believes that significantly more use should be made of compulsory instruments.
The Commission must not be prevented from using its right of initiative in those areas in which it has the power to act and to propose compulsory instruments.
Our basic attitude towards the European Union is a very positive one.
In our capacity as Swedish Liberals, we see European integration as a possible way of achieving solutions to cross-border problems such as the environment, trade, movement across the borders, human rights and conflict management.
In these areas, Europe' s democracies have a chance to show the world that cooperation leads to peace and increased prosperity.
We also believe in the principle of subsidiarity whereby decisions must be made as close as possible to those they affect.
That is why we are actively pushing the issue of a constitution for the European Union in which the distribution of responsibilities is clear to everyone.
It must be perfectly clear to all citizens that the EU must only deal with those issues it is best placed to deal with, namely the cross-border issues.
All other issues must be dealt with at local, regional or national levels.
We think that the Commission' s proposal for a social policy agenda ties in well with our view of how the EU needs to operate.
A form of European cooperation which leads to coordination and more prosperity is the right course of action.
The European social systems differ from each other to such an extent that compulsory legislation will not lead to an appropriate result.
We wish therefore to support the Commission' s proposal and are consequently voting against Mrs Van Lancker' s report on the social policy agenda.
Workers often have problems in identifying with Europe.
Whilst in view of global trends the European single market is developing in a dynamic way, and there is ever closer economic and monetary union, social union is generally treated like a ghost at the feast.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam was agreed in 1997, the Union has had new instruments for enhancing social policy.
And since the Lisbon Summit in March 2000, it has been the Council's intention, in addition to high growth and more skilled jobs, also to aim for greater social cohesion.
With the third social action programme, the Commission is underscoring the recognition that economic policy, employment policy and social policy need to be more closely interlinked.
Employability is providing evidence of this interlinking. In order to make the transition from the industrial society to the knowledge society, people - and not just young people - need better knowledge and skills.
This means that the Member States have to invest more in education and training, multilingualism, mobility and communication.
Many of the demands made in the Van Lancker report are not acceptable.
For example, the Luxembourg process which applies to employment policy is to be extended to social protection and social exclusion.
This method of determining Community objectives and implementing national action programmes which are assessed annually - including by the European Parliament - is so successful precisely because new qualitative and quantitative objectives are formulated whilst simultaneously strictly adhering to the principle of subsidiarity.
It cannot arbitrarily be transferred to other areas, as specific procedures are needed.
The Christian Social Party does not support the right to a minimum income or a standard pension.
Nor do we accept the renewed demands for a reduction in legal working hours at European level.
It is far inferior to flexible working arrangements, as the experience of many European companies has demonstrated.
Furthermore, the request that there should be a legal basis for NGOs to regulate a "civil dialogue" is not acceptable.
The rapporteur has departed from the principle of subsidiarity out of a sheer desire to adopt centralist solutions.
However, as the Group of the European People's Party's key amendments have just obtained a substantial majority, I have voted for the report.
The EPLP has voted for the Van Lancker report on the social agenda because there are many positive aspects to this report on the European social agenda and this text will inform the Nice summit and the Commission work programme, but is not legislative.
However, there are several areas of concern where new legislative measures are being proposed.
In some, these relate to tasks which are best tackled at Member State level, or are premature in that legislation recently passed has not yet had time to bed down and be evaluated.
In a number of places - Paragraphs 14a, 14b and 14c - the EPLP could not support the call for "tax and legislative measures" and "directives" for the reasons stated above.
On the right to strike, the EPLP has abstained. The EPLP feels that this is already dealt with by Member State legislation and is also covered in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The EPLP could not support the call for a legislative arrangement for worker participation in the framework of the European Company Statute as the industrial relations dimension is dealt with in other legislation.
Finally, the EPLP feels that the new directives in the field of combating discrimination under Article 13 have not yet had a chance to be implemented or bed down.
Therefore the EPLP has voted against the proposals for new vertical directives, as further legislation would be premature.
Biarritz informal European Council
Mr President, during yesterday' s debate the Council pointed out that in Biarritz the governments' positions had begun to converge on the principle of extending qualified majority voting.
We find that statement rather disturbing and at this point I would like to refer, among other things, to two matters that cause us serious concern.
Firstly, the Commission has proposed communitising - i.e. introducing by means of qualified majority voting in the Council without ratification by the national parliaments - international trade negotiations on services and intellectual property, a possibility indeed already opened by Article 132(5) of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But we regard this transfer as very dangerous, for it would deprive the national parliaments of any right of inspection in regard to future WTO negotiations on these areas that are vital to the life of our societies.
But there is worse to come.
The Commission added negotiations on investments to the list of subjects to be communitised.
If that proposal were accepted, we may be sure that in the coming six months the Commission would impose another version of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment on us, the infamous MAI which it was possible to reject, two years ago, only because it came under strictly intergovernmental procedures.
So, once again, the Commission is behaving shamefully in trying to strip the national democracies of their powers, without at the same time making us stronger, contrary to what it says.
The second category of decisions that would cause us concern if they were to be decided by qualified majority voting relates to immigration and the international movement of persons, which, under Article 67 of the EC Treaty, require unanimity for at least five years after the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam but can then be decided by a majority.
The Commission is calling for this changeover as of now.
We energetically reject it.
In this field, we have learned from experience that any transfer of power to the Commission encourages a lax attitude, while any maintenance of Member State power encourages attitudes that promote security, relatively speaking.
We opt for security.
Mr President, I abstained from voting on the resolution on the results of the informal Biarritz European Council for two reasons: firstly, because I had the opportunity to vote in person on Paragraphs 2 and 5 separately, which allowed me to express my total opposition to both.
In fact, I do not agree with the inclusion in the Treaty of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, since that would be the first step on the way to its constitutionalisation, a federalist pathway that I will not go down. Secondly, nor do I agree with the indiscriminate generalisation of qualified majority voting, a measure which if divorced from the others on the table may conflict with important national interests, and which even contradicts the request expressed in Paragraph 7 of the resolution.
It was precisely this Paragraph 7 that enabled me to abstain.
By not voting against the resolution I am trying to support any initiative that will put an end to the antagonistic atmosphere between large and small countries in which the debate on institutional reform has taken place, and which unfortunately has to a great extent been instigated by the French Presidency.
As Paragraph 7 says, it is absolutely necessary to ensure that solutions are valid and acceptable to all Member States, regardless of their size or economic weight.
We are Europeans and want to remain Europeans, but there must be respect for the founding principle of a Union of free and sovereign states.
We are voting in favour of the resolution, but we wish to comment on the following points:
The Charter of Fundamental Rights ought to be in the nature of a political declaration made at the Nice Summit.
Unanimity in decision-making should not only apply to issues of a constitutional nature but also to issues of fundamental importance to the Member States.
We in the Austrian Freedom Party have from the outset declared ourselves in favour of a legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights.
However, for legal reasons we think that it is wrong to refer to it at this early stage in Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union, because it was not possible to reach formal agreement on it within the convention, reflecting its structure, and it therefore has no legal status.
The demand that the Charter be incorporated into the Treaties is therefore all the more premature.
This is also true because in contrast to the European Human Rights Convention, which was ratified by the Member States, the process of formulating political demands and objectives in this respect has not taken place in national parliaments.
It is for these reasons alone that we have not voted for both parts of point 2 of the resolution.
I voted for this resolution because in it Parliament wisely does not opt for the 'imperialist' theses of the large, populous European countries against the self-affirmation of the others.
The resolution limits itself to a responsible vote so that a sensible balance can be found based on the history of the Community.
Thus those who would like to see Parliament become an 'echo chamber' for the more populous countries' revisionist intentions will be defeated.
Leaving aside the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which, in an ageing Europe, where we will see more than 50 million people aged over 75 in two decades' time, has made no provision for strengthening the right to economic, social and human protection, Biarritz was concerned mainly with axing the number of issues requiring unanimity, the only procedure that can respect the interests of the people, and with the curious invention of closer cooperation, also known as the Europe of circles, the Europe of pioneers, the à la carte Europe, vanguard Europe, 'variable geometry' or two-speed Europe.
From 1951 in Paris, to 1997 in Amsterdam, via 1957 in Rome, what has been going on? Europe was created by Treaties concluded, obviously, between equal states.
Moreover, over and above the legal aspect, Europe is a great family of civilisations in emotional terms.
We all have the same home.
Now, the idea of closer cooperation means that in crucial areas, such as money, defence and taxation, some members of the European family would have more rights and obligations than others.
In other words, among those sitting round the table of the common European home, some would eat à la carte while others would get the dish of the day.
Some would have a say about money while others, like Denmark or Sweden, would have to hold their tongue.
As we saw before the existence of total, universal suffrage, there would be active "peoples" and observer "peoples" .
There would, in a sense, be "males" with the right to talk war, taxes and money and, as in pre-1945 France, "females" sitting round the table with no right to decide.
Moreover, in this 'variable-geometry' Europe, the number of guests with the right to eat à la carte would vary depending on the subject under discussion in the European Council of Ministers and this state of affairs would create further complexity in a Europe whose way of operating is already quite obscure.
In other words, the philosopher's stone of closer cooperation, which would allow the rule of unanimity and the right of veto, which protects national interests, to be circumvented on the sly, would achieve the amazing feat of violating the principle of equality between states, excluding minority nations from key issues, thus opening up cracks in the democratic foundations of European integration, making the European institutions even less transparent and spreading confusion, if not disarray, within the Council and the Commission.
Once again, the technocratic smokescreen and verbal fog are conceal machinations intended to foist on the peoples a military and fiscal Europe that they do not want and to deprive them of their right to say no to the loss of their national freedoms.
The voting on this report reflects the EPLP's opposition to incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the Treaty and the section of the report restricting unanimity in the Council to constitutional issues.
The EPLP has consistently not supported incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights as rights are covered by national legislation and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Inclusion of new text into the Treaties is likely to create legal confusion.
The restriction of unanimity in the Council to constitutional issues would exclude key issues such as taxation and social security which, we believe, should remain the responsibility of Member States.
The resolution contains good sections on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Middle East and the EPLP supports the resolution overall.
Summit meetings of Heads of State and Government always raise great expectations.
The Biarritz Summit was heralded as the decisive Summit which would affirm fundamental rights, all rights, even rights never conceived of previously, as if the European Communities and their constituent States had hitherto lived in total chaos.
And yet our countries do not appear to be the least attentive countries in the world to human rights.
There is always room for improvement, of course, and democratic control must not be found wanting in this respect, but we did not feel that cataloguing these rights and including them in the Treaties should be the European Union's top priority.
Moreover, even the Heads of State and Government have not been able to reach agreement on this issue, and it is to be carried over to the forthcoming Nice Summit.
And yet there are so many urgent issues to be dealt with: 1) the need to define an economic policy which will rescue the euro from the stagnant depths to which it has plunged and boost employment; 2) the need to attract investment to the Union in order to break out of the economic slump; 3) the need to revise employment regulations to make the market more dynamic and more responsive; or 4) the need to define a common line for a coherent diplomatic action to safeguard peace in the Middle East, etc.
All of these issues are extremely important and urgent in terms of the Union's future and the function which it ought to be performing in the world.
However, as is often the case with these summits, the celebratory final declarations conceal a reality which is much more banal: the Fifteen have not succeeded in establishing a common policy and the progress made with the unveiling of rights does not take away from the need to tackle the practical problems encountered by millions of families and entire categories of producers and workers.
A summit which tackles these issues would show the validity of such an institution once and for all, and would send a signal of confidence and hope to the citizens of the Union.
Duhamel report (A5-0289/2000)
Mr President, we voted against the Duhamel report on the European Constitution because, following the well-established Monnet recipe, seeking to make a fundamental political about-turn under cover of technical considerations, without ever clearly telling people that the main intention is to put an end to a concept of Europe under which each nation primarily obeys its national constitution.
In the explanatory statement, the rapporteur says a little more about this and maintains that the Treaty is already broadly supranational, largely as a result of the Court of Justice' s case-law interpretations.
In our view, however, the interpretations of 15 judges, which go beyond the Treaties as ratified, are clearly improper and we are still waiting for them to be submitted for the approval of the peoples of the Member States.
Elsewhere, the rapporteur repeats the new theory in vogue in Brussels of the supposed dual legitimacy of the European Union: that of the citizens represented by the European Parliament and that of the States represented by the Council.
That is not the theory as set out in the Treaty, which recognises only one form of legitimacy, namely, and I quote, that of: "the peoples of the States brought together in the Community" , according to the wording of Articles 189 and 190 of the EC Treaty.
This wording means that the Community brings together only the States, each of which depends on the support of its people.
In no case do the MEPs represent the European citizens in general.
They represent their respective peoples and, by that token, cooperate in the European scrutiny of the States, but that scrutiny remains complementary, because the main power of scrutiny falls within the remit of the national parliaments.
In other words, the fact that MEPs represent their respective peoples in no way modifies the nature of the Community.
It in no way has the effect of placing some phantom European citizen above the national citizens, even less of placing an artificial European democracy above the national democracies or even on the same footing with them.
Mr President, I fully support the Duhamel report.
I am sure that pensioners and elderly people feel that Europe represents a future of peace, and we therefore support any step, however small, in that direction.
How could the Pensioners' Party not be pro-Europe, since it is the only party which is represented solely at the European Parliament and not in the national States? I am entitled to say that I am the only representative of a party which is only present at the European Parliament.
Is there anybody more Europeanist than Carlo Fatuzzo? In these very general terms, I conclude that this report enhances the very essence of what we pensioners want: a genuinely united Europe.
Mr President, I voted against the Duhamel report because I do not believe that we are taking the right approach.
I agree with what Mr Berthu has said, that the idea of a single state with a single constitution completely undermines the national sovereignty of the Member States.
This project has been sold on the idea of a constitution for the people, which is all well and good, but if you have a single constituency you are diluting the power of the individuals in the Member States.
There has been talk about referenda and the amendments that were made to this report in relation to referenda.
Referenda are very important, but in the case of a single constituency, where you ignore almost 50% in a Member State who may vote against it, this is not democratic.
It is interesting to see people putting forward the idea of a referendum in this way because if you consider the changes that have taken place in the treaties over the years, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam, very few citizens in the individual Member States have had a say and, as a result, we are not sure what the citizens in the Member States want.
The recent referendum in Denmark on the euro shows there are very many people who, given the opportunity, would make different statements to those made in this House, but they do not have that opportunity.
Mr President, I abstained in the vote on the request to refer back the Duhamel report, by way of protest.
I am of course a fierce opponent of the extreme right here in Parliament.
But I am deeply disturbed, Mr President, that it is possible here in this Chamber for a Member of the left - I have forgotten now who it was - to call elected Members of this House "polluters" of this Chamber, without you calling that Member to order.
We should not accept language like that, because it is exactly the kind of language used by the extreme right in power in my home country when I was not yet born or was just a small child.
We should not accept this, whoever uses such language, whether it comes from the extreme right or the extreme left.
The Swedish and Danish Social Democrats have today voted against Oliver Duhamel' s report on incorporating the Treaties into a constitution.
The report is based upon an assumption that the Treaties are to contain a fundamental element, that the common policies are to be included as protocols to the framework treaty and that there are to be different procedures for adapting the different texts.
We believe that the basis for cooperation in the EU should continue to be unanimity on the basic questions concerning the legal base on which the EU is founded.
We cannot therefore vote in favour of the report.
We nonetheless agree with the report when it points out that, in their present wording, the Treaties leave a lot to be desired in terms of simplicity and transparency.
We should therefore like to see the texts reworked in such a way as to permit more rational and intelligible access to the objectives in developing the EU and to the resources for doing so.
, in writing.
(SV) Unfortunately, the European Parliament' s Committee on Constitutional Affairs has not taken on board anything of what has happened in the European Union in recent years.
Only 40 per cent of people voted in the 1999 elections to the European Parliament, if countries with voting duties are discounted, as well as those which had national elections at the same time as elections to the European Parliament.
This just goes to show how little enthusiasm there was for the EU federalist project in 1999.
Now, in September 2000, the Danes have voted against membership of EMU, and people in a number of other Member States would certainly have voted against the EMU project, given the opportunity.
It is interesting to note that, on the night of the EMU referendum last month, the Danish Social Democrats were exultant when the votes from the upper class areas had been counted and disappointed when they saw how people in working-class areas had voted. This ought to act as a wake-up call to the fact that something is going wrong in the development of the EU.
In spite of these setbacks for the idea of a federal EU State, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has now produced a further report designed to produce a constitution for the EU, in spite of the fact that this is not in any way something which people are demanding.
What is needed instead is a clearer definition of the 'proximity principle' in the European Union.
At present, this principle is merely a tool for the EU itself, for it is at present at EU level that it is decided where the political decisions are to be made, with the result that the EU is claiming policy area after policy area for itself.
What is more, there is a need to simplify the flexibility rules so that they do more to facilitate European cooperation in accordance with the wishes of the people of Europe.
Moreover, those areas which do not concern the European Union and in which the Member States have the sovereign right to make decisions ought to be carefully demarcated.
The Portuguese socialist MEPs voted for the Duhamel report on the constitutionalisation of the Treaties essentially because they agree with the need for the European Union to simplify and organise the fundamental texts that govern it, which today have become virtually unreadable on account of the complexity introduced by the successive accumulation of Treaties.
To this end, it is essential that the European Union should move towards a Constitution that incorporates the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The experience of a full democracy in the European Union has everything to gain from the approval of a Constitution that is clear, simple, readable and a source of reference for all citizens.
The Portuguese socialist MEPs do not, however, agree that ratification of this 'Constitution' should necessarily be carried out by means of a referendum.
One must not infer from this position that we are against the use of the referendum as an institution or that the achievement of greater political depth in the European Union should occur without the Portuguese people being consulted.
This choice should be made independently and freely and should not have to depend on an imposed measure that might clash with the constitutional practice of an individual country.
That is why the Portuguese socialist MEPs voted against the proposal of their own political group, which indicated a uniform referendum model for all the Member States of the European Union.
To achieve the desirable objective of a European Constitution it is inadvisable to impose rigid patterns and methods, which would inevitably lead to failure.
In such a sensitive matter, boldness and prudence should go hand in hand.
In terms of both form and substance, I support Olivier Duhamel' s stance and also his report.
As a European from the very outset, an activist and President of the Northern European Movement and of the 'Citizens of Europe' association, I am a European federalist because I believe in a political, social and citizens' Europe that is both democratic and effective.
At a time when our European Union is becoming bogged down in rampant nationalism and threatened by more or less cleverly camouflaged fascistic attitudes, we needed and we need a breath of fresh air.
Olivier Duhamel and his report together achieve this very ably.
So I have voted for his report with determination and a degree of enthusiasm.
While appreciating what Olivier Duhamel has achieved, I abstained from the final vote because I think the debate on a European Constitution is premature.
While desirable in itself, a constitution of this kind could only be adopted as the crowning touch to far-reaching institutional reform.
A constitution would be meaningful only if it formed the democratic framework for a genuine European federation, a United States of Europe.
So long as the EU remains no more than a sum of nation states that practise only a limited form of solidarity, limited in budgetary terms to a ceiling of 1.27% of Europe' s gross domestic product, any attempt to "constitutionalise" the existing Treaties is nothing more than a headlong rush into politically dodgy territory.
In the name of the democratic Europe we want to build, we reject the report.
By resorting again to the means and objectives used for the Charter of Fundamental Rights in order now to draft a constitution, the Union is persisting in constructing a Europe that is made neither by the people nor for them, be they citizens of the Member States or the candidate countries.
It is not built for the people, for there is not a single word on the social content of Europe.
Like a charter that gives precedence to entrepreneurial freedom and ownership, without protecting Europe' s 62 million poor and 18 million unemployed, we are now talking about political reinforcement of the liberal Europe of Maastricht.
A genuine social constitution ought to bring together, from the top down, the best acquired rights for work, women, immigrants and citizens.
Nor is it built by the people, despite a few hypocritical allusions to possible future referenda, because, once again, a few institutional delegations are to decide the fate of 385 million individuals.
European general assemblies of the social movement would have allowed us to make progress towards a genuine charter of the rights of peoples and workers.
Everything has been done to stage a sanitised debate between supporters of federalism and supporters of sovereignty.
That is all the easier when social issues are not addressed.
We reject this choice as the wrong one and, like the social movement, call for a different charter for a different Europe.
The vote on this report in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, adopted by 18 votes in favour, 2 against and 6 abstentions, reflects the gulf dividing the Members of the European Parliament on this subject.
This own-initiative report by Mr Duhamel can be classed as one that were better not written, especially at this point in time.
For as things stand in the various Member States, it risks being rather counterproductive at a time when the top priority is not a very broad debate on a constitution but rather the drafting of a treaty that will allow the European Union to digest enlargement without endangering the Community method, which is the key to the success of European integration.
In this 'constitution versus treaty' debate, I tend to place more trust in Jacques Delors than in Mr Duhamel and those who supported him in submitting this report.
As Jacques Delors rightly pointed out at a meeting of our Committee on Constitutional Affairs scarcely a month ago, the term 'constitution' is extremely ambiguous.
He told us that he, like the majority of politicians, had been given to believe that we would prefer our relations with other countries to be governed by international treaty.
In a framework of that kind - and I am still referring to Jacques Delors' s words - we would agree to exercise joint sovereignty in certain fields.
But a constitution is something else entirely.
It refers to a single state.
A constitution would commit the Member States to venturing onto very dangerous ground, which could lead a constitutional court to gradually deprive the nations of the prerogatives the states intend to continue exercising.
A good treaty is worth more than a treaty that can be dubbed a constitution. That is the last of Jacques Delors' s observations.
In complete agreement with the common sense of Jacques Delors' s words, I did not vote in favour of Mr Duhamel' s report.
Although I do not reject the praiseworthy intention of strengthening, clarifying and deepening the European Union and of simplifying the texts so as to bring its workings closer to the citizens, I did not vote in favour of this motion for a resolution.
The resolution is essentially like a 'Pandora' s Box' , as the text does not make it formally clear what purpose it serves or where the real need or urgency for a European Constitution lies.
By its very nature a Constitution may, in the form in which it is sometimes contradictorily put forward for Europe, both serve as a way to 'civilise' the Union, on the basis of democracy and citizenship, and also be the instrument for a 'clarification' of competences, a chalk circle which formally and definitively constrains the Union and its bodies to very particular and specific competences.
The constitutionalisation of the Treaties may either bring about the development of the Union and uphold its political competences, or in contrast it may be no more than an enshrined formalisation of the principle of subsidiarity.
Strangely, many MEPs and even Prime Minister Blair support a European Constitution.
Despite the clarity of Mário Soares' s speech, in which he interpreted this report in its deep European sense, without concessions to easy solutions through highly risky referendums, for which there is no tradition in many Member States, it remains simply an unsullied interpretation by a European of conviction who has made his mark on history.
Unfortunately, the text does not match the idea and desire of Portugal' s leading European.
This discrepancy, the blame for which lies entirely with the report' s author for not being clear and precise, is at the root of my unease with the text and why I find it politically impossible to vote for it.
I would even have voted against it, but this would have been an over-radical way of judging a text as important as this.
I welcome Mr Duhamel' s report as an interesting and constructive contribution to the idea of constitutionalisation of the Treaties.
While it could be argued that the existing Treaties are in essence the European Constitution they are difficult to read and their articles are not always in a logical order.
A future Constitution could set out in a clear and (relatively) concise way
the fundamental rights of European citizens
the principle of the separation of powers and the rule of law
the composition, role and functioning of the institutions of the Union
the allocation of powers and responsibilities
the subsidiarity principle
the role of European political parties
the objective of European integration.
There is both a positive and a negative side to this report.
It has been noted - rightly so - that over the years, there has been a useless build-up of long and complex treaties, and it would be good if these were to be re-written as one brief and readable framework treaty, which makes it clear to everyone what has been agreed so far.
At the same time, a case has been made in favour of a European Constitution, comprising this framework treaty as well as the Charter of Fundamental Rights and laying down the role of the European political groups.
Despite the recognition that the national identity of the Member States must be respected and that national citizenship need not be abolished, this report has a strong leaning towards a centralised European superstate according to the US model.
I gladly support an extension of the social fundamental rights and a structure of political decision-making which is understandable and accessible to all European citizens.
For this purpose, all we need is for the existing treaties to be rewritten and for the EU to sign the Council of Europe Convention on the protection of human rights and dignity of the human being which has been in existence for a long time.
The UK Labour Members of the PSE Group welcome this report without endorsing all of its detail.
We think a re-organising of the Treaties and their simplification would make it easier for citizens to see clearly the field of EU responsibilities - and their limits - as well as the procedures for exercising these responsibilities.
We welcome the idea that future changes, after Nice, could be prepared by a convention involving national parliaments, the European Parliament and government representatives, as recently tried, successfully, with the convention that prepared the Charter of Rights.
Ratification, however, must be up to each Member State in accordance with its own procedures and traditions.
We also do not wish to pre-empt this work by deciding now what should be in the new constitution, such as whether the Charter should be included.
We have a constitution already in the form of the Treaties, in so far as they lay down the competences of the Union, its procedures and the composition and powers of its institutions.
However they are not codified, they are unclear and they are insufficient as regards efficiency and democracy.
We welcome attempts to improve them.
I abstained from voting in the final vote.
I believe it is absolutely crucial that the EU' s Charter of Fundamental Rights should involve subscribing to the Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights.
The word 'constitution' is intellectually and politically misleading. Instead, the proper concept should instead be the 'recapitulation and simplification of the EU Treaties' .
The Swedish Christian Democrats do not believe that the Convention has proved to be a democratic or effective method of working when it comes to producing a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
That is true in terms of the understanding shown both of the national parliaments and their constitutional committees and of the European Parliament' s Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
In practice, the Convention' s presidency has produced its own summary of the views which the various participants are taken to have arrived at.
In the event of the Convention method being used in future, its task should be limited to that of acting as a focus group.
I voted enthusiastically for the report by our fellow Member, Olivier Duhamel, because it sounds the same note as the great voices and great expressions of resolve that have, step by step, advanced the course of European integration since the war.
But this particular voice, and this is significant, is a parliamentary voice, the voice of an institution that attests a little more each day to the authority of the peoples within the Union and its triangle of institutions.
Step by step, treaty by treaty, and we hope the Treaty of Nice will not belie this, the old nationalist attitudes within Europe are expanding out of these narrow confines leading to the creation of a world power in a world of giants.
Everyone here knows that Europe, its currency, its diplomacy, its security, its civilisation, its culture and its social model can only truly survive the splendid history of its peoples, but also the fruitless dissension between them, by becoming a federation of nation states with strong, coherent and respected institutions, enshrined in a European Constitution, towards which Mr Duhamel has paved the way.
Until the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997, Europe was an intergovernmental super-syndicate.
With the Treaty of Amsterdam and the extension of the codecision procedure, the European Parliament has effectively set Europe on the road to political integration and supranationality.
If, tomorrow, the Union wishes to embrace Europe in its entirety, the geographical Europe, extending even beyond the next wave of enlargement, it will need institutions that are fully mature in political and democratic terms.
What history will remember of this year 2000, which some people find too dull, is that it saw the advancement and affirmation of the idea of a European Constitution, backed by the majority of Members of this Parliament, which led, today, to the adoption of the Duhamel report.
That is why we must fervently hope that the Nice Summit and the Intergovernmental Conference prove a success, so as to enable us, quite simply, to make further progress very rapidly.
Gil-Robles report (A5-0288/2000)
Mr President, ever since I have been a Member of the European Parliament, I have had sleepless nights worrying about whether I will succeed in contributing to a European law on pensions before my term expires. So far it has not been possible because pensions do not come under the European Parliament's mandate!
However, Mr Gil-Robles' report is a help in this respect because it proposes that, for certain issues and sectors, some of the Member States of the European Union reach agreement upon joint actions.
I therefore hope that we will opt in the near future for closer cooperation between certain States - including Italy - so that we can adopt common rules for the management of pensions and workers' pension contributions.
Then I will be able to sleep peacefully once more.
Mr Fatuzzo, that is what we all hope!
The Swedish and Danish Social Democrats have today voted against José Maria Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado' s report on closer cooperation.
We agree with the general principles laid down by the report, to the effect that closer cooperation should be developed within the European Union' s institutional frameworks and that the political and legal conditions established by the Treaty of Amsterdam for introducing closer cooperation are aimed at limiting the risk of a breach of the ties of solidarity between the Member States and the risk of a disintegration in the common legal area.
We recognise that, where the pace and scope of European integration are concerned, a certain degree of differentiation within the process may be useful in so far as the common objectives are preserved and the differentiation is perceived as a tool used on an exceptional basis, in a transitional period and with due respect for the fact that it is entirely up to those countries which are not a part of the enhanced cooperation process to decide whether - and, in certain cases, when - they wish to accede to those areas covered by closer cooperation.
If we cannot vote in favour of the report, it is because we cannot support the proposed changes to the political and legal conditions required for closer cooperation.
Removing the conditions which state that closer cooperation must remain within the framework of the Treaty and removing the right of veto and the opportunity for bringing the issue up in the European Council would constitute a breach of the quite fundamental principles according to which European cooperation in the EU operates.
The Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities is voting against Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado' s report on enhanced cooperation.
The report proposes abolishing the right of veto, which would in reality mean that countries which are very keen on further integration could forge ahead without having broad democratic support.
The ulterior motive is to be able to continue the development towards 'ever closer union' without being hampered by the enlargement to which the EU countries have committed themselves.
Enhanced cooperation would cause most policies, including the most sensitive ones, to be centralised to a still greater degree than they are already.
In this way, Mr Gil-Robles proposes discontinuing the common foreign and security policy.
We consider, however, that future development will increase the need for far more varied and flexible cooperation in Europe.
To allow decisions on ever more important topics to be made on the basis of qualified majority voting would be in conflict with basic democratic standards.
Countries with a tradition of holding referendums before surrendering sovereignty may in future be in danger of finding themselves in a situation in which a proposal that is rejected nationally is adopted at EU level.
Those countries which are not so keen on integration are left with a poor alternative, namely that of copying the legislation without having any real say in it.
What they cannot do, however, is avoid the pioneer countries' legislation.
The Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities wants a freer and more flexible Europe in which there is no pressure to be involved in everything.
We want to see a Europe of democracies and diversity.
We are therefore voting against the report.
I voted against the Gil-Robles report on reinforced cooperation, i.e. cooperation that does not involve all but only some EU Member States.
In fact, although this report tends to introduce a little more flexibility into the highly inflexible system laid down by Title VII of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is welcome, the final result is still far from adequate.
It reflects far too monolithic a concept of the Union, under which all forms of cooperation would have to operate within a 'single institutional framework' and would necessarily be directed towards the objective creating a super-state.
The Gil-Robles report even proposes bringing the common foreign and security policy and the common defence policy within the purview of reinforced cooperation, thus centralising those policies even more than they are at present (Paragraph 4).
These proposals are not acceptable; the need for cooperation within Europe is genuine, but also diverse and multiform, and it can no longer be locked into a uniform Community framework based on majority voting.
Furthermore, the report, and this is a significant omission, contains no explanation as to how cooperation procedures involving one third of Member States could actually be made to work within the existing institutions without reforming those institutions.
In reality, the European Parliament is practising delay tactics.
Parliament wished earlier to prevent the emergence of differentiated forms of cooperation in the Treaty of Amsterdam, but was finally forced to give way and accept 'reinforced cooperation' .
It is now attempting to prevent reinforced cooperation being made more flexible, but here too it will eventually lose.
We believe that what ought to be termed 'differentiated' cooperation procedures should not have to follow predetermined lines in their objectives; nor should there be limits on their creation or constraints on their operation.
Some procedures could use the Community framework should this be found desirable, others could create their own ad hoc institutions, linked to the Union only by a liaison secretariat.
Finally, differentiated cooperation should preferably operate on the basis of the unanimity principle, thus avoiding any relapse into the disadvantages of the Community method.
We should remember that the mechanism now known as reinforced cooperation already existed well before the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Indeed, some Member States that wanted to deepen their cooperation and go beyond the integration provided for in the Treaties developed various instruments, such as the Social Chapter, the Schengen Agreements, Economic and Monetary Union, etc.
This enabled them to advance at different rates and/or with different objectives.
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the use of these instruments was formalised by the introduction of the concept of 'closer cooperation' into the Treaty on European Union (Title VII) and the Treaty establishing the European Community (Article 11).
The objective of this form of cooperation is to allow a limited number of Member States that are able and willing to move forward to deepen European integration, provided they respect the European Union' s single institutional framework.
In fact, Europe is finding it more and more difficult to move forward at the same pace.
So we must avoid slowing down the general pace and therefore allow some Member States to move forward by developing the mechanism of reinforced cooperation.
Resorting to this instrument is tied to conditions designed to avoid turning the European Union into an à la carte or multi-speed Europe, a legitimate anxiety which lies at the heart of debates on this issue.
We must point out that reinforced cooperation, as provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam, must in particular concern an area that does not come within the Community' s exclusive purview, must be aimed at furthering the objectives of the Union, must respect the principles of the Treaties and must be used only as a last resort while concerning a majority of Member States.
Reinforced cooperation could have an important role to play in the framework of an enlarged Europe.
However, as these provisions now stand, this mechanism cannot function correctly.
That is why the reform of this instrument has been entered on the agenda of the IGC with a view to making it easier to use.
The report before us tends to consolidate Parliament' s position in this respect (resolution of 13 April 2000).
In particular, that means abolishing the right of veto and making it possible to resort to cooperation when it concerns at least one third of Member States and also extending reinforced cooperation to the common foreign and security policy.
The rapporteur rightly stresses that the Commission' s power of initiative, the full participation of the European Parliament and legal control by the Court of Justice must be the rule for all forms of reinforced cooperation.
If used intelligently, this instrument can be a way out of the current deadlock affecting the European Union.
There has been much debate within the European Union in recent times concerning what is known as the principle of enhanced cooperation.
In its simplest terms, what this means is that larger Member States can integrate more closely and over a shorter time-frame than smaller Member States of the EU.
In essence, the proponents of such a policy want to put in place a two-tier Europe.
They want the European Union to be built at two different paces: one for countries that wish to integrate more closely and one for countries that want to tread more carefully on the issue of economic integration.
I do not think it will be a necessarily healthy move forward for the European Union if EU leaders were to accept and implement the principle of enhanced cooperation to its fullest.
I believe that this would fly in the face of both the founding objectives and spirit of the Treaty of Rome and of all subsequent Treaties thereafter.
One should recall that the Single European Act in 1987 laid the groundwork for the implementation of an internal market.
Large scale EU Structural Funds were put aside to help Objective 1 countries within the European Union so as to guarantee that these countries could become more competitive over time.
EU leaders stated that they did not want an internal market of only a few countries.
They wanted all participating countries within the European Union to actively engage in a competitive manner within the environment of a new single market.
That is why the large allocation of EU Structural Funds was made.
The operating structures of the internal market have been a success ever since the early 1990s.
This principle of equality between poorer and richer nations was transcended into policies that were implemented to put in place a new European single currency regime.
Once again, if poorer and smaller countries of the European Union could not reform their economic structures they would not be able to meet the economic convergence criterion as laid down in the Maastricht Treaty.
EU leaders financed large-scale EU Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund programmes for smaller and poorer countries so that as many countries as possible could participate in the European single currency structure.
There is a need for institutional equality in the context of the negotiations on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
The influence of smaller Member States cannot be dissipated by a set of larger countries within the EU that seek to implement, as I have said, the principle of enhanced cooperation.
This would not be healthy for the European Union now and into the future.
It certainly would not be healthy in the context of the impending enlargement of the European Union itself.
We are broadly in favour of so-called flexible integration.
By allowing a group of countries to go ahead and deepen cooperation within a particular area and, at the same time, preventing one or more Member States from curbing flexible integration, then integration throughout the European Union can go forwards.
As long as the European Union' s common objectives are promoted within the framework of flexible integration and as long as no Member State is excluded from participating, we believe that this is a positive solution and ought to be developed.
If, in a future EU with 25 to 30 Member States, the situation is to be avoided of a Europe à la carte in which the unity of the Member States is in danger of disintegrating, we nonetheless believe that at least half of all Member States must participate in flexible integration.
We are also opposed to creating duplicate defence structures within the EU and consequently to flexible integration within the EU' s foreign and security policy.
Following the EU' s failure in the Balkans, it is incredibly important that the EU as a whole should have the ability to act in its own immediate vicinity and be able to make personnel and resources available in time for conflict management and peace-keeping measures.
The WEU' s institutional and operational structures ought to be fully integrated into the common security policy.
The EU must acquire a credible foreign policy.
We cannot rely upon the United States forever more.
At the same time, it is important to retain the United States' s continued commitment, and we do not want the EU to develop a parallel mini NATO.
Still less do we wish to see a limited number of Member States go further within the framework of flexible integration in this area.
It is therefore important to retain the transatlantic link, even if there might, of course, be better coordination and a better distribution of labour.
We believe that, in the future too, a credible common European foreign policy must be developed within the rules that apply at present.
Decisions ought to be taken by majority vote, but the option of a constructive veto, whereby a country may choose to remain outside a particular process but not prevent others from pressing ahead, ought to remain.
I welcome Mr Gil-Robles' report on reinforced cooperation.
While reluctantly accepting that in an enlarged European Union there will be a need for an 'avant-garde' I agree with Mr Gil-Robles that there are some essential conditions that must be fulfilled:
Reinforced cooperation must be developed within the institutional framework of the Union.
It must preserve the single institutional framework within which all MEPs and all Commissioners participate fully in the exercise of the functions of each institution.
The procedure for activating reinforced cooperation should be the same for all pillars and should be based on the existing procedure for the first pillar, with the few modifications set out in Mr Gil-Robles' report.
If reinforced cooperation proves necessary I am convinced that only the Community system offers the necessary guarantees in terms of democratic control, legal controls and solidarity.
European cooperation can be useful in solving cross-border problems.
What could be more natural, therefore, than cooperation between neighbouring states, such as the cooperation which existed before the founding of the European Union in the form of the Benelux counties and the cooperation between the Nordic states? Such cooperation between neighbours is often preferential to expensive, impenetrable EU structures which are also difficult for the electorate to influence.
Not one single EU rule should stand in the way of far-reaching cooperation, subject this to conditions or require that others join in.
That is why I am in favour of a minimum number of rules and limitations affecting reinforced cooperation between neighbours, as long as such cooperation is not intended to disadvantage third parties.
In practice, we can already see Euro countries and non-Euro countries emerging within the EU.
They are not leader groups but reflect a diversity which, with 30 Member States, will only increase.
That is why it is better to take inter-parliamentary cooperation and the right to diversity as a guiding principle throughout the EU: the Commission submits proposals, Parliament makes the final decision and national parliaments decide whether the Member States endorse that decision.
The UK Labour members of the PES Group welcome the adoption of their contribution to the ongoing work of the IGC on reinforced cooperation, without endorsing every single detail.
Clearly the triggering of reinforced cooperation must be made easier in an enlarged Union.
It must be used sparingly and must remain open to those who do not initially participate.
It must not undermine the existing core of common policies and commitments.
It must take place within the existing institutional structure.
On these key principles we are in agreement with the report even if the details will require further refinement in the IGC.
Mr President, Mrs Sudre' s report is indeed of great importance, and even capital importance for the outermost regions, but my group, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, abstained and I should like to explain why.
The problems raised by the report have been identified; there is no further need to go into the details.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is disappointed, however, disappointed that the report did not seize the opportunity to bring about environmentally, socially and culturally sustainable development in these regions and that the amendments adopted during the vote are not such as to improve the text in that respect.
We regret that the positions Parliament has adopted in the vote are the European Union' s positions concerning these regions.
In particular, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance regrets the report' s rather defensive attitude to the ACP and candidate countries.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is also opposed to granting permanent derogations.
We are in favour of applying the principle of derogation to the common policies applied in the outermost regions on a case-by-case basis. I am thinking here of state aid and fiscal policies.
We regret the fact that the call to moderate the 'polluter pays' principle was endorsed, for that could open the door to misuse in the application of this specific prerogative.
We also regret the lack of any reference to, or even mention of, the need to protect biodiversity, which is one of the most important assets of the outermost regions.
These regions could act as a wonderful laboratory in terms of sustainable development.
That is another missed opportunity.
On the other hand, we welcome the paragraphs in the report on promoting renewable energies and monitoring industrial activities which cause pollution.
Dear Mr Fernandez.
You sit next to me when we vote. I was very happy to vote for this report, which I am sure that you will have supported, as you always support all the measures concerning the Canary Islands.
The Pensioners' Party and the pensioners who support it are very familiar with these islands for they are a key tourist destination.
It is my opinion that the European Union should be more attentive and more active than it has been up till now with regard to the Azores, the Canary Islands, Guyana, Martinique, Madeira and Reunion.
These islands must be able to feel that they are an active part of the European Union, and I hope that the Union will turn them into a paradise both for tourists and for their inhabitants.
The European Parliament and especially the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats has always helped push the outermost region concept to the forefront.
This was the case in the Gutiérrez Díaz report, the Fernández Martín report, which promoted the inclusion of the concept in the Treaty, and now in the Sudre report, which restates European policy for the outermost regions.
In the face of the Commission' s hesitancy and contradictions, due to which REGIS has disappeared, the review of POSEI has been postponed and the corresponding funding has been reduced, the Sudre report comes at a highly appropriate moment.
The European Parliament is reasserting itself by adopting measures in various fields - from agriculture to fisheries, from the environment to transport and energy via the information society - with the necessary budgetary support.
At the same time, production sectors stand out, which in the case of the Azores means that the dairy and sugar disputes must be resolved.
In this context I quote Paragraph 7 of the Sudre report: "[The European Parliament] believes that specific adaptations of the common policies must be developed where the outermost regions are heavily dependent on a limited number of economic activities or even on a single economic activity, in conformity with Article 299(2) of the Treaty."
We now look forward to initiatives from the Commission and from the national and regional authorities.
.
(FR) The rather bureaucratic term 'outermost regions' encompasses women and men from New Caledonia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Reunion, Mayotte, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna and all our territories in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, which form a bridge of intelligence, solidarity and beauty between Europe and other continents and other civilisations.
The Europe of Brussels, with its mania for levelling out and standardising, has acted unfairly and even stupidly towards our compatriots who live according to European values thousands of kilometres away from Paris, Madrid or Lisbon.
The technocrats, the European judges, wanted to abolish the 'dock dues' , which provide resources for our municipalities in the French overseas departments and, in particular, protect our traditional workforce.
From this distance, Brussels has put our Martinique rums, our rice and our tropical fruits at risk.
Most especially, this has resulted in the planned destruction of our banana industry, in Guadeloupe, Martinique, Madeira and the Canaries.
The European Commission has kow-towed to the banana multinationals.
Every year, EUR 2 billion in customs duties are given away to Chiquita and Del Monte.
How then can we refuse to give our remote departments and territories the funding they need to make up for the costs involved in transportation, dealing with cyclones and investing in universities or hospitals?
When our regions, in the West Indies for example, or the Pacific, are tax havens used by the American multinationals, from Kodak to Microsoft, Boeing or Cargill, for massive tax-fraud exports, then the right to geographically equal competition, together with the right of all Europeans to equality, requires that we devote part of the European budget, in which taxes make up 17% of revenue, to developing the economic, social and cultural life of our compatriots who live in regions that may well be outermost in terms of geography but are central in terms of civilisation.
The fact that the outermost regions exist is tied up to a large degree with colonial history.
In the Middle Ages, those regions and their people did not belong to Europe, and even today, they are not really considered to be European.
Even before the nineteenth century, Spain, Portugal, France, England and the Netherlands had already conquered substantial colonial empires and Belgium, Germany, Denmark and Italy tried to follow in their footsteps for a short while.
This colonial era has now passed.
The suppressed peoples have fought for their freedom, or were given their independence as a preventive measure, because the former rulers had no appetite for a war of liberation which they would end up losing.
All that the EU Member States have left outside Europe in terms of territory are small or sparsely populated sections of their former colonial empire.
The EU Member States deal with their outermost regions in very different ways.
Spain and Portugal consider their islands in the Atlantic as remote regions.
Those islands can, given their present composition of population and their relative proximity, be considered normal parts of their countries.
Similarly, the Netherlands and Denmark each have two regions in, or on the other side of, the Atlantic, but those areas are expressly not included in the European Union.
France, on the other hand, owns overseas departments in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean.
This proposal has confronted my group with a difficult choice.
On the one hand, we want to support disadvantaged areas in and outside of Europe so that they achieve the same standard of living and level of amenities that is now current in the EU.
That is a question of solidarity.
On the other hand, we have serious doubts as to whether or not former colonies should be declared outermost regions.
A case can be made for the Spanish and Portuguese islands, but not really for the more remote regions.
These should ideally be given the same status as the current ACP states which, after the same kind of history, have ended up in a different type of relationship with Europe.
In assessing the amendments, my group has tried to tread a middle path between the most far-reaching demands of those protecting the interests of the outermost regions and the indifference towards, or even repugnance for, this topic felt in Member States which cannot relate to it in any way.
In any case, we have, however, subordinated our repugnance for this topic' s colonial backdrop to the interests of those living in the regions concerned.
This report is very timely, given the need to put Article 299(2) of the Treaty on European Union objectively and swiftly into practice, and I essentially support its positions on the sustainable development of the outermost regions.
The special characteristics of these regions derive in general from their island status and their distance from continental Europe, but also from their chronic dependence on only a few products or even a single product, and thus require specific measures designed to overcome these constraints.
I am therefore delighted that the report has adopted positions which to a great extent include the proposals I submitted to the Parliamentary Committee.
I must also stress, however, that insufficient attention is given in the report to certain particular social situations that exist in these regions or in some of them, which would also require special measures.
This could be rectified through the approval of a draft amendment that we tabled for this purpose in due time.
Bowis report (A5-0272/2000)
Mr President, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has indeed voted for Mr Bowis' report and, while we welcome the fact that the European Parliament and the Commission, with its White Paper, are offering European consumers interesting prospects, food safety must remain an absolute priority in our policies.
Let us not be too ambitious, however.
The more progress that is made in scientific research, the more new questions are raised.
We need only look at developments involving BSE.
New cases are being identified week after week and in new geographical areas that had been spared in the past.
This applies in particular to the Vosges department in the Lorraine region.
With all the measures proposed in the White Paper, we will still have to flesh out a number of points in order to guarantee food safety and in particular restore consumer confidence.
The most important points include the creation of the European Food Safety Agency, which we welcome and of which we expect a great deal.
It is vital to its credibility that it is independent.
This authority must be totally dissociated from the interests of private companies or the Member States.
That independence also implies financial independence.
The Union will have to free up funds to run it, but will the EFSA be enough to reassure consumers who are worried about what they find on their plates and will soon find in their drinks? The authority will have to be set up by 2002/2003 and we very much hope that the question of where it will have its headquarters will not be an obstacle to its establishment.
Meanwhile, the Union must continue to assess and manage food safety risks. That means it must be vigilant day in day out.
It means guaranteeing that the policy-makers and the policies that have been put in place really do deal with what people want.
The use of animal meal, which is triggering a new food crisis, is unacceptable.
Henceforth we must ban all animal meal. That is the strong stance our citizens expect, rather than the kind of tolerance that can end up seriously damaging consumer health.
This kind of recognised scientific risk must not be tolerated in any way.
Mr Bowis' report takes that line.
That is why the Green Group fully supported his work and voted for the report.
Mr President, I apologise to the Presidency and to the interpreters, who have to listen to this last explanation of vote and, in particular, I sympathise with the translators of our explanations of votes, particularly, in my case, the Italian translator, Ornella Buson.
I will endeavour to take as little advantage as possible of this right to explanation, but I would like to say that I too voted for the report on the establishment of the Food Safety Agency.
The reason why the report is important is clear, especially when I remember that one of my neighbours was taken into hospital one day with acute stomach pains, after eating poisonous mushrooms which he had not had checked out by the relevant person.
Mr John Bowis' report will ensure that the food we eat is always healthy, natural and safe.
You said that this would be the last time you would speak, Mr Fatuzzo, but you must just have meant for today!
I was a little worried!
Mr President, I voted for Mr Bowis' report and of course I want to emphasise the high quality of the work done by our rapporteur.
Let me say how glad I am that our Parliament is finally delivering its opinion on such an important subject, while regretting that it has been 10 months since the European Commission presented its White Paper on 12 January this year.
It was essential for us to give an opinion on an issue that is so important to our fellow citizens.
Our vote has thus clarified the composition of the future European Agency, while also setting out our specific requirements regarding its funding and its independence.
I hope that the Commission will, therefore, take the European Parliament' s demands on board.
This first step must not close our eyes to the serious work that still needs to be done on risk management, developing and improving the Rapid Alert System, but also on ensuring traceability and public information.
Far from representing a final stage, the report must therefore signal the start of a huge undertaking, namely the essential and rapid reworking of our legislation on food.
At first glance, the Commission's White Paper on food safety appears to be full of good intentions, since it mainly proposes the creation of a European Food Safety Agency responsible for managing a rapid alert network and totally independent when it advises the management authorities.
But on reading the report or perusing the European Parliament's resolution on the same subject, the picture becomes far less pleasing.
In fact it becomes clear that the purpose of the agency is to take over national defence powers, or to paralyse them, and to put them at the service of the Commission's objectives.
Now that is absolutely intolerable.
The French must remember that despite the Commission's splendid declarations about its resolve "to assure the highest standards of food safety" in the Union, it is actually the Commission, and none other, that is giving precedence to the demands of the free movement of products over public health requirements; it is the Commission, and none other, that has, for example, just dragged France before the Court of Justice for maintaining its ban on British beef.
It is unacceptable that we should abandon any part of our national right of decision and right of protection, in relation to food safety questions.
However, the creation of that agency is imperceptibly guiding us in that very direction.
First of all, we must remember that the power to provide advice plays a capital part.
In the mad cow affair, the reason the French Government continued the ban was because it was backed up by the independent opinion of the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA), even though the supposedly scientific European committee saw nothing wrong with allowing British meat to be imported into France.
Consequently, if a European agency is necessary, it must be complementary to the national agencies and in no way reduce their legitimacy.
That is not at all the direction taken by the White Paper, which wants to make the European agency into a "scientific point of reference for the whole Union" (page 5).
Secondly, the European agency must be completely independent.
The director of the agency should certainly not be appointed by the Commission, contrary to what the European Parliament is proposing (paragraph 21 of the resolution).
Nor should the Commission appoint the scientific experts, even following what appears to be a rigorous selection procedure.
Moreover, the agency must be able to criticise the Commission itself.
That is not at all the view of the White Paper, which calls for the agency to develop very close working links with the Commission services because, as it explains with a certain aplomb, "it will allow the Authority (Agency) to be responsive to the needs of the Commission services" (page 20).
Thirdly, the Agency must not encroach upon the management of risks and regulatory power.
The Commission's White Paper has the grace to admit that, but on closer perusal we find that the regulatory power it is so keen to protect is that of... the Commission, and not the states.
That does not prevent the Commission and Parliament from christening the agency a "European Authority", a title totally contrary to the philosophy that supposedly inspires it.
The European Parliament even adds, in paragraph 6 of its resolution, the phrase "while subjecting the powers to be transferred to detailed scrutiny", just when we thought that no powers were to be transferred.
We therefore believe that the White Paper and Parliament's report are traps, which is why we are opposed to them.
The Member States must retain full responsibility for food safety, because they are close to their people and will react more rapidly than the Commission, which, moreover is constantly blinded by its free-trade prejudices.
There is without doubt a need for an agency that takes a European view of the situation, but it must be strictly consultative and totally independent.
The best idea would be for it to emanate solely from the national agencies and to network with them.
A serious problem for society and food safety has been caused by the serious crises and scandals involving food products that have arisen in several countries in the European Union because of the use of methods aimed at making the maximum profit from food-producing activities at any cost, ignoring the interests of consumers.
Therefore all the measures proposed to change the situation and protect consumers deserve our support, particularly the setting-up of a European food Safety Agency to analyse the risks scientifically, working in close collaboration with existing national agencies in this field and the main European consumers' organisations.
But we need to go further than this.
We have to bear in mind the type of practices employed in farming and the food industry, the problem of imported foodstuffs, the composition of the ingredients of animal feedingstuffs, the maximum levels of dioxins and pesticide residues, food additives and other matters, giving priority to food safety.
It is equally crucial that we support regional crops and products, family farming and rural development.
Today, the question of food safety has become a primary concern of the citizens of our countries.
The issue has now become particularly acute, not just because of the advances in our methods of scientific investigation but mainly because the consequences of a certain type of farming aimed at boosting productivity at all costs and inspired by a free-trade philosophy have come fully to light.
So today we need to correct the adverse effects on public health of a policy very largely inspired by the Commission, as Mrs Thomas-Mauro quite rightly pointed out this morning.
The question is what kind of mechanism will protect our citizens most effectively.
If we take a look at recent events, we find that with regard to BSE, for example, and taking only the case of France, it is the existence of a competent and independent national Food Safety Agency that allowed the French authorities to rapidly take the decisions needed to protect the health of its people.
But the contribution of the European institutions has, so far, been singularly negative.
First there was the refusal by the Council and the Commission to take on board the French scientists' warnings, and we now see how relevant they were.
Next came the incredible ruling by the Court of Justice against maintaining the ban on British beef, which France had decided at the express recommendation of the scientists.
So that shows that the European institutions' behaviour on this issue that is vital to the food safety of our fellow citizens comes down to genuinely putting the health of Europeans at risk.
There is a lesson to be learned.
In the name of respect for subsidiarity and effectiveness, we must give pride of place to measures taken in a national context, where independent agencies can rapidly provide genuinely scientific opinions undiluted by other considerations and the political authorities can take the necessary risk-management decisions for the benefit of the people who have given them a mandate to protect their safety.
Under these circumstances, a European agency can play a useful role if it really is independent, especially in relation to the Commission services and the various pressure groups at work there, and if its role is to complement and support the national agencies (from which it should emanate), in particular by acting as a forum for the exchange of expertise.
That is not at all what the Bowis report is proposing; it gives the impression that basically it regards food safety as another pretext for fuelling the well-known process of strengthening the Commission's powers at the expense of the national authorities and public safety.
In fact, without batting an eyelid the report endorses the new wording the Commission wants: we are no longer talking about a European agency but about an authority. The report seems to regard it as a matter of course that the Commission should appoint the director of the authority: no doubt that is the best way of guaranteeing its independence!
It has no problem with the location of the authority in Brussels: so it will be right next to the Commission services and therefore perfectly "responsive" (sic) to its wishes, as recommended in the White Paper...
On the other hand, the authority must be "given powers to require" Member States to provide reports, statistics and papers... As for paragraph 6 of the report, it quite classically announces the transfers of powers that are bound to follow.
Looking behind the apparent and certainly sincere concern to improve food safety in Europe, in fact we thus find ourselves faced with the usual logic: the aim is to get control over the Member States, in this sphere as in the others, to strip the national authorities of their powers and effectiveness and hand them over to a large, limp and flabby European institution, theoretically independent but in reality controlled by the Commission and its philosophy of absolutely free trade.
The only power the European Food Safety Agency will have is to conduct the scientific analysis of food risks, but not the political management of these risks.
We must certainly restrict its powers.
In any case, we would have preferred an "agency".
In charge, in the long term, of running the Rapid Alert System (RAS), which collects the information held by the Member States or the European Commission, it will in due course be responsible for coordinating the national agencies.
We distrust this term, which suggests the perfect little bureaucrat, with the authority handing down orders to harmonise.
Is it not the intention, in due course, to entrust the authority with managing the food safety aspect of the RAS?
That is why I abstained.
For my part, in France, I do not need an authority in order to restore my confidence; I trust the French Food Safety Agency and its opinions, especially in relation to mad cow disease.
We voted for Amendment No 15 because we are very strongly committed to defending the European cultural heritage in relation to locally produced food.
However, we fear that the stated means of ensuring the protection of locally produced food would be counterproductive.
For are licensing and product certification not in fact a way of circumventing the principle set out at the beginning of recital I? Small local producers will be unable to gain access because this certification is so cumbersome, complex and costly.
We voted against Amendment No 7 because it would mean, even now, going beyond the field of risk assessment and encompassing risk management.
It is not up to the authority to advise the states to adopt this or that type of control procedure.
That is outside its remit.
(The sitting was suspended at 2.05 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Honk Kong SAR
The next item is the report (A5-0284/2000) by Mr Cushnahan, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the first and second annual reports by the European Commission on the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (COM(98)796 - C4-0100/1999 - 1999/2009(COS)) (COM(2000) 294 - C5-0500/2000 - 1999/2009(COS)).
Mr President, Hong Kong went to the polls in September, for the second time since the former British colony was returned to Chinese rule.
Analysis of the results reveals disturbing trends which demonstrate that all is not well.
Voter turn-out dropped to 43% compared to 53% in 1998 and support for the region's pro-Beijing parties increased in marked contrast to the decline in support for the pro-democracy parties.
I believe there are a number of reasons why Hong Kong voters have opted for apathy instead of exercising their newly established right to vote.
The main problem is that while the election procedure itself is free and transparent it can hardly be described as truly democratic.
Twenty-four of the 60 seats are directly elected on the basis of universal suffrage, where three million Hong Kong citizens have the right to vote.
The remaining 36 seats are returned by a mere 179 000 electors drawn from Hong Kong's powerful business and professional interests as well as pro-Beijing groups.
Furthermore the legislature has little real power.
The real power rests with the Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa and his government which, in effect, is appointed by Beijing.
The executive is totally separate from the legislature, which is left to operate more like a watchdog rather than a real decision-making body.
The legislature's lack of real power has made voters unenthusiastic about participating in elections which, in their view, are not truly democratic.
Although the Basic Law - which is Hong Kong's mini-constitution - lays down specific criteria for the holding of the 2004 election, it does nonetheless provide for the possible introduction of universal suffrage for the election of all 60 seats for the 2008 election.
However, such a step is resisted by some who clearly wish to protect the power of big business.
Even if universal suffrage were to be introduced - preferably sooner rather than later - it would not solve all the current problems.
It would need to be accompanied by a reform to the Special Administrative Region's political institutions.
The executive has no party base in the legislature, which means that these two institutions are effectively completely separate from one another.
Furthermore, because the executive is not really accountable to the elected representatives and because the latter lack real power, they are also not held accountable for their own political pronouncements and actions.
Consideration must be given to changing the respective rules of the executive and the legislature to ensure an operational inter-relationship.
Other matters need to be examined.
They could include the method of appointment of principal officials: should they be political appointments or civil servants, and how they should be held accountable by elected representatives?
As well as problems in this area there is also growing concern regarding increasing Chinese interference in Hong Kong's affairs.
The rule of law is the cornerstone of the "one country, two systems" policy.
Three recent, controversial legal cases have far-reaching implications for the integrity of the rule of law and ultimately for the autonomy of Hong Kong itself.
Two of these resulted in the execution of individuals for crimes they had committed in Hong Kong, where capital punishment is banned.
The third case related to a judgment handed down by Hong Kong's Court of Final Appeal on a controversial immigration law concerning residency rights in Hong Kong for children of Chinese parents who themselves had resident status in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong Government was displeased with the liberal judgment and invited the Chinese authorities to reinterpret the Basic Law.
Many observers consider that this has created a worrying precedent, which appears to enable China to issue interpretations of the Basic Law whenever local courts make decisions of which either the Hong Kong Government or mainland politicians disapprove.
This situation was further compounded by mainland officials trying to interfere in press freedom and Hong Kong's trading relationship with Taiwan, following the recent Taiwanese election.
As regards my comments on the dominance of the Li Ka-shing family - which was the subject of much media interest in Hong Kong today - in some sectors of Hong Kong's economy, I should like to point out that the reason I have raised this matter is that it has been raised with me by leading figures in Hong Kong and indeed was the subject of major media debate during a recent visit there by myself.
I should also like to raise the question of visa-free access.
I am very unhappy that this has been blocked by some governments.
If we really believe in the "one country, two systems" approach then this is the one way of underpinning it.
Visa-free access should be given to Hong Kong's passport-holders without any preconditions.
So far I have concentrated on the negative aspects.
While these events give cause for concern I would not be unduly pessimistic regarding Hong Kong's future.
The "one country, two systems" remains reasonably intact, but, the real problem is that if the "one country, two systems" is seen to fail then the China-Taiwan problem will be even more difficult to resolve.
In conclusion I should like to thank all those who were involved in the deliberations on this report: my colleagues in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and members of the Foreign Affairs Secretariat, especially Mrs Opacic, and the Commissioner.
. (NL) Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of my committee, I would like to highlight the importance of Hong Kong in terms of international trade.
Back in 1997, Hong Kong was ranked eighth in the list of major world trading powers and tenth in the list of European Union trading partners.
Since then, and despite the Asian financial crisis, trade relations between the European Union and Hong Kong have gone from strength to strength.
As far as relations between Hong Kong and its international trading partners are concerned, more specifically the World Trade Organisation, the EU and Hong Kong share a number of common goals and the two work very closely together, which is useful in the light of the forthcoming trade round.
In my recommendation, I referred to the important role which Hong Kong could play when China joined the World Trade Organisation.
Hong Kong could show China how an open, fully integrated market can play a leading role in the region and can in this way achieve economic development and sustained growth.
Moreover, since Hong Kong constitutes a major sales market for China, Hong Kong can exercise influence on economic reform in China.
For these reasons, we must stress the importance of closer cooperation between the European Union and Hong Kong in financial terms and in terms of trade and direct foreign investments.
Hong Kong has concluded many bilateral agreements over the past few years.
We should bear in mind that in the framework of the EU-China agreement with regard to the possible accession of China to the World Trade Organisation, these bilateral agreements will need to be reviewed.
Although, economically speaking, we are right to term the relationship with Hong Kong a success, I should highlight a number of drawbacks, including the fact that the protection of intellectual property rights remains a huge problem.
Our companies are still being faced with violations of copyright and the manufacture and sale of counterfeit products.
We also have concerns in the social field.
After all, working conditions reportedly leave a great deal to be desired, especially vis-à-vis immigrant workers.
As far as the inquiry is concerned, we must call for both Hong Kong and the European Union to play a valuable role in the many projects which are in the pipeline.
I should like to start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Cushnahan, on his excellent work on such an important matter.
I am delighted to see that Commissioner Patten, for whose attitude and efficiency as governor of Hong Kong I have a great deal of respect, is here with us today.
I should like to dwell for a moment on two points which I believe are important, as of course are so many others.
The first is purely legal.
We must, I think, all agree that if, with measures such as those quoted in the Cushnahan report, we touch on the principle of the rule of law which should inform the legal and constitutional framework of Hong Kong, then we question the wider principle of "one country, two systems" on which developments in Hong Kong have been based.
And the second point which I wish to raise concerns the risks threatening the freedom of the press.
It is of paramount importance to the proper development of the principle of "one country, two systems", which constituted a revolution, as it were, in international relations because it introduced a new doctrine, to have, to protect and to respect freedom of the press.
Why? Because it is through freedom of the press that observations and proposals are made which aim to keep things within the democratic framework on which we are all agreed.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Cushnahan on his report.
I should like to thank him for once again being so adaptable in writing that report and being prepared to involve his colleagues so that there is no need for us to go through a lengthy amendment procedure because we reached consensus when the report was being drawn up.
Once again we see the handover of power in Hong Kong has generally gone very well and has defeated some of the more pessimistic forecasts.
Clearly, demonstrations still take place on a weekly basis in Hong Kong, movements are permitted in Hong Kong which are not permitted in China, the economy has survived a difficult period and continues to thrive and, as Mr De Clercq has said, the WTO membership for China should actually be an opportunity for Hong Kong, given its tremendous power in financial services in particular, and given that much of Hong Kong manufacturing has already moved to China.
However, as Mr Cushnahan has pointed out, there are areas of concern and they are set out well in his report so I do not need to go through them.
But I may quote one or two examples.
The Chinese news agency telling Mrs Anson Chan and the civil servants they had to better support the Chief Executive seems to me like interference in the affairs of another country.
The various reports of businessmen being put under pressure not to trade with Taiwan is also cause for concern.
The recent sacking or movement of one of the directors of Radio Television Hong Kong appears to have been as a result of pressure from the mainland.
All of these things in themselves may not add up to a great deal because they are part of a normal power struggle that you would see, provided, that is, that what Hong Kong was based on was a thriving, democratic system that could resist those sorts of pressures.
But we have to be concerned that in Hong Kong democracy is not going the way that we would have liked.
We have already heard of the unfair nature of the election system.
We will note, as was pointed out recently in the Financial Times by an adviser to the former Governor, the extent to which the rules were pushed back in 1997.
But when you see someone like Christine Loh resigning because there is no point in being in the legislative any more that, to me, is a significant signal that things are not going well.
And when someone who works for the Chief Executive is accused of interfering in opinion polls, that also bodes ill for the future.
It is not just a question of point scoring, a lot of modernisation is needed in Hong Kong.
That will only come about if there is a consensus and the top-down government in Hong Kong at the moment is ill-equipped to build consensus within Hong Kong.
While we recognise there has been a smooth transition, there remain areas we have to watch.
I would hope that we can continue with these annual reports and these Parliament reports so that we can monitor very closely the situation in Hong Kong.
Mr President, I too would like to add my words of congratulations to John Cushnahan on this report.
I envy him the opportunity of having been able to draw it up
If I take issue with anything in this report, it is purely on a matter of balance and perspective.
It is a question of whether one regards the glass as being half full, or as being half empty.
Mr Cushnahan rightly points to the question of the three legal cases which have caused concern.
He rightly points to the lack of progress on the introduction of universal suffrage for the elections of the Chief Executive, to discrimination against companies with trading links with Taiwan and to the decline in confidence of the political system.
These are all indeed serious challenges and if we must be grateful that things have gone as well as they have, we must nonetheless be concerned that greater progress has not been made.
If we believe, as I do, that the biggest challenge of the 21st century is the democratisation of China, then of course Hong Kong is a fascinating experiment.
I should be interested if the Commissioner would report to us something of the summit that Mr Prodi had with the Chinese last weekend and whether Hong Kong came up in those discussions.
Democracy and the rule of law will not be achieved and sustained unless the West is determined to make its voice heard.
I believe that the record of the European Union falls far behind that of the United States of America in this area.
I am aware that our Member States have concerns about standing up against the Chinese on issues of human rights because they fear trade sanctions in retaliation.
But if there is one area where western Europe could stand four-square behind the European banner, it is surely in this area.
We must have a record on human rights which is as good as that of the United States.
The ASEM summit last week managed to agree a statement which included as a goal of Asia-Europe cooperation the promotion of human rights.
That is progress but we must look to the Commission for much more active involvement in this area; the fruits of such an approach will be enjoyed nowhere more than in Hong Kong.
Mr President, our group has read the report by Mr Cushnahan with approval and due appreciation.
In addition to overall satisfaction with regard to the functioning of the 'one country, two systems' policy, we too call for permanent vigilance which is in order following the worrying incidents.
We are the first to express our anxiety with regard to the Hong Kong government' s decision to apply for an interpretation of the 1990 Basic Law from the Standing Committee of the National People' s Congress.
The veto right which China could obtain as a result of this with regard to court rulings in Hong Kong puts a question mark over the legal autonomy of the Special Administrative Region.
This is all the more worrying because the Hong Kong Government is not based on a democratically elected majority.
The elections for the Legislative Council a month ago were once again proof of the democratic deficit.
The electorate displayed their contempt for the system, in which only 24 of the 60 seats were filled by directly elected members.
This partly explains the disappointing turn-out of 43.6%.
The fact that an electoral college of 800 members subsequently decided on the occupation of six seats and the fact that only 175 000 businesspeople were entitled to elect the other half of parliament turned the elections into a complete farce.
In this way, not only is the chasm between rich and poor sustained, it is also widened.
We therefore opted for the swift introduction of direct elections by no later than 2008, at which time there will no longer be any legal restrictions.
Finally, we would call for permanent vigilance with regard to the freedom of press, the need for laws with regard to fair competition and the possibility of an open trade relationship with Hong Kong and Taiwan.
On that basis, we would recommend a stimulating trade policy vis-à-vis Hong Kong.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Cooperation with ACP countries involved in armed conflicts
The next item is the report (A5-0296/2000) by Mr Van Hecke, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission' s Communication to the Council and the European Parliament: Cooperation with ACP countries involved in armed conflicts [COM(1999) 240 - C5-0115/1999 - 1999/2118(COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I would like to add a few considerations to the valid points already made by rapporteur Van Hecke.
I, and the rest of my Committee in fact, can concur with him in every respect, and I also want to thank him for the constructive cooperation which resulted in all amendments tabled by my Committee being incorporated in the text. This will please the President as he will not have to sit through many votes.
The considerations which I would like to bring to you today for consideration, Commissioner, are mainly of a practical nature.
As recently as today, we read in our newspapers that the situation in the Ivory Coast has taken a turn for the worse once again, and that our own people who are there to report on the elections are running the risk of being involved in a new armed internal conflict.
We question the coherence of the policy of the Commission and the Council, whose absence in this Chamber I once again regret.
Although in September 1998, it was agreed not to provide any budgetary aid to countries at war, in March 2000 the Commission provided Rwanda with EUR 110 million, while this country is occupying considerable parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in defiance of the peace agreements. I know that many who are involved in this conflict are themselves open to criticism.
But do we then not apply stricter rules to Kabila' s DRC than to Uganda?
Are we not stricter with Zimbabwe than with Rwanda? I have the impression that that is clearly the case because, in practice, countries which are even involved in one and the same armed conflict are being treated differently.
Some are supported almost unconditionally by the European Union, the IMF and others.
Other countries are given aid under strict conditions.
This sometimes directly affects the power relations between countries involved in one and the same conflict.
Let me make myself abundantly clear: I am against any form of budgetary aid given to warring countries, for this aid is invariably used to buy weapons, directly or indirectly.
This is another weak area in our European policy.
Arms exports deserve a mention as they are without a doubt implicated in the various conflicts.
Not only is the illegal arms trade flourishing, but the controlled arms trade is also more interested in "fair competition" among arms traders than in the peace we are promoting.
Mr President, Commissioner, the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly has set itself the objective of eradicating poverty in these regions of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, which must be rescued from their wretchedly poor situation.
That is Europe's duty, as a rich continent, but I am convinced that it is also in its interest.
In his very comprehensive report, our rapporteur Johan Van Hecke rightly condemns the prevailing anarchy, the result of armed conflicts that cause endless bloodshed in some of these regions, as one of the causes of this poverty.
He has rightly included the establishment of a peace force in his list of remedies to this situation, without this interfering in the internal affairs of all these countries, which are jealous of their independence.
Given my experience in this field, allow me to go into this point a little further.
We have moved beyond the age of military intervention by European contingents, not so much because this smacked of neo-colonialism as because the recent interventions by the international community, whether under the UN mandate or as a result of multilateral agreements, have shown the need to take a more regional approach to crises.
If we want to make a really useful contribution to keeping or restoring peace, we need a deeper knowledge of the history, culture and even language of the country in which we are to intervene.
That is why regional conflict-management mechanisms have been set up and must continue to be examined and developed, with the help of the European Union.
They must gradually take on responsibility for measures in the field, as part of a common strategy, coordinated between the Member States and the ACP countries themselves, and it is up to our Parliament to continue to define these measures and to play a more active part in monitoring their implementation.
In that respect, our rapporteur also deserves credit for proposing a very exhaustive list of the approaches and measures that can and must be adopted.
Mr President, the new cooperation Agreement signed in Cotonou represents an ideal opportunity to correct the deficiencies noted in previous measures and to clarify concepts and standards for action in specific situations in which we cooperate with the ACP Countries, for example, in the situation that gave rise to the Commission Communication which concerns us here and to the reports by Mr Van Hecke and Mrs Maes, that is, what should happen when an associate country is involved in armed conflict.
Along the lines of what was said by the rapporteurs, we think the European Union will have to revise its programmes of aid to countries at war, amongst other reasons to prevent the funds allocated from being diverted to military activities.
Also as a matter of principle, it should reconsider support to countries or regimes responsible for armed invasions of neighbouring countries or that spend a disproportionate amount of their resources on arms, if not on operations to repress the rights of the individual or minorities within their own population.
We must bear in mind Article 11 of the new Treaty which states the European commitment to policies of building peace and preventing and resolving armed conflict.
The dialogue between the opposing parties and the dialogue of the European Union with these same parties must be the key mechanism of these actions.
Like Mrs Maes, we are perplexed at the paradoxical behaviour, in which we see how, since the creation of the European Union, millions of euros of aid have been approved for countries that are clearly involved in the military occupation of one or other of their neighbours.
In this respect, the double standards with which aid policy is sometimes applied are unacceptable, and we are also concerned by the contradictions that can arise in the conduct of Member States, or some States, and the European Union itself.
I think Parliament would benefit from greater transparency, coherence, information and control over these policies.
Finally, we must understand that the reduction or freezing of our development aid for a specific country at war would often need to be accompanied by additional efforts in humanitarian aid to the people of the country, who are the main victims of such conflicts.
Here again, the intervention of trustworthy NGOs is essential, enabling such programmes to be carried out with guarantees of success and effectiveness.
Mr President, I warmly welcome this report and congratulate the rapporteur on it.
There is only one area of serious concern, and that is where the rapporteur extends the principle of conditionality to the area of debt relief.
In almost every other area I would support conditionality.
I strongly believe that we have a responsibility to use the tools available to us to promote good governance, democracy and the rule of law in our international relations.
But while these should indeed guide our aid policies, there is an important distinction to be made when it comes to debt relief.
That is because history demonstrates that responsibility for the debt lies with the lenders as well as the borrowers.
Moreover, since the original loans were made the debt stock has continued to grow way beyond the original loans.
Many countries are repaying their debts several times over.
Some countries still spend more on debt repayment than on health and education combined, and yet the people suffering from this diversion of resources are certainly not those who had any benefit from the original loans that were given.
There is a valid argument that says, what is the point of cancelling debt if undemocratic governments simply misuse the funds for their own ends?
That remains a possibility.
But there is perhaps a stronger possibility that once populations know that debt has been cancelled, they can exert more pressure themselves on their governments to achieve much needed social spending.
Mr Van Hecke's report says that applying conditionality requires consistency and courage.
I agree.
But in the context of debt relief it also requires justice and a recognition that in many cases, the original debt has already been repaid many times over.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the pertinence of his comments and for his many proposals.
Out of the 34 poorest countries in the world, 20 are involved in a conflict.
This situation is giving rise to instability in entire regions.
Mr Morillon is right to highlight the question of poverty, the eradication of which is one of the objectives we set when we met with the ACP countries.
I think that today we cannot afford not to think about debt cancellation and the structural adjustment policies which push these countries off course. I think that we must stop fixing the prices of raw materials ourselves and that we must sell triple-drug therapies and medicines at cost price.
I am convinced that this is where a certain number of solidarity measures must be put in place.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I am talking to you I feel I must spare a thought for all democrats and for the people of the Ivory Coast and, in the name of democracy, to ask for the departure of the military junta and General Gueï.
We know that, if he stays, this will mean the balkanisation of Africa.
His power is based on ethnic divides which we cannot accept.
I therefore believe that, to go in the direction outlined by the rapporteur, we must have extremely clear things to say to the European taxpayer and to the ACP countries.
We must make a commitment to tell the military junta in the Ivory Coast, and all dictatorships, that we will never issue them with visas or give them protection. We will also freeze their assets and, in addition, we will give our full backing to all democrats.
It is simple and powerful phrases like these that will allow us to understand each other.
Mr President, I also welcome both the Commission communication and the report we have here today.
One key message in all this is the need for consistency.
The European Union has a number of activities under its umbrella: trade, Lomé agreements, CFSP, external policies and far too often one part is not necessarily consistent with another.
Consistency must be our primary objective.
Secondly, conflict prevention must be a priority of the European Union.
We are now getting the measures in place.
We have the High Representative, we have the planning and early warning unit in the Council.
They must now emphasise that it is conflict prevention we need to focus on rather than intervening militarily after a conflict has got out of control.
In particular, we must give due emphasis to things such as scarcity of water resources as a cause of conflict.
Commission policy should be aimed at ensuring that we enhance water supplies, not diminish them as has sometimes been the case.
As has been mentioned before, we need to stress the importance of good governance and democracy.
That should be a part of conditionality and we should demand of Member States that they do not support politicians for short-term requirements if they do not meet the essential requirements of good governance and democracy.
Far too often, we are prepared to support one against another group to the long-term detriment of peace in a particular region.
Finally, what we must do of course, is to stem the flow of arms into these regions, not just by actions against small arms.
I would like to see, as I outlined in my report last month, action taken against arms brokers throughout the European Union.
In many countries, there are no controls over the activities of arms brokers.
They are able to trade as they will, and in almost every conflict you will find arms brokers behind the proliferation of arms.
It is crucial as part of the EU code of conduct that we license arms brokers and start to control their activities.
It is no good governments tidying up exports if we allow private individuals to act in they way they are doing.
Similarly, we should also look at licensed manufacturing.
It is no good having rules on manufacturing within the EU if EU companies are able to license production outside as a way of getting round the controls.
I welcome this report, but would stress that we will not get anywhere unless we are prepared to stem the flow of arms into regions of conflict.
That requires much tougher action than we have been prepared to indulge in up to now.
Mr President, the report highlights what is self-evident, that is, that armed conflicts in Africa have seen a dramatic increase in number and intensity, and that they result in immense human suffering.
However, this compassionate language is also a way of covering up the direct or indirect but nonetheless overwhelming responsibility of the major European powers themselves in the majority of these conflicts, from Rwanda to Sierra Leone.
Today, in the Ivory Coast, even though, faced with the reaction of the population of Abidjan against the recently attempted coup d' état, both Lionel Jospin and Jacques Chirac have taken a stand against the putsch, how is it possible not to condemn the policy of French imperialism? The links between General Gueï and the French administration are notorious, as are his links with a certain number of major French industrial conglomerates which control entire economic sectors in the Ivory Coast.
Paris noted the first coup d' état by General Gueï with a benevolent neutrality. What is more, it exhibited shameful discretion towards the despicable ethnic, xenophobic demagogery which has been developed over a number of years by the rulers of the Ivory Coast.
The French authorities also remained silent on the fact that ethnicity was used in the selection of candidates for the presidential elections, which ran the catastrophic risk of transforming rivalries for power into all-out ethnic war.
If the European institutions really want to tackle the causes of the evil that is striking Africa, they must start by opposing the policy of the major European powers themselves.
Mr President, the rapporteur should be congratulated on the excellent work that was done so intelligently.
A good proposal such as this is actually crying out for implementation in practice, and we should commit our policies to it wholeheartedly for our own sake.
The report states quite rightly our own importance as the largest donor of aid to many ACP countries, a fact which is not yet sufficiently reflected at political level in the resolution of conflicts.
This must be the starting point for any action we take.
For that reason, I welcome the fact that the report speaks about the importance of positive conditionality with a high level of self-confidence.
There are good grounds for that.
The profile that crises have assumed in the last few decades has decidedly changed.
The UN, which was originally established to respond to conflicts between states, is seeking once again to get a grip on managing the increasingly common crises taking place internally in countries.
For this reason the EU, as an economic and political partner, now has an enormous responsibility and, furthermore, plenty of scope for influencing situations.
The trend worldwide would appear to be that more and more conflicts have a religious dimension: Kosovo, Chechnya, southern Sudan, Northern Ireland, East Timor, Sri Lanka, Nigeria, Kashmir and, one of the worst in recent times, the Moluccas, in Indonesia.
In the West this is not completely understood.
We are easily led to believe that when religion plays a part we are dealing with a private matter.
But in these countries religious tensions have been used for political purposes.
Mr President, we need the right tools to solve this delicate problem.
One important aim would be, in my opinion, to create the post of human rights observer, or representative, who would report to the EU, particularly on the issue of religious tensions.
The EU would also have to put pressure on governments, determinedly and systematically, to allow international human rights observers access to countries at war to conduct an impartial, neutral study of conflicts.
We must also use all the means available to us to demand that governments should always commit to ensuring the safe passage of those taking humanitarian aid to various regions.
The Commission initiative to review cooperation with ACP countries involved in armed conflicts in 1998 and its communication of May 1999, served to initiate a debate on the most appropriate response of the EU towards countries in conflict with which the EU has a close cooperation relationship.
My colleague, Mr Patten, proposed in March this year that the General Affairs Council should consider this communication in the context of its debate on conflicts in Africa.
The General Affairs Council concluded in May that the relevant bodies of the Council should continue their reflection upon the issue of development aid to countries involved in armed conflicts, on the basis of the Commission communication.
I regret that the Member States have not taken up the Commission's communication more actively.
Events in the Democratic Republic of Congo and its neighbours in Angola and Burundi, the Horn of Africa and now, again, in West Africa, particularly in Sierra Leone, have shown that we cannot escape facing these difficult questions.
The Commission is considering its response and in particular the use of Article 96 of the Cotonou agreement wherever this is appropriate.
A comprehensive framework would help us to respond on a case-by-case basis to each conflict.
If the Council is willing to follow up the communication, for instance by formulating Council conclusions, the Commission will assist in ensuring they reflect the many advances since mid-1999 in the EU's policy on crisis management and in the CFSP, as well as developments in the international community's response to conflicts.
We will also take account of the innovations of the Cotonou agreement, particularly regarding political dialogue, which should help us to find appropriate measures and proportionate and coherent responses.
But it is clear that there are no easy solutions to these problems, as the contributions in the debate here this afternoon clearly demonstrate.
The bottom line will, in any case, be defined by the real political will of Member States to stick to a common line.
The Commission cannot promise Parliament miracles in this field.
We are prepared to broaden deliberations to other countries involved in armed conflicts.
Violent conflict is not a phenomenon limited to ACP countries.
The European Union must be prepared to react to violence in an efficient and coherent manner in other regions of the globe too.
The communication is an invitation to engage in a debate about EU relations with countries for which the traditional form of development cooperation has become questionable or obsolete.
This is a difficult debate.
We would prefer to devote all our efforts to assisting the ACP countries in the difficult task of overcoming poverty and of integrating into a rapidly changing global economy.
However, for a considerable number of our ACP partners, the major challenge is the restoration of peace, or the containment of regional destabilisation.
Peace is an indispensable precondition to development, and countries that remain entangled in violent conflict exclude themselves from the potential benefits of the new cooperation relationship the EU is offering them.
They are also depriving themselves of the opportunities of the ongoing transformation of the global economy.
They contaminate the prospect of foreign investment, not only in these countries, but also in their regions.
In less unstable countries, our efforts to fight poverty and provide debt relief are contributing to conflict prevention in the longer term.
The Commission has not been idle since submitting the communication.
It has already taken numerous initiatives aimed at strengthening its capacities for effectively addressing the problem of violent conflicts in ACP countries.
Support is given to the OAU and sub-regional organisations such as ECOWAS and IGADD in the areas of conflict prevention and management.
It is remarkable how much funding is committed for the management of crises or for post-conflict reconstruction.
We are committed to stepping up our efforts for effectively preventing violence and for resolving crises peacefully.
The Community has a great number of instruments available for conflict prevention and resolution, ranging from trade and cooperation agreements to support for institutional capacity building, for strengthening respect for human and minority rights or for demobilisation and rehabilitation.
We are committed to making even more effective and targeted use of these instruments.
In this context we are aiming in particular to introduce conflict prevention objectives into the programming of economic and development assistance programmes.
The problem is, however, that the rigid character of these instruments is in itself a limitation to what we can do and how we can use them.
Budget line limitations and comitology-based decision-making procedures limit our options for flexible and quick reaction.
All this looks very different from the toolbox concept, which is what I think of when we talk about the numerous instruments that are available.
The toolbox concept provides a good image of the ideal situation and a satisfactory way of making use of the diversity of instruments.
However, we find ourselves in a different situation even though we are making determined reform efforts.
I would add that the basic value of development cooperation in relation to the issue of conflicts is the preventive effect.
Our hands are not so strong once conflict has actually broken out; we can make more meaningful efforts beforehand.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the HIPC initiative, funded by the EU but not yet funded by the US, is making the biggest contribution to conflict prevention in the world right now.
There is little doubt that the very poor, highly indebted countries will plunge into instability and conflict if the rich world does not deliver on HIPC.
Also the creation of regional economic cooperation, as provided for in the Cotonou Agreement makes a basic contribution to stability in Africa.
In the next few years we will give top priority to the creation of regional stability and cooperation structures as a major contribution to the promotion of peace and progress in Africa.
I should say a few words on the situation in the Ivory Coast, in view of what has been said in this debate.
Unfortunately there has been a rapid deterioration in the situation since the elections on Sunday.
It is changing almost from hour to hour, but we are of course following events very closely.
We anticipate that we will have to reopen the Article 96 consultations if a situation of stability and clarity is not established following the election.
This is really a situation that is highly regrettable and we fear there will be even more violence if things are not brought under control quite rapidly.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Moratorium on death penalty
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone has the right to life and freedom under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
All the Member States of the United Nations have committed themselves to respect that declaration.
The death penalty irrevocablyviolates the right to life and is inevitably cruel, inhumane and humiliating.
In the year 2000 alone, 70 people have been executed in the USA.
There is a long list of countries in which the death penalty is carried out or in which death sentences are imposed, such as China, Iran and Iraq.
Although no death penalties have been carried out in Turkey since 1984, over 69 people have been sentenced to death.
The Turkish Parliament has the final word on carrying out this sentence and has 49 cases to deal with.
This is unacceptable for a state which is seeking membership of the European Union.
Turkey must abolish the death penalty if it is to be accepted into the European Union.
Why have a death penalty? Since the death penalty has existed, people have unsuccessfully tried to justify the need for it.
Nowadays, supporters of the death penalty chiefly use the argument that it acts as a deterrent.
They maintain that the number of serious offences rises when the death penalty is abolished.
There is not the least evidence of this anywhere in the world.
For example, how can you explain that the murder rate in the USA, where the death penalty still exists, is considerably higher than in countries where it has been abolished? There is always the risk of an innocent person being executed - there have already been many cases in which innocent people have been sentenced to death.
In particular, the death penalty is applied relatively often to the disadvantaged and to minorities.
The underlying principle of the death penalty is revenge, which is inappropriate in a civilised state.
Whether it is Abu-Jamal in the USA, Öçalan in Turkey or even the execution of Abdul Achmin Sabiin Iraq - we should condemn all of this.
I regard the death sentence as a barbaric ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, in the same way as the Treaty of Amsterdam and the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, Parliament has repeatedly declared itself to be opposed to the death penalty which sadly, as has been pointed out, still exists in many countries of the world: countries with antidemocratic traditions such as Communist China and extremely liberal countries such as the United States.
We are also aware of how difficult it is to succeed in eliminating this penalty which is so very unnatural and inhumane.
It is even difficult in America where, as Mrs Frassoni pointed out, those who represent the institutions, the policy-makers, do not dare to propose abolishing capital punishment for fear of losing support.
The reason is clear: with the rise in organised crime the death penalty is considered to be a deterrent, containing and checking the increase in crime and illegal activity.
However, we know that this is not at all the case; we know that the death penalty is an abhorrent practice, a form of State-legalised crime.
We know that, even though it is strict and uncompromising, the fight against crime must be pursued under the banner of the law and social rehabilitation, certainly not in the name of repression alone or, what is even worse, with the mentality of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
This is precisely why we must promote a Europe-wide campaign for a moratorium on the death penalty, a large-scale human rights campaign which involves everybody, from those with political or institutional roles to the citizens themselves, especially the younger citizens, precisely in order to create genuine civil awareness of the matter and to put political pressure on the countries in which the death penalty is still part of the law.
I would also like to propose that the European States refuse to trade with those countries in which the death penalty is still practised, but I know that this is nothing but a utopian dream.
I refer, in particular, to China, which, as the Commissioner too mentioned, issues a death sentence every day of the week and in general shows very little respect for human rights but which, regrettably, is also a highly attractive trading partner for all the European countries and one they cannot do without.
I would like to end by saying that these campaigns against the death penalty would be much more efficient and much more widespread if we were to succeed, as an institution, in conveying to our citizens the idea that we are simultaneously working, with equal determination and efficiency to build a safe Europe where it will be possible to eradicate terrible criminal scourges, such as drug trafficking, the exploitation of human beings and child abuse, in the very near future.
Mr President, any Member who is neither very young nor in his or her first parliamentary term cannot enter this debate without, as Monica Frassoni has done, paying an emotional tribute to Mrs Adelaide Aglietta. It is to her that we owe the start of this lengthy undertaking in 1992, the start of this interminable battle in which we are still engaged.
And it is precisely with a view to the past, when I look at the progress made since 1992, Commissioner, that I cannot share your positive reaction to the Union's withdrawal of its support from the resolution presented in November at the United Nations.
Commissioner, I am convinced that this was an opportunity missed and that, due to the issue of the inflexibility of the wording, which prevented a compromise being reached on the preamble - I repeat, on the preamble, nothing to do with the body of the text at all - we were actually in danger of losing sight of the crux of the matter and ended up dancing to the tune of a whole range of powerful countries, some well-disposed towards the project and others not so well-disposed, or of great markets whose noses were most certainly put out of joint by this initiative.
This is nothing new - Europe was divided as early as 1994 over the motion for a resolution presented by Italy - but for this very reason it is all the more serious, for the eight years of work put in not only by Parliament but by your staff, I am sure, Commissioner, and the Union as such, could have resulted in a victory last November. There is no doubt that victory would have been possible.
I repeat, in my opinion, we missed a major opportunity.
Having said that, Commissioner, I feel that, precisely on this type of subject, working in conjunction with organisations which operate in society or with non-governmental organisations is a key factor, for these organisations usually have greater room for manoeuvre, and are able to be bolder and uphold positions which are, so to speak, less influenced by other considerations or interests, in themselves legitimate but all too often liable to lead governments and institutions to compromise and assume less forthright positions.
This is precisely why part of the resolution calls upon the Commission to be more explicit in its report and in providing transparent information on the use of the year 2000 budget lines relating to this matter and to democratisation in general.
It has, in fact, happened in the past and still happens that the very organisations which have put most work into this matter have, so to speak, been excluded from working with the Commission on a project, even though they have been doing so for many years because, it appears, there is no more funding and we do not know exactly where it has gone.
That is why, Commissioner, I feel that transparency and the provision of information would benefit a joint project which, I feel sure, is of interest to us all.
Mr President, we must thank the Commission and the President-in-Office of the Council for including this vital issue in the weekly priorities, in particular at a time - as Mrs Díez reminded us - when the European Council has just proclaimed the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
At the moment - as it has been said - the images of the American electoral campaign and the final debate between the two main candidates are fresh in our minds; a debate in which the candidate for the Democrats stated publicly that the only thing he had in common with his opponent was being in favour of the death penalty.
I think it is important for the European Union to head the campaign to abolish the death penalty, given that it is a campaign in favour of human dignity and the most basic of fundamental rights.
Commissioner, I believe - and you expressed this very well - that when developing the European Union' s external affairs policy we must consider, with regard to the third countries, that there is already a declaration annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam which clearly reflects that to be eligible for membership of the European Union, candidate states must have abolished the death penalty.
But, I insist, in relations with third countries we must be extremely clear and firmly promote relations with those countries that share our views on this matter.
Commissioner - Mrs Ferrer expressed this very well a moment ago - sometimes we need to move on from beatitudes to balance sheets and we must therefore support the Commission's action with adequate programming, effective action and, in particular, visible, clear, transparent action by the European Union with the participation - as Mrs Bonino stated - of the non-governmental organisations, which have a lot to say and contribute from this point of view.
Mr President, I believe that the institutions must live up to the values of our civilisation and that our citizens must see themselves reflected in the ethical mirror that, as a result of our work, we should be for them.
Mr President, Commissioner, if every petition which we discussed and approved in this House were worth a life then I would be satisfied.
Regrettably, however, this has never been the case and it is not so now.
We must avoid turning our reasoning and indignant declarations into a wake because, while we are expressing our indignation, executions are still being carried out.
Therefore, what we want from Parliament, the Commission and the Council too is sound pragmatism: we must endeavour to understand how we can be effective, how we can tip the balance so that the death penalty ceases to disgrace the whole of humanity.
This is what the resolution is trying to say.
There are two points which we consider to be of basic practical concern. Firstly, the abolition of the death penalty or a moratorium must continue to be an inalienable priority in our relations with third countries, not a condition for friendship but a condition for political, commercial and economic cooperation.
The second point - which you raised, Commissioner, and which, I am happy to say, was taken up by many of the Members - is that the Commission must exercise great care in allocating its financial resources in order to support campaigns which are able to alter the public perception of the death penalty.
As Mr Salafranca pointed out, there was a rather embarrassing moment in the debate for the US presidential elections when both the candidates for the Presidency of the United States declared that they were in favour of the death penalty.
We are the children of Cesare Beccaria: we do not want our heritage to be confined within the borders of Europe.
Therefore, we need actions in support of non-governmental organisations, in support of civil society, in support too of those who have proved that they have the enormous amount of courage necessary to invest in this area, as Mrs Bonino mentioned.
I will end, Commissioner by calling for the highest possible degree of pragmatism from the Commission; I call upon the Council to give voice to our governments; I call upon Parliament to be courageous enough never to fall silent on this matter.
Mr President, every day, people are executed and, every day, people are condemned to death.
It is incredible and horrific that this should still be happening in the year 2000.
As has also been said by other MEPs in this Chamber - most of whom have been Italian, though I do not believe that that is really significant, given the disgust we all feel - it is an unworthy punishment: a punishment unworthy of a civilised society, which always involves a risk of innocent people being convicted.
China tops the list when it comes to the death penalty, and I and other Members of this Chamber have often made a point of condemning China.
Today, I thought, however, of concentrating on the United States.
There is a presidential election in the United States in two weeks' time, and the next president may be George Bush, a person who has signed 145 people' s execution warrants.
There have been legal doubts concerning a number of the cases, and there have also been a number of cases concerning children.
In at least one of these cases, the child concerned was mentally handicapped.
It is abominable and shameful, and it seriously damages the United States' s reputation as a democracy.
With the presidential election in mind, it is incredibly important that we should express our disgust in this Chamber.
I wish vigorously to support the proposal of my fellow MEP, Mr Rutelli, for a European day of opposition to the death penalty during our Presidency.
Mr President, between noble intent and practical action falls a shadow; on the issue of the death penalty it is the shadow of geopolitics and economic interests.
Your stand today on capital punishment goes beyond noble intent.
You mentioned the year 2000 budget lines aimed at financing campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty.
So far so good.
But the shadow is still there.
Let me come to the point, Commissioner Patten.
The EUR 700 000 invested by the Commission went mainly to Penal Reform International, a legal organisation which operates in the Caribbean islands, and to the University of Westminster, which provides a database and research for lawyers in study centres in the Philippines.
So I urge the Commission to focus and extend the use of the assistance funds to the two main nations where state murder is practised with no restraint and with great relish: the People's Republic of China and the United States of America.
Yes, we know the issue has been raised ritually and periodically with the governments of both countries, but we have to do much more.
For instance, as regards the United States, some of this money should be invested in sensibilisation campaigns in Europe, certainly not in order to boycott a sovereign state like Texas, but to re-route European tourism and European industrial investment to those 12 states that do not indulge in such a barbaric practice.
Mr President, I am personally opposed to the death penalty for a variety of reasons, and despite this, I would like to make two fundamental observations which are at odds with everything that has been said so far in this Chamber.
First of all, surely we should not be comparing apples and oranges.
There is a world of difference between the implementation of the death penalty in, for example, the United States on the one hand, and in countries such as China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, North Korea - to name but a few of a long list - on the other.
In the first case, we are talking about the highest penalty for extremely dangerous criminals who, moreover, have been able to avail themselves of very many defence mechanisms in the democratic court procedures.
In the other cases, the death penalty is often a kind of random and horrifying tool of intimidation used by no means only against dangerous criminals under common law.
Anyone who lumps all of this together is clearly deluding himself.
Secondly, I have to say that it is easy to shed crocodile tears over the fate of dangerous criminals in democratic states.
It is somewhat more difficult to take pity on those left behind, for example old people who are tortured to death for their savings, badly paid money couriers who are shot dead by gangsters in a heartless act, or children who are raped and killed.
If I were convinced that in Europe, there is the will to look after the fate of victims and the safety of victims, I, along with you, would condemn the death penalty here today without any reservation.
I can only establish that in practice, certainly in my country, extremely dangerous criminals are systematically set free early and it is not unusual for them to commit horrific crimes again.
It is in those circumstances not surprising that many people say that the death penalty for some monsters who have offended again and again could have saved numerous innocent lives.
Mr President, Commissioner, this debate, which is a repeat of other, previous debates would, on the surface, appear superfluous and outdated.
A debate on the death penalty is a debate which harks back to the development of a civilised legal system, which is something Europe already has.
And yet it is topical and important in terms of world affairs.
It is important for the Parliament of Europe - of Western Europe - to treat it as such since two traditions have evolved in Europe over the millennium: one which derives from the Roman tradition which influenced the European legal culture, particularly that of Italy and Germany, and recently paved the way for the new rights to freedoms, and then the tradition of Common Law, which is a basic part of the British Bill of Rights.
Despite certain very tragic events which have taken place in Europe, despite the fact that there have been fascist and communist cultures that have trampled underfoot rights to freedoms and the rights of individuals, I feel it noteworthy that agreement has been reached time and time again in this Parliament in discussing the death penalty and firmly condemning it in any form whatsoever.
In my opinion, the Charter of Fundamental Rights which is under discussion, for which Nice will be a decisive moment, is based on this value, the value of the human person, the value of the right to freedom.
We Italians are of the tradition of Cesare Beccaria, as has already been said, but Beccaria was a man who belonged to Europe, who rejected mediaeval, obscurantist law in its entirety in favour of modern law, in favour of a legal system which does not make us wolves to our fellow men but, by means of peaceful civil coexistence, guarantees freedoms.
Capital punishment is always incompatible with peace in civil coexistence and we must find the courage to declare that accepting a moratorium - although that would be great step forward - is not enough to make a country genuinely democratic: to achieve true democracy it must abolish the death penalty.
And so it is true: a humanitarian undertaking is not sufficient. We need to shout it from the rooftops that the death penalty is against the law.
Mr President, in 1999, eighty-five percent of all executions took place in only five countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the United States.
It is, of course, correct that the European Union does not permit the death penalty within its borders.
The death penalty is the cruellest, most inhumane and degrading penalty.
It violates the right to life, is irrevocable and can involve innocent people.
Furthermore, it has never been proven that it is a better deterrent against crime than any other kind of penalty.
It was stated a moment ago that in the United States, there might be a better legal procedure or that very serious crimes are sometimes committed there.
But that is exactly the point.
We, as government, cannot afford to stoop to the level of the criminals we punish.
That is precisely the civilisation which we have achieved here in Europe and that is the civilisation which we must hold on to.
We therefore give our warm support to Commissioner Patten' s policy.
Mr President, it is high time we adopted a universal moratorium on the death penalty, this 'veritable administrative murder' , as Albert Camus called it.
This is what I was saying in this House back in October of last year, when mobilisation was urgently called for to prevent the black American journalist, Mumia Abu Jamal, being executed.
What is the position today? A total of 77 states still see the death penalty as the appropriate response to certain crimes.
In 1999, 1813 people were executed in 31 countries and there are at least 3 857 people condemned to death in 63 countries.
The life of Mumia, who is waiting for a possible review of his trial, is, more than ever, hanging by the thread of international solidarity.
So what approach is the European Union going to adopt to ensure that the death penalty disappears before the end of the century? During phase 2 of his life on death row, Mumia Abu Jamal sent this courageous message: 'Phase 2 is the second phase of the fight.
We will win' .
Indeed, encouraging signs bear witness to the rising abolitionist trend at a global level.
Like the European Parliament, the United Nations is now participating in the inevitable debate that is taking place across all levels of society.
In the United States, opinion is still very much in favour of capital punishment, but its hold has been shaken.
A study by the University of Columbia brought to light an almost 60% rate of errors committed in twenty years in the executions that were carried out.
Innocent people are being killed and racism is evident in the application of the death penalty.
The residence of the governor of Texas and the Republican candidate for the White House is regularly the target of demonstrations by opponents of the death penalty.
The European Union must put its full weight behind achieving this moratorium and imposing it as an inviolable principle on all nations still practising this form of state-sanctioned murder which, as Victor Hugo declared, 'traumatises the human conscience' .
Nineteen years after the abolition of the death penalty in France, initiatives are currently being taken in favour of a national day for the institution of a universal moratorium on capital executions.
And I am in favour of this proposal being advanced at a European level.
On 10 December, hundreds of thousands of petitions will be handed in to the United Nations.
The Presidency of the European Union could also join this campaign, thereby giving inspiration and crucial backing to those who are fighting for abolition.
The mobilisation of Europe is critical.
I have received two motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken on Thursday.
Mission by Commissioner Patten to Serbia
The next item is the Commission communication on the mission by Commissioner Patten to Serbia.
Mr President, let me start by thanking the Commissioner for his swift visit to Belgrade and for reporting back to us so promptly. Normally speaking, I believe that that is one of the tasks of the Commissioners and I would not comment on it under normal circumstances.
But I would like to make an exception and say that I appreciate the fact that he is here today.
Last time we talked about Serbia, I urged MEPs to exercise some patience with Mr Kostunica because I had the impression that there had been progress almost every day, and I believe we can see evidence of this progress, up to and including yesterday when Mr Kostunica declared himself willing to assume responsibility, which I believe is crucial, for the Serbian crimes in Kosovo.
I specifically have three questions for the Commissioner.
Did he and Mr Kostunica discuss the position of the Kosovar refugees? As you know, there are still approximately two thousand people in Serbian prisons without any charge.
Rumour has it that this situation will soon change.
I was interested to hear if he had any further information on this.
My second question relates to Kosovo.
I share his view on what he said here about Montenegro, but the biggest problem is, of course, what to do with Kosovo.
My final question is about the money.
I welcome the emergency aid.
Is the Commissioner convinced that the maximum sum of 250 million, which is earmarked for next year, will be enough to provide Serbia with structural aid?
Mr President, Commissioner, I am grateful for your comments, and support everything you have said.
I would have said it in a similar way, except that I express myself differently.
I had the same experience when I was in Serbia a fortnight ago with Mr Swoboda.
Although we were not there before Mr Hombach, we did go there, because we have the funds to help people there.
Mr Hombach only went there to make his presence felt and to establish what it might be possible to do.
We know what can be done and we are in a position to make the funding available tomorrow, which I am very pleased about.
I am also sure that under your auspices, Commissioner, emergency aid really will be provided swiftly.
This is an opportunity for the Commission to demonstrate that it does not deserve its reputation.
I have two questions.
First, Mr Modrow alleged yesterday evening that everything we are doing there amounts to reparation for the NATO bombing.
I told him that was nonsense.
90% of the damage that we are making good there is the result of socialist and communist mismanagement.
I would be grateful if you would confirm this point.
Secondly, when we were down there two weeks ago, we were told that the sanctions were being lifted, but they have not been lifted. Where do things stand on trade sanctions?
Have you resolved that issue? Companies need to be able to do business now.
You can put Milosevic's entourage on a blacklist, but you should open things up for everyone else!
Mr President, Commissioner, the dramatic apology of the Yugoslavian President, Mr Kostunica, also referred to by my fellow Member, his admission of guilt and the guilt of the Serbian people - something which many nations have never done - is a gesture which does him credit and which will make an important contribution to improving the climate in the region.
Politically, Mr Kostunica is associating himself with the decisions of the international community which considers that Kosovo is still part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and, at the same time, is lowering the hopes of the Albanians of Kosovo of achieving a state of independence.
What kind of tension - a tension which naturally seems paradoxical to us, even with the return of some of the Serbian refugees - could be generated by this lack of self-determination so longed for by the Albanians? In your opinion, Commissioner, on the basis of your conversations with him, to what extent is the moderate Mr Rugova likely to be willing to agree to enter into dialogue with his democratic counterpart in Belgrade?
I am sure that the honourable Member was right to say that we must show some patience about developments in Belgrade, in Yugoslavia, over the coming weeks as democracy is consolidated.
It does not mean that we abandon or surrender our principles or our values.
We cannot do that.
But we need to ensure that Mr Kostunica has time to develop and strengthen the democratic base of his government.
Everyone wants to see him succeed in the formidable task he has taken on, and so far it has to be said that everything he has done and everything he has said has pointed in the same democratic direction.
He has set up an amnesty commission to deal with the issue of prisoners, though some have already been released, one or two of whose cases have been brought to all our attention here, but as I said to the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Vienna a week ago, the issue of the Albanian prisoners is going to be one which he will have to look at as a matter of some urgency.
On Kosovo, as two honourable Members have mentioned, my position begins and ends with Security Council Resolution 1244.
I note the imaginative leaps of others.
I am not sure they are always very judicious or wise, but as far as I am concerned Resolution 1244 is where the policy rests.
The EUR 200 million emergency package will partly be in structural assistance but I set out in my remarks the sort of direction in which we would be seeking to spend it and given that the bulk of it comes from the "Emergencies in third countries" line in the overall budget, we are not having to take money from other countries in the region, or from other regions, in order to provide this assistance.
The honourable lady who knows so much about south-east Europe and who has been pressing for more sensible and effective policies in south-east Europe for months, and indeed for years, referred to the importance of us ensuring that we can deliver relief quickly and realistically.
I am quite struck by some of the rather unrealistic promises that people make in Serbia.
I would love to be able to clear the Danube in a couple of weeks time but it is not possible.
One or two people have suggested that perhaps things could be done a little more quickly and perhaps we should take that as encouragement to speed up and deliver as rapidly as possible.
I should like to make one very important substantive point.
We are talking about emergency assistance and while that emergency assistance is being delivered we will, with the World Bank, be conducting an assessment mission of longer term needs.
While that is going on we will be, I hope, assisting Yugoslavia in dealing with the problems about its membership of the UN, its membership of the World Bank and its problems with the IFIs to which it owes considerable arrears.
I hope we will be able to deal with those problems and have completed the needs assessment by the middle of next year.
It would be absolutely crazy to have a donors' pledging conference before we have those things in place.
There is no point in having a donors' pledging conference before we can get a lot of money pledged.
To get into a situation where we were not able to call on loan capital but were depending entirely on grants, for example, would means that any donors' pledging conference would go off at half cock.
So I hope that we can keep that sensible speed of progress in mind.
As for what the relief will go for, I dare say some reconstruction will be necessary after the Nato air strikes.
But as people said at the time, we see in Belgrade that however tragic the loss of life, these were very surgically carried out on the whole.
But the main repair work that has to be done is the repair work that is necessary because of years of communism and because of years of xenophobic nationalism.
That is where most of the reconstruction is required: to bring the economy into the 21st century and to make it competitive in a Europe of open borders and open markets.
That is going to be a considerable task but since there are so many capable and able Serbs helping in the economies of Australia, Canada, Germany and other places around the world, all of us can look forward to the day when Serbs are able to do a great deal more to make their own economy in Serbia prosperous and successful.
We want to help them with that.
On sanctions, we have lifted - as the House will know - the sanctions on oil and air flights.
We are discussing with Yugoslav officials exactly what to do about the financial sanctions.
Speaking for myself, although it will be a decision that the General Affairs Council will have to make very speedily, I am always reluctant to be more catholic than the Pope or - to use a more appropriate expression - more orthodox than the Patriarch: if we are told by the authorities in Belgrade that they want to get rid of the financial sanctions it would be slightly surprising if we were to say "steady on, we think we can design some smart sanctions which will meet needs which you say you are quite content for us to forget about".
I will be reporting in that sense, in due course, to the General Affairs Council.
This time last year I visited Belgrade, a rather bleak city, veering from despair to hope on a daily basis.
I went to see the NGOs working in humanitarian and free media fields, financed by the European Union, and the picture was not a particularly happy one.
The aspiration was there but the actuality was not.
The promise was there but the performance was not, because the money was not coming through and there was an administrative bungle.
I want to ask the Commissioner if he will confirm that he will thank the staff of the Commission both in Brussels, and in particular in the Belgrade office under Michael Graham, the head of the delegation, who throughout this time have gone through enormous change and have actually wrought a major difference in the process of moving towards democracy.
Despite the difficulties, they have achieved something rather remarkable.
I would like the Commissioner to confirm that he will thank not only those people but also the NGOs working in the field.
More particularly I hope he will accept the thanks of this House, because he has demonstrated that democratic activism not only works in Hong Kong but also in Serbia.
I would also like to thank the Commissioner for his efforts and I hope I can without being pretentious assure him that the relatively low attendance in this House does not, I am sure, reflect the level of interest in this subject.
I think, just as an aside, there is something weird about the procedures of this House that we spend an hour and a half voting at lunchtime but for such an important topic we do not enable people to be here in the numbers that would reflect the interest.
I wanted to ask him about regional cooperation.
Is he, and we as the European Union, making progress in convincing the players in the region that when we encourage them to have regional cooperation, this is not a diversion from a move towards Europe and to eventual membership of the European Union, assuming all the criteria will be met with no deadlines and timescales, but a step towards eventual EU membership?
Mr President, what I have to say relates to Kosovo because it was the Commission communication on Kosovo that you were supposed to talk about today, which somehow got transformed into a communication on Serbia.
I understand this, given that there is a new leader, President Kostunica, and that it is necessary to be involved in the process with him so that things can go ahead properly.
Last week, I was in Pristina.
I met a lot of people and, in particular, I met Bernard Kouchner for a working session. I also saw the enormous problems that exist there.
You spoke about the Danube, but it is simply not enough to carry out studies.
Urgent action must be taken because the Danube is being polluted by stockpiles of sulphuric acid and from sources in Mitrovica.
There needs to be a risk control plan not only for this region, but also for the town of Pristina and for other towns in Kosovo.
Whole populations live in destitution.
Attacks with enriched uranium warheads have polluted the town of Pristina and the other areas that were hit.
The destruction of the sports stadium released asbestos into the air, which spread throughout the town.
There is a very serious health problem.
I would therefore like to draw your attention to this and to tell you that there is a social problem.
This aid must go on social concerns, the widows and orphans and so on.
Urgent measures need to be taken.
I must insist on this.
I am grateful to my honourable friend for what he said about Michael Graham and his staff in Belgrade.
They have done an excellent job.
I was delighted to be able to thank some of them, though on my next visit I hope to be able to thank all of them, and I will certainly refer to the honourable gentleman's handsome tribute.
As far as the NGOs are concerned, they have done magnificently.
The organisations in the media field have done magnificently.
We were superbly well-served by the Swedish-Helsinki Committee, for example, but there has been excellent cooperation and despite all the difficulties put in our way by Milosevic's regime, we were able to get a considerable amount of help through to the democrats and the democratic forces in Serbia.
That I hope played a small part in bringing about change.
The honourable lady was entirely right to say that it is sometimes suspected that encouraging regional cooperation is a sort of Brussels stalling on the route towards Europe.
We have to explain to people that what we are trying to see happen in south-east Europe is what we know has worked for us.
The European Union is the best example in the world of countries dealing with ancient animosities, countries becoming both more politically stable and more prosperous by knocking down frontiers, by knocking down boundaries and in certain areas pooling their sovereignty and doing things together that they do better together.
That is what we are trying to encourage the countries of south-east Europe to do.
For example, we are saying to them, we will give you very generous trade access to our markets but you have to give generous trade access to your neighbours' markets as well.
That is at the heart of the stabilisation and association process which is gradually and successfully moving forward.
On the Danube and environmental and health problems, I agree with what the honourable gentleman has said.
President Kostunica said at the meeting with mayors, that in the new democratic era Yugoslavia was going to have to do quite a bit about gender mainstreaming because they were only I think three women in the room at that meeting.
But one of the women mayors present at the meeting raised specifically the question of the environmental and health hazards caused over last year and we will need to look at problems like that because they pose a serious health hazard to many people in south-east Europe.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Climate change - Floods
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A5-0270/2000) by Mr Moreira Da Silva, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on a communication from the Commission on EU policy and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: towards a European climate change programme (ECCP) [COM(2000) 88 - C5-0192/2000 - 2000/2103(COS)];
the report (A5-0271/2000) by Mr Moreira Da Silva, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the European Commission Green Paper on greenhouse gas emissions trading within the European Union [COM(2000) 87 - C5-0193/2000 - 2000/2104(COS)];
the oral question (B5-0547/2000) by Mrs Jackson to the Commission, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission strategy for the sixth Hague conference on climate change (COP6);
the statement by the Commission on the floods in northern Italy and Spain.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, eight years on from Rio de Janeiro and three years on from Kyoto it is no exaggeration to say that the dossier on climate change has now reached its most critical moment, its real moment of truth, for two basic reasons: first, because at an institutional level COP-6, which will take place in The Hague this November, is to draw up the Kyoto Protocol in its final form and initiate the Protocol ratification stage so that it can come into force by the 'Rio Plus Ten' Conference, i.e. by 2002.
Secondly it is a critical moment because, at a domestic level, we are moving further away instead of getting closer to the reduction targets agreed at Kyoto, because of the failure by Member States to implement policies and measures on, for instance, energy efficiency, the promotion of renewable energy sources and taxation on energy and greenhouse gases.
In this extraordinarily challenging context, we applaud the Commission' s initiative in bringing out together the Green Paper on emissions trading and the communication 'Towards a European climate change programme' .
Even though the substance of the proposals deserves a few comments and a few criticisms, as you will see, the truth is that this initiative has sent out two incontrovertible political signals.
To the outside world it has regenerated the European Union' s capacity for leadership.
Within the Union it has taught us a lesson about meeting commitments.
Let us begin by examining the Green Paper on 'emissions trading' .
This Green Paper has opened the debate on the architecture of a future emissions trading system within the European Union.
To start the system off, the Commission has defined a hard core of premises: the system should be based on a 'learning by doing' approach, it should start in 2005, and during an initial stage it should be restricted to carbon dioxide and major point sources.
In my view, and this is reflected in the report, the establishment of a system of this kind within the European Union from 2005 has undeniable benefits.
Let me highlight three. First, this system will allow industries, companies and Member States to gain practical experience and prepare themselves economically for the 2008 launch of the emissions trading system at an international level.
Secondly, this system will help provide an easier remedy to the situation that most Member States are in today of not meeting their targets.
Thirdly, the system will enable us to make huge reductions, in the order of billions of euros per year, in the costs of implementing the Community' s Kyoto commitments.
Despite the merits of this initiative and the technical quality of the Green Paper, on which we congratulate the Commission, the coverage of certain points is rather limited.
Thus the task of this report has been to extend the debate begun by the Green Paper in both breadth and depth.
That is our task.
Let me highlight six points from my considerations.
One: the Green Paper should have set quantified targets for greenhouse gas reduction to be attained by the emissions trading system; in other words, the Green Paper should have said what percentage of greenhouse gas reduction would be allocated to emissions trading.
Two: I believe the Green Paper should not have avoided carrying out an analysis into the possibility that the emissions trading system might give nuclear energy a competitive advantage.
Three: I believe it is essential that the system should in future embrace certain sectors that the Green Paper has ruled out for now, especially transport, which is the sector in which emissions are growing the fastest.
Four: in the debate on the scope of the system, the Commission should not have set direct emissions trading between companies as the only possible option.
There are other options, and I hope the Commission will soon consider all the alternatives.
Five: I believe it is crucial to involve the countries applying for membership of the European Union in the emissions trading system as soon as possible.
To this end I invite the Commission to present a plan in a forthcoming communication specifying how those countries can be brought into the emissions trading system.
Lastly, point six: I believe that, with regard to the method of allocating emissions licences, auctions could more easily ensure the desired environmental result, non-distortion of competition and the simplicity of the system than 'grandfathering' could.
But this is not the appropriate moment to exclude any method, and so I invite the Commission to continue its deliberations and to include a third option, too: benchmarking.
Let us now examine the communication on the European climate change programme.
In view of the commitment and quality of the Green Paper on emissions trading, the communication on policies and measures, the communication 'Towards a European climate change programme' is a disappointment.
It is a disappointment because it results in the role of policies and measures, in other words, the role of domestic and Community political action, being sidelined in favour of market mechanisms.
It is also a disappointment because this communication results in an unbalanced treatment of the various economic sectors; in particular it was hoped that those sectors that were not included in the emissions trading system might see the approval of an ambitious approach with well-defined commitments in the other communication, the one on policies and measures.
I therefore call on the Commission to conclude the European climate change programme, the ICCP, with some urgency and to submit, six months after COP-6, a set of specific proposals on policies and measures defining quantitative commitments on the reduction of greenhouse gases for each economic sector and for each policy and measure.
Let me very briefly say a few words about the forthcoming United Nations conference, COP-6, which will take place in The Hague this November.
The difficulty with COP-6 is not just a result of the complexity of the Kyoto leftovers but also of the political situation in the United States.
Note that, regardless of the result of the American elections, it will be Bill Clinton and Al Gore who will be negotiating the Kyoto Protocol in The Hague.
So we face some extremely worrying scenarios.
If Bush wins, all the agreements we make in The Hague with the Clinton administration may be totally ignored by the new administration.
If Al Gore wins, there is nothing to prevent it continuing to be very difficult to find the two-thirds majority in the Senate needed to ratify the Protocol.
I therefore think that the European Union should not give up its negotiating agenda.
The European Union has a good negotiating agenda and should not give it up.
If we give it up in the hope of reaching an agreement with the United States, we risk ending up with a lose-lose result: we will have weakened the text of the Protocol and, what is more, it may even fail to be ratified by the United States.
That is why we have to give signs of opening up towards Russia, Canada, Japan, Norway and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I should like to close, Mr President, by thanking all the Members, particularly the draftsmen of opinions and shadow draftsmen, for having made it possible to reach a broad consensus on the strategy for halting climate change.
. (NL) Mr President, the emission of greenhouse gases is still on the increase, although the European Union has committed itself to an eight percent reduction in the emission of these gases in the period 2008-2012.
We need to see the Green Paper on greenhouse gas emissions trading against this backdrop.
The Green Paper constitutes the first step towards establishing an instrument which is in conformity with the market, which prescribes a ceiling for emission levels and which, in time, will offer very efficient and effective opportunities to reduce these emission levels.
In this way, there is a chance that the European Union will still manage to fulfil its obligations with regard to the Kyoto Protocol.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs endorses the thrust of the Green Paper.
It does, however, set great store by a solid basis for the trading system, which must be simple and transparent to the participants and underpinned by sound market institutions.
Otherwise, the system will expire through a lack of faith on the part of the market operators.
In addition, the system must be competitively neutral on behalf of the companies involved.
In this respect, we have serious objections to a few paragraphs in the present motion for a resolution, for these aim to distort competition through an inconsistent adoption of the sector-by-sector approach.
The result of the rapporteur' s approach is that companies from the same sector in the various Member States may be treated unequally.
After all, a lorry driver will not compete with a chemical company but rather with lorry drivers from other Member States.
I hope that this misunderstanding can be put right with a number of amendments.
I am interested to see if Commissioner Wallström will also be in favour of them.
Ultimately, we want a cleaner environment.
This can be achieved by the introduction of tradable emission rights without directly interfering in the economic structures.
In the final analysis, we should fulfil our collective responsibility to manage God' s creation in a responsible manner and without any hesitation.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur for having reliably compiled all our views producing an excellent piece of work.
The subject of emissions trading entered the debate on climate as part of the so-called flexible mechanisms.
The European Union did not actually want these to be included in the selection, but they are now part of an international agreement, and regulations are being drafted in The Hague for these flexible mechanisms, of which the trade-off in emissions is an important one.
As the EU has been a leading force in these international discussions until now, we must all certainly hope that this position of leadership will be kept up, and we place our trust in the Commission in this.
For this reason, the European Union has decided to propose that we should adopt a system of trade-offs in greenhouse gas emissions within the Union as from 2005, and this is therefore different from what the Kyoto Protocol itself makes possible, which is that the international emissions trading is to start as from 2008.
But within the European Union this system can be tried out and it can be developed.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market therefore also welcomes the Commission' s Green Paper and the fact that a framework directive is to be drafted based upon it.
This emissions trading operation, to be carried out at EU level, is absolutely justified, as, otherwise, competition will be distorted.
I wish, on behalf of the committee, to focus attention on the fact that a lot can certainly be done through a system of trading, but not everything.
It is very important that emission trading are one of various ways to solve the problem, the most important of which are financial control mechanisms.
It is also very important that the trade in emissions is monitored effectively, and I believe that we will also need environmental inspectors, which is the subject of talks we are now conducting with the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy also sees emissions trading as a reasonable solution.
However, we also believe that it should only apply to 50% of the total reduction in emissions.
The key point about emissions trading is that in future not only electricity and gas will have a price, but also CO2.
That sounds very simple, but it means a total revolution in the energy business, in the energy sector.
We need to be aware of that.
It will have enormous consequences and I am convinced that it can also help to reduce emissions.
What is the likely scenario for the next few years? I hope that following successful completion of the negotiations in The Hague, the European Union will ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
That means that we will be legally committing ourselves.
The next thing required is for the Commission to bring forward a directive sharing the burden among the 15 Member States.
So we need quotas.
But these quotas must be linked with sanctions, otherwise they will be meaningless.
In other words we will then have a common energy policy via environment policy, which would be a very circuitous route.
We could then start emissions trading within the European Union in 2005.
Once more, I hope that we will be able to adhere to this scenario, more or less, and that we will not let ourselves be put off by the fact that others, perhaps even the United States, will not have signed it for the time being.
We should support the Commission here and present a united front as far as possible.
Mr President, it is high time the European Commission produced a concrete programme to curb the greenhouse effect.
Climate change is evident all over the world and we in Europe are not so badly off as those in other regions - I have in mind the West Coast of America and also Bangladesh.
But the latest disasters in Italy, especially in the Valle d'Aosta, and in Switzerland, have demonstrated that there can even be terrible disasters here now, disasters for which the local population has virtually no responsibility.
We now need to implement the Kyoto objectives and the next climate change summit in The Hague must go further than our efforts so far.
Since it is also clear that CO2 bears most responsibility for climate change and traffic is increasing further, what we need above all are concrete proposals for limiting urban traffic, and for appropriate taxation of transit traffic or for suitable road pricing arrangements.
We now need measures that go beyond emissions trading, so as to come to grips with all of this.
I do not want to question or attack mobility, it is something we need, but we must change traffic patterns, and emissions trading must not mean that we stop discussing other concrete measures.
We in Europe are in the vanguard of environmental policy and if we want to maintain our credibility then we must go further than is proposed in the White Paper today.
Commissioner, allow me to focus for a moment, in the context of Mr Da Silva's excellent report and the situation which she has just described, which is important and full of potential for the future, on a phenomenon which is assuming dramatic proportions: the floods which affected huge areas of Europe last week, primarily northern Italy but also France and Spain.
We are acquiring the habit of describing our times in dramatic language: verbs such as to overflow, to flood, to burst banks, are part of a vocabulary which is becoming almost the norm.
We feel that this is a dramatic consequence of the climate change taking place and that the social and economic system must provide some sort of response to this.
Even the climate experts tell us that the very meteorology of our regions is changing.
The exceptional amount of rain which has fallen over the last few days has served to offset the prevailing drought of the past year.
We are told that the drought trend will continue into the years to come and worsen as time goes by, unavoidably interspersed with the odd deluge and resulting floods.
And so, now that, sadly, our dead have been buried, the journalists have left the devastated areas and the river, in this case the Po - I live by the Po - is again taking its normal course, it is time, as we say in Italy, to put up our umbrellas, not to appear prophets of doom but to evaluate once again the requirements and the remedies.
Certainly, a great deal of progress had been made in recent years in the area of alert and alarm measures, which have made it possible to keep the scale of the disasters in check, but although this is important, it cannot be considered a primary factor.
We need a defence policy dedicated purely to following up the recommendations of the experts.
We need to be making political and regional planning decisions that protect the earth even when the sun is shining.
I would therefore stress a few points.
The first concerns the approach to man's built environment, which must not be overlooked. Construction must be oriented towards ever more stringent application of planning rules, standards and controls.
In particular, there must be greater emphasis on man's agricultural environment. In the recent flooding of the Po, farmland acted as a floodway, protecting the urban centres, and agriculture channelled off the floodwater, bearing the brunt of it itself in order to protect built-up areas.
Therefore, we must reaffirm the role of agriculture as the protector of the environment, a role which is wont to be sidelined, overlooked and undervalued on sunny days.
There is no provision in agricultural or environmental policy or in town and country planning for this role played by agriculture.
Europe needs to pinpoint appropriate forms of coordination in this regard.
Mr President, there are three important documents we have to discuss today concerning one of the greatest challenges by far that we face, that is to say climate change.
For a northerner from an area where the temperature at this time of year rarely exceeds seven degrees and where it pours with rain, the thought of a warmer climate perhaps appears attractive at first sight.
It is not as simple as that, however.
The climate changes we face are hardly positive in their implications for any of us.
Instead, the scenario is exactly as it was described just recently: full of storms, rain and floods.
To these must be added changes to the flora and fauna.
Life will have changed out of recognition, and it will scarcely be very pleasant either.
The three documents on climate change which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has dealt with may be regarded as documents representing different periods of time.
The resolution on the conference in The Hague is that which is closest to us in time.
It presents the view of those of us in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, and hopefully also the view of the European Union, of what we think must happen in The Hague.
It has been characterised by considerable unity, which is a good foundation to have now that the conference in The Hague is beginning.
The resolution signals a clear need for the Kyoto Protocol to be signed and for it being the industrialised countries which must head up the efforts to halt climate change.
It also emphasises very clearly that the flexible mechanisms must only be complementary to the national measures adopted.
I am glad to hear that this is also Commissioner Wallström' s view.
I think the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has given a clear message that we do not consider three representatives from the European Parliament at the conference in The Hague to be sufficient.
I am also pleased that Mrs Wallström says that the Commission' s proposal is for eight representatives.
The European Parliament and those within Parliament who work on environmental issues must be taken seriously at some stage and not only be used along the lines of figureheads when it is convenient.
When regular meetings and regular updates during the conference in The Hague are talked about, it is also important to emphasise that these must be constructive.
It is important that MEPs' viewpoints should also be taken on board so that it is not just a case of one-way communication.
The resolution on emissions trading is a good document, but it has been further improved following the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
The most important additions include the clear indication, exactly as found in the COP 6 document, that emissions trading itself must not represent more than 50 per cent of the measures to reduce emissions.
It is also important that measurable objectives be required for each country and for each sector.
There must also be legally binding measures obliging the Member States to comply with their quotas.
There is also a certain amount of concern about the fact that certain sectors have been left out of the Green Paper, for example the transport sector.
We presume that this work will be included in the next document, concerning the strategy and measures to be adopted by the EU to reduce emissions, and that the transport sector will not be forgotten when we discuss climate change.
The message is very clear: the principle must be that all emissions, no matter what their origin, must be covered by some instrument of control, be it in the form of emission rights or of legislation, but there must be practical limits and instruments of control for each type of emission.
Many have had doubts about the proposal for emissions trading, especially when it comes to the socio-economic consequences.
The fear, quite simply, is of a loss of employment and a concern that companies will play different industries off against each other.
I believe we have taken account of these doubts and of this concern in paragraph 13 of this resolution, and I hope that this will reassure at least some of those who have felt concern.
I want to emphasise that there is an obvious mistake in the Swedish version of this paragraph.
Only half of the amendment published in the Swedish document has been adopted.
The third document is perhaps the most important in the long term.
It deals with the strategy and measures to be adopted by the EU in order to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
It also concerns what is really required, namely to change our own way of life if anything is to be achieved.
This is a welcome document.
It would have been still more welcome if it had been clearer and more practical, but we hope it will be clearer following the amendments adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am very pleased that the debate on climatic change in Europe and throughout the world has given us the opportunity to recall the cyclone that struck a large part of Europe.
Christened Josephine by the German meteorologists, this cyclone struck north-west Italy, especially my region, Valle d' Aosta, causing tremendous devastation.
In three or four days, between 500 and 700 mm of rain fell over a total area of 10 000 km2, which is roughly equivalent to the entire rainfall for one year. Terror struck Valle d' Aosta and the other regions and countries affected, which this terrible ordeal has placed in a veritable state of emergency, facing a long, costly list of damages.
So, why does the European Union exist, if not to make us change our lifestyle and, above all, to understand the cycles that modify climatological conditions, to harness the necessary European funds to respond to the demands meet the acute need for intervention in the mountainous regions of Europe. If we do not intervene, we unfortunately run the risk that these floods will recur.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our climate is already changing.
Over the past one thousand years, we have seen a drop in the temperature by one-fifth of a degree.
But over the past fifty years, it has become one and a half degrees warmer.
This warming process is accelerating all the time.
Many citizens like the idea of a climate one or two degrees warmer, but the warm Gulf Stream which is giving us a pleasant climate at the moment could turn at any time.
Europe would then acquire a climate like that in Canada, where, for many weeks during winter, the temperature is between -20 to -30.
We need radical measures to stop global warming.
The Kyoto Protocol is too restricted.
The increase in air traffic in the next fifteen years alone will cancel out the reductions achieved via the Kyoto Protocol.
China is already emitting more greenhouse gases than is sustainable.
We cannot turn a blind eye to this.
After 2020, developing countries too are supposed to fight greenhouse gases, but on an equal footing.
Each world citizen has the same right to emit CO2.
American citizens should not be entitled to emit two hundred times more CO2 than people in East Africa.
On the basis of equity, the international trade in CO2 certificates is supposed to be going ahead after 2008.
Only on this basis will developing countries, such as China and India, get involved.
Opting in The Hague for the American line of grandfathering will block this route.
Energy efficiency and renewable energy sources are the way forward, both in the North and in the South, and not 25 cm high bushes, as the Australian government is proposing, or other forest projects which cannot be verified.
Subsidising nuclear energy with Clean Development Mechanism funding is not the answer either.
That would be perverse at a time when America and Europe are doing nothing but closing down nuclear power stations.
Fortunately, our ministers and the Commission are on the right side.
I wish them tenacity on behalf of my group.
The swift ratification of the Kyoto Protocol is the right way forward.
We should not rely on the American Senate.
After ratification, CO2 emission will have a price tag.
At present, it is still free to the large industries and the electricity producers in Europe, which are, together, responsible for 45% of CO2 emissions.
The Green Paper on greenhouse gas emissions trading within Europe is an excellent initiative.
Europe must make every effort to achieve this 8% objective.
I would call on the European Commission to come up with extra proposals to curtail emissions in the transport sector.
Only if we achieve this 8% objective can we be credible.
And only then are climatic breakthroughs at world level possible.
Mr President, as we all know, climate change is perhaps the most difficult environmental problem of our time to solve.
This is not, of course, because we do not know what changes are required, but because the necessary changes would have such massive repercussions upon the whole of our transport and energy policy and, in point of fact, upon our whole method of consuming.
We face completely fundamental social changes if we are to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
It is the most developed countries - the countries with the highest economic standards and the highest per capita emissions of greenhouse gases - which have the biggest responsibility for taking the lead where reductions in greenhouse gases are concerned.
In the run-up to the conference in The Hague, it therefore appears absolutely crucial to involve the United States in an agreement which leads both to real progress and to a situation in which the Kyoto Protocol can be ratified.
A responsible policy on the part of the most developed countries must be based upon those countries' being able to reduce their own emissions.
If there is to be a place for emissions trading, which is something I am very doubtful about, the latter should only constitute a minor part of the policy as a whole, in which case any such trading must also be strictly controlled, with consideration given to the social dimension and to the opportunities for developing countries to make further progress in the future.
This system may entail very large risks in the future if Russia and the developing countries are included in the emissions trading and the practice becomes global.
However, there are other types of flexible mechanism which can be used to advantage at a global level.
Emissions and abatements trading are no substitute for the real changes required.
The same applies, of course, to nuclear power.
Instead, we need a vigorous policy to promote lower energy use, renewable energy sources, alternative fuels and effective environmental taxes on methods of transport.
It is mainly the responsibility of the individual Member States to implement these measures.
Where tax is concerned, a common minimum tax is to be desired.
If it is not possible to agree upon a tax on greenhouse gases within the EU, those countries which are prepared to take the lead ought in any case to get together and introduce such a tax.
When it comes to Mr Moreira Da Silva' s reports, we agree with the content of most of the paragraphs, but we are more sceptical about emissions trading.
A system of that kind may be an interesting experiment at EU level, but it is no substitute for other measures.
Mr President, in recent years we have witnessed an exponential increase in disasters on our territory: natural disasters which, in many cases, have caused havoc over entire regions and countries, natural disasters which are not entirely due to climate change - itself caused by interference from man - but which are also the result of changes made by man to the land, brought about by administrations, governments and citizens who have failed to make better provision for the environment, preserve it and guarantee its future.
This year, Italy suffered first the tragedy in Calabria and then the current colossal tragedy, which has claimed over 25 deaths and left over 45 thousand homeless in the north.
The Valle d'Aosta, Piedmont and many areas of the Po Valley and Lombardy were particularly hard hit.
Last year, the tragedy in France destroyed hundred-year-old forests: an immeasurable loss for mankind.
Mr President, five years ago, Italy suffered another great flood.
Houses, bridges, roads, factories, shops and entire villages were destroyed on that occasion too.
At the time, in my capacity as an MEP and member of the Alleanza Nazionale party, I asked the Commission to immediately prepare a measure identifying the areas at risk from flooding and to draw up a hydrogeological map of the regions of the European Union.
Five years have passed, we are discussing another flood and there is still no hydrogeological map.
Europe has done absolutely nothing to intervene and it has not put any pressure on the national States to change and improve the situations in the individual countries either.
We are now proposing this map again, in the hope that we will not still be here, five years from now, counting bodies and reproaching ourselves for not having done our duty: a map of the areas of the European Union at risk, a directive laying down safety standards for buildings constructed beside rivers and streams, establishing operating criteria for forest management and preventing the working of mines and quarries in sites which are at risk, with penalties for those who authorise them and those who exploit them.
We have to realise that preventing hazards which contribute to ecological change is the best way to protect the environment.
This development, rural development included, must be environmentally friendly, for what is environmentally friendly is human-friendly as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the changing climate in Europe has been causing natural disasters for a number of decades now, and these disasters have not yet been sufficiently analysed and evaluated.
Padania, which is the most advanced geopolitical and cultural area in Europe, has suffered tragic flooding that has taken a huge toll on human life and property.
The Italian government, which has set aside ridiculously small sums given the scale of the disaster - of which, moreover, warning was given - in a key production area for Italy and Europe, is treating these hard-working people inappropriately, irresponsibly and inefficiently, as it did the people affected by the earthquakes in Umbria and southern Italy.
No preventive or hydrogeological work of substance has been carried out thus far.
Europe must provide a guarantee, it must call upon the Italian government to recognise the full scale of the damage suffered by the undertakings - which must, moreover, be exempted from paying any form of tax relating to this - and the citizens who, with the aid of a hard-working, exemplary Padanian volunteer force, immediately set to work to restore a semblance of normality.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to sincerely thank the rapporteur, Jorge Moreira da Silva, for his excellent work and for his report.
Climate protection is not a marginal subject for environment freaks, it is one of the greatest challenges of our time.
The dreadful storms and floods which have ravaged Europe and the rest of the world in recent months should be a wake-up call for us all.
Nearly all the scientific experts are telling us that these storms and floods will dramatically increase if we do not achieve a marked reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
So climate protection also makes good economic sense.
That is why it makes me angry that when climate protection and the challenges it involves are being discussed people often just say what they do not want, and not what they really do want.
There is a lack of alternatives, a lack of constructive debate.
A lot of people say that we do not want nuclear energy, at any cost.
Others say that we definitely do not want tax measures.
However, I believe that we must use every possible means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
It also makes me angry that when Member States discuss national eco-taxes, although these national instruments are quite rightly criticised, few positive suggestions are made to replace them.
And that is the reason why on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party I have tabled an amendment calling for a European climate tax which covers all greenhouse gases and is revenue-neutral.
We have a chance to correct the mistakes made at national level and to give a positive signal on behalf of Europe.
The Group of the European People's Party also considers that nuclear energy will be indispensable at least for the next few decades if we are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Abandoning nuclear energy, as is planned in some Member States, who are actually going ahead with that, gives exactly the wrong signal, because nuclear power stations emit considerably less greenhouse gases than fossil fuels.
Before we abandon nuclear, we have to say how we intend to reduce greenhouse gases.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would first like to thank the rapporteur, because I believe that he has succeeded in a remarkable way in reconciling the various interests in this House so as to formulate a position on behalf of Parliament.
Commissioner, I have been following the debate on climate change in this House since 1995.
What I have observed since then is that Parliament has made certain concessions here, but always against the tactical background that we want the country with the highest CO2 emissions to come on board as regards Kyoto.
So we have gone along with this and said that we accept emissions trading.
We are in favour of it in principle and we have made many more concessions.
At some point the hurdle will be so low that I can honestly say that I cannot lower it any further.
It will not be possible to make any more concessions.
That is why I believe that in future negotiations we should really concentrate on the idea that if the USA cannot initiate the ratification process, then we ourselves should enter into agreements with other countries, as ultimately ratification without the USA is not impossible if we are at long last to make some progress here.
We cannot keep making concessions until there are no more to be made if we are not certain that Congress will eventually give its approval.
Commissioner, I of course heard your speech about the European Climate Change Programme, the ECCP.
It was a rather bland speech about what we could all do and how marvellous that would be.
I seem to have heard a lot of bland speeches like that over the last few years!
In the end, I would far rather do battle alongside you for highly specific measures such as a switch to renewables.
There is a proposal to that effect on the table, but I wonder just what the Commission's policy really is when I see the Directorate-General for Competition frustrating this proposal to promote renewables using funds from environmental aid scheme, perhaps to the point of destroying it.
I would also like to fight alongside you to achieve a standard for low-energy housing.
And I would like to battle alongside you to achieve a tax regime to promote cars with low fuel consumption.
So how about finally forgetting those bland speeches, rolling up our sleeves and really getting something done!
Mr President, I am glad to hear that the Commissioner is pressing for eight Members of this House to attend COP6, but I want to emphasise that we want to play a constructive role in EU strategy making.
We do not want to be squeezed out as Members were who attended the World Health Organisation conference recently.
We see ourselves working together at a set of European institutions fighting to improve the situation and ensure that the Kyoto Protocol is ratified.
Compare, after all, our common agreement with the experience we had just recently at that tele-conferencing session with members of the US Congress, which frankly was a very depressing experience.
The chairman of the Health Science Committee spelt out, from the American point of view, that this was an economic issue, not an environmental one.
That really spells out the differences between the approach of the United States representatives and those of this Parliament.
There was no recognition of the need to make sacrifices or to accept that we have historic responsibilities on both sides of the Atlantic as the largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
For all our good intentions, however, it looks as though in the European Union far from cutting CO2 emissions by the end of this decade we shall end up increasing them.
So the prospects for COP6 look poor, but the prospects of our meeting our goals even with Kyoto do not look that good either.
That is not helped by governments across the European Union responding to calls to cut fuel prices.
If we are serious about the environment, these must be resisted.
We should not be cutting fuel tax.
I say "yes" to emissions trading - let us get on with it.
Let us also hurry up with the measures we need to take in each Member State cutting traffic emissions, increasing energy efficiency, promoting renewables and CHP.
The sad truth is we will not succeed in preventing climate change anyway, but if we do not start taking action now, the problems will become all the worse.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, some people are attempting to get the nuclear debate put back on the agenda.
I believe that European environment ministers have so far adopted the very wise approach of excluding it from the list of flexible mechanisms.
Nuclear power is more expensive than other options, such as energy efficiency, for example, and every dollar that is invested in nuclear power is denied to other investments that are much more profitable.
Nuclear power does not really meet the needs of people, who also want to live in heated or air-conditioned homes, depending on the climatic zones in which they live.
Nuclear power does not provide a single solution. But solutions can be found in cogeneration, based on biomass or gas.
Nuclear power is still dangerous.
The accident at Tokaimura clearly showed this. And fifty years after the start of civil nuclear power, there are still no solutions as to what do with nuclear waste.
We have already invested billions in research and we still have not made any progress.
I fervently believe that we must appreciate the importance of energy efficiency.
We can help the Chinese, the Indians, Indonesia and the Pakistanis much more by giving them the means to buy refrigerators that do not consume much energy, because there will be 800 million refrigerators over the next ten years.
That is what will dictate the CO2 emissions of developing countries, rather than the two, three, four or five nuclear reactors that could be sold to them.
Mr President, the rapporteur correctly maintains that climate change is one of the most serious environmental problems we are facing today.
Although three years have already passed since the Kyoto Conference and the commitment to reduce greenhouse gases by 8% in comparison with 1990 levels, and as the European Environment Agency has reminded us, if very specific political measures are not taken, this reduction will not take place; on the contrary, greenhouse gases will increase by 6%.
It should be considered that emissions from transport could increase the most rapidly, potentially rising by up to 39% by the year 2010.
I also share the rapporteur's concern for specific policies and measures to take priority over emissions trading, which should be ancillary to them.
I do not entirely share Mr Liese's faith and enthusiasm regarding nuclear energy.
I consider, like the Member who spoke earlier, that nuclear energy poses unresolved problems, and the fact that the Commissioner said nuclear energy will not be promoted in the proposals currently being studied reassured me.
In any case, we believe that the priority for the European Union must be specific measures and policies and the definition of a European programme on climate change, which must also have specific objectives and aims, and it worries us that this is not the philosophy that will be advocated at the forthcoming Hague Conference.
In conclusion, Mr President, I, like other Members, will recall the floods in Spain and Italy, which seem to us, like other so-called natural disasters, to be an expression of climate change.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to add my congratulations to those already offered to the rapporteur for these two superb reports.
With regard to the first report, I will simply make mention of the floods and the victims that there were in the East of Spain, attributed to climate change, as the previous speakers have already talked about both these things.
With regard to the second report, I consider that emissions trading should be approached as an instrument with which to facilitate the fulfilment of obligations under the Kyoto Convention.
Various attitudes have been adopted in the face of this flexible mechanism: expectant, reactive or active.
I think that from both the economic and environmental point of view we must adopt an active stance.
Reasons for this include the realistic consideration that this will enable us to achieve short-term environmental goals by establishing specific reduction levels, and timetables for fulfilment.
This is also an opportunity to encourage research and development in the field of new technologies for controlling pollution, contrary to the opinion of those who believe that this mechanism is a way of perpetuating the interests of the large polluting corporations.
If this tool is correctly applied, pollution will become more and more expensive and the market will ensure that products obtained through the least clean methods become obsolete.
Likewise, making emissions the subject of trade will lead to greater control over them and, what is more, they will be documented.
This will promote the development of activities with a less significant environmental impact.
It is essential that this mechanism is developed transparently as an integral part of the raft of measures that the Member States is to adopt within the context of the European climate change strategy.
To this end, all the Member States must take great pains to communicate with the public so that it is clear from the outset which objectives are being pursued with this mechanism and what the benefits are, that these are always partial and complementary to other types of measure.
In this way there can be no misunderstandings.
Mr President, Commissioner, a large proportion of the world population, especially in the Third World, will soon need boots to protect their feet from rising water levels.
But recently, in Italy too, the dramatic effects made themselves felt.
The exact relationship between CO2 emissions and global warming is not yet entirely clear, but that should not prevent us from taking drastic measures now.
The precautionary principle is applicable here.
According to experts, we need to reduce current CO2 emission levels by 60% in order to halt climate change.
We are now working towards an 8% reduction, which is already quite a task.
Although we are rightly investing in more sustainable energy and greater efficiency, our intentions are not new.
Yet, we need to establish that our dependence on fossil fuels has hardly fallen since the 70s.
We therefore need to employ all possible means and use them to the full.
That translates into an unqualified 'yes' to the trade in emission rights, provided it is thought through properly.
We still need to find solutions to major economic and political problems.
Emissions trading could lead to a new form of colonialism.
It is easier for rich countries to buy reductions in developing countries and thus acquit themselves of their responsibilities without giving the matter another thought.
Technological innovation will be curtailed as a result.
The success of emissions trading will therefore depend on the price.
If the price is too low, the purchase of emission rights will be very attractive indeed.
Its success will also depend on support.
The trade in emissions must be fair and must be able to rely on a level playing field in the sectors involved.
The market must be deployed in a bid to promote sustained growth as well as fair distribution.
This requires clear political choices.
The Climate Conference at The Hague presents an opportunity to take global steps, an opportunity which we should not let slip.
We must not hide behind the unwillingness of the United States.
Sound cooperation between rich and poor countries is needed to achieve climate objectives.
We must lay down equitable points of departure.
Equal emission rights for all global citizens is not only an equitable step, it is also effective.
It is a means of involving developing countries and of promoting technological efforts.
The Hague must also set an agenda for the future, of which equal emission rights for all the citizens of the world must certainly form a part.
I would like to conclude by thanking the rapporteur for his work and wish the Commission every success.
Mr President, the climate changes caused by our consumer habits have begun.
My colleagues have referred to the catastrophes that are occurring in quick succession and which serve as warning lights that demand practical political intervention.
We welcome the objective and clear-sighted findings of the report by Mr Moreira da Silva regarding the crucial issues and hopes, but also concerning the disillusionment and the renunciations that have infiltrated the battle line in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
We know that the most important stage will take place at The Hague in November.
We will see whether or not the parties who committed themselves at Kyoto will exercise their responsibilities and meet the demands of the global issues that await us, which put us all in the same boat and spare no one.
Many people forecast a fiasco, however, and even an agreement on the cheap, which will sound the death knell of the Kyoto Protocol.
We refuse to believe this hypothesis.
The European Union delegation must stand firm. It should continue to be the leader, as it was in Kyoto, it should set an example, and it should not give way under any circumstances to the temptations of get-out clauses.
Our mandate is clear and our demands are forceful.
Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol is crucial, as is the implementation of domestic measures that will make a real contribution to the fight against greenhouse gas emissions.
Let us hope that the European Council does not fall into the traps that have been set for it.
The European Union must refuse to integrate nuclear power, even if there is strong pressure in favour of mechanisms for clean development.
Nuclear power is neither a sustainable energy nor a clean one.
It would be just as unacceptable to admit carbon sinks among the flexibility measures.
It would be particularly improper and fallacious to make citizens believe that it is enough simply to plant trees to comply with the commitments undertaken at Kyoto.
With 80% of its electricity coming from nuclear power and with an extensive covering of forest, France, for example, has not achieved the undertakings it agreed to at Kyoto, which are nonetheless minimal at 0%.
Action must be taken in other areas.
The European Union does not have the right to shirk its commitments.
Mr President, the two reports by Mr Moreira da Silva under discussion will be important while the Community prepares for the meeting next June of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
Their aim is that the EU will play a leading role in the international struggle to slow down climatic change.
I believe that Mr Moreira da Silva' s work has furthered this aim.
According to an estimate made by the European Environment Agency, greenhouse gas emissions in the EU are expected to increase by 6% during the period 1990 - 2010.
It also states in its appraisal that it is emissions from traffic that are clearly increasing most of all.
Urban traffic in particular is the main focus for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from traffic.
For that reason the committee is encouraging the Commission to make proposals in its new Green Paper to alter attitudes to transportation in densely built-up areas so that greenhouse gas emissions may be permanently reduced.
The committee also considers it necessary to increase financial support for public transport and it criticised the Commission for the fact that policy and action in the EU strategy on a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions are of secondary importance.
This is unacceptable if the EU really intends to lead the world in the process to slow down climatic change.
The EU' s own input is vital, especially as the outcome of the sixth conference of the parties to the agreement cannot yet be certain.
Mr President, now I would like to put things very simply.
I feel that we politicians still have not grasped how serious the situation is with regard to climatic change.
As politicians, we are used to making compromises with regard to almost anything, and we have learnt that the world is shaped that way - shaped for compromise.
But now we have before us a party we cannot negotiate with.
Nature is a hard fact of life: it does not submit to agreement; it just is.
This is such a simple fact that I almost feel ashamed to mention it, but I believe this is the main source of confusion in the way we think.
Mr President, I naturally agree with much of what has been said at great length today, but I would like to draw your attention to a very practical issue, which concerns last week's flooding in the north-west of Italy and in Spain and France. I am one of the signatories to a joint resolution, to be put to the vote tomorrow, which calls upon the Commission to provide emergency funding from its own budget to orchestrate the operations planned by the national authorities in the areas affected by the floods.
It calls upon the Commission to grant financial aid immediately to the sectors affected, under Article 87, Paragraph 2 of the EC Treaty, and to take into consideration the fact that a large proportion of the areas affected are eligible for assistance from the Community Structural Funds. This would represent a considerable contribution to reconstruction and, most importantly, prevention operations.
With regard to this matter, it is vital for the Union not to restrict itself to making exceptional interventions once disasters have already occurred, as has already been said.
I would emphasise, in particular, points 6, 7 and 8 of the joint resolution: Europe must call upon the Member States to update their laws on the environment, the abuse of planning permission, reforestation, the revitalisation of mountain areas and, in general, on the promotion of farming methods which are intended to protect and safeguard the land as well as yield increasing quantities of produce.
Clearly, an action of this scale cannot be effectively developed purely at national level, primarily because of the scale of the resources needed but also because of the very nature of the natural phenomena in question which, like those relating to climate change and damage arising from CO2 emissions, are in no way contained by borders.
In asking you to support our resolution, ladies and gentlemen, we are calling not merely for an urgent intervention to contribute to repairing the damage but for a longer-term policy which will make Europe an increasingly safer and more enjoyable place to live for its citizens.
Mr President, the Commission and others have predicted that most Member States will not achieve their targets for limiting greenhouse gas emissions in line with the commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, so it is essential that effective measures are implemented now.
Failure to reach the targets is simply not an option.
One estimate says that 10,000 people have been killed in the past two years because of the effects of climate change, the majority of them in the developing countries.
We need a radical change of direction.
We can, and must, adopt effective and innovative solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and at the same time protect our society and our jobs.
Wales, which is the constituency I represent, is very dependent on manufacturing and heavy industry.
Because the UK is introducing a climate change levy next April, I commissioned research on the effects of this on industry in my own constituency.
The evidence suggests that not only could it keep Britain on track to meet its emissions target, but the levy could actually encourage a small increase in employment.
Several economists have analysed the effects of this on a Europe-wide level, and have come to similar conclusions that there is, or could be, a beneficial effect on employment.
The debate has moved on and we need to look at reducing emissions, not as a threat, but as a challenge and an opportunity.
I hope Parliament's demands which are set out in the reports before us are acted upon and that governments approach The Hague Conference in a positive way so we can see the Kyoto Protocol ratified in the near future.
Mr President, I must begin by congratulating Mr Moreira Da Silva on his reports and immediately declare an interest.
I own some woods in the United Kingdom, the economics of which in the present state of the economy are quite hopeless.
Yet my trees, and those of many others, clean up CO2 emissions discharged by some of the wealthiest companies in the land.
No woodland owner gets a penny piece directly from this important social function and monetary payments for environmental permits and their trading must, it seems to me, have to work their way through to those who actually grow and manage the trees and not be expropriated by exchequers and others on the way.
Obviously, unless forestry pays, nobody is going to plant the trees and if the trees are not planted they cannot clean up the CO2.
In addition, it is quite wrong for the relatively poor industry to clean up the mess left by the relatively rich industry, free, gratis and for nothing.
This in turn offers a potential further income stream for beleaguered farmers and others in the countryside to help rebuild its economic base, which at present, as we all know, is producing too much food at too high a price.
Agriculture is a multi-output industry and public expenditure may well be necessary to achieve the full range of public goods the industry can and should produce.
Given the potential of biomass and other crops for energy generation and for the production of hydrogen, if one contrasts the quantity of money supporting the production of unwanted food, and compares that with support for these alternative outputs and their utilising technologies, the disparity is self-evident.
There is a very strong case for rebalancing the figures because unless new, sustainable agricultural outputs are devised, farming and the countryside's problems can only get worse.
This is as much a matter of CAP reform as it is of environmental policy and it is only by drawing together the two that sensible progress can be made.
Mr President, as some speakers have already indicated - and I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Moreira Da Silva, on his report - in a tragic coincidence with this debate, nature has decided to remind us of the consequences of climate change.
In the north of Italy and also in my own area - the Mediterranean coast of Spain - the forces of nature have once again unleashed themselves, leading to loss of life and the loss of possessions, in homes, factories and so forth.
On our coast, on the Spanish Mediterranean coast, this is the product of a phenomenon known as la gota fría (cold front), caused by the warming of the waters of the Mediterranean, which generates an increase in water vapour which, upon contact with the cold layers of the stratosphere, produces this heavy rainfall.
It is true that this normally takes place in autumn, but it is also true that this used to take place every 15 to 20 years, while it currently happens almost every year, with tragic consequences at least every three or four years.
Is this or is it not the result of the greenhouse effect and climate change? Although the experts cannot guarantee it with all the scientific evidence, I believe this to be the case.
We must therefore remedy this situation.
It is true that with the measures contained in the Kyoto Protocol, to which the report we are debating today refers, we will not achieve short-term results, but it is also true that the human race should try to solve the problems it creates.
Other causes - also triggered by human greed - combine with the greenhouse effect, such as building on watercourses, which heightens the damaging effects of these natural disasters.
I am therefore one of the signatories to a motion for a resolution suggesting not only the rapid application of the measures contained in the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change, but also other types of preventative measures, for example continuing and intensifying efforts to prevent the effects of rain when creating infrastructures, and finally, aid to all the victims, given that they are not responsible for the short or long-term damage caused by human greed and speculation.
Mr President, the joint resolution on the floods calls for civil protection at European level and emergency funding.
However, it should be remembered that the environmentalists are almost alone in fighting to stop construction on floodplains, to bring about the cleaning-up of water channels, to stop the concreting of river banks or uncontrolled excavations, and to call for measures on reforestation and the protection of mountains, the only operations which can reduce the amount of rain water and avoid landslides.
I do hope - although I fear that it will be thus - that in a few days' time, when the floods no longer make the headlines and those who have been flooded out of their homes are left on their own to sort out their problems, that people will not cease to be willing for their land to be used as an overflow area. I hope I am wrong, but I have a strong suspicion that some mayor or other will object and request that a bank be raised somewhere else: all this against any logic in terms of regional planning or safety.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Europe can certainly contribute, but it is the, sometimes unpopular, decisions taken in the areas affected which will be a true measure of the commitment to attempting to ensure that such catastrophic events are not repeated.
Mr President, everyone agrees about the seriousness of the climate issue, and everyone agrees that the EU must have an intelligent policy for complying with the commitments we made in Kyoto.
I believe that we must go a step further.
It is not enough just to have a good policy in Europe.
I believe that the EU must take the lead in the work being done internationally on climate change. Otherwise, I do not believe that the climate convention will amount to much more than theory.
In order to take on such a leading role, an aggressive energy policy is required, but the truth of the matter is that the European Union at present lacks an energy policy worthy of the name.
I myself am a member of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy which is responsible for energy issues.
I have seen again and again during the last few months the unsystematic way in which energy policy is conducted within the European Union.
Those proposals which are being presented are not part of a coherent strategy. On the contrary, they are not shown as having any connection with each other.
One month we applaud the fact that deregulation of the electricity market has led to lower prices. A few months later, we complain that the lower prices have reduced the incentives in favour of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.
These are just a few examples.
An aggressive strategy must include a change to our energy systems.
At the same time, it must also include more active support for the developing countries. It is, in any case, in the developing countries that most investment in energy production will take place in the future.
I can see that the Commission is doing its best.
As I see it, responsibility for the lack of results lies mainly with the Member States and their governments and is due to their refusal to agree to a common carbon dioxide tax and their refusal to accept the need for a common energy policy.
I wish Commissioner Wallström all the best with her work, but I want to conclude with a question: Does she really believe that it makes sense to implement an aggressive climate strategy without a common energy policy?
Firstly I would like to thank Mr Moreira da Silva for his clear-sighted and pertinent analyses, and for the excellent proposals he has put forward in both his reports.
However, I wish to express a few reservations in the case of the early implementation of what must be called 'a system of entitlement to pollute' .
I would like to repeat that, if we have to recognise the system of trading in CO2 emission rights as one of the provisions of our international agreements which we cannot go back on, the Commission seems to forget that this mechanism is just one of the systems described as flexible by the Kyoto Protocol.
As a result, this mechanism must be looked upon not as a frontline tool but, on the contrary, as an instrument complementary to other measures aimed at reducing greenhouses gases.
We are fully aware that this mechanism does not encourage companies to become less polluting and to change their ways, and that, if nothing else is done, especially in the area of transport, we will certainly not achieve the objectives set by the Kyoto Protocol.
The Commission Green Paper can thus be accused of putting the cart before the horse and of urging the European Union to put in place a system of advance trade in CO2 emission rights, even though it is not obliged to do so, especially vis-à-vis its commercial partners.
On this point, it seems to me that there is a case for backing one of the amendments tabled by my colleagues in the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, who deem it necessary to stay the implementation of a system of entitlement to pollute until the Council and the Member States have drawn up and ratified an operational plan of measures to reduce greenhouse gases, encompassing all the sectors involved, especially transport and agriculture.
What is more, the Commission remains silent on the economic and social consequences that this system cannot fail to create.
But can we seriously ignore the unacceptable practices which will inevitably result from the capitalist strategies of the most polluting industries? Can we act as if we did not know that some industrial groups will merge at the cost of redundancies, and buy up non-polluting or less polluting companies with the sole purpose of recovering their right to pollute before relocating them or purely and simply closing them down?
Finally, where are our environmental objectives in this sort of international stock market of pollution rights and what can be expected of a system which simply opens up a huge market of rights on behalf of countries which, like Russia, may today have room for manoeuvre, not by virtue of bringing their factories up to the required standards, but quite simply by virtue of a dramatic reduction in their industrial output. To conclude, I think that we must press for the implementation of a framework agreement of cooperation between Russia and the European Union so as to put in place ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, although the priority in the Union' s policy on climate must be a sustainable environmental policy, in taking decisions we must also pay attention to the importance of the international competitiveness of industry and the undisturbed workings of the Internal Market.
Individual countries are responsible for implementing the obligations of the Kyoto Protocol and the obligations related to the Union' s distribution of the burden.
Different countries' scope for implementing action to reduce emissions varies considerably.
If country-based quotas were allocated to different sectors in the EU, as, for example, Mr Blokland suggested when he presented the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, companies engaged in the same sort of business would end up in totally unequal positions across the different Member States.
Although a given sector might be amongst the world' s best in terms of environmental efficiency in one country, and I can say that is true of many sectors of industry in my country, Finland, for example, it might have to agree to a more stringent quota for emissions than its less efficient competitor in another country.
This would inevitably lead to distortion of the competition situation and, for that reason, we must not impose binding, quantitative targets on different sectors of industry at Community level.
It is essential to promote measures that can be implemented in practice and do not jeopardise the competitiveness of enterprises.
Along with France, my own country, Finland, is at present the only EU country where the building of additional nuclear power stations is being considered.
I wholeheartedly support the building of additional nuclear power plants, as it would give our energy-intensive industry a greater competitive advantage both in terms of economy and emissions.
For that reason we should not adopt a position in this report either in favour of individual forms of electricity production or specifically in opposition to them: instead, all the various forms of energy production must be at our disposal while we formulate national climate strategies.
I would also like to emphasise the importance of voluntary, negotiated target agreements.
In many Member States they have been considered a very effective means of promoting the implementation of climate-related targets.
Voluntary agreements could in particular be a good mechanism for use in the enlargement process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in illustrating the resolution proposed by Italian MEPs, I feel that it must be said that, for the second time in five years, we have experienced a natural disaster in the same region of our country, Italy.
This has, on the one hand, allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the issue, an understanding forced upon us by tragic events but, on the other hand, it imposes upon us certain burdens which are certainly not ours alone: they are not the burdens of one or more affected regions, they are burdens not only of the country but of the international community as well, so that solidarity is displayed and acknowledged at different levels.
And it has been displayed, at least initially, at moral, political, economic and legislative levels.
We expect the Commission to acknowledge the disastrous situation in certain regions in our country and to affect land rehabilitation, in collaboration with the national States, of course, but we also expect it to intervene with legislation to raise awareness at European level, so that the issue of floods and disasters, the victory of ill-omened nature over man and organised society - can in some way be changed for the better.
Mr President, the issue of global warming, although not yet proven beyond doubt, is of the greatest concern for the world at large and knows no respect for national boundaries.
It is very much part of the concept of Gaia, or geophysiology.
As a supporter of free markets and the huge prosperity and freedom which they have brought to countless millions, I welcome the harnessing of market mechanisms wherever possible to facilitate environmentally-desirable goals such as the reduction of CO2 emissions, as proposed by the Commission's Green Paper and Mr Moreira Da Silva's report, which I welcome broadly, and will help, no doubt, achieve the Kyoto targets.
I put down two amendments, one calling for further research into the other greenhouse gases such as methane, soot, CFCs, etc.
I believe that the tradable quota system may need to be extended to these, as in many ways their reduction would be far more cost-effective and less destructive to the world's economy.
The second amendment I put down was for the granting of credits to national quotas for the planting of forests, which, as my colleague Lord Inglewood pointed out before, act as carbon sinks.
They are desirable in terms of supporting the beauty of the countryside and they are also eminently policeable by satellite technology.
I also believe new ideas such as planktonic oceanic seeding, to irreversibly fix CO2 to the ocean bed, need further investigation.
I should like to touch on two controversial topics in the report.
One is the issue of an EU-wide carbon tax, which I reject both because it encroaches on prerogatives on taxation and because it would drive jobs offshore to non-EU jurisdictions, in my view, and be damaging to our economies.
The other is the issue of grandfathering rather than national auctioning of the CO2 quotas.
I personally support grandfathering along US lines to prevent penalisation of existing heavy energy using industries and doubly rewarding those industries which have made energy savings in the past and hence savings on their electricity costs.
Lastly, I too, like my colleague Mrs Kauppi, support nuclear energy as the only long-term solution to reducing CO2.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want of course to thank you for your constructive contributions to the debate on climate change and on how we are to combat this.
In just a moment, I intend to comment on the floods which have hit Italy and Spain.
I have a statement to read out from the Commission, and shall come back to this in a moment.
First of all, however, I want to round off the discussion about what we believe must happen in The Hague in a few weeks' time by saying that our role must clearly be that of instigating change internationally.
We shall be compelled to be the ones who take initiatives, who force the pace and who, at the same time, build bridges between, in particular, developing countries and countries such as the United States and others in that group.
We must of course force those who are dragging their heels to turn this conference on climate change into a success, as well as show that we are credible when it comes to taking action too.
To answer a direct question, I do not believe that we shall tackle this matter successfully in the long term if we do not have access to a range of tools and a range of political initiatives.
What we are concerned with here, of course, are methods and systems of transport, which must be equipped for the future. It is also a question of energy policy.
I am nonetheless pleased that the Commission has been recognised as having taken initiatives in this area.
I believe that we need more in terms of financial instruments of control. We also need, of course, to discuss new areas and the integration of environmental and climate considerations into all policy areas.
Again, it is a question of credibility.
Emissions trading merely supplements those measures, both at Member State and European level, which we shall be sure to incorporate into our basic political systems and infrastructures in order to manage climate change.
As has also been pointed out in this Chamber today, I think we are right to be careful when it comes to competitiveness and the socio-economic effects.
This problem must not, however, be used as a reason for not taking action but may even perhaps be turned to our advantage as something which strengthens competitiveness and offers us benefits.
Once again, I want to thank the rapporteur and everyone who has taken part in the debate.
As soon as possible after the conference in The Hague, we shall of course come back with a plan for implementing all these measures, by which time we shall also hopefully have clear, agreed rules.
I hope we shall be able to come back from the conference and say that it has been a great success.
The natural catastrophes which have struck the European Union and its citizens have had tragic consequences.
They have confronted us with severe physical damage and in some cases loss of human life, recently in Italy and now in Spain.
The Commission is acutely aware of the weight of these catastrophes.
This is why the Commission, in the area of Community action for civil protection in the period 2000-2004, is developing initiatives in close collaboration with Member States to prevent catastrophes and educate the public.
On 27 September the Commission therefore adopted a proposal based on a Council decision which instituted a Community mechanism to coordinate measures for civil protection during emergencies.
The key actions included in this decision are: identification of and improved coordination among the key actors to intervene in the case of emergencies; special training programmes to promote better cooperation and complementarity between the actors concerned; establishment of efficient communication systems to allow for better and more rapid communications.
The proposal also permits faster and more effective steps to be taken on behalf of victims.
In the area of research I would like to point out that there are currently several projects under way related to flooding as well as the concerted action to reduce the risks associated with climate.
Finally, although the structural funds are not designed to address the consequences of natural disasters, they can be used for reconstruction projects if the beneficiary Member States allocate the funds for such uses and the region hit by the disaster is eligible.
The possibility of structural fund involvement in cases of natural disaster must fit within the requirements of the funds and the following conditions must be met: the area in question must be eligible for funding under the territorial objectives, namely Objective 1 or Objective 2.
Co-finance projects must involve expenses that are normally eligible for structural funds.
Eligible reconstruction projects may not represent the majority of expenditure in the programme concerned.
The actions must have a transitional nature, one or two years maximum, and they may not continue throughout the programming period.
And the Structural Funds may not be substituted for insurance.
In order to call upon the structural funds for this type of action it must be shown that the programme has room to manoeuvre internally.
It goes without saying that the Member States concerned are in charge and that it is up to them to envisage what type of measure they would like to see eventually financed by the Structural Funds when the conditions for intervention are fulfilled.
With regard to cooperation on spatial planning solutions to flooding problems, the Commission knows that the Interreg III guidelines make specific reference to the possibility of formulating joint strategies for risk management in areas prone to natural disasters and drawing up and implementing integrated strategies and actions for the prevention of flooding in transnational river catchment areas.
The Commission would also expect that flood prevention actions would form part of a transnational strategy which covers areas where flooding is a particular risk under Interreg III.
For its part, the Commission will continue to give prompt and constructive consideration to this type of request.
Let me just finish by underlying the support of victims.
The European Parliament regularly asks the Commission to intervene on behalf of the victims of these disasters.
The Commission is obliged to respond that there is no longer a budget line which permits such measures.
Last September, on the occasion of a resolution regarding forest fires which was passed by your assembly, Mr Nielson announced that the Commission was considering whether or not to propose a legal basis for a budgetary line which would permit the Commission to respond to emergency needs in the Union.
However, the Commission has not yet taken a final position on whether to propose a legal basis for measures in this area.
In any case, our deliberations will need to consider past experience which would suggest that there are two possible courses of action.
The first would be a budget line where appropriations are allocated on a semi-automatic basis but with sums which, at best, can only be of symbolic value.
The second option would be for the Commission to propose a legal basis but this would mean tying up significant sums within heading 3 of the financial perspective.
The Commission would also need to take into account the resource implications of managing any new activities in this area.
Thank you for your contribution to this debate.
At the end of this debate, I have received a motion for a resolution on climate change pursuant to Rule 42(5), of the Rules of Procedure, as well as six motions for resolutions on floods pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, is there nothing in the Rules of Procedure which requires Members to be present to hear responses to points they have made to the Commissioner during the course of the debate? Surely it is a gross discourtesy to the Commission to behave in this way.
Should this not be something which is raised in the Conference of Presidents?
No, Mr Davies, this is not something one can legislate for.
How MEPs interpret their duties is a matter for them to decide.
I for one am pleased you are still here, but I agree with you that more members should have been present.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The meeting was suspended at 7.40 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Endocrine disrupters
The next item is the report (A5-0197/2000) by Mr Lund, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission Communication to the Council and the European Parliament on a Community strategy for endocrine disrupters - a range of substances suspected of interfering with the hormone systems of humans and wildlife [COM(1999) 706 - C5-0107/2000 - 2000/2071(COS)].
Madam President, we now have a considerable amount of knowledge of endocrine disrupters.
There have been many suspicions, but many causal relationships have been clarified concerning how endocrine disrupters affect animals and humans.
We know that they can result in lower reproductive capacity.
We know that they can cause deformities in the sexual organs, in both animals and humans, and we know that they can cause severe diseases, including testicular cancer and breast cancer.
However, at the same time, there is still great uncertainty concerning the collective consequences of the many endocrine-disrupting substances.
In reality, then, it is impossible to form an overview of the situation, including the situation where future generations are concerned.
In my opinion, this is a really frightening prospect.
Until now, the attitude has been that there must firstly be an acknowledgement of the risks posed by substances and that action is not taken until the damage has been done.
Naturally, this situation is untenable.
That is why it is a good thing that the Commission has led the way with a communication concerning an EU strategy for endocrine disrupters.
However, I think that the Commission's strategy is a little too hesitant.
It could easily be slightly more ambitious.
I think that what are needed are some more aggressive and effective initiatives in the short term.
And it is this that I am trying to rectify in this report.
First and foremost, it is important that the list of substances that are, or are suspected of being, endocrine disrupters be drawn up and that this be done very quickly.
In the report I have proposed that this should be done before the end of this year.
It is also important that we have the necessary resources for the list to encompass all the relevant substances, expected to number approximately 560.
At the same time, it is essential for the most dangerous substances on the list to be identified so that initiatives can be taken immediately to intervene in respect of the most dangerous substances.
Various measures may be taken: bans, phasing out over a shorter or longer period of years and other restrictions on use.
It ought to be possible to draw up this list of dangerous substances by mid-2001.
In this connection, I believe that it is important to conclude that it must be done without waiting for further testing.
We must also do it through aggressive use of the precautionary principle, in which connection I also think it is important to give consideration to particularly vulnerable groups.
I am thinking of pregnant women, infants and certain groups of workers who run a particularly high risk of being affected by these substances.
I also think that a major effort should be made to establish effective monitoring in the Member States and under the auspices of the EU.
Industry must be required to report on which chemical substances are being put onto the market, in what quantities they are being used and what the expected effects are.
We all also know that more resources must be put into research into both the extent of the problem and the consequences of it, as well as research into test methods and special research on mixture effects and synergetic effects.
We know that these substances can interact in a particularly unfortunate way.
In this connection I also believe that special research into the risks is important and, moreover, that we should ensure that the research is independent, i.e. that we do not base our political initiatives on the producers' own research.
Where research is concerned, we also know that international cooperation is important, including cooperation with the United States and Japan.
As part of future legislation on chemical substances, I believe it would be a good thing if we succeeded in establishing a special framework, some special chapters on endocrine disrupters.
There must be a legislative framework that is based on the precautionary principle and on the principle of a reverse burden of proof.
At the same time, a timetable should be set for the testing of existing substances.
In suggesting a legislative framework, I am also saying that I believe the rules should be binding.
All experience of voluntary agreements in this area is poor.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs for the various groups and thank the Commission for the cooperation we have had in connection with the drawing up of the report.
Regarding the amendments, I will simply point out that my own is a linguistic improvement to Paragraph 15 of the report and that I cannot recommend that we vote for Mrs Grossetête' s three amendments.
I believe that the proposals are largely inspired by the chemical industry, members of which have made the effort to contact me.
The intention is clear: they wish to try to put obstacles in the way of action being taken here and now, and I believe it is important to emphasise that the advice we are getting from the scientific ethics committee is, in fact, advice and that it will not become actual legislation.
It is ourselves in the Commission, the Council and Parliament who must lay down the legislative frameworks, and not the scientific committees.
They serve as advisers in the same way as we receive advice from the other side.
Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report and I hope that we can work swiftly on this important problem.
I agree with the rapporteur that it is frightening, particularly the effects on generations to come and the effects on unborn children.
In recent decades, growing evidence has accumulated on the hormone-like effects of a number of industrial chemicals that have appeared in the environment.
These substances have been termed endocrine disrupters.
Endocrine disruption is not in itself an adverse outcome but a mechanism, which may have carcinogenic, reproductive, developmental or behavioural effects.
Some of these effects can be detected using current testing procedures even though it may not be clear whether the disorder has been brought about through endocrine disruption.
The EU Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Eco-Toxity and the Environment has noted that there is a potentially global problem with wildlife.
Equally, the Scientific Committee's opinion on human and wildlife health effects - with emphasis on wildlife - said that the health effects on human beings must be investigated because the associations between endocrine disrupting chemicals and human health disturbances need to be verified.
In general, scientists are suspicious of organochlorine compounds such as PCBs.
The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has therefore reached certain conclusions, in particular that all 560-plus suspected endocrine disrupting substances need to be fully evaluated.
We need to look at these in the Sixth Framework Programme.
We need to focus on both women and men.
We refer to the technical term "oestrogen" as well as "androgen" so it is not just a male problem.
Madam President, Commissioner, as regards endocrine disrupters we currently have a lot of doubts, a lot of questions and absolutely no certainties.
These substances can have excessively harmful effects on reproductive functions, whether they be human, animal or plant.
We do not know the maximum exposure levels or the likely exposure times involved.
These substances themselves have not been listed.
That is already a lot of questions.
Focusing on research now will provide us with the means to find answers to all these questions.
Moreover, this is the meaning of paragraphs 3, 6 and 7.
Better cooperation with American and Japanese research authorities is absolutely vital.
A programme of Community research that enables as much information and scientific proof as possible to be gathered must be supported. In our 2001 budget, we must set aside appropriations on a par with our ambitions for the sixth framework programme on research and development.
This research alone will allow us to take into consideration the specific risks linked to these disrupters in future framework legislation on chemical substances.
The rapporteur - who has produced an excellent report - cites the precautionary principle as the basis for the relevant measures to be taken.
But also in this respect, intellectual honesty must be demonstrated.
The precautionary principle not only leads to the implementation of legislative measures; positive, non-legislative measures may also be introduced.
My amendment aims to make this reality.
I also hope that the opinion of the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Eco-toxicity and the Environment, which was expressed on 5 September, will be taken into consideration.
The expertise of this scientific committee is well known and it would be appropriate to take its opinion into account before any legislative decision is taken.
I think that it is important that we should rely on the opinions of experts.
The precautionary principle also dictates that we should base our decision on the best scientific knowledge available.
The Group of the Europe People' s Party and European Democrats is henceforth opposed to the motion to shift the burden of proof as of today. I feel bound to repeat this, although this is what I have been saying all along.
So, even though there are no certainties, it is much too early to overturn the regulations on responsibility applied to this matter.
In the case of dangerous substances, authorisation is required before they can be placed on the market.
It seems to me that this procedure is already a safeguard.
I agree with the rapporteur that our Parliament must send a realistic and responsible message to the general public, to consumers, to the Commission and also to industry in general.
Their doubts and concerns are real.
We must provide a commensurate response.
Mr President, I represent the north-west of England which, with the cities of Manchester and Liverpool, is I suppose one of the most densely populated parts of the European Union.
We have a particular problem with marine flat fish - flounders in the estuary of the River Mersey in fact - which are exhibiting extreme intersex characteristics and we do not know what the cause is.
We have a lot of chemical factories around the estuary and suspicion has fallen on them, but the scientists are also looking at the detergents which are used both for industrial purposes and in our own homes.
They are looking at oestrogens - synthetic oestrogens in particular - used perhaps in the pill by hundreds or thousands of women in the region.
Indeed, they are looking at natural oestrogen produced by women in their millions.
It could be a combination of all these things - and this is the difficulty.
We do not know the answers and there are more than 500 chemicals from which we could choose.
I have doubts about the use of the precautionary principle and of course, about the misuse of the precautionary principle - by its nature we never know when it is appropriate to use it or not.
There must be very great concern about the long-term effects of putting thousands of chemicals into the natural environment, but it is difficult to identify exactly which chemicals to target.
The evidence of falling sperm counts, of rising levels of breast cancer, of female polar bears growing penises or whatever gives rise to very real fears and we have to be prepared to ban some substances on suspicion alone, even before we have firm scientific evidence.
I support both the Commission's proposals and the rapporteur's suggestions.
However, we can be sure that there are many disputes to come when we start highlighting chemicals which must be banned.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mr Torben Lund on a sterling report which can rely on my group' s unqualified support.
Endocrine disrupters are a relatively new concept.
In my own linguistic area, the term did not become an established concept until one or two years ago.
I know that the Danish equivalent is oestrogen substances and that they have been the topic of discussion for nearly ten years.
The English term is endocrine disrupters and, certainly in scientific literature, they are the subject of a heated debate.
But in German, for example, there is still no term which has become established.
This indicates that the problem is new but no less serious as a result.
We fully back the 2001 deadline.
I fear that the European Commission, under pressure from the chemical industry, will want to wait too long before introducing statutory measures.
Half of the 560 substances which are suspected of having an endocrine disruptive effect are pesticides.
The Commission has admitted this in response to my questions within the Environment Committee.
We ought to start with these.
They should, in any event, not be placed at the end of the list.
Do endocrine disruptive characteristics play a role in the approval of pesticides at the moment? Unfortunately not.
They do not feature in the so-called uniform principles, although they should.
In my view, this should be put right during the revision of the Pesticide Directive in 2003 at the latest.
I hope the Commissioner is able to give us a response on this issue.
Madam President, I should like to thank Torben Lund for the excellent report which he has prepared and which deserves the full support of the entire Parliament.
The effects of artificially produced chemicals that are discharged into the environment are clear.
There are many examples of damage to the reproductive capacity and development of animals and plants.
One of the more unpleasant examples of this is sexual abnormalities observed in bears in the Antarctic.
This example shows that the harmful effects of various endocrine disrupters is a global problem that has affected even the most isolated parts of the world.
The research results presented by Professor Skakkebæk of Denmark concerning the marked reduction in male sperm quality should also give rise to deep concern.
We are actually in a situation in which young men should have their sperm quality tested to see whether they should start a family before they had intended to, simply in order to be fairly certain of having children.
As Torben Lund so rightly stated, the precautionary principle should therefore be put at the top of the agenda.
It is precisely now that there is reason for using this principle far more aggressively.
With reference to the precautionary principle, we shall be able to introduce urgent measures with a view to avoiding possible irreversible damage to humans, animals and plants.
It is appropriate now to put practice before fine words concerning the protection of health and the environment and to make use of the principle in an area about which we still know very little.
It is the only answer to give to a concerned public.
We cannot be too prompt in implementing the report' s recommendations to the effect that future framework legislation on chemical substances should be based both on the precautionary principle and on a reverse burden of proof.
Madam President, it is now our task, in our capacity as politicians, to make decisions within a very difficult area of health.
I say that, despite the fact that my ordinary profession is within the area of internal medicine.
Far too little is known about the mechanisms of action of endocrine disrupters.
Individual variation is very great.
In addition, sensitivity varies from one period to the next during the human life cycle.
Therefore, we cannot follow conventional routine and establish limit values for appropriate maximum exposure, since such limit values cannot be established in the case of endocrine disrupters.
In our capacity as politicians, we must take the problem of endocrine disrupters with the utmost seriousness.
I consider that the Commission' s strategy document in this area is very good.
We need greater knowledge, research must be given priority, risk assessment must be accelerated and possible replacement substances must be identified.
We need statements from the scientific committee.
The public should be given objective information.
We need consultation with Member States, with industry and with a variety of organisations.
To achieve this, it is reasonable for the Commission to work on the basis of a priority list.
As regards the proposal on the report from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I have an important objection, for I do not share the view that voluntary agreements in general are not a practicable way to proceed.
On the contrary, I feel that voluntary agreements can be a faster way to proceed than going down the route of legislation.
Agreements such as time limits on use, restrictions on release onto the market and the phasing in of various risk-free products are often preferable when the circumstances have not been clarified, but where it is valuable to be flexible and to take measures rapidly.
Finally, I would like to emphasise that the legislative methods must always be preceded by a comprehensive scientific assessment and recommendation from the scientific committee.
These assessments and recommendations must be observed by us as decision makers. It is a requirement of political propriety.
I think anyone listening to this debate who has never heard of endocrine disrupters would be forgiven for thinking that endocrine disrupters were more to do with some science fiction horror story than their own public health.
Yet the reality is that this is a critical public health and animal health issue.
Presently, Community chemicals legislation fails to address the risk that endocrine disrupters pose.
It is a worrying fact that the human body contains more than 100 chemicals which were not present 50 years ago.
Numerous female health problems have been linked to exposure to endocrine-disrupting substances.
There is also a possible link between such substances - as other colleagues this evening have mentioned - with increased incidences of breast cancers, other cancers and the lowering of sperm count.
The impact this may have on the health and reproduction of both humans and wildlife is worrying, with children, pregnant workers and other vulnerable workers being some of the most sensitive groups.
A further problem is the fact that it is almost impossible to set limit values for hormone-mimicking substances.
From the consumer's point of view it has been suggested that the balance of proof be changed to require manufacturers to prove at least a reasonable certainty of no harm before putting any product on the market.
Wider availability of information is also recommended under the right-to-know principle.
There is a need for more research to enable us to act quickly, effectively and with certainty.
The need for a European strategy is critical.
That is why this report is so important.
More information, more public awareness and, most importantly, more research is what is needed.
I thank the rapporteur for this report and I recommend it to the House.
First I would like to express my appreciation for the Parliament response to the Commission communication on a Community strategy for endocrine disrupters and for the work of the rapporteur, Mr Lund.
There is hardly any conference on the topic of chemicals that does not touch on the subject of endocrine disrupters.
One of the reasons for this is the significant potential damage that such substances can cause to animals and human beings and, most importantly, to the unborn foetus and our reproductive capacity.
It is difficult to imagine a more unsustainable trend than one that would lead to deterioration in our capacity to reproduce.
The area of endocrine disrupters is a complex one where there are still many questions to be answered.
There are certain things we know.
For some we can make predictions with confidence and others where we are faced with considerable uncertainty.
What we do know is that a number of man-made chemicals that have been released into the environment, as well as a few natural ones, have the potential to disrupt the endocrine system of animals, including humans.
Among these are persistent bio-accumulative compounds that include some pesticides and industrial chemicals as well as other synthetic products.
Many wildlife populations are already affected by these compounds.
There are adequate quantitative data showing a causal link between exposure to these substances and a reduction in reproductive success in wildlife.
There are also some general conclusions that have been drawn by the research community such as the fact that the chemicals concerned have entirely different effects, as Mr Arvidsson said, on embryos, foetuses and perinatal organisms than on adults and that effects are more often manifested in offspring, rather than in a parent that has suffered exposure.
However, there are also many uncertainties since the nature and extent of the effects of exposure on humans are not well established.
Information is limited, especially on concentrations of contamination in embryos.
The need for further examination of the potential risks of such substances to fill the knowledge gaps so we can take appropriate action is the very reason why I presented the proposal for a Community strategy for endocrine disrupters.
All of us have the right to know and the obligation to learn.
Let me turn to the key elements of the strategy.
The basis for it is the precautionary principle.
I am pleased that Parliament supports the Commission objective to identify appropriate policy action on the basis of the precautionary principle in order to respond quickly and effectively to the problem of endocrine disruption.
This principle and the need to develop quick and effective risk management strategies in relation to endocrine disrupters was also stressed by the Environmental Council in its conclusions of 30 March.
At the same time, Parliament perceives a lack of ambition in the Commission strategy concerning the need to reduce human exposure to endocrine disrupters and protect wildlife.
This I would like to address at the outset with a number of comments.
There are two core components of the Commission strategy.
One is further research and development and the other is the development of agreed test methods.
Regarding research and development, the Commission's main instrument is the fifth framework programme on research and development.
I am pleased to inform you that endocrine disruption has been highlighted as a priority research topic in the latest revision of the relevant programmes concerning human health and the environment.
The Commission is also planning a dedicated call for proposals on endocrine disruption which will serve to further reinforce endocrine disruption research.
The recommendations in the Parliament motion for a resolution will be taken into account.
Regarding the development of agreed test methods, this will require a two-to-four year horizon.
Agreement on test methods aims to ensure that everyone involved agrees that the tests designed to detect the right elements and the test results can be interpreted in a uniform way.
Without such agreement we will constantly be faced, not just with scientific uncertainty but with opposing views on the science.
For this reason we believe that legislative action to reduce exposure in a comprehensive manner, on the basis of the precautionary principle, can be considered only when agreed test methods are available.
Agreed test methods are also necessary to launch a comprehensive exercise in the search for substitutes.
Otherwise, possible substitutes may be open to the same suspicion as the substances they replace.
At the same time we need to take into account existing scientific evidence.
That is why we make provision in the short term to act without agreed test methods on the basis of the precautionary principle and on a case-by-case basis.
Parliament supports the Commission objective to identify a first set of endocrine disrupting substances by the end of this year and to identify specific cases of consumer use and eco-system exposure for special action without awaiting further tests.
An analysis of existing legal instruments relating to endocrine disrupters will also be part of this exercise.
Let me make two comments on this.
First, the Commission objective of the end of 2000 is based on a two-step process: firstly a candidate list compiled by consultants and secondly prioritisation.
Commission adoption of a proposal for prioritisation will follow.
So far, only the candidate list has been completed.
The second step of this exercise involves consultation with stakeholders in which we aim to achieve as wide a consensus as possible on priority substances.
I cannot give a commitment now that all 553 candidate substances will be on the priority list without pre-empting the outcome of the stakeholders' discussions, which are under way.
The Scientific Committee as well as industry have been critical of the candidate list, the BKH report.
In contrast, initial comments received from Member States and NGOs indicate support for the report as a valid starting point.
The Scientific Committee's criticisms of the scientific shortcomings of the report will be addressed in the next stages of prioritisation and further evaluation.
I would like to add here that some of the criticisms are based on the false assumption that a group of 60 substances identified in this report will be the priority substances.
These substances are in fact part of a candidate list of 553 substances on which discussions on priorities are still under way.
It is also important to bear in mind that the list to be established must be a dynamic one.
New substances can be added or indeed initial substances removed as new evidence comes to light.
My second comment in relation to the priority list of substances concerns the request in the motion for a resolution for a decision on intervention on specific cases by mid-2001.
In order to identify specific cases for special action from the priority list, a more in-depth evaluation will be required on consumer uses and eco-system exposure.
In addition, the role of the scientific committees in providing independent scientific advice will be crucial in these specific cases.
It is ambitious to expect to achieve these goals in six months.
However, we will use our best endeavours to work as quickly as possible.
Finally, as you are aware, the Commission intends to present a White Paper on the overall chemicals policy by the end of this year.
We are working on that right now and I have seen the first drafts.
One of the fundamental principles for this policy is to ensure a high level of protection.
Clearly the endocrine disrupting strategy must be consistent with the overall policy on chemicals.
A number of specific elements in Parliament's motion for a resolution, such as the shifting of the burden of proof, a redefinition of the responsibility of manufacturers, a review of labelling legislation and grouping of chemicals for screening and testing, must be and are being addressed in the context of this overall chemicals policy.
The views of Parliament expressed in the motion for a resolution will be taken into account in the White Paper under preparation.
Finally, regarding international cooperation and information exchange, the Commission is organising a workshop on endocrine disrupters in the first half of 2001 with the sponsorship of the World Health Organisation among others.
This workshop will convene all stakeholders to take stock of progress and make further recommendations on the development of test methods and testing strategy, research and the establishment of monitoring programmes.
I should again like to thank Parliament for its support in addressing this issue and I would like to underline the Commission's commitment to implementation of its strategy and to taking on board the elements of the Parliament motion for a resolution in a comprehensive way.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Processed fruit and vegetables
The next item is the report (A5-0273/2000) by Mr Jové Peres, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2200/96 on the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables, Regulation (EC) No 2201/96 on the common organisation of the market in processed fruit and vegetables and Regulation (EC) No 2202/96 introducing a Community aid scheme for producers of certain citrus fruits [COM(2000)433 - C5-0391/2000 - 2000/0191(CNS)]
Madam President, the Commission has presented a proposal which, under the semblance of a technical adjustment, conceals new budget restrictions for a sector itself already discriminated against within the common agricultural policy.
In recent years, fluctuations in the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar and other circumstances have brought the level of aid down to half the level it was at four years ago.
The Commission' s proposal, however, consists in stabilising aid at the reduced level and granting aid directly to producer organisations, with which the minimum price regime will disappear.
Before the end of the year, the Commission is to submit a report on the operation of the COM on fruit and vegetables, possibly supplementing it with new proposals for reform.
The Commission justifies the proposal we are now examining on the grounds of urgency.
Now, without questioning the urgent nature of the issues dealt with by the Commission, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has identified other urgent issues and also upholds different figures from those in the Commission' s proposal.
One of the urgent priorities for the Agriculture Committee is the strengthening of producer organisations.
The problem is that, after the 1996 reform of the COM, the producer organisations became its main instrument.
Currently, however, only 40% of fruit and vegetable production is pooled within producer organisations.
A COM that only covers 40% of production does not deserve the name.
Therefore, if there is any urgency, it lies in encouraging the pooling of supply within producer groups.
Since this is an exception in the common agricultural policy and the producers themselves have to cofinance the operational funds, an increase in Community funding is clearly the most obvious instrument for achieving this objective.
The Agriculture Committee has therefore proposed an increase in the percentage of Community financing for certain joint schemes involving several producer organisations under certain conditions, especially in the regions most dependent on fruit and vegetable production, or for associations or mergers of producer organisations.
The differences in the figures between the Commission' s proposal and that of the Agriculture Committee, which was, in fact, passed almost unanimously, basically centre on aid levels and processing thresholds.
The aid requested by the Agriculture Committee may seem excessively high, but we must not allow ourselves to be deceived.
What is happening is that the aid levels proposed by the Commission are excessively low and are intended to convert a temporary situation into something permanent, thus eroding farmers' incomes.
This temporary situation has been brought about by fluctuations in the exchange rate between the euro and the dollar and particular events on the markets.
The Agriculture Committee' s line is in fact limited to restoring pre-1996 aid levels.
Furthermore, on the subject of aid, the disappearance of the minimum price and paying aid directly through producer organisations may cause problems, particularly in the main fruit and vegetable producing countries.
A reasonable level of aid would allow producers' incomes to be maintained in a particularly difficult situation.
To avoid absurd situations of systematic penalisation, the Agriculture Committee has decided to propose setting it at the level of what was produced in recent years.
In this way we hope to tailor the aid to the production structure and the ability of the market to absorb the supply, without running the risk of creating surpluses.
One may ask how the amendments will be financed.
You see, fruit and vegetables currently receive EUR 445 million less than the ceiling set in the Financial Perspective.
It is true that budget neutrality must be respected, but we have to agree on what that means.
In my view, budget neutrality consists in keeping within the limits set when the Financial Perspective was adopted.
The Commission, however, intends to reduce spending to below the all-time minimum.
I believe that discussion should focus essentially on how to achieve the objectives allocated to the COM and thereafter on establishing budget commitments.
It often seems that less is demanded of institutions if they restrict themselves to proposing budget savings.
Our main concern should be to improve the effectiveness of the instruments that we have all built up together.
Without a budget there can be no building of Europe, and the budget for the fruit and vegetable sector symbolises and reflects many of the main social and territorial imbalances in the common policy.
I should like to end by thanking my colleagues on the Agriculture Committee.
Their understanding and efforts were of great help in reaching a final agreement, which enabled me to draw up this frankly rather difficult report.
Madam President, Commissioner, tomorrow Parliament is to vote on the proposal for reform in the processed fruit and vegetable sector.
I believe this reform is necessary, but in its proposal the European Commission is not moving in exactly the right direction.
The objective of promoting supply pooling must be met by encouraging producer organisations.
Last year, as Mr Jové Peres has said, only 40% of production was marketed through producer associations.
Therefore, the amendments approved by the Agriculture Committee and Rural Development, under which up to 50% of the costs of creation and operation can be cofinanced under the EAGGF guarantee for the first five years, answer a need, Commissioner, as does covering the financial aid of 3 to 4.5%, as approved by the Agriculture Committee, of the produce marketed by each producer organisation.
We are not happy with the thresholds proposed by the European Commission, since they should be adjusted in accordance with market fluctuations.
Therefore the approved amendments proposed by the rapporteur on this matter enjoy our full approval.
The list of products should be extended to include those that may be vulnerable to major falls in prices due to the weather or for cyclical reasons.
The Commission' s proposal to reduce the maximum citrus-fruit withdrawal ceiling from 10% to 5% is unjustified and I believe it should not be upheld.
Certain instruments for regulating the market in emergency crisis situations must be introduced to act as a safety net, for example, by exceeding the withdrawal ceiling by about 10% in the event of serious crises.
There is a gap in the area of labelling.
The legislation in force on this issue needs to be changed so that the consumer may be kept fully informed and know whether the product has been made from fresh fruit or not.
This is a request and complaint that consumers are always making.
I support the amendments affecting tomatoes, pears, peaches, cherries, apricots and asparagus, which are of major regional importance and should receive a fixed amount of aid per hectare to improve their competitiveness.
With regard to dry fruit and nuts, especially hazelnuts, the request to extend the period of aid given to producer organisations that have implemented their improvement plans is still valid, as are the measures specific to this sector which are due to expire in the next round even though there has been no change in their circumstances.
The analysis of the reforms, which the Agriculture Committee and Rural Development has so insistently called for, should be submitted by 30 June 2001 so that we can see how the sector has been performing.
These reforms mean a budget increase, but within the line approved at the Berlin European Summit.
The Commission should do its sums again in view of the fact that this ceiling is not exceeded.
The difference between the Commission' s proposals and the European Parliament' s is EUR 151.
Budget neutrality, Commissioner, does not mean that expenditure under the proposal does not exceed what is currently spent but rather that it stays within what was agreed at the Berlin European Summit.
I take this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteur and I applaud the teamwork we have achieved.
I believe this has been one of the proposals most based on give and take and finding a balance that we have seen in this Parliament.
Madam President, this debate is a consequence of the Commission' s proposed reform of three regulations: on fruit and vegetables, products derived from fruit and vegetables, and the aid scheme for producers of certain citrus fruits.
As has been pointed out, the Commission has acted without awaiting the report on the operation of Regulation (EC) No 2020/1996, which, according to the Commission, will be available by the end of this year.
The fact that it has not waited for this document - as would have seemed more natural - and has initiated the reform reveals that the Commission either has little interest in the results of its report or could not care less about its contents.
With this action, one cannot help feeling that the Commission is determined to reform these regulations at any price. Is the reform that urgent?
In my view, if the question is whether or not the regulations need reforming, the answer is yes; but, on the other hand, if the question is whether the reform they need is that contained in the Commission' s proposal, then the answer is clearly no, because improvements in the operating mechanisms of the sector must not be achieved at the expense of precisely one of the sectors that receives least support in Community budgets.
Since the details given in the report are not known, they cannot grab our attention.
The fruit and vegetable sector accounts for an important share of final agricultural production of some 15%, while the financial effort is small and getting even smaller.
Whereas, in 1995, it accounted for 5.3% of all spending under the EAGGF guarantee, in 1999 it was down to 3.6%.
Added to this are two important details: first the importance of this sector for employment, and, secondly, the frequent concessions affecting the fruit and vegetable sector made under trade agreements with third countries.
We do not intend to oppose these agreements or criticise them, because they are an exercise in solidarity with third-world and developing countries, but it does not seem sensible that the price of solidarity should be paid exclusively by a sector that has never been treated well in Community budgets.
We are going to support Mr Jové Peres' s report without any hesitation. It is an excellent report - for which we congratulate the rapporteur - which provides a balanced reflection of the various interests and agreements involved.
Its proposals, such as those that correct the most unfair aspects of the Commission' s proposal, may have favourable consequences.
Our support will be unconditional and unqualified.
Moreover, I give this support in the belief that the Council will be more sensitive than the Commission to the reasoned and reasonable proposals of the European Parliament.
Madam President, Commissioner, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance generally supports the report by the rapporteur, Mr Jové Peres.
We are convinced that the Commission' s proposal is restrictive in budgetary terms, which would mean major financial cut-backs in the sector.
It should be remembered that the fruit and vegetable sector is the first common organisation of the market to be financed by its own producers, so it is vitally important to encourage producer organisations and to support an increase in operational funds.
It must be stressed that the fruit and vegetable sector represents a considerable percentage of final agricultural production in the European Union.
Yet it only accounts for 4% of the EAGGF guarantee budget.
It should also be remembered that there was broad consensus within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development when this report was approved.
I must mention the predominantly Mediterranean nature of this type of production, which affects several Member States.
It is a sector which directly and indirectly generates a vast number of jobs, resulting in highly dynamic economic activity.
In general terms it is the main source of income for almost two million families in Europe.
It must be stressed that producer organisations, which will be strengthened and encouraged by the amendment introduced by the Agriculture Committee, are extremely important for the rural development of certain districts.
Fruit and vegetable production is closely linked to the Mediterranean culture and diet, the greatest exponent of a balanced, healthy diet for our consumers.
Therefore, an objective that producer organisations must prioritise is the encouragement of quality production.
The fruit and vegetable sector, however, faces an uncertain future due in part to the erosion of Community preference in the Euro-Mediterranean free trade area, which may wipe out all the work that has been done.
We must therefore maintain a constructive and vigilant attitude for the future.
Madam President, the Commission' s proposal for an amendment to the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables is exacerbating the problems of the current market organisation and the unfairness of the CAP.
It is also creating greater difficulties for fruit and vegetable growers. Particularly serious are the measures designed to abolish the minimum price, which affects tomatoes destined for processing, the reduction in the limit for aid for operational funds from 4.5% to 3% of the value of the production marketed by each producer organisation, the precautionary reduction of 9.1% of the amount of aid for the first marketing year following the reform of the COM and a reduction in the citrus fruit withdrawal ceiling.
A sector as important in economic, social and strategic terms as this one, particularly for Portugal, with considerable scope for job creation and for supporting the rural development of huge areas of the countries of southern Europe, deserves special attention, which it is not receiving from the Commission.
The amendments tabled by the rapporteur, Mr Jové Peres, therefore deserve our support, since they seek to correct the unacceptable views held by the Commission, specifically in its proposals against increasing aid to farmers, on increasing thresholds and on resetting ceilings for aid to producer organisations.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after the market organisation in wine and olive oil we now have the market organisation in fruit and vegetables, which is also of concern to the southern countries.
In fact, the majority of speakers have been Spanish.
Our friend and colleague, Mr Jové Peres, has produced an excellent report, which deals with a subject that is both extremely serious and extremely symbolic. It is serious not only because of the numbers involved - almost two million families, or 500 000 jobs are, as we have already heard, affected - but also because, behind the failure of the 1996 reform, there are nevertheless women, men and rural regions which, Mr Fischler, the European Commission has deliberately condemned.
In France, in Provence to be exact, for a holding of 40 hectares of apples, production costs are twice the sales price, which means that a holding producing 40 000 apples loses EUR 320 000 per hectare per annum.
This holding will disappear.
To whom shall we apportion the blame? It is not the fault of the tree growers; they have tried to form producer organisations and to build up part-financed operational funds.
But in order to do this they need to have revenue and in order to have revenue they must sell.
But they do not manage to sell because the powerful purchasing and distribution groups buy outside Europe - obtaining pears from Argentina and apples from Chile, New Zealand and South Africa. Supplies are acquired from these countries because they are cheaper, because workers in the southern Mediterranean or the Pacific have no social protection, because customs duties have been abolished, and because the European Commission is suffering from mad diplomacy disease, that is, the disease of global free exchange!
In the name of a global foreign policy, Brussels has sacrificed our tree growers, our market gardeners and our horticulturists, who have become a currency of exchange in the free exchange culture.
The deal is well known: fruit and vegetables, flowers and wine in the southern hemisphere and, perhaps, industry in the north.
So, in the words of Comrade Lenin, 'what is to be done?' . Obviously we must adopt the excellent relief amendments put forward by Mr Jové Peres, who has produced an outstanding report, and those of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, without the pretext of budgetary neutrality.
There is no lack of money to throw at Kosovo, at the Balkans, at Indonesia and at Asia. But if we do not put an end to the global drift in European integration, little by little not only will the farmers disappear, but the whole of Europe will drown in the ocean of the global market.
Madam President, Commissioner, when developing any strategy, before starting to distort the past and adopt new operating guidelines, one must analyse how much has been achieved.
It would now seem to be irrefutable that since 1996 - the year which saw a complete revision of the COM in processed fruit and vegetables - there has not been any form of discussion, even though it had always been intended, on the impact of the COM in that sector, despite the fact that it has reached its third year of application: a period of time that has to be seen as long enough for introducing any reform initiative.
The interests of an entire industry are at stake, an industry which employs almost 2 million people in the central southern areas of the Mediterranean countries, universally acknowledged to be among the poorest countries in the European Union.
The fruit and vegetable sector is struggling between production quotas and world-wide liberalisation of the markets for want of a policy for research into biotechnological innovations.
It is the processing sector which feels the effects of the Marrakech international agreements most of all, even though it accounts for 16% of the value of European Union agricultural production.
If the philosophy behind the new COM is to promote the system of associations of producer organisations as an alternative and a complement to the European economic system of large-scale distributors, it would be appropriate for this policy to be bolstered with the financial resources needed to implement the operational programmes, ensuring real financial assistance of at least 4.5% of the marketed production instead of the 3% proposed by the Commission.
In order to be able to continue to work, producers are calling for the adoption of legislation which will support the development of the fruit and vegetable sector, not hamper it.
Madam President, Commissioner, the market organisation in fruit and vegetables was reformed in 1997 and, three years down the line, the results have not lived up to expectations.
Based on reinforcing the economic power of producers, creating collective projects and contracting with public authorities within the framework of part-financed operational funds, the results of this reform have finally proved to be inadequate and disappointing.
The reform has not brought the future we all hoped for at the outset because, in fact, as was highlighted by a previous speaker, the membership rate of the producer organisations has remained very low: less than 40%.
Under these conditions, the producer organisations have been unable to have a real impact on controlling and promoting products in the fruit and vegetables sector.
At the same time, although the EAGGF budget for this sector has been increasing steadily since 1997, it has nonetheless always been tightened during the accounting period because of the actual under-utilisation of appropriations due to the unsuitability of the rules of allocation.
We are thus faced with a paradoxical situation where one of the most important sectors of European agriculture, which covers 20% of production units, employs a great deal of manpower in production and processing, and accounts for 16% of final agricultural production, is ultimately one of the sectors least taken into account by the common agricultural policy.
Against this background, I naturally want to highlight the opportunity provided by the Commission proposal that we are debating this evening.
But I want, above all, to congratulate Mr Jové Peres on the quality of his report, whose judicious proposals aim to improve even more significantly the results of this production channel for the countries of southern Europe, most notably by setting public support at 4.5% of the value of the marketed production and by increasing it in some cases to 6% in order to encourage producer organisations to pool their produce.
Finally, I hope that the Council of Ministers will make a speedy decision in respect of this reform so that it can come into force in 2001 with the appropriate funding.
Madam President, our rapporteur did an excellent job.
It was a difficult topic to deal with in the middle of this crisis which has struck the vegetable and fruit sector in certain parts of Europe.
I subscribe to that analysis, and we must also use that analysis in the forthcoming WTO negotiations so that we can adopt a firm stance in favour of those products which do not enjoy market protection.
These, too, must be protected.
The second point I would like to highlight is the position of the producers.
I subscribe to the rapporteur' s plea to intensify support for the producers and to strengthen their position, and I consider these initiatives to be essential.
For in the present commotion caused by buying-in organisations which operate on behalf of supermarkets, the question could gradually arise of whether there might not be too much merging and amalgamating on the part of these organisations, and of whether the latter might not slowly but surely be securing monopoly positions for themselves.
There is only one possible answer to this: the producer organisations need to adopt a more powerful stance and improve the way in which they are organised.
In my view, this would be more effective than injecting more money into the sector.
The sector must secure a stronger market position.
And I must also say that, in my view, this is more effective, especially with regard to vegetables and fruit, as well as delicate products which need to be sold quickly.
I would like to make a number of observations with regard to the distribution of processing and threshold quotas across the countries.
I have noticed that these are not evenly distributed on a number of counts.
And I am also expecting the rapporteur to produce an oral amendment tomorrow with regard to at least one of the countries involved in the processing of pears.
But if you consider the distribution across the Southern countries, for example the position of Portugal compared to other countries, one can ask oneself whether this distribution is even in every respect.
In principle, I would like to say, and in that sense I would also like to follow the line adopted by our spokesperson, Mrs Rodondo, that it is essential to strengthen the position of producers and for producer organisations to become stronger, because I can tell you, this is necessary; they must secure a firmer foothold in the market, and the policy will need to be drafted to that effect.
While we have a common organisation of the market and claim, on the one hand, that we do not want more money injected into it, this will only be effective if we, on the other hand, also consider the production side and possibly a certain level of control of this.
But in this report, I am precisely in favour of strengthening producer organisations, also by way of responding to this report.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on 12 July the Commission presented a proposal for amending the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables, although we are expecting an evaluation report from the Commission in December 2000 on functioning of this very market organisation.
If we change some points now in anticipation of that, the Commission will then have to use this evaluation immediately to review the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables and make the necessary changes.
Joining together producer groups and forming producer associations, and commercial cooperation between producer organisations from various regions, are all particularly important for the fruit and vegetables market sector.
This should be the starting point for the COM.
Nevertheless, we also have to bear in mind those farmers who energetically sell part of their production direct to consumers from their farms, for the benefit of themselves and their families.
For many farms, direct sales bring much-needed additional income, and they are often run by farmers' wives as an independent part of the business.
Furthermore, direct sales from the farm emphasise the regional nature of products and thus appeal to a certain type of consumer.
The amendment to Article 11(1)(c) must therefore be framed in such a way that producers, in agreement with producer groups, can sell a proportion of their products - to be agreed on a case-by-case basis - direct to consumers for their personal use.
If the present rigid limit is maintained, producer organisations will be obliged to expel members who do not respect these rules.
The result would be that the producer organisations' sales volume would fall and that they would lose their influence over these producers' direct sales activities, as regards complying with quality standards, observing production guidelines and pursuing joint market strategies.
I therefore ask you to take this into account also.
Madam President, Commissioner, the fruit and vegetable production that concerns us today is concentrated in the countries of southern Europe and accounts for 13% of the final agricultural production of the whole European Union, reaching 25% in most of the producer countries.
In several provinces in southern Spain the proportion is over 80% and it is the only driving force for development and employment in the rural areas.
In addition, this produce has lost Community preference and has to compete abroad without the shelter of compensation that the traditional continental products enjoy, through roughly 70% of the EAGGF appropriations.
Commissioner, this sector seems to be the hard currency used in preferential agreements with third countries and in the subsequent reviews of their protocols, with the added disadvantage that these countries produce without the economic, social and environmental conditions we have in Europe, but with the same timetables as our own producing areas.
This situation is neither fair nor equitable, because it is neither fair nor equitable to have to compete abroad without the protection that continental products enjoy.
Neither is it fair and equitable if the budget neutrality set at EUR 1 900 million in Agenda 2000 is not fulfilled because of internal obstacles and penalties incurred through the regulations.
In conclusion, I believe this proposal clearly leaves room for improvement, and the report by Mr Jové, whom I most sincerely congratulate, sets the standard for doing so.
This would be both appropriate and fair.
Madam President, Commissioner, the Commission' s proposal on fruit and vegetable policy is full of shortcomings and quite inadequate and I should like to highlight four aspects to demonstrate this.
Firstly, the guarantee thresholds for different types of fruit and vegetable need to be raised with a view to harmonising the real production of the European Union and responding better to levels of demand.
This is why I would particularly highlight the need for guarantee thresholds to be raised for tomatoes grown for processing in Portugal, which should at least approach the figure of 953 000 tonnes set at the Berlin Summit.
Secondly, I wish to point out that the level of aid per tonne proposed by the Commission is quite inadequate. I think that what is needed is an increase of the kind proposed by the rapporteur.
The truth is that the abolition of the minimum price, which is about to end, will result in a considerable reduction in prices paid for produce and we need to ensure that farmers' incomes do not suffer as a result.
Thirdly, the level of operational funds is also completely inadequate.
In fact, as the rapporteur proposes, unless the level of financing the funds improves, we will not be able to improve the way in which producer groups work.
Finally, I wish to say that the Commission has wasted a superb opportunity to make the CAP a little fairer. As the Commissioner knows, a sector that accounts for 16% of agricultural production only receives 4%, in fact less than 4%, of the budget.
The European Union' s fruit and vegetable producers are at the moment basically living from their income from the market, in other words, from what they sell on the market. They suffer the risks and uncertainties inherent in the market and are pitted against fellow farmers in other countries, who produce other products such as cereals, oilseed, beef, milk and so forth, and whose income is guaranteed by the CAP, with no risk to themselves.
Commissioner, we must put an end to this inconsistency within the CAP as soon as possible.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have great sympathy for the efforts being made by the Commission and the Commissioner to make savings, which is quite justifiable.
But without wishing to indulge in special pleading, the situation in the fruit and vegetable sector is visibly deteriorating.
Growth in volume, imports from third countries, fluctuations in consumption - be it in quantity or quality - are the most important reasons for this.
The situation is becoming more critical, even if it is not as critical as Mr Martinez says. For example, you can live very well from 40 hectares in the area I come from, the South Tyrol.
So it is not quite that bad, but nevertheless ...
For example, when you consider that the fruit and vegetable sector is allocated 3.8% of the relevant budget, as compared with the 41% allocated to arable crops, then you cannot help feeling that a decimal point might have been put in the wrong place.
Unfortunately, the decimal point is in the right place.
We are talking about just 3.8%.
This is a handicap that works to the advantage of another agricultural sector, that is arable crops, where there is surely more room for manoeuvre than in the case of fruit and vegetables.
International trade agreements are to some extent at the expense of this fruit and vegetable sector and therefore benefit other sectors.
I believe that this additional financial restriction will be hard to cope with and I hope that the Commissioner, the Commission and the Council will have the insight to make sure that a third handicap is not added to the two existing ones simply because of a desire to make additional savings in a particular way here, and that Parliament's wishes and proposals and those of the rapporteur and of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development will be taken into account.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, before I go into the details of the report, I would like to thank both Mr Jové Perez for his report, and the members of the Committee for the time and effort they have devoted to the 61 amendments.
One thing is clear to me: as with any totally new system, the practical experience that we have gained in recent years suggests that the market organisation for fruit and vegetables must be the subject of a review as well, and it must also be fine-tuned.
The Member States and the representatives of the sector itself agree with the Commission that there are some key problems that we should solve as quickly as possible.
That was the reason why the Commission to some extent anticipated the report and brought forward this proposal for discussion without waiting for the final report.
We concentrated on four areas: the double upper limit for financing the operational fund, the operation of the support system for tomatoes for processing, the level of quotas for tomatoes, citrus fruits and pears, and export refunds.
But the fact that we anticipated these four areas does not mean that we will not present the report required in the COM.
We will do that in any case, and will we do so before the year is out.
However, as I can see from many amendments, you have taken advantage of this opportunity, and in addition to the four subjects brought forward for debate by the Commission, you have also anticipated the final report.
There is accordingly a certain discrepancy between the Commission's views and what you are proposing here.
What principles has the Commission been guided by in producing its proposal? In view of the budget situation and the Berlin decisions, any proposal that would have led to substantial increases in budgetary expenditure in favour of a specific sector would have been unrealistic.
The proposal is therefore based on the principle of budgetary neutrality.
I am of course aware that appropriations for the fruit and vegetable sector - leaving bananas aside - have fallen since the 1996 reform and that the Agenda 2000 forecasts have also not been fully met. Two factors are chiefly responsible for this.
First, expenditure on support for the operating fund has risen far less than expected, the reason for this being that the number of members in the producer organisations has not grown as much as was hoped, and, second, rising world prices and value of the dollar had to be taken into account when calculating processing aid.
Finally, the Commission proposal aims at extensive simplification, by harmonising the existing processing rules for the most important products and also making them more transparent.
For tomatoes, pears, peaches and citrus fruits, individual thresholds for Member States have been set in addition to the Community threshold, and permanent aid is paid direct to the producer organisations.
One advantage of the proposed amendment is that on the basis of the future aid contribution - which has now been set for an indefinite period - the producer organisations can freely negotiate the price for unprocessed products.
This will make minimum prices superfluous in future.
Furthermore, the introduction of a single guaranteed upper limit for contributions to the operational fund will simplify both the creation and implementation of operational programmes.
With these principles in mind, I would now like to turn to the amendments you have proposed.
As I see it, they can be divided into three groups. The first group consists of general comments on the COM.
Amendments Nos 1, 2, 44 and 19 relate to strengthening the role of the producer organisations, Amendments Nos 8, 14, 26, 27 and 35 relate to increased support for peripheral regions and less favoured regions, and to trade measures; Amendments Nos 17, 48, 49, 50, 55, 56 and 59 relate to reporting arrangements for the COM.
Amendments Nos 3 and 4 are about an increase in EU appropriations for the fruit and vegetable sector.
As I see it, none of these general comments on the COM has any place in the proposal before us, because they anticipate the proposal that we are still considering, and should therefore be discussed in conjunction with this report.
The second group of amendments are specific requests relating to the functioning of the COM, for example Amendment No 5 on new raw manure, and Amendments Nos 27, 21, 25 and 34 on special support measures for severe crises.
Amendment No 18 is intended to improve the scope for direct sales, and Amendments Nos 22 to 24 relate to the operational fund.
Amendments Nos 28 to 30, 33, 36, 37 and 38 concern inter-branch organisations, nuts and withdrawal.
As with the first group of amendment, the proposal we are discussing today is not the right place for these amendments and I cannot therefore accept them.
But I do admit that both groups contain some interesting points which the Commission will carefully consider in relation to the reports to be presented by the year end.
I would like to point out that a proposal to the Council adopted on 5 October already covers consideration of an increase in appropriations for nuts.
The third group of amendments does relate to the proposal actually being debated here.
Amendments Nos 6 and 25 propose an increase in Community support via the operational funds.
The aim of Amendments Nos 31 and 32 is to strike out the reductions in market withdrawal ceilings proposed by the Commission.
Amendments Nos 67 and 68 address water consumption, and Amendments Nos 9, 11, 15, 16, 40, 41, 51, 53, 57, 60 and 61 in various ways propose increases or changes in processing thresholds and aid for tomatoes, peaches, pears, and citrus fruits.
Amendment No 39 proposes simplification of the procedure for adjusting new products in the processing sector.
Amendment No 43 relates to transitional arrangements for tomatoes and Amendment No 12 calls for a study on the abolition of the minimum price.
Lastly, Amendments Nos 62 to 66 provide for direct aids for producers not involved in processing.
Most of the amendments in this group would result in an increase in appropriations which in some cases would be substantial, and are thus very much at odds with the principle of budget neutrality.
I cannot therefore accept these amendments.
Of course the issue of the overall level of Community financing for this sector is also to be discussed by the Council on Monday.
I am sure that these discussions will continue, and that this point will also be an important part of the final decision on this proposal.
In my view, Amendments Nos 41, 53, 67 and 68 would complicate the system rather than simplify it, and the framework system does not cover Amendment No 12.
However, the Commission agrees with the substance of Amendment No 39, but we will consider how to improve the drafting for legal purposes.
Amendments Nos 62 to 66 change the existing system in a way that would jeopardise efforts to develop producer organisations.
In conclusion, I would like to make the following comment. Any delay suffered by the Commission proposal would result in most of the changes due to come into force under this proposal with effect from 1 January 2001 or as from the start of financial year 2001/2002 not coming into effect until a year later.
The Commission regards this as an unnecessary disadvantaging of this sector.
That is why this proposal has been presented at this point, and I hope that Parliament will adopt its opinion this week and that the Council will adopt the proposal before the end of the year.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Cod stocks in the Irish Sea
The next item is the report (A5-0276/2000) by Mr Nicholson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing additional technical measures for the recovery of the stock of cod in the Irish Sea (ICES Division VIIa)(COM(2000) 190 - C5-0219/2000 - 2000/0071(CNS)).
Madam President, when I first started to consider drafting this report, I wondered whether it was a wise decision for any politician from Northern Ireland to agree to bring forward a report on Box VIIa in the Irish Sea.
However, I believe that in politics you have to take on board some of the more positive aspects of life.
While this may have been a poisoned chalice initially, I hope that ultimately, I, Parliament and the Commission can together develop something that will be very positive and fruitful for the fishermen who depend on fishing in the Irish Sea.
The report is designed to protect juvenile cod in the Irish Sea.
We have to make it very clear that it is not just designed to protect juvenile cod but also to protect many other species in the Irish Sea.
That is important.
The other species in the Irish Sea will also benefit from this protection.
From that point of view, the one thing that has changed dramatically in recent times is that there is a growing understanding that such protection is necessary.
Perhaps five years ago if you told fishermen in that particular area that there was a need for this, they would have said there was no need for it.
Now there would be a more positive response and a recognition that there is a problem, there has been a problem.
The real question now is how we resolve that problem.
I welcome the cooperation that has existed between the fishermen, their representatives, the Commission and local, regional and national governments, on this particular point.
If we are going to find a way forward, that continued cooperation must exist.
It is positive and has to be built upon.
It must be developed and brought to fruition.
But this cannot be a one-way dialogue.
We cannot have the Commission telling the fishermen that it knows everything.
The Commission must listen to the fishermen, listen to their experience, listen to what they know, take that on board and work and cooperate with them.
This report also requires technical changes: to the mesh size of nets.
It is a very technical report and requires the cooperation of the fishermen with the Commission and regional authorities to ensure that we no longer destroy what was considered a very natural resource in the past.
In Box VIIa in Northern Ireland three ports are totally dependent on the fisheries industry: Kilkeel, Ardglass and Portavogie.
Last year the fishermen in that area had an 11-week closure on their fishing rights.
That was hard.
But in the interests of protecting the juvenile cod and the spawning period, they cooperated and were very positive.
I believe there will also be cooperation next year.
What the fishermen are asking is that the Commission responds to them in a more positive way than it has in the past.
We have to find a way forward. We have to find a resolution to the situation.
That is no easy task way for anyone.
I believe we can find a way through and a positive way forward, but only if everyone cooperates.
I have tried to bring forward amendments which I hope will be helpful.
I hope the Commissioner can be positive in his response.
The technical measures should be reviewed on an annual basis.
That would greatly assist fishermen in that area.
It is not a burden that is easily carried so we require a review every 12 months.
I also hope that the Commissioner can throw a life-line and address the socio-economic hardship associated with the proposals.
Will the Commissioner, if the regional or national governments come forward with a proposal, respond in a positive way and try to find a way forward, to support those fishermen, to improve the technical aspects that need improving, to meet the new standards that have been laid down?
This is a very difficult situation.
It is not an easy one to resolve.
I ask the Commissioner to respond positively.
Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to begin with a variation on a quotation from the poet Heinrich Heine: "If my thoughts at night to fisheries turn, many an hour will I toss and turn".
I might add that if I think about the stock of cod in the Irish Sea, then sleep is truly murdered.
Vigilance is called for, or do you know the reason why cod stocks, which have for years been more depressed to say the least, have been allowed to reach such a historical low? Is it because of the fish, the fisherman, environmental conditions or society at large?
What is the use of integrated coastal zone management, which we will be discussing shortly, when what structurally weak coastal regions need is a new kind of self-image and above all modern jobs?
However, this can only work if the problems of the origin principle and of recrimination, powers and responsibilities can finally be solved at all levels.
Meaningful, technically verifiable measures need to be introduced.
We need binding sanctions, and we need Member States that exercise their right to check origin, even if doing that hits their pockets.
In addition, three things are needed: political will, fishermen who think like businessmen, and the interaction of consumers and entrepreneurs in the market place.
Each of these three strands needs to be underpinned by the same concept - sustainable management of a valuable and irreplaceable food source.
Those immediately involved are jointly responsible, money alone will not solve any problems in the long term, Mr Nicholson!
Nevertheless, technical measures can help nature to recover when it has got out of balance, and, I hope, can help to restock the Irish Sea with cod.
Unfortunately, our society is inclined to skirt round the law.
And it is quite simple to do that in the middle of the night in the Irish Sea.
I believe that with targeted checks and reporting, and a continuous dialogue between those involved at all levels, we can all once again sleep soundly - including me.
That is why the Committee on Fisheries unanimously supported our feisty colleague James Nicholson.
We hope that this House, the Commission, and the Council will follow suit!
Madam President, rapporteur and Commissioner, this report is a tragic tale about a fish which one author has quoted as literally changing the world in the past thousand years. The beginning of this new millennium is very different from the beginning of the last.
There has been a fishing spree across the world touching everywhere, the Irish Sea being no exception, and the results are devastating.
The dramatic decline in cod in the Irish Sea is all too apparent. From 1988 to 1997 the Republic of Ireland's cod catch declined from 5 821 tonnes to 1 492 tonnes.
It takes no mathematician to tell you that conservation is critical if there are to be cod fisheries at all in the Irish Sea.
Before I speak about technical measure, no one has talked about the fish itself.
Did you know that cod will eat anything? Cod are quite lazy fish.
The whiteness which we all enjoy eating actually is due to sluggishness rather than muscle tone yet the irony is that cod is a dieter's delight.
Cod contains only 0.3% fat and boasts 18% protein, and when dried the protein dramatically increases to 80%.
There is no waste in cod.
The range of culinary delights a cod provides is extensive - and there are books written about this.
This report outlines the technical measures which can be used to preserve juvenile cod.
It deals primarily with mesh sizes and nets.
The rapporteur does mention compensation, but I say this with some caution: compensation is a slippery slope.
It can provide short-term solutions for a longer-term problem.
Sustainable fisheries, where fishermen and their families can survive alongside conservation measures, are mutually beneficial.
That will allow cod stocks time to replenish in order to ensure sustainable fisheries again.
Let us make sure that in this millennium people can enjoy cod from the Irish Sea just as much as they did in the last millennium.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Nicholson for the swiftness with which he has submitted his report. This will enable us to vote tomorrow on a Commission proposal which very much needs to be implemented.
I should like, however, to raise a series of questions that have occurred to me regarding Amendments Nos 1 and 2, which ask that the changes in fishing techniques to be adopted under this proposal should be subsidised under the FIFG.
Although in principle I have nothing against aid to fishermen, I do think it should be granted within a specific framework and in accordance with unequivocal criteria, and this is the basis of my question: to clarify what these criteria are.
The rapporteur invokes Articles 15 and 16 of Regulation (EC) No 2792/1999 in support of his request for aid.
I think in any case that only paragraph 2 of Article 16 should be invoked, and I should therefore like the Commissioner to clarify whether the requests in the report would come under the text of the said article. If the measures contained in this proposal can be financed under Article 16(2) of the FIFG, this would mean that any technical measure involving a major restriction in fishing activity could be too.
It must be remembered that by definition any technical measure involves some restriction on the activity.
I think it is worth making this point clear, because it is obvious that any technical measure means an economic loss for fishermen, either directly or indirectly.
If this is the criterion that must be followed, it is also clear that if measures such as those proposed are subsidised, then subsidies will also have to be given to any others deriving from a modification of technical measures which would result in changes in the use of fishing techniques or methods, in other words virtually all the reforms under the technical measures regulation.
Commissioner, I should really like you to clarify this point, seeing that Article 16(2) is open to all kinds of interpretations.
I should like to know what interpretation the Commission gives to Article 16(2).
Thank you, Madam President, and I forgo one minute of my time this evening, which is getting rather long for everyone.
Madam President, I congratulate Mr Nicholson on his excellent report.
He pointed out that in order to be effective such measures require the support of fishermen and scientists who live and work in an area.
This may well prove to be a vital trail-blazer for the strategy of devolved management of fisheries which all of us have been discussing in the context of the reform of the CFP.
It has become increasingly evident that fishermen and scientists working in a specific fishery will more readily adhere to rules and regulations that they themselves have conceived, rather than Brussels hand-me-downs.
The major fisheries organisations in the UK - the Scottish Fishermen's Federation and the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations - which, between them represent the interests of 1900 vessels, both support the concept of zonal management.
Fishermen are also deeply concerned that such rules and regulations may be interpreted and applied differently by fishing vessels from different Member States.
That is why again, zonal fisheries management which involves all fishermen working in a common fishery will ensure that the rules are applied fairly and squarely across the board.
This report is timely, as cod stocks are not only diminishing rapidly in the Irish Sea but are in spiral decline around all the waters of the United Kingdom.
Some years ago when the House of Commons in London drew up an agreement which effectively ended the cod war between the UK and Iceland, it was famously referred to as "the piece of cod which passeth all understanding".
Hopefully this report will mark the beginning of the recovery of cod stocks in the Irish Sea and will pave the way to the future.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to offer my heartfelt thanks to Mr Nicholson for his excellent report.
At the same time, I would like to reassure him that I am perfectly willing to listen to fishermen, especially as I shall be in Ireland the week after next and will be fostering close contacts and entering into discussions with the fishermen there, and with the entire sector.
You are already very familiar with this proposal, so I believe I do not need to present it again here.
I will therefore move straight on to the amendments tabled and I unfortunately have to say that I have some problems with them.
There are two reasons why the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3 and 4, which relate to compensatory aid.
First, this document is about technical measures, and a document on technical measures is not the right place for provisions on compensatory aid.
Second, and even more importantly, there are Member States who have to decide under Regulation 27/97 whether they will offer fishermen compensatory aid for temporarily withdrawing from fishing activity or not.
The other two amendments, Amendments Nos 1 and 2, address a future review of the regulation and the Commission finds them difficult for the following reasons: first, the fact that everyone - the Commission, Member States' administrations and also fishermen themselves - want the regulation to come into force on 1 January 2001.
In my opinion, any delay in this entry into force is to be avoided.
Second, this regulation was drafted on the basis of the outcome of meetings with fishermen, scientific experts and administrators, and we intend to continue with these meetings for as long as the cod crisis continues.
This could well lead to a review of the measures and conditions to be put in place now.
So I ask you to trust us.
We will observe the review conditions in practice.
I cannot accept this amendment if the regulation is to come into force as quickly as possible.
I hope you will understand this.
Madam President, I listened with great interest to the Commissioner.
Maybe he could tell me when he is going to visit either the port of Kilkeel, Ardglass or Portavogie. Could he respond to that?
He said he is going to visit the fishermen. I would love to be there with him.
I would love to accompany him and speak to the fishermen alongside him. Can he tell me when he is going to visit those ports?
Madam President, I mentioned that I am going to Ireland - and I am also visiting Scotland, by the way - and I have left it to the governments and the various authorities there to put together my programme and also to decide which fishermen I should meet there.
So I cannot change that at the moment, but you are more than welcome to accompany me if you wish, Mr Nicholson.
Madam President, I do not want to prolong this but I have a horrible suspicion that the Commissioner is not going to come to Northern Ireland but perhaps to another part of the island of "Ireland" that has nothing to do with Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom.
If he wants to come to Northern Ireland to visit fishermen I would be happy to go with him.
But please do not give me the type of platonic responses you have just given.
I will not accept that.
If you want to defend that to the fishermen you can do so, but I will not be part of it.
Please do not in any way get involved in that type of situation.
Fishing is something on which we all cooperate, in both the north and south of the island.
Do not try to make it a political point of view.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Unbundled access to local loop
The next item is the report (A5-0298/2000) by Mr Clegg, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on unbundled access to the local loop [COM(2000) 394 - C5-0432/2000 - 2000/0185(COD)].
Mr President, colleagues, it is always a pleasure to be debating with each other in such cosy circumstances late at night.
I certainly did not know when I took on the rapporteurship of something as obscure as local loop unbundling that it would be quite so controversial and so complicated as it has proved nor that our discussions would culminate in such nocturnal circumstances.
The local loop unbundling regulation is an important piece of legislation which completes unfinished business from the past but also represents an important step forward into the future.
It completes unfinished business in the past because it is enforcing competition in the final segment of the telecommunications world which until now had escaped earlier liberalising European measures.
At the same time, by ensuring that access to the local loop - the last mile of so-called copper wire - is now open to all new market entrants and is not the exclusive province of the so-called incumbent operators, the regulation will act as a significant boost for increased choice of non-voice services for consumers.
It should lower prices for consumers and act as a boost to the take-up of new fancy broadband services and so point Europe very firmly in a dynamic, forward-looking direction.
As such, it will help fulfil the promise made in Lisbon in March of this year when a number of ambitious targets were set, which, it is said, will help ensure that the gap that has opened between the European Union and the United States in the information economy is closed as soon as possible.
The procedure we had to follow, in order to act as quickly as possible upon the conclusions of the Lisbon Summit and the proposal of the Commission in July, has been unusual.
I am told that if we vote on the report tomorrow and adopt our report as voted in the committee it will be the fastest piece of legislation of this type ever processed by the European Union institutions.
This has only been possible because of an unprecedented degree of cooperation.
Firstly, cooperation with the Commission - and I would like to thank Commissioner Liikanen and all his extremely good officials who have been working on this for their assiduous help throughout the process.
They really have provided us all with an invaluable service.
I would also like to thank the Council for their cooperation, firstly driven by the mandate in the conclusions in the Lisbon summit but also by a particularly effective series of French Presidency initiatives in the Council of Ministers and last and by no means least I would like to express thanks for cooperation within this House.
I have had the privilege and the benefit of working with a number of colleagues of all groups who have pulled together in the committee to produce the report which we will be voting on tomorrow.
I would like to thank all of them for the great cooperation which they have extended to me.
It has not been easy: firstly, because the procedure is difficult, it is new.
Those of us who have worked on it all agree that if this sets a precedent for the future, we could perhaps consider promulgating some rules which will facilitate this kind of process in the future but also some rules on substance.
This is a measure which is clearly going to prove to be painful to some of the incumbent operators involved and I understand that a number of colleagues have been in discussions with incumbent operators and I am very grateful to them for conveying their concerns to me and also working with me to find an appropriate way forward.
We can be proud of the work that we have completed and that I hope we will complete by our vote tomorrow.
It shows that, even in difficult and controversial areas of policy such as this, this House is able to act decisively and clearly when it needs to and for that I would once again like to extend my thanks to all concerned.
Mr President, firstly I would like to express my thanks to the rapporteur.
He has done some excellent work as part of this difficult process, and, taking into account the problems created by this 'fast-track' procedure both for the timetables for the legislative work and parliamentary debate, we should be very satisfied now with the compromise that has been reached.
What is important for consumers is that the regulation should enter into force immediately from the start of the year.
The matter is very urgent, as free price competition in local networks is one of the cornerstones of Europe and, more generally the development of the European information society.
I am particularly satisfied that Parliament, the Council and the Commission were able to work in such close cooperation in this matter and that they treated this complex issue, discussing it constructively, in an atmosphere of understanding that was perhaps unprecedented.
As Parliament hopefully tomorrow will adopt the report, as I sincerely believe and hope it will, in the spirit of consensus achieved, the ball will then be in the Council' s court.
Free competition in local calls will benefit users of the Internet in particular.
The telecommunications monopolies have been charging exorbitant sums of money until now.
The European consumer has, in the worst cases, had to pay ten times more to connect to the Internet than the Americans.
Reduced charges will lower the threshold at which people can start to use the Internet in their everyday tasks.
For example, the limitless possibilities of e-commerce will be within easier reach for Europeans.
Lowering local call charges will benefit everyone, including those who are not excited about byte-inspired adventures and the Internet.
National watchdog agencies have an enormous responsibility to see that the telephone companies that enjoy monopoly status really do open the end of the last copper wire to the new companies in the industry.
It is to be anticipated that some monopolies will try every trick in the book to cling on to their competitive edge.
This will have to be dealt with severely.
The monopolies will have to be prepared to pay substantial sums in compensation if they delay opening up their networks.
Only in this way may we ensure that there is free competition immediately at the start of next year.
On behalf of my group, I hope that tomorrow' s vote has a positive outcome and then the ball really will be in the Council' s court, and we shall be able to apply the new regulations within the framework of new legislation at the beginning of the new year.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my thanks go to Mr Clegg for his excellent work. He has had a rather extraordinary time of it recently, but, despite all that, I must thank him.
For the Commission this is an important and very successful achievement, it must be said.
We have now a record in a field in which developments come so fast that records befit it rather well.
Opening up local networks to competition is a "fast-track" opportunity afforded by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which we are now taking full advantage of, as, otherwise, every day we will be losing money in the shape of exorbitant charges and creating barriers to the process.
In just a few weeks we in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy have dealt with this issue and have, under the leadership of the rapporteur, succeeded in negotiating this proposal with the Commission and the Council, a proposal that must surely be adopted tomorrow without amendment.
This is my firm belief.
We have in practice thus discussed the issue simultaneously with the Commission and the Council, as well as amongst ourselves and with many other parties, and now we have achieved this result, which is nothing to be ashamed about.
Local networks have, I would say, been the greatest bottleneck in the European telecommunications market and now it is being removed, and if it is not, then the national authorities can intervene, and if the prices are not right we then have recourse for compensation.
Consumers and enterprises have lost millions and millions as a result of too high charges.
Now charges for telephone calls, fast Internet connections and multimedia services will come down throughout Europe.
This is just the right measure as far as consumers are concerned, and it will help us too.
The networks have to open up with terms and conditions that are fair and non-discriminatory.
That is very important.
On the other hand, in the parliamentary amendments we have given consideration to the fact that the owners of the network and those who built it should not go penniless: they must receive a fair income for their work and, furthermore, their future investment in the network must be made possible for the future organisation of the infrastructure.
The problem here of course is that privacy will suffer, as now anybody with the permission to do so can install their own equipment at exchanges and switchboards.
Thus, the traditional secrecy of the sound telephone is now truly crumbling.
The auction of radio frequencies, however, is promoting developments in the opposite direction.
It is pushing up charges to the consumer and has led to something like chaos in the market.
This is pushing up charges, as I said, and what is going to happen on the fourth and fifth generation mobile front? States are losing their ability to control matters.
Already things are moving in such a way that an oligopolistic situation is developing, which will result in the market being carved up directly.
It was the case in Holland, and just recently in Italy, that the number of players taking part in auctions was only equivalent to the number of licences available.
This is therefore a matter of a sort of private agreement, which means that the market can no longer function properly.
I propose that the Commission should give an account now, while there is so much data on this, of what all this means.
This is development in the opposite direction to what we have achieved in connection with this regulation.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the opinion of the Communist Party of Greece, telecommunications are a sector of strategic importance and, as such, should be driven not by the quest for profit but by the desire to provide a better universal service.
As part of the European Union's general policy of opening the doors of every sector of social activity to big business, the regulation which we are examining today gives the monopolies what is perhaps the most important chunk of the telecommunications network.
This infrastructure, which has taken a long time and a great deal of public money to develop, is being offered for a mess of potage, with the telecommunications organisations receiving no more than maintenance and operating costs in exchange.
The argument that this will allow new services to develop does not stand up, given that these services can be developed by the telecommunications organisations equally well and, without the strain of having to make huge profits, certainly more cheaply.
The European Commission and the Council are not content with simply handing local loops to the private sector; oh no, they have to do it, and with what haste, in the form of a regulation which will apply immediately.
I believe that we can draw useful conclusions from this example as to whose interests the European Union is actually serving.
At the outset I would like to pay tribute to Mr Clegg who has worked extremely hard over the last few of weeks with a view to ensuring that the final report was well-balanced and reflected the concerns of the difficulties of the various political groups within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
I am satisfied that the text voted by the committee takes into account two issues which were of particular concern to me.
The first one was fair pricing and the second was the provision of a universal service in the context of the further opening of the communications market to competition.
I believe it is important to ensure that the changes take place in a controlled way, to allow all players involved the time to adjust and to guarantee the rights of all consumers.
It is clear that we must all support the upgrading of existing telecommunications infrastructures so that we can take advantage of evolving new technologies.
In my country we are determined that our telecommunications infrastructure be of the highest standard in order to secure new investment into the country.
Investment in our infrastructure is a critical component to the continued success and growth of the Irish economy; in particular, Ireland is aiming to become a world centre of e-commerce.
At the same time it is essential that all citizens be guaranteed the same benefits from the upgrading of telecommunications infrastructures.
The opening-up of the local copper networks to provide competition must lead to all local networks being upgraded in all towns and indeed in all villages.
We must avoid cherry-picking by new entrants who might wish to upgrade only networks in the bigger urban areas.
On the question of fair price, the price charge for access to the local loop must be allowed to reflect sunken costs in addition to a margin for reinvestment.
In this respect I am glad to see that the Commission supports the historical cost formula for pricing.
We must guarantee that existing telecommunications operators can secure adequate financial compensation for opening these local loops.
I believe that the national regulatory authority should be able to play a fair and mediating role between existing operators and new networks.
In conclusion, I believe that it is a fair and well-balanced text.
I should like to thank Mr Clegg for being prepared to listen to so many of his colleagues.
Madam President, Commissioner, the Lisbon extraordinary European Council set a basic strategic objective for the European Union: that of becoming 'the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world'.
For this statement to become reality, it must be followed by measures to liberalise the markets, promote competition and thereby open up access for new suppliers of telecommunications services and in particular Internet services.
In my opinion, the Commission and the European authorities have always been consistent with the Lisbon declarations: I refer, for example, to the proposal for a directive on e-commerce which, with the objective or the excuse of removing a form of discrimination against European producers who distribute information services will, in the end, be penalising the development of e-commerce throughout the whole of Europe.
This is a matter on which we are, however, moving swiftly and, it would appear, genuinely in the right direction.
Our rapporteur, Mr Clegg, has done a good job, making the Commission's proposal clearer and more specific and setting out the necessary conditions for that rapid conclusion of the legislative process which so many of us hope for and for which we too will vote tomorrow.
I would, however, like to take this opportunity to warn the Commission that, once this regulation has been adopted, other obstacles will have to be tackled if the 'last mile' of the telecommunications sector is to be genuinely liberalised as well.
In my country, Italy, the conditions for the liberalisation of the last mile have existed for a long time, but the national telecommunications authority has delayed practical implementation, in particular with regard to fixing price charges for access to the local loop.
In the case of Italy, but also other European countries, this is probably due to the powerful position of the incumbent operator, which is trying to put off the move for as long as possible.
There are parties who have much to lose and, in Italy, there is a conflict of interests between the State as regulator and the State as owner or controller of some of the main telecommunications services companies.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as the previous speakers have already said, we are entering new territory with the Regulation on unbundled access to the local loop.
The accelerated procedure provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam is being used for the first time, that is, there is no second reading.
The aim of this is to approve the Regulation on unbundled access quickly, so that local telecommunications markets can be opened up to competition by the end of the year.
Our initial experience with this procedure suggests that it is only suitable in very exceptional cases, but that it is possible with important subjects like unbundled access to take legislative decisions with all due speed here in this House. I am of course particularly pleased about this.
Without Nicholas Clegg and all his commitment it would not have been possible to consider the regulation so swiftly in committee and here in the plenary and, I hope, to approve it tomorrow.
He has been able to reconcile varying positions and to present Parliament's views to the Council.
My dear Nick, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you again very sincerely for your splendid work!
Why do we need the regulation? Despite the complete liberalisation of the European telecommunications market since 1998, the "last mile", that is the subscriber's link to the network, is at present still in the hands of the "incumbent" telecommunications company.
The regulation is intended to provide for competition in this "last mile".
Only by ensuring that there is true competition in this market segment can we guarantee rapid and low-cost access to the Internet and to multimedia applications in the long term.
This is not only the dream of every Internet user, it is also an urgent necessity in the era of the new economy.
The reality in large parts of Europe is at present very different, so that dialling into the net is expensive, telephone lines are engaged while surfing the Internet, surfing is costly, and there are long waiting times.
According to the latest studies, at the beginning of 2000 only 400 000 Europeans had access to broadband services, compared with 3 million in the USA.
The European Commission has therefore rightly decided to lend a hand here - and quickly.
In my opinion there is no other alternative politically speaking but to approve the regulation in its present form and thus remove the final bottleneck.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, many thanks to Nicholas Clegg also for his hard work.
To give one light-hearted example, his compromise proposals reached me when I was on the way home on the motorway.
Of course I pulled over, in accordance with the law, and then discussed them further with him.
This shows how we worked on this and I think that this was superb.
We are also willing to do this again in future, but we could do with a bit more time now and again to discuss particular points in still greater depth.
Our political objective was to enhance competition and so smooth the path to the information society.
This regulation is intended to achieve a marked improvement in competition in the local access network, with the aim, for example, of giving Internet services better access to the mass market, so that market penetration will increase.
This initiative will ultimately also help to promote the information society.
But quicker and cheaper Internet access without content is worthless.
Above all, the information society must mean investment in people and their skills.
One important point is that the regulation regulates in the spirit of the original telecommunications liberalisation, that is in an asymmetrical way.
This has certainly demonstrated its value when it comes to improving competition.
But this regulation will be superseded in future and we will move on to a new regulatory framework under competition law.In view of that, I would say that Amendment No 13 is particularly important, as it provides for a new Recital 10(a) which emphasises once again that a new regulatory framework will replace this regulation in the not too distant future.
Of at least equal importance is the fact that the Council is not holding up the telecommunications regulatory package.
I also trust that the Council will adopt it soon and that we will continue the consultation procedure on the rest of the package quickly and in a serious manner.
I hope that the Council will not leave us in the lurch should one or other Member State perhaps still have reservations.
Our work should set an example here.
We have reached agreement quickly and effectively, and I hope that the Council will follow suit.
Mr Clegg said in his speech that this was a controversial and complicated piece of work and I think therefore we chose well to appoint him as a rapporteur.
He has been very unflappable throughout and, on behalf of the House, I would like to record that at the time he was successfully decoupling the local loop, he was also making a very successful coupling of his own, by getting married.
I am sure that we all pass on our congratulations to him.
It will not surprise this House to know that, as a representative of the British Conservative Party - and it was the Conservative Government that privatised British Telecom over 17 years ago, probably the first of the large-scale telecom privatisations in Europe - I very much welcome this essential further action to deregulate and open up the market.
In pushing this forward it has been very important for the Commission to lay the foundations with the telecoms package that we are now considering and we very much admire their ambition and their zeal to do this.
My only comment, when looking at the slightly loose wording on some of the timing - for example, that notified operators shall from 31 December meet reasonable requests from beneficiaries - is to ask the Commissioner to assure us that he will be very severe in monitoring this, because there is no point in pushing this text through here if we have very slack and loose implementation in the Member States where this also needs to be pushed through.
Can I also say this that this has been an admirable initiative resulting from the Lisbon summit but a lot of other key aspects concerning moving forward in the new economy were mentioned in Lisbon?
Who is going to use all this new low-cost deregulated capacity? We want to see the new entrepreneurs, the new Internet companies coming into the market.
I remind the Commissioner that one of the other key aspects of Lisbon was the creation of new conditions in the European economy, to get the new investors.
Can I encourage him with the new spirit of adventure that we see here - and perhaps that is not a word that we always associate with the Commission - to move forward with zeal and vigour to achieve these other aspects of Lisbon with the same effectiveness.
Can I start by congratulating Mr Clegg on the speed and quality of his work and also welcoming him to this rather exclusive band of Members who so often are here late at night debating telecommunications issues.
Indeed Commissioner Liikanen's predecessor, Commissioner Bangemann described us once as 'we few, we happy few, we band of brothers'.
He rather ignored the sisters but I think you get the drift from his Shakespearian quote.
I should also like to comment on the legal instrument - the regulation - because it is exceptional and historic and there are very special reasons: reasons of speed - post-Lisbon summit - and reasons of technical consistency which I think we all appreciate and understand.
Parliament must be ready to look at new ways of working, imaginative and, as Mr Harbour says, adventurous.
But we also must make it clear when such measures are appropriate and it is almost certain that the other parts of this latest telecommunications package are going to take rather longer and will be along more traditional lines.
I want to comment too on one very important part of Mr Clegg's proposal which relates to the powers of national regulators and powers of initiative, which I think are very important components in the speedy and consistent enforcement and implementation of this regulation.
Others have mentioned the Lisbon summit and it is of course right to stress that this legislation follows a commitment from the European Union Member States to support the growth and use of the Internet in Europe under the e-Europe action plan.
Much of this would not happen without this promise to provide affordable, high-speed Internet access and we note the importance of unbundling in the success of the e-Europe plan.
It is also true that the combined efforts of the Commission, Parliament and the Council have brought about this legislation as part of an overall effort to modernise telecommunications law.
This effort will bring openness, transparency and competition to the industry while balancing the need for regulation with the desire for liberalisation.
We have more legislation ahead of us and we have to learn the lessons from so much of the legislation with which we have been jointly involved over many years in the past.
Then we tried to look backwards, to extrapolate from what we had done, before looking forwards and guessing, second-guessing or third-guessing what lay ahead of us.
We made mistakes in such a fast-moving and volatile market but I would like to end with the point that if Europe is to stay competitive, to stay in this field, to bring the very real benefits of e-Europe to all the citizens of the European Union, to remain ahead in third-generation mobiles - if I can jump ahead - vis-à-vis the United States of America, it is going to need all our combined efforts to make sure that the total package is safely accomplished.
Madam President, unbundling access to the local loop is intended to open up the level of competition, providing lower prices for the customer and easier, cheaper access to the Internet, fostering technological innovation in the local access area.
I welcome these promised developments.
But as the rapporteur mentioned, many of us have been made aware of the concerns of the local telecommunications provider.
The Irish telecommunications provider, Eirecom, maintains that it should be allowed a reasonable time period to implement the changes and that the 31 December deadline is practically unachievable.
Also, charging for unbundled access to the local loop should be fair and adequate to ensure the long-term development and upgrading of the local access infrastructure.
If it is not financially viable to invest in less populated and less developed areas, it is unlikely to be attractive to new operators.
When we combine this possible scenario with other measures that adversely affect rural areas, such as the liberalisation of the postal service, which threatens the survival of small rural post offices, and the recent closure of many small rural banks, how will the possible reduction of investment in long-term development and upgrade of local access infrastructure affect already disadvantaged rural regions? It is my sincere hope that none of these concerns becomes reality and that in future we avoid the risk of seriously limiting discussion in Parliament by speeding up procedures on issues that will ultimately have the greatest effect on the most vulnerable.
Commissioner, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, behind the somewhat barbaric name of the proposal for a regulation which we are debating this evening, unbundling access to the local loop, an expression moreover which is totally impenetrable for the average citizen, there lies a simple yet serious decision regarding the liberalisation of the local network of voice telephony and data transmission services.
As we have heard this evening, for some in this House, the closing of the final chapter of a public monopoly can only lead to an automatic reduction in the costs of local communications and this can therefore only be positive for consumers.
For others, including me, this is far from being quite so obvious and, above all, quite so automatic.
If unregulated competition always leads to a permanent reduction in prices, and always benefits each and every consumer everywhere, this would have happened long ago.
Moreover, the example of mobile telephony, which is completely open to competition, proves precisely the opposite.
Real prices of calls from mobiles continue to be high and the transparency of costs and prices is far from being guaranteed.
Between the hype and the reality there is not a divide but a chasm.
Many citizens have fallen victim to this and are unable to pay their bill, and resort to declaring their mobile stolen.
Nevertheless, I approve of unbundling, but simple, clear constraints need to be worked out in this area as well in order to define the limits, follow progress and lay down terms for the financing of the universal service.
Our rapporteur and colleague, Mr Nicholas Clegg, has certainly done a lot of work, and I congratulate him on that.
He has even been open to the arguments of his colleagues, and I thank him for that.
But he is very liberal and so he has naturally rejected anything that could lead to a genuine universal service.
He is more afraid of public monopolies than private monopolies.
I hope, therefore, that the framework directive entitled 'A Universal Service' , for which I was appointed rapporteur in July of last year on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, and which I now have to salvage despite the attempts of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, will enable us to redress the balance to some extent.
Mr Clegg has correctly and very seriously set forth the Commission's proposal on unbundling from a technical standpoint.
But I am sorry to say that, as I see it, he has not adequately responded to the longer term risk posed for the weaker and the more susceptible players in a deregulated system, and to the risk posed by private monopolies.
This evening, I repeat once again that, for me, a public service must not be a sink for the market.
It must be, and it can be, an objective in itself and, for us Europeans, a value and an asset for balanced and sustainable development.
All things considered, Madam President, as the three European institutions are in agreement on uncoupling, I will not be more catholic than the Pope, and I shall therefore be voting in favour tomorrow.
Madam President, Commissioner, I have before me the documents we will be voting on this week.
I think that the most important report is the Clegg report, which has quite simply demonstrated that decisions can be made swiftly and unconventionally.
I think that this should serve as a model for us in the European legislative process, so that new developments can be responded to quickly, simply and unbureaucratically with the right decisions.
I would like to congratulate Mr Clegg on having managed to reconcile so many different interests. And I would also like to thank the Commission for complying so efficiently and competently with the Council's request to use the accelerated procedure in this case.
I believe that we really are taking genuinely forward-looking steps as far as the European public is concerned.
The public in Europe will feel, in their wallets, in the quality of services and also on the labour market, that these measures have made Europe more internationally competitive.
We know that UMTS will provide us with a new service.
The environment and telecommunications will in future play a very special role in international competitiveness.
That is why I think it is important to create a level playing field.
This directive in particular demonstrates that we have been very thorough in aiming for fairness, and this has been a model of how to legislate, with a review, with a proper and thorough examination, with all stakeholders being consulted, and, lastly, a good, efficient, swift and precise procedure in the European Parliament.
Once again, I would like to express my very sincere thanks!
Madam President, it falls to me to be the one who cries wolf on this occasion.
I do not normally take a position in this House which is based purely on national considerations but it seems to me that we are attempting to put in place a regulation which is inflexible and does not take into account the position of the market in Ireland.
The proposal that we have will oblige Eirecom, a private limited company, a former state monopoly, to open up its local loop to alternative providers and will not oblige alternative providers already in the market place such as cable TV, satellite and wireless local loop operators to do the same.
They are excluded from the scope of this regulation.
Cable TV companies in Ireland already possess the network and are already gearing up their network to provide telephony, Internet and other interactive services.
In many cases they operate large and exclusive franchise areas.
In the case of Ireland, penetration rates by these companies in the larger cities and towns is of the order of 90%, far exceeding those of Eirecom PLC.
It is impossible to understand and entirely unacceptable that the proposal does not also encompass these TV cable companies.
In addition, fixed network operators such as Eirecom will find it impossible to compete with these companies which are providing bundled services to customers, which often include Internet access and free local calls as part of their standard bundle of service offerings.
Clearly where an alternative competing network coexists with a copper network, either all should be unbundled or none.
This will be consistent with the stated justification for unbundling put forward by the Commission.
The regulation on unbundled access to local loop is by its very nature inherently flawed.
I do believe that worst law is in most cases bad law, and this is the case in relation to this regulation.
The night sessions are not always the greatest pleasure in the European Parliament but tonight, I must say, it has been an extremely pleasant and positive debate.
I share the view of those who consider this issue to be historic.
It is historic in two ways.
First of all, we will now complete the long march towards liberalisation of telecommunications.
This also serves the interests of universal service.
When we increase competition in the networks it will cut prices, improve quality and make the services more affordable.
It will help to create an inclusive information society.
Secondly, it is historic in the sense that we have replied to a question which is often asked: Is Europe too slow to act? Are we able to seize the opportunity of information technology?
There is a lot of suspicion around. Can Community institutions ever make it?
If Parliament were to accept tomorrow the Clegg report we would show that we can. We can show that we are able to act in Internet time.
We will have concrete proof, which would increase enormously the credibility of the European Union, especially in the eyes of the younger generation which lives in this age of the Internet.
None of this would not be possible without excellent cooperation between the institutions.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Clegg, for the excellent work he has done, and also the whole committee.
It would have not have been possible without profound knowledge of the issue. Neither would it have been possible without a strong will to negotiate, with many partners.
I also thank the Council presidency, which has been very firm and very determined to drive this issue through.
In many Member States it has been a very sensitive and complicated matter.
Mr Gallagher and Mr Haarder raised a few issues in this context.
It really is a key part of the e-Europe action plan to liberalise the telecommunications market to make the prices cheap and the quality of service higher.
At the same time we must remember that this is one side of the coin.
On the other side, we need people with skills and qualifications who can use these services.
So we must continue to invest in the education of all people, young and old alike.
Insofar as the implementation of this regulation is concerned, yesterday the national regulators had a meeting with Commission officials.
They agreed to try to accelerate the implementation on this regulation and to do it in as harmonised a way as possible, so as to have a strong European market in this sector.
The Commission can also welcome practically everything in the report.
The report is supportive of the objectives and draft measures included in the Commission proposal.
I should just like to mention three of those.
First, the aim is to mandate operators not defined as having significant market power in the provision of fixed telephony networks to provide unbundled access to the metallic local loop from 31 December 2000 under transparent, non-discriminatory and cost-oriented conditions.
Secondly, to ensure transparency by other operators we will have to publish a reference offer for the access conditions to the local loop and associated facilities such as co-location, including pricing, under the scrutiny of the national regulatory authority in order to ensure fairness.
Here I am happy to note that the national regulatory authorities want to cooperate to make this effective everywhere.
Finally, the regulations to unbundle the local loop will allow new entrants all types of access modalities where technically feasible, full unbundling and shared access to global loops and sub-loops.
This maximises technical innovation, greater competition and choice for users.
The Commission accepts in full all 18 amendments to the Clegg report.
They improve the Commission's proposal, providing for more accurate technical definitions and more specific requirements of the national players and national regulatory authorities.
These amendments are constructive and will ensure that the regulation is fully operational.
Thus they guarantee that unbundling is rapidly and effectively implemented from 31 December 2000.
The Commission also hopes that the Council will approve the text as amended in the report and hopefully accepted by Parliament tomorrow.
Then the Council would be able to complete the codecision policy in one reading.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.40 p.m.)
Statement by the President
Madam President, my intervention refers to the situation in the Ivory Coast.
This week there is no debate on topical and urgent subjects.
Yesterday it was the turn of the people of the Ivory Coast, after Serbia, to set an example of commitment and the fight for democracy by opposing a military coup d' état and rigged elections.
I believe you should send Mr Laurent Gbagbo, the winner of the elections, a message of solidarity and support from the European Parliament.
Vote
Draft amendments to Sections I, II, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII of the draft general budget for 2001 concerning the European Parliament, the Council, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, and the Ombudsman.
Before the vote:
(The Greens opened yellow umbrellas with the words "Climate Change" on them) President.
That yellow goes very nicely with our blue seats but, even so, I invite you to furl your umbrellas, so that the vote on the budget can proceed with the dignity befitting this Parliament.
Wynn (PSE), chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
Madam President, as you said earlier, this will be a long process.
Normally we like to streamline the budget votes so that we can get through them in as quick a time as possible.
However, we have a lot of amendments on this occasion.
Whilst I respect people's democratic right to table amendments, can I just warn Members of this House that if some of the amendments which are not in the general framework agreement between the groups are voted, then we will begin to exceed ceilings and we will have to stop the vote.
We have no margins in virtually all the categories.
If this vote does not go as we had planned, then just be aware that I may be standing up, or Mrs Haug may be standing up, to say we have to stop the vote.
We can then assess what we can vote on.
I would like to make two pleas.
One is to our colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture who have tabled over 30 amendments.
The amending letter will be coming forward before second reading and that is when we will take final decisions on agricultural issues.
If I could ask them to withdraw those amendments it would save a lot of time.
I would also ask Mr Heaton-Harris and his colleagues if they could withdraw their 33 amendments.
Once again that will save us a tremendous amount of time.
I must say the 33 amendments are far better than the 393 that were tabled by Mr Heaton-Harris and his colleagues in committee.
So we have to be grateful there are only 33, but I would welcome it if he would withdraw them.
It would speed this process up considerably.
Madam President, following Mr Wynn's observation about the number of amendments my committee might or might not have tabled, it is fair to point out that this is part of the democratic process and if we are not here to question and raise points, then what are we here for?
Madam President, I would point out though that we still have not received an answer to one question, namely whether the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is prepared to withdraw its amendments.
I would be very interested in this, because it is by far our most serious problem.
You see, if we accept one single amendment - you know this, fellow delegates know it, I have said it more than once - then we will, as it were, already be in breach of the Interinstitutional Agreement, because we will then have gone over the margin for payments.
Would you perhaps like to repeat the question to someone from the Committee on Agriculture?
Madam President, I understand the rapporteur's objections, but the vote on the amendments tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development will not only be about money but also about a particular political line.
The amendments go some way towards making it clear what the Agriculture Committee wants, and unfortunately we do not see ourselves in a position to withdraw them; instead, we will put them to the vote and we will see what the House makes of them.
We in the Agriculture Committee believe that the views which they express are sensible and we cannot therefore withdraw the amendments.
I hope that I am also speaking here on behalf of the other coordinators.
The reply is clear.
Mrs Haug, I believe you want to present some compromise proposals.
Madam President, as we do every year and in every budgetary procedure, we will of course have to start by voting on a few additional technical adjustments.
Last-minute negotiations have been held with all the groups and, in my capacity as rapporteur, I should like to table a number of technical corrections on five points.
The first concerns line B3-300 on information measures.
Here the groups have agreed to place 50% against the budget line and to leave 50% in the reserve, and not to put the total amount in the reserve as previously decided.
The same applies to line B3-306 for the PRINCE information campaign.
There too we should now like to place 50% against the budget line and 50% in the reserve.
Where line B5-312 - for the Medicines Agency in London - is concerned, we should now like to pay an additional 1.3 million because we have noted that the Agency now has a heavier workload because of orphan drugs.
So, we have an additional 1.3 million for the Medicines Agency.
The fourth line concerns the performance reserve.
When we decided on the performance reserve in the Budgets Committee we made a technical correction, deleting two lines in this reserve which no longer contained any amounts at all, just p.m. entries.
These are lines B7-5211 and B7-547.
They concern cooperation with the Baltic region and the civil administration in the Balkans.
The final line in this compromise package for the groups is A-3027.
This relates to the International Centre for European Training.
Here it is intended to place the total amount against the line - so there are no longer any reserves - and at the same time, the appropriations are to be increased by EUR 300 000 to 1.8 million.
These are the technical changes.
They have been agreed with the groups, and I would ask you to make the necessary adjustments before the vote on the budget so that we can go into the vote with the package agreed.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the administrative budgets are rather less complicated in this respect, but here too we may need to make a technical adjustment, depending on what the House decides today.
I should like to ask you also to support our making the necessary adjustments to budget line A-206, Acquisition of immovable property, depending on which amendments are adopted, so that we do not exceed our self-imposed ceiling of 20% of total administrative expenditure.
I believe that this is customary in the House and I would be grateful if you could support this proposal.
I have received a motion for outright rejection of the general budget for 2001 tabled by Mr Wurtz.
Madam President, we already know the result of the coming vote, but we wanted to put down a marker.
The basic problem our resolution addresses is going to remain with us throughout the budgetary procedure and beyond.
So, if our fears are confirmed, and whatever the vote today, I just hope all Members who share our ambitions for Europe will join us in the fray.
I shall put the motion for outright rejection of the draft general budget to the vote. I would remind you that a qualified majority is required.
(Parliament rejected the motion) - Before the vote on draft Amendment No 19
Madam President, we voted in block 1.
The vote concerns an amendment tabled by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party to increase the tobacco subsidy by EUR 5 million.
Yet, I have noticed that proposals have also been moved here to reduce the budget.
I fail to see the connection between the two, and furthermore, it escapes me completely that in block 1, this increase was proposed by the Liberals, and that under Amendments Nos 6, 4 and 9, a number of the Members of the same Liberal Group subsequently proposed scrapping the budget altogether.
Either this is a way of pursuing Liberal politics, where the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing, or there is a lack of coordination.
Surely we cannot vote in favour of an increase one moment and vote in favour of a reduction the next.
If I am being honest, I feel we are to some extent deceiving the electorate.
Those comments are no longer appropriate.
Before the vote on Amendment No 929
Madam President, Mr Maat may wish to make the same comment as me.
You see, we spoke again this morning.
Amendment No 929, tabled by the Budget Committee, concerns two lines in heading 1b. They relate to young farmers and environmental measures.
I should now like to propose an oral amendment to change these lines.
We give the young farmers an additional 10 million and take the 10 million to finance this from the environmental measures.
The effect on the overall budget is neutral, but we would accommodate the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Madam President, I can only inform you that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development fully supports the rapporteur' s proposal.
We have a request to table an oral amendment.
Is anyone opposed to this amendment being taken into consideration?
(As more than 12 members rose, the President deemed the proposed oral amendment inadmissible)
Madam President, in that case the amendment will unfortunately have to be put to the vote in the form proposed by the Committee on Budgets.
You all know that, unfortunately, there is no margin, especially not in 1b.
There is no margin at all there.
Report (A5-0300/2000) by Mrs Haug, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2001 - Section III, Commission [C5-0300/2000 - 1999/2190(BUD)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution) Report (A5-0292/2000) by Mr Ferber, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2001
Section I, European Parliament
Section II, Council
Section IV, Court of Justice
Section V, Court of Auditors
Section VI, Economic and Social Committee
Section VII, Committee of the Regions
Section VIII, European Ombudsman
[C5-0300/2000 - 1999/2191(BUD)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)Amendment No 3:
Madam President, on the next amendment tabled by the EDD Group, I wonder whether you could give us some clarification, because it is my reading that if we vote for this amendment, it means our travel expenses will be reimbursed at cost, and if we vote against this amendment, then we maintain the present travel allowance.
I just want to check this is actually the case, because it does change the way people might vote.
The honourable Members can all read, Mr Heaton-Harris.
Madam President, my name appears as a signatory to various amendments on this report.
I would like to assure the House that I have signed no amendments.
I have not joined the Italian delegation for this occasion.
That will be corrected, Mrs Lambert, and now I propose that we move on to the vote.
Before the vote on Amendment No 60
Madam President, in Amendment No 60 there has been a minor calculation error that should be corrected, which affects the thresholds for pears in the Netherlands: instead of 243 tonnes it should read 279.
I simply propose this minor correction, if nobody opposes it.
(Parliament gave its assent to the oral amendment being taken into consideration) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0276/2000) by Mr Nicholson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing additional technical measures for the recovery of the stock of cod in the Irish Sea (ICES Division VIIa) [COM(2000)0190 - C5-0219/2000 - 2000/0071(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0284/2000) by Mr Cushnahan, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the First and Second Annual Reports by the European Commission on the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong [COM(1998) 0796 - C4-0100/1999 et COM(2000) 0294 - C5-0500/2000 - 1999/2000(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0296/2000) by Mr Van Hecke, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on cooperation with ACP Countries involved in armed conflicts [COM(1999) 0240 - C5-0115/1999 - 1999/2118(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0804/2000) by Mr Gawronski and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, Mr Sakellariou and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Mrs Malmström and Mr Haarder, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, Mrs Frassoni and Mr Wuori, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, Mr Di Lello Finuoli, Mrs Boudjenah and Mr Manisco, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the implementation of 'human rights/democracy' budget lines relating to campaigns in favour of a moratorium on capital punishment
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0270/2000) by Mr Moreira Da Silva, on behalf of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission communication on EU policies and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: Towards a European Climate Change Programme (ECCP) [COM(2000) 0088 - C5-0192/2000 - 2000/2103(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0271/2000) by Mr Moreira Da Silva, on behalf of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission Green Paper on greenhouse gas emissions trading within the European Union [COM(2000) 0087 - C5-0193/2000 - 2000/2104(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0803/2000) by Mrs C. F. Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission' s strategy for The Hague Conference on Climate Change (CdP6)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on the floods in Italy and Spain
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0197/2000) by Mr Lund, on behalf of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on a Community strategy for endocrine disrupters - a range of substances suspected of interfering with the hormone systems of humans and wildlife [COM(1999)0706 - C5-0107/2000 - 2000/2071(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
2001 Budget
Madam President, it was with great regret that I had to vote against the budget as I find the items devoted to improving the living conditions of the elderly and pensioners to be totally inadequate, or rather completely non-existent.
I furthermore note that a significant proportion of these funds have been earmarked for the notorious Community action programmes.
It is my opinion that these programmes fail to perform the beneficial role that they should in terms of the utilisation of Community funds.
I believe that the European Union must completely reassess the way in which it spends the monies of the 15 Member States.
If the European Parliament were a real parliament, and if Europe were something more than a monetary and free-trade area, then the European budget would represent a great deal more than 1% of GDP.
That kind of budget would be needed to harmonise social security systems and implement coordinated policy on energy and transport.
It would be funded by the standardised taxation of capital.
But it is no good dreaming: the Europe of today is dominated by neo-liberal dogma which seeks to reduce state subsidies and the Structural Funds to the strict minimum.
Instead of controlling the erratic movements of capital, the priority is 'structural reforms' actually aimed at privatising and deregulating anything still left to be privatised and deregulated.
The real surprise in this budget relates to external actions, where selfishness and stinginess are the rule.
Europe has a special responsibility to the Balkans and the south of the Mediterranean.
Contributions that are relatively minor for our richest countries could have a strategic role for peace and development in those regions, yet the choice has been to make significant cuts, which looks like a dangerous policy of burying our heads in the sand.
That is why we voted in favour of the motion to reject this budget, contrary to the guidelines proposed.
In the budget vote we have generally voted against the Committee' s proposals to increase agricultural expenses in category 1. The reason is that we believe that the EU' s money can be better used in other areas where it is really needed.
It is not reasonable for approximately half of the Union' s total budget each year to be spent on subsidising the production and export of agricultural products.
The current Common Agricultural Policy is not only expensive for the Union, but also contributes to higher consumer prices.
The export subsidies mean that the EU' s food surplus is dumped on the world market at low prices, as a result of which the food industry in many developing countries, for example, suffers serious competitive disadvantages.
The fact that, in addition, the Union provides subsidies for tobacco cultivation is particularly worth commenting on.
The EU' s activities and budget should instead be directed towards cross-border problems that the Member States cannot solve themselves.
The EU' s agricultural policy, in the form of export and production subsidies, should therefore be wound down and, to a certain extent, replaced by subsidies for bio-diversity and environmental measures.
In the matter of the external measures in category 4, we have chosen to vote according to a line which does not require revision of the Financial Perspective.
For us, support for the democracy movement and reconstruction of the countries in the Balkan region is one of the EU' s most important priorities.
It is particularly important to be able to offer subsidies for improving the situation in Serbia.
To request a revision of the Financial Perspective at this stage would be unfortunate.
If the budget plan is revised, we believe that there will be a significant risk of the EU' s costs generally increasing, which is not currently acceptable.
Parliament should therefore act to maintain the Interinstitutional Agreement and to keep the budget within the framework of the budget plan.
We believe that funds for the Balkans can instead be taken from the programmes in category 4 that are sadly not fully utilised at present.
Funds can also be released through mobilisation of the flexibility instrument.
I welcome the recognition in Parliament that although the European Women's Lobby is recognised as a valuable lobby group on behalf of certain women's positions, there are other women's lobby groups that deserve and must receive support, both financially and politically, at a European level.
No one in the European Parliament would support discrimination or violence against women; we must remember that to deny women a voice is a form of violence against them.
The Budget Committee ruled again this year that this was a monopoly situation, regarding this fund under A-3037, which is unacceptable within the European Union, and the budget line should be opened up to other women' s groups.
As things stand the EWL is, and remains, the sole recipient from this budget line for women' s groups.
Other women' s organisations representing many thousands of European women are thus ineligible for funding and left unrepresented.
Democracy and subsidiarity are not served by the EWL having a monopoly and control on all of the woman's budget line.
In the interest of giving fair and equal expression to the voices of European women there must be an end to monopoly funding
It is the duty of every elected representative to ensure that the voice of those who are voiceless is clearly heard.
If the diverse voices of the women of Europe are to be heard, this monopoly funding situation must end.
We must dedicate ourselves to upholding the European ideals of inclusiveness and democracy and resist the pressure of those groups that wish to maintain an anti-European monopolistic control.
- (SV) We feel that the ceiling for the budget must absolutely not be exceeded.
To obtain sufficient economic funds for increased aid to the Balkans, the Member States must reallocate funds from the available budget.
We feel that, if the Member States have the will, they will be able to find available funds that are not being utilised in the budget being worked on today.
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(IT) The Members of Parliament belonging to the Lega Nord voted against the draft budget not because they oppose the idea of Europe but because they wanted to show their disapproval of the distorted way that this idea is being put into practice.
If fine words have led the citizens to believe that the Union was attentive to their demands, their requirements and their needs, the vote today has proved the contrary.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will all be aware that the west of Padania has recently been hit by floods, bringing loss of life and substantial material damage.
While there is unfortunately nothing that can be done to restore these things, aid measures were necessary and it was our duty to provide them.
But this Parliament, which is always responsive to the needs of communities outside the Union, has shown itself hostile to its own citizens when misfortune has struck, in rejecting the amendments that allocated but a few million euros in their favour.
That is why we voted against this draft budget.
Haug Report (A5-0300/2000)
I voted against the Haug report, just as I voted in favour of my group' s motion to reject the general budget for 2001.
First: because the budget of the European Union is not commensurate with the huge economic needs of the Community of the 15, especially of the countries and regions lagging behind.
Secondly: because the new items for the reconstruction of Yugoslavia - which we need and which should be more substantial - have been found by slashing items for food relief, agriculture, social spending, etc., rather than by increasing the budget, which is what the Member States of the European Union should have done, given that they perpetrated and aided and abetted the destruction of the former Yugoslavia.
Thirdly: because the budget remains a mechanism for applying a policy which falls short on the social and development side and which has not been reorganised despite constant warnings of the fall in the euro.
The budget that Parliament has today approved at first reading could be described as uncontroversial and unspectacular.
It has to be said that it is a budget that has been improved along the way, thanks to the efforts of the various political groups who have persuaded the rapporteur to revise the inflexible stance that she initially adopted.
Parliament has been able to rectify, at first reading and without proposing any disproportionate or unreasonable increases, the somewhat reductive approach that the Council adopted in July.
The funds earmarked for vital sectors of the economy in the Member States, such as agriculture, structural measures and external actions have once again taken on a more fitting scale, and this will enable the Commission to see through its commitments.
We would also like to welcome the fact that Parliament has shown itself open to an initiative which, in our opinion, warrants the attention of this House.
We refer in particular to the new pilot scheme to finance information measures in the fight against paedophilia.
The Budget for 2001 still comprises obscure items that shower funds on a host of associations and cultural centres, the actual need for which is still to be fully proven.
The review of the Financial Perspectives that Parliament has been demanding for some time in order to honour new commitments in the Balkan region, including Serbia, also continues to cast its shadow on proceedings.
We realise that this review represents, once all the available instruments have been employed, from the redistribution of funds to the use of flexibility margins, the only way of addressing onerous and unforeseeable commitments.
However, this revision must not, as is quite possible, result in further substantial cuts in the agriculture sector.
Our group will strive to ensure that this does not happen and for this very reason has, in abstaining from the vote, adopted a cautious position on the Haug report that accompanies the 2001 Budget.
Ferber Report (A5-0292/2000)
- (SV) Where travel expense refunds for Members of the European Parliament are concerned, we maintain our view that refunds must be made only for actual costs incurred for travel on official business.
We have therefore voted in favour of Amendment No 3 from the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, where this is required.
The Left party supports the idea that the work in progress for a new statute for Members should lead as quickly as possible to a solution in which refunds of travel expenses also reflect the actual costs.
That is the solution to the problem - not unhelpful comments on the budget.
- (SV) The community sector in the Member States has been subjected to major cut-backs for a number of years.
In this connection, it is depressing to see that, within the budget of the European Union, there is an incredible amount of unutilised resources and that, in certain cases, resources are being downright squandered.
If the European Parliament were now to abolish its Friday sittings in Strasbourg, for example, this would save EUR 1 million.
The European Parliament is also pushing hard for contributions to European political parties to be introduced.
It is interesting to note that the EU parties are clearly incapable of inducing either their member parties or the individual members of the member parties to pay a fee for membership of the EU party. Instead, we are forced to finance the EU parties with public funds.
That, if anything, demonstrates the low level of motivation that this EU project has, even among politically active citizens.
Otherwise, we make a reservation in respect of the great outflow of funds that is taking place in the EU via agricultural subsidies, regional subsidies, operation of the Economic and Social Committee, etc.
The public funds that are being spent by the EU can be better used in the Member States.
Rühle Report (A5-0251/2000)
We have naturally voted against the budget for the ECSC, which until the ECSC Treaty expires will continue to rain down subsidies on shareholders in the iron and steel industry.
Considerable sums have already been awarded to the bosses in this sector, allowing them to diversify into juicy new sectors, while many workers - whose jobs have been eliminated - are still unemployed.
Although this draft envisages devoting a certain amount to social assistance, no precise figures are given, while the minimum guarantee should be full salary up to retirement age for all workers affected by future redundancies.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the ECSC Treaty will soon expire.
Nevertheless, in Germany there is a compromise solution for coal which will run until the year 2005.
I am assuming - and I hope that the Commission will contribute appropriate constructive solutions - that we will have a transitional arrangement to fill the three years between 2002 and 2005.
But for the time after 2005 I should like to make it quite clear that there can be no 10% energy base in the EU Member States which is exempt from all supervision by the European Union's competition authorities.
This is no solution for the future.
This solution would damage the European Union's competition policy and at the same time make energy more expensive - on top of the effect of promoting renewable energies - which would in the end harm Europe's desirability as a business location.
Clegg Report (A5-0298/2000)
Madam President, Ms Giuseppina Cardazzi, who is elderly and infirm but interested in electronics and the Internet, particularly as she is not mobile, asked me to help her understand electronic communication as she wanted to purchase a device that would enable her to access the Internet.
She asked me whether, since she had little money as a result of having to spend a lot on medicines, it was possible to access the Internet for free. I told her that it was, and it is for this reason that I voted in favour of the Clegg report, as it enables one to access Internet sites by connecting up to the existing network at a reduced cost.
The arguments for promoting competition imply yet another attack on the public telecommunications sector in an area of basic services that are vital to the public, without any corresponding improvement in the public service provided.
As the report states, unbundled access to the local loop allows new entrants to compete with notified operators in offering high bit-rate data transmission services for continuous Internet access and for multimedia applications based on digital subscriber line technology as well as voice telephony services, using local network infrastructures that have already been installed by other operators, generally public service operators.
Furthermore, the haste with which this liberalisation of the highly profitable telecommunications sector is going ahead, following the conclusions of the Lisbon Summit, does not augur well for the protection of consumers' interests or the interests of people working in the sector. This is another reason for voting against this report.
We are voting against this report even if it does seem a mere formality in the process of the liberalisation of telecommunications.
The amendments add nothing, apart from some further praise for the alleged virtues of competitiveness.
What 'unbundled access to the local loop' actually does is force public operators to put the leasing of public telephone lines out to commercial tender as soon as possible.
So 20 to 30% of the contracts will again be offered to private competition.
Many have already anticipated this directive, like France Telecom.
As well as the new constraints imposed on staff, particularly in the commercial services sector, inequality in the treatment of users is going to get worse.
The regulation of the sector by the law of maximum return will result in the creation of profitable and less profitable areas in the territory covered.
A high quality European public service must be imposed, to include mobiles phones and the Internet, to meet the basic needs of employees and users.
That policy would put a stop to the generalised liberalism that is thriving under the French Presidency.
The liberalisation of telecoms is already very far advanced in the countries of the EU.
Now a further part of the network infrastructure is under discussion: the connection of market entrants and customers to the data transmission network.
This is the next logical step in the deregulation policy hitherto.
But, precisely because we are dealing with the local loop, customers' interests need to be taken into particular account.
Liberalisation of the local loop is actually, of course, about getting the high-speed Internet of the future off the ground (high transmission speeds and low local telephone charges are decisive for this).
This being the case, a "basic supply" must also be guaranteed in this sector to all members of the public by extending the companies' Universal Service Obligations. For example, included in the Universal Service Obligation could be "normal Internet connection" by 2002 and a high-speed Internet connection by 2005, with minimum requirements for quality of service, consumer protection and content on offer and special tariffs for particular groups of society (the disabled, those receiving benefit or on a low income, those who live in outlying regions, and so on).
Since this is not guaranteed in this report, I voted against it.
Jové Peres Report (A5-0273/2000)
Madam President, in this case, too, it was with deep regret that I had to vote against.
Why was it, especially in my capacity of representative of the Pensioners' Party that I voted against? It was because for some time now the tables of my elderly friends have been devoid of tomatoes, peaches, pears, oranges, lemons, grapefruit and so forth.
The Mediterranean diet, so well-known in Italy, is disappearing.
Why? Because the European Union is incapable of promoting the development of the cultivation and marketing of fruit.
It is my belief that we must totally change our quota system and at last resolve to provide aid to any farmer who wants to increase their agricultural output.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted against a report that would remove the subsidies paid to the producers of processed fruit and vegetables.
Instead, we support the Commission' s proposal that would rescind onerous administrative procedures and make the schemes simpler and more flexible.
The Commission has actually been friendly towards the producers.
It has proposed a minor restriction on the great 'help yourself' buffet table that the scheme has been to date.
We therefore support the Commission' s efforts at reform and oppose further preferential treatment of this sector.
On the pretext of resolving a number of questions relating to fruit and vegetables, the Commission is proposing serious amendments to the regulations in question, even before the report has been finalised on the results of the previous regulations, which entered into force as recently as 1997.
The Commission' s argument that these amendments regulate individual matters is completely hypocritical and misleading, given that the proposed amendments change the entire Common Organisation of the Market in processed fruit and vegetables, making it much worse for small and medium-sized farmers and much better for the trade and industry and the multinationals.
With processed tomatoes and peaches, it is using direct aid to producers as an excuse to propose abolishing the minimum price.
This price may not provide satisfactory protection for producers, but it is nonetheless a minimum safety valve.
Instead of proposing to enhance it and hence provide an efficient guaranteed agricultural income, the Commission is proposing to abolish it, leaving trade and industry free to step up their exploitation of farmers and trample on the fruits of their labours.
In addition, instead of proposing a substantial increase in quotas, the Commission is proposing to replace them with a system of thresholds so that, with subsidies rendered worthless by joint liability fines, farmers will be lured into producing quantities in excess of the thresholds, which the trade and industry will take as and when they please.
Obviously, the quantities in excess of the thresholds produced by farmers will not have a ready market or a minimum price and will become another weapon in the hands of the trade and industry, which will blackmail farmers and set the price for the whole quantity, even the quantity below the threshold, at ridiculously low prices.
The quotas and the thresholds are like Scylla and Charybdis and to change them is to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.
Add the unacceptably low national thresholds which decimate subsidies to the proposed reductions in withdrawals to 5% for citrus fruits, 8.5% for apples and pears and 10% for other fruit and vegetables in marketable quantities, and it soon becomes clear that there will be no way of disposing of very large quantities of processable fruits and vegetables with the result that overall prices will drop and the crops will be left to rot in the fields and in the cooperative packaging shops, forcing farmers to uproot their crops.
Finally, the Commission has lost no time in taking advantage of cyclical increases in international prices for processed fruit and vegetables during the last marketing year to set subsidies at low levels, subsidies which will apply for several years, i.e. until the next time the regulation is amended.
The proposals for fruit and vegetables are part of the more general, anti-farming direction which the EU is taking, now that it has decided to persecute farmers.
This persecution hits the produce of small and medium-sized farmers in the south particularly hard.
What we need are not attempts to improve on disastrous proposals, as Parliament's report endeavours to do.
We need to reject these proposals wholesale and without equivocation and to call firmly for agricultural policy to be revised for the benefit of the farmers and the countryside.
In a bid to safeguard industrial peace in urban areas, the price of the food package has been kept artificially low for dozens of years now.
The only way farms could survive was to scale-up and undergo mechanisation.
That made them heavily dependent on loans.
There is a lot of money about in the agricultural sector these days, but that does not appear to be a guarantee for a good income or safeguard the future of the business.
My colleague Mr Salvador Jové is only too aware of the bad position which southern European small farmers and farm labourers find themselves in.
Within the existing structure of extensive agricultural subsidies, he is looking for a majority to reach a compromise which will do more to safeguard the chances of survival of this group of farmers.
I support his view, as long as this results in income support for those on incomes which are too low.
If I were to have my way, I would invest less funds in agriculture but within this sector, give more to the poorest.
This line of thinking is at odds with the idea that Europe should collect more taxpayers' money to subsidise the richest and most profitable businesses.
The growing Dutch glasshouse horticulture, which yields a large volume of vegetables, fruit and flowers in a small space, is in a much stronger position than cereal or dairy farms.
Since it appears from Appendix III that glasshouse horticulture does not benefit from the proposed subsidy scheme for vegetables and fruit, I am putting my objections on hold for the time being.
I voted in favour of this report because it lives up to the expectations of Portuguese organisations in the fruit and vegetable sector, which have called for a drastic overhaul of the COM in processed fruit and vegetables, which they consider to be extremely damaging to our national interests.
The loss of 7% of the tomato quota this year and the risk of losing more than 10% of the remaining quota next year have made a revision of this COM before the end of the year crucial for Portuguese farming.
The present report puts forward amendments on a range of points that address the interests of European production in general and of Portuguese production in particular.
These are: the inflexibility of the current system for processed tomato-based products, the quantity levels guaranteed for processed tomato, pear and citrus-based products, the complexity of the operational fund system and the management of export refunds.
It is now absolutely vital for the Portuguese Government not to give in and for it to staunchly defend its specific national interests on each of these points.
Indeed, it would be quite grotesque and humiliating if the European Parliament' s stance were firmer and more beneficial to Portuguese interests than our own government's!
Nicholson Report (A-0276/2000)
Madam President, it is a well-known fact that I am highly responsive to all measures concerning the harvesting of various species of fish, measures which by enlarging the holes in fishing nets allow smaller fish to survive, live longer, grow old and potentially become pensioners too.
However, this is only one of the reasons why I did not vote against this measure. Why?
I abstained because I feel that in this case, as Mr Bushill-Matthews and the English Members have said, there has been a lack of subsidiarity.
This is a fishing issue that concerns the British, the Belgians, the French and the Irish.
I fail to see why they cannot be left to reach a decision on their own concerning their fish and their fishing.
Cushnahan Report (A5-0284/2000)
Madam President, among my many elderly friends in Italy and elsewhere there is one Chinese man.
This pensioner, who lives in Hong Kong and to whom I read Mr Cushnahan' s report said that it was a wonderful report which covered everything, but failed to say anything about the situation of the elderly in the special administrative region of Hong Kong.
It is for this reason that despite having approved this document, I wanted to emphasise in the explanations of vote that next time it would be a good idea to survey and take into consideration the situation in which pensioners in Hong Kong find themselves compared with pensioners in the Peoples' Republic of China, in order to see whether this reunification has been advantageous or detrimental to them.
Johan Van Hecke Report (A5-0296/2000)
Madam President, it is very important for the European Union to concern itself with the inhabitants of ACP - African, Caribbean and Pacific - States.
Personally, as the representative of the Pensioners Party, I am concerned at the situation of the elderly in these countries.
I have to say that despite approving of the contents of the explanatory statement on page 20, and thus of the need for initiatives for programmes concerning education, poverty alleviation and the capacity-building of democratic institutions, the proposal unfortunately makes no reference to this point.
I believe that we can only help these states if we improve the conditions in which all their inhabitants live, be they young people, workers or members of a group very close to my heart, the elderly people and pensioners who live in the ACP States.
It is extraordinary that the EU is reviewing its cooperation with the ACP countries involved in armed conflicts.
It is important to ensure that aid funds are not used for military purposes.
However, the Member States must have the opportunity to provide support for building up democracy in dictatorships, both bilaterally and through the Commission.
It must be possible to provide education in good administration in order to counter corruption and, in the same way, to support opposition parties.
We cannot therefore support Paragraph 4, which states that aid can only be granted on condition that the country in question has a good administration and respects human rights and the principles of the constitutional State.
Moratorium on the death penalty (B5-0804/2000)
My position on the death penalty today is exactly the same as it was in 1981 when François Mitterand courageously declared his opposition to it while standing for president and then abolished it once he was elected.
I was already against it back in 1981.
I am certainly still against it in 2000.
While I can certainly understand the feelings and reactions of the families of victims of what are often appalling crimes, a government cannot answer barbarity with barbarity. It has no right to do so.
Besides, we know the death penalty is not a deterrent, it is quite unacceptable for countries claiming to be civilised (like the United States) to continue applying it in a wholesale and systematic manner, running an immense risk of making irreparable legal mistakes.
That is why I have voted in favour of the call for a moratorium.
Moreira Da Silva Report (A5-0270/2000)
The problem of global warming caused by concentrations of gases in the atmosphere which exacerbate the greenhouse effect, such as carbon dioxide, is taking on explosive proportions.
It is only three years since the Kyoto Conference and the European Environmental Agency estimates that, if emissions in the EU continue at present rates, instead of an 8% reduction in emissions of CO2 between 1990-2010, there will be a 6% increase, while in the USA the outlook is even worse.
The root of the problem lies in the fact that everything, including the quality of the environment and the climate, is sacrificed to capitalist exploitation of wealth-producing resources and excessive profit.
Consequently, what could be more natural than calling for those who caused the problem to pay to resolve it?
The Commission communication should have been entitled differently, given that it contains no specific policies or measures to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases; on the contrary, it confines itself, as the rapporteur rightly comments, to merely producing an organisation chart and a vague list of common policies and measures.
It restates the position that energy taxation or a tax on fossil fuels are the mainstay of the EU strategy to reduce greenhouse gases.
We disagree with this measure because, whichever way you look at it, the 'polluter pays' principle is a hypocritical principle and its distorted application will ensure that the entire cost of reducing emissions is passed on directly to consumers, i.e. to the workers.
Given the tremendous pressure to find a solution, one might well discuss the imposition of an energy tax on fossil fuels, but only as a measure to complement an integrated policy of measures to reduce CO2 emissions and on the strict condition that the revenue from this tax is used solely to relieve the burden on workers.
We stand by the view that the cost of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases should be paid for by the real polluters (i.e. large-scale industry) out of their excess profits.
We also agree with the rapporteur' s view that clear priority should be given to renewable energy sources and to giving support to public transport.
We are also totally opposed to the immoral and inefficient system of emission trading between companies and countries.
We fail to understand how it is possible to create an entire market which trades in pollution as a commodity and on which, instead of reducing their own CO2 emissions, some companies buy in surplus coverage from other companies which are within their limits.
Of course, in a capitalist system in which everything can be bought and sold, this is bound to happen.
Although opposed to the Commission communication, the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece appreciate the rapporteur' s positive comments, which is why we opted to abstain rather than vote against the report.
Global warming and extreme weather conditions are increasingly caused by industry, agriculture and transport.
Despite this, the governments of the richest countries with the highest emission levels of fossil combustion products have failed to bring about a drastic reduction in these emission levels.
The rapporteur is right to point out that the European Commission' s original proposal is inadequate.
Kyoto' s guiding principle was that the rich countries would keep their own atmosphere clean, although they were allowed, up to a point, to add the emission which they were helping reduce elsewhere to their own table of results.
The Member States themselves will need to drastically reduce their emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases by focusing on renewable energy, public transport and reducing traffic levels.
The boom in the cheap transport of goods by road mainly leads to the polluting industry being relocated from the richer to the poorer countries.
Nuclear energy is not an alternative because that too adds to global warming, emits greenhouse gases and leaves other waste products behind which hardly degrade.
I fear that the forthcoming climate conference will be exploited as an opportunity to moderate the previously agreed commitment to reduce emission levels by 5.2% in the rich countries.
The trading of emission rights may be interesting as an experiment, but it is not a viable solution.
Moreira Da Silva Report (A5-0271/2000)
We are in favour of any tax or levy on the big industrial companies that are largely responsible for pollution in general, and atmospheric pollution in particular.
However, we have abstained, not just because of the derisory nature of the tax envisaged, but primarily because of all the loopholes, which are likely to turn this tax into a modest subscription granting the right to pollute.
Genuine prevention of pollution calls for restrictive measures as far-reaching as confiscation of a polluting company, which no company can wriggle out of.
But beyond immediate measures, atmospheric pollution is a world problem which concerns the whole of human society. It can only be dealt with satisfactorily by a society which has control of its economy and is not solely driven by thirst for private profit.
I am very keen to present my explanation of vote on this report, an explanation of what was in fact a vote in favour, because I would like to ask you, Madam President, in much the same way as I am asking myself, whether we are entirely sure that the climate changes that we are seeing have been caused by man, by industrialisation and by the emission of substances into the atmosphere. One or two millennia ago, when industry did not exist, were there not earthquakes, torrential rain and other assorted disasters?
When, Madam President, was the great flood?
How much industry and how many cars were there then? I would therefore like to us to consider whether these climate changes really can be laid at the door of industry and the way we live today.
The fact that Parliament is dealing with the causes of climate change on our planet is important.
This really is a serious issue in the very short term, and it concerns all of us, both because we all breathe the same air, and because of the storms, excessive rainfall and water shortages affecting every continent to a varying degree.
The developed countries doing the polluting and the less developed or underdeveloped countries about to do so must be made aware of the situation.
So anything that can raise public awareness is useful and a step in the right direction.
That is why our resolution is important, and I have voted for it.
The fight against the greenhouse effect is a major challenge for the industrialised countries and constitutes a specific duty in respect of the peoples of the developing world who are already paying for the consequences of global warming.
Accepting the establishment of a market in carbon dioxide emissions at international level amounts to letting western countries duck their responsibilities by purchasing fictitious Russian emission rights or financing projects in southern countries that are completely inconsistent with their development needs, without any means of checking actual reductions in emissions.
Pollution is not merchandise.
If it becomes a source of profit, the door will be opened to every abuse.
The draft resolution proposes to ratify the establishment of such a system, when 'the technical and legal aspects have not yet been investigated' and 'the functioning and effectiveness of the system must be tested' .
No controls or sanctions are proposed.
Moreover the development of nuclear energy and carbon sinks must be excluded from the calculations for the reduction of emissions.
If the European Union is to respect its commitments it must adopt an ambitious European programme for combating the greenhouse effect without delay - and on a completely different scale from the motion for a resolution in terms of policies and measures.
In particular, action in the transport sector must be taken into account.
Lund Report (A5-0197/2000)
Madam President, I have to say that I abstained from the vote on Mr Lund' s report.
I abstained because I noted that in this report, just like many others, insufficient attention is paid, and an inadequate commitment made, to research. Such is the case with this report, which aims to combat endocrine disorders.
In my home city of Bergamo, many people are suffering from a thyroid disorder the cause of which is still unknown.
This money should be spent by bringing into line and coordinating expenditure on research policy in all the 15 Member States of the European Union.
We have to tighten the purse strings and only spend what is necessary.
In summary, the resolution on endocrine disrupters adopted a moment ago illustrates that far too little is known about the harmful effects, that the European Parliament would like to see more research done and that measures need to be taken on the basis of the precautionary principle.
Although I have voted for the resolution, I would like to make a few minor observations.
I share the rapporteur' s opinion that the arguments in this discussion must be based on fact.
However, I do not share his view that the measures need to reflect the concern among the public.
The average citizen will in most cases be unable to make an adequate risk assessment.
In modern society, with all its consumer goods, such as appliances, we need materials and substances with very specific characteristics.
Everyone, or nearly everyone, accepts and uses these products.
The substances and materials in these products, however, do carry a risk.
As everyone knows, life is full of risks and uncertainties.
The trick is to deal with these risks and uncertainties in a judicious manner.
Science has still not proven beyond reasonable doubt that there is a direct link between these chemical substances and changes in human hormone levels.
That does not detract from the fact that I am delighted with the interest in this topic.
The possible effects of these substances are not insignificant.
If these chemical substances really cause an increase in certain types of cancer, reduce fertility or threaten unborn life, something has to be done about it.
Human life is worth protecting.
Out of precautionary considerations, it is useful to be clear about these substances.
Pursuant to the precautionary principle, the possible harmfulness of dangerous substances, materials and products should be given scientific substance.
Both restriction and acceptance of a certain risk are important in this context.
I do not much like the idea of simply banning substances in a bid to rule out every possible risk.
This opens us up to the risk of a witch hunt being unleashed on all kinds of substances without any scientific basis.
The reversal of the burden of proof is not appropriate either.
To apply the precautionary principle correctly, we also need to know what the harmful effects are of any of the alternatives.
- (EL) Generally speaking, the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece agree with the main elements which need to be included in the sixth research programme because all the original objectives, such as setting up committees, developing tests, improving monitoring of endocrine disrupters (ED) in the environment etc., are steps in the right direction.
However, we should like to highlight the need for a generally acceptable definition of endocrine disrupters, which we feel should include the effects of radiation (accidents, radioactive waste from peaceful or military applications, without impediment and without restricting the access of official scientific teams to industrial uses).
There can, for example, be no doubt that the effects of radiation cause cancer of the thyroid, as in the case of the depleted uranium bombs used in Yugoslavia.
We also need to define a more specific framework for research, standardising tests and cooperation between various scientific teams so that reliable results can be achieved.
We also need to safeguard and strengthen efforts to identify substances which are suspected of being endocrine disrupters, perhaps within a legislative framework.
Awareness-raising campaigns directed at the public, at consumers and at people in professions which are at risk of exposure to endocrine disrupters (farmers, industrial and other workers) must be a basic concern if these efforts are to be a success.
Similarly, we need to activate the principle of prevention contained in Article 130Ñ of the EU Treaty (in order to control and withdraw known or suspected endocrine disrupters and develop alternative harmless substances).
Adopting a resolution on a Community strategy on endocrine disrupters is the minimum we should do on a complex subject for which no regulation exists.
Listing and studying the phenomenon of disruption of the endocrine systems of men and animals, validating the studies, and demonstrating the causal links between certain products and certain anomalies found in humans and animals (decline in fertility, certain malformations, certain cancers), is a necessary point of departure as long as it respects the precautionary principle and at the same time promotes a need for transparency totally absent from the text.
The fact is that private and public decision-makers will not act unless obliged to do so by public opinion.
The lists of products suspected of being endocrine disrupters must be made known to the public and health professionals, as and when new ones are discovered.
While studies must be conducted to find out about the dangers of endocrine disrupters, firms using suspect products must also be made subject to regulations applicable to drugs, especially in terms of furnishing proof that these products are harmless, whenever they are considered suspect by the European groups of experts.
So an arsenal of restrictive regulations is urgently needed to make it possible to ban such products in the years ahead.
That concludes voting time.
Retail payments in the internal market
The next item is the report (A5-0283/2000) by Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on retail payments in the single market [COM(2000) 0036 - C5-0103/2000 - 2000/2018(COS)].
Madam President, by 2002, every citizen in the euro area will have euros in their pockets and expect certain benefits from this new currency.
These benefits will not just appear out of nowhere.
We will need to work on those.
I would like to see the Commission communication on retail payments in that light.
What should we all do to ensure that the European citizen, who has relinquished his own familiar currency, will actually benefit from this new currency? We simply need to make transfers cheaper, quicker and safer.
I therefore expect the Commission simply to transpose the recommendations to change the 1997 Directive, which I made in my report on behalf of Parliament, to a formal amendment to the directive without delay.
What is it about? At the heart of the matter lies the fact that transferring small amounts still leads to major frustration in SMEs and among individual citizens.
This frustration is the result of the high charges and length of time involved.
This leads me to conclude that the effect which the 1997 Directive had was inadequate.
We need to go further.
The consumer and SME do not benefit enough from the internal market which was completed following the introduction of the euro.
One solution which this report offers is that the infrastructure of these cross-border credit transfers must undergo a thorough overhaul.
It appears that at present, a number of actions are still carried out manually, which leads to high charges and extended handling times.
I therefore call on the banks to take all the necessary measures in the shortest possible time, so that cross-border credit transfers can be carried out fully automatically and thus become a great deal cheaper.
In my report, I have listed systems such as IBAN, SWIFT, STEP 1 and IPI.
These systems can make payments between banks in different countries easier, quicker and cheaper, provided that the banks talk to their customers and make it clear to them that in addition to the permanent VAT number, their IBAN code should now also feature on their letter-headed paper.
In order for this standardisation process to work, we need coordination.
That is why we have tabled an amendment which urges the European Central Bank to assume this coordinating role very quickly, based on its responsibility for payment systems, such responsibility being imposed on the Bank by the Treaty.
We would ask the European Central Bank to do two things.
Firstly, to develop a European standard format for data transmission.
This could be done very quickly, for that format already exists.
This is to replace the national format which is already widely in use.
Secondly, to create a European bank number, like the IBAN, for example.
It is vital that such harmonised formats are used universally in the euro area.
We might need to consider introducing them as a compulsory requirement if this is not done sufficiently promptly.
As I have stated in my report, this automation and standardisation process should be in place three months before the introduction of notes and coins.
That would be ideal.
However, the banks keep maintaining that this is impossible.
By way of compromise, I have proposed an amendment in this respect which states that the banks must be ready by 1 January 2002.
In this way, as soon as the public actually gets to handle the euro, they can straight away benefit from the change in cross-border credit transfers.
The banks alone cannot reduce the total cost of transfers more or less to the level of the cost price for domestic payments.
They need the help of the Member States.
After all, banks have so far been obliged by the Member States to notify their central banks of any cross-border payments over EUR 12 500, for the benefit of balance of payment reporting statistics.
This notification procedure cannot be standardised and is therefore carried out manually.
A very costly matter indeed which will be rendered completely redundant in one market with one currency.
After all, they do not keep records in France of how many francs leave Paris for Auxerre, so why should we?
Moreover, volume and number of retail payments only form a small percentage of the total number of credit transfers.
Your rapporteur is convinced that there should not be any objections to abolishing the report duties up to the full amount stipulated in the directive, namely EUR 50 000.
The loss of data for balance of payment reporting statistics brought about by this change is minimal.
A change related to this is that the money-back guarantee must be increased to EUR 50 000.
At present, banks are almost rewarded when they lose your money.
If you transfer EUR 30 000 and the bank loses that money, it only has a duty to pay you back EUR 12 500.
Banks should of course not lose any money at all, and they must stand surety for their organisation.
This is why we propose increasing the money-back guarantee limit up to EUR 50 000, the amount stipulated in the directive.
According to the banks, nothing ever gets lost, so that can never be an issue.
On a final note, I would like to give consumers more options to transfer money.
I am thinking of insolvent consumers or consumers with no bank accounts.
I would ask the European Commission to investigate whether companies such as Moneygram and Western Union could also fall within the scope of the second Directive on banking.
As a consequence, these companies could have their base anywhere in the European Union, even though they are not banks.
Needless to say, these companies will be subject to the same strict conditions in terms of security and money-laundering.
I hope that this report will encourage banks sufficiently to continue on their path of innovation towards better functioning, cross-border credit transfers.
But in order to grant banks absolute certainty and clarity in their heavy investment programmes, I am expecting the Commission to change the directive by return of post.
Madam President, the rapporteur's report is very much to be welcomed because it highlights the problems associated with cross-border payments.
After all, we expect credit transfers to strengthen economic integration in the European Union and not to throw a spanner in the works.
That is what they are doing to this day, as we can see from the many complaints made by small and medium-sized businesses and the complaints made by the public about the high charges for transferring small amounts, which are quite simply very much in evidence.
We even know of cases in which transfer fees for cross-border payments increased when the euro was introduced, and not only by a modest amount.
The monthly cheque to a daughter or son in another EU country, the cross-border transfers for books or services, hotels or trips are being subjected to additional charges, despite the fact that the logistics of cross-border trade are supposed to be less complex and less expensive.
There is even talk of it being possible to reduce costs by 90%, although the financial services institutions impress on us time and again that the higher costs are linked to processing the transfers and not to the technicalities of making cross-border payments.
Nevertheless, it would have been good if a TARGET system for small payments and retail payments had been introduced at the same time as the TARGET system for wholesale payments, because technically that would have been possible; it is just that there was not the same determination to do so as there was for wholesale payments.
In the European Parliament in our work in committee, we also very much regretted the fact that the offer made by the European Central Bank was not accepted.
Here, too, we endorse the statement made by the European Central Bank that one day it should not be any more expensive to effect a cross-border transfer to another EU country than to transfer money within one single EU country.
For years we have been pressing for the efforts being made to be harmonised.
After all, it is in fact very possible to set up a quick, secure and cheap system, and fortunately the financial services institutions have now also come on board; they are on the right track.
But it would have been good if we had already made use of the transitional period.
The many complaints made by incensed members of the public speak for themselves, and I have to say that particularly at this time these are, of course, not likely to increase public acceptance of monetary union.
The political objective is clear and is supported by the European Central Bank: what we need is a European payment area within which everything works just as smoothly as it does in a single EU country.
Small customers are just as much part of the internal market as major customers; there should be no discrimination here.
I believe, however, that there is also more that the governments must do, and I support the rapporteur's report.
At the same time, the reporting requirement for balance of payment statistics should be abolished for small-value cross-border payments for amounts of less than EUR 50 000.
Samples are actually sufficient.
The European Central Bank could help by creating a single European data format for credit transfers and by supporting moves to create a uniform European bank sort code within the international IBAN system.
It is important for all those involved to do what the European Central Bank is obliged to do as one of its tasks laid down in the Treaty, namely to promote the smooth operation of payment systems.
The European Commission does not have the right to set the level of bank charges, but it can use its influence to bring down transfer fees.
In the Union, charges sometimes vary very considerably, but sometimes they are also very similar.
They therefore play a part in restricting freedom of movement in the internal market.
I think that the Commission needs to be much quicker than it has been up until now about finally tabling the results of its investigations into whether there are, in fact, restrictive agreements between the banks.
What is becoming important - and the report rightly refers to this - is consumer preference for electronic payments, and here we call for progress to be made so that here too an interoperable multi-currency standard for electronic purses can actually be introduced.
This initiative, which so far is operational in Luxembourg, France and Germany, needs to be extended to the rest of the EU.
I believe that this report is of central importance if we are truly to succeed in integrating the public and small and medium-sized businesses into the euro area and for increasing public acceptance of economic and monetary union.
We need security, speed and also low costs.
Living in the monetary union also means counting on a reliable cross-border credit transfer system - this is the battle cry for the remaining 432 days.
Madam President, I would like to concur with the rapporteur and her excellent report.
She expressed her views in no uncertain terms. I am also delighted that the European Commission, especially Commissioner Bolkestein and also Commissioner Monti, are putting this matter high on the agenda.
Consumers and companies are becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the high costs for cross-border bank transactions in the internal market, which is completely understandable.
Consumers pay far too much for any type of cross-border bank transactions, as well as for cash, credit transfers, credit cards and cheques.
For large sums, there is a refined network in place in which transfers are carried out as quickly and cheaply as for domestic transactions.
However, the private individual still cannot rely on sufficient support, a reduction in costs and efficient processing of small amounts.
I would therefore like to stress once more the need for efficient, safe and cheap services for retail payments in the internal market to go hand in hand with the introduction of the euro.
The acceptance of the euro also depends greatly on whether consumers and companies are able to use the euro area as an internal payment zone.
It is crucial for consumers to accept the euro.
When euro coins and notes are introduced on 1 January 2002, consumers will start to use the euro frequently, and how are we then to explain that there are differences in its use, even though there is one currency and one euro area?
The idea that transfers in two participating euro area countries will no longer be considered as an international transaction incurring international costs but as a national transfer, will need to become universally accepted.
The high bank charges involved in the completion of the internal market constitute a barrier.
Consumers are discouraged from shopping internationally.
For example, they will not subscribe to a foreign magazine if the international charges amount to double the price of the magazine because of the high bank charges.
In the free movement of capital involving the single currency, there should not be any restrictions or huge discrepancies.
The objective must be to establish one single payment area, where cross-border payments are subject to the same conditions and accompanied by the same costs as domestic transactions.
That, in our eyes, is the only possible and logical consequence of the internal market and a single currency.
The free movement of people in the euro area requires a flexible labour market.
If there are still payment commitments with the home country, this should not prevent people from working abroad.
It is a fact that banks throughout the euro area took a reserved stance before the implementation of the Directive on cross-border retail payments.
Following implementation, a large proportion of the problems also remained unsolved.
Now that the switch-over is drawing ever closer, it really is time for action, by banks and Member States alike.
Banks must commit to implementing the existing standards for account numbering and payment instructions.
In this age of modern technology, the electronic highway could offer a way-out.
Maybe, in fact most probably, the time has come for an Internet bank to be set up which does not charge any costs.
Madam President, Mrs Peijs' report on retail payments in the internal market takes up Parliament' s longstanding complaint about the high cost of cross-border payments within the Union.
It is quite true.
The cost is very high and we know exactly why that is.
The interconnections between the computer systems of the various banks in the various Member States are poor, hence the need for expensive manual operations to process payments from one national system to another.
This is not some fiendish ploy by the bankers, just a technical reality temporarily resisting resolution, but bound to evolve in the right direction in time.
So I think we should put the problem into perspective, especially as cross-border payments represent a very small part of total payments.
The documents I have looked at put their share as low as 0.2% to 0.04%.
In every case, it is really microscopic.
Yet the European Parliament and the Commission genuinely attach vast significance to it.
Why is that?
The first answer is that the European institutions tend to prioritise everything that is cross-border, which is not surprising, after all.
But nevertheless, this bias towards cross-border issues must not mean the great majority of citizens is penalised for the benefit of a tiny minority.
Investment leading to significant reductions in the cost of cross-border payments would not be profitable because it would be amortised over far too few payers. To that extent, the conclusion must be that making that investment under these conditions would mean applying the costs to all bank customers, most of whom have nothing to do with the matter.
I do not really think that, in all fairness, that is a desirable outcome.
It is highly dubious politically, and we must also stop giving the impression that something that is expensive for technical reasons can suddenly become free because a directive has been passed saying so.
I would remind you of the basic maxim everyone learns in the first year of economics: there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Madam President, there is a second reason for the European Parliament' s perseverance.
The Peijs report makes the point in recital D of the motion for a resolution, and I quote: 'the high level of charges for cross-border credit transfers is damaging the confidence of consumers in the euro' .
But why should it damage the confidence of consumers in the euro? I have just explained why these two problems are not linked, at least not apparently.
The fact is, several years ago, people were led to believe - who knows why, no doubt to get the euro accepted more easily - that this type of cost would completely disappear with the single currency.
Here is a little leaflet. Millions of copies of it were distributed in public places in France, not least post offices, and this is what it says in the section on foreign exchange commission: 'in the euro area the commission on foreign exchange will disappear' .
Of course, in the strict sense that is true, but the naïve reader, the non-specialist, thought that all the costs of cross-border payments would disappear, when in fact foreign exchange commissions only represented a small part of those costs, just a small percentage.
So now we are facing the consequences of the hard sell of the euro, and that brings me to a conclusion on this issue of cross-border payments, but also, Madam President, on the euro generally.
One can deny reality using words. You can tell people stories, but sooner or later, your fudging and lies will come back to haunt you.
Madam President, the no-frills approach, which typifies Mrs Peijs, is evident in virtually every paragraph of the present report.
It is only right that the banking sector should be tackled and given a stiff talking to, for while the most important techniques and standards are in place, there is still no flexibility in sight for cross-border credit transfers for amounts up to EUR 50 000.
One would almost be inclined to think that none of the commercial banks stand to benefit from modernising their present working methods.
I endorse the dual-track policy, by means of which the rapporteur hopes to spur the slow banks into action.
In my view, it is not sufficient to exert pressure via legislative measures. These could prove less effective than putting the pressure on by giving rival alternatives generous elbow-room to transfer money within the euro area.
The Commission might well want to give this latter option serious thought, for I assume that the Commission too would prefer to see a reduction in the costs via increased competition.
I have my reservations about one aspect, however.
The demand to bring the costs for transferring money within the euro area into line with those within a Member State could well lead to a situation where the costs for domestic transfers will go up.
This is certainly true of the Netherlands, where for years, customers were not charged for domestic transfers.
This objection does not detract from the fact that I give the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, all credit for her thoroughness in this matter.
Madam President, Commissioner Bolkenstein, the report that has been drafted with such professional skill by my colleague, Mrs Peijs, and which is now the subject of our discussion, is very important for consumers in the euro area and for confidence in the euro as a whole.
Rarely in this House has there been such strong consensus on how important the report we are dealing with is.
I share the concerns of those of my colleagues who have already spoken and agree with what they have said.
This morning the euro sank to an all-time low.
It was quoted at 0.8240 against the US dollar. That is a new record.
We therefore have much to do in this area but the political resources and remedies politicians possess to deal with that are fewer than those we are able to employ to resolve this problem of Internal Market payments.
I also wish to thank the Commission for the fact that you have taken legal action against one hundred and twenty banks and banking associations as a result of suspicions over a cartel relating to payments charged for currency exchange in the euro area exchange rate.
This is excellent work on the part of the Commission.
On the other hand, I do also understand the point of view of the banks to some extent.
Although we in the European Parliament now criticise the banks we have to understand that cross-border payments account for only a six-percent slice of all payment transactions, so development of this area is an expensive investment in the eyes of the banks in relation to the benefits gained, from the point of view of the banks at least.
On the other hand, the largest item of expenditure in cross-border credit transfers is manual handling, and a decision should be taken quickly to dispense with that.
Just as Mrs Randzio-Plath said, we cannot order banks to reduce charges as a result of political decisions.
What we can do is compel or put pressure on the European Central Bank to invite banks to attend immediately a meeting of a working party on standardisation at which decisions could be taken regarding the technical circumstances under which costs could be reduced.
We cannot force banks to engage in unprofitable business, but, as politicians, what we can do is support the amendment tabled by Mr Radwan and Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, which calls for measures to be implemented before the end of next year, and, preferably, for these standards to be in place when the euro coins and notes come into circulation.
Madam President, it is a source of deep regret that in a Parliament where a good 85% of people have staked their political reputations on the single currency, we do not have a greater attendance to discuss the performance of this currency.
We know that it is 17 times more expensive to make a cross-border transaction transfer in the euro area than it is to make a domestic one.
People joining the euro thought that if it did nothing else, it would make it easier and cheaper for them to take their money abroad.
We see that this is not happening.
This promised benefit has not materialised; and indeed, as the Commission candidly admitted when this report was discussed in committee, no improvement is expected in the situation after the introduction of notes and coins.
This is another blow to a currency already struggling, a currency that hits a new low on the international market virtually every week, a currency with the bank president continuously under fire for his ill-judged comments to the press, a currency where, on the only occasion when the people of Europe were asked to cast their vote on whether to join or not, they voted "no" in the recent Danish referendum.
We now hear that the printers responsible for producing the notes are threatening to go on strike.
Above all, even the most basic benefit that the euro enthusiasts promised the people of Europe, the reduction of transaction costs, is not being realised.
What are the benefits for the people of the euro area from this currency that has been foisted on them by a political elite in Europe? This project is not about economics.
This project is not about giving practical benefits to European citizens.
It is and always has been a step on the road to creating a United States of Europe, a political project.
We are seeing that it is failing to deliver any benefits to the mainstream majority of ordinary people in the euro area.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I too should like to thank our colleague, Mrs Peijs, very much for her report and for being so persistent in her efforts to achieve results for the public.
On 1 January 2002, the euro will also become a reality for the public, because then we will have the euro in our pockets.
Today the average fee for transferring EUR 100 to another country in the internal market is EUR 17.10, many times more than the fees for domestic transfers.
In the future, the euro area will also feel like a domestic area and the public do not understand why in this area, in which there are no exchange-related risks and in which electronic payments with Internet banking are increasingly becoming a matter of course, transferring money from Munich to Salzburg is considerably more expensive than transferring money from Munich to Kiel.
The advantages of the euro need to be demonstrated to the public and also to small and medium-sized businesses, precisely because we are having problems at the moment with the acceptance of the euro and it seems to many as though large companies and banks are benefiting from it, but not the man in the street.
For me, the argument that nowadays very few transfers of euros are made to other countries in the euro area does not count either.
That is a chicken-and-egg debate.
We in Brussels are of course experiencing this ourselves as Members, but our colleagues are too, that we do not make transfers abroad because of the high charges linked to the euro.
I am firmly convinced that if prices fall the number of transfers will increase in leaps and bounds and people will avail themselves of this possibility.
I welcome the fact that the Commission is maintaining its pressure on the banks and that it may increase the pressure further with the action it is taking against 120 banks.
The European Central Bank should also exert increased pressure.
The proposal by Mrs Peijs and myself also seeks to bring the banks together around one table, not to lay down the law, but because we simply cannot increase the pressure any further from the political side.
Neither do we want any price regulation in this sector, but we should at least coordinate this.
The ECB would seem the ideal candidate to make progress on single data formats and uniform bank sort codes in Europe.
I also hope that the low prices will not come at one fell swoop in five years' time, but that they will come gradually and that it will already be possible to see some progress as early as 2002.
At long last we will have achieved our aim if the banks compete on offering customers cheap transfers abroad.
Then we will have a real market in this sector.
Madam President, I shall speak in English in answer to Mrs Villiers, who has spoken about the advantages, and possible disadvantages, of the euro.
It is a much debated subject these days, but it does not come within my remit.
So I shall inform my colleague, Mr Solbes Mira, who deals with macroeconomic matters, of the remarks by Mrs Villiers.
I have no desire to add anything to the current debate.
I do not want to muddy the waters.
Madam President, I would like to start by extending a warm thanks to Mrs Peijs for her excellent report on the establishment of a unified, uniform area for payments.
Upon completion of the internal market and the introduction of the single currency, we need a unified area for payments more than ever.
Borders should no longer play a role in future.
In fact, in time, there should not be a discrepancy at all between cross-border and domestic payments.
Both the Commission and Parliament will need to invest many more years of work in order to realise this objective.
In this context, I would like to draw your attention to the date of 1 January 2002.
That date must be considered as an extremely important and symbolic milestone in the construction of the European Union - and I am also addressing Mrs Villiers with this observation.
After all, on that fateful day, 1 January 2002, all citizens of the euro area will have the same coins and notes in their purses and wallets.
After the European passport, this is the second concrete proof, which will actually make a tangible difference on a day-to-day basis, that we all belong to the European Union.
We therefore need to pull out all the stops to turn this new phase into a success.
After all, if the systems for making cross-border payments remain as expensive as they are today, the credibility of the new system of coins and notes will be called into question.
This is why it is crucial that well before 1 January 2002, a whole host of measures are taken, so that these are in place when the new coins and notes are introduced.
The Commission will take a very close look at all the proposals made in the report.
We will especially study the problems in the field of competition.
In this respect, I would like to say in response to the observations made by Mrs Kauppi and Mrs Randzio-Plath, who unfortunately had to leave the Chamber, that the Commission has looked into possible agreements between banks.
This investigation took place in February 1999.
The Commission has sent declarations of objection to banks in six Member States.
That was done in July of this year and the Member States involved are Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands and Germany.
The relevant procedures and the investigation into the costs charged for cross-border payments is now under way.
In more general terms, the Commission is of the opinion that technological development enables the competition in this field of credit transfers to intensify, for competition will of course lead to lower costs.
We will be exchanging ideas on this topic during the large round-table conference to be held on 9 November next in Brussels.
In the summer of 2001, the Commission will also be presenting a report on the improvement of cross-border credit transfers.
That report - and I am turning to Mrs Peijs in particular - will contain legislative proposals amending the 1997 Directive which entered into effect last year.
I am addressing Mrs Peijs directly because I know she appreciates a clear response in this matter.
Once that report has been drafted - and that will not be by return of post as Mrs Peijs requested, but in any event reasonably promptly - I can promise Mrs Peijs that the Commission will produce legislative proposals in this respect.
On that occasion, we will also be looking into reducing the implementation period for cross-border transfers, which Mrs Peijs calls for in her report.
Even now, transfers take place within three days in 85% of the cases.
It is, of course, our aim to increase this to 100%.
The Commission is trying to exert pressure on the banks with this aim in mind.
Once again, it will be some time before this becomes reality, but next summer, the Commission intends to make a statement on Mrs Peijs' proposal to reduce the period by half.
It will attempt to meet the requirements of the House.
The rapporteur' s report also focuses on the declarations of statistical data which banks need to produce for each cross-border transfer.
These declarations are imposed by the Member States and not by the Commission.
We are of the opinion that this form of collecting statistical data on the Union' s internal credit transfers is a vestige of the past which can no longer be justified in an integrated, unified area and which forms an obstruction to the proper running of the market.
I therefore hope that the Member States too will take prompt action to update their systems for collecting statistical data.
In addition, the Commission fully backs Parliament' s proposals to encourage electronic payment.
It is important, however, that technical and legal security are guaranteed, especially with regard to direct debiting.
We cannot, on the other hand, endorse the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, because this Committee is asking us to take a legislative initiative to bring the costs of cross-border payments in line with those for domestic payments.
We can, of course, agree on the principle of this proposal, but not on the proposed working method.
As you know, we are in favour of free competition, but not of administrative price regulation.
Furthermore, as Mr Blokland was quite right to point out, such a measure could immediately have the opposite effect, because the costs of domestic payments could then immediately increase.
I do not believe that that news would be well-received by consumers who never make cross-border transfer payments.
This brings me to the end of my brief clarification on the action the Commission intends to take on the report by Mrs Peijs.
I hope that the appeals you have made, particularly those directed at the banking world, will be heard.
The Commission and European Central Bank are in constant, and often difficult, dialogue with the banking world to achieve tangible results, and your support in this is much appreciated.
Madam President, by way of reassurance, I would like to say to the Commissioner that the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has not been incorporated as a document in the EMAC report.
Parliament, in its wisdom, completely shares your view.
Madam President, I am grateful to Mrs Peijs for her last remark, which is also accepted as such by the Commission.
As far as this matter is concerned therefore, the Commission can declare its concurrence - in every respect, in fact - with the report by Mrs Peijs.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship
The next item is the report (A5-0267/2000) by Mrs Montfort on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision on a multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship, 2001-2005 [COM(2000) 256 - C5-0274/2000 - 2000/0107(CNS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we all carry our own list of recurrent disappointments we can do nothing about in our heads, but it is a good thing to have a moan about them from time to time just to show that we do not accept the situation and that impotence does not always rhyme with indifference, not yet anyway.
Listening to what some Members had to say in committee, Members who have been in this House longer than I have, gave me the feeling that this multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship exercise that Parliament is going through for the fourth time belongs in that category.
In substance, people were telling me that good intentions are always welcome but we need to make sure, contrary to what has always happened so far, that the next report on the subject does not have to make the same assessment as the previous one, because nothing has really changed in the position of European businesses.
So the aim of the text before you today is to transform a pointless compulsory figures test into a promising examination of a freestyle programme where the European Union can add value as long as it understands its place and its role in the arrangement.
The time when the defence of business, especially small and medium-sized business, was like a corporatist battle is long gone, not just because there is only a handful of diehards left who see the world of business through the distorting prism of the class struggle, but above all because, at the start of this third millennium, everyone knows that the issues of employment and social cohesion are crucial for our societies, and business has a pre-eminent role in those issues.
In fact, it is well to bear in mind that, at both the economic and the social level, business leads.
The major job-creator and driving force for social integration, it has also progressively acquired paramount importance as regards training for young people and continuous training, and as it has in the area of land development where it is, in the end, the most efficient instrument.
Recognising this, the Fifteen adopted the Charter for Small Enterprises last June at the Feira Summit. Its existence is already affording us a glimpse of the considerable progress that can be achieved.
Besides undeniably constituting the basis on which we must construct a policy on business which genuinely serves business, the Charter has the great merit not just of limiting our action to small businesses, but of making them the central point in our thinking, our priority unit of reference.
Parliament, composed of elected representatives who regularly rub shoulders with representatives of small business, is duty bound to present this option clearly, turning it into an objective reality and introducing the only method that can properly embrace the diversity of the world of business.
The SME is not a multinational in miniature, any more than it suffices to extrapolate the difficulties of a small business quantitatively to get a proper grasp of the problems of large units.
It does seem sound policy to favour a pragmatic and hands-on approach, putting the small business at the heart of the system, rather than a proposal merely producing balanced statistics that are quite impossible to use in practice, on the pretext of avoiding a scattershot approach.
So I am glad the Committee on Industry unanimously decided to prioritise a sectoral approach to business, the inevitable choice for identifying as precisely as possible the real and specific needs of businesses whose disparity lends itself poorly to a horizontal approach. That would not be effective.
Certainly, comparing performance and exchanging best practice are most interesting ideas in absolute terms, but positive intervention in the day-to-day lives of businesses cannot be achieved by that means alone.
So what should be done? We need to start with three simple ideas: first, instead of accepting that we more or less give up trying to reach as many companies as possible directly, we should use the existing networks whose understanding of real-life situations makes them indispensable partners in the drafting, but also in the efficient implementation of a policy geared to businesses.
That is why the report stresses the need for close links between consulting circles and organisations representing businesses, which have much to teach us and can prevent us from turning a good idea into a bad decision out of ignorance.
Next, we should take care not to make access to capital for firms, especially the smallest ones, even more complicated.
Here we are touching on a key factor in the start-up, development, recovery, transfer, even survival of businesses, and a certain number of decisions that have been taken, or are on the point of being taken, are causing concern.
These range from the obscure reshaping of the respective tasks of the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund, to the draft Directive on banks' own resources, which we have still to be persuaded will have an impact on the ability of a business to obtain a loan.
Whatever the case, with the advent of an economy based more than ever on knowledge and technological innovation, the Commission absolutely must ensure that the boldest, most innovative, risk-taking companies are helped to grasp the opportunities on offer and reap the rewards of their enterprising spirit.
Finally, since the spirit of enterprise is inseparable from the notion of responsibility, we should establish clearly what Europe can contribute as added value in terms of business policy.
The political orientation is the responsibility of the Member States.
The Council set that orientation at Feira, with the Charter for Small Enterprises.
By concentrating on coordinating the policies defined in this context and applied by the Member States, and in particular by a commitment to lowering all the technical and administrative barriers that place needless strain on business progress, that approach would find consummate expression.
I hope the vote in this House will replicate the unanimity shown in the Committee on Industry.
That would send out the strong and clear signal the business world needs.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you in advance for supporting my report.
Commissioner, I know I can count on your energy and determination to implement this programme.
It needs to be linked to other Community programmes and an annual balance sheet should be drawn up so that adjustments can be made if necessary.
In that way we can meet the two challenges of full employment and social cohesion together.
Thank you on behalf of all enterprises, but also on behalf of our societies.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after eleven years in this House, I can bear witness to the fact that debates on small and medium-sized businesses in our Parliament are neither new nor rare.
It has to be said that on the basis of European Union criteria, over 99% of companies could be defined as SMEs, which is not very sensible. That very fact illustrates the European vagueness of the concept and explains many uncertainties.
Bear in mind that the first Community action programme in this area was adopted in 1983, seventeen years ago.
Our rapporteur, Mrs Montfort, has done excellent work over the last few weeks, in-depth work in close collaboration with all her colleagues.
She has identified the points where there was a lack of clarity or significant slippage between statements and reality in the Commission' s text.
Her work, in which we have assisted, has consisted of pinpointing issues and trying to establish a more precise classification of the different types of SME, micro-enterprises and craft businesses.
And, along those lines, we too have tabled and pressed for a series of strong, concrete proposals for moving from words to deeds, in relation to SMEs, by giving them access to innovation and electronic commerce, simplifying certain customs formalities for them, ending certain disparities in administration and regulations, developing - and this is important - access to risk capital, developing the Euro Info Centres to broaden the scope of business information and support, and making the framework programme for research and technological development more open to innovative SMEs.
As far as I and my friends are concerned, we have sought to put the accent on crafts and micro-enterprises. I have asked for environmental and sustainable development targets to be properly taken into consideration, and for access of SMEs to new communications and information technologies to be promoted.
I have also asked that actions geared to specific groups like women, young people and the social economy sectors be encouraged, not forgetting employee participation in the life of these SMEs in general.
SMEs are the major source of job creation, in terms of both quality and quantity, and they play a crucial role in social cohesion and regional planning.
That is why it is very urgent to remove the many obstacles to their development and organise the necessary training.
So, Mrs Montfort, I hope a massive vote for your report will finally allow us to make a qualitative leap forward in this area, and also that certain excessively liberal amendments will be rejected, for instance, on reducing the number of promotional programmes and on creating a new monitoring centre.
If I had to sum it up in a nutshell, Mr President, I would say that what we need here- and if I say so myself - is less ideology and more action.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first and foremost like to express a word of thanks to the rapporteur who has indeed compiled her report with great care.
This care is more than needed if we want to establish 'Enterprise Europe' by 2005 and if we want to make the European Union into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-driven economy in the world.
The amendment to the report in the Committee, partly tabled at my proposal, emphasised that the multiannual programme must be used as an instrument to promote economic growth, full employment and social cohesion.
I would like to stress that this is an important focus, which must be brought more to the fore in the information and information campaigns, because it cannot be emphasised enough that entrepreneurship and an entrepreneurial climate are both of key significance, and that this is the reason why particular attention must be paid to the education and training of young people, as well as to providing permanent training to staff of SMEs.
Today, I would particularly like to make a case for systematically eliminating as many as possible, if not all, barriers which stand in the way of establishing the internal market, and for optimising the competitiveness of SMEs, allowing them to develop in a dynamic and sustained manner.
In addition, I have always been an advocate of underpinning these goals with efficient and pragmatic policy.
I am delighted with Mr Caudron' s final remark which amounts to investing less in ideology, but more in efficient and pragmatic policy, which means that red tape should be kept to an absolute minimum.
In our Union, this should in the first instance translate into simplification of customs formalities, because the fiscal, social, administrative and regulatory disparities between the Member States in terms of costs constitute a substantial barrier to equal access to the internal market.
Finally, I would also urge you to take into consideration the enlargement of the European Union which is upon us.
The effective implementation of the acquis is necessary to ensure that enlargement becomes a win-win situation for the Member States and candidate countries alike.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I, too, would like to congratulate our colleague, Mrs Elisabeth Montfort, on the quality of her report on the multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship for 2001-2005.
She has studied the proposals with great care, and she has taken the trouble to consult with the many parties concerned. That approach has been an asset in defining and optimising the implementation of this programme.
Here I want to stress some of the strengths we need to build on to improve Europe's contribution to business in the new 'knowledge-based' economy.
How can we make a better contribution to Enterprise Europe, as President Prodi called it in a recent speech?
First, every business must be included.
Of course there are large businesses, involving several thousand people, say.
We need to recognise not just what they contribute to the market economy, in terms of jobs and profit, but also their contribution to knowledge through their support for applied research and to the creation of hosts of businesses around them.
Through their contacts with - often public - research laboratories they undoubtedly supplement public funding, which frequently needs supplementing, and enables discoveries to be made.
So it is important to make sure our action here is positive.
Turning now to SMIs/SMEs and micro-enterprises.
As Mr Caudron said, these represent 98% of our economic fabric.
Our greatest potential for adaptation resides in them.
They are the true economic and innovation vanguard, in the front line and openly exposed to the risks inherent in this domain.
We should take special care of them and make sure there are concrete measures which they can assimilate easily.
Secondly, and without going through the measures set out in the report, which are, anyway, the result of an assessment made last year, you will note, all the same, that we are taking up the same old essential points: simplification of the assistance formalities, which are still too cumbersome, and even stifling for SMIs; help with finance and risk capital to ensure greater stability; aid for research into new technologies; establishment of a European standard through the BEST process; aid with communication and information.
These businesses need buttressing within their geographic or technological environment.
We must encourage them, promote local development using local resources, both material and human, and foster their relations with local communities.
Here we should not only be helping businesses with a traditional structure, but also public-private partnerships and cooperatives which are increasingly contributing, among other things, to improving stability and creating jobs.
Thirdly, we must look for European added value.
This could involve, in particular, the installation of a European network, both physical and electronic, which every SMI can join, where they can find information, exchange knowledge through appropriate mechanisms with appropriate ethics, and benefit from the prime advantages the European Union decides to establish for their support.
It seems clear to me that Brussels cannot run everything in this domain.
We need operations in the field, regional delegations the Commission, Parliament or the Council can control, as the Majo report recognised just recently.
Certain intervention issues must also be selected.
They are easy to find: in the information society especially, in that sustainable development we hear so much about, in the fields of the environment, clean technologies, eco-technologies, new energy sources and new materials.
The hallmark of this European aid network should be a number of centres, like the Euro Info Centres.
For an SME/SMI, working with this European network would undoubtedly mean that, where synergies exists, it would not have to form a consortium with several other businesses in different Union countries, which often results in an artificial set-up with masses of paperwork and endless complications.
I really hope the Commission will set up a working group on this topic, involving interested Members of Parliament.
Fourthly, there are the proposals for the European research area we are beginning to construct.
In parallel, we propose to introduce a European innovation area, and I am grateful to Mrs Montfort for having agreed to include that proposal in her report.
We must take account of the results of and follow-up to the work of the Science and Governance Conference held last week in Brussels under the auspices of the Seville Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, because there is plenty of overlap with the subject we are dealing with today.
Finally, I am sure it is time to create a proper parliamentary office for scientific and technological options assessment within the European Parliament, to assist in decisions and monitoring. These exist in the national parliaments and ours would match theirs.
Our President, Mrs Fontaine, is asking us, because we are responsible for STOA, to send a message of support today to the EPTA, an organisation specialised in technological assessment in Europe, founded under the aegis of our colleague Mr Barón Crespo, which is meeting in Berlin on 10 November.
But STOA is not really that kind of organisation and we have specific proposals to make on the subject.
Mrs Montfort, our group will give your report its wholesale support.
Mr President, Commissioner, small and medium-sized businesses, both in the manufacturing and in the service sectors, can only survive on the market if they have full order books.
They only have full order books if they have clients, and these can, roughly speaking, be divided into three categories: firstly, large companies; secondly, private consumers and thirdly, the public sector.
It follows from this that small and medium-sized businesses only thrive if unemployment is low and if public budgets at all levels are free of debt and have sufficient resources to commit to the investment budget.
Within small and medium-sized businesses I should like to pay particular attention to the very small and micro-enterprises, because, of course, here additional specific difficulties compound the situation, in particular in manufacturing.
These companies very rarely have their own research and development capabilities and the danger is therefore particularly great that they will be cut off from the development of new products and the further development of existing ones, that they will use antiquated technologies and that they will not adapt to the demand for increasing quality.
In addition, very often - because the managerial staff are not adequately qualified - the opportunities for support, which are readily available here, are not exploited to the full.
All of this is quite apart from the main problems which to this day have not been resolved: permanent undercapitalisation; very poor access to credit because they cannot provide the guarantees required in normal banking practice; markets limited to their respective regions and cash loss.
This means that a policy focused on small and medium-sized businesses is needed, on the one hand to standardise the assistance programmes and on the other, obviously, to take account also of the specific interests and problems linked to company size, company structures, production lines and so on.
Mrs Montfort's report constitutes a considerable improvement on the Commission proposal.
People might almost think, Mrs Montfort, that you yourself were a committed SME entrepreneur.
Your report is excellent.
Nevertheless, I would have liked even more attention to have been paid to at least two economic trends.
The first is a greater emphasis on - I do not say a change towards but a greater emphasis on - demand-driven economic policy compared with supply-side economic policy.
Secondly, there has also been a power shift within investment policy towards investment for expansion and - to a lesser extent - towards investment in rationalisation.
Looked at another way, this means that the taxpayer makes tax receipts available which companies use to rationalise.
Then they put the people who used to work there out onto the street and say to the taxpayer, now it is up to you again to sort out what happens to these workers who have been shown the door.
Surely this cannot be what economists want.
It may seem perfectly acceptable from a business management point of view because of the profits that it can be expected to generate, but not from the point of view of the overall economy.
I think that we in the European Parliament have a responsibility to the overall economy which takes precedence over our responsibility to the business economy.
Mr President, this multiannual programme provides a European framework for the development of the innovative potential and the competitiveness of industry in the Member States.
In this context, the principle of subsidiarity is afforded the attention it deserves in our view.
We endorse the attention which the rapporteur, Mrs Montfort, is paying - rightly so - to small and medium-sized businesses, and micro-enterprises, as well as to granting priority support to young fledgling entrepreneurs.
The rapporteur has listed a number of key points in a bid to strengthen the European entrepreneurial climate.
For example, she calls for enterprises to have access to new information and communication technology.
The question does, however, arise as to how the Multiannual programme can help enterprises strengthen their competitiveness in specific terms.
Whichever way, the Commission has a stimulating role to play in exchanging regional experience and best practices in this field.
Another of Mrs Montfort' s key points is the improvement, or rather simplification, of legislation and the regulatory structure in the Member States.
We have always been in favour of eliminating unnecessary administrative hurdles for industry.
In our opinion, a third point of concern is the protection of intellectual property rights at European level.
We especially have the patenting of software innovation in mind.
Enterprises need clarity.
In other words: is there still any purpose in investing in this sector?
In this context, the question also arises as to whether Europe is possibly lagging behind the US precisely because of the lack of a European patent on software.
Finally, practice at national and regional level will determine the success of the present multiannual programme.
This is the level at which, according to our political vision, entrepreneurial initiatives should be taken.
European backing for such entrepreneurial spirit is always welcome.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I myself come from a blacksmith's forge; I grew up there.
I am familiar with the problems experienced by a small business.
That is why I should like to congratulate Mr Liikanen, because, today, something has been achieved which is particularly important for small businesses and for our many sole traders.
Unbundling of the local loop will open up new opportunities for competition and will therefore offer new businesses the possibility of making favourable acquisitions and give them good opportunities to prove themselves in this field.
You will see that the programme has been allocated around EUR 230 million; if you divide that by the 16 million small and medium-sized businesses in the European Union the result is EUR 3 per company per year.
The programme is so important precisely because it generates momentum, the right kind of momentum, which is also very important for us as Members.
Take the example of the Euro Info Centres.
My contact there is Magister Leitner, and if I come across a problem related to support programmes or a problem with the European institutions, then I can tell my employers that there is someone there who is competent and in the know, someone who can give information in the shortest possible time about public calls for tender, support programmes or research on infrastructure.
This is excellent for Europe because help can be given quickly and competently in the form of technically correct information.
It is extremely important, particularly for small companies, for help to be given quickly.
For small companies, the three or six months which they have to wait for a piece of information to be forthcoming or for a programme to start is an endlessly long time.
This means that the smaller the company, the more rapidly everything happens, and with new technologies everything is of course happening even more quickly.
We all know that the pace at which we live our lives has become faster because we use mobile telephones, e-mail and the Internet, and this opens up entirely new possibilities.
That is why it is important where financing is concerned for us also to ensure that companies have access to the capital market, not only to the stock market.
Above all, when a one-man company or a company with fewer than 250 employees has a project, it should not need to provide 120% loan guarantees in the form of land to receive financing; it should also be possible for it to be funded on the basis of a good idea.
Unfortunately, we are still a long way from this way of thinking in Europe.
What we still need are more experts to guide our companies through complex procedures at European level.
I should like, by way of an example, simply to mention standards.
In principle a small company does not know very much about how a standard comes into being and how a standard is established at European level.
That is why associations such as NORMAPME are very important, because this is another place where a small business can seek know-how quickly and efficiently, because tenders relating to this may be on the Internet and because, quite simply, this is helpful for its everyday work.
One of the most important points is of course tax rates.
America has an average tax rate of 30% while we have one of 45%, which means quite simply that small businesses here have to be 15% more productive or work for 15% longer for the same reward.
That is why we should make it our business to bring down tax rates as far as possible by introducing less hefty laws, slimmed-down benchmarking and best practices so as to create a simple and well-ordered environment for our businesses.
Mr President, this report is an ode to the spirit of enterprise, but behind the lyricism lie subsidies and aid distributed by the European institutions, because it would seem that the spirit of enterprise needs an injection of hard cash.
The explanatory statement emphasises that the term SME can equally relate to a business employing up to 500 employees and to a craft business employing only two or three people and that, taken all together, these represent 99% of the Union' s businesses.
But how many SMEs are actually subsidiaries of large industrial groups? And how are the subsidies distributed between them and the craft businesses?
The report does not breathe a word about that, because it would mean admitting that all the talk about small businesses is just a popularity-seeking justification for granting aid to big business.
The national governments, and even the regional and local authorities, already act as gigantic finance pumps to siphon off taxpayers' money, that is to say the amounts levied on the majority of the population including the most disadvantaged, and pour this into big business and thence to proprietors and shareholders.
All the European Institutions think about is boosting these appallingly unfair transfers when, even in the rich part of the continent of Europe represented by the Union, there are millions of people living in poverty.
And if I may, Mr President, I would like to respond to something Mrs Montfort said. It is the big bosses who are waging the class war daily against the workers and the minority she referred to is defending the interests of the working class.
Mr President, first of all I should declare an interest.
I am the absentee boss of a very small enterprise, our family business in London.
I will not say what it does, that might constitute an advertisement, but it was founded by my father, Francis Chichester, and I am very proud of it.
It also enables me to come here and do my work for my constituents.
I would like to welcome any measures, like this proposal and this report, that indicate our support at European level for the importance of SMEs and small businesses in particular.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Montfort on all her hard work in her report which, as we have heard, commands wide support across the House.
In my view, the best thing for small businesses is for the authorities to leave them alone and to desist from the temptation of trying to pick winners.
Diversity, safety in numbers, from which the winners will emerge, is the best way forward.
I am reminded of what the Commissioner said to us a year ago about the experience in the United States, where they are not afraid of failure and they believe in the old Scottish proverb of "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again".
The importance is to strike the right balance, to avoid having a continual situation of people failing at the expense of other people.
I suspect that the real obstacles and hurdles that small businesses face are in other areas of European and national legislation, where they face great burdens in terms of administration, taxation and regulation.
That seems very onerous indeed for small businesses, disproportionately so.
I recently looked at the forms required for filling in tax returns for small businesses in the UK and the detail required great concentration on getting the right answer.
Let me close by saying that in my view the most important thing for small businesses, the best medicine for them, is competition.
That is the way they achieve efficiency, innovation and profitability.
Mr President, we need to highlight the priority which the new multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship gives to small and medium-sized businesses.
We all know full well that these enterprises have trouble surviving in the current environment; my own personal experience in publishing and bookselling leaves me little cause for optimism because I know the huge, sometimes insurmountable problems which these businesses face, precisely because they are so small.
Because of its financial limitations, I think the multiannual programme merely acknowledges the problem and gives a positive political bearing and encouragement, but is not in a position to give any substantial help or, more importantly, to reverse the prevalent trends in the present economy, which are literally crushing small enterprises in every sector.
It is generally accepted that small and medium-sized businesses are a fount of new talent and innovative ideas, trial goods and services and a spirit of independent creation.
But how many of them are able to convert what are precious elements not only for the economy and society, but also for European civilisation, into real entrepreneurial development? Very few.
The nursery for small and medium-sized businesses contains several thousand experiments which feed large enterprises with manpower and ideas.
They face tremendous competition and even if they succeed at production level, often presenting new, unprecedented and imaginative proposals, what can they do when it comes to distribution networks, marketing and advertising their products? Distribution is highly complicated and costly nowadays, it needs large quantities of products and good organisation and it often exceeds the potential of small and medium-sized businesses.
As far as advertising is concerned, it is generally prohibitively expensive.
The takeovers which we have seen grow to mammoth proportions over recent years are literally annihilating these endeavours, stopping them in their creative tracks and robbing the environment of the competitiveness of creativity, in a bid to ensure that the market is left with conventional, stereotypical products.
Mr President, I think that Mrs Montfort's very comprehensive report has added considerable strength to the Commission's original document.
I am a constructive critic of some of Mr Liikanen's efforts - I think the first document that we saw was not really as focused as it should have been.
Mrs Montfort has brought some valuable focus on the key issues facing small and medium-sized businesses.
I particularly want to mention the innovation in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which held a hearing on the issues raised in Mrs Montfort's report.
The more we get people from small and medium-sized businesses across Parliament's threshold talking to us about issues, the better we shall be able to do our job.
This is something that the Committee on Industry needs to do on a regular basis from now on.
In my closing remarks in this debate I should like to come back to this question of focus.
The problem in small and medium-sized businesses is that they do not have a lot of resources to go out and get information, to find out what grants and help are available, to do the sort of administrative tasks that are increasingly being imposed upon them by national governments.
What we need to consider is the way we make information available to them.
What I want the Commissioner to address above all in the range of measures that we have proposed here is making access to support and information easy and quick so that people running these businesses will be able to use the information effectively.
We know that there is a lot of help available across the European Union.
People are always talking about helping SMEs, as Mr Caudron who is a veteran of this process has reminded us, but we know there are many businesses not taking advantage of the help available.
A focused, effective, directed and simple set of measures is what we need if this programme is really going to have the effect that it should have.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6 p.m.
Action plan for Albania and the neighbouring region
The next item is the report (A5-0287/2000) by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Draft Action Plan for Albania and neighbouring regions [7886/2000 - C5-0305/2000 - 2000/2158(COS)].
Mr President, the conclusions of the European Council in Tampere stress the need to cooperate with countries of origin and transit of migrants and refugees and, within this framework on the Council's instructions, the High-Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration has drawn up six action plans, one of which is the plan for Albania and the neighbouring region.
Clearly, the basic objective of the plan is to stem migration towards the Member States of the European Union and repatriate illegal immigrants living in the Union.
Most of the plan therefore contains measures designed to control and reverse migration flows.
Obviously cooperation with third countries may help eradicate the causes of waves of refugees and migrants but this does not mean that endeavours in this direction release the Union from its international obligation to protect those in need or to provide help to combat the causes of migration.
Europeans would do well to remember that the wider the prosperity gap between the Member States of the Union and our neighbours, the greater the pressure to migrate.
Border fortifications and repressive policing measures will not stem the tide of those seeking a share of the prosperity which we all enjoy.
Converting the Union into 'Fortress Europe' may put up the price charged by traffickers but, while there is no legal immigration route, it will not stop illegal entry, which is why we need to give Albania all the help we can in fighting poverty, improving the standard of living and employment prospects, setting up democratic institutions and strengthening respect for human rights, especially the rights of minorities, women and children.
There is an urgent need, following the recent attacks on the Greek minority in Himara, to promote democratisation measures and measures to strengthen institutions and respect for human rights in Albania.
Our basic objective must be to speed up the rate of economic and social development in Albania and to foster its cooperation and peaceful coexistence with neighbouring countries.
This is the only way of breaking the circle of poverty and violence which results in waves of immigrants and refugees.
Choosing a preventative policy is not in keeping with the multi-sectoral analysis which should have informed the work of the High-Level Working Group or with the Tampere conclusions, which stress the need for absolute respect for the right to seek asylum based on the application of the Geneva Convention.
Albania has little experience in questions of asylum and has not yet developed the mechanisms needed to examine applications for asylum and, therefore, cannot yet be considered a secure country for refugees; nor, according to the findings of the UN High Commissioner for refugees, is it economically, politically or socially able to shoulder such a burden.
Of course, the main problem at the moment is the fragile nature of the Albanian political system, the weak role of parliament, the poor state of the legal and judicial system and the lack of government administration and programming.
The country is marked by a lack of security in many regions and high crime rates, especially in relation to the drugs and arms trade, which is why we expect cooperation with the Albanian government in applying the measures proposed in the plan to be particularly difficult.
Efforts are, of course, being made to improve the situation.
However, as the recent municipal elections demonstrated, Albania, as it emerges from a long period of isolation, still has no democratic tradition and that is where efforts need to focus.
Another problem is the integration, using specific means, of Albanians legally resident in the Member States.
So bearing all these problems in mind, the proposals set out in my report include: gradual application of the measures proposed in the action plan, a study of the real needs, such as that contained in the first part, which indicates where the most urgent problems lie; for example, first the economy and democratic institutions need to be developed and infrastructures need to be created in Albania and then the Union can think about signing refugee and migrant repatriation agreements.
I particularly stress the need to take steps to improve internal security, strengthen dialogue between European officials and local authorities in Albania and, as far as the Commission and Council are concerned, to promote specific action involving cooperation with the Albanian, Italian and Greek authorities.
At the same time, we need coordinated action, with the maximum cooperation of Europol, in order to put an end to trafficking and prostitution rings dealing in women and children and the actions of criminal gangs involved in trafficking in human beings, whom they then exploit through illicit employment and prostitution.
Finally, I should like to state that I support the preparatory work to conclude a stability and partnership agreement between the Union and Albania.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I really must express my surprise that the Commission has allowed a high-level Council working group to do the work that it should, in fact, have done after Amsterdam.
I think that this is a shame, although what the group has done is not wrong because it touches on the right problems and also tries to point out the right possible solutions.
As Mrs Karamanou has already said, since the opening of the Iron Curtain, which was of course drawn particularly tightly around Albania, it has been one of the most significant countries of origin and transit for immigrants entering the EU.
Obviously this creates problems.
However, we also have another problem in Albania.
A considerable number of Albanians are leaving their homeland because of the instability in their country, because of the social difficulties and because of the pre-modern structures of society and family.
They are leaving their country, and as they do so a part of the future of this country is lost.
We need to help to establish a situation in this country which will induce people to stay there, to ensure that security is guaranteed, that there are jobs there and that the people simply do not look for a way out.
Of course, we also need to prevent Albania from becoming more and more of a trade centre for refugees, drugs and trafficking in women.
It is a country in which many are involved, in which many neighbours also get their hands dirty.
That is why we need to help this country.
We will do so as the European Union.
We will train the police.
We will help them with customs, but the problem is that so much is in a mess in this country that obviously progress is only very slow, despite some efforts being made by the government.
I should like to say just one thing, Mrs Karamanou: if Albania is not a safe country of origin and we treat Albanian refugees differently from others, then neither can Albania claim that it wants to enter into a stability and association agreement with us.
It has not yet come that far, but I think that it has come further than you suggest.
For me, Albania is a country to which we can send people back.
People are not persecuted there.
All is not yet rosy either, but it is better than you have described
Mr President, unlike Mrs Pack, I am of the opinion that the more groups that are involved in Albania the better.
The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs constitutes a forum in which this issue should be discussed, because these are not issues that can be resolved instantaneously, but ones that we will perhaps be confronted with for decades to come.
It would, therefore, be valuable for the programme that we have before us, and which I feel Mrs Karamanou covers very well in her report, to be subdivided into measures that can be implemented swiftly, medium-term measures and those regarding a legacy of history that we have been combating for 500 years and which will persist for centuries to come.
The legal instruments selected fall into the bracket of medium-term measures; the issue of a group of honest customs officials and unimpeachable judges is an economic issue as well, and one that will take decades to resolve.
Recently, we have, thank heavens, seen positive signals emerging from that part of the Balkans that has an indirect impact on Albania.
The report mentions a remarkable fact - for reasons of brevity I will confine myself to talking about this point alone - which is to say that the action plan for Albania and the neighbouring countries was drawn up by a working party.
Thus it is that documents have been circulating from one body to the next, and the European Commission, for example, refuses to make public the report concerning inter alia even the Customs Assistance Mission (CAM) established in Albania.
Here we have another danger linked to the Albanian question: suspicions are being aroused that someone wants to hide something, to cover up something that in fact does not exist.
Anyone who knows anything about Albania knows that it is somewhat undiplomatic to name the players in public life there, as much can happen in dealings between countries in the throes of change and an industrialised world that has cast itself in the role of aid donor.
But, Mr President, since everything concerning aid to the Albanians is, in fact, quite clear and transparent, I consider the publication of all the documents pertaining to it to be an act of political honesty, and one that would nip in the bud any self-interested speculation.
The overarching issue is, of course, that of providing Albania with all the aid that we can, in order to combat crime and make peoples' lives easier, thereby stemming emigration as well.
Mr President, this is a very good report that is humane in intent, but the aim is nonetheless to stop the flow of human beings from and through Albania.
The EU has adopted a rather sad refugee policy, which is largely based on the idea that we must close our borders. But how is this to be done?
Why are people fleeing? Clearly, they are fleeing from oppression, terror and war, but they are also fleeing from chaos and poverty.
Man' s longing for a better life tomorrow - a better life for himself, but perhaps above all for his children - is one of the very greatest and strongest driving forces.
We cannot simply attempt to shut out all those who try to get here.
We need to find better methods.
The hard method - the police - can be used when it comes to the trade in children and women and to slave labour.
The tighter the borders we attempt to create, the more insane forms of refugee smuggling we shall see.
Clearly, there is no instant solution to be found to the entire problem, but in the slightly longer term it is a matter of creating a world of reasonable justice, of security and of opportunities for the future.
This applies both to the Albanian people and to the people of other areas who attempt, via Albania, to reach the land of milk and honey represented by the European Union.
Our forefathers went to the United States to create a life in freedom, as they believed.
We are trying to stand in the way of those who are doing the same thing today.
It is very sad to realise that, today in Western Europe, we are trying to create laws that would punish those who are hiding Anne Frank' s unborn grandchildren.
It is quite incredible that we have reached this point.
Let us try to see the truth with open eyes.
We shall never be able to live in peace and freedom and with prosperity and justice if we perpetrate this appalling injustice on the very closest neighbours of the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Greens of the EFA Group would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Karamanou, on her report; which is very accurate.
It is indeed the case that measures must be taken with regard to migration, more specifically forced migration, and that the causes must be tackled.
I would particularly like to highlight the predicament of women and children in Albania.
First of all, it is tragic how many young people disappear, are kidnapped and leave involuntarily, or sometimes voluntarily.
There are no children' s rights in Albania, no playing facilities or women' s rights - there is a great deal of violence towards women in the family by the partner or husband - no animal rights and no human rights at all.
The villages are ecological disaster areas: waste is dumped everywhere, the water is not always drinkable and electricity is deficient.
The people are, of course, hopeful of better political representation but at present, many people still live in fear; fear of all kinds of things, fear of the outbursts of violence which flare up now and again.
There is also a chasm between the donors, that is to say all of us, Europe and the United States, who give money, organise projects and such like, and the actual people in the field.
Another problem which I wanted to touch upon is the problem of the reception of Albanian victims of trafficking in women.
Although they return to their country, there are no reception facilities for them.
There is a reception facility at the ICMC for victims from Montenegro, among others, but not for Albanian girls who return from Italy, Greece, Germany, Belgium, etc.
The appeal of the NGOs, of the women' s NGOs must be acted upon.
There is also the threat that they will be picked up again by the traffickers and returned to the countries of destination.
New life must be injected into the economy and a sound ecological policy must be put in place.
The issue of schools and child reception must be addressed.
Aid must be granted to the people who work out there in the field, in NGOs.
Positive things are being done, the IOM is doing sterling work, so are the European police services, and the KFOR is present, but the local population must also do their bit to develop their country.
Persecutors must be punished.
Mrs Karamanou, congratulations on the extensive, wide-angled approach in your report.
Mr President, allow me to start by offering my warmest congratulations to our fellow member Anna Karamanou on the quality of her work and to highlight her comment that the action plan should focus on providing protection to persecuted citizens, who are subject to constant human rights abuses, and not on how to limit and stop migration towards the Member States of the Union.
We all know that Albania faces acute problems, both as a country and as a society.
The economic, social and political conditions which prevail in Albania force its citizens to seek in migration literally the only possible hope of survival for them and their families.
The situation was exacerbated when action by political forces lavishly supported by the European Union resulted in the pyramid scandal in 1997 and robbed the people of their savings and, at the same time, shattered any confidence in the structures and organisation of the Albanian state.
This situation resulted in a popular uprising which basically abolished the Albanian state, causing huge security, political and economic problems for the Albanian people.
Massive quantities of arms passed into the hands of uncontrolled gangs which soon set up as mafia-type organised criminal gangs.
The whole situation was made worse by events in Kosovo and the NATO bombings, which exacerbated the problems in the region.
To turn a blind eye to this situation and to try and erect walls around your paradise, allegedly to protect it from desperate neighbours is both inhumane and short-sighted.
Obviously, everyone wants to live in their mother country, provided of course that they can live a secure and dignified life there.
On the other hand, however, there is no force which can stop a desperate person.
What we need to do is abandon repressive measures and move in two directions: first, by helping Albania to revive its economy and restore its population there and, secondly, to legalise the Albanian immigrants illegally present in the Union, instead of treating them like second-class citizens and slave labour, and to put them to work where we need them.
There are jobs in Greece, for example, which, if the Albanian immigrants leave, will remain undone, mainly in the agricultural sector.
Let us make use of bilateral agreements to define jobs, periods of residency, places of residency, pay, hours, working and national insurance conditions clearly and legally, so that immigrants can prove their strength and help to improve our economies and build friendship and cooperation between peoples, rather than nationalist, cold-war aspirations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by congratulating Mrs Karamanou on her work on what is in fact a very delicate and important matter.
I think that we need to turn our attention to two - of many - basic issues.
The first concerns structures and procedures in Albania and is even more important following recent events and incidents during the municipal elections, incidents directed mainly at the Greek minority living in Albania.
What happened is proof positive that the European Union' s aim must be to establish structures which will ensure that democratic rules are respected and that the rights of minorities in Albania are recognised and respected.
The second issue is the really huge and complex issue of migration.
It is a very important issue which is being shaped by historical, social, political and economic factors.
Because the problem is complex, we need to respond to it with a complex policy, a policy which brooks no simplifications, a policy which will result in a new legal framework, because a legal framework is a constituent element of a state, but a legal framework which is dynamic and solves problems rather than confining itself to simple repressive action, even where they are the effects of application of the law.
I think that the time is now right to adopt and impose these measures.
We have reached a stage where the conditions are in place and we all accept that if we do so we will be providing a huge service.
Mr President, I welcome the fact that an action plan has been drawn up for Albania and I also welcome my colleague's - Mrs Karamanou's - committed report.
On the basis of her analysis of the political and economic situation in Albania, it is possible for us to reach a better understanding of the causes of the migratory movements and to develop corresponding measures.
I do regret, however, the fact that this action plan, and also the other action plans which have been drawn up, are characterised above all by measures aimed at control and repression.
Albania is one of the poorest countries in the world and has itself taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees.
At present, there is a heavy stream of refugees returning which the lack of security, law and order is actually impeding.
Some of the people being sent back have integrated well.
Young people are having to interrupt their training and are facing an uncertain future.
This is an ill-advised policy.
The reintegration of the refugees must therefore take place under safe and humane conditions.
For this to be the case, it is absolutely essential to draw up plans for a coordinated repatriation operation and, above all, to involve non-governmental and international organisations.
I still judge the situation in Albania to be very serious because of the political instability, the disregard for laws and the extremely high levels of crime.
Year after year, especially in summer, thousands of people risk their lives on their way to the EU.
In so doing, hundreds of these refugees die at sea.
We will never know the true death toll.
Italy's 7 000-kilometre-long coastal border is difficult to police and offers gangs of traffickers, who proceed with remarkable contempt for human life, huge scope for their activities.
Criminals, who exploit the refugees' affliction, must be punished.
The toughest possible action needs to be taken against trafficking in human beings - in particular in small children - and the exploitation of people for illicit work and prostitution.
But anyone who thinks that controlling the traffickers alone would contribute to stopping illegal immigration is mistaken.
We need to step up the dialogue between the various negotiating and advisory forums and we need better coordination.
Only in this way can we together contribute to combating the exploitation of refugees by traffickers.
The Community must support Albania in its efforts to strengthen the rule of law, and also, particularly where financial support is concerned - I should like to stress this - we must not leave Albania and the region to fend for themselves.
Finally, I would take this opportunity to call on the Council once again to take steps to bring the policy on immigration, asylum and combating trafficking in human beings entirely within the Community system.
Mr President, it is very important for the sake of European stability to assist Albania and its neighbouring regions.
Helping democracy to take root and establishing the rule of law are vital.
We cannot forget nations that are in distress: our duty is to support them to the best of our ability.
The action programme for Albania and its neighbouring regions will enable us to increase stability in the area.
The main area of focus must not be how the flood of immigrants and refugees may be brought under control, but how conditions in the region can be improved so that people can stay in their homes.
Albania, and Kosovo in particular, are not yet regions at peace, however, which means that the repatriation of refugees must take place in a controlled way, so that their safety is not jeopardised.
The situation of the Kosovo Albanians has long been very difficult, and it is a great relief that, at last, their rights are being recognised.
But it is just as essential to protect the rights of the minorities in Kosovo: the Serbs and the Romanies.
It will be a long but necessary process to bring about reconciliation between the national groups.
Only in forgiveness is there a revolutionary basis for building the future.
Economic growth enables difficulties to be overcome in crisis areas.
It is not enough merely to pile up aid: we need enterprise at grassroots level and we need to encourage people to stand on their own two feet.
People with the same business affairs in common are peacefully bound to one another.
Money, as is well known, brings peace.
The EU CARDS programme is of the utmost importance in this situation, as, without a system of administration that functions properly, nothing works.
We must help them to help themselves.
Right now the region needs a guiding hand.
The EU, as a partner of the Balkans, has a huge responsibility for the future of the region.
We must put an end to selfishness and see our destinies bound together.
Mr President, when about two months ago I proposed that Paragraph 6 of the report should include a reference to the need to improve the security and protection of ethnic minorities and the rapporteur, whom I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate on her work, accepted my proposal, I was of course thinking of the generally poor record of this country in its dealings with minorities on its territory, especially the Greek minority.
However, I must admit that even I did not imagine that we would have such overwhelming confirmation quite so soon of the poor conduct of the Albanian authorities.
Its undisguised violence and forgery at the expense of the Greek minority candidates and voters during the recent elections, as witnessed by objective official international observers, demonstrated that, unfortunately, Albania has little respect for even its most rudimentary obligations as it makes its way towards the European Union, at the very time when Albania itself is calling on the international community to intervene, including militarily, in the defence of oppressed Albanian minorities in third countries and demanding that all the human rights of Albanian migrants, including illegal immigrants, be guaranteed, a demand which we all feel it is advisable for us to attempt to satisfy, and rightly so.
Greece is a typical example; despite providing various forms of generous support to the post-Communist Albanian regime and receiving and welcoming thousands of Albanian immigrants and illegal immigrants, it must now watch as the large historic Greek minority in Albania is systematically persecuted and its rudimentary human, political and cultural rights are repeatedly violated.
All this and the unacceptable events in Himara give us cause, I think, to make a very careful assessment of just how able and willing Albania is to take on the accepted European criteria in the areas of human rights and democratic freedoms and, by extension, to modulate and adjust our general approach, our action plans and the various benefits which we provide this country accordingly until such time it revises its policy.
Mr President, I agree with Mr Dimitrakopoulos that the central issue in respect of the problems in Albania - be these of an economic, social or internal security nature - continues to be that of helping that country to reinstate the rule of law, bring security to the citizens, and restore the credibility of institutions and local administrations.
Without this rise in the democratic barometer in that country, and in view of the latest electoral shenanigans and the denunciation of the gerrymandering that went on at that time, it is clear there can be no other way of ever resolving Albania' s problems.
I welcome the fact that the report at last takes into account and develops two points to which we Italians attach great importance.
Firstly, an unstable Albania means instability in the Balkans and an unstable Balkans means instability for Europe.
This is an awareness that we must all help to foster.
Secondly, another reality is that the pressures brought about by migration and the fight against criminality, both of which originate in Albania, cannot be shouldered by Italy and Greece alone.
I have heard many declarations of solidarity and willingness to help, but I must remind you that the only real solidarity shown so far has come from people living in border areas within Italy and by local institutions.
I have seen no sign of this solidarity that is supposed to bind Europe, now that it has come to sharing the problems of another people.
However, what I cannot accept in this report, and I will state this quite frankly, is that it confuses cause and effect, which is to say it confuses a procedure for the carefully considered issuing of visas, and hence the possibility of migration, with a cause, that of illegal immigration.
Things are completely the reverse, so let us not confuse cause and effect.
Above all, I find it unacceptable and negative vis-à-vis Albania that we should in a sense intimate that illegal immigration could be tolerated.
This is something of which Albania has no need.
What Albania does need from us is tangible economic aid and genuine solidarity, but also a little firmness, because it must, with our assistance, go about reconstructing for itself a framework for the rule of law.
Mr President, for many people in the EU, Albania is far away, further than the back of beyond, and yet the Albanians are one of the oldest European civilisations.
In the Middle Ages they fought against the Ottoman invasion and they defended themselves against them as Europeans until well into modern times.
They have suffered particularly badly from European disregard.
In the nineteenth century, better prospects were held out for all the Balkan nations at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.
In Berlin, the Albanians were almost brushed aside from the table - their views were not taken into account - and in the twentieth century, they have suffered greatly under one of the most terrible ideologies of the twentieth century, namely under socialism and communism in a particularly brutal manifestation.
That is why, today, we have a European responsibility for this European Albania.
That is why I welcome the line taken in the report and the approach adopted by the action plan.
However, we need to make absolutely certain that we do not operate double standards.
Much has been said here about minority rights.
I should like to say that we are right to demand minority rights of the Albanians.
But if we do so then we must also introduce them across the European Union.
We have not managed to do this.
We do not have any European standards on the protection of minorities.
In all Albania's neighbouring countries - apart from Kosovo, where the Albanians are in a majority - we have Albanian minorities, and we can demonstrate here what the EU's standards on minorities are.
I should like to make a second point.
Like Mr Lisi, I believe that we need to incorporate burden-sharing in our policy on asylum and refugees.
But the problem is that we have fought for this very point, and neither in this House nor in the European Union have we achieved a majority in favour of a system of burden-sharing based on quotas.
Precisely in the case of Albania we see that it can affect any Member State.
That is why it is important for us not to spend any longer tinkering about with the symptoms, but for us finally to establish a policy on asylum and refugees based on solidarity, with fixed quotas and a stable system of burden-sharing, before catastrophe strikes.
Thank you, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6 p.m.
Better lawmaking
The next item is the report (A5-0269/00) by Mr Wuermeling on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on two Commission reports to the European Council:
Better Lawmaking - A Shared Responsibility (1998) [COM(1998) 715 - C5-0266/2000 - 1999/2197(COS)];
Better Lawmaking 1999 [COM(1999) 562 - C5-0266/2000 - 1999/2197(COS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank you for still being here to take part in this debate this Thursday afternoon.
I should also like to thank my colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market very much for the constructive and in-depth discussion we had on this subject.
I am also most grateful for the supporting opinions of the other committees, and should like to express my thanks to Mr van den Berg of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and Mr Candal of the Committee on Petitions.
Indeed, we had a very earnest and also very self-critical debate about the quality of European lawmaking and the application of the principle of subsidiarity.
What conclusions did we draw? We established that the quality of lawmaking leaves much to be desired, particularly in the eyes of the public.
There, frustration with, but also alienation from, European law becomes apparent from time to time, and we should like to urge Parliament, but also the other Community institutions, not to shy away from paying painstaking attention to detail here, to work with precision, and also to make the necessary time and staff available to do this.
But it is not only the quality of lawmaking which is crucial; we also need to be shrewd about the quantity of lawmaking, because not every problem in Europe is automatically a problem for the European Union.
We expressly declare our support for the points made by the Commission in its strategic objectives for 2000 to 2005.
It says that we need to concentrate on our core tasks.
It can, nonetheless, be a painful process to give up dossiers on which one has been working. Unfortunately, examples from the very recent past show that the Commission, and also the European Parliament, do not always succeed.
You will remember the provisions recently presented to us on climbing ladders.
I remember standards for ship survey organisations - I hope that I am not causing the interpreters problems - and I remember a proposal for a Directive on ambient noise which actually intends to produce noise cards for the whole of the European Union.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market explicitly calls on the Commission to resist the legislative pressure to which it has itself objected.
This is no excuse for doing things which are actually superfluous.
But of course, this request is also directed at ourselves to be sparing with European regulation.
We are helped here by the principle of subsidiarity which, in the view of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, should also be applied when deciding whether to make a particular matter the subject of internal market legislation.
This principle should also be observed in full for green and white papers and for action programmes.
The European Union cannot claim to have a monopoly on competence here.
Here, too, specific authorisation is required, together with thorough verification of compliance with subsidiarity.
On this occasion, we have also discussed a tendency which we find worrying, which is for more and more decisions to be taken away from the institutions which actually have the democratic legitimacy to do this.
The introductory comments in the Commission's White Paper on good governance set us thinking.
If then a comprehensive set of networks is to be formed, if more soft law is enacted, if interpretative guidelines are adopted by the Commission and if many issues are resolved by agreement between the parties concerned, then this may well all be justified, but it cannot impinge on the responsibility of the legislator.
We ask the Commission here quite specifically to observe the clear demarcation of responsibilities both between the EU and the Member States and within the institutions.
With this report we want to send out a signal to the public that we are taking their complaints about the deficient quality of lawmaking and the complaints about over-regionalisation and centralism seriously.
I would ask you to help us to send out this signal, and to vote in favour of this report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Mr President, may I first, on behalf of my group, congratulate the rapporteur very warmly on his report, which certainly gives a very good, consistent and comprehensive picture of the situation as he sees it.
Nevertheless, my group tabled a large number of amendments both in committee and in the plenary, and the fact that it did so is no reflection on the quality of the report, but because we are, after all - particularly on the issue of the scope of the principle of subsidiarity - of a different political opinion.
We want a strong union which takes full responsibility for the tasks incumbent on it, which creates a well-functioning internal market and which actually makes it possible to strengthen social and regional cohesion.
It has to be possible for the Community to act wherever this makes it possible to achieve improved and increased European added value.
It is particularly important for this strength of acting at Community level to be emphasised at this time.
Firstly because, in view of the forthcoming enlargement, we are in especial need of a strong European Union if we want to help the future new Member States and their peoples, and also if we want to overcome the many crucial tests facing us in our Member States.
Secondly, we in the European Parliament, of all people, should be emphasising European togetherness and the Community aspect, particularly at a time when we are seeing that the commitment of the governments of many Member States to this is declining, and that short-sighted, egotistical nationalism and a desire to go it alone are gaining increasing ground.
But it is precisely when we want the creative power of the Community to be at work in all the central and important European issues, and when this is also accepted and supported by the public, that it is certainly necessary for us to concentrate more than ever on the essential points and to delete a good many of the points from our present agenda.
I am also convinced, if we can agree on what is necessary and right, that it would be better to do this on a case-by-case basis and to remove anything superfluous from the agenda.
It is certainly easier to make pragmatic decisions in individual cases than it is in general reports and debates of principle.
This is particularly true of the principle of subsidiarity, but it also applies to the quality of legislation.
Instead of having abstract arguments about general principles, we should consider the necessity of individual projects more often in this House and we should also invest more time and resources in legislative quality.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first and foremost like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Wuermeling for the work he has invested in his report.
It is of course quite a significant topic, although this is not immediately evident from the small number of members present in this Chamber to continue with the debate.
This Parliament produces European legislation much like a conveyer belt.
All too often, however, we are forced to conclude that this European legislation is packaged in a language which is too technical, too legal and too complex, so much so that this European legislation becomes unusable, as a result of which the intended goal, namely to make legislation in the European Union transparent and unambiguous, is not achieved.
European legislation must be a flexible and practical instrument which also becomes accessible to the average citizen pursuant to the principle of subsidiarity and reasonableness.
I was delighted to note that Amendments Nos 3, 4, 5 and 6, which I tabled myself, have been approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Indeed, the objective of these amendments is to continually evaluate the subsidiarity reports, to check on a regular basis whether they are up-to-date and to investigate beforehand whether certain regulations and/or directives are indeed useful.
I am also in favour of making codified proposals with regard to amendments to existing EC legislation, so that the amendments can be integrated into the existing directives or regulations.
Finally, I am an advocate of setting up some kind of scoreboard for redundant legislation.
It is beyond question that redundant legislation needs to be abolished, for it is indeed not sufficient to restrict the inflation of legislation; rules and regulations must also be drafted in clear language and the obligations pursuant to these must be easily understood.
I therefore hope that the report will be adopted without further amendment, by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and that it will be a useful instrument to simplify European legislation and to render it transparent and effective.
Mr President, it is a great pleasure to have the opportunity of commenting on this report by Mr Wuermeling and on the fundamental underlying question of making our law in Europe good law and clear law.
I congratulate Mr Wuermeling on his report.
Etienne Dumont and his great English master, Jeremy Bentham, were inclined to make the point that since laws are always in some measure coercive, they are always in some measure evil.
They may be necessary evils where they control yet greater evil; but they should only do so proportionately to the evil to be met and dealt with.
We can accept this point and this report reflects that spirit, in demanding clarity of law, simplicity of law and proportionality of the legal means to the public end sought.
In addition, and vitally, the report raises the issue of subsidiarity, which is in some measure controversial in this Chamber tonight.
Subsidiarity, indeed, comes from the work of Pope Pius IX and therefore from an enemy of the Benthamite approach to law.
But here two different traditions of thought come together.
It is not a good thing to take decision-making away from the most local level at which it can be efficiently exercised, whether that be the level of the individual, the family, the village, the town or whatever.
I receive letters from time to time, one only last week from one of my constituents living in a remote part of the West Highlands of Scotland. He said to me: "What are you people out there doing?
For 2000 years or more people have been safely drinking the water from the burns (the little rivers), and now they are prohibited from doing so.
Elaborate schemes of water purification are imposed upon them to no public good."
I hear similar things from residents of the Island of Islay, where the proposal for the protection of the local seal colony by a grand international body is resented, because the people have looked after the seals better for the last 2000 years than we think a grander organisation is likely to do in the future.
The point is made.
Law should be made close to the people, and local knowledge, whenever it is the most relevant knowledge, should always be applied, rather than the grand over-arching scheme.
It is, however, also true that there are some public goods that can be pursued only at the most general level and there are, indeed, aspects of environment protection, aspects of species protection, for example, aspects also of single market law, aspects of law against protectionism, aspects of law to govern the Internet, which can only be approached at a level at least as general as the European level.
The principle of subsidiarity, properly understood, points us in both directions: take decisions at the lowest level possible, but acknowledge that the lowest level possible may be indeed a very high level, when general goods are at stake that will be lost unless protected on the same terms everywhere.
So that makes this stress upon subsidiarity very important.
I think my friend Mr Medina, and his colleagues, are wrong in saying that this is only a political principle.
It is a constitutional principle and, like all constitutional principles, it has on the one side a political impact when we, the legislator, decide what law to make; but it has, on the other hand, a legal impact when it comes to the question of how the courts should interpret and apply the law.
May I finally commend to the House Amendment No 1 which asks that the Commission and the European Union take seriously the fact that we have, as well as the Union of the States, autonomous self-governing communities within.
I represent Scotland in this House.
Scotland and England formed the United Kingdom by Treaty in 1707 and have maintained it since then.
For 290 years, however, Scots law, which remained a distinct body of law mid-way between the civil law of continental Europe and the common law of England and the Americas, retained a distinct system but was legislated only from Westminster.
We have created a Scottish Parliament in the last year.
Scots private law has been sent back home; Scots criminal law has been sent back home.
It would be an irony indeed if, at the very moment of achieving that, we were to transfer the whole of legislative power over private and criminal and commercial law to the Union.
I do not think that is what is intended or will happen.
But it is important to bear in mind the interests of subsidiarity at levels below the Member States, as well as between the Member States and the Union, and there is no reason at all why the constitutional principle that is at stake cannot be interpreted widely and generously at all levels of this great Union.
Mr President, I think we should be very pleased with the quality of this report.
Our fellow citizens often see subsidiarity as a vague concept, but they can certainly appreciate its proper application.
Mr Wuermeling has made an excellent presentation of subsidiarity, guaranteeing decision-making at the most relevant level.
We would actually like the Commission to give us more details on the proper application of this principle for each proposal, so that a real balance sheet can be drawn up at the time of the annual report.
It would also be very worthwhile if the Commission could make an inventory of the existing body of law in the light of that principle, to make it simpler, more transparent, more effective and more relevant, and to repeal superfluous texts, as Paragraph 6 of this report invites it to do.
For example there is Directive 79/409, which has prompted the tabling of a written statement on the management of wild birds, already signed by a large number of Members.
A text like that needs revision when it no longer responds to its initial objective and has become out of date and inappropriate, otherwise it will be a source of disputes as harmful as they are unpopular.
While I share the rapporteur' s concern about quality legislation, I am even more concerned than him about real complementarity between our Parliament and the national parliaments.
They must be asked to participate fully in a better application of the principle of subsidiarity.
Who better than they to assess what they are actually in a position to achieve at national level and what should be done jointly at European level? The Heads of State and Government, to whom this report is addressed, will have an excellent opportunity at the IGC to assess which measures should be taken at European level and which at national level.
In conclusion, I would say that while I find certain amendments very constructive, I wonder about the logic of certain others which seem to ignore the reality and importance of a principle enshrined in the Treaties.
Mr President, Mr Wuermeling has done a first-class job on this report.
In presenting a report calling for simpler and clearer lawmaking he certainly had to match his expectations of that with the quality of the work he produced himself.
The report is a model of concise and clear drafting and I hope colleagues will take that very seriously indeed.
I want to reinforce the points that have been made about subsidiarity but I want to put them in the broader frame of the reform of the European Commission.
It is quite clear from all the communications we have seen, and particularly the importance that the Commission is rightly attaching to matching competences with resources, that the Commission itself realises that it has to produce less legislation and that it has to think about putting more resources into enforcing what it has already done.
Arguably we have too much law in place now that is improperly enforced.
If we have law in place that is not being properly enforced, it is not effective at all.
We need to look at that as part of the review that is called for here.
I attach considerable importance to this point and I particularly welcome the emphasis that Mr Wuermeling has given to aspects of scrutiny by national parliaments.
One major problem in the European Union, and this particularly impacts on this committee from the internal market viewpoint, is what has now become widely called the gold-plating of European Union legislation.
It is not enough for the Commission simply to look at transpositions into national law.
It has to look at what national parliaments have done with that legislation.
There are many examples where we see that a comparatively simple piece of simple market legislation - a common standard, a single principle - has become over-complex, over-enforced at national level and has caused considerable difficulties.
I would ask the Commission to have a serious look at this problem of gold-plating.
Let us take, shall we say, six clear examples and look at how they have been transposed in detail, how they operate within the countries, how they are being enforced and make a really clear and transparent assessment of the effectiveness of the legislation, because if legislation is not effective, then we have all wasted our time.
Mr President, I should first like to recall the kind reference Mr MacCormick made to my intervention in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Mr MacCormick stated - it is, in fact, true - that I had said that the principle of subsidiarity was not a legal principle but rather a political principle.
Having studied the report with great care, I have come to the conclusion that it is not even a political principle: it is a theological principle.
Mr MacCormick, himself, has just pointed out that the principle was expressed by a pope, and it is clear that it is impregnated with theological considerations.
I should like to recall that in the seventeenth century a great Dutch lawyer, Hugo Groot, better known as Grotius, one of the founders of international law, warned theologians to stay out of legal matters with that famous phrase, 'Silete, theologi, in munere alieno.'
At these moments I should like to express my sympathy, my admiration and my pity for the Commission for having to live with this kind of principle.
The second paragraph of Article 5 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community is utterly unintelligible.
This definition is a circular definition, not a legal definition.
It states that 'In areas which do not fall within its exclusive competence, the Community shall take action, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, only if and insofar as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States and can therefore, by reason of the scale or effects of the proposed action, be better achieved by the Community.'
Nobody can understand that.
Neither can anybody understand the Protocol annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam to define subsidiarity, nor Declaration No 30.
The poor Commission has made a very commendable effort with the documents 'Better Lawmaking 1998' and 'Better Lawmaking 1999' , in which it tries to be tolerant with this nonsense approved by the governments in the Treaty on European Union and the added Protocol.
The report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market did not gain much enthusiasm from its Members.
The proof is that, of the 17 Members on the Committee, 8 voted in favour and 9 abstained.
In other words there were more abstentions than votes in favour.
The reason why there was so much abstention is that we Socialist Members on the Committee - and some other Members - were expressing our scepticism regarding the overvaluing of the subsidiarity concept in the report.
The subsidiarity concept as put forward in the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market is a concept which has been exalted to heavenly heights, and therefore as a theological principle it lies beyond the scope of the Community.
We have submitted 12 amendments to the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs.
We also support Amendment No 13 by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
We hope the House can accept our amendments, and if so we shall vote in favour.
Otherwise we shall be obliged to vote against.
Mr President, I will use this brief intervention to support the amendment tabled by Mr McCormick, which I believe has the merit, in this case, of having pinpointed the fact that the principle of subsidiarity, besides being a legal principle and, perhaps, besides being a theological principle, is certainly a principle of great existential importance, which is to say that it can immediately be related to the daily lives of our citizens.
What in fact is the state, or in any case a governmental body, if not the fruit of a pact for freedom between the citizens? In this sense, if there has been a pact for freedom, the state is the guarantor of any attempts that its citizens make to meet their own needs, it is not the master of them.
If it is a guarantor and not a master, it immediately follows that in the structure created by Mr Wuermeling, under which powers would be devolved to the Member States in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, what should subsequently be guaranteed is that an identical process must also be followed by these same Member States.
Observance of the principle of subsidiarity should therefore be guaranteed right down to the smallest communities, to autonomous units, to intermediate groups, social groups, families and citizens who are the only true sovereign power when it comes to legislative and administrative action.
It is for this reason that I would like to state my support for Amendment No 1 to Paragraph 11a, tabled by Mr McCormick, which would seem to reproduce and propose in a sound and upright manner an interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity that is not theological but constitutional, as it should be.
Mr President, first of all I apologise to you, the Commission and all my colleagues for being late, but I have come from another meeting and could not get here any earlier.
Several accomplished speakers from the European People' s Party have already taken the floor to express the views of the group.
Let me, then, give an overall view.
First of all, I think, of course, that the Commission' s work is laudable and often extremely difficult.
In this document entitled 'Better Lawmaking' there are barely two paragraphs on subsidiarity.
This is evidently related to the difficulty of this principle, which we have even described as theological.
Nevertheless I believe we have to insist that as it is in the Treaty it is a principle that can stand before the Court of Justice.
It is true that we do not yet have a case based on a breach of the principle of subsidiarity, but it is there and we cannot ignore that.
In other words, Mr President, the principle of subsidiarity is probably the principle that fuses, brings together and sums up what the building of Europe is all about, because ultimately it is nothing but the political will that is included in the Treaty.
An understanding of the principle of subsidiarity depends greatly on what the political will is at any moment.
I am therefore not very enthusiastic about certain aspects of the report, because I would have liked the report to have been more 'communitising' as regards the internal market, and on this point, especially, these are clearly not the prevailing winds in the report.
As regards the rest, Mr President, the report deals with other issues that are not on the same level.
Codification and simplification are important and laudable issues, but only a matter of good legal technique.
I would therefore ask the Commission to provide us next year with a report on the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity with all its consequences, and another report on the implementation of good administrative and legislative techniques.
Mr President, thank you for allowing me, as rapporteur for this report, to make one additional comment on Amendment No 8 which was tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Much has been said about subsidiarity being a theological principle.
I should like to recall a speech by John Paul II of four weeks ago in which he explicitly welcomed the fact that the principle of subsidiarity was being applied politically.
I should like to recommend to all colleagues that they follow this wise piece of advice.
That was not a procedural motion but I think you are entitled, as rapporteur, to make that point clear.
I give the floor to the Commissioner.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Wuermeling, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for their work on better lawmaking.
We are dealing with an extremely important issue.
We must always ask ourselves whether we need legislation to solve a problem. The second question is, if we need legislation, should it be at European level or national level?
Thirdly, if we decide to legislate at European level, how can we guarantee that the legislation is simple, clear and can be transposed? Fourthly, is there any way other than legislation of meeting the same objective at European level, such as soft law, a code of conduct or co-regulation?
I also agree with the report and views expressed in the discussion here that enlargement will present a major challenge vis-à-vis the quality of legislation, owing to the economic, social and legal problems which the new Member States will bring with them.
This must be respected and taken into consideration by EU legislators.
Subsidiarity, proportionality, better quality legislation, simple regulation, increased codification: all must become major political issues on which we will focus.
Actually, this screening of the existing acquis communautaire is often a very useful exercise in showing that it is not always necessary to legislate at Community level or whether a law is too detailed for legislation at the Community level.
I do not want to go into a deep discussion about the theological or political history of subsidiarity.
What is important for the EU institutions is that we have a strong commitment to improving the quality of legislation, especially with regard to subsidiarity.
The Commission is making both political and internal efforts to incorporate subsidiarity into legislative proposals.
The initiative to prepare a White Paper on governance, for example, is an attempt to promote the principle of subsidiarity at all levels.
The rapporteur mentioned the question of soft law recommendations or other agreements.
I think they are extremely important issues to discuss.
I see here some colleagues of yours who played a considerable part in the regulation on the information society and the Internet. Is it possible to regulate the issues when technology moves extremely fast?
Is there a risk that we will put brakes on development if we legislate? Is there a risk that technology will move so fast that the problem will have changed before legislation is ready?
That is the area where we must look at issues with a very open mind.
I will take a very personal position by saying that there can be new types of governance here, where regulation and self-regulation can be complementary and not alternatives.
But what is important for voluntary agreements or self-regulation is that they must be implemented, we must know that they are enforced, we must know how we can monitor that what has been agreed has happened.
Then it is important to see what the European Parliament's role should be in discussions: there can perhaps be open discussions, debates, dialogue, which guarantee that the European Parliament is part of the debate.
However, the more we go into the details of information technology, the rapid changes on the Internet, the more convinced I am personally that detailed regulation is not the solution to this problem or, if it is a solution to something, it is not the problem which is faced by information technology.
There are also other areas of the internal market regulations which are very complicated.
I will just mention so-called pedestrian-friendly cars, which the Commission will discuss in a few weeks time.
This directive could be 64 pages long, extremely detailed, mathematical, and involve a lot of engineering expertise.
Is that an area where we should go for detailed regulation, with guarantees that will be implemented everywhere or should we consider whether a voluntary agreement, provided that it can be enforced and controlled, as an alternative?
These are the kind of debates that we need to go through in the next few years.
I hope that this report, which we Commissioners were given last year, will in future include subsidiarity, better regulation and assessment of alternatives, while respecting the legislative authority of the Council and Parliament.
Finally, I want to take into account the criticism which we have seen in Parliament's report.
It is concise and clear.
I will transmit the message to my colleagues in the Commission and the Commission will do its best to react positively to these in the preparation of the next report.
I hope that we can continue this debate so that it is not only a routine matter on Thursday afternoon but part of the central debate on Community legislation as a whole.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.27 p.m. and resumed at 6 p.m.)
Vote
(Parliament adopted the resolution.)
Report (A5-0287/2000) by Mrs Karamanou on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the Draft Action Plan for Albania and the neighbouring region [7886/2000 - C5-0305/2000 - 2000/2158(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution.)
Sylla (GUE/NGL).
(FR) Mr President, forgive me for interrupting the sitting, but the news reaching us from the Ivory Coast is extremely grave, with civil war breaking out at this very moment between supporters of Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara.
This morning we asked the President to send our congratulations to the self-proclaimed candidates, but I think we ought to be calling for democratic elections to be held that include all the parties which were excluded by the military junta. The alternative is the risk of seeing an inevitable slide towards a total balkanisation of the region.
Thank you very much for your statement, Mr Sylla.
With your permission I will pass that information on to the President.
Report (A5-0269/2000) by Mr Wuermeling, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the reports from the Commission to the European Council:
Better Lawmaking - A Shared Responsibility (1998) [COM(1998) 715 - C5-0266/2000 - 1999/2197(COS)]
Better Lawmaking 1999 [COM(1999) 562 - C5-0266/2000 - 1999/2197(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution.)
Explanations of vote - Peijs report (A5-0283/2000)
I voted in favour of the report, despite the fact that I did not get a number of amendments through, because it also concerns the excessively high exchange and transfer costs in the euro area.
On 4 July, the Commission issued a warning to banks in Belgium, Finland, Portugal and Ireland on account of anti-competitive practices in connection with their exchange charges for currencies in the euro area.
It sent statements of objections to nearly 120 banks and banking associations. The banks were given until the beginning of October to reply, but at the same time it was made clear to them that the Commission would severely punish agreements to fix charges, which would stand in the way of introducing the euro notes and coins and harm the consumer.
Since 1 January 1999, exchange rates have been irrevocably fixed.
It is understandable that the public is disappointed about the continuing high charges, because since this time the banks have no longer been faced with exchange-related risks.
These charges still exist, both for exchanging cash and for making cross-border payments.
In light of the fact that we are now living in a single market with a single currency, it is unacceptable that these excessive charges should continue to exist.
This continuing state of affairs could have an adverse effect on the public's attitude towards the euro and its acceptance of it.
If the banks do not cooperate and continue to levy high charges in the euro area, there is a grave danger that consumers will call into question the point and purpose of the euro.
I would call on the banks to adopt the standards developed by the European Committee for Banking Standards (ECBS) as soon as possible, because these will allow cross-border payment instructions to be forwarded directly and automatically between banks.
A survey in the 11 countries of the euro area has shown that consumers still have to pay costs of an average of EUR 17.10 to transfer EUR 100 between Member States.
This intolerable state of affairs must be brought to an end as soon as possible.
Banks and credit institutions need to do far more to reduce the costs of transferring small amounts between the Member States.
I would make a firm plea for transfers to be made less expensive, more efficient and more reliable.
Mr President, we took a great deal of care over preparing the Karamanou report in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
I should like to thank Mrs Karamanou for the effort which she put into this.
In the process, we reached compromises with which we were not always satisfied but which, by and large, were acceptable.
This makes it all the more disappointing that this report has been completely transformed into an ideological report by one unacceptable amendment - Amendment No 18 - tabled by Baroness Ludford.
That is why we had to reject this report, and I should like to say to the Liberal Group that this will put a permanent strain on the cooperation in this House whenever the Liberals in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs table further amendments through Baroness Ludford which originate in the left outside the committee.
I do not believe that this is any basis for constructive cooperation.
Mr Posselt, that was all most interesting, but it has very little to do with the way in which you voted.
Nevertheless, I did not cut you off.
(The sitting was closed at 6.36 p.m.)
New EU/Morocco fisheries agreement
The next item is the oral question to the Commission (B5-0546/00) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries on the state of negotiations for a new fisheries agreement with Morocco.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I must begin by lamenting the fact that the Commissioner for Fisheries, Mr Fischler, cannot be here today.
I have been talking to him in person this week in connection with a fisheries event taking place simultaneously in Brussels, which we have already criticised in our Committee on Fisheries: a seminar on control over fisheries is being held, to which MEPs were invited during a week in which we also have a plenary sitting in Strasbourg, the timetable for which was known a year in advance.
This is therefore doubly serious.
I have made this known to Mr Fischler and I am now repeating it publicly here.
Faced with this situation and the imminence of negotiations which might begin next Monday in Brussels, I do not think the Commission will give us much information today, due to the fact that it will do this - we hope - on Monday 30 October.
The logic of not unveiling here - as the Commissioner himself said to me - the strategy that is to be revealed at the said negotiations, is justified and worthy of respect.
So, as chair of the Committee on Fisheries, I would like to use our oral question and this debate to talk to both sides - since our motion for a resolution is addressed to both sides - about a few issues, and I would like to do so very calmly.
First, I would like to emphasise the great concern of the Committee on Fisheries over the huge delay in negotiations - almost a year from the end of the previous agreement - which is the reason behind our oral question, which was formulated in September.
Secondly, I would like to emphasise the agreement reached within our committee - and I would remind you here of our powers regarding an assent which is necessary for a fisheries agreement with Morocco - an agreement to convey the unequivocal message contained in our committee' s motion for a resolution which all the political groups have negotiated and presented together and upon which we are voting today.
On the subject of the said motion for a resolution, I would like to highlight our firm support for the European Commission to continue negotiating with Morocco, and our call for Morocco to negotiate and find the best, most beneficial solution for both parties, as this is possible and must be found.
As stated in our proposal, it is impossible that within the context of close relations of every kind (political, economic, commercial, financial, cultural, etc.) between two parties who have signed an association agreement for there to be no room for the fisheries cooperation that the European Union is asking for.
There is plenty of room for cooperation in the field of fisheries, and with willingness on both sides, it can, and must, be achieved.
There need only be one yardstick for the conservation of fish stocks.
The European Union applies to its common fisheries policy the fundamental principle of responsible fishing and the conservation of resources, which are essential conditions for everyone, for the Moroccans, for the Europeans and for the non-Europeans who fish in Morocco.
On the other hand, having said this, we also maintain that not just any agreement will suffice.
It must be an agreement which provides an impetus for fisheries cooperation and the Moroccan fishing industry, but which also fully satisfies the fisheries interests of the European fleets.
It would be a pity for so much effort not to lead to a solution that we all want so much, or for our relations with the sovereign people of Morocco to be obstructed or clouded at a time when the new young monarchy is initiating a stage of progress that inspires hope and when relations with the European Union must play a decisive role in supporting such hope.
I repeat, it would be a pity to dash so much hope for the future and so many possibilities for mutual understanding.
We also tell the Commission in section 8 what we expect from it should it be unable to reach a satisfactory agreement.
From this rostrum and with the weight of representing European democracy on our shoulders, I call for good sense and wisdom from both parties, who will meet in Brussels on 30 October at the highest level - the European Fisheries Commissioner and the Moroccan Minister for Fisheries if, as I hope, his attendance in Brussels is confirmed, and the technical delegations, with the Moroccan Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of Morocco, if this too is confirmed, with the Director-General for Fisheries of the European Union as chair - so that serious dialogue may take place and solutions be found.
I will end, Mr President, by saying that there are many ways of reaching this agreement and there is still time, although unfortunately not much.
This is what the people of the European Union, whom we represent here, are demanding.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has maintained a constant position throughout the contacts it has had with Morocco, a position which reflects the mandate approved by the Council in October 1999.
It is now appropriate for us to initiate a new phase in our relations with Morocco, in a spirit which is best exemplified by our practical proposals concerning the aid that can be given to encourage growth and development in the Moroccan fishing industry, in line with the priorities set by the Moroccan Government in its five-year plan.
All the efforts we have achieved over the last few months whenever the parties concerned have had meetings at a technical or political level, have essentially focused on outlining a new partnership in the fishing industry, a partnership which must be well-balanced and to our mutual advantage.
Following the last visit by Mr Fischler to Morocco on 16 October, when he was received by His Majesty, King Mohammed VI, and was able to talk with the Moroccan Prime Minister, Mr Youssoufi, as well as with the Minister for Fisheries, substantial progress seems to be within our grasp.
We may quite rightly assume that the discussions held resulted in the actual initiation of talks on the content of a new partnership in the fishing industry.
We agreed that the new form of cooperation thereby established must take account of the interests of both parties and we took note of the fact that Morocco considered the potential spin-offs of a new partnership in terms of jobs to be an important element of our cooperation.
The Commission emphasised on behalf of the Community that it was ready to provide Morocco with assistance in developing its fishing industry, but that achieving this objective must not make us lose sight of European interests linked to the possibility of sustainable fishing activities in Moroccan waters.
From our standpoint, it is of vital importance that Community fishermen resume their activities at a level compatible with the obligation to guarantee sustainable resources.
Consequently, we have reached a consensus to work together with a view to achieving a responsible partnership, and Morocco will give its views at a meeting to be held, as you have already pointed out, in Brussels, on 30 October, that is, on Monday.
Finally, let me stress that, if the European Union and Morocco hope to cooperate in the future, flexibility is needed on both sides, as extremist demands will lead us nowhere.
It is clear that all our efforts are currently directed towards seeking an equitable agreement with Morocco. But the Commission, in consultation with the Member States primarily concerned, is also considering measures that could be taken to help the industry in question if no consensus is reached on a new partnership.
The Commission is optimistic that it will be possible to establish a balanced partnership with Morocco.
It states that it is, in any event, too early to predict the exact nature of the measures that would be taken if Morocco were to adopt a negative stance.
Mr President, Commissioner, tomorrow it will be exactly a year since our last debate here in Parliament on the subject of Morocco.
It is hard to believe that a whole year has gone by.
A great deal of water has flowed under the bridge since, and yet the agreement has expired and not been replaced.
We hear talk of extremely difficult discussions and tough negotiations.
So, here we are a year on, and we could almost be having the same debate.
But that would get us nowhere.
I had hoped that reason would prevail, apparently in vain.
Now we have the Commission's press release and Mr Busquin's announcement this morning.
A Moroccan delegation will present its position in Brussels on 30 October.
Commissioner Fischler has also confirmed this to me.
Mind you, we are talking here about the Moroccan position.
That will not bring the negotiations to an end. My question is, have they even begun?
Or are we clutching at straws here? We held a special meeting of the Committee on Fisheries this week and passed a joint resolution intended to back up our oral question this morning and underpin our concern.
My problem with the committee meeting and with the resolution itself is that we may be intervening in an ongoing procedure and, so far, we have not exactly learned anything new. Would we have done better to postpone?
But then, do we have enough time? I understand full well the concerns of the Spanish and Portuguese fishermen who are affected.
As a Member of the European Parliament from the German coast I can comprehend what the fishermen and their families, who have literally been high and dry for months, are going through.
A few weeks ago, I myself was in Algeciras on the southern coast of Spain, which is not far from Morocco.
The boats were tied up in the harbours and the fishermen were reduced to idleness.
They are dissatisfied and disappointed with Europe.
The fact that the agreement has still not been renewed is having huge social and economic repercussions because it affects both the fishermen and over 20,000 employees in the processing industry.
There is, however, one piece of good news: financial compensation has been extended to the end of this year, although it is just a drop in the ocean.
Of course the agreement with Morocco is a political issue. And sensitivity and diplomacy do, of course, have their place in politics.
Now is not the time, with hardly any light at the end of the tunnel, to start banging our fists on the table and making demands.
I think we banged our fists on enough tables last year and should proceed with caution.
Caution is the watchword.
But do we still have enough time? Unfortunately negotiations are dragging on.
I would like to see the Commission and Parliament working together to get things moving. Would it be totally unreasonable here to call for the European Parliament to be directly involved in the negotiations?
The importance of the agreement and its financial repercussions on the Community budget justify our involvement. If this is self-evident, why have we done nothing about it?
Do things need to be hidden behind closed doors? I am most curious as to the latest developments, as to how the next few crucial days will turn out and as to what can or must be done to bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion.
I am tentatively expecting a fast and satisfactory outcome.
I wish the Commissioner all the luck in the world and bid a very warm welcome to the Moroccan delegation.
Mr President, the absence of Mr Fischler from this debate is significant, but I consider the absence of Mr Smidt, the Director-General, to be even more so. I can understand the Commissioner' s reasons, but not those of the Director-General.
Mr Busquin, it is said that the Commission is a collegiate body.
I, however, believe that if this really were the case, this difficult matter of the Fisheries Agreement with Morocco would have been addressed from the start with a global approach, involving all the Commissioners.
I doubt that until now you will have heard of this problem, which is to be presented in this debate in all its harshness.
You will leave here today wiser and the only thing we would like is to leave more informed.
It is cold comfort that the European Union is financing compensation for fishermen and shipowners.
From day one, what they have told us is that they wanted to fish.
In any case, the aid will end on 31 December, the date planned for the conversion of the fleet.
What a beginning to the third millennium for the European Union: we are converting the fleet because we have been incapable of negotiating a new Fisheries Agreement with Morocco.
Eleven months after the expiry of the previous agreement, nobody is assuring us that we will reach an agreement before 31 December.
What has not been achieved in eleven months will be difficult to achieve in a few days.
Mr Busquin, I have sometimes, as a member of this Parliament, had the feeling that the European Commission, the Commissioner, and in particular the Director-General for Fisheries were acting as if they were ashamed of the sector and even of those Member States that they were called upon to represent in this negotiation.
We all knew from the start that it was a difficult negotiation.
Time has taught us that this could turn from being difficult to being impossible.
Because contact cannot begin by turning our back on the demands of the sector and agreeing to Moroccan demands without any discussions.
The Commission sent signals, not to the negotiators of the neighbouring country, but to European fishermen: too many cephalopod trawlers, a fleet with excess capacity, mixed enterprises, the need to negotiate by segments of the fleet, a ban on mentioning other types of trade and, of course, silence.
Who does this silence benefit?
Does it benefit Parliament, which is accountable to the citizens of the European Union?
Does it benefit a sector which, more enterprising than the negotiators themselves, is going to Morocco and seeing that what is impossible for Brussels is possible for them: speaking directly to the Moroccans, establishing close contacts, principles of trade, industrial and fisheries agreements? Does it benefit the Directorate General of Fisheries which, with all the Community apparatus at its feet, still thinks that our fishermen are the bad guys and wonders why they do not do something else?
We are left, Commissioner, not with the sentiment, but with the certainty that the sector would by itself have been capable of reaching an agreement which the Commission has still not reached today.
This sentiment does not sit square with negotiations with a country that has an association agreement with the European Union and in whose development we are involved.
And it fits in even less with a European Union that feels able to negotiate the accession of 13 new Member States.
The Moroccan Government is requesting privileged relations with the European Union.
It is right to do so and we should feel proud of this.
We are the main importers of Moroccan fisheries, agricultural and industrial products.
Moroccan agriculture enjoys special treatment when exporting to Europe.
At each negotiation of fisheries agreements, when these were seasonal, Morocco systematically obtained permanent agricultural concessions.
We could say that, eleven months after the docking, we are still paying for the previous agreement and the one before that.
The European Union wants to continue its association with Morocco in the field of fisheries because we are convinced that a cooperation to the advantage of both parties is possible, for the same reasons that make the European Union the largest investor in Morocco.
The first, the second and the third.
Or that thousands of young Moroccans study at Spanish or French universities.
Or that Morocco benefits from substantial European aid.
Or that we share our Mediterranean policy with Morocco.
If employment is truly one of the European Union' s priorities for action, an economic sector such as fisheries cannot continue to be sidelined.
At least 40 000 direct or indirect jobs in the European Union depend on this agreement, in areas with no possibility of conversion.
We are not dealing in intangibles .
The Commission is well aware of the importance of fisheries agreements for certain regions that are highly dependent on this activity: European regions of Denmark, Ireland, Scotland, Andalusia, Portugal and, Galicia, with extremely high unemployment rates and no industrial activity, that have exchanged their potential competitiveness for a marginal activity that the Commission seems to want to marginalise still further - and I am sorry to be so harsh.
For these regions, the last return of the fleet will, in the absence of any other alternative, constitute a fatal blow from which they will find it difficult to recover.
The European institutions must ensure that citizens and fishermen do not see Europe as a panacea, but as a suitable framework for the defence of their interests.
Mr President, Commissioner, the fisheries agreements play a very important role in the fisheries sector.
The agreements with third countries have very great significance for the European Union and especially for those regions with large fishing harbours.
I am thinking here of employment in the sector.
I am thinking also of the many subsidiary businesses and service trades which are wholly or partially dependent upon fisheries.
By means of the fisheries agreements, the European Union is able to engage in fishing operations and exchange fishing rights with third countries.
Those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party therefore support the fact that the EU' s fisheries policy embraces these many agreements with third countries.
The negotiations concerning a new agreement between the EU and Morocco have made slow progress.
They have been under way since the agreement expired on 30 November 1999, and the European Union has paid compensation to the Spanish and Portuguese ship owners and fishermen.
Commissioner Fischler has stated that this monologue cannot continue.
I very much agree with the Commissioner about this.
The fishermen in particular cannot be blamed for not understanding the situation and for being very disappointed about the fact that the negotiations concerning the Morocco agreement have dragged on.
Those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party are in favour of as big an effort as possible now being made to bring the long-winded negotiation procedure to a conclusion.
We therefore support the wording of the motion for a Resolution from the Committee on Fisheries.
We nonetheless propose an amendment to the paragraph concerning the arrangements designed to mitigate the effects of a failure to renew the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
We propose adding the words: 'which are to be co-financed to an appropriate degree by the EU' .
Mr President, we had a similar debate a year ago and the fact that it has taken a year before negotiations even get under way shows how difficult it is becoming to find fish stocks for our massive EU fleets to exploit.
The EU is ever more dependent upon the goodwill of other countries to let us fish.
We knew five years ago this situation would arise.
When Morocco signed the last agreement, it said it did not want another agreement of the same type and it has kept to that position.
In the five years, what has the Community done? It adopted a multiannual guidance plan which was far weaker than what was recommended by the scientists and the Commission.
The Commission recently highlighted the implications of this.
Then it adopted a structural fund, which will continue to pay for new vessels and the enlargement of existing ones, albeit with some controls.
Yet, once again, the Council watered down what the Commission had bravely proposed.
Consequently we are left with a problem of excess capacity and dwindling fish stocks.
There will need to be further cuts in TACs this Christmas.
The Commission is forced to look further and further afield to find fish.
The Moroccan case is a special situation in that many of the vessels involved are relatively small and fishing close to home.
We agree that the lack of this agreement has had a severe impact.
But while we have plenty of vessels that cannot find fish in European waters, or even in areas where they have traditionally fished, at the same time we have some businessmen, or even business conglomerates, in northern European countries that are building enormous new vessels, which will be forced to depend on fishing far away from Europe.
Given the difficulties in accommodating these vessels in the normal agreements, their owners are making private agreements with the governments of third countries.
Since these are private agreements with no Community involvement, there is no transparency, no access to information, no public accountability.
This is a very serious situation.
Who is to control these vessels?
I would like the Commissioner to give us a detailed account of its activities and their impact.
We will support the resolution, but we have to make it clear that nobody has any given right to exploit the resources of another country if it does not so wish.
That should be taken into account.
We must look at solving our own problem here.
Mr President, I think it would be constructive if a new fisheries agreement with Morocco could be concluded, but I nonetheless think that there are major weaknesses in the text of the Resolution which is now being proposed. This especially applies to paragraphs 3 and 4, in which it is assumed as a matter of course that the EU should be allowed - in fact, be almost entitled - to fish in Moroccan waters.
There is no such self-evident right. Rather, it is a question of negotiating with another nation.
One can imagine how it would be received if Morocco were to make similar demands to be allowed to fish in EU waters and saw itself as being entitled to do so as a matter of course.
Nor do I think it goes without saying that the EU should finance compensation for fishermen who have fished in waters outside the European Union.
If the EU' s fisheries policy as a whole is looked at, and not just this agreement, a large proportion of the fishing done by EU fishing fleets outside the European Union is unsustainable in the longer term, seen from ecological and resource management perspectives.
Fundamental changes are needed so that there is a reduction in global fishing and so that a smaller proportion of the fisheries budget is used for agreements with third countries.
It is, of course, mostly Spanish and Portuguese boats which fish in Moroccan waters, but boats from northern Europe fish there too. For example, a number of Swedish boats have fished off Morocco.
I was reading in a Swedish fishing trade journal about how one of these boats lands its catch in El Aaiún, described as a Moroccan harbour.
El Aaiún is not, however, situated in Morocco but in Western Sahara, which is occupied by Morocco.
I find it odd that boats fishing in terms of the EU' s quota are able to land their catches in an occupied country.
I should like to ask the Commission whether these matters are being discussed in the negotiations with Morocco.
What approach is adopted towards Western Sahara' s fishing waters? And how is it possible to land catches in an occupied country under this agreement?
Mr President, we are debating the third agreement with Morocco, which above all concerns French and Portuguese fishermen, who make up the bulk of the fleet, even though a small number of French and Swedish fishermen are also concerned.
It is clear that, together with Morocco, Mauritania a little further to the south, and Senegal, we are dealing with some of the richest fishing regions in the world.
With the second agreement, things were very clear.
Our Moroccan friends and I were in no doubt that this was going to be the final agreement.
Now we have reached the moment of truth for all concerned, first of all for Morocco, which has a right to permanent sovereignty over its natural resources.
But that is not what I heard just now, when talk was of fishing off the coast of an occupied territory, the Western Sahara in this case, which will be of great assistance to us during the negotiations.
The Moroccans have the right to sustainable development and to a major small-scale industry, just as they have the right to create a food industry based on their fisheries and their fish.
On the Spanish and Portuguese side, I understand they are invoking a certain historic right.
The Spaniards have put forward the case of an established practice and presence, and of an economic and human problem affecting 20 000 people who work in the fisheries and supporting industries.
I understand all that.
And on the European side, we have the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, which is being put to the test.
In fact, all our fishing agreements are being called into question not just those with Morocco, as there is also Mauritania and soon there will be Guinea among others to consider.
As for our Socialist Members, what a delight!
Champions of generosity and of the third world, they are discovering what Chairman Mao called 'the difference between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions' .
They have to reconcile defending jobs with their universalist and globalist convictions, which are being put to the test.
It is actually easier to defend the suburbs than it is to defend Morocco.
So do we really need a third-generation agreement with mixed enterprises involving a significant return for Morocco and privileged relations? I think we should first of all pay a fair price for the resource.
By paying one franc, or less than one euro, for a litre for oil, we have acquired bad habits as far as oil and for that matter, cocoa and the other natural resources are concerned.
But we must also understand that nothing lasts forever, not even fish stocks.
Morocco is a great nation, but it also has major demographic and economic problems.
His Majesty, King Hassan II, is no longer there.
Let us add, in conclusion, the problem of their natural and historic province, the Western Sahara, which has not been completely resolved.
Today, Morocco is faced with factory ships which are coming to pillage its natural resources, and which the small vessels and small Moroccan industries are in no position to resist.
There comes a time in life when we must learn to give in.
This must not stop us from protecting our own resources.
I am thinking of the tree growers and the market gardeners that we have sold out and also of the interests of southern Europe.
To the Spanish and Portuguese Members of the House, I would say that in life everything has to come to an end, even fisheries agreements with the third world.
Mr President, I think the most important thing at the moment is that for almost a year we have been starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and that in three days time - next Monday -, we will know what to expect, whether the fisheries cooperation with Morocco will continue and what type of cooperation this will be.
This House has been quite rightly criticised along with the Commission regarding the agreement with Morocco, which from the outset has been addressed with tremendous hesitation and naivety.
It has taken eleven months to arrive at the inflexible positions that we have today and the meeting on the 30th, and in this respect we should value the latest measures from Commissioner Fischler, the results of his trip to Morocco on the 26th of last month and the high level meetings that took place, including the one with the King himself.
From this trip we can deduce that the meeting on the 30th will not just be one more and that finally, a Moroccan delegation will be present in Brussels with negotiating and decision-making powers.
At least, that is what we can hope for at the moment, and from this alone we can be confident that fisheries relations with Morocco will be re-established as soon as possible and in the best possible conditions for both parties, because a fisheries scenario for southern Europe is unthinkable without satisfactory relations between both sides of the Mediterranean, while the needless sacrificing of a fleet that has contributed so much to the development of fishing in Morocco is unthinkable too.
The resolution upon which we are preparing to vote does not, and cannot, contain anything new, since it is being voted on just three days before a key date for negotiations.
As this key date is so close, I believe that we must be extremely careful with what is drawn up.
There is one point in the resolution that has been interpreted in very different ways, some of which are truly ridiculous and false and have been published in certain sectors of the media.
I am therefore particularly keen to make it clear that if there is anything that sets the PPE-DE Group apart, it is not only in supporting, defending and fostering fisheries agreements, but also in firmly promoting their extension.
However, in no way can this mean that the PPE-DE Group is opposed to private fisheries agreements, simply because opposing them would mean condemning half of the Community fleet.
I would very much like to know if anyone is really opposed to this solution, and how, and on what grounds, this will be explained to the fishing sector.
I believe we are here to clear the way for the future of Community fishing, not to block it.
Private agreements - of which there are many in the Member States and with many third countries - have yielded excellent results, both in maintaining Community employment and in providing fisheries products to the European Union.
For example, we only need look at the case of Namibia, South Africa, Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Ecuador, Iceland, Mauritania, Morocco itself and many others.
Furthermore, when we complain day after day about the fact that negotiations seem to be falling by the wayside, both the existing agreements and new ones, and the lack of interest that both the Commission and sections of the Council seem to be displaying - and here we have the recent cases of Angola, Cape Verde and Kiribati -, it is quite simply suicidal to block a path which is a solid base for the fisheries activities of the Community fleet, and could be even more so in the future.
The two approaches are therefore completely justifiable, as both are based on the fundamental aim of conserving resources.
We are therefore defending the responsibility that lies with us in the bilateral agreements and in private agreements, where the activity of the fleet is regulated - and will be even more so in future - by regional fisheries organisations such as ICCAT, NAFO and Camelar.
I have nothing more to say, Mr President, except to express my hopes for the best before the meeting on the 30th.
Mr President, the absence of Mr Fischler, which is justified, as the chair of the Committee on Fisheries made clear earlier, prevents me from going into too much detail.
However, I would like to convey a few brief messages to the Commission, which is worthily represented today by Commissioner Busquin.
The first message is the Commission' s inability to renew the most important fisheries agreement that the European Union had.
I believe that this fact should be noted and made clear and doubts raised as to whether the Commission is capable of negotiating international agreements, especially having heard President Prodi request an international remit for the Commission.
Secondly, I am concerned about Mr Busquin' s comment regarding support for developing the fishing capacity of Morocco.
We are talking about a territory that does not belong to Morocco, but that is being administrated by Morocco.
If we help Morocco to over-exploit this territory, which is awaiting a UN-supervised referendum, if we develop a Moroccan fishing fleet to exploit the fish in this territory, what will happen when this territory becomes self-governing and what will we do with the Moroccan fleet?
Thirdly, since the fisheries agreement came to an end, Community and non-Community fleets that are not subject to the control of either the Commission or the Member States have continued to exploit the Saharan fishing grounds, in particular a substantial Dutch fleet.
What measures does the Commission intend to take to prevent at least the Community fleets from continuing to over-exploit these resources?
Fourthly, as Mrs Miguélez emphasised, when the previous fisheries agreements were signed, the European Union made significant concessions to Morocco on all points.
Last year, Morocco withdrew from the negotiating table and, like a good player who has won, ended up with all the cards and did not forfeit a single concession.
Is the European Union going to continue making concessions, if Morocco does not show the slightest desire to relieve the situation?
And finally, the Commissioner has spoken of the Commission' s measures to help the fisheries sector directly affected.
But the fisheries sector is only part of the activity generated by fishing.
At the moment, various Spanish regions, the Canaries, Andalusia and Galicia, and some Portuguese regions, are directly affected by the cessation of fishing activities.
This means the end of shore-based activities, boat repairs, the provisioning of vessels, canning factories and oil factories, which is to say that a whole economic sector is currently paralysed as a result of this.
My question to the Commission is this: if an agreement is not reached with Morocco, or if this agreement is concluded under the terms indicated by the Commission, an agreement that stimulates Moroccan production, is the Commission planning to adopt structural measures to compensate for the losses that will occur in the regions affected.
Mr President, I rise to speak in order to express our support for a resolution with which my Group and I, as Member for Galicia, agree.
However, after a wasted year, and at a time when we are trying to put budgetary appropriations that were earmarked for the agreement under other headings, I must also express my deep suspicion about the Commission's commitment to protecting the legitimate interests of the shipowners and fishermen affected, and state my scepticism about the real will of the Union and of many Member States, amongst them Spain, to negotiate the agreement in the "general field of political and economic relations between Morocco and the European Union" as we propose in the resolution.
I nevertheless hope, of course, that I am mistaken and that the treaty will finally be signed without further delay.
Mr President, this is not the first time that the right to fish in Moroccan and Saharan waters has been an item on Parliament' s agenda.
Spain and Portugal took it for granted that Morocco was obliged to allow European fishermen to fish in its waters, and it was a shock when this came to an end last year.
I can well understand why, because this type of fishing was a source of revenue and employment for what is by European standards a poor region.
In the past, it was deemed quite natural for the economy to be prized more highly than the protection of the natural balance, and for the poorest people in Europe to try and pinch a few crumbs from Europe' s domination over the third world.
We have now reached the stage where parts of the oceans are being fished to the point of exhaustion, and stocks of certain types of fish have declined to such an extent that they are at risk of extinction.
Morocco has every right to afford its waters sustainable protection against over-fishing.
Europe cannot lay claim to rights in other parts of the world any longer.
In future, we will have to learn to live without fishing concessions bequeathed to us by our colonial past.
The proposed resolution will not lead to the restoration of fishing rights, but, at best, to Spain and Portugal having a more solid claim to compensation subsidies.
I would urge the Commission not to persist in bringing pressure to bear on Morocco, and to be more understanding of Morocco' s complaints.
Incidentally, I agree with Mrs McKenna that the Spanish and Portuguese fishermen are not the only villains of the piece.
The fishermen in the North, including my country, the Netherlands, must reduce their catches too.
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Union has had fishing agreements with Morocco since 1992.
The agreement currently in force expired at the end of November last year.
Under this agreement, around 500 boats from the European Union, 50 of which are Portuguese, have had access to Moroccan waters at an annual cost of around EUR 125 million.
As we imagined, the difficulties in negotiating with the Moroccan authorities have been considerable.
Morocco values its fishing resources very highly and it is constantly besieged by the great international fishing powers such as Japan, South Korea, and Russia to allow them to fish even more in its waters.
It should also be pointed out at this juncture that the fishing agreement with Morocco is part of a broader partnership and cooperation framework under which the European Union also grants Morocco considerable trade concessions and considerable support for its development.
I wish to highlight four points in this speech.
Firstly, it must be emphasised that the fishing agreement with Morocco is by far the European Union' s most important agreement, representing more than 30% of all catches by the Community fleet in third-country waters.
The 30 000 jobs directly or indirectly dependent on this agreement may seem few in terms of the European Union as a whole, but because they are concentrated in small fishing communities, mainly on the Spanish and Portuguese coasts, where there is no tradition or potential for economic conversion, the loss of these jobs would spell disaster.
Secondly, I must stress, with considerable bitterness, the lack of openness on the part of the Moroccan authorities involved in the negotiations.
I do not understand their position for two reasons. Firstly, in the meantime they have been granting private licences to various shipowners from other countries, which contradicts their argument that their difficulties in negotiating with the European Union are to do with the need to conserve fish stocks.
Secondly, Morocco' s inflexibility is also incomprehensible given our willingness to open up our markets to Moroccan products, and the aid that has been provided under the general cooperation agreement with Morocco.
Another aspect that I wish to highlight is the fact that at the end of this month, temporary aid paid to fishermen and shipowners in compensation for this year of inactivity comes to an end.
This situation is unsustainable, since they would all rather work than receive aid.
The Commission and the Council of Ministers must shoulder their responsibilities, which involves not merely extending aid until the situation is resolved, but also reviewing the general framework for cooperation with Morocco in the event that this situation drags on.
Finally, as the body responsible for conducting the negotiations, the Commission must keep Parliament properly informed about what is going on, since we find the current situation quite incomprehensible.
Equally incomprehensible is the passivity of the Fisheries Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, "blue" Europe, as it is metaphorically called, is in crisis.
Our seas are being abused, our fish stocks are dwindling, and our fishermen, who are forced to remain idle, are finding it hard to accept the cruel fate that threatens the survival of a traditional activity and a particular way of life.
On Tuesday, we debated in this Chamber the alarming breach in the Irish Sea of the ban on fishing for cod, that dish that is the very essence, by the way, of Portuguese cuisine.
Today we are debating a fisheries agreement with Morocco.
We are about to see another harsh blow dealt to fishing in the European Union.
I say in the European Union and not just in two of its constituent parts, as some Members have insinuated: European solidarity must be more than empty words or just a one-dimensional idea that simply evaporates when the problems happen to be concentrated chiefly in Portugal and Spain...
Unfortunately, the Commission was not able to reach new agreements in the negotiations with Morocco held before the expiry of the fisheries agreement on 30 November 1999.
Almost a year later, it seems that we are back to square one.
The little information that is available is unclear, despite the fact that negotiations have continued - or so we are told - with various complicated ups and downs.
In spite of everything, the Commissioner has given us a guarantee today that negotiations will reopen next week and that progress is being made. He said this in very vague terms.
He told us that there is a possibility of achieving a balanced partnership with Morocco.
Is this true, or is he saying what he thinks we want to hear? Scepticism and confusion are widespread and legitimate.
Does the European Union then not have sufficient weight and influence to convince its partner, Morocco, of the mutual advantages of signing the new agreement? What is actually going on here?
Is the problem the rather unhelpful attitude of the Moroccan Government, which prefers to negotiate with companies on an individual basis, instead of negotiating with the European Union, with which it shares important and long-standing interests in several areas? Has the European Union lost all its diplomatic and economic influence?
I think not!
My view is that the European Union has underestimated the problem. What happens if the agreement fails?
What attitude will the Council and the Commission adopt? Surely it will not be to wash their hands of the matter, given that they are the institutions with the power and the responsibility for conducting these negotiations.
Lastly, in the undesirable event that negotiations should fail, the Union has a political and moral duty to support the fishermen and shipowners with a reasonable amount of aid that will ensure that they have the means to live.
That is the minimum requirement, but by itself it is not enough.
The Union must prepare a programme for conversion of activities carried out by the operators affected, in order to give them a stable future.
Switching this problem to the Structural Funds and to the Member States would mean discrediting the Union in the eyes not only of those affected, but of the general public too.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am not going to repeat what has been said this morning in this plenary sitting and has been being said for almost a year.
Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is that the Community fleets in Andalusia, the Canaries, Galicia and Portugal are in dock due to the lack of a fisheries agreement.
Nor do I want to blame the Commission again for its lack of success in the negotiations or for the delay in beginning to put pressure on Morocco.
This has already been done.
This Andalusian MEP has been negotiating and proposing initiatives for a year in corridors, in offices, in the Committee on Fisheries and in the hearings with the Commissioner so that the highly specific idiosyncrasies of the Andalusian fishing fleet working in Morocco would be taken into account.
We need a practical fisheries agreement.
We do not want an agreement in which the interests of this large coastal fishing fleet are not reflected.
Extremely important fishing towns in the south Atlantic zone - Huelva and Cadiz - and the southern Mediterranean - Malaga, Granada and Almeria - depend on this agreement.
They have no alternative to fishing.
Furthermore, the social repercussions of this fleet lying in dock are extremely serious and are, in some cases, related to drug cultivation and trafficking by the Kingdom of Morocco.
I will end by saying that if the European Union was currently negotiating with the real owners of the Saharan shoals, the Saharan people, we would already have a valid agreement and we would not be being subjected to blackmail by the Alaouite Kingdom as a result of which failure to reach an agreement, or the sealing of an ineffective agreement, would have serious repercussions on the special relationship between Morocco and the European Union.
Mr President, everyone knows that Jean Monnet was one of the founding fathers of the EU.
He used to tell a joke about the Norwegians.
The joke was that the Norwegians always talk about fish.
It is a bad joke.
It is as bad as Jean Monnet' s idea regarding how the European Union should develop.
According to him, the EU should always have a management group, by which he probably meant Germany and France.
It would have meant there would not have been democratic equality among the countries in the EU.
But let me turn now to the question of fish.
I would defend Norway, which is not a member of the EU, because the EU wants to bring Norway' s resources of fish under the auspices of the Community without giving it anything in their place other than Jean Monnet' s political management group.
I would also defend Morocco against the fishermen plunderers of the EU countries.
The world' s seas are now being emptied of its fish protein in a way that resembles plundering.
We must protect the world' s fish stocks.
We have to resolve the overcapacity situation in the EU fisheries industry.
Let people fish with EU money in EU waters only!
Mr President, a Czech bishop, Bishop Koukl, to whom I am very close, has a rather nice saying: "Loving thy neighbour would be so simple if only one' s neighbour were not right on one' s doorstep" .
This saying aptly describes relations between numerous neighbouring countries.
Historically, it is neighbours that seem to have so much trouble with each other and the idea of the European Union is to resolve problematic relations with neighbours.
I should like here to take my hat off to Spanish foreign policy.
Spain has done a magnificent job in turning round the difficult neighbourly relations which Europe and North Africa and Spain and Morocco have suffered during the course of history.
I had the honour of attending the twentieth jubilee of former King Hassan of Morocco at the beginning of the 1980s, while I was working as a journalist.
I watched from the front row, as it were.
It was an impressive sight when the Spanish king came to Marrakech and drove with the Moroccan king in an open car through streets lined with over a million people.
It reminded me of scenes from our history and from my childhood, when Konrad Adenauer and Charles De Gaulle drove through German towns in exactly the same way, demonstrating that the problems between the two neighbours had been overcome and that France and Germany would together form the core of European integration.
Spain and Morocco have a similar opportunity to become the core of integration in the Mediterranean.
I think that Spain and Morocco have done a great deal in order to avoid what many see as unavoidable, namely the clash of civilisations, the conflict when different cultures collide.
Spain has developed a marvellous bridging function here, as has Portugal, and I think that we should look at this fisheries agreement in this light.
The Spanish and Portuguese fishermen deserve our undivided support.
This is not a local phenomenon; these are European fishermen and even though we are not perhaps directly affected, we must fight their corner.
In doing so, however, we must not lose sight of the fact that relations between the European Union and the transit countries around our borders, and I am thinking in particular here of North Africa, Turkey and Russia, which act as bridges on the borders of the European Union to other parts of the world and to other countries - that these countries deserve our particular support.
That is why we need to forge close economic and political relations with Morocco as quickly as possible, while at the same time defending our European fisheries interests.
That is why I am in favour of everything that has been said here about forcing the agreement.
However, I should like expressly to criticise the anti-Moroccan undertones that have also been heard in this debate because they do nothing to help neighbourly relations and because they do nothing to help the fisheries agreement.
We must be critical and open, but we must say to the Moroccans that we are keen to forge a close and permanent partnership with Morocco and to stabilise Morocco's position in the Mediterranean, while at the same time safeguarding our own interests.
I think that if we manage to persuade Morocco to take a European outlook, then Morocco will do what it should have done long ago, i.e. it will discuss the question of natural resources, of common resources with us and will stop giving preference to ships from third countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would simply like to add that there are clearly agreements between the two parties to establish a timetable for negotiations and that Morocco has spent months preparing its five-year plan.
Following Mr Fischler' s visit to Rabat on 18 May 2000, negotiations entered a new, more active, phase with a meeting on 25 July in Rabat of the Directors-General of Fisheries, another meeting on 28 and 29 September in Brussels and, finally, Mr Fischler' s meeting on 16 October with the Prime Minister and with His Majesty, Mohamed VI of Morocco.
Mr Fischler, may I add, reported back to the Commission on his discussion.
He had gained a favourable impression from his meeting, which augurs well for the negotiations, due to start on 30 October, being conducted in a constructive spirit.
That is why the Commission is working on the basis of a new partnership aimed at an interesting development between the two parties involving, on the one hand, the development of the entire Moroccan fishing industry, the fleet, aquaculture, commercial processing and research and, on the other, providing European fishermen with fishing opportunities.
I think we must therefore wait for the results of the meetings of 30 October.
Mr Fischler will, of course, inform the European Parliament of these results immediately and I hope, as you all do, that the negotiations will be productive and will lead to the establishment of a fruitful association between Morocco and the European Union. It is therefore too soon to broach this issue.
As regards the appropriate measures to be taken if the agreement does not succeed, the Commission is bearing these in mind but, as you well understand, we think and we hope that it will be possible for the negotiations to move forward on Monday in a more decisive way.
These are the replies that Mr Fischler could have made in my place and I will not fail to convey to him everything you have said.
Mr President, I would like to thank my friends and hope that they are listening carefully to my explanation of vote, the contents of which are extremely serious even it may not appear so on the surface.
I am very familiar with the problems of Spanish and Portuguese fishermen, problems which are shared by fishermen in Sicily.
However, a few days ago, I discovered that a when a Moroccan fish bumped into a Spanish fish in the Mediterranean one day, he remarked (in his own language, of course), "I have heard that Mr Fatuzzo is fighting so that we fish will be able to become pensioners too" .
This gives me great pleasure, but I have another desire: I am a Moroccan fish and I would like to be caught by a Moroccan fisherman, not a Spanish fisherman.
I have established a trade union.
The other fish, the Spanish one, says: 'I would like to be caught by a Moroccan fisherman, not a Spanish one ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I would remind the honourable Member that the order of business allows one minute's speaking time and that applies to all honourable Members.
Nonetheless, thank you for your most interesting contribution.
Rights of language teachers
The next item is the oral question to the Commission (B5-0541/00) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on the rights of language teachers: maintenance of the rule of law.
Mr Wieland has five minutes' speaking time on behalf of Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi.
Mr President, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, the chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has been unexpectedly called away and has asked me to stand in for her.
I therefore only had a short time to prepare to present the position of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
What is at issue here? It is not in fact language teachers.
Many will perhaps say that the issue is far too detailed and far too complicated.
But it is not about language teachers; it is all about an example, in this case about a citizens' Europe.
It is about a story that was first brought before the European Court of Justice in 1989.
An almost 12-year old story full of false hopes, stalling tactics, hopes and personal need, about placatory measures for those involved and tough defence of old rights against citizens seeking no more than their due.
Let us name names, to coin a phrase: it is about the case of the Union citizens Allué and Coonan versus the University of Venice, it is about the case of the Union citizen Allué again versus the University of Venice and it is about the case of the Union citizen David Petri versus the University of Verona.
The European Court of Justice returned a clear verdict.
The European Court of Justice handed down three judgements vindicating these citizens who, before the first of these judgments, were employed to lecture in Italian universities as lettori.
The tenet of these judgments is unequivocal: the rights of the persons affected to the free movement of labour and the right not to be discriminated against on grounds of nationality had been violated in that Italy did not offer the lettori the same terms of employment and job security as Italian nationals lecturing at a similar level in universities.
Unfortunately, nothing was settled after the first judgement.
The amendments made to the law in its wake in 1995 are still unable to guarantee full protection of the rights of lettori lecturing in universities.
In the end even the ombudsman backed these citizens.
I am not sure if this play on words works in the other languages. In German we say, "having a right is one thing, being allowed to exercise it is another" .
The Committee on Legal Affairs has formulated a clear position here and thrown its weight behind the Union citizens whose rights have been restricted.
Now a number of proposed amendments have been tabled which, to put it mildly, I find somewhat irritating.
I only intend to refer to two examples which are an attempt to improve or, in one case, to reverse Parliament's position at the eleventh hour: the original recital H proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs reads: "Whereas the persons affected, who are Union citizens, have suffered losses, stress and uncertainty over this period of several years, as the result of being involved in protracted and repetitive litigation in hundreds of court proceedings over 12 years and have had their legitimate expectation of being able to exercise their profession with reasonable career prospects has been dashed" .
Now an amendment has been tabled, proposed Amendment No 8, which deletes a few words and adds a few, thereby not only watering down but almost reversing the meaning.
The text would then read: "Whereas the persons affected, who are Union citizens, have been involved in protracted and repetitive litigation and have seen their legitimate expectations dashed."
It is not only in German that this makes a clear difference.
But now to what is, in my view, a much more serious process.
Proposed Amendment No 9 suggests that "Whereas the Italian government takes the view that it has fully satisfied its obligations vis-à-vis the lettori pursuant to Law 236/95, which complies with the principles of the Treaty" .
Apart from the fact that this was not discussed in the Committee on Legal Affairs, we would be maintaining here that the legal basis in Italian law corresponds to the principles of the Treaty and yet the Court of Justice said exactly the opposite!
I consider this action to be dubious.
If we take the view that these practices are legally acceptable and politically desirable then, as legislators, we should go ahead and change the principles, but if this is an attempt to use Parliament to conceal a position, then all I have to say is that the PPE wants no part of it!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the case of non-Italian foreign language assistants in Italian universities is well known in the Commission and in most European institutions.
This affair has been ongoing for more than a decade and, as a result of intervention on the part of the European institutions, in particular the Commission, the situation of the assistants has improved.
As you know, the issue is very complex and concerns some seven hundred people working in more than 25 Italian universities.
Throughout this decade, the Commission has worked assiduously to resolve the problem of foreign language assistants in Italy in respect of the free movement of workers, which is guaranteed by the Treaty.
As you have highlighted, the Court of Justice has already delivered three judgments concerning language assistants and, with the case pending in Luxembourg, the Commission has taken action aimed at further improving the situation.
More particularly, following the decisions of the Court of Justice of 1989 and 1993 - the Allué case - which ruled that the limitations on the duration of employment contracts of foreign-language assistants imposed by the Italian government were discriminatory, the Commission took a number of steps.
It initiated an infringement procedure, which was dropped in 1995 following an Italian law bringing the legislation into line with the Court ruling.
As regards the language assistants' subsequent claims concerning their acquired rights, the Commission launched another infringement procedure on the grounds that, in a certain number of Italian universities, the assistants' acquired rights were not being duly safeguarded.
In fact, the Commission mobilised a lot of its resources in order to examine this case.
In fact, the services of the Commission put together hundreds of pages of documentation on specific cases in a number of universities.
We exchanged a great deal of correspondence with the players concerned and went to a great deal of trouble to select from among piles of irrelevant documents the elements that proved conclusively that the former lettori had in fact been the victims of discrimination by certain Italian universities in respect of their financial acquired rights such as salaries and contributions to pension schemes.
In July 1999, the Commission brought this infringement procedure before the Court of Justice.
It is now waiting for the Court to rule on this new infringement and on this new procedure, which was initiated by the Commission.
The assistants not only invoked the lack of protection of their acquired rights, they also deplored the new legal system set up by the Italian legislation of 1995.
They believed that the Italian state should have integrated them into the category of members of the academic teaching staff or, failing that, it should have created a specific category for them among the teaching staff.
In the opinion of the assistants, this right would follow directly from the right of workers to free movement.
On this point, however, the Commission was not in agreement with the assistants.
It is our view that freedom of movement enables European citizens not to be the victims of discrimination under national systems of law.
It does not give them the right to a special legal status.
Each Member State is fully within its right to establish the provisions governing its own public service.
Community legislation cannot prevent Italy from amending the provisions governing the status of former lettori and from transforming them into linguistic experts with partially different attributions.
If the Italian legal system is reformed and modified, as it was in respect of academic teaching staff, we do not think that the Commission can intervene given that every European citizen has equal access to all categories of professions.
Indeed, any European citizen may become a permanent member of the teaching body by taking part in the appropriate concorso.
Mr President, I would just like to ask the Members to reflect a moment.
If the matter is a legal one, we should proceed along legal avenues and the Court should pass judgment; those who need to appeal should appeal and those who demand justice must have it.
If the matter is of a political nature - and therefore a matter for Parliament - it is a pity that we do not approach matters of this kind with due caution.
I fully appreciate the Commission's position and, indeed, as Parliament, we must be very careful.
I am not defending my government out of solidarity - it is not my government, I belong to an opposition party - but I am trying to clarify the matter.
We make every endeavour to ensure that the citizens enjoy the same rights in all the States, but they also have to respect and face up to the same responsibilities in all the States.
It is intolerable for European citizens to have some sort of privileged access in a State other than their own and not to have to undergo the same tests and bear the same burdens as the citizens of that country, in the case in the point the citizens of Italy.
In the European Union, education and teaching is structured according to the principle of subsidiarity, with the result that the laws of the Member States differ.
Under Italian law, you do not become a university lecturer automatically by virtue of experience, you have to pass a public examination.
Therefore, until we manage to harmonise the laws - which we hope to do - respect for the principle of subsidiarity for the moment means that it is impossible on the grounds of discrimination to do away with something which is in all probability a request for a privilege.
I repeat: there must be the same rights but also the same responsibilities for all.
Otherwise, this problem, which is political, not legal in nature, will arise again and could occur in other States of the European Union where laws governing university career paths and education are different from elsewhere.
I therefore advocate caution.
Mr President, I rise to give my voice to this injustice that we have heard about, an injustice, as we have also heard, that has been going on now for 12 years.
It has taken not one, not two but three court cases and it still has not been resolved.
So why are we back here today debating this injustice in this Chamber? It is because of our failure to resolve the issue that we are back here.
We have to continue to publicise this issue until it is resolved.
What is this injustice? Mr Wieland started to highlight it when he spoke on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
The injustice is about two people doing the same job, working side by side, but on different pay and under different conditions.
If we truly believe in the single market and the free movement of people, that should not happen.
I disagree with my colleague, Mr Lisi, who spoke earlier.
He talked about these people wanting a "privileged" position.
They are not asking for a privileged position, they are just asking for the same.
Until they get the same as their equivalents in Italy this matter will rumble on.
I listened carefully to what Mr Busquin said on behalf of the Commission.
Some people say there is a whiff of hypocrisy from the Commission.
Some even go further and say there is a stench of hypocrisy from the Commission.
I will go as far so to say there is a small smell of hypocrisy coming from the Commission.
If the Commission were truly serious about resolving this issue it would have been resolved years ago.
We can perhaps accept that the previous Commission under Mr Santer was not the best, so that is why it went.
But I have to say we are looking at this Commission: the President of this Commission is fully aware of this case, is fully aware of the facts, and yet nothing has been done to resolve it.
We have to ask why.
That is why this Parliament today is again debating this issue, highlighting this issue, to put it back before the Commission and say: get this sorted out.
Mr President, politicians often have the difficult task of telling constituents that no matter how heartfelt their grievance, or how strong its moral base, there is no legal remedy.
Sometimes they have the even more difficult task of having to admit that because of problems of access to justice or because of the law's own delays, the road to vindicating their legal rights will be long and arduous.
Worst of all, I believe, is having to issue a warning that a court judgment in their favour may just be a set of comforting words and make no real difference in their lives.
Fortunately, in a democratic society this is rare.
The rule of law means just that.
No-one can place him or herself outside its ambit just because of who they are or what they do.
The American jurist, Lon Fuller, warned us that one of the ways in which something can fail to be a legal system is if there is no congruence between legal rules and official action.
In the last eleven years we have seen three European Court of Justice judgments in favour of the lettori.
On 13 September this year the European Ombudsman sustained a complaint by them and a number of individual cases have been upheld in the Italian courts.
I am well aware that the circumstances have not been easy for people on both sides of the argument.
But if in this Parliament the rule of law is important to us, we must ensure that it is upheld.
If in this Parliament we genuinely believe in a citizen's Europe, we must strive to secure one.
As has been said, this is the third time that this issue has come before Parliament in the form of a motion for a resolution.
I hope and trust that there will be no need for it ever to do so again, unless it is to thank all those involved for the fact that effective action has now been taken.
We are a small House because it is a Friday morning but it needs to be noticed and recognised that this is an all-party issue and an all-Union issue.
Members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market from all over the Union and from all the parties have come together to say that it is no use talking about rights, advocating charters of rights if you do not, in real cases when people's rights are denied, take effective action to get them recognised and to get them enforced, and that is the problem in this case.
I was sorry to see, for example, one of the amendments taking out the reference not only to an appeal to the Ombudsman but the fact that the Ombudsman answered it affirmatively.
That is a critical point because the Ombudsman said that the Commission acted wrongly in failing to communicate with the language lettori the fact that they were changing pleadings on an important and significant article, and the article on which the Commission changed its pleadings is the very point that Commissioner Busquin mentioned.
The point is that the lettori claim the right to continue as teachers, not to be changed into something else.
Nobody disputes that the Italian Republic is fully within its entitlement, in 1995 or at any other time, to say for the future we will not hire people as lettori, we will bring in people for a new kind of appointment.
They can say that to anybody who applies in the future, but they cannot in respect of the past change the rights of people whose rights have upheld by the Court.
I remind the Commission that I hope it will reply to the point that in the Allué case the ruling of the Court is as follows: 'Hereby rules, it is contrary to Article 48(2) of the EEC Treaty for the legislation of a Member State to limit the duration of employment contracts of foreign-language assistants in any event to one year, with the possibility of renewal where in principle no such limit exists with regard to other teachers.'
If that is so, then the people whose representatives are in the gallery today, are entitled to be recognised as teachers in Italian universities of similar standing to those holding ten-year appointments in the university.
We do not say they should be made Italian civil servants.
We say Italy should make its law conform with the decision of the Court and give these teachers the right to be such.
Mr President, there is clearly something wrong with the policy governing the appointment of foreign teachers in Italy, if they are only granted temporary appointments as technical administrative employees.
This leaves them in a precarious legal position, and means that they receive lower pay than their Italian colleagues for the same work.
This has already been established by the Court of Justice and the ombudsman.
What is important is whether this came about by unhappy accident, or whether a quite deliberate decision was taken to maintain this distinction on a permanent basis.
I assume that the Italian educational authorities are already fully appraised of the criticism, but the impression I am getting is that this has not convinced them of the need to do things differently from now on.
Even though I am an advocate of national autonomy and the right to diversity, I endorse the motion for a resolution because there must never be discrimination on the basis of nationality.
If we adopt the proposed resolution, will it bring about any changes in the situation, or is there nothing the European Union can do about it at the end of the day? Is Italy to receive a fine by way of punishment?
Are we going to carry on complaining, with our hands tied, or are other Member States going to follow suit and start discriminating against Italian teachers?
By coincidence, this very afternoon I am off to Italy, a country that I love so much, to lecture about the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, which has been exported so successfully to the rest of the world, and therefore it saddens me all the more to make this speech criticising its government and its rules in this area.
However, some of my British constituents who wish to lecture and reside in Italy are not so fortunate as I am today.
In 1989 foreign lecturers working there won a case before the ECJ requiring their contracts not to be limited to six years.
After the Italian universities had responded by saying that the judgment did not specifically require them to offer open-ended contracts, a second judgment of the Court in 1993 spelt out clearly that the length of the contracts could not be fixed.
The universities responded by downgrading the status of foreign lecturers to support staff and no longer members of the academic teaching staff.
These dismissed lettori, as they are known, took their employers to the Italian Supreme Court, which ruled in their favour and demanded their immediate reinstatement.
The universities ignored the rulings, denying them the rights associated with teaching staff, including the twice-yearly pay rises so generous in the academic system in Italy.
In a Kafkaesque style the universities even went as far as to remove their names from the internal telephone books, the doors and the university websites.
This is quite unacceptable in a modern Europe.
Some of you will be aware of my support for the right of the male descendants of the exiled Italian royal family to return to their homeland.
They are subject to a medieval article in the constitution of Italy which prevents all male descendants of the family from entering Italian territory, in clear violation in my view of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Shamefully, in this very House the left-wing and Liberal groups have conspired to block the two princes' access to the Court of Justice although a ruling is expected shortly from the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Governments must understand that if they sign treaties then they must either abrogate them as sovereign states or abide by their terms in a rule of law.
The Italian Government, which comprises left-wing parties who constantly extol the virtues of European laws, rights and treaties, must act soon on both these issues if its commitments to the values for which it claims to stand are not to generate widespread cynicism in other Member States about Italy's commitment to uphold European law.
So far the European Commission has proven unwilling to enforce the Treaties when the number of people affected are few.
In the instance of my motion on the royal family this was even described by the Liberal rapporteur in this House on human rights as an exotic motion of no interest.
Well, I believe that these matters go to the very heart of the fundamental principles of the freedom associated with European law, particularly the freedom of movement, and no exceptions can be made to these principles.
There must be non-discrimination for EU citizens wherever they come from and wherever they want to go to within the Union.
These issues are vital to uphold European freedom and in my view there is no national issue of vital interest to the security of the Italian State which is being threatened by either the royal family or the Italian foreign lecturers.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on this question, which goes beyond Italy, is a highly interesting and most important debate.
When we refer in recital C of the resolution to the three judgments, which state that the rights of the persons affected under the freedom of movement of labour in the Union and their rights not to be exposed to discrimination on the basis of their nationality were violated by Italy's omissions and when the ombudsman and numerous speakers here confirm this, then the argument of one of the previous speakers, namely that the violation can be justified on the grounds of subsidiarity does not stand up.
When the European Court of Justice finds that European law has been violated, this cannot be countered by invoking the principle of subsidiarity.
The second point is that this is, without doubt, a political debate because it is about the violation of the law.
The legal status of the Treaties cannot be played off against politics; on the contrary, it is our duty, should this happen, to hold a political debate in the House on the violation of the law.
I think that the saying "If you don't take yourself seriously, no-one else will" is most apt here.
When there are three judgments in a case by the European Court of Justice and the country in question still fails to change its conduct, then we must intervene; we must make it public. We discussed the Charter of Fundamental Rights here in the House a few days ago.
Surely compliance with current law is the very first fundamental right which can be demanded of us?
Surely promoting the community based on law is the basis for the European community of values? You cannot play one off against the other.
Obviously education still comes under subsidiarity but, within the framework of the Treaties, the freedom of movement of workers and the ban on discrimination apply to everyone, although we - and I in particular, coming as I do from a highly federalist state - support the principle of subsidiarity as a principle of order in our dealings with the European Union and do what we can so that powers are divided as quickly as possible between the levels in Europe in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
Italy's conduct in this matter runs counter to the objectives of the Community and runs counter to our desire to increase the mobility and flexibility of workers.
The diversity of cultures, which we see as a fundamental element of Europe, finds expression first and foremost in the diversity of languages.
Anyone who stands up for the diversity of cultures must do what they can so that we can maintain the diversity of languages and learn them everywhere.
We support the internal economic market.
I say that also as a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, Media and Sport: the internal economic market needs the internal educational market.
There are still many fetters and many obstacles to this internal market, as today's debate has shown, and not just in this case.
We should do everything to remove these fetters as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I believe that all the speeches have contributed specific elements to the debate.
Nonetheless, I think that I have already answered a certain number of the points raised.
I would like to recall once again that these mechanisms contain a time factor and that we are talking about facts going back ten years, different aspects of which must be taken into consideration.
As regards the conformity of the Italian system to the decision of the Court in the Allué case, the Commission initiated an infringement procedure, which was dropped in 1995 when Italy adopted the law abolishing this restriction.
Italy then adopted a new text in 1996 eliminating the discriminatory elements that existed before.
But there is a second aspect to the problem: the question of acquired rights.
In this area, we analysed all the processes, as I have already explained and the Commission launched a new infringement procedure against Italy in July 1999.
We are waiting for the European Court of Justice to rule on this aspect of the problem.
There are thus two things, which I would not describe as being different, but which are linked together slightly differently over time.
It is therefore necessary to make a distinction between the two elements.
As regards the equal access of all European citizens to all professional categories, it is clear that each European citizen may become a member of the Italian teaching body by taking part in a competition intended for Italian teachers.
In this context, it can no longer be a question of discrimination.
It is therefore necessary to look at the previous situation, which was manifestly discriminatory.
The Commission did its job in bringing the infringement procedure before the European Court of Justice and the Italian State changed the law.
It is clear that the entire problem of acquired rights still remains unsolved.
We are once again in the middle of an infringement procedure and we hope that the Court of Justice will give its opinion as soon as possible.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Motion for a resolution (B5-0824/2000) on the rights of language teachers: maintenance of the rule of law
After the vote on recital H:
Mr President, I hereby suggest that we insert the word "unconvincingly" between "government" and "claims" in this amendment.
I have no objection to its being drawn to our attention that the Italian Government has made a certain claim, but especially since the Commissioner has disgracefully shown that he perhaps believes the claim, let us put the word "unconvincingly" in or reject this amendment.
As there are no objections to this oral amendment, we shall vote on it.
(Parliament adopted the motion for a resolution) Explanations of vote
Mr President, I will not excuse the Italian government or the Italian courts for condemning many pensioners to a low pension, but in this case I voted against the report because I consider the judgments of the Court of Justice to be erroneous.
The root of the issue is that it is impossible to grant a language assistant, a person who is well versed in English and comes to an Italian medical university to explain to the students what the Italian terms are for heart disease, operation, liver disease, and so forth, to have the same rights, on the basis of their having the same status, as someone who teaches medicine.
Mr President, would you go for treatment to somebody who knows all the surgical terms in Italian, English, French and German, or would you go to a surgeon?
Mr President, I have a great deal of sympathy for language teachers in Italy who do not have Italian nationality.
As a citizen of a very small country, I am a great advocate of the free movement of workers and self-employed people and also of the freedom of establishment. As an old suffragette, I have spent 40 years on the barricades, fighting against all forms of discrimination, whether based on gender or on nationality.
But the free movement of workers must not result in discrimination against nationals.
Coming from a country whose active population is more than 50% non-Luxembourgeois, foreign residents or people who cross the border every day to work, I know what I am talking about.
In my country, for secondary school teachers we have very strict and very hard recruitment competitions.
We cannot, and I say this as a matter of principle, discriminate against nationals by making access to employment easier for non-nationals.
This said, I hope that our debate will go some way to promoting an equitable solution for language teachers in Italy.
I feel bound to say, however, that we could easily fill up Friday' s agenda, if we were to deal with all existing similar cases of discrimination in this Chamber, especially those based on gender.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I am pleased that the Liberal amendments were defeated and that I was therefore able to vote for this report but I would like to query one point made by Mr Busquin.
He said that everyone working in Italian universities has to pass the same exams as Italian teachers have to pass.
I do not see why that should be the case.
We are supposed to have mutual recognition of qualifications across Europe so that you can qualify in your own country and then move to others.
That is a basic issue in Mr Busquin's response which needs to be questioned and I am sorry to see that he has now left the Chamber.
Mr Purvis, that was not a point of order.
Unfortunately, Mr Busquin has already left.
I would advise you to speak to him directly.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned and wish you a pleasant weekend.
(The sitting was closed at 10.56 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday 27 October 2000.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, as you will be aware, last month saw the names of four more victims being added to the intolerable list of those who have lost their lives in Spain as a result of terrorist attacks by ETA.
They were: José Francisco Querol Lombardero, a general and magistrate at the Supreme Court, Jesús Escudero García, a policeman and Mr Querol' s bodyguard, Armando Medina, Mr Querol' s chauffeur, and Jesús Sánchez Martínez, a bus driver.
My thoughts are also with the many people who were injured in the attack in Madrid on 30 October.
All we can do is reiterate our revulsion at this senseless violence and our total condemnation of it.
I would ask you to observe one minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
President.
Many of them were very young.
They were happily on their way to ski on the slopes in Austria when 155 of them died in appalling circumstances in the disaster on the Kaprun funicular.
On behalf of this Parliament, I immediately sent to the President of Austria, Mr Thomas Klestil, and to the Chancellor, Mr Wolfgang Schüssel, messages of condolence and support in the ordeal that a tragedy of this kind is for the victims, those close to them and the people of Austria as a whole.
In order to show the extent to which the whole of Europe empathises with the bereavement felt throughout one country in the Union, I have asked in these exceptional circumstances for the flags at the European Parliament to be flown at half mast today.
I would invite you to dedicate your thoughts to this tragedy for one minute.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Madam President, I should like to thank you very much for extending your sympathies and condolences on the occasion of this terrible tragedy which we have just experienced.
Many of these mainly young people boarded the train with the prospect of enjoying themselves, having fun and experiencing something positive, and they instead experienced a terrible and tragic death.
I should like to thank you - I do not know whether anyone else will be speaking about this - on behalf of many Members of this House and, in any case, on behalf of my group and my delegation.
Madam President, may I take this opportunity, since you addressed this matter in such clear and sympathetic terms, to say that for this reason we can dispense with having a topical and urgent debate on this matter.
I would ask you to understand that for this reason we do not really need to have the topical and urgent debate.
Madam President, allow me to thank you very much on behalf of my delegation for your message of sympathy which you sent on behalf of the European Parliament following the catastrophe at Kitzsteinhorn to our President, Dr Klestil, our Chancellor, Wolfgang Schüssel, and thus to all the people of Austria.
Thank you also for having the flags flown at half-mast.
We are united in shock and grief for the 150 people who died and we share in the pain of their relatives.
We extend our deepest sympathies to them.
The great Austrian poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, once wrote that death is great and that we find ourselves in its laughing mouth.
The burning inferno on the funicular railway - a railway which was considered to be one of the safest - which leads to one of the most beautiful areas of the Austrian Alps, makes everything else fade into the background, and the readiness to share pain and grief becomes our only comfort.
I would therefore consider it to be appropriate to commemorate the victims, who did not only come from my country but from many European countries and from overseas, in a minute' s silence, and I also think that we should dispense with a resolution on this matter.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday 27 October have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, our Minutes of the 27 October record our decision to pass a resolution about the Italian lettori and we were very grateful that the House carried it with such a large majority.
In the meantime, Members of the House should know that the president of the association of the lettori was last week visited in his classroom by the anti-terrorist police to check if he was planning any violent demonstration against the Minister of Education.
This would hardly count as a positive response to the resolution that we moved.
(The Minutes were approved)
Agenda
The next item is the final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents on Thursday 9 November, pursuant to Article 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
a) Sittings of 13 to 17 November 2000 Relating to Monday:
With regard to the report by Mr Ceyhun, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, I have received two requests: one request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists for referral of this report to committee, and one request from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance for deferral of this report to a later part-session.
I will now give the floor to Mr Ceyhun, who will speak in his capacity as rapporteur and on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Madam President, I should like to state - also on behalf of my group - that referring this report back to the committee responsible in accordance with Rule 144 of the Rules of Procedure would actually be the correct course of action for Parliament to adopt, because I prepared a report and only found out afterwards that the Council had plans in this field.
Since we were not given sufficient notice, it would make more sense to wait for the legislative proposals and only then have Parliament deal with this point so that we do justice to the problem.
For this reason, I would request that the report be referred back to committee without there being a debate on it in plenary today, and the committee responsible, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, will certainly be able to deal with this matter properly.
It is therefore quite clear: the rapporteur recommends referral to committee.
He was also speaking on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, who made this request.
Does anyone wish to speak in favour of this request for referral to committee?
Madam President, the report drafted by my colleague, Mr Ceyhun, is a very important one, and we, too, have heard that the Council has some new plans with regard to these matters.
I support Mr Ceyhun' s proposal, and I would be very grateful if the Council could clarify whether it really intends to put forward a new proposal with regard to this issue.
You are, thus, firmly in favour of the referral to committee.
Does anyone wish to speak against this request?
Madam President, it appears that the Council has known for some time that we were going to debate this subject today.
In my opinion, it has made an institutional error in changing its position at the last minute, keeping us in the dark right up until the very last moment and then exerting pressure upon someone to request that the report be referred back to committee.
We have done our job and, in my opinion, our work should be concluded irrespective of the Council' s position.
We are not the Council' s slaves: we have our institutional autonomy and I therefore consider this referral to committee totally inappropriate.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the request for referral to committee made by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
(Parliament gave its assent) Relating to Tuesday:
With regard to the statements by the Council and the Commission on the third Asia-Europe Meeting, the Council has informed us that it does not wish to speak for the moment.
That therefore leaves us with just the statement by the Commission.
In order to group together the interventions by the President-in-Office of the Council, who has an extremely busy schedule, I propose that the statement by the Commission be inserted at the end of the joint debate on aid for reconstruction.
Are there any objections? There are none.
Then that is what we shall do.
Relating to Wednesday:With regard to the statement by the Commission on BSE and the ban on animal meal in all animal feedingstuffs, the Group of the Party of European Socialists requests that the Council also make a statement on this matter.
The Group is aware of the fact that Wednesday morning will be a very difficult time for the French ministers.
The initial meetings that we have had at administrative level were not particularly fruitful, but I am quite prepared to intervene at a more political level, in the hope of achieving success.
Madam President, I would like to speak on a point of order, regarding not the agenda, but the order of voting.
In order to simplify matters, I would like to propose that we vote on the oral question on the Euro-Mediterranean Conference at the start of voting time at 11.30 a.m. on Wednesday because, as you are aware, the Conference opens at 6 p.m. in Marseilles.
The voting session will be long and will be interrupted, amongst other things, by the welcome presence of President Kostunica. In addition, some of us will have to leave in order to be present at the opening of the Marseilles Conference, and so we would like to be able to vote on the oral question at the start of the session before all the other reports.
It would therefore merely be a matter of bringing forward the vote.
Mrs Napoletano, we could of course proceed in that way.
Relating to Thursday: President.
The Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats proposes deleting the item entitled 'British submarine in Gibraltar' .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our group regards this incident as being so important that we do not consider it appropriate for it to be dealt with in the topical and urgent debate.
We think that we should address this matter in the form of an oral question to the Council and the Commission, and would like to draft this carefully to ensure that both the Council and the Commission do discuss it.
We do not think that the time is right to discuss this matter in a topical and urgent debate and would therefore request that this item be deleted from the agenda.
Thank you, Mr Poettering.
Does anyone else wish to speak in favour of this request? Mr Poettering has spoken on behalf of the group which requested that the item be deleted.
Madam President, no group is more sensitive than mine when it comes to sharing the quite natural concerns felt by the inhabitants of the Campo de Gibraltar area; therefore, as the Chairman of my group has already indicated, I should like to offer the Group of the Party of European Socialists a consensus so that we can have a serious and thorough debate on this matter by means of an oral question to the Council and the Commission.
If this was not the intention of those who proposed this resolution, if through lack of experience - not through lack of scruples, I am sure - what was intended was to bring an internal, domestic affair before this Parliament - as the spokesman for the Spanish Socialists in the Spanish national parliament recognised at the weekend - then of course they cannot count on the Group of the European People' s Party to play this game.
Madam President, my group has listened carefully to this proposal.
With regard to Mr Galeote' s statements, I must point out that this is not a domestic issue: it is an issue in which the Commission has competence, as it has itself declared in its reply to a question from our colleague, Mr Aparicio.
This reply also mentioned the lack of information and the obstacles raised by the British Government. Thus we are not talking about some domestic issue; we are talking about the presence of a nuclear submarine, the breakdown of which has led the Royal Navy to decide to dock eleven submarines in British territory.
Therefore, under the Treaties and under the Euratom Treaty this issue falls within the competence of the Commission; it affects or may affect many citizens who are not just Spanish, because in this area and its surroundings - and there is no emergency plan in place - there are hundreds of thousands of European citizens from the fifteen countries of the Union as well as many people from outside, because this is the Costa del Sol.
We therefore believe that the matter deserves substantive consideration.
If the European People' s Party is proposing that at the next part-session we should support having this question taken up, we may consider it; if it is just a delaying tactic, we will be against it.
I should therefore like to ask for a formal commitment from the PPE that we should vote together in favour of having this matter included as a question to the Commission and the Council at the next part-session.
Mr Barón Crespo, I would like to make sure I understand you correctly.
I have received a proposal from the Group of the European People' s Party for this item to be withdrawn from the topical and urgent debate, for the reasons that Mr Poettering and Mr Galeote have just set out.
I have the impression that you agree with their rationale, Mr Barón Crespo, if I understand you correctly.
Are you in favour of this item being deleted?
Madam President, my group would be in favour of accepting the inclusion of this question on December' s agenda.
What we would not agree with is having this matter omitted and then seeing if it can be postponed indefinitely.
Yes, there is that, but let us just say that we are formally withdrawing the item from the topical and urgent debate.
However, we all quite agree that it should be discussed, as you have said.
Mr Poettering, is that what you intended?
I simply wanted to say to Mr Baròn Crespo that he can always depend on the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats to keep its word.
If the Chairman of the group makes a statement here, then he can assume that the statement will still hold true the next day.
That is why we will now set in motion the procedure with which Mr Baròn Crespo obviously agrees.
It would be nice if the House were at one on this issue.
(Parliament gave its assent)
b) Sittings of 29 and 30 November 2000:
No amendments were proposed.
Madam President, it is sad but very enlightening to learn from the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Mr Mayor Oreja, that there is no point in talking with Basque nationalists, even if a new cease-fire were to take place in the future.
This statement evidently does not support the position of our Spanish colleagues in this House when they affirm that in the Spanish Kingdom every political party can defend its ideas whatever they might be, with only one basic premise: the absence of violence.
Can this House back the refusal of dialogue?
Can this House close the door to political solutions? Can this House close the door on the democratic future of the Basque country inside Europe?
I would appreciate it if points of order really were points of order, and I would be grateful if you could begin by indicating, as, moreover, is stipulated in the Rules of Procedure, the rule on which each point of order is based.
Madam President, I would like to draw your attention to a certain written statement that my colleague, Mr Ebner, is putting forward.
He is proposing that the Directive on birds should be amended to take better account of the principle of subsidiarity.
I would like to tell you and all my colleagues that this statement is being marketed in a way that makes it appear favourably disposed towards birds, as promoting their welfare, but I can tell you that that is not the case, and that this will worsen the situation of migratory birds in the European Union.
I would appeal to everyone that you at least make sure you know what you are signing if you sign this petition.
I fully support the letter written by my colleague, Dorette Corbey, which she has sent to our colleagues regarding this matter: there should be no misleading marketing regarding this written statement.
Madam President, some time ago in this House we discussed the issue of sanctions on Iraq.
I am very glad to see that the British Liberals have decided to call for a review of sanctions on Iraq.
The week before last I flew to Iraq, over Turkish airspace into Baghdad, on a humanitarian mission.
In the six months since I was last there, the situation has got worse.
More than 5,000 children are dying every month according to UNICEF.
The Commission should come to this House and address that issue.
These children have nothing whatsoever to do with the conflict in the Middle East.
The Commission have slavishly taken the US/British line, while the US and British and Turks continue to bomb southern Iraq.
Madam President, I would like you to advise the Commission to make a statement on the issue of sanctions.
Mrs Doyle, I allowed you extra time because that was not a point of order.
That was part of the order of business and I deeply regret not having been informed of it.
I feel that the Commission has been very receptive to your request, as Commissioner Vitorino has confirmed to me.
It will therefore be acted upon appropriately.
Madam President, with reference to the smooth running of Parliament and the safety of the Members, I would like to inform you that, during the last Strasbourg part-session, on Wednesday evening to be precise, the PPE Member from Forza Italia, Mr Mario Mantovani, slipped on the steps and fractured his left foot while taking his suitcases down to the taxi outside Parliament.
He stayed on to vote on Thursday morning and then his foot was put in plaster. He will not be able to take part in our work for 60 days.
On the one hand, a representative of the Pensioners' Party might welcome the presence of invalids - another pensioner perhaps - but, on the other, I would like all our Members to be safe.
I therefore ask you when a lift or an escalator will be installed, so that we will be able to go down to the cars at the end of the day in safety.
Madam President, I would like to inform Parliament of a serious initiative undertaken last week in Italy by the regional government of the Lazio region.
The regional government has established a committee to monitor the history textbooks used in schools. The committee is to ascertain the extent to which these texts are influenced by Marxism - as the neo-fascists who are in power in Lazio say.
The fact is that these texts merely present the history of Italy, of the Second World War, of nazism and fascism, on the assumption that it is clear that the values for which the resistance and the antifascists were fighting and the ideas motivating Hitler and Mussolini cannot be regarded as equal.
This is an extremely serious initiative towards reintroducing censorship in Italy, limited to text books for the moment but which will soon be extended to other areas.
Since the allegedly liberal parties, including the European liberal parties, always tend to ally themselves with parties of xenophobic, racist, authoritarian inspiration, I feel that this is not only a serious danger for Italy, but also an indication of something which concerns the whole of Europe.
I would ask the Members to sign a petition which I am circulating, which also bears the signatures of other European intellectuals.
Mutual assistance in criminal matters
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A5-0313/2000) by Mr Marinho, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the French Republic with a view to adopting a Council Framework Decision on money laundering, the identification, tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscation of instrumentalities and the proceeds from crime [10232/2000 - C5-0393/2000 - 2000/0814(CNS)],
(A5-0312/2000) by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative from the Portuguese Republic with a view to adopting a Council Act on the drawing up on the basis of Article 43(1) of the Convention on the establishment of a European Police Office (Europol Convention) of a Protocol amending Article 2 and the Annex to that Convention [9426/2000 - C5-0359/2000 - 2000/0809(CNS)],
(A5-0314/2000) by Mrs Roure, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the initiative of the French Republic with a view to adopting a Convention on improving mutual assistance in criminal matters, in particular in the area of combating organised crime, laundering of the proceeds from crime and financial crime [10213/2000 - C5-0394/2000 - 2000/0815(CNS)].
Madam President, the fight against financial crime and, in particular, crime involving money laundering, will feature at various points in today' s plenary sitting, and this reflects the political importance of the legal instruments which the European Union wishes to establish for the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice.
Following the creation of the internal market and the corresponding liberalisation of capital and of financial services, the Union has committed itself to the fight against money laundering. This is a complex crime, which requires another, original, crime to have taken place, resulting in illegal profits that people attempt to recycle into normal, legal economic life.
Money laundering, which is the final destination for the proceeds of international crime and a consequence of the globalisation of the economy and of the gradual liberalisation of trade, is at the heart of organised crime, as stated in the Tampere conclusions, and is often the result of drug trafficking.
It is a sobering thought that the fight to end this activity involves seizing the proceeds of the original crime, which are later disguised as respectable wealth.
The only way to ensure that this fight is effective is through international cooperation, which in Europe, in the face of international crime, takes the form of judicial cooperation between all the Member States.
This report, therefore, highlights the measures proposed by the French Presidency, which, in conjunction with the Portuguese Presidency, has moved ahead with initiatives to approximate legislation, in line with the Tampere Council conclusions. The Treaty of Amsterdam has also been implemented, not forgetting the good work that the Commission has carried out in this area and the commitment and clear thinking of Commissioner Vitorino.
There is, therefore, coherence between the three initiatives that are the subject of my report and of the reports by Mrs Karamanou and Mrs Roure in that the framework decision forces the Member States to comply with the outcome, in that Europol' s competence is extended to cover money laundering in terms of investigations and in that a convention improves mutual legal assistance.
We are therefore heading in the right direction for the creation of a broad, effective legal framework, which will at least limit this type of crime.
My report clearly supports the crux of the rationale behind the framework decision, with proposals that seek fundamentally to enable Member States to confiscate goods gained from serious crimes and to force them to punish offenders committing money-laundering crimes and to legislate against them, without the flexibility offered by the loopholes in previous legal instruments which made it easy for criminals to thumb their noses at the law and to control whole economies.
We also support the result of the binding nature of the framework decision, which forces Member States to harmonise their laws for the common good whilst being subject to judicial supervision by the Court of Justice.
The report also contains some criticism, however, of the French proposal.
Why should only a part of the previous joint action be transposed, which would leave these measures split into weak and strong legislation due to their different natures, highlighting the fragility of joint action? Why not accept straightaway the complete transposal of the whole set into the framework decision, as stated in the amendments that I proposed, Nos 9, 12, 13 and 14?
Nor do we feel that tracing and confiscating goods should be restricted to cases in which the original crimes are classed as serious.
This would open up a totally unjustifiable and huge area of law consisting of crimes that will not be prosecuted at all.
Hence Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
Lastly, although I must reiterate my appreciation of the French and Portuguese initiatives under the genuinely broader scope that Amsterdam, despite everything, has provided - and let us be frank about this, the Commission has been able to turn this to good advantage - there are still such differences in the origin and the effectiveness of the various judicial methods, directives, joint actions, framework decisions, conventions and international conventions that it is becoming urgent to communitise judicial, criminal and civil law, and thereby create an area of justice at the service of freedom and security.
It is a shame that this is not already a priority in the reform of the Treaties, since the current IGC is at the mercy of the weight of the various Member States and of the measures that they wish to implement...
We nevertheless believe that the public will shortly be in a position to demand this new aspect of Europe. They will be able to force through a revision of the Treaties that is concerned with their genuine interests and we believe that this revision will indeed be carried out in the name of freedom, security and justice.
Madam President, as Chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, I rise to present Mrs Karamanou' s report.
Mrs Karamanou is sadly unable to be with us tonight, but I feel it appropriate that her report should be debated along with Mr Marinho' s excellent report, which we have just discussed.
The Republic of Portugal presented a draft Protocol amending Article 2 of the Convention on the establishment of a European Police Office, Europol.
This Portuguese initiative aims to extend Europol' s competences in order to establish a general framework of competence for Europol in relation to money laundering.
The fight against money laundering is, of course, one of the Union' s most important priorities, as rightly identified at the Tampere Summit last year.
Considering that money laundering is at the heart of organised crime, especially drug trafficking, which represents such a threat to public health and public security, one cannot but endorse this proposed measure.
Declarations must be followed by concrete steps to trace, freeze, seize and confiscate the proceeds of crime.
This proposed Protocol should be seen as a necessary measure in a European strategy for police cooperation in the field of money laundering.
But considering the urgency, our rapporteur seeks in her Amendment No 6 to have this Protocol adopted as quickly as possible that is, according to Article 34(2)(d) of the Treaty on European Union, when a majority of Member States have notified their approvals.
The committee which I have the honour to chair adopted Mrs Karamanou' s report nearly unanimously.
Much as we approved of the Portuguese initiative, however, we insist on a broader revision of the Europol Convention and indeed on mechanisms to ensure both democratic accountability and judicial control of Europol.
Let me touch briefly on those two matters.
On the question of democratic accountability, I note that at the moment Article 39 of the Europol Convention requires that the European Parliament simply be consulted on an annual report.
This is quite unacceptable and on several recent occasions, Parliament has requested, in particular in the Nassauer and Cederschiöld reports, modifications to the Europol Convention to ensure true democratic accountability of this agency.
In order for Parliament to exercise such democratic control, Europol must, as with the other European institutions such as the ECB and the Ombudsman, report on its activities in an annual exchange of views.
The Director of Europol should be required to appear before Parliament' s competent committees when circumstances require.
Moreover, Parliament should be represented on the management board of Europol and should have a say in the choice of the director of the agency.
These requests are covered in Amendments Nos 2 and 4 of Mrs Karamanou' s report.
On questions of judicial accountability, it seems to us equally unacceptable that possible disputes or conflicts between Member States or between Europol and Member States cannot be brought before the Court of Justice, despite the provisions of Article 35 of the Treaty which refer precisely to matters relating to police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
This contradiction conflicts with democratic values, particularly in regard to human rights, and especially in the field of data protection.
This lack of judicial accountability of Europol is particularly dangerous given that Europol seems to be assuming more and more responsibilities and this concern is covered in Mrs Karamanou' s Amendment No 5.
In conclusion, Parliament has considered attentively and positively this Portuguese initiative but we are unsatisfied with the limited scope of the proposed revision of the Europol Convention.
Faced with the challenge of internationally organised crime, the European Parliament must be able to represent the citizens of the Union effectively and this is why we must be fully informed of and involved in Europol' s activities, its programmes, effectiveness, methods and means.
I am fully aware that in this matter Parliament is only consulted.
Nevertheless, we urge the French Presidency, which has shown such a determined commitment to fight against money laundering, to take account of our demands.
The creation of a European area of freedom, security and justice cannot remain in the hands of a specialised agency under the sole control of national governments.
This is a major area of European integration and the European Parliament is ready to offer its support to policies in this area provided it is duly involved.
Madam President, international criminal networks have become considerably stronger and more organised in recent years.
Factors such as globalisation can be seen to have enhanced the possibilities of laundering dirty money and the means of avoiding prosecution.
According to figures released by the United Nations, 1 000 billion dollars are recycled every year through money laundering operations.
Money laundering is a difficult offence to detect, and crime syndicates take advantage of every loophole in the various legal systems.
As a result, international cooperation in police and judicial matters is the only way of effectively thwarting this illegal practice.
At European level, mutual assistance in criminal matters has already, in general terms, seen the adoption of several texts, such as the Council of Europe' s Convention of 20 April 1959 and, very recently, the European Convention of 29 May 2000, for which our fellow MEP, Mr Di Pietro, acted as rapporteur.
In the more specific area of combating money laundering, we could cite the Council Directive of 10 June 1991, as recently amended, for which our fellow MEP, Mr Lehne, acted as rapporteur.
The initiative from the French Presidency that we are examining today is aimed at improving the two blanket conventions on mutual assistance in criminal matters that I have just mentioned, specifically in the field of combating money laundering.
The convention that we have before us improves these earlier texts, and we welcome these improvements.
By virtue of Article 2 of the draft Convention, the Member States can no longer decline to conduct searches or seize items by invoking the reservations set out in Article 5 of the Convention of 1959.
Article 4 states that in order to facilitate enquiries, the Member States must take appropriate measures to promote the transfer and safekeeping of data relating to the existence, location and movement of the proceeds of crime, while Article 5 states that the Member States are required to furnish information on banking activities.
Article 6, for its part, provides for the making of supplementary requests for mutual assistance, and Article 7 states that fiscal exceptions can no longer constitute a reason for refusing mutual assistance.
One can only approve of the body of measures contained in this draft Convention. They respond to the concerns expressed by the Tampere European Council concerning the fight against money laundering, which is the very root of organised crime and which must be eradicated wherever it is found.
It would seem to me that certain improvements could be proposed, and that is the point of my report.
The non-invocability of banking and commercial secrecy in response to requests for mutual assistance is set down in Article 3.
It would seem to me essential to extend this non-invocability to encompass the commercial and financial advice activities of lawyers and members of regulated legal professions, which due to their nature are not governed by professional secrecy.
Furthermore, Article 8 of the draft Convention limits the reasons which Member States may invoke for refusing to provide assistance to "essential interests" .
This represents progress, but for mutual assistance not to lose any of its impact in an area in which only rapid cooperation at European level can be of any meaning, it would seem worthwhile to only grant the Member State asked for information two months in which to make known its refusal to give assistance.
Article 9 requires the Member States to set up integrated multidisciplinary teams at national level in order to enhance the efficiency of searches and promote information exchanges.
I propose that a coordination unit be set up for these multidisciplinary teams. This unit could facilitate information exchanges between the relevant authorities in the Member States and encourage the selection and use of best practices.
The sole aim of these proposals is to achieve mutual assistance that is as effective as possible and meets the challenges posed by organised crime, particularly in the field of money laundering.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my task is a relatively easy one: if I am supposed to comment on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee on the Portuguese Presidency' s proposal regarding involving Europol in the fight against money laundering, then I can only say that it is a good proposal.
That is also why we have only submitted a very small number of proposals for amendments, because we can, of course, agree to this proposal.
There is a broad consensus in all of the European institutions - including, of course, here in this House - that we want to take all reasonable and possible steps to counter money laundering. Previous speakers have already said all that needs to be said in this regard.
But, since I am now actually standing here and have the opportunity to comment on the issue of combating money laundering, I should very much like to voice some criticism. I should like to criticise something which actually has nothing at all to do with the proposal which we are debating today, but with the impact of the political position adopted by the Council on the second directive to combat money laundering.
From the outset, the European Parliament tried to work in close cooperation with the Council.
I can only say that, as a result, the Council did admittedly make a big show of cooperating, but the bulk of the amendments tabled by us and adopted here in this House by a very large majority were not accepted.
In this respect, I can only say that if the concept of combating money laundering is damaged, then this is the fault of the Council and not of Parliament.
The rules which were designed in the past with banks and providers of financial services in mind have been applied, as it were, wholesale to some of the liberal professions, despite the fact that they are not at all suitable for them, and in full knowledge of the fact that under these circumstances it would be absolutely impossible to avoid a difficult second reading with the European Parliament and a conciliation procedure at the end.
After all, this is certainly not about the privileges of lawyers or practitioners of other liberal professions.
It is about fundamental rights. Quite simply, it is about a client seeking legal advice or support before a court being able - as is also stated in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, by the way - to go to a lawyer whom he trusts and to obtain his advice, without, if he reveals something to him, the lawyer being obliged to go directly to the public prosecutor' s office to blow the whistle on him.
This is a fundamental right. This fundamental right must not be meddled with.
The same goes for all areas where legal advice is dispensed.
I am therefore very grateful for the compromise formulation in the Roure report which was drafted here in committee, which has simply made it clear that this traditional protection of fundamental rights must continue to be guaranteed.
I should also like to make it clear, however, that when lawyers fulfil the same functions as banks and financial service providers, then there is obviously no reason to protect that part of their activities.
But this is about dispensing legal advice and representing people before a court of law.
The protection of fundamental rights must be guaranteed in this regard.
As I have said, that is why I support the proposals on the table today but, at the same time, I would take this opportunity to give you advance notice that there will be a real battle with the Council over the common position on the second directive to combat money laundering.
Madam President, I think that today' s debate is extremely important for the simple reason that it is about how we can put our house in order.
Allow me to start by congratulating Mr Marinho on his work and to say that, although we need to support efforts to combat financial crime, we also need to be careful.
The problem of financial crime is extremely complex: first it is a convoluted attempt to launder the proceeds of illegal activity and, secondly, it presupposes a series of other crimes which generated the illegal proceeds in the first place.
I think that European society today is being crushed by organised crime, in all its manifestations.
Financial crime, and first and foremost, perhaps, money laundering, is right at the epicentre of the organised crime plaguing Europe.
Without doubt, the initiative of the French Presidency, on which Mr Marinho has taken a stance, is the right initiative; however, the same holds true of Mr Marinho' s attempt to introduce stricter rules.
Of course, if we want results, we need to get right to the heart, right to the key of the tool which will help us fight these crimes.
In my view, the key to fighting these crimes is to improve judicial cooperation.
As I was reading the explanatory statements attached to Mr Marinho' s amendments, one, in particular, caught my eye. It says that economic Europe has reached a highly advanced stage.
Political Europe is progressing slowly but, unfortunately, 15 internal borders continue to exist wherever judges and magistrates, legal proceedings and court decisions are concerned.
This phrase troubled me greatly because I think it is the key to the problem.
And I think - and I too fervently propose - that we need to take a great many steps, a great many fundamental steps, if we are to achieve judicial cooperation at European level and be able to fight crimes such as financial crime.
Ladies and gentlemen, judicial and police cooperation is one of the most fundamental issues in the construction of a European area of freedom, security and justice and will enable this area to swiftly become real and effective for the citizens.
In dealing with these matters, our rapporteurs have centred their considerations both on the Protocol amending the Europol Convention and on improving mutual assistance.
We can but congratulate them on their work.
Our primary concern, however, relates to the extension of Europol' s competences.
We agree that there is an express and urgent need for effective judicial cooperation, but, at the same time, denounce a shift that contains the seeds of a Europol set up outside the control of Parliament or of any legal authority, and, in more general terms, a democratic deficit in a Europe that the Member States insist in confining to the misty realms of intergovernmental procedures, thus skirting the obligations, duties and control that derive from universal suffrage.
I can see grey areas regarding Europol: the diplomatic immunity of its members, no definition of authorised resources nor of the limits on these, notifications of the filing of personal records, filing of records in areas protected by international texts and declarations of human rights, threats to freedoms given the risk of their being abused, now or in the future, following the kind of political changes liable to be seen in certain Member States.
Were the European police force to be offered this heaven-sent chance of potential self-regulation, it would do its utmost to curb the European Parliament' s vague desire for democratic control, given the current deficiencies at organisational level and the lack of unity on the background issues.
The Portuguese initiative concerning the Europol Convention is intended to spur the European Parliament into choosing the right route to ensuring security, with this hingeing around a discretionary filing of records on citizens in all the areas affecting their private lives.
Of course, we must identify, prosecute and sentence people who launder dirty money on behalf of terrorists, arms dealers and drug traffickers.
But this will not provide us with firmer guarantees on the right of defence and the protection of citizens' rights.
It is for this reason that we are tabling amendments on the strengthening of these rights and freedoms, on the need to adopt an instrument, on the right of defence, and on the recognition of the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice.
It has not escaped our notice that one of the articles in the Council Act, which has curiously not been commented on, stipulates that Europol is to specify whether data relating to ethnic origin, religious or other types of beliefs, political leanings, sexual tendencies or health can be included in the data records.
Are we going to equivocate any longer over Europol' s competences when the very notion of democratic control has been struck off the statute book? The democratic values that everyone in this Chamber shares must be the very ones that govern our deeds and works, in order to forge a European Union based on solidarity and social commitment and not on policing and repression.
Mr President, allow me to start by congratulating our rapporteur, Mr Marinho.
I think that his analysis is extremely accurate and shows us how we really can make headway in combating the laundering of what we call 'black' or 'dirty' money.
I would remind the House that we aim to use this policy to fight organised crime, i.e. drug smuggling, trafficking in women and children and many other wretched activities which have a terrible impact on society as a whole, even - and I say this somewhat cynically - the economy itself, in that it is generally acknowledged that this money increases the money supply and often destabilises monetary policy.
The rapporteur is quite right in saying - and I too should like to say - that, having opened our borders, albeit for other reasons, to organised criminals, we must also open our borders to the bodies - i.e. the police and the courts - responsible for pursuing them.
And, of course, we must do so on the basis of a common definition of what crime is and of what methods it uses, so that it cannot flee from one country to another, at least not for purely procedural reasons.
The way forward, as Mr Marinho says - and I agree with him - is communitisation.
Obviously, because that takes us the way of parliamentary and democratic control.
However, there are still a great many issues outstanding, even if we accept everything that has been said so far.
There are many serious issues outstanding.
What I mean is this: there are countries today in the European Union which tolerate or even take advantage of strange situations, offshore companies, strange banking regulations and other such things and they do not inspire me personally with any confidence that what we agree will be implemented.
Political unification, political control may be what we need to resolve these questions and, by extension, the reviews and harmonisation of the laws governing these issues.
These are issues which require institutional changes which, unfortunately, not even Nice will make.
I welcome this debate.
Illegal sales of narcotics and other criminal activities, such as arms smuggling, are generating billions of euros annually, most of it in cash which has to be laundered.
Our task is to detect, trace, freeze, seize and confiscate the proceeds of organised crime.
We are faced with criminals who will use every possible means to avoid detection.
We are at war with these people.
Human life is expendable in the business of illegal profits.
We need to coordinate fully our approach.
Crime has no frontiers.
The Proceeds of Crime Act, which my government introduced in Ireland, has been successfully utilised by our Criminal Assets Bureau to deprive those involved in criminal activities from enjoying the fruits of their crime.
By the end of last year, the Bureau had obtained orders and property to the value of EUR 20 million under the Act and had made tax demands of more than EUR 40 million.
While cooperation is growing between the EU Member States and our law enforcement agencies, the scale of money laundering and fraud is so vast that we are still only tinkering with the problem.
One thousand billion dollars is the estimated annual volume of capital recycled by money laundering operations involving financial arrangements.
These funds could be used in our towns and for other social purposes.
I welcome this debate and discussion.
I want to speak about the Karamanou report on Europol.
Everybody who has spoken agrees that it is a very valuable initiative and we support what it says.
However, as many speakers have said, there is not enough democratic control and accountability.
That is the main focus of the cross-party amendments which the Committee is putting forward.
We want to see parliamentary involvement in the appointments of the director, and by a majority vote because, when we have enlargement to 28 Member States, it will be very difficult to find everybody agreeing on the identity of the director.
It has to be by a majority vote - we propose two-thirds - and we also want parliamentary involvement in the dismissal of the director, if ever that becomes necessary, by a two-thirds vote as well.
We want parliamentary involvement in the management board.
We could enormously improve democratic accountability and control.
And we want the Court to be involved in disputes.
These things are in the amendments and, judging by the debate in the committee, I am very hopeful that Parliament will vote for them.
However, I want to look for just a few moments at the future, and at what comes beyond this proposal.
I see two signs, one good and one bad.
The bad development in the future which many colleagues have spoken about - including my friend, Mr Andrews - is the remorseless growth in organised crime which we are seeing across Europe.
The opening of frontiers for the single market was a thoroughly good idea but it has also helped the Mafia, and criminals from Eastern Europe to spread their tentacles across our Union.
When we get enlargement, which is the good aspect of the future that I see, we are going to find it more and more difficult to counter organised crime.
The criminals can move freely across frontiers but our police forces cannot.
Already today there are about 120 different police forces in the European Union, most of them, I may say, in my own Member State, because in the United Kingdom we have a police force in every single county and they only work up to their county borders.
We have far too many police forces already and we are going to have even more once we have completed enlargement, our ability to deal with organised crime is going to be very much less than it should be.
What we need is for Europol to be given operational capability across frontiers.
At public meetings, when I talk about the growth in organised crime, the response invariably from the public is, "Well, what are you doing about it? Get on with it.
Take the necessary powers.
Organise the police forces so we can deal with the growth in crime."
The public is in favour and - as very often happens - is ahead of us and the Council of Ministers.
I should very much like to hear the Commissioner' s reaction to the idea that when we hopefully get the concept of enhanced cooperation accepted at the Nice Summit next month that we create a European FBI.
We do not have to call it a European FBI, but that is the logical next step.
It would have full public support and it is necessary for the future.
Mr President, I regret that mine will be a somewhat discordant voice in this House tonight, save for that of my colleague, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery.
It is, of course, the case that this House has set itself a worthy and good objective.
But good ends do not justify any means whatever.
It seems to me that this set of initiatives is going forward in a way which risks setting at naught the protection provided by Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
I do not see adequate account being taken of the right of defence, as Mrs Boumediene-Thiery said.
I do not see adequate account of the rights of individuals to a fair trial, to fair presentation of charges before them.
Without that, I fear we are creating a Frankenstein' s monster, though we, like Count Frankenstein, seek to do good.
We must ensure that as we move towards mutual recognition of judgments we are establishing in Europe the highest common standard, not the lowest common denominator, when it comes to protecting persons brought into the justice system.
As a member of this House, I have had cases brought to my attention.
One example is a person on a money laundering charge, held for 364 days in custody in Portugal without any charge being presented.
When finally it was presented it was in many pages of Portuguese, with an insufficient English summary translation, even though the person concerned knew no Portuguese.
I have come across cases in France of lorry drivers, held on suspicion of drug trafficking - a shocking crime if it has been committed, but these persons are held in unacceptable conditions with no effective right to a defence of their own choosing, with inadequate or no interpretation facilities, with no opportunity to prove their innocence by due process of law in a reasonable time.
While we live in a Europe in which such blots exist on our escutcheons we need to be extremely careful that the steps we are taking for good do not end up destroying civil liberty in some of its most fundamental aspects in Europe.
Mr Andrews is right: those heavy penalties ought to fall upon those properly convicted, after fair trial, of offences of the kind we are considering.
We must ensure that those who are the innocent victims - the collateral damage I suppose we should call it - of the war upon crime are not left languishing in jails, incommunicado from their families.
There is too much of that in our contemporary Europe and before I give my support to a headlong rush to mutual recognition, I would like to see common recognition of fair standards.
Mr President, I should like, in good faith, to accept that both the initiative of the French Presidency and our rapporteurs' reports are calling for better ways of combating money laundering.
However, this raises two important questions.
First, the upshot of the proposals under discussion is that they strengthen judicial and police cooperation with a view to creating a single European area of justice with communitised civil and criminal procedures.
What I should like to know is if there is a country in Europe or area in the world, such as the USA, which already has a single area of justice and which has effectively combated the problem of money laundering, or are we endeavouring, ostensibly in order to combat a real problem, to communitise crucial institutions which are bound up with the national independence and grass-roots sovereignty of the Member States?
Secondly, will strengthening judicial and police cooperation allow us to combat the role of tax havens, of offshore centres and companies and, often, of the Member States themselves which, with their policies on transactions involving government securities, bonds and interest-bearing bills of exchange, help money launderers enormously? Perhaps more honesty is needed and economic and social measures of a different sort if we are to combat this huge problem which is bound up with the very machinery of the economic system in a fully liberalised and unaccountable market economy?
Mr President, all EU countries have agreed to combat money laundering, and this unity is, of course, to be applauded unreservedly.
In reality, however, it is not all as simple as that.
I think that this Parliament is complicating the problems instead of simplifying matters and making them more efficient, and this may be seen in the proposal to extend Europol' s powers.
This Assembly should give priority to establishing genuine and effective instruments for combating money laundering and professionally organised crime.
The reaction to this initiative, taken in Finland, is both unfortunate and instructive.
It stands to reason that, through cooperation between the countries, crime and money laundering could be better combated.
Why, then, is the Commission' s new system thought to be needed? In my view, it is not clear in which areas efforts are to be concentrated, except for the fact that countries are to have a uniform method of protecting data imposed upon them.
Or, to put it another way, the fight against money laundering ought not to be impeded by the Commission having to organise its efforts in accordance with the most indulgent and indifferent Member States.
Parliament ought not to frustrate the Council of Ministers' initiatives and the initiatives from those countries which are most inclined to stop these crimes.
Parliament should be encouraging the Council of Ministers and the Member States.
The trend should be towards establishing uniform definitions of criminal acts, and the countries' police and judicial systems ought to cooperate.
Mr President, I have asked for these five minutes to speak today on the Roure report on behalf of my group, the Group of the European People' s Party.
Following Mr MacCormick' s splendid intervention, I should like to make an initial observation.
Here we have three initiatives aimed at combating organised crime, a major blight on society. They contain a clear political desire to combine efforts, to go further and to develop this area of freedom, security and justice.
To do this we have to take care that measures do not become dispersed, with the creation of an absolutely lopsided situation in which, as Mr MacCormick has so rightly said, one part of the process suffers. We must be especially careful with this since what is at stake is the distinguishing mark of European identity: the protection of fundamental rights and guarantees of a fair trial.
As a result of the Tampere agreements, we need the guarantees of a fair trial to be developed in the area of the third pillar, and we need these guarantees to be developed when transnational situations arise, such as the ones he has described.
This picks up on the theme of Mr Lehne' s intervention.
Mr Lehne was explaining the problem of a lawyer' s professional secrecy in the context of this fight against money laundering.
Well, here we have another good example: in combating money laundering we may put at stake something that, far from being a lawyer' s privilege, is an essential element in this right to a fair trial, which in turn is an essential element in all our European development, culture and identity.
I realise it is very difficult because here we have to construct something from a scattering of instruments.
We have a directive to combat money laundering; we have a framework decision to combat it; we have an amendment to the Europol Convention.
At some moment, we will have to compile all these texts because, Mr President, you and, doubtless, all of us here know that for this to be implemented by judges - who are the ones that have to implement it while guaranteeing the right to a fair trial - with this scattered system we are, of course, very poorly guided.
I shall now focus on another issue, which also concerns the quality of the legislation.
This report includes a recital on the Geneva appeal, and the Group of the European People' s Party will vote against it, not because we are against the Geneva appeal, but simply because as Parliament we must ensure the quality of legislation.
The Geneva appeal is not a recital; it is not a legal reference nor a quasi-legal reference to a European Council.
Finally, on the PPE' s initiative, two amendments to Article 8 have been included, because if we agree on the political will to combat organised crime, we cannot provide a chance for a Member State to refuse this cooperation - we are talking about legal cooperation, between judges - by invoking matters of national interest. Where does national interest come in when it is a case of one judge in the European Union asking for the cooperation of another judge in the European Union?
What intermediate authority is going to interfere saying that there is national interest involved here? Let us be clear that it is one of two things: either we want to develop this area and not just leave a fine-sounding phrase in the Treaty, or - let us bow to the evidence - we do not want to carry what we have put in the Treaty through to its ultimate consequences and achieve this area of freedom, security and justice.
Lastly, Mr President, the Group of the European People' s Party supports the compromise amendment that we have reached with Mrs Roure on lawyers' activities.
When lawyers act outside professional advice, outside what is fitting for a lawyer, let justice descend on them as it does on everyone else, because their professional secrecy is not a privilege for them, it is a right deriving from the legal structure and the guarantee of a fair trial.
Hence we realise that the compromise amendment is certainly redundant, but for the sake of consensus in the House we shall vote in favour.
Mr President, I should like to conclude by asking the Commission, in the difficult task it has ahead of it, in which it is making an enormous effort, to take into account these initiatives that I am putting forward on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Marinho report deplores the fact that borders have been opened up for criminals but remain closed to the institutions whose duty it is to bring them to justice.
What can one expect? You wanted a Europe solely geared to throwing open the doors to the free movement of goods and capital.
Dirty money follows the same channels as any other type of money, even if many of the transactions made by companies of some standing are not as dirty as the capital transactions of the Cali cartel.
What I am talking about are the proceeds of corruption and the profits reaped from exploiting children in less developed countries.
You are incapable of taking genuine measures to prevent money laundering because to do so would entail laying the blame at the door of banking and financial groups, since they are the ones who are able to launder this money by cloaking themselves in banking secrecy.
All the big banks themselves set up subsidiaries in tax havens, and these tax havens only exist because there are banks who use them.
They do this with encouragement from the Member States themselves, such as France and the Netherlands in the case of Saint-Martin, and Great Britain in the case of the Channel Islands and elsewhere.
We are the only ones here who want to see measures that truly prevent money laundering, which is to say the immediate abolition of banking secrecy, the trade secret, the business secret, access to the accounting ledgers of all banking and manufacturing companies and the right of all the employees of these companies, of all consumers, to bring to the public' s attention any transfer of funds that is against the interests of society at large.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our objective is, and must be, to extend the economic union into a security union.
This is a task emanating from the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere Summit.
However, it is also necessary if we are to strengthen the attractiveness of the European Union as a location for business; moreover it is something which the public wants and we must respect their wishes because the people who live in the European Union have a right to security.
Today we are discussing how we can take one step further towards this security union.
We are discussing this in connection with measures to combat money laundering.
If money is the driving force behind organised crime, then the measures which we are discussing today to combat money laundering throughout the world are part of our battle against this organised crime.
If we can stamp out money laundering, then, in so doing, we will, in the end, also stamp out organised crime. Organised crime - as has been stated here several times, and as we know - generates huge profits from drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, nuclear proliferation, car smuggling and from many other sectors including, even, the art trade.
All of this illegally acquired money is, however, laundered and put into circulation in the legal economy.
That is also the aim of organised crime and in this way organised crime and laundered money damage the legal economy of the European Union.
The economy is being infiltrated on a huge scale.
That is why these measures to combat money laundering are so very important.
We can only tackle the situation as a whole, however, if we have a combination of several instruments to combat money laundering.
Today we have an opportunity to discuss four such reports and measures in parallel.
The first is to extend Europol' s remit.
We know that Europol has competences in various fields, but now money laundering is to be added as an independent area of competence.
This is a good thing.
However, we must not forget to provide Europol with sufficient staff and funding so that it is actually able to assume the responsibilities which we are assigning it.
I should also like to take this opportunity to call - as colleagues have done before me - for a serious anomaly finally to be removed and Europol to be subject to the same supervision as other institutions of the European Union.
The second measure, the second instrument, is harmonisation.
It only makes sense for Europol to have the relevant powers if we also succeed in harmonising the substantive and formal provisions of criminal law, in terms of what constitutes a criminal offence, the severity of the penalty and the confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
The third point is a fundamental one, namely that it is also important to improve mutual assistance in legal matters.
Mrs Palacio made clear reference to this point, saying how necessary it was to also involve the relevant occupational groups and to make it clear to the Member States that here European interests need to come before national interests.
My last point - and I think that this is also relevant - is the establishment of Eurojust or the provisional unit, because this is about improving coordination on investigations and prosecutions.
The European Union and we, the European Parliament, are seizing a new opportunity in the fight against organised crime, which preoccupies us to such an extent.
The Union is thus laying a building block in the transition from an economic union to a security union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the development of the economy and the phenomenon of globalisation have been accompanied in recent years with an increase in international crime.
According to the United Nations, the annual volume of money recycled through money-laundering operations is approaching USD 1 billion.
In the European Union, we must continue to fight resolutely against money laundering, in the knowledge that, particularly after the creation of the single market and the liberalisation of the capital and financial services markets, there needs to be effective police and judicial cooperation between Member States which is as efficient as possible.
Today we are discussing three reports that acknowledge the fact that money laundering lies at the root of organised crime and must therefore be eradicated, wherever it may take place.
To this end, the Marinho report proposes that a guarantee should be given that specific measures will be adopted to trace, freeze, seize and confiscate the proceeds from crime, requiring a joint mobilisation of police and judicial resources in order to ensure that criminals or the proceeds from crime can find no hiding place in the European Union.
I agree with the general thrust of the report, but I harbour some doubts as to the rapporteur' s amendment claiming that this framework decision should also apply to less serious crimes.
The aim of this framework decision is to combat the major crimes that are at the root of money laundering, not small crimes punishable by a lesser sentence, which, if considered within the scope of this framework decision, could negate its very purpose.
The Karamanou report seeks to extend Europol' s competences to cover the crime of money laundering by strengthening police cooperation and by providing Europol with more effective instruments.
This is a Portuguese initiative that has already been commended by a number of previous speakers.
Finally, the Roure report seeks to remove a large number of judicial obstacles to mutual legal assistance and, at the same time, provides for the adoption of practical measures designed to strengthen this cooperation.
I would like to see the report' s guideline with regard to the professional confidentiality of lawyers maintained, a guideline that has already received a favourable vote in this Parliament - when the Lehne report on money laundering was adopted.
We also acknowledge here that professional confidentiality is an essential factor in the administration of justice, since any breach of this law could entail a violation of our citizens' civil liberties.
Mr President, I must begin by informing the House that I am a lawyer by profession, although my membership of the Portuguese Bar Association has been suspended at my request.
I shall therefore only speak from this specific view point, because I feel that the amendment to Article 3 in the Roure report that we are discussing entails, in the very way in which the compromise is worded, an unacceptable attack on the professional confidentiality of lawyers.
Professional confidentiality is the basic premise, the correlative and the consequence of a relationship of trust that is established between lawyers and their clients.
This applies regardless of whether or not there is a legal obligation, because confidentiality stems from the simple fact that the client is seeking advice from the lawyer or is simply treating them as a confidant.
Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which has recently been adopted, stipulates that everyone has the right to be advised, defended and represented in the law and Article 48 states that respect for the right of the defence of anyone who has been charged shall be guaranteed.
Seen in this light, professional confidentiality is a lawyer' s inalienable duty.
Where would we end up if, in this context, lawyers were not bound to maintain this confidentiality or if they were forced to become an informer rather than a legal counsel? Lawyers should not have to bear the responsibility for the inefficiency or the weakness of the authorities charged with investigating crimes of money laundering or any other type of crime.
With regard to a compromise situation on this issue, there are two options: either the article in question refers to people who concentrate on certain activities and does not need to mention lawyers or any other professional category, or it refers to lawyers, creating a situation which in itself threatens professional confidentiality, however much the article specifies or defines the activities to which it refers.
There is no reason to assume that, if a lawyer is acting as a financial adviser, he or she is not exercising his or her profession.
To conclude, Mr President, I shall limit myself to saying that the position of my country' s Bar Association on this issue is quite clear: professional confidentiality is the cornerstone and the fundamental duty of the lawyer. Any lawyer accused of carrying out or participating in criminal practices can be prosecuted, like any other citizen, but no lawyer can be forced to state or provide information on facts they have learned in the exercise of their professional activity.
Lawyers are forbidden to do anything that is not strictly legal.
The Bar Association has final and binding authority on issues of professional confidentiality and it falls to that body to decide whether or not to authorise - in exceptional cases - the disclosure of information at the request of the courts.
For all of these reasons, Mr President, I shall vote against the amendment to Article 3, even as a compromise wording for the legislative proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as various speakers have emphasised, we are today looking at three legal instruments dealing with an activity that lies at the very heart of organised crime - money laundering. At the same time, this is the most vulnerable area in such organised crime because money-laundering activity is the point at which it is attempted to filter the proceeds of illegal activities into the lawful economic system.
This is where Member States, through police and judicial cooperation, can act most effectively to combat organised crime.
This was the political will expressed by the Heads of State and Government at the Tampere European Council, in October 1999, when they called for specific action to fight money laundering.
This was also the subject of the joint Justice and Internal Affairs/Ecofin Council meeting held on 17 October.
The Commission welcomes the fact that this meeting took place and supports the French initiative to adopt a Council Framework Decision on money laundering, on the identification, tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscation of the instrumentalities and the proceeds from crime.
We are convinced that this framework decision will constitute a significant advance in enabling common sanctions to be established for all the countries in the European Union.
This means that, with this framework decision, we will have two legal instruments establishing, not just common incriminations, but also common sanctions for two types of offences.
I am referring here to the Framework Decision on the protection of the euro and now the Framework Decision on money laundering as well.
I therefore wish to congratulate Mr Marinho on his excellent report and to say that I share his concerns that we are moving closer and closer towards a definition of money-laundering offences that must lead to the adoption of common sanctions at European level.
It is my view that, specifically where Mr Marinho suggests that common offences should be defined for those cases that are punished less severely or for other illegal acts provided for in Article 6 of the European Council Convention on money laundering, we ought not to consider this approach straightaway, but base our concern on an assessment of the specific results that are obtained following the implementation of the joint action that was agreed on in December 1998 and which has not yet shown all that it can do.
Similarly, I would ask the House to reconsider its position, if possible, with regard to the amendments that have been proposed for the dates that have been stipulated for the adoption of national legislation on the transposal of this framework decision. I repeat, I should like to ask Parliament to revise the date of 31 December 2002, so that the Commission can present an assessment report on the transposal of the framework decision into national law.
I make this request because the new dates proposed by the rapporteur would mean that 31 December 2002 would be the deadline for the Member States to transpose this framework decision into their own national legislation.
Lastly, with regard to the issue of reasons for refusing criminal judicial cooperation that are laid down in Article 18 of the 1990 Convention, we agree that they should be revised in order to limit even further the conditions in which Member States can refuse to provide judicial cooperation, as referred to in the report by Mrs Roure, but I shall go into this issue in a few minutes' time. Similarly, I wish to thank Mrs Roure for her report on the French Presidency' s initiative for a Convention on improving mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, specifically in the fight against organised crime.
I also wish to remind you that this Convention must be linked, by means of close coordination, with the draft Directive that is currently under discussion in the Economy and Finance Council, revising the Directive of 10 June 1991 on money laundering. The Convention must also be linked with the discussion already started by the Justice and Home Affairs Council, with a view to removing the right not to breach tax and banking confidentiality in criminal cases to prevent judicial cooperation in the fight against money laundering.
For the Commission' s part, and we await Parliament' s opinion on this, we feel that the decisions not to allow tax and banking confidentiality to be invoked if this impedes the prosecution of money-laundering crimes are essential instruments to guaranteeing the success of this legislation at European level.
With regard to Mrs Roure' s proposal, I would ask her to consider this point: I think it would be more effective to say that any refusal to cooperate in judicial matters by the Member State which has been asked to do so must be communicated to the petitioning State immediately, rather than imposing a deadline of two months.
As I understand it, 'immediately' makes the requirement more pressing than setting a deadline of two months for a refusal to cooperate.
By the same token, I wish to say that I am aware of the sensitiveness of the issue raised by various Members about the conditions in which the confidentiality of the legal professions may constitute a justified refusal to cooperate in the fight against money laundering.
As you know, this issue does not fall within the competence of the Justice and Home Affairs Council but within that of the Economy and Finance Council.
I must add that I am still waiting for the European Parliament' s opinion on this matter.
What I would like to stress here today, from my own point of view, is that this opinion must not only enshrine clear, unambiguous legislation on guarantees to protect defendants and on the conditions in which the confidentiality of the legal professions - and of lawyers in particular- may be legitimately exercised. Above all, what needs to be stressed is the fact that the same definition should apply to all judicial instruments.
In other words, the definition that has just been adopted by this Parliament in its opinion on the Directive on money laundering should encompass the same judicial solution that has just been adopted here with regard to the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters.
I say this because having different formulas in the two instruments would only lead to greater confusion in their interpretation and difficulties in their practical application.
Lastly, the Commission is also pleased to note the support Parliament has given to extending Europol' s competences to cover all forms of money laundering.
The Karamanou report, on which I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur, proposes various amendments with regard to improving the democratic and judicial control of Europol.
You all know how important I consider the issue of such control to be.
To be frank, however, I do not think that this initiative is the appropriate occasion to be adopting decisions in this field.
In fact, the Commission, in the course of the work laid down in the assessment panel for the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice, known as the 'scoreboard' , is currently studying the best way to adopt a judicial instrument that will facilitate the communitisation of Europol and not just the adoption of piecemeal measures under the Europol Convention.
The best way of strengthening Parliamentary control of Europol is to fully integrate the Europol Convention into the European Union' s' judicial framework.
In the same way, I doubt that it is good policy to resort to the mechanism referred to in Article 34(2)(d) of the Treaty for the entry into force of this amendment on the Europol Convention.
We feel that extending Europol' s competences should be carried out at the same time in all Member States and not in a staggered way, which could lead to greater confusion.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament feels able to support these three initiatives, which, in fact, all have an important role in strengthening an action plan for combating money laundering. We also hope that the Member States will match these initiatives by adopting them rapidly in the Council, but, above all, by ratifying the conventions in question with all speed so that they can enter into force in their respective national legal systems.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Provisional Judicial Cooperation Unit
The next item is the report (A5-0317/2000) by Mrs Gebhardt, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on an initiative of the Portuguese Republic, the French Republic, the Kingdom of Sweden and the Kingdom of Belgium with a view to adopting a Council Decision setting up a Provisional Judicial Cooperation Unit [10356/2000 - C5-0395/2000 - 2000/0816(CNS)]
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, part of the price of freedom is that the democratic state under the rule of law frequently chases wrongdoers from quite some distance when it wishes to prosecute them.
This is especially true of serious, very serious and cross-border crimes.
Organised crime is particularly difficult to bring under control because the odds are stacked unevenly.
The perpetrators are ruthless and know nothing of borders, restrictions or rules.
Their pursuers are, for good reason, bound by the procedures of the rule of law.
I may paint a gloomy picture, but we do have reason for hope.
The European Union is making progress in the fight against serious crime.
It has a good chance of catching up with many wrongdoers and meting out to them the punishments which they deserve.
The public can demand this; above all it expects it in an increasingly homogeneous area of law and freedom, which also offers them protection and security for their material property.
A step in the right direction, for which the European Parliament has been striving for a long time now, is the creation of a provisional unit for judicial cooperation.
In my opinion, the adjective 'provisional' should disappear as soon as possible and make way for Eurojust as an effective European prosecution body.
The German Justice Minister initiated this; it was at her suggestion that the Tampere Summit decided to establish Eurojust over a year ago.
Since then, Portugal, France, Sweden and Belgium have driven the project forward with their initiative to establish a provisional unit for judicial cooperation.
The Tampere mandate is to reinforce, through Eurojust, the Member States' cooperation in the fight against organised crime.
Prosecutors, magistrates and police officers seconded from the Member States should work in a cross-border capacity to coordinate the national public prosecution services and assist criminal investigations in cases of organised crime.
The unit is expected to cooperate closely with Europol and the European Judicial Network.
As rapporteur, I actually only had one additional request.
Cooperation should not be limited only to organised crime.
In the interests of the public it must cover the entire spectrum of serious and cross-border crime.
That is why I have proposed to extend the legal base by adding Article 29 of the Treaty on European Union.
The committee responsible has gone along with me on this and I am pleased to say that the signals coming from the Council are also positive.
We should be in agreement in one further respect too.
The provisional unit, which we are now debating, can only be the first step on a road which leads via Eurojust to a genuine European public prosecution service.
This is not only necessary from an organisational point of view so as to ensure that we are able to tackle serious crime together. It is also necessary to uphold the rule of law.
Overall the task is so great and so important that it cannot be overseen by the Council alone.
In addition to the Council' s decision in Tampere, we need the expertise and experience of the Commission and the political will of the European Parliament.
If the Council, the Commission and Parliament act in unison, the end result will be considerable added value in terms of law and security for the people of Europe.
I believe that the Tampere decision and the initiative of the four Member States constitute a good starting point.
Let us continue to work together on this basis.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, I should like to warmly congratulate Mrs Gebhardt on the way in which she has drawn up this report and also to reiterate something she has said: we hope the word 'provisional' can soon be dropped from the name of this Eurojust unit.
Mr President, if I may link this debate to the previous one, we obviously have here another example of how this area of freedom, security and justice has grown lopsided.
Area of freedom, but the freedoms, the guarantees for citizens are practically unheard of.
The area of security is much more developed, with the growth of Europol over the years, to which we have today added the fight against organised crime; but this is the repressive function of the State.
We have yet to develop the justice aspect - and this is now urgent - for it is the only way of counterbalancing this repressive function of the State with the function of administering justice or, as Mrs Gebhardt has so rightly said, of giving European citizens fundamental judicial security.
The Gebhardt report places special emphasis on these three points.
It sets out greater guarantees, that is, it goes towards creating this area of freedoms, as shown by Amendment No 3 or Amendment No 5, which ensure that the personal details of citizens, of the accused, of defendants are protected with the greatest care; and Amendment No 10, which ensures that only where the legislation of a Member State so permits may a police officer form part of this initial unit.
This is the sense of the guarantees: to push forward this aspect of freedoms.
But Mrs Gebhardt' s amendments also go towards improving effectiveness: being more effective, more reasonably effective.
One example is her Amendment No 9, which moves that, in future, this initiative should be taken into account in the final decisions made on the Eurojust unit.
Lastly, I believe there is an intention that we should be more consistent with this call to create an area of freedom, security and justice.
This idea comes across quite clearly in the Gebhardt report.
Thus, there are changes that will seem to many to be simply a matter of appearance, but in which the words betray what lies behind them: instead of contributing within the framework of respect there is an insistence on close collaboration; instead of coordination, there is talk of joint action: the report goes that one step further.
Mr President, we come back again to the previous debate. If we are to develop this area we have to establish or strengthen that mutual trust between the States which allowed us to lay down common rules in the internal market.
This mutual trust now has to take a further leap, and I realise it is a qualitative leap from the viewpoint of national cultures.
This mutual trust has to reach this area of justice and go on from there to mutual recognition.
There cannot be mutual recognition if there is no mutual trust between States on which to found it.
In the previous debate a moment ago, Commissioner Vitorino highlighted it very well by calling it by its name: reasons of State.
Countries must not exclude cooperation within the European Union by invoking reasons of State; they will have to treat each other equally.
Moreover, this is the purpose of extrapolating the principles that have served to construct the internal market: no discrimination on grounds of nationality.
If, according to the state of which we are nationals we give certain information to a national judge, then clearly if we want to be consistent with the idea of developing this area of freedom, security and justice we must also give it to a judge in the European Union when we are asked for it, because this is the only way we are going to mould this mutual trust between the States in a manner that reaches the citizens.
Mr President, in conclusion, I believe this is one step, a timid step, which we hope will soon be consolidated in the Eurojust network; we hope it will soon no longer be provisional but will become a permanent network.
Ladies and gentlemen, although the need for a future European public prosecution service would not seem to pose a problem in the long run, that of harmonising our policies on the protection of citizens' rights and establishing a criminal procedure par excellence would seem to be more than essential.
Indeed, how can one possibly set up a European public prosecution service when there is not even a European civil code or, what is more, a European criminal code?
Even if this circumstance presents no direct obstacle to the initiative on the creation of Eurojust, there is in fact one institution over which the European Parliament exercises no control and over which judicial control by the Court of Justice of the European Communities, pursuant to Article 35 of the Treaty, is not applied.
How could one possibly consider setting up Eurojust when Europol is already operating as a free agent?
Two things must be borne in mind: we cannot contemplate any tangible improvement in judicial cooperation between the Member States without this clearly being conditional on the protection of the rights of the defence in legal proceedings involving more than one State.
This is the aim of our amendments.
It follows that citizens' rights must be reinforced by adopting an effective instrument and recognising the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice, not least with regard to its right of interpretation and its power to decide on a case or not.
Moreover, the flaws in the new efforts to combat organised crime can be attributed to the division of competences between Europol and Eurojust, and these have not been clearly addressed in any case or at any point.
Well, as you know, the issue of competence and the limits on this competence are central to this Community harmonisation aimed at improving the justice system.
The clear allocation of fields of intervention to either judicial cooperation or police cooperation is not only needed to prevent any conflict of responsibilities, but is also fundamental in terms of guaranteeing observance of the democratic rules that form the bedrock of the rule of law.
The Member States of the European Community subscribe to these on the basis of their existing legislative, executive and legal systems, in accordance with the principle of fundamental rights and common values.
Eurojust must therefore slot into the relationship between judicial cooperation and police cooperation.
The European Parliament is the supranational Community body that can determine this relationship, and I therefore propose that you support its validity by showing support for our rapporteur.
Mr President, I would like to join my other colleagues in congratulating the rapporteur on her work even though I may not give full agreement or support to what has been proposed.
We in the European Union have been moving more and more towards closer cooperation and coordination, as Mrs Palacio has already stated, in areas such as the single market and environment.
However, there have been difficulties in the whole area of police and judicial affairs, in particular because of fear or lack of trust with regard to the efficiency or the ability of individual police forces or individual judicial networks to deal with the volume of crime which is now being highlighted at a cross-border level.
Therefore, one of the proposals coming forward from the Tampere Summit was the establishment of Eurojust.
While I have no difficulty whatsoever in allowing our judges and legal experts in Member States to exchange information, to cooperate, to meet and to understand each other' s practices, I have difficulty with the final conclusion of this whole debate which will be the appointment of a European public prosecutor.
Even though we are assured that a European public prosecutor' s remit will be limited, that does not mean that would be the end of the story, because we have differing legal systems within the European Union.
For instance, in Ireland and the UK our criminal code is based on the common law system whereas it is the old Roman law or civil law code in most other European countries.
There are huge differences there which are exemplified on a daily basis in Europol and Interpol where there is a lack of certainty and difficulties between the Member State police forces with regard to what can be done and what can be achieved.
There are also worries within Member States as I know from an Irish point of view: I have dealt with sixteen cases of people who have been detained in Spain.
We could not get any action from Europol or from Interpol operators in that country and there was a lack of understanding of the necessity for somebody to be brought to trial as quickly as possible.
Therefore, whilst I support more cooperation and coordination, I think making this a legislative system would be wrong and we would oppose it.
Mr President, over this part-session we are going to be called upon to express our opinions on a number of proposals regarding the creation of an area of security and justice.
I omit the word 'freedom' in consideration of the attitude of the Council and the Member States - I repeat, of the Council and the Member States - in strengthening Europe' s repressive framework, aided and abetted by Parliament which, lacking the due dignity of an institution elected by the citizens, is willing to endorse these proposals.
In this regard, the Members of the Bonino List do not wish to support the Council' s strategy which continues to be hidden behind proposals which appear to be minimalist but which lay the foundations for a genuine European legal, criminal and procedural system, but a system which is also a police system, a system of European repression: a system built on Eurojust and the European public prosecutor, the European legal network, Europol and the task force of the heads of police, the corpus juris, the European Anti-Fraud Office, the conventions of mutual legal assistance, Enfopol etc., in this infinite bureaucratic web which is in itself antidemocratic.
Like Mrs Palacio, we hope that the provisional unit for judicial cooperation will soon cease to be provisional, but we Radical Members are not prepared to repeat our experience with Europol, when the establishment of the drugs unit led to the creation of a continually changing and expanding superbody which was out of the democratic control of national and European parliaments.
Ladies and gentlemen, are you sure that the European citizens, the national parliaments and you yourselves wish to pursue a functionalist strategy in the areas of justice and security, one of the pillars of democracy? Are you not afraid that, when all is said and done, Europe will trample upon the freedoms and rights of the citizens rather than guaranteeing and increasing them?
We have tabled a single amendment to this report, calling upon the Council to define more clearly the European area of justice which it intends to develop and, in particular, the level of harmonisation of the rules of criminal and procedural law which it intends to achieve, the institutions and bodies which it intends to create and their powers and responsibilities and the type of cooperation to be established between them, the democratic control to be provided for and, finally, the rights and freedoms which will be guaranteed to citizens.
Only when the institutional model and the rules governing the European area of justice are clearly defined will it be possible for citizens and Parliament to express their opinions on the individual measures proposed by the Council.
Unless a course is set towards a specific objective which is clear for all, in our opinion, the Union is destined to go adrift both institutionally and democratically.
In view of these considerations, we Members of the Emma Bonino List, in the name of European liberal and democratic federalist values, will vote against this proposal and the related report.
We will also be voting against a number of other proposals and reports over the course of this part-session.
Mr President, I shall side with the small number of dissidents in warning against the ideas, plans and projects in this stream of reports on legal policy which are up for debate today, including Mrs Gebhardt' s report.
The explanatory statement is very precise in describing what is happening at the moment, namely that judicial cooperation is being institutionalised or, to put it more accurately, that there is a trend towards supranationalism in this area.
It is, as the report says very precisely, "a forerunner of a future European public prosecution service designed to strengthen the European Union' s judicial dimension in relation to criminal law" , and reference is made to the drafting of EU criminal law with attendant institutions, police service, prosecution service, administration of justice, etc. which, for example, were adopted in connection with Mr Wiebenga' s report in 1999.
In two areas, however, crucial mistakes are being made, first of all when it comes to the very process of making criminal law into a supranational affair.
Systems of criminal law are, of course, among the clearest cultural expressions of a society.
What we have here is a conflict of legal cultures, for there is not just one European criminal law and not just one European ideology relating to crime policy. There are fifteen of them.
By incorporating - or institutionalising - these projects into the European Union' s various bureaucracies, an élite and non-transparent system arises which is, on many points, in conflict with elementary ideals relating to democracy and legal rights.
The second point is also interesting, of course.
A number of very crucial initiatives are undoubtedly being taken towards establishing a United States of Europe.
Interestingly enough, the heading reads: "The establishment of Eurojust as a means of upholding the rule of law." What rule of law is being talked about here?
Has the EU become a State? Yes, it is on the way to becoming one, for the ambition, as expressed so clearly in the last paragraph of the first part of the explanatory statement, is precisely that the European Union must establish "independent legislative, executive and judiciary" bodies "with counterbalancing powers" , that is to say the hallmarks of a State.
For both these reasons, my own group cannot be expected to cooperate.
Mr President, the world' s largest common legal area is on the way to becoming a reality.
It must be founded upon common values and have broad political support.
The proposal to set up an initial provisional Eurojust unit is largely to be welcomed.
In this way, the Council has taken a first step towards institutionalising the process of judicial cooperation, something which the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats has been demanding for a long time.
It is essential, if the rule of law is to be upheld, for judicial cooperation in criminal matters to be developed in line with the competences of Europol.
By strengthening the fight against serious organised crime, Eurojust is therefore a logical step in the efforts to provide citizens with a high level of safety within an area of freedom, security and justice.
The provisional unit' s main tasks ought to be that of ensuring better coordination between the national prosecution authorities and that of supporting criminal investigations in cases involving organised crime.
In view of the proposed unit' s remit, there must be close and clearly regulated cooperation with Europol in order to avoid duplication of effort and conflicts over the respective responsibilities of those involved.
Setting up the provisional unit is only a first step.
The rapporteur appreciates that setting up the second stage Eurojust ought to be that much easier in the light of the experience gained, which is a view I share.
Moving subsequently towards setting up a European public prosecution authority is another question to discuss.
I see the role of a future European public prosecutor as being precisely and solely that of combating fraud affecting the EU' s financial interests.
In view of the subsidiarity principle, I am therefore opposed to a common catalogue of criminal law and to the EU as a common judicial body in all criminal law - if anyone should happen to see any such development as being of topical relevance right now.
What Parliament has to adopt a position on today is vigorous judicial cooperation for the purpose of combating serious organised crime.
This is a positive development, and it is therefore gratifying that there should be so much support for it in Parliament.
I am particularly pleased about the initiative to strengthen the protection of personal data.
I would congratulate Mrs Gebhardt on a good piece of work.
I want to conclude by pointing out something I think we ought not to forget.
Without a certain degree of cooperation, it is simply not possible for us to uphold a law-governed society in an EU with freedom of movement.
If we wish to see crime combated more efficiently, then we must also strengthen the protection of human rights, something which must be founded upon our common legal principles.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Gebhardt deserves our congratulations on the excellent report she has presented, dealing with one of the decisions taken at the Tampere Council.
Her criticism that, considering the development of police cooperation, the issue of judicial cooperation should have been tackled earlier on is fair, particularly bearing in mind the enormous scale that organised and cross-border crime have reached and that this requires rapid, joint, concerted action.
The creation of Eurojust is part of the European action for fighting organised crime which seeks to strengthen and guarantee the balanced development of police and judicial cooperation in the European Union.
The proposal that we have before us today, that a provisional unit for judicial cooperation should be established, must therefore be considered to be the first stage in the process of creating Eurojust.
Its actions will have to improve positive and close cooperation between the competent national authorities for investigating and instituting legal proceedings when two or more Member States are involved and when the case requires joint action. The national legislation of each Member State will be respected throughout.
The experience gained in running this provisional unit will serve as a basis for the drafting of the decision that will lead to the creation of Eurojust.
With regard to the increase in Europol' s powers that we all wish to see, Parliament has drawn attention to the need to ensure that democratic control is exercised.
Eurojust must work, on this point too, with greater jurisdictional control.
Commissioner Vitorino ended the previous debate by drawing attention to the initiative that is now underway for a measure seeking to communitise EUROPOL: we look forward most keenly to the presentation of this proposal so that we can state our opinion.
Mr President, I would very quickly like to begin by thanking Mrs Gebhardt for her excellent report and by saying that the Commission endorses almost all of the points that have fuelled her reflections.
I will take the opportunity - since several Members have raised very delicate issues - to tell you quite frankly that, as Mr Coelho has just said, we primarily view this initiative as an opening initiative that demonstrates the political will of the Council to make up the ground lost in the field of judicial cooperation in comparison to police cooperation.
I say to you quite candidly that I fail to understand how this initiative for judicial cooperation at the level of Eurojust can be seen as an attack on, or a threat to, the guaranteeing and protection of fundamental rights.
It has to be said that either we subscribe to the democratic model with which we are familiar, one based on the division of powers, and one which recognises that the courts have supreme authority when it comes to guaranteeing individual rights, and we acknowledge that European judicial cooperation in criminal matters consists precisely of reinforcing coordination between European courts in their capacity of protectors of fundamental rights - and this is the model to which I personally subscribe - or we can choose not to subscribe to this model and, in that case, I fail to understand how one can see this initiative for developing a common judicial area as posing any threat to guarantees on fundamental rights.
Let us be quite clear about this.
We are not in the process of harmonising European criminal law with a sledgehammer.
What the Tampere Summit required us to do was to adopt, with a view to combating cross-border crime, transnational rules in areas where it is recognised that the transnationality, or if you like the supranationality, of legal instruments constitutes added value in terms of combating illegal and criminal acts that are supranational by nature.
Criminals must be left in no doubt as to this supranationality.
That is why when we were asked at Tampere for common rules in the field of indictment and penalties for crimes against the environment, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings, child pornography, terrorism or Internet crime, it was because it was recognised that these were types of supranational criminal activities which had to be dealt with using supranational instruments.
However, since with Eurojust we are talking about the coordination of national public prosecutors and judges in order to combat all forms of serious crime - and on this point I agree with the approach taken by the rapporteur - this concept is being enlarged: we are no longer talking solely about cooperation on purely transnational crimes, but also about cooperating to counteract criminal activities.
Such would be the case, for example, with a criminal who commits a crime in one Member State and then seeks refuge in another Member State, as their crime has been a serious one.
We are therefore entering the realms of the fight against legal insecurity in global terms, but are doing so with respect not only for substantive laws, but also for national procedural laws.
That implies the actions taken by every judge being in line with their national legal systems and jurisdiction for acting against and combating this type of crime falling within the national legal framework of each Member State.
It is for this reason that I fail to see in this the advent of a 'Big Brother' -style European judicial system.
I do not even see in it - unfortunately, I might add - the advent of a European public prosecutor, because as you know, the Commission has proposed creating the office of European public prosecutor, but not in this context or to deal with these matters.
The Commission' s proposal was highly targeted and was submitted to the appropriate body: the Intergovernmental Conference.
What was it that the Commission proposed? The creation of the office of European public prosecutor in order to guarantee protection of the European Community' s financial interests.
In this area we can indeed talk of a European public prosecutor.
But as concerns Eurojust, this is a network for coordinating the actions of national judges and public prosecutors with the objective of enhancing capabilities for combating types of serious crime at European level.
And this is why I also see in this an important tool for ensuring judicial control of Europol.
It was, in fact, made quite clear at Tampere that Eurojust would be Europol' s judicial counterpart.
That means that investigations and criminal proceedings that can count on the involvement of Europol must be flanked and followed up by Eurojust, acting as a network of judges and public prosecutors at European level.
It is for this reason that the mutual relationships between Eurojust, Europol and OLAF, in its role as a specialist body for combating fraud, and the existing European judicial network must be clearly defined.
The Commission welcomes your report, Mrs Gebhardt.
I hope that Parliament will adopt it.
We will have the opportunity to make our commitment to this provisional unit from 1 January 2001, but the Commission wants to sustain the debate on the form that the definitive Eurojust unit will take.
That is why we will be presenting to the Council and European Parliament a proposal for a Communication on the definitive judicial cooperation unit, in order to have as swiftly as possible an outline, a foretaste, of what the definitive version of the Eurojust network will look like.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
FAIR Programme
The next item on the agenda is the report (A5-0310/2000) by Mrs Langenhagen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Special Report No 9/99 concerning research activities in the field of agriculture and fisheries (FAIR Programme - Fisheries, Agriculture and Agro-Industrial Research), together with the Commission' s replies [C5-0227/2000 - 2000/2133(COS)]
Mr President, Commissioner, in two days' time in this House we will be addressing another weighty matter, the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors on the 1999 budget year, the first budget which covers, at least in part, the term of office of the new Commission.
While, with this annual report, the new Commission will quite clearly be held accountable and will need to be reminded of its duty, the FAIR Programme is, as it were, unfinished business from a bygone era.
The FAIR Programme - Fisheries, Agriculture and Agro-Industrial Research - was part of the fourth Framework Programme which ran from 1994 to 1998.
In that time, a total of EUR 660 million of Community funds was spent on the FAIR Programme, admittedly a small amount when compared with the overall budget of the fourth Framework Programme of over EUR 11.8 billion, but an amount which is, nonetheless, worthy of investigation.
I mentioned that the FAIR Programme investigated in the Court of Auditors' special report was unfinished business from the past.
One could argue that there was no need at all for Parliament to deal with these outdated issues any more, because - so people say - the new Commission is of course doing everything better in any case.
However, I cannot accept such an argument.
After all, as representatives of the people of Europe, we have a supervisory role which we must exercise so as to remain credible.
Part of this is, of course, also ex post evaluation, even if, in this case, it has definitely come rather late.
When I was drawing up my report, I held numerous conversations with both the Court of Auditors and the Commission, and I also brought all the parties together around one table.
At this - what I would call - mini 'trialogue' there was an open and fair discussion.
My questions were answered satisfactorily.
All sides gave their honest opinions - in my view - without falling back on inflexible opposing positions.
I observed a constructive atmosphere with the transparency and flexibility which is so often called for, and in no sense was it reminiscent of two armoured tortoises facing each other without saying a word.
I believe that it is certainly possible to speak of a new culture of cooperation which was put into practice here for the first time.
I would expressly thank the Court of Auditors and the Commission for this.
The attitude of those being inspected towards their inspectors has taken a turn for the better.
Inspections are, of course, not carried out for their own sake either, but to achieve an improvement.
I would say that, at the end of the day, we are, of course, all acting in unison, the inspectors and those being inspected, and why?
So as to ensure that European money is better deployed in the future.
Overall then, this is a balanced and fairly argued report.
Nevertheless, there are some points which are mentioned which I must criticise.
However, at the same time, I would express the hope that the Commission will respect its commitments and that it has made the appropriate improvements in the fifth Framework Programme.
What are my main criticisms? Firstly, the length of the overall inspection procedure.
As it stands at the moment it is unacceptable.
I say this quite clearly and you are aware of this. It is simply impossible that two full years should go by between the investigation beginning and the report being submitted to Parliament.
Surely some relevance to the present situation has to be retained.
This has nothing to do with carrying out the controls themselves, they take time, but it is to do with the contradictory procedure and possibly also with publication.
There is therefore a need for action to be taken.
A procedure urgently needs to be identified which will allow the special report to be published within a reasonable period of time.
My question to the Commission in this regard highlighted some possibilities, but unfortunately no usable result has yet emerged.
Given the importance of the research programme for agriculture and fisheries, it is regrettable that some problems were identified in connection with the organisation of the programme.
For example, the descriptions of the selection criteria remain unclear and their application inconsistent, with the result that it was sometimes impossible to understand why projects had been selected for funding.
In addition, there were mistakes in the certified expenditure and insufficient sanctions, as well as links between experts and some of the organisations involved in the research proposals which, in my view, need to be queried.
Above all, however, it must be pointed out that the cooperation between the Directorates-General involved - Fisheries, Agriculture and Research - was unsatisfactory and needs to be more efficiently structured in the future.
I nonetheless assume, not least with a view to my hobbyhorse of fisheries, that we will put pressure on all three of them together so that we can guarantee positive developments in the future.
Mr President, the Fisheries Committee report was rather brief, in any case.
The problems that arose in spending were not of too much concern to the Fisheries Committee; other areas were of greater concern.
The Court of Auditors produced a constructive and reasonable report, but when we had the discussion in committee and teased out the problems and heard the explanations we were a bit more satisfied that the problems that arose were not foreseeable and were correctable.
I remember that there was a very large number of projects involved.
The amount of money is not insignificant - EUR 600 million - but, nevertheless, there were around 600 projects involved which spread the money quite thin and made it quite difficult for the limited staff and resources that the Commission had at the time to monitor carefully exactly what was going on.
Like so many other sections of the budget, something like 80% of the entire spending involved public bodies of one sort or another within the Member States.
This money was not just being thrown out to industry, although some of it was.
A lot of this spending was supervised by Member States.
We welcome the fact that there is a change in the policy under the new programme, moving from giving the money into the care of the policy-making Directorate-General to giving it to people who are engaged in research.
We can expect a more constructive approach to research when it is done by people interested in research rather than by people who administer the policies, as in the case of agriculture.
Generally speaking, we thank the rapporteur for drawing attention to the problems involved and look forward to the re-organised programme being more effective and more satisfactory.
Mr President, I welcome this report by Mrs Langenhagen, the contents of which I am very happy to endorse.
The Court of Auditors' report on the FAIR Programme, from which the rapporteur' s report arises, was only published in March this year even though the sector letters regarding the audit were first sent to the Commission in December 1998 and February 1999.
As the rapporteur suggested, this is simply unacceptable.
It is too long a delay and undermines the relevance of Parliament' s work in considering such reports.
This delay results from the contradictory procedure between the Court and the Commission which precedes the publication of every Court of Auditors' report, whereby the Commission has the right to have its reply published at the same time as the report.
As a result of the delay in this case the rapporteur quite rightly questions the continuation of the contradictory procedure in its current form.
This is something I will certainly be exploring in the report I will be bringing to Parliament in December.
It is sufficient to suggest that we need to look at the whole procedure again, not just in terms of the Court' s annual report which will be published tomorrow, but also in terms of special reports such as this one.
The Court of Auditors' report found a number of significant problems with the management of the FAIR Programme during 1994 to 1998, including a lack of quantified objectives for the programme, making it difficult to fully measure the results, insufficient transparency in selection and evaluation procedures and the management of measures under the programme by three DGs.
This meant that the management of the programme lacked clarity and homogeneity.
We hope that as a result of the reform of the Commission currently taking place we will see a huge correction of this in future.
That we do not have clear targets, that we cannot measure output, is really unacceptable and would not happen in any other institution.
This is very old hat.
We know the change is coming, but we want to see it very quickly.
One problem which remains is the EUR 3.4 million still to be recovered, 92% of which is accounted for by three files which have been under examination by the Commission' s legal services since July 1996 and August 1997 and whose due dates have expired.
It is vital that the Commission follows that and gets its money back.
We will be following this report' s recommendations in future so we encourage the Commission to put things right as soon as possible, otherwise you will see reference to this and other special reports within discharge procedure reports.
Mr President, I should very much like to congratulate Mrs Langenhagen on her report.
I think that, in every way, Mrs Langenhagen has provided a clear description of the very major problems there have been in putting the FAIR Programmes into effect and, at the same time, in also checking up on how the programmes were operating.
In that connection, I should like to make it clear that, in view of the very great degree of expertise possessed by the Commission, we cannot accept that so many of the things we adopted in the decisions have not been implemented.
On behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, I should like to call attention to a fairly small number of points.
Before new programmes are put into effect, the previous programmes ought to be assessed.
With the help of the scientific research which is, of course, an important part of our policies - in this case, fisheries policy - a prior assessment needs to be carried out of what is wanted and of how the resources are used, so that existing resources can continually be adapted to catch techniques and catch opportunities.
Against the background of what has happened, those of us in the Committee on Fisheries also believe that, whenever three Directorates-General are to coordinate and direct actions, it ought to be completely clear which Directorate-General is ultimately in control, with responsibility for putting matters into effect.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur very warmly on this report.
I believe that it is very fair and very restrained and has turned out to be very balanced, and accordingly it did, of course, also receive the unanimous support of the Committee.
I should just like to touch on a few points which are, in my opinion, decisive for the future work of monitoring research in general.
In this regard, it seems to me important to listen to what our draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries said, which was that, at the end of the day, it is impossible to carry out a clear inspection in the interests of the taxpayers whom we represent and to monitor efficiency if no clear objectives are defined beforehand.
This seems to me to be one of the main criticisms made in the Court of Auditors' report.
Quite simply, this makes it difficult to measure the efficiency of the programme.
My second point concerns the hierarchy of staff with powers of authorisation. Here, Commissioner, overlaps which are actually unacceptable have occurred.
In Paragraph 59 in the Court of Auditors' report, this is illustrated relatively clearly.
If someone who is entitled to authorise payments and who has allocated 98% of the appropriations available in 1996 is made subordinate to the dossier manager, then this leads to an impossible situation.
The Commission' s official reply to this in the file, that there was another Director-General involved, is extremely lame.
After all, I do not believe that anyone who has anything to do with financial management and also with financial control would be able to accept an answer of this kind.
I hope, Commissioner, that where the reform of the Commission is concerned, to which Mrs Morgan has already referred, we will not only attach importance to reforming the Financial Regulation, but also, and above all, to implementing the existing Financial Regulation in full.
The Financial Regulation is very wisely conceived and it provides for everything to be kept wonderfully separate, but in practice they must not be mixed up, and this seems to have been the case here.
Commissioner, in the near future - and then also with the work of the new Commission in mind - we will have to deal with further Court of Auditors' reports or audit reports, such as the one on the Joint Research Centre, which has turned out to be very critical, but also the special audit report on a very unusual contract with a consultancy firm.
I hope that we will then also see a desire to actually make improvements in the areas mentioned by Mrs Langenhagen.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the importance that you have attached to the Court of Auditors' special report on the FAIR Programme.
I would particularly like to thank Mrs Langenhagen for her very constructive report, along with the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and of the Committee on Fisheries and notably the rapporteur, Mr Busk.
You have underscored, and I would thank you for this, the spirit underlying this report, in your dialogue with the Court of Auditors and the Commission' s services and in the value you attached to it.
As you have also said, the FAIR Programme formed part of the Fourth Framework Programme.
It had come to an end by the time I took up my duties as Commissioner, but it is the responsibility of the present Commission, and my responsibility as Commissioner, to ensure that the lessons learned from your work are turned to good account and to respond to the Court of Auditors' recommendations on this issue.
The report will play its part in the appraisal of the way the situation is developing and of working practices.
I must nevertheless emphasise that no instances of fraud or misappropriation have been detected.
It is important to point this out, as these things can sometimes be misinterpreted.
It is important to express ourselves clearly vis-à-vis the outside world.
As you have emphasised, the FAIR Programme is financed to the tune of 739 million euros.
It has given rise to over 3 300 proposals, more than 600 of which have received funding.
The FAIR Programme was also swiftly called into action at the start of the 'mad cow' crisis and a European action plan on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies was launched in the very same year following a call for proposals.
My point is that it has played a beneficial role in addressing a number of issues.
What were the questions asked, and what improvements have already been made? I would like to highlight some of the latter, which have already been incorporated into the Fifth Framework Programme, in line with the Court' s recommendations.
First of all, you should know that responsibility for managing agricultural research has been transferred to the Agriculture DG and the Research DG, following the reorganisation of the Commission' s services, which has resulted in a degree of uniformity in the Agriculture DG' s research procedures.
The same may not apply to research in the field of fisheries, but it has been the case with agriculture.
Next, to ensure smooth coordination, a management group has been set up to ensure better coordination between the implementation of research programmes and the relevant Directorates-General with responsibility for other policies.
Thirdly, the Commission has adopted a common procedure for the evaluation of research proposals applicable to all the specific programmes, which can be consulted by the public in the common manual of evaluation procedures.
A common, transparent database of experts has been established to evaluate proposals and special efforts have been made to ensure the independence of experts in respect of the evaluation of proposals.
A common research database has been established.
The new type of research contract now sets out in detail all the financial and administrative considerations, with more clearly-defined responsibilities for participants and a better-documented negotiation procedure.
The Commission has also significantly increased the number of audits conducted, with this number rising by 25% annually over recent years.
These are the measures that have been envisaged under the Fifth Framework Programme and which are to be implemented.
However, as soon as I took up office, I also took an initiative to set up an informal working party which looked into the issue of simplifying and improving procedures, and I have already had an opportunity to talk about this before the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
This shows that the Commission has not been idle and that it is acting on the comments that you have made.
One has to be aware of the way the situation is developing, and remain vigilant, because it is difficult to attain perfection in this matter.
This is all the more true given that the report brought to light a number of issues that called for improvements, as you have emphasised.
I will take up on some of these issues, and let you have our opinion on these.
With regard to the annual monitoring of research programmes, which provides an independent opinion on the stage reached in, and the quality of, the implementation of our programmes, we have developed several measures aimed at improvement: an analysis of research management practices within the context of national and European Union programmes, with a view to exchanges of good practices and the promotion of mutual learning; the financing of studies aimed at assessing the socio-economic impact of the framework programme and the launching of pilot schemes aimed at evaluating the impact of completed projects, as you have, moreover, just emphasised in speaking of the need to gauge this impact.
Like the Commission, Parliament is of the opinion that joint responsibility for the implementation of the projects is closely akin to a joint financial responsibility.
I would nevertheless like to stress one thing, which is that joint financial responsibility cannot, in a strict sense, be envisaged within the context of the framework programme, the aim of which is to set up consortia composed of various bodies, universities, SMEs, large companies, and public or private research institutes.
These entities will not be able to take adequate financial precautions from among their own ranks, and in the case of the SMEs cannot necessarily be held liable for the insolvency of other members of the consortium.
It is clear that this consortium approach does not establish a duality in terms of joint financial responsibility.
This is a complex matter and one of the issues for which we must clearly find a way of ensuring greater security, but we must avoid this resulting in the exclusion from the framework programme of SMEs and public institutions who are fearful of having to accept responsibilities that they are unable to assume.
We thus need not only to strike the right balance in terms of joint financial responsibility but also, furthermore, to avoid scaring off potential partners in a consortium, the only participants in which will therefore be established bodies, when what we want is to foster the participation of small and medium-sized businesses.
On the other hand, I share your views entirely on the need to minimise the risk of double financing.
In this regard, you should know that in connection with point 74 of the White Paper on Reform, the Commission' s services are already in the process of introducing a central register of contracts concluded by the Commission, which will subsequently be linked to all the Commission' s financial information systems.
You have evidently raised other issues too, including the problem that Mrs Langenhagen referred to in her introduction: the time that has elapsed between the sector letters being sent and the report being debated in Parliament, the length of which can be attributed to the working relations between the Commission and the Court of Auditors.
As you have emphasised, all this happened several years ago, but it is clear that lessons must be learned from this exercise.
Since that time, measures have been taken regarding the internal organisation of our services in order to speed up, within the limits of the possible, the Court' s sector letter procedure.
It is perfectly clear that these dialogues are necessary and there is clearly a joint responsibility here; it is also up to the Court to enter into these dialogues, but I can, in any case, assure you that both the Court and the Commission' s services, along with Parliament, share the same commitment to progress in terms of resolving these problems.
I will now turn to the question that Mrs Morgan asked concerning the recovery of amounts.
There are a total of 3.4 million euros outstanding. This may seem a substantial sum, but it in fact only represents 0.3% of total financing under the programme.
This does not mean, of course, that this sum should not be recovered, and we must strive to do so.
I can tell you, in this respect, that the Commission' s services have done everything within their power to recover the amounts in question, but the services responsible embarked on the appropriate legal procedures two years ago.
Legal proceedings have now begun concerning two of the three files examined by the Commission' s legal service, since these have been referred to the national courts.
The process is therefore under way, but we are now entering the domain of Member State jurisdiction and cannot always dictate how long things will take.
I would nevertheless stress that the three files that I have just mentioned represent 92% of the total amount.
We have therefore worked very hard to recover the 3.4 million euros, and one could say that we are over 90% of the way there.
Turning to the question concerning fisheries, and the person responsible for their control, I have just been given an answer.
It has been assigned to the most appropriate level.
As far as the Agriculture DG is concerned, the problem has been resolved by transferring the relevant team to the Directorate-General for Research.
This has made for a smoother coordination of policies.
These are the answers to your questions.
There are still some new applications to put into practice, and I would like to take this opportunity to outline the guidelines on Community research that we would like to develop for the next framework programme, and which the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has already examined, since I sent a policy paper to this Parliamentary Committee on 4 October, and it is to draw up a report.
There are several factors in these broad guidelines that will make for a considerable lightening of bureaucratic burdens: the switch from a project-based approach to a programme-based approach, the setting of minimum sizes for projects, the externalisation of a number of activities, such as exploratory premiums for small and medium-sized enterprises, mobility grants and, in general terms, a simplification of these procedures.
Substantial changes must also be introduced into the next framework programme.
We will see what the impact of the modifications made to the fifth Framework Programme has been and I would like to thank you for showing such commitment to improvement.
The Commission shares this commitment, and I would like to hope that we can work in the best possible atmosphere to carry through this research programme, which is essential at European level, but which must be implemented in conformity with the most stringent of rules on efficiency and on financial control.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.00 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, this is a small amendment to the Minutes.
In the modification of the agenda for Thursday the subject of the British submarine in Gibraltar was discussed and there were three speakers.
The speeches by Mr Poettering and Mr Barón Crespo are faithfully recorded in the Minutes, showing that one requested and the other granted the political agreement from the Group of the Europe People' s Party for it to be included in the agenda for December.
But there was a third speech, by Mr Galeote Quecedo, which does not feature in the Minutes. Only his name is given.
Allow me to give an explanation. This omission reflects fears, which in our opinion are unjustified, about anyone objectively reading the motion for a resolution that we are tabling, and this makes us fear that there could be further concealment in December.
But, this is just an explanation.
What I am asking for, with all due respect, is for Mr Galeote Quecedo' s speech to feature in the minutes.
Thank you, Mr Aparicio Sánchez.
We shall add Mr Galeote Quecedo' s statement to the Minutes.
Madam President, some of us expected an announcement from the chair yesterday about the Sakharov Prize - to whom it had been awarded, what the voting figures were and when it would be presented in plenary.
Could you give us some information about that, either today or as soon as possible?
Mr Bethell, your point has nothing to do with the approval of the Minutes but I can, however, readily inform you that the Conference of Presidents voted to give this year' s Sakharov Prize to the 'Basta Ya' association.
The prize will be awarded to the 'Basta Ya' association in the course of the December part-session.
(The Minutes were approved)
Charter of Fundamental Rights
The next item is the recommendation by Mr Duff and Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on approval of the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (A5-0325/00).
Madam President, whatever one felt about the mandate from the Cologne European Council, it was fairly surprising that the convention set up to draft the Charter fully succeeded in achieving the mandate.
We faced an extraordinarily complex task for the inscription of fundamental rights and freedoms found inside the constitutional traditions of Member States and also within the general principles of Union law.
In my opinion the convention managed to strike a sound balance between self-restraint and aspiration.
We refrained from superseding the Treaties but maximised their impact by making the relationship between the citizen and the Union for the first time clear and visible.
Some people will be disappointed that the Charter was unable to go further but it is of course a compromise forged in the crucible of the convention and it represents a balance between competing political tendencies, nationalities and cultures.
That balance commanded a broad consensus inside the convention and should do so too inside the European Parliament.
Parliament played a strong part is formulating the Charter.
We profited from participating strongly in the process and the citizens we represent will profit from its solemn proclamation especially as Article 52.3 says the Union can then proceed to grant more extensive protection of European fundamental rights as European integration proceeds.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the history of European integration there are certain moments that can be considered as points of historic change, and this is one of them, because the adoption of the Charter by Parliament will be one more step towards realising the dreams and plans of the founding fathers.
I would like to remind you that the first time that the declaration of rights was discussed was at the Congress of Europe in The Hague in 1948, and that was the origin of the European Convention on Human Rights of the Council of Europe.
Now, as the European Union, we are once again affirming that this is a community of values.
We have given real substance to European citizenship, which is recognised in the Treaty on European Union, and we have consolidated our area, not only as an internal market, but also as a legal area in which fundamental human rights are recognised.
For socialists and social democrats from across Europe, the adoption of the Charter also represents the fulfilment of a commitment to our electorate; we contested the elections with a manifesto containing twenty-one priorities, and a fundamental one among them was to push for a European Charter of Rights in order to enshrine the fundamental civil, economic, social and cultural rights of the citizens of the Union.
The European Summit in Cologne, under the German Presidency of Chancellor Schröder, proposed specifically on the one hand, the outline, which became a Convention and, on the other hand, that this Charter should be drawn up. It gave the Convention a mandate and nominated a former President of Germany, Roman Herzog, as chairman of this body.
I think that this needs to be highlighted today because the work that we have carried out is not the exclusive property of any political family, and this gesture does credit to the German Presidency at the time and shows that we all need to move forward together in achieving fundamental values.
I think that we have also done this in the European Parliament.
I have had the opportunity to express my admiration for the work carried out by Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, as chairman of the European Parliament delegation.
I would also like to point out the crucial role played by my colleague Mrs Pervenche Berès, when she led the delegation from the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
I think that we can all be proud of this success, which is a shared one.
Today Europe is more than just a common market, and what is more we have a fundamental piece of what should be a future constitution. However, despite all the efforts that have been made, there is still a fundamental step that we need to take in order to feel satisfied - and I say this thinking about the Nice Summit - which is the last point mentioned by the President-in-Office of the Council: the inclusion of the Charter in Article 6 of the Treaty.
I think that, apart from the repeated personal support of the President-in-Office of the Council, there is a series of factors in favour of this.
Currently, the majority of Heads of State and Government belong to our political family. Others do not, but they are in favour of this inclusion and of a reformed and democratic Europe.
The Charter provides the Union with an essential legitimacy as a community of values, and we need to emphasise this, because we have also experienced events that show that Article 7 needs to have a much more solid support.
Our governments need to obtain tangible results in Nice that they can offer to our citizens - institutional matters are important but, as the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner are well aware, they are difficult to sell to public opinion.
The Charter also sets out the Copenhagen criteria, which we consider to be fundamental in the membership negotiations.
I would also say, thinking about the countries that are negotiating with us, that it also offers them guarantees with regard to us; that is to say, it is not merely a declaration, but a factor that fits perfectly into the negotiation process.
Therefore, my Group still thinks that it is absolutely essential to include a reference to the Charter in Article 6(2) of the Treaty.
As I believe that the President-in-Office of the Council is going to have a very busy weekend with the next meeting, I ask him to pass on a message to that meeting, so that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs can pass it on to the Heads of Government.
It is as follows: if the European Council in Nice does not succeed in integrating the Charter in this way, I am afraid that the European Parliament will have difficulty approving the reform of the Treaties.
I think that this is a positive message that the President-in-Office of the Council must give to his colleagues, because we still have time to include the Charter in Article 6 of the Treaties.
After Nice we will be able to start talking about the European constitution.
For now, the important thing is for this stage to be consolidated.
This is our proposal.
Madam President, allow me, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, to begin by congratulating the rapporteurs and all those who have contributed to the Convention.
They have shown that European issues can be worked with in a new and exemplary way, a way superior to that of the Intergovernmental Conference because of its open and democratic method of working, involving full public control and opportunities for citizens to participate.
The fact that European cooperation is not only based upon economic agreements has been mentioned in this Chamber on a number of occasions.
This has become additionally clear in the course of last year.
The growth of xenophobic and anti-democratic movements brings the issue of common European values to a head.
As the European institutions acquire ever more power over citizens, it is also important to place limits upon this influence.
The proposed Charter is unique in the way it gives a central place to the citizen and her rights.
Naturally, political compromises have also been made. There has been give and take but, on the whole, what we have here is a catalogue of common and modern rights which give clear and concrete form to the European community of values.
Because there is a certain amount of concern about this, it is important to point out that the Charter supplements, rather than competes with, the Council of Europe' s Charter of Human Rights.
It is therefore important that, no later than in Nice, the legal opportunity should be created for the EU to sign the Council of Europe' s Convention.
At the Nice Summit, the Charter will be accepted in the form of a political declaration.
This must not be transformed into a mere ceremony with the vaguest of declarations.
People are tired of this type of event.
It must be made clear that the Charter is to be regarded as morally binding.
As soon as possible after the Summit, the Swedish Presidency must also establish the procedures for working on the Charter' s continued status, the objective being that, following certain changes, it should become binding and part of a future European constitution.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is a key stage in the construction of Europe, has given rise to much discussion.
Some think it a success and others now think it a thwarted ambition.
Many people thought that Europe at long last had the opportunity to emerge from the single free-trade area and the liberal rut in order to establish the foundation of a People' s Europe.
Everything conspired to strengthen this hope: the formation of the Convention which established a new precedent in relation to the usual intergovernmental method, the public debates and the full set of texts available on an Internet site that was accessible to everyone, as well as the fact that the opinion of civil society was consulted.
Transparency was no substitute, however, for the democratic deficit, as the NGOs were only given five minutes to speak and their points were only rarely taken into consideration.
So, yes, some progress was made, but not enough to compensate for the omissions.
It took many weeks of battling to incorporate the right to strike into the Charter.
The right to employment was transformed into the right to work.
The right to health, social security, accommodation or a minimum income either do not feature, or are expressed only as a token of social cohesion.
Freedom of the press is no longer 'guaranteed' , only 'respected' .
Minority rights are the minimum possible.
Discrimination between European and third country residents is ratified, as is the freedom of movement laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, or the right to live as a family, even though this is recognised in international law.
A great many rights, including political rights, become subject to a European preference in place of national preference.
So what has become of our sacrosanct principle that the law shall be universal, indivisible and unique? What has become of European citizenship, the heart of this Europe of equality for all citizens?
We are left with a feeling of bitterness. This Charter is the extension of a liberal Europe which is opposed to the social Europe of the citizens.
What attitude can we possibly adopt now with regard to this text which is no better than nothing since it falls short of existing rights?
The Charter as it stands is in no position to become 'meaningful' for the citizens of Europe.
All it brings is an added value; it does not remotely meet their expectations or their requirements.
As regards fundamental rights, is it possible to accept a minimal common denominator at a time when Europe wishes to set itself up as a role model for human rights? We must refuse to be satisfied with this minimalist Charter to which the Social Democrats of Europe appear to have resigned themselves.
The Charter cannot serve as a smokescreen for the French Presidency in order to conceal an IGC that is on its last legs.
At the European Summit in Nice, in December, civil society resolved to mobilise in order to make itself heard and to forcefully express its desire for a charter offering the citizens of Europe genuine guarantees.
We must support these actions and, rather than accepting a shaky text, we must call upon the Convention to continue working after Nice, involving new procedures and extensive public debate.
It is not just our rights and our freedoms but our democracy which is at stake here.
Madam President, the Charter of Fundamental Rights is a very important project for the future of European integration and it has my support.
Why? First, because it secures the rights of our citizens vis-à-vis the institutions and bodies of the European Union.
Secondly, because it plugs a gap in the protection of fundamental rights for people living in the Union.
Thirdly, because the Charter also ensures that the current level of protection in the European Human Rights Convention also applies in the Union; in fact, at some points, it goes even further than the European Human Rights Convention.
Fourthly, because the Charter - and this is particularly important for me - is based on indivisible civil and political human rights and fundamental social rights.
As a member of the convention, I argued for even further-reaching social rights, especially for the right to work and to a minimum, subsistence-level income to be enshrined in the Charter which, given the current social charter, it should have been.
Nonetheless, I share the overall appraisal of the European Trade Union Confederation that, despite the narrow interpretation of social rights, the Charter of Fundamental Rights is an important step on the road towards a social Europe and a citizens' Europe and is a decided improvement over the present situation.
Madam President, I think that what we need now, especially in the run up to Nice, is a comprehensive public debate with our citizens on the text of the Charter; we must also consider how to give them the opportunity to agree to this Charter.
I personally am in favour of a European referendum on the Charter, as this would enable the very citizens of Europe to give us democratic authorisation to press ahead and build up Europe.
Madam President, great importance is often attached to the signing of charters, and this often assumes legendary status.
Such was the case with the Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers, signed in Strasbourg during a European Council, which appeared to have discharged the institutions' undertaking to resolve the issues related to the protection of workers' dignity.
And then the recantation: in actual fact, in Maastricht, Great Britain did not sign the social chapter, going back on the profuse rhetoric which it had lavishly dispensed when proclaiming the vital importance of signing the Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers.
Well then, let us endeavour to ensure that this situation is not repeated in the case of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
To this end, besides the signatures, it is important for there to be effective political undertakings implemented within the timeframe - every day - by all the countries and political forces.
The Charter cannot be amended and this gives rise to a democratic deficit, leading us to support the Biarritz conclusions not to consider it to be legally binding.
In fact, if it were possible to amend the Charter, if it were admitted that the Charter does not provide for duties and does not provide fully for rights, things would be easier: the Charter does not go far enough in protecting the natural family or safeguarding children; it disregards the need for rules to regulate every new global information technology; it discriminates between private and public education; with regard to safeguarding the environment, it disregards the protection of health and animal rights; it is too general with regard to consumer protection and leaves the door open to the marketing of extremely harmful foodstuffs.
In addition, there are political gaps in the Charter such as the fact that it does not tackle the issue of political refugees.
Therefore, we feel that the Charter is only important as a position of principle, as a starting point for a debate: a debate which we consider useful for the future but which has yet to develop, which must take place alongside the unification process.
We will assign to this Charter the value of a political declaration, committing ourselves together: we will therefore vote for the recommendation and the Alleanza Nazionale will enter into a democratic debate that will supplement and finalise the content of the Charter over the coming months, and which will evolve alongside the accession process and the new European citizenship.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe this Charter is nothing more than the umpteenth example of the ability of the European Union and its Member States to proliferate empty texts and declarations of intent.
This Charter, as you know, has no legal basis, nor does it provide for any body capable of enforcing compliance with the rights and principles it proclaims.
This Charter is just another empty text, and the appeals from Mr Barón Crespo and others to include a reference to the Charter in Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty are not going to change a thing.
We are aware, in the Austrian case, for example, that Europe went outside the scope of the Treaty in responding with bilateral measures, and it was not empowered, there being no authorisation under Articles 6 and 7, to ensure respect for the fine principles to which it claims to adhere.
The issue is more important than that.
The Cologne Council had the bright idea of thinking up a bone to keep the dog busy, the dog in question being the European Parliament, and so it invented this Charter, and Parliament, as it is increasingly accustomed to doing, threw itself upon the proffered bone and gave it a good chew, to such an extent that we are, today, completely under the illusion that we are taking part in some historic event.
Yet the real issues before us are the blank pages of the French Presidency' s executive summary, the issue of the Commission and the issue of the weighting of votes within the Council, and Parliament, which has always adopted a strong line with the weak and a weak attitude towards the strong and which is going increasingly downhill in its way of approaching matters, can find nothing to say about this planned destruction of the Commission.
It is going along with this sideways shift which is turning the executive Commission into a sub-council, an underling of a Council which is and will be stronger yet.
What is actually on the agenda of the Nice Summit is the slide towards intergovernmentalism firmly anchored in the texts.
You can accept the situation, you can let off steam by producing great empty texts, but that is the reality of the situation and it is distressing to note that the small countries of the European Union, in persisting in wanting one Commissioner per Member State, are supporting the plan of undermining the Commission.
We are currently conspiring to kill off the Commission, a murder with a willing victim, since the Commission fell in with the Council' s proposals last week.
So let us either lament or pretend to rejoice, let us celebrate this great event which is actually just a perfectly empty great event.
I think we ought to remind ourselves of that.
Whether we vote for this Charter, against it, or abstain altogether, nothing will change.
Mrs President, you would not believe that Mr Dupuis and I were talking about the same text.
Behind the vote on the Charter, there is an ill-concealed agenda to create the first part of a constitution for what might be called a United States of Europe.
The Charter will not, of course, be written into the Treaty until after a special constitutional conference in 2004 but, as it receives the solemn signature of the Commission, the Council and Parliament, the European Court of Justice will already be acquiring a new source for its judgements, and the Court of Justice' s representative has, of course, already given notice that it will draw inspiration from the Charter.
The Commission' s representative at the Turin Convention attaches judicial significance to the document.
It is therefore absurd for the Danish Government to maintain that there is no trace of anything new in the Charter.
In that case, what purpose is served by the text?
Naturally, the Charter contains innovations in relation to existing law.
For example, there is a ban on discrimination against national minorities, which is good, and there is new wording on positive discrimination in favour of the under-represented sex and new rules on cloning, the protection of personal data and the right of access to documents.
The problem is not the content but the aim, which is to go one better than the national constitutions and the European Declaration of Human Rights.
The European Court of Justice will become our new Supreme Court and constitutional court, including in all issues relating to fundamental and human rights, and it will also become the chief interpreter of the European Declaration of Human Rights.
In the Convention, I tabled amendments to the effect that the Charter should conform to the national constitutional courts and the Court of Human Rights.
The very fact that it was not possible to adopt these amendments witnesses to the aim of creating a constitution.
Unfortunately, I must therefore vote against the Charter.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this vote which Parliament is about to declare in order to enable you, Madam President, to proclaim this Charter on behalf of this House, is a significant one.
Now that we have had the single market, it is now time for a Europe of rights The concept of citizenship within the European Union is a relatively new one.
Let us remember that this was originally an initiative from Felipe Gonzales, who proposed this fine idea.
Since then, it has been expanded upon and brought to life.
Until now, it existed only in the form of an anthem, a passport, but now, I feel that with this Charter, it also will have some substance, the definition of rights as they are stated in this fine text.
It is a fine text because it is readable, clear, precise and framed with an eye to the future - well, we shall see, but in the meantime, as of right now, it is possible to read it as if it were a legal text, and that is what we sought to achieve.
For women, too, it is a text that represents some progress since it is couched in gender-neutral terms.
It is also, however, a text whose content we can be proud of, as it is well balanced.
The first right it stipulates is the right to dignity.
How can we fail to recognise that in the twenty-first century, once the concept of dignity has been set forth, the key thing is the indivisibility of the whole package of rights?
So individual rights and citizens' rights are included, but also social rights.
I am well aware of how difficult the Cologne mandate was.
Some say it was a balanced mandate, others that it was inadequate, but it was a mandate whose dynamic force we used to the full, and even almost exceeded.
Some Members of this House, including in my own political family, in the widest sense, will deplore the lack of reference to a minimum income, the right to accommodation or the lack of any explicit reference to the European Social Charter and the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights in the general provisions of the text.
I would, however, urge them to read the text carefully.
Going on the speeches that I have heard this morning, I am not sure that everyone has read this text properly and grasped its full scope.
Let me briefly discuss the scope of the text.
I would urge those that are of the opinion that the text does not go far enough as regards social rights to consider the legal status of the texts we currently have available to us on social rights at the European level.
The Charter has actually been drawn up as if it were a text which might become binding.
It goes well beyond the texts with which we identify in political terms but which, from the viewpoint of the legal instrument implementing them, even if they, of course, are based on common policies, do not, however, in legal terms define any real rights which might, eventually, be recognised by a judge.
You have to realise that this is a text which must be brought to life.
To adopt an expression used by Catherine Lalumière, I would say that we have to "put it into orbit" .
In order to do so, we all need to work hand in hand, on the basis of, I hope, the largest possible vote by this House.
This means that we must all get involved, Members of the European Parliament, members of the national parliaments, the Council, of course, the national government, but also that same civil society which supported us in the process of drawing up the text.
If I might briefly turn to the legal status of the text, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you referred to the work of the IGC last night.
My impression was that, even though several governments did not want it, there might still be a clear majority in favour of a reference in Article 6.
That is not the be all and end all for this Charter' s status. It will ultimately have to have its rightful place as the preamble to a constitution, but that is a matter for our long-term institutional development.
In the short term, we remain committed to its being referred to in Article 6.
This is the mandate we have given our representatives.
As far as Parliament is concerned, the phase we are about to enter is the outcome of a long struggle, one we undertook as early as 1975 and which has been continually highlighted through our resolutions, our Spinelli draft treaties, our draft European constitutions.
When we come to vote, I would hope that we shall be able to have the maximum number of Members in the House in order to give you the maximum support, Madam President, when you proclaim the Charter.
Mrs President, the Charter includes a number of welcome points.
The right to good administration, which Mrs Malmström also talked about, is one of the most important advances of all.
That right does not exist in other international documents, and it is absent from the constitutions of many Member States.
Access to a more open administration is one of the most practical improvements the Charter can offer our EU citizens.
The Charter also opens the way to minority rights because Article 22 says that the European Union must respect cultural, religious and linguistic diversity.
Such respect, combined with a ban on discrimination, creates a basis for securing the position of minorities in the future.
The method of working has been a success.
It has been so successful that, in his speech last Friday, the Finnish Prime Minister singled out the method as a way of coming up with ideas in anticipation of a future EU constitution.
This is something I consider to be important.
It is also important, however, that the EU should subscribe to the Conventions on Human Rights. The two belong together.
Finally, I am delighted to note that children too are mentioned.
I hope that this provides a basis for Commissioner Vitorino to take measures to ensure that the EU can make a contribution before this autumn's summit on the position of children.
I am also very proud to see that a representative of my parliamentary group in my own country, Gunnar Jansson, played a very important role when this Charter was drawn up.
I believe he has contributed to the clarity to which Mrs Berès referred in this Chamber.
The Charter is clear and concise and could be a model for many other constitutions.
I want to add my congratulations and thanks to Mr Méndez de Vigo and all those who worked on it.
I not only thank them but envy them.
An extraordinarily fine job has been done.
We have a text here which states concisely what Europe is about and states what rights we uphold as citizens of this great Union.
I am sad, indeed, to see the ranks of British Conservatives have lined up against the idea of making the institutions of the Union answerable to breaches of the rights of the citizens of the Union.
It is a sad thing that the party of Churchill and Maxwell Fyfe should have come to this point that, when we at last try to ensure that the institutions of the Union are not the tyrants of Brussels but persons subject under Article 51 to the obligations binding on all institutions of the Union, the British Conservatives say "no".
I am not sure yet, because I have not heard from them, how far Mr Blair's hounds will be let free from the leash to speak out for this brilliant project.
I hope that Mr Martin, who did such a fine job in helping at this convention, will be persuading his colleagues that the time has come not merely to adopt this Charter but to make it part of our law, binding upon those who govern us, not merely a proclamation but a binding part of the Treaties.
Perhaps the best we can do for the time being is get it mentioned in Article 6 but that will only be for starters.
It is not a perfect document; we all know it is not a perfect document.
Nothing in life is perfect and it is also not perfect to declare rights but not uphold them effectively.
I do note that there are articles about the presumption of innocence and about the principles of legality and the right to defence.
As I said last night - I will say it again today - there are too many failings in that respect all across this Union and sometimes, in our eagerness to develop judicial and police cooperation, we neglect the importance of ensuring that the innocent are not made the passive victims, the collateral damage of a war against crime.
Let us not merely adopt these rights but make them real in the hearts and in the experience of our citizens and let us make them part of our law.
Madam President, I do not underestimate the very important ambition of establishing a community of humanitarian values or the fact that civil, political and social rights have been placed on a par for the first time in this type of text.
I also see the method instigated with the Convention as innovatory with regard to ensuring greater information and greater transparency.
Despite all that, however, there is a major source of dissatisfaction.
There is a significant gap between our initial ambitions and what we have actually achieved.
It is, of course, possible to highlight this or that article, to welcome the genuine progress made in affirming a number of new rights relating to developments in our societies or in reaffirming crucial fundamental rights.
It is also possible to pinpoint articles which fall a long way short of the rights acknowledged elsewhere, particular in social issues.
We should not be drawing up lists of advantages and disadvantages, Madam President.
Last time, you spoke of the glass being half full or half empty.
We should instead be looking at the Charter in terms of its overall approach and ambition and asking ourselves whether it actually lives up to the demands and expectations of the citizens of Europe and whether it provides them with adequate support to confront the challenges of the age.
Well, I have read the text. I have read it again and again.
It is, indeed, a text that is easy to read.
I have heard the arguments put forward by my fellow Members, but I still think that the Charter contains some ambiguous provisions that are very dangerous and that the common denominator is still the lowest possible one.
Finally, in spite of the innovative approach of the Convention method, which I have mentioned, things must be stated openly.
The citizens of Europe have continued to be insufficiently informed and if they had been consulted, as should have been necessary, in order to contribute towards drawing up the Charter, then its content would almost certainly have been rather different.
It is never too late to set things right.
Nice should not be just the finish line for the Charter, an opportunity to express self-satisfaction. It would be wise to also make it the starting point for the widest possible "citizens' debate" regarding this so important issue of fundamental rights.
Finally, precisely because the decision on the Charter is a major political decision, I am with those Members of the House that think it premature for Parliament to declare its opinion today.
Madam President, the draft European Parliament resolution on the Charter of Fundamental Rights has the same ambiguous foundation as the work of the body itself.
In both cases, we are asked to approve texts without being told what they are to be used for. Are we talking about a political declaration?
Is it an addendum to the Treaty? Is it the first part of a future constitution?
We will find out at a later date, after Nice, no doubt. This uncertainty introduces a fundamental flaw into the consent given at the close of work within that body or in today' s votes.
Some Members are trying to set their minds at rest thinking that a vote in favour does not commit us to anything, given that the Charter is going to remain nothing more than a formal declaration.
A mistake!
Because, at the very least, if this text is in fact adopted as it stands - and that is a crucial condition, to which I shall return - it will become binding, by virtue of the Court of Justice case law.
There are two aspects in this process which I find fascinating.
Firstly, the Charter adopted in this way would take us directly to the sort of standardised Europe which the overwhelming majority of Members of this House claim to abhor and which the voters do not want at all.
Tomorrow, however, the Court of Justice is going to be able to interpret these rights in detail and the Court' s case law is going to be applied in a standardised fashion throughout Europe, depriving each national democracy of its right of autonomous decision.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will not be able to claim that you did not know this.
The second fascinating aspect is that we are today discussing human rights and citizens' rights, a subject over which the European Union has no form of jurisdiction.
Yet the Cologne Council, with the assistance of the Convention, doing a magnificent job of creating confusion, managed ultimately to make every one forget that this area lay within the jurisdiction of the national parliaments, and that jurisdiction is being gradually spirited out of the hands of these parliaments.
On the basis of the current treaties, today' s debate actually has no legitimacy whatsoever, and that is a poor omen for a Europe which claims to wish to ensure that fundamental rights are respected.
I therefore think, and I am addressing my remarks to the Council Presidency in particular at this point, that if the governments meeting in Nice adopt the Charter as a political declaration, they should preface it with some introductory note to the effect that defining and developing citizens' rights lies, in all instances, within the exclusive remit of the national parliaments.
Madam President, this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I feel that the present Charter is nothing but a poor imitation in that it raises legal concerns such as the point in Article 2, Paragraph 2, where it states "No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed" .
But how can anybody be executed if they have not first been condemned to death? The phrase is excessive, superfluous, absurd!
Then it mentions religious rites without establishing any restrictions.
For example, the Italian Constitution lays down the limits of public morality and the European Convention lays down the limit of the rights of others and public safety.
Are satanic or orgiastic rights permitted or not? This is not clear at all.
Then, on the political side, it fails to recognise the right of the self-determination of peoples, and there is no clear definition protecting the natural family.
Finally, I feel that, while this procedure which prevents not only any parliament but also the European Parliament amending the Charter, and even prevents it amending the draft decision, on the one hand proclaims the citizens' rights, on the other, it denies the rights of the citizens' representatives, of the Members of this Parliament, who are not even allowed to table an amendment.
This is why, since I am in favour of the Europe of the citizens, I do not feel fully represented by this Charter, and I will therefore not vote for the motion.
Madam President, in answer to the question as to whether Parliament should participate in the official promulgation of the Charter I would simply say 'no' .
It really is a waste of time!
Whose interests are we serving by declaring this Charter? Not the citizens of the Member States, because most of the rights in the Charter are worded so vaguely that any interested party, the institutions included, can interpret it at will.
What is more, no provision whatsoever has been made for an effective system of legal protection, should the Charter become legally binding, God forbid.
In addition, the document is packed with rights that do nothing to curb the powers of the institutions.
As such, the Charter is directed primarily at the Member States, but they have incorporated all the necessary fundamental rights in their own constitutions. Each Member State is a signatory to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which provides an additional guarantee for the effective protection of fundamental rights.
So what can a Charter of this kind bring to the situation, apart from serious confusion? According to Joseph Weiler, the citizens of Europe will soon be suffering from an excess of fundamental rights protection rather than any shortfall in this area.
I could not agree with him more.
Having too much in the way of fundamental rights protection is just as damaging as having too little.
The Charter has turned into a prestige project.
As an institution, the European Parliament has the interests of the citizens at heart, and should therefore have no truck with it.
Madam President, I have championed the Charter of Fundamental Rights from the outset.
And I have always advocated its being legally binding.
However, that does not change the fact that I am unable to join in the predominantly euphoric appraisal of the convention as an instrument of future constitutional development.
Apart from the substantive problems already raised today, merely having national parliamentarians on board is no substitute for an in-depth debate of constitutional questions by the national parliaments.
I would also advise the House not to misconstrue the instrument of the convention as a deus ex machina of the European Union.
Just one last word to the President-in-Office: as a former member of a supreme court, I can assure you that if the jurisdiction of various supreme courts overlaps, this will quickly give rise to diverging case law and diverging case law is only to be expected.
We must not, under any circumstances, lose sight of this problem.
Mr President, today in the vote at 12 noon we will conclude a process that began in 1984 when this Parliament approved the draft Treaty on European Union, which already contained the request for a declaration of rights, a process that we continued in 1989 with the De Gucht Resolution.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights has always been a priority for this Parliament, because it has wanted the principles and values that unite Europeans to be reflected in a text.
This is particularly important at the present time, when we are beginning an ambitious process of enlargement.
The second reason is because the Charter of Fundamental Rights is an essential factor in the move towards political union.
Thirdly, Mr President, and surely this is the most important reason, because a Charter of Fundamental Rights is going to increase the feeling of belonging to the European Union.
For all these reasons, my group, as its chairman, Mr Poettering, has already said, is going to vote in favour of this Charter.
Moreover, this Charter reflects the opinion of Parliament, as we set it out in our Duff/Voggenhuber Resolution on 16 March.
The Charter has been drawn up with the participation of a delegation from Parliament and, as chairman of this delegation, I would like to thank all its members for their work, their commitment and their support over all these months.
It is true, as one of the speakers said, that we have to make an effort to inform people about the Charter, an effort that can begin in this Parliament.
When listening to the speeches from some members, one realises that this information is more necessary than ever.
Some people should read the Charter before they speak to prevent them from saying the things that they say.
Mr President, allow me to say a few words on the effects of the Charter.
I think that there is a false debate.
I think that the reference to Article 6 is logical and I think that the President-in-Office of the Council should take note of what Mr Barón Crespo said.
The chairman of the group to which the majority of governments in the European Union belong said quite clearly that Parliament - or in any event, his group - will not approve the reform of the Treaty of Nice if no reference is made in Article 6.
The Charter is going to have effects, whether or not it is in the Treaty.
In fact; it has already had effects.
If you read the report of the three wise men on the situation in Austria, you will see that the Charter is mentioned on three occasions.
This report was drawn up between 29 August and 6 September, when the Charter had still not been drafted.
Therefore, the Charter, whether or not it is included in the Treaties, whether or not it is in Article 6(2), will bind the Commission - and I would like to highlight the important work done by Commissioner Vitorino in drawing up the Charter - will bind Parliament and will bind the Council, and it will have effects, Mr President, whether some Members of this House like it or not.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a Charter for Europe and for the citizens of the European Union is a fine thing.
I say this as a federalist, well aware that that the principle we shall have to refer to one day will be the principle of subsidiarity in order to attain greater freedom for the peoples of Europe, including my own people, the people of the Val d'Aosta, which has always encouraged federalism in Italy and in Europe.
It must of course be pointed out, however, that the Charter is only the starting point and not the finishing line.
I would like to stress how important it is to refer to the national minorities and cultural and linguistic differences in the chapter on equality.
In order to provide an international guarantee for the linguistic minorities, we have to make progress in terms of a genuine European constitution.
Mr President, the content of the Charter could have been better.
The issue of its legal status could have been resolved now rather than in the dim and distant future.
What prevented the achievement of both results is, Minister, the same thing that will prevent the achievement of a satisfactory outcome in terms of democracy and effectiveness at Nice: the obligation to reach unanimity on every single part of the text.
Those who are more backward and more reactionary have, once again, triumphed over those who are fighting to see fundamental rights applied to all people and for an effective, legally binding response to new issues such as the risks of science, the rights of the new citizens, the right to a healthy environment etc.
Consequently, we are once again left disappointed and dissatisfied.
We will, of course, vote for the Charter, but we will do so with the feeling that it will not succeed in arousing that enthusiasm and that sense of participation by the citizens of Europe which are so necessary and, as usual, it will be the governments - and some governments more than others - who will have to bear the historical responsibility.
Mr President, it would be hard to deny that, for some years now, the social policies of the States of the Union have been conditioned by economic and monetary policies, by budgetary concerns, by the Stability Pacts and by the flexible and precarious nature of employment, in homage to the great god of the marketplace and to competition, his inseparable companion.
The divide between those who have much and those who have little or nothing is growing ever wider, while, precisely in the name of these sacred principles, those who have much are exacting increasing sacrifices from those who have little or nothing.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights, with its constant referral to national laws and practices for the actual implementation of social rights, is liable to render irreversible this subordination, this unfair system of the wealthy few, this model of a liberal free trade society which is rising like a phoenix from the ashes of European social democratic ideals with striking speed.
This Charter on social rights is a step backwards compared to the laws of many of the Member States and, thanks precisely to the referrals to these laws, it will serve as a tool to alter them or limit their effectiveness.
Civil and political rights are empty, formal rights if they are merely listed in a document and not based on actual social rights.
It appears that the century which is coming to a close, with all its battles to emancipate the under-privileged social classes, has been in vain and has taught us nothing.
We cannot pretend that this Charter is an initial step towards a Union based on increasing solidarity.
Rather, it is the bare minimum in terms of future social policies.
I only hope that it will not be incorporated into the Treaties and that movements calling for a fairer Europe, in which there is a genuine increase in solidarity, will flourish in civil society, in the trade unions and in political organisations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, with the Charter of Fundamental Rights, Parliament is marking a new, important stage in the European Union's journey, towards a more united and - I hope - fairer and more honest Europe.
I am going to vote for this Charter, not because I am sure that it will be correctly and effectively implemented but because it would be impossible to disagree with the principles behind it.
Some serious incongruity does remain, arising from concerns which I share: I refer to those Community countries in which the right to life is and remains solely and exclusively a statement of principle, where human life is extinguished indiscriminately as early as conception; I refer to the European consumers, upon whom the Charter confers a large number of new, important rights, yet who are being fed meat from the remnants of mad cows, and this is an example of that capitalism which grows fat on the back of the poor; I refer to those factory workers who have the right to a stable job, yet who have no future because, in the name of globalisation, their jobs have been moved to wherever it is least expensive to run the firm; I refer to students and university teachers and the right to education, and I refer to the crumbling, obsolete structures of many countries which renounce this duty; I refer, ladies and gentlemen, to the freedom of expression and the right to express an opinion, and I refer to the many people who are crammed into the European prisons solely because they think differently to others; I refer to the right to housing and to an acceptable quality of life; I refer to the young people who, in the name of often mafia-like interests, are deprived even of the right to love.
I am concerned by all these and other matters, but I will vote for the Charter, even if it is utopian, for we are all called upon to bring about a revolution and the revolution will not take place if the seed is not planted, the seed of sensible ideals.
Mr President, in the recommendation which is the subject of this debate Parliament approves the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
It then goes on to instruct its President and the Presidents of the Council and the Commission to proclaim the Charter of Nice.
But this Charter is clearly aimed at furthering the ever-closer union of the peoples of Europe.
According to the co-rapporteur, Mr Duff, this is a major step towards improving the quality of European integration.
As a representative of my people in England, and not the European peoples, I can only say that I have no mandate to further European integration - and if it truly represents its people neither does the UK government.
In fact the bulk of the people in the United Kingdom are wholly opposed to further integration.
Therefore, as a democrat, so am I. I dissociate myself from this initiative and will vote against.
Mr President, the Charter gives visible form to existing rights, at the same time as historical steps are being taken on behalf of Europe.
Ultimately, the debate is about whether the EU is to be founded upon normal constitutional principles.
The Charter fills a gap in EC law and strengthens the individual' s protection against infringements by European police, by authorities which combat fraud and by authorities which regulate competition.
In spite of the fact that, in practice, we now already impose penalties, there are no normal opportunities for investigating infringements of human rights, and such opportunities are necessary in a society governed by law.
Every individual - woman, man, employee and entrepreneur - must be protected against possible political and administrative injustices perpetrated by the EU.
There are no respectable arguments for opposing this particular requirement.
Anyone who unlawfully suffers prejudice due to the European Union' s legal remedies must be entitled to have the matter legally examined.
If it is going to be possible to develop a competitive, enlarged Europe, the latter must be founded upon constitutional principles.
Broad political support is required for the individual' s right to have injustices legally investigated.
How, otherwise, will a legal area of 500 million people be able to operate?
The Charter constitutes a balanced and solid basis for enlargement.
There are many misunderstandings concerning its material content and consequences.
These misunderstandings must be cleared up.
For those who feel the need to do so, I recommend reading the explanations in Convention 49 and also studying that case law from both courts which is bound up with the Treaty.
The Charter will influence the development of law in the EU and, gradually, it will probably acquire more and more support.
I believe the court should particularly allow itself to be influenced by those paragraphs concerning freedom of trade, entrepreneurship and copyright.
Finally, I want to say a warm thank-you to our skilled delegation leader, Mr Méndez de Vigo.
Mr President, the proposal and adoption of the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights should meet with very broad consensus.
In my opinion, the only people who can justify voting against the adoption of the Charter are those who are against the European Union, as some of those who have spoken today clearly are.
I do not understand how anyone can reject the Charter because it does not cover everything which they would like it to.
The hopes of no one person here have been fully realised because the Charter cannot mirror the views of one section of the population alone, it must be the common point of reference of all those who feel that they are European citizens, in respect for the differences of others and peaceful co-existence.
Could we have done better? I think so, if only because not everything I proposed was accepted.
In this case, would it be better not to do anything? Should we reject the Charter?
Certainly not! I repeat, this Charter turns the Union into a Community of rights; it is a step forwards in the process of constitutionalisation of the Union and it is the first international document to contain, according to the principle of the indivisibility of fundamental rights, civil and political rights, economic and social rights and new rights, all together.
I fail to understand those who say that it is useless and that it is made up of nothing but generalisations and fine words.
To assert this is to disregard the history of the institutions: 'liberty, equality, fraternity' are also fine words, but they formed the basis of many of Europe's legal systems.
It is on the basis of formulae such as these articles that, in time, our law-courts guaranteed our fundamental rights.
Let us leave it to cynical reactionaries to maintain that only strength or money count for anything and that anything else is merely words.
No, the words which embody our principles, our values and our fundamental rights are powerful if we embrace them and apply them to our civil lifestyles.
Therefore, let us adopt the Charter and take the words it contains seriously, let us prevent them being diluted, undervalued or ignored.
We must take our rights seriously if we want governments to respect them and legal systems to guarantee them.
Mr President, I have long been among the sceptics.
Parts of the Charter are to be welcomed, but others are a source of misgivings on the grounds of principle.
What, for me, was the deciding factor was an appeal from Europe' s fastest growing progressive democratic movement, the French Attaque, which characterises the Charter as an instrument de régression sociale or tool of social regression.
Attaque notes that the Charter involves a step backwards in relation to the Member States' , the UN' s, the Council of Europe' s and the ILO' s rules already in force.
Attaque also notes that it ignores trade union rights and that, in actual fact, it is about establishing the free movement of capital.
When Europe' s fastest growing progressive democratic movement, which has its roots in France, home to the first democratic revolution, and which cannot be suspected of anything resembling Scandinavian-style Euroscepticism, is so adamant about rejecting the draft Charter, it is impossible for me to vote in favour of it.
Mr President, I can continue where Mr Gahrton left off.
I think there is a problem in maintaining that social rights must be indivisible and universal and then, at one and the same time in the section headed 'Solidarity' , referring to national legislation and practice.
In this way, it is precisely what is universal and indivisible in these areas that is weakened.
It is that part of the content I have problems with. However, I also have problems with the structure we are in the process of setting up.
If we really want to reinforce human rights at European level, we ought instead to employ our energy on strengthening the work of the Council of Europe and on having the EU ratify the European Convention on Human Rights and the corresponding conventions on cultural and social rights, instead of slowly developing a system to compete with the Council of Europe, as we are now in the process of doing.
Indeed, the Council of Europe represents the whole of Europe, or all European States.
We have only fifteen of them - as yet.
Finally, there is the problem of wanting to establish a constitution without democratic backing.
That will not get the voting numbers up at the next elections to the European Parliament.
Mr President, the Charter that is now on the table for our approval is a project we can be proud of.
For the first time since the European Union was established we have here the basis of a constitution, a constitution for the supranational structure that is the European Union.
It is a sound document in our view, and we feel it does justice to our standards and values as Christian Democrats.
It articulates to good effect the right to human dignity and integrity of the person.
The same applies to respect for the family and family life, and the way in which the rights of children, the elderly and the disabled are formulated.
In this way, the Charter provides additional protection for the most vulnerable members of Europe' s society, and that is to be welcomed.
The Charter also strikes the right balance.
In addition to the social rights, which are well articulated, the text also cites the right to have the freedom to conduct a business and to choose an occupation.
It therefore strikes the right balance between those rights that are particularly dear to the hearts of the trade unions, and the rights that are more likely to be asserted by employers organisations and small and medium-sized organisations.
My third observation concerns the rights of citizens from third countries.
Here too we have articles that protect citizens against discrimination, for example on the labour market.
That was another of our group' s aspirations.
The pièce de résistance of the Charter is Article 21, the big anti-discrimination article.
This prohibits discrimination in sixteen areas.
I regard it as the jewel in the crown of this Charter.
This article will prove much needed, considering the way things are going and given the amount of discrimination, racism and xenophobia at large in our Member States.
Mr President, it was a great honour to be able to work with my colleagues in the European Parliament and from the national parliaments on drawing up this Charter.
We would like to thank Roman Herzog and Iñigo Méndez de Vigo for steering the convention to such outstanding effect and we sincerely hope that the Charter will be endorsed in Nice with the signature of our President Nicole Fontaine.
Above all, let us hope that our European citizens will frequently turn to this Charter when their rights come under fire.
It is intended to be for their benefit, and we hope they will take this on board with gratitude.
Mr President, on 6 December I am going to attend a demonstration in Nice called by the European trade union movements and the NGOs.
Sixty thousand people are expected from the ETUC organisations alone.
This rally is not a demonstration against the Charter.
There appear to be people from among these circles who are under this impression and who would probably be inclined to, but they have completely missed the point.
It is a demonstration for a social and democratic Europe of the citizens.
The Charter is part and parcel of the shift in this direction, and of the dynamics at work for a strong and social Europe.
As you know, the social and economic fundamental rights are particularly dear to my heart.
The EU Charter must be firmly rooted in the Council of Europe' s Social Charter as well as the ECHR.
Shall I tell you what struck me last week when Prodi and Verheugen presented the progress report on enlargement? It was the little table at the back concerning the ratification of fundamental rights conventions.
If you compare it with a table of the current Member States, they appear to score lower than the candidate countries, at least when it comes to the Council of Europe' s revised Social Charter.
I must say I find that extremely embarrassing.
The new Charter will have legal force, even if it is not yet binding.
The Court of Justice made this crystal-clear at its last assembly on 2 October.
However, the institutions that are about to commit the solemn act of signing up to the Charter must not just leave it to the lawyers to deal with.
For a start, they must incorporate an amendment to Article 6 of the EU Treaty.
They must set a course for the articles of the Charter to be included, in a binding manner, in the Treaty, and there is a need for supervisory procedures, reporting obligations, independent experts and complaints procedures.
The Council of Europe, along with the Court of Human Rights, has a wealth of experience of such forms of supervision, and we can build on these.
All in all, we must get the message across that Nice will not be the end of the road for the Charter, but only the beginning.
Fundamental Rights, the heart of Europe: the rallying cry of the ETUC and the NGO contingents will remain highly topical in the coming months.
That is what we will take to the streets of Nice for.
Mr President, national constitutions either fail to incorporate social fundamental rights, individual freedom rights and environmental protection or do so to an unsatisfactory extent.
Some proponents of a European constitution or a Charter, by way of an interim step in this direction, see this as an opportunity to make up lost ground in one fell swoop.
There are other proponents of a European constitution who see things differently.
They want a propaganda document, the main aim of which will be to describe the current European Union and justify the future development of a single European superstate, and from which no new rights whatsoever ensue from the point of view of EU citizens.
I support the first aim and reject the second.
The draft Charter of Fundamental Rights within the European Union is a vague compromise between these two conflicting views, with the second taking precedence over the first.
For some rights it will even mean a retrograde step.
That is why this document is not yet ready for decision-making.
In the short term, it is far more important for the European Union to give its commitment to the already existing European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of the Council of Europe.
In the meantime, the draft Charter can serve as an interesting subject for debate amongst the parties, trade unions, environmental organisations, churches and the many other groupings in the Member States and the candidate states of the Union, regarding future cooperation between European nations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, power requires control.
The European institutions have power and, for the sake of our citizens, we must set limits on this power.
It is high time that we plugged the gaps in the protection of European fundamental rights.
The debate as to whether the Union should not simply accede to the European Convention on Human Rights just as the Member States do has gone on for years.
I, for one, am delighted that, for a variety of reasons, the Union has not acceded to the Convention on Human Rights
As it stands, the Charter which we shall be voting for today - I hope by a large majority -, will clearly afford us better protection of our fundamental rights which is more in keeping with the times than acceding to the European Convention on Human Rights would have done.
Just under one-third of the Charter contains the same guarantees as the Convention on Human Rights.
The rest, for the most part, ups the ante when it comes to citizens' political rights, economic and social rights and, last but not least, the issues of tomorrow - environmental, health and consumer protection.
The Charter must become European law if it really is to do its job.
The step which we are taking today is just one step on the long road ahead.
The solemn proclamation must pave the way for binding European constitutional law.
Does today's step mark the start of a movement which will end in a European superstate? No, it does not.
The demand for fundamental Union rights, combined with the request that the treaties be constitutionalised, does not mean that a United States of Europe lies at the end of the road.
But we do need a constitutional text for Europe as quickly as possible, a text for our citizens containing clear, comprehensible statements on Europe, telling them what rights they have, where the Union has taken over responsibility, what powers the Member States should exercise, including in the future, and how Europe intends to do its job, with every guarantee that the rule of law will protect their human rights.
We must keep working on this.
We must move in this direction.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, first of all I wish to associate myself with the congratulations quite rightly heaped on all those who participated in the Convention, especially Mr Méndez de Vigo and my colleague, Mrs Pervenche Berès. I should also like to emphasise, with considerable pride, the active and committed participation of Commissioner António Vitorino.
I wish to focus on three points that have already been raised by other Members here this morning.
First of all, there is the commendable way in which this Convention functioned.
This is merit that should be retained and encouraged for future projects, specifically future revisions of the European Union Treaties.
Secondly, I wish to focus on the binding nature of this Charter.
The European public would not understand if Europe were to move faster in making improvements to the market and the currency but more slowly in effectively establishing its rights of citizenship and its basic rights.
Thirdly, I wish to emphasise, as has already been done, that the Nice conclusions and, specifically, the revision of the Treaty, should include this reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights in Article 6(2).
The pomp and circumstance surrounding the signing and the proclamation of the Charter are not enough; these rights must be effectively put into practice.
That is why, once again, we urge and insist that the Presidency should be able to exercise the role of teacher towards its peers in the Council.
Lastly, I have two proposals: firstly, the signing and ratification of this Charter of Fundamental Rights by their parliaments should be part of existing Community rules for candidate countries. Secondly, the Nice conclusions should establish a precise timetable for future presidencies to be able to move from this Charter to the Treaty, and I would suggest that the deadline should be set to coincide with ratification by all parliaments of the new revision of the Treaties that will result from Nice.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Charter which we are preparing to vote upon today with Europeanist conviction is certainly a step forward towards the political integration of Europe, in which we firmly believe.
However, as has been pointed out many times, the text does not have the legal status of a treaty.
This is why we need to take further steps forward.
The final objective is to establish a European Constitution, a fundamental law for a Union, which cannot stop at simply having a single currency but must become a political entity with genuinely common foreign and defence policies, an interlocutor on a par with the United States which will be able to take up the great challenge of globalisation in which the countries of the continent of Asia are also set to become protagonists in the coming years, starting with China.
Therefore, Mr President, the Charter only represents the start of what is going to be a difficult, time-consuming task, but a task which, at the same time, excites enthusiasm.
The text which we are going to adopt today, parts of which, being the result of a compromise - as President Poettering said - fail to satisfy us, must be instrumental in triggering a large-scale debate on the future and on the future European Constitution.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights must confer binding legal status upon the rights and establish the levels of responsibility of the Union, the States and the regions, and it must bear the people's seal of approval.
This is why it has to be debated and endorsed by this and the national parliaments.
In the conviction that the Europe of the future must increasingly safeguard individual rights and the rights of the family and that it must prevent the return of new forms of racism and anti-Semitism, the Members of Forza Italia and the European People's Party will vote for the recommendation accompanying the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Mr President, first and foremost, I want to say thank you to the participants in the Convention, both from Parliament and from the Commission and the Council.
I think some very skilful work has been done.
The Charter we are to approve today both strengthens and gives visible shape to the common fundamental rights and values our community is to be based upon.
It is a Charter which, to a large degree, accords the human being a central place.
I want to highlight a couple of important points.
Firstly, I think it is good to have made it clear that the Convention on Human Rights and the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg are to be respected.
It is important that these two bodies should not lose their authority.
At the same time, I think it is important to state that the common values must be established with reference to the different cultures and traditions we have in Europe.
I believe it is important to keep this in mind if we are to obtain the necessary backing for the Charter from Europe' s citizens.
I also want to highlight a particularly positive feature of the Charter, namely its concern with the issue of establishing very far-reaching provisions to rule out discrimination against minorities.
That is something which I think is very much to be welcomed.
I also think it is good to have been far-sighted enough to have included new areas of protection in the picture.
I am thinking both of the environment and of biotechnology.
I believe that adopting the Charter in Nice will be a powerful signal to certain applicant countries of the seriousness with which the EU regards respect for the fundamental freedoms.
Finally, I must say that I am very pleased that the Charter is being adopted in Nice as a political document.
I believe it will be a good basis for the dialogue we must have with the people of Europe about Europe' s future development.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, one thing is clear: if one of the groups here in the House or one of our more than 100 political groupings had written the Charter, it would have be very different on a great many points. But that is all by the by.
What we needed was a European consensus and that is what we have got.
This is the most modern fundamental rights document in the world today and it really does deserve our special appreciation.
As far as I can see, the convention has extracted everything worth its weight in fundamental rights from over 31 legal sources.
It has clarified the bedrock of values of the European Union and I call on all those who have spoken and who, for example miss the lack of political responsibility in the Charter - heaven forbid - to appreciate the fact that, as stated in the preamble, this text has been formulated in an awareness of the spiritual, religious and moral heritage of the Union.
Allow me to make one further point.
Unfortunately, it proved impossible to secure sufficient coverage in the Charter for the rights of minorities.
The European Parliament delegation wanted to take account of ethnic minorities but failed to persuade the convention as a whole.
In my view this is a failing and it should have been mentioned.
And a word to our critics.
It is standard practice for journalists to criticise politicians.
That is all well and good and that is how it should be, but I should like to turn the tables for once and give our critics, i.e. the journalists, a taste of their own medicine: you have failed right along the line.
We have been working on this text of fundamental rights publicly and transparently for nine months and the whole of the European press has failed to tell our citizens anything about it.
Mr President, I shall not dwell at length on the impact of this Charter at the various levels. Within Europe, the European citizen knows that Europe is now not just an economic entity; within the candidate countries, no country will be able to aspire to join the European Union without ensuring that its national legal system adheres to the principles of the Charter; and finally, on the world scale, this is the message sent out by Europe.
There are, however, other effects, particularly on our internal legal system.
I shall, of course, add my voice to those of the men and women wishing to include a reference to the Charter in Article 6, and to actually incorporate the Charter itself into the Treaties at a later date.
Indeed, how is it possible for a single moment to think that Parliament' s adopting the Charter will not have any legal implications? Traditionally, the national parliaments are the guardians of public freedoms, yet here we have a rather unusual method because in parliamentary law, there is no legislation by proclamation.
We shall shortly be officially adopting this Charter as formally as possible and, I would hope, with the largest possible majority, and there will be any number of courts to draw conclusions from it even if it is not incorporated into the Treaties in the immediate future.
There is yet another effect it will have, and this is on our own working methods.
Let me give you an example of this.
My fellow members on the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms, and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs did me the honour of appointing me rapporteur on the issue of respect for human rights within the Europe Union.
I have, of course, to take the 'pre-' and 'post-' Charter situations into account.
Once adopted by this House, the Charter of Fundamental Rights will serve as a benchmark for my report and, as far as I can with my own personal and intellectual resources and those of the people assisting me, I shall carry out an evaluation, right by right and country by country, of the extent to which the Charter is respected in the fifteen countries of the European Union.
We, the Members of the European Parliament, are accountable for the regulations that we adopt with a philosophy which must not be that of zero infringement of human rights.
We need not be naively optimistic, we shall surely find instances of human rights violations, but collectively we have a duty to ensure that it is possible to bring a legal case against such infringements, that there is a suitable court to prosecute such crimes, and a public administrative body to investigate them and prevent them recurring.
This, in any case, will be the your rapporteur' s working philosophy, ladies and gentlemen, once we have adopted, as we are shortly about to do, the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Mr President, the first problem, as I see it, with the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, no matter how noble its intention, is the internal inconsistency of a document which, while referring only to European Union institutions, strays into areas of jurisdiction where the EU has no current competence - with potentially undesirable consequences.
For instance, in the area of criminal law the abrogation of the right to extradite fugitives to countries which allow the death penalty could mean that Europe becomes a sanctuary for American murderers.
The enshrining of the double jeopardy principle would be embarrassing to the British government who have now decided they will abolish it.
Secondly, anti-discrimination provisions are ludicrously wide-ranging and open to abuse.
These rights open the door for demands for homosexual marriage and adoption, and language discrimination clauses might prohibit the refusal to employ EU doctors in the United Kingdom who do not speak English.
They might even threaten the Thatcherite trade union reforms in the United Kingdom of the eighties.
Most worrying is the Orwellian possibility under Article 52 of the suspension of fundamental rights when the interests of the European Union are at stake.
We have already seen the case of Bernard Connolly whose critical book regarding the Commission was suppressed by the Court of First Instance.
Are we to see a situation come about in which only politically correct statements about the EU will be tolerated in future? This Charter is not only potentially damaging but unnecessary given the fact that we already have the European Convention on Human Rights which was supported in 1950 by the great Conservative, Winston Churchill, and Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We have witnessed the hypocrisy in this House when the left-wing were not prepared to support my motion on the Italian royal family's rights being restored.
We already see the effects of judicial activism in Britain taking powers from our national parliament.
We could now see unelected judges extending this considerably in Europe.
All this will do is to establish a competitive jurisdiction between the European Court of Justice and the Court of Human Rights and play into the hands, or should I say the pockets, of already overpaid litigation lawyers.
Lastly, it will fuel claims that the EU is hell-bent on proclaiming a federal constitution with a charter as its first chapter.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I could not possibly improve upon Antonio Vitorino' s speech, so I shall briefly speak to stress the quality of the debate in this House, which has no parallel except for the debate held within the Convention, and I should like to congratulate those Members of the European Parliament who participated in it, especially Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mrs Pervenche Berès.
Listening to this debate, I am pleased to see what appears to be a clear majority in Parliament in favour of this text, even if there a number of you still have to be won over.
Some find the text excessively binding, even too advanced in relation to a number of reforms which it would be liable to dismantle, while others find it devoid of content or not sufficiently binding.
I deduce from this that, perhaps, the text is an accurate reflection of this Europe of ours, which progresses by means of compromises between diverse concepts, diverse nations, diverse traditions, and here I think Galileo' s expression might be used, "Eppure si muove" (and still it moves).
I shall refer only to some of the salient points of this debate.
Firstly, Mr Dupuis, quite frankly I do not believe that this is an empty text.
I believe, on the contrary, as Mr Vitorino has said, that it reflects a shared vision of our European Union, giving it, as Mr Barón Crespo said, fundamental legitimacy and, personally, I am convinced that it is a major contribution towards meeting the expectations of our fellow citizens.
They need meaning, they need values, and they need recognition of their rights.
With all its imperfections and limitations, this text meets these needs.
This is also true of the candidate countries, whose citizens are also hungry for rights and values.
The Charter therefore, I am convinced, properly belongs to the political acquis communautaire.
You naturally raised the subject of the legal status of the Charter in the course of the debate.
Let me assure you, as President-in-Office of the Council, that I have clearly receive your message, especially the message expressed very forcefully by Mr Barón Crespo.
Let me repeat, however, that if we had from the outset insisted that the Charter must be binding, then the text would have been disappointing.
It was a clear-cut choice between either a substantial text which was liable not to be binding in the short term or a text which perhaps had some chance of being binding in the short term but which would have lost any content.
I further note that there appears to be no clear majority within the European Council in favour of granting it a binding status.
We are building a major political edifice, and every brick in the wall counts.
I therefore believe that a reasonable approach would be to consolidate the foundation we have in this Charter and then to make ready for the next level.
I have no doubt that it will come about in due course.
The Commissioner has just mentioned the spirit in which the Charter was drawn up, with a view to its being made, one day, a binding text.
Just like him, I am convinced, firstly, that it will have singular effects in the immediate short term and, secondly, that it will shortly become binding.
As to the method adopted, my feeling is that compromise has not served to lessen the power of the text and that it has, on the contrary, made it possible to bring out a certain unity and even unanimity regarding the values and rights we share.
I think the criticism that the citizens of Europe were not sufficiently involved in the process to be unfair in part.
Never in the history of European construction has the principle of transparency been applied with such determination and with such success.
Let me remind you that ETUC, for example, representing 60 million employees in Europe, was consulted, that several hundred NGOs were consulted, that citizens had the opportunity to simply submit their contributions and that some of their proposals were adopted by the Convention.
In conclusion I turn to the main aspect, the content of the Charter, in order to say that, in my view, the Charter' s content is truly significant - i.e. meaningful for the citizens - and ambitious.
The Convention chose to include fundamental rights inspired by various texts of the Council of Europe, the Treaties and Member State constitutions.
The human rights included in the Charter are powerful ones.
I am thinking, for example, of the inviolability of human dignity, the right to life with the prohibition of the death penalty.
These are modern propositions.
The ethical issues and freedom-related issues connected to the new technologies and science are dealt with.
I am thinking, for example, of the right to the integrity of the person, the protection of personal data, and, as Mrs Berès pointed out, it is my conviction that social rights must not be denigrated.
The Charter affirms the social values of European construction.
It guarantees that the European Union respects and shall respect the implementation of these values within States. That will help to increase citizens' confidence in the European Union.
The Charter, furthermore, pays special attention to some of the more vulnerable categories of the population, such as the disabled, children or the aged.
It also most forcefully affirms the equality of men and women in all areas, as well as the principle of non-discrimination.
These rights are, I feel, expressed with unusual strength, and this is something on which the European Union can pride itself.
Finally, the Charter adopts the founding principles of the European Union, highlighting the fundamental freedoms of the Community whilst emphasising the value of European citizenship.
Here too, in specifying a right to good administration, the Charter means to be ambitious.
In the course of this debate, I have heard a number of telling phrases: the Charter has been described as a bone thrown to keep the dog that is the European Parliament quiet, or indeed as a flimsy attempt to conceal the fights relinquished by a French Presidency that is on its last legs, seen especially in of the way in which it conducted the IGC.
I shall not take the trouble to answer these harsh assessments, which I do not necessarily share and which, indeed, I hope to see proved wrong when we adopt the Nice Treaty.
The point I wanted to make in mentioning all this is that Nice is a vital stage.
In particular I think we need to tie in Article 6, and also Article 7, and I am hopeful that we shall arrive at reforms on both these points.
Nice is a vital stage, but it is not a finish line. It is, instead, a phase in the construction of Europe, and I believe that the Charter will be one of the major components of this phase, and I am delighted to see Parliament' s options on this score taking shape.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Turkey
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports:
A5-0297/2000 by Mr Morillon on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the 1999 Regular Report from the Commission [COM(1999) 513 - C5-0036/2000 - 2000/2014(COS)] on Turkey's progress towards accession;
A5-0303/2000 by Mr Seppänen on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the proposal for a Council Decision [COM(2000) 479 - C5-0454/2000 - 2000/0197(CNS)] amending Decision 2000/24/EC so as to establish an EIB special action programme in support of the consolidation and intensification of the EC-Turkey customs union.
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(FR) Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, on 13 December 1999, the Helsinki European Council decided to grant Turkey the status of applicant country for accession to the European Union and to set up an accession partnership and a single financial framework in order to help Turkey' s application progress in accordance with the Copenhagen criteria.
This is the spirit in which the preparatory work for this report was carried out within the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and I should like, at this point, to thank all my fellow members for the contribution they made towards finalising this report, which, like the Commission, concludes that Turkey does not currently fulfil the Copenhagen criteria.
We must applaud the remarkable efforts Turkey has made, since the Helsinki decision, in devising a programme to develop its judicial framework in order to meet EU demands in a more satisfactory manner, with particular regard to human rights.
One example is the report drawn up under the responsibility of Mr Demirok, Secretary of the Turkish Supreme Coordination Council for Human Rights, who has proposed a very wide-ranging raft of reforms to the Constitution.
However, we must also note and acknowledge that an awareness of the importance of these reforms has caused considerable upheavals in the various political parties and in Turkish public opinion.
Turkish citizens are realising that Turkey' s accession to the EU will require not only the 'painless' revision of their institutions but also a partial renunciation of sovereignty, to which they remain jealously attached, and a radical change in habits and outlook.
This is why Parliament has proposed the setting up of a Europe-Turkey Forum involving expert representatives of the Turkish community and appointed MEPs who would consider in depth the issues involved.
Turkish accession is too important a matter for the future of the Union and of Turkey itself for a decision to be taken in smoke-filled back rooms or behind closed doors.
Lengthy debates will be needed, both in the European Parliament and in the national parliaments, and that is why it is generally accepted that the road will be long and difficult.
The establishment of the Forum proposed by the European Parliament should allow us to overcome the initial obstacles encountered on this road.
The European Parliament will have to tell its Turkish partners very clearly in the debates in that Forum that they need have no fear of any European desire to interfere in their internal affairs and that, on the contrary, it is proposing a contract, the precise details of which are being thrashed out, in the accession partnership, Commissioner, and, of course, in the Convention on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It will be up to the Turks to accept it or refuse it.
As matters stand, it is also up to the European Parliament to tell the Turkish people that there are, today, at least three conditions for accession which Turkey must meet.
Firstly, the need for identity must be respected: this need has been demonstrated particularly clearly in Europe by its citizens who wish to preserve their origins in the face of the ineluctable progress of globalisation.
Aware that its diversity constitutes its wealth, Europe is determined to recognise this need for identity, and that is why it insists on the rights and also the obligations of minorities.
It is in this spirit that it is prepared to help Turkey find a solution to the Kurdish problem in particular.
The second problem, which will clearly have to be solved as soon as possible, concerns Cyprus.
It is hard to understand today how it can remain divided by a wall, while in many other places, notably in Berlin and Sarajevo, and even more recently, between North and South Korea, such walls have crumbled over the past decade.
Finally, since the fight against terrorism may now be deemed to be over, the influence of the Turkish army in the drawing up of political decisions should be gradually reduced.
I spoke of the three preconditions.
In 1987, Parliament acknowledged the Armenian genocide.
There are some people who would like to make the Turkish Government' s acknowledgement of this genocide a further condition for accession. This would run counter to the spirit and the letter of the process defined in Copenhagen for all candidate countries.
I have suffered too much, alongside all the communities of Bosnia-Herzegovina, from the tragic consequences of the systematic resurrection of former atrocities to believe that a peaceful and stable future can be built except by ceasing to stir up the embers of past resentments.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, of the two reports before us today, the one by Mr Morillon is more political in nature, whereas mine is more technical.
The Council is proposing that Turkey be added to that group of countries that can be granted loans from the European Investment Bank, so that these credits may be backed by a European Union guarantee.
The Council is proposing with unanimity that Turkey should join the group of recipients of guarantees, and Parliament' s Committee on Budgets is also unanimous in this.
Unanimity does not mean that we are all satisfied with the state of Turkish democracy or that country' s treatment of human rights; we are not.
As Turkey has submitted its application for membership of the European Union, it will certainly be very aware of the criteria for membership as laid down at Copenhagen.
As the European Union agreed at Helsinki that Turkey should join that group of countries with which membership would be negotiated, the human rights situation in Turkey is not just that country's internal affair.
Through its application for membership, Turkey has given the Union the right to adopt a position on its internal affairs.
There has been a huge temptation to impose conditions on loans to Turkey, with reference to issues of democracy, but there has been no opportunity, technically speaking, to do so in this report.
The issue here is just to supplement the earlier Council Decision 2000/2024/EC.
If we had wanted to impose conditions they would have had to be imposed last year when the earlier decision was adopted.
We did not know then that Turkey would be selected to join the group of recipients of guarantees, as a consequence of positive developments.
Besides, conditions could not have been imposed exclusively by a decision of the European Parliament.
I would like to focus attention on how little Parliament is able to influence the work of the European Investment Bank and how badly the European Union monitors that work in general.
The Guarantee Fund in the EU budget, which guarantees the loans to Turkey, comes under the category of compulsory expenditure, and the Council, as a result, did not need to take account of Parliament's positions.
In the European Parliament we would in general like to impose conditions on European Investment Bank loans as far as environmental considerations and the social protection of the citizens of non-member countries are concerned, and, in the case of Turkey, this also concerns a respect for human rights.
But the present legal basis for the Guarantee Fund does not make that possible.
Better cooperation is needed between the institutions of the EU. The problems associated with the monitoring and examination of the management of the European Investment Bank also stem from the fact that there are only representatives of the Member States in its governing body, and some of them want to prevent the Commission and the European Parliament from taking a stand on bank matters.
As a result, the European Investment Bank is one of the last havens in the world of banking. The ripples of social debate do not reach its shores.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to something the Commission already knows and, for that reason, I would like to draw the attention of the Council in particular to it. I refer to the fact that the 2001 Guarantee Fund is not large enough to meet all the commitments made.
That may also be true for 2002.
If we are to keep to these commitments, we must amend the residual reserve for guarantees.
That is the only matter on which Parliament can give its legal opinion.
The Council is granting more loans and offering guarantees than there are legal preconditions for.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Seppänen, on his report, which is so useful in the general context of the debate on Turkey' s accession to the Union.
Here we are talking about establishing a special programme to consolidate the Customs Union, extending the mandate of the European Investment Bank so that it can cover new loans to Turkey in the 2000-2004 period amounting to EUR 450 million.
The report was unanimously adopted by the Committee on Budgets.
Given that this special programme of EUR 450 million, of which the European Union is guaranteeing 65%, specifies that at a provisioning rate of 9 % only EUR 26 million will have to be transferred from the reserve to the Guarantee Fund, there will only be a budgetary impact in the event of a default, because in that case the guarantee would have to be called in.
With these loans from the European Investment Bank we are supporting investment in Turkish industry and in its infrastructures in terms of transport, energy and telecommunications.
All this is in order to increase Turkey' s competitiveness within the Customs Union and thus reduce the negative impact that the dismantling of trade barriers is having on the Turkish economy.
The fundamental issue regarding Turkey is not, therefore, considered in the Committee on Budgets, and this must be very clear.
The fundamental issue of Turkey' s accession continues to be a political issue and it is the responsibility of other parliamentary committees.
Customs Union and the loans from the European Investment Bank have been operating with Turkey for many years.
The aim now is to give the boost that is needed towards future accession.
I repeat that the only serious problems that we could have would occur if the macro-financial aid promised reached the maximum amount established, as in this hypothesis the residual reserve for guarantees would be reduced to practically zero for 2001 and 2002.
Let us remember that it is in the interests of the European Union to fund nuclear safety projects in third countries in the framework of Euratom.
A zero level of residual reserve could lead to definite problems in funding those investments.
The general situation that the report sets out is part of a situation of Parliament/Council negotiation for the 2001 budget, in which the European Parliament wishes to extend its rights to information and consultation in the case of external commitments by the Union that have a financial impact.
This is the position that the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats advocates and that Parliament adopted at first reading.
Let us hope that it leads to tripartite dialogue and conciliation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, may I start, on behalf of my group, by warmly congratulating the two rapporteurs on their reports.
A report on Turkey is no easy task because there are always so many contradictory developments.
There have been positive developments, such as the new minister for Europe, such as the new special secretariat-general for European affairs attached to the prime minister's office, but there have also been regrettable shortcomings as far as Turkey's preparations for accession are concerned.
Nothing has been done about abolishing the death penalty, and very little has been done to set minority and human rights on a solid legal basis, even if a few UN conventions have been signed.
It does not augur well that a person who offers no unconditional guarantee that more will be done about human rights has been elected as chairman of the human rights committee in parliament.
The same goes for the Kurdish question.
There have been a few vaguely positive signs here.
Reports in the Kurdish language may be allowed on television and radio and a certain degree of recognition of the Kurdish culture could follow.
On the other hand, a number of mayors have been arrested and the Hadep party have trouble in Kurdish areas in the south-east.
Surely these contradictions alone illustrate the struggle within Turkey itself between progressive forces and reactionary forces, which simply have no interest in moving towards Europe. And that is a pity.
The Commissioner is quite right.
We must and we should do everything we can to support and back the positive, progressive forces within Turkey.
I should like here, quite openly, to touch on the so-called Armenian question.
At a meeting which I, unfortunately, was unable to attend, my group decided by a majority to support Amendment No 25.
As far as the content is concerned, there is little to say against this motion. Unfortunately, however, a number of people are using the motions on Armenia and the massacre of the Armenians as a pretext to question, in a roundabout way, the very notion of Turkey's joining the European Union.
I think that is wrong and I think it is dangerous. Nonetheless, I would urge Turkey to take this issue seriously, whatever the outcome of the vote.
We all have to come to terms with our own history and with the actions of our antecedent countries and states openly and honestly.
I think that Turkey should take a fresh approach and that it and Armenia should commission their historians to analyse what happened in order to uncover, explain, take a clear stand on and clearly admit what happened.
I think that would be the best way out of this tricky situation, because it is far easier to undertake this sort of analysis yourself than it is to impose it from outside.
In this sense I should like to revert to what the Commissioner said. He said that it was in our strategic interest to anchor Turkey solidly and permanently in the European community of values - I think those were his words.
That is what is at stake here and Turkey too should acknowledge it.
Even if Parliament is critical and even if Parliament is perhaps more critical than the Council and the Commission can ever be, we trust that Turkey will choose this way forward and will become a member of the European Union just as soon as it has put its house in order.
Mr President, the European Liberal Group strongly welcomes the Morillon report which we find skilful, frank and forceful.
We will resist the efforts, some of them fairly spurious, to upset the balance the report successfully achieves, especially those amendments which seek to set up the European Parliament as a tribunal upon the past.
Turkey is clearly the place for a debate on the past as part of its general self-examination concerning fundamental rights.
Such a self-appraisal will amount to a veritable cultural revolution.
We should be satisfied that process is proven to have started.
The Morillon report and the accession to partnership commit the European Union to Turkey's candidature.
It is now up to Turkey to show that it is committed to membership.
The European Parliament will play its part in fostering relations with political parties, the NGOs and the press, as well as developing its tricky and sometimes fraught relationship with the Grand National Assembly.
European Liberals are certainly prepared to play their part in bringing closer the prospect of Turkish membership and the spreading of prosperity, stability and security to all European peoples.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Morillon I must congratulate you on your report. Unfortunately, however, you have not, and therefore we have not, managed to solve all the problems.
In the first place, it is clear that the strategy of accepting Turkey' s candidature was the right one.
It was the correct strategy, as the Commissioner commented, because the debate which has taken place in Turkey today in order for it to become a member of the European Union is tantamount to a debate in favour of radical reform of the political situation in the country.
We are at an important historic phase for Turkey, which has made the transition from the phase of debate to the phase of practical action, i.e. the implementation of reforms of the Constitution and the law, such as, for instance, an amnesty for prisoners of conscience.
This is the phase which Turkey is now facing.
We must be perfectly clear, we cannot move on to any further stages without Turkey making the transition from debate to practical action.
That is exactly what the Morillon report states.
Then, there is the Cyprus situation.
On this subject we have to tell Turkey that its refusal to accept the rulings of the European Court of Justice in Strasbourg cannot be tolerated.
There have been a number of rulings against Turkey.
Turkey must without further ado fall in line with the rulings of the European Court of Justice as a token of acceptance of international relations as defined by us, and not just by them.
We now come to the basic problem.
A variety of strategies are considered within the European Parliament and within the Member States.
Some are in favour of the candidature and the accession of Turkey, and want this candidature to involve a radical reform of Turkish society.
Then there are those that are opposed to the country' s accession, who take advantage of the essential debate on Turkish policy and reforms to create a great division between Turkey and Europe.
Turkish society obviously perceives this contradictory attitude.
That is why the final problem to be resolved, the Armenian genocide, is of such importance.
There is no one here, least of all myself, who would deny the fact that genocide was perpetrated against the Armenians during the last period of the Ottoman Empire.
It is a clear fact, just as it is clear that Turkey, like any civilised society, should get used to the idea of facing up to its past, however terrible it may have been.
This is one of the indispensable conditions in terms of ideology and civilisation needed for any country to join Europe.
There is another matter, and if we have to vote on it today, the majority of my Group will vote in favour of this resolution.
I am not certain, personally, that this is a useful move, because I wish to take the debate to Turkey.
In other words, I propose that the European Parliament should itself hold a debate on the Armenian genocide, the majority will follow on and we shall continue the debate in Turkey.
Colleagues, please sit down and stop talking!
We are still in the debate.
(Interjection from Mr Ferber: Tell them in German) President.
There is no point, Mr Ferber, because some people have taken their headphones off and, like you, speak Bavarian rather than German!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the explanatory statement of General Morillon' s report states that the decision on Turkey' s accession is too important for the future of the Union and of Turkey itself to be concluded in smoke-filled back rooms or behind closed doors.
I fully agree with this statement, but I would say that the decision by the Helsinki European Council to grant Turkey applicant country status was not preceded by the essential debate - both public and parliamentary - that General Morillon' s explanatory statement also calls for.
Turkey' s candidature has always divided European opinion and I find it surprising that there is still an ongoing debate on the reasons for changing the traditional position of reserve with which this candidature has always been viewed. There is, of course, the geographical problem.
Have we forgotten that only a small part of Turkish territory falls within the European continent?
What new doctrine on the European area allows us to frame this new concept of external borders that would result from including Turkey in the European Union? Europe' s borders are now peaceful but, if Turkey does one day join the European Union, Europe will have a new border; not just an extra-European border, but a border of war and conflict.
One only needs to think of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia and Georgia.
Furthermore, how can we resolve the conflict with the common democratic model that Europeans accept and wish to see, which results from the countless restrictions we see in Turkey on people exercising their fundamental rights, of which the maintenance of the death penalty is merely the worst example? And what of the Kurdish question, which arises from the fact that the Turkish State does not respect the basic rights of cultural identity of the millions of Kurds that live there?
Lastly I do not feel that questions have been asked concerning the size of the actual population represented by Turkey' s candidacy and the difficulties that this will cause, not only in terms of the Union' s geography but especially in terms of the already delicate balance between large, medium-sized and small Member States.
I shall conclude as I began: the idea and purpose of my speech have been to draw attention to the fact that changes on this scale should not take place without a democratic, ongoing debate, otherwise the deficit in citizenship and participation that many Europeans feel with regard to the model of European construction will continue to grow.
Mr President, the Morillon report in itself provides a perfect illustration of the basic contradictions in the European attitude to Turkey.
This motion for a resolution contains anything and everything, with, in the first place, a great many illusions and a great many ritualistic recitals, which are, fortunately, immediately overtaken by reality, and this Turkish reality obviously does not match European illusions or dreams.
The suggestion that the Europeans are going to bring about, I quote, "a radical change in habits and outlook" in the Turks is both extremely naive and extremely self-important.
What arrogance on the part of the European Union to seek to foist its own values, institutional principles and political culture on the Turkish nation!
The twentieth century has, however, proved the extent to which forms of constructivism and state control, cut off from reality, and ideologies of all sort could lead to disaster.
Let us therefore leave the Turkish nation their right to self-determination, their right to decide their own future, their right to be different, and their right to retain values of civilisation that are patently not our own.
So the only real preamble which we should all be bound by is a recital taking into consideration the obvious facts of the situation.
Turkey is not a European country, its culture is not European, and its values are not European.
Turkey must not, therefore, join the European Union.
That is no obstacle, moreover, to Europe' s developing economic, diplomatic, political and peaceful relations with a free and independent Turkey.
Such a clear stance would, among other things, at least have the merit of no longer blowing hot and cold with regard to Turkish Governments, no longer telling them, "yes but later" , "yes but on certain conditions" , "yes but this or that" .
Europe' s contradictions and prevarications only lead to incomprehension and humiliation.
We cannot play about with the dignity of nations.
We shall therefore vote against this report, just as we have voted against all the reports seeking to make Turkey a member of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report troubles me.
The problems are so serious as to preclude Turkey's accession in the foreseeable future.
I should like to table three reservations: Turkey has not even started to resolve the problem of the minorities living there.
Secondly, there is no end in sight to the dispute with Greece over the island of Cyprus, which still smoulders on.
And thirdly, Turkey's criminal justice system, based as it still is on the death penalty and police torture, is unworthy of a western democracy.
Horrific pictures of serious maltreatment of detainees by the police were recently broadcast on German television.
In other words, Turkey still has a long and difficult way to go and it obviously needs our help along the way.
We aim to help Turkey become a free democratic country in which the rule of law prevails.
The Council should consider whether granting Turkey candidate status has done more harm than good here.
It will have done more harm if Turkey's expectations of accession have been raised and cannot be met because of the political situation.
The Islamic forces will certainly know how to make political capital out of any such disappointment.
VOTE
Madam President, I feel it my duty to stress that we are being called upon to regulate, through the Paciotti report and other directives and regulations which will be tabled before us, a great power: the power of information technology.
Data collection is not a painless operation and different types of database exist: confidential databases, CID databases, services databases - in short, there is an enormous amount of power.
I would stress that in entrusting this huge power of monitoring the European databases to a monocratic body - notwithstanding the total respect and confidence which we have in the Guarantor - we would appear to have momentarily shifted our focus from the central concern of the human person which, in respect of the power of information technology, must be provided with a reference framework of guaranteed rights and freedoms.
In my opinion, the proposal to establish a collegiate body would have responded better to this need.
However, when we come to discuss the power of information in the future, we must realise that more widespread control, and the consequent provision of a greater guarantee for the human person, is a necessity.
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(FR) The Paciotti report is a first step towards attempting to make up the backlog which has accumulated as regards defending privacy and personal data.
To this extent, the creation of an "independent supervisory body" is a positive move.
However, none of the key questions of safeguarding personal rights and freedoms has been dealt with in a truly explicit fashion and the text, which is often technically confusing, lends itself to divergent interpretations.
What is more, it does not go so far as the French legislation on computer technology and freedoms.
Other proposals should have been included. It should be made mandatory to officially declare the existence of all databases; there must be a ban on merging databases (particularly in the fields of private life, health, social situations, etc.) in order to prevent gigantic databases being created; and, also, employees working with personal data must be given the means to withstand pressure from their employers by the establishment of a code of ethics and a conscience clause of the type that journalists have.
Finally, citizens must be given the means to protect their own privacy themselves by allowing a free choice of encryption in data transmission.
In this context, encryption techniques must be guaranteed by independent bodies.
These few key provisions must be taken into consideration if we are to truly protect personal data.
We therefore abstained.
.
I welcome this report and will vote for it.
European citizens are worried about the protection of their privacy, and those worries are not unjustified.
Every day, enormous amounts of personal data are captured, sorted and processed.
Such is the case in connection with credit card payments, tracing the movement of mobile telephones, storing telephone connections, surfing on the internet, processing other data taken, for instance, from forms previously filled in etc.
On the EU level, the threat of possible abuse of personal data is being countered by two directives, namely Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data and Directive 97/66/EC concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector.
Neither of them applies to the EU institutions.
And yet there is a need for a set of data protection rules, for the institutions not only process internal data (such as data relating to their autonomous activities, budget and staff reports) but also data collected from citizens in the performance of EU duties (e.g. granting subsidies, investigating competition cases, public tenders, statistical research and studies, data relating to the preparation and implementation of legislation).
This report should go some way to filling this vacuum.
Duff/Voggenhuber recommendation (A5-0325/2000)
Madam President, how could the Pensioners' Party not vote for the Charter of Fundamental Rights? It is the first document of such importance in the whole world to contain an article - Article 25 - entitled 'The rights of the elderly', which reads: "the Union recognises and respects the rights of the elderly to lead a life of dignity and independence and to participate in social and cultural life" .
At last, an important association of States, the most important association in existence, the European Union, and the most important body, the only body directly elected by the people - the European Parliament - recognises that the elderly as such have rights.
This is why I was extremely happy to vote for this Charter.
Arlette Laguiller, Armonia Bordes and Chantal Cauquil voted against the Charter, being aware that charters afford no real protection for workers in this class-ridden society where the only thing that counts is the balance of power.
This Charter refuses to include such basic rights as the right to a decent retirement pension, the right to a minimum wage, to decent housing, to health care.
What is more, exemptions are possible to the article prohibiting children' s work before they have finished their compulsory schooling. This is a serious state of affairs when it is known that, in a number of European countries, an intolerable number of children are working, being exploited and being denied the right to a proper education.
The text does not offer any additional protection and gives governments and the wealthy classes further arms to attack in these areas.
The right to strike, for example, is acknowledged only with the proviso that it is limited "in accordance with national laws and practices" .
The Charter therefore has no binding force upon countries whose legislation does not go quite so far as the minimum contained in the Charter.
In countries whose legislation is more favourable to workers, however, the Charter may be cited to oppose the national legislation in courts of law.
Instead of pulling human rights and social rights up to a higher level, the Charter will enable actions that will effectively reduce them to the lowest common denominator.
Madam President, I did not take part in the vote on the Charter of Fundamental Rights because I do not agree with the procedure: Parliament has been unable to propose any amendments either to the text of the Charter or even to the text of the recommendation.
We had no choice but to take them or leave them.
I do not consider this procedure to be correct and so I judged it appropriate not to take part in the vote.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is a far cry from the Declaration of Human Rights of the UN, the European Convention on Human Rights and the constitutions of many Member States of the European Union.
The claim that this is the first time reference has been made to social rights does not stand up: there are references to social rights in international conventions such as the international labour conventions.
For example, we note that:
Article 15 states that "everyone has the right to engage in work" but does not recognise the right to a paid job,
Article 16 recognises the freedom to conduct a business, the first international text to do so,
Article 28 allows employers to take anti-strike action (lock out) and sideline workers organisations in negotiations with employers,
Article 3 leaves abundant scope for every form of genetic experimentation,
Article 14 recognises the right to education but interprets it simply as being a right to free attendance applicable only to compulsory education.
The Charter has diminished, not extended people's rights, for obvious reasons.
Those who dreamed up this Charter are banking on using this weighty document to pursue their aggressive policy against everything the working classes have fought, sacrificed and died for over the past 150 years.
If the Charter is adopted at the forthcoming summit in Nice, either by incorporating it into the Treaties or simply by proclamation, it will be a step backwards.
There is no doubt that its ultimate purpose is as a precursor to an impending European Constitution which, in turn, will be the jewel in the crown of the EU's attempt to become a federation in which the institutional arrangements are such that decisions are taken by the minority of strong members but apply to everyone, the main purpose being to serve the interests of private monopolies in the European Union, at the expense of the workers and the people in general.
We are well aware of the fact that the Charter may represent a step forward on certain issues for some countries.
However, for most countries and in comparison with international provisions already in force, it represents a step backwards.
Our aim must be to progress, not to go from bad to worse.
The MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against this text, which is both useless and dangerous.
.
(FR) The adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights would be justified if we already had a European State based on a constitution adopted by universal suffrage, but that is not the case today.
The rights contained in the Charter are already included in national constitutions and safeguarded by national parliaments close to the nations of Europe and their cultures.
Moreover, the Charter is a compromise based on the lowest common denominator, which will be detrimental to social advantages acquired by law in a good number of European Member States.
The right to housing, for example, has been reduced to the right to "housing assistance" , while the right to work has been replaced by the "right of access to placement services" .
No restriction has been placed upon freedom of expression, implying that it would not henceforth be possible to bring prosecutions against criminal statements, such as incitement to racial hatred and violence.
Finally, the Charter does not provide any articles devoted to the duties which are, nonetheless, the counterpart of rights.
We do not, therefore, see any reason to adopt a text of this sort today, unless it is to conceal the automatic failure of the Intergovernmental Conference and the European Council in Nice.
.
(FR) In my speech this morning, I presented the principles justifying my opposition to the Charter. Moreover, the members of the SOS Democracy Intergroup have notified me that they fully endorse these principles.
I should now like to list my reservations concerning a number of specific articles. I previously had occasion to table amendments on these in the course of my work as a member of the Convention.
These reservations may be classed in five main categories:
Articles trampling on State competences.
Article 2(2) provides a typical example, "No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed."
This declaration does not fall within any sort of European jurisdiction.
Its inclusion in the Charter, like the inclusion of many other similar articles, casts doubt on the accuracy of Article 51(2), which states, "This Charter does not establish any new power or task for the Community or the Union, or modify powers and tasks defined by the Treaties."
Of course, if the Charter were to be made binding, then Article 2(2) would also thereby become binding, with far greater power than the European Convention on Human Rights, from which a country is still entitled to opt out.
Articles establishing new obligations without justification.
Several articles go further than the existing law.
Article 19(1), for example, states that "Collective expulsions are prohibited" but does not specify that this ban may be suspended in the event of war or serious internal public order disturbances.
Admittedly, Article 52(2) provides that "Insofar as this Charter contains rights which correspond to rights guaranteed by the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the meaning and scope of those rights shall be the same as those laid down by the said Convention" , but this phrase is far too vague.
We have just heard it stated that collective expulsions are prohibited in all cases.
There is another new obligation, as Article 21 adds further instances of non-discrimination to those already laid down under Article 13 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community.
Article 21(2) goes so far as to prohibit discrimination based on nationality within the scope of application of the Treaty Establishing the European Community and of the Treaty on European Union, which goes beyond any existing text.
As a third example of this, Article 45 states that "Freedom of movement and residence may be granted to nationals of third countries legally resident in the territory of a Member State" , even though the law to this effect, as contemplated by Article 62 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community, is not currently in force, and perhaps never will be if the conditions are not met.
Articles setting unlawful constraints upon still developing situations.
This applies particularly to the economic and social rights listed in Chapter IV of the Charter.
Article 29, for example, states that "Everyone has the right of access to a free placement service" , but this is a statement that refers exclusively to the current circumstances, which may be assessed differently at a later date.
Articles failing to recognise the natural laws of life in society.
Even though the countries of Europe currently find themselves in an alarming demographic position, the Charter deals extremely lightly with the problems of the family.
There is no statement, despite our requests, to the effect that a family is made up of a man and a woman raising their children, and that that is the basic unit of society.
Article 24, on the rights of the child, even fails to say, once again in spite of our requests, that every child has the right to live with his or her parents.
At the same time, the Charter is far too reticent on the existence of national communities and their right to frame their own regulations.
For instance, the new requirement for non-discrimination on grounds of language, found in Articles 21 and 22, contradicts the French Constitution which stipulates that the language of the Republic of France is French.
Articles obfuscating or distorting the Charter.
I have already mentioned Article 51(1) which states, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the Charter in no way modifies powers or tasks defined by the Treaties.
In point of fact, the Charter contains so many contradictions that, some day, someone will have to have the job of unpicking the tangle.
In the same vein, I have mentioned 52(2) which claims that the meaning and scope of the rights in the Charter shall be the same as those in the European Convention on Human Rights.
The fact is that this approximation is very hard to determine, as it is impossible to tell, when reading the Charter, whether one is dealing with an article which is supposed to be complying with the Convention, or an article which is deliberately distancing itself from it.
Finally, let me also mention Article 52(1), which indicates that limitations on rights may be introduced if they "genuinely meet objectives of general interest being pursued by the Union." Were the Charter to become binding, a phrase such as this would put extreme limitations upon the sovereignty of States.
More generally, we regret the fact that the preamble to the Charter did not put the document in perspective by pointing out that the European Union is an association of nations and that citizens have the fundamental right to have the decision they have taken democratically at national level respected.
As I stated in the debate prior to this vote, my hope is that if the governments meeting in Nice wish to adopt this Charter as a political statement, they will preface it with an introductory statement to this effect and pointing out the basic jurisdiction of national parliaments over citizens' rights.
.
SOS Democracy rejects the Charter of Fundamental Rights on three grounds.
First, that it is unnecessary.
Second, that it is undemocratic.
And third, that it is likely to restrict, rather than enhancing, the freedom of Europe's peoples.
We shall offer a brief explanation of these three objections in order.
Ratifying the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms would be one of the most ambitious steps ever taken by the European Union.
Before doing something of such magnitude, we should ask the question: where in Western Europe is the monstrous violation of human rights that this document would address? We are dealing, after all, with 15 modern democracies, not with 15 Rwandas.
Every Member State is already bound by the European Convention on Human Rights, the UN's Universal Declaration and a host of lesser accords.
Why does the EU, as such, need to muscle in on this territory?
No one has yet answered that question.
Indeed, Roman Herzog, president of the drafting convention, has gone out of his way to claim that the Charter will not create any new rights.
If so, it seems strange to enact so great a constitutional revolution for such small purported gain.
Human rights may not be under immediate threat in the EU, but accountable democracy is.
The Charter will involve the European Court of Justice in a number of political decisions, in fields as diverse as employment law, extradition policy, immigration and the family.
To the extent that no one has elected the judges, this represents a diminution of democratic government.
More than this, the Charter will oblige the ECJ to strike down national legislative acts, or even provisions of state constitutions, in several new areas of policy.
Since the ECJ, on the basis of the far more restricted text of the existing European treaties, has already displayed a worrying tendency towards judicial activism, this problem is likely to be especially acute.
Even those who accept the case for a written EU constitution should hesitate as they contemplate some of the Charter's provisions.
Of greatest concern is Article 52, which provides for the rights referred to elsewhere in the document to be set aside where they conflict with the "general interest recognised by the Union".
This reintroduces the concept of "raison d'Etat" which the Council of Europe has spent the last half-century seeking to eradicate.
The right of a government arbitrarily to set aside its own constitution is the defining characteristic of a tyranny.
In Nazi Germany, for example, this provision existed under the so-called "Enabling Act".
Less dramatically, but no less important, the Charter is badly drafted.
Take, for example, Article 21, which prohibits "any discrimination based on any ground such as sex, race, colour, ethnic or social origin, genetic features, language, religion or belief, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth, disability, age or sexual orientation".
Taken literally, this article would mean that a socialist party would not be allowed to discriminate against conservatives who wanted to run as its candidates, or that an opera company would have to offer soprano roles to men.
How such vaguely drafted provisions will be used in the hands of an activist court is anyone's guess.
Human rights are already respected in the EU, and safeguarded by national constitutional provisions according to the different customs of the Member States.
The Charter now provides a mechanism to circumscribe or override these rights, without even pretending to offer any new ones.
It is a proud boast of many Europeans that we are free to do anything which is not expressly prohibited in law.
Yet now it is proposed that we be "given" our rights by European judges.
SOS Democracy rejects the notion that we should depend on the EU to bestow our own freedoms upon us.
In the words of Aldous Huxley: "Liberties are not given: they are taken".
- (SV) Chapter VII (General Provisions), Article 51(2) of the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights states, 'This Charter does not establish any new power or task for the Community or the Union, or modify powers and tasks defined by the Treaties' .
It therefore also lacks any real significance in terms of people' s rights.
The debate on this Charter has been eagerly applauded by EU federalists who wish to see it as the beginning of a constitution for the European Union.
We nonetheless see a great danger in this Charter. It is in danger of undermining the Council of Europe' s work on human rights and of leading to a situation in which human rights are dealt with in different ways in European countries in the future.
We are voting against this Charter because we do not want it at all.
That does not mean that we are opposed to human rights as such.
We believe, however, that these rights can be guaranteed by bodies other than the European Union.
We believe that the draft Charter is a bad product which ought not to be taken any further.
Instead, we urge the EU to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights, together with other conventions concerning social and cultural rights.
.
(FR) The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union adopted today by the European Parliament is a highly significant document.
Admittedly, there are still a number of shortcomings in both form and content.
Admittedly, I personally would have preferred a Charter with a much more sizeable social component!
Admittedly, I would have liked to see it incorporated directly into the European Treaties!
Yet, we must not deny ourselves a good thing, nor must we deny the considerable work accomplished or the significant results arrived at today.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights is a document and a Charter shared by all the citizens of Europe!
What we have to do now is publish it widely, introduce it to everyone and get as many citizens as possible to consider its proposals.
This is the way in which it will gradually pervade, through case law, all our national and European legal systems!
It is an extremely positive outcome both for the French Presidency of the European Union and for the European Parliament.
Tomorrow we shall no doubt have to develop and complete it.
Very quickly we shall have to incorporate it into the Treaties.
Close upon the heels of the Charter, we must initiate work on a European Constitution for a democratic, transparent, efficient Citizens' Europe.
Let me reiterate today, however, that we all have every reason to be proud of the conditions in which we have entered this phase, which is so crucial for Europe.
.
I voted in favour of the Charter and agree that we should not be opposed to the rights enumerated within it.
However, as I have stated before in this House, I am opposed to the Charter being binding.
I and my government see it as a political declaration.
We must ensure that the existing rights flowing from the European Convention on Human Rights, and supported by the decision of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, are not diminished or brought into confusion.
All Member States are signatories and have ratified the ECHR which has built up a considerable body of law and rights and has proven its ability to evolve with society.
Therefore I support the Charter as voted today but I would not support it as a binding text.
- (SV) Chapter VII (General Provisions), Article 51(2) of the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights states, 'This Charter does not establish any new power or task for the Community or the Union, or modify powers and tasks defined by the Treaties' .
It therefore also lacks any real significance in terms of people' s rights.
The debate on this Charter has been eagerly applauded by EU federalists who wish to see it as the beginning of a constitution for the European Union.
I nonetheless see a great danger in this Charter. It is in danger of undermining the Council of Europe' s work on human rights and of leading to a situation in which human rights are dealt with in different ways in European countries in the future.
I am voting against this Charter because I do not want it at all.
That does not mean that I am opposed to human rights as such.
I believe, however, that these rights can be guaranteed by bodies other than the European Union.
I believe that the draft Charter is a bad product which ought not to be taken any further.
.
(FR) I consider that the Charter of Fundamental Rights represents a valuable step forward.
I nonetheless abstained from the final vote, because I feel that some social rights are expressed less clearly than the economic rights.
Both the 'right to work' and the 'right to strike' are handled only indirectly.
Europeans do have the 'right to work' (it would have been surprising if they did not); they have the right to take "collective action" to defend their social interests, "including strike action" .
Why not acknowledge the 'right to strike' directly?
Furthermore, I would have preferred a Charter that did not merely stipulate the 'rights' of citizens but also their 'duties' towards society.
Article 17 very reticently states that "the use of property may be regulated" in the general interest.
There is, however, no mention of social obligations relating to the right to property.
The Charter lists the fundamental freedoms to which my fellow citizens are entitled, but there is no mention of a requirement upon anyone to respect the rights of others.
A society which recognises only rights and not duties becomes selfish.
.
(DE) Without underestimating the importance of fundamental rights to the citizens of the Union, the non-attached members in the European Parliament abstained during the vote for two reasons. First, because problems with the text of the Charter (such as the ban on the reproductive but not the therapeutic cloning of human beings) precluded a vote in favour and, secondly, because the convention as an instrument of future constitutional development would appear to be more than dubious.
However, what worries us most is that the twin-track jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights will give rise to inconsistent case law, resulting in the unequal treatment of citizens in these sensitive areas, in breach of their fundamental rights.
We are also convinced that merely having national parliamentarians on board is no substitute for an in-depth debate of constitutional questions by the national parliaments.
.
One of the great criticisms of the EU in Britain is that it appears to go beyond what was intended when competences were granted to it, both in depth of detail and in scope of application.
We, in the Conservative Party, are looking into ways of ring-fencing competence which will run with the letter and spirit of the Treaties and recognise the position of the Member States at the heart of the European political process.
Enumerating and entrenching the inalienable characteristics of the system which guarantee rights to individuals and define the limits of the political process, across a number of Member States which comprise a single quasi-domestic legal area, offers a fruitful avenue to explore, to try to achieve these desirable ends.
The problem with the Charter of Fundamental Rights is that it is hybrid, neither a legally entrenched system of rights nor a political code of conduct which draws together legal, economic and social rights in a manner, and this leads to confusion and lack of clarity.
.
(FR) The main reason for my voting against adopting the Charter of Fundamental Rights is that I do not wish to be associated with a purely symbolic media stunt designed to send European public opinion a message of identity and hope that is largely built on pretence.
The consensus method adopted by the Convention members has produced, as is generally the case when unanimity is enforced, a minimal Charter characterised by significant omissions and ambiguities.
The original idea behind the Convention was to have a text adopted by consensus which could subsequently be made binding by the fifteen Member State governments when it was incorporated into the Treaties.
In the end it was a fool' s bargain that was struck: the text is actually neither strong nor binding.
The citizens of Europe have scant need of a formal declaration on the fundamental rights they are entitled to because these are recognised elsewhere in international conventions and in national law.
I do not think that an outcome of this kind is going to convince many people of the value of developing the European Union.
Let us move on to other matters. The Charter is an unsuccessful exercise.
Politics is being smothered by too much symbolism and an excessive insistence on unanimity.
If citizens are to feel involved in the European Union, its policies and institutions, then it is up to the Members of Parliament in particular to disclose more of the critical decisions, the contradictions, the divergent interests and projects driving the economic and social operators within the European arena.
Everyday topical events, from maritime transport to animal meal, show us that the markets and economic operators must be much better regulated and controlled and that established short-term profit-making interests must be opposed.
We need better European legislation to improve the quality of life for all and to improve social welfare systems.
This is our priority fight in order to ensure that the affirmation of fundamental rights is put into practice in our political decisions.
.
(FR) The Social Democrats promised us that Europe would cease to be just an economic market, a single currency and a liberalising machine.
Enhanced with a "Charter of Fundamental Rights" , Social Europe would at long last take on a social character.
But nothing of the sort has been achieved.
This Charter represents a social step backwards as regards democracy and freedoms, falling short of the terms of the Treaties currently in force.
Great pressure had to be exerted before the right to join trade unions and the right to strike were at last included.
Except for a few general comments, women have the right to "marry" and "found a family" , while immigrants have the right not to be subjected to "collective expulsion" .
Social rights simply do not feature.
There is no right to work, just the "right to engage in work" ; there is no right to social protection or accommodation, just "the right to social assistance and housing assistance" ; there is no right to a retirement pension or a minimum income; there is no ban on redundancies, just the "right to protection against unjustified dismissal" .
In fact, the fight against social exclusion is relegated to the level of assistance, instead of imposing a requirement for basic rights binding upon employers and states.
Yet, on the other hand, the Charter of course gives the right to property and the freedom to conduct a business more than their due.
For all the above reasons, this Charter must not be incorporated into the Treaties of the European Union, and we cannot accept the text as it is currently worded.
.
(FR) The procedure adopted for framing and adopting the Charter of Fundamental Rights really only leaves the European Parliament with a simple choice: to either accept or reject the current Charter.
Given that only have two options, my decision is unequivocally to vote in favour of the step forward which this Charter represents, however small that step forward may be in terms of the content and scope of the text.
First of all we should take another look at the approach adopted.
While the Convention method is a valuable one, and productive in terms of drawing up a basic text that is seeking a broad compromise, all the same nothing can justify depriving the European Parliament, the physical representatives of the peoples of Europe, of the opportunity to amend and enrich the text.
Yet when a historian looks into the way in which the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen or other similar international declarations were drawn up, he perceives the extent to which parliamentary debate and the amendment process were able to lend inspiration, significance and also ambition to these fundamental texts which are still powerful today.
At this time when debate in the institutions of Europe is being undertaken concomitantly with the Charter being adopted, all those men and women who, like myself, would like a European constitution and consider that this Charter may serve as the bare bones for the preamble to such a constitution should demand that the European Parliament be enabled to vote on the content, as part of its normal parliamentary business, which is basically deliberative.
In connection with this institutional debate, it is essential to incorporate the Charter into the Treaties of the European Union so that the rights that have been declared can be guaranteed for all and the state policies required to implement them can be developed either by the Member States or by the European Union itself, without conflicting with the existing legal texts.
It must be acknowledged that the law of free competition and the single market too often prevails over all other requirements and effectively flouts social rights and fundamental rights.
We have seen too many declarations that were not followed up in practice.
This is therefore the first priority: we must give this Charter real legal force.
Next, the actual content of the Charter is ambiguous and inadequate on some counts.
In the first place, there are discrepancies between the German and French versions which raise major questions about the references to "religious" or "spiritual" values.
Personally, I am convinced that secularism is a liberating factor for the modern world.
I deplore the ambiguity of these terms and also the lack of a clearer reference to secularity.
Secondly, the right to work is not directly stated.
Anyone can see that a provision stating that "every person has the right to work" is really not that ambitious.
The difference between not prohibiting access to work and taking action to make it possible to work is more than just a shade of meaning.
The Charter should have clearly stated the right to work, and indeed the right to housing, which was also expressed in a roundabout way, affording little protection.
The Charter must be improved, and the European Parliament must propose a strategy enabling it to be updated and enriched.
.
I will be voting for this report and wish to record my congratulations to Mr Duff and Mr Voggenhuber on their leadership of Parliament on this vital matter.
I look forward to the Charter of Fundamental Rights being solemnly proclaimed in Nice.
. (NL) I would not wish to deny that there are things in the Charter that I am able to endorse.
The same things are already to be found in the national constitutions, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the European Social Charter.
In fact there is not a great deal in the Charter, despite the pressure brought to bear by the trade union movement, the environmental movement and human rights organisations.
This means that as a document, the Charter is surplus to requirements.
It is a propaganda document that creates the impression that something worthwhile has been achieved, when in reality this is not the case.
In addition, it is confusing from the legal perspective, as a result of which the powers of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg are in competition with those of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
As such, the Charter is no more than an instrument of propaganda designed to show what a good thing it is that we have a European Union and that everyone should think themselves lucky.
It does encroach on the national competences of the Member States but it does nothing for the European citizens.
Unless it is amended in such a way as to shift the emphasis to social fundamental rights and the environment, I will be unable to vote in favour of adopting the Charter.
.
(DE) The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is an important step towards defining the general, common values of the European Union.
Nonetheless, I decided to abstain for the following reasons:
1.
The Charter sets out important fundamental rights.
However, in its present form, it fails to do justice to the demand for social justice, as I understand it, in several important areas.
It does not include the right to work or the right to housing.
Similarly, the social responsibility of ownership has been left out.
It has already been assumed that the Charter might form the basis for a European constitution.
That makes including fundamental social rights even more important.
2.
The Charter is the outcome of the work of a broad-based convention which sat in public.
That is, without doubt, an improvement on how documents of such fundamental importance are usually drafted.
Nonetheless, it does not substantiate the EU's claim to be a union of peoples and their citizens.
If the Charter is to be an expression of the common values of the people of the European Union, those people must be given an opportunity to debate it.
It should not therefore be decided and proclaimed at the Council summit in Nice; on the contrary, the summit should prompt a European debate on the Charter.
That would give us a chance to restore a Europe of the people and of broad civil involvement.
3.
The Charter contains some lofty claims but imposes no concomitant obligation and cannot therefore be enforced by the citizens of Europe.
The citizens' Europe we are striving for must establish such recourse.
For these reasons I abstained from voting during the plenary session of the European Parliament.
.
I voted for the Charter of Fundamental Rights as a declaration of intent.
The basic clauses are not in dispute and should be supported by everyone.
There will be no shift in the balance of power between the EU and Member States.
This Charter is a declaratory document and clarifies the EU position - especially to those seeking to join the enlarged Europe.
We must, however, stand firmly against any campaign for a legally binding Charter that would only create legal uncertainty.
This document is clearly not one suited to become legally binding as it is not a legal text.
. (PT) I abstained in the vote on the Charter of Fundamental Rights because I felt that, before this was adopted or rejected, it was crucial to know what fate it would meet at the Nice European Council.
In future, will its clauses have a merely symbolic value or will they become binding for Community institutions and, consequently, for the European public?
We are very familiar with the position held by the majority in this Parliament.
In this catalogue of rights, the devotees of European federalism see the embryo of a future European Constitution, which the Member States' national constitutions will have to accommodate.
We understand their position when they try to give a qualitatively diverse political meaning to a text on fundamental rights, which is not only vague and all-encompassing, but is also going to be of arguable usefulness in an EU that has no serious shortcomings, either in the legal status of its rights or in the way in which these rights are defended and implemented.
Fortunately the prevailing tendency of national governments seems to indicate the sensible path to take, which is to see the Charter as having power that is merely political rather than binding.
The great political debate on the Charter will therefore take place firstly between national governments and then, eventually, when this Parliament is confronted with their decision.
Meanwhile, as I said at the beginning of this explanation of vote, the only approach I could adopt was to abstain from voting.
- (SV) This text concerning a Charter of Fundamental Rights contains many important wordings central to the principle of human dignity and, as Swedish Christian Democrats, we warmly welcome these.
Since there is a great deal of doubt in Sweden' s local authorities and county councils about the legitimacy and relevance of the Charter' s being made legally binding and about the extent to which the EU is in fact capable of fulfilling all the expectations the EU purports to guarantee, I have chosen to abstain from voting in this vote.
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In the debate in this chamber today, regarding the Charter of Fundamental Human Rights, the Commission representative stated that this Charter was a first step toward a legally binding document.
Speaker after speaker, with a few exceptions, referred to the need for a Europe with constitutional rights.
These statements confirm the concerns expressed within my country that this Charter is intended to be the preamble to a European Constitution.
Recently our Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, clearly stated that the European Charter of Fundamental Human Rights should remain a political, not a legal document.
Members of the Irish government have recently raised questions regarding whether Brussels threatens Irish identity and Mr Ahern, whilst affirming Ireland's EU membership as fundamental to its prosperity and economic success, firmly resisted any rapid movement to a more federal - centralised - Europe, as it would go well beyond what most Europeans currently wish for or are prepared to accept.
In the light of Ireland's national position and in tune with the wishes of my constituents, I must vote against this Charter of Fundamental Human Rights which, despite being a simple political statement at this time is, by all evidence, intended to be the preamble to a European Constitution which will take precedence over the constitution of my country and the will of the Irish people.
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(FR) I voted, most decidedly, against the draft Charter of Fundamental Rights before us.
I did so primarily to denounce the anti-democratic way in which it was produced.
From start to finish, the framing of the Charter gave rise to a series of takeovers by force:
A semantic appropriation, at the outset, regarding the name of the body drafting the Charter.
Established as "a body" by the Cologne Summit, it declared itself a "Convention" , a name with unfortunate connotations of 1793 when the French Revolution degenerated into the Reign of Terror under another "Convention" .
An appropriation of parliamentary authority.
The Court of Justice is going to be able to impose the terms of this text, whose definitive version was finalised by a Praesidium operating in a far from transparent manner, upon the citizens of our countries, even though it will not even have been ratified by our national parliaments, who, nonetheless, have exclusive jurisdiction over human rights issues!
As for the Members of the European Parliament, they were not only refused the right to table amendments to the text of the Charter, but were also forced to vote on the Charter as a whole, which runs counter to the most basic democratic rules.
A takeover instigated against a whole raft of fundamental rights which, worryingly, were discarded from the text.
So, for example, the absolutely basic fundamental right of the child to live with its father and mother, even though such a provision was expressly and insistently requested by a number of "Convention" members, was not adopted.
The basic right to a nation, which was also demanded and which is also fundamental, was also censored.
Any references to the religious heritage of our nations, even though this is explicitly mentioned in the majority of the fundamental texts governing our States, including France, making reference to the Supreme Being, and even though such references were included in the initial text of the Charter, were eliminated following pressure from several sides but particularly, it appears, from the representatives at the highest level of some Member States, in the name of an obscurantism which mistakes the exclusion of any religious reference from the state sector for legitimate secularism.
In the end, the haggling that this type of process inevitably leads to resulted in our weighing the notion of Europeans' "religious heritage" against the promotion of "free enterprise" .
No surprise as to what won the day.
The limitations of the rule of consensus applied in this sort of context may be gauged by observing the Ubuesque and frankly grotesque choices it gives rise to.
Ultimately there is nothing European about the text of the Charter.
As it stands, it could be adopted by just about any country in the whole world.
The lot of processes of this nature is to produce texts which necessarily boil down to the lowest common denominator.
The value of the content of such an exercise, quite apart from its illegitimacy, given that the European Union has no jurisdiction in the field of human rights, cannot clearly be seen since, in Europe, our freedoms are protected remarkably well by the founding texts of our nations and by the European Convention on Human Rights.
The method used, the cuts made and the ambiguity surrounding the very nature of the text, on the other hand, shed a harsh light on the new totalitarian agitators at work at the very heart of the process of European integration.
Marinho Report (A5-0313/2000)
Madam President, Mr Marinho's document is a step towards establishing the future European criminal legal system.
Pensioners are in favour of strengthening criminal law, European law especially, as well as national law, for I am afraid that crimes are no longer committed solely by our citizens but by people of other nationalities as well.
Pensioners and elderly people fall victim to criminal acts more frequently than anyone else - not major crime, of course, of the sort leading to money laundering, which is what we are combating here, but those related petty criminal acts which make life difficult for everybody and the elderly in particular.
.
(FR) Last night we examined four draft texts on combating organised crime which, on the whole, are to be welcomed, even if the reports and amendments from the European Parliament are themselves more questionable.
These texts have two points in common.
Firstly, they are mutually complementary, extending Europol' s competence, setting up a Provisional Judicial Cooperation Unit, improving reciprocal assistance in judicial matters between Member States and defining more clearly the conditions for the fight against money laundering which is the result, or the cause, or in any case a necessary component in a great many very serious crimes.
Next, these texts are all based on initiatives by Member States, coming under either the third pillar of Article 67 of the Treaty Establishing the European Community, where the Commission does not have the monopoly on the right of initiative.
Let me point out in passing that seven of the reports presented during this part-session have been in response to national initiatives, proving that where this system is implemented, it is proving to be very productive.
Moreover, it is developing forms of cooperation that give greater respect to national sovereignty, as is shown by the initiative of the French Republic dealt with in the Roure report, which manages to reconcile mutual assistance in judicial matters and respect for the key interests of the Member States.
We supported these initiatives in general, except where the European Parliament amendments were tending to introduce too much of a federalist bias.
We do, however, deeply regret the fact that a fifth text, the Ceyhun report on the two initiatives by the French Republic seeking to step up controls on illegal immigration was referred back to committee.
The arguments put forward by the European Parliament are completely fallacious.
The fact is, this House wishes to interfere with everything but draws the line at supporting the decisions which nonetheless lie at the heart of the responsibilities of States in order to protect their own peoples.
Fortunately, in this field, the European Parliament still has only a consultative role until the Treaty of Amsterdam is fully implemented, yet it is still finding occasion to abuse this role by putting the brake on reasonable decisions.
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(FR) I have already expressed my views, this year, on the proposal for an amendment of the 1991 directive on money laundering.
The European Parliament had already pinpointed the omissions in this directive, and the Commission recently tabled a proposal taking Parliament' s comments into consideration.
The Council' s common position has not been officially recognised.
The report under discussion today is a direct result of the commitment made at the European Council in Tampere, in October 1999, to combat this scourge of money laundering which amounts to between 2 and 5% of the world' s GDP every year.
The French Presidency made this one of the priorities on its agenda, and has therefore planned a set of legislative measures to create a legal framework broad enough to encompass the crime of money laundering.
We have had proposals, firstly, to extend Europol' s competence to cover money laundering - the Karamanou report - and, secondly, for a raft of measures to improve international cooperation in the field of mutual assistance in criminal matters - the Roure report.
These two reports were put to the vote today, and I voted in favour of them.
The Marinho report now seeks to extend the principle of the mutual recognition of national measures for the identification, tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscation of instrumentalities and the proceeds from crime, established by the Joint Action 98/699/JHA in 1998, to decisions in the pre-court phase, especially those enabling the competent authorities to take rapid action to obtain evidence and seize easily transportable assets.
These proactive measures are absolutely essential in order to combat this phenomenon, which has continually grown and taken on an international dimension.
As Conclusion 51 of the Tampere European Council states, "Money laundering is at the very heart of organised crime.
It should be rooted out wherever it occurs."
I therefore voted in favour of the Marinho report, and in support of the endeavours of the French Presidency.
- (DA) Even if we support the fight against money laundering and can therefore also endorse the need to equip the relevant authorities with the right tools for the job, we cannot vote in favour of Mr Marinho' s report.
Because this report, together with the reports of Mrs Karamanou and Mrs Roure, which we are also voting on today, set the scene for harmonising the Member States' procedures under criminal law for establishing maximum and minimum penalties for money laundering, an indirect step is being taken towards developing a common European legal system with courts, police, judges, judicial system etc, a development we neither can nor wish to support.
In any case, the fight against money laundering takes place on a number of levels and, to start with, we see no need to establish maximum and minimum penalties for this at Community level.
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(DE) Obviously it makes sense and we need to combat money laundering.
However, there are differing interpretations as to how this can be achieved.
If we set minimum penalties in this framework resolution, we shall come up against elementary rule of law problems.
If we set minimum penalties, we shall be contradicting cleverly worked-out national criminal codes.
We need to approximate, not unify our criminal codes.
Under the rule of law and democracy, criminal codes represent very core of national sovereignty and the Member States should therefore be left to set them.
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I welcome this report.
Special action against money laundering was proposed in Tampere in 1999.
The European Council, noting that serious forms of crime increasingly have tax and duty aspects, called upon the Members States to provide full mutual legal assistance in the investigation and prosecution of this type of crime and for the approximation of criminal law and procedures on money laundering.
It was accepted that the principle of mutual recognition should also apply to pre-trial orders, in particular to those which would enable competent authorities quickly to secure evidence and seize assets, which are easily moveable.
Through this initiative the French Presidency proposes the adoption of a framework decision for the approximation of criminal law and procedures on money laundering (e.g. tracing, freezing and confiscating funds).
The adoption of this report and the French initiative will undoubtedly assist in the fight against money laundering.
- (NL) There is often a fine line between business activities and white-collar crime.
The drugs and arms trades, illegal waste dumping, leaving consumers non-plussed with poor quality products, banking secrecy and tax havens undoubtedly contribute to the much championed economic growth.
Yet they clearly run counter to the interests of human beings and the conservation of our environment.
The right to property appears almost to be sacrosanct.
That was the case a century ago, and although there was a crack down, it is now back in full force.
Therefore any move to improve our chances of depriving those who profit from illegal financial practices of their gains, is a step in the right direction.
This subject has also been seized on with a view to enhancing cooperation between European police forces.
It sometimes seems as though this objective takes precedence over the fight against white-collar crime.
In practice, such cooperation could primarily be deployed, once in a while, for purposes other than the fight against money laundering.
This has an adverse effect on the rights of citizens who do not commit such crimes.
Therefore the best solution would be for banks and other enterprises to place their books fully in the public domain, and to develop democratic control over the economy.
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I congratulate my Socialist colleague, Mr Marinho, for his excellent report on strengthening the fight against international money laundering and organised crime.
Crime is one of the greatest concerns of our constituents and many strongly support criminals being put under lock and key.
We must be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime so that from Manchester to Madrid, our citizens are safe and are afforded full protection from criminals throughout Europe.
Money laundering feeds the trade in drug-trafficking.
Existing EU law is clearly not enough to stem the tide of the reported USD 590 billion which is laundered world-wide every year.
We welcome the French Presidency's initiative aimed at improving cooperation between national authorities responsible for tackling money laundering and laying down uniform penalties.
All Member States should treat money laundering as a criminal offence carrying a minimum sentence of four years' imprisonment.
Further measures are being voted on by the European Parliament this week in our efforts to crack down on international crime.
We are looking to extend the remit of Europol - the European Police Cooperation Unit - to cover serious international crime.
We also want to remove legal barriers which prevent the extradition of suspected criminals accused of money laundering or other related offences involving illicit funds.
This will be an important tool in allowing criminals to be tried across Europe.
These reports are crucial if the single market is not to become a free market for criminals.
The last thing we want is that the single market allows criminals to enter the single market unseen by the back door.
These measures drafted by Socialist MEPs are an important step in combating international crime and I urge the House to support these reports.
Karamanou Report (A5-0312/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the Karamanou report, whose objective is also of major importance: the creation of a European Police Office.
However, a question mark has formed in my mind because, the other day, a pensioner, Mrs Lucia Boroni, said to me: 'I was walking down the road when someone ran off with my handbag.
Then I saw a policeman nearby with a badge saying 'European Policeman' on his jacket, and I asked him: "Why aren't you chasing that thief who has stolen my handbag?" And the policeman replied: 'Because of the principle of not interfering in national responsibilities, the principle of subsidiarity.
That thief was Italian: an Italian policeman should have been chasing him.
I am the future European policeman'.'
I hope that this question mark remains nothing more than a question mark! We shall see ...
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Although we will support the report, we, as British Conservatives, have particular reservations regarding certain aspects of the report, as follows: extension of QMV - in respect of Europol the Council will act by a two-thirds majority in accordance with Article VI of the Treaty (Article 1 (1b) - Amendment No 3); centralising Europol's powers - the Court of Justice will have jurisdiction to rule on any dispute or conflict between Member States regarding the interpretation or application of the Convention (Article 1 (1d) - Amendment No 5).
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While welcoming closer cooperation between the Member States' police forces both amongst themselves and through Europol, I share the rapporteur' s concerns about the lack of democratic accountability of Europol.
As money laundering assumes vast proportions throughout the world it is clear that Europol should have the powers to combat it, with a view to devising a European strategy for police and judicial cooperation.
However, it is vital that national parliaments and the European Parliament have access to information on Europol's activities in order to ensure political accountability and that there is a role for the European Court to ensure judicial accountability.
Roure Report (A5-0314/2000)
Madam President, I voted for the Roure report, which is also a document which fights crime by adapting criminal legislation.
However, also in this regard, I have to say that, last Saturday, I was in Curno, the municipality where I live, outside the bank where pensioners go to draw their pensions each month.
I saw an extremely long queue of pensioners and elderly people.
One of them, the last in the line, recognised me and asked me: 'Why is this queue so long?' .
I went to find out and came back to her with the reply: 'They are carrying out checks to make sure that none of the money is dirty, in observance of the new legislation' .
'I don't care,' said the pensioner. 'Clean or dirty, I need my pension money.'
There you are. This is an example of what I hope will not happen when this document is implemented.
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(ES) The parties that I represent in this House, Eusko Alkartasuna and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, fully support the Roure report on improving judicial cooperation in criminal matters, particularly in the area of combating organised crime, the laundering of the proceeds from crime and financial crime.
We also support the future establishment of a convention to help combat organised crime and money laundering, and the various measures proposed in order to achieve those purposes.
The idea of creating an area of freedom, security and justice in Europe is, obviously, an aspiration that we share.
We feel that the strict limitation of the reasons for which the Member States may refuse to provide judicial cooperation solely to "essential interests," thus excluding the notions of sovereignty, public order and national security in force up until now is a step forward, but is still inadequate.
This is mainly because we still find it unacceptable for a State to be able to invoke a "general interest" in order to be able to deny judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
This shows, once again, that the Member States have a long way to go in understanding the meaning of shared sovereignty.
Moreover, I should point out, as a Member representing Basques and Catalans, that there continues to be an emphasis on cooperation between States, without taking into account that in the EU other police forces operate that are not State bodies.
This report and, in general, the area of freedom, safety and justice in Europe, is based on democracy and on the rule of law that should reign in the EU.
Therefore, what most concerns me about the future of legal cooperation in the EU is that currently some States are proposing criminal reforms that are bordering on the violation of human rights.
As you will be aware, the Spanish government has initiated a reform of criminal law to make sentences tougher for certain types of crimes.
Specifically, this special legislation is considering sentences of up to ten years in prison for children of 14 years of age, not to mention other measures.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are convinced that Europe needs to construct the area of freedom, security and justice that we so often cite in our speeches.
We will be the first to support it.
However, I would like to draw your attention to the possible reforms of criminal law that could take place in various Member States such as Spain, for example, with the Partido Popular in power - which is taking advantage of a certain situation - because these reforms are still a concern for the Europe of freedom and democracy.
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I welcome Mrs Roure' s report on another initiative from the French Presidency - this time to step up cooperation in the legal area to ensure that no barriers are put in place to prevent the extradition of suspected criminals accused of money laundering or other related offences involving illicit funds.
The draft convention proposes that banking secrecy may not be used as a reason to refuse a request from another Member State for information on somebody suspected of being involved in financial crime.
In addition, the idea is that, on request, Member States should furnish details of all bank accounts held by suspects.
The aim of the new convention is to oblige the Member States actively to pursue suspicious transactions.
Gebhardt Report (A5-0317/2000)
Madam President, this is a document - which I voted for - which is intended to establish gradually, step by step, a European public prosecution service.
In fact, a provisional cooperation unit is being set up, composed of a representative of the judges or police officers with equivalent competence from each of our 15 Member States.
However, I would have hoped that this body would also have included representatives of the lawyers of each of the 15 States, for I feel that, at a time when we have to establish something new in the legal area, it would be beneficial to consult not only the judges who judge but also the lawyers, who have a great deal of experience in the field.
And I am not saying this merely because my daughter has recently graduated as a fully-fledged lawyer.
- (DA) The Gebhardt report' s undisguised intention to institutionalise judicial cooperation and make it into a supranational affair by setting up Eurojust is based upon a highly problematic premise.
There is not just one, but there are fifteen different legal systems in the EU.
Working these different legal traditions into the EU' s bureaucracies could lead to an élitist and non-transparent system without any form of democratic support.
Nor will such a system be able to solve the problems faced by the Member States.
We are also strongly opposed to the ambition to make the EU into a constitutional State by establishing 'independent legislative, executive and judiciary' bodies 'with counterbalancing powers' .
It is still the Member States, as constitutional States, which must be at the heart of European cooperation.
That is why we are voting against the report.
Langenhagen Report (A5-0310/2000)
Madam President, this is the only report which I voted against.
I voted against this document because I was astounded to find that the explanatory statement of the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen, clearly affirms that the procedures for implementing this programme, which has distributed EUR 665 million, have been irregular.
I regret to say that it informs us that some of the members of the committees responsible for allocating the European funds for research in the sectors of hunting and fisheries also benefited from this research.
I therefore feel that we should be much more careful in carrying out our financial activities in respect of research programmes than we are at present.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.52 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Turkey (continuation)
Mr President, as a member of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, I take a close interest in Turkey's accession prospects.
I should like today to highlight Mr Morillon's call for a European-Turkish discussion forum in the House and for a debate on Turkey's accession prospects in the national parliaments in our Member States.
This is important for Turkey, but it is even more important for the Member States themselves and for our citizens.
Our governments agreed to Turkey's accession prospects in Helsinki.
The people of Turkey were surprised by this decision and many still fail to understand it. This is because Turkey's own people have been offered no forum for discussion, with the result that the issue is being discussed subliminally, in ignorance and without any knowledge of the background to the Helsinki decision.
This is giving rise to an anti-attitude which we cannot afford in the Union, given the large number of Turkish immigrants already living here, and which, given the increase in xenophobia, we must not afford.
My Turkish counterparts in the Turkish Grand National Assembly are also complaining about this deplorable state of affairs in which no-one wants to talk to them openly, no-one from the national governments or parliaments and, to all intents and purposes, no-one from the European institutions.
Of course there are informal discussions, but there are, to all intents and purposes, no official meetings.
One almost gets the impression that there is a sort of gentlemen's agreement to talk about Turkey's accession only behind closed doors. What is everyone afraid of?
Was the Helsinki decision premature? The initial euphoria of the Council and Commission has clearly waned.
Apart from declarations of intent, so far Turkey has made no fundamental progress towards meeting the political criteria.
Consequently, there is even more need now, almost one year on from Helsinki, for Turkey's accession prospects to be debated in our national parliaments and with our citizens.
We owe it both to Turkey and to our own people, and this sort of discussion will perhaps help to integrate the Turkish immigrants already living in our midst.
Mr President, if Turkey were a member of the EU, it would be the most populous Member State after Germany.
It would be the first Member State geographically to bridge the gulf between Europe and Asia and to have a mainly Muslim tradition.
Unfortunately, it is a country which is not only large but which also has an unstable feel about it when it comes to democracy.
All these factors go to show that Turkey' s application for membership of the EU is one of the most important issues for the EU' s future.
The Commission' s latest report on enlargement confirms that progress has been made but also highlights large deficits in terms of democracy, human rights and the treatment of ethnic minorities such as the Kurds.
Turkey has not come so far as had been hoped.
Torture is still practised, and the military plays far too large a political role.
Turkey' s role in Cyprus is also unacceptable.
My role here is to represent the members of the Group of the Party of European Socialists in the Committee on Budgets.
It is, of course, economic considerations that are at issue. From an economic point of view, poverty, inflation and budget deficits are general problems, like the uneven social distribution of the results of economic progress.
Major structural reforms are needed in these areas.
Mr Seppänen' s report is about increasing the European Investment Bank' s powers and mandate to take action in Turkey.
Seen from an institutional point of view, this issue is crucially linked to the Customs Union with Turkey, which has existed for many years.
That Customs Union nonetheless needs to be strengthened by means of a special programme of measures from the European Investment Bank because the latter does not see Turkey as belonging yet to that circle of countries entitled to pre-accession aid.
We see it as a matter of great urgency for the EU, through the EIB, to support development so that Turkey might as soon as possible set a practical process in motion with a view to fulfilling the Copenhagen Criteria.
That is why the demands for democracy and human rights must also find expression in the EIB' s financing activity.
In practical terms, this is about the opportunities for granting loans for projects in Turkey amounting to EUR 450 million between now and 2004.
Certainly, Turkey is already entitled to loans in a number of connections, but the Commission now wants to invest in economic development, especially where the infrastructure is concerned, in order to strengthen the country' s economic competitiveness.
Allow me to comment on the procedure in terms of principle, leaving aside the point at issue.
This is a consultation procedure, but it would be reasonable, of course, for it to be a codecision procedure because these decisions can in actual fact lead to the Budget's having to be adjusted.
That particularly applies at this stage when we are progressively committing more and more of the EIB' s resources, but without fully covering the financial risks we are taking.
When the EIB grants loans to countries other than the Member States, Parliament ought also to be consulted about the political priorities to be set in what is a part of the Bank' s activity mainly motivated by foreign policy.
The immediate Budget problem is that there is a danger of there being no margin left in the guarantee fund reserve.
We are increasing the Investment Bank' s commitments, but we are not increasing the EU Budget' s loan guarantee reserve to the same degree, and we have undertaken to provide 65% finance if a loan cannot be repaid.
The residual guarantee fund reserve is now so low that it may prevent the Union from using the EIB as an instrument if new events should occur, requiring initiatives of this nature.
In spite of this concern, the Committee on Budgets nonetheless proposes that Parliament approve the Commission' s proposal.
However, we back the rapporteur' s criticism that there is at present no effective assessment of the EIB' s loan operations and that there are deficiencies when it comes to public scrutiny and democratic control of the Bank' s activity.
If we shall nonetheless be voting in favour of the proposal, it is because we think it important to contribute to more positive development in those areas where Turkey is still falling down, especially the economic area.
Mr Morillon has written a good report stressing that neither religious objections nor geo-strategic considerations are the decisive factors for Turkey's accession.
The challenge for Turkey in fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria is to reform not only the constitution but also its political and intellectual inspiration.
In Western Europe ideas of pluralism and differentiated identities within the same State have led to recognition of cultural, linguistic and political rights and devolution.
Turkey needs to adopt these modern European notions of diversity and the right to be different.
The Kemalist ideology that was modern in 1930 is not so in 2000.
Hence my amendments on the need for a political solution for the Kurdish people.
It is unacceptable that the Commission omitted any mention of the Kurds from the accession partnership document, though they have been referred to in successive regular reports and Mr Verheugen mentioned them this morning.
I hope Parliament and the Council will remedy that omission.
It does not help Turkey or the European Union to fight shy of this issue, the biggest single cause of Turkey's poor human rights record.
Until there is a solution for the Kurds there will be no fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria and I therefore call upon Parliament to pass my amendments, and on the Council and Parliament to insist that a solution for the Kurds is a key to unlocking the problems of Turkey fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, as a member of the delegation to the parliamentary cooperation committees for relations with the three countries of the southern Caucasus - Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia - I wholeheartedly support Mr Morillon' s report, particularly Article 18, which calls on the Turkish Government to improve its relations with its neighbours in the Caucasus.
While there is a special relationship between Azerbaijan and Turkey, this is far from being the case for Armenia, a country against which Turkey is maintaining a commercial blockade, which is not acceptable in a country which has been accepted as a candidate for membership of the European Union.
The dispute relating to acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide should also be waived in order to enable diplomatic and trade relations to be normalised, especially as Turkey plays a key role in the project for the construction of an oil pipeline taking petroleum from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean.
Turkey also needs to take on board environmental considerations, particularly in schemes such as the construction of major dams, which will necessarily have an impact on the water systems of neighbouring countries.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate General Morillon on what is, under the circumstances, a most balanced report.
We all know how difficult it is under such difficult circumstances to deal efficiently with successive efforts to serve political, economic and other purposes and interests at the expense of principles and rules of law and generally using two yardsticks and two sets of scales.
That is why the frankness which runs through the Morillon report deserves special mention, although fewer excuses at some points in the report would, I think, have reflected the factors used to evaluate Turkey's progress towards accession more accurately.
In this context, I would like to reiterate the basic conclusion in paragraph 22 that Turkey does not meet the Copenhagen criteria and draw attention both to the fact that Turkey has been condemned on numerous occasions for acts and omissions in relation to human rights, democratic freedoms and its international attitude and to the European Parliament's recommendations that Turkey comply with the relevant European values.
On the other hand, although paragraphs 9, 10, 12 and 17 expressly refer to infringements of these values by Turkey on numerous occasions, especially by the Turkish occupying army in Cyprus, which Turkey is called on to withdraw, the fact remains that it would have been preferable to roundly condemn Turkey's present and past responsibility for problems caused by its intransigence and the resultant impasse on the Cyprus question - where, it should be noted, there are clear signs of Turkey's intention to provoke a new heated crisis -, its failure to abide by international conventions with its expansionist policy towards Greece, its concealment of the historical truth of the Armenian genocide and its disregard for the fundamental minority rights of the Kurds.
Something along these lines might have been more helpful, including for Turkey, because it would have sent a more accurate message to the forces in Turkey which really do intend to modernise the country and it would have supported their efforts to put conditions in place which guarantee its European prospects, giving them serious arguments with which to convince the many sceptics that those prospects are, in fact, well-founded.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office said this morning, this is a highly topical debate because it coincides with the documents presented by the Commission - the report on Turkey's progress and of course, more importantly, the accession partnership.
This is the first serious step on the road towards Turkey's accession and the accession process can now move into the practical application stage.
We, for our part, welcome this.
Turkey, for all its differences, always was and still is an integral part of Europe.
Old feuds cannot deny Turkey its place in the life of the Member States of the European Union.
If Europe can accept Turkey for what it is and welcome it into the European family, with all its differences, it will, I think, have made a quantum political and cultural leap.
It will have demonstrated that our values are catholic values which seek not to iron out the differences between the partners but to assimilate their differences and peculiarities.
Of course, in order for there to be assimilation, there must be common ground.
Our rapporteur has identified and brought Turkey's attention to this common ground in his really excellent report, for which I too wish to thank him.
The common ground is democracy and it presupposes freedom of opinion, i.e. equal human and political rights for everyone, irrespective of national origin, and the right to choose a government in free elections, in truly free elections and only in free elections, something which is, of course, incompatible with autonomous centres of power, especially autonomous centres of excessive military power.
What more could one ask of the Morillon report? Only, perhaps, that it might have stated more clearly at this point that there can be no democracy in Turkey and there can be no accession by Turkey unless the military is stripped of its excessive, constitutionally-protected powers.
Democracy is compatible with institutionalised civil functions for the armed forces; it is not compatible with fundamental military intervention in political life, irrespective of whether or not it is sanctioned constitutionally.
It is only natural to expect a democratic country to display a peaceful attitude towards its neighbours, especially if they happen to be future partners.
And from this point of view, the report is right to condemn the bombing of Kendakor by the Turkish air force and to highlight and reiterate the Turkish Government's obligation to support negotiations between Turkish and Greek Cypriots without preliminary conditions.
What is worrying is that Turkish officials and the Turkish press seems to be taking a reactionary stand, rather than encouraging Turkey to move in this direction.
I trust that Turkey will start to take a more serious view of things and understand just what its obligations are.
Mr President, it is a matter of regret that our debate today has been marred by a small cluster of hostile amendments. These have been put forward by the TDI, GUE et al.
I find them unseemly, ill-advised, untimely and inappropriate because these are amendments which use three words - "genocide", "Muslim" and "Asian" - in a way that is racist, derogatory and discriminatory and which causes impenetrable and false barriers to be erected against Turkey's accession to the Union.
Muslims follow one of the three Abrahaminic faiths.
Islam is the brother of Christianity and Judaism.
"Asian", in this context, is used as a racist term to be deplored and dropped.
As regards genocide: Turkey is not responsible for the Armenian massacre.
If we accept that, do we then place all of the Ottoman Empire's crimes against humanity at modern Turkey's door? Indeed, the UN Convention of 1948 has not been broadened to include the Armenian tragedy.
Until that happens I do not think this Parliament should act differently.
I welcome Turkey's careful progress towards the Union and I support the Commission and the Morillon report.
Turkey' s accession to the European Union is an issue that has become even more topical.
Unlike some others, I am not stirring up the religious argument in order to put off this prospect.
This cannot, however, be just a formality.
I am thinking, instead, of acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide of 1915.
In the country currently holding the Presidency of the European Union, the French National Senate recently at last proclaimed this significant act of public recognition, two and a half years after the French National Assembly.
Acknowledging this act of genocide does not mean that the present-day Turkey is a barbaric nation.
Quite the contrary, a nation only grows in stature by facing up to its past.
How could Europe maintain its credibility with regard to the state violence perpetrated in the world today, even, at times, including genocide, if it were to embrace Turkey as a Member while brushing aside its history? Furthermore, the ongoing denial and repression of the Kurdish people is as appalling as it is unacceptable.
The Turkish parliamentarian, Leyla Zana, winner of the Sakharov Prize, and in prison since 1995 merely for haven spoken in Kurdish within the Turkish Parliament, is still languishing in prison.
These are facts that the European Parliament has highlighted on a number of occasions.
There is no justification for our omitting them today.
Mr President, Paragraph 17 of Mr Morillon' s report states that the European Parliament 'calls on the Turkish Government to withdraw its occupation forces from northern Cyprus' .
I am myself the author of this wording in the form of Amendment 72, adopted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on 10 October 2000.
I should particularly like to address Mr Verheugen, as the Commissioner with responsibility for enlargement, and also the French Presidency.
Almost 40 per cent of Cyprus is occupied by foreign troops in the form of Turkish soldiers.
Eleven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nicosia is now Europe' s only divided capital.
Historically, Cyprus - the island of Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas - has not previously been divided, but has now been so for 26 years due to a foreign invasion.
The EU' s four freedoms cannot be applied to the whole of Cyprus following the partition.
Is it possible for Turkey to begin membership negotiations at all without the four freedoms' being applied in Cyprus? Must not Nicosia become a united city and Cyprus a united country?
Must not the occupying troops be withdrawn?
Previous speakers referred to the genocide in Armenia.
This took place only 24 years before Hitler' s time and before the Second World War, when Hitler began the annihilation of the Jews.
He himself referred to this genocide as if it were something forgotten.
Turkey must come to terms with the truth.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Morillon has made a comment under Recital D in his report which should, I think, play an important role in this debate.
Mr Morillon says that Turkey should try not to perceive the European Union as an exclusive Christian club which wants to keep it, Turkey, out.
This premise presupposes that the opposite holds true within the European Union, i.e. that we are not an exclusive Christian club which wants, can or should exclude Turkey on relativistic religious or cultural grounds.
The premise should be that a country with a laicistic constitution inhabited predominantly by Moslems which is based on the values on which the European Union itself is founded - i.e. freedom, equality and tolerance - could enrich the European Union.
The European Union is not founded on religious values, it is founded on values which we owe to the Enlightenment and which, quite independently of the religious leanings of a person or a country and its inhabitants, find their way into the constitutions of the Member States and, as we have seen during today's debate on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, into the EU's perception of fundamental rights.
This means that, as a democratic state under the rule of law with separation of powers and fundamental values as we understand them, Turkey will enrich the European Union.
At the same time, however, it is clear from Mr Morillon's report that Turkey is nowhere near meeting these demands.
The Copenhagen criteria are, admittedly, economic criteria, but they are also criteria which are centred around precisely these points.
The question is, how far have tolerance, democratic rule of law, separation of powers and respect for the separation of powers been put into practice in Turkey? And the answer is, as Mr Morillon's report makes clear, not far enough.
Too little progress has been made and Turkey must do better.
Mr President, this debate is not about how the European Union will integrate into Turkey; it is about how Turkey will integrate into the European Union.
I agree with that entirely and I think that the report by the honourable Member shows how this can be achieved.
I should therefore like to turn to the Commissioner and the President-in-Office and ask them, given their level of support for the Morillon report - as they themselves have said -, why they were so lacking in inspiration and loath to include in the accession partnership which they formulated issues such as the Kurds, the Cyprus question and peaceful, non-threatening coexistence with Turkey's neighbouring countries, issues which have been left out of the basic debate with Turkey.
As far as the Armenian genocide is concerned I fully agree that it should not be a precondition to Turkey's accession.
However, the debate here is about what we have to say and what we remember.
Turkey will become an essentially democratic country once it learns to live with its past, just as democratic Germany has learned to live with its past - we asked the same of it.
Mr President, I should like to offer General Morillon my warmest congratulations on his report, in which he has combined perceptiveness with clarity.
In addition to explaining how far Turkey is from complying with the Copenhagen criteria, Mr Morillon also lists and enumerates what additional conditions Turkey must meet.
They include the Cyprus question, the role of the Turkish army, especially the national security council, the all-powerful position of which is out of keeping with the principle of democracy, the Kurdish question, which is of paramount importance, and last but not least, the virulent conflict with Greece which Turkey must endeavour to defuse.
Commissioner Verheugen has explained to the House that, first and foremost, the political criteria must be met.
As you all know, our group was highly sceptical about Turkey's candidate status but we are delighted, now that Turkey has candidate status, that it is on the ball and has decided to engage in a process of reform in order to meet the demands of the European Union.
Turkey is being responsible.
I should like to mention a number of economic criteria, such as the high rate of inflation which was over 100% and which is still over 50%, the high national debt as the result of the strain on the national budget from military expenditure and the military conflict with the PKK, high real interest rates, the continuing predominance of the public sector, huge regional differences in Turkey, a prosperity differential within Turkey of 1:10, which the European Union will never be able to bring under control, different educational qualifications, illiteracy, which still affects 27.6% of women, i.e. problems which Turkey itself must resolve.
The optimism of people such as deputy prime minister Mesut Yilmaz, who believes that the Maastricht criteria will be met as early as 2002, is to my mind exaggerated. Turkey must know that it has embarked on a difficult journey, that it will have to give up its sovereignty and will have to exert itself.
We want to support it on this journey, not obstruct it and, above all, we want to keep our financial promises.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to speak in this debate in my capacity as the author of the report on the accession of Cyprus.
Since both Turkey and Cyprus are candidates for membership of the European Union, it is increasingly clear that a solution to the Cypriot question is becoming a matter of internal policy.
Commission Verheugen has confirmed that the Cyprus issue plays a very important part in the discussions currently being conducted with Turkey.
Given the political and military presence of Turkey in the northern part of the island of Cyprus, this could not fail to be the case.
Our rapporteur, Mr Morillon, deserves our congratulations for stipulating that a solution to the Cyprus problem must be one of the preconditions for Turkey' s accession.
'It is hard to understand today,' he writes, 'how it can remain divided by a wall, while in many other places such walls have crumbled over the past decade.'
In order for this outdated wall to be brought down, it is now essential for Turkey to comply with the Security Council resolutions requiring it to withdraw its occupying forces from the northern part of the island. Paragraph 17 of our motion for a resolution explicitly calls for this.
It is high time that Turkey listened to the Turkish Cypriots, the great majority of whom wish to overcome the divisions of the past and join Europe alongside the Greek citizens of Cyprus.
If, on the other hand, Turkey continues to fuel the separatist, even annexationist impulses of the unofficial government of northern Cyprus, then it will be responsible for causing the proximity talks to fail.
In the medium term, an attitude of this kind would be an insurmountable obstacle to Turkey' s accession.
One of the three conditions stipulated in the Morillon report, a condition that the European Parliament will be adopting, would still remain unfulfilled.
Once the Ankara Government has understood that the status quo is not acceptable to Europe or to the rest of the world, then considerable progress may be made: the island may be reunified, and a fair and lasting global settlement may be achieved tomorrow in compliance with international law.
Mr President, there is much in this resolution on Turkey's progress towards accession which is commendable - in particular the call to the Commission to implement a properly resourced pre-accession strategy. But where is the real welcome for the Helsinki decision to accord Turkey candidate status?
Where is the recognition in the resolution of the remarkable efforts, and I quote here from the explanatory statement that accompanied the resolution, 'the remarkable efforts that Turkey is making to adapt its structures to EU requirements'? In fact what a pity that Turkey was not discussed during the wider enlargement debate in the context of the other candidate countries.
Of course peoples of Kurdish origins as well as other cultural and linguistic minorities must not be subjected to political, economic or other discrimination and must have the opportunity to express themselves freely, but this expression should be through entirely peaceful means and without intimidation and terrorism.
We should remember that the removal of Turkey from the western orbit was a prime objective of Soviet policy throughout the Cold War period and that the PKK was supported as an instrument of this policy.
Where is the demand in this resolution that the representatives of minorities should renounce violence? Civil peace is a prerequisite for investment and economic progress.
Terrorism has been a barrier to such progress.
We should also be clear that the resolution of extraordinarily difficult problems such as Cyprus, which requires the assent of all the people of Cyprus, will not be helped by frustrating Turkish progress towards accession.
After all Turkey, along with Greece and the United Kingdom, is one of the guarantor powers in relation to Cyprus.
I detect increasing nervousness in this Parliament about the potential impact of the accession of Turkey on the Union.
I might say there is increasing nervousness among the citizens of many of the current Member States about the pace and intensity of political integration within the EU and the leftist thread which runs through the fabric of this development and is increasingly visible.
How much more desirable and acceptable would be the goal of a looser community of nation-states trading freely and acting in unison over a limited range of policy areas and how much easier it would then be to accommodate a country such as Turkey.
Mr President, we cannot vote in favour of the Morillon report due because we are convinced that, contrary to what is being maintained and what many people in Turkey hope, the accession process will not improve the standard of living of the people.
On the contrary, it will make it worse.
The real purpose of the report finds expression in the draft resolution, with its references to Turkey's gross domestic product, the high level of trade with the European Union and the anti-grass roots, liberal, economic reforms to accelerate privatisation and strengthen the bases of a free market economy which the Turkish Grand National Assembly has passed at the request of the International Monetary Fund.
The enthusiasm with which the resolution welcomes Turkey's intention to commit military capabilities under the common security and defence policy is in keeping with the general tone of the report.
In other words, we are talking about increasing the degree to which Turkey is subject to the economic, political and military objectives of big business in the European Union.
We have not, of course, overlooked the positive references in the resolution, such as the reference to human rights, despite the fact that it mistakes manipulation of the status quo for progress and ignores the 10,000-15,000 political prisoners.
There are also positive references to Cyprus, with the call for the occupying forces to be withdrawn, to the need to implement the decisions of the European court, as in the Loïzidou case, to the need for a political solution to the Kurdish question and to the bombings in Iraq.
But we are afraid that, yet again, they are no more than a wish list.
Why is none of this included in the European Commission's report?
For us, the basic issue is this: despite numerous allegations to the contrary, not only has Turkey failed to improve the standard of living of its people, in certain sectors it has made it worse since customs union in 1995 and the declaration of candidate status in 1999.
There can be no doubt that the accession process and accession itself will reduce their quality of life, especially in the economic and social sectors.
There can likewise be no doubt that any funding which it receives will be used to strengthen its oppressive instruments and encourage the regime to continue with its present policy.
Besides, we fail to recognise the sovereign circles of the European Union as defenders of human rights.
Their actions to date have proven the contrary, which is precisely why our feelings of solidarity with the people of Turkey force us to oppose its accession and, by extension, the reports which advocate it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as several Members of this Parliament have pointed out today, the path to Turkey' s accession to the European Union will be long and hard.
A number of speakers have expressed their concerns regarding the human rights situation and the treatment of minorities, particularly the Kurdish question, the heavy involvement of the military in political life, the legal system and capital punishment, all of which are very serious issues.
We can but share these concerns, which were duly expressed by the Commission in its last annual report.
At the same time, however, I feel we must not paint the situation blacker than it actually is.
Progress has been made and encouraging signs can be seen.
The Turkish Government has announced a whole raft of reforms.
President Sezer has made a personal commitment to the process of modernisation in his country.
I therefore think we must encourage the Turkish authorities to forge ahead in order to achieve the necessary compliance with the Copenhagen political criteria.
At the same time, we must continue to be vigilant with regard to the actual implementation of the measures that have been announced.
This, it seems to me, is precisely the balance advocated by Mr Morillon' s report.
The strategy adopted in Helsinki last December marked a turning point in relations between the European Union and Turkey.
It is within this balanced framework that we shall have to resolutely continue our work to promote rapprochement between the European Union and Turkey.
So, in conclusion, let me say: let us be demanding, let us be vigilant, let us set our terms but, let us not be excessive in our demands, as we too must live up to our commitments and the European Union made an important decision in Helsinki.
Mr President, I should like to close the debate by pointing out that there is, of course, a link between the Commission report on the progress that has been made, or not made, in Turkey and the accession partnership.
Several speakers have criticised the fact that the Commission failed to address certain problems.
I can only assume that these speakers have not read the report, because all the problems referred to here, which the Commission allegedly failed to address, are dealt with in the report.
Nor is it correct to say that the Kurdish problem was not called by its name.
Where the report talks about the Kurdish language, Kurdish culture, Kurdish settlements, Kurdish parties, it calls them Kurdish.
Anyone who says that the concept or the word "Kurdish" does not occur has obviously not read the report.
I must defend myself against the impression created here that the terminology of the 2000 report differs from that of the 1999 report.
It does not.
What is new is the accession partnership, and the accession partnership contains a very important stipulation: that the candidate country must deal with all the issues addressed in the progress report.
In other words there is an internal link here.
The accession partnership per se is a very balanced document, based largely on the Helsinki conclusions.
Allow me to correct the erroneous impression, which one or two speakers are clearly under, that it is already a fact of life.
We are at the proposal stage and I am not in a position this afternoon to tell you if this project will get beyond the proposal stage, especially if Parliament endorses proposals made here this morning and this afternoon.
It is not my place to give Parliament advice or to criticise - nor shall I do so.
My place is simply to point out any consequences which the decision may have.
If you deal with the Armenian question in connection with the EU report - please read my lips: the Armenian question in connection with accession to the EU, then the project which we have discussed today will simply never get off the ground.
If the Helsinki conclusions on resolving the Cyprus question are changed along the lines called for by some speakers in the House, i.e. that accession should depend upon resolving the Cyprus question, the project will again founder.
We changed precisely this last year with the backing of a large majority in the European Parliament. We have said in the past that it is not a condition and all we can demand of Turkey is for it to do its best, in all earnestness, to find a solution.
However, we must never forget that it will take two sides to resolve this issue, not just one.
That is why you cannot demand more of Turkey than serious, constructive, credible effort and you can only demand that a solution be found by those who have made resolving the problem their overall objective.
Finally, I feel that I should again point out that we made Turkey an offer with the Helsinki strategy.
What we now need is to take the first step of the Helsinki strategy and I think it is unfair to evaluate this strategy as if it had already failed, even though the first step has yet to be taken.
What we need now is to take the first step and it is your responsibility, as members of the European Parliament, to decide whether or not we can do so.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Euro-Mediterranean conferences in Marseilles
The next item is the oral questions to the Council (B5-0551/2000) and to the Commission (B5-0552/2000) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the Euro-Mediterranean conferences in Marseilles in November 2000.
The author of the questions - Mr Brok - would normally take the floor first, but he is in a meeting with the President and is on his way.
As we are so short of time, would Mr Moscovici mind replying to the question before it is formally put, because he knows the content of the question?
.
(FR) Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I shall have to give my answer before Mr Brok returns from his meeting with the President because I myself will presently have to attend a meeting with the President. We are obliged to do this because of a very heavy schedule.
I should like to thank Mr Brok for allowing me to give an assessment of the current state of the European Union' s Mediterranean policy since this is, as you know, the eve of the Fourth Conference of Foreign Ministers from the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, which is to be held in Marseilles.
You will be aware of the importance the French Presidency attaches to enhancing the Mediterranean aspect of the European Union' s external relations. Indeed it has made this one of the priorities of its term in office.
It is, moreover, the reason for our insistence on drawing up an assessment of the results of the first five years of implementation of the Barcelona process, in order to be in a position, in Marseilles, to establish the necessary guidelines.
Commissioner Patten, whom I must welcome, expressed some interesting avenues for investigation in this respect in his communication on reinvigorating the Barcelona process.
Mr Brok referred to the common strategy on the Mediterranean Region, adopted in Feira in June.
This was an important and useful contribution.
This, however, unlike the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, which unites the Fifteen Member States with twelve partners on the southern coast of the Mediterranean, is an instrument for discipline within the Union, to some extent, designed to intensify the coherence and coordination of all Community instruments and Member State policies with regard to the Mediterranean region.
Priorities for the implementation of this common strategy have already been established by the Presidency and were presented to the Council of Ministers in September.
The Presidency strove particularly to identify areas on which the European Union and its partners of the southern Mediterranean should concentrate their efforts in order to reinvigorate the Barcelona Process, particularly by intensifying political and economic dialogue, improving the effectiveness of Community aid, the implementation of sub-regional cooperation and South-South integration, and even intensifying initiatives in the field of justice and home affairs.
This is indeed also our objective for the Marseilles Conference.
In the course of the two days of the meeting, the Presidency aims to succeed in giving a new impetus to the process, with everyone on board.
There is probably no need for me to outline in detail the political background of this conference, but I very sincerely believe that the current problems in the Middle East make this Euro-Mediterranean dialogue more essential than ever.
The fact that the situation in the Middle East is difficult at present is not, therefore, a reason to lower our ambitions for the Marseilles conference.
I am not, of course, saying that the current situation will have no impact on our meeting.
I am thinking in particular of the Charter for Peace and Stability, which was discussed at great length among the 27 partners, but whose adoption probably calls for a regional environment where peace has been established.
Mr Brok, who has now rejoined us, asked questions specifically about the delays noted in negotiations.
Should we really use the term 'delay' ? It is true that discussions have been lengthy and occasionally delicate, but I would say that this is understandable, considering the political context in the Middle East.
The main thing, in my view, is that work is going forward and that the project is not being abandoned.
In this respect, I believe that the 27 partners are resolved to adopt this text as soon as circumstances permit.
Let us not forget that the Barcelona Process is a recent development, only five years old.
Indeed, when we instigated the partnership in 1995, we were aware that we were undertaking a long-term project.
There was plainly nothing easy about the task of bringing together, overnight, 27 partners as diverse as this against an often tense, and occasionally more than tense political background and within a framework as original as the Barcelona arrangement.
Yet, we have managed to maintain dialogue even on occasionally sensitive subjects: stability, terrorism, emigration and human rights, for example.
You may rest assured that we fully intend to continue in this way.
Cooperation in the field of politics and security, known as the 'first aspect' of the Barcelona process is essential, even though we know it is the most sensitive and the longest to implement.
There are also, however, the other 'aspects' of Barcelona, the economic and financial aspect on the one hand, and the social, cultural and human aspect on the other.
This, indeed, leads me to highlight a fundamental principle of the European Union' s Mediterranean policy, and I shall thereby be giving a direct answer to Mr Brok' s question.
I would like to raise the subject of the overall approach of the process of the parallel, balanced development of these three aspects, which underpins the spirit and originality of Barcelona, something we must preserve.
And even if it is true that the economic aspect of Barcelona is the one that, despite the delays, is working best, the main thing is that we must not lose sight of this overall approach, without which the process would be consigned to being nothing more than just another free trade area, lacking in political or human vision in the long term and this would be unfortunate.
Our Mediterranean partners are our direct neighbours.
We have a great deal in common with them, a shared heritage, culture, trade and interests.
Finally, as Mr Brok emphasised, we have common challenges, which we must meet together in order to deal with racism, intolerance and xenophobia.
Great prospects are opening up, too, for cooperation in the areas of combating trafficking of all sorts, migration and enhancing the rule of law.
We Europeans have experience that we can profitably share.
It is furthermore in our own interests to support our partners in their process of structural reforms, upgrading and opening up their economies to competition.
In Marseilles, therefore, this new impetus we wish to give the process must be based on all its political and economic components which are, let me reiterate, complementary and inextricably interlinked.
It is true that the Barcelona process and the partnership are ambitious projects requiring resources appropriate to the allotted objectives.
Mr Brok mentioned financial resources.
They are, of course, never sufficient.
The challenges are such, the needs of the southern countries are so great that the resources of the European Union will always appear to be inadequate, especially since the external commitments of the Union have increased to an extraordinary degree in the last few years.
This is a debate which, as you know, we have had several times in the Council; a debate which I think I can say lies at the heart of the reform undertaken on the initiative of Commissioner Patten.
The fact remains that the Council, particularly since 1995, has striven to allocate more extensive resources to the Mediterranean region, appropriate to the challenges of the partnership.
Since 1995 the French Presidency has made particular efforts in this regard, especially at the European Council in Cannes, where we succeeded in restoring balance between the funding for Mediterranean policy and that properly allocated to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
This is the spirit in which the MEDA I programme was launched with EUR 3.4 billion committed between 1995 and 1999.
The multiannual total must now be established for the period 2000-2006, and I can only hope - although I cannot put a figure on it at this stage - that it will match up to the ambitions of the European Union in its Mediterranean policy.
You are aware that we are attempting at this very moment to reach an agreement between the fifteen Member States, if necessary by holding an Extraordinary Council meeting tomorrow in Marseilles.
We have already managed to agree on the arrangements for the MEDA II financial regulation.
I feel that the instrument we shall have in future will be more effective, more speedy, more transparent and therefore, ultimately, more credible.
The programme' s administration will be simplified, and the rate of reimbursement and payment will be accelerated.
Furthermore, there are still the EIB loans, which are essential to the development of our partner countries, particularly its major infrastructure projects.
I feel that with an allocation of several billion euros for the Mediterranean region over the period 2000-2007, we shall be in a position to fulfil the expectations of our partner countries in the South over the next few years, and that is crucial.
Today, on the eve of Marseilles, the French Presidency naturally wishes to see the European Union' s Mediterranean priority confirmed, including in financial terms.
In fact, it is no longer just a matter, as it was in 1995, of restoring balance with Eastern Europe, but also of making ready for the future enlargement of the European Union.
Let us not forget that Barcelona, like the rest of the European Union' s external relations, forms an integral part of the acquis communautaire and that therefore the candidate countries should make preparations for seeing the Mediterranean countries as privileged partners, since they are the privileged partners of this Europe of ours.
This is a major challenge for the Europe of the future, whose centre of gravity will, indeed, be shifting towards the East of the continent, but this need not happen at the expense of relations with the South.
In our opinion, this is one more reason to emphasise the Mediterranean dimension of a European Union that wishes to be an actor on the world stage and for which the Mediterranean region must and shall continue to be the 'uniting sea' or in Latin the 'mare nostrum' .
Mr President, it is a sign of the President-in-Office's competence that he has answered questions which I have not even asked.
I should like expressly to thank the French Presidency of the Council for endeavouring to give the necessary momentum to the Barcelona process.
This is a hugely important issue and I say that as someone who comes from central Europe.
We in central Europe must understand that the debate on the Barcelona process is in our common interest, just as we expect southern Europeans to understand that enlargement to central and eastern Europe is in our common interest.
If we look at it from this point of view and take account of all this, then we will be on the right and a reasonable path.
What we are trying to do is to enlarge the European Union on one side and foster good neighbourly relations on the other.
Both are in our common interest and the European Union is prepared to put its hand in its pocket for both.
Of course, we will have to raise the question of how we are to continue funding the overall process, given the current financial perspectives and taking account of our policy in the Balkans, because there has been doubt for some time as to whether we will be able to last the course.
Naturally, we hope that Mr Patten's concept will succeed and that the Commission will be able to implement these projects more quickly than has been the case in the past.
It is of paramount importance that we understand the advantages of the Barcelona process, i.e. that, with our help, it will trigger the economic and social development needed in these countries, giving prospects to the people living in these regions.
It also has something to do with preventing emigration.
In the long run, social need should no longer be a reason - as in the European Union - to emigrate from anywhere in the Mediterranean and the desire to emigrate should be motivated by other considerations.
I think we should help to bring this about.
With proper economic and social prospects in place, there is a good chance of implementing human rights and democratising the community of states in the region.
All this is obviously immensely important to us from the point of view of security policy.
In other words, this is not just a chance for more trade and commerce, it is security policy par excellence and this is the message which we need to get across to our citizens if this process is to gain acceptance.
Xenophobia and national and other forms of terrorism come under this heading and I hope that we shall have a chance to straighten things out here too.
The worrying developments which we have witnessed in many states in North Africa in the past and, in fact, are still witnessing today, also come under this heading and I hope that we shall manage to bring all the countries of North Africa on board in this process without any whys and wherefores.
The current situation in the Middle East is making abundantly clear what measures are needed in the form of joint policies and cooperation.
I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my hope that neither of the two parties to the present conflict in the Middle East will take any unilateral action this week which might make a return to the negotiating table nigh impossible in coming weeks.
We should try and help to give the people of Palestine the chance to decide their own fate, forge their own future and build their own state on the basis of agreement with and the security of the state of Israel.
I trust that the European Union will prepare in Marseilles to push the Mediterranean process forward and that we will be able once again to take joint responsibility for what Mr Moscovici rightly called the mare nostrum.
The Mediterranean is the mare nostrum; the three great monotheistic religions, two of which are now involved in conflict, developed along its shores.
We must get back round the table on this very fundamental basis.
I think that the European Union has a special role to play here and that the countries and the people in these regions are waiting for the European Union to exert its political influence because it can bring balance and credibility to bear there.
I trust that the fact that this political influence is expected and we are expected to play a part there will help to get things moving in Marseilles and provide the necessary credibility, allowing us to make a contribution to peace in this region and enhance our own stability.
Mr President, five years on from the Barcelona Conference, it is time to take stock of the situation.
Last March, the European Parliament approved a resolution which made a critical analysis of the policies and instruments of the Partnership, proposing some substantial changes.
In June 2000, the Feira Council adopted a common Mediterranean strategy and, after proposing and obtaining endorsement for reform of the Meda regulation, the Commission recently tabled a document on reinvigorating the Barcelona Process.
All this shows that we are aware of how inadequate the results achieved thus far have been, although I feel that the responses are not yet sufficient to deal with the situation, even though it is true that five years are certainly not a very long time over which to judge such complex processes.
Nevertheless, the process which commenced in Barcelona, based on three pillars - political, economic and cultural - was subject to three constraints, now generally well recognised, and Commissioner Patten touched upon them in his speech.
The first concerned the preference shown for free trade, which is linked to the process of economic and commercial liberalisation in terms of codevelopment, economic integration, social policies, cultural dialogue and the training and enhancement of human resources.
The second constraint concerned the type of relationship there should be between the European Union and the Mediterranean partner countries.
In fact, we observe that the still-prevailing bilateral dimension, which is anything but easy to negotiate and takes a long time to ratify, is in danger of increasingly shaping the economies of these countries on the basis of their trade with the Union, hampering the development of the south-south dimension, especially because of the partner countries' difficulty in establishing mutual cooperative relations.
The third constraint concerns the regrettable involvement of the European and Mediterranean civil societies in this process, which is still too dominated by centralism and the almost exclusive role of the governments.
I have stressed these aspects because they contain the key to reinvigorating the Process, and the enhancement of the Barcelona political agenda must be added to all this.
It is, in fact, inconceivable that the agricultural policy, the control of migration flows and the debt should not be at the centre of the Euro-Mediterranean project now.
As regards agriculture, I would like to point out that Parliament has undertaken to organise a conference next spring.
Moreover, the tragic interruption of the Middle East Peace Process is changing the situation in the region.
Unfortunately, the European Union had based its entire policy upon the success of the Oslo Accords.
In fact, the Council's common strategy followed this line.
On the other hand, the Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference, which is to open tomorrow in Marseilles, is set against the backdrop of a tragic situation which will make Europe's role in the region even more sensitive and lead the Union to assume a more substantial political role in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The fact that, despite this situation, the 27 partners have confirmed their willingness to meet in Marseilles, at least for the moment, is already in itself an indication that all is not lost, although I agree entirely with Commissioner Patten that the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership policy must not become a hostage to the peace process.
In fact, I will go further and say that, in the past, the peace process has served as an excuse for both Europe and for the Mediterranean partners not to be more courageous.
This is why I feel that the debate taking place today could serve to make us aware that this policy is of key importance for the entire Union.
Mr President, we presented the MEDA report at the beginning of September, and while this report, admittedly, allowed us to note some shortcomings, it was also, more importantly, an opportunity to proclaim loud and clear the determination of both this House and the Commission in Euro-Mediterranean matters.
Commissioner Patten, I read your article in today' s issue of Le Monde.
I concur completely with it.
What Mr Moscovici has just said is precisely what you stated yourself.
The fact, moreover, that we carried the motion in this House, with the enormous majority of 502 votes in favour and a paltry 17 against, shows that we are all unanimously in favour of renewing and boosting the Euro-Mediterranean Process.
There are a number of points I would like to clarify, now that the Marseilles Conference is about to take place, in order to ensure that we get some answers, as it is not enough to repeat ritualistic phrases, given that we are all in agreement.
We also need to take practical action and to get specific answers.
Indeed, on Thursday evening, I assessed the situation with Mr Josselin, the French Minister responsible for these matters, and I know that the French Presidency is wholeheartedly behind the idea of promoting the process as we see it.
I should like, first of all, to discuss the budget.
Where do matters stand in this respect? We have been told that roughly EUR 8 billion have been earmarked for the period 2000-2006, but this amount seems to fluctuate.
So what, in the end, is the budget for 2001? It seems that at least EUR 1 billion is needed annually, but for the moment this sum has not been allocated, and at the same time there is talk of EUR 200 million to be taken, supposedly, from the margin relating to appropriations for Kosovo and Serbia.
It is far from clear.
We do not need to create competition between all these various needs but to find new resources.
I am in complete agreement with Commission Patten that, in order to do a proper practical job, the appropriations must be made available.
I strenuously urge all my fellow Members to set aside the appropriations needed for us to be able to take action and to be able to consider the projects.
Secondly, I should like to point out that we must give a boost to decentralised cooperation, which seems to be in a bad way.
This is a major concern of local communities and non-governmental organisations.
The forum that was held in Marseilles on 12 November made that quite clear.
Next, we must increase the amount of appropriations for regional development in order to encourage relations and trade between regions, but also environmental protection, the fight against terrorism and drugs trafficking, emigration and integration, and to make progress towards human rights, as we have requested.
We would ask what action the Commission intends to take in order to invite proposals for projects, with the involvement of civil society, and in order to process and monitor these projects.
These are the important practical questions I wished to ask, and I should like to thank Mr Brok for allowing us to have this debate just before the Presidency and the Commission are due to discuss these issues.
Mr President, Commissioner, I share the determination which has been expressed to give a new boost to the Euro-Mediterranean partnership forthwith.
Even those behind the Barcelona process consider that it has broken down - that is the description which has been used - and it is a long way from having fulfilled its promises.
In this respect, today' s motion for a resolution falls a long way short of the declared ambition.
The peoples of the South are often critical and are concerned about this failure.
I share their impatience, and even their disappointment and their anger, at the delays but also at the inadequacies of this partnership and at the initial damage it has caused.
There are still extreme disparities between the two sides of the Mediterranean, which keep the peoples of the South in an explosive economic and social situation, with poverty and unemployment, particularly among young people.
The path leading to an area of shared prosperity has, for the time being, stopped at the association agreements, which are governed by strictly economic and financial interests in denial of the needs of the people.
These populations, however, are already suffering under the weight of the debt, the drop in the price of raw materials and imposed structural actions.
The free trade area is in danger of considerably intensifying these imbalances, even though there is an urgent need, instead, for greater collaboration in order to meet needs.
I am thinking in particular of public services, more especially in the areas of water, education, health, public transport and housing.
This partnership will have no future unless it has the benefit of close cooperation with the representatives of the citizens concerned, the associations, the NGOs, the trade unions and civil society as a whole.
Moreover, the dream of peace on both sides of the Mediterranean should be listened to and the wish granted at the earliest possible opportunity.
The spiralling violence in the Middle East, the war being waged so violently and resolutely against the Palestinian people, whose right to statehood is still being denied by Israel, are all threatening the future of the entire region.
The European Union must, as the Palestinian leaders expressly request, henceforth take bold action in order to put an end to the gunfire, to promote effective dialogue and actively militate in favour of applying the UN resolutions.
The Marseilles Conference could have been used to this end.
The failure - or, at least, the relative failure - of the Charter for Peace and Stability proves that it is not possible to achieve Europe' s "security" on the basis of marginalising the South and closing borders.
These last few days in Marseilles, I have observed the great numbers of speakers addressing such comments to the Conference of Ministers, speaking in favour of cancelling debt and replacing free trade with relations of mutually supportive codevelopment...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the different areas of the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue must, in my opinion, be tackled from the social, political and cultural perspectives, in continuation of that process - the Euro-Mediterranean Conference - which was set in motion in Barcelona in 1995 when we first started to talk about Mediterranean policy, although the complexity of the subject caused some difficulties even then.
The world is moving inexorably towards globalisation and, as a result, is having to organise itself into large blocks which act as protagonists on the great stage of world competition.
This is prompting the Europe of national States to form a single political, economic and commercial entity in order to organise and boost a market of over 350 million consumers and set it on a level with other markets.
To this end, we need to establish suitable structures, which could be both political and economic.
However, first and foremost, we need political strategies which are free of bureaucracy.
Europe is the guardian of great values: peace, freedom and social progress, values which must be protected day in day out precisely because they are the result of victories won at the cost of great sacrifice.
Europe's economic progress is now under threat from the current globalisation process, and our continent is in serious danger of a recession caused by competition from South-East Asia - where the cost of labour is a tenth of the cost of labour in Europe - the USA and Japan.
The Mediterranean policy is now operating in a world of extremely varied interests and latent stabilisation, and it must therefore include certain elements such as the development of peace-keeping initiatives - but it must not, I would stress, be limited to this - and the creation of partnership projects which involve northern and southern Europe, precisely because the objective of making the Mediterranean an area of dialogue, tolerance and cooperation and a guarantee of peace and stability cannot be achieved without firm political will or without the lasting, well-balanced social and economic development of less-favoured peoples and the social development of the coastal peoples, improving their employment possibilities, in order to put an end to the multitude of problems caused by the tremendous number of emigrants leaving the Basin and now affecting all the countries of the Union.
We are therefore convinced that the Union's Mediterranean policy must take account of the Mediterranean Basin and therefore treat the Mediterranean as a project, mindful of the fact that the rights of peoples take priority over the rights of individuals, if only because, when all is said and done, conflicts between nations harm the life and development of the individual citizens.
Braudel's 'Mediterranean of a thousand things' , the ancient civilisations which, for years, have regarded each other with hostility across the Basin, now have the opportunity to start afresh, setting off along a common path which, through political will and the power of dialogue, will lay the foundations for genuine progress and economic and social development.
Mr President, in Nice the European Union will need to strike a balance between integration and enlargement and in Marseilles it will need to strike a balance between its function in central Europe and its responsibility in the Mediterranean.
We need to set priorities; in other words, we need to use the enlargement process to strengthen Europe from the centre outwards and force a stabilisation process in south-east Europe and in the western Balkans, but without neglecting the Barcelona process, which has been drifting for five years now.
We can hypothesise as to whether a decisive, uniform EU policy in the Balkans might have prevented the Balkan war and the European Union might therefore have avoided the consequential costs of the war.
Now, on the eve of Marseilles, we need to ensure that aid is not given to the Balkans at the expense of the MEDA programme or vice versa and that everything stays within the financial framework agreed in Berlin.
With these conditions in place, it should be possible for the special council in Marseilles to reach a consensus which does more than just highlight the fault lines in the EU.
We must ensure that the MEDA aid programme is not delayed by bureaucratic hurdles for which the Commission is to blame and that projects are identified more quickly in future by the Mediterranean countries involved.
It is disappointing to see that the Mediterranean countries only called up just under a quarter of the EUR 4.7 billion budget of the MEDA I programme which expired in 1999.
But this also illustrates that we need to estimate the absorption capacity of the countries bordering the Mediterranean more realistically.
I therefore particularly welcome the Commission plan to speed up the association agreement and I think that the revision of the MEDA regulation was a very good move.
So far, I have deliberately avoided making any link between the Euro-Mediterranean conference and the conflict in the Middle East.
The very fact that this conference is even taking place and that Israel and the Palestinians have agreed to attend and the threat of boycott by the Arab League has come to nothing must qualify as a success.
We can only hope that this conference in Marseilles does not turn into a platform for polemics, pushing the first important signs of a Mediterranean policy in the European Union and the revival of the Barcelona to one side.
Mr President, tomorrow and the following day the Euro-Mediterranean Conference is to be held in Marseilles, attended by all the countries that signed the Barcelona Declaration, and I think that we can congratulate ourselves on this.
It will be a success that will show that the Barcelona process, which began on the back of the Oslo agreements, has reached a sufficient level of maturity and solidity to prevent it from being caught up in the difficulties of the Middle East process.
Moreover, by continuing it can make the best possible contribution, a secondary but significant contribution, to the resumption of dialogue in the Middle East.
However, in all the evaluations that are now being made of five years of the Barcelona process, many people think that we can be satisfied simply that the process is continuing, due to the fact that there have been ministerial meetings attended by representatives from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Syria and Lebanon, etc.
And this is, perhaps, a sad consolation.
The evaluation is now a contrasting one and, of course, the strategic development of Euro-Mediterranean policy cannot depend on a temporary evaluation.
It is continuity over time that can provide results, and positive results will be ultimately measured by the development of the countries of the southern Mediterranean.
Those countries come up against a great deal of problems finding a place for their development and economic integration in the context of globalisation and we must do everything in our power to help restore balance to a situation characterised by gulfs between North and South.
If current tendencies continue we can be pessimistic about the future.
Today a European is statistically twice as rich as someone from the Maghreb, and in twenty years' time he will be twenty times as rich, if we do not manage to turn the situation around.
In this respect, the proposal that the Commission has made for a new impetus is a positive one, and we fully agree with the two priorities that Mr Patten has set out in his speeches and repeated here this afternoon.
We need to speed up the processes of the association agreements.
Above all, we need to avoid having to make an evaluation of the application of MEDA in five years' time that leads us to conclude that only 26% have been used.
However, this is not enough.
We probably need to open up a more medium-term perspective and I can only list the three areas that I feel are essential in that respect: The first is European projects to structure a regional area in the southern countries.
The second is an essential policy dealing with the human aspect of managing migration flows.
The third is discussion and the quest for progress and consensus in developing a common agricultural policy in the Mediterranean, without which we will probably not be able to achieve a positive outcome in the medium term.
Mr President, reinvigorating the Barcelona Process and giving it direction means not just concerning ourselves with the free market and economic and trade concerns but, in effect, relaunching a policy of cooperation and development and defence of human rights throughout the area. It means bringing about the necessary social reforms, focusing on employment, the need to revitalise the economy in the southern countries and the reduction and cancellation of debt as central issues.
It means promoting economic, cultural and political exchange between the southern countries themselves as well as with the northern countries.
It means ensuring that civil society plays a greater role. However, we must not ignore the fact that the Barcelona Process has entered a critical stage, caused not only by lack of impetus or a slow down in the European undertaking in respect of the events in the Balkans or enlargement, but also by the conditions of tragic open conflict in the Mediterranean which are holding back reinvigoration.
The Palestinian question has once again become central.
Commissioner Patten has said that we must not be hostages to the Palestine-Israel situation.
That is true, but we cannot avoid it.
If we do not tackle very soon the issue of the recognition of a Palestinian State, a State which can coexist with Israel, if military occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip does not cease, the issue cannot be resolved. It must be resolved, first and foremost, of course, in order to put an end to the suffering of the Palestinian people, but also in order to bring more stability to the region.
I hope that when the Conference of Ministers of the Union meets in Marseilles, it will be able to adopt a position on this matter which is coherent with what is always pompously stressed, that human rights must not be violated.
It is essential to reinvigorate the Process and we must do so, but we must do so in the knowledge that we cannot escape the central issue of the Mediterranean.
Mr President, since the Barcelona conference and now on the eve of the Marseilles conference, as has already been said, a great deal has taken place in the Mediterranean region.
It is true that this Conference is going to take place in a context of violence and of a peace crisis as a result of the conflict in the Middle East, but it is also true that holding the conference will enable us to keep the flame of the Euro-Mediterranean process burning and that it should not be contaminated by the tragic conflict.
There are many common problems that are currently affecting the Euro-Mediterranean area: illegal immigration, poverty, foreign debt, human rights, drought and terrorism, which mercilessly destroys the lives of innocent individuals and families, as we are tragically experiencing in Spain, Algeria and the Middle East.
Now more than ever we need to proclaim that only regional cooperation, dialogue with civil society, economic and cultural exchange, solidarity and mutual understanding can make the two shores of the Mediterranean a prosperous and peaceful area.
The Commission and the Council need to urgently undertake what was agreed in Feira and they need to make a common policy for the development of the Mediterranean region viable.
We cannot and must not waste our human resources, our agricultural, industrial or traditional craftsmanship resources which, along with such vital products as oil, gas and new technologies, should be basic tools for the development of a Mediterranean society that is much more balanced, fair and competitive than at present.
Mr President, I will come back to the conflict in the Middle East; not two months ago, the Presidents of the Israeli Parliament and the Palestinian Assembly united in this House with the President of the European Parliament, in a plea for peace and harmony, and we all joined in hearty applause for that gesture.
When weapons replace words, dialogue and understanding, the foundation and substance of democracy that is Parliament fails, and this is also our failure.
It is a warning call to the European Union to play a much more active role in the Mediterranean area, which historically and culturally has enriched our European continent.
It would be an error not to take on the leading role that history requires of us.
In addition, I also think, Commissioner, that the borders that geo-politics demands should serve to prevent the free movement of those who make a way of life out of organised crime, the trafficking of arms, drugs and human beings and particularly terrorism, a way of life that is condemned by all civilised countries.
Let us make borders a real filter for crime and criminals, and not a barrier to development, culture or the prosperity of peoples.
The European Union needs a new culture of immigration and a better management of migration flows.
The European Union is jointly responsible, with the countries of origin, for immigration and for organising those migration flows, which are so necessary for the development of the region.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, every day that passes is punctuated by developments in the current crisis in the Middle East and every day that passes is a further indication, as if this were needed, that everything that happens in the South and around the Mediterranean is of direct concern to us, and affects our daily lives.
When things go well in the South, peace is possible, democratic progress can be achieved, there is more economic development and less illegal emigration.
In short, there is hope. When things go badly in the South, we have war, violence, fundamentalism - and this also affects the areas in Europe in which we live - not to mention the risk of a new oil crisis.
Today, once again, we face the worst possible scenario.
This is quite clear from looking at current events.
Some of us have been saying all this time and time again for many years in this House.
Unfortunately, for many years, too, factors such as the enlargement of Europe to the East, the Balkans crisis and wars have displaced the South in the minds of a great many Europeans, hence the repeated delays in Mediterranean processes and policies.
We have seen cuts in appropriations and problems in harnessing these appropriations. The general negotiations are bogged down; there are delays in the negotiations for association agreements and even greater delays in ratification procedures.
This creates the most serious disappointment in our partners in the South and our political influence, that of Europe, has suffered as a result, even though we continue to be, in spite of everything, the foremost financial backers of the South.
We must therefore, as several of us have said this afternoon, immediately tighten up our political objectives with regard to the South, support the appropriations that have been committed, expedite the association agreements with the partner countries, make the Charter for Peace and Stability a priority once again, make great efforts to assist development and do something about the burden of debt of the poorest countries. At long last we must open up our markets to their produce, and standardise our regulations for the reception and asylum of persons immigrating into Europe.
To sum up, we must restore Europe' s confidence in its determination to achieve a real partnership with the South.
Everyone is aware of this.
We must make a quantitative, but also a qualitative effort.
The Commission and the Council claim to want this.
We are willing to believe them, but the countries of the South need more than just promises and speeches, and it is up to us to give them those things.
No doubt, Marseilles is our last chance for that.
This is one of the major issues of the French Presidency.
Mr President, the Marseilles Summit is intended to be a step further towards creating a free trade area, a sort of single market promoting membership of the WTO, as you describe it so well, Mr Patten, in today' s issue of Le Monde.
It is the economic pillar which is brought to the fore.
In this instance, as at the EU-Asia Summit meeting, ASEM III, in Seoul a month ago, the European Union is once again seeking to export its own economic model and its capital.
Marseilles too, the other summit, brought together the members of associations, trade unions and political bodies from all around the Mediterranean, and these people were together attempting resolutely to find solutions to meeting the needs of their peoples.
As far as I am concerned, this necessarily involves using new means, and hence cancelling debt.
What is much more serious, however, at the very moment when we are calmly exchanging points of view, often very divergent ones, within this Chamber, more and more Palestinians are being killed.
The European Union must, as a matter of urgency, strongly condemn the Israeli attacks on the Palestinian people, whose demand to live in peace in their own state is a legitimate one and one which must, therefore, be met.
Mr President, Europe is sometimes in a great hurry, and sometimes being in a hurry makes you leave things behind.
And I have seen that in all these documents on strengthening the Barcelona agreement we are forgetting some things.
One of them is that liberalisation, a single market, cannot be established without taking care of some important aspects, such as people and culture or education.
If we liberalise the markets and encourage a drive to integrate them while forgetting this, we run the risk of ultimately achieving colonisation rather than cooperation.
Europe needs to think outside the principle of subsidiarity or go beyond it and realise that it needs to provide a great deal of aid in order to raise the level in the recipient countries, among both men and women, not only of basic education but also of minimum education, which in Europe is considered to be for all citizens.
Therefore, we cannot just talk about products and the organisation of markets without thinking about those citizens.
Secondly, I think that we are also forgetting another important subject, which is the environment.
Europe has not produced any policies on desertification or on water that benefit the Mediterranean countries and we need to think about a Mediterranean environment policy that understands the location, the systems and also the climatic diversity of the Mediterranean.
Policy as it is set out today could not be transferred to many countries of the southern Mediterranean.
In this respect, we need to take into account that in Europe there is serious pressure from citizens of the north on the southern Mediterranean, through tourism.
With the rise in crude oil prices there is going to be much more pressure on the Mediterranean.
This translates into the consumption of the land, and a policy of environmental dumping, which is absolutely unacceptable.
Also, we cannot demand that European citizens properly implement their environmental policy and not apply this to other countries.
I have received a motion for a resolution, pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure, to close the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at 11.30 a.m.
Aid for reconstruction
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0324/2000 by Mr Lagendijk, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the amended proposal for a Council Regulation concerning the European Agency for Reconstruction [COM(2000) 628 - C5-0526/2000 - 2000/0112(CNS)]
A5-0330/2000 by Mr Westendorp y Cabeza, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the amended proposal for a Council regulation on assistance for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and amending Regulation (EEC) No 3906/89, Decision 97/256/EC and Regulation (EEC) No 1360/90 [COM(2000) 628 - C5-0525/2000 - 2000/0111(CNS)]
Mr President, Commissioner, it has taken the Commission a while to produce a final proposal on the delivery of aid to the western Balkans.
As is known, a proposal was submitted back in May but we had to wait until September before there was a definitive proposal on the table.
This had to do with the discussion within the Commission on the need to find an alternative way of delivering external aid.
In other words, the proposal now on the table reflects this discussion, and as I see it, is also a first example of how we should do things in the future.
This also means that the Commission' s new proposal was worth waiting for, because it sets out in clear and lucid terms how the European Commission proposes to deliver aid in future, both with regard to the general regulation for the Balkans and with regard to the proposal for the agency in Kosovo.
To put it in a slightly grand way, perhaps it can also be deemed a kind of fresh start for the delivery of aid, based on the extraordinarily negative experiences we had in Bosnia, but also on our positive experiences in Kosovo.
There is now a regulation on the table which, as I see it, equips the European Union to deliver aid in an efficient manner and on time, and to put EU funds to good use in the countries of the western Balkans.
In this way, and this is very important - I will come back to it again shortly - a good balance has been struck between the Commission' s responsibility on the one hand and the need to involve the Member States in some way, on the other.
It is a balance which, in my opinion, and I think also in the Commission' s view, could not always be found in the past, because all too often the Member States tried to get in on the act when it came to delivering aid.
The proposals now on the table have been far more successful in striking this balance.
Naturally, and I am coming now to the reports compiled by myself and by Mr Westendorp, there is room for improvement.
Anyone who sees and reads the proposed reports will see that a number of improvements have been proposed to certain sections.
For example, explicit attention is to be given to the construction of the civilian society, support for the media, and the important role fulfilled by education.
I happened to be at a conference in Zagreb last week, when once again it became evident how important it is not to teach future generations of mini Balkans citizens - as it were - old stereotypes, or inculcate them with notions of 'the enemy' , and instead, to made a fresh start in this respect.
I think it is important for the regulation to establish that the Commission will continue to spend money on this kind of project in the future, as it does now.
However, there are two key aspects of policy I would like to focus on.
The first relates - and I am sorry to have to bother the Commissioner with this again - to the finances.
To be perfectly honest, if we manage to deliver a sound opinion on this regulation, today and tomorrow, then we will have completed one part of our work; the first half I would say.
Then we will have it down on paper how things are supposed to be done in future.
However, if, when it comes to December, we do not include the funds required to implement the regulation then all we are doing today is building castles in the air.
This is not a reproach directed at the Commission.
The Commission has been in a position to see that I am expressly calling for the assessment of the costs carried out by the Commission - the famous EUR 5.5 billion for the next seven years - to be explicitly included in this regulation, otherwise, to be blunt about it, what we are doing is pure hypocrisy.
We cannot adopt a regulation here in Parliament knowing full well that the funds required to implement it will not be available.
That is why this is stage one of the battle for an effective system of delivering aid to the Balkans.
Stage two will take place in December when our colleagues in the Committee on Budgets, but ultimately Parliament as a whole, will have to opt for a sound financial basis for this regulation.
That being the case, it is a shame that Mr Moscovici is absent at present, because as I see it, responsibility on that point falls specifically to the Council, and to the Member States, who must be prepared to recognise that what we, and what they, want to achieve through this regulation costs money, and that this money must be found in the European Union' s budget.
The second point, the general point about delivering aid, concerns the balance that must be struck - hence the need for an amendment on this point - between the need for the European Union to maintain a high profile in the Balkans, on the one hand, and the need to support smaller projects as well, on the other.
The fact of the matter is - and anyone who has been to the Balkans will confirm this - that the United States is extremely good at creating the impression that it is able to do a great deal more with a good deal less money.
The fact that the European Union actually spends far more money but is nothing like as high profile, has led many people to conclude that there is a need to substantially raise people' s awareness of our activities in the Balkans.
I would agree with this analysis.
This almost inevitably means that a great deal of money will go to the large projects, i.e. to road and bridge building projects; to projects that can fly the flag for Europe.
As I said, we need to do this to raise our profile.
But be warned, this must not lead to a situation where, when it comes to drawing up priorities, all kinds of smaller projects, which we have supported hitherto, are sacrificed in the process.
Hence my appeal for this regulation to strike a good balance between high profile activities, i.e. large projects, on the one hand, and continued attention to projects for democracy, on the other, i.e. projects to do with security, projects that are seldom as high profile, but which are all the more necessary to guarantee stability in the Balkans.
Then there is the question of the agency in Kosovo.
Seen in a positive light, I sometimes think, and hope, that the agency, by the manner in which it has operated to date, and in which it is to function in the future, ought to serve as an example of how aid should be delivered to the Balkans, and also to other parts of the world.
I have drawn such positive conclusions from my various visits to the agency because as I see it, despite all - and I repeat, all - the mistakes that are made there, there can be no doubt that they have found a new and effective way to deliver aid.
If we then talk about increasing efficiency, which is the overall objective of this regulation, and relate this to the agency in Kosovo, then we have no choice but to reduce the involvement of the Member States.
In quite concrete terms, this means reducing the influence of the Governing Board associated with the agency.
In the past, we have been highly critical of the way in which the Commission delivers aid, as this is often bound up in red tape.
The procedures involved are often too complex, but we must not turn a blind eye, nor must we want to - and I hope the Member States do not do so either - to their part in this.
All too often the Member States have tried to get in on the act where overseas aid is concerned.
All too often this has led to delays, inefficiency, and the promotion of national interests.
As far as I am concerned, and this is one of the key messages in my report on the agency, the role of the Member States in aid provision will be much reduced in future because there is evidence to show that their involvement causes delays.
Lastly, Mr President and Commissioner, a final point.
Some of my fellow Members are inclined to want to extend the activities of the agency still further than was the case hitherto.
The agency is now based in Kosovo, and the Council has decided - rightly to my mind - to extend its scope to Serbia and Montenegro.
I feel we will have to call it a day at that point because we can draw a lesson from the work that the agency is doing now, i.e. physical reconstruction, with a view to carrying out the same activities to good effect in Serbia and Montenegro.
Delivering aid to the Balkans within the framework of CARDS, to countries such as Croatia, Albania, and Macedonia, demands other special qualities and other capabilities.
I would therefore say: let the agency do what it is good at, i.e. physical reconstruction.
It will prove very difficult to do this as effectively in Serbia.
Let us confine ourselves to this and not dissipate our energies by extending the agency' s capabilities beyond the borders of former Yugoslavia.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am aware that the Balkans are not the most promising area for optimism.
However, I do not believe I am being over-optimistic if I say that the European Union is harvesting the fruits of coordinated and persistent action.
After the tragedy that the Balkans suffered, these fruits first appeared a few months ago in Croatia with free elections and a regime eager to respect human rights, and have now revealed themselves in Belgrade, where the citizens have confirmed their desire to live together in peace and freedom and to take their place in the family of Europe.
We must not disappoint them in their expectations, and now more than ever these countries need our help.
We must continue this process of stabilising the region and prepare them for a longer-term perspective of integration in the institutions of Europe.
In doing this, of course, we are staking our credibility and our own stability.
But if we want to help them, we must do so more effectively and in a more coordinated fashion than we have done so far; otherwise there will occur what Mr Lagendijk has called the loss of visibility of the European Union, which bears the largest financial burden in the Balkans and yet is far less visible than countries like the United States, which can react practically in real time to any need that arises in the country.
So much so that when I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina and visited a village, they would greet me jubilantly with 'It is so good that you Americans are here to help us.'
The European Union' s action had become that invisible.
In the report on aid to the western Balkans that I have drawn up, working in close collaboration with Mr Lagendijk, on the two topics that we are dealing with today - a fine example of cooperation between two committees - we have recognised a number of limitations.
On the one hand there is a geographical limitation, which suggests that the agency' s action should be expanded to embrace not only Kosovo but all Yugoslavia.
We have also found some functional limitations.
First, the international organisations that carry out these operations, such as UNMIK in Kosovo or the office of the High Representative in Sarajevo, also need to benefit from this aid.
In addition, there are several measures - I am referring particularly to the CARDS programme - that should go beyond reconstruction and extend to training, education and the reconstruction of civil society in close collaboration with NGOs.
It is vital that NGOs should collaborate in this field, and also that there should be some coordination among them, if we really want their action to be more effective and to reach all parts of those regions.
We must also highlight the media.
The media in that region have often been responsible for the tragedy they have been through, so it is essential to have a completely free media that acts in accordance with the rules that prevail in our democracies.
It is also very important to make the judiciary really independent.
We have also come across some operational limitations, which are among the causes of the lack of visibility.
Operational limitations in the aid management system.
Sometimes there is too much bureaucracy, too much red tape, and too much vacillation when the aid is granted.
Therefore it is important for the CARDS programme management committee to be a committee that confines itself to the general lines of multiannual planning and does not try to carry out everyday micro-management at too detailed a scale, because otherwise we may again have the same problems as in the past.
It is also important that the work of the CARDS management committee and the work of the Kosovo Reconstruction Agency should not get mixed up, or be duplicated or overlap; instead there should be a perfect division of duties.
It is also essential to strengthen the role of the European Parliament, and I believe that with the amendments, which are likely to be voted for tomorrow, the European Parliament will be able to perform a greater consultative role in a process of interinstitutional collaboration.
Lastly, I want to mention the financial package.
Mr President, you are perfectly aware that nowadays the miracle of the loaves and the fishes is most unlikely to be repeated, and with the precious few loaves and fishes we now have available it is going to be practically impossible for us to tackle all of the European Union' s external obligations.
We have to give more effective and more coordinated aid, gathering together all the scattered bits and pieces.
I conclude by repeating the Commission' s own words - that these two proposals are the cornerstone of a process that should lead these countries, which have had and still have so many problems, to become fully integrated into the structures of Europe.
I am firmly convinced that the Balkans do have a solution and that the Balkan curse can be lifted, but for this they need all our support and these two programmes aim to provide it.
Mr President, I feel that the content of this important measure has been clearly and very well explained by Mr Westendorp y Cabeza.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, which I have the honour of chairing, has endeavoured, through its opinion, to emphasise the importance of this reconstruction work in the Balkans as a possible way of integrating these areas into Europe as a whole.
At the same time, in order to include a specifically cultural angle, not in abstract or generic terms but in terms of solidarity, we have proposed amendments which have found favour in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and which, I feel, contribute to providing, on the one hand, economic, civil, supportive assistance while restoring the civil society of these very unfortunate areas and, on the other, the possibility for cultural and institutional - and I stress the word institutional - support, to give these areas a sense of association with Europe, association in terms of civilisation, in terms of cultural initiatives, as well.
The fact that the amendments expressed as an opinion by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport have been accepted and that unanimity has been achieved is, in my opinion, an important factor which this House should note and take into consideration.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, what you see before you is one happy man, one happy rapporteur, because the Commission has adopted the lion' s share of the amendments put forward by the Committee on Budgetary Control, on their merits.
Of course this is only to be welcomed. Our work has borne fruit.
But I am also happy because I feel that Parliament has succeeded, by keeping the pressure on, in turning round a situation that originally left a great deal to be desired.
Rapporteur Lagendijk rightly pointed out that, if truth be known, the Commission' s original proposal drew no lessons from the past, from the comments already made by the Court of Auditors, or from the experiences of the European Agency for Reconstruction. Nor did it take on board the comments in Mrs Pack' s report, which was available to us back in 1999, or the feedback from the ad hoc delegation that we sent to Kosovo, and which submitted some very important recommendations under the leadership of Doris Pack and Terry Wynn.
When I drafted my report in July, I saw at once that that this original proposal was lacking. I then asked the Commission to withdraw the proposal.
I am delighted that they did so and went on to submit a new proposal.
There has been a new proposal on the table since 4 October, and we are working on it now.
I feel this is to be welcomed, thanks to the pressure exerted by Parliament.
What is it about? We must ensure that the regulations now on the table make provision for EU aid to the Western Balkans to be delivered quickly, flexibly and unbureaucratically, in cooperation with the local population and local bodies.
There has been all too little of this in previous years.
We need a flexible system to this end, a lightweight structure free of red tape.
It is a pity that the President-in-Office of the Council is absent today.
It is mainly the Council and the Member States who have, as it were, put a spoke in this large wheel in recent years. They have put paid to things that might have been possible.
Therefore I welcome the proposal now on the table.
On behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I am able to tell you that we support all the amendments.
Naturally we are also delighted that the amendment regarding OLAF has been adopted.
It is indeed the case that the anti-fraud unit must also be free to carry out its full range of tasks in the Western Balkans.
Finally, I would like to say a brief word, speaking in a personal capacity rather than on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I am currently working on a report on how funds are being spent in Bosnia Herzegovina.
It is a follow-up report to a special report by the Court of Auditors.
We will need to ensure that sufficient funds are earmarked for Bosnia Herzegovina in the CARDs regulation.
Our task will not end there, as we will still have quite some way to go.
It is a fragile and unstable state.
That, more than anything is what we must keep in mind in the years to come.
I am sorry to have to start the group debate without the President of the Council being here with us.
I am promised he will be here soon.
Mr President, I wanted to make a number of general comments today about what I would like to call 'the political reconstruction of the Balkans region' .
Mr Swoboda will say a little more, on behalf of my group, about what I would like to call 'efforts to reconstruct the EU' , which is also the subject of the reports under discussion today, courtesy of Mr Lagendijk and Mr Westendorp, to whom I offer my compliments.
In theory, we should be encouraged by the developments that have taken place in the Balkans over the past year.
A great deal of headway has been made in the space of a year and the internal dynamics in a number of countries are at long last enhancing the role of the international community, even though the Kosovo crisis is still fresh in the memory.
Kosovo is, and remains, a problem child.
The local elections had a positive outcome.
Of course it is ever thus when moderates win, but the internal situation remains tense, as borne out by the recent murder of four Roma who had returned to Kosovo after seeking asylum in Belgium.
Naturally the all-important question is: what future does Kosovo have within Yugoslavia? We PSE members reject any fanciful notions of an independent Kosovo.
We are therefore looking forward with bated breath to the first meeting between President Kostunica and Mr Rugova.
Perhaps the European Union could act as a mediator in this.
However, we ought not to focus on Kosovo alone.
By and large, things are moving in the right direction.
I would call it a return to normality, all be it a gradual one.
Last year belonged to true democracy, which was on the up and up, and to those politicians who eschew nationalism as the sole vehicle for politics.
They have replaced three politicians who personified the worst aspects of former Yugoslavia in the nineties.
I am referring to Tudjman, Milosevic and Izetbegovic.
The government in Zagreb is helping us to think about the future of the region, and making real investments in democracy and stability.
Tomorrow we are due to receive the new President of Yugoslavia in this House.
As I see it, they are the new heroes of the Balkans and of course they are more than welcome.
Croatia must soon be given the opportunity to strengthen its ties with the European Union.
As far as I am concerned, apart from Slovenia it will be the first country from former Yugoslavia to qualify for EU membership in the future.
What Serbia deserves most of all at this point in time is material aid, and the sooner the better.
Europe must clearly demonstrate that its aid is making a difference, even before the parliamentary elections in Serbia.
However, as far as I am concerned, this week' s star price goes to the leader of the Social Democrats in Bosnia, and, incidentally, to the people of Slovakia, for not falling into the referendum trap that the opposition set for the government, but that is another story.
I read in some reports about the elections in Bosnia that the extreme nationalists have won at the parliamentary elections held in Bosnia Herzegovina.
On the face of it, that appears to be true, particularly in the Republika Srpska and in the Croatian part.
In the Bosnian part, the position of the nationalists has come under attack for the first time ever.
In any event, the changes taking place in Croatia and Serbia are starting to have an effect on the situation there.
The Social Democrats have done remarkably well there.
There is nothing untoward about that in Europe, or even in the Balkans, but what is striking is that this party is multi-ethnic and openly defends this.
At recent gatherings in Sarajevo, the leader of this party, Zlatko Lagumdzija, in the company of Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Albanians and other representatives from the region, introduced the concept of reconstruction of the spirit, thereby getting right to the heart of the matter.
We must concentrate our energies in the physical reconstruction of former Yugoslavia, but this will only work if we manage to alter the people' s frame of mind too.
Those politicians who openly work for such a cause deserve not only our admiration, but above all, our support.
They alone can bring down the bastion of nationalism.
The stability of the region will depend on the extent to which the new leaders are able to keep the lid on the national spirit and develop a different kind of mentality.
Their political fate will also depend on how successfully the EU is able to deliver aid.
The reports by Mr Westendorp and Mr Lagendijk provide the foundation we need for an efficient approach to the matter.
Mr President, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is in favour of the reports we have for discussion, and we support the Commission' s attempt to make the very difficult work the European Union is doing for the Balkans more effective.
The aid has been too bureaucratic and too slow in coming, because the Commission has been too centralised and management-driven in its work.
There has been too much management in detail, and Parliament has been complicit in this on a number of points.
It is very unfortunate that the agency has been split up into a headquarters in Thessaloniki and an operations centre in Pristina.
We have been opposed to this throughout.
Moreover, the arrangement has now also been criticised by the Court of Auditors.
It is good that, in this year' s Budget, EUR 175 million is being set aside for Kosovo and EUR 200 million for emergency aid for Serbia.
It is very unfortunate, however, that the appropriations to the UN' s administration in Kosovo, to the Baltic region and to the rapid reaction facility have been put in the reserves.
It is very unfortunate that there is no certainty regarding what we have by way of money for Serbia next year.
It is particularly unfortunate in view of the fact that the elected Serbian President is coming here tomorrow.
It is also unfortunate that a large number of programmes have been put in the so-called performance reserve.
I am well aware that Parliament wants in this way to force the Commission to behave better, but one ought not to take one' s own children hostage.
We should do much better to give the Commission a free hand in making the work effective, and we must reserve the right to criticise the Commission if the work is not a success.
We must not make ourselves partly liable for possible damage to programmes of which we are in favour.
Let us give the Commission larger appropriations and permission to delegate responsibility so that it becomes easier to make rapid decisions and to implement initiatives.
Let us celebrate the visit by the elected Serbian president tomorrow by now seriously giving the Commission a chance to put the aid we offer onto a new and better footing.
Mr President, the aid which we are discussing is yet another instrument of foreign intervention in this highly sensitive region of Europe.
International imperialism is well versed in the art of using the stick and the carrot, of alternating bombing incursions with humanitarian aid, destruction with reconstruction.
Its final objective is to subjugate people to the new world order.
What I want to know is how can those who sowed disaster talk of reconstruction? How do murderers of children and civilians have the gall to give their victims lessons in democracy, the rule of law and human rights?
The imperialist forces owe Yugoslavia war reparation, not humanitarian aid.
The events which unfolded in Yugoslavia a few weeks ago, the so-called popular uprising, was backed by at least USD 100 million in foreign aid to the so-called "democratic opposition".
These events may well have created a climate of euphoria in leading imperialist circles; but they know full well that they have not subdued the spirit of resistance in the Yugoslavian or any other people.
That is why they are preparing military and police strike forces.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are all aware that the Western Balkans present a significant challenge for the European Union and the credibility of its foreign policy, due to the scale of our human, political and financial commitment in the region, and also our desire to facilitate stabilisation through the construction, development and finally reintegration of the Balkan region into the European family.
This year began on a positive note with democratic change in Croatia, as a result of the parliamentary and presidential elections it held.
It continued with another major event in the form of the victory of democratic forces in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the fall of Milosevic.
We indeed hope that the year will end with the consolidation of democracy on 23 December during the parliamentary elections in Serbia.
As you will be aware, the European Union, has contributed significantly to these historic developments.
It reacted immediately to the new order in Croatia, by undertaking the process that will lead, at the Zagreb summit on 24 November, in other words in ten days' time, to the opening of negotiations aimed at concluding a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with this country.
As it had made a similar commitment to the people of Serbia, it took the necessary steps on the election of President Kostunica, whom you are to meet tomorrow. These steps included the lifting of sanctions that had been imposed on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, emergency assistance to the value of EUR 200 million granted by the European Council meeting in Biarritz, and the integration of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into the international community, all with a view to supporting the process of the consolidation of democracy.
I should like to speak in more detail about the priorities set by the Presidency-in-Office for the Western Balkans.
Thinking ahead to the summit in Zagreb, we wanted to focus the Union' s action on consolidating democracy and evaluating the Stabilisation and Association Process.
To this end we have set two aims; the first is to develop regional cooperation, and the second is to implement a genuine policy to encourage a rapprochement between these countries and the European Union.
At Cologne, the European Council offered countries the opportunity to join the European Union.
At Feira, the Council considered those countries participating in the Stabilisation and Association Process as potential applicants for membership of the European Union.
We intend to confirm the offer at the Zagreb summit, but also go one step further and define the measures each country needs to take and the reforms they need to put in place to this end.
Lastly, we intend to confirm that the process will receive Community support of the highest order.
On the initiative of France, for the first time the Zagreb Summit will gather together Heads of State and Government of the European Union and the countries of the Western Balkans that are participating in the Stabilisation and Association Process: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
This summit will provide an opportunity to draw conclusions at the highest level, with regard to the decisive democratic changes that have taken place in this region. As a result of this, we will be able to reaffirm the fact that the way is open for a rapprochement between all of the countries in the region and the European Union, within the framework of the Stabilisation and Association Process.
We should like to highlight the value of the process, for example by marking the conclusion of negotiations of the first Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia during the Zagreb Summit, or confirming an individual approach that is adapted to each country' s particular characteristics and, as I have already said, by outlining the prospects the process holds for each of us.
The summit will also aim to consolidate democracy in the FRY, support the process of reconciliation between these countries and neighbouring countries, and encourage the development of reliable cooperation between the countries in the region.
Therefore, the Union, without waiting for the Stabilisation and Association Agreements to be implemented, will remind the five countries concerned that it expects them, as of now, to conclude regional cooperation agreements between themselves.
Such agreements, that were provided for within the framework of the Stabilisation and Association Agreements, should, in our view, include the initiation of political dialogue, a regional free trade area, as well as close collaboration in the field of justice and home affairs, in particular with a view to strengthening the judiciary and its independence in the fight against organised crime, corruption, money laundering and all other forms of criminal trafficking.
Any rapprochement with the European Union is, in fact, closely linked, in the eyes of the Council, to the development of regional cooperation.
Examination of the reports by Mr Westendorp y Cabeza and Mr Lagendijk on proposals for a Regulation concerning a framework programme on the one hand, and the European Agency for Reconstruction on the other, provide us with an opportunity to assess the scale of the support that the Union intends to give the Western Balkans in relation to the Stabilisation and Association Process.
Both reports are along the right lines.
The Presidency-in-Office, like you, would like this framework programme to implement the principles of the reform of the management of external aid: fewer procedures, greater coordination out in the field, fewer outstanding commitments.
Similarly, we support the extension to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of the activity of the European Agency for Reconstruction, which proved its effectiveness in Kosovo.
We would like to see the programmes assigned to it by the Commission implemented more efficiently and speedily.
The Council Presidency aims to reach an agreement on the proposals for a Regulation regarding the CARDS programme and the European Agency for Reconstruction during the General Affairs Council at the end of November, in other words next week, so as to be able to make an announcement at Zagreb on 24 November.
I should like to remind you that the main priorities of the CARDS programme are the strengthening of institutions with regard to democracy and the rule of law, economic development and reconstruction, and regional cooperation.
The CARDS programme should therefore improve the cohesiveness, effectiveness and visibility of the assistance provided by the European Union to the region.
At the Budget Council on 20 July, the Member States unanimously decided to refocus the debate on the total amount of the financial envelope set aside for CARDS for the period 2000-2006 within the context of respect for the ceiling of heading 4 of the Financial Perspective, as determined by the European Council in Berlin.
This amount, which will include assistance for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, will result from a unanimous decision regarding the way in which the EUR 10 billion available under the ceiling of heading 4 will be distributed between the two aid programmes, MEDA II and CARDS, the adoption of which will feature among our priorities.
Lastly, during the General Affairs Council on 18 September, the Presidency-in-Office adopted asymmetric commercial preferences for the benefit of those countries that are participating in the Stabilisation and Association Process.
These measures accord preferential access to the Community market for agricultural and industrial products produced by these countries.
By adopting these measures, the European Union has performed an exceptional gesture, as this process of liberalisation, in particular as regards agricultural products, has been offered practically without conditions or rights.
Such measures entered into force on 1 November and the Council is currently working to extend them to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The French Presidency set itself ambitious targets as regards the Western Balkans which are close to being achieved: the development of the Stabilisation and Association Process, the adoption of the CARDS programme, the adoption of asymmetric commercial preferences, to mention but the more noteworthy Community measures.
The long-awaited victory of democracy in Croatia, and then in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, forces the European Union, as we are well aware, to take things much further.
This is why we must deliver a very strong political message at the Zagreb summit, one that is in line with the high hopes for peace and reconciliation that the peoples of the countries in the region have placed in this democratic change.
The European Union must not be afraid to say to these countries: yes, your place, your future is within the European family.
Mr President, my initial impression of President Kostunica is that he has been very pragmatic in his political dealings since he assumed power in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
He has consolidated his victory but has equally been tactful in his relations with other leaders in the region.
He has already visited Sarajevo, he has attended an informal regional meeting in Skopje and he has also been to Moscow.
The European Union was right to react positively to President Kostunica's accession to power.
Visa restrictions have been loosened and the oil and flight embargo has now been lifted.
The fact that the Commission has allocated EUR 200 million in emergency and assistance support from the NGOs is to be commended.
I hope that President Kostunica and his supporters will steadily consolidate their position as the new democratic leadership in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia at all political levels.
Elections for the Serbian Parliament are scheduled to take place on 23 December.
I welcome the fact that President Kostunica has acknowledged the importance of cooperating with the War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague.
An invitation has been extended to President Kostunica to participate, as the new President of Yugoslavia, at the forthcoming Zagreb summit.
This summit, instead of being a showcase award for Croatia's efforts towards democratisation, will now inevitably shift towards celebrating President Kostunica's achievements.
It is very important to assure the other Balkan participants that the return of Yugoslavia to the international community will in no way lessen their support from the European Union.
Due attention must be paid to the sensitivities of all countries in the Balkan region and to assure them that they will not be neglected in the general euphoria over President Kostunica's accession to power.
Other objectives of the Zagreb summit must include an announcement of the Community assistance and reconstruction, democratisation and stabilisation programmes for the Western Balkans, a confirmation of the progressive establishment of a free trading zone between the European Union and the Western Balkans and a commitment by the countries in the region for regional cooperation and to putting in place a free trading regime between them.
This debate is now suspended and will be resumed at 9.00 p.m.
Ms Pack wishes to make a point of order.
Please make sure it is a point of order and not a continuation of the debate with Mr Moscovici.
Unfortunately, Mr Moscovici was not here when I spoke.
I should like him to tell me if he supports the addition of another objective to the objectives listed in the CARDS programme, namely support for education and training in south-east Europe.
This is an important new objective in the CARDS programme.
The Commission is in favour and I should like very much to know if the Council is too.
This is an interesting question in my view, and one which I believe has the Commission' s support.
We shall therefore study it within the Council.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0553/2000). We shall examine questions to the Council.
Question No 1 by (H-0818/00):
Subject: Rapid Reaction Facility Why has this proposal not been discussed formally under the French Council Presidency, although work had certainly begun on this issue under its predecessors?
On 10 May, the Commission presented a proposal to Coreper aimed at setting up a rapid reaction facility with a view to meeting the expectations expressed by Heads of State and Government at Helsinki.
During the European Council, within the framework of the report on the development of European facilities for military and civilian crisis management, it was suggested that rapid financing mechanisms, such as the creation by the Commission of a rapid reaction fund, should be set up to speed up the provision of finance to support European Union activities, to contribute to operations run by other international organisations and to fund NGO activities, where appropriate.
In line with the mandate given by Coreper, studies of this project are being carried out by the group of Foreign Affairs Ministers.
It was first examined on 6 November.
The aim is to adopt a regulation as soon as possible but, in order to achieve this, the Council must have Parliament' s opinion in due form.
Thank you for that reply.
When I tabled this question there was in fact a log-jam in the Council and there was no discussion, which was the purpose for tabling the question.
But I welcome the fact that now there is movement within the Council and that we in the Committee on Foreign Affairs actually have a copy of your latest document saying what the compromise looks to be.
Mr President-in-Office, you want Parliament's opinion and we understand you propose taking a decision next month in December.
If I tell you that Parliament will be debating this in January, I should like to know if you will wait for our opinion before you take your decision?
I can only repeat what I said in the conclusion of my reply, namely that we aim to adopt a regulation as soon as possible, but, in order to do so, the Council has to have the European Parliament' s opinion in due form.
This is essential.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 2 and 3 will be taken together.
Question No 2 by (H-0819/00):
Subject: Western Sahara On 13-15 September a delegation from the European Parliament' s Intergroup on Peace for the Sahrawi People, in which I participated, visited the Sahrawi refugee camps in South-Eastern Algeria.
There we met the highest authorities of the RASD (Sahrawi Democratic Republic), including its president, and representatives of Minurso. Minurso has done remarkable work in identifying people with a view to drawing up electoral lists prior to the holding of the referendum on self-determination referred to in the UN Secretary-General' s settlement plan signed by the Moroccan Government and the Polisario Front.
However, the very large number of objections raised - particularly from Morocco - is clearly an obstacle to holding this referendum in practice.
The delegation noted the terrible living conditions of the refugees.
The constant postponement of the referendum, and the failure of negotiations in Berlin on 28 September 2000, are raising serious concerns and engendering deep disappointment among the people.
We also noted that there were high expectations of a clearer commitment by European Union to settling this conflict which, which is an obstacle to any prospect of stability in the region.
Reiterating the calls made by the European Parliament in its resolution of 16 March 2000, what initiatives does the Presidency of the European Council propose to take with a view to playing a more active role so as to guarantee the full and complete application of the UN peace plan?
Question No 3 by (H-0846/00):
Subject: Referendum on self-determination for Western Sahara The talks under way between the international mediator, UN Secretary­General special envoy James Baker, and the parties in dispute over the holding of a referendum on self­determination for Western Sahara, are in a state of deadlock.
At the meeting held on 28 September in Berlin, the Moroccan authorities suggested that they might end their support for the peace plan for organisation of the referendum.
The President of the Commission is scheduled to visit Morocco and Algeria in November.
What action is the Council taking or does it intend to take in support of the peace plan, in order that the referendum may be held as soon as possible and the dangers for the region of renewed conflict thus avoided? What is the Council's political assessment of the current impasse and how does it intend to contribute to a fair solution to the conflict?
The Council of the European Union supports the process set in motion by the United Nations.
It also supports the current endeavours of the UN Secretary-General' s Special Envoy, Mr James Baker - who seems somewhat concerned with other matters at present but this will soon change - to find a fair and mutually acceptable solution to the Western Sahara question.
The Council seeks to help foster a climate of confidence between the parties involved and ensure that this is achieved.
Resolving the conflict in the Western Sahara will help bring stability to the Maghreb and aid its economic and social development.
However, the fact remains that this issue falls within the remit of the United Nations Organisation and the Special Envoy of its Secretary-General, whose perseverance in this complex matter must be supported.
For several months, Mr Baker' s mission has been twofold; he has sought both to resolve the difficulties inherent in implementing the Settlement Plan, which should lead to a referendum on self-determination for the Sahrawi people, and to reach a political agreement.
Both parties have just been granted a new deadline of four months - by Resolution 1324 - to try and make some progress on both counts.
The Council, nonetheless, remains concerned by the conditions endured by the people in the camps at Tindouf from a humanitarian point of view and in terms of food supplies.
The active commitment of the European Union in this regard is worth highlighting, as it is the largest provider of humanitarian aid to the Sahrawi refugees through its ECHO programme, through which EUR 10.58 million have been allocated for the period 1999-2000. In addition to this, EUR 9 million if aid is being provided as of November 2000 for a period of eight months.
Thank you for your reply.
You referred to a mutually acceptable solution.
I myself have visited the camps at Tindouf where this extremely difficult situation has been going on for 25 years.
It must be noted, however, that one of the parties involved, Morocco in this instance, that has diplomatic weight and the wheels of state at its disposal, is making less of an effort to ensure that the peace plan, in other words the Houston agreements that it did, in fact, sign, is implemented.
It continues to talk about the problem of territorial integrity, a term used by the King, particularly during his last official speech.
Now, the issue relates to the self-determination of a nation and the implementation of United Nations resolutions.
Whatever the result of the referendum - independence or annexation to Morocco - it seems to me that democracy is what will finally resolve this conflict most effectively.
Otherwise, the exacerbation of current tensions and the possible return to arms would be dangerous for the region as a whole at a time when we are discussing - and we were even doing so earlier in this Chamber - the resumption of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
How can we even consider reviving this partnership without first resolving the conflict?
We are well aware of the close links between the European Union and Morocco and, in particular, between France and Morocco, which is why I wanted to ask Mr Moscovici if he could inform us as to the content and nature of negotiations that he is currently holding with the Moroccan Government on the Western Sahara question.
At the end of the meeting held in Berlin on 28 September 2000, as you will be aware, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Morocco made a speech in which he reasserted his willingness to do everything possible in order to find a sustainable and definitive solution.
Mr Rabat now seems to have realised that this proposal did not meet either the UN Secretary-General or his Special Envoy' s expectations, and that it should have formed the basis for seeking a just and definitive solution to the problem.
As a result, Morocco dispatched its Minister for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation to New York on 26 October to attend a private meeting with the Security Council after a similar meeting was held with the Secretary-General of the Polisario Front on 19 October.
During his speech, Mr Ben Aïssa stated that a complete file on the scope and content of Morocco' s proposal would be presented the next time the parties met under the auspices of Mr Baker.
According to Mr Ben Aïssa, all Morocco had done at the meeting in Berlin was to put forward a proposal for dialogue and sketched an outline of what its content should be.
France is of the opinion that the willingness Morocco demonstrated in Berlin constitutes an initial step towards finding a way out of the current deadlock the settlement process has reached, and it must be considered as the basis for finding a solution. However, more details need to be provided and the substance of its content improved if it is to constitute a genuine political offer that can be considered by all of the parties involved.
This is the message we have given our counterparts in Morocco.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I think the EU would have far more influence in the Maghreb if there were stronger links with the reform process in Morocco.
I should like to ask about progress with the association agreement with Morocco.
As you know, we have already debated the fisheries agreement.
That is another problem which needs to be resolved.
But the question of the association agreement is, I think, extremely urgent.
Question No 4 by (H-0820/00):
Subject: The safe transport of radioactive materials in the EU What consultations took place between the Council (Transport, Environment and Energy Ministers), and the French Presidency and the Standing Working group (of experts) on the safe Transport of Radioactive Materials in the EU, prior to - or subsequent to - the announcement by the German Government in September 2000 that it intended to resume the cross-border transport of radioactive materials, which was suspended in May 1998 because of safety concerns?
The transport of radioactive materials in France is carried out in accordance with the legislation in force and, in particular, Council Directive 94/55/EC of 21 November 1994 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road, and Council Directive 96/49/EC of 23 July 1996 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by rail, which apply to the transport of radioactive materials and set out various technical requirements in relation to vehicles, brands and packing.
The organisation of the transport of radioactive materials between France and Germany has been the subject of bilateral negotiations between the two countries, in which neither the Council of Ministers, nor the French Presidency-in-Office as such, were involved.
I can simply point out the fact that France and Germany - and here I am no longer speaking as President-in-Office of the Council - raised these questions during a bilateral summit in Vittel last week, where it was decided to form a working group in order to find a solution to the problem.
I regret to inform the Minister that he really has not answered my question.
I asked what consultations took place between the Council, the French Presidency and the standing working group of experts.
I asked that question because just three weeks after the Council's expert group, the standing working group on the safe transport of radioactive materials, published a report in April 1998 giving a clean bill of health to the way nuclear wastes were transported, the transports were found to be contaminated, as the Minister very well knows.
As they are about to be resumed, so we hear - and I am glad to hear all these consultations are taking place - can we place any credibility in the working group on waste? It said everything was hunky-dory but then the transports were found to be contaminated.
In the light of that, why are there only representatives from the nuclear industry and government on this working group of experts? Why cannot we have independent experts who have detailed information which could be relevant?
Could I ask the Minister to answer to the point?
We have decided, I repeat, to set up a working group.
Generally speaking, this is a bilateral issue, but, rest assured, it is one we indeed intend to resolve.
I am not saying this to rule out certain considerations but in order to put an end to the problem.
Question No 5 by (H-0826/00):
Subject: EU initiatives in dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan Recently, following many years of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan - which have resulted in devastating economic stagnation and severe damage to the social fabric of the two countries - there have been signs of reciprocal attempts at rapprochement to break the current deadlock between the two countries and embark on reconstruction.
According to the International Herald Tribune of 7 September 2000, the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Robert Kocharian and Heydar Aliyev respectively, have had at least 11 meetings with each other in recent times.
The EU has so far remained a passive onlooker in the face of the two countries' endeavours and has taken no initiative, leaving the field open for other strategic players to make moves in their own interests.
What diplomatic initiatives will the Council take to further the rapprochement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, settle their bilateral differences, and promote cooperation between the two countries?
The stability and development of the Caucasus are one of the European Union' s strategic priorities.
As you will be aware, the European Union supports the mediation efforts currently in progress with a view to finding a political solution to all of the conflicts in the region, on the basis of respect for the territorial integrity of the states concerned and an appropriate degree of autonomy.
The Union is therefore closely monitoring contacts between Armenia and Azerbaijan with a view to finding a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is why it welcomes the meetings that have regularly taken place between the two Presidents and hopes that they will lead to a political solution.
The European Union remains convinced that the Minsk Group of the OSCE has a central role to play in finding a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in spite of the fact that the solutions put forward by this group in 1997 and 1998 were both rejected by Erevan and Baku.
The European Union is also using all of the instruments at its disposal within the framework of the partnership and cooperation agreement to help improve relations between the two countries.
Thanks to the various opportunities for cooperation, it has been possible to establish regular political dialogue with the aim of facilitating exchanges between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
At the same time, the Union continues to provide substantial material aid to both countries through its various programmes, in particular its TACIS programme.
It has offered to finance cross-border projects of common interest in an attempt to re-establish good neighbourly relations between the two countries.
The commitment of the European Union has been publicly acknowledged by Armenia and Azerbaijan, who have both asserted their willingness to work towards a rapprochement between their countries and the European Union.
The President-in-Office's reply, I am sorry to say, is far from satisfactory.
It smacks of formal, departmental despatches rather than political initiative.
The Caucasus needs a more extensive plan and more extensive initiatives if it is to be stabilised.
And a European Union which - from what I have read in the newspapers - recently changed its strategy on its energy problems and is now looking more towards the former Soviet Union - with all the implications which that has for the region in general - obviously cannot remain passive and fail to react to developments.
So from this point of view, and because, of course, the question was not asked in order to elicit an expression of satisfaction that everything is just fine but in order to express a concern, I think that it could be used as the starting point for an integrated policy, such as that which we have been debating recently for the Balkans; in other words, a new stability agreement for the Caucasus, at the political initiative of the European Union and with political objectives and priorities concerning development, autonomy and democracy in this region.
Mr President, I shall start by reiterating the question put by Mr Souladakis, i.e. what sort of initiatives has the European Union taken on this major problem, which has reduced a rich region to this sorry state? More specifically, because one of the main issues which is causing problems in the region is the embargo which Turkey has imposed on Armenia, I should like to ask the President-in-Office if, during the negotiations and discussions being held with Turkey at the moment, the question has been raised, albeit academically, of Turkey's lifting its embargo on Armenia, which is reducing the country to poverty and misery.
I understand the concerns expressed by Mr Souladakis and Mr Alavanos, but I do not have anything to add regarding the action taken by the European Union as it has been carried out.
As regards discussions with Turkey, we have just held an important debate on this issue and you are well aware of the European Union' s position with regard to this matter.
As the author is not present, Question No 6 lapses.
Question No 7 by (H-0832/00):
Subject: Legislative proposals to prevent concealment of refugees The French Presidency has put forward several proposals to tighten up legislation applying to persons who transport or hide refugees who do not have the right to be in the EU. The proposals cover anyone who hides refugees, including anyone who does so without financial gain.
The proposals also enable the Member States to impose various penalties on or even disband organisations which hide refugees.
Does the Presidency consider that this option to disband organisations should also extend to non-profit organisations such as churches, monasteries and parties?
The tragic events in Dover last June were a cruel reminder of the need to fight more effectively against illegal immigration rings.
The European Council in Feira last June called upon the Council to speed up the implementation of measures combating illegal rings, provided for in the conclusions of the Tampere European Council of October 1999.
The measures to which the author of the question refers comprise a draft Council Directive aimed at defining the concept of the facilitation of unauthorised entry, movement and residence and a draft framework decision designed specifically to strengthen the penal framework combating the facilitation of unauthorised entry and illegal residence as defined therein.
These texts, which have been submitted to the European Parliament for consultation, are currently being examined by the relevant groups within the Council.
They are essentially aimed at combating the trafficking of human beings, which occurs through the facilitation of illegal immigration by organised rings.
The aim is to disband and punish those criminal organisations that are involved in this type of traffic.
The question raised therefore provides the Presidency-in-Office with an opportunity to clarify several points.
The texts concerned are not aimed at preventing potential refugees from exercising their right to seek asylum on Union territory.
Mr Sjöstedt will agree, in fact, that a potential refugee is not ipso facto an illegal immigrant.
What is more, these texts are not designed to prevent non-profit making organisations from carrying out their work, provided, of course, that they comply with the laws in force.
It is therefore a matter of fighting against criminal organisations that are involved in the trafficking of human beings, not disbanding non-governmental, charitable, political and denominational organisations, except of course - though I cannot imagine this ever happening - in the event of their activities serving as a cover for illegal acts.
We agree that the situation in Dover calls for a reaction on our part, but I also think it shows something else.
In the Danish media, we have heard a 14 year-old Afghan boy say that, if you have to become a refugee, you need an agent.
The word 'agent' was his own, but to some extent it shows how difficult it is for refugees in fact to make their way to a place in which they can request asylum, and that is of course where the whole problem lies.
I should like to ask how the Council views the fact that this further contributes to criminalising humanitarian actions.
It is as if we stand midstream at a place where two currents, formed of immigrants and refugees, often combine.
What is the Council thinking of? If this area is further criminalised, the result will be to have contributed to a situation in which only unscrupulous and cynical people and those out to make money from the situation will stay behind.
Is it really the Council' s policy to help bring about a situation in which the money of poor and persecuted people ends up in the clutches of the mafia and similar organisations?
I think that the European texts are intended to encourage each Member State to take the necessary measures to ensure that the act of facilitating, directly or indirectly, the unauthorised entry, movement or residence in its territory of an alien who is not a national of a Member State of the European Union is regarded as an offence.
This is the general philosophy behind them.
Mr President, I welcome the Council's response to the original question.
I just want the Minister to re-emphasise that this proposed legislation is aimed at those who exploit and make profit out of people in a desperate situation and is not aimed at further criminalising the immigrant or potential immigrant.
It is about stopping gangs making money out of immigrants.
That is what happened in Dover.
It was organised business that ended up with people dying in the back of a truck because people were making money out of them.
That is what we must end.
Would the Council also - and this is where I agree with Mrs Frahm - encourage the Member States to differentiate more clearly between asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants? At the moment it seems that Member States are beginning to forget their international obligations.
We have an international obligation to treat asylum-seekers properly and to deal with them through specified procedures.
Some Member States now seem to be confusing asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants.
Mr Martin is right, as we are indeed concerned with fighting criminal organisations involved in the trafficking of human beings and not reviewing previous texts that enable potential refugees to exercise their right to seek asylum on Union territory.
This is our purpose and this alone.
I should also like to add that these two texts focus, in particular, on strengthening the framework of criminal law in order to fight organised rings of facilitators.
It is precisely this type of act and this type of organisation that we resolutely wish to combat.
Mr President, Minister, even if I have now been given explanations, I do not properly understand why this imprecise and to some extent inhumane proposal has been tabled at all.
Would it not be more sensible and more appropriate for the EU' s governments and the Council of Ministers to reflect upon why people are forced to find their way illegally to Europe? I should like to ask the minister how many countries there are whose citizens are at present required by the EU' s Member States to have entry visas.
Is it 10, 50 or perhaps 100 countries?
According to the latest information I have, it is 127 countries.
Is this figure correct? If so, do you think this is reasonable, and do you believe it is in keeping with a humane asylum policy?
I have nothing further to add.
Question No 8 by (H-0836/00):
Subject: 'Crimes of honour' in Turkey Every year, dozens of women fall victim to 'crimes of honour' in Turkey.
Although Turkish law confers the same rights on women as men, in practice many men continue to condemn women to death for being raped, committing adultery or simply for meeting other men.
The men who commit the murders rarely receive long prison sentences, some get off with as little as two years.
The new legislation being drafted in Turkey, which prohibits reduced sentences, is necessary but it is even more important that Muslim leaders officially condemn 'crimes of honour', which are a direct violation of Islam.
There is a need both for legislation and measures to stimulate debate and increase awareness.
What will the Council do to encourage Turkey to take effective measures to combat 'crimes of honour'?
.
(FR) Mrs Theorin has drawn the Council' s attention to the issue of crimes of honour in Turkey.
Such practices appear to be in sharp decline and, we are told, only occur sporadically in rural areas.
However, these crimes continue to be a source of concern for the Council as they are often committed in the most appalling circumstances.
The Turkish Government has undertaken significant reforms aimed at fighting such acts more effectively, acts which are, of course, not permitted by national law.
The report that was adopted by the Turkish cabinet on 21 September as a reform programme contains several planned amendments to the law, such as the inclusion of measures in the Civil Code that are designed to enhance effective equality between men and women in social and educational fields, ways to better combat domestic violence by training judges that specialise in family matters and, lastly, measures to prevent people that have committed crimes of honour from serving reduced sentences.
Rest assured that the Council will remain particularly vigilant as to the implementation of these measures that are in line with the Copenhagen criteria, as discussed at length earlier on.
In any case, the issue of crimes of honour is not a problem that is specific to Turkey, as these crimes occur in many other places around the world.
The Council has therefore supported the Dutch initiative aimed at the introduction this year, within the framework of the third committee of the United Nations General Assembly, of a draft resolution against these crimes, which is still in the process of being examined.
The Council notes that Turkey has also given its support to this initiative.
Without pretending to understand how so barbaric a phenomenon as crimes of honour can be explained, it can be seen how, every year, dozens of Turkish women are murdered in cold blood by their brothers, fathers, cousins or husbands, with the express motive of maintaining the family' s honour.
For the family - and especially for the men of the family - status, credit and honour reside in having a large number of possessions, including female family members.
According to this view, male family members have a right and a duty to take the life of a female family member who, for some reason, reduces her value as an unviolated woman.
It makes no great difference whether she has transgressed voluntarily or against her will, that is to say been raped.
It is good that the Council should point out the initiatives taken.
It is important to prohibit reduced sentences, but it is still more important to counter the general acceptance of crimes of honour.
My question to the Council is this: Are you prepared to make efforts to put a stop to the spiral of violence by, for example, demanding that Muslim leaders officially distance themselves from crimes of honour?
In my view, we must indeed do everything within our power, absolutely everything, to combat such crimes, and I note that the Council, the United Nations General Assembly and the Turkish Government, as far as I know, are prepared to do this.
Such retrograde practices which have no place in a modern world cannot continue.
Question No 9 by (H-0839/00):
Subject: Attitude of French European Affairs Minister, Pierre Moscovici, to Austria In an interview with the French TV channel France 3, the French European Affairs Minister, Pierre Moscovici, affirmed yet again his rejection of the Austrian Federal Government.
He continued moreover to assert that the government coalition between the ÖVP (Austrian People's Party) and the FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) was 'abnormal' and that the FPÖ was a 'racist and xenophobic party'.
How can the Council justify the situation where an official representative of the French Presidency of the Council can, notwithstanding the favourable verdict handed down in the experts' report on Austria and the consequent lifting of the unjustified 'sanctions' against Austria, continue unopposed publicly to assert such a rejectionist, aggressive and offensive attitude to another European Union country that is a full member on an equal footing? Can the Council clarify whether those statements by the French European Affairs Minister also represent the attitude of the French EU Council Presidency, or if this was the expression of a private opinion by Mr Moscovici?
Can the Council confirm that Austria and its Federal Government will suffer no disadvantages or unequal treatment in the pursuit of major, large-scale European projects as a consequence of Mr Moscovici's statements and attitude?
When will the Council publicly distance itself from Mr Moscovici's statements and clarify its reactions to them?
I have no personal views on this particular matter, though I, like everybody else, both here and elsewhere, am at liberty to make a political analysis on the nature of government.
What is more, I note that the wise men have spoken and that, for example, the adjectives 'racist' and 'xenophobic' were used in their report, albeit as part of a question.
With regard to the other points, I can assure you that as President-in-Office, these personal view points have no bearing whatsoever on matters.
I repeat: none whatsoever.
The Austrian Government is the legitimate government of a country in the European Union and it is up to us whether we approve or disapprove of the way it is made up.
It is precisely because the other 14 Member States disapproved that they imposed sanctions against it.
These sanctions are no longer in place today and, as a result, we shall treat this government as we do any other.
This, moreover, has always been the case within the European Union, as the sanctions taken against Austria were done so on a bilateral basis, which is something I should like to stress.
You therefore have my full assurance that, within the framework of the European Union, the Austrian Government is considered to be on a completely equal footing with all of the other countries and it participates in all of the Council meetings that are held under the auspices of this Presidency.
The term of the Head of State and President of the Republic, Jacques Chirac, will, of course, come to an end at Vienna, this is clear.
I should like to mention that the President of the Republic will be accompanied, as is usually the case, by one of his government ministers, either the Minister for Foreign Affairs or myself.
Next week, a meeting of the European Conference will take place on my invitation in France, in other words a meeting with the candidate countries.
I have been informed that Mrs Ferrero-Waldner intends to come and I will be only too pleased to see her.
All of this shows therefore that we need to clarify several facts.
On one hand there is the French Presidency of the European Union, which has to fulfil its duties and do so in a wholly objective manner, and on the other hand there is the political opinion that any politician may impart with regard to a political situation, which is something I am not to change.
Mr President, I share the President-in-Office's view that extreme right-wing parties in governments have lost nothing; nor could they in Austria because extreme right-wing parties are banned in Austria.
My question to the President-in-Office is this: how is it that extreme right-wing parties are not banned in France and what is the President-in-Office's opinion of extreme left-wing parties in government?
Allow me a brief comment, Mr President: I love France, I love the French and the charm of French men is, as a rule - I repeat, as a rule - unsurpassed.
The digressions on France and the charm of French men are all very interesting in this Parliament, but the President-in-Office of the Council must answer in his capacity as such.
Not as a French male nor in terms of domestic politics.
I simply wondered why you used 'for example' with regard to your reference about the charming nature of the French, as I thought charm was a general characteristic; at least I hoped it was.
As regards the issue in question, I simply wanted to say that there was no discrimination being made against any particular country.
If, for example, and here I am talking as a Minister, France was to elect an extreme right-wing party to office tomorrow, I would hope that the other countries would take measures against it similar to those taken against Austria.
This demonstrates therefore that one country is not being singled out for discrimination over another.
The European Union has certain values, which make it difficult for it to accept some countries taking on particular responsibilities.
That is the political position.
Having said that, I should like to make it clear, Mrs Flemming, that, in general, I like Austria and Austrian people.
Mr President, institutional reform is on the agenda for Nice.
Do you think that the Austrian model, i.e. bilateral majority resolutions, will be used in future as a way of passing resolutions which bypass the European institutions and of forming a new institution or a new group in order to circumvent unanimity in the Council?
I have a supplementary question: how do you behave towards extreme left-wing parties and what is your opinion of them?
I shall answer your first point very clearly.
These bilateral sanctions have demonstrated their scope and limitations.
They were imposed and then lifted and, in my view, show that we need to submit proposals for the creation of legal mechanism to be provided for in the treaties.
In this regard, several countries, including Austria, have put forward proposals to amend Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, in order to set up a prevention and warning mechanism which would mean that a country considered to be out of step with the values of the European Union can receive recommendations while at the same time having its point of view heard.
This was the proposal put forward by the Austrian Government, for example.
I can assure you that this proposal has been fully considered and, in my view, we should seek to amend the Treaty along such lines, within the framework of the IGC.
As regards the other points, I have not used the words 'extreme left' and 'extreme right' here because this would run the risk of a debate on the definition of both notions.
When you say that extreme right-wing parties are banned in Austria, that is all well and good, but one might also question what does or does not constitute the notion of the extreme right.
I personally wanted to talk about values: I have spoken about values as they appear in our texts and I have spoken about the values that appear in the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, and I have spoken, in particular, it is true, about the fight against all forms of discrimination, as appears on the title page of all European texts and which is something we should ensure is respected.
Question No 10 by (H-0842/00):
Subject: Council reply to letter from the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Cem In a supplementary question (Question Time of 5 September 2000 - Question H-610/00) I had the opportunity to ask the President-in-Office of the Council about the Council's response to the letter sent by the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Cem, to the 15 Foreign Ministers of the European Union in which he sought to promote his own interpretation of the Helsinki Summit conclusions.
The President-in-Office's reply that he did not have the specific answer to this question and his general statement that the Helsinki conclusions were the common point of reference of both parties certainly did not constitute an answer to the very specific observations made by Mr Cem in his letter.
Will the Council give its response to the assertion in Mr Cem's letter that in the partnership agreement there can be no link-up between the Cyprus problem and EU-Turkey relations and that such a link-up would constitute a violation of the terms of the Helsinki conclusions?
The Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cem, did in fact send a letter to his counterparts in the Member States of the European Union.
The Council did not receive a copy of this letter but the Presidency has, of course, replied to Mr Cem and all of the Member States were informed about the content of the reply given.
As regards the Accession Partnership with Turkey to which you referred, the Commission put forward its proposals on 8 November at the same time as it submitted its report on the progress made by each of the 13 applicant States regarding their application for membership.
The Council must now examine these proposals.
The Presidency still aims to adopt the partnership during the General Affairs Council on 20 November, which is why perhaps the issue was not dealt with in detail in the answer Mr Vedrine gave to Mr Cem.
The Presidency has, however, stressed in this instance how important it is for this partnership to become a useful mechanism in defining Turkey' s future national programme for adopting the Community acquis and for implementing its pre-accession strategy, in accordance with the terms and spirit of the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council.
I also think that the debate we had earlier on Turkey shows the spirit in which the Council and the Commission wish to work.
I thank the President-in-Office, who rightly referred to the proposal for a Council decision on the Accession Partnership, which is a new element. Hence, my questions are quite specific and are based on the Commission text.
First, how can the Council possibly accept a text on Turkey in which the word minority and the word Kurd are nowhere to be found?
Secondly, how can the Council possibly accept a text in which the long-term objectives scarcely mention the Helsinki position on border disputes between a candidate country and a Member State of the European Union? And thirdly, how can this sort of text simply include the Commission's ridiculous statement on the Cyprus question to the effect that Turkey has to support the efforts of the Secretary-General of the UN rather than accept a solution based on the resolutions of the UN?
On the issue of minorities and, in particular, the Kurdish question, I think that anyone listening to the debate which took place earlier will be well aware that both the Commission and the Council are aware of these issues and have duly taken them into consideration.
With regard to the political solution of the Cyprus question to which you referred, Mr Alavanos, it will of course continue to be an issue of debate with Turkey as we confirmed at Helsinki.
I should like to remind you that this political dialogue constitutes, along with the future Accession Partnership, one of the elements in Turkey' s pre-accession strategy, which was set out on this occasion.
Next Monday' s General Affairs Council on 20 November will specifically debate the proposal for an Accession Partnership that the Commission has just put forward, which contains extremely clear, explicit, specific references to the Helsinki conclusions.
It is in this spirit that we must proceed, and the Presidency-in-Office of the Council will do everything possible to reach the right agreement.
Mr President, I am surprised.
The situation, and I should like a response to it from the minister, is this: First, the Helsinki conclusions state that resolving the Cyprus problem is not a precondition to the accession of Cyprus.
But the Cyprus problem is not just any old problem.
It is the specific problem of the invasion and occupation of a significant part of the territory of a country which is a member of the UN and a candidate for membership of the European Union by another country which is also a member of the UN and also a candidate for membership of the European Union. Are we are saying that the Cyprus question can be resolved without ending the occupation?
And what is his opinion of Mr Cem's position - the President-in-Office did not reply here - that there can be no link-up between the Cyprus question and furthering the Accession Partnership between Turkey and the European Union? In other words, is it possible that this partnership will be furthered and that Turkey will join the European Union without ceasing to occupy Cyprus and removing its settlers from Cyprus?
If that is the case, you can hardly blame us for seeing the European Union as an imperialist organisation.
I attended the Helsinki European Council and was present when these issues were debated.
I know that we accepted - and when I say we I mean the 15 Member States, including Greece therefore - Turkey' s application.
We based our acceptance on some very precise conclusions that committed us and continue to commit us to the process.
This is what this is about, and nothing else.
There was a translation error.
I did not say that it is true that there is an imperialist regime in Turkey, but I did say that if the European Union accepted this rationale, in other words, the possibility of Turkey joining the European Union while it still occupied a large part of Cyprus, you cannot blame us for considering the European Union' s actions as imperialist.
There was no translation error in my reply.
As the author is not present, Question No 11 lapses.
Question No 12 by (H-0850/00):
Subject: Repercussions and features of Fisheries Agreement with Morocco Do the most recent negotiations between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco on securing a Fisheries Agreement suggest that such an agreement could be reached before the end of November 2000? What would be the features of this new Fisheries Agreement?
Does it cover the sector' s basic needs?
Does it give priority to meeting the needs of the Objective 1 regions concerned?
The Community aims to complete negotiations as soon as possible with a view to concluding a new Fisheries Agreement with Morocco.
In this regard, the calendar for negotiations that was recently set included one meeting per week, so we can be fairly optimistic that negotiations will be swiftly concluded.
Even though it is difficult at present to envisage the final details of such an agreement, it seems clear that we need to establish a framework for cooperation and partnership in the area of fisheries that is broader than the previous agreement, and extend it to encompass all of the fisheries sector.
The agreement will also take into consideration the need to ensure the sustainable use of resources and aid the development of the Moroccan fisheries sector.
Although it is still too early to assess the features of the future agreement in relation to the expectations of the sector, the Council can, however, assure Mrs Izquierdo Rojo that the Community' s priority is to safeguard the interests of the Community sector as regards the practice of sustainable fishing in Moroccan waters.
The Council, I can assure you, is well aware of the needs of all of the regions concerned, particularly those whose economies are main contributors to this agreement.
The Community will ensure that these needs are taken into consideration in the agreement.
Mr President, I am very grateful to the President of the Council for such a positive and to some extent optimistic and encouraging answer.
It must be remembered that the fisheries agreement with Morocco is much more than a simple fisheries agreement; as he knows, if this agreement were not reached, bearing in mind its significance, this fact might conceal a deterioration in the relations between the European Union and Morocco.
I should like to ask him if in the coming weeks the French Presidency is going to push for this agreement to be concluded at last.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is essential that the French Presidency should push hard along this home straight because Commissioner Fischler lacks the Mediterranean imagination needed to be able to secure an agreement.
He is less likely to succeed in something which is purely Mediterranean, than Pitres, a village up in the Alpujarra mountains in Granada, is in getting its own port, or even the expansion of its port.
In view of this situation, my question is whether the French Presidency, which does have the will and the imagination, will make it possible for us to achieve a fisheries agreement, which is now vital after eleven months of having our fleet tied up.
Andalusia and Galicia, Objective 1 regions, need it and there are many other Europeans working at sea and on land who need this to succeed.
I do not know, especially as it is not exactly a Mediterranean who is negotiating this Fisheries Agreement but the Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries, Mr Franz Fischler.
However, I doubt very much that this will hinder his imagination in this case.
My reply was not really meant to be a show of optimism or hope, rather the expression of a desire, the desire of the French Presidency of the European Union, to reach an agreement, a sound agreement.
What is a sound agreement?
It is one that respects Community ideals and shows concern for the interests of all of the European Union' s regions. I have, of course, listened to your concerns, which will indeed help us secure good terms of agreement with Morocco.
This is what we shall endeavour to do and it is along these lines that we intend to proceed and no other.
Mr President, I am going to ask a question, do not worry.
Anyway, allow me to say that Mr Fischler is neither Mediterranean nor is he from the Atlantic, and what is more we are unfortunate enough to have a Director-General for Fisheries who is from the north Atlantic and only learnt about fisheries problems when he was recently appointed to that post.
Thus the question I ask the Minister is as follows: the proposal we know about from Morocco would in principle seem to entail cutting the fleet from Galicia, Andalusia, the Canaries, and also Portugal, that fishes in Moroccan waters, down to 25% at least.
The agreement they propose is for two years instead of five, and in addition they want the European Union to pay them the ESP 21 billion that it is currently paying.
Allow me to say that the political will shown in practice - not in theory - by the Community negotiators has been absolutely nil, or in any case inadequate.
I must therefore express my scepticism about the result.
I ask the Minister: do you believe it is acceptable to negotiate the cuts I have mentioned and the continuing cost to the European Union of the agreement with Morocco?
.
(FR) My comments as to this person' s Nordic or Mediterranean origins were made in response to a quip made by the President - it was a quip in itself.
The Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries acts on behalf of all of the European Union, irrespective of whether he comes from the north, south, east or west.
I can simply remind you how negotiations developed on the subject of fisheries.
Commissioner Fischler held several meetings with the highest authorities in Morocco.
Two technical meetings took place in Rabat on 25 July 2000 and in Brussels on 27 and 28 September 1999.
During these technical meetings, the Community delegation, headed by Director General Smith, put forward several initiatives that it envisaged as part of a new Fisheries Agreement with Morocco to aid the development of the Moroccan fisheries sector.
It also tried to set out a calendar for negotiations.
On this occasion, it must be said that Morocco did not respond to the offer made by the Community.
The impression that the negotiations had collapsed, which affected all of us, led Commissioner Fischler to call for another meeting with Prime Minister Youssoufi, to take place on 16 October 2000, where he met King Mohammed VI, Prime Minister Youssoufi and the new Minister for Fisheries, Mr Chbaatores.
These meetings seem to have revived the negotiation process and led to another meeting with a Moroccan delegation on 30 October 2000, therefore very recently.
This is why I think we must set a limit and not be overly optimistic, but neither do we have any reason to be unreasonably pessimistic.
Question No 13 by (H-0854/00):
Subject: Fundamental rights and criminal justice Is the Council aware that conditions of pre-trial detention of foreign truck-drivers arrested at ports on the English Channel commonly fail to comply with all the conditions laid down in the European Convention on Human Rights concerning arrest and concerning the right to a fair trial? Is the Council aware of similar grave concern in relation to the Portuguese criminal justice system?
Will the Council therefore defer any proposals for mutual recognition of judgments in criminal matters until minimum human rights requirements are fully observed in all Member States?
Mr President, it is not the place of the Council to comment on behaviour observed on the territory of any Member State which contravenes the principles enunciated in the European Convention on Human Rights which each Member State has duly signed and ratified.
It is worth pointing out that the principle of the mutual recognition of criminal decisions, in accordance with the conclusions of the Tampere European Council, must make it possible to reinforce cooperation between Member States while at the same time reinforcing the protection of human rights.
The principle of the mutual recognition of criminal decisions presupposes the reciprocal confidence of Member States in their own criminal justice systems.
This confidence will depend specifically on setting minimum standards, especially in terms of procedure, which will have to be adopted as a precondition for the implementation of mutual recognition.
The European Union Member States have a shared commitment to the principles of freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the rule of law.
It is by remaining attentive to these values enshrined in the Treaty on European Union that the Council will continue its work in the area of the mutual recognition of criminal decisions.
Mr President, I have on my desk a document which was presented to one of my constituents in Longuenesse jail in the north of France three months after his first detention there on suspicion of a drugs offence.
It is in French - no translation or interpretation was provided to the person in question.
He has now been in detention five months.
I have a letter from the sister of another constituent of mine who draws to my attention that he has been in prison since 28 March 2000 on similar suspicion.
No opportunity is given to such prisoners to choose their own lawyer.
They are given a defence lawyer. The defence lawyer takes few opportunities to visit the persons or to explain the charges.
These are citizens from Scotland where after 110 days of detention any person charged with an offence must either be brought to trial or released and never again charged with that offence.
We do not have common standards of justice in the European Union and while we have such divergent standards and such total failure to meet the standards of Article 6 of the Convention on Human Rights, it is unacceptable to press ahead with the proposals of the Council.
.
(FR) Yes, I simply wanted to say that it is precisely because we are sensitive to this issue that a programme of measures to implement the principle of mutual recognition of criminal decisions is possible.
That is what is at issue here.
Mr President, my point of order is that there remain twenty minutes of Question Time, there are very few Members in the House and there is no risk of exceeding time.
I ask you to give a ruling that two supplementaries may be allowed.
Supplementary questions must come from other Members.
According to the Rules of Procedure, you have reformulated your question.
Question No 14 by (H-0855/00):
Subject: EU's energy policy The Commissioner for Energy said recently that the energy issue in Europe was a national responsibility, not a Community one.
At the outset of discussions for the Intergovernmental Conference (1996/1997) there was a suggestion that special provisions should be incorporated into the Treaty of Amsterdam which would pave the way for the drafting of a common energy policy.
The suggestion was rejected by the 15 Member States, as was also the case for the Treaty of Maastricht.
There are, naturally, measures concerning energy (the White Paper, the SAVE programme, EUR 1 billion from the Fifth Research Programme, alternative energy etc.).
Despite all this, however, all the forecasts predict that the EU' s overall energy dependence (gas, oil, coal and uranium) will increase in the future.
Given that developments in the oil markets make it necessary for the EU to adopt a more dynamic policy in the energy sector, how does the Council think it might achieve a reduction in the European economy' s dependence on oil? Have specific measures been taken (such as security of supplies and energy efficiency) to make the economies of the Member States less sensitive to external crises, and what are the Council' s methods and short-term and medium-term priorities for energy efficiency and energy saving?
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I will not conceal from you that my question was designed first and foremost to elicit a list of projects and a calendar from you.
You have presented these, and I thank you for that, but I also wanted to see if you could give us any information on, or your assessment of, whether the Council could perhaps progress towards closer cooperation, towards a sort of communitisation of energy policy given that, as we saw during the recent crisis, Member States are moving forward in a disorganised array and are competing amongst themselves in terms of both supplies and prices, and that the result for Europe as a whole is rather pathetic.
Nor will I conceal that I was looking for, perhaps, some ideas.
Some of my fellow Members have suggested an idea, which I too endorse, of investigating or drawing up plans towards, for example, a policy imposing the euro as the sole means of paying for oil in certain countries.
It is these questions above all which interest me and which, I think, are of special interest to all the citizens of Europe, because this dependence is not just quantitative but also economic and financial.
These are indeed very interesting suggestions which merit a debate, but I cannot give you an answer on behalf of the Council right now.
Regarding energy issues in general, I do believe that we must look into presenting more of a united front, since we should at least have a coordinated approach to these problems within the European Union.
Question No 15 by (H-0858/00):
Subject: New US bill enforcing embargo on Cuba A new bill being voted on in the USA has given rise to a storm of protest both in Cuba and in European.
On the pretext of lifting the ban on sales from the USA to Cuba of primary necessities, medicines and medical equipment , the embargo is being considerably intensified and obstacles to trade are multiplying in the form of tighter restrictions on Americans travelling to Cuba, provisions - which are contrary to international trade rules - preventing US organisations and banks from financing sales, requiring guarantees by third countries or payment in cash.
What steps will the Council take to stop the adoption of this US bill, which is in breach of international trade rules, and what action will it take to secure the total lifting of the embargo on Cuba and the restoration of normal trade relations between Cuba and all other countries, in particular the Member States of the European Union?
The measures to which the honourable Member is referring appear in the draft budget signed by President Clinton on 28 October 2000.
The position of the European Union on the extra-territorial measures decreed by the United States has not changed.
I believe it is well known to the Members of the European Parliament, and the European Union seizes every opportunity to remind the United States of it.
However, it must be regretfully pointed out that the US Government has not yet taken any action regarding its own commitments under the agreement concluded at the London Summit in May 1998.
We call on the US Government to do so, as we believe this is essential in resolving this dispute.
The objective of the European Union regarding Cuba, as established in the common position on Cuba adopted by the Council on 2 December 1996, is to encourage a process of peaceful "transition to pluralist democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as a sustainable recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people."
Encouraging the Cuban regime to bring Cuban legislation and its application into line with international standards also falls within this objective.
In the same vein, at the time of the vote on the resolution on the embargo as part of the Third Commission of the General Assembly of the United Nations which met on 9 November 2000, we launched an appeal to the Cuban authorities to cooperate fully with international organisations defending human rights.
The European Union notes with satisfaction that Cuba has continued to be very active in various international and regional forums.
It also recognises that measures have been taken by the Cuban Government to better integrate the country into the region economically.
The European Union notes the need for a progressive and irreversible opening of the Cuban economy towards the outside world and reaffirms its wish to be Cuba' s partner in this process.
Finally, it is with concern that the European Union takes note of the findings of the United Nations' agencies and programmes on the ground.
It deplores the negative, and often tragic, repercussions of the US economic embargo as they affect the Cuban population, especially women and children.
Mr President-in-Office, thank you for your reply.
I note that your reply contained certain comments on the lack of respect in Cuba for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
You, of course, suspect that I do not agree with that view; be that as it may, I consider that this sort of judgment constitutes interference in the internal affairs of a country.
And, the way in which you phrased your position gives me cause to wonder if, in the final analysis, there is any difference between the ultimate aim of the policy of the European Union on Cuba and the ultimate aim of American policy on Cuba.
It seems to me that both seek to overturn the Socialist regime in Cuba.
It is curious what interpreting problems there can be, as I do not feel that is what I said at all.
I recalled the very clear differences between the United States and Europe regarding the extra-territorial measures decreed by the United States.
I noted with satisfaction, on behalf of the Council, that Cuba had continued to be very active in various international and regional forums.
I recognised that measures had been taken by the Cuban Government to better integrate their country economically into the region and reaffirmed Europe' s willingness to be Cuba' s partner in this process.
Finally, I recalled that it was with concern that the European Union took note of the observations made by the United Nations' agencies and programmes on the ground and deplored the negative, and often tragic, repercussions of the US economic embargo as they affected the Cuban population.
So I, in fact, said practically the opposite of what you have just said.
At the same time, I must remind you of the European Union' s position towards Cuba as established by the Council on 2 December 1996, which is to encourage a process of peaceful transition towards pluralist democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as a sustainable recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people.
No position has been taken in relation to the nature of the regime, but the regime has perhaps been given a certain amount of encouragement or incentive to move its practices forward.
If you do not see the difference between that and any other position, then perhaps there is a degree of misunderstanding, possibly intentional.
Question No 16 by (H-0859/00):
Subject: Violation by Turkey of sovereign rights within NATO Turkey has, de facto, challenged the sovereign rights of Greece by intercepting Greek aircraft taking part in NATO's exercise, Destined Glory, its failure to respect the Greek ten-mile FIR and the air corridors over the islands of Limnos and Ikaria, ignoring the opinions of NATO's legal service, and departing from the plans for the exercise drawn up by NATO's administration, which prompted the Greek Government to withdraw its troops.
What view does the Council take of this challenge to the sovereign rights of an EU Member State within NATO?
Does it intend to make representations to the Turkish authorities to put an end to such acts of provocation, and what form will those representations take? What consequences will these acts have for relations between the EU and Turkey, particularly in the context of the common foreign and security policy, given Turkey's status as an applicant for accession?
Regarding the incident involving the Greek and Turkish aircraft taking part in the Destined Glory exercise, it must be pointed out that this incident took place during a NATO exercise between two members of the North Atlantic Alliance.
It is therefore up to NATO to take the steps it deems necessary to prevent further accidents of this kind.
This case has not, in any case, been brought up in the Council of the European Union.
On the substance of the disputes between Turkey and Greece in the Aegean Sea, the Council recalls the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council which stress the principle of the peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with the United Nations Charter and which insistently call on applicant countries to make every effort to settle any border disputes and any other disputes of a similar nature.
Failing that, they should take their disputes to the Court of Justice within a reasonable period.
By the end of 2004 at the latest, the European Council will take stock of the situation regarding any outstanding disputes, especially with regard to their implications for the accession process and so as to promote their settlement through the International Court of Justice.
More generally, issues relating to the settlement of the disputes between Greece and Turkey are included in the reinforced policy dialogue in the context of Turkey' s pre-accession strategy and the accession partnership the Commission has just proposed and which the French Presidency - as I can confirm - hopes will be adopted quickly.
Moreover, the Council is gratified that, at their meeting in Budapest on 31 October, the Turkish and Greek Foreign Ministers agreed to adopt confidence building measures in the context of NATO, and to do so bilaterally.
Mr President, first we find it unacceptable, as the President-in-Office said, that the Greek Government has not raised the matter in the Council, despite the justified outcry in Greece.
Secondly, the Council refers in its reply to NATO as Pontius Pilate, without taking a position on Turkey's provocation in contesting Greek sovereign rights, on this occasion during NATO exercises.
Does the Council not understand that this is a supremely political problem and that it is unacceptable for it to maintain a position which is equidistant from both the offender and the victim?
Similarly, it is a fact that Turkey contests the Greek ten-mile FIR and the air corridors over the islands of Limnos and Ikaria, both of which are regulated by the Lausanne and Montreux conventions and in intergovernmental agreements between Turkey and Italy and Italy and Greece.
Thirdly, it does not take account of the fact that NATO's legal service issued an opinion upholding Greece's aforementioned rights in accordance with international conventions, even though, under pressure from Turkey, NATO changed its exercise at the last minute.
NATO's legal service, no less!
Fourthly and finally, does he not think that his reply is an encouragement to Turkey, a candidate country for membership of the European Union, to continue its present policy of contesting the sovereign rights of Greece, a member of the European Union and that he has therefore indirectly admitted that there are border disputes which must be resolved, as we have said, on the basis of international conventions?
I outlined what action Council had or had not taken, and what it had to do or believed it had to do.
As for the rest, I believe that we now have a framework for dealing with these particular problems, to wit, the Helsinki Council conclusions. I would point out that these conclusions are our common rule as, obviously, they were adopted unanimously by all the Member States.
That is the mandate the Council has given itself for the next phase in the examination of this candidacy, which has already been discussed at length and in detail today.
I must inform you, ladies and gentlemen - even though there are very few of you I am going to make this solemn statement - that for the first time in the legislature we have had time to get through all the questions.
I do not know if it was to everyone' s satisfaction, but it is an almost historic event of which we take good note.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 6.55 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Aid for reconstruction (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on aid for reconstruction.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission should start by applying the Feira conclusions to its proposals.
All of us in the European Union who supposedly have a position of responsibility face a huge challenge.
I think we have an historic chance today to prove that our acts are tantamount to a declaration of good intentions towards the western Balkans.
The sums budgeted for the Balkans should put us in mind, in terms of quality and quantity, of a new Marshall plan and should act as a springboard to a new beginning in the countries of the western Balkans.
Nor should we forget that the countries of the western Balkans are not third countries, they are candidate countries for membership of the European Union and we must treat them as such.
It is true that the European Union is often accused of promising aid to countries struck by disaster or catastrophe and then taking so long to pay it, so long to keep its financial promises that either it creates the impression that it regrets having promised it in the first place or, when it finally does pay, it is already too late.
Luckily, there is a shining exception to this rule, and it really is a rule.
The exception is the Reconstruction Agency which has its headquarters in Thessaloniki and an operational centre in Kosovo.
This agency complies with the Commission's decision on decentralisation and is exceptionally efficient in managing the project for which it is responsible.
It has already signed contracts for 90% of the budget for 2000, which is truly amazing.
It has already disbursed approximately 30% of the appropriations for 2000.
Plus, and this is unprecedented, it has requested a reduction in wage costs.
I therefore propose, that not only should we leave these people in peace to get on with their job with the gusto and enthusiasm which they have shown so far, not only should we refrain from upsetting the modus operandi of the agency, although we should, of course, make it responsible for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and anywhere else it is needed, but we should also ask them to pass their know-how on to other committees whose work, as we all know, is so abysmal, so inefficient and brings in such poor results.
I trust that we can use these opinions to do more for this region in which hardship and suffering abound.
Commissioner and the few honourable Members who have found their way here, I must, of course, start by congratulating the rapporteurs on their work and excellent cooperation, especially the rapporteur who is here in the House.
The previous speaker spoke of a sort of Marshall plan for this region and rightly so, I think.
It is the prerogative of those handing out money to stipulate the political objectives and the Commissioner has done so on several occasions.
Nonetheless, I should like briefly to outline them once again today on behalf of my group.
First, we still have a situation in this region, more's the pity, in which human rights and minority rights are not properly respected.
That is now a fact.
Our first objective, therefore, must be to help where we can and where we see that there is the will to take better account of minority and human rights in the future.
Secondly, international agreements are being challenged in this region over and over again, including recently the Dayton agreement.
If I think back to the election campaign in Bosnia-Herzegovina, one of the saddest side-effects of the election process was that leading politicians distanced themselves from Dayton, not in the sense of saying they wanted to go further and wanted more stability, but in the sense of destabilisation.
Here we must say an unequivocal 'no' .
Respect for international agreements - including in connection with Dayton - obviously includes cooperation with the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.
We must act decisively - albeit with a certain degree of tolerance - both towards Kostunica, whom we shall be receiving here tomorrow, and the new Yugoslav authorities.
There are a few positive signs, but certainly not enough.
Thirdly, there must be no unilateral changes to borders.
That applies to both Montenegro and Kosovo.
Here too, we must be clear and unequivocal.
We must give the new Yugoslavia a chance.
I hope it will grab that chance.
I am not excluding border changes, but I am quite definitely excluding unilateral border changes, whichever side makes them.
Any such changes must be set out in an agreement.
Fourthly, and most importantly for us, new borders are being erected but they are no obstacle to the activities of criminal organisations, which know no borders.
We must combat illegal cross-border activities, be they in connection with the drug trade, cross-border cooperation or trafficking in human beings.
Borders are there to be dismantled, but not by criminals and, unfortunately, they are more active here than in other regions.
These are the objectives we need to achieve with the funds and instruments which we are now creating.
I think that the Commission and Council are also keen for us to work consistently with the means at our disposal over coming years to achieve these objectives.
But where there is no will, nor should there be money from us.
Mr President, Mr Kostunica, the new President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, will be addressing the House tomorrow.
His symbolic presence here could open up prospects for the overall policy which we are pursuing.
My second comment is that the previous speakers complained that the European Union pays, but the US is listened to.
That is only logical because the US has engaged in political acts in Bosnia with the Dayton agreement and the US has again engaged in political acts in Kosovo with the initiative which it took on the bombings and much else besides.
What does that mean for us? That policy must come first or must at least move in parallel if it is to have political objectives.
What should these political objectives be? Obviously, institutional aspects and the proper working of democracy take priority in the region as a whole.
If democracy is working properly it will create the preconditions to respect for minorities in the various regions.
If democracy is working properly, it will help the region to run smoothly.
However, it must also be based on individuals.
We must admit that, on numerous occasions, the individuals serving a number of purposes during the transitional phase were not a healthy expression of political life in the region.
In this sense, we need to review our perception of individuals, facts and situations.
The second issue which I would like to touch on concerns the strategy in the region.
Quite clearly, uniting political prospects with economic and institutional prospects is a positive development.
However, if positive developments are to have good results, they need a strategic framework and a strategic aspect.
From this point of view, I think that resurrecting an issue which was resolved about a year ago with the Pack report as far as the headquarters of the Reconstruction Agency is concerned is a disservice.
It would be a good idea for Commissioner Patten, who has a great deal of experience - not to say wisdom - in managing international crises, to add to the visits which he has made to various regions of the Balkans by going to the headquarters of the Reconstruction Agency in Thessaloniki in order to see how this department works.
In this sense, I endorse and repeat everything which Mr Folias just said.
Anyway, enough of the bad news, now to the good news.
The Lagendijk report, apart from the criticism which I may have levied at one point, is an excellent text, as is the Commission proposal.
They create a framework for political initiatives which must be built up into new perceptions.
We must look on this region as a region of Europe and not as a region of antagonism between the countries and the national policies of Europe or America.
If we treat the area as a region of political antagonism we shall be making a big mistake.
In all events, I think that we are on the right track.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteurs for the excellent reports which they have tabled today.
The message sent by Parliament through these documents comes across loud and clear.
It is my hope that the Commission and the Council will accept it with due interest and amend the two regulations accordingly.
We are all aware of the importance of European Union aid for the Balkan region.
The re-establishment of a democratic political system in Serbia is the start of a new chapter in history, but the Union must be the protagonist of this new phase rather than the passive, slothful observer which it has been thus far.
Our technical and economic intervention must be large-scale and effective, for this is the very least the Union can do to give the region and the continent as a whole a stable future.
We must bear in mind that there is still a long way to go along the road to peace in the Balkans and that potential friction points still exist which could well set the whole process back again.
But this region, the most troubled region of Europe, has never held such hope as it does now.
The virtually despotic Croatian system has been replaced with a pro-West democratic system.
The vulnerable countries surrounding the remains of Yugoslavia have weathered the crisis, and, what is more, Bulgaria, Albania and Macedonia have even made economic progress.
In the fine changes of balance currently governing the Balkan region, the responsibility of the European Union is great, enormous, and when we say the Union we mean the Member States but also the European and Parliament.
The Member States make grandiose declarations of their intentions but these must be followed by a concrete financial undertaking.
The European Commission must assume responsibility for the smooth running of these programmes, and this is the primary objective of the two reports which are to be put to the vote tomorrow.
Parliament must be regularly consulted and updated on progress, and it is this, the second of the rapporteurs' requests, which we must all support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the texts before us, the Commission and Parliament have put a figure of EUR 4 billion on the war damage caused by the NATO bombings in Serbia alone, excluding Kosovo, thereby indirectly admitting that they were to blame for some of the material war crimes.
NATO professes to have intervened in order to prevent further suffering, and yet there were far more exiles, dead and wounded as a result of this war than there had been in the 12 allegedly decisive months before NATO intervened militarily.
Surely the region was not effectively destabilised until NATO waged war on it? In the end, the intervention by NATO in the Balkans served to legitimise the NATO strategy and its so-called self-imposed mandate.
In recognition of the war damage caused and the fact that the situation was escalated by NATO, payments should be equal to not half but all the quantified war damage.
More importantly, instead of lending money, the EU - and in particular the Member States which belong to NATO - should pay reparation for the damage which they caused.
This has been an excellent debate even though, by this time in the evening, the attendance is restricted to the cognoscenti.
However, it is good to see some familiar faces in the Chamber.
I do not intend to traverse the ground that was covered by the Minister earlier in his remarks about the Zagreb Summit.
I totally endorse all the objectives which he set out.
That summit is taking place in rather happier conditions than we perhaps imagined when the presidency first conceived of it.
I want to focus on the regulations.
I should like, first of all, to thank the House for its excellent and speedy work during its examination of these two draft regulations.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs of the relevant committees: firstly, Mr Westendorp y Cabeza, who has considerable on-the-ground experience of these matters in Bosnia, and also Mr Lagendijk, with whom we have a regular dialogue on southeast Europe.
He is at least one other human being with whom I can share the distinction of having read Misha Glenny on the Balkans.
I should also like to thank the following Members: Mr Staes, Mr Färm and Mr Gargani for the quality of their reports and opinions.
These two proposals respond to two key Union priorities: providing assistance to southeastern Europe and providing it as rapidly and as efficiently as possible.
The European Councils of Lisbon and Feira underlined the importance that the Union gives to the integration of this region into the economic and political mainstream of Europe.
Our policy for achieving that is the stabilisation and association process.
Of course the European Union is making a leading contribution through that process to the work of the Stability Pact.
The heads of government have also confirmed the Union's determination to back this process with technical and economic assistance.
The return of democracy to Serbia, thanks to the determination and courage of the Serb people and the democratic forces there, offers the chance now of building prosperity across the whole region.
More than ever the European Union has to live up to the commitments it has made.
To do that we must have the right legal instruments, flexible procedures and efficient management.
The reform of external assistance which the Commission adopted on 16 May demonstrates our determination to improve radically the speed, quality and visibility of external assistance.
In southeast Europe this determination has already brought concrete results.
In Kosovo the taskforce which we deployed within days of the end of the conflict and, in the last six months, the European Agency for Reconstruction have achieved a track record of delivering help on time and efficiently.
The figures bear this out: 84% of the funds allocated for reconstruction under Obnova - in 1998 to 2000 EUR 444.5 million - had been committed by the end of October 2000.
Seventy percent of the funds committed had been contracted and 43% of the contracted funds had been paid.
We have achieved rapid results in Serbia too, where the Commission, in the space of just over four weeks, has drawn up an emergency assistance programme worth in total EUR 200 million.
It was agreed by the Commission last week and the first trucks of heating fuel started rolling into Serbia at the weekend, ahead of schedule and ahead of most other donors.
This programme is going to ratchet up every day from now on: a contract for imports of EUR 30 million in electricity was signed today with the Serbian Electricity Company and should come on-stream within days.
Every day counts in this situation.
Our reforms have started to bring results too in Bosnia, where the implementation of assistance, in terms of amounts contracted and disbursed has improved dramatically since our delegation in Sarajevo was reinforced last year and authority was delegated to it.
The results that have been achieved are extremely encouraging.
These are the results of which the European Parliament too can be proud.
It was the European Parliament that sounded the alarm about weak management in Bosnia.
It was Parliament which supported the Commission's proposal to create the European Agency for Reconstruction.
It was Parliament which insisted on a single regulatory framework for assistance to the region and it was Parliament, in its role as budgetary authority, which made sure that funds were made available for emergency assistance for Serbia, without delay.
This is good progress but we need to build on it.
There is still plenty of room for improvement.
That is the purpose of these two proposals.
Members of Parliament have tabled a significant number of amendments.
I want to comment on them as they relate to our twin proposals on the agency and the regulation.
The Commission has proposed an assistance regulation which is deliberately simple and clear.
It sets out the over-arching objectives for assistance for the main principles governing programming, comitology for programmes, but not for individual projects.
And it also proposes simple decision arrangements for programmes run by the European Reconstruction Agency.
Let me take up a number of the broad points that have been raised by Parliament, first the role of the Commission and its financial responsibilities in relation to the running of the agency.
The Commission takes very seriously its responsibilities for the implementation of the Community budget.
A number of new amendments underline this responsibility by referring to Article 274 of the Treaty.
But in order to exercise this responsibility we need legal instruments which allow us to act quickly and flexibly.
Second, Parliament wants us to refer more specifically to sectoral priorities.
We want, in the light of experience, to retain as much flexibility as possible.
But we can accept several of Parliament's amendments which urge us to include mention of key sectoral priorities such as assistance for education, vocational training, environment, civil society and NGOs, ethnic reconciliation and the return of displaced persons.
In the same spirit we can accept the proposal to include a reference to the Feira European Council conclusions in the preamble to the regulation.
Parliament's resolution on the Commission's communication on the stabilisation and association process also deserves to be mentioned in the preamble.
We think it makes more sense to do it there than to build it into the article on conditionality.
Naturally we can also accept the proposal that the guidelines which the Commission will adopt should reflect the search for greater efficiency that underlines our reforms.
I just want to add the point that it is important, having put forward a regulation which attempts to simplify things, not to allow the regulations now to be hung about with caveats and qualifications and spectacular quantities of red tape.
As Mr Staes said: We do not want people throwing spanners in the works.
If we cannot have a clear and simple regulation then, frankly, we would be better off with no regulation at all.
To be clear: we can accept the spirit, provided changes can be made in certain cases to the wording, of Amendments Nos 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, the first part of 11, the first part of 13, 16 partially, 17, 18, 19 partially and 20, 21, 24, 28 in the first part, 31 and partially 37.
The Commission's position on the overall sum we estimated was necessary for the region, the so-called financial reference amount and its compatibility with the financial perspectives, is well-known.
We do not think, as the House knows, that it is necessary to make an explicit reference to this in the regulation.
Despite Mr Lagendijk's eloquence, I do not think it is necessary, but he made one point which is fundamentally true and it was made, in another sense, by Mr Westendorp when both of them argued that these regulations are all very well but if there is not an adequate budget to cover the political priorities of the European Union then we are wasting our time.
Mr Westendorp, said that the Council could not - I think this was the implication of his remarks - replicate the New Testament and perform miracles with loaves and fishes.
That may be regarded by some Members of some Councils as being a touch brutal in its assessment of the powers of the Council but it is entirely true.
We have to deal with finite budgets but I very much hope that the budget which is available for the external actions of the European Union reflects the political priorities of the European Union.
That is the discussion which we have been having with the Council in recent weeks and months and the Commission or Parliament do not come badly out of that discussion.
I should have thought, in particular, that the experience of the last two months has shown that the Commission's proposal on financing was not as eccentric as some people suggested at the time.
Let me now turn to the second proposal on the table, the European Agency for Reconstruction and, in doing so, I want to pay warm tribute, as Mr Lagendijk did during his own remarks, to the excellent job that the board, the director and the staff have done on the ground in Kosovo.
They are a terrific team and I am not surprised that the results they have achieved are extremely impressive.
They have earned their good reputation for delivering results and I know that Parliament's own delegation to Kosovo in May was as impressed by them as I have been.
It clearly makes sense to learn lessons from the past six months of the Agency's operations and to see how we can help it to work more effectively.
This is essential now that the Agency will be responsible for the whole of the FRY.
Our main aim is to clarify the role of the governing board.
It has to take on responsibility for the examination and the approval of reconstruction programmes which will be submitted to the Commission for decision.
We also want to simplify decision-making.
According to the new regulation the Commission will be permitted to adopt programmes proposed by the Agency without having to consult the management committee.
Let me make it clear that responsibility for the formal adoption of the programmes remains with the Commission.
It is the Commission that decides on the desirability of these programmes; it is the Commission which is responsible for the implementation of the budget; it is the Commission which adopts the programmes.
A number of amendments seek to ensure that the Agency acts under the direct and sole responsibility of the Commission and thereby to ensure that the Commission is solely responsible for the Agency's management before the European Parliament, the Court of Auditors and OLAF.
I want to clarify this.
The Agency has a certain degree of autonomy, like all European agencies.
This is the position under the current institutional set-up and the autonomy, which the Agency now has, must be respected unless the institutional structure of the Agency is modified.
That does not detract from the full responsibility that the Commission assumes, as the Treaty requires, for the execution of the Community budget.
I would like to thank Parliament for the sensible and pragmatic way it has accepted the current structure of the Agency.
I know Parliament's views on this issue and the Commission will take these into account in the design of any future executive agencies.
The language regime is a further sensitive issue.
I hope that Parliament will understand the sense of the proposals that I put forward in May and will continue to work constructively with others on this very difficult issue but I cannot offer to support Parliament's amendment to remove the unanimity requirement which would contradict the view of the College.
We can accept those amendments which are designed to remove the requirement for a further Council decision to extend the mandate of the Agency to the whole of the FRY.
I can accept, too, those amendments which refer to the General Affairs decision of 9 October, to cooperation with NGOs, to the restoration of civil society and the rule of law, to the payment for services provided by the Agency, to third parties, to the possibility of creating further operational centres, to the responsibility of the director for the implementation of the work programme and the structure of the Agency's budget.
This means that we can accept the spirit, provided changes can be made in certain cases to the wording, of Amendment Nos 1, 2, 6, 8, 10 in part, 11, 37, 16, 27 and 33.
We will look carefully at the desirability of producing an explicit list of issues which the governing board should examine.
We will do this in the interest of clarifying its role; that concerns Amendments Nos 21 and 22.
We will also examine the timetable which you propose for the adoption of the Agency's budget while respecting the principle of good budgetary programming and compatibility with the Community's budgetary procedures.
This concerns Amendments Nos 29 and 30.
Let me reiterate my thanks to Parliament for its hard work on these issues.
We have made real headway in south east Europe.
This proposal should allow us to take advantage of the new opportunity we have, to make a decisive contribution as the European Union to lasting peace and prosperity across the whole region.
I have to say that the European Union did not come frightfully well out of the history of south east Europe during the 1990s.
I hope we make a better fist of things during the next decade and this regulation will provide us with some of the prosaic means of doing so.
Thank you Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 p.m.
ASEM III
The next item is the Commission statement on the third Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM III, Seoul, 20-21 October 2000).
Mr President, let me engage in a bit of continent hopping.
Before reporting on the third ASEM summit and evaluating its results, let me briefly say a word about the ASEM process.
The first summit in 1996 was at a time of huge optimism about Asia when people were talking about the Asian economic miracle.
The second summit, in 1998, came at a time of economic crisis when many people were saying that Asia had had it and all had been much exaggerated.
We saw some reality at the third summit.
There was not an Asian economic miracle but a great deal that is very exciting has happened in Asia and it has recovered very rapidly in most parts from the crisis of 1997/98.
Where it has done so most successfully, it has managed it by combining economic and political reform.
That has been the background to these summits.
The challenge for the third summit in Seoul was to deepen the ASEM process both for governmental participants and for the broader public.
It had to demonstrate that there need not be dramatic events occurring to justify meetings of European and Asian Heads of State or Government.
We outlined our goals for ASEM III in our working party, we discussed it with the European Parliament before the summit on two occasions in the ASEAN working party and in the plenary which resulted, I believe, in your resolution of 5 October, the aims of which we not only took into account, but also managed to achieve in most cases.
In addition to adopting three important documents, the leaders of the summit actively engaged in discussion of sensitive issues like human rights, the South China Sea, East Timor and Burma.
They pledged to promote and protect fundamental human rights and uphold respect for democracy, the rule of law, equality, justice and concern for the environment.
It was agreed to intensify ASEM's high level political dialogue by drawing strength from the diversity of Members while not excluding any issue.
Leaders agreed to an expanded and updated Asia-Europe cooperation framework 2000 which forms the work programme for the coming decade.
The need for common efforts to implement the Kyoto Protocol was confirmed, a consumer-producer dialogue to stabilise world prices for oil was advocated as well as closer cooperation to develop energy saving technologies.
Trans-national crime was discussed, the exploitation of migrants, people trafficking, the fight against illegal drugs, all those issues which, alas, form the darkest side of globalisation.
The summit adopted the separate Seoul declaration for peace on the Korean peninsula, welcoming the inter-Korean summit in June, urging both sides to continue building on its success and underlining the importance of engaging the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in multilateral dialogue.
On enlargement, the two-key approach was adopted whereby a candidate country first needs the support of its regional partners before seeking endorsement from the other region.
The final decision is made by consensus, by Heads of State or Government.
No specific candidates were discussed at ASEM III.
In the field of economic and financial cooperation, leaders agreed to work together to address the challenges posed by globalisation, information technology, e-commerce and the digital divide by expanding research and information networks between the two regions.
Leaders also confirmed the preparation of voluntary annual reports on the status of efforts to overcome barriers to trade as identified under the trade facilitation action plan.
There was an acceptance by all ASEM partners to work towards a new comprehensive WTO round as soon as possible, taking into account the special needs of developing countries.
In the social and cultural field, leaders recognised the vital importance of better educational links with specific initiatives for promoting mutual awareness, including an enhancement of inter-university cooperation and electronic networking between schools.
In the related people-to-people field, the principle of opening the ASEM process to a larger segment of civil society was maintained, although the NGO initiative to establish a social forum could not be realised because of the resistance of certain Asian partners.
I am sure Parliament can see these results are in line with the resolution of 5 October which I mentioned earlier.
Human rights and the rule of law are embedded in the process; there was a clear understanding of the need for the early start of a broad-based WTO round but I am not sure that has been entirely reflected so far at the discussions at the APEC meetings in Brunei.
While the proposal to establish a social forum was not accepted, we actively engaged with civil society and the NGOs and I very much hope that this area will see further progress in the run-up to ASEM IV in Copenhagen.
Finally, leaders agreed to encourage an intensification of contacts among parliamentarians as set out in the cooperation framework.
Inevitably, ASEM III was dominated by the momentous developments on the Korean peninsula which have resulted in the very worthy nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize of the President of South Korea, a man whose career has been distinguished, both by his commitment to democracy and human rights and the rule of law and, most recently, to his commitment to reconciliation between the south and north of the peninsula.
I think that reminded us in Europe of the important role that we have in Asia, not just in economic and trade terms, though it has to be said that one of the reasons for Asia's recovery has been that we have kept our word to keep our markets open to Asian exports over the last two years.
This year it seems very likely that China will have a surplus of EUR 40 billion with the European Union.
We have kept our word in economic and commercial matters which, among other things, encourages Asia to take us rather more seriously.
It is important to remember that we also have a political role in Asia, not just in our advocacy of democracy and good governance, but also in the contribution we can make in the Korean peninsula and elsewhere to stability and security for the future.
The ASEM process is an important one.
This was a very valuable meeting.
The process is developing and strengthening with time and I look forward to the next ASEM meeting in Denmark in a couple of years' time when I am sure we will be able to build on the progress already achieved.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think the House is so empty because we have proceeded apace this evening and some members who wished to speak have not yet arrived and are still dining.
I would ask you, therefore, not to interpret the low turnout as an indication that the issue is not important.
Commissioner, first I agree with your reading that the ASEM process is hugely important.
It is of huge political and economic significance.
I only wish that both this House and many of your colleagues in the Commission would see the importance of Asia's relations with Europe from the right perspective, and that includes the Union's fisheries policy - may my Spanish colleagues forgive me and with my excuses to Mr Fischler.
If you take a long-term view of political and economic developments in our multi-polar world, then you will see that Asia's relations with Europe, and vice versa, are of paramount importance.
In this respect we are extremely lucky that the summit in Seoul took place at all and that, with one or two exceptions, all the heads of government attended.
That was highly significant.
You are quite right that the Asian Summit was somewhat dominated, in the positive sense, by developments in both North and South Korea, with the result that more time was spent evaluating and qualifying the rapprochement on the Korean peninsular than on a real in-depth discussion of the Asia process.
But we should be pleased that positive developments are taking place there.
Allow me, however, to comment on the poor Council representative who will have to write up his protocol at some point: obviously the situation was awkward in Seoul due to the fact that some EU Member States have stopped exchanging ambassadors with North Korea and others have not.
It would have been smarter - if we are to have a common foreign and security policy - if all 15 Member States had taken a joint decision to resume relations with North Korea at the same time and on the same terms, as opposed to this display of showmanship by some Heads of State and Government.
It is good - I freely admit - that some agreement was reached on a framework programme for cooperation between Asia and Europe.
But, Commissioner, have you in all honesty understood the substance of the framework agreement? I still have a great deal of difficulty really understanding the substance of what has been agreed for the next decade.
And here I think that, what is important to Parliament - even if only a few of us are here, someone should read the protocol and we specialists will take it from there - is for it to be involved in the process of putting flesh on the bones of the framework for cooperation between Asia and Europe.
I think, in any case, that Parliament conducts itself far too reactively.
As we have such a good negotiating partner in you, Commissioner, we should try to agree on the content before Copenhagen and before the conferences and Parliament should start us thinking about how we can flesh out the framework which you have decided on.
I am delighted that the European side took a clear stance on human rights.
But we need to discuss the consequences of what that means at our leisure.
I think it was an excellent political declaration but we still have a few problems here.
I think that it is our job here in Parliament to follow up on what the European side generously included in the conclusions, namely cooperation between the European Parliament and the parliaments of the countries in Asia, following the first ASEM conference held in Strasbourg a few years ago.
It is an important task and I can only hope that Parliament will initiate the second meeting next year before Copenhagen.
We should arrange to hold it in Asia, given that the last meeting was held in Strasbourg.
It is when you look at cooperation between Asia and Europe from the point of view of democracy or human rights that you see how important it is for us to cooperate more closely with parliaments in the Asian countries and bring about positive developments.
Mr Jarzembowski, with regard to your remark about the extremely low attendance, if we count the Commissioner, we can say that 75 percent of the speakers are present.
That is really not bad!
Mr President, we talked about this issue a month ago and had an excellent discussion with the Commissioner.
We were all agog.
Naturally we welcome the fact that the process has been opened up to North Korea.
It is just a shame that we have not seen fit to make the necessary funds available to go with it.
Apart from that, we feel the outcome left a lot to be desired, and that is putting it mildly.
What we dislike about ASEM II is not so much what we have managed to achieve, because projects to do with money-laundering, HIV and AIDS, food safety and suchlike, are of course to be welcomed.
In fact two concrete proposals have been adopted, notably the round table on globalisation and the duo fellowship programme, 4300 fellowships amounting to a total cost of USD 25 million.
That is not to be sniffed at of course, but there are still a few questions we would like answered.
I will return to them in due course.
What is more important is what was not adopted.
We could have done so much more in terms of financial stability, trade and investments, and infrastructure.
An ASEM environmental centre was proposed.
Now that would have been something.
What concerns us is what we failed to do on the human rights front.
Things were said but they have not found their way into the projects that were agreed, not even in terms of the considerable reserve, for example, although this could easily have been done.
In any case, this considerable reserve also has something to do with globalisation.
We agreed to concentrate on globalisation, in particular the adverse effects thereof, when in fact we believe that globalisation is a positive force.
There is a down side but surely we should also consider the bonuses.
We find it incomprehensible that the secretariat for the fellowship programme is to be located in Seoul.
ASEF is working extremely well in Singapore, so why not establish it there?
We know that the Commission values ASEM extremely highly and it has our wholehearted support on that score.
What we want to know is whether our Ministers have given ASEM due consideration.
We feel they have been sadly lacking in ambition and are therefore unworthy of praise.
Some headway has been made in terms of Asia-Europe parliamentary dialogue.
Perhaps we parliamentarians can succeed where Ministers have failed in this respect.
The European Commission deserves our support because we are convinced it is going about things the right way.
That said, we feel the Ministers ought to have been able to achieve a much better result.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
Regional Fisheries Organisations (RFOs)
The next item is the report (A5-0275/2000) tabled by Mr Jové Peres, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission Communication to the Council and the European Parliament: Community participation in Regional Fisheries Organisations (RFOs) [COM(1999) 613 - C5-0108/2000 - 2000/2068(COS)].
Commissioner, the regional fisheries organisations are becoming increasingly important, particularly in fishing grounds with shared sovereignty or in the management of migratory or straddling stocks.
As they are adapted to the specific characteristics of their areas, they are a particularly appropriate instrument for the rational management of resources.
It is therefore a matter of priority that the European Union should equip itself with the machinery needed to ensure the full participation it deserves.
The Commission' s communication confines itself to dealing with those aspects relating to the powers of the Community and Member States in tasks arising from their participation in those organisations.
This approach is necessary but inadequate, since the European Union needs to adopt clear, uniform and homogeneous guidelines for its participation in the regional fisheries organisations.
In view of the diverse nature of the existing regional organisations, the Community's participation in each of them must be suited to their individual characteristics.
It must, however, obey the same basic principles from a legal and institutional point of view.
Therefore the report by the parliamentary Committee on Fisheries advocates sharing tasks evenly between the Community and the Member States with regard to the regional fisheries organisations as a whole.
The leading role in the Community' s action should be played by the Commission, the guardian of Community interests, but it should not only deal with the representative role to which it seems hitherto to have confined itself through lack of resources.
In future the Commission must not confine itself to being a mere figurehead: it must unequivocally and specifically take up all aspects of the Community's participation in these regional organisations, representing it, monitoring the transmission and verification of data, participating in scientific fora, and in general guiding Community action, including monitoring the fishing carried out in the context of these organisations.
The monitoring of fisheries affects the jurisdiction of the Member States and hence to a certain extent the core of their sovereignty.
This monitoring should be transferred to an unequivocally Community body, so that the common fisheries policy can apply to all Member States and to all vessels and crews regardless of their nationality, thus avoiding any possible breach of the principle of equal treatment.
The administration of monitoring and, progressively, its actual execution must therefore be assigned to the Commission, and hence the cost of this must be borne by the Community budget.
The existing machinery for transposing rules into Community law needs to be improved in order to increase legal certainty and to overcome its current sluggishness.
But faster transposition into Community law of the rules adopted within the regional organisations does not exempt the Council and Parliament from doing their job of steering the Community fisheries policy.
In view of the growing importance of the regional fisheries organisations (RFO), the European Union must fully exercise its powers in fisheries matters, but this raises a problem above all of human and material resources.
Perhaps to side-step the problem of resources, the Commission has decided to propose a reformulation of the duties to be performed by the Community and the Member States, without modifying their respective competences.
Although this approach might be acceptable as a temporary measure, it could cause serious regulatory and, above all, institutional problems if it were made permanent.
The distribution of tasks proposed by the Commission would assign 'high-level' representation to the Community and delegate representation on scientific and technical committees to the Member States.
Contributing to the work of the RFOs would also be entrusted to the Member States, as would inspection and monitoring tasks.
This means that the Community's role as a contracting party would be reduced to a mere façade.
European integration cannot be confined to declarations without any tangible content.
While there is a common fisheries policy and the Community has powers in the sphere of fisheries it must equip itself with the human and material resources needed to tackle its obligations, as required by the principle of adequacy of resources inherent in the common fisheries policy.
Similarly, if the Community is a contracting party in the RFOs, it must behave accordingly and perform the role required of it.
The implementation of this principle has financial implications and requires legal changes and, possibly, sacrificing a certain amount of sovereignty; but if a particular model of political integration is chosen the means must be provided for that model to be put into practice.
Mr President, the regional fisheries organisations are today without doubt the best, if not the only, guarantee for the management of world fish stocks, and they are likely be even more significant in the future.
The rapporteur has understood their importance perfectly and has drawn up an excellent report, which highlights the real weakness of the communication.
Very good intentions which can only become reality if there is a genuine political desire.
When we think that, of all the coastal countries in the world, very few have the economic, judicial, legislative and political potential that the European Union has, that should tell us how much we should be asking ourselves what our responsibility is.
Yet the Community neither gets involved nor takes a lead; the very most it does is react.
But it reacts with such paltry means and so little foresight that in the end it is like sending David out against Goliath.
Except that in the Bible David won, which is not the case here.
I have been an observer in some regional organisations and I can assure you that it is pathetic to see two or three mid-ranking officials, exhausted and hardly getting any sleep, trying to react to problems that could be seen coming months earlier and facing high-powered delegations, which are high-powered either because they are from great powers like the United States or Japan or because they have followed an intelligent policy of forming alliances in advance.
As the Directorate-General for Fisheries is currently being restructured and may gain more staff and better resources, I believe we should demand that priority be given to strengthening this area.
It would mean, first of all, not having to confine itself to reacting to actions like that of the Galapagos Agreement and its manifest intention of unilaterally extending the jurisdictional waters of four countries in defiance of the basic norms of international maritime law, or against attempts to arbitrarily expel Community fleets, which are among the few that are governed by strict standards and regulations.
Similarly, the Commission has the obligation not only to properly represent us in the international maritime sphere but also to take the initiative.
It should thus promote the setting-up of new regional organisations, beginning where the Community already has a presence, such as in the western Pacific and south Pacific.
In view of the expected restructuring, I should like to ask specifically for a unit to be set up for large migratory species, the need for which has already been noted by the Commission insofar as it has drawn up a number of regulations just for these species, which are the main target for flags of convenience, a pirate scourge that inexplicably is spreading ever more widely.
In conclusion, I reiterate my support for the rapporteur' s magnificent report.
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur and the Commissioner.
The regional fisheries organisations and the Community's participation in them is an important issue.
Covering nearly all the high seas these organisations provide an instrument to ensure active conservation and management of the fisheries resource.
It is this precious resource that I should like to turn to.
We face a depletion of stocks already which puts fishing into a crisis situation.
There is over-fishing, pollution of our seas, the climate is changing - we see that at the conference at the Hague at the moment - and the physical alteration of the environment puts increasing pressure on these finite resources.
Reform of the CFP will be critical but getting the right reforms will be even more important.
In Scotland the Scottish Fishermen's Federation and the World Wildlife Fund have got together to propose the concept of zonal regional management.
The fisheries management scheme would involve all interest groups in a particular region.
Although initially merely advisory in its recommendations, it is hoped that by illustrating efficiency and effectiveness over time it would earn a management role.
The development of a regionalisation of the CFP will be critical in ensuring local action.
Regional fisheries organisations provided a role on an international scale and regional or zonal management can make the global become local.
It will truly make for sustainable fisheries.
Mr President, I have only one minute in which to express my support for Mr Jové' s excellent report, which deals very accurately with an aspect of the common fisheries policy that has not been recognised within the Union as a fundamental part of the policy.
Because Europe' s Member States are obsessed with disputes in Community waters, they forget, in practical terms, that fishing has a worldwide dimension, in terms of both the conservation of marine stocks and production and also the markets and the nature of the fleets.
As a result, some countries in the Union, such as Galicia, which I represent, are affected particularly badly by this situation and by the consequent lack of human and material resources afflicting the European Commission in its implementation of the common policy for regional fishing organisations.
The rapporteur rightly criticises these shortcomings and has proposed highly appropriate solutions, with which we agree.
Mr President, Commissioner, as we now all know, the state of fish stocks is a cause for concern throughout the world.
As we have just heard, part of the problem is extensive environmental pollution, such as the recent tanker accidents and, let us face it, there is no shortage of tanker accidents nowadays.
However, the main reason is overexploitation of fish stocks due to the huge catching capacity of the fishing fleets.
For the sake of the environment, and fishermen, we must aim to achieve sustainable management of fish resources.
However, if we are to achieve this objective, the Community still has a few important steps to take.
And time is running out.
In its communication to the Council and Parliament, the Commission criticises the lack of uniform regulations governing fisheries within and beyond exclusive economic zones.
The law of the survival of the fittest still applies on the high seas.
This law is based on the overriding principle of the freedom of the high seas.
The sea knows no borders.
There is hardly a fish in it which is permanently domiciled.
I am referring here to all migratory fish stocks.
Any over-fishing has a domino effect, and careful handling of fish resources is a pointless exercise if everyone else is ruthlessly pursuing their own economic interests and paying no heed whatsoever to the need to protect stocks.
The EU has the fourth largest fishing capacity in the world.
However, its importance does not give it the right to take measures at its own convenience and any measures taken must be in keeping with its international obligations.
It is because of this global perspective that international collaboration is needed and, to be sure, the most important committees - and this brings us back to the basis for collaboration - are made up mainly of regional fisheries organisations.
It is not just since the 1995 New York Agreement that their importance has been recognised; basically they are the best way of fostering responsible fishing.
They alone are able to implement supra-regional regulations in keeping with local conditions.
They carry out statistical programmes and are responsible for inspections and the monitoring system.
They are the most efficient way of ensuring that rules are not ignored.
Given the importance of regional fisheries organisations to sustainable fishing, it is imperative that the EU be granted a seat in every regional fisheries organisation. That way we can be sure that we will all end up pulling in the same direction.
chairman of the Committee on Fisheries.
(ES) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as I am about to leave for one of these regional fisheries organisations in Marrakech, where I am due to arrive the day after tomorrow to take part as an observer for this Parliament, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, I should like to take part in this debate on our colleague Salvador Jové' s magnificent report, in which the position of our committee is made quite clear.
We are backing the regional fisheries organisations; we are asking for more regional fisheries organisations and for the Commission to have more weight in them.
When we say more organisations, we mean those that can and should be set up in the South Atlantic or South Pacific - as has already been said here - and for the Commission to take a leading role in them.
I believe the future of fishing in international waters depends on these organisations, and the Commission must make every possible effort, Commissioner, to this end.
To support the United Nations position in both the 1982 Convention and the New York one, which has been mentioned here, we must maintain a very active presence in these organisations in favour of responsible fishing.
You can count on the support of this Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries, including our support for acquiring more material and human resources, which, as has been shown, are much needed.
We are a budgetary authority and I believe we should fund this line, because in these organisations and in these waters we are staking a lot on the future of fisheries in the coming years.
I want, therefore, to stress that the opinion of Parliament is practically unanimous, and so the Commission should realise that we are allies in this constructive endeavour to give the Commission greater weight - more staff, as we have said.
In comparison with other nations the European Union representation is clearly small, so we have to have more and better representation, Mr Fischler.
Let me say that we are going to continue this strategy of calling you before our committee in advance to inform us of the positions that you intend to advocate.
We shall do so together with the fishing sector so that we can form a common, joint opinion Then you will have to return to the parliamentary committee for the Commission to report back to us.
I should like to close, Mr President, by once again congratulating our rapporteur, Mr Jové, for the magnificent report he has drawn up.
Could I first of all take the opportunity to welcome the report and say that the whole issue of the management, control and the conservation of fisheries stocks is a major problem no matter where you look.
Throughout the European Union and far beyond we are all well aware of that.
It has also been the source of tremendous disagreement between the fishermen, on one hand, and the scientists, on the other.
To some extent, those of us who are politicians find ourselves in the middle.
We are neither fishermen nor scientists and we try to find the way and the truth between what both are saying to us.
This is an extremely difficult position to have to try to find a way through.
What I would say to this House and to the Commissioner is that we need information of the highest quality and the highest standard that we can all, scientists, fishermen or politicians, take on board.
That is why I believe there is a tremendous role for the Commission to play in going out there and encouraging the fishermen to come forward and cooperate with it and come forward with a solution that we can all agree to.
The Commission should take account of the views of the national regional authorities and the industry.
The Commissioner, when he replied to my report last month, seemed to get his geographical situations slightly mixed up - he did not know whether he was going to Scotland, Ireland or Northern Ireland.
I suddenly discovered that he went to Scotland and the Republic of Ireland but he did not come to Northern Ireland.
Hopefully, geographically, he will be much better placed in the future.
I know he knows where Northern Ireland is and I certainly hope he will come in the future to visit the fishermen there.
I want to say, before we come to a decision that will end the chaos - because I think we are all aware of the situation we are facing coming into December on TACs and quotas - that it is going to be extremely difficult not only for the regional and national areas and the fishermen but also for the Commission.
We need a better way of addressing this at a better time of the year with a greater lead in and greater cooperation than we have had in the past.
I ask the Commission to take that on board.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to start by thanking you for your support for our efforts to promote and strengthen the Community's participation in regional fisheries organisations.
I agree with all of you who have said that we need more regional fisheries organisations and I agree with Mr Varela and other speakers that the Commission has a role to play in these regional fisheries organisations.
We also agree with the House that the question of controls must be a cornerstone in the area of regional fisheries policy.
However, I must again stress the Commission's position that it cannot accept sole responsibility for controls in regional fisheries organisations.
It is in fact the Member States - in keeping with the basic structure of the European Union - which are primarily responsible for controls.
In exercising their sovereign rights as flag states, they must provide the necessary human, financial and material resources needed in order for the Community to meet its international obligations.
The Commission therefore stands by its conclusion in the communication that, as far as controls are concerned, NAFO is an exceptional case and should not become the rule.
The Commission should concentrate on its own job, which is to monitor and coordinate the implementation of controls in the regional fisheries organisations by the Member States.
The Commission is also required to carry out a huge amount of work in connection with negotiations held within the framework of regional fisheries organisations.
It would quite simply be inappropriate to disregard current institutional practice in the Community in relation to responsibility for controlling ships operating on the high seas.
I should like to reiterate two fundamental points here.
First, the Community must be consistent in its actions, irrespective of whether we are talking about controls in Community waters or controls on the high seas.
Secondly, the stand which we take on this subject must be in keeping with the stand taken during the current debate on the Commission's so-called core activities, which is why the discussion of control measures goes beyond regional fisheries organisations.
We need to select a comprehensive modus operandi which takes account of all fisheries activities in the Community, both in EU waters and on the high seas.
If we want to consider a completely new take on the Commission's remit in relation to controls inside and outside Community waters, then I think that it we should do so in connection with preparations to reform the common fisheries policy.
That means that we shall have plenty of opportunity here next year to discuss these issues in depth.
So much for the central tenet of the report.
I should like to make a few brief comments now on a number of other points.
As far as the time taken to implement the decisions of the regional fisheries organisations is concerned, I agree that the Commission's record can and must be improved.
Some progress has already been made but our efforts must focus on better planning.
On the question of infringements and sanctions: the Commission has always been in favour of including sanctions in the control regulations.
Without sanctions, we have no teeth.
Unfortunately, we have not succeeded so far in getting our ideas across because the Council has always resisted them.
But we shall try, as part of the ongoing work to create an area of freedom, security and justice, as formulated and decided at the Tampere Summit, to make progress on this question also.
Now to the reproach under point 16, where it says that the Commission wants to exclude Parliament from the process of Community participation in the various regional fisheries organisations.
That is quite untrue; in fact the opposite is true.
The Commission has always spoken out here in favour of the rules for cooperation between Parliament and the Commission and has always adhered to the rules of the interinstitutional agreement.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
COM in pigmeat
The next item is the report (A5-0305/2000) tabled by Mr Garot, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2759/75 on the common organisation of the market in pigmeat [COM(2000) 193 - C5-0225/2000 - 2000/0076(CNS)].
Mr President, I have Mr Nicholson's problem in an even more acute form.
I turned up for my debate on ASEM III at the time indicated to find that the whole debate had taken place.
I do not know what the problem is.
I think it is that one or two Members are absent which then brings the debate forward which means that more and more people arrive after the debate.
I do not know how we can solve this problem but my apologies to the House for not being present when I should have been.
I do not know how we can tackle this problem in the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as shadow rapporteur for the Garot report on the common organisation of the market in pigmeat, I should like once again here to make clear reference to the shadow side of the report.
The report, which basically makes provision for a compensation fund for pigfarmers, and hence goes beyond the Commission proposal, was adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I moved on behalf of our group for a split vote, as I personally reject the idea of a compensation fund for pigfarmers.
I am quite happy to say yes to a piggy bank for pigfarmers, but I say 'no' to a compensation fund for pigfarmers, especially to a compensation fund co-financed from European money.
I take the view that we do not need any more regulations or state intervention.
The whole point of the free market is that supply and demand even out at a specific price.
It is true that pigfarmers have been hit by an historic slump in prices.
But it was preceded by a period of economic stability.
A relatively limited supply, as the result of swine fever and the BSE debate and high exports to third countries have benefited prices and our farmers are again demanding that politics should keep out of it as far as possible.
This is again a good starting point for proving it. To my mind, this is no time for hysteria.
Every self-respecting agricultural textbook talks of two classical pig cycles.
What we have seen over the last three years, albeit more drastically, is part of the classical pig cycle.
The pigmeat market is now one of the few agricultural markets which is still basically free from state intervention.
And the pigfarmers in my country are delighted at the fact.
Setting up a compensation fund will quicken the concentration of European slaughter pig production considerably because the risk of bigger capital investments will shift to the common fund.
I am aware of the fact that totally disparate agricultural philosophies apply in Europe; the philosophy of the federal system in Germany is quite different from that of the centralistic system in France.
I am quite against the idea of co-financing by the EU.
I am against any increase in state intervention.
As for European regulations - as many as are needed, but as few as possible.
What will we think up if there are any more agricultural risks, for example in the poultry sector? We cannot stuff money into a new EU piggy bank every time.
That would indeed be the thin end of the wedge.
Instead, it makes more sense if every pigfarmer sets up his own reserve, i.e. if every pigfarmer has his own piggy bank.
That is what I should like to see.
Mr President, the Commission proposal recognises that the pigmeat market in the European Union is subject to cyclical movements, with periods of balanced supply and satisfactory prices followed by periods of plentiful supply when prices plummet.
The periods of crisis are becoming worse and worse.
The last one caused prices to fall by over 30% from mid-1998 to early 2000.
The result is the disappearance of family holdings, whose only solution is to close down or to move into what is known as integrated production, in other words production in which the producers lose their independence as farmers and join a business structure - such as distribution chains or supermarkets - which dictates production plans to them in exchange for a certain economic stability.
We have sometimes even wondered to what extent the cyclical market crisis itself may not be caused by the speculative action of these business structures, which thus gradually take control of the sector for their own interests.
The Commission accepts that the only two ways to support the market - private storage and refunds - are insufficient to stave off the crisis, and yet it makes this timid and ineffectual proposal.
Its lack of imagination and lack of ambition are amazing.
Rather than a measure to guarantee producers' incomes when prices collapse, it is more like a paternalistic piece of advice: save up in times of plenty so you can get by in times of shortage.
What the proposal calls a regulatory mechanism consists of authorising a Member State that so wishes to establish a fund financed by those producers who join it on a voluntary basis for a minimum of five years, on the undertaking that they do not increase their stock.
The contribution from the Community budget is nil, and the Commission confines itself to authorising the levy thresholds and the fund payments from within the management committee.
The voluntary nature of the system means that the task of controlling production will be borne by only a few while the rest nullify this effect by producing without limit until the next crisis arrives.
For all these reasons the Commission' s proposal is disappointing and we believe it is unacceptable.
It does not solve the cyclical instability of the sector, it breaches the principle that the CAP will provide financial support and it is clearly an example of renationalisation and distortion of competences.
Hence we back the report by our Socialist coordinator, Mr Georges Garot, and the amendments approved in the Committee on Agriculture.
These turn the proposal into something very different by introducing, first, the compulsory nature of this measure for the Member States; secondly, Community cofinancing of the fund and the contribution of degressive launching aid; thirdly, Commission participation in crisis management measures; and fourthly, a broadening of the scope of this measure to cover piglet producers and closed-cycle holdings.
Reference is also made to the need to encourage producer organisations, the prevalence of which varies greatly from one Member State to another.
For the Socialists the amendments approved by the Committee on Agriculture provide an acceptable framework for the establishment of the proposed funds, and therefore if the Commission is not willing to accept these amendments, we ask it to withdraw its proposal, which in its present form has been rejected both by ourselves and by the sector.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Garot for his report, even if I do not agree with its content.
I agree that there has been a crisis in the pigfarming sector but I do not agree with Mr Garot' s proposal as to how future crises might be solved.
The fact is that the pigfarming sector has been the only sector which has until now been able to compete on market conditions with just a relatively few forms of intervention such as export subsidies and private storage, and it must continue to do so.
If subsidised by the EU, the regulatory fund proposed in Mr Garot' s report may well be of short-term benefit to small producers and help keep them artificially alive at the expense of larger and more productive producers who are, of course, the future for pigmeat production here in Europe.
The extra EU subsidy proposed in Mr Garot' s report would, in my view, be quite unreasonable in a year such as this when, with Agenda 2000 and the forthcoming enlargement to include Central and Eastern Europe, we are to reform agricultural policy.
We are not going to do this by inventing new aid schemes. Nor, moreover, is there any money in the Budget for this.
I should like to have a statement from the Commission on the extent to which this proposal is in keeping with the trade agreements with the WTO and with Agenda 2000.
In my view, it is in direct contravention of the common agricultural policy to establish national funds which will lead to unequal competition for European pigmeat producers.
What is perhaps worse, however, is that it may contribute to a renationalisation of agricultural policy.
I would therefore urge you to vote against both Mr Garot' s report and the Commission' s proposal so that the liberal policy which has so far prevailed in the pigmeat sector can continue.
Mr President, changing a market organisation is always a difficult decision and the objective, when weighing the alternatives, is to achieve as accurate a market-regulating intervention in supply and demand as possible, so as to ensure that production, in this case the production of pigmeat, secures farmers' incomes.
For a long time this has not been the case.
The report has been resisted and rejected.
Some of the demands go beyond the report because there is much which is out of kilter in the beef and pigmeat sectors.
The latest cases of BSE will result in reduced production and will eclipse everything put in place hitherto.
The globalisation of the economy is a red herring here and cyclical crises have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Slaughter cattle are being driven right across Europe, animal stocks are being cut back in return for state subsidies and huge ecological installations are being built.
Nor does this report offer any ready solutions; too much else needs to be done for that.
But the report does try to bundle production by applying the principle of voluntary action and by forming producer groups.
This is an honest and credible endeavour and I shall recommend that my group vote in favour.
Mr President, at a time when food safety is more than ever on the agenda and, above all, at a time when the entire meat industry in Europe is affected by mad cow disease, it is especially important that the reform of the COM in pigmeat is adopted without delay.
The market in pigmeat is subject to cyclical fluctuations with which economists are familiar, but the duration and the extent of the 1998/1999 crisis was unprecedented and highlighted the way this phenomenon is being amplified. Each crisis that occurs bankrupts countless family farms and pushes the industry more and more in the direction of concentration and integration.
This crisis clearly demonstrated the inadequacy of the current, extremely flimsy mechanisms of the COM in pigmeat and the need for a regulatory mechanism that will enable producers' incomes to be stabilised by a system of levies to be collected during periods when the economic situation is good and a system of payments to be made in times of recession, as the European Commission finally proposed along the lines of the French stabi-porc system.
But this proposal would be totally inadequate if it was possible for Member States to reject these regulatory systems and if the reserves used to maintain revenues in a period of crisis were drawn solely from producer contributions, as this would lead to a two-speed production in pigmeat.
On the one hand, the largest producers, or those integrated with processing industries downstream, would distance themselves from this measure, preferring the systems they already have: individual savings; bank loans and redistribution funds.
They would not have to commit themselves to limiting output and would retain their right to expand.
They would hence be the very source of the next overproduction crisis which would inevitable lead to the bankruptcy of the regulatory funds.
On the other hand, the more modest producers, family farms, would play the game of solidarity, accept to limit their output and contribute to a national regulatory fund which would drive them into bankruptcy when the next overproduction crisis occurred.
The current COM in pigmeat is extremely flimsy and much too hesitant.
This planned reform is the first remotely significant reform that the Commission has proposed since 1975.
The amendments introduced by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development at the instigation of Georges Garot, whom I must congratulate on his work, transforms this limited text into a wide-ranging one.
The changes made by the committee are major indeed.
The participation of all Member States in this new system will be compulsory.
Producers from all over the European Union will be able to subscribe to this measure.
The participation of the Community budget is also essential since, without it, those joining one of these regulatory funds would simply be faced with constraints and the system would not be attractive at all.
Efforts cannot be made by producers alone.
That is why our rapporteur proposes that the European Union should make a greater commitment by co-financing the regulatory funds.
In this way, far from creating an exceptional system from the standpoint of international practice, with this flexible system of preventing and managing crises we would be moving, at reasonable cost, towards what is practised in certain third countries, such as the insurance-cum-income systems in force in the United States and Canada.
We therefore support the proposal by the Commission, as profoundly amended by the work of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and will be voting in favour of the Garot report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin straight away by saying that, in principle, I welcome the Commission's proposal to set up a compensation fund, even from the point of view of Austrian agriculture.
This fund may be just the instrument to reduce pigfarmers' losses in times of crisis.
The pig crises in 1998 and 1999 demonstrate the inadequacy of instruments such as private stocking and the export refunds of the common organisation of the market in pigmeat at the time.
I think that, if we are to avoid and manage such crises in the future, this proposal is the first way forward.
A fundamental point which the Commission has overlooked in its proposal is joint financing.
In my view, the basic principle of EU financing should apply to common organisations of the market, including the common organisation of the market in pigmeat.
It guarantees intensive participation on the part of farmers, thereby indirectly restricting production.
The proposal makes provision for the fund to be set up by the Member States.
We must, I think, ensure that all Member States set up the fund, so that farmers throughout Europe have an equal chance to participate in it.
As far as the management of the fund is concerned, state administration should be kept to a minimum; in other words, the Member States should approve and monitor the fund but should not administer it; that should be left to the producer groups.
Every farmer should be free to participate in the compensation fund., but if they decide to participate, they must sign up for five years.
I am positive that this instrument will improve the stability of the market and allow farmers in Europe to manage cyclical crises more efficiently.
Mr President, Commissioner, the rapporteur, Mr Garot, has dealt with the Commission' s proposal for pig industry funding realistically and in precise terms.
The aim to balance production and marketing beforehand will be of benefit to the production chain and to everyone else as well.
I would like to point out, however, that at this stage we should not be embarking on a regulated economy in the pig industry.
I agree very strongly with my colleague, Mr Busk, when he says that eastward enlargement lies ahead of us and, in a situation such as this, where we will have to take a serious look at the whole agricultural policy a few years from now, it is not, in my opinion, worth embarking on a regulatory mechanism for just one sector.
That would not be the wise thing to do at present.
In this the south and the north are quite clearly opposed.
In the south people are more in favour of co-financing. On the other hand, the pig industry in the north works on the principle that it should be very firmly undertaken on a voluntary basis, on which schemes may be created, schemes which - as Mrs Schierhuber said here just now - pig farmers could join in different parts of Europe.
The Community could be providing funds in a mainly technical sense, financing technical matters in connection with start-up, and thus supporting actual start-up.
The way I understand it is that voluntary funds in the future will help to ensure there is also balanced marketing in the pig industry.
Mr President, first of all, it would be totally wrong of us to have come here tonight to either criticise the report or the Commission for coming forward with the proposal.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for his report.
It is the first time we have had a constructive debate on the problems that face the pig industry throughout the European Union - certainly in the eleven years I have been in this Parliament.
I am not saying it is right, I am not saying I agree with it, but at least it is the first time we have had a constructive debate on the subject.
There is no doubt that pig farmers, regardless of where you come from, have faced the most difficult period possible.
I have seen family farms go out of business; I have listened to farmers' wives wondering how they would survive because of the problems the industry was facing.
The question I have to ask myself is very straightforward and simple: will this proposal help to alleviate their difficulty either in the short- or long-term? I have extremely serious reservations as to whether it can help the pig farmer in either the short term or long term.
Co-financing is one aspect, but I have a horrible suspicion that would perhaps create an uneven playing field in many countries throughout the European Union.
I have to ask the Commissioner - because this is the one thing that might be useful for some of us - whether this proposal will be mandatory on the Member States? If it is implemented in every Member State then there is a degree of fairness.
If it is not implemented throughout every Member State, then there will be unfairness.
There will be the suspicion that producers in another Member State have an unfair advantage.
Can the Commissioner answer that? Whether I will vote for or against depends on how he answers that.
Unfair competition must be avoided at all costs.
Pigs have always had - as has been said by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert - tremendous highs and lows in price.
When the price has been high the producer has been doing well.
When the price has been low then the family is not doing well.
It is a question of balance.
This is the problem in the pig industry at the moment.
Is the Commissioner going to address the same problem in the poultry industry, in mushrooms, in tomatoes, in other industries that will have some particular difficulty at some stage in the future? That is what we have to ask ourselves: can the common agricultural policy really cope with the challenges it faces at the present time?
While the policy is good, and while I pay tribute to it, we have to go back to the drawing board.
We have to look at it again.
We have to have further consultation and greater cooperation to find a way in which we can come forward with a proposal rather than asking the hard-pressed producers at the moment to pay for something that they cannot afford.
Let us look at how we can best support the industry in the longer-term.
Mr President, the really positive thing about this debate is that we are getting a very clear idea of what can be regulated within the common agricultural policy and what cannot.
So this will prove to be a memorable evening, particularly where the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is concerned.
I fully understand why people want market organisation for intensive livestock farming, and why they should want to scrap agricultural policy for land-based production.
This is precisely the form of agriculture we have recognised as being the most sustainable and environmentally friendly form of agriculture for the future.
This is noteworthy in itself.
We will certainly revisit this theme in future discussions with the Green Group.
First and foremost, I would like to compliment the rapporteur, Mr Garot, on the fact that he has done his utmost to see if he can do something to help at a time when pig farming is lapsing into crisis.
That alone is worth a compliment.
Secondly, is the medicine he prescribes the right medicine?
I have grave doubts about that.
To be perfectly honest, I do not believe in his particular brand of medicine, and I will tell you for why.
I believe that market organisation only works if you talk in terms of co-financing, and European financing, and if agreements are reached regarding the volumes produced.
Otherwise, there is every risk that whilst the market or revenue will indeed level off, this will mainly occur in a downward spiral, which cannot be the object of the exercise.
That being the case, my preference is to have a free market for pig farming, where the market ultimately determines price trends.
If, however, we opt for market organisation, and reinforcement of the associated policy, then we would do well, in my view, to see that the producer groupings are better equipped, so that they occupy a stronger position in the market; a market which is becoming increasingly close-knit on the demand side, and which is gaining in influence.
You may ask yourself to what extent agriculture and horticulture in Europe can find an effective solution to this.
I would sooner strengthen groupings, specifically with a view to gaining a better market position and making better agreements.
I am therefore bound to say that I have reached a different conclusion to that of Mr Garot, and whilst I am almost inclined to say that I could almost go along with the Commission proposal in its present form, since we also have a duty to be honest, I feel that, basically, it does not actually do anything to address the issues.
Mr President, that is the approach I would go for; once again, although I reject the medicine prescribed by Mr Garot, I have the greatest admiration for all the trouble he has taken to explore the possibility of introducing more social support into the pig farming sector.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, I should like to thank you, Mr Garot, as rapporteur, for your excellent report on the introduction of a compensation fund in the common organisation or the market in pigmeat.
The crises in the pig sector which, thank God, we have since overcome, were in fact what prompted the Commission proposal in the first place.
Luckily we are currently in the buoyant phase of the pig cycle, meaning that supply has fallen and farmers are commanding much better prices.
Farmgate prices have been hovering around EUR 140-150 per 100 kilos for several months and experts continue to see a positive outlook.
It is clear from market developments that, as ever, the pig cycle is exerting its influence and still applies and that good times will again follow bad.
We must not overlook this fact during our debate of today's proposal.
What we are discussing is an instrument to support farmers' incomes in times of crisis.
We are not discussing a new common organisation of the market in pigmeat.
We have a common organisation of the market in pigmeat and we should not make the mistake of questioning the present common organisation of the market in pigmeat which, basically, works.
I should like, in examining the amendments proposed in the report, to concentrate on the points which clearly differ from the Commission proposal.
The first is co-financing.
Without doubt, this is, to an extent, the key question in the debate on this proposal and it is addressed in proposed Amendments Nos 11 and 12.
I should stress here that the main responsibility for a balanced market and for the resultant price levels lies in the hands of the pigfarmers themselves.
It is they, the pigfarmers, who decide on production volumes and, hence, indirectly and automatically on future price developments.
I think it would therefore be wrong to deny farmers their responsibility.
Apart from that, co-financing carries the risk of distorting the market's signals to the farmers.
I cannot therefore support the idea of putting all the market's eggs in an anti-cyclical price policy basket.
If we start an anti-cyclical price policy, then all we are doing is jacking up the pig cycle.
One thing I have learned today is that there appear to be members who support the idea of introducing co-financing in all common organisations of the market.
In other words, if we do it everywhere else, we will probably include the pigmeat market.
But that is not the subject of the debate, at least not as far as I am aware.
The second important question is the voluntary basis for the system.
The Commission proposal gives Member States the choice of whether or not they wish to set up a fund, whereas the proposed amendment makes it compulsory for all Member States.
But we must not forget that European pigfarming varies and is organised differently from one country to another and that cooperation between the individual stages of the production chain is organised very differently.
As a result, there is a whole series of Member States, and of pigfarmers in those Member States, who will brook no discussion of a compensation fund because they say that they do not need it because they have other arrangements for coping with recessions in their income cycle.
Other countries are determined to have a compensation fund and I will tell you quite frankly that, if we were to propose a mandatory compensation fund, we might as well forget the whole idea, because it would never obtain a majority in the Council.
Then there is the question of including specialist breeders in the proposed system, as stated in proposed Amendments Nos 7 and 13.
I think this is asking for trouble because a) breeding is a very varied operation and b) support for breeders will not necessarily automatically fall in the same phase of the cycle as support for fatteners.
Plus, the weight of piglets various enormously, from 8 to 30 kg, and there is, as it were, no uniform price quotation system for standard piglets, meaning that there is no basis on which to support them.
I think it is far better here to establish an economic balance between the price of piglets and the price of slaughter pigs through the market rather than through artificial measures.
More importantly, we must not forget that in numerous countries farmers fatten their piglets themselves and hence have direct access to the compensation fund via the fattened pigs which they sell.
The Commission cannot accept proposed Amendment No 16 because this amendment would interfere drastically with the freedom of decision of farmers who decide not to participate in the fund, in order to retain their freedom.
Plus, the measures have not been defined, meaning that the decision on the measures to be applied basically stays in the hands of the Member States.
That would be genuine renationalisation and I cannot agree to it.
The planned reduction in production for each Member State depending on previous production sounds suspiciously like a quota regulation.
Plus, it would generate huge bureaucratic costs, including for the purpose of controls.
The Commission feels that it is only fair to subject farmers who participate in the fund to some sort of discipline, because they receive a certain income guarantee in return, whereas others, who do not participate, have no such guarantee.
In addition to these four core questions which the debate on the report has thrown up, there is a series of other, less fundamental proposed amendments, most of which deal with the details of the regulation - details which, in my view, should be included not in the Council regulation but in the implementing measures.
As far as adjusting aid on the basis of the number of animals is concerned, may I point out that the Commission proposal already makes provision for a legal basis for just such a procedure.
Before I finish, I should like to touch on a question addressed mainly in proposed Amendment No 6, namely improving statistics on herd trends and the possibility of forecasting production trends.
I really do not think that a new law or new provisions are needed here.
What is needed is proper, comprehensive application of current provisions by the Member States and their statistics offices.
My services have drawn the outstanding problems to the attention of their Eurostat colleagues responsible for inventories and have pushed for results to be improved here.
We have discussed this on several occasions over recent months and it is clear from our discussions that we have no shortage of provisions; what we are short of is people who take the provisions seriously, carry out the inventories of pig herds correctly and answer the questions put to the Member States truthfully.
You will have understood from what I have said that I am unable to accept your proposed amendments.
However, I thank you for the serious debate which we have had here and I hope that we shall be able to reach a result on the basis of the Commission proposal, because the problem here - and I make no bones about it - is that the Member States still have very differing views on this matter.
Mr President, allow me to put a question to the Commissioner, because I am rather annoyed.
He said that the Commission had no intention of changing the common organisation of the market in pigmeat.
But the title reads "on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2759/75 on the common organisation of the market in pigmeat".
Then what, pray, has the Commission presented to us?
If you want fewer radical changes than we do, then we can come to an agreement, but if you do not want any changes, then the text is a farce.
Perhaps you could explain.
If you present Parliament with a proposal, Parliament takes the liberty of introducing its proposals.
As is our right.
Mr President, allow me to explain. I did not say that there would be no changes to the common organisation of the market in pigmeat as the result of the Commission's proposal.
Of course it represents a change to the common organisation of the market in pigmeat, of that there can be no question.
But from the opinions expressed during the debate, it appeared that what we were doing now was introducing a common organisation of the market in pigmeat and I took the liberty of pointing out that we already had one.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.10 p.m.)
Court of Auditors' annual report for 1999
The next item is the presentation of the Court of Auditor' s annual report for 1999.
I welcome the President of the Court of Auditors, Mr Karlsson, and I immediately give him the floor.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Members of the Court of Auditors I would like to thank you all for inviting me to present the 23rd Annual Report of the Court.
As in previous years, this presentation marks the start of the discharge procedure for the 1999 financial year.
The report follows the format used for the past two years with chapters covering revenue in each of the expenditure areas under the headings of the Financial Perspective.
You will also find a chapter dedicated to the Statement of Assurance, and attached to the report you will find the Court's observations on implementation of the sixth, seventh and eighth European Development Funds.
The different chapters of the annual report address four main concerns.
Firstly, there is an analysis of the budgetary implementation of the budgetary management practices within the specific financial headings.
You will find that the Court has paid more attention to the follow-up to previous observations, in response to the demands expressed by this Parliament.
In each of the chapters the Court reports on the progress made in a number of areas on which it had reported in the past and I will return to some of these issues in my presentation.
Thirdly, in response to the request of the European Parliament, the Court has expanded its audit work on the Statement of Assurance and now provides additional information per area of expenditure in each chapter.
Finally, in each of the chapters the Court presents a number of other key audit findings.
Many of these findings are also reported upon in more detail in the Court's special reports.
Since the last discharge procedure the Court has adopted 24 special reports containing the results of audits which focus on a wide range of specific areas in which the Community's financial management can be improved.
Although these reports are not part of today's presentation, they are to be taken into account in the discharge procedure.
The total income for the 1999 financial year amounted to EUR 86.9 billion.
The gross national product-based resources represent 43% of this total.
The value added tax-based resources represent 36% and the traditional own resources are 15% of the total.
The remaining 5% is composed of the surplus resources of the previous year and other income.
This means that four fifths of the Community resources, the gross national product plus the value added tax-based resources, are calculated and fixed by using statistical data.
I would like to point out two major observations of the Court in this context.
First, for several years now, the Court has commented on the use of a statistical aggregated system (SEC79), which for all other purposes has already been replaced by a newer system (SEC95).
The difference is 16 years.
Further, in the context of the fight against VAT fraud, the Court has identified a method based on a comparison between fiscal and statistical intermediate consumption data that can be particularly useful in pointing to areas where the risk of fiscal fraud is high.
It therefore invites the Member States to consider the use of this method.
In the customs area the Court reports on the complexity and variable application of the outward processing procedure.
However, it also supports the Commission's proposal to modernise customs arrangements with an economic impact.
With regard to the 1999 expenditure, a total amount of EUR 93.6 billion was entered into the account as new commitments, and payments amounting to EUR 80.3 billion were recorded. This is 96% and 92% respectively of the available appropriations for the year.
The utilisation rates of the Financial Perspective estimates are 91% and 83% respectively.
Expenditure from the Community budget is spread over many different areas.
It is, therefore, difficult to draw general conclusions on this budgetary implementation.
However, the Court makes the following major points.
Half of the 1999 expenses are recorded under the common agricultural policy.
As reported in chapter 2 of this annual report, the high rate of expenditure, which is almost 99% of final appropriations, is explained in part by numerous transfers that reflect in fact the poor quality of the initial estimates, of both revenue and expenditure.
The Court invites both the Commission and the Member States to improve the quality of these estimates.
There were also numerous transfers of appropriations for the Structural Funds that significantly altered the structure of the 1999 budget.
Further, there were major differences between programme amounts and the amounts allocated by the Financial Perspective and the majority of Structural Fund interventions had to be rescheduled.
In this area there was also an under-utilisation of commitment and payment appropriations and a concentration of transactions at the end of the year.
In areas where the Community programmes are implemented directly by the Commission, such as internal policy and external actions, implementation rates are somewhat lower.
There is also a heavy concentration of commitments and payments at the end of the year.
This is something that we have come back to over the years.
The Court repeats, consequently, its comments of previous years on the negative effects of this, for instance poor and hasty decisions, heavy workload creating a risk of errors and so on.
Finally, in both the chapters on internal policies and external actions, the Court finds that the Commission's own comments on budgetary implementation are inadequate.
The Court welcomes, therefore, the clear commitment of the Commission's answer to improve fundamentally its budgetary and accounting report.
The Court has produced an annual Statement of Assurance since the 1994 budgetary year.
Each year the Court has expressed serious criticism of the legality and regularity of the payments and the transactions underlying them.
This is the case once again.
Indeed, the audit of the 1999 payments revealed once again an unacceptable incidence of error which affected their amount or the reality or the eligibility of the transactions underlying them.
The majority of these errors occurred in areas of the Community budget that are managed by the authorities in the Member States.
They mainly comprise non-compliance with eligibility rules, overclaims, insufficient justification and calculation errors.
There are also other failures to comply with regulations and systems weaknesses for which the effects on payments cannot be directly evaluated but which increase the risks of errors occurring.
The most frequent examples here are problems in implementing regulatory control checks insufficiently, detailed supporting documentation and failure to comply with tender procedures.
Thus, for 1999, the Court did not obtain the necessary evidence from its audit activities to ensure that the underlying transactions were legal and regular, except for own resources, commitments and administrative expenditure.
On the other hand, for the sixth, seventh and eighth European Development Fund, the Court gives a positive statement of assurance.
Not only is it the duty of the Court to report on the errors found in its audits but we should also ensure that our audit findings are interpreted and used correctly.
Therefore, let me remind Members of Parliament that the high incidence of errors found by the Court cannot, and must not, be seen as an indication of the level of fraud affecting the Community budget.
Most of the payment errors found by the Court are due to problems of inadequate financial management and control and it is only in the case of a small proportion of the errors found that further reinvestigation by OLAF or the Member States' authorities is justified.
Another risk of misrepresentation is that the objectives for corrective actions are set in terms of diminishing error rates and obtaining a positive statement of assurance.
As the Court already pointed out in its previous report, a medium-term improvement requires a combination of general and specific measures, including the clarification and improvement of control procedures, particularly at the level of Member States.
In this context, the Court welcomes the Commission's plan for improving financial management presented to the discharge authority in the context of the discharge for 1998.
This reflection leads me to some comments on the reform of the Commission.
The Court welcomes the efforts of the Prodi Commission to build a modern and robust structure of management and control and, at the same time, to focus on the way political priorities are set and resources allocated.
Many of the weaknesses that the Commission now seeks to overcome have been emphasised by the Court on many occasions.
For instance, the proposals of the Commission to increase the responsibility of authorising officers for the execution of commitments and payments while bringing to an end the centralised system of prior approval of transactions by the financial controller, together with the creation of an independent internal audit service, is in line with the key requirement for improved financial management that we lay down in our Opinion No 4/97.
Another element of the reform that corresponds closely to a key priority identified by the Court is the increased focus to be placed on results and performance measurement within a framework of resource allocation that is consistent with predetermined priorities and objectives that are clearly defined and measurable.
At sector level, the Commission has now announced reform programmes which can be seen as a response to concerns expressed by the Court over a number of years, for example, the proposals for improving the management of external aid programmes.
This initiative is clearly based on an analysis very similar to that of the Court - most comprehensively set out in its Annual Report for 1997.
Whereas the Court encourages the Commission to proceed from principles to practice as quickly as is feasible, it needs to be recalled that, as yet, much of the reform is still on paper only.
The implementation of this new reform will need a genuine change of the management culture of the Commission, a process that will certainly take time.
The Annual Report 1999, when reporting upon the follow-up of previous observations, shows how difficult it is for the Commission to implement the needed changes which have been agreed upon.
In some cases, such as the reforms of the measures for the subsidised use of skimmed milk and skimmed milk powder or the programme of assistance to South Africa, as well as in certain areas of traditional own resources, the Commission has taken actions to remedy specific weaknesses reported upon by the Court.
In other areas corrective action has been slow.
For instance, for the milk quota system, the Court found that the overall situation had not significantly changed and that, contrary to the Court's view, increased quotas have been established, thereby giving rise to greater surpluses in the milk market and a heavy financial burden for public storage and disposal measures.
In the case of the import of dairy products at preferential rates, the Court considers that nothing has been done so far to avoid breaches of regulations similar to those reported in the Court's Special Report No 4/98.
In the area of the European Regional Development Fund, the Court followed up about 48 observations for which it believed a financial correction should be made.
There are only 16 cases where the Court is satisfied with the corrective measures taken by the Commission.
In the area of the social dialogue, the Commission has not undertaken all the measures it had agreed to carry out in its replies to the Court's observations.
In the internal policies area, the Court re-audited nine contracts at the Transport and Energy Directorates-General and eight contracts at the Research Directorate-General.
The Commission had only followed up three of the 17 contracts, with actions continuing on six others.
In its 1996 annual report, the Court identified a number of weaknesses in the management of an export promotion fund for Nicaragua and Honduras.
In its discharge recommendation published in 1998 the Council called on the Commission to review its relations with the regional bank and recover amounts unduly credited by this bank.
At the end of 1999, the Commission was still in the process of setting up a new organisation.
From these and other examples, it is clear that the Commission has hitherto not only been slow in implementing corrective measures but that it particularly faces problems when it comes to recovering unduly paid amounts.
In its 2001 programme, the Court has therefore planned an overall audit covering all budgetary areas of the Commission's recovery procedures.
As I indicated before, the Commission's financial management is only part of the overall management of Community funds.
Member States are responsible for the day-to-day management of the bulk of Community funds in the areas of the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
This annual report and the special reports published since the last discharge continue to draw attention to serious and persistent weaknesses in Member States' management and control systems.
For instance, an important category of errors reported in the Statement of Assurance are irregular deductions by the central or local administrations on agricultural subsidies.
Also in the area of the common agricultural policy, the Court calls upon Member States and the Commission to make checks more effectively by comprehensively applying to all Common Market Organisations inspection procedures comparable to those of the Integrated Administrative and Control System.
The dramatic events of the recent past have clearly demonstrated the increasing importance of management and control issues on the European agenda.
It should be clear to each and every one of us, whether as representatives of European institutions or of Member States, that this reflects a permanent change in the values and opinions of European taxpayers.
They require, in exchange for their confidence and contribution, that the European funds are being spent in a meaningful and honest way.
The commitment undertaken by the Commission should be seen as a constructive reply to this challenge: a reply that deserves our support.
On the other hand, the Commission will be aware that it has now raised high expectations and that it is obliged to put into practice its good intentions and to produce results.
It rests with the budgetary authorities, which have successfully triggered the reform that addresses public financial management concerns, to continue and reinforce their efforts to ensure that this reform succeeds.
In practice, they will thus have to devote sufficient attention and resources to the follow-up to, and the feedback from, the reform process.
Members of the European Parliament will be at the forefront of this.
The new President of the Italian Court of Auditors, the Corte dei Conti, who was officially installed in office a few weeks ago, said in his instalment address: "I am convinced that the relations between the Court of Auditors and Parliament would be significantly improved if Parliament strengthened the instruments that are designed to ensure that Parliament systematically takes results of audits carried out by the Court of Auditors into consideration".
I make his words mine.
They imply that we wish to see a development of the working organisation and methods of this Parliament to reflect this need for structural change.
Yesterday I had the opportunity - for which I thank the President - to discuss with the President of Parliament involving all the committees of this Parliament in the business of financial and management control.
Last, but not least, we will also need the cooperation of the Member States.
Being responsible for the day-to-day management of the bulk of Community funds, the Member States need to strengthen their financial controls and to take up fully their responsibilities in the fight against fraud against the Community budget.
Only when all actors - the Commission, Parliament, the Council, the European Court of Auditors and the Member States - commit themselves to the reform and cooperate in this achievement will the confidence of the European taxpayer in Community financing be able to be restored.
Thank you, Mr President. I now give the floor to Mrs Schreyer, who will speak on behalf of the Commission.
Madam President, I would like to thank Mr Karlsson very sincerely for his presentation on the annual report.
Mrs Schreyer's report was just as interesting.
But I would particularly like to thank you, Mr Karlsson, as President of the Court of Auditors, for the way you have kept the Members of the Committee on Budgetary Control informed this time round.
This has enabled us to prepare for today's debate without having to obtain details from the press.
As you said, Mr Karlsson, 1999 was a dramatic year, with the resignation of the previous Commission and the appointment of the new one.
We do not expect that the new Commission will immediately be able to rectify all the mistakes and irregularities that Parliament uncovered and because of which it called, in vain, for reforms at that time.
Like the Court of Auditors, we welcome President Prodi's efforts to reform the Commission and we are following the implementation of these efforts in a constructive but not uncritical way.
Are things finally changing for the better as regards the Community budget? We would have liked to have been able to say "yes" to that question, now that the new Commission has been in office for over a year and has, since September 1999, already been directly responsible for part of the process of implementing the 1999 budget.
Unfortunately, we cannot yet answer with a clear conscience, even armed with the Court of Auditors' new annual report.
The Court of Auditors has quite rightly noted the many steps that the new Commission has taken - or at least announced - in order to improve matters. Mrs Schreyer also mentioned this.
I have in mind new procedures for setting priorities and allocating resources, changes in human resources policy, fundamental improvements in budget implementation and financial control, reform of programmes and the creation of an efficient audit service. But all these are still hopes for the future.
The reality as described in the annual report is, however, more sobering.
What is particularly regrettable and almost incomprehensible is that there are still problems about the reliability of accounting procedures.
In other words, the Commission has not put its books in order, and the closures only reflect the true financial position subject to serious limitations.
Information is missing on the payment of advances and the payment of instalments at the year end, and existing commitments are, believe it or not, undervalued by EUR 2.6 million.
At the same time, the Court of Auditors says that potential claims have been significantly overvalued.
Parliament expressly drew attention to these serious accounting errors during the discharge procedures for 1996, 1997 and 1998.
Even if it is difficult and time consuming to fundamentally change budget management, we might have hoped, Commissioner, that the new Commission would at least manage to get the books straight without delay.
But it is apparent that they have not even succeeded in doing that, which is a matter of great regret as far as I am concerned.
When you assumed office, Mrs Schreyer, you assured us that you would strive to achieve this.
The European Parliament now finds itself in an extremely difficult situation because earlier this year, in January, it declared that it could no longer accept a situation in which the 1999 closure was still marred by serious errors.
You are familiar with the wording of that decision.
But if there is no closure, that means that no discharge can be given for budgetary management, just as we said back in January.
Closure is a condition for such a discharge.
A solution needs to be found here, and I would like to ask you, Mrs Schreyer, if a correction of the 1999 accounts could be envisaged.
Once again, and for the sixth successive time now, the Court is unable to give a positive statement of assurance, that is to say, it cannot give a guarantee of the legality and regularity of the procedures on which the financial statement is based.
The number of errors occurring is too great for a guarantee of this kind to be given.
The error rate is still well over 5%.
Expressed in euros, that means that a sum of approximately EUR 5 billion was spent incorrectly.
I most certainly recognise that fraud is not always involved, Mr Karlsson.
It is often a case of carelessness or misunderstandings in the face of complicated rules and procedures, but there is no getting round it: an error rate this high is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in the long run.
I must refute your comments about poor implementation in the Member States, Mrs Schreyer, given that the Court of Auditors was quite clear about where the error rate lay within the Commission and, ultimately, it is still the Commission that bears responsibility for budget implementation.
I would like to see more rigour here, so that we can really tell the European public that their money is being properly administered.
We are now getting down to work in committee and will cooperate closely with you.
Madam President, I should first of all like to thank the Court of Auditors for its annual report.
I should like to draw attention to a number of problems, and I hope that Mr Karlsson will be able to answer my questions today.
In connection with the 1997 discharge, we in Parliament agreed that, as Mrs Theato has just said, no discharge for 1999 could be given if the Court of Auditors was not in a position to issue a positive statement for 1999.
However, I should like to know how serious the situation is regarding the 1999 accounts.
Yesterday, I asked you a question - I appreciate there was not much time - but I should like to have a completely clear answer from you to the question of how great a percentage of error there is.
We are told that this cannot be properly calculated.
Yesterday, a member of the Court of Auditors gave a press conference and, at this press conference, a figure was given, and so I think we should be given one here, too.
Is the percentage of error 5.5? I hope I can obtain an answer.
The Commission employed more than EUR 80 billion in 1999.
However, the Commission has not been especially good at administering the Budget.
The amount of fixed assets has been set EUR 240 million too low.
Liabilities have been set EUR 2.6 billion too low, and unredeemed liabilities have been set EUR 1.2 billion too high.
If the management of a private firm had committed such major blunders, then I am almost certain that the owners would have given them the sack.
But let us pour a little oil on the waters now, so that we do not get ourselves worked up at this early stage.
The former Commission, which was primarily responsible for the 1999 Budget, was indeed given the sack.
The new Commission is to be judged this year on how good it has been at cleaning up and implementing reform.
I am therefore pleased that the Court is attaching more importance to following up the earlier annual reports.
This emerges clearly, of course, wherever there are still problems, but also where some sound improvements have been made.
I could have done with seeing a much more practical annual report from the Court of Auditors.
We must have more figures, and we must have more facts.
Mr Karlsson said yesterday that it is not easy to come up with figures.
I appreciate this, but I asked one of my employees to look at the agricultural section, and in an hour he had prepared a complete report on which countries were concerned, on what problems there were and also on how much money had gone missing.
If this can be done in an hour by an able employee here in Parliament, then we can probably also demand that the Court of Auditors issue a report of this kind on all sections.
Some unpalatable facts will emerge of course but, at the same time, we are demonstrating that transparency exists.
In that way, we can shut the press up, which is merciless and scents blood every year when the Court of Auditors produces its report.
Once and for all, we can say: 'Here are the problem areas, and we want to find solutions' .
I believe this is a good way of doing that, and I also think that the report should be much more practical.
I should also have liked the Court of Auditors' report to have been a little more user-friendly and to have provided a number of clear recommendations, for example one or two per chapter.
I could also do with seeing the Court of Auditors produce its report earlier in the year.
It would give us more time for the discharge procedure in Parliament, and we should not need to defer the discharge every single year.
As rapporteur, I now have only 14 days in which to ask the Commission questions, and in 14 days it has to supply me with the answers.
It is almost unreasonable to make such demands, so if we could obtain the report much earlier, we could also produce a piece of work of even higher quality.
I am also pleased that the Court emphasises that the 7% margin of error does not only relate to fraud, and I hope that the press is listening hard in the press room so that it is not only the scandals that are reported.
There may be irregularities or ambiguities.
What is really a relief is that it looks as though the right way to combat fraud has been embarked upon.
Only very few cases have been referred to OLAF and for criminal investigation in the Member States, but it is important to remember that, as Mrs Theato also mentioned, 7% of the Budget corresponds to DKK 5 to 6 billion.
If it comes down to figures, that amount is larger than the whole of the EU' s development aid.
Reform of the Commission is largely about making the individual Directorates-General responsible, and I should like to ask the Court whether it has plans in future to restructure the annual report so that chapters for the individual Directorates-General are prepared.
I shall try as early as this year to see whether this can be done so that we can make a start on assessing the Directorates-General.
We can also make a start on assessing the Commissioners and giving them marks according to how good they are.
They could perhaps be given a push in the right direction, if need be.
The Court of Auditors emphasises once again that daily administration of most EU resources, for example within agriculture and the structural sphere, takes place in the Member States, and I completely agree with what has been said to the effect that the Member States now need to make sure they get their act together.
The Member States avoid responsibility, misappropriate funds and do nothing whatsoever to exercise control and, every time criticisms are made, a storm of criticism rains down upon those in Brussels, that is to say the Commission and others.
I think the Member States should be ashamed of themselves.
In 1995, a convention to protect the EU' s economic interests was adopted.
There is only one Member State which has implemented this in its legislation.
It is simply not good enough, so make sure you in the Member States get your act together.
Finally, I want to say that I am delighted with the cooperation in connection with the discharge.
I am certain that we shall achieve a result, but it requires openness and honesty from all parties. We in Parliament are in no doubt that we want to be involved in doing something sensible, and we shall give discharge in April if we get what we are asking for.
Madam President, I too would like to thank the chairman of the Court of Auditors for their report, and the Commissioner for their response to it.
Yet again, public opinion will be the first casualty when the news hits the streets that there is to be no positive statement of assurance for European expenditure this time round either.
Everyone knows - and this will crop up time and again - that the Member States spend the most money.
So they must be the first port of call when it comes to raising revenue as I see it.
It is also no secret that the lion' s share of expenditure goes on agriculture.
A number of years ago, the Commission established, at Parliament' s insistence, that if there are irregularities, this could mean an additional financial correction of 25% for the Member States.
I understand that the Court of Auditors is studying this, and would it not have been interesting if the Court of Auditors had studied what effects this had? Could the same principle be applied to other sectors?
I would be very interested to know.
I completely share Mr Blak' s dissatisfaction with the fact that the Court of Auditor' s report does not contain exact figures.
Is the reliability of the expenditure 5% or 7%, and is it true that reliability is less than 3% in the case of agricultural expenditure? The Court of Auditor' s constant refrain is that they do not have sufficient staff to analyse this.
That may well be true, but when the Court of Auditors reaches a verdict, I take it as read that it will be based on exact figures.
What I would like to know is why these figures cannot be published?
I also think we should set up a mediation committee for agriculture. Then, any disputes between the Commission and the financial corrections could be brought before it.
Would the Commission and the Court of Auditors be prepared to endorse this proposal?
On a final note, Madam President, this financial report covers 1999.
The Commission is bound to point out that it did not take office until September 1999, and will therefore deny all responsibility.
I think it is high time we heard the last of that.
I feel the Commission must give us a clear indication of when it expects to be able to deliver a positive statement of assurance, for we cannot keep postponing it year after year, as we have done since 1995.
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you, Mr Karlsson, for this excellent report.
I would also like to thank you for the procedure you followed.
We were able to read things through more than a week in advance, and come well prepared.
I believe that in principle it is a sound procedure.
Only, to be perfectly honest with you, I was rather disenchanted with yesterday' s meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It was too short.
And you actually failed to answer a number of precise and really rather crucial questions put to you by the delegates, which I think is a shame.
Some of these questions have already cropped up again in today' s debate, and I read in today' s Süddeutsche Zeitung that some of your colleagues do make detailed statements.
Their themes are fraud, irregularities, and mistakes running to DM 8 billion. I also read that the erroneous percentage is certainly in excess of 5%.
Why do we keep harping on about this figure?
Both Mr Mulder and the rapporteur did the same.
We want to know why because it is important in our estimation.
We have made political statements about this in the past.
I would therefore be grateful if you could respond to this question again.
We are aware that things are in very bad shape in the Commission, and that it still lacks a culture whereby the European taxpayer' s money is administered effectively.
That is a pity.
Of course, we all know that the Commission is working on its programme of reform.
The President of the Court of Auditors also made reference to this, and in this sense, next year' s report will, of course, be the moment of truth.
There is also indeed a need for action in the regional and national parliaments, because it is the Member States themselves that are responsible for a great many errors.
I would therefore urge my counterparts in the national parliaments to ratify the two conventions that have yet to be ratified by all the Member States.
I also call upon the Ministers, Heads of State and Government to endorse the proposal for a European Public Ministry at the Nice Summit.
Lastly, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, a final request.
Could you please make your report a little more user-friendly?
Tell the whole story.
Name those Member States that are performing well, and those that are doing badly in some areas.
It will make it more readable.
It will raise interest in your report and give people the incentive to do better next time.
Madam President, I, along with all my colleagues, wish to welcome this annual report which is presented to us in a spirit of constructiveness.
The Commission and the Member States should see it in this light and use the findings of this report as a tool for improving their performance in managing the EU's finances.
It is regrettable that it is not possible for the Court of Auditors to give a clean bill of health to the Commission with a positive Statement of Assurance.
This situation has not changed since the first Statement of Assurance was published in respect of the 1994 budgetary year.
Member States are responsible for managing 80% of the expenditure and a range of errors has been found by the Court at Member State level.
This is somewhat disquieting.
We should remind ourselves that the EU resources come directly or indirectly from European citizens.
There is, therefore, a clear duty to account for every last euro of expenditure.
We must ensure that the European citizens receive value for money.
I am pleased that the Commission has taken steps to improve its management control over Community finances, and systems are being put in place in the Member States.
This will diminish the level of errors.
The Commission must be vigilant in its pursuit of proper management procedures at Member State level.
We in Parliament must also be vigilant in seeing that the Commission carries out this task.
The Commission has responsibility for implementing the budget.
Proper management and control procedures, lack of planning, inadequate evaluations, loose or non-existent eligibility criteria frequently feature in this report.
This, combined with the negative Statement of Assurance, makes some worrying reading for the taxpayer.
I know that this report and the work that Parliament is about to embark on in the context of the discharge procedure will contribute to greater vigilance when it comes to Community spending.
In conclusion, let us approach our task in a positive and constructive spirit in the best interests of the citizens of the EU.
Madam President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, in 1999, the Netherlands made the highest per capita contribution to EU coffers.
As a representative of these net payers, however, I am really rather disappointed in the Commission' s performance.
We could give this Commission the benefit of the doubt over the discharge for 1998 because it was saddled with the legacy of the ousted Commission.
However, the present Commission has to answer for the 1999 annual report and, unfortunately, it lists a whole series of shortcomings in the Commission' s accounts.
What concerns me is that the Commission evidently does not consider itself bound by the budget approved by Parliament.
Firstly, the Commission has committed EUR 400 million more than we budgeted for, and secondly, it has modified the original budget and implemented a revised version without Parliament' s approval.
In 1999, the Netherlands only received 3% of total agricultural subsidies, when proportionally, it should work out at around 5%.
I do not begrudge the poorer EU countries a comparatively larger share of agricultural aid, but to me, this makes it all the more unpalatable that the majority of irregularities should have arisen in the payment of agricultural subsidies.
I would be very interested to know which Member States have benefited the most from these irregularities.
The number of irregularities in the structural funds payments warrants a thorough investigation into the way these funds operate and their effectiveness.
Reforming the Commission is no guarantee that previously recorded irregularities will not arise in the future.
Therefore, now and in the future, the Commission will be held to account for non-compliance with the rules.
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Karlsson for the important work the Court of Auditors is doing, and I also thank him that this year the publication of the report has not been pre-empted by newspaper headlines based on biased leaks, which sow so much mistrust of the work of this serious and impartial Court and of the tasks this Parliament and the other institutions have to perform.
I especially appreciate the impartiality of his report, in which he points out the faults and praises the progress; for instance, he praises the fact that the Commission is getting moving.
I belong to a group of MEPs working on the reform; we have just been with President Prodi and have seen that he has personally taken on the development of the White Paper in accordance with many of the recommendations that have been received year after year from the Court over which Mr Karlsson so ably presides.
It must be said that this is actually a process on paper which takes time to turn into action, but it is going along the right road.
It is going along the road that you, this Parliament and the independent experts are indicating.
Problems still lie ahead on this road, however, such as the overly-long transitional period laid down for the reform of the Financial Regulation.
We are in a period that is bad for everyone, including those responsible for payments, in which we have an old system, a new system and an intermediate period in which there is a certain feeling of confusion.
I should be grateful if the Court would issue its opinion on the reform of the Financial Regulation soon.
Madam President, I must ask: where is the Council in all this? I think the Council is responsible for five sixths of Mr Karlsson' s report and for the spending it approves.
Where is the Council? Right now, Madam President, I should like to stop talking and wait for someone from the Council to come here.
Therefore, may I suggest that in the next debate on the presentation of the accounts, the Council should be present and intervene.
I repeat that the part of the report I most value is the recognition that the Commission is getting moving; but the same cannot be said about the Council, whose importance lies not only in the spending figures.
You say that you keep on drawing attention to serious and persistent weaknesses in Member States' control and management systems, and you say that most of the errors occur in the main spending programmes managed by the Member States' administrations.
I believe that we, the members of this Parliament, will be able to point to and lay the blame on our own administrations if they do not meet their commitments, but you have to do us the favour of clearly indicating the States and the programmes.
I am convinced that in order for the Community' s financial interests to be properly defended any management failures must have consequences in the budget and Parliament must be able to deny funds to a Member State for repeated breaches of spending control regulations.
Mr Pomés Ruiz, it is totally unacceptable that the Council' s seat is empty.
You were quite right to bring it to my attention.
Madam President, I am grateful too that the Council have come back because I have got something to say to them as well.
Can I first of all thank Mr Karlsson because cooperation with the Committee on Budgetary Control this year has been much better than in previous years.
Your work is crucial to our job because you are the experts and we then sort out the political problems.
We must not forget that this report refers to the 1999 budget, the year when there was the forced resignation of the Commission, so it is clearly too early to judge yet.
Next year will be the beginning of the real test as to whether the Commission's reform has started to bite at all.
It is interesting to note that a key part of the Commission's reform is the whole question of who takes responsibility. Where does the buck stop?
Who is responsible? We should today be assessing how the Commission and the Member States spend the money rather than assessing the work of the Court of Auditors.
But I find that the work of the Court of Auditors has not been done sufficiently well to help us to do our job.
Let us not forget, and I hope the Council once again is listening, that 80% of the money is spent in the Member States.
The Court, as in other years, has failed to point out exactly where those failures occurred.
We have asked time and time again for a 'sinners list'.
We want to know where the problems lie, in which Member States, in which areas.
We even want to know about good practice.
You will note from one part of the report that two Member States have been exemplary in terms of VAT collection but how are other Member States supposed to copy these Member States if they do not know who they are.
We need names.
If you the Court will not do your job of naming and shaming, then we will have to do it for you.
But your legitimacy as an auditing body will be questioned, and some might even suggest that some members of the Court are keen to protect the interests of Member States that nominated them.
Will you make a commitment to do this in future, Mr Karlsson, because a lack of clear information in the report makes it very difficult for us to put pressure in the right areas on the worst offenders.
I call on you also to publish a league table of those countries which have the worst record of maladministration in the EU and in what areas.
Europe's taxpayers deserve to know where the money is going.
Without the facts we are fighting fraud with one hand tied behind our back.
Of course, there are no magic solutions to improving financial control in the Commission.
The whole process will take time.
We have a lot of vested interests to challenge but we will be watching next year's report for concrete evidence that the measures the Commission has put in place since its investiture have had a real impact in stamping out financial mismanagement.
Madam President, the enlargement of the European Union is looming, and the report by the Court of Auditors leaves us in no doubt that there is still a great deal of work to be done in the candidate countries too.
If we are to do all this on the already modest budgets we have at present, how are we to manage when these countries actually become members and start participating in the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds? My group therefore feels it is imperative to start implementing our rules on financial control in the candidate countries without delay.
We cannot start treating them as fully-fledged members soon enough in this respect.
I would therefore ask the Court of Auditors to give us more information about this in future reports, so that we do not have to face any nasty surprises come accession day.
Madam President, it is all very well having one representative from the Council here, but that is not enough, because - as has already been pointed out on several occasions - the majority of serious errors have been committed in the Member States.
The Committee on Budgetary Control can no longer tolerate the impression being created, year in year out, that 'it is a real shambles in Brussels' , when the main culprits are sitting in the capital cities.
That is why, Mr Karlsson, we are asking you to give us a better idea of who is doing well and who is making a mess of it.
Only then, i.e. if those responsible are named, will we be able to tackle them and really get down to putting Europe' s house in order, so as to win back our citizens' trust.
Finally, winning back that trust is also an important aspect, and I hope that by the end of this year, Parliament will have a clear statute, so that never again will these delegates be shown in a poor light in a Court of Auditors report.
In order to achieve this, I also wish you, Madam President, a great deal of staying power, and would like to thank you for the commitment you have already shown to date.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we recently reached an agreement with the Court of Auditors under which we would be able to obtain advance information from the Court's annual report on a totally confidential basis, and we also agreed that we would be discreet about this.
I am saddened to see that the Members of the Court of Auditors do not apparently respect this kind of agreement.
So my question is whether we should repeat an arrangement of this kind in the coming years.
I really think that you should have some concerns about the culture on your side, if the Court of Auditors is not capable of keeping its side of the bargain on such issues.
Secondly, various honourable Members have already mentioned the lack of clarity here.
You know, Mr Karlsson, that if you do not include the figures in the report, then others will work them out for you.
Mrs Rühle and other previous speakers have mentioned percentages.
Bearing in mind that there are error rates of up to 7%, Mrs Schreyer can no longer come along and tell us that the Court has endorsed the Commission's actions and has said that the Commission is on the right track, because that, of course, would be the track over the edge of the cliff!
But you have not included that in your report, and I am sick and tired of hearing, year after year, that the Member States are responsible for 80% and the Commission for only 20%, while the report itself does not point the finger of blame!
The points Mrs van der Laan made earlier should be included, and I am pleased to say that we agree about that.
Let me be quite clear about this, you should name the Member States who are to blame even if you are nominated as Members of the Court of Auditors by those same Member States.
After all, we have to judge what the new Commission achieved in 1999.
What disturbs me, Mrs Schreyer, is that in many cases you have not honoured the commitments you gave to act on the Court's comments.
I urge you, there really is some scope for improvement in the future - otherwise, your protestations that you want to adopt the right approach in tackling irregularities will merely be empty words.
Mr President, although the Court cannot provide a positive Statement of Assurance for 1999, the tone of the report on the whole is more positive than it has been in previous years.
I would like to congratulate the Commission, and Commissioner Schreyer in particular, on the Court's observation that many of the changes it has requested are being implemented or are on the way to being implemented.
There is particular praise for the reform programme set in motion last year.
I would also like to pick on the Council by asking why it is not moving forward on Article 24 of the Financial Regulation.
Parliament moved very quickly to give its opinion and I hope that Council will be able to do the same and adopt its position well before Christmas.
Having said that, I was disappointed in the report as the first step in the discharge procedure.
It is too political in the negative sense of the word.
It avoids strong criticisms and it does not point any fingers.
Other Members have already pointed this out.
Member States should be put on the spot when they misuse Community funds, and political groups in this Parliament should be named when they misuse taxpayers' money, as my colleague, Mr Kuhne, pointed out earlier this year.
The error rate should be made explicit so that targets can be set for getting the error rate down.
We need to look at the way the Court works and how its independence from the institutions and the programmes it is meant to audit can be strengthened.
That may require giving the President of the Court more power to take decisions on the Court's working methods and on the way it communicates.
I should like to say a few words about Parliament's place in this report.
The report is positive about steps that have been taken by Parliament to remedy problems that have been identified by the Court, too positive in my view.
Many of these changes have either not yet been implemented or have been implemented partially.
Parliament can solve most problems by swiftly moving on two fronts. Firstly, by instituting its own internal audit service and secondly, by adopting three urgently needed statutes: a statute for Members, a statute for assistants and a statute for political groups.
Finally, Mr Karlsson, while we, as a Parliament, make all these changes, perhaps you could go and help America count its votes!
The error rate in the Florida count is clearly still too high.
Perhaps some European Union common sense will help sort out the problem and give George Bush his rightful place in history - its dustbin!
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, ladies and gentlemen, this new report from the Court of Auditors which we have just received is of interest to the Committee on Budgetary Control because it makes a number of points concerning the problems of managing the Community budget, while at the same time warning us against the narrow interpretations that could be extracted from the crude exploitation of certain figures.
But in addition to these, Mr President, we need more detailed explanations and analyses in order to progress.
Let me quickly expand upon three points.
First of all, there is a question of terminology: even though all too often no clear distinction is made between the notions of fraud and irregularity, the Court of Auditors warns us against the temptation to consider irregularities or errors as tantamount to cases of fraud.
But it must be pointed out that the Court of Auditors itself says that cases of fraud are few in number.
This report raises another point: the problems linked to VAT.
VAT is an important component of the Community budget revenues.
But it has to be recognised that we are faced with a complex system.
Rates differ from one Member State to the next; their make-up also differs from one Member State to the next.
For example, there is regional VAT in some Member States.
We also still need to continue to question the implementing of fiscal harmonisation.
The third point I would like to make concerns the debate which took place yesterday evening when the Court of Auditors' presented its annual report to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The Court of Auditors was asked - and a number of speakers have reminded us of this morning - to explicitly name the Member States in which fraud and irregularities have been uncovered.
I would warn us against the temptation to indulge in such practices.
We are not looking for scapegoats, either in our institutions or in our Member States.
What is more, as the working method applied by the Court of Auditors is based on sampling, we only have a partial view of the situation.
The report from the Court of Auditors highlights, somewhat more so than in the past, the situation regarding the management and control of Community funds by the Member States.
This analysis should lead us, as MEPs, and the Commission to put forward proposals to improve the management and financial control systems which the Member States must implement in order to protect the financial interests of the European Union.
In conclusion, I would call for improved cooperation with the Council.
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, Commissioner, over the last two years the Court of Auditors has published six special reports on the subject of the common agricultural policy.
In its special report on subsidies for the disposal of skimmed milk, it highlights a lack of supervisory measures, a level of falsification of milk data and fraudulent use of this data that is unparalleled in any other agricultural sector.
In its report on the disposal of butter, the Court of Auditors noted that 89% of the budget is spent on subsidies to the food industry through procedures of dubious transparency and of even more dubious efficiency in terms of their impact on farmers' incomes.
In both cases, this involves a limited number of countries and a limited number of economic agents, who are the direct beneficiaries of these policies.
In what has been its most important work on the common agricultural policy, the special report on arable crops, the Court concluded that, from 1993 to 1997, the Community budget paid out a sum of more than EUR 13 billion more than could reasonably have been expected.
Arable crops represent 43% of the CAP budget, but only 10.7% of the end product.
In 1995, almost 40% of payments went to the top 3% of beneficiaries, whilst 57%, the smaller beneficiaries, received only 4.5% of payments.
The Court, therefore, quite rightly concluded that support for farmers should not be provided on the basis of price, production or area, but of support for the net income of farmers or of agricultural work units.
These are excellent, high-quality documents, which are a "drop in the ocean" in a common agricultural policy that still gives special treatment to larger farmers at the expense of the smaller ones and to countries and regions at the heart of Europe at the expense of peripheral countries and regions.
It is a shame that the Court of Auditors' annual report, which is supposedly drawn up to reflect the most relevant aspects of the work undertaken in the course of the year through the special reports, did not include these studies and decided to concentrate on other issues on which it had not undertaken specific studies.
First of all, on the procedure for presenting the annual report to Parliament and the Budgetary Control Committee, I am happy to listen to the assurances from Members of Parliament that the situation this year is more satisfactory than before.
I hope that we can jointly conclude that we have found the right approach to the discharge procedure.
I say to Mr Staes that I am sorry I did not have the chance to answer all the questions that were asked in yesterday's meeting.
I may also have that problem today.
However, I pointed out that we are only at the beginning of this discharge procedure.
I sincerely hope that we will be able to give a reasonable answer to any question that Parliament or the Budgetary Control Committee wishes to ask and that all questions that were asked yesterday and in this debate will be properly answered.
I now turn to the construction of the Statement of Assurance and the question of figures.
First of all I point out - not only to Mr Blak, rapporteur for this year's discharge, but to Mr Mulder - that we have gradually changed and developed the procedure for drawing up the Statement of Assurance in close collaboration with this Parliament and the Budgetary Control Committee, to meet with the wishes of the Committee by including in the Statement of Assurance the specific observations in the different budget areas.
This is a result of the discussion that we have had hitherto.
I emphasise - to Mr Mulder, Mr Blak, Mrs van der Laan, Mrs Morgan and to all the other speakers who have expressed themselves on this issue - that the Court will continue to develop that.
But I should like to make it abundantly clear that a procedure of this kind has to develop very gradually so that we do not have a complete change in the method of data collation because then the value of this exercise would not meet the requirements we are set under the Treaty.
Concerning the accuracy of the figure that Mr Blak queried: 5.5% or 3%? I do not want to sound demagogic but this question is intellectually on the same level as the question "when did you stop beating your wife".
Do not ask me questions that are impossible to answer.
We did not produce a figure last year and we have not produced a figure this year.
So the question of whether last year's figure corresponds to this year's figure is unreasonable.
A Statement of Assurance is a very detailed exercise, including not only specific observations on the different budget areas but also a global appraisal.
We will study that in detail, with your excellent secretaries.
I am very happy to hear that you have staff at your disposal able to summarise the Court's report in one hour.
I am extremely happy.
Perhaps we will steal that person from you.
But we will have a chance to go through all that.
I will see to it that the rapporteur for the discharge is fully informed of all the details.
Members of the Budgetary Control Committee point out the need for more precision.
You are right that we have to be more precise in our observations.
When you study this annual report you will find that what the Court is trying to do is to see to it that the clearance of accounts becomes a real instrument for analysing shortcomings in implementing the agricultural policy.
But a delay of more than two years makes the value of this exercise very limited.
What we also point out is that, in the other area of the big bulk of spending in the Member States, we do not have a procedure corresponding to the clearance of accounts.
That is in the Structural Funds.
It is very difficult to be more precise when we do not have a clearance system that would give the answers that we ask for, for instance in respect of the Social Fund.
I pledge that we will continue, together with the Committee on Budgetary Control and Parliament, to see that we develop more precise information so as to tackle the real problem.
The Court entirely agrees with Parliament that it is not only a question of reform of the Commission or of Parliament reforming its way of working with financial control.
The Court of Auditors also has to change its working methods.
Now, to the question of naming: I cannot accept Mr van Hulten's view that this report is too political in the sense that we avoid naming the names that should be named.
You are listening to a Member who, as rapporteur for the Committee on Development, was once responsible for naming not only two countries but two companies and where the Court of Auditors was taken to the Court of Justice because of that.
He implies that for political reasons we are scared to mention the names necessary for the audit that we independently find important, but I have evidence to prove the opposite.
It was quite clear, in this particular case, that the Court of First Instance supported us by saying we not only have the right to mention these names but also a duty to do so.
If you look at the report of the Court of Auditors on the anti-pollution measures of the Commission, you will find not only countries named but also regions and the French Member of the Court of Auditors from Brittany, Mr Jean-François Bernicot, did not protest at the fact that we dealt with his Brittany page after page.
When it is relevant, from the audit point of view, we mention everything that has to be mentioned.
This is the policy and principle of the Court.
The intention of the Court of Auditors is not to become a political instrument but to be an objective instrument for your political control here in Parliament and we will continue to work towards this end.
Having said that, I pledge that we will listen carefully to Parliament's requests for more precise instruments of analysis and we will ensure that we can use all these instruments to satisfy the needs of political control.
I will come back to that next time when I report and give you the plan for the programme of work for next year when we see each other again.
I stress, Mr Mulder, what I said yesterday.
From a technical, statistical point of view, specific DAS figures on each country and major political field would require an enormous amount of personnel because when you diminish the population you increase the need for the sample so the amount of sampling will require an enormous amount of work that I do not think anyone would find feasible.
That is why we should use other methods and adopt the approach that we have agreed on the specific observations field and bring the DAS exercise more in line with the other audits, not only of the Court, but also of the Commission and of the Member States, in the clearance of accounts.
I was also thinking about Florida this morning, Mr van Hulten, and I am thankful that I was not responsible for auditing the election procedure in that specific state.
There is always something to be happy about.
I hope that the debate is over so that I can answer any question that I may have forgotten.
I must comment, Mr Blak, on what you said.
You want us to restructure the report and we have done that.
I would just like to remind you that after the dialogue that we had between the Committee on Budgetary Control, we have restructured the report.
You suggested that the report should reflect the portfolios of commissioners or directors-general.
I would warn against that.
Commissioners, like Mr Fischler who is responsible for executing half of the budget, must have a bigger chapter than those commissioners who have no dealings with the budget.
Let us be open and discuss how we will structure the reporting so that it will be as satisfactory as possible.
Thank you very much, Mr Karlsson.
The debate is closed.
Ladies and gentlemen, as I am sure you will have noticed, the last part of the speech by the President of the Court of Auditors was marred by an unfortunate bug that intruded between his speech and this Chamber.
For that reason and in order to sort out this bug, we shall have to suspend the sitting for two or three minutes to find a way of solving this technical problem.
(The sitting was suspended for three minutes in order to solve a technical problem)
General product safety
The next item is the report (A5­0309/2000) by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on a proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on general product safety (COM(2000)139 - C5­0224/2000 - 2000/0073(COD)).
Mr President, today we are debating a proposal on general product safety.
The Parliamentary Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy considers it to be a generally good proposal.
Therefore, there are few amendments.
Perhaps the quality of the proposal is due in part to the fact that the Commission consulted over 14 consumer organisations and these pointed out the difficulties there had been in implementing the 1992 directive.
I think some of the observations made by the consumer organisations are included in the Commission' s proposal.
I shall give one example, one that I know the Council has some difficulties with, but which for Parliament is highly important and we wholly support it: the ban on exporting products deemed unsafe to third countries.
And the same has happened with other proposals in the document, which to us seem acceptable.
Therefore we have not made too many changes, but there are some which we believe will better safeguard consumer rights.
This report was approved by a large majority in the Parliamentary Committee on the Environment, and I shall therefore stand by the result of the Committee' s vote.
The proposals approved in the Committee on the Environment deal with enhancing transparency and consumer information; ensuring the recall of products even when they are already in the hands of consumers; limiting professional confidentiality to the bare essentials; clarifying the definition of a safe product and a dangerous product; including the monitoring of the safety of product installation and maintenance (because sometimes this installation and maintenance may present a risk to consumer safety); including the precautionary principle, a useful principle little used in the European Union (if it were, we would not have problems such as mad cow disease, to be examined this afternoon, the dioxin issue, or other matters relating to genetically modified products); ensuring a certain harmonisation of surveillance and follow-up programmes (it is important that Member States should maintain some equality in these surveillance and follow-up programmes); and in general arranging for consumers to be given information in the language of the country in which they buy the products.
Mr President, unfortunately we cannot accept some amendments first tabled in the Committee on the Environment and now tabled here, which go against these principles.
I shall mention two examples.
The first concerns Amendment No 4.
It proposes removing a paragraph which simply asks producers and distributors to inform the authorities in the Member States immediately if they learn of a dangerous product.
We must not allow this paragraph to be removed.
Another paragraph that some wish to remove concerns professional secrecy and says that professional secrecy must be subordinated to the efficiency of dangerous product surveillance and follow-up services.
We must not allow this paragraph to be removed either.
Some amendments, such as Nos 1 and 18, deal with questions that basically concern the United Kingdom, and it must be said that all the groups from the United Kingdom, whether socialist, popular or green, have supported them vehemently and they have been approved in the Committee on the Environment.
They relate to a matter that is very specific to the United Kingdom, that is, charity shops and sales more or less between private individuals.
Some of us from other countries do not understand so well this concern of our United Kingdom colleagues, but the amendments were approved in the Committee on the Environment and so I have to explain the fact.
Mr President, I thank the Commission and the Council for their collaboration in the preparation of this report.
I believe the Committee on the Environment has drawn up a report that tries to go more deeply into consumer rights and safety.
In view of what has happened in recent years, especially in the food sector, I believe this to be a very important directive and I hope it will be approved by a large proportion of this Parliament, even though, as I said before, certain amendments presented go against the spirit adopted in the Committee on the Environment.
Mr President, in March this year we adopted the directive on cableway installations designed to carry persons.
If the directive had already been implemented, the accident in Austria might not have happened.
This demonstrates just how important legislation is here, and directives in areas as sensitive as product safety need to be implemented as soon as possible.
I hope that will happen before 3 May 2002.
The proposal on product safety before us today is a general directive relating in particular to those areas not covered by existing directives.
I would like to thank the Commission for adding a very important new point here. I have in mind the presumption of conformity, that is to say that if products comply with European standards they are considered to be safe.
I believe that this principle is enormously important for consumer protection because it makes it possible to check at any point whether a product complies with standards or not.
In view of this, Amendment No 37, which provides for external certification and for CE declarations to be issued not just by companies, but also by external and impartial agencies, is particularly important for consumer protection, because it would, of course, considerably increase consumers' confidence in such declarations.
In the case of Amendment No 14 on the publication of standards in the Official Journal, I naturally have some difficulty with this because the present copyright is with the national standards agencies, who are therefore entitled to royalty payments from the European Union.
In addition, there is the question of what the scope of current standards in Europe is and what the scope of European standards would be.
I therefore have some very considerable reservations and wish to reject this particular provision.
With regard to export bans, it cannot automatically be assumed that our standards are appropriate throughout the world.
There are many countries that have their own regulations and safety standards which meet those countries' needs far better than standards currently in force in Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs González Álvarez has produced a very convincing report, but my group does not agree with the idea of product liability applying to services as envisaged by the Commission.
For example, in many sectors, products are no longer assembled by the manufacturer, with the component parts instead being delivered to dealers.
This means that everyone involved in the sales chain who can affect the safety characteristics of a product now bears liability as a manufacturer, so that all dealers who carry out assembly work are classified as manufacturers.
We believe that in such cases the trade should not be burdened with manufacturer's duties under product safety legislation.
There are certainly other ways of guaranteeing adequate protection for consumers under civil law, for example, compensation for damages as a consequence of contractual liability.
I must say that I was amazed that the Commission's experts have not solved this problem themselves and I trust that the new Commissioner will give this problem some more thought.
And I hope that there will not be any problems with the Commission as regards exempting charitable organisations and non-profit making bodies from the provisions of this product safety directive.
When it comes to exports, I quite agree that exports should be banned in cases where the Commission has stopped a product from being placed on the market or has ordered a product recall.
But a Commission requirement for safety checks cannot be sufficient grounds for bringing whole branches of the export business to a halt.
As various honourable Members have already said, at the very least proof that different safety rules apply in the importing country should be accepted.
I can only urge the Commission to think again about this problem area, please.
We are at first reading.
At second or third reading it is necessary to secure the famous 314 votes, and if the report is still in the same form as now that will certainly not happen.
Mr President, I join the general congratulations to Mrs González Álvarez who has been a sympathetic and inclusive rapporteur.
She may occasionally have found the eccentricities of British car boot sales hard to follow but that, too, came within the remit of her personal charity.
This directive should be welcomed by the whole House and the issue of general product safety and its extension is something which must be commended.
In the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, under the wise guidance of our rapporteur, we passed a series of amendments which, again, my group would commend en bloc to the House today.
We are less happy with some of the later ones.
We have heard the justifications for them and for the reprise of the industrial arguments which we heard in committee.
We remain unpersuaded and we will vote against most of them.
Perhaps before the vote, Mrs Lulling or one of her colleagues, will tell us what the exact wording, particularly in the English version, of Amendment No 42, is.
We could support it if the wording was 'installation and maintenance' and not 'installation as maintenance'.
I am sure this is an error and if this can be confirmed, we will support it.
This proposal includes some extremely valuable general principles including the one which the other side of the Chamber appears to find offensive.
That is the principle that we do not export products that we believe are unsafe for our own people in the European Union.
Increasingly, as world trade develops, we are faced with this problem and we have to tackle it and not back away on the grounds that somehow the rest of the world does not matter, whether it is the safety of its health, its foodstuffs or the product which we export to it.
We have to look now at the links between products and services.
The Commission have begun to take a tentative but welcome step in that direction and perhaps the Commissioner will say more about that when he replies.
Finally, I would like to say a word about charity shops and car boot sales and all those other exchanges of donated and individual second-hand goods.
The charity shops welcome the general protection of this directive.
But they need an exemption from the obligation under Article 2 to provide information that they simply do not have.
Our Amendments Nos 1, 8 and 18 bear on that point.
I hope it will be possible for the House to support these because it cannot be anybody's intention to see these valuable and usually non-profitable charitable activities effectively driven out by an information provision which should relate to mainline manufacturers and to new or well attested products.
Provided the vendor can always inform the buyer of the nature of the goods and the limitations on the information that should be sufficient.
Mr President, it is a fact of life that directives must be evaluated and modified from time to time, and in fact this occurs all too seldom.
As far as we are concerned, the Commission deserves to be complimented on the way it has handled matters on this occasion.
The procedure it followed was first-rate and also very inclusive.
This directive gives rise to a certain tension between what can reasonably be expected of producers, on the one hand, and consumer protection on the other.
In that respect, I would, in a sense, concur with Mr Lehne when he said that recent statements by the Court indicated that this is a rather nebulous area, when it comes to what the Union can, and cannot, do.
In particular, the aspect concerning the definition of exports is something we must look into very closely.
As matters stand, my group is inclined to support the proposals now on the table, but I would appreciate it if the Commissioner could go into this aspect again in a little more depth.
Incidentally, we support the Commission' s proposals concerning the extension of the directive's scope of application to include services, and also the incorporation of migrated products, even though there is certainly still a lot more that could be done in these areas, which will no doubt fall to us in the future.
We concur with the rapporteur where he has highlighted the importance of providing consumers with information about the risks, and the need for transparency, especially in the sphere of health and safety.
That must indeed be the general principle.
Two final remarks, the first of which relates specifically to a particular amendment concerning the Commission' s proposal that producers should inform the competent authorities immediately when they discover that a product is dangerous.
We believe this to be a very important element.
There is a proposal to scrap this idea, one of the considerations being that producers should not have to incriminate themselves, and also in the light of professional secrecy.
We feel that the emphasis really must be on consumer protection here, and that a producer who discovers that his product is actually dangerous should not be allowed to sit on his hands.
Finally, a brief question for the Commission about Article 4, which concerns European standards and the question as to whether they must be disclosed.
I would be grateful if the Commission could go into this in a little more depth.
Mr President, the proposal under consideration was certainly long-awaited.
However, what we have to decide is whether it responds fully to the aims which, eight years ago, it was hoped to achieve through its promulgation or whether it may create further confusion.
And this is certainly not the fault of the work carried out by Mrs González Álvarez, who has endeavoured very successfully to improve the legislation under consideration, but is inherent in both the guidelines and parts of the proposal itself.
Firstly, in the case in point, the Commission, as the principal author of the legislative process, appears to have appointed itself an administrative authority, although there is no adequate legal and transparent legislative structure to define this new role, even from the point of view of defining its field of operation and monitoring its rapid action decisions.
Furthermore, in view of its potential power to act autonomously as regards the introduction of emergency measures, not to mention the presumably lengthy period which will pass before it is possible to ascertain whether these measures are well-founded, even purely in terms of employment, it should be noted that there is no mention of the damage which would be caused to a company - to its employees in particular - by an erroneous decision.
On the other hand, it does provide for a ban on exporting products classed as dangerous, which is certainly evidence of the Union's high level of civilisation, but there is no clear indication of whether this ban is consistent with the procedure known as Prior Informative Concert, laid down, in fact, by international conventions.
The concept of liability, in terms of the definition of the word product, product traceability and the inclusion of products used to provide services in this definition, also appears to be open to interpretation and therefore to subjective action.
At the same time, we should consider the possible interpretations as a product of the raw materials in the manufacturing processes and the positive implications of this in terms of guaranteeing health and safety at the workplace, although this endeavour is limited by the lack of an appropriate European statistics recording system and by the inconsistencies between legal systems for recognising an occupational illness.
In conclusion, I call upon the Commission to set in motion a coordination project within the framework of existing Community legislation and to make our legislation both more transparent and also genuinely beneficial owing to its certainty.
Mr President, it goes without saying that we need a certain basic level of consumer protection in the European Union.
But do we really need a completely harmonised and uniform standard of protection? It does not seem to me to be a particularly good idea, quite apart from the high cost, stringent regulation and associated red tape.
I would have thought it would be better to take more account of subsidiarity.
A Danish or German consumer has different safety requirements to a Dutch or Italian consumer.
We must give more consideration to this diversity in the directive on general product safety.
Furthermore, I feel there is insufficient reason for the Commission to produce proposals on the safety of services.
By its very nature, the service industry is less suited to this approach.
A producer can take a product back, but it would, of course, be rather difficult for a service provider to do so with a service.
I welcome the fact that exceptions have been made for shops associated with charitable institutions and non-profit organisations, as well as for articles sold as second-hand goods at markets or car boot sales.
Finally, I was wondering whether, on closer inspection, Amendment No 14, tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, has been formulated correctly.
It does not seem to me to be a problem if an agreement is reached between a standardisation body and the government, which makes European standards freely accessible to the public. After all, that is not the same as the Commission publishing the European standards.
I would be interested to hear what the Commissioner has to say about this.
Well done Mother Europe!
Thank you Mother Europe for taking care of your children!
Or should I say, rather, thank you Father Byrne!
Thank you because all the safety directives aim to preserve the well-being of our European citizens, from minors, from children right up to the elderly.
This is certainly positive.
However, I do recall a substantial discussion which I had with my daughter, Elisabetta, when she was nine years old and wanted to be allowed to go out on her own.
I told her that she could not go out unaccompanied because it was dangerous.
Then, some years later, when I allowed my second daughter, who is six or seven years younger, to go out on her own, Elisabetta protested: "But Daddy, you never let me go out on my own and here you are, letting my sister out alone, and she is younger than I was!"
In effect, a good father must indeed take into account the safety of his children, but he must also realise that they cannot be wrapped in cotton wool. They have to learn to be independent.
What is the point of all this? The point is that all the safety directives must be balanced.
A balance must be achieved. We must indeed be safe but we must not stifle production, in this case, which has to be free.
Most importantly - and here I am addressing the Council representative - how can any safety directives be effectively implemented if the Council refuses to endorse the directive on safety inspections and controls? The outcome will be the same as in the mad cow affair: thousands of safety measures leading, regrettably, to the slaughter of millions of animals.
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on her work, which addresses the fundamental concerns of consumers' associations, which must be accepted as equal partners in a constructive dialogue.
We Socialists in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy support the Commission' s initiative to clarify procedures for informing the public and for recalling products that are deemed to be dangerous, and for extending this responsibility to distributors and producers of services to the extent they are involved. These producers and distributors must unequivocally accept the consequences of the foreseeable risks inherent in their products, from the installation of equipment to its maintenance.
They are also responsible for informing the authorities and consumers and for fair compensation for damages. Recalling products in a situation of risk should not be done as a last resort but must begin as soon as there are reasonable grounds for taking this course of action in the light of recent scientific advances.
Community standardisation must be based on appropriate scientific knowledge and we must therefore foster cooperation between Member States in researching the safety of products in general and of high-risk groups in particular, such as children, the elderly, new youth cultures, new lifestyles and people with a history of illness.
The reliability of product safety and after-sale care represent added value for a "made in Europe" label at a particularly difficult and crucial time.
Any measures that increase confidence and mean that European products are manufactured and distributed with respect for workers' health, for social rights, for the environment, for fair competition and with rigorous safety requirements are to be welcomed.
Any product that does not match up to this standard must be withdrawn and appropriately disposed of, because products that we would not wish for ourselves should not be exported to more disadvantaged countries either.
I hope that this directive will help to respond, in part, to the European public's increasing concerns about consumer safety.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there has been a directive on general product safety since 1992.
The purpose of the present debate is to review the experience we have gained with the existing directive, to incorporate that experience and to eliminate any shortcomings.
I rather doubt whether we have adequately achieved that.
There are certainly complex legal issues here.
The scope of the directive in relation to the wide variety of national and Community product legislation needs to be defined, as that legislation, too, covers the same safety ground.
We need to ensure seamless consumer protection but without regulating the same things more than once or even in contradictory ways.
The possibility of having a product's compliance with regulations certified by an external agency would certainly be very helpful in this case and would ensure a clearer and more logical approach.
However, it would have been better to have an EU regulation providing for a general European system and eliminating the simultaneous existence of national regulations in Europe.
In the food sector, for example, there are also numerous rules and regulations which are currently being amended and revised as a result of proposed EU regulations and I think this will help us to reach a high standard of safety.
In other sectors, this directive has been extended to other fields of application.
The inclusion of service-related products will lead to dealers and the craft sector increasingly being burdened with obligations which are actually the responsibility of the manufacturer.
Elsewhere, we are calling on the Commission to present a proposal on the safety of services, so it is not evident why we should or would want to regulate service aspects here and now, instead of waiting for the Commission's proposal, since it is becoming increasingly clear that problems with demarcation between different provisions will arise and that legal uncertainty will grow as time goes on.
Just a few more words about export issues.
On the one hand we are demanding widely varying safety standards and like Mr Blokland are calling for national and regional needs to be taken into account, and on the other we want to impose our national provisions on countries we export to.
I feel that this means there is a fundamental contradiction in the directive's approach, which we cannot support as it is proposed here.
Mr President, at this time it is certainly nothing new to state that there is a great divide between the citizens and the European Union.
Lack of confidence in the possibility of ensuring food safety, for example, is spreading like wildfire and, when all is said and done, obscures the Union's positive work in this sector.
But we are going to discuss this today.
In this context, it is therefore important to emphasise the political value of the directive upon which we are about to vote.
Thanks to the Commission's sound proposal, further improved by Mrs González Álvarez's work, the text that we are examining today at last brings good news for consumers, to which, moreover, the non-governmental organisations which represent them bear witness.
The laws on product safety, in particular the safety of those products which have hitherto escaped regulation by the vertical legislation already governing the matter, is being improved, consolidated and made more transparent.
A great deal of effort has been made to better define the interaction between vertical laws on certain categories of products and this new horizontal directive, so as to definitely achieve a satisfactory result.
Then I would like to stress the importance of the amendments adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which increase transparency towards the end consumer and apportion responsibility to distributors as well as producers in the event of products deemed dangerous being withdrawn from the market.
In the hope of seeing the final line taken by the rapporteur endorsed and declaring my support for her regarding the amendments which are to be put to the vote in plenary, I trust that this directive will rapidly continue through the procedures so that the European citizens can be provided with confirmation of the Union's undertaking to preserve their safety as soon as possible.
First of all I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, the draftsmen, Mr Rübig and Mr Lehne, and the respective committees for their very comprehensive report on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on general product safety.
The current Commission proposal is in response to the numerous problems related to the health and safety of consumers which have occurred recently.
Although the review and revision of the directive are formally required by the directive itself, this coincides with the reinforced commitment by the Commission to safeguard the health and safety of consumers.
The revised directive will be of relevance for food safety for only a limited period of time but it will, in the long term, improve the possibilities for dealing with non-food product safety problems.
I would only say a few words to present the main aspects of this proposal.
The idea behind the directive is simple: that only safe products are placed on the market.
This means European products as well as imported products.
The two key objectives of the general products safety directive are: ensuring a high and consistent level of protection for consumer health and safety throughout Europe and ensuring the proper functioning of the internal market.
We had extensive consultations with stakeholders - as the rapporteur has acknowledged - on implementation of the present directive, which brought to light certain weaknesses which we are now trying to correct.
We first clarify the scope of the directive.
This directive is meant to provide good and consistent assurances of the safety of products for consumers.
It is also meant to fill possible gaps in sectoral legislation, for instance, market surveillance or emergency procedures that are rarely provided for in specific legislation.
However, it does not apply when specific sectoral legislation covering the same aspect applies.
This also means that when new sectoral legislation is devised it supersedes the corresponding provisions of this directive.
For example, in the foodstuffs area - as you well know - when we have a food authority, the authority itself should provide a notification system which will take over from the general product safety provisions.
We wanted to make sure that the directive gave the best coverage possible to products used by consumers.
This also means products which have migrated from the professional field to personal use: for instance, laser pointers; and, secondly, products which are used to provide a service.
We wanted to have a more efficient system.
This implies additional obligations for producers and distributors to provide information.
The present situation is less than ideal.
It is incredible, for example, that authorities in our Member States are sometimes informed by the US authorities that a certain European product is dangerous.
The notification is compulsory in the United States but not, so far, in the European Union.
As you know, law is no good if it is not applied properly.
Member States will now be required to strengthen the tasks of competent surveillance authorities.
They will be required to establish sanctions.
They will have to develop links with other Member States as well; in particular, through a network of enforcement authorities of Member States.
This is also extremely important from an industry point of view in order to make sure that a level playing field is maintained between competitors and especially with imported products.
Improvement of Rapex (the rapid alert system operated by the Commission) is also necessary.
The scope of Rapex is extended to include voluntary measures taken by industry to withdraw a product.
The practical operation of the system will be improved.
We now also provide for the possibility of opening the system to third countries, in particular to the candidate countries: simplification of procedures for emergency measures at Community level so that we can take rapid action following the advice of a regulatory committee.
We have now introduced an export ban for products withdrawn at Community level.
Another point to which I wish to draw your attention is the question of improved transparency.
Consumers often lack confidence because they do not know what is happening.
Nothing undermines consumer confidence more than a belief that something is going on that they do not know about.
We believe that, in line with the general policy of the Commission, citizens have the right to know which real dangers they are exposed to and the measures taken to prevent that.
The limitation to this is professional secrecy as defined in Article 287 of the Treaty, except when there are overriding public health reasons.
I expect that exception will be drawn and interpreted narrowly.
I am very pleased that the report of Mrs González Álvarez endorses the main principles of the Commission proposal.
Many of the proposed amendments of the report are an improvement on the text and can therefore be accepted by the Commission.
Allow me to address first the amendments with which the Commission cannot agree.
Firstly, Amendments Nos 1, 8 and 18 propose to exempt second-hand goods sold by charity shops and non-profit organisations, private persons, flea markets and car boot sales, as Mr Whitehead has said, from the obligation to provide information and documentation on product risk and product origin.
The obligations of distributors, which have been a part of the directive since 1992, are formulated in a very generic and flexible way.
The only new requirement is that distributors, within the limits of their respective activities, are to safeguard and provide to the authorities on request the available documentation necessary for tracing the origin of products.
This does not imply that distributors should actively inquire about the origin of a product, but just that they should not destroy identification of the product and/or manufacturer and keep trace of any useful information available on the product origin.
This new requirement does not imply any substantial additional responsibility in the case of these kinds of shops.
Charity shops normally receive, as a gift, single used products which they in turn sell to consumers.
The nature of their trade is such that they could not be required to play a proactive part in product tracing.
In addition, the interest in terms of market surveillance of tracing the origin of single second-hand defective products is simply non-existent.
In conclusion, there is already a lot of flexibility in the requirements of the directive on distributors.
These requirements can be applied to these kinds of shops in a way compatible with the nature of their activities.
However, to meet the concerns raised and in order to further clarify the situation we could consider including in the recital dealing with this article a statement that it may prove impossible to provide the competent authorities with information and documentation on the possible risks and origin of the product in the case of isolated used objects donated by private individuals.
Secondly, Amendment No 3 proposes a deletion of part of the motivation for having clear conditions in the annex of the directive for the duty of business to inform the authorities about dangers.
This motivation is needed in order to prevent excessive bureaucracy.
Thirdly, Amendment No 4 proposes adding, in a preamble, a requirement that Member States draw up factual reports with the cooperation of competent and independent public or private institutions.
To require Member States to engage external institutions for this runs counter to subsidiarity.
Amendments Nos 6 and 29 require the Commission to consider approaches or submit a proposal relating to the safety of services in Amendment No 29 before a specified date.
The Commission is in fact already analysing and considering this issue, but it would go too far against the Commission's right of initiative to introduce this in the directive in such a prescriptive way.
Amendment No 7 proposes certain changes in the references to paragraphs.
The first part is acceptable to the Commission, but it is not common practice in Community legal texts to explain the content of articles referred to, as proposed.
To replace the word "producer" with "supplier", as proposed in Amendment No 11, would create more confusion than clarity, as there is no definition of supplier in the directive.
The definition of producer already covers suppliers whose activities may affect the safety properties of the product.
Amendment No 13 proposes adding a reference to the precautionary principle in the general obligation for producers to place only safe products on the market.
The precautionary principle is a general principle of risk management by the competent authorities and cannot be enforced as such as a direct obligation on producers.
The Commission does, however, share the view that the principle is important as a background for the revision of the directive, and a reference to this principle could therefore be made in the first recital of the directive.
Although the idea of publishing a full text of the European standards in the Official Journal, as proposed in Amendments Nos 14 and 16, is understandable, it would require fundamental changes in the relationship between the Community and the European standardisation organisations, probably implying higher levels of subsidies from the Community budget.
The reason for this is that the standardisation organisations own the standards and that most of them finance part of their activities through the sale of the standards.
This issue, with implications for most product-related Community legislation, cannot, therefore, be dealt with in the context of the current revision of this directive.
Amendment No 19 proposes harmonisation of Member States' monitoring approaches on the basis of guidelines prepared by the Commission and the consultative committee.
Although the Commission is in favour of cooperation and common principles, the proposed wording runs counter to subsidiarity.
To require Member States to take measures also in cases when business has already taken satisfactory measures to prevent a risk, which would be the consequence of the second part of Amendment No 21, is not acceptable.
This would also run counter to the objective of encouraging business to take proactive measures on its own initiative.
Amendment No 23 proposes the introduction in the directive of provisions on compensation in respect of damage.
These are civil law aspects, regulated by the directive on product liability, and should not, therefore, be dealt with here.
A requirement that the product safety network should be established within a specified time-frame is proposed in Amendment No 24.
Although the Commission is in favour of quickly establishing a network, this has to be agreed between the Member States.
It is therefore not realistic to set a time-frame.
The first part of Amendment No 27 proposes that only information related to the risks that have been established should be made available to the public.
This is not acceptable, as consumers should also have a right to obtain information on on-going investigations - provided that this information is not covered by professional secrecy in the manner that I described earlier and drawn narrowly.
Finally, Amendment No 28 proposes that the Commission should submit a report on the implementation of the directive every second year instead of every three years.
Although the Commission has sympathy for this idea, this cannot be done within the current limitations of the resources of the Commission.
The Commission cannot agree with most of the additional amendments proposed for the plenary session.
Allow me to explain first the Commission's position on the amendments to which we cannot agree.
Amendments Nos 30, 32, 42 and the main part of Amendment No 33 propose rewordings of the existing text of the directive which is not subject to revision.
No problems have been reported to the Commission with the existing wordings and the changes would weaken the provisions.
Amendment No 36 proposes that services directly associated with the product should be excluded except when provided by the original producer.
The discussions in Council go in the direction of dealing with the services within the definition of product which is, in fact, acceptable to us.
Amendment No 43 would totally exclude the application of this directive to products regulated by specific legislation.
This is not acceptable, as these directives often lack provisions on market surveillance, notification systems and so on.
A possibility of proving that a product conforms to the requirements through external certification is proposed in Amendment No 37.
Such certification can always be used for providing evidence but cannot, in itself, be regarded as foolproof.
Amendment No 38 proposes limiting the time period for emergency decisions to six months which is, in most cases, not sufficient for adopting permanent measures.
It also proposes an exemption from the export ban when the producer can show that the safety requirements of the receiving State are complied with.
This is not acceptable as products judged at Community level as posing serious risks and requiring rapid intervention should not be exported.
The amendment also proposes that the possibilities for parties to submit their views on a Community measure taken should be without prejudice to domestic remedies.
As this is not any type of appeal procedure, this seems unnecessary.
In addition, Amendment No 41 proposes that the export ban should not apply when a product has been banned while carrying out further checks.
This is a period during which there are real dangers of exports taking place.
If the checks confirm that the product is safe, the ban will automatically be lifted.
Amendments Nos 39 and 44 propose that information on dangerous products should only be available to the public once a banning or withdrawal decision has been issued and that exchange of information protected by professional secrecy should not be possible between market surveillance authorities.
As the consumer should also have the right to information about risks not yet firmly established, including in cases when the measure taken is not a ban or withdrawal, this is not acceptable either.
In addition, effective market surveillance cannot be carried out under the proposed limitations regarding confidential information.
Amendment No 40 proposes a deletion of the duty for business to notify the authorities about dangerous products they place on the market.
That is not acceptable as this is a key improvement in comparison to the existing directive.
Still on the notification obligation, we believe that to use the term "ascertain" instead of "conclude" for triggering the moment when information is to be notified, as proposed in the first part of Amendment No 34, will create more uncertainty than clarity.
Having extensively explained why the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 23, 24, 28 to 30, 32, 33, 36 to 43 and, in part, Amendment No 7, the second part of Amendment No 21 and the first part of Amendments Nos 27 and 34, I can inform you that the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2, 9, 10, 12, 15, 20, 22, 25, 26, 31 and 35 and, in part, Amendment No 7, the first part of Amendment No 21 and the second part of Amendments Nos 27 and 34, as these amendments constitute an improvement and clarification of the Commission's proposal.
In the case of some of these amendments, however, in particular Amendments Nos 2, 15, 22, 25, 31 and the second part of Amendment No 27, further editorial changes might improve the text.
To conclude, I wish to thank again Mrs González Álvarez for the excellent report which can be supported by the Commission to a large extent.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Byrne.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11.30 a.m.
Membership of political groups
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a lot of votes to take, so can I please ask for a little discipline and cooperation?
Before we proceed to the vote, I wish to inform you that Mr Claudio Martelli of the Technical Group of Independent Members has now joined the Mixed Group, that is he has switched from the Technical Group to the Mixed Group.
Mr Martelli, normally you can only speak at the end of voting time, but I shall, exceptionally, give you the floor for a few moments.
There will not, however, be any discussion of this, but you can make a short personal statement.
Mr President, I have been a socialist in Italy and in international organisations for 30 years.
When I was re-elected to this Parliament in June 1999, I naturally joined the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
On 30 June 2000, at the end of a meeting of the Bureau, of which I was a member but where a few close colleagues discussed my case, in my absence and without my knowledge, Mr Barón Crespo informed me that I had excluded myself from his group.
I did not even receive a courtesy reply to my protest.
Clearly, Mr Barón Crespo feels that Italian Socialists may not be part of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
One must either be a former Communist, such as Veltroni, or the satellite of a former Communist, such as Boselli.
This is the story of the Italian left, the story of the cuckoo: the ex-Communist cuckoo which, when its world crumbles, lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and, thanks to the mother's failure to care for her eggs, is able to eat the eggs which were originally in the nest.
Mr Martelli, you have had your minute.
Only one minute is allowed for a personal statement.
You can submit the rest in writing, to Mr Barón Crespo as well.
Mr President, I wish to categorically reject Mr Martelli's remarks.
Mr Barón Crespo spoke on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists in accordance with our statutes, and it is a matter for regret that Mr Martelli has now joined the European Right.
VOTE
Mr President, a misunderstanding seems to have arisen in connection with Amendments Nos 12 and 37, which we are about to vote on.
I do not think they are incompatible.
I would therefore urge you to vote in favour of Amendment No 12 and Amendment No 37 because taken together, they provide a sensible solution.
So it is not a case of either/or, but both.
Mr Lagendijk, we have every confidence in you as rapporteur.
Contrary to the suggestion that these amendments are, so to speak, mutually exclusive, you believe that we can vote on both of them, and that is what we shall do.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0330/2000) by Mr Westendorp y Cabeza, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the amended proposal for a Council regulation on assistance for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and amending Regulation (EEC) No 3906/89, Decision 97/256/EC and Regulation (EEC) No 1360/90 (COM(2000) 628 - C5­0525/2000 - 2000/0111(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0305/2000) by Mr Garot, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2759/75 on the common organisation of the market in pigmeat COM(2000) 193 - C5­0225/2000 - 2000/0076(CNS))
Ladies and gentlemen, in connection with the vote on the Garot report, while looking through the documents I have discovered a mistake in the voting list for one group - I do not think the other groups are affected - namely the PPE.
Please have another look through the voting list, because I think that Part I and Part II have been mixed up.
So please have another very close look at this.
I think that the PPE list should be exactly the opposite way around, so that were it says "shall establish" it should read "second" and where it says "second" it should read "first".
Please have a close look at that when we get to that point.
(Heckling)If the mistake had affected the Group of the Party of European Socialists I would have pointed it out just the same, and the same even applies to other groups!
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0297/2000) by Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the 1999 Regular Report from the Commission on Turkey's progress towards accession (COM(1999) 513 - C5­0036/2000 - 2000/2014(COS))
We can put a very quick question to the rapporteur about that.
But first we have another objection, from Mr Wurtz.
Mr President, my question relates to the order of the votes on the amendments concerning Paragraph 10, in other words, the genocide in Armenia.
As the vote was to have taken place yesterday, the voting sheet you prepared listed the votes in a different order, which was logical.
Today' s order is not logical.
So I suggest we draw up yesterday' s voting list again, in other words, to vote on Amendment No 13 first.
We have highly qualified people assisting us with our work.
There was a mistake in the original analysis, and that has been corrected now, but I would be grateful if the rapporteur, Mr Morillon, could briefly comment on these two points.
The first one was from Mr Katiforis about the word NATO, and the second question was about whether the present order is correct as shown.
Mr President, regarding the first question, it is quite clearly an error not of translation but of transcription.
As far as the order is concerned, I leave it to the discretion of the President to decide, and I repeat that I am against all three amendments.
That gives us an answer to both questions.
When we get to Amendment No 16 we should make sure that it is changed.
After the vote on Amendment No 7:
Mr President, in agreement with Mr Katiforis I would like to present the following text - I only have it here in English - which differs slightly from the actual text.
If I may just read it out:
"Welcomes the start of negotiations on confidence-building measures agreed on 31 October 2000, by the Foreign Ministers of both Turkey and Greece".
It is the start of the negotiations that we are welcoming here, not the outcome.
Unfortunately we are not in a position to welcome that yet.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0275/2000) by Mr Jové Peres, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on Community participation in Regional Fisheries Organisations (RFOs) COM(1999) 613 - C5-0108/2000 - 2000/2068(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)Explanations of vote
Motion for a resolution (B5-0845/2000)
Mr President, I gave my explanation of vote in writing but, in addition, I would like to say that I find it truly hard to believe that, precisely in the context of this report, Parliament voted against a series of amendments this morning which called, for example, for respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
I find it hard to believe because we voted on the Charter of Fundamental Rights only yesterday.
I therefore feel that the prejudice shown by Parliament against amendments tabled by certain political parties is evidence of an alarming lack of democracy in this House.
- (EL) The Mediterranean has always been, and still is, a particularly sensitive region with serious political, economic and social problems.
Peaceful coexistence, mutually beneficial and balanced cooperation between countries and peoples, with no interference in their internal affairs, and smooth transnational relations have always been the mainstay of any cooperation between its countries.
The Mediterranean countries which do not belong to the ÅU have to cope with particularly acute problems of economic development and regional inequalities are becoming more and more marked.
The ÅU and its Member States bear a great deal of the responsibility for this state of affairs.
What we are witnessing is over-exploitation of natural and human resources by the developed countries, mainly the EU, and the companies established in them, in order to maintain and increase their foreign debt.
The attempt to export the EU economic and social model to the countries of the Mediterranean which do not belong to the EU and to integrate them into the new world order and so-called globalisation is the expression of colonial mentality.
It cannot provide a stable basis for cooperation because it seeks to impose the ways of the strong on the weak and to serve the interests of huge monopolies rather than the interests of the people and workers of the countries in the region.
The attitude of the Member States of the EU towards immigrants from these and other countries, making many of them feel insecure and at risk of deportation, failing to grant them equal rights with other workers, and maintaining ghettos of second-class citizens and victims of a modern slave trade is a typical example of this conduct.
The various embargos against, and even military intervention in, countries which refuse to toe the EU line and bow to the new world order are another typical example of Community policy. As is the fact that some countries are excluded from Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, others receive privileged treatment and money is distributed not on the basis of real need but of the interests of multinational capitalists.
Finally, we should not forget that we are talking about a region in which the EU and ÍÁÔÏ bombarded Yugoslavia and in which the ÅU, with ÍÁÔÏ's blessing, has conferred candidate status on Turkey, which is currently occupying 40% of Cyprus and contesting Greece's sovereign rights. Nor should we forget our responsibilities towards the Palestinian people living in wretched conditions under a regime of Israeli state terrorism who continue to fight heroically for a homeland.
Unfortunately, the proposal for a resolution has failed to address these issues and has abided by the philosophy applied by the EU hitherto. Its aim is to help European monopolies penetrate the area, obviously so that they can continue to plunder the wealth of the Mediterranean countries outside the ÅU.
That is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece have voted against it.
The conditions for reinvigorating the Barcelona Process have not been fully achieved.
The delays in implementing the agreements can only be partly justified.
The responsibility is dual, lying with both the governments of the countries of the Union and the governments of the Mediterranean partners as well.
The Process is suffering from a lack of political will, which raises occasional doubts as to whether this major Mediterranean undertaking will be successful.
It is in consideration of this dual responsibility that I tabled amendments referring to the governments of the Euromed States.
If they do not assume their responsibility and make good their undertaking, there can be no project creating a multilateral sub-regional free trade area in the Mediterranean countries, as proposed at the Malta Conference in the context of south-south relations.
The question of financing also requires a will to succeed which has thus far not been displayed.
The proportion of the funds dedicated to all the different geographical areas, in respect for democracy, transparency and efficiency, needs to be re-established, and there needs to be lasting revitalisation of decentralised cooperation once a critical, in-depth analysis of the weaknesses and shortcomings noted in the implementation of the old programmes has been carried out.
With regard to respect for the dignity of legal immigrants, in the spirit of a harmonised European migration policy, in addition to legal instruments guaranteeing the fair treatment of immigrants, financial aid instruments need to be established for all those young people who wish to return to their native countries to start work when they have finished secondary education or a university course in a European country.
Coordination of Member States' initiatives in this matter is becoming essential and could be carried out by the European Commission.
Moreover, the Commission needs to present similar proposals regarding financial aid for young immigrants within the framework of the policy for cooperation with the ACP countries.
Another type of coordination concerns potential contributors - States and financial institutions - of international and regional aid, particularly in the Gulf countries.
A concerted programme of investment in the Mediterranean is becoming necessary.
Without joint action there can be no dynamism, and without dynamism there will not be sufficient drive for development.
I would like to end by stressing that by far the most effective means of achieving coordination would be a global Union strategy for the Mediterranean region.
Such a strategy will be able to establish the goals of an excellent partnership; such a strategy will provide the necessary justification for every initiative and each and every intervention; such a strategy will allow the partnership to become a vital means not only of ensuring the economic and social development of the Mediterranean region but also of enabling Europe to assume a stabilising role throughout the area.
This is why we will vote for the motion for a resolution.
Averoff Report (A5-0322/2000)
- I welcome this report by Mr Averoff on a proposal to grant funds to Greece in order to relieve the interest burden on EIB loans for the reconstruction of the Attica region which was devastated by the earthquake of September 1999.
This aid is more than justified in the light of that tragedy.
Eriksson Report (A5-0294/2000)
Mr President, I voted for this report, which lays down the action to be taken by the European Community in order to bring about genuine gender equality.
Before leaving to come to Strasbourg last Sunday, I met Mrs Rossi.
Mrs Rossi - who is a pensioner, a widow - asked me: "Why is it that, as a widow, the pension I receive is only half the amount that it used to be when my dear husband was alive?". Now then, I would like to make it clear that, when we discuss gender equality, we should also concern ourselves with the pension laws which are discriminatory towards women.
The Member States must also respect women in their laws on widows' and married women's pensions.
Mr President, despite the progress made in recent years within the European Union, within this Europe that champions human rights, structural discrimination on the grounds of sex still exists.
Women do not enjoy the same rights as men, there are still fewer women representatives in public institutions and also at decision-making levels in private enterprise, and they are still the main victims of domestic cruelty and sexual violence.
I should like to highlight one point which frankly I see as a determining factor in this question: the lack of equality in the employment sphere.
There will never be equality if women do not have personal financial autonomy, if they have to depend on men for their support and to ensure their future.
What can most make women truly free and equal is to have the same opportunities of finding a job as men and not at a lower rate of pay.
I am convinced that the day when women achieve real financial independence through their work, then they will be truly free and all other inequalities will have disappeared.
- (EL) The proposed new five-year programme on gender equality is the most reactionary programme which has been dreamed up in recent years. Its objective is to integrate women into the anti-labour policies of the ÅU.
The so-called equal opportunities policy has not reversed women's disproportionate share of unemployment, part-time employment and poverty, nor has it broken the glass ceilings of the centres of power.
Equal opportunities in the workplace, in society and elsewhere cannot be understood within the context of a set of reactionary policies which offend human dignity, a society in which there is unemployment, underemployment and no state welfare or a society which puts a price on and commercialises human values.
We are radically opposed to the way in which the terms "equal opportunities" and "equality" are used, because these two terms can only mean one thing in the context of capitalism: equal social misery for the majority of workers, which gets worse day by day, an equal share of poverty, the general rise in unemployment and part-time employment, cutbacks in public and free social services provided by the state and a heavier overall burden on the family.
Given the anti-labour policies of the ÅU, the specific objective and any positive measures promoted to achieve it will have just one purpose: to integrate women fully into EU policies, which have become even more reactionary to grass-roots interests.
The purpose of the text is to implement the more general policies of the ÅU and it clearly states that the policy of equality must promote the full integration of women into the "new economy".
In other words, their full integration on equal terms into part-time employment, into the reversal of full, stable employment and into the reduction of the non-wage costs of labour.
A genuine equal opportunities policy presupposes a different economic and social policy focusing on equal opportunities for men and women to share in prosperity, not an impoverished life, such as a reduction in the retirement age for both sexes to 60 for men and 55 for women, strengthening and upgrading the public and welfare sectors, abolishing the private health sector and abolishing part-time employment.
- (FR) We voted for this report because it recognises a certain number of principles on gender equality with which, I am sure, we all agree.
But all the declarations concerning 'equal opportunities for men and women' are cast in a rather garish light by the European directive authorising night work for women.
The ban on night work for women was one of those rare areas in which, by protecting women, the social legislation of certain countries was further advanced for female than for male workers.
On account of the fact that European institutions are incapable of combating the social segregation suffered by women in the areas of employment, salary and professional promotion and are therefore incapable of 'equalising opportunities' upwards, they 'equalise' downwards.
We are against the social regression represented by the authorisation of night work for women.
Night work in industry and, more generally, in the retail sector, which is just as detrimental to women' s as it is to men' s health, has no social or human justification.
The only reason why it is becoming widespread is the desire of companies to make ever greater profits.
In order to abolish social segregation, night work should be banned for men and women alike, with the sole exception of public services, notably hospitals and transport, where such work is socially useful. In this case, the inconveniences of working at night should be compensated for by a massive reduction in working hours, with protection for pregnant women.
.
(PT) Although somewhat belatedly, the Commission has presented its programme for the Community framework strategy on gender equality (2001­2005), which differs strikingly from previous programmes and, specifically, from the fourth action programme, which finishes at the end of this year.
In line with the proposal that has been presented, the aim of the change in methodology is to increase access and opportunities for non-governmental organisations to actively participate and contribute to the project.
If this is going to be possible, we must encourage this effective participation not just at Community level, but also in the Member States.
As the rapporteur states, it is important that the Commission considers the fact that a prerequisite of any genuine democracy is that all its citizens - men and women alike - should participate and be represented in equal measure in economic life, in decision-making forums, in social and cultural life and in civil society.
The Commission must nevertheless bear in mind that no work on gender equality will have a lasting effect unless women' s rights are improved, specifically in everyday practices in all spheres of activity.
. (DE) In order to ensure equality of opportunities between women and men in cultural, social and economic life, and to minimise and prevent discrimination on grounds of gender, the Commission has adopted a twin-track approach of which the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities approves.
Special measures to help women should not be secondary; they should be integrated into policy.
In practice, initiatives are to be taken in five areas, including equality in economic life, equal participation and representation, and equal access to social rights.
EUR 53.5 million is provided for under budget item B3-4012. This is a considerable but also necessary sum, which the Committee on Budgets has agreed to as a matter of political priority.
We would have liked to have scrutinised the fourth action programme just as we are now considering the fifth programme.
I very much hope that in future, by producing an annual review in good time, the Commission will enable this House to carry out a more in-depth analysis and hold a more thorough debate.
One more point about timing: this report contains many examples of ambiguous and infelicitous wording, because we have had to hold our debates and votes under extreme time pressure and the amendments were not available in all languages.
I have some reservations as far as the content is concerned.
For example, as so often happens in this House, studies are called for on the significance of a general reduction in working hours.We have adopted opinions by clear majorities recognising that the Member States can cope far better with flexible working hours than with unrealistic collectively bargained solutions.
Furthermore, I think that a "media code of conduct" is impractical.
Whenever woman are presented in a discriminatory way, the only thing that helps is forceful protests against each specific incident - protests by active readers of both sexes and by alert national and European Members of Parliament.
Nevertheless, I voted for the report because, on the one hand, various proposed improvements submitted by my group were taken on board, and also because the report calls for studies into the position of women in national labour markets and the inadequate access they have to social security systems, an area in which we need statistically relevant gender-specific data.
And it is quite right to call for consistency of the fifth framework programme with the Structural Funds, which are probably the most sustainable instruments the Community has, with the Community's EQUAL initiative and with the DAPHNE, STOP, PHARE and MEDA programmes.
I have voted in favour of compromise Amendments Nos 61-74, which were adopted together.
At the same time, I want to express my very great surprise at the view of children and elderly people, parents, family life and family unity, as well as of simple, decent love of thy neighbour, which comes to light in the following words to be found in the justification of compromise Amendment 72 on the subject of finding necessary resources for making it easier to reconcile working and family life, mainly by setting benchmarks for improved childcare and care of the elderly (which I interpret as also applying to care of children by their own parents in their own homes): 'The need for childcare and care of elderly family members form obstacles to women' s activity in professional, political or social spheres at various periods in their lives' .
It is mainly the words 'form obstacles to' and 'the need for childcare and care of elderly family members' which cause me deep concern.
Moreover, is 'activity in professional, political or social spheres' , to quote the justification, the highest good and only thing of value for individual human beings? Is it this to which the political authorities attach the highest importance, while family life - the basic unit of society - and the intimate and human values associated with it are now also to be disregarded and devalued in this way?
- Regarding the Eriksson report (A5-0294/2000) on the proposal for a Council Decision on the Programme relating to the Community framework strategy on gender equality (2001-2005), I totally support gender equality but on examination of the related commission document, COM(2000) 335, it would appear that the financial statement includes "core funding of running costs of the European Women's Lobby (EWL) currently financed under budget line A-3037".
As you are aware, the Committee on Budgets has identified this NGO as a monopoly.
It would appear, according to correspondence from various European women's groups, that this monopoly does not ideologically represent a very substantial number of European women's organisations.
As this NGO plays an integral role in the formation and implementation of this programme, I believe the integrity of this Community framework strategy on gender equality is in question, and therefore unsupportable.
Furthermore, is it appropriate to fund a monopoly from a budget line intended to promote equality? Indeed, are we justified in funding a monopoly from any EU budget line?
Regretfully therefore, I have voted against.
González Álvarez Report (A5-0309/2000)
Mr President, there are several reasons why I voted against the González Álvarez report but, in order to keep within the minute allowed for this explanation of vote, I will mention only one.
A lot of people came to the airport to see me off when I left to come to Strasbourg this time, including an elderly pensioner who, sadly, was suffering from a serious physical injury caused by a highly unsafe product on sale in the European Union.
As I left, I said to her, "Don't worry: we are going to debate the González Álvarez report which deals precisely with product safety".
However, I have realised that there is absolutely no provision in this report for a clear obligation for the rapid compensation of victims of dangerous products for their injuries.
- My party has serious reservations about Community law applying to the sale of consumer products, as against applying the concept of mutual recognition of standards.
Thus, we are opposed in principle to the original directive and must therefore oppose any extension of it.
Even if this was not so, we would still have serious reservations.
While this Commission proposal on general product safety is styled as a revision of the 92/59/EEC Directive, with claims that the approach followed in the original directive has not been altered, this does not seem to be entirely the case.
What particularly disturbs us are the plans revealed by Commissioner Byrne to develop a network of enforcement authorities to help implement this law.
Having seen proposals for "networks" elsewhere in Community initiatives, we see in this the beginnings of something which is altogether unhealthy - a unified enforcement system amounting to a European Union consumer law enforcement service.
This to us seems of a general trend where the Commission, having saturated Member States with its laws, is now taking altogether too keen an interest in enforcement systems, with an eye to direct control of them.
On this basis alone, my party opposes this measure.
- Whilst I support this report on general product safety, it is important that we do not go too far.
It is important that our products are safe, but we should not go over the top with extreme actions.
People across Europe are extremely concerned about the safety of consumer products, and rightly so.
This report welcomes an improvement in current European law on product safety, but in my view the directive should not be applied to charity shops, a key feature in the British high street.
It is absurd to think that the average charity shop can provide the authorities with information about product risks and product origin for second-hand goods acquired from the general public.
Let us not forget that it was my Labour colleague, Mr Whitehead, who introduced the amendments exempting charity shops, and we should congratulate him on his achievements.
The threat to charity shops occurred because it simply was not understood on mainland Europe.
It is now, and the Labour amendments offer a guarantee that charity shops will be left untouched and will be exempt from the directive.
The overall aim of the directive is extremely important in ensuring that there is a consistent and high level of consumer protection, as well as the efficient functioning of the single market.
I wholeheartedly support the drive for clearly-worded, understandable warnings about possible risks to be put on products where they are on sale.
Clear labelling is the best way of reassuring worried consumers that the goods they buy are safe.
Public confidence in the safety of products we all buy has taken a real knock in recent years following a number of scares, especially in children's toys.
Only by taking a safety first attitude - and being seen to take a safety first attitude - can public confidence and the safety of our children be restored.
Lagendijk Report (A5-0324/2000)
Mr President, the Council quite rightly hoped to rationalise EU aid to the Balkan states and to reform the European Agency for the Reconstruction of Kosovo, whose competence could gradually be extended to cover the entire region.
We fully support this approach and the two proposals for Council regulations which would implement it. But we cannot support the amendments tabled by the European Parliament which aim to profoundly upset the balance of the system in favour of the Commission.
Today, the European Agency for Reconstruction is administered by a Governing Board on which the representatives of the Member States and the Commission each have one vote and on which decisions are adopted by a two-thirds majority.
The Commission is not at all happy about a situation in which it is under constant supervision and complains that the weight of the Member States hinders its freedom of action and therefore, in its view, impedes the effectiveness of its assistance.
The European Parliament has rallied to the call of its old friend and has just voted for amendments in its favour.
Amendment No 5 proposes returning the running of the Agency to the Commission, which would be responsible to the European Parliament.
Amendment No 14 weakens the Governing Board vis-à-vis the Commission, by stipulating that its decisions are adopted by simple majority.
Amendment No 10 extends the tasks of the Agency, which is now effectively controlled by the Commission.
Finally, Amendment No 15 gives the Commission free rein in determining the rules governing the languages used by the Agency, about which we are very concerned.
We are witnessing the repetition of a classic scenario in which the Commission believes it will manage external aid better if it has more powers and more autonomy, and if it is less supervised by the Member States.
That is a mistake which, as we well know, could unfortunately take us down a very dangerous path.
We are therefore asking that the Member States retain the upper hand regarding the management of aid and the Agency.
In this way, they will exercise better control and they will maintain a vital link between European aid and national policies in this sensitive region.
Mr President, both as a member of the European People's Party and as a member of the Pensioners' Party in Italy, I was very happy to vote for this major report on European Union aid - and the management thereof - to Albania, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo.
This aid will serve, above all, to help these countries feel that Europe exists and is particularly close to peoples who are the victims of war, war which has brought inconvenience and poverty, especially to the elderly and the infirm, who should be among the first to receive assistance.
I naturally support this report wholeheartedly.
Mr President, I voted for the report although it does not distinguish clearly enough between Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro.
President Kostunica was happy to have himself compared with General de Gaulle in a recent interview.
But General de Gaulle was only able to play a major role once he had settled the Algerian problem.
I believe that Serbia's "Algerian problem" is Kosovo.
Kosovo has the right to decide about its future independently and in partnership with its neighbours.
So we must give President Rugova and President Kostunica a chance to negotiate democratically with each other.
That is why we need early elections in Kosovo, cooperation in a spirit of partnership and an agreed solution for this region achieved in the same spirit.
- (EL) The remit of the European Agency for Reconstruction should have been extended to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia a long time ago and should not be linked to the internal changes in Yugoslavia.
It was not Milosevic and his cohorts who paid the price of exclusion, the lack of international aid and the harsh post-war conditions; it was the civilians - or rather the most disadvantaged civilians.
Simplifying the decision-making process, creating decentralised operational centres (and not just in Pristina, which has gained in importance now that it has broken away from Yugoslavia) and dealing with the twin structure between the Governing Board and the Commission may prove to be the right moves in a bid to deal with the huge bureaucratic shortcomings at the European Agency for Reconstruction.
At the same time, we should:
1.
Increase funding to this region, given that the European Union perpetrated and aided and abetted its destruction.
2.
Ensure that local agents, seconded by bureaucracy and various European consultancy firms, have a say at central level.
3.
Strengthen cooperation programmes between the former parties to the conflict and the countries in the region.
- I welcome this report which seeks to improve the delivery of EU assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by simplifying the decision-making procedures and making them more transparent.
Garot Report (A5-0305/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Garot report, although there are many gaps and inaccuracies which the Pensioners' Party does not support.
In particular, I would call upon the Commission to decide to put forward new, different types of proposals in order to resolve the problems suffered by agriculture and livestock farmers.
In fact, we cannot continue to assist those farmers who are in need of European Union subsidies - and long may they receive them - in the way we have done thus far, for it has achieved nothing but damage.
The quota system must be entirely abolished; we must find a different way of assisting agriculture, fisheries and livestock farmers in the European Union.
- (SV) We are not in favour of new subsidies for pig feed and are therefore voting against the report.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have voted against a report designed to introduce aid for pigmeat producers in the EU.
The Commission has proposed introducing an aid scheme for pigmeat producers by establishing equalisation funds in the Member States.
The proposal is unnecessary and harmful because it introduces a new form of aid for a sector which has so far acquitted itself well without aid.
The crisis in the pig sector has resolved itself through the market economy, and precisely because unnecessary and expensive aid schemes have not been introduced.
Parliament' s report will introduce still more aid schemes.
Producers are to receive 100% aid from the fund to reduce their production, and the EU is to co-finance the scheme.
We are therefore voting against both the Commission' s proposal and Parliament' s report.
Once the vote has been taken, this report on the common organisation of the market in pigmeat will simply add to the tonnes of paper of common agricultural market legislation.
It is curious to observe how the rapporteur, albeit a supporter of the market economy, by talking of 'cyclical movements' in the market in pigmeat, attacks its 'harmful effects' in order to be moved by the 'havoc' it wreaks.
We are opposed to the market economy, which is just as stupid and disastrous in regulating the economy as a whole as it is in regulating the production of pigmeat.
However, we will not share the rapporteur' s cynicism, as he mourns the passing of the good old times when 'the cessation of activity by small production units was enough to restore prices' .
Even less do we share his view when he talks of the elimination of small producers which he, above all, uses to ask the European institutions for supplementary financing for large livestock producers.
We need to prevent producers falling victim to the cyclical variation of the market.
But the only true producers are those who work and run the pig farms, small farmers and agricultural workers, which definitely does not include those who are the primary focus of this report and who confine themselves to investing in this industry in order to make a profit with the aid of European Union grants.
.
(PT) A genuine reform of the COM for pigmeat is urgently needed in order to address the extended crisis that has hit producers in the European Union.
However, the Commission's proposal to create a voluntary regulatory fund financed solely by producers not only runs counter to the CAP principle of financial solidarity, it will also not solve any of the industry' s fundamental problems.
The Garot report is an attempt to improve on some aspects of the Commission' s proposal, by seeking to reach a compromise with the Council, specifically with regard to a financial contribution to the fund.
The problem is that, even if the French Presidency has shown a degree of openness, we know that the Commission has rejected these proposals and there does not appear to be a majority within the Council in favour of approving them.
It is therefore still crucial that we continue to fight for the mandatory establishment of the fund, financed completely by the CAP, and that payments from the fund should be adjusted to cover more producers, paying particular attention to small- and medium-sized farmers.
With regard to the overriding issue of the Community' s contribution to the fund, I also wish to point out that the proposals in the Garot report are an improvement as compared with the Commission' s position, but we still disagree with the idea of linking this contribution to the principle of CAP cofinancing which was, in fact, rejected in Agenda 2000.
. (DE) I doubt if anyone here will deny that pigmeat producers throughout the EU Member States have, over the last two years, been faced with a crisis which has had devastating consequences for many of them.
We do not have a market organisation for pigmeat comparable with those for other agricultural products.
And we do not fundamentally want to change that situation.
However, when there have been such major structural changes in a sector as there have been in the pigmeat sector, and when there has been a more sustained fall in prices, of up to 30%, than has been the case up to now, in that case some action is needed.
It cannot be in anyone's interest for smaller pig farming units in particular to have to give up because they cannot cope with this kind of on-going disaster scenario.
I therefore believe that there is a justification for modifying the present Community schemes in this area.
If it has already been accepted that regulatory funds should be created, then Community cofinancing should also be a possibility, as this would not stretch the Community budget as much as some people make out.
I therefore voted for the report.
, in writing.
(FR) The Commission proposal, in itself, is a recognition of the inadequacy of the current tools used to regulate the markets.
The last crisis was exceptionally long and severe.
It caused the disappearance of smaller holdings and difficulties for a large number of young farmers.
The lack of a regulatory system accentuated this movement in favour of large, often integrated, production units.
It is not possible to ask producers alone to make an extra effort: many already belong to equalisation funds.
We believe we should support them by creating efficient tools not only to resolve the crises but also to better control the markets, improve quality and promote their products.
Pig farming is still essentially a family activity, based on responsibility.
It supports the economic activity of the rural community, often in regions where there are few alternatives.
We have chosen to fight in defence of a living and diverse rural world: maintaining small- and medium-sized enterprises, be they agricultural, industrial, or small-scale cottage industries, is the cornerstone of this.
The creation of a regulatory fund for pigmeat production, as amended, does not place the free market in the balance but will protect small family holdings.
Mr President, I am very critical at this time when we have to decide upon relations between the European Union and Turkey.
Even though I voted for the motion, I would like to emphasise certain points which I feel that we should always bear in mind in this situation.
Firstly, it is not Europe which has asked to become part of Turkey but Turkey which has asked to join Europe, and Turkey must therefore adapt to and accept the rules which the European Union asks it to respect.
Secondly, Turkey is no longer alone against Greece but alone against the European Union.
Greece, which is no longer able to defend its rights and interests within our institutions, must be defended by the entire European Union.
Mr President, I voted for the motion and I was pleased to see that an amendment was adopted recognising the genocide of the Armenian people.
However, I regret that the amendments I tabled, which stressed the obligation of respect for the principle of the self-determination of peoples, were rejected.
This House is always talking about rights - the Charter was adopted yesterday - but when it comes to the application of these rights, not so much in practical terms but at least in terms of upholding them, Parliament takes alarming steps backwards which are certainly no credit to it.
Mr President, the Armenians' genocide was the first of many genocides in the twentieth century, which might indeed be called the century of genocide.
Franz Werfel created a literary monument to this genocide in his work "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh".
Franz Werfel had Jewish and German-Bohemian relatives.
The Jewish relatives were victims of the Holocaust, and the German-Bohemian relatives, some of whom were Jewish themselves, were driven out of Bohemia after the Second World War.
This goes to show that one disaster can trigger off the next.
When Hitler was preparing the Holocaust, he asked "who talks about the Armenians now?" That is why we must tell our Turkish friends that wrongdoing cannot be hushed up today either.
We do not want to rub salt into historical wounds, we want to work together to right wrongs, no matter whose name they were committed in.
- (EL) Despite its serious shortcomings, the Morillon report is clearly an improvement on the Commission proposal as far as the partnership between the European Union and Turkey is concerned.
There is a positive reference to the Loïzidou case and the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Similarly, there is a positive, albeit inadequate reference to the Armenian question, in that Turkey should have been clearly called on to acknowledge the genocide - the amendments have, of course, done much to correct this.
Similarly, there is a positive reference to the Kurdish question and minorities - which the Commission draft accession partnership passes over in silence.
However, the main drawback and shortcoming of the Morillon report is on the issue of Greek-Turkish relations.
The European Parliament should make it clear to the Turkish Government that, if it wants to join the European Union, it must stop contesting the borders of Member States of the European Union and must refer any disputes to the International Court to be resolved.
This is also in the interests of the Turkish people who would like to live in peace with their neighbours.
Our vote in favour of the resolution should be interpreted as support for the fact that it represents an improvement on the Commission proposal and not as full agreement with it.
It is extraordinary that the European Parliament should be expressing an opinion on Turkey' s progress on the road to accession, especially when it comes to respect for human rights.
Because Sweden is not prepared to participate in a common military defence but only in civil crisis management, we cannot support Paragraph 15 which "welcomes Turkey' s determination to contribute to improving European capabilities within the framework of the common European security and defence policy" .
- (FR) The Morillon report on Turkey' s accession to the European Union serves, above all, to remind the Turkish Government that it must open up the Turkish market to European capital by carrying out 'structural reforms' ranging from 'dismantling state subsidies to reorganising pensions and accelerating privatisation' : in other words, by reducing social budgets and by making the living conditions of the most destitute sections of the population even worse.
As far as human rights are concerned, however, the report confines itself to 'encouraging the Turkish Government' , 'calling' on it to do better, without European countries ever threatening it, even if only to stop delivering arms.
The truth is that neither the rapporteur nor European governments want to offend the military who, in reality, govern Turkey and reduce a section of the country to a state of emergency.
European governments do not want to offend Turkish reactionaries who refuse to abolish the death penalty and trample women' s rights underfoot. Nor do they want to offend the Turkish authorities who now oppress the Kurdish people after having already massacred the Armenian population.
Let those who are interested only in the movement of capital and goods and not life and human rights vote for this report.
We voted against it.
- (FR) Ladies and gentlemen, today' s debate is not about reopening old, historical wounds, which have not completely healed.
It is not about rekindling ancestral hatreds or blowing on the embers of intolerance, as I have heard talk of in this Chamber.
What is at stake is not even the acknowledgement of the reality of Armenian genocide, since this House has already had occasion to express its views on this, most notably in its resolution of June 1987.
What the Members of the European Parliament asked of Turkey in 1987 was to have the courage to open its eyes to the past so as to be able to look to the future.
Historical truth is the guarantor of democracy. It must not and cannot suffer specific financial or economic interests, be they of individuals, governments or states.
Truth and remembrance are not negotiable.
It is enough to remember what happened in Germany, which recognised the Shoah and which, after the Second World War, became a major democratic country.
This is what we are hoping for once again today when we call upon the Morillon report to make reference to genocide.
Acknowledging genocide must be a call for dialogue to be established between the new Armenian and Turkish generations.
The whole of the Armenian community and the Armenian children who fled into exile at the beginning of the century to the countries of Europe are today waiting for justice to be done.
They want to offer a memorial to their ancestors, the victims of genocide.
At a time when the last witnesses of exile, the last survivors of the carnage, are quietly passing away, the work and the duty of remembrance are even more necessary.
But beyond the duty of remembrance which we must demand from all democracies, and the people of Europe know just how difficult and painful a task this is, so difficult in fact that some European countries have not yet completed it, it is incumbent on us to ensure that such acts of barbarism, which destroyed lives for ethnic, religious and cultural reasons and which offend the conscience of the world, never recur.
Europe must spread this message.
- (FR) It was at the European Council meeting in Helsinki in December 1999 that the European Union decided to grant Turkey the status of candidate country for accession to the European Union and to establish an accession partnership and a single financial framework with a view to helping Turkey's application to progress in accordance with the Copenhagen criteria.
It is a sine qua non that these criteria are met before the accession negotiations can start, and we must never forget this.
The progress reports established by the European Commission are therefore extremely important.
Today we are discussing the 1999 progress report.
Following the example of the rapporteur, we are bound to admit that Turkey has progressed on certain levels and that there are positive signs.
I am primarily thinking of the resumption of the political dialogue in the Association Council, which met on 11 April 2000 after being suspended for three years, and the establishment of eight subcommittees entrusted with the task of setting priorities for incorporation of the acquis communautaire, the signature by Turkey on 15 August and 8 September 2000 of four important UN conventions, on political, civil, social and cultural rights respectively, which must be ratified as soon as possible so that human rights and democratic pluralism may be guaranteed in that country, the Turkish Council of Ministers' adoption of the report presented by the Turkish Supreme Coordination Council for Human Rights, as a 'reference working document' , even if practical measures to protect the rights of minorities need to be added, and the adoption of the law on adjourning trials and deferring sentences for press and radio broadcasting offences.
But there are still many areas where progress is unsatisfactory, or indeed non-existent.
I am thinking in this case of the absence of a law abolishing the death penalty, the Cyprus question and the occupation by the Turkish army of one third of the island of Cyprus, and the problem of the rights of minorities, such as the Kurdish and Armenian minorities.
In this connection, I supported an amendment aimed at inserting into the body of the report a reference to the genocide in Armenia, because it is important to acknowledge this historical reality.
I invite the Turkish authorities to do the same: this would mark a great step forward in the country' s progress towards democracy.
If Turkey wants to enter into accession negotiations, it still needs to make a great deal of effort.
If it wants to accede to the European Union, it will have to integrate all the values which make Europe what it is.
This once again raises the question of whether Turkey really wants to be a Member of the European Union, or whether it would prefer to organise an integrated 'whole' with other Middle East countries, which would have very close links with the European Union at the commercial and economic level, at the security and stability level and also at the human rights and democratic rules level.
This is, of course, a different debate to the one we are having today. But, given the importance I attach to Turkey, I wanted to restate my case today.
- I and my colleagues have opposed this amendment because Leyla Zhana is insisting that she is not herself asking for special treatment or immediate release from gaol.
She wants the penal law changed, as do we.
Moreover, we believe that not only Kurdish, but all political prisoners should be freed.
I voted for this motion for a resolution.
I am delighted that the European Parliament has openly committed itself to encouraging the Turkish Government and the Turkish Grand National Assembly to publicly acknowledge the genocide that the Armenian minority was subjected to before the establishment of the modern state in Turkey.
Parliament had already undertaken the road to recognition as early as 1987, and the adoption of this amendment demonstrates Parliament' s consistency in this area.
However, this resolution does not answer what is a real question: what borders do we really want for the European Union?
- (NL) Perhaps there will come a time when EU enlargement will head further eastwards, through the accession of the Ukraine and Russia.
Obviously Turkey will then have to be given the same opportunity.
But that day is in the distant future.
Present-day Turkey is an authoritarian state with superior military power, political prisoners, censorship, party bans, border conflicts and an electoral system that excludes minorities.
Lessons still have not been learnt from the mass murder, eighty years ago, of the insurgent Armenians.
That partly explains why people do not think it untoward that a different national minority is still being deprived of its rights to this day.
The Kurds are displaced, bombarded and suppressed. Their language is banned from use in administration, education and the media.
Turkey must first learn from the histories of Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Albania, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
These countries came under Turkey' s dominion in the past, and uprisings that took place there were repeatedly suppressed using violent means.
Since the people are no longer prevented from exercising their right to self-determination, this has enabled peace to take hold.
I do not believe that Turkey' s style of government will change by us presenting this country with the prospect of EU membership, subject to flexible conditions.
The necessary changes cannot be bought outside by the governing powers; they must come from within.
. (IT) Turkey must become an integral part of the European Union as soon as possible, for this will both contribute to the fight against fundamentalism and the peace process and improve development and stability between the countries of northern and southern Europe.
Sadly, many issues are still unresolved such as those related to the Kurdish and Armenian situations and to full respect for civil rights, although a great deal of progress has been made in these fields.
The dignity of peoples and respect for traditions are foundation stones of the Union, which cannot be content with mere declarations of principle regarding the Kurdish and Armenian situation.
The Union must be more proactive and treat enlargement to include Turkey as a vital geopolitical strategy.
We therefore also renew our invitation to the Turkish Government to make a formal admission of Turkey's responsibility in the extermination of the Armenian people.
This declaration, which is necessary from the moral and historical perspective, is an obligatory condition for Turkey's accession to the Union.
For these reasons, Alleanza Nazionale, which has already, in the past, declared itself to be in favour of enlarging the Union to include Turkey, will abstain from today's vote, as a further invitation to the Turkish Government and the Turkish people to take steps to resolve these issues with all haste.
- (FR) What the Morillon report shows us is quite simply the fact that we are still paying for the absurdity of the decision adopted at the European Summit meeting in Helsinki which regarded Turkey, on an equal footing with Poland, as a fully European country destined to join the European Union with all the practical implications this entails (pre-accession strategy and so on).
I remember the exact text of the conclusions of the Presidency in Paragraph 12: "Turkey is a candidate country destined to join the Union on the basis of the same criteria as applied to candidate countries" .
We all know that, in reality, this decision was tainted with hypocrisy.
Nonetheless, the system that has been put in place will do its work and will impose its logic on us until the time comes when this awkward position will become so untenable that our relations with Turkey will be in serious and deep crisis.
But, some might say, we can make the pleasure last, we can multiply the conditions and infinitely draw out the Copenhagen criteria in order to delay the moment when we have to take up the subject of the free movement of workers with Turkey.
Such ulterior motives are unworthy of Europe and unworthy of Turkey.
In our relations with the Turkish nation and the great Turkish people, we must use the language of frankness and respect, not a double talk which opens the door to the worst kind of disappointment and unacceptable humiliation.
It is absolutely not a question of pushing Turkey away from Europe, as Cohn-Bendit claims.
It is simply a question of recognising that geography and history have made present-day Turkey a country that is not European.
In the face of stark realities, it is about fully respecting the dignity of the Turkish people by not seeking to impose on it a behaviour which it must adopt of its own accord, and by seeking to jointly develop close cooperation.
The ambiguity of the pre-accession procedure prevents real cooperation between Turkey and Europe from developing along healthy and clear lines, even if there is a powerful common interest for Turkey - with its influence and weight and the privileged relations it now has with the Turkish-speaking countries of central Asia - to be a powerful stabilising factor in a region which is in great need of stability.
- On behalf of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, I welcome Mr Morillon's report.
We believe that Turkey should be treated the same way as any other applicant country.
While it is clear that Turkey does not yet meet the Copenhagen criteria, we should be working closely with them to achieve that objective - just as we have done with all the other applicants.
We cannot consistently seek new obstacles to put in their path.
We opposed the amendments on the Armenian massacre for exactly this reason.
That event took place during the time of the Ottoman Empire.
I do not recall events which took place during the British Empire being used to obstruct the United Kingdom's accession.
Consistency and honesty should be the hallmarks of our dealings with any applicant country.
Jové Peres Report (A5-0275/2000)
Mr President, as you are aware, the news is spreading throughout the world of fish that I am promoting their cause.
In fact, the fish are extremely concerned about the mad cow disease crisis and, having heard about Mr Jové Peres' report - which is rightly concerned with the fact that we are not able to monitor how many fishing boats go to fish in one area and how many in another - they have proposed that I put it to the Commission that it would be appropriate to fit these fishing boats with remote tracking devices - which are present on many cars - so that the European Union will be able to discover how many fishing boats fish in one area of the sea and how many in another. This would avoid there being too many fishermen in one place, for the fish would also like to be left to live their lives in peace and become pensioners as well.
in writing.- (FR) We voted against the Jové Peres report on Community participation in the Regional Fisheries Organisations because it calls for the transfer of national sovereignties, which would be completely counterproductive.
For a number of years, as a member of the delegation for relations with Canada, I have been able to observe the operation of one of the regional organisations, NAFO (Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation), whose members are the countries of that region, including Canada, as well as all the countries that use traditional fishing zones in the region, including France, Spain and some other European countries.
Every member country has a vote in the decision procedure.
Now, from the moment the European nations concerned decided to communitise this issue and to be represented solely by the Commission they have just had a single vote.
So the first effect of the uniting of our forces was to reduce the number of our votes from six to one.
The countries of Europe, as a whole, have the same number of votes as Cuba, for example.
This situation does not worry the federalists for whom, when the Commission speaks with a single voice, we gain in strength.
Unfortunately, it is 'with a single voice' in all senses of the phrase.
What is more, our position is often weakened by our internal mechanisms, notably prior alignment to the lowest common denominator.
On the whole, our interests are undermined, they are not defended with the necessary force, and the role of the Commission is primarily that of a police officer vis-à-vis Member States to get them to apply the binding decisions that have been adopted, sometimes in spite of themselves, in the regional organisation in question.
The Jové Peres report would not only like to regularise this situation for existing regional organisations and those that are in the process of being established, it would also like to reinforce it by putting paid to the Commission' s habit of calling on the support of technical experts from different Member States.
According to the report, the Commission would need to recruit staff as a result and would be given the corresponding funds.
We cannot accept any of these approaches.
We believe that the current system of representation by the Commission weakens instead of strengthens us, and we want every European nation to be fully represented within the regional fisheries organisations, even though it is clearly desirable that the Member States coordinate their positions.
- Although the Jové Peres report is ostensibly about fisheries, I see in it a much more sinister agenda.
For instance, one sees such statements as: "... the development of a genuine fisheries policy requires that the powers of monitoring fishing activity must be assigned to the Commission"; "...the establishment of a proper Community system of monitoring fisheries is bound to entail a degree of sovereignty being transferred to the Union institutions"; and "... the European Union is not a confederation of states but a 'sui generis' entity in international law, in which ... there is a desire for economic, social and political integration...".
Then there is the observation that: "the lack of adequate human and material resources means that the Community's powers are delegated to Member States...", with the view that this situation cannot be extended indefinitely.
The rapporteur's answer is for the Community to be given the resources, effectively, to take direct control over fisheries monitoring.
This reveals the European Union's true ambition - the continued acquisition of powers until it becomes an all-powerful superstate.
It will only be content when its own gunboat fleet, flying "ring of stars" flags, is enforcing its fisheries policies.
My party cannot support this report.
. (IT) The European fishing sector is currently suffering a series of challenges due to an increase in competition caused by the globalisation of the fish products market.
There is also a clear need for greater protection of the marine environment and rational management of exploitable fisheries resources.
In this context, it appears necessary to increase international cooperation and ensure that the Community consolidates its undertaking to define a law on fish stocks.
The principle tool for achieving closer cooperation is the Regional Fisheries Organisations (RFOs), which play a key role on the international scene but which lack the human resources for the Community to be adequately represented.
The RFOs are particularly suitable for achieving the objectives established because of their regional nature, but, above all, they contribute to the rational management of resources by reflecting the specific characteristics of the fishing areas.
In this context, considering the importance of RFOs for the future of the common fisheries policy and the different levels of organisation, competences and development of each organisation, the Community needs to adapt its participation according to their respective characteristics and to harmonise its role within the 30 existing RFOs, in order to speed up transposal of the recommendations adopted by the RFOs into Community law.
- (FR) Without going back to the excellent argument put forward by Mr Gallagher regarding the text that has been submitted to the vote, I would like to extend the debate to cover all cases where our countries are represented by the executive Commission in international negotiations.
My comments naturally apply to the issue before us today, the representation of the European Community within regional fisheries organisations, but they apply equally to talks conducted for example within the World Trade Organisation.
If the Commission has the power to represent the Community and to negotiate in an international context, it is because it has received a mandate from the Council.
It is therefore important that this mandate is defined clearly in terms of time and content and that it is strictly monitored by the Council.
In a good many cases, such as fishing in certain regions of the world, the interests of Member States are not uniform.
Some Member States are not at all involved in certain fishing regions.
It is therefore vital that the Member States that are directly involved can defend their own interests by sitting at the negotiating table with the Commission at their side playing a useful technical support role.
Otherwise, the influence and the weight of Europe in such negotiations would be weakened if the interests of Europe were represented in a manner intended exclusively to benefit the Commission.
Europe would, in fact, have just one seat and the position that would be defended would be nothing more than the lowest common denominator established on the basis of the positions of a group of Member States who are involved to varying degrees.
What is important therefore is not to satisfy the Commission' s desire for domination by weakening the position of Europe, which would be in direct conflict with the correct application of the principle of subsidiarity.
On the contrary, in all international negotiations in which the European Union is involved, it is important to begin by strictly defining the Commission' s role, which should by no means be to replace Member States, but to support and coordinate alongside the Member States concerned.
I am not a hundred percent certain that this is the path the Nice Summit is preparing to take ... but there is still time for Member States to regroup.
That brings us to the end of voting time.
I would like to thank those who have stayed to the end!
(The sitting was suspended at 1.27 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Waste incineration
The next item is the report (A5-321/2000) tabled by Mr Blokland, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on the incineration of waste [C5-0371/2000 - 1998/0089 (COD)].
Mr President, when I was appointed rapporteur for the amendment of a directive concerning the incineration of hazardous waste, three years ago, I could not have suspected what it would lead to.
A small subject grew into an extensive piece of work owing to the fact that proposals on hazardous and non-hazardous waste were combined in a single directive.
My suggestion that we should include them in one directive was supported by the then President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Trittin, and by the Commission, which meant that Parliament' s motion to amalgamate three directives did not meet with a great deal of opposition.
The amalgamation had the effect of streamlining Community legislation.
Things did not go as swimmingly for Parliament' s amendments from first reading, as the Council rejected most of them.
A chastened Parliament confined itself to adopting sixteen amendments at second reading.
The need for conciliation soon became apparent because, as it turned out, the Council was not minded to adopt these amendments.
In order to avoid a costly and exacting official conciliation procedure, informal negotiations were opened in order to see if a compromise could be reached.
However, Parliament' s willingness to expedite the procedure demanded flexibility on the part of the Council.
That proved to be a sticking point on account of the divergent positions.
Ultimately, after some tough negotiating, an outcome was achieved that is worth defending.
As rapporteur, I do so with utter conviction.
Throughout the entire period, I was able to work well together with the representatives of the Council and the Commission, and was secure in the knowledge that I had the support of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and its secretariat.
I would like to sincerely thank all concerned.
I would like, just one more time, to give three reasons as to why the directive on waste incineration is so important.
Firstly, the emission of dioxins, as well as the emission of other harmful substances will be drastically reduced.
Secondly, the public will have far better access to information about incineration plants.
Thirdly, it will substantially reduce the disparity between the requirements governing incineration plants and those governing plants for the co-incineration of waste, such as cement kilns.
But although I am upbeat about the outcome of this directive, it cannot conceal the fact that waste incineration is an emergency solution.
After all, we have not managed to avoid the production of waste, nor have we succeeded in introducing recycling.
Fortunately, there is talk of progress on the technological front, where the emphasis must be on sustainability.
I will give you an example: PVC comprises 0.7% of the total amount of incinerated waste.
According to the Commission' s Green Paper, incinerating PVC waste gives rise to a number of problems.
We must get straight down to tackling these problems, leaving no stone unturned.
Sustainable technology could prove helpful to us in the process.
Finally, I anticipate our being able to tighten up the waste incineration directive in a few years' time, in close consultation with industry.
The people who live in the vicinity of these plants will thank us for it.
Mr President, I share at least one certainty with the rapporteur, Mr Blokland: incineration may be a significant source of pollution but it is in fact necessary today, given the very low levels of waste recycling.
The urgency of this subject is made more acutely felt by the problem of animal meal in feedingstuffs, which we are going to be debating later this afternoon, which are going to have to be destroyed.
The objective of this proposal, which aims to replace three directives relating to waste incineration, is to improve air, water and soil quality and human health by reducing emissions of pollutants linked to incineration and co-incineration, notably dioxins, furans and heavy metals.
This proposal also allows for the integration of the technical progress that has been achieved since the 1990s.
Overall, the result of the conciliation process is very pleasing.
The emission limit values for incineration and co-incineration plants have been brought into line, while taking account of the technical differences between these two activities.
I have always been in agreement with the joint draft which regards these two systems as complementary and not competing.
Today, we cannot do without either of these incineration methods.
Yet one can only regret the fusion of these incineration processes in terms of hazardous and non-hazardous waste, which has considerably complicated the debate, and which I have always condemned.
In my view, the working method is not good, and I believe it is undesirable that we behave in this manner on such issues.
Nonetheless, we are satisfied with this third reading, because it reinforces the operation authorisation conditions.
Our group, which wanted to avoid the confusion between hazardous and non-hazardous waste, recognises that the current text clearly provides for different recovery and treatment processes, which are adapted to the types of waste involved. Supplementary precautions will have to be taken as far as hazardous waste is concerned.
Mr President, I would like to conclude by saying that the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats is satisfied by the work that has been carried out during the course of the third reading.
Mr President, first of all, I think we have cause to thank Mr Blokland, the Commission and the Council for the cooperation there has been in connection with the directive.
We all know that it has been a long and very difficult process putting together the requirements for the incineration of both hazardous and non-hazardous waste.
I want to draw attention to just three important objectives we can achieve by means of the directive.
First and foremost, a significant contribution has now been made to reducing discharges of hazardous and polluting substances produced by incineration - substances which are very harmful to people' s health and which damage the environment.
This is to happen by means of the operational requirements made in connection with incineration plant and also by means of the emission limit values we have now established for heavy metals, dioxins and other substances.
I also think, however, that it is very important to emphasise that it is now no longer merely a question of discharges into the atmosphere but also of discharges into the water and the earth.
The second thing I want to point out is that, as Mr Blokland too mentioned, people are now to be given more information about emissions from incineration plant in the form of the annual reports that are to be prepared.
I think this is a very important result.
People are entitled to be told about these things.
Finally, I want to emphasise that, by establishing the common requirements which everyone must now fulfil, we can presumably get rid of a significant proportion of so-called waste tourism.
It will no longer be so financially attractive to export waste to other places in the Community where waste handling requirements are less strict.
As Mr Blokland mentioned, incineration is, of course, far from being the ideal way of disposing of waste.
It is important for us to continually invest in better production methods, recycling and re-use. This ought clearly to be given priority ahead of incineration.
It is nonetheless good that we have now obtained tighter rules covering waste incineration.
I believe this will prove to be a significant contribution to improving the environment.
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mr Blokland for preparing this subject.
It has been a difficult process drafting the directive, as circumstances and practices in the Member States vary, and this affects many different interest groups.
The end result is that we now have a reasonably balanced proposal for imposing strict limits regarding the incineration of hazardous and non-hazardous waste, improving the environment and enabling waste to also be used in the production of electricity and heat.
One of the hardest problems was to define what co-incineration meant.
In some countries the best alternative, environmentally speaking, is that carefully sorted combustible waste can be burned in small municipal plants that produce electricity and heating.
In the first draft sketches for these plants there was a call for unnecessary, technically costly and, in some respects, impossible tests.
The proposal has improved during the debate.
It is also important that industry can still use non-hazardous waste in its own production of energy.
In my opinion, the problem was also that the directive went into precise technical detail which it was hard to get unambiguous opinions on from the experts.
I think we in Parliament should keep to the definition of the main arguments, allowing Member States to take account of differing circumstances and continue with best practice with regard to the environment.
A directive on the incineration of waste will increase the costs of burning waste, but will cut hazardous emissions and improve the state of the environment.
Our parliamentary debate achieved a reasonably balanced proposal that can serve as a basis for action throughout the Union.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Blokland for his excellent work on this report and give my group's support for the compromise text.
With the toughening of legislation on landfill there has been significant increase in waste incineration, and I know from my own experience in my constituency in Wales that incineration of hazardous and non-hazardous waste is as much a concern, in terms of its effects on health and the environment, as is landfill.
It is essential that we do not replace one unhealthy and unsustainable form of waste disposal with another.
Incineration is not recycling.
It is not a clean and safe method of waste disposal.
Genuinely sustainable alternatives must be funded and promoted and far more must be invested in research and in developing waste prevention, re-use and recycling.
That is why I welcome these standards for co-incineration of municipal waste and the transportation of waste, which should help bring an end to the present trade in waste where areas with the cheapest operators and the lowest standards become the co-incineration capitals of Europe.
In particular, I welcome the commitment to improving public access to information on incineration plants and the obligation on plant operators to publish an annual report on emissions.
Greater openness is obviously of major concern to people who live near these incinerators, but it will also help to ensure that the plant operators themselves keep below the emission ceilings that have been set.
The introduction of much stricter nitrogen oxide limits for new co-incineration plants such as cement kilns is also a step forward which will be an incentive for reducing emissions even though the standards proposed do not reflect the best available techniques.
Overall, this much needed legislation will put in place safeguards to limit the worst effects of incineration on health and the environment and, I hope, discourage incineration-for-profit, which depends on the creation of more and more waste.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Blokland in particular for his cooperation during this process.
Agreement on the derogations in the scope of the directive was one of the hardest questions in the debate and conciliation process.
The aim was for strictly limited derogations and the clearest possible definitions.
In my opinion this has been successful, meaning that ecological targets and compatibility with other Community policies can come about in what is actually an easily realisable way.
Parliament was also pushing for greater transparency and better opportunities for the public to have access to information.
Thus, in the conciliation process we were able to agree that plants that incinerate more than two tons per hour should publish a report on their emissions each year and smaller incineration plants should be included in the lists that would come under public scrutiny.
The limit values for emissions in the annex to the directive were definitely the most difficult point.
In this respect the conciliation process achieved a good result, as Parliament' s proposal for stricter nitrogen oxide emissions in all new cement kilns co-incinerating waste was approved.
I myself succeeded in having some amendments made to the report, vital for the continuation of co-incineration practices that have been in place in Finland for years and which are more ecological than those contained in the directive that is now about to be approved.
I am very happy about that, as the job I had as a new member having come directly to the second reading was not easy.
The report by Mr Blokland, now at its third reading, was for many members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, elected to Parliament for the first time, the first real test of learning with regard to parliamentary practice.
The procedures chosen by the institutions work surprisingly well, however.
The end result can be considered good, and with good reason.
The important element in all this, though, was the genuine desire for cooperation on the part of the three institutions.
The work of the countries to hold the presidency, Portugal and France, was constructive, and we have to mention in particular the role of the Commission, which played a decisive part in bringing about a satisfactory end result.
In my opinion, there is something to be learnt from this for the future and we must see to it that cooperation to achieve a more ecological European Union works.
Mr President, honourable Members, forgive me - especially Mr Blokland - for being a few minutes late.
I could not hear your introduction, but I can guess what was in it.
First of all, I want to thank you for your excellent work as rapporteur on this report.
The fact that this directive has passed through the legislative procedure so smoothly serves to show how important it is for all concerned.
This directive will lead to significant reductions in emissions in several key pollutants across the European Union, despite the fact that the volume of waste incineration will increase over the coming years.
Not only does it contribute to the fight against air pollution but it also covers the release of waste water, as Mr Lund has said, from exhaust gas cleaning and the quality of waste from the incineration process itself.
The conciliation process was demanding, but a well-balanced compromise has been found and the amendments of Parliament and the Council have produced a better directive.
The scope of the directive is much clearer.
Public access to information has improved.
Stricter emission-limit values have been introduced for new cement kilns that co-incinerate waste, as Mrs Evans pointed out.
This has been largely due to the excellent work of the European Parliament and its rapporteur, Mr Blokland.
I am convinced that the joint text strikes the right balance - a view reflected in your speeches yesterday - incorporating a high level of environmental protection along with the legitimate interests of all stake holders.
Let me remind you that the directive is only one instrument in the whole waste-management concept of the Commission.
Burning waste is the final stage in the treatment of waste, due to the waste hierarchy, and the Commission will make strong efforts to reduce and recycle waste and in its approach to an integrated product policy.
Of course, the overall objective is to prevent waste in the first place.
In conclusion, this directive is a major contribution to the reduction of negative effects on the environment and the risks they pose to human health.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Supplementary health insurance
The next item is the report (A5-0266/2000) by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on supplementary health insurance [2000/2009 (INI)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for almost ten years now the Community institutions have been working on the issue of social protection, a major element of which is, quite clearly, health cover.
Today, Member States, while retaining their own responsibilities through the direct application of the subsidiarity principle, nevertheless have problems in common which justify a debate at European level.
The operation of social systems is directly affected by certain general trends including the unemployment and social exclusion generated by 25 years of low economic growth, which has restricted the overall potential tax yield, the ageing of the population, the consequence of the emergence of new diseases and, finally, increased health care costs due to advances in medical research and treatment.
However diverse national situations may be, one can recognise in all Member States a more or less general reduction in statutory cover, an enhanced role for supplementary health insurance schemes and a marked increase in discriminating factors.
Against this backdrop, a more global approach to health protection seemed to me to be necessary, taking account, of course, of the institutional context: responsibility for the organisation and financing of social insurance systems by the Member States; national social models shaped by history, and free competition governing the rules applicable to the insurance industry.
Providing guaranteed access for all European citizens to high-quality necessary medical treatment within reasonable time limits is a primary objective towards which the efforts and financing of obligatory and supplementary systems must converge.
Starting from the principle that every individual has a right to medical care and that healthcare is a social good to which all Member States must provide access, it is unacceptable that some are forced to simply abandon healthcare, allowing unwholesome systems to take their place which are disastrous for our societies.
The Employment and Social Policy Council adopted a European strategy for the fight against social exclusion in Luxembourg on 17 October.
The European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which will be officially announced at the Nice Summit, recognises the right to social security and to health protection as a common reference value.
In its fight to combat discrimination and social exclusion, and in terms of the responsibilities of each individual, the European Parliament will take pride in giving a strong impetus to the establishment of a system which will allow the essential principle of solidarity to be practically implemented.
To this end, I sought the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee, which greatly clarified a number of points in a communication which was adopted with a very large majority.
The opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the proposals of the draftsman, Ioannis Marinos, gave rise to a large number of debates and favoured the adoption of compromise texts.
A broad consensus was finally reached within the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, which I have the honour of chairing.
The proposed system contains a number of approaches, the first of which is the development of a common vision of universal services which allow access to essential healthcare within a reasonable timeframe.
The second is the establishment of a Community system to monitor health systems and their capacity to respond to specific needs: the collection of statistics and comparable data; the development of effective cooperation between the Member States and the pooling of good practice.
It should be possible for this monitoring system to be organised by extending the tasks of a Community agency that has already been formed.
The third approach is the presentation by the European Commission within a period of six months of a Green Paper examining a framework for supplementary health insurance schemes and proposing appropriate legislative initiatives. We have already called on the Commission to do this and, Commissioner, we are aware that it will involve a considerable amount of work.
This will preferably be in the form of proposals for recommendations to include the following points: recognition by Member States of a common concept of a universal service to govern the basic service which will enable every European citizen to have access to the necessary care; establishing, in agreement with the private insuring bodies, guaranteed respect for the principle of non-discrimination; organising a system of pooling costs in order to cover the costs of persons and groups with serious existing diseases, and encouraging private insurers to develop preventative measures.
There should also be a proposal for a directive to include the following points: a prohibition on the use of personal medical data, such as genetic typing, a key point; ensuring that persons joining a scheme are not in principle required to undergo a medical examination; the introduction of an obligation to provide lifelong insurance by the insurer; undertaking to reimburse persons working and moving within the European Union in a more coordinated way and, finally, introducing a mediation procedure.
It would be necessary to consider encouraging and supporting the codes of conduct for insurers concluded on a national or transnational basis, and an annual forum to study these issues.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Committee Chairman, Mr Rocard, for his words of praise in connection with my opinion.
Supplementary health schemes have also developed, over and above the reasons quoted by Mr Rocard, because there is a need for improved care as the result of advances in medical treatments, which are too expensive for national health services to pay for.
However, they are also needed in order to compensate for the increasing shortcomings of national health services as the result of public-sector management, high costs and cutbacks in expenditure by governments, expenditure which has steadily decreased in all the Member States during the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s.
As in the past, these gaps are being filled and the increase in the demand for better health services is being increasingly covered by subsidiary and voluntary supplementary health schemes set up by public- or private-sector agencies on a profit-making or non-profit-making basis.
However, there are huge differences between one country and another and we have no detailed or comparable statistics to help us ascertain reliably what applies where, what works best, where the weaknesses lie etc., which is precisely why my opinion, which was drafted on the instructions of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, stresses the need, before any generally-applicable rules are introduced for supplementary health insurance, for the Commission to submit a Green Paper containing an analysis of all these separate issues, together with the relevant information.
We could then use the conclusions drawn from the paper to introduce some general rules for all the Member States, in order to improve the quality of supplementary health insurance and ensure that it adequately meets the needs of the weaker sections of the population.
However, these rules would need to take account of the subsidiarity principle, facilitate competition in the favourable sense of the word and not hamper the efficiency or speed of the private sector or its economic viability.
I should like to end by stressing that the distinguished rapporteur, Mr Rocard, took extensive account of the scientific observations and many of the suggestions in my opinion.
I should also like to thank my fellow members, Mr Pronk and Mr Karas, for their valuable contribution to the final report.
Mr President, I would like to offer warm thanks to Mr Rocard, and also to Mr Marinos, for their trail-blazing report, which is on the table today.
The issue of health insurance has occupied European minds for quite some time now, but the Kohll and Decker decrees, in which the European Court of Justice determined that healthcare received overseas must be remunerated by insurers, has in fact added an extra dimension to this discussion.
Mr Rocard' s report, which we have here before us, will help to stimulate debate about the further development of social security in Europe, within the context of growing competition and the rise of the single market in healthcare.
One of the main objectives of the current modernisation of social protection is guaranteed access to affordable health protection.
It is particularly important for the affordability of health care to be taken into consideration, because the discussion about social security is determined not so much by the quality as by the cost of health care.
With its Kohll and Decker decrees, the Court of Justice has sent a clear message to the EU Member States.
We are really coming round to the idea of cross-border care and so market forces are becoming increasingly applicable to health care.
Whether this will happen, to what extent and when, is still unclear.
Research and experiments have shown that it will not open the floodgates to medical tourism.
However, there can be no two ways about it; more and more people are going to seek health care overseas.
It is therefore imperative that the citizens are our main concern in this process.
This issue has one or two implications for us, but it will also have an impact on the national systems.
We are talking subsidiarity.
National systems of health care, and even the supervision of health insurance, are regulated at national level, but that does not mean that we are not all dealing with the same problems.
That is precisely why it is so important - and in fact this is far and away the most significant achievement of this report - for the Commission to produce a Green Paper on supplementary health insurance in the short term.
In point of fact, we must ask the Commission whether it is in a position to do this, and if so, how long will it take?
Because it is very important.
The statistics available to us in this sphere are not comparable, despite our best efforts to this end, and so it is crucial that we have this Green Paper.
Apart from that, there is a great deal people want done in the health care sector.
A significant number of these aspirations are at national level, but that does not mean that we should not compare notes.
Hitherto, this has been somewhat taboo up to a certain point.
The Kohll and Decker decree has made a breakthrough.
I also think the Rocard report has made a breakthrough on that score, but it is very important for the Commission to take up the initiative now, and come to the table with an actual Green Paper.
Once that is in place we will look at how we should take it forward.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure to hear Members from all groups who accept their responsibility regarding social policy and who are prepared to work towards a consensus.
I would like to thank you Michel, as rapporteur, for your initiative in bringing the issue of supplementary health insurance to attention now, at the appropriate time.
I have some general comments on this subject.
We had never had it as good as now.
This is reflected in the fact that our life expectancy is increasing by three years every ten years, and that is not because we are leading a healthier lifestyle.
We are living to an older age because the body of medical knowledge is doubling every five years.
However, medical treatment is costing more and more money!
However, equal access to health care must be available to everyone, without exception.
This is important if we want a social Europe that sets us apart from others.
For example, although we often take the United States as a model for the free market economy, it would be a fatal mistake to follow their lead in health policy.
For instance, we see that in the US system, health costs as measured against gross domestic product are nearly twice as high as the EU average, and that in the United States there are still some 40 million people who have inadequate health insurance.
That is scarcely what you would call a responsible social policy.
So, as far as the European Union is concerned, it is more a question of seeking to develop a combination of health insurance and supplementary health insurance that does not sacrifice quality and is not socially exclusive.
The debate on health insurance in the EU must not end up going down a blind alley.
Unless there are pan-European requirements for supplementary insurance, we will have to be extremely cautious about the existing systems.
The risk that the less healthy and the elderly may not necessarily be able to secure full private insurance cover because they represent too high a risk is quite unacceptable in terms of social development.
Flawed thinking of this kind has no place in the European Union.
Therefore, during the first phase, we need to prepare a Green Paper on the situation of supplementary health insurance in the EU as soon as possible.
Following on from that, we will have to define minimum standards for supplementary insurance in Europe if we wish to achieve and further develop a reasonably equitable and socially balanced health-care system in the EU worthy of the name of a social Union.
After all, that is what we want, is it not?
Mr President, I too should like to thank Mr Rocard for his own-initiative report, even if I did not agree with his original view which was, of course, to establish supplementary health insurance schemes in all EU countries, founded on the principle of solidarity and governed by a common set of regulations.
I can, however, support the Commission' s publishing a Green Paper explaining the ins and outs of such sickness insurance, focusing in particular upon sickness insurance in relation to cross-border activities and, in the process, looking into whether there is a need for further initiatives.
Sickness insurance is, of course, a national responsibility and systems differ from one another. It is true, however, that the growing number of elderly people and the growing demands upon the health sector mean that the systems are coming under financial pressure.
It is a problem calling for many different solutions, including better organised and more efficient health care, so that a better quality of service can be obtained for the same money. Moreover, new medical methods can also, in fact, lead to both better and cheaper forms of treatment.
I am generally in favour of a system in which the money follows the patient as far as possible, so that it is the patient and not the system that is central.
In this perspective, there is certainly justification for insurance-style sickness schemes and supplementary insurance schemes.
However, the individual country must decide for itself what arrangements it prefers.
It would be wrong if the EU were to devise rules concerning, for example, data relating to health, or requiring everyone to be insured and, in that way, destroy the multiplicity of supplementary health insurance schemes which exist today in many countries and operate on actuarial principles.
It is right that, in connection with serious illnesses such as cancer and aids, there must be a compulsory system, founded on the principle of solidarity, which ensures good treatment for everybody.
Supplementary health insurance must be just that: supplementary, for example, for those who are willing to pay for an extra service, or designed to cover the costs of more ordinary and frequently occurring illnesses for which actuarial calculations can reasonably be made.
Mr President, the debate which followed the presentation of this own-initiative report at last highlighted two concepts, one of which, unfortunately only too prevalent, involves favouring the commercialisation of all aspects of life and aiming to reduce supplementary health insurance to a mere project by placing it in the hands of economic operators and subjecting it to the rules of the internal market.
According to this concept, the purpose of the market in profit-making supplementary health insurance schemes is to increasingly and crucially take on the role of supplementing the basic state systems.
This view turns up its nose at the non-profit-making mutual insurance companies, which are vital players in supplementary health insurance in several Member States.
The other viewpoint illustrated by the rapporteur' s initial statement and shared by a number of members is to promote regulations and codes of conduct which are needed in order to establish among insurers ways of organising costs on a mutual basis providing everybody with guaranteed access to high-quality care and to counter the risk of discriminatory practices developing together with risk and client selection.
The report by Michel Rocard, which is being presented today as amended in committee, demonstrates the difficulty of overcoming these contradictions.
The amendments we are proposing on behalf of the Group of the Greens recommend that consideration should be given to the following points.
Firstly, we have not, unlike some, resigned ourselves to the reduction in the relative share of public expenditure on health.
Demographic trends, the effects of an ageing population and increased demand for medical treatment necessitate a public debate.
It should be the citizens of the European Union who decide the outcome of this social debate and the volume of funds that must be allocated in order to guarantee the fundamental right to social protection.
The increasing transfer of responsibilities from the basic systems to the supplementary health insurance systems is doubly disadvantageous in that it reduces the obligations of these systems, while at the same time weakening non-profit-making mutual insurance companies which reject risk selection.
We propose that the report should include recognition of a right to health care for all, rather than simply the recognition of a basic service which is accessible to all. We also propose removing all risk of discrimination or risk selection which would, we believe, result from the legislation calling for medical examinations to be carried out before a supplementary health insurance contract is concluded as provided for in Paragraph 11b.
Mr President, a while ago, I received a serious meniscus injury.
I turned to the health service and was told that I had to wait three weeks for an examination and then at least a further month for a crucial operation.
I said, 'I can hardly walk! I need help straight away.
Can I not be admitted as an emergency patient?' I received the answer, 'Everyone in the queue is an emergency case'.
It then appeared that there was in fact a way of getting in.
I was suddenly informed that, if I had private health insurance or if I could pay the whole cost myself, then I could be examined immediately and be treated by the same doctor I should otherwise be forced to wait two months to be treated by.
I am rather ashamed to admit it, but I chose that solution.
I was operated on immediately, and that is why I am able to be here today. Otherwise, I should have been at home with my leg in plaster.
It nonetheless leaves a bad taste in the mouth, because each time a private patient jumps the queue, as I did, other people have to wait longer with their problems.
It is, of course, the same doctor, the same nurses, the same hospitals and the same resources in the health care sector which are to be used, irrespective of whether it is ordinary or private patients who are being treated.
This means that the bigger the health insurance sector becomes, the fewer resources there are left for general health care.
I think it is completely wrong that it should be money which decides who goes to the front of the queue.
If we acquire an extended system of supplementary insurance for those who can pay, or who have employers who can pay, then we get what the report talks about, namely a distinction between basic care for 'ordinary people' and high-quality care for those who can pay.
My group believes that this class-determined type of organisation must be objected to.
We want to see common arrangements which are based on the principle of solidarity and are the same for everyone.
It is, of course, good that, as Mr Rocard proposes, the attempt should be made to supervise existing schemes, but what is most important of all is that private systems should not be allowed to expand at the expense of public systems.
Mr President, the observations made by Michel Rocard on the right to health and social protection are alarming but, unfortunately, pertinent.
During the 1990s, a sharp fall in contributions has penalised health funds.
Almost everywhere in Europe this has resulted in a ticket system which penalises patients by making them contribute to the cost of medical treatment and in the marked decline of preventative medicine.
We must therefore ensure better reimbursement of costs.
I wish to highlight the uniqueness of the French insurance environment, in which the mutualist sector ensures good unified management of care.
If more and more Europeans turn to supplementary health insurance in order to reimburse health care costs, the mutualist sector will remain the best guarantee for equal access to care.
In particular I have in mind the areas in which costs are reimbursed at the lowest levels: dental and eye treatment and so on.
In order to ensure the survival of this sector, in my view it is vital that we give mutual societies a legal base in the field of supplementary cover.
I also think it crucial that the Commission should not attack this sector on the grounds of distortion of competition.
Who will be able to guarantee that discrimination on the grounds of health, handicap or impediment is prohibited and not practised, if supplementary health insurance is regulated simply by the logic of competition? With human genetic mapping, it is necessary to prohibit genetic tests and the use of their results before the conclusion or during the term of a supplementary health protection contract.
The same applies to the health of all the citizens of our Member States and the cohesion of our territories.
Regional inequalities in terms of development are glaring enough.
Let us not add to this a two-speed Europe of health.
We must of course legislate, but we must do this by respecting the individual characteristics and insurance traditions of each Member State.
Mr President, Commissioner, greater generosity of cover for individuals and rising costs in the Member States' health sector are creating two requirements. First, the need for individuals to pay more from their own pockets towards statutory schemes or through private supplementary health insurance, and secondly greater coordination of such private health insurance in the European Union.
My sincere congratulations go to the rapporteur, Michel Rocard.
His diagnosis is first-rate, but there are a couple of question marks hanging over the treatment he prescribes.
I need to distinguish here between his practical requests and the key points of the approach he suggests to solve the problems here. These are based on important principles, namely solidarity, subsidiarity and minimum standards, and we fully accept those.
As Mr Pronk indicated, we oppose the idea of imposing a directive immediately.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs' new proposal is correct, suggesting as it does that there should first be a review of the situation in the form of a Green Paper and that only then should decisions be made about whether a directive or recommendation is needed.
As regards the heterogeneous nature of the systems already in existence, there are Member States in which individuals have to find a substantial proportion themselves, for example 40% of the cost of outpatient treatment.
In these cases supplementary schemes are more significant than in Germany, for example, where 90% of the population are covered by statutory health insurance which up to now has been obliged to guarantee necessary medical treatment for all.
We in Europe should be pointing the way forward without delay, with a socially acceptable level of self-provision combined with the maintenance of existing standards, if necessary by means of permanent supplementary health insurance.
But people will need time to build up a suitable level of provision.
That is the alternative to the manipulation and trickery of insurance systems that comes with statutory schemes.
Mr President, I would like to echo the sentiments of those who have congratulated Michel Rocard on this excellent initiative, which is in the best tradition of Parliament' s Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
The report is based on the intention expressed by the Council in 1992 to achieve convergence of objectives and policies in the sphere of social security, and it links these with the existing objectives announced in Lisbon with regard to social cohesion and economic progress.
I think the connection between these two elements is a very sound one.
I expressly included a third element in my contribution in the committee, which I believe makes another strong case for European action in the field of health insurance; in particular, the removal of obstacles to freedom of movement, and not just the free movement of services that Bartho Pronk talked about, but also the free movement of persons within the EU.
In particular, these sentiments are to be found in recital J and Paragraphs 11 e) and f) and 14 of this report.
Many sometimes distressing problems and examples from real life prompted me to table these amendments.
I am delighted that the rapporteur and the committee have adopted them.
It is not by chance that I am particularly used to facing such problems by virtue of my Dutch background.
We have a special combination of private, public, individual and collective types of health insurance system, which have undergone quite some upheaval in recent times.
Leaving aside for the moment the question as to whether these changes were for the better, one thing is for sure: far too little attention was given to the effects of these changes on cross-border workers, retired Dutch nationals living abroad, and for example, Germans and Belgians working in the Netherlands.
In terms of European coordination, the current combination of fiscally financed national insurance for nationals, compulsory insurance for employees up to a certain income level and, in addition, private insurance with collective or individual regimes, is a downright disaster.
The national insurance system is not subject to the coordination rules because it is not employees' insurance and only applies to nationals.
The private system has to do with the directives for the insurance sector in the sphere of competition.
There is at present an on-going discussion in the Netherlands about structural changes to the system.
An opinion is being prepared on this in the Social and Economic Council.
It looks as if employers and employees are at last to reach agreement on basic health insurance in which market forces and competition between insurers will be combined with agreements on a compulsory basic package and, in addition, a broad package with optional elements which must, at the very least, be subject to an acceptance obligation and an average premium.
This is with a view to avoiding risk selection and exclusion, and to secure optimum accessibility for everyone.
Fortunately, the parties in the SER have realised that creating such a hybrid mixture of private and public elements might run up against conflicting legislation from Brussels.
People have been doing some fact-finding on this ahead of time, and have reached the sensible conclusion that, whatever happens, the entire system must now fall within the scope of the social insurance system.
Coordination at European level would certainly make this a whole lot simpler for those who live and work over the border.
I believe this fits in with the convergence strategy that the rapporteur has in mind.
I also feel that the increase in labour mobility in Europe is necessary and lends weight to our argument in favour of producing the aforementioned Green Paper and measures on the cost of public health.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his own-initiative report, particularly because it is precisely that: an own-initiative report.
He affirms, especially in Paragraph 17, that publicly funded health care systems should remain within the exclusive competence of the Member States and I very much agree with this.
He highlights the need to address the issue of health problems of tourists visiting other Member States, and this is certainly a very live issue, as I know from the many letters on this subject I receive from constituents.
But above all he draws attention, for example in Paragraph 3, to the significant problems regarding the long-term sustainability of public health care systems throughout the EU because of the increasing cost of advances in treatment possibilities, as well as the growing demand from an increasingly elderly population.
This is a major concern.
We certainly need fresh thinking on this subject and that has to include new ways of private and public health care working together.
His report is a useful contribution to that debate, though I hope he agrees in turn that the contributions made in committee, including those made on this side of the House, may perhaps have made it even more useful.
It is certainly now much less prescriptive, which is good.
Health care is financed in different ways in different Member States and the roles of private health insurers are correspondingly different.
Even the definitions of "supplementary" and "complementary" have slightly different meanings in different languages.
So an absolute "one size fits all" solution for insurance is unlikely to be the answer.
On the basis that Amendments Nos 2 and 3 are passed, which accept the suggestion of a Green Paper but do not dictate precisely what has to be in it, I shall certainly be calling upon my UK colleagues to vote in favour, though I shall be proposing abstention on Amendment No 16
Mr President, I am sure that the rapporteur, Mr Rocard, means well, but to me he resembles a man tiptoeing along a tightrope.
On the one hand, when he says "solidarity", he means it as a Socialist, but he does not want to take responsibility for protecting the social state and the health and welfare systems which are currently being attacked both by objective events and specific policies.
On the other hand, he does not want to go too far the other way; he wants to apply a Realpolitik, but without quite signing up to the American model.
I think that we need to be extremely careful.
We really are on a tightrope and I think that decisions on supplementary insurance which will apply to all the Member States need to be taken cautiously and with a great deal of circumspection.
If supplementary insurance becomes the general rule, we shall simply end up increasing workers' contributions; but if we have selective supplementary insurance, we shall also have discrimination and that is something we wish to avoid.
In this sense, I think that, basically, we should await the Commission study on current systems as well as a Commission study on the American system and the schemes in operation in other countries because then we shall have a clearer picture of all this.
Mr President, those of us who have devoted ourselves all our lives to studying social issues will remember that the old manuals used to include a definition of social protection as a set of state protection measures to cover economically assessable risks affecting individuals or families which individuals - family units - could not cover themselves.
Health is, of course, one of the assets that we as individuals most value, though very often when we have lost or risk losing it.
It is, moreover, a fact that social systems - protection systems - have been suffering from the influences and consequences of economic, demographic and public health situations, etc.
And it is also a fact that economic recession, unemployment, social exclusion, the appearance of new diseases, the ageing of the population, as well as advances in research, improved therapies, the development of new techniques of diagnosis and treatment have all had a profound effect on the levels of mandatory social and health cover.
It is a proven and verifiable fact that Europeans are being protected against the risks of illness, maternity or old age (and there are more risks associated with old age these days because of the ageing of the population) not just by the essential and mandatory social and state schemes of social security or social protection.
Articles 34 and 35 of our fledgling European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights recognise and respect the entitlement to social security benefits and social services and, at the same time, proclaim the entitlement of everyone residing and moving legally within the Union to social security benefits and social advantages in accordance with Community law and national laws and practices.
Complementary private health insurance, whether voluntary or not, coexists with the mandatory public system and can be a way to achieve quality health care within a given time.
I therefore believe we should lend our support to what Mr Rocard has put in his report - and we congratulate him on it - asking the Commission to provide a service, a Green Paper which will enable us to see the current insurance situation in the Member States and also to define the future.
Mr President, the report and the accompanying explanations are based on a damning conclusion.
For twenty years, statutory health cover for the people of Europe has been in constant decline while the share of health costs they have had to pay has continually increased.
Increasing numbers of people are witnessing a drastic reduction in their standard of living through badly paid jobs, unemployment, job insecurity and exclusion. They no longer have the means to take care of themselves properly, or indeed to gain access to the most basic forms of healthcare.
Faced with this intolerable situation, the report envisages nothing but recourse to private or mutualist supplementary health insurance schemes, which it claims to be the solution to the problem. But exactly whom does this solution benefit?
Certainly not those who will have to pay even more for their care, even though society denies them the means to pay. This is, first and foremost, a solution that benefits the private insurers to whom the Member States have handed the healthcare market on a plate.
This report and its accompanying amendments would like to impose rules to prevent forms of selection, based on criteria of health or handicap, on sharks such as the insurance company, Axa, which has multiplied the contributions paid by parents of mentally handicapped children by a factor of ten.
Imposing such rules is the very minimum necessary and we will vote in favour, but we have no intention of accepting the fact that this proposal releases Member States from their duty to carry out a literally crucial task in terms of a public health service.
Whilst medicine has made tremendous progress, empty phrases about providing access to quality health care for all are nothing but hot air. Lack of investment by Member States and growing health privatisation can only result in selection by money, growing inequality with implications ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I would like to thank Mr Rocard for his initiative. Mr President, as representative of the Pensioners' Party - which is as good as blamed for the longer life expectancy of citizens and pensioners and therefore for this health service crisis - how could I fail to say a few words on this occasion.
I have to say, even, that I am rather taken over by the subject for, to my eyes, Mr President, you resemble a chief physician, with a white coat, stethoscope and hammer to test the patient's reflexes.
We are discussing public and private health care.
But if public health care is working so well, why is it that in Italy, for example - and "the voice of the people is the voice of God" - the people were saying that health insurance schemes take away your health and leave you dissatisfied? Why did the great Italian actor, Alberto Sordi, have such success with a film about the Italian health service, entitled "The Family Doctor"?
Why, in response to a question I put to him, did the great doctor, Christian Barnard, whom I had the good fortune to meet last week at a convention organised by Mr Nisticò, reply that when he performed the first heart transplant in South Africa it was in a private clinic? Why is it, as happened to me when I went to visit my dear mother - who is still alive, thank God - in a major public hospital in Rome, that we see people who are dying accommodated in the same wards as other patients who are happily eating their lunch or supper?
Well then, this means that we need to reflect at great length upon the reasons why public health care is in such a state.
In my opinion, it is because public health care is paid for before the patient is treated whereas private health care is paid for after and if the patient is treated.
And so I and my pensioner friends call upon Commissioner Diamantopoulou to put on a doctor's white coat, to treat the European Union's poorly medical service and to make us better.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Rocard, first I would like to thank Messrs Marinos, Pronk and Menrad, and last but not least, Mr Ettl, very sincerely for their support in getting my amendments accepted and in changing the objectives of this report.
Financing statutory health care and pension schemes is at the heart of the social and budgetary debate in Europe.
Both have similar causes, with demographic change in the one case and specialist and technical progress in medicine in the other.
Both are based on a three-pillar model with state, company and private provision.
We all know that these systems have been built up and interlinked in different ways and that they provide different cover from one Member State to another.
Both sectors also have national requirements that act as an obstacle to mobility and flexibility for employees in Europe and increase employers' costs.
So I am glad that the rapporteur has been willing to move from his categorical demand for a directive to an in-depth analysis in the form of a Green Paper.
And I am pleased that we have abandoned the idea of applying the French model to Europe in its entirety, which would not be possible here.
We need to define what we mean by the concept of supplementary insurance.
For me, supplementary insurance means a voluntary system which is either a private or company system, supplementing basic state provision ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, first of all, congratulations to Mr Rocard on his report.
It is every bit as important as the procedure concerning supplementary pension schemes that has got underway.
In order to avoid any misunderstandings, I would once again like to stress that the present report concerns supplementary health insurance and not health care as such, although obviously the two cannot be separated.
Supplementary health insurance presupposes a statutory system of entitlements and provisions.
This system, which is secured by the government, is required to provide sound, adequate, accessible, and hence affordable, health care.
The better the statutory system, the less need there will be for supplementary health insurance, and the less significant it will be.
However, technological progress and the demographic situation with regard to dejuvenation and the ageing of the population, mean that supplementary health insurance is not surplus to requirements and is even indispensable in some cases.
This is an upwards trend owing to the reorganisation of the social security systems in certain Member States.
At the same time, this presents an outstanding opportunity to make people aware that they must take responsibility for themselves in these matters.
Because in the same way that we ought not to transfer the whole burden to individual citizens, nor should we expect the state to shoulder the entire load.
Supplementing collective solidarity mechanisms with private or group insurance is completely in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity.
The EU has already produced a piece of legislation on supplementary pensions in the form of a Green Paper, which has resulted in a draft directive.
So information has been gathered, research has been carried out, the systems in the various Member states have been investigated, etc., which is certainly the right way to go about it.
It stands to reason that the Member States are ultimately the ones responsible for their system of social security.
But, if insurance, and therefore supplementary health insurance, are offered within a common market, then this presupposes common rules on competition, insolvency, discrimination, transparency and suchlike.
Mr President, the original draft of Mr Rocard's report contained proposals which could have destroyed the health insurance market in Europe.
It is fundamental to the insurance business that premiums are related to predictable risks.
This applies in all kinds of insurance including life, car and home protection insurance.
If the original proposals had been carried to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of medical history, then premiums would have been attractive to the chronically sick and unattractive to the fit and healthy.
As a result it would have been predominantly the chronically sick who would buy insurance.
This in turn would have created a vicious circle of higher and higher premiums and fewer and sicker policyholders.
It could have destroyed the industry and put new burdens on state systems.
It is a classic example of socialist interventionism.
By trying to eliminate discrimination on the grounds of health status, Mr Rocard would have killed the goose that laid the golden egg.
I am reminded of the story of the representative of the government who went to a businessman and said "how can the government help you?" and the answer was "you can help us best by leaving us alone."
When will we learn that lesson? Of course, we should promote a vigorous and vibrant market for health insurance in Europe.
We must also support state provision, at least for those with difficult health problems who would be uninsurable in the private sector.
The best way to achieve these objectives is for the state to leave the private sector to get on with its job.
The new proposal before us is for a Green Paper.
This is better than the original proposal but even this is a step too far.
Today's Green Paper becomes tomorrow's intrusive and damaging legislation.
The best way we can help this industry, and the patients it serves, is to leave it alone.
Mr President, I would like to thank and congratulate Mr Rocard for his report and to congratulate Mr Marinos for his committee's opinion.
The Commission welcomes this initiative and it comes at crucial time because we have just launched a political debate at the European level on the reform of social protection.
It is the first time that we have decided that there is a need for cooperation on reform of social protection systems at the European level.
This report underlines the economic and social challenges posed by the measures relating to supplementary health insurance and, of course, supplementary health insurance is of vital importance nowadays because the basic insurance system is ripe for reform and because healthcare needs are becoming greater and greater.
The report says there is a need for the Commission to act and, of course, we agree.
First, we must take into account the great diversity which exists at the European level.
There are huge differences from Member State to Member State as far as the definition is concerned, as far as the functioning of the systems are concerned, the combination between the public and the private sector.
As an example, as far as the differences in the role played by voluntary and supplementary health insurance is concerned, the coverage of the population by voluntary or supplementary health insurance mechanisms ranges from under 0.5% in Sweden to more than 85% in France.
However, these figures are somewhat misleading since both the concept and the coverage of the system differ significantly from country to country.
The Commission will act immediately in the framework of its competences and I will try to reply to the conclusions of your report.
First, on the question of the Green Paper, the complexity of the issues is such that a Green Paper may seem premature.
However, it is essential to draw up an in-depth report on the situation and we can do this as soon as possible.
Of course, we will take into account the wide variety of national systems and the complex nature of healthcare systems across Europe.
The Commission will immediately launch a study of supplementary health insurance.
Because of the complexity of the issue, we believe we can publicise the results by the end of 2001.
This study can form the basis for a communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament proposing initiatives or measures.
In keeping with Parliament's requests, we will try to present a framework, an objective and reasoned analysis, which will take into account all this variety and diversity and we will focus on the different aspects of the issues.
You have referred to the wide range of aspects.
We can go from general questions such as access to healthcare for all, to the more specific questions on the rights of individuals who want to settle or work in other Member States.
As far as the other two proposals are concerned - the directive, the legal action, and this European forum - this is something we can think about.
It could form the second step after this study in one year's time when we not only have the comparison between Member States but we could also work with comparable indicators which are important for any proposals for European cooperation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Combating social exclusion
The next item is the report (A5-0307/2000) by Mrs Figueiredo, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a programme of Community action to encourage cooperation between Member States to combat social exclusion (COM(2000) 368 - C5-0317/2000 - 2000/0157(COD)).
, rapporteur.
(PT) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as we all know, inequalities in the European Union have been exacerbated over the last decade and the number of people living on low incomes is now some 65 million, that is, around 18% of the population. This is a scandal, especially if we take account of the rate of economic growth in recent years.
This represents a real body blow to fundamental human rights, since it denies millions of people access to basic social rights, such as housing, health care, education, training and study, good-quality employment and fair wages.
Whilst there are considerable differences between the various Member States, the most serious situation is definitely that of Portugal, with around 24% of the population living below the poverty line due primarily to low salaries, insecure and badly paid jobs and pensions and benefits so low that they do not enable workers and their families or the elderly to live with a minimum of dignity.
This unacceptable situation of poverty and social exclusion, which the Lisbon European Council of 23 and 24 March acknowledged is in need of urgent measures, requires a profound change in Community and national macroeconomic policies and putting an end to the monetarist policies of the Stability Pact in order not only to combat the current situation of poverty, but also to prevent the situation deteriorating in the future, including in the field of new technologies. Particular attention needs to be paid to the situation of women, children and young people, thereby guaranteeing everyone access to incomes and conditions that allow them to live and work in dignity.
Despite all the commitments that the Council gave recently at the Lisbon Summit, however, and despite the emphasis it placed on the existing correlation between economic and social progress, the proposals that have been presented are little more than face-saving measures with regard to the countless promises to fight for the eradication of poverty. In fact, the proposal for a Community programme presented by the Commission to foster cooperation between the Member States in the field of combating social exclusion is little more than a study programme.
It is therefore crucial for various aspects of the programme to be improved, specifically with regard to the innovations being proposed for the implementation of an open method of coordination. A European reflection group needs to be created, composed of Community partners, representatives of NGOs with experience in this field and representatives of the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
A network could also be established, linking the various monitoring centres or similar recognised bodies that already exist in the Member States. Another option is to pay special attention to the problems of poverty and social exclusion at local, regional and national level, involving in the programme the social groups that are most badly affected or which are in the most danger of becoming so.
Equally important are the proposals to increase financing from EUR 70 million to EUR 100 million, proposals which focus on the need for the Commission to guarantee the coherence of its policies, specifically in the economic, monetary and taxation areas, as well as in competition, consumer protection, fisheries and agriculture, with the aim of eliminating the poverty and social exclusion encountered at national level. The Commission will, as a result, be obliged to undertake an assessment of its policies in terms of their potential effects on poverty and social exclusion.
I also hope that the amendments seeking to ensure that qualifications and integration into professional life are given particular attention will be adopted, which is why it is important to take account of the ever-increasing phenomenon of social exclusion and poverty despite paid employment.
It is crucial to guarantee good-quality employment with reasonable rights and wages and to establish conditions for access to public services that are also of high quality.
It is crucial for the Council to keep the promises it has given, not only with regard to the programme, but also with regard to setting appropriate objectives and goals, to be agreed on by the end of this year, so that it meets the expectations it created with the Lisbon Summit conclusions on its commitment to combat poverty, unemployment and social exclusion.
Lastly, I wish to express my gratitude for the superb cooperation of my fellow members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, of the rapporteurs from other committees, of the Economic and Social Committee, of the Committee of the Regions, of the NGOs involved in social work and of the specialists within the Commission, the French Presidency and Parliament who have worked with me.
In this work, and bearing in mind that this is a subject for codecision, we have been able to reach a consensus that seeks to simplify the final report and to enable it to be rapidly adopted by the Council. This means that the amendments we have tabled to be voted on tomorrow are the result of the consensus achieved in committee, including the new amendments replacing and rejecting various original amendments which were somewhat repetitive.
I thank you for your understanding during this procedure, which means that we are able to contribute to the European Union once again having a programme in this field, despite its limitations and shortcomings.
This will be one more instrument enabling us to remain vigilant in defending greater social justice.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Mrs Figueiredo for her report.
Secondly, I would like to say how delighted I am that a compromise has indeed been reached on this important report, which means that the first reading can be brought to a successful conclusion.
I am very pleased to be able to tell you that all the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets have been adopted.
In fact there are three points I would like to make.
Firstly, the Committee on Budgets took the view that, in comparison with other programmes, Parliament did not have enough input to the programme and the Council had too much, in other words, it was slanted too much in the favour of the Council for our liking.
The second point, and this in fact is the most important point, is that of comitology.
This is heavily biased towards the Member States on some points.
Setting up a committee alone will lead to a six month delay in the establishment of the programme.
It will take six months to set up the committee and then call a meeting, and the Member States will not even need to use their usual blocking tactics, because all that will take at least a year.
Comitology really is a huge liability, as it is to this programme.
I would like to ask the Commission, following the example of what Mr Patten did, to reconsider whether it would not be possible to do something similar with regard to the Member States.
Finally, the question of technical support.
The Committee on Budgets insists that technical support be included in the programme.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs allocated EUR 100 million in the end.
A suitable amount of this must be set aside for technical support so as to be sure that the programme is properly supported.
Any complaints about this from the Commission are therefore unfounded as far as Parliament is concerned, if this technical support is to be included in the programme itself.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her report.
She has already described the scandalous situation in which 18% of Europe's population lives below the relative poverty line.
This is not just a subject for discussion in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, it is also of concern to us in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, because these 65 million people are not only excluded from access to financial and other resources, because they are not only excluded from social and cultural rights, but because they are also prevented from using their talents to help shape our society and because they are prevented from developing their own talents, gaining additional qualifications and skills and working in jobs they are suited for.
For that reason we in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs were almost unanimous in our opinion about adopting a guiding principle according to which everyone should be in a position to make an essential contribution to supporting themselves through their own work.
They should be enabled to gain and update qualifications and skills.
We know very well that the problem we are facing here will not be solved by a one-off initiative or by a single catching-up process. No, what we are dealing with here is a permanent situation in which each new technological wave brings with it new winners and losers.
That is why we need to offer our societies mechanisms that allow those affected to find their places in society.
We consider that there are three issues here.
Social integration must be seen as a cross-cutting issue, and the results of our efforts should therefore also be included in the spring report.
Secondly, the open method of coordination must be suitable for mobilising local and regional stakeholders and enabling them to make a contribution. Thirdly, the Member States must, at long last, as requested and initiated in Lisbon, agree on concrete targets and benchmarks, so that Parliament can carry out its role as a guardian and as an animateur in this process.
Mr President, Commissioner, it was with great satisfaction that my political group received the proposal to establish a Community programme to combat social exclusion. We see this proposal as a milestone in the understanding and analysis of, and fight against, this phenomenon, which is spreading and growing, which has struck every society in Europe, which is manifesting itself in new forms in response to economic and technological changes and in the face of which many governments are at a loss and are therefore dragging their feet in coming to terms with and dealing with the social problems resulting from these widespread changes.
We support the various elements of the programme, such as a multidimensional approach to this phenomenon, measures on health, education, housing, cohesion and complementarity with other related policies and the involvement of both non-governmental organisations and the very people who are subject to social exclusion.
We support increasing the budget to EUR 100 000 000 and we attach great importance to the need for the programme to be carried out at grass roots level.
This is a real opportunity for the citizens of Europe to feel that a social Europe is being created and is a reality, rather than just a wish or a slogan.
We therefore attach huge importance to collaboration with agencies at local, regional and cross-border level, which is why we tabled various amendments which, fortunately, were taken on board by all the groups.
The Equal Opportunities Committee stressed the need to take account in the programme of the fact that women are particularly vulnerable to social exclusion, particularly special categories of women such as immigrants, women with special needs, unemployed women, women with no modern vocational training and single mothers.
It is not just that these categories of women are cut off from the social fabric; they also find it difficult to acquire the prerequisites for reintegration.
We must monitor the application of the programme and its evaluation very closely, Commissioner, because we believe that it will help to achieve the objective we are all striving towards - the objective of a social Europe, a citizens' Europe.
The debate is now adjourned and will resume at 9 p.m.
Updating the stability programmes in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands
The next item is the Commission recommendations for a Council opinion on updating the stability programmes in Germany, Finland and the Netherlands.
Mr President, the Commission has today adopted three recommendations regarding three Council opinions on the updated stability programmes in Germany, the Netherlands and Finland; these are the first of the 2000-2001 round that have been updated and submitted.
As you will remember, the Stability and Growth Pact stipulates close, on-going supervision of the Member States' budgetary position during the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union.
The central elements in this supervision process are the stability programmes, which the Member States in the euro area have to present every year.
The countries outside the euro area present their convergence programmes, which to a great extent resemble the stability programmes, although the objectives to be achieved are different.
The stability programmes include the public finance strategies for the medium term.
How can they achieve a budgetary position in the medium term that is close to balance or in surplus? The aim of this initiative, as you will remember, is to try to create sufficient margin so that in a crisis situation the government deficit will not exceed the reference budget deficit set at 3% of GDP, which could obviously be reached in a crisis phase.
This means we have to make the most of the growth phases of the cycle to bring the position back to balance or a surplus.
In their updating of the programmes each year, the Member States include an extra year in the programme, analyse the budget policy implemented during the past year, explain and describe the budget policy measures they have adopted, and also revise their budget forecasts and objectives.
This is the second time we have updated these programmes: we did it first in 1999, and now we are doing it again in 2000, thereby including one more year in the programme.
The document presented by a Member State is assessed by the Commission and, on the basis of this assessment, the Council may adopt the recommendation that the Commission presents.
In fact, in order to carry out this process, the Economic and Financial Committee first pays special attention to analysing the Commission recommendation and the programmes themselves.
In this context, to keep Parliament informed, the Commission considers it indispensable to report to it on the current stage of the proceedings.
Within the regular annual budget assessment procedure, the Commission can also choose to make recommendations of a different kind from those mentioned previously, which may, if appropriate, highlight the non-compliance of certain Member States with the deficit position.
As yet, it has not been necessary to use this instrument for coordinating economic policies; so far budgetary compliance has been working as laid down in the Stability and Growth Pact.
More and more Member States are reaching balanced or even clearly positive budgetary positions.
This has given us a different idea, making us wonder whether this Stability and Growth Pact has run its course, having achieved the quantitative objective of a particular final figure, or whether it is worth introducing other aspects relating to the quality of public finances in future programmes.
The Commission has opted for this second possibility; hence, in our annual assessment, we shall now also review other aspects previously not considered in the past: first, the orientation of budget policy in each of the Member States according to the point in the cycle at which it finds itself, that is, whether these kinds of budgetary measures are procyclic or anticyclic in nature and to what extent they help the market situation or create tensions within it.
Secondly, we shall also try to assess to what extent budget cuts and tax cuts are consistent, according to a number of principles which may enable us to adopt a common position on this point.
Thirdly - and this is a very important issue - we shall assess to what extent there is a restructuring of public expenditure to favour growth, production, and thus avoid inflationary tensions in the future.
Finally, we shall assess to what extent the national budgets presented each year are compatible with more ambitious medium-term strategies for public finances.
Thus, for instance, problems such as the ageing of the population are becoming increasingly more important.
In this respect may I just remind you that the last Ecofin Council asked the Commission to include in the assessment of the stability programmes from next year precisely this long-term aspect of public finances in connection with the ageing of the population.
Of the three programmes on which I am about to comment, one of them - the Netherlands programme - already includes an annex with a specific analysis of this particular problem.
I am now going to give a very brief mention of the three programmes that have recently been updated.
First of all, the three Member States whose stability programmes have been examined by the Commission today have made highly significant progress towards the restructuring of their public exchequers since 1997, the year in which they made their decisions to join the single currency; in fact, Finland already had a budget surplus in 1998 and the Netherlands in 1999.
In their new programmes, which cover up to 2004, Finland proposes to maintain a budget surplus of more than 4% of GDP.
The Netherlands will achieve small surpluses, which might be larger depending on economic growth and certain decisions on economic policy that are waiting to be adopted.
The case of Germany is different: it will gradually approach an overall balance.
However, in all three cases, there is sufficient margin to absorb the effect of fluctuations in the economic cycle; in other words, all three countries will be able to face a crisis situation, if one comes about, without exceeding the 3% budget deficit limit.
The three countries plan to introduce major tax cuts in 2001 and in subsequent years, which will relieve the tax pressure on labour and stimulate employment and investment; they are therefore positive and necessary provided that the public finances are kept stable.
Germany and the Netherlands both foresee a deterioration in their budget positions for the next year as a result of these tax cuts.
This issue is particularly important in the case of Germany since it means the gradual reduction of the public deficit will be interrupted.
One of our concerns with the German programme is clearly to insist that this dip in the trend must be a one-year exception arising from these tax cuts and must not affect future years.
In the case of the Netherlands, the Commission has other concerns, such as the suitability of the policy mix and the risks associated with the fiscal incentive effects of the tax cuts in a situation of strong economic growth, which might lead to the Netherlands economy overheating.
Our basic message is, therefore, that the margin for making tax cuts must be counterbalanced by strict public spending controls.
This year, Germany and the Netherlands have gained substantial revenue through the sale of third generation mobile telephony licences.
In the case of Germany, for instance, this represents 2.5% of GDP, and in the Netherlands 0.7% of GDP.
Both countries have very consistently made proper use of this revenue by using it to reduce the national debt.
Because of this factor and, more importantly, better budgetary positions and stronger economic growth, there will be a clear tendency for the proportions of national debt to fall over the coming years.
This year, for instance, Germany hopes to bring this proportion down to the reference level of 60% of GDP, and the Netherlands hopes to bring it even lower than that this year.
In the case of Finland, the national debt is already much lower than this target and is falling all the time.
These trends in the national debt mean lower interest payments, which will, in turn, help provide the necessary framework for tax cuts, and in some cases for specific increases in public spending.
One of the positive characteristics of the Netherlands programme, as I have said before, is the special attention it gives to the impact of the ageing of the population on the exchequer over the coming years.
This is a problem which will also have to be faced to a greater or lesser extent in other Member States, as was emphasised at the latest meetings of Eurogroup and the Ecofin Council.
Bearing in mind that costs will increase in the future, certain decisions will soon have to be made in order to contain them and ensure they can be managed in the long term.
Based on its own programme, the Netherlands Government is to make important decisions on the use of its budget margins, and it would be appropriate if it used these resources to bring the national debt down more quickly, which would give it greater margins to face these problems in the future.
The Finnish Government' s ambitious budgetary surplus targets are already motivated to a great extent by this ageing factor that I have mentioned.
We also hope that the next updating of the German stability programme will pay more attention to this aspect, taking into account the impact of the pension reform that is now under way.
Lastly, the Commission is delighted by the speed with which Germany, the Netherlands and Finland have presented their updated programmes.
In the last two countries, the programmes were adopted at the same time as the budget proposals for the coming year, which in the Commission' s opinion is a more suitable practice than used to happen, when we received these updates after each country' s budget had been presented.
This ensures that the annual budget decisions are made within a multiannual strategic framework and gives the Community institutions an up-to-date, overall view of each country' s economic situation based on the most recent data.
The Commission therefore recommends that the remaining Member States that are still preparing their updates should follow this example, not this year, when unfortunately it can no longer happen, but in future years.
These are the basic comments that I wished to make on the three programmes we present today.
I am at your disposal for any additional comment, to listen to your opinions and to answer any questions.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are grateful to you for your report on trends in net government borrowing in the European Union, Mr Solbes Mira.
I believe that, overall, the message here is a positive one.
When the Maastricht Treaty was drawn up, it was assumed that maximum permissible net government borrowing would be 3%.
Today, taking the average for the euro area, it has dropped back to around 1%, and we are moving towards balanced budgets, that is to say very much in the right direction.
Commissioner, does it not worry you that it appears that in Germany next year, instead of falling, net government borrowing will increase by a further 0.5%, despite the fact that income from UMTS licences this year has been like manna from heaven for Germany's finances? We have noted that this development is taking place in the largest country in the euro area, whereas the Netherlands and Finland have already achieved what we are seeking, that is budget surpluses which enable excessive debt to be repaid.
So let me ask you once again: does this not worry you? I would like to stress once again that we in the Group of the European People's Party regard the independence of the European Central Bank, combined with consistent application of stability and growth factors, as being a fundamental requirement for price stability in Europe.
Mr President, it is true, as I said before, that this is one of the points we highlighted in the case of Germany, in which there are two points of interest.
First of all, the proceeds of the UMTS licences, as I said before, have been allocated to reducing the debt, so that the national debt is now practically down to the 60% level.
For accounting reasons, the revenue from the third generation mobile licences also has to be included for reducing the deficit.
For this reason, the budget result for the year 2000 in the case of Germany will give a surplus of one and a half per cent of GDP.
If we deduct the revenue from mobile licences from this one and a half per cent, we are left with a 1% budget deficit, which is the figure we can use for the stability programme.
Therefore, to answer your question, we will have a situation of a 1.4% deficit in 1999, a 1% deficit in 2000, and - as you rightly say - in 2001 the deficit will rise again to 1.5% instead of falling.
Why does the Commission accept this increase in the deficit? Basically, because of the positive impact that the tax measures may have in Germany.
Germany has a higher than average tax burden.
The set of tax measures adopted by Germany affects the supply side of the economy more than the demand side but will also have some effect on demand, and we believe it will allow the growth potential of the German economy to increase in the medium term.
We therefore consider these measures to be positive, even though they mean a step backwards compared with the previous situation.
Nevertheless - and we left this very explicitly set out in the programme - we are especially concerned about this backward step, and we are aware that such backward steps have to be made up later.
Hence we must insist on the German Government taking special care when drawing up the working programmes for 2002, on increasing revenue and on cutting costs in order to achieve a reduction in the budget deficit again.
According to the current programme, the budget deficit should drop to 1% in 2002 and 0.5% in 2003, and Germany should balance its budget in 2004. A little late and not quite as we would have liked, but in any case with enough margin not to have difficulties in the event of an economic crisis.
Mr President, I too am heartened to see that public finances in the countries concerned are sound, but I have noticed that more and more people are becoming nervous about the situation regarding price stability in Europe.
They state that, in one of the largest countries - which is also one of the most important countries for the European economy, namely Germany - there is a risk of jumping into something resembling overheating.
I should like to hear your assessment of inflationary development in Germany and ask whether you think that inflation in the EU generally is cause for concern.
When I mentioned overheating, I was referring more to the economies of the Netherlands and Finland than to the German economy.
The overheating problem does not arise in Germany in the same way as it does in these other countries.
There is no doubt at all that inflation is a worry.
We must not forget that we have had a double setback in the last year, as a result of oil prices trebling in little more than a year.
If we add to that the fall in the exchange rate of the euro against the dollar, we have had an obvious setback in terms of inflation.
As you know, at the moment we have an inflation figure of 2.8%, clearly higher than our target as defined by the Central Bank.
Underlying inflation, however, is still only 1.4%, which means we can consider oil to be the basic and fundamental cause of this situation.
What are our inflation prospects? I shall be able to comment on this in more detail after the 22nd, when we present our economic perspective for the coming year, but according to our initial estimates, in 2000 we shall end up with an average level of inflation a little above the inflation target laid down by the Central Bank, but clearly higher than what we had forecast in our April perspective - we had talked of 1.8% then.
In 2001 it will be higher than the forecast we had also made in the spring, which was also about 1.8 or 1.7%.
The average will, however, be much closer to 2%, which, as I have said, is the target of the Central Bank' s monetary policy.
All this will, of course, happen if we do not have any new surprises with oil prices or the dollar exchange rate.
Commissioner, you rightly - in my opinion - placed great emphasis in your speech on the problem represented by the ageing population, both for the three countries in question and all the other European countries as well, and you touched upon the need to tackle the issue of the ageing population and therefore the question of the pension deficit, which is an unknown quantity weighing heavily upon the public finances of the European countries, hindering recovery, and it will do so increasingly in the future.
In last July's publication, the European Central Bank indicated a way, in the social security plans reform - that is, moving from the current "Pay-as-you-go" system to a funded system for mandatory contributions as well - of freeing up resources and, in perspective, ensuring the sustainability of European social security plans.
I would like to know, Commissioner, whether the Commission can tell us anything about this.
Mr President, thank you, Mr Della Vedova.
The Commission brought up the issue at the time and the Lisbon European Council accepted the need to analyse in depth the problem of the ageing of the population in Europe.
In fact, with the Commission' s cooperation, the Economic Policy Committee has been working on this topic for the last few months.
At the last Ecofin council meeting, a report by the Economic Policy Committee was presented which, in general terms, highlighted the fact that there is a problem of ageing in general in Europe, but not exactly the same in all countries.
There are very important differences in countries such as Ireland, for instance, which has a very young population and which still has room for an increase in the activity rate compared with countries with higher activity rates and older populations.
The report emphasises the fact that the reforms carried out so far in the social security systems are helping to improve the situation.
It also emphasises that national debt reductions, insofar as they can reduce future deficits, may help to resolve the situation.
In the medium term, I can tell you that the situation over the next twenty years will vary from country to country, but it will mean an extra 2% to 7% increase in government deficit, depending on the characteristics of each country.
Nonetheless, these two elements will not be enough to deal with the problem.
As for the solution that can be adopted, it will, of course, be a national decision to be made in each of the Member States; the Commission will not make any proposals in this regard.
At the moment the impression I have is that the formulas being used in the various Member States are moving in three directions.
First they are moving towards a search for some system for financing the pay-as-you-go schemes, which may mean some element of pre-funding; I mentioned the Dutch system before, which already has obvious pre-funding elements.
They are also moving towards making a public pay-as-you-go scheme compatible with private pre-funding schemes, and of course they are also compatible with support for the setting up of specific investment funds, which may obtain long-term tax advantages and may help to deal with the ageing problem.
But, in the end, it will be each Member State' s own decision that prevails, because, as I have said before, this matter is the responsibility of each one of them.
Thank you, Commissioner.
BSE and general ban on animal meal in feedingstuffs
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on BSE and the general ban on animal meal in feedingstuffs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, you asked to hear, on the occasion of this plenary sitting, from the Presidency about the current situation, in France and in Europe, with regard to the prevention of, and the fight against, mad cow disease.
As you know, yesterday the French Government adopted national measures to strengthen health safety, including the suspension of the use of animal meal in feed for pigs and poultry.
I was with the Prime Minister, Mr Jospin, when he announced this action plan.
The Council of the European Union is also playing an active role, in concert with the European Parliament and the European Commission, in updating and constantly reinforcing Europe' s raft of measures to prevent and combat this disease.
I understand that you wanted me to address you today regarding these two aspects, in other words, the state of play in the fight against BSE in Europe and related developments in France.
I will therefore start by confirming the raft of measures adopted by the French Government yesterday, and I will then talk about the initiatives taken by the Presidency, and the Community developments that are underway.
It is important to take stock of the situation with regard to the fight against BSE in the broader context of food safety developments in Europe.
Yesterday, then, in Paris, the French Government announced an intensification of national health safety measures.
This action plan places public health and transparency at the top of the agenda, this being a requirement of the French Government.
Faced with a situation of uncertainty in the event of a potential major risk to public health, all decisions necessary to protect health must be taken and constantly reassessed in the light of developments in scientific knowledge and opinion.
This is thus our third guiding principle: the precautionary principle.
An additional stage in protecting public health seems to be necessary.
Two facts have increased concerns about meal of animal origin in animal feed.
Firstly, the emergence of cases of BSE in cattle born after the ban on animal meal was imposed.
The hypothesis of the accidental or fraudulent cross contamination of these animals by meal of animal origin has been put forward.
Secondly, a report released earlier this month by the UK Government enabled us to take stock of the difficulties of controlling and using this type of meal.
It is necessary to add that, over and above the health issues, animal meal is seen by the consumer as a symbol of the abuses of a certain method of agricultural production which has been in operation for 40 years. This method has guaranteed the supply of foodstuffs at low cost but its limitations have since been exposed and it has been called into question over the last few years.
That is why the French Government decided to suspend the use of meat-and-bone meal in feed for pigs, poultry, fish and domestic animals.
Only fish meal can continue to be given to fish.
Meanwhile, the French Food Safety Agency is carrying out new scientific research into the possible health risks linked to meat-and-bone meal in the light of the progress of knowledge and the efficacy of safety measures.
In parallel, the French Government is taking steps to withdraw specified risk materials from the food chain.
In accordance with recent scientific recommendations, it has decided to enforce the removal of the spinal cord.
Following a suggestion from the independent scientific assessment agency, AFSSA (the French Food Safety Agency), a decision was taken to ban beef on the bone.
The spinal cords of cattle will also be excluded from the production of gelatine and tallow and the entire organisation of animal slaughter will be re-examined in such a way as to make the cutting up of carcasses even safer.
The methods of control will be strengthened along the entire food chain.
France has embarked upon an important programme of some 48 000 tests to be carried out on cattle populations deemed to be at high risk, 8 000 of which also come under the Community programme.
The decision has been taken to extend this programme to cover the whole of the territory of France.
Tests will also be carried out on a random basis on cattle entering the food chain.
We propose that the Commission and the European Union should thus undertake to extend these tests at a European level, in the light of scientific recommendations.
A specific concern is the human form of the disease and the care that is provided.
A programme to encourage disinfection and sterilisation within hospitals and to reinforce measures for the use of single-use material will be put in place very quickly.
A reassessment of the precautionary and safety measures regarding the production and use of blood products is underway.
Special attention will be paid to hygiene and safety conditions for workers in the facilities concerned.
The progress of research is a crucial factor in improving our knowledge of BSE as well as in its prevention and treatment.
That is why the efforts that have been made since 1997 in terms of research will be extended and broadened.
The current unpopularity of beef consumption is reflected in a significant imbalance in the market.
Tools to support the beef industry in tackling this crisis must be implemented.
France has asked that the situation of the beef market be included on the agenda of the Agriculture Council, which will take place in Brussels on 20 and 21 November.
In the interim, it has called for the implementation of the private storage measure provided for by the COM for beef.
The intervention measure cannot exclude the possibility of going much further and of determining whether the production of oil seeds in Europe can be stepped up.
This national action plan, which was announced by Prime Minister Jospin yesterday in Paris, resulted from the fact that food safety is a legitimate concern of consumers. It is also a constant inspiration to the government, which will continue to act with determined vigilance to ensure that it is guaranteed.
We are convinced that this concern is fully shared by all the European institutions, whether it be the European Parliament, Madam President, the Commission or the Council. As a result it must be put squarely at the top of the European agenda.
This very day in Brussels, the experts on the Standing Veterinary Committee at the European Commission have been meeting with a view to preparing ways of extending the European programme for carrying out screening tests on cattle.
This meeting of veterinary experts at the Commission is especially useful in the run-up to the next Agriculture Council, which will take place on 20 and 21 November under the chairmanship of my fellow Minister, Jean Glavany.
This meeting will compare experiences and approaches with regard to the test programme, the ban on animal meal and other measures that might be reinforced at a European level.
The results of this first debate will be presented to the Council on 20 November.
The key issue is to restore the confidence of European consumers in beef.
The Presidency has also planned to hold, during the same meeting, an open debate on food safety on the basis of work in progress, current developments regarding the crisis and recent proposals from the Commission on hygiene and food law, particularly on setting up a European Food Agency.
It should be recalled that a number of proposed regulations are under discussion, which will reinforce the effectiveness and the relevance of the raft of Community measures and shall thereby, I hope, restore consumer confidence.
I am reminded that a framework programme on the fight against TSEs is currently being examined by the Council with a view to an agreement being adopted at the Agriculture Council in December.
The primary objective of this text is to establish the legal base making it possible, by means of a single text, to implement practically all the epidemiological and monitoring measures, health policy and the ban on specified risk materials, as well as measures relating to the introduction on the market, the exchange, importation and exportation of live animals and their products.
All these measures relate to BSE in both cattle and sheep and to scrapie in small ruminants.
The scope of these measures covers human and animal feed: the other aspects of the problem of the TSEs will be dealt with under other legal headings (medicines, cosmetics and others).
By the same token, the Commission has put forward measures on food hygiene, which are under examination both in the Council and in Parliament.
The Commission' s very recent proposal on food law and the setting up of a European Food Agency will be debated extensively during the Internal Market, Consumers and Tourism Council to be held on 30 November, which I will be chairing, with a view to devising guidelines for the operation of this agency.
I believe that the open debate on food safety, which will be held next week during the Agriculture Council, will clearly show, among other things, that scientific research is a cornerstone of the European raft of measures on food safety.
The European Parliament recently took up a position on the Commission White Paper, which foreshadows the establishment of this agency.
I am sure that your parliamentary calendar will take full account of the need to move ahead more quickly so that, as suggested by the Commission, we can have a European Food Agency by 2002.
As soon as this proposal to set up the European Food Agency was presented by the Commission on 8 November, the Presidency enlisted the work of the Council.
Two meetings of the Council group were held on 9 and 14 November to prepare the general debate, which will take place on 30 November in the Council.
The role of the European Food Agency will be mainly to express high-quality, independent scientific opinions on all issues having a direct or indirect impact on the health of consumers and arising from the consumption of food to cover all the stages of primary production right up to the final consumer.
The European Food Agency will also provide clear and accessible information on issues arising out of its mandate.
As a result, effectiveness, independence and transparency will be the key principles guiding the assessment of food risks in Europe.
Madam President, France' s ban on animal meal in feedingstuffs came far too late.
In this situation, the only way to break the cycle of BSE infection is to place a complete ban on the use of animal meal as feed.
As long as it cannot be guaranteed that meal from deceased animals is not being mixed with animal meal that is free from infection, then all animal meal must be banned for use as feed.
One must not be wise after the event, but I find it extremely difficult in this debate not to think back to the beginning of the Nineties when, as the Swedish person responsible for the agricultural negotiations, I was forced to negotiate an opt-out because we in Sweden had a ban on the use of meal from deceased animals.
We only just managed to obtain such an opt-out, but we managed it, even if we were laughed at to some extent and told that there was, of course, no danger.
Now, no one is laughing any more.
That was, in actual fact, how it was, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
You mentioned, of course, that a faulty production method was to blame and that it is for this reason that animal meal has been banned in France. That was why we, back home in Sweden, banned it a long time ago.
It appeared that faulty is precisely what these production methods are, and they must be opposed from the beginning.
I want to emphasise a further couple of points. In the resolution that I hope will be voted through tomorrow, there are some very important points.
The first is that it must be possible to trace every raw material in every type of food back through the chain.
In a situation such as that which has now arisen in France, and also earlier on in many other countries, it is important to be able to tell consumers where the products they buy come from and how their origins can be traced.
This is an extremely important requirement, especially where the specific issue of BSE is concerned.
Secondly, it is important to emphasise - and this is not some new idea - that anyone who consciously allows an animal that is sick, or that is suspected of being sick, to enter the food or feed chain is committing a criminal offence.
Every food producer must be aware of this fact.
Clearly, many people suffer, of course, in this situation, especially many farmers.
In certain circumstances, it is necessary to slaughter the entire stock of animals, which must come as a real blow.
It is also important to remember that the national systems for eradicating this terrible infection must include measures which properly compensate farmers for the financial losses they suffer in this connection.
On this subject, I want to point out that those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party have tabled an amendment I hope will be voted through.
In conclusion, I just want to thank Commissioner Byrne, who I think is doing a good job on this issue.
Madam President, I believe that the BSE crisis that broke out in 1996 has revealed the extent to which ultraliberalism can lead to the health of consumers and the interests of livestock producers being sacrificed.
The work of this Parliament' s committee of enquiry contributed to the application of measures to protect consumer health: in particular by banning animal meal for cattle and through the compulsory labelling of beef.
But fraud, negligence and the lack of adequate measures mean that the BSE crisis is still not under control, since new cases are being discovered all the time.
Without becoming paranoid, we must recognise that the consumers' concern is perfectly legitimate.
My group believes that the health of consumers is an imperative which should have overriding priority over all other considerations.
It is therefore urgent that measures are taken to reassure consumers and to restore their confidence in food safety.
I do not know if this is a panacea, Commissioner but, in line with the precautionary principle, it seems to me that experience behoves us to ban, as of today, the use of animal meal in feed for livestock, including pigs, poultry and fish.
Detection tests must also be extended to all cattle entering the human food chain.
The current crisis has led to a significant slump in sales and to a fall in prices, which are hurting livestock producers and all those involved in the beef sector.
It is necessary both to restore consumer confidence and to help the livestock producers affected by the crisis.
Selective aid, such as market support and a grass subsidy, are essential.
But, beyond the immediate future, should we not be reflecting on the mechanisms of the CAP? Are these not the very mechanisms which are at the root of the problem?
They have contributed to overly intensive production, which has harmed the environment and the quality of farm products.
They therefore need to be reviewed.
Perhaps it would be no bad thing if animals returned to traditional fodder.
I feel like saying, "Yes, let them have a bit more grass."
But the European Union must also encourage the production of oil seeds so that animal meal can be replaced by vegetable meal.
To achieve this, there would have to be a re-examination of the 1993 GATT agreement, which prohibits the European Union producing more than 25% of its vegetable protein requirements so as to satisfy US exports.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the BSE crisis has turned into a case of collective paranoia.
The justified mistrust of consumers threatens the entire beef sector and the spectre of ruin haunts our livestock producers and small artisanal enterprises.
This has come to pass because the incompetence of governments has been aggravated by our own inability to respond to the twofold challenge before us: the health challenge and the economic challenge.
I will not detail the horrors that have been committed on all sides.
I find the debate that is underway in this Chamber, which consists in finding out which institution out of the Council, the Commission or Parliament has done the most and which the least, rather unnecessary.
The reality is something else.
The facts stand, and they are appalling.
We were aware of the dangers of animal meal, we were aware of the dangers of specified risk materials.
The scientific authorities clearly stated that the development of the disease in cattle was not under control and they pinpointed the alarming growth in the numbers of animals affected.
I believe that the Commission has failed miserably.
The labelling of beef that was agreed on, which is a minimum form of labelling and only came into force two and a half months ago, does not make it possible for the origin of animals to be adequately traced, and we were very slow to ban specified risk materials.
The management of the crisis has been terribly poor, and there were tragic shortcomings in our ability to anticipate the foreseeable consequences of the crisis.
Where are the programmes to reduce the deficit of proteins in the European Union, to which reference was made a few moments ago? Where are the programmes to incinerate animal meal and animal waste and to implement obligatory testing throughout the European Union?
The truth is that this is a problem affecting the European Union as a whole, not just a single country. The truth is that food quality has been sacrificed on the altar of productivity, the standardisation of lifestyles and flavourless products.
Consumers used to have doubts about quality; today they worry about their own health.
Our citizens know - because we cannot lie to people with impunity - that the crisis is serious.
They know that if we are discovering sick animals in France, it is because we are looking for them, as was said earlier.
We need far-reaching measures to be adopted at a national and European level if we want to avoid economic bankruptcy and a major health scare.
We need to adopt the proposals put forward by the President-in-Office of the European Council, especially those banning animal meal in feed in all sectors of animal production.
But we also need two additional, comprehensive plans, and I am calling for their immediate implementation, because any delay through hesitation would exacerbate the health and economic risks.
The measures adopted by the French Government in this regard are, as I said, inadequate.
Firstly, as others have said before me, we must have systematic screening of all cattle slaughtered for consumption by European citizens.
For more than a year, the European authorities have been examining three screening tests, including the French test, which is deemed to be the most reliable and the most sensitive.
This test can be developed on an industrial scale very quickly.
It has to be done, without hesitation and without delay, and on a massive scale.
Just now, I heard reference being made to random tests.
Random tests are not going to restore consumer confidence, or producer confidence for that matter.
Public opinion must be fully informed of the characteristics of the test I am talking about.
The French screening test for BSE was developed at the CEA (a public-sector research institute).
In June it was assessed by Directorate General 24 of the European Commission, which is responsible for consumer protection, and, in July 1999, it was transferred to an industrial partner.
This test was developed with a view to protecting the consumer, so that it could be extensively used in slaughterhouses, thus preventing animals dangerous to human health entering the food chain.
The results of the European assessment, which were published in July 1999, suggest that it is 10 to 300 times more sensitive than the three other tests assessed at the same time.
A new study undertaken in September 2000 has been evaluated by the European Commission.
It confirms the preceding results in terms of sensitivity.
The sensitivity of this test guarantees that contaminated animals cannot possibly enter the food chain.
The result of the examination can be obtained within 5 hours, and the test can be made widely available, as hundreds of millions of samples a year can be produced easily.
Its immediate widespread use in the veterinary laboratories of the French departments would simply require the allocation of sufficient human resources until it can be automated.
The test exists, it is reliable, and it can be carried out on a massive scale.
I hope I have convinced you that it needs to be done.
Secondly, Community farming needs to be reorganised to put our set-aside lands back into production so that we can grow soya, alfalfa and peas, which will give us the replacement proteins we are lacking and which will feed our animals much better than American GMOs.
We sacrificed our soya, alfalfa and peas in the course of the COM negotiations in Marrakech.
Well, the thing with poor agreements is that they should be challenged, especially when public health dictates this.
By displaying courage and ambition, we can combine the health interests of Europeans and the economic interests of our producers, and thereby restore confidence.
This will only be possible if there is no longer any doubt in the public mind, in other words, if screening is, as I would insist, systematic.
Unless there is mandatory general testing, confidence will not be restored, for confidence cannot be restored by decree; it has to be earned.
These are the reasons why my group has signed the motion for a resolution which will be presented to this House tomorrow, which, I hope, will be adopted with, if not a unanimous vote, at least a very large majority, so that everybody can be made aware that this Parliament is in direct touch with the problems affecting European citizens.
(Applause from the UEN Group)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I would like to take this opportunity to denounce the scandalous eviction from this Chamber of our colleague, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who would have been able to remind us that the group representing the European right-wing parties was the first, by a long chalk, to reveal to this House, in September 1990, that the pathogenic agent for BSE was able to jump species and to spread to humans.
What were the reactions at the time? Nothing but sarcastic comments and criticisms came from these benches and from the political class while the media maintained a scornful silence.
Back then, Mr President-in-Office, you did virtually nothing, just as your colleagues have done virtually nothing about the fallout from Chernobyl, the AIDS epidemic or contaminated blood, and always for the same reason: so as not to panic public opinion.
The former Commissioner, Mr MacSharry, justified this criminal silence by claiming that the beef sector must not be put at risk and that consumers must not be panicked.
Now, we are faced with a health and economic catastrophe of unparalleled proportions causing widespread panic amongst consumers.
In the face of predictable reactions from the public, you hastily pronounce a ban on animal meal for all animals, in line with the infamous precautionary principle.
Despite the opinion of experts and scientists, who had shown that these MBMs were behind the development and transmission of the pathogenic agent for BSE, you forget to mention in your analysis that the situation is first and foremost due to Anglo-Saxon meal producers who, for commercial reasons, lowered the cooking temperature for MBMs.
Mr President-in-Office, you also fail to mention that France continued to import possibly contaminated MBMs from the UK after 1989, the year in which they were banned, especially via Belgium.
The result is a reflection of the impotence of the political class. There have been almost a hundred cases of BSE in France in 2000 and, so far, 80 people have died from variant CJD in the UK and two in France.
Minister, Commissioner, why has it been necessary to wait until 1 October 2000 before banning the specified risk materials in the European Union, even though they are highly infectious?
Why wait until 1 January 2001 before bringing in the rapid screening tests which Mr Pasqua mentioned just now? And what about the labelling and traceability system, which will not be complete until 2003, despite the risks for consumers and the absence of a total guarantee for livestock producers?
Now, in a panic, you resign yourselves to action.
But, faced with the crisis, it is necessary to guarantee health and food protection for consumers and an income for livestock producers, butchers, tripe butchers and wholesalers alike, all of whom are victims of the negligence of the public authorities, at both national and Community level.
These people are in no way responsible for the crisis, which is why the European Union must show solidarity with them.
We must condemn those who are really responsible for the crisis - the Anglo-American producers of MBMs - and we must, if necessary, prosecute them if they were aware of the dangers they were causing.
We must acknowledge the special responsibility of the Commission, as called for by the committee of enquiry of this Parliament.
There are four real causes of this situation: unchecked profiteering; the violation of natural laws which hoped to turn herbivores into carnivores; the watering down of responsibilities, by transferring sovereignty from nation states to the Brussels eurocracy and finally, your policy of untrammelled free-trade.
These are the real causes of the crisis, and it is only by tackling these causes that you will be able to permanently solve this appalling problem, which you helped to create.
Madam President, on behalf of all livestock producers may I express my deep concern at the French Government ban on meat-and-bone meal in animal feed.
Although a French action, it has widespread international implications.
The main substitute for MBM is soya protein.
The French ban will create a massive increase in demand, yet supply of this commodity is limited.
The result will be exceptionally heavy pressure on prices.
Finished animal feed costs throughout Europe could rise by as much as 20 or 30%.
Since feed costs amount to 60% of overheads, producers will be heavily squeezed.
This may prove to be the last straw for thousands of small pig-farming businesses.
Furthermore, the ban creates considerable stress in the slaughtering sector.
Waste products could be sold to processors for £25 a ton.
They now cost £75 a ton for disposal.
For a medium-sized slaughterhouse killing 2,500 pigs a week, this adds £120,000 a year to costs, very little of which can be recouped.
As to the way out, more funding of the agricultural sector is not the solution.
We need species-specific feedmeals dedicated to specific livestock sectors so that MBM can continue to be supplied to the pig and poultry markets without fear of cross-contamination to the bovine sector.
If that can be done, there will be no need for a continuing ban or for extra subsidies.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, this debate has one thing in its favour; that at least it is highlighting the differences of opinion that exist among us, especially between the Council and the Commission.
I too do not accept the arrogance of certain Member States which, since they do not apply the tests, are not pushing for regulations.
This is unacceptable.
If France is now in the situation in which it finds itself, it is because it practises controls which do not exist elsewhere.
Now, it is not just a matter of a crisis in the beef sector, it is a public health problem, and we are also faced with an economic crisis.
The health of European consumers must be a top priority in all decisions that are adopted.
The entire food chain is at the heart of this problem.
Consumers have lost confidence and, in order to contain this phenomenon, there must be systematic BSE tests on cattle and sheep.
Farmers themselves are demanding them.
Adopting emergency measures and common sense measures by banning the use of MBMs for all species would indeed be a practical application of the precautionary principle!
Commissioner, I have always had a great deal of confidence in you, but I do not understand why you are being so reluctant to act.
How can you imagine that you are applying the precautionary principle if you are refusing to ban MBMs? Mr Byrne, you are well aware that no MBMs are completely safe.
It is by adopting measures of this kind that consumers will be reassured and that farmers who support this idea, especially as voiced by their unions, will hear the message of solidarity that we want to send them.
There are no scientific certainties with regard to the transmission of the disease to other species.
But what we are certain of is that we must restore consumer confidence and support the farming sector.
Let nobody tell me that we cannot destroy MBMs!
We have wasted a lot of time. We should have put the necessary tools to incinerate these meals in place years ago.
Let nobody tell me that we are unable to replace these MBMs!
Commissioner, I am sorry that your colleague responsible for agriculture is not here and that he does not have the courage to face us and to explain that it is necessary to completely overhaul the common agricultural policy.
I condemn the limitations and the worrying consequences of this policy.
A reform of the CAP is not just necessary, it is indispensable, because it is intolerable that a European country should adopt draconian measures and jeopardise its economy.
European solidarity must also play a role, because our policy has exposed its inconsistencies: set-aside, animal meal for cattle, nitrates, pesticides.
The CAP must be reorganised to encourage farmers.
Production must be improved, and the budget of the CAP must be used to reorganise this policy.
Madam President, less than four weeks ago the Commission adopted a proposal for a regulation on health rules for animal by-products not intended for human consumption.
The aim of this is to avoid not only microbiological but also chemical contamination of feedingstuffs in future.
In my opinion, the scope of this proposal is already wide, and it takes account of the precautionary principle.
In the interests of a sustainable closed substance cycle it should still be possible to use properly tested animal materials deemed fit for human consumption in the production of feedingstuffs.
We have to be realistic.
There is no scientific justification for a general ban on using animal meal for all animals. Why should it cover pigs, poultry and fish, as some Member States and some Members here have been demanding?
If you take the arguments of some Members of this House to their logical conclusion, you would also have to ban sales of wild boar meat.
What is far more important, in the spirit of the Commission proposal, is to work towards ensuring that animal meal complies with the highest safety standards.
Farms and factories that do not at present apply the highest technological standards to animal meal production should have their production licence withdrawn until they can demonstrate that they are meeting those standards.
Regular and strict checks of technological standards and compliance with legislation on animal meal production should form part of a comprehensive safety concept.
Madam President, I would advise the Commission not to be so sure of itself or, more importantly, of its forecasts for the future.
I tabled a question on the danger of BSE in December 1995, three months before the scandal broke.
The Commission replied to the effect that there was absolutely no problem and no cause for concern.
So a little modesty is in order, I think.
I also have a question for the Commission: have you measured the cost today of the current policy of cheap meat-and-bone meal and the cost of doing away with it and supporting vegetable production? I am no longer so sure that meat-and-bone meal, together with the cost of controls and the risks, is any cheaper.
Thirdly, the whole House is talking about controls. When did the Commission carry out controls?
Does it have the capacity to do so?
Which countries have been referred to the European Court for failing to apply the law? For example, Madam President, for failing to comply with beef labelling, on which I acted as Parliament's rapporteur.
Does every country apply it?
I have yet to see labels in Athens.
Has the Commission referred anyone to the European Court? I am sure that we would be most interested in knowing so that we could continue the debate.
As far as the rest is concerned, for once, I agree wholeheartedly with what the honourable lady members, Mrs Ainardi, Mrs Auroi and Mrs Grossetête, said.
Madam President, one of the primary objectives of the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council must continue to be guaranteeing food safety by enforcing effective laws and performing stringent controls which will restore consumer confidence.
All this must be carried out in a climate of transparency and regularity so that the citizens do not feel that they are being swindled or sacrificed on the altar of major economic interests.
We must prevent animals suffering from BSE entering the food chain.
We therefore need to develop an effective control system in all the Member States of the European Union.
It is becoming vital to stop using meat-and-bone meal until it is proven unequivocally that using these feedingstuffs will not spread the disease.
The panic spreading throughout the public is destroying an entire sector, and those who are least to blame - the breeders - are worst affected, for it is precisely the breeders, and not those responsible, who are the victims of the situation.
Breeders feed their livestock on products supplied by the industries, and a similar situation occurred in Belgium a few months ago with the matter of dioxins in chickens.
We call for financial subsidies to assist breeders so that they do not have to bear all the costs of the crisis.
We also feel that it would be appropriate to ensure that every outbreak of the disease is contained and to place a ban on the export of meat until such time as it is proven to be safe to eat.
Madam President, I would like to go into the financial implications of the matter, partly in my capacity as rapporteur for the agricultural budget.
We have talked enough about the procedural aspect and the ins and outs of the whole BSE issue.
A trialogue on Budget 2001 is due to start tomorrow.
Yesterday, the coordinators of the various parties in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development lent their support to the proposal to earmark EUR 600 million of the EUR 1.3 billion still available in the agricultural budget for the fight against BSE.
I understand that it would cost upwards of EUR 150 million to test all slaughtered cows older than two years in the European Union.
Well then, Council and Commission, you have a fair amount of financial leeway on which to base your robust policy.
Let there be no more discussion of this 600 million in the negotiations between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
The scope is there in the budget, you have Parliament' s backing on this, and now that everything is in place, it is up to you to see that the funds needed for a robust BSE policy actually hit the mark.
My second remark concerns the procedures.
It is noticeable that there is still no official mention of BSE on the official agenda of the Council of Agriculture Ministers due to take place this coming Monday and Tuesday.
I ask myself how this is possible when last week, on Wednesday 8 November, the European cattle farmers in the COPA association came together for emergency consultations and proposed robust measures?
How can consumer organisations really make their voices heard? We are obviously giving the impression in this public debate that we move at snail' s pace when it comes to the implementation of policy by the Council and the Commission, which is totally unacceptable.
I urge you to pursue a robust policy, or a different one at any rate.
A number of points have been made about the implementation of legislation.
I would remind you though, that no human being can go without food, not for a single day.
On no account should we fail to give this priority its due from the political perspective.
Should it already be a problem with regard to inadequate levels of protein and other products, then I can assure you that European agriculture has sufficient potential to absorb this, also with regard to cattle feed.
Mr President, like many others, I want to thank Commissioner Byrne for his customary vigilance and also the French Minister for being here today.
As an Englishman, I welcome the measures the French have taken.
There is a general acknowledgement that BSE, which began as a British disease and today is being presented as a French crisis, is really a European disease - a European problem - and it must be tackled on that basis.
There should not be any recriminations between the nation states or between different generations of government on this issue.
We must tackle this.
The Minister said that MBM was a low-cost foodstuff.
It is not a low-cost food stuff if it helps to spread BSE and its human derivative.
That is the essential problem here today.
Many speakers have said that we need to extend the ban on meat-and-bone meal as a mammalian food stuff.
The UK already bans it from all farm livestock.
Our own Food Standards Agency will be pronouncing very soon on intra-species recycling, and I hope they will condemn it also.
We need to take these precautions, and we need to take them quickly for the benefit of all the countries of Europe.
Mr Byrne did not say very much today, as he was widely trailed to have done, about testing.
I am glad that we are still looking at the extension of testing on an experimental basis.
There are still doubts about the validity of tests, particularly on younger animals, and we have heard from other speakers about the huge size of the herd in Europe that would have to be tested even if old animals are to be taken out of the food chain.
Lastly, we must make greater speed in urging the Council to act on our behalf.
Everyone has said that and everyone knows it to be true.
You must move.
We have just heard that it took four years to agree a ban on SRMs in the food chain.
We do not have another four years.
We may not have another one year.
We must take precautions now, not just on behalf of those of us who are concerned, but on behalf of the complacent minority of Member States as well.
It is for their benefit that we do it.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I am happy to hear within this Chamber that the CAP must be changed at all costs.
I would just like to remind certain people that the Greens were indeed alone when, at the top of their voices, they called for the reform of the CAP.
With regard to BSE, I welcome the French decision, but the Presidency must not forget that it too must assume its responsibilities as far as food safety at the European level is concerned. I would like to make two points in this connection.
I regret that neither the Council nor the Commission has stressed the absolute and immediate need to bring grass and oil seed subsidies in line with those for cereals in order to avoid genetically modified soya being used to make up for the lack of proteins next year.
I also believe that criminal and fraudulent acts should not continue to go unpunished.
It is outrageous that, after three BSE crises in the space of a decade, no guilty party has been identified or brought to book.
This impunity cannot go on.
That is why I am calling on the European Union to carry out the necessary investigations among manufacturers of MBMs and knackers in order to find those responsible for these health, economic and social disasters.
Madam President, I would like to make three points.
Firstly, to respond to the justified and very demanding need of European consumers for food safety, we are going to place the bar of controls and precautions at an extremely high level.
But if we introduce generalised screening tests, if we destroy MBMs, if we impose the slaughter of an entire herd for just one sick animal, we must demand strictly equivalent health standards from the third countries who are our commercial partners and who seek to export live animals, carcasses and meat products to the Community.
Secondly, even before this crisis, the Community suffered a serious deficit in vegetable proteins, since we accepted, at Blair House, an incredible limitation on our oil-seed production to 30% of our requirements, just to please the United States and its soya exporters.
Now, the Community cannot cultivate more than 5.5 million hectares of oil seeds, nor does it have the right to do so, even though our needs are in the order of 18 million hectares.
That is why food manufacturers have had to make extensive use of MBMs in their products.
In the future, when these MBMs are banned, we are going to need millions of additional hectares of oil seed crops.
This crisis underscores the absurd nature of the concessions made by the European Union within the framework of the GATT.
We denounced this here in Parliament, when Jimmy Goldsmith was here.
We have the land, the climate and the necessary knowledge to immediately replace MBMs with non-genetically modified vegetable protein, but instead, while financing set-aside, we have given up the right to grow, on our own land, the vegetable proteins we urgently need to feed our animals and our people.
That is why our group has tabled an amendment calling on the Council and the Commission to find ways of re-launching, in Europe, the farming of vegetable proteins to replace, to great advantage, prion-ridden MBMs and transgenic American soya.
We also ask that the disastrous Blair House Agreement, which binds our oil seed producers hand and foot, should be renegotiated within the framework of the COM.
Finally, it is the duty of the Community to come to the assistance of all the beef sector operators who are the victims of the profound destabilisation of their markets in order to help them fund the costs of obligatory testing and the destruction of animal residues which have been withdrawn from the food chain, as well as the costs of vital promotion measures. Otherwise, there will no longer be any point in talking about a common agricultural policy.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when we began our work on BSE in the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into BSE, the very first thing we had to do was to expose and overcome cover-ups, secretiveness and deceit, and to take measures which, overall, have been very successful and offer a way forward in solving the problem of BSE.
We have already heard many times today that the real problem facing us is to implement the decisions we have already taken.
Mr Byrne, I am extremely grateful that so far you have made excellent progress in putting into practice the undertaking that you gave when you were appointed.
You have brought forward proposals such as the White Paper and the hygiene regulations, and I can assure you that Parliament will deal swiftly with those hygiene regulations.
We will work quickly enough for them to be effectively implemented in the new few years.
But I am not aware of anything happening at Council level here.
There are only declarations and opinions, but no decisions as regards directives or regulations.
What I find incredible is this tug of war in the Council over meat exports and imports.
This seems to be all about emotions.
The public's feelings have really been whipped up, with the sole aim of securing the market for each country's own beef.
Nothing else has happened!
Now emotions are being stirred up again with dramatic announcements about banning animal meal as feed for all animals.
If you would only implement what we agreed, then you would not need to worry about all this any more.
It reminds me of witch-hunts in the Middle Ages.
We are pursuing "sinners" who are not guilty at all.
The causes are to be found somewhere else altogether.
I would like to suggest rapid introduction of these tests that you too are proposing, Commissioner, and not as spot checks, but for every animal slaughtered, without any age restrictions.
Only then can we say to the public "This meat has been tested and you can eat it".
There really is no better solution.
I have worked out the cost - 10 cents per kilo.
So we do not need to argue here about millions of euros - every member of the public will happily pay this, I am quite sure of that!
Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, we must all start from a basic, binding assumption.
It is intolerable that raw materials or compound feedingstuffs should be dangerous for animals or human beings.
Man's food must be safe to eat.
At this time, in addition to the developments and progress in our legislation, we must send the citizens a loud, unambiguous message.
We must reassure the public that the Europe of rights does genuinely protect the rights enshrined in its Treaties and in the Fundamental Charter of European Rights.
I am sure, Commissioner, that Parliament will lend you all the support necessary for the new initiatives.
We need clear measures.
I feel that, until it is proved otherwise, a total ban on meat-and-bone meal has become necessary, just as the introduction of general testing and the harmonisation and effective implementation of Community legislation in all the Member States is necessary, and just as it is necessary not just to monitor the application of new labelling rules but to bring forward the introduction of these rules to the earliest possible juncture.
I will end by affirming this principle: the cost of these measures will certainly be very high, but our priority is health.
Secondly, without these guarantees, the fall in consumption will impact negatively upon the entire industry.
Therefore, consumers and producers must unite to obtain greater guarantees of the inviolable principle that food should be healthy.
Madam President, I am very pleased that the Commission is finally making a strong case for universal testing, because as the situation in France demonstrates "he who seeks shall find"!
Commissioner, I urge you to ensure that these tests are also carried out in other Member States.
It is not acceptable if Germany, for example, does not introduce universal testing, but just tests in North Rhine-Westphalia, for fear of no longer having BSE-free status.
That cannot, of course, be allowed to happen and I can therefore only hope that the Commission will exert the strongest pressure on those Member States that do not carry out tests because they are afraid of losing their BSE-free status.
This amounts to deliberately putting consumers at risk and, as such, is unacceptable.
What we need here is a wide-ranging information campaign.
However, I firmly refute the Commission's suggestion that banning the use of animal meal in feedingstuffs now is panic-mongering.
Quite the contrary!
I think that France has set an excellent example by finally deciding to take this step.
I find it bordering on the cynical, Mr Byrne, when you say that this should not happen on environmental grounds.
You cannot in all seriousness expect us to eat hazardous waste just to solve the waste disposal problem!
All in all, I regard it as somewhat shameful that there is so much talk here about compensating farmers and animal breeders.
Perhaps we should think about the victims for a change, and all the relatives of people who have died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Commissioner, I listened to what you said very carefully and was most surprised when, at one point in your speech, you said that you did not have a magic solution to this problem.
My reply to you is that we do not need magic solutions, we need two things: first, we need to accept that health, i.e. public health, takes priority over every other policy.
Once we have accepted this, not just proclaimed it but believe in it, then we come to the second element, which is the question of political will.
Let me assure you that, if we had had the political will then, we would not be facing this problem now, because we all know what has caused it.
We know all about meat-and-bone meal and we know that there are tests and that we can find the animals from herds which need to be destroyed in order to deal with the problem.
We know all that.
What is preventing us from acting and why must there always be a crisis for us to come here and confirm that we, the European Parliament, believe that public health is the number one priority?
And you are saying the same, but just how well has the Council understood it?
Because, basically, at some point we seem to be unable to act.
We seem to be unable to apply what we know.
And we all know that prevention is the best cure.
Except that there is no cure here. We know that this epizootic disease brings terrible suffering and tragic consequences in its wake but we do not know where they will lead us.
Because not all its epidemiological elements have been identified.
So we are playing with fire.
And what amazes me is that we come here and repeat the same things over and over again.
I have listened to my fellow members.
They are all right in what they say.
Our aim must be to apply it.
We want application, members of the Council, we want action and we want it throughout the European Union; we do not want fragmented action by France or this or that country.
It must be taken everywhere and it must be taken at once.
Madam President, I am totally convinced that the Union in its entirety lacks the political, moral and educational authority to talk about the quality and safety of food.
Nor is it a coincidence that the President-in-Office and the Commissioner refrained from mentioning the main source of all of these problems in the food chain, which is, of course, the common agricultural policy itself.
Parliament has voted half the budget to be spent on encouraging production.
Today' s modern farmers are not what they produce; they are what they are able to produce whilst maintaining quality and safety.
But you are not helping them to achieve this!
I say this because you only help large-scale producers and, as a consequence, you spend a large part of the budget on encouraging these very problems!
These problems and those that will follow!
You do not, however, want to accept the principle of doing away with animal feedingstuffs that contain the remains of other animals...
We have already discussed the United Kingdom and Portugal in this Chamber and now we are discussing France.
I am now waiting for the Commissioner to announce the next case, because we will have reached this point within a year with another country and further cases.
The fundamental issue is that the President-in-Office and the Commissioner must accept that a policy guided by post-war principles is no longer possible today and is no longer acceptable.
You must end all aid for production and instead help to bring about quality, food safety and the conservation of resources.
Otherwise, we will not have a food chain that can provide guarantees for consumers.
We will be perpetuating the fraudulent treatment of both farmers and consumers.
Madam President, there is no let up in media interest in the BSE issue.
The same goes for those dreadful pictures of people affected by the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, despite all the action taken in the Member States, not to mention at EU level.
The debate we are having today on the consequences of the BSE crisis and how we can actually tackle them, is dealing with some very crucial issues.
Firstly, there is the issue of the tests that need to be carried out, and I welcome the fact that we are not going to stipulate a specific age for them.
Secondly, there is the question as to whether it is acceptable to use bonemeal in cattle feed, which has been the subject of lively debate here in this Chamber.
The link between feeding cattle bonemeal - which is, as it happens a very unnatural way to feed animals - and BSE is now clear to everyone.
So action is called for.
In the Netherlands, the legislation governing the use of offal in animal feed is already relatively stringent as matters stand.
There has been a ban on using proteins from mammals and ruminants in animal feed destined for ruminants since as early as 1989.
What is more, this regulation is continually tightened up and complies with requirements made at European level.
The use of fat and blood is also subject to strict rules.
Therefore, I am amazed, under these circumstances, that it is still permissible for corpses to be used or processed.
Although there is no evidence of an absolute risk, I welcome the Dutch proposal to place a complete ban on the use of meat in animal feeds with effect from 1 July 2001.
We cannot afford, in the light of past events, to allow this offal to enter the food chain, no matter what.
Together with my fellow honourable Members, I advocate that we do not wait until July 2001, but enforce this ban now, with almost immediate effect.
There is clearly a need for stringent European measures.
So not just national measures, because the functioning of the internal market will be seriously disrupted if we constantly leave it to the national governments to decide to what extent the use of offal in animal feed should be banned.
Therefore, for the sake of the internal market, and in order to boost consumer confidence, I would advocate a complete and immediate ban.
I would also ask the Commissioner to initiate something of a uniform European approach to the issue of animal corpses and the collection thereof.
There are increasing incidences, also in my own country, of dead sheep or calves simply being left behind because it costs too much to have them collected.
Therefore I would ask the Commission to work towards a degree of harmonisation on this score too.
If it is not going to do so now, then could it at least put this in writing before long, so that we know where we stand.
Madam President, I speak today both as an MEP and a beef farmer from the United Kingdom.
The farming industry in Britain has suffered greatly from the BSE crisis, both financially and in terms of consumer confidence.
However, we have learnt a great deal over the years as to how to put our house in order.
We now have a belt-and-braces system for the safety of our beef.
Recently, the Phillips inquiry into BSE has been published in the UK.
I am pleased that you, Commissioner Byrne, have read that report.
I hope that you will act on it.
The French Government should also read this report because they are in danger of making exactly the same mistakes as were made in the UK at the time of our BSE crisis.
But we now have the benefit of hindsight.
I suggest that the French Government should learn from us.
I have never been convinced by the argument put forward by France that the whole-herd slaughter policy was the right way to tackle outbreaks of BSE in their country.
The recent problem in Normandy of an infected animal being presented as a healthy animal highlights the resistance there is in the farming community to having their entire herds slaughtered.
Furthermore, the recent tests that have been carried out in France of fallen stock have shown several hidden cases of BSE.
I have long been suspicious that in order to avoid having their whole herds slaughtered animals have been secretly shot and buried on farms in France.
The British system of removing infected animals from the herds and paying good compensation for those animals encourages farmers to declare their cases of BSE.
I call upon the European Commission to carry out a total review of the systems that are in place in France to deal with cases of BSE.
In Britain we have also learnt that it is very difficult to stop meat-and-bone meal, that is produced and incorporated in the feedingstuffs for pigs and poultry, also - either by accident or by intention - landing up in feed for cattle and ruminants.
It is very difficult for a feed mill to guarantee that its production lines are completely cleared of meat-and-bone meal before they start manufacturing feedingstuffs for pigs and poultry.
I have long been of the opinion that a complete ban on the use of meat-and-bone meal in animal feeds should be in place throughout Europe.
France has recently introduced a ban on beef on the bone and many French provinces have stopped school children from consuming home-grown beef.
One of the main reasons for this action is that the French Food Agency takes the precautionary principle very seriously.
I would suggest that the European Commission also use the precautionary principle in regard to beef from France.
Until such time as the French Government can guarantee the absolute safety of their beef the Commission should ban all exports from France to the rest of the Community, especially from beef animals that are over 30 months of age.
There is, at the moment, £2 million worth of French beef for the meat processing industry consumed in the UK.
This is totally unacceptable considering the problems regarding BSE in France.
Over a year ago, 16 of Europe's best scientists, including a French chairman, declared British beef safe for consumption throughout Europe, and yet France has illegally maintained a ban on the importation of British beef.
It is total hypocrisy for France to maintain its ban on British beef.
The United Kingdom has suffered with this terrible plague.
I would like to say, on behalf of the farming community, that they are the people at whom the finger is often pointed, but they are not to blame.
Commissioner Byrne was very strong today in his opening statement when he said to the House that he was prepared to look at this matter of meat-and-bone meal and take it on.
I would like to say to him today as he has listened to this debate: does he not realise that this is something that must be taken on immediately? As the previous speaker has just said, the only way to deal with banning meat-and-bone meal is to have an entire ban otherwise it cannot be policed.
As a result, the poison goes into the system and, as it does, it destroys the system.
I make a special appeal to the Commissioner today to take note of what has been said, practically across the board in this debate, and move quickly and speedily to impose a ban on all meat-and-bone meal in the European Community.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I have listened with great interest to everything that has been said.
The main thing now is not to be accusing people of delaying implementing regulations or establishing responsibilities, but rather, to have a common imperative, that of ensuring food safety.
It is a legitimate demand on the part of all European consumers.
It is imperative upon government authorities, be they national or European.
I believe that we must now try, following your debates, to define the key ways, in terms of both method and means, in order to ensure compliance with this imperative.
The Presidency believes that this method is based on scientific research and consultation.
As there is still a lot of uncertainty, we must know what the scientific facts are and what action must be taken.
We must also study the feasibility of these measures, and that involves processing MBMs and setting up tests.
The speedy implementation of these means comes next, and finally monitoring.
You have dealt with all these problems in turn.
As regards the last item, monitoring, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his comments, which demonstrated the Commission' s open-mindedness and showed that it was possible to study all these problems and to set up the European Food Agency quickly.
Monitoring can never be anything more than monitoring, however, and if there is still even the slightest possibility that there may have been fraud or embezzlement, or errors of use, this doubt, however tiny it may be, sticks in people' s minds and sometimes brings the entire sector into disrepute.
As far as carrying out generalised testing is concerned, I believe, certainly, that we must increase the number of tests, as indeed you have all called for.
Some countries have already gone down this road.
We hope that the number of tests carried out on the targeted cattle and sheep populations will increase.
I cannot currently see, however, how it will be possible, given the resources available to each of the Member States, to carry out 28 million tests a year, in either technical or financial terms with any degree of effectiveness. What is more, these tests, however good they are, will still leave a margin of doubt since even the best tests, and these have been highlighted, only make it possible to detect the presence of the disease in the last months of incubation, just before it turns into the full-blown disease, and not right at the start.
So there are doubts, there are uncertainties, but I believe that our joint text and your debates here in this House have enabled us to make progress.
To this end I listened most attentively to all your speeches, and it seems to me appropriate and crucial that the debate on the safety of our citizens is settled at the European level.
It is indeed difficult to have national legislations and a European legislation existing side by side.
I believe we should have a single, comprehensive set of laws, which can be applied to meet this demand and thereby avoid distortions of competition, thus making it possible for the single market to operate smoothly.
Rest assured that, when it comes to continuing the work in the Council and my exchanges with the Commission, I will bear all this in mind, in the full knowledge that reaching agreement within the institutions is one of the best ways of dealing with a problem as complex and universal as that of food safety.
On 30 November, during the Council meeting, the French Presidency will launch an important debate with a view to providing the first responses to a situation of widespread suspicion, which calls into question the credibility of our institutions in the eyes of our citizens.
We are talking about public health, and hence of serious events, which must be treated as such, in a strict and, of course, transparent manner.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, rest assured that, in the twofold undertaking which has fallen to us (in which, I will see to it, the Council will play its part to the full), I am determined to restore consumer confidence and to strengthen the credibility of the European institutions.
Each of you here has sought to question or to refer to the survival of the common agricultural policy. Some of you have spoken of the inordinate emphasis placed on productivity and the possibility of going back on the Blair House Agreements, which can only take place in the context of the new round of COM talks.
I have listened to all these proposals - I am not insensitive to them.
I shall wait for the results of your debates and I am convinced that we will be able to tackle this safety imperative together, and that we will be able together to find ways and means to guarantee the safety of our fellow citizens.
.
Madam President, as I look around this Chamber I see many faces of people whom, I am happy to say, I have got to know very well over the last twelve months.
One thing I can say with conviction is that I am aware that all these people before me are experts on the question of food safety.
Many of you have been involved in this issue for quite a number of years, particularly in the formidable committee that sat a number of years ago on this question.
Indeed you have been involved in this issue longer than I have.
I know the commitment that all of you have to it.
Therefore, this debate has been of considerable interest and value to me as a Member of the Commission with responsibility for public health and consumer protection, and special responsibility for food safety.
I am struck by one thing that is particularly important in this context, that is, that the spectrum of debate, particularly on the issue of whether there should be a total ban on meat-and-bone meal goes all the way from "do it" to "don't do it" - in a Chamber filled with experts on food safety.
That is one of the issues that we have to address.
What we must bear in mind when considering this issue is the fact that there is already in existence a ban on the provision of meat-and-bone meal to cattle.
That ban is in place.
That is the law and that is what should be complied with.
In addition, there is legislation in place setting out how the meat-and-bone meal, how this feed, is to be processed - another safeguard that is introduced into the system to protect public health and food safety.
By saying that you must ban meat-and-bone meal from feed for pigs and poultry that cannot contract BSE by this vector, what you are saying is not that you are protecting pigs and poultry, but that you are protecting cattle.
You are therefore saying that the legislation that is in place is in some way inadequate or not being complied with.
If there is a belief that there is a widespread disregard for the law on this issue, what does that say about what has been happening over the last few months and years in relation to feed for cattle? It raises the question that I am afraid to even ask.
Ask yourselves what is the answer to that question.
I believe that there has been compliance with the legislation and if I believe that - and I do not think I am being naïve - I do not believe that it is essential to have a widespread ban on meat-and-bone meal to be fed to pigs and poultry.
But I am willing to listen to the evidence on this issue.
If people from Member States come and tell me that the legislation has not been properly or fully implemented then maybe we will have to think again, but it will not be because the scientists tell us it is necessary, but because there is a failure to comply with the law in the European Union.
That is an issue we must seriously reflect on.
Let me move on to the question of testing.
Mr Whitehead asked me for more details in relation to this and I think he is correct in that I should have stressed this a bit more in what I had to say.
There are two kinds of testing involved here.
Firstly there is the one already in place, legislation having been brought before Parliament some time ago by the Commission for random post-mortem testing throughout the Member States amounting to 170 000 tests.
The purpose of those tests was to identify the level of infectivity in the European Union.
It was to get information.
I welcome the fact that France moved quickly and, before any other Member State, started doing this work at a higher level than was set out in the legislation.
Now it is getting this information.
Therefore it is faced with the current situation.
It has been fully transparent in the provision of information relating to these tests.
That is also to be welcomed and applauded.
Let us reflect on another issue here which causes me some concern.
If there is a widespread adverse reaction against the authorities in France for doing the right thing, I hope it does not instil timidity in other Member States when they do exactly the same.
If they conduct the tests in a similar way to France, ensuring that they focus on animals that are most at risk, and carry out the number of tests that are required, we will get exactly the kind of information that France has and that will be available right throughout the European Union so we can make the required decisions and move on.
The tests that I am referring to now are somewhat different.
They are not intended to give us information relating to the level of infectivity.
They are more focused on the question of trying to keep out of the food chain carcasses that may be infected.
It has been said that this will be very expensive, will involve a large number of carcasses and so on.
Let us focus on facts.
The three tests available - French, Swiss and Irish - are unable to detect BSE in animals under a certain age.
The result will be negative.
You will go to the expense and trouble of carrying out those tests and you will get negative findings.
Therefore, what is the value of carrying out those tests on young animals?
None in my opinion. But we also have the weight of scientific evidence that animals under a certain age do not manifest symptoms of BSE.
Therefore, I have asked the Standing Veterinary Committee, sitting today as we speak, to examine this issue to determine at what age these tests should be carried out.
What I am talking about is carrying out these tests on carcasses of animals over a certain age to detect whether infectivity exists and, if it does, eliminate the animal from the food chain.
We have a situation of younger animals where there is no BSE, we are told by the scientists, and the older animals above that certain age, all of them having been tested to determine whether there is BSE or not, and they are eliminated from the food chain.
This is a consumer protection measure and also a measure to enhance consumer confidence.
That is why I have suggested that we take this route and I am looking forward to the advice we get from the SVC this afternoon which I intend to bring before the Council of Ministers next week to discuss this particular issue in relation to the question of the age at which the demarcation should take place.
I believe that is the right way forward.
There are a number of disputes on this and, as I see in this Chamber, there are different views in relation to it, but it is important that we row together on this.
It is important that we try and achieve a consensus as to the right way forward and find proportionate responses and not make accusations to others who, when they identify a proportionate response, say that you are not doing enough to protect consumer public health and consumer protection.
It is legitimate to draw lines in circumstances where you are fairly sure of the line you are drawing in the sand - safe on one side and not on the other.
We must make sure we are fair to one another in identifying these measures which all of us believe to be necessary, because the aim of this exercise is the protection of public health and food safety and the enhancement of consumer confidence.
Finally, I listened with great interest to my friend, Mr Patriat's, comments both earlier and just now and I look forward to working closely with him in relation to these issues over the next number of weeks.
I should tell you that he and I have had a discussion on this very issue as recently as last week in Paris, so I am confident that Parliament, the Council and the Commissioner can work together in a non-acrimonious manner to produce answers to this serious difficulty that we are faced with.
Madam President, I would like to make a very brief personal statement, since our fellow Member, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, has attacked the members of my group for not taking part in the committee of enquiry into BSE.
I would just like to make the following clarification. There have been two committees of enquiry within this Parliament.
Mr Martinez took part in the first one, and right here I have, if my fellow Member would care to consult it, his minority opinion, which was expressed in writing at the time of the Böge committee.
We did not take part in the second committee of enquiry quite simply because we were excluded by the operation of the d'Hondt law and by the Rules of Procedure, or lack of them, in this Parliament.
Not inviting us to participate is the best way to avoid having to listen to us.
In any event, Mr Martinez gave his formal warning in 1990, a full 6 years before the first committee of enquiry.
I have received seven motions for resolutions, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0553/2000). We shall examine the questions to the Commission.
You will realise what an organisational disaster situation we are in because we should now be finishing Question Time.
I must say that miracles are not included in my mandate or my abilities.
So let us cooperate in using this half-hour because we are going to fail to comply with all sorts of things.
We are not going to have an hour and a half, nor are we going to finish at 7, nor are we even going to have an hour, because the Commissioners have to travel at 7.30.
To share the time out proportionally, the only solution I see would be to have two questions in the first part - there is no time for any more.
I request that only one supplementary question be asked by the Member who prepared the question, and exceptionally one other.
Then we shall invite questions to each Commissioner so that everyone can participate and no one will feel left out.
The panel of Commissioners is very respectable and I believe all of them are entitled to answer a question.
This is a fair way to share out the time.
Question No 17 by (H-0848/00):
Subject: Minimum standards governing the expulsion of immigrants The Council meeting of 18 December 1997 adopted a resolution laying down the priorities for cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs for the period from 1 January 1998 to the date of entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which clearly set out the objective of 'improving cooperation regarding the expulsion of... immigrants' .
The recent spate of instances in which various Member States have failed to respect the most basic human rights when expelling immigrants is such as to warrant special attention for this issue from the Commission.
These instances include the 'pillow technique' which led to the death of a female immigrant in Belgium, the use of strong sedatives in Spain, the transporting of immigrants in cramped conditions in the holds of ships in Italy and Spain, the tragic case of the 58 Chinese immigrants found dead at the UK port of Dover after they had been detained on a number of occasions on European soil, and the widespread use of various forms of coercion and intimidation against expelled immigrants.
Does the Commission plan to make a proposal of any kind with regard to asylum and immigration policy, with a view both to averting such terrible incidents and to harmonising and coordinating expulsion policies in the Member States which respect human rights and United Nations conventions on this matter?
Mr President, in my contribution to a secular miracle, I wish to say that, with regard to the harmonisation of asylum policy, the main measures that the Union will be adopting are defined not only in the Vienna action plan and in the conclusions of the Tampere European Council, but are also part of the scoreboard that the Commission presented to the Council and to the European Parliament, and will develop in two basic stages.
The first stage - which I hope can be fully concluded by next June - involves laying down common minimum standards for the basic defining elements of an asylum policy.
In the later, more long-term stage, the objective will be to define a fully comprehensive common asylum system.
With a view to defining this overall asylum system, at the end of this year the Commission will present a communication to promote debate on the matter.
With regard specifically to the issue of its legal basis, Article 63(3)(b) of the Treaty establishing the European Community provides for the adoption of measures on illegal immigration and on illegal residence in the Union' s countries, including measures on the repatriation of illegal residents.
A first initiative by the French Presidency is currently being discussed by the Council, the aim of which is to adopt a directive on the mutual recognition of judgments expelling citizens from third countries. Parliament is also to be consulted on this draft directive.
Public opinion in the Member States views existing repatriation policies as poorly coordinated and largely ineffectual.
The Commission considers that readmission agreements have an important role to play in clarifying and coordinating these policies, and the first Community readmission agreements are currently being negotiated with Russia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Morocco.
The Commission hopes that, under the 2001 budget, a financial cooperation instrument will be adopted with the countries of origin and of transit, enhancing their powers in the field of readmission and of voluntary return.
With regard to future policy, it is the Commission' s view that in view of the need for an overall and coherent strategy in the field of repatriation, we must aim above all to prioritise voluntary repatriation.
Bearing this voluntary repatriation in mind, I would remind the House that the European Fund for Refugees provides for specific financial measures to support the development of Member States' policies on repatriation, and that, with regard to the way this repatriation is carried out, I share the concerns expressed by Mrs Cerdeira Morterero about the need for us to adopt common minimum standards establishing dignified and humane procedures and conditions for repatriation.
I am convinced that this will be a worthy topic for the Commission' s work programme for 2001.
Mr President, I too will try to help in this miracle "timesharing" between the panel of Commissioners and MEPs.
Mr Vitorino, you know perfectly well that we share your concerns, the work that you personally have explained to the Committee on Freedoms, the scoreboard and the priorities that the Commission has set for all these issues.
We are working on it in this Committee.
Clearly, circumstances such as those I mention in the question I have put to you must give any European citizen, and especially those for whom we are responsible, an acquired political obligation. We are working doggedly on these issues, and asking for the greatest effort to speed up the work, so that none of the situations I have mentioned, like the expulsion of immigrants, can ever happen again, because this makes us ashamed to be Europeans and even more so to be those politically responsible.
Mr President, I wish to state that I share Mrs Cerdeira Morterero' s concerns and that I hope she is not only addressing her appeal to the Commission, but also to the Council, so that we may have the entire legal framework adopted by next June.
That is my commitment, for which I accept responsibility.
Mr President, I only want to say two things.
The list of examples given in the question is the result of selective memory, which I feel is hardly appropriate in these cases.
But in short, Commissioner, as of today we do not have an updated scoreboard, nor do we have a legal instrument to regulate the conditions and material assumptions of expulsion.
On 12 December in Palermo, the United Nations is going to sign the World Convention on Organised Crime with a protocol on the traffic in human beings.
There is a direct relationship between organised crime and immigration.
What proposals does the Commission have concerning this matter on the basis of Article 31 of the Union?
I apologise again for the excess of zeal shown in cooperation over the secular miracle: I should also like to say to the honourable Member that I hope that by the end of this year the Commission will be able to present to the Council and the European Parliament two framework decisions under the third pillar, including common definitions, criminal charges and sanctions for trafficking in human beings for the purposes of sexual or economic exploitation.
This will be the foundation stone of the European penal structure for eliminating trafficking in human beings, which generally goes hand in hand with organised crime.
The solutions that the Commission will be proposing are fully in line with the content of the United Nations Convention, which I hope will be signed in Palermo in the week of 12 to 15 December.
Question No 18 by (H-0860/00):
Subject: UN report on the exploitation of women The UN report paints a very black picture of the situation of women throughout the world, referring to tens of millions of unwanted pregnancies, risky abortions, rapes, cases of abuse, infanticides and crimes of 'honour' .
The report states that each year 60 million girls are reported missing, 5 000 women are murdered for reasons of family honour, and about 4 million are sold to service the sex industry, while those that manage to escape end up working in wretched conditions.
The report makes the significant point that one in three women world-wide has been a victim of abuse, rape or forced sex at least once in her life, while the perpetrators go unpunished.
What measures does the Commission intend to take to put a stop to this intolerable situation of shameful exploitation, abuse and the white slave trade, and to eliminate all discrimination against women?
Second Part
Questions to Mr Solbes
Mr President, obviously the issue of the exploitation of, and violence against, women is one of the biggest social problems of our times. It also has huge economic repercussions, as a result of the host of illegal economic activities springing up in this sector worldwide.
Violence against women takes many forms: there is violence in the home, a crime which does not speak its name, there is sexual exploitation and there is trafficking in women, i.e. trafficking in human beings.
Allow me to remind you that, following Beijing and again in New York this year, the whole world reiterated that all these issues were human rights issues and should be treated as such, as violations of human rights.
The Commission approved a pan-European policy to combat trafficking in human beings back in 1996, with particular emphasis on the issue of women, who are the worst hit by this scourge.
May I remind you of the DAPHNE and STOP programmes, of last year's campaign on domestic violence, on violence in the home, a problem which has huge dimensions at European level, and of the joint action approved in 1997 on trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children, the basis on which all Member States are called on to review their legislation, take account of certain forms of conduct and encourage cooperation between the judicial authorities.
The programme presented by the Commission on the question of gender equality for the next five years contains five priorities, one of which concerns violence and human rights and we expect to work with governments, local authorities and non-governmental organisations here in order to put programmes in place in all the Member States over the next five years.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your reply. What you have said is all well and good, but there is no substance to it.
What I should like to ask is this: do you not think, Commissioner, that the disgraceful phenomena which we condemn and which, as you yourself added, relate to the economic climate prevailing in the countries of the European Union, elsewhere in Europe and throughout the world, are the result of impoverishment caused by the policy of elevating the demand for maximum profits to the highest ideal, come what may? In Europe, modern slaves for every conceivable purpose come mainly from the countries of the former Soviet Union, where women previously had the social status which they deserved.
Today, with the tragic changes which you - I mean your system - wanted and pursued so enthusiastically, the women and children exported to our countries account for most of the exports from these countries...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, just one word: it is not true that women are only trafficked from the countries of the former Soviet Union or that most of them come from there.
Unfortunately, Asia wears that crown, together with the countries of Africa.
Poverty, wherever it exists, is the main reason, the main factor which causes this phenomenon.
I apologise to Ms Schreyer and Mr Fischler but it is impossible for them to answer the questions.
Questions Nos 19, 20 and 21 will be replied to in writing.
Question No 22 by (H-0809/00):
Subject: Monetary policy and the role of the Commission During a debate in the European Parliament' s Committee on Constitutional Affairs, former Commission President Jacques Delors said that the Commission ought to be responsible for public announcements concerning European policy on the state of the single currency and fluctuations in the exchange rate.
Does the Commission intend to take any steps at least to put an end to the current diversity of opinion which is so prejudicial to the euro?
Questions to Mrs Wallström
Mr President, I would say to Mr Nogueira that clearly, in the model that we have defined, monetary policy is the responsibility of the Central Bank and it is the European Central Bank that takes action in line with the criteria established in the Treaty.
A problem of greater consequence is how to make a single monetary policy compatible with economic policies that are national in accordance with the Treaty.
This operation consists of everything included under economic policy coordination, which has two basic aims: first, that the economic policies of the various Member States should not be incongruent with each other, and secondly, that they should not be incongruent with monetary policy either, generating a situation that could result in an over-restrictive monetary policy.
We mean to carry out this coordination basically through the instrument of major economic policy guidelines, which are applicable in each Member State that approves them and which include not only the major lines of economic policy but also specific recommendations for each Member State.
As a result of the stability and growth plan, however, we have also launched the so-called stability programmes.
Here we take a much more precise, more specific approach, since we are introducing just the public finance element.
The aim during this period has been to reduce government deficit in order to achieve a more flexible monetary policy, lower interest rates and greater growth.
The stated objectives are being satisfactorily achieved.
We hope next year we will achieve a zero deficit situation.
In these circumstances, as the body basically responsible for economic policy coordination, we in Eurogroup are planning to take our fiscal obligations further and, above all, improve the quality and sustainability of public finances, which will certainly mean an improvement in the Stability and Growth Pact and the tackling of more exacting topics with greater content.
Mr President, Commissioner, you have given me an answer about European economic policy and the practice in the Member States and the Commission on this.
With the current state of the euro I believe the problem is not one of economic policy, and other answers need to be given.
If I could make your answer more comprehensive, I would add the evidence that dollars are being systematically purchased from Europe, an extraordinary investment in the United States, and if I governed this country I would be extremely concerned. In any case, the fall in the euro is favouring European exports enormously, which is not detrimental to Europe.
But I do not think you know how to explain this or you dare not do so, and anyway, the fundamental problem with the fall in the euro in fact lies in the lack of confidence in a common policy, because the Member States resist accepting the strategic and political reality of the euro' s actual existence.
There is no question here either, Mr Solbes.
You can see that all MEPs almost without exception are born to be Commissioners, as they want to expound on the issues.
We all know there is no time.
Ladies and gentlemen, please begin with the question and not with the explanation.
Mr President, from a public relations point of view, I believe it is very important to distinguish between internal and external effects, and I would be interested to know if the Commission intends now, with the physical introduction of the euro not far off, to launch a campaign to explain the difference between the internal and external effects of currency stability to the public?
Mr President, I shall try to answer both points quickly.
First of all, it is a fact that we have an internal euro effect and an external euro effect.
In overall terms, the euro effect must be seen as a total, absolute success: we have managed to improve growth, improve the conditions for stability in our economy, we have managed to keep inflation down to a relatively low level despite the risks we are facing, and we are achieving the basic objective, which is to keep inflation under control.
From an external viewpoint, it is true there is a problem - and indirectly I am answering Mr Nogueira - which is, we must not forget, that savings in Europe are much greater than in the United States.
Part of these European savings are allowing European firms to go abroad and become international; in some cases they are European investments produced abroad, and in others still they are just countries or issuers that act in Europe, where they can raise funds better and then transfer them abroad.
But to answer your actual question, what are we going to do? In 1999, we set in motion a number of specific programmes in cooperation with Parliament to publicise the euro as thoroughly as possible.
I always say that the euro will not be introduced on 1 January 2002: the euro is already in our pockets; we have it in coins of different guises, but we already have it in our pockets.
Now that particular point needs working on.
Whereas in 2000 we have devoted more attention to small- and medium-sized enterprises, 2001 must be the year of the people.
We are doing this in cooperation with the Member States, which are responsible for the specific euro changeover programmes.
Parliament is taking part (remember the meetings held on 23 and 24 October), and for our part what we are doing to help the Member States make progress and achieve this visibility that we all want is to inform Ecofin every month.
You too are receiving this information on the current situation of each plan for changing over to the physical euro in each of the Member States, so that everybody can choose the best practices in one country or another and we can all make as much progress as we can together and achieve the best possible results before the end of next year.
Question No 23 will be replied to in writing.
Question No 24 by (H-0787/00):
Subject: Atmospheric pollution in Greece According to estimates by Greenpeace, which has followed the WHO methodology, and according to the latest data (1997-1999) on atmospheric pollution as measured by the relevant state organisations, the cost in human lives in Greece is comparable with the number of road deaths (1342 and 7247 additional deaths annually, due to short and long-term consequences, respectively), while the social cost is put at Drs. 548 bn. and Drs. 2096 bn. for short-term and long-term consequences, respectively.
Athens in particular suffers from high concentrations of particulates, ozone, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide.
Will the Commission say whether Greece has notified it of the measures it has taken to transpose Directives 96/61/EC and 96/62/EC in national legislation, whether Greece is correctly implementing the above directives and, more generally, how it views the quality of the air in Greece, especially in the light of all the studies which it itself has commissioned to address the problem?
Questions to Mr Monti
.
First of all, Directive 96/61 on integrated pollution prevention and control. which was to be transposed in the Member States by 30 October 1999, has not yet been implemented in Greece.
The Commission has therefore sent a recent opinion to the Greek authorities.
Without action being taken from the Greek side we will pursue the procedure already underway.
In relation to Directive 96/62 on ambient air quality assessment and management, the Commission has brought a case against Greece for non-transposition before the Court of Justice.
During the procedure the Greek authorities made known that the directive had now been transposed.
The Commission then applied to the Court of Justice to withdraw the case initiated against the Greek authorities.
A study on air quality in Athens, performed under a programme between the Commission services and the municipality of Athens has resulted in the installation of a monitoring network to comply with the requirements of daughter legislation under Directive 96/62.
The study also assessed present-day air quality in Athens.
During the measurement campaign elevated levels of sulphur dioxide were observed in some hot-spots.
Existing limit values for nitrogen dioxide and lead were not exceeded.
The ozone thresholds pursuant to Directive 92/72 were not exceeded in the city of Athens, but it should be noted that no measurements were made in mid-summer.
Other monitoring data show ozone thresholds frequently being exceeded outside the Athens agglomeration.
I am hopeful that this situation will improve with the implementation of other Community initiatives such as the recent agreement on the Commission's proposal for a directive on national emission ceilings.
In addition, daughter Directive 99/30 must be transposed in Member States by 19 July 2001.
It sets future limit values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and lead.
According to the study, current concentrations of nitrogen dioxide are higher than the limit value for nitrogen dioxide to be met by 2010 and the new limit value for particulate matter to be met by 2005 is, at present, widely exceeded.
The recently adopted limit value for benzene is also exceeded.
This situation is expected to improve with the implementation of Community legislation, for example, in the transport sector.
However, the Greek authorities will have to take supplementary measures at local level to ensure that the new air quality standards are respected.
I am most grateful to the Commissioner for such accurate and detailed information.
Mr President, just to set a precedent, I shall not take up a position. I just have two questions to put to the Commissioner: you said that at times we exceed the limit values.
Have you been notified of any measures taken since the limit values were exceeded? Secondly, the budget of the Cohesion Fund and the budget for the third Community Support Framework include investments; have you discussed investments to set up the measuring networks provided for in Community legislation throughout Greece and not just in Athens?
If values are exceeded, the Member State, in this case Greece, will have to take action.
What we do is to guarantee that there is a system of monitoring and measuring.
If values are exceeded we ask the Member State to take action and we follow developments.
There is the possibility of using Community funding for establishing networks and for measurements in Greece.
It is extremely important to keep an eye on the development of air quality in Greece, and not just in Athens.
Questions Nos 25 to 28 will be replied to in writing.
Question No 29 by (H-0811/00):
Subject: Government aid to the audiovisual sector During a seminar on the arts sector organised by the French Presidency, a representative of the Commission's Directorate-General for Competition expressed the view that the legal requirements to invest imposed on the networks constituted government aid by virtue of the very fact that such investment was made compulsory by the legislative authority.
Can the Commission confirm whether it does in fact take this approach when considering government aid granted to the film and audiovisual industries?
The resources allocated by the networks under a legal obligation are, in fact, government resources.
The fact that a legal requirement to invest exists for networks does not necessarily imply that the said investment is government aid under Article 87(1) of the EEC Treaty, but rather that the Commission must exercise control pursuant to Article 87 of the EEC Treaty.
The principle by which the Commission determines if such investment is aid and, accordingly, costs such aid is the principle of the private investor operating under normal market economy conditions.
The purchase of audiovisual products for subsequent broadcasting by radio is part of the normal commercial activity of TV networks.
Investments made to finance such products would only constitute government aid if the networks did not obtain equivalent concessions or adequate remuneration.
This remuneration can take the form of supplies, purchases of audiovisual products, coproduction shares or broadcasting rights.
It could also consist of other forms of commercial compensation from their investments.
In other words, investments may constitute aid when they finance production projects which are not financed by the networks in the absence of a legal obligation.
Quite clearly, the aid given to these projects would not consist of the entire financing provided by the networks.
Rather, it would consist of the difference between the normal yield and the actual yield from the financed production.
Finally, it must be pointed out that the fact that certain of these investments are in the form of aid does not preclude their ultimate compatibility with the rules of the Treaty.
They could be regarded as compatible by virtue of the special support they provide for cultural productions.
Commissioner, could you clarify whether, in this case, there is not a contradiction with the fact that 'television without borders' also helps to produce the content of the works.
As regards the cut-off between the amount of government aid and its territorial use, do you not think that this cut-off ultimately threatens the possibility, and hence the existence, of national aid?
What is the Commission' s opinion on this? Essentially, my problem is to understand why you work with bilateral notifications and not with an official text which would enable you to consider the problem as a whole, given that you have just raised it with the question of the Treaties.
In its decision to approve the French scheme of supporting film production, the Commission set four specific compatibility criteria.
In the same decision, the Commission undertook to review the aid schemes in all the Member States on the basis of the specific compatibility criteria approved until 2004, the date on which the validity of the authorisation for the French support scheme will expire.
The objective of the Commission' s action is to establish the legal safety and regulatory stability the industry needs in order to develop, which is so far lacking. The Commission also intends to set the minimum compatibility criteria without, however, wishing to harmonise the aid schemes whose diversity is a reflection of the cultural diversity that the Commission seeks to preserve.
This bilateral approach simply aims to examine the conformity of the different schemes with the prototype which was established at the time the decision was taken to approve the French scheme, based on the four specific compatibility criteria.
Combating social exclusion (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A5­0307/2000) by Mrs Figueiredo, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on combating social exclusion.
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights says in its preamble: 'It places the individual at the heart of its activities, by establishing the citizenship of the Union and by creating an area of freedom, security and justice' , and in its first article it adds: 'Human dignity is inviolable.
It must be respected and protected' .
I bring in this quotation from the Charter of Fundamental Rights because some situations described in this magnificent report - I congratulate the rapporteur on it - are probably incompatible with this declaration that has just been willingly adopted by this Parliament.
Compared with these statements, reality is stubborn.
Eurostat data tells us that 18% of the population of the European Union live on less than 60% of average national income or, in other words, 65 million Europeans are living in poverty.
Naturally the national poverty rates are varied and different, as are the types of poverty: urban, in industrial slums, in isolated rural areas, etc., or the poverty linked to sex or age discrimination - I am referring, of course, to poverty among women and child poverty.
Today' s worlds, the society of globalisation and the world economy, the society of information and technological development, may also have a not very positive influence and create, or help to create, new forms of poverty, on account of the intrinsic difficulties in this kind of society in opening up access to employment - to me this is the fundamental route to social integration and inclusion - and because of the need to improve employment and obtain higher-quality jobs.
Europe has created a lot of employment.
In my country, Spain, José María Aznar' s government has made an effort and adopted a commitment: it has succeeded in bringing down a high unemployment rate, and it is still upholding this objective, which is being met, and this commitment.
But I do not think we should be satisfied just with what has been achieved.
To achieve a Europe that encourages integration, in the words of the Lisbon European Council, requires joint effort and joint action.
This comes through knowing the characteristics and the means that can get everyone involved, in society as a whole and in the various governments, on account of the need to quantify objectives and eradicate child poverty, because child poverty must generate other kinds of poverty and perhaps establish formulae of social exclusion that perpetuate poverty and perhaps even destitution.
Therefore, Commissioner, I ask for a special effort to be made to eradicate this child poverty.
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank our rapporteur and welcome the initiative she has taken to engage in dialogue with the Council and the Commission immediately following this first reading in order to work towards ensuring that better consideration is given to the amendments desired by Parliament.
Following the mass unemployment of the 1980s, social exclusion risks becoming the new evil which will gnaw away at Europe over the coming decade.
When growth returns, it will be a challenge we need to take up if we want it to actually benefit everybody.
This is not self-evident as this new growth is very unfair and, as we have seen in the United States for some ten years now, may be accompanied by persistent insecure employment, exclusion, poverty and urban ghettoisation.
Growth will take place under conditions inherited from the crisis: a lot of jobs are being created, but there have never been so many insecure jobs, temporary jobs and imposed part-time work.
I believe that we must ensure that the phenomenon of the working poor does not become widespread over here as well.
For many people, economic exclusion is accompanied by exclusion from decent housing and the lack of access to healthcare, training and culture, with certain groups being more exposed than others.
This Community programme does not aim to take it entirely upon itself to combat exclusion in the European Union, but it must make it possible for Europe to take action in a more determined, effective and coordinated way.
To achieve this, it must be closely linked to the commitment that the Heads of State and Government made in Lisbon in March 2000 to give a decisive boost to eliminating poverty by setting proper objectives which must be approved by the Council by the end of the year, in other words, before the Nice European Council, which will take place in a few weeks' time.
I believe that the programme will not be fully meaningful unless it is linked to achieving this objective.
How can this be done?
Firstly, by improving our understanding of exclusion by establishing an indicator and evaluation criteria directed at target groups in particular.
Secondly, by making it possible to take better account of the experience of operators in the field, NGOs, local authorities, social organisations and of people who are themselves being excluded.
Thirdly, by helping to assess the impact of government policies that are being pursued in the different Member States in order to draw lessons, establish good practices and reflect on good strategies and, in particular, their consistency with other economic and social policies.
Fourthly, by helping to define guidelines and national action plans along the same lines as the Luxembourg procedure on employment, based, therefore, on indicators and objectives which are not minimal but of a high level of requirement corresponding to the idea we have of the European social model.
The amendments proposed by the rapporteur - which we support - aim to reinforce the programme along these lines. I believe that they converge on a number of points with the proposals made by the high-level social protection group in the Employment Council in the run-up to the Nice Summit.
These proposals relate, in particular, to the idea of promoting access to lasting, high-quality employment, to social protection and healthcare. Added to this is access for all to decent and salubrious housing and to essential services; the high-level group mentioned in this connection electricity, water, heating and also real access to education, justice and public services.
To conclude, I believe that we will only be able to combat exclusion effectively if we guarantee access to fundamental rights to everybody, because dignity and real involvement as a citizen are conditional upon these rights.
Mr President, combating social exclusion is a political desideratum we can all support, but what is to be understood by social exclusion and how is it best to be combated? What must the EU' s role be?
It is the answers to such questions that we shall find in this programme, designed to promote cooperation on the part of the Member States in combating social exclusion. The idea is that all interested and concerned parties should be involved in a type of work in which the individual countries describe the extent of social exclusion and their efforts to combat it.
This will form the background against which we shall acquire a more common framework of understanding, for the concept of social exclusion is not so simple to define.
When we think of the long-term unemployed - young as well as old - do we not think of physically or mentally handicapped people, of the mentally ill and of the poor and people with limited means? No doubt we each of us have our own particular ideas about what the concept should cover.
What we lack is a common definition.
The Commission experimented with a definition in its consultation document for the Lisbon Summit, proceeding on the basis that the excluded are those who have an income of less than 60% of average earnings in the country concerned.
The governments of the Member States did not accept this definition, which is also rather simplistic and unduly bland.
We need a more detailed description of the problem areas.
The very open approach adopted by the Council to the issue is, in my view, quite correct.
There is a need to gather statistics, prepare analyses and, by means of conferences and other devices, create greater common appreciation of what we understand to mean by social exclusion.
With regard to the actual report, Mrs Figueiredo wants to see the word 'poverty' introduced into the legislative text.
This is something to which my group is generally opposed for technical reasons, namely the issue of what the basis would be in terms of the Treaties.
We recognise, of course, that poverty is a source of social exclusion, as is also stated in the text.
I believe we are all agreed about that.
Parts of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party also have reservations about increasing the appropriation and inserting a reference to the focus group into the legislative text, but we are otherwise able to support Mrs Figueiredo' s report.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur for her great commitment in dealing with this report on a programme of Community action for combating social exclusion in which, as many have said, poverty can be an important factor.
We are told that finding paid work is the best way of preventing social exclusion but I would agree with those who have said that we would have to take account of the fact that gainful employment alone is no guarantee of social participation.
There are many elderly people who would agree with that, as would those who had worked for hours for low wages which do not provide a decent living - farm labourers, for example.
It is a pity that poverty is proving such a controversial addition to the title of this programme, for the reason that it is not mentioned in the Treaties.
It would be interesting to hear from the Council, at some point, whether they are proposing to rectify this omission at the Nice Summit.
Combating poverty proves controversial because it raises the issue of social protection as a productive factor and the issue of redistribution - deeply unfashionable concepts with some Member States.
It would be useful to use some of the increased sum which is requested in this report to fund comparative studies to demonstrate how such developments might be managed.
I am sure that many of the NGOs and local and regional authorities - which Mrs Figueiredo proposes to include in the programme and its evaluation - would be happy to share their considerable expertise.
If we are going to avoid social exclusion we have to ensure that our macroeconomic policies do not act in a way which increases social exclusion.
It would be totally counterproductive to have policies which undermine local economic development, make employment less secure but more demanding and then have to mop up the casualties through programmes which try to combat poverty and social exclusion.
Mr President, we live in a paradoxical society. In economic policy, we in fact do all we can to increase efficiency, dynamism and response rates.
In the harsh climate which then arises, there are more and more people who cannot keep up and who are marginalised and excluded.
So the more the economy flourishes, the more people seem to be consigned to poverty.
It is easy to become pessimistic.
In spite of the fact that there is money around and in spite of the fact that Europe has never been richer, it appears to be more and more difficult to protect the weak and give the marginalised a proper chance.
That is why Mrs Figueiredo' s report is very important and welcome.
I want to congratulate her warmly on the report.
It is about how the Member States are to be encouraged to do something to combat poverty and social exclusion.
What is particularly good is that she emphasises so strongly that fine words are not enough and that solidarity costs money.
The ideal, of course, is to be able to offer good work to as many people as possible, but in a tough competition-based economy there are many who do not cope.
According to the report, this may be true of women with two jobs who therefore work both outside and inside the home.
It may be true of older people whose knowledge is no longer needed.
It may be true of people with mental difficulties and of large groups of people who do not have a good enough knowledge of the language in order to get jobs.
Above all, it is no doubt true of the many people who work but who have wages too low to live on.
All these groups are threatened by social exclusion if very extensive measures of support are not provided.
The Member States must therefore allocate much more money than at present to social initiatives aimed at combating exclusion, poverty and social destitution.
I mentioned what is paradoxical in society. According to the current ideology, people must take responsibility for their own lives.
I believe, however, that social exclusion and poverty are caused by social conditions and that responsibility is therefore shared.
In a good society, there must be room for everyone, and that means shared responsibility.
Mr President, in this Chamber we never cease to sing the praises of the European Social Model, the social market economy, which many feel with pride compares very favourably with the primitive model of the United States of America.
However, the figures on poverty in Europe, upon which our report is based and which have been mentioned today - the 18% poverty line - are evidence of a situation which is anything but exciting.
The main problem is still understanding what it is that is not working in the economies and societies of the European countries and which reforms should be carried out in order to reduce substantially the zones of poverty and social exclusion burdening many areas of the Union.
What proposals does the decision under consideration make? To guarantee rights, to establish coordination, to create committees to study the situation and draw up action plans to combat social exclusion, to promote dialogue between the parties concerned and to create NGO networks at European level, and for this we will appropriate EUR 70 million or maybe EUR 100 million.
Now, I am not questioning the good intentions behind this decision, but I am concerned at the results to be expected from this five-year plan.
At the end of the day, we will in all probability, be more familiar with the statistics of social exclusion and poverty - which is a good thing - and we will have guaranteed operations to assist some tens of thousands of people in Europe - which is also no bad thing - but we will not have made any progress towards structural reforms which could have convincingly reduced poverty and exclusion.
The report stresses two points: unemployment and the extremely low pension levels for certain categories.
It is certainly true that these are two factors which lead to exclusion and poverty, but we must treat the disease rather than the symptoms.
If we want there to be more jobs, we must have the courage to liberalise the labour market.
Where this has been achieved, even in Europe, unemployment has fallen convincingly.
In the United States, a more flexible labour market means that periods of poverty and unemployment are only very short.
If we want to find the resources to give to the pensioners with the most paltry pensions, we must have the courage to admit that we need to stop people retiring at 50 years old and, in all probability, create a completely new social security system.
If we do not reform the labour and welfare markets, re-establishing them on the basis of individual freedom and responsibility rather than on State and trade union paternalism, then I am afraid that our committees and our efforts at coordination will do very little for the poor of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, despite the technical problems, I would like to speak.
18% of the European Union's population lives below the poverty line.
These 65 million people are often overlooked.
They do not fit into the image of a prosperous Europe with enormous growth potential.
The cause of this poverty is a lack of jobs, inadequate wages - the phrase "the working poor" comes to mind - and insecure jobs.
If we are to achieve the economic and social cohesion to which we aspire we need not just a high level of employment, but also a high level of social protection.
Mrs Diamantopoulou, I welcome the fact that the Commission ....
(Technical fault)
I am being sabotaged, Mr President!
This should help to recognise the symptoms of exclusion and provide for an exchange of experience based on precise qualitative and quantitative data.
A dialogue is needed between interest groups and the relevant NGOs.
National monitoring centres and regional and local authorities need to be involved.
The benefits of synergy are felt when Member States' measures are linked with Community policies, actions and instruments and with the European Structural Funds.
This can lead to successful practices which act as a model.
Another result is building and extending networks.
And another still is the promotion of innovative projects.
I regard it as essential to set up a reflection group at European level with representatives of the NGOs, the social partners, the Council and the European Parliament taking part in an annual round table.
The concept of open coordination in employment policy since Luxembourg needs to incorporate exclusion and to be reflected in the Member States' National Action Plans.
In 1992, the Council called on the Member States to combat social exclusion.
In 1999, it agreed to promote social integration.
We should reinforce this active role as from 2001, in order to give those afflicted by poverty and social exclusion access to economic, social and cultural activities.
Mr President, I welcome the Commissioner's initiative and this report which seeks to improve upon it.
Europe has managed to avoid the economic crises that have hit many parts of the world over recent years.
Growth is picking up, inflation has been brought down to its lowest levels for a generation, yet we still have persistent poverty and exclusion.
Europe's unemployment rate is still far too high at 8.3%.
Well over half of the 14 million unemployed, according to Eurostat's latest figures, have been out of work for over a year.
Furthermore, according to the EU's statistical service, 18% of European citizens live below the poverty line, while one-third of those living in poverty are working.
In my own country something like 75% of those who are working and living below the poverty line are women.
The situation seems to be getting worse.
Between 1980 and 1995 overall inequality rose in Member States.
Globalisation, technological innovation and the emergence of a knowledge-based economy are coinciding with changing family structures, shifting gender roles and increasingly diverse societies.
The simple fact is that social exclusion is a brake on economic growth, while an inclusive society enhances growth and the well-being of everyone.
The Commission estimates that the under-use of available human resources and the wider cost of ill-health, crime etc. could be between EUR 1 billion and EUR 2 billion annually.
This is an enormous figure.
It is absolutely imperative that Europe address the divisions that already exist and prevents new ones arising.
The existence of a single currency and an increasingly coordinated economic and fiscal policy mean that social policies cannot be the sole responsibilities of national jurisdictions.
It is imperative, however, that Member States engage fully with this programme and consult widely with civil society to establish ambitious targets for eliminating poverty and exclusion.
The first test of the Member States' seriousness will be their approval of Parliament's decision that the funding should be increased from EUR 70 billion to EUR 100 billion.
This in itself is a paltry sum given the extent of the problem.
Finally, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur for a report that identifies the true extent of poverty and social exclusion and questions the notion of a Europe committed to defending social justice and solidarity unless all European institutions and civil society engage seriously with the issues.
Mr President, I am truly grateful to the rapporteur, Mrs Figueiredo, both for the hard work which, in her customary manner, she has lavished on this document, and also because she has accepted some of the amendments I tabled, one of which states that poverty and social exclusion are the result of Member States' laws providing for paltry pensions, as Mr Della Vedova said, referring precisely to the Fatuzzo amendment which has been incorporated into the Figueiredo report.
If only we could do something about social exclusion and poverty!
If only we could reduce the scale!
Every year, my friends Mr Thomas Mann and Mr Mario Mantovani and I go to the Poor Sisters' institute in Brussels to serve meals to the town's poor tramps, and our hearts bleed and we feel guilty that we are only able to do this once a year: we would like to be able to do it every day but, in all honesty, it would be impossible.
Well then, we must endeavour to implement this major undertaking, at least in part.
I am aware of the good intentions of Mrs Figueiredo, the Commission and, in particular, Commissioner Diamantopoulou, but I would stress once again what I said in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, namely that we must put an end to programmes combating social exclusion.
This must be the last programme: all we need to do is to endeavour to conquer poverty. Poverty must be eradicated once and for all!
Mr President, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur for a quite excellent report.
We have all spoken of the extremely beneficial economic development we are seeing, with good growth, declining unemployment and a greater number of jobs.
At the same time, I believe that, in all EU countries, we are seeing increasing and persistent social divisions due to the recession we experienced.
This indicates that labour market policy and traditional employment policy are not enough. Instead, we must include more policy areas if we are to be able to combat social exclusion and poverty.
It is a multidimensional problem.
Naturally, labour market policy is part and parcel of this issue.
It is important for unemployment to decline and for there to be more jobs.
That is not enough, however, since education policy too must be included, especially in view of the fact that, when knowledge is as important as it is in the new society, everyone must have access to it.
Social security policy is also an important area.
People in different life situations, for example those who are parents of small children or who are unemployed, ill or old, must not inevitably become poor or socially excluded but must be able to participate in society.
Housing policy, too, is an important area. For example, it is important for people to have the right to housing if they are to be included in society.
Moreover, all political levels must be involved.
We are used to the local level and we are used to the regional and national levels.
We also know however that, in view of the present economic situation with its cross-border economy, it is necessary for us to act at a European level in order to create added value and not in order to take over anything else.
The process involved in this programme is therefore important, just as it is important to combine different policy areas. This was discussed in Lisbon and will continue to be discussed at the Stockholm meeting.
It involves our combining social security policy, labour market policy and education policy with economic policy.
A programme like this, designed to combat social exclusion and poverty, is most excellently suited for this purpose.
Mr President, Eurostat states quite clearly that around 18% of the European Union' s population live on less than 60% of the average national income.
This represents around 75 million European citizens.
In general terms, over the last ten years, the national poverty rate has ranged from 10 to 11% for Denmark and the Netherlands to a very worrying 24% for Portugal.
To this we must add the fact that more than 10 million people depend on assistance from social welfare systems, in a situation which is growing worse in most Member States.
This report is extremely important because it aims to improve the circumstances of the most underprivileged, thereby representing one more step towards strengthening social cohesion.
For this I wish to congratulate the rapporteur.
This is an ambitious programme of Community action which, in line with the Commission' s proposal, will be given budgetary appropriations of EUR 70 million and should remain in force for a period of five years.
This budget should be increased, bearing in mind the processes and the realism that are necessary in this field.
There must be further dialogue with non-governmental organisations and with other social partners, aimed at vigorously detecting the most concentrated areas of poverty and social exclusion and at defining the most efficient and effective ways of combating them.
We must nevertheless issue a warning about the inadequacy of the NGOs' financial control mechanisms, and demand a better system of financial management equal to the task of ensuring that public funds are spent in a sensible and rigorous way.
The beneficiaries of this programme should be the victims of poverty and social exclusion, and we must prevent this from becoming in practice merely a means of financing bodies which investigate the problems of poverty and social exclusion.
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent contribution to identifying the causes and the scale of poverty, which is an appropriate term for a social reality whose cruelty should not be watered down into a concept as wide-ranging and abstract as social exclusion.
I support the Commission' s initiative to create a programme which meets the objectives of the Treaty' s new social agenda, and which puts the Lisbon decisions into practice.
I also hope that it will welcome the amendments in this report, on which there was a broad consensus.
I urge the Council to establish quantifiable goals, and specific, cross-sector action programmes to combat exclusion, based on indicators which provide considerable information so that closer cooperation can be translated into tangible and effective action, more in the social results that it achieves than in satisfying electoral needs.
I support the need to gain more knowledge about the causes of poverty and I also support preventative action against exclusion resulting from mergers, industrial change, relocations, rural desertification, and urban ghettoisation, with innovative and tangible responses involving both sides of industry, local and national government and concerted action by the public.
Mr President, first of all, I too congratulate Mrs Figueireido on her work, which was approved unanimously, moreover, in committee, and on the innovative nature of her report on the establishment of a Community programme to combat social exclusion.
I therefore support the rapporteur in stressing that the programme, or rather the programme's role, will facilitate greater social cohesion where the poor and the marginalised are concerned.
As is stated in the amendments which I tabled in committee and which were subsequently adopted, I am convinced that an effective, practical fight against poverty must take place according to a timetable of events and targets.
In fact, a programme with in-built deadlines and checks is easier to assess in terms of quantity and quality.
It must be taken into consideration that over 65 million people in the European Union - 7.5 million of which live in my country, Italy - live on a low income, and a low income in Italy, Commissioner, means a family living on an income of EUR 750.
These figures suggest that the budget made available for the programme will be totally insufficient.
I therefore call for it to be increased.
Mr President, I will end by stressing once again that mutual support between States must be the reference point upon which we base a fresh fight against poverty and social exclusion, but we must take into account the fact that the economic progress of the Member States, and therefore an improvement in their welfare due to the implementation of a social economy of scale, will certainly facilitate the achievement of a greater, better system of social justice.
Mr President, I would like to thank and congratulate Mrs Figueiredo and I would like to thank the other Members of Parliament who are not here and who have expressed the opinions of the other committees.
It is a very important and constructive contribution and it supports the Commission proposal for a joint decision of the Council and Parliament which will establish a community action programme to combat social exclusion.
After the Treaty of Amsterdam and some months after the Lisbon council, we all know that a new context has been created for Community action in the area of social policies and social exclusion and social protection.
There is a shift in the political debate at the European level and we can see that there is a strong will to combine social cohesion and competition.
The proposed action programme has a legal basis, Article 137 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and we had a new mandate after the Lisbon Council.
This programme has been designed to support implementation of the open coordination method which means that it will be possible to improve knowledge, to develop exchange of information and best practice and to evaluate experience to better combat social exclusion.
There has been a very interesting debate on the role of employment in combating social exclusion and the role of the social reforms and of the structural reforms.
There was a discussion about the definition of "poverty" and "social income".
The gap is clearly increasing between rich and poor, but unfortunately it is impossible to participate in these discussions since I am obliged to focus on the proposed programme and on the way in which we will cooperate to implement this programme at the European level.
I would like to inform Members of Parliament that, on 4 December, there will be a discussion in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the new social agenda and on what we have achieved during the last year.
There will be a very interesting political debate, and social exclusion will be at the centre of this debate.
As far as the proposed programme is concerned and the report of Parliament, I am particularly happy at your strong overall support for this proposal.
I can accept a majority of your proposals either in their entirety or in spirit.
I agree on your proposal to strengthen the reference to the conclusion of the Lisbon European Council.
I also agree on the importance of improving understanding of social exclusion and poverty and of promoting comparable indicators and assessment criteria.
I also agree to highlight the importance of NGOs as well as of regional and local actors as you suggest, and of better reflecting their experience on the ground.
There is a reference to the use of the word "poverty".
You know there is a political and theoretical discussion on the word "poverty".
Of course, social exclusion is the wider notion and social exclusion has three main dimensions: poverty, discrimination and lack of opportunities.
But I agree that "poverty" is politically a very strong word and I agree that we can add poverty to social exclusion where possible in the text of the proposal.
Unfortunately, we cannot use it in the title of the programme.
This is a legalistic problem because, according to the Treaty's wording, the reference concerns only social exclusion and not poverty.
I also welcome the amendment which stresses the importance of coherence between all relevant policies.
I welcome the amendments which refer to the Social Protection Committee.
Something which is very important is that the Commission has accepted an exceptional increase of up to 90% in the rate of Community co-funding of European networks of NGOs active in poverty and social exclusion.
However, I am not able to accept an increase in the budget from EUR 70 million to EUR 100 million.
The budget that we propose is adapted to the aim of the programme and this aim is to encourage cross-national cooperation and mutual learning and not to fund actions on the ground.
Through the Social Fund and through the EQUAL initiative Member States' NGOs can be funded for particular projects for particular actions on the ground.
I am unable to accept the remaining amendments for a variety of reasons: some because they are not in conformity with legal requirements; some because they raise issues which fall outside the scope of the decision establishing the programme; and some because they would confuse the message.
Finally, I would like to come to your proposal that the Commission sets up, in addition to the programme committee, a reflection group.
We cannot accept this proposal because it is against the comitology rules.
But I would like to make the following pragmatic suggestion in response to your concerns because I entirely agree that we must find a way to have close and continuous cooperation.
We have already agreed that the Social Protection Committee would meet on a regular basis with the contact group of Members of Parliament.
The Social Protection Committee plays a key role in the development of policies of the European Council.
Close cooperation between the contact group and the Social Protection Committee will ensure the exchange of views between the Council and Parliament.
On the other hand there could be a link between the contact group and the Commission's officials on a regular basis.
They could exchange views, they could cooperate on a permanent basis, and we have already established a similar liaison between Parliament and the Commission for the Unemployment Fund and for the European Social Fund.
We had very successful and satisfactory results.
Finally, I would like to respond to your concerns about the involvement of different actors and institutions in the implementation of this programme.
I suggest that the annual Round Table we have proposed should be prepared in consultation with representatives of all the institutions which work at European level: the European Parliament, the Committee of the Regions, the Economic and Social Committee, the social partners and the European networks of NGOs.
I believe that these proposals constitute a pragmatic response to your request.
For procedural and institutional reasons it is not possible to incorporate them in the text of the decision.
To sum up, out of the 75 amendments you have proposed, I can accept either as drafted or in spirit 48 of them, namely: Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 37, 42, 46, 48, 51, 58, 59, 60, 61, 65, 66, 68 and 74.
I can also accept parts of Amendments Nos 14, 36, 40, 45, 53, 63, 64, 70, 71, 72 and 73.
Finally, I would like to highlight the importance of simplification of the procedures.
You have focused on that during the discussion.
It is true that there is a complexity in the whole procedure but all three institutions wish to reach an agreement as soon as possible.
This is what we will try to do on the part of the Commission.
We will try to shorten the procedures as much as we can.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources
The next item is the report (A5­0320/2000) by Mrs Rothe, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on a European Parliament and Council directive on the promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market (COM(2000) 279 - C5­0281/2000 - 2000/0116(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the Sixth Conference of the Parties on Climatic Change is meeting at the moment in The Hague.
This is a summit which intends to slow down climate change and at which the Kyoto Protocol will undergo its ordeal by fire.
In addition, the latest conclusions reached by scientists on the intergovernmental panel on climate change alert us to its alarming effects.
Energy from renewable sources will not be a panacea that will solve this problem, but nobody doubts that it can contribute greatly to alleviating it and also to diversifying our sources of energy and reducing our dependence on hydrocarbons, which indeed would not be a bad thing.
I want to point out that the Commission and the Commissioner in particular have hit the mark in proposing this directive to promote renewable sources of electricity.
We trust that the directive will help these as yet incipient forms of energy to develop and become competitive and that the Commission will soon present us with a similar proposal on biofuels.
I also wish to recognise Mrs Rothe' s hard work and congratulate her on it.
Implicit in the report we are to vote on tomorrow is Parliament' s decisive support for this initiative, and I ask the Commissioner to transmit this support to the Members of the Commission because it is in that institution and not here in Parliament that this directive - and others that may follow in the same laudable vein - may find their principal detractor.
I am referring specifically to the proposed guidelines, i.e. aid for the environment.
This document is unacceptable because of the way it proposes to treat operating aid for renewable energy sources and cogeneration, since it does not recognise the different degree of competitiveness between these renewable energy sources and conventional ones. Neither does it recognise the external costs that are avoided with these types of energy.
In addition, it is inconceivable that the Directorate-General for Competition should move to regulate this kind of aid without taking into account the results of negotiations pertaining to the directive we have before us, and at the very least it can be seen as a snub to Parliament.
Therefore, I wish to say that both documents need to be dealt with in conjunction with one another.
We consider that, if these guidelines are not modified, the environmental impact they will cause will be highly negative.
In the specific case of my country, Spain, these guidelines would be responsible for an additional 225 billion tonnes of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere between now and 2010 and for our being unable to meet the Kyoto targets.
The directive on renewable sources of energy represents a belief in the future and an investment in the environment.
Investments in the environment are neither cost-free nor do they come into the field of competition.
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Rothe.
Renewable energy is by far the largest source of energy currently in use in the world.
How else do we see where we are going during the day? More people use firewood than any other fuel.
But tonight we are talking of extending the use of renewable energy.
I am going to repeat three of our demands.
Clarity is essential as we put forward our point of view to the Council.
We want: binding targets, not indicative cut targets; a rational definition of renewable energy - energy from waste, which is to be incinerated anyway, is a good idea.
But mixed household waste; old paint brushes, polystyrene packaging and discarded plastic toys are not renewable energy.
Another directive is needed for energy from waste, as Mrs Rothe suggests.
Thirdly, we want a reasonable and therefore a longer period of certainty in which renewable energy can continue to receive compensation for the external costs to society which its use avoids.
Let me finish with one very startling fact.
The United Kingdom could generate four times its power requirements from offshore wind alone - four times its power requirements!
Colleagues, this directive makes sense.
Commissioner, thank you for your efforts.
I hope you will support ours.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission' s proposal to create a framework enabling the proportion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the European Union to be considerably increased in the medium term, can only be welcomed.
The lengths the rapporteur, Mrs Rothe, has gone to to make Parliament' s stance on this clear, therefore deserve our full recognition.
After all, on the one hand, this directive is an important element in the series of measures taken to enable us to honour the commitment the EU entered into in Kyoto regarding the reduction of greenhouse gases and, on the other, it is a praiseworthy attempt to reduce the European Union' s dependence on the oil-producing countries.
Under the present circumstances, it must be recognised that the renewable energy sources require some form of financial support, in order to create a level playing field.
As I see it though, these subsidies should be no more than reasonable and only payable for a limited period.
Needless to say, the controversial issue in this report is that to do with the stipulation of binding target figures.
In fact the crux of the report is whether it makes any sense or not to have these binding target figures.
I would advocate a realistic approach, an approach based on the knowledge that electricity production from renewable energy sources can never form a substantial element of total energy production.
Stipulating realistic target figures can only increase public confidence in the energy policy to be pursued.
If the target figures cannot be made binding then we will be creating false expectations, i.e. by pretending to strive for the improvement of the environment without being able to make it a reality.
This would be to the detriment both of the environment and of the policy' s credibility in the eyes of the citizens.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to point out, on the subject of municipal waste processing, that if a switch is made to separated municipal waste collection, a switch can also be made to separated municipal waste processing, and the latter must certainly be regarded as a renewable energy source.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Rothe, what we need is a clear definition of what is renewable.
Plastic is not a renewable resource, nor is peat.
We run the risk of losing the confidence of Europe' s citizens who want to buy green electricity if we sow confusion by coming up with ridiculous definitions.
We need clear national objectives. I do not agree with Mr Beysen; a liberal should be in favour of the fewest possible distortions in the market.
If we do not have clear objectives, there will be distortion between those countries which do something to promote renewable energies and those countries which do not do enough.
Let us now turn to the support instruments.
The Commissioner agrees with Parliament' s position that it is too early to decide, at this stage, between the two instruments currently in place, i.e. firstly the system of green certificates and secondly the system of guaranteed prices.
Since the plea by the Advocate-General before the Court of Luxembourg, there is now less risk of seeing guaranteed prices foiled by state-aid regulations.
But there may still be a threat from seeking compatibility with the internal market.
I believe that a politician is someone who needs to anticipate problems.
I do not want electricians to cause interference between the two systems and to sow confusion and doubt amongst investors in Europe by short-circuiting and manipulating the system of guaranteed prices.
Not only must guaranteed prices be tolerated, they must be protected by the directive.
That is what politics is all about: making competition possible between the two instruments by protecting guaranteed prices and harmonising certificate-related issues.
Renewable energies is a subject which unites the citizens of Europe at a time when Europe is finding it difficult to get its citizens to support greater integration.
I believe that a strong policy on renewable energies is a symbol of the Europe of tomorrow.
Mr President, the dependence of the Member States of the Union on imported energy is massive and is growing all the time.
Reliance on fossil fuels is reliance on imported energy and the political decisions of foreign powers.
Using renewable energy sources will increase the freedom and independence of nations and is in harmony with the principles of ecologically and socially sustainable development.
In preparing the report, a definition of what renewables actually are has been put forward.
Without taking a stand on whether peat is a renewable energy resource, it must be able to be used as a fuel in the production of energy, preferably in the combined production of electricity and heat.
Peat is important in the Nordic countries, and we must have the opportunity there to burn peat, as it is our own source of energy and it reduces the EU' s dependence on imports.
Burning it produces carbon dioxide, but that is produced when fossil fuels are burned anyway.
Those countries that burn oil or gas themselves should not prohibit us from burning peat.
If we do not, we will burn oil or gas.
We are not trying to deceive others into believing that carbon dioxide is reduced by burning peat, but it is our own fuel, while oil and gas are imported goods.
Waste is not a renewable natural resource, although there is more and more of it produced every day.
Landfill site gas can be burned, but the volume of waste should not be increased just so that more gas can be burned than before.
Mr President, the Commission and the rapporteur are right to formulate long-term objectives for promoting electricity production from renewable energy sources, although what we need is a dynamic approach in these matters.
I also think we should give special attention to the effect that the anticipated competition from the candidate countries will have.
They are at an advantage in terms of cost owing to lower labour costs and a lower standard of environmental protection.
That could push energy prices down.
So the logical step to take would be to increase the financing for the support measures for sustainable energy again.
In the meantime, it is absolutely essential, given the variety of energy sources, to establish a sound definition of sustainable energy.
For example, waste incineration must not be called sustainable as a matter of course.
After all, this process also releases harmful substances.
Hence my amendment to maintain the strict emission standards of Annex 5 of the revised directive for waste incineration.
Setting standards on the output side will foster innovation.
Finally, the European countries must demonstrate, via these agreements, that they will contribute to the realisation of the Kyoto objectives.
I support this wholeheartedly because climate change poses a threat to the earth' s flora and fauna.
Furthermore, it is unacceptable for a select group of rich countries to constantly plunder the resources in God' s creation.
Mr President, at the weekend the OPEC ministers met in Vienna and came to the conclusion that there should be no increase in production quotas.
Over the last 18 months we have seen the price of crude oil rise from USD 9.75 to USD 33 a barrel.
As I see it, we are sticking our heads in the sand if we refuse to recognise that we are in the middle of the third oil crisis since the Second World War.
The first oil crisis in 1973 was a political one, as was the second oil crisis in 1979, but this is a lasting crisis, because all the indications are that reserves are by no means as large as we have been led to believe.
This is also what individual studies indicate.
I could even quote Saudi Arabia's former oil minister, Sheikh Yamani, who recently said on Austrian television that the Oil Age is coming to an end, not perhaps because of a shortage of oil, no more than the Stone Age came to an end for lack of stones!
And we cannot replace oil as a primary energy source by other primary energy sources, because they too would then soon be in short supply.
Oil cannot be replaced by coal, natural gas or uranium.
So this directive is unintentionally topical right now.
However, it also provides us with an historical opportunity to give renewable energy sources, which constantly regenerate themselves - that is wind, hydro, solar and biomass - their proper place in future energy supply. This is for a variety of reasons - environmental reasons, social reasons, because they create jobs, for peace policy reasons, because this energy source has sparked off wars throughout the century, and, lastly, because they also represent a great economic opportunity for the industrialised nations.
Mr President, Commissioner, we warmly support the draft directive for electricity from renewable energy sources.
We see it as building on the work of our colleague, Mr Mombaur, in advocating a greater share of electricity and energy in the European Union from these sources.
Clearly, the issues that divide the House are quite stark: the issue of the definition of renewable energy, for instance.
Many of us feel that energy from waste should be included.
It is a valuable resource and it certainly renews itself day-by-day, and that should qualify it to be included.
It seems a pity to exclude any category which can contribute to the overall achievement of energy from waste - whether it is for small-scale projects or part of the overall calculation.
The key issue, however, that divides us is the question of the binding nature of the targets.
We have grave reservations about this being in conflict with the principle of subsidiarity.
We think our friends on the Left and the Greens are asking too much in this regard.
It could scupper this directive, but we also think it is a matter of practicality.
If you aim for these targets, there is a curious range of percentages between 6% and nearly 80% in different Member States.
This seems a very curious way of going about it, so we think the Commission is right to aim for indicative targets.
The third point in issue here is the length of support programmes.
We favour a shorter period followed by a review, and I would say to my colleague, Mrs McNally, that she paints a pretty picture of windmills in the sea, but I must tell her that the engineering difficulties and the costs involved make that technology, as with electricity from the sun, rather a long way off in the future.
But I warmly support this proposal.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mrs Rothe for an excellent report, which revealed much understanding of the situation, We obviously have to support an increase in the use of electricity produced from renewable energy sources.
The share should aim to be doubled in the next ten years; it could well be more than that.
However, the Union' s dependence on imported energy is growing too fast at present.
In twenty or so years' time it will be as much as 70%.
That will create uncertainty in our lives - in the economy as well as other areas.
I think we not only need to develop renewable energy sources but a modern energy savings programme to run in parallel with that process, as this dependence is also starting to become a matter of security for us.
Peat grows continuously.
The formation of peat by assimilation and the production of organic debris are the same as with other plant biomasses.
Instead of a hundred years, as with wood, peat needs thousands of years to regenerate.
We need peat especially in the eastern and northern parts of my own country, where all other fuels, apart from wood, have to be brought in from far away.
We do not wish to burn and be dependent just on coal and oil.
For us an annual growth limit in peat is quite enough.
It is a lot - too much.
We Finns regard the forest and the marshes as almost sacred, and we know how to use them in compliance with the principle of sustainable development.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the use of sustainable renewable energy sources must be one of the principle objectives of a modern energy policy in Europe as well, but there must also be obligations and certainties, dictated by common sense, of course.
In this sense, hydroelectric power is important, and it has been both a burden and a blessing for the mountain peoples, for they have had to pay a very high price for their land and have watched local industrialisation processes spring up, associated precisely with the presence of this energy source.
Now this resource - renewable energy par excellence - must be fully exploited: without further harm to the environment, of course, and along with the introduction of compensation and repossession mechanisms for the mountain peoples.
This directive does, of course, take the desired line in that here, at last, is genuine exploitation of renewable energies.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Rothe for an excellent report which is very timely this week when we are struggling with the crisis of climate change.
Commissioner, we do have a problem: the provision of grid infrastructure to facilitate network access for renewables.
There is a risk of renewables being stillborn or strangled at birth by the utilities that have a monopoly, if they can charge huge sums for grid access.
One farmer in my locality with a wind project was quoted over EUR 2 million for a connection and this is clearly a problem that I would like addressed.
Also, I would like to inform the Commissioner that Ireland can be competitive in wind energy in a very short time.
We believe that we can be competitive given the correct initial support, and those do include grid access.
I would like to inform Mr Chichester that off my own seashore there are already well advanced windmills in the sea, certainly a project that is going to be up-and-running within a short space of time, so I would like to invite him to come and see it when it does get-up-and-running.
I am confident that he will appreciate it.
Mr President, increasing the proportion of electricity from renewable energy sources is a good move.
The share of renewable energy sources proposed, 22% by 2010, compared with 13.9% now, is particularly ambitious and I am just wondering whether a directive which focuses on the market and makes no provision for parallel measures such as support for research will suffice in order to achieve it.
One very serious question is how to deal with the extra generation costs.
The directive talks about support systems, basically a premium paid to companies which operate in this sector, and relies on so-called market mechanisms for the final solution.
This basically means that workers will be subsidising both the company's costs and its profits and, of course, this would not happen if the energy generation and distribution industry were a nationalised industry, as we in the Communist Party of Greece insist that it should be, and if it had not been sold off to the private sector on the orders of bid business.
We therefore believe that this directive will not achieve its intended purpose.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Rothe for her valuable work in drafting this report.
Promoting the use of electricity from renewable energy sources is a very worthwhile endeavour.
The EU' s reliance on imported energy will, in any case, rise significantly in the next twenty years.
Since, at the same time, the EU has to adhere to the climatic targets set at Kyoto, it is especially important that we invest more and more in research into renewables.
I am satisfied that the new directive takes account of the importance of biomass, peat ands other wood-based raw materials, for example.
The debate on renewable energy sources must not become a form of populism against nuclear energy.
We have to remember that only nuclear power in conjunction with renewable energy sources will enable the Kyoto Protocol obligations regarding climate to be fulfilled.
The controversy over ending the use of nuclear power, for example in Sweden and Germany, has shown that without any visible energy alternatives produced at a competitive price and which are environmentally friendly, the debate is surely lacking something.
The total deregulation of the electricity markets is also one precondition of the increased use of renewables.
The artificial barriers to, and restrictions on, trade upheld by the monopolies must be done away with.
For example, the cheap energy produced in the Nordic countries in hydroelectric plants is still not freely available to the markets of Central Europe, as the situation stands at present.
Mr President, you will all have heard how Don Quixote used to fight windmills.
This fight represents a pointless or impossible struggle against all that we take for granted.
Unfortunately, windmills are no longer things we can take for granted, but one of the things we can is the subsidisation of the fossil fuel sector.
The fight against these subsidies appeared to be a hopeless task.
But this time round, it is a fight for the windmills and that is why it will prove successful.
As social democrats, we feel that sustainable energy must be given a fair crack of the whip.
Sustainable energy can contribute to fair distribution between countries.
Consumers must be given fair choices.
In addition, sustainable energy provides a solid basis for the economy.
In other words, the fight for windmills is one where there are no losers.
We could not have chosen a better moment for this debate.
The climate conference has just started in The Hague.
Our objectives in the field of sustainable energy are ambitious, yet still modest in the context of the climate problems we face.
We need radical technological adaptation.
So what we must not do is start fiddling with the definition of sustainable energy so as to be able to fulfil the objectives with minimum effort.
Sustainable energy is often associated with small-scale solutions: solar panels on everyone' s roof and a windmill in every village.
That would be marvellous, but sustainable energy also demands large-scale investments.
We need commitment from the government if we are to get the funding together.
We need a secure market for sustainable energy, because a non-binding approach will not suffice in this case.
That is why Member States must have binding objectives.
These must be consumption objectives, because sustainable energy may be imported and exported so that each country can use its advantages to optimum effect.
In addition, target figures must be set for the production objectives, because that will give each Member State the incentive to exploit their whole potential.
Mr President, on a final note, I would very much like to thank the rapporteur for her worthwhile contribution to this topic.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent work in connection with this report.
A really excellent proposal has been produced, thanks to cooperation.
The definition of renewable energy sources approved by the committee is a reasonably successful and all-embracing one. Peat must also be included in it, as many of my colleagues have argued with persuasion here.
Increasing the use of renewable energy can reduce dependence on oil and also create jobs in sparsely populated regions.
In addition, it is an important means of cutting greenhouse gases in the Community.
I think it is good that we are setting our sights high, but it is most important that we can agree common targets with credibility and, furthermore, with commitment, which is what the rapporteur referred to here earlier on.
I think the principle whereby the directive can create a framework for the increased use of renewables in the production of electricity is a good one.
Although it will be left to the Member States to decide on the promotional measures to be used and to implement them, we also need increased input from the Union.
Mr President, let there be no doubt a combination of investments in renewables and energy efficiency is the only realistic way for the European Union to meet the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol and reduce our heavy dependence on fossil fuels.
I congratulate the Commissioner for her initiative, as well as Mrs Rothe for her report.
I only wish that this directive were part of a coherent long-term energy strategy of the Union.
But it is not.
Instead, proposals related to energy are submitted one at a time and without much consistency.
This is not your fault, Commissioner.
It is primarily caused by Member States.
We will not be successful in our efforts to transform our energy system in the Union unless we make energy policy - including taxation - part of a common policy.
The problem we have with different support systems in the Member States, referred to by Mr Chichester, is but one example of the need for a more common approach in this field.
Finally a word on costs.
All new technologies are expensive in the beginning.
But experience tells us from almost every possible field that every time demand increases by 100% costs come down by an estimated 10 to 15%.
Renewable energy is no exception.
I could show you figures and curves here demonstrating that for both wind energy and photovoltaics this mathematical formula applies.
Hence, I am optimistic about the future potential for renewables provided the right incentives are put in place.
I wish you all possible success, Commissioner.
Commissioner, our debate has come at an opportune time - as a number of us have said - as it coincides with the Hague Conference on Climate Change.
Everybody is now well aware that the risk to humanity is not just an issue for future generations.
We are already feeling the negative impact of the greenhouse effect, climatic upheavals, global warming, in short, a whole series of difficulties that are already on our doorstep and call for the adoption of urgent, stringent and firm measures.
The good proposal that you have put forward, Commissioner De Palacio - and I should like to pay tribute to your realism as regards energy - and the excellent report by Mrs Rothe are a step in the right direction by promoting renewable energies.
Looking at this issue we see only interests, whether they be in the field of securing supplies, protecting the environment, combating the greenhouse effect or creating jobs.
Of course, we must agree to finance environmental protection, and that is also where we see the limitations of the market.
Free competition does not solve all the problems and, more especially, it does not settle the fight against the greenhouse effect or against waste.
Member States must now accept the proposals that are being put forward.
We must vote overwhelmingly in favour of the proposals from Mrs Rothe.
I would like to conclude simply by mentioning three problems which have come up time and time again throughout this debate.
The first problem is that of peat, which is an important energy source: in my view, it is not a renewable energy.
The second problem is that of household waste: strictly speaking it is not a renewable energy, but one must guard against sending a negative signal as regards the incineration of household waste.
Finally, as far as the degree of constraint is concerned, I will simply say - because I do not have any more time - that an objective in itself is never constraining: it is an objective and everything must be done to achieve it.
This is what we must do at a European level.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mrs Rothe for her careful and sensitive work on this subject.
I believe that it takes great courage to keep renewable energy in the spotlight in the way she has managed to do.
I have just come from an OPEC meeting, and the price of USD 30 for crude oil provides us with an opportunity to make totally new investments in this sector.
Particularly in the field of research and development, it is important that, in future, we should pay more attention to renewable energy, and I especially have in mind gas from landfill sites and sewage treatment plants, for which there is a role in this regard.
But I also believe that we should not forget education, because energy efficiency and energy conservation are undeniably important subjects for the future, in just the same way as making use of an efficient infrastructure.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mrs Rothe on the excellent job she has done with this report and, what is more, on the spirit of consensus she has demonstrated.
I am convinced that in all energy-related matters we should be aware that either we improve our sources or we shall leave the planet Earth uninhabitable within a few generations.
In my opinion, it is fundamental that we should ensure support for these kinds of energy sources for a considerable period of time, thus allowing our industries to make decisive, long-term investments in this alternative energy.
I believe a stable framework for energy from renewable sources needs to be guaranteed within ten years at least; this is a proposal we should all support.
With regard to our targets in this field, we have to listen to the people and go beyond the Commission' s proposal of 21%, which I think is very positive overall, and increase the renewable portion of the total electricity produced.
Furthermore, for the sake of coherence, the targets I have mentioned when converted into national parameters must be binding or else the directive will lack content and substance.
Indeed it is fundamental that they should be binding to demonstrate that in environmental matters, too, the European Union takes its international obligations seriously.
Lastly, I am aware that all this is easy to criticise and difficult to carry out, but if we do not act immediately, within a few generations we shall be in deep water, and that will lead us to disaster.
So let us act together and leave an inhabitable world for our children.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Gender-related aspects of armed conflicts
The next item is the report (A5-0308/2000) by Mrs Theorin, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, on participation of women in peaceful conflict resolution (2000/2025(INI)).
Mr President, following the end of the Cold War, the battlefield has shifted to small communities, streets and homes.
Conflicts are more likely to arise within rather than between States.
Wars and other conflicts have always been a male province, but the majority of victims - 90 per cent - are civilian. It is women and girls who, in addition, are exposed to special forms of atrocity.
They are raped, abducted and kept as sex slaves.
Those widowed by conflicts are forced to bring up children and look after the elderly by themselves.
Women are nonetheless excluded from the peace negotiations, and their needs and priorities are overlooked.
In the Commission for the Reconstruction of Tajikistan, which has 25 000 widows, only one of 26 participants was a woman.
In the initial peace negotiations to bring an end to the conflict in Burundi, two out of 126 delegates were women.
No Bosnian women took part in the peace negotiations which brought the war in Bosnia to an end, and this despite the fact that the whole world was aware of the systematic rape to which women were exposed and of the responsibility they would be forced to accept for reconstructing Bosnian society.
In the negotiations which preceded NATO' s bombing of Kosovo four years later, there was only one woman in the delegation.
When the stability pact for the reconstruction of South-Eastern Europe was created, no women at all were appointed in spite of their unique experience in peacemaking at grass roots level.
They had even less of a role to play in the committee responsible for reconstruction.
A house cannot be built on half a plot of land.
If we exclude 50 per cent of the population, we shall not obtain a sustainable peace.
Women must participate fully in all peace negotiations, in all reconstruction work and in peace-keeping operations.
While formal peace processes are almost exclusively a male domain, international experience and declarations show the importance of women' s participation in resolving conflicts and building peace.
In the few cases in which civil society and women have taken part in formal peace negotiations, it has, however, been successful, for example in South Africa, Guatemala and Cambodia.
This is also apparent from a series of UN documents, most recently the resolution concerning women, peace and security adopted by the Security Council two weeks ago.
It is a question of protecting the civilian population, refugees and asylum seekers, of combating exemption from punishment for rape committed in war and of promoting women' s active participation in resolving conflicts and building peace at all levels.
These areas are the subject of my report, which has obtained broad support in committee.
To make it possible for the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats to vote in favour of the resolution, I have gone along with compromise Amendment No 19 up to Paragraph 12, which is backed by both the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
I propose a supplement to the fourth Geneva protocol whereby rape, forced pregnancy and sexual slavery are to be defined as war crimes in the same way as terrorism and torture. I urge the Member States to ratify the Treaty of Rome for a permanent international criminal court.
Such a court is absolutely essential if the tendency to systematically use rape as a strategy of war is to be precluded. In addition, all peacekeeping personnel, men as well as women, ought to undergo equality training.
This applies especially to peacekeeping forces. The goal should be to have at least 40 per cent women involved in all peace and reconstruction work.
Local participation in the peace and reconciliation processes is important.
I therefore urge the Member States and the Commission to support individual organisations engaged in conflict prevention and peace work at a technical, financial and political level.
Despite the fact that only a limited number of women have been involved, studies show that women' s participation in the UN' s peacekeeping forces improves relations with the local population, as well as general morale.
However, the presence of male peacekeepers leads to an increase in sexual violence and prostitution around the camps.
UN soldiers, including soldiers from EU countries, have been sent home following complaints of sexual violence in Somalia and Mozambique.
Peace is far too heavy a burden to be placed upon only one institution, one government or one sex.
Sustainable peace cannot be created if half the human race is ignored.
Peace can only be achieved if women participate fully in the peace process.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Theorin, for adopting this topic, the participation of women in peaceful conflict resolution, as the subject of a European Parliament own-initiative report.
Women are especially affected by wars and conflict situations because of their responsibility for their family, their children and the elderly, but also because they often assume sole responsibility in the absence of their husbands and fathers and accordingly often have to ensure, single-handed, that their family survives.
The situation is also particularly difficult for women, however, if they still have to fight for recognition and for equal rights in practice.
Decisions on implementing relief programmes are the responsibility of crisis teams, and the specialist knowledge and expertise of women is often not recognised or not given due respect by such teams.
Yet it seems all too obvious that the people to involve in such difficult situations are those who bear responsibility on the ground, on the home front as it were, and can contribute to resolving conflicts from their own experience.
As, unfortunately, this is not regarded as obvious, this report makes a very specific demand for women to be integrated into these bodies and for them to be given a participatory role.
The report denounces the fact that conflict situations are still associated with violent assaults and also appalling sexual assaults.
Preventative measures are needed, including the provision of special protection for women in refugee camps by segregating said camps.
We must help women who are victims of violence.
That much we agree on.
This chapter of violence against women in conflicts goes beyond the actual subject of this report and really should have been developed further in view of its importance and highly explosive nature.
The Theorin report goes into a lot of detail and repetition, which we in the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats consider do not belong in an official document.
We also need to make sure that requests are made in a realistic framework.
For example, I hope that the compromise reached, which Mrs Theorin referred to in connection with Paragraph 12, will also gain the support of this House.
In areas where decisions are within the competence of Member States, we in the European Parliament can highlight changes and desirable improvements.
But we have no legal power to achieve them.
It is the responsibility of the Member States to take decisions regarding women in refugee camps.
The PPE-DE Group has gone to great pains to table appropriate amendments, and I ask honourable Members also to support the compromise amendment tabled by the rapporteur on Paragraph 12.
If we want our voice to be heard on the international stage, we must take matters forward through diplomatic channels, recognising their sensitivity.
Mr President, up until fairly recently, the role of women in matters of war and peace was very much a fringe issue in international organisations.
The subject was often exploited as a politically opportunist argument between warring parties.
This was also clearly the case with successive UN world conferences held since 1975, particularly with regard to the conflict in the Middle East.
Since the issue of women and peace itself carried little political weight, the utopian movements were able to dominate the debate.
There has been a sea change since the World Conference for Women held in Beijing in 1995.
It was there that the initial impetus was given to a mature treatment of the subject.
In particular, in the years that followed, a great deal of work was set in train within and around the UN and its associated organisations.
It is therefore high time that we put this into practice at European level too and, as has often proved to be the case with women' s rights issues, Europe is lagging behind somewhat in this area.
The aversion some men in this House have shown towards having a serious discussion of this issue means the writing is on the wall.
They obviously want to keep their powerful position in matters of foreign policy and defence for themselves, yet feel that men can promote women' s interests.
Mrs Theorin should be praised for the tenacity with which she has defended this issue in the face of considerable opposition.
On 31 October, the Security Council adopted a resolution entitled 'Women, peace and security' , following a two day debate.
Mrs Theorin referred to this earlier.
In terms of objectives, this resolution broadly resembles the proposal now on the table.
That too is an illustration of how important the issue is.
Finally, Mr President, I wish to express my disappointment at what I see as shifty manoeuvres that have lead to the watering down of Paragraph 12 concerning the rights and freedom of choice of women who fall victim to rape and states of war.
As far as I am concerned, these rights are not for haggling over.
Politically speaking, I would be more inclined to interpret the amendment in question, i.e. Amendment No 19, as a tactical defeat or a tactical withdrawal than a compromise on the substance, and in truth that is unworthy of this women' s issue.
Mr President, in common with other speakers, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on her very comprehensive and commendable report containing a series of proposals which decision makers around the world ought to take on board and from which they ought to draw inspiration.
The problem with a report like this, however, is that it does not list its many proposals in order of priority.
Nor, I freely admit, was that the intention.
We are therefore easily in danger, however, of just moving on to the next subject once the vote has taken place.
I therefore wish to propose that we assign a level of priority to our next step and that we begin with what we can do in practical terms to put these proposals into practice in connection with the civil and military tool which is being developed in the course of these very months.
I shall therefore urge the Council, Mr Solana and the Commission, including Chris Patten, to go through the many ideas in the report and draw inspiration from them and then introduce these ideas and proposals into the work which is going on right now before our very eyes and the future practical implementation of which we unfortunately do not know very much about.
It may be a very good test of what all the words regarding equality, mainstreaming, the strengthening of the role of women etc. means in practice.
Let us begin with practical measures.
The Council and the Commission ought shortly to be coming back to Parliament with a report on what could be done.
There are many issues on the table to set to work on, for example, police education or the training of military personnel. There is certainly cause for increasing understanding of the fact that rape really is an atrocity that cannot be accepted, just as we cannot accept torture either.
There could also be training in involving NGOs and in developing facilities for people affected by crises etc.
We could subsequently hold hearings, seminars etc. on these subjects.
We should also, into the bargain, like to see openness about the whole process and about the development of these preventative measures. If this could happen on the basis of involving women, then we might perhaps, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, have given the EU a human face in one particular area.
Mr President, I would like to start by expressing my interest in this report and to underscore its excellence.
Now we have to move on to practical work and I have two topical points to make.
As regards women, since women are participants in history, they must now become players in the peace process.
I am one of the ten women MEPs which went as a delegation to the Middle East two weeks ago, so it is topical - Mrs Morgantini will be able to fill you in on the details - not only so that women would be present in the peace process, but also so that there would be a European policy and that we women would support a European policy to promote peace in the Middle East.
We really need to be practical.
The second point concerns, not the female peacemakers, but the victims of war. In two weeks' time, there will be a tribunal in Tokyo organised by NGOs.
This attempt at a tribunal to denounce what 'comfort women' were made to do during the Second World War will take place in December 2000. I call on this Parliament to support it.
This point is very important because this tribunal also wants to act as a pioneer and to be the first to raise the question of the crimes against humanity committed against women.
Comfort women, mostly from Korea, were raped and duped into becoming sexual slaves during the Second World War by Japan, which does not want to acknowledge this crime.
They were held prisoner.
There is now a film and witness statements which will be presented to this tribunal.
I hope, Mrs Theorin, that we will take an initiative on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities to support this action with a view to recognising and making reparations for this crime against humanity perpetrated against women.
Mr President, Commissioner, the participation of women in the peaceful resolution of conflicts is necessary, unfortunately, because of the effect these conflicts have on women' s lives and because women do not traditionally play an active role in such conflicts.
The majority of refugees are women and children.
Women are double victims of armed conflicts since they are also subjected to rapes and sexual abuse, which have sometimes been used as weapons of war.
The serious problems which this causes women are increased, because they are then repudiated in their home communities.
It has been seen that the participation of women in the resolution of conflicts and in the organisation of refugee camps can be extremely positive.
We agree that rapes, forced pregnancy, forced sterilisation and any other type of sexual violence should be recognised as crimes against humanity, and legal texts should therefore be updated to protect women effectively.
Furthermore, there must be financial resources to help women who are victims of this situation.
Women' s participation in the diplomatic resolution of conflicts and in reconstruction initiatives would be of enormous help in achieving these objectives.
The training of men in all aspects of gender-related issues would also be of real help to the situation.
This report, which we consider to be important given the nature of the issue it deals with, is, nevertheless, too repetitive and contains certain elements which we do not like, but we recognise that it deals with a real problem which must be resolved and our group will therefore support it.
Mr President, Commissioner, currently, 90% of the victims of war and four-fifths of the world' s refugees are non-combatants, mainly women and children.
And yet, when we look at the participation of women in decision making about the prevention and resolution of armed conflicts or in peace initiatives, we see that they have a very limited presence.
We cannot allow this state of affairs to continue, because the rights, priorities and interests of women are often ignored in peace negotiations and also because the few examples of women in decision-making positions in these areas have proved to be very effective.
I shall mention just two examples that clearly illustrate what I have just said: Mary Robinson, who directs the United Nations' humanitarian aid programmes, has performed her duties with enormous courage and determination, visiting dangerous places in dangerous times, condemning appalling situations, and forcing countries and international bodies not to hide behind a complicit silence and to adopt the measures that are needed.
Portugal, which only opened up its diplomatic service to women following the "Revolution of April 1974" , has recently demonstrated with the case of East Timor and our ambassador to Indonesia, Ana Gomes, how the role of a woman and her sensitivity to the problems and sufferings of a people that fought unaided for its freedom for 25 years can be recognised by the whole world and especially here in the European Parliament.
The time has come to say "enough" to the absence of women in the settlement of this type of problem.
We must do so in a sensible but determined way, so that in future political leaders will be perfectly aware of the fact that wars are problems that affect everyone and not just men, that women suffer more than anyone and that for this very reason women should be represented in all organisations which address situations of armed conflict.
Above all, women should be represented in order to sound the alarm and, if possible, to prevent armed conflicts breaking out, or at least to mitigate such situations and to restore dignity to those who are innocent but who are nonetheless the main victims - women and children.
These are some of the reasons why we shall be voting in favour of this very important report.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Theorin for her excellent report and for the initiatives it proposes.
As a feminist and a pacifist who is involved, together with other women, in building relations and bridges of peace in places of conflict, I have found that this report contains the wealth of experience gained from many peace-building projects carried out by women in recent years. Peace is more than the absence of war: it is recognition of economic and social justice.
It is true that we women are those who suffer most in war zones but we are more than just victims: we are the bearers of alternatives to war and violence and the builders and protagonists of change.
There is the example of the international network of the 'Women in Black' who are against war and violence and have been demonstrating for 12 years in Israel against the military occupation of Palestine, in dialogue and solidarity with Palestinian women.
We women Members of Parliament also saw them during our visit to the Middle East at this tragic time.
Similarly, during the war in the former Yugoslavia, the 'Women in Black' of Belgrade built up relationships with Croatian and Bosnian women. In various different countries of the world, we have transcended borders, united in the refusal to abide by national allegiance.
But these projects and the skills which women have, diplomacy on a practical level, which provides an alternative to State diplomacy, can no longer be disregarded; they must be used in decision-making forums and at all levels of diplomacy.
This is why more women must be involved in negotiations, in prevention operations, in management ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, a great deal has already been said and I am not about to lapse into repetition.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Theorin for broaching a subject at European level that we have rarely discussed.
When I listen to the various comments made, I find myself agreeing with those who recommend that we take a look at our priorities and then limit the number of aims we want to achieve.
There is a great deal in the report and we will not be able to do everything straightaway.
I will mention several of my own priorities.
Firstly, we must urge all the Member States to ratify the Treaty of Rome.
Remarkably few have done so up to now; only two or three, so I am told.
So achieving that alone would be a start.
It is recognised in this Treaty that rape committed during wars, and all the consequences thereof, must be regarded as a war crime.
Perhaps that is exactly what you would expect in this day and age, but it certainly was not the norm up until very recently, nor did it happen as a matter of course.
Secondly, on 31 October a resolution was approved in the Security Council, namely resolution 1325, which 'calls for broad participation of women in peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction".
I am referring to the Security Council of the United Nations.
I think it would be worthwhile, under the circumstances, for the European Union to take a look at what points were raised too, because they have been adopted within the United Nations, and so they must also be taken on board at European level.
Around eighteen points were raised, which is quite a few.
Once again, my congratulations, and let us hope that something comes of it.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to start by congratulating Mrs Theorin on her excellent own-initiative report, which deals with an important and topical issue, i.e. how the fundamental participation of women in negotiations to resolve conflicts can change the world and turn the dominant culture of confrontation and violence into a culture of peace, dialogue and democratic conflict resolution.
This is made possible by the fact that, historically, women as a whole have stood for non-violence, have different experiences from men of war and conflict and devote all their time to protecting life with dialogue, reconciliation and negotiation.
These pacific qualities in women could provide an alternative solution, the basis for the foundations of a new civilisation, a civilisation of peace, in which dialogue is protected at all levels and from which war and violence are excluded as a means of resolving differences.
The absence of women, and of the pacific system of women, is all the more noticeable in areas in crisis, such as the Middle East, which I visited recently.
I am convinced that if women, both Palestinian and Israeli, had a say and a role in the peace process, there is every likelihood that a fair and viable solution to the Palestinian question would have been found and we would not now be facing the present crisis, which is the outcome of 7 whole years of failed negotiation.
In the case of Iraq, which I visited as a member of a mission to contest the embargo in practice, women would not, under any circumstances, have put political or military objectives above human life and would not have sacrificed 6,000 innocent children a month in the name of any form of political, economic or strategic interest in the area.
That is why this dimension needs to be taken into account when drawing up European Union policies in the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to concur with the many interventions and congratulations delivered by other speakers, and I would particularly like to echo the sentiments expressed by Mrs Theorin in connection with the role of women in the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
It is an illuminating report, which has been drafted with great expertise. Some will even find it shocking in its boldness and honesty, but at least it tells the truth.
That is why I support the full report in its almost original form and we feel that the majority of the amendments tabled by our colleagues have the effect of watering it down and are even downright hypocritical in some cases.
Mrs Theorin has written a combative report and we hope that the aid for adoption centres will not be scrapped, see Amendment No 19c.
The Greens do not support the compromise text drawn up by our fellow delegates in connection with Amendment No 19.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Theorin on her boldness and strength of purpose.
Mr President, in my view, Mrs Theorin's report goes a long way towards meeting the requirement that women should have equal social status.
She has chosen her words carefully in denouncing violations of women's dignity and in demanding action to achieve change.
The report not only refers to the social exclusion of women as a problem in itself, it also rightly emphasises that protection against criminality and personal safety are no longer something that can be guaranteed solely within national borders.
I therefore support the demands made in the report for women to be given the right to diplomatic influence.
I support the initiative taken in this report and I support the statement contained in it that sexually abused women need the Community's protection and that it is high time the perpetrators stopped going unpunished.
Women and men, and people in general, are all different.
Equal opportunities means treating people differently - but how they are treated is still determined by the people themselves.
Mr President, the report by Mrs Theorin includes many bizarre and curious elements, and I have to say we should avoid the notion that armies are some sort of social service and that their guiding motive should be political correctness.
I want to focus briefly on just one paragraph of the report - Paragraph 3 - which condemns the use of so-called child soldiers.
Unfortunately terms are not defined and distinctions are not made.
We all condemn unreservedly the brutal abduction of children, some not even in their teens, particularly in certain African countries such as Sierra Leone or Uganda, and their corruption into murderous habits and involvement in barbaric practices such as mutilation and maiming.
These are not soldiers and they should be distinguished from young people in our own armed forces.
The trouble is that when we talk of child soldiers, then some interest groups use this as an opportunity to criticise distinguished institutions such as the British Army and this has happened recently.
As a guiding principle, we try to avoid sending young people into operational areas, but sometimes it happens and they serve with pride in well-disciplined units.
We should really avoid any possibility of confusing such honourable activity - which should be encouraged - with the sort of barbarism which I am sure the author of this report has in mind.
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Theorin on this magnificent report and I believe that all of us, as women, should be happy, since it is we who are going to benefit directly or indirectly from her courageous and innovative proposals and contributions.
Mr President, this report opens up new territory in European policy, that of women' s' contribution to peace.
In my view, this territory is full of possibilities and could surely change the grim landscape of failures which, for centuries, have resulted from the exclusive domination of men.
In this field there has been nothing but shameful failures but nevertheless we are still faced with a brick wall which excludes women.
This is a very well informed, in-depth, and rigorous report, which is capable of stating fundamental principles with the clarity demonstrated in Paragraph 17. It is audacious but, at the same time, contains considerable practical sense and very necessary proposals.
Mr President, it is a great shame that it has had to be diminished for the sake of reaching a consensus!
My only consolation is that this says a great deal about Mrs Theorin' s parliamentary abilities.
It is shameful that nobody is here representing the Council.
Mr President, please tell me who is representing the Council at the moment, or the High Representative for the CFSP.
The new Common Foreign and Security Policy cannot be created by ignoring Parliament' s proposals or the will of the European women who wish to participate in it.
Please communicate our protest to the Council.
The absence of the Council in this debate is a grave error.
Mr President, it is usual to begin a speech by saying thank you for a job well done.
In my case, it is impossible to do that because I think that Mrs Theorin' s report ought to be rejected.
I also think that the draftsperson of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities is on shaky ground when she maintains that there is broad support for a report adopted on the basis of eight votes in favour and five against.
It is an insult to Parliament to use an own-initiative report to push issues not covered by the mandate.
Mrs Theorin was to write an own-initiative report on women' s participation in peaceful conflict resolution.
Instead, the report deals with everything from the conditions experienced by women in refugee camps to the ways in which women develop strength and active influence.
In her eagerness to oppose everything that is evil, systematic rape and sexual slavery are condemned.
I for my part want to condemn all rape and all slavery.
There are points in the report, for example the issue of the various diplomatic corps, which might well be suited to a report that could be seriously discussed across all the committees, with parties concerned with foreign and security policy also involved in the discussion.
Mrs Theorin fought for a long time to stop Sweden becoming a member of the European Union.
Now, she is suddenly campaigning for the EU to determine which officials our foreign administration is to appoint.
There is a lack of consistency here. Let us instead make conflict resolution an issue through which the conditions for peace at all levels and involving all players can be strengthened, rather than getting bogged down in gender issues.
I strongly object to the attitude of mind, expressed in this Chamber this evening, whereby one sex is made collectively guilty.
I think it is an insult to all those men who have died to defend freedom, peace and democracy in their own countries or in the context of peacekeeping efforts.
To create antagonism between the sexes, as there is a determination to do in this Chamber this evening, is neither peaceful nor constructive in my view.
That is why I and many others in addition to myself intend voting against this report tomorrow. I do not, in fact, consider it to be a serious piece of work.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Before we continue with the agenda, I would like to make two comments.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo complained earlier about the lack of a Council representative.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, the Council never attends sittings in the evening.
Part of the problem is that when we arrange the agenda we postpone important subjects until the evening.
The Conference of Presidents is responsible for this, and if we wish to change this, then we need to make sure that debates on renewable energy sources or important women's issues are not scheduled for the evening, because, as I have said, the Council is never present at that time.
If I may make a personal comment, I believe that we would make rather more progress, regardless of what you may think about the contribution of the only man taking part in this debate, if more men participated in debates of this kind.
Regulating domestic help
The next item is the report (A5-0301/2000) by Mrs Smet, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, on regulating domestic help in the informal sector (2000/2021(INI)).
Mr President, we are now descending to the level of a more everyday problem, namely the regulation of domestic work performed by third parties in private families, for that is the subject under discussion.
The problem is that millions of people, particularly women, undertake this type of work, and there is a huge demand for it, but it is not subject to any regulations whatsoever.
It would appear, from the limited amount of information available, to be a very extensive sector.
I have therefore tried to establish, in various countries, but also at European level, how many people - insofar as this can be established, because the people concerned are often working 'on the black' of course - work in this sector.
There are many millions of them.
I have sought in vain at European level for an all-encompassing study that could give us an idea of the scale of the sector and the problems within it, the regulations - however incomplete they may be - in the European countries, the pilot projects, and any experiments that may have been instigated by the left or right, but I have to say that there was nothing to be found in the Commission.
Hence my first suggestion to the Commission: set up an inquiry, get the funding for this - assuming it is needed - from the funding for women' s studies, for example, because this issue mainly concerns women after all, or get it from the funding for poverty studies because it is often poor women that do this type of work.
So I think both sources of funding should be considered, with a view to carrying out a comprehensive study of the issue and to finding out what kind of initiatives people are trying to get off the ground in particular countries.
That was my first specific question.
Secondly, if it is our intention to regulate the sector, then naturally we need to investigate a number of aspects.
The first aspect concerns the reconciliation of supply and demand.
It is not just the case that the demand for domestic help is on the increase whilst the supply of willing applicants is dwindling.
After all, who wants to work in a sector when you know it has to be done 'on the black' , and without social security, etc., etc.
In addition, there is nowhere at all where supply and demand can be matched.
So that is one aspect.
A second aspect is that the cost to the employer, i.e. the private family that employs domestic help on the regular market, the white market, must not be notably higher than the cost of such labour on the black market, because otherwise it stands to reason that undeclared work will remain the order of the day.
A third aspect is that the employee, i.e. the domestic help, must stand to earn more than they would from working 'on the black' .
Fourthly, we need to look into what kind of social statute can be established in this connection.
Finally, all this will inevitably involve financial intervention from the government, be it fiscal or parafiscal, because a private family would not be able to afford a full statute, even a limited one, and then they would all carry on taking people from the black market.
I believe the best thing to do would be to spur the Member States on to regulate the sector, via the employment guidelines, as has already been called for in Parliament' s opinion on these guidelines.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission what efforts it is going to make in future to adapt the employment guidelines, at least in terms of including this service in the section on services, and when does it intend to ask the Member States to start finding a solution to these problems?
I now come to my final point, that of migrant women, which is, of course, a very specific problematic area.
Many migrant women are here illegally in that they enter on a tourist visa and go back every three months, for example, to the Eastern block countries, to have the visa renewed, and work here as a domestic help in the meantime.
In some cases they are exploited and ill-treated.
There is no one to help them.
They fear that if they were to turn to someone their illegal situation would be exposed.
Hence it is imperative that we give special attention to their plight.
I have discovered over the past few weeks that there is a great deal of interest, both within international trade union circles and within a number of national trade union organisations.
I have had dealings with the Dutch, the Belgians and the Italians over this issue.
I would therefore advise the Commission to at least make a start on the search for a solution.
Mr President, Commissioner, domestic work is the oldest work that women have carried out.
This work has not been recognised or valued, either economically or socially.
Today it is part of what we call the hidden economy and this has a negative effect on those who carry it out and also on states' finances.
However, it is a form of work with a flexible timetable, which is of great assistance in reconciling family life with professional life.
Changes in family circumstances mean that this work is of increasing importance in the world of work, and it is therefore essential that this type of work be defined and that studies be carried out to assess the numbers of people involved.
This is an area of work that must be fully recognised and that should be included in the directives on employment to regulate the social rights of the worker.
The countries of the Union today have greatly differing situations, which should be standardised.
The workers, mostly women, should be provided with access to training.
The immigrant population is usually a significant group in this sector, and this requires special measures, such as specialised reception centres, which provide the necessary assistance.
This initiative report is very timely, since it deals with a growing need within the labour market.
Mrs Smet has done a wonderful job and of course we are going to support it.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I would like to pay tribute to Mrs Smet for initiating the drafting of this report.
What we are in fact dealing with here is the breaking of a political taboo.
Because if you believe that domestic work should be recognised as an occupation in its own right, and Mrs Smet says that, and I echo her sentiments, then what you meet with in the first instance is disbelief and a lack of understanding.
I shall evaluate some of these arguments.
Argument one: should domestic work actually be defined as labour?
Should it feature among the labour statistics? The answer is 'yes' , but then we will need a European definition, and the countries, the governments, will have to make more effort to get the issue of illegal work out into the open.
Argument two: are you in favour of introducing pay for housewives?
The answer is 'no' . Any one demanding this is confusing two issues.
What we are discussing here is paid domestic service undertaken by third parties in private households.
We talk in terms of the 'werkster' (cleaning/char lady) in the Netherlands, and the 'poetsvrouw' (same meaning) in Belgium, where they also use the word 'interieur verzorgster' (interior attendant).
How amusing.
Argument three.
Regulating the work done by cleaning ladies would simply be making undeclared work all above board, and surely that would make it far too expensive?
Now we have reached the heart of the matter. Domestic work is performed by the type of person who stands the least chance on the labour market.
Women with an inadequate and out-of-date educational background, etc., etc.
They are completely reliant on domestic work with irregular working hours and no form of legal security or social protection whatsoever.
This form of exploitation takes place because the employers, i.e. the families that the domestic helps work for, can claim complete innocence, given the lack of legislation.
However, since there is going to be increased demand for domestic servants owing to social changes, it is high time we reviewed the relationship between the domestic workers, the employers and the authorities.
The question as to how exactly we should go about this, requires a great deal more study and deliberation.
But whatever happens, we must ensure that this type of work is established in a legal and social framework which affords those concerned recognition and social security cover, and which improves the quality of the work itself.
This would also benefit the employers and so it would be quite reasonable to expect them to make a proportionate contribution to the costs involved.
Mr President, Commissioner, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur.
Allow me to state that domestic work is important. It must be respected, and it needs to be valued more highly.
Those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party are therefore able to back most of the report' s conclusions.
We shall nonetheless be voting against the report as a whole in the light of the subsidiarity principle.
This is an issue for the Member States.
Certain proposals are too detailed.
The following are nonetheless important points for the Member States to take into account. Attention needs to be given to situations in which women have two jobs.
Domestic work is often heavy, involving many places of work. Wages are too low, there is an increase in illicit work, and a situation often prevails in which women, often immigrants, are the first to be exploited.
Many end up outside the social security systems. In the interests of a social Europe, the Member States have an urgent duty to ensure that immigrant women, often from the applicant States, obtain tolerable working conditions.
A broader approach to domestic work would enable many people, including young people and immigrants, to see such work as a good way of getting into the labour market.
'Legitimate' domestic help is often too expensive nowadays when VAT and employers' charges have to be paid.
Experiments involving tax deductions and ways of simplifying the system ought to be made.
It must be made easier to start up and run companies which provide domestic help.
In my own country, Sweden, two main arguments are often advanced against facilitating paid domestic help. First of all, that it would militate against equality between men and women.
Wrong!
It would make things easier for many families and increase equality.
Many women can opt to have careers and go out to work if they are given help with practical tasks - perhaps that is the case for some of the women in this Chamber.
The second argument is that it would create a B team within the labour market.
Wrong!
All those who are at present engaged in illicit work would obtain work with decent social conditions.
There are therefore both economic and moral reasons in favour of the report's intentions, but these issues must be resolved at national rather than EU level.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a very interesting report on the regulation of domestic help which the rapporteur, Mrs Smet, has tabled, but I do in fact have mixed feelings about it.
It is, of course, absolutely essential to try to get to grips with illicit work within different sectors of society, especially when it comes to domestic services.
It is also high time that we accorded more status to work in the home and recognised domestic work as a perfectly valid occupation.
It is important, too, to ensure that immigrant women are not exploited in terms of everything from poor wages to a lack of social security and outright oppression.
To demand, as proposed in the report, that the Member States use a directive or some other form of legislation both to adjust prices and to offer tax deductions for domestic services would, however, be to send out a completely wrong signal.
It would be to go too far and would also be the wrong route to take.
It is inconsistent with the determination to see domestic work as a perfectly valid occupation.
What, in fact, is the rationale behind saying that you are to have tax deductions for having your floors polished but not for having your rubbish taken away? To see domestic services as something completely different from other services is not at all the same thing as raising the status of domestic work.
Finally, I just want to add that I should like to have seen a report which acknowledged that, within the near future, we shall be in great need of the manpower offered by our immigrants.
Mr President, Commissioner, domestic helps, who were formerly almost exclusively employed by more wealthy households, nowadays provide much-needed and essential support for working men and women and, above all, for single mothers and the elderly.
Demand has risen many times over in recent years, and yet this fact has scarcely been taken into account in general working life and as regards the rights and duties involved.
Just where does this activity fit into the scheme of things? We need a legal framework that recognises domestic work, which is given many different names, as a fully fledged job in all Member States, and which provides for the implementation of appropriate labour law provisions.
A pan-European description of domestic work as an occupation is needed, bringing in the social partners, and where this does not exist employment policy guidelines should be adopted.
However, defining domestic work is certainly difficult. Where do you draw the dividing lines with such a variety of domestic duties?
Is domestic work just cleaning or cooking, or just child care or just gardening? The fact is that there are thousands of women who have been doing all these jobs for years without insurance cover or pension rights.
Of course, both employers and workers - generally both women - are often happy with this state of affairs, which saves money.
We need to educate people and to expand and improve the basic framework that already exists in some countries, so as to provide incentives to phase out the present grey economy.
In Austria, and especially in my own region, an EU-assisted project involving a women's advice centre acting as an agency for domestic helps has been very successfully running for three years.
Many women have been able to obtain a permanent job through this work.
In addition, as a result of this project, two or three families have often clubbed together to employ a domestic help.
What we are talking about is registering every contractual relationship between employer and employee and ultimately enhancing the work prospects of domestic employees.
Mr President, I am forced to admit, following Mrs Smet's report to Parliament, which I welcome, that I am in the unfortunate position of having to say that the Commission has no special policy or information on regulating domestic help in the informal sector and on transferring domestic help from the informal to the legal economy.
Of course, we do have the Commission communication on undeclared work which was recently adopted by Parliament and which could be used as a basis, including by the Member States in collaboration with the Commission, for policies to bring domestic work within the legal economy.
According to the communication, the first two basic steps are, first, you must record and compile statistics on domestic help - as Mrs Smet has said, there are as yet no statistics at European level or in many Member States on this problem - and, secondly, you must deal with it by integrating it into the overall strategy on employment.
This strategy to transfer undeclared workers to the legal economy calls for a combination of individual policies which might be sanctions in the case of exploitation, information campaigns, which are needed at all levels, on the benefits of legalising these people and, thirdly, constant effort to harmonise and modernise legislation.
We have little experience and few Member States have specifically tackled the problem of domestic help.
I am loath at present to commit myself and say that we could tackle it through the employment guidelines for 2002.
However, what I can say is that the guidelines for 2001 are the first to clearly mention undeclared work and that we intend to work on the basis of the proposal in the conclusions and compile statistics and studies to record the problem so that we can hold a second debate and discuss what the next step should be at European level.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12 midnight)
Address by Mr Kostunica, President of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Mr President, it is with tremendous pleasure, profound respect for you and the people of Yugoslavia, and with great hope for the future that is opening up in your country and in the new relations between us that the European Parliament welcomes you here today.
I extended this invitation to you on the very day on which the result of the democratic elections left us with no shadow of a doubt of the will of the people, which had been expressed freely and overwhelmingly in your favour.
Now that the dark pages of the last ten years have been turned, your presence before this House bears witness to our common desire to see Yugoslavia quickly rediscover its rightful place in the family of Europe.
You expressed this wish yourself when you took office and, for its part, the European Union immediately made the first significant gesture of confidence that you were seeking, the lifting of international sanctions.
We were sitting in the first part-session in October when, at the time we were debating the situation in Yugoslavia, we learned of the courageous reaction of the Serbian people and, ladies and gentlemen, you well remember I am sure, we immediately called for international sanctions to be lifted.
But the jubilation accompanying this great victory for freedom, which you gained by peaceful means at great risk to your own freedom, must not lead us to underestimate the enormous challenges that await you: the consolidation of democracy; the restoration of peace and harmony among all the communities living in Yugoslavia; its reconstruction with a view to rediscovering the road to prosperity; its peaceful relations with its neighbours; the return of displaced people to their villages; those missing in action, whose families desperately wait for news; the necessary cooperation, when the time comes, with the International Court of Justice in the Hague, to ensure that what took place can never happen again and, finally, of course, the institutional future of Kosovo, whose wounds are still open, as well as the future of Montenegro.
The European Parliament is indeed well aware that, after ten years of conflict, not everything is possible in Yugoslavia, at least not straightaway, and that urgent actions need prioritising. The Balkans, to which you belong, are on the dividing line between the great civilisations and religions which have, all too often, left their tragic mark on our common past as Europeans - on you and us alike.
As regards the most sensitive issues that remain to be resolved, notably in relation to Kosovo, the European Parliament has always hoped that peaceful solutions will be found, in accordance with UN resolutions on the integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia, in terms of fundamental human rights.
Rest assured, Mr President, that it is in this spirit that the European Parliament, co-decider of the Community budget, will lend you its full support so that European aid for the reconstruction of your country is truly in line with its needs.
More specifically, as far as necessary emergency measures are concerned, as you know, on Monday, the first convoy of tankers transporting heating fuel and heating oil from the European Union arrived in your country.
As your Minister for Mines and Energy, Mr Antic, so aptly remarked, I see in this the proof that Serbia has friends in Europe.
I would like to conclude by saying that the European Union is preparing to welcome more than ten countries from Central and Eastern Europe who have regained their own freedom and democracy.
Their accession will be a major step towards the reunification, in an expression of solidarity, of the family of states and peoples that make up Europe.
I am certain that there are many of us in this Chamber who are in no doubt that, one day, if Yugoslavia so wishes, the doors of the European Union will open to welcome it in. This would be entirely natural, as we are on the same continent of Europe and we share the same values.
Mr President, we are very much looking forward to your address and we hope it will trace out the paths of our rediscovered cooperation and brotherhood, which we will henceforth be travelling along together.
(Sustained applause)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, is there any political institution before which we could talk more openly and sincerely about the historic wishes and political aspirations of a small European people than the European Parliament? Europe is lucky to have such a representative body elected directly by citizens, although, for the time being, we are talking about a rather small number of countries.
It is also a great pleasure to lay before such a forum, even in this brief address of mine, the internal problems of a country that, having gone through its own historic storm, has finally made out the coast of peace and freedom on the horizon.
There is no better landmark for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in its state recovery and social development than the European Union.
It is crystal clear that it will take time before our country will be truly able to become a member of this grandiose transnational establishment.
But now, in the wake of the decisive political turn of 24 September, or the even more decisive shift of 5 October, the major goal in Yugoslavia's foreign policy is to approach in a comprehensive manner a family of nations comprising the European Union and then join it.
It is precisely the European Union's experience that sets a shining example not only for European countries that have yet to join, but also the whole world, when it comes to a direction mankind should take if it wishes to leave behind force, wars and domination as the means to achieve particular national interests.
Having created this community of nation states, the European Union has opened the perspective of a new era for all mankind.
And not only in terms of the results achieved, but, perhaps even more so, in terms of the way in which they were achieved.
Thereby Europe has demonstrated the vitality of its civilisation within the framework of world history, and its capacity for creative political imagination for its future development.
Just as the onset of the new century coincided with Europe's invention of a new political forum, the nation state, whereby it overcame the crisis of medieval particularism, in this post-modern time of ours Europe has invented a higher form of political organisation, a transnational community which helped it meet the challenges of globalisation.
The European Union model is a double challenge for Yugoslavia as a Balkan country.
First of all, we in principle prefer a non-coercive way of integration into European economic, cultural and political courses, given that we have encountered different domination strategies devised by great powers throughout our contemporary history.
Secondly, the step-by-step approach Western European countries have taken towards integration is a model we should adopt in the Balkan processes of integration in order to qualify for entry into the European Union.
We are aware that none of the Balkan countries will be able to join the European Union on its own, which makes it clear we have to develop good neighbourly relations, free trade and collective security structures first.
We are certain that the European Union will support precisely that kind of development of South-Eastern Europe, and contribute to overcoming the historic shortcomings of those countries through the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe and in other ways.
It is because of our firm commitment to step on the soil of European development that we wish to sign the Association Agreement with the European Union as soon as possible, and use the provisions of the agreement to direct our political and economic recovery, and subsequent development, towards European integration.
We are aware that in that desirable case we would have to change many of our habits and institutions of political and economic life, both as a people and as a state.
Not only should we build democratic institutions, a task we have already embarked on, we should also imbue them with the democratic spirit, which may prove much more difficult.
Not only are we to carry out privatisation of our centralised economy, but also create a legal system that would guarantee the freedom of business operations and the entire economic process.
Not only are we to create the internal system of freedom and peace, but also harmonise it with the rules and customs that the European Community and the European Union have maintained for decades.
Simultaneously with building the confidence of our citizens in our state institutions, we have to persuade them to trust the European institutions that, in nearly fifty years of their existence, have brought to their citizens lasting peace and prosperity.
The democratic changes that began in Yugoslavia on 5 October have produced at miraculous speed extraordinary results on the international political plane.
Yugoslavia has regained its seats in the United Nations and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, joined the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, while proceedings for its admission to the Council of Europe have been initiated.
Our most important task now is to begin to settle democratically internal relations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Kosovo, of course, is unquestionably our most difficult problem.
There cannot be any doubt that the issue of Kosovo's status is a democratic issue.
We have proceeded from the point that the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 offers possibilities of intensifying many important humanitarian and democratic processes.
We need European assistance and support in securing the return of Kosovo refugees to their hearths as soon as possible in the spirit of the best democratic traditions.
Of course, we need great help in rehabilitating their destroyed homes so that the refugees have somewhere to return.
We call upon Europe to come resolutely to our aid in creating security and the economic conditions to help the exiled feel completely safe on return to their homes.
I believe Europe has both the strength and the will to help us exercise the fundamental right of each and every human being to live in his own home.
Also, we will need Europe's assistance in establishing and resolving the great ecological problems caused by the use of depleted uranium in the bombing of Yugoslavia.
We are ready to begin open dialogue with Albanian parties about political, humanitarian, security and all other key issues of relevance to a democratic solution to Serbian-Albanian relations in Kosovo.
When it comes to relations between Serbia and Montenegro within the federal state, the former, non-democratic organisation of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia seriously threatened the functioning of the state.
The first step ahead of us in a bid to restructure the federal state constitutionally is to define a framework for the broadest possible democratic dialogue about the character of relations between the two republics.
It will take a lot of patience and wisdom for us to identify, through talks in the republican and federal parliaments and a wide public and expert debate, the best solution for restructuring the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into a good, operational, rich and just state that cares about the interests of its citizens, and safeguards the full equality of the nation-building traditions of Montenegro and Serbia.
It is important to say that Muslims and Albanians inhabit Serbia and Montenegro in significant numbers.
There is not a single good reason for them not to be a factor of integration in Yugoslavia.
A democratic joint state makes it possible for Muslims and Albanians in Montenegro and Serbia to live in a single state, and enables us to join forces in building our equally joint state.
Support from Europe is essential in our effort to seek solutions through sincere dialogues only and with respect for full democratic procedure, without pressures and ultimatums on any part.
On the other hand, we would like to be given a chance to prove to Europe that we are able to develop the constitutional equality of Serbia and Montenegro within Yugoslavia on our own, by recognising the genuine principles of democracy.
Development and local self-rule inYugoslavia is the issue we pay special attention to.
We are aware that it is the very core of any democratic system, and it is with due consideration that we are analysing European and our own experiences in developing local self-government.
The grave situation in the Yugoslav economy has been discussed at length.
The humanitarian aid to our country that has been initiated is priceless, but we hope that Europe will replace it with investment programmes that would make it possible for us to work and earn enough for a normal life.
Bearing in mind all these enormous problems, it is clear that our road to rightful entry into Europe, in which Serbia and Montenegro used to have places worthy of them, will be a long one.
Yet it is certain that our chances today are much more realistic than they were a mere month and a half ago.
Perhaps the citizens of the European Union can understand that best if they evoke their historic memory and those long-past years after World War II, when the prospects for the Continent and European civilisation itself were extremely uncertain.
Then your brave predecessors embarked on an uncertain project that bore historic fruit.
You, the representatives of the European Parliament, who directly represent the citizens of its member countries, the citizens of Europe, are best placed to understand why the very possibility of entry into Europe seems extremely uncertain to us, the citizens of the present-day Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Therefore, as the first democratically elected President of Yugoslavia, I am turning to you not so much because of much needed assistance in the reconstruction of the country as because of your support and understanding of the situation our people and our state are in.
After all, Europe is a home we all share.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
Let us resume our session.
I should explain to you that there appears to be a gremlin in the system somewhere in the building.
The people who installed the system have been here for some time trying to find out where the problem is.
It seems to be an intermittent problem.
I hope it can be resolved as soon as possible.
The Minutes of the previous day's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on page 27 of the annex to the Minutes my vote is recorded as having been cast in favour of Amendment No 20 to the Morillon report.
I do not subscribe to the views of that amendment and I would wish that my vote be recorded as having been cast against it.
That will be put in order in the next Minutes, Mr Watson.
Mr President, on behalf of Mrs van der Laan and myself I want to register that we voted against Amendment No 15 in the Morillon report.
We want to be registered as voting in favour of the release of Leyla Zana and the other Kurdish prisoners.
Mr President, it might be helpful if I could make a procedural point on this matter.
Yesterday my group, as in so many votes in this House, were on automatic pilot, but some of us rather crash-landed, as we discovered, in the vote in respect of Amendment No 15, which was from the GUE Group and called for the release of Mrs Zana and others.
We had voted the wrong way.
I have already had a correction made but I would ask you formally to facilitate through the day the possibility for colleagues in the ELDR Group to contact sessional services.
Some are not here now, partly because of the interruption and partly because the issue had not been foreseen.
I would welcome your assistance in the matter.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, what I have to say concerns rather the future than the past, in other words, I would just like to make sure that we are to vote on the BSE issue in today' s vote.
This is a very important matter for the public, and one that is of interest to them, and it would be only right to get a decision on the matter this afternoon.
(Parliament approved the request)
Public access to documents of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission
The next item is the report (A5-0318/2000) by Mr Cashman on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents [COM(2000) 30 - C5-0057/2000 - 2000/0032(COD)].
Mr President, it was a long time before the European Commission submitted a proposal in the field of openness of government.
A number of MEPs had been asking for one for years.
At the beginning of this part-session I even submitted a complete proposed initiative to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
The latter then announced that it would produce a concrete proposal within six months, and it has kept its word.
It is just a shame that the content was not what we had expected it to be.
There has been a fair amount of criticism on the part of the journalist organisations, the NGOs, a number of Member States and also Parliament.
It therefore comes as no surprise that there is a broad package of amendments, so broad in fact that the regulation is being adapted to a quite considerable extent.
Adapted to the legislation on openness of government in a number of Member States, but also to the Freedom of Information Act of the kind in force in the United States.
After all, why would we want to give our European citizens less openness with regard to Brussels than the Americans get with regard to Washington?
So there is a huge number of amendments and I would like to thank the rapporteur for the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, Michael Cashman, for his cooperation with the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and with myself.
What we have before us is, in fact, the work of these two committees.
So what are the most important amendments? The most crucial one is of course the amendment relating to Article 4, in which the Commission laid down 17 exceptions for access to documents and we managed to whittle the exceptions down to six.
Moreover, when it comes to information on military and defence matters we suggest that an interinstitutional agreement should be concluded between the Council and Parliament so that secret information can be imparted to a so-called select committee.
This committee could then assess if it was right to keep it secret.
In this way, Parliament would function as a link between the Council and the citizens, and that is why it is entirely appropriate that this proposal should be incorporated into this regulation.
Another important amendment is the proposal to have not just the Council, the Commission and Parliament fall within the scope of the regulation, but also all the external bodies.
Why should we not force these bodies, which are funded by the Commission and whose staff are European officials, to adopt a culture of openness? I think that is a very important point, and a substantial annex will be appended to this regulation in order to ensure that this is done.
Turning now to classification: in short, I completely agree with what Michael Cashman had to say.
I, too, find it quite hard to understand the criticism voiced by the Liberals and the Greens because classification is exactly what we need to achieve openness.
That explains why the Council has such an aversion to the idea.
I consider a fifth important amendment to be that relating to the annual report, which must relate specifically to the documents that must be kept secret, or which are kept secret at any rate.
That could be reviewed again on an annual basis in order to establish whether it is reasonable or not.
The European Commission has advised us on an informal basis that it has not quite finished working out the position vis-à-vis Parliament.
That might not be a good thing, but if Mr Cashman is of the same mind then we can consider whether it might be possible to postpone the final vote.
Finally, Mr President, this proposal is particularly important in terms of democratic standards within the Union.
That is what it is all about, i.e. the citizens, which is why I hope that the broad majority here in Parliament will vote in favour of this document.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the right to become acquainted with the contents of the documents of the European Union' s institutions is a precondition of the public' s ability to monitor decision-making generally and influence it.
At present, we are creating an open and modern-style administration, in which it is natural that the public should have this direct right.
Obviously there have to be limits to such a right, and that is something we are also discussing today.
At the moment in the European Union there already exists the practice of public access to documentation, and we should remember that brave citizens and many progressive Member States have been fighting for increased transparency for many years.
We are not exactly starting this discussion from scratch: we can consider it our duty to see to it that transparency is increased and the criteria of the Treaty of Amsterdam are met.
The report we are now examining in many respects takes the situation in a better direction.
It is excellent that the report should state that public access to documents and the obligation to release documents affect all the institutions, and not just the three main ones.
It is also excellent that the institutions should be obliged, or they should be allowed, rather, to release documents also to those not resident in the European Union, or who are not citizens of the European Union.
This principle should be strengthened further. Ladies and gentlemen, you can no doubt imagine that one day an EU citizen will need information, for example, on what the administration in the United States of America is doing.
In fact, there is no reason for restricting public access geographically.
However, the report does not sufficiently explain how possible separate provisions, which would remain in force at the same time as this regulation, would meet the criteria of greater transparency.
This is a vague area, and it is possible that more restrictive provisions may also remain in force, and this is one point in respect of which we have tabled amendments.
As regards the definition of documents, this is a crucial question, and we could surely argue about just that for a whole year, which is probably what has happened.
It is essential that scope for practising some degree of internal thought process should be allowed for the institutions, but we have to be very careful here, as we might create a situation in which documents drafted to prepare a decision may be excluded from the principle of transparency, and obviously decision-making cannot then be influenced.
In my opinion, the report also goes too far in its recognition of the rights of so-called third parties to restrict the availability of documents.
It may be the job of the Council and the Commission to uphold such restrictions, but I think it is not in the interests of Parliament or the public.
The list of exceptions, as Mrs Maij-Weggen said, is essential, and perhaps the most important part of this work.
That aspect of the matter has made substantial progress, but I would like to focus special attention on the fact that if we want our citizens to be able to follow general developments in security policy in the future, I repeat, general, an exception regarding defence, security and military matters is much too broad in scope.
It should be defined more precisely or a harm test should be attached to it.
Mr President, the right of Members of Parliament to confidential documents is a very important issue, but it cannot replace the direct right of access to information on the part of the public.
Parliament still needs to work on this report more, and for that reason I believe that it must be improved upon still here.
Mr President, openness and public scrutiny of the basis of a democratic form of government are the prerequisites for citizens being able to follow the public decision-making process and to participate in this process.
The opportunity of gaining access to public documents creates greater confidence and legitimacy, something the EU has precious little of at present.
International research also shows a clear connection between open administration and a low level of corruption.
The Cashman report is, therefore, not just any old report.
This report establishes the essence of what will become a European principle of public access to official documents, that is to say, the principle that all documents must be publicly available.
There will be few exceptions and these will be clearly regulated.
All documents must be registered.
The documents must be examined on a case-by-case basis.
If access is refused, a reason for this must be provided.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy objects to the idea that documents relating to foreign affairs and security issues will automatically and collectively be excluded from public inspection.
This would be unacceptable.
In this sphere, too, every document must be examined individually.
We have therefore proposed, as a democratic safety valve, that those documents which - after examination - cannot be made public, could be communicated to a small group of Members of Parliament.
However, it is important that this in no way replaces the desire for as many documents as possible to be made available to the public at large: journalists, interest groups and individual citizens.
Article 255 of the EC Treaty concerns citizens' access to documents.
The rights of the institutions ought to be developed further in separate provisions.
The Cashman report is the first step on a long road towards increased openness, democracy and confidence on the part of our citizens.
A common directive is necessary and important.
Much work will also be needed in order to change the attitudes and the culture within the different institutions and progressively replace them with an understanding that openness is necessary, natural, effective and democratic.
We now await the Council's move.
Mr President, Article 255 of the Treaty is now, therefore, to be implemented and, with the Cashman report, we are moving a long way in the right direction, but not far enough.
All the same, I should very much like to commend the considerable work Mr Cashman has put into this report.
As I see it, it is one of the most important pieces of work done this year.
The statement by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, too, in fact goes farther than the Commission had proposed.
We drew inspiration from the Nordic models for transparency in administration, for the Nordic countries have a very long tradition of having the right of access to documents.
Naturally enough, it has also been the task of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport to emphasise that the language in the rules must be as clear, simple and understandable as possible. In the same way, we have also pointed out that openness and transparency are the best tools for solving the problems which may arise as a result of cultural and linguistic differences between the Member States, on this issue too.
As I see it, right of access to documents is an important part of the EU' s information and communication policy.
All investigations have, of course, revealed the distance between the European citizen and Brussels, and people themselves think they know too little about the EU.
What they learn is at the media' s discretion or depends upon special interest groups, and they often feel powerless over and against the institutions.
Now, they will be given the opportunity also to acquire some insight into circumstances which do not receive the special attention of the mass media and special interest groups and, in that way, they will be better able to participate in the open and democratic debate which is so important to confidence in the EU.
I hope the Commission will make a big effort to inform people, including the man in the street, about this legislation, for the media and the special interest groups will no doubt find their own way to the documents they are interested in.
I also hope that the Council and the Commission can give us a commitment today to continuing to deal with this issue in a positive way so that we might, as quickly as possible, start making the necessary changes to the business procedures in such a way as to benefit people and the image of the institutions.
At a hearing in September in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, we learned that it takes ten years for an administration to change mentality, so the sooner we get started the better.
Mr President, a lot of wise things have been said regarding the background to this report.
I nevertheless think that we should emphasise that this is a question of standing matters on their heads. It is now a question of giving citizens the power to control the institutions.
In the opinion of the Committee on Petitions, the importance of registers is mentioned.
Registers are important if we are not to have a form of public access to documents that is insider access.
The Committee would like all documents to be included, irrespective of whether they have been drawn up by the institutions or whether the institutions have them in their possession.
Of course, the institutions can be given time to consider documents, but in that case it is not a question of forever preventing these documents from being released.
When this time is up, it must also be possible for these documents, too, to be evaluated.
We must also do the balancing mentioned by Mr Cashman as rapporteur.
We must always weigh different interests against each other: the interests of having a public discussion and the interests of protecting individual people, for example.
It is also important that the parties affected have rights.
We wish to emphasise that these parties must have more rights than the general public.
However, the issue here is the public's, not Parliament's, access to documents.
The Committee on Petitions would like to see shorter waiting periods before documents are released.
Time is power in our society.
We would also like to emphasis the important role the Ombudsman has played in the progress that has, nevertheless, been made.
I believe that he will also have an important role to play in the future.
We would also like to underline the fact that this is not a matter of harmonising national regulations.
National cultures must be able to continue, for example in the country I come from, where some time ago the whole principle of public access to official records was conceived.
Mr President, the Cashman report can be summarised in four words: citizens' power over bureaucracy.
The general public's right of access to the EU institutions' documents is one of the mainstays in the establishment of an open and democratic EU.
Access to information also stimulates increased efficiency.
This is a significant step towards a more open and more democratic EU.
It is gratifying that Parliament has succeeded in producing a large majority in favour of more openness.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Cashman and also Mrs Maij-Weggen for an excellent collaboration, which has in fact created a good basis for the continued negotiations.
There are no block exemptions relating to foreign affairs or security, and neither must there be any block exemptions in these areas in the future.
The principle of access to documents must of course include all the institutions and bodies of the EU.
It is therefore extremely important that we keep a record, a register, so that citizens have a reasonable chance of seeing what documents exist.
Public access to documents must be all-embracing and the main and basic principle, but it must naturally be supplemented with certain well-defined exceptions.
Citizens must of course be protected.
The Commission suggested 16 exceptions, which we felt was far too many.
We have therefore reduced them to six.
Justification for a document being classified as confidential must be required in each individual case. Furthermore, confidentiality may not be assigned permanently.
As soon as confidentiality is no longer justified, the document must naturally be made publicly accessible.
There may, of course, be negotiation strategies whereby a document may need to be kept secret before a meeting, but once decisions have been taken there may no longer be a need to maintain confidentiality. The document should then be made available.
In addition, it must be possible to appeal against all decisions relating to confidentiality.
It must be possible to appeal to the European Court of Justice, the Ombudsman or the relevant EU authority, and Parliament must always be able to question the grounds for confidentiality.
Another important principle, which has been one of my hobbyhorses since the debate on openness began, is that, as far as possible, documents must be made available in electronic form on the Internet.
This is something that Parliament has supported and will probably also emphasise again today, which is important.
I regard this as a very good example of Swedish and Nordic influence on the system of the EU.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteurs for an excellent piece of work.
Increased openness will reduce bureaucracy and the opportunities for cheating and fraud and, at the same time, increase the legitimacy of the institutions among citizens.
I will not get too bogged down in some of the details of the report - it is always possible to wish for more when it comes to details - but keep to the main principles.
The basic principle of the proposal on our table now is that all documents must be made public.
The exceptions are considerably fewer and clearer than those in the Commission's proposal.
The general public is guaranteed the greatest possible access to documents and in the easiest possible way.
The same thing applies to citizens in third countries.
A register of all documents must be established.
Requests for access will be handled relatively quickly.
Those countries which have better systems will not be adversely affected, but will be able to retain their systems.
Furthermore, a report must be sent to Parliament every year so that we might continually follow up this action.
I would also like to emphasise that all citizens must be guaranteed access to documents in as many forms as possible.
In our group, we have also discussed the possibility that the visually impaired and those with other types of functional disability should be able to receive documents in a form other than written form.
I would like to draw attention to the Internet and other possibilities which in the future may facilitate access to documents.
I would like to conclude by saying that, in Parliament, we must be very unified in supporting this comprehensive proposal, because the problems do not lie with ourselves.
It is now a matter of our producing a proposal and achieving a good result in our negotiations with the Council and the Commission.
That is the most important thing, and that is the task we face.
Mr President, transparency and openness do not appear in a good light in the European Union.
In the eyes of the citizens, the European Union is a cumbersome bureaucracy that spends its time cooking up all manner of regulations behind closed doors.
As a parliamentarian, I can confirm the accuracy of this impression.
The Council of Ministers, in particular, is a sealed fortress.
And the present legislative proposal from the Commission is no cause for celebration either.
Fortunately, this Commission proposal has been heavily adapted by the various parliamentary committees, due in part to the contribution of a number of liberal draftsmen of opinions that have just spoken.
The guiding principle must be that all documents are accessible, subject to certain exceptions.
That is the will of this Parliament.
All in all, the ELDR Group feels that the proposal has been substantially improved on, but that there is still room for improvement nonetheless.
I would point out that the arrangements pertaining to the registration of documents are too complex, the grounds for exceptions could be formulated better, and that non-European EU citizens have a right to openness too.
The stipulations concerning the duty of the Commission and the Council to provide Parliament with information, have no place in this legislative proposal.
The doctrine of political responsibility must not be confused with the citizens' rights to openness.
All in all, I call upon the Social Democrat and Conservative groups, and, of course, the others too, to support our amendments.
Mr President, a word about the position of the European Commission, because I have already talked about the Council.
My group and I have our doubts about the European Commission.
According to reports, this regulation on public access has rarely been discussed in the college, and has been regarded by it up until now as a predominantly official matter.
I am keen to hear what the Commissioner in attendance today thinks about this.
If it were to be the case then it is a miscalculation because this is about the credibility and reliability of the European Union in the eyes of the citizens.
I call upon the Commission to give its full cooperation in delivering a sound regulation based on the principle of public access subject to certain exceptions.
Mr President, Mr Cashman, let there be no mistake, my group also feels that your report is a major step forwards in comparison with the Commission' s report.
There are fewer exceptions and it gives Member States the option of retaining their own national, more far-reaching legislation.
But there are also points of criticism and I would like to highlight one of them.
It relates to the announcement in our report of the so-called 'select committee' , the committee of inquiry.
And just remember, what we are talking about here is a 'select committee' of the European Parliament.
A small group of MEPs who may be able to gain access in the future to secret military documents.
My problem, and that of my group, is that this provision for parliamentarians is incorporated in a provision which should be about accessibility to the public, i.e. to the citizens.
It is totally unacceptable, Mr Cashman, for us to get a good deal out of all this ourselves where access to documents is concerned, but to then leave the citizens out in the cold on that very point.
I would remind you that this is not an imagined danger because Parliament has decided to lodge an appeal against the Solana decision.
But at the same time, it has said that whether or not we go ahead with this case depends on the progress of the negotiations as regards the select committee.
In other words, as I see it, a link has been established - erroneously so - between the rights of parliamentarians and the rights of the public.
I would therefore urge the rapporteurs to delete any reference to the rights of parliamentarians from the provision concerning public access to documents, and I call upon all my fellow delegates to make very sure that their interests are not played off against those of the public.
Mr President, we have talked such a lot in Parliament about bringing the Union closer to the people, and I think then, if this is what we really want, that this project is crucial.
It is a project which may lead to citizens being placed in a position in which they are co-players and active participants and are not just spectators or like pawns in interesting, large-scale games of chess.
I therefore also think it is important that, in this report, we should concentrate on citizens' rights. We should not confuse this issue with every other possible matter connected with the right of access to documents and we should not confuse it with Parliament' s, the Commission' s and the Council' s internal quarrels about access to documents.
It is citizens' rights we are dealing with on this occasion.
I should like to emphasise that we shall, in any case, vote in favour of as broad a definition as we possibly can of what the documents in question are.
There is a multiplicity of documents nowadays, and we should like to ensure that there is a high degree of access to as many different types of document in as many different forms as is humanly possible.
This also means, of course, that, conversely, we want to ensure that the exceptions are as minor and as few in number as they possibly can be.
I simply cannot understand why, in the context of this cooperation, it should be necessary to introduce rules more restrictive than those which individual Member States can live with.
I cannot understand how it can be accepted that citizens of the European Union should have poorer rights of access to documents than citizens in some individual Member States.
I cannot understand why it should be more important or dangerous if something were to be leaked from this 'Community' , as it is called, than if something similar were to be leaked from the Swedish, or possibly Danish, government.
That is why I think it is so crucial that citizens' rights should not be restricted in those Member States where there is at present good access to documentation and why I think that cooperation should instead be used to increase citizens' access in the individual Member States and, indeed, in the European Union as a whole.
If, then, we mean what we say about citizens' rights and bringing the European Union closer to the people, then what is needed are not flashy documents and high-minded speeches but quite specific citizens' rights.
Mr President, on behalf of the Members of the Bonino List, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Cashman for what we consider to be excellent work. Before focusing on our concern over certain points, I would first like to state that the right of access to information should be recognised as a civil and political right.
Today, as a tool to help us exercise this civil and political right, we have the Internet, a term which has a strange ring within the European institutions and which, although we are starting to make use of it, is not exploited to the full.
The Internet is a remarkable tool, and it is certainly now the simplest, most economical and most easily accessible tool available.
We will therefore vote for the amendments facilitating its use.
Our concerns are threefold: the first is regarding the common foreign and security policy sectors, but also the sectors of justice and home affairs.
Access to documents is not guaranteed in these sectors and is denied not only to the citizens, but even to the European Parliament. Moreover, Parliament is neither kept formally informed nor consulted regarding fundamental documents.
Our second concern stems from the way the Council takes legislative decisions behind closed doors.
The citizens and Members of Parliament are currently denied the right to be aware of the positions adopted by the national delegations within the Council and the way these delegations vote. If the Council of today is supposed to be a co-legislating organ, a sort of upper House with legislative power, then, logically, the Council's votes and proceedings ought to be made public.
The citizens have to be able to find out how their government has voted on highly important matters.
The third concern relates to the limited access to examination scripts from the Union's recruitment competitions.
There is, in fact, a grey area which leads to incidents of discrimination and poor administration.
These incidents have a direct bearing on the quality of the work produced by the institutions.
At the same time, we Members of the Bonino List feel that we must not go too far and introduce extreme regulations allowing indiscriminate access to information or opinions which are of no decision-making import.
Our vote will therefore be targeted at finding the right balance between the two extremes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, transparency ensures greater participation by the citizens in the decision-making process together with greater legitimacy, efficiency and responsibility on the part of the administration in a democratic system.
It is essential and fundamental to the system for the citizens to have the broadest possible access to the EU's documents.
In principle this regulation is positive, especially the clarification that it covers all areas of activity and all the institutions of the Union.
But one serious cause for regret remains.
If it is applied extensively, the list of exceptions in Article 4 could totally destroy the object of this regulation.
The regulation is marked by imprecision, which will produce legal uncertainty for the citizens.
I consider it extremely questionable to deny access to documents where - and I quote from Article 4 - disclosure could undermine "the effective functioning of the institutions".
That provision could open the door wide to arbitrariness.
The concept of the "effective functioning of the institutions" is vague and inconsistent with the case law of the European Court of Justice.
According to that court, the decision on whether to grant access to a document must take account of the relative interests of the institutions, the confidentiality of the document and the interest of the applicant.
The argument that it could undermine the effective functioning of the institutions is not sufficient grounds for the denial of access to documents.
This provision must be deleted or at least supplemented by the obligation to weigh up the various interests.
The purpose of this regulation is to optimise access to documents while adhering as far as possible to the principle of openness.
The proposed regulation can only achieve that aim if the list of exceptions in Article 4 is toned down, to say the least.
Mr President, today the House is debating a very serious and important issue because this debate is about one of the most important legislative texts which we, as a Parliament, are required to examine.
And it is an important legislative document because it concerns the quintessential relations between the man in the street and the institutions, these relations being no more and no less than his facility to access the institutions.
The context of this debate is defined in the proposal made by the European Commission and it is this proposal, via the report by our fellow Member, Mr Cashman, whom I congratulate on his excellent work, which informs the position of the European Parliament.
However, the question which begs to be answered is: what about the Council?
So far, the only proposal to have come out of the Council is the absolute and, in my view, unacceptable position of Mr Solana on issues relating to the common foreign policy.
I call on you to pressure the Council into changing its mind and, at the same time, I call on you to vote in favour of the Cashman report.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Cashman for the splendid work he has done on this report.
I think the report sends a powerful signal to all the EU' s institutions and to the general public.
Openness in legislative work and in public administration is, of course, crucial to our democracies being able to function.
It is therefore not enough that a system should be formally open.
It must also be experienced as such.
The Commission' s draft Regulation is in reality reminiscent of Hans Christian Andersen' s story of the Emperor' s New Clothes.
There is a difference between words and deeds.
Here in the European Parliament, we must adopt the role of the little boy in the story.
The usual method of international cooperation, with all the customs and ground rules of diplomacy including the rule that everything must take place behind closed doors, will not do in the modern form of cooperation the EU has developed into.
We must give up this habitual way of thinking.
With relatively few exceptions, documents must be fully accessible to the public. Otherwise, we shall lose people' s support for European cooperation.
I might also add that, even if the rules in question only affect people in the EU, Mr Cashman' s proposal will also have a knock-on effect in the Member States where it will no longer be possible to keep documents secret on the basis of the standard justification we almost always encounter, namely that it is an EU matter.
This is the attitude behind the poor opinion people have of the EU, an opinion which Mr Cashman' s report will change for the better. The report is also good for people' s confidence in European cooperation.
I shall just conclude by saying that I think it was a pity that Mr Jens-Peter Bonde had got the wrong script for his intervention today.
It was not, in any case, relevant to the Cashman report.
Mr President, I thank Mr Cashman for his assiduous and inspired work in committee.
Freedom of information and a culture of open and transparent administration are powerful tools for better government and for rooting out corruption and malpractice.
Since it was Mr Prodi who presented proposals to us in January, we had hoped he would be here to reply to this debate.
Indeed the Commission has maintained a curious silence throughout our deliberations, but we look forward to the Commissioner's remarks this morning.
Mr Solana in the Council has made an audacious bid to be crowned the prince of darkness.
But once this report is voted on today, Parliament will stand ready to negotiate with the Commission and the Council a code which will cause citizens to blink in the bright Strasbourg sunshine.
Publication must be our presumption and the onus placed squarely on those who seek to withhold it.
It is grotesque that in the European Union national governments make public policy behind a heavy curtain of secrecy.
The freedom of information act foreseen in Article 255 will rip it asunder.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur and everyone else involved in this work.
This is a very important report, which forms an important part of what we might call the EU's new principle of public access to official documents.
Included in this, apart from this draft legislation which regulates citizens' right of access to documents, are the framework agreement between the Commission and Parliament and other agreements such as the Solana Decision.
It is now that we have the chance to make the EU more open and more democratic.
It would be an enormous disappointment if we did not succeed with this.
It is a matter of legal security, an efficient administration and effective democracy.
We must remember that this proposal shall establish citizens' right of access to documents without them having to provide a reason for this or to demonstrate that they are affected.
We must not confuse this with the role of the European Parliament or with future interinstitutional agreements.
The Cashman report constitutes an improvement on the Commission's proposal, but in my opinion the improvement is not sufficient.
We still need to vote in favour of many of the amendments that have been tabled, among others by the Group of the Greens and by the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
The amendment concerning a register is particularly important.
Furthermore, citizens will not need to have their rights interpreted. Instead, they will have the right of access to documents in order to determine for themselves what is important.
Mr President, the report before us points in the right direction. But it should aim further.
The general public is often given the impression today that good information means being swamped with mounds of glossy brochures.
However, people do not measure information by the shiny cover, but by the content, transparency and legibility.
It is true that transparency and openness can help prevent corruption and the waste of resources.
The latest report by the Court of Auditors shows how urgently we need changes here.
Let me turn to three other aspects. Firstly, democracy is based on the participation of the citizens and is meant to be an incentive to action.
But what if people are not or not adequately informed and then encounter a jungle of provisions through which not even a Member of Parliament, let alone the man in the street, could find their way? Surely information also implies that the citizens can recognise their own interests in our decisions, for instance in decisions on aid projects and so forth.
Secondly, documents are often couched in the kind of language not even a lawyer can understand, let alone a citizen.
Finally, so many documents are kept secret even from the Members of Parliament that many of the facts we would need in order to reach a decision remain so hidden that...
(Technical disruption)
Mr President, there is no trace of the 'Europe of the citizens' rhetoric that we hear so much about in the restrictive rules governing access to documents proposed by the Commission and the Council. Do these institutions really want to bring the citizens closer to Europe?
Their attitude would suggest a propensity towards the centralisation of power. Why did they opt for a regulation?
Surely this is about documents belonging to the institutions? And why have access exemptions been formulated so broadly?
One thing is for sure, now that unanimity is no longer required in the Council, the only possibility of redressing the balance rests with Parliament.
Fortunately, the Cashman/Maij-Wegen report represents an attempt to compile a document which lays down the citizen' s right to access to documents, and not the right of institutions to impose restrictions.
But Parliament is no stranger to these little power games either.
For example, the report contains amendments about the right of the institutions to classify documents as secret or public. These are amendments that are mainly geared towards increasing our own influence.
But does this subject actually belong in a regulation on the right of the public to have access to documents? Besides, Parliament' s passion for regulation, as borne out by so many amendments, will result in a regulation that is difficult to implement.
And bear in mind that transparency and openness, which are necessary to guarantee the involvement of the citizens, would be best served by the exact opposite, i.e. a clear and simple regulation.
That is certainly what we as a Parliament should stick to.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Cashman for his report, which is enriched by the opinions of Mrs Maij-Weggen, Mrs Hautala, Mrs Malmström, Mrs Theato, Mrs Thors and Mr Andreasen.
However, I think that he is referring to all the institutions except the Council, for the Council is a black hole in the European Union.
The Council is the unknown on the far side of beyond.
In my opinion, a step has been taken towards making it possible for citizens to avail themselves of their right to information and knowledge.
In all probability, the advent of electronic data will eventually bring the citizen this possibility, providing information automatically without the citizens having to make an - albeit legitimate - request for it.
Furthermore, I feel that, as the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman have requested, we also need to endeavour to outline clearly the institutional and bureaucratic stages in the process, defining the responsibilities which - rightly - still lie with the institutions, therefore without separating the different responsibilities within the organisation.
I have mentioned responsibility precisely because the information has to protect the citizen from errors of public administration.
If this were not so, we would merely be talking about a desire for knowledge, pure and simple.
However, the citizen's right to defend himself against the public administration means that information must be provided.
One last point: information cannot be made available, that is, the right to information, the right to protect the citizen from public maladministration cannot be provided if the procedures are not made simpler and more comprehensible, if the number and complexity of procedures is not reduced, because, although the citizens are familiar with the complex procedures, these procedures are the antithesis of transparency and deny the relationship between the citizen and the institution, which ought to serve as a channel for improving the quality of life of the citizen.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Cashman for his excellent work.
However, he is not the only one I should like to thank, as my sincere thanks also go to Hanja Maij-Weggen, of the PPE-DE Group, who is the other rapporteur, thanks to the enhanced Hughes Procedure.
I am glad that they have been able to work in close and successful cooperation in this matter.
Transparency and democracy are important values in our work, and they will come about if registers on existing information, including that deemed confidential, are made obligatory.
This is the principle which I have made the starting point in my own report on the accessibility to information on the environment.
It would also be important if the public were given information as to when a document, which is not available to the public at the time a request is made to examine it, because it is incomplete or confidential, will actually be made available.
I would like to focus attention on something which concerns public accessibility to documents which fall within the authority of the Commission or are in the possession of bodies set up by the institutions.
These latter would include, for example, the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen as well as the Food Safety Agency, which is soon to be established.
Naturally, the documents these bodies hold must unambiguously be included within the scope of provisions on accessibility.
I do not think Mr Cashman' s chosen technique here is a good one, however.
It is technically cumbersome to classify these bodies in a separate Annex, as new bodies are forever being created or changed.
It would be better to create provisions in the paragraphs themselves, which would oblige all bodies to publish their documents and create registers on them.
Secondly, I would like to draw attention to the work on derogations.
The provision of derogations is a very delicate matter, and what is otherwise an excellent report and a huge increase in transparency will very easily be overshadowed in the minds of the public by any clumsy set of provisions on derogations.
Naturally we have to finally decide on the sort of practices which would shed public light on the work of the Council, and no set of derogations must be allowed to let the Council retreat behind it in the way it did before.
But it is just as important to temper public opinion, which borders very much on the paranoid as a result of exaggerated secrecy with regard to documents on such matters as security and defence.
In fact, it is important, as far as security is concerned, that the public can judge, using facts and documents, just how much confidence they have in European defence.
Mr President, we are now in a situation in which we can really say that steps are being taken in the direction we have wanted for many years, and the principles of which were agreed in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Transparency must become a founding pillar of all the work of the European Union, but the right to access documents is still not enough in itself to establish transparency.
We must see to it that the work of all the institutions is based on transparency, clarity and intelligibility, and that means that the decision-making structures are clearly visible.
Bureaucracy has also to be avoided here.
The times being proposed for the release of documents must be absolute deadlines, because in normal circumstances documents are readily available to the public.
I also think it is very important that this report proposes a yearly review as, then, lists of documents that have not been able to be made public, can justifiably be gone through.
At this stage we would also then have the chance to examine, on political grounds, whether the suppression of documents has been judged entirely appropriately.
I hope that this report is received favourably here in Parliament.
Mr President, there is a yawning gap between Parliament' s position and those of the Council and the Commission.
This gap is symbolic of the distance between the European Union and its citizens.
Our people regard Europe as being undemocratic, a place where decisions are taken behind closed doors.
The gap is also becoming a democratic deficit in Europe.
At the end of the day, exchange of information is an essential foundation of modern democracy, which is nurtured by public debate, media and public control and the contribution of social organisations.
Parliament' s proposals bridge this gap.
I would also emphasise that the vast majority of MEPs support the proposals, and that includes delegates whose own countries may be less familiar with the tradition of openness.
I regard this consensus throughout Parliament as a great achievement, enabling us to demonstrate that this has become a Europe-wide fight for European democracy.
I would conclude that the Council committed a serious error in July when it categorically declared all documents about military affairs secret.
This decision illustrates just how far we still have to go before Europe actually has a democratically controlled security and defence policy.
That is why Parliament is calling for European security and defence policy to be embedded in the structures of the European Commission in future.
Firstly, we must tackle the insupportable decision taken by the Council.
Naturally Parliament recognises the need to keep certain military matters secret, but only if this is done on the basis of an assessment of the content of each individual document, and with the aid of verifiable criteria and procedures.
Parliamentary control of secret documents could then take place via a parliamentary select committee.
Mr President, access to documents is fundamentally important to our European democracy.
The Council and the Commission must deliver the goods with interest in the negotiations due to take place in the coming weeks.
Otherwise, the Social Democratic Group, along with others, will endeavour to enforce this right to information by having recourse to the law.
Mr President, I would firstly like to express my satisfaction at being able to explain to you the Commission' s position with regard to the amendments tabled by the various committees on the proposal for a regulation, a regulation which we all consider to be of great importance to the reality of democracy and progress in our society.
I would also like to say how much the Commission and myself appreciate the efforts made by the rapporteur, Mr Cashman, and the draftsperson of the proposal, Mrs Maij-Weggen, to present this report in such a short period of time.
In accordance with Article 255 of the Treaty, the proposed regulation must be adopted before 1 May 2001, that is to say, two years after the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Before presenting the Commission' s position, I would like to point out that, in drawing up its proposal, the Commission based its work, on the one hand, on the experience and functioning of the voluntary code of the last six years and, on the other, on a study of the legislation of the Member States, some of which have a great deal of experience in providing their citizens access to documents.
The Treaty recognises the citizens' right to have access to the documents of the European institutions in accordance with certain principles and conditions.
As the proposal indicates, the Commission feels that providing citizens with access will mean that they are guaranteed better information on decision-making processes, and that administrations will have greater legitimacy, efficiency and responsibility in a democratic system.
The fundamental principle is therefore openness, but this must be reconciled with safeguarding the public interest and respect for certain rights which warrant special protection.
This is the fundamental balance that we must achieve.
Our legislation must also respect another type of balance which is equally essential: the balance between the three institutions that are considered in the Treaty of Amsterdam. This does not mean that it would not be appropriate for the other institutions also to adopt the regulation when we adopt it.
When President Prodi addressed Parliament on 3 October, he referred to the institutional triangle and stated that, in a European system based on checks and balances, the efficient functioning of each institution contributes to the common interest.
Each of the institutions has a different task to perform and its needs and obligations are therefore different.
As a result of Mr Cashman' s report we now have a clear idea of Parliament' s priorities.
However, the Council' s position with regard to some of the most important provisions of the proposal is still not clear.
This element of uncertainty means that the Commission, at this point in the procedure, can only offer a general position.
We are therefore unable to agree to some of the amendments without prejudging a future negotiation and a definitive position in relation to it.
The Commission is pleased to see that the European Parliament agrees, to a large extent, with its view of many of the aforementioned issues.
Furthermore, other amendments do not present any problems of principle.
We must go further in relation to the ways in which the regulation will be applied and implemented, because openness, transparency and the provision of access to documents is an attitude which must be strengthened in our respective administrations and which must become a reality.
I believe that many of us who are in favour of the maximum degree of transparency, which would allow the institutions to become more efficient, were truly amazed, a few years ago, to discover that, in a country which always sets an example in these areas, certain sterilisation practices had been taking place for several years, specifically in relation to certain categories of citizen, in the most shady and least transparent manner.
I believe that this demonstrates that there are no perfect situations and that we all have to make progress in order to prevent situations of this type.
I now wish to address certain problems that currently prevent the Commission from accepting certain amendments.
One of them is the need to achieve a fair balance between openness and efficiency.
I am referring in particular to texts for internal use and to initial drafts and preparatory study documents for exclusively internal use by the institutions.
All national legislation in this field excludes these documents.
Forcing institutions to publish these internal notes could, in many cases, simply lead to confusion amongst the citizens.
As one Member has said, there is a paradox here, and that is that sometimes the worst type of disinformation results from an overload of information.
In this respect, I believe that access to preparatory documents would not provide much information.
Furthermore, an attitude such as this would discourage creative thinking and would encourage strictly bureaucratic approaches within the institutions.
I believe that this is precisely the opposite of what the institutions intend.
I must acknowledge that the great challenge of this regulation is the precise definition of what documents are.
In this respect, I believe that we must now continue to make progress in seeking a common definition, on which all the institutions can agree.
Therefore, although I cannot agree to the amendments to Articles 3 and 4 today, that is to say Amendments Nos 28 and 30, this does not mean that we do not have to hold discussions and make progress in this regard.
Another problem lies in the treatment of entry documents, that is to say, documents drawn up by third parties.
The institutions lack experience in this field, since the current system only deals with documents presented by the institutions themselves.
The Commission' s proposal on third-party documents takes account of what was agreed at the last Intergovernmental Conference - in Declaration No 35 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which we cannot ignore - which gives them, both the institutions and the third parties, the final word on whether to publish these documents.
Parliament' s amendments completely reverse this approach and we therefore believe that greater consideration is required and that the proposal for a new Article 4c, Amendment No 36, is not yet sufficiently mature to be accepted favourably by the Commission.
With regard to other amendments, we believe that we need time to assess the consequences of the proposal from the operational point of view and we must ensure that the procedures incorporated are not bureaucratic, but are truly accessible to all the citizens.
I include here amendments such as those tabled on measures which must be agreed by means of an interinstitutional agreement: Amendments Nos 34, 45, and 48.
As I pointed out previously, in certain cases we can agree in principle to the amendments, but we have to work together from a technical and administrative point of view, for example with regard to the amendments referring to the classification of documents and the register.
For several decades the Commission has had a system for the classification of documents.
Therefore the principle that documents should be subject to a classification system does not raise any problems.
Nevertheless, there has been no discussion as to whether or not the rules for classification should be common to all the institutions.
It is premature at this point in the legislative procedure to take a position on whether there should be a direct relationship between classification and access to documents, as proposed in Amendment No 29, or whether rules to this effect should be included in the present regulation.
The relationships established by the amendments between rules on classification and rules on the content of the register therefore prevent us from accepting at this stage Amendment No 46 relating to the register.
I would like to highlight that, at the right time, the Commission could accept practically all the amendments, such as Amendments Nos 9, 18, 21 in part, 23, 25, 26.1, 28(f), 35, 38, 40.1, 40.6, 41.1, 42, 43.1, 47, 49 and 52.
Furthermore, the Commission believes that we will be able to reach agreement, with some modifications, on Amendments Nos 11, 12, 40.4, 40.7, 43.2, 47, 48.4, 50.1 and 50.2.
Perhaps also Amendments Nos 63, 66.2, 73.1, 74.2, the final part of 75, and 78.2.
I would like to highlight the fact that, although the Commission is only able today to express certain global and positive approaches in certain respects, and with regard to other amendments we are making no comment or only doing so cautiously, this does not mean that we do not want to go ahead with the debate, the negotiation and the search for common ground between the three institutions.
We hope to be able to work in this respect so that the appropriate regulation will be approved by May.
Once again, thank you very much to all the rapporteurs for the efforts they have made.
Thank you very much, Commissioner
Mr President, I have a point of order.
We have just heard the Commissioner, Mrs de Palacio, briefly listing dozens of amendments that the Commission can accept and others it recommends that we reject.
Would it not be possible to have that list in writing, since we will be voting in ten minutes' time? Nobody had time to note down the amendments the Commissioner listed.
I am making this comment because as a rule the Commissioner present gives the Commission' s voting recommendations orally.
We have no written document before us and, in future too, I would like the Commission to inform the Members of its recommendations in writing.
I have to disagree with my colleague, Mr Poos.
It is not for the Commission to tell political groups what decisions they should make on the amendments that have come from the different political groups and therefore the Commissioner should not be placed in this invidious position.
Mr President, I asked for the floor to make the same comment as Mr Poos.
Mr Cashman was right to say that it is not up to the Commission to tell the political groups how they should vote here in plenary.
Yet, there are some Members, including myself, who, on occasion, also trust in the wisdom of the Commission.
Sometimes I would indeed like to vote for the Commission' s proposals and that means that Members really do need a list of the amendments the Commission can in fact support and of the amendments it does not wish to support.
It will be up to Members, who in any case vote according to their hearts and their conscience, to make up their mind on the basis of this Commission list.
Mr President, I would agree with Mr Cashman that the process of parliamentary decision-making is taking place as we speak.
I have also heard from the Commission -which I would sincerely like to thank incidentally, for being so very accommodating, because that much I can say - that it is unable as yet to give a definitive answer on certain aspects.
That is a very important point, of course, and I am sure it will have certain repercussions.
But precisely because the Commission - I see the Commissioner is nodding - is unable to give a definitive answer as yet, it is in fact a little risky to get everything down in black and white at this early stage, because then we will lose control of the situation.
So what I would actually like to ask now, is whether Parliament can pursue its own decision-making process, in a sense independently of the Commission' s position, and then we can explore how the rapporteurs can engage in further consultations with the Commission in order to reach a definitive viewpoint.
That seems to me to be a better order in which to do things.
I have taken cognisance of the opinions expressed here.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Welcome
Own funds of banks
The next item is the report by Mrs Villiers (A5-0282/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the evaluation of Directive 89/299/EEC on the own funds of banks [2000/2207(INI)].
When a bank fails it has wider-reaching implications than a failure of another sort of business because people's savings are jeopardised and the stability of the financial system can be jeopardised.
Therefore, we have special rules to ensure that banks stay solvent and stay afloat and do not fail, and these rules are designed to protect savers and to maintain financial stability.
They are globally agreed in Basel but the current framework is out of date because it requires the same regulatory capital reserves.
The same amount of money needs to be put aside for a wide range of different risks.
This actually encourages banks to opt for higher risks because it means that a bank can go for a higher premium for the same regulatory capital charge.
The Commission's new proposal, the main thrust of which the committee warmly welcomes, is that the lower the risk, the lower the regulatory charge.
That means banks will be encouraged and rewarded for minimising risk and maintaining proper reserves of capital against their liabilities.
We make a number of political demands in our report from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Firstly, that the new rules take account of the diversity of the banking and investment sector in the European Union.
These rules apply to many thousands of small and large banks and investment firms and must be designed to suit all their needs.
The rules should be as easy as possible for these institutions to use.
We are moving to a more sophisticated system.
It does not need to be a more bureaucratic and complex system.
We, in the committee, cautiously accept the role proposed by the Commission for external ratings, with the reservation that this is a role with limitations - most importantly, small businesses will not need to be rated, nor will businesses without a rating be disadvantaged.
Nevertheless we believe it is important to state that banks' internal credit scoring and internal rating systems must be at the centrepiece of the new framework.
They offer the best way to deliver a risk-sensitive framework over a wide area of the banking sector, as well as to clients and small businesses.
We welcome the enhanced status accorded to credit risk mitigation, particularly the collateral which may be offered by small businesses.
We also accept that, in the long term, there is probably a need for a new charge for other risks, but we make the point that there should be no such charge until there is a sensible method of measuring other risks.
We also accept that there is a need for regulators to have the power to impose particular and additional charges on particular banks.
The new framework puts trust in banks.
We are not allowing them to set their own capital charges but we would be getting suspiciously close to that if we did not keep a close eye on their internal systems.
That is why supervisors need to have these extra powers to impose individual charges, to make sure individual banks are sticking to the rules.
Lastly, and most controversially, the committee strongly called for the use of a fast-track procedure to implement this legislation.
Amendments have been tabled which take a more cautious approach, but what unites us all is the knowledge that the last time there was a Basel Accord, the United States took three months to implement it and the European Union took over three years.
That was not only three years when EU banks were at a severe competitive disadvantage - and there is evidence that they suffered severely - but also three years when European consumers were denied a modern, state-of-the-art regulatory framework.
We need to ask ourselves tough questions as legislators, as to whether we are doing the best for the people who elected us if our regulations and laws are out of date before they hit the statute books.
We must review all our options, including comitology, fast-track and other procedures, because it is dangerous to be regulating yesterday's markets.
That is what we will be doing unless we review our procedures.
What we need to ensure is: that we have legislation which is flexible; that we have a means of implementing it quickly; that we have a means of updating it quickly and easily; that we have a means of ensuring consistency across Member States; and that we have appropriate democratic scrutiny of any new procedures introduced.
I would call on Mr Bolkestein, here today, to put forward proposals, that Parliament can consider, to address these vital needs.
They are vital for the health of the financial services sector in the European Union.
VOTE
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0321/2000) tabled by Mr Blokland, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on the incineration of waste [C5-0371/2000 - 1998/0289(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Report (A5-0307/2000) by Mrs Figueiredo, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a programme of Community action to encourage cooperation between Member States to combat social exclusion [COM(2000) 368 - C5-0317/2000 - 2000/0157(COD)]
Figueiredo (GUE/NGL), rapporteur.
(PT) Mr President, I wish to inform the House that the amendments that appear under the name of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, which I have tabled in my capacity as rapporteur, are the result of discussions with the Council and the Commission and also have the support of the coordinators of the political groups that are represented in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
They result from the need to ease the way of the codecision procedure to which this report is subject, as you all know.
These amendments replace various other proposals in the report that will probably be rejected in the vote and which will then be replaced by the new amendments arising from this consensus
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, we have just voted, in the absence of a number of Members, on a declaration on BSE.
Let me say that there is certainly one organ that has been struck by mad cow disease or by Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and that is the computer controlling the lifts.
We were stuck for ten minutes because, at the time of the vote, out of all the lifts only two were working.
I would like someone to find out what variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has infected our computers.
Mr Bourlanges, I am afraid that this is a serious illness. We will inform our services of the matter.
Report (A5-0320/2000), by Mrs Rothe, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market [COM(2000) 279 - C5-0281/2000 - 2000/0116(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0318/2000), by Mr Cashman, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents [COM(2000) 30 - C5-0057/2000 - 2000/0032(COD)]
Following the vote on the ninth part of Amendment No 28
Mr President, might I ask the Liberal Group - I am also asking in my capacity as one of the co-rapporteurs - to take a slightly more pragmatic approach?
Because they keep going for split voting on so many articles when there is often only one aspect they want to vote against.
So I would be grateful if the Liberals could take a more pragmatic and speedier approach.
Mr President, it is a great shame that neither rapporteur has entered into proper consultation over this.
We are dealing with a very important piece of legislation and with important articles.
We Liberals, along with certain other members of this House, would like to take this opportunity to make it absolutely crystal clear that we are in favour of improving this openness regulation.
So I am sorry there has not been enough consultation.
We want to show how we uphold the interests of the citizens in this Chamber.
Mr President, in the light of the excellent vote of support for this report and given the Commission's response this morning, it is obvious - if you look at all the parts we have voted on - that under Rule 69(2) we should postpone the vote on the draft legislative resolution in order to allow us to enter into fruitful negotiations with the Commission and the Council.
I hope the House will support that proposal.
(Parliament decided to postpone the vote)
Mr President, I understand that there is now no possibility of voting on the Theorin and Smet reports.
I would therefore like to recommend that the vote on these reports be postponed until the November II part-session.
I also put to the vote Mrs Theorin's proposal to postpone the vote to the November II part-session.
Mr President, the Theorin and Smet reports were debated late yesterday evening, and the intention was that we should vote on them now.
The Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats has presented to me the same request that I have just expressed, that is, that we postpone the vote on these reports until the November II part-session and not vote on them this evening.
The majority of the women will be travelling to a conference of Members of Parliament in Berlin.
It is therefore a joint request from the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats and the Group of the Party of European Socialists to postpone the vote until November II.
Mr President, let me make one thing clear. The EPP Group did not itself ask but was asked to postpone this.
I personally said that I could agree to that.
But there are many other views in our group.
I could agree to postponement under one condition, namely if Mrs Theorin used the time up to November II to improve her report, for as it stands our group cannot endorse it.
I want to make one thing quite clear, and it is a point of principle. If we do not manage to complete the voting by Thursday lunchtime, then the normal procedure is for us to continue voting on Thursday evening.
It is not in order for us to postpone the vote because some colleagues cannot be here in the evening.
So, to put it in a nutshell: on behalf of my group I would agree to postpone it to November II, if Mrs Theorin states that she will continue to work on her report and to improve it.
(Applause from the PPE-DE Group)
As far as the second point is concerned - namely that the votes will take place in the afternoon - I think that we are all aware of this and that we should be present.
Mr President, I apologise for saying that the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats had also requested that the vote be postponed, but your coordinator in actual fact came to me and said that you also wished to postpone the issue until the November II part-session instead of taking the vote this evening.
Mr Poettering, we have worked together with your people, and the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats and the Group of the Party of European Socialists have agreed on how the report should look.
We were united on the central issues and came to an agreement in the negotiations.
I submit to what Parliament wants to do, but it is, nevertheless, a matter of an agreement between the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, concerning both my report and the central issues it contains.
I must say, therefore, that I am very surprised by this.
(Parliament decided to postpone the vote)
Mr President, the vote on Mrs Villiers' report is also on the agenda.
It so happens that the report has not yet been debated, and will not be until after the voting this evening.
Mrs Villiers' report deserves better than to be voted on tomorrow morning.
I therefore move that we postpone the vote on the Villiers report until the November II part-session.
The vote is scheduled to take place tomorrow.
However, tomorrow, it will be possible to request that it be postponed.
For the time being it will remain on tomorrow's agenda since the debate has not yet taken place.
Mr President, on a point of order, I just wanted to say that I too have an important report on this agenda.
It will be debated and voted on tomorrow, and I am very grateful and proud that this is to happen on a Friday!
Mr President, a vote has just been taken in favour of postponing my report.
I will go along with this, but had you gone down the list in the right order and not had the vote on the Cashman report first, because a number of people are absent this evening - for that is the reason - then there would still have been time to vote on the Smet report.
I followed the order established by the sessional services and the House did not make any changes.
Otherwise I would have been very happy to do so.
Mr Rocard, I can assure you that this matter will be brought to the attention of the Conference of Presidents.
With regard to the list of votes, the President cannot change the order of the list.
Where necessary, it is the House which decides to make any changes.
My role is simply to put one point to the vote after another.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Michel Rocard is quite right.
What is happening here is that a very few people are trying to take the opportunity yet again to put forward their interests, which they did not manage to get through in committee.
They then see to it that we have to hold roll-call votes, which in fact are no longer really roll-call votes.
This is a deliberate attempt by a very few people to raise their profile at the expense of others.
So, first of all, we need a sensible system for roll-call votes.
Secondly, we cannot accept the fact that after what I regard as a classic mistaken decision by Parliament to abolish Friday sittings, the very same people who once said they no longer wanted Friday sittings are now protesting! My question is: have there meanwhile been objections to Parliament's decision to scrap Friday?
Have there been any legal objections?
What will things look like next year?
In future we might even end up in the same situation as now, where we keep having to postpone reports to the Brussels part-session instead of dealing with them here in Strasbourg. Can you give us any information on the matter?
Mr Mann, your first comment will naturally be brought to the attention of the Parliamentary Bureau and the Conference of Presidents.
As President on duty today, I have to tell you that, as your fellow Member, all I can say is that I agree with you.
I am afraid that we will have to set about changing the Rules of Procedure.
With regard to Friday, there do not appear to have been any further developments, and in any case, this will also be brought to the attention of the Conference of Presidents.
Resolution on BSE (B5-0880/2000)
Mr President, I should like to give an explanation of vote on the BSE feed resolution.
I voted against whole herd slaughter because I do not believe it is the best way to eradicate BSE.
I have heard that there are some farmers who, rather than report they have an animal with BSE, shoot that animal and bury it.
I know that in France they have had whole herd slaughter and this does not seem to be the best way forward.
Even the Scientific Steering Committee says it is not necessarily the most effective, and feed cohort slaughter - which we have in Britain - is effective.
I also voted against Amendment No 7 because I do not believe it is possible, but I did vote for the resolution as a whole, especially the ban on the mammalian meat-and-bone meal feed for all farm animals, as we have had in the UK since 1996.
I voted for the resolution because we have to have strong rules applicable across the EU.
Mr President, I voted for the report on our great Parliament's initiative on the serious crisis in we which find ourselves due to the spread of this epidemic amongst cattle.
I would like to point out that my intention in voting for the motion was, inter alia, to support point 7 of the report.
Indeed, I hope and call for an analysis to be carried out immediately of all the cattle carcasses which have been placed on the market in butchers' shops throughout the European Union, in order to discover whether they are infected with BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy).
A check must be carried out on all the carcasses immediately, whatever the cost, for otherwise beef and veal sales will fall below zero.
.
(EL) The Commission and the Council of the European Union have a great deal to answer for as regards the proportions which the issue of BSE has assumed.
Apart from the negativity which they demonstrated during the first stage, when the European Parliament called attention to the risks in Great Britain, action during the second stage, when the crisis was at its height in Great Britain, was basically limited to that country, and there was no immediate programme of strict controls or attempt to restructure animal feedingstuffs at pan-European level.
Cases of BSE have been identified in France because it was the only country in the European Union which took the initiative to apply a system of extensive controls.
Today, complete uncertainty reigns in a climate of anxiety as to the risks in store, and neither consumers nor government authorities have any information on them.
We must immediately:
take measures at pan-European level,
introduce extensive and strict controls on all European Union herds and imports,
remove meat-and-bone meal from animal feedingstuffs, not just for cattle and sheep but also for pigs, poultry and fish,
take measures, by completely restructuring animal feedingstuffs, to ensure that genetically modified soya flour from the USA, Brazil and elsewhere cannot infiltrate the system until scientists have given a full guarantee, which they have yet to do.
Yesterday' s debate in this Chamber on mad cow disease and the safety of animal feed displayed, above all, the extreme confusion in regard to the allocation of responsibilities and in people' s minds.
At present, responsibility is shared between the Community, which has already laid down some partial rules (the ban on feeding meat-and-bone meal to ruminants, rules on the heat/pressure method for producing meal, the compulsory removal of specific 'at risk material' ) and the States, which want to retain their right to enact measures appropriate to their own situation, together with their right to protect themselves and to react rapidly for public health reasons.
The confusion that already exists in this context is exacerbated by a twofold difficulty.
First, there is the difficulty of further standardisation with a view to introducing tighter controls, because some countries, such as Germany, do not want to pass on the extra costs to their farmers given that they are hardly affected by this disease. Secondly, and, conversely, there is the difficulty of applying different national rules, for now that border controls have more or less disappeared and labelling does not mention the country of origin, there is a significant risk of eating pork from pigs fed on meat-and-bone meal, even in a country where this is banned.
We have now reached the pinnacle of confusion, as became abundantly clear from yesterday' s statements by the French minister, Mr Patriat, and the European Commissioner, Mr Byrne, who both seem to be completely at a loss.
This situation shows how irresponsibly the unification of the internal market has been pursued in recent years.
The first step we need to take is to start again from scratch, to review the labelling rules, to restore certain national controls, to create others and always to set out carefully, and in a clear and practicable manner, minimum European rules, while giving each State the essential right either to go further or to take safeguard measures.
If we do not begin by clarifying responsibilities, rationalising and recognising the overriding right of nations, Europe will merely continue, as today, to play its sad part in watering down these responsibilities.
Turning to the substance of the matter, my group recommended extremely stringent measures to fight this epidemic.
But we must not stop there.
It is all very well to put out fires, but it would be even better to prevent them breaking out.
That is why we want to learn four major lessons which should be borne in mind for the future.
The first lesson is that we must reject production methods that go against nature, that are doomed to lead sooner or later to tragedies of this sort.
Perhaps quality farming is a little more expensive, but the apparent savings gained by farming geared to productivity in fact end up as terrible costs for society as a whole.
In that respect, we are appalled to see that the Commission is doing all it can to re-authorise GMOs, at a time when we still have no real idea of their effects and they are liable, 10 or 20 years' hence, to cause new tragedies along the lines of mad cow disease.
Lesson number two: quality farming, which ensures a certain independence in regard to food, cannot survive in Europe in the context of a global free market.
Yet at this very moment, after Seattle, we feel that Commissioner Lamy is just itching to start up a new round of international trade negotiations, to include agriculture, with the intention of once again bringing about a fresh alignment with the world market.
That is unacceptable.
Lesson number three: the Member States must keep a closer eye on the Commission during international negotiations to prevent any further false moves - or should I have said betrayals? - such as the Blair House and Marrakech agreements, which, by cutting down on our vegetable protein products for the benefit of the Americans, drove us to respond by developing the meat-and-bone meal production that lies at the root of our current problems.
We believe that, instead of giving the Commission even greater powers in international negotiations, as is currently proposed, the future treaty of Nice should subject the Commission to closer scrutiny by the national governments and parliaments.
Lesson number four: we must radically review the policy of totally abolishing internal border controls, since it encourages trafficking of all kinds and makes health and safety controls more difficult.
Similarly, we should temper the dogma of free movement at all costs, which led the Commission to threaten those States that wanted to introduce an embargo on British beef in 1996 and to drag France before the Court of Justice in 1999 for having refused to lift that embargo.
Despite all that is happening today, the Commission has the audacity to uphold its complaint, thereby showing the extent to which it regards the free movement of products as the ultimate dogma.
If the Member States want to put an end to these aberrations, they will have to take the treaty of Nice as an opportunity to clearly re-establish a national right of protection for reasons of public health.
.
(FR) We voted for this resolution even though it is very belated and even though we distrust some of the ambiguous wording in it.
We condemn the delay in the total and general ban on the production and use of meat-and-bone meal, given that we have known for ten years that it is responsible for the spread of BSE.
Moreover, the ambiguous wording of Paragraph 4 is bound to raise questions about the resolve of the authorities to oppose, by all possible means, the fraud and swindling of the agri-food trusts, when it would have been so much simpler to say in a few words that the production and use of meat-and-bone meal are totally forbidden.
- (FR) We voted in favour of this joint resolution.
We are in a crisis situation, but we are not facing just a beef crisis.
In fact, we are up against a real public health problem and an economic crisis. It concerns all the stages from 'farm to table' .
The consumers have lost confidence, and to contain the situation it was essential for us to reiterate our call for the rapid introduction of compulsory tests to identify BSE for all bovine animals. This measure had to go hand in hand with an immediate ban on the use of meat-and-bone meal for all species, throughout the Community.
That is certainly a practical way of applying the precautionary principle.
We have been waiting for far too long.
The Union as a whole must be involved, for it is unacceptable to have one country taking draconian measures and putting its economy at risk while others carry on business as usual.
Moreover, we are still, unfortunately, seeing many cases of fraud and the only way to put a stop to that is to ban meat-and-bone meal throughout the Community.
These are the kind of measures that will reassure the citizens and that will send the farmers the message of solidarity we want to convey to them.
The European Parliament must exert pressure on the Commission, which was overly cautious in the proposals it made during the debate.
We are astounded that the Commission does not seem to realise the scale of the problem.
Finally, this unprecedented crisis emphasises the limitations of the common agricultural policy, which we have seen for many years now.
Today we must help farmers not to increase their production, but to improve it.
There too, we have been waiting for far too long.
Some people are concerned about the emergence of genetically modified products to replace meat-and-bone meal.
A radical change of course in the CAP, which has now become vital, towards growing vegetable crops on fields hitherto left fallow could prevent people from resorting to massive imports of GMOs from the United States.
The CAP must make public health its top priority.
.
(PT) The growing number of cases in Britain of new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and the current situation in France have placed the 'mad cow' or BSE issue even more firmly on the agenda.
This affair has been characterised throughout by a lack of transparency and an extremely serious covering up of information at the highest level in some Member States of the European Union.
What is at risk here is food safety, from the 'mad cow' issue, from dioxins and even from GMOs. All of this makes it clear that when the quest for maximum profit is the sole consideration, human and animal health are threatened.
The lack of consumer confidence is spreading and the agricultural markets are battening down the hatches.
Unless there is a change in the common agricultural policy, the food safety problem will only get worse.
The CAP has always promoted intensive production, the gradual 'stepping up' of production and land concentration, which has basically served the interests of the agro-food industry and the big transnational food companies.
The basic problem will not be solved simply by having a European food authority and belated one-off legislative measures, however positive they may be, such as the ban on meat meal in all animal feedingstuffs.
It is crucial that we go further and promote a change in the common agricultural policy.
The recent cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) are, I am afraid, condemning confirmation of the Union's delays in tackling food safety, delays which are even more to be condemned if we consider that the use of meat-and-bone meal in feedingstuffs has been considered dangerous for some time - it was condemned by this House a long time ago - and yet no measures have been taken.
It is therefore necessary to establish as soon as possible the procedures to prevent the use of anatomical parts liable to lead to the transmission of the virus.
The Commission's proposals contained in the White Paper on food safety and, in particular, the establishment of the authority which is to guarantee this safety, must be implemented as soon as possible - over a year has passed and the authority is not yet operative - in order to avoid the confusion of actions carried out by the governments on the subject causing damage such as that which we are witnessing now.
The damage is extremely serious in that it affects two strictly related areas: human health, on the one hand, and, on the other, the health of the cattle species and, consequently, the economy of the zootechnical sector.
We should remember that Europe banned France from continuing to enforce the embargo on beef and veal from the United Kingdom and that the lack of measures has allowed the epidemic now to spread to France.
It is, nevertheless, necessary for the Commission to ban the use of meat-and-bone meal henceforth and to provide for - as far as is known - safer procedures to destroy the parts considered dangerous such as the brain and bone marrow.
Until we are given more information by the scientific bodies, it would be appropriate to destroy the cattle carcasses as well to provide the highest possible guarantee of the protection of human health.
The cases of BSE which have arisen in France, in the same way as the dioxins in chickens issue in Belgium, are the latest in a long series of irresponsible incidents.
For fear of spreading panic among the citizens or with a view to avoiding commercial disasters, certain governments did not provide the Commission with the necessary information quickly enough or did not immediately call a halt to consumption of the products in question or ban their export at the first signs of danger.
These irresponsible attitudes must be strongly condemned and, to avoid these incidents reoccurring, appropriate regulations must be established for all the States of the Union.
It is unthinkable that we should be trying to run a single market without common rules for such a major sector as that of public health.
In the face of these uncertainties, the citizens' reaction is, rightly, one of fear and the refusal to consume those products which are suspected of being dangerous for health.
This attitude is combined with lack of confidence in the European Union, which appears to the citizens not to be able to guarantee the safety of the foodstuffs on the market.
To restore the confidence of the citizens as well as protect their health, it is vital that the Union speeds up its decision-making, defining common rules on the matter and placing the scientific and control bodies in operation as soon as possible to monitor food safety.
The ban on the use of meat-and-bone meal for feedingstuffs is only the first step along this road.
.
(FR) Meat eaters are starting to be overcome by paranoia, regardless of whether the meat is produced by traditional, high-quality production processes, which do not use meat-and-bone meal.
The constraints some producers, especially in France, have imposed on themselves to guarantee the quality and traceability of their products may already have been compromised by the loss of consumer confidence, not only in the products but also in measures to guarantee their safety, since products labelled AOC, IGP, etc. are also affected.
We cannot allow an entire industry to be destroyed.
We must tighten up our health and safety controls, impose a procedure for systematic BSE testing, and ban the use of proteins derived from animals.
That is where Europe can assume its legitimate role in full and where it must play its rightful part.
Any efforts the Member States make will remain fruitless unless the same requirements are imposed on imported products from the European Union and from third countries.
Today we have to ban the use of meat-and-bone meal in animal feed, given that we cannot guarantee the traceability of the inputs, but this raises a number of problems.
Should we burn them or store them? Provided we set up specialised facilities to control the impact of this on the environment.
Should we replace them? For the time being with oilseed imports, even though we cannot distinguish between imports that have or have not come from genetically modified varieties.
It is crucial to resume the negotiations in the WTO so as to enable European farmers to increase their production of vegetable-based proteins.
The farmers cannot tackle this crisis without help: we need to draw up a support plan for stock-farmers and introduce measures to restore consumer confidence.
Moreover, the politicians must fulfil their responsibility for dealing with the human situations these difficulties have produced.
The time has come for a global debate.
The discussion of the White Paper on food safety is an opportunity to do so.
Let us grasp it.
.
(FR) Yesterday' s debate on mad cow disease was an exemplary one in many respects.
Let me point to the key role the UEN Group, and also the very coherent draft resolution we tabled, played in ensuring that it took place.
We finally agreed to co-sign the joint draft resolution and we are delighted it was adopted by a very large majority, despite its inadequacies and weaknesses.
At the same time, we keenly regret that the amendments our group tabled were not adopted.
We consider it crucial, however, for the Community budget to help implement the new safety measures imposed on stock-farmers, and especially on all those working in the beef sector who are hard hit by the loss of consumer confidence.
It is equally crucial to demand the immediate resumption, in the framework of the WTO, of the talks on the provisions of the Marrakech agreement relating to oilseed, an agreement which goes very much against European producers, so as to prevent the ban on meat-and-bone meal from resulting in mass imports of oilseed that may contain genetically modified organisms.
Above all, yesterday' s debate highlighted the differences of opinion on how to deal with the crisis: differences between Member States, differences of political approach, differences between the Community institutions.
There are deep-seated differences on the question of meat-and-bone meal and also on the subject of tests.
So we are now facing an absolutely fundamental safety problem affecting the public health of our peoples and the very future of an entire industry that plays a decisive role in the social balance in some of our Member States.
In the face of this crisis, we cannot therefore confine ourselves to half-measures or to compromise provisions, i.e. to options that are totally inappropriate when what we should be doing is applying the precautionary principle by taking the relevant measures to ensure the maximum safety of our peoples.
The debate has shown that the Council Presidency and the Commission are very much at sea on this issue.
It was rather pathetic to see the Council Presidency try to pass the buck by putting its salvation in the hands of the future European Food Safety 'Authority' , as though the fact that it was European were in itself a guarantee of absolute trustworthiness.
The accusations flying around on all sides in yesterday' s debate - 'The Council is to blame!'
'The Member States are to blame!'
'The Commission is to blame!' - show the extent to which the Community machinery actually works rather like a system for the reciprocal denial of responsibility, at the expense of the sole purpose of the debate: the effective protection of the public health of our people.
For its part, the Commission had to note the wide divergence of views on the remedies needed to contain the crisis.
It decided it was a good idea to pour derision on the protective measures adopted by some Member States, in particular with its reference to 'magic' in regard to the total ban on meat-and-bone meal. While denouncing the lax approach taken by some Member States, it certainly did not point out its own reluctance to drag France before the Court of Justice because it quite appropriately decided to maintain its embargo on British beef.
The Commission is clearly envisaging no more than half-way measures, which will take away from and not add to the countries with the most stringent safety, whereas, in line with the principle of subsidiarity, it should be giving Member States back the freedom of action they need to protect their people effectively, to ensure their safety, taking account of public opinion in their country, the political resolve there, the scale of the epidemic in their country and the place of the sectors involved in that country' s economy and their society.
Because of the inability of all the European institutions, the Council, the Commission and Parliament, to define an appropriate Community policy that responds to the safety needs of the Member States most directly concerned, problems will arise in deciding whether it is the constraints of the single market or the health and safety needs of our people that come first.
How, indeed, can we restore consumer confidence in France and prevent the collapse of the sectors linked to stock-farming if, on the one hand, we put a total ban on the use of meat-and-bone meal by French farmers while at the same time authorising imports of meat from Member States that continue to feed their animals with meat-and-bone meal and refuse to carry out tests?
We must strictly respect the wishes of those Member States that intend to put food safety and consumer health above all other concerns, their resolve to give priority to scientifically based decisions and to the precautionary principle in regard to any measures they take, while choosing the middle road between the positions of the various partners, and especially those who are most lax.
Otherwise it would become quite clear that the conduct of Community bodies is not being guided by the principle of subsidiarity.
Blokland report (A5-0321/2000)
Mr President, as we are all aware, the fight against air pollution is an extremely important issue. The main source of air pollution is the large manufacturing companies, as in the case of waste incineration, which is a result of the waste produced in other daily industrial activities and other common daily activities of the European citizens.
I voted for this directive but I would like to stress that, in doing so, I am calling upon the European Union to commit itself and concern itself, rightly, with those who breathe the toxic air produced by these industrial activities. It must also - and even more so - concern itself with those who work in these sectors.
I feel that it would be appropriate to reduce the working hours of the people who work in pollutant companies.
For if these companies pollute the air outside, I hate to think about the state of the air inside the factories!
.
(FR) We have now reached the end of a long process leading to the adoption of a Directive on the incineration of waste.
The Commission proposal goes back to 1998, but, because of the many points of disagreement between Parliament and the Council, the Conciliation Committee had to be convened on 11 October.
So today we are deciding on the text that has emerged from the conciliation procedure.
Let me remind you that the directive covers the incineration and co-incineration of waste.
These two treatment methods must form part of a global strategy that covers the prevention, re-use and recycling of waste, a strategy that is coordinated at European level.
In the course of the debates that marked the two readings by the European Parliament, I expressed my doubts and fears about lumping hazardous and non-hazardous waste together in the same directive.
These are very legitimate concerns and they have led Parliament to be very vigilant and to table amendments aimed at establishing very stringent controls over everything connected with the process of incineration and co-incineration.
After extensive discussion with the Council, we achieved what we wanted on several points.
On co-incineration, for example, which is generally carried out in cement kilns, the limit values for emissions are specified in an annex.
However, if more than 40% of the waste incinerated in plants of this kind consists of toxic waste or untreated, mixed municipal waste, the plant will have to comply with the more stringent standards of another annex on incineration.
The European Commission wanted to exclude vegetable agricultural waste and waste from the forestry and food industry.
At second reading, Parliament added fibrous waste from the production of raw pulp and pulp-based paper where this waste is intended for co-incineration.
It managed to get this point through during the conciliation procedure.
Parliament also succeeded with another point: plants in which radioactive waste is incinerated must be expressly excluded from the scope of the directive.
Parliament also succeeded in obtaining stricter rules on the operation of incineration plants, together with improved public access to information.
I will conclude by emphasising once again that the widespread treatment of hazardous waste must not lead us to tolerate the production of such waste.
Our priority is and must remain to prevent the production of waste, in accordance with the line adopted in the European Union' s strategy in this field.
.
There is a serious concern within the European Union that not enough is being done to implement new waste management proposals.
The 370 million citizens of the EU are demanding action on this subject and they are right to do so.
Waste in Europe is being generated at a rate of over 1kg per person per day. Two billion tonnes of waste is being generated within the EU on an annual basis.
This situation cannot continue for ever.
The European Union must be clear about one aspect to solving waste disposal problems.
The future of waste disposal does not lie in local authorities up and down the length and breadth of the European Union searching for new landfill sites.
There is serious growing concern about the actual environmental consequences of landfill sites in general.
I share this concern.
I believe that nothing less then a major shift from reliance on landfill sites to more integrated waste management plans will suffice.
The European Parliament has been to the forefront in devising new waste management strategies in recent years.
I support the objective of the directive which we are discussing here today which is to reduce the adverse effects of incineration on the environment and on human health by considerably reducing the emission levels into the air of several major pollutants.
This is also part of broader European Union environmental policies which are designed to reduce the use of pollutants across all economic sectors in Europe, in accordance with obligations laid down by the Kyoto Accord.
The European Union fully supports the strict, ambitious but attainable recycling and recovery targets that have been laid down by the Irish Government.
These targets which are to be achieved over the next 15 years include the following: a divergence of 50% of overall household waste from landfill sites; a minimum 65% reduction in bio-degradable waste which is presently consigned to landfill sites; the development of waste recovery facilities employing environmentally beneficial technologies capable of treating up to 300,000 tonnes of bio-degradable waste per annum.
All these measures reflect changing public opinions on the issue of waste management.
The days of landfill sites are now coming to an end and must be replaced by more environmentally beneficial technologies.
Figueiredo report (A5-0307/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Figuereido report on the eradication of social exclusion and poverty, to quote the actual text of the report.
However, I am amazed and extremely disappointed at many of the votes cast regarding some of the amendments.
I am absolutely convinced that 99% of the responsibility for social exclusion and poverty lies with the governments of our 15 States.
In the past, they have all vied with each other to increase social exclusion and poverty and they are continuing to do so now.
If indeed, for example, pensions were less inadequate in terms of the standard of living they allow, there would be fewer poor people.
Group of the European People's Party, why did you vote against the Fatuzzo amendment - tabled by myself - which stated that poverty is also one of the causes of low pensions?
I am extremely disappointed and I hope that you will vote differently next time.
.
(EL) The report by Mrs Figueiredo could make a very valuable contribution to the fight against social exclusion by developing cooperation between Member States along these lines.
The Council should therefore ensure that:
funding for the programme is substantially increased,
a chart of specific targets is incorporated into national programmes,
all related policies are adjusted in a bid to integrate social groups with special needs,
new forms of exclusion are included, such as exclusion from the information society,
social agencies, especially representatives of the vulnerable groups targeted by the programme, are involved in the procedures,
the programme is spearheaded by measures to help child poverty, women and the elderly,
a network is established at European level to record, develop, promote and adjust the programme to combat social exclusion.
.
(FR) We abstained on this report, even the amended version.
The main reason we did not vote against it is because its author set out a few good intentions.
Unfortunately, however, good intentions do not make a policy, even one of condemnation.
The official count is 65 million poor in Europe, or 18% of the population.
That means that a considerable proportion of the working class of one of the richest regions in the world is reduced to poverty.
This figure of 65 million poor is not the effect of some misfortune that has come out of the blue; it is the result of the greed of a privileged capitalist class intent on boosting company profits and stock exchange rates, which therefore makes people redundant, closes down factories, reducing 15 million women and men to unemployment, and puts such pressure on all wages that the lowest wages are not enough to live on.
The report proposes a budget of EUR 100 million over five years to combat poverty.
That comes to one and a half euros for every poor European.
Even as a handout that would be derisory, quite apart from the fact that the issue of poverty does not call for charity.
We realise that no report and no vote, even by the European Parliament, can alter this situation.
Yet the report could at least have put the blame at the door of those responsible.
In any case, though we did not vote against the report, we did not feel able to vote in favour of it either, because not only are its practical proposals inadequate but, alas, it conceals rather than combats the actual situation, namely the exploitation that is the real cause of poverty among the working classes.
.
(FR) This programme to combat social exclusion is one of the priorities of the French Presidency, which has made the social Europe the leitmotif of its proposals.
Let me remind you that Lisbon defined a common strategy of social inclusion.
I welcome this initiative, which responds to the expectations of our fellow citizens, the citizens of Europe.
Indeed, while we welcome the return to growth and the fall in unemployment, we must not close our eyes to the fact that inequalities are still with us, if not getting worse.
Social exclusion is a very real phenomenon, as the Eurostat statistics show: some 18% of the population of the European Union lives on less than 60% of the average national income - this is the low-income threshold taken to measure relative poverty - which means that 65 million people live on low incomes.
Even though the unemployment rate has fallen, there are still 16 million unemployed in the European Union.
Moreover, although unemployment is still the main factor behind poverty and exclusion, job insecurity and low pay are nonetheless obstacles to full integration into society.
Too many of our fellow-citizens are left by the wayside.
We must therefore adopt proactive measures to provide social protection and access to public services in the field of health, education, housing and so on.
I unreservedly support the proposal to implement a second Luxembourg process to deal with social exclusion, containing guidelines and national action programmes.
Indeed, we can see all the benefits of this method in the employment field.
The Lisbon European Council set the European Union the objective of becoming a knowledge-based, competitive and inclusive society.
That can be achieved only at the cost of considerable efforts to guarantee all men and women access to training in the new information and communication technologies and also to the new telecommunications networks.
Universal service has a prime role to play in this regard.
The next meeting point is Nice where, I hope, the Member States will send out a powerful message indicative of their political resolve to embark on a global strategy to strengthen the European social model by adopting the Social Agenda and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The primary purpose of the report is to support a programme of Community action to encourage cooperation between Member States of the EU to combat social exclusion.
I believe that the establishment of such a programme of community action is both wise and can be very helpful.
We do not want to build a two-tier Europe, a Europe of the haves and have-nots.
We do not want to accentuate the gap between the rich and poor.
The fact of the matter is that long-term unemployment and youth unemployment are quite concentrated in particular areas within the European Union.
They are concentrated in specific black spots within many rural and urban parts of the European Union.
Devising initiatives to defeat the problems of social exclusion and to give hope and opportunities to the disadvantaged in our society must be a central core policy of all governments within the EU at this time.
The principles underpinning this programme are to create an open method of coordination between Member States to help eradicate poverty and social exclusion.
This will be achieved by setting specific objectives to be integrated into national action plans and implementing policies to promote equal opportunities.
I believe that the rapporteur is right when he calls for greater participation of public authorities, social partners and civil society in measures to defeat poverty and social exclusion at this time.
As a result of the Amsterdam Treaty, all governments within the EU must send new action plans on employment to the European Commission for its evaluation and consideration.
The European Commission must evaluate all these plans to see how successful the governments of the EU are in defeating social exclusion.
We must learn from each other on this specific matter.
Otherwise the gap between rich and poor will widen within the EU.
In this context, I welcome the key provisions of the Social Policy Agenda Programme 2000-2005 as recently published by the European Commission.
This will give an increased role to EU social partners in terms of the drafting of different EU directives and regulations.
Employer relations will be improved.
There will be continued national and European support for local job creation programmes.
There will also be an improved coordination of policy programmes in the area of the information society, modern telecommunication services and Internet related activities.
Ireland has quite an advanced system of social and employment rights and many EU directives are being drafted, particularly on the Irish model in the field of social partnership and employee/employer relations.
- (FR) There is 18% of the population of Europe, or 60 million people, living on less than 60% of the average national income (the low-income threshold used to measure relative poverty).
Simply mentioning these figures ought to drive us to act, which is what the Heads of State and Government did in Lisbon by entering poverty and exclusion on the European agenda for the first time.
Since Europe cannot be economically strong without social justice, we can only welcome this progress.
That is why I have no option but to vote in favour of this report by our colleague, which not only endorses the Commission' s proposal but also enhances its content.
The report calls for qualitative and quantitative indicators of social exclusion to be established.
It is fundamental within the 15 States of the European Union for us all to able to speak of the same thing on the basis of identical data.
Moreover, the report calls on the Member States to be more proactive and set precise objectives when they draw up their national action plans.
Finally, the report goes back to the open method of coordination, calling for dialogue between the players involved (social partners, NGOs, local and regional authorities) and networking.
In conclusion, our Committee on Social Affairs, is proposing a budget of EUR 100 million instead of the EUR 70 proposed by the Commission.
All in all, this is a step forward that we must consolidate and encourage, since economic progress by itself can certainly not guarantee the citizens a better quality of life.
- (FR) This report has the merit of revealing the true face of European integration today: 62 million poor and 18 million unemployed.
The ongoing restructuring processes and mergers involve new redundancy plans.
Although we are seeing strong economic growth and a fall in unemployment, in the modern world work offers no protection against exclusion.
The 'working poor' , most of them women, working part-time, for a pittance and in the most insecure jobs, join the trail of poverty so loftily ignored in the official speeches about economic recovery.
Quality jobs, health care, housing and education are indeed basic rights, which, if they were binding upon employers and states, would be able to offer protection against social exclusion.
That is why we will vote in favour of the report on combating exclusion.
Yet the Members who will be endorsing this text today did not show the same surge of solidarity when they voted for a Charter without social rights which, in reducing measures to combat exclusion to the level of measures of assistance, constitutes a step backward in relation to much of the legislation now in force.
A more effective way of combating exclusion would be, for example, to establish a European minimum guaranteed wage.
- The special Lisbon Summit on employment, economic reform and social cohesion of 23-24 March 2000 brought poverty and social exclusion back onto the Union' s agenda for the first time in a long time.
In submitting its proposal for a programme to combat social exclusion, the Commission is complying with the Council' s call to present "by June 2000" an "initiative for cooperation in this field".
According to Eurostat figures, some 18% of the population of the EU live on less than 60% of the average national income (taking the low-income threshold as a measure of relative poverty).
The Commission proposal establishing a programme of Community action to encourage cooperation between Member States to combat social exclusion (2001-2005) consists of promoting a better understanding of social exclusion, mainstreaming the promotion of inclusion and developing priority actions addressed to specific target groups.
This strategy is to be implemented through three main strands.
Strand 1: analysis of characteristics, causes, processes and trends in social exclusion; strand 2: policy cooperation and exchange of best practice; strand 3: dialogue involving the various stakeholders.
The open method of coordination is emphasised which respects the principle of subsidiarity whilst actively involving all relevant actors.
This is all welcome, but like the rapporteur I believe the programme could be more radical.
I support his amendments.
- I welcome this report which calls for more funding for the proposed European programmes to combat poverty and social exclusion.
Cooperation between Member States is crucial for tackling these deep rooted problems that exist all across the EU, but particularly in my own constituency in the North-West of England.
Moss Side and Salford are amongst the most deprived inner city areas in the whole of Europe.
We are sadly all too familiar with the spider's web of problems impoverished areas face - deprivation, social exclusion, unemployment, crime and drug abuse, but with the help of European schemes tackling social exclusion and European cash, local communities can begin to free themselves from this evil tangle.
The British Labour Government has been leading the fight against poverty and social exclusion.
Three years ago, the Prime Minister set up the Social Exclusion Unit which coordinates government action to reduce social exclusion by producing joined up solutions to joined up problems.
It works with other departments which have a close bearing on social exclusion.
I fully endorse this innovative measure that has benefited many young people in particular, through strong action on truancy and school exclusion, sleeping rough, teenage pregnancy and providing support to 16-18 year olds not in education, employment or training.
This is a great example of the Labour Government delivering concrete benefits to ordinary people.
With a new, radical approach, I strongly believe that we can, not only turn the corner, but reach the finishing line too and, one day, banish poverty and social exclusion from the North-West entirely.
Rothe report (A5-0320/2000)
Mr President, I abstained from the vote for one specific reason: in my opinion, this report has not made the environmental progress that I hoped and called for.
I did vote for all the amendments intended to increase alternative energy sources, but I had hoped that we would be able to take a further step forward.
I know that it is difficult, I know that this report has, in any case, adopted the right line, but further endeavours are necessary and, to this end, I call for this alternative energy policy to be pursued more vigorously.
Mr President, with the Rothe report - at least with the interventionist aid system for renewable energy sources that it describes - we are about to make mistakes in energy policy, which will have a very serious impact on Europe in the long term.
That is why I rejected the report.
Energy policy must look to the future, be sustainable and respect market principles.
What the report seeks is precisely the opposite.
The policy of constantly subsidising wind, biomass and solar energy is mistaken and purely symbolic.
Billions are paid out in subsidies to the few who are ruining the countryside with their wind turbines.
We now have a plant with more than 60 rotors, taking up as much land as 1000 football pitches.
Left standing are the consumer and Europe itself, for this policy undermines all the advantages of our policy of liberalising the electricity markets.
Mr President, I voted for the report on the promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources.
I am, of course, in favour of saving energy, which is extremely important for us, but it is very important for pensioners and elderly people as well; if possible they need a constant supply which is always available.
The cold winter days and nights of both northern and southern Europe come to mind, where, sadly, many elderly people are forced by their low income to turn off the heating to save money.
An excellent example of energy-saving is the town of Brescia, in Italy, where district heating, which is actually generated from waste incineration, is used both to generate electricity and to generate heat which is then transported to all the houses of the townspeople of Brescia.
I call for a similar system to be adopted in all the towns of Europe.
- (FR) We will certainly not dispute the benefits of "the promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources" .
All the better if, as an added bonus, this leads to the creation of 500 000 jobs, as the report states.
Nor do we have any problem with the idea of giving support to research in this field or even the use of these sources of electricity, so that consumers will not hesitate to choose them over electricity produced by more pollutant processes.
But why should support also involve private profit? That is the case today, because the proposed subsidies would go to private companies involved in research or marketing, including trusts such as Total Energie, Shell Solaire, ABB Alstom Power, Dalkia, a subsidiary of Vivendi, Arthur Andersen, Tiru, a joint subsidiary of Suez-Lyonnaise des eaux and Vivendi, and other industrial groups that make enough profit as it is without the need to turn to the taxpayer yet again.
Electricity production and distribution ought to be a public service.
So why could the States or the European institutions not take over this public service as a regional authority and hire the necessary 500 000 workers directly? The savings that would result from not having to pay out profits to the shareholders of a private firm would allow the workers to be paid proper wages and provide a decent public electricity service.
- (FR) During last night's plenary debate, many of us spoke of the need to promote renewable energy sources at a time when the Conference on Climate Change is being held in The Hague.
Indeed, scientists and climatologists are increasingly less worried about hiding their fears in relation to the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions, and even the general public is starting to become aware of them.
These projections, which are dramatic in the very short term, should convince us of the need to adopt clear, proactive measures at European level targeted at checking this process of degradation in the quality of the environment.
The Commission proposal and the Rothe report we voted for today follow that line in calling for the promotion of renewable energy sources, which are alternative sources that respect the environment in the production of electricity.
This follows up the statements by the Commission and the call from the European Parliament for major progress to be made towards implementing the target set out in the White Paper of doubling the share of renewable energy in energy consumption by the year 2020.
The Member States must now pursue the same line and respect the environmental objectives they endorsed both at European level and at international level, but they must also ensure their independence as regards energy and security of supplies.
At present, the Union is dependent on outside supplies for about 50% of its energy, and that figure may well rise to 70% by the year 2020 unless we develop renewable energy sources.
Today the European Union is leading the way in the construction of plants for the various types of energy production.
If the Union wants to remain competitive in this sector, it will have to contribute by using and developing the technologies concerned, which implies major public funding.
For all these reasons, and because the Rothe report is an excellent report, I voted for it in the hope that the Commission and the Council will follow us.
- (FR) Naturally I am in favour of actively promoting renewable energy sources.
It is technological progress that will promote the use of 'friendly' energy sources, rather than appealing to ideological principles.
It is not enough to proclaim ambitious targets and to make it binding upon States to reach them.
After all, the States need the resources to do so.
Some of the European Parliament' s proposals are unrealistic and I cannot endorse them.
It is the European Commission' s aim to double the share of renewable energy sources in the total consumption of energy by the year 2010.
Renewables are a very important part of an effective climate protection strategy.
In Finland peat is an important renewable energy source, and accounts for 6% of all fuel used.
Unlike in Central Europe, there is a lot of peat in the Nordic countries such as Finland.
Specialists worldwide have also said that peat is an important biomass fuel, whose annual growth clearly exceeds its consumption in Finland.
The northernmost areas of Finland are in the tundra zone, where not enough wood grows to constitute a source of natural energy.
Peat is an important fuel particularly in these regions, where it also has an important impact on employment.
I am satisfied that the European Parliament recognises these facts and includes peat in its report on renewable energy sources.
The Member States of the European Union, including Finland, are committed to achieving the Kyoto targets, conservation of natural resources and a reduction in emissions of harmful substances.
The importance of nuclear energy is increasing constantly, for this very reason.
Obviously we have to observe more progressive and effective safety and security rules when using nuclear energy and when storing nuclear waste.
Yesterday, 15 November, the Finnish energy company, Teollisuuden Voima, requested the Finnish Council of State to give a decision, in principle, on the construction of a fifth nuclear reactor.
I hope our government and parliament will take a positive view of this request.
The responsible use of nuclear energy provides the opportunity for an energy source that is environmentally friendly and economical, and there is no reason to place restrictions on its use.
.
(DE) We all know that we cannot base the future of our energy supplies on the energy sources of the past.
The Commission realises that, even more so the rapporteur, by calling for greater priority than before to be attached to alternative energy sources and alternative energy production.
I therefore thank Mrs Rothe for her good report.
The first lesson we must learn from past experience with conventional energy sources - for instance, their impact on the climate and on nature, the incalculable safety risks and the foreseeable shortage of resources - is that we must considerably strengthen our support for the development and use of new energy sources.
In the long term, that means we must move away from the policy of subsidising conventional, fossil energy sources.
A first step here is consistently to break down all obstacles to the use of renewables.
Moreover, in future we must do more to make existing best practice more widely known to the public.
Secondly, the aim of any energy and economic policy must be to reduce and optimise energy consumption, for only the careful treatment of resources of whatever kind can help minimise the external costs.
In that regard, we call for more targeted research into the external costs of the production and use of renewable energy sources.
Lastly, we can only restructure energy supplies if we take account of the special conditions pertaining to alternative energy suppliers.
Decentralised electricity provision is not just a structural but also a social aspect.
Thirdly, therefore, we must not liberalise the energy sector without defining minimum social standards.
. (NL) We cannot carry on producing electricity from the customary sources.
Coal and oil supplies will eventually run out and are responsible for CO2 emission.
Nuclear energy can cause disasters capable of rendering large parts of the earth uninhabitable, and produces a hazardous waste product.
So we must go in search of energy that is already present in nature, but which has remained unused because no one has developed the technology to tap into it.
It is not very ambitious of Parliament and the Commission to only want to double the use of this form of energy over the decade to come.
There is still too little water, wind and solar power, which is what makes it comparatively expensive.
Everyone wants a method of electricity production that is as environmentally-friendly as possible, but they also want it as cheaply as possible.
This particularly applies to people who are not very well off and whose first concern, therefore, is that their household costs should remain as low as possible.
If clean energy remains an expensive option then it will also remain an elite form of energy for some time to come.
Environmentally-aware high-earners are free to make a voluntary contribution to cleaner forms of energy, within a liberalised market, whilst everyone else carries on in the same old way.
Clean energy must be available to all and affordable to all.
As far as the six points are concerned, such as the incineration of peat and organic waste, I support the veto requested by Greenpeace.
ASEM III resolution (B5-0811/2000)
- (FR) In Seoul we saw the blatant contrast between the official summit of the Heads of State and Government and the citizens' and popular movements in which I took part.
The first is aimed at speeding up the neo-liberal reforms, against which the second were protesting.
The unions and the social movements reject the dictatorship of the "chaebol" , the large, traditional industrial conglomerates, but that does not mean they want this to be replaced by the dictatorship of the IMF or the WTO.
Nor, indeed, by a new - economic - colonisation of their country, at a time when everyone is wondering which western firms will be buying out the South Korean industries that are in trouble.
The alternative forum also encouraged interparliamentary contacts, punctuated by a meeting at the South Korean National Assembly on 18 October.
What it found is beyond dispute: the elected assemblies have been kept out of the ASEM process, even though businessmen were systematically involved.
It is urgently necessary to breathe new life into the interparliamentary dialogue (ASEP) between Europe in the west and Asia in the east.
The preparation of ASEM IV must be used as an opportunity to set out our requirements for democracy, on the one hand, by ensuring that the elected assembles and civil society are kept informed and able to intervene - which involves, in particular, the establishment of a social forum - and, on the other hand, by adhering fully to social, environmental and human rights.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.50 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Central American Parliament
The first item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B5-0846/00) by Seguro and others, on behalf of the PSE Group;
(B5-0854/2000) by Gasòliba i Böhm and Mr Sánchez García, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
(B5-0859/2000) by Marset Campos and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
(B5-0862/2000) by Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group
on Central America (Parlacen).
Mr President, as we all know, the European Union has, through the Commission, the Council and, particularly, the European Parliament, for a long time maintained excellent relations with Central America, its institutions and, specifically, the countries that comprise it.
We have done so out of respect and in order to assist the consolidation of democracy in that part of the world, to support and assist social and economic development and also to ensure that human rights are respected there as elsewhere in the world.
One of the priorities that we have supported for the countries in that region is regional integration.
We feel that regional integration is a crucial instrument for promoting the three fundamental objectives that I have just mentioned.
In Central America, there is already a Secretariat for Regional Integration, a Central American Bank, a Central American Upper House and a Central American Parliament.
Curiously, this and the European Parliament are the only Parliaments in the world to directly elect their members.
The Central American parliament appears to have recently been the subject of certain misunderstandings and even criticism.
We received a delegation from that parliament and made a commitment to improving the political profile not only of its role in that part of the world but also of relations between our Parliament and the Central American Parliament.
Hence the motion for a resolution that we are tabling following a project that was started a while ago by Parliament' s delegation to Central America, chaired by Mr Salafranca, and which we have modestly continued with during our term of office.
This resolution, therefore, means giving political support to the Central American Parliament, to the democratic stage par excellence, which must strive to be the focus of pluralist debate in that part of the world, and, at the same time, it means sending the message that Europe is in favour of regional integration in that part of the world.
There is just one aspect that we are unhappy with, which is not a problem of substance, but concerns item 5 of this resolution: we feel that, by adopting this item, the European Parliament has adopted an excessively paternalistic attitude.
We shall abstain from voting on item No 5, but our aim is to provide political support to the Central American Parliament and regional integration there.
Mr President, Commissioner, the resolution being tabled in this House today on the situation in Central America is timely given the recent visit of a delegation from the Central American Parliament to Brussels.
It is timely for three important reasons that affect this special American region, not to mention the importance and political appropriateness of strengthening the dialogue between the European Parliament and the Central American Parliament.
The three reasons are as follows: firstly, because it promotes the process of the consolidation of democracy and the deepening of the demand for human rights to be respected, particularly in relation to indigenous populations.
Secondly, because it coincides with the tenth Latin American Summit, which will take place shortly in Panama, and which will deal with commitments to children and young people on the basis of justice and equality in the new millennium.
Thirdly, because it also coincides with the current philosophy of the European Commission in favour of redirecting Union external action towards the countries of Latin America with the potential impact that this may have.
In this regard, we hope and trust that the necessary amounts will be allocated to provide impetus for the process of regional integration in Central America, where dialogue is becoming necessary and essential as a permanent political exercise.
We are therefore pleased with this political declaration by our Parliament in relation to the Central American Parliament, because it recognises the role that this institution plays in the process of integrating the countries of this area, situated between the north and south of America.
Mr President, I would like to remind you that for eight years I have been a member of the Delegation for Relations with the Countries of Central America and Mexico, firstly under the chairmanship of Mr Salafranca and now under the chairmanship of Mr Seguro.
I remember very well that throughout these years this delegation has maintained extraordinary relations with Parlacen and with the other Latin American parliaments.
This is perhaps because Parlacen and the European Parliament represent their citizens in a similar way.
In both cases we are directly elected.
I remember very well that Mr Salafranca signed a document with the President of Parlacen on political dialogue between the two parliaments.
At that time I believe that our political will was to enable Parlacen to have ever more competences and more economic resources and to play an effective role in the integration of the region it represents.
I believe that four years ago - Mr Salafranca perhaps remembers this better - we held a meeting, called by IRELA, in Antigua, a beautiful city in Guatemala, where we debated along with our colleagues from Parlacen what the future should be, not only of Parlacen, but also of the European Parliament.
We saw that Parlacen was going through the same changes that this Parliament went through at the beginning, since it had to fight and continues to fight to have more competences, more resources and more presence and to be recognised as representative.
I believe that this is one of the central themes of the debates at every interparliamentary conference, along with the economic and social difficulties experienced by some of the countries of Central America and South America.
Two fundamental objectives are to try to ensure that social differences are not made worse by the economic policies that currently prevail in that region and to try to ensure that the parliaments help with the integration of the area, which would be beneficial to all.
That is the purpose of this resolution.
We believe that, not only now but since Parlacen was born, there are people who wish it to have fewer competences and less of a presence, because a parliament always creates discomfort, but I believe that the vocation of Parlacen, and of this and other parliaments, is to be of benefit to the people it represents, even if this may make the established powers feel uncomfortable.
I therefore hope, Mr President, that this resolution will be approved by a large majority.
Mr President, in this debate, we wish to express - as many previous speakers have done very effectively - this Parliament' s solidarity with, and support for, the Central American Parliament at a time when we are fighting to continue to prioritise the European Union' s external relations with the countries of Latin America.
This is the approach of the report, an own-initiative report, which we in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy are going to produce in conjunction with the competent delegations.
Mr President, parliaments - as you and all of us in Parliament know very well - have today, more than ever, the difficult task, amongst others, of showing leadership in the development of our societies, of leading the quest for solutions to the many problems facing us by strengthening the values of democracy and social justice which we stand for.
In the case of the Central American Parliament, this task is, if possible, even more important given the enormous challenge of the integration and structural development of these societies on the basis of peace, dialogue and reconciliation.
I believe that, on the basis of the 1997 Declaration, which Mrs González Álvarez referred to, we have achieved the objective of maintaining useful and realistic cooperation which we must continue, in my judgment, I would not say modestly, as Mr Seguro has said, but brilliantly, which is how he usually carries out the work in which he is involved.
I believe that the European Parliament is capable of demonstrating, through its actions, that it has a very positive view of the work of Parlacen by offering it its support and experience.
Within the framework of our respective integration processes, it is clear that both the European Parliament and the Central American Parliament are required to play an increasingly important role.
I believe that it is not our job as Members of the European Parliament to give advice to the Members of the Central American Parliament.
The Central American Parliament will continue on its own course and will take a political path in a Central America which, I believe, wishes to and must regain possession of itself in a full union of diversity.
On the basis of its shared roots, it must discover the broad range of its possible courses of development and the multiple possibilities that its project presents, by opting for peace, freedom and solidarity and also by responding to the age-old requirement of self knowledge.
I therefore believe that we have to flatly reject the self-interested criticisms of those people who brand the activity of the Central American Parliament an artificial system and accuse it of being a cardboard parliament which is hollow and devoid of substance.
The Central American Parliament, like the European Parliament, must gain prestige, credibility and legitimacy on the basis of the activity of its political groups, because the life of the parties is, or at least should be, a faithful reflection of the societies they represent.
The aim should be to create strong parliaments which participate, act, debate and rebut, ratify and rectify, which energetically defend the values of freedom, which are the driving force of the region' s political development, and which also inform the people of the progress that has been made.
Mr President, through this resolution we therefore wish to express our support for, and solidarity with, the Central American Parliament and also to ask the Commission to decisively support the multiannual programme which Parlacen has presented to the Commission, since we believe that, as an institution, it legitimises the process of integration in Central America and serves as a symbol of a new era of dialogue and peace.
Mr President, Commissioner, I hope that our European Parliament' s relationship with the Central American Parliament works, in any event, much better than the microphones in this House.
This is one of those questions on which we all feel practically the same, not only in this House but also amongst those many Members who, as result of our own origins, view with great sympathy the processes of cooperation and consolidation of the institutions in countries which we consider to be our own.
I agree with the words of the honourable Member from the Canary Islands Coalition insofar as we show our support for Parlacen because of its importance in terms of the consolidation of democratic structures and, therefore, we, as the European Parliament, must stand united with an institution such as that.
I do not share the reservations expressed by our honourable Member, the Chairman of the Delegation for Relations with the Countries of Central America and Mexico, Mr Seguro, with regard to the issue of human rights.
You can change the language if you like, but not the intention.
I believe that on these issues we have to continue to preach at home what we want to happen throughout the world, without averting our eyes when human rights are trampled underfoot in other parts of the world.
With regard to the last part of Mr Salafranca' s intervention, I would also like to express my desire that the budgetary allocations should be at least sufficient for the work, which we consider to be important and which must be carried out in cooperation with Parlacen to be completed.
In any event, I would like to express my conviction that we must ensure that actions take over from words.
In relation to cooperation with Latin America, actions are the most effective possible yardstick, from our - that is, Spain' s - point of view.
Mr President, the Commission takes note of the proposals for resolutions tabled by Parliament on respect for human rights in Central America, the process of democratisation and regional integration, and on the special importance which you attach to the role of the Central American Parliament.
The Commission follows the situation in the region with great interest and our priority objectives in our relations with the region focus on the three points which you have highlighted: respect for human rights, the consolidation of the democratic process and the strengthening of regional integration.
In this context, the Commission is taking action and we have specific projects for each of those three areas.
With regard to human rights, we have, since 1990, been supporting the cooperation programmes in favour of respect for human rights by means of education and raising awareness in this area.
You are well aware that between 1990 and 2000 EUR 65 million has been spent on this activity, which we continue to support with a view to the future.
For the next multiannual programme, which will begin soon, we are considering an additional contribution of more than EUR 10 million in order to continue this activity.
In relation to Parlacen, I must point out that since its creation it has been treated as a privileged partner by the Commission for the programmes for strengthening the process of democratisation and regional integration.
Within our framework of cooperation with the area, we have paid special attention to all those institutions which support regional integration, the general secretariat of the Central American Integration System, the Court of Justice and especially Parlacen, which is one of our priority objectives.
In particular, the Commission is currently studying the framework of that new strategy which Mr Salafranca referred to; let us hope that we can soon reach a conclusion that will allow us to release funds to support the Central American Parliament.
Finally, in the dialogue with the Central American authorities, the Commission is also reiterating the importance which must be attached to the process of regional integration as an instrument to consolidate democratisation and development in the region.
On this issue, we are also working on the definition of a new cooperation programme which should allow us to concentrate on these three fundamental elements: economic integration - the implementation of common policies - the strengthening of the institutions and the strengthening of civil society.
These points seem to us to be essential and should be the key elements of our multiannual programme between 2000 and 2006.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Côte d'Ivoire
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B5-0847/2000) by Carlotti and Junker, on behalf of the PSE Group;
(B5-0849/2000) by Rod and Maes, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group;
(B5-0855/2000) by Van den Bos, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
(B5-0860/2000) by Sylla, Cossutta and Sjöstedt, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
(B5-0863/2000) by Van Hecke, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group
on the situation in Côte d'Ivoire.
Mr President, for a long time Côte d'Ivoire stood out as a pillar of stability and relative prosperity in the tormented life of West Africa.
That is why we were so disturbed and sad to see the slow political, economic and human ruination of this country, orchestrated by the military junta of General Gueï.
In order to hold on to power, General Gueï hijacked the constitution adopted by the people of Côte d'Ivoire for his sole benefit and used it as a means of excluding his political opponents.
In order to hold on to power, he did not hesitate to exploit the bitter debate on Ivoirian nationality, sparking an explosion of xenophobia: hatred of others, of foreigners, whether from Burkina Faso or Mali, even though so many of them have lived and worked in the country for many years.
In this way he has brought Côte d'Ivoire to the brink of civil and ethnic war.
But the Ivoirian people did not allow the junta to play their murderous game to the bitter end: they forced the tyrant to flee and, by electing a long-standing opponent, Laurent Gbagbo, to rule the country, they brought Côte d'Ivoire back onto the track of democracy.
Now this process needs to be confirmed rapidly by the organisation of free, transparent and pluralist legislative elections in which all the political forces can take part.
At least, that is what both the political leaders and the people are calling for today.
The political forces of Côte d' Ivoire have already shown their sense of responsibility by playing the card of appeasement, of constitutional legality and of national reconciliation for some weeks past.
We must take note of this return to a democratic process that may indeed be incomplete, but that we must continue to support.
I believe that will also contribute to the stability of the entire region, for West Africa is going through a highly vulnerable period from that point of view.
The European Union must therefore accompany Côte d'Ivoire along the road it has itself chosen: the road towards a return to constitutional legality, to civil peace, to economic and social progress, while giving material and financial support to the organisation of the legislative elections scheduled for 10 December this year and, of course, ensuring that they are fair and pluralist. It must also continue to cooperate with Côte d'Ivoire, so as to help it find the most appropriate solutions to the social crisis in urban areas and to tensions related to land in rural areas.
That is precisely the point of our resolution.
The extreme confusion that has characterised the electoral process over recent weeks in Côte d'Ivoire, which had looked like a model economy until now, is symptomatic of a country in crisis, reflected by an economy in crisis, social despair and, consequently, political chaos.
The real issues and national debates were overshadowed by the spurious yet contentious debate about Ivoirian nationality.
Côte d'Ivoire was driven into this widespread catastrophe because it was caught in the stranglehold of its financial commitment to lend credibility to its economic prospects and the cruel and indiscriminate fallout from international trade negotiations.
That really is the antithesis of the model of true sustainable development, the policy for the future that we Greens advocate.
The West bears a patent and overwhelming responsibility for the current collapse of the Ivoirian system.
By introducing oils and fats other than cocoa butter into the ingredients of chocolate, the European Parliament has brought about the ruin of this top international cocoa producer's entire national industry. It knocked its social and political system off balance and has even led to the mass graves of Ivoirian civilians, the ultimate but also the direct victims of this chain of decisions and consequences starting in Brussels and ending in Ypougon.
The Greens firmly condemn all the acts of violence committed following the elections and lament the victims.
Real democracy cannot now be established in Côte d'Ivoire unless an independent commission of inquiry is set up to look into the crimes committed and unless an official undertaking is given on respect for human rights and civil peace.
Similarly, this democratic process can only become more credible if a national reconciliation committee is created, together with a national electoral committee to prepare and guarantee future elections, especially the elections of 10 December.
It is vital to have foreign observers at these elections to make sure they are conducted legally.
Mr President, has peace really returned to Côte d' Ivoire or does it only seem that way? Gbagbo has provisionally been recognised as president on the basis of elections from which his most important opponent was excluded.
If the parliamentary elections in December do not proceed in a fair manner then the unrest will undoubtedly flare up again.
After all, the violence of recent times has left the people with deep scars.
If there is even the slightest political lapse their anger will take hold again.
It is therefore absolutely essential that the parliamentary elections due to take place in December, proceed fairly, and needless to say, exclusion for reasons of ethnicity is absolutely out of the question.
Côte d' Ivoire will only be able to regain its stability if the new rulers are prepared to engage in power-sharing.
It is also impossible to envisage lasting peace in the country without religious and ethnic tolerance.
The political, military and religious leaders must pull out all the stops to make national reconciliation possible.
What is needed is a constitution which guarantees the rights of the citizens and the political parties and rules out abuse of power.
It is also vital for relations with the neighbouring countries, especially Burkina Faso, to be restored.
We as a European Union, must be prepared to continue to provide assistance, but this will only be possible if the country is run properly and democratisation really takes shape.
The leaders have now been given a new chance and let us hope they seize it.
Côte d' Ivoire could become a role model and take the lead in the region.
But this will only be feasible if everyone takes responsibility and peace is restored for good.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the first question that arises in Côte d' Ivoire is that of democracy.
Some people believe democracy is only of relative importance when it comes to Africa, that democratic procedures are a complex matter, that we have to give it time, but I personally believe that there can be no compromise with democracy and the question that arises for Côte d' Ivoire today is the same one that arises for Guinea, for example, where we now know that there are people in prison and that the system is not democratic.
For almost a year now, a few of us in this House, in particular most of my colleagues, have been alerted to the situation in Côte d' Ivoire, which I really believe offers a perfect example of how not to do things.
Firstly, a regime was allowed to take over by force, by armed force.
Nothing was said about the persecution of opponents and journalists, or about the establishment of a racist constitution based on ethnic discrimination.
Everybody just let it happen, as though they had not learned any lessons from Rwanda or former Yugoslavia.
And now they are surprised to see General Gueï end up rigging the elections.
First of all, I believe the European Union should welcome the fact that the new president, Laurent Gbagbo, is setting up a national reconciliation committee.
We must also welcome the organisation of legislative elections next month, but we must insist that these elections are transparent and do not exclude any political force or any candidate.
Equality between the political movements must be guaranteed.
And indeed that is why President Gbagbo must not dismiss the possibility of holding presidential elections, as the direct follow-up to these legislative elections.
But above all, we must, in my view, insist much more firmly on this racist constitution being declared null and void.
The debate on nationality Ivoirian - that confused debate that tends solely towards introducing discrimination in favour of a country' s own nationality, something we are combating in our own countries, and whose logical conclusion is the practice of ethnic cleansing - must be used to totally oppose any reference or connotation to Ivoirian nationality and to have these removed from the Ivoirian constitution.
I do not agree with all Mr Ouattara' s view - you need only see where I am sitting on this side of the Chamber - especially in the liberal and economic field, but I do believe that it is not acceptable, in any country whatsoever, and particularly in Côte d' Ivoire, to exclude Mr Ouattara solely because he does not have a mother and a father of Ivoirian origin.
In the same way, I believe that the 14 parties that have been excluded must be reintegrated and play a full part in these elections.
Otherwise it would mean that when someone like Mr Ouattara is excluded, second-class citizenship is de facto being introduced, and there would be two kinds of citizens and discrimination would eventually become established as a state system.
The European Union must also make sure that none of its members establishes relations with its former colonies - and let me emphasise this - that are based solely on economic interests or geostrategic location.
It was on the basis of such considerations that Hubert Védrine, the head of the French diplomatic service, actually went so far as to explain that from a certain point of view these elections were legal because they were founded on a constitution.
If we take that line, let me say that we should in fact have accepted apartheid, given that it was entirely constitutional. Excuse me if I go even further and say that we should consequently have established better relations with Milosevic in former Yugoslavia.
Let me finish by saying this: dictatorships come into being only because there are people who are destitute and who have no access to learning, no access to knowledge.
So from that point of view I believe that it is essential that we urgently target our aid for those countries, in order to help them move towards a democratic system, at combating illiteracy, poverty and destitution.
It is at that price and by giving assistance to these people that we will finally help them to set up a democratic system.
Mr President, it is tempting to present the recent political events in Côte d' Ivoire as the victory of democracy over dictatorship, as a repeat performance of the Belgrade scenario, but this time taking place in the heart of West Africa.
It is tempting, but it would be wrong, because the reality is rather more complex and the position of the new president is quite a lot more controversial.
Naturally we welcome the fact that junta leader Gueï failed in his scheme to legitimise his power through sham elections.
The European Union, and also this Parliament, made an important contribution to this by demanding that democratic elections take place and instituting the suspension procedure.
But that still does not give Laurence Gbagdo, who won the elections, the legitimacy he needs.
After all, he drew the nationalist card too.
He also supported the amendment to the constitution, with the intention of cutting out his most significant opponent, Watara, on the grounds that one of his parents is not an Ivoirian national.
This law led to the serious disruption of traditional ethnic harmony in Côte d' Ivoire.
Since it came into force, people of foreign extraction, and in fact we are talking in terms of a third to half of the population, have been the object of discrimination and even of attacks.
Another consequence of the law was that Watara' s supporters, particularly Muslims from the north of the country, managed to successfully boycott the elections, which meant that the turnout was no higher than 40%, i.e. too low to give the new president a credible mandate.
When Watara' s supporters took to the streets in order to demand new elections their protest was put down using violent means.
Muslim quarters in the city were attacked.
At least 170 people died and 350 were wounded.
Fearing a civil war, Watara reconciled himself to the result.
It would not be illogical for the European Union to immediately demand new presidential elections, in which all candidates would be able to participate this time round.
But I recognise that there are a number of reasons for not doing so.
Firstly, it would undermine the new president' s attempts to restore national unity and reconciliation.
After all, against this background, he offered his opponents various ministerial posts and declared 9 November a national day of mourning.
Conversely, all the parties have now declared themselves willing to help to restore the constitutional state and peace.
As some delegates have already said, this must inevitably lead to the parliamentary elections on 10 December, which all parties must be able to take part in.
I do not believe it is for Europe to add fuel to the fire and stir up tensions even more when those concerned are evidently willing to engage in reconciliation.
But the real test for Gbagdo will be on 10 December.
All we can do is ensure that these are free and peaceful elections, and hope that the new Ivoirian government has a broad democratic basis. This is what is needed to restore ethnic harmony and help this country out of its economic morass.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, even if Côte d'Ivoire used to be a bastion of stability and democracy compared to other states in western and central Africa, for a long time now it has seen ethnic and religious tensions and, most recently, the abuse of power by the former government under President Bedié, which eventually led to the violent military coup.
But the fact that this military regime was recently ousted in the elections, under difficult circumstances, says something about the democratic resolve of the people of Côte d'Ivoire.
I believe there is now a chance to restore democracy and the rule of law.
Here I wish the current president a good hand and a very delicate touch.
The unrest surrounding the elections produced a death toll of about 200, which of course places a heavy burden on the future of the new regime.
But we must also say that the day of reconciliation on 9 November will send out new signals in regard to establishing democracy and the rule of law and taking seriously the demand for national reconciliation.
The European Union has been asked, and has declared itself prepared, to help ensure that the elections in December, as well as the local elections in January, are conducted in a peaceful, fair, free and transparent manner.
Here, too, we must keep a watchful eye and take a constructive approach to this process.
Much will depend on whether it really proves possible to consolidate these first cautious steps.
Of course that also means amending the constitution so that ethnic origin can no longer be taken as grounds for discrimination.
Very many parts of Africa comprise very many different ethnic and religious mixtures.
To draw such narrow boundaries between them can only produce problems and difficulties.
We know that millions of people living in Côte d'Ivoire come from one of its neighbouring countries.
I will not even broach problems such as child labour - for there also there are problems.
A peaceful environment needs to be created for these people as well, and they, too, must be given some political responsibility in the country and must not be excluded.
In that regard, I believe that the resolution reflects Parliament's resolve to make its contribution and I hope we will also manage to succeed in doing so.
Mr President, by means of various recent declarations, the European Union has condemned the abuses of General Gueï' s regime; it has also expressed its regret at the outright exclusion of the main opposition candidates from the election of 22 October, which has to a large extent limited the credibility of that very electoral process.
The Union has condemned General Gueï' s attempt to confiscate the election results and subsequently the army' s violent repression of the demonstrations in favour of Laurent Gbagbo and, above all, the bloody inter-ethnic massacres which have been perpetrated on the native people of the north of Côte d' Ivoire.
The Commission believes that in the current circumstances the priority should be for the legislative elections that are scheduled to be held on 10 December to be open and transparent.
I would like to stress these two adjectives.
These elections must enable the political parties that were excluded from the presidential election to be represented at national level and thereby compensate, though only partially, for the defects of that first election.
These elections should make up one of the key elements of the national reconciliation that we all wish to see and are calling for.
The European Community will provide financial support for these elections to be held, and we will also cooperate by providing some one hundred observers.
Once these elections have taken place and depending on the way they are carried out, we will be able to consider holding in-depth discussions with the new Ivoirian authorities in order to determine the conditions in which we can re-establish our cooperation.
This clearly does not exclude the consideration of emergency situations, such as providing aid for the injured and victims of the recent inter-ethnic confrontations, and ECHO has allocated EUR 300 000 in emergency aid for this purpose.
The Commission recognises other priorities with regard to emergencies, which are closely related to issues such as health or education, especially in rural areas, and this is fundamental to this process being carried out in an open and democratic manner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, I am very glad that there has been such strong support across the House for the powerful statement we have in this resolution condemning the military junta in Burma.
But, at the same time, I am extremely sad that we must have yet another resolution on Burma because the situation there, far from getting better, is actually getting much worse.
The need for this further resolution stems from a number of reasons.
Among the most important is the fact that the SPDC has vowed to crush the National League for Democracy by the end of this year.
The signs are that they are serious.
Their attempt to evict the NLD from their current location looks like a systematic campaign to achieve that.
The number of political prisoners appears to have risen from 1,500 to 3,000 very recently, many of whom are forced to carry out hard labour and are subject to cruel forms of torture.
The forthcoming EU/ASEAN meeting in Laos in December offers us a crucial opportunity to demonstrate our condemnation of this regime in the strongest terms.
We are calling for the Council and the Commission to postpone that meeting, to call it off, until the Burmese junta releases all political prisoners without conditions and allows freedom of movement for Aung San Suu Kyi and her party members and until the Burmese junta enters into a meaningful dialogue with the election-winning NLD and the ethnic minorities.
Aung San Suu Kyi herself has said that the constructive engagement approach by ASEAN in relation to Rangoon is not working.
The opportunity to call off and to postpone this meeting that is due next month in Laos offers us the opportunity to make the statement in the strongest terms, to send the strongest possible signal that we condemn this illegal regime.
Mr President, there are several reasons as to why we are once again discussing Burma - in fact this is the second time since the summer - and nor is this the first time this year that this country has been on the agenda.
There are several reasons for this.
Not long ago, Aung San Suukyi was again denied permission to leave Rangoon and talk to the supporters of her party, the NLD, a party which won the elections by such a large majority and has never been allowed to wield power.
It is true that James Mawdsley, the activist we talked about two months ago, has been released since then.
We might think that this is a small ray of hope, but that must not divert us from the major issues, from the big picture that we get in Burma.
At the end of the day, the fact remains that the UN rapporteur for human rights returned from Burma with a negative account.
The human rights activist Soe Thein has been treated in a lamentable manner.
So there is every reason to talk about Burma again, and unfortunately there is no hope of it being the last time.
Of course, slavery in Burma is talked about at length within the IAO.
This is a subject that has not been given very much attention here to date, but, naturally, it must be discussed within the context of the European Union.
The political repression continues and the flood of refugees, mainly headed for Thailand, continues - and for that matter, Thailand is putting troops into action.
This is unacceptable in every sense by international standards.
The military regime in Burma claims to be able to maintain order and stability in a country where ethnic rivalries are never far away.
But the repression perpetrated by the regime only strengthens the rebellious feelings that can arise there and does not in any way, shape or form, lead to a resolution of potential ethnic conflicts.
The problem of course, is what should we, as the European Union, do now?
Our answer is to suggest that we keep the sanctions in place.
I really do not think we have any alternative.
The sad thing is that sanctions have proved ineffective so far.
But ASEAN' s constructive contribution has fared no better, and I also have the feeling that increasingly, the other ASEAN countries, i.e. Burma' s neighbours, are beginning to feel ashamed of their decision to allow Burma to join ASEAN.
Their philosophy of taking a constructive approach has failed and I feel that we, as the European Union, ought not to let them forget it.
Round table talks with Burma do not work.
In any case, I would not trust our own ministers to raise the matter there.
They did not say a word about human rights at the ASEAN meeting in October, and I am not confident that they would do so now.
That is why we are going to keep the sanctions strategy in place for the time being.
We readily support the amendments that Mrs Kinnock tabled on that aspect.
Mr President, Commissioner, when Thursdays arrive and we deal with the situation of human rights in the world, I am put in mind, to some extent, of what the Wailing Wall must be like.
Its sad inheritance of colonialism and neo-colonialism obliges the European Union to take a firm, very brave and decisive stance, in order to aid the re-establishment of democracy in various parts of the world, such as Latin America, which currently faces the problem of Guatemala with its fight against the impunity of military figures, Africa or, in this case, Burma.
As has been said, the truth is that the situation in Burma is getting worse; it is incredible that there is still this persecution of such an important leader of democracy as Aung San Suu Kyi and that the Democratic League cannot operate normally in its work for the re-establishment of democracy, especially when there is still economic investment in that country which is taking advantage precisely of that lack of freedom, that lack of union rights there.
We therefore believe that the European Union is obliged to take strong action at international level so that, both through sanctions and through imposing a negotiation with leaders of the democratic opposition, democracy and the normal development of the right to freedom of the people of Burma may be restored and so that we can stop talking about situations which remind us with such sadness of the facts of the past.
We therefore reaffirm the importance of this resolution and the firm commitment of the Commission and the Council in this direction.
Mr President, I speak on behalf of Mrs Maij-Weggen in this resolution, and we have had some excellent speeches this afternoon.
As we sit here in our climate-controlled comfort, the democratically elected parliamentarians of Burma are under house arrest, in hiding and under the gravest possible threat.
Meanwhile the communist junta maintains its iron grip on the people, press and the National League for Democracy.
Members of that junta have boasted about how they will exterminate the NLD before the end of this year, and for years made the same boast about the minorities.
Twice since last September we have passed resolutions deploring the administration in Burma and despite our clear and heartfelt views on this matter, we know that the EU countries will be sending foreign ministers to meet their ASEAN counterparts in Laos next month.
We must say loudly and clearly that we believe that it is absolutely wrong for them to do so, as is planned.
We, in Europe, must not give them that spurious legitimacy and we heard some excellent speeches from Mrs Lucas and Mrs Kinnock on that point.
We all know the story of Aung San Suu Kyi and we must be aware that constructive engagement between ASEAN and Rangoon has not worked.
Therefore we must call upon our governments not to do the opposite of what the Nobel and Sakharov Prize winner has asked.
Yesterday Mr James Mawdsley, who was released from Burma, sent me a message which I want to read out to you.
His words are far more eloquent than my own when confronting the evil of the Burmese regime.
He says: "the military junta in Burma is terrified of the NLD.
They are afraid of anyone who refuses to bow to their brutality.
It is abundantly clear to them that the world and NLD led by Dr Aung San Suu Kyi will not now bow.
Therefore the regime feels it must utterly destroy them.
Military intelligence officers have boasted to me that the NLD is to be crushed.
It is to be destroyed.
They laughed when they said it.
This is not sane behaviour.
They sit and laugh about the murder and repression of Burma's elected representatives.
The regime also boasts that they will kill all Karen and they are committing genocide among the Karen, Karenni and Shan ethnic groups of Burma.
I have walked through this territory: from the top of the mountains as far as the eye can see, all villages have been destroyed and the populations murdered or displaced.
I have seen victims of repression, women and men wounded, dying and dead.
The regime's hatred of the ethnic groups and for the NLD cannot be checked by appeals to reason or morality.
The regime responds only when it feels threatened.
My release demonstrates that.".
It demonstrates that the regime will only do something when it feels threatened.
These are the words of James Mawdsley, not mine.
He suffered mightily at the hands of the Burmese and he says that only when they are threatened will they do something.
We have to recognise that in relation to the ASEAN meeting.
Mr President, for many years I have had a poster on the wall of my office of Aung San Suu Kyi when she was awarded the Sakharov Prize by this Parliament.
The poster has got ragged and shabby and curling at the edges.
I kept it there in the hope that I would be able to replace it with a happier and more triumphant poster.
But, as has been said by many of the excellent speeches this afternoon, there remains still nothing but despair about this wonderful, gentle, charming and immensely brave woman and her attempts to keep the flag of freedom flying in her own country.
Her country has become an international pariah state.
ASEAN has become, in every sense of the word, a paper tiger in its failure to deal with the awful events in Burma.
An added failure on the part of the West has occurred with the departure of the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in Burma, Mr Rajsoomer Lallah.
He left because he alleged that he was getting virtually no support from the Human Rights Bureau of the United Nations.
I know myself what a source of anguish this is for the Commissioner, Mrs Mary Robinson.
Mr Lallah has said: "I see very little changing.
Year after year the General Assembly and the Commission pass resolutions.
I feel disappointed."
We feel disappointed.
We feel that notwithstanding the many expressions of support and concern from this Parliament we have failed to succeed in making the military junta respond to the concerns of the outside world.
I believe we should have sanctions.
Mr Deva has given the views of my group, which I totally support, and it is significant this afternoon that there is not one single person who has spoken who is not at one with these ideas and with the general support for Aung San Suu Kyi and her party.
She has had a special place in our hearts here in Parliament for many years.
It is almost unbelievable that to this day she remains a prisoner in her own home and has suffered as she has done over the years.
I know that it is of some small comfort that we continue to bang on the door of this evil and vicious regime and I hope very much that the suggestions that have been made by both Mr Deva and Mrs Kinnock will be recognised by the Commission and respected.
I, too, reluctantly welcome the opportunity to debate our concerns about the deteriorating human rights situation in Burma and, like many before me, I would have preferred that the situation there had improved so that we did not have to keep returning to this issue over and over again.
I hope that, by prioritising this issue as an urgency, this Parliament is giving a clear message to the Burmese people that their plight is not forgotten and that we recognise that the situation in Burma is worsening rather than improving and are determined to try and do something about it.
However, I do believe that the international community needs to move on from rhetoric to real action and, as a member of Parliament's Delegation for relations with the Member States of ASEAN, South-east Asia and the Republic of Korea, I am disappointed and concerned like others before me that the EU has decided to enter into dialogue with ASEAN in Laos next month at ministerial level.
I know the arguments that the ASEAN Member States have put to our delegation about including Burma in this group.
They believe that, by entering into dialogue with Burma, somehow or other they can influence it to change its oppressive practices because it will see the clear economic and political benefits of improving its human rights record.
Burma has been a Member of ASEAN for a number of years and there is absolutely no evidence to date that shows any improvement or an end to forced labour or executions or suppression of free speech and free movement.
The list of human rights violations by this regime continues to get longer and longer each year.
Engaging with them is a ridiculously naive concept so long as there is not even a glimmer of liberalisation in their attitude.
What this dialogue is achieving is legitimising the Burmese junta's continued brutal regime.
As I said earlier, what we want is action and not words.
If we are really serious about improving and having an impact on the lives of Burmese people we need to do some of the following.
Like others have said before me: we should postpone the meeting in Laos next month; and the Burmese junta should lift all restrictions on democratically elected political members and the leaders of NLD.
The junta should also enter into dialogue with the NLD and the ethnic nationalities.
Finally, we should consider supporting ILO economic sanctions to prevent Burma from taking advantage of European trade, investments and tourism until they stop the system of forced labour.
We have a moral responsibility, as a community of values, to ensure that the citizens of Burma can enjoy the same fundamental rights as those enjoyed by citizens of Europe.
Mr President, the human rights situation in Burma continues to deteriorate under the not-so-gentle control of the military junta.
The plight of Aung San Suu Kyi continues to worsen.
She has not been allowed to travel since she was placed under house arrest on 21 September when she attempted to travel to Mandalay.
She apparently has no access to a telephone and no visitors.
There are even rumours that she has been handcuffed in her own house.
The plight of the rest of the members of the National League for Democracy is hardly any better.
Large numbers are under arrest or are being harassed, and attempts have been made to close down their offices in Burma.
The junta has said that it is their intention to try and smash the party as a whole.
But it not just Aung San Suu Kyi, it is not just the military, it is not just the NLD - there are almost 3 000 political prisoners who are suffering from hard labour and torture.
There are forced relocations of populations of ethnic minorities and there is forced labour.
The ILO has been in and tried to look at the situation and see if constructive engagement led to any improvement.
As we know, the ILO is meeting today.
It is likely to recommend sanctions because there has been no improvement.
I am beginning to get thoroughly fed up with making this speech - I have made it on three or four occasions now to the Council and the Commission - but the situation is worsening, so what are you going to do? Council and Commission, it is now finally time to act.
You must recognise that we are making no progress whatsoever with the current approach.
Please look at imposing sanctions.
Make it absolutely clear that we are not going to attend the meeting in Laos in the presence of the Burmese military junta because that will be intolerable and the message will be that they can get away with it.
Vietnam
Mr President, I am delighted that Vietnam is on the agenda at last.
It has taken a long time.
I feel that special praise must go to Mr Dupuis for his assiduousness in this respect, because otherwise we might have had to wait even longer.
What do we see in Vietnam? We see a country whose people are becoming more liberal whilst the powers that be are old men who cling for dear life to old ways.
It is so tragic, because Vietnam is a country with so much potential.
It has a dynamic, healthy and well-educated population.
It has natural resources such as oil, fish, coffee, rice and timber.
You feel like telling those old men to open the door and success will flood in.
Instead, we see a complete lack of press freedom and ongoing political oppression.
Just look at how the dissident Ha Is Phu was treated.
I am fully aware that the Vietnam debate is historically charged.
We must be careful what we say about Vietnam, or at least that has been customary hitherto.
After all, the West has had a certain level of involvement in the country.
It is historically charged and naturally it is an awkward situation.
When it comes to human rights, we cannot say whether the glass is half full or half empty.
The glass is not full in Vietnam.
That is what it is all about.
We work with Vietnam; it is our partner, and so we cannot afford to keep our lips sealed about the situation there.
Mr President, one might ask why the European Parliament is so deeply concerned with Vietnam.
Some might say: surely Vietnam is a very long way away from the European Union.
But I can tell you that Germany and Bavaria, for example, see Vietnam as very close.
If you travel from the Bavarian border country to the neighbouring Czech Republic, you will see many Vietnamese markets, meet many Vietnamese who are playing a very active part in that border region.
If you travel to the eastern part of the reunited Germany, you will find Vietnamese who made their home there in what used to be the Communist bloc. And in the western part, you will find Vietnamese who fled that same Communism and came to Germany as asylum seekers and refugees.
That shows how closely our destinies have been intertwined in this Eurasian continent for many years.
That also becomes very clear when you look at the parallels in the history of Europe and Germany and also of Vietnam.
Germany and Europe were divided.
Ten years ago they were reunited, in the name of freedom.
Vietnam suffered terrible wars and was torn apart by the interests of the great powers.
One day Vietnam too was reunited, not peacefully however, but by the force of arms, and it was reunited under a Communist system, a dictatorship.
We now have a situation in Vietnam in which economic reforms are certainly being carried out.
Many people believed that this would automatically also lead to political reforms.
But we can see quite clearly in many states of Asia, including Burma which we just discussed - it is a parallel case - that economic reforms, trade and cooperation, however welcome, do not automatically bring more freedom or constitutional legality.
There is a particular risk in Asia of dissociating economic and political reforms, of economic progress and economic liberalisation without political liberalisation or greater constitutional legality. I believe that without a constitutional state that is functioning properly, in the long-term Asia will lose out on trade, subsidies and investments.
That is why the economy also needs the framework of constitutional legality.
This explains why it is so important that we call clearly for the rule of law, for the so-called retraining camps to be dismantled, and above all for freedom of religion.
In Vietnam this year, part of the land of a Catholic monastery was confiscated, small groups of Protestants were harassed, missions were closed and missionaries locked up. The Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, with its wealth of tradition, was brutally persecuted, although it had played such a major part in the national rebirth of Vietnam.
That is why it is our duty to stand up for these political prisoners and, regardless of any justified economic interests, to call clearly for democracy and the rule of law. Instead of turning a blind eye to violations of human rights we must say, as the largest economic power in the world, that we want to and will cooperate with Vietnam, but only provided that it adheres ever more to democracy and the rule of law and finally initiates the overdue process of political reform.
Freedom of religion, freedom of conscience and freedom of the media are the crucial yardstick by which we will measure it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think Mr Maaten has put his finger on an important point: Vietnam has all the factors needed to become rich and yet today it is one of the poorest countries in the world.
It could be an Asian dragon, like the others that were discovered in recent years; nonetheless, as I said, it is one of the poorest countries.
Another problem - Mr Posselt put it better than I could - is that there is one thing lacking: over and above the question of human rights, there is a lack of democracy in Vietnam today.
That is what prevents the country from taking off; it is what prevents it from effectively combating the corruption which blights it.
So the European Union must begin to take a firm stance towards Vietnam and raise the issue of the rule of law and not just - I repeat - the issue of human rights, where there have been some signs of improvement.
These slight improvements - which we certainly do not owe to the author of the Socialist Group amendments, Mr Sakellariou - have come about over the last few years and given rise to a situation that is certainly no longer tragic but that remains disastrous and in any case still is no match for the real issues of modern-day Vietnam.
The Commission must therefore take resolute action to ensure that the question of democracy, the question of the rule of law, becomes the key to the European Union's relations with Vietnam.
So I believe this is an important resolution.
We adopted a resolution two years ago, the most recent one on Vietnam, and there, too, I do not remember - nor do I think Mr Posselt remembers - the Socialist Group giving any particular undertaking to support that resolution at the time.
We adopted the resolution and we have had occasion to note that it brought about a few small improvements.
I hope that after this resolution is adopted - without Mr Sakellariou's amendments - we will hear a firm undertaking from the Commission and a few practical responses from the Vietnamese authorities.
Mr President, I agree in many important respects with the previous speakers, because much of what is happening in Vietnam today is unacceptable.
I myself once travelled in this country and came to know its vitality, beauty and wealth of resources.
That makes me all the sadder that it is not summoning up the courage to introduce greater freedom and power of initiative, that the government and the political leaders are preventing that.
Nevertheless, in answer to Mr Dupuis, I regret in that respect that we could not agree on a joint resolution, that important and justified points that are also endorsed by the Human Rights Watch - not the most tolerant organisation when it comes to violations of human rights - were not accepted.
If you are now more or less announcing that you will vote against these amendments, then unfortunately I must announce that we will probably abstain from the vote on this resolution.
That is not because we are against its fundamental content, but because we believe that we should have found a common basis here.
Mr President, with your permission I will misuse a little of my speaking time and draw attention to a case which could not be included in the list of urgencies because it only recently became known.
In Iran, two individuals, Said Sadr and Khalil Rostamchani, have been threatened with the death penalty, or at least the public prosecutor has applied for it, in a case relating to an event held by the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin after the elections.
I would ask you to draw the attention of the President of this House to this very precarious situation.
I am not necessarily calling for intervention, but we should follow this case very closely and then, if it seems necessary, also make it clear that we are against the death penalty under all circumstances, but especially for what are no more than 'ideological' crimes.
I would just ask you to approach this matter with delicacy, and I hope you will pardon me this misuse of my speaking time on the question of Vietnam.
Mr Swoboda, the European Parliament is flexible and efficient.
We have taken immediate note of what you said.
When it comes to saving lives, there are no bureaucratic obstacles.
We will ask you to supply us with the relevant facts and then we will, of course, react.
Mr President, like many others in my generation, when I walked through the streets in my home town 25, 30, 35 years ago and called out, "USA out of Vietnam!", I would never have thought that a quarter of a century later I would be forced to stand here in this House and criticise Free Vietnam partly for the same type of violation of human rights that we criticised the USA for then.
Unfortunately, it is not the case that countries that have themselves been subject to violence, oppression, torture, mutilation and mass murder automatically become angels who cannot perform such acts themselves.
Israel is probably one of the most obvious examples in world history of the fact that it is not so simple.
Every nation must learn over and over again what democracy and human rights are.
Now, however, Human Rights Watch, as Mr Swoboda mentioned, is saying that Vietnam has recently taken steps to improve the situation regarding human rights.
Tens of thousands of political prisoners have been released.
I think that is it appropriate for such a thing to be mentioned in a resolution.
We must be harsh in our criticism, but we must not ignore what is nevertheless being done.
This only weakens the criticism, and those who are being criticised get the feeling that it is of no avail what they do - if they do not do everything at once, which is something they neither can nor want to do.
Criticism can be counterproductive if it does not take into account what has actually been done.
Vietnam deserves harsh criticism of the kind reflected in the motion for a resolution - there is no doubt about that - but I think that it is appropriate for us also to include a few sentences demonstrating that we are aware that certain improvements have been made.
Mr President, it is gratifying that with President Clinton' s state visit to Vietnam, which began today, another major step has been taken towards reconciliation with the past.
The war between these two countries has not led to lasting bitterness.
It would be better still though, if the President were not just to concentrate on reinforcing mutual cooperation, when he visits Hanoi, but if he were to make this very cooperation conditional on the extraction of firm promises from Vietnam to drastically improve the prevailing lamentable human rights situation.
For there is certainly a great deal amiss in Communist Vietnam.
Contrary to Amendment No 1 tabled by the PSE Group, I noted in a document published on 10 November, that Human Rights Watch regards the human rights situation as being grave on quite a number of counts.
Think of those imprisoned for political and religious reasons, some of whom are in re-education camps.
Equally, consider how the special UN rapporteur' s recommendations regarding religious intolerance were ignored, and think of the lack of freedom of expression and the ongoing media censorship.
In particular, I would now like to take a brief look at the grave persecution of Christians taking place at present.
It is therefore right that these acts should be referred to in recital E and paragraph 5 of the joint resolution.
The most recent edition of the Asian weekly 'Far East and Economic Review' today refers to the existence of top secret documents originating from Vietnam.
These extremely secret documents give us a rare look behind the scenes of Vietnamese government policy.
Closer examination of these official papers - I have read them myself - reveals that the Protestants are the main target of persecution.
Hanoi has been particularly alarmed by the unexpectedly rapid growth of Protestant Christianity under the Hmong minority in the country' s mountainous north-western provinces, and this has prompted it to instigate cruel repressive measures.
What is telling about this is the promotion of a district official whose fury has driven hundreds of Christians to take flight.
This persecutor of churches has been asked by the powers that be to cleanse not just his own province, but also the entire district, of Christians.
The documents that have come to light are nothing less than a smoking gun.
They reveal that church closures, arrests and bible burnings are not isolated acts perpetrated by overzealous party officials.
No, these outrages derive from the political directives issued by the Vietnamese Communist party.
The lie has now been exposed.
After all, the Vietnamese government claims to have introduced freedom of worship in recent years.
President Clinton would do well to raise this matter during his present visit to Hanoi.
I urge the Council and the Commission to protest in robust terms against this flagrant abuse of freedom of worship by the Vietnamese authorities.
Mr President, I will try to speak about both issues.
Firstly, with regard to Myanmar, my colleague Chris Patten has already condemned before this House the constant violations of human rights by the military regime in Burma: executions without trial, the widespread imposition of forced labour, the enforced uprooting of local populations, hundreds of political prisoners in the country' s prisons and the clear hindering of the free functioning of political parties.
He also expressed his concern about the detention and harassment of Aung San Suu Kyi and the members of the National League for Democracy.
We in the Commission fully share your concerns about this situation and we agree wholeheartedly with the numerous criticisms expressed here today of the way in which the military regime usually makes a mockery of each and every principle contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The resolution recently adopted by the United Nations demonstrates that it is not only the European Union that harbours these concerns.
However, the Commission remains convinced that a lasting solution to the current situation can only be found by means of dialogue between the military regime, the democratically elected opposition and the representatives of the ethnic minorities.
The General Affairs Council has tried to persuade the military regime of the value of this argument in favour of political dialogue and to exert pressure so that there might be changes and it will continue to do so.
The Commission supports this initiative.
Despite everything, we are convinced that we must not allow the situation prevailing in Myanmar to hijack the dialogue between the European Union and ASEAN.
Three years have passed since we held a ministerial meeting with our ASEAN partners, which is far too long a time in our relations with a region that is important for the European Union from the political and economic points of view.
That is why we believe the meeting should not be postponed.
However, that does not mean that, either now or in December, we should behave as if the accession of Myanmar to ASEAN had not affected our relations, because it has.
Our ASEAN partners know this very well and are concerned to repair this damage; on the other hand, they know that encouraging Burma to make a genuine effort and to put an end to its appalling behaviour in the field of human rights is the best way to revive relations between the Union and ASEAN.
Given the importance that both they and we attach to these relations, we hope that our ASEAN partners will continue to communicate our concerns - which we believe the majority of them share - in relation to the military regime.
I believe that the European Union-ASEAN ministerial meeting should be taken as a new opportunity to clearly and firmly express our opinions on the situation prevailing in Burma, both to the regime itself as well as to the members of ASEAN.
We will therefore exert pressure on the military regime to put an end to the violations of human rights and begin a dialogue with the democratically elected opposition and the representatives of the ethnic minorities.
With regard to the issue of Vietnam and the human rights situation, I would like to point out the following: we must remember that Vietnam is a country in transition, that its government initiated a process which led to the adoption in 1986 of a reform programme that embraced external relations and political and economic change.
Since then, Vietnam has pursued an open-door external policy, and that is why that country occupies the place that it deserves within our international relations.
Furthermore, the process has led to the signing of a cooperation agreement between the Commission and Vietnam in 1995.
During this time, Vietnam has made advances towards a market economy, which has, in particular, led to its presentation of a request to join the World Trade Organisation.
Furthermore - and I think this should be highlighted today - within the framework of the new constitution adopted in 1992, Vietnam has an elected national parliament, which has the duty of adopting legislation and to which the government must answer in relation to its policies.
According to our information, the members of parliament rigorously fulfil their function of examining legislative proposals and supervising the initiatives and policies of the government.
I believe it is important to acknowledge these advances and the context in which Vietnam continues to make progress. It is clear, therefore, that things have been achieved, but it is also clear, as you have pointed out, that there is still much more to be done.
I fully share the concern about the problems raised by some Members: although it is true that almost 23 000 people have already been freed as a result of general amnesties, we must continue to show concern for those are still in prison for their political or religious beliefs.
It is a source of satisfaction that there is no official censorship in the Vietnamese press, but it is also absolutely clear that there is occasional censorship in the foreign press.
There is also clear pressure from the Vietnamese authorities for their own press to operate a system of self-censorship.
Furthermore, although it is to be welcomed that there has recently been a reduction in crimes punishable by the death penalty, it is clearly the case that, in our view, the death penalty should be abolished completely.
The circumstances surrounding the execution at the beginning of this year of a Vietnamese-Canadian citizen undoubtedly support our convictions in this regard.
Along with the Member States, the Commission participates in all the initiatives adopted by the European Union directed at the Vietnamese Government in relation to human rights and I can assure you that, within this process, we will continue to raise specific problems and cases and to promote a steady improvement in the human rights situation in Vietnam.
Mr President, may I briefly correct a mistake made by Mr Swoboda.
In fact, there certainly were negotiations, and we agreed a joint motion for a resolution.
Your group did not even bring up the three points you are addressing during the consultation procedure, otherwise we certainly would have found forms of wording on which we could perhaps have agreed.
We fully agreed the text.
Subsequently, you tabled amendments, which is entirely legitimate; it is just that we cannot accept the way they are worded because they seem to relativise the question.
I just wanted to point that out in order to clarify the procedure; the content of the resolution will be decided by the vote.
Mr Posselt, of course that was not a point of order but a substantive question.
I now give the floor to Mr Swoboda - Mr Dupuis, perhaps you will agree not to speak - but I would ask him to be very brief.
After all, we know what the issue is.
Of course those are points that were contained in the motion for a resolution we tabled.
In that respect, they are indeed based on negotiations, but the vote will show in what direction we are heading.
Mr President, I just want to ask Commissioner Solbes Mira whether he can give a few details of this revolutionary development, namely the elections of a democratic parliament in Vietnam, to which he referred in his statement. I have to say it is not something that I or, I believe, my fellow Members are aware of.
Commissioner, I would ask you to take note of that and to be kind enough to reply to Mr Dupuis in the appropriate form - either in writing or orally.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Floods in Europe
The next item is the debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0851/2000 by Mrs Lambert and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/Free European Alliance;
B5-0852/2000 by Mr Ford and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists;
B5-0866/2000 by Mr Deva and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats;
B5-0867/2000 by Mrs Ainardi and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left
on the floods in Europe.
Mr President, unlike many others who will be speaking this afternoon, I do not have many constituents who suffered horrendously from flooding in the UK.
Luckily, London escaped with small-scale floods, partly from rivers we had forgotten still existed because we run them through culverts.
We have, however, contributed to the causes of these floods of which those in Western Europe are only the latest result of a series of extreme and fluctuating weather conditions.
This, of course, will be of small consolation to those living with filthy water running through their houses and who might be facing enormous financial loss.
I agree that we need to do all that we can to assist them, but we would help most by changing the situation that has caused their misery and that of countless others throughout the world.
Locally, we can stop covering flood plain and water meadows with concrete.
We can change our pattern of agricultural production and we can use strategic environmental impact assessment to enable us to work with nature rather than assuming we can conquer it.
In global terms, we know our use of fossil fuel is profligate and we have not taken sufficient steps to reduce the climate-change gases we produce.
We have an opportunity to make progress at The Hague in the discussions there this week and next.
We have to implement the agreements we have already reached, but we also have to do as the Treaty states and integrate the environmental perspective into all areas of Union policy and practice, and Member States must be prepared to do this as well.
We have to move away from running our economies as if cheap fossil fuel is a good thing.
We have to pay the full price for these fuels and we have to shift to a low-carbon economy. For once, I can agree with the words of the British Prime Minister on this and I now await his actions with eagerness.
The EU has a wonderful opportunity to really take a lead in this change to an ecologically sustainable society where we will not have to deal with floods partly caused by our own inability to face up to the consequences of our own actions.
Mr President, Europe suffered across the whole continent from the recent spate of flooding, whether it was in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Spain or France; hitting, amongst other regions in the United Kingdom, Wales and Yorkshire; in Ireland, Leinster and Munster; in Italy, Liguria and Lombardy.
There was a destruction of homes, of energy, communication and transport networks.
In my own region, the Southwest of England, we had all of these consequences.
The main railway line between Cheltenham and Swindon remains closed.
It will be closed for a month because of the damage caused by the floods.
We came within an inch or so of the town of Tewkesbury being cut off.
Two major roads were cut for a number of days: the A38 north of Gloucester and the A417 west of Gloucester.
It is the worst flooding in the United Kingdom since 1947.
In Devon, the River Taw had the highest level since records began.
In Somerset, we had tidal flooding across the coastline.
In Dorchester, the River Frome was so high that a major-incident plan was invoked to deal with the possible consequences.
We still remain on stand-by at the moment.
Tens of millions of pounds' worth of damage has been done and I agree with Mrs Lambert that we must take action to deal with our contribution towards the cause of the flooding in terms of our planning regulations, in terms of reforestation, in terms of all of the actions we have taken to make flooding that much more dangerous than in the past.
We also require the EU to give help and assistance, not just in the southwest but across all of the areas that have been affected.
The resolution calls on the Commission and the Member States to waste no time in expressing their support in practical ways by marshalling workers and equipment under the five-year plan establishing a Community action programme in the field of civil protection which was adopted on 9 December 1999.
We also call on the Commission to make use of all existing funding: ERDF, EAGGF, Guarantee Section, which have already been assigned for use in dealing with disasters of this nature to provide financial aid to SMEs, to farmers, to households, the elderly and others affected, particularly those living in exposed areas who have limited protection as recompense and as assistance towards a speedy recovery.
Mr President, I find myself on my feet again and this time on a matter which is of great concern and importance to the people of Europe as a whole and also relevant to the people of my own constituency of South East England and particularly in Sussex, Berkshire, Kent and the town of Maidenhead.
I speak of the extraordinary series of floods across Europe.
I am very well aware, from my work on the Committee on Development and Cooperation, of the recent floods in Mozambique, the Indian sub-continent, Bangladesh, the Mekong Delta and so on.
If you look at the list of countries and regions in the resolution, you can see quite how serious this matter has become.
There has been loss of life in more than one EU Member State.
There has been enormous damage, running into billions of pounds, to small and medium-sized businesses, householders, farmers, the elderly, individuals and particularly the poorest and weakest in our society.
It is obvious to me that something is going very seriously wrong.
Today there is a gathering in The Hague of the representatives of COP6.
They are meeting to discuss progress on climate change.
Last Monday Jan Pronk, Holland's environment minister, stated that the effect of climate change is irreversible for ecosystems, agriculture, water supply and health.
The less we do and the longer we wait to tackle the root of the problem, the more serious the effects and the greater the strain on the resilience of peoples, plants and animals.
This is undoubtedly true.
The issues that are being discussed are for the medium and long-term.
However, this resolution tabled right across Parliament, including by my colleagues from England, deals with a very real and short-term problem faced by thousands and thousands of people in Britain and across Europe.
In Britain alone the estimated cost of the damage is about GBP 4 billion, only half of which is covered by insurance.
Across Europe this bill will rise and rise like the water level.
The Commission must make all speed to use its energies and funds to ensure that those affected in the hardest hit areas are helped immediately, through such instruments as the ERDF and the EAGGF Guarantee Section.
We must in particular help our farmers, small businesses, the elderly and the householders who have been inundated time and time again.
There is a question as to whether some of these people who have been flooded will be able to be reinsured and whether the insurance companies will take this on again.
There must also be a realisation that the rush to build housing all over the green belt and in rural areas is dangerous folly.
There was often a good reason why our forefathers did not build on these areas because they flood.
Yet today there are governments, like the present Labour government, which are steamrolling informed local opinion into building on precisely these areas.
I do not know exactly the situation across Europe but in the south-east of England this is a real and present danger.
We must fight this headlong rush.
We must take stock and take serious action to cut carbon dioxide emissions.
We must prepare effectively and in a coordinated way in order to protect ourselves.
We must do all in our power to help those already suffering from the terrible effects of the weather, both here in Europe and across the world.
I further ask, in addition to the resolution that we have tabled, that we here in Parliament hold a public hearing on climate change in the near future and I now ask the Committee of Presidents to consider this.
I ask you all to support our resolution.
Mr President, the recent floods wrought havoc and destruction throughout Europe, particularly throughout Britain and Ireland.
In my own constituency the towns of Clonmel, Fermoy and Mallow were the worst affected.
It was heartbreaking to witness the scenes of destruction of so many peoples' homes and to learn of the problems that were being experienced by many communities, businesses and farmers.
It is very regrettable that we, the European Union, do not have a budget line to assist those who face these particular difficulties, despite my attempts and attempts by others over many years to get such a budget line instated.
What I find puzzling about it is the damage it has done to areas of the economy where the European Union commits significant funds, particularly in relation to infrastructure.
It is about time that we rectified it.
The EU, in cooperation with Member State governments, should initiate a preventative action programme to strengthen infrastructure in order to stop the same scale of destruction recurring in the future when extreme weather conditions prevail.
The problem is that we know when these weather conditions are coming but no one seems to do anything to prevent the worst damage being inflicted.
The other problem I would like to raise is the additional burden that the victims of these particular tragedies will also experience, the point mentioned by my colleague, Mr Deva, namely the refusal of many insurance companies to continue insurance cover.
I wonder whether or not we, as a Union, could force these insurance companies under existing law to discharge what are essentially moral obligations, rather than do as they do at present and cherry pick and prefer a no-risk situation.
However, if we cannot force them to do that then it is an area into which Member State governments must step, to see whether or not it is possible, under the umbrella of the EU, to oblige Member State governments to provide state cover.
It is not fair that people should experience tragedies of this proportion and then face a very uncertain future when, given the climatic changes already taking place, there is an absolute certainty that the problems they have experienced over the last couple of weeks will recur, if not next year, then certainly in the years that follow.
Mr President, Commissioner, the floods which have affected various areas of northern Italy and other European countries such as the United Kingdom, Spain, Ireland and France in recent weeks once again raise the issue for Parliament both of an extraordinary, urgent intervention to alleviate the distress of the people, communities and companies affected, and a longer term policy to prevent the repetition of natural disasters of this scale.
Certain regions of Italy have suffered particularly badly for the second time in less than a month.
The damage is considerable this time as well, people have died and the material damage has been enormous.
In Liguria, in particular, entire plantations of specialised flower and fruit and vegetable crops have been destroyed and there has been a great deal of damage to seaside resorts, civil engineering works and factories, caused by storm surges as well as the floods.
And given the remarkable scale of the disaster, the request made in the resolution which we tabled together with other groups is totally justified, despite the fact that these issues have been debated recently in this House - on 26 October to be precise - and that a Parliamentary resolution was adopted on that occasion as well.
We call upon the Commission to set aside part of its budget for emergency funds, so as to incorporate the interventions envisaged by the national authorities in the areas affected, and, pursuant to Article 87(2) of the Treaty on European Union, immediately to grant fitting financial assistance to the sectors affected by the disasters and, in general, to take into consideration the fact that the majority of the disaster areas are eligible for assistance from the existing funds: the Regional Fund, the EAGGF Guarantee Fund and the LIFE programme, which can provide a genuinely substantial contribution to the reconstruction work and restore the normal lives of the peoples who have been the victims of these disasters as soon as possible, but, above all, which can contribute to preventing further such damage.
It is vital that the Union does not restrict itself to making one-off interventions after disasters have occurred.
Europe must remind the Member States to update their legislation on the environment, construction abuse, reforestation and the promotion of farming methods which seek not only to increase production quantities, but also to protect and replenish the land.
Clearly, such large-scale action cannot be developed effectively at national level alone, due, primarily, to the amount of resources necessary but also because of the very nature of the natural disasters in question which, like those resulting from climate change, certainly have no respect for borders.
With this resolution, we call for an urgent intervention contributing to repairing the damage and also for a longer-term policy to make Europe an increasingly safe and accommodating region for its citizens to live in.
Mr President, throughout their various interventions, MEPs have concentrated on two quite different points: in the first place, the problem of climate change and, in the second place, what the Commission or the European Union can do in a situation like the present one, with the extremely serious floods that have occurred.
With regard to the first subject, I should like to point out that, as Parliament also does, we attach great importance to the problem of climate change and to the conference that is at this moment taking place in The Hague. We actively participated in the preparations for the conference and insisted that the European Union must assume a leading role in it.
We agree with a number of assertions already made to the effect that we are in this way contributing to the protection of the environment and to the credibility of the environmental protocols with a view to their ratification in 2002.
We are aware that the global destabilisation of the climate caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will be the most important challenge for Europe' s energy sector.
The energy and transport sectors produce 85% of the total emissions of greenhouse gases in the European Union.
It is therefore these industries which ought to be making a major effort to reduce emissions.
Given its anticipated continuous growth - of more than 38% in the next decade - the transport sector will be that which requires the more important measures.
On this basis, the Commission is shortly going to be proposing two strategic documents: a combination of policies and measures designed to provide a response to the Kyoto commitments and to the objectives regarding transport and energy.
The first will deal with the security of the energy supply and the second with a revised common transport policy.
Apart from environmental problems, however, I should also like to comment on what we are able to do at the moment.
As you know, we have a basic difficulty: the legal basis for taking action.
You know that, historically, there was a budget heading dedicated to emergency aid for populations in exceptional situations.
This heading disappeared from the Budget some time ago on the basis of the argument that these were matters to which the subsidiarity principle applied and which ought to be raised at national, rather than Community, level.
Ever since then, the Commission' s margin for manoeuvre has been very limited.
The Commission has taken two initiatives along these lines.
One of these is very clear and is connected with civil protection: on 27 September 2000, we presented a draft Council decision for reinforcing Community instruments designed to coordinate the various systems of civil protection at European level.
This will be effective in helping us solve problems, but it is not going to solve problems such as those we are creating now.
All that we shall have left are the financing instruments that already exist.
Mrs Ghilardotti raised the possibility of seeking funds.
It is not so easy to do that.
As you know better than anyone, funds are fully allocated and there are no generalised fund surpluses, even though there may be specific instances where there are no budgetary implementations.
What is certain is that, if there is no legal basis for using these funds, it is very difficult to obtain them.
The Commission' s proposal, which Commissioner Wallström explained in detail in this Parliament, is therefore to use the currently existing EAGGF funds, or the structural funds of the Interreg funds. The fact is that, in these cases, we cannot speak of actions of the Commission involving a global programme.
Either we totally change the model or we shall have to think of the actions concerned as being at the request of the Member States and involving programmes or specific actions dependent upon the use of these funds.
As we said just now, we are entirely sympathetic to these practical projects, and I want to insist upon this point today, but it is absolutely essential to be able to rely on these proposals if we are to be able to take action.
With regard, finally, to the possibility of using Article 87.2, established in the Treaty, as a basis for Community aid, I believe that this involves an extravagant interpretation of this article, and that is leaving aside the budgetary problems it would create.
The article does not relate to Community aid, but relates to the compatibility of national aid with Community legislation.
What this article says is that, in the case of natural catastrophes, national aid may be compatible.
Each time the Commission has proposed the compatibility of such national aid following natural catastrophes, there has always been such compatibility.
We are therefore entirely sympathetic to acting right now within the legal and budgetary margins available to us.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
We now adjourn the sitting until the beginning of the vote at 5.30 p.m.
(The sitting was adjourned at 5 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
VOTE
The next item is the vote on the topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Joint resolution on Central America:
Mr President, a purely linguistic error has occurred in introducing one of the amendments in the joint resolution.
To rectify this, I propose replacing the words '... increase in its powers' in the last sentence of paragraph 6 with the following words: 'and supports an increase in its powers as a means of deepening democracy' .
Mr President, despite the oral amendment tabled by Mr Salafranca, the Socialist Group will adhere to its proposal for a split vote on this paragraph.
Certainly, Mr Poos, that was my intention.
Report (A5-0266/2000) by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on supplementary health insurance (2000/2009(INI)).
Mr President, I regard this a relatively important report, because it concerns a policy that accounts for a significant share of public expenditure, both at European Union level and at the level of its component Member States.
Depending on the state concerned, it accounts for least 10%, approximately, of public expenditure.
In addition, the report responds to what the EU Member States envisaged at the Lisbon Summit.
Moreover, the text we will be voting on calls on the European Commission to draw up a Green Paper specifically on this question.
So we should now be voting on this highly important text in the presence of only 171 MEPs, which is the number just counted.
Perhaps that is established practice here in Parliament, but I think it is very chancy to give the impression that the European Parliament as an institution is committing itself on a subject such as this one and considering entrusting the Commission with this kind of task, given the very low attendance here.
So I wonder whether Parliament could not consider postponing the vote on this document.
Mr President, I have concerned myself very closely with this question and have taken part in many discussions both in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
This House unanimously believes that we need to work very quickly on the Commission's document, on the basis of the Rocard report, so that we can continue the political debate and take concrete measures.
Postponing the vote would mean postponing the task we entrust to the Commission.
Given what we all want to achieve, I think that is a bad idea and I therefore ask you to proceed to the vote now.
Mr President, since you have already exhausted the possibilities for points of order, this probably is not one.
But if you would permit me please, I should like to say that, whatever the view of the House on this issue, I do not appreciate the fact that almost constantly today various colleagues, in various groups, for various reasons - which may be sound - have removed our right to vote here in Strasbourg on Thursday, let alone Friday.
As a general principle, this is a very bad way to proceed.
I would urge caution on all colleagues in all of the committees and groups who choose now progressively to undermine the dignity and substance of the work of this House.
(Applause)
Thank you Mr Cox.
I respect the remarks you made and can assure you that they will be recorded in the Minutes.
(Parliament rejected the request for deferral).
Mr President, I respect the wishes of the House to go ahead and vote on the Rocard report nevertheless, even though the rapporteur himself did indeed request a broader basis for his report.
Amendment 1:
Mr President, on behalf of rapporteur Rocard, I would like, in any case, to table an oral amendment to Amendment No 1.
I would like to propose - and this has been agreed in consultation with other political groups, that 'and with the support of Eurostat' be added at the end of this amendment.
I understand that this will meet with the approval of the other groups.
So let us add 'and with the support of Eurostat' .
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
.
(EL) Health is a blessing, not a commodity which can comply with the rules of competition.
In its drive towards further liberalisation, the Commission is endeavouring to pave the way for new arrangements in the health and medical care sector which broaden the scope of activity of insurance companies and remove any obstacles to the business of private insurance companies at national and Community level.
The ÅU attaches greater importance to the principle of the free provision of services than to the right to heath and medical care, methodically and systematically undermining the public health system, especially in the medical care sector, by disgracefully promoting private forms of insurance as a 'necessary' complement to and/or substitute for the public-sector system of social protection.
The economic and social policy of the ÅU, which has resulted in the reduced purchasing power of and facilities available to workers, as regards the payment of contributions, the emergence of new diseases and the unaccountability of pharmaceutical companies, have caused health costs to spiral.
Because there are problems meeting the cost of medical care as the result of the budgetary discipline and cost restrictions imposed by EMU, measures are being taken to pass the cost of health care on to the workers.
Differences between insurance systems in individual Member States and obstacles to the free movement of people and freedom of residence in another Member State cannot be used as a pretext for privatising a large part - and later all - of the health care system.
The real aim of these proposals is to extend liberalisation to sectors which are of crucial importance to companies in monopoly positions, ensuring that insurance business and financial business in general are highly concentrated and meshed so that they can increase their holdings in portfolio companies.
We believe that the aim should be to strengthen the public health system and the system of social protection and to safeguard its basic content, in the sense of a universal service, by supplying high-quality medical care and preventative care to every citizen, paying particular attention to those living in remote or island areas, within the framework of a single public-sector system of health and social insurance.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Michel Rocard' s report on supplementary health insurance.
The report takes as its starting point the observation that an ever greater proportion of health insurance in Europe is covered by supplementary health insurance schemes.
This is a serious problem if it means that people are to be treated differently on the basis of their financial circumstances and health situation.
In the course of the debate in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the matter was brought to a head when our fellow MEPs from the British Conservative Party said that, in insurance, the premium is based on the risk assumed by the insurance company.
For example, a woman genetically disposed to breast cancer must pay a higher premium than other women.
This is a breach of absolutely fundamental principles of solidarity on which the European social model ought to be based, and a common initiative ought therefore to be taken to ensure that no one is excluded from such supplementary schemes.
Michel Rocard' s report emphasises that health insurance is primarily a concern for the Member States and that the proximity principle should apply.
If the European Parliament is asking the Commission to produce an inventory of the Member States' policies, it is precisely because we have a common interest in all Member States having access to high-quality health services.
The better the health services provided by the Member States, the less need there is for supplementary insurance.
This is an area on which it will be natural to work within the framework of the open coordination method, as the European Council has begun doing in connection with combating social exclusion.
.
(FR) We are firmly opposed to this resolution, which is totally hypocritical and endangers the public social protection systems in the European Union.
In fact, despite the very legitimate recitals on the rights acquired within the existing systems, seeking to give all citizens a high level of protection, regardless of their personal resources and the individual risks incurred, which also highlight the risks of transfer from public to private schemes, and outline the growing involvement of the latter in overall expenditure and the resulting inequalities, all the practical proposals set out in the resolution do nothing but promote the faster growth of private insurance schemes throughout the Community.
What this encourages is not a move towards efficient Community-wide public services but, on the pretext of the costs involved and the principle of subsidiarity, towards actually minimising the public service. It would be reduced to a 'basic service' or to 'minimum standards' , which are called a 'safety net' and which would only cover a specific range of health care.
For the rest, this opens the door wide to private insurers, on condition only that they do not (from the outset) select the patient and the insurance premiums by type of disease.
In fact, the aim of this resolution is merely to organise the insurance market, whereas we should instead be organising Europe and moving it in the direction of encouraging high-quality collective schemes accessible to all.
.
(DE) We are dealing again with an own-initiative report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, which, although supplementary health insurance is a highly topical issue, is not totally endorsed by the committee or here in the plenary of the European Parliament since, after all, 12 members did not vote for it in committee.
It is all very well to call on the Commission to present a Green Paper indicating ways in which the existing health insurance systems could be effectively supplemented and maintained by means of supplementary care schemes while providing high-quality medical care, and it is important that we should welcome the development of a single market for supplementary health insurance.
But let me specially emphasise the accuracy of the statement that all other health protection should be a matter for Member States rather than the European Union and that publicly funded healthcare systems should remain, as ever, within the exclusive competence of the Member States.
Because that is so, I think it is premature to incorporate in this resolution a long and very detailed list of points to be included in a proposal for a Commission directive.
I find it rather odd that people are already trying to tie the Commission's hands in relation to the proposal for a directive, while at the same calling on it to present a Green Paper on the current situation with regard to optional and supplementary health insurance schemes.
Are we not putting the cart before the horse?
Notwithstanding these observations and reservations, I voted for the report.
. (NL) Health insurance and pensions ought to form part of the remuneration people receive from their work.
Supplementary arrangements should only be necessary if the real provisions fall short of the mark.
They are a source of profit for banks and insurance companies, which rake the money in that people save from reductions in premiums and taxes.
Instead of regarding health insurance as part of remuneration for work or as part of payments replacing wages, increasingly, this provision is being made dependent on savings and investments.
There is a feeling that collectivity and solidarity should be done away with so that everything can be settled on an individual basis.
Everyone is being compelled just to think of their own interests, and to start attending to all kinds of unnecessary financial matters.
People who do not earn or spend much no longer count for anything.
One of the things this will do is create a divide in health care.
People who have ordinary health insurance will end up on waiting lists and receiving second-rate care, whilst those who pay extra will be able to buy the right to priority treatment and luxury.
It surprises me that rapporteur Rocard - whom as I recall, was the leader of a leftwing socialist party in the dim and distant past - is now delighted about the development of an internal market for private health care.
The remainder of his proposals serve to dress the wounds that this option will cause.
.
I wholeheartedly support this report by my Socialist colleague, Michel Rocard, on the future financing of health insurance systems.
At a time when the population is ageing dramatically, it is crucial that we look at improving the health care system for people across Europe.
We should not undervalue the basic state provision and importance of arrangements between countries.
Having been ill myself in Belgium, I have witnessed at first hand the benefits of mutual recognition of health care systems.
From my own heartfelt experience, I would certainly not want to see these benefits ruined.
We are asking the Commission to look at the various national health schemes and to examine ways of ensuring a fair deal for those who spend time working in another EU country.
These national provisions are life-saving measures.
However, if we are to have an effective system that can cope with increasing pressure on existing national services, and that makes Europe a healthier place for our citizens, then we should also recognise the importance of supplementary insurance providers.
We should not discriminate against citizens applying to join private health care schemes.
The health of our citizens is extremely precious.
Citizens across the EU must be confident of receiving effective health care no matter which country they are in.
I call on the Commission to take heed of Michel Rocard's report.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
Own funds of banks (continuation)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first let me make an observation regarding my group. At the actual vote in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we did not have a very large majority.
At least, the majority of my group voted against; and after all we did ensure that the report was not adopted during the last plenary part-session, but postponed until today.
But let me say quite emphatically, that has nothing to do with the actual content of the report, but only with the fact which Mr von Wogau has just touched on, namely that we were worried that if we tied our hands in regard to the further procedure, Parliament would be renouncing its rights.
Obviously we cannot accept that.
In the committee itself, there was consensus on the issue as such.
And the rapporteur really tried, made a real effort to bring about a consensus.
We want a consensus on this question.
And we would be well advised to reach a very broad consensus on it here in Parliament.
The forthcoming changes to own funds rules for credit institutions and investment firms will have a far-reaching impact on the banking sector and beyond.
These provisions very much influence the practices of credit institutions in granting loans.
When we see how very heavily our European economy, and especially our small and medium-sized businesses, depend on loan financing, we soon realise that this is a very large-scale economic project.
The very intensive debate on external rating made that abundantly clear.
At international level, the proposal from the Basel committee to classify risks mainly on the basis of the results of ratings by external institutions would lead to considerable distortions of competition.
It would create especially serious competitive disadvantages for medium-sized businesses.
To prevent such distortions, it is therefore most important for the institutions to have a simple, alternative means at their disposal for identifying their own funds requirements, in fact one based on the use of internal ratings.
It should be regarded as a success that the European position, as proposed from the outset by the Commission in its consultation paper, prevailed in Basel, so that the inclusion of internal rating procedures is now at the centre of the debate.
Since as things stand at present, it seems that both the Basel Committee and we ourselves have accepted internal ratings in principle, our primary task now is to formulate these procedures in such a way that on principle all credit institutions within the European Union can introduce internal ratings across the board.
That is the only way to create equal conditions of competition.
However, that also means that these institutions must be given enough time to prepare for the new rules.
The most recent information seems to suggest that the new regulation, first planned to enter into force on 1 January 2003, will be postponed until 2004.
That would give the institutions more time to implement the provisions.
So we simply have to ensure - and here I entirely agree with Mr von Wogau - that we work as closely in tandem as possible.
In particular, we must ensure that there are no major differences between Basel and ourselves in relation to timescales. Otherwise the institutions concerned would just face unreasonable burdens, additional costs or competitive disadvantages.
But one thing must also be made clear. Parliament cannot and will not give up its rights of codecision.
So that means that if we manage to reach a decision at first reading, jointly with the Council and the moderation of the Commission, we will be happy to do so, but we will not give up our right to the codecision procedure from the outset.
It is up to the Council.
It is the Council that has always delayed legislative procedures in the past.
It must get its act together and ensure that we can proceed rapidly.
Parliament has never been responsible for the failure of such procedures.
Nor would it be responsible for failure in this case. So, ladies and gentlemen of the Council, do get on with it.
Mr President, there is a strong case for fast track when it comes to implementing the results of the Basel review on bank capital adequacy.
The Americans will be able to introduce its provisions immediately without primary legislation, unlike us, and they will be able to lend more cheaply than European banks.
Moreover, Parliament has had ample time to inform itself on the issues with this welcome Villiers report on capital adequacy.
In effect, we are having a first reading before the proposals have been tabled.
Some people in this House think that it fatally undermines Parliament's powers.
We disagree.
Delegating powers over technical matters is essential if regulation is to keep up with the innovations in financial markets, as long as those delegated powers are subject to proper scrutiny.
We are here to use our powers in the interests of European businesses and our constituents, and we shall not be forgiven if we fail to do so.
Dogmatically insisting that Parliament should get involved with every technical judgment will simply mean that regulation will be out of date before it even starts.
It takes two to three years to pass EU law but only weeks to launch a new financial services product with implications for bank capital, such as credit derivatives.
I appeal to all colleagues and particularly to the Socialist Group, to re-examine their views on this matter and look at what safeguards they would like to see in primary legislation to enable the delegation of powers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is difficult to argue with the general substance of Mrs Villiers' report.
But what we could find surprising is its very existence, and the existence of the Commission' s new initiative here.
What are we talking about? The issue is to do with updating the European rules on banks' own funds, funds that are supposed to be proportionate to the nature and scale of the risks incurred by these establishments.
The report refers to a growing consensus that the present framework fails adequately to capture the changes in the financial sector over the past ten years.
Given that the phrase "growing consensus" - I am quoting from the report - in fact implies that there is no consensus on the subject as yet, we are justified in asking whether the institution promoting this reform, the chosen instrument and the chosen time are really appropriate.
One cannot help feeling that Parliament, following the Commission, feels obliged to align its activities with those of the Basel committee, which, let me remind you, has no legitimate right to impose its views on the Member States.
Let me also remind you that only eight Member States are represented on that committee, which on the other hand includes representatives of countries that are the main competitors of European countries.
But let us, after all, assume that the referee has not sold out to the other side and let us accept the idea that the texts by the Commission and the rapporteur respond to a real and growing problem, as the report has it, and that the fact that these matters are being considered here at the same time the Basel committee is considering them is a chance to settle them finally.
Do you not think it is paradoxical to try to catch up on free America by imposing a further constraint on the European banks? Does it not seem paradoxical to translate what is no more than a recommendation to the large banks into binding provisions for EU credit institutions?
The rapporteur is probably aware how grotesque it is to call for simple rules to reflect a situation that is complex and has become more complex.
As for the sense of urgency that Mrs Villiers has added to the Commission' s sense of the need for these measures by calling for a fast-track procedure for adopting them, we have to say that the rapporteur herself acknowledges that these new rules will have no effect on the anti-competition practices that are, alas, so widespread in the United States.
Under these circumstances, this kind of initiative is more likely to have an effect opposite to that anticipated and to impose additional constraints on our banking sectors, without any guarantees of compensation.
Despite the exhortations of Parliament, the Commission has absolutely no means of guaranteeing that the American authorities will stop discriminating against EU banks.
Yet this report does have some merits, ladies and gentlemen, including the fact that it represents real progress in relation both to the first Basel text and to the Commission text.
Mrs Villiers is aware of the concerns of the small and medium-sized businesses, which to a large extent depend on bank financing, and she has sensibly asked the Commission to carry out an internal assessment of the central component of its new rules, so as not to raise the cost of loan finance granted to these enterprises.
If, in its wisdom, Parliament decides by a majority to confirm a principle to which we should not like to see any exceptions, the Union for the Europe of Nations Group will be happy to vote for the report.
If not, we will show that we are sceptical not about your work but about a procedure that we regard as a new stage in a process...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad such a large majority has agreed with the arguments of this important report.
I can only congratulate Mrs Villiers on it, for as Mr von Wogau said, she has managed to cover the spectrum of banks and their clients in Europe in this good report.
We are in favour of matching the own capital held to cover credit risks more closely with the economic risk level and further developing the rules on own funds.
We are in favour of putting more emphasis on risk mitigation techniques; and we are also in favour of broadening the basic concept of the Basel Committee.
The Basel Committee's proposals only concern the large banks and external rating, while we believe it is necessary to broaden them to cover the small banks and to include internal rating.
Another positive note in this regard is that it was clearly accepted that internal bank collateral mitigates risks.
One reason that is so important is that purely external rating would have significantly increased the costs of loans for small and medium-sized businesses.
It is the small and medium-sized businesses that create most new jobs and protect existing ones.
The merit of this report is that it emphasises the links between loan costs, job creation, support for small and medium-sized businesses and the recognition of internal in addition to external ratings. We will therefore vote for it with great conviction.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to begin with very warm thanks to Mrs Theresa Villiers.
In her report, she has splendidly succeeded in reconciling the entire spectrum of opinion in our Parliament.
Let me briefly address the problem that in Basel we are creating a framework for systems that are not necessarily compatible, systems in the USA and systems in Europe, and here we must ensure that we do not ride roughshod over a particular area.
Basel is looking primarily at the large banks.
But we in Europe must look at the small banks.
Their clients have few funds.
We know that the large banks are no longer interested in them.
Of course we must also make sure that Basel does not produce a second disadvantage for banks, as a result of higher own-funds requirements.
As we keep repeating, it would be the small and medium-sized businesses that would bear the brunt, although we keep urging that they should be bolstered up.
Internal and external ratings have just been discussed.
I would also raise the question of portfolio straddling.
We must ensure that the level of risk is assessed, and not just credit in the abstract, i.e. that we leave some room for manoeuvre in relation to small loans for small and medium-sized businesses and craft firms.
I believe it is important that we also make it clear that what is going on in Basel is an undemocratic procedure, that the European Parliament is the only democratically legitimate organisation that is adopting a position on this in Europe.
During the procedure we must not think about whether we are surrendering rights, but about the degree of detail to which we regulate matters in Europe in future, or where we should simply establish the framework and pass on certain instruments of adjustment to other institutions, such as the Commission, but also Basel.
I also call on the European Central Bank and the Commission to take great care in Basel to ensure that Basel takes account of the structure of the European systems.
Today we in the European Parliament must also send out the signal that we will not allow our established systems to be put at risk and that the large banks will also face problems if a legal framework is created in Europe.
What we need is sufficient flexibility in this area.
Mr President, in the first place, I would point out that the Commission is pleased to see that Mrs Villiers' report relates not only to the evaluation of the Own Resources Directive but also to the current revision of the changes to the regulations concerning capital adequacy.
We also think that this report makes an important and satisfactory contribution to the whole process.
The reaction to the two consultation documents on this subject - that of the European Commission and that of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision - has been positive, and I should like to comment on the latter document.
I appreciate that the capacity of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision has nothing to do with that of the European Parliament.
It has no legislative power, but nor should it be forgotten that it is a matter of actual fact that the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision belongs to the Group of the Ten and that, even though it is not a legislative body, its standards apply in 130 countries and are used by a multiplicity of international organisations, including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and, obviously, third countries.
It is therefore important not to dissociate ourselves from what is happening in Basel, even though we obviously have our own legislative procedure.
It is, of course, crucial that we should define our own rules to enable us, as the European Union, also to influence what is being decided in Basel.
Having made this initial comment, I should like to point out that I believe that economic operators are also satisfied with the approach adopted towards these regulations on capital, which help deal with the issues related to risk.
The Commission believes that the high degree of support given by the report to the aforementioned approach of the Commission' s consultation paper is obviously to be welcomed.
The report coincides, to a large degree, with the ideas of the Commission and the objectives we are trying to achieve.
The Commission will continue to be especially vigilant in ensuring that the potentially most vulnerable sectors are taken into account.
The report highlights a number of valid concerns regarding the possible damage that may be caused, for example in the SMEs sector, and also to our banking system and to those of our investment institutions which do not maintain a competitive level within the European Union and between the European Union and other countries in the world.
We all know that, on this point, Mr Lamfalussy has prepared a very clear and enormously useful report which may help us produce legislation that is more effective, more efficient and, so to speak, better adjusted to the changes occurring in the market.
We have to confront a situation in which we must ensure that the new directives are not superseded as soon as they are adopted and that the standards under existing directives are capable of keeping pace with the rapid development of the financial markets.
Inflexibility and lack of adaptability are damaging the competitiveness of our financial institutions.
I should like to say, in the first place, that our legislation must be sufficiently up to date and be flexible enough to respond to the rapid developments in the market.
Secondly, we must avoid the excessive costs which can affect financial institutions and, consequently and indirectly, the clients of those financial institutions.
We ought to support these objectives by means of sound and prudent standards which guarantee the security of our markets and institutions.
And finally, and this is a key point, we are entirely alert to the fact that we ought to respect the institutional balance established in the Treaty.
It is at present far too soon to speak of the Commission' s adopting a formal position on these subjects, but perhaps we can define a number of outline features of the possible approach.
This approach could refer to different levels.
A first level would include the basic principles, or codes principals, to be included in certain norms such as directives.
In the second place, there would be a level of technical detail covering that area which will be most subject to change if we want the regulations to reflect best practice.
This could be included in annexes to these directives, and we would have to devise a satisfactory system for modifying them quickly.
We would be talking about a second level of decision-making.
There would also be a third level corresponding to the implementation of mechanisms enabling us to promote consistency and convergence in the area of supervision and to reinforce what is stated along those lines in the paper produced by the Member States and the Commission.
A basic point for us in the process is the way in which we seek to maintain the present institutional balance.
Parliament will, in future, require that the principles underlying its decision-making should be observed by means of an agreement on this future regulation model and that these principles, to the extent that they can be applied, should be of substance and respond to more practical issues rather than to generalities.
These are a few initial thoughts on how we might succeed in devising a rapid legislative process which is controllable and efficient within the current Treaty regulations.
I hope that Parliament will take an active part in the discussions over the next few months.
Turning to the points in the specific amendments which are to be made and which have been included in the report, I should like to make two comments. Regarding, in the first place, Amendments Nos 8 and 13: the use of an approach based on internal ratings must be introduced in a sound and prudent way.
For many institutions, this approach may be neither desirable nor appropriate and, of course, its use must never be compulsory.
Right from the start, the Commission has been in favour of developing a full internal ratings system, subject to standards which may be achieved by well-managed institutions, independently of their size or of the sector in which they operate.
This is a positive development we should like to see adopted by as many institutions as possible, but we appreciate that it would not be right to insist on an internal ratings system for all financial institutions.
With regard to Amendment No 12 on the supervisory review system, I should like to point out that it is already within the powers of the supervisors to request or establish levels in excess of the minimum capital requirements.
The proposal to use this instrument solely as a type of last resort would reduce the impact of the supervisory review process as a key element of this framework.
I therefore think that the position needs to remain as it is.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
The European Ombudsman
The next item is the report (A5-0293/2000) by Mrs Almeida Garrett, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the modification of Parliament' s decision of 9 March 1994 on the regulations governing performance of the Ombudsman' s duties.
Mr President, we are here today to debate the first of two reports on modifying the statute and general conditions governing the performance of the Ombudsman' s duties.
I apologise to the House for being tempted at the end of the afternoon at the end of this part-session to take some of my longings for home as my inspiration for the debate on this report.
If we think about it, as in relations with children, there comes a point in the process of the birth and growth of institutions that develop within others when we have to show, through our actions, that we acknowledge their independence.
The time has now come to acknowledge that the institution of the 'European Ombudsman' is sufficiently grown up and has shown sufficient signs of maturity to have its own budget.
Although, in the early stages, it seemed right and proper to have the independence of the Ombudsman' s mandate and actions coexist with a dependency on the financial resources of the European Parliament budget, today this no longer makes sense.
What we are now proposing is precisely that this separation should be acknowledged, as in the Council regulation of December 1999, approving the creation of a specific section for the Ombudsman in the general budget of the European Communities.
This was a fundamental step forwards, as the Ombudsman was considered to be an independent institution in terms of the application of the Financial Regulation.
This step was nothing more than the acknowledgement that the growing visibility of an institution which was born and which grew out of the need to bring European citizens closer to the life of the Community institutions also needs financial independence in order to take full responsibility for the budgetary provisions it makes and considers appropriate for the material and human resources necessary to ensure the proper discharge of its worthy duties.
We therefore now need to adapt its statute to the Financial Regulation and propose that two articles be deleted - Article 12 and Article 16 of Parliament' s 1994 decision - which, as we all know, approved the general conditions of the performance of the European Ombudsman' s duties.
These rules stopped reflecting the budgetary situation after the last amendment to the Community Financial Regulation.
We therefore need to recognise that this does not correspond to the real situation and approve its deletion.
Given that we will soon have to apply ourselves in this Parliament to fundamental changes to the statute of the European Ombudsman, which are still being discussed in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, to whose report I have been given access and which addresses the issue of extending the Ombudsman' s powers of investigation, we will wait until then for a complete, qualitative revision of the text of that statute.
Before I finish, Mr President, I wish to take this opportunity to welcome the rapporteur, Mr Söderman, and congratulate him on his work on fighting maladministration and thereby also bringing European citizens closer to the life of the Community institutions.
Mr President, I hope the rapporteur will not mind if I say that this is a relatively obscure report that we are taking fairly late on a Thursday evening and that it goes right to the very heart of democracy in the European Union: How do we protect the rights of European citizens?
There is no doubt that in that role the position of Ombudsman is absolutely critical.
The Ombudsman has a distinctive role and position in the framework of the European institution, but it is a role that requires autonomy.
As we all know, if you are to be independent you need to have financial independence.
In English we have a phrase: "He who pays the piper calls the tune."
Those who pay for activities or organisations are generally seen to wield some power over those activities or organisations.
That is why the Ombudsman needs to be financially autonomous and as independent as possible so that we in this Parliament cannot be accused of calling the tune.
The public need to have the utmost confidence that the Ombudsman is completely impartial in his investigations.
I, of course, like all Members of this Parliament, have total confidence that Mr Jacob Söderman discharges his responsibilities totally independently but that must be seen to be the case.
That is why financial autonomy is necessary.
It is perhaps also worth pointing out to European citizens that the Ombudsman's office - not him personally - costs something like EUR 3.9 million a year or less than one cent per person in the European Union.
To my English listeners that is roughly half a penny per annum and that is money well spent.
Thanks to the initiative taken by the Chairman of the Committee on Petitions, Mr Gemelli, the correct legal action has been taken to amend the 1994 decision by the European Parliament on the Ombudsman's competencies and duties.
As a result of this, the Petitions Committee, in the González Álvarez report, said that the procedure to amend the Ombudsman's statute should be seen in the light of Article 195 of the European Communities Treaty.
Let us never forget that the role of the Ombudsman is one that is enshrined in the European treaties.
The EPP/ED Group supports the view of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs that the Ombudsman's competences should be enlarged and the sooner the better, especially in the fields of the Ombudsman's investigative powers laid down in Article 3 of the 1994 decision.
The quality of the Ombudsman's actions taken so far proves that the institution of the Ombudsman is growing as a full and necessary instrument for European citizens to submit complaints of maladministration by European institutions.
We in my group appreciate the Ombudsman's support for the Petitions Committee, the committee that is responsible for relations between the Ombudsman and Parliament.
In this respect the EPP/ED Group encourages the Ombudsman to continue his work through his special reports which we are always ready to consider in a positive spirit of cooperation with the Ombudsman.
I hope that in the very near future Parliament will consider enhancing the Ombudsman's investigative powers.
If that happens, the Petitions Committee would expect to be fully and carefully consulted by the Constitutional Affairs Committee.
We are, as I have already said, the committee with responsibility for relations with the Ombudsman and we work closely with him.
The EPP/ED Group supports this report therefore and hopes that this, along with the Bösch report on the Ombudsman's report on recruitment procedures, is a sign of the European Parliament's continued commitment to increasing transparency and accountability.
We do not need extra work and we do not want to see examples of maladministration, but it is important that we remind European citizens that the office of Ombudsman is there to help them if problems of maladministration arise.
A lot of people unfairly criticise us for the democratic deficit.
The Ombudsman's office certainly helps to redress that democratic deficit.
Mr President, in accordance with the Nordic public service tradition, the European Parliament has, positively enough, claimed that the Ombudsman's position should be strengthened and consolidated.
The European Ombudsman ought to be completely impartial when carrying out his or her duties and when he or she - right now it is Jacob Söderman, a man and a good Finland-Swedish representative - defends the rights of citizens in cases of bad administration.
Only in this way can the office of Ombudsman, at EU level too, serve its important and more profound purposes.
Therefore, we in the Swedish Christian Democrat Party warmly welcome the steps that are now about to be taken also to promote the Ombudsman's independence in such fundamental areas as the budget.
This is an important credibility issue for the independence and impartiality of the office of Ombudsman.
We in the European Parliament's Committee on Constitutional Affairs have consistently given our full support to this positive measure.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Almeida Garrett, for her contribution in this important matter.
Finally, allow me to take up another topical issue which concerns the development of the office of Ombudsman.
It concerns the right of access to documents without restriction, something which is only rarely utilised.
This is a prerequisite for giving the institution of Ombudsman high credibility among citizens.
An Ombudsman is naturally bound by secrecy provisions, but it is good for citizens to know that, as Ombudsman, he or she can obtain access to documents which they cannot access themselves as citizens.
It is also important to realise that the Ombudsman's right of access to documents has nothing to do with the current regulation on openness, which is a frequent misconception.
The European Parliament, its Committee on Constitutional Affairs and, we hope, the Commission and the Council too, want to see continued development and a strengthening of the office of Ombudsman and its independence and, alongside that, its credibility among citizens.
Mr President, the Commission can be very brief on this matter.
The sole purpose of the report is to establish a concordance between the European Ombudsman' s statute and a modification of the financial regulations, and this modification, as the rapporteur has pointed out, seeks to include a separate section for the Ombudsman' s budget in the general Budget of the European Communities.
The Commission has already signalled its agreement on this matter in the past, both for technical budgetary reasons and for reasons to do with the independence of the Ombudsman' s duties.
We therefore fully support the changes to the Ombudsman' s statute proposed to us by Mrs Almeida Garrett.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Special report by the European Ombudsman on Commission recruitment
The next item is the report (A5-0280/2000) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the special report from the European Ombudsman to the European Parliament following the own-initiative inquiry into the secrecy which forms part of the Commission' s recruitment procedures (C5-0082/2000 - 2000/2048 (COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the report we are debating this evening fits very well into today's agenda, because around midday today we already adopted an important report on access to documents, and I believe what we are discussing now and will have to decide tomorrow is very closely related to that.
In relation to the Ombudsman, a matter we have just been discussing, there were several complaints in the past about the lack of transparency in regard to recruitment, and that is a very crucial point, because we entirely agree with the Ombudsman's view that recruitment procedures are many young EU citizens' first contact with the European institutions.
Here it is important for the procedures to be highly transparent, comprehensible and open.
Accordingly, the point of departure of this report was the recommendation by the Ombudsman to the Commission to give applicants access to their own marked examination scripts during the selection procedure it organised.
The previous Commission did not comply with this recommendation, despite several requests.
That was one reason why the Ombudsman adopted a special report in which he once again emphasised his concern in this respect.
Meanwhile, the Prodi Commission has agreed to implement the fourth recommendation addressed to it and to allow applicants access to their own corrected test papers in a selection procedure.
Our committee, the Committee on Petitions, looked into the matter and adopted the report before us.
When we adopted this report in committee we decided on principle to accept the Ombudsman's recommendation. We would also like to give warm thanks to the Commission and congratulate it on its positive response to the Ombudsman's proposal.
The hope was also expressed that all other European bodies and institutions will follow the Commission's example and grant job applicants access to their own, corrected test papers.
We believe that giving applicants for jobs in the European institutions this kind of more transparent and open access would also represent an important step in the widely broadcast reform of the European Commission. It would also bring Brussels and Europe closer to the citizen and make them more comprehensible.
A word now on the amendments, on which we shall be voting tomorrow.
To a large extent, they respond to the recommendation made by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and on that basis, they are clearly intended to spell out in a little more detail what we actually expect of the Commission in this respect.
In particular - and this is also part of the amendments - I think it is important to set the Commission a sensible timetable for implementing these announced reform measures. I hope - that is my position as rapporteur - that the House will endorse this view.
Mr President, speaking both as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and on behalf of my own group, I, too, very much welcome this.
I am speaking today on behalf of our Co-President, Mrs Hautala, who is unable to be here this evening.
It is her opinion in particular that I want to draw attention to as I speak tonight.
We very much welcome the Ombudsman's report.
We particularly welcome the reforms and changes which we believe ought to be and, Commission-willing, will be introduced as a result of this report.
After all, access to documentation is a fundamental civil right and no documentation is more important to a candidate than documentation in relation to examinations.
The core of the Ombudsman's report is the fact that candidates for Community recruitment are entitled, if they so request, to see their examination scripts.
We also want to make a particular point about minority languages.
There is a great difficulty about examining people in a different language.
I have had to do it myself from time to time, looking at scripts in Italian or German as a native English - or at least a kind of English - speaker.
The difficulty is resolved by translation, but then we must be sure that the quality of translation is high and that the candidate can check that what was written in the original language is what appears in the paper as examined.
If there are inconsistencies it must be open to the candidate to draw attention to them.
We are glad that the Commission is going to do this.
Not only the Commission but the other institutions and bodies of the Community ought to comply with the Ombudsman's recommendations, even in the case of recruitment procedures which have already been initiated.
It is regrettable that the Commission agreed to apply the Ombudsman's recommendation only for recruitment procedures launched after June 2000.
We believe that the institutions of the Community should conduct their staff recruitment procedures, and indeed all recruitment procedures, with a maximum of openness and transparency in order to avoid the suspicion of partiality, injustice and administrative incompetence.
We must also make sure that the procedures encourage the appointment of women to salary groups, including the highest salary groups in which they are under-represented.
We would also like to draw attention to the point about temporary and auxiliary posts in the institutions, offices and bodies of the Community and the Union.
These should be published in the Official Journal and in the press and on the Internet to guarantee a genuine sense of competition.
Senior officials must ensure that merit is rewarded and that all vacant posts, even the most senior ones, should be published in the Official Journal and on the Internet.
Further, persons employed in the private offices of members of the Commission must be obliged to take part in a general selection procedure before they can take up any other vacant post in the institution in question.
We note, for example, that Mr Prodi's former chef de cabinet was transferred to another post in the Commission hierarchy.
We hope that he will see that he should resign when the mandate of the current Commission finishes, since he has never passed a Commission competition at all.
It is a byword throughout the Union that it is difficult to get into jobs unless you are well connected.
We must do all that we can to make that byword not merely false, but seen to be false.
Mr President, Mr Bösch has drawn up an excellent report and we thank him for it, as we do Mrs Hautala, representing the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
In fact, we must thank all those involved in this matter.
We thank the Ombudsman for his initiative, his determination to achieve transparency and his extreme attention to relations between citizens and the European administration.
Congratulations also to the European Commission, which, after some hesitation, cooperated fully with the Ombudsman and responded to his demands, especially to the recommendation that is the subject of this report.
We thought it legitimate for candidates to have access to their marked test papers, since access to documents is a fundamental right and one that is also recognised in the Charter of Fundamental Rights we adopted this week.
In the same way, we find it entirely justified for candidates to be able to take the examination questions home with them after the test.
The recruitment procedures must be transparent to avoid all abuse; that is obvious.
Yet, we feel that a certain flexibility is required.
We must not introduce more rigidity into provisions that may apply to institutions as different as the Commission and the Court of Justice.
Nor do I think we should further burden some procedures with cumbersome provisions that are disproportionate to the real risks of dispute.
I am referring here to an amendment on the need to provide indisputable proof relating, for instance, to oral test procedures.
Our group was very satisfied with the vote in the Committee on Petitions.
The rapporteur proposed new amendments in plenary session.
We studied them and we can accept three of them, which are in line with the way we voted in committee.
We think the others are difficult to implement, or even rather out of context.
In conclusion, I would say that we welcome the fact that the European Commission followed the Ombudsman' s recommendations.
This dialogue between the mediator and the Commission proves that the latter wants to follow a policy of transparency and good administration.
That resolve will encourage a rapprochement between the institutions and the European citizens. It also shows very clearly how useful and effective the Ombudsman is.
Mr President, the job of the European Ombudsman was established in the Maastricht Treaty at the same time as the concept of citizenship of the Union was introduced.
The Ombudsman looks after the public interest in the direction of the administration.
The Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, works, by virtue of his job description, for the people and in order for good administration to take root in the Union.
We all know that there is still much to do.
It is, however, vitally important to adopt good, open and effective administrative practice, so that the European Union will gain the support and confidence of its citizens more satisfactorily than it does at present.
The Ombudsman' s report discussed this time regards the secrecy attached to the Commission' s recruitment procedure.
The report contains recommendations that the Commission has already begun to implement.
The rapporteur, Herbert Bösch, from the Committee on Petitions, states in the explanatory statement in his report that the principles that led to the Ombudsman' s recommendations proved to be the same as those adhered to by the European Parliament: correctness, transparency and the desire to create confidence.
And that is how it should be.
Parliament is a body elected directly by the people.
Its job is legislation and to monitor the Union' s bureaucratic machine on behalf of the public.
Parliament and the Ombudsman must therefore work for the same causes.
The report by the Committee on Petitions states that the Committee approves the special report being discussed and, in particular, the point which states the desire to improve the impression the public gets of the institutions from our competitions procedures.
The most important of Mr Söderman' s proposals is the right of applicants to have access to their corrected examination papers afterwards.
The Committee says that the Commission has informed the Ombudsman it was implementing this recommendation as from the start of July 2000.
In addition, the report urges all the institutions and bodies of the European Communities to allow applicants to have access to their corrected examination papers in future recruitment competitions, if they so request.
My colleague, Mr Bösch, has already briefly presented here the amendments to the report he tabled.
I hope they will be supported in Parliament.
Mr President, if the European Union is to have any future it needs the supports of its citizens and this can only be achieved if people trust the Union and its institutions.
As things stand, the institutions are too often experienced as remote and bureaucratic - something which has had negative repercussions for Parliament as shown, for instance, in the low turnout in the last elections.
Taking part in competitions for jobs in the European Union is for many people their first close-up experience of the European institutions.
Any doubts concerning the fairness of the competitions must therefore be taken seriously.
The fact that these competitions have been surrounded by suspicions of irregularities and favouritism in the media has been quite damaging to the public perception of the institutions.
Having good staff and officials is obviously in itself essential for well-functioning institutions and this can only be assured if the recruitment procedure is impartial and as objective as possible.
Transparency in the procedure, with due respect for the independence of the boards, is central in this regard.
Allowing the candidates to see their marked tests is a simple means of increasing transparency and confidence in the procedure for the recruitment of European civil servants.
The Ombudsman's initiative and recommendations can therefore be warmly welcomed, as can the decision by the Commission to follow them.
The example should be followed by all other institutions and bodies, as the Committee on Petitions has recommended.
It is vital to the construction and administration of a multinational community such as the EU that there should be no suspicions whatever of discrimination between candidates for posts in the administration, whether on national or other grounds.
I therefore thank the Ombudsman for his report, which I fully support.
I also thank the Commission for having agreed to follow the Ombudsman's recommendation to allow the candidates access to their marked tests in future competitions.
I call for all other institutions to follow this example.
Mr President, the Members of the Bonino List firmly support the Bösch report and, since I do not suffer from the ideological prejudices which often characterise the behaviour of certain elements of the Socialist Group towards us, I would like to thank the Group for the amendments which it has tabled.
They are extremely clear, concise, pragmatic amendments which represent genuine reform, that is, the only reform worthy of the name which the European institutions ought to adopt on the recruitment procedure.
However, between the fine words and noble principles expressed by the European Ombudsman and practice, things are not always so cut and dried.
When I tabled two questions to the Commission on the management and organisation of the last internal competition, I received clear, detailed replies.
These replies revealed a clear case of maladministration, if not abuse of authority, by the Director-General for Personnel and Administration, and the second reply implicated Commissioner Kinnock.
I notified the Ombudsman of this, who, in his reply, said that he had decided not to open an inquiry because the competition was already far advanced.
Unfortunately, I did not - and still do not - possess those paranormal capacities which make it possible to predict the future.
Not only that: Article 2(4) of the European Parliament Decision on the Regulations and the General Conditions governing the performance of the Ombudsman's duties stipulates that the Ombudsman must be notified within two years of the date on which the petitioner becomes aware of the grounds for the accusation.
Insofar as my duty and my political responsibilities are concerned, the Ombudsman's decision is a routine defence of the Commission. This is not the mandate that Parliament conferred upon Mr Söderman.
Mr President, before I begin may I also recommend that while they are replacing the wiring they could paint all the black walls white or some other colour.
May I begin by congratulating Mr Bösch on an excellent report and also congratulate the European Ombudsman on the work he is doing.
I know that, though this was before my day, there was concern in the House about whether to have an Ombudsman at all, because it would then seem like a conflict of interests.
But history has shown that this is not the case and that an Ombudsman does work very hard to protect the interests of our constituents and becomes a point of access for legitimising complaints and finding out what has gone wrong.
I had the privilege of serving on the select committee on the Ombudsman in the House of Commons and that was a very powerful committee.
We could summon anyone in the country before the Ombudsman committee, and the select committee procedure which I will discuss in two minutes is something that we could learn from.
Citizens of the European Union should receive a positive impression when encountering the Community institutions.
The question is, has this been achieved? I fear that the short answer is: "no".
Clearly, as this report reflects, improvements are being made.
I congratulate the Commission on accepting the four recommendations made in the special report on the Ombudsman.
Access to official documents by citizens of the Union is a hallmark of a responsible and fully functioning democracy.
The fact that applicants for Community institution jobs should see their marked scripts shows that institutions are confident in the way they run their application and selection procedures.
It is a hallmark of a confident democracy if the processes by which selection is made is done openly and without any recourse to confidentiality or secrecy.
In the select committees of the House of Commons we had the power to introduce a regime of monitoring of every level of the executive, not only the ministers in the same way we monitor the Commission sometimes in terms of them coming here and answering questions, but a two-hour session with the particular minister with officials in attendance where the elected Members could ask questions and be prepared to ask questions in detail and to get detailed answers.
This is the beginning of opening up the process of government and making it transparent.
In our resolution we talk about transparent government and we should start to implement it in the European Parliament.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate both the rapporteur and the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
However, congratulations must, of course, go first and foremost to Mr Södermann; he has been highly receptive to numerous complaints from European citizens about maladministration in the Commission recruitment procedure and has drafted an own-initiative report in order to solve the problem.
I am delighted that the Commission has accepted many of the Ombudsman's suggestions.
However, I think there is still one lacuna: it refuses to design a system of integrated principles with clear guidelines which would result in completely objective recruitment competitions.
This is the only way to limit arbitrariness and the resultant complaints - well-founded or not, that we do not know - about competitions with pre-determined results. Technical problems, however difficult, cannot obstruct the political objective of transparency.
If they could, there would be no point in even discussing transparency.
The President of the Commission himself has repeatedly assured us that transparency in the administration of European affairs is an absolute priority.
I do not believe, when he said this, that he was unaware of the difficulties in achieving this objective.
Allow me to finish by saying that the Commission has a obligation to comply with the recommendations of the European Ombudsman and to design a full system of objective examinations for two reasons: first, because it is legally obliged to do so under Article 255 of the Treaty, as revised by the Treaty of Amsterdam introducing the principle of transparency.
This is why we are calling on the Council to work with the Commission and issue the relevant directive.
And secondly, because, from a purely political point of view, its credibility depends on it.
Unlike the Member States, with their long history, the European Union has only a short past, which is why it must create the expectation of something new.
And the something new in this case is that it must apply best practices and avoid anything which experience tells us will damage its credibility within the Member States.
The European Union needs to give a greater impression of reliability than the Member States, which have different ties with their citizens, such as ties of common descent; the European Union's main link is the respect which the citizens of Europe expect of it.
Mr President, I should first of all like to congratulate Mr Bösch on his report, to which the Commission accords a favourable response.
A number of the requests contained in this have already been put into effect.
For example, candidates are already allowed to take the examination questions away with them, the general evaluation criteria can be made known to those candidates who request them, the list of passes can be published in the Official Journal and the composition of the selection board may be published in the Official Journal (in the case of general public entrance examinations) or on the Commission' s web site (in the case of internal or restricted examinations).
The Commission endeavours to be as objective as possible, and I should like to make two comments on a couple of questions which have arisen in the debate.
Firstly, the corrections to the examinations set by the Commission are always made anonymously.
No one knows who the candidates are, since they are identified by secret codes rather than by their names.
Secondly, and where languages are concerned, the examinations take place, and are marked in, the national languages, and the tests are not converted from one language to another before they are marked.
The aim, therefore, is to have the maximum amount of precautions and guarantees to ensure that the examinations take place in the form which is fairest and most acceptable to everyone.
Certainly, the point which created most interest today in the debate on Mr Bösch' s report concerned what happens regarding candidates' access to their marked examination scripts.
President Prodi has already made due reference to this subject.
I can now confirm something which has already appeared in the White Paper on reform of the Commission, specifically in action 29 which is about improving transparency in a way which benefits candidates and in which it is stated that 'Finally, pursuant to the European Ombudsman' s recommendation, the Commission will allow candidates access to their corrected tests in all competitions launched after July 2002' .
Why July 2002, some of you are asking.
Well, precisely because of this same concern with transparency and knowledge of the procedures that you have expressed and also because a number of administrative steps will first have to be taken if there is to be access to corrected examination scripts. What form is this correcting of examination papers to take?
Who is qualified to carry it out?
How and to whom is this type of procedure to be presented?
The Commission' s commitment regarding this matter is absolute and we hope that, as soon as these measures have been implemented, they will be applied generally.
Finally, the Commission can obviously make a commitment on its own behalf.
With regard to other institutions, it is they themselves who will decide whether the procedures proposed in this report or in the requests by the Ombudsman are adopted.
Thank you, Commissioner.
That was a very satisfactory finish to a very satisfactory debate.
Mr President, this is not a question - clearly the matter does not fall within Commissioner Solbes' remit - but I take note of the statement that the examination scripts will be available as of July 2002.
Some months ago now, President Prodi declared that this option would be available for all competitions as of July 2000.
What does this mean? That the famous reform has been postponed for two years?
No, Mr Turco, it means one or other of the following: either I made a mistake in reading out the text - obviously I was talking about 2000 - or else the interpreters made a mistake in translating it for me.
Obviously, I was talking about July 2000.
Mr President, on a point of order.
In his speech Mr Deva drew attention to the fact that in this House we are not very good at interrogating.
This was very obvious last night during Council Question Time.
The session actually finished early and yet Council questions have, it seems to me, become nothing other than an exercise in patronising evasion.
The impossibility of having more than one supplementary for a Member adds to this.
There is no sense of interrogation of the Council at all.
I should like to suggest that the Bureau at some time look into the question of whether a Member who limits a first supplementary to under half a minute is allowed a second question.
That is out of place at the close of this debate but maybe you would like to write to the Vice-President responsible for reforms to see if that can be incorporated in one way or another.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.12 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, the French version of the Minutes for yesterday' s sitting state, on page 14, that we were to come back this morning to my request to postpone the voting on the Villiers report.
I think the time has now come to do so.
I proposed that we vote on the Villiers report in Brussels in November, because there are a number of rather sensitive amendments that I should not like to see voted in by random majorities.
That is something we shall discuss presently.
For the moment our business is to adopt the Minutes.
(The Minutes were approved)
VOTE
Once again, Mr President, yesterday I requested that the vote on Mrs Villiers' report be postponed.
It is a very important report which deserves better than to be discussed in an almost empty Chamber.
I do regret the fact that some Members see fit to avoid turning up to the Friday sitting in Strasbourg, but since it does happen, if we go ahead and vote today, the outcome is likely to be based on the will of a random majority, which does no credit to this House either.
The procedure requires us to hear the opinion of the Members of the House on this proposal. We shall hear one speaker for the motion and one against.
Mr President, I would like to speak in favour of Mr Goebbels' proposal.
I leave this matter to the House.
It is for you to decide whether you would like to postpone or not.
Fridays in Strasbourg are a difficult issue for us, but today because of the sensitivity of the report - it raises issues about the general procedure of the House and our general relationship with the Commission - I personally think it would be better if the groups had an opportunity to vote when there were more Members present.
I am sorry that there are not more Members present this morning.
I would not ask this if I did not think that this was an important report which requires the attendance of more Members because we are taking important decisions.
I know that Fridays are a sensitive issue, so I leave it to the House.
But I personally would appeal to you to vote to postpone the vote on this report.
Now that we have heard from the rapporteur, we shall have one speaker in support of the motion, and one against.
Mr Poettering, we had already had one speaker against the motion and I had no way of knowing, when I gave you the floor, what your position was going to be.
Is there no other speaker in favour of this motion to postpone the vote? If not, we shall proceed to vote on the proposal.
(Parliament rejected the proposal to postpone the vote)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0293/2000) by Mrs Almeida Garrett, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the modification of Parliament' s decision of 9 March 1994 on the regulations governing performance of the Ombudsman' s duties
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0280/2000) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the special report from the European Ombudsman to the European Parliament following the own-initiative inquiry into the secrecy which forms part of the Commission' s recruitment procedures (C5-0082/2000 - 2000/2048(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTES- Villiers Report (A5-0282/2000)
Mr Fatuzzo, your scrupulous respect for the procedure of the House does you great credit.
.
(IT) I voted for the Villiers report on the own funds of banks, for it is imperative for Directive 89/299/EEC, which regulated the matter a good 11 years ago, to be updated and supplemented.
I endorse the criteria of greater prudence adopted, but other aspects of the matter must also be taken into consideration, particularly the solvency ratio, which is a weighting factor according to the type of counter-party used to estimate the credit risk associated with a bank's assets.
In Italy, this is currently fixed at 8% - 7% for banking groups - of the weighted risk assets, for both cash and off-balance-sheet items.
What is totally unacceptable is for the supervisory authority - the Banca d'Italia - to have the power to establish a higher minimum requirement under certain conditions.
You do not change the rules during the game but before it starts.
I therefore agree that there should be a higher weighting coefficient - 10% for example - but it must be totally fixed in all cases and all circumstances.
Therefore, Article 53 (d) of Legislative Decree No 385/93, which deals with precisely this point, must be revoked, as all the Members States' laws which provide for changes a posteriori must be revoked.
- (DE) In assessing the Directive on the own funds of banks, a number of conflicting interests have to be carefully weighed against each other.
Those in favour of the directive can legitimately demand that their interests be protected, and mediation is required if a fair regulations are to be devised.
It is, in the first place, savers who could profit from harmonised EU-wide regulation because their investments would be protected against losses in accordance with identical criteria.
On the other side of the argument are the SMEs, which fear that regulation would make it difficult for them to raise credit because they would not be able to compete with the guarantees which large companies are able to provide.
As a result, there might be job losses in SMEs.
A second conflict of interests arises from the fact that, on the one hand, a fairly long transitional period is required in order to provide as many banks as possible, especially smaller institutions, with the opportunity to implement the necessary new regulations in their internal operations.
On the other hand, a delay in implementing the regulations favours American banks, which profit from the current set of regulations and are able to undercut European banks in Europe.
We must not allow our companies to be disadvantaged in this way, but without playing large European companies, powerful as they are, off against smaller ones, to the detriment of the latter.
We support the demand for a solution to be found to the conflict between the United States and the EU, produced by the discriminatory Gramm-Leach-Bliley legislation.
All in all, it may be said that the demand for European harmonisation is legitimate and that the latter would bring benefits to all sides in terms of security and fairness. However, no one side ought, in the process, to be afforded an advantage at the expense of the others.
Provisional establishment of the European Police College (EPC)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Posselt, on the excellent work he has carried out on this initiative for the provisional creation of the European Police College.
This is a cause to which he has demonstrated his ongoing and productive commitment.
We have before us a very useful instrument which will allow us not only to optimise police cooperation between Member States but also to improve cooperation with candidate countries and with Norway and Iceland.
This police cooperation is crucial if we are to achieve the very important objective of affording European citizens a high degree of security within the European area of freedom, security and justice.
The intention of the Portuguese Presidency in presenting this initiative, following the Tampere conclusions and in order to meet the deadlines laid down in the 'scoreboard' , was to initiate the preliminary stage of the European Police College by creating a network of the national institutes already existent in each Member State in order to improve the training of senior police officers.
In so doing, we are beginning to train the next generation of police officers to work and operate throughout Europe; in other words, we will be preparing them to implement Community law and joint and Community actions.
This will be a kind of virtual police academy, whose task will be to improve mutual familiarity with the Member States' national police systems and structures, to increase familiarity with international instruments and to optimise cooperation and coordination between the College and the other European multinational police training institutes.
We have no doubt that it will be easier to reach consensus at this first stage.
The transition to the second stage, that is, the institutional and physical creation of the future European Police College, is bound to raise some problems.
We know that there are still a number of Member States that support the creation of the College only as a permanent network of national institutes, but we feel that the majority will accept this proposal as a temporary stage that will make it possible to create a tangible institution within a maximum of three years.
This is also the proposal that the Commission supports, which has been so vigorously advocated by Commissioner Vitorino.
This is also the position advocated by the rapporteur, and it is shared by the European People' s Party.
The rapporteur goes even further, proposing that the deadline should be brought forward to two years; as soon as the proposed objectives can be achieved, it would certainly be in the common interest to be able to relax the deadlines in order to give substance to the area of freedom, security and justice.
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Vitorino for being present here today for the debate on two, in my view, important reports from the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
As regards the report by Mr Posselt, who has done some sterling work, it is a fact that judicial and police cooperation is new territory for the European Union and that every proposal that comes up for discussion marks progress.
The Tampere conclusions clearly expressed the need to set up a European Police College.
I believe that the amendments adopted by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs have enriched the proposal put forward by the Portuguese Presidency.
For example, we believe that police training should not be confined to cross-border police cooperation and to combating crime, but should cover other areas of policy, such as human rights, the provision of services to citizens, the use of new technologies, non-repressive law enforcement, crime prevention methods, respect for the rule of law, and knowledge of the political and socio-economic developments in the European Union.
In all these areas, the police college can play an important role by promoting more effective practices and up-to-date methods, either in the form of a network coordinating national training establishments, or as an actual college with a permanent seat.
Naturally priority should be given to the countries with which the European Union is conducting accession negotiations.
The enlargement of the European Union, which will extend the space in which citizens are free to move, should be accompanied by supplementary measures ensuring safety and peaceful co-existence among the Member States.
The candidate countries must not delay their full integration in the third pillar of justice and home affairs. To this end, they must establish specific frameworks for cooperation between the European Police College and the police forces in their own countries.
I would like to stress that the European Parliament has an exclusively advisory role in all this.
But the establishment of new European infrastructures will necessarily impact on the lives of its citizens, especially in relation to matters of policing.
That is why I would like to call on the Council, which I believe is absent today, to carefully study the amendments we have tabled and to pay serious attention to the opinion of the European Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, like the previous speakers, I hope that this initiative will not be seen as the umpteenth European organisation, but that people will take this initiative seriously and, as a consequence, will give it enough of a chance.
I just have a few reservations with regard to the name.
The term 'police academy' makes me think of a humorous American TV series about the police.
What is more, I find the word 'academy' is not assertive enough when it comes to police operations.
That is just a minor detail, of course.
I think that it is more important to confine ourselves to the essentials.
Social conditions in most Member States of the European Union are now such that there is indeed a great need for cross-border cooperation between the various police forces.
Cross-border cooperation can only lead to results if a number of conditions are met, if the greatest care is taken over appropriate, goal-directed programmes for ongoing training, if attention is paid to training regarding the Member States' response to crisis situations in third countries and if exchanges and secondments are made possible in a professional way, with the emphasis on the professional aspect.
Special attention must also be paid to training at European level with regard to crime prevention, maintenance of public order and efficient border control.
On the other hand, a European Police College needs to become the forum for gaining an understanding of the various national police systems and defending the knowledge they have.
In short, I hope that there will be no delay in giving concrete expression to this initiative which, to my mind and also in my Group's opinion, answers the need to bring about a European training structure.
Mr President, if there is one thing I have learnt about constituency problems since I was elected to the House, it is how very variable throughout Europe is the interpretation of Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights - the right to brief detention before trial and the right to a speedy trial, the right to be released pending trial if the trial cannot proceed speedily.
These rights are very differently interpreted in different parts of the Union.
I come from a country in which the maximum period of detention allowed by law is 110 days.
After 110 days of detention a person, if not tried, must be released and never tried for that offence again.
From what I see, conditions in French and Portuguese jails are very different.
People can be kept for enormously long periods of time awaiting trial.
We do not really have a common culture in Europe on these important points.
This connects exactly to our culture of policing.
Do we have a culture of policing in which the idea is to detain people as briefly as necessary, find the evidence as quickly and expeditiously as possible and get trials moving forward, or do we have a system where people do it as it suits them best? If we could develop a common culture of policing in Europe, and if it were based on best practice, then that would be a fine thing.
But, as I have said in another debate this week, the danger is that we develop a kind of general casualness, we have moved to the lowest common denominator, not the highest common factor.
Let us make sure that if we have a police college it is, as Mr Posselt's report stresses, grounded in the need to develop and enhance respect for human and civil rights in our police culture.
Police efficiency is not just to do with grabbing guys and putting them inside.
It is to do with finding the people who actually commit crimes and proving the case against them in a civilised way, with a proper connection between prosecution services and police services.
If we can get a police college for the whole of Europe to do that or begin to develop this kind of common culture that would be a very good thing.
The majority of those who have spoken so far seem to think that it is vital to have a single permanent seat for the college.
I see the need for a permanent seat for its administration but I want Members of the House to think seriously about whether, in the interest of a common police culture in Europe, it would be better to take everybody to one place or to have courses which move year-by-year or subject-by-subject to different police colleges and academies in different parts of the Union.
That way, people begin to appreciate differences of local assumption, differences of local approach.
We hope that over time our police forces will genuinely learn from each other and learn best practice from each other, not worst practice.
If that could be done we would have a police academy of which we, as Europeans, might be proud.
I hope that will be the result of this excellent proposal and this excellent report.
Mr President, in itself there is nothing to object to in the basic idea of creating a European Police College, whether it exists in virtual reality or is established with a permanent seat somewhere.
The questions arise, however, of what this College is for and of what tasks and objectives it has.
To take just one point, Mr Posselt writes of 'providing training sessions for senior national police officers on the basis of common standards'.
That is when things already begin to get difficult.
What are these common standards? As you know, Mr Posselt, police duties in the Federal Republic of Germany are a matter for the individual Länder, which are absolutely sovereign in this area.
Now, compare the various Länder' s laws on police duties.
You will see that, in Brandenburg (unlike in Berlin), de-escalation is the supreme precept when it comes to deploying police and that, under Brandenburg law, any police who are to be deployed are obliged to be identified by name so that anyone who might be attacked in a demonstration can read the name of the policeman concerned and know who it was.
In other words, if you want common standards, you have to start by defining these. Otherwise, you end up with training that may be completely different in form from area to area.
A College along these lines is not really needed just for the purpose of exchanging different types of experience.
You speak about establishing public order.
All right, that is accepted.
Again, the only question is, with what resources? In the Federal Republic of Germany, even public order is defined completely differently in the various Länder' s laws relating to police duties.
What do you understand to mean by public order? You write in your report about border control services.
I ask you!
We make a perfectly clear distinction between duties relating to the protection of Federal borders and the duties of the police. (In other States, it is different.)
If you write in those terms, then before what you say can be approved, it must first be clear what common activities are planned and according to what standards one is going to proceed.
As long as such matters have not been clarified, I have to say to you in all honesty that I myself cannot consent to the basic idea.
Mr President, this is a film which we have already seen once and which we did not enjoy.
Yet another interim but not so short-term decision, another little present to Parliament from the Council.
Just as Europol grew out of the "Drugs" unit, so the seed of judicial cooperation will produce Eurojust and maybe a European prosecution service.
We can therefore safely say that a lightweight and currently practically non-existent structure such as the European Police College will give rise to yet another bureaucratic structure, almost as if it were in the genetic code of the European Union to entwine policies in red tape.
It is clear, blindingly obvious and even banal to state that it is necessary to fight organised crime operating at transnational level with transnational policies, just as it goes without saying that national police forces need to be trained in order to be better equipped to tackle the cultural, legal and linguistic crime issues raised by both European integration and the integration of criminal organisations.
Nevertheless, we do not feel that this makes it necessary to create a new structure.
The underlying reasons for establishing a police college - reasons which we endorse - could have been better and more effectively achieved by encouraging existing national academies to develop training courses, exchanges, MA courses and specialisations to fill the gap which does, in effect, exist.
Having said this, the fact remains that Mr Posselt's work is, in our opinion, excellent.
On the other hand, we fail to understand the position of the Socialist Members.
Mrs Karamanou has just stated that she welcomes the fact that Parliament will have an advisory role, and yet, only the other day, the Group of the Party of European Socialists voted against a motion on the grounds that the Europol Management Board was to include Members of Parliament with the right to vote.
However, Mr Posselt's work has resulted in provision at last being made for police training to include human rights and the right of defence, and the proposal is also important and appropriate at the moment to create a virtual police college which would take advantage of the potential offered by the Internet.
In general, instead of taking advantage of the new economy to develop a new policy of employment structures and organisation, the European Union is still trying to work and organise itself according to last century's criteria.
We will vote for the amendments but against the legislative resolution.
Mr President, according to the Council decision on the establishment of the European police college, the aim of the EPC is to help train senior law enforcement officers of the Member States.
I note that the rapporteur wants to change "law enforcement officers" to "police", which is probably a good idea.
But what also caught my eye is that this training is aimed at supporting and developing a European approach in the field of crime-fighting and protecting internal security.
The rapporteur wishes to see added crime prevention, provision of services, innovation and border surveillance and also wants internal security modified to include maintaining law and order.
The problem I have with these statements is that I am not quite sure what the European approach to maintaining law and order, etc, actually involves.
It is not specified in either the Council decision or the rapporteur's report.
All I can say, from a strictly British perspective, is that if this means that continental practices are to become de rigeur throughout Europe, our own police force will be taking an unhealthy interest in armoured cars, water cannon, tear-gas launchers and dinky little pistols which they can swing from their already over-laden belts.
This apart, it is something of a surprise to find that there is even such a thing as a European approach to crime fighting.
I am absolutely certain that it will come as a rude shock to most of the British population that internal security is an area where there is any room for involvement of the European Union.
It will probably come as an even greater shock for them to learn that the European Parliament wants the European police college to be responsible for training police forces and border control forces - that is to say customs and excise - in order to prepare them for the use of Community law and the implementation of common and Community measures.
There it is: Community law and common and Community measures.
The cat is out of the bag.
Clear as day we can see the ambition of the EU naked in tooth and claw; a common approach - the European approach - to fighting crime and internal security; one people, one law and one police force.
I am sure that the European Union will be far more subtle than this.
Our police force will retain their uniforms, right down to the comforting woolly pullies that they have taken to wearing.
The ranks will be the same and the local badges will be untouched.
From all the outward signs the facade will be unchanged but, under the expert tutelage of the European college, they will be working to a different agenda: a European agenda, applying Community law and Community measures.
That is such a far cry from the Common Market which the United Kingdom joined in 1973.
No-one in the UK would ever have believed a soothsayer from that period who warned that it would all end up in Dixon of Dock Green whistling "Ode to Joy" and working out how to apply the European approach to policing down at the nick.
But here we are in Strasbourg in a near-deserted Chamber hearing that which is almost unbelievable.
Our own Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, his Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook and other British ministers may deny that a superstate is on its way, but when I hear proposals for our own police forces to be trained in a European approach to crime fighting and internal security, it is obvious that the writing is on the wall.
As you can probably gather, I will not be supporting this report.
Mr President, listening to the last speaker, I have not heard mention of the common market in almost 20 years in this House.
If he reads the records of some of the representatives from his own Member State, the United Kingdom, in those days they were extreme left-wing socialists who forecast everything which seems to scare him with the same hysterical sort of attitude to European Union.
They forecast all the things which seem to frighten him today.
Coming from a different part of the political spectrum, it is very interesting to hear him repeat, with the same hysteria, the same concerns.
Their capital in those days was Moscow or Budapest.
Those were the ideals that they proposed to us and that was the sort of state that they worked for.
However, I am glad to say that attitudes in the Labour party in Britain have changed.
I want to thank Mr Posselt for his report.
The work we do on a Friday morning in Parliament has the same legitimacy as the work we do on a Monday or any other day.
Indeed it was commented that on Wednesday evening when the Commissioner spoke about BSE, somebody drew attention to the fact that there were only 17 people in the House.
There are a lot more people here this morning and I will regret the passing of Friday when we can carry on a real debate and respond to each other and take the time to listen to each other.
Parliament and democracy in Europe will be the poorer for the shortening of the Strasbourg week.
Having said that, I welcome this proposal.
Parliament can be proud that the proposal to set up this academy originated here, and we are grateful to the Portuguese presidency for taking it up and the Commission and Council for their support.
It is a good idea and in the European Union where people have freedom of movement, freedom of trade and the right of establishment, where travellers from Scotland can go to Sicily or Greece, it is only logical to expect to develop a common system of maintaining the rule of law.
That common approach is not there at the moment.
I come from a state where the police developed out of a chaotic situation - a civil war.
But the people at that time established, very wisely, an unarmed police force that is very socially engaged with the communities in which they live and work.
You might call them a soft police force but they did succeed in healing the wounds of a civil war and in bringing credibility to the idea of law and order.
When I come to continental Europe I am a bit surprised at the way police distance themselves and adopt what appears to be a harder attitude.
I will welcome a levelling-out of standards in some Member States in the European Union.
All of us have experienced abuses in our own countries.
I hope that this academy will help us to have a better understanding of the whole system.
Mr President, there are powerful criminals who think that there are no laws which apply to them and who take advantage of everyone.
Ever since border controls within the European Union disappeared, they also no longer take any notice of state boundaries.
Cross-border crime requires a cross-border approach.
Because everyone agrees about that, closer cooperation between the police from the different Member States and their regions has already been worked on for years.
Three days ago, following publication of the Marinho, Karamanou and Roure reports, I pointed to the dangers attached to this.
An enlarged and centralised police force, disconnected from its surroundings, will look for its own priorities.
The idea of a European Police College is based on the assumption that there is agreement on the tasks and modus operandi of the police.
We see that the police in one country react totally differently to the same situation than the police in another country.
In the Netherlands, the police are trained in the de-escalation of conflicts and in repressive tolerance whereby the existence of subcultures and ethnic minorities, the organisation of political protest and the use of churches as ports of refuge for illegal immigrants are seen as normal social phenomena.
I am under the impression that, in some other countries, violence is still used as a method of winning prestige, on behalf of the government, in combating everything that can cause unrest.
This week, the contribution made by President De Gaulle to establishing peace in Algeria was held up by Mr Posselt as a model for the role which Mr Kostunica will have to play in order to solve the Kosovo problem.
He also cited the situation in which Hitler could claim that he could exterminate the Jews without being punished because, after all, nobody remembered the mass murder of the Armenians any more.
At such moments, I can agree with Mr Posselt to a very large extent.
On the other hand, we shall probably remain permanently in disagreement about the vision for the police.
I would prefer a small-scale, trained and organised police force, constantly driven by signals from the society within which it must function.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the creation of the European Police College is, in the Commission' s opinion, a dossier of major importance for the European Union, both in terms of cooperation in the field of Justice and Home Affairs and with the prospect of enlargement of the Union.
From the first discussions on this dossier, which were held at European level at the initiative of the European Parliament, the Commission has given a commitment to the Member States to pursue a course of action designed to develop what we might call a European police culture, grounded in the highest standards of duty, respect for the rights and freedoms of our citizens and efficiency in the fight against crime.
The Commission welcomes the rapid progress made both by the Portuguese Presidency, which launched this initiative, and by the French Presidency, which intends to adopt it by the end of the year.
I therefore feel that the efforts made by us all will have made it possible to effectively create the European Police College just one year after the decision taken by the Tampere European Council.
I should also like to congratulate and thank the European Parliament' s Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and particularly its rapporteur, Mr Posselt, not only for his personal commitment but also for the excellent study that he has produced and for the way in which he has pushed for the creation of the European Police College.
With regard to the future of the College, the Commission is - as I am sure you will be aware - of the opinion that Conclusion No 47 of the Tampere European Council laid down, extremely clearly, that the network-style functioning of the College, which is already causing it also to be called a 'virtual' Academy, will be only the first stage.
Like the European Parliament, the Commission feels that it would be desirable for a formula to be adopted within a practical and clearly defined timescale, ensuring greater continuity of training action or even its development beyond the senior police officers.
I also wish to make it clear, however, that what we are talking about here is not the creation of a European police force.
We are talking about the need to exchange experience and information, to exchange best practices in crime fighting in order to make respect for citizens' rights and the fight against transnational crime more effective.
Above all, I wish to emphasise that, as someone who has always advocated the idea of community policing, which is the method employed in the United Kingdom, I would welcome the fact that this British idea is finding ever more support in a range of countries in so-called "continental Europe" .
Whoever believes that the solutions that they advocate are good should not have anything to fear from exposure to other people' s solutions.
The Commission feels that the transition from a virtual police academy or police staff college to a police academy as an institution is not only justified from the point of view of the operational ability of the current Member States' police forces. It is also justified from the point of view of being able, as early as possible, to systematically include the police forces of the candidate countries in a training strategy.
I consider this to be an extremely important priority, not only for the candidate countries but also to ensure that the guarantees that we have to provide for our citizens that enlargement will be accompanied by safeguards for the security of Member States.
I should like to assure Parliament that the Commission is willing to continue to cooperate, both with regard to creating the Academy and to ensuring its smooth operation.
I have noted Mr Posselt' s proposal that, in 2003, the Commission could draw up a report on the College' s future, on the basis of a study produced by its management board.
The Commission is prepared to undertake this task if that is what is decided.
Nevertheless, I do not think that this is the idea that Council currently has in mind.
The Council wishes the Police College to develop primarily with an intergovernmental approach.
Our priority is to see actions in the field of training launched as quickly as possible.
The fact that the Commission is not playing a central role in this process, however, does not mean that we will not be paying close attention to the process, doing all that we can to ensure that it is a success, and I am convinced that this project will help to improve security in the area of freedom, security and justice, since freedom and justice can only exist in an environment of genuine security.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) EXPLANATIONS OF VOTES
Mr President, in connection with the European Police College, I would point out that what is particularly important is to combat crime in the cities.
As MEPs, we ourselves are very often concerned by crime.
I hope that, in this area, the College will provide a starting point for the future.
The establishment of the European Police College is one more step towards the creation of a police state at a European level, which the ruling class believes is necessary to protect its interests from the demands of ordinary people.
Combating crime is simply a pretext.
The establishment of the European Police College is in keeping with the decision taken by the Feira Council to create a mobile 'expeditionary' force of repression with police, judicial and correctional powers, which the European Union will use for 'non-military crisis management' anywhere on the planet.
It is especially important to stress that the European Police College, which is expected to start its operations on 1 January 2001, is not simply a network of the national training institutes of the Member States of the European Union; it also involves the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Indeed, for greater effectiveness its permanent seat will be close to the border between the current European Union and the applicant countries.
For these reasons, the Members of the European Parliament from the Communist Party of Greece will be voting against the report.
. (FR) Following on from the special Council meeting in Tampere, the Portuguese Presidency tabled an initiative in June this year with a view to adopting a Council Decision on establishing a European Police College.
We find the objectives of the proposal are excellent: to establish training programmes for senior officials and staff in the police forces of Member States, but also applicant countries, in all crime-fighting areas necessitating cross-border cooperation.
We also think the method adopted for this initiative is perfectly appropriate: we are not going to set up a new European structure liable to be rather divorced from reality at the national level, but rather to create a College in the form of a network made up of the existing national training institutes for senior police officers.
Each national unit would accommodate one section of the European Police College.
In this way, the College would not be based in any one place, but would be present everywhere.
Its governing board would be made up of all the directors of the national institutes, who would therefore have the benefit of full knowledge of the facts when determining their requirements.
This arrangement would guarantee the College' s remaining permanently close to grass-roots developments, avoiding any divergence between the approach of the college and that of the national technical experts to actual problems.
Moreover, it would be flexible in its organisation, offering great potential for development, with the possibility of training programmes being held at the best qualified national institute for each aspect.
This is a good illustration of what we are starting to call 'Network Europe' , a Europe which puts nations in contact with each other directly, without the need to maintain pointless superstructures.
Unfortunately, this instrument, which we find perfectly satisfactory, does not seem to appeal greatly to the European Parliament.
The amendments tabled by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs are pushing in the opposite direction, emphasising that this is a temporary structure, that the time period for revision must be short, and that a permanent headquarters must be found for the organisation.
At this rate, there is a great danger that, in a few years' time, we will find ourselves with a new costly superstructure that thinks itself superior to the national services, that does not cooperate well with them and ends up not being efficient enough.
According to what I have been told, this is the route that Europol is going to go down if we do not soon take steps to change its course.
In our opinion, the most effective way of working, for the European Police College, as for most of the other areas of cooperation, especially in the police, justice and security sector, is to establish networks between the existing national services.
- (SV) I have voted against the report on the provisional establishment of the European Police College.
In the EU, there is an obvious risk of believing, in area after area, that cooperation is advanced simply through establishing new institutions and authorities.
I also object to the fact that the text of recital 7 in the report goes above and beyond the Portuguese Republic's text in demanding one special seat for the Police College instead of cooperation on a rota basis.
The fact that police powers are proposed in a number of recitals under the directive, together with the fact that common curricula are proposed, I see as moves towards centralisation, with the risk of bad practice getting the better of good practice.
Rights of access to children
The next item is the report (A5-0311/2000) by Mrs Banotti, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the French Republic with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on the mutual enforcement of judgements on rights of access to children (9735/2000 - C5-0397/2000 - 2000/0818(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Banotti on both her excellent report and the efforts she has made over recent years in the cause of defending and guaranteeing the fundamental rights of children, specifically in her capacity as European Parliament mediator on issues concerning the international abduction of children, a task in which she has invested her widely-acknowledged qualities and sensitivity.
The French initiative warrants a favourable welcome.
It is part of the gradual development of judicial cooperation in civil matters and its communitisation.
It is a proposal for a regulation that seeks to make exercising rights of access and accommodation for the children of separated parents easier, in an attempt to prevent children becoming a kind of hostage in the dispute between parents who are resident in different Member States.
In these cases, situations unfortunately often occur that correspond to the cycle of love, hate and the desire for revenge of one or both of the parents.
Hence the need for speed in order to protect the well-being of the children and, sometimes, their very safety.
In a Europe in which its citizens are able to move around freely, regardless of their State of origin, one can easily understand the ease with which family ties are established between people of different nationalities or who are resident in different countries.
It is also understandable that lawsuits arise, specifically divorces and the regulation of parental power, which could lead to problems with regard to the exercise of rights of access when the child lives in another country, as in cases of abduction, particularly when the child is not returned by the parent who holds rights of access within the specified time.
This regulation establishes the principle of mutual recognition of judgments for rights of access to children without any intermediary steps and limits the possibilities for seeking the suspension of the enforcement of such judgments.
In this way, the regulation responds to the need for a direct application of uniform rules on such important issues as the regulation of parental power and the exercise of visiting rights.
We are thereby improving Community spirit and European citizenship.
It is nevertheless a matter for regret that the scope of this regulation is limited, since it does not cover the families of unmarried couples, in which there are children born outside of marriage, whose rights will not, as a result, be recognised and enforced under Community law.
Now, this is a very common situation in our states.
According to the latest statistics produced by Eurostat, in 1998, 26% of all births in the Union took place outside marriage and these numbers are continuing to increase.
It is therefore crucial that this loophole must be plugged for reasons of fairness, of realism given the way society is changing and for the sake of equal rights and obligations for all of the European Union' s citizens.
I wish to say in conclusion that I support the amendment proposed by the rapporteur in Article 1, in which it must be specified that the period of access should not be less than one day.
In particular, we must take account of the fact that situations sometimes occur in which the parent comes from the other side of the Union, travelling thousands of kilometres, and so it is pointless to do this for a visit limited to one hour.
This is ridiculous.
Maintaining relations with both parents is an essential part of the child's upbringing and the development of his or her personality.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first of all like to congratulate both the French Republic on its initiative to adopt a regulation to guarantee the right of personal contact between parents and their children and our rapporteur, Mrs Banotti, whose expertise added considerable value to the French proposal.
A Europe without borders has most certainly contributed to an increase in the number of marriages between couples with different nationalities from both the E.U. and third countries.
But when such marriages break down, there are often problems of ensuring personal contact between children and one of the parents, especially when the children reside in another Member State. And, as previous speakers have already pointed out, there has also been an increase in the number of cases of abduction with the child not being returned by one of the parents.
That is why this regulation, which seeks to simplify the enforcement of rights of the parents with the aim of ensuring that children are able to maintain regular contact with both parents, is of major significance.
The regulation which has been put forward is by no means perfect as it is linked to the Brussels II Regulation, which does not cover children whose parents are living apart and children of unmarried parents.
Mr Coelho gave some very pertinent statistics and, personally, I think it is an unacceptable anachronism that, in the Europe of the twenty-first century, we legislate simply with regard to conventionally legitimate children and institutionalised human relations and that we significantly limit the scope of a regulation which is good in all other respects.
I believe that there is a need for an immediate review of all regulations based on standards which have been overtaken by life and by contemporary reality.
It is also necessary to take the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union more seriously into account when hammering out regulations and to give more serious consideration to the repeatedly expressed views and positions of the European Parliament.
Mr President, my group wishes to join in the support for this initiative and for Mrs Banotti's report and indeed to join in the tributes to Mrs Banotti for the enormously valuable work she does as our mediator for transnationally abducted children.
There is no doubt that split families are among the most harrowing things we hear of in our working life: mothers or fathers worried about access to children across national boundaries.
Whatever we can do to alleviate these situations, we ought to do and this regulation brought forward on a French initiative is the way forward.
I agree with Mrs Karamanou and others that it is a great pity, given the way we live now, that it only covers the children of people who happen to be, or have been, married to each other.
That is a task for the future.
Meantime, we welcome this measure and we will vote heartily for it.
Mr President, these days divorce is no longer the exception.
Often, couples go their separate ways in a civilised manner.
They find it unpleasant to continue sharing each other's lives, but they do not start hating their ex-partner.
Unfortunately, others separate on the basis of accumulated hatred.
Parents who separate on that basis are a disaster for their children who become victims of that insoluble conflict.
One parent wants the absolute power of decision over the children in order to exclude the other parent forever.
Everyone is familiar with the awful situation in which the parent to whom custody of the child is awarded, often the mother, tries to make contact with the other parent impossible.
We also recognise the equally terrible situation in which the other parent, often the father, abducts the child and makes him or her untraceable.
Children remember that sort of occurrence for their whole lives.
My mother lived through such a separation and abduction 85 years ago, and she still talks about it.
Mrs Banotti has tried to make creative use of all the possibilities for securing effective arrangements for parental access on a cross-border basis too.
She is trying to preclude all situations in which parents can misuse the existence of different rules of law in the Member States of the European Union in order to delay or prevent effective arrangements for parental access.
A part of her solution involves drastically curtailing the right to call in a judge in order to overturn a foreign court order.
That regulation will only work if both parents are nationals of an EU country or are resident within the European Union and if their relationship was confirmed by a legal marriage.
Only a part of the problem will be solved, but a precedent will be created.
If we also start applying something similar to other situations, we are undertaking in the future to have centralised unitary legislation such as does not even exist between the 50 States of the United States.
That is why I see drawbacks.
But I have many more objections to tackling legal weaknesses and setting precedents in ways that leave social problems permanently unsolved.
Because we support the goal that has been set, we are voting for the proposed measures.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like, first of all, to congratulate Mrs Banotti on her excellent report, which is part of thorough, ongoing work on protecting and guaranteeing children' s rights.
As the House knows, the Commission and the Council have the firm intention of adopting a programme of mutual recognition of judgments in civil matters by the end of the year.
Priority was specifically given in this programme to family disputes, as laid down by the Tampere European Council.
The French government' s initiative is the first practical step towards this.
I should like to emphasise that, although this report and this subject are being discussed on a Friday morning, I hope that the media, which so often says that European debates have nothing to do with the everyday lives of our citizens, understands that, on this occasion, with this subject, we are addressing an issue that affects not only the life but also the hearts of Europe' s citizens.
In May, we adopted a regulation incorporating the Brussels II Convention into Community law. This regulation simplifies and clarifies rules on defining the competent court and the relevant law for regulating divorces, separations and the allocation of parental control.
This French initiative therefore refers to the scope of the Brussels II Regulation and is, if I may put it this way, a revolutionary initiative.
I say this because, for the first time, it enshrines the abolition of the exequatur for the automatic recognition of a judgment by a court in a Member State by the legal system of another Member State.
While it is true, however, that it is a great step forward from this point of view, I also share the opinion of Mrs Banotti and other honourable Members that it is deplorable that the scope of this regulation should be limited to the protection of children of marriages that are recognised as such by the law.
This fact is bound by the scope of the Brussels II legislation itself.
What I therefore wish to tell Parliament is that, in the action programme on the mutual recognition of judgments in civil matters - which we hope will be adopted by the end of this year - the Commission proposes that the first and utmost priority should be given to extending the scope of the Brussels II regulation and, consequently, of this regulation on rights of access, covering both the children of married couples and those of unmarried couples without discrimination.
With regard to the content of the document - as you know, this is not a Commission initiative - I should simply like to make three observations. The first is that we are working together with the Council in order to improve the text, specifically with regard to its most complex issue, which is the delicate balance between the need to guarantee that the child will be returned immediately after the visit, and also the need to safeguard the possibility of guaranteeing protection of the child whenever this should prove necessary.
We are addressing a tragic issue here, that of the abduction or improper withholding of children, which is, unfortunately, much more common than we might think.
It is difficult to find this balance, but we are convinced that it will be possible, with the help of your amendments and with the climate of dialogue that exists with the Council, to reach a solution that is both technically flawless and, above all, workable.
With regard to the amendments, I wish to emphasise that the Commission has some difficulties with Amendment No 1, tabled by Mrs Banotti, because this is not merely a procedural amendment, but an amendment that takes us into the field of the harmonisation of substantive family law, establishing a lower limit of one day for the exercising of rights of access.
I am sure that the intention behind this amendment is valid, but it could have harmful effects if we consider that courts will only grant rights of access when they feel that this must be for a whole day.
There are solutions in which the courts grant rights of access for a period of less than a day for reasons to do with the protection of the child itself.
I feel that we should lay down an indicative criterion but not a legal obligation, trusting judges who are called on to apply the law to be reasonable enough to guarantee that the rights of access they grant are effective.
I should also like to say that although this is not the subject of a direct amendment by Mrs Banotti, the Commission has difficulties with the amendment to Article 17 of the regulation proposed by the French Government.
We have difficulties with this because we feel that this article places too much emphasis on the purely intergovernmental origins of judicial cooperation.
It is worth saying, however, that the issue of civil judicial cooperation was communitised by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Therefore, the functioning of the committee that Article 17 is challenging should not be purely intergovernmental. The Commission should play a more active role, as it does with regard to the European judicial network in civil matters, an issue which has, in fact, been submitted for the opinion of the European Parliament.
I shall conclude, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by saying that I am convinced that, with the adoption of this regulation that has a limited range but which is of symbolic value and important practical application, I am convinced, I repeat, that we are taking an initial, important step towards bringing the European Union closer to the citizens, particularly those citizens who, because of the circumstances of their lives, have had the misfortune to experience the tragedy of separation or divorce, which is always a tragedy, but which should certainly not have repercussions for every child' s right to happiness.
Mr President, I do not doubt for one minute Commissioner Vitorino's commitment to this issue.
The point about the one day clearly refers to people who often travel right across the world to see a child.
There is a problem in a situation like that, if they are only allowed twenty minutes access to the child.
I think if there is a fear of abduction this can be handled by having supervised visitation.
I feel very strongly that we have to in some way ensure that the rights of these parents, of whom there are quite a lot, are respected.
Could I ask for clarification on your point about Article 17.
Are you referring in that situation to the involvement of the Secretariat of The Hague Convention in the monitoring of this legislation? Thank you, Commissioner, for your kind remarks.
Mr President, in an explanation of vote earlier this week, I said that "Mother Europe" was taking care of us.
Now Mother Europe has a name: Mrs Mary Banotti.
I did not give an explanation of vote on the previous report, Mr Posselt's report, because, with all the will in the world, I did not dream of Mr Posselt last night but of Mrs Banotti, and I was enjoying it so much that I slept deeply, so deeply that I arrived late this morning.
Effectively, in my opinion, with this document tabled by Mrs Banotti we are doing the very best that is possible for our children and grandchildren.
Specific nature of sport
The next item is the Commission statement on the special position of sport.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission' s position on the relationship between the legal system, Community policies and sport is laid out in the report on safeguarding existing sporting structures and maintaining the social function of sport within the Community, that the Commission presented at the Helsinki European Council in December 1999.
The Commission feels that the Treaty establishing the European Community that is currently in force enables account to be taken of the specific nature of sport in general and of its social function in particular.
The European Parliament' s statements on this matter and the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, confirm the validity of the approach adopted by the Commission.
It is nevertheless true that the enormous dynamic of the Single Market and the increasing commercialisation of sporting activities have caused a number of legal conflicts in this field.
Certain sports organisations claim that these conflicts can only be resolved by the inclusion of a reference to sport in the Treaty.
The Commission does not fully share this view.
With regard to the proposals submitted by the major federations for certain sports, which are in support of a protocol that would exempt them from complying with some of the Treaty' s basic rules, specifically those relating to free movement and to competition, it must be emphasised that this kind of exemption would, if we accept this definition of it, clearly be out of step with all of the objectives we are seeking to achieve.
Furthermore, there are serious doubts as to whether such an exemption could even be effectively put into practice.
Sport these days - and this needs to be said - is closely bound up with other economic sectors, such as the audiovisual sector or the sector of the promotion and sale of sporting products, for example.
What is more, such an exemption would, at worst, not even allow Community actions for the promotion of sport.
Other equally important sports organisations, however, such as the national Olympic committees, for example, or national sports federations, have specifically insisted on the need to develop Community actions for the promotion of sport.
In any event, since the adoption of its opinion on the content of the current Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission has advocated that the Conference should focus on addressing institutional issues, which will enable it to take the process of enlargement forwards.
This is why the Commission did not include in its opinion any request for new rules on Community competence, for example in the field of sport.
In order to further highlight the specific nature of sport and even to provide guidance for the Community institutions on how to deal with sports-related issues, at the behest of the French Presidency, a draft declaration for the Nice European Council is now being prepared which would complement the conclusions of the Santa Maria da Feira European Council on this subject.
The Commission hopes that such a declaration appended to the Nice Treaty will make it possible to take the work that has been started with sports bodies further, enabling them to adapt to the new economic climate but at the same time preserving the fundamental nature of their activities.
As this Parliament stressed in the Mennea report on the report for the Helsinki Council, this would be carried out in full respect of the Community' s legislative framework.
It is in this spirit, Mr President, that the Commission will continue the intense dialogue that it has maintained over the last few months with the sports movement as a whole.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the Commission has a difficult task in ensuring that the rules of the single market and competition policy operate fairly and properly across the continent and all sectors of the economy.
I recognise their commitment and determination to do that and, of course, that sport and especially football are big business and cannot expect to be exempt from the normal rules of business.
I am far from convinced that the football transfer system should be at the top of the Commission's hit list at the present time.
It would be very prudent for the Commission to allow plenty of time for this, to allow it to go into extra time, not just so that we get a result but that we get a good result, a result that would be good for the single market and good for football.
I know that FIFA have played for time already and has waited far too long before coming up with any response to the Commission's formal statement issued back in 1998.
In many respects they have only themselves to blame for the present situation.
However, let us not forget that football is of crucial interest to millions of our citizens.
As a famous English footballer, Jackie Charlton, said, it is not just a matter of life and death; it is more important than that.
The EU must not shrug its shoulders and say "tant pis" if banning the transfer system does irreparable harm to football.
Many small clubs depend on the revenue stream that comes from transfer fees.
The transfer fee is not just a wealth distributor, it is a wealth retainer.
If transfers go, then what is to stop the upward spiral of footballers' wages? The manufacturers of Alfa Romeos may do very well, but that money will be lost to football.
I certainly agree with the Commission that there is no need to have a mention of sport in the Treaty.
What we need is an intelligent and flexible way of interpreting the present rules.
I urge the Commission to negotiate positively with the national and international football authorities.
I suggest that the Commission give much higher priority to other abuses of the single market for instance, the parallel import of designer goods.
I would like to see much more effective moves to create a single market for newspapers and journals across Europe.
The car industry too is still full of obstacles to trade.
I suggest to the Commission it puts those at the top of its list and does not allow football to become an own goal for the European Union.
Mr President, first of all I would like to send my best regards to Commissioner Viviane Reding and thank her for the initiative she has shown in the field of sport.
I am also really very glad that Commissioner Vitorino delivered this speech on the special features of sport.
Although, unfortunately, sport still does not have a legal basis in the European Union, it has many special features that must be taken into account in the work of the Union.
This is the direction it has been going in since Amsterdam.
Sport affects all the citizens of Europe, in one way or another.
It has been estimated that a hundred million people take an active interest in it in the European Union.
Sport has many important social, cultural and, besides, very significant economic dimensions.
It is a very positive sign that the Union' s sports ministers would like a statement made at the Nice Summit that would act as an extension to the Helsinki report that came out a little under a year ago.
As the purpose is to determine those ways in which matters of sport can be taken into account in community legislation, we may speak of gradual progress made in this important area.
The agenda before us is totally acceptable.
Special attention must be paid to the system of player transfers and the protection of young sportsmen and women, the role of national sports federations, club ownership, television rights, sport' s civic work and ethical principles.
As we shape the EU' s policy on sports, we have to take account of sport' s different structures.
For that reason, I hope that non-governmental sporting organisations will continue to be heard after the Olympics meeting in 1999.
At the same time we have to remember that, although many questions that require us to take a stand are connected with the professional and commercial aspects of sport, sport and exercise have a wider significance than this with regard to individuals and society.
We have to pay attention, for example, to young people' s opportunities to take up exercise as well as issues of gender equality.
The European Parliament has often expressed its concern with regard to drugs and called for more effective action to counter their use.
It is gratifying, therefore, that the Community' s extent of involvement in WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) and in its financing is now being clarified.
This issue was discussed by Coreper on Wednesday.
It is only natural that the member of the Commission responsible for sports should represent the Union in WADA in the future.
Mr President, I would like to draw attention to the fact that the Commission already has competence in the area of sport, especially regarding the implementation of legislation on competitions.
However, the Commission has been grossly ineffective in this matter.
F1 events and, in particular, Mr Ecclestone' s work to preserve the monopoly in the field, have been looked into for years now, but no results have been forthcoming.
This is a matter of the most obvious monopoly, that of television rights, which a certain contract has ensured will continue for a hundred years.
Instead of the Commission adopting a position on this, many Commission members are mannequins for Mr Ecclestone and the motor race teams and thus contribute to establishing and upholding this monopoly.
I wish, before the Commission is granted new powers in this area, it would use those it already has.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what is happening in sport in the European Union, in particular in professional sport and, more specifically, in football, is the consequence of having a law without a policy, of having a law that no one really had any choice about.
In other words, to put it plainly, it is the consequence of an attack on democracy, however hard we try to avoid seeing it in this light.
Most of the problems that we have experienced and that have leapt into the centre of the debate, particularly following the Bosman ruling, even when they are neither directly nor indirectly connected to the content or the nature of that case, result from the frequent and sometimes glaring contradiction between on the one hand, specific types of sporting bodies and their deeply ingrained practices, and on the other, certain rules contained in the Treaties, specifically competition rules or other principles of the internal market, particularly the free movement of workers and rules of non-discrimination on grounds of nationality.
Many of these rules are amongst the oldest in the Treaties, from the Treaty of Rome onwards, despite the amendments that they have undergone.
We all know, however, that when they were originally defined, or even when amendments were added at a later date, no one, but no one, not even those drafting them or those who took the decisions, thought for a moment that a current legal framework would hang this truly imperial weight around the neck of the sporting world.
I was talking about the economy and just the economy, in the strictest sense of the word.
Not throughout society, because in all sectors we can see windows of economic opportunity.
This is what I mean when I talk about a law without a policy.
A law which was drawn up without participation, this absurd law that nobody really wanted to be like this but which has been inexcusably foisted onto everyone.
This is why it is crucial that the Treaties recognise the specific nature of sport.
Otherwise, no problem will find a satisfactory solution. Otherwise, we will continue to stand by helplessly in this situation in which it seems that the European Union and lucre are working hand in hand to put an end to sport, to distort the profound nature of sporting competition itself, to sabotage the social roots of clubs and the national fabric of its traditional organisation.
Otherwise, sport will continue to be regularly trampled upon with inexplicable legal violence by the corrosive and destructive effects of rules that were not designed for this purpose and about which in truth no one really had any choice or could vote on to any degree.
We are not seeking to meddle with fundamental rules or basic principles of Community law in the Treaties.
What we want is to be able to construct in a politically free and carefully considered way a balance which is appropriate to the specific needs of a sector which, although it is of primarily cultural value and enormous social relevance, also has other, economic, facets.
We need to be able to protect the sporting authenticity of sport itself and its social function from the exclusive control of the laws of the market. I repeat: we need to protect sport, not to abandon it.
Why should we allow the basic fabric of training within the rich tapestry of sports clubs and associations to be abused?
Why are we unable or unwilling to allow safeguards for a minimum of national identity in the professional teams that represent clubs? In sport, even in professional sport, the competition that really counts is the sporting competition itself, not just the unbridled economic competition of its agents.
Furthermore, in European sport, there is not, nor should there be a true single market.
What we have are fifteen national markets which are all different and which mirror the competitive situations in each country. This is even more true if we look at the specific case of the United Kingdom, which, together with other, equally European countries which happen to be outside the European Union, makes up the basic pool for long-established European competitions.
Now, however, what is happening is completely the opposite.
The growing inequality in wealth lays down the law and increasingly decides who wins all the trophies.
The corruption of the authenticity of long-standing tradition has cemented the tendency and the pressures of the power of money, aided kindly by a poorly understood Community legal framework, to destroy everything that is of real cultural value and impose a single market of closed leagues and a money-obsessed spirit.
I shall end with a reminder of one of the conclusions of the resolution that we voted for in September following the Mennea report: "The European Parliament invites the Intergovernmental Conference to include an explicit reference to sport in Article 151 of the Treaty, so that the European Union will, in its actions, acknowledge the cultural, economic and social phenomenon that sport represents" .
Perhaps we are still in time.
I appeal to the forthcoming IGC not to be another wasted opportunity for sport.
In particular, I urge the French Government not to reject at Nice the words and guarantees that President Chirac gave us here in July.
That concludes this item.
UK decision to impose a levy on non-British hauliers
The next item is a Commission statement on the decision by the British Government to levy a tax on non-British hauliers.
Mr President, the Commission is aware of the package of measures in the road transport sector that the UK Government announced on 8 November in response to the recent oil price increases.
One of the plans announced is the introduction of some form of road user charge such as a vignette payable by all road hauliers, British and non-British alike, for their use of the road network in the UK.
Provided that the details of its implementation respect the relevant rules, such a measure seems to be in line with current Community law which aims at the elimination of distortion of competition through the establishment of fair mechanisms for charging infrastructure costs to hauliers and at harmonisation of levy systems within the European Union.
In fact, the EU directive governing this field, which was adopted unanimously in 1993, laid down the conditions under which Member States could, if they wanted, apply user charges or motorway tolls.
Accordingly, six Member States, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden introduced a common user charge system often called the euro-vignette while Austria continued to apply its own user charge system and France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece maintained their already existing motorway toll system.
This means that by 1995 12 out of the 15 Member States had adjusted their levy systems with more emphasis on direct charging and less on taxes.
The Commission considers that such adjustments go in the right direction towards the establishment of fairer charging systems which also give an incentive for a more rational and efficient use of road networks.
The measures announced by the UK signal such a readjustment of its charging system.
However, the whole package of measures announced also includes other elements such as a reduction in the fuel taxes, similar to measures recently announced by other Member States.
All these measures are presently the subject of an examination by the Commission responsible under the EU Treaty for ensuring the consistency and coordination of national activities within the common transport policy.
The Commission is therefore expecting to receive shortly a reply to its request for detailed information on the measures planned by the UK government.
The Commission will then have to investigate, as it does in the case of all other Member States, whether or not such measures are likely to distort intra-Community competition.
Depending on the outcome of this analysis, the Commission will decide on the next course of action in fulfilling its role of assisting Member States in taking the measures which are right for them and while respecting the rights of others.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his explanation and for the fact that he came in to talk on this subject this morning.
What he said is news to me because my understanding was that the proposal was a special tax on all foreign vehicles, which we assumed was all non-UK vehicles using the roads of the United Kingdom.
I see this as a political gesture rather than as a political or fiscal measure.
My understanding is that costs in the UK, taking into account the new proposals, without this particular charge are on a par with the rest of the European Union and on a similar level to French transport costs.
Even if the Commission says that a country may introduce that charge and put the same charge on its own vehicles, I still regard it as a distortion of the single market because presumably British hauliers will apply for their tax disc and every charge will be included in the single payment that they will make.
Other users of British roads will be required to pay a special tax at the border on entry into the United Kingdom.
No matter what the Commission thinks, this is a distortion of the single market and a distortion of free trade.
This proposal is particularly hard and vexatious for Ireland.
Ireland, is obviously a very small but open market, yet most of what we buy comes from the United Kingdom.
We buy GBP 11,000 million worth of goods from Britain annually as against only GBP 7,000 million from the rest of the European Union. That shows the extent to which Irish industry and commerce favour the British market, although with the current strength of the pound sterling, this situation will not be maintained if the value of the currency does not change.
At the moment every Irish citizen buys EUR 5,000 of goods from Britain.
I believe that this measure is certainly contrary to free trade even with the improvement that has been mentioned by the Commission.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his statement and the facts that he confirmed.
It may be advantageous at this moment just to say what has actually been proposed by the UK government and also what they are proposing, bearing in mind the crisis in Britain and indeed throughout the whole of the European Union with regard to the road haulage industry.
It must be said at the outset that this is not just a specific British problem.
The proposal was put forward by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in a pre-budget statement made six months before the full budget statement made in the spring of 2001.
It contained a number of proposals, not just specifically this one on the vignette, which will effect the haulage industry.
I can assure my Irish colleagues that the vignette proposal is being made in full cognisance of the euro-vignette directive and is likely to be along similar lines to those already in place, as Commissioner Vitorino explained, in many of the present Member States of the European Union.
It is worth pointing out that at the moment lorries from the United Kingdom are faced with vignette or toll charges on roads in other EU Member States but so far such levies have not been charged within the United Kingdom.
I am sure that the United Kingdom government will be responding to the Commission's request in discussions with the Commission as well as the haulage industry to explore ways in which the vignette scheme can operate within the present euro-vignette directive.
The details of our scheme have yet to be put in place.
I understand Mr McCartin's concerns, but it seems to me that a lot of what is being said about the UK system is based not on fact but on rumour and things that are being said in the industry rather than things that have been proposed by the UK government.
I know that the UK government want to consult with hauliers and I also know that the UK government recognises the specific position of Ireland and I am sure that it will be talking to its counterparts in Dublin as well as in Belfast.
What we need to get clear today is that the UK is proposing what it is doing in full recognition that it must consult the European Union and in full recognition that there is EU legislation in place that it must abide by.
It also recognises that if it charges the euro-vignette system then it will also have to charge similar amounts to its own UK hauliers.
It recognises that whatever scheme it brings in must be non-discriminatory.
In conclusion, we are being premature in the European Parliament in holding this debate, but I welcome the fact and the statement from Commissioner Vitorino which clearly indicates that the UK government has the right to introduce a euro-vignette system provided it keeps within the rules and regulations already in place.
I believe that is what the UK government wishes.
Mr President, with great respect I have to disagree with Mr Simpson.
I do not take this debate as premature at all.
When an important proposal of this kind comes forward we, in this House, should have the chance to think about it and discuss it as early as possible, not necessarily for the last time.
Like him, however, I was very grateful to the Commissioner for the extremely clear statement of the conditions in which charges of this kind would be lawful under Community law and of the real possibility that what we are facing here is not just a dodge to get out of an awkward corner, but a proposal that will fulfil Community law.
Again, I thought that what Mr Simpson said was extremely helpful in reassuring us about the probable intentions of the UK government.
I would also like to respond to Mr McCartin's remarks.
British trade is important to Ireland but it is true the other way round as well.
For example, the economy of south west Scotland around Stranraer and Loch Ryan is heavily dependent on the traffic which comes across the north channel, the shortest crossing between the UK and Ireland.
Our people depend very heavily on that trade.
I would like to say that it would be disgraceful if we were to introduce a vignette which is supposed to support the infrastructure but do not then use it to improve the infrastructure.
The condition of the road leading from south west Scotland into the main motorway network, the A75, is disgraceful at the moment.
This might give us an opportunity at last to see a real and sustained improvement of the transport facilities which connect our two economies.
I very much hope that will be one result of this.
Mr President, taxes and tolls are obviously sensitive matters, and I can confirm this specifically on behalf of Austria where we are always having this discussion and where, of course, good traffic solutions are constantly being sought.
The Commission has already submitted an excellent Green Paper concerning fair prices on the roads, and an important principle of this Green Paper is that there should be no cross-subsidising of road hauliers and that, above all, the money collected from particular roads should be used to solve the problems on these same roads.
The Commission has also quite clearly ascertained that the greatest problem on the roads at present is accidents.
Safe and well constructed roads are an important and basic prerequisite for preventing accidents.
At present in Europe, we have approximately 50 000 deaths on the road each year.
Very many people die not least because of poor and badly signposted roads with poor visibility on which people drive with a bad mental attitude, and it costs our social systems a very great deal of money to deal with the resulting damage to people' s well-being.
Precautionary measures are therefore required in this area.
We should see to it that people are safe on the roads and, in the interests of the environment in particular, we must ensure that congestion is prevented.
Not only is a lot of time lost and high costs incurred through congestion, but it is quite a major problem for the environment in particular, and I therefore believe that, if the British government is actually investing money in solving the problems, then we all have something to gain, particularly all European citizens.
Mr President, may I first of all raise the issue of why this subject is on the agenda? I was in this House on Monday night when the agenda was agreed by this body.
The item was not agreed for the agenda.
Later on, when one of our colleagues, Mrs Doyle, raised the issue, all of a sudden the President decided that this issue should go on to the agenda.
That is not a democratic and fair way of drawing up this House's agenda.
This House draws up the agenda, not the President at the whim of one Member.
I also notice that Mrs Doyle is not here today to take part in this.
That said, I will go on to talk about the subject in question.
It is time we had a debate on the subject.
I listened to Mr McCartin earlier and it is evident he has got the wrong end of the stick.
This is not discriminating against every other driver or road haulier in Europe to the benefit of British drivers.
This applies to all road hauliers, whether they come from the UK or any other country.
That should be made quite clear.
Also, the details are yet to be fully worked out but I was quite heartened to hear the statement from the Commissioner about how it is going to be proposed and developed.
I am sure the British government will be in discussion with the Commission in applying this vignette.
I should also like to pick up on a point raised by Mr MacCormick.
He talked about the trade between Ireland and Scotland, the south west of Scotland, coming over to Stranraer and Loch Ryan.
He said that he hoped the money raised by this vignette would go towards improving the infrastructure around the south west of Scotland.
I know the south west of Scotland is part of my area and yes, the infrastructure there is not the best, it can be improved.
But can I point out to Mr MacCormick that this vignette is for the whole of the UK.
It is to improve the road structure throughout the whole of the UK.
We cannot take one small area of the UK and say that is where it is going.
It is for the whole of the UK.
That is a point we should be making quite clearly.
On the first point you made, Mr Miller, this proposal was put to the House by the President and it was the House which agreed to the change to today's agenda.
Mr President, like a number of Members in the chamber this morning I come from rip-off Britain.
We are more or less the only oil producers in the European Union and yet we face the highest petrol prices, the highest diesel prices of any country in Europe - GBP 1.20 a litre for diesel is paid in the United Kingdom.
Vehicle excise duties are eight times the French level in the UK, so one should not be too surprised that in Britain there is a great deal of concern.
As a British driver, when I go on French motorways I must pay French tolls.
I might say that by the time I have arrived at Calais, having driven from Strasbourg, I feel I own the French motorway system, so expensive are those tolls.
I drove in Austria in the summer and paid the Austrian vignette which seemed to me to be perfectly fair and reasonable and a much more agreeable price than one pays on French motorways.
My objection to this proposal is not that it is unfair.
At long last the British government has come up with a reasonable solution. We in my party proposed it two years ago.
The present British government has allowed the situation to get out of hand and it is rather late in the day for them to come up with this proposal which will probably take another two years to come into effect.
If they do bring it into effect, we want to see them really pass the benefits on to the British road-users.
Mr President, now we have vignettes dotted all over Europe and tolls in some other countries, would you agree with me that the euro-vignette system is not a very good single market system.
The local haulier in Denmark or in the UK will get his full money's worth 365 days a year, but the foreign haulier from another Member State entering that country - maybe for one or two days or ten days or even 100 days - will not.
He is paying over the odds for his vignette unless there is some special dispensation on a per diem basis.
Would it not be better now that we have arrived at this stage to think of maybe having a mutual recognition system, so that a vignette in one country is recognised in other countries, giving a real euro-vignette system works?
The Commission should consider coming forward with proposals in order to provide for a common system throughout Europe.
I would like to turn now to my friend Mr McCartin.
I agree that Irish trucks have a special case.
They are compelled by geography to pass through the UK just as British trucks are compelled to pass through the Netherlands, Belgium and France to get around the European Union.
The best thing the UK could do to help the Irish and to help the Scottish is to improve the very inferior British motorway system on which we depend to get to our markets.
Yes, the Stranraer-Carlisle road is an absolute disgrace.
But it is also difficult getting round Birmingham, getting around London, getting to the Channel Tunnel and to the channel ports.
The best thing the British could do with this extra money is to improve our system in the hope of improving UK-Irish friendship and relations.
That concludes this item.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 11.05 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 17 November 2000.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, like all of you, I am sure, I would have liked to have been able to open this part-session without having to announce further news of the latest victims of ETA terrorism.
Unfortunately, our democracies have been sent a new message of violence in the form of the particularly heinous murder of Ernest Lluch.
On 22 November, the very day of the 25th anniversary of the coronation of King Juan Carlos, which paved the way to democracy in Spain, one of the key figures in this democracy has, in turn, paid with his life for his belief in freedom, tolerance and respect for the rights of others.
He was Health Minister for your country in your government, Mr Barón Crespo.
In the 1960s, you fought together, Mr Colom i Naval, for democracy in Spain.
Known as a key player in the Spanish transition to democracy and for his contribution to Catalonia' s autonomous status, loved for his warmth, respected for his qualities as a politician and a great academic, Ernest Lluch was targeted by his murderers purely because of his dedication to the rule of law.
I should like to express my deepest sympathy to his family and friends and to all those in Spain who believe in the strength of democracy.
Approximately a million Spanish citizens, of all political persuasions, have stood up to protest against this despicable murder.
The European Parliament has a duty to let them know that we stand with them, and so I propose, once again, that we observe a minute' s silence to express our solidarity and deep feeling.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 17 November have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
There are none.
(The Minutes were approved)
We shall deal with procedural motions after the debate on the Nice Summit, as you have requested.
You are aware that we have a very full agenda and I have therefore taken this decision by virtue of the powers accorded me under the Rules of Procedure in order to ensure the smooth running of parliamentary business.
So please keep them safe until then.
Madam President, I must protest against this decision, on the grounds that procedural motions can be made for very important, very serious reasons.
This is not an appropriate way of proceeding.
Last time you put this item off until after the agenda was established.
That was bad enough. Now, you might as well put it off until after the explanations of votes.
You are perfectly entitled to do so pursuant to Rule 18, but it must not be thought that procedural motions have nothing to do with the specific, topical issues which the Members wish to raise at the beginning of a sitting, and it is important that Parliament should hear them.
Let me register my protest against this decision.
This has been noted, Mr Dell' Alba.
Agenda
Madam President, I totally support this proposal since I was one of those who asked for this item to be entered.
On many occasions Parliament has expressed itself in favour of a firm stand on the Kyoto commitments.
I therefore feel that the European delegation at the Conference in The Hague was right to adopt this hard line. Now, however, we must, as a matter of urgency, work on a new draft declaration.
I therefore think that we must proceed in the way you have suggested, until there is a resolution followed by a vote at our December part-session in Strasbourg.
(Parliament gave its assent to the proposal)
Welcome
The Hague Conference on Climate Change
The next item is the Commission statement on the Conference on Climate Change in The Hague. I shall immediately give the floor to Mrs Wallström to speak on behalf of the Commission.
Madam President, first of all, I should like to say to the Commission that it has done its job well.
It is my wish that the European Union will continue to speak with one voice at the forthcoming international gatherings, and I consider it utterly futile to spend our time now apportioning blame to individual ministers.
That will get us nowhere.
We know that the failure of this conference is not the end of what has been a very lengthy and highly complex process; the process will continue.
However, we must ask ourselves where improvements can be made.
The first point, which I also frame as a question to the Commission, is whether this method we have chosen here, with conferences at which representatives of 180 nations have to agree on a joint document, does not ask too much of us, especially when time is pressing towards the end and the differences between the main parties have not yet been settled. Is it not time that this issue was dealt with by the U.S. and European Heads of State and Government at the G7 summits?
Secondly, this does not mean that I aim to give us such an easy time.
When we point the finger at the Americans, we must not forget that a number of fingers are pointed back at us.
It is not as if we Europeans had all done our homework.
CO2 emissions are on the increase here too; we know that, and we have discussed it often enough.
The question is whether we actually need a global convention before we can start to reduce our own emissions. May I remind the Commission of its communication on emissions trading and on the conference in The Hague, in which it spoke of being able, in certain circumstances, to present a draft directive in which the quotas agreed by the environment ministers in 1998 would be prescribed and in which sanctions would be laid down for quota violations.
My question is this: are you willing to do that, to present such an instrument, even though we have not completed the Kyoto process? Is there actually anything to stop us introducing emissions trading in the European Union in the year 2005, now that a number of countries have already made a start on emissions trading within their national borders?
My final comment is that I find it right and proper that you have remained firm on the issue of "sinks" , primarily because it is extremely difficult to measure "sinks" accurately.
We were supposed to bring home measurable results, by which I mean physically measurable results, but that aim has not been compatible with the Americans' position.
Madam President, these negotiations were always going to be hard but Commission officials believed that a deal would be done at the end of the day because political leaders across the world simply had too much to lose by returning home empty-handed.
It is a matter of huge disappointment that agreement was not reached and I very much regret that the end of the convention was marred by a dispute between Britain' s Deputy Prime Minister and the French Presidency over the compromise proposals he put forward.
The fact that after Mr Prescott' s rather noisy departure, the Americans tabled new proposals, which came closer to the EU position, demonstrates that the French Presidency was right to hold firm.
We were getting closer, but sadly time ran out.
The fear is that the momentum has been lost and the American negotiators will change and we start afresh in May.
The disagreement within Europe is all the more regrettable because my overriding impression of the convention was of a European Union negotiating as a closely-knit team, from a position which crossed party lines and united Member States behind shared principles, a shared outlook and a shared sense of anger at the refusal of the Americans to face up to their responsibilities as the world' s largest emitters of greenhouse gases.
From all we have heard, we must assume that the US Senate will not ratify the Kyoto protocol, however hard we compromise.
Therefore, we must give greater priority to bringing in and gaining the support of nations elsewhere, to getting emissions trading up and running, and to taking real action to reduce global warming gases in this Union.
Let us hope we get agreement in May; in the meantime let Europe take the lead.
The USA remains of great importance.
Money talks in American politics more than it does within our Union.
US industry and the oil companies are telling their politicians that they must reject the Kyoto protocol, whatever the American public say.
My question to the Commissioner is this: How can we persuade American industry that it is in their commercial interests to support the protocol, so that they pull purse strings and pull the American politicians into line? How do we drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st century with all its problems?
Madam President, the conference on the world climate may have broken down but substantial progress was made nonetheless.
Nuclear energy has no chance of making a comeback.
The developing countries said: if you northern countries are going to stop using nuclear energy then we do not want it either, not even if it is subsidised.
Progress was also made in the field of enforcement.
The developing countries are to receive USD 1 billion after 2005.
If the clean development mechanism starts working then they will receive between USD 5 billion and USD 25 billion in addition, annually.
President Pronk acquitted himself well as far as the developing countries are concerned but his compromise was lacking in terms of environmental issues.
The forests proved to be the major stumbling block this time round.
Three years ago, in Kyoto, the United States wanted to use Russia as a means of getting round having to take any measures in their own country.
Now the Clinton administration wanted the cheapest measures, i.e. to allow forests to grow.
Of course forests eat up CO2 but once they are fully grown this no longer happens.
Besides, forests burn down, which is happening increasingly often.
The solution must be found in energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy.
The negotiators working on behalf of the European Union certainly wanted to leave quite a lot of leeway for forests, but no more than 20% of all measures to be adopted.
Prescott' s deal, whereby the United States would be allowed to emit 1/3 via forests, 1/3 via hot air and 1/3 via CDM, was a poor and unacceptable deal.
Fortunately, 14 of the 15 Ministers for the Environment were of the same mind on this issue.
But we must press on, and equality must be incorporated in Bonn, in May 2001.
Every citizen of the world has an equal right to CO2-emission, i.e. the Americans do not have the right to emit 200 times as much as the Africans.
Only if equality is incorporated will the developing countries start to participate in the fight against climate change after 2012.
In order to stabilise the climate on the basis of equality, the United States will have to cut back on their emissions by 90% and the European Union will have to cut back by 80%.
China will then have to stabilise its emissions, and then India will be allowed to double its emissions.
There needs to be a breakthrough in May next year, without the United States if need be.
The Kyoto Protocol can, and must, be ratified, even without the United States.
I hope we will come to see the wisdom of this.
Madam President, industry and transport cause the earth' s atmosphere to warm up artificially.
If this global warming continues, then part of the territory of the EU Member States will become sea or desert.
We will need to drastically alter our economy if we are to keep the world and Europe habitable on a permanent basis.
Parliament has recently pronounced itself in favour of a number of steps that will take us in the right direction.
The European position during the climate conference, which ended - and evidently broke down - in The Hague last Saturday, was characterised by two sharply conflicting views.
One view is that we should stick closely to the 1997 agreements in order to reduce emissions by a generous 5%, as compared with 1990.
It is felt that we should now honour the Kyoto commitments already entered into, and that a willingness to compromise with America represents a betrayal of Europe' s commitment.
The other view is that the Kyoto obligations have never been feasible because there is too much opposition from America, Japan, and Australia, and the only way to reach an international agreement now, would be to reduce their commitments to take action.
Creative accountancy would enable us to give the impression that they have already fulfilled a substantial number of their obligations.
The European Union made an error of judgement where the second view is concerned, because the green Environment Ministers of France and Germany were not prepared to forget Kyoto.
We will still need to find a compromise of this kind at the follow-up conference due to take place in May 2001, in Bonn.
My group favours the first view.
It is important for Europe to stick with a position taken up previously, even though it means that the United States will not be in a position to subscribe to an agreement of this kind for the period of the Bush administration.
Taking the long-term view, it is important that we convince the American public of the dangers of the do-nothing option, rather than agreeing a compromise with our opponents.
The United States produce the largest amount of pollution per capita.
As yet, American public opinion has not given a great deal of credence to the notion that the deserts will expand and there will be an increase in hurricanes.
They have a high standard of living over there and the price of petroleum products is low.
The people feel that any actual changes will be to the detriment of industry and consumers.
It is therefore unlikely that an international agreement would now be able to gain approval from the US Congress.
Finally, the Third World is only in the very early stages of industrialisation.
Poverty has forced these countries to sell their CO2 emission rights to rich countries, which want to use them to reduce their own obligations.
At the end of the day, these countries will not give up their rights to progress.
The emission of greenhouse gases will increase dramatically as a result.
That is why we need to keep these realities in mind in the follow-up to the climate conference.
A compromise cannot mean forgetting what was agreed in Kyoto.
Madam President, I am extremely disappointed, like the vast majority of the House and the previous speakers, that the UN world climate change summit was not a success in The Hague.
It is regrettable that the participants did not reach an agreement on how best to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the future.
The Kyoto accord of three years ago set out a timetable for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
This Kyoto protocol must not be watered down under any circumstances.
In fact, the opposite is the case.
The industrialised world in particular may have to set even stricter limits for the reduction of greenhouse gases in the future, if we are to ensure that the impact of global warming is to be arrested and ultimately controlled.
The challenge facing us in the issue of climate change is clearly one of the greatest challenges in the 21st century, if we are all to have a planet to live on in the future.
If we do not address this issue in a structured and streamlined manner, then global warming will increase, with serious side-effects for land, marine and aerial environments, not to mention human life.
It has already been said that the next meeting to discuss the issue of the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions will take place in Bonn, which will coincide with a publication by the United Nations intergovernmental panel on climate change.
This panel is made up of some 3,000 scientists from all around the world who will give their assessment as to what measures are needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Environment Committee of this Parliament has been at the forefront in addressing the issue of climate change in the past.
We are walking closely with the Commissioner for the environment, Mrs Wallström, on a number of EU regulations and directives, which will help control greenhouse gases in the European Union.
The European Union must take a lead in this matter.
The Environment Committee and Parliament have set a good example in the past as to how we should collectively address the issue of greenhouse gas reductions in the future.
We must continue with vigour and determination in the future on this issue.
Future generations will pay a price for our inactivity in this very important subject.
I compliment Commissioner Wallström on her efforts in The Hague and wish her more success.
Madam President, we too were very disappointed that the Conference on Climate Change in The Hague broke down.
Any discussion as to where the blame lies leads all too easily to the United States being singled out for criticism.
As I see it, the fact that no agreement was reached was ultimately down to the intransigence of the European Union.
The discussion in The Hague focused mainly on the question as to what exactly can be taken into account as regards the reductions agreed in Kyoto.
In October we were able, during the discussion of the proposal concerning trade in emissions, to opt for efficient and effective ways of reducing emissions.
Unfortunately, Parliament failed to make a clear choice at the time.
As far as the 50% is concerned, I feel I must point out that this objective should never be the be all and end all.
If we could reach an agreement with the United States which allows them to work towards a lower realisation percentage in their own country, this would always be preferable to having no agreement at all.
The same applies to the partial inclusion of the CO2 sinks, such as the additional planting of forests.
Although I do not have a good word to say about the US stance, one thing I do know is that the United States were prepared to achieve an acceptable compromise at the end of the conference.
The intransigence of the European Union, led by the French Minister for the Environment, Mrs Voynet, stood in the way of a potential agreement.
Some people value the European Union' s stance because they stuck to their guns.
In reality, the chances of reaching agreement in the future are slimmer, which means that an effective strategy for tackling the climate problem is an even more remote prospect.
Madam President, I share the honourable Members' intense disappointment at the outcome of the Conference in The Hague, which is effectively an outright failure.
I should not, however, like to enter into personal squabbles, and I think we should refrain from that sort of completely negative discussion.
I should like to congratulate the Commission, and Mrs Wallström, on keeping to the commitments it had always made towards reducing emissions, including among others greenhouse gas emissions.
Without doubt, it was better to have no agreement at all than a poor one and it is true that, in this instance, the American proposal was a third-rate proposal, and one which was completely unacceptable to Europe.
In any case, an agreement can only be accepted and acceptable if there is a balance between North and South, between developing countries and industrialised countries.
I am already extremely concerned about resorting to the right to pollute. In my opinion, this can only hinder the economic development of countries that are already extremely underdeveloped.
The United States' position, resorting to the idea of forests being carbon sinks, is unacceptable, for, then, no one would make any effort.
We must reject these American diktats.
This situation highlights the limitation of a Europe which, with its rotation of presidencies, does not have a strong political image to present to the United States and does not speak with a single voice.
It also clearly highlights, once again, the desperate need to reform the European institutions and the way they operate.
When will we have a President of the European Union that is strong and capable alone of representing Europe with regard to our partners?
Let us conclude, however, on a hopeful note.
The Conference in The Hague is to be resumed, as you have informed us, Commissioner, next spring in Bonn.
You may count on our support, Commissioner, so we might be able to stand up to the United States and take up the gauntlet.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let us not beat about the bush, the climate conference in The Hague was a flop, which is disappointing because it is becoming increasingly apparent that climate change is happening much faster than anticipated.
Therefore the world needs a powerful political signal.
Kyoto must not remain an empty promise.
The failure of the climate conference sends out the wrong signal to the public.
Many people will start thinking that the climate problems are not all that bad if those involved in the international politics of it are content not to do anything.
This would also undermine the level of support for sustainable energy and energy efficiency.
Climate change has a huge impact on the developing countries.
Countries such as India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand have to contend with floods that affect millions of people.
We set great store by the 'polluter pays' principle, but hitherto, it has been the third world countries themselves that have been saddled with the bill and adapting to climate change.
This is unacceptable to my mind.
Commissioner, the statements on the failure of the climate conference were lacking in credibility.
The negotiators declared afterwards that an agreement had been within reach.
They said there was no shortage of political will, the parties moved closer to each other' s positions, and demonstrated increased understanding of each other' s cultures.
Unfortunately though, they ran out of time.
I do not find that very credible.
Behind all the fine words lurks political impotence.
The European Union is going to have to carefully assess its own role.
It is not enough to blame the United States or to complain about the lack of flexibility shown by others.
We have repeatedly said ourselves that no agreement is better than a bad agreement, but that does not mean that we should make our own political wish list the yardstick of a sound agreement.
The climate conference will resume in the spring.
So now we must look to the future.
Commissioner, I would like to thank you for the cooperation we have enjoyed.
Finally, I would like to put three questions to you.
Firstly, how would you yourself assess the European Union' s stance, and what practical lessons would you draw from the failure of the conference? Secondly, how do you intend to proceed in the coming months?
Will you enter into debate with the United States over the forest problem and the scientific issues and lack of clarity that are still at large in this respect? Thirdly, which aspects do you think the EU should make more concessions on?
Personally, I feel we could probably moderate our demands somewhat on the point of supplementarity. Your opinion on this would be much appreciated, and I thank you for your attention.
Madam President, thank you, Commissioner Wallström, for your intervention.
I think the EU successfully kept its act together, apart perhaps from in the last critical hours.
Clearly, however, there are many losers following a conference of this kind.
I think that we, as politicians, have lost out because we have sent a very bad signal to a great many committed people by failing to reach an agreement.
Secondly, I think that the section of commerce and industry which looks seriously at this problem and which would like to have some ground rules has also lost out.
Therefore, it is, of course, incredibly important for there to be another conference soon.
I think the EU was right not to give way on carbon sinks.
This is not just because of the difficulties of verification and measurement but also because more and more researchers maintain - whether rightly or wrongly, I do not know - that today' s carbon sinks may well be tomorrow' s carbon sources.
Or, to put it another way: forests stop being carbon sinks and become carbon sources.
If that is the case, then it would obviously be extremely risky to add this to the equation at the present stage, when it is still so difficult to come up with definitions.
I should prefer to say, Commissioner, that, in the ongoing dialogue with the Americans, it would be better to be more generous when it comes to emissions trading in general than to introduce something which is extremely difficult to substantiate on the basis purely of research.
I was a part of the parliamentary delegation.
We had a meeting with a number of American Members of Congress.
I was quite alarmed at the arrogance and ignorance shown by the Americans.
I got the feeling that they do not want to ratify the Kyoto protocol under any circumstances.
One conclusion I came to is that we need more in the way of transatlantic dialogue on these issues - not only dialogue between governments and the Commission but also, and especially, between Members of Congress.
That is perhaps something which we in the European Parliament can help bring about.
Finally, a question: even if a conference in May were not to succeed, is the Commissioner prepared to go further, to be in the vanguard, take the lead and recommend ratification by the EU?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as Chairman of the European Parliament delegation to COP­VI, I wish to begin by expressing my pleasure at the excellent relationship that has developed between the Commission and Parliament over this last week.
If there is one area in which there has been no lack of unity, it is in this relationship.
I am bound to regret the fact, however, that the will of some ministers of the 15 Member States has been directed more towards racing to attend press conferences than creating a genuine spirit of unity that will guarantee a global policy on climate change.
Madam President, we knew that this COP­VI would be of particularly great importance: it represented abandoning the stage of discussion in which we had been stuck since 1992 and moving on towards action.
Since we were not able to reach an agreement, we failed in our objective of moving on towards action.
To put it frankly, if we have to make an assessment of what took place, we could say that out of the three parties participating in the Conference, only one tried to reach an agreement and tried to achieve a global policy on climate change, and that was the European Union.
The United States - but let us also state quite clearly that it was the entire "umbrella group" - concocted a whole series of excuses for not reaching any type of agreement at COP­VI, in The Hague.
By May, by Bonn, the European Union must take action on two fronts: firstly through diplomacy, since the scenario that the United States will ratify the agreement is the least likely, and so diplomatic action must be developed with the other members of the umbrella group.
Secondly, we must act within the Union in order to guarantee our credibility.
Only if we have this credibility will the European Union be able to lead the debate and the action at COP­VI "B" in Bonn.
Many thanks both to the Commissioner and to the Members of the House.
The debate is closed.
Preparation of Nice European Council and trade policy
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the preparation of the Nice European Council from 7 to 9 December 2000, including trade policy.
We are pleased to welcome Mr Hubert Védrine.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have the floor.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell the House about the Presidency' s preparations for the Nice European Council.
There are some very important items on the agenda but even so they far from reflect all the work that has been done and all the results that have already been obtained during the last six months.
The European Council will, naturally, only be asked to deal with issues which cannot be dealt with at any other level, primarily institutional reform, and to provide the general political guidelines and impetus.
The President of the Republic himself is coming here on 12 December to present a report on the Presidency.
The major issue facing the members of the European Council at Nice will clearly be the reform of the institutions and the finalisation of what we all hope will become the Treaty of Nice.
Before the European Council, Pierre Moscovici and I will still be holding a Ministerial Conclave, next Sunday, to which I have invited Mr Brok and Mr Tsatsos, as well as a session of the IGC, on Monday at the General Affairs Council.
We will then get a more precise picture of how the negotiations are progressing in their final phase, on the eve of Nice.
I hope we will have a full exchange of views with the President of Parliament at that time.
So today I will just be bringing you up to date on the main issues under discussion.
Real progress on qualified majority and enhanced cooperation was made at the informal European Council of Biarritz.
There was also a beneficial clarification of the issues around the Commission and the weighting of votes, allowing each Member State to get a better idea of the objectives and difficulties of the others.
Pierre Moscovici reported to you on that on 24 October.
We have been building on that foundation over the last few weeks taking all the points of view into account with a view to arriving at a compromise, but keeping our sights set on an ambitious agreement at Nice.
We sometimes hear the Presidency accused of lacking ambition; there are no grounds for saying that today.
That is clearly demonstrated by the texts submitted to the IGC, despite the extreme difficulty of the subject matter, and I really do sense a genuine determination to succeed on the part of the Fifteen.
Good progress has been made on qualified majority voting, which could be extended to another thirty areas, if some Member States make the effort to confirm this.
Some countries still have major problems regarding the coordination of social security systems, tax, asylum, visa and immigration matters and trade negotiations on services - a very important issue.
But we will approach Nice with a positive attitude, determined to make progress as many aspects of these sensitive issues as possible.
The role of the European Parliament is naturally one of the important elements in the debate.
In many areas where qualified majority voting would be introduced the move to codecision already has majority support, and that goes a long way towards meeting your expectations.
The Fifteen are now close to agreement on making enhanced cooperation more flexible.
You discussed this on 24 October, and on several points the Intergovernmental Conference is reaching solutions close to those advocated by Parliament.
The minimum number of participating Member States should be set at eight while the clause allowing appeal to the European Council, which currently constitutes a real right of veto, would be replaced by a power of retrieval.
Parliament has made proposals on its role in triggering enhanced cooperation in the Community sphere. These will be discussed.
As regards the CFSP, several Member States have emphasised its specific nature which, in their view, warrants special mechanisms, and they have been stressing that particularly in the last few days.
We will be discussing this at next Sunday' s conclave.
On the Commission, two options were on the table at Biarritz: capping the number of Commissioners, or a Commission made up of one representative from each Member State.
But a third solution has emerged from the negotiations which might allow everyone' s concerns to be taken into account.
This would involve setting a ceiling on the Commission, to come into play once enlargement reaches a certain numerical level.
That ceiling would be linked to a system of equal rotation.
This at least provides a serious avenue to be explored in Nice, one that still remains to be defined and clarified but on which a clear majority of the delegations is ready to work.
Progress has also been made on increasing the powers of the President of the Commission and a possible increase in the number of Vice-Presidents.
Finally on the weighting of votes in the Council, there are also two main options on the table since the Biarritz declaration: either a double majority or a simple reweighting.
There is perceptible movement - I say that with caution because several Member States may not yet have determined their final position - but support has begun to emerge for a simple reweighting whose exact scope and conditions remain to be defined, of course.
Several scenarios have been considered and studies carried out.
It will be up to the European Council to decide.
Let me add that we have not yet reached agreement on the distribution of seats in the European Parliament.
Your own proposal has obviously been submitted by the Presidency and is one of the two options on the table.
There too, a solution will have to be found at Nice.
To end this brief report on the negotiations, we have also made good progress on strengthening Article 7 of the Treaty which should in future provide for an early warning system in the event of a threatened violation of the European Union' s fundamental principles.
On the other hand, the idea of a reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights in Article 6, championed by the European Parliament in its recommendation of 14 November, and placed on the table at the IGC by the French Presidency, was vigorously rejected by several Member States.
Some even asserted that such a reference would jeopardise the Charter' s proclamation.
It may be regrettable, but I have to recognise the position.
Finally, a word on the Court of Justice.
The work is almost complete.
All the delegations agree on giving the European Parliament the possibility of seeking the Court' s opinion on a draft international agreement.
On the other hand, even though the Presidency has also proposed extending to Parliament the right of appeal to the Court under Article 230, several delegations are against that at this stage.
I want to be as objective as possible about the situation before this very important Council.
In Nice, as you know, our aim is to achieve a good agreement, which naturally means compromise, but compromise that is constructive, not regressive.
At Nice, the Heads of State and Government and the ministers will devote all the time that is necessary to that discussion.
They have even arranged for the Council to continue through Sunday if that is absolutely essential.
Finding an agreement which will enable the Union to operate after the new accessions currently in active preparation is vital for the future of the European Union and indeed the enlarged Union.
The Nice European Council will also be tackling other major issues on which the French Presidency has worked with a great deal of determination.
First, the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I am glad the European Parliament approved the Convention' s draft by a large majority. It was also accepted by the Heads of State and Government in Biarritz.
The conditions are now in place for the proclamation of this Charter by the three institutions at Nice.
We will therefore have fulfilled the mandate laid down by the Cologne European Council and the European Union will have at its disposal a very strong benchmark, clearly setting out the rights and values in which it believes.
The discussion on a possible legal status for this Charter will be pursued after Nice and could form part of a broader, longer term debate on the future of the European Union.
The European Council will also discuss the state of progress of the accession negotiations and hence of the enlargement.
You yourselves debated this on 3 October.
As you know, back in July, the French Presidency asked the Commission to step up the accession negotiations and move forward to the crucial issues, the heart of the matter, the problem areas, and prepare a detailed assessment of each candidate' s state of preparedness, the progress of all the negotiations and problems still to be resolved by and for each country.
Our objective was to prepare an overview of the process and decide how to take it forward from this point.
At the General Affairs Council of 20 November we had a very good debate based on the excellent documents the Commission had forwarded to the Council.
I think the stepping up of the negotiations has been widely welcomed and at the next General Affairs Council, and then at the European Council, we will be able to adopt a clear and ambitious line for the continuation of the discussions on the basis of the principles set in Helsinki, which should lead directly to the desired outcome.
At Nice, the European Council will be preceded by a summit meeting of the European Conference.
A meeting of that conference has just taken place at ministerial level, at Sochaux.
At the Nice meeting there will be an exchange of views with all the candidate countries on the reform of the European Union' s institutions, and more generally on the outlook for the future of Europe.
Your President is invited, of course.
By bringing the existing Member States of the European Union and the countries which will eventually belong to it together around one table, I believe the European Conference plays a unique and valuable role.
I hope we can profit from it even more in the future, notably by opening it up to other European countries.
A brief mention of the European defence system: some important decisions will be submitted to the European Council, but I will come back to that later, in the debate on Mrs Lalumière' s report.
Finally, the Nice European Council will reflect the priority the French Presidency accords to economic and social issues and all the issues where the European Union can really respond to the concerns of Europeans.
The many statements the Presidency has presented before Parliament have clearly demonstrated this priority.
Several goals had in fact already been set under the Portuguese Presidency, in Lisbon and Feira. They should be fulfilled, in economic terms, by building on the efforts to make the European Union give greater priority to growth and employment.
The Lisbon European Council approved guidelines designed to promote an innovative and competitive European economy.
The aim was, in particular, to enrich the broad economic policy guidelines and ensure better coordination with the employment guidelines.
So a report will be passed to the European Council which will finalise the definition of performance indicators in spheres such as employment, innovation, economic reform and social cohesion.
Similarly, employment guidelines are to be forwarded to the European Council together with an Autumn 2000 employment package.
As you know, last Monday the Ecofin Council reached a decisive agreement on fiscal harmonisation.
These matters had been under discussion for several months, not to say several years, arousing strong reservations on the part of some Member States.
So this is a very important step forward by the whole Fifteen, and the European Council will certainly take formal note of it.
The development of Europe' s social dimension is a vital complement to the considerable advances on the economic front.
In this sphere, following on from Lisbon, the French Presidency made the adoption of the social agenda one of its priorities.
The Presidency invited all the institutions concerned - this Parliament, but equally the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, European social partners and the intergovernmental organisations - to contribute to drawing up this agenda.
This social agenda, largely inspired by a Commission communication, was approved yesterday by the Employment and Social Affairs Council.
This has been a good week for working conditions in Europe.
The social agenda draws together the objectives and initiatives which need to be taken over the next five to ten years, particularly in the areas of labour law, social protection, social mobility, lifelong training, and the fight against discrimination and exclusion.
It will be forwarded to Nice, where we naturally hope it will be endorsed.
The protection of employees' rights and improvement of their working conditions have also been high on the French Presidency' s agenda.
The European Council will thus be informed of the state of progress of the negotiations on the directive on the information and consultation of workers, and on the European company project, assuming these issues have not already been settled by then, as unfortunately they are running into persistent opposition.
Following on from Lisbon, the French Presidency had also set itself the objective of strengthening Europe' s knowledge-based society.
Here the Council has approved a plan of action to remove obstacles to the mobility of students, teachers and researchers.
This action plan will also be forwarded to the Nice European Council. So you can see that I am certainly not exaggerating when I say we have an important agenda and a very full agenda for the Nice Council.
Moreover, on the basis of the Feira conclusions for the implementation of a Commission Action Plan "e-Europe 2002 - an information society for all" , the Council has worked on progress indicators.
A report on the measures the Presidency has taken in this area will be presented to the European Council in Nice.
Consumer protection is an increasing concern for Europeans, for obvious reasons which I need not expand upon.
The French Presidency set itself the objective of improving the definition of the precautionary principle.
A group was therefore set up at the beginning of the presidency' s term in order to work on this.
The resulting resolution will be examined tomorrow by the Internal Market Council, again with a view to the Nice Council.
Current events mean that the subject of food safety and, in particular, the establishment of an independent European food agency will be discussed extensively by the Heads of State and Government in Nice.
Another increasing source of concern for Europeans, related to the development of maritime traffic and the occasional disadvantages arising form this, is the safety of maritime transport.
A first package of measures was approved at the October Transport Council.
The Biarritz European Council took note of the Commission report on the necessary additional measures.
I know that the European Parliament is working on the first package.
You know, moreover, the importance which Member States attach to adopting texts quickly.
Without prejudice to Parliament' s prerogatives, the Presidency has in addition called for the implementation of these measures to be brought forward, where possible.
This entire area must be given fresh political impetus in Nice with a view to the final Transport Council on 20 and 21 December, for it is true that the French Presidency does not come to an end in Nice.
The French Presidency wished to support the updating of the Commission' s 1996 communication on the services of general economic interest with some consideration of the place of public services or, to use the accepted term, general interest services in Europe.
The Presidency wanted to restate the basic principles governing the Community' s approach in this area, including primarily the freedom of Member States to define and organise their own public services while respecting the rules of the Treaty.
These principles will be highlighted in a statement which the Presidency wishes to annex to the Nice conclusions.
Finally, we have prepared a statement for the European Council on the specific economic, social and cultural characteristics of sport and its social functions in Europe.
You can see that we have a very full discussion programme for Nice.
Your President will naturally have the opportunity to express the views of your institution on all these subjects and to discuss them with the Heads of State and Government.
I agree totally with the sentiment of President Prodi that this is an historic opportunity and one that should not be lost.
The Summit at Nice bears a responsibility for Europe and should in part fulfil a contract which we made at Helsinki last December and which we should deliver on.
Two things were said at Helsinki to candidate states in Europe.
Two locks were placed on the door of enlargement.
One was that those candidate states themselves must adopt and implement the 'acquis communautaire'; that is their task shared with us.
The second lock on the door is that we ourselves, as fifteen, needed to recognise the fundamental need to reform how we do business in order to continue to do business effectively, indeed to begin to do business even more effectively than at present.
That is the unavoidable and minimum requirement of Nice and it is a major and central target.
We in this Parliament will be required at the end of that process to give or not to give our assent.
It is a major responsibility.
I speak for a group which is totally committed to the earliest feasible enlargement of the European Union.
I also say that we will listen with great care to what Mr Prodi and the Commission say by way of analysis of the Nice Treaty and to the candour which he promises.
We ourselves will go through a very candid analysis.
My appeal to you, Mr President-in-Office, is to present us in this Parliament a document worthy of this Parliament's assent and a document worthy of the scale of the historic challenge we face in Europe.
That challenge is the reunification of our old continent; that challenge is an enlargement unparalleled in scale and that is what Nice must prepare us for.
To do less than that is to fail Europe and this House, when it reviews Nice, cannot allow Europe to fail.
I should like to say, with regard to a number of the specific points, that my group believes that, at this stage of evolution of the European Union, having one national for each Member State of the Commission still remains a sensible proposition and enhances the legitimacy of the Union.
It should not become an issue which traduces the Union into a false contest between the interests of the large and the small, when the common European interest should be the central goal.
My group, at this stage, would prefer a reweighting of votes, the double majority, but you have explained that other issues are under review.
We support enhanced cooperation but insist that it must be open-ended and open to all and not exclusive and must be based and rooted in a way which respects the 'acquis communautaire'.
We are deeply attached to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and we do not want simply to declaim the Charter.
If we proclaim it as something with meaning, it must find roots, and we still commend to you to root it in Article 6.
We commend to you to give the proclamation a meaning in substance, even if it is not yet fully and completely in such a case judiciable.
We support the review of Article 7 because the Austrian lesson has taught the need of it.
Nice is a test to see if our old continent is ready for a new, continental-scale enlargement.
I believe that we can succeed but, Mr President-in-Office, we need your Presidency to mobilise the Council for Europe by animating the Nice Council to achieve something which is genuinely historic.
There should not merely be constructive compromise, those were your words, there must be significant achievement.
We will set the bar high and I hope together, Council, Commission and Parliament, we can clear that bar.
I say this today, if the bar is compromised and is too low, we will refuse to consider it and we will do so for Europe and we will do it in good conscience.
Madam President, the most important aim of the Nice Summit is enlargement of the European Union and the EU' s preparation for this enlargement.
I might also add, on behalf of my group, that we are fully committed to enlargement taking place as soon as possible.
However, it is important at this stage to discuss what is to happen post-Nice.
For this we need vision, and this vision has been expressed over the last few months.
Our group strongly supports constitutionalising the European Union Treaties, and this also means that the reform of the Treaties should be open, with civil society being able to participate in this process.
We consider the Charter of Fundamental Rights to be a success.
It certainly could have been worded better, and, indeed, it can be honed and polished after Nice.
No doubt in time it will come to form a part of the European Union' s constitution.
But we wish there were at least a reference to it in Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union, as our citizens should be already benefiting from this Charter.
As regards decisions that are at present closer to us, we cannot emphasise enough the importance of qualified majority decisions.
The Nice Summit cannot succeed unless the system of qualified majority voting is extended.
It is very important that the European Parliament is closely involved in the codecision procedure, as, otherwise, it will be even more difficult than before to decide on legislation.
The European Parliament will bring transparency to this decision-making process.
Let us take the example of environment taxation.
In our discussions on climate policy we often criticise the United States of America for not wanting to compromise its sovereignty and enter into international agreements on climate protection, but there are Member States among us which also insist on keeping what they imagine is their sovereignty intact, and which do not wish to switch to a system of qualified majority decisions, for example, in the matter of environmental taxation.
We have to break free from this.
President Prodi spoke on the subject of trade policy.
We all certainly want the European Union to have a strong role in the globalising world, but, Mr Prodi, our group sees trade policy becoming open and transparent as a precondition to the Commission having more powers, and, at present, that is not the case.
Finally, I would also like to say that it is important at present to ensure that the European Union does not become a community just for the big Member States.
One issue Parliament has had problems with is that we should realise that Parliament' s size in the future cannot be categorically limited to 700, as this would also limit the manifestation of pluralism here in Parliament.
That would result in a shift towards a two-party system, and that cannot be democratic.
I would appeal to Mr Barón Crespo for understanding in this matter, as I have a feeling that the other Group Chairmen do support this aim to leave the matter of the size of the European Parliament to some extent open.
This would be a very important position for Parliament to adopt, and we will be able to vote on it tomorrow.
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I do not believe that the Governments of the 15 Member States have covered themselves in glory.
The euro bobs feebly up and down in the shallows, responsibility for BSE is shuttled about in a deadly game of pass-the-parcel, and, as the Union prepares to face the greatest challenge in its history, the governments, instead of vigorously addressing the urgent problems, are still embroiled behind closed doors in petty squabbling about the so-called Amsterdam leftovers.
The moment of truth is approaching in Nice.
The summit will only be a success if it opts for truly comprehensive reform of the institutions and sends a clear signal that this Union is capable of enlargement.
This means that there must be an efficient and strengthened Commission which is able to perform its function as the engine of integration.
It also implies a balanced distribution of voting rights among the large and small states in the Council, and it means that majority decision-making in the Council must become the norm, even for key policy areas such as taxes, social policy, justice and home affairs.
If democracy is to be strengthened, this naturally implies that majority voting must be accompanied by a right of codecision for the European Parliament.
But success in Nice also means that there must be more than mere proclamation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I find it quite intolerable that several governments have simply brushed aside the question of including a reference to the Charter in Article 6 of the Treaty.
Let me say clearly, just as other Members before me have done, that in my view a reference to the Charter in the Treaty is just as indispensable as a broad public debate with the people of the Union.
To the Presidents of the Council and the Commission, may I say that the Union has no need of a military reaction force or of arms modernisation programmes that devour billions.
The real success or failure of Nice will be measured by whether governments finally begin to take people's concerns and needs seriously.
It is a good thing that thousands will be taking to the streets of Nice and actively demanding a socially responsive Europe.
The European Union must attach foremost political priority to the struggle against unemployment, poverty and social exclusion.
I note that the French Presidency of the Council intends to devote itself to this cause, but please, Minister, convey to your colleagues that deeds, not words, are what will count.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, a week away from the Nice European Council, we are forced to note that it is still not very clear what institutional measures are going to be adopted.
It is highly like that, on the last night of the Council, measures will be adopted which our national parliaments will not have discussed properly and which they will then be required to ratify for the sake of a forced compromise.
This is not an appropriate method.
Matters are particularly vague regarding the, to my mind, key issue of the potential extension of majority voting within the Council, particular on two truly vital issues.
Firstly, Article 67 on the free movement of persons and on immigration policy.
Commitments were made at the time of the Treaty of Amsterdam to the effect that this matter would not be opened for discussion again for five years.
As usual, however, commitments have not been kept.
As much as we think international cooperation is essential, we find it unacceptable to use majority voting to force the hand of one or more Member States on such issues of sovereignty.
Another avenue must be explored, one that is more flexible and more respectful of the decisions of each Member State: the avenue of 'differentiated cooperation' .
There is another area of uncertainty involving the extension of the Community procedures of Article 133 to the negotiation of international agreements on services, intellectual property and investments.
Trade talks have already been communitised, but if the Commission is indeed speaking with a single voice, then this voice is not sufficiently controlled by the Member States.
The disastrous consequences of this became apparent in the Uruguay Round.
Let us not start again tomorrow with a new multilateral agreement on investment or new talks on agriculture post Seattle.
In trade policy, the key issue today is not extending majority voting but rather restoring the Council' s authority over the Commission and establishing proper scrutiny by the national parliaments.
In a word, Mr President-in-Office, stand firm on this.
Let us first step up democracy and restore the control of the Member States, then we shall look into transferring jurisdiction.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of the radical Members of the Group.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, it appears that all the speeches, including the last one, although from the most extreme positions opposite to my own nevertheless come to the same conclusion, and that is that, just a few days away from the Nice Summit, we are not on the finishing straight but, rather than resolving our problems by this antiquated intergovernmental conference method - which, as has been stressed, must be changed - rather than approaching good solutions, we have complicated matters and proposed solutions which are frankly unacceptable. I refer, of course, to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a Charter upon which we abstained precisely because we knew that you were bound to sweep it under the carpet after the Nice Summit, having deceived our peoples into believing that it was a binding document protecting and promoting rights.
You do not even intend to incorporate it into the Treaty, evidence indeed that this text, this exercise was always destined to be laid aside.
We are also concerned by the future of the Commission, the driving force of European integration which, when expanded to 20, 25 or 30 members, will clearly be reduced to an administrative secretariat, a technical secretariat of the Council, a body unable to play even the tiniest role in the institutional balance intended by the founding fathers.
Over qualified majority voting and weighting, there will, in all probability, be vetos from all sides which will paralyse the demands of Parliament and the public for a move towards democratisation of our system, towards making majority voting the general rule.
I therefore appeal to President Prodi, who has rightly promised that he will tell us in Strasbourg whether or not the Commission will be able act effectively, whether or not the Union will be able to act effectively after the Nice Summit.
President Prodi, you are going to take part in the Nice Summit, you will in a way be the expression of the will of Parliament, albeit a timidly expressed will, the will which tomorrow will become clear when we vote on the document which has resulted from the compromise between groups and which we have not signed.
Mr Prodi, present your objections to the Summit, assume the responsibility, not of establishing a role for us as the post-Nice panel of judges, but of playing right to the very last the card of defending first and foremost the European institutions, the Commission and Parliament in particular.
Mr President, the draft Nice treaty is more like a constitution for a federal State than an agreement for an association of States.
As a rule, the European Union' s laws are to be adopted by qualified majority voting so that all democracies in the individual countries can be voted down.
There are still 65 categories of legislation requiring unanimity according to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is now proposed that decisions should be made by qualified majority voting in 49 of these areas.
We are therefore approaching the point of no return, beyond which a unitary State is unavoidable.
The powers to be given to the EU by the Treaty of Nice treaty go beyond those exercised at federal level in many federal States.
The inner sanctum of the national States is now being penetrated, with majority decision making on aspects of social policy, labour market policy, taxes, industrial policy, culture, supranational parties and even our own salaries, so that we are becoming the EU' s highly paid representatives in the Member States instead of the voters' representatives in the European Parliament, duly taxed in our own countries.
Home affairs and legal policy are to be subject to majority voting as from 2004.
Trade policy will make the EU countries resemble a State.
We shall have to speak with just one disagreeable voice in the WTO.
Decisions on foreign and security policy are also to be adopted on the basis of majority voting.
Only on the subject of defence is unanimity still to be required.
Otherwise, the right of veto will not figure very prominently in the new treaty, and countries without the right of veto resemble constituent States more than independent nations.
Majority voting internally and joint representation abroad - this is clearly the blueprint for a State.
What has been deferred to the constitutional conference in 2004 is not the content of the text but merely the icing on the cake of a text which may also come to resemble a proper constitution, that is to say a text containing firstly the Charter of Fundamental Rights, then the ground rules and, finally, an appendix listing the individual policies to which changes may be made without the need for tiresome ratification.
All that is missing is democracy.
Democracy was forgotten en route.
And that is the essential problem with the Treaties of Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice.
More majority decision-making in which officials and ministers can vote down the electorate and elected representatives.
In democracies, it is the other way around.
Majority decision-making will destroy the right of veto for the Member States as parliamentary democracies, but the EU will not itself become a parliamentary democracy.
With enhanced cooperation, the right of veto over treaty changes is also destroyed - not formally, but in practice - because a qualified majority will in future be able to ignore resistance from, for example, Denmark, Sweden and Great Britain or other places in which the undemocratic idea might arise of asking the electorate what it thinks.
The federalists can achieve their desire for more integration, and the governments in Sweden, Great Britain and Denmark can ease their countries into the new arrangements once the decisions, binding in practice, have been taken.
Nice will transfer so much power from the electorate that it ought to be treated as a genuine constitutional change and only come into force once it has been approved in referendums in those countries in which referendums are possible.
Mr President, the very title of this item on our agenda indicates the importance of Article 133 in the debate on the extension of qualified majority voting.
While its extension to trade in services is an understandable aim, it has little to do with the main issue of institutional reform, which needs to be resolved as a matter of priority; the demand contained in point 7 of the joint resolution regarding the extension of external negotiating competence in the field of trade to cover investment has even less to do with this main issue.
In view of the rather dim prospects of success, I do not think it would be a wise move to burden the Intergovernmental Conference with another complex and controversial topic.
Given the current state of negotiations, it is doubtful whether even an extension of the conference to the Sunday, along with the customary extra hour that is gained when the clocks go back, would be sufficient to ensure that this question, along with all the others, will be properly resolved.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Prodi, what matters most as far as the PPE-DE Group is concerned, is for the IGC to reach a successful conclusion.
We believe this is crucial if we are to take a major step towards rapid enlargement of the European Union.
Just imagine what the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are making of the events in Nice.
Elections have just taken place in Romania, and we have been shocked at the outcome and the rise of a very extremist party.
Elections are due to take place in Poland and Bulgaria early next year, and how are we to motivate the people of these countries if the European Union should prove unequal to the task of producing a sound treaty in Nice?
The European Union needs some good news.
A poor agreement would prove that our Heads of Government do not attach any priority to the enlargement of the European Union.
How can we invest with a view to gaining broader support among EU citizens for further enlargement, if our own Heads of Government should prove unable to negotiate a sound treaty? But according to our heads of government, it is also a question of demonstrating that there is no adequate solution to the major issues confronting us in the European Union.
BSE, security, foreign policy and defence, Europe' s competitiveness vis-à-vis the United States; it is no longer possible for any issues of this kind to be resolved at national level.
It is therefore no way to tackle the fact that the decision-making process within the European Union is still akin to wading through treacle.
Mr President, Europe needs leadership, clarity, choices and decisiveness.
That is what the people actually want to see.
In view of the extent to which public confidence has been undermined with regard to the euro, people need to see that we are taking steps forward.
So I feel it is the weighty task of the French Presidency to at last whip up some enthusiasm for Nice.
It is extremely sad that a situation has developed where large and small countries have come to take opposite sides.
I feel it is a psychological error of the first order that such a huge amount of distrust has been generated.
I would urge the French Presidency to do their utmost to overcome this divide, because it is extremely destructive.
We believe the Commission' s role to be essential.
The Commission is, and remains, the driving force, and if the Commission does not emerge from Nice in a stronger position then it will be a black day for Europe.
So I think what we need to do is work more with the Commission and less at intergovernmental level.
We will assess the outcome of Nice on the basis of whether it leads to enhanced effectiveness, and efficiency, greater democracy and transparency, and that is what is on the agenda.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Parliament is required to give its opinion on essential matters.
Well, as far as Parliament is concerned, the issue of the weighting of votes within the Council and the number of Commissioners are essential matters.
Even so, Mr President-in-Office, on this point we trust you to reach the best agreement.
We understand that not all the elements are on the table yet, but I trust that wisdom will carry the day at the Nice Summit.
For us Members of the European Parliament, the essential thing is primarily to make our voice heard where it might be useful.
There are two points where it is useful and necessary.
On the Charter, first of all.
As practically everyone who has spoken before me here has said, we want a reference to the Charter in Article 6.2.
Do not underestimate Parliament' s determination to achieve this.
We do not find the principle of blackmailing into proclamation acceptable with regard to the conclusions the Biarritz European Council, even if it was an informal one.
We still have a few days left to convince all European Union citizens, including those living in countries that sometimes feel that Brussels is plotting the worst, those for whom the development of a common foreign and security policy and an area of freedom, security and justice should be specifically incorporated into a code of values. We have a few days left to convince these people that the best safeguard against the Brussels behemoth is precisely, perhaps, to incorporate the Charter into the Treaties.
Otherwise there would be the political paradox that a good development for the European Union is not acknowledged in the Treaties.
There would be the legal paradox that the European Union had provided itself with a code of values and then agreed to carry on living with a treaty which makes reference to the values of another organisation.
The second point I should like to stress is, obviously, the scope of qualified majority.
Mr Poettering condemned the responsibilities of parties on all sides.
I, however, would like to remind us of our responsibilities: we cannot blow the case out of all proportion.
If we want to actually overcome the deadlock on qualified majority in order to enable the European Union to accommodate new members, then everyone has to make some small concession.
In that respect, there are various proposals on the table.
Regarding trade policy, the Commission has drawn up a proposal which must be carefully examined.
We are in favour of developing democratic responsibility in this area.
However, while we feel that this proposal needs to be examined carefully, it must also enable all parties to conserve the elements that make up their identity, particularly, no doubt, Europe' s cultural identity.
As you know, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we shall also examine qualified majority voting according to the yardstick of extending the scope of codecision.
In that respect, let me draw your attention to one specific point: the extension of codecision to the common agricultural policy.
If we trust to democracy, then it is not normal for 45% of the EU budget to lie outside the scope of codecision.
It is even in the interests of agriculture, at a time when health and the environment are areas covered by codecision.
The recent decisions of the European Parliament show that it has some sense of responsibility and concern for the interest of the citizens of Europe.
Its voice would be stronger yet and that of the ministers defending an agriculture that promotes sustainable development would also be stronger within the Council if it were to be based on decisions taken in this place under the codecision procedure.
(Applause from the left) These, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, are the criteria according to which we shall assess the outcome of the Nice Summit.
Let me also mention how highly we value the point you raised concerning services of general economic interest.
Yes, we do think that the Nice Council conclusions should include a request that the Commission should draw up a framework directive in this field.
The IGC still seems to be experiencing problems with the extension of qualified voting within the Council.
Perhaps we should shift the focus to the issue of extending codecision with the Parliament.
Parliament has proved itself a mature partner with the Council in the codecision procedure where it presently pertains.
Parliament has also proved itself a serious partner within the drafting of the Charter, and it would be especially refreshing should British Prime Minister Blair publicly recognise that fact.
At present the spread of codecision is neither logical nor does it accord with precise criteria.
Although the previous Treaty made some progress in extending the formula, it also brought in the crazy formula of codecision plus unanimity for citizenship, social security, the rights of the self-employed and also cultural policy.
The Treaty of Nice should stop that practice and extend codecision to some thirty further policy sectors, including competition policy, farm and fisheries, structural funds, state aids, trans-European networks, research and development and also citizenship.
At a time when crude balance of power questions are proving fairly problematical for the IGC, surely it is sensible for it to focus on building up cooperation and trust with the Parliament and developing post-national European democracy as fast as possible.
Mr President, here we are on the eve of another European Summit which will see many of us out on the streets of Nice together with millions of citizens. Like them, we will be unable to influence the outcome of the negotiations.
Mr Prodi, I am extremely concerned at what might be the outcome of the final night of the negotiations, that night when the victors are usually those with the greatest resistance to tiredness and boredom, that night which everyone sees as the last chance to resolve the points which are still without solutions.
This is the most negative, most undemocratic part of the intergovernmental method: the whims of the human element, the results of last-minute bargaining and the obligation to achieve a result at all costs.
I am extremely afraid that we will end up with some rather strange measures such as a Senate of national Members of Parliament, a Mr Euro or a Mr WTO, further diminishing of Parliament's powers or further marginalisation of Parliament, or some other protocol such as that proposed on the WTO which, if it were adopted, would reduce the Commission to a puppy dog on multiple leashes held by many different owners, each one pulling in a different direction.
Those who are in Nice, out on the streets and in the dozens of forums and meetings scheduled will, in my opinion, at least be able to push for one result, namely that this will be the last IGC, that the hazy reflection on the future of Europe Mr Védrine spoke of will translate into the launch at Nice of a process which will establish the time frames and methods for drawing up and adopting a democratic European Constitution.
One last word on the subject of Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, and the bold words we have heard this morning.
Be careful lest we repeat the painful fiasco of the last enlargement when, after months of threats, the European Parliament gave in to the governments.
I hope that this will not be the case this time as well.
Mr President, I was involved in securing Denmark' s positive vote against the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992.
I shall adopt a position on the Treaty of Nice when I see the outcome of the negotiations, but there is a somewhat schizophrenic feel to the debates here.
At one moment, we talk about bringing the European Union closer to the people, and the next moment we are in the throes of developing a European State, which is out of step with what the people want.
In my view, the most important thing to do at the Nice Summit is to set a timetable for when and how the EU is to become ready for enlargement.
We are focusing far too much on how prepared the applicant States are, and we all too often ignore the fact that, for example, the EU' s agricultural arrangements and Structural Funds are enormous obstacles to enlargement.
A decision in Nice to the effect that, for example, the applicant States must have the opportunity to participate in the next elections to the European Parliament could help put the necessary pressure on the EU itself, so that enlargement can become a reality.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in his declaration of 9 May 1950, Robert Schuman stated that: "Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements, which first create a de facto solidarity." .
I think that it is timely, on the eve of the Nice Summit, to question the current state of this spirit of "de facto solidarity" , without which, European integration can be clearly neither genuine nor authentic.
With regard to the conclusion of the IGC, what must take place in Nice is that an agreement must be reached which whilst correcting the deficit in the functioning of the European institutions, does not affect the existing balance between Member States and, of course, between these States and the Union.
The very fact that this issue is being debated now is in itself a clear sign of the failure of a policy to strengthen ties of mutual trust between the countries that comprise the Union.
We are not the only ones to say this; the French Presidency has also said as much through its minister, Mr Moscovici, who acknowledged in a recent interview that the positions that have been adopted during the course of this year, particularly by President Chirac and by the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer, on the future organisation of the Union have had the direct effect of heightening a climate of mistrust between small and large Member States, which will inevitably be reflected in the results of the Nice European Council.
I am talking here about the idea of creating a vanguard of countries centred on the Paris­Berlin axis, which would culminate in a remodelling of Europe or in a dangerous confusion between a heterogeneous Europe, which is healthy, and a two-speed or multi-speed Europe, which is dangerous.
Furthermore, the text of the proposal for a compromise resolution that we will be voting on reflects this unease to a certain extent, because its generic nature is clear to see.
It is also, however, a text in which its authors, even in the knowledge that they risk predictable political failure, reveal a vision that is focused above all on the powers and competences of the European Parliament itself, and call for ever greater resources for parliamentary intervention without dedicating a single word to the crucial role of national parliaments.
The reality is nevertheless quite different.
We all know that the purpose of the Nice Summit is to finalise the work of a conference held between governments, who are accountable not to the European Parliament but to their own national parliaments, which categorically demonstrates the sovereign nature of this process of revising the Treaties.
To conclude, Mr President, I wish to express the desire that the Nice Summit is a success from the point of view that I have been talking about, which is that its conclusions should express a joint formulation of the various national wills that come together and work together in an ongoing quest for cohesion and development, ultimately taking a few more steps towards the "de facto solidarity" of which Robert Schuman spoke.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, today at talks in the House, the President of Latvia directed this reproachful remark at us: "We have been doing our homework!"
The question is whether the Heads of State and Government of the European Union have been doing their homework too. This raises a huge question mark at the present time.
In Amsterdam, the Heads of State and Government failed their exams, and now they have to go to Nice to resit them.
A failed resit has to be regarded as a crisis in any school career, and I fear that another mass failure may well be on the cards.
Let me use another metaphor. European unification is a marathon in which we have successfully stayed the course over the past few decades.
The stadium is now in sight.
Do we have the strength and determination to complete the final lap, or shall we miss the entrance to the stadium because we have lost our bearings? This is the question that has to be asked in Nice, and I hope that we have the strength to emerge from the enlargement process with a robust Union, because enlargement must not weaken the Union.
For this reason, the European Parliament believes that two conditions must be fulfilled. The first is that qualified-majority voting must be extended, but this extension must not focus on areas of relatively minor importance.
Forty areas can be listed in which voting by qualified majority is to be introduced, areas such as the appointment of members to the Committee of the Regions.
I would gladly give up these 40 extensions if we could achieve majority voting in five areas where substantive progress can be made, such as trade, social policy, justice and home affairs, structural policy and taxation, to name the most important.
Our appeal to the Heads of State and Government is that each of them should put his playthings into the communal toy box, so that the others will do likewise, rather than each waiting for the others to make the first move and then nothing happening at all.
This, quite simply, is the situation in which we have been stuck for months at the Intergovernmental Conference, because none of them are willing to give up their toys.
I hope that, at the start of the ministerial meeting of the intergovernmental conference, someone will have the backbone to give up his toys in order to pressurise the others into making a move.
Secondly, the democratic deficit must not start to widen again.
In Amsterdam, it was decided that qualified-majority voting should always be accompanied by codecision.
Any derogation from this rule will fuel the democratic deficit and undermine the progress made in Amsterdam.
I hope this will not happen.
There are also a few leftovers to be tidied up in the fields of competition policy, monetary union and agricultural policy, so that a right of codecision can be established in these areas too.
At the Intergovernmental Conference, we must also strike a fair balance between the large and the small nations.
I should like to emphasise that the population of Europe consider themselves to be represented in the European Parliament, and Parliament must reflect this.
If the disparity between the large and the small members of the Council becomes too great, we face the risk of a legitimacy crisis within the European Union in a few years' time, because the small countries will no longer feel comfortable in the Council, fearing that they might become unable to defend their own identity.
I believe that, if the two conditions, namely the creation of an effective Union and the reduction of the democratic deficit, are not fulfilled, the European Union could be confronted for the first time with a situation in which this European Parliament refuses to ratify a treaty.
(Applause from the right and centre)
Mr President, even Paris is divided over Nice.
The French President and the First Minister seem to be more obsessed with their own political future than with that of Europe.
The French Presidency has shown little enough consistency, and where it has this has mainly been in terms of its lack of neutrality and the preferential treatment it has given to the large Member States, and that at a time when the Union has never been more in need of a President who looks for consensus.
In order to make room for the newcomers, all Member States need to move a little closer together, but they only do so when they really cannot put off the evil moment any longer.
It seems as if some governments are already reconciling themselves to a new IGC for enlargement.
The governments have lost sight of the urgent need for reforms because they are concentrating too much on their own position of power in the new set-up.
For example, many a country will emphasise that majority decision making must become the general rule, but at the same, will come up with so many exceptions that precious little remains on balance.
If majority voting does not become the general rule then decision-making will become irretrievably deadlocked, as Mr Prodi rightly commented a moment ago.
If this does not go hand-in-hand with codecision then democracy will be further undermined.
The weighting of votes in the Council must do justice to the population numbers in the Member States, which means that it is quite acceptable for there to be some corresponding differences between the larger and smaller countries.
All Member States must retain one Commissioner of their own during this enlargement round.
Only afterwards should we decide on a new system on the basis of the experience we will have gained by then.
If one thing is for certain, Europe is going to undergo radical change, and so let us not run ahead of a situation that we are unable to take stock of as yet.
It would be very desirable to introduce a hierarchy into the Commission, i.e. Vice-Presidents, Commissioners and Under-Commissioners.
In addition, this would afford Parliament more opportunities to discuss issues with politically responsible members of the Commission rather than officials who read out actual texts that they could just as easily have sent.
The Charter does not deserve to be left in a vacuum, with no clear status.
In failing to incorporate the text into the Treaty and only subscribing to it in political terms, we are opening the door to major problems of legal interpretation.
Hence the Charter must be incorporated into a treaty text as soon as possible.
I have this to say to the Heads of Governments: making concessions at the forthcoming summit is not a political defeat but a political triumph: the triumph of the new Europe over the old.
Do not allow any shadows to fall over Nice, and let Paris be the City of Light again.
Mr President I would like to remind the Council and Commission, and indeed the House, of a resolution that we carried on 26 October in relation to better law-making.
We there said that "in accordance with the subsidiarity principle and the political and national diversity of the European Union, the amendments made to the treaties should specifically include recognition of, and respect for, the political and legislative powers of the Members States' internal political units in their executive, legislative and judicial relations with the European Union institutions."
That aspect of subsidiarity has not been heard in our debate today but it is very important.
It bears also in a most important way on the question of the size of this Parliament.
The nations and regions which the parties of the European Free Alliance represent are deeply concerned that if we apply together the maximum of 700 and the current idea of digressive proportionality, the people whom we are able to represent here at the present time will effectively cease to be represented in this House.
That will be a huge loss to European democracy and it will take the institutions further from the people not closer to them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for a youngster like me, Nice certainly represents a great hope for a new Europe, in political as well as institutional terms.
Indeed, the wide majority vote returned only yesterday in the Italian Parliament is evidence of the unity of intention and preparation for this Council.
However, we certainly consider it essential that the list of topics to be voted on by qualified majority voting is not extended and that the principle of one Commissioner per Member State is followed when establishing the composition of the Commission.
Another essential factor is that the irreplaceable role of the national parliaments is retained in the Treaties, precisely because this will facilitate the establishment of the new Europe.
It takes no great genius to work out that 700 Members of Parliament can no longer be sufficient for a Europe of 27 or 28 nations, or the smaller countries will be at an unfair disadvantage.
On the other hand, I would stress the considerable importance of providing our Europe with strong institutions to fill the institutional void being created by progress on the economic front with the euro.
As a result, the high dollar is benefiting NAFTA, Mexico, Canada and the United States.
Having said this, in my opinion, Nice needs to be an historic Council, for ourselves, our nations and the very future of Europe.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, As soon as Nice has finished, it will the European Parliament's turn to reply to two historic questions, questions which affect both the future of the European Union and its own political credibility.
The stated aim of this review is to design more efficient institutions which will be able to cope with an enlarged Europe and, at the same time, to reduce the democratic deficit which certainly exists.
Unfortunately, the text of the Treaty, as formulated to date by the Intergovernmental Conference, does not satisfy either of the objectives of the review and, consequently, does not satisfy either of the two evaluation criteria set by the European Parliament.
In order to ensure that the institutions operate more efficiently, we called for Council decisions to be taken by qualified majority rather than unanimously, although we did, of course, exclude all issues of constitutional significance.
This has borne only meagre fruit, as Elmar Brok and Mr Méndez de Vigo explained earlier.
However, the European Parliament is especially disappointed as regards the major issue of the democratisation of the European Union.
From a democratic point of view, it goes without saying that qualified majority voting in the Council should go hand in glove, as far as legislative acts are concerned, with codecision on the part of the European Parliament.
This does not always hold true.
In the case of enhanced cooperation, no agreement has yet been reached on making provision for assent by the European Parliament in order to start the procedure.
Finally, not only has the Charter of Fundamental Rights not yet been incorporated into the text of the Treaty; it has barely even been agreed to mention it in Article 6.
Of course, I am delighted about the positive aspects, such as the issue of European political parties and Article 7, which have already been commented on.
However, Nice will not be accepted on the basis of these positive aspects.
Obviously, we shall be under great pressure to accept Nice come what may, with talk of the threat of institutional crisis if there is no Treaty.
However, I fear that the crisis will be worse if the European Parliament caves in and accepts as adequate what is clearly an inadequate Treaty.
The national parliaments are waiting for our opinion.
We have an historic responsibility.
Let us not compound the disappointment which Nice will cause if it is unsuccessful by giving the people huge cause for disappointment in Parliament.
Nice, if it is unsuccessful, can make amends, but if Parliament proves to be unreliable, it will take years to wipe the slate clean.
A European Union without a credible parliament is a transient and a poor state of affairs.
Mr President, the debate on Article 133 and commercial policy needs to be part of a much wider effort to bring transparency and democracy to the EU' s decision-making on trade.
This sector is currently one of the most centralised and untransparent.
That was one of the main criticisms of the protestors at Seattle and it will continue to be one of their criticisms at Nice.
Many of us believe that any shift of competence from Member States to the Commission can only be contemplated after a complete restructuring of the EU' s trade policies and processes as a whole, to infuse them with far greater democracy and transparency, and to ensure that they are based on true social and environmental sustainability.
That means it is not only a question of the Parliament having a much greater role in decision-making on trade.
That is, of course, important and I am surprised that others have not mentioned it as it has occupied much of our time in the committee.
But it also means restructuring the Committee 133 itself: making it far more accountable; ensuring that its agenda and conclusions are accessible and that its composition is broad and inclusive.
Only then, President Prodi, will some of us be happy to entrust the Commission with the hugely important areas of services, investment and intellectual property.
Mr President, the EU summit at Nice will hopefully be a further positive step on the road to European integration.
The recent Commission report on the progress of the countries from Central and Eastern Europe who have made application for membership is encouraging I must say.
While not in any way detracting from the aspirations, and indeed the entitlement, of some of those countries to join the Community by 2002, it would not, I believe, be in their best interests, or indeed the interests of Member States, to achieve this deadline without first ensuring an orderly transition with minimum disruption to the economies of existing Member States.
We must not forget that our ultimate goal is to create the economic and social environment to enable the EU to become a dominant player in world trade with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe playing their full part and benefiting from a peaceful and stable European economy.
We have demonstrated in the past that this goal is achievable and as someone from a Member State that has benefited from a planned transition to membership, I look forward in a positive way to an enlarged and peaceful Europe.
However enlargement of the European Union must not dilute or dissipate the influence of smaller Member States with key national interests which must be protected.
From an Irish perspective it is clear that we want to retain our right to nominate one member of the European Commission which controls the administration of the common agricultural policy, fisheries policy, transport policy and other important EU policy areas.
I also believe it is important that we keep control over decisions concerning our tax affairs and social security matters.
Mr President, I am addressing the Commission President and the President-in-Office of the Council in French in order to get my message across as clearly as possible.
In addressing you, I wish to raise an idea put forward by my working party within the PPE-DE Group, and not to discuss the problems that we have as Conservatives.
We have major reservations on many issues, especially the Charter of Fundamental Rights, for various reasons.
I do not wish to discuss that. I shall leave that to others.
My main idea is as follows: to concentrate on what will happen after Nice.
We are aware, from the speeches made by President Chirac in this place in July, that at least three major topics stand out, namely the simplification of the Treaties, the sharing of jurisdiction between European, national and regional levels, what I might term the rights of states in the American expression (Section 10 of the American Constitution), and, thirdly, the balance between the institutions - though here we should especially, perhaps, consider the role of the national parliaments - i.e. how is our institution to be managed in future.
We await a Commission report on this issue of governance.
Would it not be a good idea, before going any further, to consult our peoples and involve them in what we are doing, instead of waiting for the outcome, then subjecting it to a referendum, even though they do not know what has happened? So my third question is this: how is this business going to be managed?
What is the timetable?
What is the procedure?
And who is to participate in the system?
Mr President, are we going to wait until the next IGC, until 2003-2004 before we can have a debate on these fundamental issues? In my opinion, this is something we should begin directly following the outcome of Nice.
My second area of concern is procedure.
The Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is right, we have to forget the IGC, the wise men and the closed doors.
We must instigate a major debate among the citizens of Europe, getting them involved in our debates. My third point concerns participation.
The candidate countries should certainly participate, but not necessarily the countries with which we have not yet started negotiations, such as Turkey. I think that is going a little too far.
In conclusion, I urge you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council and Mr President of the Commission to give some thought to the provisions which would have to be incorporated into the Treaty of Nice in order for us to have this major debate and to avoid the utterly Kremlin-style approach of agreeing matters behind closed doors, in order to instigate debate with a view to a new European framework, whether or not it be constitutional, so that we may have direct contact with our electorate and may make a major success of the European Union in the future.
Mr President, I am speaking not just to the President-in-Office of the Council but also to all the governments of the Member States when I say that if agreement is not reached in Nice on these difficult issues those issues will not go away.
They will not become easier to solve after Nice, they will become more difficult.
So a final major effort is necessary over the next two weeks.
This is no more so than on the issue of qualified majority voting.
Every government is saying we need more qualified majority voting, but they all have their list of exceptions.
The problem is if you put the lists of exceptions next to each other you will find there are very few areas of substance where it is agreed to switch to qualified majority voting.
Everyone will have to sacrifice some of their cherished exceptions if we are to reach a result in Nice.
Of course some governments will be attacked in their Member States by opposition parties, by euro-sceptics, saying, "you are giving up the national right of veto" .
But it has to be understood that if you have the right of veto then so does everyone else.
So in a Union of 27 Member States for every veto you trade in, 26 other vetoes are being given up at the same time.
Consequently, things that you want will no longer be vetoed by others.
Everyone can gain from a system of qualified majority voting.
If we are to have more qualified majority voting on legislation it must go hand in hand with codecision, not only for the new areas which will come to qualified majority voting but also for the existing areas that already come under qualified majority voting.
This is essential for democracy at Union level.
To adopt European legislation you must pass two tests: acceptability to the elected governments meeting in the Council, and acceptability to the directly-elected MEPs in the European Parliament.
These are two safeguards for the quality and the acceptability of European legislation.
It is nothing to be afraid of.
The working of the codecision procedure over the last year shows that it works.
In more than three quarters of the cases we do not even need the Conciliation Committee; the two readings each in Council and Parliament are enough to reach agreement.
If this is working here let us make it work across the whole spectrum of legislation.
Finally, there is the question of the number of seats in the European Parliament.
We know that a definitive solution must be in place for the parliament to be elected in 2009, which will, after all, last until 2014.
By then I am sure we will have enlarged to at least 27 Member States.
But a first transition will also have to be made for the parliament to be elected in 2004 because at least some new Member States will come in before or during the Parliament to be elected in 2004 which will last until 2009.
We must make some room now for enlargement in that Parliament.
If a lot of states come in maybe we will exceed temporarily the limit of 700, but a first adjustment must be made now.
It is easier to make two small steps in this regard rather than one big step so I urge the President to persevere and I urge all governments to make the necessary compromises in Nice.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen. My dear friend Elmar Brok referred in the House just now to examinations and what students do in order to pass them.
Of course, one of the things which students do in order to pass examinations is to revise beforehand.
I should like to tell you which points I think you should revise if you want to pass your examinations with flying colours.
The first thing you have to do in Nice, Minister, and I say this to you and through you to all your colleagues, is to adopt an agreement which maintains the correlation of powers - large and small - and interinstitutional balance.
Secondly, as far as the matter of the Commission is concerned, you know full well - we all know full well - that the problem with the Commission is not one of numbers.
The problem with the Commission is a qualitative problem. In other words, we want a new Commission with 27 Commissioners, but we want a Commission which has a political role, which again has a political role, and the president of which has the powers needed for the Commission to do its job.
As far as voting in the Council is concerned, I think that the double majority is the best system because it is more representative and more objective.
As far as extending qualified majority voting is concerned, we are agreed that, unless we make some sort of move in this direction, we shall encounter a great many problems.
So I think that, as a first move, it should already be agreed that trade policy needs to come under qualified majority voting.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, we now live in Mr Solana's bright and beautiful world and let me tell you - if we leave the common foreign policy solely within the framework of intergovernmental cooperation, then we shall be making a big mistake.
The common foreign policy needs to be fully integrated into Community procedure because only then shall we have the necessary safety valves.
Finally, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I must, of course, mention the Charter, which affects millions of European citizens.
I take the view that Nice must at least accept the compromise called for by the European Parliament, i.e. for the Charter to be combined with Article 6, paragraph 2.
Mr President I wish to focus my speech on three basic points.
The President-in-Office of the Council addressed the issue of closer cooperation and said that we are on the way to reaching consensus on this matter.
I should like to ask both Mr Védrine and President Prodi what role is envisaged or what role they advocate for the Commission in the field of closer cooperation in the second and third pillars.
The second issue concerns the overall agreement already considered here by my colleague and Chairman of the Socialist Group, Enrique Barón Crespo, which is, fortunately, part of the resolution that the European Parliament will surely adopt tomorrow.
Today, neither in the Council nor in Parliament do we have distribution of power that is proportionate to size and to the number of citizens in each Member State. What we have is a balance underpinned by the principle of the dual legitimacy that exists between the Union of States and the Union of citizens.
According to how one sees the matter, however, what is being prepared now is a change to this balance and an increase in the representation of the larger countries, both in the Council and in Parliament.
This is neither fair nor acceptable.
I therefore wish to insist once again that within the Council, it is the double majority method that should be adopted for decision making, since it is not only more understandable but also fairer. I would also reiterate that the current method should be maintained in the European Parliament and that this linear reduction should be implemented when new Members enter Parliament.
I believe that this latter approach is more balanced, fairer and takes account of an historical reality which those seeking to integrate Europe cannot ignore. This historical reality is that the Member States exist and there is a relationship between these states and their citizens, whereas there is not such a strong relationship between the citizens and Europe itself.
Lastly, there is the issue of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The President-in-Office of the Council spoke with sincerity, for which I thank him.
He said that some countries or governments even say they will not formally recognise the Charter if it is incorporated into the Treaties.
It is unacceptable that such a statement should be made.
What is a member of the European public supposed to think when they hear that governments are prepared to draw up certain documents but do not agree on these documents having legal force and status? What kind of message are we sending to candidate countries if we say to them that in order to join the single market they must accept whatever we impose on them, and yet we do not require them to ratify the Charter of Fundamental Rights?
In other words, we are sending them the message that in Europe we treat consumers better than we treat the citizens of the European Union themselves. We therefore encourage and urge the Presidency once again to make every effort to ensure that there is at least one reference to the Treaties in Nice because this would be the best tribute we could pay to the work of the Members of the European Parliament, the Commission and even the representatives of the governments involved in the Convention on drafting the Charter.
Mr President, today the President of Latvia visited the European Parliament.
The story of Mrs Vike Freiberga is illustrative of the courage in adversity shown by the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.
As a seven year-old girl she was forced to flee her country before the advance of the Red Army, a fugitive hiding in ditches to avoid being strafed by Soviet aircraft.
We might also choose to remember the heroism of Solidarnosc in Poland, the President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel, the generations in Hungary since 1956 who have sought to restore their freedom and independence.
On the one hand, Mr Védrine, we see courage and even heroism; on the other we look at the Council of Ministers, the IGC about to assemble in Nice: Do we see courage, resolution, determination to succeed? At the moment, as your address has demonstrated, we see disunion, squabbling and the prospect of failure.
Will you be able at Nice to support the European Parliament' s resolution which calls upon the preparations to be secure so that the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe may vote in the next European Parliamentary elections in 2004? Will you, President Prodi and your colleague Commissioner Verheugen, instruct the Commission to open those chapters for the applicant countries who have achieved everything we have so far required so that at Nice we can look the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe in the eye and say: yes, we have succeeded in making the necessary reforms and within the lifetime of one Parliament you will also take your place in Brussels and Strasbourg.
I do not believe that failure is an option.
We have been talking about Amsterdam leftovers.
Our public in the EU and the public in the candidate countries will not accept the prospect of Nice leftovers, of a second IGC in 2004.
I hope that we are in a position to congratulate the French Presidency for its success; but if you fail, we shall be harsh in our condemnation.
Mr President, on the face of it, the Nice Summit is all about making the necessary adaptations and dealing with the leftovers in the light of enlargement.
But there is far more than that at stake.
The Nice Summit will not just address the issue as to whether the Member States are prepared to give up their Commissioner, it will mainly be concerned with their willingness to give shape to the type of European political cooperation that promotes the interests of the European citizen, transcending national interests.
It has frequently come to our notice of late that this political cooperation is totally absent.
A brilliant example is, of course, the nationally motivated measures, and the reaction to the unrest over the high diesel and petrol prices; where concerted action could have given a huge boost to the credibility of European political cooperation in the eyes of the citizens.
Bearing in mind the need to deepen the Union, the Heads of Government must change tack and extend qualified majority voting to a substantial degree.
If we are serious about deepening European cooperation then it is absolutely vital to exercise effective democratic control over the European decision-making process.
That is why qualified majority voting must always go hand in hand with Parliament' s right of codecision.
Eighty per cent of all amendments tabled by Parliament in past months were adopted by the Council.
So we evidently make an enormous contribution in qualitative terms.
As Mrs Berès said, it is of course untenable to draw a distinction and give us codecision rights in consumer affairs on the one hand, but at the same time, only give us consultation rights in agricultural matters.
Let us just think back to the recent BSE-crisis.
Just what are we supposed to tell our citizens?
Mr Méndez de Vigo has just made reference to the Charter, and rightly so.
This is a subject that is, of course, very dear to Parliament' s heart.
It is the embodiment of the citizen' s Europe, this Charter of Fundamental Rights.
But now that this Charter is to be incorporated in the Treaties in Nice, certain governments have evidently given vent to their opposition.
We consider this to be unacceptable, because by incorporating this document into the Treaties of the European Union, fundamental standards and values of the constitutional state and the social welfare state are being embedded in the European structures.
I would warn our Heads of Government against taking an over-minimalist stance in Nice.
As the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, said, qualified majority voting, together with codecision - Article 62 linking the Charter with the Treaties - is to be the litmus test for our Heads of Government.
We have a saying in the Netherlands that goes: 'if you set the standard too low you will trip over it' .
Our European project must not be allowed to trip up in this way.
Should we falter, this will provoke Parliament' s condemnation.
So we are banking on success, but it is up to you to make it happen.
Mr President, you certainly have to hand it to the United States these days.
They are facing the greatest constitutional crisis they have had in a hundred years and all they keep saying is that their being able to have such a crisis shows how well-designed their system is.
If we could only take a leaf out of their book, i.e. put a little less emphasis on the things that are going wrong in our part of the world, and a little more emphasis on the things that are going well, then we would be a good deal happier than we are now.
I agree with everyone who has said that the Council must be put to the test.
I also have my doubts.
I hope they actually do what Elmar Brok has advised them to do.
If they follow his advice then they will make a success of it.
If they do not, then they will fail.
It is particularly important, to my mind, for social policy and the Charter to be recognised in the Treaty by some means or other.
But why is it that we always think we are doing so much worse than others are, even though there are no objective reasons for this? I think that to some extent it is down to a certain insecurity on the part of Parliament, and also on the part of the Council and the Commission, when it comes to putting across the message, but on the other hand, it is also a sure fire consequence of the below the belt attacks launched by the so-called 'sceptics' .
They have nothing to offer.
What they offer is a Balkans type scenario, which is the worst thing imaginable.
The Balkans is the sceptics' ideal.
To hear Mr Bonde talk, the Balkans is his ultimate ideal.
We can expect no better of him.
If we then see that these people have absolutely no alternative, would only bring us misery and would bring our industry into a much worse state than it is at present, then far too much notice is being taken of them.
I feel it is also up to the Council to try to act not just for the sake of national interests but also for the sake of the common European interest, because united we stand, divided we fall, and we had better not forget it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, greater power for the European Union to act in the field of foreign trade and payments is one of the fundamental demands of the European Parliament and of the Commission too, as you, President Prodi, emphatically underlined earlier today.
Although we now see the French Presidency, Mr President of the Council, playing a decisive part here, it is also plainly evident that we are still at square one today, just a few days before the IGC ministerial meeting.
You bear responsibility for the success of this project; you, the President-in-Office of the Council, also have the power to make things happen.
We should include not only trade in goods but also the corresponding trade in services, as well as investments, intellectual property and competition, in the range of matters which are subject to qualified-majority voting in the Council of Ministers and amend Article 133(1) of the Treaty accordingly.
That is our basic demand.
We in the European Union account for 40% of trade in goods and services in the world, compared with the US share of only 20%.
We therefore bear a worldwide burden of responsibility for the establishment of more open markets as well as having the opportunity to export our technological systems and services to many countries of the world.
I have seen at first hand in our Committee on Constitutional Affairs that the great majority of government representatives support the reinforcement of the role played by the European Union and are demanding that.
Apparently, however, it is the French Government which is needlessly stonewalling on this issue.
Let us not forget that France, as a major economic power in the European Union, benefits directly whenever the EU is able to speak with one voice and successfully defend its interests in negotiations with representatives of the world's major trading areas - the United States, Canada and the countries of Asia.
We proceed on the assumption that France will defend with justifiable vigour her own vital interests with regard to her cultural identity, which is also related to the cultural identity of Europe as a whole.
We are urging a compromise, with provision for unanimity where these interests are affected, but I believe there is some way to go before we can start to move forward.
Mr President, the omens have never been good before any Intergovernmental Conference.
Unresolved issues have predominated, and the common ground has been narrow.
Now, very few days before the ministerial meeting of the present Intergovernmental Conference, the signs are once again unpromising.
This time, however, it is paradoxically the prospect of an emerging consensus that is causing us political headaches.
As the days go by, it is becoming ever likelier that the agreement the ministers will reach, while not representing the lowest common denominator, will be a rather low common denominator, indeed a very low common denominator.
Many of us therefore fear that what Nice will offer in the way of institutional reforms will not really enable the Union to implement a major enlargement process involving the accession of twelve or more new Member States, unless further, more extensive reforms are implemented.
I venture to doubt whether consensus will be easier to achieve in the new extended family than it is now.
One can but hope.
Besides, the overall result of the coming IGC ministerial meeting, another small but unfortunately far from delicate detail is causing me some concern.
In the resolution on Nice that we are discussing here, the last clause in point 6 says in essence that Parliament too should have a right of initiative in procedures under Article 7 of the EU Treaty (breaches of the principles of democracy, respect for human rights, etc.).
In general terms, this would impinge upon the central role of the Commission.
The fact that the Commission has the sole right of initiative is an essential element of our Union.
Granting the European Parliament a right of initiative in this highly sensitive domain would throw the door wide open to party-political despotism.
Do the European Socialists, who tabled this proposal, intend to react to every election in which the Left loses its majority by initiating a campaign of European ostracism against the new government? I advise the House to beware of such a move and ask you to vote against this clause tomorrow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, through the active commitment of Mr Chirac, the French Presidency of the Union has drawn Europe's attention to a series of issues which are of major importance for our future.
This is why the work awaiting the protagonists of the Nice Summit will be challenging and high level, commensurate with the ambitious nature of the projects.
President Prodi, it will not be easy for you, just as it will not be easy for the Heads of State and Government together with whom you will have to find a solution to the many issues under debate, including the vital enlargement, the reform of the institutions and the replacement of outdated mechanisms, and the proclamation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which is the first real step towards the European Constitution in which we believe.
With regard to freedoms, individual rights and scientific research, the peoples and their representatives who are present in this and the national parliaments must have the final say.
That, Mr President, is why we are launching an appeal in this House to prevent Brussels and Strasbourg being reduced to forums for national party political issues. We are here to build the Europe of the future which will completely reform outdated mechanisms and to establish a social market economy which will create employment and generate development.
We cannot do this without the involvement and firm support of the peoples, who must see the European institution as the defender of their rights and the guarantor of their future, not as the seat of the bureaucracy and petty feuds of a limited, primitive political system.
Let us all endeavour to ensure that Nice is not the end of the line but the launching pad for a major project.
In short, we must all aim high, and, in order to do this, we must believe implicitly in what we are doing.
Mr President, we Members of Forza Italia and the European People's Party believe in this project and we will be protagonists alongside you in the construction of a Europe of the citizens.
Mr President, I wish firstly to thank the Members of the European Parliament for a very high standard of debate.
A truly important and truly difficult European Council is coming up, and at such times a kind of tension can be felt generally. Sometimes it can even be discerned in certain newspaper articles and it comes as no surprise to experienced Europeans.
This debate has been of a very high quality, very concise and very useful.
It was also what I really came here to listen to.
I shall take as much account of it as I can.
I definitely intend to pass on the information to the President of the Republic, who will be chairing the Nice European Council, the Prime Minister, and my colleagues on the General Affairs Council next Monday.
So in that respect it has been very useful.
Despite that, although this exercise is also very useful because it raises many relevant questions and suggestions, I have to say that I found the overall tone excessively negative.
I do not think the general tone of the speeches, while they were incredibly varied and rich in detail, genuinely reflects what Europe is really like today. Europe is in fact making progress, considerable progress.
Of course I hear your concerns and respect them, but they do seem to some extent to be at odds with that considerable progress.
To take the example of the agreement which has just been reached on fiscal harmonisation, and it was unanimous, that is an agreement we have been trying to get for years.
I think it was first mentioned in 1989 actually.
So - as one of you said, referring to American optimism and the way Americans talk about themselves - we should also be capable of valuing what is working well and what is making progress.
As regards method, I honestly do not see what else the country holding the Presidency can do.
Holding it does not give us any extra power or allow us to act in the place of the others. It brings responsibilities which we shoulder as best we can.
I do not see what method could be adopted to deal with issues as complex as institutional affairs, other than taking the problems one by one, seeing what everyone' s position is, trying to identify what room there is to manoeuvre, asking everyone how flexible they can be, and making proposals which take account of that.
All that can be done, but if the Presidency feels that its approach and ambitions are being blocked, it cannot disregard the positions of the Member States.
That would not be democratic.
Take the Charter - you are fully aware how active the French Presidency has been on that subject.
Well, several Member States were against the very existence of the Charter if it were to have legal force and that had to be recognised.
Some Member States were even against mentioning social affairs or new rights.
So we had to move on, we had to compromise, remembering that Europe' s history is littered with political texts that have had major impact on political ideas, thought and progress, in some cases even when they do not have, or do not yet have, legal force.
This is a perfect example of constructive compromise.
Once we had reached agreement on a text - and this is a good text, very well drafted by the Convention, it reads well, it has style - some countries then said we must incorporate it into Article 6.
As a country we support that view, but what do we do as a Presidency? We proposed that during the discussions and several countries opposed it, threatening to withdraw their agreement to the very principle of the Charter if we insisted on Article 6.
So it is not at all a case of not proclaiming it, and it is not a problem of transparency.
Everything that is going on is totally transparent.
Nothing is being concealed.
Everything is being widely debated.
You know everything about everything, but some countries only agreed to the text of the Charter on condition that it remains purely political.
What can the Presidency do? The countries making this an absolute condition cannot be excluded from the discussion.
The Presidency must be democratic.
You are always talking about democracy, but you have no monopoly on it. There is democracy in the General Affairs Council too, and in the European Council, at all the meetings, in all the debates.
We have to take it into account.
That is not a lack of ambition, in fact it is precisely because we have been very ambitious that we have been faced with strong resistance throughout this whole affair. It shows considerable ambition to tackle institutional reform.
That strong resistance would not exist without strong ambitions.
It is all related.
We are doing our best, if I may say so.
Consequently, I doubt if there is any other way of making progress apart from clarifying the position of each country on each issue and coming to the European Council with the most honest possible presentation of them, after trying to get them to shift of course.
I would also say that I do not think there is a problem between 'larger and 'smaller' countries.
I use those terms for convenience, but I never normally use them.
I do not regard any country that belongs to the European Union as a small country, whatever its size, because its membership means that it too has influence over all the great issues, so the classic distinction is no longer entirely relevant today.
The sense in which the press uses the terms is quite clear.
In the matter of the Intergovernmental Conference, the only issue where people said there was a disagreement between larger and smaller countries lay with the Commission. That is inaccurate too, because the proposals made were not proposals by the larger countries to penalise the smaller ones.
There was an appeal for everyone to make sacrifices, small, medium-sized and large countries.
That was the starting point for the theory that there was a confrontation between the larger and smaller countries. That is groundless; that is wrong.
It is not true on any of the three other important issues at the IGC and it is not true on any of the other issues at the Nice European Council.
So that picture is inaccurate, and I think the sensible thing is to put it behind us.
As regards what has been said on qualified majority voting, Mr Poettering will forgive me, but I thought it was a little bit facile to name just one country and act as if that country' s shift in its position relating to its own problems was sufficient to bring about a large shift in the others.
That is exactly what we did as regards the Commission.
In developing the idea that it would be advantageous in the future to have a Commission that was not too large to be effective and retained its full capabilities, especially its power of initiative, we demonstrated that we too were ready to make that sacrifice.
Equal rotation affects big countries too, as actually at any given time they might not have a commissioner, just like everyone else.
There is no discrimination.
That shift in position did not spread.
It did not prompt sacrifice by others.
The same applies to qualified majority voting issues.
At present twelve of the fifteen countries think there are issues where they cannot move to qualified majority voting, not now.
They accept it in principle, they accept it for the long term, but they have legitimate democratic interests to defend, and in their view the right conditions are not yet in place.
That is the situation the Presidency has to recognise.
There is no link between the positions of the various parties.
If one country has an internal problem, that does not make another country' s internal problem disappear.
We have recognised that difficulty, regardless of our ambitions, and as a Presidency we have returned to it many times, at many meetings - we will return to it again at Sunday' s conclave - but I am here to tell you what the situation is.
I cannot tell you exactly what you want to hear.
I have to tell it like it is.
We have done a great deal of work, but we have run up against the same old problem and I do not think a shift in a single country can start the ball rolling, because yet again we are faced with very tough national, political and democratic situations in twelve of the fifteen countries.
Of course, we must try to make progress, because this is not satisfactory.
It is not enough and between now and Nice we will make further efforts to identify what room there is for manoeuvre. All the same I wanted to make that point.
I do not want to take up too much time.
This has been a very interesting debate, but it has been a long one.
We have another interesting debate ahead of us.
I would simply appeal to you not to make a premature scapegoat of the Presidency-in-Office. There is no justification for that when the Council has not even taken place yet, and disappointment itself is premature because it is too early to come to any conclusions.
I understand all about the waiting, the impatience, the hopes and ambitions.
I understand all that, I am listening, I am taking account of it and I will try to ensure that we bear it in mind and apply it to the political decisions we face in the course of the difficult negotiations in Nice.
It is not the French Presidency that is going to succeed or fail in Nice.
There is nothing in the Treaties to say that the Presidency-in-Office can annexe the prerogatives and responsibilities of the other Member States, or the Commission, or Parliament, or anyone else.
At Nice it is the Fifteen who must take responsibility. The Fifteen decided to start accession negotiations with twelve countries that want to move forward and want a more effective, stronger Europe at all levels.
It is the Fifteen all together who will or will not find the clear, transparent and democratic answer to today' s problems.
I am sure the Fifteen will find a solution to many of the problems you have raised with the Presidency.
Thank you again and I know we can find the solution together.
I think Parliament will be able to witness the establishment of the improved institutional mechanisms needed to handle the future development of the European Union which unites us all.
Thank you very much Mr President of the Commission.
To conclude these statements, I have received nine motions for resolutions from eight groups, in accordance with Rule 37, paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure..
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow.
As the President, Mrs Fontaine, announced at the beginning of the sitting, we will now proceed to the debate on the procedural motions.
I wish to refer to the disgraceful demonstration that took place in the Foreign Affairs Committee of this Parliament yesterday morning when the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs was involved in discussions with us.
A number of members of a Marxist-Leninist group tried to disrupt the meeting and threatened the Chairman.
This was an abuse of this Parliament's proceedings, a gross discourtesy to a distinguished guest and an event that could have had very serious consequences.
Mr President, will you please instruct the Quaestors to identify the culprits, to identify how they obtained access to the Parliament and ensure that they are banned from future access.
Will you also take steps generally to tighten security in appropriate ways so that there could be no recurrence.
It is sometimes difficult to get legitimate visitors and groups into this building but those with malign intentions seem to have no difficulty.
We began this session by expressing our condolences for the latest victim of terrorism in Spain.
It would seem that those responsible for the demonstration in the Foreign Affairs Committee may have connections with a Turkish terrorist group.
I am sure that all in this House will join me in condemning all terrorism whatever its alleged motivation.
In relation to Turkey, we are making many demands of the Turkish Government and people as they embark on the long road to accession to the European Union.
At the same time, we expect that opposition groups in Turkey will resort exclusively to peaceful means.
I shall be placing a declaration to this effect before the House and I trust all Members will give it their support.
Mr President, I would be grateful if you would report back to the House on the points that I have raised.
Mr President, I should like to endorse Mr Van Orden's statement.
Yesterday, two people broke into the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee, interrupted the proceedings and threatened our guest, the Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs, both verbally and physically.
It was a dangerous situation.
As far as I am aware, the two intruders obtained access to the House on the authority of a lady Member of Parliament.
I shall give the President the name of the Member in question and ask her to investigate the matter and to take appropriate measures with a view to preventing such disruptive and aggressive individuals from entering the House. The shocking thing is that this incident took place with the aid of a Member of this House.
I find it absolutely scandalous that Members of Parliament can stoop to such methods.
I should like to put a second point to the Bureau. In our present situation, we shall continue to have problems with the safety of our guests.
I believe that we must take action, which we certainly have not done to any extent hitherto, in order to ensure that the guests of Parliament can feel like guests in this House and that they need have no fear of being subjected to threatening behaviour.
To that end, we must put the requisite organisational and security structure in place, which also means our guests being directly protected by people who are trained for that purpose, because we naturally cannot employ foreign security staff to escort our guests.
I believe we face a new challenge here, to which I ask the Bureau to respond.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to express our wholehearted support for the Chairman of the Committee.
It is not a matter of curbing the right to demonstrate - absolutely not - nor do we intend to make the House into a high-security wing; it is a matter of establishing an essential minimum level of security.
We shall not have any more foreign guests at our committee meetings if we cannot offer them the minimum security cover that will guarantee their safety.
We had both the President of a nation and the Foreign Minister of Turkey at our committee meeting when this incident occurred.
Please take this very seriously, so that we can continue to receive guests in future and so that we can treat them as guests ought to be treated.
Mr President, I was not aware of this incident.
I am totally opposed to anyone at all threatening an invited Minister, even a Turkish one.
Since we are talking about Turkey, however, I should like to point out that a Member of Parliament from my group, Mrs Uca, was representing my group until yesterday at the congress of one of Turkey' s Kurdish parties, HADEP. She was unfortunate enough to utter a few words in the Kurdish language before coming to her national tongue, which is German.
The Turkish police force immediately prevented her from speaking not just in Kurdish, which in any case she had ceased to do, but even in German, and there had to be negotiations before she was able to pass on a message of greetings from my group in German.
Virtually the same day, a leader from the Cypriot Parliament, who has, moreover, already visited the European Parliament, Mr Christou, was refused a Turkish visa even though he was travelling, if you can believe it, to a tripartite meeting in Istanbul between Turks, Greeks and Cypriots, in a totally peaceable context.
I therefore urge you, Mr President, to please ask Mrs Fontaine, as President of Parliament, to send a letter to the Turkish authorities, certainly in order to apologise for this shabby treatment of one of their representatives but also to remind them that Members of the European Parliament or indeed members of the candidate countries travelling to their country should not be treated in this way.
Hospitality over here and hospitality and respect over there.
I would like to associate my group with this complaint about this very serious and indeed frightening incident.
I would say to Mr Wurtz that it is a part of the process of trying to open up the prospect of European integration for Turkey that we show them the sanctity and power of parliamentary democracy.
If we cherish it inside this place, we should certainly be prepared to welcome and secure our guests in a very much more credible fashion than we showed ourselves able to do yesterday.
If we are not proud of our Parliament, we cannot expect the Turks to copy us.
Mr President, I should like to draw both your and the House's attention to the incident which Mr Wurtz referred to, i.e. the fact that the Turkish Government refused a visa to the Cypriot member of parliament and parliamentary representative of AKEL, Andreas Christou, who was due to attend a meeting of Turkish, Greek and Cypriot parties in Istanbul.
Andreas Christou, I may add, is the deputy chairman of the Cypriot parliament's delegation to the EU-Cyprus joint parliamentary committee.
I would like, on behalf of the Communist Party of Greece, to express our outrage and horror at the latest act of provocation on the part of Turkey, a candidate country for membership of the European Union, and to join in the call for a protest to be made in the name of the European Parliament.
I can inform you that Mrs Fontaine - this has just been communicated to me and I should like to echo the sentiment on behalf of the Bureau - deeply deplores this grave incident.
It goes without saying that we in this house of European democracy must guarantee the safety of all our guests and anyone who spends time within these four walls.
Naturally, freedom of expression must be respected too.
Our President, Mrs Fontaine, has now asked the Secretary General for a report.
This report will, of course, be considered as quickly as possible.
Based on the findings of this report, the President will not hesitate to take the required measures and also to involve the organs of this Parliament that need to be involved, such as the quaestors or the Bureau, for example.
Mr President, a few days ago, in Bari, the capital of the region of Puglia, which is one of the most important regions of Italy, the President of the Regional Council, Mr Raffaele Fitto, who was a Member of this Parliament until June last year, was attacked and beaten up.
This is evidence of the way verbal violence leads to physical violence.
I feel that, in addition to expressing sympathy towards a leading figure, an important Italian political leader who has also been a Member of this House, Parliament must firmly condemn such incidents and show its solidarity with the victims.
Thank you for your contribution, Mr Tajani.
We will duly take note of what you have said.
Mr President, I am just taking the floor to inform you that a delegation of workers from Telecom Italia is present in Parliament today.
Telecom Italia is a leading company in the telecommunications sector.
These workers have come to Parliament to present a petition bearing over 10 000 signatures, calling precisely for the support of the European institutions.
This is because they have been made redundant by their company despite the fact that it is economically sound and that it has been expanding for some years.
Telecom Italia is therefore a company which raises its prices and cuts jobs.
In recent weeks, in recent days, we have been discussing the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the rights of workers.
It would therefore be appropriate for Parliament to endeavour to avoid there being such a huge discrepancy between its fine declarations of principles and harsh reality.
Therefore, what we want from Parliament and the Commission are greater endeavours to protect workers and fight unemployment.
Mr President, there was an extremely serious occurrence in Italy yesterday.
On the grounds that pills do no harm and that "Marijuana is a treatment for tumours", the Minister for Health undermined the dignity of the individual by calling for the drug to be legalised.
All this has happened while we are preparing for Nice with a Charter of Fundamental Rights, the preamble to which affirms that the European Union is founded on the indivisible, universal principle of human dignity.
The incident also coincides with a Community action programme on the prevention of drug addiction which, precisely because it is a preventive action, identifies the drug as a phenomenon which should certainly be avoided and, I feel, should not be supported.
Pino Arlacchi, Under Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, condemned the Italian Minister for Health's speech, for the Minister was clearly ignorant of the good news on prevention recorded in the United States, Spain and even Bolivia and Peru, and Mr Arlacchi called upon the Italian government ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
At the beginning of today's sitting, Madame President paid homage to the memory of Ernest Lluch.
In 1966, Ernest Lluch, his brother and myself, with more than 60 other members of the teaching staff were expelled by the Francoist regime from the University of Barcelona.
From that time on, in spite of our different political opinions, I recognised the sincere commitment of Ernest Lluch in the struggle for dialogue and understanding, even facing the authoritarian position of the present government.
The best homage to Ernest Lluch and to his memory would be to respect his message - dìaleg in Catalan - can we all give this a chance in the Basque country?
Thank you very much, Mr Gorostiaga.
Would you please sit down and remove that sign.
Mr President, I would like to draw the President' s attention to a letter that we sent in connection with the Statute for Members of Parliament.
In this letter, Mrs Hautala made mention of our support and sympathy for the efforts undertaken by the President, Mrs Fontaine, to set up negotiations on our own Statute as MEPs.
It is therefore a matter of the deepest regret to us that a meeting that was planned for 30 November was cancelled.
We urge you in the strongest terms to call another meeting before the end of the French Presidency, so that the discussion about the Statute can be brought to a successful conclusion.
Thank you very much, Mrs Maes.
I will communicate this to Mrs Fontaine, who will take the necessary steps.
Mr President, last year the Council took an excellent initiative to create the first European Union forum on human rights.
This excellent initiative was repeated this year and the second forum will be held on 12 and 13 December in Paris, which is to say at the same time as the European Parliament' s part-session in Strasbourg.
This is, at the very least, poor manners with regard to the European Parliament, if not an outright snub, and, allowing for the possibility that the Members of the European Parliament have nothing to say about human rights, even though they have voted, by a very large majority, in favour of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, they will be absent from this European Union forum which many of them attended last year in order to debate with NGOs and institutions.
I would therefore urge that, in response, our official representatives are not sent to this forum, and that, next year, a date should be agreed when Members of Parliament may attend, which means the dates of the Strasbourg sittings should be avoided when scheduling this important meeting.
You are right, Mr Cornille.
This must be arranged differently in the future where possible.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not going to debate a single issue here.
On the other hand of course, everyone can have their say.
I want to answer the awful action of both colleagues in this Parliament who presented ideas opposite to those of Ernest Lluch.
He was always fighting for dialogue, he desired dialogue.
I would say only that every action of ETA prompts ...
Mr Gorostiaga, I am going to interrupt you there.
We have now said enough on that score.
Common foreign and security policy - Afghanistan
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Minister, Commissioner, in dealing with European Security and Defence Policy this afternoon, we are, as President Brok just said, in a field where we can be optimistic about the construction of Europe.
Since the Cologne European Council, at Helsinki and Feira and tomorrow, I hope, at the Nice Council, we have been able to follow the progress of this new policy with pleasure.
Things do not often turn out that way, Minister, and we are delighted.
On 15 June before the Feira Summit, the European Parliament passed a resolution, and tomorrow, on the eve of the Nice Council, it has to vote on a text summarising its position.
Obviously I hope a clear majority will support the motion for a resolution.
I already know the vote will not be unanimous and that is not surprising, because this is difficult ground where differing political options are expressed on the role of the European Union as opposed to that of its Member States, on the place of the soldier as opposed to the civilian, on the place of the European Union as opposed to NATO and the United States, on the role of the European Union in the world and the choice it has to make between pacifism and non-intervention, on the one hand, and the will to deal with crises, on the other.
These choices sometimes divide us, but now gradually a majority is taking shape.
Barring accidents, that majority should support the line taken for a year and a half by the Council of Ministers, the High Representative, Mr Solana, and the Commission, especially in Commissioner Patten' s area of responsibility, in charge of civilian crisis management resources, but associated with that support, which I hope is clear and lucid, there are many questions, sometimes warnings, and I shall consider some of them here.
First, a brief comment on a crucial issue: the relationship between the new European policy and NATO.
We have discussed this at length in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
The proposed text confirms the decisions of the European Council.
This is not about competing with NATO or usurping its responsibility for defending our territory, it is about turning Europe into a credible partner of the United States by establishing a new balance in the Alliance and giving the European Union a margin of autonomy in the event of a crisis.
Secondly, you will note that the resolution affirms Parliament' s clear intention to place the security and defence policy squarely on two complementary pillars: civilian crisis management and, should that fail, military crisis management.
This concern for balance means Parliament will be monitoring the fair division of financial resources carefully, although we are well aware that the first comes under the Community budget and the second is still covered by national budgets.
Thirdly, we are glad to see the CESDP starting off with a tangible achievement, the Rapid Reaction Force.
And we are pleased with the work done so far, especially at the recent Capabilities Commitment Conference.
All that has the merit of making this policy credible.
This is also the time to take an inventory of the state of our armies and consolidate the will for reform, which I noted recently in Berlin as regards the German army.
On the institutional reforms you have undertaken, I would like to stress that we want the European Union to have a coherent, clear and effective chain of command.
It is not enough to create bodies like the PSC, the Military Committee and the Military Staff; the vertical and horizontal links between the various bodies must also function properly and in real time.
We do not feel entirely reassured on this point and in particular we would like to have the crisis powers of the Commission, the Council and the High Representative specified precisely.
Briefly, Mr President, I would like to mention a major problem for the credibility of this policy - budgetary resources.
Of course, savings must be made, but we cannot exclude the need for new resources if we want to fill the gaps found in the inventory, especially in high-tech areas.
Mr President, like Mr Brok, I would like to stress the role of the European Parliament and the parliamentary institutions.
There is so much more to say, but I want the Council' s representatives to know that the European Parliament is keen to adopt this unfamiliar culture of security and defence, and we hope the Nice Summit is a great success.
In discussing Madame Lalumière's comprehensive and interesting report on the common European security and defence policy in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, we concentrated on the institutions and decision-making procedures. In particular the need for parliamentary scrutiny and democratic accountability.
The development of the ESDP is a major new departure for the European project and therefore needs to have the existing institutional framework clarified.
Whether there are legal arguments that existing powers are adequate is not really the issue.
It should be clear that the parliamentary dimension should be introduced.
No member of a national parliament would consider for a moment having limited and anything but transparent democratic scrutiny of security and defence.
Within the limits of operational security even the US Senate and House are closely involved with the operations of the Department of Defence.
Because of the particular nature of the possible developments of the CESDP, we also believe that Treaty changes will be needed so that such developments can be conducted openly and democratically.
Similarly the status of the High Representative must be clarified in relation to the existing triangle and the Commissioner responsible for external relations.
Mr President, you will be aware perhaps that my Party in the UK have considerable reservations about the thrust of this policy but I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues on the Constitutional Affairs Committee for guiding me into producing an opinion that I hope will be acceptable to this distinguished House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I speak to you today, I am aware of taking part in a key turning point in the life of Europe, because this is, I think, the first time that a Minister of Defence has addressed your Parliament.
On 24 October, I reviewed the progress of a European defence system with your Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights and Common Security and Defence Policy.
I am delighted to continue in this vein by talking to you today about the results of our conference on military commitments of 20 November.
I wish, first of all, to express my agreement with the wording of your resolution of 21 November on the European security and defence policy.
You claim that this policy does not aim to compete with the North Atlantic Alliance, which remains today the foundation of the collective defence of its members, or to establish a permanent European army.
The Presidency and, I believe, all our governments share this view.
Our aim is to gain the capability, by 2003, of coordinating our armies to fulfil the Petersberg tasks, should the Council decide to launch a military operation on behalf of the Union.
In the vital area of military capability, at Helsinki, our States set themselves the overall target of being in a position, by 2003, to deploy within 60 days and to sustain for at least one year, forces of up to the size of an army corps, in other words, 60 000 soldiers.
These forces should be self-sufficient in military terms and should have the necessary capabilities for command, control, intelligence, and for other support units, as well as air and naval backup.
Our Member States also decided, again at the Helsinki Council, a year ago, to rapidly establish collective targets for strategic capabilities.
The Fifteen have successfully achieved the difficult task of making these objectives a reality in military and technical terms.
I wish to emphasise the quality of the completely new work that has been carried out by our States' military experts, under the auspices of the interim military body, which was only created in March.
I would also like to highlight the genuineness and effectiveness of the cooperation with the North Atlantic Alliance, which enabled us to have a fruitful exchange on the development of these new capabilities.
As a result, we now have detailed military planning documents, which have just been adopted by the General Affairs Council.
Firstly, we have the catalogue of capabilities, a 300-page document which scrupulously lists all the military capabilities that are known to be needed by our Union in order to guarantee that all of the Petersberg tasks can be fulfilled.
I would remind you of the wide range of tasks that this covers: humanitarian aid, the evacuation of nationals, conflict prevention and also the separation by force of the warring parties.
We now have this catalogue of capabilities, which has been adopted by the whole Union.
We also now have a catalogue of forces that records the voluntary contributions of each Member State.
These contributions, which were confirmed by the Fifteen at the conference on 20 November, form a pool of more than 100 000 men, around 400 combat aircraft and 100 naval vessels.
These contributions therefore enable us, in terms of quantity, to fully meet the overall target set by the Council.
I would like to make two specific points relating to these numbers. I could, of course, add many other facts and figures, but I would like to be concise.
These numbers relate to a mechanism that is designed to be maintained for a European Union operation for at least one year, which means that each country will have, in line with the contribution that it has stated, a reserve force that will enable it to provide the necessary relief forces.
Furthermore, although I mentioned the figure of 100 000 soldiers, this does not mean that we are seeking to exceed the target set in Helsinki, but that we will have a reserve of qualified forces and forces with various areas of expertise, which will enable us to guarantee that the figure of 60 000 personnel in the Council' s target would be reached whatever operational conditions they may be required to work in.
I wish, briefly, to comment on these figures in order to emphasise that if the European Union has taken the decision to provide itself with military capabilities, it cannot carry out this decision on an unrealistic basis.
These capabilities must be sound and credible, because, as everyone here can imagine, and as I can attest from personal experience, when a democratic political authority faced with a situation of violence to which it cannot fail to react decides to use force, it cannot afford to take a gamble.
It must have complete confidence in the credibility of its forces.
The catalogue that I have just discussed was not the only result of this conference of commitment.
We also reached agreement on continuing work to improve the quality of these forces.
The Member States committed themselves to implementing medium- and long-term tasks to improve both their operational and strategic capabilities.
We gave a particular commitment, under the current reforms of our armed forces, referred to just now by Mrs Lalumière, to continuing to increase our own capabilities and to coordinating existing projects, implementing national or multinational solutions to improve the performance of our forces.
What we need to do above all is to increase the speed of deployment, the ability to keep forces on the ground and the power of coordination, which together make up what we call the interoperability of European forces.
We must improve our strategic capabilities, especially strategic mobility, in order to rapidly move forces into the field. We must also provide further support for the senior officers to command and control the forces and improve the resources for training them.
Finally, we wish to improve some of the European forces' operational capabilities.
In particular, we have identified research and combat rescue, defence instruments against ground-to-ground missiles, high-precision weapons and logistical support.
These incorporate most of the suggestions made in your resolution of 21 November.
I should like to make another comment on this overall project to improve European capabilities.
Some people have suggested that this illustrates the shortcomings and weaknesses of the European people.
I shall simply say, however, that these shortcomings and weaknesses have existed for a long time and that until now, no one in politics has shown any concern about this, at least at European level.
The action that we have set in motion has given Europeans the opportunity to shoulder their responsibilities, to look towards the future, potentially to use their forces to promote democratic political aims and to adopt resolutions on subjects that have remained unresolved for many years.
A new dynamic has therefore been launched on the basis of an action demonstrating political will on the part of our Member States.
This will be credible only if it lasts and that is why we have adopted a follow-up and assessment mechanism that will be adopted by the Nice Council.
This mechanism will enable us to gauge our progress.
It is underpinned, of course, by the independence of the European Union' s decision making and by the acknowledgement of the voluntary and political nature of the commitments that have been given.
It will therefore enable us to compare the commitments given by Member States with their later decisions and I think that this will encourage or inspire governments to take the appropriate decisions.
As you see, Europeans are bent on undertaking a sustained effort in order to give credibility to a European defence system.
This will require the rapid implementation of the decisions that are taken.
Our fifteen nations have set themselves the target of making this Force operational, I repeat, by 2003.
Our desire is that the permanent bodies be put in place as quickly as possible after the Nice Council.
In 2001, and this task will fall to our friends in the Swedish Presidency, the system will have to be made operational, especially the European Union' s defence staff.
This will quickly have to establish its own facilities and proper working procedures.
By 2003, when the bodies that have been established are in a position to fulfil their duties, the European Union will gradually become capable of accomplishing some of the Petersberg tasks.
These are a few remarks, which have had, out of necessity, to be concise and as a result, incomplete in order to adhere to the rules of your Parliament, on the assessment that can be made today of the real achievements in the field of military capabilities, which have already been adopted or are about to be adopted, by the Nice European Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to take a few words to describe the profound political significance, which has been approved by the majority of public opinion in our countries, of this new task that will provide Europe with a tool for political influence that it has, until now, lacked.
This achievement is the result of a clear political will on the part of our governments, which is in stark contrast to the many disappointments that we have seen since the beginning of European integration.
For this I wish to thank my fellow Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Ministers for Defence, who have enabled this substantial progress to be made and I must, of course, thank the European Parliament for the interest it has shown in this new major project.
Mr President, as we discuss defence and security policy and conflict resolution, we should never forget the very basic reason why the European Union exists: It is the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution.
When you examine the past century, in the first half of it we had two world wars - the worst in the history of the world - millions of dead.
Yet those same people in those same countries created European Union in that same century, and the principles that go to the heart of European Union, when applied anywhere in the world, will bring peace.
When we speak about conflict resolution why, instead of sending soldiers, do you not send this philosophy and why do you not consider setting up in the European Commission a section on peace and reconciliation and a Commissioner for peace and reconciliation, given the massive and fundamental experience of European Union and conflict resolution?
(Applause from the left)
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.10 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Mr President, Mr Brok has made it perfectly clear what our group thinks of the progress achieved in the field of defence and of the distance that still needs to be covered here.
I shall confine myself to saying here, addressing Mrs Lalumière, that our group will be approving her excellent report tomorrow.
But let me concentrate for now on the situation in Afghanistan. I was there in June and I witnessed both the plight of the refugees and the fanaticism of the Taliban fighters with whom I spoke.
Since the fall of Talokan in September, which led to our Parliament's first resolution and has triggered today's debate, the situation has continued to worsen, especially in humanitarian terms.
The Talokan offensive cut off the only route of supply to the Panchir Valley and the Shomali Plains, where Commander Massood's forces are concentrated, as also a large proportion of the uprooted people and refugees.
Quite clearly, there is no military solution in this area, as has been said, and I therefore took note of the statements the Presidency of the Council made a short while ago, when it committed itself to apply all the necessary pressure on the neighbouring countries, and in particular Pakistan, to persuade them to stop interfering here and to seek a political settlement.
But what we really must look at, I repeat, is the humanitarian situation, which is becoming increasingly precarious. Today there are more than 30 000 families, of whom half have no shelter, who are living in complete deprivation in the Shomali Plains, in the Panchir Valley and in the northern region where communications with Tajikistan remain very difficult.
Fifty percent means 15 000 families.
The temperature in the region just now is between minus 3 and minus 6 degrees and the only provisions these families have received over the past month is one sack of wheat.
So it is extremely urgent to provide humanitarian aid.
I think that has already been called for.
A food depot should be set up in Dushanbe.
I think we should consider establishing an air bridge, as we managed to do in other times and other places.
It is a matter of the very survival of the people there.
Mr President, I intend to concentrate on Mrs Lalumière' s report in my intervention.
On behalf of the entire PSE Group, I would like to express my admiration for the outstanding report by Catherine Lalumière, our highly esteemed fellow Member.
My group supports her position and we are grateful for the well-balanced text, which brings out the right points.
As you will all be aware, there is to be a new approach to the common foreign and security policy; in which the civilian component will be deemed to be at least as important as the military component.
The setting up of the rapid reaction force seems to be coming on apace, for which we extend our compliments.
The Member States have made promises that do justice to previously articulated ambitions.
Now it is matter of forging an effective and efficient European unit from this, under a clear and unambiguous command.
That will be the real test for the European Union in my view.
A new dimension is being added to the common foreign and security policy.
This makes effective parliamentary control an absolute necessity.
Do the Council and the Commission go along with the proposals in the Lalumière report on that score?
There are two other remarks we would like to make.
The developments I have described will give fresh impetus to the European arms industry, and it certainly needs it.
But we want to avoid pressure on exports, which is why we want to improve the rules on arms exports, and we will support an amendment to this end.
My group recognises that there will be discussion of the various facets, but is seeking new methods via restructuring in the first instance.
We do not rule out the possibility of increasing defence expenditure, but that will have to be assessed on its own merits, also in line with other priorities, for example in the social and economic field.
Of course we are much taken with the emphasis the report places on the civilian component of the common foreign and security policy.
The impression is sometimes given that the future of the CFSP stands or falls with the establishment of an autonomous military capacity.
Is this appropriate? Not if the press is anything to go by at any rate.
The rapid reaction force is intended to implement the Petersberg tasks.
However, we must not exaggerate the importance of this.
Although I do not agree with the cynics who say that it will provide Europe with a pointless toy, it is true that the rapid reaction force will not be immediately deployable in many situations.
We regard it as an instrument that can be deployed alongside others, or better still, as one that can be deployed after other instruments, where possible.
Conflict prevention is to be preferred over military crisis management.
The EU is better equipped than NATO, for example, for such peaceful conflict prevention tasks.
We want to strengthen this capacity.
We are sometimes sceptical about the European Union' s efforts in this respect.
We have developed a kind of fixation with the military instrument.
It appears easier to get results using this method.
Lip service is often paid to the second part of the Helsinki Decisions, in our view.
Such criticism is often responded to with a reference to the headline goals for police deployment or the rapid reaction facility that is now being launched by the Commission.
We support these steps but more must be done to strengthen the civilian aspects of the European security policy.
We want scenarios and coherent planning.
What instruments will we need and when?
The key to the European Union is its civilian basis and that is what we want to see clearly brought out in the Union' s foreign policy.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it often takes a very long time before visible results can be discerned when issues are dealt with at European level.
Impatient citizens complain that the wheels of European bureaucracy turn infinitely slowly.
However, things have happened amazingly quickly within the field of European security policy since the decision to set up a joint European rapid reaction force was taken in December 1999 in Helsinki.
These are welcome developments.
We need to show ourselves and the countries around us that Europe has the strength and the will in future to prevent tragedies such as that in the Balkans.
Naturally, the EU must take increased responsibility for conflict-prevention measures, crisis management, peacekeeping operations etc in the immediate vicinity of the European Union.
Those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party entirely support Mr Brok' s report.
We also back Mrs Lalumière' s report in the main.
We nonetheless think that the importance of not developing structures which overlap with those of NATO cannot be emphasised enough.
It therefore seems a little unnecessary to regulate in great detail how, for example, European forces in space are to be organised.
It is important to safeguard the transatlantic link and the United States' s continued commitment to Europe.
The EU ought not to develop its own defence involving permanent troops.
As I say, things are developing quickly.
In the course of the week, country after country has reported on how many soldiers, aircraft, submarines etc it can contribute to make the rapid reaction force operational.
Judging from the debate in a number of Member States, many people are clearly rather bewildered by the debate.
Commissioner Patten gave a first-hand account of the debate in Great Britain.
In another country close to my heart, the debate has been quite heated.
In Sweden, a somewhat sluggish debate about neutrality is taking place, a concept which most of us perceive as a hangover from the days of the Cold War and as not being relevant today.
Those of us in the European Parliament, who represent the people of Europe, nonetheless have an additional responsibility to lead this debate and to discuss, and conduct a critical examination of, defence and security policy in the form in which it is developing.
This means that, as MEPs, we need structures to enable us to obtain information about the decisions made and to enable us to engage in debate, to participate and to hold people to account.
However, citizens too must, as far as possible, be given access to information and documents.
This is crucial if the policy in question is to win people' s confidence.
Last summer' s so-called Solana decision was criticised vociferously in this Chamber.
The decision meant that all documents relating to foreign and security policy were to be automatically exempt from public scrutiny.
That is unacceptable, of course. It is also why we have asked the Court of Justice to examine this decision.
The same ideas about the greatest possible transparency were expressed in Mr Cashman' s report which we adopted with a broad majority two weeks ago in Strasbourg.
I am therefore hoping for broad support for the Liberal amendments which deal specifically with the issues of transparency and public access to documentation.
Finally, I want to express my group' s considerable concern about the ever worsening situation in Afghanistan and urge the Commission and the Council to do all they can to increase their efforts to achieve a peaceful solution and to support the civilian population, especially now before the winter sets in.
Mr President, Mr Richard, Commissioner, I would like to restrict my contribution to two important sections of the report by Mrs Lalumière.
The first section I am referring to is the one on conflict prevention and crisis management.
I am delighted that this constitutes such an important part of her report because it is based on the analysis - which, if I am honest, has been made by the Greens before now, and on more than one occasion - that the European Union' s strength resides in its ability to prevent conflicts, and that we will only have to be able to seek recourse to military means - sadly - as a last resort.
I think the Stability Pact for the Balkans is a good example of this.
As I see it, it sets an example of how things should be done in the European Union, and it demonstrates that by taking various measures, for example in the field of democracy, support for the free press, and in the field of education, conflict prevention policy can help us to keep the lid on the situation.
What I am hoping, and I would like to echo the sentiments of Mr Wiersma in this respect, is that what the report has to say on conflict prevention is not just paying lip service but will actually be translated into concrete goals, in which money and political will are to be invested. Otherwise we will be even worse off, i.e. by promising great things but not living up to them.
The second section I would like to come back to is the military section.
This contains two points of criticism put forward by my group, which, to our satisfaction, have ended up in Mrs Lalumière' s report.
The first point concerns the role of the European Parliament, which is something several other speakers have already touched on.
It is still completely unclear in the current proposals as to what that role should be.
As I see it, the European Parliament should be directly involved in drawing up the much-needed strategic concept in the future, and also, if it comes to it, in the decision on whether to deploy the European peacekeeping force.
I have a very specific question for Mr Richard on that score.
Reports are constantly appearing in the Dutch press to the effect that there is a secret protocol appended to the Saint Malo Agreement - which his country concluded with England early this year - in which both countries, France and England, say, and promise each other that the European Parliament will never have any authority over any aspect of the security policy.
I would like to hear what Mr Richard has to say to this and ask him what he thinks Parliament' s role ought to be if there is no such secret protocol.
The second point of criticism, which is also included in the report by Mrs Lalumière, concerns the lack of any strategic concept.
Quite simply: where, when and how is this European intervention force expected to take action in the future? It is a complete mystery to me.
I was therefore slightly perplexed, if I am honest, last week, when Mr Solana' s answer to the question as to whether we have a strategic concept or not, was a straightforward 'yes' . He said: 'yes, we do have a strategic concept, now all we need is the troops' .
I would like to ask Mr Richard if he agrees with Mr Solana on that point.
Is there a strategic concept? And if there is one, could he show me where it is written down as I would very much like to read it.
Lastly, one point of criticism, which is not, I am sorry to say, included in Mrs Lalumière' s report, is the financial aspect.
I think Parliament' s message must be crystal-clear: we support this development but it will entail making cutbacks in the current standing armies, so as to allow for investment in new methods which we too consider to be necessary.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, another member of my group, Mr Modrow, will be speaking on defence matters.
For my part, I shall confine myself to what Mr Brok's report terms a cornerstone of the CFSP, ensuring peace and freedom, and conflict prevention.
Let me just give one example - one which is extremely topical and most significant in terms of how we must change our policy - namely the Middle East. Here Mr Brok rightly deplores, and I quote, "the persistent inability of the Union to play a constructive role", and in this case the responsibility does not lie with the French Presidency.
I have just returned from a visit to Israel and Palestine last week, where I led a delegation from my group.
I can tell you that the Palestinians have great expectations of Europe.
If you fly a European flag on your car, you can go anywhere, even into the most miserable refugee camp.
We must not disappoint these expectations.
What do they expect of us? Basically, three things that are within our reach, provided we ourselves and each of our governments show a degree of political courage.
The first thing they expect is for us to call for international observers to be sent out to protect the people concerned.
Let us simply repeat what Mrs Mary Robinson said to the UN Commissioner for human rights: not more, but not less.
What we saw in the hospital in Gaza, for instance, was truly horrific.
That has to stop.
If you have any doubts, I would advise you to read an interview published in the major Israeli daily Haretz on 20 November this year, which reveals the unbelievable orders given to Israeli marksmen facing Palestinians over the age of 12.
It gives some idea of the terrible toll of these two months of intifada: 270 dead, most of them Palestinian, and nearly 10 000 wounded, many of them crippled for life.
Secondly, we should dare to call on the Israeli Government to put a halt to its military escalation, which can only set back any hope of peace.
I am saying that not in a spirit of hostility but out of a sense of responsibility, in the well-considered interest of both Israel and the entire Mediterranean basin.
Of course we must strongly condemn all attacks against Israeli civilians, like the terrible attack on a school bus.
We did so immediately, on the spot.
But it is not by bombarding Gaza, after plunging it into darkness to impress its people more, or by bombing the villages of the Bethlehem region fifteen times, villages we also visited, that one can hope to escape this spiral of violence.
Thirdly, we should call for new peace negotiations to begin, based on the same principles that we uphold in all the other parts of the world, namely the requirement of respect for international law and the Geneva Conventions, the requirement of respect for the United Nations resolutions.
In this case, that means an end to the occupation, including that of East Jerusalem, the dismantling of the settlements and recognition of the refugee problem.
It is the constant violation of these fundamental rights, despite seven years of negotiations, and the resulting exasperation that lie at the core of this popular revolt.
So it is these problems that we must resolve if we are to see a return to peace, to a lasting peace.
For the rest, many Israelis agree and opinions polls show that over and above any voting intentions, an absolute majority of them accept the idea of a global peace agreement with the Palestinians, including the dismantling of the settlements.
As an association of soldiers' mothers stated, we did not take our children out of Lebanon just so that they could die for the settlements.
That is why I believe that Europe must decide to act now.
If it does so along the lines I have described, Europe will not only live up to the expectations of the Palestinian people but will also underpin the current of opinion within Israel in favour of a just peace and give itself a worthy and respectable image in the world.
Then, and only then, will it have a chance to overcome its impotence in the Middle East and in the Mediterranean region.
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on Amendment No 1 to the Brok report, which concerns the setting up of an International Tribunal for Saddam Hussain' s reign of terror.
There is no lack of reliable information on the nature of the present Iraqi regime.
The flood of reports is still growing by the day.
Nevertheless, the 'Republic of Fear' , as Saddam' s reign of terror was appropriately dubbed many years ago, is still greatly underestimated by many western politicians, also within the European Parliament.
However, this erroneous assessment could have disastrous consequences, because according to what he says, the Gulf War is far from over in Sadism Hussain's eyes.
Hence his relentless efforts to build up an arsenal of extremely sinister weapons of mass destruction.
After all, who is there to prevent him from doing so? He has kept UN inspection teams out for quite some time now.
Incidentally, this brutal Iraqi autocrat is advocating a massive Arab attack on the State of Israel, indeed worse still, a full-blown Jihad, a Holy War.
What, in all fairness, could be more obvious than the need to firmly contain the potential threat posed by Saddam? In point of fact, how do the Council and the Commission view the situation at the present time?
One would appear to be justified in fearing that there is no question of our establishing a European CFSP to deal with this crucial danger to world peace. At all events, the consequences of a failed sanctions regime against Baghdad are incalculable.
Owing to misplaced pleas for the suffering of the Iraqi people - as if we really believe that Saddam lacks the financial means to alleviate this - the tyrant of the Tigris is gradually being given more room to manoeuvre on the international scene.
To what end? To wreak death and destruction in his own country and beyond.
In a nutshell, it is high time that the UN set up an International Tribunal to conduct a thorough investigation into, and try, all the crimes perpetrated by Saddam' s 'Republic of Fear' .
An initiative to this effect would certainly lend credibility to the CFSP of the European Union.
Hence our enthusiastic support for Amendment No 1 of the Brok report.
Mr President, these progress reports on the common foreign and security policy, which are certainly very comprehensive and informative, also mercilessly expose the regrettable weaknesses of the Union in this domain.
Among the performances that surely give us no cause for pride are our rather embarrassing uncoordinated attempts to act as a mediator in the Middle East conflict.
I believe that we Europeans bear a special responsibility for peace in the Middle East, a responsibility which we do not exercise and which is evidently beyond our capabilities.
The one-sided apportionment of blame which we have been hearing in this House, the condemnations of one side or the other in this conflict and the discrepancies in the voting patterns of the EU Member States at the United Nations on 21 October of this year - which one of the rapporteurs quite rightly criticised, by the way - have further reduced the Union's chances of assuming a productive and responsible role in the Middle East.
We are not talking here about different interpretations of the causes of the conflict by the individual EU Member States and by various politicians, which is something the political leaders might finally come to recognise. The only thing we are talking about is supporting a peace process and gaining the trust of the parties to this conflict.
Both a viable Palestinian state and Israel's legitimate security requirements must be recognised by all members of the Union, otherwise we shall never adopt a common position on the peace efforts, and Europe will lose every ounce of credibility as a mediator alongside the United States.
The Middle East conflict could therefore become the acid test of the efficiency of European Middle East policy.
If we as Europeans cannot play a responsible role in the resolution of this conflict, independently of the United States, we must assume that we shall not be trusted to act as a mediator in any other regional conflicts either.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have two very important reports to deal with today and an important question relating to the dreadful intolerable situation in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, I should like to concentrate on the Lalumière report, because it documents the progress that has undoubtedly been achieved in the domain of European defence and security policy and sets that progress in a balanced and democratic framework.
It is balanced, because the report makes it quite clear that we need three things: the first is an analysis of the various risk factors in and around Europe, the second is prevention, and the third is civilian crisis management.
Only if all of that is to no avail do we need military crisis management.
It will not always be possible to take these steps one after the other in chronological order, but we need the entire package, and the fact is that only all of these factors together will make a coherent, balanced defence and security policy in Europe.
The report, however, also brings a democratic framework into play, and I should like to lay particular emphasis on that here.
Minister, I should like to say a special word of thanks to you for having been with us in committee and for being here today.
However, your personal commitment must not be seen as a substitute for democratic legitimisation of the European security and defence policy.
Defence policy, the question of defence spending, is a national matter and must be determined and overseen by the national parliaments.
There is, however, a European level of security policy, and the European Parliament acts as a budgetary authority for security expenditure at that level.
We need cooperation between the national and European levels, and we also need democratic supervision.
I realise, Minister, that you are sceptical and that you have just said 'No' again, as you did in Paris on a previous occasion, but this Parliament still believes in these principles, irrespective of party allegiance, and we shall go on campaigning for their acceptance.
Allow me one final plea: enhance European defence policy by giving it a parliamentary democratic dimension.
Mr President, I would like to focus in my speech on Mrs Lalumière' s report, which I think is clearly worded and well put together.
The decision taken at the Helsinki summit to establish a rapid reaction force has been interpreted in different ways by the Member States.
In Finland and Sweden they speak about crisis management, which in these countries chiefly means a traditional peacekeeping operation.
Mrs Lalumière' s report reflects the thinking of many NATO countries, according to which a rapid reaction force would very quickly develop into a fully-fledged army capable of warfare.
It would have at its disposal, among other things, heavy transport aircraft, aircraft carriers, cruise missiles, and in-flight refuelling for long-distance bombing missions.
The Finnish people have not been told anything about this.
In my opinion, Europe' s military identity should have been established in the context of NATO, then the EU could just stick to the task of crisis management.
I cannot approve of the EU becoming a military alliance and a military superpower.
Now that the development of the EU' s military dimension has begun, it is wise to aim for a situation where the Union should be internally differentiated in this area also.
The NATO countries could form a defence organisation within the framework of the Union that would function as a strong European pillar of NATO.
In this way other EU Member States could keep to their traditional peacekeeping activities.
I cannot accept certain details of Mrs Lalumière' s report, and in the final vote I shall support its rejection.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has yet to substantiate adequately its claim to exercise responsibility for peace and above all for lasting stability in the world.
Yet the Union would be unrivalled in that domain if only it would improve the existing instruments and especially its present potential for civilian conflict prevention and apply them coherently.
The unfortunate fact is that the trauma of Kosovo was followed by a hectic flurry of activity which was channelled in an entirely wrong direction.
Concentration on purely reactive crisis management has thrown the common foreign and security policy totally out of synch.
No government would take responsibility for sending its country's troops into a region on an open-ended assignment without clear political objectives.
But there are no clear political objectives, and there is still effectively no common foreign and security policy.
National interests continue to prevail, especially when diplomatic activity is on the agenda.
We have just seen the examples in The Hague.
We have the example of the Middle East conflict.
It is absurd to detach European foreign policy from the institutions responsible for most of the instruments that are essential to its pursuit.
These are not my own words; they were spoken by Commissioner Patten, and he is perfectly correct.
It is equally absurd to concentrate the bulk of the available financial resources on military equipment.
If we perceive European foreign policy as nothing more than a support instrument for European arms-manufacturing consortia, we have completely misunderstood its function.
It can only recover credibility if the civilian approach is its supreme guiding principle, if the instruments at its disposal are used in pursuit of effective prevention and if those instruments receive a level of funding that maintains their credibility.
Neglect of this wide range of instruments of non-military conflict prevention would turn out to be a mistake in the long run, and in that respect I am dissatisfied with the Council's statements to the effect that we have already taken decisions, but that things will move in this general direction.
This is by no means certain, because it is also apparent that these decisions are based entirely on the reactive approach.
Civilian conflict prevention, and I stress the word 'prevention', cannot be a mere appendage of military intervention.
It will not be fully effective until we have overcome the trauma of Kosovo and Srebrenica, until we return to a policy of active prevention and begin to deploy our available resources long before the alarm bells start ringing and until we are fully committed to defusing potential crises and eliminating possible causes of escalation.
This means that curbing arms exports to unstable regions must be the first aim for the Council to pursue, that trade policies must be fair, that assistance must be given to encourage the sustainable development of countries in volatile regions and, above all, that the democratic forces in civil society must be supported.
The promotion of regional cooperation is another valuable instrument.
The EU has only one problem in this domain, namely the fact that it has yet to arouse public interest in this sort of action, even though such measures are considerably more sustainable and effective than military intervention.
Mr President, a German conservative, Mr Brok, and a French socialist have joined together on what I see as a disgraceful tack in order to present us with two mutually complementary reports and motions for resolutions, each of which rivals the other in its interventionist militarism.
These resolutions, together with the interventions of the presidents of the foreign and defence ministers and Mr Patten, leave us in no doubt whatsoever as to the extent of the militarisation and aggression of the European Union.
Both motions passionately support the creation of a terrifying military machine, spearheaded by a rapid reaction force of 50 000 to 60 000 men or, as Mr Richard has just told us, 100,000 men, with air and sea support and even aircraft carriers being mobilised.
The stated aim, which I admit with a cynicism which makes me shudder, is for the European Union to be able to intervene militarily on the territory of third countries, in order to prevent and manage crises which threaten European values and interests, without so much as a resolution by the UN Security Council, given that all that is required is the approval of its Secretary-General.
And just to be on the safe side, both motions explain away the criminal objectives of the famous CFSP by proposing that all countries in the European Union have professional, i.e. mercenary armies which will, of course, carry out their orders without question and without hesitation.
This, they tell us, will enable operations such as the criminal bombing of Yugoslavia and the continuing occupation of Kosovo to be carried out more successfully and at the initiative of the European Union, which will back up and complement ÍÁÔÏ.
What about Mr Brok's contention that the aim of the CFSP is to deal with massive attack from the Soviet bloc.
Obviously, no-one has told him that, unfortunately for mankind, there is no longer any such bloc.
One thing is clear and that is that nothing has changed since 1990; as far as our rapporteurs and those at the helm of the European Union are concerned, the enemy is still those who refuse to bow down to the new imperialist order, those who fight it, the grass-roots movement which is beginning to react - as is only natural - against the barbaric foreign, economic and social policy of the European Union, which provokes hatred between peoples, and leads to war, unemployment and impoverishment.
This is the enemy which your CFSP has in its sights.
As I am sure you will have understood, we intend to vote against both reports and we promise to fight tooth and nail against policies which express ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the report before us gives the EU carte blanche to establish a military intervention capacity. I regard that as unacceptable.
In the early part of 1990, when it was foreseeable that the Warsaw Treaty would collapse, the Government of the German Democratic Republic which I headed adopted a new military doctrine based on freedom from nuclear weapons, on international security partnership and on gradual disarmament.
Non-use of force was our principle.
The end of the confrontation between the two blocs had rendered NATO superfluous.
Yet instead of dissolving itself, NATO is mutating from a defensive into an offensive power and alliance and is spreading its radius of action ever further eastward.
The arguments advanced today for the creation of an EU intervention force resemble those that have been put forward for the continuing existence of NATO.
This move is not primarily designed to pacify trouble spots but rather to permit the use of military means to safeguard access to markets, raw materials and spheres of interest.
I am in favour of the EU continuing to make peacekeeping the hallmark of its foreign and security policy and to detach itself from the apron strings of the United States.
This, however, depends on a completely different set of conditions.
First of all, the war that was fought against Yugoslavia in defiance of international law and the results of that war, such as the new tensions in southern Serbia, show that military force must not become a political instrument again.
Secondly, NATO should be gradually winding down rather than engaging in eastward enlargement.
Thirdly, a nuclear-free corridor, such as Olaf Palme once suggested, should be created from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Fourthly, the OSCE must be strengthened and endowed with enough resources for the prevention and resolution of conflicts in accordance with the fundamental principles of its security policy and not through the creation of storm troops.
Fifthly, the United Nations should be asked to convene a world peace summit, at which lessons can be drawn from the wars of the twentieth century so that the peoples of this earth will be offered the prospect of a peaceful twenty-first century.
Europe could set an example here, and the creation of an intervention force is surely the wrong signal for it to send.
I have to say that there is much in the Brok report that we can support, in particular the importance attached to enlargement of the European Union.
However we have concerns in particular about the nature of common European security and defence policy.
I say this in spite of the mass of apparent reassurances on this subject that have miraculously been generated in the past few days.
If the proposed European capabilities were indeed designed to reinforce NATO or the options for the alliance, we would have few difficulties.
But this is not the case.
The Union is bent on establishing an autonomous capability in pursuit of European political integration.
Mr Richard says he does not want to compete with NATO but he does want to compete with America in the security policy arena.
Among other ambitions, Mr Brok proposes that the European Union should set its military operational sights on a zone of instability in Asia, from Afghanistan to the China sea.
He mentioned Kashmir - I find this alarming.
The Lalumière report wants EU military operations to be funded from the Community budget and even those not participating would be expected to pay up as well.
There is a proposal to turn to Russia for long-range air transport and yesterday the Russians suggested common intelligence-gathering with the European Union.
There are some here who would prefer Russia rather than America as a strategic partner.
Mrs Lalumière and Mr Brok want EU defence policy to be under the control of a Vice-President of the Commission, who would assume the CFSP responsibilities of the Secretary-General of the Council.
Under this scheme the Commission would run defence policy.
This is all barmy stuff.
The Commission should concentrate on its civil external assistance programmes, military matters should be left to the nations on an intergovernmental basis.
Let NATO first decide how it would deal with a crisis and then, if required, Europeans, having developed greater capability, could indeed assume responsibility for a particular task, as agreed in NATO four years ago.
Let us not pretend that the present proposals have this in mind.
I cannot tell you how delighted I am to discover that Mr Brok all along was a dangerous revolutionary!
Could I congratulate Mrs Lalumière on her report.
Clearly we have made huge leap forwards on European defence cooperation in the last 12 months or so, but there are certain things we need to bear in mind.
Firstly, a key factor must be to maintain the consistency of the European Union's external policy.
Unless Pillars 1, 2 and 3 are working towards the common goal, any other mechanism we set up is bound for failure.
So we must always hold that in mind.
Secondly, while attention has inevitably been focused in recent weeks on the military dimension, we must not lose sight of the need for civilian conflict prevention and one cannot be at the expense of the other, otherwise you are actually pulling in opposite ways.
Thirdly, while I welcome the Rapid Reaction Force, we have to be clear from Europe's perspective, as we only get one chance to get this right.
It is not a question of not being halfway in or halfway out, there has to be a clear commitment by all the Member States involved to making this work.
We should not therefore try to force this to do anything it is not intended to.
NATO of course is the arm of collective defence of Europe and the West.
The Rapid Reaction Force's job is peacekeeping and peacemaking and the Petersberg tasks.
To do that we have to have the capability.
At the moment we are grossly short of that capability and ultimately Member States have to consider their defence expenditure plans, which are dramatically different from one country to another.
I would like ultimately to see us move towards greater convergence of defence expenditure.
We also need proper coordination.
No duplication, not only with NATO, but no duplication within EU Member States.
We should be working together and coordinating.
We should move towards greater European procurement policy, so we have a more efficient defence industry delivering better value for money.
Mr President, there are three things I want to point out. First of all, Mrs Lalumière' s report contains a whole programme setting out how the EU is to become a military superpower within the fairly near future.
It is perhaps hard to see why, bearing in mind that Europe has no enemies and is not threatened by any military power.
Secondly, the report is mainly concerned with military offensives outside the EU' s own territory.
As a superpower, the EU is to be able to intervene anywhere in the world where the EU' s interests or values are threatened.
In this way, the EU is to be an equivalent of the United States in the area of military intervention, too.
I am convinced that this policy would be greeted with distrust by the people of Europe if they only knew about it.
Thirdly, the very comprehensive report does not say a word about the non-aligned States or about neutrality as such.
The farthest it goes in that direction is a scornful reference in paragraph 5 of the explanatory statement to 'neutral' countries (in inverted commas).
The non-aligned countries must protest loudly and clearly against wordings of that kind and against the report as a whole.
Mr President, today we are debating two politically important reports, both of which basically concern the CFSP.
As it takes shape, the CFSP will experience numerous ups and downs; however, it will help realise our dream of a political Europe.
Even those who speculate as to the benefits of certain decisions, such as the decision to create a so-called Euro-army, cannot fail to see the important political dimension of this decision and its effect on the cohesion of the European Union.
In all events, the peaceful resolution of any conflict must be our creed.
If it is to retain its political attraction, the CFSP needs to be determined on the basis of the Member States of the European Union, not on the basis of isolationist or exclusionist rationales, but as a strong driving force behind the cohesion of the European Union.
Antagonism and compromise are facts of life.
However, the European Parliament must act within the bounds of government compromise and balance on the one hand, and the realistic utopia of European unification on the other.
There are issues such as technology, research etc. which are in dire need of a convergence strategy - this applies to the defence industry, information technology, space technologies and research.
And, as it strengthens its democratic institutions, Europe also needs to consolidate its economic and social power and cohesion, its strategic potential to act as a force of peace and its technological edge.
It is about time Europe had its own Cape Canaveral, its own ÍÁSÁ and its own Silicon Valley.
I welcome this opportunity to say a few words on the military and indeed civilian facility particularly with the forthcoming Nice Summit.
I would also like to put on record my appreciation of the first Minister of Defence to address the European Parliament.
It is indeed an historic occasion.
One of the most important things that was emphasised here this evening was said by Commissioner Patten earlier on in the evening, when he emphasised that we are talking about military facility and not an EU army.
I do not think that we can underline that sufficiently.
Even some of our literature that has been circulated with reports on our discussions here tonight, talks about rapid reaction forces instead of a rapid reaction facility, for example.
I think if we could clearly understand that, then a lot of the concerns might indeed evaporate.
What a pity, I say to my colleagues Van Orden and others, because my colleagues just across the pond, the Irish Sea, have so much to offer in this area: the tradition, the experience and the practice.
Maybe when the election is over we will get a more balanced debate.
They have so much to offer.
I am just disappointed with the line they are taking on it.
I will say no more.
I am very proud however of the Irish agreement and the Irish contribution.
As a small nation that has been traditionally "neutral", I am delighted we are in there at the table and doing what we can, given the mandate of the Irish people.
There is no nation in Europe that is philosophically neutral.
There are some nations that are militarily neutral and there is a difference.
Ireland has never been philosophically neutral.
We have a very strong view on the atrocities and the lack of human rights in some parts of the world and we are not slow to state that.
We have a very strong view of what we can contribute in peacekeeping and in peace-enforcing, and I hope we will always be able to contribute to that.
We will never be philosophically neutral nor should that ever be confused with military neutrality.
Thank you very much, Mrs Doyle.
The first attendance in our Parliament of a Minister of Defence is such an historic event that we have reserved the evening sitting for it so that our Members are not overwhelmed by the experience.
Mr President, I wish, first of all, to congratulate the two authors of the reports that we are now discussing, especially my colleague, Catherine Lalumière.
In the last few weeks the media have focused, as we in Parliament are doing today, on issues concerning European foreign and defence policy.
I am referring to the creation of a rapid reaction force and the transfer of WEU powers to the European Union.
It could be said that the public debate on these issues has broadened.
In addition to the diversity of opinions, I feel that there is a prevailing awareness that Europe is at an historic moment which requires its role in the international system to be clarified.
The perception of the importance attached by the European public to the common foreign and security policy is, in fact, borne out by the recent findings of Eurobarometer.
Although we all agree that priority should be given to conflict prevention and to the devastating effects of other types of disaster, the European Union will only be taken seriously if it also provides itself with military support capabilities for humanitarian interventions.
The progress that we are making in this field must, however, make us extremely thorough.
Greater clarification and definition are needed at every stage of the creation of common instruments for military defence, from the methods of participation to command, and in the responsibilities that should be given to the various countries.
We must ensure that this whole process is democratically monitored.
The European Parliament, working together with the national parliaments, is, in my opinion, the most appropriate body for this task.
I would like the Minister to comment on this point, if he can.
Mr President, in this debate in which we are discussing all the problems in the world and in which everyone speaks on whatever subject they like, I have taken the floor to speak about Afghanistan. I would like to start by expressing my satisfaction at the fact that my amendment, which seeks to highlight the total failure of the United Nations drug control programme in Afghanistan, was adopted in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and that it is now part of the text which is to be put to the vote tomorrow.
Millions of dollars were promised and then given to the Taliban to enable them to remove, to pull up their opium crops: they pocketed the money and then promptly more than doubled their drugs production.
The fault lies with the person who appropriated the funds, who should not have been so naive - and in this regard I am sorry to say that the programme and the agency were headed by an Italian - but also with the Taliban for their irresponsibility, and it is therefore right to condemn them, as the resolution indeed does.
However, I wonder whether it would not have been possible to be harder and harsher in our criticism and even threaten to impose sanctions on the country which gives the regime the greatest support, support without which the Taliban regime would crumble, namely Pakistan.
Why is Pakistan supporting the Taliban? For various reasons, not least in order to unleash them on Kashmir once they have conquered the whole of Afghanistan, so that they will create anti-Indian hostility there once again.
Well then, in my opinion, it is extremely important to break this vicious circle, and we can only hope that the resolution will contribute to doing so.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mrs Lalumière for a very erudite report.
I want to focus on two matters.
The Union' s management of civil crises has not progressed; the conflicts are by nature social, economic, intellectual, ecological and ethnic.
In all of these, preventive civil crisis management is a better approach than the military option.
My fear is that a rapid armed reaction force will be used more and more often instead of civil crisis management, and more and more rapidly.
The European flag is not to be promoted by means of a tank but by social equality, and therein lies a difference of principle.
I suggest that we organise as effective a rapid reaction civil crisis management centre as has now been planned.
Then we will be acting in accordance with priorities and our own philosophy.
My other fear is the involvement of states in NATO that do not wish to be involved.
There is one solution that might make the situation easier here: involving Russia in crisis management.
It is likely that Russia will often be either party to or otherwise connected with the crises we will one day have to face.
It is also known that President Putin does not take a categorically negative view of these crisis management forces, which I think means there are opportunities for cooperation, and when we know what type of crises we are dealing with, this for me would be an additional factor in achieving a balance in the process as a whole.
It would also make it easier for the nations of Europe to understand the whole issue.
I warmly welcome last week's decision by the EU Defence and Foreign Ministers to establish a 60,000 strong Rapid Reaction Force.
I am particularly pleased that the Irish Government is fully committed to this initiative and has pledged that 850 members of our defence forces will participate.
Like my Fine Gael colleague, Mrs Doyle, I recognise that this does not represent the creation of a European army and before shrill voices are raised in my own country, which there will be, against Irish involvement, I would point out that participation is voluntary and on a case by case basis.
Let me say this and let me respond to the comments of my other colleague Mr Van Orden.
I believe that this latest venture is a very important first step to remedy the deficiencies in EU defence capabilities, which were so cruelly exposed in Bosnia-Herzegovina and also Kosovo.
I believe that the lessons we learn in this latest development will serve us well in the future as we come to terms with the need to establish a European defence policy and capability, which in my view is as much an essential component of European integration as is the single currency.
This experience will provide us with the opportunity to develop our own policies in such a way, despite Mr Van Orden's fears, that we do not unnecessarily antagonise our US allies or cause stresses and strains within NATO itself.
EU policy must always be based on the partnership approach which seeks to share NATO assets, particularly planning and intelligence as well as hardware, rather than duplicate the structures of NATO, particularly when we share common objectives.
I believe this experience will serve the EU well when we come to develop our own defence policy, and I sincerely hope that that will come sooner rather than later.
Mr President, Paragraph 31 of Mr Brok' s report on the common foreign and security policy highlights the following message: '[The European Parliament] stresses the need, for the democratic legitimacy of Russia, given its political union with Belarus, that Russia's president and government unequivocally reiterate the strong need for democratic reforms in Belarus, particularly in the light of the report delivered in Minsk on 16 October 2000 by the parliamentary troika from the European Union, the Council of Europe and the OSCE.'
I am the author of that amendment, backed by a broad majority of the European Parliament' s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
Does Russia, in the long term, want to be in political union with a non-democratic régime?
I also want specifically to name four people who have disappeared without trace in Belarus in the course of the years 1998-2000, together with a politician who died in obscure circumstances.
These people are: Jurij Zaharenko, former Minister of the Interior and Vice-President of Belarus' s 13th Supreme Soviet; Victor Gonchar, Vice-President of Belarus' s 13th Supreme Soviet who is also presiding over a criminal investigation into President Lukatjenko; Mr Krasovskij, friend of Vice-President Gonchar, who has disappeared with him; Dmitrij Zavadskij, a film maker for Russian TV who disappeared in mysterious circumstances from Minsk Airport on 7 July of this year; and, finally, Jurij Karpenko, leader of the Civil Party and former Mayor of Molodechno, who died suddenly and in obscure circumstances in August 1999.
I would ask Mr Patten and Mr Solana, together with the incoming Swedish Presidency, to take vigorous joint action against Belarus' s anti-democratic régime.
Thank you very much, Minister.
Pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received a motion for a resolution to end this debate.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Reform of the Commission
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the resignation of the Commission in March 1999 highlighted the need to reform its structures and working methods.
The energetic reform exercise it is now undertaking must seek above all to restore public confidence.
The need for reform is beyond doubt and the Commission must become a first-class administration in the service of our political objective.
That is an essential condition for lending credibility to the construction of the European Union.
Following the reports by the independent experts, the Commission, at the initiative of Mr Kinnock, presented a White Paper proposing reforms to the way it functions.
Officially, our Parliament is consulted simply with a view to delivering an opinion, but Mr Kinnock assured us that our views would be taken very seriously in the Commission's further activities, in which we will be associated.
Given the scale of the task, four committees were involved and a hitherto unknown procedure was applied, in the form of four parallel reports.
Let me now welcome the work done with my PPE colleagues, Mr Pomés Ruiz, Mr Harbour and Mr Lamassoure.
So we decided on a method of looking at the entire issue, without any overlaps.
That method was respected and involved us in a major consultation process.
It enabled us to take a common approach, which respected each committee's terms of reference while seeking a real, underlying consistency among our reports.
However, I want to point out that the PSE considers it essential for the reform to respect the treaties in a very pragmatic way.
The cohesion between all the reform sectors should assure the people of Europe that the methods by which European integration is managed politically are clearly visible and truly transparent.
Obviously the modernisation of a structure as complex as the Commission requires diplomacy, patience and trust on the part of the various players, and particularly the staff.
That is why we want to ensure that this process is not imposed from above; we consider it crucial that all the staff are effectively associated in this whole process of modernisation.
Although it may be led from the top, the reform must be clear and visible to the unions, to all the staff, who must be effectively associated in this whole process.
We are firmly resolved to give a new dynamism to the European civil service, but that means we must respect certain principles: the European civil service must continue to be governed by a single set of interinstitutional Staff Regulations, which ensure that every official is recruited at the same basic grade and provide for real mobility, access to real training.
The recruitment procedure must always guarantee equal opportunities to all EU nationals.
The Committee on Budget's opinion on the reform concentrates on these major aspects, in line with our powers and responsibilities.
The leitmotif is the systematic reminder that, parallel to any legislative procedure, all budgetary decisions must be taken in the framework of the related annual procedures and the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Parliament has a great responsibility towards the citizens.
As an arm of the budgetary authority, it must ensure that public monies are properly used.
Moreover, over and above all other considerations, we will be even more careful in future to ensure that the Commission really does spend the adopted budget on implementing the various political priorities our Parliament has democratically decided, rather than reallocating it on the basis of functional weaknesses.
The package of measures proposed in the White Paper must help modernise the whole way the Commission functions and make it more efficient.
We will support it and ensure that these procedures lead, as soon as possible, to a management culture geared to results and performance criteria, taking account of the cost-benefit ratio but also of our political priorities, and remembering that decentralisation and delegation of authority are essential tools, provided that power of decision and of supervision are guaranteed.
The communication from the European Commission must deliver a common message to the various institutions.
In concrete terms, it is crucial to review the procedures for honouring the budget votes.
The non-execution of the budget, the excessive delay between inclusion in the budget and commitment, and then the payment of appropriations, is a caricature.
It is extremely urgent to find ad hoc procedures to restore credibility to the Commission's activities.
That means we must review the procedures and fix realistic objectives so that the backlog can be cleared rapidly and the delay between commitments and payments, which undermines the credibility of a large part of the budget, can be reduced. We must also provide for the suspension of contracts if there is no longer any consistency between budget appropriations and political commitments, and for paying subsidies and commitments at an early date.
The credibility of the Commission, and therefore of the European Union, depends on its ability to reform its financial management systems very quickly.
In the medium term, it is essential to fine-tune the budgetary procedures and ensure closer consultation between the budgetary authority and the Commission at the beginning of each financial year. That will avoid our plunging into the great difficulties we experienced in November and December and into situations that do not enable Parliament's political expectations to be translated correctly or allow for the real modernisation of the functioning of the Commission.
An annual evaluation of the changes in the functioning of the Commission and of the additional cost of this reform requires consultation at the beginning of each financial year.
That measure will take time, but it is inevitable and crucial to the reform.
The introduction of global management by project must be accompanied by a new nomenclature to ensure transparent management.
We are very much in favour of that.
We will make sure that all the technical provisions can be implemented on the basis of full respect for Parliament's rights as an arm of the budgetary authority.
Our committee was very pleased to see the conclusions of the Bourlanges report on externalisation taken up in the Letter of Amendment.
However, in regard to commitology, the Member States all too often promote national interests that are at odds with those of the Community and consultation of their committees slows down the decision-making process and increases the cost.
So the reform must provide an opportunity to restrict their intervention solely to areas where no expenditure is involved.
I shall not dwell on the question of human resources since Mr Harbour has addressed it.
The Commission's human resources are obviously not up to the new tasks entrusted to it, in addition to those it will have to assume in the future, and the redeployment proposed in the Letter of Amendment, which only relates to 4% of staff, will not resolve the human resources problem either.
In accepting the substance of the Letter of Amendment during the budgetary consultation procedure last Thursday, the Council proved that the other arm of the budgetary authority did in fact wish to support the reform of our Commission.
The questions of audit, management and financial control are basically dealt with in Mr Pomés Ruiz's report.
The Commission's position on the recasting of the Financial Regulation has been known since 22 November.
We expressed our views on the reform of the fast-track procedure in the vote on the van Hulten report.
Yet we would point out again that it is absolutely vital to guarantee independent financial control.
Moreover, it is totally illogical for the Council alone to be able to amend the Financial Regulation and we repeat our call for conciliation on this issue.
The reform of the Commission is crucial to the future of our institutions.
The working method chosen by the Conference of Presidents, which some found rather risky, took time.
But looking at the four reports as a whole, this period of consultation has allowed us to take both a broader and a closer view, which has increased the value of Parliament's opinion.
This report looks at the very first steps in the reform of the Commission, a major project aimed at the genuinely modern management of the Union.
It will be followed by many other reports and, for my part, after these weeks of working together, I hope we adhere to this method in future too.
I want to give particular thanks to the other three rapporteurs, for I really appreciated the way we worked and the clarity of their positions.
The differences of view that emerged are not just political but more a reflection of the cultural differences between the Fifteen.
They show that the very different approaches to the management of the public service we see every day in the different EU institutions, as also in our political groups.
The implementation of this reform clearly reflects the difficulties we are facing, but we know that this exercise, however difficult, is a vital one.
Together, we have contributed to this first stage that is crucial for the political future of the Union; we have modernised its management to make it more transparent and therefore bring it closer to our citizens, so as to convince them more firmly that their only future lies in a stronger European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, despite its scope the contents of the White Paper presented by Mr Kinnock do not directly raise any institutional topics.
It does, however, constitute the first stage of a wider discussion launched by Commission President Prodi himself, concerning what is called the governance of the Union.
A further document on the subject is being prepared by the Commission.
It is in that spirit, in order to start the debate immediately, that our Committee on Constitutional Affairs, following the other three committees consulted, looked at the question of the Commission's political effectiveness.
Is the Commission able today to carry out the tasks and, in addition, the political role which fall to it under the Treaties?
Indeed, in a Europe which will have 30 Member States tomorrow, with a bloated Council and a 700-member, 20-language Parliament, the Commission will have a more important role than ever to play in defining and upholding the common European interest.
Accordingly, our committee repeats its attachment to a strong, independent, effective, transparent and politically answerable Commission.
To guarantee that it has these qualities, we insist on five points.
One: the spirit of good governance must not be confined to the Commission's management tasks.
It must also underpin its function of proposing legislation, for instance by devising an internal procedure which will ensure that the subsidiarity principle is respected and by keeping a chronological record of procedures in order to reduce excessive delays in the preparation of documents.
Second important point: the Commission is the only institution that can coordinate all the activities relating to the preparation and follow-up of European decisions.
Where it does not do so, the results are felt, as we have seen, especially in the second and third pillars.
So we call on the Member States to give the Commission the main role in the preparation for and follow-up to meetings of the European Council and of the Council of Ministers in all its forms, which can be done without formally modifying the institutions.
On the other hand, it is not up to the Commission itself to manage the implementation of the European policies or of the corresponding appropriations.
The White Paper points out that at present about half the Commission staff is assigned to management tasks.
That is too few if we consider that the Commission should manage itself.
It is far too many if we think it should offload most of these management tasks, which is our view.
Decentralisation must be the rule, in favour of the national administrations or external agencies.
Regarding these agencies, the three institutions should take the deliberations on governance as an opportunity to establish a common doctrine on what is called externalisation.
The establishment of independent agencies is justified whenever a scientific or technical opinion is required or decentralised management seems better.
That was the case, for example, with the European Drugs Monitoring Centre.
It will be the case tomorrow for food security or air safety, but provided we avoid any dismembering of the Commission's political responsibility and ensure that the latter has the legal means to account to Parliament and the Council for the way in which the agencies perform their tasks.
Lastly, it is also time to look at the Union's external representation.
We discussed that during this afternoon's debate on the common foreign policy.
Here too we have reached the borderline between what aspects come under good governance and what may justify measures of institutional reform, questions that were raised by Commissioner Patten.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs calls for an overall study into the problem of the Union's external representation both in dealing with third countries in international negotiations and in international bodies, and to consider the establishment of a common diplomatic service.
The debate on governance is thus launched.
We will continue it in spring on the basis of the Nice conclusions and the new Commission proposals.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, we would like to begin by thanking Mrs Guy-Quint in particular for seeking consensus throughout the process of drawing up her report.
As the Committee on Budgets we consider that the establishment of the budget by activities causes us problems because of the lack of visibility of expenditure and our desire to strengthen the powers of the European Parliament as a budgetary authority.
We have just come from a budgetary negotiation with the Council, as Mrs Guy-Quint is well aware, where the hardest thing has been to determine in a clearer and more precise way what the limits of budgetary power are for one party or another.
The Committee on Budgets considers that Parliament must not lose its control over the allocation of administrative appropriations.
Our fears are not greatly allayed by the fact that, when the establishment of the budget by activities is over, category 5 of the financial perspectives will disappear.
We are not speaking against these consequences, but in favour of safeguarding the budgetary powers of this Parliament.
Therefore, any tendency of the Commission reform to covertly remove from Parliament this ability to control administrative expenditure would create interinstitutional problems in the short term.
However, an approach that safeguards Parliament' s powers of control and decision-making with regard to expenditure in the current category 5 will guarantee that the Commission reform will be negotiated with no further problems.
With regard to the TAOs and the transitional period for their dismantling, my Group insists that the Commission should make the greatest possible effort to limit that transitional period.
We therefore ask the Commissioner: can the Commission guarantee a truly limited transitional period?
Finally, we must deal with the thorny issue of the proposal on early retirement.
We are awaiting a three-way dialogue to define this question, amongst others, before the final approval of the 2001 budget.
My group does not reject the idea of this proposal on early retirement being obligatory.
We believe that the lack of definition of the current proposal could create more problems than advantages and we have already received some indications of concern from various officials.
Nevertheless, we will give the Commission our vote of confidence so that it can give as much detail as possible about the scope of its proposal.
During the coming three-way dialogue, we hope to receive good news on many issues, including this one, as well as the lifting of the reserve in the category of new posts.
This would clearly indicate this Parliament' s goodwill in relation to moving ahead with this reform with the Commission.
Mr President, today is an important day for Commission reform.
Well, that is how I was going to begin but looking around the room I am beginning to doubt my own words.
It is indicative of the way Parliament works that we are still not used to putting the items where we really have a big input at the top of our agenda and instead first debate those issues where Parliament does not have a formal say.
(Applause from Mr Kinnock) Six months after the Commission set out its plans in a White Paper, Parliament is ready to give its opinion.
I would also like to congratulate the rapporteurs.
They did an excellent job under difficult conditions.
Admittedly, we created the difficult conditions ourselves, but they were difficult conditions nonetheless.
On matters as important as this one it is important that Parliament speaks with one voice.
I believe that is what tomorrow' s vote will demonstrate we are doing.
I would like to extend my particular thanks to Mr Pomés Ruiz who drew up the report for the Committee on Budgetary Control.
He demonstrated great willingness to take on board the views of his fellow members of the committee.
The result of this exercise is a strong set of reports which will receive the near-unanimous endorsement of the House tomorrow.
So I think the Commission had better take them seriously.
It is also an important day for Commission reform because the Commission today adopted a number of proposals which I believe will be the key to restoring the confidence of the people of Europe in our institutions.
First, the Commission has accepted the need for rules to protect whistle-blowers.
The crisis which led to the Commission' s resignation last year demonstrated the absence of adequate provisions for dealing with genuine, honest complaints put forward by hard-working officials.
While we may continue to differ over the role played by Mr Van Buitenen it is clear that he should never have been punished for following his conscience.
Second, the Commission proposes to overhaul the disciplinary procedure. This is long overdue.
The Commission has now decided to accept the recommendations by the Committee of Independent Experts that the disciplinary board should be headed by an independent chair.
This will greatly enhance, and will be seen to enhance, the fairness and accuracy of the disciplinary process.
Third, the Commission has adopted a proposal for an advisory group on standards in public life to be set up by inter-institutional agreement.
This is also in line with the proposals made by the independent experts, and one which was strongly endorsed by Parliament in its resolution of 19 January of this year.
The report by Mr Pomés Ruiz sets out Parliament' s position on this issue in greater detail.
I am happy to see that the Commission' s proposal appears to be consistent with the position we are due to adopt tomorrow.
But important challenges still lie ahead.
The overhaul of the system of financial management and control has only just begun and while I do not share the pessimistic view just expressed by my EPP colleague I do think there is a lot of work left to be done.
The de-centralisation of financial control to DGs is an important step but it will only work if staff are properly trained, if sufficient resources are available, and if the responsibility of line managers is properly enforced.
In this context two aspects of the process are of particular concern to us.
First, the Commission has not yet taken up our suggestion to set up an external chamber for financial discipline.
The Commission may have perfectly good reasons for not doing so, but we would like to know what they are.
Second, the setting up of a financial irregularities help-desk or panel as proposed in the White Paper is acceptable to my group only if it can be shown that such a help-desk will in no way undermine the ability of OLAF to do its work.
After one and a half years of discussion and preparation the Commission is now putting its money where its mouth is.
The reform process is on track and being implemented as the Commission' s progress reports have shown.
The only danger in my view right now is that we become complacent and that we give in to the forces of conservatism.
They are everywhere: in Parliament, in the Council, in the Commission.
I therefore call on the Commission to redouble its efforts and to make sure that in two years' time, we have the first results that will show the people of Europe that the Commission is working again.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to thank the four rapporteurs for their excellent work.
Improving EU administration is one of most important reforms of this parliamentary term.
The main objective of the reform of the Commission must be a reduction in bureaucracy, increased efficiency and an end to financial confusion.
This means simplifying ways of working, devolving power downwards, and a better definition of the power of decision.
The key to reform is to increase and emphasise the importance of personal responsibility.
People in positions of responsibility within the institutions must bear both the legal and financial responsibility for their decisions.
Emphasising the importance of personal responsibility requires, among other things, the swift reform of Staff Regulations.
The reform will require activity-based budgeting.
The managers of units and institutions must be given a certain amount of leeway in administration.
Attention should be mainly focused on results, rather than working practice.
Only then can the resources that are available be allocated most effectively.
An institution and its directors must have clear scope for the best possible administrative practices.
Bearing responsibility will mean ending the advance monitoring of financing.
If there is more than one decision-maker, nobody clearly bears the responsibility.
Administrative reform is particularly necessary to improve financial transactions in the European Union.
The same practice needs to be followed in the payment of EU bills as in the outside world.
The current three-month term is too long, let alone the fact that many payments are delayed for more than a year.
That is a shameful state of affairs when we consider that the EU itself is a champion of modernised business practice.
My group firmly supports administrative reform.
Mr President, my group, the Greens/European Free Alliance, also support the reform of the Commission as set out in the White Paper, and we urge its speedy implementation.
Time and again in today's debate on Nice, we heard that the EU is facing enormous challenges and that the enlargement of the EU to an eventual total of 27 or more Member States will test the resilience of the European institutions.
At the same time, however, the prestige of the European institutions has sunk to a new low in the eyes of the public, beset as they are between a lack of confidence on the one hand and the pressure generated by a growing number of problems on the other; by way of example, I need only name three of the most pressing problems at the present time - the oil crisis, climate change and BSE.
We urgently need reform of the institutions, the sort of reform that will rebuild confidence and enable the Union to act more effectively.
We need legitimacy, which is born of greater efficiency, activity-based management, the creation of a culture of accountability, greater transparency, user-friendly administrative services and decentralisation.
We can only endorse these aims that the Commission has set itself.
We do fear, however, that the required degree of courage is still lacking in certain areas.
Let me take the example of transparency.
The Commission made great promises about transparency when it took office.
Sadly, the reality of the situation is quite different, as is shown by the framework agreement with Parliament and the rules on access to information.
We can see that some ground still needs to be made up here, and we hope that the Commission will take a bolder approach to the transparency problem.
As for disciplinary procedures, pledges have been made here too, but no clear rules have been formulated so far, nor have we seen or heard any clear statements as to how such rules would be enforced, nor has the question of external agencies been conclusively resolved.
We are hoping for an unequivocal statement on this at an early date.
With regard to 'whistle-blowers', I should like to subscribe to Mr van Hulten's earlier remarks.
On this matter too, we should have welcomed a less diffident approach from the Commission and greater courage on its part to address this problem openly, because whistle-blowers, of course, contributed in no small measure to the fact that reform process was finally set in motion.
The implementation of the budget is another area in which the Commission - and Parliament too, for that matter - must consider in future what to do about the problem of backlogs, how to ensure that we start to address the question of budgetary commitments in the implementation of new programmes too, so that we do not always have this huge discrepancy between commitments and payments.
In the domain of personnel too, we in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance - of all groups - had imagined that Parliament might have been more accommodating towards the Commission.
Indeed, we believe that the establishment of new posts has been very tentative; given the current tasks of the Commission and the forthcoming eastward enlargement, there will certainly be a need to increase the rate of staff recruitment in future.
But, as I have said, there has been a regrettable lack of support from Parliament.
The European Parliament needs to take a good look at itself here too.
In general, we consider the basic approach taken in the White Paper to be right and proper, and we hope that the Commission has staying power and further reserves of courage on which it can draw in the course of the implementation process.
Mr President, despite the effort made by the rapporteurs to support the Commission's work, the fact remains that a coherent, global response aimed at producing a governing policy in addition to merely improving the institution's administration system has not yet been given to the recommendations of the Committee of Independent Experts.
We take note of the fact that the Commission has endeavoured to introduce progressively a new budgetary nomenclature, but we would like to know when this process will be completed.
I would just like to point out that, according to the experts, under the current budgetary nomenclature most of the subsidies are in fact disguised contracts, which the Commission refuses to treat as such because transparency is ensured even less effectively by subsidies than by contracts.
I will not dwell on the recruitment procedures. The fact remains that the secrecy veiling these procedures is still incomprehensible.
As far as we are concerned, the only reform possible was put forward by the Socialist Group when it tabled 3 amendments to the Bösch report, which we discussed during the last part-session.
I will close by touching on the commitology.
According to the Committee of Independent Experts, the committees of the representatives of the Member States tend in practice to become a mechanism through which national interests are represented in the implementation of Community policies, sometimes to the point where they become a forum for dividing up the booty of Community funds.
In our opinion, on this issue, the Commission sees nothing, hears nothing and sometimes speaks in a whisper if at all.
With regard to the Commission reform, we feel that the disparity between declared goals and accomplished facts is clear.
Mr President, in his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul exhorts his readers to allow themselves to be transformed by the renewing of their minds.
This process of transformation is necessary to be able to truly serve God and cannot be enforced by rules.
Although the reform of the Commission is not to be compared with Paul' s message, this Biblical precept contains an important lesson for the Commission: rules cannot enforce true obedience.
Commissioner Kinnock is trying, by changing and improving the rules, to give the Commission officials an enhanced sense of responsibility.
As sound as the intention behind the rules may be, ultimately it all revolves around the implementation of these rules.
The new rules must therefore be tested as to their feasibility.
At the deepest level, this reform process is about a change of attitude and behaviour on the part of the Commission and its officials.
This change of attitude should find expression in openness of government.
The reform plans still leave a lot to be desired on that score.
The proposed advisory service for financial irregularities will not only undermine OLAF' s openness, but also its work.
In view of its limited budget, the Commission will have to make choices in its task package.
We must choose between deepening or enlarging the Union.
The years to come will be dominated by the issue of enlargement.
It is therefore astounding that the rapporteurs Mrs Guy-Quint and Mr Pomés Ruiz completely pass over this and merely regard the reform process as a means of achieving European political integration.
I believe that the reform of the Commission should be seen in the context of enlargement, and that is what it must be guided by.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the plan to reform the Commission, we are progressing towards the new European institutions: new in that changes were made to the old institutions following the problems which arose during past management and on the basis of the lengthy, exhaustive and in many places complex report of the independent experts.
As in the case of anything new which changes established situations, care and precision are clearly necessary.
Those with legislative responsibility cannot, and must not, let themselves be influenced by emotion and must not accept proposals in toto which, although the product of brilliant minds, do not follow the principle of representativeness.
The experts, as such, are specialists, but the legislator cannot be either their obedient servant or another expert: he must hear, consult, reflect and then produce on his own initiative, or else he may as well give up politics and leave law-making to the experts.
We would point out that part of the reform, which was unwisely adopted in September last year in line with the experts' proposal, was then rejected by the Court of Justice.
The entire structure of the Commission, which is a fundamental institutional body of the Union's current system, implements European Union policy as willed by Parliament and the Council.
Parliament must succeed in reforming the appropriate and necessary parts of the Commission without undue influence from outside, in order indeed to guarantee efficiency and transparency but also to make those who work there more aware of themselves, of what they are, of what they do and for whom they work.
As I see it, there is no structure of greater importance or substance in the world: 15 nations, soon to become 20 or more, an entire continent; the most industrialised part of the globe thrives in the Union and, therefore, in the Commission through its structures.
The officials working in the Commission and Parliament must be top quality, aware of this and paid accordingly. They must work but they must also receive all the guarantees and prerogatives appropriate to their job.
They must be accountable but not subjected to humiliation. If we give due recognition to those who have to be good, hard workers in order to be here, we will achieve excellent institutions.
Otherwise, everything will regress and the same problems may well arise as in the past, those very problems which have prompted us to carry out these reforms.
Mr President, can I start off by acknowledging Mr Harbour and the work he has put in to his report.
Like Mr Van Hulten I commend the way he worked with other people and was prepared to take on ideas and submissions from other political groups.
At the same time I thank the Commission and its staff for their support and assistance.
The Harbour report is really only the broad framework, it is basically the bones.
There is still a lot to be done, and I believe that Parliament cannot rest on its laurels.
We have already heard that the Commissioner earlier today launched a series of papers on individual aspects of the report.
Parliament, I understand, will not officially be considering these.
This is a mistake.
For what happens in staff reform in the Commission will ultimately have repercussions for the Parliament and we should not forget that.
I would like to pick up on the some 26 amendments which have been made to the Harbour report.
As you would expect we are supporting Amendments Nos 1 to 6, submitted by the PSE.
We shall however be withdrawing Amendment No 6 and asking for a split vote on the latter part of Amendment No 15 as we do not believe the current system within the ECB lends itself to this situation.
We would ask that Amendments Nos 20 and 23 be taken as additions, as in Paragraph 10 it would be utter folly to delete the involvement in drawing up the job goals and the personnel development role of the appraisal system.
Amendment No 23 looks like it was an afterthought and while we are not against it, it should not replace the existing Paragraph 22.
We are supporting Amendments Nos 13, 14, 16 and 9 submitted by the PPE.
We are opposing the rest of the amendments as they either add nothing to the report or basically take us off into flights of fantasy.
I would like to say something quickly about change.
Change is never easy.
Many people are resistant to change because of the fear of taking that step into the unknown.
Can I say that as someone who has been an employee of an organisation which downsized without any consultation with the existing staff, I envy the Commission staff.
Can I also say as someone who has been of another organisation who went through a downsizing and was made redundant, I am more than envious of the Commission staff and the way they are working and the Commissioner working with them.
It is not easy being made redundant.
I wish I had been offered the chance of retraining for another job within that organisation.
I want initially to pay credit to Mr Harbour.
I recall what he said about the long gestation period of this work and I would encourage the Commission not to feel that the timetable is an indefinite one.
There has been a vacuum and I would encourage the Commission to feel that its restored sense of self-confidence is important to us here in the Parliament and more importantly to the peoples of Europe.
Could I now draw attention to what Mr Lamassoure said in his explanatory statement about the institutional role of the Commission and particularly the political initiative.
I do not often agree with my colleague Mr Van Dam who sits with me on the Estonian delegation.
But he said two things I do accept, one that an attitudinal change was necessary and two, that enlargement is a key factor in the future success of the Commission.
Mr Lamassoure says on enlargement that the Commission, as regards the accession process, is expected to propose a comprehensive strategy reflecting the Union's interest in its political timetable - not just an assessment regarding the suitability of each applicant country.
When I was previously in this Parliament, the President of the Commission was Jacques Delors and he worked alongside Commissioner Brittan and before him Commissioner Cockfield.
They did not wait for ideas to be handed down from the Council of Ministers.
They themselves devised the single market programme.
They worked hand-in-hand with the Parliament throughout.
They promoted the scheme and they achieved it.
There was a sense of great self-confidence and harmony between the institutions.
I would simply say to Commissioner Kinnock, and I am sure he needs no encouragement in this, that it is not just a question of management or technical detail, it is a question of personnel and belief in what you are doing and belief that the Parliament will work alongside the Commission.
We must have a goal.
That goal is enlargement and it is extremely difficult to achieve but we look to the Commission to be the driving force and we want to work alongside it.
Mr President, all administrations need to be reviewed periodically and to be modified and brought up to date.
Consequently, our Group supports the Commission' s proposals - the White Paper - promoted by Commissioner Kinnock.
Mr Harbour' s report views these proposals positively and we also support that report, which has been approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
However, while doing so, the Socialist Group considers that the current functioning of the Community' s public administration is reasonably efficient.
We must remember that the crisis in the Commission was not caused by any failing in the Community' s administration but by political problems which had little to do with the functioning of the administration, and any desire to link the crisis in the Commission with the malfunctioning of its administration would be arbitrary.
We must bear in mind that the Community administration is based on certain principles, which are well established in continental administration, such as the principle of a job for life and stable employment.
These principles were established after a previous period in which public appointments resulted from the distribution of influences, from the system of cherry picking and string pulling.
In light of this, the system of stable public administration offered a guarantee that political changes would not affect the functioning of the administration.
In some countries, such as Spain, where our political life has been through tempestuous times, the administration, at least, has been a guarantee of stability.
Therefore, while recognising that it is necessary to modernise the administration, our concern is to guarantee those fundamental principles of Community administration, which is currently occupied by extremely competent officials, who, often at great personal sacrifice, have to move home in order to set up in Brussels and who receive remuneration which is appropriate to the efforts that this entails.
We feel sure that the Commission will continue to present concrete proposals.
We believe that we will have the opportunity to express our opinions on them and that throughout this time we will be able to help the Commission in developing the Community civil service.
However, we feel that we ought to respect two fundamental principles; one, the recognition of situations that are recognised in law; the so-called acquired rights of officials and secondly, the principle of stability, of guarantee, and even the right to union membership, the right to the defence, by officials, of their post, their career and even their professional prestige.
With this consideration, we urge the Commission and Mr Kinnock to move ahead with their efforts at reform.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, we are monitoring this reform with justifiably high expectations.
I regret the fact that it took the resignation of the Commission in March 1999, due to dubious practices and maladministration, to initiate this reform.
The European public' s confidence was shaken and it is much more difficult to regain this now.
The Commission' s problems in implementing various programmes are clear to see.
Delays in payment are mounting up and the bureaucratic obstacles are well known.
The Commission' s new duties have multiplied, the complexity and the slowness of its procedures have grown worse and its structures, methods and formal constraints have not changed.
We are all familiar with the consequences of this situation and it has tested the dedication and skill of the many people working in the Commission and in its administration.
It is crucial that the Commission makes the best use of existing human resources and promotes new recruitment.
This is not enough, however, to improve the implementation of actions and of available appropriations.
We hope to see a thorough reorganisation of structures and working methods, and clarification of the distribution of powers between Parliament, the Council and the Commission is essential.
The first two institutions are responsible for defining policies and priorities and making financial resources available.
The Commission is responsible for ensuring that all the conditions are met in order to implement the financial management of Community programmes.
With regard to this last aspect, the executive role of the Commission must be strengthened, above all, by a reform of commitology.
Let us be clear on this matter: if, under the terms of Article 274 of the Treaty, the Commission alone is responsible for implementing the budget, then some interventions by Member States through management and regulatory committees, which have basically been put forward to express national interests, must be seen as hampering the Commission's ability to manage efficiently.
This is what also needs to be changed in the procedure known as commitology.
I am sure of the success of this reform and therefore congratulate the four rapporteurs, especially Mrs Guy­Quint, whose work I have followed most closely.
Mr President, the resignation of the Commission in the spring of 1999 was in fact the dénouement of a much more deep-seated problem within the European Commission, namely vague working structures that resulted in a lack of political accountability, fragmented policy priorities and unsatisfactory results.
Commissioner Kinnock' s White Paper offers a solution to these problems but also goes much further in that the reform proposals are founded on the basic principles of a modern European public service.
The people of Europe should be the main concern of a service of this kind, and for their part, they simply expect to see results and appropriate action when their interests are at issue.
Issues such as the BSE crisis, oil prices, and the greenhouse effect have a distinctly European dimension.
So the Commission has an important task to fulfil in this respect.
It will only be possible to achieve results for the citizens if the Commission is able to act swiftly and transparently, and be accountable to this public service, among other things.
So this is what the goal of the reforms taking place within the Commission must be.
We have all seen how the culture of fear has rather paralysed - totally paralysed I might say - the decision-making processes within the Commission, and by that I also mean the departments and the officials.
The field of external relations, for example, exemplifies the major problems that the Commission is unfortunately still struggling with.
Many thousands of project applications have been awaiting assessment for over a year now.
Letters and requests for information as to the state of play are either dealt with half-heartedly or not at all.
Situations of this kind have severely eroded the confidence of the citizens and organisations concerned.
That being the case, Commissioner Kinnock' s proposed transition to efficiency and supervised management and budget deserves all the support it can get.
The Commission could then concentrate on its core tasks and dramatically improve its efficiency.
At the same time, the package of reform proposals could break through this culture of fear, restoring the officials' faith in themselves as an organisation, because there are a lot of good people there.
The European Parliament could then judge the Commission on its results, with the political priorities established by Parliament and the Council, but also, in fact, the emphasis on service provision for the people of the EU, forming the all-important framework for assessment.
It is essential to quickly win back the credibility of the European public service in the eyes of the public.
This cannot be achieved by over-emphasising the word 'internal' in the reforms.
The public must also be able to feel that the Commission is truly accessible and transparent.
The White Paper on European governance that came out recently, contains a whole host of worthwhile initiatives to this end, but there is still a great deal to be done in other areas. I have in mind the people' s access to documents, an issue that we have yet to be satisfied on.
Now is the time to close the chapter on fraud, bureaucracy and the fall of the Commission once and for all.
Let us open a new book on a modern European public service that fulfils its constitutional role in the proper manner, is ready for the forthcoming enlargement and lastly, which embraces service provision for the European public as its new mission statement.
Commissioner Kinnock and President Prodi will receive the full support of the socialist group, which also means that we will keep an ever-watchful eye on the results and criteria outlined so eloquently in the White Paper.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to be very brief, but first I would like to congratulate all the rapporteurs.
The basic consensus with which they have worked is something to be greatly welcomed and is very encouraging.
The debate, as we have seen, is not so much about the principles, objectives and timeliness of the reform as about the procedures, pace, timetable, and possible shortcomings or unwanted consequences of its implementation.
This is a necessary reform because at the root of it was a real political crisis, not just the normal self-criticism which occurs in the course of an administration that has been in action for several decades.
However, what we are dealing with here is not a political reform with administrative consequences but an administrative reform with political consequences.
We are therefore dealing with one of those challenges that are occasionally faced by politicians who must find the best way to safeguard the governability of institutions, as well as the best way to provide the citizens with a good administration.
The success of the reform will be a success for all of us and we all have a great deal at stake here.
This being the case, it seems to me not only appropriate but also necessary to explore all the possibilities offered by interinstitutional dialogue.
This dialogue must open up the basic legislative framework of Community finances to the codecision procedure.
This dialogue must allow the establishment of common mechanisms in human resources policies.
It must yield fruit in terms of multiannual budgetary agreements, within the framework of the Financial Perspectives and, finally, it must allow us to work jointly on the monitoring and control of the reform.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the European public is not so much interested in our plans, in the sense of the material design of the reform, as in the intentions, that is to say, its objectives and consequences.
The public is going to judge us according to the degree of transparency, closeness in the decision-making responsibilities, coherence in the distribution of responsibilities, and according to the efficiency which is finally achieved.
I was reflecting on the very good point, amongst others, that Mr van Hulten made earlier on, seeking the explanation for the fact that the House, including myself, had the delight of listening to a lengthy foreign affairs debate earlier on.
The difference between the time given to that debate and the time given to this debate and the occasion on which they took place, I would point out to Mr van Hulten, is very simple to understand.
For the European Parliament, foreign affairs is a vital and interesting matter, and I completely agree that, having had a lifetime's interest myself in these issues, that is a proper explanation.
For the European Parliament, reform is a vital matter on which it has decisive effect as a budgetary authority and as a legislature.
That explains in politics why foreign affairs gets two hours and comes first and reform gets one hour and comes second.
The more power you have over an issue, the later it comes in the night.
Mr President, I am very grateful to you for the opportunity of this debate to respond to the excellent work of Parliament's four rapporteurs, the four musketeers, on the Commission's Reform White Paper.
It is also appropriate for me to provide an up-to-date picture of the latest progress with the implementation of our strategy for applying modernising changes and for preparing the further improvements, which we outlined in our strategy eight months ago.
I am very pleased that my colleague, Michaele Schreyer has been able to join us and naturally she will respond on the parts of the reports that relate particularly to her budget portfolio.
I would like to begin by reporting to the House that this morning's meeting of the College as Mr Van Hulten said earlier, adopted a proposal for an interinstitutional agreement establishing an advisory group on standards in public life, as outlined in Action 1 of the White Paper action programme.
It adopted a preliminary strategy for decentralisation and simplification of decision-making procedures - something which eventually will lead to substantial increases in Commission productivity and reducing those strata of bureaucracy that everybody rightly talks about.
The College also agreed today substantial proposals relating to the reform of human resources policy.
Those human resources policy documents relate to discipline, to whistle-blowing and to equal opportunities.
They will be the formal basis for the legally required consultation between the Commission, its staff and staff representatives, which of course will take place over the coming months.
Our approach on disciplinary procedure proposes several necessary changes, including the improvement and restructuring of the investigative phase of disciplinary proceedings, which would be handled by a specialist service.
They include: making the disciplinary board a permanent and more professional body, chaired by a qualified specialist from outside the Commission; improving the provisions governing the justified suspension of officials, including those being prosecuted in criminal cases in national courts; consolidating the vital coordination between the Commission and OLAF whilst not compromising the essential independence of OLAF; refining the list of possible sanctions to relate them better to any proven contravention of staff regulations.
All these proposals are focused on enabling the Commission and the other European institutions, including Parliament, to improve the professionalism, the consistency and the reasonable speed of disciplinary procedures and to do so without loss of fairness or rights of the accused.
The document on whistle-blowing proposes a system that compares well with the best existing practices in Member States.
It proposes the integration of the existing OLAF regulation reporting obligation into the body of the Staff Regulations.
It sets out the rights of career protection for whistle-blowers who report genuine concerns in a responsible way.
It establishes safeguards against frivolous or malicious reporting.
It emphasises the responsibility for those receiving reports of possible wrong-doing to act promptly, seriously and effectively.
It defines many clear procedures in several channels for reporting alleged wrong-doing inside and outside an official's employing institution.
In addition in the right to report to OLAF and to the hierarchy of his or her own institution, an official will also be entitled to report suspicions and evidence to the Presidents of the Council or this Parliament or the Commission or the Court of Auditors or the Ombudsman.
The provision of external channels will be a major and progressive change, which I am certain will work to the benefit of the institutions and their staff, the European Union and, of course, the public interest.
Finally, our equal opportunities document presents specific policy proposals to ensure equality of employment opportunity, so that the evident inequalities, which have been endured by women, by people from ethnic minorities and people with disabilities, can be addressed effectively without compromising standards of merit.
In these documents we have again sought to take examples from best practices in Member States.
To save time and to recognise portfolio relevance, I hope that the House will accept that it is best at this juncture to leave the salient issues raised in Madame Guy-Quint' s very thorough and very constructive report from the Budget Committee and also the financial management issues highlighted in the equally productive report by Mr Pomés Ruiz to my colleague Commissioner Schreyer.
With more time, naturally, I would be very happy to address the matters raised, and I am sure that there will be other opportunities.
For now, however, I will focus on just one of Mr Pomés Ruiz's points, one raised by other honourable Members in this debate, namely his question of why the Commission has not acted on the proposal made in a number of Budgetary Control Committee reports that there should be a separate chamber for disciplinary hearings for budgetary irregularities, either within the Court of Auditors or in the Court of Justice.
I think Mr Van Hulten made the point in the course of the debate again.
It is a fair question and there are basically two reasons for not taking up proposals that the Commission should have recourse to such external institutions.
First, the Committee of Independent Experts stipulated, in my view rightly, that any such body should be an internal one, not least because the Treaties attribute very specific roles to the other two institutions in controlling the financial implications and the legality of the Commission's disciplinary decisions.
It would create untenable conflicts of interest, not to say some constitutional gymnastics, if either Court were to be directly involved in the Commission's internal procedures.
In addition, such changes would obviously only be possible with amendment to the Treaties.
Secondly, in practical terms, dividing a disciplinary case up into its financial aspects and its other aspects of conduct, with these matters being heard in different institutions, would have the very undesirable effect of considerably lengthening the disciplinary procedure.
I hope that the House will agree that these reasons are sound, as the document on discipline this morning shows.
In most Member States and in all international organisations, the institution itself is responsible for disciplining its staff.
We strongly believe that should remain the case in all the European Union institutions.
Turning now to the governments and human resources issues of the reports from Mr Lamassoure and Mr Harbour, I regret greatly that time does not permit me on this occasion to make the detailed response, which these reports merit.
Suffice it to say at this juncture that I very much welcome both these reports.
I thank Mr Harbour for the very positive and thoughtful approach that he and his committee have taken to the complex issues of the modernisation of human resources policy, both in the Commission and in the other European institutions.
The report has given us additional and extremely useful bases for discussion in many of the relevant areas and the opportunity which was provided by the public hearing on human resources policy organised by Mr Harbour offered practices and perceptions from the public and private sectors which were all extremely instructive.
I would like to extend my thanks to Mr Lamassoure for his constructive insights and his constructive remarks on the constitutional context in which the current reform is being pursued.
He rightly draws attention to the broad issues and argues that it would have been valuable if the forthcoming governance White Paper could have preceded the proposals for administrative reform.
Ideally, of course, he is absolutely right.
I know, however, that he and other honourable Members understand that the political priority and the urgency necessarily given to the reform agenda meant that any delay in pursuing that agenda would not have been feasible or acceptable.
I am sure, however, that the analysis and the principles that will be set out in the Governance Paper next year will directly inform us, as we complete the design and begin the full implementation of reform and modernising changes over the next two years.
I express my gratitude to all honourable Members for their hard and thoughtful work on the reform issues undertaken over recent months.
I also thank them for the quality of the further contributions made in the course of tonight's debate and I am naturally glad to be able to say, with justification, that the hope that I expressed last year that the Commission and this Parliament would sustain an alliance for reform is proving to be absolutely realistic.
I thank the House for that too and for your patience this evening.
Thank you very much, Mr Vice-President.
I am sure that Parliament will give you the opportunity to go into greater depth on another occasion, since this reform is not going to end with the first vote tomorrow.
I am therefore sure that we will have the pleasure of hearing you in the future.
Mrs Schreyer has the floor to supplement the Commission' s report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reform of the Commission is a root-and-branch reform process.
That is evident from the White Paper, and I believe it is also very plainly evident from the parliamentary reports.
The main focal point of the reform is the effort to improve financial management.
This is not a matter of localised fine-tuning; no, the changes in this area are profound and substantive.
The best news is that major building blocks of the reform process are already in place.
They not only exist on paper but have also been implemented in practice.
Some building blocks are being chiselled out, while others still have to be approved in formal decisions of Parliament and the Council prior to implementation.
Allow me to deal now with important points from the reports by Mrs Guy-Quint and Mr Pomés Ruiz which relate directly to the budget process, namely the drafting of the budget and its implementation.
Both of these subjects are examined in the new version of the Financial Regulation.
The recast Financial Regulation is at the heart of the reform process.
The main aims of the new version are simplification, greater transparency and reinforcement of budgetary principles; in concrete terms, this means fewer exceptions to the rules, fewer incomprehensible special regimes and more efficient and effective budgetary procedures.
An entirely new feature of the Financial Regulation is the inclusion of rules such as those on the awarding of contracts and on financial aid.
In other words, the rules governing everyday budgetary operations have become clearer and will be easier to administer, which - as is our hope and our aim - will cut future error rates.
Mrs Guy-Quint, in your report you referred to many points in the new version of the Financial Regulation, but you also expressed concern that activity-based budgeting might deprive Parliament of information.
I believe I can allay this concern.
The idea underlying activity-based budgeting is actually to make it clear in the budget how much money is available for operational and necessary administrative expenditure in each policy area.
We want to indicate the cost of each policy, and you are right in saying that this does not in itself suffice for a cost-benefit analysis, but it does provide a general review of the funds available for a given policy area, and that is an innovation in the budget of the European Union.
The abolition of the present division of the budget into administrative and operating appropriations is the logical consequence of this new approach, but it does not mean that staff and administration costs are no longer identifiable, no longer separately labelled.
On the contrary, it goes without saying that they will continue to be shown in specific budget lines; they will simply be assigned to the appropriate area of political activity and will no longer lurk anonymously somewhere inside a general administrative budget for the Commission.
This activity-related approach is designed to harmonise resources more closely with political priorities.
It is an instrument with which expenditure can be more accurately estimated and recorded, and it is also a straightforward management tool which can channel managerial activity in a more focused manner on the basis of priorities.
It was, after all, one of the main concerns of this very Parliament that political priorities should be made more clearly identifiable.
So once again transparency is the aim, and I believe we shall achieve that aim.
Let me say briefly, Mr Garriga Polledo, that the categories used in the Financial Regulation have been retained.
The Regulation is a financial-planning instrument, and as such it has also been retained.
Incidentally, I am delighted to note, Mrs Guy-Quint, that you are a specialist in this field who can be relied upon to debate the recast Financial Regulation in Parliament with competence and no doubt with passion too.
I should like to deal with a point on which Mr Pomés Ruiz laid special emphasis in his report, namely the issue of payment targets.
You were right, Mr Pomés Ruiz, to emphasise this point so strongly.
Last year, only about two thirds of payments were made within the 60-day limit, and I agree with your criticism; this is unacceptable.
Admittedly, the number of financial transactions has risen rapidly in recent years, but that is no excuse.
It must become a matter of course for the Commission to pay invoices within the prescribed time limit, and this is the target the Commission has set itself.
How do we intend to achieve it? I shall mention just a few of the many steps we are taking.
For example, contract clauses on invoicing will be simplified, and the Commission will make greater use of flat-rate reimbursement.
For one thing, it is simply very uneconomical for the Commission if contracts operate in such a way that 20% of expenditure on item X is reimbursable, while 30% of expenditure on item Y is eligible for reimbursement, not to mention the frequent need for vouchers covering minimal items of expenditure to be collected and checked.
The instrument of flat-rate reimbursement saves a great deal of time and money.
Another important point is that the date on which the Commission receives an invoice should be clearly specified.
For that reason we shall establish a central register in which incoming invoices will be logged, and an entitlement to interest on late payments will be enshrined in the Financial Regulation and in the terms of our contracts.
I need hardly add that financial penalties are always a very potent and painful instrument.
On the subject of externalisation, may I briefly point out that the Commission will present a legal basis for this.
Moreover, in its letter amending the budget, the Commission also gives a detailed opinion on the question of the technical-assistance offices (TAOs), and I am very pleased to see that the ideas of the Commission and those of Parliament on the future treatment of this question run along the same lines.
Administrative reform is intended to improve the work of the Commission.
For this improvement we need good people, good staff, and we need a sufficient number of staff.
To that end, the Commission requested additional posts for next year from the budgetary authority, and I am delighted with the decisions that were taken last week in the framework of the conciliation procedure.
With these reforms the Commission is preparing itself to deal more effectively with its current tasks as well as with new tasks in the future, and it is also, of course, a reform process that will equip the Commission to discharge its new responsibilities in the framework of enlargement.
We shall naturally make every effort to implement the reforms as quickly as possible, even though there will be occasional criticism that one or other of these reforms still awaits completion.
In those situations it is sometimes forgotten that we also operate within a democratic system and that codecision rules have to be respected - and rightly so.
The staff of the Commission are also agents of the reform process, so it has to meet with their acceptance too.
It also has to be accepted by the other institutions, and in particular it needs the support of the elected representatives of the people. For that support, whether critical or enthusiastic, may I express my sincere thanks to Parliament.
I see that we have evidently launched the reform process in good time, because it is not quite five to twelve yet!
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
EU - LDC relations
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0337/2000) by Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the effectiveness of relations between the European Union and the developing countries and the impact of reform of the Commission on these relations [2000/2051(INI)].
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(ES) Mr President, although we are approaching twelve o' clock we hope that this final report on development policy - which we are also trying to include within the reform - is not being treated as any less important, despite the fact that it is indeed the last report.
I wish firstly to thank Commissioner Nielson for being here and for putting his commitment to this Parliament before certain other important engagements.
The report by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, for which I am rapporteur, deals with the repercussions of the Commission reform on the effectiveness of relations between the European Union and developing countries.
It is an initiative report, because the Commission has not seen fit to consult us in any other more official way, despite the fact that it has done so with regard to other aspects of the reform.
At least as important as those which we have just debated is the issue of the RELEX reform, which is the one that will offer the world an idea of the scope of the changes in the Commission.
On the basis of the Commission' s own diagnosis of the ineffectiveness of Community development policy, this report reaches different conclusions on how to remedy it.
In our opinion, that is, the opinion of the Socialist Group and that of the whole of the Development Committee, the development policy is an essential policy within the framework of Community external action, which must respond to the problems of today' s world, of which the greatest and most dramatic is underdevelopment.
This is an essential policy whose method of implementation must be modified in order to achieve the objective of eradicating poverty.
These are the basic principles that we share with the Commission.
Nevertheless, we believe that it has not been correct in its approach to the reform.
The Commission maintains a division - albeit a somewhat blurred one - between political responsibility and executive competence, which past experience leads us to believe, will not work very well in practice.
We believe that a cosmetic reform makes no sense in these times of profound change.
Commissioner, surely you and your staff have asked yourselves the same questions as I have: Why not unify the cycle of cooperation?
Why not allocate the competences for development in the developing countries to the Commissioner with responsibility for that area? It sounds absurd, but in fact what the Commission is proposing is absurd: that you take charge of implementing measures designed by others for certain countries considered to be developing, and of designing and implementing policies for the ACP countries.
Reason and experience lead us in a different direction.
Perhaps the direction we propose in this report, which does not question the division of competences in the College of Commissioners, simply applies it.
The Commissioner for Development should have competence for development; the Commissioner for External Relations should have competence for political relations, and so on and so forth.
We fear that the origin of the absurdity lies in the internal debate within the Commission regarding who is who.
The problem is that the consequences of this will harm the effectiveness of development policy and, what is even more serious, those people who should be benefiting from it.
We will see this next year when we are presented with the assessment we are asking for of the results of the reform.
The assessment criteria will be the progress made in the eradication of poverty, in the complementarity of Member States' policies, in the degree of coherence between Community policies, in the efficiency of project management, decision making and the simplification of procedures.
These latter aspects particularly effect the NGOs.
The NGOs, Commissioner, are one of the pillars of Community cooperation, providing added value for European development policy and great care must therefore be shown in taking them into account.
The importance of the large multilateral organisations does not cancel out that of the small NGOs, and I am not going to expand on the role they play in development at local level because we are all aware of it, especially those populations that benefit from their action.
We consider it to be essential that the hitherto fragile dialogue between the Commission and the committee for liaison with development NGOs be consolidated.
We wish Commissioner Nielson the greatest success.
We ask Commissioner Patten for the greatest generosity for the sake of the effectiveness of development policy, to which we are all committed and whose consequences are immeasurable in political and human terms, in both a positive and a negative sense.
We demand from Commissioner Kinnock, who has just left, the greatest transparency in the management of the reform and the necessary efforts in the field of human resources.
And we will call all of them to account.
We remind the Member States that there is no place in European construction for temptations to renationalise; on the contrary, it is time to defend the European dimension of this policy by contributing to its rationalisation.
Complementarity is one of the key elements for the success of the Community development policy and there should not be theological debate like the one in which subsidiarity has become bogged down.
(The President urged the speaker to bring her speech to a close) Mr President, I will conclude by saying that we are going to approve two amendments and another three will not be approved, as has been discussed in committee.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by emphasising the quality of Mrs Sauquillo's own-initiative report on the reform of the Commission and its impact on the effectiveness of the European Union's relations with the developing countries.
One of the great merits of this report is that it highlights the crucial need for the European Union and its Member States to conduct a large-scale development policy, which alone can reflect the culture and influence of our continent.
First let me remind you of a few statistics, to avoid any complexes about our current activities.
We must say it and repeat it: the European Union and its Member States provide more than half the public development aid. Contrary, therefore, to what is often assumed, the Community is committing itself more and more, in the strict sense of providing European aid.
Thirty years ago, it provided 7% of international aid; today the figure is 17%.
In 1990, total external aid from the European Union accounted for EUR 3 billion. Today, ten years later, the figure is nearly EUR 9 billion.
Of course this is not enough, but it should at least protect us from caricatures about our poor record of development aid.
Nonetheless, we have to remember one incontrovertible fact.
It is that some Member States pursue their own development policies alongside the European policy.
In my view we can improve the global situation if we take a pragmatic approach and try to coordinate the Member States' activities as closely as possible with those of the Community.
At that price, I believe, we can achieve complementarity.
In any case, that is in line with the declaration on regional policy of 10 November, an important Council and Commission policy.
It introduces a division of labour between the Commission and the Member States, on the basis of their comparative advantages.
In my view, we must beware of two equally dangerous traps: the gradual renationalisation of development aid on the one side, on the other a Utopian vision of the Commission as the sole player in the development aid field.
Nevertheless, the reform of the European Commission is moving in the right direction in proposing both more effective action by the Commission and giving more responsibility to the beneficiaries of the development projects.
Of course, as some speakers have pointed out, that raises the question of human resources, which have been inadequate until now.
I shall not dwell on that point.
Let me conclude by emphasising three amendments I tabled on behalf of the PPE Group, Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 4. The underlying idea is to turn the European Union into an active rather than passive partner in development aid, but also the concern to improve the use of the allocated funds.
The PPE Group will vote for Mrs Sauquillo's report, while hoping the amendments it has tabled can be incorporated.
Mr President, one in five people in the world has no access to basic social provisions.
Europe is a super power in economic terms and so it is absolutely right that we should be having this discussion subsequent to the debate on the White Paper.
It was an excellent idea of Mrs Sauquillo' s to include the part on external relations in the section on internal training, thereby making it an item on the agenda.
We have big problems.
The Commissioner has also referred to this in his texts: a huge backlog, lack of objectives, a culture of fear in the departments dealing with payments, and at the same time, far too low a level of project proposals, a great deal of time wasted and little in the way of efficient spending.
We want to work towards a culture of greater accountability.
We want to see ex-post control.
We want to see increased accountability for the public service and we want to see decentralisation.
We want to see a European development fund become integral to Parliament.
We want clearer objectives.
Parliament foresaw all this in terms of its role in the draft budget for 2001.
We will come back to that later because that in itself constitutes a sound framework.
We have our doubts about the technical mould in which the reforms are now being cast.
We think it is more important to have a clear distribution of political tasks: a Parliament with clear objectives, a Commission with a clear idea of what it wants, a Commissioner - and I fully support Mrs Sauquillo in this - who has hundred per cent responsibility for the whole world when it comes to development policy, and who is given full responsibility for this within the Commission, and also the human resources they need, because without these human resources it is of course absolutely impossible to implement this policy.
To briefly sum up: let us put an end to this culture of fear, also amongst the officials.
Let us build trust between our Parliament, the departments and the Commissioner so that Europe can deliver a different kind of message in a world of poverty.
Feyenoord was known as the football club of 'deeds, not words' .
May the Commissioner take this motto to heart.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I fully support Mrs Sauquillo's report, commending the hard work put in and the contribution it makes to the changes to the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
If, as is hoped in the explanatory statement, the reform brings about greater involvement of the European Parliament, we will have to establish a sort of policy which does not merely stop at money or budget headings, which, in practice, take the form of tangible aid to less developed countries.
Aid does not just mean donating money but providing practical assistance in times of difficulty or for things which they would not be able to do themselves or without assistance.
Poverty and need are not just the product of economic backwardness and development problems but are often the result of aggression and the exploitation of the weak by the strong, of the selfishness of the capable in the face of the weakness of the marginalised.
Before we start to talk about aid to projects, we should try to remove all the existing causes of exploitation, identifying and bringing to justice those who have exploited and abused peoples which are in a state of need.
The reformed Commission must establish a project, before dispensing aid, to investigate the causes which have created or contributed to creating a state of discomfort among the poor peoples.
We often talk about cancelling the debt of the less developed countries.
The phrase would lead us to believe that it is an act of altruism or great generosity but, when all is said and done, it may be merely an act of justice.
The Commission must also ensure that this happens at international level.
In this way, quality of life will improve and the gap between the poor, who are becoming increasingly poorer, and the very rich, who are exploiting these situations and becoming increasingly richer, will be lessened.
Mr President, I have today returned from Mozambique where the European Union has been responsible for brilliant humanitarian assistance following the flood disaster, but, once again reconstruction projects, where we have already allocated the money, are delayed while signatures in Brussels are awaited.
Reform of external assistance "yes" , sufficient staff numbers to manage projects "yes" , decentralisation to delegations "yes" , increased emphasis on programming, movement to ex post financial assessment, streamlined comitology arrangements "yes" , "yes" , "yes" .
Late at night, when we have to be clear, even blunt and when my esteemed colleague, Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco, has had to use the instrument of an own-initiative report to ensure parliamentary accountability, the Commission should listen when European Parliament says "no" .
First, the emasculation of DG Development will deform not reform external assistance.
We want a single development directorate covering policy and implementation, covering trade and aid, covering Asia, Africa and Latin America, when the Commission still proposes to peel off these other policy areas, still proposes a hybrid with programming undertaken separately.
Second, we demand an end to the practice of draining external assistance away from developing countries towards the EU' s own borders in recent years.
The reform communication of 16 May does not once mention the word "poverty" nor does the General Affairs Council Resolution of 9 October.
We need to ensure the EU lives up to the promises made at the UN summits, that development is paramount, and to do so by guaranteeing a fixed percentage of external assistance to the world' s least developed countries.
Finally, we should understand that Mr Patten' s proposal for aid responsible to a board of Commissioner directors with Mr Nielson as Chief Executive is an unworkable gimmick borrowed from management text books and is fundamentally incompatible with the collegiate structure of the Commission itself.
It is precisely because Mr Nielson is loyal to that collegiate responsibility that he will doubtless defend the proposal tonight.
So I hope others in the Commission will hear us when we say we have a highly effective development Commissioner.
Let us give him the political responsibility to do the job.
Mr President, the latest annual report by the World Bank highlighted certain figures which were both scandalous in their bleakness and a challenge to the developed world.
This report told us how, in fact, poverty and under-development continue to gain ground and that a huge number of people are still unable to exercise their inalienable right to live in dignity.
Furthermore, there is the fear that the process of economic globalisation will increase the difficulties of the poorest countries and widen the chasm that separates them from the wealthy countries.
Given this situation, there is an inescapable need for greater involvement and greater effectiveness in the fight against poverty and underdevelopment.
If the European Union wishes to fully implement its policy of solidarity and finally eradicate poverty and its causes, we must begin to reassess the Union' s actions and the approach it should adopt towards its development aid policy, with a view to improving the effectiveness of those efforts.
That is why Mrs Sauquillo' s report and the proposals contained in it are so timely - and I would also like to congratulate her on her work - because they indicate the direction which the European Union should take in responding to the challenges of the twenty-first century in the field of development cooperation.
These proposals have been drawn up on the basis of an assessment of the current situation and take account of the obstacles which hinder progress in this field and discuss, in particular, the reform of the Commission' s services: greater competences for delegations and an increase in human resources devoted to development policy, the allocation of financial resources in accordance with the objectives of Community development policy, the simplification of administrative procedures and - of course - the complementarity and coherence of the Union' s development policies.
Let us hope that the Commission and the Council are receptive to these proposals and that together we can make speedier progress towards the ultimate eradication of poverty, thereby contributing to the creation of a fairer world.
Mr President, when preparing its proposal for reform, the European Commission did not include amongst the people it consulted those of us in this Parliament who deal with the issues of cooperation and development.
Therefore, on its own initiative, Parliament' s Committee on Development and Cooperation decided to present the report which we are currently discussing.
In this report we advocate the idea that the policy of cooperation for a fairer, more balanced and stable world is not some sort of secondary issue, but that it should be a real priority in European Union policy and that, furthermore, the efforts which we make in pursuit of this objective must be considered to be a substantial part of our project.
Furthermore, however, in Mrs Sauquillo' s report we draw attention to certain measures within the reforms proposed by the Commission, which we consider to be mistaken.
For example, they propose an institutional structure in which the body responsible for formulating cooperation policy and the body responsible for implementing that policy are not one and the same.
Our Committee shared the view of the rapporteur that the Commissioner for Development should both formulate and implement policy in this area, although these should be coordinated with the other policies dealing with external activities.
What seems to us even more serious in the Commission' s proposal is the territorial separation, which is maintained.
It does not seem reasonable that the Commissioner for Development should deal almost exclusively with the ACP countries while relations with Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean region - which of course are very much cooperation and development issues - should remain in the hands of those responsible for external relations.
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Chairman, this debate is timely as the Commission has in fact taken important steps, new steps in the reform of external relations.
It agreed today in the creation of the new office responsible for European cooperation from the identification of activities to implementation.
The process of implementing the Commission' s decision of May on reform of external relations is going well.
There are three main elements to the reform: the enhancing of the programming process; the reunification of the management of the project cycle; and the devolution of powers to our delegations, all are making substantial progress.
As regards country programmes, the Commission has adopted a standard framework for country strategy papers. This was discussed during the recent development council and was positively welcomed by all Member States.
We now have a harmonised scheme to draft country strategy papers and indicative cooperation programmes in all developing countries.
This will put the country concerned at the centre of the process, and it will also provide a basis for close coordination with Member States and other donors involved in that country.
This is the tool we have missed in the discussion over many years about how to coordinate better.
The clear focus of our action on fighting poverty as part of our overhaul of the policy framework and concentration on a limited number of sectors will be key elements in improving the impact of our cooperation.
Within the Commission, the inter-service quality support group has started work under the chairmanship of the Development DG.
It will ensure that strategy papers follow the agreed framework and methodology and I am confident that this group will bring more quality and consistency to our country strategies. This covers the whole geography and it makes also a big improvement as to the consistency with the policy we are backing.
Last but not least, I shall with my colleagues, the external relations Commissioners, very soon submit to the college legislative proposals to modify the rules relating to the legal basis for all external relations instruments and budget lines. This will allow the management committees to focus their work on strategies and not on individual projects.
As regards the reunification of the project cycle, the creation of the new office has now been agreed today formally in the Commission.
The office will be responsible for the management of all steps of the project cycle.
As from the beginning of next year, 250 officials will be transferred from the Development DG and the External Relations DG to the office and gradually contractual agents will also join the staff of the office while, in parallel, the technical assistance offices will be dismantled.
Here also, things have moved quite fast with the help and understanding of the budgetary authority.
Finally, a programme of devolution of powers to the heads of delegations has been set up.
In three years, about 120 delegations or officers will see major improvement in their working methods.
Together with extended financial powers they will receive upgraded computer systems and telecommunications.
Here again the understanding of the budget authority has played a crucial role for funding this major reorganisation of the European External Service.
In 2001, for instance, financial responsibilities will be deconcentrated to 22 delegations, 15 more delegations will see their computer facilities upgraded and 40 additional posts of officials will be allocated to external services.
The creation of SEM in 1998 was a first step towards improving the speed of delivery of 8 programmes.
Even if that reform were clearly insufficient, and this is beyond any discussion today, it did in fact lay the basis for a number of the changes which we are now pushing forward.
Simplifying procedures is essential if we are to speed things up.
It is also necessary to make sure that programmes can in future be easily managed by our delegations and made more accessible to our partners.
How could we have talked of increasing transparency when we had 46 different tendering procedures? How could we expect the delegation official to move from Morocco to Mauritania or from Botswana to South Africa when the procedures of each programme and the relevant financial management systems had to be learned from scratch?
So simplifications are very necessary.
The resolution is quite correct in identifying as problems the unclear and divided responsibilities within the totality of the cooperation cycle and the problems we have had.
Moreover the creation of SEM provided no solution to the continuing mismatch between 8 voluminous administrative resources.
The resolution supports a reform going further in one respect than agreed today by the Commission.
It favours not just the reunification of the project cycle but of the whole cooperation cycle, including programming which now remains with the DG Development and DG Relex.
On this point, I can only say that the reform is a dynamic process.
The quality support group will enable a more deliberate and better-managed handover from the programming part of the total activity to the office.
This is something we are giving quite a lot of attention in order to have this run smoothly.
I would also remind Parliament that the decision contains a review clause.
We will have to assess how this new system works and, if necessary, we will take steps to pursue reforms further and deeper.
The Commission is very much aware of the importance of Parliament' s support for the reform of its policies and working methods.
I am very grateful for the supportive recommendations in Mrs Sauquillo' s report and for the very positive contributions tonight in this debate.
I assure that I will do my best to keep Parliament informed of policy proposals and I welcome the invitation to the Commission to report regularly to this Parliament on the reform of the external service.
Thank you very much indeed for your contribution, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 12.30 a.m.)
Safety at sea
The next item is the joint debate on the Council and Commission statements on maritime safety and the following reports:
Report (A5-0343/2000) by Mr Watts, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 95/21/EC concerning the enforcement, in respect of shipping using Community ports and sailing in the waters under the jurisdiction of the Member States, of international standards for ship safety, pollution prevention and shipboard living and working conditions (port state control) [COM(2000) 142 - C5-0174/2000 - 2000/0065(COD)]
Report (A5-0344/2000) by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on the accelerated phasing-in of double-hull or equivalent design standards for single-hull oil tankers [COM(2000) 142 - C5-0173/2000 - 2000/0067(COD)]
Report (A5-0342/2000) by Mr Ortuondo Larrea, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 94/57/EC on common rules and standards for ship inspection and survey organisations and for the relevant activities of maritime administrations [COM(2000) 142 - C5-0175/2000-2000/0066(COD)]
Report (A5-0336/2000) by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council decision setting up a Community framework for cooperation in the field of accidental or deliberate marine pollution [C5­0501/2000 - 1998/0350(COD)]
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I was especially keen to be with you today for the debate in the European Parliament on the first maritime package because you are about to examine three important texts which are a vital step in an issue which recent events have unfortunately made into headline news.
The European Union has 60 000 km of coastline bordering some of the busiest seas and oceans in the world.
The importance of maritime matters to Europe is undeniable but that also gives Europe a tremendous responsibility.
Since the Erika accident last December, considerable work has been done within our European institutions in order to move forwards.
In this connection, the first package of measures proposed by the Commission in March has been examined by Parliament and by the Council.
A second package of measures is expected in the near future.
The European Council in Biarritz examined this issue, and it will again be an important subject at the Nice Summit.
On the occasion of each disaster, the people of Europe express their anger at the lack of maritime safety and at the risks posed by the dozens of ships transporting toxic or hazardous substances which sail the waters off our shorelines on a daily basis.
I believe we ought to understand their emotion and their anger.
Naturally, we want to ensure that things move forward.
How can we accept maritime transport, which is vital for our trade and commerce, being developed to the detriment of environmental and human safety? How can we accept that more and more ships, increasingly larger in scale and increasingly automated, ply the waters off our coasts without always respecting the strict safety, navigational control and social rules, after the fashion of land and air transport?
What we can no longer accept is the logic which makes the quest for the lowest price the operational rule of maritime transport.
What we can no longer accept, what we must no longer accept, is the connivance of certain States, which we know to exist, which register some of the oldest and most corroded ships, sometimes for just a few dollars. What we cannot and must not accept are the shipowners and operators who deploy underqualified and underpaid crews, classification societies which, for fear of losing a client, pay scant regard to the quality of the ships and their crews, and charterers who seek, above all, to reduce their costs.
I am told, especially in France, that stringent national measures must be adopted to protect French coasts: it has also been proposed that French coastguards should be deployed.
But the Erika and the Ievoli Sun were not French ships.
Their owners and their classification societies were not French, and they were both sailing in international waters when they sank.
Hence, even though each State has to assume its own responsibilities, decisions must be taken on a broader scale, at least on a European scale.
To achieve this, the Members of the European Parliament not only have a role to play - and I am well aware of their determination to do so - but, even more importantly, they are crucial in pushing forward Community regulations as far and as quickly as possible.
The people of Europe have woken up.
We see this in the case of animal meal and mad cow disease.
They are now challenging us; they are challenging international institutions and are calling on them to be effective. If a new accident, a new shipwreck, occurs tomorrow off the coasts of Europe, we will all be justifiably denounced for our shortcomings, given these inadequate rules.
Personally, I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, Madam President, that the fact that we are examining these proposals today is living proof that the European Parliament is an effective institution, which can take on board the concerns of our citizens speedily and effectively.
That is why I am delighted that, under the impetus of the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council, significant progress is about to be made towards bringing about a truly safer maritime Europe.
The fact is that, on the basis of proposals we made last February, the European Commission put forward its own proposals with the greatest alacrity.
Today, you are examining these three texts in first reading.
I recognise that the European Parliament and its rapporteurs are motivated by an unshakeable will to see the rapid adoption of texts that are binding and effective in terms of maritime safety.
I also recognise that we share the same objective of improving maritime safety and the same analytical approach to the methods of achieving this.
I also recognise, as do the rapporteurs, that the technical aspects of the texts relating to classification societies and to port state control may need to be gone into more deeply.
The question arises as to whether the fact that there is a new part-session of Parliament in December will make it possible for any residual problems to be solved.
This may also enable the Council Presidency to have discussions with the Member States with a view to obtaining the Council' s approval of your proposals and to adopting the text at first reading, if necessary by qualified majority voting.
We could seek the broadest consensus on the system of liability of classification societies, on toughening up the system of banning the worst offending black-listed flag states, on introducing on-board black boxes, and on putting in place immediate inspections for ships posing the highest risks.
As regards this fundamental text on enhancing maritime safety and eliminating single-hull oil tankers, we can already congratulate ourselves on the work that has been carried out by the European Parliament. If this text is adopted, as I believe your rapporteur will propose, it will make it possible to phase out more than a third of single-hull oil tankers by 2005 and the remaining two thirds by 2010.
This is a considerable achievement and it should make it possible for the dangerous ships sailing off our coasts to be speedily replaced and to ensure the greatest level of safety.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, rapporteurs, as you see, here we have the opportunity to enhance the safety of maritime transport.
We all know that these measures, which you are going to be debating today, are inadequate.
The Heads of State and Government highlighted the urgent need to examine a second package of proposals relating to the supervision and transparency of maritime transport and to the establishment of a European agency, and to making all actors involved in the maritime transport of hazardous or toxic substances aware of their responsibilities.
What is more, on this occasion France reaffirmed the need to set in motion a Community project on the training and working conditions of seamen, and I know that some of you also share this concern.
As you can see, it seems to me that the determination of all Community institutions is decisive, and I am convinced this determination is total.
It is starting to bear fruit here in Brussels, in the European Parliament: so that only safe, sound ships with trained crews living and working under normal conditions are authorised to sail, so that, at last, responsibility falls to each of the actors involved in maritime transport, so that the rules of maritime transport evolve with due regard to the coastal State' s right and its aspiration to protect its environment.
Madam President, I believe it is beyond doubt that the Commission, like the French Presidency considers the question of maritime safety and environmental protection to be of extreme importance.
In fact, it has been among the highest priority items on the Commission's agenda ever since the fatal sinking of the Erika 11 months ago.
Even more recently, only some weeks ago, another tanker, this time a chemical one, the Ievoli Sun sank off the coast of France.
Once again we were reminded of the potential disastrous consequences of such accidents.
The European public no longer tolerates oil spills or other environmental disasters caused by industrial accidents in shipping or otherwise.
Indeed, citizens have the right to expect that ships are safe and that they can transport their cargo in an environmentally acceptable way without endangering the life and economy of people living on nearby coasts.
Let me say that I saw the effects of the Erika accident myself whilst visiting the site and I know that it takes a very long time and a lot of manpower and, of course, money to clean up.
The effects are disastrous.
It is evident that, because of geography, it will always be the same regions that suffer the risks of maritime oil transports, despite the fact that the benefits of such transports are enjoyed by the Union as a whole.
We have taken this message very seriously indeed and it is exceptional that the Commission has acted so quickly and so consistently with six different legislative proposals within a year covering very different issues.
All lie at the very heart of the regulations of shipping as a whole and I want to remind you that, in addition to the three proposals which are to be discussed here today, the 'Erika II' package, as Mr Gayssot has already mentioned, will be put on the table next week.
This set of measures will propose the creation of a European maritime safety agency, a new European system for the adequate compensation of oil pollution victims and a new traffic surveillance system for EU waters.
This swift and focused approach resulting in the two 'Erika' packages and six proposals has created an enormous momentum.
I believe it is fair to say that only after the Erika disaster did Member States and the international maritime community fully understand and feel the determination of the European institutions to improve maritime safety.
They have realised that the determination remains even if such actions involve friction between the EU and the international maritime institutions and tension with the economic interests of the maritime industry.
Now that there are Commission proposals on the table we must not lose this momentum and forget the issue until the next accident happens.
In order to make a real change for maritime safety, the three institutions, but in particular the two co-legislators, must adopt the texts.
Legislation alone is not enough.
Member States must also ensure that they have the proper means to implement it, in particular I am thinking of the necessary recruitment of port state control inspectors.
Otherwise the benefit of the exercise will not be what the public expects from us.
On behalf of the Commission, I can assure you that it is our clear intention not to spare any effort to make ships safer and our seas cleaner, both next year and in the years to come.
This goes for all sectors of maritime transport.
I wish to conclude by thanking Mr Gayssot, President of the Transport Council of Ministers, for his encouraging comments.
We hope and expect that the Transport Council, on 21 December, will add their part to the common determination among the European institutions to bring about a real improvement in maritime safety by the adoption of common positions on all three texts.
The Commission is not ready to accept any compromise just for the sake of achieving a compromise.
Finally, I wish to thank this House and in particular the rapporteurs, Mr Hatzidakis, Mr Ortuondo Larrea, Ms McKenna and Mr Watts, for their understanding of the importance of the first 'Erika' package which is evidenced by the excellent work already done in such a limited time, and for the generally good cooperation between Parliament and the Commission in the field of maritime safety.
Madam President, in a few days time Europe will mark the first anniversary of the loss of the oil tanker, Erika.
Since then, sadly, there have been many other disasters at sea, we know only too well.
Before the Erika sank, many other ships sank as well, with the loss of oil, other cargoes, or tragically, the loss of lives of crew or passengers.
The lesson for this Parliament this morning must be that we have to conclude that maritime laws throughout the world are in a state of shambles and we have to begin the process of putting them right.
In that context, I wish to pay tribute to the Commission for bringing forward this 'Erika' package to try and right some of those wrongs, to try and prevent another Erika occurring.
We also pay tribute to the French Presidency, in particular the minister, for his determination to ensure that, in a very brief period of time, we truly learn the lessons of the Erika and make sure that they are applied to prevent an Erika-type disaster occurring again.
Without the minister' s determination, without the determination of the French Presidency, the IMO's working committee would not have agreed with us that single-hull tankers should be phased out rapidly throughout the world.
So I pay particular tribute to them for that achievement, which I hope is confirmed by the full IMO assembly very soon.
The main problem throughout the world is not the lack of maritime laws but the lack of the willingness of countries throughout the world to enforce them.
For example, I am afraid that the whole history of port state control is the lack of willingness of Member States within the European Union and beyond to implement port state control adequately.
That is why we welcome the amendment to the directive because it gives us the ability to make sure people implement the port state control Directive effectively.
However, in my view as rapporteur, the proposal from the Commission simply does not go far enough.
It is not strong enough.
In our view, if implemented, the Commission's proposal would allow another Erika to occur.
That is why this morning we cannot agree with the Commission's proposal but we are putting forward four proposals which we believe will significantly strengthen the proposal and would therefore secure this Parliament's support.
Firstly, we agree that there needs to be enhanced compulsory inspections of the most dangerous ships.
We all agree on that, but we have to find the methodology by which that particular priority can be implemented, and we have yet to secure an agreement between the three institutions on that.
I think it is within sight but we need to be sure that this agreement will be enforced.
Secondly, we make a demand again this morning for 'black box' style voyage data recorders to be fitted, not on just some ships or new ships, or in 10 or 20 years time, or whenever the IMO eventually agrees.
We want black boxes in all ships as soon as possible.
That is a very clear, fundamental demand, which we are not willing to compromise on.
Thirdly, we support, and there is a great amount of support, that a dangerous ship should not simply be detained and then allowed to return to sea.
If you are detained three times in a period of 24 months or 36 months, then you should be banned for life - three strikes and you are out.
There must be a clear signal to sub-standard ships that we will not tolerate them in European waters or in European ports.
Finally, we have a clear message to the flags of convenience, the black-listed states.
Countries like the Lebanon, Liberia, Syria, Azerbaijan, Albania, whose fleets we all know in our hearts are unacceptable overall.
Seventy, eighty, ninety per cent of their ships have serious defects.
We cannot tolerate a situation where these rogue flag states continue to allow their ships to sail the seven seas.
We must as a Parliament express our clear view that in a matter of years we simply will not allow them in.
Again I hope that we can find a compromise between the three institutions to secure the objectives which I know we all share.
We must eliminate dangerous ships.
We must protect our environment and, ultimately, we must save lives at sea.
Madam President, Minister, Commissioner, the importance of safety at sea is, I think, obvious, as we have seen twice in France recently with the Årika and the Ievoli Sun and as we have seen in my own country with the shipwreck of the Express Samina, a real human tragedy.
Eighty lives were lost and the final act of the tragedy was played out just yesterday, when the chief executive officer of the company which owned the ship committed suicide.
What is Parliament's stand on this particular subject? Allow me to remind you that Parliament demanded action right from the start, on the very day the Erika was shipwrecked, calling on the Commission to put forward proposals for adoption.
We have examined these proposals and, because certain misunderstandings have arisen, I should like to say that we agree with the French Presidency on the timetable, which is why we are holding the debate now, today, before the second Council of Transport Ministers, so that decisions can be taken at first reading.
We have reached agreement as far as my report is concerned and, once it has passed its first reading, that will be that and we shall be able to start withdrawing single-hull tankers.
As you know, there are still some problems with the other two reports.
There are numerous points, as Mr Watts has already explained, where the European Parliament takes a firmer stand than the Council appears to be taking.
I understand and I welcome the minister's efforts to expedite these two reports as quickly as possible and I therefore consider that, in principle, his proposal to discuss the matter, if possible in December, is a positive one.
However, Minister, from my discussions today it would appear that your proposal is a little late - most people doubt that it will be technically possible for Parliament to find time in this last week to discuss the matter in detail from the beginning and vote on it in December.
In all events, please be assured that Parliament is at the Council's disposal, it will vote on its reports, they will be passed to the Council, the Council can approve a common position and we shall examine the reports as quickly as possible - they will be our top priority. We shall be finished by spring, provided that the Council moves quickly and provided that the bilateral negotiations are a success and I think that they will be because the will is there on both sides.
Now to the withdrawal of tankers, to come back to my report.
Obviously, withdrawing single-hull tankers is a step in the right direction - in fact the IMO has also been making moves in this direction under the Marpol convention for some years now - and I think that the fact that the withdrawal of these tankers is being accelerated is even more encouraging.
Not that this is a panacea, of course, as we saw with the Ievoli Sun, which was a new, double-hull vessel, from which we must conclude that this measure alone is not enough.
We also need to take fundamental action on shipping registers and port inspections.
We need to advance on all fronts.
In this sense, the initiative by the French Presidency to contact the IMO, the International Maritime Organisation, in a bid to find a solution was an important initiative, because this is an international problem and international problems need international solutions.
I may add that the Commission's initiative in presenting this position was an important initiative because it acted like a sword of Damocles, effectively pressuring the ÉÌÏ into getting a move on.
The IMO working party did get a move on by reaching an agreement in principle - a few issues still need to be clarified, but most issues have already been clarified.
So what is the basic approach in my report? For large tankers I have kept to the timetable of the IMO, the International Maritime Organisation.
For the second category, the post-Marpol tankers, I have kept, where there are different approaches, to the common European approach.
And I think, in the end, we have struck a balance.
We are protecting the environment, we are providing safety at sea but, at the same time, we have not touched competition in the shipping sector or the normal supply to the market.
For small tankers, we have adopted a compromise position between the 5000-tonne limit set by the ÉÌÏ and the 600-tonne limit set by the Commission.
We have reconciled the need for safety with the need to supply certain regions of Europe, such as island regions especially.
Madam President, I think that we have taken a step forward today, a fundamental step forward.
Parliament has taken a clear and unequivocal stand on the Commission's proposals, we are at the Council's disposal, in the hope, I repeat, that this issue will be brought to a close as quickly as possible, because all of us here, the Council, the Commission and the House, are acutely aware of the importance of this issue.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Erika accident on 12 December of last year and the Ievoli Sun accident more recently clearly revealed the limits of the action of some classification and inspection societies in terms of monitoring the construction and, above all, the seaworthiness of vessels that are under their responsibility by delegation from the flag states.
However, and especially in this field, it is the public institutions who have the essential task of responding to the people' s demands with legislative initiatives that ensure the preservation of the environment and an optimum level of maritime safety, as well as the duty to ensure that the rules established are complied with correctly.
With this in mind, and in order to remove the obvious differences that exist on an international level between the various classification societies in terms of the competence of their inspectors, the level of development of their IT resources and the degree of technical requirements in their inspections, the Commission has presented us with a proposal to amend Directive 94/57/EC which will apply to all vessels, including those transporting oil products, and which establishes the rules that the Member States, and the classification societies authorised by them, should comply with.
This proposal has been analysed in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, with opinions from both the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
There have also been talks with the sectors concerned and a great deal of contact with the French Presidency with the aim of being able to arrive at a text agreed by consensus that can be adopted quickly by the two legislative bodies: the Council and the European Parliament.
As a result of all of this, we have drawn up a parliamentary report amending the directive, which suggests improvements in various aspects aimed at strengthening the classification system, as a means and a valid tool for guaranteeing the safety of maritime traffic.
Thus, first of all, it is considered that no element of this directive should be interpreted as an exception to the absolute duty of the shipowner, which cannot be delegated, to maintain and use seaworthy vessels.
Subsequently, the harmonisation of the requirements that classification societies have to fulfil is being considered, with the Commission, assisted by a committee, being responsible both for the granting and, if necessary, the suspension or withdrawal of their European recognition. In order to do this, they will take into account accident rates and the results of recorded incidents and accidents on all the vessels classified by each of the societies.
In this respect, there is a commitment to improving the quality of vessel inspections as a measure to prevent maritime accidents.
On the one hand, it is stipulated that the classification societies must have their own system of internal audits in order to measure the quality of their services in all the locations where they work, as well as clear rules for the responsibility and monitoring of all its branches and staff.
On the other hand, it requires that inspections only be carried out by specialist, exclusive inspectors, that they may not have a relationship with or be dependent on the shipowner in any way, and that the shipowner may not control the vessel classification society.
Meanwhile, a high degree of transparency is established for information on the results of the inspections carried out on vessels, operating conditions or operating restrictions and changes, suspensions and withdrawals of class.
This information must be made available to the European, State and port authorities, and to interested members of the public.
Also, the transfer of a vessel from one class to another - change of classification society - is dependent on all overdue recommendations and conditions that may be pending being satisfactorily complied with. Thus, periodical inspections and supervisions are established, to be carried out by the Commission and the Member States in order to check whether this directive is being complied with by organisations that are recognised at European level.
Finally, it is stated that the Commission must lay down strict rules and ship maintenance inspection procedures, with a view to compelling all the participants concerned to assume their responsibilities.
In this area, the initial proposals from the Commission and Parliament' s amendments aimed to define the system of financial responsibility for the classification and inspection societies.
However, the Commission has already announced a second package on maritime safety, which will propose a system of responsibility for all the parties implicated in accidents: shipowners, the owners of the cargo, classification societies, etc.
I therefore consider that the various parliamentary groups should not now get lost in a partial debate that is also futile and will prolong the time it takes before final approval, on what should be the financial responsibility of classification societies. I think it would be better for us to leave this for the second package and move forward immediately in order to reach a consensus at first reading with the French Presidency, so that in the next Council of Ministers on 20 December there will already be an agreement with the European Parliament and the first package can be adopted definitively this year.
Marine pollution, accidental and deliberate, is one of the major threats to the marine environment of western Europe.
This region represents one of the most intensely industrialised areas of the world where chemical, radioactive and hydrocarbon materials are routinely discharged into the marine environment and carried by cargo ships.
The region also contains one of the highest concentrations of shipping and includes several of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
There are several tragic examples of accidental marine pollution from tankers and other ships carrying other forms of dangerous cargoes.
As we have just heard, two of the most recent were the Italian chemical tanker, which sank in the English channel, and also the Maltese registered oil tanker, the Erika, which sank off the coast of Brittany causing major environmental havoc.
Now, more by good fortune than planning, there has not yet been a major accident with a ship carrying radioactive materials.
Historically the marine environment has been used as the ultimate dumping-ground for much industrial waste.
Although industrial and radioactive discharges continue from a range of sources, the practice of direct dumping with little thought for the future is now widely regarded as unacceptable.
However, the legacy of the years when materials were simply dumped remains and has sometimes returned to haunt us, often with very severe consequences.
It is a lesson which tells us that, when we attempt to throw things away, they do not actually go away because there is no such place as 'away'.
This report acknowledges the need for establishing cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
Furthermore, there is a need to broaden the definition of accidental marine pollution to include operational, historical, radioactive and other harmful substances.
Although much attention is rightly paid to the impact of marine accidents, in terms of chronic pollution it is the operational spills and discharges of hydrocarbons, radioactive materials and other harmful substances which, because they go largely unnoticed, are a cause of major concern.
In terms of the environment, whether a substance is accidentally or deliberately discharged is of no consequence, the environmental impact remains.
Furthermore, although the direct dumping of industrial materials, including military dumps of redundant munitions, is largely a practice which has been abandoned by Member States, the sights of such dumps continue to present a real threat to fisheries and in some cases a threat to human safety.
Often fishermens' lives are at risk, as is the health and welfare of the public who either visit the coast or live by the sea.
The transboundary nature of the marine environment, which means that pollution in one area can impact on a wider region, leads to the need for a Community-wide framework for cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
Sharing information regarding hydrocarbons, radioactive substances and other harmful materials carried at sea or discharged into the sea, or which have been dumped as part of a historical dumping regime, is a vital prerequisite to facilitating the preparation and coordination of any responses necessary to mitigate the environmental and human health impacts of pollution incidents.
Effective mitigation requires a rapid response.
The longer an accident is allowed to go unchecked the wider the impact.
Hence, it is too late to start trying to get information after an accident has actually occurred.
Knowledge about the type and extent of potential pollution problems is also a prerequisite for correct preparation in terms of techniques, personnel and equipment at appropriate locations.
It is also necessary to be clear about the risks to the public and the environment and to alleviate justified public concern with accurate assessment of the risks.
The public's trust in the authorities is important and must be ensured with adequate responses.
Furthermore, the public have a right to know what preparations have been made, what types of material are threatening and what impacts are to be expected.
To this end, publication of information is a vital component in the establishment of a way for the general public to obtain information, emergency phone contact numbers, etc.
During the conciliation procedure the European Parliament delegation was able to reach a compromise with the Council, which is close to the original amendments on all the major questions.
The definition of accidental marine pollution includes a reference to munitions dumping.
A definition of harmful substances in line with the water framework Directive was added in order to cover but not, unfortunately, explicitly mention radioactive substances.
The cooperation includes exchange of information and mapping of munitions dump sites.
The polluter-pays principle is recognised, and the Member States should take this into account in order to provide compensation for damages.
Nature protection organisations are also included in cooperation at local level.
We did actually achieve most of what we wanted in the conciliatory procedure, maybe not exactly as we wanted, but we are happy with the result.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, this first package of directives on maritime safety is without doubt one of the most important actions our House is going to implement in the course of 2000.
France may have been especially hit by various maritime disasters, in particular by the recent wrecks of the Erika and the Ievoli Sun off the coast of Brittany, nevertheless what is at stake is the responsibility of the entire European Union, which managed to draw the necessary conclusions.
The European Union has demonstrated its willingness to accept responsibility by putting forward strong proposals aimed at avoiding a recurrence of such serious accidents. I thank Mr Gayssot who, on behalf of the French Presidency, has shown great conviction and skill in dealing with these issues effectively.
Nonetheless, we must be aware that these proposals which, as highlighted by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, are essentially a response to the legal requirements which have been identified in the areas defined by their respective objectives will only be effective insofar as they are correctly implemented by the Member States and monitored by the Commission.
I would therefore like to highlight the points which, I feel, cannot be ignored if, following the adoption of these regulations and this directive, the expected progress is to be achieved.
First of all, the action of Member States must be translated into action integrated at European level.
We must deploy adequate numbers of properly trained people, used to cooperation, whatever their country of origin, and to using similar equipment.
I am convinced that this will mean, in the longer term, the establishment of a European coastguard.
I expect a great deal from the second series of proposals and from the establishment of a European maritime safety agency.
It is at this level that, in one way or another, this indispensable European cooperation must be found.
In the meantime, we must, at all costs, eliminate ships whose characteristics give cause for the gravest concern, and this means we must demand transparent intervention on the part of the inspection authorities, who must take measures against ships in a poor condition, irrespective of their age and structure, in line with a significant minimum target factor. We must refuse to permit ships to transit the 200-mile exclusive economic zone if they are not equipped with an IMO-compliant voyage data recorder (VDR) intended to provide information for the purposes of inquiry in the event of an accident.
Nor let us forget, as Mrs McKenna said, that a large percentage of marine pollution is due to practices coyly described as 'operational' , that is, tank cleaning and other deliberate spills, against which the arsenal of deterrents must be intensified.
I know how much attention Mr Gayssot pays to the action of Equasis and now to Galileo, which we must implement.
Vigorous action must be taken on the question of flags of convenience, including that of the Kerguelen Islands in the case of France, and against ships which fly the flag of states with above average detentions and delays during the 36 months preceding the adoption of these directives, which are blacklisted in the annual report of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding.
Attention must also be paid to the complicated financial set-ups based on 'brass-plate' companies.
My thanks go to Mr Watts for the specific proposals he has made in this connection.
I thank the rapporteurs and I urge my fellow Members in the European Parliament to take these proposals into consideration.
They seem to me such as to make significant progress possible, which is crucial for the effectiveness of the legislative resolutions we are going to be voting on, which must not remain dead letter terms throughout the territories and waters for which Europe is responsible. I have in mind not only the Atlantic and other oceans, but also the Mediterranean Sea, where disasters such as we have been experiencing could be irreversible.
Mr President, the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 95/21/EC deals with the selection of ships for inspection and items for inspection.
Amending the directive in terms of greater stringency in its application and the harmonisation of legislation, especially regarding the selection of ships for inspection and the scope of the different types of selection is clearly a positive step.
Even then, the European Union would need to ensure that current legislation is enforced by the Member States.
The fact is that Belgium, Denmark, Portugal, France, Ireland and the Netherlands, which are obliged to inspect 25% of ships, do not do so.
Worse still, the existing directives, even though they date from 1995, have still not been transposed into national legislation in Italy and Portugal.
In order for Member States to enforce existing legislation, they must allocate sufficient resources to inspections so as to ensure the proper application of international conventions and the directive amended by the European Parliament.
In concrete terms, this means employing additional inspectors, broadening the competences and the scope of inspection, notably concerning respect for social standards and for shipboard living and working conditions, and their publication.
Since human error is the root cause of 70% of accidents, the inspection of crews, their living and working conditions, their level of training and their numbers must be an integral part of a ship' s inspection.
Non-compliance with these standards must be a reason to detain a ship and to impose sanctions.
Furthermore, the Commission proposals still do not go far enough: they, in fact, concern no more than twenty or so ships.
The positions adopted by the French Presidency, which we have heard elsewhere, which would water down the Commission proposals even further, such as amending the proportion of ships targeted with the aim of reducing inspections by half, are naturally unacceptable.
I am in complete agreement with the rapporteur about refusing port access to ships posing a serious risk, irrespective of age, and those that have been flying a flag of convenience for more than three years.
We must also go further and ban them from sailing in Community waters.
To this end, we must strengthen international maritime law.
Moreover, it seems to me that we need to be more restrictive concerning flags of convenience, especially those of Member States, as well as those, Minister, of the islands of Kerguelen, Wallis and Fortuna in the case of France.
I will support this report and the Commission' s amendments, but I call on the Members of Parliament to also support the amendments of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on social standards.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me begin by thanking the four rapporteurs. The three reports from the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism were adopted either unanimously or by an overwhelming majority in committee.
In other words, we discussed the issues objectively and arrived at a common position.
For that reason, it is important that we stand by that position.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it was very honourable of you to ask at the last minute to have the votes on two of the directives postponed so that we can still reach an agreement.
But I put it to you that this is a somewhat ambivalent move.
First of all, we in Parliament were criticised for having caused a delay.
The President of Parliament specially brought the debate and vote forward from the scheduled date in December to today's sitting.
We have had no written statement from the Council which would have enabled us even to discuss a compromise.
I believe your intentions are honourable, but we can only discuss negotiating outcomes that have been examined by the Council.
To that extent, it is impossible to change anything, because we discussed this material meticulously in our committees, and it would be impossible to hammer out a compromise wording on the various issues that are particularly awkward, to have these compromises printed in eleven languages and to discuss them with our colleagues in time for next Tuesday.
I can therefore only ask you to accept the directive and the regulation in the form in which Parliament adopts them at noon today.
That would take us as close as possible to our common goal of increasing maritime safety without delay.
The choice is yours.
On those points where you feel unable to accept our proposals, produce a common position in December.
Do not delay it in the Council.
We are prepared to negotiate on proposed compromises for the second reading from January onwards, so that the second reading will be completed early next year, just like that.
I should like to reiterate that the urgent action upon which you are now insisting is not necessary.
For example, in the case of port state control, we certainly want tighter rules, unlike the Council.
But even if we did not complete the process in December, we should certainly have taken a huge step forward, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, if you managed to persuade the other States and your own administration to fulfil their obligations in matters of port state control under the old directive.
So if you want to do something to improve safety at sea, recruit new inspectors, carry out stringent checks under the existing law, and we shall have achieved a resounding success.
With regard to the liability of classification societies, which is a highly complex subject, we shall have to discuss this calmly and carefully.
We have discussed the material thoroughly in committee, we have adopted our opinions by a large majority or unanimously, and Parliament should do likewise at noon today.
If you achieve the same level of agreement in December, we shall be through to the next stage.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, we have some good reports here.
We must send out a clear signal to unsafe flag states, to shipowners, including those from the EU who use these flag states, to shippers who can then get cheaper prices, and to classification societies that are not doing their job properly.
Safety comes at a price.
We should have the courage to say so sometimes.
I would just like to take a minute to go into the report by Mr Watts.
If a flag state defaults, then the port state must be given increased responsibility.
That is a sound principle and we must stick to it.
A black box, a blacklist: we are in complete agreement with all these things, but there are still a few points I would like to bring to your attention.
Countries that impose stricter controls run the risk of being saddled with shipwrecks in their ports, and environmental risks, and sometimes with human tragedies, when crews are left to their fate.
These are all things we must take into consideration, and we must ensure that the port is not disadvantaged by well-intentioned measures.
Commissioner, we have a directive for end-of-life vehicles.
Ought we not to have one for end-of-life ships too, because I would not be at all surprised if there were a few environmental risks there too, which we should take a close look at sometime?
Secondly, we must invest in manpower and in crews.
Hence we will support a number of amendments tabled by Mr Vachetta.
We also need to invest in inspectors, because even if there are too few of them, we at least need to make sure we have skilled workers at the helm, so to speak.
At the end of the day, we must also be realistic about our limitations as legislators.
We have rules and they are not being implemented satisfactorily.
A number of speakers have already made the same point.
Take the Ievoli Sun, a double-hull ship.
It was built in 1989 and sailed under an Italian flag.
It has been inspected three times in the last three years.
So, there is more to safety than rules.
Everyone who works in the sector bears a heavy responsibility.
Those who are not prepared to take on this responsibility must stay out of our waters and our ports.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, on 18 January 2000 I brought you a cake of crude oil from the Erika which had come ashore on a beach.
This oil cake symbolises the enormous amount of work we have to do to make our seas cleaner and maritime transport safer.
The Erika and the Ievoli Sun are but the most recent names to date in the wrecking of an entire system.
Firstly, the ecological system is being wrecked, with the natural marine heritage, flora and fauna destroyed or contaminated forever.
Then there is social wrecking, with gangs of third-world seafarers, modern-day galley slaves, exploited literally to the point of slavery.
Finally, we have economic wrecking, the result of untrammelled liberalism in maritime matters. The liberal tide of free trade which has been unleashed has swallowed up all safeguards, all preventative action and, ultimately, all morals, only to become engulfed itself in its own excesses, thereby revealing the lack of any Community maritime policy worthy of the name.
Who today answers for the integrity and healthy conditions of maritime transport? What authorities claim to control and stamp out trade on the high seas, which is more maritime trafficking than maritime traffic?
Nobody. What more proof do we need than these coffin ships fit only for the scrap yard, these thirty-year old single-hull tubs that take to the seas in stormy weather?
Eight thousand of the ninety thousand ships plying the seas around the world are sub-standard in terms of safety, and four thousand are carrying hazardous substances.
In the accident barometer measured against the gauge of shipwrecks the traditional mercury has been replaced by oil or residual acid.
Faced with the disastrous and anarchic situation in maritime transport, Europe has taken up the challenge and, just 11 months after the loss of the Erika, will be in a position to announce that never has a procedure been worked out quite as quickly.
This powerful political signal is in our hands.
It is up to us to adopt the 'Erika I' package and it is up to the Council to accept its final amendments.
In responding favourably to this acceleration of the timetable, our group has not, however, given up on the fundamental demands for the enhanced safety of the marine environment.
The revisions of the directives concerning port and ship inspections should get rid of the lame ducks as far as the classification societies are concerned and appreciably increase the number of inspectors in the Member States, provided, however, that the latter provide adequate resources to achieve this.
But we are also waiting impatiently for the second package, 'Erika II' , with the establishment of a maritime agency and outline plans for a European coastguard.
We may regret the delay in the timetable for the mandatory double hull for oil tankers and the Council' s abandoning of the proposed financial incentive system setting up differential charging of port and pilotage dues applicable to oil tankers, depending on whether they have a single or a double hull. Nevertheless, we support this report which, with its revision clause, provides for the so-called American timetable to be given a second chance in the event of failure at the Marpol Convention in April 2001.
We are told that zero risk does not exist, but it has to be said that zero responsibility must not exist either.
With the 'Erika I' package we will be placing the first foundation stone of a substantive European maritime safety policy, in anticipation, of course, of the 'Erika II' package.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the disasters of the past few months have brought to light the inadequacies of legislation, weaknesses in the systems of control and deficiencies in terms of human and financial resources.
Initiated by the French Government and driven forward within the European Council of Transport Ministers, the proposed European directives are an undeniable step forward.
They are supported by the parliamentary reports we are debating this morning.
The Watts report intensifies the measures against ships posing serious risks or flying flags of convenience without abolishing them altogether.
The Larrea report on classification societies harmonises legislation, develops sanctions that go as far as the withdrawal of authorisation, and increases compensation in the event of accident.
The Hatzidakis report, whilst banning single-hull oil tankers on the same dates as the American bans, nevertheless introduces a whole raft of exemptions which do not go in the desired direction, notably with the proposal to extend the deadlines for the phasing-out of single-hull vessels.
My group supports the Watts and Larrea reports.
We will vote in favour of them.
The vote on the Hatzidakis report will be linked to the vote on the rapporteur' s amendments.
The two directives and the regulation we are examining are an asset in confronting the enormous challenge of maritime safety and need to be implemented as quickly as possible.
They are nevertheless inadequate in view of the magnitude of the problems that are posed.
Many players have stressed that the lack of maritime safety is largely due to deregulation and lenient practices.
In the context of increased competition, the primary objective is to transport goods as quickly as possible, at the lowest cost, at the expense of safety, the environment and the crews.
In measurable terms, the liberal rationale is effectively opposed to a high level of maritime safety.
I reiterate that current European decisions, whilst being a definite asset, do not question this rationale.
Hence the amendments to the Watts report presented by my group concerning social standards have been thrown out; yet the importance of the human factor is highlighted in each case.
It is a matter of great urgency that measures be adopted to put an end to social dumping and to review the conditions of crews in terms of status, salaries, training and working conditions.
To enable effective control to be carried out in ports it is necessary to reinforce the body of maritime inspectors and their qualifications, and hence to free up financial resources.
Much more stringent measures must be imposed to make classification societies effective.
Flags of convenience must be banned.
The consequences of their use in terms of non-compliance with standards are well known.
Yes, it is time that the European Union committed itself to actually reforming the maritime system.
This demands a strong political will and the financial resources to put in place even more controls.
In the run-up to the second package of proposals it seems important to me that we turn our thoughts to promoting the lasting development of maritime safety, which will involve yet further guarantees of safety and quality.
Mr President, a year ago, three regions of France were hit by one of the most serious oil spills in European maritime history when the oil tanker, the Erika, sank.
A few weeks ago, the west of France was struck by another ecological disaster, the wreck of the chemical tanker, the Ievoli Sun, and it is only today that the European Parliament will take the decision to strengthen maritime safety.
I was elected to office in a coastal region which is paying every day for the grave consequences of the wreck of the Erika: the serious lasting damage caused by this oil slick to the flora and fauna of the Loire, Brittany and Charentes. It is paying for the dramatic repercussions on its economy - the 2000 tourist season was a disaster.
Workers in the fishing industry, in fish farming and aquaculture, and salt makers have been very badly hit. The inhabitants of this region would have appreciated greater speed on the part of the Community institutions.
Nonetheless, I am delighted that the Commission proposals have taken on board the main demands formulated by the elected representatives of the coastal regions: the banning of single-hull oil tankers, strengthening port controls, and the assessment of classification societies.
On the other hand, it is unacceptable that the European Parliament should be moderating the initial Commission proposal concerning the ban on single-hull oil tankers.
Mrs de Palacio recalled a few days ago in Rennes that, in less than a year, the United States was able to unilaterally put in place a draconian law regarding maritime safety.
Why does the European Union need a timetable as long as that envisaged by our Parliament for the rapporteur' s amendments to phase out single-hull oil tankers? Double-hull vessels may not be a cure-all, but phasing them in is an important measure that is likely to be subject to substantial technical improvements.
It seems to me that to create a discrepancy between the American timetable and the European timetable would be a very dangerous thing indeed.
If this were to happen, it is easy to see which waters and which ports the dangerous ships would head for. It would be better if, faced with a proactive United States, our Parliament did not give the impression that, by systematically going for the lowest possible bid, it was soft on the issue.
If another accident were to happen, how would we be able to justify the European Parliament adopting such a slow timetable in order to wait for the IMO to reach a compromise at global level, where there are so many countries accommodating flags of convenience, which are not the most zealous militants on behalf of safety?
How, with the European Union under a French Presidency, will we be able to explain to the people of France that the European Parliament has abolished the necessary incentive and financial deterrence measures proposed in order to expedite the phasing in of double-hull oil tankers?
Parliament' s role should be to speedily and fully support the most stringent and most effective provisions proposed by the Commission, not to dilute them. Quite the contrary, we should be proposing going much further.
This first package is simply a first step.
It is vital that we put in place a system which makes the entire transport chain aware of its responsibilities so that we can finally emerge from the current lack of transparency.
We hope that the second package of measures to be proposed to us will be commensurate with this need.
Irrespective of the technical measures that will be adopted, one of the major reasons for this lack of safety will remain as long as the exponential growth in traffic linked to the overdevelopment of the North Sea ports is not balanced in the Channel and North Atlantic areas.
Is it reasonable that the zone of frequentation of the port of Rotterdam should extend as far as the South of France? Would not one of the most effective safety measures be to reduce traffic in this zone by regenerating the port infrastructures of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean?
This is the thrust of the two amendments to the reports by Mr Watts and Mr Hatzidakis which I tabled on behalf of my group.
It is an area of consideration that the Member States and the Commission should explore. If the issue of overcrowding in the Channel and the North Sea is not dealt with, this zone will inevitably become a highway for marine pollution and a permanent threat to the safety of our seamen, the beauty of our coasts and the quality of our marine resources.
The coasts of France are not there to become a dumping ground for European maritime traffic nor receive munitions, crude oil and styrene on their shores.
Mr President, safety is a serious issue for various forms of transport.
More than 40 000 people die in road accidents every year, and although the victims of shipping disasters are fewer in number, each human life counts, and what is more, the natural world is coming under increasing threat owing to accidents at sea.
Flora and fauna, in particular birds, are the victims of oil and other forms of pollution.
It is sad that a tanker had to be wrecked off the French coast, with disastrous consequence, before the package of measures now on the table was put together. We are very satisfied with this set of measures, as we are with the various reports.
I will confine my comments to the Watts report on port state control.
As the rapporteur very rightly points out, the condition of a tanker is more indicative than its age.
I also support his demand for compulsory voyage data recorders.
His regime for ships that have been detained several times or that fly a flag which has been on the blacklist for three years, makes a great deal of sense.
What I would ask though, is what percentage of the ships should be refused at the present time on the basis of these criteria?
Neither the size nor the status of such a flag state, for example an candidate country, must result in the undermining of the measures.
Speaking of the responsibilities of the port state, we must take care not to underplay the importance of the tasks to be fulfilled by the port authorities.
It is highly likely that the refusal of the port concerned to allow the Erika to put in, dramatically increased the scale of the disaster.
It would be to the credit of the acting President-in-Office of the Council if he were to set things right in his own country too.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, just now I heard you acknowledge that our Parliament was an effective institution.
We demonstrated this effectiveness on the day following the loss of the Erika.
I remember the occasion well: we were in Strasbourg during the December part-session when we learned of this disaster.
Knowing Finistère well, I knew from the start that we were unfortunately about to experience catastrophic marine pollution which would leave its traces on the shorelines of France for a long time to come.
And so, with anger welling up inside us, we demanded immediate proposals from the Commission, which were put to us in March.
Since then, we have experienced other disasters - some in Greece - and then the Ievoli Sun accident.
We are all sick and tired of seeing our oceans and seas turned into dumping grounds.
The McKenna report, in its third reading, recalls a certain number of key principles concerning accidental and deliberate pollution, for example the infamous illegal practice of tank cleaning, which are underpinned by the 'polluter-pays' principle.
But certain problems continue to be intractable, even if things are moving in the right direction.
Have we not wasted a lot of time since last March? Where in fact was the political will?
The Council must commit itself to adopting stringent measures, which we are all hoping for, concerning port inspections, classification societies, the responsibility of shipowners and charterers and, finally, the responsibility of FIPOL, which is behaving in a scandalous manner.
People in Brittany are still waiting for compensation for damages.
Today, a large number of texts are being put to us, and there are yet others to come.
This risks compromising cohesion, especially since a number of existing directives are at stake, one of which is the framework Directive on water.
All this needs to be rationalised and we must turn our mind to producing a framework text which would simplify things at international level.
In the interim, Minister, let us intensify technological research into marine depollution.
It is important that the exchange of knowledge and cooperation are encouraged and sustained in this highly technical area in order to preserve our natural marine heritage. Let us hope that the measures we will adopt together will enable us to prevent further marine pollution and to protect our marine heritage.
Mr President, I am only going to comment on and explain the majority position of the Socialist Group on one of the proposals, the one that modifies the directive regulating inspection organisations.
The guarantees of the seaworthiness of vessels required that considerable measures be adopted on the societies responsible and on inspections, as has already been said.
The current situation is simply unacceptable.
In this sense, the text proposed contains some new elements that are interesting and positive but which, in our opinion, are not sufficient.
Public opinion is demanding that we act swiftly in this situation, as the President-in-Office of the Council has said, but that speed needs to be compatible with an acceptable minimum text.
No one in the Council of which you are the Chairman should be tempted to accuse of us of moving too slowly; we demand some minimums and everyone will understand that.
Our fundamental discrepancies are to do with two areas: on the one hand, the issue of responsibility and compensation, for which the amounts and the minimums should be adequate and equal across the whole of the European Union - we do not think that subsidiarity is acceptable.
On the other hand, there is the independence of classification societies. That independence should be very clear at this time when many shipowners and proprietors are forming their own societies that are authorising boats.
This is unacceptable.
Therefore, in general, we are not happy with the compromise text.
As we understand that it is the minimum text that the Council will accept, we are not going to contribute to its adoption in the hope that it will be improved at second reading, but we will not vote against it because we recognise the excellent work done by the rapporteur, Mr Ortuondo, which resulted in some agreed amendments which show us the path to take for the next reading.
So, there are some interesting new elements, but they are not enough.
Mr President, since the breaking up of the tanker Erika, a package of measures has been devised, under political pressure, with a view to improving the safety of ships at sea.
Of course, the key question is will these measures actually lead to sub-standard ships being taken out of service? I am not so sure.
Although it pains me to say it, the fact is that we are tinkering about at the edges with these measures, rather than tackling the real root causes of the problems.
Mrs Peijs and I have carried out a short investigation, and I would very much like to hear the Commissioner' s response to the following question. Can you tell me what became of the 750 ships that Honduras removed from its register?
Were they really taken out of service?
And where are they in that case?
Secondly, is it true that in Cambodia, ships can be registered within twenty minutes via the Internet?
Thirdly, I feel that a tough line must be taken with the classification societies.
They are given too much free rein at present.
I have tried to incorporate an incentive to take responsibility by raising the limited liability, which involves relatively small sums, but there is often nothing to be gained.
But I have opposed the idea of unlimited liability because this impedes the market and is counterproductive.
What is the situation with regard to the port state control? Commissioner, the current rules are not being properly adhered to as it is, never mind new ones.
The Member States are simply not prepared to release enough money.
There is a lot of talk but little action.
As I see it, the Council must show greater commitment to making more resources available and exacting better sanctions.
Then there is the matter of how to deal with flags of convenience.
I have quite a list. I will vote in favour of the rapporteur' s proposal that ships which fly a blacklisted flag for three years in succession should be excluded, thereby sending out a signal to these flag ships that sub-standard controls will not pass muster in Europe.
We do not want them in our ports or in our waters.
In short, measures are an informal way of trying to bring safety to the desired standard.
That is bad for the people, the sea, the environment and for the sector' s image.
There should be more cooperation within the sector.
I therefore support the initiatives for a European maritime platform.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their sterling work.
It is absolutely imperative to ensure, taking the environment, safety, fishing communities, and tourism into account, that we do not have a repeat performance of what happened before.
All eyes were on the Erika in the first instance, but a tanker was sinking in other waters off Turkey at the same time.
The Ievoli Sun was double-hull but contained chemicals in a particular form.
Mr Gayssot, Greek ships have sunk without warning, when there were no storms in the vicinity.
In short, as I understand, there are reasons besides storms in the Channel that should prompt us to consider stopping shipping traffic there.
At the end of the day, we are talking about eight to ten thousand sub-standard ships.
In other words, this is a very extensive problem.
The age of ships is a factor, but not the most important one.
Maintenance plays a very important part.
That is what we are discussing now, along with manpower.
The human aspect of the whole issue is extremely important.
I would just like to concentrate on two dossiers: port state control and the phasing out of single-hull oil tankers.
Everyone has stated - and I absolutely agree - that the current 25% inspection rate necessary for port state control has not been achieved yet.
Some countries should take a very close look at what they need to do about this back home.
These countries must make the necessary resources available, people must be trained and so on.
In particular, the President of the current Transport Council has a great deal of work to do in his own country in the near future, even though he will not be the President any more.
In a nutshell, we should not just look at the technical side of the matter, we also need to look at crewing issues, and not just make laws, because as far as I am concerned, it would be no bad thing to raise that 25% inspection rate even higher in time, but first we need to take the other steps. Once again, enforcement is the most important measure.
I have a few brief comments to make regarding single-hull ships.
I am not happy with the fact that ships weighing 600 to 3000 tonnes have been left out.
Nor am I pleased that the financial incentives have been completely removed from the dossier.
I do not think the proposal was well drafted, but feel that we are certainly going to have to build financial incentives or sweeteners into these measures in the near future.
Thirdly, when we discuss dossiers of this kind, I think it becomes clear that we do not make the connection between our oil supply, on the one hand, and the fact that we are still using fossil fuels on the other.
Suppose we have new ships built, phasing single-hull ships out and building new double-hull ones, then we will have a more extensive fleet, when what we should in fact be doing is introducing other forms of fuel supply.
Mr President, we should not forget that everything which we condemn here is due to the fact that shipping is, by definition, a globalised sector par excellence and has been for a long time.
It is dynamic and disorganised and the risks inherent in it are those inherent in the global economy as a whole.
It is not properly regulated.
And there is nothing which international organisations such as the IMO or technology, black boxes and so on can do to provide this sort of regulation.
Naturally, we shall be voting in favour of everything our fellow Members have proposed because these are important steps.
But what we really need is an integrated, organised policy of intervention and regulation on the right scale, or at least on a European scale, which is why, Commissioner, we hope that the second or third package which you present to us will contain provisions in this direction - surveys, inspectors, coastguards, ports, installations and fines for those who do what they do on the high seas, because quite simply, the fines cost less than doing the job properly in port.
But these measures need to be taken at European level and applied by everyone, rather than varying from country to country.
Finally, everything we have said in our amendments in support of social and working conditions on board ships is quite simply a question of social and political solidarity.
It is also a question of efficiency.
The accidents which occurred in Greece, all of them were due in the end to so-called human error by people who were tired, who were sleepy, who had been working three days without a break and, so of course, they resulted in what has been so hypocritically referred to as so-called error.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the increased incidence of disasters at sea is not the work of pure chance.
Our political duty requires us to adopt urgent measures but we must also enforce existing legislation.
We can no longer confine ourselves to telling the people hit by these ecological and economic disasters that we have discussed these problems, that we are giving them some thought, and that we will avoid them in future.
If we want to be credible, we must act quickly and put an end to sterile political diatribes.
The time has long gone for simple compromises, which some, moreover, are saying will be difficult to achieve.
We must adopt draconian measures and enforce them at an international level by reforming the erstwhile International Maritime Code.
Is it necessary to recall that maritime safety is the preserve of international law, especially since pollution never stops at the limits of national territorial waters and that it starts for the most part in international waters? Given that, it is no longer a question of making the players involved aware of their responsibilities - as that is not effective - but of striking with real binding force where the impact will be felt the most, that is at financial interests.
Our political action must be powerful and commensurate with ecological urgency.
We must do away with hypocrisy. The way to achieve this necessarily lies in deploring the financial links that exist in some cases between shipowners and classification societies and in involving the parties concerned - shipowners, shippers, insurers and maritime administrations - in order to find a comprehensive solution.
The reports currently under debate must be the draft for a genuine maritime safety policy, but they must in no way be limited to the Community context.
We have the political and economic resources to impose our choices and to ensure that they are respected.
To conclude, I will recall that the Americans did not wait for us to promulgate the Oil Pollution Act in 1990 in response to the loss of the Exxon Valdez in 1989, whilst the loss of the Amoco Cadiz in France dates back to 1978.
Let us have the political courage of our ecological ambitions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it has been one bit of bad news after the other.
First there was BSE and the prohibition of animal meal, and then yesterday a bill banning fish meal was presented to the German Parliament.
Yesterday too, we received news from the Commission, borne by three Commissioners who really ought to know better, that the Commission is not prepared to extend aid to the European shipbuilding industry beyond 31 December.
What else do we intend to do to ourselves in the European Union? I cannot understand it, and the Koreans must be laughing up their sleeves.
By contrast, the Environment and Transport Committees have acted wisely and boldly in dealing with the first 'Erika' package, albeit in response to pressure in the wake of the accident.
We quickly received the package and discussed it promptly in Parliament, which is a praiseworthy achievement.
A second package is already under way.
For your part, Minister, I am sorry to say that you have been telling us "we could..." and have been talking about flags of convenience, black boxes and the like. But why are you not doing these things right now, rather than tomorrow?
You said, "We have the opportunity to improve safety."
So take that opportunity now, Minister, rather than later.
Parliament has long been calling for such action.
We parliamentarians are certainly not letting the grass grow under our feet. As to the accusation that Parliament has been solely responsible for any delay, I can only say that this is an attempt by others to hoodwink the public and divert attention from themselves and their own failure to deliver.
For that reason, we cannot agree to a postponement of the vote.
We must send the right signal.
The flags are at half-mast already, and I do not expect a rapid result at any price but rather the best possible result within the shortest possible time.
The conciliation procedure is an option. It may be a necessary evil, but it is an option, and I hope that all of us will contribute as best we can.
We all know each other's positions by now, which is another reason why we need to vote today.
As far as the classification societies are concerned, it is my duty and my wish to re-emphasise on this occasion that the main focal point of the present discussion seems to be liability.
Everyone understands that. People's futures and the survival of many businesses are on the line here, not to mention the environmental implications.
The Commission intends to look at this liability issue again in the second 'Erika' package, and rightly so.
I am convinced, however, that it is vitally important in the context of maritime accidents to consider the whole chain of responsibility and to examine every aspect of the matter.
It is regrettable that nobody is looking beyond the classification societies in the present discussion of the liability issue.
This, at least, is the impression that has been conveyed.
The spotlight is focused on the first link in the chain of maritime operators without being turned on the liability of the other parties.
So this still needs to be rectified.
We must have a full picture of all parties' responsibilities and hence of their liability.
Mr President, these texts have been imposed on us by exceptional, dramatic and repetitive circumstances and, faced with two accidents in less than a year, those of the Erika and the Ievoli Sun, public opinion has expressed a Europe-wide concern and a feeling of urgency.
This shows that, in this area more than any other, we have a tremendous responsibility and we must, it seems to me, stifle any institutional pride we may have.
The European Parliament has responded to this ambition of public opinion by means of a rapid, accelerated procedure, the credit for which must be firmly laid at the door of our four rapporteurs, Mr Hatzidakis, Mrs McKenna, Mr Watts et Mr Ortuondo Larrea.
We had a common objective.
It seems to me that that was the one we had to pursue: to arrive at a text during the December part-session and to achieve a consensus between the Council and Parliament. That is what public opinion was expecting and if, by misfortune, another accident were to happen we would be very severely judged.
It turns out that two texts risk putting us at odds with the Council and so, this evening, it is likely that the imminent publication of directives and regulations, which everybody is hoping for, will not be announced.
Personally, I regret that, due to over-hastiness, or perhaps due to a lack of level-headedness, these ten days have been cruelly snatched from us, and I also regret that we have not taken the hand extended to us by the Council so that, in December, in ten days to be exact, we might achieve what it seems we are all apparently hoping for throughout this Chamber.
Personally, I regret this and I believe that it will be severely judged.
I believe that Parliament' s position is the correct one to take on most of these texts, because it is perhaps the most demanding one, except on the issue of double hulls.
Mr President, I therefore appeal for the adoption of a common position on the liability scheme of classification societies, the system of banning ships, black boxes and systematic inspections, to tackle what we will doubtless be unable to reach agreement on today.
The French Presidency will have given the matter a crucial boost, the effects of which will unfortunately only be felt in two or three months' time.
We are taking any number of risks, including that of conciliation.
I believe we will come to regret this.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteurs for their successful reports.
In them, attention has been focused on factors that are essential for increased safety at sea.
There is, however, still much to be done to improve safety at sea.
It is important to tighten up regulations regarding the control of harbours and ports even further, and enhance its effectiveness.
We also have to improve the way we approve classification societies and monitor their work, and expanded inspections must be carried out, in particular on high-risk vessels.
I would also like to point out that it is not enough that the Union alone should find solutions to increase safety at sea.
For example, questions of responsibility must be dealt with on a global basis.
That also goes for the matter of double-hull design requirements.
Rules applied regionally are not enough here either: we need global IMO agreements.
For example, for Finland it is vitally important that Russia is included in these agreements.
We must ensure that vessels that are no longer seaworthy and pose a risk actually are scrapped and are not brought back into service flying someone else' s flag.
Mr President, I shall be voting in favour of all the technical measures aimed at enhancing maritime safety even though, at the same time, I deplore their inadequacy.
But the real problem is the political will to adopt and implement measures binding upon all those endangering the community and the environment in order to make a profit.
These are not only the shipowners but also, more especially, the contractors, who are large multinationals, as the losses of the Erika and the Ievoli Sun clearly illustrated.
These binding measures should involve not only the detention of dangerous ships but also the seizure of such vessels and their contents.
What is more, these major companies should be made financially liable to the extent of their assets for any damage that they cause.
The fuel dumps of Total and Shell, the charterers of the Erika and the Ievoli Sun respectively, should have been immediately confiscated until all the damage that had been inflicted due to their irresponsibility had been fully compensated.
Justice can be merciless towards the poor who are unable to pay a tax or a fine, and will even go so far as to seize their meagre belongings.
Laxness towards large companies is indeed a sign that they are more powerful than elected institutions.
Mr President, allow me first to express my thanks both to the Commission and to the three rapporteurs for their important work on this matter.
The Erika catastrophe in autumn 1999 caused many to react, which is a good thing.
At the same time, it would have been even better if we had acted in advance instead of reacting afterwards.
Then perhaps we could have avoided a catastrophe.
There is much that is good in what we must decide on today.
That applies both to the stricter requirements on the design of oil tankers, better rules on port state control and the tightening up of the rules on classification societies that will also result from this.
At the same time, I feel that many question marks remain.
For example, what is the point of preventing vessels from putting into EU ports if we do not prevent them from navigating our waters? Realistic assessments suggest that we will only be able to stop a further 10-12 vessels per year.
Will this be sufficient?
The latest major accident resulting in oil discharges just a few weeks ago involved a double-hull tanker. This means that not even the mandatory introduction of this type of hull will provide any kind of certain solution.
Allow me to take up one further matter, namely all the cases of oil discharges that are not an accident but rather are entirely deliberate discharges.
Oil traffic in the Baltic has doubled since 1995 and in a few years' time will have trebled.
Every day we suffer two new discharges on average.
A short time ago a vessel with a Maltese flag of convenience discharged oil in Swedish waters just off Gotska Sandön.
The vessel then sailed into the port of Tallinn in Estonia.
The question is who can act.
Under the MARPOL convention Sweden is not entitled to act because the vessel is no longer in Swedish waters.
Neither can Estonia act, because the vessel did not cause any damage there.
Malta, for its part, probably does not wish to act, because the country enjoys great economic gain from this type of vessel being registered under the Maltese flag.
And so yet another environmental marauder goes free.
The proposals that we have submitted to date will not solve this problem in the future either.
I therefore consider that there is an incredible amount still to do in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, clearly the issue of safety at sea, in other words, the safety of human life and environmental protection, is a very serious issue.
If we are to deal with it, we need strict, modern rules with reliable inspectors and suitably-staffed government agencies to ensure that they are applied.
Proposals have been made to prohibit ships which seriously endanger our seas from docking, to record voyage data so that conditions along a ship's course can be checked in the event of an accident, to gradually make double hulls compulsory and to improve regulations and standards governing ship inspection and control bodies.
Of course, nothing would be simpler than to set limits and restrictions which, in theory, would preclude any accident.
However, they would be impossible to apply without taking other basic aspects of the problem into account. Shipping should not be treated as the "enemy", nor is it.
It should be seen as a friend which could do better. We need to take action to improve safety which causes shipping and trade as little pain as possible and we must be sure that such action will not do more harm than good.
In other words, we must not exaggerate. I am positive that everyone would rather have more lenient regulations which are applied than stricter regulations which are not applied.
May I remind the House that five Member States - and to avoid misunderstanding, Greece is not one of them - have been charged by the Commission with failure to apply the previous, more lenient directive.
I think we can strike the required balance on the basis of the Commission and IMO proposals and the reports under discussion, on which the rapporteurs really do deserve to be congratulated.
The tragedy is that, even if regulations are introduced, they will not stop the type of accident in which the Greek car ferry Express Samina was involved, i.e. where a captain "decides" to ram his ship into charted, well-lit rocks.
Mr President, today we are discussing maritime safety on the basis of three reports, on which I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs warmly on.
Immediately after the Erika disaster the Commissioner started working on an extensive legislation package, and in all honesty, I am compelled to say that apart from the liability aspect, the legislation really was not bad at all.
The problem was, and remains, compliance with legislation, inspections and sanctions in the event of non-compliance.
Today we are discussing the safety of ships and flag states, port state control and the classification societies.
Unfortunately, pressure of time means I have to be selective.
Firstly, the issue of the classification societies. It does not really matter that they are supposed to have maximum unlimited liability.
The majority of them cannot afford it anyway.
What is important is to ensure that when they make a serious and inexcusable mistake, they are shut down, i.e. we must close them, put a stop to their activities, end of story.
That would keep them on their toes a bit more.
It would also seem to be better than imposing sanctions that do not yield anything.
Then there are the flag states. I personally am in favour of banning ships that sail under cheap blacklisted flags from the ports and territorial waters of the Union.
However I can see the practical difficulties associated with this. Is it not worrying that the sister ship of the Erika, the Maria S, carried on sailing round undisturbed for more than a year before it was detained and sent to the scrap heap?
Why was the Maria S not taken out of service by its classification society? What did the flag state actually do?
Various states, which are completely irresponsible to my mind, offer registrations that take a mere twenty minutes via the Internet. It is in every sense a virtual affair, with no form of inspection.
Mrs Sanders has already mentioned Cambodia.
Cambodia advertises this form of registration in the shipping news.
What is the Commissioner doing about ships that have been registered in this manner? Are we going to wait until they are detained?
Once, twice, until there is oil on the North Sea beaches. It is obvious that a bonafide company does not register its ships in Cambodia.
The second example is Honduras.
750 ships were in an unspeakably poor condition even by Honduran standards.
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether we follow these ships with a tracking and tracing system? Because surely the question arises as to which flag states have accepted these floating wrecks?
Where are they now? I do not think we can continue to operate with any credibility without a tracking system of this kind.
Other countries besides those of the EU must take a firm hand with the flag states.
Some of our Member States make a mess of their own registers. A strict test must also be applied under real life conditions to those countries that have systems which look good on paper but which do not amount to anything in reality.
If they fail the test then the same rule applies to them as it does to other untrustworthy flag states: we do not want their ships in our ports.
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, several times in the debate we have been reminded of the Erika disaster and other catastrophes; each of us could add to this list.
Our past and recent history has been dotted with calamities, and that might also seem quite natural, though upsetting, if we did not remember that 75% of them have been caused by human hand.
So it is important to state the political and cultural bottom line: it is time to get rid of the emergency culture, and it is time to affirm the prevention culture.
The reports that have been presented are a move in this direction.
It is significant that the Commission, through the Commissioner, Mrs Wallström, has this morning confirmed its priority commitment to a modern maritime safety policy, and the declaration made by the Council is also important, but this declaration is binding in respect of the effort that must be made to bring this matter to a definitive close by the end of December.
This has been a good start, but we must also move on to other stages. Some have been announced this morning by the Commissioner, and I shall mention four of them: legislative and organisational harmonisation by the candidate countries for enlargement; training of human resources and recognition of the rights of those working in the sector; the setting-up of a European maritime agency, with the full involvement not only of the Member States, but also of local and regional authorities; and affirmation of the principle of liability, and hence redress, for environmental damage and not just social and economic damage.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us ensure that the "polluter pays" slogan does not remain just a slogan!
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, transport by sea is undoubtedly one of the least environmentally damaging modes of transport.
This is demonstrated by the fact that the measures adopted at international level to improve safety and reduce accidental pollution have certainly had some success.
Nevertheless, we still unfortunately witness serious incidents, such as the recent sinking of the Erika, which show how urgent it is to adopt new measures to promote marine safety and to avoid any repetition of incidents that have such major ecological and economic repercussions on our coastlines, our seas, fisheries and tourism.
With regard to these three new proposals on maritime safety, I can only congratulate the three rapporteurs, who in a very short time have shown how determined our Parliament is to adopt new measures to enhance safety at sea, controls and construction standards, and that it is no longer tolerable that similar incidents should occur again.
I believe it is our duty to strengthen the enforcement of existing directives on these matters and to adopt new measures designed to clear our seas of sub-standard vessels, real sea-going old rust buckets.
In addition to adopting this package of measures, the European Union should, in my view, act in a worldwide context, identifying solutions agreed at international level that will improve maritime safety and at the same time not penalise our shipowners in comparison with others.
In conclusion, I would highlight the need to set up an information exchange system among the Member States on navigation safety in areas with heavy tanker traffic, so as to ensure constant monitoring and an immediate reaction to any hazards.
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialists in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I should like to make a few brief comments.
The Commission has the merit of overcoming inactivity and contributing to a political solution.
Parliament wants effective and coherent action for the sector.
We know that the cause of accidents, which are becoming more numerous and more serious despite the technology now available, lies in the competitive madness in shipbuilding, leading to declining quality, and the absurd economic management of ageing fleets, which hinges on a strategy of drastic cuts in maintenance and crews.
Accidents are not just caused by the age and type of the vessel; they also occur because of the unscrupulousness of ship owners and operators who make use of every possible method to cut costs. Some of these have been repeatedly mentioned here, from flags of convenience to the permissiveness of port authorities and the complicity of classification societies.
The problem of safety for this form of transport requires offenders to be penalised rigorously; imposing such penalties entails costs that must be shared by the whole sector worldwide, so that we do not penalise the European sector even more.
We agree with imposing a lower limit for personal injury or death and material damage, leaving the Member States free to raise these limits.
We disagree with the idea according to which the fitness of classification societies depends on their size or even the number of inspectors on their staff, and prefer to be guided by the consequences of their certification, and therefore the system of civil liability compatible with the risk is necessary.
Allow me to make a comment on Portugal, which has been mentioned here.
Portugal supported the changes to Directive 94/54 but disagrees with the abolition of classification societies by smaller countries.
Classification society performance must be assessed by common criteria: number of accidents, incidents or detentions of inspected and certified ships that cause pollution.
It is unrealistic to expect the number of accidents to fall without international coordination channelled through a political and entrepreneurial commitment that creates a new operational mentality.
Mrs Chairman, a series of high-profile ship disasters, particularly involving oil tankers, has hit our continent in the recent past.
Tremendous damage has been caused to nature as well as to the livelihoods of the population living in these areas.
Our electors ask us what we are doing to prevent catastrophes like these? I would like to thank Ms Wallström and Ms De Palacio for the action they have taken in the field of maritime safety.
They definitely have reacted quickly and worked swiftly for better rules and legislation regarding safety at sea in both the 'Erika I' and 'Erika II' proposals.
The phasing out of single-hull oil tankers will increase safety along EU coasts.
My friends in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism remarked that stricter EU phase-out dates should be adopted.
I thank my colleagues for this responsible approach and I urge agreement to be reached on the earlier drop-dead date of 2015.
When we do this we should always remember that double hulls or even triple hulls do not guarantee with absolute certainty that accidents will not happen in the future.
Presenting new technologies and making improvements to the vessel design are part of this important work.
As regards the Commission decision yesterday to stick with the previously agreed timetable regarding the state aid schemes I think that was a wise decision.
Like my very good friend Mrs Langenhagen I am very worried about the situation in South Korea and I was glad to see that the European Commission will review this issue before May next year.
Madam President, when the Erika sank, it was the fault of the ship' s age, the single hull, the Indian crew and the Maltese flag.
When the Ievoli Sun sank, it was relatively young, it had a double hull, a crew from the European Community and it was flying the Italian flag.
It is enough to confuse anybody!
Our citizens understand even less well.
I believe that our reports contain a weakness, in that they do not sufficiently discuss the seafarers and the men on board ship.
More than 80 of accidents are associated with human error, but there are reasons for human error, which are social in nature.
Naturally, the training of the crews is important, but it must be checked and this can only be carried out by the port state. Inspectors must check not only the condition of the ship but also the shipboard social conditions.
Is Convention 147 of the ILO which, amongst other things, obliges port states to reinforce measures aimed at protecting the interests of seamen in terms of their health and safety, their working conditions and their union rights, being correctly enforced? As for the Paris Memorandum of Understanding, I believe it would be useful to amend it in such a way as to make inspections of the shipboard social conditions systematic and effective.
I believe that the issue of maritime safety will not be over until we have talked about the seamen.
Madam President, firstly, as regards urgency in taking decisions and in implementing these decisions, bearing in mind that less than a year after the Erika incident we had the Ievoli Sun accident, how is it possible not to understand our electors, our fellow citizens, when they ask how this could have happened?
I have heard Members of Parliament ask why action was not taken sooner. While I can understand this question, I believe that we must realise that, in this area, perhaps as never before, Parliament, the Commission and the Council did indeed display a willingness to act and to react speedily.
One can even assume that this initiative creates conditions not only for the European Union to adopt perfectly effective measures regarding the waters that concern it directly, but also measures to enable the IMO itself, as it were, to bring all these measures up to a fully global level within the coming months.
I remember - and please forgive me for using this personal tone - that last February we sent the three memoranda to the European Union, to FIPOL and to the IMO.
This was done on France' s initiative because the Erika had just sunk and, since March, the Commission has put forward a number of proposals.
From the very first meeting, under the French Presidency of the Council of Transport Ministers, there has been a common will to so something. Today, as well as moving forward the date of the debate in part-session, the European Parliament is proposing to debate and to give its verdict in three key areas.
This specifically demonstrates that, this time, we will not fall once again into the ruts of the past.
It has to be said that in the twenty years after the Amoco Cadiz accident some things were perhaps achieved, but not enough to prevent this lack of maritime safety from being eradicated.
I want to highlight the work that has been done at this level and I share the opinion of your rapporteurs, the quality of whose work I also commend.
I am convinced, as are the Members of the European Parliament, that we must strengthen the texts proposed by the Commission, especially regarding black boxes and banning ships.
I am also in favour of the liability of all operators, in particular that of classification societies, which play a key role in maritime safety, being established and clearly reinforced so that no lenience can exist, most notably as regards inspections.
I want to say to Mr Jarzembowski that the Council is not seeking a compromise.
We must move forward towards consensus upon maximum maritime regulation and safety.
It is not a question of a compromise between those who would like more and those who would like less.
There is common ground and we must seek the consensus to achieve it.
As regards maritime safety and 'cheating' there is no compromise to be sought regarding the elements of inspection and maritime safety.
If you agree, Parliament, the Commission and the Council must work, by consensus, between now and the Council of Ministers on 20 and 21 December. I have indeed heard this suggestion made by several rapporteurs.
This is the proposal I am putting to you officially right now.
I hope that this work can result in common positions being established as early as 20 and 21 December.
I am not yet at a stage where I need to talk about conciliation.
We can expedite matters.
If we work from now until the Council of Ministers on 20 and 21 December, we will succeed in establishing common positions, obtained by qualified majority voting.
This is an element I wish to stress as Parliament will then be able to accept these positions in second reading early next year.
It is true that the subjects we are dealing with are sometimes complex and technical.
I realise that even the translations take time.
But the most important thing is the unshakeable will which must motivate us collectively to change the current rules of the game of maritime transport in order to establish maritime safety.
These proposals which, I hope, we are going to push forward together very quickly, both as regards the phasing out of single-hull ships and the issue of classification societies and port state control, are important, but, as you have said, and as the Commissioner has also said, we know that they are not enough.
We need this second package in order to go further in terms of making all the operators aware of their responsibilities. We also need to step up surveillance and transparency.
One Member of Parliament used the term 'traceability' .
I would support that idea.
We cannot allow operators to do just what they like with ships, especially when they have been repaired or banned in such and such a place.
We must not find them back on our seas and on our oceans.
The Equasis system, which is part of the second package, will enable us to push things forward.
Finally, Madam President, a number of you have spoken about this, but we do not as yet have all the elements of the inquiry that I set up in the wake of the loss of the Ievoli Sun.
The fact is that this ship was not old, it had a double hull and its crew was from Europe.
We will get the results of this inquiry shortly.
It is important that everybody knows what happened, as the human question, which was brought up by a number of you, is also very important.
Things are happening in terms of the overexploitation of seamen and shipboard living and working conditions, as well as in terms of maintenance, which may be determining factors in the cause of accidents, and I believe we must move forward in this area too.
Madam President, I first would like to thank you all for this interesting and valuable debate.
I am glad to say that the Commission will support many of the amendments put forward in these three reports.
There still remain some areas where we have somewhat different approaches.
But I hope that these can be cleared today.
Allow me to give the Commission' s view on each of the reports on the three proposals.
I would like to start with the proposal on port state control.
I thank Parliament for its strong commitment to our proposal and especially Mr Watts for his series of amendments which sends a clear and strong message to sub-standard operators and negligent flag states.
Most of the amendments are focused on the proposed refusal of access to Community waters.
These are Amendments Nos 1, 3, 6, 7 and 8.
The core of Parliament' s amendments is Amendment No 3, amending Article 7a of the Commission proposal.
It includes three elements: firstly, the deletion of the age criterion is acceptable to the Commission since there is no absolute correlation between age and the quality of a ship.
Secondly, regarding the criterion based on the absence of a black box on board, the Commission supports the principle of a widened accelerated introduction of black boxes on board ships plying EU ports, but this is a matter which should not be dealt with in the port state control Directive.
So this is not a matter of principle but a matter of the formal place for this specific proposal.
The port state control Directive is designed to check compliance with international requirements and not to introduce new rules.
Within a few days the Commission will adopt a proposal for a Directive on safety of navigation including such an obligation to be equipped with a black box.
The third element of Amendment No 3 is a proposal to ban all ships that have flown for three years the flag of a state included in the blacklist published by the Paris Memorandum of Understanding.
In Parliament' s proposal, this criterion alone would be decisive to ban whole fleets.
Should the directive enter into force today with the proposed amendment of Parliament, 32 fleets including Malta, Cyprus, Russia, Panama, the largest fleet of the world, would be banned.
This means thousands of ships including ships of high quality which is contrary to the objectives of port state control.
We prefer our proposal where the flag criterion is linked to the detention record of a ship so as to give a clear and strong signal to sub-standard operators.
In brief, the Commission can only partially accept Amendment No 3.
Amendments Nos 1, 6, 7 and 8 also relate to the refusal of access.
The Commission can accept Amendment Nos 6, 7 and 8, but can only partially accept Amendment No 1.
The deletion of the age criterion is acceptable but not the extension of banning the territorial waters of Member States.
This is not reflected in the text of the directive where the refusal of access only concerns EU ports.
As regards the other amendments, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2, 4, 5, 21, 22, 23 and 24 subject to some redrafting.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 9 to 20, Amendment Nos 25 and 26.
Most are new proposed recitals that do not reflect the contents of the directive.
Many are either outside the scope of the port state control or are already covered by this or another directive.
More specifically, Amendments Nos 9 to 17 and 25 introduce new recitals most of which are not linked in any way to the text of the directive.
Amendment No 18 introduces port state control in relation to the seafarers' rest period, however the enforcement of the provisions in respect of seafarers' hours of work is already fully covered by existing Directive 99/95.
Amendment No 19 is redundant since the current procedures already provide that non-compliance with the required health and working standards as established by ILO conventions are reported as deficiencies and can also lead to the detention of a vessel.
Amendment No 20 is irrelevant to port state control as it concerns competition between ports of the Atlantic and North Sea and not maritime safety.
Amendment No 26 reflects the amendments of banding proposed by the rapporteur in Amendment No 3 but extends the scope of the measure to the exclusive economic zone of Member States and in this light it is contrary to the law of the sea.
Let me now turn to the proposal for the accelerated phasing in of double-hull oil tankers.
I am happy to say that we almost entirely agree.
Following pressure by Member States on the International Maritime Organisation, there is a proposed phase-out schedule which meets the main concerns of Europe and at the same time aligns with the American Oil Pollution Act 90 and which is to be fully supported.
In this respect, the Commission insists on 2015 as the final end date.
In order to achieve the main objective of this proposal, namely to phase out old single-hull oil tankers quickly, we are prepared to go along with the deletion of the proposed financial incentive system setting up differential charging of port and pilotage dues.
It is expected that the IMO will formally adopt the phase out schedule at its April meeting next year.
However, should the International Maritime Organisation fail to do so, the Commission agrees with Parliament that we will have to adopt a EU regulation based on the EP text and introduce a system for European Union waters.
Amendment No 12 of the report says exactly the same, but it is more of a political commitment than a legal text.
Therefore, we do not need it in the final text and I hope you will not insist on this point.
For similar reasons, the Commission cannot accept the new Amendment No 22 which relates to the very important area of safety of navigation but is of no relevance to the proposed regulation.
The Commission also rejects Amendments Nos 10 and 18 since this would mean setting up an additional committee just for this regulation and this is inconsistent with our policy line of reducing the number of committees by making use of existing committees.
I am happy to see that the rapporteur has introduced a reference in Amendment No 21 to the condition assessment scheme and we agree with the main thrust of the approach suggested but there is need for some fine tuning of the wording to make it clearer.
Last but not least, the proposal for amendments to the classification societies Directive.
Here again, there is no great divergence of views and the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 6, 12, 14, 15 and 8 with the exception of the additional Paragraphs 3a and 3b to that amendment.
There is a set of amendments which the Commission feels could create confusion because they introduce new terminology in an area where the language of the international fora, IMO, is well established.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 2, 3, 7 and 9 and the Commission feels that these are not really substantial problems, more drafting language matters which could possibly be cleared by the jurist-linguists.
The issue of assessments to be carried out over the classification societies by the Member States on the one hand and by the Commission on the other is of primary importance.
The objectives of Parliament and the Commission are the same.
We must maintain the clear difference in substance of the tasks at hand for either party.
Member States must satisfy themselves that the classification society they have chosen to work on their behalf, fulfils the tasks to their full satisfaction.
The Commission' s task is to confirm that the classification society continues to meet the qualitative criteria in the directive and to monitor the performance of the classification societies.
In that respect, the control tasks of Member States and the Commission are different and should not be undertaken at the same time.
This is why the Commission would favour Amendment No 28 now on the table which reintroduces the obligation for Member States to carry out their assessment and therefore rejects Amendment No 13.
Ethics is an equally important issue that should be tackled.
I share Parliament' s concern that there should be no undue influence from a shipowner over a classification society.
In this respect, Amendments Nos 26 and 29 are making clarifications of the text in their Spanish versions and would be acceptable to the Commission.
Amendment No 4 and part of Amendment No 18 relating to point "K" are not acceptable.
There are some other amendments which the Commission has difficulties in accepting mainly on the grounds that we feel that the concerns expressed have already been sufficiently taken care of in other parts of the existing text.
Here I have in mind Amendments Nos 5, 16 and the additions 3a and 3b to Amendment No 8: 3a because we feel this is adequately covered in Article 9 and 10 and 3b because this is covered in the Directive on port state control.
Further, Amendment No 1 and part of Amendment No 18 relating to point "K" are not acceptable on legal grounds.
Amendment No 1 because only the Community is a legal person and not the Union and 18 "K" as it may contravene horizontal commitments made in the general agreement on trade in services.
Amendment No 11 and a part of Amendment No 18 relating to point "H" which deal with the issue of setting clear performance targets and indicators for classification societies are rather ambiguous.
They seem to suggest limitations which are unacceptable and should be rejected.
The aim of our proposal is to allow for a tightening of supervision of classification societies and the possibility to suspend or withdraw recognition in situations where the performance of a classification society is not up to standard.
In this respect, the Commission cannot accept any limitation or involvement of classification societies in the judgment over themselves.
As regards Amendments Nos 19 to 25, I am afraid none of them is acceptable either because they are already covered in the existing directive or simply fall outside the scope of this directive and are covered by other directives.
That leaves Amendment No 10 dealing with the important issue of liability limits.
The Commission appreciates the support for its originally proposed limit.
Also, the Commission agrees with the revision clause but would prefer the more flexible formula suggested in Amendment No 12, commitology, over that in Amendment No 10, full legislative procedure.
I have two comments on issues raised by Mr Stenmarck about oil spills in the Baltic Sea.
We have two instruments at hand.
Firstly there is a Directive on waste reception facilities recently approved by the European Parliament and Council.
All ships are obliged to discharge waste in European Union ports.
Secondly, in our proposal on 'Erika II' concerning surveillance of navigation, Member States will be required to intervene even on the high seas in such cases.
I would say to Mrs Peijs about Cambodia and Honduras ships, that we are perfectly aware of the threat to safety and these are precisely the kinds of flags targeted in our proposal on the port state Directive.
I can assure you that if a shipowner thinks of registering a ship on these registers, he should think twice after our proposal.
May I conclude by expressing once again my gratitude to Parliament and to the four rapporteurs for their expeditious work and excellent reports.
It is a curious coincidence that Parliament is considering the final stage of the adoption of the European Parliament and Council decision on accidental or deliberate marine pollution, at the same time as the first set of measures proposed by the Commission following the Erika disaster.
Indeed, even with the best preventative legislation, zero risk does not exist.
We are sometimes struggling against the forces of nature.
In order to be better prepared against maritime disasters, this decision has established a solid framework for cooperation at Community level.
It creates the conditions that will allow the sharing of experience gathered by Member States to better protect our marine environment against the risk of accidental or deliberate pollution.
The conciliation process was demanding, but a well-balanced compromise has been found and the amendments of Parliament and Council have produced a better decision.
The scope and content of the decision are now clearer, in particular concerning operational discharges and munitions as well as regarding the link with international conventions or in relation to the polluter-pays principle.
This has largely been due to the excellent work of the European Parliament and the rapporteur, Mrs McKenna, whom I would particularly like to thank along with the Members of Parliament' s delegation.
Let me conclude by recalling that one month ago the Ievoli Sun sank near Cherbourg with 6 000 tonnes of dangerous cargo.
Once again, this demonstrates how urgent the adoption of strengthened, preventative and restoratory Community measures for the protection of our seas is.
We now count on the Council and, of course, Mr Gayssot personally to crown this remarkable work with our good, solid, ambitious agreement during the next Council.
Thank you, Mrs Wallström.
Commissioner, no one in this Chamber was getting impatient as you were speaking. Quite the contrary, we are very grateful that you have taken so much care to set out the Commission' s positions in such detail.
I once again thank the President-in-Office of the Council for what he had to say and for the very great determination that he expressed.
Mr Poos, would you like to add something to the debate?
I wish to raise a point of order, Madam President.
The Commissioner spoke for 18 minutes and during this time she cited dozens and dozens of items and gave a breakdown of the position of the Commission.
It is impossible for Members of Parliament to take note of the Commission' s position on the different amendments.
That is why I would like to reiterate my proposal that the Commission' s position on the amendments is sent to all the Members of Parliament in writing before we cast our vote.
Very well.
I am sure the Commissioner heard what you had to say.
I am told there is no objection to that, Mr Poos.
Madam President, this is a point of order concerning Rule 44.
As we have heard on several occasions, the Council persists in not taking the deadlines for replying to our questions into consideration.
Instead of supplying a written, priority reply in three weeks, they took 16 weeks to send this one.
Anyway, I should like to read out this very brief reply: "The first four questions raised have never been submitted to the Council; as for the last three questions, these clearly fall within the organisational competences of the General Secretariat."
You can understand that there might be an incompetent and provocative official, but when 15 countries give their assent to this kind of answer, Madam President, I think you should take the initiative when you meet the Council to have this prerogative of Members of Parliament respected.
Mr Turco, I have understood what you had to say and I will give the matter some thought.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a few moments.
VOTE
Thank you, Mr Hatzidakis.
Motion for a resolution on the preparation of the Nice European Council
Thank you, Mr Napolitano.
The motion for a resolution from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is therefore withdrawn.
Joint motion for a resolution on the preparation of the Nice European Council
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0340/2000) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the progress achieved in the implementation of the common foreign and security policy
Relating to Amendment No 2:
Madam President, I should like to move that the amendment be altered so that it begins with the words "urges, in this respect, the Council and the Commission".
The words "and the Commission" would be inserted, and the last clause, "urges once again the Commission to open a representation office in Taipei" would be deleted.
If the author of the amendment agrees, we could proceed in that way.
Madam President, that is not an oral amendment.
The first part is an oral amendment, but the second part is a motion for a split vote, which I cannot accept, because it has not been tabled in time.
I can accept and support the first part, but we shall then have to vote on the whole paragraph as it stands.
(Since more than 12 Members of Parliament stood up, the oral amendment was not retained) (Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0339/2000) by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the establishment of a common European security and defence policy after Cologne and Helsinki [2000/2005(INI)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0892/2000) on Afghanistan
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0308/2000) by Mrs Theorin, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on participation of women in peaceful conflict resolution [2000/2025(INI)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0301/2000) by Mrs Smet, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on regulating domestic help in the informal sector [2000/2021(INI)](Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0327/2000) by Mrs Guy-Quint, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the White Paper on reforming the Commission (aspects concerning the Committee on Budgets) [COM(00)0200 - C5-044/2000 - 2000/2215(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0329/2000) by Mr Pomés Ruiz, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the White Paper on reforming the Commission (aspects concerning the Committee on Budgetary Control) [COM(2000)0200 - C5-0445/2000 - 2000/2215(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0326/2000) by Mr Harbour, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the White Paper on reforming the Commission (aspects concerning the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market) [COM(2000)0200 - C5-0446/2000 - 2000/2216(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0328/2000) by Mr Lamassoure, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the White Paper on reforming the Commission (aspects concerning the Committee on Constitutional Affairs) [COM(2000)200 - C5-0448/2000 - 2000/2218(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0337/2000) by Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the effectiveness of relations between the European Union and the developing countries and the impact of reform of the Commission on these relations [2000/2051(INI)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
.
The rapporteur is correct in identifying the local dimension in terms of strengthening European employment strategy.
Local authorities, SMEs and NGOs must be involved in any strategy to create employment as they are in close contact with the situation at ground level and can provide the expertise to make a success of local employment strategies.
I support the idea of designating a European Local Development year and welcome the idea of maximising the use of new technology to reduce unemployment.
Employment creation must remain one of our top priorities.
McKenna report (A5-0336/2000)
Madam President, I have voted for the McKenna report, which, together with the Conciliation Committee, marks the conclusion of the Community framework for intervening in the matter of marine pollution.
I have talked to retired seamen, who tell me that they are all in favour of this programme, especially because it is a European programme aimed at keeping the seas clean.
They also say that they know Europe and have had personal experience of it all their lives because many ships have mixed crews, with Italian, French, English and Spanish members, and so they are really happy that Europe as a whole is interested in keeping European seas clean.
Watts report (A5-0343/2000)
Madam President, as the representative of the Pensioners' Party I voted against the Watts report.
I voted against in protest at the fact that the European Union is still not managing to intervene in this matter as it should.
In fact, those concerned with enforcing shipboard living and working conditions, as the title of this report states, are unable to lay down that seamen who go to sea are, throughout Europe, entitled to receive their pensions and end their working lives earlier than other people.
Many seamen are grandfathers and do not see their grandchildren because they are always at sea; fathers do not see their own children.
In short, this job is different from others and entails many more sacrifices than other jobs.
Therefore it is fair that they should be entitled, if they wish, to take their pensions before other workers.
.
(EL) Accidents at sea, marine pollution, unacceptable health and safety conditions on board ships and the over-exploitation of crews are simply expressions of the criminal unaccountability of big shipowners and the policies which serve them at national, regional and international level.
The EU's policy merely maintains and extends this unaccountability, given that even the inadequate protective measures decided under pressure from the grass-roots movement will never be applied.
Regional decisions on safety at sea seriously undermine the role of the International Maritime Organisation (ÉÌÏ) and the economic war being waged exerts a constant downward pressure on safety regulations, which are sacrificed to profit.
At the same time, big shipowners ply their trade uncontrolled under flags of convenience and the state of world shipping goes from bad to worse.
The unaccountability of shipowners is being bolstered by the privatisation of shipping registers, which shipowners now control, and by the lack of any basic inspection controls or other form of involvement on the part of government authorities.
We urgently need to take preventative action for ships flying under the flag of Member States of the European Union, to improve existing legislation and, more importantly, to ensure that it is applied.
We need to change the system of shipping registers by moving them from the private to the public sector.
We also need to extend seaworthiness surveys and inspections by the competent authorities to ships of any nationality sailing in the territorial waters of the Member States and to promote similar measures at international level under resolutions by the ÉÌÏ, paying particular attention and applying particularly strict measures to ships sailing under flags of convenience.
Merchant ships need to be inspected by government departments with suitably trained staff and proper technological facilities, with the active involvement of the shipping trade union movement.
A real policy to protect safety at sea, human life at sea and the environment needs, first and foremost, to address the unaccountability of shipowners, apply strict measures to punish their infringements, stipulate how ships are to be crewed in keeping with their enhanced requirements, help to improve living and working conditions on board ship and ensure that the trade union movement is properly involved when decisions are taken on shipping, especially on safety issues.
Although the proposal to amend the current Directive on ship inspections and the Watts report fall far short of what is actually required, they are a step in the right direction and the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece have therefore voted in favour of the report.
- (NL) If all the flag states for shipping, all the shipowning companies and all the classification societies had good will, there would be no need for port state controls.
Unfortunately, making maximum profit is often all that matters, to the detriment of safety, the environment and the personnel.
Human error largely results from overloading, underpayment and the fact that the sailors have not received adequate training.
The Commission proposal looks reassuring, but is not proof against deliberate sabotage.
I therefore welcome the fact that the rapporteurs Watts, Vachetta and Piétrasanta have endeavoured to close the gaps still present in the Commission proposal.
They propose that ships which pose a risk or sail under cheap flags and those lacking voyage recorder data should be banned from EU ports, that we should counteract brass-plate companies, stop ships rinsing out their tanks in the sea, and increase the number of inspectors.
It is significant that Mrs Vachetta has proposed that the level of manpower, the working hours, the pay levels and the training of sailors should be improved.
I support any improvements and am disappointed that some of them will not get a majority vote behind them even now.
.
(FR) I voted in favour of the Watts report, which aims to enhance the quality and frequency of inspections in the ports of the Member States of the European Union.
The European Commission proposes to introduce a certain uniformity of inspection procedures and sets out the conditions under which access to the ports of the Member States of the European Union can be refused: these are the minimum conditions for a common policy on maritime safety.
These provisions have the effect of strengthening safety checks on ships in our ports but do not make it possible to ban dangerous ships that do not drop anchor at one of our ports from sailing in our territorial waters. The limitations of these proposals are therefore clear.
One can therefore deplore the fact that the Commission proposal has not taken up the idea of the establishment of a European surveillance body on the model of the coastguards in the United States.
We will settle for setting up a European system of surveillance and information exchange between Member States.
The European Parliament will have to ensure that the financial and human resources that are needed to effectively establish this rapid reaction and information exchange system are quickly made available by the Member States.
I would point out that the European Union has some 270 inspectors charged with state port control.
This figure falls far short of the number of inspectors needed to implement the measures we are proposing in ports.
The rapporteur has put forward a number of proposals enhancing the binding nature and effectiveness of these inspections.
I fully support the ban on navigation for ships which have been detained twice in the course of the preceding 2 years, irrespective of the age of the ship.
However, I believe that this measure should be considered a minimum requirement and I hope that we will be able to go much further.
To do so, we must be sure that the measures we are proposing today are implemented by all the Member States of the European Union.
The responsibility for putting these measures in place rests therefore with the Member States.
Without additional inspectors and without extra financial resources, the controls proposed in the ports will remain a fiction.
We therefore call on the Member States to make a real commitment to maritime safety.
Hatzidakis report (A5-0344/2000)
A pensioner to whom I mentioned that this document by Mr Hatzidakis was going to be discussed exclaimed, 'But couldn' t you have thought of that before?!' .
This really is such an obvious measure, and I see Mr Hatzidakis as the deus ex machina of this need to avoid marine pollution hazards.
If we had thought of it before, if Mr Hatzidakis had been here before, in previous years, he would surely have proposed the double-hull design and we would have avoided so many disasters.
I now ask Mr Hatzidakis to become the promoter of another initiative, to have double shells adopted also for the road tankers that carry oil and other harmful substances on our motorways.
.
(EL) We will not achieve safety at sea or protect human life at sea and the environment unless we address the unaccountability of shipowners, introduce strict controls on the state of ships, impose heavy penalties on shipping companies in breach of safety regulations, improve working times for seamen, train them properly and ensure that ships are crewed in keeping with their enhanced requirements.
Introducing double-hull ships may help improve safety and protect the environment, but it is not a panacea, nor is it a guarantee, on its own, of seaworthiness.
We feel that a differential charging system for port and pilotage dues for double-hull oil tankers should not be introduced at the expense of the revenue of the port and other funds to which dues are currently channelled; on the contrary, dues for double-hull ships should be maintained at present levels and gradually increased for single-hull ships.
Unfortunately, not only do the proposals in the report make no such provision, they also worsen the preconditions for withdrawing old ships.
We feel that the proposal to increase the tonnage of vessels below the MARPOL limit which are exempt from the provisions of the Commission regulation from 600 to 3 000 TDW will increase the number of ships with the potential to jeopardise safety and environmental protection.
Most of these ships are used in busy shipping areas.
For these reasons, the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report.
- (NL) It would be better if there were no single-hull tankers any longer, but such ships were still being built up until 1996.
The Commission is right to want to stop Europe lagging behind America.
We must not allow single-hull tankers to carry on sailing in our waters when they are no longer present elsewhere after 2005, 2010 or 2015.
If we do not implement the necessary measures in good time we will end up with the old, high-risk ships that have been sent for scrap in the States in our own waters.
Double-hull tankers reduce the risk of oil pollution, but do not rule it out.
In particular, in recent years there has been a dramatic increase in tanker and fast passenger ship traffic in the Baltic Sea off Estonia and Russia.
The risk of ships crashing into each other is so great there that without extra supervision and inspections, shipping accidents are becoming increasingly likely.
There is therefore every reason to tighten up the Commission proposal, just as the rapporteurs for the other reports on safety at sea that are on the agenda today have done.
Unfortunately, rapporteur Hatzidakis has done the opposite.
He fears a shortage of tankers and would rather wait for internationally agreed measures.
I support the Commission proposal.
However, the ways in which it has been toned down make it inadequate.
.
(FR) To unravel the chain of responsibility, to respect shipboard social standards, to re-establish the 'polluter-pays' principle and to innovate in the field of equipment must be our top priorities.
In this context, making the construction of double-hull vessels, especially those used to transport toxic and/or dangerous goods, more widespread as quickly as possible is a useful measure.
Europe must not be out of step with regulations in the United States which, thanks to the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, aim to phase out single-hull vessels between 2000 and 2015.
We must at least keep pace with the United States while adopting measures not to shift the activities of the whole fleet of coffin ships towards third-world countries.
Moreover, replacing the outdated ships is a means of giving a fresh boost to shipbuilding.
We must envisage improving the system of double hulls.
Many technical experts have pointed out the difficulties encountered when inspecting the space between the two hulls and during its maintenance.
Yet Mr Hatzidakis makes proposals which restrict the scope of the Commission proposals.
As he explained, they aim to enhance maritime safety while respecting the system of competition or, in other words, the quest for the lowest cost.
In short, what is being proposed is to eliminate the lack of maritime safety without attacking its causes.
This draft directive is moving in the right direction, but we must reject all exemptions and delays in implementation.
We must stick with the Commission proposal.
.
(FR) I am delighted that the European Parliament has finally been able to give its verdict on the three texts relating to maritime safety but I deplore the excessively long delay in achieving one of the priorities of the French Presidency of the European Union.
The loss of the Erika, which occurred in December 1999, put the issue of maritime safety on the Community' s political agenda and it was due to pressure from the European Parliament that the European Commission proposed the texts we voted on today, almost a year after the accident.
It took a second maritime disaster, the wreck of the Ievoli Sun, to accelerate the first reading of these texts.
I voted in favour of Mr Hatzidakis' s report and I would naturally like to congratulate the rapporteur on persevering with such a sensitive issue.
The mandatory double hull for oil tankers and the progressive phasing out of the oldest ships are measures which go in the right direction and are a practical response to the legitimate concerns of our citizens.
The lengthy transitional period during which single-hull vessels will still be able to sail is to be regretted, however, even though the scope of the measure is such as to justify the gradual rate of their withdrawal. We must pay the greatest attention to amendments to the timetable for withdrawing the oldest ships which may be proposed by the Council.
In all eventualities, the ultimate deadline of 2015 must be respected.
The fact is that the unilateral decision taken by the United States to ban single-hull oil tankers from calling at American ports after 2015 poses a real threat to maritime traffic passing through EU waters, where these ships are likely to ply their trade.
It is therefore crucial that the timetable for eliminating these ships from our seas must be in line with the American timetable.
Finally, we must not forget that the mandatory double hull for oil tankers can be but a single element in a genuine European policy of maritime safety.
This decision is important but it does not go far enough.
Promoting more stringent regulations at an international level must continue to be the fundamental objective of our maritime safety policy.
Watts report (A5-0343/2000) and Hatzidakis report (A5-0344/2000)
.
The Erika and other recent oil spills form a continuing catalogue of disasters that have taken place in Community waters, including the Braer spill off Shetland and the Sea Empress of Wales.
These catastrophes in addition to causing irreparable ecological damage have devastated local industries.
In the case of the Erika, the local fishing and aquaculture industries suffered a bitter blow and it is important not just to look at the harmful effects that are apparent in the immediate aftermath, but also to look ahead at the long-term detrimental effects of oil pollution.
Effective compensation is essential.
It is time that shipping safety within the Community was tightened up and that greater controls were introduced, including bringing an end to the use of flags of convenience which is also increasingly resorted to.
The companies responsible, the ship and the cargo owners must pay up for their negligence.
Current compensation funds have been inadequately funded and this was all too apparent in the case of the Braer disaster where the Shetland Islands fishing industry was inadequately compensated for its losses.
Maritime disasters are usually followed by flurries of political activity which sound reassuring at the time but which have not always been followed through.
Let us ensure that adequate measures are instigated throughout Europe and that lessons learned lead to decisive political action.
- (SV) The package of legislative proposals concerning safety at sea is welcome and necessary.
This has been demonstrated, not least, by the catastrophe involving the loss of the oil tanker Erika.
I have voted in favour of the reports on:
a. ship safety, pollution prevention and shipboard living and working conditions in respect of shipping using Community ports,
b. double hulls for oil tankers,
c. nature and performance of ship inspection,
d. accidental or deliberate marine pollution.
In addition, I have voted for all the amendments that improve and tighten up the Commission' s proposals.
It is particularly important that it is made clear that the polluter-pays principle must apply in full.
In recent years there has been a noticeable increase in the number of oil tankers in the Atlantic, the English Channel and the Baltic, as well as elsewhere, which also means an increased risk of accidents with a negative impact on the environment.
Oil tanker traffic in the Baltic may now increase dramatically, since Russia is planning a number of oil ports along the Baltic coast, in the Gulf of Finland, in something approaching a major concentration of the Russian oil industry.
In the town of Primorski, not far from Viborg, the building of a major oil port for the export of Russian oil has already commenced and a further port is planned in the same area.
Supported by the Environment Directorate of the Commission, Finland has attempted to get the Russian authorities to perform an environmental impact assessment in accordance with the Espoo Convention.
Unfortunately Russia has not responded to this request.
An oil accident would have destructive consequences for the Finnish Gulf and the Baltic.
The Baltic is a very vulnerable inland sea, already highly polluted by discharges from industry, sewerage and agriculture.
The Commission and the Council must now follow up the request for environmental impact assessments (EIAs) and put it to the Russian authorities that all future oil trade with Russia will be conditional upon an EIA.
Ortuondo Larrea report (A5-0342/2000)
Madam President, I have already mentioned that I have been to sea in the past.
This measure by Mr Ortuondo Larrea, regulating inspections and control visits to ships, is extremely important, just as all inspections and controls are important.
I remember when the inspectors of the states that had to check the ship came on board.
They would shut themselves in a cabin with the chief purser and come out loaded with cigarettes, bottles of spirits and maybe other things too.
Inspections are serious business!
I believe we should try to get European inspectors to go on board European ships, because this habit of governments and the Council of refusing inspections must come to an end, especially in this activity of cleaning up the sea and our coastlines.
.
(FR) We have one maritime disaster after another, all following the same pattern. After the wrecks of the Erika and the Ievoli Sun, which recently affected the shorelines of France, it is time that the European Union reacted and took firm control of the classification societies which authorise coffin ships to sail.
It is against this background that European legislation is vital.
This report, which aims to improve the control of ships and to establish harmonised procedures and rules of inspection must therefore be supported, as it is a step forward, even though, in our opinion, the rapporteur' s approach does not go far enough.
The fact is that, whilst he provides for the harmonisation of inspection criteria for all Member States, nothing is envisaged for ships from third countries inspected outside the European Union.
What is there to prevent, for example, a Maltese or a Cypriot ship in poor condition from sailing close to our shorelines. When will the European Union finally take the decision to ban access to its territorial waters to any ship that does not comply with the rules it promulgates?
Will Europe, normally so swift to legislate on environmental issues, continue to ignore maritime safety because colossal financial interests are at stake and because the interests of its Members differ? When will the European Union free up the human and financial resources commensurate with the task at hand so that this text does not remain a simple declaration of intent?
We will vote in favour of this report, which goes in the right direction, whilst at the same time deploring what it fails to do: to determine the precise liability of the polluters (inspectors, shipowners, charterers, insurers); to introduce preventative and penalty measures to fight against intensive tank cleaning, which is responsible for most marine pollution; to draw up a blacklist of coffin ships, and to refuse access to EU territorial waters to any ship posing a significant threat, irrespective of age.
The revision of Directive 94/57/EC is becoming a matter of some urgency, especially since Malta and Cyprus, the fourth and sixth largest fleets worldwide respectively, are candidates for accession to the European Union.
This Community action must be accompanied by the reactivation of the IMO which, endowed with genuine police power to enforce the International Safety Management Code, would be an effective instrument on a par with Interpol.
We hope that the Council will assume its responsibilities speedily.
The quality of our environment is at stake.
.
(FR) The recent wreck of the oil tanker, Erika, and the chemical tanker, the Ievoli Sun, have revealed the importance of the role played by classification societies in maritime transport.
And we have a legitimate reason to question the reliability and the effectiveness of the inspections they carry out.
First of all, recognition of classification societies is devolved to Member States without any prior control or harmonisation at European level.
What is more, the training of the inspectors of these societies differs from country to country.
Furthermore, no guarantee is given as to the independence of classification societies vis-à-vis the flag administration and/or the client.
The rapporteur' s proposals aimed at harmonisation on a European scale can only be positive.
The European Union must set aside the resources to make it possible for a recognised and competent authority to enforce standards on classification societies.
Additional financial and human resources will be necessary.
Classification societies will have to be monitored and, where necessary, punished by having their authorisation suspended.
In the event of an accident, the financial liability of recognised organisations must be acknowledged and harmonised.
In addition, the amount of the mentioned compensation must be revised upwards to take better account of the material, economic, but also social and environmental damage inflicted.
I will support this report and the Commission' s amendments, but I call on the Members of Parliament to support the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, in particular those aimed at harmonising the rules applicable to classification societies and the status of inspectors.
- (NL) The volume of maritime transport has grown dramatically in recent decades, whilst the cost has gone down.
Ships save on port fees by continuing to sail through stormy weather and by risking fatal accidents at other times too.
As long as it costs less to transgress rules than it does to comply with them, companies that have maximum profits in their sights will carry on making the wrong choices.
The flag states are still incapable of organising the inspection of seagoing ships for seaworthiness and environmental safety for themselves.
They contract this work out to internationally operating companies that are dependent on the favours of shipping companies. The shipowners that register voluntarily as customers can, if desired, transfer to another bureau whose requirements are less strict.
It is a step in the right direction that the recognition accorded classification societies can be withdrawn, that liability is to be harmonised and that classification societies will always have to transfer their data to the competitor who takes over from them.
It would be better still if inspections were to take place biannually and if classification societies were not permitted to be dependent on one large company alone, which builds, repairs or utilises ships.
But the best result of all would be if harmonised inspections were to become the direct responsibility of the government.
.
(FR) The report by Mr Ortuondo Larrea is the final section of the package of measures on maritime safety.
It is an important section as it relates to classification societies.
I voted in favour of this report, which proposes the introduction of a certain uniformity amongst Member States in terms of quality and the expert capabilities of classification societies, whose recognition will henceforth be the preserve of the shared responsibility of the Member Sates and the European Commission.
These proposals also step up the liability of classification societies by providing for financial sanctions and the suspension or withdrawal of their recognition in the event of accidents that may be attributable to them.
The arraignment of the classification societies in the wake of the loss of the Erika in December 1999 recalls their vital role in evaluating and preventing the risks associated with the condition of ships.
The navigable condition of a ship is the responsibility of the state whose flag the ship flies.
I hope the involvement of the European Commission in recognising classification societies and the increased liability of the latter will make it possible to do away with flags of convenience altogether.
From this perspective, these measures must be implemented without delay in the candidate countries, whose fleets must conform to the standards and safety criteria of the European Union.
The problem of classification societies goes far beyond the borders of the European Union. The European Commission must therefore free up the resources to monitor the enforcement of the new measures by Member States and candidate countries alike.
Finally, our common policy on maritime safety must be an international role model and the obligations we place on our ships must be extended to third-country fleets.
Maritime safety must not simply be an issue arising out of a state of urgency in the wake of each new disaster that hits our shorelines, but the object of an internationally integrated and constant policy.
Preparation for the Nice European Council
Madam President, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group did not endorse the European Parliament resolution on the preparation for the 2000 Nice European Council, since it is inspired totally by the desire to strengthen supranational institutions by applying uniform rules to all Member States.
In particular, we reject calls for a European constitution, at least if it entails the subordination of national constitutions.
We reject the idea of a restrictive Charter of Fundamental Rights being integrated into the Treaties, since it would trigger a formidable spiral of standardisation.
We reject the general extension of qualified majority voting accompanied by the simultaneous extension of codecision and the abolition of the Luxembourg compromise.
If the Nice Council did not reach an agreement on this basis, it would not in our view be a failure, as the federalists claimed yesterday in their attacks on the French Presidency and Mr Védrine.
Rather, it would be a great success, as the Europe we need on the eve of enlargement is not a supranational Europe which is inflexible, hierarchical and remote, but a Europe which is flexible and close to its people, therefore founded in respect for national democracies.
As far as the current Nice agenda is concerned, we believe that the Charter of Fundamental Rights should remain a simple declaration, that the Commission should be composed of one Commissioner for each Member State, that the weighting of votes in the Council should respect the parity of the large States, that majority voting should not be extended to the most important issues, such as immigration, international negotiations on services, taxation and social security and, finally, that specific acts of cooperation should be accepted very liberally, including outside the single institutional framework.
More generally, we believe that, after Nice, further negotiations should be entered into, this time in the right direction, to make the institutions more flexible and to re-establish control by the people, by turning Europe, not into a super state, but into a network of national democracies.
Unlike Mr Berthu, Madam President, the Pensioners' Party, which I have the honour and pleasure to represent in the European Parliament, and I favour a closer link between the States that make up the European Union.
Indeed, I believe that this Parliament in which we sit should be more courageous and act as in the times of the French Revolution: we should turn ourselves into a constituent assembly and one day we should meet in the Salle du Jeu de Paume, and you, Madam President, should be our Robespierre.
Of course, you would become a heroine rather than a hero, and anyway we naturally would not wish the same fate on you as Robespierre met.
What I mean is that the European Union should become a true union of states, with a parliament placed at the centre of lawmaking.
Madam President, whether the European institutions are modified at the Nice European Council or whether rivalries between national ruling circles thwart all attempts at institutional reform, the European Union will continue to be exclusively concerned with the interests of the dominant economic class, with large industrial and financial groups, with their business and their profits.
Notwithstanding a few phrases, as pompous as they are empty, on democracy and on the interests of the people, the debate which is under way within these institutions bears no relation whatsoever to the interests of the working classes and the majority of the population.
We will certainly not be taking part in the bickering between the mouthpieces of the three or four major powers competing for domination of the European Union.
It is of little consequence to us whether the Charter of Fundamental Rights is incorporated into the Treaty on European Union or not, because, in any case, this Charter, allegedly a Charter of Fundamental Rights, not only refuses to include the elementary rights of workers, it actually clears the way for retrograde social measures.
Instead of raising human and social rights to a higher level, the Charter will make it easier to bring them down.
As a result, while abstaining on the details, we have voted against the whole.
- (SV) We are voting in favour of the resolution, but we wish to comment on the following points:
We take a positive position as regards increasing the use of qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers.
However, we consider that this method of decision making must not include issues that fall under the second pillar.
Where qualified majority voting is used we feel that this must be combined with power of codecision for Parliament.
We wish to lend our support to a reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights in Article 6.2 of the Treaty.
However, in the present situation we are against incorporation of the Charter into the Treaty and constitutionalisation of the Treaty.
Within foreign and security policy we take a positive view of the fact that crisis management has been given a prominent position.
Provided that the institutions of the EU are given control over the nature of the closer cooperation we would also give this our support.
- (NL) It does not bode well for a successful conclusion to the Nice Summit.
There is no satisfactory agreement in the offing yet.
The increasingly open struggle for power between many Member States is clouding the view in terms of possible compromises.
Quite a number of Member States, particularly the large ones, seem only to be interested in consolidating their own position of power in the future.
The lion' s share of the tabled resolutions show that Parliament too has fallen prey to the temptation to regard the Nice Summit as largely successful because its own authority has been extended.
I have no time for this attitude.
An ambition for power alone is not enough to prepare the European Union for the future.
The very first thing that is needed if we are to have a European Union in which the various nationalities can live peacefully together, is for the governments to seek a sustainable balance, in mutual respect and empathy.
The institutions of the European Union must be in a position to fulfil their tasks without having to step into the shoes of the Member States.
Now, and in the future too, each country must be able to truly show itself to best advantage in a Union based on justice.
I believe that is a crucial criterion by which to judge the Treaty of Nice.
Unfortunately though, I do not see any evidence of this notion in the motions for resolutions.
I am anticipating complete justice in the future realm of the Lord Jesus.
That must not stop us, the people of the European Union, from seeking this justice in the here and now, here on earth.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the joint motion for a resolution concerning preparation for the European Council' s meeting between 7 and 9 December in Nice where, among other things, the current Intergovernmental Conference is to be concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Nice.
As we have also made known through the individual votes, we have, throughout the Intergovernmental Conference, been opposed to the much expanded agenda which, by means of repeated motions for resolutions, the majority in the European Parliament has been trying to draw up.
Many of the motions for resolutions tabled by the different political groups are therefore also based upon a deep concern about how much success there will be in achieving the goal in Nice, which is to make the EU ready for admitting the new Member States of the EU.
The most important task in Nice is to ensure that the EU has effective institutions.
As a prerequisite, the solution should involve striking a balance between small and large countries, not only where the weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers is concerned, but also when it comes to the composition of the European Parliament and the Commission.
These two institutions contribute very significantly to the EU' s continuing to concentrate its efforts on the common objectives and cross-border tasks, while the rest is left to the Member States.
Enlargement is a major project requiring backing not only in the applicant States but also in those countries which are already Members.
Many Members of the European Parliament have ambitions to see the Treaties made into a constitution, with the Charter of Fundamental Rights included and qualified majority voting used in all areas.
To keep harping on about these aims, for which there is, in any case, no broad support to be won, during the current Intergovernmental Conference is unwise in our view and will contribute to Parliament' s losing influence.
We have also emphasised this during the individual votes today.
We have chosen to vote in favour of the report as a whole because we wish to put pressure on the Heads of State and Government to achieve a good outcome in Nice.
.
(FR) On the eve of the Nice Summit and without prejudging the outcome, I want to salute the tremendous work carried out by the French Presidency and the majority of ministers who generously put in the time and effort to address Parliament on a regular basis both in committee and in parliament.
While, like many others, I have at times during this semester regretted that we have heard so little from Prime Minister Jospin himself due to reasons of 'cohabitation' , I am aware of the strong impetus he has always given to his ministers and I should like to state as much.
I especially want to thank Hubert Védrine and Pierre Moscovici, as well as Martine Aubry, who instigated the social calendar, one of the highlights of this presidency.
It now remains to make a success of the Nice Summit and, as regards institutional reform, to persuade each of you to make the final concessions needed to achieve 'a good agreement' and a good Treaty.
It is also important, of course, that we succeed in providing a reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the Treaty itself so as to give it greater legal force.
The importance of the Social Agenda must also be highlighted so that it can be implemented speedily.
A draft Directive on public services, whose urgency is no longer contested, must at last be set in motion.
Just one week away from the Nice Summit I personally have high hopes.
My voting in favour of the resolution, even though I do not agree with the wording in all cases, is an expression of these hopes.
. (SV) In its resolution, the European Parliament, as usual, recommends increased power of codecision for itself.
It would be good if the European Parliament showed just as much enthusiasm for discussing how to go about increasing participation in parliamentary elections to the European Parliament.
In the 1999 election, the participation rate would have been below 40 per cent on average had some Member States not had compulsory voting and had national elections not taken place at the same time as this election.
The enthusiasm that the European Parliament shows for increased power of codecision in the EU is not something that has a strong foundation amongst the electorate.
The democratic debate in Europe today is based on the national parliamentary elections in each Member State.
To create a more democratic EU the national parliaments must be given greater influence in the work of the EU.
.
(PT) The debate and the resolution adopted by Parliament give serious cause for concern as to what will be decided at the Nice Summit, specifically as regards the potential increase in restrictions on the sovereignty of small countries such as Portugal, the strengthening of federalism and the militaristic path in security and defence policy, and the weak and clearly inadequate measures in the social sphere.
With regard to the Intergovernmental Conference and the subsequent reform of the European institutions, it is particularly serious that moves are being made towards strengthening the power of a small number of large countries to the detriment of the decision-making ability of the great majority of small and medium-sized countries. This may happen with the extension of qualified majority voting, instances of closer cooperation situated within a hard-core concept, the application of closer cooperation to areas like security and defence policy, the prospect of moving towards a European Constitution based on the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which itself has a content that is restrictive and in several aspects retrograde compared with similar international or national documents, the latter applying to the case of Portugal.
In the social sphere, the proposals are too timid and do not even effectively flesh out the commitments adopted at the Lisbon Summit, particularly as regards the need for strengthening economic and social cohesion.
The Council must, therefore, re-examine its positions and move to oppose the wave of company mergers and concentrations in various sectors, interrupt the current liberalising processes, and change macroeconomic policies with the aim of fighting for quality employment with proper rights and against poverty and social exclusion.
.
As a Member of Parliament representing Ireland I am deeply disappointed with the wording of the resolution which has just been adopted by this House on the 2000 Nice European Council.
The reform of the European Union Treaties must take account of the needs and interests of smaller Member States.
Failure to do so would upset the delicate balance that is the very basis of the proper functioning of the Union.
I would like, in particular, to highlight a number of elements that I believe could hold inherent danger for the future stability of the Union as well as raising questions as to the democratic legitimacy of the decision-making process.
As far as the general extension of qualified majority voting is concerned, I do not believe that this is a helpful proposal as it would pre-empt the right of Member States to take a decision at the appropriate time on whether a policy should be communitised.
I firmly believe that any change from unanimity to QMV should be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Neither am I in favour of an automatic linking between QMV and codecision and once again believe that any decision to extend the powers of codecision should also be made on a case-by-case basis.
I am already on record as being absolutely opposed to bringing the common agricultural policy into the codecision sphere and will not further elaborate on that issue at this point.
In so far as the Charter of Fundamental Rights is concerned, while I am in favour of promoting the rights referred to in this document, I do not support its incorporation into the eventual Treaty of Nice.
An alternative solution such as EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights merits much closer examination.
Whatever is finally agreed at Nice by the 15 Member State governments may well have to be ratified by the Irish people through a referendum.
I can assure you that the current negotiations are being followed in my country, as I am sure they are in all of your countries.
We must tread carefully and not run ahead of public opinion or of what our populations are ready for.
European integration for Ireland has been a very positive experience and I believe that one of the keys to this has been the gradual approach.
In order for Treaty reform, and indeed enlargement, to be a success it must have the full support of the people.
In this sense, no decision about the development of the EU should be taken which risks alienating the citizens of Europe.
After all, any democratic system is built upon the trust and confidence of the people.
If the Union loses public support then it loses its very legitimacy.
- (FR) The French Presidency announced the birth of a political Europe yet the Nice Summit will simply reinforce a Europe of defence and a commercial union.
The EU, within the framework of NATO, will take part in imposing a new world order which has little sympathy for the fate of the Palestinians and which is preparing to effectively endorse the liberalisation of rail transport and postal services.
The accession of new countries is a pretext for emphasising a European structure which is satisfactory only to industrial groups.
All the advocates of a liberal Europe are enlarging is the scale of misery of peoples already crushed by poverty and not only that but, on this occasion, they are imposing a political agenda which involves placing on an official footing a core of rich countries which will control an expanded European market.
By the same token, the EU is taking the initiative on the new liberal demands of the WTO and capitalist globalisation.
By amending Article 133 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, Europe would extend the qualified majority voting currently in force in the Council in trade matters to other areas such as public services, intellectual property, health and education.
Finally, the adoption of a Social Agenda is a decoy.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights will not even be a new, short-lived label, but instead one more liberal standard threatening to be raised over Europe.
For our part, we shall be participating in the alternative social summit together with all those who refuse to turn the world into a commodity.
.
The votes of Conservative MEPs today reflect our view that Britain should be in a Europe that does less and does it better, not run by a Europe that does more, worse.
There were two types of EU reform on offer to MEPs today.
A Conservative response to the White Paper on Commission Reform would enable the EU to do less and to do it better.
The resolution on the Nice Summit is the blueprint for the EU to do more, worse.
The reforms proposed by Malcolm Harbour MEP on the White Paper are common sense reforms.
British people want reform of the EU to make it more accountable and more efficient.
Conservatives in the European Parliament have consistently argued for these reforms.
On the other hand, the so-called reforms proposed by the Nice Summit resolution make little sense to anyone in the world beyond Brussels.
They will make the EU more complicated and further removed from ordinary people.
They do nothing to help enlargement, such as overhauling the CAP.
This is the agenda Labour and the Lib Dems support.
. (PT) Parliament has just voted for a resolution on the Nice Summit in which:
1 - It does not deal clearly or in depth with any of the issues in which there were major divergences among the Member States in the work leading up to the IGC, leaving all the main Amsterdam left-overs without any prospects even now.
Thus Parliament waives its right to influence, shuts its mouth and remains silent for the sake of party, State and government loyalties, forgetting its obligations to the people.
2 - Despite everything, it ensures an advantage - not as tiny as it might seem - for the less populous States, which can always take advantage of Parliament' s silence at the choices of those States that seek to strengthen their institutional power in all the Community bodies.
From this standpoint, the large States are blocked by the rest and cannot drag Parliament into supporting their views, using it against us in the future architecture of the institutions.
3 - It demonstrates that the united efforts of the small countries' delegations have succeeded in drawing a political trump card from the others in next week' s debates in Nice.
Although we have not won, we have achieved a result in this resolution, which does not leave us defeated on the battlefield.
Sometimes silence is a victory...
4 - This explains why, as silence is not innocent, it can justify a vote in favour.
.
(FR) I had no hesitation in voting against the joint resolution on the Nice European Council.
The voters I represent have no sympathy with any of its policy directions.
This text uses the future (and ever more distant) enlargement of the European Union as a pretext to call for the reinforcement of a system which has already run out of steam.
As if that were the only solution!
As if on our continent no other form of organisation were possible except the integrationist model, originally designed, need I remind you, for a hard core of five or six countries.
Why seek to find a solution to the squaring of the circle represented by the enlargement of the European Union and the representation of States and peoples in a system which is already saturated, when a different model, that of a Europe of Nations, would provide simple and effective solutions?
Why deny, furthermore, that the democratic alibi of this integrated Europe is nothing but a false nose? An enlarged integrationist Europe is not by nature democratic: in fact it violates one of the most basic of human rights, the right to nationhood.
Need we remind ourselves that democracy does not boil down to having a vote?
Democracy presupposes dialogue, which in turn presupposes a shared feeling of community, which is often linked to language.
Our debates within this Chamber increasingly resemble a series of monologues than real exchanges.
Compare them to the vivacity, energy and pertinence of the debates in national parliaments: the members of parliament in the Palais Bourbon, Westminster, the Cortes are able to compare ideas because they are expressed within the same cultural framework and in the same language.
I also voted against a text which calls for the incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the eventual Treaty of Nice.
This is an ambiguous and contradictory text, open to all sorts of interpretations.
It is impossible to claim, as some do, that this text is inoffensive.
In the hands of the European Court of Justice - 'one jurisdiction and one mission' as one of its judges said some years ago - the Charter may become the most undemocratic instrument to which European integration has given birth.
The Convention which was given the task of drawing it up foreshadows this: the sanctioning of the dominant role of influential groups and activist agencies in the construction of a federal Europe in the pipeline.
It is a body which, by its very nature, can find only a minimum consensus on the rights to which the people of Europe are already entitled.
It is a body which has produced a text which will not fail to create a conflict of judicial doctrine between the Court of Justice and the Court of Human Rights.
.
(FR) One last time before the Nice European Council, the European Parliament has had the opportunity to express its opinion on the major themes of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs prepared a draft resolution outlining the expectations of the European Parliament.
While I may agree with the broad thrust of this resolution, "to make the European Union more democratic, more effective and closer to its citizens" , I am nevertheless unable to take on board a certain number of proposals which seem to me to be rather vague.
I therefore prefer to abstain.
On the crucial issue of the institutions, however, the proposal of a satisfactory all-round formula is to its credit.
The explicit affirmation of the principle of the double legitimacy of the European Union, that of the peoples and that of the Member States, is, in this respect, essential.
It will make it possible for negotiators from the least populous Member States to defend, in Nice, the principle of adequate representation in all the institutions, including the European Parliament.
It is becoming ever more apparent that opening the debate on proportionality (votes in the Council and seats in the European Parliament), one might go so far as to say on the balance of power between the Member States, has opened a Pandora' s box which will be very difficult to close in Nice.
Now, there are squabbles not only between the 'larger' and the 'smaller' but among the 'larger' too.
It would be a good idea for the European Council to decide, from the outset, to base all its institutional decisions on the principle of double legitimacy, which has proved itself from the very inception of the Community.
. (SV) I welcome the aim to ease the enlargement process at the Conference of the European Council in Nice.
However, the common resolution contains a number of formulations that I cannot support.
I am against the development of a common defence policy and the establishment of a council of defence ministers.
I cannot support qualified majority voting within trade policy, nor do I support the decision on qualified majority voting under the second pillar, that is to say within foreign, security and defence policy.
It is a mistake to divide the union up into an A-team and a B-team, and I therefore cannot support a third of the Member States being given precedence.
Similarly, it is a mistake to incorporate the Charter into the Treaty.
Brok report (A5-0340/2000)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we deplored the Brok report and the report by Mrs Lalumière, not only because of what they contain but also because of their subject matter, the common foreign and security policy. We have always believed it was unrealistic, and it has proved to be so in the eight years since it was adopted by the Maastricht Treaty.
Ironically, and just for the record, I should mention Article J2, the third paragraph of Title 5 of the Maastricht Treaty, which states: "Member States shall ensure that their national policies conform on the common positions" .
This article has not been respected once; nor indeed have the other articles in Title 5.
On the contrary, it has been consistently flouted, the last example to date being London' s recognition of North Korea. The President-in-Office of the European Union deplored this breach, which, and I quote him, he described as "exceptional" , and then, three days later Berlin followed suit without even taking the trouble, it seems, to inform the French Presidency.
We are a laughing stock and, basically, that is just one more disappointment for the poor old construction of Europe or, rather, the deconstruction of Europe.
I am thinking, for example, of the reform of our institutions, which was promised for 1995, then 1997, and which still seems to be in the doldrums just a few days away from the Nice Summit. This will be just one more disappointment to add to our vagaries on enlargement, which itself has been promised for ten years, to say nothing of the successive and, I might add, cumulative collapses of the euro.
But these are just examples.
I could go on and talk about the reduction in appropriations for the MEDA programme or the European Development Fund.
There is just one thing to be retained from these reports and, if only for that, we would have to oppose it. That is the almost ritual reference to NATO since, basically, the only thing that Mr Brok has managed to put in the 1999 annual report is the Kosovo affair.
It has to be said that, this time, the Europeans have found an arbiter in Washington and that, thanks to the rearguard of American generals, Europe has finally found a certain unity.
This is laughable, I repeat, and when historians write the history of Europe in the twentieth century, I think they will mention neither the common foreign and security policy nor the League of Nations, and perhaps that is just as well.
Madam President, with regard to the Brok report, which I have willingly voted in favour of, I should like to mention the observations that an old pensioner - he is called Maurizio Enfissi, from the town of Capriate San Gervasio in the province of Bergamo - made to me when I told him that Europe was beginning to think about its own security and its own defence.
'Good for you!' he said.
'I fought in the last war and I did not like it at all.
So if you succeed in avoiding wars, as you have done so far, you will be doing the most important thing that has ever been done in the world.'
And then he added, 'When I was in the war, I missed several years of work towards my pension.
And the war pension I am paid is so, so little... But are these wars really necessary?!' .
.
(SV) We welcome and support the report, which touches on many important trends in the development of the common foreign and security policy.
However, we cannot support the tasks performed by the High Representative being transferred to the Commission.
Nor can we support the conversion of the Community' s delegations into EU embassies.
The Member States have responsibility for foreign diplomacy.
We feel that the conversion of the Commission' s delegations into Community delegations risks leading to conflicts of interest with the national diplomatic delegations of the Member States.
- (NL) Earlier this year I heard Mr Solana saying enthusiastically that there are many areas outside the territory of the European Union where action can be taken.
His new role has put an end to the traditional neutrality of Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Austria.
After 1945, defence was taken to mean the defence of one' s own territory against foreign attackers.
So a country' s defensive army did not have any tasks beyond the territory of the state that had established it.
NATO abided by this formula during the first 50 years of its existence.
The United States army moved into Vietnam, the Dominican Republic and Grenada, whilst France and England tried to gain control of the Suez Canal, but countries did not take action as part of NATO outside their own territory.
That did not happen until the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact - which for years had justified the existence of NATO - had collapsed.
My party, the Socialist Party of the Netherlands, rejects any attempt on the part of the European Union to imitate the superpower America.
I cannot go along with the aims Mr Brok hopes to achieve via his report.
.
(FR) The 'Other Europe' delegation of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group resolutely voted against the own-initiative report which was drawn up by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and presented by Mr Brok.
As every year, this ritual report prepared by the European Parliament, which is in principle devoted to the annual general budget of the CFSP, employs the well-known method of gradual shifts which work on a federalist crevice found in a given area in order to extend this breach with scant regard for the Treaties or the decisions of the European Councils.
In this case, it is the area of the Helsinki Council and common foreign policy, a field in which the rapporteur sets himself three main objectives.
We have no alternative but to reject these objectives, which are as follows: to reduce European action in the world to that of the European Union as sole actor; to establish a European Ministry of Foreign Affairs intended to absorb the functions of national ministries and, finally, to get rid of the structure of the European Union in terms of pillars by widening the Community method, in particular by placing the High Representative under the responsibility of the Commission.
This action plan, which deals with the structures, leaves out just one albeit decisive element, the definition and content, at an earlier stage, of a European foreign policy.
The truth is that, far removed from the virtual visions which hold sway within this Parliament, diplomatic realities are entirely different and the CFSP hardly exists.
Glaring proof of this has just been adduced, as if this were necessary, by the recognition of the Republic of North Korea by the United Kingdom and Germany, without waiting for a common position to be adopted.
Hence, it is clear that the way to strengthen the weight of European diplomatic action is to seek the harmonisation - where desirable, opportune and effective - of decisions which remain fundamentally the prerogative of the national actor, not through structural constraints which are totally ineffectual.
That is why our group once again voted against the absurd proposals to communitise national diplomatic services included in Articles 74 and 75 of the resolution, to turn European Union delegations into actual European embassies, and to establish a European diplomatic academy.
The mind boggles at the proposal to put the entire diplomatic staff of Europe of an estimated 40 000 perfectly real people at the service of a virtual foreign policy. This proposal is both specific and surreal!
.
There is much that the British Conservative group can support in this report, in particular the emphasis on enlargement of the Union.
However there are a number of specific elements which we cannot support, for example:
that the Commission should assume the responsibility for security policy and defence by taking over the role of the High Representative for CFSP (Paragraphs 65,66,68)
that Commission delegations should take on the role of "EU embassies" and coordinate the work of Member State embassies (Paragraph 74)
the support for an autonomous security and defence policy outside of NATO (Paragraphs 11-15)
the suggestion of EU military adventures in Asia (Paragraph 38)
Lalumière report (A5-0339/2000)
Madam President, I was in Rome last week.
I have a nephew, my sister' s son, who has been at the NATO bases in the United States learning to fly fighter planes, and he has been promoted, so he is ready to be an air-force pilot.
While chatting to me he learnt that a military force of the States of Europe is being organised, a force ready to intervene to keep the peace in and around Europe.
'Oh, I' d like to be part of that!' he told me.
But it is not because of that that I mention him, of course - if he is good, he will go far - but because we then carried on talking and he added, 'But this idea of a European army and a European police force is quite right!
Why do we need standing armies to defend the borders between Italy, France, Germany and Spain, which do not exist any more? Joining forces is a positive step.' .
- (DA) The Liberals' five Members of the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mrs Lalumière' s report on the common security and defence policy, because we are in favour of strengthening the EU countries' power to act and, therefore, NATO too.
The criterion of success for this new form of cooperation must be that both the EU and NATO are strengthened by it.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have supported the report on setting up a common European security and defence policy.
There are nonetheless a number of features of the report about which we have reservations.
First of all, it is important to state that, because of its reservation in the military sphere, Denmark cannot contribute forces to the common European rapid reaction force.
Secondly, we are sceptical about the ideas for establishing a proper European space policy, if the intention behind this is for Europe to have a defence system such as that which the United States is in the process of establishing.
From a research point of view and in relation to the monitoring of the environment, a common European space programme may nonetheless have some advantages.
Thirdly, there are a number of points in the report which leave one wishing that the European Parliament had more influence in devising a common European security and defence policy.
We think it is very important to state that formulating security and defence policy is an intergovernmental concern in which the European Parliament neither can nor should be involved.
Further institutionalisation of security and defence policy in the EU is therefore a development that we cannot support.
It is up to each individual Member State to decide to what extent it wants to participate in a common European security and defence policy.
Nor, furthermore, is it a task for the European Parliament to define what capacity a European rapid reaction force should possess and whether or not it should, for example, include a capacity for intervention by air and sea.
Parliament' s desire for all Member States to contribute financially to the European rapid reaction force, even if they are not involved in operations, is in our view inappropriate since it could mean, for example, that some countries are involved in a conflict they do not wish to take part in.
In connection with this, it is also important to emphasise that those Member States that are neutral must not in any way be compromised.
Their desire to remain neutral must be respected in every way.
.
(FR) We have naturally voted against this report.
Under cover of establishing and developing a so-called European security and defence policy, it glaringly exposes the need for a military policy in the service of what it calls 'the foreign policy objectives of the European Union' , in other words, the interests of the imperialist powers and major capitalist groups which dominate Europe and which dictate European Union policy.
We protest against this imperialist military policy all the more given that a declared consensus on the issue holds sway in this Chamber, with acceptance of and open support for this policy on the part of the vast majority of groups, from the extreme right to the Greens and the Socialists.
The truth is that this policy is directed against ordinary people, like all those who, as we saw recently in the Balkans, have to endure the imperialist military interventions by the European Union and its allies.
It is also, however, directed against the people of the European Union who will, in any event, have to finance the new expenditure on armaments which the report advocates and who will not even have a guarantee that these military forces will not one day be turned against themselves for the sake of 'maintaining law and order' .
.
(IT) Europe must become a political Union too, and not just an economic one.
For this reason the Italian Communists offer and propose very fast enlargement to the candidate countries in order to build a great Europe based on its cultures and its best democratic traditions.
In this context, once all opposition between the countries of Western Europe and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe has been left behind, the military organisation of NATO will also be left behind - in fact it will then be completely anachronistic - in favour of a European military force wholly independent of the United States, with which Europe must maintain close, friendly, but no longer subordinate relations.
The European military force should be totally European, democratically controlled by parliamentary resolutions, effective and efficient.
If such a military force had existed, through the history and traditions of the peoples that compose it, NATO' s war against Yugoslavia would not have happened.
That is why we voted for the Lalumière report, but with many reservations and objections concerning the aggressive tone found in some parts of the resolution which, in any case, we shall fight to avoid.
.
(SV) We have voted against the report by Mrs Lalumière for reasons that include the following:
1.
We do not consider that there is any real threat to Europe at present; rather, it is now high time for an active disarmament policy and civil development.
We are convinced that a Europe of Peace will not be created through military alliances.
Future conflicts will not be solved through military intervention but rather via a policy for social, economic and ecological justice.
Our peace policy analysis is based on the conflict theory that militarisation does not create a more secure and more peaceful world, but rather contributes to growing uncertainty and increased risk of military conflict.
2.
We feel that civil crisis management is a valuable instrument for preventing conflicts, something which we must unfortunately state has not been given sufficient attention in the report.
3.
We feel that military initiatives within the common security and defence policy must only be implemented following and in accordance with resolutions by the UN Security Council, a view that the rapporteur does not seem to share.
4.
The report is based on an intervention philosophy that we do not share.
We consider that international law and the sovereignty of the national States must be respected and must be the guiding principle of international policy.
There is talk of the EU' s common interests and values as grounds for military armament.
We do not consider that there is reason for militarisation on the basis of these values, which are not defined, and we would question what they mean.
5.
Mrs Lalumière clearly points out that it is probable that in the future within the EU we will be forced to defend all the boundaries of EU Member States from third countries.
This is not compatible with the freedom from alliances of certain Member States.
6.
Furthermore, freedom from alliances is not taken up at all in the report and in the explanatory statement section of the report we sense a lack of respect towards States that are neutral.
In Paragraph 49, Member States who do not wish to or cannot participate in a task are nonetheless obliged to make a contribution to the financing of the task.
This is not compatible with freedom from alliances.
7.
We consider the idea of a large-scale defence force to be an insult to the candidate countries that already have stretched economies and that need to invest money in, say, social welfare rather than military armament.
.
(PT) This is a particularly serious report and in adopting it Parliament gives its support to a greater militarisation of the European Union, with a view to establishing a 50 - 60 000 strong Rapid Reaction Force by 2003 to be mobilised within 60 days and deployable for a year with the necessary air and maritime support. It emphasises the development of the European Union' s military assets and capabilities and the Member States' effort to close the gaps that currently exist in this field, as they have just done in the fields of strategic air transport, cruise missiles and reconnaissance and navigation satellites.
Equally serious is the intention that any State that does not wish to take part in a mission should be required to pay a financial contribution to be divided up among the States participating in that war.
Another point deserving our disapproval is the satisfaction with the framework agreement signed in Farnborough by six countries of the European Union, since this will facilitate the restructuring of the defence industries in Europe and emphasise a space policy covering the civilian and military aspects of the use of space and combining the European Union national and multinational resources the holds in the military field.
Lastly, it should be noted that in Nice, as the report states, the definitive CESDP bodies - Military Committee and Military Staff - may be set up with responsibilities and decision-making powers enabling swifter progress to be made towards the implementation of the common security and defence policy.
We can therefore only vote against this report.
.
FR) In deciding to create the nucleus of a European army, the Nice Summit will reaffirm the creation of Europe as a major power which will 'defend its interests throughout the world' .
In this way, Europe is exposing its imperialist character, with the protection of its investments abroad, the penetration of its goods, access to raw materials and the exploitation of cheap labour.
It will act in concert with the United States within NATO.
But this European army will primarily serve to stabilise the immediate periphery of the European Union.
The commercial annexation of the East and of North Africa can but exacerbate social inequalities, which in turn will lead to social explosions, local armed conflicts and massive displacements of populations.
In the future, by coordinating its diplomatic and military forces, the European Union will try to optimise what its Member States did individually all through the last century, and all in the name of 'maintaining' peace and 'humanitarian operations' .
We do not need euro-militarism.
We are radically opposed to this European army as we are to NATO and to our own national army.
The creation of a European military industry (EADS, Dassault, BAE) capable of checkmating the United States would in the first instance result in a dramatic increase in the military budget and a transfer of scientific and technological research to the military sector.
Workers have nothing to gain and everything to lose from this 'new' imperial design of the European Union.
- (NL) In my explanation of vote for the Brok report, I stated that I do not regard action taken by EU Member State armed forces outside their own territory as a contribution to defence or security.
The 50-year anniversary of NATO was marked by the first NATO war. This war enabled Milosevic to continue ruling Serbia and Montenegro a year longer because it gave him the opportunity to set himself up as the Serbs' best guarantee against foreign aggression.
The rapporteur now cites a number of reasons for taking action outside one' s own territory, one being justifiable outrage at ethnic conflicts outside the Union.
It is positive that we are dealing with this by using mediation techniques, producing models for administrative solutions and delivering humanitarian aid to those who have felt constrained to move as a result of this conflict.
It is no good trying to impose a solution from outside using military methods, because it does not tackle the root cause of the conflict or change public opinion.
The fear that energy supplies will not be made available for the Member States could never be a valid reason for unilateral intervention.
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(SV) I have voted against the report.
From among several points of which I am critical in the report I wish to mention the following examples:
Paragraph 49: "Calls at all events for any Member State not wishing to take part in a task to be required, by reason of the mutual solidarity linking the Member States, to make a financial contribution to be divided between the participating States" .
Paragraph 50: "Considers that Petersberg tasks should in the long term be funded from the general budget of the European Communities, which would require a revision of Article 28 of the TEU and of the Financial Perspective" .
I consider that these two points are so far-reaching that it is difficult to maintain the right of alliance-free States such as Sweden to independent decision making within defence policy and the right to non-involvement in armed conflict.
The wording in the report is thus too far-reaching and consequently reason enough to vote against the report as a whole.
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(SV) I value the attempt to develop a common European security policy, but I am against the development of a common military defence force.
For example, the wording is far too far-reaching in respect of CESDP and NATO, in respect of the use of "threats of the use of force" as a means of applying pressure in conflict prevention activities, which directly contravenes the UN Charter.
The same applies to the wording concerning improving the EU' s capacity to penetrate enemy air defences and naval intervention, as well as the wording concerning closer cooperation in respect of collective defence guarantees.
I therefore cannot support the report.
- (SV) I support the holistic orientation of the report, but would like to stress that my opinion differs as regards Paragraph 49. Here it is requested that States that do not wish to participate in a task shall be ordered to make a financial contribution to be divided between the participating States by reason of the mutual solidarity linking the Member States.
In my opinion such a requirement is too far-reaching.
Brok report (A5-0340/2000) and Lalumière report (A5-0339/2000)
- (DA) We have voted against the Brok and Lalumière reports for a number of reasons.
We do not consider that an arms build-up, with the resultant increased military expenditure, is the answer to the challenges faced by Europe in 2001 and beyond.
Now, in the decade following the upheavals in the East, we think that, with these reports, 'the European peace project' is sending an unhelpful signal to the applicant States.
Secondly, the reports set the stage for a split with the non-aligned countries which, it is proposed, would be involved through their financing of the common European security and defence policy.
The talk about being 'united in diversity' rings hollow, especially for the non-aligned Member States, if only parts of the content of the reports are put into practice.
The introduction of a new form of territorial defence, which would come under the aegis of a Vice-President of the Commission it has also been proposed, is a point that we cannot support either.
A break of that kind with NATO, only to see a new partitioning of Europe, is far from the enigmatic words spoken following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
What we definitely do not need is the development of further military structures.
However, it would be to the EU' s credit if the priorities of the Petersberg tasks were turned around and the focus placed upon model solutions of a civil and humanitarian nature.
Theorin report (A5-0308/2000)
I voted in favour of this measure, Madam President, because it is only right that any attempt to bring peace to regions where internecine strife and civil conflicts rage should be supported by the Pensioners' Party.
I must, however, make one point to Mrs Theorin: among the numerous proposals she presented for women to be able to influence peace in war zones, she forgot to propose that the top echelons of armies should also be filled with women.
Madam President, if you are clever and capable enough to direct this quarrelsome European Parliament, you would surely also be able to direct the military forces deployed to bring peace to war zones: you could thus make your contribution in support of women' s beneficial influence on peace.
- (DE) It is an acceptable idea, in principle, that the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities should produce an own-initiative report concerning the participation of women in the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
But the end product is actually tantamount to fraudulent misrepresentation, because very little of what has been set down in the nine and a half pages of this motion for a resolution actually relates to the subject of the report.
We have 18 references to documents, declarations, conventions, resolutions of the UN General Assembly and Security Council and action plans which are hundreds of pages long, the scope of which is beyond the grasp of most of us.
We have 19 recitals and 23 numbered paragraphs with 36 subparagraphs.
A mere six of these paragraphs contain statements relating to the title of the report.
The rest is packed with remarks about rape, the sexual misdemeanours of European soldiers on peacekeeping missions - the Serb troops are not mentioned - the positioning and lighting of latrines in refugee camps, demands relating to asylum and immigration policy, abortion, adoption, statistical analyses differentiated by sex, the creation of ministries for women's affairs in the Member States and much more besides.
A teacher marking such a piece of work would write "Does not answer the question".
I cannot support this kind of hotchpotch, which simply hijacks the subject to use it as a vehicle for ramming ideological demands on the aforementioned topics down our throats.
Let me pre-empt any misinterpretation of my vote as an expression of opposition to women's participation in the peaceful resolution of conflicts.
I am not opposed to it - on the contrary!
. I support this report from my colleague Maj-Britt Theorin.
As she points out, sexual violence and mass rapes of women are used systematically during conflicts as weapons of war.
I back her calls to the Member States to take all necessary steps to amend Article 75 of the Fourth Geneva Protocol to define rape, forced impregnation and sexual slavery as war crimes; I also support her call for the ratification of the Treaty of Rome on the International Criminal Court.
The rapporteur also deserves support for her calls on the Commission and the Member States to take account of gender differences in the organisation of EU-funded refugee camps and in their asylum and immigration policy, by for example, granting asylum to women who have been raped during an armed conflict.
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(SV) We would like to express our support for the report in broad terms, but have difficulty accepting the detailed rules that the report contains in certain cases - which is reflected in our voting - since this conflicts with the principle of subsidiarity.
Moreover, the report goes further than its original task, as defined in the title of the report.
Many of the problems that are taken up in the report are very real, but do not belong in this document.
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The report "Gender-related aspects of the prevention and resolution of armed conflicts" aims to report on participation of women in peaceful conflict resolution.
Actually, there is confusion in this report as its title does not fully represent its content.
Some provisions - like punishing rapists, making camps physically safe for women, and making sure women in stressful situations get fair portions of food and medical resources- are good.
But the language of the document goes even further.
Sadly, there is clearly an aim at overriding national abortion laws or even punishing or suppressing faith traditions opposing abortion.
This contravenes the constitution of my country of Ireland, and I have no doubt the legislative position of other countries which seek to diminish rather than promote the practice of abortion.
Whilst I fully recognise and support the participation of women in peaceful conflict resolution, I must sadly vote against this rather confused report.
Smet report (A5-0301/2000)
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(FR) The only positive aspects of this report are that it calls for a 'European definition of domestic work' and a 'clear limitation of the maximum number of hours to be worked' .
However, dealing ostensibly with domestic workers, the report, in fact, chiefly deals with the interests of those who employ them, which would not be shocking if it concerned only the category of employers, in a minority what is more, that are 'elderly people living alone and needing domestic help' .
But the needs of this category of employers are only brought up in order to call for the introduction of measures to make 'domestic services tax-deductible' and to adjust 'prices and costs to take account of individuals' financial resources' .
If Parliament votes in favour of this clause, it will above all enable rich families to subsidise their expenditure on domestic services by money squeezed out of the community.
I would like to add an extra touch of cynicism: the explanatory statement makes domestic workers responsible for the fact that their employers employ them illegally.
As a result, although we are not voting against this report on account of the few basic rights which it does express, we will not be voting in favour of it either.
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(SV) We are voting against this report that deals with so-called domestic help.
The introduction of models of this type, sometimes referred to as the "new labour market" , in countries such as Belgium and Denmark clearly shows a preservation of a lower servant class consisting primarily of immigrant women, but also of men and the long-term unemployed.
To tax-subsidise such a labour market is in our opinion downright offensive.
Tax resources should be used in another way, for example so that people can improve themselves and be given choices in life.
Problems taken up in the report can be solved with a humane asylum and refugee policy, by organising work to take into consideration a balance between work and personal life as well as by taking responsibility for people with special needs in a way which shows solidarity and social responsibility.
Many tens of thousands of women in the European Union who provide domestic help in the informal sector of the economy would no doubt be delighted that we are dealing with the regulation of such activity, if only they knew.
This report certainly has the advantage that it exists.
However, I am not very comfortable with some of the wording in it.
In my own country of Luxembourg, we are in the normal situation of making no distinction between manual workers, whether they work in industry, in households or anywhere else.
They are entitled to a statutory minimum wage and to membership of the health, accident and pensions insurance schemes.
In short, there is no discrimination against them in relation to other employees.
That, of course, almost sounds like a perfect world when I read all the proposals for possible exceptional arrangements that are listed in this report.
I see no reason, for example, why the working conditions of domestic staff should be in any way untypical.
It is actually incredible that, in the twenty-first century, we should still be recommending that Member States guarantee the right of domestic staff to social security cover and adequate pensions.
I am equally astonished by the demand that prices and costs in respect of domestic work be adjusted at national level to take account of individuals' financial resources.
The call for simplification of administrative formalities for employers, on the other hand, makes good sense.
In Luxembourg, we decided to carry out this type of simplification within the framework of the national employment plan. It works very well and is a model which I, in all modesty, would recommend.
The demand that domestic services be made tax-deductible to reduce the difference in cost between employing undeclared and declared workers is also a step in the right direction.
National governments should be magnanimous here, so as to ensure that employees and employers have an incentive to stop offering and engaging in illicit work.
May I also warn against granting migrant women work permits for domestic work.
The gangs who smuggle people into our countries would be delighted and would naturally ensure that all the women they intended to bring into EU countries illegally were declared as domestic staff.
Is this what we want?
I think not. We should therefore be wary of making such statements which could leave us open to abuse.
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(SV) We have voted against Smet' s report on the regulation of domestic help.
The rapporteur feels that a legal framework is required at European level that makes it possible for persons providing domestic services to be covered by employment protection legislation.
Smet proposes, amongst other things, that a European definition of domestic work be introduced.
In addition, the rapporteur requires the Member States to introduce tax allowances for domestic services so that the differences between the costs of "black" and "white" labour are reduced.
There is great demand for domestic help.
However, the high taxation rate both in Sweden and in other EU countries prevents supply and demand from intersecting in the non-shadow economy.
Income taxes, social security contributions and VAT drive up the hourly rate to levels that almost no household with a normal income is prepared to pay.
More or less all domestic work that is carried out against payment is currently carried out in the black economy.
Many women and young people work in this market. They have no rights, no insurance, no pension credits, no sick pay and no security.
Too many young people are at risk of their first contact with the labour market being a job in the black economy.
It is highly unfortunate that unreasonable tax rules are forcing people into the black economy in this way.
We therefore agree with the rapporteur that it is important for the differences between the costs of 'black' and 'white' labour to be reduced and feel that the Member States should introduce a tax reduction on domestic services.
This will allow the people who carry out domestic services to be covered by insurance, pension schemes, sick pay and security.
However, we are against the introduction of a legal framework containing detailed rules at European level for domestic help.
These matters should be dealt with at national, regional or local level, and consequently we are voting against the report.
Mrs Smet is right to draw attention to the vulnerable position of domestic helpers in the black economy.
She is calling for a European definition of "domestic work" to be drafted and for Member States to draw up and regularly update statistics on undeclared work.
She wants this type of work to be recognised as an occupation in its own right and is calling for European rules to be established on the rights of these workers - at present the situation varies from country to country.
The needs of domestic workers should be considered when employment legislation is being drafted.
The need for all Member States to introduce the principle of declaring all employment relationships is stressed and both employers and employees should be made aware of their rights under their employment relationship.
Finally, she wants Member States to link the issuing of visas for domestic employees working for diplomats to be linked to a guaranteed minimum level of working conditions.
This report merits careful consideration.
- (NL) Female labour has a long history of poor pay, poor working conditions, a poor legal position and sexual intimidation.
This especially applies to work performed by poor women in the households of the rich.
That kind of work is usually organised on an informal basis, with no trade union representation, works council, premium payment or collective labour agreement.
The employee has little or no protection and in many cases is largely dependent on the discretion of the employer.
The very worst situation is when the women concerned also come from distant countries, having taken the work on out of desperation because they have no other way of continuing to provide for themselves.
It is an occupational group that is often forgotten in a world still heavily dominated by men.
Everyone is aware that the situation is open to abuse, but many people are inclined to seriously underestimate the scale of this abuse and the impact on those concerned.
This own-initiative report is a useful product of the Commission' s fight for women' s rights and equal opportunities.
The talks held with interested organisations and the itemisation of the problems that exist remind me of investigative reports on the position of workers over a century ago.
Although my group considers the report to be too limited and the conclusions too modest, they will help us to start moving in the right direction.
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(SV) We take a positive attitude to domestic services being incorporated into the labour market, but have difficulty in accepting the detailed rules at EU level that the report contains in certain cases and that conflict with the principle of subsidiarity.
Moreover, in certain cases the report goes beyond its original mandate as defined in the title of the report.
Guy-Quint report (A5-0327/2000)
Madam President, I shall not waste your time explaining why I voted for the Guy-Quint report, but I really must say that for the elderly and pensioners it is very important to know how European Union funds are spent, how in concrete terms they are used by the administrative offices of the Commission. This is because pensioners have had first-hand experience throughout Europe of what bad administration means.
They have given their pension contributions to the various national governments, which have quickly made them vanish like clever magicians.
I should not want President Prodi too, like a clever magician, like a modern European Houdini, to succeed in making the funds at the disposal of all European citizens vanish.
It is just a fear: I am sure he will not do so, but I should like to emphasise this anyway on behalf of pensioners.
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(FR) In March 1999, in the wake of various scandals and patent inefficiencies, the European Commission resigned.
This resignation, the outcome of a long process of deterioration, must not however make us forget that the 'Delors Commission' bore heavier responsibilities than its successor.
This resignation, imposed by the elected representatives of the nations of Europe, revealed the pressing need for far-reaching reform of working methods within the various Directorates-General of the Commission, and of decision-making procedures and structures, in order to improve the utilisation of the available resources in the management of Community resources and policies.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group, while taking note of the serious infringements of the past, will not criticise the Commission and its reform out of hand.
It is clear, however, that the exercise it is engaged in must seek primarily to restore the widely and legitimately shattered confidence of public opinion in the European institutions. This must come about, as the report says 'by means of a significant improvement in performance and efficiency' , but also by means of more transparent practices.
The Commission reform will be judged on actual evidence, hence the need for regular follow-up reports, which the European Commission will present throughout the programme, and the importance of the overall report, which is expected in December 2002.
As far as the ABB is concerned, on the basis of whose activities the budget is established, we recall that it presupposes an amendment of Article 19 of the Financial Regulation, which establishes the distinction between Part A (administrative appropriations) and Part B (operating appropriations). As a result, the Commission must ensure that it does not call into question Parliament' s powers with respect to the allocation of resources.
The French delegation will naturally oppose the introduction of the codecision procedure in amending the Financial Regulation.
By imposing the dismantling of the Technical Assistance Offices with a view to increasing the Commission' s accountability for programme implementation, this House wishes to point out that 'only tasks not requiring public authority intervention might be outsourced to the private sector, and this in the form of one-off contracts' .
As regards commitology, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group denounces the report' s federalist vision, which claims that Member States, through management and regulatory committees, encroach on the Commission' s independence as regards management, and reproaches Member States 'through those committees, of promoting national interests which are sometimes at odds with those of the Community' .
The rapporteur even takes the view that 'reforming the Commission must provide an opportunity to restrict their intervention solely to areas where no expenditure is involved' .
The management of Community policies must reflect the pragmatic agreements entered into between the countries of the European Union. For our part, we take the view that, especially because of the widespread lack of bureaucratic transparency which prevails and the scandals and inefficiencies of a still recent past, Member States must be more than ever involved in the decision-making process.
The willingness shown by the rapporteur to eliminate their influence is, in this respect, edifying!
The Commission proposals, in the context of its reform, raise a number of questions as regards human resources.
I will cite but one: the early retirement measure concerning some 600 staff, which is 3% of the total staff employed.
The Commission services tell us that this would not have any significant impact on the budget. Our group hopes this is the case, but this is not a sufficient condition and it is necessary to ensure, in particular, that the statutory provisions are respected and that these measures do not obscure the other priorities of the reform and do not give rise to a political settling of scores.
It is, moreover, common knowledge that certain nationalities are manifestly over-represented in the junior grades of categories C and D, for the undisclosed budgetary reason that the staff concerned would not benefit from the 16% expatriation allowance!
These discriminatory practices are unacceptable.
The fact is that unemployment exists in all our countries and the Commission would be well advised to take advantage of future procedures for early retirement and for the recruitment of hundreds of new civil servants to start putting its house in order.
By the same token, nepotism and lack of transparency must be eradicated from the Commission services, especially as regards recruitment for temporary posts.
Finally, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group forcefully recalls that the citizens of the European Union expect more than ever that reform measures and staff recruitment must take account of the diversity of opinions and convictions which are expressed in our countries.
Pomés Ruiz report (A5-0329/2000)
Madam President, I voted in favour of the Pomés Ruiz report.
It is most important that it should be possible to check the budgets and expenditure relating to the Commission' s activities.
But most of all I voted in favour because what I would like - and I want to say this in this Parliament - is that when the accounts are checked, that is, how the money has been spent by the Commission, attention should be paid not only to checking the figures - 4 plus 4 is 8, 8 plus 8 is 16, 16 plus 16 is 32, 32 plus 32 is 64 - but also to checking whether these expenses have really been useful to Europe, whether they have really achieved the aims that they were meant to achieve.
This is a check to be done alongside the mathematical check on the figures.
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(FR) In the still recent past, various scandals and inefficiencies resulted in the resignation of the European Commission in March 1999.
This resignation revealed the need for an in-depth reform of the structures, procedures and working methods within the Commission services in order to ensure optimum use of resources in the management of Community policies.
The proposals contained in the White Paper, which are to a large extent drawn from the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts, should make it possible for the Commission to equip itself with the optimum organisational structure and operating methods so as to fulfil to the best of its ability the tasks assigned to it by the Treaties, without, however, encouraging it to exceed the limits of its prerogatives as defined in the Treaty, which has all too often been the case in the past.
Nor is there any doubt, by virtue of the powers and competences conferred upon it by the Treaty, that Parliament is required to fully exercise its powers of scrutiny with regard to the Commission, particularly as regards transparency and the implementation of the Community budget.
The fact is that the citizens of our 15 nations, who elect their representatives, would not understand if this were not the case, because it is their money which is at stake.
Quite clearly, the effectiveness of the reform proposed in the White Paper will be judged by its results in terms of the use made of financial and human resources, particularly by the application of the relevant financial provisions being effectively monitored with appropriate supervisory and sanction mechanisms.
As regards standards of behaviour in public life, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group welcomes the establishment of a set of codes of conduct for the Commission (code of conduct for Commissioners, code of conduct governing relations between Commissioners and departments and code of good administrative behaviour for relations with the public) and reiterates its view that these texts should have a legal basis.
Delays in the payment of sums due by the Commission often appear unjustified. It is important therefore that this situation is remedied as quickly a possible by speeding up payment of the sums due, lest the smooth running of all the European institutions be damaged.
The fact is that Community policies are reflected in moral and financial commitments to our citizens and third-country nationals.
It is therefore necessary to ensure that these commitments are respected much more closely than they have been in the past.
As far as human resources are concerned, the quality of employees and greater transparency in staffing policy in general must become the strong points of the new administrative reform.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group welcomes in principle the response represented by the Commission White Paper to the appeal made by the European Parliament inviting it to carry out far-reaching reform of its human resources policy.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group, however, forcefully recalls that, as regards staff recruitment, the Commission reform must take account of the diversity of opinions and beliefs which are expressed in our countries regarding Europe, its past and its future.
The citizens of our respective countries would not understand if this were not the case.
By the same token, lack of transparency and nepotism must be eradicated from recruitment, especially as regards recruitment for temporary posts.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group does not at this stage wish to express any opposition to the early retirement of hundreds of officers from the Commission services provided, however, that the statutory provisions are respected, that the early retirement measures do not hinder the priorities of the reform, that these retirements have a neutral impact on the budget, that they are implemented in the interest of the service and under volunteer termination of service and do not give rise to a political settling of scores.
In conclusion, I feel bound to say that we expect this reform, which is essential for the future, to introduce greater discipline and greater transparency into the day-to-day running of the Commission, but it must also lead to a greater sense of accountability on its part, within the strict framework of the competences that have been devolved to it.
Harbour report (A5-0326/2000)
Madam President, this report by Mr Harbour concerns itself most of all with the Commission' s staff: salaries, career structure and also pensions.
Now, the Commission should demonstrate in practice that it knows how to administer its staff' s pension funds properly.
As it says on page 16 of the Harbour report, there should be a move to a funded pension scheme.
We have the example of the European Parliament' s pension fund, so outstandingly managed by our administrators, who have made wise use of the MEPs' pension funds, that they have recently increased payments to retired members.
The same should be done for the Commission' s staff and eventually for all citizens in the European Union.
Lamassoure report (A5-0328/2000)
I have voted in favour of the Lamassoure report, which concerns itself most of all with the institutional aspects of Commission reform.
During this explanation of vote, I must emphasise the fact that Parliament does not, unfortunately, have all the powers it should have.
A change I have never heard proposed - yet one which I consider useful, important and not difficult to implement - is that the initiative in lawmaking should be reserved for Parliament and not shared with the Commission.
The Commission should execute: it should be the executive power of the European Union; Parliament should be the legislative power.
There should be a separation of powers - as was said at the time of the French Revolution - in the European Union too.
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British Conservative Members will vote against the report because of the well-rehearsed opposition to the extension of QMV and proposed incorporation of the blanket of fundamental rights into the Treaty.
Concerning enhanced cooperation, they support the initiative as it is compatible with the view that greater flexibility be introduced into the operation of the EU.
Conservatives also support the statement in Paragraph 7 of the report that democratic control be ensured and that the three pillar system be enabled to work.
The notion that Parliament' s assent be required to authorise the procedure would only be necessary if the existing unanimity rule in the Council were to be waived.
Sauquillo Pérez del Arco report (A5-0337/2000)
Madam President, we abstained from this vote.
I would still like to give some kind of explanation though because illness prevented me from taking part in the previous round of discussions in Strasbourg.
We did not vote in favour because we feel that all too often the development cooperation within the Commission is still regarded as a stopgap measure.
When I read in the Commission documents that integration into the globalised world is the name of the game for poor countries, then I am afraid we overlook the fact that we, i.e. the western economies, are the ones pushing globalisation, and that we are therefore not actually seriously doing anything about what we regard as our number one priority, i.e. fighting poverty, because we often cause the very poverty we then seek to fight.
I did not vote against this report because it embraces a number of worthwhile issues and because I want a robust line to be taken.
I advocate maintaining Community development cooperation at EU level but I am afraid that if the reforms do not go well, it will add grist to the mill of those who actually want to renationalise all the aid programmes.
As far as I am concerned, Parliament has missed its chance to make a serious contribution to the analysis of the errors, and we should also have spent more time on a clear analysis of the remedies proposed by the Commission.
I regret this and that is why we abstained from the vote as a group, because we feel that the NGOs have done badly out of it.
I would like to close with a procedural motion.
I have now heard all the judgments on the voting of my fellow Members on all kinds of subjects imaginable and that is why I have taken the liberty of ignoring your rap on the knuckles to some extent, because I thought it is going a little over the top to stay here especially to have your say on everything once again, even though we all have our thoughts on these things of course.
Thirteenth and last explanation of vote, Madam President, by the Pensioners' Party today, 30 November 2000, on this document relating to cooperation and development. I have voted in favour of this document, even though - and I say this loud and clear in this session of the European Parliament in Brussels - I believe that, now that we are spending European money to help the poor and less fortunate in developing countries, we should decide to appoint European ambassadors in these countries to supervise how this money is spent.
This is absolutely essential!
That concludes the voting.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 1.15 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 30 November 2000.
Agenda
The next item is the final draft agenda agreed by the Conference of Presidents on Thursday, 7 December, pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
Tuesday:
The reports are certainly contradictory, Mr Barón Crespo.
Presumably all the more so because the Summit ended in the middle of the night, which nobody had planned.
I shall try to clarify the position.
I was told before the Summit that the President of the Republic would attend together with the Foreign Minister.
That is what I was told, but I shall seek more up-to-date information and I shall pass on your message.
Madam President, I strongly agree with those remarks.
I would invite you to convey to the French Presidency the view of my own group that a draft treaty which is worth promoting should be a draft treaty which is worth defending.
Madam President, an issue has arisen in relation to the possible tabling of a resolution on the Nice European Council.
My group' s understanding is that the Conference of Presidents did not take any decision in this regard and that the debate will be without a motion for a resolution.
I would be grateful if you could confirm this view.
Do you not want there to be a resolution?
It is not what the Group of the Party of European Socialists wants.
There was no agreement at the Conference of Presidents.
So they decided to wait and I would like that point clarified.
You are right to want to do so, because for once, as you know, I could not attend the Conference of Presidents. I was at the European Council at that very time.
Madam President, at the Nice European Council, there have been two types of resolution which relate to issues which we have dealt with in Parliament, such as, for example, the status of the European limited company, the Social Agenda, maritime safety and BSE.
They are all issues on which the Council has adopted resolutions which we have been aware of sufficiently in advance and, furthermore, which we are able to assess.
However, at this time, neither my group nor any other has any knowledge of the final texts decided on by the Intergovernmental Conference and, bearing in mind that we cannot pass judgment on such sensitive issues, we believe that we should not table a resolution on the results of the Conference unless we want to express a positive or negative initial reaction, and we therefore believe it is not appropriate.
Furthermore, in order to produce a short resolution we must understand the issues very well.
Madam President, we therefore believe that it is prudent not to table any resolution and to ask the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to prepare a report on the background to the issue, which can be debated at the right time when we know the facts.
Madam President, no one underestimates the significance and scope of this summit, which has also been the lengthiest in the history of the European Union.
That is exactly why we have a problem: this is an important summit and everything we say counts.
I think hastily adopting a short resolution, as Mr Poettering proposes, would be a feeble, unimaginative solution.
So I am in favour of postponing the resolution until January.
Then we can discuss later whether this resolution should be based on a report from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs or simply on our own initiative, but, whichever, I am in favour of postponing the resolution until January.
Madam President, Nice has been a particularly important summit.
It is being commented on already and that comment will be widely reported in the press. It would be quite inconceivable for the European Parliament, sitting the very day after the Summit, to say nothing about it.
So, Madam President, I propose that you put two alternatives to the vote: immediately discussing the Treaty of Nice, which is different from the Summit, or finding the right formula for postponing detailed comment until the January part-session.
Whatever the case, let us have a vote on it, and, personally, I support a resolution along the lines suggested by Mr Poettering, Mr Lannoye and others.
Madam President, the balance of opinion in my group was that we should not express ourselves by way of a resolution. This is partly because we have not had sufficient chance to reflect, but also because we believe it is wrong to say that when there is a major debate, Parliament will not express itself.
I believe that Parliament will express its views vigorously tomorrow even if there is no resolution.
So I do not believe that we will be deemed to have been silent; I suspect that the presumption will be quite different when we are finished.
Madam President, there has been mention of what the task of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs may be.
I must point out that the Committee is to meet tomorrow afternoon, firstly to try to really get to grips with what the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference were.
We shall have the chance to address the representative of the Commission in order to obtain information on the draft text of the Treaty, which we do not have as yet.
We have only just discovered that this text is not available, at least for the time being, but it might be in the next few hours.
Of course, I give no opinion on the political assessments, and the group Chairmen will be able to make their opinions known through resolutions in time.
We will also need to agree on what we mean by political assessments.
It seems no easy task.
With regard to the assessments in question, I will give just one example.
The President, herself, knows that until yesterday evening, there were different views on a fundamental issue, that is, the extension of qualified majority voting and the matter of recognising Parliament' s power in the codecision procedure.
They continued working on these texts during the night, just as they continued working through the night on figures relating to the division of votes in the Council and of seats in Parliament.
At least as far as the Commission is concerned, we feel that more awareness and thought are necessary.
Thank you, Mr Hänsch, for that constructive contribution.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
Wednesday:
President.
I have a request from the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats that the report by Mr de Roo on the assessment and management of environmental noise be postponed until the January part-session.
Does anyone wish to speak in favour of this request?
Madam President, we voted on 4 December.
The report is extremely complex; moreover, Amendment No 10 and Amendment No 35 were adopted under protest.
We believe that this report needs further consideration, which is why we would ask to be able to discuss it and vote on it in January.
Does anyone wish to speak against the request?
Madam President, when we discussed this in committee, we assumed that this debate would take place in January. After all, this is a second reading.
Discussions are still being held between the Council and the European Parliament which may make a conciliation procedure unnecessary.
For this reason, I think that it would be wise to extend the deadline - if need be - and to debate the Peijs report in January.
Does anyone wish to speak against this request for a postponement?
If not, I will put it to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request)
Madam President, in view of that decision and since Commissioner Liikanen will not be present on Thursday but could be present on Wednesday, I wonder whether it would be possible to bring Mrs Gill's report on European digital content forward from Thursday to Wednesday to fill that slot.
I should be grateful if you would agree to that request.
As there seems to be a consensus on this proposal, that is what will be done.
Friday: President.
I have a request from the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats for the Parish report on young farmers to be postponed until the January part-session.
Does anyone from that group wish to support this request?
Madam President, I should like this put off until January 2001, if possible, as Commissioner Fischler is unable to be here because of fisheries meetings.
It is very important that he is present for this report because he is very interested in it and we are very much in the hands of the Commission for its success.
I ask that the House hold it over to January.
Thank you, Mr Parish.
(Parliament approved the request) I would remind you that this will be our last Friday of the session.
The order of business is thus adopted.
Madam President, while enlargement was being discussed at the Nice Summit, the French Government was practising a kind of contraction, stopping 1200 young Italians at Ventimiglia as they were on their way to take part in a union demonstration.
That was an infringement of the freedom of movement as laid down in the Schengen Agreement, and I would be grateful if you would seek an explanation from the French Government.
I think a very unusual interpretation of the Schengen Agreement was applied in that case, actually, and, no doubt, if it had been a group of bankers or a train carrying meat-and-bone meal, the French Government would have been far more tolerant.
Thank you, Mr Krivine.
We will look into the background to the ban.
Madam President, on 20 October, 200 political prisoners went on hunger strike, which they intend to see through to the bitter end, in protest against the Turkish Government's policy of using 'white' isolation cells in order to undermine morale and break down prisoners' resistance.
A further 800 prisoners are on hunger strike in sympathy.
The prisoners' mothers are also on hunger strike.
Solidarity is being expressed in numerous countries.
I, personally, was horrified by the murder of a sympathiser on hunger strike by a detachment of the Grey Wolves in Rotterdam a few days ago.
I have also written to you on the subject, Madam President.
I should like Parliament to protest to the Turkish Government through you, through its presidency, calling on it to stop this particularly inhumane practice and not to isolate political prisoners.
Thank you, Mr Korakas.
I will see what I can do about that.
Madam President, I should like to request your assistance.
We have a rule in this Parliament that smoking is prohibited in certain places - that includes the Chamber.
We are going to debate the whole issue of tobacco in a few moments.
I came in here today to be greeted by huge wafts of smoke, courtesy of Mr Brok.
This is not the first time.
In the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy - as Chair of that committee - he sits there smoking.
This is not acceptable. It has a knock-on effect.
In the last Committee on Foreign Affairs meeting that I attended, other members of the committee also started to smoke.
In the interests of everyone, the rules should be respected, irrespective of the person concerned.
It is extremely important that the no-smoking rules are complied with.
That includes the Members.
It is very disrespectful of them not to take this into account.
We have some Members in this Chamber who are immediately affected by tobacco smoke, for example, Mrs Lynne, who frequently complains.
Please urge the Members - in particular the Member I have mentioned - not to smoke in areas where it is forbidden.
I know exactly how you feel, Mrs McKenna, and I shall undertake to ensure compliance with the rule.
Tobacco products
Madam President, we are now discussing this directive for the second time this year, and once again, a large number of amendments have been tabled.
This would have been completely unnecessary, of course, if the Council had taken more notice, or indeed any notice, of our first reading and the amended proposal from the Commission, which went some way towards our goal.
I am happy to say that since then - partly through the good offices of the Commission - the entire Presidency has shown willing and I believe the positions have moved somewhat closer together after all.
Legislative procedures do not take place in a vacuum; as the negotiations for the framework agreement on tobacco control in the World Health Organisation have shown, there is a worldwide trend towards increasingly far-reaching control of what the World Health Organisation refers to as the tobacco epidemic.
Madam President, how far should we take this?
How far are we allowed to take it? I witnessed the concern expressed in our Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market over the implications of the ruling of the Court of Justice of 5 October for the directive concerning tobacco advertising, and I echo the view that it will have a considerable impact on this directive and also on EU public health policy in general.
I also feel that the arguments for closer involvement of the European Parliament, i.e. greater transparency and better democratic control, have gone from strength to strength.
Adjustments had to be made to the draft directive and some have been proposed this time round as well.
I just think it is a shame that our Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has been unable to make a constructive contribution in terms of the content of the directive.
I would be most interested to hear the Commissioner' s view of the issues surrounding this legal basis.
I think it is important for us to know what he thinks.
The political basis is clear: harmonisation of the market whilst maintaining a high standard of public health and consumer protection, and building on existing legislation and advanced scientific knowledge.
We really must strengthen the functioning of the internal market, for example by mutual recognition of test results and the development of common standards.
Those who adhere to them would not then be required to fulfil various additional conditions depending on which country they happen to be in.
This is not a crusade against smokers, nor is it a ban on smoking.
That would be undesirable and would also be unworkable in any case.
What we are aiming to do is to achieve an enhanced sense of personal responsibility, and hopefully help deter young people from smoking.
According to the World Health Organisation, there are 1400 smoking-related deaths annually in the European Union.
That is almost one per minute.
Eighty per cent of new smokers each year are below the age of 18, and the majority of them are young women who predominately smoke the so-called 'light' cigarettes.
So it is vital to impose a ban on these misleading descriptions, and the product must be subject to controls.
It is the most readily available product in the European Union, but we know more about the contents of a pot of jam and the ingredients of cola than we do about the average cigarette.
This directive will ensure that we at last get to know what cigarettes contain and why.
Once in possession of these facts, we must proceed to draw up a common list of permitted ingredients of the kind that already exists in incomplete form in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium and Germany.
However, I sense that the Commission is reluctant to take this step and do not really understand why.
This Parliament would like to see a commitment to drawing up this list before 2005, during the tenure of this Commission, or at least to see it proposed by then.
We therefore insist on the Member States providing the necessary information in good time.
Provision must be made to ban at an earlier stage ingredients that increase physiological dependency.
It is very important to establish maximum tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide levels.
However, I do wonder whether our efforts are going to be able to do a lot for public health standards in the long run.
Nicotine addiction is a complex matter.
The harmful effects are largely caused by the tar, carbon monoxide, and other ingredients, and we need to find out more about the damaging, but perhaps even the positive, aspects of nicotine addiction.
It is obvious that what is unhealthy for European consumers is also unhealthy for other consumers and therefore ought not to be exported.
I am willing to consider establishing a derogation for this purpose, lasting three years or so. During this time, companies would be able to make the necessary production and marketing modifications, so that jobs are not needlessly transferred to countries outside the European Union.
Health warnings need to be improved.
The European Parliament has gratefully made use of Canadian research findings, and I feel we will go further down this line in time.
We are not ready to go that far at this stage.
That said, we do feel that health warnings should be at least as big as they are in Poland, where they now cover 30% of the packet and I am disappointed that the Council did not want to go further than 25%.
Madam President, I hope this Parliament will support the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like briefly to deal with the consequences of the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Case C376/98 on the directive concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products, currently in second reading before this Parliament.
Firstly, given the clear internal market objective to regulate the free movement of tobacco products in the Community, Article 95 of the Treaty constitutes the appropriate legal basis for this proposal.
Secondly, there is no doubt that a better motivation of the effects of this provision on the internal market will strengthen it.
In particular, there is a need to reinforce the motivation of the provisions of Article 3 on carbon monoxide maximum authorised yields in the recitals of the directive. They should better reflect how they aim to eliminate obstacles to the free movement of goods or distortions of competition.
Finally, in relation to Article 3, allowing manufacture in the European Union only of products respecting this directive amounts to an export ban for products with higher tar, nicotine or carbon monoxide levels.
The European Parliament has therefore proposed to add Article 133 dealing with the common commercial policy to Article 95 as the legal basis.
The Commission could agree to this solution subject to the insertion of a specific article in the text of the directive which would explicitly regulate exports as such.
This would be the case, for example, of an amendment on the transitional period to be applied to exports of cigarettes not complying with Article 3 of the directive.
Mr President, when it comes to harmonisation measures, we have a choice between promoting the interests of the tobacco industry or standing up for public health. We would have no hesitation in choosing the latter.
In other words, we would make it our business to reduce the maximum yields of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide, then we would go for decisive and striking warnings, and ban misleading wording.
We would also opt for efficient measures to deal with certain technical issues.
Despite this clear course of action, we must also be conscious of the fact that we are the Parliament of a Union that sets great store by the principles of the constitutional State, which means that we must recognise the limitations of our authority, i.e. we must know what the limits are to the authority we derive from Article 95, the legal basis we are invoking for the new tobacco directive.
Assuming I have read the judgment that annuls the advertising directive correctly, we must verify whether there is a European market for tobacco products.
Then we must verify whether there are obstacles to the internal market, or whether they could arise, realistically speaking.
Thirdly, we must check whether the stipulations we approve will really help to improve the functioning of the internal market and whether they are commensurate with the goal to be achieved.
Fourthly, we must see whether the choices we face in terms of content will contribute to a high standard of public health protection, because that is another of our duties pursuant to Article 95.
Overall, I do not see any problem with this directive.
So I am extremely content with the answer I received in advance from the Commissioner, to a question which has also been raised in our group, as to how we should deal with the proposal to immediately incorporate an export ban on products we do not want to use ourselves, into this directive.
If this can be settled in a legally conclusive manner by adding a reference to the legal basis of Article 133 of the Treaty then I feel we should all support this solution, and I would also hope that by so doing, we will not encounter annulment rights at a later stage.
In any case, the fact is that if it should transpire now, or further down the line, that we are not going to be able to secure the export ban, then we must do everything in our power to see that this is done subsequently.
Because for ethical reasons, nobody in Europe can accept that products we do not consider good enough for ourselves, and that we do not want to allow Europeans to use, can, without further ado, be exported to Africa, for example.
There must be no question of something like that happening.
So the ban must be imposed at some point.
Let us hope we can do it now.
Mr President, to finish I just have this to say. Mrs Martens was the spokesperson for the PPE-DE Group.
There are serious reasons as to why she will arrive a little later here today.
She is hoping she will still be in time to round off the list of speakers from the PPE-DE Group.
If not, I have also spoken on her behalf.
Mr President, the opportunity today to debate and subsequently vote on the Maaten report in second reading is an important one, a test of Parliament' s ability to live up to the expectations of citizens, who want institutions capable of making clear-cut decisions.
Their way and concept of life, in which the protection of health is becoming increasingly important, are at stake.
At this level, the work undertaken by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has been truly remarkable, thanks, in particular, to our rapporteur' s work.
One thing must be made clear: we are not adopting a legislative framework to fight smoking, which continues to be the largest cause of death in the European Union; at least for the moment this is not possible and I, personally, would have many doubts if we intended to draw on, more or less secretly, an illusory prohibitionist philosophy.
Harmonising the national laws concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of smoking products at the highest possible level of health protection is something that we can and must do.
As has been pointed out, there are four cornerstones of this directive: limiting the content of tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide; banning descriptors of cigarettes - 'light' or 'ultra-light' - which are universally acknowledged to be misleading; uniform regulations and, where necessary, prohibiting other ingredients and additives which are often responsible for increasing the risks for smokers and, above all, increasing their addiction; quantitative and qualitative reinforcement of the warnings of the gravity of the risk taken when lighting a cigarette and trying to dissuade the young from falling victim to this psycho-physical slavery.
By merging three pre-existing directives, we are obviously staying strictly within the boundaries of improving the operation of the internal market without, however, renouncing forging ahead with a harm-reduction strategy and curbing a true scourge: smoking, which is costly in both social and economic terms.
During this second reading, we have had two main concerns: firstly, political reconciliation of the aim of protecting health with the nevertheless valid point of view of production and employment.
The example of applying new levels of toxic substances to cigarettes exported from the European Union as well, should apply to everyone.
To uphold this basic principle, we have, to begin with, proposed extending the legal basis to include Article 133 of the Treaty, but above all, we have postponed the date by which Member States will be obliged to implement it to 1 January 2007.
The second concern, of a specifically legal nature, has, on the other hand, encouraged us to increase the interdependence of the harmonisation of the market and the protection of health even further, by meticulously following the recommendations arising from the Court of Justice' s reasons for recently setting aside the Directive on advertising, reasons of which only a biased reading could lead one to conclude that the two aspects are incompatible.
We have therefore carried out fruitful and important work, especially because the distances from the common position of the Council, but even more so, from the observations which were made in the Council following the vote in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, of which we had first-hand experience, are so small that there is a real chance for a swift and effective compromise.
To ditch, as someone has proposed, all this work and with it the opportunity to send a positive message to the citizens is, of course, a valid proposal, but at least let us have the courage to do it in the name of an explicit political reason and not hide behind formal homage to the Treaty.
We have made every effort to achieve the greatest possible unity of Parliament so that it can, as at other times, find the strength to appear to citizens as a sure point of reference, impervious to individual interests.
If this proves not to be the case, at least the responsibilities will be clear and easily identifiable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 80 fatalities in Europe from new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and Europe, its Council of Ministers, the Commission and Parliament decide to ban meat-and-bone meal and exclude cattle over 30 months' old from the food chain without prior testing.
Better late than never.
Fifty thousand deaths a year for decades, due to the consequences of using a drug with known side-effects for which doctors and hospital departments know there is only palliative treatment, and nothing is done apart from a few timid information campaigns.
Then, when a directive does come along seeking to regulate the distribution of that drug and information about it - I am talking about tobacco - there is an outcry from some Members.
But ladies and gentlemen, if you truly acknowledged the health problems linked to tobacco, you would demand a ban on this drug, just as you continue to maintain the bans on other substances despite the fact that, quantitatively, they are far less lethal.
You are responsible for the health of millions of citizens, and also for the deaths of thousands of young people who have not been given sufficient information.
Cases have recently been won in the United States against the tobacco multinationals for poisoning people and lying about the toxicity of their products.
Now, in France, the Loire-Atlantique health insurance company has won the right to sue the tobacco industry in the courts.
But in the future, just as with contaminated blood and mad cow disease, legal action will be taken against those who knew about it and let it happen, and that means you, us, the decision makers, the legislators.
So let us do something together, just a small thing in view of how much remains to be done. Let us reduce the levels of nicotine and tar; ban addictive substances, like ammonia which is added to the nicotine to increase addiction to cigarettes; attach legible warnings covering at least 35% of the cigarette packet to alert people to the risks and dangers of tobacco; get rid of lies like 'light' and 'ultra-light' which encourage young people, especially young women, to smoke in the belief that this makes it less harmful, when medical science now agrees that the upsurge in peripheral small-cell lung cancers which are more insidious, more difficult to diagnose and have even more tragic prognoses is linked to over-consumption of this type of cigarette; evaluate the socio-economic cost of tobacco and transform the subsidies to tobacco producers into real redevelopment subsidies benefiting, for example, the production of cereals to replace meat-and-bone meal; recognise that products intended for export should comply with the same regulations as those intended for the internal European market; raise the price of tobacco because that is a measure which has a direct incidence on consumption, especially by young people; and harmonise tax rates.
None of this amounts to a great deal, ladies and gentlemen, and it will not really damage the interests of the tobacco industry, which some people would apparently rather protect than public health. Much more needs to be done.
In fact, this directive should be extended to products other than cigarettes, like cigars and rolling tobacco, which are no less harmful. The ban on advertising these lethal products should be confirmed, and the collective rules on no-smoking areas should be extended.
We have a lot of work to do.
I urge you to adopt Mr Maaten' s report as a first step in the interests of the health of future generations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Communities on the advertising of tobacco products, this report and proposal for an amended directive has been called into question from various points of view.
There are also amendments that would discard the whole of Parliament's proposal.
We are of the opinion, however, that there are very significant differences between the issue of tobacco advertising and this directive.
We feel it is self-evident that Article 95 should form the legal basis for this directive together with Article 133, as the committee are now proposing in Amendment No 1.
The directive on which the proposal builds is based on Article 95 and the issue is, of course, directly concerned with the content of products on the internal market.
We have a positive opinion of the contents of the report and support its main points.
It is particularly important to establish clear limit values for the hazardous substances contained in the smoke.
Amendment No 2 concerning carbon monoxide is, therefore, particularly positive.
We can also support the proposals concerning the size and wording of the warning text.
In this case, there is such a small difference between the different points of view that it should not be difficult to reach a compromise.
We are also in favour of the ban on habit-forming additives.
As regards export from the European Union of cigarettes that are banned within the Union for health reasons, we consider that the only reasonable and consistent solution is to put a stop to this.
There is no reason to provide special conditions and extended transitional periods where the export of cigarettes is concerned, as compared with their manufacture for use within the European Union.
The report also mentions special brands of cigarettes that are marketed as 'mild' , 'light' and such like.
This is a marketing strategy which is often misleading and which gives the false impression that these cigarettes do not carry the same risks as other cigarettes.
We do not see any reason for allowing this type of marketing and regard the committee's present position in this area as being in danger of leading to far too many opportunities for exceptions.
Even if subsidies for tobacco-growing are not regulated by this report, it is impossible not to touch on the issue, which constitutes one of the absurdities of the European Union.
It is unreasonable for the Union to put the large sums of money into tobacco-growing that it does today.
This is inconsistent, and it is becoming expensive.
This money could be put to good use elsewhere.
Therefore, the only sensible thing to do is to phase out the subsidies gradually and for the farms affected to be given help to convert to other crops.
When this report was previously discussed, the issue of Swedish snuff was brought up.
I do not consider there to be any reason to change the current rules, i.e. an exception in the case of Sweden, nor, at the same time, the right of countries which do not wish to sell snuff to uphold their ban.
I am therefore pleased that no amendment has been made to that regulation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing with a subject tonight which lies outside our competence.
Not for the first time, no doubt.
But this time it seems much more serious than usual.
So, once again, I shall deal with the substance and not the form.
The fact is that the Court of Justice has just repealed the 1998 Directive banning advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products.
The Court held that a total ban on tobacco advertising cannot be justified in the name of the proper functioning of the internal market.
Now, in contempt of the Treaties, believing it is entrusted with a mission of salvation, our Parliament marches on, head down, to push this text through, come what may.
That attitude perfectly sums up the defects of our European institutions, always ready to go to any lengths to achieve the ideological goals they have set themselves.
But there are rules that have to be respected and we have to remember that.
History teaches us that it is dangerous to regard the goal - however noble and virtuous - as superior to the agreed rules.
The obstinacy demonstrated here reveals a striking lack of realism.
Rather than learn the lessons of the defeat suffered in Luxembourg on 9 October, we persist in taking a legally indefensible attitude.
Our group is profoundly attached to the preservation of public health, but we are worried about the consequences of such a suicidal political position.
If we do not change our approach we are likely to kill the directive.
Public health must not be put at stake in a power struggle designed to scrape together more new powers every day, to the detriment of the States.
Health is too important an issue to be used as a political tool.
So, what answers are there? There is only one, in our opinion: learn the lessons from the Court of Justice' s decision and recognise that the European Commission unfortunately went much too far in its efforts to distort the treaties.
We must also have another look at our copy and redraft it respecting the balance called for by the Treaty
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to compliment Mr Maaten on his excellent report, into which he has put a lot of effort.
I believe he has successfully amalgamated the three existing directives into one new one.
It would, of course, have been much nicer if we had not had to concern ourselves with tobacco legislation at all.
However, the sad fact is that tobacco is still produced, presented and sold.
And although everyone is aware that it is bad for your health, they still use it nonetheless.
If tobacco had to be admitted to the European market as a new product, it would certainly be rejected for health reasons.
If jam or cola were as harmful as tobacco, they would certainly be banned.
I support the strict labelling proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy both in terms of the size and the wording of the health warnings on cigarette packets.
However, I think the Council' s proposal with regard to the size of the warnings on labels besides those on cigarette packets, is an improvement on Amendment No 25, since the 50 cm² limit is far too close to the surface area of a packet of cigarettes.
I still feel that messages such as 'low-tar' , 'mild' and 'light' are misleading, so I will, in fact, oppose Amendments Nos 10 and 30.
I am delighted that the ban on adding ammonia or other addictive products will be maintained at second reading.
It seems obvious to me that we must not tolerate such practices.
On a final note, I must sadly point out again that the European tobacco policy is still inconsistent.
Tobacco consumption is discouraged on the one hand, yet on the other, in excess of EUR 1 billion is spent on tobacco subsidies annually.
I would like to take this opportunity to again express my wish that this will change some day.
Mr President, I rise in defence of the workers in the industry.
We have a large tobacco industry in Northern Ireland, Gallaher's Ltd.
If this directive is adopted, at least 300 jobs will be lost.
I have studied carefully what the Commissioner said to my colleague Mr Hume: "No massive job losses in this sector.
It is not understood how a reduction in tar from 12 to 10 mg, as proposed in the present text, would have noticeable employment effects."
The key difference, however, between previous and current reductions in tar ceilings is simply that previous reductions in tar ceilings were limited to the EU.
Gallaher's has a 25% export volume.
If this directive is adopted, 300 jobs will go.
It must be said that the manufacturers will sell not one cigarette fewer than they do now, because they will transfer their business outside the European Union.
Gallaher's will transfer its business to its Russian factory and the ceilings will be ignored, but we will have exported 300 jobs.
The job losses in Gallaher's will affect workers about 47 years old on average.
In Northern Ireland, if you lose your job at 47 there is not much chance of getting another job.
This is my concern on this issue.
Mr President, given that some of us have been accused of having shady intentions for arguing that there is a lack of, or rather doubt over, a legal basis for certain articles of the directive which we are debating today, I would like to talk about interinstitutional balance.
This interinstitutional balance is a source of legitimacy for European integration.
I would also like to talk about the obligation inherent in the Treaties.
According to the Treaty, the Commission has had the obligation, for more than two months, to analyse the judgment and to draw the relevant conclusions from it.
The Commissioner today, for the first time, in his very brief intervention, has used the words "no doubt" at least three times and the words "clear" or "clearly" at least three times.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in law, when one feels the need to say that something is clear, and that there is no doubt about it, it is because there is doubt and it is not clear.
In this case there is doubt and it is not clear.
Mr President, how can it be said that a justification in Amendment No 2 respects what the Court of Justice has said, when according to that justification, in order to explain the danger to the internal market, several Member States have indicated that, if certain measures are not adopted, they would seek to legislate? Which Member States?
Which measures?
That is what we expected from the Commission, that they should tell us, that they should explain this to us.
Let us take some other examples, Amendments Nos 1, 4 and 18.
To add the legal basis of Article 133 is legally skilful, but has the Commission really considered Article 131 which is the mother article of external trade policy, and which says that that policy is intended "to increase the competitiveness of our companies" ? How does that square with the justification in Amendment No 18, where it says that an exemption period is granted because that could seriously harm our industry?
How does that square with that same justification, which says that negotiations must be held within the World Trade Organisation?
Mr President, these doubts, these justifiable doubts, which have nothing to do with any shady or mysterious friendship with some company or other, are the reason for the vote of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and I remember that it was 18 votes to 9.
Although I was not present, my vote, of course, supported the Committee.
Mr President, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi has just put the Commissioner in the dock and, in this case, while we are talking about interinstitutional balance, all the Commission has done is to have tabled a proposal for a directive.
It is Parliament and the Council who have to approve this proposal for a directive and examine, amongst other things, a suitable legal basis for it.
Therefore, it is not a question of accusing the Commission of having committed any irregularity.
Above all, it cannot be accused of any irregularity because the Commission, in this case, has simply tabled a proposal for a directive which revises three previous directives on the content of certain products in tobacco and certain warnings on the packaging of those products.
Therefore, there is really nothing new here.
The only new thing is that there has been a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, of 5 October, in which the Court of Justice says that, with regard to another completely different directive, that is, the Directive on tobacco advertising, the legal basis of the current Article 95 - which was formerly Article 100a - was not suitable.
The reason why the Court of Justice deems this legal basis to be unsuitable is that it believes that, by means of this legal basis, there is a danger of attempts being made to side-step a specific prohibition in another article of the Treaty - which has also changed number: from Article 129 to Article 152 in the current text - in accordance with which, any harmonisation of national provisions was prohibited.
The Court of Justice is therefore trying to prevent any contrivance by means of which this subterfuge could be employed.
However, in this case, this situation does not apply because the proposal for a directive, like the previous directives already in force, intends, in fact, to remove existing barriers to the functioning of the internal market.
Therefore, their correct legal basis is the former Article 100a or the current Article 95.
The rapporteur, Mr Maaten, has, with good reason, proposed reinforcing that legal basis with a reference to another article, Article 133 on external trade, and furthermore has proposed a series of amendments to some of the articles with the aim of preventing this directive being challenged on the basis of the case-law established by the judgment of the Court of Justice.
I would like to point out that the judgment of the Court of Justice has been guided by too literal an interpretation of the text.
This judgment has several questionable aspects but, accepting the judgment as it stands - since we have no choice, given that the court of Justice is the highest body qualified to interpret Community law - there is nothing to prevent this Parliament from declaring itself in favour of the proposed legal basis of Article 95 with Article 133, and introducing the amendments to which I have referred, which include the rapporteur' s amendments.
Of course, on behalf of the Socialist Group, and specifically the Socialist Members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, who voted against this majority opinion to which Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi has just referred, I must say that we consider that taking this route, rejecting the proposal for a directive, as proposed in two amendments, Amendments Nos 52 and 53, tabled by Mr Poettering, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi and another 32 MEPs, would lead to a serious restriction on the European Parliament' s legislative powers.
Therefore, I am not concerned so much at the moment with health issues, which are, of course, important and considerable, as with the constraints that would result from our accepting such a restrictive interpretation of the legislative powers which this European Parliament would have.
I believe that such a restrictive interpretation would practically lead to the elimination of the legislative powers of this institution and of the Council.
I do not believe we can take such a restrictive route, that is to say, independently of the content - and the substantial content which has been highlighted by Mr Maaten and others - that there is a danger that, if this Parliament and the Council accept the restrictive interpretation proposed by the leader of the European People' s Party and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, this Parliament, the Council and the Community institutions as a whole would be tying their hands and feet with regard to the legislative development of the Community institutions, which is so important to the development of Community law.
For this reason, we Socialists support the amendments tabled by Mr Maaten and we reject, of course, Amendments Nos 52 and 53 by the Group of the European People' s Party.
Mr President, it is regrettable that despite all the efforts made by rapporteur Maaten, we must conclude that no one is really happy with the developments that now characterise this report.
I would like to make three brief comments.
My first comment concerns the legal basis.
The Court has had a judicial review carried out and states quite explicitly that Article 95 can be the legal basis in some cases, provided certain conditions are met, but also states that Article 95 will not be sufficient in certain cases, for example Article 133 would need to be added where the export ban is concerned.
In view of the lack of motivation, I therefore support the amendment tabled by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, which calls for us to reject the common position and ask the Commission to submit a new proposal.
As for the other comments, I would point out that we ought not to concentrate too much on symbols that do not tackle the root cause of the problem.
Imposing higher taxes is not a satisfactory way of discouraging people from doing something.
Increasing the space for warnings out of all proportion is not a satisfactory way of achieving the desired goal, i.e. better public health.
What is more, I feel this will set a poor example if we want to put warnings on other products at a later stage.
Mr President, we all know that this is an unusually important report we are dealing with here.
It is important because we are here and now considering just how credible the European Union' s policy on public health is.
I am sorry that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has also expressed opinions that the Court ban on tobacco advertising would in some way render this directive null and void.
By no means is that true, as this directive concerns the content of cigarettes and not measures to promote tobacco sales.
Parliament should no longer be deluded in this matter; it should understand that it is now vital to show support for Mr Maaten' s excellent report.
Now to the matter of whether the words 'light' or 'mild' on brands of tobacco should now be banned. We should keep to our opinion that such misleading descriptions cannot be allowed, and the decision of the Court in October brings nothing new to this matter.
We must maintain the stand we took on this before.
We must understand that all those countries that have undertaken to draft fairly tough legislation on tobacco have clearly seen deaths from lung cancer and heart and vascular disease brought under control.
We should be able to promote all of this in the European Union' s common single market policy as well, which must be based on high standards of protection when it comes to public health.
Mr President, if this proposal actually becomes law at second reading, this will lead to companies' freedom being curtailed somewhat, and to a slight improvement in the protection of public health.
The strength of this proposal resides in the fact that it is not concerned with the behaviour of individual consumers of tobacco products, but is aimed at making it compulsory for companies to provide all consumers with information, and having the addition of addictive ammonia banned.
This would make it less easy for the impression to be created that you can smoke without risking premature death.
It would be more difficult to spread reassuring lies.
The weakness of the proposal resides in the fact that it places heavy emphasis on the promotion of free competition.
The imposition of uniform standards in all Member States seems calculated to give the various tobacco companies the same opportunities to earn money throughout the EU.
This liberal basic principle does not have my group' s blessing.
Our main concern is to protect people against the damage that tobacco products do to their health.
My group would rather the proposal had taken an all-encompassing approach.
Taking public health as the starting point, this would entail a complete ban on advertising and sponsorship and reducing to a minimum the number of young people who take up smoking.
We would also need to look at what impact a reduction in the production and consumption of tobacco would have in terms of alternative employment for tobacco farmers and tobacco industry workers, how to put an end to the current EU subsidy regime for tobacco cultivation, and what we need to do to oppose international trade in this unwholesome product.
As long as we fail to do this, each and every European measure can be counteracted by increased exports of American tobacco.
All we can adopt at second reading is a watered-down version of the most far-reaching proposals that we voted on six months ago after the first reading.
A watered-down text was adopted back then too, but the Council of Ministers still thinks that Parliament' s opinion goes too far.
I represent those members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left who supported the rapporteur' s proposals at first reading, and who will also support his watered-down proposal at second reading.
The proposal is too weak, but without a decision of this kind tobacco products will be able to destroy even more lives.
Mr President, it is fair to say that we have a moral obligation to fully inform the 30 million consumers of the European Union about the public health dangers of cigarettes.
Indeed, as a Member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy I have been strongly lobbied by various groups about the need to regulate more strictly the sale and presentation of tobacco products in Europe.
I welcome the amendments which were passed in our committee recently, which sought to increase warnings to the general public about the dangers of smoking.
Amendments approved by our committee were to increase the size of the general warnings such as "smoking kills", on the front of cigarette packages from 25 to 30% and to increase the size of additional warnings on cigarette packages from 25 to 40%.
Examples of the additional warnings supported by the Committee for inclusion on cigarette packages are: "half of smokers die younger"; "smoking causes fatal lung cancer"; "smoking is highly addictive"; "get help to stop "; and "protect children, do not make them breathe your smoke".
Our committee also believes that warning messages should be attached to vending machines.
Research has shown that the greater the size of the public health warning on cigarette packets, the greater the reduction in the level of cigarette smoking.
The results of the research on that matter are so clear that it would be wrong for us, as European Union legislators, not to follow such advice.
We need to send out a strong message about smoking to the 370 million consumers of the European Union and we are going to give our children and smokers all the necessary public warnings about the health dangers of cigarette smoking.
In conclusion, since the Treaty of Amsterdam the European Parliament has the power of coordination over environmental and consumer protection matters, and it will, of course, work closely with the Council and the Commission in this regard.
We regard this procedure as an important legislative weapon of Parliament's arsenal and we intend to use it.
I compliment the rapporteur on the report.
Mr President, whilst one cannot but laud the good intentions of Members who support this directive, I should point out that the prohibition on the manufacture of tobacco above EU limits will have a significant effect on jobs in my region.
In particular, I refer to the British-American Tobacco plant in Southampton, which produces all its cigarettes for the non-EU market.
With the advent of this directive, the manufacturers will not be able to produce these cigarettes, even though the EU limits do not, of course, apply to their markets.
However, this does not mean that these cigarettes will not be manufactured.
The company concerned, BAT, will transfer production to non-EU countries.
So, instead of exporting cigarettes we will be exporting jobs - 4 000 of them in my region alone.
Yet, ironically, I do not see in this directive any prohibition on growing tobacco within the Community - even when in countries such as Greece the tobacco grown is so strong that under this directive it would become a criminal offence to use it for manufacturing.
A Community which subsidises this tobacco-growing and then makes it unlawful to sell it, whilst destroying jobs and the lives of ordinary people who rely on revenue from goods which are not even sold in the Community, cannot gain the respect of ordinary people.
Whatever you think of this directive, please support my amendment tomorrow which takes out the prohibition on manufacturing for non-EU export.
This directive will have no health benefits whatsoever outside the EU.
It is a classic symptom of political correctness gone mad.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to correct a misapprehension: the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market rejected the directive as a whole as early as the first reading, although it is true that Parliament did not go along with it.
Following the European Court of Justice ruling the Committee then adopted the opinion again, admittedly this time by a large majority.
It is true that the Court's ruling did not, in fact, significantly change the legal position, but it did develop it; some aspects have now been clarified and some points are clearer.
In fact, it does not actually have anything to do with tobacco: the European Court of Justice's judgment might just as well have been handed down in relation to an advertising ban on alcohol, for example, or an advertising ban on chocolate, because we know that sugar can also be damaging to human health.
In my opinion, the superficial way in which the Commission and the Council of Ministers have examined this Court ruling in their discussions hitherto is shameful. In fact, it would be truer to say that they have not examined it at all; they have completely ignored it, as Commissioner Byrne did just now, and as is also the case, for example, in the statement of reasons for the common position, in which it was not deemed necessary even to correct and make some adjustments to the recitals either.
The only laudable exception is Parliament's Legal Service.
Unfortunately, time does not allow me to go into detail here; that is quite impossible.
I can only call on colleagues to go along with the recommendation of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
This is not about the tobacco industry; quite simply it is about upholding the Treaties.
Neither is it about legalistic hair-splitting; it is about an eminently political question, which it does not require any legal training to answer. It is simply about respecting areas of competence and safeguarding subsidiarity and also, for example, the rights of colleagues in the national parliaments, who, of course, are entitled to have their own areas of competence.
This very issue of delimiting competences was addressed in Nice.
But if whenever a material majority is found on a specific issue in the three bodies - the Commission, the Council of Ministers and Parliament - this majority is also observed, then we can do without this ceremony and it would suggest that what really matters are institutional safeguards.
I hope and assume - and here I am also placing my trust in the European Court of Justice - that it will continue to hold its previous course, that it will agree to step up its efforts to safeguard competences and that, for this reason, it will once again annul the directive.
Mr President, to begin with I would like to congratulate Mr Maaten on a splendid report.
I also think there is reason to thank Mr Byrne for a very clear presentation of the legal basis.
When I listen to Mrs Palacio and also to Mr Lechner I am reminded most of all of the reports we are receiving from American courts right now.
A serious mixture of law and politics, which, in any case, does not increase legal certainty.
I believe that reducing the limit values for the tar content and reducing some of the limits for how much nicotine and carbon monoxide cigarettes may contain will have an extremely significant effect on health in Europe.
It is important to insist that the Commission draw up a proposal for a common list of additives by the end of 2004 at the latest.
The secrecy on the part of industry surrounding additives which we have witnessed so far should naturally be brought to an end.
I also consider it important that, independently of this common list, a ban is imposed on the use of ammonia and other similar compounds used for the express purpose of making cigarettes more addictive, to increase dependence on cigarettes.
This is also something we must put a stop to in an effective way.
Finally I would like to make a single comment concerning the matter of exports.
I simply do not understand why a majority here in Parliament want to propose more lenient rules for exports than those proposed by the Member States' own governments - the governments which, however, also represent the many industries referred to.
Like Mrs Thyssen, I feel that it is absolutely unethical for us to sell cigarettes outside the area of Europe which, for health reasons, we consider to be unsuitable for use by citizens in our own area.
It simply cannot be ethically justifiable to act in this way, and I therefore hope that on this point we arrive at the responsible line which I believe the Council and the Commission have proposed.
Mr President, I think that we need to make the requirements for the manufacture and sale of tobacco tougher and that to do so in a harmonised fashion, by means of a directive which must be respected by all the Member States, could strengthen the objective of preventing consumers from taking up smoking and of protecting them from this habit.
Nevertheless, I truly consider it to be unacceptable to interpret the differences in criteria with regard to the content of the proposal for a directive in terms of a supposed confrontation between the powerful interests of the tobacco lobbies and the common interest of protecting consumers.
To accept this would be to misrepresent the legitimate arguments of a good number of Members of the European Parliament who see, in the need to respect the legal aspects, a guarantee of the future viability of our own legislative acts.
If we believe that we need common rules which are legally binding in order to better protect the public' s health from the risks of tobacco, let us seek a way of doing so, without using loopholes in the law, without back doors through which our good intentions may escape.
Public opinion cannot and must not be fed solely by political gestures which are not solidly based in the reality of what is possible within the competences conferred on us by the Treaties.
Mr President, smoking is the tragedy of our time - the biggest cause of preventable illness and disease across the European Union.
More than half a million people die needlessly each year in the European Union and the number is set to grow if we do not act now.
That is why this directive is so important: bigger, bolder, clearer health warnings, a ban on misleading descriptions such as 'light', 'ultra' and 'mild', a maximum tar content for products used in the EU as well as for exports, and, for the first time, a disclosure of ingredients.
As a relatively new Member of this House it struck me how strong the forces against this directive are in this Parliament.
There have been so many red herrings thrown into this debate that I think many people would be more comfortable in a fishing debate than in a public health debate.
The power of big tobacco companies is all too evident.
I say to each and every one of my colleagues, tobacco is like no other product.
You become addicted and it kills you.
It is a fact that 80% of people start smoking before the age of eighteen yet the tobacco industry says people make adult choices.
It is a fact that 80% of smokers want to stop but there are few policies within the tobacco industry to help those people stop.
Instead it pretends to tackle youth smoking.
If we had known at the outset what we know about tobacco now, it would be an A-class drug.
It is a fact that in the last century almost twice as many people died because of tobacco than in the two world wars put together.
If we do not act now, worldwide deaths are estimated at one billion this century.
Let us make sure that the fight to save lives is paramount and play our part in tackling the power of big tobacco interests, which only destroy lives.
Mr President, nobody wishes to play down the consequences of smoking on human health, but even if you want this measure and share the health policy objectives, the legal bases have to be right.
The European Court of Justice recently handed down its judgment in the case of regulating tobacco advertising to protect human health and it is unambiguous: it is not the task of the Commission and the European Union to regulate these matters, but of the Member States.
Only if the internal market is disrupted does the Union have regulatory powers.
But the Commission has not submitted one single piece of evidence to show that the internal market is disrupted, not one.
Quite the opposite.
Where it actually is disrupted, with the different taxation rates and the special rules for Greece, everything is staying as it was.
It is therefore ridiculous for people to act here, Commissioner, as though the ruling of the European Court of Justice had not changed anything.
This ignorance really is staggering.
I predict that this directive, too, will fall before the European Court of Justice, and Parliament and the Commission will make a fool of themselves just as they did the first time, if we are not prepared to examine the legal aspects.
Commissioner, you are a Guardian of the Treaties and not someone who can overstep your competences here on your own initiative.
If you enlist Article 133 for the export ban then the conclusion is obvious that it is not part of a common commercial policy to dictate to third countries what they should import.
This legal basis, too, is completely worthless in my opinion, and that is why the unions, companies and colleagues here are right to refer to job losses.
Ten thousand jobs because of the export ban alone, 8 000 of which are in the United Kingdom, are at stake.
This does not help anyone to achieve their objectives because production is not reduced, it is just moved.
We are seeking to dictate to others how they should live.
This is presumptuous and it will not become law.
Mr President, tobacco wrecks lives.
To the shame of this European Union, we require our taxpayers to subsidise the growing of the wretched stuff to the tune of over EUR 1 billion a year.
At the same time, we jeopardise sensible measures to deter smoking, especially among young people, because we try to put the whole world within our single market.
If we insist on telling other countries what health standards they should set by extending our sensible proposals for the domestic market to exports, we shall put all Mr Maaten's good work at risk.
Because, as sure as export night follows advertising day, there will be another challenge in the courts, and not just the export provision but the whole directive with it will be thrown out.
I should like the Commissioner to clarify whether the removal of the exemption for exports applies just to the tar and nicotine levels, as was the impression given in committee, or to all the proposals in the directive.
We need to know because thousands of jobs are at stake in Darlington, Nottingham, Southampton and Belfast.
Those jobs could be destroyed very quickly by our misunderstanding and our vote.
I want to see sensible measures go through and not lost.
I want to see an end to misleading descriptions such as 'mild' and 'light' that give the impression that some cigarettes are safer: deeper inhalation means they are not.
These labels should go.
There should be no exemption for trademarks or we will simply create new anomalies in competition and the single market.
I want to see the photographic warning option, sensible listing of ingredients, Europe-wide research, health promotion measures to help children to remain smoke, tar, nicotine and addiction free.
I do not want to see all this put at risk because we tried to take this measure beyond the legal powers of this European Union and this Parliament.
Mr President, the tobacco directive addresses two points that are very dear to my group' s heart: the harmonisation of the internal market and public health.
Health organisations are justifiably calling for more protection for public health.
Hence, we are all in favour of the directive and of reducing tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide yields.
That is also why we approve of increasing the size of the warnings, in accordance with the common position, and why, as per the common position, we favour short, pithy warnings on cigarette packets and support a ban on the use of misleading words such as 'mild' , 'light' , and 'ultra-light' .
Only where these terms are part of registered trademarks which are already marketed could consideration be given to granting derogations.
The industry complains about the inequality and inefficiency of the present legislation.
The inequality concerns the permitted ingredients, for example.
We readily support the proposal to produce a list of permitted ingredients.
The testing procedure is inefficient.
As matters stand, each product has to be re-tested in each country.
We are in favour of devising a standardised testing method recognised by all EU Member States, to be implemented by an approved testing laboratory.
We would also like a test of this kind, carried out in a laboratory recognised by a Member State, to be valid in all EU Member States, as is customary in the field of medicine, so as to cut down on the number of tests performed on animals, for example.
We would ask that special consideration be given to the position of SMEs.
This is hit disproportionately hard by the directive in some cases, specifically by Article 6(1).
We will therefore vote in favour of the amendment that does request information on the ingredients used, but which proposes a more realistic working method than is outlined at present in the common position.
I have the following to say about the legal basis. The directive builds on three existing directives on the same subject which have the same legal basis.
These have never caused problems with regard to the legal basis hitherto.
The legal services of the EU institutions do not foresee any problems in this area.
We will certainly assume the legal basis to be valid once Article 133 has been added.
Naturally, we want to follow correct legal procedures and it would, of course, be regrettable if the Court were ultimately to reject the position of our legal services, but we cannot afford to discard the directive because then we would have nothing, all the work would have been for nothing and we might as well start all over again with the same old work and the same texts.
As far as Parliament is concerned, the important thing now is to show political courage and produce a directive which improves the functioning of the internal market and provides maximum protection in the field of public health.
Mr President, I am grateful to my group for being willing to allow me extra time.
I would very much like to thank the Commissioner for his comments on the legal basis.
For brevity' s sake, I would like to echo what Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Lund had to say on the matter.
I do have two additional comments to make.
The first concerns Article 11.
The reports produced by this committee are crucial in terms of future policy.
I am also delighted that this Commissioner is responsible for it.
I do have my concerns as to whether the Commission has the capacity to work on this report.
I am hoping the Commissioner might reassure us that an increase in the level of staff support within the Commission is on the cards.
Finally, Mr President, major alterations must be made to the Council' s common position.
It is important in terms of the legal basis, more far-reaching harmonisation of the market, better consumer protection and so on.
Each of these elements in isolation probably lacks sufficient support here in Parliament for a qualified majority to be achieved.
But as a package, it should lead to better balanced and more results-orientated legislation.
There was also a readiness to compromise within the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
I have in mind Mrs Martens and Mr Sacconi and our cooperation with them.
I therefore urge you to support this compromise package.
Mr President, I wish to begin by relating a little of the history of how this directive came before Parliament.
This directive was introduced to take account of the European Parliament's Valverde López report of 1997 which mentioned many of the elements of the present text and called for a proposal from the Commission.
The second reading debate on this proposal marks very swift progress.
It shows the urgency with which the Council of Ministers and Parliament have both dealt with this matter.
I should also like to stress the efforts made by the rapporteur, Mr Maaten, to advance with this file in a balanced and conscientious way.
The health effects of tobacco use are now widely recognised and there is a shared feeling among legislators and the public alike that the time has come to adopt stringent rules and regulations on this product.
The proposal contains some significant improvements on the present legal situation and aims to create harmonised rules on a series of product regulation issues.
On others, the groundwork has been put in place to gather the elements needed for subsequent initiatives.
One of the principal improvements concerns a new lower tar ceiling and, for the first time, a carbon monoxide and nicotine ceiling in cigarettes.
Controversially, these ceilings would cover all products manufactured in the Union, whether for domestic consumption or not.
The arguments which have been presented about possible job losses have been carefully weighed against the certainty that if we act otherwise we would be exporting a product not considered good enough for Community citizens.
I might also mention that the figures put forward for potential job losses were already an issue when the original directives now being recast were proposed over ten years ago.
The job losses then forecast never occurred.
In fact, the main job reductions in this industry are due to increased investment in automation, as the firms themselves have declared.
The Commission would nevertheless see an argument for an extended transitional period for the application of the rules for exported products, in order to allow more time for manufacturing formulae to be changed and new marketing approaches to be undertaken.
Mr Bowis asked whether the exemption would apply.
The exemption would apply to Article 3, as I understand the amendment, i.e. tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide levels.
As regards the question of descriptors, I would stress that the effect of the use of certain terms such as 'light' , 'low-tar' and 'mild' can be very misleading.
People change from one type of cigarette to another under the false assumption that the 'light' cigarette is safer for their health.
This is also a factor in why people continue to smoke instead of trying to stop.
Therefore, the need to regulate in the interests of consumers is clear.
Indeed, in the negotiations presently under way for a World Health Organisation framework convention on public health, the same provisions are currently proposed.
Consequently, the Community rules will fit well into the future international arrangements, avoiding the danger of trade barriers and reinforcing, at the same time, the protection of consumers and ensuring a high level of health.
I should add that the European Court of Justice has stated in its judgment on Case 376/98 that public health provides a legal basis in addition to and in association with its Article 95.
In fact, I would draw your attention to the judgment of the Court.
I am not fully convinced that everybody here who has pronounced on the issue has read a copy of the judgment.
I would recommend it to those who have not.
For instance, Paragraph 88 of the judgment further states: "Furthermore, provided that the conditions for recourse to Article 100a [that is now 95] and 66 as a legal basis are fulfilled, the Community legislature cannot be prevented from relying on that legal basis on the ground that public health protection is a decisive factor in the choices to be made.
On the contrary, the third paragraph of Article 129(1) provides that health requirements are to form a constituent part of the Community's other policies, and Article 100a(3) expressly requires that, in the process of harmonisation, a high level of human health protection is to be ensured."
I also refer you to Paragraph 98 of the judgment.
Let me read that in the context of the challenge made to me as to whether there is a substantial legal basis or not.
"In principle, therefore, a directive prohibiting the advertising of tobacco products in periodicals, magazines and newspapers could be adopted on the basis of Article 100a of the Treaty with a view to ensuring the free movement of press products, on the lines of Directive 89/552, Article 13 of which prohibits television advertising of tobacco products in order to promote the free broadcasting of television programmes."
It is quite clear from the judgment that the judges took the view that Article 95 could be used as a legal basis for regulating the internal market.
In fact, in coming to their conclusion as to what was the appropriate judgment in this particular case, they took the view that some aspects of regulating the market in tobacco and advertising could be permitted and some not.
They went on to say in Paragraph 117 of the judgment: "As has been observed in Paragraphs 98 and 111 of this judgment, a directive prohibiting certain forms of advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products could have been adopted on the basis of Article 100a of the Treaty.
However, given the general nature of the prohibition of advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products laid down by the directive, partial annulment of the directive would entail amendment by the Court of provisions of the directive. Such amendments are a matter for the Community legislature.
It is not therefore possible for the Court to annul the directive partially."
That is a very important paragraph in the judgment of the Court.
It clearly indicates that the decision taken by the Court was such that it said: some of this is permissible, some of it is not.
Given the general nature of the directive, we cannot sever one from the other and, therefore, we have to strike it all down.
There is a clear signpost here as to how we can move forward on these issues.
In answer to the question on exports that Mr Bowis asked me earlier, it is quite clear that, in the unlikely event that the aspect of the directive that refers to exports is challenged and if the view of the Court - which I do not predict - is that it is not supported by the legal basis, it is clearly severable from the directive.
Therefore, even in those circumstances, the directive would survive.
In this respect, let me point out that, from the point of view of international and Community rules, there is no exception for registered trade marks in measures taken for public-health protection, particularly here, where the effects on smokers' behaviour are so dramatic.
On ammonia, let me say that the Commission considers a ban to be very premature and cannot find a scientific argument for such an approach at this stage.
It would be preferable to wait until the overall question of additives is dealt with in the first Commission report.
However, it is also clear that concern on this question is fuelled by internal company information released through court proceedings.
It would not be prudent to ignore this data.
That is why the Commission proposes to deal with the ammonia issue in a measured way, after seeking scientific advice and having considered all the available information.
It will, in particular, report on the alleged use of additives to increase the addictive nature of tobacco products.
On the issue of additives in general, the Commission is ready and willing to give priority attention to this issue on the basis of the information it receives from manufacturers and importers.
This was said in the declaration made when the common position was adopted.
To do so before we have the necessary data would be speculative and premature.
We need to have sufficient time to analyse this information and to consult expert opinion.
In addition, the Commission wishes to preserve its right of initiative under the Treaty in this respect.
On the size of the warning labels, I am sure that a satisfactory compromise can be achieved, based perhaps on the Commission's amended proposal of June, which already went towards the amendments made at first reading.
The use of coloured photos to accompany texts is perhaps premature and not fully evaluated at this stage.
The Commission would prefer to examine the available data and report back in due course.
The creation of a maximum-sized warning label for some large packs would be a proportionate solution.
Mr Davies said in relation to the coloured photographs that Member States might be given permission to have this form of advertising on the packet.
I do not agree with that view for two reasons: firstly, this would run counter to the concept of harmonisation, which is the justification for using Article 95 as the basis; secondly, even if Member States wanted to advertise in this way, it does not require any sanction or authorisation by legislation at EU level to do so.
The issue of vending machines falls outside the scope of this text but the Commission would be willing to examine it in another context to see what approaches would be possible.
This is linked to the question of access to products, in particular where machines are situated in unsupervised areas.
On the amendment dealing with GMOs, the Commission considers that this would be better dealt with as an additional recital rather than mentioning it in an article by itself.
On laboratory tests, the amendment dealing with approval of tests is superfluous as another article provides for circulation of goods that are in accordance with the provisions of the directive.
We also need to make provision for results of tests to be controlled where necessary.
As regards frequency of notifications by industry, it seems clear that annual notifications are unnecessary.
On the common agricultural policy, this is not an issue touched on by this text and to mention it in the recitals would not be legally sound.
In any case, a full review of the common agricultural policy on tobacco is scheduled for 2002.
On taxation, I quite agree that the price of tobacco products, and by extension the issue of tobacco taxes, is a key issue in reducing the attraction of tobacco for the young.
However, this aspect is not the subject of the present directive.
We have to be careful not to introduce elements which are not covered by the internal market or common commercial policy legal basis.
The Commission reports on the application of the excise directives address this problem in the proper way.
Finally, a total of 54 amendments have been tabled in the report and of these I am pleased to inform you that the Commission can accept 33, either totally or partially.
It cannot, however, accept the following amendments: Nos 6, 8, 9, 16, 19, 20, 25, 28, 32, 33, 36, 37, 38, 40, 45, 46, 47, 49, 52, 53 and 54.
Thus, the amendments that the Commission has accepted will make this a much improved text and take account of the main concerns expressed by Members.
I should again like to thank Members for their positive contributions and Mr Maaten for his excellent work in this case.
Summer time
The next item is the report (A5-0356/2000) by Mrs Honeyball, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on summer time arrangements [COM(2000)0302 - C5-0322/2000-2000/0140(COD)].
Madam President, this report is very straightforward: at present, directives on summer time only last for five years, and then have to come back to Parliament to be renewed.
What this report is suggesting is that those arrangements be made permanent, so that we have summer time in place in perpetuity, as it were, rather than its having to be ratified by this Parliament every five years.
There is no good reason not to accept that in principle.
Indeed, there are many very strong arguments in favour of having summer time. These arguments include less energy consumption; transport; hotels and restaurants, which have found planning easier; leisure activities; increasing the quality of life; and helping to prevent disruption of people's bio-rhythms.
Most Member States accept and want summer time, and thus this report is not at all controversial.
The advantage of making summer time a permanent arrangement would be to make planning easier.
Particular sectors involved in this, for example, IT and computers, transport, communications, air and rail, have said to us and to the Commission that they would find it very helpful to know that there will be summer time every year, that it will be permanent, so they can make forward-planning arrangements.
There is also a good argument in terms of the single market, where again similar planning considerations apply.
In terms of the substance of the report, what is being suggested is that the current arrangements, with summer time starting on the last Sunday in March and ending on the last Sunday in October, remain in place and are made permanent arrangements.
However, amendments have been put forward calling for a review and for a report to be produced at the end of five years.
As the rapporteur, I would recommend that these amendments be supported as they make a lot of sense.
The main argument in favour of these amendments and of a report at the end of five years actually concerns enlargement of the European Union, which, following the Nice Summit, is particularly apposite and appropriate.
The point is that if new Member States join us they may not have existing arrangements which conform with what we are proposing, and they may well need time to come into line with our arrangements and to bring about the sort of harmonisation we are proposing.
In view of the changes that we will very likely be undergoing, it would not be a very good idea to introduce permanent arrangements now, with no opportunity for a review.
That is the strongest argument in favour of having a review and therefore supporting the amendments to that effect.
There are other issues we would still like to look at, issues like energy consumption and health and safety, as they relate to summer time; but the strongest argument is undoubtedly that we want to allow new Member States the opportunity to come into line with the arrangements.
So, I would ask Parliament, when the vote takes place, to support all these amendments so that we can have the best possible arrangements for the existing Member States and for future Member States.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a directive on summer time arrangements that we are examining today is a good proposal.
It is a proposal based on extensive research carried out at the request of the Commission.
The results of that research are interesting in that they contradict certain generally accepted ideas.
First, most sectors of the economy have now incorporated the principle of summer time.
What is more, some socio-economic sectors, particularly IT, transport, telecommunications and tourism, have asked for the change to summer time to become permanent.
In fact, time is a basic datum which these sectors need to incorporate into their products and services. That means they need to know about the arrangements for changing to summer time in all the Member States in advance.
Secondly, certain assumed negative effects have clearly not materialised.
Thus, in terms of health, any problems experienced are of short duration and fully reversible.
Nor do the results of the survey indicate any negative effects on animal biorhythms or working conditions on farms.
On the other hand, the research reveals other, less expected, implications.
Summer time seems to be in step with the way lifestyles are developing in our societies, due in particular to later working hours, and the extension of hours for shops, public services and transport.
The extra hour of daylight provided by moving to summer time is particularly beneficial in the tourism and leisure sector, where increases in business directly linked to lighter and longer evenings have been recorded.
Summer time definitely seems to go hand-in-hand with better quality of life, as the positive effects of the summer time period are far more significant than the transitional problems linked to the change itself.
The European Parliament has only one amendment to the initial proposal from the European Commission.
It calls for a report every five years on the incidence of the arrangements under the Summer Time Directive.
If these reports show that the summer time arrangements need to be altered, the Commission could then bring forward appropriate proposals.
The first report will be drafted by 30 April 2007, at the latest.
I do not think this amendment runs counter to the aim of the Commission' s proposal. It will facilitate monitoring of the implementation of the time change without undermining the principle.
At the end of the day we cannot but welcome the Commission' s proposal to make the change to summer time a permanent instrument of European policy by finally establishing the summer time arrangements for an unlimited period.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, once again I see that a far-reaching debate is raging about the pros and cons of summer time.
In the main, this is, as I see it, more of a philosophical discussion than a serious debate about a real policy of substance.
I do not therefore think that we should dwell on this matter for too long in this House; after all the Member States and also the public have already accepted the summer time arrangements to a large extent and they are acknowledged to be part of our calendar.
We should, therefore, really not rack our brains over this any longer.
In-depth research, as has also been called for in various quarters, would therefore in my opinion also be a waste of time and money.
Surely we have, as I see it, much more serious problems to cope with in Europe, such as the transport situation, enlargement and, at this very moment, BSE.
It is also obvious that there has to be agreement across the EU on when the clocks are changed because anything else - as has already been said - would lead to hopeless confusion.
I also think that the public would rightly question the point or otherwise of much EU legislation.
From the point of view of farmers - this has also already been said - repeatedly switching between summer and winter time is not exactly ideal for our farms, either as far as the animals are concerned or the actual work on the farm.
Nevertheless, I will say quite openly that there are more advantages than disadvantages in favour of changing the clocks and in favour of keeping the summer time arrangements as they currently stand.
We should leave the arrangements as they are and in my opinion prolong them indefinitely.
Consequently, I can say on behalf of my group that we do not wish to accept any amendments.
I have said this because I and my group are convinced that Europe has more serious problems and tasks to deal with.
Summer time is not the problem for our common European House.
Madam President, since the 1970s various Member States have applied the practice of switching to summer time.
The dates for starting and ending summer time were harmonised, finally, a few years ago so that they have been the same in all the Member States of the EU since 1996.
We have become used to the practice, as the previous speaker just said.
The proposal that has now been made is, in the opinion of our group, a good one, and our group supports it, and no more amendments to it are needed.
The main issue here is that summer time is applied in all Member States and that the date it starts and the date it ends remain uniform throughout the EU.
It is to be welcomed that the proposal states that matters connected with time zones and summer time provisions should be matters for Member States to decide.
Harmonisation is necessary only in connection with the practice of summer time starting and ending at the same time in each of the Member States.
A harmonised summer time will remove obstacles to the free movement of goods, services and people and promote the more effective realisation of the internal market.
Studies on the effects of summer time do not clearly reveal whether the effects, for example on agriculture, are positive or negative.
The greatest concerns are mainly to do with the welfare of animals and the working conditions of farmers.
The adoption of summer time has meant energy savings, even if they have only been very slight, according to reports.
Studies show that traffic safety has improved with the evenings staying light for longer.
Long, light evenings also mean opportunities for extended leisure time.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is now to be enshrined in law that summer time, which without a doubt has proved its worth, will begin on the last Sunday in March and end on the last Sunday in October throughout Europe.
These provisions are contained in the Commission proposal on summer time arrangements.
In addition, for the first time the directive is to remain in force indefinitely.
This is necessary and good.
The Commission is simply required to report on the impact of the directive after five years.
It is absolutely essential to the smooth functioning of European industry, particularly in the fields of transport, communication, tourism and IT, that it have a stable and long-term framework in which to plan.
Countless statements from industrial sectors show that this long-term stability of summer time dates is urgently necessary for the harmonious functioning of the internal market.
For economic and social reasons it is simply imperative that the summer time arrangements are clear, comprehensible and long-term, so that people can plan ahead and do not need to worry that one day this policy will suddenly be reversed.
The amendments which have been tabled by Parliament and the rapporteur are therefore, in my opinion, unhelpful, because they tend to create uncertainty rather than increase confidence.
A one-off review by the Commission in five years' time will suffice.
I would therefore urge Members to adopt the same stance in Parliament as was adopted in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, namely to confirm the Commission proposal as it stands and thus reject the amendments.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as the darkest time of the year approaches it is heartening to speak of summer, or even summer time.
However, I would like to focus attention on this ritual of changing the clocks every spring and autumn, the purpose of which may be controversial.
Farmers have told me that the welfare of dairy cattle is a priority, and their protection is also important for milk production.
The peace of mind of ruminants is already being disturbed by mad cow disease.
Additional stress should not now be caused them through having them deviate from their normal rhythm.
Cows do not adjust to a change of rhythm in the space of just a day or two.
It also causes problems for agriculture when during autumn threshing the morning dew ought to have disappeared according to the time by the clock, but, wonder of wonders, nature has not been following the directive.
An additional problem is that not only is the natural rhythm of animals disturbed, but people' s alertness, which is partly dependent on daylight, is also affected.
I think that the Commission' s arguments in its communication in favour of the necessity of summer time are by no means watertight.
In my opinion, whether or not the arrangement is continued should therefore be re-examined as soon as possible.
It is also questionable as to whether summer time should end just before November.
In snow-white Northern Europe the memory of summer has already cooled by then.
It would be reasonable to end summer time at the end of September, approximately six months after it starts.
I am by no means totally opposed to summer time, as it also has its advantages.
Nevertheless, I would ask the Commission to deliver a critical assessment of whether summer time is necessary in the future.
I certainly believe that we could get along without it, although I am not prepared to give up the warm summer weather.
But that is something politicians fortunately cannot make decisions about.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal we are discussing today is intended to extend the existing arrangements concerning the dates and times when the summer time period begins and ends, that is, on the last Sunday in March and the last Sunday in October at 1 o' clock in the morning Greenwich Mean Time.
Allow me, first of all, to congratulate your rapporteur, Mrs Honeyball, for her excellent work and the report she has produced.
You will have noted that, compared with the earlier directives the arrangements proposed are of indefinite duration.
The study ordered by the Commission in 1999, in accordance with the commitment it gave to the Council and European Parliament when the eighth directive was adopted, concludes that the arrangements are widely accepted both by the public and by the various sectors of activity.
However, it has become apparent that adopting the arrangements for a comparatively short period could cause difficulties for certain sectors.
For example, the transport sector in particular, but also other sectors of industry, requires stable, long-term planning on account of technical requirements connected with the preparation of transport timetables.
There are also the requirements of manufacturers of computers or electronic tachographs and producers of calendars and diaries.
Last but not least, the time-consuming and expensive repetition of legislative procedures at fairly close intervals at both Community and national level should be avoided.
While these are all reasons militating in favour of adopting open-ended arrangements, as a precaution the Commission has made provision for drawing up, no later than five years after the first year of application of the directive, a report based on information supplied by each Member State.
On this point I am pleased to note that the Commission's proposal has been favourably received by the European Parliament.
As regards the amendments tabled, the Commission can agree to Amendments Nos 3 and 4 since they aim at making the system more transparent and emphasise the precautionary principle.
As regards Amendment No 1, the Commission cannot accept the part of the amendment which obliges it to make a periodic report every five years, nor the reference to the enlargement process.
It can agree to make appropriate proposals on the basis of the conclusions of the report of 2007 referred to in Article 5.
Concerning Amendment No 2 to Recital 6a, the Commission cannot accept it for two reasons: on the one hand the scope of the investigations should not be restricted to a few requirements, and on the other hand, the proposed amendment to Recital 6a does not relate to a specific article of the directive.
Nevertheless, I would like to allay your concerns by saying that the Commission will of course instruct the Member States in good time, so that they can send in all necessary information and data related to the various sectors concerned by the issue.
By way of conclusion, I look forward to a rapid adoption of the proposed directive to ensure that no difficulties are encountered in the sectors concerned.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Clinical trials of medicines for human use
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0349/2000) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, concerning the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use [8878/1/2000 - C5-0424/2000 - 1997/0197(COD)] (rapporteur: Mr Liese)
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, medical research which is essential for patients must be approved quickly and with minimum bureaucracy, but at the same time ethical boundaries must be strictly respected and the subjects must be given maximum protection from abuse.
This was the European Parliament's objective in the legislative procedure on clinical trials, and I believe that today we can say that this objective has been achieved.
In an informal trilogue last week, the Council told us that it could accept most of the amendments tabled by the lead committee and that there were a number of places where it wanted further drafting changes, which we can make through compromise amendments tabled by four groups tomorrow.
For a long time, it seemed as though an agreement was going to be impossible.
Positions here in Parliament were very far apart, but they were equally divergent between the Member States and the different institutions.
We have now reached an agreement and I should like to thank all those involved for their part in achieving this: colleagues, the Commission, also the Council, and, in particular, the French Presidency.
The compromises which we have agreed greatly improve the common position from the European Parliament's point of view.
There is clarification that, as a general rule, consent in a clinical trial has to be given in writing.
There is clarification that interventions in the human germ line cannot be accepted.
There is recognition that non-commercial clinical trials, which industry either cannot or will not support, are nevertheless important and that rules need to be drawn up for them.
I am particularly pleased that we have struck a very good compromise on clinical tests on people who are unable to give legal consent themselves.
This issue of research involving those who are incapable of giving informed consent has caused heated controversy in the Member States, as well as here in Strasbourg in the Council of Europe.
Positions also differed amongst those involved in this legislative procedure.
Originally, the Council did not want to include any provision in the directive at all and wanted to leave it up to the Member States.
The European Parliament decided at first reading that clinical trials of this kind should only be permitted if it could be shown that each individual clinical trial was of direct benefit to each individual patient.
Now we have found a compromise, and I do not think that it is a compromise formula or a formulaic compromise; it is a proposal supported by the facts which provides a good solution to the problem, at least in this field.
As far as the direct benefit is concerned, investigators running clinical trials have to identify those cases where it is necessary to administer medical products and carry out the accompanying examinations in order to draw conclusions for future patients.
This is an important condition which we make here in our report.
Then a distinction has to be drawn between children and adults who are incapable of giving informed consent.
Children's metabolisms have particular characteristics, which is why medicines which are administered to children also need to be tested on children in clinical trials.
This is not the case in many areas at present.
Children are given medicines which have only been tested on adults, which means that children are badly treated.
The report aims to ensure that children in Europe receive better treatment in the future, that they suffer fewer side effects and are given the right doses.
We have drawn up very, very strict rules for this.
The rules, which were drawn up in committee, which the Council will accept and which Parliament will hopefully adopt tomorrow, are stricter than those laid down by the Council of Europe in its so-called Bioethics Convention, but the rules explicitly permit research, and we think that this research - when it is conducted in accordance with the rules - is extremely important.
In this respect I am therefore happy with the compromise which has been reached.
I am unhappy with two aspects.
Originally at the first reading we had demanded a shorter deadline for authorising clinical trials, and I had hoped that the deadline of 60 days, which is provided for in the common position, would be reduced somewhat, at least for the national authorities.
You see, I believe that it is perfectly acceptable to grant a rather longer deadline to an Ethics Committee, whose work is not the main job of the people who work there, but surely the authorities should be put under some pressure to start the work quickly.
Unfortunately, it was unlikely that a compromise would be reached on this basis in the Council, and I would therefore prefer to put the compromise struck with the Council to the vote rather than having a long conciliation procedure, with perhaps no agreement at the end.
The situation is the same for the issue of whether the principal investigator should be a doctor or whether other professions should also be authorised.
Parliament continues to want doctors to be the only ones to carry out clinical trials in all of the Member States because we believe that nurses and midwives should not be active in this sensitive area even if they have additional training, and neither should biologists or pharmaceutical chemists, who may only have worked in the laboratory and not have sufficient experience with patients.
I must concede, however, that the Council was not prepared to compromise further here either.
That is why we must, with a heavy heart, agree to this compromise.
If we accept it we will still have a directive which guarantees therapeutic progress and which does not just leave the protection of patients in Europe as it is but improves it, and that is why I would plead in favour of this compromise.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive, before us today for the second time, falls within the delicate context of international competition in pharmaceutical research and major health challenges, particularly in paediatric medicine. It allows us to resolve the problem of clinical trials being held simultaneously in several Member States and at several locations.
The common position forwarded to us by the Council is some improvement on the Commission' s proposal and especially on Parliament' s first reading. There are several points we can agree with.
Thus, the principle selected for starting a clinical trial is tacit authorisation from both the Ethics Committee and the competent authorities in the Member States. The opinion of the Ethics Committee is determinant as it comes first and the absence of a negative opinion in fact means the trial can begin immediately without loss of time.
Finally, we agree with the Council' s proposals on labelling medicines used in such trials.
On the other hand, some other points could be improved and I am glad the Council is prepared, as I understand it, to make a number of compromises.
I do not think there can be any question of compromise on the first point, which I consider essential.
The consent of persons taking part in a clinical trial must necessarily be given in writing and if that is not possible, for example in case of temporary inability to write, a witness must be present when consent is received.
Secondly, consent must be informed, which means, in particular, that the person taking part must have been informed of the conditions under which the trial is to be conducted, the potential risks that he runs and his unrestricted right to withdraw from the trial at any time.
Finally - and I think this point is fundamental - we must ensure that the greatest possible protection is guaranteed to those who are not in a position to give their consent: the weakest, children and legally incapacitated adults.
They must be able to expect direct benefit from the clinical trial.
In particular, the opinion of minors must at least be listened to because account must be taken of their clinical and psychological characteristics.
It seems to me right not to include adults incapable of giving consent in clinical trials that could be carried out on adults who are capable.
Finally, adults incapable of giving consent should only participate in trials that relate to the condition affecting them and causing their incapacity.
So, although there are still some points of disagreement with the Council, I would like to remind you that the result we are seeking to obtain through the adoption of this directive is the outcome of lengthy and fruitful compromise negotiations between Mr Liese, our rapporteur, whom I thank and congratulate on his inclusive and constructive approach, and the Council, which has proved cooperative and open to the amendments adopted at second reading in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
So after what Mr Liese has just told us, I am very hopeful that we will rapidly reach an agreement allowing us to avoid a long conciliation that would be not very productive in the end.
Madam President, I would like to join Mrs Patrie in warmly thanking our rapporteur, Mr Liese, for all his efforts to find a consensus.
We are dealing with a particularly important directive here.
It may contribute to improving clinical research in Europe and hence the welfare of millions of sick people.
The sector is sensitive.
It is a matter of scientific progress, but also ethics and morals: in short, value judgments.
Since the first reading, Parliament has concentrated on the protection of people incapable of giving informed consent to these clinical trials: children and adults with a mental handicap.
These groups must remain within the scope of the directive.
Excluding them would mean obstructing research into conditions specifically affecting them.
In some cases scientific and experimental research is their only hope.
Besides, we know that empirically dividing the adult dose to treat children has already led to tragedy in the past.
Then there is the opposite extreme, children not treated because, although the specific medicine to cure them exists, it has not been tested for them.
So we want these groups to benefit from advances in research, while laying down conditions for these trials which are as severe and strict as possible.
That is the aim of Amendments Nos 36 and 37 in particular: full and objective information, adapted to children - a point I consider very important; informed written consent from parents or legal representatives; exclusion of any financial advantage; control of protocol by ethics committees.
In these amendments we also refer, not once but twice, to the fact that the interests of the patient are always more important than those of science and society.
Children and disabled people are fragile people who need maximum protection.
But there must be no ban: these patients must not be shut out beyond the gates of hope research represents for them, sometimes the last thread still linking them to life.
One more word, on another point I consider highly important, I mean Amendment No 30 which concerns non-commercial clinical trials.
It is crucial that the directive take account of this academic research.
Nor must it be penalised.
It is especially beneficial to the patients concerned.
I am particularly thinking of cancer research, but there are many others.
Madam President, I am pleased that so many colleagues have emphasised how important it is to us - and this is, I believe, the central point in this debate - to protect particularly vulnerable groups of people, namely children and those who are unable to give informed consent, and to ensure that no research is carried out which is useful to others unless it is also of direct benefit to them.
I should, however, also like to remind you that it was the Green Group which made this proposal at the first reading, in the face of much resistance - including, I am afraid, from the current rapporteur. We did so in an amendment tabled at the time which many colleagues here supported and which provided that no research should be carried out on those unable to give written consent unless it was of direct benefit to them.
It was only, in my view, this amendment, tabled by us, that made this important debate possible.
I should like to stress this once more: I am glad that the rapporteur has given ground on this point because it has allowed us to reach what I believe is a very good compromise.
This compromise, which of course can be further improved upon by each Member State, constitutes a minimum standard, to ensure that we do not have a kind of ethical dumping in the European Union and to avoid a situation where it is possible to carry out research on those unable to give informed consent in one Member State and not in others.
I should also like to stress once more that this compromise goes beyond the proposals in the Council of Europe's Bioethics Convention, because we have much greater protection for patients, with a much stronger link to their own interests, for example, consent given by a representative can be revoked at any time.
I am also pleased, however, that we have succeeded in clamping down on germ-line gene therapy.
It must be quite clear that clinical research which seeks to introduce germ-line manipulation by the back door must not be possible, because this would be a violation of human dignity.
That is why I believe that this compromise is very good, particularly when you consider that the Member States are able to introduce even stricter rules.
Through this compromise we are making it clear that there must be no ethical dumping at European level and that there must be no research which is of benefit to outsiders on those unable to give informed consent.
Finally, I should like to cordially request that the Council re-examine our amendment on placebos.
Here, as you know, we have proposed that research involving placebos should only take place if it can be proved that there is no other way of monitoring effectiveness, because we wish to avoid research taking place if there is no direct benefit, but at the same time we wish to enable research to happen.
That is why we made this proposal, and I should like to ask the French Presidency to kindly make a note to answer this question.
Madam President, health is the most precious of gifts and everything must be done to maintain and restore it.
That is why medical science should be given every possible means of properly protecting individual and public health.
Unfortunately, although the right measures are taken, they are unable to prevent new risks and diseases from emerging which the drugs available are unable to treat, and the medical community is obliged to find modern, more effective ways of meeting these challenges.
Clinical trials are a necessary step in this direction, provided that they are conducted in a way which safeguards the dignity and the mental and physical welfare of the subjects.
Current differences between the laws, regulations and administrative provisions in the Member States are creating obstacles to and competition between pharmaceutical companies in their bid to make new drugs quickly available to patients.
Hence the need for harmonisation at European level.
Because it recognises the importance of this directive, the European Parliament has endeavoured to overcome its differences rather than hold up the legislative process, focusing on the following safety conditions for clinical trials: the written consent of the subjects to the clinical trial, the consent of the guardian or an authority provided for by law and of the treating doctor to the participation of persons with impaired understanding or a mental disorder which prevents them from giving their consent, the criterion being that the expected benefits of the drug being tested must outweigh any side effects. The participation of children in clinical trials must be regulated properly because it is a particularly sensitive issue.
Finally, and here I am dissatisfied with the Council's compromise proposals, I think that the main investigator during clinical trails should be a doctor, because only a doctor has the knowledge and experience needed in order to evaluate the benefits and deal with any side effects or risks which arise during the clinical trial.
Of course, the team conducting the clinical trial may include other specialists with the relevant qualifications.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Liese, on his report and thank him for his efforts to reach a compromise.
Madam President, I want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Liese, and congratulate him on the excellent report he has presented, as well as the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the work done.
The Commission would be happy if, after so much effort on the part of those concerned, we could achieve harmonisation, at Community level, of the requirements for conducting clinical trials.
Indeed, this is particularly important for the protection of public health.
As you know, since 1965 Community legislation on pharmaceuticals has required medicines to obtain marketing authorisation before being put on sale.
Authorisation is only granted if three fundamental criteria are met: quality, safety and effectiveness.
This requirement responds to two essential objectives: the protection of public health and freedom of movement.
Conducting clinical trials, in accordance with the principles of good clinical practice, makes it possible to test the effectiveness and safety of medicines.
Good clinical practice has been the subject of international harmonisation, in the form of guidelines adopted by the International Harmonisation Conference involving representatives of the European Union, the United States and Japan.
However, as these guidelines are not legally binding, they are applied very differently in the various Member States.
This involves difficulties both for participants in clinical trials and industrialists who want to conduct such trials in the European Union.
That is what led the Commission to propose, in September 1997, a legislative framework, based on Article 95 of the Treaty, with the aim of harmonising the procedures applying to clinical trials in the European Union.
The Commission modified its proposal in April 1999 to take account of the opinion of the European Parliament.
The common position of the Council, adopted in July 2000, is essentially based on the Commission' s amended proposal and incorporates most of the amendments suggested by the European Parliament and accepted by the Commission, which entirely appreciates the European Parliament' s concern in tabling amendments largely aimed at finalising the protection of the individuals taking part in clinical trials, especially children and adults incapable of giving consent.
Where it is essential for these groups to have medicines specially adapted to them, the challenge is to be able to carry out trials whilst ensuring their protection.
In-depth work, carried out in full cooperation between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, has made it possible to draft a compromise which takes account of all the points raised and indicates where positions occasionally diverge.
The Commission can accept all the compromise amendments. In fact, they meet the Commission' s objectives, that is, the protection of public health in the eyes of those taking part in clinical trials, the need to facilitate the establishment of clinical trials within the European Union, and the need for the pharmaceutical industry to be competitive internationally.
In conclusion, the Commission can accept compromise Amendments Nos 28 to 43.
It can also accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 21, 23 and 24.
The Commission can also accept Amendments Nos 5, 11, 15, 17, 25, 26 and 27, in principle, but on the other hand, it cannot accept Amendments Nos 4, 18, 20 and 22.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Madam President, I am pleased to hear the Commission say that in principle it can accept Amendment No 25.
But I was keen to hear whether the Council could accept it, if that were perhaps possible.
The Council clearly has no intention of answering you, Mrs Breyer.
I suppose you could contact the representative outside the House between now and 12.30 p.m. tomorrow, as the vote is taking place tomorrow.
Public health programmes
The next item is the report (A5-0377/2000) by Mr Trakatellis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, concerning the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council extending certain programmes of Community action in the field of public health adopted by Decisions 645/96/EC, 646/96/EC, 647/96/EC, 102/97/EC, 1400/97/EC and 1296/1999/EC and amending those Decisions [COM(2000)0448 - C5-0400/2000 - 2000/0192(COD)].
Madam President, I should like to start by saying that I am most dissatisfied with the Commission for its unwarranted delay in submitting the proposal to extend the six public health action plans to Parliament.
They include the action plan to combat cancer, the programme of action for the prevention of AIDS, the programme of action for the prevention of drug dependence and the action plan to promote health and, if they are suspended, it will mean an end to the projects and the work being carried out by the networks which have been set up.
The codecision procedure to implement the new public health action plans for 2001-2006 cannot be completed by 12 December 2000, when 4 out of the 6 programmes expire, which is why we urgently need to agree to their being extended, initially by one year and then by a second year if the new action programme has not yet entered into force.
This being the case, I agree with the rapporteur's proposal to speed up the procedures and avoid two readings by reaching an agreement with the Council and the Commission on the budget lines in question.
I trust that we shall not have to deal again with this sort of delay in such vital areas as public health in the future.
Madam President, may I start by pointing out that the programmes which it is proposed to extend, four programmes for two years' training and two programmes for one year's training, are directly related to the new health programme which is currently being discussed in the Committee on the Environment.
Unfortunately, the new programme, which will run from 2001 to 2006, is still not ready and is not expected to enter into force for some time.
Consequently, the request for an extension to the previous programmes - important programmes on cancer, AIDS, diseases such as pollution-related diseases or the monitoring of infectious diseases, i.e. programmes which are of tremendous significance to public health in general - was a logical step.
If they are not extended, we shall have a huge gap in public health issues and programmes.
We must not forget that the essence of the acquis communautaire from these programmes needs to be passed on to the new health programmes currently being drawn up and it is therefore only right that we extend them.
What we have agreed with the Council and the Commission and, of course, with Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, so as to avoid a second reading and allow these programmes to continue without a break, thereby avoiding any gaps, is to extend the four programmes by two years, as the Commission has requested; however, the money will only be released a year at a time, so that if the new health programme is approved and enters into force in the meantime, there will be no need for an extension and the money can be used for the second year.
If, of course, the new programme has not yet begun, which I do not believe will be the case, then we shall, of course, carry on and use the money for the second year.
So that is what we have agreed; we have agreed that the two programmes which expire in December 2001 will be extended for one year and we have also agreed on the amount, which is the same, in fact it is slightly less than the amount which the European Commission originally requested.
So we have, I think, proceeded very quickly and with excellent cooperation.
I would even go so far as to say that we may well have inaugurated a new modus operandi for codecision issues.
Instead of waiting for conciliation, which takes a very long time, we have, to all intents and purposes, dealt with the conciliation in advance, a method which I would recommend to the European Commission, the Council and the parliamentary committees.
What a good idea to be able to prepare the way, to proceed as far down the line as possible, to be so close that, even if we need a second reading, we are already within a hair's breadth of a decision.
I should, of course, like to thank all my colleagues, and the other groups, and of course I should like to thank my colleagues in the Committee on the Environment, because we had a valuable convergence of opinion and were able to proceed quickly so as to avoid any gaps in the public health sector.
I trust that we shall proceed in the same manner and will use the same method for the new health programme, so that we really can make headway on these issues, and that the European integration which we talk of, constantly telling ourselves that it is not something abstract, is not the sort of integration which only applies to external relations and defence issues.
It is a series of convergences.
It is impossible to conceive of a unified European Union without convergence in the health sector and in the education and other sectors.
So I feel that, slowly but surely, we are making headway.
Of course, we know that the health sector is still the responsibility of the Member States, but the Treaties do, of course, give the European Commission a great deal of responsibility for the public health of European citizens.
So we are moving in the right direction.
I see these programmes as the first signs of convergence, a convergence which should be a straightforward task, because European citizens stand to gain a great deal from action in the public health sector.
Madam President, let me say right away that we shall be voting in favour of the Trakatellis report, but, once again, we see dysfunction in the European Union, because we are urgently adopting a link between two programmes, as if it were a surprise that programmes supposed to end in the year 2000, actually do end in the year 2000.
I agree with Mr Trakatellis: you cannot play games with patients' health when they expect our help, or with non-governmental organisations which need these Community budgets to deliver the health policies on the ground.
In general, it is high time the Member States agreed to give the European Union a greater margin of manoeuvre and a more substantial budget, on a legitimately supranational issue: diseases know no frontiers.
Above all, a framework programme should not forget the specific actions on the pretext of refocusing.
For example, even if the fight against AIDS is not fashionable, it still needs to be a priority because this tragic disease remains very present, particularly in the future candidate countries.
In conclusion, we hold that the goal of a future European strategy must be the incorporation of health issues into all the other Community policies, so as to put an end to current anomalies, like allocating 50 million euros to the fight against cancer while subsidising the tobacco industry to the tune of one billion!
Madam President, our group supports Mr Trakatellis' s very well-produced report and also the work of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
We believe that, as Mr Trakatellis very effectively pointed out, we need to make arrangements in order to move ahead with the implementation of programmes in progress.
Since all of Europe' s citizens are being affected by common problems relating to food, work, and various issues, it makes sense for there to be common European programmes which are becoming increasingly important in the joint combating, prevention, awareness and action in relation to these issues.
It is therefore desirable that the efforts dedicated to these matters should increase.
It is precisely on this issue that we believe there is a notable lack of direction in the European Union, in the Council and the Commission, which, with the budgetary cuts - not wanting to reach the ceiling of 1.27% which the regulations in force currently allow - is harming actions such as these at a time when coordination between the different Member States is becoming increasingly important.
We also agree with the need stated in Mr Trakatellis' s report to balance the different programmes and actions which are underway.
Furthermore, we must take account of the fact that prevention and promotion as well as monitoring are all going to be increasingly important and therefore they should be given more resources and a higher profile.
Lastly, we believe that we should try to ensure that, in the future, situations such as this do not recur, with a lack of speed on the part of the Commission in providing for the renewal of all actions on time.
This is a worrying state of affairs, which has caused concern amongst the many organisations involved and the problem should be resolved once and for all.
Madam President, I certainly support the extension of the Community health programmes until 31 December 2002.
The continuation of certain public health programmes until the end of 2002 will cost EUR 80 million.
This will mean that Community action can be taken in the area of health promotion, information, education and training, the combat cancer programme, the programme for Community action for the prevention of AIDS and certain other communicable diseases, and the prevention of drug dependence.
I believe that the European institutions, primarily the European Commission and Parliament, should be given broader powers to promote the health programmes within the European Union.
Certainly, the European Community action programme for the prevention of AIDS has done much to reduce the number of people contracting this awful disease within the European Union.
Indeed, I intend to play a central and active role in ensuring that increased funds will be made available for cancer research within the Union.
It is imperative that this budget is increased so that we can ultimately find out the cause of cancer and cure those who contract it.
The prevention of drug dependence programmes must also be focused not only on black spots, but across many other areas within the European Union.
International organisations such as Europol have estimated that the importation of drugs into the Union is actually increasing.
So the battle to defeat international drug trafficking and to defeat the importation of drugs into the Union is still a very real challenge for the years ahead.
The Irish Government runs a very successful programme called "The Young People Facilities and Services Fund" which supports the development of youth facilities and services in disadvantaged areas.
It targets those areas experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, significant drug problems.
This is an area that can be looked at in the context of the new Community health programme which is due to come on stream.
I commend the rapporteur and the report.
Madam President, subsequent to the Trakatellis report on the extension of the existing European public health programmes, I wish to express my concern at the direction in which European policy in the field of public health is developing.
We can read the basic principles for European public health policy in Article 152 of the Treaty of Amsterdam: "Community action, which shall complement national policies. (...). Such action shall cover the fight against the major health scourges."
I would also like to refer to the principle of subsidiarity, which stipulates that non cross-border tasks should be performed by the Member States. As I see it though, efforts have been made recently to raise the profile of public health as a relevant and fundamental topic for Europe, although this development is at odds with the Treaty.
European public health policy only comes into play if there is a cross-border issue involved or if Member States cannot implement a particular task in isolation.
Relevant examples include legislation concerning cross-border trade in human organs, tissue and blood, and the programme for orphan drugs.
Since the Member States need each other where the aforementioned examples are concerned, I am in favour of a common European approach in such cases.
There is no need for this when it comes to tackling problems such as cancer, AIDS and drug addiction.
A European approach does not lend a great deal of added value over and above the efforts undertaken by the Member States.
Certainly, when it comes to the provision of information and raising awareness, action at national level is to be preferred over that at European level.
The European Union could do more in the way of raising health standards for the candidate countries, where even basic health care is lacking.
In addition, relatively straightforward illnesses cannot be treated owing to lack of funds and other resources.
I am also perturbed by the fact that the various healthcare systems of the European Union will come up for discussion in new proposals soon to be on the agenda.
It is possible that national systems will be called into question in the process, or even adversely affected in the future, which I think would be an undesirable development.
To summarise, Madam President, I must say the developments in the public health sector in the European Union go too far for my liking.
Public health is national policy and should stay that way.
I therefore do not support public health programmes that can be used as a stepping stone to erode national policy, when the programmes currently on the table scarcely provide anything over and above what the Member States themselves can offer.
I thank Parliament, particularly the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and, above all, the rapporteur, Mr Trakatellis, for the great efforts made to ensure that this proposal can be adopted in one reading and in record time.
This is an example of how much can be achieved when all the institutions work well together.
The text being agreed today on the extension of six public health programmes reflects what has been informally agreed between the institutions.
The Commission can therefore accept all the amendments put forward by Mr Trakatellis.
I understand that the Council has also signalled its agreement in principle.
The extension is important for two reasons.
First, it will enable some important public health activities to continue and to fulfil their objectives.
Second, it provides us with the necessary breathing space in which we can take forward the discussions on our proposed new public health programme.
Let me just reassure you about one thing. The work to be carried out in the extended programmes, and indeed all current health programmes, will be geared towards preparing some of the key actions foreseen by the new programme.
Within the framework of the individual programme decisions, their work programmes will be adapted to these needs.
As far as the text in front of you is concerned, I now hope that once it is voted by Parliament the decision will be adopted by the Health Council on 14 December.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Standing of victims in criminal procedure
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0355/2000) by Mrs Cerdeira Morterero, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the Portuguese Republic with a view to adopting a Council Framework Decision on the standing of victims in criminal procedure [9650/2000 - C5-0392/00 - 2000/0813 (CNS)].
Mr President, I would like to begin my intervention by welcoming the initiative by the Portuguese Presidency, which has continued - quite rightly, in my opinion - with the French Presidency.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we live in a society in which there are ever-greater cross-border movements. They are of truly massive proportions and have never been seen before in any era of history.
In this matter, we simply have to remember, for example, that in 1997, within the European Union, more than 200 million people crossed the borders of their State of residence into the territory of other Member States.
The European Union and the creation of the single market in turn involve the creation of an internal area without borders in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital must be guaranteed within the territory of the Member States, as laid down in Article 14 of the European Community Treaty.
All of these factors, acting separately, but multiplying their effects when acting together, have meant that every day millions of people quite simply cross the borders of their State of residence into another State of the European Union, whether to live, to work or just to travel.
This fact, whose economic and political consequences will be immeasurable in the medium and long term, nevertheless has certain negative implications for the citizens who make this move. One of these is the risk of becoming a victim of crime, both inside and outside the territory of their State of residence, ranging from personal robbery to, on occasions, terrorist crimes, which still cause cruel and inhuman damage in certain Member States of the European Union.
Nevertheless, incredibly, the European Union has so far been incapable of creating appropriate formulae for fighting, in a united fashion, this scourge which knows no national borders because in judicial terms, the Member States continue to be shut off behind 15 different national borders.
In the European Union, there is currently the paradox that the abolition of internal borders for the free movement of goods, people, services and capital has to live side by side with the maintenance of 15 national borders in the fields of police and criminal justice, which the Member States are making difficult to remove.
This situation has unjustifiable consequences for those European citizens who move freely within the territory of the European Union.
In the unfortunate circumstance that someone is a victim of a crime in a State other than their usual State of residence, that citizen has to suffer the bad experience of an unacceptable lack of protection, which is due to the inability of the States to build a genuine European judicial area.
All victims of crime, regardless of their place of residence or nationality, must therefore be guaranteed respect for their rights and the certainty that they will receive the same treatment and speedy and sure compensation that all human beings deserve by virtue of the simple fact that they are human beings.
This treatment should be received in any Member State in which a person is a victim of a crime.
It is therefore essential that we create a genuine statute for the victims of crime, a common statute for all the Member States.
The main objective of this initiative is to guarantee a minimum of compensation for victims in all Member States, guaranteeing them at least a common minimum.
By the same token, the fact needs to be pointed out that European criminal legislation in the Member States has always concentrated its attention and efforts on the criminal, both in terms of the prevention of crime and in terms of programmes and measures for rehabilitation directed at criminals.
This is the first initiative that gives special attention and importance to the victim.
This initiative could be called innovative and, up to a point, revolutionary in terms of the way in which victims are treated.
It is, without doubt, a new element in the European judicial system, in which, for the first time, victims have their own recognised judicial status and not, as has been the case until now, one which is derived from the crime.
In many cases, the victim is the object of a crime in the territory of a Member State other than their usual State of residence, which means that their problems and suffering are exacerbated and complicated by a whole range of circumstances which are negative, but common and constant, in the treatment of victims: a lack of communication owing to ignorance of the language, a lack of information, loneliness, a lack of protection in certain areas in which each State has preserved its own legal system.
Therefore, and with the aim of being able to respond adequately to the needs of this type of victim, international standards have also been created which take account of the defence of victims' rights and interests.
I wish to highlight just two aspects of this initiative at the moment: European Convention No 116 of the Council of Europe of 24 November 1983 on the compensation of victims of violent crimes.
I would like to highlight that, despite its importance and the fact that it is a mandatory point of reference in Europe, the Convention has still not been ratified, as of 18 September 2000, by the following Member States of the European Union: Austria, Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Another international initiative is the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power adopted by General Assembly Resolution 40/34 on 29 November 1985.
Ladies and gentlemen, because of what I have said previously, and in accordance with the provisions of Article 2(4) of the European Union Treaty, which lays down that one of the objectives of the Union is to maintain and develop the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice in which the free movement of persons is guaranteed, we must ensure that this area of freedom, security and justice guarantees genuine access to justice so that the European public can benefit from suitable legal protection in any part of the Union.
For this reason, the Citizens' Europe will not make sense unless we first adopt, amongst others, the necessary measures to improve and also take account of the rights of victims of crime, aimed in a global sense at safeguarding all their rights and interests, on the one hand, and, from a Community point of view, at harmonising the legislation of the 15 Member States on the other.
Everybody, including the nationals of third countries who have been victims of a crime in any State of the European Union, must receive the same minimum level of treatment.
The European Union cannot accept the idea that people might receive different treatment depending on the State in which they have been a victim of crime or on their nationality.
This discrimination is patently quite unacceptable.
Finally, the initiative is an important step forward in the creation of a European legal area, albeit partial and limited, but it responds to the real needs of an enormous number of European citizens who, until now, have been largely unprotected on becoming victims of crime outside their usual country of residence.
With regard to the positive aspects of this initiative, I would like to highlight the definition of the concept of the victim and the adoption of measures which are intrinsically connected to the global attention which must be paid to them.
For all these reasons, the majority of the amendments which are included in this report have been produced with the aim of respecting and recognising the rights of people who have been victims of crime, and of taking account of their interests and particular circumstances.
To sum up, anyone who has been the victim of a crime must be guaranteed the same minimum level of treatment, their dignity should be protected, they should be guaranteed their rights to give and receive information, they should have access to justice and they should be granted compensation for the damage suffered immediately, effectively and in full.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
(DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two questions about this proposal played a decisive role in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
The first question was to what extent there actually was a legal basis for this proposal.
As rapporteur, I took the view that the undertaking proposed to us here was admittedly a laudable one, but that, unfortunately, it was simply the case that within the European Union and also in relation to the Member States there were relatively clear rules about who had which competences.
As rapporteur, my opinion is that issues relating to organising criminal prosecution and procedural criminal law do not fall within the competence of the Treaty on European Union and that these matters should be dealt with by the Member States.
Unfortunately, the Committee did not go along with my proposal in this specific case, but, as rapporteur, I should nevertheless like to make this opinion known.
The second aspect which played a certain part was the issue of evidence recorded on video.
You may remember the debate on the so-called Di Pietro report, which was held here in this House some time ago.
At the time, this was already a highly controversial matter.
The Committee on Legal Affairs agreed with the rapporteur's view that this recorded evidence was not a suitable instrument in a State under the rule of law and therefore deleted video recordings from the relevant paragraph of the article concerned.
I would ask that this also be taken into account here in further discussions.
Otherwise the proposal is very much to be welcomed.
It would only have been better if it had been dealt with where it belongs, namely in the domain of the national legislator, who could decide all these matters in an exemplary fashion.
Not everything needs to be regulated at European level; if it did an all-embracing competence would have been inserted in the Treaty.
But this was not done.
That is why we should perhaps consider once again whether it is right for us to vote in favour of this initiative.
Mr President, I think it is extremely important that a number of minimum rights are indeed to be safeguarded for victims, in a manner which transcends national boundaries.
That is what this report stands for.
We submitted an opinion to the committee responsible on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
It was very important in our view for the report to reflect the specific situation of women, but also that of other vulnerable victims.
When I say other vulnerable victims I am thinking, for example, of minors and children, but the list need not end there.
There are other groups in our society that are very vulnerable when it comes to violence.
I have in mind those of a different sexual orientation. I am also thinking of migrants and so on, who are, of course, particularly vulnerable victims.
What did we request for this group of people?
Firstly, we said that people who are very vulnerable must be given absolute respect.
I am thinking, for example, of the specific situation of women and children who fall victim to sexual violence or physical violence in the home.
It is very important for them that if their case comes to court, this really must be able to take place behind closed doors, so that minimum publicity is given to the victims, who are usually ashamed of the fact that they are victims.
Because of course, that is what it has come to in our society.
I feel, for example, that it is very important for physically abused women to have access to information everywhere on where they can go, where they can find suitable accommodation and stay at a secret address.
It is also essential for the police and the magistrature to receive special training.
I was very actively involved in this issue in my own country, when I was a member of the government.
I noticed how ill-prepared and equipped people in these agencies are - i.e. both the police and the magistrature - when it comes to treating people who are victims of sexual violence, for example, with respect, to questioning them, or providing a separate room for them, for example for women who have been raped and need to be examined. They should not be cross-examining these people in a room which is a general thoroughfare.
It is absolutely imperative for certain measures to be put in place for this group of people, these specific victims.
The report answers this need.
I am extremely grateful that the Commission has adopted the amendments tabled by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities and we will therefore support the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report before us today is the result of an initiative by the Portuguese Presidency and is part of a range of measures designed to promote the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice, in order to provide a useful response to the everyday concerns of the European public.
Often, when we address issues of justice, we devote too much time to the penal system, to prisons, to crime-fighting forces, to criminal codes and even to the claims of those in the legal profession.
It may be that we have devoted too little time to the victims, who are often the weakest members of society.
This initiative targets three basic aspects: the victim' s right to information, access to justice and their right to compensation for damages.
The priority of this proposal for a framework decision is to promote the protection and effectiveness of victims' rights in this process, specifically with regard to simplifying access to the law, to the courts and to legal information as well as to promote and protect victims' rights in the field of compensation for loss and damages.
It is crucial that there should be a legal instrument that enables national legislation in the various Member States on the victim' s status to be harmonised.
There are certainly various aspects which need to be improved and even put right, but what is important is that we vote for this framework decision, which is quite well-balanced.
Indeed, we cannot talk seriously about a Citizens' Europe unless we take account of victims' rights.
Amongst these victims, special attention should be paid, as Mrs Smet has already pointed out, to certain categories of victims, such as minors, foreigners, victims of sexual attacks and victims of terrorist acts.
At the same time, special training should be provided for the professionals whose task it is to come into direct contact with victims.
The necessary measures to ensure that the victims can re-establish their normal lives should also be provided, not only in financial terms, but also so that they may benefit, should it prove necessary, from legal, psychological or medical assistance or help from the social services.
Finally, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Cerdeira Morterero, on her work and on the numerous improvements that she implemented in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs. I also wish to express my satisfaction at the improvements resulting from the reports by Mrs Smet and Mr Lehne.
We were able to work together in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and I wish to emphasise this fact and express my gratitude for it.
I only wish it had been possible to achieve the same consensus in Parliament.
The few proposals for amendments that we tabled mainly concern issues of legal rigour and our understanding that victim support services do not have to be exclusively or even preferably run by the public sector. Often, in services that wish to have a human face, the best experiences are provided by institutions of social solidarity and other non-governmental organisations.
Overall, the PPE-DE welcomes Mrs Cerdeira Morterero' s report, for which we have already voted in committee.
Mr President, I too would like to stress the importance of the Portuguese legislative initiative contained in Mrs Cerdeira Morterero' s report, which has been put before Parliament.
It is important for a number of reasons: firstly, because we are making headway in the construction of the area of freedom, security and justice, in accordance with the Tampere programme, a programme which is difficult to put into practice because of the clash with the numerous State regulations and the nations' reluctance.
Secondly, it is important because this vote has filled a gap, a gap which means there is unacceptable prejudice against European citizens, who travel freely through Union territory but, when they become victims of a crime, come up against the barriers of different legal systems, difficult to penetrate from every viewpoint, which penalise them further while favouring the offenders.
Finally, this vote is important because Parliament has the opportunity to make significant improvements to the legislative proposal, precisely those suggested in Mrs Cerdeira Morterero' s excellent report and supported by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
However, the most significant aspect, in my opinion, is that people are finally becoming aware, at Union and other levels, of the need to change opinion on State intervention with regard to crimes.
Until now, on the basis of the just principle according to which citizens should be prevented from administering justice themselves, we have restricted ourselves to giving the State the monopoly on punishing the guilty, but we have forgotten that this is not the only task of the State: wherever in the world victims call for justice, we all know what they are asking for, even when the legal systems are completely different: they are calling for amends for a wrong which would otherwise be unacceptable, and the State, which has the task of ensuring citizens' safety, when it is has not been able to protect them, must give all the help possible to victims, thus also showing that the Community takes the side of the party who has suffered the wrong and that the Community therefore condemns the offence and the offender.
By adopting this report, the European Union is giving an initial response to a call for justice which has hitherto been disregarded.
Mr President, first and foremost I would like to congratulate Mrs Cerdeira on her speech and her report.
Victims must not be victims twice over, first of crime, and subsequently of the system.
The victim' s most important right in the course of legal proceedings is therefore the right to be heard during the session.
This is also of fundamental importance.
It is quoted in many international documents on victims of crimes and it is essential for the victim to be given access to their own lawsuit.
It is also in the interests of the victim for the case to be brought to a swift conclusion, since slow proceedings can lead to the person feeling an ever worse sense of victimisation a second time round.
Also, victims of sex crimes should no longer be forced to repeatedly give evidence.
I also think video links could prove very useful when dealing with children who have been the victim of sexual abuse.
So the debate on this issue is set to continue.
It is extremely important for specialised assistance to be provided, as Mrs Smet indicated, irrespective of the nature of the crime.
It is important, in this context, for a number of prejudices surrounding this issue to be dispelled; for example the amount of importance attached to certain forms of crime varies from country to country.
In addition, it has been ascertained that when victims report crimes they are subjected to discriminatory behaviour.
Member States should be compelled to set up special police units for victims of crime.
What we also need is a legal basis and harmonisation of measures for the protection of victims.
The study carried out by An Weghers within the framework of the Grotius programme provides the necessary basic information to this end.
The useful information available in certain Member States concerning existing measures could play an important part in the harmonisation of a common package of measures.
An initiative of this kind would also be a first step in the direction of crime prevention.
But in view of the fact that organised cross-border crime is on the increase, the initiative would have to lead to a common prevention programme at European and international level.
Until such time as a harmonised instrument for cross-border protection of victims is in place, it is incumbent on the Member States and the candidate countries, in cooperation with the NGOs, to improve the level of protection for victims, and where appropriate, examine under what conditions the victim is entitled to support for their return to their country of origin, or temporary right of residence, in the way that Belgium accords a status to victims of trafficking in human beings, for example.
Compensation for the victim must take precedence over the payment of the fine and legal costs to the State.
The Member States must ensure that the mediators come from all walks of life, men as well as women, and that they have a thorough understanding of the local culture and communities.
It is also important in this context, for the next of kin, i.e. the family of the victim, to be apprised of the facts in a discreet and professional manner, should they so wish, and for them to be able to rely on receiving the necessary support and not have to learn everything from the press.
Mr President, I support the extremely urgent Portuguese initiative promoting the legal protection of victims during criminal proceedings.
The rapporteur - whom I congratulate - did well to highlight the unacceptable paradox of, on the one hand, a Europe without borders where goods and people move freely, a Europe which is on the point of monetary union, a financial and economic union, and, on the other hand, a Europe of 15 criminal law systems, all completely different.
On the one hand, there are a potential 350 million people who are encouraged to travel and work in the name of the united Europe, but if they fall victim to a crime, a wrong-doing, Europe vanishes, the much-lauded European citizenship vanishes, the citizen becomes a person without rights who has to reckon with a foreign, often hostile State which gives out no information, creates a multitude of problems and does not pay damages where they are due.
How many of us Members of Parliament are requested to ask questions on cases of this kind? However, the Commission duly replies to us that it cannot go into the matter of national legal systems, even when obvious injustices occur.
Just in recent months two cases have been referred to me.
The first is the case of two Italian Alitalia pilots, Alberto Nassetti and Pierpaolo Racchetti, who died in France following an accident, in unexplained circumstances, during a test flight of an aeroplane.
Six years have gone by and, beset by hundreds of problems and prohibitive legal costs, their families are still waiting for justice, they are waiting to know the cause of these deaths and who, if any, the responsible parties are.
The second case involves a Greek student, Mikis Mantakas, killed around 25 years ago in Rome, following a terrorist attack carried out by the Red Brigades.
The guilty party, Arturo Lojacono, was identified and sentenced, but sought refuge abroad.
Italy has repeatedly requested the extradition of this multiple murderer from France, where Mr Lojacono lives freely, so that he can finally serve his time.
Well, we are still waiting for a reply.
So, together with the euro, I also welcome the advent of the statute for the victims of crime, so that a genuine European area of justice can be built.
Mr President, the initiative to strengthen the standing of victims of crime is a real success story.
In the beginning, most people were against it.
Now, however, most of us agree, and that, I think, is a good thing.
I welcome the proposal from Portugal for strengthening the standing of victims of crime in criminal procedure also, even though I have every respect for the views relating to legal aspects expressed by Mr Lehne earlier.
People who are subjected to crime while exercising their right to freedom of movement must not have to suffer twice, inasmuch as they are badly treated.
This is the case irrespective of the type of crime committed.
It is a question of strengthening the standing of the victims, but it cannot be done without also talking about crime prevention measures.
The best way of all of helping victims of crime is to ensure that no crime is committed in the first place, and the most important way of preventing crime is probably to disseminate information.
Crime prevention measures must also aim to combat organised crime.
Victims of crime must know their rights and what opportunities they actually have for receiving help.
Most Member States provide some form of initial help for victims.
Sometimes travellers need additional support and perhaps more support than the local population.
It might be a matter of psychological support and help with the language as well as a whole number of other factors.
It can be difficult for a foreign victim to follow the criminal procedures from a distance, and in this case it is clear that special measures are required.
The victim must always have priority.
Since it is not the perpetrator we must give priority to, it is disturbing to see the tendency in a number of Member States to start introducing nolle prosequi simply because the perpetrator meets the victim.
I cannot support this sort of trend.
Crimes must be solved, and if this does not happen it will, in the long term, threaten the democratic system.
Who will then go out and vote if their problems are completely disregarded?
In my country, the number of cases of assault is increasing, and barely 20 per cent of these cases are solved.
This percentage is too low.
Crime is no accident.
A penalty also involves respect for the victim.
We must never stray from the basic principle that individuals must always take responsibility for their own actions, either at the level of the Member State or at EU level.
The State must ultimately take responsibility for its failure to protect the victim.
Therefore, I am pleased that the rapporteur has drawn up this report, which I commend with enthusiasm.
I would like to thank her for helping to strengthen the unified view of victims of crime in the Member States.
Mr President, at a time when progress is being made in the building of a European area without internal borders, it is important, as your rapporteur underlined, not to forget the thousands of people who every year are victims of criminal offences when they travel on the territory of the European Union.
They are often in a difficult situation because they are far away from home and do not know the system or the language of the country in which the offence took place.
The draft framework decision proposed by Portugal and supported by the French Presidency constitutes a first step in taking into account the situation of victims at the level of the European Union.
The Commission welcomes this.
The question of the situation of victims of criminal offences in Europe was first mentioned in the Vienna Action Plan and included in the conclusions of the European Council of Tampere.
Further, it was the subject of a communication from the Commission on 14 July 1999.
Part of the proposals made in this communication to improve the standards and the assumption of responsibility for victims were included in the draft framework decision presented by the Portuguese Presidency and which is submitted to you today.
I acknowledge the work carried out on this text by Mrs Cerdeira Morterero, your rapporteur.
It was the subject of difficult discussions in the Council.
As you noted, the draft framework decision contains three different types of measures: firstly, it enacts minimum rules with regard to the victim's rights; secondly, it enacts specific rules aiming to take into account the individual situation of those people who are victims of an offence in a Member State other than their State of origin and, thirdly, it encourages the States to develop measures for victim support.
One can be particularly pleased with certain provisions, for example the possibility for victims to lodge a complaint at the place of their residence when they are not in a position to do so in the State where the offence took place.
The Commission does not have any objection to the majority of the amendments proposed by the rapporteur.
However, I would like to draw your attention to three points.
Several amendments refer to the official languages of the European Union, foreseeing the right of victims to communicate in one of these languages.
This mechanism does not, however, appear to be appropriate.
It is important to make it possible for the victim to have information in a language they understand.
In certain cases it might not be a language of the European Union.
In other cases, it might be possible to get the information needed in a language of the Union which is not their own.
It is, therefore, more relevant to refer not to a language of the Union but, in a more pragmatic way, to confer on the victim the right to have access to the necessary information in a language that they understand.
This could involve in certain cases putting an interpreter at their disposal.
Secondly, Amendment No 49 stipulates that Member States guarantee to victims who so wish the right to remain in the State where the procedure takes place, where it is necessary for the procedure to run smoothly.
This provision is very interesting.
It requires, however, a more detailed study in relation to European legislation as regards asylum and immigration for the natives of third countries to the Union.
That is why this text was withdrawn from the version under discussion in the Council.
The Commission is currently thinking about a specific text on this important subject in order to protect victims as well as - in a number of cases - to facilitate surveys.
Thirdly, the text invites the Member States to create a 'green number' , functioning 24 hours a day in all the official languages of the Union, in order to make it possible for victims to contact the services for victim support.
This is indeed a good idea as it would allow the European citizen who is a victim of a criminal offence, when travelling in the territory of the Union, to feel in concrete terms the added value at European level.
However, on the one hand the framework decision is not the appropriate instrument here and, on the other hand, its implementation involves a consideration that is rather complex. Does it involve having the same emergency number in all the Member States on the model of the fire service or the police force?
Does it involve having a centre at European level available 24 hours a day to inform of the possibilities of victim support? Does it involve setting up a service in each Member State?
The Commission wishes to continue the feasibility study for such a project.
It already works to support the networking at European level of the national services for victim support in order to ensure appropriate care of victims, particularly if they do not reside where the offence took place.
The idea of a 'green number' will be examined within this context.
At this stage, it is perhaps preferable to bring about a working relationship with the services for victim support, rather than putting in a text the principle of a 'green number' , which would be likely to have no future.
The draft framework decision on which you come to a decision today constitutes a first step in taking into account the situation of victims at a European level.
As I have just said, in order to go further within the framework of following up its communication of 14 July 1999, the Commission works on the adoption of concrete measures to support victims, in particular through the support envisaged for the European forum for victim services.
In addition, with regard to victims' compensation, the Commission will submit a Green Paper next year.
I am delighted by the favourable response shown by Parliament to this first text on such an important subject, so that the area of freedom, security and justice which we are gradually building may offer our fellow citizens support in situations that are often difficult to live with.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.46 p.m.)
Mr Posselt, we will pass on your arguments to the College of Quaestors so that they can adopt the resolution that they think best and so that it will be known to all Members.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I just wished to point out that I forgot to sign the attendance register yesterday evening.
We will take note of it.
(The Minutes were approved)
Vote on a request for urgent procedure
Mr Varela, chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, has the floor to give his opinion.
Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (PPE-DE), chairman of the Committee on Fisheries.
(ES) Mr President, I would like to inform you that the Committee on Fisheries has decided not to accept this request for urgent procedure, as we were not aware of the Commission proposal until 20 November, when we no longer had time to include it on our agenda. It was therefore not possible for us to deal with it with the urgency that was asked of us.
However, we will do everything we can to ensure that we will be able to debate it here in the next part-session of the new year.
Thank you very much, Mr Varela.
As there are no other speakers, the Commissioner has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. the regulation on control measures in the area covered by the Convention on future multilateral cooperation in the north-east Atlantic fisheries stipulates that the provisions governing the application of these control measures only apply for the year 2000.
The Council was unable to agree on a longer regulation at the time and the rules in question therefore expire at the end of this year.
If we delay in amending this regulation, we shall have no legal basis for European Union control ships in the international waters of the north Atlantic after 1 January 2001.
This will undermine the whole control system and the regional fisheries organisations, which will be weakened as a result.
The control system has proven to be a first rate system and we should spare no effort to strengthen and develop it further.
The Commission therefore supports the Council's request for urgent procedure and calls on the members of the European Parliament to support this urgent procedure.
Mr Varela, chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, the committee responsible, has the floor again.
Mr President, I regret very much that the Commission did not take all this into account before and did not inform us in sufficient time so that we could work on it in committee.
However, the international measures mentioned will remain in force because this is an international agreement.
They will not, therefore, be affected by the delay.
Moreover, as I said before, I hope that we will be able to vote on this proposal during the January part-session.
In any case, it is regrettable that they are asking us for an urgent procedure now, at the last minute, because we have had all of 2000 to process this proposal for a regulation.
I think that the institutions, in this case the Commission, should work more responsibly to ensure that proposals reach this House in due time so that a rapporteur can be appointed, the Commission proposal can be examined, amendments can be tabled, they can be debated in committee and they can then come to the plenary, which they have asked us to do in a single plenary sitting, which is impossible.
Having heard the speeches from the Commissioner and the chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, I put the request for urgent procedure to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
2001 budget
Ladies and gentlemen, do not think that my heart has been softened by Mr Ferber' s arguments, but he actually had five minutes to speak and the services had only indicated two and a half minutes.
Sorry, Mr Ferber.
And if you wish to add anything later - because you had one minute left - I will give you the floor.
Mr President, when a delegation from this Parliament was visiting the People' s Republic of China some time ago, we were in Xiamen, in the south-east of China, and there was an island visible on the horizon.
We asked what is was called and they said, "It is the unmentionable."
It was Taiwan and its name cannot be mentioned in China.
Here the thing that we are not allowed to mention is 'revision of the financial perspective.'
Ladies and gentlemen, I think that we should almost be kneeling down to deal with this matter, because it is a religious one.
In the Council' s religion it is forbidden to mention the word revision.
That is crystal clear.
But I challenge my esteemed colleague, the President-in-Office of the Council, to explain to me what the difference is between the revision of the financial perspective and the use of the flexibility instrument: the majorities are the same, and the amounts can be the same.
Apart from it being taboo, it is really difficult to explain why the Council refuses to recognise the need for a revision of the financial perspective.
What is more, of the thirty-eight revisions that the Community has had since 1988, which is when this system was set up, twenty-odd have been annual revisions.
So not even the argument for annual or multiannual revisions is an excuse.
Perhaps another reason why we should discuss this on our knees is the attitude of some Members of this House, as all they seem to want to do is blindly obey the instructions of the Council.
We have really fought a great battle in order to achieve a 0.02% increase in the Council draft budget.
I do not know whether this is a great success for this Parliament.
It can even be seen in the Structural Funds, where the Commission told us that 8 000 million additional payment appropriations were needed, and the result is that we have cut them by 340 million, which is, of course, the request of the Council, not of Parliament.
I wanted to briefly point out that, when we adopted the financial perspective in force, in 1999, we were still - I say 'we were' due to the involvement of the Union - bombing the Balkans, particularly Serbia.
And we left it that when the conflict ended we would revise the financial perspective.
We agreed this between the Council and Parliament.
The Council refuses to carry out this revision - it seems that now we should have the information - and I want to warn you: using the flexibility instrument two years in a row, two consecutive years, in fact, in less than fifteen months, and the first time less than six months after the adoption of the perspective, is financially draining the flexibility instrument because it prevents it from being replaced and from possible accumulation, which is planned for up to 600 million.
But it is also draining it politically and this is much more serious, ladies and gentlemen, because it could lead to Parliament having a complete lack of confidence in the very system of financial perspective.
To be honest, the Council is leading us to believe that the system is not satisfactory because one of the contracting parties is not fulfilling the political requirements involved in signing an agreement.
The needs of the Balkans have not come to an end, they are multiannual.
So now what are we going to do? At the moment we are beginning to sacrifice MEDA, which went down from EUR 980 million in 1999 to EUR 741 million in 2001.
It is the first victim of not having a revision.
I wonder who will be the next victim?
I would like to know, Mrs Schreyer, what is going to be done with the initial proposal for revision of the financial perspective.
The Commission has not withdrawn it.
I would therefore like to know what you are going to do.
Are we going to continue to fund the Balkans with juggling, as we have done now, at the end of 2000, "pre-budgeting" things and then introducing EUR 200 million in the 2001 budget? What are we going to do in March?
I know that it will be the job of the Swedish Presidency, but in March we need to look at the perspective for 2002, and what are we going to do?
The matter of the Balkans will not have been resolved.
To be honest, I think that I have to recommend to this House that it approve the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument because, in short, it enables us to solve the Serbia issue and because it is a revision that no one is daring to call by its name.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Emperor is not wearing any clothes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unlike the negotiations in Nice, a substantial result was achieved on the 2001 budget in a single joint night sitting.
Unlike Nice, all three institutions - the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission - are, I think, well pleased with the final result.
It provides a good basis for Community policy next year; to be honest, the Community approach has been most productive throughout the year, throughout all the preliminary discussions and, on behalf of the Commission, I really must thank you and your colleagues, Mrs Parly; you proved to be a very skilled midwife at the birth of this 2001 budget and focused the debates and negotiations on the core issues.
I should also like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, for her highly original combination of total determination and willingness to negotiate which culminated in this good result.
I should also like to thank the rapporteurs, Mr Ferber and Mr Colom i Naval, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Wynn, and the members of the Committee on Budgets for being so committed. It was thanks to their commitment that negotiations were brought to such a successful conclusion.
The 2001 budget which we now have before us gives us funds of EUR 96.2 billion for new commitments next year and EUR 92.6 billion for payments.
That translates into a rate of increase in the budget, as you pointed out, of 3.1 and 3.5% in comparison with the previous year, roughly in line with the rate of increase in the national budgets.
One very important point is that the total budget only accounts for 1.06% of the joint European gross national product and, in terms of expenditure ratios, is lower than this year's budget.
This illustrates that we have applied budgetary discipline, but it also illustrates that the financial planning concept decided in Berlin, i.e. that expenditure for the current Member States is being cut back in order to find room to fund enlargement, is being taken into account and is working.
However, we must also note that the figures before us today do not include the supplementary budget which still needs to be addressed in the wake of the BSE crisis.
I shall come back to that in a moment.
First: what is so special about the 2001 budget? In the Commission's view, it is the fact that the second pillar of agricultural policy, namely promoting rural development, shows the highest rate of increase at 10%.
I think this is worth mentioning because it means that we have a total of EUR 4.5 billion at our disposal.
I really must disagree with the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, who stated recently in a newspaper interview that this amounted to no more than a toothpick, never mind a second pillar, because this fails to do justice to the size of the sum in question: 4.5 billion is a considerable sum of money - it is almost as much as we have for the whole of foreign policy and the size of this sum and this ratio need to be highlighted.
We really can say, in foreign policy, that the policy of the European Union is having a huge effect, even with this budget, and I am positive that it is thanks to Community policy that we now have democratisation in the Balkans and a chance, hopefully, of stability in the near future.
I am positive that no such success would have been possible with the old concept of bilateral friendships, with Member States being played off against each other.
It is the outcome of Community policy and it is therefore excellent that we have again managed to include EUR 839 million in the 2001 budget for the Balkans.
It was no easy task, but we managed thanks to the agreed use of the flexibility reserve, which was used to provide funds over and above the sum provided for or decided in Nice as a basis for the Balkan policy - namely a total of EUR 4.65 billion over the period up to 2006.
In providing the EUR 200 million emergency package, the Union has also proven that it is perfectly able to act quickly and take full account of its foreign policy responsibilities.
What is important is that no country in the Balkans will now be offered less aid than originally planned before developments in Serbia due to the democratisation of Serbia.
I think it is also important to signal that we fully support the new potential for cooperation which has arisen at last.
I should like at this point to take the opportunity to thank Mr Kouchner for his splendid work in Kosovo; we were also able to provide huge support here from our budgetary resources.
The process of reforming the Commission is also extremely important, particularly with a view to good financial management. Good financial management needs sufficient, well-qualified staff.
Allow me at this point, on behalf of the Commission, to thank the budgetary authority for its support and for approving 400 new posts.
You have linked this with a call for a concerted effort to bring about improvements, especially in areas in which financial support programmes have been implemented late or badly and I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen - especially you Mr Elles - that the Commission will do everything it can to improve its past record on the implementation of financial programmes.
But let us not delude ourselves: we need both good financial management and the corresponding means of payment if we are to eliminate outstanding commitments.
Nearly a third of the budget is set aside for structural policy, in order to help regions in economic difficulty overcome their problems and make up economic ground, especially through the Cohesion Fund.
The Court of Auditors recently confirmed in a special report that this objective is being achieved and that the money from the Cohesion Fund is being put to good use.
Here the Community is demonstrating solidarity by using Community funds to provide real support for economic development and it goes without saying that the regions and countries which are now on the receiving end of our solidarity will be prepared in the future to demonstrate their solidarity with the new countries, as and when we enlarge the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, with the new outbreak of BSE in cattle, immediate action was also required in the budgetary area in order to protect health and consumers and help the farmers affected.
The budget being voted on today includes EUR 6 billion to subsidise beef production, in addition to the EUR 60 million budgeted in order to cofinance BSE tests.
The agricultural ministers meeting in emergency session have proposed new measures in the wake of the BSE crisis, but we are all agreed that it makes no sense to postpone the resolution on the budget in order to include these new measures and that a supplementary budget will be submitted post haste in order to fund the necessary measures.
A considerable amount of money will be needed, which is why I think that the Ecofin Council needs to address the budgetary consequences as a matter of urgency, because there are still points at which there is a discrepancy between our claims, or what we have in mind, and the funds at our disposal.
Plus - and this was again stressed in Nice - we have to comply with the financial regulations and ceilings for the agricultural budget.
Here we are in the peculiar situation of having even less room for manoeuvre because of the change in exchange rates.
I was therefore most annoyed when the agricultural ministers, whilst fully aware of the BSE situation, rushed and served themselves from Christmas tables piled high with fruit and vegetables, bananas and nuts which required a total of 85 million in increased subsidies.
I think that when a new emergency arises - and with the BSE crisis new priorities obviously need to be set in the agricultural budget - then certain consequences also apply and clear resolutions need to be taken and the core issues defined for the agricultural budget, which does, after all, total EUR 44 billion.
As the Commissioner responsible for the budget, I am completely behind the emergency action which needs to be decided, including support for the beef market, but the fact that we subsidise beef production to the tune of EUR 6 billion on the one hand and must now pay out thousands of millions to subsidise its destruction is proof positive, in my opinion, of the urgent need for action in the whole agricultural policy sector. I trust that the European Parliament will support me here.
Several decisions taken at Nice are highly relevant to the budget and the budgetary process.
All the institutions will have their work cut out here.
All the more reason to rejoice in the fact that negotiations on the 2001 budget were conducted in such a good atmosphere and led to such good results and, on behalf of the Commission, I should like thank everyone involved.
Mr President, as the rapporteur I thank both the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner for their kind words, but I did ask a concise question in my previous turn.
It was asking for someone to explain to us rationally, if not in a Cartesian manner, the difference between an annual revision of the financial perspective and the use of the flexibility instrument.
I would like to have an explanation.
If not, I will have to interpret that silence is the response.
Mr President, I should like to answer Mr Colom i Naval on the issue of the use of the flexibility instrument in revising the financial perspective.
In fact, the repeated use, two years in a row, of the flexibility instrument could be considered, wrongly in my opinion, to be a form of revision of the financial perspective.
Personally, I think that this is not true in terms of procedure and certainly not in terms of substance.
The procedure for the flexibility instrument was laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement for the purpose, in exceptional cases, of funding specific expenditure over and above the ceilings agreed in Berlin, without calling the financial perspective into question.
I therefore think that, with regard to content, there is no contradiction between the two approaches, but rather a form of complementarity.
With regard to the specific cases that we have experienced for the last two years, in other words, Kosovo and Serbia, mobilising the flexibility instrument has enabled us to fund exceptional expenditure through an exceptional effort.
In both of these cases, the flexibility instrument has enabled us to anticipate needs. In Kosovo, for example, there was a need to implement aid more quickly whereas in Serbia, the need was to commit a significant sum, even before a definitive assessment of needs was carried out and even before the distribution of roles between the various donors could be defined.
From the Council' s point of view, therefore, mobilising the flexibility instrument does not represent a challenge to the viability of the financial perspective laid down in Berlin.
Furthermore, the Council has defined a multiannual sum, admittedly indicative in nature, which is compatible with this financial perspective, for the framework programme for aid for reconstruction in the Western Balkans.
I hope that I have answered Mr Colom i Naval' s question.
After this illustration, which I am sure will be very useful to all Members, we are going to do the round of the opinions of the various parliamentary committees.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Haug for her hard work and her success in relation to small and medium-sized enterprises.
That has been a high-order issue for the Committee on Industry, and we are very pleased with the success that she has achieved.
However, it is not just a success for the Committee on Industry and for Parliament; it also reflects the priorities of governments in Europe.
That is the point that causes me some consternation in relation to the position adopted in this process by the Council.
My committee is very interested in the research area.
We praised Commissioner Busquin, who has exceeded our expectations in that area.
We have heard the Council say on many occasions that it wants to ensure that Europe becomes pre-eminent in research.
Then we see the Council make a significant cut in payment appropriations, so that Mrs Haug then has to make some changes.
We have heard from the Council today that it is prepared to improve the record by 3.5%.
That is the context of the process we are engaged in.
I congratulate our rapporteur.
However, our committee is somewhat disappointed by the approach of the Council.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, for the outstanding cooperation, and also the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Wynn.
I have two comments to make in connection with the document now on the table, and these are directed at the Council and the Commission.
To start with, I want to talk about the overall agricultural budget.
Of course we know that it comprises almost 45% of the EU budget, but if you add up what the EU Member States contribute and what the European Union contributes to the agricultural budget, you arrive at 1.9%, and a substantial amount of that is spent on the development of rural areas and environmental development.
That is a mere pittance compared with what other trade blocks in the world spend.
If you consider that American companies receive the equivalent of three times as much aid and a capricious country such as Turkey spends in excess of 10% of government money on agriculture and horticulture, then it is Europe that wants something for nothing.
My second point concerns BSE.
I think you should know that on the night of 23 and 24 November, when we sat round the table with Mrs Parly, we fought like lions to get more money for BSE.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development told us to use the financial leeway between the financial perspective and the final budget, which amounted to upwards of generous EUR 900 million at the time, EUR 600 million of which was to be used for BSE.
We fought tooth and nail to add a few extra million euro.
A week further down the line and two cases of BSE have come to light in Germany.
This means that in actual fact we already need a supplementary budget of EUR 900 million.
This would suggest that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in this House was keenly aware of what needed to be done and was also fiercely critical of the Council and the Commission in this respect, for their handling of BSE policy.
Swifter decision-making based on tests as opposed to draconian measures after the event would have cost considerably less and it would be too stupid for words, regarding this political policy, also on the part of the Council and the Commission, to say that from now on we will include the bill in the agricultural budget.
That is impossible because we have an agreement with the Council and the Commission for the remainder of the agricultural budget, for all the necessary allocations, and that means supplementary budgets. It also means that this extra money must come from the Member States, and not be plundered from the existing agricultural budget, because - and I am addressing this comment to both the Council and the Commission - I assume you have given your word on this, regarding the agreement we reached.
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mrs Haug for her excellent work in preparing the budget.
Mrs Haug and the Committee on Budgets have taken account of the proposals by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
Our committee' s main objective was to see that there were sufficient payment appropriations in next year' s budget.
In this way, we ensure that problems with last year' s arrears are resolved and new programmes are introduced effectively.
If necessary, the matter of payment appropriations must be examined in the supplementary budget in 2001.
The amendments to cross-border cooperation are justified, but we were slightly off target with regard to Interreg and URBAN.
The focus for transport is the development of the trans-European transport networks.
I am grateful for the investment in sustainable transport, but it has to be said that transport and tourism appropriations are little more than token gestures.
In the years to come we will need considerably more in these areas.
Our committee will be monitoring the implementation of the budget.
The effective use of resources will serve to improve the employment situation, particularly via SMEs and new technology.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I would like first of all to say that the European Parliament has scored a major victory in as much as the cuts in the Latin American, Asian and African poverty programmes have been made good.
I would particularly like to extend warm thanks to the Commission and the Council for this.
Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Balkans should be regarded as pillars of equal standing in our external policy and not played off against each other.
This must shortly find expression - as is clear from the debate - in the multiannual programme.
Secondly, it gives me great pleasure to note that there is support from the whole of Parliament, right across the political spectrum, for the concrete objectives for tackling poverty, as have been proposed by the Committee on Development and Cooperation in the 2001 budget, partly on the basis of the historical data provided by the European Commission; in particular, the doubling of the budgets for basic education and healthcare in the regional programmes for Latin America, Asia, Africa and the European Development Fund, amounting to a total of around EUR five million, is a huge step forwards.
Output instead of input.
We are counting on robust instructions and spending from the European Commission, in line with these objectives.
I would like to thank Mrs Haug most sincerely.
Mr President, I would also like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, for the magnificent work that she has done as the rapporteur responsible for the budget and for her efforts in dealing with the requests that the various committees have made.
As far as the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities is concerned, the final result is not exactly the one that we would have liked.
The quantities budgeted are very far below what we had requested, but we accept that this has been a general practice and we therefore accept the result as it stands.
This does not mean that in next year' s budget we will not once again be determined to obtain what we think is fairest and most appropriate, and what will enable us to achieve the objectives of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
Mr President, first of all I support the overall budget.
It operates within the financial perspective.
We have no more important obligation than to live within our means.
I speak on what is probably the smallest line in the budget: EUR 2.9 million for the Ombudsman.
That is a very small sum of money.
It constitutes less than one cent per inhabitant of the European Union.
Let us regard it as the "citizen's cent".
We have to make sure that we listen to the citizens and if they have complaints, that there are procedures to redress them.
That expenditure is well-spent.
The Committee on Petitions very much hopes that its budget will now provide for a proper database so that citizens who are interested in pursuing their petitions will be able to see what progress is being made.
We hope that will be achieved.
Finally, information is an important concern for this Parliament.
We must see that we keep our information programmes.
In particular I would cite Euronews so that people can see in the media what Parliament and the Union are doing.
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mrs Haug for her excellent work.
I fully agree with the comments made by our colleague Joan Colom on the revision of the financial perspective.
The amount for the common fisheries policy is scarcely 1% of the Community budget.
However, this small quantity, which is essential for maintaining the activity of the sector and the economies of areas that are dependent on fisheries, is a very appetising snack, despite being small, each time we look at where to find money to fund new policies.
Commissioner, fish is an essential element for a healthy, balanced diet that is rich in proteins.
When European consumers go to the market with concerns about what they can buy, in fish they find a safe, quality product.
They will therefore think that this 1% of the European Union budget is being very well used.
The 2001 budget gave rise to a fair amount of indignation among the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the main reason being that 50% of the PRINCE information campaign was entered in the reserve.
This decision would have prevented us from running the information campaign on the introduction of the euro in the year which matters, i.e. in 2001, at a time when uncertainty due to the fall in the value of the euro against the dollar and the need for information on the introduction of coins in 2002 are at their height.
The Committee on Budgets decided during the last few days to propose to Parliament that the 50% be removed from the reserve and allocated to these lines.
Our warmest thanks therefore to the members of the Committee on Budgets.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is satisfied and the Commission has the necessary planning security.
Mr President, no great drama has been acted out around the debate on the budget this year.
That does not mean, however, that things have been easy.
The matter-of-fact approach of the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, has nevertheless shown its strength.
The Chairman of the Committee, Mr Wynn, also deserves our thanks.
It is a positive step, as far as culture is concerned, that the financing of multiannual programmes, i.e. Socrates, Culture 2000, Youth and the new Media Plus programme, are in order with regard to the budget.
Hopefully, the problems that occurred in the implementation of the programmes are over.
It is important that the Union should serve the needs of its citizens well.
In the budget there is direct financing for European culture networks.
There is no doubt at all that they need it.
But the rules for financing are not yet working properly.
There is too much that is arbitrary about all this.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport intends to look into this matter early next year.
The modest sums involved must be spent well and fairly.
Mr President, I speak for the European People's Party and European Democrats.
I would like, in introducing our group's position on this, to welcome the work done by Mrs Haug and by our own rapporteur, Mr Ferber, to thank the Commissioner, Mrs Schreyer, and also the Council President, Mrs Parly, for their significant assistance in achieving a budget on 23 November which, as the presidency has rightly pointed out, was a landmark in the way in which Parliament, the Council and the Commission have been able to help decide collectively a budget for the European Union.
We have a budget which is under 1.06%, we have a budget, Mr Colom, which is within the financial perspective.
I suspect that, to put it simply, flexibility is for small amounts and revision is for large amounts, but we will see in the next few years how that will go.
But I would like to thank both the Commission and the Presidency-in-Office of the Council for their remarks about the joint declaration which we have put together, because that is also a first indication of how we are going to monitor improvements and performance in the running of the programmes, particularly in category 4.
Turning to that for a moment, we have a lot of work in front of us and we await with interest the report by Mrs Schreyer, preferably before 30 June, so that we can use its contents for shaping up the 2002 budget.
But in thinking about the question of the backlog on commitments and how we limit the duration of new commitments - obviously this comes into the domain of the financial regulation which we will have to negotiate.
We believe it is absolutely fundamental that this progress report should be seen to restore the confidence of our citizens in the way in which the European Union institutions operate.
A word on the reserve, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
You said, if I understood you correctly, that we should not be using the reserve because it was against the rules to do this.
We use the reserve, particularly on first reading, to draw attention to particular points of weakness in the way in which policies are operating.
The information policy in the institutions at the moment is a scandal and therefore, rather than putting money on the line for information policy when we know it is not being used effectively, we are going to be keeping much of that money in reserve waiting for the Commission to come up with the right proposals.
Of course, the solution would be to allow us, as a joint budgetary authority, to lift funds being spent during the year and that may be an invention which we can insert into the revision of the financial regulation.
Lastly, I would say, looking to the future, that Nice has shown us that there is perhaps a feeling that we are shifting a little bit towards intergovernmentalism, with the Council deciding on the numbers of our Parliament without our being consulted beforehand.
Our confidence as one of three institutions, will only be maintained - and therefore the institutional agreement and the financial perspective maintained - if we manage to create mutual confidence and if we are consulted at every stage on our fundamental interests.
Mr President, my thanks first and foremost to Florence Parly, who is just leaving but who, I think, is still within earshot.
After the experiences of last year, I think she has created a very good atmosphere, both here and in the Council, with the active commitment which she has shown throughout her presidency.
I should also like to thank Mrs Schreyer, who has continued to help us with her highly constructive approach and, of course, my friend Jutta Haug, who has done an excellent job, not forgetting Joan Colom i Naval and Markus Ferber.
We are now at the point at which we must decide whether or not we can vote in favour of this budget next Thursday.
Obviously we need to take a very close look at it and this is exactly what Parliament in general and we Social Democrats in particular intend to do. We believe that we managed to do a great deal of good during the discussions, both retaining and extending crucial priorities.
With unemployment still at over 8% throughout Europe, the European Union needs to use the budget at its disposal to send out a clear message and to set about fighting this scourge in the economy to our citizens, which is why it is important that we have this 450 million at our disposal next year, starting with 100 million this year.
It shows people that we take their problems seriously and are doing something about them.
I am delighted that we have managed in Category IV of this budget to show those living in the greatest need or in the process of democratising their countries throughout the world that this European Parliament and this European Union has not forgotten them, even if we have our own problems to resolve, and that here too we are making sure that there is enough money to go round.
It is important for the people in the Balkans to understand, following the long period of hostilities during which our side presented a united front, that they can also rely on us when it comes to reconstruction.
There are people sitting in this House who are at pains to ensure that the money needed will in fact be provided as and when it is needed and that flowery words will be accompanied by specific actions.
So I think that, along with much else which there is too little time to mention, we have a great deal to be pleased about.
We have also passed a number of resolutions containing instructions.
Allow me to say to the Commission, by way of example, that we have agreed to the 400 additional posts because we want to improve how various programmes are implemented, because we want you to be able to work better than you have been able to do in the past.
But we also say in no uncertain terms that this implies a responsibility and a commitment on your part, because we shall be watching over you throughout this process.
We shall be checking up, we shall be in contact with you and we shall be keeping tabs on what is happening, ensuring that there really has been an improvement before we are prepared to go even further with you.
It is also a commitment vis-à-vis the Council.
I have a couple of questions to put to the Council - not that I am questioning the compromise.
But should we really have to try year after year to see what is left over from the previous year, what can be carried over to provide enough money for regions such as Serbia and the Balkans? Should we really have to check first and see what is left over?
Is our message to these people: we will give you what is left over and then we shall see if we can add anything to it?
Should that be our message?
No it should not!
By refusing to discuss the specific long-term aspects of this challenge with us, you have brought the whole spirit of the Interinstitutional Agreement into question.
You keep saying that the financial perspective is sacrosanct as far as you are concerned.
But the Interinstitutional Agreement between the three institutions is also a valuable item and should help us to achieve joint planning security.
The Balkans and other regions need planning security.
Repeated use of the flexibility instrument also contradicts the Interinstitutional Agreement, because it was an instrument which this European Parliament secured in order to pay for contingencies and so that it could let it run up to EUR 600 million.
It was never meant to be used for firefighting every year in areas which we have to fund in any case.
You are undermining the Interinstitutional Agreement and let me assure you that we shall consider whether or not we intend to have a part in this next year.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the budget rapporteurs, Mrs Haug and Mr Ferber, for their excellent work.
The same goes for Mr Wynn, the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, for the splendidly accomplished conciliatory work he has done and for his constructive leadership of the committee.
Next year' s budget will be very much based on strict budgetary discipline.
Although agricultural expenditure, which accounts for almost half the entire budget, will increase by more than 5%, when the Letter of Amendment has been taken into account, the overall increase in the budget is just 3.5%.
This means that great restraint has been shown in the use of funds in the other categories.
This makes just 1.056% of GNP, which must be considered very low as the ceiling for the financial perspective is 1.11%.
This means a saving of more than EUR 2 billion.
This, however, conceals a danger.
The budget will be seeing a structural distortion, as money spent on payment commitments comes to over EUR 3.6 billion more than that for appropriations for payments.
This means that there will be an increase in arrears.
For that reason, Parliament' s concern that the problem of arrears will have to be dealt with is a justified one, and that is why there has been a very real need for a joint declaration by Parliament and the Council.
Furthermore, the fact that the Council and Parliament reached agreement regarding the EU' s budget for next year is to be greeted with satisfaction.
It shows that both budgetary authorities are taking responsibility for the administration of the EU in an appropriate manner.
However, it is unfortunate that Parliament once again had to fight with regard to funds for the West Balkans.
Regarding other matters, I would say that for my group it is a positive move that a 450 million euro multiannual programme was agreed for the employment initiative; and, moreover, that it was agreed that funds remaining unspent from Community initiatives - totalling EUR 1 600 million- would be budgeted in the years to come.
We failed to fill a considerable number of parliamentary posts throughout this year.
This shows that in future there must be better use of personnel resources.
With these observations, my group is prepared to adopt the draft budget.
Mr President, I too wish to thank the rapporteur and, of course, the Commissioner and the President-in-Office for their excellent work.
Our group will also vote in favour of this budget because it shows that, once again, we have reached an exemplary compromise, despite being under increasing pressure.
The main sources of this pressure are unemployment, the BSE crisis and the Balkan stability pact.
We have resolved and reached satisfactory compromises on all these urgent problems - and never once to the detriment of the interests of the EU.
We wanted to secure the EU's ability to act and the confidence of the people.
Nonetheless, I should like expressly to agree with Mr Colom i Naval, who said earlier that the financial perspective has become more and more of a straightjacket, preventing any real planning, any real long-term planning.
Constant use of the flexibility reserve is undermining the transparency of the budget and in time this too will lead to a loss of credibility.
Even the Notenboom procedure, whereby funds are transferred to critical regions, in this case to fund the Balkan stability pact, does not really guarantee a transparent budgetary procedure.
It already looks likely that the huge risk of a clash between MEDA, Mediterranean rim projects and the Balkans will increase over the next few years, despite the fact that we all know that this is where money is urgently needed.
On the other hand, we are also aware that the Council is perfectly capable of suddenly questioning the financial perspective when it comes to BSE, when it comes to national interests.
I found Mr Chirac's statement at the Nice Council extremely interesting.
I think the Council urgently needs to consider how it, for its part, intends to handle the financial perspective.
In all events, Parliament will be a much tougher negotiating partner next year.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are suspending the debate at this point in order to hear the President of the Republic of France and of the European Council.
The debate will resume when appropriate according to the agenda.
European Council/ French Presidency
Madam President, Mr President of the Republic, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, my group takes a very dim view of the Fifteen following the rather unappetising spectacle they put on for the European people, who were probably amazed to see on that occasion, and at first hand, the real common vision, sense of solidarity and mutual trust that exists between the major European leaders.
Although, despite everything, I welcomed the conclusion of an agreement with a certain amount of relief, I did so because, as Mr Cox said, a failure at Nice would have been used by the shameless opponents of enlargement if not to sound the death knell, at least to call for the indefinite postponement of this great project.
We would then have sent the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe a signal of incalculable political consequences.
There is nothing less secure today than a successful enlargement but at least the way remains open for action in favour of such a prospect.
Besides, what a cruel illustration of the crisis which is not only institutional, but which, at a deeper level, is an identity crisis for European integration in the face of the titanic issues confronting the European Union!
The problem facing the Fifteen lies, I believe, less in their difficulty in providing sound responses, than in their refusal to address the right questions.
We feel that the right questions are those on the lips of the impressive human tide which converged on Nice from all over Europe on the eve of the Summit.
This was not a handful of troublemakers from the margins of society but workers who were uniting with the most representative waves of public opinion in their respective countries.
Some of them were supporters of the beginnings of European integration and probably voters - men and women - from most of the political families represented here.
Beyond their differences, all their questions in one way or another concerned a fundamental issue: the purpose of this integration whose institutions we wish to reform.
For whom is it designed?
What is its point?
Where is this Europe of the Fifteen headed today, and even more to the point, the great Europe with twenty-seven or thirty, tomorrow?
Is it condemned to collapse under the current system of liberal globalisation?
Is its purpose to speed up the process of deregulation?
To make competition the be all and end all of their economic policy? To try to destroy everything that is the essence of our societies through the rationale of commerce, to the point that people need to rally together to achieve a few exceptions and to concentrate all the power at the top, far from everyday life and far from the people?
Is there any more relevant question than that of whether other choices are conceivable? Choices in which most members of the public can recognise themselves?
Major joint projects in Europe itself and on the international stage, in which they would find reasons and pleasure in committing themselves together, projects designed to achieve a shared dominance of the markets, a common, proactive political approach in the economic, social and cultural fields, real access for social actors to the necessary information and to the decision-making and control procedures, from their company to the institutions.
What preliminary answers to these legitimate questions did the Nice European Council give the public? The Charter of Fundamental Rights, which was supposed to be a figurehead for this summit was dispatched without ceremony.
Neither is the European defence force, along with the military language that has accompanied its miraculously rapid creation, able to give the European adventure the boost that it needs.
Symptomatically, it is in the few areas in which the demand for concrete measures had been clearly demonstrated in our societies that a few positive agreements have finally been reached between the Fifteen.
I am thinking of food safety, maritime safety, the declaration on the specific nature of sport with regard to competition rules or even the European Company Statute.
With regard to the Social Agenda, although we would be hard pushed to find the specific objectives that we hoped for, at least it offers elements that will provide support for action in the next five years.
That may be true, but this does not make a project and unless there is a common project, institutional reform could only lead to a form of soulless and unceremonious inter-State horse-trading.
To conclude, I share my group' s view that the Nice European Council will ultimately have been the turning point for a kind of institutional and political construction that has shown its limitations and has reached the end of its useful life.
The absence of a coherent, comprehensible, and inspiring common project, the refusal to hold a public and transparent debate on the various options due to an apparent consensus, which is inevitably liberal and hostile to any sign of independence from the established order, the exacerbation of violent relations between partners from the same Community and the excessive concentration of power in the leadership of States over the heads of their citizens - these are all issues that are not recent but which are now undeniable in the open debate on Europe' s future.
Thank you.
Mr President, I should first of all like to congratulate you on the marvellous stamina that you demonstrated at the Nice marathon.
My congratulations must end there, however, as I am sorry that you did not apply this stamina to the subjects that were entrusted to you.
You said that the Nice Summit was a success because it finally led to an agreement.
I would say to you, "big deal!" because everyone knew from the outset that the French Presidency was set on doing everything to ensure that an agreement was reached in Nice, largely for reasons of domestic politics.
I wish to say, at the risk of destroying your illusions, that no one here has been fooled.
The obstacles between the Fifteen that multiplied during the Summit are symptomatic.
Any clear-thinking person can see that they herald the very serious consequences to which the project of a Federal Europe of 27 or 28 Member States is leading us.
The most astonishing thing is that you are cobbling together this pipe dream at a time when the opinion polls suggest that the majority of Europe' s citizens are against this.
Speaking mainly on behalf of the French members of my group, I will say that there is a permanent contradiction between the virtues attributed to this Europe and the aberrations seen in the daily workings of the Union.
Europe' s leaders, of which you are one, are reduced to carrying out increasingly frequent operations to manipulate the media and public opinion.
The technique is now tried and tested: always put off for another time the burden of proof; take decisions that are void of content or which will not be implemented for a long time and finally present the whole business as a magnificent success.
The Nice summit is to some extent the apotheosis of this sleight-of-hand strategy.
First of all, the Fifteen signed the agreement on the sly and under the smokescreen created by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This document is a monument of ambiguity and was presented by some people as a crucial text, which would be a prelude to a future European constitution, and by others, as a simple declaration of intent with no legal force.
This text has been exalted as the democratic progress of a citizens' Europe but no one has bothered, of course, to find out what the European public actually wants.
You yourself, Mr President and your Prime Minister have presented this text as the triumph of French secularism and by Chancellor Schröder as the victory of German religious sentiment.
All it took to achieve this was quite simply to have the French and German versions of the Charter not say the same thing. We should have thought about that!
The Nice Summit then adopted a European Social Agenda, but this document has no binding power.
It simply sets a handful of objectives for the next five years, which the Member States are free to decide whether to pursue or not, depending on the policies they choose.
Then the summit announced that an agreement had been concluded on maritime safety. Hallelujah!
Is this a decisive agreement?
Not at all. It is simply a decision inviting the Member States' Transport Ministers to agree on the measures needing to be taken.
Let us add to this list of triumphs the announcement of the creation of a food agency that will not come into operation until 2001.
To crown it all, the European leaders who met at Nice decided to open a new institutional project in 2004. This will - apologies for it being so minimal - clarify the European Treaties, the precise status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and lay down the distribution of competences between the Union and the Member States.
There is clearly something rotten about the whole business.
From evasions to pretences and from hypocritical agreements to sermons on the future, this Federal Europe is beginning to look like a house of cards whose roofs are growing higher and higher but whose foundations are quaking, because the real lesson of the Nice Summit is the enormity of the historical misunderstanding in which our continent has been mired since the Treaty of Maastricht.
The Member States do not have the support of the people because there is no such thing as a European people and they are therefore forced by public opinion to advocate their national interests with increasing fervour, even if this means changing the maximum number of Members of the European Parliament set by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is already out of date, and even if this means increasing the number of European Commissioners to 27, even though the current Commission of Fifteen does not work.
Mr President, I also wish to emphasise that, after Nice, France appears once again to have been the clear loser.
Because you are paralysed with the fear of having fewer seats than Germany in the Council of Ministers, you have definitively capitulated on everything else: on the number of French Members in this Chamber, which is reduced from 87 to 74 - oh, I agree, this would not be a big loss - whereas Germany will keep its 99 Members without losing a single one: at least for the sake of those who believe that this House serves some purpose, the number ought to have been maintained; on the so-called "demographic slice" principle, which gives a considerable advantage to Germany; on one of the two Commissioners in Brussels and on our right of veto in the very many areas concerning our vital interests.
The final result is preposterous.
No one understands the operating rules of this labyrinthine system any more.
It upsets almost everyone, beginning with those known as the smaller countries.
The only clear outcome is that the European nation-states are on their way - unwillingly - to becoming nothing more than provinces within an authoritarian federal state, whose strategic and military objectives appear to be those of the United States. This will happen unless we oppose it.
We must bring an immediate end to this insane abdication of the sovereignty of the European Nations.
This is why, as far as we are concerned, we will ask the President of France to consult the French people at the appropriate time by means of a referendum on this Treaty.
(Applause)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the masochism with which French political leaders have, once again, allowed themselves to be ensnared in the trap of a Europe obsessed with complex, intricate manoeuvres is incredible.
Having wallowed in cohabitation, these professional politicians have lain down in resignation over a treaty that they just had to sign in Nice as if Germany' s fate depended on it.
Portugal and Belgium have, on this occasion, had a greater influence than France, which conceded on everything and obtained nothing apart from preserving a vague cultural exception, which is a pretext for a new concept, which Mr Védrine has invented, for the sake of the cause, of a sovereignty that would be both national and exercised jointly.
Even Edgar Faure must be turning in his grave!
At a time when these so-called leaders are incapable of transposing fifty or so directives except by edict, in other words, by decree-law, they are accepting, with straight faces, to reduce French representation in the European Parliament by around 20%, despite having given these representatives the task of protecting French interests under codecision.
As far as France is concerned, each of these Treaties is, unfortunately, worse than the one before, but they confirm the rationale of Maastricht, a fine example of Mitterrandesque finagling that is likely to end badly.
And what about poor Mr Chirac, who believes what Gerhard says, in the same way that Jaurès believed in world peace!
Into what situation will all these people have dragged France when the European bubble bursts and the French have nothing in their mouths but the bitter taste of having been conned once again by their mediocre and self-serving leaders?
Madam President, Mr President, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities regrets the fact that the Presidency has not followed up the message that was sent to it in July.
At Nice, it simply boosted the power of the technocrats.
The crisis within the Commission has not led to any reform of its role or of the way in which it functions.
All that has been proposed to us is an increase of its President' s powers and I doubt that even this would have prevented the dysfunction demonstrated by the Santer Commission.
The negotiations of the last few days have proved that it was nothing but a laughable process of haggling.
People are fighting over power of influence and postponing the distribution of competences and the clarification of the European Union' s objectives until 2004, even though making everything uniform is still clearly the order of the day.
We are told of parity between the larger States but the division is confirmed with 27 additional seats being allocated to just one country.
Enough hypocrisy!
The right of each Member State to be heard within the Council should have been recognised in Nice.
For this to happen, one vote is enough and would enable us to avoid the countless calculations of weighting imposed by qualified majority voting.
Taking into account these interests and differences within the Council would have avoided the debates on the number of Commissioners to which each State is clinging.
When I hear a Commissioner calling for an end to the cultural exception and for the extension of qualified majority voting to Article 133 in international negotiations, I must state that, personally, the loss of one Commissioner would not be particularly serious.
This House ought to represent the expression of an elected majority that backs the decisions of ministers who, I would remind you, are answerable to their respective national parliamentary representations.
You chose to follow another path.
We find this truly deplorable and it will benefit neither Europe itself nor any Member State.
With regard to the Summit' s conclusions, I am stunned to see the discrepancy between the proclamations on the services of general interest and the dismantling of the postal service, which is on the agenda for this part-session.
My fear is that the objective of full employment, which is part of the Social Agenda, may suffer the same fate.
As far as Europe' s image is concerned, this Presidency has been a failure.
The common interest appears to diminish the signing of a treaty that is designed to provide solutions by transferring ever more sovereignty against the wishes expressed by the public. Furthermore, we could adopt the formula suggested by the Economic and Social Council and say that Europe is experiencing a serious lack of public debate.
Sometimes out of convenience or as a matter of urgency, the issue is dodged or cut short and sometimes a debate does take place but the experts and the elites are often the only players that are heard, that are listened to and who really influence decision-making. The danger of this is that the public will feel alienated from the decisions that actually concern them directly.
My group is disappointed by this Treaty and is worried about the future that it holds for us and we will therefore use all our power to oppose it.
Madam President, President Chirac, I am delighted that you have found time today, in contrast to the previous occasion, to listen to my speech.
I take it as a welcome sign of the fact that tensions have eased since then.
While waiting for the outcome from Nice, I was put in mind of my old mathematics professor. Two out of four problems unsolved elicited a pitiless "unsatisfactory" from him.
Until late into Sunday, it looked like Nice too might earn such a mark.
Then a compromise was found.
In essence, the total compromise is less than the sum of its parts.
Nonetheless, from an Austrian point of view, it is a result we can live with.
I personally welcome, above all, the juridification of all stages of the sanctions procedure, especially the facility for the Court of Auditors to exercise control.
As an Austrian I know what I am talking about.
The rule of law has triumphed here over political arbitrariness.
Many have complained about the lack of progress on qualified majority voting.
I take a more relaxed view.
The heads of state and government may have exercised restraint in certain areas, but at least they did not use their right of veto after long hours of negotiation just for the heck of it.
On the contrary, their restraint was driven by serious problems and concerns and the result of informed national opinion, which cannot be swept to one side and must be taken seriously.
How can we make our citizens identify more closely with Europe if we do not heed their concerns? For many citizens, things are simply moving too fast.
Many still have no sight of the port into which the European Union is supposed to sail one day.
As far as I am concerned, deliberate, considered action makes far more sense than rushing into the fray.
However, what is worrying in this situation, and this is something which both I and Mr Poettering have warned against, is that the instrument of reinforced cooperation may be used as a circumvention strategy in areas in which no decision can be reached by a qualified majority.
This sort of approach would not only contradict the ultima ratio clause; it would, in my view, also represent a serious threat to the development of the Union.
Thank you, Mr Hager.
At this stage in the debate, I shall give the floor once again to the President-in-Office of the Council, President Chirac, who would like to respond to the speeches by the group chairmen, following which, President Chirac will leave us and Mr Moscovici will take over.
Mr President, I give you the floor.
VOTE
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0349/2000) by Mr Liese on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the common position adopted by the Council [8878/1/2000 - C5-0424/2000 - 1997/0197(COD)] with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use
Barnier, Commission.
(FR) Mr President, on the Liese report, I would like to confirm what my colleague Erkki Liikanen explained yesterday during the debate.
The Commission can accept compromise Amendments Nos 28 to 43.
It can also accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 21, 23 and 24.
The Commission can also accept Amendments Nos 5, 11, 15, 17, 25, 26 and 27 in principle, but cannot accept Amendments Nos 4, 18, 20 and 22.
Mr President, could we please check before the vote that enough members are present in the Chamber to give us the 314 votes needed or if the other two reports should perhaps go first, because there has been some confusion as to how long this break is supposed to last.
In all events, we must be careful not to upset the compromise which we have now reached simply because some members are unaware of the fact that we are about to vote.
On the subject itself, I have just one brief technical comment. This is a complicated subject.
We must back medical progress and, at the same time, ensure that subjects are protected during trials.
The committee accepted the report unanimously.
Nonetheless, a number of proposed amendments have been tabled, as the Commissioner rightly says.
They are compromise amendments designed to bring about agreement with the Council.
The Council has asked us to accept the spirit of the report but to change the wording here and there.
Hence these proposed amendments, these so-called compromise amendments from three groups.
I think they reflect the views not just of these three groups but of other groups which have refrained from putting their name to them for technical reasons.
I therefore call on the House to accept these compromise amendments and to reject the new proposals which have now been tabled by other groups so as to avoid jeopardising the compromise with the Council.
Not because I am opposed to the proposals in principle but because I want to safeguard the compromise with the Council and avoid risking a complicated and tricky conciliation procedure for the sake of an amendment.
In order to make full use of this compromise, I should like to ask the presidency to vote on proposed Amendment No 22, which is scheduled right at the beginning of the vote, after Amendment No 43, because Amendment No 43 reflects the compromise with the Council, while Amendment No 22 reflects the committee's original position and should only be adopted if the compromise does not win a majority here in the House.
Before the vote on Amendment No 22:
My dear Sir, I have not yet gone through the text finally adopted in Nice with a fine toothcomb but, off the top of my head, the answer is no.
(Parliament adopted the draft legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0355/2000) by Mrs Cerdeira Morterero on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the initiative of the Portuguese Republic with a view to adopting a Council Framework Decision on the standing of victims in criminal procedure [9650/2000 - C5-0392/2000 - 2000/0813(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the draft legislative resolution)
Explanations of vote - Liese recommendation for second reading (A5-0349/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the report on regulations relating to the performance of clinical trials with a view to finding new medicinal products.
Before I left Bergamo for Strasbourg, I told Mr Giuseppe Rossi, a pensioner from Bergamo about this, and he said that he was very happy about this regulation. However, he urged me to draw Parliament's attention - which I am very willing to do - to the fact that, when selecting the diseases for which it is intended to find complete cures by performing clinical trials on new medicinal products, priority should be given to diseases affecting the elderly, in particular, who do not have time to wait for trials to be performed, unlike youngsters who have all the time in the world.
Therefore, priority must be given to the diseases affecting the elderly.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group has supported Mr Liese' s report.
It was really necessary to simplify the plethora of legal and administrative arrangements applying to clinical trials in the Member States.
Promoting the development of medicines in the Community is desirable because that makes it possible to give patients a better chance of benefiting from high-performance treatment.
Research also needs to be promoted into medicines for children, and the Health Ministers of the various Member States must rally behind it.
Two-thirds of children' s medicines were in fact designed for adults.
For lack of data, their marketing authorisation (MA) does not provide for use with children.
So use in paediatric medicine sometimes falls under the heading of empirical individual prescriptions, and we need to promote the development at pharmaceutical laboratories of specific products prepared for children and their pathologies so that the doses and forms of the medicines are suited to their bodies.
Dr Liese' s report means we can establish shorter time periods, harmonisation of procedures, and above all, a high level of protection, especially for children.
As a result of the determination shown by both the Member States and Parliament, laboratories previously discouraged by the complexity of clinical trials will perhaps find the courage to develop the market for children' s medicines, even if it is not yet big enough to provide a return on the investment!
Furthermore, the legitimate determination to protect patients who take part in trials at Union level is inseparable from respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
So the conditions for consent must be very strict.
In our view, trials on people incapable of giving their consent should be banned.
Here Dr Liese' s determination to lay down stricter conditions for consent by persons incapable of giving it is interesting.
We think consent should be governed by national legislation.
While it is appropriate to establish a set of rules to be taken into account, the Member States must retain the power to adopt stricter legislation, as France has done in this respect.
That would merely be an intelligent application of the principle of subsidiarity.
Honeyball report (A5-0356/2000)
Mr President, when Mr Enrico Perniceni of Locatello Imagno in the province of Bergamo, my home town, discovered we were going to debate this directive he said: "Mr Fatuzzo, I know that I am a very old man but I would like my time never to come.
If my time does have to come, I would like it to be the same time throughout the European Union!
I therefore ask you to vote for the motion" - which I did - "because it is right for Europe to have a European time to go with the European currency, the European Parliament and the European flag.
In fact, I feel that it is right for all the States of the European Union to be on the same summer time" .
I congratulate my colleague Mary Honeyball on her first report for the European Parliament.
Summer time should be a matter for the Member States but it is right that the EU should harmonise the start and end dates.
I welcome the agreement to continue to begin summer time on the last Sunday in March and to end it on the last Sunday in October.
Given the planning needs of certain sectors such as transport, communications, tourism and computer and other technology I welcome the proposal to make these arrangements permanent subject to a Commission review every five years.
Summer time has, in practice, become normal time.
There may therefore be cause for questioning the concept of 'summer time' when it relates to seven out of twelve months, that is to say the majority of the year.
Do we really have to carry on with the change to summer time? It was brought in at the time of the oil crises, to save energy and has been extended to 2001?
First we should recognise that the advantages and value of the arrangement have largely vanished: the energy saving it was supposed to produce is completely unproven and merely symbolic.
On the contrary, in addition to atmospheric pollution problems, the profound disturbance to human beings, especially children, of this double time-change, taking place in March and then in October, is clearly established and greatly resented by the people, many of whom are calling for the cancellation of this arrangement which upsets the rhythms of life.
The report financed by the Commission to justify its proposal merely notes the inadequacy of the consistent data available and the contradictory nature of existing studies: so it does not provide any relevant grounds for maintaining the time change system.
Now, the Commission proposes to make the change to summer time, and then back to winter time, permanent with no limit date.
It means to impose this on the Member States without the option of exemption, and on the candidate countries, without taking account of their specific geographic position.
Nothing, not even time, must escape its standardising will!
It must be the same time in Brest as in Brest-Litovsk.
The advantages of time zones cannot possibly outweigh the benefits of standardisation!
Long live the single federal time!
Yet the choice of time applicable in each of the Member States is always a purely national decision, by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity.
The national governments must not give up that right. They must continue to be concerned about representing the will of the people who have elected them.
Instead of the one proposed by the Commission, the best solution would undoubtedly be to give up the summer time arrangement and keep GMT + 1 hour for the whole year, at least as far as France is concerned.
From this angle, I am glad two amendments were adopted by Parliament, one rejecting the Commission' s plan to apply the summer time arrangement for an indefinite period, and the other allowing the Member States, like the European institutions, to retain the option of reviewing this arrangement.
Mr President, I should like to give an explanation on the Honeyball report.
I am sorry, Madam, but I have no record here of your application to give an explanation of vote.
As you know, an application must be submitted in writing in advance.
It is obviously an oversight but, as I am sure you will understand, I cannot make an exception, otherwise we shall get embroiled in Rules of Procedure.
That brings us to the explanations of vote on the Cerdeira Morterero report.
Somewhat surprisingly, Mr Fatuzzo has the floor; I wonder which pensioner has said something to him this time.
Cerdeira Morterero report (A5-0355/2000)
You are going to be surprised, Mr President, for this time, before I left for Strasbourg, it was Mr Carlo Fatuzzo the tourist who said to Mr Carlo Fatuzzo the MEP - we talk to each other sometimes in the mirror - "Seeing as you are going to debate the issue of the protection of victims, remember that last year I went to Spain on holiday and, when I got out my wallet in front of the Sagrada Familia to make a donation in order to make my humble contribution to the conclusion of the work on this structure, both wallet and all the documents inside disappeared.
I went to the Spanish police station immediately and reported the incident before you could say 'Jack Robinson'.
But when I got back to Italy, Mr Fatuzzo," continued Carlo Fatuzzo the tourist, "in order to obtain another identity card and another driving licence, I had to report the incident again, this time to the Italian police.
I had to report the same theft twice.
Therefore, roll on the advent of this directive which will simplify the procedures!"
The status of the victims in criminal proceedings is not always properly protected.
This matter has been taken up in several Council of Europe instruments since the early 80s, but within the European Union it was not debated in the Council until 1998.
Since then, there have appeared first the Commission proposal, in the run-up to the 1999 Tampere European Council, which put forward a number of measures in the fields of the prevention of victimisation and victim aid and support and upheld the need to draw up minimum standards especially for victim protection and for the access of victims to justice and their right to compensation for damages, including legal costs, and secondly the Portuguese Presidency' s draft framework decision on the status of the victim in criminal proceedings.
This latter proposal is the subject of this report, which essentially warrants our approval, particularly as regards the simplification of access to rights, courts and legal information, and the promotion and protection of victims' rights in matters of compensation for loss and damages through redress mechanisms.
We are very much in favour of strengthening the position of victims of crime and therefore welcome in principle the draft framework decision presented by Portugal. Above all, we are in favour of setting up, at European level, principles for how the victims of crime are to be treated.
Nonetheless, the Member States ought themselves to be responsible for working out the details. We believe, however, that a couple of questions need to be analysed more thoroughly and would present the following points of view.
Freedom of association is of fundamental importance in a democratic constitutional State, which is why we oppose a demand for non-profit-making organisations to be approved by the State before they are allowed to offer support to victims of crime.
We also believe that transparency is a prerequisite if authorities and courts are to inspire confidence in citizens, which is why we oppose general rules limiting the press' s ability to write about what has come to light in the course of a public trial.
Only in a few clearly defined cases (relating, for example, to sexual crimes and crimes involving child pornography, where secrecy is required) may there be exemptions from holding open proceedings in court.
Finally, we think it may be a good idea for there to be video conferencing and other such facilities if there is reason for thinking that a witness or plaintiff might, out of fear or for some other reason, not speak the truth freely in the presence of the defendant.
.
I welcome this report by my colleague Carmen Cerdiera.
The report aims to ensure that all victims of crime in any EU Member State should receive the same minimum treatment.
Appropriate measures should be taken to provide crime victims with the following rights: to provide and receive information; communications facilities; participation in the procedure and access to free legal aid; a suitable level of protection and privacy; the possibility to seek compensation under criminal procedure and to dispute settlement through mediation.
The victim must be treated as a person in a particular situation of disorientation and distress - factors that are likely to be all the more acute if the crime happens to the victim in a Member State other than his/her own.
. Although we support the content of the report and are very sympathetic to victims of crime throughout Europe, I, as a British Conservative, have reservations regarding certain aspects of the report.
I believe we have adequate protection for such victims under Article 6 of the Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights, and this report is yet another example of unnecessary proposed European interference into an area which is already covered by agreements between Member States, as well as 25 other non-EU members of the Council of Europe.
The British Conservative Party does not support EU prescriptive measures to harmonise criminal law in the EU which must remain the competence of the Member State.
Madam President, I wholeheartedly support this report on better protection for victims of crime which demonstrates yet again in the EU's commitment to combating crime and protecting our citizens.
We are trying to ensure that the rights and interests of victims of crime are better respected in all EU Member States, even when the crime itself has been committed outside the victim's usual country of residence.
Consequently, many travellers and holidaymakers will benefit from this European initiative.
This measure will help allow victims of crime to be able to claim full, immediate and effective compensation for any damage suffered, if possible to be paid by the perpetrator of the crime.
Combating crime is crucial for my constituents in the North West. The Labour Government is cracking down on crime and disorder.
With Labour, crime is already down 10% since 1997.
Domestic burglary is down by 21% and vehicle crime by 15% - their lowest levels for a decade.
The six-year decline in police numbers has been halted - 9000 extra recruits will take police numbers to their highest level ever.
The Queen's Speech spells out that our next step is to cut violent crime and disorder by working together.
The Tories, on the other hand, offer nothing but rising crime and falling investment.
The Tories, on the other hand, offer nothing but rising crime and falling investment.
Their record on law and order speaks for itself: during their time in office, the chance of being a victim of burglary increased from one in 32 to one in 13; the chance of being a victim of violent crime trebled.
Madam President, the Labour Government is determined to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.
By introducing greater protection for victims of crime across Europe, our citizens will gain confidence in the judicial system and the police, not just across Britain, but right across the European Union.
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
European Council/ French Presidency (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on:
the report by the European Council and the statement by the Commission on the European Council Meeting of 7 to 10 December 2000 in Nice;
the statement by the officiating President of the Council on the French Presidency.
Mr President, on a point of order.
This has great relevance to the matter we are discussing since it touches on the freedom of the press and the independent ownership of the media in Russia.
A few hours ago the owner of most of Russia's independent television, Mr Vladimir Gusinsky, was arrested in Spain.
I am told he is due to be deported to Russia.
I should like to protest at this most serious development and ask that investigations be made.
Mr Gusinsky is presently in an aircraft on his way to Madrid where he faces deportation to Russia for criticising the Russian Government in his media activities.
Lord Bethell, I think we would agree with you.
We will look into the matter.
We will make a note of it now and naturally we feel like you that the freedom of the press must continue to be observed in that part of the world.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, one image strikes us as we leave Nice behind.
There are basically two Europes: one that works and one that asks itself questions.
The one that works is the one that has after all, it seems to me, spent the six months getting the work done in six essential areas, under the leadership of the French Presidency.
Let us just note for the record the Social Agenda and the European company; strengthening Euroland and the tax package; the conference on commitment capability and the progress of Defence Europe; safety, whether in food or at sea; young people' s mobility and the recognition of the specific features of sport or the Media plus programme; and the important statement on services of general interest.
Yes, practical Europe continues to make progress, but what struck our fellow citizens at Nice was that the Europe asking itself where it is going and what it wants sometimes looks all at sea.
There is one piece of good news, certainly.
Europe is now ready, thirteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, to welcome the Central and Eastern European countries knocking at our door.
But as we said in this Parliament, a narrow agenda means the issues on the table have to be dealt with.
It does not offer a way out.
At Maastricht, we had the euro to dream about.
At Amsterdam, we had the area of freedom, security and justice, and the employment chapter.
But at Nice, there was nothing but the crude sharing out of power and then we saw national egoism on parade.
There will be no Nice leftovers, but was there a European spirit at Nice? We are not sure there was.
We all know there is a collective responsibility for this sad balance sheet, be it that of the 'small countries' or the 'big countries' , be it that of the founding countries or those joining later.
Nice will make enlargement possible, but without a plan, without a soul, without ambition, without vision.
We can say what we like about the state of mind of our fellow citizens, but the responsibility is ours and they expect us to deliver this European project, this European dream.
I have a few comments to make, and the first is on the Charter.
The Heads of State and Government sometimes give the impression that they almost took themselves by surprise at the Cologne European Council when they initiated a process whose results, in the end, would frighten them.
How can we accept the fact that this Charter, which carries our dreams, hopes and ambitions, should in the end be proclaimed on the sly and that, at the end of the day, the only thing proposed for 2004 is an examination of the status of the Charter? There is no longer even any mention of its possible incorporation and, in the final analysis, the only institution to emerge from this exercise strengthened is the Court of Justice, which will be able to incorporate this Charter into Community legislation, even before the Heads of State and Government.
Then there is the issue of chief concern to this Parliament, qualified majority voting.
How could we not express our disappointment? The scope of qualified majority is narrower than expected.
On the essential issues of tax and social affairs, there is no progress.
Things are more difficult because instead of just one criterion, there are three criteria to be fulfilled.
Things are more complicated because there are these appeal clauses in the new Treaty, making the process even more incomprehensible to our fellow citizens.
From Parliament' s viewpoint, alongside qualified majority there is still the issue of codecision.
For us, that is essential.
It is sometimes caricatured as not being democratic, as taking too long, but democracy takes time, and time is necessary for debates.
We call for that debate to be launched.
Sometimes, it has seemed as if, at the end of the day, in the conference, at Nice, the European Parliament was serving as an adjustment variable.
But yes, Mr Bayrou, let us admit that we also bear the responsibility for that.
We were not capable of expressing how we wanted Parliament organised.
On method, I think the Nice perspectives, from that point of view, are very interesting.
The Heads of State and Government have just recognised at Nice what we were saying after Amsterdam: the Intergovernmental Conference method is no longer successful for Europe.
So we welcome the prospect of a new method and we trust that, with the hope offered by the possibility of enhanced cooperation, Europe will continue to advance and will be capable of drafting a constitution for tomorrow which restores our fellow citizens' confidence in this tremendous project that is the European adventure.
Mr President, despite what the President of the Republic says about the problems faced, in view of the spectacle at Nice, one must question whether the Union is really and truly prepared for enlargement.
The candidates cannot have been pleased at the sight of the scramble for national power and status among the prime ministers.
Sadly the common cause of Europe was a marginal factor.
For the decisions on Council voting and seats in Parliament a more suitable venue would have been the casino at Cannes rather than the Acropolis at Nice, with Mr Chirac playing the role of chief croupier.
Particularly regrettable was the failure to make reference to the Charter - a failure that will bring legal uncertainty and political frustration.
However, my greatest fear is that Britain, France and Germany will now be able to subvert the delicate balance developed between states of various sizes and between the institutions over several decades.
We will resist this forcefully.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as far as we are concerned, the outcome of the Nice Summit has not prepared the EU sufficiently for enlargement.
In the twelve candidate countries, people prefer to talk in terms of the unification of Europe.
That is quite revealing.
We, i.e. many European citizens, grew up after the Second World War hoping that a united Europe would be able to play a part in the world some day for the sake of the freedom and welfare of humanity, of its own citizens and peoples.
Yet this seems to be an even more distant dream than we had hoped now that Nice is over.
After all, Nice was primarily an attempt on the part of the Member States to reach a settlement behind closed doors on the Amsterdam leftovers, with the safeguarding of national interests uppermost in their minds.
But what they did not do was endeavour to equip the EU to pursue enlargement.
Quite a number of speakers have made the same point this morning and I wholeheartedly agree with them.
As representative of the parties united in the European Free Alliance, I would like to alert the Commission, but particularly the Council, to the dangers, should the EU wish to be no more than an intergovernmental association.
The States preparing for accession will copy the example of our own Member States' egoism.
The regions and peoples that do not have their own state will also weigh the situation up. They will work out what they stand to gain in Scotland, Catalonia and Flanders if, instead of playing the federal game, they opt to become a Member State themselves, with a guaranteed Commissioner, guaranteed clout in the Council, and a larger number of seats in the European Parliament than they can hope for at present.
Must we give up the dream of a united Europe? I think not.
We are obliged to put our hopes in the post Nice process.
We want this to be a real process in which the balance between the institutions of the Union and those of the Member States and the constitutive regions must be defined with respect for the subsidiarity principle.
Mr President, there is a quotation from George Orwell' s book, Animal Farm which, in a way, describes what happened in Nice.
It reads, 'Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others.'
Translated into what happened in Nice, this could read, 'All EU countries are equal, but it is the large countries which decide' .
What happened in Nice was not only that the European Union' s large Member States set the agenda, but that they also brought about Treaty changes which guarantee them the same power in an enlarged EU.
On the basis of the Treaty of Nice, an enlarged EU will become a Union which is more centralised and in which the small countries pay the whole price of enlargement.
For the Swedish negotiators, it would appear to have been more important to please the large Member States than to fight for our own influence.
Sweden is therefore to be given fewer votes than comparable Member States.
It is hard to see what there is in the Nice decisions which really makes enlargement of the EU any the easier.
The decision-making process in the Council is to become more complicated, at the same time as it is to become more difficult to take decisions.
Nice means more supranationalism and centralism, which are precisely what the EU did not need.
The EU' s real problems are the lack of democracy and grassroots support, but those questions were not dealt with at all at the Nice Summit.
I can also inform this Assembly that the results of a Swedish opinion poll were published today, showing that only 38 per cent of the population want to remain in the European Union.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, we should honour the French Presidency, we should honour President Chirac. He was at the coalface, he fought and conquered for his vision of Europe - because he did have a vision.
Congratulations too, to President Aznar, who won the 'Bingo' at the Nice Council.
Congratulations to the British, who do not have to thump the table any more because they have found out how to stay close to the leader as we were taught to do by the great Dutch cycling champion, Zoetemelk: they cashed in too.
It is our Parliament and our Commission, Mr Prodi, that lacks vision.
It was our Parliament and our Commission that failed to realise there was a plan to assassinate the Commission: the assassination of the Commission will take place in a few years' time. A Commission with a commissioner for each Member State sanctions the transfer of all the Commission' s important issues to the Council.
That means the death of the Commission, and our Parliament would rather gnaw on the bones thrown to it at the Cologne Council than confront this fundamental problem: without a supranational Commission, the Europe we want will not come into being. There will be a Europe of nations, there will be no federal Europe.
This is our last chance.
If we want to get back on the federal track, there is only one solution, Mr Prodi. It is the election of the Commission President by universal suffrage and powerful legitimacy for the Commission, and unless there is a real alliance on specific aims like those, between the Commission, Parliament and Member States like Belgium - which fought hard during this Council, represented by Mr Verhofstadt - then there will no longer be a federal Europe, there will be the Europe of nations which we have never wanted.
Mr President, the fairly unanimous message from the President-in-Office of the Council, the Commission and heads of government is basically that the Treaty of Nice secures the framework for the unification of Europe.
Some are happier than others about this, but the main message is clear: Europe can now be unified in an enlarged democratic EU which is also close to the people, thanks to the Treaty of Nice.
These messages contain such huge and monstrous distortions of the truth that we have to go back to history' s most famous propagandists in order to find exact comparisons.
For the fact is that what has been decided in Nice is enhanced cooperation, superpower domination, a Charter of Fundamental Rights, military development and the monitoring of democracy.
What has been decided is unnecessary to enlargement, and what is necessary to enlargement has not been decided.
The Treaty of Nice contains a series of quite decisive steps towards an EU of élites, together with corresponding steps away from a Europe of democracies and of the people.
Centralised power and superpower dominance are increasing drastically, as if we had not already had enough of these.
Is this a unification and democratisation of Europe? No, it is an extension to the power of the élites and, in reality, the unfortunate agenda for Eastern Europe is, of course, subjection.
It is we who decide about the applicant States.
The EU does not negotiate with them.
They are not involved in deciding what the Treaty of Nice will contain, and the EU dictates all the conditions of participation. Moreover, none - and I repeat, none - of the crucial problems associated with the enlargement project and involving the integration of incompatible social and economic systems are recognised as problems.
The EU and the EU' s policy are not the solution, but the problem.
Mr President, in the coming weeks we shall have to carry out a rigorous, in-depth analysis of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference and the fundamental questions which it has thrown up.
I will not go back to the comments of the different speakers regarding the method nor the other subjects such as those covered by Mr Brok just now.
Of the fundamental questions, the first is that the Nice conclusions do not guarantee on an institutional level the necessary continuity and the necessary development of the process of integration into the larger Union which is about to come into being.
Therefore, even though we may not call them leftovers, the issues which were not adequately resolved in Nice will inevitably arise again. I refer to the changeover in qualitatively essential areas to qualified majority voting and to the very procedures for taking majority decisions.
Time will show us which issues we need to return to, whether we like it or not.
The second fundamental issue is political rather than institutional.
The atmosphere of the Nice Council, the lack of openness, as President Prodi said, the blinkered vision characterising the attitudes of the different governments - the narrow-minded defence of national interests or policies - explain, it is sad to say, the root of the problem: a serious loss of the sense of shared European interest, of a common European vision.
Well, the appropriate responses to both the institutional and political fundamental questions, which are our most negative legacy from the Nice Council, must be sought in dialogue, in the evaluation and development process which must be pursued under the title "the future of the Union".
We must reflect seriously on what has happened.
We managed to avoid an open crisis which would have threatened enlargement by coming to a last minute agreement on the Treaty, but we are left with a latent crisis which will have to be dealt with.
Building a unified Europe requires far-sighted vision and coherence.
In response to President Chirac, we are not calling for haste; we are asking not to have to take one step forwards and then one backwards, not to call for promotion of the drafting and proclamation of the Charter when we do not then dare to include it in the Treaty, not to call for the new wording of the Convention to be produced when we then do not even dare to suggest it as a potential post-Nice procedure.
We want the objective of constitutionalisation to be called by its name; we are asking for a response, with a clear, coherent vision of the future of Europe, to the disappointments and fears which are spreading amongst the citizens over the current or future nature of the Union.
Mr Prodi, Commissioner Barnier, this is our task.
We have every confidence that Parliament and the Commission will proceed together in this direction, as they have done throughout this difficult year 2000.
Mr President, the most important result from Nice was that, in spite of everything, there was a treaty, so that a place can now be prepared for the applicant States.
Otherwise, the Summit was neither especially historic nor successful.
On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I should like to discuss five points in the brief minute I have:
1.
It is not acceptable for the large Member States to employ blackmail tactics against the small countries.
This is contrary to the whole idea of the EU.
2.
It is tragic that no further progress was made on the issue of qualified majority voting.
Now, the EU is to become sluggish and powerless to act, and decision-making is to become more complicated.
3.
Closed and exclusive, the Intergovernmental Conference is an old-fashioned and undemocratic method.
The people must be involved in future.
4.
The forthcoming constitutional debate must lead to simplification, distribution of powers and increased democracy.
The EU must acquire a common constitution.
5.
A new Intergovernmental Conference must not be used as an alibi for postponing enlargement.
Our new colleagues must be allowed to participate in the discussions as new Members on equal conditions.
Mr President, President Chirac has played down the negative reactions of many of the Members to the outcome of Nice, describing them as unrealistic and not pragmatic.
In reality, it is the President who is being unrealistic if he thinks that it will be possible to enlarge the Union with such a Treaty.
In my opinion, it is not more realistic to fight for one's own national prestige than to fight for the efficient functioning of the Union, and I would not say that huge numbers of European citizens came out to follow the naval battle fought by their leaders at Nice.
My feeling is that the French Presidency's most serious error was to run the debate along the lines of a battle of powers between States - a mean, shameless fight over details - rather than as a relevant debate on the Union's policies.
Terrified of jeopardising France's equal voting rights with Germany, the Presidency docilely allowed its proposals to extend qualified majority voting to 40 or so subjects to be knocked down to less than half this number.
Yet even the pro-Europe- States did little to fight for its cause and, in the end, bowed before a disappointing compromise.
As for the European Parliament, only the Commission defended its legitimacy and I therefore thank President Prodi and Commissioner Barnier for this, but they were alone in their endeavours and this was reflected in the final compromise.
We truly hope this will be the last Intergovernmental Conference, considering that the Summit revealed a breakdown in Community solidarity.
The real winners in this Conference were Blair and Aznar, the Euro-sceptics.
It is their Europe, the Europe of the market and the right to veto which has won the battle. Our Europe, the Europe of democracy and a sustainable future, lost.
There is one small ray of light although even that was mortgaged to the hilt by the French Presidency, and that is what is known as the post-Nice process. However, there are ambiguities which require urgent clarification.
First of all, 2004 is too far away: we need to act sooner than that.
We want a democratic process with the objective of a European Constitution to be defined by June and launched at the end of the year: the Charter took 8 months to draw up so a Constitution can be produced in less than 4 years.
This is our next battle.
I hope that, this time, the governments will fight with us rather than on the opposing side.
Mr President, we had said that a failure would be preferable to a disappointing conclusion.
In practice, we did not fail completely, but neither did we reach a conclusion.
What came out of the Summit were contradictions and deferrals. The Charter of Fundamental 0Rights was proclaimed but has not been included in the Treaties and it will therefore not become legally binding immediately.
The need for a European Constitution is greater than ever.
The principle of European military defence was accepted but, for now, its function has not been clearly defined. That can only be guaranteed by making it autonomous from the United States and moving on from NATO, which is now completely outdated.
The need for a social agenda covering employment, health, education, the environment and rights was mentioned, but nothing concrete was specified, not even the barriers to be overcome or how to overcome them to guarantee justice and freedom.
Finally, enlargement to the east and to the south was planned and promised.
That is all well and good, but the institutional rules to make it operative have not been decided upon with certainty.
Individual interests and privileges prevail.
We are even further from achieving the Europe we want after Nice than we were before.
The Council must start to take notice of the European Parliament, leaders must start to take notice of the national parliaments and the national parliaments must start to take notice of the views of their citizens.
Mr President, Nice was, and should have been, a historic date, the kick-off for the new Europe, the Europe of the new century, the great Europe, the Europe of all the Europeans.
And what a fine project, eleven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall!
But for that, we would have needed vision, ambition, endurance, generosity of spirit, audacity.
Alas, alas, alas!
We have long known that the great Europe could not be introduced through the institutions of the little Europe.
We know we should think about Europe differently and we know we need new institutions.
But, without a vision of the future, without knowing how to ask the right questions, we ended up with dithering, horse-trading and, finally, tinkering in Nice.
Before the Nice Summit the French Presidency was saying 'better no agreement than a bad agreement' , and this morning, unless I misunderstood, we were in essence told 'better a bad agreement than no agreement at all' .
Certainly, the Nice agreement opens the way to membership for the candidate countries, but we are advancing down that road in the fog, foot on the brake, certain the European vehicle will not reach its destination in good shape.
So let us forget about Nice now, and think about post-Nice -and you will forgive me if I pin my hopes on the plan for a grand convention advanced by Belgium for its Presidency, because the evidence is there, we must do something new, we must change the method, we must accelerate history: 2004 is too late, it is too far off, it is too dangerous.
Yes, a grand convention including the European institutions, the governments, the parliaments of the Member States and the candidate countries which absolutely must be associated with this common house.
That is my hope.
Mr President, I am one of those who had for some time been placing their hopes in the miracle of Nice: an Intergovernmental Conference, a Summit, a Treaty which would both reorganise the European institutions and further the process of enlargement.
But the miracle did not happen!
The clearest gauges of its limited success are the announcement of another Intergovernmental Conference in 2004 and the quality and import of the subjects at the centre of the post-Nice debate, which range from the distribution of competences within the Union to the value of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The miracle failed to materialise in the substance of the decisions on institutional reform.
This failure was due essentially to the defensive tactics of the governments and their powers of veto, not to mention the limited involvement of the European Parliament. This is a sign of short-sightedness in that, today, Parliament is the only Union body which legitimises the will of the people.
The miracle did not come to pass in terms of the organisation of the shared legacy of the Charter of Fundamental Rights either.
Parliament and the Commission have declared that they would abide by it.
What is preventing the Council from deciding to do the same?
There is just one small satisfaction: enlargement.
Thanks to Nice, the institutional barrier can no longer be invoked.
The winners at Nice, the only winners, were the candidate countries, whose path towards the gates of the European Union is being cleared.
Only those who have always believed in the strategic value of enlargement have a genuine right to rejoice with them.
Mr President, the main aspects of European integration remained unresolved in Nice and will remain so for many years.
However, the national governments' claim to be the constitutional legislator of Europe has finally been laid to rest, as has the hope that the heads of state and government think of themselves as the trustees of the idea of European unification.
No, what they have done is to turn Europe into a bazaar at which nationalistic, national interests are bartered.
Amsterdam and Nice have given us a Europe of imperial rulers, a Europe of national administrations, not a Europe of political unification.
What were they supposed to be doing? According to Article 1 of the Treaty on European Union, they were supposed to be creating an ever closer political union.
But no, the heads of state and government blocked the idea of European unification. Back home from Nice, they are priding themselves not on what they have given Europe, but on what they have withheld from Europe.
They are holding the flags of national veto, hindrance and delay high.
This is not the Europe which we have been talking about for decades.
It is a Europe of administrations. Now it is the turn of the parliaments, now the time has come to show that the purpose of parliaments is to tame the power of governments and ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, it was the task of the Nice Summit to develop a Union capable of absorbing twelve new Member States.
A European Union which can function efficiently, transparently and democratically.
After all, the countries from Central and Eastern Europe want a robust Union, a Union capable of taking decisions.
It is to be welcomed that the timetable adopted in Nice, with regard to the accession of the first countries from Central and Eastern Europe, is in line with Parliament' s timetable.
But what is striking is that the Council spent four days in seclusion in Nice giving more attention to its own concerns.
There was no answer to the question as to how the institutions of the European Union could function more effectively in an enlarged Union.
The Council really looked after number one; to be sure, it improved things for the Commission to a certain extent and put a little sweetener Parliament' s way, as befits a father.
But it all compares most unfavourably with the attention the Council gave itself.
Four main problems loom large.
Firstly, institutional imbalance: a great deal for the Council and not much for the Commission and Parliament.
Secondly, national interests have triumphed.
Only the Belgian Head of Government, Mr Verhofstadt, was a notable exception.
Thirdly, a democratic deficit.
Old deficits have not been made good and now new ones have come along.
Fourthly, and finally, the decision-making mechanisms cannot be explained back home.
It all gets very complicated.
When Mr Prodi says there are no more leftovers from Nice, I would make so bold as to doubt his word.
We must introduce qualified majority decision-making for the essential topics, or else the situation will become untenable.
Nice will go down in history as the Summit of lost opportunity, the Summit of lack of leadership in Europe, the Summit of opposition and the Summit in whose wake the people felt even more isolated from the European Union.
Mr President, the purpose of the Intergovernmental Conference was to prepare the European Union so that it would be able to operate after enlargement.
I think the European Parliament is right to base its evaluation on two criteria, namely efficiency and democratisation.
As the European Parliament's representatives, Mr Brok and I fought for both, but without the required results.
We do, of course, admit that some progress was made on both counts.
As far as efficiency is concerned, qualified majority voting was introduced in several instances, Parliament was granted the right to litigate in matters of a constitutional nature and the system of reinforced cooperation was made more practicable.
Similarly, a number of positive moves were made as regards the European Commission.
As far as democratisation is concerned, the points worth noting are that codecision has been extended on several counts and the European legislator has been authorised to define the status of European political parties and crucial preventive measures to defend democracy and freedom in the Member States.
Unfortunately, however, for the European Parliament, the shortcomings in the Treaty have been exacerbated.
Unanimity has been abolished for a whole series of legislative issues, but without giving Parliament codecision powers.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights has not received so much as a mention in the Treaty.
The European Parliament has too little say in the reinforced cooperation procedure.
Fundamental areas still require unanimity.
The decision-making system in the Council may well incorporate the principle of a double majority, but it has become somewhat complicated and has upset the balance between large and small Member States.
Finally, the European Parliament will face a huge dilemma when it comes to make its final appraisal of the Treaty at the beginning of next year due to the clause on post-Nice developments.
This clause adopts the European Parliament's opinion that further development of the European Union will be impossible using the intergovernmental method applied in the past.
This method has had it.
The clause on post-Nice developments, for all its exaggerated and wholly inaccurate eulogy of the Treaty, does give some light at the end of the tunnel, to quote my friend Mr Hänsch.
Given the procedure described, new proposals for the Europe of tomorrow need to be drafted by political and social bodies - mainly the national parliaments and the European Parliament.
Without this clause on post-Nice developments, the European Parliament would, I think, have been unable to accept the Treaty.
With this clause, it is simply a poor treaty.
However, careful thought and consideration are needed before the European Parliament decides to reject it.
Thank you very much, Minister.
I am sure Parliament will go on to consider the relationship between the institutions.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, Mr Barnier, I would like to speak on two points.
My first point is that, contrary to what Mr Chirac and Mr Prodi have claimed, there are Nice leftovers, not just for the Fifteen but also, even more so, for the Twenty-seven.
In effect, the question is: are we ready for enlargement and what are our objectives? And not only is the issue of the Commission a leftover, but the lack of extension of qualified majority voting and codecision strengthens competition between the Member States, between the Fifteen and a fortiori between the Twenty-seven, and undermines the future of the European social model.
As regards post-Nice, the following question has to be dealt with: do we want to continue at the same pace as Fifteen, and a fortiori as Twenty-seven? I do not think that will be possible.
We must lift the consensus rule, including in a future convention.
The European public interest, of which none of us is sole guardian - Mr Moscovici is right about that - cannot be based on the addition of national interests which are growing and becoming neutralised and in that regard Prime Minister Verhofstadt had a salutary message for us all.
Mr President, there is an expression in my language 'to take French leave,' which is what the President-in-Office has done, leaving without saying goodbye.
Therefore, my first words should be to thank Mr Prodi, who has stayed.
The Commission is showing that it is interested in the debate in this Parliament.
As far as the Treaty of Nice is concerned, we can say very little, because we do not yet have the conclusions of the European Council, and therefore, until we see them, we cannot add much.
I think there are two matters in which the European Parliament plays an important role.
The first is the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The Charter has been proclaimed and that is a good thing.
But it has neither been incorporated into the Treaties, nor has a reference to the Charter been put in Paragraph 2 of Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union.
And, above all, I have the feeling that the proclamation was not a solemn one.
It was a proclamation on the quiet.
I would therefore like to thank our President, Mrs Fontaine, and President Prodi for what they have said: for the European Parliament and the Commission, the Charter is law from now onwards, and it is going to have an effect from now onwards.
I think that this is positive.
The other point from Nice on which Parliament will judge Nice is the extension of qualified majority voting and Parliament' s codecision.
On this subject - from what I have been able to hear here this morning - the news is vague and does not seem to be very promising.
We will have to wait before we can establish what Parliament' s opinion is.
I remember that when Dimitris Tsatsos and I drew up the report on the Treaty of Amsterdam, we talked about Ortega y Gasset, who said, quoting old Cervantes, that often you have to choose between staying at an inn or continuing with the journey.
Nice is the road to two important things, one of which is enlargement.
Enlargement is going to take place - now we know it.
This is also the case for the euro.
I think that a collapse at Nice would have been a punch below the belt for the euro.
Therefore, perhaps in this Parliament we are in a paradoxical situation that is completely different to Amsterdam.
Perhaps, for this Parliament the European Council of Nice has not been positive, as it was in Amsterdam.
But perhaps, for the European Union, the European Council of Nice is opening up the way for hope and for the future.
We will see, Mr President, when we read the conclusions.
Until then, the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats reserves judgement on what its position will be.
Mr President, after the Single European Act, after Maastricht, after the Treaty of Amsterdam, this Parliament had to judge the results.
In all those cases we reached the conclusion that those treaties were not entirely satisfactory, did not respond to all of our aspirations, but nonetheless represented a step forward and were at least better than the status quo.
We recommended that they be ratified.
This time we have a treaty which, at least on one point, represents a step backwards and is arguably worse than the status quo: that is, the new system for qualified majority voting in the Council, which makes reaching a decision even more difficult than it is at present.
It introduces a triple threshold: number of states, population, and the percentage of the votes set at a higher level than is the case at the moment.
At the moment it is 71% of the votes. That is already very high.
It was set high to make sure that under any permutation such a qualified majority represented a majority of the population.
Now that we have a population criterion in there anyway, it should have been possible to lower the threshold in terms of the number of votes.
Instead it seems that it has been raised, although I speak while waiting to see the final text: apparently there was an adjustment in the last hour of the IGC on that.
I will evaluate that outcome when I see the text.
Nonetheless that is a very worrying situation.
For the rest the Treaty is a mixture of unsatisfactory and positive things - unsatisfactory but nonetheless better than the status quo, I suppose, at least as regards the extension of qualified majority voting, the extension of the codecision procedure for the European Parliament, and the provisions for enhanced cooperation.
That is all better than we have now, even if not all of our requests and desires have been met.
Finally, there are a few positive things: the new version of Article 7 of the Treaty; the article on political parties and their statute; the right of this Parliament to take the other institutions to the Court of Justice - that is also an important factor of political control; the new formula for the European Commission, putting the so-called "lex Prodi" into the Treaty, strengthening the President and the new composition of the Commission - a reasonable compromise which I accept and will work over time; and, as my colleague, Mr Tsatsos pointed out, the way forward to the future.
This is not the end of the story.
New reforms will come and we must take advantage of that.
To sum up, we have a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly.
We will now evaluate this in detail.
I believe we will recommend ratification and moving forward to a new reform, but we must look at the small print to decide whether that is the right way forward.
Mr President, I apologise because my remarks are slightly ill-prepared.
I have come straight from a meeting and, because there are no televisions in the meeting rooms in this building, it is very difficult to keep in touch with what is happening in the Chamber, a deficiency which I hope will be corrected in due course.
Many of us regard the Treaty of Nice as unacceptable but for many different reasons.
The great difficulty concerning the Treaty of Nice - as many people have already commented - is that the lack of any text at this time makes it impossible to make a considered judgment.
We do not know whether the carpentry shop in Nice has produced a Pandora's box for Commission activism or a coffin for democracy, but - whatever has emerged - it is being French-polished and we hope the final result helps the European Union.
I believe that two failures are the lack of democracy, because the opportunity to open the Council up to public scrutiny has been ignored although many of us feel that this was the time to do it, and the illogicality of the re-weighting of votes, with one approach for the Council and another for the European Parliament.
Many people looking at the Treaty of Nice will wonder why it was done in that way.
I personally believe that the re-weighting of votes must take account of population, as is done in the European Parliament and should have been done in the Council also.
A further reason for opposing the Treaty of Nice is the development of greater bureaucracy in the European Union.
Who can genuinely argue that the thirty areas now under QMV are essential to the enlargement process? I think most of the enlargement countries - while accepting the Treaty as it stands because it exists and opens the door to their accession in due course, sooner rather than later I hope - will look at those points and, like most of us, realise that they have no relevance to the day-to-day affairs of their lives.
No reform of the common agricultural policy, no reform of the development policies which are vastly wasteful.
Then there is the incorporation as a mandatory mechanism of the Charter of Fundamental Rights: in itself as in the United States today, a recipe for confusion between the courts in the European Union.
There is the fact that under enhanced cooperation the European Parliament has no role, although certain leaders of national parties - including the leader of the Labour Party in his Warsaw speech - promised no reform of the structural funds in real terms until 2013.
This is not a recipe for enlargement, it is a recipe for more bureaucracy, less democracy.
Mr President, we have already made a thorough assessment of what happened in Nice, but we should remember that Nice began with a very restricted agenda.
The Council asked this Parliament not to broaden the agenda because the intention was to concentrate exclusively on the Amsterdam leftovers.
The Council said it wanted to do this in order to make the European Union's institutions operationally efficient so that it could work better with 27 Member States than it does today with 15.
What was the result of this exercise and this work? The result was, in fact, that the most fundamental and important factor for introducing operational efficiency, decisiveness, flexibility and workability into institution operations was not dealt with at all.
What the Council concentrated on most were questions of power; in other words in Nice there were too many calculators and not enough policies.
The images coming out of Nice showed a Europe in which every country was trying to look after itself, suggesting that the Europe of the future will be a battle between the large and small countries.
I wonder whether these might not be arguments that better serve the interests of the Euro-sceptics and Europe' s enemies. I wonder whether this image we have been given of Nice might not be an appeal to the conscience of convinced Europeans, those who do not just want a single market, those who do not just want a single currency, in the face of what I regard as this "non-time" for Europe.
In my view, Nice was the second part of Amsterdam and we are now in a phase, an interval, between Amsterdam and an IGC to be held in 2004 but with an unknown end-date.
Right now it is the duty of convinced pro-Europeans to counter the image that came out of Nice and say that solidarity for us has a meaning and that it is possible to build a Europe in which large and small countries can coexist peacefully; in other words, there are no expendable countries in this European project and national egos are nonsense in this Europe.
So I should now like to appeal to the House and the Commission: somebody has to put the case for this European project.
The case for the European project is that it is not the sum of national interests but a joint project, as President Romano Prodi has said, and the institutions must now look to the future and join hands so that enlargement can take place, so that the citizens can look on Europe as we would like them to and so that politics can go back to building the European project rather than just upholding power, particularly the power of the larger countries.
Mr President, it has been said, and I think rightly so, that Europe is born out of necessity and that only when necessity knocks at the door does Europe decide to take a step forward.
And necessity gave an urgent knock at the door of Europe in Nice, in the form of sclerosis as a result of the prospect of an enlarged Europe.
There can be many evaluations of what happened in Nice, and we have had ample proof of that this morning and this afternoon in the continuation of the debate.
But the European Council in Nice, like many other summits in the history of the European Union, represents a triumph for reality, a triumph of pragmatism over utopianism.
Although we would all have liked to increase our powers in codecision - and despite the disputes between large countries, between large and small countries and between small and medium-sized countries - it is obvious that the following, although not spectacular, are all steps in the right direction, as President Prodi said this morning: a Commission whose president has his powers increased; a decision-making process in which more decisions - not all those that we would have wished - are taken by qualified majority; a clarification of the role of enhanced cooperation; and also - why not come out with it? - a reweighting, imperfect though it may be, of the votes in the Council of Ministers.
But Nice, Mr President, is not the end of the road, but the starting point for a new phase with many challenges.
We have to successfully complete accession, consolidate the internal market, deliver the single currency, develop a real common foreign and security policy and open up a new debate on the future of Europe.
These are challenges that cannot be overcome, Mr President of the Commission, with our backs to the people.
And in order to do this we will need more generosity, more realism, a greater involvement of the institutions that defend the Community interests, and in this type of conference, everyone will need to seek, as Jean Monnet said, and I will finish with this, their interest in the common interest.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are winners and losers, but Europe cannot claim to be one of the winners and democracy and transparency certainly cannot.
That is, in fact, the gist of what President Prodi said today in a commendably clear and unequivocal manner.
Let us take one thing at a time: the charter was not included in the Treaty, not so much as a mention.
Progress was made on security and defence policy, it is true, but it has no parliamentary dimension.
As far as qualified majority voting is concerned, it has only been extended slightly and the procedure is now even more complicated and less transparent than before.
We do, of course, have reinforced cooperation, but how it will work remains to be seen.
The ratio between large and small was, in the end, regulated in a perfectly reasonable manner, following a number of totally obtuse and unacceptable suggestions, and the Commission has been strengthened, even if the link with the number of members is not necessarily an overly reasonable or clever decision.
Mr Moscovici is without doubt quite right to say that talking about it among ourselves is not enough; we must tell the people about it.
It is true that the people are probably more critical of integration more often than we here in the Chamber.
And with a better result, we would probably have had more trouble persuading the people, but then again we would have had more persuasive powers had we been able to bring a better result home from Nice.
We would have been able to convey a better, stronger European result to the people with a better and clearer conscience.
I should therefore like to come back to something which has been touched on a few times today already.
Yes, we need to analyse the result.
But I think that we should not do so until we have a clear and unequivocal promise from the Council as to how the process will operate from now on, i.e. with the close involvement of the European Parliament.
What was found and said in Nice is too vague for me: yes to Parliament's involvement.
What involvement? I think it is a disgrace if we have to fight yet again for perhaps two representatives to attend as many meetings as possible.
It is totally unacceptable.
This Parliament must play a leading role in this process, just as it did at the convention.
We want to prove to the heads of government that we know best.
If we compare the convention with what happened at the Intergovernmental Conference, admittedly with less serious problems than at the Intergovernmental Conference and with fewer national interests than at the Intergovernmental Conference, then the convention and the modus operandi and methods of the convention clearly come out on top.
I therefore take the view that we should only apply ourselves in detail to what has come out of Nice once it is clear that the European Parliament will have an important and decisive role in the future process.
We want to prove to the heads of government that we know best.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, all my colleagues have stressed the expectations that surrounded the Nice Summit, which was intended to allow the European Union to continue operating effectively, democratically and transparently after the historic enlargement we are awaiting.
Certainly, the Nice Summit has made it possible to achieve significant progress on all the issues that directly affect the lives of our citizens, whether it be the preservation of health, the protection of the environment, social policy or indeed the adoption of a European Company Statute.
Another positive point is that the Charter of Fundamental Rights has been officially proclaimed, even if it is not intended to be binding at this stage.
Finally, the decisions taken in the area of the common foreign and security policy represent undeniable progress.
This summit would have been a triumph if the crucial revision of the Treaties had been crowned with as much success as the areas I have just mentioned.
In fact, while we seem to have succeeded in avoiding total paralysis of the future enlarged European Union, it has not been possible to convert the ambitions of the French Presidency into a new draft of the Treaty.
Be it the excessively limited number of areas transferred from unanimity to majority voting, or subject to codecision, be it the upward revision of the number of Members of the European Parliament in the Europe of tomorrow, or yet again, be it the uncertainty over the number of Commissioners after the enlargements, the Treaty does not come up to scratch, far from it.
Beyond the technical aspects of that reform, what concerns us most of all is the growing difficulty the Member States of the European Union have in making joint decisions, in accordance with the common interests of their citizens.
Let me conclude, as rapporteur for the outermost regions of the Union, by expressing deep regret at the rather disappointing conclusions of the Nice Summit, which do no more than acknowledge the Commission' s work programme.
The outermost regions deserve better and Parliament will continue to work flat out - with Commissioner Barnier' s help, I am sure - to give them all the space they are entitled to within the Union.
Mr President, Nice was no success.
Notwithstanding all the self-congratulation by the French government this morning, the IGC simply did not finish on a good note.
Admittedly, reinforced cooperation and the European defence force got off the ground, the English having imposed quite a few restrictions on the latter.
The most essential issue, i.e. the switch from vetos to majority decisions, was not applied to the very areas where it was most needed.
Taxation, social security, justice, asylum issues, agriculture, structural funds; the very areas that ought to have been provided for before enlargement, were left out.
The Summit simply failed on that score.
National interests took precedence over the interests of Europe as a whole.
And what makes it more serious still is that in a number of cases where majority decision making was introduced, no provision was made for Parliament to have authority as colegislator.
So the democratic deficit has grown a little larger.
What possessed the Summit to have so little feeling for democracy?
Then there is the position taken up by the Netherlands.
During the Summit it seemed as if the Netherlands was only out to win a kind of football match against Belgium.
The result of this outpouring of energy was 12-13 instead of 10-10 in terms of points in the vote weighting. What is that against 300 votes?
Anyway, why was France so dead against counting in population density? Surely it is a very common democratic principle?
So the Netherlands got one more vote than Belgium in the Council.
But if we look at the number of seats in the European Parliament then the Netherlands drops from 31 to 25 and Belgium from 24 to 22.
So the Netherlands paid a price for gaining a toehold in the Council.
At the end of the day, it is clear that the traditional IGC format no longer works.
When the time comes to make preparations once again for a summit in 2004, it would be better to use the convention format.
Leave it to the 15 governmental representatives, 30 national and 15 MEPs to prepare for the IGC.
It worked well for the Charter and it will also work better than a traditional IGC.
And it is more democratic to boot.
Mr President, as far as I am concerned, the Nice Summit simply failed to make the grade.
Mr President, according to a press report, the initial comment by the Finnish Prime Minister, Paavo Lipponen, after Nice was: "This agreement must be remade" .
We must surely agree with him, although we know that this desire will only be able to be realised after many years have passed, if, as I believe will happen, national parliaments ratify the Treaty of Nice.
Hopefully, however, Nice showed Finland and other small countries that emphasising the intergovernmental European nature of the Council' s role will mean a continuous cycle of defeats for small countries in decision making.
No one at the meeting spoke for Europe.
When the Commission then tried to do so, its President, as we saw, was literally thrown out of the door. I would like to say many thanks anyway for the gesture
It is nonetheless sad for the future of Europe that no European statesmen were in evidence.
Almost every country brought its own internal political problems to the meeting.
When they got back home, the prime ministers then emphatically pointed out how they had achieved victory with regard to these internal problems.
"We were able to keep matters under our own control" or "We were able to block European decisions" , they said in their own countries.
The candidate countries were thus presented with a very bad example, which must have astonished the whole region, from Tallinn to Prague and Budapest.
It is obviously a positive matter that enlargement can now go ahead.
That message must be clearly sent to the candidate countries.
After enlargement, meetings like Nice and the IGCs as they are at present will be impossible; integration will either really make headway or simply fall apart.
Things cannot stay as they are now.
It is to be hoped that Europe will yield statesmen.
The difference between politicians and statesmen is that politicians know well enough what people want today, while statesmen know what they will actually want twenty years from now.
Mr President, it is not easy to criticise the French presidency during this debate as it is not present.
I understand that President Chirac, Mr Vedrine and Mr Moscovici have other important meetings to attend.
However, I am sure that the President of the European Commission, Mr Prodi, has important meetings to attend as has Commissioner Barnier and yet they have done us the courtesy to wait for the end of this debate.
Mr Moscovici says we should not blame him, we should blame other governments at the Council.
It is deplorable that he has not found it possible to find a deputy to wait for the end of our deliberations.
We are after all hoping that we shall be joined by applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe who have been used to the arrogance of government and people not being present, to people giving speeches and then disappearing.
I deplore the fact that Mr Moscovici has found no deputy.
Has Nice been a success? Mr Moscovici says that we must turn to our own national governments and criticise them.
I am happy to do that.
Mr Blair returned to Great Britain as a conquering hero because he had not surrendered this, had not surrendered that and had fought for Britain's interests.
Well, of course, I support him in that but what has he actually achieved? He tells us that he has ensured that enlargement will take place.
I do not know whether the Commission will reply at the end of this debate but I wonder, in the absence of the Council, whether the Commission is equally confident that by 2004 this European Parliament will contain Czech, Hungarian and Polish Members of the European Parliament and Members from the Baltic States.
Mr Moscovici says that of course you must temper your idealism with realism.
I just ask him: Did General de Gaulle temper his idealism with realism, or Winston Churchill? "Public opinion will not wear this."
"We cannot get this through the House of Commons."
"Oh, there is a referendum." Is there?
Have we no leadership in the European Union?
Where is the Council? Where are the governments?
It is deplorable and the only hopeful sign is that the European Commission has clearly recovered its sense of self-confidence.
This European Parliament will join with the European Commission in insisting that our demands are met.
Mr President, the Nice Summit has shown that Intergovernmental Conferences have reached the end of their useful life.
We are on the eve of eastward enlargement, a turning point which is throwing the strategy of doing things step by step into crisis.
If a response is not found to the democratic deficit of the European institutions, the Union will not be able to count on the support of the peoples.
The list of problems tackled in Nice is long but, as President Prodi made quite clear, there was insufficient focus on the institutional reforms and the role of Parliament.
It may be that we went to Nice with too many ambitions.
Parliament's ambition does not, however, mean that it lacks a sense of responsibility.
If we gave in to the realists, we would sweep the Charter of Fundamental Rights under the carpet and be content with a free trade area governed by the large corporations and national interests.
Something is wrong. The young federalists who called upon the heads of government to be more courageous, to have the courage of the fathers of the European Community, have understood this.
We need to set in motion a large-scale debate on the future of Europe: this must be the post-Nice process if we want to revitalise Europeanism in a profoundly different environment.
Mr President, I will be very brief because the purpose of my speech is to thank you, to thank you not only for your kindness to us but also for what you have said.
It is not courtesy which has prompted us to stay until the end of the debate, Mr Beazley: Commissioner Barnier and myself have stayed to hear your opinions, your convictions and your feelings, for it is my opinion that, if we are to build Europe, Parliament and the Commission must do so together.
We have been quite frank with each other in today's debate about those parts of the Treaty of Nice which give us cause for satisfaction and even more open about those with which we are not content. Our reasons are different in some cases but we share the same feelings and concerns.
We have made no bones about the need to continue with the same force and the same determination as before Nice, to achieve our objectives along the road to enlargement, which will be our greatest historical moment and which it is the responsibility of Parliament and the Commission to bring about in the coming years.
We have also been completely clear, ladies and gentlemen, about the need for Parliament and the Commission to work together to build the new Europe, for this arduous task is our responsibility, but ours is also this great mission and this great potential.
Thank you very much, Mr President of the Commission.
I have received six motions for resolutions from the Members, tabled in accordance with Paragraph 2 of Rule 37 of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10.00 a.m.
2001 budget (continuation)
In accordance with the agenda, we will resume the debate on the 2001 budget.
Mr Wurtz has the floor.
Mr President, at first reading, my group performed the symbolic political act of tabling a resolution rejecting the budget.
We wanted to draw attention to the characteristics, unacceptable in our view, of the draft submitted to us at that time.
We stood by the principle that there should be new appropriations for new policies.
Instead of the intended redeployments, detrimental to the traditional priorities, we called for the multi-annual revision of the financial perspective, especially for external actions, although a similar problem arises for expenditure on employment and environmental protection.
We decided - and we make no bones about it - that we did not want the Council putting us in a position tomorrow where we have to choose between two priorities that are equally legitimate in our eyes: the Balkans and the Mediterranean.
We are now in precisely the situation we wanted to avoid.
Under the terms of the compromise concluded between Parliament' s delegation and the Council, Euro-Mediterranean cooperation suffers a cut of EUR 200 million compared with the budget for 2000.
A fine signal to send our close partners in the South.
As for the Balkans, they have given rise to an arduous and very precarious financial set-up.
This includes a transfer, to the 2001 budget, of 2000 budget appropriations for aid to Latin America, or appropriations for Morocco under the draft fisheries agreement and not used this year.
In addition, and above all, the problem of financing for the Balkans will still be there in its entirety for the years ahead.
Heading 3, internal actions, also warrants a comment, since the 'employment initiative' , re-baptised the 'Spirit of Enterprise programme' has been amputated to the tune of EUR 87 million, the Trans-European Networks by EUR 23 million, and environmental protection by EUR 42 million.
In total, with about 1.09% of European gross domestic product, or even less, the 2001 budget will be one of the lowest of the last ten years, in relative terms, since it is well below the already very restrictive ceiling established under Agenda 2000 in Berlin in March 1999.
That is why the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left unfortunately cannot support Mrs Haug' s report.
Mr President, I would like to start by stressing the fact that this year's budget is due in particular to the work of all the Members of the committee itself, in addition, of course, to the work of the committee chairman, Mr Wynn, who has steered us with wisdom through the various situations, and tense moments which we have experienced.
I would also like to thank Commissioner Schreyer.
However, this does not mean that we could have done more or better.
I will focus on one aspect at a time.
Firstly, the positive side: the approximately EUR 60 million of agricultural funds allocated for testing, which is a significant although, in my opinion, not conclusive step; the earmarking of around EUR 450 million for small and medium-sized businesses, for we have at last realised that the European economy is not based on multinationals but on small and medium-sized enterprises, which will give new impetus to development and employment; then the fact that the increase in expenditure is only 3.5%, and the increase in appropriations for the Balkans, which is of political importance.
In this sense, our committee has made a fundamental achievement.
I would now like to focus on two points which I feel require some attention and give cause for concern: firstly, the possibly excessive use of flexibility which, like all excessive things, is a negative factor, which means that we must not use it as a safety net; secondly, the fact that the creation of the new jobs is simply due to early retirements.
This must not become a precedent in our institutions.
Finally, I urge the committee to adopt increasingly a budgetary strategy aimed particularly at strengthening and protecting our currency, the euro.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, and I would have said Madam President of the Council, but I do not see her among us.
It is true that the Chamber is pretty thin, but unfortunately the debate on the budget lasted longer than planned and we - I and the speakers who follow me - will not have the opportunity to raise the matter with the Presidency.
I, in my turn, would like to congratulate the rapporteurs, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, the Council and the Presidency on the work that has been accomplished, and the conclusion of this agreement which will allow us to vote for the budget for the year 2001.
But I endorse all the comments made, especially by Mr Colom i Naval, on this extremely delicate issue of the financial perspectives.
An agreement has just been concluded in Nice to make enlargement possible.
Now, the previous enlargements gave rise to major financial allocations.
The Member States were not afraid of public opinion at home then and the enlargement to Spain and Portugal was accompanied by a major mobilisation of resources.
When I see that our budget is down by comparison with the year 2000, both in real terms and in terms of percent of GNP, and that we are so very far adrift from the objectives set in Edinburgh, I recognise that as the real problem.
Refusing to harness ourselves to them means undermining the credibility of the construction and enlargement of the Union.
Mr President, in the course of the budgetary procedure for the 2001 budget, the debates in this Parliament focussed on a limited number of issues.
One of these issues was, and still is today, the increase in the financial perspective for foreign policy.
The Council is right to reject this revision because there is no point in putting a ceiling on the expenditure in Berlin for a period of six years if these ceilings are going to be called into question every year.
These maximum levels force the Commission to set priorities within the confines of a budget, in the way that every government has to.
Another issue to be given an airing once again this year was the flexibility instrument.
An instrument of EUR 200 million that has now been earmarked, in agreement with the Council, for aid to the Balkans.
As Mr Colom i Naval rightly commented, using the flexibility instrument in this way misses the whole point, i.e. the assuaging of unforeseen budgetary need.
To be perfectly honest, I do wonder whether he would have said the same if this instrument had been used in the same spurious way for MEDA, as proposed by Parliament.
It so happens that I voiced this criticism during the first reading of the budget, and I do not recall anybody applauding it.
Needless to say, I am not against giving aid to the Balkans.
The Union as an association of nation States, born of the need for peace in Europe, has a duty of honour to finance the process of peace and reconciliation in the Balkans.
However, I feel that when it comes to mounting such an extensive operation, we must take stock of the need for aid before opening our wallet.
The zeal shown by the Commission and Parliament to equip the Balkans with aid reserves, contrast sharply with the cuts in aid for the candidate States.
Mr President, we probably ought to reserve the flexibility instrument for the 2002 budget now for the candidate states.
They might wish to join the EU earlier, completely out of the blue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the principles of thrift and social and economic balance have been taken into account in drawing up the budget and the rapporteur must be thanked for that.
It is also good that, as the main source of employment, small and medium-sized enterprises have been allocated additional funds.
This will help to create new jobs and continue the fight against unemployment.
We are also aware of the assumption behind the Commission's Letter of Amendment No. 2, i.e. that around 900 million can be saved in Category I. However, this assumption no longer holds true.
First, the euro has now gone up in value, thereby reducing any potential savings, and secondly, we must now assume that insufficient funds have been earmarked in the budget for dealing with the BSE crisis.
We shall therefore be forced to accept a supplementary budget which will again seriously reduce, if not eliminate any potential savings in this category.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to begin by congratulating our colleague, the general rapporteur Jutta Haug, on the way in which she has done her job, which has contributed immensely to the constructive atmosphere in which our work has been carried out in committee and in Parliament in general.
The vote that is to follow this debate will mark the end of the long, complex process of approving the European Union budget for 2001.
As a result of intense negotiations and successive compromises among the various institutions, the chances of its approval are reasonable.
However, I should like to point out certain aspects that carry over to subsequent years.
The budget represents, in payment appropriations, just 1.056% of the Community GDP.
The financial perspective forecast 1.11% for 2001, which is not to mention the 1.27% that was being mentioned a few years ago.
On the other hand, external cooperation programmes are still not multiannual, the difference between commitments and payments is still growing, some projects are still implemented very little or badly, there are unjustifiable and unsustainable payment delays, and Parliament has been confronted with faits accomplis with budgetary implications.
Whereas there is no solution as yet for the first aspect mentioned, the GDP, and I am sure that Parliament will soon demonstrate its persistence with regard to the second, I must say that with regard to the third aspect that I have highlighted, I believe that the great novelty in the budget process in coming years is the agreement reached between Parliament and the Council for the Commission to draw up a report by 30 June 2001 to be submitted to the first two institutions regarding the progress achieved in a number of basic fields, such as the reduction in the amount outstanding, the simplification of the project round, improved programme implementation, a commitology review, the reform of the Commission, the definition and execution of implementation objectives, particularly in external cooperation, and the provision of more thorough information for Parliament in several fields.
If the submission of such a report is not seen as just one more formality, the hopes that many of us have placed in this new step will be justified.
Mr President, at times we have sounded like a mutual admiration society in the way in which we have congratulated one another on this.
I may just deviate from that trend slightly in relation to the Council - not necessarily the French Presidency - but the Council in general.
Let us not kid ourselves, this is a good budget.
It is not the budget that I or many of my colleagues would have wanted.
However, we can be satisfied with it.
In football terms it is like a l-1 draw.
However, because of the flexibility instrument, we think we have won the penalty shoot-out.
The Commission's original proposal for a revision of the financial perspective to take EUR 300 million from category 1 for category 4 was a worthy idea: worthy of support and eminently sensible.
Unfortunately, a majority of my colleagues did not agree with me and therefore we could not go along with it.
Neither was there a qualified majority within this House to revert to Article 272.
Therefore, we had to find a solution within the means that the interinstitutional agreement affords us so that we could get a decent budget.
That is what we have done: we have avoided a budgetary crisis by going to Article 272; the financial perspective has been maintained, even though we have used the flexibility instrument.
The result is the best that we can hope for without either a revision or Article 272.
Mr Colom i Naval made his remarks this morning because it was clear to those of us who were present when the IIA was agreed that the flexibility instrument should not be used for the same purposes in consecutive years.
I admire the answer Mrs Parly gave this morning but we have turned a blind eye to that.
Kosovo and Serbia are in effect the same thing.
We have ignored what we agreed.
We have also said that the flexibility instrument would not be an annual reserve for category 4 but that is exactly what it has become.
That is why it is not only Mr Colom i Naval who is frustrated at the way things have developed over this budgetary procedure in the last two years.
It must be said, and I put it on record, that the French presidency has been a good partner in trying to find solutions.
On classification, I have no problem with the two points that were raised: pensions are compulsory expenditure.
What we are talking about is an early-retirement scheme which as yet has no legal base; no one knows whether what will be proposed is compulsory or non-compulsory and it is, after all, a p.m. that is on the line.
On the fisheries agreement, we have only changed the remarks for the A lines.
In other words, the remarks which concern non-compulsory expenditure.
In both cases we have not changed any figures.
There should not be a clash on that.
Just because we have a budget and we have agreed a deal at conciliation, let us not imagine that all our problems have disappeared.
The problems will remain until we sort out what we are going to do about external expenditure.
There are times when I foolishly assumed this year that once the Commission had made its proposals for a revision we could reach an agreement with the Council.
I was wrong.
Then when I discovered that there would be no discussions on that revision regarding Article 25 of the IIA, I was, to say the least, somewhat disappointed.
The Council's attitude in this game of football seems to be not to worry about the ball but to get on with the game.
Let me just say to the Council that, as far as this game is concerned, we have not run out of balls and this side intends playing until we get the right result.
Finally, I thank all those who have been involved in this - not just the rapporteurs - but also the secretariat of the Commission, Parliament services and the political group staff.
Mr President, firstly, I too would like to thank all those who contributed to the determination of the budget, the Commissioner, the Council and the rapporteurs.
I would also particularly like to thank Mr Wynn, who, I believe is seeing out his first full year as chairman of the Committee on Budgets during a budgetary procedure, and I think he has made an outstanding job of it.
I am satisfied with this budget.
I am particularly satisfied because we stayed within the financial perspective again.
I believe Parliament must uphold its agreements, and they can only be broken in cases of extreme need.
I have not identified any such cases this year.
The Commissioner is still proud of this and says that the agricultural expenditure will increase by an enormous percentage this year as compared with previous years.
That is indeed the case but then these are agreements that must be kept.
They were concluded before she became Commissioner and I think it would be to her credit if she were to uphold the Berlin agreements.
What else has a bearing on the agricultural budget? We are all familiar with the content of the letter of amendment in October and if all goes well, if the dollar stays at 91 cents, then we could end up with a surplus of approximately EUR 1.3 billion in category 1A.
Suppose that does not happen and Mr Duisenberg says it is not going to happen, how are we to finance the BSE crisis?
That is what I want to know.
Are we going to make cuts in other agricultural expenditure, are we going to defer it to other years, is it still possible to use the surplus for 2000 or can we devise an insurance system, which already features in an earlier parliamentary resolution?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, representative of the Council, rapporteurs, each budgetary year the European Parliament gains budgetary importance.
We do not gain this importance out of nowhere, but from the Treaties, although sometimes the Council finds it hard to admit it.
Last year, with the Bourlanges report, the flexibility instrument was mobilised for the first time, and an institutional declaration was also obtained recognising the possible financial insufficiency of category 4.
This year, the Haug report has taken advantage of this institutional declaration last year to discuss the need to revise the financial perspective.
It has been demonstrated that it was not the right time for a revision, that there was enough margin to fulfil the commitments to the Balkans and to the MEDA programme without altering the forecasts of Berlin 1999, and it has been shown that the compulsion to have a revision is only in the intentions of those who voted against Agenda 2000 in its day.
However, the European Parliament cannot carry on forever reducing its external commitments.
This year the flexibility instrument has been used again, but we should not continue down this road.
We do not want there to be a proposal for revision for next year in the Colom Resolution, because we want to wait for the World Bank evaluation, but we share his criticism that this method of resolving the financial insufficiency in category 4 distorts the multiannual nature of the major external objectives of the Union and the very definition of the financial perspective.
This time, more than ever, the secret of success will be in correctly implementing the budget.
Mr President, Commissioner, I must first congratulate the general rapporteur, Mrs Haug, the President of the Commission and my colleagues who have been involved in negotiations on the excellent work that they have done.
The final outcome of the negotiations is positive, which shows that in order to achieve some objectives, what matters is not getting there alone and early, but getting there altogether and on time.
We wanted a budget that would combine our efforts with those of the Member States to contribute to economic growth and increasing employment, and therefore the agreement that has been reached on the multiannual amount for the small businesses programme is a good thing.
However, sustaining this and Parliament' s other political priorities needs to be compatible with budgetary stability in spending.
It is true that the Union is in its most favourable economic situation for 10 years, as is proved by the fact that the net balances have improved a great deal.
But, precisely for this reason, I think that the agreement reached on payment appropriations is reasonable, because it combines efforts in the right direction for sustained growth.
Parliament' s budgetary strategy marks a before and an after at this start of the millennium.
Because the negotiations not only lead to the final amounts and their distribution, but also to the implementation of instruments which are going to enable us to measure to what extent the political will of this Parliament translates into facts.
And I am going a little further, because it is not enough to have strict and transparent rules for implementing the budget, such as the cancellation of commitments if they have not been implemented after two years.
This should go hand in hand with a commitment from the College of Commissioners to a fair and efficient distribution of human and material resources for the management of the various policies, that is, they must remember the political priority of Parliament and the management priority of the Commission.
Mr President, now that we have arrived at the final decision on the EU' s Budget for 2001, we can say that we have come through a year of constant struggle to produce the Budget successfully within the framework devised when the financial perspective was adopted in Berlin in March 1999.
We can now say that this struggle has been successful.
We shall be able to adopt a Budget within this framework, which is a great success.
I believe, in actual fact, that both the Member States and the taxpayers are grateful that the charges are not still higher.
I also see it as a clear success that we are able to go into a new Budget year with a greater margin than in the past.
When we make use of 1.06 per cent of the Member States' GDP, this gives us a margin greater than ever before and greater than that predicted in Berlin less than two years ago.
This gives us an opportunity to be an active partner where enlargement to include the countries in Central and Eastern Europe is concerned and when it comes to helping establish peace and prosperity in Serbia and the former Yugoslavia.
For all this to be possible, there will have to be extensive prioritising in the future, too.
This will be necessary if we are successfully to honour our long-term commitments, something which is clearly possible if our objective is to work for an EU which is strong but, at the same time, circumscribed.
As I see it, there is a major threat in the present-day situation, namely BSE.
It is nonetheless important to note that we must cope successfully with this too within the current Budget framework.
This means that, if the solution to the problem requires still more money, this must be provided by means of other savings in Category 1 or through the Member States' accepting a larger portion of the cost.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I intend to focus on one fundamental point in my comments on the budget lines for environmental, public health and consumer protection policy.
Generally-speaking, the proportion of the budget earmarked in order to safeguard and maintain the environment is far too small.
This is particularly annoying in that environmental policy is a horizontal policy because environmental policy - or at least successful environmental policy - must be applied as a cross-border policy.
We all know that.
Which is why safeguarding and regenerating the environment is a job which has to be done at European Community level.
But this also means that we need to be given proper funding once and for all.
We cannot just keep on issuing endless directives and regulations, often without sufficient background information, scientific basis and generally to unbelievably short deadlines.
Allow me to make a comment: I am not the only one who constantly has the impression in these circumstances that my only purpose in sitting on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is to prevent the worst in the frenzy and rush of regulation which is thrust upon us.
We must not lose our sense of environmental direction by promoting small, local measures, however badly they may be needed, or by blindly shelling out money to institutions which appear to produce little in the way of results, which applies, in my view, to the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen.
What European environmental policy needs is a scientifically-based framework for action.
That is something we do not have.
And that is because we lack the foundations.
We need to invest in scientific research and analysis.
Only then shall we be able to work out realistic prospects, prospects for linking environmental and health policies to other policy areas, prospects for what promises to be a successful and realistic approach to problem-solving.
That is the only right and the only sensible way of investing the money at our disposal on behalf of our fellow citizens.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have three comments to make on what has been said during this debate.
The first relates to something which you reminded us of this morning, Mrs Schreyer.
Compared with many national budgets, the increase in the Community is somewhat higher but, in relation to expenditure ratios, it is still very low and sets an excellent example for many national budgets.
We must tell the public that, if the national foreign or other secretaries of state keep handing work over to be carried out at European level, such as the whole Balkans programme, then we must also bear in mind that this work requires money and that funds must be made available.
My second comment relates to the common foreign and security policy.
Tremendous progress was made here during the 1990s.
During the conflict in Bosnia, Europe was still not in a position to speak with one voice: one country was purported to be on the side of the Serbs, another to be on the side of the Croats.
We almost seemed to be back in the policy of alliances of the 19th century.
Now, at the end of this century, at the end of the 1990s, Europe is speaking with one voice, Europe is the biggest civil reconstructor in the Balkans, bigger than the United States, and is doing a good job; through its budget and its policy it really did help to make peaceful revolution possible in Serbia.
This needed to be said quite clearly about European policy at the end of this financial year and after this decade of confusion in the Balkans.
Foreign states are becoming more important to us and we hope that, with the new posts provided, the Commission will do the job which we expect it to do.
We are being up front with our praise and you may be sure that we shall seek to exercise strict control in the future.
There is much talk of post-Nice.
Nice was yet again the scene of national haggling for individual states.
We have overcome this to a considerable degree in foreign policy and I hope in the forthcoming budget debates that we shall take more decisions of substance and spend more time on the problems and less time haggling over national interests in this budget.
Mr President, honourable members, I only intend to comment on certain aspects raised during the debate.
First, the structure of the budget in 2001: one speaker said that the agricultural budget would not rise sufficiently.
However, I must stress that the agricultural budget has a very high rate of growth, namely 5.7%.
If we include the expected supplementary budget, it comes out at nearly 8%, while other areas, such as training policy, the whole of internal policy - including research -, foreign policy, administration and accession aid have together only risen by 1.1%.
We really must stress, therefore, that Parliament too has exercised immense budgetary discipline in the areas in which it has the last word but has, I think, brought about an excellent result with clear priorities nonetheless.
On Mr Mulder's comment: you noted that, because the budget at second reading was below the margin in agricultural policy, the risk of a change in exchange rates needed to be included in the calculation, because it would be not unwelcome if the euro were to rise against the dollar.
I would draw your attention here to the rules of the Interinstitutional Agreement, which state that a "currency risk" of up to EUR 200 million must be financed from the agricultural policy and that only then can recourse be taken to the currency reserve.
However, my view is that we should in fact take care in the supplementary budget to keep this reserve at EUR 200 million so that we do not have to take other measures if there is the slightest change in the exchange rate.
To Mrs Sommer's comment that too little account is taken of environmental aspects in the European Union budget, allow me to point out that one third of the budget is spent on structural policy and that we have mainstreaming in structural policy; we have gender mainstreaming to ensure that structural policy measures provide equal opportunities for men and women.
The money must be used in order to increase employment and - and this is the third mainstreaming - it must be used in order to improve the environmental situation.
That gives us an enormous amount of money to play with.
May I also point out that the EUR 4.5 billion under agricultural policy for developing the countryside, which we discussed this morning, includes numerous measures to promote environmental protection.
In addition, agricultural policy also includes something in this area which is not standard practice in environmental policy and which fundamentalists may occasionally take a dim view of: namely that compensation is paid for refraining from taking environmentally damaging action.
Here are your measures which quite explicitly promote environmental protection.
I should like to comment again on the charming question put by Mr Colom i Naval this morning. He asked what was the difference between revising the financial perspective and using the flexibility instrument?
You are, of course, quite right to keep reverting to this question.
I see it like this: revising the financial perspective means that if we make an increase on one side, we must at the same time decide where savings can be made.
This requirement does not apply to the flexibility reserve.
In this respect, the finance ministers' reluctance to revise the financial perspective is even harder to understand.
Oh well, we live and learn.
I guess this example also illustrates the fact that sometimes principles count for more than budgetary intentions.
I think it is a good thing that we have succeeded in activating the flexibility instruments and giving Serbia the help it needs on this occasion, although I fully agree with you that our strategy must be such that we prevent the phenomenon from arising whereby a European flexibility instrument wanders from one region or country of Europe to another, depending on where it is needed.
In closing, I should like once again to stress that, in the Commission's view, the 2001 budget provides an excellent basis on which we can together forge a good Community policy for Europe and I should like to thank you for the excellent cooperation.
And we shall have the opportunity of continuing this excellent cooperation on the supplementary budget in January.
But first I should like to wish all those involved in the budget a Happy Christmas!
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Parliament also wishes you a Happy Christmas.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday from 10.00 a.m.
Common strategy towards the Russian Federation
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0363/2000) by Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the application of the European Union' s common strategy on the Russian Federation [2000/2007(INI)].
Mr President, our relations with Russia underwent a fundamental change when the cold war ended.
Fear of military violence or of a dictatorship that might advance further, is a thing of the past.
The attitude of the European Union and its Member States is now more one of a feeling of joint responsibility for the restoration of Russian society.
It can be regarded as a kind of moral duty but also as being in the interests of the European Union, which, of course, has nothing to gain from lawlessness and poverty in a very large neighbouring country.
Yet for many of us, the development of the Russian Federation is still a dubious matter and that is why I can imagine that people sometimes have their doubts about it, even in this Parliament.
In any case, the best thing we can do in our strategy towards the Russian Federation is to follow a twin-track strategy.
On the one hand, we must indict those who violate human rights and wield a disproportionate amount of power, clearly and forcefully, and on the other, we must enter into cooperation in a variety of sectors.
Both approaches are necessary if we are to help Russia become a flourishing, democratic constitutional state.
This is in our mutual interest.
That means condemning the gross violence in Chechnya and looking for ways of helping to end the war and assuage the suffering. So it is necessary for the European Union and the OECD to be present there.
We know, I am happy to say, that people in Russia are not indifferent to our criticism of what is happening there.
That comes up in quite a few conversations one has in Russia.
After all, Russia too wants to be assessed by the same standards that we apply to ourselves.
We would also do well to be severely critical of the visa measures vis-à-vis Georgia that have recently been undertaken, and provided for in amendments.
I am expecting a more extensive discussion to take place next month via the topical and urgent debate, and would suggest that we only give a limited preview of this debate in these resolutions.
In particular, I hope to be able to adopt half of the amendment tabled by the Greens on this issue.
It also behoves us to criticise the relations between Russia and the Baltic States, which are still to be regularised.
It will not be the fault of the latter. They need Russia to regularise and establish its affairs with them effectively.
As far as cooperation with Russia is concerned, the Russian response to the strategy document of the European Union offers some good starting points.
The entry into force of scientific and technological cooperation with the Russian Federation is a good example.
In retrospect, the interruption of this cooperation was not a success, particularly as there appears to be little coordination in actions of this kind, between the European Union on the one hand and other major players, such as Japan and the United States, on the other.
We must take this lesson to heart for future reference.
The Northern Dimension is a clear example of cooperation that is to be put into concrete form.
In point of fact, this concept is underused, politically speaking.
It is an important concept, particularly in the fields of energy provision, care for the environment, the clearing up of nuclear waste, and the decommissioning of nuclear submarines.
In addition, it is possible to achieve various forms of cross-border cooperation that will prevent sharp disparities in wealth from arising.
Initiatives concerning cooperation with the region of Kaliningrad fit into the same framework.
We would argue in favour of having a separate budgetary line for developing this Northern Dimension in a coherent manner, along the lines of the one that we already have for cooperation with the three Baltic States.
However, I am of the opinion that the importance of Russia is not really reflected in the budget, but we disagree with the Social Democrats on that score.
If you take a close look, then roughly speaking, Russia is slightly ahead of Morocco in terms of budgetary importance, which cannot be right to my mind.
I could live with it though, if recital G on this aspect were to lapse, and in so doing if it were to be possible, with the support of the Social Democrats, to achieve a broader majority for this resolution, because this would send out a clearer signal to Russia.
We are hoping that the cooperation will extend to external policy.
The resolution refers to the Commission as the initiator of policy and to the High Representative as the coordinator of policy.
There are various regions where we could start the ball rolling, such as the Balkans, the Caucasus region and Central Asia.
A more relaxed discussion of mutual security interests would also have its uses, bearing in mind that, naturally, from my point of view and that of others and the majority of my group, NATO, and within this framework, our bond with North America, are absolutely paramount in matters of security.
We will follow the developments in Russian society and internal politics with great interest.
We hope that a truly civil society will soon flourish there and form the permanent basis for a real political democracy.
I hope that links will be established at all levels between organisations, individuals and associations in the EU and their counterparts in the Russian Federation.
This will help to spread awareness of the values we all share.
Mr President, Russia has yet to come to terms with herself, to decide what sort of society she wants to create and define her position in the world.
For over seventy years, her development was distorted and held back by the monstrous experiment of communism which grew to threaten us all.
I must say I very much welcome Mr Oostlander's report for its very reasonable and balanced approach, praising constructive reforms while criticising blatant human rights abuses.
But let me say a couple of words about our strategic relationship.
While encouraging a strong economic relationship between the European Union and Russia coupled with efforts at political cooperation, we must take care that we do not create for ourselves some sort of strategic dependency.
For example, it has been suggested in the context of European defence policy - about which I have to say we continue to have reservations - that the European Union might turn to Russia to provide strategic airlift capabilities to complement the arrangements already in place between the WEU and Ukraine.
Now I am in favour of encouraging Russia and the Ukraine to move in our direction and cooperate with other alliance countries in crisis-management tasks, but I would not be in favour of us moving in their direction or adjusting our policies in order to accommodate them.
It would be a very dangerous situation if the Europeans were to become logistically reliant on Russia.
If we do not have our own strategic airlift then we already have a tried and tested ally in the United States - and in this context I am sure that Mr Oostlander has no desire for Russia to supplant the United States as a strategic partner for Europe.
We must work in the closest possible harmony with the United States in our dealings with Russia and certainly must not give Russia the impression that there are divisions to be exploited.
This would be in no one's interests.
Secondly, we must take great care to ensure diversity of production and supply in terms of energy.
Already some 40% of natural gas supply for the EU comes from Russia, and an increasing proportion of oil imports now come from the CIS countries, where known reserves are larger than those in the United States and North Sea combined.
Many of the transit routes for these are through areas of great conflict.
It is in our interests to do all we can to help stabilise that region by economic and political means, ensuring that we do nothing to encourage or sustain instability in the Caucasus and the southern regions of Russia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think we often underestimate the fact that a balance struck with the Russian Federation is a guarantee of peace in Europe.
This highlights the importance of the strategy towards the Russian Federation and, at the same time, the importance of your report, Mr Oostlander.
However, as we have already said, the Russian Federation is a difficult partner.
Even if President Putin guarantees the democratic development of his country, that does not automatically guarantee a stable and democratic Russian Federation.
Basic democratic order is not a fact of life in the Russian Federation and this is a problem, especially when it comes to cooperation with the European Union, because, for us, any such cooperation must be based on respect for human and minority rights, and we have made that clear.
This means that the twin-track strategy posited in the report is very, very important.
We want outstanding cooperation with the Russian Federation, but we cannot accept the Russian Federation's continuing to wage war on its own people in Chechnya, a war which has continued uninterrupted for a year now.
We are also hugely critical of the Russian Federation's provocative visa policy towards Georgia and call for this decision to be revoked at once.
Nor can we tolerate the manner in which the freedom of the press is trampled underfoot in the Russian Federation.
I think the Prodi plan may bring a new dimension to cooperation with the Russian Federation and provides an important basis.
Let us not forget the basis we had in the European Union, with the coal and steel plan guaranteeing lasting peaceful cooperation between France and Germany. And look where we are now.
The energy community with the Russian Federation may well take on a political dimension in exactly the same way.
That means that we have a joint responsibility for peace in the Caucasus, for environmental protection in the Russian Federation and for the rights of its indigenous people.
Mr President, we must establish cooperation with Russia, a country wounded in its statehood, so that she can become a European state that aspires to education and culture.
Mr Oostlander' s report is crucially important and it sets out to achieve this cooperation.
We have to use our combined powers to heal the wounds that ten years of crude capitalism have inflicted on Russia.
Boycotts will not resolve the problem.
Things are now going badly for Russia.
There is no middle class: there are just the super-rich and the super-poor.
Half the population live below the poverty line.
The country is in sharp moral decline: it is almost like Sodom and Gomorra.
There are fears that the number of HIV-positive cases will rise in the next few years to close on 600 000, and the disease is also beginning to hit young people hard.
Eighty per cent of new infections concern people under the age of 25.
The birth rate is dropping, the mortality rate is going up, and the net loss in Russia' s population amounts to a million a year.
That goes to show just how bad things are for the people there.
The country is also burdened by the need to protect nature and human beings from old mistakes.
There are still 300 tons of anthrax bacteria manufactured for purposes of biological warfare in existence there, and just a small dose is lethal.
Dozens of tons of waste plutonium have to be destroyed as a result of disarmament negotiations.
The EU must help Russia, because in that way it is also preventing risks that would threaten itself.
The most important area of cooperation is energy policy, which is connected with superpower politics, which governs, for example, the transportation of oil and gas from the east to the west.
Today 30-40% of EU gas comes from Russia, and in ten years' time the EU will be almost totally dependent on Russian gas.
There is no northern, western or southern alternative for this.
The EU countries should not be a geopolitical extension of the United States in matters of gas and oil pipelines.
The EU is no threat to the Russians, but a unipolar world under the leadership of the USA is.
The Russians cannot, at least not yet, oppose NATO' s sly expansion through the militarisation of EU structures.
Slyness does not become us: we must build a Europe of economic cooperation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think we should pay tribute to Mr Oostlander for having stressed the importance of the role of the Commission and, in particular, of Mr Patten as the Commissioner responsible for external relations, in the implementation of this common strategy.
Contrary to what previous speakers have said, I do not believe that this strategy has been successful to date.
Unfortunately, the major financial scandals which continue to punctuate relations between Russia and international finance, and a number of projects involving the international community, clearly illustrate as much.
I cannot really agree with Mr Oostlander' s approach to the issue of human rights and democracy in the context of the Russian Federation.
I have put forward a number of amendments intended to place rather more emphasis on these issues.
Mr Oostlander does not customarily welcome my amendments and I was not therefore very surprised to see that they had not been included.
Regarding Chechnya, in particular, I do not think it is possible to say, Mr Oostlander, that the solution cannot be purely military.
I think that the solution cannot be military, as the situation clearly demonstrates, and that it can only be political.
Mr Putin himself - and we would not even be going as far as him - said that the issue of the future status of Chechnya is not the main issue.
Yet we do not dare say as much in our report.
This, I believe, is not acceptable.
Nor do I think it acceptable, moreover, to fail to state that it is absolutely intolerable, after one and a half years of war in Chechnya, that our Commissioner for humanitarian aid, Mr Nielson, has not yet truly set foot in Chechnya.
Nor do I think it acceptable that the European Union should fail to respond to the murders of journalists covering the war in Chechnya.
These are not isolated instances but repeated occurrences.
A member of my party, a radical militant journalist, was murdered several weeks ago in Tbilisi, a city clearly under the control of Russian troops.
I do not feel the Commission and the Council can fail to respond to an event of such seriousness.
Mr Van Orden is quite right in what he says regarding the Caucasus.
We are currently witnesses to an absolutely dreadful deterioration of the situation in Georgia.
The country is completely destabilised, literally strangled by the Russian Federation.
It is on the point of collapse and the European Union is offering no practical response to this rejection, this ban by the Russian authorities regarding the introduction of visas.
It could respond by cancelling visas for Georgians travelling to the European Union. It could and should start to consider Georgia' s accession before it is too late, before there is another Balkans situation at the very gateway to Europe.
Mr President, the current line taken by the Kremlin does not give the least cause for optimism.
On the domestic front, President Putin has explicitly opted for an enforced recentralisation policy, his watchword being 'all power to the Kremlin' .
When it comes to overseas affairs, Moscow does not wish to comply with international obligations.
The attitude of the Russian diplomats at the OSCE Summit held in Vienna at the end of November, spoke volumes in this respect.
There is to be no withdrawal of Russian troops from Moldova, nor are the Russian military bases in Georgia to be closed.
Incidentally, how does the EU view the latest Russian manoeuvre against Georgia? I am referring to the introduction of a visa obligation for Georgians, with the exception of the Abkhazians and the South Ossetians.
Surely that is completely out of kilter with the rapporteur' s idea of a certain degree of convergence between the foreign and security policy of the European Union and Russia in the Caucasus?
After all, that would be sending out the wrong signal to Kremlin boss Putin at entirely the wrong moment.
The famous Russian opposition politician, Grigori Jawlinski, has made it into western newspaper columns again lately.
Using cutting words he condemned the uncritical stance of the West towards the occupant of the Kremlin.
He said western politicians do not understand Russia.
Indeed, they fear Russia.
Hence they choose the line of least resistance.
They want to have a friend in the Kremlin.
It makes no odds to the west what is happening with Russia, its people and society.
Mr Oostlander' s report contradicts the latter sentiment and I would like to compliment him on that.
And yet Jawlinkski' s portrayal of Europe' s struggle with the phenomenon of Russia is very apt.
Mr President, may I, on behalf of the European Liberal Democrats, thank and congratulate Mr Oostlander. His was a well prepared report.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, and Common Security and Defence Policy got its most important proposals approved and in the final vote we supported the adoption of the report.
Mr Oostlander' s report clearly denounces the excessive use of force that Russia was guilty of in Chechnya.
Failings in the implementation of human rights and democracy have also been clearly brought to light.
On the other hand, the report supports a strategic partnership between the EU and Russia.
Cooperation with Russia needs to be reinforced.
A separate budgetary heading is being proposed for the Northern Dimension and increased aid to Russia, in general, is being recommended.
The report also supports the development of energy cooperation between the Union and Russia.
It is important for the Union that the availability of oil and natural gas is secured by creating alternatives.
Moves to exploit the gas and oil resources in the Barents region should be speeded up, while, at the same time, production in the Komi and Caspian Sea regions and the infrastructure for transporting the products out of those regions should be improved in terms of technology.
Now that the Nice Summit seems to be opening up the avenue towards swift enlargement of the Union, it is important to show determination in getting to grips with those problems which enlargement threatens to create for relations between the Member States and Russia.
We need flexibility, particularly in arrangements regarding trade and the mobility of people.
However, the main solution is for cooperation between the Union and Russia to be enhanced, bringing down the barriers between us.
As the Union expands it will also be important to think about its internal differentiation, which might, for its part, ease border area problems.
On the other hand, there is reason to hope the Russian Federation will also consider decentralising the power of decision and the issue of internal differentiation, allowing the possibility of abolishing borders.
By this I mean, for example, making special economic areas of Kaliningrad, Murmansk, Karelia and other parts of Russia bordering the Union.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Oostlander for his outstanding and comprehensive report, for the extraordinary amount of time which he has invested in it and for his receptiveness to suggestion.
Anyone looking at Russia from the outside and with the odd personal experience from visiting the country itself and speaking to Russian counterparts will soon be in danger of selectively tailoring reality in the Russian Federation to fit his personal image.
Current discussions on the Russian state symbol show that there are several takes on reality in the Russian Federation.
The national flag of Peter the Great flutters alongside the army's red flag and the national coat of arms showing the Tsarist double-headed eagle is displayed while Stalinist national anthems are being sung.
These symbols are perhaps not as contradictory as they first appear, each reflecting as it does a facet of an authoritarian state.
But a whole spectrum lies between these diametrically-opposed historical perspectives and pro-active Russian society will certainly refuse to be reduced to or guided towards any of these authoritarian alternatives.
I personally become more and more enthusiastic when I meet young, open, well-educated Russians and more and more depressed by Russian structures, be they state, economic or even mafia structures.
The best way we can help the Russian Federation is, on the one hand, to refrain from wholesale damnation and clearly address unhealthy structures or individual policies, such as the Chechen policy and, on the one hand, to value positive developments, without talking up, writing up or thinking up the Russian Federation as a whole.
We can contribute towards stability from the outside by sending the Russian Federation clear and specific signals as to how we wish to configure our cooperation.
Once Poland and the Baltic States accede to the EU, we hope to use the greater geographical proximity to the Russian Federation to strengthen cross-border cooperation in the area of Saint Petersburg, Nowgorod and Kaliningrad.
Transport, energy, the environment and internal security are right at the top of the list of possibilities.
Negotiations to find creative solutions as regards the future freedom of transit for the people of Kaliningrad through Lithuania and Poland should also be completed before Poland and Lithuania accede to the EU.
Why not make the Oblast of Kaliningrad a pilot project on two counts: first in relation to the potential for economic cooperation between the Russian Federation and the EU and, secondly, to test the Russian Federation's ability to implement fundamental reforms such as rural, fiscal and administrative reforms in advance in this area with our support? That is the way to bind the Russian Federation to the EU.
Mr President, in recent years the European Union has finalised various documents relating to the Russian Federation which form a good basis for close relations with it.
The common strategy is one of them.
Despite all its contradictions, Europeans clearly see Russia as part of Europe and have a huge interest in a stable, democratically-organised Russian Federation with good economic prospects which plays a confident part in and helps to shape international policy.
The West also needs the Russian Federation as an important international partner if Europe is to be reshaped after the change.
It is this interest which has led the Union to develop specific fields of activity in numerous areas in the common strategy towards the Russian Federation and other documents.
They include consolidating the rule of law and strengthening government institutions.
They also include developing a civil society as an important precondition to consolidating democracy.
In the economic sector, the Union is endeavouring to integrate the Russian Federation into a common economic and social area.
The Union is already the Russian Federation's most important processing, investment and trading partner, accounting for over 40%.
But there is still huge potential here.
Experts have calculated that trade between the European Union and the Russian Federation only accounts for one-third of what might be expected, given the Russian Federation's gross national product and its proximity to EU markets.
In the political sector, the common strategy towards the Russian Federation proposes entering into a standing dialogue on policy and security and creating a permanent mechanism for such dialogue.
It would be interesting to expound on this, but time is too short.
The EU sets great store in its Russian policy by environmental protection and nuclear safety.
Unfortunately, this momentum in relations between the Russian Federation and the EU has come up against a counter force - cue Chechnya, which has seriously hampered relations.
The substance and methods of the internal consolidation being pursued by the Putin regime will have a significant influence on the nature of our relations.
We can only hope that the current pragmatic and realistic partnership will perhaps one day become a real strategic partnership.
Mr President, given the economic and geopolitical importance of Russia, the European Union believes it must seek a common strategy on the subject.
The report contains many empty phrases and, in particular, pious hopes.
It is not just because each of the major European powers is primarily concerned with safeguarding the interests of its own capitalist groups, but in the final analysis, what does capitalist Europe have to offer Russia?
Economic growth? Yet for the last ten years the Russian economy has done nothing but collapse.
An end to the preponderance of queues? Yet what use are more or less well stocked shops if, with unemployment, and retirement pensions and wages at a low level or not even paid, one third of the population is living below the poverty line and does not have any money to buy the goods?
Democracy?
Yet under the guise of democracy there is domination by official and unofficial mafias.
Freedom? Yet the freedom which the reintroduction of capitalism has brought Russia is freedom only for a narrow range of bureaucrats left over from the previous regime to pillage natural resources and transfer the proceeds to Western banks.
And indeed, what does freedom mean for the Chechen people?
In voting against this report I wish to stress the inability of the capitalist economy and the western world to bring progress and prosperity to the peoples of the Russian Federation or indeed to the majority of peoples on this earth.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Oostlander for his sterling contribution as rapporteur.
As a Swedish Christian Democrat, I fully support the two-strategy model which Mr Oostlander presents, involving vigorous, consistent and sustained criticism of all crimes, especially crimes within Russia against human rights, but also involving close and intimate cooperation with Russia, our large neighbour in the East.
Recital KK in the report states the following: 'given that Russia is in a political union with Belarus, it is appropriate in the interest of Russia' s democratic legitimacy for President Putin and the Russian government to point out clearly and consistently the comprehensive need for democratic progress and reforms in Belarus, not least in the light of the report submitted by the parliamentary troika from the EU, the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Minsk on 16 October 2000' .
I am the author of that paragraph, which has been applauded in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
I should here like to highlight the value of our really emphasising the seriousness of Russia' s in actual fact being in a political union with Belarus.
With reference to the report we presented in Minsk, we first of all emphasised that the Belarus Parliament is at present lacking in powers, cannot legislate, does not have the right of veto against Presidential decrees and cannot adopt budgets.
Secondly, we pointed out that electoral law has disqualified a quarter of the candidates in this so-called parliamentary election in October.
Thirdly, we discussed access to the media, which is unfairly organised in a State-controlled system.
Fourthly, we discussed the administrative criminal law which makes it illegal to urge a boycott of elections.
Belarus is therefore in political union with Russia.
It is important for us to emphasise the seriousness of this for Russia too.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, questions of human rights are important to us, and they are not the private affairs of any one country.
The war in Chechnya is a case in point, and, for example, this labour legislation now under discussion will reduce employees' rights quite drastically.
We have, however, tried a boycott policy, and that had no effect on this war.
The twin-track strategy proposed by Mr Oostlander offers a way out, for which I thank him.
This is the first strategy on Russia in our history.
Multi-faceted cooperation will help to stabilise conditions in Russia.
That will be the first step, after which attempts will be made to achieve respect for the law, which will be the second step, and then, economic development will bring more stability, all of which will bring about the features of civil society we expect.
The result will finally be more human rights, which we all desire.
This report thus creates the possibility for constructing a multilayer structure.
For this reason I think it will be an important breakthrough.
We have already laid the foundations of a period of cooperation with Russia during which the political leadership has changed.
We uphold the criticisms, but we will not sever our contact as we did after the civil war, which was followed by Stalin' s persecutions and all the terrors.
The Northern Dimension, which is important, will receive its own budget funds under this proposal, which is a very important issue.
I, myself, suggest that energy should be made the driving force behind this important project, as that is something we need, that is where the money is, and since we have the money, we can also spend it on the infrastructure, on hospitals, environmental issues and so on.
Money from energy: both sides need cooperation for that, and especially in parts of northern Russia, which I would urge Russia to turn to.
It is peaceful there and soldiers are not needed to guard the pipeline.
Do you intend to support a project such as this, Commissioner Patten?
Mr President, a few days ago, the Duma decided that the Soviet anthem would be Russia's national anthem.
The music and words and the decision by the Duma are not overly significant.
What is significant is that the majority of Russian citizens supported this move.
What I want to know is why these people did not choose the Marseillaise or God save the Queen as their anthem of hope for a brave new world, preferring instead to turn the clock back to a regime which many of my fellow members have described as inhumane, criminal and so on.
What is the significance of the ten years since Russia was suddenly catapulted into the free market and into contact with western values? Do we not know what their significance is?
The responsibilities are, of course, mainly Russia's, both for the past and the present. But do the European Union, the United States and the other powers bear no responsibility?
This is the mafia we are talking about.
Where does the mafia have its roots, if not within the Kremlin itself? Who were Yeltsin's protectors and agents all that time?
Who fought tooth and nail to support Yeltsin inside Russia?
This is power hijacking we are talking about. Which banks is the money from foreign loans and/or the money hoarded inside Russia paid into?
Is it the Bank of Havana or the Bank of Algeria? It is paid into the large western banks!
And how is it controlled?
And where are the prostitution networks operating?
What I am getting at is that someone must take responsibility for what has happened over the past ten years, including the European Union.
From what certain speakers have said, the winner-takes-all model obviously applies. The cold-war model has been replaced by the winner-takes-all model.
What are we afraid of? Dependency on Russia?
Can the entire European Union, with Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and everyone else present in Nice really depend on Russia? Or will we opt for mutual dependency as we do with every other large power in today's world?
The point at issue here is Russia's role.
What was Russia's role when NATO was taking decisions on a neighbouring area, on the Balkans, without so much as a nod to the UN, to which Russia belongs, or to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe? How come this power was not terrified?
What I am trying to say is that we need to change our stand: we must not feel and we must not sow the seeds of fear; we must look for a partner which needs our help and support.
I very much welcome this report and I should like to pay tribute to Mr Oostlander for producing it.
His report has been welcomed by all parts of Parliament except, perhaps by those who look back with nostalgia to the not-so-golden days memorialised by a very large number of brave Soviet dissidents.
But it is an excellent report which, like the common strategy itself, underlines the importance that we attach to the relationship - the strategic partnership - between the European Union and Russia.
The report endorses what is being called our "double track strategy" towards Russia, a strategy that combines plain speaking on issues like Chechnya - to which I will return in a few moments - with a continuing effort to build an effective relationship based on shared values and cooperation.
The common strategy and Russia's medium-term strategy for relations with the EU have created a new dynamism.
The common strategy identified initiatives in foreign policy, security and the fight against crime.
Other areas where we seek to bolster European Union cooperative efforts towards Russia are the rule of law and democracy building, civil society, twinnings as well as regional and cross-border cooperation and, above all, the Northern Dimension Initiative, to which a number of Members referred.
We strongly support the Russian Government's economic reform programme which is vital to improve the investment climate.
In this context, as Parliament will know, at the last summit between the European Union and Russia, Romano Prodi launched a far-reaching dialogue on energy.
These are all areas in which the Commission has a powerful contribution to make, as the report repeatedly makes clear.
Our technical assistance programme - in particular Tacis - already responds to many of the priorities identified by this report.
The core Tacis Programme, worth EUR 34 million, focuses on education, the rule of law, democracy and civil society development, including regional media freedom, protection of individual rights and support to self-government.
The subsequent action programme - to a value of EUR 58 million - focuses on institution-building, on the rule of law in the economic field and on improvements to the business and investment climate.
The honourable Member's report rightly stresses the need for our Moscow delegation to play a bigger part in the management of our financial assistance, and I am determined to see significant progress in this direction as part of our wider reform of European Union external aid programmes.
The report comments on the Northern Dimension.
We too see this as an important mechanism for regional cooperation for the development of the north-west Russian regions as well as Kaliningrad.
I am anxious to work closely with the incoming Swedish presidency to make concrete progress on the Northern Dimension.
This means concentrating our efforts on key areas like the environment - which has been referred to by a number of Members - and nuclear safety, on Kaliningrad itself and on improving coordination between different sources of funding.
We are acutely aware of the urgent need to tackle environmental threats from nuclear storage facilities and rusting decommissioned submarines, especially in the north-west part of Russia, for example, around the Kola Peninsula.
This is a formidable task. It requires a combined international and Russian effort.
The Commission has taken a leading role in the negotiation of an international agreement establishing the multilateral nuclear environment programme for Russia.
Those negotiations are now at a key stage and we hope for significant progress by March 2001.
There is also a pressing need to raise environmental awareness in Russia.
This is exactly the objective of the environmental work programme for the Russian Federation, initialled last June in the framework of our partnership and cooperation agreement.
Just a word on Kaliningrad: the partnership and cooperation agreement already offers an institutional framework for our dialogue with Russia on trade, visa and border issues.
At the same time the development of the region has already benefited from Tacis projects amounting to about EUR 30 million since 1991.
We are now finalising a communication to the Council on Kaliningrad.
We are in the process of opening an office in Kaliningrad.
I very much hope to visit Kaliningrad myself in the early part of next year, and not just because Immanuel Kant spent the whole of his life there.
It is a serious issue that we need to address as part of the Northern Dimension.
In all of the areas I have outlined we are working closely with Russia to our mutual benefit.
We are working to strengthen Russian democracy, reinforce the rule of law and transform the Russian economy.
That is all to the good, but there remains one serious impediment to further improvements in the ties between Russia and the European Union: I refer, of course, to Chechnya.
At the last European Union Russian Summit in October, President Putin acknowledged the urgent need for a political solution to the conflict.
I have to say to honourable Members - and I will abbreviate what I might have said at much greater length - we are profoundly concerned about the humanitarian situation in Chechnya.
We are concerned about the continuing reports of human rights abuses, for example from NGOs like Médecins sans Frontières and Human Rights Watch.
We hope that we will be able to make a great deal more progress with the Russian authorities in addressing those issues in the months ahead.
We are profoundly concerned about the likely fate of thousands of refugees in Ingushetiya and Chechnya this coming winter.
It is because we take our relationship with Russia so seriously that these issues matter.
They cannot just be brushed under the carpet.
We have to return to them again and again, but we must also continue, as the honourable gentleman's report wisely recognises, to engage with Russia.
We must avoid the mistake to which an honourable gentleman referred earlier, which was made at the start of the last century, when Russia was effectively excluded from European affairs after the Leninist revolution in 1917 with disastrous consequences.
We shall therefore persevere with the common strategy to build on the progress achieved to heed many of the points raised in the honourable gentleman's report, and above all to strengthen the hands of the Russian Federation.
Just one further word about a point that was raised by a couple of speakers in the debate - and that is the question of Georgia and visas.
We have already expressed serious concern over the way in which Russia unilaterally introduced visa requirements for Georgian citizens on 5 December.
The entire international community, not excluding Russia, is committed to supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the independent states.
Actions by any country in the region which could have the effect of undermining that sovereignty carry significant implications.
If more favourable visa requirements are applied to the inhabitants of secessionist regions or if they are exempted altogether, this would imply support for the legitimacy of their regimes.
Georgia is a member of the United Nations, a member of the OSCE, a member of the Council of Europe, and it has a partnership and cooperation agreement with the European Union.
It deserves our support.
We call upon the states of the region to use the OSCE mechanisms to resolve their disputes quickly before real damage can be caused.
I congratulate the honourable gentleman once again on an extremely good report on a very important issue, to which I am sure we will return in this Parliament over the next few years again and again.
The honourable gentleman has given us a very important and useful political and intellectual infrastructure for our future discussions.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B5-0559/2000).
Question No 1 by (H-0864/00):
Subject: Genetically modified organisms and crops Since the Spring of this year there have been many cases of the release into the environment in various EU countries of genetically modified organisms and crops, namely cotton, oil seed rape and maize.
In some cases measures have been taken, but not in others, and in certain instances no official announcements or findings have been made.
It should be pointed out that in many cases Directive 90/220/EEC has clearly been repeatedly breached.
What action does the Council intend to take to address these problems and, in particular, what position does it intend to adopt in the short and longer term?
As you know, the Council adopted a common position on the revision of Directive 90/220/EC.
The new text provides for much stricter conditions on the use and marketing of genetically modified organisms.
The Commission considers that once this new directive has come into force, it will make it possible to improve the current situation.
The Council, meanwhile, wishes to see this directive adopted rapidly in order to provide a stricter framework for the introduction of new GMOs onto European Union territory.
The Council also wishes to point out that it is in fact up to the Commission to monitor the implementation of Community legislation.
In transposing the directive into their national legislation, Member States will have to ensure that the directive in question is properly implemented and will have to send the Commission a brief factual report at each year end on the monitoring of the use of all products placed on the market, in compliance with Article 18 of the directive.
Moreover, the Member States and the Commission meet regularly in order to exchange information on experience gained in the area of risk prevention related to the spread of GMOs in the environment.
Finally, at the Internal Market, Consumers and Tourism Council on 30 November 2000, the Commission presented an information report on the labelling and traceability of GMOs.
The Council will examine the Commission proposals at the Environment Council on 18 and 19 December.
Thank you very much, Minister, for your answer.
The question was as follows: there have been cases where this directive has been breached and GMOs have been released into the environment.
I gave examples in my question.
You are placing me in a very difficult position.
It is the task of the Commission to ensure that the directive is adhered to.
It has probably not done so or has done so inefficiently, I do not know.
It is the task of Member States to implement the directive, transposing it into their national legislation.
In the case in question, the Member State has not done so.
I should like to think this was an oversight.
In Greece, we have been told, in the case of modified cotton, that it would be exported.
The Commission' s answer to a question similar to the one I have asked was that farmers were to be compensated and that the genetically modified cotton was to be exported. Will the Council be able to help me out of this difficult position?
To whom should I turn for information? Is it really legal to export this type of material?
I still find it hard to believe, Minister, and I should like an answer.
I would remind you that the Council has determined its common position on this proposal and that conciliation therefore is drawing to a close.
The entire procedure should be concluded by 4 January 2001 at the latest.
This common position sets much more stringent requirements for the Member States.
I therefore believe that this is where you will find an answer to your questions.
Mr Papayannakis, I have given you all the information I have.
Could the President-in-Office agree that there can be substantial benefits for the environment, human health, developing countries and European science and business from GMO crops? Is there a risk that Europe could miss out on the benefits if we respond to hysteria rather than to scientific fact?
The Lisbon Summit declared that the European Union was to be the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world.
Is the Council prepared to give a lead by championing the biotech industry with a faster rate of field trials and product approvals by the Member States?
I fear that you are taking us into a fundamental debate which we do not have time to go into here and now.
I believe we must assess both the scope and the limitations of any scientific progress.
Mr President, this debate is already overdue because the BSE crisis has huge implications for feedingstuffs, both home-grown and imported.
We currently have a ban on animal and bone meal, which is why we need to find a clear position here. It is because of the BSE crisis that we are pressed for time.
When, do you think, we shall be able to say that we can supply 100% non-genetically modified feedingstuffs in Europe? Will this label be available shortly so that consumers can rely on there being a supply of 100% non-genetically modified feedingstuffs?
I must answer the honourable Member in the same way that I answered the previous questioner.
This is a debate which needs to take place, but I think that Question Time is not the right place for it.
This is quite unsatisfactory.
That is what Question Time is about!
We have a question, we are entitled to ask a supplementary question and we certainly expect to have a proper response from the Council of Ministers.
That is why we have come here.
Mr President, I hope you will remonstrate with the Council.
I should at least like to respond to the honourable Member' s lack of satisfaction, so that these remarks may be entered in the Minutes, as I cannot allow him to get away with saying something as unfair as that.
We are involved in a highly regimented procedure here: the Council is required to give answers to a great many extremely specific questions in a very short period of time and there is, I believe, no one here who would claim to be able to expand upon extremely complex social issues in just one minute.
It would be both unwise and foolish for the Council to attempt to do so.
I am therefore perfectly willing to propose that such a debate be held, on condition that the most appropriate forum is chosen.
I feel that it would be irresponsible of me to give impromptu answers regarding GMOs in only a minute, and that would not be in keeping with the policy of this presidency.
Question No 2 by (H-0871/00):
Subject: Situation in Chechnya How does the Council assess the present situation in Chechnya, and what efforts has it made in the last six months to try to stop the bloodshed?
The Council continues to be deeply concerned by the situation in Chechnya, where violence continues and the humanitarian situation continues to be very worrying at the onset of winter.
For the moment there are no signs of a political settlement to the conflict.
The Council has expressed its concern at many meetings with Russia at all levels, particularly seeking to induce Russia to avoid the excessive use of force and to avoid any extension of the conflict, to carry out independent and efficient inquiries into human rights violations, to support the OSCE Assistance Group in fulfilling its mission and, finally, to ensure that humanitarian aid is distributed properly.
In particular, the Council has pointed out that only a political solution could bring this crisis to an end.
At the last EU-Russian Summit on 30 October 2000 in Paris, the matter was raised by both presidents.
Mr Putin agreed that there was an urgent need to find a solution of this kind.
For the first time, Russia accepted wording to this effect in the joint declaration issued following the summit.
In this context, while remaining resolutely opposed to talks with what he refers to as "terrorists" , Mr Putin has indicated the need to distinguish between terrorists and those who have fought in good faith for Chechen independence.
Indeed, Mr Putin has stated that the Assistance Group may in the near future return to Chechnya.
I would point out that this has not yet come about.
Mr President, two brief supplementary questions.
First: did the Council contact President Maskhadov, who was democratically elected under the supervision of the OSCE, and other forces of democracy in Chechnya in a bid to find a peaceful solution?
Secondly: has the Council obtained information from the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, who is well represented locally?
I do not have information exact enough to enable me to answer your supplementary question.
All I can say is that we shall continue to liase closely with the Commissioner for Human Rights.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we in Parliament have tried in vain to urge Mr Nielson, the Commissioner responsible for humanitarian matters, to visit Chechnya, not just for the sake of an official visit but to carry out a serious survey of the humanitarian situation.
We have not succeeded in convincing him.
Could the French Presidency take the baton from us and contact Mr Nielson, urging him to go to Chechnya in the near future?
The Commission will, naturally, be informed of the content of our debates.
Mr President, a point of order: it is standard practice in the House for questions which cannot be adequately answered orally to be submitted in writing.
I would ask the President-in-Office to at least answer our questions in writing if he cannot do so orally.
As you know, we are studying ways of reorganising our work.
One of the points covered by the document presented by Vice-President Provan is the form to be taken by Question Time to the Council and the Commission.
Effectively, we have noted that Council, Commission and Members of Parliament have all been somewhat dissatisfied on several occasions.
Therefore, if the Council so wishes, it can reply in writing, as you request.
However, it must be borne in mind that it is, in effect, sometimes impossible, sometimes difficult and rarely a simple matter to reply to supplementary questions.
Mr President, I just wanted to say that it was standard practice under the other presidencies to give a precise answer to a supplementary question.
The President-in-Office must know if he met Mr Maskhadov or not.
How can he say he does not have any precise information?
I would like to state that I am in complete agreement with what the chairman said just now.
This Question Time is clearly not satisfactory.
I have attended the European Parliament on many occasions and have been involved in all sorts of very interesting procedures.
This is not one of them. You can see for yourselves that the Chamber is far from full.
There are perhaps a dozen people here.
I say that this is not satisfactory either for the Council or for Parliament.
Please do not get agitated.
(Interruption by Mr Posselt)
Please, that is enough; this is really a trivial issue.
I am simply trying to present a procedural issue. Indeed this is something about which I have written to your President, Nicole Fontaine, and she agrees with me.
I feel that the procedure must be reformed in a quite simple way to enable Members of Parliament to receive more specific answers on subjects which must be better organised.
The Council Presidency, sir, is not a government or a single person, but a country working together with the departments of the general secretariat of the Council, and here we give you the precise answers which we have to precise questions.
If you are going to indulge in filibustering, then it is going to take hours.
The procedure must therefore be amended or reformed.
This is something I must stress and, sir, it has nothing to do with totally misplaced value judgements.
Question No 3 by (H-0876/00):
Subject: Council's position on the problems linked with alcohol shipments subject to excise duty This serious issue is a problem in many Member States (Belgium, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Italy). Is the Council aware of this, of the costs involved for companies which ship alcohol and of the very high risk of fraud and smuggling?
What improvements does the Council intend to make to the basic directive, 92/12/EEC, to ensure that the shipper' s and recipient' s responsibilities are precisely apportioned, precluding any possibility of fraud?
What is the Council' s opinion of the possibility of eliminating this serious problem through computerised monitoring operated by customs authorities in the dispatching country and in the country of arrival or transit? Could this possible solution be put into practice very rapidly, in view of the fact that the Commission has shown particular interest in solving the problem through proposals and high-level groups, and is clearly ready to take firm action in this area?
The Council would remind the honourable Member of the conclusions adopted at the Council meeting of 19 May 1998 regarding fraud in the alcohol and tobacco industries.
On that occasion, it stressed the need for Members States and the Commission to tackle fraud in the area of excise duty on alcohol and tobacco.
It also approved the summary of the report from the high-level group on fraud in the alcohol and tobacco sector.
Finally, it stressed the importance, subject to the results of a feasibility study proposed by the Commission, of a computer-based monitoring system as a long-term objective.
The Council also undertook to make provision, in the meantime, for the immediate implementation of an efficient selective early warning system.
Since then, the Commission has worked to achieve this.
The Council urges the honourable Member to address that institution on the subject directly, in order to ascertain the details of the above-mentioned measures and the state of progress in implementing them.
Mr President, I think the question was quite specific.
The Member in question, that is yours truly, did attempt to approach the Commission, which informally provided him with information regarding a situation which could be described as a deadlock.
This directive dates from 1992.
The problem is well-known - common knowledge in fact - and it is part of the more serious issue of tax evasion, to which we are all extremely sensitive, but it is also extremely damaging to the firms which have no way of coordinating or monitoring it at all.
This is why I have had to approach the Council.
I now take note of the fact that you have spoken of an undertaking.
As a supplementary question, I would like to ask whether you are in any way able to forecast your action, seeing as the Commission appears to be ready and willing whereas, if I am not mistaken, there seems to be some reticence or disagreement within the Council.
I would be extremely happy if you could dispel this doubt, for I am sure that all will then proceed very quickly.
I can give you the Council position, which is that, in general, the current situation regarding fraud in the area of both indirect and direct taxes and the possibility of stepping up administrative cooperation in these areas were discussed quite recently at the Ecofin Council meeting of 5 June 2000.
On this occasion, a report from an ad hoc group on combating tax fraud commissioned by Coreper on 8 September 1999 was referred to the Council.
This report shows, as you quite rightly state, that tax fraud within the Community has reached worrying levels.
All the Member States have confirmed their determination to intensify the fight against fraud both internally and in their relations with others.
The Council has asked the Commission to present at the earliest possible opportunity proposals based on all the recommendations which met with unanimous agreement in the course of the work of the ad hoc group.
This also refers to measures which might be undertaken in order to solve the specific problems of excise fraud.
This is the context in which I informed you that, without my being aware of any particular disagreement, the Commission has worked to this end and I think you might therefore safely ask questions of the Commission without fear of any divergence of opinions with the Council.
Are you under the impression that the Member States now have the means to achieve the objectives? I tend to feel that we need to put a lot more Community power behind the fight against fraud, and I think that the coordination between the Member States has failed to come up with the goods so far.
Will the new measures do the trick?
You are right, the fight against fraud is never sufficiently well developed.
As you know, over the years we have set up various instruments which are starting to work, but I quite agree that this is a fight which we must wage ceaselessly.
This is what we should be striving for.
Question No 4 by (H-0881/00):
Subject: Increased carrier's liability The French Presidency has proposed in Council that carrier's liability be increased.
This would mean that a carrier, for example an airline, would be penalised if it brought persons without valid visa or identity papers into the EU. In many Member States carrier's liability requires the carrier to arrange or pay for immediate return of the persons concerned, combined in some countries with fines.
The Presidency now wishes to introduce mandatory fines.
Carrier's liability is an effective method of preventing asylum seekers from reaching the EU.
Many refugees with grounds for seeking asylum cannot obtain the passports or visas required for entry into the EU. Carrier's liability means that their requests for asylum cannot be examined in the EU.
Instead they are dealt with by airline, airport and other transport staff. Does the Council consider that the latter are competent in practice to decide the future of asylum seekers?
The proposal the honourable Member refers to is an initiative from the French Presidency with a view to the adoption of a Council directive on the harmonisation of financial penalties imposed on carriers transporting third country nationals to Member States' territory without the necessary documents for entry.
This text, which was presented to the European Parliament for consultation on 6 September 2000, is currently being examined by the competent Council bodies.
The aim of this initiative is to implement a European-wide coherent policy against illegal immigration and the trafficking of human beings, which is a real scourge.
Increasing carrier liability is one of the essential aspects of this.
Moreover the proposed directive introduces a minimum instrument common to all Member States regarding carrier liability, setting requirements for checks to be carried out by carriers and harmonising the penalties currently laid down by Member States.
It is not a matter of establishing new penalties against carriers but rather of harmonising those already provided for under the terms of the Schengen Convention.
I should like to draw the honourable Member' s attention to the fact that recital 3 of the draft directive does indeed stipulate that application thereof shall not be prejudicial to the commitments arising under the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951 relating to the Status of Refugees, as amended by the New York Protocol of 31 January 1967.
The European Union has, on many occasions, stated its absolute respect for the right of asylum.
This has to be reconciled with effective action to combat illegal immigration and the trafficking of human beings.
This is imperative and is something that was explicitly called for at the Feira European Council following the tragic events in Dover.
Mr President, I want to thank the French minister for his answer.
I nonetheless believe that the proposal tabled by the French Presidency is completely unacceptable and that it really has only one aim, namely to keep asylum seekers out of the EU, something which may in practice lead to an increase in illegal immigration.
It is also the case that it is not only refugees under the Geneva Convention who may be granted asylum but also significantly larger groups.
These groups are obviously not excluded under the new proposal.
I also asked a specific question concerning the powers of airline and airport employees to make actual decisions on asylum matters.
If it is true that those who are regarded as refugees under the Geneva Convention are to be excluded, what actual powers do check-in staff at an airport in Istanbul possess to decide a refugee' s fate, for that is what this issue is about.
I think it is a very relevant question because the fate of refugees is being placed in the hands of, for example, airline and airport staff.
In my opinion, such staff are not competent and are lacking in training in this area, and it is therefore basically irresponsible to give them this power.
That is more a statement of opinion than a question.
I would repeat that we are bound to take effective action against this scourge which has given rise to tragic events, and we must do so while ensuring that the European Union continues to respect the right of asylum entirely.
Let me stress that: absolute respect.
Individual countries may have problems.
We are working on that.
It is up to that country to voice its concerns.
This is, however, I believe, the road we must take.
Thank you for your answer.
I should like to ask the following supplementary question. How major and extensive does the Council consider this problem to be, and how seriously does the Council view the fact that transport companies organise travel to the EU for persons without valid visa and identity papers?
That is precisely the question which I was attempting to answer. Let me repeat that it is a subject of the utmost, the very utmost gravity.
Question No 5 by (H-0882/00):
Subject: Everything but arms proposal Is the Council content that this proposal from the Commission - which may well have dire consequences for already hard-pressed sugar beet farmers in the European Union - should be passed without any consultation of the directly-elected European Parliament?
The proposal for a Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) 2820/98 so as to extend duty-free access without any quantitative restrictions to products originating in the least-developed countries, which the Commission put forward recently, is the result of Community initiatives to improve market access for the least developed countries.
In this respect, the ACP-EC partnership agreement signed in Cotonou in June 2000 stipulates that the European Community shall by 2005, at the latest, allow duty free access for essentially all products from all LDCs.
In view of the ongoing reform of the common organisation of the market in sugar, rice and bananas, the Commission proposal stipulates that market access for such countries will be gradually liberalised over a period of three years from January 2001.
The proposal provides for granting products from LDCs duty free access, amending the generalised tariff preference scheme currently implemented by the Community.
Insofar as this proposal relates to common trade policy, it is covered by Article 133 of the Treaty, which does not call for the European Parliament to be consulted.
I can assure you, nonetheless, that the Council is examining this proposal with a great deal of interest, and is in particular looking into the potential implications for Community producers of the proposed duty free access and into whether this proposal is consistent with ongoing plans to reform the common organisation of the market in certain industries such as sugar, for example.
Last month when I asked a supplementary question in Question Time, this President-in-Office simply avoided giving me a supplementary by saying: "I can only repeat my previous answer" and reading out the previous answer again.
This time I will give him a chance not to read out the previous answer but ask him for an undertaking and an agreement.
Does the President-in-Office agree that there should be no decision made on this proposal until there has been a full impact assessment of the effect on the Union, the ACP countries and the LDC countries? Yes or no?
The Presidency and a number of Member States have already received various letters from the Comité européen des fabricants de sucre (European Committee of Sugar Manufacturers) regarding the Commission' s proposals, which they will take into account in their deliberations.
The real impact of the duty free access proposed for European producers will be a key factor in the Council' s final decision.
I should like to repeat a question which I asked Mr Moscovici last week in plenary.
Perhaps he had too many questions to deal with to be able to answer me then.
Perhaps you could answer me in these more intimate surroundings this evening.
It is about the role of the European Parliament's in-trade policy, which is the spirit of Mr Newton Dunn's question.
Do you think that it will be possible for you, me or anybody in Europe to advocate greater transparency and accountability in the WTO in-trade policy as long as this place has no formal and serious role in scrutinising and vetting trade policy decisions taken by the Council of Ministers and the European Commission?
To cite my dear friend, Mr Newton Dunn, perhaps the best way to answer this is: yes or no.
I should just like to make you see, on this, my last visit here, what the point of this exercise actually is.
The Presidency is not here to express the opinions of any given individual or any given government but rather to state what the position of the Council is at any moment 'x' or time 't' .
So, while I may have my own personal opinions as a political leader - and I do have opinions on the subject, believe me - I shall confine myself to expressing the Council' s current position.
You mentioned the Cotonou Agreement.
Are you aware that the Cotonou Agreement also expresses a commitment to undertaking impact studies which might affect non-LDC countries as well as to have consultation? Neither of those two things has happened.
It is not good enough to have consultation after the events.
Are you aware that apart from sugar producers in Europe, concerns are being expressed, especially by countries that are commodity-dependent - particularly in the Caribbean - on sugar, bananas and rice, as you have mentioned?
I can assure all the Members of the European Parliament who have asked me questions that the Council will take their comments into consideration.
As they deal with the same subject, the following two questions will be taken together:
Question No 6 by (H-0886/00):
Subject: Measures for the prevention of mad cow disease Has the Council looked into the possibility of a temporary blanket ban on the use of meat and bone meal, with a view to preventing the spread of mad cow disease? What measures will it be proposing in the immediate future for those countries which have been declared high-risk?
and
Question No 7 by (H-0932/00):
Subject: Immediate danger from bovine spongiform encephalopathy The continuing cases of 'mad cow' disease have made consumers, as well as livestock producers, extremely worried.
The decisions taken by the recent Agriculture Council enraged the citizens of the Member States, whose health is being jeopardised by continuing consumption of meat that is unfit to eat.
When does the Council intend to take effective measures to protect consumer health by changing organisational methods and development conditions for livestock rearing, through the use of livestock feed containing protein of plant origin, such as legumes, through radical reform of the CAP, a ban on beef exports from France and any other countries where a similar problem appears, universal inspection of cattle and a ban on the production and use of meat meals for feeding ruminants?
The Council wishes to point out that its policy is always to afford consumers the highest possible level of protection.
In particular it has sought, by means of its recent decisions, to ensure that the meat available to consumers is guaranteed to the maximum in this respect, especially by means of its decision with a view to guaranteeing the improved traceability of the origin of meat and elimination from the food chain of a list of specified at-risk materials, which now includes bovine intestines.
As a precautionary measure and in order to eliminate risks of cross-contamination, the Council has decided to suspend, as of 1 January 2001, the use of meat meals in feedingstuffs for production animals.
Finally, non-tested animals aged above thirty months may no longer enter the food chain.
A purchase and destruction system is to be set up for such non-tested bovine animals, in order to compensate livestock farmers at the market price.
The Council considers that this package of measures should make it possible to avoid the risk which the honourable Members have decried.
Regarding the method of organisation and the criteria for the development of livestock farming, the Council would point out that, in the context of its decisions taken under the Agenda 2000 reform, emphasis has been placed on greater incentives for extensive production, particularly by means of bonuses.
Furthermore, on 4 December 2000, the Council noted the Commission statements on the cultivation of protein-rich crops and called upon this institution to look more deeply into this matter in the near future and to draw conclusions with reference to current policy in this sector and with regard to set-aside, including, if necessary, by presenting appropriate proposals.
The Council' s objective in all these decisions is to restore consumer confidence within the European Union.
However, in consideration of the need to uphold the principles governing the internal market, it aims to favour Community-wide measures over measures concerning specific Member States.
First of all I have to say that, in my opinion, the President-in-Office of the Council has not yet answered Mr Korakas' question.
Secondly, and with regard to my specific question, I thank the President-in-Office of the Council very much for his answer.
I think that the Council has been bold and has been quick to take some important measures.
However, we are faced with the very serious problem of the failure to comply with the measures agreed.
The Council knows that in 1989, both the production of feed with animal proteins for feeding ruminants in the United Kingdom and for the production of meat meals were banned.
This indicates that the measures that we adopted at the time were good and have guarantees.
But our problem is that they are not applied, that there is fraud in fulfilling them.
I would therefore like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if the Council of Ministers is going to give guarantees that the Community rules will be complied with, if it is going to give guarantees that the existing measures banning meat meals are going to be complied with. Which inspectors are going to deal with it?
What checks are going to be made?
Is this a concern that has been latent in the Council of Ministers? Answer me please, specifically: what food safety guarantees are going to be given that all these measures are to be applied?
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I have outlined the decisions that the Council has taken.
As you yourself stated, these are bold decisions of recent date, the latest of these being from 4 December, that is a week ago.
The French Presidency has, from the very outset, been concerned to bring about a European response to this crisis, which is a crisis in terms of foodstuffs, society and health.
Right up to the end, the presidency has stressed and urged that measures be taken, and you may be sure that when France resumes its position as a simple member of the European Union at the end of the presidency, it will continue to stress that this must be done.
At any event there is now, I believe, a general increase in awareness throughout Europe which will enable whatever measures necessary to be taken in order to combat this disease.
I wanted to ask if there has been an evaluation of the measures that have been taken.
I tend to feel that if drastic measures had been taken earlier, we would not be facing such a disastrous situation now.
Is that how the Council sees it?
As you know, we continually act according to the latest state of our knowledge, and so I cannot completely endorse this analysis.
I believe, moreover, that we should improve our knowledge, and that is also the point of establishing a European food safety authority, on which the Nice European Council took a decision in principle at last week' s meeting.
This authority must now be set up, and I think the European authorities have now become very aware of the issue, and that we must forge ahead.
Mrs Maes, I am told - for none of us knows the Rules of Procedures off by heart - that you were not entitled to ask this second question because the Members are only entitled to ask one supplementary question during Question Time.
As the author is not present, Question No 8 by Mrs McKenna lapses.
My understanding is that the services were told two days ago that I would be taking over the question for Mrs McKenna because we knew then that she would have to go back to Dublin on urgent business.
Under the Barcelona process, Algeria endorsed a number of principles including respect for the rule of law.
The Presidency Conclusions adopted at the end of the fourth Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Marseilles on 15 and 16 November 2000 explicitly mention the need to boost political dialogue among the 27 members, including at ministerial level, particularly on the following subjects: the process of consolidating the rule of law and respect for human rights and democratic principles.
The bilateral political dialogue which the European Union is conducting with Algeria does indeed focus on the objectives you stressed in your question, i.e. restoring debate and a democratic political dynamic.
In fact, three years ago, the European Union initiated this kind of political dialogue at ministerial level on the basis of specific guidelines: firstly, condemnation of violence and terrorism, solidarity with the Algerian people, the need for the Algerian authorities to undertake political and economic reforms, the need for dialogue between the government and the opposition, the European Union' s goodwill with regard to developing relations and cooperation with Algeria, and, finally, the wish to see an open comprehensive political process implemented in Algeria.
These are the initiatives which the Council has taken or intends to take with regard to the Algerian authorities.
I can assure you that the European Union intends to continue and step up its political dialogue with the Algerian authorities, especially involving the ministerial troika.
Has the Presidency representative, in this instance the French Ambassador to Algeria, actually met Mr Ahmed Taleb? Have either the French Ambassador or other Council leaders initiated talks with the Algerian authorities in order to ascertain how they might get around this situation?
According to the information I have, I just wish to state that the European Union did indeed initiate political dialogue at ministerial level in 1997 and that, in principle, the French Presidency is to have a meeting between the troika of ministers and Algeria, but as yet no date has been set.
As far as I know, the Council has never so far discussed the matter of refusal to recognise the WAFA party or issued any statement.
I am told that it was noted within the working party that this measure indicated a power struggle within the Algerian administration.
As you can see, I do not have any inside information or, unfortunately, any more specific information.
I, or rather the Council, will answer your second question in writing.
Question No 10 by (H-0892/00):
Subject: UN special session on children The UN General Assembly's Special Session on Children, in September 2001, will discuss the situation of children world-wide, and consider adopting a new plan of action to make children's rights a reality across the world.
Would the Council outline its policy priorities for the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children? Does the Council intend to consult widely with civil society organisations, as requested by the UN Secretary-General, in the setting of its future policy priorities for children, both within the European Union and in the developing world?
. (FR) I have already had the opportunity, a few weeks ago, to express my comments to you on the preparations for the UN General Assembly Special Session devoted to reviewing the results of the World Summit for Children which is to take place in September 2001.
At that time I stressed the importance of preparing thoroughly for this event and the truly fundamental role which the European Union should play in these preparations.
Consequently, on 20 November 2000 last, on the anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the ministers of the Members States with responsibility for matters relating to children and a Commission representative met in Paris and adopted shared commitments which will contribute to enhancing European Union action in making preparations for this special session.
I should like to answer your first question and inform you of the political priorities we identified as part of our preparations.
The chief objective of the special session will be to renew the international community' s commitments to children' s rights and children' s welfare.
To this end, an assessment of the last ten years must be made with regard to the commitments and objectives set at the World Summit. The commitments expressed in the Millennium Declaration, which complement the World Summit, should also be taken fully into account.
These commitments concern access to education, reducing maternal mortality and under-five child mortality, and combating transmissible diseases, especially AIDS.
As regards your second question, the Council is in complete agreement with the point of view of the General Secretary of the United Nations that all the institutions concerned and also experts, research bodies or academic institutions which have a special interest in children' s issues should be involved in this exercise.
The involvement of non-governmental organisations in the preparatory process and in the special session would seem to us to be a basic condition to making this meeting a real success.
We welcome the arrangements proposed in this respect by the Preparatory Committee and adopted by the General Assembly regarding procedures for the registration of non-governmental organisations for involvement in the preparatory process and the Special Session in September 2001.
We are in constant liaison with the representatives of the non-governmental organisations, including by means of seminars.
In the course of such exchanges, we have benefited from their experience and their commitment to children.
We can congratulate the French presidency on taking this initiative to prepare for the UN special session.
You obviously have made a commitment to involving civil society.
Will you also make a commitment to actually consulting children, since the events involve them? I hope that their views will also be sought in the months ahead.
Secondly, it is also the case that while many Member States are very active on the issue of children's rights it is actually much more difficult in a European Union context to be as proactive.
What progress do you think we might make in securing a legal base for the European Union's work with children and the promotion of children's rights?
. (FR) Indeed, Mrs Kinnock, Sweden is also going to organise a conference on refugee children in Stockholm in the spring of 2001.
Question No 11 by (H-0894/00):
Subject: Turkey's obligations under EU-Turkey partnership arrangements In its proposal regarding partnership arrangements between the EU and Turkey, the Commission indicates that the European Council is to re-examine the situation regarding unresolved differences, particularly with regard to their impact on accession procedures, so as to help ensure that they can be resolved within the International Court of Justice before the end of 2004 at the latest.
In its own resolution (A5-0297/2000, Minutes of European Parliament Sittings of 15 November 2000), the European Parliament also points out that the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in 'Loïzidou v Turkey' (No. 15318/89) has not yet been implemented and calls on the Turkish Government to comply with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.
Does the Council intend to include in provisions regarding partnership arrangements stipulations regarding acceptance by Turkey of the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice at the Hague and compliance by Turkey with the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, in accordance with the unanimous wishes of the Council of Europe?
Yes, political agreement was reached within the General Affairs Council regarding the text of the accession partnership agreement for Turkey and on the framework regulation which defines its principles and conditions.
The Presidency is very pleased with this result, which marks a significant stage in the implementation of the pre-accession strategy for Turkey defined last year in Helsinki.
The Council has not radically changed the initial Commission proposal as adopted by the Commission on 8 November 2000.
There have just been some amendments to the priorities relating to political criteria and to reinforced political dialogue.
Regarding the reference to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights, there has been no change to the Commission proposal.
The partnership agreement contains a number of references to the European Convention on Human Rights.
In addition, it stresses the need to enhance the legal avenues for remedying human rights violations.
It moreover stresses the importance it attaches to improving the judicial apparatus and the training of Turkish magistrates, particularly in the field of human rights.
Regarding the peaceful settlement of disputes, the text of the accession partnership agreement points out, in accordance with the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council, that this issue is an important matter, to be dealt with in the context of the political dialogue between the European Union and Turkey.
Like the other candidate countries, Turkey must make every effort to resolve any outstanding border disputes.
I thank the Minister for his reply.
This question was submitted while the issue of the partnership was still pending.
I appreciate how tiring the past days must have been and I shall therefore focus my second question on the subject of the Loïzidou case, i.e. the judgment against Turkey by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the matter of the seizure of the property of Greek Cypriots in the occupied section of the island.
The Loïzidou case has already given rise to two judgements against Turkey.
Does the Council intend to discuss this issue with the Turkish Government within the context of this partnership which you have referred to?
. (FR) I have quite simply pointed out, Mr Alavanos, the general and specific conditions under which this accession partnership agreement was adopted.
This is the context in which negotiations with the candidate country will be going ahead. We have accepted its candidacy and now we have specific requirements and expectations of that country.
As the author is not present, Question No 12 by Mrs Karamanou lapses.
Question No 13 by (H-0897/00):
Subject: Fundamental rights and justice With reference to Mr Moscovici' s answer to my question and supplementary question of 14 November (H-0854/00), it remains entirely obscure why the Council thinks that the implementation of the principle of mutual recognition of judgments will in itself do anything to secure due fulfilment of the guarantees contained in Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, now repeated in Articles 48 and 49 of the Charter.
I refer to guarantees such as the right to defend oneself in person or through legal assistance of one' s own choosing or, if one has not sufficient means to pay for legal assistance, to be given it free when the interests of justice so require; to have the free assistance of an interpreter if one cannot understand or speak the language used in court; right to trial within a reasonable time, or to release pending trial.
With regard to individual cases such as those mentioned in my supplementary question, how can the Council claim that a process of mutual recognition will of itself make any improvement at all?
. (FR) As the Council has emphasised to the honourable Member in the previous answer, the process of the mutual recognition of judgements will afford better protection of individuals' rights.
The mutual recognition of judgements will in fact make it possible to better guarantee personal security as it will facilitate the fight against crime on European Union territory by improving judicial cooperation.
In the long term, the conduct of inquiries and the prosecution of offences will cease to suffer from the limitations due to the diversity of national legal systems.
Next, mutual recognition affords improved legal safety within the European Union in that as it ensures that a judgement pronounced in one State will not be called into question in another Member State.
This is application of the non bis in idem principle: the same case may not be retried, final judgements cannot be called into question.
This is a very important aspect of the protection of individuals.
It seems to me, with great respect, President, that the Council has yet again failed or refused to address the particular problem which I asked it to address.
Last time Council might have claimed it lacked notice of that question.
This time I put essentially the same point for the second time in one month and hope for some kind of an answer.
Citizens of this Union are detained pending trial for totally unacceptable periods of time, their detention is extended and extended.
This occurs particularly in Longuenesse jail in France and applies to truck drivers from the United Kingdom and other countries.
I find it wholly unacceptable that this problem should be simply swept under the carpet, and we are assured that the mutual recognition of judgments will help in some way.
I want to know why this question, this very plain and simple question, is not being answered.
Are the rights of defence being adequately honoured and will mutual recognition do anything to help?
Let me give you the Council' s interpretation of your question, and its answer.
Regarding the specific cases you mentioned, mutual recognition will not lead to validation of a judgement which flouts essential rights such as the right to legal representation of one' s own choice or the right to the free assistance of an interpreter.
On the one hand, these are rights which all the States have endorsed and which constitute the shared foundation of our criminal justice systems, and, on the other hand, mutual recognition is a process which is by no means automatic and which depends on the nature of the judgement in question.
So, as the Council stated in its previous answer, the programme for mutual recognition can only bring improvements in terms of fundamental rights.
Mr President, I have to say that the President-in-Office is turning not answering questions into something of an art form.
I would like to press him further.
What will the Council do to ensure that the states do the kinds of things he has just been setting out? What guarantee do we have, that the theory that you have just stated will actually take place?
I have no further information to give you.
I think we simply have a little misunderstanding here.
What I am in fact trying to explain to you is that the Council is indeed taking action to meet your expectations.
Question No 14 by (H-0899/00):
Subject: Mandate of the Rapid Reaction Force An EU rapid reaction force is currently being set up.
What has been decided about the mandate on the basis of which these troops will be deployed, and for what purposes will they be deployed?
It is up to the Council to decide upon the possible launch of a military operation conducted by the European Union as part of the Petersberg assignment.
In accordance with Article 23 of the Treaty on European Union, the Council shall adopt this decision unanimously, as is the case, moreover, for any other decision with implications in the area of defence.
It is, furthermore, up to each Member State to take a sovereign decision at national level whether or not to commit their national forces to the operation.
The Nice European Council recorded the conditions which might lead the Council to take a decision in a crisis situation.
According to these, with a view to setting up an operation, the Political and Security Committee (COPS) may submit a recommendation to the Council on the basis of advice from the Military Committee.
The Council, whose deliberations are prepared by COREPER according to the customary procedures, may take a decision on the basis of this.
The decision to launch an operation would, in principle, take the form of a joint action.
The COPS, as the kingpin of European security and defence policy and the CFSP, has a central role in defining the European Union' s response to a crisis.
In particular, it provides the political scrutiny and strategic administration of a military crisis management operation.
The option of deploying a rapid reaction force exists for the whole range of crisis management missions, the Petersberg missions as defined in Article 17(2) of the Treaty on European Union, humanitarian and evacuation missions, peacekeeping missions and combat troop missions for crisis management, including peacemaking missions.
Mr President, Minister, I would like to ask if any decisions of principle have been taken regarding whether there should be a mandate from the UN or any other international organisation in discharging such tasks as these, as, under international law, a mandate from an international organisation is needed before any country' s territory can legally be attacked in this way.
Furthermore, I would ask what sort of legal definition has been presented or made in the Council regarding tasks connected with the deployment of crisis management troops?
There is a report available which was appended to the Presidency' s report at the Nice European Council on European security and defence policy.
This will give Mr Seppänen all the answers he requires.
It is a rather long document, but all the information is laid out there in precise detail.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 15 to 21 lapse.
Question No 22 by (H-0918/00):
Subject: Bearing of taxes on the operation of the internal market In an article in the Financial Times in November this year, the Commission President, Mr Prodi, affirmed that he does not want to see tax harmonisation and common tax levels in the EU by stating that tax rates 'are in the hands of the national parliaments and must remain so'.
At the same time, in the same article, he considers that, in order for the EU to become dynamic and competitive, there is a need to switch to majority voting on taxes 'where necessary for the internal market to function'.
Which taxes does the Council consider to have no bearing on the dynamic and competitive operation of the internal market?
With your permission, Mr President, that will be the last question that I shall be able to answer during this Question Time.
The honourable Member' s question concerns the unofficial opinions expressed by the Commission President.
It is not therefore up to the Council to state an opinion on this matter.
I should just like to point out that the Treaty system differentiates between taxes and indirect taxes which must be harmonised in order to ensure the proper establishment and smooth running of the internal market - according to Article 93 - and the approximation, laid down in Article 94, of legislation which has a direct bearing on the establishment or running of the common market, including legislation on direct taxation.
The decisions taken by the Council on the basis of Articles 93 and 94 were taken according to the rule of unanimity.
Following the Treaty of Nice they will, unfortunately, continue to be taken according to the rule of unanimity.
I should like to thank the French presidency for its answer.
I nonetheless want to ask whether the Council welcomes this type of very contradictory and unclear statement from the Commission' s President.
It is nevertheless the case that, if the desire is to create close cooperation between the Council, Parliament and the Commission, it is unfortunate if the Commission' s President produces vague statements of this kind, for his statement can only be interpreted in terms of his wanting to open the way to tax harmonisation despite creating a smokescreen for this.
I must repeat that I cannot comment on statements attributed to the President of the Commission.
However, the matter of whether decisions on taxation should be taken by majority vote was examined in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference.
As you know, it was not possible, unfortunately, to make any progress in this area at Nice.
Question Nos 23 to 32 will be answered in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the Republic of Croatia
Mr President, I have great pleasure in presenting the report on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between Croatia and the European Union to this part session of the European Parliament.
Croatia has made considerable progress in the economic, the political and the social sector and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement is the next logical step.
Allow me briefly to summarise these three main sectors.
First, the economic sector.
Obviously, huge efforts are still needed before the Croatian market functions in line with the acquis communautaire.
However, efforts are clearly being made and the results of structural and economic reform can already be seen, especially in the transparent procedures being used for privatisation and the protection being offered to foreign investment.
The Stability, or rather Stabilisation and Association Agreement, which provides for financial aid and general financial assistance through the relevant Community programmes, will strengthen this progress in the economic sector and speed up preparations for Croatia's accession to the European Union at a later date.
The progress made by Croatia is evident not only in the economic sector but also in the political sector.
The new coalition voted in during recent elections in Croatia has decided to put its money on democracy and the rule of law.
This embracing of democracy and the rule of law go beyond mere words to daily actions: institutions are being created and legislation - such as the legislation on protection for refugees, the right to asylum and immigration - is being reformed.
Also worth mentioning here are the attempt by certain representatives of the Croat community in Bosnia to destabilise the government in order to recreate the wartime statelet of Herzeg-Bosna and the government's compliance with the terms of the Dayton agreement and collaboration with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Progress has clearly also been made in the social sector and at this point, I need do no more than read you an extract from the conclusions of the Council of Europe:
"Croatia has made significant progress in fulfilling its commitments as a member of the international community, in particular with its ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the European Charter of Local Self-Government and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages."
With the changes and democratic developments in Yugoslavia, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the European Union and the present motion for a resolution on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Croatia, there are good prospects for democratisation and stabilisation in the Western Balkans and Croatia can play a specific and decisive role here.
The Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Croatia has come along at just the right time.
Parliament also has cause to congratulate itself on rushing approval through before the end of the year.
Just how right it was is confirmed by the summit in Nice which ended just yesterday morning.
The following is an extract from the chapter describing the Western Balkans:
"The Zagreb Summit of 24 November, which brought together for the first time countries in the region which had returned to democracy, welcomed the historic changes which have occurred in the Western Balkans, initially in Croatia and then in the FRY. ...
It confirms that the process of stabilisation and association is at the heart of the Union' s policy vis-à-vis the five countries concerned, which each receive individual treatment."
Mr President, the report on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement takes account of the new democratic developments in Croatia and highlights the European prospects for this country, which has managed in the course of the past year to achieve its aim of joining the international community of states.
Its membership of the NATO Partnership for Peace and of the World Trade Organisation, its bilateral agreements with the EFTA states, its free-trade agreements with the CEFTA member states and the negotiations that began recently, on 8 November, on a wide-ranging Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union are all evidence that Croatia has embarked on a clear change of course since the elections of 3 January 2000.
The European Union emphasised this again by the summit held in Zagreb on 24 November.
However, it also became clear at this summit that the situation inside Yugoslavia remains as brittle and strife-ridden as ever.
If this pattern of behaviour continues, where in case of doubt each party fights the other, it could break up the Stability Pact for South-East Europe, which is based on regional cooperation.
For even now states like Croatia are asking whether the obligation to cooperate on a regional basis might not end up delaying their own accession to Europe.
Croatia, like a more democratic Serbia, where I hope that democracy will be consolidated on 23 December, could become major factors of stability in these regions destroyed by wars and ethnic conflicts.
It is important for the European Union, as also the European Parliament, to do their utmost to provide economic protection and support for the democratic process in these countries.
Even if they still have a long way to go before they can join the European Union, economic and political help quite simply offer the principle of hope, and Mr Baltas' report takes that principle into account.
But we should also apply the principle of differentiation in this region.
Croatia has made significant progress, especially by ratifying the European Convention on Human Rights, the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
The European Parliament's report rightly notes that.
Another point in Croatia's favour is the changed attitude of the newly elected Croatian authorities to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Croatia has always felt part of western Europe, western culture. It needs all our support and encouragement along its chosen road to economic and political reform.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first let me congratulate Mr Baltas very warmly on his report, in particular for the fact that he drafted it so quickly, for it was both important and correct to react quickly to the changes in Croatia as Mr Stenzel said.
I also had very good talks with members of the former government.
Some were very useful, but the whole thing always had to be seen in the context of extreme nationalism, of very sluggish cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal and a very hesitant approach to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
That has changed.
The new Croatian government has not only recognised but actually supports Europe's Balkan policy.
And that is why it was right to react quickly.
I can see no contradiction between the one-to-one relations between the European Union and Croatia and the various Balkan countries, and regional cooperation.
We need regional cooperation.
We need it, for example, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and it is most welcome that the government has said it will support the idea of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single state, which has not always brought it friends among the Croatians in Herzegovina.
But that is a bold, clear and definite step and it must be followed up.
In the end we also need cooperation with Yugoslavia, meaning cooperation on both sides.
On the one hand we must continue to insist that the ethnic Serbian refugees who have fled Croatia can return there, that this is not just the will of the government but can also be achieved against quite considerable local resistance in individual regions, villages and areas.
But of course we also need cooperation with Yugoslavia not just for this process but also in order to stabilise the region.
Even if we are being a little cautious and reticent at this point we and Mrs Pack is here too have told Mr Kostunica quite plainly that we must also require the new Yugoslavia, which we hope will emerge stronger from the elections on 23 December, to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal, to cooperate on a regional basis, to be prepared to resolve the conflicts peacefully.
My third and final comment is this. The Zagreb summit sent out a clear message.
We in this Parliament have already incorporated the further developments clause in the agreement with Macedonia.
Now, however, we must also prepare the way carefully.
That makes the decision, or non-decision, of Nice rather disappointing: the complexity of the majority-voting system makes things difficult enough for the current round of enlargement, but they will become much more difficult when it comes to enlargement towards south-eastern Europe.
Here the Union still has much work to do.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we too can answer yes to the question whether Croatia deserves a Stability and Association Agreement.
Croatia is increasingly becoming a factor of stability in the region.
It is making positive progress towards democracy.
However, let me emphasise that even though we welcome this progress, this does not mean we think Croatia has reached its goal.
It must now take the next steps towards legislative reform, especially in relation to minority rights, freedom of the press and an independent judiciary.
It is up to the Commission to take a very critical look at precisely these aspects now in preparation for the Stability and Association Agreement.
Let me also stress that Croatia is endeavouring to put its relations with neighbouring states in good order.
That means it really has made quite positive progress here.
It is particularly important to show Croatia that we regard it as quite crucial what role it takes on with regard to stabilisation in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Federation there.
Indeed, that is the precisely the yardstick by which we must measure Croatia's progress towards stabilisation.
I think it would be a disaster for the EU to tie economic support to an agreement on the return of the refugees in the Association and Stabilisation Agreement.
That issue must be based on other conditions, namely whether access to asylum in Croatia is compatible with international standards and whether it is a humane access to asylum.
I believe this question has to be treated separately and must not be part of the agreement.
Mr President, our Group supports the work done by Mr Baltas on the report on the feasibility of negotiating stabilisation and association agreements with the Republic of Croatia.
We also think that the Commission has acted at the appropriate time to launch this proposal.
We think that the work has been done in record time, and we congratulate Mr Baltas on his efficient work in committee.
We think that it is timely because, although at the time, we, as the European left, criticised some countries of Western Europe for their role in the break up of the former Yugoslavia, through encouraging, facilitating or instigating hatred and aggression, both ethnic and of other kinds, which resulted in the emergence of Croatia, at this time, when its recent past has also changed, I think it is a very good sign that the European Union is taking a step forward to help recover the mood of tolerance, democracy, respect for human rights and living in harmony with other republics and areas in the region, because it is of vital importance for the European Union.
We should not forget the suffering of the almost three hundred thousand people, of Serbian origin, who were violently expelled in a week, by terrorist methods, from Krajina, and had to flee to Serbia.
I think it is important to recognise that it was wrong and that those people be helped to return, if they wish, to their homes.
That would prove that tolerance, living together in harmony and respect for different opinions are possible in the Balkan region and it would improve the prospects for our future in the area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I particularly welcome the start of the negotiations on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement, which will at last open up the prospect that country deserves.
Unlike its neighbour Slovenia, immediately after independence in 1991 Croatia was not able to develop in a way as to allow it to become a candidate for accession at this point.
For at the time, in 1991, one third of the country was occupied.
At the time the Croats were driven out.
In 1991/92 more than 250 000 Croats were expelled from Kraijina, from western and eastern Slavonia.
They were not able to return to their homes until the, to my mind, justified­ recapture of these areas.
There they found their property and possessions in ruins.
Unfortunately, during this recapture Serbs who had the right to live there were expelled in return, not just by the Croats but sadly also by their Serb ringleaders, who, of course, did the same in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Sarajevo.
Unfortunately, we also saw serious attacks carried out during this recapture.
But we should not confuse cause and effect.
We then punished Croatia for this recapture by denying it our friendship.
We refused to grant it any aid.
And because we refused to help, many things then started to go wrong in Croatia, with wrongful privatisation, corruption and so on.
The new government has now taken a European line in many policy areas.
It is seeking to cooperate with The Hague.
It has stopped supporting separatist movements in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It is currently adopting difficult austerity measures in order to meet the preconditions.
So I believe Croatia has deserved this support.
It can become a factor of stability throughout the region.
Mr President, during the years when I was President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I had the opportunity to support many Croatians in their efforts towards the freedom and prosperity that they, like other peoples on our continent, identified with their integration into the European institutions.
In the 20th Century, Croatia has gone through the same stages that many of us that are now part of the European Union had to go through.
In the last 60 years, Croatia experienced a particularly awful form of fascism.
A fascism like that in Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain: a characteristically European path, therefore.
Then the Croats, through a particularly militant anti-fascist resistance, freed themselves from Nazism.
This journey of resistance is part of the best of European heritage.
After a new and long period of authoritarianism came the outbreak of independence, led by nationalist forces and others based more on purely democratic aspirations.
In the struggle between them the Croatians had to go through a new chapter of ultra-nationalist authoritarianism, supported paradoxically by their Serbian counterparts, through the occupation of part of their territory and through the war.
With peace and the consolidation of democracy, the Croatian people have chosen the path of moderation and tolerance, freedom and respect.
And they have clearly identified that choice with their full participation in the project for European construction.
The entry of Croatia into the Council of Europe made a decisive contribution to the positive developments that have been taking place in the country, and was a step further along the road to the stabilisation and association agreement with the European Union, which we are debating today and which we want to become a reality as soon as possible.
This agreement is nothing if not a step further towards Croatia' s accession as a full member of the European Union, and there is no place on that path for any conditions other than those that the other applicant countries have to comply with.
The Croatians have a right to that accession, but, moreover, I think it is obvious that the European project would be incomplete as long as Croatia was missing from the mosaic, along with its other neighbours from the former Yugoslavia.
We will therefore vote in favour of the proposals put forward by our friend Mr Baltas and we commit ourselves to continuing to support Croatia in its efforts to become one more member of the European Union.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
I should like to thank all colleagues who contributed to the debate and kept so well to their speaking time.
It is unusual for this Parliament.
I will be severe from now on.
Developing closer relations with Indonesia
The next item is the report (A5-0323/2000) by Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and to the European Parliament on developing closer relations between Indonesia and the European Union [COM(2000) 50 - C5-0288/2000 - 2000/2152(COS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when the Commission issued its communication on relations between Indonesia and the European Union a year ago, Indonesia seemed to be on the way to a true democracy under the Wahid government, which had newly taken office.
A year on, the picture looks far less optimistic.
The road to democracy, to respect for human rights, to a sound administrative and legal system, to the eradication of corruption, seems to be a long road beset with obstacles.
Here is a great deal of opposition to the Wahid government and the process appears to have come to a standstill.
This opposition to the democratically elected government comes from various quarters, from military circles, from the supporters of the corrupt Suharto regime, from groups of fanatical Muslims, and from armed militia circles.
The President is also still under fire over the Bulog and Brunei affair.
However, it is important that the Vice-President and the President of Parliament have declared their loyalty to the President.
The problem the government is struggling with is seen most clearly in the regions that were used as migration destinations owing to over-population, and that were also misused as conquered land.
Worst of all is the situation in Irian Jaya and the Moluccas.
It is incomprehensible, in this respect, that the Laskar Jihad was given the chance this spring to go to the Moluccas in their thousands, in order to stoke up the conflicts there again.
This has left the Moluccas with thousands of dead and several hundred thousands of refugees.
People are very afraid at present - and that includes the 50 000 Moluccan citizens in the Netherlands - that the situation will escalate further around Christmas.
We have received reports to the effect that the Laskar Jihad is preparing to launch a new offensive, in West-Irian among other places, but also in small countries such as Gorom and Lusalaut.
People are being killed because they are Christians.
People are being locked up in churches and forced to convert to Islam.
There are even reports that the Laskar Jihad has banned all Christian church bells from ringing at Christmas.
What we are seeing is religious terror.
As rapporteur I find that intolerable and I would therefore ask the Commissioner what the European Union can do with respect to the Wahid government in order to prevent further bloodshed.
Then there is Irian Jaya.
The violence is escalating there too.
More people died this weekend.
Last week, hundreds of students were picked up and four of them were returned to their parents as corpses.
There are still some Papuan leaders under lock and key too.
We expressly wanted to respect the territorial integrity of Indonesia in our resolution, but surely that cannot mean the people of Irian Jaya having to renounce their own culture and identity?
That sort of violence only stirs up feelings of hatred.
I would like to lend my voice to the warning issued by the United States government to the effect that the violence must stop.
The EU ought to take the same line.
Peace is very far from being restored in Timor and Aceh.
In Timor, the militias block the return of the refugees and relief workers are besieged.
And the murder of the Dutch journalist Thoenes has not been investigated yet.
Three more relief workers died in Aceh last week and fifteen died at the beginning of December.
Mr President, these regional problems are the worst in Indonesia at the moment.
As such, the plans to give these regions more autonomy are to be welcomed, as are the undertakings to leave more revenue from raw materials to the regions.
As far as the overall approach in Indonesia is concerned, things are in fact heading in the right direction.
But it is precisely these problems in the regions that are still very much apparent.
What can the role of the European Union be? Indonesia is one of the most important countries in the ASEAN area.
It is important for the whole area for Indonesia to be a stable, democratic constitutional state with good relations within and outside ASEAN.
The European Union must support the democratic and socio-economic developments, but not unquestioningly.
We must attach conditions to our aid and support.
We must see signs of progress in the democratisation process, the human rights situation must improve, the violators of human rights must be tried, corruption must be tackled and the power of the army must be further reduced.
Should this fail to happen then aid will have to be suspended if necessary.
There should also be far more coordination of aid at European level.
The EU embassy in Jakarta could assume a coordinating role.
We also ask the European Commission to follow this policy line in our resolution.
Lastly, with all due respect for the sovereignty of Indonesia, if violence erupts again in the Moluccas and on Irian Jaya around Christmas, then international action should not be ruled out in our view.
I have in mind sending UN observers to the crisis areas, where action is urgently needed, but also humanitarian relief action if necessary.
The murder really must stop.
Certainly that committed by army units, militias and militant Muslims.
Otherwise, what is the difference between the Wahid government and the old Suharto regime?
We are very concerned and expect the European Commission to respond to these developments.
Mr President, I would like to compliment Mrs Maij-Weggen on her excellent report, and thank her for the pleasant cooperation we have had.
Political stability and respect for human rights and the constitutional state are key to economic recovery following the Asia crisis.
They are also pre-requisite to closer cooperation between the European Union and Indonesia.
On behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I will restrict what I have to say to three points.
We are concerned about the high degree of corruption and nepotism in the Indonesian economy.
Too many members of former ruling families still wield power.
This is a major obstacle to economic recovery and social stability in the region and therefore needs to be tackled.
Secondly, it is essential for the private banking sector in Indonesia to be restructured.
The agency for the restructuring of the Indonesian banks, the so-called Ibra, has so far been unable to allow the merchant banks to resume their loans service.
What is more, the Ibra has considerable financial interests in various enterprises.
It is even the sole shareholder in a few companies.
These enterprises ought to be privatised.
At the same time, this would create new opportunities for much-needed foreign investment.
Finally, economic relations with Indonesia are now based on the ASEAN agreement.
So far, the ASEAN countries have made little progress as regards economic integration, even though the establishment of a free-trade zone between the members has been mooted for years now.
My committee has therefore asked to conclude a bilateral cooperation agreement between the European Union and Indonesia.
I will take this opportunity to ask Commissioner Patten to investigate this possibility, along with his colleague Mr Lamy.
Mr President, the positive developments that have been seen in Indonesia are unquestionable, to the extent that they suggest that a new relationship and effective cooperation with that country are in order.
Thus the terms of the Commission' s communication at the beginning of the year are justified, even if it is marked by a certain euphoria surely resulting from those changes.
The internal challenges facing Indonesia are, however, enormous and complex, as revealed by more recent events.
There is the explosive situation in Irian Jaya, exacerbated by the use of repressive methods; there is also the difficult situation in Aceh and the Moluccas; in addition there is the dramatic situation experienced by refugees in the camps in West Timor - and the lack of measures that could change it - where the militias still act with impunity; and all this is tied up with the pressure from the former Suharto regime and the significant capacity for manoeuvring of military groups clearly identified with it and openly linked with integrationist and nationalist movements.
These facts can only concern us, and therefore the initial optimism that was so clear in the Commission' s communication should be reconsidered and tempered to some extent.
There is no doubt that cooperation with Indonesia should be strengthened, and it should be directed into support for the authorities of this country in fields such as improvements in administration, the fight against fraud and corruption, the judicial system, environmental protection and improvements, or humanitarian aid for the displaced and refugees.
But the level of this cooperation must take into account the effective progress the country may make in solving regional problems and the methods used for solving them, its respect for human rights, and also the country' s collaboration in the positive development of the Timor Lorosae independence process, particularly in solving the problems faced by the West Timor refugees and in prosecuting and sentencing militia members who have behaved criminally and only recently murdered three United Nations workers.
I believe the report by our colleague, Mrs Maij-Weggen, who in fact knows the situation well, satisfactorily addresses these aspects and therefore deserves our full approval.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating Mrs Maij-Weggen on the excellent job she has done.
The democratisation process in Indonesia deserves due recognition and therefore support.
One of the clearest expressions of this process, but also of the contradictions that make it so fragile, was what happened in East Timor.
When the right to self-determination had been accepted, in the time between the popular vote and the recognition of the result, armed militias supported by Indonesian troops executed a detailed plan to destroy public infrastructure and thousands of homes, ruin crops and farming implements, and persecute the population, which, in terror, took refuge in the mountains and in West Timor.
As part of a delegation from this Parliament, I was one of the international observers of the ballot and witnessed the Timorese people' s amazing thirst for freedom, but I also had the impression that as soon as we had gone nothing would be left standing.
There are still contradictions like this in Indonesia, whether in the Moluccas, Aceh or Irian Jaya, and they are still manifest in East Timor too.
The prosecution of those who committed crimes in East Timor and are now in Indonesian territory has yet to take place.
It is unacceptable that they should escape justice because of a recently enacted law.
More than one hundred thousand refugees remain in West Timor, virtual human shields for the originators and perpetrators of crimes in East Timor.
I was in these refugee camps earlier this year.
In them are those who committed crimes and those who witnessed them.
The justice which is not being done and the refugee camps which are becoming permanent are areas for confrontation between the old and the new powers in Indonesia and reveal the fragility of the democratisation process.
Only this week, top UNTAET officials were at serious risk when they left the Indonesian parliament building in Jakarta after meeting the country' s president.
We can support the democratisation process, as we have been doing; what we cannot do is take the place of the protagonists in this process.
Mr President, Indonesia is struggling but is emerging victorious.
The revolution in the country and the way in which it took place, remain the basis for cautious optimism.
But the excellent report by Mrs Maij-Weggen also underlines the fact that Indonesia' s problems have increased rather than decreased.
The country is not unique in that respect.
After all, these problems are characteristic of a country that is having to undergo a multifaceted transition.
It must develop a new identity with a better balance between the centre and peripheral areas.
On the economic front, the market must throw off the shackles of far-reaching state interference and attract new investment.
The poverty issue is extremely pressing.
A hybrid society must be turned into a transparent one.
Corruption must be tackled.
The EU could lend a hand there, by talking to European companies.
Old structures must be dismantled so that Indonesia can at last get a grip on itself.
Many current problems are down to a lack of democratic control, for example over those parts of the army that resist change and loss of privilege.
In many places, violence prevails over dialogue.
What gives most cause for concern is the situation in the Moluccas, where Jihad fighters are left to their own devices in a manner which is insupportable.
The government in Jakarta should do far more to get a grip on the situation on the ground, and the EU must continue to bring the necessary pressure to bear, partly as an expression of the increased responsibility that the European Union must take for the region.
If these efforts should fall short of the mark, then we cannot afford to rule out the possibility of the international community becoming more actively involved.
When a country starts functioning as a constitutional state again, it must also settle old scores.
This process is moving very slowly.
The old structures resist the due process of justice.
This is hardly surprising given that they have been accessories to crimes in many cases.
We ask, and demand, that the culprits be tracked down and tried, be they the Suharto family or the murderers of the Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes.
Relations between Indonesia and the EU can only improve further if we know that our allies really hold sway there, and that the constitutional state is functioning properly.
Mr President, the traces of Suharto are very far from erased in Indonesia.
Military influence may have been reduced but is still far too great.
Corruption is still rampant.
Ongoing violence on the Moluccas, in Aceh and in Irian Jaya is causing great suffering among the people.
President Wahid and Vice-President Sukarnoputri have been unable to demonstrate a great deal of governmental power so far.
It is very important for Europe to support the economic and democratic developments in Indonesia.
But as Mrs Maij-Weggen has already said, this assistance comes at a price.
It must benefit the poorest sections of the population.
The violation of human rights must stop, the proceeds from corruption must be traced, and above all, wealth must be far better distributed.
It is very difficult to hold this immense realm together.
Fortunately, the time when a handful of Dutchmen were able to do so is now past.
But poor administration, where the military are left to wreak havoc undisturbed, feeds the desire for independence.
The origin of the conflict on the Moluccas mainly lies in Suharto' s ill-considered migration policy, which disturbed the population balance.
The situation on these islands is still alarming.
Only if an impartial army steps in will there be a chance of peace.
The international community must bring maximum pressure to bear on Jakarta in order to put an end to the violence on the Moluccas.
More humanitarian aid must be delivered.
The same applies to ECHO, which, I might add, is doing a first-rate job out there.
Irian Jaya is also suffering the effects of migration policy.
Here too the local people are frustrated by the immigration of Muslims and the hard line taken by the military.
It is of paramount importance that those guilty of human rights violations are not allowed to get away with it.
I concur with those of my colleagues who are demanding an immediate judicial inquiry into the murder of Sander Thoenes.
Mrs Maij-Weggen has written an outstanding report and I would therefore conclude that Europe must do all it can to support the country on its way to democracy, but at the end of the day, it is up to the Indonesians themselves to erase the traces of the Suharto regime.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall begin by bringing two dates to your attention.
Here, tomorrow, we shall have the presentation of the Sakharov Prize.
A year ago, this prize was, in fact, conferred on President Xanana Gusmão.
At that time, we honoured the efforts, the courage and the example of the Timorese people.
In February this year, the Commission embarked on a new political initiative with regard to Indonesia, to which we also gave our approval here.
In my view, I am sad to say, I think we were all a little hasty.
I am sad to say this because I too would have liked things to have turned out well in Indonesia.
I too would have liked to see the benefit of the doubt that we hastened to give reciprocated.
But, unfortunately, this year has shown that it was not to be.
As Mrs Maij-Weggen pointed out here in her introductory statement - which I emphatically support, together with the force of her report - the situation in Indonesia is deteriorating.
We must learn from this lesson by sending Indonesia clearer and unambiguous signals, not contradictory ones.
I believe Indonesia is a great country, but it is at a crossroads, and it depends on the efforts of the international community and the European Union whether, at this crossroads, it will swing for good towards democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law, or whether the disorder will increase.
To this end, we must learn to choose priorities: we cannot mix environmental issues, social policy issues or economic policy issues all at the same level as the key problem of respect for democracy and human rights, which clearly has to be a political priority in our relationship with Indonesia.
I also say we must give a clear signal, because we cannot have a two-speed policy: sometimes we seem to criticise but then we seem to do nothing.
We must learn from this year' s experience, which has been a beneficial experience, and give a very powerful signal indicating the change that we want for Indonesia.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mrs Maij-Weggen, makes crystal-clear what the real political problems are in Indonesia.
She is quite forthright in naming the opposing forces of the essential and exacting process of reform.
She rightly refers to them in her report as still being very powerful.
However, following the latest reports from the Indonesian archipelago, we are compelled to ask whether the situation does not in fact look more serious, more precarious still for President Wahid and his brothers-in-arms, than the report would suggest.
Yesterday, an insider summed up the situation in the Indonesian archipelago with the following sentence: 'the reformation is stagnating and the restoration minus the Suharto family promotes stagnation.'
Stagnation of the reformation in no way implies that the way to a democratic constitutional state - and I quote the rapporteur - 'is truly leading nowhere' .
Hence now is the time for the European Union to carefully support, as far as it is able, the democratic forces, which are neither numerous nor strong.
In view of the historical burden that sits on the shoulders of two present-day Indonesian regions, the Moluccas and Irian Jaya, Indonesian and western understanding for this distressing historical millstone alone would relieve a great deal of political tension and suffering.
This is most definitely a task for the European Community.
The report that winged its way to me from Indonesia offers a ray of hope.
Despite these uncertain times, a growing number of people within the Christian churches out there are calling for people to do some soul-searching.
They want people to stop working to secure the interests of their own groups and show sympathy towards their fellow human beings, including Muslims, out of the love of Christ, which offers hope of reconciliation to the entire, and sometimes sorely afflicted, archipelago.
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Maij-Weggen on an excellent report.
I know she has great experience of Indonesia and, in particular, the Indonesian Moluccan community living in Holland.
The position we have to take regarding the territorial integrity of Indonesia is simple: we have to abide by international law and by the United Nations Resolution 2504 of December 1969.
That resolution categorically affirms that Irian Jaya is part of Indonesia.
It is something that all our countries have agreed to, have signed up to, and have a responsibility to support.
It was a recognition by the global community of the legality of the vote in Irian Jaya to become a permanent part of Indonesia and reaffirm United Nations Declaration 1514 of 1960 which prohibits any act aimed at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and territorial integrity of a country.
The situation in Irian Jaya is totally different, legally and constitutionally, from the situation that pertained to East Timor.
Parliament should not confuse the two.
Irian Jaya is an integral part of Indonesia historically.
East Timor never was.
The rule of law must therefore prevail.
Yes, of course we must ensure that Indonesia maintains its progress in the prosecution of those members of the security forces accused of human rights violations.
In this case we must wield the carrot and the stick.
Any outside intervention other than support for democratisation and the rule of law can only be seen as counterproductive and inflammatory to all parties.
There will be no winners if we take an imperial stance on this issue.
I use that word advisedly.
What we can do in the European Parliament and the EU is to ask the new democratic Indonesian Government not to over-react.
Over-reaction will play into the hands of the separatists, turning terrorists into martyrs and heroes.
The other activity we can undertake immediately is to give massive support to good governance projects in Indonesia: support in terms of manpower, money, NGO activity, setting standards and criteria so that the devolved administrative arrangement now agreed by President Wahid can be underpinned by creating lasting democratic and civil society institutions.
If we want to help Indonesia we must act now with money and deeds, not merely words.
Mr President, I should like to add my words to those of my colleagues, regarding both the content of the report and in congratulating Mrs Maij-Weggen on her realistic approach to it, and especially for being true to the values and principles of our European Union.
I believe it is essential, when stating the route to cooperation with Indonesia, to be vigilant about the application of values and the establishment of the rule of law.
This Commission proposal has come at a crucial moment, since Indonesia is at a crossroads in a serious economic crisis, and our help in encouraging the establishment of the rule of law and in encouraging support for those interested in setting up a democracy and making Indonesia a strong country but one that respects human dignity, is fundamental.
If I may, I should like to make two proposals and one request to the Commission.
The first proposal is that Parliament sends a delegation specifically to visit the refugee camps, not only in West Timor but everywhere, because according to the Maij-Weggen report there are about a million refugees.
It is important that we should not confine ourselves to approving the report but that we should follow it up.
Secondly, it is important that the Indonesian authorities allow non-governmental organisations free passage to get medical and humanitarian aid to the inhabitants of Indonesia and to the Timorese who are in a situation of such human misery that these organisations should not be denied access.
It is absolutely essential that humanitarian principles are adhered to and respected.
Lastly, I should like to ask the Commission, through Mr Patten, to be vigilant in enforcing these principles, because, although I support the idea that the European Union should encourage cooperation with Indonesia, this should not be at any cost, and I therefore call for detailed monitoring of the allocation of this aid.
Mr President, I welcome this report but I feel it is a little up-beat.
The situation has improved and we must encourage President Wahid, but there are still horrendous problems.
The government is weak and constantly under attack, the military resists civilian control, the economy is fragile and, above all else, human rights are poor.
That is why we must link development aid to progress in human rights abuses.
We must make sure, also, that the murderers of the Financial Times journalist, Sander Thoenes, are brought to justice; and the murderers of the three humanitarian aid workers and one torture victim killed only last week by Indonesian security forces in Aceh are brought to justice, also the perpetrators of past crimes.
That should include a new trial for President Suharto.
I am pleased that the UN issued indictments today because of crimes against humanity in East Timor, and Indonesia should be aware, with or without cooperation, that those trials will go ahead.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Protection of Communities' financial interests
The next item is the report (A5-0376/2000) by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission communication 'Protection of the Communities' financial interests - The fight against fraud - For an overall strategic approach' [COM(2000) 358 - C5-0578/2000 - 2000/2279(COS)].
Mr President, in its communication the Commission writes that the protection of the Communities' financial interests concerns us all, the bodies and their members at political level, the European and the national public service and their staff.
But the need to guarantee equal, effective and deterrent protection throughout the European Union particularly affects the chief contributor, namely the European taxpayer.
That is whom we represent here and to whom we are accountable.
So I welcome the fact that the Commission document presents an overall strategy showing how it proposes to tackle the misuse of EU funds.
However, I think the proposed period of five years, 2001 to 2005, is too long, for if we look back we will see that the issue of fighting fraud has been on the table for a long time now.
A constantly growing budget has, unfortunately, also led to more irregularities and fraud.
The single market has also opened the borders to fraudsters, while they remain closed for investigation and criminal prosecution.
It is true that the regulations for the protection of the Communities' financial interests and on-the-spot checks were adopted, UCLAF was set up and then, one and a half years ago, OLAF was created, and articles on fighting fraud were enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty and then in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
These were all good measures, but they are not enough.
The fraudsters are still one step ahead of us if not more.
The enlargement of the Community and the introduction of the euro could bring further risks with them.
That is why we must bring together police, administrative and criminal law resources and instruments, both between the Member States and with the EU.
The Commission's four guidelines set out approaches that I find very welcome.
First, an anti-fraud legislative policy.
Here we must apply Article 280 of the Treaty of Amsterdam as the legal basis and develop it further, in order to bring the different national legislations under a common denominator and accordingly standardise penalties and procedures.
The Commission intended to submit a document on this at the end of November. I have not received it so far.
But above all, the legislation must be clearer, to prevent law-breakers from exploiting any loopholes.
Secondly, a new culture of operational cooperation.
It is important that all the Member States pull together.
After all, more than 80% of the fraud in EU monies is carried out in these states.
So far it has not been the case that they have joined forces, because otherwise they would all have ratified and therefore enforced the 1995 convention long since.
Meanwhile parts of it have become out-dated and the Nice summit has not improved matters either.
But the Commission also wants to create a new internal culture, as President Prodi promised.
It is to be implemented through internal reform.
We are keeping a watchful eye on this process.
The third guideline is a supra-institutional approach to preventing and fighting corruption.
What is at stake here is the credibility of the European bodies.
That is a most important point, and here we must emphasise the importance of setting up OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, which is not so very new any more, and of its activities.
We must finally remove the obstacles that prevent it from acting independently, especially with regard to recruiting staff and to its own structure.
That is equally necessary for the Office and for the Commission.
We propose appointing a hearing officer to give some protection to the rights of the accused.
We call on the EIB and the ECB finally to accede to the Interinstitutional Agreement relating to OLAF.
The system for fighting fraud must finally be perfected by enhancing the penal judicial dimension.
We support the Commission's proposal to appoint a European Public Prosecutor as a first step towards creating a European judicial authority, given that this is something Parliament has long been calling for.
This Public Prosecutor, assisted by Deputy Public Prosecutors in each Member State and supplemented by a judge in investigative procedures, in accordance with the 'Corpus Juris' expert report, would satisfy the principle of legal certainty and subsidiarity by acting as a kind of investigative and coordination office, without encroaching on the powers of the competent national courts.
His remit must be limited strictly to the protection of financial interests; the rules and mechanisms governing his operation can then be regulated by reference to secondary legislation in the codecision procedure.
I am aware that there are still many reservations about this.
They need to be allayed, because it is only through constitutional and uniform regulations and measures, which the Nice summit did not, alas, produce, that we can tackle these kinds of crimes.
I thank the Commission for its efforts and its work ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, when it comes to money, we all know it is no joke.
The same applies to the European Union.
That is why we and the other EU bodies agree that we must give priority to protecting the Community' s financial interests.
However, we are of different minds on the question of how and by what means we can guarantee this protection.
If we are to fight fraud efficiently, we must bring together all police, administrative and criminal law resources, for this is a matter of the European taxpayers' money and indeed of far more than that.
It is a matter of trusting in the care taken by the European institutions, and above all of trusting the way the Commission handles the monies entrusted to it.
Indeed we know this trust may be failing somewhat in view of the sum the Commission itself named in its 1999 report on fighting fraud, namely a loss of some EUR 850 million as a result of fraud and irregularities.
So the Commission must carry out internal reforms so as to finally make good its announcement that fraud will no longer be tolerated and that it will consistently follow up all cases of fraud.
OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, must operate alongside it.
The report before us rightly devotes most space to that institution.
The conclusion of the OLAF Supervisory Committee of 5 December makes it strikingly clear that OLAF is still far from being independent or functioning properly. It says that the obstacles the Commission sets in the way of recruiting OLAF staff can under certain circumstances constitute an irreversible risk to the fight against fraud.
I expressly call on the Commission to refrain from any interference in OLAF's activities.
Finally, I am in favour of appointing a European Public Prosecutor, so that those responsible for fraud face criminal prosecution.
Mr President, this is the Commission's big moment that is what I would like to call out to you.
The Nice Summit brought no progress in the protection of the Union's financial interests either.
It is now crucial for the Commission very rapidly to put forward resolute and imaginative proposals so that we can move ahead within the existing legal framework.
Mrs Theato's excellent report points to a number of options.
It once again confirms the proposal set out in the report by the five independent experts on the reform of the Commission, namely that it is possible to set up a European Public Prosecutor's Office on the basis of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
As early as May, this Parliament called on the Commission to present proposals for a first stage, during which the European Public Prosecutor would be responsible only for offences and crimes committed by members and officials of the EU institutions against the financial interests of the Union.
Its task would be to direct the relevant OLAF investigations and to make it easier for the competent national courts to prosecute these crimes.
I am sure, Commissioner, that once this first step is taken, the discussion about the European Public Prosecutor's Office will no longer seem like a religious war between those for and those against, which has blocked all progress so far.
And the Commission has this chance to take a first step, especially after Nice.
Mrs Schreyer, you have our full support if you take this first step.
The previous speakers have already had quite a lot to say on the question of OLAF.
The Supervisory Committee's latest and very serious opinion on recruitment has also been quoted.
Mrs Schreyer, you have repeatedly emphasised to this House that as the Commissioner responsible for fighting fraud you see it as your special task to guarantee OLAF's independence.
Please tell us whether you do or do not support Mr Brüner on this crucial issue.
We know that the Commission discussed this question at its last meeting, without coming to a decision.
Do tell us what you think will happen now on and how we can get out of this impasse!
Mr President, I can be very brief because this is not the first discussion we have held on the issue.
In this context I would therefore also like to thank the rapporteur for her persistence in entering this item on the agenda again and again, for her persistence in repeatedly calling for a European financial Public Prosecutor.
I think precisely that should be the end result, of Nice too.
We must continue to work towards it with perseverance.
We can see that there are major deadlocks in the Council, that some Member States have made no progress since 1995, that there are still deadlocks.
However, we also see, and that is something I really welcome, that the current Commission has taken up this issue and endeavoured to draft a document for Nice, and that it is working on this issue together with Parliament.
I believe that is an opportunity for us in this situation, because Parliament and the Commission can achieve something jointly. And the only way to break the Member States' resistance is by working jointly.
Above all, we must seek to create openness.
We held a hearing a short while ago.
I believe we should continue with this.
We also have to convince the members of the national parliaments, because that is the only way we can go on working and make progress.
We urgently need a step in this direction, in order to persuade our electors, and especially our taxpayers, that the fight against fraud really is taken seriously at European level too and that we shall seek to ensure that the same criteria apply at European as at national level.
Mr President, my group has a lot of sympathy for ensuring that the efforts to combat fraud, corruption and money laundering are more efficient, and we find it completely unacceptable that cross-border crime is increasing alarmingly and that the money which the Member States' tax payers hand over to the EU is administered so badly and is to such a large extent channelled away from the purposes for which it was intended.
If we are nonetheless to vote against this report, it is because we do not believe in the effectiveness of the resources proposed by the report for combating fraud and crime.
Despite our having every possible sympathy for the rapporteur, Mrs Theato, and for her sterling efforts, we are opposed to establishing an independent European prosecution authority because it is a staging post towards the federal Europe we oppose.
It is the very establishment of a form of economic administration at EU level that creates the problems, because those models for redistributing EU taxpayers' money which have been established by the so-called 'Community' are poorly designed and in many cases quite unwished for.
The less money there is in the EU' s coffers, the less fraud there is.
In her speech at the meeting last month of the justice ministers of Germany' s constituent States, Mrs Theato expressly said that the open frontiers facilitate criminal activities.
I agree.
The Schengen Agreement is a catastrophe for probity, but who has created Schengen? The EU has done so.
We do not believe that more solutions at Community level can improve the fight against crime because the efforts will be characterised by just as much indifference, slovenliness and secrecy as the EU' s administration in general.
We can clearly see from the treatment of recent years' auditors' reports that powerful forces here in Parliament too are busier preventing the clearing up of fraud than in prosecuting the people responsible.
We welcome negotiations between the Member States concerning uniform legislation in the area of crime, but we shall not submit our countries to a federal EU prosecution authority.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the Theato report in committee and also in my group, the Radical Group, and I will vote against it tomorrow because of the Manicheism and inward-looking attitude characterising both this report and the activities of the Committee on Budgetary Control in general or, at any rate, some of its members.
Anything that is good derives from the Committee on Budgetary Control and all that is bad comes from elsewhere; this is why the report is full of references to the previous resolution.
As we said three months ago, you would think that the whole world were under the rule of the Committee on Budgetary Control alone.
Mr President, we will vote against the report for two reasons: firstly because there used to be UCLAF, and you would have thought that UCLAF were an avenging angel come down to earth.
UCLAF could do not wrong and we forced a Commission to resign on the basis of UCLAF's inquiries.
Now - for some strange reason - the former UCLAF officials are no longer in favour and we have to banish them and give an OLAF director the power to decide the life or death of these hard-working officials; upon the decree of the Committee on Budgetary Control, these officials have to leave OLAF, being originally from UCLAF and UCLAF was all that is wonderful for some people, to the extent that we forced the Commission to resign.
The other reason why we will vote against the motion is because, with regard to the request to establish the post of European Public Prosecutor, it is not enough to have included a reference to the juge des libertés but we must ensure, once and for all, that there is a system of guarantees: indeed a Prosecutor alone with no system of guarantees is a step not towards democracy but towards an inquisition-like system which is likely to be dangerous, so much so that the proposal was not adopted at Nice.
Mr President, it is always a pleasure following Mr Dell'Alba, because he makes a British Euro-sceptic sound very sensible in this place.
I would very much like to congratulate the rapporteur - someone I like and admire as a person and politician - on this report, but unfortunately I cannot.
Had it not been for the amendments concerning OLAF being adopted at the committee stage, I would have struggled to find any part of this report to support.
Fortunately this idea found very little support at Nice last weekend.
The Council - as pointed out so eloquently by Mrs Rühle earlier - does not like this idea either.
My personal view is that the European Public Prosecutor is just the first step along the road to corpus juris, a body of common law across the continent.
Indeed I believe that is what the Commissioner feels too.
Perhaps, Commissioner, you would be so kind as to let me know whether that is the case - whether this is the first step to something that would be a common body of law across the continent.
I thought I heard you say something similar to that in committee.
I should also like to know why the Commission's paper on this subject had its release delayed until the day after the Danish referendum on the euro.
Perhaps the Commission knows that whilst this proposal has some support in the political classes of Europe, its support stretches no further than that.
Often in argument for a European Public Prosecutor, you hear that these proposals are only to protect the Community's financial interests - something that everybody should agree with.
Interestingly though, they are often sold as being a small step - there is not much behind them. So why all the concern?
Well, for those of us who are still wading through the Court of Auditors' report, we will find that one definition of fraud against the Community is the black market - paying for goods à la belge, as they say in Brussels.
This is fraud against the Community because the EU takes a small percentage of all VAT transactions.
So another question springs to mind: if the European Public Prosecutor is allowed to investigate every VAT transaction across Europe, how big will that office be?
There are so many other questions - the relationship with OLAF, who appoints the European public prosecutor, who they report to and how it affects the Member States - that I am afraid I am urging the British Conservatives and others to vote against this report.
Mr President, I have to follow Mr Dell'Alba and Mr Heaton-Harris and this will be tough.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Theato on her report and in particular for making the effort to come here as I know she is not feeling very well tonight.
The report deals with the protection of the Community's financial interests and how we deal with that and these are the major questions.
It is always the area where we see hugely inflamed headlines in the papers and we need to tackle these issues seriously otherwise we are going to continue with a largely Eurosceptic public like the people represented by Mr Heaton-Harris.
We must not forget that 85% of the money is spent within the Member States and we must also not forget that Parliament' s and the Commission's role is to take a pan-European approach to these things.
We must also remember that fraud also concerns money that is not collected, something that happens very often.
We lose serious amounts of money because it is not collected by the Member States.
It is interesting that several countries, however much they protest about fraud, still have not signed up to the Convention on the Protection of the Communities' Financial Interests.
I put an amendment down to name these countries because it is about time they were named and shamed.
We need to bring these countries out into the open to reveal their hypocrisy.
It was quite interesting to hear what Mr Prodi said today because he sounded quite enthusiastic about the European public prosecutor which is quite a shift from what we have seen in the past.
I must emphasise, from the point of view of the political group, the amendment that was tabled by Mr Bösch was critical of the report because it talked about concentrating on the institutions of the European Union, the public prosecutor being relevant only in that sense.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fight against fraud detrimental to the European Union is a high priority of the Commission's activities and is an important aim for the reform of the Commission's overall financial management.
Today we are debating Mrs Theato's report on the Commission's report on its strategy for fighting fraud.
The Commission presented its report in June this year and I welcome the fact that we can debate the reports as early as today.
The Commission takes an overall approach in its strategy for protecting the Communities' financial interests and fighting fraud; overall means that it involves all levels of activity and also all the players, all the players in the European Union institutions as also in the Member States as also in the candidate states or third countries that are responsible for dealing with European money.
The strategy is built around four main lines of action: an anti-fraud legislative policy, operational cooperation between the relevant authorities, an interinstitutional approach to combat fraud in office and enhancement of the penal judicial dimension.
Since time is short I will present the individual points briefly.
The first strategic line of action consisting of comprehensive legislation to combat fraud includes legal provisions to prevent, detect and prosecute cases of fraud. For if a policy to protect the Communities' financial interests is to be effective, it must be based on clear and easily applicable legal rules that contain provisions on efficient financial management.
The second line of action relates to operational cooperation with the Member States and the candidate states and third countries.
It is precisely in this area that thanks to the creation of OLAF we have a very powerful instrument. We are expanding its field of application step by step, which means first and foremost making greater use of OLAF for the collection and evaluation of information, as a kind of intelligence service for the fight against fraud.
The next step will be to organise OLAF's working methods in such a way as to turn it into a real platform of services for the Member States and for the authorities involved in the fight against fraud.
As Mrs Theato rightly points out in her report, OLAF occupies a crucial position in the Commission's anti-fraud strategy, which is why, and I want to stress that very strongly, the Commission is extremely keen to see this authority built up rapidly.
There are, however, a number of difficulties with regard to the legal basis for setting up OLAF.
You know that the Commission would have preferred OLAF to be set up as a totally independent authority.
But, and here I am addressing Mr Bösch, a different legal basis was created. OLAF is independent in the operational field while on the other hand it has to carry out tasks for which the Commission is directly responsible.
That is bound to create difficulties, which must of course be resolved. I can only assure you once again, in regard also to the issue of the recruitment authority: the director of OLAF is entirely independent in the appointment of staff, and that applies not only to the lower level but also to the more senior and top levels.
What you are addressing now is the following issue: will OLAF also use an advisory committee in order to bring more transparency into the selection process for senior officials?
Actually I am sure that it is also in OLAF's interest to make the selection of senior officials transparent.
I just want to point out the following: we now have to live and work with this legal basis.
The Supervisory Committee is constantly putting forward interesting proposals and considering the further development of the legal basis. In this regard the Commission is very open to proposals and reforms.
The third line of action is common action by the European institutions to fight and prevent fraud in office, and here let me point out that the Commission's complaints against the EIB and ECB because of the disputes about OLAF are still pending and that the complaint by 70 members of this House against OLAF's investigative powers is still pending.
Finally, the fourth line of action concerns the penal judicial dimension, and along with it, the penal judicial consequences of established, detected or presumed fraud.
Here the overall situation remains as unsatisfactory as ever, especially as regards cooperation with the Member States, not because of any unwillingness but because of the structural inadequacies and difficulties that exist in this field.
That is also why the Commission took the step of submitting a draft document on establishing a European Public Prosecutor's Office to the Intergovernmental Conference in Nice.
More and more countries took a positive view of this proposal during the preparatory discussions for Nice. That did not give rise to any hope that the Treaty would be amended accordingly, but did justify the hope that a decision would be taken in Nice on how to move forward on this issue.
Unfortunately, no such decision was taken in Nice on the Saturday evening, because of the objection of one state, which I find most regrettable.
Nonetheless, the Commission will not be discouraged and we will ensure that there is a public debate.
The next target date is 2004, the next Intergovernmental Conference.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Reform of budgetary control procedures
The next item is the report (A5-0383/2000) by Mrs Morgan, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on reform of budgetary control procedures and institutions [2000/2008(INI)].
Mr President, I would like to start by protesting at the fact that this debate is being held at night.
It is shameful that we have to debate this and other important matters at night.
It is shameful.
And no one can understand it, including myself.
Mrs Theato has come to this night sitting despite being ill and I have left a dinner with the representatives of "¡Basta Ya!", winners of this year' s Sajarov Prize.
This situation has to change.
Next I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her report, which is so important and, contrary to what has been said, so necessary.
Moreover, I think that her report is part of our new way of understanding what should be politically correct in the institutions, and that is transparency.
In this morning' s debate on the European Council in Nice we criticised the fact that the meetings were held at night and behind closed doors.
It would be good to know what goes on there and perhaps, if the doors were open, the Member States would behave differently.
That is precisely the major contribution made by the Morgan report.
Its aim is that in this whole process there should be transparency, that we should not beat about the bush, that fingers should be pointed and that it should be made clear that the services are doing things badly.
For example, I would like to criticise the fact that, when the report of the Court of Auditors was presented, the Council was absent, as if it is not interested in this Parliament.
I also think that it is worthy of criticism that the Council is not present at the meetings of the Committee on Budgetary Control, which is precisely where the faults that arise in 80% of the budget, which the Council spends, are discussed.
One day we will have to change this sort of absence of the 'innocent hand' of the Council, which is never guilty of anything.
Mrs Schreyer, you have just mentioned the Council, saying that there was a Member State that opposed the creation of a European Prosecutor.
It is time for the politically correct thing to be to say which Member State it is and to give its full name.
This also happens in many reports.
This very morning, for example, in the debate that we had in the Committee on Budgetary Control, we saw how the representative of the Commission, when we asked him to indicate the Member States that do things badly, answered: "Look, the monitoring of what the Member States do is done through sampling, and there is no reason to penalise the Member States whose irregularities have been revealed through sampling." Well I do not care.
They should say that, according to the sample, such and such a Member State is not doing things right.
I would like to finish by saying that it is important for there to be monitoring of the approval of the accounts, and for me this is the most important thing, that is, that there is reason for amendment not only by the Commission but also by the Council. It is also important to include observations in the reports on the Member States about how they comply with or fail to comply with the conclusions on the approval of the accounts.
I would like the Member States, at least the Presidency and the representatives of the Member States being discussed, to be present for debates in Plenary, and also in committee.
Mr President, I would like to start by commending the timeliness of this initiative and the diligence with which our rapporteur, Eluned Morgan, has carried it out.
The aim of the discharge procedure is to analyse processes and procedures in force and to detect any inadequacies in them so that the institutions can then proceed to reform them.
To achieve this aim fully, I shall highlight four requirements that I consider essential in the work of the budgetary control authority.
First of all, balance in considering all the budget headings: it is unacceptable that the analysis of own resources performed by the Court of Auditors should explicitly exclude all revenue from undeclared economic activities, in contrast to the zeal with which it treats many administrative elements, sometimes with no substantive content, of various forms of expenditure.
Secondly, transparency with regard to cases and events: whenever the Court of Auditors refers to specific cases it should identify the institutions involved, thus taking responsibility for the claims that it makes.
Thirdly, thoroughness of analysis: it is incomprehensible that a large number of high quality special reports by the Court of Auditors are omitted from the Annual Report in favour of other matters treated without any prior analysis and on the basis of debatable criteria of political timeliness.
Fourthly, accuracy in the use of statistics: statistics can be a valuable tool for analysis but they can also be a dangerous tool for distorting reality.
Using statistics to compare irregularities detected by different institutions as a result of strict or not so strict controls may be more liable to hide what is happening than to expose it.
High rates of detected irregularities may just as well indicate the zeal of enforcement authorities as suggest corruption in the regulatory system.
Mr President, even though the rapporteur has stated modestly that the report could have been better, I would still like to offer her my compliments.
As has already been mentioned, the instrument of discharge is one of the most important weapons that Parliament has.
It is therefore absolutely vital that we treat it with care.
The Court of Auditors supplies reports and one of the most important recipients of these reports is Parliament.
I therefore feel that Parliament would be well-advised to let the Court of Auditors know exactly what it expects from these reports.
Also, a number of people have already said that we want concrete, succinct reports so that we know where we stand, and reports which are easy to read.
We must name countries, specific cases and institutions; all these things would make it easier to understand.
My group also thinks it is extremely important for there not just to be an SOA for the entire budget, but also one per sector.
In the final analysis, we must be able to assess whether it is getting better or worse.
I also think the idea mentioned in the report that members of the Court of Auditors should appear in the specialised committees of this Parliament, is an excellent one, because we cannot follow everything ourselves, instead, we must combine forces.
As far as Parliament itself is concerned, the problem is the Treaty.
The Treaty states that we can grant discharge but it does not say that we are entitled to refuse to grant discharge.
I feel Parliament must sort this out.
We must be able to do it ourselves, but I feel that refusal to grant discharge is an extremely important political matter.
Indeed that is why it says in the report that if it should come to that, Parliament must immediately hold a debate on the political consequences thereof.
Amendment No 8, tabled by the Liberal Group, states that it is important for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to further elaborate the recommendations of the Morgan report so that they can be used.
Mr President, this excellently crafted report shows that the Committee on Budgetary Control can take a coherent and convincing position on such a controversial issue as the importance of budgetary control procedures and bodies.
Budgetary control will always be a tough and thankless business, because it is not a question of handing out compliments but rather of pointing out weaknesses, mistakes and omissions and thereby improving the way the Commission handles the European taxpayers' money.
In colloquial terms, what this report is saying is that in future the Committee on Budgetary Control will be more watchful and will want to hear names named when it comes to the unknown whereabouts of European tax monies.
Neither the Commission nor the Member States will be able to absolve themselves of responsibility, certainly not by passing the buck from one to the other.
Point 21 of the report contains a very courageous decision in announcing that the discharge will be postponed if the Commission withholds information.
I hope this obligation will actually be applied if it comes to the crunch.
Had Parliament taken this decision sooner, it could not have given the 1998 discharge.
For in fact, the Commission is still withholding information and has still not answered questions, especially with regard to the Fléchard affair.
I also want to highlight point 20 of the report.
It is a clear declaration of belief in the rights of each and every Member to request and obtain information from the Commission, including confidential documents.
This declaration of belief in the rights of individual Members is particularly important because these are precisely the rights the Commission is calling in question.
It does make us rather apprehensive, Commissioner, to find that the Commission as Guardian of the Treaties has to be referred explicitly to the need to observe MEPs' rights.
Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Morgan for her report and to say that I believe it is an important report and good report.
It has been the product good cooperation at the committee level and I want to acknowledge that Mr Pomés Ruiz and Mrs Theato made their contribution too.
This report will go some way towards clarifying the responsibilities that we have and helping the European Commission as well to understand what its role is and what is expected of it.
I would also like to echo the words of Mr Mulder when he spoke of the importance of the procedure for granting discharge and stressed that it must be taken extremely seriously.
The people who work on the Committee on Budgetary Control sometimes do not realise the importance of this instrument in guiding the work of the Community in so many fields of their responsibility.
We must pursue this task with firmness but also with moderation and understanding and we must understand that over the years - perhaps because public spending at European level was such a small percentage of the entire public spending of the European Union, 1% as against 40% on average by the Member States - it was seen as a detail.
I think it is true to say that it was very hard to get the Member States to understand that they had to apply the same concern and the same care to guarding the resources of the Union that they did to guarding their own resources.
I heard - and it is not an isolated incident - the United Kingdom Minister for Social Welfare say on television that if he could stop fraud he could save GBP 6 billion.
He said that quite honestly and regretted that it was so.
But if a European Commissioner said that we would expect them to resign the next morning.
So let us understand that fraud is not a problem peculiar to the European Union.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Morgan for writing this report especially considering the remarkably tight deadlines that she set herself by falling pregnant.
I am sure that this House wishes her every success in that particular project, although I am slightly worried that the baby's first words might include the words "discharge" and "procedure".
I would also like to commend to the House the way in which from its conception this report was drawn up using other reports already passed by our committee.
Some here will know of my interest in the budget in general, and as budget rapporteur for the Budgetary Control Committee, I wrote a report in which a number of conclusions that are included here were conceived, mainly in paragraph 16 of this report.
From that embryonic stage, they have now come through their period of gestation and are born within this report.
They concern a number of courses of action that the Budgetary Control Committee can take when it finds problems in different areas, including recommending to the Committee on Budgets to freeze or reduce the amount of appropriations intended for the headings concerned in the following year's budget; to authorise no transfers of appropriations to take place involving increasing the headings concerned for a certain period until further internal investigations are concluded; up to asking the President of the Commission to ask for the resignation of any individual Commissioners concerned with the serious problems found, a kind of EU Caesarean.
Finally, I would commend the rapporteur's proposals about speeding up the contradictory procedure and the various statements on the special reports, although I do have to say to the rapporteur that I intend to disagree with the five-month timetable proposed in the report for dealing with these.
Perhaps a nine-month timetable would be in order.
I am sure that the rapporteur would be pleased to hear that there are few differences between the main groups to breach in these circumstances.
Forceps are not required to tweeze out any agreements, and we will be voting for her report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you can tell from looking at it, Mrs Morgan, this report has taken a great deal of work and discussion within and outside Parliament, within and outside the Commission, and within and outside the Court of Auditors.
But after all that shows just how politically significant it is.
I want to congratulate you very warmly on this successful and balanced result.
After the events of the past year, your aim is to create a budgetary control and discharge procedure which is more transparent and above all more efficient and effective.
I may assure you that the Commission is constantly seeking to improve its own procedures. It will therefore also take this report as food for further thought.
You took a very useful and I believe also a very self-assured step in involving the Commission as also the Court of Auditors in your deliberations before drafting the report.
Those institutions made a targeted effort to find ways of improving the discharge procedure.
Regarding access to documents for the discharge report, which is indeed an important issue, let me point out that the Commission's point of departure in its activities is the Interinstitutional Agreement reached in July this year, especially Annex 3 on access to confidential information.
I can assure you that the Commission will honour this agreement in full.
Let me point out to Mrs Stauner who just raised certain questions that under this agreement the committee chairperson puts questions regarding confidential information to the Commission or forwards them to it.
Let me tell you that the committee chairperson has put no questions on this to the Commission.
The report calls for detailed reviews of operational activities, thorough checks of budget headings and irregularities together with an assessment of the Commission's internal performance.
We are convinced that with its administrative reform the Commission has made and is still making substantial progress here.
And indeed Parliament also paid tribute to this reform programme.
Mrs Morgan's report devotes much space to the question of whether in future the Court of Auditors should appraise the activities of each directorate-general and each department individually.
In this context let me remind you that Article 276 of the EC Treaty refers to the discharge of the budget in general and not to individual parts or areas of the budget.
In the same context let me observe that of course the risk of errors in implementing the budget regardless of whether they are major or minor ­differs widely from one department to another because they have totally different operational budgets and face different risks.
In the agricultural sector, for instance, Mr Fischler's total budget comes to approx. EUR 443 billion, while the budget of the Directorate-General for the budget is almost non-existent, so that, of course, there is hardly any risk at all there.
During the general debate it will of course have to be decided whether there will be different levels of tolerance of errors, because naturally it is very much easier to implement the budget in, for example, the administrative sector, where salaries are paid.
I would say the tolerance of errors should be more or less zero there, while in the area of external services, of foreign policy, quite different risks arise if, for instance, we provide humanitarian aid in a war zone.
That too would have to be taken into account.
You can see from what I said that I think it would be useful to discuss these proposals further in order to find out how to assign responsibilities more clearly here.
After all, that is also what you seek to do in relation to the Member States.
Let me point out that I will take the opportunity to discuss these proposals at the next meeting with the Member States' representatives concerned with financial control.
And I will happily report back on this discussion to the committee.
Once again, congratulations on your report.
Mr President, just a quick correction.
Commissioner, the point of departure for forwarding information to the European Parliament is the EC Treaty and not the Interinstitutional Agreement.
I just wanted that made clear.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Takeover bids
The next item is recommendation for second reading (A5-0368/2000) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on company law concerning takeover bids [8129/1/2000 - C5-0327/2000 - 1995/0341(COD)].
Mr President, on a point of order, I wish to remind Members of the House of Rule 9(2), referring to Annex I, Article 1: "Before speaking in Parliament or in one of its bodies, any Member who has a direct financial interest in the subject under debate shall disclose this interest to the meeting orally."
In view of the fact that Mr Lehne proposes to strengthen the role of company directors, it is quite obvious that Members may want to declare that before speaking.
It does not stop them from speaking; it may not affect our rapporteur; but certainly it applies to some members of his group who hold senior positions in the Bertelsmann media group.
Mr President, I ought to declare that I am a director of the CN Group.
My friend Mr Lehne has given the position of the EPP Group.
I am going to give the position of the British Conservative delegation and a number of other Members.
However, it is not necessarily a full and accurate description of the EPP Group's position, which he has given.
When a public company is listed, the management and owners are telling the world that investors are free to buy and sell stock in it without the shadow of management or the state rigging the market against them.
The European single market is a pan-European market place but within which the market in shares must be treated like other markets so that national boundaries, even if they delineate different jurisdictions, do not interfere with the essential equivalence of the rules across the market place.
Within the single market investors, be they private, corporate or pension funds, should be able to exercise the rights of ownership to the benefit of the companies in which they invest and for those investors in them.
In my country, we have real reservations about the common position, but in the spirit of good will have been prepared to accept it.
Unfortunately, we believe that some of the proposed amendments do not improve it.
On the contrary, some will fatally damage the project of a single pan-European take-over regime.
To be effective, useful and in the public interest, such a directive must: first, avoid direct involvement of the courts, but rather have a regulator with wide powers of discretion under the rule of law; secondly, clarify and have workable rules on jurisdiction; thirdly, clarify definitions of equitable price and set proper thresholds; fourthly, ensure management cannot improperly frustrate shareholders taking their legitimate decisions about the future of the company in which they own a stake.
If we fail to get this directive right, it will tell the world that Europe will not face the realities of the global market.
That will not mean that it will not have to do so in due course; rather it will merely mean that adjustment will be more prolonged and painful and the victims will be European jobs and European prosperity.
Mr President, it seems that we are finally at the end of the road on the proposal for a directive which will regulate takeover bids.
It is a proposal that has gone down a long and, I fear, stormy road in order to overcome some of the existing problems.
It is true that there have been many problems.
It is also true that the political agreement obtained in the Council last year enabled some of them to be resolved.
I will therefore offer a few thoughts on the function of Parliament: in a codecision procedure, in which a political agreement has been reached on a complex matter, what should be the role of the European Parliament? Should our role be limited to saying "Amen" to the Council' s proposals?
I do not think this should be the case, ladies and gentlemen.
By this I do not mean that, once that agreement has been obtained in the Council, Parliament should decide to blow it out of the water.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are politicians and therefore, we are always in favour of reaching political agreements.
These thoughts are fully applicable to this report.
The Council has reached an agreement that should be respected on its main points, as the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, has done in his magnificent report, on which I sincerely congratulate him.
And I congratulate him not only on respecting the main points of that agreement, but also on seeking formulae which - and I stress, while respecting the main points - try to improve the legislative proposal. This is, in my understanding, the role of a colegislative institution such as Parliament in the codecision procedure.
The amendments that our Committee is tabling can be grouped into three blocks.
In the first block are a series of technical amendments that aim to either clarify concepts or fill gaps.
I am not going to dwell on them.
In the second block are a series of amendments that aim to improve the participation of workers when there is a takeover bid.
We cannot close our eyes to reality: when there is a takeover there is staff restructuring, redundancies and so on, in short, measures which affect jobs.
It is therefore important that workers and their representatives should be informed, from the start, of what is being planned and that they can make their voice heard in the actual takeover procedure.
The third block contains those amendments that have been most controversial during the procedure.
And I would like to have the power of conviction to prevent you from having any fears about the consequences that could be deduced from the approval of those amendments.
It is true that the European Parliament Rules of Procedure do not make this easy, making these debates into a pure and simple dialogue between the deaf.
What can we do?
The first amendment refers to Article 4, which establishes what will be the competent authority for supervising the bid.
In paragraph 1 it is established that it will be that of the Member State in which the company concerned has its headquarters, if - logically - its securities are admitted to trading in that Member State.
What happens if they are not admitted to trading in that Member State? An answer is proposed that does not appear to be compatible with another amendment tabled by other Members, undoubtedly in good faith, requiring the criterion of headquarters.
Because if the securities are not traded there, why should they be supervised by that authority?
The second controversial amendment refers to the duty of neutrality.
Here we met with very conflicting and even opposed positions, and a formula has been reached that permits some exceptional hypotheses in order to carry out some defensive manoeuvres when it is not possible to call a general meeting.
My Group and I are going to support these amendments.
Mr President, I fear that we are in danger of losing the plot or losing sight of what this directive is about.
It is part of the financial services action plan; in our Commissioner's own words, "a key element in the creation of a fully integrated market in financial services, giving investors and consumers more choice".
The proposals introduce three key elements at a time when there is a change in control of a company: protection of minority shareholders, transparency in relation to bid information and regulatory supervision of the process.
But what are we in danger of doing as a Parliament, by virtue of the amendments tabled?
Firstly, we are being far from transparent.
Some of the amendments seem to be a covert attempt to introduce some elements of a company statute through the back door.
Secondly, we are adopting rigid structures and procedures when the recommendation of the Commission was actually light-touch, allowing Member States leeway to reflect national practice in corporate culture.
Lastly, the issue of clarity: the lack of this is especially evident in the debate about jurisdiction, an issue of which I have a little experience.
The common position suggested some form of split arrangement.
Now we have a proposition that would lead to muddle, forum shopping, potential litigation at a delicate moment in a corporate deal.
This is not helpful.
Jurisdiction should be solely in the hands of the Member State where the target company is registered.
This is fair for minority shareholders, transparent and, above all, clear.
Indeed I would ask the Commissioner to consider whether he can accept my amendment on this crucial point.
The Financial Times editorial today talked about bid politics: that it has taken no less than 10 years to get this draft and that we, Parliament, could destroy that in 10 minutes tomorrow by voting through misguided amendments.
I hope that will not be the case.
Mr President, I should like to assure Mrs Wallis that I shall vote for her Amendment No 19 for the very reasons which she has given - and I hope my group will be following me.
This is a matter on which clarity is of the utmost importance.
Similarly we will reject the critical part of Amendment No 17, which would exclude shareholders from deciding on the merits of a bid for a company that they own.
The ground for this is that it is not for governments, supervisory authorities or incumbent management to accept or frustrate a bid. It rests with the company's owners - the shareholders themselves.
That is the principle on which perhaps we will divide tomorrow: what should be the over-riding concern of a law regulating takeovers.
If you think that the correct thing is fairness and transparency towards all shareholders - majority and minority alike - then that determines your vote on a number of the issues here.
There are some points where I would be happy to go along with the compromise amendments, particularly those affecting the position of employees.
I understand Mr Lehne's desire to get the thing taken into conciliation and further clarified.
I have some sympathy with his point. But we must approach this with the governing principle of shareholder protection in our minds.
Mr President, the aim of this report - to establish common rules in Europe on takeover bids - relates only to a tiny minority of large corporations and their major shareholders, who dominate company ownership.
In the legal wrangling between the Council and Parliament, there was not even any mention of the workers, technicians and employees who actually turn the wheels of these companies which the large financial groups are fighting over.
The European institutions care little about the job losses and closures caused by almost every company takeover or merger.
Personally speaking, I have no interest in the legal problems these large shareholders may have, and I will vote against this report.
However, I would like to express my solidarity with the people exploited by these companies, and if Parliament had any respect whatsoever for the workers, it would at least prevent takeovers causing redundancies.
Mr President, after 18 years working in financial services, I do not believe this directive is needed.
In the UK the regulation of takeovers through the voluntary code of practice administered by the takeover panel has been highly successful: a good example here of a pragmatic approach to a highly complex issue where legislation will be less appropriate.
It should not escape our attention that the takeover market is primarily British.
Activity in London exceeds the whole of the combined volume in the rest of Europe, therefore this measure will damage the United Kingdom.
Many believe that the imposition of a legal code is simply a protectionist device to enable less efficient European companies to protect themselves from takeovers by resorting to complex legal actions.
Are European companies so afraid of competition that they feel the need to shelter behind a restrictive law which will stifle rather than improve European competitiveness? If not, then Members should vote against this directive.
Mr President, company structures in the European market need to be made more efficient if Europe is to hold its own in the global market.
It must also be possible to restructure companies between one EU country and another.
This directive will probably not create the clear regulations which are now needed on the international stock market, but the battle is not yet lost.
The problem is that stock exchange law is closely associated with company law and that it is difficult to harmonise the one area if the other is not harmonised.
However the regulations are drawn up, someone will suffer.
In a small market like Sweden' s, with relatively concentrated ownership, harmonising the level at which offers must be made at 30 per cent will create problems, and we are demanding greater flexibility. Greater flexibility is also required when it comes to the complete duty of neutrality recommended by the Council.
German companies will have problems because Germany' s company law prohibits vote diversification.
Greater understanding must be shown for national characteristics. Otherwise, there may be devastating consequences for an individual Member State' s company structure.
It would, however, be easier to solve the problem of which supervisory authority is to have jurisdiction.
The most flexible solution would be to choose the supervisory authority in that country in which the target company has its head office.
Companies may be quoted on different markets, and companies with head offices in Sweden are not always quoted in Sweden.
It would be strange to say the least if, for example, American authorities were to be responsible for a takeover involving two European companies.
Anyone who wants to avoid such consequences has the opportunity to vote in favour of Amendment No 19, which makes it clear that it is the target company' s head office which counts.
If we do not defend the duty of neutrality, there will be no point to the directive.
If, moreover, we open the door to defensive measures, we shall perhaps make it more difficult to restructure European markets and, especially, to protect small shareholders.
I just want to emphasise that the Conciliation Committee has a very big responsibility and that success requires everyone to pull together.
Mr President, it has been said that this is a very important, crucial piece of legislation we have before us.
It is at the heart of the EU financial services action plan.
But, more than that, the bigger prize is that we are able to take forward the Lisbon agenda of creating a competitive, dynamic European economy.
For that we need an efficient market in goods, services and capital.
Mr Bolkestein, I share your concerns: we cannot afford to risk losing this directive, because the EU economy would pay the opportunity cost for years of not being able to restructure European companies.
Yet the amendments tabled by our rapporteur will take us in that direction.
I fear it will undermine the effect of corporate restructuring necessary to build that EU competitiveness in global markets.
If we are to achieve global excellence in, for example, the telecoms sector, we must ensure that recent take-overs such as Vodafone, Mannesmann, France Telecom, Orange, will show that European models work, cannot be blocked by hostile action or poison pills.
That would be turning our back on the opportunity to achieve the competitiveness that we desire.
My delegation of Labour MEPs cannot accept, therefore, the changes in Article 9 to allow company boards the right to defensive measures to frustrate takeovers without getting shareholder approval.
Mr Bolkestein himself has said that it is crucial that the management of target companies consult shareholders in this case.
Our primary objective must be to protect our investors, to ensure a fair and equal bidding process.
It must be to ensure efficient flow in capital markets; and we must not end up by producing legislation which protects potentially inefficient managers and props up failing companies.
That is in nobody's interest.
It will result in investors not seeing the EU as an integrated capital market; it will undermine investor confidence and it will result in capital flow out of Europe.
The rapporteur's amendments create confusion in the area of litigation and it would be wrong of us to vote for confusion in potential litigation cases.
I have to say that I cannot understand Mr Lehne's approach in the British Economist, where he has himself agreed that his compromise is unworkable, but that he put it in to keep the socialists happy and he is prepared to take it out in conciliation.
That is not acceptable.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is very important that after more than ten years of deliberations at EU level the important question of the minimum harmonisation of take-over law can be regulated by a useful framework directive, although, as Mr Lehne said, the final proposal raises a few technical problems as also problems of content and we assume that unfortunately this proposal can only be improved through the conciliation procedure.
But it should be pointed out that the situation has definitely changed since the first reading.
Foreign investment within the EU doubled between 1997 and 1998 and cross-border mergers and take-overs have reached record levels.
Hitherto we have not had binding rules on take-overs either in Community law or in the legislation of a good number of Member States.
The directive on take-over bids therefore seems necessary to ensure fair competition and for reasons of legal certainty.
I am in the fortunate position of being able to say that since 1 January 1999 Austria has had its own take-over legislation.
Austrian take-over legislation, and in particular its implementation by the take-over commission, has more or less proved its worth since it entered into force.
Here in the European Parliament we are chiefly concerned with finding minimum European rules to regulate the major fields of tension in take-over law, for instance the boards against the shareholders, large shareholders against small ones, companies against the stock market.
Furthermore, it is essential for the Member States to have the possibility, in accordance with the overall objectives and in the framework of the directive, to adopt useful, further-reaching rules, such as for example the provision on the promotion of equal treatment of all shareholders that we have in our current Austrian take-over law, by ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, first I want to welcome the work Mr Lehne has done and the fact that he took up this whole job again.
It is a pity the report took so long.
Once again, time is running away with us in politics.
It is economics that sets the pace.
The reason this feels like a rather eerie debate has less to do with the time of night and even less with the sparsity of Members now present, but more with what is in fact going on.
We are talking about a Europe that is supposed to unite, and what do we hear? British lobbyists against this Europe, against any hint of the social model that keeps being paraded in the electoral campaigns.
It would be really nice if British Labour obviously we cannot expect anything like that from the Conservatives any more would for once move outside the borders of the City of London. Once upon a time it was said that 'Britain rules the waves', now we hear that 'Britain is drifting away'.
Why are we always taken hostage for this little City of London?
Why are we not honest enough to say that take-overs will become a major social problem if we do not cushion them? Why do we not dare to stand by what we keep announcing in our campaign speeches?
In concrete terms we know that 70% of mergers go wrong.
BMW/Rover was a disaster. Daimler/Chrysler is visibly becoming a crime, when we look at what is going on there.
Does Mr Lehne's report go far enough? No, but I do believe it is a first step in a certain direction.
I personally and I wish that for once the same would apply to British Labour too will support the amendments that lead to more regulation.
We do not want to see American conditions here at home.
We do not need them.
The European economy is doing very well.
In the United Kingdom the social differences are widening ever further.
We need this for insider deals, for cartel law.
Does might come before right? That is the question.
But the answer is that the Lehne report is at least a small step towards empowering the people of Europe.
Mr President, it is interesting to follow Mr Martin as an English speaker and I can assure him that things are certainly not falling apart in the British economy even though my party would like a change of government.
A point I want to make with regard to this takeover directive is to bring the argument very firmly back to millions of electors in my country and millions of people who have pension plans and savings that are based upon investments in the stock market.
Mrs McCarthy quite rightly reminded us to declare an interest.
So let me declare an interest.
I have a pension fund from my previous employer.
A lot of its value is based on investments in the British stock market and I rely on investment managers to keep my investment safe and to develop it for my future retirement.
That, of course, is a major strength, Mr Martin, for the British economy because we have those funds there at a time when our society is growing older and we need to provide those pensions.
We do not have an overhang of publicly funded pensions.
That is something that everyone in the European Union is going to have to tackle and this takeover directive, in the final form that comes through has to address that issue.
The problem with the amendments that we have before us is that, if this goes through, the people who are managing my pension fund will not be able to maximise that value for me.
That applies to millions of ordinary individuals working in companies up and down the United Kingdom.
It is their future that we are talking about.
This is not some abstract concept.
It goes to the heart of the British economy and it is something that increasingly will be critical for the future of the European economy as well.
Mr President, I would like to thank Parliament for the attention it is giving this proposal and for the work that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and particularly the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, have carried out.
This attention is certainly justified, in view of the importance of the text, which the Heads of State and Government made a priority during the European Council of Lisbon in March 2000.
After all, were it to be approved, it would bring about a considerable improvement in the operation and stability of the European financial markets.
I am particularly delighted that I can at last discuss this common position, which we had a long wait for, but which was finally adopted by the Member States last June by unanimous vote.
Some of the amendments proposed by Parliament further improve the text of the Council' s common position because they highlight points that could lead to interpretation difficulties and push for speedier transposition of the directive.
Hence the Commission approves Amendments Nos 7, 14 and 18.
It prizes Amendment No 18 particularly highly, the aim of which is to reduce the deadline for transposition, in accordance with a wish already expressed by the Commission on numerous occasions.
Indeed, it has constantly highlighted the need to waste no time in implementing this directive, which is something all interested parties have looked forward to so much.
The Commission has also taken note of the statements brought to the fore by Amendments Nos 5 and 13.
Whilst the Commission has no objection to these suggestions, it would point out that they do not belong in this directive.
The current text guarantees employees appropriate information on the conditions and repercussions of the bid.
Stipulations that go further in this area are not in keeping with the objectives of the directive, which relates to the protection of the share holders.
The labour conditions and employee rights in the event that enterprises are restructured are provided for in other Community directives.
The Commission would also like to demonstrate its interest in Amendment No 12.
This amendment seeks to introduce an instrument enabling a majority shareholder to take over the remaining securities.
However, this procedure, which already exists in certain Member States, does not just affect the field of public takeover bids but extends much further and could, if necessary, be studied more closely as part of the general review of company law undertaken by the Commission.
So I would suggest adding this topic to the list of subjects that could be submitted to a committee of experts.
Much to its regret, the Commission is unable to approve the other amendments, and this is for a variety of reasons.
Amendments Nos 2 and 10 are unacceptable because they alter the scope of application of the directive.
The directive relates to all public and exclusively public offers to purchase or exchange, be they voluntary or mandatory.
Amendments Nos 4 and 15 are unacceptable because they do not belong in the intended stipulations.
These only concern holders of securities in the first case and the supervisory authority in the second.
Amendments Nos 8 and 9 are without foundation.
After all, it is by no means certain that the proposed definition of equitable price is better than any other, because the various definitions that are currently in use in the Member States are all perfectly satisfactory.
Finally, the Commission studied the content of the amendments in depth but it cannot accept a single one of them.
For example, Amendments Nos 6, 11 and 16 appear to pass over the existing national provisions that the text of the common position is in fact trying to bring closer together.
Amendment No 6 in particular, contains an amalgam of ideas that were all addressed to a lesser or greater extent during the discussions on the directive, and were rejected because they did not seem to be suitable.
Particularly the appointment of the competent authority, whilst the text of the common position came about after consultation with the supervisory authorities themselves.
Then there is the definition of the percentage that confers control over the company, which ties in with other provisions in the field of company law, which differ considerably from Member State to Member State.
Amendment No 17, in its turn, should it be approved, could make it impossible for there to be any kind of hostile takeover bid.
The Commission has no objection to extending the neutrality obligation to after the official deadline of the bid, as proposed in the first paragraph.
However, the Commission cannot go along with Parliament' s proposal to allow the board of a particular company to determine the future of the company without taking account of the shareholders' position, by simply submitting its decisions to the judgement of the competent authorities or the judge.
A solution of this kind threatens on the one hand to lead to confusion over the role of the supervisory authorities, which must remain independent and impartial, and on the other hand to the systematic institution of legal proceedings that can be time-consuming and expensive and which benefit neither the companies concerned, the members of their Boards, nor the other interested parties, and particularly the employees.
The situation in the United States can teach us a thing or two on that score, and should be a warning to us to proceed more cautiously.
On a final note, may I remind you that this is a framework directive, as requested by Parliament at an earlier stage.
Nevertheless, the directive stipulates firstly, that a committee of experts from the Member States and from the Commission are to supervise the implementation and application of the text, and secondly, it includes a review clause for making any changes which may prove necessary in the future.
Lastly, the Commission would point out that should this House approve the proposed amendments, it could prove very difficult for an agreement to be reached between the Council and Parliament.
That said, the Commission is convinced, and it is supported in this by the economic operators involved, that the text, which is the product of over ten years of negotiations - which is longer than is needed to take account of all interests - is a good starting point, and it is high time we took action.
Finally, a further two new amendments have been tabled about which I have the following comments to make.
Amendment No 19 is unacceptable, for the same reason that Amendment No 6 is unacceptable.
As for Amendment No 20, which is similar to Amendment No 17, the same applies to both, albeit for slightly different reasons.
The first part is acceptable, just as it is in Amendment No 17.
The second part is not because the term 'Aufsichtsrat' - to use the German expression - is encompassed by the Dutch term 'bestuur' (board) and is subject to the same obligations as all managers of a company.
The third part of it is unacceptable for the same reason that no so-called 'social amendments' are acceptable.
That is what I wanted to say on the issues raised by Parliament and needless to say the Commission is looking forward with enormous interest to the vote on this subject.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Resale right
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0370/2000) by Mr Zimmerling, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art [7484/1/00 - C5-0422/2000 - 1996/0085(COD)].
Mr President, 11 out of the 15 EU countries recognise the right of resale. However, it is in force only in eight countries, and this is with varying degrees of success.
The right of resale is not recognised in the legislation of Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Outside the European Union, neither Switzerland nor the United States recognise the right of resale.
At first sight, establishing a legislative text concerning the right of resale would seem to be justified by a desire for equity and in order to benefit creative artists.
In fact, the resale right does not benefit artists, quite the contrary: it hinders the market which should be dynamic and be able to grow with a minimum of restrictions.
Consumer dynamics and sales potential are matters of concern to living artists who discern an increase in their market value and reassessment of their work.
The resale right gives rise to complicated court cases, which are truly costly compared with the often modest sums involved, which generally do not reach the beneficiary.
It entails additional administrative tasks, which serve to fuel criticism of European standards.
It penalises the efforts of galleries who should be focussing on helping artists.
It gives rise to fear, creates extra costs and administrative hassles for well-meaning potential buyers. And on occasion, it can lead to absurd situations: given that the right of resale is calculated on the basis of the resale price, in the event of depreciation transferring a work of art is more lucrative than actually creating one.
Is it therefore necessary to extend this legislative text to the countries who do not want it - I am referring here to the United Kingdom which is currently at the top of the European art market - if to do so would be to threaten their competitiveness?
Mr President, to repeat a felicitous expression used by GESAC (the European Association of Authors' and Composers' Societies), the draft under discussion was subjected to unjustified attacks during its review by the Council.
The agreement reached by the Council is no longer an accurate reflection of the Commission' s initial proposal, which was widely supported by Parliament at its first reading.
The Socialist Group, as well as the greater part of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market was astonished at the attitude of the Council of Ministers, whose position is unacceptable in several respects. The suggestion that transposition periods for Member States should be increased to 15 years is the least acceptable element, given that the Commission' s original proposal was four years ago.
As a matter of principal, a 15-year time limit is unacceptable in such a rapidly changing world as our own. The industry will change beyond recognition in that time, mainly due to technological progress.
In addition, setting this type of precedent at a time when the European Union is set to double in size would be to give out the wrong signal to candidate states.
It would be better to give up the idea of a directive rather than establish such a time limit.
The Socialist Group did not therefore want Parliament to discredit itself by accepting proposals which make a mockery of the votes cast at the first reading.
So we are delighted, firstly, that Mr Zimmerling, the rapporteur, understands and shares our feelings on the issue of the time limit as well as many other problems, which he detailed this evening.
We are moreover delighted that almost all the democratic groups share the same constructive point of view.
Once again, the debate and the upcoming vote will be decided between those wishing to forge ahead with European integration and those who are prepared to let themselves be side-tracked by national interests (of dubious legitimacy) rather than the interests of European creative artists.
It is furthermore essential that we find a common position on the matter in hand, since this is the only way that the European Union will be able to carry any weight internationally and to defend the interests of creative artists worldwide.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is difficult to understand why those who are against harmonising income tax should be in favour of this directive.
Those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party were very critical at first reading, and we still are.
We believe that there would be damaging consequences for the European market if this directive were to be implemented before international harmonisation had taken place in this legal area.
We do not believe that the deadlines for implementation should be shortened in the way proposed by the rapporteur.
Nor do we believe there is proof that national minimum regulations concerning resale right are required in order to improve the internal market.
As a previous speaker said, flourishing galleries and good systems of grants are important for young artists.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in this dispute between all sorts of lobby groups I have always listened to what the European artists say.
In my country, which does not have the right of resale, the artists are opposed to this directive.
Understandably so, when you look at Austrian tradition in its home market, an internationally recognised market.
I will have a hard job persuading the people in my country, but I am firmly convinced that the harmonisation of the right of resale, on the basis of the EP's proposals, will bring benefits to all concerned.
I also hope for the Commission's support, at least on one of the three major points of dispute.
And I am also thinking a step ahead.
In the very near future we will have to make more effort to seek a dialogue with the collective management firms, we must jointly seek simpler and more transparent structures and ensure that the administrative costs of this directive do not become absurd.
Collective management firms are not just a kind of collection agency, they are very important partners for the artists of Europe when it comes to their rights.
The opinions expressed on the right of resale reflect the views not of the political groups but of the Member States.
I have understanding for the different cultural traditions, but at the same time I beg this House to show the same European spirit that prevailed this morning.
It is not just a question of individual national artists, national gallery owners and national auction houses.
It is a question of the European art market and all the players involved, and especially the European creative artists.
I put my trust in the wisdom and farsightedness of this House.
Mr President, Commissioner, although as I am sure you know I am a friend of European regulations when they are necessary, and against a European bazaar for national special interests, I have promised to put the concerns felt by the platform against the introduction of the right of resale and by the art world before this House, which represents the citizens of Europe.
The right of resale remains as controversial as ever.
In the end, the issue is the competitiveness of the European art market, which is already finding it hard to fight off foreign competition.
In my own country, the artists themselves say that they feel they are being forced into this against their will and point to Germany, where fewer than 1% of the 42 000 artists have gained from the right of resale.
The galleries, which play a crucial part in promoting young artists, are anxious and also oppose the right of resale, since it has to be applied even if a work of art is sold at a loss.
The auction houses are concerned because the maximum amount of EUR 12 500 is no longer to apply.
I think it is important to voice the concerns of the auction houses, the artists, the galleries, the art world of a country and a platform of artists in this debate and to take them into consideration.
That has nothing to do with special national interests but contributes to an open and transparent political debate.
Mr President, the Commissioner will also know there was unanimous consensus in Council on the common position.
I hope you are going to take as robust a position on Mr Zimmerling's amendments as you did on the Lehne report.
It is also an issue about the vitality and competitiveness of the European art market.
If it was centred on Berlin I am sure that Mr Zimmerling would argue quite differently on transposition times and thresholds.
Without an international droit de suite, the fact is that the European art market will go offshore.
There is evidence to prove that.
I too, like Mrs Echerer, must listen to artists.
They are divided.
There is Kûnstler gegen Folgerecht.
They are divided.
It is arrogant of Mr Zimmerling to dismiss the views of people for whom we claim to legislate in this Parliament.
We legislate in their interests.
We should listen to their views as well.
We can also see that the Folgerecht does not actually advantage many artists.
In Germany, for example, in 1998, of 7 000 artists who transferred their rights, only 274 actually got any money from it and 40% of the droit de suite was taken up in costs in levying the sum.
So there are some problems with how it currently operates.
I want to use this opportunity to register my dismay that the Commission has failed to provide any analysis or evaluation of the economic impact of droit de suite.
It is far too important a piece of legislation for it not to have done this work.
I still fail to understand how the Commission reached the arbitrary threshold of EUR 1 000 with no scientific evidence to back that up.
Therefore I must plead for a long transition period to open serious negotiations on an international droit de suite, without which we will lose the European art market, wherever it is located, whether it be Paris, Berlin or London.
I do not believe artists will gain from that either.
Mr President, I try to adopt a practical approach to this issue because I have one of the biggest art auction houses outside of London in my constituency.
They had raised their fears about these proposals and I went back there recently and we looked at some case studies together.
We took paintings from a recent auction that would have been affected by this proposal.
With one item there would have been considerable difficulty in tracing the artist's family; only tracing agents and collecting societies would have benefited.
In another case, the item would undoubtedly have been sold elsewhere, i.e. in America.
The one artist we were able to contact who would have benefited was not interested and said it would all be too complex to help him or his family.
I am afraid this leads me to the inevitable conclusion that we do not need this, and that without international agreement in place, it is one piece of internal market legislation that we can do without.
Mr President, the droit de suite is an unknown legal right in the United Kingdom and we do not believe it is a beneficial addition to our law.
This is because, as has already been pointed out, many artists have recently testified it does not in fact help them.
Furthermore, as experience in France shows, the main beneficiaries are the heirs of dead, rich painters, not poor, living ones.
At any event, why as a matter of principle should it be right to impose a levy on the sale of a second-hand picture and not to do the same to the maker of a second-hand car or the tailor of a second-hand suit?
It is also unnecessary in the single European art market, which for years has worked quite satisfactorily without it, as has already been pointed out this evening.
In short, there is no need for harmonisation of this sort in this area.
Nevertheless, we in the United Kingdom have, with misgivings and in a spirit of compromise, accepted a formula which includes its eventual introduction in the UK.
It is complicated and takes years to come into effect.
Cynics might say: a bit like the Treaty of Nice.
But London, the centre of the art market in Europe, will disproportionately suffer if much of the trade goes off-shore to Geneva or the United States, unilaterally exporting British jobs with it, unless an international regime is put into place to eliminate global market distortion.
If the substance of the compromise is not honoured, we would rather this unnecessary directive did not reach the statute book.
If it did so, it would be a great injustice, especially to those whose livelihoods depend upon the art market and, in particular, the art market in London.
I can assure the House that, if my party leader William Hague wins the general election, he will match the present Prime Minister's commitment to oppose this proposal in the essential interests of our country.
It goes beyond what was agreed in the common position.
Mr President, I would like to give my response to the comments made and the questions asked.
The Commission welcomes the majority of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and congratulates Mr Zimmerling, the rapporteur, on this dedication to achieving agreement and the way in which he has been able to gain consensus on the most important questions, particularly that of the time limit, which is, in Amendments Nos 11 and 15, brought down to four years in total, made up of a two-year transitional period and two-year transposition period.
This seems to be a reasonable period to enable the profession to adapt to the change and for national authorities to introduce the necessary changes in regulations.
The second important issue is that of the total amount, which is removed in Amendment No 7.
However, this amendment can be only partially approved.
The Commission believes that to divide royalties into five portions, as set out in the common position, remains more effective than the proposed method, since it avoids possible loss of sales, especially in the highest portion of the sale price.
The third and final issue is that of the threshold, which Amendment No 6 brings back down to EUR 1 000 or, in other words, to the Commission' s original proposal.
I repeat, this amendment can be only partially approved since the Commission is not in a position to agree with you and make the threshold compulsory.
The Commission believes that, on a national level, the abolition of the right to resale below this threshold cannot be justified due to the internal market. In some Member States, this may put artists at a disadvantage, in contrast to the situation prior to harmonisation.
Amendment No 4 and the part of Amendment No 7 which relates to this issue should also be rejected for the same reasons.
To sum up, Mr President, the Commission is able to approve Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 and is able to approve Amendment Nos 6 and 7 only in part for the reasons mentioned previously. The Commission is able to approve Amendment No 9 as a recital and not as an article.
However, the Commission is unable to approve Amendment No 4, which relates to the compulsory aspect of the threshold, or Amendment No 8, since the distinction made between heirs who are able to benefit from the right of resale is not the same as the concept of ownership of this right and arises solely from national law.
A similar amendment was rejected at first reading.
Furthermore, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 10 for the reason that to draw up and maintain a list of third countries where the right of resale is in force would create practical problems and would not enhance legal security.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 12.15 a.m.)
Madam President, on a point of order.
I wish to inform the House of the news of the closure of a car factory in Luton in the United Kingdom, with the loss of many thousands of jobs.
I am sure the House will be concerned to hear of this latest example of decline in industry in Europe.
I have duly noted the fact.
Competition between postal services
The next item is the report (A5-0361/2000) by Mr Ferber, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 97/67/EC on opening to competition of Community postal services [COM(2000)0319 - C5-0375/2000 - 2000/0139(COD)].
Madam President, on a point of order.
If we are to debate this important question today, it is essential to have the amendments that were tabled in the various languages for us to know what we are debating.
They are not available.
I tried last night and first thing this morning.
It seems to me an impossible state of affairs when we are debating a very important subject and amendments have come in late, together with those that went to committee, and we do not have them in our mother tongue.
Mr Atkins, the services tell me that the delay was only for this week.
They thought the translations could be made available in spite of this fairly difficult and densely packed timetable.
Nonetheless, I have no doubt that this Chamber will have been able to examine each of the amendments in detail and I think it is possible to have the debate on this report.
In any case, all the translations will be available to MEPs between now and the time of the vote.
Madam President, I want to talk about the same point of order as Mr Atkins.
I do not think it is usual for the discussion preceding a vote to be a discussion of amendments.
We discussed the latter in committee.
What is more, I was able to obtain these amendments yesterday and I believe that we are called upon to have a general discussion today.
We shall have ample opportunity tomorrow to vote on the additional amendments tabled at the last minute by all the groups.
I think that this important matter, close to the committee' s heart, ought to be debated today.
That is what I propose, Mr Savary.
I share your point of view.
Ideally, our Chamber ought to be able to have the debate after familiarising itself with all the documents and amendments.
I nonetheless think that, as you have indicated, we can, in the present circumstances, enter into the debate in the normal way, and I therefore propose giving the floor to our rapporteur, Mr Ferber.
Madam President, the opinion of the committee of which I have the honour to be draftsman, which was approved by a very large majority, introduces limitations to the rapid liberalisation of the postal services, opting for a gradual and controlled opening to competition without market distortions which would be detrimental to the services' customers and users and to the national universal service companies.
Thus, we propose that the opening should take into account Article 16 of the Treaty, which raises the provision of traditional postal services to the category of services of general interest, given the place they occupy in the shared values of the Union and their role in promoting social and territorial cohesion, for which reason they should operate on the basis of principles and conditions that enable them to fulfil their missions.
Naturally, we point out weaknesses in the draft directive, requiring that the economic and social impact of liberalisation be made known and an assessment be made of the economic effectiveness and service quality provided by the companies so that Parliament can decide with certainty and clarity.
Without jeopardising the modernisation of all postal services and the opening to competition, Member States must continue to preserve their rural network of counter services, which help bring the remote places closer to centres of decision making and are thus indispensable to the social cohesion of the smallest urban or rural communities.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has been even more demanding as regards price limits on services reserved for the universal provider, but it proposes the same 150-gramme weight limit and jointly rejects the 50 grammes laid down in the draft directive.
The difference from the basic report is a simple matter of detail included within the framework of a parliamentary discussion, which, incidentally, has been extremely well conducted by the rapporteur, Mr Ferber.
It is also guaranteed that cross-border mail will remain a service reserved for the postal services, and also, if VAT comes to be levied on postal services, that the tax should be levied at a reduced rate so as not to raise the price of stamps in the Community.
My committee has clearly rejected the idea of special services, which, as I understand it, were aimed at draining the universal service of any profitable activities, leaving it only with services where costs outweighed prices, and it also made subject to liberalisation the so-called new services, defined as "all those that the universal service provider does not undertake or is not naturally obliged to produce" .
Madam President, there would be much more to say, but I shall confine myself to adding that only rarely has there been such political consensus on an issue among the various committees called upon to express their opinions in this Parliament.
Postal services, like schools, roads, and bridges, are part of the European cultural landscape and our shared concept of civilisation.
This Parliament is naturally on the side of these values and will continue to support them.
- (FR) Madam President, I should first of all like to pay tribute to all our fellow MEPs who have worked so hard on this matter and, in particular, the rapporteur for the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, Markus Ferber, who has exhibited a most commendable sense of compromise and balance.
As we have just been reminded, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has tabled a number of amendments and slight modifications to the Commission' s proposals too.
As is well known, there are two conflicting visions here of what are called public services, and I hope that it will be possible to reconcile them one day. According to the first view, public services cannot be truly European unless they are transformed into markets, that is to say unless the private sector is given the infrastructures, know-how and networks patiently acquired sometimes in the public domain and, where postal services are concerned, practically always in the public domain.
The second view is that, if postal services are to be opened up to competition, there must be no conflict between traditional and modern practices. It must also take place in a Europe of rights, that is to say a Europe whose citizens, and in particular, those who are in most difficulty, are assured a minimum of what may be considered essential rights.
Naturally, the latter view should be taken of postal services for, as has just been seen, the post office is not just an ordinary public service. It is a public service in which the human and social dimensions are very important.
It is a public service whose network is sometimes the last civic link with democratic institutions in difficult places such as inner cities.
It is also a public service which has a notable territorial aspect to it. For all these reasons, the postal services which are now to be opened to competition and which are to a very large extent already in competition where very many products are concerned and which are themselves subject to competition from new technologies and are faced with new consumer expectations, as we are agreed, cannot be treated as a mere market.
As we have all agreed, it is therefore only right to talk in terms of a universal service, that is to say a service offered to everyone throughout the territory of the European Union.
What is unacceptable, however, is for the cost of the service to be identical in every country, given the differences in geography and population density.
What might be acceptable for the Netherlands or Malta, that is to say a reserved sector reduced to 50 grammes, may not be practicable where Greece or France is concerned because of the geography of these countries.
That is why I, personally, am happy that we have compromised by setting the minimum weight/price limit at 150 grammes.
Finally, the universal service should be in a position to develop.
There is no reason why the service offered to people should not incorporate all kinds of technical and economic progress, and I believe that, from this point of view, doing away with special services is a step for which no clarification had first been provided.
Finally, a new date for liberalisation is unacceptable until a prior assessment has been made.
That has been the major misunderstanding in this debate.
The Commission ought to have provided us with an impact study of the various phases of liberalisation.
It has not done so.
It must do so next time without fail.
Madam President, I welcome the fact that in committee we managed to achieve a balanced compromise on this issue and I hope that Parliament will adopt that position in substance tomorrow.
In response to Mr Ferber and his contention that postal companies do not have an obligation to create jobs, I agree with him, but believe that we have a responsibility to create an environment where companies like postal companies can deliver a good, efficient, universal postal service and to ensure that the jobs thereby provided are good-quality jobs.
That is our responsibility.
No one is arguing that there should be no change in relation to postal services.
Technology and changing markets will drive change, in any event.
I agree with the generally declared objective that there should be gradual and controlled change; but I disagree that the Commission's proposal is in any way controlled or in any way gradual.
It seems to me that the Commission's proposal goes too far, too quickly, and that, in fact, it would devastate some national universal service providers.
I know from my own experience in Ireland that the Irish postal company would indeed be devastated.
Forty-six per cent of its revenue would be opened to competition.
It would not be able to survive in such an environment, it could not deliver universal services in Ireland, it could not maintain the current level of local post offices in Ireland as a result of such competition.
I urge the Commission to reconsider its position and accept Parliament's position.
But, in particular, I urge the Member States in Council to consider their position; and I am quite concerned that despite the fact that Members of the governing party in Ireland are supporting the compromise position here in Parliament, the Irish Government is not supporting that position.
Madam President, Commissioner, may I begin by reiterating my thanks to my honourable colleague Markus Ferber on behalf of our group, because he sought compromises within the committee and he found them.
You know how difficult this issue is; it is laden with ideological overtones, sometimes from both sides.
We therefore owe him our thanks for rallying a large majority behind a sound compromise.
Our group agrees with the Commissioner and with the Lisbon meeting of the European Council, though not that of Nice, that further steps need to be taken to open the market in postal services.
Competition in the postal sector, as it has done elsewhere, will ensure that we have a more effective and an affordable service for consumers.
However, my group also takes the view that we as a Community and as Member States must naturally ensure that conditions are created for the provision of a universal service too.
But, Mr Savary, the purpose of the universal service is to offer the postal services that people typically require and to offer them at affordable prices throughout the territory of the Member States.
The purpose of the universal service is not to act as a citizens' advice bureau or to organise psychological counselling.
The fact is that, in order to make a universal service possible, we are reserving a domain in which monopolies can operate.
In other words, in this exceptional case we are deliberately excluding competition.
But this exclusion must only apply to postal services and not to advisory services, social services or anything else.
We cannot find any legal grounds for excluding competition from these other domains.
So, if a Member State wants to have a nation-wide citizens' advice network, it should pay for it. When I buy a postage stamp, I should not be helping to finance a citizens' advice service in France or in any other countries.
That would truly make a mockery of the universal service.
Yes, we do want to guarantee a universal service, and, in order to do so, we must exclude competition from a certain area of the postal services.
The great bone of contention in our committee and in the House as a whole is this: how large an area do we have to keep free of competition so that a decent universal postal service can be provided? I believe the compromise ceiling of 150 grammes that we have proposed, along with the application of the other criteria, constitute suitable next steps.
For this reason, a majority of my group will be supporting this compromise too.
The situation on the ground, of course, varies widely. Let me give you an example.
The Belgian Post Office cannot claim to serve a country of vast dimensions, nor can it claim to serve a remote country on the periphery of Europe.
Yet its postal services are disastrous, even though it has a reserved right to provide them.
This is why we are giving the green light for the next step.
May I also point out, Commissioner - and this is the second of the motions we have tabled - that we should like to have a report by 31 December on this next step that we are about to take, so that Parliament and the Council can jointly decide on further steps towards more open markets, and I also hope that you will be able to present a clear evaluation report in the year 2003, on the basis of which we can then initiate the next moves.
Madam President, Mr Simpson, I can assure you both that it is certainly not my intention to decimate the postal services.
Quite the reverse, in fact: I intend to make them more effective, and Mr Ferber' s report is not a sound proposal in my opinion.
Some of my colleagues do not share my opinion on a number of scores, as will become evident in due course.
I thought the Commission' s proposal was a sound one.
It represents an important step towards an internal market, and is important for consumers and companies who use those postal services, but we closed the door on it.
At this rate, we will need 100 years to bring about an open market for postal services in Europe.
Mr Simpson, your predictions have, as far as I can tell, not materialised in Sweden, although that country operates an open-market system.
The same holds true for the Netherlands, and when I talk face to face with other people from postal companies, they do not express these concerns either.
I therefore assume that you are only voicing half-truths and saying what you like to hear.
I have tabled an amendment. At the very least, that will give us an end date.
I believe that my amendment is gradual and controlled.
It is not as ambitious as I would have liked, but I feel it is a sound compromise.
We are now facing a peculiar situation, really.
Although we go along with the postal monopolies, I notice that the German postal services are floating their company on the stock exchange, the Mecca of capitalism, and advertising in the Belgian newspapers to sell their shares because they are a profitable company.
And where do these profits originate from? A monopoly.
I have noticed that the Royal Mail has shares in a postal company in Sweden because over there, it can compete within an open market.
But I ask you: would a Swede be able to compete in Britain? No.
This is the type of situation which we want to avoid.
In this case, we are on the same side as big business.
They have literally laid down the law.
It is a hypocritical situation, if you ask me, because these companies now have a finger in all sorts of pies and are paving the way for the free market.
They are doing this very actively.
They are restructuring and are making people redundant, Mr Simpson, even though they are monopolies, and I believe we are protecting those interests.
We have turned the safety net for post users into a hammock for those large postal companies where they can carry on doing what they are now getting away with.
I object to this practice and will vote against it.
Madam President, the legislative proposal before us concludes a high-quality parliamentary debate which testifies, if indeed it were necessary, to Parliament' s irreplaceable role in voicing the opinions of European citizens and giving expression to the diversity of experience from one region to another.
If the voices of users and consumers, the postal workers and the unions are listened to, if attention is paid to the concerns of the public authorities and of local councillors and if account is taken of the opposition voiced by a number of governments to this development, then it might well be wondered where Commissioner Bolkestein' s proposal has come from, so unrealistic and unworkable does it appear to be.
How was the Commission, which is supposed to represent the overall interests of Europe, able to propose a development so contrary to what is called for by the relevant players? Is there a certain kind of ultra-liberal dogmatism that makes one particularly blind and deaf?
How has the Commission been able to avoid assessing the previous stage before proposing moving on to the next stage?
All it would seem to have drawn from the Lisbon conclusions is about how to pursue liberalisation by means of directives, while the emphatic reference to the role of services of general interest is at present reflected only in communications and statements.
However, we know that guaranteeing equal high-quality access to everyone everywhere requires tariff equalisation to be maintained and a certain number of services to be kept for those providing a universal service.
The right to innovation should also be guaranteed so as to take account of changing needs, the consequences of the development of the information society and the fight which may be required to ensure that no one is excluded from this society.
I think it would be logical to reverse the burden of proof rather than always have to justify exceptions to the sacrosanct principle of the internal market.
It would be more in keeping with citizens' expectations to restore the balance where public services are concerned by making any new extension to the commercial sphere conditional upon respect for the fundamental objective of the sustainable development of European society.
Madam President, I should like to make three remarks.
Firstly, the Commission' s new postal directive envisaged, in fact, the almost total liberalisation of postal services.
By putting operators in competition with each other in the most profitable areas, it would lead to the closure of a large number of post offices, job losses and insecure jobs and would result in social dumping.
We are given two reasons for the need for further liberalisation.
Firstly, to continue the process of creating a large, liberalised European market while stating that liberalisation of this kind would create jobs.
However, no one is deceived into believing that the Commission' s proposals are not part of an initiative to abolish the universal service.
Secondly, reference is made to the 1997 Directive.
However, if liberalisation had been such a great success, then why, in spite of the repeated requests by Parliament, has the Commission still not carried out a public critical assessment of the consequences of the first phase of the liberalisation of the sector in 1997, not only in terms of employment, but also in terms of postal rates and the number of post offices remaining throughout Europe?
My second remark is this: as soon as it was known about, the planned new directive elicited a great many reactions. The fact is, across the range of very different approaches, the proposals made have been deemed inadmissible by a majority of players in the postal services field and also by a great many parliamentarians.
Trade unionists, consumer associations and postal workers have expressed their views right here in Strasbourg.
A European appeal has been launched by the MEPs in three of our parliamentary groups.
What has been gauged is the considerable importance people attach to their local post offices.
What lies behind this concept is what it represents as an integral component in social cohesion and harmonious urban and rural planning.
Social cohesion is a frequently recurring theme here in Parliament.
Like a good many others, it is a term requiring some practical expression.
I believe, moreover, that it is this which has made it possible to curb the most retrograde provisions of the directive proposed by Commissioner Bolkestein.
Indeed, the notion of special services is eliminated by the amendments of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism and by taking account of the opinions of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I am very pleased about that, because this notion of special services was in any case intended to exclude new technologies from the scope of universal service.
The 50-gramme weight limit proposed for the reserved sector has been increased to 150 grammes, the rates have been increased from two and a half times to four times the standard tariff and the dates from which the new directive is to apply, like the date for transposition, have been put back. I also think it important that there is no longer any reference to a new time limit for liberalisation and that there is, in addition, a formal requirement for a genuine assessment.
Finally, my third and last remark: although these initiatives are worth emphasising and represent serious resistance to the initial project, we ought not to deceive ourselves that we are not embarking upon a new phase in the liberalisation of the postal sector.
That is something about which I, unlike other colleagues, was not happy.
We therefore need to remain vigilant.
We need to ensure that there are no harmful consequences for employment and for the post office network, or for postal rates, because we are told it is to be beneficial.
However, Parliament also needs to work on determining what is required of a high quality universal service relevant to the demands of the new century within the European Union.
Social and economic development is leading to an explosion in the need for information.
Enabling everyone to access the various means by which information is transmitted is crucial to the economy and to society.
It is not, however, possible to enable everyone to access these modes of transmission in the framework of unfettered competition.
The modern economy, which was so dear to those at the Lisbon Summit, needs a modern universal service developing along lines quite different to those of the dogma of liberalisation.
The fact that restraints have been placed on the initial project and yet, at the same time, the fact that a new phase of liberalisation is being embarked upon will lead me to abstain from voting on Mr Ferber' s report.
Madam President, I hope that the broader membership of the European Parliament will accept the recommendations of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism concerning the future administration of postal services within the European Union.
The opening up of postal services to greater competition is one of the recommendations of the Transport Committee.
However, we must recognise that unfettered competition in the area of postal services would result in a severe reduction in the quality of these services in rural and peripheral parts of the European Union.
Therefore, it is recommended that universal postal providers within the Union will be able to deliver all postal items below 150 grammes in weight.
This will have the effect of protecting the quality and continued regularity of postal service deliveries.
Private operators will also be able to deliver letters at four times the price of a normal letter.
We should be clear on one specific matter when we are discussing this new directive.
There has been absolute and total consultation between all interested parties in the field of postal services in Europe concerning the specific provisions of this directive; and I am satisfied that these proposals which have come through the Transport Committee of the European Parliament are realistic and pragmatic.
They will ensure the economic viability of the rural post office network in my country and in other rural and peripheral parts of the European Union.
Regular postal deliveries must be seen as an essential economic and social element in rural villages and towns.
I would be very clear on one particular matter.
If there is unfettered competition in providing postal services in Europe, then lucrative urban areas will be cherry-picked by private operators at the expense of the poorer and less profitable rural parts.
We cannot, Madam President, Commissioner, and will not, tolerate such a situation.
That is why I urge all Members to support the amendments tabled by the Transport Committee of this Parliament with regard to the future administration and workings of postal services in Europe.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by expressing my satisfaction at the fact that this debate is being held today instead of during the January part-session, although this is the result of a minor tussle between the groups.
In my opinion, we are benefiting from the fruit of a wise decision which will further the progress of this extremely important dossier.
The Presidency undertook to deal with the issue and intended to do so before the end of its mandate.
If we are able to make an effective contribution, then that will, in any case, be a step in the right direction.
This is a dossier which warranted swift treatment.
I say this in all sincerity, for we Italian radicals feel, on the contrary, that the Commission's proposal, put forward by Commissioner Bolkestein, makes complete sense and that it would bring about both gradual opening-up of the market to competition and, in any case, the establishing of fixed time frames for all operators. This proposal could not be considered to be as laissez-faire as some say it is.
On the other hand, parts of the Ferber report would appear to weaken the proposal.
In fact, it provides for minimal subsequent opening-up of the market and provides absolutely no certainty regarding future steps while, as far as the universal service is concerned, the Swedish example should reassure all those who feel that privatisation will mean the end of the postal services.
This is and must not become the case.
We must remember that the postal services and, in general, logistics must in the coming years be one of the fundamental bases for the development of the new economy and that, if we adopt defensive tactics to protect the status quo, defending the major interests of monopolies and unions, then thousands of jobs will be threatened.
This would be in outright contrast with the goals the European institutions set themselves in Lisbon.
Madam President, Commissioner, the internal market is said to have been established many years ago within the European Union.
Despite this, protectionism is still very much alive.
This is certainly the case within the postal sector.
While electronic communication, such as e-mail, has enjoyed a real boom, former state monopolies are mainly turning inward.
A gradual introduction of competition within the post is to be welcomed so as to acknowledge its social function.
This is why the European Commission has not suggested liberalising all postal services as a second step in the process.
According to Commissioner Bolkestein' s proposal, more than two thirds still remains in the hands of monopolies.
But this is not enough for a dozen or so national postal companies.
Backed by a massive lobby, they managed to persuade the majority of this House to adopt an even more conservative stance.
It is exactly those groups which like to portray themselves as progressive who are putting the brakes on.
When I then hear that the monopolists are opposed to this idea, it is like asking a turkey how it feels about Christmas dinner.
The monopolists are combing the markets and buying up private companies with funds generated by the monopoly.
Experience in Sweden and the Netherlands, among others, has taught us that the objections to a free postal market are unfounded.
There are no remote addresses which are being excluded and employment will recover after the necessary efficiency operations.
The worst decision which the European Parliament could make this week would be to abandon an end date for the second phase.
If the step which the European Parliament now wants to take is far too small, let us then at least ensure that we pick up the thread in a couple of years' time.
In a climate of honest competition, monopolists can show what they are made of.
Madam President, I come from the most deregulated country as far as the postal service sector is concerned.
At the same time, it is the country where the highest number of letters are delivered the day after they have been posted.
Also, no other country in the European Union has such fast distribution of post from abroad.
There is a connection between all of this.
Even though the previously dominant national company in Sweden is still by far and away the largest, the growing competition currently from 50 other companies has meant that they have been forced to become considerably more efficient than they were before.
It is this kind of future I would also like to see in the other countries within the European Union.
Allow me briefly to say a few words regarding the quite obvious hypocrisy also found within this sector.
The British Royal Mail and the French La Poste, to name but two, oppose any form of competition in Great Britain and France respectively.
This does not prevent both companies from wanting to get in on the act and claim a share of the market in countries where deregulation has taken place.
It would, of course, be reasonable for the Commission to examine the legality of companies who refuse other companies access to their markets and yet gladly claim a share of the market in countries where deregulation has taken place.
Allow me to conclude by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Ferber, who has made several attempts at reaching a compromise.
There should be no reflection on him, but there has been a lack of desire on the part of others.
I do not consider the current draft to be a compromise.
It would have been a compromise if an end-date for completion of the liberalisation had been set.
If this date is set later than, for example, 2007, it will, in my opinion, be completely meaningless.
By then, the market will have resolved this issue.
There is therefore currently no reason to support such an amendment, and in that case I see no alternative than to vote against the report.
Madam President, Council, Commissioner, I understand the desires expressed by some of my colleagues for an end-date and for moves towards greater liberalisation.
I am not expressing an objection in principle to either of these but my concern, too, is with sustaining a good-quality, affordable and genuinely universal service provision.
I speak in support of the 150-gramme limit for reasons of caution.
In the UK, many areas are fortunate enough to enjoy a much higher level of universal service provision than the current directive requires, but aspects of our services are already under threat, particularly post offices in rural areas. These are particularly vital in my own constituency of Scotland.
No one has yet succeeded in reassuring me about the effects of the Commission proposal in both these respects, which is why I am not only supporting the 150-gramme compromise but asking for a thorough review or reviews on the effects for universal service provision before any other proposal or proposals come forward.
If, as has been reported, the EU is prepared to consider sport in a special way, should we not also consider postal services in a special way? Sport is a business for some and leisure for many, but postal services, though they may be a business for many, are indeed a lifeline for us all.
Madam President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Green Group, I would like to talk about this dossier, and I would especially like to congratulate Mr Ferber and Mr Jarzembowski on the expert way in which they have walked the political tightrope and on the flexibility they have displayed in the process. I would also like to congratulate our co-rapporteur, Mr Simpson, on his perseverance.
In the Dutch newspapers, Mr Bolkestein recently criticised the French for adopting a non-liberal attitude, or, at least, that is how the headline in one of the newspapers read.
By the same token, I could criticise the Commissioner for not really applying the Dutch consultative model to this situation and for failing to anticipate the social implications which a liberalisation proposal such as this would have.
After all, you may quote facts and possibly be right in terms of what Mr Sterckx had in mind, i.e. technological development, the way in which the sector is developing, the role of state companies, the way in which the Deutsche Post has now taken over DHL, etc., but this does not mean that you are right.
I believe that being proved right is an important matter in this House.
In my view, we are taking one step back instead of forward.
Many have levelled the criticism, which I share wholeheartedly, that we did not have the impact studies at our disposal.
Where it was possible to study the impact studies, it appeared that the social aspects in particular had been neglected in terms of social cohesion, employment, special services, etc.
Similarly, consultation involving the social partners simply failed to meet the mark, and it is against this background that my group will most certainly support these proposals.
In other words, the question is raised as to whether my group supports the deferment of liberalisation, which brings me onto another topic.
In the capacity of rapporteur of the general interest services for our committee, there is no doubt that we will need to cast a critical eye over these developments.
Madam President, Mr Ferber, you were absolutely correct when you defined the key criteria as affordable prices, high quality and universal availability. We agree with you there.
But you did forget one other criterion.
Our responsibility for our national economies also obliges us to maintain a high level of employment.
Because we share these values, this Commission and this committee took the decision they did, and for that I actually ought to be grateful to the privatiser and liberaliser-in-chief, Mr Bolkestein.
Anyone who is so ill-prepared to enter into negotiations, anyone who fails to present the requested report on the impact of the 1997 Directive, anyone who argues from an ideological platform - "We shall achieve these very aims you have identified by liberalising, liberalising and liberalising again" - need hardly wonder when he falls flat on his face!
Your original report, Mr Ferber, was very closely modelled on Mr Bolkestein's, and I must express my gratitude to you for the fact that you allowed reason to prevail in the end.
I do believe that the compromise which is now on the table takes account of the aforementioned criteria, and I am delighted that our rejection of the general liberalisation of express services and cross-border services has now been set down in black and white.
I am pleased that special services have not been redefined.
I am gratified that there is no deadline for liberalisation, because the paramount aim from a national economic point of view must be to provide the population with proper postal services.
I believe that a guaranteed universal service is the only way to achieve this aim in practice.
I am not a dyed-in-the-wool opponent of the market or of liberalisation, but the request that was made for a systematic, professional and painstaking analysis of all the implications of the directive has not been met, and that is why I am prepared to accept the present compromise proposal.
Mr President, Commissioner, the willingness to listen and the commitment which the rapporteur has shown in drawing up this report are to be appreciated and sincerely applauded. He states in the explanatory statement that he was forced to seek a compromise between hundreds of largely homogeneous amendments.
In effect, we do not feel that there is any other fair way to settle an issue which is so complex and, at the same time, so paradoxical. The complexity is caused by the implications for 15 different national situations, although all with exactly the same problems - maintaining a high-quality universal service and at least keeping levels of employment stable - and the paradoxical nature of the matter is mirrored in the contrasting elements of the reform proposed by the Commission.
I would mention by way of example the time frames of the reform proposal and its entry into force, the fact that we have no knowledge of the effects of the first directive and the attractive, though groundless, observations on the future of the reform, starting with employment and its quality, maintaining an adequate universal service and the impossibility in material terms of accomplishing reform without recourse to a compensation fund.
Spain might be able to enlighten us on this matter, for it established the fund and has used it, and I would mention the uncertain legal bases of the fund, the virtual criteria used in its composition and the discretionary authorisation of its application.
Moreover, the report does not mention the geomorphologic characteristics of the different countries and the resulting differences in the costs of the universal service even though the categories of users are the same.
The rapporteur is right, therefore, when he states that the compromise reached is the only compromise possible.
Otherwise, irregular dealings would have gone on which would have been anything but transparent and above-board, with pandering possibly leading to conjuring tricks involving the special services during the transition to the private market.
With regard to this, it would be as well for the Commission to conduct an inquiry to ascertain whether a private postal monopoly is not being created in Europe in the face of the process of liberalisation of the public postal monopolies, and to indicate what, in its opinion, the maximum permissible concentrations should be.
Madam President, today' s debate was intended to represent a small step forward in the liberalisation process of the postal services.
I have yet to see an internal market topic which has caused so much misinformation, emotions and bitter reproaches to be exchanged.
One of those reproaches concerns countries which are now professing liberalisation, but have not made any changes at home.
According to my Spanish colleagues - and I would like to check this out with the Commissioner - Spain has transposed the 1997 Directive in its entirety, others have not done anything, and those who have not done anything would now like to take huge steps to make up the difference.
Mr Bolkestein, the Commission is the Guardian of the Treaties.
Is this true, and if so, what steps have you taken? Also, I would appreciate it if you could outline exactly to what extent the old directive has been transposed in the different countries.
Spain' s attitude in this matter is proving to be absolutely crucial.
The misinformation has been about people in favour of liberalisation.
They are also supposed to be against the universal provision of services as a matter of course.
This is simply not true.
Quite the reverse in fact: the concept of universal services is ideally suited to solve problems encountered in rural areas and areas which are difficult to access, via agreements and, if need be, compensatory funding.
However, I am firmly opposed to monopolists who do not tolerate anybody on their home patch but take the liberty of making their purchases on liberalised markets. Who distributes the post in Sweden?
Who can compete in Sweden on a free market? The Royal Mail, which Mr Simpson takes such an indulgent attitude towards.
He has tabled an amendment on the public/private relationship.
But to be absolutely certain that nobody could take this amendment further, he only submitted a recital and not an article.
Fortunately, there is a directive in place which prescribes transparency for public companies, and I can assure you that gross subsidies will be monitored at very close range.
No more public money to spend within liberalised markets.
Go and play on your own turf.
I trust the Commissioner will promise that he, together with Commissioner Monti, will exercise extra vigilance.
I would like to finish off with one last observation. I am extremely disappointed at Parliament' s conservatism.
We are voting tomorrow, and I hope the amendments by Mr Atkins or Mr Sterckx will be adopted, otherwise I will have no choice but to vote against this report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we processed all aspects of Mr Ferber's report in committee and it has now been tabled before Parliament.
I make no bones about the fact that, as a Greek, I had - and still have - acute cause for concern because some of the European Commission's proposals, if they are implemented, will hit the universal postal service in Greece very, very hard, not in the densely-populated areas, but in the remote mountain villages and on the small, remote islands.
This, of course, does not only apply to Greece.
In the end, the rapporteur accepted a number of views which, if they prevail, as we hope they will, do much to improve the situation.
Crucial issues such as the 150-gramme limit rather than the derisory 50 grammes proposed by the Commission, a price four times the basic standard tariff, rather than the two and a half times proposed by the Commission and the express service are handled much more realistically in the report, as are cross-border postal services.
On the last point in particular, I was most impressed by the European Commission's arguments, based as they are on the low average ratio between cross-border postal services and total mail volumes in each Member State.
It is extremely unscientific to use the average as an indicator when there is such a wide spread between the figures used to calculate it.
For example, in the present case, a country with a much lower than average ratio will obviously not have any problems, while a country with a much higher ratio will despair if it has to liberalise cross-border postal services as Mr Bolkestein proposes.
In other words, it is like calculating the average income of the richest and the poorest person, which of course gives a perfectly satisfactory figure per se but can hardly be deemed to be socially acceptable to the poorest person.
I should like to finish, having congratulated and thanked the rapporteur, by expressing the hope that Mercury, the winged messenger of the Gods, will continue to fly to the most remote inhabited points and that the knock on our door in the morning will herald either the milkman or the postman.
Madam President, allow me to address Mr Simpson.
I understand that Mr Simpson has been to Sweden and to Norrland, which is one of the 'worst' , but most splendid, sparsely-populated areas in the whole of Europe.
You do not appear to have learnt anything, and you do not appear to have listened to the arguments that were put to you.
I have many reports which you may read and in which you will find reasons why liberalisation is so important and such a good idea.
The Royal Mail competes with other companies and delivers letters to me in Malmö in Sweden.
This, in my opinion Mr Simpson, is a good thing.
In this way I get a better and cheaper service.
The Commission's proposal is a good one, but it is not sufficiently liberal.
The text of the report takes the wrong line.
The postal service monopoly must be abolished.
The interests of consumers are best served in a market with free competition.
We know this.
This, of course, also applies to the postal market.
Why should other conditions prevail in this market? The rapid technical development and the requirements placed on postal companies to adapt their activities quickly make an end-date for the abolition of the monopoly necessary - as early a date as possible.
I personally think that 2007 is much too late.
Madam President, the Swedish postal service was completely liberalised as early as 1993.
At that time, I was a member of the Swedish Parliament and was involved in taking that decision.
The Swedish Post still has 95 per cent of the market share in Sweden.
In order for private postal deliverers to have a reasonable chance of establishing themselves in the market, it is therefore necessary for them to capture a large share of the market, i.e. for the market to be competitive.
We in this House must give the postal market a chance.
These are new times, Mr Simpson.
I would like to say: "Learn from Mr Blair."
In conclusion, I would like to say that the postal service in Sweden has not deteriorated, in some respects it has even improved.
The costs are not higher than in other countries.
If we do not do something about the postal service now, it will be even worse in a few years.
Consumers will lose out, employees will lose out, Europe will lose competitive strength and growth.
Good luck, Mr Bolkestein!
Madam President, Commissioner, what we have learned from the debate or, rather, the controversy created by Commissioner Bolkenstein in his quest to liberalise the postal services, undertaken in the absence of any assessment of the first phase and in contravention of the rules defined by this directive is that, under cover of progressive and status-enhancing terms such as modernisation, liberalisation and keeping pace with rapid technological developments, we are slipping into a situation in which the social quality of countries is declining.
What is being destroyed is the very spirit of local public service, universally appreciated and respected.
Let us therefore regard this important phase of examining this directive as a manifestation of the agreement and the bond between Parliament and the citizens of Europe.
We have been able to find a majority of MEPs to respond to the questions and challenges it raises, as well as the fundamental risks it poses for the images of our various countries, the identity of our public services and the cohesion of our societies.
In this connection, I would thank the rapporteur, Mr Ferber, as well as Mr Simpson for the result that has been achieved.
I am all the more grateful due to the fact that my own group has distinguished itself in this counter-offensive.
We had joined together in firmly denouncing these liberal excesses and their harmful effects on the territorial, economic and human fabric of our Member States.
As a Frenchwoman, I am only glad that I have no part in the dismantling of that reassuring and life-affirming network of 17 000 post offices and sub-post offices, knitted together over 550 000 km2 of our territory and embodying public service for our citizens, in both suburban and rural areas.
This debate on postal services is also a warning to the Commission. It will have taught them that impartial and objective studies prior to the issuing of directives ought to be the rule and that, because economic liberalisation does not in any way constitute progress if it is synonymous with social dehumanisation, the notion of general public service ought to be preserved.
Account ought also to be taken of indicators to the contrary, such as the liberalisation of postal services in Sweden, and of subsidiary aspects such as the quality of post office jobs and the symbolic value of the post office.
In the light of this, I entirely support the compromise proposed by Mr Ferber and Mr Simpson.
Madam President, the public monopoly for postal services was introduced in the nineteenth century for a very good reason.
The governments which brought this about were not Socialist, but Conservative or Liberal.
They only made this decision after it transpired that private companies were unable to guarantee a swift, regular, steady, affordable and universally deployable service.
The radical reform which the Commission proposed at the beginning of this year is threatening to turn the clock back by two hundred years.
Why should we impose that model which is now being tested in the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland on the entire European Union as a permanent measure? Apparently, the proposal is founded on an ideological principle, namely that companies should no longer be publicly owned.
If this is the case, then not only banks, chemical companies and steel companies must be privatised, but also public utility companies such as the energy supply, public transport and the postal services.
On the one hand, the proposal aims to create a great deal more space for competing private companies, without waiting for the promised evaluation of the effects previous liberalisation decisions have had.
On the other hand, the proposal would mean that the position of a group of interested companies which benefit from the wholesale liberalisation of the postal company would be strengthened from 2007 onwards.
The proposed liberalisation has sweeping implications for the services in rural areas, for employees of postal companies and for private users of the post.
It ultimately means that there will be fewer post offices, the service will slow down and the post office will no longer be able to provide the social services functions.
Nor let us not overlook the higher rates due to the fact that different service companies will operate alongside each other.
This translates into longer hours and less job security for the staff.
It is unlikely that the planned protection of the universal provision of services by means of a compensatory fund, as a result of which private profits are ploughed back into public services, will last.
Fledgling companies could in future cite this restriction in their freedom as grounds for filing a complaint on account of improper government intrusion and distortion of competition.
This is why it is positive that a majority of this House now refuses to take matters as far as Commissioner Bolkestein proposed at the beginning of this year.
This has my support, but it would also be preferable if mail between 150 and 350 grammes remained in the hands of the existing postal companies.
Madam President, the postal services in all of our Member States fulfil functions way beyond what is purely market activity.
Postal services are of immense socio-economic importance and have always played a key role in social cohesion.
The current proposals have been the subject of very emotional debate right across the Union, particularly in my own rural constituency, and rightly so.
I represent the constituency of Connacht Ulster in the west and border counties of Ireland, which is predominantly rural and one of the most peripheral regions.
The Commission's proposal to liberalise the postal services has been discussed intensively across the length and breadth of my constituency from Malin Head to Connemara and from the outskirts of Dublin to the islands.
It was evident to me when the proposal first appeared that it would never be acceptable in the shape in which the Commission presented it.
Parliament - which is the institution best placed to reflect the views of the citizens of Europe - made this clear to the Commission and the Commissioner even before he was appointed by us.
In spite of this, the Commission chose to ignore the view expressed by the vast majority of Members of this House from various Member States and political groups.
I sense a clear consensus amongst Members that this directive must address the very real concerns of citizens for the future of a viable post office network.
It is regrettable that the Commission opted instead to bulldoze ahead with the ideological proposal that fails to pay attention to the views of the people.
I want to commend the rapporteur on a very fine report: a report that reflects the views of the vast majority of the Members of this House and, indeed, of practically all citizens of Europe.
Mr President, I would like to add my voice to those who have expressed genuine congratulations to Mr Ferber on his work rather than merely going through the motions. His task was made difficult by the complexity of the subject and further complicated by the limits of the Commission's proposal and the delays it suffered.
These limits and delays also contributed to a debate in which the ends are often confused with the means.
We all agree on the fact that we need a high quality service with the lowest possible tariffs for the consumer.
It appears that we all agree - and this is my personal opinion - that the lever of competition and of a progressive, gradual liberalisation is also useful for this purpose, but that it is not the end: it is the means to the end.
If we think that we can put liberalisation forward as the solution to all the problems, then we are wrong, also because it would be a mistake in this sector not to recognise the need, which exists and which cannot be denied, for a universal service and for the guarantee that running the services will also provide the necessary means to cover the additional costs of the universal service.
The questions that we should therefore be asking are rather: how great a monopoly is necessary in order to guarantee the provision of these means? We therefore need to have access to the studies and analyses, which differ from State to State and from country to country in order to guarantee the achievement of this objective.
How can we make it possible for the services and industrial management, inside as well as outside the reserved area, to restore quality in order to reduce the reserved area necessary to guarantee those means? This will mean removing the definition of special services which, paradoxically, would prevent the operator of the reserved area from upgrading its services.
I hope that, in future, the Commission will present to us studies and more comprehensive proposals as alternatives to those which have thus far constrained and limited our debate.
I will back unconditionally not the compromise, but Mr Ferber's recommendations, for I feel that they are the only recommendations possible under the current conditions.
Madam President, we are holding a real parliamentary debate because the positions were initially differing.
I must congratulate Mr Ferber and Mr Simpson on the excellent work they have carried out and which we are able to consider this morning.
From the Spanish experience, which has been mentioned a few times, I believe that Parliament' s amendments improve on the Commission' s proposal because it introduces moderation - strict moderation - into the pace of opening up and liberalisation.
We all agree on the need for this opening up and liberalisation, but the pace is important.
One message went completely unnoticed at the Nice European Council, and I think it is also close to Parliament' s position, which is that services of general interest must be taken clearly into account and be clearly favoured.
Madam President, the service we are considering faces fierce competition from the new information and communication technologies.
That competition cannot be considered in current terms, because the use of those technologies is undergoing a dramatic increase and we therefore have to view the issue with a little perspective.
This sector is already suffering from enormous competition from those new technologies.
We have included the special services in the directive itself, and I believe that Parliament has given them the added value that they must have because, otherwise, the Commission' s proposal could become a back door through which the services of general interest could be attacked.
Madam President, in dealing with this issue we are talking about economic and social cohesion.
It is very important to understand that it is not only the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Funds that have the task of defending economic and social cohesion; it is all the Union' s policies, as laid down in Article 158 of the EC Treaty.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the difficulties of finding a compromise have already been mentioned during the course of this debate.
It appears that the final solution is acceptable because it reconciles the need for competition with liberalisation and, most importantly, with the obligation for a universal service, and we know that there will be subsequent stages which will make it possible to assess the situation.
I particularly welcomed the fact that the reference to postal services in rural areas was accepted in committee. It was no coincidence that I tabled an amendment which also mentions the problems of mountains and islands.
I am making particular reference to mountainous areas, even though they do not always fall within the definition of rural regions, because, observing the development of the postal system in many European countries, the question of mountains is now one of the most difficult matters to resolve.
If we were to analyse the data already available to us, we would probably discover that a great deal, hundreds, maybe thousands of post offices have been closed in mountainous areas.
Clearly, over and above the evaluations of the economic quality of the system which always have to be carried out, the real risk is that the mountainous areas will become marginalised, and new solutions therefore have to be sought which make it possible to maintain an essential service such as the postal service, enhanced by other services.
In my opinion, this will be one of the major issues affecting the development of the European mountainous areas in the coming years.
Madam President, Arlette Laguiller and I reject any way in which private capital might be introduced into postal services.
The effects of the first directive have not been made public, for the consequences are obvious: job losses and poorer working conditions, public services of varying quality throughout Europe, especially in rural areas and working class districts.
A few large private groups will cherry-pick and divide up amongst themselves those profitable sectors of post office activity which the European Union is still preparing to offer them.
Now, a self-styled 'soft' version of the Commission' s liberalising proposal is offered to us, particularly in connection with the price-weight threshold of 150 instead of 350 grammes.
The gradual, controlled liberalisation presented by the French Presidency as a lesser evil is a hypocritical way of handing an essential public service over to a market which is neither controlled nor controllable, as has already been done in the case of France-Télécom.
When the left-wing coalition cites realism in an attempt to obtain a compromise solution with a right-wing party, it is a way of disguising its own capitulation to private interests.
The representatives of 'Lutte Ouvrière' and the 'Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire' have not been elected in order to ensure that public services are quoted on the stock exchange and will be voting against this compromise.
Madam President, firstly, please allow me to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Ferber, because his work has been complicated and difficult and he has had to try to find a balance between dramatically differing proposals, positions and points of departure and arrival.
But why has it been difficult? Because it is based on a Commission proposal which I believe was rotten from the outset.
And why was it rotten from the outset? Commissioner, please allow me to say that you know perfectly well, because the studies that you have at your disposal show that, for example, in Spain 44% of the postal service is liberalised.
And the proposal you are making in fact moves towards liberalisation.
But whom does that liberalisation benefit? It benefits those companies and those countries which so far have done absolutely nothing.
Actually, they have done something. They have massively financed their public postal service companies and now, rationalised, financed, with enormous economic power, they intend to enter the rest of the European Union' s postal service markets.
Therefore, those that have worked within the framework of the 1997 Directive are being penalised and those that have done the opposite are benefiting, and that is not a liberalised market or a process of homogenisation. That is not the construction of a cohesive and social Europe, as has been said previously.
We have to seek equality of opportunity; we have to seek a legal framework and a liberalising framework, within which we all have fair and balanced opportunities.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the compromise proposed by Mr Ferber is an extremely wise one and is inspired by the golden rule that the best is the enemy of the good.
This compromise, to which Mr Simpson and other Members also contributed seminal work, succeeds in taking into account the fact that, for the entire European field but particularly for the users who live in rural, peripheral, sparsely populated or disadvantaged urban regions, the postal services represent a fundamental link, a fundamental means of connection.
Moreover, the fact cannot be ignored that the sector employs almost two million people.
It is therefore right to proceed along the road to modernisation and efficiency, and there is no doubt that the liberalisation process which is already underway can also bring these results.
We want liberalisation but not blind liberalisation.
The process must continue according to the time frames and procedures which are appropriate to the complexity of the problems and do not affect the area of services of general interest, which are an essential cornerstone of social and territorial cohesion.
Therefore, my advice to you, Commissioner, is, to quote a well-known Manzionian phrase, 'Forward ... but carefully' .
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is as if we are debating the procession of Echternach today: two steps forward, one step back with the little progress we are making on one of the key political dossiers for completing the internal market, namely the liberalisation of the postal services.
The Commission proposal provides for gradual further opening and will, in my opinion, surely lead to better services for the consumer at a more competitive price.
As I understand it, this was the rapporteur' s initial view too, and his proposals were constructive.
However, the compromise proposal which was submitted by the two large parties to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism at the eleventh hour and brought about without the help of the Liberal Group, does not accommodate this view.
I, with many others this morning, continue to be in favour of restricting the reserved area down to 50 grammes.
This is more than enough to support the public tasks, such as adequate universal provision of services and a uniform rate.
The line of the compromise that 150 grammes should be four times the basic rate is not only over the top, it is also harmful to further liberalisation.
I fear that this will mean that the present monopolists can further strengthen their position on the back of the taxpayer and that the threshold for newcomers will be raised quite a bit.
But my key objection must be the lack of decisiveness.
This is evident from the compromise proposal from the two largest parties.
If according to them, the time is still not ripe for further opening, surely we should be able to make the necessary preparations so that the market can be further opened up?
This means that an end date must be provided.
The pressure is on.
I welcome a review in 2003, but it must lead to the next step: complete liberalisation by 2007.
The postal services are ready for it, so is the market, and the customer wants efficient, high-quality and affordable services.
The Commission proposal accommodates these requirements, but the rapporteur' s compromise proposal does not, which is why I reject it.
Madam President, I congratulate Mr Ferber on his report although we have some concerns that it does not go far enough.
We believe in the need for liberalisation, competition and value for money.
It is iniquitous that the Royal Mail in Britain is using taxpayers' money to intervene in continental liberalised markets whilst at the same time fighting to prevent that liberalisation in the United Kingdom.
That is why I have re-tabled some of the amendments which we discussed in committee and which we will be voting for - especially in relation to the liberalisation of direct mail.
That is essential for the development of the direct marketing industry.
We have concerns, also, about the increase back to 150 grammes from the 50 grammes that we believe is necessary.
We have, alongside this, an absolute commitment to the universal service obligation.
If it can be done in rural Sweden then it can be done in rural Britain without any great difficulties.
I do not take any lessons from the Labour Party about the rural areas.
When I was the Minister for the Environment in Britain I was responsible for producing a rural White Paper, which dealt with some of the problems relating to rural post offices, so I do not take messages from the Labour Party, however nicely spoken by Mr Simpson.
I am also glad to see that our continental Liberal friends are giving the lead to British Liberals.
British Conservatives support Commissioner Bolkestein and we intend to consider, in the course of this debate - and subsequently as the debate proceeds and as the amendments are considered - whether we will vote against the further compromise, however much I respect and regard Mr Ferber's report as a compromise in the face of many difficulties.
But, because we believe that Commissioner Bolkestein's original operation is much the best, we may well decide to vote against the further compromise in order to maintain those original proposals.
It remains yet to be seen.
We should consider it at the end of the debate.
Mr President, first of all, we do not want to force Sweden to change its postal system, but please do not force us to follow its example.
In Sweden the Post Office went from profit to loss.
Swedish Post lost jobs.
Sub-post offices closed down.
Prices for posting a letter in Sweden are 30% higher than they are in the United Kingdom.
And if I may now turn to the United Kingdom, privatisation of the Post Office in the UK was blocked because public opinion simply would not tolerate it.
What I find outrageous is for the Commission to propose privatisation through the back door.
But what is really inexcusable is for the British Conservatives to support the European Commission's plans to decimate our postal system in the United Kingdom.
It will be a triple blow to Britain and a triple blow in particular to rural Britain: an end to the daily delivery and collection; an end to the uniform price - people in rural areas will pay more for their post; and third and finally, an end to our extensive and excellent network of rural sub-post offices.
I appeal directly to the British Conservatives.
Maybe do not listen to us, but listen to the Women's Institute in the United Kingdom, listen to the Council for the Protection of Rural England, listen even to the Countryside Alliance.
All of them are backing Mr Simpson and opposing your party's views on this matter.
I hope that you and your friends can join with Labour in standing up for rural Britain by opposing the European Commission's plans.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Ferber, who indeed had a difficult task.
Commissioner Bolkestein's proposals were regrettably a bridge too far.
I certainly recognise that there is nothing wrong with the concept of liberalisation per se and that it can bring benefits to consumers.
However, it also brings certain obligations - particularly the need to guarantee universality of services.
This would not have been the case with the original proposals.
While they would have worked in highly urbanised countries, they spelt disaster for rural countries like Ireland.
In exposing somewhere between 46 and 48% of the revenue of An Post to competition, it would have created serious doubts for the long-term viability of the Irish postal service as we know it.
The cherry-picking that would have ensued would have jeopardised the ability of An Post to deliver daily and universally at reasonable cost.
Furthermore, the ability of our national postal service to cross-subsidise our rural post office infrastructure would have been put in serious doubt.
I therefore welcome the amended report that has emerged from the committee.
It is indeed a balanced compromise and I hope that it will be accepted by the Council.
Let me say this to An Post: if this happens, you will have been given a valuable breathing space.
Use it to develop and invest in Ireland's rural post office system.
There are many possibilities apart from the one-stop shop where all government services are available to the local community, such as e-commerce and the Internet.
Do not take the short-sighted easy option of allowing the rural post office system to die.
It is a decision that you will regret.
Mr President, the European Commission' s proposal amending the 1997 Directive on opening up the Community' s postal services to competition was justified and expected.
It was justified because it is in keeping with the logic of the founding Treaties of the European Union which prioritise the establishment of the internal market through the free movement of goods and services in a competitive environment.
Justified too, since 1990, by the positions successively adopted by the European Councils devoted to this sector.
Justified, finally, by the Lisbon European Council which, a few months ago, asked for this process to be speeded up.
It was expected, too, because the Commission was behindhand in implementing the commitments specified in the 1997 Directive.
However, the European Commission' s and Commissioner Bolkestein' s proposals have unleashed quite a commotion.
These proposals were logical enough, however.
What an outcry, though!
The compromise proposed in Mr Ferber' s report lags way behind the European Commission' s reasonable proposal, which is very modest - too modest, I fear - given the need for modernisation of the European economy.
And when, this morning, I see the whole of the European left wing congratulating Mr Ferber, I remain very sceptical about this compromise.
At this rate, it will be 60 years before the internal market has been completed in the area of postal services.
What temerity, but, above all, what a delay!
I cannot therefore help but draw a parallel with the outcome of the recent Nice European Council.
In the run-up to Nice, there were great proposals and noble ambitions.
At the Nice Summit itself there were great speeches but, at the end of the day, little was achieved.
In the same way, the great flights of rhetoric, here in this debate, on the need to build the new Europe do little to conceal the faint-heartedness and conservatism that exist.
All we can now do is hope that, one day, we shall be able to move on from the present stasis and give real impetus to the European project by overcoming the various forms of self-aggrandising corporatism.
Madam President, could I ask Mr Bolkestein to explain to Mr Watts the difference between privatisation and liberalisation?
Mrs Peijs, this is not a point of order and this is not the correct moment in the debate to make it.
Commissioner Bolkestein has the floor.
Mr President, the Commission realises from previous discussions the great importance of this subject for Parliament and I have carefully looked at the numerous amendments to the proposed directive.
There are some amendments, in particular those which emphasise the importance of the universal service and of the rural post offices, which I can support.
Universal service is the cornerstone of Community policy in this area and everything we do is designed to create a proper climate for its improvement.
With regard to most amendments, however, I must say that very little is left of the original proposal, which the Commission presented in May.
The Commission proposed a step-by-step approach, with a further stage of market opening of 20% overall to be taken in the year 2003.
What I see in return is not only a rejection of this degree of market opening but also of the dynamic process of modernisation itself.
What exactly do I see? Firstly, no 50 grammes, which goes against the need to create actual competition.
Secondly, no opening of outgoing cross-border mail although this is already a reality in ten Member States.
Thirdly, no definition or special services contrary to the existing directives' objectives and also contrary to the case law of the Court of Justice.
Fourthly, no opening of express mail, even though this is a new and separate market.
Fifthly, no step in the year 2003, which is contrary to Article 7 of the current directive, and sixthly, no timetable for further reform, which goes against the conclusions of the Lisbon Summit and the needs of the operators themselves.
This is not a positive way forward.
In particular, whereas the Heads of State and Government at Lisbon called for an accelerated market opening, the amendments which I have just now described would result in the opposite, namely a decelerated market opening.
The two years' delay in implementing the next step would not be consistent with the current directive.
The debate about modernising the postal sector started in 1989 during a Telecom Council at Antibes.
Look where we are now, more than ten years later.
Only 3% of the letter market has been liberalised.
Shifting the next step from 2003 to 2005 would be another delay that, I am afraid, is not acceptable to the Commission.
The degree of market opening as now proposed by Parliament would reduce the 20% of the Commission proposals to only 6% from the start of the year 2005, without any prospect of completion of the internal market in the postal sector and that, I am afraid, does not comply with the conclusions of the European Council, nor would it meet the needs and expectations of postal clients, both business users and individual households.
Nor would it meet the interests of the employees in the sector who want to look ahead.
In short it would be too little, too late, and would bring to a sudden halt the much needed momentum for further change, gravely harming the incumbent adaptation and threatening long-term employment.
In addition, stopping competition in outgoing cross-border mail would be a retrograde step, difficult to enforce by regulation and leading to complaints from competitors.
Special services are another very important area where innovation and modernisation must be encouraged.
Under the existing directive the principle is clear.
New and distinct services are always outside the reservable area but there is no clear definition of special services in the current directive, and that opens the door to endless debate and market uncertainty.
It would be unacceptable to allow continuing litigation to determine what happens here.
We need clearer definitions or else we would fail in our duty as legislators to modernise the regulatory framework.
I know that modernising the postal services sector is difficult and politically sensitive.
The post office is close to people, to consumers and to employees alike.
In this process of modernisation, fear should not be our guide but rather the challenge of improving the sector.
If we do too little, too late, the postal sector as a whole will be in danger.
It will be overtaken by technology and ignored by consumers who do not get service for their money.
I am sure that many of you, and in particular the rapporteur, will agree more than politics perhaps allows you to say.
I call upon all of you not to shy away from your responsibility as elected legislators to do what is required and to support a dynamic process of change.
May I quote three actors in this field.
Firstly, the chief executive of the UK post office, Mr John Roberts, has talked about competition leading to improvements in quality and efficiency and lower prices.
Secondly, the President of La Poste, Mr Claude Bourmaud, recently explained how the coming decade will herald the most profound transformation ever for postal operators around the world.
He said that between now and the end of the decade the opening to competition of virtually the whole postal market appears to be inevitable.
Thirdly, French Senator, Gérard Larcher, who is a well-known expert in the field of postal services, called upon all parties to look forward.
In 1997 he said, and I quote: "We should not deal with the problems of today by focusing on the notions of yesterday.
Let us open the debate to solve the problems of La Poste in the framework of tomorrow."
All three of these people make important points.
The postal service is increasingly having to compete in the wider communications market with modern technology developed by the Internet, mobile telephones and the integration of different means of communication.
The traditional post offices with their rigid structure of employment and slow adaptation to market requirements will not be able to compete in those markets if they are held back by Parliament's amendments.
Society demands a modern postal sector.
May I point to the main European consumer organisations, such as the BEUC, which have welcomed the Commission's proposal.
Many consumer organisations would want to move even faster than the Commission in opening the postal market because they expect greater competition to lead to higher service quality and lower prices, but the Commission has not proposed this fast-track liberalisation as preferred by consumer organisations.
Our proposal strikes a careful balance, because universal service providers will need time to change the structures further, to become more flexible enterprises so they can adapt to new market conditions.
Only the introduction of real competition in a controlled and progressive way, according to a fixed timetable, will assist them to do this.
If the European legislator fails, those Member States progressing rapidly down the road indicated by the Lisbon Summit will be penalised, as their postal operators will be subject to competition from operators benefiting from an extended monopoly.
Most of the amendments adopted by Parliament's Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism would, if accepted, lead to a situation where hardly anything would change.
This would mean that postal services would increasingly lose ground to other means of communication.
It would be a very short-sighted approach.
It would be a rearguard battle.
The monopoly of postal services would cause them to ossify and lose volume which would lead to losses of jobs.
I am aware of your concern about preserving the universal service and the postal network and I share this concern.
I stand for cast-iron guarantees that universal service obligations will always be protected.
Where we differ is the method to achieve this goal.
Trying to preserve this status quo and maintaining the structures of the past is not the right way.
The market requires flexibility and adaptability to the new communications environments.
The Commission proposal responds to this requirement in a very reasonable and a gradual way.
It recognises that under the existing directive there was already a shift in the balance between the reserved area and other means to ensure a high-quality and enduring universal service.
These include licensing requirements, including universal service obligations for new entrants to the market, a compensation fund and setting tariffs at an appropriate level geared to costs.
However, without competition, the situation would become unbalanced.
In this spirit, I can accept those of your amendments which are non-contentious and others which rightly give emphasis to issues such as universal service as applied in Member States, redressing complaints, and the rural network.
These concern Amendments Nos 2, 3, 6, 7, 24, 28, 29, 32, 39, 40 and 41.
I can also accept the new amendments tabled yesterday, namely 46, first paragraph, 58 and 59, which clarify certain important points.
Regarding Amendments Nos 60 and 61, I can agree with the principle of completing the internal market at a future date to be determined within a reasonable time frame.
That is all in line with the Commission's proposal and the conclusions of Lisbon.
However, it will not surprise Members of this Parliament that the Commission cannot accept the remaining proposed amendments.
The reason is that they go against the grain of what the Commission has proposed - what is necessary to achieve the process of modernisation to the benefit of postal consumers and employees alike.
We must maintain the momentum for change and achieve a solid first step, plus a timetable for further change.
In conclusion, the European Union cannot afford to give uncertain signals in such an important area.
That is why I cannot and will not be silent when the future of the sector is threatened by a failure to meet properly the challenges set to us all at Lisbon.
If the European Union, of which the Members of this Parliament are the elected representatives, wants to have the most competitive, knowledge-based and dynamic economy in ten years time, it needs a modern postal sector.
Therefore, I would call upon all the Members of this Parliament to support the European mission and I conclude by saying that the time to act is now.
I notice that the postal services are helping us to warm up the House a little, and I am glad about that.
Mr Simpson, do you wish to take the floor or do you wish to give up that right? We would be grateful if you could give up that right, since we are running very late.
Mr President, it is a waste of time: there are none so deaf as those who will not listen.
Thank you very much, Mr Simpson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Bananas COM
The next item is the debate on the second report (A5-0374/2000) by Mr Dary, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation 404/93/EEC on the common organisation of the market in the banana sector [COM(1999) 582 - C5-0528/2000 - 1999/0235(CNS)]
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we return, then, to the subject of the bananas COM.
Last April, after having voted through a very large majority of the amendments I was proposing to the Commission' s text but faced with the latter' s refusal to accept any of these, we decided to refer the matter to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development with a view to finding a possible compromise.
Since there is no codecision procedure, it was the only way, since our priorities were to ensure guaranteed income and market access for both Community and ACP producers.
We tried to arrive at a conciliation with the Commission, but this did not really come about.
Now, however, Parliament is to deliver its opinion.
I would therefore remind you that, in November 1999, the Commission made its umpteenth proposal for modifying the COM in bananas, mainly with regard to external aspects and with a view to ensuring that this COM was compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organisation.
At that time, the Commission proposed maintaining a non-discriminatory, fixed-quota system with a slight rating preference for the ACP countries and the transition to a 'tariff only' system in 2006.
In April 2000, Parliament adopted my first report, together with its amendments, which ran counter to the Commission' s proposal.
In particular, the report proposed rejecting the automatic transition to a 'tariff only' system, a rating preference for the ACP countries of at least EUR 300 and an assessment and possible revision of the COM' s internal aspects.
The banana issue is a long way from being a mere anecdote and a great deal is at stake here.
Since 1993, the situation where Community producers are concerned has been constantly deteriorating.
The same applies to many traditional ACP supplier countries.
Well, I would remind you that the main objective of this common organisation of the market is to guarantee access to the Community market for these countries' products.
It is now already impossible for these producers to enter into fair competition with international producers and operators in the sector.
Let us remember that 62% of imports now come from third countries, mainly Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica and Honduras.
The idea here is not to be protectionist in defending products from certain countries but rather to safeguard the survival of a certain method of production.
Behind the issue of bananas, an attempt is being made to defend an entire production industry, upon which whole regions, their life force and social balance sometimes depend.
Entire months elapsed before, last October, the Commission published a communication on the application of the 'first come, first served' method to administering the quota system.
I emphasise that this was a communication and not a legislative proposal.
We have therefore had to continue working on the November 1999 legislative proposal.
There has been liaison with the Commission, and it was clear from the last meeting that the Commission was maintaining its position, i.e. a quota system administered according to the 'first come, first served' method and a transition to a 'tariff only' system in 2006.
My second report therefore looks very much like the first and again takes up the amendments voted on in Parliament.
Even in the absence of a legislative proposal, however, a pronouncement also needed to be made on the 'first come, first served' method.
Codecision does not mean that the system is fair, but it means that it is the only method compatible with the rules of the WTO.
However, the United States has already made it known that it rejects this system, as have the ACP countries, moreover.
Other than that our position thus remains the same: apply the system for at least ten years in order to guarantee producers' and operators' legal security and then re-examine the system at the end of the ten years; no automatic transition to a 'tariff only' system; and a rating preference of EUR 300 for the ACP countries.
We have asked for guarantees in the event of the Commission putting in place the 'first come, first served' system for administering the rating quotas, for there would be serious repercussions for the ACP producers, who are at present incapable of taking their place in the boat race which is about to begin.
It is therefore crucial to find, in addition to the EUR 300 rating preference, a means of permitting them effective access to quota 'C' and of making an ongoing assessment of the impact of the system on these producers.
I am pleased that we have still been able to arrive at a unanimous vote within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I should like to thank my colleagues, as well as Mr Fernández Martín, draftsman of the opinion for the Committee on Development and Cooperation, for his support.
To conclude, I should like to express my regret at the fact that, on a subject like this, the European Union appears to be abandoning its values in favour of the rules of world trade.
The economy is there to serve man and, in any system in which man predominates, the rules should be adapted to the wishes and needs of man, never the other way around.
The Commission and the Council would be abrogating their responsibility if they were to judge otherwise.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, after so many debates on the banana problem, today we are a little closer to finding a satisfactory solution.
I do not wish to get too excited, since we have been holding debates like this for eight years and we will hold more.
Today, however, after the agreement reached in the Council, the Commission' s latest proposal is closer to the position often expressed by a majority in this Parliament over the years.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation, on whose behalf I am speaking, supports the Dary report, since it responds to the fundamental problems.
It maintains the quota system which safeguards the sale of Community-produced bananas, it establishes a system of licences through the 'first come, first served' method, which conforms to the standard rules of world trade, and it provides for a non-automatic transfer to a tariff system which will require an assessment report on its possible impact.
This proposal has already been accepted by Ecuador, the world' s leading banana producer and one of the parties which has complained to the World Trade Organisation.
Commissioner, it is true that we still have certain reservations and differences.
We in Parliament are asking for a transitional period of ten years whereas the Commission proposes six; we are asking for a tariff of "a minimum of EUR 300" whereas the Commission says "a maximum of EUR 300" .
These are differences, it is true, but now we are talking a similar language, which is radically different to the one we have used for years.
Commissioner Fischler, I am glad that you have increased your flow of information.
Mr Schwaiger said during the previous debate that you should have information which further supplements all the different points of view on the problem.
You recently visited the Azores and you have recently been in the Canary Islands and you undoubtedly have a fuller view of the problem, which is still very complex.
For example, we feel bound to express our concern about banana production in certain ACP countries, in the small producing countries of the Caribbean and in certain countries of Western Africa, which have traditionally been suppliers to the banana market and to whom we have commitments that we cannot ignore.
Hurricane Mitch in Central America has unfortunately given us an example of what we find unacceptable.
In certain countries - Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala - Mitch destroyed the banana plantations.
Certain multinational companies, instead of contributing to the recovery of economic activity there, moved their business to other less affected areas and even to other countries, ignoring their obligations to thousands, or tens of thousands, of families and farmers who were on a wage of 10 dollars.
This is not the model of development that we Europeans want to see.
Some Members have expressed their concern about the negative consequences suffered by certain sectors, especially in the United Kingdom, as a result of the devious measures applied by the United States, which I believe do not conform to the GATT agreements.
We believe that the best way to help these companies is to find a way to resolve the conflict as soon as possible.
Therefore, we do not believe it is a good idea to postpone this debate, as certain people have suggested over recent weeks.
We have achieved a complex and delicate balance on this issue.
The Dary report was adopted unanimously in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and also received the unanimous support of the committee on whose behalf I am speaking.
I believe that the amendment tabled at the last minute by Mr Vatanen does nothing to help this issue, and I would ask him, if he is listening, to consider the possibility of withdrawing it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Dary, who has given us such a full explanation of the reform, its history and development - which I am not going to repeat.
I would also like to congratulate Mr Fernández, who has made such good use of his time to make us consider the fact that we have a series of commitments to fulfil.
The Dary report is a difficult and intricate piece of work which is worthy of praise, and has allowed us to unanimously approve a report on a truly complex issue.
Commissioner, it is frankly no easy task to bring together the interests of consumers with those of producers, as well as respecting the European Union' s international commitments to the ACP countries and the Lomé commitments signed in Cotonou, and also to combine efforts in favour of the outermost regions, while respecting the GATT rules for third countries and safeguarding diversity in European Union supply and production.
The workings of the compromise that has been reached, which comes within the WTO rules, must be studied by the European Commission in a report which will have to be studied by Parliament within a reasonable time limit and, in accordance with the result of that report and the study made of it, the appropriate corrective measures will have to be proposed, as Mr Dary' s report suggests.
We are not opposed to the 'tariff only' system, Commissioner, we only wish, given these sudden changes, to take the necessary precautions when it comes to making the leap from one system to another.
I therefore ask the Members of this House to endorse this report in its entirety, as did the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I am not going to say again that amendments such as the only one tabled by a certain Member do not help to achieve this.
I, like the previous speaker, therefore ask that this amendment be withdrawn.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to join previous speakers in congratulating the Commission - because the Commission has made an effort to reach a consensus - and the rapporteur, Mr Dary, for his efforts to reconcile the differing positions.
From the point of view of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the situation is clear.
The committee is in favour of the Commission' s proposal of maintaining the quota system by means of what is known as the "regatta" or the 'first come, first served' system, although, of course, it is not in agreement with the proposals aimed at the automatic transfer of the current quota system to a 'tariff only' system.
This conforms to the general philosophy adopted by this Parliament' s Agriculture Committee, which is that agriculture is not a normal industrial product and it is not therefore appropriate to apply generalised rules which are valid for industrial products.
The recent 'mad cow' crisis, which is going to cost the European Community, its producers and consumers dearly, is an example of how agriculture cannot be reduced to the level of industrial production and marketing.
In this regard, I would like to remind you that banana production is not alien to the Community.
It is a form of production which takes place in a range of special Community regions, the outermost regions, which suffer a range of difficulties in competing in the markets and one of whose few products is precisely this one - the banana.
As Mr Fernández Martín pointed out, Commissioner Fischler has recently been able to observe at first hand the state of the agricultural economy in these regions, which are so distant from the continental Community context.
Therefore, the proposals in the Dary report, approved unanimously in the Agriculture Committee, refer to the need to take account of the structural problems of these outermost regions, which furthermore have a new legal basis in Article 299(2) of the European Community Treaty, introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, and which is currently awaiting the adoption of the relevant proposals by the Commission.
The Socialist Group is therefore in favour of Mr Dary' s report and, of course, against Amendment No 36, presented by Mr Vatanen and other Members.
Mr President, for perplexed observers such as myself, this issue is moving from the bizarre to the surreal.
We seem to be faced with one series of proposals and counter-proposals after another, dealing with a transitional regime in which the Commission first proposes tariff rate quotas based on historical periods, reference periods, but then moves to a 'first-come, first-served' calculation.
Meanwhile, the US first condemns historical reference periods but now advocates its own historical reference periods.
It has become extremely difficult to follow.
For that reason, amongst many others, I will not comment on the bulk of Mr Dary's report but will try and focus on one issue of principle.
Whatever the transitional regime is - whether we go for a tariff rate quota and a licensing system which uses the so-called first-come-first-served system or the historical reference periods, whether it is before or after 1993 - we have to start accepting that this is a transitional regime which will at some point have to be replaced by a WTO-compatible 'tariff only' system.
We cannot continue year in, year out to avoid our international obligations.
The question is why? Mr Dary suggested that if we were to move towards a 'tariff only' WTO system we would somehow be surrendering ourselves to chaotic commercial forces.
The truth is quite the reverse.
The WTO is a set of rules.
It is actually an inhibition on chaos because it tries to institute rules which we all abide by.
The European Union has an overwhelming strategic interest to ensure that those rules are reinforced and not weakened, because if we weaken the WTO or the rule of law, who will win? It will be the big guys like the United States; it will be might is right; it will be brute commercial force that will win through.
So I urge you, let us agree on what the transitional arrangement will be according to Mr Dary's report.
But let us not turn our backs, as is suggested in Amendment No 11, on the idea that we must eventually move to a 'tariff only' system.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur for his work.
I am entirely in agreement with his aims.
But unfortunately, Mr Dary, it is not in our power to insist on the fulfilment of our wishes.
Strong forces are lined up against us.
Not only do views differ between States within the European Union, which is reflected, as we all know, in the difficulties experienced by the Commission in its attempts to come up with a proposal on this matter; there is also the involvement of the World Trade Organisation.
Powerful interests are at play, especially those of the Americans, who, although they are not banana-growers themselves, have invested American capital in the trading corporations.
We are familiar with the issues, and our concern that the legitimate interests of the ACP countries, of the smaller banana-growers, will fall by the wayside is surely not unwarranted.
We have tried to table amendments again as compromise motions.
I hope that the Commission will now accept these amendments.
Our main motive in tabling Amendment 35 is to ensure that the Commission reports to us on the impact of the proposed regime on the interests of the smaller banana-growers and on the ACP countries, so that, if there is to be a transition to a 'tariff only' system, we in Parliament shall have a basis on which to make a decision.
One thing is certainly clear and has been confirmed by the Commission, namely that this will have to be dealt with again in Parliament.
To that end, we shall need precise data.
Perhaps by that time we shall have achieved codecision on matters of agricultural policy, because decisive moves were made at Nice in the direction of parliamentary codecision; we only have to ensure in the post-Nice discussions that these good intentions are put into practice.
We shall most probably be in a more powerful position then, and this should be reflected in the banana report and in the objectives we lay down.
Mr President, I think this is the first time that my surname has been pronounced in my mother tongue.
Thank you very much.
It is no exaggeration to say that this is one of the issues to which all the institutions have paid the closest attention.
It is also important to point out that this issue, to my mind, has brought into conflict the interests of a couple of companies, represented by the United States, and those of the European Union, which was trying to protect the commitments given to its own farmers, and to the ACP countries.
Frankly, I believe that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development did the best it could, or what was within its power to do, in order to reach an agreement with the Commission.
We have accepted the use of the 'first come, first served' system, we have accepted a maximum reduction of the tariff preference of EUR 300 per tonne for the ACP countries, we have also tried to obtain guarantees for small and medium-sized enterprises, and we have also asked the Commission for a report on the system' s impact.
However, I believe that we can forecast negative effects on the smaller commercial operators and on producers in the ACP countries.
I have serious doubts, although I do not like stereotypes, that an image of the European Union giving in to pressure from two multinationals, represented by the United States, will do no more than confirm preconceived ideas.
It sometimes seems as though the Commission, in its proposals on deregulation in international trade and agricultural production, has gone even further than the Cairns Group.
I agree with Mr Dary' s accurate words on this issue.
In any event, we must recognise that the regulations and Treaties lay down obligations and that acts of deregulation that may benefit certain companies will cost the Union' s budget dearly.
In this regard I would like to express, not my agreement, but my amazement, at Mrs Schreyer' s statements yesterday on the agricultural budgetary context and the issue of bananas.
I would like to conclude by congratulating Mr Dary on his hard work, and the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the coordinators.
My group will vote in favour of the report in the idea that if we drag this issue out we are going to make it very much worse.
Mr President, this endless saga of the 'banana' conflict between the European Union and the dollar banana producing countries which is no mere anecdote but an object lesson in more ways than one, for 20% of the bananas consumed in the European Union are produced in the outermost regions of the Community, and these regions need this production for their development.
A further 20% of these bananas are produced in ACP countries which also need this production for their development and with which we have entered into commitments which we ought to respect.
Each group of countries has been able to develop its production because we were offering them a market which we ought not now to take away from them.
We should continue to have no problem about giving these producers the means to live by purchasing what they produce as a priority.
It is only afterwards, for the remaining 60%, that we can open our doors to external producers on a free-trade basis.
That was the thinking behind the COM in the banana sector, and that is the thinking behind our rapporteur, Mr Dary' s, counter-proposal.
The fact that the banana producers of the dollar zone are appealing to the dogma of what they call the 'intangible' free-trade doctrine in order to impose a 'tariff only' system upon us should not either impress or intimidate us.
Let us therefore remain as firmly committed to the particular cultivation method we favour as the Americans are to their protectionist system where sugar, tobacco, peanuts or dairy products are concerned.
We must hold fast, for if we give way today on the issue of bananas, why should we not give way tomorrow where the other common organisations of the market are concerned: on the CAP or European farm model advocating sustainable development? We ought to stick to our guns; otherwise, we shall lose all control over our food chain.
In line with the same principles, we shall have GMOs, hormone-treated meat and social dumping foisted upon us.
We must hold fast, and it is, rather, for the WTO to move on and to abandon its defensive, 'tariff only' fortress which is only too reminiscent of a profit only fortress.
The 'banana' issue is an important milestone on the path of this necessary development for which the European Union should be working with all its might.
Mr President, may I first of all highlight Parliament' s effort in reaching a balanced solution to this complex web of interests that surrounds the COM in bananas.
It is proof of this effort that we are, for the second time, discussing a report that puts forward excellent proposals to make support of banana production in the EU and the ACP countries compatible with the WTO rules.
It is a pity that the Commission and the Council still insist on a solution that may seriously jeopardise this production, particularly after 2006.
In this Parliament I represent Madeira, a region where bananas are the main agricultural product.
The same is true for other regions of the European Union, such as the Canaries and the French Overseas Departments.
All these territories constitute outermost regions.
These regions are not only among the most disadvantaged but are also the only ones where bananas are produced in the European Union.
This situation has to be taken into consideration in the definition of the new rules for the banana import regime.
The European agricultural model, based on the multifunctionality of farming, must also serve to safeguard European Union banana production.
Of the many different functions of farming in my region, the one that is becoming increasingly important is environmental protection.
In other words, the end of bananas in Madeira would be at least as serious from the economic viewpoint (serious collapse of income for thousands of producers) as from the environmental viewpoint (destruction of the subtropical landscape and the rural world, increased erosion).
Mr President, without this important environmental side, Madeira would be totally unable to sustain its 'goose that lays the golden eggs' , which is tourism.
Why, then, liberalise in 2006 when the quota system is perfectly compatible with WTO rules, as well as being the best guarantee that banana production in the Community and ACP countries can be maintained? In spite of everything, I still hope that the Commission will take due account of Parliament' s opinion as set down in the report now being debated, which I fully support and which tomorrow we shall surely adopt.
I conclude by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Dary, on the excellent job he has done.
Mr President, the rapporteur deserves thanks and some sympathy for handling this difficult report.
It is almost impossible to reconcile the conflicting commercial interests and the dispute with the WTO, but the rapporteur and the committee Chairman have worked hard to produce a report which provides the Commission and the Council with a more realistic negotiating brief.
I hope that the Commission will respond positively to the amendments, not with the blanket negative view of the last debate, and will acknowledge that each amendment represents legitimate concerns.
There are already indications that the Commission's first-come-first-served proposals are easing the negotiating process and that past trading volumes may yet be an element in the final outcome.
The dispute with the WTO has resulted in retaliatory trade sanctions and it is not easy to explain this to the exporters in Member States who are affected in quite arbitrary and unrelated sectors.
Our objective must be to achieve a revised banana regime that will be accepted at the WTO and reflect the EU commitment to the ACP and the most vulnerable suppliers in the Caribbean.
Successive WTO rulings do not say that we cannot give preferential treatment to our traditional suppliers.
The trick is how.
The Commission must demonstrate that their needs will be addressed.
It is not comfortable to accept the growth of trade liberalisation and a 'tariff only' system in the future, as the Commission has concluded, but it must be faced.
The higher the tariff that can be negotiated, the less we will need other measures to help the ACP and the Caribbean.
I believe that speeding up the negotiations gives the best guarantee of an acceptable tariff level, and for this reason, above all others, I call for full support for this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, while the issue of the liberalisation of the postal services has been important, the reform of the COM in bananas is no less important.
I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Dary, for the content of his report, since he is defending for the second time the maintenance of the quota system for banana imports into the European Union, thereby protecting Community production, and he rejects the automatic transfer to a 'tariff only' system, after a period of validity for the reformed COM which we believe should also be of ten years.
I would also like to thank the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for his desire his reach a compromise solution with the Commission.
I would also like to thank the chairmen of the political groups in this Parliament who have accepted the stubbornness and obstinacy of the Members from the outermost regions so that this proposal for reform of the banana sector may be debated today in this House, and the mandatory opinion may be issued and can thereby arrive in time for the meeting of the Council of Agriculture Ministers which will take place in the coming days and we can therefore enter 2001 with a new reform of the COM in bananas.
I hope that this COM will reflect the aspirations of the World Trade Organisation after so many years of trade disputes, as well as those of the Community producers.
I trust that, with the passing of time, the system of distribution known as the 'regatta' system, in other words, 'first come, first served' , may be accepted by the banana-producing countries.
I believe that the solution indicated by the rapporteur, which was approved unanimously in the Committee on Agriculture and which is now being considered in Parliament, is the least unsatisfactory solution for all the parties involved in this trade war, which began in 1993 and which now seems to be finding a degree of consensus amongst all the players, whether they be producers, sellers or consumers of one of the most emblematic agricultural products of European society, bananas, which, in the case of the Canary Islands, are unique.
The important thing is to gain time in this final straight and I propose that we vote in favour of Mr Dary' s report.
Mr President, as we know, this COM in bananas is of particular importance to the ACP producer countries and some outermost regions, as is the case of Madeira, both in terms of production and employment and in terms of the environment, because of the maintenance of productive vegetation, a fundamental issue for regional development itself.
Solving the current problem of the future of the common organisation of the market by means of an import regime based on a uniform tariff would entail a serious risk that banana prices would fall on the Community market, which would require an increase in compensatory aid given to producers in the outermost regions and entail a review of the Financial Perspective approved within Agenda 2000 for financing the common agricultural policy.
It is therefore right that the Commission should continue not to insist on its proposals or banana production will disappear, with serious consequences on the social, economic and environmental fronts, as the rapporteur, Mr Dary, has pointed out.
Hence, the transitional period should be about fifteen years, certainly not less than ten, and the compensatory aid should include guaranteed earnings for Community producers and a market for the produce of the outermost regions, and so aid should also be included for the bodies that market the bananas produced there.
We shall vote for the proposals and this report in the hope that the Commission will review its position.
Mr President, as previous speakers have said, the time has come to find a workable solution to this problem, as well as a solution which is WTO-compliant.
Far too often in the past, the WTO has ruled against us.
I represent industries in my Member State, the UK, which have fallen foul of US retaliatory action, where Mrs Barshefsky, the US trade secretary, has decided to impose 100% increases in import tariffs on Scottish companies.
We have suffered losses in the cashmere industry.
When these companies in my Member State, in my constituency, were confronted with 100% import tariffs by the US, at one point it could have led to the closure of the cashmere industry in the Borders of Scotland, with a potential loss of 4000 jobs.
We have another small company, Arran Aromatics, which exports the majority of its products to America.
It has also been hit with retaliatory action by the US.
It employs 50 people on a remote West Coast Scottish island and yet they are suffering from retaliation from the banana war, about which they know little and with which they have no connection whatsoever.
This is deeply unfair.
A lot has been made in this debate of the apparent unanimity of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in supporting Mr Dary's report.
I should say to you that there were many amendments put forward to Mr Dary's report in the Agriculture Committee which showed that there were deep divisions in that committee.
We must not take that as evidence of unanimity in any way.
If the colleagues from the southern Member States are going to continue to vote against WTO compliance then they must take the consequences and not the innocent companies in my Member State.
Thank you, Mrs Carlotti.
We will now adjourn the debate since we must proceed to the vote, which will take a while.
The debate will therefore resume at 3.00 p.m.
Welcome
VOTE
Mr President, we have not debated the issue of this special committee.
As far as I am aware it has never been raised in Parliament.
We are putting it to a vote without any discussion.
I would be interested to know how it was established, where its foundations came from, what its costs are going to be, how it relates to the established committees - industry, public health and the others - and whether it is proper to vote on this without any public debate.
Mr Purvis, the Rules are very clear.
Under Rule 150, the Conference of Presidents takes a decision to establish such a committee.
We do not debate the issue, we simply vote on the membership.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 70/220/EEC concerning measures to be taken against air pollution by emissions from motor vehicles [9854/1/2000 - C5-0522/2000 - 2000/ 0040(COD)] Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
(The President declared the common position approved)
Common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on the implementation of a training programme for professionals in the European audiovisual programme industry (MEDIA - Training) (2001-2005) [10939/2/2000 C5-0616/2000 - 1999/0275(COD)] Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport
Mr President, may I express my thanks for the strong support I have received from all the groups.
This paved the way for a favourable decision on MEDIA by the Council.
We have no need of conciliation procedure, and we are able to approve the common position today.
(The President declared the common position approved)
Proposal for a Council regulation extending the programme of incentives and exchanges for legal practitioners in the area of civil law (Grotius - civil) [COM(2000) 516 - C5-0494/2000 - 2000/0220(CNS)] Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Proposal for a Council decision amending Decision 90/424/EEC on expenditure in the veterinary field [COM(2000) 542 - C5-0495/2000 - 2000/0234(CNS)] Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of an agreement between the Community and the Republic of Cyprus adopting the terms and conditions for the participation of Cyprus in Community programmes in the fields of training, education and youth [COM(2000) 661 - C5-0577/2000 - 2000/0270(CNS)] Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0348/2000) by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products [COM(1999) 594 - C5-0431/2000 - 1999/0244(COD)]
Before the vote:
Mr President, I wish to confirm the Commission's position on the amendments as indicated by Mr Byrne during the debate on Monday evening.
The Commission can accept either totally or in part thirty-three of the amendments proposed.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 6, 8, 9, 16, 19, 20, 25, 28, 32, 33, 36, 37, 38, 40, 45, 46, 47, 49, 52, 53 and 54.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended) (The sitting was suspended at 12 noon for a formal sitting and resumed at 12.30 p.m.)
Report (A5-0377/2000) by Mr Trakatellis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council extending certain programmes of Community action in the field of public health adopted by Decisions No 645/96/EC, No 646/96/EC, No 647/96/EC, No 102/97/EC, No 1400/97/EC and No 1296/1999/EC and amending those Decisions [COM(2000) 448 - C5-0400/2000 - 2000/0192(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0368/2000) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on company law concerning takeover bids [8129/1/2000 - C5-0327/2000 - 1995/0341(COD)]
Before the vote:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I confirm the position which Mr Bolkestein set out yesterday evening on behalf of the Commission.
This would mean that the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 4, 14 and 18 and that it can also approve in principle the ideas contained in Amendments Nos 5, 13 and 12.
The Commission takes the view, however, that this directive is not the right place for these ideas to be enshrined.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 17 and 20 in part but rejects most of the substance of these amendments.
The Commission rejects all the other amendments.
Amendment No 20:
Mr President, the original version of this amendment is the German version; the Spanish version is inaccurate.
I merely wanted to point out, once again, that we are voting on the German version; the problem arises in the second part, where reference is made to the shareholders' meeting and the supervisory board.
The Spanish version says "or the administrative board".
That is a completely different body.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0370/2000) by Mr Zimmerling, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art [7484/1/00 - C5-0422/2000 - 1996/0085(COD)]
Before the vote:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I confirm the position adopted by the Commission on the amendments.
Our position is exactly as Mr Bolkestein presented it yesterday.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 4, 8, 10, 16, 17 and 18.
The Commission is prepared, on the other hand, to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.
Amendments Nos 6 and 7 can be accepted in part.
Amendment No 9 can be accepted as a declaration but not as an article.
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to refer to the remarks made by the Commissioner at 0.15 this morning and to point out that Amendment No 1 imposes an obligation of the Commission.
I am pleased that Mr Fischler has accepted this amendment, in which the Commission is called upon to open international negotiations so that this droit de suite applies not only within the European Union but in as many countries of the world as possible.
In this context, the amendment refers to Article 14 of the Berne Convention.
In other words, Europe could play an exemplary role in this domain.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0363/2000) by Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the implementation of the Common Strategy of the European Union on Russia [2000/2007(INI)]
Before the vote:
Mr President, the first 33 amendments for the Oostlander report were available in good time.
Amendments Nos 34 and 35 were not available until today.
The same applies to two amendments relating to the Theato report and seven relating to the Morgan report.
May I ask you to put a stop to this and to ensure that in future all amendments are available in good time.
The secretariat informs me that the documents were available in good time.
Recital O:
Mr President, to lend proper meaning to the sentence, I suggest we do not use the wording "do not deny" , etc. the rights of minorities, but use "taking into account" instead.
This has also met with the approval of the person who tabled the amendment.
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0364/2000) by Mr Baltas, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission report on the feasibility of negotiating a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the Republic of Croatia [COM(2000) 311 - C5-0506/2000 - 2000/2244(COS)]
Amendment No 1:
Mr President, I have one correction to the amendment as it stands: the addition of the single word "Croatian" before the word "citizens" .
It therefore now reads "Croatian citizens of Serb origin" .
Is the amendment acceptable in this form, since it is in keeping with the amendment we voted in favour of earlier in the day?
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0323/2000) by Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and to the European Parliament on developing closer relations between Indonesia and the European Union [COM(2000) 50 - C5-0288/2000 - 2000/2152(COS)]
Amendment No 7:
Mr President, Mrs Lynne stated in her amendment that there are currently 22 cases before the courts in Indonesia and in Timor.
I spent one and a half days checking her figures against mine, and they are incorrect.
As there are 19 cases in Timor and 24 in Aceh, I have to ask the House to reject that amendment.
Mrs Lynne' s figures are incorrect.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0376/2000) by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission communication "Protection of the Communities' financial interests - The fight against fraud - For an overall strategic approach" [COM(2000) 358 - C5-0578/2000 - 2000/2279(COS)]
Amendment No 2:
Mr President, in order not to adopt something that is not true, I would simply ask our colleagues who tabled this amendment to withdraw "Denmark", because Denmark has ratified the Convention.
Mr President, I should like to inform you that, on 29 September this year, Portugal also ratified this Treaty unanimously.
I propose therefore an oral amendment to remove Denmark and Portugal.
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0376/2000) by Ms Morgan, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on reform of budgetary control procedures and institutions [2000/2008(INI)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE- Maaten report (A5-0348/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Maaten report approximating the provisions on the sale of tobacco products.
It is a well-known fact that diseases caused by smoking tobacco reduce the number of pensioners because they reduce life-expectancy.
I can therefore only support this directive which, although intended to regulate the internal market, also limits or seeks to limit the harm caused by cigarette smoke to the people of the European Union.
I would also add that I support that part of the proposal which calls for harmful tobacco products not to be sold outside the European Union.
It is true that in doing this we would be reducing our production for export, but it is also true that the European Union would be acquiring the reputation of selling healthy products, and that can only be a good thing.
.
(EL) Unfortunately, although the Commission accepted many of the European Parliament's amendments, the Council did not.
Parliament needs to reinstate and re-table most of the amendments on the size of the warning, the list of ingredients and the protection of consumers, especially the young.
Of course, the European Parliament must avoid the extremes contained in certain amendments, which are not convincing, do not have a qualified majority and undermine the efficacy of its intervention as a whole.
Of course, if we want to be consistent in our approach, we should put similar warnings on products which are equally harmful to consumers, such as animal fats.
Finally, basic integrity requires that we immediately start putting warnings on cigarettes exported from the European Union - in the language of the importing country.
I wish to support the decisive decision by the EP to vote for the introduction of graphic health warnings on cigarette packets, This is a huge breakthrough for public health as we now have labels and pictures on cigarette packs which reflect the real cost of smoking.
Existing health warnings are obscured by clever colour combinations, striking packaging and tucked behind careful displays.
Most smokers neither know the full risks nor bear the full costs of their choice.
- (FR) I have voted in favour of this directive.
Every day, tobacco kills more people.
Faced with this scourge, all Europeans should be clearly informed of the dangers of consuming this product, which is very harmful to human beings.
In the various debates on this subject, I have steadfastly opposed those who defend the tobacco industry.
The discussions have divided MEPs into two camps: on the one hand, there were those who hid behind the Treaties in order to justify the faint-hearted position they had adopted and, on the other hand, there were those who were concerned, above all, with people' s daily lives and health.
I belong to this second camp.
If the texts are to have the force of law, they should be worded in such a way as to reflect the daily concerns of all Europeans.
Under cover of legal arguments, a number of MEPs have actually been defending the tobacco industry.
What basis can there be for defending the interests of companies which destroy people' s lives on a daily basis? No economic or legal argument can prevail over an argument on public health grounds.
Unfortunately, this directive will not solve all the problems associated with tobacco consumption.
However, it has the virtue of providing smokers with the information they need to make them fully aware of the risks they are running and of the threats they pose to those around them. It also does away with misleading designations such as 'light' and 'ultra-light' .
These public health proposals will therefore send a strong message to all citizens, especially the youngest Europeans.
Finally, I am delighted at the ban on exports from the European Union of tobacco products banned in the Member States.
It was unthinkable and scandalous to permit such exports.
Might there be two categories of people as far as a number of MEPs are concerned: those that are to be protected and those that are to be endangered for economic reasons?
I hope that the Council will hear our message so as to end the deception and protect everyone' s health as best it can.
When I voted against the ban on the advertising of tobacco products in 1998, my vote was misconstrued in letters to the editors of Luxembourg newspapers as a vote against the prevention of cancer.
I tried to explain at the time that the EC Treaty provided no legal basis for such an advertising ban.
The European Court of Justice has now confirmed that my position was correct.
Members of Parliament cannot simply let their hearts rule their heads and adopt legislation for which there is no legal basis, however commendable their motives.
In my long parliamentary career, which has now spanned 35 years, I have always adhered to this principle.
I shall not change my approach and let myself be intimidated by the veritable threatening letters I have been receiving, which demand that I declare my voting intentions so that the writers of these letters can make my intentions public; this means, of course, that they can once again engage in misinformation and subject me to public vilification. These campaigns are waged by means of slogans, because those who conduct them are ignorant of the wide variety of considerations that a parliamentarian has to take into account when examining such a complex piece of legislation as a European directive on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning the manufacture, presentation and sale of tobacco products.
I know that tobacco consumption is one of the most frequent causes of death and that public health must remain one of our main concerns, but we have to act within the bounds of our legal powers and in accordance with the principle of proportionality.
The recommendation for second reading made by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy of the European Parliament does not meet these criteria.
It not only contains the exaggerated demands of health freaks, which would result in the loss of thousands of jobs, especially women's jobs, to name but one adverse effect, without turning one single chain smoker into a non-smoker.
But here too, as in the case of the directive banning tobacco advertising, the legal basis is wrong.
An article relating to the internal market certainly cannot be used to justify an export ban.
Acceptance of this recommendation for a second reading as it now stands would merely open the door to new litigation.
The result would be uncertainty and delays and would only thwart the essentially good intention that underlies this legislative proposal from the European Commission.
It is precisely because I do not want this to happen that I have decided to reject the common position, and a motion tabled by my group proposes that the House do likewise.
The decision made will cost jobs in Northern Ireland.
This is a wrong decision.
I have no objection to supporting stricter legislation for the European Union, but to apply this to exports is unacceptable and the legal base for this decision is dubious.
We have no right to dictate to others what they do in their countries outside the EU, nor is it wise to export jobs from the EU to third countries where they will simply produce and sell the products and take over our existing markets.
I wish particularly to explain why I voted against the ban on export of tobacco products above a certain tar/nicotine level from the EU and supported amendments that sought to lift that ban.
Above all, I am concerned by the very real risk to jobs of over 1 000 people employed at the BAT factory in Southampton.
There are over 5 000 jobs also at risk related to that factory.
For instance, hundreds of printers in Portsmouth who produce cigarette packaging.
Over 95% of the output of the Southampton plant is exported.
I fear either the company will relocate, or the markets they serve will be met by other suppliers outside the EU.
So this move will not lead to healthier cigarettes being smoked - but simply to export jobs from Europe.
This is a sad day for the workers in Southampton who must now hope the British government might try to block the move.
I fear they will hope in vain.
I believe smokers should be given full information but then be free to make their own choice.
Additionally, insisting on imposing our standards outside Europe is an example of post-colonial imperialism.
So I voted for freedom - jobs.
I wholeheartedly support the common position on the proposal on tobacco that will strengthen health warnings on cigarette packets in the EU.
We have fought a powerful tobacco lobby to lead the campaign for new cigarette health warnings to cover a third of the surface of cigarette packs.
Smoking kills and there is no nice way to put that.
Half of all long-term smokers will eventually be killed by tobacco and of these, half will die during middle age losing 20 to 25 years of life.
As many as half a million people in Europe are killed by tobacco, and 85% of lung cancers are caused by smoking.
Madam President, I would welcome the radical proposal to use pictures to illustrate the damage which smoking does to health, like they do in Canada.
If shocking pictures of smoke-filled lungs or rotting teeth show the harmful effects of smoking, go ahead and print them on packs.
It is preposterous that the tobacco lobby is seeking to destroy this legislation.
I am fed up of tobacco giants such as Marlboro, Benson & Hedges and Rothmans trying to put a stop to these proposals.
They have misled people for far too long.
At present, warnings are cleverly hidden by displays or coloured packaging.
This is our last-ditch attempt to put labels and pictures on cigarette packs which reflect the true cost of smoking.
Smokers or those considering smoking must know the full risks of their choice.
The proposal will ban the use of misleading terms such as 'ultra-light' and 'low tar' .
People have been hooked on the idea that 'mild' and 'low tar' cigarettes are healthier.
This is simply not true.
Low tar cigarettes cause just as much damage as normal cigarettes - smokers just draw harder to get the same kick.
This legislation will spell out the dangers of smoking and save thousands of lives.
Trakatellis report (A5-0377/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Trakatellis report which, as we know, allocates EUR 79.1 million for 2001-2002, including EUR 8.5 million to health information, EUR 31.1 million to the plan of action on cancer, EUR 22.2 million to the prevention of AIDS, EUR 11.4 million to the prevention of drug dependence, EUR 4.4 million to health monitoring and EUR 1.3 million to the fight against pollution-related diseases.
I consider all this to be positive although I would prefer - and I say so now on this occasion - much more to be spent on the prevention of diseases.
Preventing diseases costs less and is better in terms of health than treating them once they have developed.
It is important to avoid interruption and to proceed with the extension of the existing programmes in the field of public health that expire in the short term, given that their objectives are to complement national policies in protecting human health.
In this report, the rapporteur supports the extension of the six programmes until 31 December 2002, although he rightly criticises the Commission' s legislative schedule, which lies at the root of this problem, since four were to expire at the end of this year and two at the end of 2001.
Note that these are major programmes aimed at improvements in public health, the fight against cancer, AIDS prevention, the fight against drug dependence, health monitoring and pollution-related diseases.
As mentioned in the report, however, it is essential that there should also be an annual extension of the financial appropriation and that the necessary measures should be taken to ensure a problem-free transition while the new programme is drawn up.
Lehne report (A5-0368/2000)
Mr President, the Labour delegation of the European Parliament voted against Mr Lehne's amendments to the common position.
As I said in the debate last night, they would be very damaging for EU company competitiveness.
They introduce rigid structures and try to bring company law in by the back door, which will not achieve a single market in capital and will undermine investor confidence of our shareholders.
Following ten years of negotiation, I regret that this Parliament has chosen by a narrow qualified majority vote to allow company boards the right to defensive measures to frustrate takeovers without getting approval from shareholders.
However, I welcome the fact that the Commission cannot go along with the rapporteur's views on this and I hope that common sense will prevail in conciliation.
I am pleased that we rejected the rapporteur's very messy approach on jurisdiction: this would have led to very much litigation and court cases and would have served nobody's interests, not least the interests of EU companies.
With the passage of Amendment No 20, the EPLP has made it clear that while employee consultation is the objective of a framework directive on employment, we also believe that a spirit of cooperation is needed to consult workforces and their representatives when we have discussions on takeovers and mergers.
Mr President, I voted for the directive on takeover bids.
I would have preferred this piece of legislation to have been introduced by means of a regulation, which is more appropriate for any activity relating to citizens throughout the European Union.
However, I would like to use this explanation of vote to point out that for a long time - and I hope that it will happen soon - I have been waiting for there to be a takeover bid - a TOB - for the national social welfare institutions.
In my opinion, they should be privatised.
They would be unlikely to show such losses as they do now under the management of the national States.
I do not see why we cannot entrust the management of their own social welfare to the public as well.
- (SV) The proposal to harmonise the rules of the Member States concerning company take-over bids was previously, in 1989, rejected as incompatible with the principle of subsidiarity.
This is a judgment that I still regard as relevant and correct, which is why I have voted against the report in its entirety.
From a purely objective point of view there are significant objections, for example to Amendment No 6, concerning Article 4.2.
This proposes that only 30 per cent of the votes shall be sufficient to take control of a company.
This number of votes in a company is too low.
This view is shared by the Federation of Swedish Industries, which instead advocates 40 per cent of the votes.
Zimmerling report (A5-0370/2000)
Mr President, this common position was again voted through with a narrow majority.
The Commission and the rapporteur have failed to recognise that the art trade is a global business and would be better regulated by an international agreement.
We now fear that the art market will go offshore.
The Commission, again, has failed to commit itself to entering international negotiations to get an international deal on droit de suite, claiming that it feels it does not have a mandate in this area.
It now does have a mandate with the voting through and the start of the conciliation procedure.
The Commission has also failed spectacularly to give us any analysis of the economic impact of the directive before us.
This leads us to conclude that it is not proven to be necessary to complete the single market.
It cannot, therefore, be the objective of this Parliament to undermine the European art market and in conciliation I hope now that the Member States and Commission will be able to maintain the common position.
The amendments that Mr Zimmerling has tabled will deal a death blow to the vitality to the European art market, with loss of jobs and, I fear, very few living artists benefiting from this resale right.
Mr President, I support this directive on the resale right for works of art.
Our world admires artists, luckily.
Long may it last!
There must be more to this world than mere numbers and sterile computers: it must include artists - for as long as possible.
In order to permit these artists to express themselves fully, it is certainly useful and important to make it possible for them to receive payment when their works are sold.
However, Mr President, should we not also be thinking about their pensions? I remember a deaf-mute artist who came to ask for my help many times in Italy in applying for a higher pension: his pension was effectively too low to live on and every now and again he was forced to sell one of his fine paintings, one of his works of art.
Well, in my opinion, we should also do something - I would advocate in the near future - about artists' pensions.
The resale right for the benefit of the author is an important mechanism for supporting artistic creation and artists.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market rightly insists on no upper limit and a minimum of no less than 7%.
However, the attempt to reconcile the resale right with the competitiveness of the European market in objets d'art has resulted, mainly on the part of the Council, in reduced protection for the artist from subsequent sales of his works.
The European Union should move in the opposite direction and help to internationalise the resale right by putting this issue at the top of its agenda during negotiations with other countries with a flourishing art market, such as the USA, Switzerland etc.
If the droit de suite is regarded as part of copyright and hence as an artist's prerogative, it makes no sense to grant artists a right which they do not want.
In Austria, which is one of the three countries where there is no droit de suite, artists tend to agree that the droit de suite would have distinctly adverse effects, especially on young artists.
Even many established artists, whom it would benefit, have voiced their opposition to its introduction for reasons of professional solidarity.
Besides, it is more than questionable whether there is any identifiable need for harmonisation in this sensitive area.
The introduction of the droit de suite, indeed, would lead to an erosion of the market in works of art with all its detrimental consequences; the small galleries, which have a special part to play in encouraging young artistic talent, would come under particular pressure.
For these reasons, the Members representing the Freedom Alliance have decided not to endorse the report.
. (NL) I would like to thank Mr Zimmerling for his work on this complicated dossier.
Although it was clear from his report that he got to the bottom of the issue, I as a Liberal fail to agree with him, because I believe that, where possible, legislation should be whittled down a minimum.
In various Member States, it has transpired that resale right is superfluous and causes distortions on the internal market.
Rendering this legislation compulsory would immediately and seriously harm Europe' s competitive position in terms of art compared to other markets, because resale right outside Europe is non-existent.
This is why I am of the opinion that the international art market will move outside of Europe as a result of the directive.
Finally, I believe that the present proposal does not offer any protection to young, fledgling artists in general, but only to a small group.
By voting against this directive, my group would also like to give out a political signal that we should not waste our time laying down superfluous rules.
. (NL) I would like to thank Mr Zimmerling for the work he has done on this report.
Although it is an attempt to protect artists, in fact, together with the Commission proposal as it is now before us, it has actually achieved the opposite effect.
Of course, I realise that artists are entitled to remuneration for their creativity, but unlike books, in the case of visual arts, this right is actually bought at the initial sale.
Furthermore, in countries such as the Netherlands, where resale right has not been applied so far, there are plenty of options for both the young and more established artists in the shape of a buoyant art trade, which also benefits the artists.
Resale right as it is now proposed requires a massive amount of red tape, whilst the benefit for the individual young artist is minimal.
Moreover, it is exceptionally difficult to check whether the art trade keeps to this resale right.
This regulation, therefore, has a restricting rather than a stimulating effect.
Also, both the young and the renowned artist will suffer if the international trade moves outside the European borders due to European over-regulation.
I therefore have no choice but to vote against this directive.
Oostlander report (A5-0363/2000)
Mr President, what can I say about the common strategy of the European Union on Russia? I did, of course, vote in favour of this document, but in my heart I am concerned for the pensioners of Russia.
I am concerned for their welfare not only because I have discovered that there is a Russian Pensioners' Party whose symbol is a heart, a red heart, while the symbol of the European People's Party, which I belong to, is a blue heart.
There is another reason why I am concerned about the Russian pensioners, namely that I feel that the aid which we send to that heavily populated part of the former Soviet Union which is Russia should benefit the Russian pensioners and elderly people as well as others and be used to give them a higher standard of living than they had under the Communist dictatorship for so many years.
- (FR) Apart from its seeking to make an impact by setting out good intentions regarding stability, the rule of law and the fight against corruption, the Oostlander report is in fact nothing more than a vote of confidence in Mr Putin.
This document says little or nothing about the disastrous implications of returning to the law of the market: poverty on a massive scale for the majority of the population, whose standard of living has been reduced by two thirds since before 1991.
If it is right to denounce the Stalinist dictatorship of the past, how is it possible to have the slightest confidence in Mr Putin, the executioner of the Chechen people, the godfather of the various mafias and the man who endeavours to eliminate all opposition in civil society (unions, political parties) in order to strengthen his personal power?
In this area, note should be taken of the rapporteur' s concern to help churches and religious organisations.
However, there is absolute silence about the unions, now threatened by the reform of labour legislation and, in certain cases, by outright police repression.
For these reasons, I have voted against this report.
Baltas report (A5-0364/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the document regulating the Republic of Croatia's association with the European Union, which is a positive step.
I am also concerned about the interests of the Croatian pensioners and that is why I am highlighting the lack of an intention in this document to extend regulation 1408 to workers who are Croatian citizens or in any case Croatian citizens who have worked both in Croatia and in the States of the European Union, for I feel that this should happen as soon as possible. This regulation lays down that people who have worked in both Croatia and the States of the European Union have the right to accrue national insurance contributions.
These stabilisation agreements should all call for and bring about the extension of this regulation which benefits the pensions of those who have worked in these other States.
- (FR) Although the changes in the political situation in Croatia can only be cause for rejoicing, the report on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the Republic of Croatia is disappointing in view of the considerable amount that is at stake in this region.
In general, the financial resources allocated to the stabilisation of this area are widely known to be insufficient.
Moreover, the Stabilisation and Association Agreement, the CARDS programme and the European Investment Bank cannot constitute the main instruments for the European Union' s contribution to the economic and social development of Croatia.
Indeed, the fact cannot be ignored that the criteria for structural adjustment which accompany aid policies and the conditions for drawing closer to the European Union continue, and will continue, to produce social and economic disasters with explosive social consequences and entail the risk, as can now be seen in Romania, of the imminent rise of a nationalistic and xenophobic extreme right throughout this region.
We can, therefore, only condemn the fact that Fanjo Tudjman was not charged before his death, in the same way as Slobodan Milosevic, since the newly opened archives prove the extent to which the two men jointly planned the ethnic dismemberment of the region.
For all these reasons, we abstained from voting.
Maij-Weggen report (A5-0323/2000)
I also voted for the document on developing closer relations between Indonesia and the European Union.
Of course, Indonesia does not really deserve this development of closer relations with the Union because its leaders have not exactly distinguished themselves in terms of great democracy or commendable actions, but we must think about the Indonesian citizens, and so I say roll on the development of closer relations and I welcome the provision of this aid.
However, I would call for a European representative to be seconded to Indonesia, who could tell us whether the funds have been used to benefit the Indonesian people or not.
We must create the tangible post of European ambassador to Indonesia.
- (FR) If Parliament wants to offer real help to the Indonesian population, and, in particular, to the poorest social strata, it is not enough to send a few funds which will inevitably be misappropriated by the men in power.
The European Parliament should at least adopt a firm stance against the scandalous fact that major Western companies, including a number with their head offices on European Union territory, are paying salaries more akin to derisory handouts.
It does not even take the trouble to talk about the issue.
Looting by Indonesia' s corrupt wheeler-dealer ruling class unquestionably has a major role to play in the poverty of the masses in Indonesia, just as the army and the militias play a key role in their oppression.
However, the low salaries paid by the major companies which, moreover, often have recourse to child labour, either directly or through subcontractors, constitute another, equally serious and inhumane form of plunder.
We have therefore abstained from voting on this text.
. (NL) Indonesia is a product of 350 years of Dutch colonialism.
For the sake of foreign economic interests, different peoples were forced to coexist under one authority.
Little changed during more than 30 years of the Suharto regime.
Out of economic self-interest, Europe, the United States and Australia wanted to remain on a friendly footing with the Indonesian regime, so that their companies could benefit from the exploitation of natural resources and from the low cost of labour.
A Dutch rapporteur is now starting her proposal by emphasising that the European Parliament should recognise the sovereignty and integrity of the Indonesian borders.
The PRD, the left opposition party, which is in contact with my party, the Dutch Socialist Party, is taking a more balanced view.
It, too, would prefer Indonesia to remain one country, but it denounces the state violence which is deployed time and again to this end against the peoples of Aceh, the Moluccas and Western Papua.
Following the wave of democratisation, the power of the army, authoritarian rulers and large companies in Indonesia is once again on the increase.
The murder of the Dutch journalist, Sander Thoenes, on East Timor, occupied by Indonesia at the time, remains unsolved.
Mrs Maij-Weggen' s conclusions are too optimistic and too much geared towards serving economic interests.
There is every reason to draw particular attention to the persecution, violence and terror to which Christians are being subjected in the Moluccas, particularly on the island of Ambo, by the criminal activists of the Jihad movement.
Churches have been desecrated and burnt down, Christians have been forced to flee in droves and a large number of people have been killed.
I have personally met the Catholic bishop Mondagi from Ambo, together with Protestant church leaders.
The situation is alarming.
The Indonesian government and the army have pledged to ensure the safety and to protect the lives of their citizens, irrespective of the religion they profess.
Theato report (A5-0376/2000)
Mr President, I voted in favour of this report.
And why is that? The Pensioners' Party includes a separate section of pensioner criminals, expelled from the party, who have spent their lives stealing and breaking the law.
I expelled them from the Pensioners' Party myself, but I do consult them every now and again and ask their advice.
On the subject of this report, they said, "If you want to prevent fraud, it would be a good idea for the European Union funds not to pass through the State public bodies but to go straight to the citizens, for I am sad to say that corruption is widespread among public employees.
And if we add to the corruption of the European public employees the corruption of the employees of the national State bodies, then the result will be an increase in fraud.
We have voted for the introduction of new instruments that will provide substantially better protection of the Community' s funds.
We believe in the first instance that it is a good idea to supplement the OLAF scheme by setting up a unit under OLAF.
This unit is to head investigations and ease prosecution proceedings in the national courts.
The unit is only to be involved with criminality committed by EU employees.
Such a prosecuting authority under OLAF is necessary because experience shows that far too often no prosecution follows from OLAF' s work.
It is often not clear in which country a case is to be brought and difficult procedures for the exchange of evidence mean that the case often lapses under the statute of limitations or is dropped.
Unfortunately inter-state cooperation is not sufficient.
The inter-state anti-fraud conventions are not ratified.
There are still five Member States that have not ratified the Convention for the protection of the EU' s financial interests of 1995, for example.
In the longer term, one should therefore consider the introduction of a European Public Prosecutor, who would take care of the prosecution proceedings in connection with fraud involving EU funds in the Member States.
At the moment, the Member States do not do enough to combat fraud involving EU funds.
Moreover, 80% of cases of fraud are cross-border cases. Here prosecution is often problematic.
There are major differences as regards the definition of illegal acts and penalties as well as with regard to procedure, rules on evidence and the authority of the prosecuting authority to carry out checks.
It is to be feared that the problem will become worse with the removal of the borders that has given organised crime even greater freedom of movement.
The fraudsters will seek out those countries that have the least protection.
Consequently, we must establish the necessary instruments for more effective combating of fraud involving EU funds as soon as possible.
Because of the high incidence of fraud in connection with Community resources, we in the Freedom Alliance have supported tighter controls since time immemorial.
We therefore welcome the Theato report and have voted for the creation of the office of a European Public Prosecutor.
Our position, however, is that national prosecuting powers must not be affected by the creation of the post of European Public Prosecutor.
The creation of this new authority must not lead to any transfer of sovereignty in core areas.
Within these limits, the European Public Prosecutor, acting as a coordinating authority, can make a valuable contribution to the suppression of fraud.
- (FR) The Theato report on combating fraud reveals that the Central European Bank, no doubt the better to prove its celebrated independence, thought it inappropriate to subscribe to the Interinstitutional Agreement relating to OLAF.
The report takes up a number of ideas contained in the European judges' Geneva Appeal, such as the setting up of a European Public Prosecutor.
Unfortunately, it does not adopt the most important proposal, to make any financial transaction involving a tax haven illegal.
Finally, as if all the better to emphasise the ridiculous dispossession of the representatives of universal suffrage, the report charges the President of the European Parliament with forwarding its proposals to an Intergovernmental Conference which will already be at an end when this vote is taken.
Since nothing was decided in this area in Nice, we are doing what the report has already invited us to do and interpreting this lack of decision "as laxity and indifference in relation to fraud in Europe" .
In spite of its limitations, we shall vote in favour of this report as one way, admittedly too timid a way, of rebelling against the neo-liberal rationale according to which the taxation of profit is by definition an unwarranted deduction, in connection with which it is legitimate to commit fraud.
The EPLP abstained on this report because it calls for the appointment of a European Public Prosecutor as advocated by the Corpus Juris expert group.
A European Public Prosecutor established according to Corpus Juris would have wide-ranging powers to carry out investigations in Member States.
Corpus Juris envisages the eventual creation of an independent European Prosecution Office with jurisdiction for offences against the EU's financial interests carried out both by members and officials of EU institutions and by third parties.
It would establish the EU as a single legal area for the purpose of investigation, prosecution, trial and execution of sentences concerning this type of offence.
The British Government is opposed to this proposal, which it considers is too broad in scope and presents too many problems in terms of different legal systems and traditions to be practical.
The government's preference is to improve existing cooperation between Member States to tackle fraud and other serious crimes with a cross-border element.
This would involve the ratification of the 1995 Convention on the protection of the European Communities' financial interests by those Member States which have yet to ratify, and the mutual recognition of legal systems.
Mr President, it has just come to my notice that at Question Time yesterday my question was called and I was not there.
I should just like to apologise to the House.
When I left my office at 6.50 p.m. they were at Question No 9.
My question was No 16 and I did not think there was any way it would be reached.
I should like, therefore, to apologise to the President-in-Office of the Council and to the House.
Thank you, Mr Crowley, I understand it was a difficult situation.
That concludes the vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.34 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Bananas COM (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the common organisation of the market in the banana sector.
Mr Sturdy has the floor.
Mr President, one of the problems with the banana issue, it seems to me, is that it has become rather emotive.
I see my job as a Member of the European Parliament as not just to look after those banana producers within the European Union but all the people in Europe.
I understand how people feel about changes to the system but, as I said, I want to look after everyone within the European Union as a whole.
If, in that process, I can safeguard the interests of our ACP countries then that is all to the good, but I believe that it is important that we safeguard and look to the welfare of European citizens.
We seem sometimes to have lost sight of this fact.
I am not one to welcome the way in which the USA has implemented these draconian measures, but it is desperately important that we get a settlement.
In my constituency I have industries that are being forced out of business.
Jobs are being lost within the European Union because of 100% tariffs on products.
I have received many letters about the fact that it is an emotive issue.
It may well be to some of our southern Members even more emotive.
Well, I just say to them, this is about real people.
It is about real emotions and about real jobs.
People are being forced out of business because of the Americans and therefore I say it is important that we accept the ruling of the WTO.
Either we are in a club or we are out of it and it is particularly important that we accept this.
As I said just now, I never accepted the way the Americans acted but it is too late now to deal with that.
Therefore, I call upon this House to take a decision tomorrow and I support the proposals by Mr Vatenen, who is speaking later.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, apart from the benefit to those who voted us into office, we must also think of the benefit to the whole of the EU and even the world at large.
The benefit to the whole and the individual will become one in the long run.
The banana issue is a test, in a way, as to whether we want to continue with consultation, which will mean continued punishing customs tariffs for EU companies, which are the basis of our prosperity. Are we prepared to ignore the benefit to consumers, if we do not agree to import cheap and tasty bananas?
Are we also prepared to discriminate against the poor banana producers of Latin America, because these countries do not have such a strong commitment to a transitional period? It is time we sought compromises and recognised that free trade and prosperity are not each other' s enemies, not even with regard to the issue of bananas.
I am absolutely in favour of banana producers in ACP countries and our own producers being supported with taxpayers' money to make it possible to end activities that distort trade.
The Commission' s proposal is based on the notion that a third tariff quota should be introduced where the tariff preference for ACP countries would be EUR 300 per tonne.
In 2006 the tariff quota would be abandoned and the system based on normal tariffs would take over.
The tariff system will be simpler to administer, clearer for the parties involved, and will lead to greater prosperity, according to economic theory.
The transitional period, as outlined by the Commission, is sufficiently long to introduce an appropriate aid scheme.
Mr Dary' s report shows due concern both for the banana producers in the Community and the ACP countries.
For that reason, I would like to express my support, in something of a conciliatory manner, for most of the amendments.
There are, however, some which cannot be supported under any circumstances.
Amendments Nos 11 and 13 propose that the quota scheme should not be re-examined until ten years have passed and that there should be no commitment now to the tariff system proposed by the Commission and demanded by several of our trading partners.
In their place I have tabled Amendment No 36, which requires the shift to the customs tariff system in 2006.
At the same time, it stresses how important it is for the Commission to listen to the European Parliament and consider the interests of all parties at every stage.
I therefore want to safeguard in particular the interests of our own farmers and those in the ACP countries.
There must be a balance as a whole.
I oppose Amendment No 27 as it would water down the transitional period system totally and, in practice, would deprive Latin America of its opportunity to sell bananas under the new quota 'C' .
Commissioner Lamy has made a morally responsible and courageous proposal regarding the exemption from duty in respect of products from less developed countries.
The plan goes under the name 'EBA' - 'Everything but Arms' .
Ladies and gentlemen, let us not have occasion to change the name.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking Mr Dary for this, his second report, and for his committee's thorough examination of the Commission's proposal for the amendment of the common organisation of the market in bananas.
My thanks also go to the Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for his efforts in connection with the compromise amendments contained in the second report.
The responses and remarks I intend to make today are certainly more favourable than in April, when, because of the talks that were taking place at that time with the governments of third countries, it was simply impossible to accept even a single point from the amendments.
I should like to emphasise from the outset that the Commission fully sympathises with the principles that underlie many of the amendments, for example the proposals relating to the EU producers and the ACP supplier countries.
I believe that the communication issued by the Commission in October addresses and dispels many of the fears you expressed.
For example, for the third quota the Commission is now proposing a tariff preference of EUR 300 per tonne for the ACP supplier countries and a tariff of EUR 300 per tonne for third countries.
I shall move on now to the individual amendments.
Allow me to begin with those which the Commission is able to accept in whole or in part.
In accordance with our new proposal for the ACP tariff preference, the Commission can accept Amendment No 29.
It must remain possible, however, to lower the tariff if it turns out to have a prohibitive effect on non-ACP supplier countries.
This is important, because we must ensure that the third quota cannot be regarded as being solely reserved for the ACP countries in practice.
I can also accept Amendment No 28, if a corresponding clause is added about the possibility of reducing the tariff.
As for the recital referring to the ACP preference, we agree with EUR 300 per tonne here too, but we consider the word 'maximum' to be unnecessary.
For this reason we can only partially accept Amendment No 16.
A second subject that has played a part in this debate is that of the reports.
The Commission accepts the reinstatement of Article 32, calling for the presentation of a mid-term assessment by 31 December 2004.
This relates to Amendment No 34.
If the report had to be presented any earlier, it would quite simply be impossible to discern the relevant market trends.
The Commission therefore regrets that it cannot accept the amendments calling for the annual submission of a formal report, by which I mean Amendments 14 and 35.
However, the Commission can certainly give you this information annually in Parliament on the basis of the information available to us at the time.
Unfortunately, the Commission cannot accept the other amendments, for the following reasons: the first group of amendments, comprising Nos 6, 7, 11, 15, 25 and 26, relates to the deletion of references to the 'tariff only' system in the operative articles and to the automatic switch to that system after a fixed transitional period, accompanied by a regime of tariff quotas.
The fact is that the 'tariff only' system is an important factor which ensures that the Commission's proposal is well balanced and can serve as a basis for progress in the Council.
However, I must also remind you that, come what may, the Council must declare its acceptance of the outcome of the negotiations on Article 28 and set a new tariff.
So the automatic transition relates to the legal construct, but when and in which specific circumstances it is to take place must then be decided by the Council.
The second point at issue, which is related to the first, concerns the administration of the tariff quotas.
The amendments in question are Nos 17 and 18, No 27 and Nos 30 and 31.
As you know, the Commission has spent a great deal of time trying to secure an agreement on the administration of the regime on the basis of historical reference quantities, but all its efforts have proved fruitless.
That is why we have now proposed, in our October communication, that the quotas be administered by means of the so-called 'greyhound' system, which means that this procedure would henceforth be used for the administration of all three quotas.
However, so that all supplier countries can have access, in principle, to all the quotas, the Commission services must, as I said before, have scope to lower the tariff preference within these quotas.
Similarly, it would not be possible to grant the ACP supplier countries preferential treatment under quota 'C' , because that would not be a 'greyhound' system and would not conform to the rules of such procedure; moreover, it would not be WTO-compliant.
The next issue, which also relates to the quotas, is the extension of the period of validity of the tariff-quotas regime.
In the view of the Commission, the ten-year period to which Amendments Nos 11 and 13 refer would be too long.
Besides, there is probably very little chance of our trading partners accepting such an extension.
This brings me to the amendments that relate to additional support measures for EU producers and to compensatory aid.
Among the proposed additional support measures are marketing aid (Amendment No 24), additional support from the structural funds (Amendment No 10) and a price review with adjustment of compensatory aid as required (Amendment No 23).
I should like to point out that the Commission's proposal is designed to be compatible with the findings of the WTO dispute-settlement panel, but these findings make no reference to intra-Community provisions.
A formal review of the compensatory-aid mechanism is therefore unnecessary, because the current regime permits full compensation for the income effects of price fluctuations.
These remarks relate to Amendments Nos 7, 10, 13 and 21 to 24.
On Amendments Nos 19 and 32, concerning organically produced bananas, may I say once again that there are already horizontal measures in place to guarantee the equivalence of organic bananas from third countries with those produced in the Community.
Moreover, the organic production of bananas also qualifies for support under the current agri-environmental measures.
Marketing schemes for these bananas are also part of national and regional rural-development programmes.
So all the instruments are in place; it is up to the Member States concerned to make good use of them.
As for fair-trade bananas, to which Amendments No 20 and 33 refer, our position on these has not changed either, because fair-trade bananas would be covered by any horizontal measures that were adopted on the basis of our communication.
It would therefore make little sense to make provision for measures relating specifically to fair-trade bananas in the common organisation of the market.
The 'greyhound' system, incidentally, offers a better deal than the present regime to those who produce and sell fair-trade bananas.
Let me also say that the representatives of fair trade in bananas have expressly welcomed the regime we have proposed.
I should also like to add that financial support is likewise provided already for the development of the production of organically produced and fair-trade bananas in the ACP countries under the Regulation establishing a special framework of assistance for traditional ACP suppliers of bananas.
May I deal finally with Amendments Nos 1 to 5 as well as 12 and 36. In essence, these amendments only reiterate the main principles which are already enshrined in the original text of the basic Regulation 404/93 and in the new Commission proposal.
We therefore believe that they are quite simply superfluous, and so, for reasons of form, we must reject these amendments.
But, as I said, their substance is already enshrined in current legislation.
The Commission would like to thank the European Parliament for your constructive work on this proposal and to express its satisfaction at the constructive nature of the talks we have held on this extremely complex issue.
This dossier has been on the table for some time now, because we have had to discuss it with all the interested parties.
However, the Commission believes that the proposal presented in November 1999, supplemented by the communication of October 2000, offers the basis for a solution.
We hope that the House is now in a position to deliver its opinion, as requested by the Council in October.
That would be a very important step, because there is a real prospect of finding a genuine solution to this long-standing problem in the very near future.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Thursday, at 10.00 a.m.
EU/US summit
The next item is the Commission statement on the EU/US summit.
Commissioner Patten has the floor.
Mr President, I am pleased to have this opportunity to update Parliament on preparations for the EU/US Summit in Washington next Monday.
Good relations between the United States and the European Union are, of course, vital for world security and for global economic prosperity.
The better the relationship, the safer the world and the better off our people.
Today that relationship is in generally good shape.
Europe and the United States work closely together in defence of the values we share.
We work together, for example, for a liberal, dependable international trading regime under the WTO.
We stand shoulder to shoulder in defence of democracy and freedom across the world.
As in any relationship between friends it is natural that there are occasional disputes, but we should not get these out of proportion.
On the whole, we have managed recent disputes competently, for example, on the trade side.
It is important to remember that they represent just a fraction of the total trade that crosses the Atlantic.
The EU/US Consultative Forum on Biotechnology is an example of how to deal with these issues constructively.
It will be reporting to this summit on a broad range of biotech issues.
This will be President Clinton's fifteenth and last EU/US Summit.
It will give us an opportunity to look again at the new transatlantic agenda and to see how we might streamline procedures and focus future summits more precisely on the really big issues.
We would like to focus the twice-yearly summits on strategic themes that may run across several summits.
This is, I acknowledge, easier said than done, but we should try to resist the temptation - and I know that Secretary of State Albright shares this view - for these summits to get excessively entangled in the nitty-gritty of our daily political and economic relationships.
The Commission is currently producing a draft communication on transatlantic relations which we expect to publish in the spring and we will look forward, for example, to the contribution made by those legislators who are part of our transatlantic relationship and Parliament will, I know, want to be involved in this initiative.
We have made some progress in moving things in the direction I describe in recent summits and I hope we will be able to take this forward in Washington next week.
We will, for example, be following up the discussion we launched at Cotonou on Africa and communicable diseases.
There are some differences in our approach to these matters, but I hope that the summit will send a positive message about the need to pursue our efforts together notably in tackling sensitive questions such as access to affordable drugs including tiered pricing.
We will cover outstanding trade disputes and aim to lay the foundations for WTO compatible solutions that are mutually acceptable and not unilateral.
We expect there to be discussion on a future new WTO round as well as some discussion of the implications for that round of the wide array of new bilateral trade initiatives being debated in the American hemisphere.
I am sure there will be discussion too of other areas where the United States and the European Union do not quite see eye-to-eye, for example, on the environment where we must make every effort to support work to salvage a deal on climate change.
The summit will naturally touch on key areas where the European Union and the United States have worked and are working closely together in the service of peace, first, on the Balkans where we have had an increasingly close and successful relationship and where, partly thanks to our efforts, there have been so many important changes for the better over the last year.
We shall, no doubt, review recent developments in the Middle East.
The President and his administration have devoted enormous efforts to the pursuit of lasting peace in the Middle East.
Today the dark shadow of violence hangs over the region, but the patient persistent efforts of the peacemakers must continue.
The European Union has a role to play in the process and we are doing that.
Plainly the consolidation of peace will be closely related to the development of our Mediterranean partnership.
Finally, we will, I am sure, touch on the recent decisions at Nice on the European rapid reaction force.
These are important decisions.
They represent an attempt by Europe to make good some of the failures revealed in the Balkans in the 1990s and most recently during the Kosovo conflict.
One of the main lessons was that the Europeans needed to shoulder more of the burden in promoting European security.
We need to do so, not to decouple the United States from the defence of Europe, not because we believe there is any weakening of the US strategic commitment to Europe, but to answer those in Washington who sometimes call it into question: the voices that claim, with some justification, that Europe cannot continue to depend on the United States to bail it out of European conflicts unless it is prepared to do more to help itself.
This then will be the last summit under this administration, the last such summit with President Clinton.
Transatlantic relations will, I hope, grow ever stronger in the years to come, but Europe will miss President Clinton.
He has been a good friend to this continent.
He has laid the foundations for a serious and mature dialogue between us in the post-Cold-War world and he has worked tirelessly for a cause we all share, that of a Europe whole and free and increasingly prosperous.
From Kosovo to Belfast, millions of European citizens have cause to be thankful for the contribution he has made and I know that the House will join with me in paying tribute to that contribution today.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for coming here today to give us his statement for the meeting which is going to take place next Monday.
He has rightly said that the transatlantic relationship is one which has expanded greatly in the last ten years - mostly, it is true, on the American side thanks to President Clinton; but I think that history will relate that there has also been a European contribution to this new relationship, which has been a fundamental key to the way in which it has worked, through the Transatlantic Declaration of 1990 and through the new Transatlantic Agenda under the Spanish Presidency in December 1995.
I think it would be very helpful, as the Commission prepares this new document on transatlantic relations, if we in Parliament could be given a document which analyses the progress which has been made so far in this relationship in looking at, for example, the success of the EU educational centres, success in terms of policy cooperation on such matters as AIDS, immigration, aid development issues and even on foreign policy questions such as work on transatlantic houses in Ukraine.
Equally it would be very helpful to know, because we are financing these in the budget of the European Union, how the dialogues have been developing.
The TABD, the Business Dialogue was very successful in its last meeting in Cincinatti, but we note that since then the Environment Dialogue has closed down in the last couple of weeks.
Therefore, I think an analysis of what has happened would be very helpful.
To conclude, what next? I believe that where we in this House are, as the Commissioner rightly pointed out, building up relationships, through the Legislators' Dialogue between the European Parliament and Congress, we would hope, in the longer term, to see that turn into a form of transatlantic assembly.
Equally, we would like to see how the different dialogues of the business dialogue can be put into a broader partnership framework.
I would ask the Commissioner, in the run-up to the release of this document in April, under a new US Administration, apparently, it was decided today, under a new US President, hopefully George W. Bush, to see how to deepen this partnership in the future, based on the new Treaty of Nice which extends the activities of the European Union so as to enable it to be a real partner with the United States in the decade ahead.
Mr President, Commissioner Patten, I believe you have given us a good introduction and briefing on the issues and topics that we shall be discussing, and I believe the honourable Member, Mr Elles, was right to emphasise the need to establish precisely what we wish our transatlantic relationship to achieve in the year 2001 and beyond.
The most important thing for us will be to consolidate, to examine very carefully the actual progress that has been made in the various programmes we have launched under the umbrella of the Transatlantic Agenda.
These are the topics referred to by Mr Elles.
But there is another area which is very important and which has come in for a great deal of criticism, namely the mutual-recognition agreements, which have given rise to very many problems on both sides of the Atlantic, especially the American side.
I should be grateful if you would deal in detail with these agreements in the communication which is scheduled for the spring of next year and if, besides the analysis requested by the other side of the House, you would also make proposals as to how we can achieve new aims in future in all domains - in the various dialogues, in our cooperation in the fields of foreign policy and security policy and even in practical everyday areas such as the mutual-recognition agreements.
That will be very, very important.
Another area relates to the aforementioned EU educational centres, which I believe have been highly successful.
Consolidation is important, but so, too, is the right perspective.
I believe you touched on an important point there.
Under the Clinton Administration, we have made great strides in the realm of political cooperation.
However, we have also seen trade policy, and trade disputes in particular, playing an ever greater role as a determinant of general political relations and gaining absolutely unmerited prominence, in my opinion.
It is essential that, at future summit meetings, you actually manage to focus attention on the major political issues and that matters such as the trade disputes which highlight differences between us are assigned to their proper place, that their importance is not exaggerated and that they are not allowed to become focal points of political discord between Europe and the United States.
So it will be important to change tack here and write a real Transatlantic Agenda for the year 2001.
I know that our Ambassador in Washington, Gunter Burghardt, has already spoken about this, and I should be delighted if his interesting proposals were actually incorporated into your communication.
I wish you every success in this task.
I also wish our Commissioner, Pascal Lamy, every success in his efforts to bring about the settlement of our trade disputes with the United States, and it would please me to see you present the communication at the earliest possible date.
Mr President, there seem to be many issues which this summit should address on its agenda, and one that I would like to see there is follow-up to the disappointing breakdown of the climate change talks in The Hague and how to get the US to take its responsibilities more seriously.
But the area that I want to focus on is world trade, the whole idea of a new trade round one year after Seattle.
This would seem an opportune time to take stock.
I think it is clear that before any new round is considered we need to address the perception of many developing countries that nothing has changed since Seattle in spite of the many promises that were made at the time.
I know the Commission is now talking about reviving elements of its position for a new round, making it more flexible, and I look forward to knowing what that really means in practice.
I also know and welcome the Everything but Arms Initiative and would urge the Commission to use the occasion of the summit to press the US again to join in with this initiative.
But we need to go further in building confidence with poorer countries.
Research from the development agency OXFAM has shown that when they have discussed what has changed since Seattle with the developing country delegations, the perceptions are that nothing has changed at all.
Bangladesh, for example, says and I quote: "Sufficient and sustained efforts have not been made by the developed countries to build our confidence in the WTO."
Lesotho has said: "What has the WTO market liberalisation brought to Lesotho?"
There are very many quotes that I hear from developing country delegations, all of which are saying that nothing much has happened.
I will conclude with the Dominican Republic, which says: "The WTO was supposed to have been an impartial referee of common rules where countries could learn to play the game.
It has not turned out that way.
The rules are biased against the weak and nothing has changed since Seattle."
The forthcoming summit is the crucial opportunity to address those issues, to change the rules, and to make world trade work for the poor.
Mr President, since I only have one minute, I shall confine myself to a single issue and say that the strengthening of relations between the European Union and the United States should not only concern economic and commercial issues.
I would therefore ask you and the European Union representatives attending Monday' s Summit to tackle political issues and, more specifically, the issue of the death penalty at the same level.
It is impossible to remain silent about this State crime, especially when it is committed by the most powerful nation on earth which too often attempts to impose its own order and values on the rest of the planet.
That particular value, at any event, is one that we do not want.
It is impossible to accept that the only solution to crime and violence is further crime and violence.
It is therefore necessary to take action to prevent the irreversible fate that awaits those women and men who, like Mumia Abu-Jamal or Leonard Pelletier, have sometimes been on death row for years.
Throughout the world, voices are being raised to demand a form of justice which is a genuine reflection of the values of human respect and of the basic rights and freedoms of the individual.
On every continent, a petition demanding the abolition of the death penalty is being signed by hundreds of thousands of people.
As Nicole Fontaine rightly reminded us this morning, preserving this most precious commodity called life means, in the end, obtaining a universal moratorium on the death penalty as a first step towards its abolition.
I believe that advantage should be taken of the dialogue that exists between the European Union and the United States in order to finally achieve this objective.
Mr President, I should like to take advantage of this debate on relations between Europe and the United States to make three observations and to make three recommendations on the basis of these.
Firstly, we must not lose sight of the fact that Europe has been built in opposition to empires or, rather, between empires.
The Soviet Union was a threatening empire and the United States of America was a protective empire, but one vis-à-vis which we had every intention of affirming our identity.
Secondly, even if the retreat of the Communist threat is a cause for rejoicing, the collapse of the Soviet Union has left us with a single superpower in the form of the United States of America.
Now, it is a law of nature that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there are symptoms of such corruption, for instance: a form of economic diplomacy which might be summed up in the words, 'what is ours is ours and what is yours is negotiable' , the claim of establishing a new world order, a pax Americana whose influence is far from that of always promoting peace, and the unacceptable development of unqualified interference in the internal affairs of other States.
The conclusion must be drawn that the traditional friendship and real sympathy we have for the American people is to no avail here.
The United States of America is our competitor.
It has no problem defending its own interests.
We ought, in turn, to defend ours.
Three recommendations, therefore.
We must question the usefulness of arrangements such as NATO which no longer fulfil their original objective of ensuring common security and which are compromising our freedom.
We must defend our political autonomy and stop taking sides with the United States, whether it be in the UNO, with regard to Iraq or the Arab world in general, in Asia or in the Balkans, where our actions, Mr Patten, have had disastrous consequences, whatever you may say.
Finally, we should have no problem defending our own economic interests, not only within the WTO but, above all, in areas which, from culture to agriculture, are coterminous with European civilisation and must not therefore be subject simply to the laws of the market or of international barter.
That is what all Europeans should be saying if they are concerned to see the type of independent Europe which we have portrayed to our compatriots and for which, in reality, we are still waiting.
Mr President, I shall be mercifully brief.
Firstly, in response to Mr Elles, we should be delighted to provide, as a backdrop to the discussion on the communication we shall produce in the new year on the strengthening of the dialogue between Europe and the United States, an analysis of the progress that we have made so far since 1990.
We should be delighted to incorporate in that analysis a review of the way that the various dialogues have been developing.
That is a useful idea and we will certainly follow it up.
Secondly, we will also pursue the very important point Mrs Mann made on mutual recognition agreements and we should take account of her wise observation that one must not get trade disputes out of proportion.
I think I am right in saying that EU/US trade amounts to about EUR 1billion a day and the total worth of the sanctions applied by the United States against European goods represents about six hours' worth of trade.
So, as the honourable Member said, we should not get these things out of proportion.
I was interested by what Mrs Lucas said about world trade and the importance of trying to ensure that increasingly free trade works in the interests of the poor as well as the better off.
I know that my colleague Commissioner Lamy will want to pursue his thoughts and the Commission's latest thoughts on how to revive the WTO round with the United States and also with this Parliament.
I know he has a good and very constructive dialogue with Parliament and with the committees with an interest in these issues.
I think Mrs Boudjenah, who spoke about the death penalty, was probably present in the Chamber a few weeks ago when we had an extremely interesting debate on the death penalty, which touched on the situation in the United States, among other countries.
I believe I am right in recalling that there have been 81 executions in the United States this year.
We have made, and will continue to make, individual and collective representations about the death penalty in the United States.
I should like to assure the honourable Member of that.
We take a very clear position on the death penalty around the world, and that relates to our friends in the United States as well as to others elsewhere who may not be quite so well-disposed.
Mr Gollnisch and I perhaps look at the world through different spectacles.
I am not greatly persuaded of the arguments about the devilish hegemonist in Washington.
I do not agree with everything the United States does, but we in Europe have good cause to recall the contribution which the United States made during the second half of the last century to our freedom and prosperity.
But the honourable Member is entirely right that there are issues like the environment, trade, landmines, extraterritoriality and legislation where we take a rather different position from the United States.
We should take that position vigorously, without thinking that to do so will somehow undermine our relationship with our greatest friends and allies.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mr Gollnisch has requested the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I shall just take a moment, with your permission.
I did not say at all, Mr Patten, that American hegemony was devilish. In fact, I said exactly the opposite.
I said that it was in the natural order of things that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I am not therefore accusing the Americans as a people and as a great nation.
However, I should like us to be more autonomous in our relations with them.
Thank you very much, Mr Gollnisch.
That concludes this item.
VAT
Mr President, in this joint debate we are going to discuss three reports which relate to four Commission proposals, which means that I have an unusual number of roles to play.
I am rapporteur for two of them, I am shadow rapporteur for Mrs Torres Marques' s report and I am tabling amendments to the report on aviation fuel, because I do not agree with some of the ideas which were approved in committee.
The second peculiarity, as you will have the opportunity to discover, is that I am in an unusual position within my own group.
My military career was neither long nor distinguished, but I did learn that the role of the artillery was to bombard the infantry, if possible, the enemy infantry.
I fear that I am currently trapped in my group' s own crossfire.
I will start by discussing the first of the reports, which relates to VAT on e-commerce.
The proposal which the Commission has referred to Parliament has, in my opinion, a priority objective: to remedy the discriminatory situation currently suffered by European e-commerce companies in comparison to companies from third countries.
E-commerce refers to the provision of services delivered by Internet and radio and TV services provided by subscription or 'pay per view' .
I am stressing this because some of the amendments intend to establish a zero rate of VAT for services which, in my opinion, are not of an essential or social nature.
The Commission also has other secondary objectives, in accordance with the traditional thinking of ministries of finance: to achieve this objective - that of ending this discrimination - by simplifying the tax, making it considerably more effective in terms of the recovery and reduction of the administrative costs relating to the collection of taxes, to achieve the objectives of efficiency and fairness and to achieve, finally, the modernisation of the tax system.
These objectives, the main one and the secondary ones, will be the touchstone by which the concrete proposals submitted by the Commission must be judged.
However, Mr President, I said that the first of these criteria by which we must judge this proposal is the need to end the discrimination suffered by European companies in comparison with third countries.
This discrimination comes about because Article 9 of the sixth directive establishes the presumption that the place where the service is provided is the address where the service provider is officially established.
In other words, at the moment European companies are subject to VAT when they provide electronic services, whether that be inside or outside the Union.
On the other hand, companies established outside the Union never pay VAT, whether they are providing services to European clients or to clients in other parts of the world, thereby harming our competitiveness in external markets.
To sum up and to put it very simply, the services provided by European companies currently suffer a tax burden which is not suffered by third country companies who provide services within the Union.
Therefore, current European legislation encourages European e-commerce companies to establish themselves outside the Community.
Some of the arguments which we will hear in the course of this afternoon will say that burdening outside companies which provide services within the Union would put a brake on the growth of e-commerce, but precisely the opposite is true, since maintaining this state of affairs harms the growth of the European e-commerce industry.
We all agree on this, both on this side and on the other side of the Atlantic.
We are so much in agreement that, at the Ottawa Conference in 1998, three conclusions were reached which I consider to be important: firstly, national taxes on consumption must be applied to consumption which takes place within national territory.
Secondly, the provision of digital products constitutes a provision of services rather than a delivery of goods.
Thirdly, we must turn to simple formulae for recovering taxes and, specifically, the reversal of the taxable person.
In accordance with this objective, and with this international legal framework agreed by everybody in Ottawa, the Commission proposes the amendment of the sixth directive to lay down that digital services should be established in the place where the receiver is established rather than the provider.
Consequently, services provided by European companies to non-European companies would always be exempt from the tax, which would revive our international competitiveness.
Secondly, services provided by European companies to European customers would be subject to tax, as is normal.
And thirdly, services provided by non-European companies to European companies would also be subject to tax, which establishes equality of conditions, in other words, fair play, on an international level.
The problem does not stem transactions between companies, but occurs when the receiver of the service is a private individual, and here the Commission is doing the only thing it can do: oblige non-EU companies to register in a country of the European Union so that from there, with a Community passport, it can provide services to the whole of the Union, while having to pay the same tax as the European companies.
In my view, this solution resolves the problem of eliminating previous discrimination and achieves the objective of simplification.
A company only has to register in one country of the Union.
It does not have to register in fifteen, it does not have to understand fifteen different sets of legislation and does not have to struggle with fifteen administrations.
However, it does not resolve the problem of fairness.
We know that a solution such as this - establishment in one country with the opportunity to provide services to the whole of the Union - could lead to an avalanche towards those countries with the lowest taxes.
The French Presidency therefore proposed that non-EU companies providing services in the Union should have to register in all fifteen countries, which contradicts the objective of simplification.
What does the Commission propose? The Commission proposes, respecting the objective of simplification, a single place of establishment, but that the tax recovered by the Treasury of that country should be redistributed amongst the other countries of the Union, in accordance with the relative consumption.
That is exactly the formula which will enable the introduction of VAT at source, it is exactly the formula which we have decided for cross-border returns of VAT and it is exactly the formula Ecofin has approved, in accordance with the Feira conclusions, in the case of withholding taxes.
Is this Commission communication complete? It is not.
There are certain problems which I have highlighted in the explanatory statement, such as ensuring that a company which can provide services from outside the Union is registered.
How can we guarantee that there is no discrimination between similar products? Digital service, the consultation of or access to a book or a magazine, would be taxed at the normal rate if this were done via the Internet, whereas it would be subject to a lower rate when it is supplied physically.
How can we resolve the problems of identifying the client? The responses contained in the Commission' s proposal seems to me to be adequate, and in any event, Mr President, these difficulties are clearly not exclusive to the taxation of digital services.
VAT is a tax that was intended to cover the movement of goods and does not suit the provision of services, especially a phenomenon as new as Internet services.
The second of the reports I am going to refer to deals with the problem of hydrocarbons, and the issue is very simple.
The 1992 Directive established a mandatory exemption for fuels used in international aviation and, at the same time, established a review of the exemption in order to take account of environmental costs.
The legal difficulties for this revision are found in the 1944 Chicago Convention, an international obligation, which exempts on-board fuel supplied to aircraft from tax, and the bilateral agreements.
Faced with this situation, the Commission ordered a study, which is the one we are investigating here, on what can be done.
The first conclusion is that little can be done until the international framework is modified.
The second conclusion reached by the Commission is that it would be desirable to have a tax on national flights and on intra-Community flights, subject to modification of the bilateral agreements, which is something I do not agree with.
Thirdly, and this I do agree with, the need - within the international framework of the ICAO - to make all the progress necessary to establish a tax which is world-wide, and therefore not discriminatory, on Community transport.
Mr President, having abused your patience, I impatiently await the criticisms and comments of the other Members, both from my group and from others.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission and Parliament have in recent years made great efforts to achieve harmonisation in the levying of VAT within the European Union.
This is, in fact, an important tool in the building of the internal market and also a substantial source of revenue in the Community budget.
Thus, in 1992, an agreement was reached, at the time considered a minimum harmonisation, by which the standard rate for VAT could not be less than 15% and the Member States would have the power to apply one or more reduced rates of not less than 5%, with, however, derogations provided for in this case.
But this first stage should have lasted only until the end of 1996, when the definitive system was to come in.
The proposals submitted in the meantime only led to the floor of the standard rate of VAT being fixed at 15% - although the Commission had also proposed a ceiling of 25%, which was not accepted - and to the system being extended until the end of 2000.
Now that we have come to the end of this year, the Commission proposes we should follow two paths in this field: the first is dealt with in my colleague, García-Margallo y Marfil' s report on the coordination of VAT administrative systems; the second is dealt with in this report, and seeks to put off any decision on the subject of VAT rate harmonisation until 2006.
While I agree with the proposals for coordinating the administrative systems for levying VAT, I do not agree, and neither does the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, with the proposal to postpone the harmonisation process for five years. Has the Commission given up advancing this dossier for the whole length of its mandate?
Does the Commission not consider, as we do, that the existence of the euro as the forthcoming single currency in twelve European Union states will lead to price transparency that will show up the distortion introduced into the internal market by the existence of such disparities among the rates applied in the various countries of the Union? Does this Commission and, in particular, Commissioner Frederik Bolkestein, consider this to be a case of tax competition that he wishes to maintain or even encourage through his report?
This is not our view, and we have therefore voted to bring this deadline forward to the end of 2003 so that, once the euro has been in practical usage for two years, new solutions can be put forward.
Additionally, in keeping with the positions adopted in this Parliament, I propose that the references to the need for voting in the Council on this subject to be unanimous should be removed.
If the Treaties continue to require this, so be it.
But, as I see it, nothing forces the Commission and Parliament to lay down now that, at the end of 2005, the Council vote on this subject has to be unanimous.
Such a proposal is not in line with the principles put forward either by the Commission or by Parliament for the IGC that has just finished.
There is even less justification for deciding now that it must be so until the end of 2005, when we know that there will be another review of the Treaties in the meantime.
Therefore, we also propose removing this requirement for unanimity.
In conclusion, let us say that we do not like to see the Commission giving up completely on VAT harmonisation at the beginning of its mandate, and Parliament, understanding the need to extend the validity of the legislation in force, being left waiting for the Commission, in the middle of its mandate and with the euro already in circulation, to present us with a new, full and thorough proposal on this matter.
Mr President, the first point the committee would like to make is that current arrangements disadvantage EU providers of these services: software, data processing, and computer services, web hosting, web design and information.
We would like to add educational services to that.
They disadvantage people inside the EU because they currently pay VAT for the supply of these services whereas those outside the European Union do not.
This is why we believe that this directive needs to come into force with some urgency, particularly those of us who believe that there will be a rapid rise in e-commerce.
The Industry Committee adopted a number of proposals by thirty-nine votes to three.
We asked for registration in a single Member State.
We called for the European Commission to monitor to ensure that there is no distortion of the market and to report back to the Council and to Parliament.
We asked them to report, in the meantime, on a number of aspects: ensuring equal treatment of companies, looking at the choice of location, harmonising of international regulations and the possibility of establishing a clearing system, as was suggested by the rapporteur.
Another point we made, that was not made elsewhere, was that, as many may recall, Al Capone was gaoled not as a gangster but for tax evasion.
We see an unfortunate boom in aspects of e-commerce, in the growth of pornography, paedophilia and race-hate material.
The Industry Committee believes that registration for VAT will enable us to subject the companies concerned to the rigours of EU law on these matters.
This in itself may make the directive worthwhile.
Mr President, on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee I would like to address the same report as Mr Ford has addressed.
On the face of it this proposal would seem to be about taxation of non-EU businesses, but, of course, what it should be about is how we encourage and nurture Europe's e-economy, which is a very fragile flower.
In this sense, I welcome the Commission's brave attempt to find a way to close the competitive gap that clearly exists between EU and non-EU e-business.
But what we have to ask, and what our committee asked, was: is this the right way to do it? Our opinion was very clearly that it is not.
I was always told that one of the first rules or principles of a legislator should be: do not make law you cannot enforce.
This was our committee's major concern.
It may not be enough to rely on the good will of enterprises outside our reach.
The good guys will comply, the bad ones will still be bad, and consumers may well use them in their search for a good deal.
What else could we be doing here? There is much talk about setting up business models for e-commerce regulation, but that is a wider issue and should be dealt with in a much more transparent way.
There are underlying assumptions in this proposal about the place of taxation which could store up problems for the future in an international context.
We may have something to learn from America, where they have, of course, imposed a moratorium on such e-tax.
In short, the aim of this proposal is correct but the method is misconceived and if we really want to encourage Europe's e-economy, a right signal would be zero rate VAT for our own e-business rather than trying to impose our problems on others.
Mr President, I am speaking in the capacity of draftsman of the opinion of my committee about the taxation of aircraft fuel.
While road transport pays a hefty fuel tax, commercial aviation is exempt from this.
The directive concerned provides for the possibility, in future, of amending or abolishing this exemption, based on external costs and environmental damage.
For the time being, bilateral agreements between Member States and third countries are precluding a levy on kerosene for international flights.
A levy on aviation is of crucial importance, both on account of the 'polluter-pays' principle and equal competitive conditions for various modes of transport.
The efforts of the members of the ICAO, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, should therefore be geared towards opening up this possibility, for which an opportunity will arise next autumn during the 33rd general meeting.
For a variety of reasons, such as noise pollution, air pollution and energy consumption, the discouragement of shorter flights, certainly domestic flights, deserves much attention.
As and when the train offers an equivalent alternative on an increasing number of routes, this alternative can be promoted.
I am thrilled by the fact that, partly thanks to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, a number of important elements are once again brought to the fore in the report. Due to events occurring at the time, these elements met with less than adequate support in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
The fact that fuel for road transport is about three times more expensive than aircraft fuel, is striking, to say the least.
Add to this the unruly increase in the number of flights, including short-haul flights, and the question arises as to where all of this will end.
In business and leisure travel alike, people must be able to choose on the basis of honest competitive conditions.
But at the same time, people, including those who never fly, are entitled to expect noise, air and other pollution to be kept down to an absolute minimum.
Plenty of reason, therefore, to take a close look at whether aviation is carrying its external costs and not prejudicing the train or bus owing to unfair competition.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I would like to say that, as regards taxation of aircraft fuel, I am pleased by the reaction from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
They have, on the whole, taken on board the arguments that I have presented.
Aircraft are currently the fastest growing source of greenhouse gases.
It is estimated that around 5 percent come from aeroplanes.
The number of flights is also expected to double in around 15 years.
If we are to be able to live up to the requirements for reduced emissions of greenhouse gases we must take every measure possible to limit them.
An example of such a measure is to make more use of financial instruments of control.
As Mr Van Dam has also said, aircraft fuel should therefore not be exempt from tax.
The Commission' s communication states that the effect is so small that it is not worth doing anything about it.
I object to this line of reasoning.
Aviation is a fast growing sector.
If the effect is small today, it will, in any case, be larger tomorrow.
This kind of reasoning is dangerous because it can easily lead to a situation in which no one does anything anywhere.
We must start at one end.
We cannot have the present structure and the present technology and at the same time achieve the environmental objectives.
We must either change the structure or the technology or both.
I think that the fairest thing from the point of view of the different transport sectors and also from the point of view of competition is for us to lead the way and introduce aircraft fuel tax within the EU.
At the same time, however, we must pursue the line of revising the Chicago Convention of 1944 so that we establish a different system in the international area.
Mr President, the progress that was made in the domain of European fiscal policy at the EU Summit in Nice was totally unsatisfactory.
Indeed, the position of fiscal sovereignty as symbol of national sovereignty seems to have been further strengthened by the introduction of the euro.
Yet we are all aware now that unfettered fiscal competition is detrimental to every one of us.
By offering short-term location incentives, a government damages the economies of neighbouring Member States.
The idea of a European fiscal policy is not about levying Community taxes or harmonising tax regimes.
It is about the coordination of taxes with a view to avoiding fiscal competition and establishing legal certainty, transparency and efficiency.
This makes the siege mentality that prevailed in Nice all the more regrettable.
EU fiscal policy remains governed by the consensus principle.
This has to change if the single market is to function smoothly.
We are already familiar with the problems in the domains of VAT and energy taxes.
It will soon become apparent that the European capital market also requires coordination and harmonisation if the financial action plan is to stand even the slightest chance of being implemented.
Let me now turn to the three proposals from the Commission and its communication.
My group endorses the rapporteurs' conclusions.
It is extremely regrettable that a framework directive on the taxation of energy products has not been adopted to this day.
Perhaps, as a first step, agreement should be reached on a sort of code of conduct to encourage the use of fiscal instruments in the cause of energy saving and environmental protection.
Positive discrimination in favour of air transport must be abolished.
This, however, presupposes an international regime - and I entirely agree with the rapporteur here - otherwise it would unduly impair the competitiveness of the European airlines.
Consequently, it would be very fitting indeed if the Commission were to present us with reports which included analyses of the relationship between taxation on the one hand and actual energy savings and reduction of CO2 emissions on the other.
Secondly, with regard to the period of applicability of the minimum standard rate, it is sadly obvious that we still await any sign of progress towards a definitive VAT system based on the country of origin, despite the euro having brought price transparency to the internal market.
So we have no option but to welcome the Commission's attempt to introduce a wide range of new rules in order to improve the present system, which is too complex, bureaucratic, and open to evasion.
Members of the European Parliament have never been able to understand why governments are prepared to go on tolerating the leakage of billions of euros in tax revenue under the current system.
It is high time the Commission gathered the various VAT directives into a single regulation so that the VAT regime can at least be uniformly applied. That has to be said here.
There is always a chance, of course, that we might yet receive a Christmas present.
As far as the VAT arrangements applicable to certain services supplied by electronic means are concerned, the Commission proposal and the rapporteur merit our support.
It is unacceptable that European companies should be at a competitive disadvantage in relation to non-EU companies in the realm of e-commerce because they are liable for VAT in respect of their transactions in the world at large as well as those within the internal market.
It is also important that e-commerce is not subject to heavier or lighter taxation than conventional business transactions.
Registration in a single country is the appropriate, simple and efficient way to achieve this aim.
However, on account of the wide range of VAT rates, it will be necessary, as our rapporteur rightly proposes, to distribute VAT revenue fairly among the Member States by means of a clearing system.
Mr President, Europe is to lead the world in the coming decade where use of the Internet is concerned.
This was proposed at the Lisbon Summit last spring.
It is both an excellent and necessary ambition.
If, within the EU, we want to be competitive and stand on the front line, then this is a highly reasonable objective.
Therefore, we Liberals share the Commission's ambitions, but we find it very hard to understand the specific proposals put forward by the Commission.
If Europe is to be the world's most dynamic continent and able to surpass the Americans when it comes to attracting the companies of the new economy, we need to provide good e-commerce opportunities.
VAT-free e-commerce is what e-Europe needs - not bureaucracy and new taxes.
According to the current rules, companies within the EU which sell music, computer games, software and services distributed electronically are taxed within the EU if these are bought by consumers within the EU.
Companies from countries which are not members of the EU are not taxed at all.
These rules lead to a distortion of competition which obviously needs to be remedied, but the Commission's proposal is a step in the wrong direction.
Companies from countries outside the EU are forced to register a subsidiary company in at least one EU country to be able to carry on business within the Union.
The report makes certain adjustments, as stated also by the rapporteur, but as we have heard, it shares the Commission's basic position.
This is not a good solution for Europe.
It is an old-fashioned way of thinking which does not fit in with the new economy.
The proposal will put the EU behind in the game and would also be very difficult to control.
In order to give e-Europe a kick-start, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party proposes that the Commission's proposal be rejected and that the Member States be given the opportunity to introduce zero rate VAT on e-commerce.
This zero rate VAT should apply until the VAT rules for non-electronic goods and services have been thoroughly examined and an agreement has been reached within OECD or another international forum on a common position on the taxation of e-commerce.
Mr President, let the experiences from the taxation package serve as an example.
A global view is required.
Many are in fact asking themselves, Commissioner, why Europeans are always so quick to introduce taxes and new rules?
We do not need higher taxes in the EU, instead we need lower taxes.
Mr President, I believe that the successive interventions of our fellow MEPs in the Liberal Group show the complexity of the problem.
It is difficult to understand why the Liberals want to do away with tax on e-commerce and to place a tax on the aviation fuel used in aircraft.
I think it is important to establish some criteria.
Aeroplanes are no less modern than e-commerce.
Compact discs are not exactly antediluvian, and it would appear that these have to be taxed, whereas programmes circulating on the Internet are apparently to be exempt from tax.
It is important to know, on the one hand, whether a very important aspect of economic activity assists the administration of public services and, from that point of view, taxation (like State funding) is absolutely unavoidable, and e-commerce cannot be exempt from this.
On the other hand, taxation must be selected in such a way as to deter the consumer from choosing technologies which are the most harmful to the environment.
That is the situation we are in at present, with the lack of a tax on aviation fuel scandalously boosting air travel at the expense of rail travel, even in circumstances in which, for other reasons such as noise and congestion, rail travel should be given preference in Europe.
I am thinking in particular of the London-Paris-Amsterdam-Frankfurt quadrilateral.
I believe that the position adopted in Mr García-Margallo y Marfil' s two reports, whereby both e-commerce and aviation fuel would be taxed, is excellent and we shall vote in favour of them.
We would particularly congratulate the Commission for encouraging us to be bold when it comes to internal taxation of aviation.
That being said, our collective view is that another tax should be contemplated, other than that relating to fuels, a tax affecting all airlines whenever their planes take off and land at European Union airports, so that we can circumvent international regulations and be in a position to tax our competitors too.
Mr President, since Mr Sjöstedt is no longer able to be present in the House, I would like to say a few words on his behalf with regard to the report on the taxation of aircraft fuel.
Air traffic is increasing sharply.
Even though the emissions from this source only represent a fairly small proportion of the total emissions of greenhouse gases, they are nevertheless increasing very fast.
Finding a method for the taxation of aircraft fuel that works is therefore one of the key issues of climate policy.
It would also create a much fairer situation between the different forms of transport.
The Chicago Convention has become completely out-of-date on this point.
We need international agreements on environment taxes, but not, however, the ban on environment taxes which the Convention involves.
Therefore, point 16 of the report concerning the renegotiation of the Convention is particularly welcome.
In anticipation of this, a system of environment taxes on aircraft within the EU would, of course, be a positive thing.
Here we have an opportunity of showing that we take climate policy seriously within the EU.
We support the report and the amendments tabled by the Group of the Greens, but we object totally to the amendments proposed by the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal of the European Commission intended to make the purchasing of digital products which can be downloaded directly from the Internet by consumers resident in the Union from extra-Community firms subject to VAT is a heavy blow for the development of e-commerce.
The goal which the Commission would like to achieve is to eliminate the disadvantage suffered by European e-businesses whose sales to European consumers are already subject to VAT.
Nevertheless, the solution proposed will prove to be technically unmanageable and a barrier to the development of on-line transactions within the Union, at the very time when everybody is hoping for its expansion.
The point has been made from several quarters, even within the Council, which has decided to give itself more time, that the proposal is weak, that it leaves gaps and that it is such as to induce numerous objections.
I will quote but a few: it appears that it would be impossible to apply the measures adopted without active cooperation from the other countries, particularly the United States, which is currently not at all disposed to cooperate. What would happen if an Eastern European country failed to register in Europe for VAT purposes?
Would the site be blocked or would we prosecute the users who continued to download files from offshore sites? When all is said and done, any benefit would go to the companies who, with relative ease and certain impunity, refused to comply with the registration obligation.
How can an e-business be certain that its clients have declared their true place of residence? If the European criteria of the registration obligation were to be taken up internationally for e-commerce taxation, the businesses complying with the obligation, including European businesses, would be forced to register in dozens and dozens of countries, incurring increasingly unreasonable expenses, especially where smaller firms are concerned.
I could say more, for example on the decision to tax the sale of all electronic equipment etc.
Moreover, this enthusiasm for negligible amounts of taxable income and tax revenue is incomprehensible.
The Commission should rather endeavour to ensure that a common, definitive definition of the e-business taxation criteria reaches the OSCE or the WTO.
For these reasons we will vote against the report.
Mr President, very few issues among the growing band of United Kingdom Euro-sceptics excite as much interest as VAT, this being one of the concrete examples of the European Union interfering in domestic tax matters.
The tax itself embodies many of the features of the European Union which makes it so unloved in my country: it is complicated, bureaucratic, difficult and expensive to administer and, in the UK at least, enforced by a draconian and unpopular inspectorate.
On Parliament's report, I find myself in complete disagreement with virtually every single word.
I cannot, for instance, see why the introduction of the euro should require further or even any coordination of VAT rates.
I do not see the introduction of a common system of VAT as a priority and I do not agree that the introduction of a common system is long overdue.
In fact, nothing would please me, my party and the bulk of business people in the United Kingdom more than the complete abolition of VAT.
We would prefer a simpler levy on retail goods.
Moreover, we would prefer to determine our own taxes and reject the idea of a common tax system.
Therefore, as to the Commission's proposal to extend the timescale the reform is introduced, I can only express my neutrality.
But as to reducing that time, as the rapporteur proposed, I have to oppose.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the tax systems of the Union are becoming ineffective and are yielding less and less revenue.
One reason for this is that the systems have become so complicated that even experts find them impossible to handle.
There are too many individual taxes, and these taxes are excessively complex.
Taxpayers feel they are being fleeced by the State; how are they supposed to understand their current tax liability when the system even baffles experts?
Burdens which the public do not understand are automatically perceived to be unfair.
Their logical response is to refuse to pay.
This refusal need not take the form of tax evasion.
Very often a taxpayer will avoid taxation by doing less work, but there have also been cases of economic activities being relocated abroad.
It surely cannot be our intention in adopting new taxes, so-called Euro-taxes, to accelerate this downward spiral in our countries.
We have to appreciate that the people of Europe will not strive for greater economic success until hard work and efficiency are properly rewarded again in Europe.
We are familiar with the vital statistics: with taxes and public charges accounting for more than 45% of earned income, many of our Member States have budget deficits, whereas the United States, where taxes and public charges account for less than 30% of earned income, is achieving budget surpluses of several hundred billion dollars.
We must aim to streamline and simplify our tax systems and to reduce the rate of taxation, not increase it.
The taxation of aircraft fuel must therefore be rejected.
The sixth VAT directive must be simplified; if any limit is to be imposed at all on VAT rates, it should be an upper limit and certainly not a prescribed minimum.
This means that zero-rating of VAT must be permissible for the provision of electronic services.
I oppose Mrs Torres Marques' call for harmonisation of VAT, but what I would really like to address is the García-Margallo report on e-commerce.
While I applaud Mr García-Margallo's heroic efforts on aircraft fuel, I am afraid I cannot agree with his stance on VAT in e-commerce because I think that the Commission's proposal sends out the wrong signal.
We should be thinking out ways to encourage e-commerce and not thinking up new ways in which to tax it.
The de facto tax-free status of much US e-commerce must have had a tremendous impact in encouraging the new economy and its phenomenal success in the US.
This tax is unenforceable, why should we spend the time and the money and the effort on creating a tax that we cannot collect.
The very day a respectable dot.com starts levying VAT, a less respectable dot.com will set up selling exactly the same products without VAT and that is where the customers will go.
The proposal is arguably inconsistent with the Ottawa Accord because it provides for different rates for on-line and off-line equivalent products such as, for example, newspapers which would enjoy a reduced rate in their off-line physical form.
It will be almost impossible for e-businesses to work out the VAT status of their customers and impossible to work out whether their customers are based in the EU, whether they are businesses or not.
And as we move ever closer towards electronic money, even the comfort of a credit card billing address will no longer be available to e-businesses as they try to ascertain whether they should charge VAT to a particular customer or not.
The amount of revenue about which we are talking is very small at the moment.
There is no need to rush into this legislation.
We are talking about the future of Europe's economy, the future of its e-economy, let us take the time to get this proposal right.
I would call upon the Commission to rethink the proposal and to think of an alternative way.
The preferable option by far is to zero rate European e-businesses to put them on the same playing-field as American and other businesses around the world.
Mr President, this discussion gives me the opportunity to sum up my own position on the issue of taxation.
The right to levy taxes and other charges is one of the foundations of any organised society.
Without taxes, there is no State.
It is no surprise that the Nice Summit has confirmed the principle of unanimity where all decisions about tax are concerned.
The Edinburgh Summit had limited contributions to the Community budget to 1.27% of European gross domestic product.
The European Union' s budget for next year will be closer to 1% than to this upper limit.
That is very little indeed.
All States redistribute at least 30%, often 40% and occasionally more than 50% of their national wealth created during the year.
No one can define the optimum level of compulsory levies.
Liberals tell us that as little State involvement as possible is required.
The United States are cited as an example of a country which adopts this policy.
The US Federal budget redistributes only a third of American GDP.
In Europe, compulsory levies include large transfers to finance pensions and health care.
In the United States, however, social protection is largely the province of the private sector.
Free-market health care therefore costs the Americans the equivalent of 14% of their GDP, compared with 8 to 9% in European countries.
Ought not these health care costs in the United States to be added on if tax levels on each side of the Atlantic are to be compared?
Whatever the answer, the point of this digression is to note that solidarity organised via the American budget is thirty times greater than that organised via the Community budget.
Unless there is broad Community solidarity of a kind which is only possible on the basis of a federal structure that is unlikely to exist in the foreseeable future, the individual States of the European Union will be forced to retain control of their taxation.
In acknowledging this state of affairs, the European Union will nonetheless have to, and be able to, fulfil its duty to coordinate taxation in Europe.
Coordinating and harmonising are not the same as standardising.
Fiscal competition is in the interests of the people and of the economy.
The United States and the Swiss Confederation have internal markets in which tax varies greatly between one state, or canton, and another.
American local sales tax may vary between zero and ten points, although the difference between neighbouring states is generally no more than five points.
This clearly demonstrates that Europe has no need of uniform VAT rates.
Minimum rates, and possibly a maximum rate, are needed, but the States need to be allowed room for manoeuvre to enable them to pursue their own microeconomic policies.
Obviously, any unfair tax competition needs to be combated, especially when it comes to business tax matters.
The Primarolo group has devised simple rules which must be applied.
Money laundering must be combated, as must organised crime and tax fraud.
That is already happening, even in States which practice banking secrecy.
I am therefore in favour of common rules and minimum tax thresholds.
Levying tax at source on savings products is acceptable, on condition that they are reasonable and levied at source.
Many Europeans have difficulty accepting tax on savings because they feel they are being taxed twice over.
Those who spend their income pay VAT. Those who save the yield from their income which has already been taxed ought, on Ecofin' s reasoning, to be subject to a levy at source and will, in addition, be taxed on an assessment basis.
I would call for uniform taxation at source. This could be allocated as a direct resource to the Community budget.
National contributions to the European Union' s budget should be reduced by the same amount.
A procedure like that would eliminate the need for the European bureaucratic information exchange system thought up in Feira.
There is also a danger of the latter system leading to the complete renationalisation of European taxation, because each State will be able, in 2010, to establish its national tax as it sees fit.
Other States will simply be induced to supply the information needed for the purposes of national taxation.
As far as I am concerned, Feira does not constitute progress but, rather, a setback when it comes to necessary tax coordination in Europe.
Mr President, it is truly touching to hear the purportedly angelic arguments in favour of promoting e-commerce, but here the problem we have is the real competitive disadvantage of our European companies, and the problem of correcting that situation by establishing certain rules, so that all services supplied to private individuals by electronic means in the European Union are subject to VAT.
Therefore, in order to ensure that operators from outside the Union are subject to the same tax obligations as domestic operators when providing services to consumers, they must be registered for VAT purposes in a Member State of their choice, with the VAT rate of the State they choose being the one that applies to their operations.
We debated this issue in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and some committee members spoke in favour of tax exemption for this type of service, arguing that this would eliminate the competitive disadvantage.
I believe that this argument is mistaken.
It is an inappropriate argument and it is not in accordance with European legislation, and furthermore it would do comparative harm to services provided by other means.
Furthermore, it is not true that a moratorium on the taxation of electronic services has been introduced in the United States.
We therefore support the Commission' s proposal in its entirety and the excellent work of Mr García-Margallo y Marfil.
I personally tabled an amendment on the harmonisation of VAT rates, which would correct the effects of unfair competition resulting from third country operators' power to choose when it comes to registering, since there is a very broad range of VAT rates available to them - between 15 and 25% - while domestic operators have no choice.
However, I believe that a better solution has been found to compensate the Member States for the loss of VAT income resulting from these differences in rates, a solution which I consider to be satisfactory.
By way of an objection, the Group that I represent in this House believes that we should correct the fact that, while newspapers normally enjoy reduced VAT rates, this reduction is not applicable to electronic newspapers.
Mr President, the taxation of aircraft fuel really does seem to be long overdue.
There is absolutely no justification for imposing high taxes on all fuels except kerosene at a time when the volume of air traffic is rising sharply in terms of both cargo and passenger miles.
This has been accompanied by a correspondingly sharp increase in emissions of greenhouse gases and noise levels.
Fuel taxation serves several purposes.
On the one hand, excise duties on fuel, like all taxes, help to finance national budgets.
On the other hand, they also have a regulatory function in that they reduce fuel consumption and hence the depletion of carbonised energy resources and the emission of greenhouse gases.
These taxes therefore confront industry with a constant challenge to manufacture vehicles with lower fuel consumption.
That is precisely what we want to see for aircraft too.
So why should aircraft fuel not be taxed now, at long last? We are, after all, anxious to ensure that no mode of transport is treated unfairly.
But the situation is not quite as straightforward as that.
Air traffic covers greater distances than any other mode of transport.
More significantly, aircraft fly across borders, including the borders of the European Union.
Even now, without kerosene duty, the airports in the EU are locked in fierce competition.
The main reason for this is the fact that different regions have different rules for night flying, a situation which affects cargo transport in particular.
This puts enormous pressure on airlines to keep their prices down.
If we were now to go it alone in Europe and tax aircraft fuel, European operators would scarcely be able to compete with airlines based outside Europe.
We would destroy our own European market.
So the taxation of kerosene is only possible on the basis of an international consensus if a level playing-field is to be guaranteed.
This is what Europe must work towards, even though it will be a long and arduous process.
Until this goal is achieved, there are certainly other means of regulating air traffic, such as emission-based take-off and landing fees at all European airports.
That option would affect all airlines, European and non-European.
It would not distort competition in any way.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his speedy work on this report on VAT and e-commerce.
I think the comments I have heard around the floor today would almost suggest that we do not need this kind of report, but of course we do.
It is tempting for us always to compare ourselves with the USA and to say that because they cannot find a satisfactory solution, we should not either.
But the fact is that VAT on goods and services applies across the European Union. This is a tax which already exists.
It is not a new tax and it should be applied.
It should be applied to the Internet at well.
Otherwise, what would happen?
Well of course the issue of unfair competition has already been mentioned.
Why should the retail industry be so badly affected and be made to suffer in order for another industry to grow? If indeed it can be affected that way by what the proposal suggests, and I doubt that.
Furthermore, this proposal is in line, as I see it, with the principles agreed at Ecofin, which in turn are in line with the agreed principles of the OECD Conference in Ottawa.
The source where the tax should apply is a matter of concern, and the discussion around the number of countries which would qualify to have companies registered in them is something which I believe will be burdensome and of course provoke the USA to a complaint in the WTO.
But I do not believe that e-commerce is going to be crushed by VAT being suddenly applied like some evil giant.
I think that the real problem is that EU retail industries will continue to suffer the disadvantages that they are currently suffering.
It is amusing to hear some of the comments being made around this Chamber today but it is quite clearly also amusing to remember that the kind of cashless society that perhaps the likes of Trotters Independent Trading Company in the UK were involved in is the kind of society that is being advocated by some over on the other side of the House.
Are we going to end up with that kind of cashless society, with cowboy e-commerce outfits being able to do what they want? I do not think so.
That is not how we are meant to organise society, and that is why I think this proposal is an excellent one.
Mr President, I would like to warmly welcome the report on aviation fuel tax because it addresses head-on the fact that aviation is the fastest-growing source of greenhouse gas emissions and that far from discouraging these emissions, the current exemption of aviation from a fuel tax actually promotes and artificially stimulates the aviation sector and the environmental damage that goes with it.
I particularly welcome the fact that the report reinforces one of the key points that I made in my report for the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism which this Parliament voted on a few months ago, namely, that since it is undoubtedly politically difficult to achieve international agreement on an aviation tax, at least in a short term, we should look at alternative tools to achieve the same effect, including an emissions charge.
Such a charge could be levied on all flights coming into or going out of EU airports, on all carriers, and plenty of research has been done to show that this would not have negative competitive effects.
It could be agreed very swiftly without requiring international consensus, and could help make significant progress towards internalising environmental costs.
The importance of moving ahead on this issue swiftly is very clear.
The forecasts for the global growth of aviation are terrifying.
Official figures suggest a doubling of passenger numbers in just fifteen or twenty years, and if you look at what that means in UK terms alone, in order to meet that scale of demand we would be needing an extra four new Heathrow Airports or an extra eight new Gatwick Airports.
That would clearly be both politically and environmentally unacceptable.
So, instead of trying to meet projected demand we need to try to manage and reduce that demand by ensuring that the price of aviation more accurately reflects its environmental cost.
When air tickets are 42% cheaper today than they were ten years ago, it is clear that the wrong price signals are being given out.
It makes no sense at all that I can travel from London to Brussels return for just £89 by Virgin Airways, for example, yet when I use Eurostar, which produces far fewer greenhouse gases and is a much more pleasant way to travel, I have to pay the equivalent of around £250 for a similar journey.
So to conclude, action in this area is overdue and if we do not do something about it very swiftly then our efforts to try to reduce the impacts of climate change are going to be stymied.
Mr President, I wish to address my concerns this afternoon to the proposed taxation on aircraft fuel.
Whilst there is recognition in this report that a kerosene tax cannot be imposed internationally due to the exemption in the Chicago Convention, nevertheless the introduction of such a tax, intra-EU or bilaterally, would be severely damaging to the United Kingdom and the entire European aviation industry.
Not only would our air fares increase dramatically - possibly by £80 per ticket, thereby threatening the very existence of the smaller carriers - but the damage would also affect the aerospace manufacturers, tourism, businesses and, of course, the freight carriers - they now carry a third of freight world-wide by air.
It is not true to say that aviation does not bear its costs.
In fact, the industry pays 100% of its infrastructure costs through air traffic control and airport charges, amounting to US $4bn in 1998 - unlike other modes of transport, such as rail and road, which are still heavily subsidised.
These facts must be recognised.
In addition, to impose this tax would bring little benefit to the environment, as was proven by the introduction of the air passenger duty tax in the United Kingdom.
Aviation is in fact responsible for 2.5% of CO2 emissions world wide.
Other approaches, such as trading and offsets, could be more environmentally-friendly and cost- effective.
Finally, such measures would ruin the competitiveness of the European industry vis-à-vis the rest of the world and would also cause massive job losses.
So I, for one, will continue to speak up for an industry which is often singled out as the big bad wolf.
This report is badly crafted on the part of the Commission and this Parliament.
The public at large deserves better.
Mr President, some old shibboleths have resurfaced in this debate.
There are those who reject any form of taxation, including tax on e-commerce.
There are those who, rather than trying to resolve a question at European level, imagine that it is always better to refer it to other fora so as not to resolve it.
I am thinking in particular of Mr Dell'Alba' s intervention.
There are those, like Mr Titford, who vigorously defend their own national interest, preferring tax competition to European coordination.
I am not among these.
Like Mr Skinner, I think that the proposals from the rapporteur, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, regarding VAT on e-commerce are good.
We do, in fact, think that we must review our tax system in the light of technological developments.
The current situation is an unfavourable one.
The facts are that, today, a French person can purchase software from an American company exempt from VAT, whereas an American making a similar acquisition from a French company is taxed at the rate current in France.
I see this as a double competitive advantage for the American company.
I am not sure that this is the best way of supporting our own e-commerce industry.
Now, it seems that very many voices, in this Chamber too, have been raised in support of this industry.
We think this distortion of competition between Member States and third countries is unacceptable.
The Commission' s proposals would permit progress towards greater coordination, and they are along the right lines.
Then, there is the argument according to which a sector should be exempt from tax on the grounds that it is experiencing rapid growth.
That is not my view.
Finally, the French Presidency' s proposals were discussed, according to which tax should be levied at the point of consumption, with a requirement for service providers to be registered in all the Member States.
Our rapporteur' s proposal echoes those of the Commission, favouring one-off registration in a single Member State.
If this can provide the basis for a compromise, it will probably be a good compromise as long as it is not used to reintroduce distortion of competition due to the different VAT rates applicable in our various Member States.
The equalisation mechanism proposed by our rapporteur is along these lines.
That is why, together with the other members of my group, I shall support the proposal.
Mr President, I should like to express my thanks to Mr García-Margallo y Marfil for his work.
I only intend to speak about the taxation of aviation fuel.
Parallel to this debate, we have been holding talks with Mr Currie, the Director-General for Environmental Affairs, on the outcome of the negotiations in The Hague.
In this context, I am sorry to say that aircraft emissions do pose a problem; although air traffic is not responsible for a large percentage of pollutant emissions, its volume is growing very rapidly, and we must therefore avoid any temptation to trivialise it.
But we must also reach an agreement, because there are widely differing views here in the House about the method we should use to tackle this problem.
I believe we all agree that it would be very difficult indeed to find a global solution but that a global solution represents the ideal outcome.
There are now some - and they include a majority of the committee - who say they want a European tax, to which the rapporteur has rightly replied that such a tax could only cover a tiny percentage of the world's air traffic and, more crucially, that it would create a huge problem for European industry.
This, I believe, gives us good reason to be sceptical about this solution, although views vary, even within the PPE-DE Group.
I know that my own party at home would support the principle of a European tax, but I believe the time has come for us to make a real concerted effort to identify common ground and to seek the solution that has the greatest possible beneficial impact on the environment coupled with the least possible distortion of competition for European industry.
To that end, the proposal for emission-based take-off and landing fees ought to be seriously examined, because it offers a means of including aircraft from other parts of the world, such as the United States and Japan, in the taxation regime when they land in Amsterdam, London, Paris or Frankfurt and thus of achieving greater environmental benefit and less distortion of competition.
There might be problems with the WTO, but I believe it is up to the Commission to seek a solution at the WTO negotiations, a solution which is compatible with the WTO rules and which our trading partners might be persuaded to accept.
Mr President, I find the idea of a unilateral setting of EU aircraft fuel tax regimes entirely inappropriate, given that globally we are still subject to the Chicago Convention of 1944, exempting kerosene from taxation internationally.
European aircraft carriers would be disadvantaged compared to carriers from third countries and it would distort intra-EU as opposed to intercontinental fare structures.
While the expansion of air traffic and the environmental problems of global warming and pollution are serious and important issues, I feel that a more effective approach would be to tackle this within an international framework.
By focusing our attention too narrowly on only the activities which take place within the EU, we risk harming our industry without achieving much-needed progress in lowering emissions.
This same problem of trying to impose a regional solution to a global question arises with the difficult issue of VAT on digital electronic services.
To levy VAT on third-country suppliers, largely American, is not only impractical but, in the case of newspapers and books, it gives rise to inconsistencies between the same products sold on line as opposed to in a shop.
It is also inherently neither enforceable nor collectable, unless regulated internationally, as undoubtedly servers would be set up offshore beyond the EU's jurisdiction.
The scheme will be harmful to the development of SMEs, both within and outside the Union, especially in view of the proposed reduction of the exemption threshold to a prohibitively low level of EUR 40 000 annual turnover.
I personally advocate a VAT zero rating of all digital services until international agreement is finally reached.
Finally, the Torres Marques report on a minimum standard rate for VAT represents tax harmonisation by the back door and threatens the UK's zero rates on children's clothes, food and newspapers.
As a British Conservative, I can only regret the high indirect tax rates throughout the European Union and I hope that by promoting tax competition we may bring pressure on our Labour Government to lower them in the United Kingdom.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my honourable colleague Mr Goebbels referred to the Feira agreement, of which he takes a dim view.
Like him, I am unable to join in the euphoria and applause that greeted it in many quarters.
I should just like to address two points.
The first point is that we in Austria have had very gratifying experience of taxation at source in connection with capital-gains tax.
It creates legal certainty for every individual saver and citizen.
It seems to me, however, that a solution which will avoid a flight of capital from Europe is only achievable within the OECD framework and not through a collection of individually negotiated bilateral arrangements.
Secondly, I should like to deal briefly with the proposals on services provided by electronic means, which primarily relate, of course, to services downloaded from the Internet and to radio and television services.
I believe we must ensure that no competitive disadvantages are incurred within Europe.
Despite my fundamentally favourable response to the Commission proposal, I have to say that it seems premature and, in parts, underdeveloped, if one considers the many questions it leaves unanswered.
Moreover, I very much doubt whether the present text will be able to find general acceptance.
To my mind, it would be wiser to aim for a VAT regime in the OECD framework, even though in all probability it would only take the form of a code of conduct at that level.
One last point is that the EU should not legislate in haste and should make every effort to strengthen e-commerce and to avoid undermining it.
Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, it is extremely important for the future of Europe that those involved in the information society in Europe are on an equal footing with those players in countries outside the EU.
We who make the policy decisions in the EU must not, through our own actions, weaken European competitiveness. As, for example, Mr Schmidt said in his speech, we must comply with what was agreed at Lisbon and do all we can to strengthen the dynamism of the European Union.
If we are too greedy in this matter now under discussion we will really be jeopardising the future of e-business, which is so important for Europe.
Naturally, I agree with the Commission' s proposal and with all my colleagues who have spoken here today that the distortion of competition that now exists in the market must be eliminated as soon as possible.
This distortion can be eliminated in two ways: either by imposing the same tax obligations on companies that come from third countries as on their European counterparts, or by also exempting European companies working in this field, which is just being developed, from VAT. When we also consider the unsolved problems referred to by many others with regard to the aforementioned Commission proposal, as a result, for example, of monitoring the system, verifying where the assessment of taxes took place, distributing tax revenues fairly, and other factors, I am convinced that, at this stage, it would be more reasonable to adopt the line the minority were in favour of in the committee discussion.
I therefore support those who want to totally exempt European companies from tax on electronic products, for the present at least.
Neither do I really understand the argument that products that are supplied electronically should be treated in just the same way as traditional products.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, for example, said this.
In my opinion, reading the morning paper in a street café is quite different from reading it on the Internet where you work.
We are talking about a different product.
Mr President, I would like to start by commenting on the levy of VAT on electronic services.
This topic has been given much attention ever since the Commission introduced the proposal on 7 June of this year.
I am aware that some Members have been swamped with opposing views.
Since the introduction, Parliament and the Council have shifted a lot of work.
Although I am convinced that the Commission proposal, which is still before us, forms a sound point of departure, I have also noticed that Parliament and the Council are helping along the thought process in a constructive manner.
This forms a sound basis for further discussion.
I would especially like to thank the rapporteur, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, for his contribution and for the positive ideas which were put forward in his report.
The Council' s Working Party on Financial Questions also pored over the topic of VAT and e-commerce.
The outcome of that consultation was discussed within Ecofin at the end of November.
I think that the conclusions of those ministers constitute a step in the right direction.
The Council has reached agreement on the following key areas: electronic services must be taxed in the Community if use is made of these within the Community.
They are not taxed in the Community if they are used outside of its borders.
The guiding principle that suppliers from outside the Community who supply to customers within the Community need only register at one location must not lead to a shift in tax revenue between the Member States.
Measures should be taken to avoid this.
There is general consensus that a solution must be found whereby suppliers from outside the Community need only register at one location, and this is an absolute necessity in the eyes of the Commission.
I would like to briefly comment on the further detailing of this solution.
The rapporteur' s idea to develop a mechanism to avoid distortions emanating from differences in rates meets with the support of a majority of the Member States.
I am of the opinion that this idea can be combined with the original Commission proposal for one single registration without putting up bureaucratic barriers for industry.
I would like to stress that we are talking about a system of reallocation of revenue and not about the distribution of this revenue.
The system of reallocation of revenue will need to be carefully worked out.
It is useful to have an objective and clear criterion at our disposal, namely the Member State where the consumer lives.
This rules out the complexities which would emerge if macroeconomic or similar criteria were to be applied.
Although I do not foresee any insurmountable technical hitches, a great deal of time will need to be invested in the next couple of months in the further development of the system, particularly with respect to the legal basis, so as to enable tax to be levied on all Member States by means of one declaration.
As usual, we need to ensure that the solution we opt for does not give cause for concern outside the Community with regard to discrimination against suppliers who are not based in the Community.
In this context, I believe that the Council should revisit the issue of threshold amounts for registration and look at whether a fair solution can be found.
All in all, a number of details still need to be looked at.
I am of the opinion that considerable headway has been made under the French Presidency, and I am convinced that in 2001, Sweden will continue in the same vein.
Given that the debate in the Council is still under way and also given the Commission' s wish to bring the topic of VAT and e-commerce to a successful conclusion in the short term, I am of the opinion that at this moment in time, it would be desirable not to accept Parliament' s amendment proposals formally but to try to incorporate these proposals as far as possible in the negotiations with the Council.
However, I do not share Parliament' s ideas on one aspect, namely the introduction of a reduced rate or even a zero rate for electronic services, an idea which was, in fact, floated by various Members this afternoon too.
VAT is a general consumer tax.
There are few exemptions from VAT and where these have been introduced, this was generally for cultural or social reasons.
Electronic services cannot be brought under this heading and it is unacceptable to stimulate part of industry.
The intention of my proposal is to iron out any existing inequalities and to create equal conditions for European and non-European companies.
I would like to emphasise that, apart from the difference in insight to which I referred a moment ago, there is far-reaching agreement between Parliament' s and the Council' s approaches and in particular, about registration, threshold amounts and reallocation of revenue, and that in further talks in the Council, the points which Parliament has brought forward will be taken into consideration.
I am also prepared, in principle, to accept Parliament' s amendment proposal on administrative cooperation.
This is a simplification measure which regulates the exchange of information between the Member States on VAT numbers in the electronic trade, and we will take the proposal to heart in our future work in Parliament and the Council.
Allow me now to turn to the proposal on the minimum level of the normal rate.
Despite the efforts made by this Parliament and the Commission, as referred to by the rapporteur in his report, little progress has been made so far on the activities to replace the present VAT transitional regulation by a final regulation based on tax in the country of origin.
However, it should also be pointed out that the current climate, where the conditions are not favourable for achieving further harmonisation of VAT rates in the short term, makes meaningful progress in the near future very unlikely.
Consequently, without prejudicing the idea of a definitive system but with a view to improving the working of the internal market in the short term, the Commission has drawn up a new VAT strategy which comprises four key goals, namely the simplification and modernisation of the existing rules, more uniform application of the present provisions and stricter implementation of administrative cooperation.
It is in the light of this that this proposal is seeking to maintain the existing level of harmonisation in the field of VAT rates by confirming the minimum level of 15% for the normal rate.
The proposed five-year period reflects the stability which the new VAT strategy stands for, and reducing this period to three years, as proposed by the rapporteur, seems too short to enable the Commission to meet its obligations.
This is why I cannot accept the proposed amendments.
Should the circumstances take a dramatic and unpredictable turn within the next couple of years, the Commission can always consider submitting a fresh proposal.
Finally, I would like to comment on the report on tax on aircraft fuel.
The Commission' s communication regarding tax on aircraft fuel accommodated the request which the Council made in its resolution of 9 June 1997.
In it, the Council asked the Commission to provide more detailed information on all aspects of the introduction of such tax and especially on the environmental effects, the competitive position and profitability of the aviation industry within the European Union compared to its competitors outside of the Union, and the possibility of applying other instruments which have similar effects.
This communication took into account the conclusions of an exhaustive study. The upshot of this study was that the environmental effects and the implications for tax revenue and other effects mainly depend on two factors, namely the level and scope of the tax.
I am delighted that Mr García-Margallo' s report by and large supports the conclusions reached by the Commission.
The suggestion to extend the scope of excise on mineral oils to include aircraft fuel and thus to end the existing inequality in treatment with regard to different modes of transport has met with strong support.
Furthermore, this approach was generally well-received during the discussions which were held within the Council.
The recommendation that future discussions must take place within the framework of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, the ICAO, namely during its 33rd general meeting in September and October of the year 2001, also met with the same level of support.
These discussions will prove very difficult, however, since the possibility of levying tax on aircraft fuel was not decided on at the previous general meeting.
Accordingly, no major groundwork has been done within the ICAO working parties and it is unlikely that the Chicago Convention will be re-negotiated at the forthcoming general meeting.
Despite this, the Community could urgently request the review of the existing ICAO provisions concerning tax on aircraft fuel to be included in the working programme of that organisation and to underline the anticipated positive environmental effects of such a measure vis-à-vis other ICAO members.
A resolution issued by the general meeting of the ICAO which paves the way for an internal solution to the issue of tax on aircraft fuel or the use of other instruments with equivalent effects would be a crucial first step in the right direction.
Finally, I have noticed that the European Parliament would like to go further than the Commission where the Commission' s opinion is concerned. According to that view, at this moment in time it would be neither viable nor desirable to introduce a tax on aircraft fuel only on flights within the Community carried out by Community aviation companies, for reasons which have been given an ample airing in this House this afternoon.
The European Parliament is of the opinion that in a fast growing sector, such as the aviation sector, the environmental effects of relatively unimportant measures can never be considered insignificant.
I would, however, like to point out that current Community tax legislation does not allow for only national and intra-Community flights to be taxed.
This would become possible after the Council has approved the Commission' s proposal on the restructuring of tax on energy products, which has been before the Council for discussion since March 1997, and concerning which this House is aware that approval is still pending.
Thank you very much for all the dossiers you have addressed this week.
You have had a fair number to deal with and you have been very helpful with the explanations on the technical subjects.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken on Thursday at 10 a.m.
Erika II
The next item is the Commission communication on the Erika II package on safety at sea.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, exactly a year ago today, the sinking of the oil tanker Erika took place.
That disaster led to the pollution of 400 km of French coastline, with serious consequences for the environment, and for the citizens who lived and ran businesses in that area, whether they be oyster farmers, shellfish gatherers, fishermen or simply citizens involved in the tourist sector.
This accident, which followed many others, gave rise to anger and despondency amongst the communities that were affected and within public opinion in general because of the opacity of the maritime sector and the inability of the legislation in force to prevent problems such as this.
This feeling unfortunately still persists to this day in the mood of European public opinion.
The sinking of the Erika had a completely new and surprising effect.
Never before had there been so much talk about maritime safety in the European Union.
For the first time there has been awareness of the need to find European solutions to this type of issue related to maritime pollution.
It is obvious that one State of the Union on its own cannot have any real influence on maritime transport across the world and, on the other hand, the International Maritime Organisation is too slow and lacks effective means to adequately monitor the rules which it lays down.
The European public has insisted that the European institutions should adopt quick and drastic measures to put an end to the scandal of flags of convenience.
One year after the sinking of the Erika, we must all ask ourselves whether or not we have really been able to meet the expectations of Europe' s citizens.
I sincerely believe that, given the progress that has been made quickly in the work of our respective bodies, it is undeniable that all the institutions have understood and fully accepted the importance of this issue.
For its part, just three months after the accident, the Commission assumed its responsibilities and adopted a first package of measures, which the European Parliament approved fully on 30 November.
In addition to these first measures, the Commission has just adopted, on 6 December, a second package which I believe will respond even more directly to people' s expectations and will also profoundly change the rules of the game in the field of maritime transport, which will be of great benefit to maritime safety and to the protection of our coasts against the risks of pollution.
In this respect, I would like today to very briefly present the content of this new package known as Erika II.
Firstly, we will be implementing a European system of maritime transport inspection.
As such, the first measure is a proposal for a directive establishing a European system for monitoring, inspection and information with regard to maritime traffic.
It is clear that inspection by the port State, regardless of the rigour with which it is carried out, only partially protects the States against the risks of accident and pollution, particularly from ships in transit.
The Commission' s proposal therefore has three fundamental objectives: firstly, to carry out better monitoring and inspection of the traffic of all the ships off our coasts.
To this end, the ships must be equipped with devices that allow them to be automatically identified and monitored from land.
Another device, whose importance in the eyes of MEPs is known to the Commission, is black boxes, which are also required by this directive, which must be fitted on board ships which dock in a European port, in order to aid the investigation of the facts in the case of an accident at sea or, possibly, to facilitate inspection by the port State.
This will oblige the captain and crews to run the ship with more care.
The second objective is to simplify and speed up, in the case of accident, the communication of detailed information on dangerous and polluting cargoes, obliging ships and authorities to communicate the data electronically.
And the final objective of this directive is to strengthen the management of emergency situations at sea, through the obligation to designate ports of refuge, the prohibition on taking to sea during high storms and greater powers of intervention at sea on the part of the coastal State in the event of a serious risk of pollution.
Secondly, another aspect of this package consists of improving the rules in force in the field of responsibility and compensation for damages in the event of pollution by oil or its derivatives.
We simply need to remember that the case of the Erika oil slick has shown us how slow and insufficient this compensation is, and it is still a long way from being paid to the victims and the people affected by this pollution a year after the accident happened.
Furthermore, they are unlikely to be compensated for 100% of the damages they have suffered.
Thus the Commission' s priority is to try to resolve these two problems, and the solution we propose is to supplement the existing funds through the creation of a European fund financed by the oil companies, which would offer the victims quick compensation of up to EUR 1 000 million, instead of the EUR 200 million - USD 180 million - currently granted by the international authorities.
At the same time, we will be approaching the international bodies in order to try to review in detail the system established by the international agreements.
In the event that the IMO does not adopt the necessary measures, the Commission would submit a proposal to Parliament and the Council on a Community system for responsibility and compensation in the event of pollution by hydrocarbons.
Furthermore, any person who has contributed through serious negligence to causing pollution will be subject to deterrent penalties, which will serve to promote responsible behaviour on the part of the maritime industry as a whole.
The third measure in the Erika II package is the proposed creation of a European Maritime Safety Agency, which will provide the Commission and the Member States of the Union with the technical support necessary to implement the applicable Community legislation. It will also serve as a platform between the Member States and the Commission for the development of harmonised practices and procedures, as well as facilitating the smooth flow of information between the various ports and between the various States and administrations.
In fact, with more than fifteen directives or regulations in force, it is crucial that we standardise practices and exercise greater control over the implementation of Community rules, in order to prevent significant and unacceptable differences in the field of maritime safety which could arise within the Union.
The European Maritime Safety Agency constitutes a first stage in the increasing integration of the administrative practices of the Member States, which may one day lead to the creation, as has been repeatedly requested by this House, of a genuine European coastguard organisation.
However, ladies and gentlemen, we have not reached that stage yet.
Mr President, I hope that Parliament will take this opportunity, on this highly symbolic date - the first anniversary of the Erika disaster - to remember its determination and give the Commission the support that it will need throughout the legislative process.
This issue is of crucial importance, since through it the European Union has asserted, in the eyes of the outside world and of its citizens, its ability to impose its own demands, in an international environment which is in principle largely unfavourable, in the field of maritime safety and the prevention of pollution.
I would like to remind you that the Heads of State and Government, meeting just three days ago at the European Council in Nice, have given decisive political impetus to this second package of measures, recognising that it is aimed at strengthening maritime safety, improving the European system of information on maritime traffic and creating an agency which will improve on the shortcomings of the current international system.
So much so that they recommended to the States that they adopt the appropriate measures a priori and as soon as necessary, without waiting for the Parliamentary and Council procedure to allow us to definitively approve the directives I am referring to.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, may I congratulate you once again for having outlined the Erika II package in clear and comprehensible terms and especially the need for us to inspect vessels in transit - subject to the international law of the sea - rather than only checking vessels that dock in EU ports.
These other ships which are only passing through EU waters can cause equally bad and even far worse pollution of our shorelines.
So I believe this approach is absolutely correct.
As far as liability is concerned, we must take a very careful look at that.
The oil companies tell us they have a voluntary fund.
This raises the question of whether we need a public fund.
If you tell us that experience has shown the voluntary fund to be inadequate, which would be unfortunate, we shall then try to sort out this issue.
Madam Vice-President, how do you rate the prospects of the Council taking a decision on the Erika I package in December?
Parliament took its decision on 30 November; you presented a good document, and we decided quickly.
How do you see the chances of the Council managing to adopt Erika I now, in December?
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for her continuing commitment in the field of maritime safety.
I should like her to answer two points.
Firstly, how will she persuade the Council to adopt her proposal on black-box voyage-data recorders? We are trying to do that now on the Erika I package.
We obviously would welcome her support on that issue, but we want to know how she will persuade these Member States to do what up until now they appear to be unwilling to do.
Secondly, there is nothing in her package to tackle the problem of the blacklisted flag states, states sadly that include Cyprus and Malta, where 50, 60, 70, 80% of ships have defects.
What measures does she propose to tackle these blacklisted rogue flag states that continue to flout international maritime law?
Mr President, firstly, it is essential not only to inspect the ships which come to our ports, but also certain ships in transit with dangerous cargoes or in situations of risk.
That seems to us to be essential.
Secondly, I hope that the ministers are capable, even at 4 or 5 o' clock in the morning, of approving the Erika I package.
I hope that the decisiveness and such a clear statement at the European Council in Nice will serve to break down the remaining resistance on the part of certain countries which were fundamentally concerned because it was going to be more expensive to send more people to carry out inspections in ports, and that was the real problem within the Council.
Unless this happens, the Council will bear a degree of responsibility, or rather a great deal of responsibility, for this delay and the ministers will have to explain themselves to the public.
Mr Watts, firstly, I would like to thank you for your vote of confidence and, secondly, I would like to point out to you that we have included the issue of the black box, thereby fulfilling the commitment we gave you.
With regard to the black box, it should be pointed out that the International Maritime Organisation has laid down an obligation of this type for ships using national routes as from July 2008 and we wish this date to be brought forward.
I hope that after the impetus provided in Nice, the doubts and resistance of certain countries will have been reduced and that we achieve this.
In relation to the fund, I would like very briefly to mention two issues: blacklisted ships and flags of convenience.
Even the countries which have a lesser degree of safety with regard to their ships have some ships which are safe; therefore, in accordance with international laws, we cannot exclude them a priori.
What we can do is what we have indicated, that is to say, that if a ship belongs to one of those countries which has unsafe ships, not only countries with a flags of convenience, but also those which show little concern for safety in particular, it should be systematically inspected when it reaches a European port.
With regard to the issue of responsibility, I will only say that the current fund is not sufficient to provide compensation for all the damage caused by the Erika oil slick.
It is therefore necessary to increase that fund and we are going to try to do that within the framework of the International Maritime Organisation, but if that does not raise the EUR 1 000 million, which is the quantity we believe would be reasonable and which is more or less the quantity currently being considered by the United States, we will have to adopt certain initiatives and create a special European fund.
I would like to remind Members that, in air safety, the amounts of compensation paid in Europe and North America are not equal to the amounts paid in other countries.
Mr President, Commissioner, as you have pointed out, next week, a year will have passed since the Erika disaster and the European Parliament and the Council have still not been capable of agreeing on the approval of the initiative for the first maritime safety package.
In this first package there is a proposal relating to Directive 57/94, which deals with inspections of ships and the classification societies.
The main difficulty stems from the amendment of Article 6 of that directive; the Commission and the European Parliament propose the introduction of financial compensation to cover the possible responsibilities of classification societies in cases of maritime accidents.
Since the essence of this issue centres on this compensation, I would ask you, Commissioner, to withdraw the amendment to Article 6 and I would like to ask all the other Members of the European Parliament to withdraw the amendments to Article 6 and let us leave it for the second package which you have just announced.
Mr President, a year ago, an oil slick polluted the Brittany region and what amounts to the work tool of thousands of people whose livelihood is linked to the sea, the livelihood of an entire region.
In this case, the body responsible is not a company which is difficult to identify.
It is Total, whose head office is in the territory of the European Union.
Now, you say that the compensation fund is insufficient.
Why do we not, in that case, confiscate Total' s profits until all those who have already suffered, and those who will in future suffer, the effects of the criminal pursuit of profit have been fully and promptly compensated?
Mr President, I should like in turn to thank Mrs de Palacio for her comments.
We obviously have confidence in her ability to ensure maritime safety because she must know that not a week passes without our being asked what, as Members of the European Parliament, we are doing to ensure safety and to change the rules.
I have two questions.
Regarding the Erika I package, have you received any replies from the Member States about how precisely they wish to invest and to increase the number of their inspectors, because there is no doubt that, if they do not increase their number, everything that has been decided here will serve little purpose.
Regarding the Erika II package, I shall confine myself to one question in the form of an observation, although there are so many to be made!
I am very happy to hear you speak of a European coastguard service.
Is this really an idea which has had its day, because there are an enormous number of people who support it? Might the setting up of the European Maritime Agency be regarded as the beginnings or basis of a European coastguard service?
Mr Ortuondo, in relation to your intervention on Article 6, on responsibility in the case of less serious pollution, I can tell you that the first thing I am going to find out is what the Council thinks, but Parliament has already adopted a position on this issue.
In other words, either the Council accepts the position adopted by Parliament or, if not, there will be a second reading.
These may constitute the current negotiations, but I believe that this is not the only problem. I wish it were.
Secondly, I would say that it is French law which will have the power to confiscate or freeze the assets of a specific company in order to compensate for damages or anything else, and it could establish liabilities beyond those laid down according to the objective criteria provided for in current international legislation on hydrocarbon pollution.
That does not consider who is liable or not, simply how much should be paid; but there is a maximum ceiling, as you well know, of USD 180 million, some EUR 200 million, which, as I have said, is inadequate.
This would therefore fall to the French Government, should the need arise.
This kind of consideration is not the responsibility of the Commission.
We have received no information so far about an increase in the number of inspectors, but I hope that this will happen.
It has just been agreed that the directives must be implemented before they enter into force; then, they can take on more inspectors before the directives come into force.
The Heads of State and Government have said this. Let them go ahead then.
I hope that is the case and of course I will remind all the ministers of this at the next Council.
With regard to European coastguards, I believe that in order to facilitate the creation of an agency we can at least begin to better coordinate the action of the various bodies which act in the various European Union waters and which are different in each country.
That concludes this item.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0559/2000). We will examine questions to the Commission.
First part
Question No 33 by (H-0873/00)
Subject: UK Pre-Budget Proposal on Tax Disc for foreign lorries Is the Commission aware that the British Chancellor has announced his intention (8/11/2000) to impose a special road tax on all non-UK lorries using roads in the UK? Can the Commission confirm if it has received notification of this proposal and state whether it is in contravention of European free trade policy and whether such a proposal violates any EU legislation?
Mr President, the Commission is aware that one of the plans announced by the UK Government on 8 November 2000 was the introduction of some form of road-user charge such as a vignette payable by all road hauliers, British and non-British alike, for their use of the road network in the UK.
The Commission sees, therefore, no indication that the announced measure introduces direct discrimination on the basis of the nationality of the haulier or the origin or destination of the vehicle.
Provided that the implementation aspects of the charge in question do not introduce indirect discrimination either and they respect all other relevant specific rules governing the introduction of user charges in the European Union, such a charge seems at this stage to be in line with current Community law, that is Directive 1999/62/EC.
This directive, adopted by unanimity in 1993, laid down the conditions under which Member States could, if they wanted, apply time-related user charges or motorway tolls.
The overall aim of this legislation was the elimination of distortions of competition through the establishment of fair mechanisms for charging infrastructure costs to hauliers and the harmonisation of levy systems within the EU internal market.
Twelve of the 15 Member States have already adjusted their levy systems with more emphasis put on direct charging, user charges or motorway tolls and less on taxes.
The Commission considers that such adjustments go in the right direction towards the establishment of fairer charging systems which give also an incentive for a more rational and efficient use of the road network.
The measures announced by the UK signal such a readjustment of their charging system.
The Commission is following closely the development of the UK scheme in order to ensure its full compatibility with EU general principles and specific legislation.
The UK government has confirmed it is in the process of preparing its reply to the Commission's request for detailed information on the entire package of measures planned in the UK.
The Commission will then analyse and evaluate those measures.
Depending on the outcome of this analysis, the Commission will decide what course of action to take next in view of fulfilling its role to assist Member States to take the measures which are right for them and at the same time respect the rights of the others.
Mr President, I want to thank the Commissioner for his reply and say that I feel reassured that at least a full explanation will be required.
My understanding is that in making the announcement the British ministers stated quite clearly that this was a tax on foreign lorries and foreign hauliers.
The supplementary question I would like to ask is: Is it, in the Commissioner's opinion, in accordance with European law that a haulier, fully taxed and compliant with the legislation of their own country, may not drive across the border into a neighbouring state? I live in a part of the Union where in order to move from part of the state to another it is necessary to drive through the United Kingdom.
So is it acceptable that a vehicle may be stopped at the border of a neighbouring Member State if they comply with all the legal requirements in their own country?
Secondly: If, as the minister originally intended, he proposes to put a tax on foreign lorries to subsidise hauliers of his own nationality, is that contrary to European law?
President, the honourable Member will understand that it is difficult and probably inappropriate for the Commission to speculate on hypotheses and possibilities.
I have set out in the Commission's response the principles and the criteria and assured Parliament that the Commission will analyse and follow closely the development of the UK scheme, including its implementation in practice, and of course the absence of any discrimination be it direct or indirect will be a crucial reference point in such an assessment.
I have a similar question, number 60 actually, in the order paper.
I thought mine and this would be coupled together but apparently that is not the procedure in this House.
I thank Mr Monti for his reply.
I take some reassurance from it because reading between the lines I think he is getting the message.
Could I ask him whether he is aware that the announcement made by the British Chancellor on 8 November stated specifically - if he needs copies of the press release we can ensure he gets them - that this haulier 'Brit-tax' as we call it, was for foreign or non-British hauliers? The point is that it was to placate the irate British hauliers who were protesting at fuel prices in Britain.
Subsequently I asked the Commission if it was aware of this.
That was changed in the face of criticism, especially from Ireland and France, and a different spin has now been put on it by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer: it is now being portrayed as a user charge for all, including British lorry drivers.
I am sure in an election year in Britain their own lorry drivers would be interested to know that they have an extra £1 500 a year to pay on top of their taxes.
Would any attempt to rebate the British hauliers the equivalent be contrary to intra-Community trade?
Thank you for the supplementary question.
I have to stick to the measures as announced and I find it even more difficult to speculate about the ramifications of the subject as I am not the Commissioner specifically in charge.
I hope you will understand this and I can only refer back to the elements I gave in the reply provided a few minutes ago.
In reply to the honourable Member who asked how the structure of the charging system in the UK affects competition in the road haulage sector, perhaps I could add that at the moment British hauliers pay road-tolls or user charges - "vignettes" - when travelling in other countries such as France or Belgium, while at the same time they pay at home high vehicle taxes through which they contribute towards the infrastructure costs of the road network in Britain.
On the other hand non-British hauliers pay nothing when travelling in Britain.
They therefore do not contribute at all towards road infrastructure costs in Britain and at the same time pay lower vehicles taxes at home.
This imbalance of an economic nature between the charges and taxes imposed on hauliers in different Member States distorts the conditions under which hauliers of different nationalities compete in the UK.
Question No 34 by (H-0916/00)
Subject: New BSE measures and food imports from third countries In the light of the new measures being introduced at EU level as a result of the outbreak of BSE in France and the Council' s confirmation of the need to protect the consumer and win back consumer confidence, and having regard also to Commissioner David Byrne' s White Paper on Food Safety and the establishment of a Food Safety Authority, what assurances can the Commission give with regard to the safety of food imports from third countries? How can we be sure that large volumes of imports from third countries match EU standards and how will the Commission allay consumers' fears in this respect?
Mr President, given the evolution of the situation within the European Community, the Commission is writing to third countries drawing their attention to the measures taken in relation to BSE within the European Union and alerting them to the need to consider similar measures.
In addition, the Scientific Steering Committee is carrying out an assessment of the geographical BSE risk of individual third countries, on which the results are expected in the first half of 2001.
Policy towards imports from third countries will be decided in the light of this assessment.
I have recently visited Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic where I have underlined the necessity to be vigilant in regard to the risk of BSE.
I am committed to ensuring that the food consumers have available, whether it comes from within or outside the European Union, meets the highest standards.
The Community has several mechanisms to protect the health of consumers with regard to the safety of food imports from third countries.
The Food and Veterinary Office performs on-the-spot inspections and audits in third countries to verify that exports from these countries meet the EU's animal and public health requirements.
In addition, Council Directive 97/78 of 18 December 1997 lays down the principles governing the organisation of veterinary checks on products entering the Community from third countries.
Under this directive third country exports of meat are subject to systematic checks at the Community's external frontier to ensure that Community requirements have been respected.
The Commission is also conscious of the necessity to ensure that exports from the European Union to third countries do not constitute a risk to food safety.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his response and for his very positive leadership in this crucial area, and I must say that his response has also been reassuring from a consumer perspective.
However, the House will be aware of the resistance of some countries, mainly the United States, to conforming to EU standards on food safety.
Can the Commissioner inform the House of the volume of meat and meat products entering the Community from third countries and the health status of these products - it may be a question that he may not be in a position to answer straight away - and can he also inform the House of the position on the use of meat-and-bone meal in animal feed in those exporting countries and the extent to which this now international problem can be addressed in the context of world trade? We must find an international solution to a problem that is seriously affecting consumers worldwide.
I am not in a position to give you exact figures in relation to the volume of imports of beef from third countries but I can say that such imports are governed by the appropriate regulations and that food safety considerations underlie that legislation.
On the question of the use of meat-and-bone meal: their export is covered in exactly the same way by the legislation that governs the production of meat-and-bone meal within the European Union, and also with the requirement for the removal, for instance, of specified risk material from meat-and-bone meal is covered in legislation and will be in operation from 1 March 2001.
Question No 35 by (H-0936/00)
Subject: EU funding for the Palestinian education system It appears that a large number of school books issued by the Palestinian Authority contain anti-Semitic statements and incitement to hatred of Jews that would result in prosecution for 'incitement to racial hatred' , in any EU Member State.
Under the 1993 Oslo Agreements, the Union and the Fifteen provide large-scale funding for the Palestinian education system.
The role of the European Union cannot be to fund incitement to hatred and warfare.
Will the Commission therefore please tell me: how it views these texts, which are worthy of Mein Kampf, whether it intends in the future to make aid conditional on respect for fundamental human rights, and whether it intends to condemn the indoctrination and exploitation of children in the Israelo-Palestinian conflict?
Naturally I understand the honourable Member's concern.
As far as the Commission is concerned, we have never supported financially the production or distribution of school textbooks nor the preparation of school curricula.
Assistance to the educational system is focused mainly on infrastructure, equipment for schools and direct assistance for school expenses, for example, salaries.
No request has ever been made by the Palestinian Authority to the Commission to finance school curricula and textbooks.
The Commission is ready to raise this question, raised by the honourable Member, with the Palestinian Authority.
I am also happy to draw the concerns of the honourable Member to Member States' attention although bilateral projects are matters for Member States and not for the Commission.
I should point out, in addition, that Article 2 of the EC/Palestinian Interim Association Agreement clearly states that mutual cooperation between the parties "has to be based on the respect of democratic principles and fundamental human rights as set out in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights which guides their internal and international policy".
The honourable Member may also be interested to know that we have financed several projects worth about EUR 4.5 million in recent years, designed to foster dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian youth.
Mr President, the Jews are the enemies of the prophets and believers.
The Jews are traitors and infidels.
Students must understand that there is a link between Nazism, Fascism and Zionism.
The Jews seek to persecute.
They conspire with hypocrites.
Those are a few passages from the Palestinian schoolbooks used to teach children in the territories, an education service, moreover, which we ourselves are funding to a large extent.
As you said, Commissioner, particularly where wages are concerned, the European Union is funding a form of education which is, in reality, being twisted into anti-Semitic propaganda.
I have asked you about the Commission' s participation in educational programmes, and you avoided the question.
I also asked you how the Commission might monitor this aid, and you did not reply to me on this point because there is in fact no real monitoring.
I am sorry to have to tell you that I am not satisfied with your reply.
I asked precise questions and I expect precise replies on such a serious subject.
Are you, yes or no, prepared to make Community aid, and not that of the Member States, conditional upon respect for fundamental human rights?
I quoted, as I am sure the honourable Member heard, from Article 2 of our interim association agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
I also said that we intended to take up the issue which he had raised with the Palestinian Authority.
I give that undertaking once again.
We reject any attempt to use the educational system to promote intolerance or hatred.
That is our view about the situation in the West Bank and Gaza. It is our view about the situation everywhere in the world.
The main focus of our assistance in the region has always been to promote a culture of peace, tolerance and human rights.
So I repeat, we will pursue the issue with the Palestinian authorities.
I very much hope that in every country in the region we will find that educational services promote tolerance rather than intolerance.
I welcome what the Commissioner said about raising this matter with the Palestinian authorities, but I want to take him back to the last part of his original answer which was the dialogue between the youth of Israel and young Palestinians.
Will he reinforce the Community's efforts in this field? That is where the future lies: to build understanding and tolerance between these two peoples.
That starts with the young people.
We spend some money on this but, when you consider the scale of the problem, it is still a relatively small amount of money.
Will he look at ways of expanding that section of the Community's budget?
Yes, I am very happy to give that undertaking.
The point that the honourable Member makes is an important one.
We have to look at more projects in this area, not least those run by non-governmental organisations.
I have seen one or two of them myself.
Question No 36 by (H-0867/00)
Subject: Texaco-Chevron merger Under what framework and in what timescale does the Commission expect to respond to the announcement of a worldwide merger between the Texaco and Chevron oil companies? Is it aware of allegations of serious human rights abuse against Texaco in Ecuador and against Chevron in Nigeria, both leading to pending lawsuits?
What part will this play in the Commission' s deliberations, and what evidence will the Commission seek from the companies in this respect?
The Commission services are informed by Texaco and Chevron that their announced merger would fulfil the turnover criteria of the European merger regulation.
Texaco and Chevron have therefore entered into pre-notification discussions with the Commission's merger task force.
Following notification, the Commission will have to assess, in view of the legal test in the Merger Regulation whether the operation will lead to the creation or strengthening of a dominant position, as a result of which effective competition would be significantly impeded in the common market or in a substantial part of it.
The Commission's assessment under the Merger Regulation can therefore only take into account competition concerns that affect European companies and citizens.
The Merger Regulation provides no legal basis to take allegations of human rights abuses into account and the Commission therefore has no powers to investigate such alleged abuses in this context.
That is not an unexpected answer from Mr Monti.
However, he and his colleagues should understand that every time one of these mergers takes place we are going to carry on asking the question.
Mr Patten, sitting alongside him, must have been squirming when he heard that answer, because in the previous question we heard a great lecture on respect for human rights.
Then suddenly when it comes to the European Union's economic powers, they are blithely ignored.
Let me say about Texaco that the Centre for Economic and Social Rights says that in Ecuador they are responsible for a high occurrence of abortion and abnormally high cancer rates.
They have been accused by Ecuador's own national oil company of dominating indigenous peoples.
In Nigeria, Chevron has been accused by the All-Ijaw indigenous people of instigating violence against them and actually paying Nigerian soldiers to shoot protesters at the Warri naval base.
Whatever you say about the legal base and concern over competition policy, the public in Europe is concerned about such abuses of human rights.
If you are not willing to act now, I suggest that you signpost how other action could be taken by your colleagues in the Commission against abuses of human rights which are unacceptable to all of us.
I can assure Mr Howitt that the Commission, individual Commissioners and I personally, are very concerned about all issues pertaining to possible abuses of human rights.
Having said that, there are, of course, different instruments for different purposes, and in the Community legal order, the Merger Regulation has the very limited, and yet important enough, objective of ensuring the protection of competition in the interests ultimately of consumers on the occasion of mergers.
I do not believe that it would be appropriate to aim at more than one objective through a single instrument.
The Merger Regulation is a powerful tool to ensure that the interests of consumers are protected when companies combine their activities.
Its efficiency should therefore not be hindered by adding other objectives of a complex nature that are difficult to assess and that would at any rate not be effectively served by this specific legal instrument.
Conversely, Member States and the European Union have at their disposal other means to deal with human-rights-related issues.
Question No 37 by (H-0900/00)
Subject: Shipbuilding On 15 November the Commission published its third report on the state of shipbuilding in the world.
The report concludes, inter alia, that the aid received by our industry has not solved the Korean issue.
Does the Commission believe that without this aid the European shipbuilding industry would have withstood unfair competition from Korea?
How does it intend to guarantee the survival of what remains of the industry from January 2001 onwards in the face of unfair competition from Korea, further evidence of which is contained in its latest report?
In the light of the report' s findings, what trade measures are to be taken against Korea in the immediate future?
In its report adopted on 15 November the Commission concluded that operating aid under Regulation 1540/98 has not provided a solution to the problem of South Korean pricing practices.
However, among the various actions proposed, it committed itself to examine as soon as possible the possibilities to propose measures to address the Korean problem in accordance with the Regulation.
At its meeting of 29 November, the Commission reaffirmed that it is against any prolongation of operating aid.
However, it indicated that it is ready to explore the possibilities for greater use of national support for research and development, including appropriate changes to Regulation 1540/98.
The Commission also recalled that substantial funding for research and development is available under the Community research framework programme.
As regards trade actions, on 2 December the Commission published its decision to open an investigation following industry's complaint under the Trade Barriers Regulation (TBR).
In the context of this TBR procedure, the Commission can decide to resort to WTO dispute settlement procedure unless a mutually satisfactory solution is agreed with the authorities of the Republic of Korea.
The final investigation report will be transmitted to Member States by April 2001.
In addition, if in the framework of the TBR procedure the Commission does not achieve a negotiated solution with Korea satisfactory for the European Union, the Commission will report to the Council by 1 May 2001 and will propose to bring the case to the WTO in order to seek remedy against unfair Korean practices.
In addition, the Commission will, at the same time, propose a defensive temporary support mechanism, specifically designed to counter unfair Korean practices for a period necessary for the conclusion of the WTO procedure.
This mechanism will be limited to those market segments where it has been demonstrated that EU industry has been directly injured by unfair Korean trade practices.
On a multilateral level, the Commission will pursue its efforts to establish a level international playing field for the shipbuilding industry within the OECD.
The Commission's position was presented to the Industry Council on 5 December and the Council welcomed the Commission's determination to tackle the problem of unfair Korean competition and took note of the Commission's proposals in this regard.
Commissioner, firstly, to a certain extent I feel reassured because I notice that the Commission has been concerned with, and has perhaps also done something about, this problem.
However, the dates mentioned by the Commissioner - there was a meeting on 29 November, on 2 December it was decided to open an investigation, and then it is said that it may happen within six months, etc. are not very illuminating.
I believe that the intentions as a whole are hugely reassuring, but the reality is that meanwhile our dockyards are closing down.
I come from a country, Spain, and specifically the Basque Country, where there is nobody left building ships because we cannot cope with Korean competition.
The Korean shipbuilders are quite happy to carry out dumping - not only with regard to the European Union, but also the whole world - and I cannot see any solution to it.
I would be grateful if we could take immediate and crucial measures.
Commissioner, you know that unfair competition on the part of Korea has been proven.
The Commission has been there and has seen it.
We are now facing a long process.
We will possibly have to wait half a year to know whether or not the World Trade Organisation will condemn the unfair competition of the Koreans.
And we must not forget that Mr Valdivielso de Cué asked you if the Commission believed that, without the aid which the shipbuilding industry had received, this industry would have been able to survive in the European Union.
This is a dramatic issue.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué referred to Spain, to the Basque Country and I must refer to Galicia, which is an Objective 1 region, with a very important shipbuilding tradition and which is asking, because it is an Objective 1 region, for this aid to be maintained in some way until the dispute in the World Trade Organisation is settled. The WTO will condemn - it must condemn - the unfair competition on the part of Korea.
That is the question: is the Commission prepared to prolong certain aid, at least in the case of the most needy regions that have a major shipbuilding tradition, so that they can survive in the face of this unfair competition?
The Commission report has established that, as operating aid has not been helpful in solving the problems created by unfair Korean competition, we decided not to prolong those operating aids.
At the same time it was decided that Mr Lamy should in further negotiations and actions vis-à-vis Korea, have the most powerful and focussed instruments.
We believe that would not be represented by an across-the-board continuation of the existing operating aid but rather by the Commission being prepared to come up with a focused and specific instrument in the event of the actions undertaken by Commissioner Lamy on behalf of the Commission not being successful for the European Union industry.
Second Part Questions to Mr Lamy
Question No 38 by (H-0868/00)
Subject: Anti-dumping duty on import of coke of coal in pieces European foundries and the insulation industry are using coke over 80 mm in diameter and are employing more than 100 000 people within the Community, while Community producers of coke employ no more than 800 people.
Does the Commission find it in the interest of the Community to protect the EU coke industry, which has already benefited from substantial price increases, and thereby seriously harm the user industries which employ substantially more people?
How does the Commission expect the user industry to remain competitive in the face of competition from iron castings from the Far East when the user industry has little or no possibility of increasing its prices?
In the light of the foregoing, an increase of imports of coke can be expected from third countries leading to higher emissions of sulphuric acid.
If so, is the Commission's decision in conformity with the Community's energy and environmental policies?
On this issue of coke imports, I should like to begin by emphasising that the Commission services have - as is only right - undertaken a very thorough analysis of dumping on the part of the Chinese, the resultant harm caused to European industry and the possible consequences for users of the coke.
As a result of the investigations, it was concluded that there is no doubt about the dumping and the damage it causes and that the effect of the anti-dumping measures on the user industries would be limited.
Particular attention has been paid to the issue of employment.
Coke-using industry employs a total of 70 000 people, but this product represents only a very marginal portion of its costs, in the region of 2%.
It has also been established that the coke-using industry was able to pass on a moderate increase in its prices to its clients.
There are therefore unlikely to be harmful effects on employment and competition in the coke-using industry.
With regard, however, to the coke industry itself, which directly employs 1 900 people in coke production, the situation has deteriorated to such an extent, due to dumping on the part of the Chinese, that site closures are now envisaged.
The increase in prices which would result from the anti-dumping measures should enable the coke industry to become profitable again.
In the light of all the arguments presented, it has therefore been concluded that imposing anti-dumping measures was in the general and overall interests of the European Union.
Although the investigations into dumping do not consider the environmental aspect, which should, however, be considered in the wider context, I should like to point out that Community environmental legislation sets emission limits which must be respected both by producers and by the user industry, whatever the origin of the coke. So, whether the coke is from China or elsewhere, the environmental consequences are the same.
This investigation has been carried out according to the usual procedure.
I believe it to be fair and transparent, and all the arguments put forward by the user industry have, as usual, been duly taken into account.
Mr Commissioner, I can understand that you do not wish to change your decision despite the fact that ten Member States are against such a duty.
I strongly disagree with you, Mr Lamy.
I disagree with you on this matter just as much as I agreed with you this afternoon concerning the Korean shipbuilding policy.
I believe it is important to emphasise that here we are looking at a coke industry that has only 800 employees, but that we have a user industry with over 6 000 employees that would be adversely affected in purely competitive terms by such an anti-dumping duty.
I can however understand the fact that you still disagree with me, so I probably have nothing to gain from putting the question to you one more time, but I believe that you should take account of the fact that ten Member States are against such a duty.
I have nothing to add.
The proportion of jobs is not in fact the same. It is just that in one case the risk is acute and in the other it is not.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 39 and 40 will be taken together.
Question No 40 by (H-0889/00)
Subject: Market access for less developed and developing countries Does the Commission intend to honour its obligation under the Cotonou Agreement to consult ACP countries, and undertake country and sector specific impact studies, before the Council takes a decision on the Commission's proposals to grant duty-free and quota-free access to the European market for all products, except armaments, from the world's 48 least developed or developing countries?
I shall answer both questions at the same time.
The Commission' s proposed regulation which we have designated 'Everything but arms' is designed to give least and less developed countries access to the Community market, duty-free and quota-free, for all exports except for arms.
This proposal, which follows on from the multiple commitments made by the Community in favour of least and less developed countries, is aimed at promoting the integration of these countries into the world economy.
We think that it is, indeed, imperative that the process of globalisation should not cause the poorest developing countries to become marginalised.
This initiative is based upon a Council regulation amending the regulation which defines the current GSP.
The Commission' s proposal is based upon Article 133 which, as you know, does not at present lay down any legal obligation to consult Parliament.
I entirely agree that this proposal is an important decision which should be subject to the codecision procedure.
That is what the Commission proposed to the Intergovernmental Conference.
In tabling its proposal, which was fully supported by Parliament, the Commission envisaged having recourse to the codecision procedure in the case of all standards of general scope, such as this one, defining the essential features of common trade policy.
The result has now been obtained and you know as well as I do that the Intergovernmental Conference has not taken up this suggestion, since no Member State supported it.
The Commission cannot contravene current Treaty rules.
Consulting Parliament on this proposal and taking account of arguments which Parliament might be led to put forward is therefore a political decision which, as the texts currently stand, is solely at the Council' s discretion.
Out of a concern to ensure effective political scrutiny by Parliament, I have however made efforts to keep the European Parliament informed as far as possible. In particular, I informed your Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy of this initiative on 11 October 2000, and I am of course prepared to appear again before Parliament' s relevant committee in order to discuss this proposal.
Regarding Glenys Kinnock' s question concerning the link between this initiative and the Cotonou agreement, I should like to say again that the Commission entirely respected the spirit and the letter of the provisions of this agreement when it came to informing and consulting the ACP countries.
We forwarded our proposal to the ACP countries at practically the same time as to our Member States.
We invited the ACP countries to begin consultations.
These consultations were conducted within the framework of the ACP sub-committee for commercial cooperation which met on 21 November 2000.
The Member States intimated that they would like the Commission to present a more detailed impact assessment before taking a decision.
The assessment is under way and the results will be communicated to the ACP countries as soon as they are available. Obviously, the real impact of the initiative in favour of the least and less developed countries will depend upon their ability to respond, something which is extremely difficult to foresee and to model.
We are therefore prepared to monitor the effects of this initiative and its results very carefully and to examine, if need be together with the ACP States, the measures which might be required in order to preserve their competitive position in the Community' s markets.
Mr President, may I thank the Commissioner very much for his very positive reply about cooperation with Parliament.
I am sure all my colleagues are very grateful.
This particular subject is of great concern to British sugar beet growers as you can imagine, because it is about the only crop that is profitable in the UK at the moment.
I represent some growers and I am thus very concerned indeed.
I note, incidentally, that British Conservatives claim to represent the countryside in the UK, yet not one of them is present in the Chamber to ask you a question.
Would you please tell us what you think the impact on the price of sugar will be in the UK as a result of your proposal?
Mr President, may I thank the Commissioner for his answer.
Would you confirm, Commissioner, that the Coreper GSP Working Group has been postponed for the second time? Is that because they are waiting for a revised proposal from you and for the impact studies?
Secondly, you talked about the spirit of Cotonou being honoured. That is not the view of the ACP trade ministers who met this week, who said that they would expect the European Commission to honour existing agreements.
What they feel, Commissioner, is that Cotonou was very carefully negotiated by the ACP and that within five months, almost before the ink is dry, there are proposals without any consultation.
Of course, you had consultation after the event, but not before, which is part of the agreement under Cotonou, as you know, as is the need for joint impact studies to be undertaken.
Thirdly, Commissioner, would you agree with me that vulnerable small island economies, particularly of course in the Caribbean, who are dependent on certain commodities like bananas, sugar and rice, should deserve to be a special case?
With regard to beet sugar, it has not escaped me that sugar beet farmers and sugar producers were concerned about this initiative.
It is true that the price of sugar in the European Union is now three times higher than on the world market. This does indeed present a problem.
I should like, moreover, to reassure you that this initiative is not designed to solve that problem, given that the additional amounts which might be imported into the Community market are so small.
In fact, it is a question of authorising access to greater quantities which are small as far as we are concerned, and therefore not destabilising, but which represent large amounts for these countries, given the size of their economies.
The initiative is not therefore of a kind which will destabilise the highly protected Community sugar market.
If need be, we shall include the necessary precautions in the amendments we are working on.
This ties in with Mrs Kinnock' s question.
We are in fact working on a number of amendments with a view to making this proposal acceptable both to the Council and to Parliament.
We are working on these in committee, but no decisions were taken on the matter this week, as Poul Nielson was absent on a visit to the Balkans.
Like Mrs Kinnock, I am aware of the difficult situation facing small islands.
We shall ensure, by means of safeguard clauses or transitional periods, that these proposals do not have too serious an impact upon these regions.
Finally, I would thank Mrs Kinnock for informing me about the work of the meeting of ACP Trade Ministers which took place in Brussels this week.
I was present at the meeting and broached this issue with the ministers who, following the meeting, voted for a resolution favourable to the Commission' s initiative.
Commissioner Lamy, when I asked you about this earlier this year at a previous Question Time you said this was not possible for a further five or six years.
Can you explain what has changed your mind? There are many cynical people amongst the developing countries who see this simply as a way of trying to buy them off in future WTO negotiations.
Are you being sincere in trying to help developing countries? Can you comment on the analysis given by some NGOs that the least-developed countries, without capacity-building measures, without a change in the sugar price, given the fact that they are net sugar importers, may not be able to exploit what we are offering?
Finally, can you comment on whether this was discussed within the College of Commissioners today? If so, what was the nature of that discussion and would you expect any movement on this issue before you come before our committee on Development and Cooperation next Strasbourg on 16 January?
Where the procedural questions are concerned, Mr Howitt, I have just told you what stage the Commission' s discussions had reached, so I will not return to the matter.
Regarding contacts with the relevant committees of the European Parliament, I am of course available to them in the usual way.
With regard to whether or not this is a tactical gesture designed to win the favour of least and less developed countries within the framework of a round of negotiations, I would point out straight away that this is not the case.
In view of their situation, these countries unfortunately have no capacity for autonomous negotiation, and it is therefore a gesture which we ought, in my opinion, to make unilaterally, without anything in return.
With regard, finally, to the problems it might cause for other economies, we are taking the necessary steps, and it is in this spirit that we are busy re-examining the Commission' s proposal so that the impact on other ACP countries is as limited as possible.
As my colleague Bill Newton-Dunn said, we have a number of colleagues in the UK who are indulging in fairly standard if facile anti-European scaremongering on this proposal and they have got a large number of sugarbeet farmers extremely worried.
We need your help to be able to persuade our constituents and our farming community that the claims made by the anti-European wing in our political environment, and indeed others, are wrong.
To that end, could you perhaps reassure me firstly when the impact assessment will be available to us so that we can cite it to perhaps explode some of the apocalyptic claims that have surrounded your proposal and, secondly, give some more details about the safeguard clause which I think you are considering introducing into this measure and also the transition period before the measure finally gets implemented?
The impact assessment, Mr Clegg, is at present being prepared within Mr Fischler' s directorate. He has asked them to be as quick as they can, and I hope the assessment will be available soon.
Let us have no illusions: given the state of the economies concerned, it is difficult to devise models for their ability to respond on these matters. However, the impact assessment will be made available.
On the second point, we shall be issuing background information.
The safeguard clause is currently being worked upon and, if Mr Clegg needs background arguments in order to talk with the sugar beet farmers, I shall make these available to him.
As it happens, I myself come from a French region which grows a lot of sugar beet, and I have some knowledge of these matters which I should be very happy to share with him.
Questions Nos 41 and 42 will be replied to in writing.
Question to Mr Liikanen
Question No 43 by (H-0917/00)
Subject: Combating child sex tourism During the part-session in October, the Commission replied to my question on the EU's continued support for ECPAT in Sweden's campaign against child sex tourism by saying that much of the Commission's work, which is carried out with meagre budgetary resources, will be terminated as it requires a large number of staff to a large extent.
However, the Commission also promised to continue the campaign against child sex tourism by endeavouring to make funds available for the ECPAT project for 2001 and by continuing to combat child sex tourism in the future through other programmes.
How will ECPAT be funded during 2001? What is the long-term strategy for its funding, and how will funds be released so that work to combat child sex tourism can also be carried out in countries outside the European Union in the future?
Mr President, the Commission has received an application for funds for measures to be taken against child sex tourism.
These shall be carried out by four international organisations during 2001.
These funds can be allocated by means of the commitment appropriation under budget item B7-663 in the budget for the year 2000.
One of the four organisations is ECPAT, whose measures in this area during 2001, which are eligible for aid, are wholly covered by this application.
The Commission's procedure for granting the desired financial support will soon be complete, and this also includes the funds which ECPAT requires for 2001.
As from 2001 it is the Commission's intention to finance actions against sex tourism by implementing the on-going programmes against child sex tourism.
Programmes like Stop and Daphne have been earmarked by the Commission to allow child sex tourism to be fought as a form of sexual exploitation of children and violence against children in the candidate countries too.
In addition, specific projects financed within the framework of the European Union's policy for development and external relations can also relate to work in the fight against child sex tourism in countries outside the European Union.
These different instruments are also open to organisations like ECPAT and their partners in the countries concerned.
Mr President, there are eleven days to go until Christmas, and today in Sweden and Finland they are celebrating the festival of Lucia.
I would like to thank Mr Liikanen for what was in all respects a very positive and excellent reply.
May I nevertheless request a few clarifications?
Is it certain that ECPAT can continue their project next year, i.e. in 2001?
Is it also certain that the budget item used for measures for fighting child sex tourism is not being deleted but can still be used? Do the funds that are being granted involve more money, or is it a question of the same level as before?
I would like to say with gratitude that I am aware that you, Commissioner Liikanen, have devoted yourself to this issue with commitment and enthusiasm after Maj-Britt Theorin and myself updated you on it on 4 October.
Mr President, this year the Commission is making decisions concerning the funds which can be used during 2001.
This means that measures to be carried out during 2001 can be financed by funds covered by the budget for that year.
As far as the budget for 2001 is concerned, we must first wait for Parliament's decision.
Then the Commission must consider the best way to implement the measures for fighting child sex tourism.
I am prepared to come back to the honourable Members of the European Parliament once the budget has been voted on and the Commission has discussed the issue.
Mr President, Commissioner Liikanen, this very night we shall be discussing the proposal for a Council Decision on European digital content.
One of our concerns in connection with this Decision is the need to determine how harmful content can best be kept off the Net in future. Are there plans to establish hotlines that would enable European citizens to report discoveries of harmful Internet content to a central agency?
What about Internet groups, Internet police units and user groups which are formed with a view to uncovering harmful content on the Net? Are there also plans for technical mechanisms to filter harmful content out of the Internet in future?
We have three types of activities in this area.
One concerns activities which are directly criminal.
In that area we are working at the moment with Mr Vitorino to produce a communication on cyber-crime.
I hope that will come to the Commission very soon.
The second area is technology.
We need technology, for instance to enable parents who want to filter the content of the Internet to do so.
We have had a particular project for that.
The third area has been particular actions like hotlines.
I will discuss that issue with my services once the budget resources for next year are clear.
I will be happy to come back to Mr Rübig after that.
Questions to Mr Bolkestein
Question No 44 by (H-0872/00)
Subject: European Patents Court What is the present stage in preparations for establishing a European Patents Court, and how does the Commission assess the proposed site of Munich?
The proposal for a Community patent regulation provides for the setting up of a Community tribunal specialised in patents, which would mainly be authorised to settle disputes with regard to the validity and infringements of the Community patent.
These new legal powers, however, require a change in the European Treaty.
A few days ago, the European Council took a positive decision to this effect in Nice.
A new article in the Treaty provides for a possible increase in the powers of the European Court in this sense.
The issue of the geographical location of the new tribunal is not discussed in the Commission proposal.
The new tribunal will be integrated into the Community court, which is, of course, the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
Mr President, I only wanted to ask you to update us on efforts within the Commission to incorporate the European Patent Office gradually into the structure of the European Union. Is this not one of your strategies for the future?
Would it not therefore make sense for the European Patent Court to be based in the same place as the European Patent Office? I am grateful for your letter in response to the initiative I took with Mr Würmeling.
In that letter, you said the Court must be centrally located.
I should like to point out that Munich is situated in the heart of Europe and is also very accessible.
I am aware that Munich has seen major economic activity in the field of patents.
This is why the patent office is based in Munich.
However, I am of the opinion that it is premature at this stage to enter into a discussion as to where the future Community patent tribunal should be based.
At present, the efforts of myself and my offices are focused on limiting the effects which the distance between the parties and the future tribunal may have.
Indeed, we intend to ensure that the centralised jurisdiction is near to all members of the judiciary across the Community.
I would like to add that it is difficult to have a Community or centralised patent without centralised jurisdiction.
Because if that was not the case, this would mean that there would be a tribunal in all Member States of the European Union for administering justice on patent infringement procedures, and that could mean that a German company could find itself in a tribunal in country X, far removed from the registered office of that company, and with enlargement in the offing, that could imply far greater distances still.
It is essential that one judicial body be put in place, both in first instance and in appeal, where patent disputes are settled.
As Mr Bolkestein is aware, members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, including myself, have expressed a certain concern in our previous dialogue about the risk of a proliferation of Community jurisdictions running alongside and in parallel with those of the Members.
Hitherto the main thrust has been one whereby litigation is primarily focused in Member State courts but problems of interpretation of Community law are centralised in the sense of references to the Court.
That has been a way of ensuring that the law is consistent throughout the Union and yet is locally administered.
I would like to be assured that the Commission will consider very carefully the virtues of such an approach, because I suspect a proliferation of jurisdictions may, in the end, fragment our legal systems.
I am not sure what the honourable Member means by the word 'proliferation' .
Does he mean a geographical proliferation or a functional proliferation, according to various subject matters?
If Mr MacCormick means a functional proliferation of courts of justice, I can see his point of view.
I understand that his concern is that there should not be a proliferation of special tribunals dealing with this, that and the other.
That is certainly an understandable point of view, which I share.
However, patents, represent very specialised work.
Just as the law courts in Düsseldorf, Munich and elsewhere in Germany have specialised in the law of patents and there is also a specialised court in London, a Community court to sit upon and judge cases concerning Community patents would have to be very specialised.
It is not work that could be given to a new judge - if I may put it that way - even though that judge might be very experienced in other fields.
Therefore, the specialised courts which the European Commission wants to see come into being, to deal with all possible litigation concerning Community patents, would have to consist of specialised judges and would, therefore, perhaps be organisationally a part of the Court in Luxembourg but, as far as its work is concerned, form a specialised part of that Court.
Having said all that, I agree with Mr MacCormick that one should be very sparing in erecting special tribunals.
We do not want a tribunal for traffic accidents, international agreements, or for maritime law, etc.
These matters would continue to be the normal province of the Court in Luxembourg and certainly the Commission would not want any special arrangements for normal cases.
Question No 45 by (H-0879/00)
Subject: Community trade mark courts Article 91 of Regulation (EC) 40/94 requires the Member States to set up at least one court to deal with private disputes arising from Community trade marks.
Some countries have set up such courts, including Spain, which faces an additional difficulty because, under the provisions of the regulation, it is the Spanish court which has jurisdiction in disputes between non-Community undertakings.
What measures does the Commission plan to take to ensure that Member States which have not yet done so set up Community trade mark courts?
Mr Berenguer Fuster' s question relates to trade marks.
The Commission empathises with the situation Mr Berenguer Fuster has cited.
This situation not only applies to Spain, but also to other Member States, such as France, Luxembourg, Italy and Greece.
This is why the Commission contacted the Member States concerned prior to sending the reminder.
Those contacts have been successful to the extent that, over the past year, another three Member States have submitted their lists with courts of first and second instance for the Community trade mark.
Despite this, we are of the opinion that the situation, which has admittedly improved but is still unsatisfactory, cannot continue any longer.
Accordingly, the Commission will take all measures which it deems necessary.
Paragraph 5 of Article 91 of the Community trade mark regulation stipulates that, as long as a Member State has not notified the Commission which courts of first and second instance are authorised, each procedure must be instituted at the judicial body of that Member State which is given absolute or relative powers.
To prevent this provisional situation from turning into a permanent one, on 13 July of last year, the Commission reminded the Member States concerned in a letter, of their obligation to designate courts for the Community trade mark.
Since then, those countries have still not notified the Commission that they have taken steps.
Consequently, as the Commission has no information whatsoever on the basis of which it can conclude that these Member States have taken the necessary measures, it recently sent a written reminder to those countries.
If the Member States do not respond to this reminder, or give an unsatisfactory response, the Commission, in accordance with Article 226 of the Treaty, can decide to open an infringement procedure on account of non-compliance with Community legislation.
Commissioner, you say that you are going to adopt the necessary measures, one of which is the opening of an infringement procedure.
I feel particularly obliged to mention the problem of Spain.
This is not only for obvious reasons of nationality and concern, but for an additional reason: Article 92 of the Regulation on the Community Trade Mark lays down that certain additional competences created under the Community trade mark will be attributed to Spanish courts and tribunals, for disputes between two companies which do not have effective establishments within the European Union.
Since the Commissioner has said that Spain is one of countries which is not complying, even though it is the country of the headquarters of the Community Trade Marks Office, this makes it genuinely significant that Spain has not been complying with this obligation since November 1996.
I believe that the Commission' s patience has run out and, if it must begin this infringement procedure, let it do so straight away.
I can only agree with the Member who has put the question to me, that enough is enough.
I thank Mr Berenguer Fuster for making such a strong plea to the Commission.
I take it as a stimulus to renew our action and to see to it that Spain does what it ought to do just as soon as possible.
Question No 46 by (H-0875/00)
Subject: Thessaloniki underground rail system After more than eight years, the Thessaloniki underground rail system - an infrastructure project designed to promote the sustainable economic development of the city - still unfortunately exists only on paper in the 2nd CSF, the local newspapers and the Ministry for the Environment, Regional Planning and Public Works.
The Commission's answers to my previous questions since last February (H-0011/00, H-0066/00, H-0513/00 and H-0566/00) are a prime example of evasion and the Community's endless political and bureaucratic procrastination, reflecting as they do the Commission's mismanagement and evident inability to investigate swiftly and effectively the allegations that Community rules have been breached in the performance of the contract.
How many years does the Commission intend to deliberate over the measures to be taken in response to the allegations and what are the implications of the delay in taking a decision? What stage has been reached in this affair and what does the Commission intend to do if it is established that Community rules have been broken?
Can the work go ahead with joint funding from the Community through the 2nd CSF and the European Investment Bank or is there an obstacle in this respect?
Have appropriations been set aside under the 3rd CSF to carry out the project?
The Commission would like to inform the honourable Member that a complaint is pending regarding the Thessaloniki underground rail project.
The plaintiff claims that Community provisions have been violated with regard to state support and public contracts.
As the honourable Member of your House is aware, the lodging of a complaint has in itself no bearing on the progress of the project.
The Commission is of the opinion that questions regarding delays in the execution of the project must be put to the competent Greek authorities.
As far as those aspects of the case which pertain to provisions on public contracts are concerned, the services of the Commission have made their position clear to the plaintiff in a letter which will be sent in the next couple of days.
Accordingly, we are unable to provide the honourable Member with the information requested at this moment in time.
Also, the Commission has assessed whether the funding of the project can be reconciled with the rules of the Treaty in terms of state support and has not reached a verdict yet.
It appears that the Greek government has not yet reached agreement with the franchise holder on all the conditions for funding the project.
The Commission has not yet received notification pursuant to Article 88 (3) of the Treaty.
Consequently, the Commission is unable to examine all the facts of this case and take a final decision in which it gives its assessment of the situation.
In broader terms, the Commission would like to make the honourable Member aware of the fact that a complaint of such complexity must be investigated very carefully indeed.
This is why the Commission is closely following the case within the procedural framework which encompasses the relevant provisions of the Treaty and derived legislation.
With regard to the actual funding of the project, the Commission would notify the honourable Member that the Community has already funded activities leading up to the project to the tune of EUR 5.8 million under the second Community EFRO specification.
The request to fund the balance has been included in the operational programme proposed by the Greek authorities. The programme, entitled transport axes, ports, urban development, has been submitted to the Commission under the 2000-2006 Community specification.
It is expected that the proposal will be approved by the Commission early next year, which is very shortly.
It stipulates that the Thessaloniki underground rail project can be part-financed by the EFRO for a maximum of EUR 122 million, whilst the contribution of the national government will amount to approx. 122 million and the franchise holder must pitch in with EUR 413 million.
Commissioner, I have to confess that you have not enlightened me, or rather you have not told me anything which I did not know already, because this accusation was laid at the Commission's door a year ago.
You replied in answer to my previous question that Spain was to blame and that you would do what you had to do, but here it is you who are to blame.
Because, despite knowing about this accusation for a year, you have not taken a decision.
As a result, with such a huge matter pending, the European Investment Bank is refusing to grant a loan and I fail to see how you can include the project in the third CSF without taking this decision.
I should like to point out that the European ombudsman has specifically told me that he will respond to my accusations by the end of this month.
What I want from you is a specific date by which you will reply to me, together with your interpretation of the European Investment Bank's action and whether its present refusal to fund the project is due to the fact that the project is currently bogged down at the Commission - this too is an accusation which you have not investigated.
I would very much like to say the following to Mr Trakattellis. As the Commission has already explained and as Mr Trakattellis is aware, I suspect, this is an extremely complex matter and the alleged violations of Community law are not clear.
Furthermore, the aspects of the case regarding state support cannot be investigated by the Commission before the financial side of the agreement has been completed.
In this context, I would also like to point out that the plaintiff, from the time that the franchise agreement was made public in Greece, has taken eight months to make up his own mind and lodge his complaint with the Commission.
In other words, I do not think that the Commission can be accused of any negligence.
The Commission acquits itself of its duty as quickly and meticulously as possible.
I would very much like to assure Mr Trakattellis of this fact.
Question No 47 by (H-0877/00)
Subject: Free movement of goods and the right to strike I refer to the answer from the Commission to my question P-3079/00, in which it states that the right to strike has to be respected pursuant to Regulation (EC) 2679/98.
At the same time, it indicates its willingness to intervene against barriers to the freedom of movement regardless whether they stem from industrial action.
This is a clear internal contradiction which can be clearly seen in the following hypothetical example.
In the course of a lawful industrial dispute in Swedish ports the trade unions impose a blockade and the loading and discharging of ships is brought to a halt. Would that be a situation in which the Commission would have to order the Member State government to intervene to ensure that the free movement of goods in the internal market is not interrupted?
How long could the strike continue before it threatened free movement?
How far would the Member State have to go to restore free movement? Would the Member State have to use legislation to oblige the two sides of industry to accept a settlement via compulsory mediation by the government?
The previous answer which the Commission gave to question P-3079/00 may well have been interpreted incorrectly.
This is why, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to make a point of imparting the following piece of information to Mr Sjöstedt. All Member States are bound by Regulation 2679/98 which clearly states that the regulation may not be interpreted in a way which could in any way prejudice the constitutional rights as recognised in the Member States, including the right to strike or freedom to strike.
It is obvious that the Commission respects this principle.
Having said this, pursuant to the same regulation, Member States need to take all necessary and proportionate measures to restore the free movement of goods on their territory as soon as possible so as to avoid serious disruptions to the free movement of goods when a restriction as defined in the regulation has occurred in the context of a strike or similar action.
Furthermore, Member States must notify the Commission of any restriction occurring on their territory and of the action undertaken by them.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that Member States must decide for themselves what constitutes a legal strike pursuant to their legislation.
I would like to underline that the Member States have exclusive authority to define whether, when and to what extent measures are necessary and commensurate so as to facilitate the free movement of goods on their territory.
This is clear from recital 6 of the regulation.
The principles which I have outlined apply to all questions raised by Mr Sjöstedt.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
It was a fine clarification of the reply I received earlier.
As I understand it, the Commission guarantees that it neither will, nor can, intervene in legal trade conflicts even if they restrict free movement.
If this is the case, then I thank you for that.
I can only reiterate what I said a moment ago.
It is up to the Member State to decide whether a strike is legal.
If a physical barrier is obstructing a trade flow, then the Commission, having called upon the Member State in question, expects to be notified of the measures the latter intends to take in order to lift the barrier.
This means therefore that the Commission will only deploy the legal aids it has at its disposal within the meaning of the regulation.
Any further legal aids used within the territory itself are to be decided upon by the inhabitants and economic operators of the Member State in question.
Question No 48 by (H-0880/00):
Subject: Degrees awarded by UK universities with branches in Greece, and Directive 89/48/EEC In its answer to my question E-3159/00 the Commission dealt only with diplomas awarded by French universities under franchise agreements with Greek free study centres to students taking courses in Greece in the initial years and usually spending their last year of study at the foreign university, from which they receive their diplomas.
However, most of the franchise agreements the Greek free study centres have concluded have been with UK universities.
What is the status of UK university degrees awarded under such agreements? Do they have to be recognised in Greece as falling under Directive 89/48/EEC and, if so, in which subjects, and do they similarly apply in the other countries of the European Union?
The Commission' s response to Mr Alavanos' question in writing only pertains to diplomas awarded by French universities in the context of franchise agreements, because the bulk of the enquiries to the Commission concerned those cases.
In the case of diplomas awarded by British universities in the context of a franchise agreement with a Greek study centre, the validity is established on the basis of the rules which apply in the Member State in which the university which has concluded the agreement is based, the United Kingdom in this case.
Awarding a diploma in this way does not contravene UK legislation and can thus be deemed legal.
The diploma is then British.
Directive 89/48/EEC pertains to higher-education diplomas awarded on completion of professional education and training of at least three years' duration.
Diplomas of a lower level fall within the scope of Directive 92/51/EEC, and these directives apply irrespective of whether the diploma has been awarded on completion of a course at the university itself or at a study centre which has signed a franchise agreement with said university.
The directives apply to professions which do not fall within one particular directive.
The principles which I have explained here apply equally to all Member States or in all Member States of the European Union.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for attempting to answer my question, but I should point out that students in Greece are currently somewhat confused because the free study centres are claiming that they are able to issue study diplomas which qualify for recognition under Directive 89/48/EEC, if, and provided that, the course in question is completed in Britain, while the Greek authorities and the competent bodies are refusing to recognise diplomas issued for courses completed in Britain.
It looks pretty much to me, at the moment, as if the Commission is washing its hands like Pontius Pilate.
The question is: who should these students apply to in order to confirm that, if they take these courses and complete their studies in Britain, they are entitled to have results?
President, may I first of all say that the Commission has no desire to play the role of Pontius Pilate, in particular because of the sequel to what Pontius Pilate did, so I hope that the honourable Member of this Parliament will forgive me for saying that the Commission wishes to play a different role in this whole area.
As to the matter itself, it is really quite simple.
A French university and a British university have entered into a contract with an educational establishment in Greece and students from France, Britain or any other country study in those institutions in Greece.
They take their examinations there under the supervision of the French or British university, and the degrees which are eventually granted are British and French degrees.
If then the student in that establishment, perhaps a Greek student, does not gain recognition for his diploma or degree in Greece, then I am afraid there is no alternative other than for him to address himself to the Greek authorities saying that he has been awarded a French or a British degree en bonne et due forme, as the French expression is.
He should therefore address himself to those authorities in order to get redress.
I am afraid the Commission cannot do anything in that respect, but it will of course follow such cases with extreme interest.
Question No 49 by (H-0912/00)
Subject: Transport links across the straits between Vaasa, Finland and Umeå, Sweden Shipping in the narrows of the Gulf of Bothnia is to be discontinued, since it is unprofitable now that shipping firms have no opportunities for tax-free sales.
This is very harmful to the varied relations between the two regions, and I can think of only three ways of helping:
obtaining a EU subsidy to support the unprofitable regional traffic network,
building a bridge (or tunnel) to cross the straits at a suitable point, or
declaring the island of Raippaluoto off Vaasa an independent kingdom, through which shipping firms can pass and thus continue their tax-free sales.
In the last case, the city of Vaasa which owns the area could content itself with renting out the island for the kingdom' s use, or could even set conditions for its use, e.g. by prohibiting tax-haven activities.
The king might be elected for a fixed period from among the most deserving Finnish MEPs!
Seriously, though, what is the Commission' s view of how to resolve this transport problem which affects many people?
The Commission recognises that the Kvarken region and in particular the ferry route between Vaasa in Finland and Umeå in Sweden may have been affected by the decision taken by the Council to abolish duty-free sales for intra-Community travellers.
As has been pointed out on previous occasions, several instruments exist at EU level to deal with specific problems that could arise.
It is, however, up to Member States to identify possible needs for action and to set their priorities for the use of such instruments.
For the period 2000 to 2006, Finland and Sweden in cooperation with Norway have submitted a programme proposal under the Interreg Community initiative for the Kvarken-Mittskandia area.
This proposal is currently under consideration by the Commission services.
The proposal includes actions to examine infrastructure and communications across the Kvarken and also between Sweden and Norway, and it is expected to be approved in the coming weeks, which would allow projects to be submitted early next year.
At this stage I am not able to assess the impact of this programme, which has yet to be put into place.
Mr President, Commissioner, I thank you for this reply, which raises our hopes.
At present we are looking for other more profitable ships and service operators to take the place of those that have now discontinued service, and the intention would be to combine passenger and freight traffic.
Could you imagine how the Interreg programme you mentioned might help projects like these, which bring shipping services into operation? That project would have a clear impact on employment.
For example, in Vaasa, the city I mentioned, 550 jobs have been lost in the last two years in the travel and tourism industry alone, which may have been the result of stopping duty-free sales.
Mr President, as I said a little while ago, at present I am not able to say what will be the outcome of the Commission's deliberations with regard to the proposals submitted by Finland and Sweden.
What is clear is that future action will include an examination of infrastructure across the narrows of the Gulf of Bothnia and therefore I am confident that due consideration will be taken of the situation faced by the ferry services.
As to the honourable Member's question about the Interreg programme, I am afraid that at present I am unable to give a proper reply, not only because the business of Interreg programmes does not form part of my portfolio but more particularly because an accurate analysis of the proposal has not yet been made.
However, I am certain I can say on behalf of my colleague Michel Barnier that the facts which have been mentioned by the honourable Member will duly be taken into account when an analysis is made of that proposal.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for the rather hope-inspiring reply that it would be possible to use Interreg funds.
When this ferry traffic is phased out at the beginning of the new year it will have very serious financial and also human consequences for the two regions of Västerbotten and Österbotten.
This is a direct consequence of the decision to abolish duty-free.
This can also be regarded as a competition-related issue, as duty-free goods can continue to be sold in the southern part of the Baltic on the crossing between Stockholm and Helsinki, whereas they are not permitted to be sold on the journey between Umeå and Vasa.
How does this actually accord with the Union' s policy on competition? Would it not be possible to extend the exception for duty-free sales to the whole of the Baltic?
Mr President, the situation is as follows if I may address the question directly: If a ferry coming from and going to a Member State, for example Finland, makes an intermediate call in a third country or a third territory - in this case the Åland Islands - where the passengers have the opportunity to disembark and to make purchases, then it would be possible to have tax and duty-free sales on board.
However, when the vessel returns to Community ports, customs provisions including appropriate controls apply and that means that the passengers are allowed to import excisable goods free of taxes and duties up to the limits laid down in the customs provisions governing travellers' allowances.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 50 to 86 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.20 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
European digital content
The next item is the report (A5-0390/2000) by Mrs Gill, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision adopting a Multiannual Community programme to stimulate the development and use of European digital content on the global networks and to promote linguistic diversity in the Information Society [COM(2000) 323 - C5-0462/2000 - 2000/0128(CNS)].
President, I welcome this initiative from the Commission.
This proposal reflects the goal of the Lisbon Summit by aiming to stimulate the development and the use of digital content.
In doing so I trust that Europe's position in the knowledge-based global economy will be consolidated.
Owing to the fast-changing nature of this sector, the EU needs to take immediate and concrete measures since the new communication technologies are already generating demand for content, products and services as well as having considerable social impact.
If we do not act and tackle the barriers that undermine the potential of European industry, then the European citizen will pay the price not only in terms of slower economic growth and lower employment opportunities, but also in terms of cultural and social influence.
If I can say briefly what is important in my report and what I believe is the key priority for this Parliament, it is the issue of linguistic diversity.
We in Europe are lagging behind the US because at present the EU market is fragmented as a result of linguistic and cultural diversity.
What we need to do is to rectify this situation by fostering and encouraging multilingual content, as this is absolutely crucial to the success of the European content industry.
Multilingual content should be incorporated wherever possible at the embryonic stage of electronic communication.
As a result the market position of European companies will be enhanced and at the same time it will prove to be less costly to them.
That is the reason why I propose the amount of budget earmarked for this sector.
In my view we must adopt an inclusive approach in relation to languages and a pledge to commit more funding to this area, precisely because European SMEs are dissuaded from setting up websites in different languages by the burdensome cost that they incur.
I cannot under-estimate the importance of customising our content.
By ensuring that it is conveyed to each and every corner of the EU we underwrite our goal of a fully integrated and functional information society.
It should not be necessary to master the English language in order to find interesting content on the Internet.
The presence of content in different languages will promote citizens' equal access to the information society and therefore prevent the creation of an information underclass.
Secondly, I believe that the initial proposal of five years is far too long and should be curtailed to four years, especially because of the rapid evolution of the e-content sector.
Therefore it is necessary to shorten the implementation of the programme and it also enables this programme to have a much greater impact owing to the commitment of more money in shorter timescales.
Furthermore, I call on the Commission to conceive more efficient and faster implementation procedures in the field of calling in proposals.
In changing priorities from public sector information to multilingual content, my intention is not to diminish the importance of public sector information.
My reasoning is that I believe there is a greater potential for public/private partnerships as there is a huge commercial value to be exploited on the market in the interest both of companies and citizens.
More importantly we need to also resolve the issues of copyright and intellectual property.
These issues have to be addressed so that all parties are fully aware of the implications.
Another key area that Parliament is keen to develop further is how we lend additional support to market enablers, recognising that in recent months the sector has experienced a particularly volatile period.
It is essential that we sell to them the potential gains and opportunities of investing in companies that are taking on board linguistic diversity and exploitation of public sector information.
The lack of financing for enterprises that want to operate in the digital content sector has to be eliminated.
The problem I am mainly concerned with is that small enterprises do not always have sufficient guarantees and a proven business track record to offer investors.
However, if we could make use of expertise already available in terms of business experience by encouraging the establishment of a mentoring service through which successful business people would introduce new entrants to the sources of financing available, we could give Europeans in business the head start they need.
It is up to us now not to squander this opportunity.
Seeing that the Americans are not yet out of our sight, Europe can meet this challenge by focusing on this sector: Let us not forget the potential for job creation and economic growth in such a huge and rapidly developing sector, provided we create the right environment for growth.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the course of these two minutes, I should just like very briefly to emphasise first of all that this e-content programme is coming about, let us not forget, in the wake of the Lisbon and Feira Councils which, where e-Europe is concerned, concluded in particular that this new economy needed to be founded upon knowledge which favours integration and overcomes the digital divide.
I should also like us to remember, when devising this e-content programme, that we are concerned not only with information but also with knowledge and, moreover, with knowledge which favours integration and prevents social division. That is why I have proposed a lot of amendments to emphasise the importance of access for all.
As has been said, information ought of course to be available to businesses, but it ought also to be accessible to everyone.
I therefore want us to emphasise the possible democratic aspect of digital content or e-content.
Secondly, I should like to point out to the Commission that it chose not to define the term 'digital content' and that this gives me grounds for concern.
I should like to know what will be included under the heading of 'content' .
If we include only content useful to businesses, particularly meteorological and geographical content (as is extremely desirable), it must not of course be forgotten that, where content intended for citizens is concerned, it is a much more complicated matter than of simply taking information useful to businesses.
Citizens are involved because content relating to the arts, education, sport, tourism and so on, seems to me to be just as important.
In implementing the programme, I therefore want us to have a requirement for a definition of what may constitute digital content.
It is in fact necessary to show concern for everyone.
This means that digital content offers an opportunity to all those who have not had access to schooling, be it lifelong training or because they are handicapped, and I want digital content to make a better approach to such people possible.
To conclude, why deprive ourselves of digital content? Cultural and linguistic diversity is served by the e-content economic project, and I am pleased to know that we shall be able to support linguistic diversity thanks to digital content.
I should like to thank Mrs Fraisse and Mrs Gill for their excellent report and their contribution to the realisation of this action programme.
In order successfully to complete the ambitious development of this European e-content programme, the procedures envisaged need to be simplified and made secure.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has studied this subject in terms of two specific aspects of the report: on the one hand, public access to documents and the commercial exploitation of information originating in the public sector; and on the other hand, the exchange of intellectual property rights.
Public sector information plays an important role when it comes to citizens' participation and the expression of their freedoms, but it also represents an important potential resource for the European information market.
The dual use, public and private, of this information justifies introducing a Community regulation which must respect the specific obligations of the public authorities as well, of course, as the confidentiality of personal data.
Cost must not act as a filter for access to the information from which commercial suppliers ought also to benefit.
A common basis for billing and a common legal framework governing the right of access must therefore be defined, and this effectively means defining the very nature of this information to see whether or not it can be protected by copyright.
The purpose of exchanging intellectual property rights is to permit the realisation of digital content involving more than one format (video, music and text), with the payment of fees administered through a single European system.
The goal is to stimulate the creation of digital content while protecting intellectual property rights in such a way as to ensure respect for beneficiaries and for consumers legally accessing the content.
Actions taken will have to take account of the future legal framework at present under discussion, designed in particular to define the exclusive rights of descendant beneficiaries.
- (FI) Mr President, the digital content industry is characterised by a growth in the quantity of information.
Information is the raw material of the content industry, and, in addition, multimedia fully exploits the opportunities afforded by the entertainment and leisure industry in order to increase production.
There are no restrictions, as there were previously, to the supply of digital information.
Digital content, which is more quantity than quality, standardises and prunes cultural and social diversity.
Seventy per cent of the content of the Internet is in English, but Europe' s challenge is the greater utilisation of our rich linguistic heritage.
Although linguistic differences might mean extra costs, multilingual content is an important precondition of democracy in the EU.
To overcome problems we need a language industry which concentrates on customised linguistic services and diversifies the language infrastructure of digital content.
Similarly, we need localisation of content production, which is a means of adapting products according to linguistic and cultural needs and the liking of consumers.
Maximising quantity in the content industry might happen at the expense of the existence of linguistic as well as culturally and socially valuable content.
For that reason, the objective behind public subsidies for the EU' s content industry must also be the achievement of high levels of education and culture in all its diversity.
Nowadays it is not enough that people can read: new media reading skills will be actually just as important in the new millennium as traditional literacy.
In the Committee on Budgets we have focused attention on the importance of content production and the utilisation of public information, and we consider that the resources set aside in the budget for the purpose have been very meagre.
Nevertheless, we think it is a good start.
At the same time, we would like to thank Mrs Gill for the enthusiasm and energy she has shown in formulating Parliament' s position.
Commissioner Liikanen, by the year 2003 we shall probably have 1.7 million job vacancies in the information society in Europe which cannot be filled, and I believe that this in itself makes it essential that we devote the utmost attention to the question of digital content.
We shall be investing many millions of euros in the Net infrastructure; by the year 2003 it is expected that there will be more than a billion mobile phones in the world, and 85% of the European population will be using the Internet.
The sums that will be invested here naturally bear no relation to the total investment in software, in digital content.
So there is a huge gap that we must close as soon as possible, because we shall not only create jobs by installing transmitters, by the way we link them together and by the way we develop software; we shall also have to become prolific producers of digital content.
What do we have to do to encourage such production? First of all - and my thanks are due to Mr Seppänen for this - we took the same view in the Committee on Budgets as has been expressed here and now in the chamber and by the Committee on Industry External Trade, Research and Energy, namely that we need a massive injection of new funding for digital content.
The PPE-DE Group will endorse Mrs Gill's suggestions, for which I thank her, and we too shall vote for an increased contribution, and I hope that our agreement with the Liberals and the other groups will be honoured and that we shall make a really massive effort to ensure that these budgetary priorities actually receive the volume of additional funding that we have proposed.
The second point, which seems just as crucial to me, is that we must think about small and medium-sized enterprises, about business start-ups.
I believe that many young university graduates and well-qualified young people from schools, colleges and companies are well able to start up new businesses in the domain of digital content and that this domain offers us new opportunities, including opportunities for cross-border cooperation with the countries applying for EU membership, because in countries where there are already numerous experts, training standards are quite high.
We should actively seek such cooperation and develop joint strategies with the applicant countries.
We also face a huge problem in connection with the conversion of analogue content into digital content.
We must lend unstinting support to the transfer from analogue to digital.
It is imperative that we offer our assistance here as a matter of urgency; we must develop career profiles, so that the education system can produce suitably qualified people, we must press ahead with the development of 'learning entertainment', and in the field of health care, we must try to offer structures that will guarantee us good health into our old age.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Gill on her report.
If we want Europe to be a knowledge society, then we need to use the European digital content programme as our central reference point and as the main platform on which we base our design of this knowledge and information society.
The European digital content is not wishful thinking or pie in the sky, which is why numerous suitors are currently wooing this dark object of their desire.
The conflict between the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport over the acceptance of this report bears witness to the truth of what I say.
Why has this happened? Is it perhaps just a typical clash of powers?
Certainly, to a degree; however, beneath it lies the nub of a serious problem.
The problem, in my view, takes the form of a clash waiting to erupt. On the one hand, we have the content and its traditional producers, whose ambition is to bring their platform into the digital age, without their content losing its importance or independence, i.e. without their losing ownership of their production, which they naturally wish to renovate and extend.
On the other hand, we have the communications networks which need a constant supply of content in order to fill their web pages and which see nothing wrong in subordinating the content, in ransoming it and using it without paying any particular attention to the rules of production.
The networks have cast themselves in the role of protagonist and are using the content without any discretion and often without any respect.
Parliament must handle this clash very carefully.
It is not in the European Union's interests to destroy the traditional structures and rules governing the production of the content.
On the contrary, these structures and rules need to be upgraded, they need a renewed digital profile if they are to be put to better use and distributed more widely.
It is important that we promote content in this direction.
Cultural content in particular is in danger of waking up in a new environment in which literally nothing of the old environment remains.
Music and the publication of books, for example, obey certain production and distribution rules.
If we fail to renovate them, we shall end up in a cannibalistic situation in which authors and their works are the victims.
A Europe of knowledge must not excite competition with the United States and thereby destroy the important structures of its symbolic capital, because this is what differentiates it, this is where its wealth, quality and pluralism lie.
I am pleased with the huge turnout in the Chamber.
It is a pleasure to see.
I am sure there must be something going on, but we will find out soon enough.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as everyone has been saying this evening, the programme we are debating is designed to help establish a large European market for digital content, accessible to both industry and the general public.
The programme and the report are therefore very important and, in connection with these, I want to thank the Commission and Commissioner Liikanen, as well as Mrs Gill.
I shall not go back and discuss all the objectives of this programme which consist in creating conditions favourable to the sale, distribution and use of digital content in such a way as to encourage economic activity, broaden the scope of employment and encourage exploitation of the potential of European digital content over and against that of digital content from the United States.
I want to emphasise the importance of the objective of promoting multilingualism in digital content on the world networks, particularly for European languages.
I also want to say how important it is for citizens of the European Union to be able to develop professionally, socially and culturally and how important it is to avoid, in this area, the creation of that digital divide to which we refer so often in our debates.
We are therefore concerned here with a programme and a report which are very important both from economic and employment points of view and, once Parliament has voted on it, I want to see the programme quickly adopted by the Telecommunications Council which, I believe, is due to meet on 22 December.
Before I conclude, allow me to raise a final important point, a final question addressed to the Commission.
If, on this issue of a digital divide, everyone is aware of the risk of seeing rifts open up between citizens, the Commission' s proposals are, in my view, not enough to prevent this from happening.
That is why I support the amendments calling for specific steps to be taken in the field of new technologies.
In as much as I too am the rapporteur for one of the reports on the Telecom package, I think it is important for Europe to make arrangements and propose to us programmes for....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I would like to thank the Members of Parliament for their support for the Commission proposal.
This wide participation of parliamentarians in this late debate is further proof of the interest shown in this important proposal.
Promotion of European digital content is evidently and rightly a subject of interest to many parliamentary committees.
The rapporteur, Mrs Gill, has succeeded in bringing together the different opinions in a balanced manner, with an important contribution from Mrs Fraisse and the Committee on Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
Let me first say a few words on why we launched this initiative.
The key role of content first.
In order to exploit the strong European position in mobile telephony and digital TV it is key for a new range of services to emerge.
European firms are in the best position to localise services geographically and tailor them culturally and linguistically to users' needs.
We have to ensure that there is an environment conducive to these changes in Europe.
Secondly, the Internet is going mobile.
This means the appearance of personalised and localised services that respond to what consumers want, where they want, but the consumers are probably only willing to pay for this content if it is available in a culturally customised format and in their own language.
Thus having the right conditions in place for European multilingual digital content production is becoming increasingly important.
In response to this challenge, the Commission has proposed a five-year programme with the aim of accelerating the process of transformation and filling the gap open in the mobile services: three specific lines with the help of strategic studies and input from market actors who are identified in the areas where impact at European level can be maximised, namely, stimulating the exploitation of public sector information, enhancing linguistic and cultural customisation, and supporting market enablers.
The budget proposed by the Commission is EUR 150 m over five years.
This programme has ambitious objectives and has to have appropriate means to achieve them.
I would like to thank Parliament for its strong support for the budget of the programme.
Let me comment on some of the amendments proposed by Parliament.
First, on the social and cultural function of digital content, the Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament emphasises the social and cultural dimension of digital content.
The Commission supports these amendments which bring out this dimension even more clearly than in its original formulation.
Second, on economic dimension content.
The idea of e-content is to marry the social and cultural dimension content with its economic value in order to maximise its expected value.
In this respect the report stresses the need to invest in the linguistic and cultural customisation part of the proposal.
We welcome these elements.
Thirdly, on the simplification of procedures and payment delays.
This is an important point and I agree whole-heartedly with the rapporteur.
We have to have put in place fast and simplified procedures for the execution of programmes.
In this connection it is worthwhile to notice that as part of the administrative reform, the Commission has recently adopted a communication on the simplification of its decision-making procedures.
We intend to make maximum use of these measures and reduce as much as possible the time between the presentation of a project proposal and a decision on its financing.
In conclusion, out of 49 amendments voted by the committee, let me say that the Commission can support 23 as they are, and 15 are acceptable in principle subject to reformulation.
The remaining 11 are not directly compatible with the objectives of this specific programme, or would stretch its mandate beyond what can be achieved with the financial means associated with it.
Some of them are indeed very valuable in themselves but are better placed in other instruments than in the present decision.
Let me thank you once again for the report.
At this stage it is expected that the Telecoms Council of 22 December will reach a political agreement on the proposal.
This is necessary in order to start the action early in 2001.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Assessment and management of environmental noise
The next item is the report (A5-0378/2000) by Mr De Roo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the Assessment and Management of Environmental Noise [COM(2000) 468 - C5-0411/2000 - 2000/0194(COD)].
Thank you, Mrs Oomen.
You undoubtedly did your homework.
You know that such a proposal can be submitted either on behalf of a group, or by at least 32 Members.
My question to you is: do you have a sufficient number of Members behind you or are you speaking officially on behalf of the group? Can you confirm whether there is a group decision or not?
Mr President, of course this is a group decision.
We held a brief discussion on this matter this evening, at 6.00 p.m. on the dot.
Could I first ask who wants to speak in favour of this proposal?
The proposal was submitted by Mrs Oomen, on behalf of the Christian-Democrats.
Who wishes to speak in favour of the proposal?
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to express our wholehearted support for Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's motion.
We all want to ensure that the people in our Member States are not exposed to excessive noise, but we also want this whole question to be regulated by law.
To that end, I ask you to support the motion proposed by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
Who would like to speak against the proposal submitted?
Mr President, this proposal is a case of clashing interests, and as far as that is concerned, it is not surprising that it is attracting attention in this way.
What I would like to say to the PPE-DE Group is that it should at least not stand in the way of tonight' s discussions.
The different positions can be articulated, the vote has not been scheduled for this evening, and if the largest group in Parliament is of the opinion that the vote should not take place tomorrow, it seems more appropriate to me to submit such a proposal tomorrow when we have a full House rather than doing it this evening.
That would be premature and in so doing, we would miss the debate.
If a group would like to vote against, it has of course every right to do so, but we must also give others the opportunity to vote in favour and let the democratic process run its course.
What is now threatening to happen is that no viewpoints will be articulated, although I believe that clarity of this kind will be needed this evening before we can eventually take a vote some time in the future, whenever that may be.
I now give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr De Roo.
Thank you, Mr De Roo.
We will now vote on the proposal to refer the pending report back to committee.
(Referral back of the report to committee was rejected)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, noise is disturbing an increasing number of people in Europe.
Ten years ago, in the Fifth Environmental Action Programme, the European Commission estimated that 25% of the citizens of the EU were disturbed by noise from cars, trucks, aircraft, motorcycles, mopeds, trains, factories and boats.
The Commission now estimates that one in every three Europeans complains about noise.
In my own country, the Netherlands, this is 40%.
Noise, especially at night, annoys more and more people.
More than 10 million citizens in the EU are sleep-disturbed as a result.
Too much noise from infrastructure affects the health of human beings, and reduces their quality of life.
Eight years ago, the Commission promised to come forward with legislative proposals for European harmonised noise indicators before 1994 and for EU-wide noise standards before 1995.
Only this year, six years overdue, and under enormous pressure from the French Government, has the Commission at last proposed European harmonised noise indicators.
Those proposals are sound.
Lnight is an efficient indicator for sleep disturbance and the overall noise indicator Lden is probably the best in its field.
This indicator sets 12 hours for the day, 4 hours for the evening and 8 hours for the night.
Noise at night is calculated times 10 and noise in the evening times 5.
The night should be eight hours long and that is of key importance, because at Frankfurt airport, the night is still only 6 hours long, compared to 6.5 hours at Heathrow and 7 hours at Schiphol.
Most people need eight hours sleep.
Lden is an annual average.
The only time when Lden is not the most appropriate indicator is for high-pitched, short-term noise which is often generated by industrial plants.
That is why the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has suggested introducing the LA-max indicator.
Subsidiarity - as will soon transpire from the debate - is an important element which the Environmental Committee would like to honour.
It is left to the discretion of the Member States to determine when evening and the subsequent night fall.
If people in Scandinavia wish to retire at 10 p.m. and the Spanish only at midnight, then that is not a problem, but those starting times for evening and night should be brought into line for all modes of transport, aircraft, road and rail, as well as industrial noise.
The Environmental Committee has criticised the European Commission' s hesitation to propose EU noise standards.
The Environmental Committee proposes turning them into a framework law with four daughter directives which encompass aircraft noise, noise from roads, rail noise and noise from industrial plants, but each time with a combined approach.
An EU standard for noise as well as EU noise standards for aircraft, cars, trucks, trains and installations in plants.
The Environmental Committee' s most controversial proposal is to develop a daughter directive on aircraft noise at this early stage.
In this proposal, the Environmental Committee lays down specific standards for the years 2006, 2012 and 2020.
Setting ever stricter noise standards must reduce noise levels of aircraft around airports.
It is a moderate proposal, for Scandinavia already has stricter standards in place than those proposed for the year 2012.
But major airports, such as Heathrow, Frankfurt and Paris will need to make considerable efforts to meet the initial set of standards by 2006.
What is required, however, is a level playing field.
I will give you one example: the Dutch Government introduced the margins of the night at Beek airport, which amounted to a flight ban between 1 and 5 a.m.
As a result, noisy aircraft took their freight transport to Ostend, the Belgian seaside resort, which met with protest from the people in Ostend.
At present, exactly the same noisy aircraft land in the middle of the night at the airport of Liège, 60 km south of Maastricht.
That is not doing the European citizens any good, and that is why these standards are required.
Mr President, environmental noise is one of the oldest environmental problems we know.
Despite this, noise was not considered a serious environmental problem for a long time.
Now that environmental noise has gone through the roof, increased mobility being one of the specific causes, the number of people facing this problem has also increased greatly.
I therefore welcome the Commission proposal, although I consider it to be an initial and - in my opinion - cautious step.
The Commission does not have the courage to set European standards but aims in the first instance only to harmonise the noise pollution indicators.
In his report, Mr De Roo proposes turning the directive into a framework directive.
Our group has welcomed this suggestion with open arms.
As far as legislation is concerned, I would, however, like to prioritise and, initially, to opt for regulation of noise around airports.
After all, wherever we are based, it appears that noise around airports is experienced as particularly disturbing.
All the more reason, therefore, for a People' s Party such as ours, the PPE-DE, not to let aviation escape European legislation and to scrap the distinction made between military and civil aviation.
We also need European legislation because, in my opinion, we can no longer allow aviation companies to 'shop around' .
Airports such as Orly, Schiphol and Barcelona already meet strict requirements.
It is no longer acceptable for a market to be disturbed by unequal legislation within aviation.
Discrepancies may lead to a situation where an airport on one side of the border, for example Maastricht, is not allowed to expand, while 50 km down the road, a new airport is built in Bierset without any restrictions.
We must also consider the use of the terms of day and night and even margins of the night, concepts which lead to much confusion in the Netherlands too.
In my opinion, what we need is uniformity for the sake of healthy competitive relations, but also for the people we represent, which is also the purport of this directive.
However, rail and car traffic noise are issues which can be solved more easily by means of technical directives.
I would therefore argue in favour of moving away from the idea of noise pollution or standards around road traffic axes but instead promote quieter vehicles and quieter trains.
Anything above and beyond that is subject to subsidiarity, in my opinion, and should be up to the Member States to decide.
I will advise my group to vote against Amendments Nos. 36 and 49 because they contain a number of technical problems, not because the goals are pitched too high, but because the technical details cloud the issue.
I would like to finish off with a word of thanks to the rapporteur.
Mr President, the Commission's Green Paper on future noise-abatement policy, which appeared in 1996, stated that 20% of the population of Western Europe, in other words almost 80 million people, were exposed to noise levels that the experts deemed to be intolerable.
The rapporteur has now quoted far higher percentages, but the fact is that ambient noise is a serious and a major environmental problem.
That is why the reduction and prevention of ambient noise will feature prominently in future European environment policies.
We welcome the proposal from the Commission, but it does not go far enough for us.
The harmonisation of noise-measurement procedures and the production of action plans by the Member States are good things but are not enough to satisfy us.
That is why we are calling for a framework directive as a basis for Community action to assess and combat ambient noise.
We call on the Commission to present proposals for daughter directives and to do so within 18 months of the entry into force of the framework directive.
These daughter directives would set quality standards for all sources of noise, and I am pleased that the line taken by our group was adopted by a large majority of the committee and hope that the amendments tabled by Bernd Lange on that basis will also secure the necessary majority in tomorrow's vote.
My group, however, does not support the rapporteur's intention to use the directive to introduce limit values for ambient noise in the vicinity of airports.
We have discussed the relevant amendments thoroughly in committee, but we believe that our line of approach, whereby quality standards for all specific sources of noise are to be the subject of daughter directives, is the more logical and consistent strategy.
Another important proposal we have made, which will be of particular significance in the context of aviation noise, is that there should be an additional noise indicator over and above those that the rapporteur has enumerated.
I therefore ask for your support for the amendment on the introduction of a noise indicator which defines a maximum level in addition to those which define mean levels.
Mr President, for years, national and local governments heavily underestimated the effects of noise in the workplace and at home.
The fact that people became sleepless and stressed out and that their hearing became damaged, seemed to take second place to economic growth.
Now that traffic noise, especially, is ever increasing, far-reaching measures have become inevitable.
The largest airports are located in densely populated areas and their environments are becoming less and less inhabitable.
It is important that, in those areas, everyone is guaranteed at least eight hours of peace and quiet at night and that governments no longer allow hours to be pinched from this total after designating these hours the so-called margins of the night.
Member States have not been prescribed set times but rather a set number of hours, and quite rightly so.
The rapporteur has shown great creativity in bringing forward framework directives, daughter directives and noise maps to be made available to the public.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left is happy to support him in this, although we would have preferred to take things one step further in our efforts to find appropriate solutions and tackle those making money on the back of pollution.
Now that it has transpired in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy that our more far-reaching wishes cannot count on the support of the two major groups, I hope that at least the rapporteur' s moderate proposals will secure a majority.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are many citizens of the European Union for whom quality of life is just a mirage.
They waste too much time in city traffic and have too little time left to be with their children; they work under terrible conditions and have no green spaces or leisure areas to rest in; they waste days in hospital queues and wrestle with civil service red tape.
In our cities we rush along and lose sight of our well-being.
Environmental noise must be brought into this lamentable picture.
It is present throughout the day, making life even more tiring, and it is present at night, disturbing our well-earned rest.
Unfortunately, more and more European citizens are being affected by environmental noise.
Despite this, however, the European Union has been slow to apply a common policy on the subject of noise.
It took five years to put forward a proposal for harmonised European noise indicators.
It is unacceptable that we should have to wait five more years to set the noise limits to be applied throughout the European Union.
I therefore agree with the rapporteur, Mr De Roo, when he proposes that we should waste no more time and transform this directive on the assessment and management of noise into a binding framework directive.
The noise that most disturbs people' s sleep is that caused by night-time air traffic.
The lack of common standards in the European Union has caused situations of clearly unfair competition between airports and a lack of equality among the citizens of different Member States.
It is, therefore, essential that binding limits should be set on aircraft noise near airports.
I believe, however, that Amendment No 36 is not the most sensible way to go about this.
In any case, I congratulate the rapporteur on the work he has done.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr De Roo, in very many ways, this directive is unique, really, for the simple reason that noise and the disturbance it causes are actually being recognised for the first time as a social and ecological problem.
In line with this directive, noise expressed in decibels is a measure of the standard of living.
Credit should go to the rapporteur, in the first instance, and the support he has received in committee.
The aim of this framework directive is to combat noise pollution on behalf of the European citizen.
This directive contains a number of sound and important proposals: harmonisation, the use of common indicators and parameters, software and such like.
But allow me to say a few words on the bickering and the battle which has taken place recently behind the scenes, in and around, above and below, the committee, and which we witnessed in this Chamber a moment ago.
The rapporteur included a number of indicators and aims for airports in his proposal.
I can understand why he did this.
This is a very hot topic in my own country too, and it is also keeping the citizens of my own country awake.
It is our duty as MEPs and as a European institution to do something about this.
I too would like clear goals, no question about that, but the standards which the rapporteur is proposing are premature at this moment in time.
Another group may claim that the proposal contains technical problems.
Or you may put it down to other causes.
They are quite simply premature.
We must give the Commission the time to do something about this, providing it does not take too long.
That is why, in my opinion, the amendments tabled by Mr Bernd Lange are so important.
I do hope they will meet with support and that the Commission will issue well-founded standards within eight months from now, because that is what it is all about, and I hope that we can reach a compromise in this area too.
Mr President, Spain has supported and continues to support the policy of combating noise in general and in particular supports this Community directive, as well as the good work of Mr De Roo.
Despite Spain' s will and interest in establishing Community rules on this issue, there is a basic problem which profoundly affects the way of life in Spain.
This is the establishment of a nuisance factor for noise after 7.00 p.m., which the proposal for a directive calls the 'evening' .
The Commission proposal, in point 1 of Annex 1, intends to systematically add on five decibels for all noise created between 7.00 p.m. and 11.00 p.m.
For climatic and cultural reasons, life in Spain is lived later than in many other parts of Europe.
It is obvious that the nuisance which may be caused by noise between 7.00 p.m. and 11.00 p.m. varies according to the different ways of life in each place.
In Spain and in many Mediterranean countries, the normal day extends considerably later than the 7.00 p.m. indicated in the directive.
I will therefore not hide the fact that it will be very difficult for my country to accept the Commission' s proposal, unless it incorporates a sufficient mechanism for flexibility so that we can maintain the way of life that we inherited from our ancestors and, furthermore, which is so valued both by the Spanish themselves and by our foreign visitors.
So far, the formulae for flexibility that have been proposed consist of transferring part of the four hours of the mandatory evening to siesta time.
But this mechanism is of no use, since, unfortunately, people do not sleep siestas all year in Spain and it is not even slept in the whole of Spain.
Elements of flexibility could be the option of reducing either the number of hours or the degree of nuisance which the proposal assigns to those evening hours.
It would be the Member States who would determine the length of that period, according to their own customs.
We therefore support Amendment No 48 by Mr Oomen-Ruijten and Mr Florenz.
Mr President, first of all I must say that I welcome this report.
The rapporteur has done a lot of work and the Commission has produced an excellent initiative stimulated by colleagues who prompted the Commission during the last Parliament.
This is a very serious issue affecting the health of millions of people and it requires a careful and thoughtful action to cure the problems.
It is a complex problem.
We cannot get away from that and we really require a step-by-step, calculated approach to dealing with the problems of noise in every locality, in every place and in every cultural situation within the Union and elsewhere.
For that reason the most important elements of this report are the need to have harmonisation of measurement and assessment methods across the whole of the European Union so we can talk in comparable terms about the problems.
We also need to build noise maps and measure the real problem in every locality to establish what can be done in each case and adopt local measures to do that and eventually, by a step-by-step approach, we can arrive at a real action programme which is cost-effective in the measures that we adopt and which achieves the solution that we are looking for, a genuine reduction in noise levels and consequent improvement in human health.
Some parts of the report propose too rapid and far too quick an approach to a problem which has not been properly and carefully assessed.
It seems to me, for example, that the setting of noise limits at this time is presumptive.
We need to assess exactly what measures can be taken at a local level and whether we need noise limits in future.
We will have to progress down that road but the present proposal by the rapporteur goes too far in that direction at the moment.
I would nevertheless commend the report and of course the Commission's proposal to the House.
Mr President, I cannot but regret that the attempt to remove this report from the agenda this evening has been so thoroughly misunderstood.
We have no intention whatsoever of pulling a fast one on the House.
Listening to David Bowe, from a fairly significant parliamentary group, one is made particularly aware that it is not at all easy to rein in the airport operators to such a degree that the people who live close to our European airports, and for whom I have every sympathy, would actually notice any improvement.
I have certainly been astounded to hear one or two speakers say that we need daughter directives.
Now daughter directives are a fine thing - don't get me wrong.
The only thing is that we have been fighting for such directives for twenty years.
We need an instrument if we are to establish daughter directives.
That, in principle, was the idea behind Amendment No 36, although I believe the idea has not been fully developed yet.
That is why we needed breathing space to work on this idea so that it could be implemented.
One thing is crystal-clear, Mrs Scheele: you are still very young, but however many years you spend in Parliament, you will never get a daughter directive on aviation noise!
They will always find a way, be it to right, to left, down the middle or wherever, to wriggle out of it.
They have economic interests too, and of course I understand that.
So what we need are parameters.
We have to establish them here in Parliament.
That was the idea behind our desire to obtain ten more days or another fortnight.
At the end of the day, it is not so much a matter of the wishes we might have but rather of the wishes we manage to turn into policies.
Once a football match is over, only the goals count.
In that respect I am by no means overconfident.
I am still quite curious to see how the dice will fall tomorrow.
But to my great regret, Mr de Roo, I have to say that your good intention is probably dead in the water already.
Mr President, the approach adopted for this directive reminds me of the Natura 2000 model, which is bound to result in massive restrictions on the use of large areas of land for economic purposes. This is something we should bear in mind during our discussions.
The European railways alone estimate that they will need to spend EUR 20 million on the noise maps, which is the Commission's assessment of the entire cost of implementing the directive.
The railways alone expect to spend that amount.
I should also like to emphasise that small and medium-sized businesses cannot possibly afford the cost of producing these noise maps.
I believe we should do better to switch to incentives. We ought to think about support initiatives which achieve the aim of restricting noise levels.
It is also important that we think about the countries applying for accession to the EU. They too would like to be able to sleep peacefully but also to go about their work without disruption.
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important framework directive even though I would have appreciated a few weeks maybe until the January plenary session to have a proper dialogue with all the parties involved as that would have made for sounder legislation in the end.
Nonetheless I welcome the framework directive and certainly, before the specific points contained in Amendment No 36 and others were introduced, it would have been welcome all round this House.
This is the first directive that deals with ambient noise as distinct from noise from a particular common source and that is to be welcomed.
We all know the health hazards that noise brings to all our lives.
It is an increasing hazard and how we go about handling it will be a measure of how successful we are.
We cannot bounce people or communities or industries into specific standards without proper dialogue and consultation.
Could I also ask whether the Commission could refer to the business impact assessment, which I am assuming they carried out on this proposal as is required under the Treaty.
I would like to know what the bottom line actually was.
I would fully support the need to harmonise noise indicators and assessment methods; the whole area of noise maps; the drawing up of action plans to reduce noise and protect quiet areas as appropriate and to broaden the whole scope for information to the public.
I would also hope that when we get to a daughter directive, rather than this framework directive, in which we have the specific standards for an EU-wide playing field that the terrain and conditions and demography in each area will be taken into account and we will have time to debate that properly.
That is what we should be doing and how we should be handling it.
For example, Amendment No 36 cites average measurements particularly in relation to night-time but one aircraft in the eight hours of night-time could come in so loudly and so noisily that it could wake the entire neighbourhood and yet comply with what is required by Amendment No 36.
That is not what we want.
It is not averages, it is specifics.
We needed more time and I regret we did not have it even though I generally support the framework directive.
I would like to thank the rapporteur; Mr de Roo, for his work.
Environmental noise reduces the health and quality of life of at least 25% of the EU population.
It causes illnesses such as stress and increased blood pressure as well as reductions in children's learning capacity.
Aviation noise probably has the highest profile today in Europe, while locally noise from road traffic and sources such as trains and construction work is usually the biggest problem.
What should we do in order to deal with this growing problem? It was tempting to use this directive and other directives to set new EU noise limit values as soon as possible.
That may seem the logical way to control the level of noise but it would be premature to set new limit values in this way for two main reasons.
Firstly, because we already have market access legislation which set limit values for many road vehicle types and for equipment used outdoors.
It would be simpler and quicker to tighten the noise standards in the existing legislation than to introduce new daughter directives.
We will consider what these standards needs to be once we have the evidence from strategic noise maps.
Secondly, this proposal uses a new approach to assess the overall noise situation in Europe in terms of numbers of people who are disturbed by noise.
It is impossible at the moment, because we use such a large variety of indicators and assessment methods, to characterise noise in different Member States.
A particular problem is the noise around airports.
Because of commercial competitiveness between airports and between aviation manufacturers it has not been possible to obtain correct and verified noise levels.
Getting comparable information about the noise around airports will be a big step forward.
The Commission would therefore not be able to support the amendments introducing airport limit values at this stage.
Once Member States have provided the comparable information then the Commission will consider the question of Community limit values and other measures to reduce the numbers of people affected by noise and report back to the Council and Parliament.
As a general means of improving the situation, we propose that authorities in Member States should produce action plans in close consultation with the public.
They should outline any measures that Member States take or plan to take to reduce the noise problem.
We are not prescribing what measures should be taken.
This is for the Member States to decide.
However, the action plans must be published, even if all they say is that no improvements are planned, so that people living locally will know the situation and will be able to discuss the issue with their elected representatives.
I am grateful to Members for their amendments strengthening the text and public participation, which we wholeheartedly accept.
Our first priority is to produce strategic noise maps using standardised indicators and assess all types of noise to give us an accurate picture of the number of people who are suffering and where.
Our first report on the directive is due to be submitted to Parliament in 2007.
This will include a careful consideration of limit values.
A five-yearly review process will then ensure that Members have a continued input.
We value your input and welcome the majority of amendments you have contributed today.
I hope we can now agree a positive way forward with a view to achieving a common position with the Council next week.
As far as the amendments are concerned, the Commission has considered 49 amendments and is able to accept 25 of them fully or in part.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1 to 3, 14, 18, 27, 30, 34, 35 and 43.
The following amendments are acceptable in principle or in part: Amendments Nos 6, 7, 12, 13, 17, 21, 22, 25, 28, 29, 32, 39, 42, 44 and 45.
The Commission cannot accept the other amendments.
To conclude I would like to thank European Parliament for the detailed consideration it has given to this proposal and for the many helpful amendments which have been contributed.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Additives other than colours and sweeteners
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0347/2000) by Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 95/2/EC on food additives other than colours and sweeteners [9662/1/2000 - C5-0425/2000 - 1999/0158(COD)].
Mr President, when it is as late as this, I do not think it is good form to prolong the debate, especially when, in the end, there is little to discuss.
There is only one amendment, but it is an important one.
I shall explain why.
At first reading, we in fact adopted five amendments, including two that were essential.
The first was designed not to authorise the use of ethyl hydroxyethyl cellulose - rather a complex scientific expression, I am afraid - or E 467 as a new food additive.
The Council followed our lead, which is very good.
However, it did not follow our lead in the case of another amendment aimed at refusing to extend authorisation to another additive: sodium alginate (E 401), used for pre-packed, peeled and/or cut unprocessed carrots.
This may appear trivial, but I shall explain why the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy was right to propose that Parliament should not agree to such authorisation.
First of all, there are in general three criteria according to which a new additive is either admitted or rejected.
The first criterion is technological need.
The technological need is difficult to dispute in this case.
Indeed, it is worth pointing out that sodium alginate is used as a firming agent for peeled, cut, ready-to-eat packaged carrots.
It prevents softening of the carrot pieces and helps maintain the organoleptic qualities of the carrots.
The second criterion is usefulness to the consumer.
It seems that treatment with alginate may mislead the consumer, since the food may appear fresher than it really is.
Moreover, additives cannot, in general, be used, as in the present case, for unprocessed foodstuffs which have not undergone treatment involving a significant change to their original state.
There is therefore a second form of deception, and that is why it cannot be said that there is usefulness to the consumer. Instead, there is harm to the consumer.
The third criterion is harmlessness.
According to all the scientific literature and the Scientific Committee for Human Food, this additive is innocuous, but it has a laxative effect which is considered to be negligible in the small quantity ingested.
A problem may arise in view of the number of additives with a laxative effect.
The synergy between all these additives with a laxative effect has not been assessed.
There are many such substances, and I would remind you that, in 1992, the Scientific Committee for Human Food recommended that a study be carried out of the contribution of other food components with potential laxative effects to the overall dietetic burden of substances with this biological property.
This study has never been carried out.
As a result, it would be only natural, as a precautionary measure and until such time as this study has been carried out, not to authorise new additives presenting this property.
These are the three criteria.
Two of them do not satisfy us.
I think it is perfectly right to refuse to authorise this additive.
It is not a question of having it in for a particular additive, but of demonstrating a rigorous approach.
There are at present 307 food additives on the European market, 163 of which are perfectly innocuous.
That is not bad.
The others, although not dangerous, may present a potential health risk, especially when they are used in combination.
There are always problems of synergy.
We know that the Commission is preparing a new directive on additives.
I think it would be extremely interesting to show what Parliament' s position is at a time when the directive is being revised so that the additive content is less than it is at present.
I think that this would be of benefit to public health without causing any damage at all to industry.
Mr President, the PPE-DE Group voted in favour of the Lannoye report within the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and it is, in fact, completely compatible with our wishes.
I will therefore advise my colleagues to support the report, including the one amendment.
We would not ask for peeled and cut carrots to be plunged into alginate, and support the rapporteur in his amendment.
We would prefer it if this provision were deleted.
Mr President, at this late hour and with a piece of carrot stuck in my throat, I doubt whether I have much else to say to my fellow MEPs.
I believe I have made the position of our group clear.
Thank you Mrs Thyssen, I sympathise with you, for while you have a carrot in your throat, I have a frog in my throat, as we say north of the Rhine, but there is a bit of a flu bug going round in this House.
Mr President, I brought my carrots with me but wisely I did not, like Mrs Thyssen, attempt to eat them, although both would have passed the Lannoye test.
I never believed that my last speech in this House in the twentieth century would be about sodium alginates.
But I could have bet that it would be in reply to a debate initiated by Mr Lannoye because he is an indefatigable champion of the consumer in matters great and small.
In my humble opinion these matters are relatively small - perhaps as small as these pieces of carrot.
I confess that I have some personal doubts about the dangers of E-401 but the dangers are not really, in the end, what this is about.
Our food authority in the UK has argued at length to me that sodium alginate is harmless, permitted in the US and many countries, has been around since the 1930s and, as far as laxatives are concerned, has less effect than we would find in fruit or cereal fibre and infinitely less than you would get from a mouthful of seaweed in a Japanese restaurant.
So much for the scientific approach.
Why then do I support Mr Lannoye? And my comrades in the PSE Group will do the same.
For several reasons, and this is where he performs such a singular service in our debates.
Firstly, he says: "What is the consumer benefit?" We can see the manufacturer's benefit that this piece of carrot stays orange and does not turn grey.
But what is the consumer benefit in that?
Secondly, where is the preparedness of industry to come forward and accept that some of the many additives we have can be struck off? Nobody says that.
Nobody comes to tell us.
Until they do we should support Mr Lannoye and his amendments and wish him a happy New Year.
Mr President, for my part, I can fully support the common position.
The argument for further restrictions on food additives has more to do with political assessment of consumers' need of these additives.
We should however try to avoid this type of assessment. In my opinion, we should instead base our assessments on scientifically substantiated risk assessments.
In anticipation of the Council's discussion of the matter, the Commission has chosen to withdraw permission for the use of ethyl hydroxyethyl cellulose.
Ethyl hydroxyethyl cellulose is used in Sweden and Finland almost exclusively by people with an allergy to gluten.
These people have knowledge, accumulated over many years, about cellulose as a binding agent, particularly in bread.
If they stop using it, they risk having a poorer diet.
Poor diet increases the risk of stomach upsets and diarrhoea.
There is also an increased risk of children suffering from stunted growth.
Chronic dietary problems also increase the risk of cancer.
Last weekend I met a number of dieticians who were concerned that the withdrawal of permission to use ethyl hydroxyethyl cellulose would lead to those with a gluten allergy having problems with their intake of nutrients.
My question to the Commissioner is therefore: what opportunities do Swedes with a gluten allergy have for finding bread with this additive even after permission for use has been withdrawn, and does the Commission intend to speed up the consultation in the Scientific Committee on Foodstuffs which will allow the matter to be taken up and the decision changed?
Mr President, I have a Christmas message from a 14 year-old boy in Sweden.
The boy has a gluten allergy and really struggles with his diet.
He has now found out that the European Parliament wants to ban the cellulose in his diet and also in his Christmas food.
His Christmas message to you all is: 'What are you playing at in the EU?'
Mr President, I want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lannoye, and the Committee of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy for the report on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on food additives other than colours and sweeteners.
With regard to the amendment on the use of sodium alginate the proposal to extend this use to pre-packed peeled carrots was made by the Commission in its original proposal in July 1999.
We have now re-examined this original proposal thoroughly and have come to the conclusion that it is appropriate not to authorise the new use of an additive such as sodium alginate in unprocessed foodstuffs.
As the criteria for the authorisation of a new additive or additive use go beyond a simple safety assessment the Commission can accept the amendment of Parliament rejecting the extended use of sodium alginate in carrots.
Official inspections in the field of animal nutrition
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-372/2000) by Mr Staes, on behalf of the Delegation of the European Parliament to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 95/53/EC fixing the principles governing the organisation of official inspections in the field of animal nutrition.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the discussion of this report on the organisation of official inspections in the field of animal nutrition is much like the end of one stage in some cycle race or other.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that approval of the joint draft text will guarantee us a win tomorrow.
But that does not mean, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, that the yellow jersey is safe or final victory is in sight.
As I already explained during second reading, there is a crisis underlying this directive amendment.
After all, a number of years ago, it became clear that citrus pulp from Brazil, which was contaminated with dioxin, had ended up in animal feed in the Netherlands, Belgium and in Germany.
It then also transpired that the Commission did not have the right tools to tackle the problem adequately.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is about to change.
I noticed during the trialogue how Member State governments put their own interests above the general interest.
Discussions with the French Presidency were courteous, yet tough.
I made every effort to ensure that the European Commission can act independently in emergencies and certainly in cases where public and animal health are under threat, so without having to consult the Member States.
The measures issued by the Commission apply with immediate effect and these must also be submitted to the Standing Committee on Animal Nutrition within ten days.
The negotiations also meant that - and I view this as a personal victory for this Parliament - the safeguard measures issued by the Commission remain in force as long as they are not replaced by another legislative decision.
A second problem was that the Member States rather disliked our requirement to provide for the possibility of unannounced inspections.
During the trialogue, it became clear that the Council did not intend to shift from this position.
As a result, I received from the French Presidency a very clear signal, a very clear message indeed, which was 'no pasarán' (they will not get through).
Member States clearly view unannounced inspections as a violation of their sovereignty, but they did seem prepared to provide the experts of the Commission with all the assistance required to fulfil their inspection task.
Furthermore, the results of the inspections will be imparted to the European Parliament.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that I salvaged as much as I could.
In my opinion, our Parliament is tightening up on the Council' s common position considerably and I recommend approval of the common draft text.
But as I already mentioned a moment ago, we are about to finish a stage in a cycle race as it were.
There is another stage scheduled for tomorrow, when Mrs Marit Paulsen from the Liberal Group will be at the helm and she will be given the chance to further tighten the present directive.
She deserves all our support in this. I wish her every success, and she knows she can count on me.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.
These mills here, however, are grinding too slowly for my liking.
For two years we have had the Commission's proposal on the table.
Its aim is better harmonisation and coordination of official inspections in the field of animal nutrition in the Member States of the European Union.
Food safety is the watchword of the moment, perhaps even the concept of the year.
How closely the safety of our food is linked to the feed eaten by livestock has been demonstrated by recent scandals, from dioxins and waste oil in feed mixes to the manufacture of animal and bone meal, which, as we all know, can be a good source of protein if special manufacturing methods are used.
But methods have also been exposed which are nothing short of criminal.
Consumers have rightly made a radical response, switching to other foodstuffs that they believe to be safe.
The political world is called upon to do everything in its power to ensure that the safety of foodstuffs can be guaranteed.
But how can guarantees be given if inspections have not taken place?
In an internal market where there are no border controls, we believe that the European Union has an obligation to conduct inspections.
The inspection of foodstuffs and animal feed, however, is the prerogative of the Member States.
Now, after lengthy negotiations in the Conciliation Committee, an acceptable compromise has been worked out, involving a guarantee that safeguard measures taken by the Commission will remain in force until they are replaced by another act and an obligation on the Member States to provide full assistance to the Commission officials carrying out on-the-spot inspections.
One thing is sure: only if the Member States and the Commission cooperate and pool all their resources will we be able to achieve a higher level of safety in this sensitive field of animal nutrition.
The PPE-DE Group supports the compromise that has been achieved.
We stress, however, that we shall continue to keep a critical eye on developments and that we shall again respond to any problems in the appropriate manner.
I would like to thank the European Parliament for its support of the European Commission's position and the remarkable effort made to meet the concerns of the Council.
Indeed this conciliation overcomes the technicalities of the legal text and stresses the strong will and the mutual commitment of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission to the protection of health and consumers' interests.
Member States and the Commission now have a better instrument available to ensure that Community legislation in animal nutrition is properly enforced and, in the event of emergencies in third countries, rapid reactions are possible.
Thank you, Commissioner Liikanen.
Your remarks are so brief today that we don't even have time for a sip of coffee!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Sustainable urban development
The next item is the report (A5-350/2000) by Mrs Lienemann, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision on a Community Framework for cooperation to promote sustainable urban development.
Mr President, I welcome the series of compromise amendments that have been tabled in the names of Mrs Lienemann and Mrs Roth-Behrendt on behalf of the Socialist Group and by myself, on behalf of the EPP-ED Group, particularly as the agreement will allow the EUR 14 million budget to be put in place which will ensure that this four-year programme can commence in 2001 without going to second reading.
In a nutshell, this commitment for a Community framework will hopefully, with the agreement of the Commission and the Council, put a legal base under existing schemes being pursued by networks of local and regional authorities which are actively promoting sustainable urban development.
This will also provide financially for them.
We must be careful not to take a top-down approach to what has to be a bottom-up initiative.
The Commission must not impose priorities from above but must listen to, and facilitate, the work done at local level, as the local authorities are not just facilitators of Commission policies.
They are the level of government closest to the citizen.
They have the democratic, financial and administrative responsibility for urban sustainability.
I welcome this legislation.
Mr President, there has been so much discussion of this issue, and we are so like-minded with regards to it, that the report does not actually have to be presented in the proper sense.
But, anyway, the idea of sustainable urban development has grown into something significant in just the last few years.
It is a question, mainly, of a horizontal approach, namely, that sustainable development is a common denominator for social, economic and ecological work in cities.
We know that the Commission is now drafting a programme for sustainable development for the whole of the European Union, and that should be ready in six months' time.
I hope that sustainable urban development will form a vital part of this sustainable development strategy.
We know that the vast majority of Europeans live in cities, and, until now, these matters, as far as cities specifically are concerned, have played second fiddle.
The rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann, has quite rightly recommended that the Commission' s proposed budget should be increased.
The sum is not very large even now, but it will definitely enable us to start an inter-city networking programme so that our citizens, in particular, will be able to establish direct contact with the various players in the networks of different countries.
In this way we can develop the European view on urban development.
I hope that these resources will be used specifically for developing European cooperation from the point of view of our citizens.
Mr President, the European sustainable cities and towns campaign, which is made up of an alliance of 540 different local authorities, has committed itself to implementing local policies and actions geared towards promoting sustainability.
It is really a question of putting in place best practices which can in a real sense develop our towns and cities in a positive manner.
In Ireland, urban renewal programmes are making a significant contribution to the upgrading of small towns and villages.
The small town/village renewal programme is an integral part of rural development.
EU structural funds, mainly through the ESF, as well as national exchequer finances, must always be focused on developing disadvantaged and poorer areas in our society.
The issue of sustainability does not only apply to towns and cities.
There are many rural parts of the European Union that need to be developed and sustained in a positive manner.
Unemployment black spots are both applicable to urban and rural areas.
As a legislative institution we should not seek at any time to exacerbate the urban/rural divide.
We need to develop marginalised and disadvantaged areas while supporting economic development and expanding social programmes.
The planning process must be implemented in a fair and innovative manner.
Mr President, excuse my being late, but debates at this time are got through more quickly than during the day.
I am going to explain to you the factors which Mrs Lienemann would have liked to have presented to you herself if she had not been detained by other work.
The proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council, adopted by the European Commission on 22 November 1999 and on a Community Framework for cooperation to promote sustainable urban development, follows on from the 'European Sustainable Cities and Towns Campaign' , launched in 1992.
The state of the urban environment, in which approximately 80% of the European population resides, is a fundamental topic of concern which has repercussions at local, European and world levels.
It has to be said that the thorniest environmental problems at European level basically concern urban areas.
They are often closely linked to global environmental challenges, and their impact is such that they directly influence the quality of life for millions of people.
A coherent and sustainable approach to urban development policies may, however, significantly improve the quality of life in cities and towns.
Indeed, the concept of sustainable development, particularly in the case of cities and towns, is not, and cannot be, limited solely to the environmental aspect, but also embraces social and economic aspects.
Europe' s cities and towns are important economic, political and socio-cultural centres.
They may also represent a major threat to our natural environment, and the current challenge is to facilitate balanced urban development enabling cities and towns to continue to play an important role in contemporary society, as well as in the society of the future.
One major challenge in creating an urban policy is to find the means of pursuing sustainable urban development objectives within the administrative structure of the city.
That is why, in agreement with the other institutions, Mrs Lienemann, our rapporteur, has proposed slightly increasing the budget to EUR 14 million in order to promote cooperation in this area between 2001 and 2004.
The appropriations would be mainly allocated to networks of towns and cities organised at European level and in order to support their activities in the field of development and the dissemination of good practices where sustainable urban development is concerned.
Mr President, the citizens of Europe undoubtedly demand a more favourable environment and we in this House must reflect those expectations and make it possible for them to be fulfilled.
The 2000-2004 multiannual programme for sustainable development in the urban environment is an appropriate instrument for achieving this end, and the implementation of Agenda 21 is an excellent way of coordinating and developing actions.
Nevertheless, we must recognise that there has been no widespread success, either in the implementation of Agenda 21 or in the results obtained.
Land planning in many Member States still fails to take account of the capacity of the physical environment, the cultural heritage and the resources of local authorities to assume their environmental duties.
Furthermore, the report on sustainable cities highlights the existence of significant shortcomings in the practice and in the development of environmental legislation at a local level.
The multiannual plan has ambitious objectives and a very broad scope, which can be extended to the candidate countries.
Of course, we need a budget which is coherent with the terms of the proposal, but we would be falling into another trap if we did not have much more effective mechanisms for monitoring and assessing the results than we have at the moment.
To conclude: 'yes' to strengthening the budget, 'yes' to the report and to the improvements which Mrs Lienemann has made to the Commission' s proposal, but also to reinforcing, considerably, the mechanisms for monitoring the implementation of all these programmes, both within the Commission and in the Member States themselves.
Thank you Mr President. As Mrs Patrie has already said, 80 percent of the population of Europe live in towns or cities.
The chances of a good life for these people depend entirely on the environment where they live.
Unfortunately, towns and cities today are associated almost automatically with a bad environmental situation - large quantities of emissions, a lot of traffic and polluted waterways. But it does not actually need to be this way.
Better knowledge and new technology provides the opportunity for a better environment in Europe's towns and cities.
Clear legislation and careful control of this are yet other tools.
The towns and cities themselves have many of the instruments available to them, which help to improve the environment for their own citizens.
It is often in the municipalities and towns that they are most aware of their own problems.
With sensible town planning, well-functioning public transport and cooperation with other municipal interested parties, it is possible to provide citizens with a better environment.
In practice, it is also at the local level that the environmental decisions we take here in Parliament are to be implemented.
The climate issue is a good example of this.
Reduced traffic and conversion from fossil fuels at a local level is necessary to achieve a change in the climate threat we are experiencing.
There needs to be a clear dialogue and good cooperation between the institutions of the Union and those acting at local level, that is the municipalities or towns and cities.
I believe that Mrs Lienemann's report will contribute to this.
However, we must also get citizens involved at local level.
This can be done through cooperation with universities, voluntary organisations, companies and other actors.
For this reason I feel that, in the definition of who can apply for funds from the framework programme, there must be room for organisations other than those we traditionally regard as municipal organisations.
There are many good examples of municipalities cooperating with others.
It is the spread of responsibility that is the important thing.
This, in my opinion, should be a criterion.
Therefore, I would like to support Amendment No 31.
Mr President, let me first even in her absence congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann for her excellent work, and express my great satisfaction that, thanks to the constructive work of both Parliament and the Council, we might be in a position to conclude on this important initiative already at first reading.
This proposal on sustainable urban development has the potential of having a direct effect on the daily lives as many as 80% of the European population.
It will enable and encourage towns and cities throughout Europe and beyond to come together and learn from each other's experiences, help them to tackle environmental problems and challenges and to work towards sustainability.
The Commission is also grateful for the substantial support which the European Parliament has provided for this proposal and for the many helpful amendments which have been put forward.
The Commission recognises the importance of promoting good governance and transparency in its decision-making process.
Accordingly, we are strongly in favour of the establishment of a platform of dialogue with the key stakeholders to help determine the priority themes to be supported.
Its innovative approach will involve cooperation with the city networks, Member States, EU institutions, NGOs and the business community, ensuring that the funds provided from the framework are targeted at those areas of sustainable development most in need of them.
I believe that this innovative approach will provide an example for others to follow.
The budget for this proposal has been the subject of some debate with a wide range of views expressed about the appropriateness of the EUR 12.4 m originally proposed by the Commission.
Many have suggested that the budget is too small.
The Commission wants to stress however that this framework is not about the implementation of projects at ground level.
Other Community programmes and initiatives are already in place for this.
Rather, the framework is designed to facilitate the sharing of information and ideas about the best practice of sustainable urban development so that the solutions identified to problems in one city or town can be shared with the other cities and towns throughout Europe and beyond.
The quality approach of the framework and its multiplier effects are such that despite the relatively small budget it is expected to have a real impact on the promotion of sustainable urban development in Europe.
The forty-one amendments have been given detailed consideration and the Commission is able to accept thirty of them, either completely or in principle.
Amendment No 33 proposes a revised budget for the proposal of EUR 14 m.
We must make it clear that the Commission's general line on such matters is that no budget increase can be accepted without additional resources being transferred by the Council and Parliament to the relevant budget lines.
In this specific instance, however, and on the basis that it will facilitate the adoption at first reading, the Commission has exceptionally agreed to accept an increase of the financial scope of the proposal to EUR 14 m without the provision of additional resources.
While we are willing to support a figure of EUR 14 m we cannot support a figure of EUR 20 m as proposed by Amendment No 14.
The second issue relates to commitology.
Given the nature of the activity, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 10 and 23.
Establishment of a consultative committee would be the appropriate commitology solution.
So, to conclude, the Commission can fully accept Amendments Nos 2, 5 to 8, 10 to 13, 15, 16, 18 to 20, 22 to 24, 28, 30, 32 to 35 and 37.
The Commission can in principle accept Amendments Nos 25, 27, 36, 40 and 41.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 9, 14, 17, 21, 26, 31, 38 and 39.
Amendment No 31 would allow NGOs, universities etc. to be involved as main partners in the networks to be supported.
It is intended that the main partners in this framework should be the Commission and networks of local authorities whose legal responsibility is to develop and implement policies of sustainable urban development.
We cannot therefore accept this.
Finally, I would like to thank the European Parliament for the detailed consideration it has given to this proposal and for the valuable input provided by all parties.
It has undoubtedly strengthened and improved the quality of the proposal and, as a consequence, helped to ensure that it will deliver the maximum possible benefit to cities and towns throughout the EU and further afield.
I am also happy that the spirit of the interinstitutional cooperation has been such that the adoption of this proposal at first reading should be secure.
Thank you, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Precautionary principle
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-352/2000) by Mrs Patrie, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the communication from the Commission on the precautionary principle.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is certainly late for us to be tackling the celebrated precautionary principle.
I say 'celebrated' because it is a very fashionable subject, and you will no doubt agree with me that not a day passes without the press, at the drop of a hat, running a headline on the precautionary principle, either advisedly or ill-advisedly, but misleadingly, more often than not.
Public interest in the precautionary principle is not surprising and reflects their legitimate concern, for they have become extremely sensitive to such matters as a result of recent food scandals and cases such as the contaminated blood scandal.
This interest also reflects the crisis of public confidence in science, which is now recognised as not being infallible.
Finally, interest in the precautionary principle reflects the crisis of public confidence in governmental and political decision makers, who are suspected of connivance with certain pressure groups, especially industrial lobbies, or simply of culpable irresponsibility.
All this demonstrates the major political stakes involved in the issue of the precautionary principle and, in this connection, I welcome the Commission' s initiative, as well as the general quality of its communication on this precautionary principle.
In order to explain the result I should like our Parliament to arrive at, I should like this evening quickly to underline two key aspects of this debate.
The first issue raised by the report we are debating is of a legal nature.
Indeed, even if it is only recently that the media have begun publicising it, the precautionary principle has not only just made its appearance on the international legal scene.
A good many treaties and international agreements refer to it.
The Court of Justice of the European Communities and even the WTO' s dispute settlement bodies consider that the precautionary principle is applicable in environmental or public health issues, occasionally even against the Europeans, as may be seen from the case (still pending) of cheese produced from milk straight from the cow.
However, these references in international texts are not enough to specify either its nature or its legal value, especially since such texts do not include any definition of the precautionary principle.
This gives rise to a degree of legal insecurity unacceptable not only to our fellow citizens but also to industrialists who no longer know what fate has in store for them.
The first key task of the Commission' s communication and of Parliament' s report is therefore to specify the character and the legal value we wish to accord the precautionary principle, to define the conditions in which the precautionary principle may and must be applied and, finally, to determine the criteria to be fulfilled by the measures taken in application of the precautionary principle.
The second key task in our work on the precautionary principle is of a more political nature.
What the European Union has to do is to is to promote a unified conception of the precautionary principle, not only so that this principle may be a part of all policies implemented by the European Union within the scope of its jurisdiction, but also so that reference may be made to this European approach in respect of our partners who often have a less ambitious approach than ourselves where environmental and health matters are concerned.
In this respect, it is important for our Parliament to express a very clear position so that the Commission may be provided with a sound mandate for defending the European Union' s positions within international bodies, particularly the WTO.
We are gratified to note that the bulk of the text of the resolution, at which we have arrived after several debates within the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, coincides with the Council resolution, appended to the conclusions of the Nice Summit.
The text produced by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is the result of an ongoing search for a compromise or, rather, a balance between the maximalist and minimalist tendencies which were expressed in the course of our discussions, both of which result in excesses.
The maximalists attempt to block innovation and progress, while the minimalists advise having recourse to the precautionary principle only in the case of significant environmental and health risks, that is to say above a certain threshold, although it is not really clear how to define this.
Faced with these two approaches, I have endeavoured to arrive at a fair balance so that this political tool might be used within a legal framework.
The European Union' s ambition is to guarantee its citizens a high level of protection where their health and the environment are concerned.
That is why I invite you to support this reasoned and reasonable concept of the precautionary principle and to reject all the amendments which would depart from it in one direction or another.
- (DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Legal Affairs Committee identified a few key points concerning the precautionary principle, reflecting concerns which are also expressed in Mrs Patrie's excellent report.
It was not our sole intention to deliver a purely legal evaluation.
On the contrary, our opinion has an undoubtedly political character too.
I emphasise this because the application of the precautionary principle demands more than perfectly crafted legislation.
It is a matter of ensuring that the high level of protection which the Treaties promise the people of the European Union is actually guaranteed.
This can only be achieved if we are really serious about the need for preventive action.
Damage limitation and compensation must not be our aim; our paramount goal must be to prevent damage to people's health and property.
We can achieve it by rigorously applying the precautionary principle, as my honourable colleague has explained.
We as legislators should never lose sight of this, and we should encourage the Commission to apply the principle from the outset when drafting legislative proposals.
Mrs Patrie's report pledges us to do precisely that.
In connection with BSE, a great deal of past and future heartache would have been spared if we had armed ourselves with adequate legislation in good time and if we had verified compliance with such legislation, which, as we know, is a matter for the Member States.
When we banned American hormone-treated meat to protect the health of our consumers, our right to take preventive action was challenged.
It was even decried as protectionism!
In another context too, the sceptics never tire of invoking the principles of proportionality and non-discrimination.
On closer inspection, it emerges that these scruples are not motivated so much by concern for the rule of law as by concern for money and profits.
I personally have no fear of excessive statutory protection.
Nor should the people of Europe have any reason to be afraid.
On the contrary, when they look at European legislation, they should be able to rest assured that all the Members of their Parliament attach greater importance to public health than to the quest for profits.
For this reason, I recommend that we follow the line that the rapporteur has mapped out for us.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Patrie for her excellent report on this Commission communication on the complex subject of the precautionary principle.
There is a crisis of public confidence in science, which is now recognised as not being infallible, and there is also a crisis of public confidence in political decision-makers, who are suspected of connivance with certain industrial and commercial pressure groups or simply of culpable irresponsibility.
We must ensure that this report echoes public demands for a high level of protection for health and the environment.
Essentially, use of the precautionary principle can be seen as a risk management strategy in the face of scientific uncertainty or a tool to allow the involvement of the public decision-making authority in managing scientific uncertainty.
Scientists evaluate the risk and the political decision-makers manage the risk.
Clarifying who should do what is an essential prerequisite for restoring the necessary public confidence in both the scientific community and public decision-makers - us politicians.
There is a legitimate role also for peer-reviewed minority scientific opinions.
After all, let us remind ourselves that BSE was brought to public attention through a minority report.
There is a legitimate concern felt by public opinion which has become extremely sensitive to such matters as a result of the recent food scandals and particularly the BSE crisis.
The public no longer wants to bear the brunt of hazardous technological innovations which several or many years later prove to have entailed unnecessary risk to public health or the environment.
They will not accept that there should be any doubt whatsoever but that the materials used to make their children's toys are completely harmless, for example.
As long ago as 1996 the European Parliament came out in favour of a ban on the use of meat-and-bone meal throughout the European Union in accordance with the precautionary principle - if only.
The rest is history.
The way to restore consumers' confidence in industry generally is to adopt clear and precise rules in the light of the precautionary principle.
In all cases measures must be taken, must be regularly reviewed in the light of scientific developments.
There should be an absolute requirement for transparency in all cases involving regular provision of information to the public, including when a project or activity has been given the green light.
We need to see clearer guidelines on the application of the principle.
It should be used where there are reasonable grounds for concern.
Precaution does not equal prevention, nor should the precautionary principle be invoked as a technical trade barrier.
Mr President, the precautionary principle is gaining more ground in the international Treaties.
Nevertheless, it remains a source of confusion.
The message, in short, is: if in doubt, do not do it.
Doubt has now been cast upon virtually everything, and that would mean that nothing is possible any more.
That is why the Commission' s clarifications are welcomed and why I am very impressed with Mrs Patrie' s report.
She has done sterling work and I would like to congratulate her on it.
A clear distinction needs to be drawn between precaution and prudence.
Precaution is applicable in situations where science cannot provide a conclusive answer.
It is suspected that a certain substance presents a risk, but no proof exists.
Prudence is called for in situations where the risks are known.
In those situations, a safety margin is imposed as a precautionary measure.
The precautionary principle is a political response to the risks within society.
We must avoid unknown risks.
The precautionary principle must also apply to products and substances which are already available and in use, as well as to production methods.
I am in favour of the precautionary principle, but I would like to mention one area of concern.
I sometimes have the feeling that reference is made to the precautionary principle all the time, whether appropriate or not.
There is no such thing as absolute scientific certainty about new substances or products, nor can there ever be.
The present situation is taken as a point of departure and that leads to conservatism and resistance to anything new.
In this way, we are distancing ourselves from the United States and large sections of the rest of the world.
That may be the case and so be it, but worse still is that the precautionary principle can produce a whole generation of political cowards, a generation which passes the buck and does not dare to take any decisions out of precaution.
It leads to the scientification of a policy without ever reaching consensus, for science is unable to offer that either.
The precautionary principle is therefore a valuable and important principle, but we must aim to use it more sparingly.
Mr President, No one is in any doubt about the importance of the precautionary principle and I warmly welcome both the Commission communication and Mr Patrie's report.
In the Committee on Industry, we underlined the importance of having clarity on the modalities for the application of the principle.
So I am pleased to see that the final report reflects the need for further elaboration of the concept.
We also called for measures in the World Trade Organisation, perhaps a regulation, which would ensure that it is possible, in the context of the WTO, to invoke other obligations, such as those we have under multilateral environmental agreements, to extend the scope of the precautionary principle.
In that context it would be helpful if the Commission would confirm its position that withdrawing a product on the basis of process or production methods may indeed be a legitimate application of the principle.
It is a very positive sign that the Council text says that it considers that the WTO rules basically allow for account to be taken of the precautionary principle, and further that it calls on Member States and the Commission to ensure that, and I quote, "the precautionary principle is fully recognised in all trade fora to pursue that aim and ensure that it is taken into account at the same time, particularly at the World Trade Organisation".
The idea of compatibility between a precautionary principle and the World Trade Organisation seems to be gaining ground and that is to be welcomed.
There are issues to be borne in mind to ensure that it works well.
We must ensure for example that the burden of defending precautionary measures, especially for developing countries, does not reduce their capacity to protect health and the environment through precautionary action.
Finally if the precautionary principle is to be applied effectively and credibly, it is vital to involve all key stakeholders, including representatives of civil society in the policy choices that surround its application.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on an excellent report.
I also welcome the Commission's proposal which is an important guideline for the EU and the Member States for understanding and applying the precautionary principle.
The proposal is of course, from an international point of view, an invaluable tool for decision-making in cases where there is uncertainty regarding risks, products or manufacturing methods.
I fully share the Commission' s position when it defines the precautionary principle as a general principle with unlimited scope.
Just like many MEPs, I'm sure, I was pleasantly surprised at the Council's resolution from the European Council meeting in Nice which states that the precautionary principle should be applied as quickly as possible after harmful effects to health and the environment have been established and if reliable conclusions concerning the level of risk cannot be reached on the basis of a preliminary scientific investigation based on the information available.
This is very far-reaching and, of course, very good.
I would also like to appeal to everybody here, in anticipation of tomorrow's vote, not to weaken the committee's and the rapporteur's text by adopting the amendments proposed by the EDD and the PPE.
Instead, we ought to try to strengthen the text further to show that we are at least as progressive as the Council.
Amendment No 9 is very important.
This proposes that a reversed burden of proof be applied regarding products with no prior approval, that is to say that producers must prove that the product is safe and not transfer the risks and the cost to consumers.
It is of course also important to increase the legal weight with the aim of making the precautionary principle an international standard.
This is dealt with in Amendment No 5 from the Group of the Greens.
Mr President, as the rapporteur points out very effectively, the cautionary or precautionary principle - even though the rapporteur differentiates between the two - is laid down in several international agreements, ranging from Rio 1992, to the protection of the North Sea and, more recently, in the Montreal Biosecurity Protocol.
As other speakers have said, it is crucial that this principle should be applied properly and that there are legal guarantees for the parties involved, but I would like to take up three ideas that are in Mrs Patrie' s report and in some of the amendments and which seem to me to be perhaps the most important ideas in the report.
Firstly, that there is no minimum threshold of risk below which the precautionary principle must not be applied and, consequently, even in cases where there is little risk, it would have to be used.
Secondly, that transparency and consumer information are very important and necessary to the whole process of assessment and risk management.
And lastly, that public health and the environment must be given priority over all other considerations, particularly financial considerations.
If things had been done in this way, Mr President, I do not believe that we would now be lamenting the disease suffered by mad cows, or that we would be lamenting certain other examples of food contamination whose future effects are still unknown.
There is currently a great degree of sensitivity and concern over the use in foods of genetically modified products.
Another example is the great sensitivity over the information, whether it has a scientific basis or not, about the possible effects of mobile phones, electromagnetic waves and also masts transmitting electromagnetic waves.
Mr President, I believe that this is a very important principle if it is used properly and whenever it is necessary.
Mr President, I compliment the rapporteur on her work.
I believe it is very timely that the European Parliament is having a debate on the need to ensure that the precautionary principle is enshrined within all EU regulations and directives.
Events concerning new BSE distortions in Europe have once again put the issue of food safety at the top of the European political agenda.
The precautionary principle must be invoked at every opportunity when it comes to the enactment of new EU legislative provisions in the area of protecting and improving the food chain in Europe.
The 370 million consumers of the European Union are demanding action in the area of food safety.
I welcome the recent statements by the European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, Mr Byrne, when he unequivocally stated that the precautionary principle is his guiding point of reference when it comes to the initiation of EU directives and regulations in the area of promoting food safety.
Mr President, modern society with all its consumer goods, which include many different kinds of appliances, requires materials and substances with very specific characteristics.
Everyone, or most of us, accept and use these products.
However, the substances and materials in these products, as well as many kinds of foodstuffs, can carry risks.
As everyone should know, our whole lives are fraught with risks and uncertainties.
Life is about being able to deal with these risks and uncertainties in a sensible manner.
The Commission proposal sets the right tone for clearer guidelines for applying the precautionary principle.
Mrs Patrie' s opinion that the EU must clarify its stance on the precautionary principle, has my unqualified support.
Unfortunately, I am bound to say that the draft resolution of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which is too lengthy, does not meet this requirement.
Its wordy and ambiguous style make it impenetrable as to its actual meaning.
This is in contrast to the resolution of the Nice European Council.
In my amendments which I have tabled, I attempt to clarify these matters and delete a number of redundant paragraphs.
As science is often unable to establish a direct link between products and their possible harmful effects, we demand more clarity in the matter.
In order to apply the precautionary principle, it is absolutely essential to provide a scientific basis for the concern about possible harmful effects.
Both restriction and acceptance of a certain level of risk are important in order to take measures.
In addition, it is important for us to give due consideration to the protection level we have opted for, which can largely be deduced from the legislation we have drafted.
Finally, I am of the opinion that reversal of the burden of proof is not appropriate.
In order to use the precautionary principle correctly, we also need to know what the harmful effects will be of any alternatives, should a prohibitive measure be taken.
Mr President, the precautionary principle has become one of the citizen' s greatest allies in defending public health and the environment.
But there is still a long way to go in perfecting this principle.
First of all, it is still typically European: on the other side of the Atlantic this instrument is seen as obscurantist and even mediaeval.
Yet the way the European Union itself uses it is both unclear and even irrational.
Sometimes it overuses it, cheapening it, and at other times it uses it too little and provokes our indignation.
That is why I regard this Commission proposal, enriched by Mrs Patrie' s report, as being so important.
By establishing clearly when and how the precautionary principle should be applied, it clarifies its use at a European level, making it more credible, and it mandates the European negotiators in the next round of the World Trade Organisation to inscribe the precautionary principle as basic and universal.
But allow me to denounce what I see as a flagrant example of the lack of coherence in the use of the precautionary principle in the European Union: I am talking about mobile telephones.
It is incomprehensible that the European Union should remain insensitive to the dozens of independent scientific studies that point to the possible risk posed by mobile telephones to human health.
We might even ask ourselves whether this inertia does not derive from the fact that the majority of mobile phone manufacturers are European companies.
Only yesterday in Lisbon, the American professor, George Carlo, who for the last seven years has been entrusted by the Food and Drugs Administration with a study on the effect of the radiation on human health, revealed at first hand that there is the risk that the use of mobile phones might promote the appearance of brain tumours, Alzheimer' s disease and skin lesions.
Under these circumstances, I invite the Commission to apply the precautionary principle to mobile phones and to draw particular attention to the dangers of their use by children.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Patrie who has produced an excellent report on the precautionary principle.
It is no mean task to define the precautionary principle.
I personally think that it is impossible to create a general precautionary principle which applies in all situations.
Each situation requires its own precautionary principle.
This is hard for us to accept, but foodstuffs and chemicals are not the same thing.
They cannot therefore be dealt with in the same way either.
Our task is to create the framework required to protect both the environment and the health of people and animals.
The precautionary principle does not look the same in our respective countries.
However, what we need to do now is to create a common precautionary principle at EU level.
The principle must be clear.
We must be able to uphold it internationally, and it must also be given legal weight.
Several people in this House have already mentioned the mad cow disease scandal as one of the many scandals we have experienced recently.
This scandal reveals something extremely important, namely the importance of having the courage to make decisions even when we do not have all the proof on the table.
But there are more examples than mad cow disease alone, examples which are perhaps not as spectacular, but where it is just as important to make decisions.
We have the example of phthalates in children's toys and we also have this strange idea of putting toys inside sweets, ice cream and other edible products.
In the one case, we say that we do not have sufficient proof and, in the other, that there have not been enough serious accidents for us to have the courage to take action.
It is just a shame that it is not the scientific community but the internal market that controls what is released onto the market.
This is an untenable situation.
In reality we cannot have this kind of situation.
I support the whole of Mrs Patrie's report but I would also like to highlight what Mrs Schörling said earlier in her speech, and that is that we need a stricter position with regard to the burden of proof, particularly as regards products without prior approval.
Producers and manufacturers must be able to present proof that a product is in fact safe.
We must avoid a situation in which the consumer acts as some sort of paying guinea pig when it comes to new products on the market.
Mr President, the environment and public health are like a complex machine with many functions that we monitor and check in order to be able to intervene to make sure that things do not go wrong.
The machine has a great number of warning lights; if one of these lights red, it tells us that there is something wrong and that we must intervene immediately if the machine is not to break down.
We must not wait until several or all of the warning lights are lit.
This is the precautionary principle in practice.
However, this is not how it works in the case of public health.
Here we wait until all the warning lights are lit before intervening, and this is also the problem with the European Commission' s communication.
In my opinion, the precautionary principle is quite simply about the law and not least the duty to intervene with sufficient and necessary resources on the basis of a suspicion or a probable suspicion that a substance or a process may cause irreparable damage to the environment and health.
Those who cannot live without the substance or process in question must demonstrate that it can exist without resulting in permanent damage.
Amongst other things, the Commission proposes that the benefits and costs associated with action or failure to act in an area are to be investigated.
However, this was precisely what was done in connection with the BSE scandal and that was why the catastrophe hit England and now also France, which had been given all the signals that BSE was present and still did not want to apply the precautionary principle.
An analysis of the pros and cons is an absurd concept bearing in mind the idea behind the precautionary principle, namely to be able to react to a product before we fully know all the advantages and disadvantages.
The same applies to the Commission' s requirement of a thorough risk analysis beforehand.
After all, if we know all the risks, costs, etc., then there is no need for the precautionary principle.
I also think that far too much emphasis is placed on the assessment of a matter by experts, toxicologists and economists.
Risk management and enforcement of the precautionary principle are not the responsibility of experts, but a general political responsibility and matter and the Commission' s communication does not give politicians sufficient incentive to live up to this responsibility.
Mr President, adapted to every contingency, according to the circumstances and interests of the moment, the precautionary principle may be either the best of things or the worst of things.
I also confess to not quite understanding why animal welfare should crop up in this report.
What must at all costs be avoided is a situation in which the application of this principle curbs innovation and economic activity, creates undue caution and resistance to change on the part of industry and becomes a means of discouraging competition.
This principle ought only to be applied if there is real risk.
Only politicians should have recourse to it.
It is therefore advisable to come up with a precise definition of the precautionary principle so as to prevent the usual wayward interpretations by the Court of Justice, to handle the principle judiciously and skilfully, to determine clearly the factors which bring it into play and, finally, to integrate it into the talks conducted within the WTO.
In view of the criteria used - proportionality, discrimination, coherence, examination of the advantages and disadvantages, and examination of the scientific assessment - the measures taken in accordance with the precautionary principle must be commensurate with the seriousness of the risk, unlike what happened in the case of the European Union' s measures to deal with mad cow disease.
Similarly, in line with transparency, let us ensure that producers on a small or industrial scale have the right to express and defend their views by having their opinions and comments included in the assessment reports, in the same way as those of the scientists whose conclusions appear to have been brushed aside.
Finally, local produce ought not to have its authenticity sacrificed in the interests of safety at any price. If uniformly graded products make for greater food safety, diversity leads to uncertain quality and therefore to a degree of risk.
By invoking this principle willy-nilly, there is a risk of ending up with products which are all produced in the same way and are so hygienic, odourless and tasteless as to be undifferentiated.
Mr President, I would like to express my appreciation for Parliament's initiative in addressing the topic of the precautionary principle and for the excellent work of the rapporteur, Mrs Patrie.
This Commission's communication on the precautionary principle was issued in February this year and it proposes guidelines on when and how to use the precautionary principle.
The principle and approach is often referred to at national, European and global level when questions related to human health and the environment are discussed.
The precautionary principle was also discussed at the Nice Summit, which took note of a resolution adopted by the General Affairs Council.
The resolution calls on the Commission to use the guidelines adopted and to incorporate the precautionary principle whenever necessary in drawing up its legislative proposals and in all its actions.
The resolution also highlights the need to work actively for a commitment by international partners to reach an understanding on the application of the principle.
We now examine how this resolution should be followed up.
The Commission communication is not the final word on the issue.
I therefore welcome Parliament's motion for a resolution on this important issue and would like to comment on some of the points it raises.
The Commission confirms its intention to make active use of the precautionary principle whenever appropriate.
We consider it as a general principle which should be taken into consideration in the fields of environmental protection and human, animal and plant health.
Regarding its implications at international level, in particular within the World Trade Organisation, the Commission considers that the precautionary principle is becoming a full-fledged rule of customary international law with all the rights attached to it.
This entitles the Community to prescribe the level of protection notably with regard to the environment and human, animal and plant health which it considers appropriate.
It will also raise the capacity of developing countries to ensure protection of the environment and human, animal and plant health.
Parliament must have noted that the Commission is in line with most of the issues raised in your motion for a resolution.
However, I would like to clarify some points.
Concerning the eventual withdrawal of a product on the basis of process or production methods, it is not possible to make any general statement on the legitimacy of such an action prior to a comprehensive risk assessment.
The distinction made in the resolution between the precautionary principle and prudence would need to be more precise.
The prudential approach is part of risk assessment policy and is an integral part of the scientific opinion delivered by the risk evaluators.
On the other hand, application of the precautionary principle is part of risk management.
One consequence of this is that initial suspicions or empirical judgments cannot be used alone as regards the application of the precautionary principle.
The hazard has to be identified and risk assessment has to be carried out by experts before measures are taken.
It is important to stress that it is for the decision-makers to define the level of protection.
It is not possible to provide a general de minimis threshold.
The Commission considers that the motion for a resolution is balanced on this issue and does not support Amendment No 3.
Finally, the burden of proof may be reversed on a case-by-case evaluation.
A general rule is not appropriate.
To conclude, I would like to thank Parliament for its support in addressing this issue.
The motion for resolution will help foster a general understanding of the precautionary principle both within the Community and internationally.
Thank you, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 p.m.)
Sakharov prize for 2000
May I say to you, Mr Fernando Savater, that it is with deep feeling that we welcome you today to confer upon 'Basta Ya' the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought for the year 2000.
Through yourself, the European Parliament pays tribute to the victims of terrorism and rewards a citizens' movement which has spontaneously decided to cry 'Basta Ya' , or 'Enough is enough' , to those who deny the right to life, that most precious of commodities for every human being, and who also deny the right to freedom, that is to say the freedom to live in daily peace and security.
The European Parliament also rewards the physical and moral courage of citizens who dare, at the risk of their lives, to state their refusal to give in to intimidation.
Through 'Basta Ya' , the European Parliament intends to give its unqualified and most determined support to all the associations and collectives of all ideological tendencies which are committed to peace and to all those who take action, faced with the senseless violence with which the Spanish Basque country is confronted.
As you know, our Assembly' s support goes back a long way.
Only recently, the European Parliament adopted a declaration on terrorism in Spain.
This declaration was signed personally by 413 MEPs of all nationalities and all political affiliations.
It firmly condemns ETA' s crimes in Spain and invites the institutions of the European Union to adopt effective weapons to combat terrorism.
In awarding the Sakharov prize for the first time to those who are actively defending human rights within the European Union, the European Parliament is stating formally that any violation of these rights must be fought uncompromisingly.
For democrats throughout the world, Andrei Sakharov had symbolic status as the man who stood up against dictatorship and resisted the moral blackmail of an oppressive system. All Sakharov Prize recipients since 1988 have embodied this same struggle for freedom.
The oppression you yourselves are resisting is perhaps of the worst kind.
It is acknowledged, but has no face.
It is imposed upon a whole society in an attempt to destroy a political system which has been democratically chosen by that country' s citizens.
That is also why Parliament sides with your struggle.
As I had occasion to say on 27 September 2000 in Madrid, at the poignant ceremony at which medals were conferred upon the families of ETA victims, there is no place for terrorism within the European Union.
It is the very negation of democracy. Violence in any form whatsoever is not only to be condemned, but can only rebound upon its perpetrators, since it excludes those who have recourse to it from the democratic world.
Our European Community is above all a community of values based on respect for the rule of law.
The European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which we proclaimed in Nice as recently as 7 December 2000, bears witness to this.
Article 2 of the Charter enshrines the right to life, and each time someone is killed by terrorism in Spain, the whole of the European Union senses the relevance of what is one of its most crucial principles.
The democracy in which we believe is about using language to debate and convince. It involves respect for the other person and submits to the will of the majority of the people in a free vote.
It does not find expression in the anonymous assassin waiting for his victim in the dark vestibule of his apartment block or in the use of violent terrorism to force a whole people, through fear and blackmail, into silence or passive complicity.
I could not end without paying tribute to the memory of the hundreds of people who have fallen under the bullets of their murderers.
These are women and men of all ages, of all social conditions and of all political viewpoints who have been cruelly wrested from those close to them.
I wish to assure these people, and the approximately 2000 people wounded by this same scourge, of our solidarity.
I also want to tell them how their dignity in adversity and lack of personal vengefulness merit our deepest admiration.
I would thank you and, Mr Savater, I would now invite you to take the floor.
(Loud and sustained applause)
VOTE
We shall now proceed to the signing of the budget.
I should like to point out that this document is being signed, for the second time, by three women.
(Having invited Mrs Parly, President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Schreyer, member of the Commission, Mr Wynn, Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and the rapporteurs, Mrs Haug, Mr Ferber and Mr Colom i Naval to join her, the President signed the budget.)
Madam President, I wonder whether I could crave the indulgence of the House.
I have spoken to Mr Sterckx about Amendment No 60 and the block that relates to it, which is Nos 52, 62, 57, 38 and 60.
With the agreement of the rapporteur we would like to move my Amendment No 60 to be taken between Nos 52 and 62 if it comes to that.
Mr Sterckx and the rapporteur are agreeable to that.
We shall restore your name as author of this amendment.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0362/2000) by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on
I. the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 218/92 on administrative cooperation in the field of indirect taxation (VAT) (COM(2000) 349 - C5-0298/2000 - 2000/0147(COD)), and
II. the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards the value added tax arrangements applicable to certain services supplied by electronic means (COM(2000) 349 - C5-0467/2000 - 2000/0148(CNS))
(In successive votes, Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
Report (A5-0378/2000) by Mr de Roo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the assessment and management of environmental noise (COM(2000) 468 - C5-0411/2000 - 2000/0194(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0350/2000) by Mrs Lienemann, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision on a Community framework for cooperation to promote sustainable urban development (COM(1999) 557 - C5-0309/1999 - 1999/0233(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0374/2000) by Mr Dary, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 404/93 on the common organisation of the market in bananas (COM(1999) 582 - C5-0277/1999 - 1999/0235(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0366/2000) by Mrs Torres Marques, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC on the common system of value added tax, with regard to the length of time during which the minimum standard rate is to be applied (COM(2000) 537/2000 - 2000/0223(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0390/2000) by Mrs Gill, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision adopting a Multiannual Community programme to stimulate the development and use of European digital content on the global networks and to promote linguistic diversity in the Information Society (COM(2000) 323 - C5-0462/2000 - 2000/0128(CNS))
before the vote on Amendment No 51
Madam President, if the House permits, I should like to give an oral explanation of my Amendment No 51.
Some linguistic confusion has arisen, and what I sought to achieve is not reflected at all in this wording.
Instead of what is suggested by the words "of producers and artists, especially from the non profit-making sector", my primary intention was that we should include in this circle representatives of content providers.
Yesterday, before and after the debate, I discussed the matter with some individual Members of the House.
Several Members consider that these representatives of the content providers are subsumed under other categories of representatives.
This shows that the wording is not clear and unequivocal.
The programme is called eContent. We should therefore include content providers in it.
This ought not to pose a great problem, in my view.
I should appreciate your support for this amendment.
(Parliament gave its assent to the oral amendment being tabled) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Joint proposal for a resolution on the results of the European Council meeting of 7-10 December 2000 in Nice
It is indeed most annoying!
Madam President, I wonder whether we can sanction a resolution regarding the Nice Summit at all?
I fear that we may have a situation on our hands which is not dissimilar from the American re-count.
Having read what was in the papers this morning in my country, I have to say that not only was the French Presidency mistaken about Poland' s and Spain' s vote weighting, for which the President has, in fact, offered his apologies, but problems have emerged which are both numerous and embarrassing.
I quote: annex 3 of the draft treaty stipulates that the majority threshold, which rises as and when new Member States accede, should constitute 73.4% of the votes once all Member States have joined.
That translates, therefore, into 253 votes in the Council of Ministers.
However, that also means that the blocking minority - and that is, after all, what this is all about, that is what the Nice Agreement was about - amounts to 93.
But only one sentence down from this, the number of votes are 91!
You do realise that it is difficult for us to discuss a treaty if it contains mistakes such as these.
You are anticipating the work of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0334/2000) by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication on the taxation of aircraft fuel (COM(2000) 110 - C5-0207/2000 - 2000/2114(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0352/2000) by Mrs Patrie, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission communication on the precautionary principle (COM(2000) 1 - C5­0143/2000 - 2000/2086(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Before we proceed to the explanations of votes, I would like to wish all those Members I will not be seeing afterwards a very merry Christmas.
My vote against the agreement which will allow more lorries on the Swiss roads as from 1 January is unrelated to the number of permits which Dutch hauliers managed to secure in the process.
Although it is likely that they will consider the number 23 428 far too low, they will nevertheless be pleased with the room for growth provided to them.
This agreement forms part of an initiative by means of which Switzerland and Norway will increasingly take on the guise of EU Member States.
The only difference is that they do not pay a contribution and do not have a right to vote.
As a result, their governments can continue to reassure a critical population of their on-going independence, although that is less and less the case.
However, far more important is the fact that this agreement will generate a great deal of extra freight traffic on the roads.
After Austria, the Alps barrier is now also disappearing in Switzerland.
That country had previously opted for discouraging road traffic and improving rail connections for freight transit traffic.
Allowing an increasing number of larger lorries on the roads will force Switzerland to invest more in motorways.
I am not at all convinced by the fact that large Swiss environmental organisations have been sweet-talked into this with the argument that the revenue from levies will benefit the expansion of rail.
This agreement is attractive to a number of companies but detrimental to the environment and democracy.
General Budget for 2001
At the second reading of the budget, Parliament has just approved the full reinstatement to the Cohesion Fund budget line of EUR 360 million, which it had placed in reserve on the first reading.
For the Portuguese Socialists, the Cohesion Fund is a mainstay of the economic and social cohesion policy, which was launched by the Single European Act and substantially strengthened by the Maastricht Treaty.
Since it was set up, the Cohesion Fund has had a considerable impact on two areas of great Community interest - the environment and trans-European transport networks; it has been effectively implemented in the Community budget and has had one of the highest implementation rates in the entire Community budget.
As our comrade, Mário Soares, stated at the investiture of the current Prodi Commission, the most negative point in its programme was the abolition of the Service Directorate for this Fund and its removal from the name and directory of the former Directorate-General XVI.
This abolition, which began to take place in the middle of last year, as we had anticipated, resulted in a dramatic fall in the speed with which projects were approved and payments made, to the point where the annual implementation of authorisations of this fund at the end of June 2000 was less than one per cent.
In its proposal to Parliament to cut EUR 360 million from the 2001 payments, the Commission was showing worrying signs of a lack of interest, motivation and will to fully implement the financial package agreed upon by the Berlin European Council.
After this proposal, the Portuguese Socialists decided to vote against the budget at its first reading if it did cut EUR 360 million from the draft budget, agreeing to vote for the budget only when this position was changed to place this money in reserve.
In the face of the joint efforts by the representatives of several governments in the Council, particularly the Portuguese Government, and members of various Parliamentary groups, in which it is fair to highlight the Portuguese Socialist members, the trialogue held between the Commission, the Council and Parliament decided to reinstate the whole of the funding laid down in the first Council reading for the Cohesion Fund payments, and Parliament has just ratified this position.
We are delighted with this decision and now commit ourselves to remaining vigilant over the implementation of the Cohesion Fund.
In order to make up for the delayed start in the implementation of the Cohesion Fund in this programme period, the beneficiary Member States will have to redouble their efforts and their care and, most of all, the Commission will have to give it top priority, especially by increasing the human and financial resources allocated to monitoring the fund.
The debate at second reading on the 2001 budget gives rise to the same feelings we had last October and therefore leads us again to voting against the budget.
As we pointed out at first reading, aid to the Balkans by no means justifies a revision of the financial perspective, and nor does it mean, spuriously, that the fisheries agreements with Morocco should be challenged, by entering EUR 130 million into a reserve.
We are delighted that this has now been acknowledged.
The most significant event to have occurred since our previous budgetary debates is, of course, the "mad cow" crisis.
Whilst France must now take satisfaction in the fact that the European Union has finally adopted France' s position in the field of prevention, we remain concerned about the appropriations that these new political choices will require.
The gravity of the situation has led our group to table a number of amendments highlighting the importance of earmarking the necessary funds for standardising screening tests and for compensation for them, as well as for massive aid to the cattle industry, which has been severely affected.
The EUR 60 million for the former and the EUR 360 million earmarked for the latter will not be enough for 2001.
We are asking for a considerable supplementary and amending budget in January to demonstrate the interest that Parliament intends to give to this dossier.
I voted against the resolution because of the adoption here of paragraph 23, which instructs the Secretary-General of Parliament to continue negotiations with the Government of Luxembourg with a view to allowing the transfer from Luxembourg to Brussels of all officials who are needed in Brussels for more efficient and cost-effective management of Parliament's Secretariat and for an improved service to Members.
This paragraph is a perfect carte blanche for the effective closure of the Secretariat-General of the European Parliament in Luxembourg.
In Edinburgh in 1992, the Heads of State and Government decided that the European Parliament had three official seats: Strasbourg for 12 plenary part-sessions a year, Brussels for committee and group meetings and short plenary part-sessions and Luxembourg as the seat of the Secretariat-General.
At the Edinburgh Summit, the Heads of State and Government were undoubtedly aware that three official seats generate travelling and subsistence costs, so it is not up to the Members of the European Parliament to raise the issue of our official seat in order to press for cuts in administrative expenditure.
We can certainly call for reduced spending in general, because each of us could list examples of savings that could be made, and these would far exceed the travel expenses of the officials who have to travel from Luxembourg to Brussels or Strasbourg.
I should also emphasise that it costs far more to travel to Strasbourg from Brussels.
Many people will be blissfully unaware of the fact that this is actually an indirect attack on Strasbourg too.
Back in July, Parliament decided by a narrow majority that, during the 12 plenary weeks when we would have to meet in Strasbourg in the course of 2001, the House would only sit from Monday afternoon until Thursday, the Friday sittings being discontinued, a decision which was, in itself, a first tilt at Strasbourg.
Perhaps the French have even resigned themselves to this, if we are to believe the report in a German newspaper on 13 December, according to which President Chirac, in a piece of out-and-out horse-trading, is supposed to have promised the recalcitrant Belgian Prime Minister (who is now being hailed as the hero of Nice) that in future all summit meetings, as well as an additional week of plenary sittings of the European Parliament, would be held in Brussels.
This was allegedly the price for the 'hero of Nice' agreeing to accept fewer votes in the Council than the more populous Netherlands under the system of qualified majority voting.
The adoption of this paragraph will undoubtedly coincide with the re-emergence of the paper produced by a Vice-President of this Parliament who wants to shift all the services and the Directorate-General from Luxembourg to Brussels.
According to his plan, Luxembourg will continue to house no more than a handful of technical services such as the print shop and the translation service.
This would clearly violate the letter and spirit of the aforementioned decisions taken by the Heads of State and Government regarding the seat of Parliament.
The advocates of this relocation of the Secretariat-General from Luxembourg to Brussels are naturally unconcerned about the social and human implications of such a move for the officials and their families, many of whom have lived in Luxembourg for decades and have bought houses there; our officials have children at school there and spouses who work there.
Here in Parliament we take every suitable opportunity, as well as some unsuitable opportunities, to adopt resolutions about the reunification of families. Yet we want to tear the families of our own officials apart, especially those in the D, C and B grades, who cannot afford expensive removals and all the other financial burdens such moves entail, on the basis of the spurious argument that we have to cut costs in this particular way.
We cannot and must not allow this to happen.
This also means, of course, that the Government of Luxembourg is once more being called upon not only to be vigilant but also to guarantee compliance with contractual agreements.
Mr President, I voted for the budget but this is the last time I shall do so, for I consider Parliament's financial concern for pensioners and the elderly to be totally inadequate.
Before I left for Strasbourg, the pensioners and elderly people of Bergamo said to me: 'Christmas is coming and we in Bergamo celebrate both Christmas and the feast day of St Lucy. Will Mr Ferber prove to be a Father Christmas?
Will Mrs Haug be a St Lucy for pensioners and elderly people?' Sadly, the answer is no, for despite the fact that pensioners make up 30% of the population of the European Union, our budget does not set aside commensurate financial support to solve their problems.
I wholeheartedly support this report by Mr Staes on the organisation of official inspections in the field of animal nutrition.
It allows the Commission to take safeguard measures in emergency situations without consulting Member States, and thus significantly increases the speed and efficiency with which cases can be dealt.
The change from requiring "all necessary assistance" to "full assistance" from Member States, and the fact that the European Parliament has to be kept informed as to results, also indicate that this report is of genuine significance for all Member States.
We, the Swedish and Danish Social Democrats, have today voted in favour of the EU budget for 2001.
The budget will allow the EU to implement its priority activities whilst, at the same time, maintaining budgetary discipline.
The EU' s budget for next year is one of the smallest relative to the size of the Member States' GDP.
The budget for 2001 is largely based on a compromise between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, which we support.
Parliament has succeeded in driving through a number of important prioritisations - including increased efforts in the struggle against unemployment and poverty, a number of important environmental and equality issues, etc.
We have voted against the right' s attacks on the LIFE programme and the European Women' s Lobby.
We have thus found the funds required in order to be able to provide strong support to the reconstruction and democratisation of the Balkans, including now in Serbia.
However, the need for a long-term solution for future budget years remains.
We are critical of the scope and orientation of the EU' s agriculture policy.
This needs to undergo more extensive reform in the future, partly so as to provide room for the enlargement of the EU.
The EU' s agriculture policy is far too expensive.
Moreover, we are highly critical of the over-production of agricultural produce and of the use of information funds by the EU to sell this surplus.
We are also very critical of the extensive support given to tobacco production which, in our opinion, directly conflicts with the EU' s heightened ambitions in the area of public health.
We would also like to emphasise how important it is that the implementation of the EU' s budget is made more efficient, so that we can get a grip on the problem of the substantial backlog that exists in certain areas.
The budgetary system, along with the methods for openness, auditing and political control, need to be improved and modernised quickly.
We Scandinavian Social Democrats have also succeeded in driving through a proposal for increased support to local and regional cooperation in the Baltic region, which now amounts to EUR 16 million.
Parliament has also increased the budget for twin town cooperation, which we consider to be an important programme for promoting local cooperation within the Union.
I think it would be useful first of all to point out that the minimal increase to the 2001 budget as adopted by the Council compared to the current year' s budget is a vital political message aimed at our fellow citizens.
If budgetary moderation is to be accepted, it must apply across the board.
The conciliation meeting of 23 November enshrined the use of all the sums available under the flexibility instrument, totalling EUR 200 million, for Serbia, and this is to be welcomed, even if we must deplore the fact that Parliament has had to reverse the decision it took at first reading, which favoured MEDA.
In addition to the EUR 200 million of emergency aid deducted from the 2000 budget so that the Serbs are able to get through the winter in as tolerable conditions as possible, following the trialogue held in October, EUR 240 million will be provided in 2001 under aid for the Balkans, whilst the "Prodi" proposals ought to enable us to dedicate some EUR 2.2 billion to getting this region, particularly the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, back on its feet over a period of years.
The European Union is thereby now conceding, admittedly rather late in the day, the importance of substantial aid to the Republic of Yugoslavia, which is at a low ebb, and of doing so whilst respecting its borders.
The size of the allocation that has been earmarked for Kosovo does not mean that there are not legitimate questions as to the real capacity of this region of Yugoslavia to absorb the EUR 350 million that were initially earmarked to be given to it in 2001.
A precise and thorough assessment must therefore be carried out of all reconstruction needs in the various regions of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. We must also recognise Belgrade as our only legitimate partner in dialogue, for all future actions; otherwise, the European Union will run the risk of appearing to support and encourage the separatist and terrorist movements in the region.
(The explanation was cut short pursuant to Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)
Staes report (A5-0372/2000)
Lannoye report (A5-0347/2000)
Mr President, I voted for this report on food additives and, in particular, for the ban on using sodium alginate to preserve carrots.
We are deceiving the consumer three times: once because carrots picked one, two, three or four years earlier appear to be fresh, next because the carrots appear to the consumer to be as hard as if they had just been picked rather than flabby like old carrots, and then again because, as we are all aware, Mr President, carrots have a binding effect on the bowel and, when sodium alginate is added, they become laxatives.
Mr President, I suggest that when Mr Fatuzzo publishes his collected works, in other words, all his explanations of votes put together, he should give each of us a copy.
It would make most interesting reading.
García-Margallo y Marfil report (A5-0362/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the García-Margallo y Marfil report on the taxation of electronic commerce.
I must tell you that, last night, I dreamt I was a pensioner.
I do not actually receive a pension although I am the representative of the Pensioners' Party in Italy.
Well then, I dreamt that I was a very old pensioner who needed some medicine.
Instead of having to go to the doctor to get a prescription and then to the chemists' and then having to pay for the medicine to be delivered to my home, as I usually do, I watched the doctor press a key on his computer and, when I got home, I found the medicine already there waiting for me. The chemists' had received an e-mail from the doctor containing instructions and had sent an assistant to deliver it.
I therefore ask you, Mr President, when we will vote on a directive facilitating this type of electronic commerce. I hope it will be soon.
We voted against the Torres Marques report on harmonising VAT in Europe and, incidentally, against the García-Margallo y Marfil report, which deals with the taxation of electronically supplied services.
We are against VAT in all its forms, because it is an indirect tax that hits the working classes the hardest.
Besides, this proposal seeks to define a rate band, in other words, to abolish the lower VAT rates for mass consumption products, such as bread, cooking oil and dairy products, or even for essential medicines.
This is harmonisation for the sake of it and we are in favour of abolishing VAT at European level and in favour of a highly progressive tax on company profits and on capital income.
We have voted against Amendment No 13, which was submitted by Olle Schmidt.
The conclusion he draws from the fact that the USA has exempted e-commerce from VAT for five years is that the EU should do likewise.
This is a conspicuously weak conclusion.
There is no reason to give tax advantages to a particular form of distribution.
Moreover, such adaptation to conditions in the USA would undoubtedly make it more difficult for us to achieve a normal level of tax in both the USA and Europe five years down the line.
Moreover, we must break the tendency to import American incongruities into Europe in this area as in other areas.
Ferber report (A5-0361/2000)
I suggest that he also sends a copy to Malta, since the only time he has failed to give an explanation of vote was, I believe, when we were discussing Malta.
I do not think that Valetta has ever quite recovered from this blow.
Mr President, I will do my best to remedy this before 2004 with a few explanations of votes in favour of Malta.
I voted for the Ferber report, although I have to say that I would prefer there to be greater liberalisation of the postal service.
People often say to me: 'Mr Fatuzzo, pensioners and elderly people want their mail delivered to them every day, even if they live in far-away or mountainous places, and you should therefore be wholly in favour of a universal service.'
However, I have to say that some elderly pensioners who live in mountain villages have told me that they would rather receive mail once a week and have a higher pension rather than receive mail every day and have a lower pension.
I am therefore in favour of greater liberalisation.
We voted against the Ferber report.
We are against any kind of seizure by private capital of a public service as essential as the post office, whether the weight/price threshold, beyond which we open up the door to such capital is 350 grams, 150 grams or, even worse, 50 grams.
Whether privatisation is gradual or sudden, it will inevitably mean the destruction of the public service and will have serious consequences for postal workers.
We do not feel that we should in any way endorse an operation that will only serve the interests of a few capitalist groups that are looking for an area of investment to generate private profit at the expense of the whole population, and more particularly, at the expense of those classes with the lowest incomes.
The Swedish Social Democrats in the European Parliament consider that the postal market within the EU should be opened up to competition.
By gradually deregulating the European market postal services can be made more efficient and the level of service to the customer raised.
An end date would send a clear message to the players in the postal market and provide better opportunity for the national monopolies to prepare for deregulation.
For this reason we have voted for an end date for liberalisation.
We also consider it unjustifiable that countries in the EU compete in Sweden' s postal market, for example, when they are not prepared to allow competition in their own markets.
We have therefore abstained in the vote on the Ferber report.
Today I voted in favour of the Ferber report on "European postal services" because, given the current balance of power in Europe and within the European Parliament, we obtained as much as we could to prevent the total disappearance of public postal services in Europe!
This took intense negotiations and the greatest possible rallying together at all levels, but as of today, the main part has been saved!
Nevertheless, I must say quite seriously that this is as much as I can accept from a Europe which I feel to be too liberal!
A framework directive on postal services in Europe must therefore be drawn up as quickly as possible, since the Nice Summit gave the "green light" to this project.
Claude Desama is determined to see his proposal through to the bitter end.
On this matter, too, we have reached a point at which all supporters of public service should find themselves.
Through the Ferber report, we have shown that this is possible.
Now we must actually do it.
I am very pleased with this first reading and with the work that has been achieved by our Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, with the commitment of our rapporteur and, above all, with the skill and constancy demonstrated on so many occasions by Brian Simpson, our shadow rapporteur in the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
The liberalisation of postal services is one of the fundamental dossiers connected with the concept of services of general interest and, more generally, with preserving the European Union' s social and territorial cohesion.
In addition to the technical but necessary vision of what we wish to preserve in the field of universal service and of what we would like to open up to competition, there is the implementation of the "European social model" . How far must liberalisation be taken?
Why should we try to speed up the process, which is what the executive Commission and Commissioner Bolkestein wanted? Why should we try to dismantle services which are useful and appreciated by our citizens, by denying them adequate financial resources and by making them dependent on an obsolete and punishing system of subsidies?
We cannot, of course, undermine the principle of the adaptability of public services, which is what the Commission suggested, since this lies at the very heart of the history of most of our countries and which we consider to be very important.
I do not think that this is at all reasonable and, fortunately, we were to put things right during the vote in the parliamentary committee.
This is why I voted for this report as adopted in committee.
How will the postal sector emerge from this period in which contradictions and controversies have been used to prop up the arguments, which are nevertheless often technical, that have been put together in the context of opening it up to competition?
Can we erase, with a simple decision, with a potentially small majority, the entire concept of the postal service, a concept whose roots and forms are bound up with the specific nature of each Member State?
How can we not take into account the national differences covered by this quite unique sector, particularly from the point of view of adapting public service to the reality of local situations?
How can we talk about public service in countries where this concept is barely acknowledged, if at all, whereas in others, it is grounded in the culture and represents a defining element of social cohesion, particularly in rural areas?
We are not asking Sweden to change its system, but we certainly do not want it to impose its system on us.
Admittedly, Mr Ferber' s text, after much haggling at committee stage, does little more than moderate and delay the Commission' s proposal. This proposal is unacceptable because it is based on assertions that have little or no justification.
But how can we not see this compromise report as a compromise on the postal service itself? It is easy for the supporters of qualified liberalism to be satisfied with a text that waters down Commissioner Bolkestein' s ultraliberal proposal, which is founded entirely on ideological reasoning.
(The explanation of vote was cut short pursuant to Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)
I am truly sorry that Parliament voted to support a policy that is very harmful as far as consumers are concerned.
In the report now adopted, just a fraction of postal services would be liberalised and no final date has been set for that liberalisation.
We Members who were in the minority would have liked the final date of 2007 to have been agreed upon.
By that time, more than 17 years will have elapsed since this matter was first discussed at EU level.
A fixed date would act as an incentive for the post office to develop and modernise its services and would make planning and market investment easier.
Now that Parliament has failed to set a date the imbalance that exists between national post offices will continue, as some markets will be open and some will not.
As with other markets, traditional, national frontiers in the postal sector have now lost their meaning.
It is impossible to struggle against this inescapable development and, for that reason, we should start to prepare for it as soon as we can.
We voted against this report because we refuse to accept further liberalisation of postal services in Europe.
The sudden and therapeutic introduction of private capital does nothing but protect the interests of a few monopolies that are being established.
We cannot sanction job losses and further office closures, even if this is carried out in "a gradual and controlled way" .
This is why we also voted against the amendments proposing to lower the price/weight threshold to 150 or to 50 grams.
We do not wish to be part of this new sell-off and we will continue to advocate the idea of a new European public service.
For many years in this Parliament I have supported the principle of gradual controlled liberalisation of postal services with a view to creating an effective single market in the postal domain. This support, however, has been conditional on the preservation of a high quality universal service.
This is indispensable, especially for rural, remote and sparsely populated areas and even for certain parts of towns and cities too. In such places, postmen perform what I might even describe as a socio-cultural function, a function that I sincerely hope we can afford to maintain in our affluent society.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs I tabled a number of amendments to the Commission proposal. All the amendments relating to the recitals were adopted, but then, all of a sudden, along came a number of my honourable colleagues, some of whom were not members of the committee, and agreed to coordinate their votes, which resulted in the rejection of the amendments to the articles corresponding to the amended recitals.
This naturally produced an utter shambles, which prompted a majority of the committee members, quite rightly, to reject this half-baked document. For that reason, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs was unable to formulate an opinion.
I am therefore particularly grateful to the rapporteur of the lead committee, Mr Markus Ferber, for having produced an acceptable compromise which largely takes account of the letter and spirit of my amendments.
I can live with this, especially since
it does not contain a new definition of special services, and
the price and weight limits are set at reasonable levels, with weights of up to 150 grams remaining the sole preserve of the universal service, linked with a price ceiling of four times the public tariff.
The limits of 50 grams and two and a half times the public tariff are truly too drastic and would have had dire consequences for the providers of universal postal services.
This would also have been the case if outgoing cross-border mail and express services had been entirely liberalised, which the Luxembourg postal service in particular, because of our country's size and geographical situation, could not have withstood.
The compromise takes account of my amendment to this effect, which means that I can endorse the report with a clear conscience at this first reading.
However, I repudiate the insinuations made by those who advocate forced liberalisation with no regard for the loss of people's quality of life and jobs, who seek to present me and the honourable Members who share my view as acting on behalf of the post-office lobby which is intent on preserving its monopoly.
I emphatically reject such insinuations.
There are all kinds of companies acting on an international plane who are ready to attack Commissioner Bolkestein' s proposal for being too weak and too moderate and who wish to gain increased and swifter access to the coveted market.
They will keep the pressure on, and they are strengthening their position with the revenue they are generating from delivering mail above 150 grams.
The debate on the future organisation of the postal services has not entered the home straight by a long chalk.
We have known that the extreme liberalisation proposal brought forward by the European Commission had no chance of survival since rapporteur Ferber made a few critical proposals with regard to further research, meticulousness and deadlines.
The situation became even more clear-cut when Christian Democrats and Social Democrats concluded a secret deal on a compromise solution between liberalisation and non-liberalisation which was to be defended jointly by the two groups.
The 50 and 350 grams weight scales were divided, 150 grams being the dividing line.
That translates into 100 popular grams gained by the Right and 200 less popular grams going to the Left.
If the Social Democrat and Christian Democrat compromise had been the main issue from early on in the debate, it would not have received my support, because the drawbacks of any liberalisation outstrip the benefits.
Although the present outcome constitutes a defeat for Commissioner Bolkestein, I believe I must remain faithful to that guiding principle and I therefore adhere to my no-vote.
The Commission' s proposal regarding postal services embodies an unrestrained desire to liberalise, threatening an essential public service along with the companies that provide it and the workers that perform it.
Hence our unequivocal and steadfast opposition to the majority of its aims.
We believe, however, that the compromise shown in the report now being debated - even if it does not present a clear challenge to the Commission' s intentions to privatise - includes some signs of a reasonable approach that we do not see in the Commission' s proposal.
We therefore value it and do not reject it. Nevertheless, because it does not challenge the final objective of this regulation, we cannot approve it either.
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
I think we must ensure everyone has the most efficient postal service possible; to do otherwise would not be in the best interest of our constituents.
It is not good enough to call for liberalisation without realising the effects of our decisions.
Rural areas do require the benefit of postal service.
It is a most important and necessary requirement to ensure and stabilise the rural economy.
I feel we have achieved the necessary balance and we can allow the service to develop at an acceptable pace that will give everyone what they need and require.
The liberalisation of postal services on the terms proposed by the Commission is neither appropriate nor consistent, and I therefore voted in favour of the report and all the amendments moved that expressed this position.
The rejection of that proposal from the outset reflected a generalised feeling of mistrust and was a sign of strength for countries like Portugal against the liberalising tendencies of the Nordic countries and the Commission itself, which tried, absolutely in vain as we have seen, to impose a position that the majority of Member States did not agree with.
It was thus made clear that an exclusively competitive approach does not satisfy the interests of their populations.
The social function of public service must not be forgotten, and that is something I have fought for.
Today, postal correspondence is still the means by which part of the Portuguese population chooses to keep its family ties alive.
In addition, it still performs an important economic and social role, both in receiving payments for public services, such as water, electricity, telephone, etc., and in paying out retirement pensions, disability benefits and subsistence allowances.
It is not possible to make a suitable transition to a totally open market without providing for a continuation of these services.
Furthermore, if approved, the drastic changes in weight and price limits for mail proposed by the Commission would have extremely detrimental effects on the Portuguese postal service, resulting in significant market losses and quite negative social implications.
The fact that we have voted on this report in the December session is extremely important.
This is a codecision process which, as well as highlighting the importance of Parliament' s role, will also strengthen its position at the next meeting of the telecommunications Council still to take place this year, on 22 December.
Parliament is thus sending the Commission a strong signal regarding its reservations on the total liberalisation of the postal market.
We do not consider that the postal service is an issue to be dealt with by the EU, even if the proposal following processing by the committee looks considerably better than the Commission' s original proposal.
We feel that the Member States themselves are much more competent to take care of these matters.
However, we are happy to see inter-state solutions in this area.
Neither do we feel that there is any need or necessity to privatise, expose to competition or deregulate postal services.
In Sweden a number of these proposals have already been implemented and we can already see that this has exacerbated the situation.
Regional inequalities have arisen and the situation within the postal service has deteriorated - not least for the employees.
de Roo report (A5-0378/2000)
At one point in today's sitting, President Fontaine, who presided over the sitting before you Mr President, in an exemplary fashion as usual, remarked that a mobile phone was ringing. This was just after we had voted on a document on the fight against noise pollution.
Well then Mr President, I had personally tabled an amendment in committee calling for regulation of the use of mobile phones in enclosed places.
I am afraid, however, that this Fatuzzo amendment was rejected.
I did nevertheless vote for the document, but President Fontaine's words reassured me that my request was justified, and so I will make it again in the future next time we discuss the fight against noise pollution, which is something I consider to be entirely appropriate provided that it is carried out with due respect for the requirements of industry.
Lienemann report (A5-0350/2000)
Mr President, I voted against this resolution because, I am afraid to say, it shows how the funds available to the European Union are spent unwisely.
In my opinion, this should be considered to be a waste of resources: in one sense we are throwing money down the drain, for EUR 12.4 million is to be spent over a period of four years - from 2001 to 2004 - to facilitate the application of Community environment legislation at local level.
Now then, as the report itself says, at best we would be able to finance a dozen or so projects. This is equivalent to waiting for rain in the desert and then one drop falling every square kilometre.
It would go no way at all towards quenching the thirst of the parched.
In my opinion, the Union's financial expenditure should be carried out uniformly wherever possible.
Here, in practice, it is as if money were being given to the first takers out of a crowd of parched, starving people begging for a crust of bread.
I do not feel that this is the right way to be spending the European Union's funds.
Dary report (A5-0374/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the report on the common organisation of the market in bananas because, although trade in bananas must certainly be liberalised, pursuant to the Treaty, we must also concern ourselves with the problems of the States making up the European Union.
We must have the courage to continue to protect those areas of the European Union - and I refer in particular to the most remote areas such as the Canary Islands and other areas - which earn their livelihood from banana production and which need and have the right to be protected by the Union as a whole, including the States who do not produce bananas.
Mr President, the British Labour Members welcome the passage of the Dary report on the organisation of the banana market.
We hope there will now be speedy negotiations to agree arrangements compatible with our WTO commitments and safeguard our traditional suppliers.
We have, however, reservations on Amendments Nos 6, 7, 11, 15, 16, 25 and 26, as we do not exclude the possibility of a tariff-only system in the future.
We also have reservations on Amendments Nos 17, 18, 27, 30 and 31, being not convinced that they are WTO compatible.
We hope the passage of the report will also lead to early suspension of the trade sanctions imposed by the USA, which operate in quite arbitrary and unrelated sectors.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the proposal for a common market arrangement for bananas.
We do not believe that banana producers should be given more assistance.
The existing arrangement is inadequate and should be changed so as to conform to the WTO provisions.
We believe that the incentive for sustainable production of bananas - what are known as fair trade bananas - should be increased.
For us it is crucial that the assistance given to fair trade bananas be maintained and that the incentive for cultivating bananas in a sustainable manner be strengthened further.
Fair trade is not just about trade; it is also about the prohibition of enforced labour, prohibition of child labour and equal pay for men and women.
We naturally support these elements, since they are cornerstones of Social Democrat policy.
We abstained on this vote, which is the umpteenth skirmish in the banana war which pits, on the one side, dollar-supported bananas dominated by three huge American capitalist groups and, on the other, bananas, which have until now been protected, from regions dominated by British or French capitalist companies or by a handful of powerful Creole families.
We do not wish to favour either the big sharks of the banana industry or the smaller sharks from the area under Europe' s protection.
We nevertheless feel that the small producers who work their own plantations without exploiting anyone need to be protected from the consequences of this war, as do their incomes, whatever fluctuations may occur in the market.
It is our view that those in greatest need of protection from the consequences of the trade war on which the capitalist groups have embarked are the banana industry workers, who are exploited when business is good but who are sacked when the big producers decide to invest in other, more profitable sectors when bananas do not bring in enough profit.
Exactly eight months ago, this House sent a very clear message to the Commission: the adoption of a wholly tariff-based system after a transitional period of six years would inevitably condemn banana producers within the Community and those from the ACP to bankruptcy and misery.
Unfortunately, the Commission' s declared obsession with finding a system that is both viable and compatible with the all-powerful WTO has won the day over any other consideration.
Let me make this quite clear: I am aware of the importance of this body, but what I, like others, refuse to accept is globalisation!
This is a form of globalisation for the richest few and for them alone.
This is a form of globalisation that scorns the most basic human rights.
In short, this is a form of globalisation unfettered by any democratic regulation.
With regard to the banana dossier, I must once again mention the unhappiness of our small producers in Guadeloupe, Martinique and the Canaries, who feel swindled, abandoned and sacrificed at the altar of a macroeconomic rationale that they do not understand.
The Commission' s proposal is unacceptable in its current state, as it constitutes an unconditional capitulation to the dictates of the U.S!
This capitulation is unworthy of this European project of ours and of the social and environmental model that we claim we want to construct.
That is why I voted in favour of the report by Mr Dary, who, by opposing this capitulation, does an honour to our Parliament.
Torres Marques report (A5-0366/2000)
For reasons of principle as well as for practical reasons, I felt bound to vote against the amendments to the text proposed by the Commission.
The smooth functioning of economic and monetary union does not necessarily require the harmonisation of VAT rates.
In the United States, a perfect example of economic and monetary union, there are considerable differences in taxation between the various states.
In practice, Amendments Nos 2 and 3 will have the effect of harmonising VAT rates upwards.
We have only talked about the length of time during which the minimum standard rate is to be applied. The maximum rate has not even been mentioned.
In the interest of price stability and in the interest of protecting the consumer' s buying power, we must take a step in the other direction: in other words, a minimum rate of 15% should be maintained for an indefinite period of time, matched by a voluntary and gradual reduction of the higher rates.
Gill report (A5-0390/2000)
The Gill report has not met with our support.
The following observations have played a role in the outcome.
In an economy where competition is cut-throat, digital information must be able to offer quality.
When considering what can and must be offered in terms of digital content, the principle of technological neutrality forms part of the European policy - and rightly so.
Accordingly, rules and regulations on printed information also apply to digital information.
This aspect has not been sufficiently highlighted in the report.
In this context, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms forms a framework delineating the content for the sake of consumer protection.
Pursuant to Article 10, freedom of expression goes hand in hand with duties and responsibilities which can result in conditions, restrictions and sanctions.
In the light of this, regarding digital content, governments must, among other things, act in the interest of preventing criminal offences (discrimination), protecting public health (for example, provision of badly controlled medicines via the Internet), public decency or the rights of others (copyrights).
We must avoid lending any support to content which goes against the said interests.
The report fails to point this out.
Secondly, the report takes an approach to linguistic and cultural diversity which is too negative.
Amendment No 8 reduces these to barriers to industrial development.
This is said to be in conflict with respect for national identity (Article 6(3) of the Treaty on European Union).
Legislation is different in each Member State so as to accommodate this national identity in terms of society, language and ethics, for example.
It would, therefore, be useful if the EU Member States were to ponder the question as to whose legislation should apply at European level.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, Community activities must focus on those areas where activity at Community level offers added value.
A lack of resources at Community level should not be the reason behind spurring Member States into action, as is the case in the draft report.
Finally, digital information offers candidate countries with an ailing rail and road infrastructure possibilities for economic development.
It is not enough to spread expertise, however.
Flanking policy is vital if we are actually to benefit from the knowledge society.
This may comprise organisational and technical structures, as well as training.
The report does not give sufficient consideration to this aspect.
The eContent programme is intended to encourage the development and the use of European digital content in the global networks and to promote linguistic diversity in the information society.
This programme is part of the e-Europe initiative, "an information society for all" by the European Union (EU), launched by the Commission in December 1999. It will cover a period of five years, from 2001 to 2005.
The four main objectives of this initiative are: firstly, to create favourable conditions for the commercialisation, distribution and use of European digital content in the global networks in order to encourage economic activity and to increase prospects for employment.
Secondly, to encourage the exploitation of the potential of European digital content and particularly of public sector information.
Thirdly, to promote multilingualism in digital content on the global networks and to increase export opportunities for European content companies, particularly the SMEs, through linguistic customisation. Finally and most importantly, to contribute to the professional, social and cultural development of the European Union' s citizens and to facilitate the economic and social integration of the citizens of the candidate countries into the information society.
We can only be delighted at such an initiative knowing as we do that the value of European digital content represents 5% of the European GDP and provides four million jobs.
Furthermore, the digital media sector could achieve 20% annual growth over the next decade.
Our businesses must be able to benefit from this growth.
We must put them in a position where they can compete with the United States, which dominates this sector.
I must reiterate the fourth objective, which is designed to ensure that the information society benefits everyone, both men and women.
The danger of a digital divide being created is indeed considerable, but even though the truth of this statement cannot be denied, the European Commission is not proposing any measures to prevent this divide being created.
I find this unacceptable.
I therefore backed the amendments that seek the adoption of specific actions.
As rapporteur on universal service and the new communication networks, I think it is crucial to guarantee all our citizens access to the new information and communications technologies.
I shall personally do my best to ensure that this happens in the report that I have been asked to produce.
This proposal for a Council decision is in line with the action intended to improve the networks of knowledge in Europe.
The actions that have been planned are designed to address the clear advantage held by the United States in the "digital content" sector and in its distribution by various means linked to the Internet.
Europe is clearly in a position to respond to the challenge of the markets, due to its advantages in economic and employment terms, and, of course, due to its cultural wealth and linguistic diversity - which are shown clearly in the concept of linguistic minorities and regional languages - over the monolingualism that characterises much of the "Web" .
The variety of languages and cultures - particularly if we also take account of the potential offered by new Member States - also allows us, especially where the SMEs are concerned, to facilitate exchanges and to export Europe' s cultural values, and to do so in multilingual forms characterised by an increasing interaction with translation systems.
It must be emphasised that linguistic minorities, rather than being overwhelmed by the globalisation brought about by the Internet, have discovered that it opens up new cultural and economic horizons.
Lastly, our huge heritage of knowledge residing in public archives, which are today often inaccessible, must be put onto the web.
I welcome this report by my colleague, Neena Gill.
Although 70% of Internet content is in English, the challenge to Europe is to exploit its linguistic wealth more fully.
This entails the need for a language industry which concentrates on linguistic customisation and diversifies the language infrastructure of electronic content.
This report contains many excellent ideas as to how these goals may be brought about for the benefit of all Member States, and I fully support it.
Contributing to the creation of a programme for developing European digital content on the Internet is, in fact, crucial and the priorities that have been adopted are above criticism.
What the text says about the necessary linguistic and cultural customisation is, however, sometimes frustrating: the encouragement to produce programmes on regional languages and on the "ethnic minorities" that are represented in the Union is a decision whose predictable consequences are the gradual erosion of national identities.
In the field of digital information, the linguistic vehicle holds a competitive advantage, a style of reasoning and a legal position that favour those in whose mother tongue it appears.
In these circumstances, it is in large part the coherence and the unity of the United States that have guaranteed that country its pre-eminent position in this market of the future.
And what are we going to do to counter this American dominance? We are going to "balkanise" our cultural products!
Faced with this situation, the 'bluecoat' will find nothing but a stream of inward-looking Indian tribes who will take it upon themselves to communicate with the outside world in the only common denominator: their master' s voice, whose insidious totalitarianism gives the impression of having been liberated from the most immediate control.
We have already heard vivid examples in this Parliament of separatist Members who would rather speak in English than in the official language of their Member State.
Leaving aside the technical problems that will arise when, in order to respect the text, we will need to find a system for switching from Kurdish to Breton...
The most serious aspect, however, is that these measures are an attack on the linguistic unity and therefore on the whole unity of the Member States: citizenship is underpinned, in almost all of Europe' s nations, by several pillars, of which acceptance of one official language in the national community is one of the most important. Some Member States, who practise linguistic partition on a daily basis, know that this inevitably leads to political partition and the collapse of a sense of nationhood.
(The speech was cut short pursuant to Rule 137(1) of the Rules of Procedure)
Nice European Council
Mr President, I asked my daughter Elisabetta, who, as you know, is the regional representative of the Pensioners' Party for Lombardy - to give me her opinion on the Nice Council and to tell me whether she felt I should vote for the motion.
She said to me: "Yes, vote for the motion" - and I followed her advice - "but you must call upon the European Parliament to start to be resolute in presenting the proposal that Parliament should have exclusive decision-making powers where certain subjects are concerned.
The Council has to start taking more of a back seat on certain matters, which must become and remain the exclusive legislative competence of the European Parliament."
Mr President, in the absence of any other results, the horse-trading in Nice has at least clearly shown the intentions of the European Union' s key players.
Institutionalising the laws of the jungle, according to which the strong endeavour to destroy the weak, would inevitably lead to the institutional cobbling-together that we saw at Nice.
The only thing that reins in the European Union' s four main powers from imposing their joint domination on Europe is the fact that they also see each other as rivals.
It is worth noting that apart from the British exception on taxation, or the French exception on cultural products, every major state managed to protect the aspects that its elite considers important.
Therefore, in the social field, it was the United Kingdom, whose legislation is the most inadequate of all the large countries, who proposed the British exception.
No Member State, however, proposed the social exception to preserve the aspects of its own social legislation that are the least unfavourable to workers or to oppose the privatisation of public services.
This proves the point that workers and the working classes can expect nothing better from the European Union than from their own national state, in other words, equality to a lower common denominator, weaker social protection, the destruction of public services and a drop in their standard of living.
I therefore voted against this resolution.
Mr President, I would like to express the discontent of many citizens at the lack of a spirit of European construction shown, once again, at the European Council in Nice.
After three years of Amsterdam, it has had to be extended to the whole of the weekend, until the last minute, in order to reach some very limited agreements.
And these agreements do not include, for example, the Charter of Fundamental Rights which this Parliament approved.
This demonstrates that the governments of the fifteen Member States do not have much social sense or spirit when it comes to strengthening the rights of citizens.
On the other hand, I hope that the Intergovernmental Conference announced for 2004, which seems to me to be the only positive outcome of Nice, will deal once and for all with the distribution of competences between the European Union and the governments of the Member States.
I also hope that the EU' s share of competences is reduced in 2004, applying the principle of subsidiarity so that the regions and autonomous communities may have adequate status within the Union.
I voted against the joint resolution due to elements it contains which have been consistently opposed by the UK Conservative Party.
It should, however, be emphasised that the strong endorsement of EU enlargement, highlighted by Amendment 1, which was adopted, I wholeheartedly subscribe to.
We should be grateful that the government leaders have reached an agreement in Nice. As a result, the balance of power in the European Union is on a reasonably even keel.
The European Union is now ready for the candidate countries to join.
Had no agreement been reached, the European Union would have been plunged into deep crisis from which it would have been difficult to emerge.
In this light, we should be positive about this agreement.
National interests play their part in determining the balance of power. That is inherent to the problem and does not bear witness to a short-term vision, as Paragraph 5 of the resolution suggests.
In this respect, the tenor of the common resolution is far too one-sided.
The resolution is also one-sided in that it takes it too much for granted that the extension of power and authority for the European institutions is, by definition, beneficial.
What matters in Europe is that different peoples are able to co-exist in peace and cooperate, where necessary.
The European institutions play a key role in this.
The European Commission acts as guardian of the general European interest, and the European Parliament as a counterweight to Commission and Council.
However, this role does not mean that their authority should be extended ad infinitum.
The Community method is suited to tackling cross-border issues but is no miracle cure to solve all problems.
Similarly, I cannot back the extension of authority provided to the Chairman of the European Commission, who gains too much power in this way. This completely lacks legitimacy.
I cannot be upbeat about the declaration of the Charter either. This Charter only has symbolic value and that is detrimental to the actual protection of fundamental rights.
Neither will I deny the fact that there is room for negotiation with regard to the outcome of Nice.
The European Union could have displayed more democracy and transparency.
The fact that this did not happen is a missed opportunity.
There was one positive aspect to the Nice European Council: by declaring a new weighting of votes and a new distribution of Members of the European Parliament that includes all of the candidate countries from the East, a powerful signal was given to these countries that we want to welcome them into the Union soon.
We can only welcome such a move.
On the other hand, we are much less enthusiastic about the rest of the institutional negotiations.
The Heads of State and Government locked themselves into short-term haggling, without any great vision of Europe' s future.
They "patched up" the Community machine in order to prolong its lifespan in the face of enlargement.
They may have succeeded in this, at least for the moment, but at the cost of serious problems, such as greater supranationality, less democracy and greater German influence in the decision-making process.
With regard to the form of the Council, we note that it ended at dawn on the fifth day of negotiations, amid general exhaustion and uncertainty as to the exact shape that many of the decisions would take.
The delay in the publication of the written conclusions - which are still not officially available, four days later - is a good illustration of the difficulty in clearly drawing up decisions taken in a state of confusion.
Once again, in the haste and improvisation of the last night of the Council, very wide ranging measures that had not previously been discussed were adopted, such as the appointment by qualified majority of the President and the members of the Commission, which was not even mentioned for information only in the summary distributed by the Presidency before the Council.
We wish to state once again that this method of decision making is completely unacceptable in democratic countries.
The solution, however, is certainly not, as the federalists propose, to have the IGCs prepared by conventions such as the one that drafted the Charter of Fundamental Rights, because this would simply increase confusion, one-upmanship and a lack of realism.
On the contrary, future IGCs must now deliberate on a more solid basis, an agenda consisting of proposals adopted by a minimum number - for example, a third - of national parliaments.
This is the only way to refocus the discussion.
With regard to the substance, we can decipher, from the tangled web of commitments, at least two tendencies that have been superimposed on one another. These are firstly the advance of supranationality to the detriment of national democracies and secondly the advance of German positions in the supranational decision-making process.
With regard to the first tendency, the main aspect to highlight is the immediate or soon to take place extension of qualified majority voting on major issues, such as asylum and immigration policy, international agreements in the field of services and copyright, or even the appointment of Commissioners.
Despite a slight increase in the threshold for qualified majority voting, the scope of which remains to be seen, this extension is bound to mean that the gap will increase further still between the European institutions and national democracies.
With regard to the trade negotiations mentioned earlier, for example, national parliaments will lose their last rights of ratification, and if a country is in a minority in the Council, it will no longer be able to say 'no' if negotiations threaten its interests.
At the same time, we should not be under any illusions about the apparent retention of parity in France and Germany' s votes in the Council: this is a trick of the light, because the new "demographic net" rule - the creation of a blocking minority representing 38% of the population - will automatically favour Germany, which alone will hold almost half of this minority following enlargement to 27 members.
Germany will therefore find it easier than the others to reach the blocking threshold, by adding a few smaller countries to its sphere of influence.
At the same time, the discrepancy between the number of German Members of the European Parliament and those from other countries such as France is increasing even further, which will have certain consequences in the context of the decision-making powers acquired by the European Parliament.
Some people may consider this development to be perfectly legitimate, because it tends to transpose the weighting of each country into the institutions according to the size of their populations.
This method of calculation, however, is based on the implicit assumption that there is a single European people, which is not the case.
The only way of preventing dangerous conflicts in future is to adhere to the traditional concept, according to which Europe is founded on mutual respect between national communities.
For example, the new method of appointing the President of the Commission, which is by qualified majority in the Council and simple majority in the European Parliament, leads straight to appointing office-holders who may not enjoy the support of all the countries, whereas they will, almost out of necessity, enjoy the support of Germany.
Have we properly considered the upheavals that such measures could cause to the philosophy of the European institutions, and the misdeeds that they may produce? The French should also ask themselves whether this new method of appointing the President of the Commission, together with the increased power of that position, is in complete accordance with the Constitution.
Can this new Europe last? Theoretically, it cannot, because it will, of its own accord, increasingly become cut off from national democracies.
In practice, however, its proponents have had the skill, by making enhanced cooperation more flexible, to introduce a degree of flexibility, which will make it easier for the shock of enlargement to be absorbed.
In time, however, this will not be enough, because the ultra-federal hard core will make the democratic deficit in Europe worse.
That is why we urge the French Parliament to prevent a serious crisis arising in Europe' s future by refusing to ratify the Treaty of Nice.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the joint resolution on the result of the European Council' s Summit in Nice, which took place from 7 to 11 December 2000.
For us it was crucial in the entire process surrounding this Intergovernmental Conference that the last formal barriers to the enlargement of the EU be removed.
This aim was achieved in Nice, and seen in this light the summit was a success.
A number of members of the European Parliament argued in very strong terms for the agenda to be expanded.
We warned against this on repeated occasions and the events in Nice show with all the clarity one could ask for that a substantially broader agenda could have resulted in no result whatsoever being achieved this year, with catastrophic consequences for enlargement.
We have also always believed that a balanced solution between small and big countries should be found in connection with the composition of the Commission, voting rights in the Council of Ministers and the composition of Parliament.
On this point, too, we believe that a satisfactory result has been achieved.
However, we note that the formal opportunities for achieving qualified majority voting have been restricted and that qualified majority voting has been introduced only in a limited number of areas.
There is thus a real risk that it will become more difficult to implement essential legislation on the environment, consumer protection and the working environment, and we strongly recommend the states to demonstrate responsibility and to make the decision-making procedures in the Council more efficient.
Together with the new Treaty of Nice it was decided that preparations should be commenced for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
We believe that it is important to take plenty of time and find a form worthy of modern, practical EU cooperation, and that a power game such as was played out in Nice must not prevail.
It does not help to encourage public support for cooperation.
The Nice Summit concluded on Sunday with an agreement that should lead to a draft treaty.
Everyone today agrees that this Treaty will be mediocre and that it will fall considerably short of the expectations of the European Parliament and of "true" Europeans!
The debates in Parliament have made this quite clear.
Without wishing to deny some positive points of progress that were made, it would be no exaggeration to say that the Treaty of Nice will not guarantee Europe' s institutional and political future.
Should the blame for this be laid at the door of the French Presidency? I say, quite clearly, 'NO' !
That would be too simple!
The mediocrity of the Nice conclusions is the sad outcome of the lack of European ambitions of ALL the Member States, and of the stubborn defence of their "private domains" and their last illusions of power.
Given these circumstances, the absence of "great European voices" did the rest and that is why I think that the Nice agreement is a lesser evil and certainly the "least bad" outcome that could have been achieved in this context.
We must now focus on the results that have been achieved and, above all, rely on the commitments that have been given in order to relaunch European ambition whatever the draft treaty may be and the future that the European Parliament has in store for it.
We still have a few months to work on this until the end of 2003 in order to save the European project.
Today I voted in favour of the resolution.
Tomorrow we will have to fight, bringing together all the supporters of a political and social Europe and a Europe that exists for its citizens!
Given the fundamental importance of the decisions to be taken at the Nice Summit, credit must be given where credit is due.
Each Member State, big and small, had its own priorities, its own objectives.
That is natural.
The fact that an agreement was reached on very difficult issues should not be underestimated.
It was a huge task.
The basis for the future enlargement of the European Union has been laid down.
The negotiations were tough but the strength of the Union was shown in the fact that there was a determination to find solutions agreeable to all.
In the spirit of compromise, a way forward was found.
The resolution on Nice, voted today, does not reflect this.
I abstained on the final vote as I believe Parliament fails to recognise the achievements of Nice.
The tone of the resolution is negative.
It does not reflect the positive outcome of the summit.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights was proclaimed.
Such rights are already very well safeguarded in Ireland's own Constitution.
Important decisions were taken on social and economic issues, the establishment of the European Food Authority and the impact of the BSE crisis was considered.
As a result of the intervention of Ireland's Prime Minister, the Commission has been mandated to analyse the situation now confronting beef producers and will make the necessary proposals as soon as possible to find a way to compensate beef producers for the fall in prices.
The Applicant States were reassured of our determination to advance the enlargement process.
The text says the Heads of State gave priority to short-term national interests rather than EU interests.
I do not agree.
What was agreed was agreed in the best interests of Europe and the Member States.
Opting now for a Convention or a European constitution is premature.
A balance was found at Nice and the Heads of Government and State must be congratulated on this.
This was one of the most protracted issues and difficult elements of the negotiations.
Despite the successful efforts of the Nice Summit in this area, the resolution expresses dissatisfaction with the new extension of the scope of qualified majority.
In other words, what Parliament wants is control over taxation and social security issues.
The Nice Summit properly reflects the interests of the Member States in this area.
The Greens' amendment makes it clear that what they want is codecision on agriculture.
This is not our position.
The Nice Summit has sadly become known as a further step in the militarisation of the European Union and as a major threat to the sovereignty of the small- and medium-sized countries like Portugal, which, in general, are losing power and the ability to influence decisions.
Those who see their power strengthened are the large countries, especially Germany, France and the United Kingdom, which, in practice, can wreck any decision by forming a blocking minority.
This situation is exacerbated by the extension of decision making by qualified majority, under which, in certain circumstances, only 14 countries can make decisions on behalf of the 27 or 28, thus, in practice, eliminating the right of veto on policies that are highly important for Portugal, such as the Structural Funds or commercial policy agreements.
In addition, Portugal also loses members in the European Parliament, because, although the 700 barrier will have been passed for a European Union with 27 Member States, the number of Members per state will be reduced, and this will affect certain countries, including Portugal in particular.
Lastly a mention of social policy, which France had backed when it opened its Presidency, but which ended up amounting to very little, apart from the declarations of intent and the titles of documents with very vague contents which clearly did not match up to the existing problems and the enormous discontent, of which the workers' demonstration in Nice was also a major expression.
The democratic and social leap that Europe needs to make today almost failed to materialise in Nice.
In fact, neither the adoption of a Charter of Fundamental Rights on the cheap, nor the extension of qualified majority voting in areas of lesser importance, nor the on-going liberalisation of public services, nor the increasingly widespread use of enhanced cooperation in the field of defence will persuade the European public that Europe is heading in the right direction.
The Nice Summit is a failure for the French Presidency and, more particularly, for European social democrats.
But could it have been any other way when we see dossiers such as the Tobin tax, tax havens, maritime safety or even the fight against unemployment and job insecurity unable to progress beyond being declarations of intent or virtual projects, which have neither the resources nor the agenda to be implemented?
We could have led Europe in another direction, largely by taking account of the demands made through the demonstrations and the forums which have been held in parallel with the "Acropolis" Summit.
The governments, however, remained deaf to what the public was saying.
The French Government preferred to resort to force and violence rather than hold democratic debate.
This attitude is unacceptable, as was the closure of the French-Italian border or the many arrests of demonstrators, whose immediate release we are calling for.
For these reasons, we cannot vote in favour of this resolution.
I have just voted in favour of the resolution of the European Parliament on the Nice Summit.
What the Heads of State and Government delivered at the weekend is totally inadequate.
Neither the 'significant added value' nor the 'route map to enlargement' for which Romano Prodi had hoped were achieved.
On the contrary, the people of Europe and their Parliament have experienced a 'regression from Amsterdam'.
These Council decisions, cobbled together in late-night sessions, do not constitute solid foundations; they are riddled with holes large enough for concepts such as transparency, the creation of a European identity, more democracy, popular participation and reformism to slip right through.
The information currently at our disposal suggests that there were some successes, such as intensified cooperation, the party statute and the declaration of intent on eastward enlargement, but the compromises that materialised were mostly minimal.
As at a Christmas market, Member States set out their stalls on which various national interests were displayed with price tags attached. Moves towards greater convergence were blatantly obstructed.
I was bitterly disappointed by the French Presidency of the Council before and during the negotiations.
The prompting from the chair was half-hearted; the active contribution of the presidency consisted in proposing a deluge of compromises with only one thing in common, namely their inability to attract majority support.
This was domestic politicking for the sake of a forthcoming election.
The engine of European unification was left idling in this very country which, for all its specific national interests, has invariably acted as a grande nation in the service of the European ideal.
The amitié franco-allemande [friendship between France and Germany] has always been the linchpin of the European Union.
It is sorely missed today.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is noted in Germany for his brusque manner, for bringing discussions to an abrupt halt with the word Basta! ('Enough!'), a graceless and uninterested player on the European stage, omitted to consult his neighbours from the Seine in good time.
Instead, he trumpeted his intentions through his favourite mouthpiece, the media.
The high public profile of his call for more German influence in the Council, in other words for more votes than France, which has over 20 million fewer inhabitants than Germany, totally devalued its substance, making it appear like a bargaining chip in a thinly veiled tactical manoeuvre.
Unanimous decisions, and hence an inherent incapacity to act, remain largely the norm in the Council.
Qualified majority voting has been extended to more than 30 additional provisions, but these provisions cover matters of minor significance.
In the really important areas such as taxes, public levies, social policy, asylum and immigration, the old order has evidently survived.
We are further than ever from generalised qualified majority voting in the Council, which would have led to codecision rights for the European Parliament.
In the realm of structural policy, which accounts for three quarters of the total volume of the Community budget, Parliament is totally excluded from the legislative process!
Decision making in the Council has become more complicated. A threefold majority must be achieved before decisions can be taken, and the required quotas of votes have been increased.
Not a single iota of transparency in sight!
I believe there is an urgent need to revise the system of Intergovernmental Conferences where the participants endeavour to hold each other in check and acclaim the assertion of petty national interests as great triumphs. These conferences should be replaced by a convention, similar to the one that was established to draw up the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Under the excellent chairmanship of Roman Herzog, the convention held open and constructive meetings, involving national and European parliamentarians; non-governmental organisations, business and labour organisations and interested individuals were not sidelined but actually felt involved and knew that their opinions were valued.
All that remains for us now is to subject the details of the summit agreements to careful scrutiny over the coming weeks.
In the post-Nice process, major changes must be achieved in the decisions as they now stand.
The people of Europe deserve a substantially improved outcome.
We are aware that this European Council in Nice was perhaps the longest and most difficult summit in the history of the European Union.
In fact, no other summit has ever had to face the prospect of such a vast expansion as this.
We must therefore see its conclusions as the result of a compromise in which nobody was entirely the winner or entirely the loser.
In my view, the Fifteen managed to agree on certain institutional changes that are indispensable if the Union is to function with a substantially higher number of members. Two changes that stand out are the commitment that each Member State will retain the right to appoint a commissioner and the adoption of better rules for access to the closer cooperation mechanism.
Other positive aspects of this summit are the fact that the unanimity rule has been kept for decisions on both the Structural Funds and taxation, key areas for countries like Portugal which still need the solidarity of the European Union and the use of the tax system for a policy encouraging investment and saving.
We cannot, however, ignore the fact that the solutions found for the complex decision-making system in the Council and the corresponding vote weighting increase the gap between the more and the less highly populated states, which is something we regard as less positive because of our concept of a Europe of sovereign nations.
The resolution that was approved in this Parliament does not reflect these positions and concerns of ours, and even sends out an appeal for the current method of Intergovernmental Conferences to be abandoned in future.
In our view, for as long as Europe is what it is, questions of a constitutional nature or of fundamental interest for the States, such as those that were debated in Nice, should not be resolved by any other means; that is, they should require unanimity.
That is why my vote on this matter was negative.
The amazing thing about the debate on Nice is the image that, when all is said and done, the Treaty has no father or mother but is nobody' s child: the French Presidency has fallen over backwards giving excuses instead of plainly accepting the results of the IGC and the reasons for them; the political groups corresponding to the Member States' governments have done all they can to criticise.
It is obviously a political pretence: the true democracy of Europe is what happened there and not what was artificially planned by a majority in this House which is out of touch with the feelings of the peoples of Europe.
It is the same pretence which accompanied the earlier debates and which explains this resounding 'failure' .
The 'failure' arises basically from the unrealistic way in which they represent the process of building Europe.
I refuse to recognise that this Parliament has some higher legitimacy; instead, I recognise in the Heads of State and Government of the Fifteen meeting in Nice the full democratic legitimacy of representing their respective peoples and nations, resulting from high-turnout elections.
Thus, notwithstanding reservations about the Treaty, I above all oppose the sentiments expressed by the majority of this House, which, unfortunately, has still failed to learn from the facts and instead insists on approaches that will simply lead to more frustration.
- (SV) The Treaty of Nice means that the EU will become more supranational and centralised.
It increases the power of the big countries at the expense of the small countries.
No steps are being taken to make the EU more democratic or to increase the power of the national parliaments.
On the contrary, the influence of the national democracies is being reduced by the further restriction of the right of veto and by the fact that the European Parliament is being given more power.
The enlargement is not being made easier; rather the decision process in the Council is being made more complex.
We therefore oppose the principal orientation of the Treaty of Nice and will vote against it.
The Treaty of Nice means that the EU will become more supranational and centralised.
It increases the power of the big countries at the expense of the small countries.
No steps are being taken to make the EU more democratic or to increase the power of the national parliaments.
On the contrary, the influence of the national democracies is being reduced by the further restriction of the right of veto and by the fact that the European Parliament is being given more power.
The enlargement is not being made easier; rather the decision process in the Council is being made more complex.
We therefore oppose the principal orientation of the Treaty of Nice and will vote against it.
I welcome the steps to simplify the enlargement process that were taken at the European Council Summit in Nice.
As I have stated on a number of occasions, I am against the development of a common military defence force and cannot support qualified majority voting under the second pillar, i.e. within foreign, security and defence policy.
García-Margallo y Marfil report (A5-0334/2000)
Mr President, this time I did not consult my daughter but I did ask a pensioner who, as usual, came to see me off at the airport when I left for Strasbourg what he thought of the report on fuel taxation.
He replied: 'Mr Fatuzzo, fuel tax should be as low as possible so that aeroplane tickets cost as little as possible.
We pensioners often travel and, to tell the truth, train and car journeys are tiring: for us, aeroplanes are a dream come true.
You must therefore vote for this measure which further reduces taxation on aircraft, for this will bring the price of aeroplane tickets down and we will be able to travel much more frequently by plane.
And while you are there, ask for a reduction in the price of aeroplane tickets for the elderly pensioners who travel.'
Flying used to be expensive.
The spectacular growth of air traffic over the past couple of years is the direct result of the proportionately lower price which consumers pay for this mode of transport.
Not only reduced staffing levels and other cuts, but also government policy have brought the prices down.
From a taxation point of view, air traffic is given preferential treatment compared to land-based transport.
If those effects had been foreseen in the year I was born (1944) when the Chicago Convention was concluded, it is unlikely that tax exemption for fuel and other aircraft necessities would have been agreed upon.
The growth of air traffic is at the expense of rail traffic and the environment.
It would be desirable if aircraft were no longer used for relatively short distances up to 1 000 km and if air traffic were restricted to intercontinental transport.
I am indignant at the largest group and its attempt, within the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, to keep taxation on air traffic out of the equation as much as possible at a time when other groups were under-represented, because this did not do justice to the actual relations within that committee.
Patrie report (A5-0352/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the document on the precautionary principle but I do have some reservations.
I would not like the precautionary principle to lead to a repetition of what happened to a friend of mine when he went out with his wife.
His wife said to him: 'Don't cross the road or you might get run over' .
'Okay, I'll walk.'
'Don't walk near blocks of flats or something might fall on your head!'
'I'll take the underground then.'
'Oh no, God forbid!
You might be pushed under a train!'
'I'll go home then and watch TV.'
'Don't turn the television on: it might explode!'
'Well, let's go to bed and make love.'
'And what about Aids?'
I abstained during the final vote on this otherwise excellent report by Mrs Patrie because I feel it is politically and scientifically irresponsible to refer to the precautionary principle, even on the basis of "incomplete, inconclusive or uncertain scientific information" and even "in the case of a low risk" .
As there is no such thing as zero risk, scientists - or at least politicians - should apply the criterion of proportionality, consider there to be risks and assume their responsibilities.
It goes without saying that citizens must, in any event, be fully informed.
I think that Parliament should also apply this precautionary principle to its explanations of vote.
Guidelines for innovative ERDF measures
The next item is the report (A5-0354/2000) by Mr Markov, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission' s draft communication to the Member States: "The regions in the new economy" - Guidelines for innovative measures under the ERDF in the period 2000-2006.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since 1988 the European Union has been supporting studies and pilot schemes designed to foster regional development at Community level. These studies and pilot schemes subsequently developed into a laboratory of innovative measures.
Two of the products of this development are the Community initiatives Interreg and URBAN, both of which have exemplified how experience can be amassed through the testing of new strategies and methods and then used to improve existing regional policies.
Effective social partnerships and closer local and regional cooperation are among the main fruits of this innovative activity.
The basis of my report is a proposed communication from the Commission to the Member States setting out the implementing provisions for the financing by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) of innovative measures for the period 2000-2006, for which guidelines were agreed in Berlin.
I should like to focus particularly on two aspects of the Commission proposal. The first is the substantive realignment of the initiatives.
In accordance with the proposal made at the Lisbon Summit that support be given to promote the transition to a knowledge-based economy and society within the Community, the ERDF-sponsored innovative measures are to be restructured, the eight subject areas being concentrated into three priority areas of technological development.
This approach should have our support, because the gap between developed and backward regions is far greater in terms of technological development than in terms of Gross Domestic Product.
To illustrate this, let me say that spending in recent years on research and development in the 25 least-developed regions of the EU has amounted to only a quarter of the European average.
This is reflected in the percentage of the working population who are employed in the various fields of new technology, namely 14.6% in the 25 most highly developed regions as opposed to 4% in the 25 poorest regions.
The complexity and diversity of technological change and the structural adjustment processes demand the involvement of all relevant players at the local and regional levels in development partnerships, rooted in strategic policy blueprints that must be drawn up for the development of each region.
I attach particular importance to the inclusion of young people as one of the target groups of the innovative measures defined in the guidelines, since they are the future engines of development.
For that reason, we should endorse the call for the responsible authorities at national, regional and local levels to ensure, by their own efforts and with the aid of all available EU support mechanisms, that the same terms and conditions are created throughout the EU for the acquisition of modern information technology by educational establishments.
To my mind, a major and unacceptable defect in the support policy of the European Union is the disparate administration of programmes.
While the Commission proposes a switch from project-based to programme-based funding, on which opinions may well be divided - I, for one, believe that it represents a loss of European added value, visibility and closeness to the people and, moreover, not all Member States have established the requisite regional authorities - the financing of innovative measures from the European Social Fund remains project-based.
Accordingly, when one and the same programme is financed from both funds, it will be subject to two diametrically different implementation mechanisms.
This situation impairs efficiency, creates incompatibility and undermines efforts to cut red tape.
And so to my second point, namely the funding of innovative measures. Although only one per cent of the total ERDF budget was available for innovative measures in the period from 1994 to 1999, the Commission has now reduced the funding for the years 2000 to 2006 in what can reasonably be called a drastic and intolerable manner.
First of all, the funds estimated at EUR 800 million which were originally earmarked for Agenda 2000 in the Berlin guidelines were cut to 400 million at the last minute because of an appropriation to the URBAN programme, admittedly at the insistence and in the interests of this Parliament, which had fought to save the URBAN initiative.
The House had also fought, however, for the reduction of the funds available for innovative measures to be offset by means of resources from the flexibility instrument, a demand which is recorded in a declaration on the financial perspective in the Interinstitutional Agreement.
And there is more to come.
Although the letter sent to Parliament by the Commission on 5 September 2000 proposing the guidelines for innovative measures under the ERDF still referred to EUR 400 million, back in May 2000, in its review of the use of the Structural Funds during the period from 1994 to 1999, the Commission had proposed the withdrawal of EUR 160 million from this allocation to cover outstanding liabilities for the period from 1994 to 1999.
This need had arisen because of the Commission's failure to make timely provision at the end of 1999 to cover this particular commitment.
As the Court of Auditors noted in its annual report, other options were available which would have avoided the need to resort to the allocation for the current period from 2000 to 2006 in order to meet this legal obligation.
This is an absolutely improper piece of cross-subsidisation between the Berlin and Edinburgh packages.
In its proposal 40/2000 for a transfer of appropriations, the Commission reshuffled its resources in an extremely opaque manner in order to authorise the payment of these missing appropriations at the expense of the present programme of innovative measures and technical assistance.
Not even a letter from the Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, Mr Hatzidakis, was able to prevent the Committee on Budgets from giving its consent.
All we can hope for now is that the Commission will honour its pledge to use the flexibility instrument to replace these diverted funds over the coming years and make them available once again for innovative measures under the ERDF.
But I do not believe this will actually happen.
Indeed, the Commission, having initially cut the budget on its own initiative, will find it almost impossible to secure the replenishment of these funds at a later date.
Lastly, I should like to say that I am able to support all the amendments, since none of them are inconsistent with the general thrust of my report.
Mr President, I should like to comment in a very favourable light on Mr Markov's report and to congratulate him on putting such a constructive report before the House.
I find I am in very substantial agreement with most of the points he includes in his document.
There are, however, a number of issues on which I would wish to comment.
Firstly, the whole of this report is based upon innovation - and innovation relies on three very important prerequisites.
It relies on individuality, inventiveness and initiative.
We must therefore strive to avoid anything which would stifle or detract from these important three prerequisites.
The report unfortunately refers to many aspects which could be seen as just such interference and over-regulation and therefore as over-complicating the approach to the use of innovation funding.
We must avoid being too prescriptive and thus putting up artificial barriers which would prevent us reaching our goals.
We need to give incentives to enable new innovatory enterprises to flourish but we must not go down the path of over-interference.
Innovative businesses and innovative projects, by their very nature, involve risk and here, the EU, national governments, regional and local agencies can help, but, as with many innovative ideas, some are destined to fail.
Many we hope will succeed.
The trick is to know which will succeed and flourish but we should also have the strength to know that when something has failed we should not prop it up at public expense and develop a strategy that takes this into account.
I would also like to flag up that business itself should take the lead in this sort of issue, backed up, of course, with sufficient skills training provided by our universities and colleges.
All have a role to play in this important area for, in the truly global market which is now upon us, it is the new ideas - properly resourced, cogently and realistically supported - which will ensure that we in Europe can maintain our place at the forefront of technological development in the new industries and in communications technology in particular.
It is my belief that an innovative strategy such as conceived in this report and as implemented by entrepreneurs at an individual level will be the key to economic prosperity in this new millennium.
I commend the report to the House.
Mr President, we are dealing with a good Commission document and a good document by the rapporteur.
From a theoretical point of view, I can only welcome them, because I believe they are well thought out and that they correctly mark out the direction which these funds should take.
Now, the problem does not exactly lie with the text, but with the budget, on the one hand, which is a reduced budget, slimmed down compared to the one which the European Union has dedicated to such an important area on previous occasions and, on the other, with the lack of prestige which this budget seems to have, which means that one can dip in and out of it and that it is not clearly consolidated.
I make this comment so that the Commissioner can take it into account.
However, we are, of course, talking about the European Regional Development Fund.
This Fund was created for very real and substantial policies, investments in roads, investments in direct infrastructures, and it must now be brought up to date with the new economic situation and the new competitive circumstances.
That is a fundamental objective for the Commission: that the ERDF, which has had its time and whose influence has been very positive, should become the motor for an increase in the competitiveness of our production system, particularly in the least-favoured regions.
Therefore, innovative factors like this one, however humble, must not be undervalued by anyone.
It could be said that innovation is within reach of all the operators involved in the production process.
For certain regions it will possibly be very difficult to have real research or development systems.
But innovation is the basis of competitiveness and it must exist even where there is no capacity for research, and this objective is therefore important.
We are logically talking about 0.4% of the ERDF.
There is a passage in Mr Markov' s draft, Commissioner, which I would like you to take into account and which says, and with this I shall end: "suggests likewise, given the scant budgetary allocation set aside for innovatory measures, that the Commission encourage the incorporation of this type of project in the regional operational programmes" .
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate Mr Markov on drafting a successful report, and thank him for it.
Our Group is in favour of adopting it.
The report has quite rightly stressed the importance of including the participation as well as the cooperation of regional and local players.
Innovative measures can also help us to strengthen special regional and local features.
In my opinion, it is important to create conditions that are as equal as possible in the different areas by exploiting modern technology.
Teleworking can also create new job opportunities in sparsely populated areas.
For that reason, broadband networks, for example, should be established to cover the entire Union area as much as is feasible, including those regions in which the markets do not create networks.
The basic idea behind innovative measures is the creation and utilisation of new operational models.
To this end, we must develop monitoring and evaluation systems.
We have to focus attention on exchanges of experience and compliance with best practice.
Tourism is an important means of livelihood in many remote areas as well.
Innovative measures would, for example, help to promote the cooperation of travel companies in marketing and reservation systems.
As has been said here, innovative measures should not just play it safe: they must also involve trying out risky projects.
The measures must also serve the interests of regional sustainable development.
Regarding the budget, some serious words were said here in the previous speech: EUR 400 million is really just the minimum for financing, and we will have to utilise the additional financial possibilities offered by the flexibility instrument in the second half of the period, as the report states.
I would also like to ask how the Commission intends to ensure that the money that was agreed at Berlin will be available for innovative measures, and how the money that has been lent to the URBAN initiative is to be returned during this period for use for innovative measures.
Amendments Nos 5 and 7 are appropriate, as the Commission should not use appropriation reserves for unexpected projects, as was the case a few weeks ago.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my remarks today are chiefly addressed to the Commissioner, because, as we know, innovative measures have always been the Commission's main instrument of progress.
They have been the testing ground where the EU institutions have been able to observe how progressive structural policies can best be implemented.
If the Commission's proposal on these innovative measures were used to measure the rate at which EU policies are progressing, the result would be similar to that of the Nice Summit, namely a huge embarrassment.
However, EU policies in the fields of the single market, employment and cohesion have been considerably more innovative and sophisticated in recent times.
That is precisely where the Commission proposal falls down, for it is confined to only two areas of innovation. I say two because, although the proposal identifies three areas, two of them quite obviously belong together and will have to be jointly funded.
Such a severe restriction as this has certainly never been imposed in recent years.
Moreover, the area of activity in question is one that we have already been supporting over the past few years.
So where is the innovation in that?
This, I must say, is a great loss, because we shall need to draw on past experience for the new support period, and this experience will be unavailable to us if we take such a cautious line. Major assets, such as the experience gathered in the course of energy-saving schemes for small- and medium-sized businesses, will be cast aside.
I could produce a far longer list. Why do we not use innovations to generate real innovative activity?
The measures that are proposed are measures which we could support within the framework of the normal programmes. I believe there is no case whatsoever for allowing Member States to support non-innovative measures from the Structural Funds instead of fostering the policy and development of our Union.
We have another problem too. The idea of programming rather than selecting projects is not bad.
I would even support the idea, but it has not been fully developed.
How are local players supposed to find their way through the administrative jungle if the same authorities that are making a hash of structural planning are now expected to take on this responsibility too? How is the Commission supposed to find out where local innovation is really happening if it does not have any control over the system?
For that reason, I believe it is absolutely essential for us to ensure that the Commission finds a mechanism with which it can check whether truly innovative local projects are actually featuring in the programmes. I must say that I have looked in vain for this sort of mechanism in the draft communication, which is why this draft is a great disappointment to players at the local level and to me.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in order to bolster the competitiveness of Europe in the world economy, the Union supports the transition of businesses and regional authorities to operational methods based on knowledge and technological innovation.
The immensity of this task must not be underestimated, since the less prosperous regions are already lagging far behind in innovation, research and development in the various fields of new technology.
This very technology, on the other hand, presents them with a means of making up the leeway, provided that the economic players in the regions are capable of using innovative measures to grasp the opportunities available to them.
The fact is that the technological gap between prosperous and backward regions is considerably greater than the difference between their respective Gross Domestic Products.
Unfortunately, as in the last planning period, expectations will far exceed the available funding framework of EUR 400 million. Without adequate funding, these measures simply cannot achieve the desired results.
For that reason, the allocation must not, on any account, be reduced further still. The innovative measures would then generate more frustration than enthusiasm.
We should spell that out very clearly.
The main aspects of the Markov report, which analyses the situation properly and arrives at the right conclusions, can be commended to the House.
It is a good report, based on a good paper from the Commission.
On one point, however, I tend to support the line taken by the Commission. I cannot endorse the rapporteur's expression of regret that the Commission has opted against a project-based approach and in favour of a programme-based approach, to be implemented by the national and regional authorities.
On the contrary, I see this as an opportunity to shift a greater share of responsibility to the local level and to allow project operators more latitude.
Contrary to what the report concludes, I do not believe that this would automatically result in a loss of any European added value.
With these guidelines, an experimental laboratory, as Commissioner Barnier put it, really can be developed, enabling the regions to test new ideas and to convert the most successful of these into standard practices.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as someone who lives and works in an Objective 1 region, and on an island to boot, I am obviously well qualified to understand the importance of the initiative and appreciate the objectives of the European Union.
I and my fellow islanders are delighted that an effort is being made to improve conditions in the fight to close the gap and reduce the distance between us and the developed regions.
Europe needs to achieve cohesion for obvious reasons.
Throw in the "difficulty" of globalisation and it becomes apparent that, in addition to traditional forms of work, we must be able to apply innovative practices in order to take advantage of the opportunities which the new economy has to offer.
To judge from my own country, the region has what it takes, from the point of view of human resources and from the point of view of instruments which can bring suitable partners together, to promote innovations by finding new solutions and new ways forward.
Of course, the budget is relatively small.
However, the facility to increase appropriations through the flexibility instrument provided for in the Interinstitutional Agreement improves things somewhat.
I must also confess that I was particularly pleased in the Commission communication by the call for more daring measures, even if this involves a certain risk of failure, and for more experimentation beyond the standard framework of ERDF programmes.
Of course, if we want to be consistent, this call needs to be accompanied by a restriction on tiresome bureaucracy, Commissioner, at all stages of the procedure for including and implementing programmes.
As we all know, any bureaucrat's basic argument is the risk of error.
So, from now on, special care must be taken when selecting the proposals submitted, so as to ensure that the relevant provisions are applied, especially those relating to transparency and avoiding cover-ups, and the proposals are implemented correctly, naturally with greater involvement on the part of the regional authorities.
Finally, may I too congratulate Mr Markov and wish everyone a Merry Christmas and an Innovative New Year.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my support - in common with that of our Group - for this report by Mr Helmuth Markov.
I particularly agree with his consideration that regional policy instruments should be directed towards sustainability, strengthening economic and social cohesion and, above all, creating skilled, economically viable, lasting jobs.
This last condition is indeed fundamental for the proper orientation of the Structural Funds.
As we all know, unemployment in the European Union is concentrated in the least economically and technologically developed regions, especially Objective 1 areas, and it is necessary that innovative measures should not just simply be technological in nature but that they should also be governed by an explicit desire for economic development and job creation.
If this does not happen, we shall be unable to avoid the paradoxical situation in which the less well developed countries, having borne the effects of a substantial, dramatic migration, now see their technicians - trained at the great expense of their populations and perfectly able to work in the field of the new economy - forced to emigrate to richer countries with higher employment levels because of the lack of industries and businesses in which they can practice their professions in their own countries.
Consequently, the innovative measures must not ignore economic and social development.
In this context, the ERDF must also continue to perform its function of supporting the construction of modern infrastructure and the creation of businesses as necessary conditions for the development of the new economy and, indeed, the job creation associated with it.
Mr President, the support funds allocated by the European Union within the framework of its regional policy are not alms from the rich to help the poor.
Nor must they become a permanent financial crutch.
They are actually intended to help the poor regions to help themselves; investment in a better future is the name of the game.
It is therefore gratifying that the communication from the Commission on the regions in the new economy pursues this very aim and does so more effectively than many of the traditional mainstream Objective 1 to 3 programmes.
It is a matter of increasing the competitiveness of the European economy and, as has already been emphasised several times today, of ensuring in particular that appropriate initial support is given to those parts of our regions which do not enjoy the same starting conditions as the metropolitan areas and large conurbations.
What is rather less encouraging is the fact that the amount of money to be injected into these measures is very modest indeed.
The Markov report rightly calls for an increase in this allocation.
By earmarking EUR 400 million for this important purpose we are sending out a very weak signal.
I also find it less than satisfactory that there is no provision for direct project funding and that programme-based funding has again emerged as the preferred option. The reason for my disapproval is that it removes yet another link that might enable the people of Europe to identify in some way with Brussels.
There is also a danger that politicians will engage once more in the traditional game we call Schwarzer Peter in Austria - you may know it as Old Maid - in which local, regional and national politicians try to claim credit for all the good things and to pass the buck to Brussels whenever something goes wrong.
In organisational terms, I believe that it makes good sense to focus special support on a small number of aims.
I also believe, however, that the division into three priority areas envisaged in the Commission report is somewhat artificial; like the rapporteur, I am inclined to think that we should include more innovative measures in the domains of energy efficiency, propagation of renewable forms of energy and practical implementation of climate protection measures in our catalogue of eligible activities.
I consider it especially important that schools and other educational establishments should be involved with these new forms of technology, and I hope they will find a suitable way to make their voices heard here.
On this basis it is generally gratifying that we shall be able to continue good pilot projects.
I am pleased to report that we in Styria have already gathered very worthwhile experience in the last couple of years with Risi, an information offensive launched by the new provincial government.
One especially good feature of this initiative is that it has enabled women in particular to familiarise themselves with new information technology and its applications.
I do not know whether it is a direct consequence of this Risi initiative that three ladies signed the European budget today, but I should be delighted if this Christmas present on which we are deciding today could also continue to benefit women in the future.
Mr President, as the rapporteur who dealt with the innovative measures in the former Parliament, in relation to the former Article 10 initiative, I wanted to take part in this debate to remind the new Commissioner of some of the points surrounding this which Parliament has been consistently pressing for and which we do not want to see forgotten.
We fought hard to keep the innovative measures within the new round of structural fund programmes and I am really pleased that we are here today, both confirming this and the EUR 3 million that is going to be available through agreeing the new guidelines.
I particularly want to record two findings for the Commissioner.
One is that we - and the people out there - see that the innovative measures have been a very important stepping stone for local authorities and local communities who are not really into the Structural Funds, but should be, to learn how to do it through small-scale projects and then be able to become more effective parts of mainstream programmes in future years.
We came up with a ten-point programme to say how that could be done.
When I go back to my own region, east of England, and find that not one local authority used this money in that last period, I doubt whether we have been as effective as we need to be in the future to ensure those new communities are welcomed in.
Secondly, we talked about the need to work in partnership with local government and local authorities including, for example, through the Directoria event.
Some of your officials are not so comfortable about that and I detect a moving away from it within this new set of proposals, but I warn you that that would be a step in the wrong direction.
These people are our partners.
They help us reach the people in most need within the disadvantaged regions and it is no good us making speeches about the democratic deficit in Europe and then ignoring the contribution that local authorities can make at the local level.
Finally, however, I welcome the proposals.
I believe you are trying to be flexible.
You are trying to allow regions to go away and come up with their own proposals and to come back and submit them to you.
You are right to do that and I welcome what you are seeking to do.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the year 2000 is coming to an end and we are still debating the main guidelines, that is to say, the priorities in terms of innovative actions financed through the European Regional Development Fund.
If the Berlin reform for the 7 years dealt with by Agenda 2000, that is to say for the period 2000-2006, reduced the budgetary contributions for these actions by half in comparison with the previous period and, to that, we add the inevitable slowness with which we adopt decisions at a Community level, as a result of our complex institutional structure, it is not surprising that we are in a situation where we have not even been able to spend the budget laid down for the current year for innovative regional policy measures, and this is an example of political irresponsibility.
It is also a mistake to reduce the budget in a chapter such as this which was being dedicated to pilot experiments, to new ideas in the field of local and urban development - with some more than satisfactory results - which have formed the basis of Community programmes as cherished at local level as URBAN and INTERREG.
If we have still not realised, in this increasingly globalised world, that the progress of any country or region depends on its investment in research and innovation, we are providing our voters with a bad service.
Furthermore, I would like to draw attention to another aspect of the new policy proposed by the Commission.
Now, the local authorities, the municipalities and the mayors of the least-favoured urban areas can no longer go to Brussels to seek solidarity and aid from the European Union.
The door is closed to them and we have lost that added value provided by the direct relationship between the European capital and the public institutions closest to the problems of the citizens.
I have nothing against the regional authorities, which will channel the proposals and will take the decisions on the funding of the new programmes, but I believe that this a step backwards which destroys some of the freshness of the proposals born of the local bodies' intimate knowledge of the real difficulties.
Commissioner, I would like to know your views on this.
But I must say that it is not all going to be negative and, in this respect, we are pleased that our proposal to also introduce measures relating to energy efficiency and the diversification of renewable energy sources, as well as measures relating to climatic and environmental protection, has been accepted.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I am sure the House would like to join me in wishing you too a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
World shipbuilding
The next item is the report (A5-0371/2000) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the second report from the Commission to the Council on the situation in world shipbuilding.
We are now discussing our report on the situation in world shipbuilding.
We have two documents from the Commission before us, namely the second and third reports on the situation in world shipbuilding, both of which have been presented in the past six months.
The opinion which we unanimously adopted in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy related to the second report.
The third report had not appeared by that time, and the Commission and the Council have subsequently reached a decision on whether the deadline for phasing out aid to shipyards can be extended beyond the scheduled date of 31 December 2000.
To our deep regret, the Commission and the Council have not decided to extend the provision of aid to shipyards, even though the plight of the shipbuilding industry has not become any less desperate.
This situation stems from the fact that South Korea has been employing aggressive methods and offering its vessels at dumping prices in order to increase its share of the world shipbuilding market.
South Korea has received more than 40% of all the shipbuilding orders that have been placed in the year 2000, according to the Commission report; it has been able to do this on the basis of loans from South Korean banks, some of which are state-owned, by virtue of state guarantees which are tantamount to subsidisation.
The prices of new ships have plummeted in recent years, reaching an all-time low in 1999 because of this policy that South Korea is pursuing.
Europe, including Norway, only has a 16% share of the world shipbuilding market. Japan, with a 25% share, lies in second place behind Korea, while the rest of the entire world, including the United States, accounts for no more than 19%, and that in an industry in which labour costs have long been supplanted by technology as the main production factor.
It is this capital-intensive structure of the industry which enables outsiders to check pricing calculations and make comparative assessments.
We in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy welcomed the fact that the European Commission has taken steps to have the issue resolved by means of a dispute-settlement procedure before the World Trade Organisation.
At the request of the European shipbuilding industry, this procedure has now been initiated, as Commissioner Lamy emphasised yesterday in talks with South Korean parliamentarians in this House.
And rightly so!
But despite the Agreed Minutes of 22 June 2000 on the technical issues, on accounting transparency and banking operations, there has been no sign of willingness on the part of the South Korean Government or of the shipyards and the shipbuilding industry to reach a consensus with the European Union on pricing.
One reason for this is the fact that the 1996 framework agreement on trade and cooperation has still not been ratified by all Member States.
The Commission's target of January 2001 can only be met, in my view, if the Republic of Korea finally demonstrates willingness in the coming weeks to stop selling ships below local cost price; to put it bluntly, it must raise its prices.
The decision taken by the Council and the Commission to negotiate for four months without continuing the payment of aid and then, after 1 May 2001, to reconsider, on the basis of the progress achieved in these negotiations, whether there are grounds for resuming aid payments for a further period will mean that European shipyards will receive virtually no new orders in the first four months of the year 2001, at least not for the shipping categories in which competition is fiercest.
Even in our own area of specialisation - the construction of cruise ships - the South Koreans are able to offer ships below the prevailing international market price.
That is why, in this report and the three additional motions on the table, we have called on the Commission to intensify its efforts to ensure that an international dispute-settlement procedure is initiated before the WTO.
But we are also calling for a two-year extension of aid to shipyards in order to ensure that a major industry in the European Union is not wiped out by state-aided Korean dumping practices.
If the aid arrangements are not extended - and we are not talking here about EU aid, as you know, but national aid, which the Union need only approve - then we shall have to think about the fact that the European shipbuilding industry has already reduced its capacity and that the present limits will then have to fall still further.
These are the main demands we make in this report, and I thank my committee colleagues for their unanimous support.
I ask for your support again tomorrow morning when the House votes on the report, and I urge the Commission not to abandon the shipbuilding industry and those who work in it.
At least 10 000 jobs are at stake, with the United Kingdom poised to bear the brunt of the cuts.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating my colleague, Mr Langen, on his excellent report which, as he says, was carried through the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, unanimously.
I concur with his observation that we must take account of the third report that the Commission has drawn up on world shipbuilding.
I hope that the timing of the presentation of that report to Parliament was not a ploy to encourage us to take this item off the agenda.
The committee had to vote especially to ensure that this item was on the agenda for debate today.
I am grateful that the Commissioner is here, and I hope he takes note of all the points made.
There is clear evidence of a crisis in the EU shipbuilding industry and this has been the case for some time.
The evidence is set out very effectively in the Commission report.
The conclusions seem quite clear that the principal culprit is predatory pricing from the Korean shipbuilding industry.
It is doing this to gain market share to our detriment, but not only to the detriment of the European Union industry.
Other countries - Japan for one - are also suffering from this.
Action clearly must be taken.
It seems to me that the Commissioner must show the industry that he is doing all he can in this context to deal with this external threat to our industry.
The trade-barrier regulation route is perhaps an incomplete or insufficient instrument for taking action: there has to be more bilateral pressure from the European Union on Korea to press it to come up with solutions, such as pricing its ships properly and fully.
In the third report there is a list of actions proposed by the Commission but its observations are rather disappointing: to continue with monitoring, to examine industry's complaint, to remain open to eventual proposals, to pursue efforts, to continue to encourage, to continue to work closely with the industry or to examine the possibilities of measures.
I submit that we need more than just examining possibilities and monitoring the industry situation around the world and in Europe.
In that context, it is important that the Commission reconsiders the view about extending the time period for temporary support or for permitting temporary support for shipbuilding industries in the European Union until a solution is forthcoming in talks with Korea.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, may I say, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, that it gives us some satisfaction to see the Commission and the Council finally recognise what we have been repeating for years and especially over recent months: first that, in shipbuilding, Europe has set itself more constraints more quickly than its main competitors and, secondly and more importantly, that South Korea is guilty of blatantly infringing the rules of competition with its outrageous financial dumping.
That is why we welcomed the Commission's recent efforts, even if I do take issue with the calculation methods used to show very high levels of European aid in chapter 5 of the Council report of 5 December.
Due to a lack of time today, I shall explain myself directly to the Commissioner in writing on this point.
More importantly, we have also taken note of the Council's conclusions of 5 December, a Council which agreed to safeguard the future by standing its ground with South Korea and not dismissing the possibility of reintroducing shipbuilding aid in May for the specific market segments hardest hit by Korean competition.
This approach is also in line with the Treaty, although I do not have time to go into this in greater detail.
Another positive outcome from the Council meeting was that the 'ships arrangement' for export credits dating from 1981 was updated at the SBT.
Finally, we were interested to note the Council's willingness to consider aid for research and development.
This point is very important to some enterprises, to enterprises which are, in fact, highly innovative.
What we are calling for, what I am calling for today is the full and - more importantly - the immediate application of the Council's conclusions.
If it should prove necessary to re-introduce aid in May 2001, we must do so without delay.
We are also worried about the sixth framework programme for research and development: the 'marine technology' line in the fifth programme appears to have disappeared in the draft programme.
I personally find this unacceptable; it should be reinstated in terms of quantity and in terms of the method for using these appropriations so as to simplify them.
Finally, as from 18 December, we are, of course, counting on the 'ships arrangement' being examined at the OECD Group 6 meeting.
I shall finish by congratulating Mr Langen - I appreciate his support for workers and for the need for state intervention in order to defend the economy - and by advising the Commission to make good use, in the future, of the lesson which it has been given in shipbuilding and in the shameless competition of certain countries of the world.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Langen for preparing this report on what is a difficult subject.
As the report states, important restructuring of the shipbuilding industry has come about by adjusting quantity and quality.
Shipbuilding, however, is still in a serious crisis, as a result of dumping by the Koreans.
We must attend to the competitiveness of European shipbuilding by creating equal opportunities for shipyards on the world market.
Improvements to the competitiveness of shipyards must be extended with the help of internal measures and agreement procedures.
Operating aid has not, however, solved the problems of the shipyard industry.
Shipbuilding is a sector that demands high technology and whose competitiveness can be improved through cooperation with a view to specialisation, as well as through continued technological development, research and development.
Neither will operating aid, not even specifically-channelled aid, solve the Korea problem: that has to be firmly dealt with by means of trade policy, for example.
Mr President, Mr Langen' s report deals with numerous issues but, nevertheless, here the speakers are naturally focusing on the issue of whether or not to have an extension of subsidies and on the unfair competition on the part of Korea.
Those of us who live in a region such as Asturias, which has suffered four significant cases of restructuring - in mining, in steel, in shipbuilding and in weapons manufacturing - believe that cutting these subsidies, even until May to see whether Korea is condemned by the World Trade Organisation, is very dangerous for the sector.
It is true that Europe is suffering from unfair competition because in Korea, above all, very low salaries are paid and workers are forced to endure abysmal working conditions and, under these circumstances, European workers have no way of competing with them.
However, the Commission' s proposal, which includes aid for research and development, the condemnation of what is happening in Korea to the World Trade Organisation - since they are working with prices which are even below cost - and the possibility that there be transitional aid measures until the case is settled, seems to us to be perhaps a rather weak solution, but at least it is a solution.
In any event, it seems to me, Mr President, that if we cut off subsidies and if the unfair Korean competition continues, the European shipbuilding industry will be fatally wounded.
And I do not believe that we are exaggerating because the different workers' groups have been claiming that over recent years thousands and thousands of jobs have been lost as a result of the restructuring of the shipbuilding industry.
I believe that there are various countries such as Spain, Germany, Italy, Greece and Portugal which, within the Council, and despite the final decision, have asked that aid be continued, and we feel that this aid should be continued in one way or another if we do not wish, once again, to lose thousands of jobs in shipbuilding.
Mr President, it seems to have become an end-of-year tradition to hold a debate on the situation in the shipbuilding industry.
In terms of merchant shipping, there is still a subsidy race being held at world level.
This is at the expense of shipyards in the EU Member States, as well as yards based in Norway, Japan and the United States.
We are in complete agreement on this: the subsidy race should end as soon as possible.
However, it looks very much as if the goal posts are being moved each time, so that we will never reach the finishing line.
The Commission and Parliament' s criticism is levelled at Korea because it still provides by far the highest subsidies to shipyards, with painful consequences for yards in European countries and Japan.
But nearly everyone knows that within the European Union too, there are large discrepancies in terms of subsidy level per order.
On paper, the highest level of support per order amounts to three and a half times the lowest level, but in practice, it appears that a number of EU Member States are giving extra hand-outs to their maritime industry in a non-transparent manner.
Moreover, Article 7 of Regulation No 1540 from 1998 is still in force.
This provision contributes in its own way to the unequal growth in support levels.
This leads to sound, efficient yards being punished, whilst inefficient ones are given an injection of money.
If we provide extra funding to the weaker European yards at the expense of the stronger ones, how can we survive Korean and - no doubt soon to follow suit - Chinese subsidisation of their shipyards in the long run? This is a question from which the Commissioner cannot run away.
I therefore urge the Commission and MEPs not only to point the finger at Korea, but also to examine the situation on their own home turf. Why does the Commission not institute an inquiry into the actual subsidy level per order within the European Union?
Where is the proposal to abolish all kinds of non-transparent support schemes in relation to research and development, environmental and regional support policy? If there is no level playing field in the shipbuilding sector within the European Union, how can we expect to fight competition from Korea and elsewhere?
I share the rapporteur' s view that, as long as Korea does not act pursuant to the WTO provisions, it is justifiable to provide yards standard support for each order as an emergency measure.
This transparent form of support discourages European yards from applying all kinds of reduction or marketing methods which do not conform to the market.
At the same time, pressure on Korea must be stepped up, and we must involve the OECD if necessary, by taking anti-dumping measures.
These will preferably be measures which hit conglomerates such as Hyundai and Daewoo where it hurts, at which point we will have a chance of breaking down the closed Korean front.
I would like to thank Mr Langen for his work and hope that we do not have a re-run of the same debate at the end of next year.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Langen on the sound report which he has produced on the issue of shipbuilders.
I would like to remind you that the issue we are dealing with today is an old one. It has been a recurrent theme.
Specifically, it is now more than two years since we condemned the unfair practices which essentially take place in South East Asia, and which affect our shipbuilding industry.
In recent weeks, the Commission has told us that the system of subsidies, thanks to which our industry is subsisting, must be removed as from January as a result of a supposed improvement in competitiveness.
On the other hand, after more than two years of ferocious unfair competition on the part of Korea, the Commission has decided, after receiving a formal complaint from all our shipbuilders, to take the case to the World Trade Organisation.
As you all know, it will take more than six months to carry out this procedure.
Furthermore, if successful, the creation of a group of experts within that organisation will mean that it will take at least two years.
In the meantime, it is intended that what remains of our shipbuilding industry will subsist thanks to a package of aid to research and development, which will enter into force in January, as Commissioner Monti pointed out yesterday afternoon.
We have held a meeting with him, in which I asked him a series of questions.
It can be deduced from the conclusions of the meeting that the aid received by our industry has not resolved the problem of Korea.
I pointed out to him that the European shipbuilding industry is unprotected.
He then said that after 2 December an investigation would perhaps be opened, and that after that investigation we would have to wait and see what happened, etc.
I believe that the honest ones, the Europeans, are being left to fend for themselves.
Meanwhile, the pirates, to put it in realistic, if pejorative, terms, have the advantage within this competitive world.
It is we who play by the rules and it is we who end up losing.
I, for example, am from the Basque Country, and I live close to Bilbao.
There, these days, what were once shipyards are now concert halls, maritime museums etc.
In these shipyards, 4 000 people once worked, and now just a couple of doormen work in each place, and that is what is happening in the European countries.
That is, while we are enduring unemployment, the Koreans are doing good business in their shipyards.
Both the author of this report and the authors of the proposed amendments belong to political schools which put the market economy before all else and cry excessive state intervention whenever it comes to supporting public services or giving workers some sort of social protection.
But as soon as the capitalist groups whose interests they defend are in trouble on the markets, they call for governments or the European institutions to intervene, subsidise and protect the sector under threat.
Alstom-Atlantique, which has just landed a contract to build a luxury liner, will collect the equivalent of 9% of the contract price in subsidies.
In other words, the state is paying a large chunk, if not all of the company's profits.
Meanwhile, the British company Harland and Wolff, from which Alstom pinched the contract, is blaming its government for failing to back it sufficiently.
When big trusts and their political advocates call for less state interference, what they mean is that the state and its money should be solely at their disposal.
For my part, I am against all forms of subsidy for private firms and in favour of governments using the money saved to create jobs directly, especially in the public services and, more to the point, without generating private profit.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the measures that have been taken and the position adopted by the Commission on the European shipbuilding industry do not, in my opinion, reflect the serious and indeed critical nature of the situation in that industry, and the same applies to the transactions and outcome of the meeting of industry ministers on 5 December.
May I remind the House that the results of what has been a highly successful adjustment process are now being put at risk.
We have had a process of quantitative adjustment, in which capacities have been reduced.
We have had a process of qualitative adjustment, involving modernisation, the introduction of state-of-the-art technology and high productivity, and I can assure you, Commissioner, that shipyards are one of the areas where advanced technology is of the essence, not only information technology and related domains but production technology too.
In short, a generally successful process is now being placed in extreme jeopardy.
I also wish to remind you that many of our shipyards are in remote regions with structural weaknesses - regions that are undergoing radical adjustment processes.
Shipbuilding is often the key industry in such regions.
The process has not yet been completed, and the situation remains delicate.
Insufficient progress has been made towards diversification; consistent adherence to the present course is essential.
The line being followed by the Commission can only be detrimental to the shipyards of Europe. Further investigations are planned, but not until next year.
So is the situation insufficiently clear?
Have there not been enough detailed analyses?
Have visits not been paid to Korea? Has the Commission not received unsatisfactory information?
Is the present situation really so shrouded in mystery that we have to wait until May 2001 for a more detailed review? The Commission knowingly tolerates the exposure of the shipyards in the European Union to unfair competition for almost six months.
This brings additional pressures and dangers to a situation that is already complicated. It will inevitably push individual companies over the edge.
Allow me to make one final remark. It is surely the height of inconsistency to proclaim such dedication to free external trade that we are even prepared to tolerate an unfair partner and yet, at the same time, to maintain internal restrictions on competition such as the artificial ceiling on our shipbuilding capacity.
Our internal and external policies are clearly at odds with each other, and this must be corrected.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Langen on the quality of his report.
I feel that he has produced an excellent X-ray of the shipbuilding industry in Europe, a true X-ray.
And a summary would be that the shipbuilding industry is being threatened from all sides.
There is a crisis in the fishing industry, and we Spaniards and Galicians know that only too well.
Furthermore, we have flags of convenience in the merchant navy, and ships flying Community flags are being built, or are in danger of being built, outside Europe.
And that is due to the fact that we are incapable of condemning a situation of unfair competition.
It has been said already here; Korea, Japan, or the threat of China are involved.
Mr President, I therefore wonder whether the European Union is opting for a shipbuilding industry which is strong, dynamic and competitive. Of course, the shipbuilding industry also has to achieve the objectives of the European Union, specifically the rationalisation of the industry, an increase in productivity, an improvement in the competitiveness of the existing shipyards and the defence of the environment.
But in order to achieve that, so that the process may consolidate the shipbuilding industry and its jobs and calm the fears of the families which depend on it, aid will still be necessary beyond 31 December 2000, because the market situation is not one of equality, but of unfairness and of dumping.
We expect decisions from the Commission and the Council which are profoundly political, courageous and decisive, and which, in cases such as Spain, allow the integration of civil and military shipbuilding, and reassign the different areas of the industry in accordance with the needs of each country.
It is necessary to provide new stimulus in terms of a sufficient quantity of research and development and also to maintain the operating aid in a way that is legally possible.
Our shipyards can survive, but support is necessary and, in the European context, now is the time to appeal to the solidarity and understanding of the countries which do not have shipyards and for which, in many cases, the sea, and its shipbuilding industry, perhaps have less importance.
Finally, we have to make decisions which will allow us to confirm and maintain a strong position for the European shipbuilding sector.
It will be of little use to us to pursue an objective if, in pursuit of it, shipyards disappear in Europe, suffocating on the way.
The example not to follow would be that of Buridan' s ass which, while trying to decide whether to eat rye or barley, ended up dying as a result of its doubts.
I therefore call for the defence of the sector, combining the objectives demanded by the European Union with the survival of the industry, making it stronger, more dynamic and more competitive, thereby creating jobs and wealth.
Mr President, I thank you for the opportunity to update Parliament on the market situation in world shipbuilding and on the conclusions of the Council last week.
I want to thank Mr Langen for his report.
Although the report refers to the Commission's second shipbuilding report of May 2000, it has been noted here that the third report was done by mid-November and I limit my comments to that third report in this delicate issue.
The market analysis contained in the third report does not indicate improvement in the market situation.
South Korea has continuously increased its market share, both to the detriment of the Japanese and EU yards, and despite strenuous efforts by the Commission, including contacts at the highest level, the bilateral negotiations with the government of South Korea have not yielded concrete results that could remedy the market situation.
This is despite the conclusions of accurate minutes in June which pointed to the way forward.
As a result of this failure, a complaint by industry under the trade barrier regulation has been launched in October this year and Commissioner Lamy announced on 4 December the Commission's decision to open an investigation.
This process will not give quick results and if it goes to its ultimate conclusion, it will take up to two years.
Under Regulation No 1540/98, the Commission is obliged to propose measures.
In reality, there are limited instruments available to the Commission and Member States in order to defend the EU shipbuilding industry.
The potential of trade principles has not yet been seen and their effectiveness needs to be proved.
Discussions in the OECD have made little progress, very little progress, and the possibility of an internationally binding agreement on shipbuilding seems remote.
The IMF is also cautious on the issue of Korean shipbuilding, as it sees itself as dealing only with macroeconomic conditions rather than with sectoral problems.
Improving competitiveness of the EU yards is encouraged by the Commission but, in the face of massive price undercutting by Korean yards, the achievable progress in productivity is not sufficient.
Nevertheless, all the available instruments should be used better, including aids for research and development.
In the light of these factual elements, the Commission concluded at its meeting of 29 November that if the Commission does not achieve a satisfactory negotiated solution with Korea in the framework of the TBR procedure, the Commission will report to the Council by 1 May next year and will propose to bring the case to the WTO.
In addition, and importantly, the Commission will, at the same time, propose a defensive temporary support mechanism designed to counter the unfair Korean practices.
The Commission is also ready to explore the possibilities of greater use of national support for research and development and it is noted that the general operating aids will expire after 31 December 2000.
I would like to explain the rationale behind the position adopted by the Commission.
The Commission believes that the Community should seek to strengthen its negotiating position vis-à-vis Korea by providing an incentive to reach a rapid agreement that would resolve the current problems.
This is why the Commission decided on a defensive temporary support mechanism designed to counter the unfair Korean practices.
This would be proposed if a satisfactory agreement with Korea cannot be achieved during the course of the investigation procedure under the trade barriers regulation.
The mechanisms would apply until the outcome of that WTO procedure is decided.
The details of the mechanisms will need to be further elaborated.
They would be limited to those market segments where it has been demonstrated that EU industry has been directly injured by unfair Korean practices.
On the question of research and development in the shipbuilding sector, the Commission concluded that in addition to the substantial Community funding available under research framework programmes which provide EUR 130 m in five years, the possibility of improving the aids allowed for this purpose should be explored.
Industry should seriously reflect about how these instruments can be used to adapt their activities in a way which will ensure the future of the sector on a lasting basis.
The Industry Council of 5 December this year discussed at length the shipbuilding issue based on the Commission's third report and its decision of 29 November 2000.
It requested the Commission to continue with its market monitoring, to follow up closely on the TBR case with a view to bring the problem to the WTO if required and to address the issue in all relevant international fora.
The Council also took note of the Commission's initiative to propose a temporary support mechanism for EU shipbuilding in case no progress is made with Korea by 1 May 2001.
The Council emphasised that such a support mechanism must not distort competition inside the EU.
The Commission will be reporting on this situation again in April and, of course, we are also available in the European Parliament.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, I simply wished to inform the House that this very morning the Popular Party Councillor, Francisco Cano, was murdered in the town of Villadecavalls, in the province of Barcelona.
Francisco Cano was 45 years old, married with two daughters and was an electrician by trade.
He was a worker and, like those who accompanied us yesterday when we awarded the Sakharov Prize, he was a private citizen who served the democratic system which the Spanish have chosen.
I am sure that we are all now united in our vigorous and forthright defence of freedom in Europe, but I wish to say that, more than the solidarity of the Members of the European Parliament, we in Spain need their commitment.
I would like to ask you if you agree to our holding a minute' s silence in memory of Francisco Cano.
I do not think there is any need to add anything to what Mr Galeote has just said other than to assure him of our support and solidarity and I agree that, in future, we need to look at ways in which we can perhaps assist our colleagues in Spain.
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
British submarine at Gibraltar
The next item is the joint debate on four oral questions to the Commission on the British nuclear submarine at Gibraltar.
Mr President, Commissioner, please bring some order here, if you can. I believe that you can.
The presence of a broken down nuclear submarine in the waters of the Bay of Algeciras has now unfortunately become a diplomatic conflict between a colonial and nuclear military power and a second category Member State, according to the latest classification in Nice, which does not demand its rights and gives in to infantile explanations.
Article 37 of the Euratom Treaty is not being complied with, nor are important directives on radioactive protection, and you, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, know this and merely look the other way.
It seems that you do not want internal conflicts, so why sign Treaties?
Where, here and now, is the Charter of Fundamental Rights for the citizens of Gibraltar and Algeciras and the Andalusians of the area? Have you received the general information relating to the evacuation plan of the British authorities, which they are obliged to produce?
The plan should include the evacuation and the possibility of an accident which contaminates another Member State, a possible cross-border contamination. You know this.
What are you doing?
Have you replied to the complaint of the Association of Municipalities of Campo de Gibraltar? When is the Committee on Petitions going to reply to a communication presented and signed by more than 35 associations - collectives, unions and municipalities - from the area?
Let us forget about the yellow submarine and other tomfoolery, which has no place here.
This is now real.
Let us be serious.
Ladies and gentlemen, your initial jeers, when I condemned this case on 5 July, and your laughter, have simply increased the desire of the Andalusian people to be respected and not to be humiliated with shameful explanations and to be obliged to endure an unnecessary situation of risk.
Finally, do not allow the repair of this submarine in an inappropriate base.
Ask and demand that it be removed when the technical and climatic conditions allow it.
Commissioners, do not allow our gorgeous bay to become nothing but a workshop for nuclear junk.
Mr President, I will naturally begin by reiterating our solidarity with the Members from the Popular Party, while at the same time - although I find it difficult to say - pointing out that our democratic response today in the face of this latest murder should be to overcome our grief and continue working in this House, as we are at the moment.
Once upon a time there was a British nuclear submarine called the Tireless.
While sailing through Sicilian waters, back in the month of May, its nuclear heart showed worrying signs of deterioration.
Those in charge of the submarine tried to have it admitted into a hospital, classified as suitable for providing treatment, of which they were coproprietors, at that time a NATO base.
But the director of the hospital did not authorise the admission.
The submarine sailed on, infecting the waters of the Mediterranean on the way, until it arrived at an agreed hospital called Gibraltar.
There, showing themselves to be fully in charge, they parked it.
In order that it might be admitted, they said that the illness was not serious.
When, by means of the medical dispatch which they distributed in the country where the owner lived - that is, by means of the British press - it was discovered that the illness was serious, instead of changing hospitals, they changed the classification of the hospital.
A patient was admitted to a first aid centre and, when it was discovered that it did not have flu, but a serious illness, a painter was employed to change the sign on the door and put 'Hospital' where before it had said 'Health Centre' .
However, that strategy was not enough to prevent all the patients and their families from finding out that they had admitted an infectious patient and from knowing that there was a risk of catching the disease.
Then the lies and manoeuvrings began: the lies - or silences - of the person who had admitted it and the lies and silences of the person in charge of health in the area.
Because, while the owner of the submarine told us something different every day, the person in charge of health in the area did whatever he wanted.
He even told us jokes about the yellow submarine or about jurisdiction in the area.
To top it all, it was at that time that the population most directly affected discovered that, some time before, that same country which owned the submarine had, for ten years, deceived all Europeans about mad cow disease.
Ladies and gentlemen, this situation cannot be allowed to continue.
Citizens' associations, social organisations, local authorities and autonomous communities have asked both this Parliament' s Committee on Petitions and the Commission to intervene and protect them.
Europe and its institutions cannot remain on the outside.
There is considerable and understandable alarm, the consequence of a perverse double combination of stubbornness and incompetence: The stubbornness of those people who refuse to alter their initial position and the incompetence of those who are unable to vigorously defend the health and safety of hundreds of thousands of European citizens who live in the area.
I am not being alarmist.
It would be alarming if we failed to act immediately in this situation.
Every day there are statements to the effect that there are reasons not to authorise the repair of the Tireless in Gibraltar.
Let us not wait any longer.
Let us accept the situation once and for all and take the submarine, with every possible safeguard, to a British port which fulfils the requirements for its repair, before it is too late; before the Tireless ends up wearing all of us citizens and Europeans out.
Mr President, with regard to the repair of the British submarine Tireless in Gibraltar, we should remember what we want from the Commission.
What the various parliamentary Groups have expressed in their questions is that we want the Commission to inform us about their representations to the Government of the United Kingdom with a view to ensuring compliance with the obligations contained in the legislation in force and, secondly, to inform us about its initiatives on this issue, in accordance with the powers attributed to it, where relevant, by the Euratom Treaty.
Of course, we await the Commission' s reply with great interest, in order to see whether the objective has been fulfilled.
We do not doubt the Commission' s good intentions, but we all hope that we do not have to regret ending this debate with the same information with which we started it.
There is no doubt that very diverse interests are at play in this debate - and this is also the case within my Group.
However, we have made an effort to achieve dialogue and mutual understanding, which I believe could allow us to broaden this consensus on the basic issues to a majority in this House.
Furthermore, that is what can be deduced from a careful reading of the motions for resolutions of the Socialist and European People' s Party/European Democrat Groups.
In both, I truly believe that we agree on the essential issues.
In both, we express our understanding of the natural concern of the local population.
In both, we ask for the greatest degree of transparency, in order not to promote unfounded fears.
In both, we ask the Commission to examine the possibilities contained in the current Treaties to ascertain what opportunities it has to contribute to this issue.
In both, we express the need for the two Member States involved, the United Kingdom and Spain, to work together closely to find a safer solution for the repair of the submarine, while keeping the public fully up-to-date, of course.
If, in the light of the texts presented, we agree on this - and this is a lot - I wonder why we have not been able to produce a joint motion for a resolution.
I can assure you that it was not due to a lack of will on the part of my Group.
The fact that the Socialist Group presented an urgent motion for a resolution in the last plenary session; that it then voted in favour of a proposal from my Group to remove that point of order; the fact that it did not attend a meeting called by all groups to try to produce a consensus text; and that then the main signatory of the Socialist resolution and various others also signed the joint motion for a resolution of the Green and United Left Groups, no doubt sends us all into confusion.
And what is the Socialist Group going to vote for now? That is anyone' s guess.
I would modestly like to suggest that they vote for our motion for a resolution.
And I would humbly like to advise my Spanish Socialist compatriots to be guided by the general interest.
Mr President, I would also like to start by offering my condolences to the family of the murdered councillor and to the Members from the Popular Party, and I wish to reject this fascist barbarity of ETA and of the groups which support it.
I would like to stress the warranted importance of the pact against terrorism agreed between the Popular Party and the Socialist Party, and I believe it is important that, from the European Union' s point of view, progress is made in this direction.
With regard to the issue we are dealing with - the anomalous situation of the British submarine Tireless in the only British colony in the Mediterranean, Gibraltar - on 7 September I asked an oral question about it.
In this, I pointed out that the fault with the submarine which, since 12 May, had been in Sicilian waters, could not be repaired in the port of Gibraltar, since the Italian and NATO authorities had refused to receive the submarine in its ports.
In that intervention I also pointed out the lack of seriousness and respect shown by the British authorities in reclassifying the role of the port of Gibraltar, moving it in the best colonial fashion from category Z to X for the purposes of being able to carry out repairs.
I also pointed out the alarm amongst the 200 000 people who live in the area, within a radius of 10 kilometres.
The evasive response that I received from the Commission on that occasion forced me to ask a second question, on 21 September, urging the Commission to ask the British Government to remove the Tireless to a British port, and also to monitor this issue.
The reply received from the Commission was disappointing and unsatisfactory.
I hope that that feeling of dissatisfaction with the reply has nothing to do with the fact that Commissioner Patten is British, but, on the other hand, on the most important issue - the repair of the submarine in a European Union port which does not meet the minimum requirements - he said that this was an internal issue for the United Kingdom, when, according to the Euratom Treaty, this is not the case; and, on the other hand, he simply said that he would keep Parliament informed.
Nevertheless, since that moment the European Parliament has received no information from the Commission, despite the fact that it has promised to provide it.
So, over these months, we have been on a wild goose chase.
We have had statements from the responsible parties in the British army to the effect that the fault was not significant, and others saying the complete opposite, that it was serious and required long and difficult repairs.
We have heard statements from the Spanish Government to the effect that there was no cause for alarm, and others, recent ones fortunately, from Minister Piqué, urging that the submarine be taken away as soon as possible - although they have given a time period of three months - so that it may be repaired in the United Kingdom.
After visits to the submarine by Spanish nuclear safety experts, we have heard that there is no danger, but we have had later statements indicating that they were not allowed to see, observe or inspect the actual site of the fault.
For all these reasons, I believe the Commission must be aware of what an anomalous situation we are dealing with and that, firstly, it must demand an immediate halt to any repairs taking place in Gibraltar.
Secondly, it must demand that all possible information be given to the population, as laid down in the Euratom Treaty.
Thirdly, I believe that the British Government should be taken to task for the irresponsibility and flippancy it showed in carrying out this reclassification, so that the port of Gibraltar may return to its original category.
I also believe that the submarine Tireless should be taken to Great Britain to be repaired as soon as possible, as soon as the weather conditions are suitable.
I believe that we can reach the conclusion that there is general alarm about this type of atomic submarine in all the countries of the European Union and throughout the whole world and, therefore, I believe we should recommend that this type of nuclear submarine disappear from the map and from the oceans.
I would also like to point out, given that the Commission has been so ineffective, that a delegation of experts should be sent to view the situation on the ground, since so far we cannot have confidence in what the government has done.
Lastly, I believe that the British Government should compensate the area economically, since there have been losses in terms of tourism and fishing for which the British Government is responsible.
Mr President, first I would like to associate myself and the Commission wholeheartedly with the moving remarks made by the honourable gentleman, Mr Galeote Quecedo at the outset of this session.
I would like, as well, to salute the courage of all those in Spain like Basta Ya and those involved in the democratic process who resist terrorism in all its cowardly and vicious forms.
I was here yesterday during the presentation of the Sakharov Prize to listen to Basta Ya.
I agreed entirely with everything that was said yesterday and I too would like to offer my condolences to the family and friends of the murdered democratically-elected official.
I have had some experience of dealing with terrorism myself in another environment and I very strongly support those who resist terrorism.
I am grateful to the honourable Members for their questions to which I am replying on behalf of my colleague, Commissioner Wallström.
She regrets that she cannot be here to answer the questions in person because she is engaged in meetings in Brussels to prepare for next week's important ministerial meeting on climate change.
I know the House recognises that she would have been here if possible and it falls to me to answer in her stead.
I just want to say one thing to the honourable Member who spoke a moment or two ago.
When I became a Commissioner I swore an oath to be completely independent in the performance of my duties in the general interest of the Communities, to neither seek nor take instructions from any government or from any other body in the performance of my duties.
I would not take an oath lightly.
Honourable Members have asked a number of questions relating to the presence of the British nuclear submarine HMS Tireless in Gibraltar for repairs to her nuclear reactor.
I know the Commission knows how concerned they are about this issue and I hope that this debate is heard and read elsewhere.
Honourable Members have asked whether the Commission considers that Directives 89/618/Euratom, on informing the public in the event of radiological emergency, and 96/29/Euratom on basic safety standards, apply in relation to the submarine and what steps have been taken accordingly.
Honourable Members have also asked a question concerning Article 37 of the Euratom Treaty in relation to the presence of the submarine in Gibraltar and, naturally, I have carefully read the terms of the joint motion for a resolution.
I want to make a few remarks now and since this is an extremely important debate and important issues will be raised, I hope that I will be able to intervene again briefly at the end of the debate to pick up any points which have not been resolved.
I can confirm that the issue to which honourable Members refer has indeed been the subject of complaints to the Commission and I will come back and talk about those complaints at the end of my remarks.
Let me set out the position under the Euratom Treaty.
Chapter III of the Euratom Treaty headed "Health and Safety" is the legal basis for the three directives that are potentially relevant, Directive 89/618/Euratom on informing the public in the event of radiological emergency, Directive 96/29/Euratom on basic safety standards and Directive 92/3/Euratom on the supervision and control of shipments of radioactive waste.
Article 37 of Chapter III concerns plans for the disposal of radioactive waste.
The procedure under Article 37 of the Euratom Treaty relates to the submission of plans for the disposal of radioactive waste so as to enable the Commission to determine whether the implementation of such a plan is liable to result in the radioactive contamination of the water, soil or airspace of another Member State.
The Commission has taken the following action entirely in line with its legal competences.
A letter was sent by the Commission to the British authorities on 10 October 2000.
This requested information on: firstly, the existence of an intervention plan for the area of Gibraltar and for the Port of Gibraltar under the terms of Article 50 of Directive 96/29/Euratom; secondly, measures taken to inform the public in the event of a radiological emergency in connection with the repairs being carried out to the submarine in the Port of Gibraltar; thirdly, whether these measures take into account the possible impact on Spanish territory; fourthly, whether there are any plans for shipment of radioactive waste resulting from the repair of the submarine from Gibraltar to the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom authorities replied by letter on 14 November and 1 December.
These replies are currently under technical and legal assessment by the Commission's experts but, at this stage, the Commission can give the following information.
In reply to whether an intervention plan exists for the area of Gibraltar and the port of Gibraltar, the British authorities have drawn the Commission's attention to the existence of the Gibraltar public safety scheme, known as "Gibpubsafe", which is the intervention plan for Gibraltar.
The Commission is analysing this plan.
The British authorities state that Gibpubsafe provides background information and guidance on action to be taken in the event of a nuclear accident in Gibraltar.
The intervention plan is "drawn up by the interested parties, which include the British Ministry of Defence, the Gibraltar Government and the emergency services and is issued by the Chief Officer, Gibraltar City Fire Brigade, and the Commander of British Forces, on behalf of the Gibraltar Local Liaison Committee."
Gibpubsafe is apparently a public document and is freely available in the Gibraltar Public Library - but I will come back to that in a moment.
The British authorities state that there will be no shipment of radioactive waste that will transit through any other Member State; they also state that they are in regular contact with the Spanish authorities.
Honourable Members also asked if the port of Gibraltar meets the technical conditions needed for the repair of nuclear submarines.
The Euratom Treaty does not enable the Commission to offer any judgement on the United Kingdom's decision in that regard.
That is a matter for the UK authorities.
(Protests from Ms Izquierdo Rojo) I state what is the law.
With regard to Article 37, the honourable Member can work to change the law and change the Treaty.
I am telling her what I and my colleague Mr Wallström are legally advised is the position under the directives and Treaties.
If she is a better lawyer than them, then I look forward to hearing from her.
With regard to Article 37, then, due to the fact that a submarine is concerned for the first time, further assessment of the general applicability of Article 37 to such cases is being carried out by the Commission's services.
It is clear, however, that Article 37 relates to the disposal of radioactive waste in general.
The Community competence does not require general data to be submitted for the specific repair operations being undertaken.
I again stress that every word I am delivering in this Chamber is what I am told by our legal advisers.
I have made it absolutely clear that we have to base our response to the legitimate concerns raised with us on the basis of Community competence.
Pursuing Community competence, we have received a letter from the UK authorities in response to a letter of our own to which I referred earlier.
Under the usual complaints procedure, we are not entitled to make this reply public, although we can say broadly what it says.
What I am doing and saying about public access to documents is, as the House will know, entirely within the rules on public access, when there has been a complaint and when there may be, as a result of the complaint, infraction proceedings.
Under the usual complaints procedure, as I have said, we cannot make the reply public - although we can say, as I have, what, broadly speaking, is in the reply.
Now I want to go beyond the legal.
Speaking personally, I would encourage the British Government to make that reply public.
I want to underline that point.
As I mentioned, the reply makes reference to the nuclear intervention plan for Gibraltar.
This is a public document available in the Gibraltar Public Library.
I therefore asked my office last night to contact the Chief Secretary's office in Gibraltar to ask for a copy.
I have a copy here and I am happy to provide it to the House straight away.
I will respond again at the end of the debate, if I may.
I am sorry for taking rather longer than my allotted time, but it is an important subject.
I just want to say one final word about the complaints so that Parliament knows exactly what the situation is.
We have received four complaints so far.
The first two have been registered with the Secretary-General, and the first reply has been sent.
The last two complaints have only been received in the last few days and have been sent to the Secretary-General for registration.
When the information in those complaints has been assessed by Commission officials and when more information has been sought and obtained from the United Kingdom, we will reply substantively to those complaints.
I repeat that the information which we are able to make available on that process will be as is set out in the existing code on the public access to documents.
I want to repeat again that the more information that is provided by the British Government on this issue, the better.
Thank you, Commissioner, in particular for your opening remarks and the clarity of your response.
Mr President, Commissioner, first may I also associate myself strongly with the remarks made by my colleague, Mr Galeote, with regard to terrorism.
I too have had some experience of that in another place.
The first point I would like to make is that the repairs to the cooling system of this submarine are already under way.
It is already happening, so let us be realistic about what options face the UK and Gibraltar authorities in dealing with it.
Let us please be realistic about the notion of lifting this submarine, waiting for weather conditions to be favourable and somehow transporting it back to the UK.
It needs to be repaired in situ.
You have just heard the Commissioner say that defence issues in general, and in particular nuclear defence issues, are a matter for national sovereignty, not for this Parliament, but that the concerns of the public in Gibraltar and the adjoining areas are a natural and legitimate cause for debate in this Parliament.
One might well ask whether the government of the United Kingdom has exercised its responsibility in that regard to keep its defence equipment properly maintained, and indeed whether people in the UK are aware that, because of this incident, and the withdrawal of other nuclear submarines, our shores are currently being defended - rumour has it - by a U-boat from Germany.
I think it is very important to keep this matter in proportion and to avoid crying wolf with alarmist statements which are not supported by the facts.
This is a technical problem with a technical solution and the sooner the repair is completed, the better it will be for all.
Mr President, my Group wishes to associate itself with the other supportive remarks made following Mr Galeote Quecedo's shocking announcement of the latest murder.
We are fully in sympathy with the Spanish people and very sorry to hear about it.
This problem with the submarine has to be settled calmly and with full cooperation between all interested, relevant authorities.
Calm cooperation is the method which our Union uses.
Hence I am happy to support the call by the Commissioner for as much transparency as possible and the publication of the British Government's letter.
I felt, listening to the Commissioner's excellent report, growing confidence that the matter is being handled in the proper way.
The two major criteria which we have to study are the question of technical safety - a number of Members have spoken about that already - and gaining the full confidence of the public that everything is being handled in the way it should.
I am a Member who once used to represent Gibraltar as well as the constituency which I was elected to.
So I would like to say something about the overall problem.
We are all democrats here by definition.
In the Union we all try to look forward and not back to disagreements in the past.
We all support the right of self-determination.
I count my very dear Spanish colleagues among my best friends in Parliament.
Mr Galeote Quecedo and I shared a delegation earlier this year and got on very well.
So I should like to say to them that the way is open, in my opinion, for Spain to regain the sovereignty of Gibraltar if it really wishes to.
All they have to do is to gain the confidence of the Gibraltarian people who live on the Rock.
At some point there may be another referendum among the people on the Rock asking: "Under whose sovereignty do you wish to live?" The key is to win their votes.
The way to do it is to make the Gibraltarian people feel entirely comfortable with the idea of being part of Spain.
So do not create difficulties at the frontiers and slow things down; do not create difficulties with air transportation; let there be free movement of people by road, sea and air and let us solve this problem in a calm, cooperative manner and not - as one has seen in some of the resolutions tabled by the smaller groups - in an emotive manner.
I am full of confidence concerning what the Commissioner has said so far and look forward to his winding-up remarks.
Mr President, obviously the best way to avoid the threat of radioactive pollution is to do without nuclear installations entirely.
However, given that the submarine exists and is facing repairs after having undergone an extensive refit which finished just over a year ago, it is obvious that a number of important issues have been raised for the Union, not least within the context of the development of a common foreign and security policy.
Setting aside the operational purpose of the Tireless being in the Mediterranean when the leak in the pipe work of the reactor cooling system was discovered, let us look at some of the issues. What duty of care and information is owed to a neighbouring Member State when such an incident occurs?
Do we have the effective protocols in place? Should there not be a principle of access to information and the supply of information for populations potentially at risk, whether in one Member State or across borders?
It is no longer sufficient for an educated public to simply be reassured that all is well. They want to know on what the information is based and the nuclear and military industries have a history of paternalistic reassurance which means it is not surprising if they are not believed.
Information on this has eventually been forthcoming and independent assessment permitted, but that has been forced as a result of public intervention and the actions of the Governor of Gibraltar rather than of a feeling of responsibility due.
How are our governments to cope with their wider responsibilities in this new European architecture and the development of a common foreign and security policy? Do we actually have the necessary instruments, if we are being told that Euratom is not enough?
Are military matters going to take precedence over our responsibility to our common environment and the threats to the health of our citizens?
I would be very interested in the Commission's perspective on that particular point.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not particularly qualified - in fact none of us is - to deal with this question which is, as the Commissioner has said, a technical problem.
After all, we are lacking information because the British Government appears to be covering up the major part of the matter.
Maybe the incident is serious, maybe it is not.
The British Government is acting just as the Russian Government did recently when one of its submarines was damaged.
Perhaps both governments were right to do so.
But I must still point out that, however worrying, this affair also has its amusing side and, if nothing else, illustrates the current state of Europe, the Europe of Nice.
Obviously, it is a cause of concern to the bordering countries of Spain and Morocco, and also to the people of Gibraltar, who are rightly worried about the implications of this affair, especially as information seems to leaking out more slowly than water from a frozen pipe.
It is significant first and foremost, and this is the point I should like to stress, because it illustrates the current state of our so-called united Europe and, from this point of view, sovereignists may even find it amusing.
We keep on being told that there is a European people.
Well, here is an example of one Member State treating public opinion in another Member State just as it would in any other country in the world, just as if, at the end of the day, there were no affectio societatis fifty years after the start of the European project, just as if European solidarity had made no progress whatsoever.
And we also hear voices being raised, all highly official and all very pro-European voices, taking advantage of the situation to call for nothing less than disarmament of nuclear submarines, just as if Europe should give nuclear monopoly to other powers.
And all this against the rather mediaeval backdrop of territorial dispute between two Member States, a dispute which is far from being settled.
What we are in fact seeing here, in both the minor and major incidents, is the extent to which the Europe of Nice, designed to be a driving force, has in fact broken down, irretrievably broken down, for the reasons clearly described by Mr Bourlanges the day after the Nice Summit.
These reasons stem quite simply from the fact that it is running on empty and it has no men of vision capable of seeing the world and history as one.
In fact, it was inevitable in such a serious period of ebb or breakdown in Europe, that obstacles of the scale of the Rock of Gibraltar and all sorts of problems such as terrorism would rear their heads.
Because we have destroyed any sense of national identity and have failed to replace it with the strong sense of identity which European citizenship should have represented, regional idiosyncrasies are bound to take root.
Mr Bourlanges' finding is correct.
For him it is cause for complaint, to us it is cause for satisfaction: that is the only difference between us.
Mr President, I too would like to extend my deepest sympathy to our Spanish colleagues in the face of the latest terrorist murder by ETA.
I agree that more resolute action is required against terrorism.
It is worth bearing in mind that those responsible for the 28 murders in Omagh have still not been brought to justice.
Turning to the problem of HMS Tireless, it seems to me that this is indicative of a more widespread difficulty in the equipment of the British armed forces as a direct result of policies pursued by the Labour government.
On the one hand we have a government with no connections to the armed forces and with a card-carrying member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament as Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, using the armed forces as a political tool to further its ambitions in Europe and apparently realising rather too late that the European Union defence scheme would indeed damage the NATO alliance and transatlantic relations.
On the other, the Labour government is not prepared to ensure that the armed forces are provided with the resources to carry out the increasing burden of commitments being placed upon them.
It is scandalous that, at this moment, 11 out of the 12 hunter-killer submarines in service in the Royal Navy are non-operational, with four in refit and 7 showing signs of the defect which afflicts HMS Tireless.
The recall of the submarine fleet has robbed the Royal Navy of a quarter of its fighting vessels and left the Trident and carrier forces with much reduced protection.
It is a fact that at one stage the only submarine operating in British waters was a German U-boat.
Last year, much of the Royal Navy was forced to stay in port because it had overspent its clearly inadequate fuel budget.
Meanwhile, at a time when flexibility and rapid response are military watchwords, the Navy's frontline strength is being slashed.
The submarine fleet is being cut by almost 20%, the frigate and destroyer fleet, already too small, is being cut from 35 to 32%.
I point all this out because the maintenance and repair problem of Tireless is a reflection of a wider malaise affecting the Royal Navy through cutbacks which have gone too far.
And, as we have already heard, it has provided those that do not really have the wider, democratically expressed interest of the people of Gibraltar at heart with an opportunity to make mischief.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your reply which contains new and very important information for us.
The situation we are talking about is extremely serious.
A nuclear vessel, suffering a fault classified as serious, is going to be repaired in a small port which is not equipped for the purpose, when more than 300 thousand people live in the vicinity.
And the decisions on repairs and safety are to be taken by a government which is foreign to those inhabitants.
There is no way that this situation can be treated as a bilateral affair between two Member States which belong to a political union.
The Commission, in its clear response two months ago and in its reply today, has been responsible enough to recognise this, although it has not been recognised in the Group of the European People' s Party' s motion for a resolution, a fact which, together with other trivialisations of the affair, has prevented us from supporting it.
Commissioner, with this same sense of responsibility, the Commission must exercise its powers and not hide them behind an approach of diplomatic prudence and submissiveness towards the Council.
I am not being alarmist, I am not against nuclear energy, I would never defend, as I believe nobody in Spain would, the idea of a submarine being moved at any cost if that meant an increased risk, but it is not in the spirit of European democracies, nor of the European Union Treaty, for decisions to be taken which jeopardise human safety and cause a population to be put at risk for the sake of greater technical, budgetary and diplomatic comfort.
Until now, despite the information provided by Mr Patten, the citizens have not been aware of the risks in scientific terms, the date of repair or what the repairs are going to consist of. They are not aware of any plans in the case of a radiological emergency and they do not know whether moving the submarine presents more risks than repairing it there.
Can the Commission allow a situation such as this? I am not turning this into a matter of national honour, nor is this the moment to condemn the territorial anachronism represented by Gibraltar.
This specific issue is more serious than all that, since it affects hundreds of thousands of human beings on Community territory, not only Spaniards, but people of all nationalities and British people in particular.
We believe that these citizens have found the protection which is their right in their most modest territorial representation, that is to say, their local authorities.
In fact, the municipal and social representatives of those citizens are with us today.
Whether or not they have found that protection in their national government is a matter for the Spanish Parliament.
A debate is taking place there, but the citizens, on the basis of their knowledge or intuition, are turning their attention to the European institutions.
It is the responsibility of those institutions that the citizens, in relation to the European Union, should stop thinking simply in terms of when their agricultural subsidies will arrive or when their Community funding will arrive and start thinking about what degree of safety the Community institutions can offer them.
I therefore ask you to adopt the proposals contained in the joint motion for a resolution which will be voted on first, or at least those proposed by the Socialist Group.
In any event, I trust that the Commission will not only fulfil its obligations but that it will persuade the two Member States involved to fulfil theirs.
Mr President, my colleagues and I extend our deepest condolences to the family of the victim of the senseless ETA terrorism in Spain.
As one of the six MEPs nominated to represent Gibraltar until direct elections are held in four years time, it has been partly my responsibility to liaise with the Gibraltar authorities and the London Ministry of Defence to establish the truth of the situation regarding the repairs to the nuclear submarine HMS Tireless.
The facts are that a single crack in the cooling system was discovered with a leak of water, described in the Spanish press rather inappropriately as radioactive.
Although this is technically correct, the level of radiation is so low that it is actually fit to drink.
The reactor has been fully shut down as preparations are made to cut out a circular section of the main pipe and to return this to the UK for thorough examination before coming to a final decision as to how best to weld or remove it in the defective pintle area of the ship.
There is absolutely no immediate danger or emergency of any kind, or any threat posed to the surrounding population of Spain.
The interests of the people of Gibraltar and southern Spain are identical in this regard.
Chief Minister Peter Caruana has wisely asked a panel of experts to report directly to him.
The panel has recommended allowing the next stage to proceed, while stipulating that the Ministry of Defence must fully understand the cause of the defect before commencing the essential repairs.
Repairing a submarine in situ remains by far the safest option available: towing it would not only be dangerous but would, in any event, require considerable repairs to be done beforehand.
The Spanish Government has until now shown considerable maturity in its response to this situation.
I would point out with regard to references in the motions for resolutions to the role of the Commission that it is not the view of the UK Government that the Euratom Treaties are applicable in military situations of this kind.
Nevertheless, the British authorities have endeavoured to be as open as possible with their Spanish counterparts.
Lack of spending on new military hardware because of defence cuts by the British Labour government will no doubt in future result in more frequent episodes of defective military equipment being taken out of service for essential repairs.
That said, I hope that this debate will not degenerate into an attempt to attack either Mr Aznar or the Royal Navy, whose resolve this century against threats of tyranny from the right and the left is an important reason why all of us in this Chamber are able to enjoy the freedoms that we share.
Mr President, Commissioner, the people of Andalusia, who are seeing Aznar' s weakness in resolving this problem, trust in, and wish to trust in, the European Union to guarantee their safety.
Commissioner, please make your replies specific and guarantee safety in the face of the danger to the Andalusians and the whole population, both the safety of the inhabitants of the colony and that of the citizens of Spain.
It is believed in Andalusia that it was a very grave error to take this nuclear submarine there.
It is considered even more grave that it is being kept there.
Through me, the people are telling you that it should be taken away, please.
It should be taken to hell.
Mr President, I will begin by saying that I am Andalusian and that I live in Andalusia, though I am not so arrogant as to claim that I represent the entire Andalusian people, as Mr Bautista has done - although that arrogance is based on very few votes.
The truth is that I would have liked him to have felt so vehemently Andalusian when it came to signing this House' s condemnation of terrorism - and this must be said this afternoon more unequivocally and with less reticence - especially given that more than 70% of the members of the security forces murdered by ETA have been Andalusians.
Having said this, we must remember that there has been a lot of contradictory information since May when the nuclear submarine Tireless, belonging to the British navy, chose the port of Gibraltar - which flies the British flag - to have repairs carried out on the cooling system of its nuclear reactor, which, according to the British authorities initially, presented no special difficulty or any danger to the inhabitants of the area.
Further explanations have followed and concern about what was happening to the Tireless has been increasing.
The Spanish Government, from the outset, has held a position based on two points: the need for transparent information, based on technical and scientific criteria, in order to assess the scope of the repairs and their potential risk; and also, the view that any decision, either on its repair in Gibraltar or on its removal to a naval base in the British Isles, be taken in accordance with rigorous technical principles.
This has been and, in our view, remains, the most coherent position and the one which safeguards the interests and safety of all the parties involved.
Of course, what has been neither coherent nor appropriate has been the deliberate creation of social alarm in the area, with the clear purpose of turning this problem into an attack on the Spanish Government.
In this event, we must tell our Spanish Socialist Members - with the greatest of respect - that they have allowed party interests to be placed above State interests.
This is demonstrated by the curious agreement which they reached with British Labour Members to take responsibility away from the people who own the submarine, the people who are responsible for its mooring and remaining in Gibraltar and who are responsible for its repair, and who are also in charge of the port in which it is anchored.
The important thing at the moment is to ensure that we are provided with good, transparent information, with a sufficient scientific basis, on the scope and consequences of the repairs, and that there be a serious study of the possibilities and risks involved in a possible removal of the submarine, if that becomes necessary.
What we do not need are demagogic attitudes, which can only be explained by pure party-political opportunism and which create, amongst other things, alarm and concern within a population which has every right to safety and information, but which need not endure, as well as all this, being manipulated.
I will be brief but I would like to clarify once again some of the extremely important points that were raised in the debate.
I was well aware, from reading the newspapers and listening to the radio and television, of the passions engendered by this important issue.
Those feelings have understandably been reflected during this debate, but honourable Members know that in responding on behalf of my colleague, Commissioner Wallström, I have to restrict myself to setting out as clearly as I can what is and what is not Community competence: what we can do and what we cannot do.
I just want to rehearse the arguments again so that we are all absolutely clear.
Commission competence under the terms of Chapter III, Health and Safety, of the Euratom Treaty covers the following issues which are relevant to this case.
First, informing the general public about health protection measures to be applied and the steps to be taken in the event of a radiological emergency.
Second, the availability of an intervention plan to deal with various types of radiological emergency.
Third, the supervision and control of shipments of radioactive waste.
All these issues are being assessed further in detail by Commission officials.
This competence enables the Commission to ensure that Member States first inform the public of potential risks and the steps that should be taken should a radiological emergency occur; and second, adequately control and supervise shipments of radioactive waste.
Community competence, however much some people may wish it otherwise, does not extend to the classification of ports to carry out repair work on submarines, questions of technical safety of nuclear reactors and requirements on a submarine to be removed for repair elsewhere.
The honourable Member, Mrs Lambert, raised the question of cooperation between Member States and it is an important question.
I want to make it clear that under Article 51, subsection 5 of the Euratom Basic Standards 96/29, cooperation is obligatory, and I quote: "each Member State shall, in the event of a radiological emergency occurring at an installation on its territory or being likely to have radiological consequences on its territory, establish relations to obtain cooperation with any other Member State or non-Member State which may be involved."
An additional point which has been raised, it came up both before I spoke previously and since - an additional point in this context is the applicability of Article 37 of the Euratom Treaty concerning the submission of general data relating to plans for the disposal of radioactive waste.
The relevance of the Community competence in this case is frankly not clear.
The general question of submissions of plans for nuclear-powered submarines is being studied by Commission officials.
Community competence does not require general data to be submitted for the specific repair operation being undertaken.
Let me just say one other thing.
I assume that if any Member State had any doubts at all about the way the Commission has handled its competence in this matter, it would have let us know.
Speaking, finally, not as a Commissioner but as a politician who was once also an environment minister, it seems to me that the important thing in cases like this is to make as much information public as possible.
I would urge the British authorities to do exactly that.
For its part, the Commission undertakes to keep honourable Members who have raised these important questions with us fully informed of developments in the coming weeks.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
50th anniversary of the UNHCR
The first item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0901/2000 by Sylla and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
B5-0908/2000 by Maij-Weggen and Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0913/2000 by Mendiluce Pereiro and others, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0921/2000 by Muscardini and Collins, on behalf of the UEN Group;
B5-0922/2000 by Wuori and Lambert, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group;
B5-0928/2000 by Watson, on behalf of the ELDR Group,
on the 50th anniversary of the UNHCR.
Mr President, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the UNHCR is a way of paying our respects to the men and women who offer non-partisan help to freedom fighters throughout the world under what are often very difficult circumstances.
If we want to help them even more, we should call on the Community institutions to increase the financial, human and material resources of the UNHCR.
However, I deplore the way in which several countries, including certain Member States, have attacked the 1951 Geneva Convention.
Must we remind them that 50 Roma families from Hungary, having had their village ransacked, have been waiting here in Strasbourg for a decision on their application for asylum since July?
We must also bear in mind the fact that southern countries and poor countries are getting poorer, thereby paving the way for repressive regimes followed by waves of refugees, and the fact that governments no longer have a monopoly on persecution.
That is why we should also grant asylum, for example, to women who are the victims of sexual mutilation or sexual violence and all the men and women who are the victims of tribal or ethnic violence, as in Algeria or Afghanistan.
Allow me to finish by saying more generally, Mr President, that the European Union should promote asylum and immigration policies which respect human rights.
Mr President, the UNHCR celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this month.
This cannot, of course, be a reason to submit a resolution on urgent topics.
The real reason is not so much the anniversary as it is the UN refugee organisation' s current plight.
In 1980, the UNHCR looked after five million refugees.
In 1990, this number rose to fifteen million and in 2000, the UNHCR cares for twenty-two million refugees worldwide. Of this number, there are 170 000 in Yugoslavia, 1.5 million in Eritrea/Ethiopia, 170 000 in Chechnya, 2 million in Sudan, 1.8 million in Congo, 200 000 near Burma, 130 000 in Timor, 300 000 in the Moluccas, 400 000 in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and the list goes on.
What makes it so difficult for the UNHCR is that whilst the number of refugees is rising, the resources required by the UN refugee organisation to coordinate the aid are falling.
At the same time, fewer and fewer countries are abiding by the agreements of the Geneva Convention.
The reception of refugees is not always secure, not by a long chalk.
Violence, hunger, poor housing and other violations of human rights often play their part in the process.
When I recently paid a visit to the Burmese camps on the border with Thailand, and asked what claimed most victims in those camps, the answer was: violence and suicide.
The suicide rate is particularly high among young people who can no longer endure their bleak situations.
The UNHCR is also asking for help from the Union, which has reduced its financial aid by more than 400% over the past few years.
I would ask the Commission to re-instate this aid to the UNHCR and also to designate the UNHCR as the coordinating body in all its contracts with NGOs.
The UN refugee organisation has an enormous task ahead.
Let us give this organisation more support, enabling it to better fulfil its role over the next fifty years.
Let us hope that after this Christmas period, those millions of refugees and aid workers can look forward to better times.
Mr President, over the 50-year span that has passed since the UNHCR was founded we have seen that, on both sides of the Cold War, a system for aid for refugees is needed more desperately than ever.
The century that has now begun will unfortunately become known as the century of exile.
The reasons are, to some extent, different to those of half a century ago, but the need for aid is crucial and, furthermore, more globally spread than it was then.
Since the European Council in Tampere, the EU has made headway in the development of measures connected with asylum and immigration policy and, obviously, the EU must achieve a common strategy to eliminate the reasons why people become refugees and guarantee their humane treatment, irrespective of the country that is taking them in.
That is not enough, however: we must give our determined support to the UNHCR, both in political and economic terms, to ensure there is a balance between the issues of predictability, flexibility and geographical location.
We are paying our respects today to the UNHCR and to all humanitarian workers.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other humanitarian organisations work together, helping refugees to start a new life in a new country or, where possible, to return home.
The UNHCR is currently helping 5 million displaced persons and some 11.5 million refugees.
The UNHCR has always fought for the protection and welfare of refugees and displaced persons.
It has taken part in specific operations when asked to do so by the Secretary-General or another authority of the United Nations, in agreement with the countries concerned.
In the former Yugoslavia and Timor, the UNHCR has decided to protect all displaced persons and provide humanitarian aid for them, irrespective of whether or not they are refugees.
It should therefore have access to civil victims and its teams on the ground should be able to work in complete safety and with all the resources needed to carry out their mission.
On the fiftieth anniversary on Thursday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees stated that the long life of the UNHCR gave little cause for celebration and that it was more important to pay homage to the millions of refugees, to their courage and to their contribution to the entire world, stressing that refugees were entitled to everyone's respect.
We should view the speech made by Mrs Sadako Ogata, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, as a challenge; basically what she said was that the long life of the UNHCR reflected the international community's inability to prevent prejudice, persecution, poverty and all the other reasons which result in conflict and movements of populations.
Mr President, I too wish to express my group's appreciation of the valuable work done by the UNHCR, both on the ground and in policy terms.
There is a desperate need for a body that defends the individual right to asylum and actually looks for best practice in terms of treatment for refugees, not the lowest common denominator and policies of deterrence, which some Member States and political parties seem determined to follow.
There are arguments for including the UNHCR in the formal policy process of the Union to make the best possible use of their advice and experience.
As others have said, we also need to ensure adequate funding for this organisation.
Our own contributions have fallen in recent times as have those of our Member States and yet, as others have said, the need grows.
Anyone who was at the recent exhibition in the European Parliament and who studied the pictures and the script dealing with the work of the UNHCR in the world at the moment I think would agree that it is one of the saddest exhibitions that we have ever had the misfortune to see in our Parliament.
Mr President, the Commission of course wants to associate itself with the support given by Parliament to the UNHCR for its 50th anniversary.
I should like personally to associate myself with that support as well.
I have worked closely with the UNHCR as a development minister; I worked closely with the UNHCR when I was in Hong Kong and I work closely with the UNHCR in my present activities.
As one or two speakers have said, it would be a happier world if the vitally important work that the UNHCR does was unnecessary.
The UNHCR is a key partner for the establishment of an asylum policy in Europe.
That is why a declaration was annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty which foresees consultations with the UNHCR on asylum policy issues.
The Commission and the UNHCR therefore demonstrated, on 6 July, the strengthening of their partnership on asylum and refugees through an exchange of letters between Commissioner Vitorino and Mrs Ogata.
As the House knows, the Commission is engaged in the field of asylum in an important legislative effort to implement Treaty and Tampere European Council commitments on the basis of the calendar included in the scoreboard.
Against this background, the Commission has regular consultations with UNHCR.
It was the case, for example, when we prepared our proposals on temporary protection in case of mass influx of displaced persons, on asylum procedures and, currently, on reception conditions for asylum seekers.
We will continue to follow that model for our proposals on the successor instrument to the Dublin Convention, conditions to qualify as a refugee on the basis of the Geneva Convention, and on subsidiary forms of protection.
The inclusion of high-level protection standards in our proposals is of prime importance to the Commission.
On 22 November the Commission adopted a communication on a common asylum procedure and a uniform status for those granted asylum valid throughout the Union, which is the final aim fixed in Tampere for the common European asylum system.
Our proposals fit into the Tampere political guidance, in particular the need for a full and inclusive implementation of the 1951 Geneva Convention for maintaining the principle of non-refoulement and a balanced approach between the absolute respect for the right to seek asylum and the legitimate aim to control migration.
They also fit into the comprehensive approach to strengthen partnership with countries of origin.
On the same day the Commission adopted a communication on a Community immigration policy which complements our thinking on migration issues.
The Commission entirely shares the importance attached by the European Parliament to addressing the particular circumstances affecting women seeking international protection in the context of preparing a common European asylum system.
These issues are reflected in the different instruments that we have been tabling.
The UNHCR is the Commission's main single partner in the humanitarian field.
The Commission has traditionally worked closely with the UNHCR and it is further enhancing our collaboration.
The first of what is meant to be a series of regular, strategic programming meetings with the UNHCR took place in Brussels on 6 December.
The European Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) presented its strategy for next year, including funding criteria and priorities, and exchanged views with UNHCR on humanitarian needs and horizontal issues of common concern.
These meetings should help the Commission provide the more predictable and transparent funding that UNHCR requests and has long called for, while at the same time assisting UNHCR in rendering a better service to those in need.
I want to refer to a broader issue that is very relevant to what the honourable Member said earlier.
Because of our existing financial regulation, it is extremely difficult for us to provide support to UN organisations for example, for programming - we have to focus on projects - and that means that there is sometimes an extremely uncertain profile in our funding of organisations like the UNHCR.
That is why I am extremely keen to see appropriate changes made in our new financial regulation to ensure that we can support programming so that UN bodies and other similar organisations can be sure some time in advance of a flow of funds to support work we are doing in common and to which we both attach priority.
The Commission is firmly committed to strengthening the UNHCR's unique protection mandate and to working with the UNHCR in enhancing the security of relief workers.
The Commission is also working closely with the UNHCR in trying to ensure a smooth transition between relief and development.
In this regard, the Commission participates actively in the UNHCR-sponsored Brookings Process, which will be an important element of the communication on linking relief, rehabilitation and development which is currently being finalised.
Finally, I should like to pay a tribute to all the work that has been done by Mrs Ogata for the UNHCR and to wish Mr Ruud Lubbers well in his new post.
The UN system should be very pleased to have attracted as outstanding a candidate as Mr Lubbers and I am sure he will do very distinguished service for the UNHCR and for the whole UN system.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Political prisoners in Serbia and instability on the borders of Kosovo
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0899/2000 by Depuis and others, on behalf of the TDI Group;
B5-0902/2000 by Morgantini and Frahm, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
B5-0909/2000 by Pack and others, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0914/2000 by Swoboda, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0920/2000 by Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group;
B5-0923/2000 by Staes and Frassoni, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group;
B5-0929/2000 by Haarder and Malmström, on behalf of the ELDR Group,
on political prisoners in Serbia and instability on the borders of Kosovo.
Mr President, I would firstly like to express my support for this joint motion for a resolution for the European Union to favour the recuperation and promotion of democracy in the Balkans, specifically in Yugoslavia.
It seems to us important that we are promoting a political amnesty in Yugoslavia for that recuperation I mentioned, but it also seems to us very important that we roundly condemn the recurrence of incursions and terrorist activities on the borders between Serbia, Albania and Kosovo, because that is a worrying reminder of what happened during the Kosovo conflict, where Western powers held responsibilities.
It is therefore important that this condemnation be accompanied by a promotion of democratic and economic consolidation in Yugoslavia, with regard to which the European Union has much to do and much to say.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on 25 December - Christmas Day - of last year, three prominent Albanian Kosovars started a three-week hunger strike in Brussels to bring to the attention of the international community the fate of these prisoners and especially of the many thousands of missing persons.
In mid-January of this year, a few thousand Kosovars held a demonstration in front of the Brussels Council building and a delegation was received by the services of Mr Solana and the Portuguese Presidency.
We were told that Mr Solana was understanding of these demands but it was also pointed out that - and I quote - the fact of the matter is that it is difficult to do business with a regime such as that of Milosevic.
Ladies and gentlemen, Milosevic has now been replaced by Kostunica and I was in Kosovo when Kostunica received a very warm welcome at the Biarritz Summit, and was given several millions of EURO aid unconditionally.
However, what has Kostunica done about the problem of prisoners in the meantime? It is true that by way of a symbolic gesture, one of the prisoners, Mrs Flora Brovina has been freed, but that cannot be the end of it, ladies and gentlemen.
Our compromise resolution is clearly stipulated in Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3.
We demand a swift release of the political prisoners and an impartial inquiry into the whereabouts of the missing persons.
Mr Solana, Mr Patten, I ask you both to put the Kostunica regime sufficiently under pressure to ensure these demands are met.
I would like to say the following to Mr Kostunica: you would gain in credibility if you were to take advantage of the forthcoming Christmas celebrations to carry out such an act of goodwill, which can only benefit stability in the region.
Mr President, it is precisely because Serbia has chosen the democratic path that there is reason for the European Parliament to remind everyone of two fundamental requirements that are made of any democratic state governed by law, namely that political freedom must prevail - one must not be able to be imprisoned for one' s political views or for the ethnic group to which one belongs - and that persons suspected of crimes - whether political leaders or common villains - must be put on trial so that their guilt and responsibility can be examined.
Consequently, all political prisoners in Serbia must be freed.
The injustices committed by Milosevic must now come to an end.
It is worth repeating that we make the same requirements of the political leaders in Kosovo.
The persecution of minorities can never be justified.
The new political leadership in Serbia must act in such a way, and I would like to point this out, Mr President, so that the former president and dictator Milosevic, together with his partners in crime, can be brought before the international war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
It is there that Milosevic belongs and not at party conferences in Belgrade.
Mr President, any objective observer of the situation in Yugoslavia is compelled to conclude that the criminals continue to move about scot-free while their victims are locked up in prison.
For all our delight at the changes in Belgrade, we still have to press for the earliest possible release of these victims.
This has nothing to do with an amnesty, because it stands to reason that an amnesty can only be granted to prisoners who have been justly convicted; what we are demanding is quite simply the release of unjustly convicted people.
That may be linked with an amnesty, or their release may precede the amnesty.
It is my view that the political prisoners, not least the many hundreds of Albanians, must be released without delay.
I also appeal to President Kostunica to find out what happened to people such as Mr Ukshin Hoti, with whose fate we have concerned ourselves on several occasions here without ever obtaining any information on his whereabouts.
So there is a need to investigate the fate of those who were abducted, whether they were murdered or whether they are still being held somewhere.
All those who are being illegally detained or who are in prison for political reasons must be released without delay.
That is the first step towards the establishment of the rule of law.
I do have to say that this is not much to ask in return for the substantial aid which the European Union has already pledged.
We expect action as soon as the elections are over.
Mr President, the situation in Yugoslavia has still not been rendered safe and stabilised.
Following the hugely important step of electing Kostunica, many other important steps need to be taken in future.
That also includes an unequivocal return to the rule of law, democratic values and a sound handling of the legacy of the Milosevic regime.
In order to establish truly lasting peace between the different groups, it is also necessary to shed light on the fate of the prisoners who have been imprisoned by Milosevic simply on the grounds of ethnicity or political views.
We either expect a clear amnesty law in the short term with specific details or, and preferably in combination with, a concrete date for the release of the political prisoners.
We believe that within Kosovo too, the mentality of ethnic groups which are still fighting each other should make way for mutual respect.
The way in which Kosovar-Albanians are currently harassing Serbs on Serb territory is not helping to defuse the situation on either side.
What we need now are concrete steps to reach lasting peace.
Mr President, I would like to comment on two points of the joint draft resolution which, incidentally, receives my unqualified support.
The request to President Kostunica to release all political prisoners from the Milosevic era, requires, as before, unrelenting diplomatic effort on the part of the European Council and Commission in Belgrade, especially since most Serb political prisoners, if not those of Albanian origin from Kosovo, have, as far as I know, now been released.
An extremely harrowing detail in this respect is that many of these were taken hostage at the time the Yugoslav people' s army withdrew from Kosovo last year.
I also agree with the request for help from KFOR to thwart further violence in the Presevo valley.
This, evidently, is a case of imported Albanian aggression, as this part of Serbia had not experienced any acute ethnic tension in former days.
Finally, I noticed that the draft resolution does not cover the complex issue of the Kosovar Roma gypsies, unlike the draft resolution which was brought forward by the Liberal Group.
The unscrupulous Milosevic regime has heavily compromised this entire population group in the eyes of the Albanian Kosovars.
However, this fact does not in any way justify the dreadful reprisals on the Albanian side, such as the violent killing of four Ashani-Roma in mid-November when they returned to their burnt down homes, nor the burning alive of a fifteen-year-old Roma boy in Orahovac.
Such serious crimes cast a cloud over Kosovo' s political future.
Mr President, I am pleased, as I am sure is the whole of Parliament, that there has been considerable progress in the political situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in recent months.
I am sure we are all pleased about the progress throughout the region in the course of this year, beginning with the electoral change in Croatia at the beginning of the year, continuing with the change in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and culminating in the extremely successful conference which was quite properly held in Zagreb a few weeks ago.
So much has changed since the autumn: the new authorities in Belgrade have moved fast, for example to restore international contacts; they have moved fast to enable the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to take its place at the United Nations and, as well, to take its place in the OSCE.
Without blowing our own trumpet, we can also say that the European Union has responded very rapidly to the new situation.
Our EUR 200m emergency package has been under way for the last month, delivering huge quantities of fuel and other urgent supplies like medicines and food, to help Serbia to get through the winter.
The issue of political prisoners remains, however, as several members have pointed out, an extremely important one.
The European Union has consistently raised the plight of Kosovar Albanians in prison in Serbia.
I have done that myself.
We have also raised the position of individuals like Flora Brovina and the very brave Serbian journalist Miroslav Filipovic.
I am pleased that there has been some progress.
Brovina and Filipovic have both been freed.
Indeed, I met Miroslav Filipovic when I was in Belgrade in October - we spent part of an evening together.
I know that Members of this Parliament welcomed Flora Brovina to Brussels last month.
Despite this, many Kosovar Albanians remain in prison in Serbia and there remain many missing Kosovar Albanians and Serbs whom the ICRC is still attempting to trace.
We have tried to display understanding for the new government as it seeks to consolidate democracy in Yugoslavia.
But the issue of detainees is plainly extremely important.
There has been some movement on the general issue.
The Federal Government is working on a general amnesty, not just for Kosovar Albanian prisoners, but also for other political detainees.
Contacts have been established.
A special envoy of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ambassador Amneus, has been appointed and the ambassador has opened offices in Pristina and Gracanica.
I raised the issue of Kosovar Albanian prisoners with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia authorities during my visit to Belgrade on 23 October and will continue to raise these issues with the Yugoslav Federal Republic authorities.
I can assure honourable Members that it is an issue which I will take up - not least as a result of this debate - on the next visit I make to Belgrade after the elections on 23 December.
I share honourable Members' concern about the situation in the Presevo valley.
We strongly condemn recent violence.
The attacks are attacks on democracy: the new democracy in Serbia and the prospects of democracy in Kosovo.
I welcome steps now taken by KFOR to tackle the problem and continue to urge restraint on all sides.
The Community is, of course, playing its role, for example, by ensuring that the Presevo valley benefits from our assistance programmes for Serbia.
We are running three schools for democracy projects in the area and we are looking to help with fuel supplies in the area as well.
But, I repeat, we know how important this issue is; it is an issue that we have raised consistently in the past and we will continue to raise it with the new authorities in Belgrade with, I hope, happier consequences.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, the third generation agreements between the European Union and the countries of Latin America are characterised by the existence of a democratic clause that is the basis for, and supports, all relations.
This clause was agreed in the Palacio de la Moneda in March 1990, and I am well aware of this because I had the privilege of being there when President Alwyn took over, following the vote which put an end to General Pinochet' s regime.
There is no need to say that the logical consequence of this clause is the affirmation of the principle of separation of powers as an essential element of the democratic system and of the Rule of Law, and that this principle means and implies the independence of the judicial powers in their actions.
However, Mr President, I think that today the best support that the European Union can give to the process of consolidation of democracy in Chile and to the civic maturity demonstrated by the citizens of the country in its transition process, is to have an ambitious agreement for political association, economic coordination and cooperation between the European Union and Chile.
In order to do this, Mr President, and I am particularly addressing the Commission, in my opinion we need to modify the current negotiation directives and overcome a blatant discrimination compared with other geographical areas, which links the conclusion of this agreement with the completion of the negotiations of the new round of the World Trade Organisation.
I think, Mr President, that it is now time that we moved from words to actions and that we stopped making purely rhetorical statements.
The best way to express our solidarity and our support for the process of democratic consolidation in Chile is clearly, Mr Patten, and you were there recently chairing the negotiations, through the European Union offering our Chilean friends an ambitious cooperation agreement.
Mr President, any dictatorship leaves behind it a trail of victims, murdered people, tortured people, people who have spent years in prison and many people who have had to go into exile.
There are many Chileans, for example, who now live in Europe as a result of the dictatorship of General Pinochet, who came into power by overthrowing a democratic government, who established himself over the dead body of President Allende and who, after a long dictatorship, lost power because the Chilean people were not prepared to continue supporting him.
And, on one occasion, General Pinochet decided to come to Europe and, as soon as he set foot here, the European judicial authorities set out to ensure that General Pinochet took responsibility for his actions.
The Chilean Government guaranteed that in Chile General Pinochet would have a fair trial and General Pinochet has indeed now lost his immunity and the Chilean judicial authorities are initiating proceedings against him.
Here we cannot replace the judicial authority once it has legal power over the case of General Pinochet, and we welcome the fact that the Chilean Government has also decided to allow the judicial authorities to operate.
The only thing we can do here is to support the Chilean Government at this time and, taking advantage of the presence of Commissioner Patten, to ask him, as the previous speaker, Mr Salafranca, did, for a new agreement to be sought with Chile which will help continue to strengthen democracy in that country.
I think that it is a good opportunity to strengthen our links with the Chilean Government, to enable the Chilean Government to authorise the judicial authority to bring proceedings against General Pinochet and, at the same time, to take advantage of this opportunity to give our support to the Chilean Government.
I recall that in the European Parliament mission to Argentina, former President Alfonsín said to us that sometimes democracies only remember other democracies post mortem, that is, when there is no longer democracy.
Now that we have democracy in Chile, let us help that democratic government and democratic nation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say a few words on the joint resolution, which will, of course, be passed.
First, I want to express our regret at the euphemistic wording adopted.
To talk of human rights violations, refusing to set words such as assassination, torture and disappearance down in black and white, is a serious matter.
You all know full well that, for the victims, an official institution' s refusal to acknowledge the atrocity is, in a way, another sort of torture because it prevents them from mourning, from recovering from this period in their lives, as every post-traumatic treatment centre for the former victims of Latin American dictatorships will tell you.
Secondly, it would be unacceptable if we failed to call on the Chilean army to stop interfering in the judicial process in Chile.
Some groups have argued that we should not be talking to the Chilean army.
That is not correct.
Unfortunately, we still need to talk to the Chilean army because the current Chilean constitution gives it the right to take part in the work of the Senate in Chile.
Mr President, before I begin, allow me to mention the attack that took place today in Spain, specifically in Catalonia, ten kilometres from my own home.
Allow me to express my rejection of this attack and also to express my respect for the victim' s party colleagues and his family, and the conviction that dialogue and democrats working together is the only hope.
Going on to the subject of Chile, I would like to express the confidence, the approval and the satisfaction, on the part of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, that the resolution contains some important points, such as respect for the power of Chilean justice, for the Government, for allocating responsibility and, above all, being able to provide support from the European Union for the democratic process with real and positive agreements.
I also express the support of our Group for the amendment from the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left on the non-interference of military powers in the process.
And allow me to point out that it is important that we approve this joint resolution, now that Pinochet is in Chile, something that we were not able to do when Pinochet was in the United Kingdom.
At the time the Liberals and Greens tried, but the members of the People' s Party and the Socialists were not in favour, in order not to affect the judicial process.
We are happy that the situation has now changed.
Mozambique
Mr President, although this Parliament is bringing southern Africa back to our agenda and particularly Mozambique, one of the poorest countries in the world, which, as we know, was devastated exactly a year ago by a huge natural disaster.
As you know, Mozambique is situated in one of the hottest and most sensitive spots on the African continent, where any spark may trigger off another war with unimaginable consequences.
The international community must exercise its right of democratic vigilance, not in order to interfere in the internal affairs of an independent country but as a precautionary and preventative political procedure.
Therefore, this joint resolution, which is objective, clear, shows genuine concern and is not demagogic, has the earnest support of my political group; sharing an economic, social and political diagnosis in which its concerns are well-founded, it does not allow any other interpretation of its text that may divide the Mozambican people.
This Parliament agrees not to forget any factor that may jeopardise the peace and the democratic future of Mozambique.
However, responsibly, it does not side with any factions seeking power or position; instead it sides with the Mozambicans and their right to a better life.
With time we all learn something and, in this exercise of political common sense, Parliament forgets nothing but remembers everything, and believes that those responsible in Mozambique will read and understand the essence of this resolution, in the certainty that we remain ready and willing to help them without any paternalism of any kind.
This resolution, ladies and gentlemen, is to be read, not misread, for that would be a perversion of the genuine concerns to uphold essential principles in which it is rooted.
The opposite of this would be to encourage violence and threaten the peace which is contrary to the safety and democracy that the Mozambicans are entitled to win for themselves every day.
Mr President, what a dreadful day.
Another assassination in Catalonia, an assassination in Mozambique, damage and injury to the democratic process.
We in this group extend our profound solidarity and sympathy to the people of Mozambique as we did earlier this afternoon to the people in Spain.
It is significant that paragraphs 3 and 4 of the resolution before us read that Parliament condemns any use of violence in political disputes and calls for respect for the rule of law and calls on all the democratic forces in the country to consolidate peace and the democratic process.
These are words that we should bear in our hearts.
The peaceful and democratic pursuit of political ends is not just a means to an end; it is intrinsic in any worthwhile end itself.
I say that in the knowledge that these are foundational beliefs for the parties of the European Free Alliance and for the Greens in this House.
I have great honour in commending this motion.
Turkey
Mr President, we in the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left would have liked to have approved a resolution on the human rights situation and the situation in the Turkish prisons following this debate.
We regret that the other political groups were not willing to do so on this occasion.
As we all know, the serious and systematic infringements of human rights in Turkey are continuing.
The situation in prisons and police stations is entirely unacceptable and includes extensive abuse and torture.
In recent times a number of people have died as a result of abuse in Turkish prisons.
An extensive hunger strike is currently underway in the prisons to protest against these inhuman conditions.
Turkey is infringing international conventions on human rights to which the country is a signatory.
The oppression of the political left and national minorities such as Kurds is particularly intense, but other national minorities such as Assyrians are also being oppressed.
Unfortunately we will be able to see a new example of this on Wednesday next week, when the Assyrian priest Yusuf Akbulut will be brought before a military court in Diyarbakir.
His only crime is to have spoken the truth when he spoke about the genocide of Armenians and Assyrians in the 1920s.
If he is convicted then Turkey' s regime will again have shown its contempt for human rights.
So long as this situation prevails the country cannot be considered for membership negotiations with the European Union.
Mr President, before beginning my speech I would also like to join in condemning the attack that cost the life of someone elected by the people, and of an activist and councillor of the Partido Popular in Catalonia in Spain.
Having said this, I would like to talk very briefly about a delicate situation, because in this debate we can be carried away by our emotions and talk forever about the little respect that there is for human rights in Turkey.
But it is also true that the hunger strike is taking place at a time when reforms are under way in the Turkish regime, and specifically in the area of prison policy.
That said, however, I would also like to say that we should not trust the fine words and good intentions, that Turkey - as has been said here - is still giving no unequivocal signs of respect for human rights, that it has just pronounced an amnesty law that does not deserve that name, that it is still failing to respect the rights of the Kurds, that it violates international conventions, that it persecutes leftwing activists, that it tries people for the things that have been mentioned here.
Therefore, what we are kindly asking the Commission here is that there should be strict monitoring of the conditions in that country which, of course, does not deserve to be considered to be respecting human rights.
Mr President, the present crisis is founded upon the Turkish proposal to transfer prisoners from large wards to smaller prison cells.
This treatment would be exactly like we see in Western Europe and, faced with the protests, the Minister Hikmet Sami Turk has postponed the transfer so that a social and political consensus upon prison reform be developed throughout Turkey.
This is surely the correct approach and fully consistent with the government's expressed wish to meet the political requirements for the accession partnership with the Union.
For that reason, we oppose the GUE/NGL resolution.
Mr President, every country in Europe, and France in particular, needs to respond to the distress of prisoners by considering how to reform the methods and structures which govern penitentiary administrations so as to show greater respect for the dignity of prisoners, irrespective of the seriousness of their crime.
The desire to create prison conditions which are as humane as possible, without resorting to demagogy, is broadly shared and strengthened as and where necessary by the vigilance shown by all the associations working to defend human rights.
It would therefore appear to be perfectly logical to call on all countries, especially those who are candidates for membership of the European Union, to support this move.
Having said that, our debate here today was provoked by our reaction to the hunger strike currently taking place in Turkish prisons.
However, I am pleased that it will not culminate in a righteous recommendation by Parliament, which is often perceived to be overly keen on preaching and which would do well, from time to time, to put its own house in order.
I am pleased because I think that, when it is not a vulgar sham, a hunger strike is a suicidal undertaking which my personal beliefs forbid me from encouraging.
That is why I welcome the fact that my political group and, I think, the majority here in the House, will not be tempted to bang a drum in order to milk the current crisis for all it is worth.
Naturally, I hope that the Turkish authorities will resolve this crisis quickly, but I would hate an irresponsible attitude on our part to have a domino effect and set off a series of equally distressing crises.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, may I express the solidarity of my Group with all those who are on hunger strike in Turkish prisons.
Nevertheless, I wish to urge them to call off their strike, because we in the European Parliament, and the Council of Europe too, are trying to improve the situation together with the Turkish authorities; we are certainly being critical of the Turkish Government, but we are working with them to try and ensure that the new prisons improve rather than exacerbate conditions for prisoners.
May I also take this occasion to say that it is, of course, not only a matter of there being too many political prisoners - the fact that a country applying for membership of the European Union has any political prisoners at all merits outright condemnation - but that we are also aware of the way in which the existing prisons and the conditions that prevail within them have led to various criminal activities emanating from Turkish prisons.
Turkey has every right to prevent such activities but, at the same time, it must ensure that all prisoners in Turkish jails are treated humanely, decently and as individuals, and we are utterly uncompromising in our commitment to this principle.
Tunisia
Mr President, allow me to start by welcoming Imen Derwiche and Nourredine Ben Tisha to the public gallery; they are young Tunisian students who were tortured and imprisoned for several months.
Action is needed quickly, which is why we decided to include this item on the agenda.
The very existence of the oldest human rights league in Africa and the Arab-speaking world, the Tunisian League, is under threat, despite being recognised by President Ben Ali.
Judicial proceedings to have it wound up were instituted following its last congress, which appointed directors who are obviously not to the Tunisian authorities' liking.
Its fate is to be decided at a hearing scheduled for 25 December, which is surprising, because this date is also a Muslim public holiday this year.
As we speak, police forces have surrounded the premises of the Tunisian National Council for Liberties and even the private residences of some of its members.
This police operation has already used force to prevent the National Council of the League from meeting in Bizerte and the Tunisian National Council for Liberties from meeting in Tunis.
Its spokesman, Moncef Marzouki, risks being sentenced to over 10 years in prison at a hearing the day after tomorrow, on 16 December.
Finally, political prisoners have been on hunger strike in prison, some of them for two months.
Some, such as Béchir Habid, are in a critical condition.
Their very life is in danger.
Repression is on the rise, arrests and intolerable cases of torture are increasing in number.
This is no longer a question of attacks on the freedom of expression, association or assembly; now, freedom of movement, freedom of speech and the freedom to receive persons of one's choice are difficult to exercise in Tunisia.
Men and women are harassed daily and their families harassed as well.
One example is Mehdi Zougah, a French-Tunisian citizen, who was arrested at Tunis airport on 11 August.
For four months his wife and children have been waiting for him at home in Marseilles.
He will stand trial on 8 January on charges of having attended a meeting of the Tunisian opposition in France, which he denies.
It is a case of the most blatant arbitrariness.
The Tunisian authorities should pay heed to the concern and outrage being expressed in this Chamber.
They should listen to the representative of the UN Secretary-General for human rights who expressed her acute concern on 7 December, calling for an end to the practice of harassing defenders of human rights.
The Tunisian authorities should realise once and for all that we are determined not to relax our vigilance and to continue to press for fundamental rights to be respected.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Tunisia has undertaken, within the framework of its association agreement with the European Union, to respect human rights and democratic principles.
Following numerous violations of human rights in Tunisia, Parliament adopted a resolution on 15 June 2000.
But the facts remain.
Even if a few passports have been returned, even if President Ben Ali delivered a speech on the freedom of the press and improved prison conditions on the anniversary of his taking power, there has been a marked deterioration in the human rights situation in Tunisia.
The human rights league has been suspended, its premises placed under seal and its president, Moktar Trifi, has been summoned to appear in court, as you have just heard, on 25 December.
The Secretary-General of the league, Khemaïs Ksila, who has already spent two years in prison, has been sentenced to a heavy fine which he cannot afford to pay and therefore risks another spell in prison.
The spokesman of the Tunisian National Council for Liberties, Professor Moncef Marzouki, is due to appear in court this week, on 16 December, and risks ten years in prison.
The civil association RAID ATTAC Tunisia, the leaders of which were imprisoned at the beginning of the year, has still not been authorised.
The Aloes publishing house, which has been closed down several times, is prevented from publishing freely.
The lawyer acting for many political prisoners, Radhia Nasraoui, cannot visit her clients in prison.
When militants and those in charge of these associations decide to meet in order to celebrate the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, their houses are surrounded by police and anyone trying to enter is harassed in the street by men dressed in civilian clothes.
These men and women are the Sakharovs, the Vaclav Havels, Abraham Serfatis and Nelson Mandelas of our times.
We should be at their side because they are defending the values which we hold dear and which the Tunisian Government and authorities have promised to respect under the association agreement.
We therefore call on the Commission to ensure that the terms agreed and undertakings made under this agreement are respected.
We call on it to intervene as a matter of urgency in the cases which we have cited and which give us the greatest cause for concern.
Finally, we call on the Commission to re-examine the conditions under which the MEDA Democracy programme is being applied because we find it incredible that the Tunisian authorities have retained a right of control.
As with the countries of the former Yugoslavia, we think that the Union should be able to provide direct support to newspapers, publishing houses and independent democratic associations.
Mr President, Commissioner, the situation in Tunisia gives real cause for considerable concern.
At least 1 000 people are still imprisoned for the sake of their views.
Human rights activists, trade union members, academics, journalists and students report constant harassment by the authorities.
Despite the fact that Tunisia signed up to the UN convention against torture as far back as 1987, torture is becoming increasingly widespread and institutionalised in the country.
We in liberal camps are very concerned at this development.
We wish to highlight three specific problems.
The legal proceedings against Professor Moncef Marzouki and the lawyer, Nejib Hosni, have been mentioned here.
These will now be started at the weekend and on Monday.
The reasons for prosecution are very unclear.
The legal proceedings must naturally be made open and just.
The second problem is actually only part of a pattern of harassment.
It concerns the dissolution of Tunisia' s League for Human Rights.
This organisation is the very oldest in the Maghreb region and the action has given rise to protests the world over.
Ambassadors have protested on behalf of the UN.
Members of the organisation are harassed and have been prevented from meeting, with disproportionate police action.
Sympathisers with the movement abroad have been prevented from returning.
What crimes they are guilty of is unclear and the action should be dropped.
Finally, we are greatly concerned at the condition of those prisoners who are on hunger strike.
Last week one of the prisoners, Rached Jaidane, fell into a coma.
His family have been given no information as to his condition.
The young student Béchir Habid has been on hunger strike since 18 October.
His condition is very, very serious.
He needs to receive care and be released immediately.
The cooperation between the EU and Tunisia is positive.
It must be maintained and developed.
However, this requires Tunisia to respect agreements entered into, including those which encompass clauses on human rights.
To discuss these matters I would like the Commission to take the initiative to convene an extra meeting of the council on EU-Tunisian association in order to discuss the matter of human rights as soon as possible.
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my thanks for the solidarity expressed by other colleagues due to the recent assassination by the terrorist group ETA.
I can inform you that, at the beginning of this afternoon' s session, a minute' s silence was kept in his memory, and I would also like to point out that he was a councillor from the Partido Popular, who, like so many other socialist activists and many other servants of the State, can be counted amongst the people murdered by ETA..
My Group, like this Parliament, is particularly sensitive about the human rights situation in Tunisia and in the rest of the world.
This concern is behind the fact that, in recent weeks, I have met twice with the chairman of the Tunisian human rights league.
I have also, Mr President, had the opportunity to visit the country - which I did not know - and during this visit, I have been able to observe that Tunisia is a country that has made considerable progress in the economic sphere and in fighting poverty, promoting the emergence of a prosperous middle class.
There have also been considerable improvements in the access and incorporation of women into political, economic and social life, and I also do not think that we should forget the element of stability and moderation that the country represents in the face of fundamentalism.
All this does not mean, of course, that this economic progress should not be followed by more progress in the political sphere and that there should not also be progress in the uncompleted reform process, particularly in terms of rights and fundamental freedoms.
The reforms announced by President Ben Ali in November are precisely in the spirit and the letter of the last resolution adopted by this Parliament, and what is needed now is for them to become a reality.
For all these reasons, Mr President, as well as our irrevocable and undeniable commitment to human rights and to the Tunisian league, I would like us to also be capable, in a balanced manner, without being overly positive or negative, of considering the general situation of the country in an objective manner, and of comparing the situation with what other African countries are experiencing, and in particular, its immediate neighbours, Algeria and Libya, which are not exactly a model of respect for human rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is six months since the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the Tunisian government to stop violating human rights and to work in support of fundamental freedoms, the rule of law and the development of the civil society. And still the Tunisian regime is committing one violation after another and sinking deeper and deeper into generalised police repression.
I personally attended a parody of a trial on 24 November, at which the accused, who had been on hunger strike for three months and were unable to move or speak, were sentenced to 17 years in prison.
I stood in front of the prison in Tunis on 9 April and watched hundreds of policemen breaking up a demonstration of solidarity organised by democrats.
I witnessed powers being handed over within the human rights league a week before it was placed in official receivership.
Daily harassment and beatings of democrats are a standard occurrence.
These people are hounded - such as Hamma Hammami, sentenced to 9 years in prison, or Moncef Marzouki who, as you have heard, is due to go on trial the day after tomorrow.
Any meeting, any gathering, such as the national conference organised by the Tunisian National Council for Liberties on 10 December, is effectively banned due to police violence.
Any free and independent expression is censored, as is illustrated by the seizure of the books of Taoufik Ben Brik.
What can we say, what can we do to meet this challenge, our challenge, the challenge of our international commitments? The vote by the House on the demanding motion before us will show that, no, we have decided not to throw in the towel.
The call for a meeting of the Association Council on the human rights situation in Tunisia should be followed by real action...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us not get carried away, please.
This is the second time that Tunisia has stood in the dock before this House and one might well wonder what is behind this tenacity, especially as there appears, in the final analysis, to be almost no justification for it.
Of course, the democratic process is far from complete in Tunisia, just as it is in a great many countries in the world, just as it was far from complete a century ago in our own countries if it comes to that, and we would never have brooked constant intervention by third parties.
And yet, here is a country which can lay claim to many spectacular successes during its development - which is perhaps the first human right.
Growth here hit 6% in 1998 and the benefits of it were spread fairly since poverty levels, as defined by the UNO, are running at less than 10%.
Not every rich country can say as much.
80% of Tunisians are homeowners, a third of the budget goes on social payments and another third goes on education.
Plus, Tunisia is the first country in the Arab League to have abolished bigamy.
This is the country which we keep on attacking for reasons which sometimes border on the ridiculous - and, Mrs Flautre, our attacks even include Mr Ben Brik, who should be considered as one of our main partners.
One cannot help but see all this as some sort of strange put-up job and I should like to say to Tunisia that, even if Europe appears to be turning its back on it, France shall continue to treat it as one of its main partners.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, let me respond briefly to the four important debates which we have just held on human rights issues.
First on Chile.
The Commission would like to thank the European Parliament for the initiative taken in proposing various draft resolutions on the Pinochet case and the consolidation of democracy in Chile.
I hope that in this case the Chilean justice system will continue to demonstrate independence and effectiveness.
The Government of Chile has very wisely refrained from intervening in the independence of the judiciary.
The Commission is, and always has been, fully committed to respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights and that is why the Commission has lent substantial and tangible support to the process of transition to democracy in Chile.
Budget line B7-703 - democratisation process in Latin America - was created in 1990 in order to support the transition processes in Chile and also in Central America, and was later extended to all of Latin America.
Our experience in Chile in the field of democracy and human rights has therefore been crucial for later projects in other countries.
As the House knows, the European Union is in the process of negotiating an agreement establishing a political and economic association with Chile.
I went to Santiago myself a few weeks ago just before the third round of negotiations with Chile.
We had a large team of officials there.
The negotiations went extremely well and I am delighted that we are picking up momentum in those negotiations, which I hope will have the conclusion which the honourable Member referred to.
This agreement will, as he said, encompass the areas of political dialogue as well as trade and cooperation.
In accordance with our negotiating mandate, we will insist that the agreement contains a democracy clause which will define respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights.
We will also ask for the principle of the rule of law to be the basis of the agreement.
I can already say that the Chilean Government seems in full agreement with this approach to our negotiations.
Both the President and I spoke at the same conference in Chile and, I am pleased to say, made remarkably similar speeches on what should be the main focus of our efforts in following up the Rio Summit before the summit in Madrid which will take stock of the progress that has been made in our important relationship with the countries of Latin America.
On Mozambique, a country which I visited a number of times when I was a development minister, the Commission is aware that Mozambique is at a crucial stage in the consolidation of its democracy.
The tragic events of last month took by surprise not only the international community but also most of Mozambican society.
The Commission has taken a number of initiatives calling for dialogue and conciliation.
These included the discussions with President Chissano on his 16 November visits to President Prodi and Commissioner Nielson followed in Gabarone at the European Union SADC meeting with conversations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Public declarations were made after these events deploring the use of violence and supporting measures to bring to justice those found to be responsible for it.
We understand that the European Union heads of mission have been following the political situation in the country closely.
They met the Minister of Foreign Affairs on 8 December and we have been in contact with the presidency both in Europe and in Mozambique to gauge the appropriate level of European Union political initiative.
Although I would not want to downplay it, the situation, despite being serious, does not appear to be out of control and there is some concern that outside interference could harm the chances of the two sides reaching some form of negotiated settlement.
On the other hand, it is important that we insist that the results of the inquiries on all the deaths should be made public and the responsibilities made clear.
We will, over the coming weeks, have to take account of the results of the dialogue between the two political leaders, or of the absence of such a dialogue.
Obviously, we hope that the political leaders can meet and find a way out of the current impasse and we will be ready to support any useful forum for mediation in order to prevent future conflict.
Several honourable Members referred to the situation of prisoners in Turkey.
The Commission shares the concern expressed about the situation of those Turkish prisoners who are currently on hunger strike.
The health situation of some of these prisoners is extremely alarming.
The Commission urges the Turkish authorities to do their utmost to put an end to this worrying situation.
We welcome the recent decision by the Turkish Minister of Justice to postpone the transfer of prisoners to F-type prisons, which were well described by the honourable Member, for an indefinite period of time and his wish to reach what I understand is called a "social compromise" on this question.
The opposition to F-type prisons is one of the motivations of the prisoners currently on hunger strike.
The Commission finally recalls that the improvement of detention conditions in Turkish prisons is addressed in the accession partnership for Turkey which was adopted by the Commission on 8 November and it is a condition therefore for accession.
In the accession partnership document, the adjustment of the detention conditions to bring them into line with the UN standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners and other international norms is considered as a medium-term priority.
Finally, honourable Members gave me the opportunity to present last June the Commission's position on relations with Tunisia during the plenary session.
I was able to explain the reasons why the Commission considers it appropriate at this stage to make use of the positive instruments available under the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, namely political dialogue and Community finance, in dealing with human rights in Tunisia.
Since then there have been a number of developments, some good and some undoubtedly bad.
Responsibility for prisons has been transferred to the Justice Ministry, certain political prisoners have been pardoned and the congress of the Tunisian Human Rights League passed off without incident.
On the other hand, we have been informed of allegations of hunger strikes by political prisoners, the legality of elections to the new governing board of the Tunisian Human Rights League has been contested and action has been taken - as was mentioned during our debate - against Professor Marzouki and others.
As to what we can do, I remain convinced, as I said last June, that we should use properly our positive partnership instruments to support all those working to improve human rights in Tunisia, and the honourable Member made an important point on this subject.
Our heads of mission in Tunis are following the current court case closely and stepping up contacts with the Tunisian authorities on these cases.
We are intensifying political dialogue with the country.
On the financial front, and this responds directly to the important point made by the honourable Member and it is an area where we have some experience in other countries, Commission representatives in Tunis are stepping up their efforts to launch very soon two programmes: one in support of journalists and the other in support of non-governmental organisations.
Lastly, I would like to mention the crucial role played by Parliament, which has contributed to raising awareness and intensifying dialogue in these issues through parliamentary visits and through public debates like this one.
I hope this leads to an increasing convergence of positions on human rights with our Tunisian partners.
Whatever the economic progress made, whatever the social progress in Tunisia, I know that Parliament will return to its concerns on these subjects as long as it has reason to express them.
Côte d' Ivoire
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions.
B5-0906/2000 by Sylla and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
B5-0912/2000 by Van Hecke, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0919/2000 by Martínez Martínez and others, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0927/2000 by Maes and Isler-Béguin, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group;
B5-0934/2000 by van den Bos and Dybkjaer, on behalf of the ELDR Group,
on Côte d'Ivoire.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Côte d'Ivoire has got itself into a vicious circle and the situation is going from bad to worse.
By playing with the concept of Ivorian identity in order to exclude Mr Ouattara from the political scene, the powers that be are paving the way for ethnic conflict.
It is not just Mr Ouattara; rather all the people in the north, all the Muslims and anyone with a name which sounds vaguely foreign are subject to persecution and violence.
The dozens of deaths over recent days make me fear the worse.
If this policy continues, there will be a bloodbath, just like the bloodbaths we have seen in other countries.
Laurent Gbagbo needs to introduce a real policy of national reconciliation by ending the discussion on Ivorian identity, revising the racist constitution and holding democratic elections open to all candidates; otherwise the risk of secession and civil war can only grow.
How can a legislative election in which only 34% of the population voted and which millions boycotted claim a legitimate result?
We were delighted, Commissioner, at the departure of General Guei.
If we wish to safeguard our credibility, we must be firm with Laurent Gbagbo in refusing to sanction this dangerous, uncontrollable slide off course.
It is no coincidence that the OAU and numerous African Heads of State have condemned the concept of Ivorian identity outright.
They know full well that an ethnic or separatist conflict in Côte d'Ivoire could throw the entire region into a state of unrest.
Mr President, Commissioner, we must not stand by and watch.
Mr President, as the honourable member, Mr Sylla, has just said, it was with relief that we welcomed Côte d'Ivoire's first steps on the path back to the rule of law with the recent presidential election and the failed attempt to keep General Guei in power.
This hope was matched by the tremendous concern with which we have followed the recent events which have again plunged this beautiful country into bloodshed, with the threat of an ethnic and religious divide between the north and the south.
We cannot but condemn this step backwards and call on the present leaders to allay fears before the violence and vengeance spiral out of control and cause the sort of devastation provoked by similar forms of discrimination at other points on the planet, including within the very heart of Europe, at the end of this century.
The purpose of the European Union is to extend the area of peace and stability which its founding members set up on either side of the Rhine fifty years ago to the entire Union.
This has only been possible through reconciliation and by respecting the identity of each of the communities which were once antagonists.
What was once a dream has become reality.
This is the challenge which now faces those in power in Côte d'Ivoire.
Let us hope that they will have the courage to take it up and we shall spare no effort in helping them do so.
Mr President, for months the news from Côte d' Ivoire has been causing justified alarm within European public opinion and the corresponding concern in our Parliament.
That turbulent situation surprised many because it was taking place in a calm and relatively prosperous country, with institutions that functioned reasonably well and with a society living in a satisfactory degree of harmony.
The traumatic events that have occurred there are a clear demonstration of the process of degradation that the whole of the African continent is experiencing.
In Côte d' Ivoire the degradation has been dramatic in terms of the economy.
The collapse of cocoa prices, the crushing weight of foreign debt and the increase in fuel prices, among other factors, have led to an internal situation of growing tension, a notable decline in the social climate and an increase in unemployment and poverty.
Xenophobia found a good breeding ground in that environment with political forces prepared to use it for their own ends, focused around the concept of ivoirité, and making immigrants that had been established for decades the object of their hateful hostility.
It was in this context that the military took power, which, as ever, only helped to aggravate the situation.
Violence became widespread, particularly towards the immigrant population or towards natives of the north or neighbouring countries.
The political process put together to recover democratic legitimacy did not fulfil the hopes that some had placed in its procedures.
After a more than dubious presidential election, the European Parliament was determined to call for the legislative elections of 10 December to be free, fair and pluralist.
We must now recognise that our demands have not been complied with.
The most serious thing is that, in 32 constituencies, elections did not even take place, which makes the crisis of legitimacy even more obvious.
We therefore need to create the political conditions to put an end to exclusion, to facilitate the participation of the RDR and other political forces in the democratic process and to ensure, at least, in these circumstances, while awaiting the elections in January, that a path can be opened up towards democratic normality.
The problem is not to hold general elections at any cost.
In order for the elections to really unblock the current situation, we first need to create the conditions for those elections to be held in a climate of civil peace and reconciliation.
The conditions for this are: that no one should feel excluded, that the Supreme Court established by the military powers should disappear, and that the Head of State should be unequivocally involved in the process of restoring democracy and that the opinions of the Committee for national reconciliation should be heard.
Mr President, as Mr Justice Stevens remarked only yesterday, it is not a good thing for the rule of law or democracy if judges intervene in the judicial process and rule out of account the votes for one side or another.
That is exactly what has happened also in the Côte d'Ivoire, and in an even grosser way, as I understand it.
We have seen an extremely unfair intervention in, and disruption of, a proper electoral process there.
We in this Parliament must stand up for the rights of the people of Côte d'Ivoire - and everywhere else - to a fair and properly organised democratic system with a non-partisan judiciary.
We are aware that in this case the European Union has some purchase through Article 96 of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement.
We are, with this motion, urging the Commission to use that leverage, and we hope they will.
Mr President, we cannot subscribe to this condemnation of the xenophobic and ethnic racist policy of the Côte d' Ivoire administration without, at the same time, condemning the unspeakable policy of the French government authorities, which not only support the Ivorian president and his policies but which are also making diplomatic overtures to various governments on his behalf.
This attitude is descended directly from France' s imperialist policy.
Its leaders, whatever their political hue, have supported in turn the dictatorship of Houphouët-Boigny, the authoritarian and corrupt Bédié regime, the leader of the putsch, General Guei, and today Gbagbo, a would-be Socialist but in fact an out-and-out xenophobe.
The French state could not care less what Ivorian leaders impose on their own people, provided that they faithfully serve the interests of the major French companies in Côte d' Ivoire which, both during and after colonialism, have always made huge profits by plundering the country and exploiting its working classes.
Mr President, I am delighted at this opportunity to discuss Africa, something we do far too rarely.
So for once, for pity's sake, let us refrain from highlighting, or even exaggerating, the rivalries which exist within young, vulnerable African nations.
The democratic process in Côte d'Ivoire is well under way.
The leader of the coup d'état in December 1999 has been beaten in general elections - a remarkable feat which would have been unheard of twenty years ago - by a candidate who may rightly call himself the legitimate president of the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire.
We should therefore regard those who contest the legitimacy of President Gbagbo as subversive elements and the Ivorian government is entitled to take this into account.
Mr Ouattara is not Ivorian and it is perfectly normal, as it would be in each of our own countries, for Côte d'Ivoire to refuse to allow people who are not Ivorian citizens to hold office.
The concept of Ivorian nationality would appear to me to be perfectly well founded.
I would add that the third countries taking advantage of this situation to destabilise Côte d'Ivoire - presumably because they cannot control it - will not prevent democracy from making headway in Africa, especially in French-speaking Africa and Côte d'Ivoire, as it did in Senegal at the beginning of the year.
It is to France's credit that it is supporting its partners and allies in this healthy development.
This is an important debate.
I want to make it clear that the Commission shares Parliament's view that the process of transition from military coup to elected government in Côte d'Ivoire has fallen, to put it mildly, far short of the sort of democratic standards that we want to see.
The Commission deeply regrets that the presidential elections, which were already lacking in credibility following the declaration of ineligibility of some of the major candidates, were not at least partially compensated for by more open legislative elections which could have allowed all the population to express their democratic vote.
This was certainly what the European Union had hoped for.
After all, we had put out a statement on 28 October which calls on Mr Laurent Gbagbo "to bring about the opening up of democracy for which the citizens of Côte d'Ivoire are clamouring".
The Commission is also very concerned by the recent violence.
We are very concerned about the massacres which took place around the time of both elections, in October and at the beginning of December.
We believe that there can be no national reconciliation until the responsibility for these acts is clearly established.
The Ivorian authorities have promised to launch legal inquiries into October's events and an international investigation committee has also been constituted.
In our view the same approach should be adopted to the recent violence and the inquiries should be pursued without delay.
In view of the current situation the Commission intends to propose the opening of consultations on the basis of Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement.
So I hope that will satisfy Mr MacCormick, although I thought that the shades of Mr Justice Brandeis and Mr Justice Frankfurter would have been slightly disturbed by the comparison between the Supreme Court and the judicial bench of Côte d'Ivoire.
The purpose of these consultations will be to assess the situation in detail with our ACP partners, including Côte d'Ivoire.
We will be aiming for an outcome which works to include all parties in the political system and reconciles the various sectors of the population, north and south, Muslim and Christian.
These consultations will include a reassessment of the terms of European Union cooperation with Côte d'Ivoire.
For the time being cooperation has been confined to direct support of the population and to civil society, especially through non-governmental organisations and by means of humanitarian aid.
EUR 300 000 was allocated in the wake of the events of last October.
We believe that this should be sufficient to cover medical needs related to the violence at the beginning of December.
I hope that makes clear our concern about the situation.
I want to assure Parliament once again that we will keep it fully involved with the outcome and the progress of the discussions on Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement.
Thank you, Commissioner.
You have covered many subjects this afternoon.
We are extremely grateful to you.
During the debate on the British submarine in Gibraltar you indicated that the Gibraltar Public Safety scheme document would be made available to colleagues of the House.
Some half-a-dozen copies are now available from the President.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken in a few minutes.
Mr President, Commissioner, please accept my apologies for the attitude that I have shown during the debate.
As for the slanderous allusions directed at me, I have to say that it is not my normal attitude and that at no time did I wish to alter the normal conduct of the debate.
Thank you, Mr Bautista Ojeda.
The debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Relating to the motions for resolutions on the Turkish prisoners
Mr President, I would like some clarification.
We were completely in favour of passing a joint resolution at the close of this debate on Turkey.
But, according to my information, all the other groups have withdrawn their motions.
If that is the case, maintaining a single motion would be a mere formality, in which case I withdraw our group' s motion for a resolution.
Please be so kind as to confirm that the other groups have indeed withdrawn their motions.
Mr Wurtz, I too should like to be as sure as you would like to be, but, in the absence of any written document, I can only be sure they have been withdrawn if each of the political groups formally declares whether or not it is withdrawing its resolution.
Mr President, I wish to follow the example of Mr Wurtz and formally withdraw our motion for a resolution as well.
Mr President, on behalf of the Greens, we also withdraw our motion for a resolution.
Mr President, formally, and not in writing, I withdraw the resolution.
In that case, ladies and gentlemen, it is confirmed that the draft resolutions mentioned by Mr Wurtz have been withdrawn, and therefore this vote lapses.
VOTE (continuation)
Mr President, I wonder if Commissioner Patten can explain to me how the Commission is going to help repair a submarine, which is what we really just voted on.
As the honourable Member knows, I have already addressed the Parliament twice this afternoon on this issue, but what I discussed was the Commission's competence, not its omni-competence.
Thank you, Commissioner Patten.
EXPLANATION OF VOTE - Langen report (A5-0371/2000)
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report by Werner Langen on the global shipbuilding industry.
We have done so because we believe that it is important that fair competition be established within the global shipbuilding industry, and that the way in which countries such as South Korea subsidise their shipyards is contributing to the destruction of shipbuilding around the world.
Unfair competition could help destroy good shipbuilding environments and lead to the loss of know-how and jobs; in the long term it could result in a monopoly situation, which would not be beneficial to world trade.
However, we cannot support the specific proposal to extend the scheme of operating subsidies for up to 2 years.
We do not fundamentally believe that the problems of the shipbuilding industry can be solved by continuing to compete on the basis of the size of the public purse.
However, our lack of support for the extension of the operating subsidies for up to 2 years is politically dependent on there also being fair competition internally within the EU.
It is therefore important that the Commission monitors decisions very closely and intervenes if there are still cases of illegal state subsidies to shipyards internally within the EU.
(The sitting was closed at 6.10 p.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats for what is practically a historic sitting, the last Friday sitting in Strasbourg.
Indeed, it is my very great pleasure to chair this, the last sitting in the millennium, as the next time we meet within these walls it will be both a new century and a new millennium.
I sense that we are going to have a whole new debate on the issue.
Mr President, I can confirm what Mr Posselt has just said.
This is not the last Friday sitting in Strasbourg.
I deeply regret that the French Government has not appealed to the Court of Justice against the European Parliament decision, but I have no doubt that this decision will be overturned sooner or later.
I imagine it refrained from taking action purely because such action was not timely under the French Presidency.
The 1997 ruling, which re-established the annual timetable after an attempt by the European Parliament to withdraw one of the monthly sittings, was perfectly clear. The European Parliament has no sovereign right to determine its timetable.
It must respect the Treaty, and the Protocol appended to the Treaty states quite clearly that the twelve monthly part-sessions are to be held in Strasbourg.
The Advocate-General at the time clearly stipulated "the 12 periods of monthly plenary sessions". This phrase means that we must adhere to existing practice, which must not be changed.
To put it in terms that we can all agree on, let us say that this is the last Strasbourg part-session of the second millennium, and we shall see what happens in the third.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, in the Minutes I am recorded as having voted in favour of paragraphs 11 and 12 of the Theato report.
I did not, I abstained.
I should be grateful if that could be corrected.
The Minutes will be corrected as you suggest.
Mr President, we had a group of visitors yesterday, and this group also attended the vote in the visitors' gallery.
In the evening, we were unable to explain to them why this Parliament voted with only 170 Members in attendance.
If, as a Parliament, we want to be taken seriously by the public, we will need to be present.
Again, this morning, only a handful of people are attending.
That is no reflection upon those present.
Yesterday afternoon, too, only a handful of Members attended.
I do not blame those present but rather those absent.
At this rate, we will soon be unable to meet on a Thursday afternoon if so few people take part in the votes.
I believe we need to do a bit of soul-searching here, and find out how we can ensure that at least a sufficient number attend when we meet on a Thursday afternoon.
I shall take your speech as an appeal for more assiduous attendance.
(The Minutes were approved)
Prosperity and intergenerational solidarity
The next item is the report (A5-0319/2000) by Mrs Sbarbati, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission communication 'Towards a Europe for all ages - promoting prosperity and intergenerational solidarity' .
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, it was with great pleasure that I agreed to be the rapporteur of this major European Parliament resolution which deals with one of the greatest problems of our European Community: the ageing of the population.
This issue requires considerable sensitivity on our part, and we must strive to create that intergenerational solidarity which is essential if we are to produce worthwhile, substantial holistic policies and bring about social security and social protection and, most importantly, to ensure that the idea that elderly people are not a burden on society becomes part of the cultural consciousness of society and that they are regarded as a resource: first and foremost a human resource but also a social resource, a cultural resource and, lastly, that it is recognised that the elderly have a great legacy of experience to pass on to future generations.
These are the factors that motivated the entire Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and I to develop this resolution and enabled us to approve the result unanimously.
I therefore thank all my colleagues for their contributions, including those made at the amendments stage, and also the committee's experts, for these contributions were very valuable for the finalisation of the resolution.
The European Union took the problem on board in 1999, the year in which the United Nations proclaimed the International Year of Older Persons.
We have now reached the stage of a Commission communication and are here today to vote upon a resolution.
This stage is extremely important.
We feel that a policy which actively tackles the issue of ageing population, which regards the elderly not as people who are about to die but as people who want and intend to remain alive - alive in their affections, alive in their professional capacities, alive in the will to communicate at all levels not just their feelings but also their professionalism and their experience - is the best way to create and develop new policies, in particular to encourage social cohesion and intergenerational solidarity.
Clearly, there are complex issues to deal with: the issue of security, the issue of pensions and also the issue of care of the elderly which we have attempted to tackle, which I have attempted to deal with in this resolution as calmly and effectively as possible. We are all aware that families often have to bear the burden of caring for an elderly person and that this burden often falls upon women who have to bear it alone, moreover without any recognition from the social or employment policies of the Member States.
The Member States must therefore make greater efforts: they must unite and tackle this issue together. Above all, they must ensure that the future of the third and fourth ages is guaranteed.
The future may consist of a single day, minute or second, but it must be a day, minute, or second which is lived in the knowledge that the life before an elderly person is a whole life, not half a life. An elderly person is a worker who has ceased to work, the elderly are men and women who have reached the point where they are navigating their way through the final stage of their lives and who must be able to do so with the necessary serenity and with the recognition from all of us but, most importantly, the recognition from the world of politics and authorities that they are people.
This must not be forgotten.
This is the central theme of the resolution, which tackles different aspects of the issue ranging from leisure time to employment. In effect, when we talk of attitude, of learning and therefore of the willingness to be retrained and benefit from life-long training, we must ensure that this is a reality for the elderly as well, for older workers are often excluded from new working procedures and new technologies by technological progress.
We therefore need extensive training to be available, non-discrimination in the workplace and non-discrimination during the time after retirement as well, when these workers, these people can enjoy the new wealth and new opportunities provided by all the time now available to them and live more serene lives.
This is why we are moving in this direction and, in particular, why we are considering the older and very old people who, sadly, are liable to be affected by physical problems.
Indeed, as we are aware, health does not last forever.
The Member States must implement different policies to support these people, tackling both the issue of the care necessary and the issue of the reimbursement of expenses, especially for those invalids whose families are, in effect, unable to bear the whole of such a burden in the long term.
Mr President, because of the demographic changes taking place in European society, we are forced to reconsider the role of older people, taking a holistic and long-term approach which aims to keep the elderly active or reintegrate them into working life, be it in a productive process or in the form of social action.
This approach must include the guarantee of a dignified, independent, self-sufficient lifestyle.
This sort of strategy calls for well-coordinated objectives and is based on intergenerational solidarity, respect and recognition of the different roles which citizens play.
The problem which arises and the political action which we need to develop in this sector are particularly important at the present time, as the European Union endeavours to modernise its social model and fuse economic development with social progress, the quality of life and the social integration of all its citizens.
These challenges are common to all European societies, albeit to some more than others; this applies in particular to my own country, Greece, which has the highest proportion of poor pensioners: around 31% according to Eurostat.
We were delighted that the European Council in Nice adopted the social agenda and we hope that the Member States will take this opportunity to promote the development and coordination of social security and welfare systems for the elderly and to promote other measures, such as lifelong learning, which ensure that they have an active lifestyle.
My political group has worked closely with the rapporteur, Mrs Sbarbati, and we are grateful to her for that.
The report contains numerous common positions.
We felt that it was particularly important to study the ageing phenomenon within various categories of older persons, because we realised that the elderly in towns face different problems from the elderly in island or rural areas of the European Union.
We particularly supported the involvement of the elderly in various forms of voluntary work, without overlooking the need for social security in these areas, and we believe that the European institutions and the Member States should not miss the opportunity of conducting a broad information and awareness-raising campaign directed both at the government agencies responsible for applying social policy and society as a whole, because the citizens themselves must realise that a society needs intergenerational solidarity.
Supporting the European Commission's initiative and enriching it through dialogue with Parliament will, I think, send a message to the people of Europe that the European Union is in a position to forecast change and crisis and to create a society of participation, cohesion and solidarity.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to express my thanks to the rapporteur.
We agree largely with her ideas and we are satisfied with the result of the work of the committee.
It is set against the background of the 'International Year of Older Persons' , as proclaimed by the UN, and it is also very important that attention has been focused in various places on how the situation of the elderly will develop in the future, for example, in the countries of the European Union.
In my opinion, it is of primary importance that the elderly are seen as independent people and that they are supported as far as is possible in their independent active lives.
All the countries of the European Union have the same problems and the same prospects.
For us, the question is how we can keep elderly people in the job market and what that requires of the labour market in general.
On the other hand, we see that, while the population is ageing and ageing in better health than ever before, there is a growing desire generally to stop work earlier.
This means, then, that we have to take account of how the job market works for different people. How do we support older people so that they can remain in the job market for longer?
How do we organise life-long learning in such a way that older people also acquire the new information, new skills and, furthermore, motivation they need to remain in active employment? In other words, there are complex factors involved that have to be considered when dealing with this issue.
Very specifically, I would like to express a few views on ageing women.
Everything that now concerns women in the labour market will obviously be visible in the future when they are getting older, for example in pension plans.
As piecework, for example, is on the increase at present, this will be reflected in the fact that pension cover will decline in value.
Although we have eventually reached a position where we have the same pay for the same work, we must remember that women need special treatment when it comes to social security as they have a different work history, and this must be taken into account as it will have implications later on, for example for their future pensions.
Mr President, I am very pleased to speak on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
This is a most important topic, especially with a growing ageing population in Europe.
The solidarity of different age groups and actors involved in this field is vital in this regard.
One should emphasise that unity, not only between nations and regions but also between people, is an area in which the European Union has a very proud record, and this report emphasises that fact.
Low employment of ageing workers is a matter that the European Parliament should have tackled far earlier.
I am very pleased with the emphasis in the report on reviewing the tax and benefit schemes to provide incentives to take up job offers: this is an initiative that is welcome.
Promoting life-long learning - a topic that has already been mentioned by another speaker - is a matter I also support.
With new technology and distance-learning possibilities open to older people, real, new opportunities offer themselves to them and they should be allowed to take advantage of this.
On social protection policies: in its work programme for 1999, the Commission paid particular attention to ways to reverse the trend towards early retirement, to explore new forms of gradual retirement and to make pension schemes more sustainable and flexible.
On policies against discrimination and social exclusion: the social action programme sets out the Commission's intentions to explore the possibilities for developing new Community action programmes based on Articles 13, 129 and 139, as modified in Amsterdam, and that is something we all welcome.
The attention given to medical and social research related to ageing is an excellent emphasis in the report.
Perhaps - and I say this as a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport - sport and exercise should have been given more emphasis to keep ageing people fit and healthy - but that is something I am sure the rapporteur is well aware of.
I welcome the excellent initiative on the part of the rapporteur and give it every support on behalf of my Group.
Mr President, 100 years ago, two of my relatives lived to be almost 100 and, in those days, the age of 110 was also reached, albeit sporadically.
Those were the exception to the rule, for the large majority of people died at a relatively young age due to adverse conditions.
Nowadays, an increasing number of people live longer thanks to better health care, provision of information, care, housing and pension schemes.
Some researchers anticipate that people could actually live up to 120 years, but they invariably die earlier because a vital part of their body ceases to function.
Provided we organise our care and social security well, we can allow an increasing number of people to reach the maximum age.
Collective expenditure on public services prolongs our lives.
Over the past decade in Central and Eastern Europe, we have seen a fall in life expectancy as soon as governments have withdrawn and left elderly people to their fate.
The shortage of employees in a growing economy puts pressure on older people to stay in their jobs for longer.
In fact, this shortage is being seized upon as an argument for increasing the pensionable age and for nipping in the bud such initiatives as there have been to lower it.
That is a development in the wrong direction.
Needless to say, people above the age of 60 or 70 can still do many useful things, but it is wrong at that age to make their income dependent on completed working hours.
These people are far more useful as a bonding agent in society who help others function more efficiently.
It is precisely in voluntary work that they can pass on their life experience and promote cooperation in their own living environments.
By forcing them to continue in paid work, they cannot fulfil those useful tasks, and it is likely that their life expectancy will be reduced if we impose obligations such as these on them.
I have a feeling that the aspects which I have mentioned, namely the importance of collective care and the importance of timely retirement, are considered to be of slightly less importance by the rapporteur and that, moreover, she is too optimistic about the possibility of the elderly thriving without our creating the social conditions to match.
One way in which we could strengthen their position would be to adopt Amendment No 4, tabled by my colleague, Mr Alavanos, which aims to better adapt housing and transport to the needs of the elderly.
I hope that the House will adopt this amendment.
Mr President, I have to say that, although Mrs Sbarbati' s report contains valuable recommendations, it is your typical Friday morning report.
But these recommendations continue to miss the mark.
She urges Community action, whether that is appropriate or not.
In this area of policy, European institutions hardly have any authority.
It is mainly the Member States' governments at federal, provincial and local level which can put many of these recommendations to good use.
We should not burden the European Commission with atypical work.
In the next few decades, an ageing and greying population will emerge, caused by a falling birth rate and an increase in life expectancy.
As a consequence, expenditure on health care and pensions will soar dramatically.
The OESO has been carrying out research into this area for some years now and has published reports on this topic.
Research in the Netherlands has shown that, up to the age of 50, the average cost of health care is approximately EUR 1 000 per person per year.
This amount increases to EUR 4 000 for 75 year-olds and to around EUR 25 000 per year for 95 year-olds.
To buck this trend will take time.
After all, by excessively promoting the trend towards individualism, we have created a situation for ourselves where the elderly rely on care institutions to a far greater extent.
By the same token, the cost of pensions in a number of Member States has grown out of all proportion.
In its monthly report for July 2000, the European Central Bank as already issuing serious warnings.
In some EMU countries, the cost amounts to twice the GDP.
This is in addition to the government debt, which is already very high.
To my great surprise, the report does not contain any specific recommendations on this matter.
Many Member States will need to go on a serious economy drive and prioritise the setting up of funds in order to keep the cost of pensions affordable and to keep the rise in gross average earnings within limits.
If this is not done, we will have no choice other than to reduce pension payments.
Raising the pensionable age, as proposed by the European Commission, will certainly not prove sufficient as a measure.
I share the rapporteur' s view that every elderly person deserves respect and appreciation.
Unfortunately, we are up against it on virtually every score.
A person only counts for as long as they are young, progressive and fashionable.
It is exactly the life experiences and wisdom of the elderly which we need in our here-today-gone-tomorrow society.
We need to change our pattern of thought right across the board.
People need each other' s care and attention; they rely on each other.
The basis for this outlook on life is the family, in which each human being grows up.
What is bizarre is that, these days, the family is generally no longer considered to be the nucleus of society and appreciated for what it is.
Here, too, individualism has taken its toll.
Add to this the undervaluing of nurturing and caring responsibilities, which feeds the absurd thought that housewives are less productive.
Their valuable contribution to our society is hugely neglected in this report.
The plea to combat age discrimination at the workplace has my support although, once again, I wonder if an EU Directive is necessary.
In my opinion, it would be preferable for Member States to address this problem by using their own legislative instruments.
Finally, although the elderly can count on my sympathy and appreciation, I will vote against this report for the reasons cited above.
Mr President, the Commission communication is, I think, a milestone in the history of social policy because it marks the end of a period in which senior citizens were seen as a generation of outcasts or veterans.
The rapporteur, who has examined the subject with a great deal of sensitivity, points out that we need to combat negative stereotypes and consolidate equality between the generations as a basis for a European social model.
Thanks to her proposals for an active old age, society is enriched by a whole generation.
Encouraging the elderly to take up roles which they can fulfil on a voluntary basis will help overcome the objections of trades union, which view any extension of working life with suspicion.
At the same time, the report encourages us to revise other policies designed solely for younger generations and aims to awaken the interest of other age groups by redefining the participation of all ages in local economic and social life and redistributing income between them.
This ambitious objective calls for a radical change in practices and the active involvement of the social partners.
However, because the elderly do not form a homogenous group, as the communication rightly points out, it is mainly up to the social partners to put forward a system of classification of elderly people which meets modern requirements.
It quite rightly combines this policy with the policy for the viability of pension systems.
The redistribution of resources implied in the policy to modernise pension systems, an explosive problem, represents a further aim of the new policy for all ages.
The proposal to make pension systems dependent upon demographic change in order to create a self-sustaining system is linked to a high level of employment among the elderly.
However, extensive early retirement and various graduated terms of retirement presuppose a massive revision of these policies because not all of them are socially inspired.
I should like to close with a word on medical care.
A quality of life policy depends directly, especially in the case of the elderly, on the quality of medical care.
The communication needs to clarify the problem of the increased cost of services from new medical technologies which create new forms of inequality in the face of illness and death.
Mr President, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has prepared an important report on the Commission communication.
As the markets are only interested in young people and their purchasing power, it falls to politicians to attend to the issue of older people.
In many EU countries it is being discussed whether existing pension rights and benefits can be safeguarded in the future.
In many countries pensions have been promised although there are not the corresponding funds to pay them.
When the single currency is introduced in the form of the euro and monetary policy is the same in all countries, those countries will be subjected to an enormous amount of pressure to cut pensions.
Promises regarding pensions must be kept, but pensions must be secured with those countries' own funds without payment of the pension being protected at the expense of the EU' s common monetary policy.
It is a guaranteed income that will give older and elderly aged people the greatest sense of security.
Employment is also one of the basic human rights, and Mrs Sbarbati' s report has rightly brought attention to age-based discrimination and ageism in working life.
It is politicians who must safeguard the notion of equality in employment: the markets cannot.
The report is entitled 'promoting prosperity and intergenerational solidarity' , an aim we can only endorse.
Unfortunately, apart from affirming a number of good intentions, for which we shall vote, there are several convoluted phrases which suggest that the elderly must attain this prosperity by working past the normal retirement age.
Now then, it is not up to the workers to work for longer so that their contributions might compensate for the miserliness of the bosses who wish to stop the employer' s share of old-age pension contributions.
We are absolutely opposed to anything that postpones retirement age, as we particularly have in mind the factory workers, many of whom are worn out well before the legal retirement age, even in countries where this age is relatively low.
Indeed, how is it possible to promise the elderly prosperity and solidarity without affirming the right of every worker to have a decent retirement pension, and what I mean by a decent pension is their full wage?
We shall therefore abstain from the vote on this report.
Mr President, first of all, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Sbarbati, on her excellent report.
This is a serious, thorough study of the problems faced by the elderly, but it is also a bold, innovative report in terms of the proposals it puts forward to promote the active participation of the elderly in working, social and cultural life.
The ageing of the population is, today, an indisputable fact which places considerable pressure on the social security systems of some Member States.
Enabling our citizens to age in an active and healthy way is one of the great challenges of our times and requires Community policies to match national social security and public health systems.
We cannot simply limit the issue of intergenerational solidarity to the financial sphere. We must foster a global vision of support for the elderly and for their families, particularly for women who look after elderly people.
Our current social model makes a cult of youth.
This is a deeply ingrained idea, which thoroughly pervades all areas of social life and which must be combated through the effective practice of intergenerational solidarity.
Given the significant increase in life expectancy as a result of the enormous medical progress that we have seen, particular attention must be paid to demographic developments in the population.
We must produce a coordinated strategy for employment in conjunction with measures to counter discrimination on the grounds of age and modernise pensions and health schemes.
It is crucial that we develop concrete policies and specific programmes for the various categories of elderly people.
These measures will have to be appropriate to the different specific circumstances of elderly people in terms of standards of living and financial self-sufficiency.
Because we cannot treat unequal situations equally, Member States will have to provide a response to the situation of elderly people who are completely bereft of savings and who are completely dependent on the help and care of relatives or others, and they will also have to ensure that a form of insurance is created that guarantees the elderly the right to see out their days with dignity and serenity.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like on behalf of the Commission to congratulate the rapporteur and the two committees on this report.
I am particularly pleased because it shows that the Commission and the European Parliament are to a large extent in agreement and have developed a common understanding of the challenges of ageing.
The debate has shown that there is broad agreement on the appropriate political response to this in the fields of employment, social security, health and social integration.
We are certainly facing tremendous challenges.
Only a sustained and joint effort can help us to meet them.
I think that it is important to preserve a high degree of consensus so that we succeed in adapting to the process of ageing in our society in an appropriate way.
Secondly, I should like to stress the significance of this communication. It is true that the communication contains few specific proposals for measures and initiatives.
However, it does offer an innovative diagnosis of the greatest challenges of ageing, out of which emerges an extremely important compilation of suitable political responses, responses to issues relating to employment, social security, health and social integration.
Ensuing Commission proposals have adhered rigidly to this roughly sketched out agenda.
It will undoubtedly also provide further information about political trends in the future.
Concerns about closing the age gap in Europe's performance balance sheet have been reflected very strongly in the employment process, from the guidelines to the recommendations to the NLP and peer review procedures.
They were also plain to see in the plans for the Community initiative EQUAL and in the allocation of ESF funds from 2001 to 2006.
What is more, age-related issues are amongst the most important objectives setting the agenda in the new process of cooperation in the field of social protection.
In the most recent communications on pensions, the central idea has been "mobilising society's full potential", because raising the employment rate of older people who are fit to work is crucial to providing sustainable pensions in an ageing society.
Initiatives in areas such as equal opportunities, equal treatment and social integration are similarly outward signs of aspects of an active ageing scenario.
At this stage, I should like to emphasise that the directive on equal treatment in the workplace, which was adopted on 12 October 2000, bans discrimination on the grounds of age.
Future initiatives in the field of public health are directed more at health- and care-related issues in old age and at promoting healthy ageing.
Finally, part of the fifth framework programme for research provides for investigations into issues associated with old age, including the effects on health of an active lifestyle in old age.
It is therefore clear that the political paradigm of active ageing is reflected in many important initiatives and we can safely assume that it will inspire a raft of further initiatives in the future.
With your permission, I will, in conclusion, respond to a number of points where Parliament has expressed concern about the effects of the measures proposed by the Commission.
A constantly recurring concern in your report was whether an emphasis on political measures promoting active and healthy ageing did not necessarily mean poorer conditions and fewer rights for people in need of care, for the very old and for those unfit for work.
I should like to give you explicit assurance that this is certainly not the Commission's intention.
Quite the opposite: in the communication, the Commission has laid great stress on the assertion that political measures should address the differences between people.
Early retirement must remain an option for those who are no longer fit to work.
Not everyone can or should retire voluntarily from working life.
There must be discretionary powers for individual preferences and decisions.
Furthermore, in our view, over-emphasising active political measures has precisely the opposite effect.
In fact it is a precondition for our ability to find sufficient resources for those in need of care, so that the wealthy amongst us are willing and able to pay higher contributions and become more independent in old age.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Relating to Amendments Nos 2 and 3:
Mr President, I have accepted both Amendment No 2 and Amendment No 3 tabled by Mr Pronk, in which he calls for the text to be amended and insists on the concept of development of the population rather than ageing of the population.
The problem is that, insofar as we as the European Union are concerned, we cannot talk about development because we do not have genuine population development: the birth-rate is extremely low while the proportion of elderly people is increasing.
Therefore, the proposal - which I think Mr Pronk has accepted - is to talk about a rise in the average age of the population, as this will avoid a concept which might appear negative and describe the notion in the most precise and most appropriate terms.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATION OF VOTE
Mr President, this is the last explanation of vote of the year 2000 and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the other Presidents for your patience in listening to me throughout the year.
The year 2000 did not start off on a good note for Carlo Fatuzzo: in the spring my wallet and credit cards were stolen in Barcelona, during the summer my new bicycle was stolen in Strasbourg and in the autumn my diary and address book were stolen in Brussels.
However, today the Sbarbati report which helps the elderly has been adopted, and this has raised my spirits and brought a smile back to my face.
I would like to close by saying to Mrs Flemming, sitting here next to me, that the fact that we are living longer does not mean - as you so rightly said, dear Mrs Flemming - that we get older. It means that we get younger!
In fact, once upon a time, a 40-year old would have been considered to be old, and today they are young.
You are a young woman, Mrs Flemming, and if I were not married I would ask you out!
(Laughter and applause)
If anyone finds any of these missing objects, would they please return them to Mr Fatuzzo, especially his glasses, because, Mr Fatuzzo, Mrs Flemming was sitting behind you.
Promoting agricultural products on the internal market
The next item is the report (A5-0385/2000) by Mr Dary, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation on information provision and promotion for agricultural products on the internal market.
Mr President, in principle, the Committee on Budgets backs the Commission proposal too.
It is still necessary to promote agricultural products, particularly as the price of agricultural products has fallen, and this price reduction has certainly not been fully offset.
The opinion of the Committee on Budgets differs from that of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on a number of scores.
First of all, the Committee on Budgets is of the opinion that agricultural products not intended for consumption should be promoted as well as those intended for consumption.
All agricultural products will need to be promoted.
Unfortunately, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has rejected this proposal.
My group has re-submitted it under Amendment No 27, and I would like to recommend it to you warmly.
In addition to the standard promotion activities, we believe that a number of aspects will need to be highlighted.
Firstly, it should be pointed out how good agricultural products, such as fruit, milk etc. are for you.
Another aspect to be highlighted is the animal-friendly and environmentally-friendly production methods used in Europe.
How can we explain to European farmers that they are to be ever more restricted in their activities and that they should employ animal-friendly production methods, while at the same time our borders remain open to products from farmers who do not need to use these methods?
We need to emphasise the European aspects to the general public.
The Committee on Budgets already holds the view that if, in the context of the WTO negotiations in 2003 or later, a number of export refunds and other export amounts are reduced, the European Commission should ensure that a portion of those refunds and amounts are ploughed back into further promotion activities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the WTO working group and as someone responsible, in particular, for small and medium-sized enterprises, I can only congratulate the Commission on this report and on this initiative, because it is far-sighted in already anticipating developments, which bodes well for the future.
In the WTO negotiations we will come under strong pressure to reduce export refunds, and cuts in this sector will be very likely.
That is why it is very important to achieve a balance here, and this can be developed very effectively through the promotion and publicity measures.
This sector is, of course, included in the "green box", and it would, of course, make it possible for us to present European products on the world market in an entirely new and much more intensive way.
I see great opportunities for quality European products here.
Ultimately this is also support for rural areas, on which, after all, we spend 10% more today, a sign that these regional economies should also be receiving more support, so that, on the one hand, the theory "think global, act local" can very well be asserted but, on the other, the world market is not disregarded either.
It is precisely in the food sector - but also in the agricultural non-food products sector - that we have good opportunities in the future here, and we should therefore make the most of them.
This means, then, that, in the future, the existing 12 categories of products will not be the only ones to be the subjects of promotional campaigns but that the arrangements will be extended to all agricultural products.
So, Mrs Lulling, there will be opportunities here in the future not only for grape juice but also for wine.
We should also set ourselves a target.
We ought, in fact, to ensure that food production in Europe has an aim, and this actually follows on very well from the preceding debate.
You see, we want to use our food to keep people healthy into old age.
We want to stay healthy, and food is the overall basis for healthy living.
That is why I am also pleased that, this week in the European Parliament, we have set up a working group on biotechnology.
We want to address health-related issues in detail.
We also believe that particular account ought to be taken here of organic farming and production and that, of course, Europe will be able to make considerable progress on the international scene with its brands and designations of origin.
A trend which has become increasingly pronounced recently is e-commerce.
I believe that here too there is scope for us to take action with agricultural products.
It is expected that, by the year 2003, 80% of the European population will in all likelihood be connected to the Internet.
Obviously, this represents a great opportunity for rural areas because the physical distance separating them from the large centres will become insignificant, and new opportunities are emerging which, at the end of the day, need to be taken.
Another important area is, of course, further education and training.
I believe that where marketing, sales and training programmes are concerned, life-long learning ought to take centre stage much more, because it is precisely the new technologies - handling product promotion using modern logistics - which will open up entirely new possibilities.
Cooperation between industry, agriculture, trade and consumers is therefore of paramount importance here, and I would be glad if we were able to achieve new standards of cooperation in the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to pay tribute to Mr Dary' s feat: he not only succeeded in having his report on bananas adopted yesterday, but has also managed today to bring the last five-day part-session in the second millennium to a close.
Mr Dary, bravo, you have mastered the art of communication, and this is precisely the reason why you were appointed to draw up the report before us right now.
On a more serious note, I should like to emphasise the value of this proposal for a Council regulation on information provision and promotion for agricultural products on the internal market.
The rapporteur presented the main points just now.
I should just like to add, at this time when BSE is highlighting a number of abuses in forms of agriculture which place the emphasis on high productivity, that it is especially appropriate to raise the profile, within the internal market, of the specific qualities of agricultural products by including, as the rapporteur suggests, indications of production methods.
For, while European agriculture may reasonably expect to be a force to be reckoned with on international markets, the fact nonetheless remains that its future is still linked to a greater extent to penetration of its own internal market, which comprises 370 million consumers today and will probably number almost 500 million tomorrow.
From this point of view, campaigns for information provision and promotion, cofinanced by the European Union and the Member States, are essential both to help restore the somewhat tarnished image of agriculture in the eyes of consumers and, moreover, to bring about recognition of the excellent quality of the very great majority of our agricultural products.
Of course, such institutional information campaigns must rather complement the advertising activities undertaken in particular by major distributors.
There must be periodic campaigns targeted at specific populations or consumers in general in order to highlight aspects relating to, for instance, food safety, traceability, nutritional quality, the specific characteristics of production methods, or indeed the efforts made to promote animal welfare.
And while such campaigns may achieve the desired objectives in relation to consumers, we must not for all that underestimate the concomitant impact they will have on the producers themselves, who will see them as a reward for their efforts and an incentive to continue them.
Mr Dary, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has complied with your various recommendations.
We now hope that Parliament will fall in line with them across the board, and I, of course, urge my own group to give you its complete support.
Mr President, first of all, I want to make it clear that I am not speaking on behalf of the whole of my group, but only on my own behalf.
I fear too that I am going to disappoint the rapporteur, for there is no unanimous backing for this report.
It is about how the system of sales promotion measures is to be changed.
I think it is wrong in principle to have such measures in the European Union.
It cannot reasonably be the taxpayers' and the European Union' s business to finance advertising campaigns to encourage people, for example, to buy tulips or eat more apples.
This is properly a matter for producers, retailers and trade associations, not the European Union.
I think we ought now to have taken the opportunity to phase out the system rather than change and consolidate it.
It is also important to point out that there are serious faults in this aspect of agricultural policy.
At present, so much support is being given to production that an enormous volume of certain articles is being produced, for which there is no market.
There are no purchasers.
If agricultural products are not quite simply to be destroyed, this leads to export subsidies having to be introduced, which destroy the agricultural market in other countries, or advertising campaigns financed by taxpayers.
The system of sales promotion measures is part of what is wrong with the system for the EU' s agricultural policy.
I believe it is the fault in the system that ought to be tackled.
No special payments must be made for products for which there is no demand, and the latter must not be advertised.
There are too many elements of the planned economy in this system.
I shall therefore be voting against this report.
Mr President, if I read it right I am the last speaker in the debate from the floor of the House.
As a child, my father was quite fond of talking himself.
He used to accuse me of wanting to have the last word.
It appears that I am having the last word here not only in this debate but in the millennium from the floor of this House, so he would be quite proud of me if he was still alive.
In any case, we have had widely divergent views expressed here.
I want to congratulate the Commission on bringing forward this proposal.
The rapporteur has researched this area very thoroughly and made an excellent report even if I might not agree with all of it, and he pointed out that it seems we did not do so well in the past.
Spending under the last programme actually fell between 1997 and 1998.
We have to ask ourselves why we failed in the past to get industry in the European Union to take up the money that was available.
Obviously, we have some learning to do.
I agree that we should spend money on this subject.
The consumers need correct information and they need reassurance.
I sincerely hope that it is not anyone's ideological view of what is safe and right that will be put forward, but information with a proper scientific basis.
Organic farming is fine as far as it goes.
I have nothing against it.
I was an organic farmer myself at one time, because everyone was an organic farmer when I started farming at 15 years of age, which is some time ago.
What the consumers of Europe should understand today is that food was never so cheap as it is now.
It was never so plentiful as it is now.
It was never as safe as it is today in spite of some of the problems that still exist and will probably continue.
There is another point we should remember.
Everyone in Europe has enough to eat for the most part.
Everyone has sufficient food, so if we advertise one product it will obviously militate against the consumption of another product.
The European Commission has to be extremely careful.
If dairy products and beef, on which we spend an awful lot of money and indeed sheepmeat as well, although we do not have surpluses of it, are advertised with public money to compete with products which are not subsidised like pig meat and poultry meat, then obviously we are upsetting the balance of the market and doing an injustice to some of our producers.
We must be extremely careful about that.
Mr Rübig points out that there are so many things we can sell abroad.
That is extremely important because, as time goes by, we will not be allowed to continue our old practice of producing low-quality products and selling them highly-subsidised, unprocessed and with no value added on foreign markets.
In a world where the population is growing by 80 and 90 million a year, there must be a market for European food, because no place in the world is better suited to the production of food and no farmers in the world know better how to respond to opportunities than European farmers.
There must be a future there.
Mr Mulder is right when he said that the common agriculture policy is designed not only for food but also for the social objective of keeping the maximum number of people in rural areas.
By using modern technology and using modern science and modernising our industry, we have made food available to the poor at the right price.
This was never done when we were producing organically.
Of course, if we can produce and promote food that is better for the environment and takes animal welfare into consideration, and sell that on world markets, then we will be really fulfilling the vocation for which the common agricultural policy was intended.
Mr President, before I move on to speaking about the report, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Dary, very warmly. My thanks also go to the other Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, as well as to the other committees which have worked on this.
The proposed measures are intended to replace the 12 sectoral promotional schemes which the Council has adopted over the years.
The existing schemes, which lacked uniformity, will thus be harmonised and simplified.
We are adopting the same concept of promotion here which is already applied outside the European Union.
The Union is thus providing itself with a flexible promotional tool in the internal market too, which can be used across the board.
This means, therefore, that the old product-based strategy is being replaced by an approach with a greater thematic emphasis.
These promotional campaigns at European level can usefully complement Member States' measures by taking up the following themes: for example, quality, nutritional aspects, food safety, labelling, traceability, protected designations of origin, protected geographical indications, organic or integrated production methods, and so on.
This would considerably improve the identity of European products in the eyes of consumers, and we certainly agree that this is necessary because consumers are, as we know, becoming increasingly discerning in these matters.
This concept of thematic information provision and promotional measures complementing national and regional measures requires strong commitment on the part of the Member States, in the form of co-financing and support for administering and monitoring the measures to be implemented.
Having analysed the amendments, we can distinguish three groups: firstly, amendments which the Commission can accept; secondly, amendments which are superfluous because the proposal is worded in such general terms - as befits a framework regulation - that they are actually already covered; and thirdly, a group of amendments which the Commission also rejects because they either do not fit into this proposal or would have undesired consequences.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2, 4 and 10, which call for information on the production methods used for agricultural products and foods to be included in campaigns of this kind. As regards Amendment No 5, which calls for general guidelines by means of which only the essential elements of the programmes concerned are defined, the Commission is open to the possibility of including this idea in the wording of Article 5, Paragraph 3 of the proposal.
It can also accept Amendment No 18 and the first part of Amendment No 24, which reduce the time interval at which the eligible themes and products are reviewed from three to two years, so as to improve the efficiency of the promotional tool.
These are the amendments which the Commission can accept.
I now turn to the amendments which are already covered by the proposal and are therefore not accepted.
These are the second part of Amendment No 2 and Amendments Nos 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31 and 32.
The Commission quite understands the thinking behind these amendments, but we feel that the general nature of this draft regulation is sufficient.
Moreover, some of these ideas will be taken up again in the implementing provisions.
I should like to comment briefly on the second part of Amendment No 2 and Amendments Nos 11, 13 and 28.
An explicit reference to regional origin or other specific information would excessively limit the scope of the regulation.
Amendment No 25 must also be rejected.
Regarding the issue of when the new arrangements should come into force, the Commission is, however, prepared to consider transitional arrangements.
The final group of amendments which the Commission cannot accept are amendments which are at odds with the proposal, those which could have unwelcome consequences and those in which administrative procedures are proposed which are not customary practice.
I will take the amendments one by one. Amendment No 1 is legally incorrect because Article 299 of the EC Treaty can only be applied for derogations from other articles of the EC Treaty.
This is not the case here. Amendments Nos 3, 16 and 17 and the second part of Amendment No 24 could give rise to misunderstandings about the aims of our promotion policy.
Amendments Nos 6 and 33 cannot be accepted because, given the limited funds available, they would make the EU share of the co-financing simply too great.
They would also reduce the other partners' share of the responsibility.
All we can say to Amendments Nos 9 and 22, which call for a special management committee to be set up, and Amendments Nos 7, 19, 23 and 27, where further procedural changes are sought, is that the Commission has to be consistent with its procedural provisions.
Overall, I am pleased that the proposal has met with your broad support.
Consequently, thanks to your help and your opinion, the Community will soon be in a position to implement an important new promotional tool.
Mr President, my apologies for interrupting you.
I appear to be the last speaker in the year 2000, although not by design.
I noticed a rather unusual mistake in the second part of the report by the Committee on Budgets which should, I think, be corrected.
In the Greek text Mrs Jutta Haug is referred to as a male rapporteur and Mr Markus Ferber is referred to as a female rapporteur.
I should imagine that this double sex change in a day and without surgical intervention is the first of its kind and it deserves a mention in the Guinness Book of Records, unless of course the necessary corrections are made and all changes of sex avoided.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTES
Mr President, in my speech I simply ran out of time before I could wish colleagues a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
I should like to do so now.
The second point that I wanted to make is that despite the critical remarks which, as you know, I also made clearly in my speech, we are glad that this report has been adopted and that the Commission is getting this scheme off the ground.
Because it is actually true that it is certainly necessary, but also right, to promote the European model of agriculture.
All those who say that you can still tuck in in style in Europe are right.
And people should do so on special occasions.
But this does not in any way change what I said clearly just now, that we also need to pay attention to the small details, that we must not forget the superior culture of a European agricultural policy which is geared towards social and ecological concerns, and that we should always check measures to ensure that they are also having the desired effect.
I should like to follow up on one further point.
To return to set-aside, if you looked, you would be able to see that, in practice, set-aside is not caused by crop rotation, but that farms are leasing poor land to use as permanent set-aside and are farming the other crops in the rotation even more intensively and with even greater use of chemicals.
This means that the whole point of set-aside, which was originally intended in 1992 to make crop rotation more environmentally friendly, is turned completely on its head.
Here we can see how small changes can yield considerable results in practice.
That was my petition this morning.
I wanted to point this out.
Now that we are all convinced that we need to reach a turning point in agricultural policy, I hope that we will also sit down together and do our homework so as to put right these small details, something which is urgently necessary.
Season's greetings to you all!
Thank you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for your good wishes.
Mr President, as the chairperson of the European Parliament Intergroup on Wine: Tradition and Quality, I am obviously especially pleased that information provision and promotional activities in favour of agricultural products may also now apply to quality wine-growing products.
When we discussed the reform of the common organisation of the market in wine in this House, we tabled amendments in an - unfortunately unsuccessful - attempt to insert a chapter on the promotion of wine products into this organisation of the market.
I now have some small consolation, because we must not, in third countries where there is a demand backed by purchasing power for high quality wine products, leave the field clear for the wine producers of some third countries such as Australia, New Zealand and the United States, to name but a few, who have considerable amounts to spend on promoting their products, with far fewer constraints and regulations than those we impose on our own wine growers, who are occasionally victims of unfair competition, especially with regard to registered designations, even when they are not, as in some Member States, subjected to a policy of exorbitant taxation on alcoholic drinks.
We must promote the moderate consumption of wine, whose medicinal properties have been known since ancient times.
In those times, the Rule of Saint Benedict required monks to drink one 'hemina' , or about half a pint, of wine before meals in order to awaken the spirit and aid digestion.
Mr President, there is scientific proof that moderate consumption of wine is one of the best ways of preventing cancer, strokes, Alzheimer's disease and many other illnesses.
Any money will therefore be well spent, and I hope that the Commission will not be so stingy with these appropriations as it has been, once again, with the appropriations for honey and for bees, when my amendments, even though they had been adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, were not adopted by the Commission, the Council or our own Committee on Budgets.
I really must protest about that, as it was only 15 million.
This is really peanuts, and I therefore hope that the Commission will not prove to be as stingy with its funds in this instance.
Please think of the extra few seconds that I gave you, Mrs Lulling, as your Christmas present.
Mr President, today's vote actually shows that important issues are also dealt with on Fridays.
This is the last Friday sitting in Strasbourg for the time being, which means that Strasbourg will lose 12 days of parliamentary sittings.
I believe that the issues which have been debated at these Friday sittings have definitely been of strategic significance for Europe.
I should like to make one further request of the French Presidency: that Mr Moscovici - because he has given really extremely brief and sometimes imprecise answers to questions here - answer these questions fully and in writing for the European Parliament, because for us, good cooperation between the Council and the European Parliament means that we face each other as equals and that each takes the other seriously.
That is why I would also be interested to know whether the issue of Friday sittings was discussed at the Nice Summit, that is whether it was of importance or insignificance to the French Presidency.
Finally, I should like to extend my warmest thanks to the House, to all of my colleagues, to all of the ushers and also to the President.
I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and hope that we will all meet again next year in good health.
Mr President, I can already answer Mr Rübig's question.
In a bit of horse-trading, Mr Chirac promised the Belgian Prime Minister that, from now on, all summits will be held in Brussels and that there will also be an additional plenary week in Brussels.
I find this really quite dreadful: it contradicts the letter of the Treaty, and I hope that it will not happen.
I would like to commend the rapporteur on his work.
It should not just be edible agricultural products which are in the limelight.
We must continue to refer to the Internal Market principles in our policy, including public health.
I am pleased with the fact that non-food products, in addition to food products, are now being taken into consideration.
I can fully concur with the view taken by my colleague, Mr Jan Mulder, in this respect.
However, in the long run, we will need to aim for an independent agricultural sector which can survive on its own within the market.
Finally, I would like to extend seasonal greetings to everyone, especially those few who have taken the trouble to attend this last Friday session of the year 2000 in Strasbourg, and to wish you all a good and, above all, wise new century.
I can see that these debates of the second millennium are certainly going to provide fuel for the debates of the third millennium.
That concludes the explanations of votes.
I shall therefore consider Mr Fatuzzo' s silent presence as his Christmas present.
It only remains, ladies and gentlemen, fellow Members, friends and all those people who work with us here in Parliament, to wish you all the best for the festive period concluding this millennium and to remind you that we are to reconvene here in the third millennium, an age which promises to be eventful for our continent.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 15 December 2000.
Statements by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, on Saturday, as you know, an earthquake struck Central America once again, with tragic consequences. This is an area which has already been seriously affected on a number of occasions since the beginning of the twentieth century.
The latest, provisional, figures for victims in El Salvador are already very high. There are 350 people dead, 1 200 people missing, the area is completely devastated and thousands of homes have been destroyed throughout the country.
The European Union has already shown its solidarity by sending a rescue team to the area, whilst financial assistance from the Union and Member States has been, or is in the process of being, released and I am able to inform you that some groups in the European Parliament have requested that this issue be included in the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance on Thursday.
However, I should like to inform you that I have, of course, on behalf of the European Union, expressed our sincere condolences and deepest sympathy to the President of El Salvador in the tragedy which has struck his country.
I would ask you, as a mark of respect for the victims and for the immense suffering of their families, to observe a minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
President.
Tragically, on 31 December, a day that most of us commemorate with celebration, became a day of mourning for the families of Volendam, in the Netherlands, who lost 10 of their young people on New Year' s Eve.
I should like, on behalf of the European Parliament, to express our sympathy to the parents and families of the victims.
I should also like to wish the 180 people injured in this awful fire a speedy recovery.
I should not forget that many places, where joyful celebrations are also held, are all too often transformed by sadness and mourning, due to a lack of adequate safety measures.
It is in the same spirit that I should like to express my condolences to the families of the 309 victims of the fire at a disco in Luoyang, in China, and I would ask you to observe a minute' s silence in honour of these victims.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
President.
Ladies and gentlemen, I had wished, as everyone had, that we would be able to open our first part-session of the year without having to mention further victims of ETA terrorism.
Unfortunately, on 20 December, Juan Miguel Gervilla, a police officer in Barcelona, was killed by terrorists.
He had disturbed his killers as they were preparing an attack. His courageous actions unfortunately cost him his life but undoubtedly also saved many others.
This is why I would like to pay tribute to him in particular and I would ask you again to observe a minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Referral back to committee
With regard to the report by Mr Cashman on public access to Parliament, Council and Commission documents, for which the vote on the draft legislative resolution was postponed on 16 November, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has informed me that it is not yet able to meet the two month deadline laid down in the Rules of Procedure.
This is why it has requested that it be referred back to committee pursuant to Rule 144(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
I shall now give the floor to Mr Watson, Chairman of this committee, so that he can present the request on its behalf.
Madam President, the House kindly agreed on 16 November to a request from the committee which I have the honour to chair to delay the final vote on Mr Cashman's proposed legislative resolution.
That delay was intended to allow time for the other institutions to consider our amendments and for the Commission to formulate amended proposals.
Since our November part-session, we have had contacts with the other institutions, though as yet no agreement has been forthcoming.
Therefore, we would ask the House for a prorogation of the delay of a maximum of two months in order to conclude the dialogue and, we hope, present to you compromise amendments for voting at our part-session on 28 February.
(Parliament approved the request)
Agenda
The next item is the final draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Tuesday 11 January.
Sittings from 15 to 18 January in Strasbourg President.
I have received no requests for amendments to the agenda for Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.
Madam President, I would like to point out to my fellow Members and to yourself, that, whilst I understand the reasons which led you to go over the top and set such a full agenda for Wednesday, with regard to the political topics due to be discussed between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., the Council and the Commission have exactly the same speaking time as all the Members of the European Parliament, i.e. 90 minutes for the Council and the Commission and 90 minutes for the MEPs.
I am sorry to have to point this out, as I know we have a very busy day on Wednesday, but let us try to change this, as, after all, parliamentary debate should take precedence over the institutions.
Thank you, Mr Dell' Alba.
I will, of course, take note of your comment.
Madam President, I would like to take up some points made by Mr Dell'Alba and also say something about Wednesday' s sitting.
Not only is Wednesday' s agenda completely overbooked, but important reports - such as the Sjöstedt report on natural habitats, as well as others - are being handled without debate, which is wrong to my mind.
This can be put down to the disastrous decision to cancel Friday sittings, which I would like to take this opportunity to highlight.
Madam President, I have requested the floor in order to speak about Tuesday' s joint debate on fisheries.
A major debate has been scheduled for that day and the Conference of Presidents has decided to include a Commission statement on the Fisheries Agreement with Morocco without a resolution.
As you know, this is a very sensitive issue and I would ask you to clarify a few things, as the inclusion of this issue may somewhat distort the overall debate.
I would ask you first of all to state at whose behest this was included, in other words, whether it was the Commission itself that made the request or one of the political groups.
Furthermore, in accordance with the debate' s agenda, the normal course of action would be for the joint debate on the four reports to take place and then for the Commission' s statement to be made and a further debate on this to take place.
Since it no longer appears possible for events to take place in this way, because the political groups have already distributed Members' speaking times, I would ask that, in this case, the Commission statement should be the first item so that Members may speak in the debate and so that the Commission statement is not made in the middle of the debate, which would prevent all Members from being in an equal position to respond to this statement by the Commission.
Madam President, I shall be delighted to reply to Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna.
The Socialist Group requested this Commission statement - I do not know if any of the other groups made the same request.
We did so for a very simple reason: in the last few days we have seen Commissioner Fischler suspend negotiations on live television; Mr Prodi - I do not know if he is still in Morocco - has submitted a new proposal and restarted negotiations; some Ministers for Agriculture or Fisheries, including the Spanish Minister, have also made statements, and it makes sense that we should be able to debate this issue and that we should be at least as well informed - we are not asking for a resolution - as television newsreaders.
This really is the most appropriate time, when we are discussing the future of our fisheries policy on the basis of four reports, for the Commission to make this statement.
This is the thinking that led the Socialist Group to make this request.
Thank you, Mr Barón Crespo.
Mr Varela, Mr Barón Crespo has given you your answer.
The request was made by the Group of the Party of the European Socialists, but I can inform you that it was approved unanimously by the Conference of Presidents.
Madam President, I asked for clarification; I have absolutely no intention of arguing about the appropriateness of a Commission statement.
It clearly is appropriate.
I want to make it clear that we support it, and I believe that it was also supported in the Conference of Presidents of political groups, but today I have a meeting with the Committee on Fisheries, an extraordinary meeting, and this issue will logically be dealt with. As Chairman of that committee, I wanted to have all the information so that I could communicate it to the other committee members.
The statement is therefore welcome. In no way do we oppose it.
Far from it. Our group has also supported it.
So that the debate may be held in an ordered fashion, which is what most concerns me, because this issue could distort the four important fisheries debates which we have on the agenda, it would be normal for this statement to be made after that debate, and that would then give us time to continue discussing this issue, although it seems that that will not be possible.
The competent services had informed me that the order of interventions would be as follows: firstly the four rapporteurs of the reports, and then the Commissioner would be given the floor to make the aforementioned statement.
In that case, the rapporteurs would not be able to reply to the Commissioner during the joint debate.
What I therefore ask is that the Commission statement be made first and that then the speakers should take the floor, so that everybody might have the same right as MEPs to hear, and be able to reply to, the statement by the Commissioner.
Madam President, I wish to inform Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna that these are the terms of the Conference of Presidents, but I see that the relevant services have already explained this to him.
The idea - at the request of most group Chairmen - was that the four rapporteurs would speak first, and then the representative of the Commission would follow.
This was what happened in the Conference of Presidents, at which I had the honour of representing you, Madam President.
Mr Varela' s request is out of place.
Madam President, I would like to explain very briefly why my group has tabled this motion which, relates to what is becoming known, in the French newspapers in particular, as the Danone case.
This is an important issue that goes beyond the limits of responsibility of one group.
As it happens, it concerns the policy of a large food processing company which has recently achieved financial results described by the president of the company himself as excellent, and which, at the same time, decided to shed 3 000 jobs and to close several sites in various Member States of the European Union.
It seems to me that we cannot, on the one hand, make full employment a priority for European Union action and work on drafting a European Company Statute to lay down new rights for employees and, on the other hand, calmly accept this type of strategy, which puts the interests of shareholders before everything.
This is why I propose an urgent debate on this matter.
Madam President, my group will be voting in favour of this proposal because, to take up Mr Wurtz' s arguments, this is not just a French issue, but a European issue, both because of the size of the Danone Group and because of the potential repercussions of the measures proposed in various countries.
Furthermore, because the European Company Statute has been approved by the Treaty of Nice, we feel that this is an extremely topical issue and one that also needs to be addressed by the Swedish Presidency.
Bearing in mind the fact that my group has also brought up the situation of other multinational companies that operate across Europe or even worldwide in the car and steel manufacturing sectors, we feel that this issue should be given substantial consideration in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Maybe this could replace another item, because the issue is serious enough to warrant a more in-depth and detailed study.
Madam President, we do not doubt that it is an important issue we are discussing here, but this is something that crops up time and again.
In the past, we always agreed that we would deal with such issues as part of a more comprehensive debate.
It is therefore inappropriate to invoke the urgent procedure, particularly as the issue which is to be left off the agenda, is so important.
I would also like to point out - although I was unable to participate in the Conference of Presidents in person, owing to our European People' s Party Congress, my colleague, James Provan, was there to represent me - that the issue has already been voted on in the Conference of Presidents and so there is no need for it to be raised once again.
We are against invoking the urgent procedure on this issue.
Madam President, first of all, Mr Poettering can be forgiven for his mistake since he was absent.
However, Mr Poettering, I would like to tell you that the Conference of Presidents certainly did not vote for or against this motion and it was suggested that I should table this motion in Parliament, which I have done.
Regarding the proposal by Mr Barón Crespo, I am in complete agreement with the proposal to refer the whole matter, i.e. Danone and similar situations, to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs so that we can then conduct a more general debate on this.
I do not necessarily wish that this be treated as an urgent topic, but I do think that we should take note of this grave inconsistency which is stirring up considerable feeling amongst the general public in all our countries, and which, in actual fact, concerns the European Union.
Therefore, if all Members are in agreement, I would certainly wish to refer this matter to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Mr Wurtz, should I assume then that you wish to withdraw the current proposal to replace item 5 in the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance with this point? May I conclude that there is broad consensus on Mr Barón Crespo' s proposal?
I can see that this is the case.
Does any Member of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group wish to present the request to replace the item with "Situation in Algeria" ?
Madam President, you mentioned earlier the horrors that have been reported, which are related to terrorism.
Consequently, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group wanted the House to be able to hold an urgent debate on the situation in Algeria.
Last week, we were all able to witness the television broadcasts of the unbearable images of recent massacres carried out in Algeria by Islamist terrorists who keep pushing back the limits of atrocity.
We cannot, therefore, understand why Parliament, which is always so particular on human rights issues, should remain silent following further evidence of fanatical madness.
Holding this debate would allow us to reaffirm that all the measures that have been adopted in North African countries, Algeria in particular, to fight relentlessly against child murderers and their accomplices have the overwhelming support of the Members of the European Parliament.
We see it as our duty to send the Algerian people a message of our sympathy and solidarity and to encourage the Algerian Government to implement, with the support of the European Union, the policy in this area that is awaited by the vast majority of its citizens, who, like us, are not used to this indiscriminate violence that is ruining their country.
I believe that anyone who has had the opportunity to visit Algeria during recent months or years can make a better assessment of what this terrible outbreak of terrorism means to the Algerian people and, indeed, I believe that it would be to our credit if we dealt with this issue in an urgent debate.
I therefore believe that this is a good suggestion.
Madam President, the big problem is that so much is happening on the world stage.
Looking at the instances individually, we wonder why they are not given the highest priority.
This is the case for Algeria.
But then there is also the visa obligation which Russia has unilaterally imposed on Georgia since 5 December 2000.
Whoever is acquainted with the situation across the entire region, knows that this is a burning issue, and we can thus expect conflicts to flare up once again.
Our parliamentary committee has explicitly asked to prioritise this topic, which was shelved last time.
So I think it is only fair that we should turn the spotlight on this region, so as to avoid conflict at a later date as far as we can, and also to bring it to the attention of the Russian authorities.
Madam President, in order to avoid competition arising between these two issues, would it perhaps be possible to discuss the situation in Algeria in the 'human rights' section, in which case, all the issues proposed could be dealt with.
Madam President, I would like to continue with the subject of the Thursday sitting.
I would like to draw your attention to the plan for Thursday' s sitting, which has the debate on reports continuing after 5.30 p.m. until 6.30 p.m..
Surprisingly, the report to be discussed at that time concerns the competitiveness of forest-based industries, which I tabled for the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
After that, at 6.30 p.m., there is the vote on this report, which affects the jobs of four million employees in Europe and competition in this industry and other related industries.
In my opinion, if we have to debate a report like this one, which affects the jobs of four million people, at 5.30 p.m., then the plan for Thursday' s sitting has run up against very big problems as a result of the Friday sittings being discontinued.
I know that a few dozen people at most will remain to vote.
It is degrading for Parliament that we should adopt a position on a report on such a wide issue with such a small group of Members.
For this reason I would prefer it if Thursday' s evening sitting could be used just to vote on urgent matters, and voting connected with actual reports could be switched to the agenda for the next Brussels part-session.
Madam President, if I recall correctly, following the resolution on Tunisia which we adopted in December, President Ben Ali was supposed to have sent you, shall we say, a letter of courtesy.
If this is correct, would you share the contents of that letter with us?
I have not received any such letter.
If I had, I would naturally have informed the House.
Madam President, in recent days, even as we speak, reports have been flooding in of the increasing number of cases of young soldiers and many civilians who have fallen victim to extremely serious illnesses linked to radioactive pollution caused by the use of weapons with depleted uranium warheads.
Firstly, Madam President, I am sure we would all wish to send our deepest sympathy to the families of the young soldiers, the European civilians and the citizens of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia on the death of their loved ones following radioactive pollution from NATO shells.
Secondly, I must tell you that I greatly welcome your statements on the depleted uranium issue. In particular, I support your call for an urgent ban on the use of these lethal shells.
I am quite aware that some people deny that there is any association between the deaths and ill health and the use of the shells, but I also know that no military authority is able to prove the contrary.
Therefore, if it is not possible to obtain an immediate ban, it is essential to impose an immediate moratorium, for although these shells are not currently in use in war they continue to be used in exercises.
I trust that you will pursue this matter.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I am extremely concerned by what you have told me and I can assure you that I shall most certainly convey your justifiable unhappiness to the appropriate parties.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I wish to draw the attention of the House to an unfortunate incident which has occurred since our last part-session, and that is the case of Mr Panikos Tsiakourmas.
Many of you may be unaware that part of Cyprus is already part of the European Union because Great Britain retained sovereign bases on Cyprus and Mr Tsiakourmas was seized from one of those bases shortly before Christmas.
That seizure was an illegal act.
Mr Tsiakourmas is now being held in North Cyprus.
I would appeal to the House to express its sympathy with Mr Tsiakourmas and his family.
He has been accused of a crime of which I do not think he is guilty.
However, whatever the merits of his case, the circumstances of his abduction were unacceptable.
He was abducted from the territory of a European Union Member State.
I would ask the President to express our concern to the Ankara Government about this incident and our hope that this unfortunate incident will not affect the solution to the Cyprus problem and the peace negotiations which are continuing at this moment, and to express our hope that Mr Tsiakourmas will be released as soon as possible.
Madam President, may I start by saying that I agree wholeheartedly with what Mr Cossutta just said, although that is not why I asked for the floor.
I asked for the floor on the matter raised by Mrs Villiers, in order to decry yet another act of terrorism on the part of the Turkish occupying forces in North Cyprus.
My fellow Member has described the circumstances and I need add no further details.
I would just point out that not only was Mr Tsiakourmas abducted on soil belonging to the British bases, he was abducted and is being held by the military of a country which is a candidate for membership of the European Union.
Consequently, every avenue for taking action against Turkey is open to us and I call on you, Madam President, and all my fellow Members of the European Parliament to show compassion and demand the immediate release of Mr Tsiakourmas, who is diabetic and unwell. In fact, the whole business appears to be a set up, the sole purpose of which is to exchange Mr Tsiakourmas for a Turkish drug smuggler arrested by the Republic of Cyprus police force.
Mr Alyssandrakis, we shall see what we can do about this.
I listened closely to both your speech and that made by the Member before you.
With regard to Mr Cossutta' s speech, he is aware that I made a statement which fully supports his own sentiments.
Madam President, I too wish to add to the protests voiced by Mrs Villiers and Mr Alyssandrakis at the premeditated abduction of a Cypriot citizen. Not only is this man ill, but a bag of hashish was planted next to him so that he could be accused of drug smuggling, even though the abduction was carried out on a base belonging to Britain - a guarantor power and a member of the European Union.
We need to act fast because I am afraid that, now that Turkey has been accepted as a candidate country of the European Union, it thinks it can act with impunity in these matters.
It has already advanced to positions at two points on the border with the buffer zone in Cyprus, in violation of UN arrangements, and the protests emanating from the UN and from us and from the members of ÍÁÔÏ are so ineffectual that it pays no attention to them whatsoever.
Moreover, Mr Denktash, the leader of "North Cyprus" which, I would remind the House, is under Turkish occupation, has refused to take part in further talks on the Cyprus problem because he feels he is in a much stronger position than before, now that the European Union - without, I believe, a great deal of forethought - has accepted Turkey's candidature for membership of the European Union.
Madam President, I take the floor in order to point out yet again - having written to you repeatedly on the matter - that for months now, since 20 October in fact, hundreds of political prisoners living in wretched conditions in Turkey have been on hunger strike, which they intend to see through to the bitter end - some have in fact already died - in a bid to stop the Turkish Government from going ahead with its plan to lock them up in isolation cells in order to break their morale and their resistance.
We all know what a dark day it was for the whole of mankind when the Turkish military and police forces brutally invaded the prisons.
They killed people.
They fired on prisoners.
They brutally attacked the families of political prisoners protesting outside the jails and likewise on hunger strike.
I think that it is wrong that neither we nor the bureau have as yet protested against this situation in stronger, more categorical terms; our silence makes the whole of mankind feel that both the European Parliament and the European Union are accessories to this crime.
So I ask, even now, that you raise your voice and make our sympathies known.
Madam President, with the New Year we have learned through the Spanish Boletín Oficial del Estado that eleven policemen and three guardías civiles who had already been sentenced as torturers had been pardoned by the Spanish Government.
Few cases of torture are admitted by the Spanish courts.
On the contrary, many officials are promoted because of such activities.
Inside the European Union that is simply not tolerable.
It is incumbent upon us to press the Spanish Government on this issue.
I would urge this Parliament to issue a declaration in the clearest possible terms to show our steadfast opposition to torture.
I am sure that you will want to respond fully and rapidly to this concern.
Madam President, I also regret that a British comedy programme sought to make light of Parliament and would point out that my own group has, of course, already published its register of interests on the Internet.
It remains open to Mr Davies' group to follow suit and follow our lead in putting the register of interests on the Internet.
In the meantime, I agree with him.
I think the sooner this is on the Internet, the better.
It is a matter of public record.
There is no reason why it should be kept secret.
That is the point I believe the Quaestors will be urging on the Bureau in the near future.
Credit institutions
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0369/2000), by Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the reorganisation and winding up of credit institutions.
Madam President, the European Commission tabled a proposal for a directive on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the reorganisation and the winding-up of credit institutions back in 1985.
That so much time has lapsed, is largely down to the Gibraltar issue.
The purpose of the directive is to ensure that a credit institution and its branches in other Member States are reorganised or wound up according to the principles of unity and universality.
This means that the administrative authorities of the home Member State have sole jurisdiction in carrying out the reorganisation or winding up of a credit institution and its branches across the EU.
This applies to all cases, except where Article 20 of this directive specifies otherwise.
The aim of the directive is, thus, not to harmonise but to ensure equal treatment of all creditors and a consistent approach across the whole of Europe.
As rapporteur, I can completely identify with the thrust of this report.
In tandem with the Council and Commission, I have tried to make a few improvements to this report in the shape of two types of amendment.
The first type is related to the fact that the wording of the Council' s common position was not consistent with the existing insolvency directive and the directive on the winding up and reorganisation of insurance companies, which is to be voted on next week within the Economic Commission.
This kind of discrepancy in directives which cover the same subject matter is unacceptable, unless there is a good reason for it.
As rapporteur, I have taken great pride in rendering legislation on this particularly important subject matter as clearly and transparently as possible.
All our amendments pertain to Article 20, which deals with the exceptions to the rule.
Some amendments bring the directive into line with other directives, such as the insolvency directive and the winding up of insurance companies, as I mentioned a moment ago.
These are Articles 20(1)(h) and 20(2).
By means of Articles 20a to 20d, they are re-introduced in the report, but this time by using the same wording as in the other two directives.
The second type of amendment pertains to the deletion of a number of exceptions to the main rule.
These exceptions had been worded in an ambiguous manner and were open to interpretation.
Also, there was the risk, in the article on the regulated markets, that the exception was more comprehensive than the main rule.
Despite this, the articles on regulated markets, repurchase agreements, netting agreements and debt renewal were included as such in the common position.
In the first instance, I wanted to see these articles deleted.
The only problem was that certain parties within the Council could not live with completely deleting these articles.
For this reason, I have tried to reach agreement with the Council, and this was done at the eleventh hour last Wednesday.
The compromise still prescribes the deletion of the three articles, but three other articles will be inserted instead.
Broadly speaking, the compromise articles do not prejudice legislation of the Member State to which the contract pertains.
These articles also clarify that the bankruptcy rules of the home Member State of the credit institution in question are not prejudiced.
That means, therefore, that if contracts are concluded with regulated institutions, the proceeds from those contracts are still included in the estate.
That is what this is about, and that was the reason behind my original proposal to delete.
Everything is now spelled out loud and clear, everyone is happy and I am delighted that, by joining forces, we have probably avoided a lengthy conciliation procedure.
We are thus tabling two types of amendment.
One type is introducing harmonisation with respect to other directives, the other deleting a number of exceptions.
I hope from the bottom of my heart that this legislation, which I believe Parliament has upgraded in terms of quality, will never have to take effect.
Mr President, the main points of controversy in this report concern three different types of contractual agreement, namely repo agreements, netting agreements, and contracts conducted on a regulated market.
As Mrs Peijs' report outlined, these types of contracts were discussed in committee pending this debate and, in essence, what we are seeking to do with the compromises proposed by Mrs Peijs is to ensure that parties can choose their own contract law in relation to these particular contracts, but not their own winding-up proceedings law.
There is a separation here between the law of the contract and the external insolvency law, because it is quite important to ensure that parties, though they may choose the law of contract, may not actually choose their own insolvency law.
Now a problem arises concerning the interaction between the law of contract and insolvency law.
What we are trying to do is to ensure that the contract operates and whatever proceeds are left at the other end are then dealt with according to the insolvency law of the home State.
There is still one slight uncertainty in the text about what happens with regimes, for example, in Spain which have insolvency proceedings which kick in before the contract law actually takes place.
In essence, these are known as automatic stays and mean that in certain countries, such as Spain, I believe all contracts are suspended automatically by an insolvency proceeding.
I applaud Mrs Peijs' work in reconciling what looked fairly irreconcilable and coming up with a solution that favours home State control which is preferable in terms of the internal market, but I have some anxiety that there will still have to be some fine-tuning.
I hope that we will not have to have a third reading, but we may have to just to make it absolutely clear that these automatic stays would not affect netting contracts, repo contracts and contracts in a regulated market.
I would appeal to the House that in some ways it is more important to get a clear answer than to get one that suits everyone; one that is absolutely perfect in every respect.
Because with a clear answer people can arrange their transactions around the framework that we have set up.
It is vital to do that.
I applaud the work that Mrs Peijs has done and I hope that we have finally sorted this issue out. I just have certain worries about the automatic stays and suspect that we might need some fine-tuning at a later stage.
The other controversial issue involves right in rem and the difference between the common position and the tidying up operation that Mrs Peijs has done, and this is something we have discussed at length.
In essence, there is a lot of common ground between what the Council proposes in the common position and the alternative wording that Mrs Peijs has proposed.
I am inclined to think, in view of the uncertainty, that it may well be worth sticking to the common position on that particular issue, because of the potential threat that it might pose to the mortgage bond market.
This is not a strategic interest to me as a British MEP, because it does not affect the British market in any way - it is much more important for the Danish, the Austrian and the German mortgage market.
I would congratulate Mrs Peijs on her work. It is a very good report.
There are still one or two small points of controversy in it, but she has done an excellent job. I apologise for the confusion we have had in committee over the voting and I am glad that it has all been resolved now.
Mr President, I do not feel that I will need the full five minutes, hopefully this will allow you to speed up proceedings tonight.
I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Peijs as rapporteur on this report which, as Mrs Villiers has already outlined, has been extremely complicated.
The issue has long been problematic, mainly because of the national differences at governmental level, rather than the issues directly originating from Parliament, but compromises produced in Parliament have been both efficient and expedient in terms of their approach and are very welcome.
In an effort to provide for equal treatment across the EU, the principles of unity and universality are the central pillars, of course, of this report, and coherence and consistency are therefore attained.
Similarly the rights of creditors in Member States other than their own are safeguarded by the assurances of cooperation between the relevant authorities in the Member States, but let us be clear, in case some of you have not read the document, this is not about harmonisation, it is about mutual recognition of Member States' reorganisation measures and winding up procedures.
Parliament's success in introducing substantial changes in the original proposal is important.
There are many in Parliament who feel the issues here are of real concern since they all concern the safeguarding of European citizens' interests and rights; indeed this report helps clarify many of the elements, such as the deposit guarantee scheme.
But, of course, many of the changes in the common position which finally came back to us have to be welcomed, as they reflect many of Parliament's concerns, although some work has still to be done.
It is therefore sensible for Parliament, whilst accepting the improved document's intentions, to reimpose our priorities from the first readings but to organise and also clarify the suggestions emanating from this text.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 bring the text into line with the insolvency regulation and the insurance winding-up proposals which had already been agreed last summer: this confirms Parliament's desire, therefore, to see a degree of coherence in this matter.
I also see great strength for creditors in Amendments Nos 3, 5 and 6 while recognising that other national delegations, especially in my group, may have other concerns in this area.
But I personally offer my support to the idea of bringing this directive in line with the insolvency regulation and the insurance winding-up proposals.
It seems to me that, finally, in the remaining amendments, following in the tradition of tidying up texts for the purpose of clarification, Parliament's rapporteur has maintained the type of quality we have come to expect from experienced Members.
Whilst issues such as netting seem to have been slotted in as an extra series of amendments, what we have here is a workable document nonetheless, capable of securing support in the House and provoking serious discussion within the Council.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are all agreed that the directive on the reorganisation of credit institutions is long overdue, which is also why we welcome it.
A uniform procedure is at last to be established and there is to be coherence between the reorganisation procedure and the insolvency regulation.
We would do well to stress that the provisions on protecting creditors' rights, in particular, are of crucial importance here, since they establish the principle of providing creditors with information, as well as the conditions governing payments made to them.
In this way, all creditors, including those in countries other than the home Member State, are guaranteed equal treatment under the winding up procedure, and a consistent approach.
Although the text in its current form is absolutely excellent, some clarification is needed.
Thus, for example, the all-important principle of universality was strengthened by a series of amendments in committee, and several areas of incompatibility with the provisions relating to financial conglomerates, and which could lead to legal uncertainty, were ironed out.
You will already have noticed in the course of the debate that we differ on one point, specifically in relation to Amendments Nos 3 and 5.
The close correspondence between the reorganisation and winding up of credit institutions and insurance companies is not desirable for all aspects.
Opinion differs on this because we believe what we are talking about here are different products, and sometimes different markets, and that different products and different markets should be treated differently, and not automatically the same.
The common position is well-balanced to my mind and was improved on, to some extent, by the committee' s amendments and those tabled by the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, whom I would like to thank.
The text ought, therefore, to be adopted without delay and transposed by the Member States.
I regret that the dispute in the Council has led to this being delayed by more than a decade.
I would point out that the Commission' s first proposal was published as early as 1985 and Parliament' s first reading was held back in 1987.
The reason I stress this is because we constantly discuss the balance between the European institutions in our debates - particularly in the wake of the Nice European Council - and in many cases discuss how the procedures ought to be accelerated.
This does not just apply to Parliament, which is often the impression given in the public arena, although we would, of course, do well to consolidate and accelerate quite a few procedures of our own too.
But this is not about apportioning blame.
However, doubtless the opinion-forming and decision-making process in the European Council offers the best bet for accelerating the procedures between the European institutions.
That has been made crystal clear again here.
The Commission proposal is designed to ensure that a credit institution and its branch offices in other Member States can be reorganised and wound up according to the principle of unity and universality.
That is guaranteed under this proposed directive.
Mr President, the market and national authorities have been looking forward to the directive on the reorganisation and the winding-up of credit institutions coming into effect for some time now.
This directive, in fact, aims to provide a guarantee with regard to the regulations which, in an organic manner and in a way which is specifically tailored to the sector, govern the institutions, the assets, the rights and business relations when a bank, which is active in different EU Member States, gets into difficulty or goes under.
This directive spearheads the action plan for financial services.
In its common position, established by qualified majority, the Council displayed a discerning and keen insight into the specific characteristics of the banking sector which set it apart from the rest, both in terms of the insolvency procedure in general and compared to other financial sectors, such as the insurance business and the stocks and shares industry.
This is why Article 20 of the common position grants the banking sector special treatment on a number of scores.
This special treatment does not in any way prejudice the harmony and logic of a set of rules for the financial services as a whole.
Quite the reverse, in fact; it does justice to the specific characteristics of banking, thus giving a better guarantee for stability and legal certainty.
The report by Mrs Peijs, on which I would like to congratulate her on behalf of the Commission, and in respect of which I would like to endorse the compliments extended by Mrs Villiers and Mr Skinner, which welcomes the common position for the most part, proposes a number of amendments to Article 20, as was explained earlier this afternoon.
The Commission can approve the purport of these amendments, barring one.
It objects, at least in principle, to Amendment No 1 with regard to repurchase agreements.
After all, it is of key importance that the banks know in advance what legislation will govern repurchase agreements.
As it happens, Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, has tabled five new amendments.
These amendments draw the amendments adopted by the Economic and Monetary Commission together in a coherent manner which does justice to the special position of the banking sector.
Under a different guise, the new amendments take into consideration the specific requirements which are prescribed in the banking sector with regard to netting agreements, repurchase agreements and agreements and transactions within regulated markets.
The Commission can go along with the spirit of these amendments, as is apparent in its explanatory statement.
If the five new amendments are adopted by this Parliament, the Commission can assent to the spirit of all amendments proposed in Mrs Peijs' report, including Amendment No 1.
However, the wording of all amendments - and I am also making this point in response to comments made by Mrs Villiers - would then have to be adapted in order to guarantee the compatibility and consistency of these amendments with Article 20.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Simpler legislation for the internal market (SLIM)
The next item is the report by Mr Doorn on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on the communication from the Commission to the Council and to the European Parliament on the review of simpler legislation for the Internal Market.
Mr President, red tape within Dutch industry amounts to near enough EUR 9 billion per annum. This was revealed in the Netherlands last week by Actal, the newly formed Committee of Experts on the verification of administrative burdens.
The average entrepreneur spends approximately ten hours on completing administrative tasks and forms.
The Netherlands, as far as this is concerned, is no exception.
Research has shown that unnecessary bureaucratic procedures within companies account for 4 to 6 per cent of the GNP of EU Member States.
This is a heavy burden, which hits small companies particularly hard.
I know of entrepreneurs who have quite consciously decided against further expansion of their businesses because they want to avoid having to take on staff at all costs.
Many are deterred by the administrative red tape involved.
In this way, the many obligations imposed by governments on entrepreneurs hinder the growth of production and employment.
Some of the time, it is not even the legislation which is wrong or ineffective, but it is often the accumulation of obligations which makes the administrative pressures so heavy, and the European Parliament contributes to this in its own way.
This reminds me of a report we discussed last year which related to the working conditions on construction sites.
One of the prohibitions in that report, thanks to an amendment in Parliament, pertains to holding a ladder while someone is standing on it.
Quite apart from the absurdity of such provisions, one wonders who subsequently monitors compliance with this kind of legislation.
One of the key problems in our complex society is probably the fact that we produce far too many regulations in such abundance and of such complexity, that we ourselves are no longer able to monitor their compliance.
The consequences can be disastrous, as a recent incident in the Netherlands proved once more.
In my opinion, the heavy administrative burden on citizens and businesses, combined with the government' s incapacity to ensure compliance with the tangled web of rules, are reason enough to tackle the simplification of legislation and improvement of its quality head-on.
While I welcome the SLIM project, which the Commission launched in 1996 and which is under discussion this evening, as I stated in my report, it is too little too late.
Compared to the legislative machinery as a whole, it is only a drop in the ocean.
That is why I argue in favour of added momentum, as well as shorter implementation periods for the results of the SLIM working parties and, obviously, for the organisation and manpower required in this respect.
However, I attach yet more importance to simplifying legislation in its entirety.
Particular attention will need to be paid to the way in which legislation is developed. After all, it is much easier to take simplifying measures in the early stages than to adapt existing legislation later on, at great cost, also for businesses.
Every available effort must be made early on to lay down high-quality legislation and to restrict the administrative and financial consequences to a minimum.
The Netherlands has seen the recent introduction of Actal, which I mentioned a moment ago. Actal is an independent watchdog whose duty it is to examine draft legislative proposals and to expose any negative administrative burdens on behalf of citizens and businesses.
An excellent initiative which, I hope, will be copied liberally in other Member States and at EU level.
I would make an urgent appeal to the European Commission to make a maximum effort to improve the quality of legislation and to restrict the administrative burden on citizens and businesses.
If the current situation continues for much longer, the European Parliament, too, will need to consider the consequences of legislative proposals discussed here on citizens and businesses.
If others fail to come up with the goods, we might have to follow in the footsteps of the American Congress and set up a service ourselves which maps out the administrative and financial consequences of legislation.
Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, ladies and gentlemen, the simpler legislation for the internal market initiative is one of the most important processes now underway in the Union.
At least for my party in Finland, the National Coalition, the streamlining of legislation and an end to the needless churning out of directives became one of the main objectives in the last European Parliament elections.
I believe that much value is attached to this approach in many other quarters too.
The Commission communication on the present state of the SLIM project is very gratifying, but by no means fully adequate, as yet.
It is vitally important that the Commission is able to make the proposals for the project' s third and fourth phases into clear legislative proposals as soon and as effectively as possible.
Furthermore, the six-month deadline proposed by the rapporteur should be taken seriously.
I warmly support our rapporteur' s proposals that the users of the legislation - the customers of our decision makers - should be heard more than they have been when concrete proposals are being drafted.
Only this sort of coregulation can fully serve to speed up the development of the European internal market, and, ultimately, guarantee that consumers actually do benefit from legislation projects and the adoption of the euro.
Proposals alone are obviously not enough: they must also be able to be processed swiftly both in Parliament and in the Council.
We do have debates on speeding up the legislative process from time to time here in Parliament.
We members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in particular await with interest the proposals by the Lamfalussy working party on new courses of action that are to be applied in the future, at least with regard to legislation on financial services.
Although their interim report was still not very detailed, it nevertheless gives us to understand that the working party is pondering a procedure in which only the broadest policy issues would be solved through a full-scale codecision procedure, while for other amendments to directives of a more technical nature the fast-track procedure would apply.
In principle, I take a positive view of such proposals, although it is notoriously difficult for us parliamentarians to relinquish power.
I believe that the relinquishment of power in certain respects will be inevitable to remove the final barriers to the internal market as soon as possible.
My final position, and that of my group, will surely depend on what form the fast-track procedure will take.
In no case should it be an imitation of the present comitology procedure, where there is a very great need for reform, especially in the area of transparency.
Our rapporteur also referred to this.
As regards the general development of the legislative process, I also await with interest the Commission' s white paper on governance it is drafting for the Gothenburg Summit.
Whatever the Commission proposes in its paper will determine how quickly new projects for legislation are dealt with, and, how effective the Union is as a whole for a long time ahead.
Hopefully, the paper will contain good, concrete proposals, but I also hope that we can still put some effort into the SLIM project.
Mr President, it is clear that improving the quality of legislation is essential to the effective functioning of the internal market and to increasing the competitivity of the European economy.
So we all welcome the SLIM initiative, but we must all share the rapporteur's reservations about how it has worked so far.
There are surprisingly few areas which have been subject to the SLIM process and it is not always clear why those particular areas have been selected.
We need, without a doubt, a fast-track procedure to turn SLIM opinions into legislative proposals, because it all seems to take rather a long time.
So we welcome the proposal to set up a special group within the Advisory Committee and we welcome the rapporteur's suggestion that it should have more resources.
Clearly we also need greater synergy between the different Commission initiatives for improving legislation.
We sometimes think that the different parts are operating in isolation.
And, of course, we need greater cooperation between Member States and to overview best practice and seek to repeat best practice elsewhere.
And finally, it is crucial to ensure maximum involvement of the users of this legislation, particularly businesses, because they know best how this legislation affects them.
However, having said that, you could quite conceivably produce wonderful, simple legislation, yet it could be completely destroyed by the way that Member States implement it and enforce it.
We must understand that there are three stages of legislation - formulation, implementation, including transposition, and enforcement - and we have to see the process as a whole.
We often find the greatest problem is not the original legislation but how it has been transposed by Member States and the speed at which they have transposed it, how they have implemented it and how they have enforced it.
I am often quite surprised by how relatively simple ideas are turned into the most complex nightmares as we go through that process.
As part of this on-going determination by the Commission to simplify legislation, I would like to see much greater cooperation between Member States and the Commission about the whole life of legislation and, particularly, involvement with the people who have prime responsibility for enforcing the legislation, who are often local and regional actors.
So we must consider the whole process when we draft the original legislation.
In some ways, you could argue, we should start at the end and look at how we enforce it and then work backwards as a way of getting simpler legislation.
But the SLIM process ought to go much further.
We need a rolling programme which will cover all legislation and look at simplifying, consolidating, re-casting, sometimes repealing legislation.
Sometimes we may need to go for the status quo, but we need a more dynamic process than we have had so far.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I share the rapporteur' s concern about the fact that evidently, European institutions are unable to issue transparent, readily accessible regulations which are clear and understandable to people with average IQ levels.
All credit to Mr Doorn, who has managed to put his finger on the problem.
It should be highlighted, rightly so, that EU citizens and businesses consider complex legislation and red tape to be evidence of a lack of efficiency within the institutions. The causes are obvious.
As long as the Commission does not adopt a clear, centralised approach to SLIM, the SLIM initiative remains an exercise with no strings attached.
It should be anything but that.
In my opinion, two goals need to be brought into focus, in addition to the recommendations which are currently in the report.
First of all, the SLIM initiative must be lent a binding character, particularly with EU enlargement on the horizon.
Secondly, Member States must, as of now, set a good example by guaranteeing a correct, but above all, timely transposition of European directives into national legislation.
All too often, we have been under the impression that the process of simplification, which is so crucial, is much like a procession of Echternach.
Pending the Union' s enlargement, we must shift up a gear if we want to develop the internal market in a professionally responsible manner.
I am delighted that the Member State which I have the honour of representing here, has realised that special measures need to be taken, as is the case in the Netherlands, to simplify legislation in a consistent manner.
Convinced of the need for simplified legislation, the Liberal Group will be lending the Doorn report its unqualified support.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that although I have been allocated four minutes, I should like to do my bit for the simplification and streamlining of bureaucracy by speaking for less than half that time.
I congratulate the rapporteur on highlighting such a very important issue and also highlighting the failures of the Commission to get to grips with it thus far.
I hope that the Commissioner will say what more is to be done to give added urgency to what is such a very important programme.
However, rather than criticise the Commission more than the rapporteur has already done, rather even than refer just to the four committees involved in this particular issue, I should like to highlight one issue the rapporteur also raised, which is that it is really entirely up to us, as Members of this House, to ensure that legislation is better in the first place.
He wondered to what extent legislation should delve into details and gave an example involving people holding ladders.
That particular subject came up in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
It must be said that this particular committee has contributed very significantly to the extra bureaucracy that we are now passing the buck to the Commission to try and reduce.
How much better it would be if that committee, and indeed all other committees, had left such legislation alone in its simpler and purer form in the first place.
My final suggestion is that for us the acronym SLIM - "Simpler Legislation for the Internal Market" - should represent "Substantially Less Interference by Members".
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and say that the proposals on the simplification of legislation in the internal market that were launched in 1996 are very welcome.
An attempt was made there to improve the quality of legislation, to try to cut down on superfluous legislation and to limit the costs associated with implementing legislation.
Now that we have finished the third and fourth phases, with teams of Member State officials and users identifying concrete suggestions to simplify legislation, it is right that we have a review.
We need to have clearer definitions of what is going on.
Improved selection at the moment seems to be fairly random and we need some clear guidelines for the operation of the management teams and, of course, the implementation of recommendations which, at the moment, are too little and too late.
Many of the recommendations are not implemented at all and many have to wait considerable periods of time.
So we are in favour, but there are two things we want to add.
Firstly, we have to ensure that political control remains with the Commission and Parliament.
Recent press reports on the new approach to legislation dating from the 1980s and '90s - not so new now - which allowed the detail of legislation to be worked out by industry-led standardisation organisations, seem to indicate that this is not always the best way forward.
The European Committee for Standardisation, for example, recently did work on the packaging of waste directive, which the press has described as "fundamentally flawed, undermines democratic accountability and fails to meet the demands of the directive or, for that matter, environmental protection".
So we need to ensure that there is political control there, unless of course there are strong political or consumer pressures to ensure that industry makes progress.
However, we would also wish to go further in a different direction.
SLIM seems to have become fundamentally about simplification, even though in the original proposals we talked about limiting costs.
What we would like to see are proposals for dealing with economy of legislation as well as simplicity.
We therefore welcome the proposals from Lisbon for better regulation, which will look at the costs of legislation; we welcome the informal meeting of ministers of public administration held in Strasbourg on 7 November; we welcome the establishment of the high-level group to look at recommendations on making legislation more cost-effective; but we are disappointed that the promised European Parliament representative on that high-level group has not been appointed by Parliament nor, as far as I understand, have we been approached to appoint such a representative.
We welcome the fact that Commissioners Bolkestein and Liikanen are looking at various pilot projects in this area.
However, the Commission and Parliament will have to begin to act on their own rules in looking at the financial implications of legislative proposals in order for them to be taken into account.
It can only devalue our work in the European Parliament if claims can be made, for example, that the end-of-vehicle-life directive will cost us £400m a year in terms of the cost to the producers and the consumers but will only deliver £100m a year of benefit to the environment.
While such claims can be made, obviously we in this Parliament will look rather ludicrous.
Mr President, I would very much like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Doorn, on this particularly constructive and well-balanced report.
It underlines the need for stepping up our joint efforts in order to improve the quality of new and existing Community legislation - with good reason.
I therefore welcome the support lent to the SLIM initiative, as well as the support shown by this Parliament.
Our review of the SLIM initiative and this report have demonstrated where and how the initiative can be improved.
Consequently, in tandem with the representatives of the Member States, we are, in this connection, looking forward to making and implementing important recommendations under the wing of a newly established internal market Advisory Committee.
With the fifth and subsequent stages of the SLIM in mind, we are currently considering suggestions with regard to sectors which could be due an overhaul.
Any suggestions in this connection from this Parliament are, of course, welcome.
As soon as agreement has been reached on a shortlist of sectors which can be overhauled, we will contact representatives of the industrial and business world, consumer organisations and trade unions, all referred to as the so-called 'consumers' , every step of the way.
That should offer them the opportunity of contributing to the SLIM initiative, either directly or indirectly, and of being informed of the progress made.
I am convinced that this approach will allow all those taking part in this overhaul exercise to focus on the key issues of simplification, and that the SLIM teams will be making relevant and practical recommendations.
I am therefore looking forward to reporting on the progress made during the next couple of months.
As you know, the Commission is required to submit proposals to the best of its ability within six months of receiving the recommendations of the SLIM team, provided that these are recommendations which it can subscribe to.
We will make every effort to fulfil this commitment, and I am addressing Mr Bushill-Matthews in particular with this statement.
We are thrilled with Mr Doorn' s recommendations that Parliament and the Council will each assume their responsibilities, by carefully considering all proposals in this connection, so as to ensure that the SLIM initiative runs as smoothly as possible.
I share Mr Doorn' s view that an increasing number of legislative areas should be simplified.
I am with him on that one.
I, too, would like to see this happen.
That is, of course, only possible within the confines imposed by other priority duties and within the budgetary scope available.
I would like to underline this point.
The Commission receives many requests.
The Commission has many duties, but it does not always have the means available to fulfil these duties fast and efficiently.
That is an important matter which also merits much attention in this Parliament.
Nevertheless, I have no doubt that we can accelerate the simplification process, not least as a result of the work in which the Commission itself is involved.
In response to the appeal made at the European Council in Lisbon, to reach a coordinated policy so as to simplify the legislative climate, the Commission is currently subjecting its position on legislation in general to a thorough investigation in the widest sense of the word.
It is examining areas where non-regulatory alternatives could be introduced.
Moreover, it is pressing for the development of better ways of gauging the effect of newly proposed legislation on the business world and industry, so as to minimise possible extra expense and administrative red tape.
An enquiry in this connection was also submitted this afternoon.
The efforts which are now being made to draft better legislation coincide with preparations for the white paper on better management.
I am mentioning this particularly for the benefit of Mrs Kauppi.
The Commission' s work will be complemented by the results of the discussions held in a high-level working group on better legislation, which was convened by ministers of the Public Office following their meeting in Strasbourg in November last.
It is this working group' s duty, and Mr Ford called for attention to be given to this, to examine the quality and simplification of both national and Community legislation.
I am already looking forward to the report and the recommendations of this working group.
This legislative process for which we all carry some responsibility, concerns us all, of course.
I am convinced that the current political consensus in aid of a better legislative climate within the European Union will lead to real and permanent improvements.
I would also like to thank Mr Bushill-Matthews for the alternative meaning he gave to the acronym SLIM, namely 'Substantially Less Interference by Members' .
I am very grateful to him for that.
I will try to quote this at the appropriate place and time, and those whom the cap fits can wear it.
On a final note, I would like to let Mr Doorn and your Parliament know that the amendments are acceptable to the Commission.
Thank you very much Commissioner Bolkestein, as usual, for your helpful remarks in this debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Quality evaluation in school education
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0375/2000), by Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council recommendation on European cooperation in quality evaluation in school education [11540/1/2000 - C5-0565/2000 - 2000/0022(COD)].
Mr President, the quality of education is high on the political agenda of every Member State, and that comes as no surprise.
The third millennium offers unknown opportunities and prospects within a society which is becoming increasingly more aware, more global, more mobile and more knowledge-intensive, but at the same time where the concern about different speeds and opportunities for people is becoming increasingly apparent, because how does one ensure that everyone can function fully in this new dynamic society? Education must and can help here, and all these new developments offer education opportunities and challenges, because education will undergo a sea of change, and that is only the way children are taught, and how they are taught to learn.
Consider, in addition, technology, information technology and the different cultures.
That is why it is so important that the EU Member States join forces and want to work together on future-orientated education, each according to their own tradition but, let there be no mistake, with a common goal in mind.
As rapporteur, I am thus delighted with the results of the common position as it is now before us.
Initially, I found the Commission proposal somewhat vague and very non-committal, given the huge importance of sound education, and the Council was suffering from stage fright: whatever you do, do not touch our autonomy in education.
However, in the course of the discussions, they came to share Parliament' s opinion that the quality of education should be monitored seriously and in a structured manner by, among other things, setting up sound, efficient quality evaluation systems for primary education, secondary education and secondary vocational training.
The recommendations are now clear in the amendments tabled by the MEPs and myself as rapporteur.
In these, we stipulate clearly that Member States must develop transparent quality evaluation with high-quality education as the key goal.
This was not in the first Commission proposal, and neither was the promotion of social integration.
Offering equal opportunities to boys and girls, that was also hard to sell.
It was difficult to convince the Council to adopt this wording, but as rapporteur, I am delighted that both the Council and Commission are now in agreement with this.
Another aspect which was close to my heart is that parents, pupils and teachers too should be involved in the process.
This, too, has now been included, and this is important for the support structure of evaluation processes and improvements in education.
It is also important to encourage schools to cooperate at national and European level.
However, I believe that schools should not be prevented from looking for sound cooperation partners in their immediate surroundings within the region, and, in my opinion, this idea could have been given more of an airing in the report.
Finally, I should like to underline the importance of collating information and developing indicators and references, and of entering these in a database which can be consulted interactively.
That is the modern way of communicating.
It brings me pleasure personally as rapporteur to see that the Member States have got down to work both independently and under the remit of the Commission and have set up a working committee of experts that has developed a limited number of indicators and benchmarks.
Parliament will be monitoring the developments closely.
Mr President, Commissioner, the common position as it is now before us is the result of sound and constructive cooperation with the Commission and the Council in the spirit of codecision, but particularly thanks to the involvement of my fellow MEPs who have delivered their comments with great care, the recommendation has become a sound, well-balanced and stimulating one, which Member States can now start to use.
I am interested to hear your reaction.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Peijs, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Sanders-ten Holte for the work she has done and I welcome the fruitful cooperation that has developed between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, the outcome of which is the text that has just been presented to us, a text which, I hope, will make a real contribution towards promoting the high quality education throughout Europe we aspire to.
On behalf of my committee, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I would particularly like to stress the importance of improving the quality of teaching in schools and vocational training, and seeking to implement a system for exchanging good practice and methodological tools. These are ways of achieving social cohesion and reducing unemployment.
High quality education systems must strive to achieve objectives, such as to get people into the labour market, to reduce the number of young people leaving school early, our ability to provide life-long learning and to give people access to the new technologies.
I must highlight two points in this quality evaluation as specified in the common position.
First of all, this process makes a clear distinction between administrative evaluation and the innovative procedures that we would like to see and that we would like to implement and in which, as has been said, all stakeholders must take part.
The second point which I would like to highlight has perhaps not been fully taken on board, as we would have wished.
What we do not want to do is to turn the quality evaluation process into a factor for establishing a hierarchy, classification or league table of schools.
On the contrary, this form of evaluation should allow each establishment, however different in terms of its students or the methods or resources used, to meet all the risks of dropping out, to improve the intrinsic quality of education for everyone and to accept all pupils of all abilities by offering education which is tailored to the students' requirements and by allowing everyone to discover their own personal development needs.
Mr President, this report is strongly supported by the PPE-DE Group.
Indeed, we have supported it throughout the entire procedure.
We regretted that initially there was some slight resistance from the Council but we are very pleased that, as a result of strong intervention by the Commissioner and the negotiating skills of the rapporteur, a compromise was reached last autumn that we can certainly support.
We congratulate the Commissioner and the rapporteur on their work to achieve that.
We certainly all agree here in this Chamber that education is of vital importance and that an educated workforce is the cornerstone of Europe's future prosperity.
Therefore, any attempts to improve standards in our schools must be welcomed with open arms.
We also all agree that education is rightly a matter for the individual Member States and the regions.
But there is room for the Commission to coordinate and improve evaluation systems as provided for in the Treaty and I was glad to see that the Commission was careful to emphasise that this is to be based on voluntary cooperation between the Member States.
Certainly, at the moment it is difficult to get past each country's various examination systems and teaching philosophies to reach any objective comparison of the teaching standards of the countries.
As a former lecturer myself, I would have welcomed a clear idea of how British teaching and educational standards compared to those of other European countries.
It is important in this global age to have as broad an input as possible for the evaluation system.
European comparisons will show up, one hopes, strengths but also weaknesses that are currently hidden by evaluation systems limited to a single educational system.
One of the main aims of education is to provide for the world of work as well as providing a cultural base for Europe's young people.
This report seeks a balance between the need for adequate preparation in both those fields.
The possibility of comparing education systems across borders will, I hope, lead to improvements across European teaching establishments as schools learn from others outside their immediate view.
The point made by Mrs Sanders-ten Holte about social exclusion is particularly valid.
I would like to see whether there are differences in the pattern of the school day, whether this varies in different parts of Europe, and whether this offers ways of improving education.
Then there is the use of compulsory sports activities: does this help in the educational system of different countries?
Do different countries have different patterns? We would all be interested to know how the educational systems achieve competence in two modern languages in addition to the mother tongue.
I suspect my own country will not do so well there but perhaps we would do better on the use of information technology.
Finally, I would just like to say that the rapporteur's amendments calling for greater self-evaluation and participation of stakeholders inserts a valuable cog in the evaluation machine.
The opinion of those within the educational system is often lost within the large civil service machines and bureaucracies which run schools.
We must find ways which give power back to the schools and to the parents and to the students because that is where responsibility should lie.
Mr President, Commissioner, education is assuming an ever more important role in the European strategy.
The conclusions of the Lisbon Summit emphasised the importance of education both in improving competitiveness and preventing exclusion.
It is only natural that the quality of school education should receive attention also at Union level, although the organisation of education itself is the responsibility of the Member States.
We need Europe-wide cooperation and encouragement in all areas of education.
Systematic quality evaluation in education is still in its infancy in many EU countries.
In Finland, for example, there were legal provisions introduced on it as part of national educational legislation just two years ago.
A report on the subject prepared in Helsinki last week shows that evaluation is not yet adequately systematic in nature, although it has got off to a brisk start.
The report points out, for example, that comprehensive and high school education has not paid adequate attention to cooperation between pupils, their parents and the organisers of education.
The importance of including pupils and their home background in decision making is certainly worth bearing in mind.
Education cannot just be looked at from the limited point of view of competitiveness.
There must be room for different sorts of talent, but, at the same time, we have to ensure that the others remain included.
Education has a major part to play in building an equal and integrated society.
Well-organised education means that national resources are being put to the best possible use.
In my opinion, schools must be developed in such a way that all children starting their compulsory education can achieve success.
That is why the evaluation of quality cannot just focus on results, which give a narrow picture of the situation.
Education is not just about information and skills gathering, but also personal development, in the shape, for example, of a healthy sense of self-worth.
It is a positive sign that a common position on the quality evaluation of school education is ready to be approved so quickly.
Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, Commissioner Reding and the Council all deserve the credit for this.
We are making good progress with this important issue.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, education is one of those areas of competence which is very much part of what goes on in a community, and so it should be.
This competence must be carried out as closely to the population as possible, and that means that there will probably never be a need for a general European education system.
But it is exactly because education is so important in the passing on, not only of knowledge and in the acquisition of skills, but it is also in the passing on of cultural heritage and in the integration of the individual into the social fabric that sound education is vital.
Accordingly, we pour huge amounts of money into education and yet, there is an increasing need for European quality monitoring. That is why we would like to lend our support in this matter.
Parents know that education requires a huge effort from children and students, but at the same time they expect to see results.
In the old days, maybe attending a good school was sufficient, because it enjoyed our ideological trust.
That criterion is no longer enough on its own, and has not been for a long time.
Parents want quality education, and children who attend school want to actually learn what is important in life.
Each one of us can ask the question how important common quality monitoring is in our own environment.
What it did lead to in Flanders is a high level of self-evaluation in the schools. They sensed of their own accords that they needed to make a stand in the world of education.
It has also led to increasing levels of care and concern across the borders.
In Flanders, quality monitoring used to be a bit of a taboo subject, for example, for it was feared that this would breed hostility in the different educational networks. We now see that the opposite is true.
The desire for quality monitoring in education has opened up the door to this large European Community and to the job market of this European Community. Quality monitoring has thus increasingly become a common area of concern.
Today, I can show you the results of an enquiry which was held across the Flemish education system to check whether both primary and secondary education meet the common standards.
It is quite striking how much media attention this enquiry received, precisely because they know that parents, students and the entire teaching environment scrutinise these results.
After all, each school, each educational network, wants to come out of this enquiry smelling of roses, but at the same time, each parent wants their children to attend good schools.
It has come to my attention that the world of education has been complaining about a lack of resources. After all, not only do we want our children to do well at school, we also want their schools to be well equipped, the environments to be safe, in other words the infrastructure to be up to scratch.
Unfortunately, a great deal of resources are still needed in many countries in order to achieve this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the rapporteur for her work.
I welcome the report and consider European cooperation in quality evaluation in school education to be important in this age of information.
The European education systems must become attuned to the information society.
Rapid scientific and technological change, together with globalisation, demand superior educational standards.
We need an education system that can easily adapt to rapid developments in modern society.
What constitutes a good school education these days? Is it about imparting knowledge and expertise?
There is more to it than that. I believe it is the role of education in terms of the self-realisation of the individual and his or her participation in a democratic, socially just and tolerant society that is crucial to the definition of a high quality education.
Young people must be given the opportunity to acquire academic and social competences at school.
Everyone is entitled to a good school education, and that goes for foreign nationals and groups on the fringe of society too.
They are particularly at risk of social marginalisation because they are not as well educated.
I call upon the Member States of the European Union to ensure that everyone receives the same standard of education.
The social divide between the informed and the uninformed must be bridged.
Quality evaluation in school education is to be welcomed for two reasons. Firstly, I regard the evaluation as a way of incentivising people to improve school education, and secondly, it raises awareness of the quality dimension in education systems.
The Member States of the European Union must work together in the field of quality evaluation in school education, because this is of crucial importance to labour market policy and the free movement of workers within the EU.
In addition, organisations and associations working in the field of quality evaluation in school education should cooperate at European level.
We need European networks so as to be able to offer mutual support and to get the external evaluation process off the ground.
After all, schools, associations, and organisations can learn from one another by exchanging information and experiences and so find exemplary solutions to providing a good education.
I am committed to the idea of providing a good education, as a way of preventing unemployment and social exclusion.
A high-quality education is an investment in the future, for the sake of social progress, a peaceful world and tolerance.
Mr President, today we are discussing a draft recommendation to the Member States on quality evaluation in education which may bring some worthwhile innovations to the working methods of the European Union and a project which has already made good progress at grass roots level.
As far back as 1998, at a conference in Prague attended by 26 European countries, the national Ministers for Education agreed to implement a system of common indicators for their methods and results.
First of all, they had to establish a common language and then compare results in order to share experiences, whilst leaving each Member State with full responsibility for its own education system.
We will find this an interesting initiative as much from the point of view of its motives as the method used.
As regards motives, on the one hand, education is obviously a key factor in the age of the information and knowledge society, for both human development and economic competitiveness.
We should, therefore, ensure that we get the most from the inevitably limited resources available to us.
So we can only be surprised at the size of the gaps between the Member States of the European Union which are emerging, in particular, from the first set of statistics published by Eurostat last July.
For example, while the average level of public spending per pupil in secondary education in Europe is 100, Germany spends 84.9 and France 131.6.
The difference is thus quite considerable.
Moreover, it does not always work the same way and depends on the circumstances.
That is why it is in all our interests to share our experiences.
The advantages of doing this seem particularly obvious in the case of France, which has a very inflexible education system that would benefit from being more responsive to the needs of the 'education consumer' .
However, it is difficult to carry out any reform precisely because of this inflexibility.
As regards the methodological issues, on the other hand, the new cooperation in evaluation of education systems could, in fact, lead the way to a new, wholly beneficial, method.
It involves implementation of an open method of coordination, which has already been touched upon at the Lisbon European Council and which, if it were developed, could introduce a divide between working methods in Europe.
It would not be a question of setting targets with a view to obligatory harmonisation.
In any case, Articles 149 and 150 of the Treaty establishing the European Community do not give the Community competence in this area.
It is simply a matter of together finding out the best practices, without, a priori, setting targets in precise detail beforehand and of allowing each country to draw their own conclusions.
This new method of coordination will create a networked Europe, which organises interaction between the various seats of power, i.e. the national Ministries of Education, rather than a centralised Europe.
This networked coordination is more decentralised and flexible and more liberal than the standard harmonisation directive.
In addition, it can easily extend beyond the Union' s borders to bring together 26 or more Member States, rather than 15.
Mr President, we believe, for all these reasons, that this new and different method of cooperation seems to have great promise.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I said by way of introduction, back in the debate held on 5 July on "quality evaluation in school education" that the foundations for the future of young people are laid in classrooms, but not just in classrooms.
There are no two ways about it, education, i.e. training and further education, must take centre stage in all policy areas.
Education is not an end in itself but is the key to our being able to hold our own in the modern age, not just in economic terms but also at a personal level.
The transition to the knowledge-based society, the globalisation of the economy, social, democratic and environmental change, together with far-reaching changes in the world of work, due not least to the new technologies: these are the big challenges we face in the third millennium, and they also require renewed efforts in the educational field.
So again, I welcome the fact that this report has come before the House, because its aim is both to improve school education and the quality evaluation thereof.
Quality comparisons - be they internal or external - generate competition, and if the quality of education in European schools is enhanced as a result, and the three-fold challenge posed by the information society, globalisation and rapid scientific and technological change is taken into account, then this report will have achieved its goal of giving renewed impetus to efforts in the field of education, and a major step forward will have been taken at European level.
So let us help to ensure that the report on implementation, which the Commission is to put before Parliament in three years' time, proves successful.
Permit me though, on a final note, to say something that is fundamental to the future of education, since I have just come from an educational symposium, the Federal Conference of the Austrian People' s Party.
There is more to education than equipping people for employment.
Its goal must be the all-round development of young people as individuals.
This entails imparting fundamental knowledge, skills and competences, communicating values, and educating people in music, creative subjects, health and sport.
Secondly, a sound knowledge base, which imparts important material and leaves out what is unimportant, still forms the basis for education in the twenty-first century.
So it falls short of the mark to say that knowledge and information ought only to be obtained from the Internet.
Those who do not have basic knowledge do not know where to acquire knowledge either.
The cultural techniques of reading, calculating and writing form part of this knowledge base.
The new technologies offer new opportunities to acquire knowledge and employ our cultural techniques.
Only those who have a knowledge base know how to handle knowledge properly, and how to distinguish and differentiate, in an age that has seen an explosion in knowledge.
That is why I feel this report makes a significant contribution to placing the acquisition of knowledge at the heart of our policy areas.
Mr President, I, too, would like to congratulate those who have been responsible for getting the report to this stage.
Quality, as we have been hearing, can be a problematic concept in education, especially when one looks at any form of assessment.
There are certain areas, such as literacy and numeracy, where we can now gain some idea of what has been achieved.
There are many international studies which have thrown up difficulties, however, when it comes to making straight comparisons, because of differences in curriculum, approach and the underlying assumptions about what constitutes a good education.
It is essential not to confuse education with training.
The primary purpose of education is not to prepare people for the job market but to prepare them for a life which is fulfilling in every way.
In an increasingly flexible or precarious working environment people will be thrown back on their inner resources at many times in their lives and social cohesion is partly dependent on such personal resilience.
We only have to look at what happens to those who are thrown out of work or who are excluded from the job market.
So when we are assessing the quality of education, we want to see if we can develop people who have self-esteem and confidence, who can communicate effectively, who can look behind the information for the hidden message, who can question, who can work as part of a team and independently, and who are creative, resourceful and have an appreciation of the wider world and their responsibility to it.
I also think that when we are looking at the quality of education we need to see if it is delivering real equality of opportunity for all of those within the system or whether it is doing, as society does, so much to exclude people on grounds of a poor background or their colour or whatever.
So in our comparisons and benchmarking we have to look beyond narrow league table approaches.
After all, every football team in a league depends upon the level of investment and the selection of the very best.
It does not necessarily improve the performance of all.
I am glad to see that we are recognising the importance of involving pupils themselves in the development and assessment of our educational system.
We cannot expect to develop fully rounded and responsible individuals if they are not encouraged to be constructive and articulate about this major component of their lives.
After all, education properly done is a collaborative adventure and we know we have a lot to learn from each other.
That is why I welcome this report.
Mr President, evaluation in general and evaluation in school education in particular are not a mere formality.
Their purpose is always to check if the person being evaluated has met the predefined targets of the person conducting the evaluation, who sets both the evaluation criteria and the consequences of their being met or not.
Collaboration on the part of the Member States in evaluating school education is becoming an important tool for intervening in the Member States' education systems, the aim being to promote an education model which is a far cry from a universal, quantitatively and qualitatively broad general education.
A model which is even a far cry from the principle of ensuring that everyone is given the same start in life.
A model which costs little but which serves the needs of big business for a cheap and, more importantly, docile labour force, a labour force which is wholly adapted to its requirements.
This policy results in cutbacks in general education for the benefit of training which produces disposable labour; it even results in general education being replaced by an endless process of life-long learning.
It also results in the weaker - and generally poor - students being shifted out of mainstream education into second-class training, as is the case in Greece, where the number of sixth form students has fallen by 35% in a few years following the so-called education reform.
Evaluation also aspires to becoming a lever which can be used to force schools to operate in a competitive environment in which the best schools attract the best pupils, the best teachers and the most funding - in other words to operate on market criteria.
This will result in falling standards in the majority of schools, especially in working-class districts and the countryside.
In addition, the system of self-evaluation shifts the government's responsibility for the quality of education on to teachers, pupils and parents.
If we were truly interested in the quality of education, we would not be concentrating on evaluation mechanisms but on improving the standard of education for everyone.
The debate on how to carry out evaluation is futile and misleading.
What does make sense is to debate the essence of the problem.
What type of person do schools mould and for what sort of society? If we were to evaluate today's schools on the basis of this criterion, we would surely conclude that they have a long way to go to meet the needs of the workers and for social progress.
Mr President, I welcome this document and fully support the European Parliament and Council decision to promote cooperation and quality evaluation in school education.
I particularly welcome the emphasis on social inclusion.
Education is an important, indeed crucial, part of society.
Our education has an impact on all our lives and our communities as well.
Recent reports, as those of us from the UK are aware, have tended to criticise the teaching of children at a very young age as this could prove damaging.
It would therefore be good to compare and contrast with other European models, within limits of course, as my colleague Mrs Lambert has already stressed.
Spain, for example, attaches great importance to social inclusion and developing personalities, working in teams; integrating.
These are placed higher on the agenda than academia and at an early age.
I also fully agree with better integration between parents, pupils and teachers and the many community players who rightly want to play a role in education and its development and achieve, as a result, the idea of the school as the community.
It will also provide an excellent opportunity to encourage schools in the different regions to share in good practices.
Partnerships between different countries are so important, as indeed are partnerships not only between countries but between rural and urban links.
This is part of a very important twinning concept and philosophy that is well established in Europe and is proving such a success throughout all our communities.
Networking is so important.
I stress that the sharing of good practices and the sharing of information between the different schools in Europe should not develop into a competitive practice.
We should at all costs discourage any attempt to create European league table of schools similar to that in the UK that has proved so detrimental.
I welcome the report, it is a positive paper and one that we can build on to create better educational networks within the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are only at the beginning of the new year and I believe that it is still appropriate to say to you and your families that I hope this year will see all your dreams come true.
To everyone here at the European Parliament and the Commission, I hope that we continue to work on the same good terms as we have done in the past.
Today' s business is to examine the draft recommendation on quality evaluation of school education.
This draft has already made good progress and had the full backing of the European Parliament.
I would like to thank Parliament for its enormous support which was testimony to its political will to forge ahead, something that was, at times, difficult. Parliament made many positive suggestions which, over the years, have been put into practice in the field.
I would particularly like to give sincere thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, for the excellent work that she has carried out in extremely short time frames and I would also like to extend my thanks to everyone in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
You have before you a draft recommendation which, as some of you have mentioned, relates to a key issue at the heart of our political priorities, to wit, can we guarantee improvements in the quality of school education and, if so, how do we go about it so that the European Union can give this a bit of a nudge in the right direction, without interfering in European systems which are, and remain, the responsibility of the national Ministers for Education?
You are aware that we have already made considerable progress towards this goal, since the launch of the major pilot project to evaluate the quality of school education took place at the beginning of the 1997 academic year. Over 100 secondary schools in 18 countries took part in this project.
The draft recommendation is, to a great extent, based on the conclusions which we collectively drew from this research.
The recommendation relates to two crucial points.
First of all, that of evaluation as an instrument to improve quality - the aim of which is not to establish who is top and who is bottom of the class, but rather simply to act as an incentive so that everyone ends up at the top of the class.
Secondly, the role of European cooperation in this area.
This is, moreover, something we know how to do very well, and we have demonstrated as much.
In this sense, the proposal encourages self-evaluation, external evaluation and urges all stakeholders to play a part in every aspect of the evaluation process so that, in the end, schools are inspired to learn from each other and can identify good practices and the most efficient tools for evaluation.
In this process, the Commission shall not prescribe any rules and is fulfilling its role as a catalyst.
It is encouraging European cooperation between schools and enabling them to establish a Europe-wide network. It is trying to set up a database of tools and instruments to be used by schools in self-evaluation and which will then by available to all stakeholders involved.
That is precisely what the Lisbon European Council asked us to do.
If we wish to place European society at the forefront of the world stage as an example of the knowledge society, then clearly, the extremely high quality of teaching in schools in every Member State, area and village should be the raison d' être for social equality amongst citizens.
Mr Karas said that, in today' s schools, we are creating the society and the success of tomorrow' s society and I agree with this wholeheartedly.
From this perspective, it is our responsibility to provide every available tool and to ensure that schools learn from each other, that the system improves everywhere and that no one is left by the wayside.
That is actually the goal of a knowledge society.
We cannot afford ourselves the luxury of 20%, at the very least, of pupils being left by the wayside because they have not received the education they need to be able to do well in society.
I agree with those of you who, on this point, said that you need to prepare for life in society before preparing for life on the employment market.
Moreover, that is a considerable loss for a society that needs all its human resources in order to progress.
Ladies and gentlemen, together with the Ministers for Education, we are making these proposals on quality analysis to enable us to give this opportunity to all young people, because if they receive a high quality education then it is likely that they will be able to do well in society and be able to find a job.
That is why I would once again like to thank Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, the rapporteur, as well as the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport and all the Members who have assisted us in this work.
I would like to inform you that, following the Education Council' s move to make evaluation and quality a priority issue, action 6 of the Socrates programme has put out to tender within this very specific area.
This will result in comparative studies being made and relevant institutions being networked.
I would also like to inform you that, at the beginning of April, the Swedish Presidency will be holding a conference at Karstadt and that the upcoming Belgian Presidency has already planned to work on this issue during its presidency.
You will, therefore, have concluded, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not the last time that we shall be discussing this issue and that I shall be coming here on a regular basis to speak to you in detail about new and, hopefully, all positive, developments.
Thank you very much, Mrs Reding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
World cultural and natural heritage
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0382/2000) by Mrs De Veyrac, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the application in the EU countries of the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage [2000/2036(INI)]
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a commonplace to say that our heritage and its protection are crucial components of European identity, a commonplace but true, nonetheless.
Our heritage is one of the most visible components, one of those closest to the culture of our fellow citizens.
It forms part of their everyday environment and their own identity.
It strengthens the sense of belonging to the European Union by identifying the roots we all share.
Protection of heritage is therefore a vital necessity in view of the ravages it suffers over time, but also in view of the new forms of attack it is undergoing, such as atmospheric pollution, uncoordinated urbanisation, demographic pressure and, unfortunately, many others.
The European Parliament has approached this matter very seriously with, in particular, two resolutions adopted in 1982 and 1988, which provide a frame of reference for the action to be undertaken in this field.
I now consider it necessary to assess the current situation on this issue, taking into account both the principle of subsidiarity and the development of the European Union due to the increased number of Member States.
It is worth recalling the objective of the UNESCO Convention, which is to protect heritage and not to enter it on a heritage list.
Since the last time sites were selected in December 2000, 690 sites have been added to the World Heritage List, 208 of which are located within the European Union.
Of these 208 sites, 192 are cultural properties, 11 are natural sites and 5 are properties of mixed type.
The fact that the European Union is highly placed on this list, with almost a third of the sites, is easily explained in terms of Europe' s contribution to world civilisation.
However, in order to obtain a better balance on the list between the various categories and also between States, UNESCO has drawn up a world strategy and an action plan for the implementation of that strategy.
I think it appropriate that Parliament recommend that Member States that can pride themselves on a significant number of listed sites should restrict the number of sites they propose in future.
I think it perfectly reasonable that they should make a contribution towards making the world list more representative and more balanced, both geographically and in terms of its content.
When this report was adopted by Parliament' s Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, the two provisions on self-imposed restriction were withdrawn by a very slim majority.
I do however feel, ladies and gentlemen, that these provisions should be reincorporated, and I have therefore tabled two amendments to this effect on behalf of the PPE-DE Group.
Another proposal was made in the report for a European list to be drawn up, for UNESCO sees heritage sites primarily from a geographical point of view, which restricts their concept of what a site is.
A port may be classified, for example, without any regard for the boats.
A steel plant may be classified without regard for the equipment.
I feel that Europe, the European Union, on the other hand should look at things from a dynamic point of view.
It could therefore take action on dynamic aspects of heritage and, from this point of view, a European list may represent real progress.
It would make it possible to raise the profile of sites which are of more than purely national importance but which are not yet accorded world recognition.
That would moreover help to bring Europe closer to the people, giving them an awareness of a shared cultural heritage.
There is often need for heritage to be restored.
The Commission should draw up a report on the position of restorers in Member States with a view to structuring the restoration sector in order to guarantee the quality of such work.
High-quality restoration requires sufficient funding, and the need for economy should not override the need for quality work.
Finally, I suggest that the European Commission should, in liaison with the Council of Europe and UNESCO, look into the viability of a legal and fiscal instrument in order to facilitate forms of patronage relating to the conservation of the cultural and natural heritage.
This aspect might be included in the deliberations on the harmonisation of European tax systems.
Protection of heritage is an area over which we must be continually vigilant.
It is our responsibility to hand this heritage on to future generations.
The young people of Europe must be able to identify themselves in this in order to build their future and to be able to perceive their European identity more clearly.
Surely the feeling of being European relates far more to cultural references than to economic and social data?
In conclusion, let me repeat this expression which you will all recognise as emanating from one of the great founders of the European Union, "If I had to start again, I would start with culture."
It is something which could have been said by Haydn composing in London, da Vinci painting in Amboise, or Byron dying in Missolonghi.
It is the feeling, the pleasure we all experience when travelling through the European Union and marvelling at the treasures we find there and the pride we feel that, thanks to the existence of the European Union, we are in some small way owners, and also their custodians for all time.
Mr President, Commissioner, world cultural heritage - we have just heard the statistics - is distributed relatively unevenly.
Most of it is here in Europe, which is something we can be very proud of, although it also shows that there are certain inequalities.
Also, there are very few sites, i.e. places that have been deemed part of world cultural heritage, in comparison with the number found in the rest of the world, and it is a real drop in the ocean, because there are many more sites that would merit this kind of status and support.
This simplifies neither the decision-making process nor the selection procedures.
More applications are rejected than are accepted, and I think there is a need to redefine the criteria.
The diversity of cultural heritage underlines the identity of a country' s own regions, which is why responsibility must primarily be taken and asserted at regional level, whilst acknowledging that they must be afforded substantial support from outside, from the European Union and from all those who are jointly responsible.
These regional responsibilities include the preservation of homelands, customs and traditions, the development of a country' s own regions and so on and so forth.
As I see it, these are criteria that can primarily only be managed at regional level.
The importance of world cultural heritage sites transcends the scope of regional development.
They are cultural treasures, and bear witness to epoch-making changes and unique occurrences in nature.
They have outstanding universal value.
Architectural cultural heritage, land developed and cultivated by man and urban cultural heritage belong together, but the picture is not complete unless it also includes monuments to contemporary history, from the world of work for example, such as developments in working life, the building of factories, machines and so on and so forth.
They trace the development of the working process of our document, and also elsewhere in the world.
It is therefore just as important to tackle the plundering of architectural finds as it is to combat the thoughtless destruction of the remnants of social institutions.
Rapid technological development and changes in our environment really bring home how important it is to spare a thought for our natural heritage and take responsibility, in other words development planning and changes of designated land usages must feature more prominently in our responsibility for the conservation of our cultural heritage.
Accordingly, when selecting world cultural heritage sites, there must be more emphasis on striking a balance between historic sites, religious monuments, the various religions from prehistoric times, contemporary history and natural heritage, and the assessment criteria must be amended with this in mind.
The conservation of our cultural heritage is associated not only with a high level of responsibility, but also with high levels of cost.
We therefore need to find ways of alleviating the financing aspect, of considering the legal and fiscal instrument and providing sponsors with incentives to make us more conscious of this responsibility.
Mr President, in the European Union and in this Parliament, we must deal with what is essential for European cooperation, namely that which creates a stronger and slimmer Europe, and we must be very careful not to take on any tasks which more properly fall to the Member States.
It is important to protect cultural heritage, and the Union' s common cultural heritage is its diversity.
It is a great and vital responsibility to safeguard this diversity in every single Member State.
I therefore consider this report to be superfluous.
On the basis of the principle of subsidiarity, it is my view that protecting cultural heritage is a task for the Member States.
Up until now, the Member States have helped implement the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage by tabling proposals - many of them - for inclusion on UNESCO' s list of values of specially universal significance.
There is probably a disproportionately high number of European topics on the list and, as the rapporteur remarks, a little more modesty might well be in order.
I do not think it goes without saying that there should be a special list detailing European cultural heritage. Nor do I think it necessary for the Commission to take on the major task of coordinating the initiatives, as many have requested.
On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I have therefore tabled a series of amendments whereby Parliament is to call upon the Member States, and not the Commission, to implement the necessary cooperation in consultation with UNESCO and the Council of Europe.
I have done this in order to honour the principle of subsidiarity and also with reference to Romano Prodi' s words here in Parliament last year when he said, "Let us remember how often we have been made into a laughing stock because we deal with things that are absolutely ridiculous, which defy common sense and conflict with the interests of our population" .
I think that this is an area in which we can put the Union' s work on hold for a short while.
Mr President, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport deserves our congratulations on its initiative to draft this report on how we can protect our cultural and natural heritage in the European Union, as does the rapporteur for the ideas and measures which she recommends, the majority of which I agree with.
Naturally - to come back to what the previous speaker said - every Member State of the European Union has a policy on these issues.
Obviously, we have no intention of superseding national policy.
However, we really do need a more general perception and a policy at Union level.
And the reason is clear: it is because all Union policies have a considerable impact on how we preserve and promote our cultural and natural heritage - mainly a negative impact.
For example, the Union frequently funds projects and interventions through the Structural Funds which destroy or seriously affect monuments, the landscape and other elements of our cultural and natural heritage.
There are, unfortunately, numerous examples from Greece alone.
We fought long and hard some time ago to stop the Egnatia motorway from being routed alongside the ancient Dodoni theatre, where it would have prevented the audience from hearing the performance.
Because of pressure from numerous organisations, the question of electricity pylons on the Cyclades islands was taken to the Privy Council, the Supreme Administrative Court in Greece, which broke new ground in its judgment and recognised, yet again, the value of the beauty of the landscape on these islands.
Today, the question is still in abeyance of the new Olympic facilities in Schinia in Marathon, an historic site par excellence for the whole of Europe as well as a particularly important wetland which was initially included in the ÍÁÔURA 2000 lists, Commissioner.
We should like to save it, quite how I do not know.
The construction is also in abeyance of the new museum on the Acropolis, a stone's throw from the sacred rock and the Parthenon. It is to be located on top of older archaeological remains, thereby endangering both the remains in question and the aesthetics of the whole area and the vista leading up to the world-renowned sacred rock and the Parthenon.
This project and many others have one thing in common: they hope to receive, or they are already in receipt of, Community funding.
It is therefore quite clear why I wholeheartedly support the particular points in the resolution which call on the Commission to examine projects from the point of view of their impact on cultural and natural heritage, their historical importance and their visual impact, all of which should be made into eligibility criteria, before any funding is approved.
Mr President, Mrs de Veyrac' s report seeks to extend the concept of heritage and the criteria for the selection of national heritage sites in particular.
The UEN Group will vote in favour of this report.
No one can question the need to extend this concept to sites which are not just monuments, natural sites or moveable property.
There is clearly a great deal of ethnographic data which can be collected and protected as world heritage.
The importance of musical heritage or literature in the oral tradition may be emphasised, the task of collection, analysis and protection of which still remains to be carried out in a good many countries.
This heritage, which goes beyond the traditional concept which often embraces only monuments or sites, is often a factor in the daily lives of the people living on this earth.
It is this presence and permanence in culture and daily life which should define the very concept of heritage, as indeed Mrs Prets mentioned.
I should therefore like to emphasise, for example, particularly here in Strasbourg, the importance which our fellow citizens attach to their national currencies and their determination to consider it as a part of their heritage.
The German magazine, Focus-Money, recently published a survey showing that 70% of Germans are committed to the Deutschmark and wish to retain it.
This percentage is an average, because in eastern Germany the rate is as much as 80%.
The French Finance Minister, responsible for implementing the withdrawal of the franc, recently published on his website a very interesting survey on the French people' s commitment to their currency.
This is, admittedly, a 'reverse diagnosis' because they were, of course, asked their opinion on the euro and not on the franc.
Nonetheless, the response was overwhelming.
Only 26% of the French have confidence in this artificial currency.
I think it worth informing you of the real state of affairs, given that this is something that does not appear to have been taken into consideration or to have any influence over the European Parliament.
In Great Britain, which has for the moment decided to protect its national heritage in the form of the pound sterling, only 14% of young people in the 18-24 age range wish to give up the pound.
By this standard, the 45% of Danes who gave a yes answer would make the recent referendum in Denmark look like a vote in favour of the single currency.
Europeans are committed to their own currencies just as they are committed to their own values, their own nations, their own natural heritage sites, their own languages and their own cathedrals.
This is how national currencies should be protected, as if they were part of world heritage.
This is the thrust of the amendment I have tabled on behalf of my group and which I urge you to support.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs de Veyrac, who has set out and elaborated on the subject of a Convention concerning the protection of world cultural and natural heritage in the Member States of the European Union, confirming in her report the undiminished interest which Europe needs to have in this important issue, together with the initiatives which need to be taken throughout the world.
Although Nice did not take the crucial decision of exempting culture from the unanimity ruling, thereby enabling us to take a more decisive step towards convergence, what is important, as the report confirms, is that the European Union is working to develop a diverse cultural area.
Equally important, in my view, is Europe's awareness, as the report states, that it is over-represented on the World Heritage list and that this over-representation applies both to historic towns and to religious buildings, as compared with other categories of countries, to Christianity in relation to other religions and beliefs and to 'elitist' as opposed to vernacular architecture.
This awareness demonstrates that the concept of cultural diversity and respect for what is foreign is an accepted idea right at the nub of the problem and will help Europe play a fundamental role in relation to the rest of the world in the era of globalisation.
As far as the proposals are concerned, I think that the proposal to take the initiative on harmonisation at ministerial level is especially important, as is decisive action by the Member States to stop the plundering of and the illegal trade in archaeological finds within the countries of the European Union.
Moreover - and here I agree with Mr Papayannakis - I think that cultural impact studies should be a compulsory criterion when deciding which projects to fund with European money, so that we avoid causing what is often incalculable damage.
It is to be welcomed that the Culture 2000 programme has allocated one third of its budget to cultural, archaeological, underwater and architectural heritage and to museums, libraries and archives, thereby strengthening national action.
However, as the report points out, attention must be paid to rural heritage, to ancient and Palaeolithic forests, to habitats and wetlands, in other words to what are considered more or less marginal issues.
Education and training in all professions involved in protecting, preserving and promoting cultural and natural heritage are also important, as are raising pupils' and young people's awareness and developing a movement of voluntary activities which can also make a decisive contribution.
Mr President, Commissioner, this is a sound and very instructive report. I would therefore like to thank the rapporteur for the amount of work she has put into it.
It shows, at least, that the European Union and the Member States have done their homework, and have done it well.
They have submitted many applications, so much so that this has led to an imbalance.
In my opinion, this is due to the opinion that it is especially buildings that must be registered. There are, of course, also other aspects, and I believe we should encourage Member States to take measures so that we can redress the balance and be more selective.
My own group is debating whether or not the European Union has a task here.
First of all, the preservation of our cultural heritage, also at European level, appeals to the citizen.
Our historic monument days are always very well attended.
Our cultural heritage is an excellent tool to make the European dimension visible.
Secondly, European added value is evident in many areas, for example in cross-border projects in the Wadden Sea region and underwater archaeology.
The European Union can encourage Member States to cooperate, and can offer support in all cultural areas, for example.
Another point where the European Union can fulfil a typically European task is research and education.
So is creating clarity as to which areas transcend national interests.
Drafting inventories and lists is necessary at every administrative level, and it is important to weigh up all the pros and cons when taking environmental action.
Thirdly, I would mention the deployment of structural funds.
Preserving cultural heritage is important for tourism.
It brings cultural diversity into focus.
It has a bearing on employment.
The question of whether the European Union has a task is not a question to me.
In this area, the European Union has a task to stimulate, support and make visible Europe' s common cultural heritage.
Accordingly, I, along with others in my group, will give my unqualified support to the rapporteur' s report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it so happens that I was involved in the practical application of the UNESCO Convention in a particular case.
At a UNESCO meeting some years ago in Casablanca, the issue was raised of whether to make the entire Alpine Region a World Heritage Site. I confess to feeling somewhat perplexed at this point, for I found the idea of lumping the entire Alpine Region, which covers a whole range of different areas, together as one site rather odd.
I was amazed by the frequent discrepancies between the sites selected - certainly not due to any fault of UNESCO's but because of the varying natures of the sites put forward by the States.
I also noticed the conspicuous absence of some cultural, natural or mixed sites. In this regard, Mr Costa of our group, who is the mayor of Venice, reminded us ironically, a few days ago, that Venice has never been classified as a World Heritage Site.
Well then, upon reading the Convention my suspicion was confirmed: the 30 year-old Convention is now prehistoric.
In the meantime, we have become much more sensitive towards culture and the environment - consider the buzzword 'sustainable development'.
This is why I am afraid that the report will prove to be full of inconsistencies: some issues need to be simplified because of the need for coordination between European countries rather than European interventions, which can be unnecessary and are sometimes used by the Member States as an excuse to avoid their responsibilities.
Moreover, in certain cases, the structures already exist. I would point out - and this is a positive fact - that the text refers to regional minority languages, which are covered by a range of protective measures.
Nevertheless, there are some good points.
I would point out that there must be a policy of active interventions inasmuch as the protection of sites works well if the interventions also include the commitment of financing; the sums referred to by the Convention, which are minimal, are certainly not sufficient for active interventions, especially in Third World countries.
It would be a good idea for the Commission, sooner or later, to indicate the limit which State aid may exceed, as laid down in Article 87(3)(d).
Mr President, Commissioner, I am going to discuss that area of Europe' s cultural heritage which is not included on UNESCO' s list and which is scarcely included on our own lists.
It has to do with the fact that almost every second square metre of the European Union is cultivated, both the agricultural landscape and land given over to forestry.
The whole of Europe' s current biological diversity is a result of nearly 10 000 years of struggle and hardship.
It is the fruit of cooperation between nature, the climate, technology and the human being as cultivator.
That is what has given us the incredibly diverse and many-sided Europe with which we are familiar.
I naturally believe that cultural heritage is a responsibility for regions and nations and not, in the first place, for the European Union.
There is, however, one area in which the Union has complete power over cultural heritage, namely agricultural policy.
If I were in a position to decide, I should exchange the EU' s current agricultural policy for a policy which favoured cultural heritage and biological diversity.
I should like to use subsidies to preserve the cultivated terraces around the Mediterranean and to preserve the biologically rich and fantastically beautiful meadows in the mountain areas surrounding rivers and lakes in thickly wooded Scandinavia. In short, a good cultural policy for Europe would be a transformed, modern and relevant agricultural policy.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
1997 discharge
The next item is the report by Mrs van der Laan (A5-0397/2000), on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the progress report of the Commission on the measures taken in the light of the observations of the European Parliament in its 1997 discharge resolution [COM(2000) 224 - C5-0223/2000 - 2000/2113(DEC)].
Mr President, there have been further developments regarding the report on the 1997 discharge.
That is a new departure, but then again it comes as no surprise, for this was a special case after all.
It was the first discharge after the fall of the Santer Commission and thus the first opportunity for this Parliament to have a say in the European Commission' s reform policy.
Since then, Parliament has made its views heard on a regular basis, notably in the excellent reports by Mr van Hulten and Mr Pomés Ruiz.
Needless to say, the reforms should help restore confidence in Europe.
The question today is whether those initial steps, which were promised at the time in order to obtain the discharge, have actually been made.
All in all, it is fair to say that the Commission has made every effort to meet the requirements of this Parliament.
A serious start has been made on reforms.
It is, of course, too soon to determine whether all the required results have been achieved; too many words still need to be translated into action for that to happen.
Although things can still go pear-shaped, even at Commissioner level - and naturally the abominable Commission proposal on access to documents is one of the things that springs to mind - it is quite clear that this Commission is highly committed to making a break with the past.
I will give you a few examples.
In its discharge resolution, this Parliament demanded an end to an unacceptably high percentage of error in bills.
The Commission subsequently submitted proposals to streamline the Financial Regulation, and produced a plan to eliminate all abnormal arrears by the end of 2003. Parliament is issued with six-monthly reports on this.
In addition, Parliament asked for a reform of the rules on whistle-blowers and for disciplinary procedures; the Commission ensured that this reform was made.
Parliament asked for improvements in the field of bureaux for external aid; tick.
Parliament requested a list of current fraud and corruption inquiries; again tick.
Parliament asked the Commission to clarify its foreign aid strategy; tick yet again.
Mr President, these are but a few examples, but they do demonstrate that the European Parliament can yield substantial results if it makes a concerted effort.
One section of the discharge which this Parliament has every reason to be proud, is that concerning the hospital in Gaza.
In 1996, this project, which is subsidised by the European Union, was 97% complete.
Due to mismanagement and a lack of follow-up, this hospital still stood empty up until the end of last year, at the very time - we are familiar with the images from the Middle East - when there was a desperate shortage of medical help in an area which very much needs it.
In April 1999, this Parliament found out about this scandalous state of affairs.
From that moment, we gave the Commission hell, with no let-up, until we finally had results.
Since the hospital opened three months ago, more than 2 700 patients have already been treated and more than 370 healthy babies have been born there, which is good news in an area where death is an every-day occurrence.
If this Parliament had not made it so clear that enough was enough, I am convinced that the hospital would still be empty now.
Unfortunately, the hospital is now having to face other problems, namely it is impossible to make any deliveries to this hospital due to the closure of Gaza, and even ambulance services cannot get through the Israeli blockades, but that is another story.
I would like to take the opportunity to go into Mr van Dam' s amendment very briefly.
I believe that, although it is an extremely kind and considerate amendment, the content of which must be given due follow-up, I cannot recommend approval of it as rapporteur, because we have very consistently rejected new elements in the discharge, so I hope that there will be some understanding for this.
Needless to say, there are also areas of concern with regard to the 1997 discharge.
For example, a higher level of transparency must be achieved within the personnel policy with regard to recruitment of staff and the proposed redundancy scheme.
I also expect the Commissioner to shed some light on how the Commission will guarantee that each individual Commissioner will ensure that recommendations from the Court of Auditors do not end up in some drawer somewhere, but will be implemented with due care.
This Parliament will monitor the follow-up of all reports brought by the Commission.
The extensive pledges for the coming years must be translated into action, and I hope that we can do this together, and in doing so, close off this sad chapter and be able to work together on the future with confidence.
Mr President, the van der Laan report gives a clear overview of the measures which the European Commission has taken further to observations made by Parliament in the context of the 1997 discharge.
From that point of view, my group will support the report, and I would congratulate Mrs van der Laan on her achievement.
However, I would like to point out - and that is also mentioned in the report - that although some progress has been made in five areas, they have a long way to go yet.
This applies to the closure of accounts, improving institutional management and control problems, the technical assistance offices and the fight against fraud and corruption.
I will not go into all these areas but highlight a few.
I believe it is of utmost importance for the Commission, in its attempts to reduce the unacceptably high percentage of error, to identify the Member States which fail to achieve any improvement in the percentage of error in the case of the biggest expense items, for example.
The Member States will obviously not like this, but why could we not keep a scoreboard for this, just as we do for the Member States' performance rating in terms of implementing European legislation?
The more transparency, the better. An added benefit is that the national parliaments can bring their governments to book.
In the fight against fraud and the careless handling of European monies, we must rely far more on cooperation with national parliaments.
The trust of the citizen in the powers that be, and specifically in the European Union, is at stake.
It cannot be that we here in Europe get the blame for the negligence and carelessness of national governments.
In the near future, the Commission will need to pull out all the stops in order to set up an efficient management and control system.
We will soon be discussing the new Financial Regulation which, I hope, will better accommodate the requirements of modern management.
Continuity, transparency and clear competences are vital parameters in this.
We must avoid a situation where different bodies responsible for fighting fraud and corruption, such as OLAF and the financial irregularities panel, cancel each other out in their efforts.
There is nothing worse than having investigation offices putting all their energy into mutual competence-based squabbles.
Finally, we set great store by the Court of Auditors systematically examining the annual reports to see how the Commission has acted upon critical remarks made previously.
Control without referring back to errors detected previously is a job half-done.
Mr President, I wish to thank Mrs van der Laan for giving the Committee on Budgetary Control and the European Parliament a model on which to base future discharge reports.
From the outset she was very clear that she wanted to concentrate on a few areas where we wanted to see real improvement.
They were clearly set out last year.
Now we have a follow-up to check that those points have been implemented.
We shall be following her lead in not supporting the amendments tabled because we want to keep to that clear-cut approach.
On the whole, the Commission has responded positively, and this now has to be set within the context of the more general Commission reform.
We are pleased that the Commission will present annual activity reports for each Directorate-General but, for that to work effectively, we need to know the targets for these DGs very soon.
Work on staff policy has also gone ahead but things seem to be moving very slowly.
We appreciate the sensitivity of negotiations on staff issues but we and the European public will soon lose patience if the talking does not stop soon and the action start.
The CAP and Structural Funds are the areas where most mismanagement problems lie in the EU, partly due to the scale of the finance received by these areas.
That is why it is critical that we, as the controlling and accountable body, have access to information on the financial management of these two areas.
We look forward to receiving regular reports from the Personal Representatives Group.
External aid, however, is an area where we still see substantial problems.
The rapporteur has referred clearly to the disastrous way the aid to Palestine was handled, which gives a very poor signal at a time when the utmost political delicacy and sensitivity were needed in that region.
Another Court of Auditors' report on external aid has come out very recently and we shall be looking at that in the future.
Once again, I thank the rapporteur and congratulate her on a job well done.
Mr President, in her report, rapporteur Mrs van der Laan looks at the progress which the Commission has made over the past year with regard to following recommendations set out in the report on the 1997 discharge.
She is rather pleased with the reams of paper which the Commission has produced.
I am waiting for more substance, for results.
The intentions are good, but the effect will not be evident until we see the results, once, for example, OLAF is working truly independently, once the backlog in payments has been cleared, once fewer errors are made in payments and once we finally gain access to confidential documents.
Furthermore, I am unconvinced by all the Commission' s good intentions.
The scheme for whistle-blowers, much applauded by Mrs van der Laan, leaves a great deal to be desired.
Instead of openness and transparency, the scheme exudes an atmosphere of damage limitation.
According to the new rules, whistle-blowers must prove that they have followed the correct procedures.
Is this not a case where the burden of proof should be reversed? We should let the Commission prove that it applied the procedure correctly.
Mrs van der Laan devotes much thought to the aid to the Palestinian regions and displays an astonishing degree of faith in the decisiveness of the European Union' s delegation in the process.
I would like to see a report in which the role of our Palestinian counterpart is explained.
Moreover, the recent executions force us to revisit the conditions for European aid.
In this connection, I would draw everyone' s attention to the fact that the teaching material in Palestinian schools contains many anti-Semitic statements, which, in our countries, would fall under the heading of incitement to racial hatred.
European aid must serve peace.
That is why I have tabled an amendment in which I urge the Commission not to support the spreading of anti-Semitism in schoolbooks in any way.
There should be no question of European money being used to pay for the spreading of racist views.
I therefore heartily recommend my amendment, and hope it will meet with broad support.
A formal condemnation is not doing anyone any good.
, Chairperson of the Committee on Budgetary Control. (DE) Mr President, it is amazing that the follow-up report on the discharge seems to be generating far more interest this time than the discharge itself, which was, in fact, prepared by the previous Parliament.
I welcome this with open arms, but there is nothing new in the fact that we have compiled such a report and are sticking to it, as we vowed to at the time.
Yet I believe we have done justice to our task of verifying whether the Commission has met our demands in relation to the discharge.
I am extremely pleased that the rapporteur has taken all these issues up again and would like to congratulate her to this effect. However, I am also delighted to be able to tell the Commission that it has fulfilled these demands extremely well.
We are talking conditions, and not just comments.
However, there are still a few matters to be resolved.
This is also clearly brought out in the report, by the way.
I would single out the closure of accounts for special mention in this respect.
It is truly alarming when we put in excess of EUR 70 billion to one side, which inflates the budget and is then unavailable for other tasks that the EU has set itself.
We must do more to tackle this than just compile a report once every two years; we need to cut back.
Commissioner, this is a matter for you.
Secondly, I do not think much to the idea of setting up a second office for internal investigations.
We have set up OLAF and ought to concentrate far more on ensuring that OLAF is able to carry out its work properly and in an independent manner, particularly its internal investigations.
I believe it is important for us to uphold the demand that we raised during the discharge process, namely that of creating a disciplinary chamber, which could be attached to the Court of Auditors or the Court of Justice.
I would remind the Commission not just to issue statements on this, but also produce a legal basis.
Finally, I would like to say a big thank you for the efforts made in respect of the Gaza hospital.
I was there myself. I am delighted that after all these years, it has at long last started work and is evidently serving the people well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to carry on straightaway from where Mrs Theato left off.
Commissioner, we are actually finding it quite hard to imagine what the point would be of having an advisory office for financial irregularities of the kind you envisage.
The same applies to the new agency for internal administrative investigations that the Commission is planning to set up.
What purpose would this office and agency actually serve, when by the Commission' s own decree, OLAF is responsible for all serious breaches of duty against the interests of the Community, and not just for fraud-related offences? I would remind you once again that you, yourself, decided that that is how it should be, yet you are evidently on the point of allowing some kind of pointless superstructure to form part of your proposals.
Mrs van der Laan' s report quite rightly maintains that the Commission has not yet made sufficient progress on the personnel policy front for Parliament' s taste.
This particularly applies to the already long overdue reform of the disciplinary procedure. Of course, this has a great deal to do with the budgetary discharge, because one thing that also concerns us is the issue of the liability of officials in respect of damage they cause.
Do Commission officials have to defray the costs of damage they cause, themselves, at least as far as their financial means permit? In principle, the answer to this question has long been 'yes' .
Only, the corresponding provisions of Articles 73 and 74 of the Financial Regulation have never actually been applied in a single case yet.
The excuse used was always that the relevant procedures were unclear.
Anyone hoping that this will now change under the reform process has been disappointed so far.
It is this very issue, an absolutely crucial one, that the consultation paper on the reform of the disciplinary procedure put forward by Vice-President Kinnock on 29 November, ignores, and it postpones a response until a later date.
Understand that if you will, because I find it incomprehensible.
This House has repeatedly and clearly opposed this and called for an external chamber for budgetary discipline to be established at the European Court of Auditors or Court of Justice, which should be called in whenever the financial accountability of officials is at issue.
This demand from the report by Mr van Hulten on the reform of the Commission has now been on the table since January last, and was expressly re-confirmed in the Stauner report on the 1998 discharge.
I also believe that this discharge, the excellent report by Mrs van der Laan, leaves these issues, which are key to the credibility of EU administration, unresolved.
We have pointed the way, and now all we can do, Commissioner, is to invite you to follow it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that we are discussing the follow-up measures to the 1997 budgetary discharge at the beginning of the year 2001, is, to my mind, rather anachronistic in procedural terms, given that the 1998 discharge procedure was concluded more than six months ago and the parliamentary committee responsible is already working on the discharge for 1999.
A modern, efficient administration should respond forthwith to Parliament' s criticism and recommendations for improvement, particularly when misdemeanours need to be dealt with.
Turning now to matters of content, despite some welcome progress, the fact remains that key demands lodged by Parliament have not been fulfilled and are therefore to be carried over into the discharge procedure for subsequent years, which means that the clear delimitation we desire will become more blurred.
There are two points in particular I would like to highlight. I am at a loss as to why the Commission has, as yet, failed to take steps to set up a chamber for budgetary discipline at the Court of Auditors or the Court of Justice, and so guarantee the effective application of the provisions of the Financial Regulation concerning the financial liability of officials for damage they cause.
How many times do we have to ask, urge, beseech - and I do not know what else - the Commission to get round to doing something at long last? Surely this is a reasonable demand?
The same goes for our demand that Parliament, as a discharge authority, should be given at least the same amount of access to the Commission as the Court of Auditors.
After all, the duty to provide information is clearly Treaty-based, i.e. it derives from Article 276 of the Treaty of Rome.
Incidentally, it also seems to me that the advisory office, which was mentioned earlier, would be surplus to requirements, and I do not intend to go into this matter any further at the present time since previous speakers have already taken care of it.
However, both demands are reflected in our amendments and I consider them indisputable.
I would appreciate your support in this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs van der Laan. I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report, and to express my utter admiration for the way in which she completed the task, the skill with which she handled the matter, without getting carried away by the excesses which are always possible in the matter of discharge, as we have already seen.
I believe the discharge procedure is a very important one, which should be handled with care, as the saying goes, and I think it is reasonable for Parliament to look into the shortcomings detected in the management of public monies, of which there have been many in recent years, generally attributable, it must be said, to the Member States.
This is a point to which we shall return when discussing other Court of Auditors reports. I think that Parliament must focus especially on this aspect during this term of office.
There were also shortcomings within the Commission.
Discharge for 1997 was a rather special case, coinciding as it did with an extremely difficult time for the Commission.
I think the report, and the way it has been settled, and the way I should like to see it definitively settled without it forcing us to take another turn around the discharge procedure, will enable us to look to the future, taking as our model, to some extent, this discharge which is the fruit of lengthy deliberation by Parliament and which has given rise to certain responses from the Commission.
We have examined these responses, and have found the majority of them satisfactory, as is recorded.
A new approach has now been adopted to ensure that discharges are confined to the business of the budget.
I think we are moving in the right direction and, in this spirit, we shall be voting in favour of the van der Laan report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs van der Laan, the Commission welcomes your report.
You have ascertained that in most areas that were central to the 1997 budgetary discharge procedure the measures taken by the Commission merit approval because we are heading in the right direction.
I might therefore venture, at the start of this new year, to take pleasure in the fact that Parliament has commended the Commission.
But I want to do more than just give pats on the back, and instead go on to look at the areas where you continue to voice criticism or rather, demand that further measures be taken, namely in the fields of staffing policy and external aid.
As far as staffing policy is concerned, in your report you specifically focused on the issue of the legal basis for the early retirement scheme.
I would again draw attention to the fact that, before Christmas, the Commission adopted a proposal that is now undergoing the consultation procedure between the institutions and will be forwarded to Parliament in February.
The key figures are as follows: it should be possible for 600 people to participate in the early retirement scheme.
However, owing to budgetary neutrality there are to be only 248 new appointments.
Who will qualify for the scheme? It is conditional on the official being at least 50 years of age and having been in service for at least ten years.
The scheme also makes provision, according to a person' s age and service affiliation, for 60-70% of their salary to be counted as early retirement money.
It is a voluntary scheme.
Nor is there any legal entitlement, instead, the Commission, using objective criteria, will select who is able to take up early retirement, thereby ensuring that the object of the exercise, i.e. an overall increase in efficiency on the staffing front, is actually achieved.
The second aspect relating to staffing policy concerns the disciplinary procedure.
In its January report, Parliament proposed that an external chamber for budgetary discipline should be set up within the European Court of Justice or Court of Auditors.
You have also mentioned this proposal again today.
I think I should just run through the reasons again - which my colleague Neil Kinnock has outlined in great detail - as to why the Commission has distanced itself from this proposal.
The European Treaties assign specific tasks to the Court of Auditors and to the European Court of Justice respectively.
The Court of Auditors is responsible for the external control of finances and it is the role of the Court of Justice to oversee the disciplinary procedures pursued by the Commission should the need arise.
As the Commission sees it, it would lead to conflicts of interest if the Courts were to be directly involved in the Commission' s internal procedures.
The Commission would also point out that, in all international organisations, it is the institutions themselves that are responsible for disciplining their staff.
The Commission is convinced that the same should apply here.
Naturally, there is a need for action.
That much is obvious having viewed the matter objectively.
We adopted the proposals that are now undergoing the consultation procedure, and which Mr Bösch mentioned, even before the end of the year.
Firstly, we are talking in terms of steps that can be taken directly, without changing the statute, and secondly, there are steps that will require amendment of the personnel statute, and will therefore take a little longer to implement.
As far as the first steps are concerned, it is absolutely vital to set up an investigative and disciplinary bureau within the Directorate-General for Personnel and Administration.
In response to your query, I can tell you that the question is constantly raised as to whether OLAF is already involved in the procedure or intending to become involved before this bureau starts work.
Only if OLAF answers this in the negative will this bureau take action.
The scenarios can vary a great deal.
I would like to cite an example: sexual harassment in the workplace.
Since OLAF may well not be called in to deal with such cases, it would, of course, be necessary to invoke an administrative investigation or a disciplinary procedure.
So various areas come to mind.
I think it is an excellent idea to take a complementary approach.
We are not about to strip OLAF of its tasks, as it were, or undermine its remit, which was determined by Parliament and the Council, because OLAF investigations take precedence here, and that is a fact.
Secondly, it is very important for the disciplinary council to be chaired by an external expert.
This would demonstrate that the Commission is keen to implement fair and objective disciplinary procedures.
I have just a few more words to say about your critical comments on foreign policy.
Mrs Theato mentioned the need to reduce outstanding commitments.
We submitted a report on this as part of the 2001 budgetary procedure and made it clear that, of course, these abnormal commitments, which have long been known as dormant commitments, must be reduced as soon as possible.
Indeed, the field of external aid is already showing the first positive signs in this respect.
Turning now to the matter of the hospital in Gaza, which plays a significant part in the report by Mrs van der Laan.
There were certainly a great many infuriating delays.
Indeed, there were repeated and emphatic demands from within this House for progress to be made and for something to be done about all the problems.
Yes, it is most gratifying that the hospital is now fully up and running and that it has been treating patients since the summer. One thing I would say though, is that developments on the political front, i.e. the violent clashes, have thrown up barriers again.
It is even the case sometimes that, owing to the blockades in the Gaza Strip, supplies cannot be delivered and patients cannot get there.
Many members of staff are unable to reach the hospital at the moment.
We really must - also within the scope of this debate - make repeated calls for the violence to end.
The European tax payer was willing to deliver aid to the people of Gaza.
It is high time the people were able to make use of it.
Many thanks, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Special reports of the Court of Auditors
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A5-0331/2000) by Mr Garriga Polledo, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 8/99 on securities and guarantees provided for in the Community Customs Code to protect the collection of traditional own resources, together with the Commission' s replies [C5-0228/2000 - 2000/2132(COS)];
(A5-0396/2000) by Mr McCartin, Committee on Budgetary Control, on the European Court of Auditors' Special Reports Nos 1/1999 concerning the aid for the use of skimmed-milk and skimmed-milk powder as animal feed, 2/1999 on the effects of the CAP reform in the cereals sector, 1/2000 on classical swine fever and 8/2000 on the Community measures for the disposal of butterfat, together with the Commission' s replies [C5-0236/2000, C5-0237/2000, C5-0238/2000, C5-0239/2000 - 2000/2130(COS)];
(A5-0389/2000) by Mr Staes, Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 2/2000 on aid given by the European Union to Bosnia and Herzegovina with a view to restoring peace and the rule of law, together with the Commission's replies [C5-0229/2000 - 2000/2131(COS)];
(A5-0359/2000) by Mr Dell'Alba, Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Reports Nos 6/1999, 7/1999, 3/2000 and 7/2000 on budgetary implementation of the Structural Funds, together with the Commission's replies [C5-0240/2000, C5-0241/2000, C5-0242/2000, C5-0243/2000 - 2000/2129(COS)].
, deputising for the rapporteur.
(ES) Mr President, I should like to begin by praising the fine work done by my colleague, Salvador Garriga Polledo, in the report he is presenting on own resources, a subject he has been following very closely for some time.
The Community budget comes, in part, from the traditional own resources raised by the Member States' customs services and therefore the principal role of Community legislation on guarantees and securities is to protect the financial interests of the Community.
The defects in the procedures applicable to the security and guarantee system mean precisely that the corresponding Community revenue is not collected and has to be covered by additional GNP contributions from the Member States.
Therefore, I understand that interest should be levied on traders who effectively use unauthorised credit in their deferment accounts as part of release for free circulation operations.
The Garriga Polledo report deals with cases under Member State responsibility in which a failure to enforce Community legislation on securities and guarantees harms the Community' s interests.
According to the Court of Auditors, in cases of mandatory securities the basic principle is that the customs authorities should fix the security at a level equal to the precise amount of the customs debt where this can be established with certainty, or if not, the maximum amount, as estimated by the customs authorities, of the customs debts which have been, or may be, incurred.
In practice, it is the security or guarantee body that assesses the risks of the operation.
In order for these risks to be assessed, the guarantee should be fixed at the closest possible level to the customs debt for which the security or guarantee is provided.
If these rules were observed, the pertinent financial interests would be fully protected.
A number of difficulties arise in this and I shall highlight half a dozen:
First of all, there are no reliable statistics on the volume of guarantees currently granted.
The data on these securities and guarantees, which are clearly identified in accounting and legal terms, certainly exists in the customs accounting departments of Member States, but there are no procedures to enable it to be collated and known at Community level.
Secondly, some customs authorities cannot - I prefer to think this rather than that they do not collaborate - effectively monitor observance of the requirements set out in Community legislation on guarantees because of failures in their accountancy operating or computer systems and procedures.
I must stress the need for the New Computerised Transit System (NCTS) to come into operation soon in all the Member States and the countries associated with the common transit system.
It is clear that the fulfilment of Community securities will depend, to a large extent, on the development of all the operations of the NCTS.
To solve the problem of the high level of undischarged transit operations, we should emphasise the importance of operational measures and, again, the need for swift development of this new system.
With the multiple guarantee certificate system and the NCTS we shall achieve centralisation and greater administrative clarity.
Thirdly, incomplete declarations must be mentioned.
At the end of the periods allowed under Community rules the Member States should transfer the duties covered by a guarantee which are not contested into 'A' accounts.
Fourthly, the need for a change to Community customs legislation in order to ensure that the securities which guarantee the right to credit should also guarantee the automatic payments made by the customs offices after release of goods.
Fifthly, the large number of cases reported by the Court of Auditors in which the amounts owed to the Community budget have not been paid or received with the relevant late payment interest.
Lastly, I should like to mention the difficulties giving rise to the failure to collect the considerable amounts of customs duties and other taxes arising from TIR operations, which are attributable to ineffective implementation of existing mechanisms and a lack of monitoring of transit operations.
To conclude, Mr President, I want to stress that the Commission must study the various problems raised and, in particular, review the computer system in order to take into account the interest owed in this respect to the Community budget by the Member States.
Mr President, I want to acknowledge the important role of the Court of Auditors in preparing these reports.
I am dealing with four reports relating to the dairy sector, the cereals sector and swine fever involving total spending of approximately EUR 16 billion, which is a considerable proportion of the budget.
The study by the Court of Auditors involves a great deal of detail and we must acknowledge the important role it plays in assisting Parliament in its work, because, obviously, without this interaction between the Court of Auditors and Parliament, Parliament would be in no position to evaluate or judge the effectiveness of Commission spending.
We can also acknowledge that the Court of Auditors plays a role in assisting the Commission to identify weaknesses in its administration and difficulties which it may not have observed in the way Member States implement our various schemes.
The Court of Auditors, in this particular report, has drawn attention to the weaknesses in the basic regulations, weaknesses which make it difficult for the Commission and indeed even the Member States to effectively control spending.
In the special report on the reform of the cereals sector, the Court of Auditors has drawn attention to the question of whether or not the policy itself attains its economic and social objectives.
To go back to the dairy sector - there are two reports here, one relating to skimmed-milk powder, the other to butter - we should remember that even though we have a quota system which is designed to bring production close to the level of consumption, we still have to spend approximately EUR 3 000 million a year disposing of surpluses, and of the skimmed-milk powder which we produce something like only 37% of it is sold at market value.
In other words, the rest of it must be subsidised for use in animal feed and other things.
Similarly, in the case of butter, only 75% of the butter we produce is sold at market prices.
This identifies the weaknesses in the policies where we have a quota system and at the same time require vast Community resources to subsidise surpluses.
The Court of Auditors' report - and Parliament supports this - draws attention to the fact that we should perhaps utilise our resources better in a way that might encourage greater consumption of dairy products on our European markets, rather than subsidising unused quantities.
In the cereals sector, the main concern of the Court of Auditors was the fact of overcompensation which has been well documented and which we acknowledge, and it also draws attention to the fact that it is necessary in designing policy at all levels - Commission, Council and Parliament - to take account of market changes.
When we designed this policy we did not foresee the rise in world prices which led to gross overcompensation in the sector.
The report also draws attention to the fact, and Parliament notes this, that something like 40% of all the EUR 14 billion spent in the cereals sector goes to 3% of farmers, and 54% of farmers only get approximately 5% of the aid.
This again draws attention to the whole thrust of the policy and whether or not we should review it with the idea of making it more compatible with regional policy and with social policy.
These were the main concerns expressed.
We should also say in relation to the cereals sector or to the dairy sector that we have noted that the Commission has undertaken a root and branch review of the policy and has already set that study in motion.
So we look forward to its completion.
I want to thank the Commission for its cooperation and the fact that it has already taken action on some of the weaknesses identified in the various reports.
Mr President, since the end of December 1995, when the Dayton peace accords were concluded, the European Union has contributed to peace in a major way.
A great deal of funding has been freed up for reconstruction, the organisation of elections, contributions to human rights, etc.
We also financed 53% of the High Representative Office.
The Court of Auditors' Special Report which is before us, is the third in a series.
There have already been reports on the situation in Mostar, and a second report dealt with the reconstruction in former Yugoslavia.
I believe that these special reports, together with the report which is now before us, have consistently made us as a European Parliament sit up and face the facts, and also try to act upon these reports in an effective manner.
I also believe that progress has been made in this area thanks to the Court of Auditors' way of working, together with the follow-up by Parliament, via the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Ladies and gentlemen, the task of budgetary control cannot be carried out from a little office in Brussels or an office in Strasbourg.
I believe that sometimes, it is necessary to visit the relevant location. Expertise in the field is necessary; you need to meet the people; you need to know what people have to put up with there, what the conditions are.
For previous reports, other MEPs have been given the opportunity of going to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
They learnt a lot from their visit, and I visited the place myself between 16 and 19 October of last year.
That is very important. I would like to reiterate as well as underline this.
In actual fact, I learnt more in those four days in Sarajevo than I could have learnt from wading through reams and reams of written material.
I would therefore like to urge the Conference of Presidents to take this into consideration when, at a later date, they decide for or against giving rapporteurs the opportunity to have this experience.
What was the criticism about, ladies and gentlemen?
First of all, criticism was levelled at the Commission for not deploying sufficient resources and staff and for a Brussels-based management which is too centralised.
I gather that this criticism by the Court of Auditors has been acted upon by the European Commission.
All credit to the Commission for this.
Improvements have been made and staffing levels have increased.
I would like to stress here that the people in the delegation in Sarajevo are better organised, highly qualified and highly motivated.
That is thanks to the Court of Auditors' criticism and the fact that Parliament has acted upon this criticism.
Furthermore, the Commission has, under pressure from the Court of Auditors, adopted a deconcentration policy, which has given the people in the Sarajevo delegation, but also in other delegations, more clout. It has also meant that the head of the delegation can meet the needs on the ground in a more powerful manner, and has also ensured that all overdue payments have now been cleared.
So, as far as this is concerned, well done to the Commission.
Other criticism concerned the High Representative' s Office and how the European Union works with that office.
The European Commission has been blamed for not keeping a close enough eye on it.
Thanks to the Court of Auditors' report and the action taken by Parliament, there is now a new mentality in the Office of the High Representative.
It is indeed the case that, since March 1999, there has been a new financial director who has written a veritable tome on the rules to be followed.
Apparently, when the High Representative first took up office, rather a lot was being wasted.
His commitment, and that of the Commission and the office as a whole, has slimmed down the budget of the High Representative' s Office by nearly EUR 5 million over a period of three years.
I believe that this is an extremely positive result.
Moreover, one of the key criticisms directed at the High Representative was also in the shape of Paragraph 17 on the conflict of interests generated by the former financial director.
Parliament, at least in the resolution now before us, is asking for a full explanation in this regard.
I have to let you know that I have now received a document from the High Representative, and from the Commission, and that the key criticisms have been addressed in this document.
That is why I propose the adoption of my amendment, which takes this into account.
Other criticism was expressed with regard to human rights.
I have to say that the Commission is doing a truly creditable job on this in Sarajevo and Bosnia and Herzegovina in general.
I believe we should make more funds available to those people, but in terms of human rights, we are still waiting for responses from the Commission with regard to Paragraphs 29 and 35.
A final - important - point I would like to make is the recurring theme of the media policy.
The Commission has come under very strong criticism with regard to its media policy.
It is reported that with regard to this policy, EUR 2 million' s worth of equipment was subsidised which was not eligible for subsidy.
I am still waiting for a detailed report from the Commission.
It is included in the resolution, and so I hope that a response will be forthcoming in the very near future.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my report is really a combination of four separate reports.
From this point of view I should like to thank Commissioner Schreyer for attending.
I hope that, through her, the managers responsible more specifically for the administration of the Structural Funds, both in the Commission and in the Member States, will be made aware of the content of our report and of our conclusions, since this matter concerns the Structural Funds, which, as we know, are generally managed by the Member States directly.
So, to the four distinct reports: one report on the principle of additionality, one report on the development of industrial sites, a third report from the Court of Auditors on the European Social Fund and the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (Guidance Section) - Measures to assist the employment of young persons, and a fourth report on the International Fund for Ireland and the Special Support Programme for Peace and Reconciliation.
Regarding this last report, I should particularly like to thank the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism for its contribution.
Our Committee took on board all the amendments they presented.
Although these four subjects are quite distinct, the same sort of comments can be made about them all, and these are of three types.
Firstly, the major criticisms which may be levelled at the Commission with regard to the administrative procedures which the Court of Auditors, like us, considers too time-consuming and too complex and which occasionally hinder the smooth running of projects.
It must be said that the same criticisms are also made of Member States.
There is never sufficient monitoring once projects are underway, either at grass roots or from Brussels.
The same lack of resources and staffing is continually remarked upon - other speakers have raised it on other points - even despite the frequent comments by the Court of Auditors on the subject.
The Commission is currently engaged in a radical reform of its organisation and is asking for additional resources.
I hope that Parliament, which has always believed in the myth of the zero growth of officials despite the multiplication in their duties, will accept the Commission' s proposals and objectives and will also step up its monitoring tasks and its role.
Obviously, this will cause some overlapping of funding, since funding is not sufficiently well monitored, and hence the poor use of European appropriations.
The final criticism that may be made concerns the delays in payments, a recurrent problem which the Commission does not appear to be capable of resolving or putting a stop to.
Secondly, a major criticism that I would like us to emphasise in our dealing with the Member States is the poor use of appropriations, often due to a lack of cooperation between the Member States and the Commission, and the reluctance of the Member States to make better use of the funds.
Too often they are treated as donations, funds to be substituted for national funds.
In some instances, the Member States attach little importance to the principle of additionality which stipulates that this is cofinancing which must be complemented by national financing.
They seem to think the funds cover 100% of the financing, which is clearly not in line with the reasoning behind the Structural Funds and their use.
The Member States should not forget that these are public funds and, as such, the concern of all the citizens of Europe.
They should hence be used with even more care than national funds.
In order to remedy such inefficiencies, a new regulation was adopted in June 1999, which I hope will enable us to make progress.
When it uncovers inefficiencies we would urge the Commission to use all the means available to it, such as the suspension of payments, and if there is sufficient justification we shall be right behind the Commission in this.
Finally, I think the Commission itself should pay more attention to the eligibility criteria before authorising funds to be released.
This would prevent the funding of projects that were not viable and the 'rag-bag' projects that are often seen in the Member States.
That concludes my comments.
Thank you, Mr President, for the extra few seconds you allowed me.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that the European Union is making considerable resources available for the reconstruction of democracy in Bosnia and Herzegovina and for its consolidation fully justifies the seriousness with which we are now addressing the motion for a resolution on Special Report No 2/2000 of the Court of Auditors.
I say this because it was only at the beginning of 2000 that the Court was able to complete and approve its report on Community aid granted between 1996 and 1998, in other words, between four and two years previously.
The obvious consequence of this regrettable delay is that many of the observations in the report are out of date, since, in the meantime, major changes have taken place in the legal framework and the political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
But this does not mean that the report' s observations should not be taken into account in future, particularly in Kosovo, in order to avoid similar problems arising with identical actions promoted by the Union.
This type of monitoring is crucial for identifying and solving existing problems, which exist on two levels: one involving direct funding and the other cofinancing with other donors.
In the first case, one problem that stands out is the inadequacy of support for actions designed to protect human rights, support for civil society and support for the media.
There have been many situations which, fortunately, have been rectified. These range from identification of centralised procedures inappropriate given the urgency with which actions have to be carried out, to the fact that the Commission found itself confronted with various faits accomplis which subsequently had to be financed.
With regard to cofinancing, we welcome the transfer of financing from the Office of the High Representative to the first pillar, which meant that it had to be implemented in accordance with the provisions of the Financial Regulation.
Furthermore, we believe the same will have to apply to financing for monitoring electoral procedures and, consequently, to cooperation with the OSCE.
To conclude, Mr President, these were the observations that we in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy felt should be considered in the report by Mr Staes - whom I congratulate - given the volume of the total funding for this type of aid, the shortage of resources and the obvious need for them to be used in a rigorous and transparent way.
Mr President, I wish to begin by welcoming Mr Dell'Alba's report and its recognition that the International Fund for Ireland and the Peace and Reconciliation Fund are an innovative means of consolidating the peace process.
The difficult environment in which the Funds have had to operate, their role as a pump primer, the approach in giving priority to disadvantaged areas and the unique role in pioneering the joint management and delivery of cross-border programmes have all been given the recognition they deserve.
I understand that the International Fund for Ireland has produced a comprehensive response to the issues raised in the Court of Auditors' report, which can be made available to Members.
That response includes a number of specific actions that the Fund is taking to address matters raised in the report.
It is important to stress one crucial point in relation to the International Fund for Ireland: this is not a European Union programme.
The Fund is, in fact, an international organisation with its own governing body, rules, audit procedures and so on.
Furthermore, the European Union is just one of five donors involved in its financing.
The European Union's annual contribution constitutes 35% of the total.
The International Fund for Ireland was established by the British and Irish Governments in 1986 with the objective of promoting economic and social advance and encouraging contact, dialogue and reconciliation between the Unionists and Nationalists throughout Ireland.
Contributors to the Fund are the United States, the European Union, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Since the Fund was set up it has provided assistance of EUR 597 million to 4 600 projects, which have helped to create 38 000 jobs, leading to an additional investment of approximately EUR 1.193 billion, bringing the overall investment in these projects to almost EUR 1.79 billion; directed almost 90% of its commitments to the most deprived areas; encouraged over 9 000 participants in cross-community groups and encouraged 5 000 participants in cross-border structures.
Mr President, may I say that Mr Staes has done an excellent job in his report. May I also point out to everyone that the Balkans are a separate area of Europe, both geographically and from the point of view of their customs and their way of thinking.
So we need to study every incident from every possible angle if we are to be efficient both in our criticism and in the measures which we take.
What it comes down to, as Mr Staes has said and done, is going and seeing for yourself.
From where we stand, we cannot see what is happening in these particular regions, which are pretty much a law unto themselves.
We cannot monitor what is going on from behind a desk.
We cannot understand the Balkan way of thinking from letters, faxes and e-mails.
What we need to do is to get close to them, and we need to get close to them not just by expressing an interest which, it goes without saying, is manifest on all sides; we need to get close to them in practice, both physically and geographically, but mainly by learning about their history and what makes them tick.
Everything that has happened, the comments made by the auditors and the Commission, demonstrate that something that is good can always be replaced by something that is better and that something that is better can always be made better still.
That is the direction we are all pulling in. I am certain that the interest evinced by us and the critical spirit which exists cannot but lead in the right direction and, if you like, we can take the results of the practices applied to this sort of cofinancing and adapt them in other directions.
The European Agency for Reconstruction is now up and running in Thessaloniki and Pristina.
It has attracted a great deal of criticism, but we cannot presume that Sarajevo is the same thing as Pristina and we need to make that clear, which is precisely why I referred to different ways of thinking, customs and situations which need to be borne in mind.
Many honourable Members - and to some extent they are right - said that the agency in Thessaloniki should be decentralised and should move to Pristina.
Many of us categorically opposed this as out of the question.
We have been proven right in keeping the agency in Thessaloniki because if we had moved the Thessaloniki agency to Pristina, Yugoslavia would now be unable to obtain funding from the European Agency for Reconstruction because it would have been impossible for a Serb to go to Pristina and claim so much as a single euro.
Which is why I repeat that criticism is a good thing, but everything we do must be adapted to the circumstances, the needs and the peculiarities of each region.
Mr President, I would like to start by giving my thanks to the Court of Auditors for its very useful report this time on a range of issues.
We were very critical of it at the time of the annual report but I think these special reports are very valuable.
There are clearly a range of areas where the Commission has yet to act to improve matters.
Today, I am going to concentrate on a response to the report written by Mr Dell'Alba on various aspects of the Structural Funds.
Certainly, in my country, this is one of the areas where the European Union can visibly claim to be making a difference, and there is a recognition that Structural Funds and the attempt to increase wealth, and improve social conditions and employment rates in an area give a positive image of the EU.
But we cannot stand by and uncritically applaud.
The reports by the Court of Auditors clearly show that there is room for radical improvement, and the Commission has already introduced a new Structural Fund regulation to improve the situation and will obviously be checking very carefully to see whether these reforms have gone far enough.
In the case of additionality, we must remember that European Funds are intended not to finance but to cofinance operations and must not take the place of public expenditure by national authorities.
That is all very well, but even the new regulations only allow for assessment of additionality at a national level and not at a regional level.
Rules are rules, but if there is no effective punishment after breaking them, they become weaker and unenforceable, so we need to see a solid legal basis to develop the possible imposition of sanctions.
On the issue of the development of industrial sites, the Commission should not wring its hands but say that this should only be seen as part of a wider policy to assist SMEs.
Substantial sums go into these developments.
In Wales, for example, we know that this is a clear target; we need clear targets and objectives and we will be looking forward to seeing those within the Structural Fund programmes in future.
Mr President, I would like, in double-quick time, to take you through a number of observations which concern the Court of Auditors' reports which were, indeed, useful.
First of all, there is the Garriga report.
I believe the Committee on Budgets has already made plans to this effect, but I think it is vital that we evaluate the results of the committee of inquiry on transit fraud.
What has the Commission done so far with the recommendations in that report?
Next, there is the McCartin report on agriculture.
It is always an interesting topic, and nobody will deny that the agricultural policy is not static, but that it should move along with the times, especially in connection with the negotiations within the World Trade Organisation and enlargement.
I would also like to raise two points without making a judgment either for or against.
The following considerations are currently of importance to my group: first, what would the effect of cofinancing agricultural expenditure be, and income allowance, in particular?
Another point, which is very topical at the moment, is animal disease control.
This is taking a huge chunk out of the European budget.
Would it not be possible, in imitation of customs in the Member States, to obtain insurance cover against the outbreak of certain animal diseases? Could the Commission look into this matter at the earliest opportunity?
Turning to the Staes report, it is encouraging to see that the European Union can make a difference in the Balkans, which is much like a hornet' s nest.
We are delighted about this, and we believe the Staes report is excellent.
We particularly support the fact that it is not the Office of the High Representative which is calling the shots; it is the European Union which coughs up the funds and which will have to check whether these are well spent.
I would like to make a general comment on the climate of corruption which is supposed to prevail in the Balkans.
In our opinion, it is necessary for the Commission to decide on the way in which this should be allowed to affect Europe.
Is this having an impact on European aid?
Finally, I would like to make an observation with regard to the Dell'Alba report.
In my country, there are indications that the price of industrial sites is rising considerably thanks to European aid.
This is not desirable in our eyes.
Could something be done about this?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reports from the Court of Auditors have been given a whole new relevance by the current BSE crisis.
The European agricultural policy must be given a thorough going over.
BSE is only the tip of the iceberg.
Subsidisation of quantity increases, overproduction and then more subsidies for reducing surpluses, not only is all this very difficult for the ordinary citizen to comprehend, it is also extremely susceptible to fraud, and the quota regime cannot begin to cushion the effect. This is very clearly borne out by the McCartin report.
It is to the rapporteur' s credit that he constantly draws attention to this, and not just in times such as these.
Unfortunately, Parliament does not have full co-determination powers in agricultural matters and is therefore only able to make very limited use of the political room for manoeuvre.
The decisions are taken in the Council of Ministers; they are reached behind closed doors by the national Agricultural Ministers, with their diverse client interests.
Yet whilst they reserve the right to make the decisions, they are not prepared to actually take on responsibility.
When it comes to errors, misdemeanours, irregularities or fraud, they are not the ones who immediately take responsibility; no, they always point the finger at Brussels, i.e. the EU instead.
There has to be a fundamental change on this score.
Not only is control called for, but also political co-determination for Parliament in all areas of the agricultural policy.
We need more transparency and openness.
This is not about working against the farmers; it is about fighting for a different kind of consumer policy, in the interests of the farmers.
Mr McCartin has already mentioned the right key words in his report.
What we are talking about here is the issue of direct aid and cofinancing.
Something needs to change here, also in the light of eastwards enlargement, if we want to pursue the agricultural policy in such a way that it will lend itself to eastwards enlargement.
Even after the Nice Summit, it is clear that the Council is incapable of actually solving these problems, and so to conclude, I would like to stress once again, and this will be a matter of concern to the whole of Parliament, that Parliament needs full co-determination and codecision rights in agricultural policy.
Mr President, in the report of the Court of Auditors for 1999 we can read that Great Britain, Belgium and Holland have been huge net payers into the EU budget.
These three countries have rendered account in the budget of their customs duties, i.e. own resources, to a much greater extent proportionally than other countries.
There are large ports in these countries and a lot of traffic in transit passes through them.
Both the documents of the Court of Auditors and Mr Garriga Polledo' s report feature an embarrassing element.
In many countries abuses have been revealed, although there is no mention of countries' names.
This consequently gives rise to the suspicion that crimes are mostly committed in those countries that have large transit ports.
If there is no mention of countries' names, suspicion must fall on Great Britain, Belgium and Holland.
If they are not guilty of covering up crimes and protecting criminals, they are, nevertheless, the object of suspicion, as the countries' names are not mentioned.
Huge volumes of goods pass through the European Union, which are then shipped outside the Union from its ports.
Studies by both the Court of Auditors and OLAF have shown that there is major abuse associated with tobacco imports and transit traffic in particular.
It is difficult to assess the extent of this, but the size of the damage caused to the Union is estimated to be between one and five billion euros.
Tobacco comes mainly into the Dutch and Belgian ports and is transported on through EU countries, often to the area of the former Yugoslavia, to Montenegro, for example.
Last year the EU decided to grant financial aid to Montenegro to the tune of EUR 15 million for political reasons, free of any conditions connected with the prevention of smuggling.
Every night contraband tobacco is taken by 50 or 70 speedboats from Montenegro to Italy from where it is distributed to EU markets free of customs duty or tax.
To prevent this sort of thing from happening, we need determined effort and answers to the problems Mr Garriga Polledo referred to in his report.
From the Union' s point of view, we are talking about a project costing billions of euros.
Mr President, today' s debate is certainly a welcome one, but it covers some very different subjects.
I shall therefore confine my comments to the subjects raised by Mr McCartin and Mr Staes.
Regarding the first of these reports, the French Members of our group cannot endorse its comments on butterfat, which challenge the Council decision to maintain guaranteed prices until 2005.
This is a decision we think is particularly justifiable, and one that is essential for farmers.
Similarly, we do not think that the fact that 92% of appropriations available in 1998 under the disposal measure "butter for non-profit organisations" was spent in just three Member States, none of which is among the poorest in the European Union, as the resolution points out, is worth including as a serious argument.
It is rather jumping the gun to forget that the phenomenon of the development of a fourth world and the impoverishment of certain social strata in our countries is a horrendous reality, and the return to still vulnerable growth is not about to make it possible to quickly reintegrate that sector of the population which has often been marginalised for a long period.
We do not find the report' s critical attitude to the aid given to the major cereal-producing regions to be satisfactory either, even though the report does, admittedly, pay special attention to the smaller cereal-producers within the European Union.
We do not share the report' s opinion, on the subject of swine fever, that pig farmers should bear the greater part of the financial burden involved in combating epidemics. One might well ask just why they should be expected to bear these additional costs when they are weighed down by considerable costs already.
They are clearly not the parties responsible for epizootic disease; they are its victims.
So, unless we are seeking, once again, to renationalise the common agricultural policy on the quiet, there could be no question of accepting this proposal.
Mr Staes' report on European Union aid to Bosnia and Herzegovina rightly condemns the serious financial mismanagement in the Office of the High Representative (OHR) during a dramatic period, what is more, and once again, at the expense of monies belonging to the citizens of Europe.
Our group also notes the request for the OHR and the Commission to provide information detailing the reasons leading to this confusion of interests.
Nor is it acceptable for EUR 2 million to be allocated to ineligible material in the sector of ....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I would like to say a few words concerning the excellent report by Mr Staes.
Firstly, I would, however, like to direct my comments at you, as a member of the Bureau of Parliament.
It was a disgrace to this House that we had to tolerate such a bureaucratic administrative hold-up over the question as to whether or not we can send the rapporteur of Parliament 's Committee on Budgetary Control to Bosnia and Herzegovina.
I hope that for the sake of those whom we are supposed to represent here, there will be no repeat performance.
I make no bones about the fact, because this is something we - myself included - normally criticise the Commission for.
This time, I am sorry to say, we are forced to acknowledge that the problem lies with us, which is insupportable.
Secondly, this report by Mr Staes raises our hopes in two respects. Firstly, the Commission is receptive to new ideas.
A most welcome development has taken place between the first visits under the leadership of the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the status quo as ascertained by our rapporteur, and I can only congratulate the Commission on this.
At the start of this programme for the Balkans, aid was granted in the typical EU manner, i.e. the decision was taken around the green table in Brussels and private firms were then commissioned to determine the aid requirement at local level, and to divide and distribute the funds.
This method has been abolished and the system almost revolutionised - partly under pressure from this House.
It shows that our initiatives are valuable and that the Commission is receptive to new ideas.
Commissioner, perhaps you could even use this receptiveness to new ideas, which you displayed in the delegation in Sarajevo, as an example for other delegations in other countries to follow.
Mr President, despite the resources that the Structural Funds have been devoting for years to furthering territorial balance in the European Union, the 25 richest regions still have a per capita income two and a half times higher than the poorest, and despite the many needs put forward by these least-favoured regions, not all the appropriations earmarked as development funds are actually used each year.
I believe we should think about the real causes behind this incomprehensible fact.
Perhaps there is a lack of initiatives and the least-favoured areas do not know how to develop.
If that is the case, we should not just cross our arms and justify our inaction with the excuse that we give them money but they do not use it properly.
We should push forward with an additional policy of analysis, information, training, motivation, consultancy and monitoring to give a boost to new structures and opportunities for development and progress.
But it is also possible that what is happening is that from our more developed and more technocratic positions we are being too perfectionist and demanding, imposing too many regulations and conditions, and thus preventing and stifling the appearance of valid ideas in keeping with the level of development of the regions addressed by Community policies.
Perhaps we should adapt the Community policies to these regions instead of expecting the regions to adapt to an elitist European policy.
What is ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I should above all like to congratulate Mr Staes on a most outstanding report.
His conditions of work were not the best.
It is unfair that we in Parliament should have to deal with a report from the Court of Auditors concerning events going back many years, but the fact is that Mr Staes has done his homework and gone out into the field.
Now, it is not that I do not trust Mr Staes, on the contrary, but I too happened to be in Bosnia last week, and he is right in his assessment.
The history of the Commission' s delegations in Bosnia has become a success story.
The Court of Auditors' report concludes that the Commission' s control over funds for the High Representative' s Office and the UN, for example, has not, by any means, been good enough.
Many of the problems are due to the projects having previously been administered centrally from Brussels.
Now, the EU delegations on the spot have been given more powers and more staff.
This shows that the idea of giving the delegations more duties and more responsibility does, in actual fact, work in practice.
The Court of Auditors proposes that, in future, the EU should give organisations such as the UN, the OSCE and the High Representative' s Office a sum of money which they can administer themselves.
At the same time, the Court of Auditors would like to see tighter control.
I really do not think that this adds up.
If we simply give money as a direct form of budget aid to the organisation, then the Commission will completely lose track of things and no longer have any control.
The issue of cooperation between the EU and the organisations will become part of the 1999 discharge.
The Commission is calling for clear guidelines from the Council and Parliament. That is something I can well understand.
We cannot demand both better control and more of a free hand.
We merely need to retain a certain degree of control over taxpayers' money.
The UN system is unfortunately becoming more and more bureaucratic, inefficient and corrupt so, in spite of everything, I have much more confidence in our own EU system.
Mr President, this debate covers ten special reports by the Court of Auditors on subjects of such varied kinds and importance that they range from a study of the principal of additionality in structural actions to a specific and thorough analysis of the Community cereals policy.
I would therefore like to limit myself to the latter issue and to begin by congratulating Mr McCartin and the Court of Auditors on their excellent work and by highlighting the final points of the Court' s analysis.
Between 1993 and 1997, overcompensation in the cereals sector amounted to over EUR 13 billion.
Every European citizen contributed more than EUR 37 to the cereals budget in 1997.
Arable crops represented 43% of agricultural expenditure but only 10.7% of final production.
Almost 40% of subsidies went to 3% of farmers, and 57% of the beneficiaries received 4.5% of subsidies.
The Court of Auditors concluded from this analysis that the current system of support for farmers' incomes, which is based on factors such as price, yield or area farmed, needs to be replaced by a system based on a standard net income per farm household or working unit, with farm support only being triggered to make good any fall in that income.
The COM in arable crops provides the greatest argument for the need to reform the CAP.
The thorough political remodelling that has been applied to the structure of Germany' s federal government is a clear sign that, even at the heart of Europe, where this CAP was conceived and where it has always found its greatest support, it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain an agricultural policy model that was designed to protect an industrial approach, based on large-scale farming.
We must come up with a rural policy geared towards regional needs and fairness between farmers if we are to preserve Europe's cultural heritage and the environment.
This will require reform of the current CAP.
Mr President, I shall comment on certain problems raised by Mr Dell' Alba' s report to which I should like to draw your attention.
The measures to assist young farmers setting up in business are inadequate, since in far too many cases the target group exceeds the age limit on the date of receiving aid even though it was eligible at the moment of presenting an application.
Given the difficult situations experienced by a large number of these young people and the hardship faced by people working in that sector, a situation where some of them cannot receive European and national aid due to inaccuracies and delays is not acceptable.
As regards the measures to assist the employment of young persons, we would need a precise assessment before being able to consider the impact of this policy.
This assessment should take account of the variety of routes to employment to be implemented.
As regards the measures for the redevelopment of industrial sites, on the contrary, the funding has been too generous, since the ERDF aid has been used to fund projects of types other than the development of industrial sites.
This is compounded by the fact that different forms of aid, if not coordinated at regional level, can engender competition between promoters and a subsequent scattering of aid and reduced effectiveness. This does not make it possible to conduct a redevelopment policy which takes account of the diagnosis of needs and the assessment of achievements, ultimately enabling the active administration of regional development.
In this respect, I cannot go without mentioning the restructuring planned by the Danone Group, a procedure we find in various Member States.
We cannot tolerate firms which have been able to receive European subsidies being allowed, even though they are in good financial shape, to decide, for reasons of structural adjustments, to lay off thousands of people and causing as many family crises which, once again, will be a drain on national and European public monies.
In conclusion, one of the major objectives of the European Union is to combat unemployment, which is a priority of the Member States but also of the Commission.
We know how difficult it is to reach the whole of a target group with any measure.
However, in view of the inaccuracies and shortcomings that have been observed, demands have been presented to have the necessary arrangements made immediately, in particular in order to better define the measures and to actually pass the benefit on to the recipients by curtailing delays in the handling of cases and the payment of beneficiaries, in order to ensure that the results achieved are...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur for the specific references in his report to two major fundings in Northern Ireland relating to our peace process and for his positive response to the International Fund for Ireland, which is funded not just by Europe but also by the United States, Canada and Australia.
I would advise other regions with serious problems of unemployment to study the work of the International Fund in Northern Ireland and the border counties. It has done such outstanding work.
For example, it has funded some 4 600 projects, creating 38 000 jobs, and almost 90% of these jobs are in areas of high unemployment and in deprived areas.
Some 9 000 people from cross-community groups have been involved in these projects for creating jobs in Northern Ireland and some 5 000 people have been involved in the cross-border projects.
It has done an outstanding job and I welcome the positive response in the report to it.
There is also the Special Peace Programme from the European Union itself.
At grass-roots level in Northern Ireland it too is bringing together people from both sections of our community, in particular with projects for young people - young men and women.
There are shared-city initiatives to promote community; there is development and training for unemployed women - I am just singling out some of the very successful operations that are going on - the development of the food industry and, of course, the new housing development.
We very much welcome and deeply thank the Commission for this, and the Council of Ministers for the Special Peace Programme for Northern Ireland.
I should like to express my deep gratitude to all my colleagues in this Parliament for their unanimous support for this peace project because it is making such a very positive contribution to the development of peace in my country.
Mr President, as a Member of Parliament representing that part of Ireland which benefits from both the IFI and the Peace and Reconciliation Fund, I would like to praise the track record of both these funds, and as a representative who works closely with the local groups and projects making excellent use of the funds I would like to state that I am perfectly satisfied that all monies disbursed through the funds are rigorously accounted for.
The IFI and the Peace Fund are unique funds so it is understandable that certain misunderstandings should have arisen owing to a lack of familiarity with the special nature and operation of these funds.
As was pointed out previously, the EU makes a major contribution together with the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
The Fund has committed in excess of £400 million which has triggered an investment of £1.2 billion creating 38 000 jobs for 150 projects right across the border countries and Northern Ireland.
I deem it wholly inappropriate that the Committee on Budgetary Control should question the effectiveness of the IFI funding system.
I believe that these funds have made a major contribution towards the peace process and that Mr Dell'Alba should familiarise himself a little more in detail with these funds.
I would invite him to visit Northern Ireland and the border countries and to see the situation for himself.
Mr President, it was with great apprehension that we read the McCartin report, which, I regret, we did not discuss until yesterday afternoon.
Quite frankly, we were rather perplexed at the evaluations it contains regarding the agricultural sector, for, if the data and figures are to be interpreted so harshly for a sector which is undergoing such great, all-encompassing change as the world of agriculture is due to the common agricultural policy, we are concerned about the decisions to be adopted.
Of course, the rapporteur, Mr McCartin, has recommended a path to take: a thorough review must be carried out of the agricultural sector and the rules governing it.
It is regrettable that the codecision process on the decisions to be adopted for agriculture was not closed at the Nice Council.
There will certainly be a great deal to do in that area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to thank Mr Garriga, Mr McCartin, Mr Staes and Mr Dell'Alba for their reports on the reports by the Court of Auditors, which total ten in all and cover the period 1999/2000, or were published in addition.
I feel this debate has shown how valuable the Special Reports by the Court of Auditors are, because they investigate particular problematic areas in great detail.
As Commissioner, I can only welcome these Special Reports with open arms because they enable us to deal with criticisms as they arise, and the Court of Auditors constructs its Special Reports so well that they can have a direct bearing on new Commission proposals.
Of course, I must be brief and I am only able to go into some aspects of Parliament' s very detailed and valuable reports. Firstly I will deal with the report by Mr Garriga, and then I will consider your comments on the own resources, Mr Pomés Ruiz.
EUR 14 billion is raised annually in customs duties, for the purpose of financing the EU budget, and a substantial proportion of this amount is accounted for by securities and guarantees.
Over the last few years, the Commission has endeavoured to substantially improve the legal provisions in this area.
I might mention that in 1999 and 2000, new legal provisions on the transit procedure in the customs field entered into force.
They allow for better monitoring of transit processes and the handling of securities undertaken for the purpose of safeguarding these processes.
The Community Custom' s Code has just recently been amended and the amendment has entered into force.
Last year, seven Member States were connected up to the new computer-supported transit procedure.
Parliament initiated a great deal in this area through its committee of inquiry, which produced some very practical results that are now being worked on by the Commission.
Above all, it is highly significant that the candidate countries are now to be directly involved in this computer system, i.e. in this new procedure.
There are two ongoing sets of infringement proceedings against Germany relating to the consequences of impropriety in respect of customs procedures, and the question as to whether this should attract interest payments, and consideration is being given to invoking similar proceedings against Austria, Belgium and Denmark.
In addition, I might point out that at some point in the next few days, the Commission will present its report on the own resources system for the period 1997-1999.
All in all, it is the Commission' s intention to transfer more responsibility to the Member States in the customs field.
I take the view that in the event of administrative error which leads to losses in customs revenue, a different regime should apply in future to the one currently in force, i.e. it is the Member States themselves that should be liable for the loss of revenue in the event of error.
It is quite simply a bad system, in that the last pillar of financing within the EU budget has to come into play in such circumstances, i.e. all Member States then have to pay according to their share of GNP.
In other words, the present system is such that those who practise sloppy management are rewarded, whilst those who make a special effort are, in fact, the mugs.
It ought to be the Finance Ministers' first priority to want to change a system of this kind.
There is no sign of this happening yet, but the Commission will continue to press the point.
I will now turn now to the extremely important report on agriculture by Mr McCartin.
I would like to express my gratitude for these reports.
They cover the following subjects: milk powder, butterfat, cereals and swine fever.
I have several brief comments to make on these, and, Mrs Rühle, all I can say is how right you are that this report too illustrates, once again, the number of areas in which urgent reforms are needed.
We have one surplus in the entire area of milk production, and this causes a whole host of other problems, particularly in terms of financial control, because this surplus has led to specific sales promotion measures for skimmed-milk powder and butterfat, which raise enormous problems for financial control time and again, or, to put it another way, they create opportunities for fraud.
The criticism raised in the Special Report prompted the Commission to improve on and simplify four aspects relating to skimmed milk.
The definition of skimmed-milk powder eligible for financial aid was stated more precisely, the control procedures, particularly in relation to the detection of the presence of whey in skimmed-milk powder, were reviewed, and the aid for liquid skimmed milk destined for use in animal feed was abolished following a cost-benefit analysis, which is something that attracted a great deal of criticism.
This was a necessary measure though, because the vehemence of the Court of Auditor' s criticism on this point meant that steps had to be taken.
On the subject of butterfat - there is also an issue here arising from the overproduction that occurs in this sector - I can confirm that the fact that payment of aid is concentrated on only a few Member States is to be reviewed at the forthcoming assessment of the milk sector.
This concentration is not unusual but we will take up your comments on this again nonetheless.
The Court of Auditor' s observations with regard to shortcomings in the exercise of control are currently being given consideration under the clearance of accounts procedure.
The Court of Auditors assessed the reform measures introduced in 1992 in the third Special Report on the effects on the cereals sector.
The Commission used these measures as the basis for its own assessment.
In the motion for a resolution, Parliament, and yourself, Mr McCartin, call for direct payments to be differentiated, in a bid to redress the currently uneven distribution of incomes between prosperous and less prosperous regions, but also between large and small farms.
This would be possible subject to certain constraints, although not all Member States would accept it, and there is room for improvement here too.
You also address the important issue of cofinancing of direct aid in the report.
We know what became of this matter in Agenda 2000.
However, the Commission feels that this is another topic that must be brought up for discussion again in the course of the midterm review.
Very briefly on the subject of swine fever: the Commission is of the same mind as those who feel that after the last epidemic, there is an urgent need to revise the relevant legal provisions.
It has therefore submitted proposals accordingly, and, has also restructured the Commission' s veterinary service as a result.
The Commission would agree with you, Mr McCartin, that pig producers should carry a greater share of the financial burden of measures to combat animal diseases.
In this connection, the Commission will carry out an investigation into risk management instruments in agriculture, the findings of which will be available in the next few months, and they are bound to be the subject of intense discussion in this House thereafter.
I will now turn to your report Mr Staes, for which the Commission is in your debt.
In the period from 1996 to 1998, which is the period the Court of Auditor' s Special Report relates to, the Commission - and you acknowledged this - operated under extremely difficult political conditions on the ground.
You mention the extraordinary circumstances, particularly with regard to the financing of the open broadcasting network.
Firstly, it was necessary for equipment of a very high quality to be made available for this network, and secondly, it was important to ensure that the transmission of information was of a very high quality too, with a view to preparing for the 1996 elections, and allowing for independent reporting.
However, the Commission is forced to concede that, in many areas, there was much cause for criticism and so it has taken the appropriate steps.
I will go on to discuss the relationship between the EU as donor, and the Office of High Representative and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe as recipients of the financial aid. This relationship is indeed complex.
The Commission has been reprimanded for quite a few administrative shortcomings, when the fault actually lies with the international organisations.
It is not a case of denying responsibility.
It just goes to show that there are even difficulties on the cooperation front sometimes, which are partly structural in nature.
The Court of Auditors is now proposing, as it did back in its 1999 Annual Report, that international organisations should not be granted project financing but should be allowed budgetary grants instead.
But how is the Commission supposed to support international organisations with an exclusively political mandate when these organisations find it difficult to properly implement the administrative and financial standards of Community aid programmes? Further talks and regulations are called for here.
On the subject of the repatriation of refugees and the construction of housing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which also features in the report: the Commission was able, with the aid of projects financed by the PHARE and OBNOVA programmes, to achieve similar successes where rehousing is concerned to those of other donors.
A criticism was raised in the 1999 Annual Report to the effect that there were shortcomings with regard to the repatriation of refugees, but this situation has now improved.
I would also remind you once again that the Commission has learnt from all the errors committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina when it came to granting EU aid, and has taken the necessary steps, and it has also placed the administration of EU aid, for example in Kosovo, on an entirely different footing.
Turning now to the comprehensive report by Mr Dell'Alba, which concerns the principle of additionality as applied to the Structural Funds, industrial areas, youth employment initiatives, the International Fund for Ireland and the PEACE programme. Here, too, I must confine myself to a few remarks.
The structural funds regulation of June 1999 now includes new provisions regarding the principle of the additionality of measures, which will hopefully help to ensure that, in future, there will be no more cause for the kind of criticism raised by the Court of Auditors about the previous support period, and the criteria will be clearer.
I have this to say about the Court of Auditor' s report on industrial areas: one of the key aspects of the 1999 reform of the structural funds has been the strengthening of the monitoring and assessment instruments, which will enable us to establish more effectively where the money goes to.
The regulations now provide for a clearer distribution of responsibility between the Commission and the Member States.
Finally, permit me just to say a few words about the report on the PEACE programme.
Parliament has expressed its profound concern at the often slow-moving materialisation of the PEACE programme in Northern Ireland and has called for a transparent budget.
The furtherance of the consolidation of the peace process in Northern Ireland and the support, particularly of the cross-border cooperation afforded by local initiatives, which Mr Hume made reference to once again, was not just an innovative goal, but was also the right programme to my way of thinking, and I am delighted to be able, once again, to acknowledge the fact that it has Parliament' s support.
This programme too was launched under very difficult conditions initially.
As the Court of Auditors report shows, it was still able, in the end, to play a part in supporting the peace and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland.
I believe that was the object of the exercise and to that extent, I am delighted that it could be judged a success at the end of the day.
Management of European Monetary Institute and European Central Bank (1998)
The next item is the report (A5-0395/2000) by Mr Heaton-Harris, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the report of the Court of Auditors on the operational efficiency of the management of the European Monetary Institute and the European Central Bank for the financial year 1998 together with the replies of the European Central Bank [C5-0319/2000 - 2000/2163(COS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my point is that the European Central Bank is going through a rough patch, what with mounting criticism, the fall in the euro against the dollar, the lack of confidence in the guidelines being issued and the unnecessary sniping against the Bank, which is a luxury neither the European Bank nor the European system can afford.
It is not enough for Caesar's wife to be respectable, she must also appear to be respectable.
I see the European Central Bank as Caesar's wife and she is respectable, but she must make more of an effort to show the outside world that she is respectable.
Today, if the truth be told, quite a few of our partners are not overly keen on the euro.
We must try not to give others an excuse to join their ranks; we must create the potential for the euro to win more supporters who will then accede to the euro zone.
I would also point out, as regards the famous bonus which has caused such a stir, that if there is justification for paying every employee at the European Central Bank an annual bonus of 9% of their salary, then 38% over a period of 54 months comes out at 8.5% per annum.
So I fail to see what there is to criticise about something which is within the bounds of both what is acceptable and what has been planned.
Presumably the figures have been misinterpreted.
However, I would point out that, whatever is done must be done in the best, most transparent, most efficient manner and with the maximum possible credibility vis-à-vis the outside world.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we approved the report tabled by the rapporteur, Mr Heaton-Harris, in committee, and we will support it in this House, for it avoids both exaggeration and undue reserve in its comments on the issues raised by the report of the Court of Auditors on the management of the EMI and the ECB.
The three points raised by Mr Heaton-Harris are the insufficient monitoring of projects, the granting of an extraordinary bonus to ECB employees and the refusal to be subject to OLAF investigations.
I would not imagine that it occurred to any of us that the euro would weaken or that such a thing would be engineered. That is not the point.
The point, in our opinion, is that the greater our recognition of the authority of the monetary bodies in question - and I endorse this recognition, although I also take note of the clear need for political administration of the economy at European level as well - the greater the need to require them to provide clear evidence of efficiency, wage moderation and transparency.
There is an old saying, applied to people whose actions do not match their words, which goes like this: "Do what I say, not what I do".
Those whose role and prestige makes them a point of reference for such a huge public and for all the institutions - such as the European Central Bank, which has our confidence - cannot permit themselves even a minor imperfection, and still less can they say, "Do what I say, not what I do" while advocating price stability, management efficiency and the greatest possible rectitude and transparency.
It is precisely because of the major, valuable role of these institutions - and I wish to stress this by way of conclusion - and because the issues condemned can be resolved that we are confident that the recommendations of the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament will be given practical effect.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 12 noon.
Financial assistance to SMEs (1999)
The next item is the report (A5-0335/2000) by Mr Bushill-Matthews, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: Growth and Employment Initiative - Measures on financial assistance for innovative and job creating Small- and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs) - As at 31 December 1999 [COM(2000) 266 - C5-0507/2000 - 2000/2245(COS)].
Mr President, I wish to begin by just reminding the House of a few statistics.
There are at least 16 million businesses within the EU, 99.9% of them are micro to medium-sized.
There are 100 million people working in the EU in the private sector and, of these, 32 million people work in micro-businesses, which is businesses of less than 10 people; 33 million people work in small to medium enterprises, with less than 249 people.
So a total of 65 million workers in the EU are in the small and medium sector, which shows that it is very important for us to be discussing the growth of such a sector.
In particular, it is absolutely right that this specific initiative - growth and employment - should be discussed within the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, although it is clearly also of interest to other committees.
This particular report is concerned with funding programmes, which was an important initiative from this Parliament a few years ago.
But it is worth saying straight away, as confirmed at the Lisbon Summit, that the issue of the development of SMEs is not just a matter of funding.
It is also very important that all of us secure the right climate for enterprise, with less red tape and less bureaucracy, to encourage SMEs and risk-takers to actually consider taking out risk capital in the first place.
1999 was the first full year of this particular set of initiatives and, therefore, as a start-up phase it should have been relatively straightforward to report upon this without being too controversial.
However, there are some controversial elements in the report, essentially because of the Commission timetable in issuing its report.
I have annexed the detailed timetable to the report.
It shows that whereas the initial draft proposal from the Commission came out in November/December 1999, it literally took a full five months before the report came before Parliament.
Then there was a further delay within Parliament, because we are not perfect in that respect either.
It took over a month to allocate it to a rapporteur and then, because of the summer recess, it was not possible to programme the internal debate and discussion until October and November.
Despite this long delay, there was further incompetence, dare I say, within the Secretariat because the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy under Mrs Flesch as the rapporteur had produced some very useful amendments to the report which only came to the Committee on Employment after we had voted on the report.
So that again was not exactly impressive.
I have agreed with Mrs Flesch that amendments from the committee today have my full support to go through unchallenged, as there are a number of useful contributions there.
I should add that I asked the Commission back in August about a particular comment in the report, which stated that in August there would be some feedback from SMEs about their response to the project.
However, the Commission did not reply.
I asked again in October where this information was and it finally replied: "What information are you waiting for? We do not understand!"
It was literally only yesterday that I received an e-mail from the Commission stating that there was such information but it had been sent to the Committee on Budgets rather than to our committee - again, not too impressive.
Yesterday, I spoke in the debate on the Doorn report on SLIM concerning bureaucracy.
I should like to reinforce those comments now, because the fact that this report had to go through so many different Directorates before it emerged - including legal, budgets, financial control, general secretariat, regional, innovation, employment and social affairs, research, internal market and competition - is not an impressive way of dealing with an important subject.
I speak not only on behalf of this report but also, I am sure, of other reports that need to go through the same system.
This is just too much micromanagement.
There are too many managers involved and, as a result, the project ends up not being fully managed.
Finally, I have made a few comments about the European Investment Bank taking a controlling interest in the EIF.
This may be absolutely right given its expertise, but we want to ensure that these particular projects are given the priority they deserve.
I am not particularly confident but we shall watch to see how that goes.
I have also called for a full audit, not because of any doubt about the financial probity, but just as a basic management control system.
In conclusion, may I say that the Commission has apparently already written the draft report for the year 2000.
I should like to ask that we see it now so that we can make a positive contribution now in good time, rather than repeat the timing of the current report.
Here we are in January 2001 debating and voting on a report that was issued back in 1999.
It is already history.
On such an important subject we want to deal with the present, thereby being better able to shape the future.
Mr President, I should first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur and to emphasise that there is basically no difference in the attitudes of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
We therefore endorse the rapporteur' s conclusions, particularly his comments on delays, which should be avoided in future.
The Committee on Industry perhaps emphasised to a greater extent the importance of SMEs for employment, the need to facilitate access to risk capital, the need to simplify bureaucratic and administrative procedures and regarding improving the coordination between the various Commission programmes of interest to small and medium-sized enterprises.
We therefore tabled a number of amendments and, as the rapporteur has just explained, due to an unfortunate combination of circumstances, the rapporteur did not receive the amendments in time.
I should like to thank him, nonetheless, for having tried to accept Amendments Nos 1 to 8, which constitute the bulk of the Committee on Industry' s amendments, which complement the rapporteur' s report.
Mr President, the Nice Summit was characterised by weak decisions. However, it will not impede progress towards an ever stronger European Union.
When national measures have no effect, that is when Europe comes into play. We are experiencing this with BSE.
Suddenly, all sides are calling for effective cross-border consumer protection and robust action where wrongly labelled products are concerned.
We are also experiencing this with the fight against unemployment.
The SMEs feel the effectiveness of union-wide initiatives for growth and employment, which are designed to underpin the measures introduced by the Member States.
One of the first things to come out of this programme is that EUR 450 million is to be made available for growth-orientated SMEs.
On behalf of the PPE-DE Group, I would like to congratulate Philip Bushill-Matthews on his report, which bears witness to his exceptionally detailed knowledge.
We concur with his criticism of the Commission for providing too little information too late.
Just how are we supposed to oversee matters properly, or even submit solid programme proposals under such enormous pressure of time? We need clarification on which of the three facilities - start-up capital, guarantees, or joint ventures - have achieved the best results, in which States and which sectors companies were set up, whether the small enterprises had access to foreign capital too, or whether statements originating from SME circles are correct, according to which, more than 50 000 new jobs were created simply by means of interest subsidies to the value of EUR 100 million, which age groups are especially required, and to what extent women were involved.
In talking to SMEs in my constituency, I constantly met with complaints that the funds are virtually only ever granted to enterprises in state-of-the-art technology.
Other innovative enterprises, from the craft industry for example, ought to qualify, too, to my mind.
We must also take greater account of the sustainability of services.
Mr President, let us seize on the initiative emanating from Mr Bushill-Matthews' excellent report.
The more detailed the information, the sooner confidence in EU initiatives will grow.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I very much support this report and in particular the initiatives behind the ETF Start-up Facility and the Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Guarantee Facility.
I am sure there is a shared opinion across this House of how important small businesses are.
In my own country, the United Kingdom, the small business population has actually increased in size by one half since 1980 and there is now one small business for every 13 adults in the population.
Small businesses are important not just for jobs but also for trade in this European Union.
I recall talking with the counsellor in the British Embassy dealing with Belgium and the Benelux countries and exports into those countries, who told me that the vast majority, over 90% of the enquiries which he deals with, are not from large companies seeking to export but from small businesses.
So that is very relevant to us in this House too.
It is relevant because of the Lisbon process.
We welcomed the conclusions from the Lisbon Summit last year: the move towards flexibility, the move towards entrepreneurship, towards innovation that were reflected there.
These facilities should be seen very much as being at the heart of trying to achieve those economic goals.
I would also like to change past practice by congratulating Mr Bushill-Matthews.
I have sat in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs with him for the last year or so and I have heard him make the same speech time after time about de-regulation and too much bureaucracy at European level.
He has actually come up with something constructive here, so well done Mr Bushill-Matthews.
Nice to see that you can do some work, or at least others can do it on your behalf.
I particularly congratulate you on your conclusions regarding the need for more transparency and speed - absolute support for that - and on the importance of the high technology sectors - yes, but not just those.
Also, I am very surprised to see you putting emphasis on the need to increase female participation in small businesses.
Congratulations to you for supporting that.
I would have liked to see more on the social economy.
Our cooperative businesses should be seen fair and square as part of the small business sector.
They are particularly important in terms of job creation amongst disadvantaged groups in the labour market.
They are particularly important in terms of socially useful employment and it is an omission that they are missing from the report.
They should not be treated differently; they should be given extra help.
Perhaps the Commission could comment on that at the close of the debate.
I would also like to particularly support Amendment No 3 from the Socialist Group.
We will be supporting all of the amendments to the effect that bank guarantees behind venture capital are still far too strict, far too conservative and actually prevent entrepreneurs from creating jobs in the UK and in other European countries.
Let me conclude by saying that yesterday the UK Government published Think small first, a document about ensuring that every department of government thinks about small businesses, not just about the availability of finance that we are discussing in this debate but about the overall macroeconomic framework and the sorts of advice and skills that they need to support them and become prosperous.
We in this European Union should follow that lead and ensure that every Directorate-General, every service of the European Union puts small businesses first.
Mr President, I want first of all to congratulate Mr Bushill-Matthews on his report.
He has produced a good piece of work in spite of difficult conditions, and we in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party very much agree with his conclusions, as well as with the amendments tabled by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
There are, of course, many different ways to create full employment, but this cannot be achieved without economic progress and a high degree of competitiveness.
This was also, of course, the conclusion reached by the Lisbon Summit last year which specifically emphasised growth and development as the means to higher employment in the EU.
Moreover, every politician has a soft spot for small and medium-sized enterprises. At any rate, that is true whenever we raise our glasses in praise of their importance to economic development and employment.
When it comes to everyday practice, however, the reality is all too often different.
Far too many obstacles are placed in the way in the form of bureaucratic rules which deter many people from setting up in business.
There are not enough incentives to take risks, and this generally impedes development and dynamism.
We cannot, of course, get away from the fact that, in general, there is less willingness to take risks in the EU than in the United States, something which is reflected in less dynamic new business development.
I therefore also think it is important to ensure that these programmes which, through the European Investment Bank, provide small and medium-sized enterprises with new financing opportunities operate as efficiently as possible in the eyes of the enterprises concerned.
The programmes must be made more widely known and linked to other programmes, and it must of course be ensured that the payments are not dragged out, indeed that the programmes operate with a minimum of bureaucracy.
Mr Bushill-Matthews' s excellent report and the amendments tabled by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy contain criticism of experience to date.
That criticism should be taken on board so that our friendly feelings for small and medium-sized enterprises do not only find expression in fine celebratory speeches, but also in practice.
We must also ensure that the programmes are effective overall, and I am therefore particularly pleased about Mr Bushill-Matthews' s request that the Commission follow up the programmes and examine their effect on employment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite amazing what excellent reports are produced, although the Commission basis is completely inadequate.
The rapporteur puts forward the proposal that enterprises that have not taken up support programmes should be interviewed.
I consulted numerous colleagues on this, in my capacity as owner of a medium-sized enterprise.
The almost unanimous verdict was as follows: when it comes to the European Investment Fund, and especially the various components of the Amsterdam Special Action Programme (ASAP) on SMEs and job creation, we small enterprises lose track of things because there is a plethora of individual sub-programmes, responsibility for which is in all kinds of different hands, I might add.
For example, there is the normal SME guarantee facility, the growth and employment initiative, the growth and environmental initiative, the EIF technology facility ETF, the ETF start-up-programme, new sub-programmes for innovation attached to EIF-ETF since Lisbon, e-Europe, e-Learning etc.
How are these distinguished from one another and where must I, as entrepreneur, submit the applications for my project ideas? Parliament has the same problem from the opposite perspective, if it wants to assess how the ASAP is developing overall, because the reports from the EIB and EIF do not contain a coherent account.
Sometimes there is talk, in general terms, of the full range of SME support, and sometimes the individual components of the ASAP are cited in different contexts.
There are also a few things wrong with the organisation of the ASAP on the policy side.
The growth and environmental initiative has not received any more funds.
What is more, it strives for a completely antiquated after-care style of environmental protection.
The remaining areas, i.e. growth and employment, ETF, etc. have received continuous boosts, I grant you, but they concentrate on a few high-tech sectors alone, predominantly innovation, communications and genetic engineering.
In many cases, these SMEs are not dealt with directly; instead the application procedure is handled by middlemen, usually traditional risk capital and investment funds, which receive the credits and guarantees from the EIB, and which the SMEs have to go to with any complaints.
That being the case, in fact nobody but the EIB knows which SMEs are receiving support for precisely which projects, and how many jobs are being created in the process.
That is why hitherto, when assessing the effect these programmes have on employment, rather than providing concrete figures, the EIB has performed a simple macroeconomic model estimate.
More detailed information will be available on the outcome of the whole exercise in 5 to 10 years' time.
Rumour has it that essentially, the ASAP serves to strengthen the European risk capital market for information and communication, genetic engineering and starting up new businesses, and that the job creation aspect is not actually examined in greater detail or assessed.
The EIB homepage showing the list of funds to which the EIB has given credits and guarantees, fuels this notion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is one of those subjects on which we cannot and, in fact, do not have any doubts or hesitations as to our political approach.
First of all, programmes aimed at promoting employment and growth are still vitally important, despite some positive signs in recent years.
Secondly, the strategic importance of small and medium-sized enterprises in this area is quite clear and crucial, as was stated in the definition of the initiative for greater employment, which was strengthened recently by the guidelines laid down at the Lisbon Summit.
I too, like the rapporteur, whom I congratulate, wish to highlight the Lisbon Summit conclusion that calls for a climate encouraging the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises, and in particular a regulatory framework which is conducive to investment, innovation and entrepreneurship.
Thirdly, we are all fully aware of the particularly tough challenges as well as the new opportunities that economic globalisation presents for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Fourthly, it is crucial for the European Union and the Member States to overcome the relative gap that exists in many areas between the EU and the United States.
If we are to fulfil our responsibilities in this area, we must have good information in good time.
This has, until now, not been the case.
I agree with the rapporteur' s criticisms and I also call for the draft 2000 report to be submitted to us in time, by March of this year, otherwise the harsh criticism that we have refrained from making this year will have to be made with even greater severity next year.
In its reporting procedures, the Commission must acknowledge the priority and the importance that we attach to these areas and ensure that these are reflected in the quality of its analysis tools.
In conclusion, I think that we must improve our commitment: I agree with the rapporteur when he advocates that our interest in high technology and knowledge-based industries must not mean that we forget the more traditionally structured businesses involved in tourism, trade, crafts and in services in general.
We must consider the amendments, since we need to demonstrate a greater ability to harness venture capital. The amendments also, in my opinion, complement the report well.
Mr President, Europe normally finds it hard to assess the impact of government policy. That is not the case in this report.
I therefore find the assessment presented here of the effects of the programme on actual job creation particularly interesting.
Furthermore, since the agreement of the Council for Employment and Social Policy on 20 December 2000 regarding the creation of articles of association for the European company, the legal and administrative prospects for SMEs are looking up.
This is essential, since SMEs form 99.8% of all firms and employ 66% of the European workforce.
Yet the concept of an SME continues to apply to a catch-all category embracing a wide range of company structures and situations.
The great majority of them are firms employing at most 10 employees.
It is to be regretted that their special characteristics have not been recognised and that they do not benefit from special measures.
Unlike the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which mentions it in its opinion, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs does not mention any such recognition.
Similarly, the aid programme should not be reserved for the large SMEs using or producing leading edge technology.
The traditional sector should also be able to benefit in full.
I am thinking in particular of the craft sector, which provides employment, know-how and innovation.
From this point of view, I support the programme of start-up facilities for smallSMEs.
On the other hand, I am more sceptical of the idea of urging Member States to amend their tax laws.
There are plans to create a single European structure for risk capital investment funds operating in parallel with national structures.
This is liable to make administrative procedures more complicated for the small SMEs who do not necessarily have the resources to deal with them.
Mr President, I am happy to be speaking on this major document tabled by Mr Bushill-Matthews, whom I have the honour to call my friend.
I am glad to see that this report, which is so important for the development of small and medium-sized businesses in Europe, has been so well written, and I hope that Mr Bushill-Matthews will continue to be a beacon of light for all those drawing up European Union legislative measures on small and medium-sized businesses.
He is certainly one of the greatest authorities on the matter, which became extremely important after the fall of communism.
As we are all aware, communism and the countries of the Eastern Bloc stifled free initiative. There were no small entrepreneurs in communist states.
We have now proved the superiority of the economic system of free initiative.
I therefore urge Mr Bushill-Matthews to remember in future - and Commissioner Schreyer to bear in mind both now and in future - that, in addition to the major initiatives proposed in this report, it would be appropriate to call strongly upon the Member States to exempt small businesses which are just starting off from taxes for at least the first five years of activity.
Whoever undertakes a free initiative creates at least one job - his own - and often employs family members and other people as well.
I am sure that this proposal will be music to Mr Bushill-Matthews' ears, for he is well-known for being opposed to taxation, and I therefore hope that both he and Commissioner Schreyer will accept it.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Bushill-Matthews on this major report.
I also have to say that I am extremely grateful to him for having accepted the amendments I proposed which supplement the main part of the report on certain points and certain basic issues.
In my opinion, it is extremely important to be focusing on the development of small and medium-sized businesses and what that involves, in order to offset the unemployment in large businesses, apart from anything else.
Europe must, therefore, make it a priority to support businesses, create a favourable climate for their establishment and development, encourage research and, above all, encourage the leading sectors.
It is also of primary importance that the European Parliament succeeds in monitoring both the projects and the results made possible by European funding.
This would appear to be of extreme importance, together with the fact that small and medium-sized businesses in the small craft, trade and tourism sectors - as I pointed out - and other services will also benefit.
We must take on board the fact that the era when people stayed in the same job all their lives has passed, that we must change our perception of employment and that the sector of small and medium-sized industry and craft trades will provide increasingly realistic job opportunities for our young people and for the future European citizens.
It is vital for Europe to focus on these factors and we must continue to have confidence in this approach.
Mr President, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Bushill-Matthews, for the great expertise he has demonstrated in drafting this report.
Although SMEs now employ two-thirds of the workforce in the whole of the European Union, there is still employment potential in the SME sector.
Support and venture capital while a company is being set up are enormously important for the creation of jobs, as, according to certain studies, SMEs use as much as 80% to 90% of venture capital market resources in taking on staff.
We must give SMEs that have potential for growth our strongest support, irrespective of what sector they operate in.
More attention must also be paid to making it easier for companies to globalise, so that SMEs may take full advantage of the benefits brought by the internal market.
Also great in this regard are the expectations connected with harmonising systems of guarantees and legislative reform regarding mortgages, which we are expecting in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I fully agree with the rapporteur that the Commission should, in future, provide information more promptly on how this important initiative is progressing.
In future, the Commission' s reports should contain feedback on the users of the fund so that defects in the system can be speedily rectified.
Finally, I would like to focus attention on those legal provisions which aim to make it easier for bankrupt companies to begin trading again.
Although these companies have proved to be a risk once, that does not mean that the same thing will happen in the future.
Bankrupt companies should rather be viewed as a resource for Europe, which we should not fail to exploit.
I would also like to stress how important small businesses are for competitiveness with regard to Europe' s big companies.
Small companies often work as subcontractors for our European mammoth organisations, and, as a result, the position of small businesses is more important than ever for competitiveness throughout Europe.
Mr President, as I am here instead of my colleague Pedro Solbes Mira, I will give his speech in English, also in honour of the rapporteur.
This report concerns the first annual report on the Growth and Employment Initiative.
This initiative aims to provide financial assistance for innovative and job-creating small and medium-sized enterprises as a step towards the development of a business climate conducive to investment, innovation and entrepreneurship.
It is also in line with the Lisbon European Council conclusions of March 2000 where the objectives of strengthening employment, economic reform and social cohesion as part of a knowledge-based economy were set as a new strategic goal for the Union.
I would like to address the main points raised by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs' report prepared by Mr Bushill-Matthews.
Firstly, the report notes that the Commission reporting process is too lengthy, causing delays in the receipt of the report by Parliament.
At the same time, Parliament's report states that there is a lack of information particularly concerning feedback information from small and medium-sized enterprises, beneficiaries of the Growth and Employment Initiative.
In my view, these two matters are inter-linked and are a result of the way the financial instruments that form part of the Growth and Employment Initiative are constructed.
These are designed so as to commit budgetary resources to financial institutions such as venture capital funds, national guarantee schemes and commercial banks which would act as intermediaries for final SME beneficiaries.
In this respect, the information regarding commitment and draw-downs made to financial institutions in a given year is available during the first quarter of the following year.
On the other hand, feedback information from small and medium-sized enterprises concerning a given year is only available for all the instruments in the last quarter of the following year.
This implies that an annual report drawn up by the end of April will include year-end statistics for the previous year at the financial intermediary level and at the SME level, detailed statistics for the preceding year.
These time-scales indicate why last year's annual report referring to 1999, which was the first full year of the programme, could not include detailed information at SME level.
This leads us to the following point: streamlining the initiative is an objective shared by both Parliament and the Commission.
However, a re-shaping of the financial instruments of the initiative cannot be done annually.
First of all, market players could be confused and find it difficult to appreciate the reasons for these changes.
Furthermore, a detailed evaluation of these instruments based on a bottom-up approach is needed.
Regarding the JEFV programme which has had the weakest take-up out of the three financial instruments of the Growth and Employment Initiative, the multi-annual programme for enterprises foresees a simplification of the scheme to enable SMEs' requests for financial contributions to be dealt with more quickly by the financial intermediaries and the Commission services.
The possibility of adopting the eligibility criteria will also be examined in order to respond more effectively to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Concerning the reform of the European Investment Fund, the report is incorrect in stating that the Commission can no longer use the EIF directly as a tool for financing SMEs.
As before, current and the future Community schemes entrusted to the European Investment Fund will be managed separately from its own resources under the principle set and controlled by the Commission services.
Finally, the report questions the tax structure of venture capital funds and calls on the Commission to encourage each Member State to adopt laws permitting tax-transparent funds to be created in their country and to recognise transparent funds established in a similar way in other Member States.
This matter, which is of great interest to the Commission, has recently been dealt with in the Commission communication on the risk capital action plan which was finalised in October 2000.
To quote from the report "the tax structure might hinder cross-border investment by creating specific tax obstacles or even discriminating against foreign investors.
A comprehensive response to such barriers might be achieved most effectively through coordinated action on EU level.
In any event, Member States have to make sure that tax treaties and all other tax law instruments prevent double-taxation of dividends in cross-border investment'.
To conclude, now that the restructuring of the European Investment Fund is complete, the Commission services and the EIF are working together to progressively implement the ECOFIN and Industry Council's decisions, in particular with the multi-annual programme for enterprise.
To be realistic, Parliament should not expect any substantial result before 2003 or 2004, although preliminary indications in particular from guarantee schemes might be available earlier.
Let me add as the Budget Commissioner, that the Commission has welcomed Parliament's decision for the 2001 budget to increase amounts for loans and grants available to SMEs.
This was an important signal to the small and medium-sized enterprises and an important step to achieve the aims of Lisbon to create a knowledge-based modern economy in the European Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 12 noon.
Frontier workers
The next item is the report (A5-0338/2000) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the situation of frontier workers [2000/2010(INI)].
Mr President, it came as a surprise to me as well that this debate was being squeezed in today.
The topic of frontier work has fascinated me for over 21 years, the length of time I have served in politics, in the Dutch Lower Chamber, but also in the European Parliament.
It fascinates me not only because I am faced daily with problems which frontier workers experience when they live in one Member State and work in another, but also because the mechanics behind it are quite considerable, mechanics which have to be adjusted annually.
It also fascinates me because it demonstrates that parliaments, national parliaments that is, are not getting things moving quickly enough.
Another reason why it fascinates me is that what politicians appear unable to sort out, the European Court of Justice manages to settle, and Member States are always being lectured about putting right any existing mistakes.
This brings me to a remark which I would like to make vis-à-vis the European Commission.
I have no axe to grind with the European Commission.
It is particularly the Council, the members of the Council, who are unwilling to grant frontier work the flexibility it needs, and so we politicians, national politicians that is, leave this for the European Court of Justice to solve.
I think this is no longer acceptable, or necessary, for that matter, and that we must make every effort, and employ all means, in order to change this situation.
What I want in my report - and I would like to thank my fellow MEPs who have helped in the drafting, as well as predecessors who have worked on this dossier - is four things.
First of all, I would make an urgent request to the Commission to draft a directive which provides for frontier effect reports.
This request has been put to the European Commission and the Member States since 1990.
Such reports would oblige Member States, when changing their legislation on social security, taxation or public health, to draft an assessment straight away in order to study the impact on frontier workers. Why?
Not because this will make amends, but because it will help us to operate in a preventative manner; and help us to prevent problems from arising.
My second request to the Council is at long last to incorporate the amendments in Regulation 1408 without any further delays.
I believe this dossier has been with the Council of Ministers, the Social Affairs Ministers, for two years now.
It includes a number of improvements for frontier workers, as well as - and Mr Doorn mentioned SLIM yesterday - a whole host of provisions which make everything more simple, easy and more readable.
The Council must do something about this; Parliament has codecision rights on this dossier.
However, the Council must decide unanimously, and I hope that something can be done there.
Thirdly, in my opinion, the Commission should be more alert when it comes to all bilateral taxation agreements which are being concluded, in order to check whether the principles, whereby tax law should be brought into line with social security in the country of employment, are being upheld. This is to prevent problems arising and to prevent people from falling between two stools.
As far as this is concerned, the Commission should get its act together a bit more, and check and verify the bilateral taxation agreements more, also in the preliminary phases.
The fourth point I want to make concerns medical expenses, or the possibility of benefiting from provisions for medical care in another Member State.
Court judgments have been passed on this.
This is another area where politicians have let themselves down.
There are judgments of the Court of Justice, Kohll-Decker being the most prominent, and I know a few people from my own region, which is a border region, who went to Court.
Mr President, neither the Member States nor the Commission have ever submitted any notes to Parliament on this matter.
That is shocking.
We should not leave matters in the hands of the courts; we as politicians must be able to do something about this.
I know very well that when the previous Commissioner, Mr Flynn, was in office, a note was being circulated.
I know that the outcome of this was thought to be unpleasant.
But it does mean that for once - and I would like to push the Commission in this respect - we had clarity and transparency.
The position of active frontier workers, but also that of post-active frontier workers is at stake here.
As far as Kohll-Decker is concerned, it applies to all people who live near the border.
I would ask the MEPs to vote in favour of the report and certainly also for the amendments which I have tabled.
The reason for this is that frontier work is no longer a problem of the old Union of the 15.
It impacts on the day-to-day running of the market, also with regard to the candidate countries.
I would therefore call for the broadest support possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for highlighting the situation faced by frontier workers in an own-initiative report from Parliament.
Many and varied are the situations and problems that we continue to encounter in the European internal market, one of the key aspects of which is the freedom of movement of frontier workers.
These are problems which cause the people to question the raison d' être of the European Union.
Being an MEP in a region bordering Luxembourg, Belgium and France I can identify with all the facets of these issues.
Why is a German pensioner, who is undergoing dialysis, only permitted to have access to this for a limited period of time when holidaying in France? The mother of a family in Germany is immediately entitled to child benefit for her second child, but not if her husband works in Luxembourg.
Is it permissible for an aunt who is insured in Belgium to be cared for in a nursing home near her family in Germany? Pension entitlements acquired in Italy are subject to enormous outlay before they reach the German pensioner.
And why should an honorary mayor working in Germany suddenly have to pay tax on his whole salary, which he earns in Luxembourg, because he receives an expenses allowance? Luxembourg firms are fighting against additional expenditure and additional costs, and so jobs are at risk.
This is why people decline the office of mayor.
The list goes on.
Frontier workers must be flexible, so as to be able to cope with the confusion of laws on both sides of the borders.
Those who look for a job over the border within the European internal market need legal certainty in a united Europe, particularly in the sphere of social legislation.
We MEPs from the border regions in the European Union call upon the Commission and the Council, to provide for more cross-border social justice.
We have achieved a great deal, but there is still much to be done.
The report by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten illustrates the legitimate demands of the people in the border regions.
The internal market must also be completed within the labour market if we want to make Europe an integrated whole.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking Ria Oomen-Ruijten for the sound cooperation we enjoyed within the framework of this report.
I thought it was a splendid idea to dust down a number of requirements which this Parliament put forward in 1998 further to an own-initiative report and following my own report which is based on a frontier workers petition.
It has to be said: not a great deal has happened legislatively speaking over the past three years.
We have often said that border regions are good barometers for European integration.
If this is the case, then I do not think integration is in terribly good shape these days, because, except for the European Court of Justice, little progress has been made.
Moreover, I also regret the fact that the frontier effect test has not even been included in the social agenda and that the Treaty of Nice has not made any decisions with regard to Regulation 1408/71, which only complicates matters.
Meanwhile, the world moves on, and in all manner of countries, tax reforms are under way, social security legislation is in full swing, statutory schemes are being supplemented with additional schemes, and quite a few countries, in a bid to reconcile work, family and leisure time, are coming up with all kinds of schemes for career breaks which will only apply to the country' s own citizens and unfortunately not to frontier workers.
I am therefore in total agreement with the European Commission, which intends to institute an inquiry into the Belgian career break scheme, which - I regret to say - does not cover Dutch citizens, whilst the Dutch scheme does apply to Belgians.
Frontier workers have an added disadvantage compared to other citizens who avail themselves of the free movement of persons principle.
They often work in one country and live in another, and pay taxes in one country and their social contributions in another.
To have some coherence between the tax policy and social security system in one country would already be something, but to expect this to happen between countries is nothing short of utopia. As a result, frontier workers continue to be at the receiving end of this unsatisfactory situation.
Even the most dyed-in-the-wool European federalists among us dare not dream of a time when we could ever achieve the utopian vision of a harmonised social security system or harmonised taxation across Europe.
We must therefore look for creative solutions.
I would like to mention two.
First of all, the Oomen-Ruijten report is right to breathe new life into the EP requirement on compulsory frontier effect reports on the part of the Member States in all legislative changes which pertain to social security and taxation, with compensation for frontier workers to balance out any drawbacks, a practice which, in fact, is already being implemented in some countries, albeit with some reluctance.
Accordingly, my group has some difficulty with the fact that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten toned down the text at the time.
We believe that the test must remain in place as a matter of urgency and that compensation must be made compulsory.
Secondly, we must have the courage to take the conclusions reached in 1998 a little further.
We were unable to halt the Russian roulette for frontier workers at the time.
We must, at long last, opt for one levy principle, either in the country of residence or the country of employment.
I think there is a whole raft of arguments in favour of the country of employment.
I think that, accordingly, my group will be voting against the amendments tabled by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and against those of Mr Manders who wants to eliminate this principle.
I hope that this report will emerge from the plenary unscathed and that frontier workers can at long last make some more headway.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Oomen for the huge amount of work she has done.
She, herself, has also indicated that this is an important issue for which little is being done, for which politicians hardly have any consideration, and, as we can see, it is extremely difficult to lend this matter some clarity.
Despite this, I have some observations in this respect, which is also apparent from my amendments.
I, myself, live in a border region and every day, I see people from my area who commute to another country. Whether this is Germany or Belgium, they cross the border at any rate.
What I have noticed is that the regulation on social security, No 1408, also applies to workers who decide to move to the country of employment and actually live there.
I welcome clarity in this matter, and I have tabled two amendments to this effect.
I agree with this position and I have also told Mrs Oomen.
But I do believe that we should include a caveat so that, if it transpires that after eighteen months or two years, an assessment should be made and if, based on this assessment, it appears that frontier workers are suffering disproportionate drawbacks, a different choice can be made, and I would like to see this caveat included in the report.
Mrs Oomen takes the country of employment as the guiding principle.
I believe that it is not so evident that the country of employment principle always works in the interests of, and benefits, the frontier workers.
I am of the opinion that we work to live and not the other way round.
For that reason, I believe that all the money and certainties we obtain on the shop floor should be brought to bear in our living environment.
That is why I am in favour of considering the possibility of using the country of residence principle.
I have included the above in an amendment.
I would therefore ask my fellow MEPs to vote in favour of this amendment.
I have also tabled two amendments to Articles 6 and 7 to have these deleted, because I believe that the Commission is not competent to take measures to intervene in bilateral agreements.
The debate is suspended until 3 p.m.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Thank you, Mrs Banotti, for looking after the interests of non-smokers.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I welcome the fact that there is now going to be a smoking rather than a non-smoking zone.
I hope now that all Members and all members of staff observe the no-smoking areas across the whole of the European Parliament building.
I am still having problems being able to get into the part-session and being able to get in and out of committee meetings, both here and in Brussels.
So I plead with everybody, now there is a smoking area, to use it and not the no-smoking areas, including the corridors and going up to the lift.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I was just wondering whether anybody is going to inform the particles of smoke where the smoking zone and the no-smoking zones are.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTE
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in yesterday' s debate, the Commission explained why, and under what conditions, it can accept Parliament' s amendments.
Having said that, the wording of some of these amendments will have to be changed because otherwise they might not correspond with the explanatory statement and the recitals.
Slight changes in the wording are also necessary in order to ensure consistency with Article 20 of the directive.
If the European Union were to support learning materials that had anti-Semitic content then of course this would be an absolutely terrible thing.
But the measures in the educational sphere, which the EU is supporting in Palestine, are to do with the infrastructure or direct expenditure, for example salaries for the teachers, which means that the amendment in its present form is not actually justified and should therefore be rejected.
However, I will of course use Mrs van der Laan' s statement as an opportunity to ask the services to examine very carefully once again whether this accusation is indeed unjustified.
Relating to paragraph 26 van der Laan (ELDR).
(NL) Mr President, this is a technical amendment and it only illustrates that we had hoped to discuss this report before now.
Reference is made to yesterday, but since we are adopting the report today, this is a bit illogical.
The text should therefore read as follows:
"Welcomes the fact that it has requested the Secretary-General of Parliament to implement procedures for the handling of confidential documents, including the setting up of a secure archive, secure reading rooms, formal rules of access and an access register has resulted in a proposal submitted to the Bureau for deliberation in December 2000 which calls for implementation before 31 January 2001."
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0331/2000) by Mr Garriga Polledo, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 8/99 on securities and guarantees provided for in the Community Customs Code to protect the collection of traditional own resources together with the Commission' s replies [C5-0228/2000 - 2000/2132(COS)].
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0396/2000) by Mr McCartin, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the European Court of Auditors' Special Reports Nos 1/1999 concerning the aid for the use of skimmed-milk and skimmed-milk powder as animal feed, 2/1999 on the effects of the CAP reform in the cereals sector, 1/2000 on classical swine fever and 8/2000 on the Community measures for the disposal of butterfat, together with the Commission' s replies [C5-0236/2000, C5-0237/2000, C5-0238/2000, C5-0239/2000 - 2000/2130(COS)].
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0389/2000) by Mr Staes, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors Special Report No 2/2000 on aid given by the European Union to Bosnia and Herzegovina with a view to restoring peace and the rule of law, together with the Commission's replies [C5-0229/2000 - 2000/2131(COS)].
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0359) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Reports Nos 6/1999, 7/1999, 3/2000 and 7/2000 on budgetary implementation of the Structural Funds, together with the Commission's replies [C5-0240/2000, C5-0241/2000, C5-0242/2000, C5-0243/2000 - 2000/2129(COS)].
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0395/2000) by Mr Heaton-Harris, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the report of the Court of Auditors on the operational efficiency of the management of the European Monetary Institute and the European Central Bank for the financial year 1998 together with the replies of the European Central Bank [C5-0319/2000 - 2000/2163(COS)].
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0335/2000) by Mr Bushill-Matthews, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council: Growth and Employment Initiative - Measures on financial assistance for innovative and job creating Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) - As at 31 December 1999 [COM(2000) 266 - C5-0507/2000 - 2000/2245(COS)].
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I was afraid I was going to have to make my explanations of vote in writing.
I was concerned in case my fractured foot prevented me from speaking.
However, I hope that I am not one who often puts his foot in it when he opens his mouth and that I will be able to make my usual contribution to the proceedings.
Well then, I would like to declare my support for the Peijs report and call for a European Bank to be established in practice.
In recent days, I am glad to say, the euro has gained against the dollar and the pound.
I would therefore like to take the opportunity presented by this explanation of vote to express my satisfaction at the European monetary policy and to call for an increase in the European Bank's activities, including the establishment of offices throughout Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, Amendment No 5 to the draft directive on the reorganisation and winding up of credit institutions has received majority support.
This is extremely regrettable because it will give third-party creditors the opportunity to gain access to the general resources as a result, which will mean that mortgages ordered abroad for the benefit of the bank will no longer be competitive.
This is unacceptable.
This, to my mind, is reason enough to reject this report.
That is what I have done, and I regret that the Commission' s common position in its present form failed to receive majority support.
The objective of the Commission recommendation is to harmonise creditors' rights in the event of the winding up of credit institutions Union-wide.
Yet nowhere is there any specific mention of the rights which the employees of the credit institutions in question ought to have.
A number of national legislative systems do acknowledge the employees as creditors, but they are only, at best, entitled to the payment of their wages due.
They receive no compensation, on the other hand, for the loss of their job, i.e. the loss of their future wages, even though there are attempts to guarantee that creditors will receive compensation for the sums they are owed, in other words their capital, the source of their future income.
Employees bear no responsibility in the difficulties of banks or credit institutions since they have had no part in taking decisions.
They are the ones that should be compensated first and foremost for the loss of their jobs.
We voted against this recommendation which is concerned only with capitalist creditors, and not with the employees who do the work of running these credit institutions.
Sanders-ten Holte recommendation for second reading (A5-0375/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Sanders-ten Holte report.
A few days ago, I was the guest of a university of the third age, where people go because they want to learn rather then merely to get a certificate.
These universities are, of course, frequented by many elderly people.
The head of this university - the university of the third age of Bergamo, where I live - was lamenting the fact that there is no grading list or quality evaluation of universities of the third age.
He said to me: "Many universities are poorly organised, but ours is well organised.
Therefore, you should mention in your explanation of vote that it would be as well for some interest to be taken in the quality of universities of the third age too".
We certainly have nothing against "European cooperation in quality evaluation of school education" , but it is a well known fact that the quality of education depends on the resources made available to state schools.
In order to provide high-quality education, we need sufficient numbers of schools, classes with limited student numbers and a great many teaching assistants, teachers and administrative and technical staff at all levels of education, starting with primary classes.
Throughout Europe, differences start to show at primary level, causing children from working class areas to fall behind in their education at this stage in an often irreversible way.
In order to move towards harmonisation in Europe, we first need to align ourselves with the countries that allocate the most resources to education.
Even in those countries, however, there is a tendency to cut back on the resources allocated to education and, more generally, to public services in favour of other budgetary expenditure, mainly aid and grants given to corporations or, rather, their owners.
If the resources allocated to education are not increased throughout the European Union, especially in those that have the lowest levels of funding, the European recommendation on quality of education will remain a pious hope.
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The main thrust of this report relates to the need for greater European cooperation in evaluating the quality of education within our overall school systems in the EU This could prove quite a valuable exercise because different EU governments can mutually benefit from successfully proven educational programmes that have been tried and tested within the educational system in Europe.
We should also recall that this is now even more important in light of the new information society that is now upon us.
EU leaders in Portugal last year laid down a framework of proposals whereby training in the use of the Internet would be extended to all primary and secondary schools across the European Union.
This is a fundamentally important social and economic objective if the European Union is to take advantage of new e-commerce and related business activities.
The reality is that new information technologies are changing all the time.
This means that educational training in the field of information technology is also changing all the time.
That is why the European Union must respond in a coordinated and structured manner so as to guarantee that the best educational methods in the field of information technology are available to all our students.
This will ensure a higher quality of education and will also ensure that a stronger foundation is laid to entice new information technology industries to be set up and located within the territories of the European Union.
Cooperation in the field of education has been a proven success within the European Union in recent years.
Currently, 18 countries participate in the Erasmus programme, including countries from Eastern and Central Europe.
Approximately 90 000 students benefit from this initiative on an annual basis.
While I welcome the proven success of the Erasmus initiative, I would recall that there is certainly room for improvement in the manner in which this scheme is administered now within the European Union.
Still students are encountering financial problems while studying abroad.
I do not support a system of inequality between the levels of funding available to students from the various Member States participating in the Erasmus programme.
I would strongly urge the Education Ministers from within the EU to put in place a system which eliminates any element of inequality with regard to the administration of the Erasmus programme.
We should recall that it is a very good policy of the European Union to encourage students to study in other EU Member States. This affords real and tangible opportunities for students to improve their practical language skills while promoting the free movement of persons across the EU.
De Veyrac report (A5-0382/2000)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted in favour of Mrs de Veyrac' s report, not just because I feel it is very positive and thorough, but because we are going to have to devote a great deal more attention to this theme in future.
I also believe that not only do we need to undertake the necessary public works, as provided for in this report, we must also make more funding available, so as to achieve the necessary level of acceptance amongst the general public for these areas.
A great deal still remains to be done, but we are on the right track.
That is why I voted in favour.
Mr President, I voted against this report. And why did the Pensioners' Party vote against Mrs de Veyrac's report?
Because, before I left for Strasbourg, I met a former Member of the European Parliament, Mrs Monica Baldi, who is very au fait with cultural issues. While we were discussing this report over a good coffee in a bar, she said to me: "Why is it that this report hopes to reduce the number of cultural sites listed in Italy?
It' s not the quantity but the quality of sites that counts.
It is hardly our fault that Italy has so many ancient monuments to preserve".
Mrs de Veyrac's report shows willing and contains certain constructive proposals, which is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted in favour of it.
However, we fear that these proposals will fall on deaf ears.
We all know that our cultural and natural heritage risks being wiped out by activities which damage or destroy the urban and local fabric in which priceless examples of our cultural and natural heritage are to be found.
Excessive and uncontrolled use of land, buildings springing up in historic town centres, in the countryside and in green belts and the lack of any proper measures to protect forests and the natural environment are evidence of our rape of the natural and cultural landscape.
Of course, this is not the random work of a few villains, it is the direct consequence of a policy which commercialises everything and is driven solely by the profit motive.
A typical example is the TVX Gold site in Olympiada, in Halkidiki, near Stayira, the birthplace of Aristotle, where the forest has been destroyed and monuments have been put at risk. As if that were not enough, the residents in the area have been dragged through the courts and sentenced for daring to defend their historic and natural environment.
We could cite numerous other examples in connection with the destruction inflicted or which it is planned to inflict in order to stage the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.
Not only does the European Union do nothing to check and deal with these incidents; on the contrary, it is the main advocate of this policy.
It funds projects on archaeological sites which will bury and destroy ancient monuments - witness the case of the Acropolis Museum.
The Greek Government is repealing Article 24 of the Constitution as we speak, thereby abolishing what little legislative protection there was for forests and without the slightest objection on the part of the ÅU.
The ÅU has a penchant for waxing lyrical about culture, but while it preaches that cultural heritage is a basic factor in the individual identity and historical development of a society, it has done nothing to get the Elgin marbles returned to the natural and historic site of which they form an integral part, even as a gesture of respect for our cultural and historic heritage and for the need to protect historic monuments.
It is also indifferent to the fact that monuments in North Cyprus are being plundered and vandalised by the Turkish occupying forces.
Finally, it bears a huge responsibility for the destruction of monuments during the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia.
This situation cannot be rectified with half measures or wishful thinking or, of course, within the context of a market philosophy.
We need to mobilise the masses, all the cultural agencies, all the workers, and we need to impose a different policy, one which respects the working man and the fruits of his creation.
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The ELDR Group considers that the de Veyrac report is a very important contribution to better protection of world cultural and natural heritage.
We are of the opinion that the application of the Convention for the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in the EU is a task for Member States rather than for the European Community.
It is difficult for us to see the added value of EU intervention in this matter.
The ELDR amendments to the de Veyrac report reflect this position.
Thus, for reasons of lack of added value and the principle of subsidiarity the ELDR Group will abstain in the final vote.
Protecting and promoting our heritage in each Member State is fundamentally important as, in so doing, we are safeguarding our identities and special characteristics whilst still respecting differences.
Our heritage, be it cultural, architectural, economic or natural, is the legacy of our past and in protecting it we are not fighting a rearguard action. On the contrary, it shows that we are preparing for our future.
The author Ernest Renan wrote that the only true men of progress are those who take a deep-seated respect for the past as their starting point.
We must, therefore, take advantage of the wealth of our past, our heritage, our roots and our traditions, even the very oldest, in order to prepare for the future.
This cultural diversity and wealth will allow us to gain a better understanding of ourselves.
To achieve this, however, we must respect all the diversity of our various heritages, all our differences, and the only way to do this is to invoke the subsidiarity principle.
In line with this principle we can preserve, develop and transmit our heritage, culture and traditions.
When these disappear or fade away (in the way of hunting, rural life and gastronomic tradition) we are breaking the chain of transmission by which we hand down our wealth and our way of life and this brings about cultural impoverishment. At the end of the day, we will create a mould into which everyone has to fit in order to live in an insipid but more malleable society that can be controlled by 'rulers and governors' .
That is unacceptable.
Therefore, to protect, preserve and promote our heritage, we must save our architecture, support our arts and craft industry, preserve and enhance the value of our countryside, but I would like to stress that we must not wrap it in cotton wool or exclude the cultural traditions and customs which are practised there.
In so doing, we must also respect the right to be different and help to preserve all these values since rural life has its own rightful place in this predominantly urban society.
Therefore, to come back to the report, it is, of course, important to protect the heritage of both the European Union and third countries, but it is equally important and vital to protect the heritage of our own countries and regions.
We are therefore pleased to note the proposals to take our heritage into account in the various training programmes set up to protect and restore our heritage.
The same goes for funding and support of the arts and craft industry, a sector which creates many jobs, as long as it is not suffocated by unrealistic pernickety regulations, as has been possible for market traders.
We must however state our reservations regarding the European regulations which, on the pretext of environmental protection (a term applied too narrowly), will serve only to wipe out local traditions and customs that are a vital part of the local culture of our regions. Yet, this is the opposite of what this report sets out to achieve and so, although we support the report, we are abstaining from the vote for this reason.
Since 1972, when the UNESCO General Conference adopted the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, which has already been signed by 158 countries, including the 15 Member States of the European Union, 630 sites have been added to the world heritage list, 30% of which are in European Union countries (188), and of those 10 are in Portugal.
It is obvious, however, that classifying sites as world heritage sites is not enough.
Every measure must be taken to support their conservation, including financial measures, as we have done with the proposals that we have tabled for the Community budget.
As the rapporteur highlighted, there is an imbalance between European countries and the rest of the world with regard to recognised natural and cultural sites, and therefore third countries must be supported and encouraged, in a wide-ranging approach, to add to the list of natural and cultural heritage, so that they can be afforded protection.
It is also important for Member States to comply with existing directives, and in particular the environmental impact assessment directive on assessing the impact of specific public and private projects on cultural and natural heritage, as the report states.
My vote in support of the de Veyrac report on the application of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage in the Member States of the European Union is based on the conviction that we must enhance the cultural dimension of the European Union. We must work to ensure we have a cultural policy in the Union which highlights, among the main features of its spiritual richness and that of the Old World, its cultural, linguistic, architectural and artistic diversity and all those elements that make up our common cultural heritage.
This is clear when you travel around the Union and see how the diverse spiritual trends over the centuries have been embodied in our monuments, artistic styles, value systems, religious and spiritual trends, and schools of philosophical and scientific thought. In short, and in accordance with the Treaties, we must go deeper with our European cultural policy, supporting and protecting our cultural diversity, a factor which in turn defines the European Union.
The de Veyrac report is a laudable contribution towards this.
Doorn report (A5-0351/2000)
Mr President, I am sure you will listen carefully to my explanation of vote in support of this report.
I am in favour of anything which streamlines or simplifies, provided that the process is not too tiresome for those undergoing the streamlining and is carried out rationally.
I therefore stress that, in this operation of simplifying and streamlining Community legislation on the social security coordination sector - to which this report refers - we must bear in mind that it would be appropriate for workers who work in more than one State of the European Union to receive a single pension from a single pension office rather than part of it from one State, part of it from another State and part of it from yet another.
Thank you Mr Fatuzzo.
The more I listen to you the more I realise that I will know your life history before long.
Given that we are opposed to a market economy, we shall not adopt any position on the alleged simplification of the internal market.
We are therefore abstaining from the vote on this report.
However, on the aspects that may affect the majority of the population i.e. the workers, we are in favour of:
simplifying social legislation and social security by bringing them into line with countries that have the most favourable schemes for workers;
simplifying VAT through the universal abolition of both VAT itself and all consumption taxes, which are particularly unfair as they mainly affect lower income classes, and replacing these with a sizeable increase in corporation tax and a steeply graduated tax on all forms of revenue from capital.
van der Laan report (A5-0397/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the van der Laan report.
Thank you for your kind words just now. In voting for the motion, I would like to draw your attention to the part of the document which refers to assistance to the Palestinian authorities.
I was prompted to do so by the representatives of the Pensioners' Party in Israel - for the Knesset includes representatives of the Pensioners' Party in Israel - one of whom said to me: "I am glad you are helping the Palestinians.
In fact, you should give them more and better assistance and ensure that it genuinely serves to help the Palestinian people, for they truly need it.
Indeed, I am sure that, if the Palestinian citizens were in better health and their economy were improved, there would be less war than I am sorry to say there is at the moment".
I am unable to agree with my group regarding its position on Mr van Dam' s amendment, which I, personally, chose to support.
It is one thing for the issue of the spreading of anti-Semitic propaganda by Palestinian schoolbooks not to be included in the 1997 discharge resolution.
I would say that this is a technical problem.
However, to my mind, it is a misjudged political signal for us to oppose it for this reason alone, i.e. on the grounds of form rather than content.
Since signing the Oslo Agreement, the European Union and its Member States have, to a great extent, subsidised the Palestinian education system.
Therefore, it is up to us to demand that the Commission should monitor more closely to ensure that the material in Palestinian schools does not constitute an incitement to war, violence and racial hatred.
The European Union cannot keep actively supporting reconciliation and peace while continuing to turn a blind eye to the way EU financial support is being misappropriated for ideological ends.
Indeed, I sincerely hope that this issue will very soon be the subject of a genuine debate in Parliament.
We must be firm on this issue.
Our conscience will not allow anything else, nor will our electorate.
I have voted in favour of the report and especially of Amendment No 1 from Mr van Dam.
It is important for the European Parliament to strongly criticise the anti-Semitic statements in teaching resources for Palestinian schools and for Parliament to call upon the Commission to ensure that the aid given to Palestinian education does not, either directly or indirectly, finance racial hatred. Instead, the EU' s contribution to the Palestinian education system should instead promote peace and reconciliation in the Middle East.
EU aid must, as far as possible, be designed to bring about peace and reconciliation in the Middle East.
The EU is, among other things, providing aid to the Palestinian education system.
It is profoundly unfortunate and offensive that Palestinian school books should contain anti-Semitic statements and describe Israel - the only democracy in the Middle East - in terms as abominable as those of Nazism.
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Both the rapporteur and the ELDR Group share the sentiment expressed in Amendment No 1 regarding concern at the possible use made of EU financial support for inciting racial hatred amongst Palestinians against their Jewish neighbours.
The Budgetary Control Committee is strict in the remit of a discharge follow-up report to restrict itself to the contents of the original discharge resolution for the year in question.
This amendment raises a new issue on evidence that has recently come to light.
The rapporteur is therefore recommending that the amendment be rejected but that the matter be dealt with more fully in the context of the ongoing 1999 discharge report.
Garriga Polledo report (A5-0331/2000)
Mr President, speakers have drawn attention to a number of problems, including cigarette smuggling.
I support their concern as it is generally believed that international criminals are now more interested in cigarette smuggling than drug-trafficking as it is more profitable and less dangerous.
We in the EU must respond to this problem as a matter of urgency.
The profits from cigarette smuggling not only line the pockets of criminals but also deny revenue to the EU, which would otherwise be used in tackling cancer, poverty, the promotion of human rights, etc.
In addition, cheaper cigarettes mean greater danger to health because of heavier tobacco consumption, and we must enlist the support of ministers in national and regional governments in any campaign against this.
The Commission should contact in particular the ministers of health and education in the Northern Ireland Assembly, Ms de Brun and Mr Martin McGuinness.
I mention that because we use education and health programmes to combat cancer and the Anderstown News recently revealed the deep involvement of the IRA in illicit cigarette smuggling.
They have links to that organisation.
What better way to discharge the ministerial portfolio than to encourage their friends to stop this activity.
It also underlines a greater need for widespread policing in Northern Ireland.
Mr President, I voted for this report but with great reservations.
Before I left for Strasbourg, I met Mr Rota, a pensioner who is also from Bergamo, in a restaurant.
We talked about the Pensioners' Party and he asked me whether I was content with the European Parliament.
I said: "It is such an enjoyable job!
I am content, I feel at ease and I have some very good friends.
Even the Vice-Presidents, such as Mr Provan, for example, are very diligent and I like them very much." He continued: "And is everything working alright in Europe?
You don't find yourselves wasting European money every now and again?" "No", I replied, "everything is working fine."
However, I am sad to say that I then read in this report that the national States have not applied Community legislation on collecting duties owed to the Community budget.
I therefore hope that, in future, the collection of customs duties in Europe will work well too.
We have voted in favour of a report on securities and guarantees for traditional own resources.
The report as a whole makes sense.
There are, however, a few points from which we would disassociate ourselves.
Paragraphs 15 and 16 pave the way for introducing a single corpus juris in the EU and for harmonising criminal law and the administration of justice in the Member States.
First of all, this is unclearly formulated.
Secondly, we are not in favour of harmonising criminal legislation and the administration of justice in the Member States.
What we do support is establishing the necessary instruments for combating fraud involving EU funds more effectively.
We are in favour of supplementing the OLAF regulation by setting up a unit under OLAF to lead investigations and make it easier to follow up criminal cases in the national courts.
The unit must only concern itself with crimes committed by EU employees.
In the longer term, consideration should be given to introducing a European public prosecutor to follow up cases of fraud involving EU funds in the Member States.
We must not, however, have harmonisation for harmonisation' s sake and, in other areas, the Member States' criminal law and administration of justice are national concerns.
McCartin report (A5-0396/2000)
Mr President, although I have mislaid my notes, I seem to remember that I voted against the McCartin report, which deals with agriculture and powdered milk.
I am happy to discuss the subject on this occasion because I want to call strongly for genuine help to be given to farmers - for this document does not provide sufficient protection for them - and, in particular, because I want to draw attention to the fact that there is currently a huge crisis in Italy over powdered and other milk.
Not only is there talk of mad cow disease, sadly, but, since yesterday, there has also been talk of "mad milk" in Italy.
People are saying that it might be possible to contract mad cow disease by drinking milk.
This is a truly unforgivable thing to say, and it would be appropriate for the European Union to intervene and make it clear that milk is not mad but quite healthy.
This report is deeply contradictory in its assessment of various aspects of the CAP.
For example, the approach adopted in its reflects exclusively budgetary concerns, for example, when the report expresses satisfaction at the reform reducing institutional prices and surplus produce, and insists on a greater reduction of compensation payments, without even mentioning the consequences this will have for farmers' incomes.
Furthermore, together with the principle of cofinancing, it advocates the renationalisation of CAP costs. This is a principle that we reject.
The report also expresses satisfaction at the Commission' s decision to carry out a thorough assessment of the COM in milk, which closely reflects a Court of Auditors' opinion questioning the system of milk quotas and increases in these laid down in Agenda 2000, forgetting that, despite some unfairness in the allocation of quotas, such as that suffered by Portugal, this system still manages to guarantee a degree of protection as regards prices and incomes.
With regard to the pig sector and animal epidemics, the report concludes by considering and supporting the proposal to establish funds with contributions from the producers themselves or other types of insurance schemes, which is a step backwards in relation to the opinion that has already been expressed in the Garot report, which argued in favour of such Community-cofinanced funds.
Nevertheless, I agree with the rapporteur when he raises a very important issue affecting the system of arable crops, which is the concentration of aid amongst major producers and in the most prosperous regions.
What is needed is an improvement in the situation of small producers, differentiating support according to the size of the farm.
It is hard to understand how the rapporteur proposes to support small farmers through the measures that he is recommending.
Staes report (A5-0389/2000)
President.
Mr Fatuzzo, if you want to remain standing we will just keep going as you are the only speaker left.
Mr President, my leg gets tired easily so I have to sit down every now and again.
With regard to my declaration of vote on the Staes document, which concerns the Committee on Budgetary Control and, in particular, the way in which the aid to Bosnia and Herzegovina has been spent, I have to say that I have had a meeting with the representatives of the pensioners of that region.
They urged me to ask the European Parliament - and I am very happy to do so on this occasion - to ensure that at least part of the aid, by some means or other, reaches the elderly people of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"But we can't go checking up on what happens to our money", I replied. "But you must, Mr Fatuzzo.
You must insist that the funds are monitored when they reach their destination as well.
We pensioners need to receive some of them!"
Mr President, there is indeed a crisis of succession in farming as Mr Parish with his expertise as a farmer knows well.
If this crisis is particularly acute in Mr Parish's own Member State, it is the direct result of policies pursued by UK governments over the past twenty years, and to overcome it the United Kingdom must review the implications of the Fontainbleau Agreement for its contribution to European Union finances.
This has been disastrous for farming.
Moreover, the rapporteur, a member of the Conservative Party, must work within his own party to secure support for his proposals in the House of Commons.
In countries where less than 10% of the population now lives in rural areas, it is too easy for governments to sideline the needs of these areas, and the message from this debate must be that they do so at the peril of their countries.
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(EL) Barbaric military intervention - ostensibly for the sake of peace -, dirty 'peace-making' agreements signed manu militari, followed by dirty, suspicious financial 'help' for the purpose of 'restoring peace' : such are the EU's achievements in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and the Balkans in general, which have been commiserating for years now as the result of the huge military and political imperialist interests being played out in this region.
This parliamentary report reveals exactly how the above funding is managed and shows how the EU taxpayers' money is being squandered, with no controls or transparency, in order to consolidate the expansion of the huge interests of the EU in the NATO protectorate of Bosnia, declarations of 'humanitarian and peace-making' motives notwithstanding.
References to mismanagement, delays, late payment, millions of ÅCU being granted for non-subsidisable equipment, waste and irregularities abound both in the Staes report and the opinions.
They describe the prevailing situation in the strongest of terms and reveal the tremendous hypocrisy about support for the civil society and the restoration of democracy.
What could be more damning than the reference in the report to "conflicts of interest" in the office of the High Representative himself?
We are not surprised that those who 'promote' peace with depleted uranium bombs, spreading death and destruction, cannot and will not play the role of peacemaker.
We are not surprised that the golden goose is being squeezed dry by the major economic interests which created, cultivated and fomented the hatred between the peoples of this region and by the employees and servants of those interests, such as the famous Mr Kounser.
But we are surprised by the cynicism and hypocrisy of leaders who continue to talk of efforts to 'clean up' and improve the uptake of funds and restore the rule of law.
The gloomy facts speak for themselves and leave no room for doubt, let alone complacency.
People are not accounts; their consciences cannot be bought off and however much you try to embellish the facts, you still have to contend with the people.
We shall not be voting in favour of the Staes report, despite the fact that it contains numerous accurate findings and proposals, because its general perception is bereft of any notion of resistance to the presence of imperialist forces and its only concern is how to embellish that presence so that it is easier for the people to swallow.
Dell'Alba report (A5-0359/2000)
Mr President, I voted for the Dell'Alba report, but I want to stress that underlying this vote for the motion is my position as representative of the Pensioners' Party. I wish to make clear my total opposition to the now established practice of insisting that the Structural Funds and European aid are added to national aid.
So the Structural Funds should be additional aid? I disagree.
I feel that European funds should have nothing whatsoever to do with national financing or national policies.
European funds must not be tied to national funds.
Europe is a separate entity from its constituent nations.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to congratulate Mr Neil Parish on the fact that he has produced a report which is based on the farmers' reality, the reality in rural areas, and not on the view from Brussels.
This in itself constitutes a valuable contribution to agricultural policy.
But if we now examine the situation, we could ask ourselves whether there are any young people left out there who are mad enough to become farmers in the European Union.
What we need is people who want to take up the challenge of producing an outstanding achievement, five-legged sheep as it were, but not obtained through genetic modification.
They seem to be fighting a losing battle, if we consider the adversities which young farmers face, as well as the achievements they are expected to deliver. To quote just one example - and I am just considering my own country for a moment - dairy farming is a sector where absolutely everything is being scrutinised, from the blade of grass right up to the moment that the milk hits the supermarkets.
I cannot help drawing a comparison with arable farmers and horticulturalists who have been required to keep tabs on the implications of their actions on the environment and consumer front for a long time, and do so with great enthusiasm. At the same time, we have to say that in many European countries the requirements for animal welfare are among the world' s most stringent.
So whoever wants to become a farmer in Europe must outstrip their counterparts elsewhere in the world.
They need to give the landscape and cultural conditions due consideration.
They must apply the strictest consumer conditions, supply a wide range of products, both regionally and in terms of quality, make animal welfare a top priority and be responsible for the product, even once it has left the farm.
This is what we call social enterprising as a top-level sport.
It requires entrepreneurship, a love of nature and the environment, social orientation and perseverance.
For this reason alone, it would be desirable if a specific policy were set up for young farmers which is focused on the future.
Some of the focal points could include a premium scheme linked to quality, landscape and environmental protection, but also the introduction of an eco-tax in other economic sectors, not payable by the farmers but by the consumers, to finance those extra requirements which farmers need to fulfil, and to reinforce the market position of farmers and consumers.
What strikes me in the European Union' s competition policy as a whole, is that although it is enjoying a great deal of attention, in the food sector, for example, the consumers, the supermarkets that is, are gradually gaining a monopoly position, and that at the same time sales from farms, the small-scale dimension, are still fragmented.
In that sense, it would be desirable if both Commissioners Monti and Bolkestein were more critical in their assessment of this area in terms of competition.
Mr President, nobody can survive for one day without food; it is life requirement number one.
This requires motivated producers.
This means that food does not just stand for market forces, but also for public health, landscape and nature.
In short, if we realise this, then we will know that, in future, young farmers will need to be five-legged sheep, and in that sense, deserve more support, more political support than they are receiving at the moment.
Heaton Harris report (A5-0395/2000)
Mr President, the Heaton-Harris report, which I voted in favour of, is a report on the efficiency of the European Monetary Institute and therefore on the situation of the euro.
I have already had occasion to congratulate the European single currency, in other words, the euro, on its gain in strength in recent weeks, but today I would like to call for the establishment of a European bank.
The EIB - European Investment Bank - should be closer to the European citizens as an actual bank, a credit institute as well.
I therefore trust that my recommendation will be acted upon.
The report by Mr Heaton-Harris confuses two issues.
In the name of wage moderation, it condemns granting extraordinary bonuses to some ECB employees, which is unacceptable.
On the other hand, the rapporteur criticises the ECB for preventing OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office, from carrying out its work.
We learn therefore that "the European Central Bank has stated that it will not allow the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, to conduct internal investigations" and that "in its first report to Parliament, Council and Commission, the supervisory committee of OLAF called for legal proceedings to be brought against Community bodies that have not implemented Regulation 1073/99, before the end of 1999" and that "the Commission initiated legal proceedings at the European Court of Justice against the decision of 7 October 1999 of the European Central Bank regarding the non-application of Parliament and Council Regulation 1073/99" .
We believe that this whole issue is extremely important and we support the paragraph of the report which "regrets clear incompatibility between the public commitment assumed by the ECB in its 1999 annual report to establish close cooperation with OLAF and the decision by the ECB itself to prevent OLAF from carrying over internal investigations, pending the ruling by the European Court of Justice" .
We will vote in support of the report by Mr Heaton-Harris for this reason.
Bushill-Matthews report (A5-0335/2000)
Mr President, I could not fail to give an explanation of vote on my friend, Mr Bushill-Matthews' report, upon which I have already spoken during the debate.
This time, however, I would like to state that my vote for the motion is also a call for Mr Bushill-Matthews to accept, at a later date, an amendment which I tabled and which, I regret to say, has been rejected this time. I am calling, that is, for funds to be allocated to small and medium-sized businesses which follow the practice of setting up a company where a young entrepreneur who is full of enthusiasm and the will to work is aided by an older - senior - entrepreneur who knows everything there is to know about the business, is very experienced and can pass on his skills, and, even though he has no real wish to work long hours, would be happy to give the youngsters the benefit of his experience.
The Members of the Communist Party of Greece will be voting against the Bushill-Matthews report because the specific "Measures on financial assistance for innovative and job-creating Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs)" proposed in the report form part of the more general policy exercised by the monopolies and the EU against SMEs, to which there are three strands:
· Selective support for a small group of what are - by Greek standards - medium-sized and large enterprises, with a view to consolidating their satellite role around the monopolies and strengthening the processes used to concentrate capital and production.
· Worsening competitive terms for the overwhelming majority of the remaining small and medium-sized enterprises, in a bid to strengthen the same processes by the back door.
· In addition to the aforementioned, it is clear from all the EU programmes on SMEs that big business is keen to 'offload' (on to SMEs) the jobs which it is forced to abolish as it increases its exploitation of the working classes, helped by technological progress.
This aim will be thwarted by the contradictions inherent in the capitalist system and therefore has little chance of success.
It is also important to note that isolated companies, not SMEs as a whole, benefit from European programmes.
Big business knows only too well that a policy which benefits SMEs as a whole would create an adversary to be reckoned with.
Hence, even if grants under European programmes manage to reach small enterprises, they cannot be used to advantage, because each of these enterprises is in an extremely weak position on the capitalist market.
A number of observations on the substance of the specific programmes bears out the general comments made above:
1.
The limits on the enterprises targeted by these measures (250 employees and up to GDR 14 billion in annual turnover) clearly allow what are large companies by Greek standards to benefit.
In fact, 91% of companies in Greece employ up to 4 persons and achieve turnover of up to GDR 60 million.
From this point of view, the concern about small enterprises expressed in the parliamentary report is well-founded.
2.
The total number of SMEs targeted by these measures is negligible compared with the total number of SMEs in the ÅU: 7 387 out of a total of some 15 million SMEs in the ÅU or 0.05% of the total number over a period of two years from application.
3.
The total paid out by the European funds in grants is discouragingly low and does not amount to a real policy for the benefit of SMEs.
A total of EUR 273 million has been paid out (GDR 93.6 billion) or EUR 18 (GDR 6 170) per enterprise.
4.
The results of this policy are even worse: 2 238 new jobs were finally created, compared with several million unemployed in the ÅU, at a cost of EUR 122 000 (GDR 42 million) each.
5.
97% of SMEs which benefited from these measures come under the third strand of the programmes, i.e. the companies received guarantees for funding for which they themselves were wholly responsible.
This begs the question of how a complicated procedure which cost so much and achieved so little can be presented as a successful EU policy.
As far as Greece is concerned, it was nowhere to be found in the programmes; no funding whatsoever came our way.
We shall therefore be voting against the report in question and the relevant Commission proposal.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Frontier workers (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the situation of frontier workers.
Mr President, I want first of all to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for an excellent report.
Many previous attempts have, of course, been made to use frontier workers' problems as a way in to harmonising tax legislation as a whole.
However, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten knows that frontier workers do not even constitute half a per cent of the labour force, that their problems are different from one frontier region to another and that different regional solutions are therefore needed if frontier workers are to have a better time of it.
I can speak from personal experience, having spent 25 years commuting between Denmark and Sweden.
We have now acquired a bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö, and everyone expects a sharp increase in cross-border commuting and for the two cities to become a conurbation It was here that, in 1997 on the initiative of the Danes, the EU-supported principle was introduced of taxing people in the country in which they work.
This means that people can take up residence in Malmö and have access to health care, child care, education and everything else, at the same time as paying all their tax to the Danish State.
That is quite intolerable if we are to have a common Öresund region.
The alternative recommended by Swedish politicians is the OECD model for frontier taxation, which advocates that tax should be levied in the country of residence.
That principle too causes problems, however, because much more than families' social welfare is financed through tax.
For ourselves in the Öresund region, it would in actual fact be best if we were to pay local tax where we live and State tax where we work.
I think that would put an end to tax avoidance and to cheating in frontier regions.
However, a model such as that, too, would require some form of fine tuning in order to create an entirely fair situation, for these are complicated issues.
It is therefore crucial for solutions to be worked out in the affected regions themselves, and on the basic principle that frontier workers must pay tax in the country in which they enjoy their benefits financed through tax.
Only in that way will long-lasting solutions be obtained.
It is essential to adopt a principle of this kind if Öresund is to become a common region.
Mr President, as representative of the Pensioners' Party, I would like to extend my hearty congratulations to the town of Piacenza, which has inserted Articles 25 and 26 of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights of the elderly and persons with disabilities into its own bye-laws. I would also like to comment on Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report.
I endorse the content of the report, particularly the part which calls for an analysis of the impact of changes to the laws of the Member States on Regulation 1408, relating to people who have worked in more than one State, and especially that part of the regulation which concerns rules for the payment of the pensions of people who have worked in more than one State.
We are discussing the problems of cross-border workers: of course we refer to European Union workers but also, indirectly, to relations between the States which have associated themselves with Regulation 1408, that is with the EEA - the European Economic Area - in other words Italy and Switzerland.
I regret to say that the Italy-Switzerland Convention and the ensuing regulation have been misinterpreted by the Italian Government, which has hitherto paid the pensions of people who have worked in both Italy and Switzerland according to the scale of half of half the amount, that is a quarter of the amount owed, as laid down by Italian magistrates, judges and courts.
I call upon the European Parliament to intervene to stop workers being forced always to institute legal proceedings to obtain their rights.
Mr President, today we are discussing the situation of frontier workers, a nagging problem for the European Union, which has yet to find a satisfactory solution.
Commissioner, Mr President, this situation prevents the people living and working on the borders of the various European Union countries fully experiencing the notion of European integration we champion, even though these are the people who should be the first to benefit from it.
We have a habit in this House of lauding to the skies the issue of free movement of persons and, hence, of workers.
Yet, while there are still obstacles to this, particularly in terms of tax and social security, there are also other matters to be considered.
I believe that this issue is inconsistent with the principles of freedom and liberalism which we are considering, even though we seem able to find perfectly good solutions to problems when it relates to the free movement of capital and of goods.
This represents a major obstacle to the principle of the free movement of persons and the principal of non-discrimination on grounds of nationality.
In my opinion, this report is a real booster shot in relation to previous reports.
We should at least ensure that there is no need to produce many more reports.
We must remind the Member States of their responsibilities and ask them to undertake a thorough evaluation of policies which result in upholding systems which have an adverse affect on the situation of frontier workers.
We agree with the general thrust of the report but the reincorporation of certain amendments waters down the ambitions which we should be adopting.
Bilateral agreements, which, for example, relate to tax or social security, should be perfectly consistent and it is simply not a matter of taking varying provisions into account.
Mr President, I would like to sum up by repeating that an accurate inventory should be proposed, listing situations giving rise to prejudice, or even discrimination but also one which would make it possible to clamp down on the fraud which occurs at present. We await the Council' s guidelines in this area.
Mr President, I should also like to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for her own-initiative report.
I think it only right that we in Parliament make efforts to reduce the problems experienced by frontier workers.
I am familiar with the problems from Southern Jutland, where it is worth noting how few people live on one side of the Danish-German border and work on the other side. I think this illustrates how major the obstacles in practice are.
That is why I think it is a good idea to try to get the Member States to continually assess the effects upon frontier workers whenever they change tax and social security legislation.
In my opinion, we cannot, however, require governments to compensate frontier workers financially for changes in legislation.
It is better to heighten awareness not only of the problems there have always been, but also of new problems that might arise.
I should also like to support the view that we should do more to simplify Regulation 1408/71. This is a very far-reaching problem, but one of great importance to many people.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to make a few observations following on from this dossier.
First of all, I would like to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for the work she has done.
Secondly, my contribution should of course be considered as an appeal to the Social Council and the Commission, but mainly the Social Council, to do something about this dossier at long last, particularly in the knowledge that this is the start of the necessary deregulation of the movement of workers across Europe.
Frontier work falls under free movement, and will grow, especially once the candidate countries have joined.
Despite this, there are still major problems to contend with. Especially in my own country and a number of neighbouring countries, Belgium and Germany, I notice that different groups wish to apply different principles.
Foundations involved with frontier workers argue in favour of the principle of the country of residence, trade unions support the principle of the country of employment, the government itself believes in the principle of the country of residence, and so it goes on.
It is about time we made a decision, and in that sense, we are unwilling to support a number of amendments which Mrs Oomen-Ruijten tabled, and which are partly designed to adopt a mixed approach. We suggest using the principle of the country of employment as point of departure, and to develop this so-called European social model.
Mr President, I should like above all to thank the rapporteur for this report.
It is good that we should not forget frontier workers and their problems.
The report is further evidence that Regulation 1408/71 requires thorough revision and simplification, proposals for which have been before the Council for two years.
We can, therefore, once again regret the lack of success in obtaining more majority voting at the Intergovernmental Conference in Nice.
The Danish Social Democrats broadly agree with most of what the rapporteur says, but I completely and utterly disagree with her when she sees it as a problem that ever more features of national social insurance are financed through public funds.
Regulation 1408/71 concerns the coordination, and not the harmonisation, of social security arrangements, and it is important to make this clear.
I should like to emphasise this, because it is precisely this form of argument which has given an unwarranted boost to those Danish opponents of the EU who maintain that the EU is eroding the Danish welfare system.
It is partly those who organise resistance to the EU who are purposefully working to ensure that nothing at all happens in this area.
They seem to forget that the Council' s incapacity for action does in fact have consequences - consequences for those people and their families who work across national frontiers and who are plagued by uncertainty.
However, one further consequence of the Council' s incapacity to act is, in actual fact, that it is the courts, instead of the politicians responsible, who take the decisions.
The Eurosceptics talk such a lot about democracy, but it can never be democratic to omit to take the necessary decisions and, in that way, to consign people to insecurity and to give the courts a degree of influence which politicians ought to have.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on her excellent report on the situation of frontier workers and, in particular, the social and fiscal problems these workers face.
I should also like to thank Parliament for the support given to the Commission's proposal to extend the scope of Regulation 1408/71 to third-country nationals, the proposal to modernise and simplify that regulation, and for the encouraging support given to the Eures network.
The Commission fully supports your concerns as regards the problems encountered by frontier workers.
I therefore welcome your proposal to forward the resolution to the Council.
Allow me to now set out briefly the Commission's approach to the points raised in the resolution.
First, on social security and the labour market, the report calls on the Commission, before the end of this year, to organise an international conference for the Member States and applicant countries concerning the position of frontier workers.
This is an excellent idea and advantage can be taken of the experience accumulated under the Eures network.
Such a conference could identify best practices and initiatives that could be launched both at Community and national level, and the European Parliament will be involved in its organisation.
On the idea of coordination provisions for supplementary pensions, I would remind you that the Commission has committed itself in its social policy agenda to propose in 2002 a directive on the transferability of supplementary pensions.
This initiative will complement the already existing directive in this field, which was adopted in 1998.
As the proposal will be based on Article 42 of the EC Treaty and rely on the codecision procedure for its adoption, Parliament will be fully involved.
Furthermore I can confirm that a study covering the extent and nature of frontier work is already planned to be carried out under the Eures auspices in 2001.
On the initiatives taken by social security agencies for closer cross-border cooperation in order to facilitate access to health-care benefits, I am very much in favour of such initiatives and can confirm that it is the intention of the Commission to encourage such initiatives and to promote exchanges of experience and best practices.
In fact the Commission is already giving support to such a project involving the inhabitants of the Euregio Meuse-Rhine, which covers part of Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
With regard to the follow-up of the Decker and Kohl judgments, there are important legal questions currently being debated in new cases before the Court.
These questions concern hospital care and the Dutch health system.
The Commission will await the outcome of these judgments before taking a position.
On obstacles to the mobility of stagiaires, students, volunteers and researchers, the Commission has already taken the initiative and presented a proposal for a recommendation of the European Parliament and the Council on mobility within the Community for students, persons undergoing training, young volunteers, teachers and trainers.
On 9 November 2000 the Education Council adopted its common position on this proposal.
I wish to thank Parliament for its support on this matter and I hope that the final discussions will enable Parliament and the Council to adopt the recommendations shortly.
On the idea of a proposal for a directive on the introduction of frontier effect reports, whereby Member States would be required to test their legislation as to the effects for frontier workers, I should make it clear that it is already the Commission's task to ensure that all provisions of national legislation are compatible with the Treaty and the secondary legislation of Community law.
The Commission will certainly continue to use the powers laid down in Article 226 of the Treaty and to launch infringement proceedings against Member States when they violate Community law.
However, I understand that the suggested proposal for a directive aims to provide for a more general socio-economic impact assessment of the consequences of national legislation, that is in itself compatible with Community law but might cause further difficulties to frontier workers.
The Commission is not sure that it would be appropriate to propose such a legislative instrument.
It seems to the Commission more appropriate to stimulate cross-border cooperation of the partners involved in the different regions and at Community level in order to prevent any negative consequences of national legislation on frontier workers.
Finally, my comments on tax.
Unlike social security, there is no Community legislation at all on personal taxation.
Indeed Member States are extremely protective of their sovereignty in this area.
That is particularly true of their competence to enter into bilateral tax treaties.
Therefore, there is little chance of the Commission being able to secure successfully the adoption of measures by Member States, as requested in the report.
Unfortunately this will not change following the Treaty of Nice.
As you are aware, contrary to our common wishes, the requirement of unanimity in Council was retained for tax matters.
Opinions are, moreover, likely to be divided about the merits of the recommendations made in the report concerning taxation in the State of employment.
In fact, the prevailing view in tax administrations is that the State of residence rather than the State of employment is best placed to take account of the overall situation of taxpayers.
In conclusion, I wish to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten again for her stimulating report and to underline the Commission's determination to maintain its efforts to overcome the problems faced by frontier workers.
Thank you Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The debate will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Environment directives
The next item is the oral question (B5-0556/2000) by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy to the Commission, on the poor implementation of certain environmental directives (PCB/PCT, habitats, nitrates).
Mr President, Parliament's Committee on the Environment is increasingly concerned that we are adopting European environmental legislation and then neglecting to implement it properly.
Putting it bluntly, we believe that the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the European Parliament are complicit in a deception of the public.
Opinion polls show that the majority of people support the idea that environmental issues are important and should be dealt with at European level.
We are adopting legislation that appears to fill this need.
In fact, in all too many cases, environmental laws are ignored, targets are not met, reports are not sent in to the Commission on time and those countries which break the law go unpunished.
The purpose of this debate is to highlight what is going wrong and to try and do something about it.
The Committee on the Environment has put together three reports, we call them 'insight reports' , basing ourselves on the model of the US Congress.
We have found that the habitats directive is locked in controversy and law suits.
The PCBs directive is characterised by the failure of Member States to supply the all-important inventories of the stocks they hold.
The nitrates directive was probably flawed from the beginning and all but two countries, Denmark and Sweden of course, are now before the European Court of Justice because of their failure to implement it.
It is highly likely that these shortcomings are repeated throughout the canon of EU environmental law.
What can be done about this? We hope firstly that in the environmental action programme, which the world is eagerly awaiting, the Commission will key in adequate resources for following up what has happened to legislation.
It would be interesting to hear from the Commissioner roughly how many people in her Directorate are responsible for this as compared to those overseeing the introduction of new legislation.
There needs to be a much more honest debate secondly - nationally and at the European level - about the real possibility of achieving the environmental objectives set out in draft legislation.
Too often, we suspect, Member States sign up to green laws because it looks good to do so, and opposing or moderating them is seen as politically insensitive.
If, in fact, they cannot comply with what they have agreed to, such countries are doing Green causes harm.
If the Germans and others, for example, now have trouble with the habitats directive, why did we not hear more about it when that directive was going through this Parliament? And did the German Government, in fact, vote against that directive originally?
Certainly the cost of clean-up laws must be taken into account when a law is adopted.
A good example of the failure to do this is the urban waste water directive which the government of Brussels cannot afford to comply with.
We suspect that the same thing will happen with the national emissions ceiling directive.
Thirdly, we want Member States to develop the infrastructures which will allow them, all of them, to carry out the monitoring work that must accompany the proper implementation of many of the EU directives we adopt here.
My colleagues and I were desperately disappointed that the Council felt it could not agree to our proposal to transform the environmental inspections recommendation into a directive.
We were not demanding an EU inspectorate but simply that Member States should agree to bring their national inspectorates up to a common high standard.
We will continue to pursue this idea in two years time when the issue should return to us.
Fourthly, we want much quicker action by the Commission to take Member States to court when they break EU law.
Last week the Greek Government, which can ill afford to do so, paid the second instalment of a fine, now totalling over EUR 2 million for failure to comply with a judgment of the Court of Justice over the dumping of waste in Crete.
This was thirteen years after the Commission received the first complaint about the dumping of that waste and no less than nineteen years after the directive concerned came into force.
It is absurd that a poor country should get itself into a situation of paying back money to Brussels, but equally absurd that the case should have taken so long.
Finally, let me say that we in Parliament are not daunted or diverted by the idea that the European Parliament should only be concerned with the adoption of legislation and not with its follow-up.
Apparently the Environment Council was somewhat surprised and even disapproving that we had intruded into their territory and that our intention was to take the environmental inspections recommendation very seriously.
MEPs, as we will all know, are on the receiving end of public criticism of poor implementation.
The public tends to complain to us, not to the Environment Council.
In the interests of the people of Europe and their environment, we will pursue this issue and we will not let go.
Mr President, first of all I thank Mrs Jackson for her important question.
I would remind all the Members of the European Parliament that implementation of European Community law covers both the transposition of directives into national law and their application to individual decisions.
It also includes fulfilment of other obligations such as adopting programmes, making designations and monitoring.
The difficulties encountered by the Committee on the Environment in these three reports are indeed not limited to the three directives chosen but extend to all EC environmental directives.
The Commission, and not least the Environment DG are aware of these difficulties and have for some time devoted efforts to improve their performance in this field and I can assure you that next week when the Commission discusses the Sixth Environmental Action Programme the whole implementation issue will be a very important point in that programme.
We have a number of tools at our disposal to improve implementation.
We can, for example, disseminate information to give a more up-to-date picture of the state of play and I know that we have also forwarded some of these reports and annual surveys to Parliament and that we can do much more to ensure some media attention as well.
We can develop tools to aid in the analysis and evaluation of progress in implementation.
We can take legal measures to follow up implementation.
Since 1997 specific initiatives have been pursued on a number of fronts including environmental liability, which of course will put pressure on the Member States to follow the existing rules and regulations; complaints and investigations procedures at national level where we have been involved in playing a consultancy role; access to justice, magistrates' training courses - also very important because this is also about education - and the publication of this annual survey on the implementation of environmental law.
We have also worked to create a clear link between implementation of the directives and Community cofunding which has proven to be very effective as well as ensuring a close relationship with the LIFE financial instrument, because when they see that the money is threatened if they do not comply with the regulations this will definitely put pressure on the Member States.
In May last year we had a first name and shame exercise, as we call it, on bathing water quality.
A second exercise will take place in March this year and I will continue to follow this up so as to give us a scoreboard of how Member States are implementing Community legislation.
Just last week the European Parliament and the Council, as Mrs Jackson said, reached an agreement on a recommendation which will establish minimum criteria for environmental inspections in the Member States.
All these initiatives are intended to increase the level of knowledge of and compliance with European Community and environmental law.
Of course, I acknowledge that there is still much to be done.
We have to look for new ways to encourage the proper transposition and application of environmental legislation.
For example, we need to work to improve the involvement of people at the local and regional level.
Greater public awareness at these levels would lead to closer scrutiny and to public demand for effective implementation of environmental legislation.
We must remain vigilant and active to ensure that the situation improves and I would like to confirm to the European Parliament my personal commitment and that of my services to ensuring the highest possible level of compliance with European Community environmental law.
To this end I will apply all means available, including the formal infringement procedures set out in Articles 226 and 228 of the European Community Treaty and 141 and 143 of the Euratom Treaty, which may lead to imposing economic penalties on non-complying Member States.
I would be more than happy to receive more resources and personnel from the European Parliament to work on this.
Today we have about 45 to 50 staff working full or part-time on implementation, and, of course, we would need more than that.
But I also think that it is for every civil servant here to actually look at the implementation part of introducing new legislation.
I have been very clear from the beginning that I will put more emphasis on implementation. That needs the three I' s: information, integration and implementation, which should be the guidelines for the future.
I hope that you will agree with me that we are starting to make progress on improving implementation and if both the Commission and the European Parliament continue their efforts to highlight the problem and act on it, further progress will surely be made during this parliamentary term.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the field of the environment and public health, the main problem with the European legislative process is not its inability to produce appropriate legislation.
The problem lies, on the one hand, in the slowness with which directives are transposed into national law and, on the other, in shortcomings in their implementation.
The environmental directives that we are now debating, on PCBs, nitrates and habitats, are examples of this very problem.
There is little point in our having approved the directive on habitats and the creation of the "Nature 2000" network in order to protect sites of Community importance, when the Commission has been waiting since 1995 for all the Member States to present a definitive list of these sites, as well as their plans, rules and management mechanisms.
The same problem applies to the directive on PCBs.
And there is little point in our having stipulated the ban on PCBs and the decontamination of all equipment containing PCBs and PCTs with a view to protecting public health, if five years on, the overwhelming majority of Member States have not only failed to implement the directive, but have also failed to take the most simple action, which was to catalogue PCBs and to produce plans for decontamination.
We therefore have widespread non-compliance and for that reason, these directives have not produced the environmental results hoped for.
We also have a situation, however, in which a degree of impunity reigns.
The slowness of the Community's legal processes and the rare use of financial penalties against those Member States that are slow to comply have sent out two negative political messages.
Those States that do comply feel that there is no incentive to continue and those that do not comply do not feel any pressure to change their ways.
It is therefore crucial for the Commission, as Guardian of the Treaties, to monitor the whole process of transposing and implementing Community law, publicising the commitment of all the Member States and guaranteeing that those States that do not comply will be penalised as an example.
Mr President, as Mrs Jackson has so clearly illustrated, the picture which emerges from the analysis of the implementation of the three directives in question gives genuine cause for concern.
Despite the fact that the measures differ quite widely, it appears that the majority of Member States have fallen a long way behind schedule in implementing them practically.
And, quite apart from the technical considerations specific to each of the three directives, this is a serious situation which must lead us to reflect on the reasons behind it.
I would like to highlight two aspects of the issue: on the one hand, in our countries, protection of the environment is hardly ever considered at the planning stage of the various sectorial policies but continues to be viewed as a series of actions to be carried out a posteriori in order to repair damage. On the other hand, precisely because of this retrospective approach, it is often felt that the directives are too costly to implement and that it would not serve any real purpose to do so.
The error lies precisely in, when all is said and done, considering environmental investments to be an obligation which has been imposed, an additional cost which serves no purpose.
But the environment is our future and we cannot rely solely on volunteers or fear of a sentence from the Court of Justice to protect it.
I, too, am of the opinion that, since the Fifth Environmental Action Programme adopted a principally sectorial approach to environmental policy, it may be that, when discussing the sixth, we ought to place greater emphasis on the involvement of social and economic players such as local authorities in the achievement of the objectives, so that the safeguarding of our environment increasingly becomes an element to be integrated into the overall planning stage.
In this context, it will be important, as we state in our motion for a resolution, to ensure extensive circulation of the best and worst results achieved by the Member States in the implementation of the environment directives. This could even take place via the Internet and would underline the difference in the commitment of each of the States in this matter and expose their behaviour to public opinion, which is almost always more effective than judgments of the Court of Justice.
In order to facilitate the monitoring operation, but also comparison between the different situations, I feel that it is also even more important to continue to develop research on common indicators in the field of the environment.
The protection of the environment crosses national borders and is a field of Community action par excellence.
It is also for this reason, and even more so in the light of the now imminent enlargement to countries of Central and Eastern Europe, that we must not accept that the decisions adopted by ourselves and the 15 governments should then be disregarded.
The natural world is a common legacy, and our commitment to pursuing goals must serve as an example to the candidate countries, who are in the throes of remedying often extremely serious incidents of deterioration.
If this situation is to improve, each of us, as a representative of Community, national or local institutions but also simply as a citizen, must do our part.
Mr President, my assistant, Vikki Phillips, has just handed me a note which says that Denmark spends 15 times more than Greece in carrying out environmental inspections and making appropriate assessments.
Well, if that is the case, then something is clearly very wrong, and I suspect it is not wrong with Denmark.
I am very pleased to support most of what the Chairman of the Committee on the Environment has said, although I have some trepidation in doing so being conscious that the next ECJ fine may well be against the UK for its failure to comply with the bathing water directive, despite the fact that a great deal of money has been spent and effort made in recent years to reach such compliance.
I want to make it clear, though, that I do not believe that we should be using the failure of some Member States to achieve compliance with environmental legislation to justify weakening our ambitions or claiming that too much legislation is impractical.
I am all for being realistic and for making sure that new legislation makes sense but the problems we face both throughout the European Union and across the world are too great for us to lower our sights.
And I think some of the progress made by the United Kingdom in implementing the habitats directive over the past year demonstrates very clearly that it is very often not the fault of the legislation but the lack of political will which is to blame for the failure to deliver the goods we all wish to see.
I want strongly to support the idea of a scoreboard which the Commissioner mentioned and of gestures to name and shame those Member States which are failing to meet the expectations of MEPs, of the Commission and of the public.
As a politician, the Commissioner knows very well the importance of making sure that that information is presented in a way which is easily digestible and understood by every journalist across the European Union and perhaps a few politicians as well.
So, let us call it the Commission's little red book, no, let us call it the Commission's big green book, albeit one with a few black spots on its pages.
Let us name and shame at every opportunity and bring the public alongside us in ensuring that this environmental legislation is enforced and that Member States recognise their responsibilities.
Mr President, Mrs Jackson well expressed the concern of the members of the Committee on the Environment, which in my case is heightened since I belong to the European Parliament' s Committee on Petitions.
Forty per cent of the petitions submitted to this committee come from citizens concerned for the preservation of the environment.
And they usually refer to the habitats directive, the environmental impact directive, the wild birds directive and the right to information directive, which together with those discussed here today on nitrates and PCBs are probably the ones most often infringed.
Mr Goodwill's report shows that there are some Member States before the courts, others with proceedings against them, and only two Member States that are above suspicion.
Mr Sjöstedt too, in his report, mentions those Member States that have repeatedly infringed the habitats directive.
The Committee on Petitions and I, myself, know that what often happens is that Member States either do not respond in time or, as we say in Spain, and I do not know if there is a good translation, they "make the partridge dizzy" [try to deceive one].
In addition, with the scant human resources of the Committee members, who are always having to answer the demands not only of the petitioners but also of the governments, it is very difficult to work, Commissioner.
It is essential that we respect the legislation that we ourselves draw up, and the proof that there is a lack of political will is that some Member States obey it and others break it.
This can give companies a competitive edge.
In my opinion, there are three fundamental questions.
First, something that has already been mentioned here: the deterrent use of European Funds; European Funds must not be given to projects that break Community law.
Secondly, suitable penalties must be found; it is very hard (I am from a region that badly needs European subsidies), but even if it is very hard to freeze certain subsidies, if it is not done the Member States will not understand.
Lastly, Mr President, the process must be speeded up.
But I know that this lies in the hands of the courts, this lies in the hands of the governments, this lies in the hands of us all.
Mr President, the aim of these directives is to protect the environment.
This means that not only do the Member States transpose the directives into national legislation, they are also the ones who actually implement this national legislation.
This also means that when monitoring implementation, it should not be the means to an end, but the end itself, which should be looked at.
Unfortunately, experience has shown that Member States often fail to implement European directives correctly.
Consequently, campaigns, such as those designed to monitor compliance involving independent inspectorates, are essential.
As far as the environmental inspections are concerned, the European Parliament has gone to great lengths to ensure that this is regulated effectively.
However, negotiations have not led to the enactment of a binding directive, because the Council and Commission do not want that at this stage.
Given this attitude of the Member States, I fear that in future, problems will arise at the implementation stage of other directives too.
We need only call to mind the many warnings issued by the Commission to the Member States, which in some cases have led to infringement procedures.
This can only get worse after enlargement, because the current Member States are setting the wrong example.
Where there are differences in interpretation, the Commission should put forward amendment proposals for workable rules.
These amendments are not intended for additional or more far-reaching measures, but should help improve the workability of the current rules.
As far as the PCB [polychlorinated biphenol] directive is concerned, we should also turn our attention to the supplies.
If these are to be maintained for much longer, it will be a rather long time before this directive makes itself felt.
Mr President, allow me to start by agreeing with everything Mrs Jackson and many of my fellow Members have said and to focus on a number of points.
As everyone has pointed out, we have the legislation.
The problem lies in incorporating and applying this legislation.
Of course, the political will must be there but it depends mainly on the monitoring carried out by your office, Commissioner.
If, for example, you receive repeated complaints, instead of dealing with them through time-consuming correspondence, you should take a persistent and decisive stand and make sure the legislation really is implemented.
And if we have cause to go to the European Court, then let us do so and, if sanctions need to be imposed, then we shall do that too.
As Mrs Jackson has said, Greece is already paying EUR 20 000 a day and I trust that Greece will come to its senses and fall into line.
I should particularly like to draw your attention to Directive 92/43 on Natura 2000 areas.
We should not allow projects to go ahead in these areas with a light heart, because Article 6 of the directive says that only in the absence of alternative solutions should a project be carried out for imperative reasons of overriding public interest in Natura 2000 areas.
And here again I would remind you that in an area of Greece, in the area of Fthiotida, where everyone is against bridging the Maliako Gulf which, it should be noted the Ministry of the Environment and Public Works itself included in the Natura 2000 areas, your office has received complaints about the Greek Government's intention to build this bridge, which will have a huge environmental impact, even though alternative solutions exist.
I shall be monitoring - and I welcome the undertaking which you took in your intervention and I hope that it is a real undertaking - what happens in all the areas in Europe which are Natura 2000 areas including, of course, the Maliako Gulf, where there are plans to build a bridge which will wipe out an important habitat.
Mr President, first of all I must thank the Commissioner and the Chairman and other colleagues for their words of wisdom.
They are very positive and clear commitments to do something about this very serious problem.
But it is not just words we need, it is actions, it is deeds, and we cannot rely on Member States to do this alone.
Even if representatives of the Council were here, which they do not appear to be, even if they were prepared to make statements, which they do not appear to be, we would not be able to leave them to do it on their own.
We need some kind of watchdog to monitor and ensure the implementation of legislation.
Sadly our own Environment Agency does not appear to be up to the job yet.
We can but hope.
So what solutions do we have? What can Parliamentarians do?
Well, these three reports before Parliament today are a start.
They name and shame. They call for fines.
They make proposals for further improvement.
But, they also make a point which we must take on board here in Parliament.
They say essentially that bad legislation should never have been put on the statute book.
And that is a lesson that we have to take to heart.
Perhaps we have to start to think about doing less but better.
We have talked about doing it but seemingly not done so yet.
When we put better legislation on the agenda in future, it has to be respected.
Because of the failure of Member States to put into place legislation, typically the PCBs and PCTs legislation, we now have the extremely serious problem of a long-term contamination of our food chain by a persistent toxic chemical.
That toxic chemical is slowly but surely accumulating in the human food chain, reaching levels which are already beyond World Health Organisation levels in certain fatty substances, typically butter, and in some cases fatty fish, such as salmon.
They are now creeping up the food chain to the point where our children are now starting to ingest amounts of these toxins that are beyond those that are recommended by the World Health Organisation.
If we are not prepared to take serious action promptly in future we will see further problems of this kind affecting future generations.
We owe it to those future generations to pursue this issue.
Mr President, I share the opinion of Mrs Jackson and many other speakers who say that once legislation has been laid down, it should be implemented.
I also agree with Mrs Jackson and her statement regarding the nitrates directive: "that was flawed from the beginning".
It was poor legislation.
How is it possible, if you want to maintain 50 milligrams of nitrate in groundwater, to apply the same stocking density per hectare across the entire European Union, from Finland to Italy? Needless to say, the growth season in Finland is much shorter than in Italy, and so in Italy, as a general rule, more cattle units per hectare can be kept than in Finland.
As far as I am concerned, every farmer can have as many cows as he chooses, as long as he does not exceed the 50 milligram limit.
Turning now to measurements, how it is possible that the Commission has not issued any clear guidelines on how measurements are to be taken, the depth levels of these measurements, the number of times a year they should be taken, and how seasonal influences can be taken into consideration? All these factors are still unknown and differ considerably from country to country and season to season.
And if nitrate is measured, how is it determined that it originates from animal manure alone? A great number of farmers use artificial fertiliser; how is that measured?
What is the impact of sewage leaks, for example?
What is the impact of major rivers discharging into other countries?
Animal manure cannot be the only cause of nitrate pollution, and it is completely unreasonable to tell farmers to restrict its use if we do not know the other causes.
I share the view of all the speakers who say that we must adopt sound environmental policy.
I do not dispute the standard of 50 milligrams of nitrate in groundwater, but I do want clear guidelines on how it should be measured and how these measurements should be carried out.
Mr President, I have written the report on the follow-up to the habitats directive and have, in the meantime, obtained the clear impression that many Member States really did not appreciate what commitments they were taking on when they adopted the directive.
They did not appreciate how far-reaching it really was.
This is one of the most important explanations for why progress has been so slow.
However, the fact that progress has been slow does not mean that nothing is happening.
In actual fact, an incredible amount is happening in this area, albeit not as much as we should like.
When the directive is called into question, it is important to remember that what is happening is important, even if progress is slow.
I also believe that this is an explanation for why insufficient resources have been invested in information and in dialogue with those directly affected by these protected areas, something which also creates partly unnecessary conflicts in many areas.
I believe there is a lot to be learned from this.
Obviously, the Member States have prime responsibility, both financially and legally, but, for the EU' s part, it is important not only to legislate and to collect funds - good though these activities obviously are - but also to publicise the many good examples there are and to use its own financial resources to encourage sound development.
The situation we have is incredibly serious, mainly because of the extremely rapid impoverishment of biodiversity. Nor can we see a reversal of this trend.
The work must therefore continue and, in the present situation, the directive ought not to be changed or reviewed.
Mr President, I very much welcome the fact that we as Parliament also fulfil our monitoring competences and that we take a look at directives which meet with a great deal of criticism in the Member States.
Not only do they meet with a great deal of criticism in the Member States, they also cause enormous division in the European Parliament.
I would like to comment on two directives today.
These are the habitats directive and the nitrates directive.
What do these two directives have in common? The fact that the Member States have been granted far-reaching powers to designate nature reserves, species to be protected, and certainly as far as the nitrates directive is concerned, the sensitive areas.
There are now an increasing number of complaints from members of the Dutch Lower Chamber of the States General who ask us what in God' s name we have been up to.
However, it is not Europe which prescribed that the whole of the Netherlands should be designated a nitrate-sensitive area.
It is the Netherlands itself which decided to do so. It is then up to us, with the kind help of a number of MEPs, to see how, by means of derogation requests, we can undo the nitrate legislation, for example, in order to reach the goal, this being a reduction in nitrate levels, in a decent fashion.
The same applies to the habitats directive.
Today' s tragedy, a cross-border industrial site between Aachen and Maastricht, has been brought to a standstill for the umpteenth time because of two European hamsters.
These hamsters were spirited away by a campaign group for the protection and preservation of this species who believed that, if they abducted the hamsters, they could get them to mate.
But forced mating is something which does not work, even in the animal kingdom.
Once again, for the umpteenth time, the Council of State in the Netherlands brought a cross-border industrial site to a standstill.
However, having scrutinised the habitats directive and having correctly interpreted the regulation on areas where preservation is required, we see that this measure was unnecessary.
What should happen now, and that is why I support the report on the habitats directive, and most certainly the nitrates directive, is for the European Commission to make it quite clear - and perhaps lay down in writing in clear Dutch language - what is and is not possible.
We agree on the principles, they are sound, but the way in which the Member States deal with them is disgraceful by any standard.
Mr President, poor compliance with environmental legislation is a huge problem.
As co-legislator, it is important for us to speak our minds, but we should not pass the blame to the Member States too readily.
We must also consider the quality and nature of the legislation we produce.
The Union is growing ever bigger and more diverse.
We must therefore lay down rules which can thrive in the different national cultures.
That is why I think we should prescribe less detail.
We must be very precise in the results we want, but not in the way in which the results must be achieved.
For that reason, I believe we should stand by the result, a maximum of 50 milligrams, in the nitrates directive.
We do accept a certain degree of flexibility with regard to the method by which the result is achieved.
An example of sound legislation is the habitats directive.
The environment is a common legacy; environmental protection a common task.
It makes no sense to protect birds in one country if they are being shot down across the border in another country.
The habitats directive prescribes a clear goal.
The way in which it is to be achieved is quite flexible.
The directive is not detailed, but provides a framework which allows latitude for weighing up local or regional interests, and that is exactly how we need to move forward.
As long as the result - caring for the protected species and their habitats - remains paramount.
Needless to say, there are many conflicts in villages and provinces with regard to the directive' s application.
There are instances of incorrect application.
It would be useful and necessary to provide clear information, but I am taken aback by the large number of MEPs who have requested a review of the bird and habitats directive in order to work out in further detail certain concepts in the habitats directive.
The significant implications of this would then be compensation and major public interest. The very strength of the habitats directive lies in its flexibility.
The directive stands for a modern way of protecting the environment.
It is not about putting up fences around the environment, but about dealing with the species and natural resources in a conscientious manner.
Accordingly, I regret that some MEPs are adding to the chaos by suggesting in an amendment that the existing infrastructure should disappear, or that major new projects are not viable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I was delighted to find this topic on the agenda today.
I would like to thank Mrs Jackson for raising the question.
Although you refer to three specific EU directives, I would point out that what we are talking about here is a widespread problem with the transposition of EU legislation in the Member States.
If you start from the principle that directives and regulations are adopted by the Council and Parliament in the EU, then it is quite reasonable to assume that the Council - which does, after all, use these directives - will transpose them in the Member States accordingly.
But what do we see happening?
Two camps are forming. On one side there is the European Union, which seeks to blame the Member States for shortcomings.
On the other side, there are the Member States, which are more than willing to offload their problems onto the oh-so-distant Europe, forgetting in the process that they are part of Europe themselves, and the Commission is piggy-in-the-middle.
Commissioner, you have gone to great lengths to try and ensure that these laws are transposed in the European Union in a purposeful manner.
But it really is not that simple and, of course, we have criticised your methods sometimes.
I can understand to an extent, why you took the line you did.
There are various reasons as to why countries have trouble transposing this legislation.
In my opinion, one of the reasons in the case of the nitrates directive is the failure to observe scientific findings, because one thing is for sure, it is not possible to reduce nitrate levels as rapidly as we demand.
Nature simply will not allow it.
However, in the case of the habitats directive, Parliament highlighted the shortcomings quite clearly last year, namely that the directive was complicated and unclear in parts and so it cannot be transposed in the Member States.
When we were in Toulouse, we saw how local people are trying to transpose it.
But basically, they do not know what is going on.
They do not know where the boundaries are, or how to apply them properly.
These are shortcomings that must be reviewed as a matter of priority.
But it is also our responsibility to ensure that the directives are less utopian and far more realistic in nature.
Mrs Jackson's question actually contains all the points we need to address and there is nothing more to add to it.
Speedier sanctions and careful drafting of laws will enable us to solve this problem.
However, I would just like to point out that something needs to change in the Member States too, because the Environment Ministers are, no doubt, sometimes too cowardly to promote the initiatives they adopt here, in their own countries, if this could lead to conflict.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank Mrs Jackson and the rapporteurs for the three reports we are debating today.
Effective implementation of the EU' s environment directives in the Member States is naturally of great significance in two ways: firstly, in terms of environmental protection - which is, of course, the whole purpose of the directives - but also in terms of our not causing confidence to be lost in EU legislative work through the Member States' being able for a long time to get away with not implementing the legislation which they themselves have helped bring about in the Council of Ministers.
That is why I think that the three reports concerning the Member States' failure to implement EU legislation are important.
The Council has, of course, been rather irritated about the fact that Parliament is looking over its shoulders, but I think that the work on the reports has revealed how slack the majority of the Member States are about implementing EU legislation.
They have also revealed how slow the Commission' s and the Court of Justice' s reactions are when it comes to inadequate implementation.
We often, of course, hear fine speeches about grand European visions and the Europe of the future, sometimes from Members of this Parliament.
We also hear this kind of thing from many governments, but it often, of course, disguises the fact that narrow national interests are being cultivated instead of the common interests we have worked for in the course of the legislative work.
It is also interesting to note that those countries which are often regarded as rather reluctant and critical in relation to certain aspects of EU cooperation are in reality those countries which comply best with EU decisions.
In all modesty, I am thinking, for example, of the Nordic countries.
I was pleased to hear Mrs Wallström' s remarks on the reports.
I am sure that Mrs Wallström has the will to ensure that the legislation is of a sufficiently high quality to be implemented and to ensure that it is effectively followed up.
I think, at any rate, that Parliament ought to provide as much support as possible for this work.
Mr President, what a relief that no speaker so far has called for the environmental directives to be watered down.
Mr Sjöstedt, it is nothing to with the poor Member States not knowing what they were letting themselves in for.
And right now they know full well that they are simply and deliberately contravening European legislation.
They are stalling for time and they know perfectly well that nothing will happen to them, because it takes so long for the Court to do anything.
What we have here is the deliberate flouting of European legislation and neither Parliament nor the Council should stand for it.
Some members are saying that we should name and shame.
I can name and shame myself because Austria is one of the countries which has failed to comply with the habitats directive, but I must also protest, Commissioner, because Austria has not been at all remiss as far as the PCB directive is concerned.
We did everything here which needed to be done even before there was a European directive.
We passed a Waste Law back in 1990 and an ordinance banning halogenated substances in 1993.
We are being accused unfairly here.
As far as the nitrates directive is concerned, Austria has now rectified its shortcomings, but we know only too well that the Member States had terrible trouble transposing the nitrates directive.
The main problem here was that, because of the extremely high density of livestock in many parts of the Union, keeping to within the limit of 170 kg of nitrogen per hectare of farmland caused immense difficulties with the production of farm manure in several countries.
Perhaps such a high density of livestock will be less of a problem in the future, because cows, those pained and tormented creatures, are fighting back.
The form of BSE which currently confronts us may well be a sort of revenge on the part of these tormented animals.
We should take a lesson from nature and conduct ourselves properly and comply with the laws which we ourselves have passed.
Mr President, the drinking-water directive, waste-management directive, major accident hazards, sewage sludge, asbestos, wild birds, waste shipment, not to mention the habitats directive, the nitrates directive and the PCB directive.
The list is long, the list of the failure of my own country to transpose EU environmental law.
Despite warning letters, reasoned opinions, threats of legal action to the European Court of Justice, so it embarrassingly continues.
We are second worst in terms of transposition and designation of sites under the habitats directive.
Sometimes, but rarely, there can be genuine reasons for delayed transposition of a directive and the nitrates directive has come in for particular mention in this regard here today.
But to fail to provide information requested by the Commission under Article 10 of the Treaty in a timely and proper manner is inexcusable.
That is the first step: reply to the letters of the Commission.
No government should be forgiven bad manners and inappropriate behaviour.
That is one of Ireland's and, I suspect, many countries' cardinal sins in relation to the area we are discussing.
Article 10 requires Member States to actively cooperate with the Commission in dealing with complaints, to clarify facts and to state official positions.
Only last weekend I read in the Irish media that the head of the Commission's Environment DG, Mr Curry, complained to Ireland's EU Ambassador, Mr Denis O'Leary, last autumn that the Irish authorities were not cooperating adequately with Brussels on environmental issues.
Commissioner Wallström wrote last March to the Irish Minister of the Environment, Mr Dempsey, suggesting that the large number of Irish environmental complaints currently being dealt with by the EU officials be dealt with in his department or by the Irish Ombudsman.
No joy, no progress, perhaps even no response - I do not know.
With 1% of the Community's population, to our shame we in Ireland have been generating 10% of the Commission's environmental complaints.
Mr Curry had strong words for not only our Department of the Environment but also our Department of Finances policies, our Environmental Protection Agency, our Heritage Protection Agency and, indeed, our local authorities.
Sensitive and sensible implementation must be encouraged to ensure political and public cooperation and understanding of what we have to achieve.
I often give the example - as I did at a committee meeting this morning - of the survival of the only cotton-weed colony in Ireland in the south-east corner of Wexford.
This is on a local pilgrimage path.
In its over-zealousness to protect the cotton-weed, the local council decided to ban the pilgrimage from the immediate area.
It very quickly became apparent that the trampling of the pilgrims' feet and not divine intervention had, in fact, been essential to protect that particular ecosystem.
Stronger and more vigorous species, better known colloquially as 'weeds' - even though they are all wild flowers - gained a foothold in the colony and began to choke off the cotton-weed once human intervention was gone.
Changing the essential balance between human activity and our environment led to the loss of this precious ecosystem.
Finally, it must not be a case of the last person off the island turning the lights off.
We have to live and earn a living in these places.
Equally we cannot continue to mortgage our children's health and heritage.
Mr President, I should like again to thank all the Members of the European Parliament for their statements.
I could not agree more with most of what you have said, except for any accusation of complacency.
May I remind you that, as of today, 45% of all the complaints are on environmental issues and cases - 700 complaints, 30% of the infringements - about 400 - are on environmental cases.
So there is a heavy burden on us and we are trying to do our best but also look to the future.
That is why I am saying that we also have to look out for new instruments and ways to do more.
Mr Sacconi's point was that we need the good examples of what economic gains can be made from complying with environmental legislation.
We could do more on that.
We could do more with the use of indicators because we have to measure.
We have to be better at assessing the results of compliance with environmental legislation.
We are most effective when we have a good and effective interplay between the institutions, while not denying the fact that Member States are responsible.
They have to give us answers and provide us with information.
We do not have the means to send people to all the Member States to check.
We cannot do that unless you give me another 500 people.
What we have to do is modernise legislation.
It has been said that we need less but better legislative proposals.
I agree with that.
The easiest way is the limit-value approach, to say 50 mgs of nitrates for example in drinking water.
But this cannot apply in other far-reaching directives of a broader scope, such as the habitats directive.
It is no coincidence that the habitats and nitrates directives are chosen as examples of bad compliance because they are very far-reaching.
They are ambitious directives and in some cases it means the Member States need to review fully their agricultural practices.
We know this from some of the Member States.
This should not be taken as an excuse, but an explanation of why these directives are cited for lack of implementation.
I totally agree with Mr Sjöstedt that it is not because these directives are not good or ambitious enough.
They are far-reaching and there are consequences for the Member States which they perhaps did not realise when the decisions were taken.
We must not give in now, we have to carry on because we will finally start to see results.
What we have done, which is very effective, is to establish the link between European funding and compliance with environment legislation.
We have to draw on that.
We can do more on education and information.
We have started activities like this.
We use our experts to go to Member States or to carry out seminars to teach the Member States how to best implement it.
We try to use all these available instruments to improve implementation.
In an enlarged and more diverse Union, clear and legally binding targets, as well as education and methods for measuring, monitoring and calculating results, become more and more important.
I hope for the European Parliament's support and backing in our further attempts to improve the implementation of our European Community environmental legislation.
I have received a motion for a resolution in accordance with Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12 noon.
Young farmers in the Union
The next item is the report (A5-0357/2000) tabled by Mr Parish, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the situation and perspectives of young farmers in the European Union [2000/2011(INI)].
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, I wish, first of all, to congratulate the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and, in particular its rapporteur, Mr Parish, on the timely initiative to bring the debate on this issue to the European institutions.
It is 32 years since Sicco Mansholt, the Commissioner responsible for agriculture from the time the Commission was formed until 1972, presented his draft reform of the common agricultural policy, the Mansholt Plan.
It is my view that the European institutions have not paid sufficient tribute to this great figure in European politics.
I still read this classic work today and I still find that it contains many of the answers we need to the problems faced by young farmers, which are accurately described in Mr Parish' s report.
We have created a major common policy based on support payments per hectare, per animal or even according to production achieved; we have limited production rights and established quotas; we have imposed complex mechanisms for standardising production and we have created intricate systems intervening in international markets.
The results have been varied, with some positive aspects but with many other negative aspects.
Amongst the latter, I would highlight the effect this policy has had in creating major problems for young people wishing to establish themselves in farming.
The bold study drawn up on this issue by Parliament confirms that land is still the major investment for European farmers.
The study also shows difficulty of access to land to be the main problem facing young farmers.
According to this study, for each percentage point increase in subsidies for wheat crops, the price of land goes up by 0.4%.
This effect is significantly magnified by quota systems and by production-limiting schemes.
We cannot, therefore, contemplate the need to protect and support the modernisation and reinvigoration of agriculture unless we consider changes that could be made to the current CAP.
The alternative to this model of agricultural policy will necessarily require a policy focused on farmers and their incomes and not on the produce, the land or the livestock by means of which the income is obtained.
It will require an agricultural policy that is defined in regional rather than sectoral terms and will require priority for the environment, rural development, vocational training and early retirement.
To conclude, I should like to suggest to Mr Parish and to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development that this report should not be seen as a finishing line but rather as a point of departure for a thorough study into overhauling agriculture and reforming the common agricultural policy with the specific participation of young farmers' associations.
Revisiting the Mansholt Plan would be a good place to start.
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the European Liberal Democrats I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the rapporteur for his excellent work.
Many thanks indeed go to him, then.
In this short speech I would like to focus attention on a couple of points.
The report takes excellent account of the problems of young farmers. Social problems are dealt with particularly well.
This is to be welcomed, because it is young men who are mostly keener to continue farming than young women are.
The problem that has come about is what is referred to as the hundred-hectare solitude factor.
In agriculture we need sustainability, especially with regard to change-of-generation factors.
The average age of European farmers is worryingly high.
It must be financially feasible to sustain the change-of-generation system.
Young people must be induced to start farming.
There are not enough young starters, however.
It would be very important if we could get young people to continue in a profession that is important to us all.
Young farmers are very skilled and are not prejudiced about using modern technology in their work in the fields and in rearing cattle.
Similarly, they can make use of the latest information technology in their planning.
We are on the threshold of great change, which the rapporteur brought to our attention here, and it is the young, if anyone, who are best equipped to lead us through this revolution, which we will inevitably have to face within a few years.
The conclusions and measures proposed in the report are largely matters that have to be decided upon nationally, and this is good for flexibility.
The EU can and must promote policies that work as incentives for the young.
Bureaucracy must not become a barrier to improving the position of young farmers.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I should like to give Mr Parish my thanks, congratulations and support for his report.
In these times when the younger generation can see that the quality of life is no longer closely linked to industrialisation and cities and large commercial centres, we have the obligation in the Union to encourage and help the younger generation to take over from the older so that the cycle of life and people in agriculture may be completed by means of new Community initiatives that have the young farmer as their priority objective.
We must put into practice the principles and actions proposed in this own-initiative report so as to make rural life more attractive to young people, thus preventing depopulation of the countryside.
This social group is the future basis of the Common Agricultural Policy; we have to increase installation aids and supplementary investment grants for this group, particularly in those structurally less-favoured areas where abandoned holdings and deserted villages are common, where young people can revive the rural economy.
All this will be thanks to the development of new products of regional interest, such as agro-tourism and rural tourism, or through repopulating these natural spaces with animal and plant species, contributing to the sustainable and lasting development of the area.
Mr President, the first part of the motion for a resolution in the report repeats the now familiar findings on the poor situation and prospects of young farmers in the European Union.
However, no mention is made of why this should be so, given that the previous two Community support schemes promoted two programmes for the benefit of young farmers, which the European Union vaunted as a panacea which would solve all the problems faced by young farmers and reverse the negative trend.
This conscious omission runs throughout the resolution, which fails to mention three basic factors which, unless they are dealt with, will render the third Community programme for young farmers equally ineffectual.
These factors are, first, that the CAP, especially in its post-1992 form and following Agenda 2000, does not safeguard a viable income for most small or medium-sized farming households, or a survival income for the heads of these households, which is why no one wants to invest anything at all in the farming sector, however many grants there may be - not that there are that many - because not only is it unprofitable, it does not even afford a basic income.
Secondly, there is usually nobody to apply the incentives to; in other words, because of the quotas, young farmers have no reason to work, given that the quotas have been used up for all the products and they must wait for a national stock to be created and distributed to young farmers or buy quotas, in which case, good luck to them.
Thirdly, however high the incentives, the terms and conditions are such that they are more suited to large farmers and exclude small and medium-sized farmers.
The requirement for very large cultivated areas, even in island regions, is a typical example.
This requirement becomes prohibitive when combined with quotas.
In other words, the Community requires young farmers to have a large farm and large-scale production, but nigh prevents them from producing anything with the quota system.
This incongruous situation is not, in my view, an inadvertent, random choice by the European Union.
It is deliberate policy, the purpose being to ruin poor, medium-sized farmers and support large farms or rather large companies in the agricultural sector.
That is why we cannot vote in favour of this report; it is because it conceals the real reasons.
Even these grants, when they are given to poor, medium-sized farmers, are meted out in drips and drabs and Greece is a typical example here.
I do not know, for example, if Mr Fischler is aware of the fact that our grants for young farmers have still not been received, despite the fact that the government used this type of argument to saturation point in order to win votes last April.
Mr President, I want to commence by complimenting the rapporteur on his very well-researched and objective report which I and my group have no difficulty in supporting.
In the context of Agenda 2000, very credible efforts were made to deal with the serious problem of succession in European agriculture.
A re-vamped farm retirement scheme, installation aid and other measures may not, however, achieve our desired objective and in my view the problem must be revisited as a matter of urgency, otherwise the continuity of family farming will be put at serious risk.
Apart from the seriously upsetting and devastating consequences of BSE, which I believe will be overcome, the real problem for young people who in normal circumstances would take up farming as a career is the availability, welcome though it is, of alternative and certainly more financially rewarding employment.
Farmers and non-farmers must face this reality and do so before it is too late.
Farming as a profession has the onerous responsibility of guaranteeing our citizens food security and quality, and we must act to safeguard the productive base of European agriculture by ensuring that young people with the ethos of farming in their blood are appropriately encouraged and compensated.
I realise that many small farms do not have the capacity to generate sufficient income for their owners because of scale and enterprise.
I believe we must do more to assist those interested in a restructuring programme - and the rapporteur made reference to it in his report - through the pooling of land and human resources, which would lead to greater efficiency and improved competitiveness.
Likewise, the opportunity of rural development and new technology in terms of creating farm and part-time employment for both women and men must, in every case, be vigorously pursued.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when we realise that 55% of European farmers are over 55 years old and only 23% are less than 44 years old, we must inevitably conclude that the future of farming in the European Union is under threat.
The situation is even more serious in my own country, where these figures are 66% and 15% respectively.
In the mid-1980s, the CAP began changing in order to improve measures for direct control of production with the aim of preventing surpluses and guaranteeing the stability of prices and incomes.
However, the other side of the coin as regards opting for stability in this way has been less flexibility in access to farming, which particularly penalises young farmers, first of all because of the difficulty in gaining access to quotas, production or premium rights. Secondly, young farmers are penalised as a result of increases in land prices due to the increase in value created by the quota systems.
Furthermore, it is well known that many Member States have not implemented measures that in any way address the concerns of young farmers.
I shall give the example of my own country where, after an initial phase of enthusiasm when we joined the EU, in recent years we have become more sceptical and the activities of the organisations most representative of young farmers have even been penalised.
For this reason we must, as a matter of urgency, adopt certain fundamental measures which are, in fact, in line with the rapporteur' s proposals. These are, specifically, to create special reserves for quotas and production rights solely for young farmers, to increase support for setting up a first farm and investment in farm properties, to establish a special scheme for low-interest loans to supplement other investment aid, to establish conditions for the proper functioning of an early retirement scheme for older farmers, which will speed up the process of renewal and, of course, to adopt training and information measures.
The Commission must now urgently table proposals for measures for action and the Council must adopt them.
Unless this happens, we will be taking an irresponsible attitude that will put the continuity of farming in Europe, with all that this means for our culture, at risk.
To conclude, I wish to thank Neil Parish for his outstanding work on this report.
Mr President, the report deals with a most difficult subject: the prospects for young people in the farming industry, as the rapporteur has indicated, are probably worse than at any time since the creation of the CAP and their prospects cannot be separated from those of the industry as a whole or from the prosperity of the rural communities.
One measure of the complexity of the situation can be found in the courses which are now offered at agricultural colleges.
At the two colleges in my region the number of courses relating to farming has now fallen to 40% in one case, and the remaining 60% of the courses relate to horses and small animals.
Significantly, 70% of the students, however, come from farming families, so there is still that link.
The report spells out that there is a strong case for measures to encourage new entrants to the industry and for achieving a much greater degree of standardisation across the European Union, and the issue, as the rapporteur mentioned, was well dealt with in the excellent STOA report at the beginning of last year.
There are many good examples in that document of the valuable background material which we were able to use during discussions in committee.
Now that the rural development programme is in place it is important to examine how this programme can be used to strengthen training and re-training facilities in our agricultural colleges.
I would emphasise the need for training in farm diversification, including low-volume products for niche markets, and cooperative marketing techniques where, by coming together, individual farms can seek to match the commercial bargaining strength of the supermarket chains.
I would also wish to see such courses paying special attention to the needs of the smaller farm where new entrants are most likely to be found.
I hope that the Commission and the national governments will take note of the many excellent suggestions in this report and thus give a boost to the future prosperity of farming in the rural areas.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to congratulate my fellow MEP, Mr Parish, on an extremely good report.
I want to focus upon the small number of young people going into farming in recent years and, at the same time, the unduly large number of people who are also leaving it, because, if young people do not come into the industry, there will come a time when agriculture no longer exists.
I think that the image of farming - due to the many outbreaks of disease, dioxin scandals etc - is, at the moment, one of the really major problems.
It puts the whole industry in a negative light and seems unfair to the many farming families who would, of course, get top marks for the way they look after their farms.
It is undoubtedly very important that there should be transparency and that people should be made more aware of production methods and of the modern stalls and cowsheds that now exist, as well as being given information about the common agricultural policy and about the ways in which fields and animals are looked after.
Efforts must be concentrated on providing support - moral, educational and financial.
No one has in recent years questioned the many millions of euros we pump into training lawyers, engineers and doctors.
There is a clear parallel with young farmers who, of course, are responsible for the land and the animals we have and, especially, the food we eat.
Mr President, I also commend Mr Parish for his hard work and the excellent report.
In the brief time I have I wish to stress that one of the greatest difficulties facing young farmers entering the business today is capital and cash-flow problems in the first year of operation.
I am backing this proposal because young people must be given the opportunity to come into the industry on a sound financial footing.
After all, young farmers hold the key to the future of all our rural communities.
The lack of young people entering the agricultural industry in the UK is a very worrying problem.
Statistics show that in Ireland 14.8% of farm owners are under 35, in France the figure is 13.2%, but in the UK it is a mere 6.8%.
I stress that farms are also important employers in our rural communities.
Employment protects our countryside, it keeps our post offices, schools and services open there.
Farming and the viability of farming is the life blood of the future of our rural communities as we know them.
If all small businesses - which includes farmers - were to employ just one more person each, then the whole unemployment situation throughout the European Union would be solved overnight.
Of all the European Union countries, only the UK and the Netherlands do not operate a specific aid scheme for young farmers.
European rural development regulations allow a grant of EUR 16 500 to be made available for people under 40 years of age to establish themselves in a viable farm holding.
Yet the Labour government in the UK has not taken advantage of this excellent scheme.
I therefore fully support making installation aids mandatory across the European Union.
The farming industry needs young blood in order to inject a new vibrancy into an industry which at present is aged and disillusioned.
Young farmers are the future of the farming industry and vital components in urban communities.
I thank Mr Parish for his report and wish his report all the best to ensure that we can follow up these important decisions taken by him in a specific and constructive manner.
Mr President, there has been endless discussion of the role of young people in agriculture, but even today their situation gives little cause for optimism.
It is no coincidence that, after the launching of Agenda 2000, in the current phase of WTO renegotiations and with the now imminent prospect of enlargement, we are still here today debating the future of young farmers, of those young people who, in so many countries in Europe, are placing bets on whether they will be able to remain within the agricultural sector for good.
How can we help them? One of the best solutions can only be to revoke the measures laid down by the CAP.
It is time to evaluate carefully how the distribution of contributions - as, by definition, income support - reaches undertakings able to compete on the global market.
This would make it possible to direct the finances towards a vision which is more targeted towards lowering general costs, encouraging the formation of consortia.
We could also work on the joint farming of lands; after all, this is the change which will mark the evolution of farming.
From this point of view, it is then essential to stipulate that incentives should be provided in the form of reductions in the relevant interest rates for investments made by young farmers.
In this way, we would be implementing the provisions of Regulation 1257 of 1999, which encourages the combining of several actions when they are aimed at bringing about greater use of the resources provided by development plans for rural areas.
I feel that, if this debate were to send out these sorts of signals, we would be able genuinely to start building the framework for a new European agriculture structure based on young people which, most importantly, would certainly not mean abandoning and forgetting those who are seeking possible alternatives in the new environmental and multifunctionality opportunities.
I would like to thank Mr Parish for his excellent work.
Mr President, the Parish report provides a rigorous analysis of an essential issue for the European Community and for those who wish to join the Union.
Young farmers do indeed need urgent attention.
First, because we must support our young people in all areas of activity, and secondly because it is in our interests to keep the rural population, most of whom are connected with agricultural activities, in the countryside.
In approaching this issue, we have to appraise elements that lie at the roots of our social structure, our territorial organisation, our economy, our culture and our civilisation itself.
Many of the problems that affect these farmers are substantially concerned with one of the bases of the dominant economic model in Europe; private land ownership and the forms of land transfer.
This report contains an appeal for institutional action benefiting a specific group and also for the implementation of concrete measures to give rural land ownership a meaningful social function.
In this context, the opinion of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport seems to me highly appropriate when it states that young farmers are not a very homogeneous group.
A distinction must be drawn between students at agricultural schools and colleges, young people who wish to set up in rural areas as an alternative to the urban environment, and the children of farmers.
Even within this last group I would distinguish between those who are the children of farmers who work on the land and those who are descendants of farmers who, from the size of their holdings, are really agricultural businessmen.
While accepting that measures should be taken to reduce charges on inheriting property, I would highlight other actions also mentioned in the Parish report to help make holdings viable, which are based on socio-economic formulas.
I should like to stress another aspect of the report: we must try to ensure that when our future co-Members of the Union incorporate the acquis communautaire they do not bring in hidden habits that hinder the development of the rural environment in their countries.
The change from collectivised farming economies to situations that can be merged with the Community situation may trigger off speculative processes that will artificially raise market prices for land and thus increase young farmers' difficulties in setting up or keeping themselves in the countryside.
This report, Mr President, will certainly be important in so far as we can also disseminate it in our own countries, in the candidate countries, and in particular in the sector it specifically addresses.
Mr President, there is indeed a crisis of succession in farming as Mr Parish with his expertise as a farmer knows well.
If this crisis is particularly acute in Mr Parish's own Member State, it is the direct result of policies pursued by UK governments over the past twenty years, and to overcome it the United Kingdom must review the implications of the Fontainbleau Agreement for its contribution to European Union finances.
This has been disastrous for farming.
Moreover, the rapporteur, a member of the Conservative Party, must work within his own party to secure support for his proposals in the House of Commons.
In countries where less than 10% of the population now lives in rural areas, it is too easy for governments to sideline the needs of these areas, and the message from this debate must be that they do so at the peril of their countries.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to congratulate Mr Neil Parish on the fact that he has produced a report which is based on the farmers' reality, the reality in rural areas, and not on the view from Brussels.
This in itself constitutes a valuable contribution to agricultural policy.
But if we now examine the situation, we could ask ourselves whether there are any young people left out there who are mad enough to become farmers in the European Union.
What we need is people who want to take up the challenge of producing an outstanding achievement, five-legged sheep as it were, but not obtained through genetic modification.
They seem to be fighting a losing battle, if we consider the adversities which young farmers face, as well as the achievements they are expected to deliver. To quote just one example - and I am just considering my own country for a moment - dairy farming is a sector where absolutely everything is being scrutinised, from the blade of grass right up to the moment that the milk hits the supermarkets.
I cannot help drawing a comparison with arable farmers and horticulturalists who have been required to keep tabs on the implications of their actions on the environment and consumer front for a long time, and do so with great enthusiasm. At the same time, we have to say that in many European countries the requirements for animal welfare are among the world' s most stringent.
So whoever wants to become a farmer in Europe must outstrip their counterparts elsewhere in the world.
They need to give the landscape and cultural conditions due consideration.
They must apply the strictest consumer conditions, supply a wide range of products, both regionally and in terms of quality, make animal welfare a top priority and be responsible for the product, even once it has left the farm.
This is what we call social enterprising as a top-level sport.
It requires entrepreneurship, a love of nature and the environment, social orientation and perseverance.
For this reason alone, it would be desirable if a specific policy were set up for young farmers which is focused on the future.
Some of the focal points could include a premium scheme linked to quality, landscape and environmental protection, but also the introduction of an eco-tax in other economic sectors, not payable by the farmers but by the consumers, to finance those extra requirements which farmers need to fulfil, and to reinforce the market position of farmers and consumers.
What strikes me in the European Union' s competition policy as a whole, is that although it is enjoying a great deal of attention, in the food sector, for example, the consumers, the supermarkets that is, are gradually gaining a monopoly position, and that at the same time sales from farms, the small-scale dimension, are still fragmented.
In that sense, it would be desirable if both Commissioners Monti and Bolkestein were more critical in their assessment of this area in terms of competition.
Mr President, nobody can survive for one day without food; it is life requirement number one.
This requires motivated producers.
This means that food does not just stand for market forces, but also for public health, landscape and nature.
In short, if we realise this, then we will know that, in future, young farmers will need to be five-legged sheep, and in that sense, deserve more support, more political support than they are receiving at the moment.
Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, I should like to start by thanking Mr Parish for his serious analysis of the situation of young farmers in Europe.
I ask you, what shall we do when there is no one to take over our farms? Structural change is important and it is right, but that should not result in a mass exodus from the farming profession.
If we want farming to have a future in Europe, then we must secure its succession.
We are in favour of a multi-functional farming model, i.e. a model whereby farmers are not just responsible for producing food and a large part of their work benefits society as a whole, a society which can take pleasure in seeing nature unspoiled and enjoy rural areas which are worth living in. The agricultural policy and the policy for the countryside as a whole lives for and from its inhabitants.
We therefore need to create framework conditions which ensure that young people look on the countryside as somewhere worth living in and are willing to continue the farming tradition.
Setting-up aid and investment grants are essential for young farmers, but modern technology has an equally important part to play.
Young farmers need to be as familiar with computers and the Internet as they are with seed and the animals in their stalls.
This means that training and further training for young farmers are becoming more and more important and I, for one, support lifelong learning in farming and among farmers.
Allow me to say a few brief words on the social aspects. Time and again I hear farmers using various arguments to put off leaving their farms to their children or successors.
Letting go is difficult, as I know from personal experience, but it is the only way of ensuring survival.
So I call on the older generations to help the young and to give them and, hence, the whole farming industry the same chance which they had.
Of course, and I say this quite openly as a farmer myself, it is no help when all we hear about is the down side of the profession.
Let us be quite clear about one thing: there is not a single profession which is either all good or all bad.
Finally, I should like to say that it gladdens my heart when I see established and young farmers working together to develop the farm, exchanging experiences and creating and putting innovative ideas into practice.
Their dedication and commitment will be needed in the future even more than ever and we must encourage successive generations to be optimistic and take their future into their own hands.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to start by joining in the gratitude expressed to Mr Parish.
I think this is a very constructive own-initiative report.
There is a rather nice saying that the future belongs to the young, but we can turn this around when we talk of European farming and say that, without young farmers, there is no future.
The future of the countryside, and especially the future of young farmers in Europe, does not look good.
The numbers alone should set our alarm bells ringing.
The number of farms in the EU has fallen constantly over recent years.
Of course, we welcome the structural change but, at the same time, the extent of the change does give us cause for concern.
The biggest decrease has been in the number of farmers under the age of 35.
Thank God that young people from farms have the same career prospects as their peer groups and siblings.
The tradition of handing farms down from one generation to the next is disappearing.
The question of what becomes of the older generation left on the farm is often still unanswered.
Unfortunately, farms standing empty have become a familiar sight - even in my country, which I would never have imagined possible.
How many young people want to have to keep making excuses because they are farmers? Young farmers want fair prices for their products.
It is not because of the subsidies that they choose to be farmers.
The Parish report may help to improve the overall image of young farmers.
The public pays scant attention to the services of farming.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank you, Commissioner Fischler, for repeatedly highlighting the multi-functional task which farming fulfils.
But apparently bad news makes better news.
At the moment, you can read about the current BSE crisis blow by blow.
But no one bothers to mention, for example, that consumer associations in my country have been wantonly campaigning for food at rock bottom prices for years now.
Of course I disapprove of the criminal machinations of the feedingstuffs industry, the lack of controls by the authorities and so forth, but it is all this together which has resulted in the chaos in which more and more members of the profession find themselves.
If you belong to this profession, if you are a farmer, then you will easily understand why young people ask, do I really need this? With the current BSE situation, it is quite out of order to pillory our farmers and young farmers.
We have set standards.
So-called 'good professional practice' has been continually developed by our excellently trained young farmers.
Essential services in the production of foodstuffs and raw materials, the development, further development and preservation of the countryside and the protection of the natural bases for life are all areas in which Europe will need farmers and young farmers in the future.
I should like to close by saying that these young farmers do not just need reliable policies; they also need good wives and strong families.
Only this sort of environment can give them the strength they need to perform their important function in society.
Mr President, I note that the last seven speakers in this debate come from the Group of the European People' s Party, so we have seven people anxious to talk while everybody else has dried up.
It is an indication of the concern of this particular group for the problem we are discussing.
I want to thank Mr Parish for his contribution, the thorough research and the very extensive report he has produced.
I was just thinking of my youth when I was a member of the Young Farmers of Ireland; I started my political career in that organisation.
I remember a plan was produced which was based on two simple things: intensive advice and a little bit of financial incentive.
It was based on the geographic unit of organisation, which was most popular in Ireland, it was a church community called the parish.
It was the parish plan.
So I started off my political life with the parish plan in my hand and today I have another Parish plan.
It is much more comprehensive and, indeed, I have to confess that I do not see as many simple answers to the questions raised in this one as in my Young Farmers' organisation in Ireland 40 years ago.
Something that comes to mind is that we ought not to get carried away with emotion or lead people down the wrong path on this whole subject.
The 1926 census in Ireland found that more than half of the entire population of the country was engaged in agriculture and yet the country did not produce surpluses and there were people short of food.
There are still people harking back to the days when, as an Irish poet said: "every rood of ground maintained its man".
However, we should not imagine that this was an ideal world in which to live.
Over the years, as the number of farms was reduced and farmers became more efficient, food obviously became more available to the poor who could buy it at a lower cost.
The reduced farm numbers have produced a lot of well-being in Europe.
We should not forget that.
Since Ireland joined the European Union - I only mention Ireland because I am very familiar with what happened obviously, but you can draw lessons for other areas - our many small farms were reduced gradually in number.
If it were not for the common agricultural policy, that would have been very painful.
It was a good thing that the number of farms was reduced and that we had the common agricultural policy to ease that.
We must be concerned about the human problems that arise out of the squeeze-out of excessive labour, but at the same time, we should remember that the cost of food has been reduced.
Emphasis, in the future, must be put on quality, while in my time limitless quantities were needed.
Today we need more quality and we need to consider the environment.
All these are things Mr Parish has underlined.
But we should not offer the prospect of young, energetic people in greater numbers producing the quantity of food that Europe needs today because they will not eat it.
Mr President, could I begin by congratulating Mr Parish on bringing forward a very excellent report.
I know very well that he put a lot of time and effort into it and I am happy it can be debated by Parliament today.
It is a very difficult subject to address and there is no easy solution to the problem of young farmers, as any of us who have any knowledge of the problem and the background would accept.
Of course, everybody likes to say we must help the young farmers.
The problem is when you ask them how to make the help really worthwhile, they are very slow to come forward with answers.
How can you encourage young people onto the land? You have to address the problem within the situation in which young people find themselves today.
Many young people from rural areas some 20, 30 or 40 years ago, at the time Mr McCartin was speaking about, would naturally have gone on to become young farmers.
Nowadays those young people have many other options open to them.
They look around and they see their friends going into jobs where they may quit working at lunchtime on Friday and not start work again until the Monday morning.
But the young farmer will work seven days a week for very little money.
You only have to look at the financial situation right throughout the European Union at the moment to see that we have a terrible problem here and one that is not going to be easy to address.
The reality is that if you do not get young people into the industry, you will not bring the new ideas in and you will not allow the industry to develop and take on the challenges that it faces in the future, relating not just to the production of food, but to how that food is produced and to ensuring that it is produced in a way the consumer finds acceptable.
It is not enough just to give financial assistance to young farmers because then all you do is put the price of lamb up out of reach.
We in the European Union have brought in milk quotas, we have brought in suckler cow quotas, we have brought in sheep quotas, all now with a financial value that the young farmer could not even begin to contemplate.
So I believe the best way is to make it easier for young farmers to inherit the family farm at an earlier stage, be it through an early retirement scheme or through a bond scheme.
I certainly feel that the European Investment Bank should be encouraged to help young farmers into the industry through the bond scheme.
But, if you are going to bring this scheme in it has to be mandatory and it has to be introduced in every Member State.
It is not enough to introduce it in one Member State alone.
Finally, we are spending a lot of money on rural development and the Commission would do well to look at other ways of spending that money, because, as I see it, we could make better use of it.
We could encourage young farmers, who face so much red tape and bureaucracy now.
Young farmers have computers.
Farmers' wives know how to use computers and could use them on the farm.
That is the way forward for the future.
Mr President, I welcome this report. It certainly highlights the bleak future facing young farmers within the European Union, despite the support provided by the Union and Member States.
The current unfavourable economic climate for farming in general and young farmers in particular, the obvious lack of prospects for young farmers, the decline in the number of full-time farmers and the consequent ageing of those who remain - these are all general trends which underline the problem.
It is clear that we will experience a drastic drop in the number of young farmers over the next couple of decades, unless appropriate and effective measures are put in place now.
Young farmers face enormous problems such as the massive financial burden when they start up and often this can be compounded by difficulties associated with inheritance.
Training is often deficient, and for young people it can be an isolated life in rural areas, with limited social activity in comparison with those of a similar age who work in more urban settings.
All of this begs the question: what can the European Union do? A European policy aimed at supporting young farmers and linked to the CAP is essential.
Up until now there has been little evaluation of EU assistance measures either by the Member States or the EU Commission.
Greater attention must be given to interest rate subsidies and loans, installation aids and investment grants must be paid more speedily and the implications of enlargement on young farmers need to be considered and integrated into any future policy approach.
Other measures that could be considered are supplementary investment aid for farmers under 40, production rights, assistance with credit terms, better education, training and networking opportunities - one could go on. But the point I want to make is that we need to do something now.
To take up the point made by Mr Nicholson: why should young people in the Celtic Tiger economy in Ireland remain on the land? Why should they face an anti-social life?
Why should they be in a career which has economic uncertainty when other occupations offer a much more attractive life, much more security, work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., with week-ends off and with long holidays? That is the problem we have to address and we must address it now.
Mr President, honourable Members, I should like to start by thanking you, Mr Parish, for your earnest report on the situation and perspectives of young farmers in the European Union.
I should also like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for its work.
We have endeavoured in Agenda 2000, especially by developing the second pillar, to take account of the concerns of young farmers.
In some organisations of the market, we have at least managed to grant special terms to newly established farmers or young farmers.
I need only mention the sheep premium or the administration of national milk quota reserves or planting rights under the programme to restructure and convert vineyards.
But, without doubt, the real issue here is the future of farming per se, because if young people are no longer prepared to take up farming, then any further debate on agriculture is superfluous.
And, without doubt, the attractiveness of farming also depends a great deal on the political framework conditions which apply to agriculture, not just agricultural policy as a whole, but also the specific terms on which a young person can enter this profession.
Measures to promote rural development are particularly important here.
Agenda 2000 increased the maximum setting-up grant by 66%, meaning that up to EUR 25 000 can now be paid in aid, and loans to finance setting-up costs qualify for interest rate subsidies.
At the same time, the terms governing investments in farming operations include the option of increasing the maximum rate of aid for investments by young farmers within the first five years of starting up.
These aid rates may be as high as 45% and, in disadvantaged areas, as much as 55%.
Apart from this specific aid for young farmers, there are, of course, all the other forms of aid which young farmers can claim just as any other farmer can.
On balance, the rules for promoting the development of the countryside are extremely flexible but, according to the principle of subsidiarity, it is up to the Member States to implement them.
The Member States are responsible for deciding what priority should be given to promoting young farmers.
Finally, I should also like to point out - and several Member States have already gone for this option - that the early retirement scheme, the eligible sums for which have again been raised under Agenda 2000, can be linked to setting-up aid for young farmers.
The Commission, like Parliament, feels that we need adequate statistics if we are to make better policy assessments.
The information which the Commission compiles via the information network of agricultural accounts and structural surveys should, in fact, suffice in order to analyse the situation of young farmers and I do not think that we need, nor does it make sense to set up a new database especially for young farmers.
What we do need is for the assessments in question to be made available.
The Commission services are currently working with the Member States evaluating the arrangements for which provision is made in the earlier 1997 regulation, especially with reference to young farmers.
I am sure that we shall glean some useful facts from this exercise, but I must point out that we shall be unable to submit an initial assessment of the programmes still being examined by next year because we quite simply do not have the necessary data.
The Member States are able to amend plans to develop the countryside, especially in order to take account of the results of interim assessments.
The Commission does not intend to introduce any new Community initiatives now; it prefers to keep to the seven-year term prescribed in the Agenda and the relevant legislation.
But we must not forget that the young and women are priority target groups under the LEADER + Community initiative and that the assessment system which the Member States need to work out in order to select pilot projects needs to take account of this focus in Community policy.
Many of the questions addressed in the report and the motion for a resolution, such as land prices or the availability of farmland or inheritance tax or the tax status of farms, are matters for which the Member States alone are responsible.
However, despite a great deal of criticism, the Commission will examine the conclusions of the Parish report within the limits of its powers and right of initiative in a bid to help improve the conditions of establishment for young farmers and revive the countryside.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended until Question Time at 5.25 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Questions to the Commission (B5-0001/2001).
Part I
Question No 25 by (H-0962/00)
Subject: Abolition of extradition between Spain and Italy Spain and Italy recently signed a treaty on the prosecution of terrorism-related crime, trafficking in human beings, etc., which abolishes extradition and sets up a common area of freedom, security and justice between two Member States for the first time.
Furthermore, the European Parliament recently agreed that EU institutions should be able to adopt effective measures to combat terrorism, particularly as regards search and capture orders within Europe.
Is the Commission ready to push forward with measures to give effect to what Parliament has agreed with respect to combating terrorism and the issuing of search and capture orders in particular?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission gave a commitment to respond to the request made at the Tampere European Council to draw up legislative proposals to replace the formal extradition process with a simple procedure for transferring persons who have been convicted and who try to escape justice.
At the last Justice and Home Affairs Council, held on 30 November 2000, I expressed the Commission' s sympathy with Member States who face the problem of terrorism and, in particular, with Spain, and I was delighted to welcome the bilateral agreement concluded between Spain and Italy.
On that occasion, I announced that in the course of 2001, the Commission would submit proposals on three essential points for the Council' s consideration.
Firstly, there will be a proposal on common definitions, incriminations and sanctions for crimes involving terrorism.
Secondly fast-track extradition procedures between Member States will be introduced.
Thirdly, we will submit a proposal on the creation of an instrument known as the European search and capture order.
The Commission has already called a meeting of national experts in these fields, which will be held in the next few days, on the basis of a working paper that is being drawn up to present the proposals that I have just mentioned.
I wish to reiterate the Commission' s commitment, using all its powers under the Treaties, to encourage tougher European action against terrorism, an issue that will be given great prominence in the Commission' s work programme for 2001, which will shortly be discussed in this House.
I must say that I am pleased with the Commission' s reply and positive attitude to seek formulas and implement measures that can effectively control the worst enemy of freedom and democracy: terrorism.
But what is the problem, Commissioner? The problem is the urgent need to lay down some concrete deadlines for these measures to be implemented as quickly as possible.
As you know, Commissioner, the European Parliament has urged that the European search and capture order should be pushed ahead as an instrument providing the necessary flexibility and speed to facilitate the capture, prosecution and sentencing of those who in European territory are violating the most fundamental right of all; the right to life.
It would be a real aberration if in the new European Union area of freedom, security and justice the law served precisely to support those who committed such a despicable crime.
I wish to begin by saying that I share Mr Mollar' s sense of urgency. Urgency is indeed crucial in this matter.
I would say that the most urgent need is for all Member States to approve and ratify the 1995 and 1996 conventions on extradition.
That is urgency is most vital.
Secondly, on the European search and capture order, as you will see in the 2001 work programme, we shall have very concrete dates and deadlines for the Commission to present its proposals.
I can guarantee that 2001 will be a turning point in the fight against terrorism, which is a fight shared by all European countries, not as a problem for a single State but as a threat to freedom, security and justice throughout the European Union.
Question No 26 by (H-0975/00):
Subject: Women persecuted without asylum or refuge In some countries women suffer cruel persecution and punishment, basic human rights violations which may involve mutilation and may cost them their lives.
In many cases, this is a consequence of the application of fundamentalist laws or the carrying-out of ancestral practices and traditions.
The European Union says that it intends to protect women from such unacceptable persecution and punishment, but it has not yet found a way of translating its declarations into political actions and decisions offering grounds for hope.
Would the Commission be in favour of putting forward proposals whereby such situations afflicting women might be considered grounds for granting asylum and refuge, in political terms, in the European Union?
I wish to say in response to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo' s question that refugee status is governed throughout the world by the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.
At European level, a non-binding common position of 4 March 1996 adopted under the Maastricht Treaty applies; this relates to uniform application of the term "refugee" under the terms of Article 1 of the 1951 Geneva Convention. However, there is no uniform application of the definition of the term "refugee" throughout Member States.
Neither the 1951 Convention nor the European Union texts make specific reference to issues concerning requests made by women, specifically women whose human rights have been violated, with particular reference to gender-related abuse, such as sexual violence, genital mutilation or fundamental legal discrimination on the grounds of their gender.
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Union now has, following Tampere, a mandate to adopt common minimum rules in the field of asylum and refugee protection, with a view, in the medium term, to adopting a common European asylum system.
The Commission intends to table specific proposals in relation to some of these in the course of 2001.
These proposals will take account of the specific circumstances of women who have been victims of abuse and mistreatment.
Indeed, the Commission has already begun to develop actions designed to address the specific circumstances of these women.
An example of this is the proposal for a directive on providing temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons, which we presented on 24 May last year.
In this proposal, under the terms of Article 11(4), Member States are obliged to provide appropriate medical assistance or other forms of assistance to women who have been victims of torture, rape or other serious forms of psychological, physical or sexual violence.
By the same token, the Commission' s proposal on minimum standards to apply to the process of granting and withdrawing refugee status, which the Commission adopted on 20 September 2000, contains various provisions addressing the specific needs of women, such as Article 4(4), which lays down that women have the right to present a request for asylum separately from their husband, or Article 3(8), which enshrines the principle of an independent and separate interview for women when presenting a request for asylum. There is also Article 7(8), which gives women the right to have a different interviewer or interpreter if they feel inhibited about explaining the reasons for their request for asylum due to the fact that the interviewer or interpreter is male, particularly in situations of sexual abuse and, finally, Article 14(1)(c), which lays down the obligation on Member States to guarantee that staff interviewing persons in a vulnerable situation are given the necessary basic training to deal with the specific problems of these women.
The Commission also intends to propose measures concerning persons with special needs in its proposal for a directive on reception conditions for asylum seekers, which will be presented in the first quarter of this year.
With regard to the specific issue of gender-related persecution forming the basis of the asylum request, the Commission has already embarked on extensive consultation on this matter and we hope that in the course of this year we will be able to draw the necessary conclusions to present to Parliament and the Council a proposal for subsidiary protection that would also cover this type of situation.
Thank you, Mr Vitorino, because I understand that the Commission intends to submit proposals.
I should like to say that, in the last decade of the century that has just finished, both the Vienna Conference and subsequently the Beijing Conference opened up new horizons so that we can bear in mind the very real situation in which women suffer in numerous countries, but I believe the Commissioner understands the question Mrs Izquierdo has raised and I am grateful that he is to make this kind of proposal.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 27 and 28 will be taken together.
Question No 27 by (H-0969/00):
Subject: European chemical industry The carbohydrates industry employs some 8 500 people.
However, even with the export refund applicable in previous years, the competitive disadvantage to the European chemical industry is demonstrated by the fact that four European production units have already been closed down and six new production units have been set up by European companies in third countries, with the adverse consequences of loss of direct and indirect employment (farmers) and a loss of outlets for European agricultural products.
What will the Commission do to reverse this trend?
Question No 28 by (H-0977/00)
Subject: Export refunds in the starch industry The carbohydrates industry uses 1.2 million tons of starch/glucose produced from 2 million tons of cereals grown on an average of 400 000 hectares.
Does the Commission realise that, by withdrawing the export refund entitlement for chemical products derived from agricultural raw materials, it has further seriously impaired the competitiveness of the European chemical industry which is already deprived of the economies of scale enjoyed by the glucose suppliers of its US counterparts as a result of the EU quota system for isoglucose and the lack of an ethanol programme in the EU?
Mr President, honourable Members, the Community chemical industry did indeed stop receiving export refunds at the end of July last year for agricultural raw materials such as starch, glucose and sugar, which are processed for export.
This measure is part of a series of provisions for so-called non-Annex I products which was decided by the Council of agricultural ministers in March last year, since when exports of these products have been subject to budgetary discipline in accordance with the agreement decided within the WTO.
However, these products still receive enough compensation to be able to compete with similar products on the world market.
It is therefore highly unlikely that imports will rise, because the price of agricultural raw materials used by the chemical industry will, de facto, be reduced to world market prices, that is, free-port prices in the Union.
As expressly requested when these measures were discussed, the Commission is closely monitoring the market, including the export market, and the budgetary situation in this sector.
I thank the Commissioner for his answer but would ask the Commission to explain the obvious lack of coherence between its and the Council's politically declared will to promote the biotechnological industry and the measures taken, which endanger the very existence of this industry.
May I point out to the honourable Member that the question at issue here is the terms on which European industry obtains the raw materials which it uses to manufacture specific industrial products.
In theory, our starting point is the competitiveness of European industry, and it is competitive if it can obtain the raw materials which it processes on the same terms as the rest of the world.
I fail to see why any additional aid should be needed.
In any event, we can only support the agricultural aspect of this whole question with our organisations of the agricultural markets.
We are not here to use funds earmarked for agriculture to support the chemical industry.
It is our job, in line with the objectives of the Treaty, to support the agricultural aspect, i.e. to give European farmers the chance to get the products which they produce on to the market.
I do not think that there is a difference of opinion on the question whether we would like to see a chemical industry subsidised on the basis of the agricultural policy.
What is important, however - as transpired last year - is that on the basis of the budget discipline considerations, and other considerations, this option was not available for a while. That is point one.
Point two is that industry has been making distinct noises to the effect that the existing discrepancies are forming an obstacle, and so are costs incurred in processing. These aspects very much form part of the European agricultural policy.
Alongside this, it cannot be denied that producers of vegetable products in the European Union are going through a rough time at the moment.
In that sense, every kilogram of extra sale to the chemical industry is a welcome bonus, especially when producers can prove that they are having to produce against a higher cost price after all.
I would still like to ask the Commissioner, based on a real cost-price analysis for companies in Europe and elsewhere, also taking into consideration the genetically modified aspect, to again cast a critical eye over whether these regulations outside the scope of active improvement could not, in fact, be applied more forcefully.
Yes, of course we can check if there is any other sales potential, but I must stress that certain limits must be kept to, even in the area of agricultural aid because, in the final analysis, all the products being addressed here, sugar and starch alike, are subject to quotas and aid is granted within the framework of those quotas.
We cannot subsidise more huge quantities now because we do not have the funds.
Aid to agriculture must be granted within the framework of the maximum quotas agreed in the organisations of the market.
We cannot simply extend the quotas.
Question No 29 by (H-0003/01)
Subject: Coordinated approach to the financial repercussions of the BSE crisis According to Commissioner Franz Fischler, the European ban on meat-and-bone meal will cost approximately EUR 4.5 billion.
There is still great uncertainty surrounding compensation for the losses incurred.
This means that the financial measures due to expire may create distortions of competition between the 15 EU Member States.
Does the Commission support a coordinated European approach to the financial repercussions of the BSE crisis, given that the financial measures taken by the national and regional authorities that are now due to expire are leading to the distortion of competition between the 15 EU Member States? If not, why is the Commission against a coordinated approach?
Part II
Mr President, honourable Members, we need to differentiate in our assessment of the financial repercussions of the BSE crisis between veterinary measures, Community measures taken within the context of the common organisation of the market in beef and national measures.
As far as Community action in this area is concerned, may I draw the honourable Member's attention to the series of measures recently introduced to support the beef market.
Both aid for private storage and public intervention have been introduced and are being funded 100% by the Community.
A special culling regulation for animals over thirty months old has also been introduced.
Seventy per cent of the value of the animal is paid for by the Community, while Member States are required to pay the other 30%, together with the culling costs.
Any Member State which intends to take national measures must, of course, report them to the Commission and the Commission constantly checks what is going on in order to discourage distortions of competition.
Any Member State wishing to grant aid in order to mitigate the consequences of the BSE crisis must notify the Commission of the aid arrangements in accordance with Article 88, paragraph 3, of the Treaty - as I have already mentioned - so that they can be checked to ensure that they comply with Community framework arrangements.
Commissioner, all of this is, of course, music to my ears.
Naturally, I would like to thank you for your response and the clarification as well as the distinction you have drawn between national measures on the one hand and Community measures on the other.
In practice, however, I have noticed that all hell has broken loose, not just in my own country but - I assume - in other countries too.
Our own regional Minister for Agriculture in the Flanders Region, Mrs Dua, has mentioned levies on meat.
Others have mooted the idea of an increase in VAT, others still would like to pass the buck to Europe.
All I can see is a great deal of chaos and insecurity in my country.
Despite the fact that, apparently, the Commission will have to be notified of such measures, there is a great deal of concern among farmers, and also amongst those in the meat-processing industry, and certainly among our local butcher shops, who, at the end of the day, will have to take the first blow.
Would it indeed not be preferable to harmonise the compensation or the way in which the costs will be met, at the time that all tests need to be carried out, in advance rather than afterwards, thus ruling out any distortion of competition? Your response in this matter is somewhat disappointing, in my opinion.
Mr President, the honourable Member may well be disappointed with my reply but if what he says is correct, i.e. that statements by local politicians have caused confusion in his region, in Flanders, then it is up to the same local politicians to clarify the matter.
They cannot expect the European Commission to do it for them.
I have one more comment to make on a point that was raised.
Where, as the honourable Member mentioned, a Member State introduces fiscal or parafiscal measures, such as value added tax surcharges, then any such measures must, of course, be taken within the framework of existing legislation, i.e. they must be compatible with European tax directives, and any measures taken must be checked by the Commission accordingly.
But it is also the job and the responsibility of the individual Member States to announce regional measures.
In other words, Member States must not only announce measures taken at national level; they must make known and report all measures taken.
Questions to Mrs Wallström
Question No 30 by (H-0972/00):
Subject: Export of mining waste During the 1980s, the Swedish mining company Boliden exported a large quantity of toxic waste to Arica in Chile for treatment and recycling.
The waste was subsequently left in an open landfill site with the result that heavy metals seeped into the surrounding environment, causing the local population serious health problems.
In Chile, demands have been made for the waste to be shipped back to Sweden.
Does the Commission consider that this particular export complied with the existing rules in this area? Does the Commission consider that Boliden now bears any responsibility for resolving the situation?
Shipments of waste, including shipments to and from the Community, are governed by Regulation 259/93.
This regulation replaced Directive 84/631 on the transfrontier shipment of hazardous waste.
This revision incorporated the provisions of the 1989 Basle Convention on movements of hazardous wastes into Community legislation.
As from 1 January 1998, the Community has therefore banned all shipments of hazardous wastes to be used for material recycling or to be deposited in countries outside the OECD.
The Community therefore complies with the 1995 amendment to the Basle Convention which has not yet come into force internationally.
This legislation is not, however, applicable to exports of waste from the Swedish mining company, Boliden to Chile during the 1980s because Sweden was not an EU Member at that time.
Furthermore, the provisions of the Basle Convention did not apply in the 1980s.
In this specific case, the Commission believes that there is no Community legislation which can now make the company liable for possible environmental damage due to these waste products.
The issue of Boliden' s liability in this case therefore remains a national issue which must be resolved through national environmental legislation.
Thank you for your answer.
I naturally appreciate that this is how matters stand, that is to say that there is not at present any legislation which may be used in this context.
Nonetheless, what we have here is an example of an unusually cynical trade in which hazardous waste that causes serious illnesses, especially among children in the area, is exported to a country which is unable to deal with it.
My question is: if something similar were to happen today, that is to say if an attempt were made to export waste in this way, would the rules mean that exports of this kind were totally banned?
The answer to that question is yes.
There is currently a ban on exporting hazardous waste, including to third countries, that is to say non-EU countries.
Question No 31 by (H-0973/00):
Subject: Spanish national hydrological plan: citizens call for the Commission to intervene More than 80 000 objections to the draft national hydrological plan have already been lodged during the consultation stage for those affected.
Objections have been submitted by ecological organisations, who complain that many of the works planned under the scheme will affect areas declared as sites of Community interest by the Spanish Government, seriously threatening protected species, by trade unions and farmers' associations, who stress the negative aspects of the plan and propose a thorough revision, and by many local authorities, who have drawn attention to the inconsiderate planning of some of the diversions and their social and economic consequences for people living in the areas concerned.
All these social agents have expressed the wish that the Commission should take up a position on the plan and should contact the Spanish Government urging it to correct its negative aspects.
Can the Commission specify its position on the matter and say what conclusions it draws from any contacts it has had with the Spanish Government to date in relation to the plan?
Mr President, at the initiative of the Spanish Minister, Mr Matas, we held a meeting where he presented the main elements of the Spanish draft plan hidrológico nacional.
The plan is, at this stage, a draft which is likely to be subject to modifications following the wide consultation under way involving a wide range of stakeholders.
The Spanish Minister for the Environment has confirmed his commitment to this consultation.
At the meeting, I brought to the attention of the Spanish authorities the need to ensure full respect for all relevant EC environmental legislation and policy including the water framework directive.
This applies both to the formal adoption procedure of the final plan as well as the implementation phase.
The plan remains a draft document and at the request of the Spanish Environment Minister my services are currently examining the draft plan.
Yes, Commissioner, it is a draft document, and you know that it will soon be going through the Spanish Parliament.
Considering that this draft, as presented, infringes specific European directives, both the habitats directive and the wild birds directive, and also the objectives of the water framework directive, my question is this: if the final law still infringes these directives, if it is harmful to the environment, will it receive the announced EUR 1 300 billion in resources from Community funds?
Of course the whole process that we have now started of consultation and dialogue with the Spanish Government on this particular case means that we intend to get all the information necessary for us to be well informed about this process and to make sure that the Spanish Government complies with the legislation.
You have already identified some of the directives affected by this.
If there were a breach of the environmental legislation, we could actually withhold project money.
It is very important that today we have this possibility and, of course, we should not hand out money for a Member State to breach environmental legislation.
We plan to stay in touch with the Spanish Government to make sure that their plans are in line with the existing directives.
I believe that the Spanish hydrological plan - at this stage there cannot be the slightest doubt of this - is an essential project for our country.
This has, until now, been the opinion shared by almost all Spanish political groups over the years.
In fact, in 1993, the Socialist government was already aware of this need and drew up a proposal which at the time it either could not or did not know how to carry forward.
True, that proposal contained an appreciably larger number of infrastructures than the current project.
Of course, the years have passed and the current project has to be coherent, involving much more social cohesion than those that have gone before, being much more environmentally sensitive, and undoubtedly inviting more participation.
So, as it is such an important project for the joint development of the Spanish regions, I am sure that the comment, promise or statement that the Minister for the Environment has made on several occasions that this is an open document, that this is a draft, a proposal, and that the need for a consensus on it among all the regions affected is absolutely beyond doubt, my question, Commissioner, is as follows: in the framework of the closest cooperation between the Commission and the Spanish Government, and within the situations laid down in the framework directive, precisely what support can the Commission provide so that this project can progress as it should?
Mr President, at this stage, of course, what we are doing is having an exchange of information.
We make sure that we are well informed about what is happening in Spain.
I can only repeat that the Spanish Minister of Environment has confirmed his commitment to this consultation process and I know that this is what is going on at the moment and that there is a debate - as I understand, a heated debate - on this issue.
So far, since the plan is not finalised we have been asked for some advice and guidance, and this is what we can deliver at the moment: to stay in a genuine dialogue with the Spanish Government and to make sure that the consultation process is carried out as it should be.
Question No 32 by (H-1002/00):
Subject: Action being taken by the Commission to increase coordination of fire protection in EU Member States The EU's strategies for fire safety are inadequate.
In particular, recent disasters such as the tunnel fire in Austria as well as earlier fires in restaurants, hotels and ships, etc. highlight the importance of better coordination of fire safety policy in the EU.
Increased integration between the Member States means that common strategies need to be identified in these areas of fire safety as well.
At the Commission, there is to my knowledge no coordination between Directorates and no Commissioner seems to have overall responsibility for these issues. Fire safety touches on many policy areas such as tourism, environmental and consumer issues, transport networks, etc.
People must be able to feel safe wherever they are in the EU.
What action is the Commission taking to increase the coordination of fire protection strategies in EU Member States?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is well aware that people have died and been injured as a consequence of fires - a fact it deeply regrets - and we express our sympathy to the relatives of the victims.
The Commission also regrets the environmental and economic damage caused by fires.
This issue is particularly important in the present situation in view of the fires which occurred at Christmas in the Netherlands and in China and in which many young people died.
The Commission believes that it is very important to coordinate fire safety issues. Improved fire safety within the Community, especially fire prevention, is a high-priority issue in the programme of Community measures in favour of civil protection.
I can also tell you that the construction division of the Directorate-General for Enterprise has recently initiated an investigation into fire safety in the European Union in relation to buildings under construction. This investigation is aimed at improving the harmonisation of building standards so that buildings throughout the Union might fulfil the same safety requirements.
The building products directive lays down essential requirements for all types of construction, including tunnels.
In close cooperation with the Member States, the Commission is also assessing the consequences of the Council' s recommendation on fire safety in existing hotels.
In this area, the Commission plans to submit a report to the European Parliament and the Council during the first half of this year.
It should also be borne in mind that the Member States can establish their own safety requirements and that fire prevention measures mainly come within the Member States' area of competence.
Nevertheless, this is an all-embracing problem of which Community policy takes account in a variety of areas with a view to complementing measures adopted in the Member States.
There may still be certain weaknesses when it comes to coordinating fire safety issues.
In order to get to grips with this problem and improve coordination, my own Directorate-General' s civil protection division, together with the competent divisions in the areas of industry, health and consumer protection, set up a working party last October including representatives of different branches of the emergency services.
I really must thank you for your answer.
Obviously, a good deal of progress has nonetheless been made in this area.
I have no intention whatsoever of removing responsibility for these fire safety issues from national or local authorities. The principle of subsidiarity must, of course, apply in this area, just as in other areas.
I ask this question partly against the background of the numerous discussions I have had with firemen and their trade unions, who are quite worried.
Just like the public, they are, in fact, affected more and more by cross-border factors.
Firemen have to work with ever more vessels, vehicles and products from countries with which they are unfamiliar and whose levels of fire protection they are not used to.
People travel more and more and naturally want to be able to feel safe irrespective of what country they are in when they take a ferry, travel through a tunnel or go to a discotheque.
Against this background, I believe it is especially important not only for each Directorate to deal with these fire safety issues but also for there to be real coordination where this strategic common responsibility is concerned.
I interpret the Commissioner' s statement here to the effect that there is now just such a coordinating working party as a step in that direction and, that being the case, I should just like to thank her for her answer.
It is, of course, easy for me to agree with Mr Färm about these viewpoints. There ought to be a way in to these issues in the Commission too.
However, it is not entirely easy because we are also dealing with states of affairs which differ considerably from one country to another and in which systems are often devolved to the greatest possible degree to local level.
Consequently, it can be difficult to issue recommendations and still more difficult to issue a directive which would, as it were, be applicable everywhere and clarify all these various aspects.
As I said in my first speech, we are nonetheless attempting to coordinate matters as far as we can.
We are also trying to see if we can obtain similar standards in all Member States and ensure that we coordinate our own efforts.
A lot can be improved now that we have a civil protection division, specifically with overall responsibility of this kind.
We must continue with the somewhat laborious process of reviewing special provisions relating to buildings under construction, discotheques, boats and what have you, with a view to ensuring that we become better and more effective at coordinating our fire prevention efforts.
May I draw the Commissioner's attention, as on other occasions I have drawn Parliament's attention to the fact that, in cases of disasters such as fire, flood or earthquake, what is needed is fast State intervention to tackle the problem and, more importantly, save lives.
Local authorities can never manage on their own.
What we need is a collaboration plan between all the local rescue units so that, if one country suffers an earthquake, flood or fire, the forces from all the countries which are not affected can rush to the scene and at least save lives.
Have you considered this as an idea which could be promoted with good results?
As the honourable Member points out, these issues of civil protection and civil defence are very important.
We therefore have a plan involving increased opportunities for the Commission to, for example, arrange joint exercises for emergency services and contributions to civil protection from different Member States.
We also have better coordination within the Commission in order to be able to come up directly with the information needed and, sometimes too, with the special initiatives and special forces needed in order to help, depending upon what kind of accident, disaster or natural catastrophe may be involved.
When I visited Brittany, I appreciated for myself that there was a need for a unit, or specialists, with responsibility for cleaning and washing birds affected by oil slicks.
It is precisely that kind of service which ought to be looked into. Where is it to be found?
How shall we be able to mobilise it quickly when it is needed? And how can we train ourselves to be able to react still more quickly?
The plan and the proposal already exist.
We also have to coordinate our emergency teams.
I believe we have made some good progress.
It is now also a question of allocating enough resources to make the plan really work in practice.
Question No 33 by (H-0001/01):
Subject: Control of the primrose willow The primrose willow, a plant native to South America, is proliferating alarmingly in all parts of France.
Every wet place is affected, including, as far as Loire-Atlantique is concerned, the Brière, Brivet, Goulaine, and Redon marshes, the Grand Lieu lake, the Mazerolles plains, and so forth.
The primrose willow is now spreading extremely rapidly and, despite the efforts of numerous volunteers, can no longer be contained by uprooting.
The resulting situation is posing a serious ecological problem and greatly inconveniencing those entitled to use the land.
What technical and financial measures will the Commission take to halt this nuisance?
Mr President, this question concerns the primrose willow.
This particular plant, as the honourable Member has mentioned, is a particular problem in wetlands and the management of wetlands, is of course the responsibility of the Member States.
However the Commission can help in two ways.
Firstly, within the limits of its remit, it can encourage an exchange of information between local players who have the same problem.
You may for example be aware of the initiatives taken by the Mediterranean Environment Agency or by the Landes general council, Acquitaine region, which recently organised a meeting on how to manage the primrose willow.
Secondly, Community funds, in particular the Structural Funds, and the LIFE instrument could be used to aid the management of the primrose willow in respect of Natura 2000 sites.
It would, of course, be up to applicants to propose actions in accordance with the normal rules of eligibility.
I listened closely and I would like to thank you for your answer.
I would also have liked to know if it would be possible to grant this plant 'harmful' or 'of no market value' status because the problem with the primrose willow is that it is sold widely for use in aquaria and when people get rid of their tanks it escapes into the environment, causing these problems.
If we could, therefore, ban it from sale, I believe that this would help to stop it spreading.
It is still within the competence of the Member States and, of course, they have to decide what to do or what kind of action to take.
It would be very radical to try to ban a certain plant.
That cannot be done.
Any action and any plans have to start at local level.
What we can do is to provide some advice and links to others who have the same problem.
Mr President, we are always so surprised when the balance of nature is upset.
What I should like to ask is whether we could investigate why the balance has been upset under European research programmes?
I wish I could answer that question.
I can say that the right way to deal with this problem of the Ludwigia grandiflora, which is its Latin name, is to discuss this during the technical days which are being organised on 23 and 24 January.
It is a conference for those who are concerned about these things.
Perhaps you will be able to get some more information about this primrose willow and the way it has spread in an unnatural way.
That is the only advice I can give today.
We will continue to gather information and hopefully be able to link all those concerned with this issue.
Questions to Mrs de Palacio
Question No 34 by (H-0955/00):
Subject: Assessment of the interim report by the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on BNFL Has the Commission assessed the interim report prepared by the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate on progress made by BNFL in implementing the improvements NII required in safety and management structures at Sellafield, in so far as the operations at Sellafield adversely affect other Member States?
In February 2000 the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the British regulatory body, published a report on aspects relating to the activities of British Nuclear Fuels Limited at the Sellafield Plant.
This British regulatory body recently published a revised interim report on the progress made by BNFL.
Following the February recommendations, the Commission' s services are also studying this second interim report.
In addition, the Commission knows that, since the revised report was published in November the British regulatory body has been satisfied with the way in which BNFL has dealt, for example, with the 15 recommendations in the report specific to the demonstration plant, and that these recommendations have been closed, as they say in the nuclear industry, which means they are considered to have been complied with.
The Commission observes that the British regulatory body appreciates the effort and commitment displayed by BNFL with respect to its concerns and also that significant progress has been made (I am quoting directly) regarding its other recommendations in the February report.
Much still remains to be done, however, since in November 2000 only 3 of the inspection team' s 28 recommendations had been formally closed.
Nevertheless, the British regulatory body has recognised that many of the measures already introduced by the company will still need time to take effect fully.
In the words of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, British Nuclear Fuels Limited has made a good start, but it must keep up the spirit of change while it continues to operate its plants safely.
Mrs Ahern, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission appreciates the progress made and shares the inspectors' desire to see a steady drive towards an improved safety culture at all levels of management, and, of course, within my competences, or rather in this field, my non-competences, I shall keep a watching brief on what is happening at Sellafield.
I wish to thank Mrs de Palacio for studying the situation and for saying that she was keeping a watching brief.
However, I cannot agree that compliance with 3 out of 20 recommendations is progress.
It certainly is not.
In the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, the chief inspector of the UK Nuclear Installations Inspectorate said quite clearly that he would shut the reprocessing facility if the recommendations were not complied with in full.
Clearly they have not been complied with in full.
We can argue about progress being swift or slow, but we have to see compliance in full.
I hope Mrs de Palacio that you will state here today that you wish to see compliance in full with the recommendations and swiftly, because that is what I want to hear.
I also referred to the adverse affects on other Member States, namely the Republic of Ireland, and would like to draw the Commissioner's attention to a report published by the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland in December 2000, which is critical of emissions from Sellafield and their adverse effect on the Republic of Ireland.
I would ask you to study that in full also, Mrs de Palacio.
Of course I shall ask straight away for this document that you have mentioned to be analysed too, if it is not being examined already, and if we do not have it, which would be strange, may I ask you to provide us with a copy.
In any case, we would, of course, like to see compliance as soon as possible with all the recommendations - not just 3, but all 28 - on the part of British Nuclear Fuels in its operations and activities at Sellafield, and it is obvious that if it does not carry out all these recommendations, as the British Government has already said, they will have to take decisions in that respect.
I must remind you that what I can undertake to do, as I have already said, is to keep a very close watch, but competences in this field are still national, and I know that the British authorities are taking a very firm stand on this whole question.
I tabled a question to the Commission in October on the environmental hazards posed by DU, depleted uranium 238, shells in the Balkans and suggested that some of the emergency aid package to Serbia should be dedicated to investigating and, if proven, making good the toxic and radioactive damage possibly posed to the people of Kosovo.
Commissioner Patten rather surprisingly replied that this was not a priority.
In view of the recent EU-wide publicity and concerns expressed about DU shells and the hazards posed by the dust in particular if inhaled by soldiers and civilians, particularly children playing in the vicinity of where there has been bomb damage, have the Commissioner's views changed since then?
The question on British Nuclear Fuels Limited is not relevant and not supplementary and therefore lapses.
Question No 35 by (H-0960/00):
Subject: Modal shift from road transport to rail transport and climate change Transport is of enormous relevance to the debate on climate change, as it is the source of 26% of the current CO2 emissions where road transport accounts for 84% of all transport.
Recent forecasts suggest that transport is likely to represent the source with the highest increase rate in CO2 emissions in the next few years. Liberalisation of rail freight transport and increased interoperability of the rail system are important but insufficient steps towards the promotion of rail transport, the most important alternative transport mode to road.
How is the Commission planning to support investment in rail transport, mainly within the framework of the forthcoming White Paper on Transport Policy, Guidelines for the TENS, and the Green Paper on Urban Transport?
Is the Commission planning to review current priority or non-priority road projects within the TENs framework so as to give preference to more sustainable transport modes?
Can the Commission indicate the share of investment per mode of transport in the framework of the Structural Funds' Programming Period 2000-2006?
At the beginning of next month the Commission expects to approve a White Paper on the common transport policy, which will be accompanied by a review of guidelines on the trans-European transport network and possibly other initiatives to promote less polluting and more efficient transport systems.
These initiatives are intended to combat growing congestion, negative environmental effects, our over-dependence on oil and the high number of road accidents.
The Commission is drawing up a set of economic measures regulating infrastructures to favour greater use of those transport modes that still have available capacity and are less harmful to the environment.
The intended aim is to give a boost to new technologies and to encourage greater cooperation between transport modes.
To this end, the review of trans-European networks will be carried out in two stages.
The first stage will focus on a few priority topics, emphasising the encouragement of rail freight transport.
In the second stage, which is expected to begin before 2004, a more profound review of the guidelines will be conducted, looking especially at the enlargement of the Union and the environment, and the principal multi-mode transport routes will be determined.
The Commission' s guidelines concerning the Structural Fund programmes for 2000-2006 recommend that priority should be given to intermodal transport.
The Commission will present a communication to show how these guidelines have been taken into account.
I wanted to ask a supplementary question but I am afraid that I am going to have to return to the two parts of my question which have not been addressed.
I asked if the Commission was planning to review current priority or non-priority road projects within the trans-European networks framework so as to give preference to more sustainable transport modes.
That part of my question has not been answered.
Secondly, I wanted the Commission to indicate the share of investment per mode of transport in the framework of the Structural Funds programme period 2000 to 2006.
You may say that it is not possible, but I think you could at least give a rough estimate.
Mrs McKenna, I must tell you that with regard to trans-European networks right now priority is being given de facto to rail projects, if that is what you are concerned about.
The major part - the investments - corresponds to large rail projects.
Secondly, what is intended in this White Paper - in which we shall have the opportunity to discuss all these issues in great depth, and in which problems of charging and the competitiveness of the various modes of transport, etc., will also appear - is precisely to make progress in sorting out bottlenecks, which does not mean that in some cases we shall not have to think about enhancing certain road infrastructures.
What is also intended is a greater use of transport modes such as river or coastal transport, and what is intended, above all, is to facilitate the integration of the transport system, because in the end, sooner or later, roads always seem to come into it to guarantee the 'door to door' factor, which is a decisive element.
This means intermodality, interconnection platforms, and also interoperability in freight systems too.
As for the sums for the 2000-2006 period, I frankly cannot give you the exact figures.
What I can tell you is that at the moment more than 50% is already being earmarked for projects that have to do with the rail sector.
Question No 36 by (H-0963/00):
Subject: Supply of energy and nuclear energy The Commission has just adopted a Green Paper on the security of energy supply.
This document gives fresh encouragement to the nuclear industry, while at the same time the Commission' s estimates suggest a progressive reduction of the proportion of energy consumption supplied by nuclear power, down from the current 15% to 6% by 2030.
Civil society is rejecting the promotion of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels.
Is the Commission considering increasing the proportion of energy consumption supplied by nuclear power?
If so, up to what level?
How does it think it will be able to finance the development of renewable energy? How does it plan to use nuclear industry profits as an additional source of funding for renewable energy?
Does it not consider it advisable, and indeed necessary, to redirect the financial resources now allocated to the promotion of nuclear research, including research into nuclear fusion, into the promotion of renewable energy?
Questions to Mr Nielson
To Mrs Isler Béguin' s question on renewable and nuclear energies, I should like to answer first of all that, at the moment, the priority is to encourage an increase in the use of renewable energies.
Let this be quite clear.
In no document, or anywhere else, have I shown that I favour the use of nuclear energy.
In the Green Paper - which you can get hold of - what emerges quite clearly is the increase in support, incentives and all kinds of backing for the use of renewable energies.
A result of this is the discussion on the directive on the use of green electricity - electricity from renewable sources - or our collaboration with the Directorate-General for Competition on the question of the processing of aid to these kinds of sectors.
Secondly, the Green Paper also puts forward the possibility of using some kinds of compensation or crossed subsidies from the usual or traditional energy sources - coal, oil, gas, nuclear energy, or all of them together - to provide support for renewable energies.
Lastly, in any case, in addition to this aid for renewable energies, which I believe is essential and is put forward not just as a statement but as an objective - and remember that for the first time concrete objectives tailored to each individual Member State are being proposed, and this is being done in the green electricity directive - I consider it vital to maintain support for research in the nuclear sector, especially into matters of safety, storage and waste treatment (because burying it is not a solution), or into alternative issues such as the fusion system.
Commissioner, the reason I ask this question is simply because my fellow Members in the European Parliament have been working for 15 years for renewable energy to be taken into account.
The Commission is beginning to incorporate it, but renewable energy is apparently continuing to be viewed as a back-up supply rather than as the energy of the future.
The facts are clear, and the view is expressed that funding is not sufficient, especially compared with levels of investment made in the past for other forms of energy.
On the other hand, nuclear energy and nuclear-based electricity, which does not produce any greenhouse gas, were widely promoted as part of the fight against the greenhouse effect, and it was basically asserted that nuclear energy could be seen as an alternative to combat the greenhouse effect.
Therefore, this is why we asked the question, to see if the Commission is still on the same wavelength, in wishing to continue to develop renewable energy in both the European Union, and elsewhere in the world, and not just as a backup energy source.
Mrs Isler Béguin, I should love to be able to say that we could supply all our energy requirements from renewable energies, but, unfortunately, at the current stage of technological development this is not true.
Our potential for renewable energies in the European Union is limited, both for physical reasons - because, apart from solar power, where we could have a greater margin, the others have clear limitations - and for economic reasons, because it is true that we have to grant aid to the renewable energies - and I have already said that I have taken concrete, positive initiatives in this respect - but even so, we have to maintain some level of competitiveness and balance.
Obtaining 12% of our basic energy from renewable sources seems to me to be a very ambitious target, and I am prepared to make every effort to reach this target by 2010.
Having said that, I cannot deny the evidence, and the evidence is that, apart from other very serious problems such as waste, nuclear energy does not involve pollution from any emissions.
Finally, I must say that the nuclear problem is a very serious problem, but it is under control.
At the moment, unfortunately, the problem of climate change is absolutely out of control.
It is a problem that is out of control now, and what is more, I am afraid it will not be controllable unless we take major steps.
I share your concern.
Not only the Green Paper on energy but also the White Paper on transport - because transport has a lot to do with this subject - take a clear line of trying to minimise the effects from a climate change point of view and from an environmental point of view, while maintaining development, growth and the quality of life.
Thank you, Commissioner.
In your response you relied heavily on the economic argument, but we have to say that both nuclear energy and coal are, in fact, heavily subsidised.
As Mrs Isler Béguin said, can we see the same level of subsidies - look at the money spent on research in fusion - in renewable energies? To date we do not have level of funding either from the EU or from the Member States.
I have two other points.
Firstly, do you consider waste incineration a renewable energy, because we need clarification on that?
Secondly, where we get industrial profits as an additional source of funding for renewable energy, will we see a level playing field across the board?
I would refer you also to the fact - I have said this in other fora - that Director-General Lamoureux has made statements on nuclear energy which vastly exceed the brief of the Commission.
It is for the Member States to decide whether they will build or not build nuclear power plants.
Will the Commissioner disassociate herself from those comments?
The Green Paper clearly states that renewable energies need aid and support at the moment, as was the case some time ago with coal or nuclear energies, for instance.
At the moment, renewable energies need backing and to be given a similar level of support, at least - and I think they need even more.
In other words, I fully agree with you, and I say so plainly in the Green Paper.
Secondly, waste as such is not renewable energy.
Waste incineration by itself cannot be a renewable energy.
But in the case of the appropriate incineration of waste from renewable organic components, then yes, we are in the field of renewable energy.
You know that this was the subject of a debate in this Parliament and also that, in the end, a compromise was reached by which we agreed to accept a particular type of waste in certain respects and under certain conditions.
But if you just say waste and that is all, then I will say no.
Only waste considered in a particular way and, of course, specified and selected.
With regard to Mr Lamoureux' s statements, he says what the Treaty states, and, of course, the decision to set up a nuclear power plant or not or to opt out is up to the Member States; it is not up to the Commission and neither is it a Community decision.
It is the Member States that take their own decisions according to their own options, within the general framework, of course, which does not mean that I do not believe we should think carefully about it, because I believe Europe needs a common energy policy.
As the time allotted to questions to Commissioner de Palacio has elapsed, Questions Nos 37, 38 and 39 will be replied to in writing.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I want an answer to my question.
You passed over my Question 39.
I am here to take the question.
I must request the answer to that question.
Furthermore, may I point out that in Question 36 there were three questions in one, which took up over 20 minutes.
There are three questions in one in Question 40, which will take another 20 minutes or so.
My Question 39 is one simple sentence and all I require is one simple answer.
I am entitled to that.
I therefore expect you, Mr President, to accord me the respect of the House and the answer to my question.
I have been here for the last 16 years and I am at least entitled to the respect of the House.
Mr Fitzsimons, the House has every respect for you, but the primary duty of a Member - especially those of us who have been here for many years - is to read the Rules of Procedure.
There is an order of questions.
You will understand that I have been conducting Question Time now for a year and a half, and out of duty I have had to read this part of the Rules.
Each Commissioner answers for 20 minutes.
Your question is No 39.
Nos 37 and 38 did not receive an answer either in accordance with the Rules, and their authors were also present.
There is not going to be debate on this now, I assure you, because it would prevent Members from being able to ask their questions.
So in accordance with the Rules, Annex II, "Answers to questions" , paragraph 11: "Questions that remain unanswered for lack of time shall be answered in writing."
That is what I have done, and I am applying the same rule to you as to everybody else.
In other words, you are being accorded total and absolute respect.
If you have anything else to add, please do so in writing.
Mr Tannock, who is requesting a point of order, asked a question that was not relevant, because it was not supplementary.
This is the view of the presidency of this sitting and I do not intend to discuss it further.
Question No 40 by (H-0959/00):
Subject: NGOs and reform of development services and policy The Commission has embarked on the process of reform in the field of development policy, in the context of which the role of NGOs will need to be defined.
The European Parliament argues that NGOs are one of the pillars on which Community cooperation rests and is concerned at the treatment of NGOs in the new guidelines and establishment plan for development policy and services.
Will the Commission establish a permanent structured dialogue with the European NGO Liaison Committee (CLONG) which will guarantee the terms governing the participation of European NGOs in Community cooperation?
Does the Commission believe that it is important to strengthen the role of NGOs with a view to balancing their presence in Community development policy by comparison with multilateral aid organisations, chiefly those belonging to the United Nations family?
Will the Commission take account of the experience with NGOs acquired by staff in the Development DG when it draws up the establishment plan for the new implementing body?
The Commission fully agrees with the honourable Member that NGOs as important actors in civil society are one of the pillars on which EC cooperation rests.
The Cotonou Agreement specifically mentions the increasing role of non-State actors in the development process.
The Commission has elaborated specific programming guidelines on the role of actors such as NGOs in the EU partnership with the ACP countries.
The Commission action plan also contains commitments to partnerships with the ACP.
The Commission action plan also contains commitments to partnerships and consultation of civil society and non-State actors.
As far as the European NGO Liaison Committee (CLONG) is concerned, our relationship with it has always been active and fruitful.
In addition to contributions to NGO projects, projects that actually reach people in the developing countries, the CLONG is also financially assisted by the Commission.
In accordance with its financial rules the Commission received the preliminary results of an audit of the CLONG in December 2000, which shows poor financial management within the CLONG.
The Commission will draw the consequences of this audit in order to put its relationship with the CLONG on a sound basis.
However, it should be mentioned that the dialogue between the Commission and the CLONG is not and will not be interrupted.
The dialogue with a number of other NGOs and other NGO umbrella organisations - there is a number of them - also will be deepened over the next year as the new organisational structure decided in May 2000 comes into place.
On this matter it is important to ask you not to make the mistake of thinking that accepting a special lower standard of financial management for the CLONG is an adequate way by which the Commission should demonstrate its positive attitude towards the inclusion of civil society as such.
This is not the problem, the problem we are facing here is simply one of financial management.
The Commission considers that NGOs have a distinct and crucial role, which is different from and not in competition with UN agencies.
ECHO's use of NGOs, the UN and other organisations reflects what is best in the situation.
Situations change and so does the pattern of how we distribute through different partners.
Finally, many of the staff with experience of NGOs in the Development DG have now been transferred to the EuropAid Cooperation Office - our new implementing body.
Therefore they will bring their knowledge to the new office and concentrate on how to handle the relationship better to reduce some of the problems we have had in the past with the not always very smooth dialogue between the different parties.
I am sorry for what has happened, because I heard, or I think I heard the Commissioner say that he will keep up the dialogue and continue to regard NGOs as important, but in this context I should like to ask the following question: clearly, Commissioner, we as Members of Parliament, and specifically the Socialist Group, are not going to uphold or overlook the possible bad management by the NGO Liaison Committee (CLONG), but we do think that the political principle of dialogue with the NGOs is very important, and a large proportion of these NGOs is represented by the CLONG.
Therefore, we understand that the solution that may be presented is not in proportion to the seriousness of the irregularities that the CLONG administration may have committed, and that if a way out of the current situation is not found the NGO Liaison Committee may close.
The question is, therefore: does the Commissioner foresee a way out of the financial situation without precluding the fact that the Commission should then negotiate a restructuring or new way in which the NGOs must work and how they must coordinate themselves?
We will make the kind of response to this problem that we have presented for the CLONG so far.
Let me here make the point that we are not at the final conclusion, we have received the report from the Auditors and we are looking at what kind of conclusions we will draw in the Commission.
But we have indicated - and this reflects what the Auditors are saying - that there is a need to recover something around EUR 1 million.
That recovery normally also leads to a stop in the funding of the recipient in question.
This is normal procedure.
I am faced with a situation where if I do not do this I would be acting in a manner which would in all probability be strongly criticised by the Court of Auditors and by this House.
I still remember the very loud applause I received at my hearing in the Committee on Development and Cooperation a year and a half ago when I said that I and this Commission would take the line of a zero tolerance policy relating to mismanagement and all these problems.
Everybody agrees on that and what I am doing now is following normal procedures, to the extent that we have such a thing in the Commission.
But here I am on clear ground.
I am aware of the problem that Mrs Sauquillo has raised and we are doing everything we can to find a solution which will allow the substance of the cooperation with the NGO world to continue.
But if some sort of reconstruction is necessary, this is a phase they may have to go through.
For the time being I am very careful not to stipulate what the outcome ought to be because it is very much in the hands of the owners of CLONG and the many different NGOs all over Europe.
But we are not turning our backs on them and we expect and hope that future cooperation will be normal and fruitful.
Question No 41 by (H-0971/00):
Subject: Aid to Christians driven out of the Molucca Islands Particular attention should be drawn to the persecution, violence and terror perpetrated against the Christian population of the Molucca Islands in Indonesia by Jihad militants, especially on the island of Ambon, which has resulted in the desecration and burning of churches, Christians being forced to flee en masse, and a large number of deaths.
I have personally met the Catholic bishop Mondagi from Ambon together with Protestant church leaders. The situation is alarming.
The Indonesian Government and army are duty-bound to guarantee their citizens' safety and lives, regardless of which faith they profess.
What initiatives and measures has the Commission taken to provide aid to assist the thousands of Christians driven from their homes in the Molucca Islands, particularly on Ambon, in the very vulnerable situation in which they find themselves?
ECHO mounted the first operations in the Moluccas in March 1999 when an aid package of EUR 1 million made it possible to set up medical health and food distribution programmes for displaced people from the Ambon and Kai islands.
The financial decision for Indonesia was signed in December 1999 and EUR 900 000 were used for the continuation of these two programmes.
Two further emergency operations with a budget of EUR 1.5 million began in March 2000 because the number of displaced persons continued to rise.
These operations covered the distributions of foodstuffs and first aid and the operations also ensured medical aid and a supply of drinking water to the displaced persons from the archipelago.
As the conflict has reached the north of the Molucca islands and particularly the island of Halmahera the two NGOs financed by ECHO in Ambon, Medecins sans frontières, Belgium, and Action contre la faim, France, have extended their action to include displaced persons from this island.
The resumption of violence in May and June last year provoked new displacements all over the archipelago.
Therefore an emergency aid decision for Indonesia was signed in August 2000 for EUR 2 million.
It is funding a new programme of assistance for displaced persons with a budget of EUR 600 000 which involves distribution of food and first aid.
World Mission Germany is carrying out this programme.
Considering that the situation in the Moluccas remains a cause for humanitarian concern, a new humanitarian aid decision of 2 m was signed on 5 December 2000.
The decision includes a project for the improvement of the victims' nutritional and health conditions which will be implemented by Action contre la faim, France.
It also includes a project aiming at ensuring the transport of drinking water which will be carried out by the international committee of the Red Cross.
So, we are giving high priority to assisting the people who are the victims of this very unfortunate conflict.
I should like to thank Commissioner Nielson for his answer and for the efforts being made on behalf of all refugees specifically in the Molucca Islands where the largest group is de facto Christian.
We are concerned here with a total of 300 000 refugees out of a population of 10 million people.
It is as if all the residents of Sweden' s third largest city, Malmö, were to be expelled as refugees.
I also want to highlight the gravity of the situation for the Christian minority in Indonesia.
On Christmas Eve, a large number of coordinated bomb attacks against churches - including the cathedral in the capital, Jakarta - took place at a variety of locations in the Indonesian archipelago.
Indonesia is the world' s fourth largest country in terms of population, as well as being the most heavily populated Muslim country.
I assume you are following developments there very closely.
My specific question is this: are there links with Caritas, the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches with a view to providing aid to the expelled Christian minority, above all in the Molucca Islands?
I can answer the last question by saying that the organisations concerned are those I referred to as our partners in implementing humanitarian aid.
I would also add that a conflict of this kind could escalate if, as providers of humanitarian aid, we were to choose as partners to help us implement the aid, organisations which could be seen as not being neutral in the conflict.
We are careful to avoid this further problem.
I understand the nature of the conflict very well indeed, as well as the feelings associated with the conflict because of its nature, but I believe that, in carrying out the task before us, what we are doing is right.
This aid is very laudable on the one hand, but, could it not also be letting the Indonesian Government off the hook; and should we really not use the political and economic strength of the European Union to force the Indonesian Government to look after its own citizens, especially this Christian minority?
There are a number of conflicts within Indonesia.
They are not all of the same character.
This one is different from those conflicts that have arisen from the issue of secession, splitting up Indonesia.
In fact, we are cooperating with the Indonesian Government, trying not only to insist but also to urge them in a cooperative spirit to do what a government ought to do in handling a problem of this character.
There is, in my view, a difference between this conflict and the other conflicts in Indonesia and also some difference in the character of the response of the Indonesian Government.
Here there is the basis of relatively good cooperation with the Government of Indonesia.
But the conflict itself is extremely nasty and very problematic for everybody, especially the victims of course.
I am pleased to inform the honourable Member and this House that the Commission has taken and continues to take appropriate measures in relation to the nutrition and repatriation situation of Burundian refugees in Tanzania.
I visited Tanzania in March 2000 and on that occasion I also went to see camps with refugees from Burundi.
The overall number of refugees in Tanzania, including those from Burundi, continues to grow.
By the end of 2000 there were approximately 500 000 refugees in camps in Western Tanzania of whom around 360 000 were Burundians, 110 000 Congolese and the remainder Rwandans, Somalis and other nationalities.
Through ECHO the Commission funds more than one third of the total humanitarian aid available to refugees in Tanzania.
In the year 2000, ECHO's budget for aid to Tanzanian refugees was EUR 26.85 m.
ECHO's level of support is expected to remain substantially the same this year.
The key partners in Tanzania are the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the UNHCR, UNICEF and the World Food Programme.
The main objectives of the humanitarian aid are multi-sector care of refugees, feeding, education, health care for children and finally, public health, water and sanitation in the camps.
As to the standard of nutrition inside the camps, ECHO contributes one third of the total cost of the World Food Programme in Tanzania, which provides a balanced daily ration of 2166 calories per refugee, well over the minimum recommended by the WHO.
The WFP recently alerted the international community to potential problems of supply, which would be due to delays in funding from sources other than the Commission, and daily rations were temporarily reduced to 80%.
However, the rations remained adequate in view of the fact that many refugees have access to additional sources of food.
In 1999, FAO joined the international relief operation by introducing a programme to improve nutrition standards among the most vulnerable households.
In collaboration with UNHCR, FAO provided 15 000 families in six of the camps with seeds and hand tools in order to plant household and community vegetable gardens.
Training was given and FAO estimates that more than 50 000 people have benefited directly from the project.
I have seen this programme and it is in fact so well-organised and so neat that the alternative that we can offer the refugees when they return looks much less organised.
But, of course, this is what we are going to support.
Concerning the possible repatriation of Burundian refugees in Tanzania following the signing of the peace agreement at the Arusha Summit, the Commission is maintaining a state of readiness for this eventuality.
I was myself present at the Burundi donors' conference chaired by Nelson Mandela in Paris in December, which endorsed the peace agreement.
The Commission is pursuing a twin-track approach.
Firstly, the current level of humanitarian assistance to refugees will be maintained while they remain in Tanzania.
Secondly, should the conditions be met for their repatriation - and we are pushing everybody concerned and some who do not think they should be concerned to make this happen - then the funds allocated by ECHO to the Tanzania programme will follow the refugees back home.
An additional sum of EUR 25 million has been allocated by the Development DG under the Lomé Convention's Article 255 to assist UNHCR in a planned and orderly repatriation.
At this stage, the preconditions for an orderly and voluntary repatriation unfortunately are not met. This was discussed in ECHO's annual strategic programming meeting with UNHCR in December when it was agreed that repatriation may only take place if all parties are convinced that the security situation inside Burundi is stabilised and sustainable.
This is a major operation of ours and we want to follow it through to a successful conclusion.
Commissioner, I think it only fair to thank you for such an exhaustive answer, which to a certain extent reassures me.
To the same extent as you are reassured, I think, because there is no doubt that the problems of these numerous refugees in Tanzania are severe.
We had the World Food Programme report, which said that food reserves would run out by the end of the year.
There is also the need to provide for the training and education of all these refugees, even though they are in an anomalous situation in their lives, precisely so that these years should not be wasted years.
Therefore, not only is it essential to give humanitarian food aid, but education programmes and health programmes are also needed so that these tragic years for this people will not be wasted years but can be the starting point for better times and especially for the permanent reconciliation of the Burundian people.
Question No 43 by (H-0984/00):
Subject: Conflict Prevention and Peacekeeping in the Developing World How does the Development DG intend to cooperate with the Swedish Presidency on issues related to conflict prevention and peacekeeping in developing countries?
Peace building and conflict prevention, management and resolution continue to have a high priority in our policies, and the Commission welcomes the importance attached to those issues by the Swedish Presidency.
Peace and democratic stability are indispensable preconditions for economic and social progress.
Conflict prevention is an integral part of the EU's external policy objectives.
The challenge is now to address in concrete terms the root causes of conflicts and to focus on actions and the implementation of policies.
The EU's contribution to conflict prevention is greatest where we can use or adapt our different instruments, especially trade and cooperation agreements, development assistance and social and environmental instruments, to tackle causes of conflict.
The last Development Council, by focusing the objective of development policy on poverty reduction, has laid the basis for addressing one of the major causes of conflict - the widening of disparities in prosperity and poverty.
Let me again repeat that the HIPC initiative alleviating the debt of the poorest countries is also a very real contribution to conflict prevention.
Globally, the low level of development assistance is, in my view, the biggest single issue that needs to be addressed if we are to be serious about conflict prevention.
The Commission has already had numerous discussions with the Swedish Presidency and we share their concerns.
It was, for example, decided to have a policy debate on conflict prevention in the General Affairs Council on 22 January.
We agreed that we needed to incorporate the concept of conflict prevention in existing policy instruments to strengthen cooperation with the United Nations, the OSCE and other regional organisations and to find common approaches to cross-border phenomena of destabilisation such as the trade in narcotics, weapons or diamonds.
We really need better instruments in these fields, of course.
The Commission will present a communication on conflict prevention this spring.
It is fully aware of the crucial role of development cooperation in this context.
We will work closely with the Swedish Presidency to maintain conflict prevention and peacekeeping at the top of our agenda.
Mr President, Commissioner, the answer is, of course, very satisfactory but I wondered if you were aware Commissioner that the strategic policy planning and early warning units in the Commission has 20 staff, 11 of whom are responsible for the Balkans and only one responsible for Africa which is your responsibility.
I wonder if you would look at that issue and try to ensure that we have more staff on the ground in these units.
Also, are you aware that they depend on annual funding which means that they cannot make long-term planning of the kind that you suggested now, so it is important that the Commission looks at these issues.
Secondly, Commissioner, the whole matter of decentralisation to the delegations: will you be ensuring that in the delegations you have members of staff with expertise to deal with conflict prevention and peace building?
The answer is in all honesty "no", and everyone knows that the Commission is not in a position, unfortunately, to give a good answer to this kind of question.
We are in the hands of Members States and this House in our struggle to get enough staff, qualified staff, to do what we are expected and supposed to do.
But, I am not able to say, "yes" we will do this as Mrs Kinnock and I would like.
That is not so easy.
On the distribution of people geographically as to their responsibilities in the early warning group and the political bodies we have created to do these things better, I do not think it can be measured only in that way.
Definitely with the new structure the more cross-cutting, general handling of relations with the ACP countries for instance, the Development DG will be given more emphasis as the division of labour changes between the Development DG and the new cooperation office.
This is part of our own adjustment to these priorities, and that is definitely the way I will try to improve our efficiency, even on the basis of the given resources.
As the time allotted to questions to Mr Nielson has elapsed, Questions Nos 44 to 65 will be answered in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.20 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Common fisheries policy
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, because yesterday we debated this subject in committee, and especially also on behalf of all the rapporteurs of the reports we are to discuss today, and if the Commissioner, with whom I have spoken, has no objection, and it seems he has not, I should like to ask you if we might first hear the statement from the Commissioner himself and then we the rapporteurs could speak in the order laid down.
That is what I should like to ask you, Mr President.
Mr President, I am not going to speak about anything that we are going to debate now, and I apologise for departing from the agenda.
This very evening I have learnt that ten members of the environmentalist organisation, Greenpeace, ten pacifist environmentalists, have been arrested by the military authorities of the Rock of Gibraltar, because they were trying to get near the submarine Tireless with a placard expressing what I believe everyone thinks: that the sea should not be occupied by nuclear energy.
These environmentalists are still under arrest, and since Parliament has been, let us say, rather insensitive about safeguarding the interests of the citizens of the Campo de Gibraltar and Algeciras Bay, I ask at least that appropriate steps should be taken so that these pacifist environmentalists can sleep in their own homes.
Thank you very much.
Mr Bautista Ojeda, as for sleeping in their own homes, I am not sure if it is feasible that we could achieve that from here at this time, but we take good note of your intervention, which will appear in the Minutes, since I suppose you would also like that to happen.
Mr Nogueira Román may take the floor.
Mr President, it seems appropriate to me that Commissioner Fischler should come before this Parliament today to deal with the Morocco question.
I think it is entirely appropriate.
What I think is totally inappropriate is to have merged a debate on four resolutions that the Committee on Fisheries considers highly important for the future of the common fisheries policy with a debate on the Morocco question, which will inevitably take over from the other debates planned.
I think these are two entirely distinct debates, which should have taken place at separate times during this Strasbourg part-session, and each one should have been given the importance it deserves.
As that has not happened, we Members above all who have little time will be obliged either not to talk about Morocco or not to talk about the other reports and thus the future of the common fisheries policy, and both options are lamentable.
Mr Nogueira, our working conditions are lamentable in general.
We are trying to improve them so that the debates can be conducted more correctly.
You are aware that there is a working document by the Bureau to discuss this subject.
But on the specific point that you mention, apart from taking note as is my duty, I can tell you that your group voted in favour of this proposal at the Conference of Presidents.
Therefore, I understand your arguments, but I would be grateful if you would also pass them on to the Chairman of your own group.
Mr Cunha has the floor.
Mr President, I wish to use this point of order to state that I understand the issue raised by Mr Nogueira Román, but this is a question of timing, as the President said.
We must understand this.
This is precisely why I understand and support the issue raised by the Chairman of our Committee on Fisheries, Mr Varela Suanzes­Carpegna.
The truth of the matter is that the Morocco situation is an extremely important issue for many of us and it would be appropriate for the Commissioner to speak right at the beginning of the debate on this issue.
I would say that, given the political importance of the Moroccan question, strict adherence to protocol on the agenda is of secondary importance.
I therefore think that it would make sense to arrange the debate as I have suggested.
Thank you, Mr Cunha.
I think the best thing to do is to proceed to the debate, and if there is no objection I shall take up the proposal by the Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries.
So, Mr Fischler, the floor is yours.
Mr President, honourable Members, I am, of course, perfectly willing to start by making the requested statement on fisheries relations between the Union and Morocco.
As you probably already know from the media, negotiations on a new form of collaboration in the fisheries sector were started with the Kingdom of Morocco following my visit to Casablanca in October, when the King of Morocco agreed to begin serious negotiations.
As a result, a total of six rounds of technical negotiations took place between 30 October and 22 December.
I then met Prime Minister Youssoufi and Fisheries Minister Chbaatou for talks twice at the beginning of January - once for three days and once for two days.
I took great pains to ensure that both sides understood the main aspects of future fisheries relations, especially with regard to fishing possibilities, the term of the agreement, technical fishing conditions and, most importantly, financial compensation.
Negotiations were held nearly every day between the first and second political meetings this year, more recently at technical level.
We have done a great deal of constructive work and numerous details have been clarified.
The Commission has endeavoured throughout the negotiations to date to be as flexible as it feels it can be on Morocco's main demands, especially as regards the extent of fishing possibilities and compulsory landings in Moroccan ports.
We have stated from the start that we are prepared both to take account of Moroccan interests and to support the development of the Moroccan fisheries sector.
We have also made clear time and again that we want to protect the Community's social and economic interests and are looking for help in preserving resources.
Unfortunately, the Moroccan side suddenly took a very intransigent stance during my second visit on 8 and 9 January, especially on the important questions of fishing possibilities and technical terms, and made excessive demands for financial compensation.
I tried to persuade the Moroccan side to reconsider its position, because an agreement was not on the cards on this basis, and I asked them to resume talks as quickly as possible in a bid to reach a final agreement.
We are prepared to pay a fair price for a balanced agreement, but the price must be in proportion to the fishing possibilities granted by Morocco and I have always clearly given the Moroccan side to understand as much.
If our Moroccan partners are now prepared to return to the negotiating table and show willing to negotiate, then I am sure that, in the end, we shall broker a solution which is acceptable to both sides.
Finally, I should like to point out that the question of cooperation with Morocco in the fisheries sector was one of the main points on the agenda for President Prodi's visit to Morocco, when both sides took the opportunity of reaffirming their wish to conclude an agreement.
It was therefore agreed that we should resume negotiations at a technical level as quickly as possible.
Thank you, Commissioner.
It is now the turn of the rapporteurs, and I should like to remind them that, despite the temptations, they are rapporteurs and they have to present their reports.
First, Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna.
Mr President, thank you very much for your understanding.
I wish to thank Mr Fischler for his statement on the fisheries agreement with Morocco, and I also wish to thank him for all the effort he is putting into these difficult negotiations.
We all knew they would be difficult and lengthy.
I should like to remind you here, as he too has said, but I want to stress this, that it is the first time that a President of the European Commission has been personally involved in negotiating a fisheries agreement.
It must be clear both to the citizens of the European Union and to Morocco that all the institutions in the European Union - and at the highest level - want this agreement: the European Council wants it, and it said so at Nice; the President of the Commission, who has been to Rabat, wants it; and the European Parliament in Strasbourg wants it.
So, for the time being, the one that does not want it, and I say for the time being, is Morocco, at least on the terms that the European Union is demanding.
Let us hope that together we can soon manage to persuade them of the mutual benefits of this agreement and thus be able to associate President Prodi with this success.
I just ask, Mr Fischler, that the negotiations be resumed as soon as possible - immediately if they can be - to make the most of the boost that the President of the European Commission himself has given them.
As has also been said here, I do not want Morocco to draw our attention away from the extremely important debate that we have here today.
We have been summoned to debate four major reports to do with the common fisheries policy and its future.
I am going to focus, naturally, on mine, the one for which I am the rapporteur, but first I should like to congratulate Mr Poignant and Mr Gallagher and also Mr Cunha on the magnificent job they have done.
I want to point out in relation to the report for which I am the rapporteur that I think it is the first one that a Community institution has drawn up on globalisation in fisheries, and therefore I think our Committee has hit the nail on the head with the two own-initiative reports it has decided to produce; the other one is still in progress.
In mine, in this report, what I want to stress is this: first of all, Commissioner, the fishing industry in the European Union must start to shake off this almost domestic or almost marginal image that it currently has, perhaps because of the fact that it is confined to peripheral regions or because of the coldness of the Community GDP contribution figures that are always being mentioned.
We have to recognise the global importance that fishing now has.
We are becoming more and more dependent on imported fish; we have our own fleet on all the seas and we have enough technical knowledge of our own not to leave this strategic sector in the hands of third countries.
The 2002 reform, therefore, must not serve just for us to carry on staring at our own navel in the form of our own Community waters, our own problems and our own misfortunes.
What we really need is a fleet of the right size that is competitive at European and world levels.
More competitive does not mean more predatory but simply more efficient at using the resources actually available, and doing this better than everyone else.
The fishing sector is now strategic - and will be more so in the future - as a food reserve: healthy and safe animal proteins for a growing human population.
We must involve fisheries - and this is also shown by the fisheries agreement with Morocco - in the European Union' s foreign policy and commercial policy.
Our Union' s foreign fisheries policy has to earn credibility and an image, which it does not yet have, standing before world public opinion as it really is: the policy of a fishing power as compliant as any other with the United Nations principles, that is, the development of the international law of the sea, the conservation of resources for all, cooperation for development, etc.
Let us therefore make it an active policy, both in fisheries agreements with third countries, adapted to each individual situation, and in the regional fishery organisations, in which we must play a leading role, as we have often said, and let us not resign ourselves to a situation in which the 15 states that today make up the European Union - tomorrow perhaps 20 or 25 - must forever have as much weight as, for instance, Estonia has now.
The Council of Ministers of the European Union or the United Nations Security Council are examples to bear in mind of voting systems weighted by the specific weight of territories and populations, and we should bear this important example in mind.
My report states that the European Union has not yet woken up to the importance of its fishery concerns at an international level.
Admittedly, as I said earlier, its relative importance to the Community GDP is small, but we must not forget that ours is the fourth largest fleet in the world.
If we total up the processing and marketing industry, subsidiary industries, investment in other countries and specialised shipbuilding, EU fisheries-linked economic activity is the most substantial in the world.
Other powers, like the United States and Japan, are aware of this and are investing in this sector.
In the World Trade Organisation we must not be afraid to stand up for our interests, and for our structural aid system too, since not all of it relates directly to fishing: some is aid for conserving and controlling resources, making vessels safer, improving fishery infrastructures and the selective arts of fishing.
In the WTO we must demand the real liberalisation of port services, the freedom to invest and establish in third countries with full legal guarantees and freedom of access to ports.
Let us denounce attempts to extend exclusive economic zones and lead the effective fight against flags of convenience.
All this, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, is the real challenge facing the common fisheries policy from economic globalisation.
The European Parliament is today offering this report to which I refer as food for thought for everyone on the eve of an historic reform of the common fisheries policy, so that we can all be clear about where we are and where we have to get to.
Mr President, Commissioner, at the outset I want to acknowledge the assistance which I received from the secretariat of the Committee on Fisheries and indeed from the secretariat of my own group in preparing this report.
I want to thank Mr Poignant for his cooperation while producing my report.
Both myself and Mr Poignant had one major preoccupation - to make sure that our reports were not only complementary, but more importantly that they were not contradictory.
After all they deal with the same subject, and I would like to think that the same spirit will prevail in the House when both reports are voted on tomorrow.
Under the regulation establishing a Community system for fisheries and aquaculture, the Commission is obliged to report at least every three years to Parliament, the Council and the Community bodies representing the sector on the implementation of measures and developments in the common fisheries policy.
This report reviews the years 1996 to 1998.
The timing of the present communication gives it a special significance in that it represents a bridge to the Green Paper to be published on the review of the common fisheries policy.
Not only is this is an historical snapshot of the past, it is an important indication of the direction of Commission thinking about the future and shape of the CFP after 2002. This, of course, is to be welcomed.
The report covers all aspects of the CFP, including conservation and management of resources, structural policy, external fisheries policy, market policy and monitoring and control.
In the conclusions to its communication the Commission lists among its priorities: better coherence between the various objectives pursued by the CFP, such as conservation of resources, the economic efficiency of the fleet and securing employment in fisheries - dependent areas, taking account of the economic dimension of fisheries management, better integration of environmental and fisheries policy, improvement of management tools such as multi-annual management objectives and strategies, management of fishing effort, and full integration of the Mediterranean into the Community management regime, a more accountable decision-making process and maintaining the external dimension of the common fisheries policy.
Many of these points can be endorsed by us, indeed as the Commission acknowledges, a number of these priorities are those which Parliament itself set and has long demanded.
I would like to underline to you, as I have done in my report, a number of points that I feel strongly about.
I regret the present unsatisfactory state of fish stocks in relation to technical conservation measures.
I believe that more progress can still be made.
In spite of initiatives taken by the Commission to strengthen its dialogue with the industry, I believe that these should be fully reinforced.
I believe that fishermen must be more involved in the work of scientists in order to establish mutual confidence.
I have strong suspicions that multi-annual programmes have operated in a discriminatory fashion without producing any major benefits to the fishing sector as a whole.
I would like to see a uniform inspection regime throughout the Community and the harmonisation of penalties for infringements.
I want a strict enforcement of the Community control system with regard to third country vessels operating within EU waters.
I am strongly in favour of a greater regionalisation of the common fisheries policy through the creation of a comprehensive series of regional management units and regional advisory committees based on the use of ICES areas and sub-areas to define the boundary lines.
In this context, I want to stress that regionalisation of fisheries policy is not in any way the same as renationalisation or fisheries policy.
It does, however, to use the Commission's own words, involve the participation of stakeholders, and I quote "in all the three phases of the management process i.e. consultation, decision-taking and implementation of decisions taken".
I believe that the lack of cohesion in the regional application of the CFP must inevitably lead to a lack of confidence in the policy and in the Community institutions.
I believe that it is necessary to define the application of the CFP in a clear and consistent manner, setting out a coherent system of regionalisation.
I am convinced that this must entail such factors as closer links between fishermen, scientists, the recognition of the socio-economic factors in areas highly dependent on fisheries, flexibility and simplification.
As I have done on so many occasions in the past, I repeat my call that in order to ensure an appropriate policy of decentralisation it is essential to maintain access to the territorial waters of 12 miles as the exclusive sovereign preserve of the coastal States and to extend this preserve to 24 miles, as previously agreed by this House in February 1999.
On a personal note I would point out that these last two issues are fundamental to my own country, Ireland.
I believe that the utmost respect must be paid to the need for social, economic, regional cohesion, and that the highest priority must be given to the defence of the populations of regions highly dependent on fisheries.
I want to see the Commission review the application of relative stability so as to take better account of the need for economic, social and regional cohesion.
There is no doubt in my mind that this must be done without calling into question the fundamental principle itself.
I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna on his report.
The fact that there are no amendments tabled is a clear indication that we can all agree on this text.
I am pleased to say that all the ideas contained in my opinion on behalf of the Committee on Industry have been included in the report in one form or another.
Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna has outlined to us in detail the importance of the multi-functional role of the EU fisheries. This is something that must be taken into account in future WTO negotiations to ensure that EU producers are not put at a disadvantage.
The Commission must come up with appropriate negotiation proposals.
Unlike what was done in relation to agriculture, I would invite Mr Fischler to consult this House on the fisheries proposals.
In conclusion, I am pleased that Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna has recognised the need to take into account social and economic factors, such as employment in coastal areas.
This must be taken into consideration in the WTO talks and the review of the common fisheries policy, and I welcome the reference to an environmental and health food standard in Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna's report.
I also want to congratulate my colleague Mr Cunha on his report.
Mr President, the report I am presenting deals with the regional meetings arranged by the Commission in 1998-1999.
It has been subject to intense and, at times, heated debate in committee, because it is one of the first reports, like those by Mr Gallagher, Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna and Mr Cunha, to force us to consider the common fisheries policy for 2002 rather than because it is crucial or likely to lead to decisions being made.
This is a sensitive subject, involving a sector with very specific characteristics and one which affects some quite typical and fairly limited regions in Europe.
The activities of the sector usually generate a great many jobs both up and downstream, making many regions dependent on fisheries, with no easy alternatives to turn to in times of crisis.
Everyone in these regions knows that 31 December 2002 will be crucial, since this is the deadline for the common fisheries policy, as in 1992 and 1982, as if we produced a new one every 10 years.
With a view to forming as rounded an opinion as possible in order to prepare for this deadline, which I believe was a good idea, the Commission organised a systematic consultation process involving everyone associated or involved with this activity, sending out questionnaires and arranging meetings.
Thirty meetings were held, attended by nearly 1 500 people.
With regard to the form of proceedings, the method of the report was discussed.
Some Members would have preferred not to examine the subject in too much depth.
We debated the matter at great length within the parliamentary committee and, in the end, the Committee on Fisheries went along with the opinion of the rapporteur - as, in my view, there really was no other option - with everyone able to argue their own corner on the subject, just as usual.
With regard to the substance, however, national and even regional differences within the Member States were seen to be more intense than the rather traditional political differences, and that is why a number of amendments were tabled.
These amendments show that, although the original positions were sometimes far apart, the political debate allowed groups to be reconciled, leading to an open-minded text which provides a sound starting point, along with the other reports, from which to undertake the reform of the common fisheries policy.
Looking at the amendments and more generally, most of the provisions voted on in committee adopt the rapporteur' s point of view, with some additional specification or clarification.
A Green Paper is due to be issued in the coming months - at the end of March of this year, I believe - followed by the legislative text in the course of 2002.
At the moment, two main schools of thought are discernible.
The first would like to see a thorough re-evaluation of the entire system and all the foundations, past and present, of the common fisheries policy.
The second, while avoiding a complete re-examination of the existing foundations, would like to see the system clarified, amended and improved so that the fisheries sector can develop while, of course, preserving fish resources.
Quite obviously, the European fisheries sector has to deal with the problems that most other fishing industries throughout the world are currently experiencing. They do not affect just our continent or our waters.
Overfishing reduces stocks, catch sizes and revenue, and is the main threat as far as the future of resources and the fishing industry proper are concerned.
Increased competition, associated with the globalisation of the market in fishery products, is a further problem.
If the fisheries industry is to become more competitive, it will depend on the sector' s ability to adapt in order to face up to the constraints imposed by both the state of its resources and by commercial demand.
The common fisheries policy is the European Union' s management tool for regenerating the fisheries industry and aquaculture.
This policy was drawn up in order to manage a common resource and to respect the commitments laid down in the first European Treaties.
The report, therefore, expresses views on the four aspects of the common fisheries policy, which are conservation and management of resources, structural policy, market organisation and relations with third countries.
Review of the main areas of the Union' s fisheries policy is called for throughout.
That is the guiding principle.
The precautionary principle, the latest thing, so to speak, is clearly included, as is the commitment to developing a responsible fisheries policy.
In particular, I would like to highlight some suggestions, especially maintaining the status quo position on the 6/12-mile zone; maintaining boxes after scientific checks have been carried out along with, inevitably, the issue of access to the North Sea, which will be more difficult in view of our enlargement plans; maintaining the system of TACs and quotas, on condition that they be reviewed; vigilance regarding individual transferable quotas and a thorough review of the Multiannual Guidance Programmes; harmonising inspections and infringements and, of course, committing to fisheries agreements and action programmes specifically designed for the Mediterranean.
I should like to finish by adding, as Mr Gallagher said, that we do not wish to see regionalisation become renationalisation nor do we wish for further social measures to be introduced into the common fisheries policy.
Perhaps Mr Gallagher and I have given the impression that we are repeating ourselves.
Politics involves repeating oneself and contradicting oneself.
We have opted to repeat ourselves.
Mr President, Commissioner, I simply wish to ask for your understanding so that before I embark on the subject of my report, I may take a minute to speak about Morocco. I should like to warmly congratulate Commissioner Fischler for the commitment he has demonstrated in the negotiations to renew the fishing agreement with Morocco, but these thanks should also go to the Commission's entire Directorate-General for Fisheries.
From the start of the negotiations we were faced with intransigence on the part of the Moroccan negotiators, who presented arguments such as "the sustainability of fishing stocks" to reduce access for the European Union' s fishing fleet.
However, we know that these were not the real arguments, since they did not apply the same criteria to other third countries with which they concluded agreements nor to private agreements with various operators, including some from the European Union.
Given the importance of the agreement with Morocco to the European Union' s fishing industry, this issue should have immediately been raised as a matter of great political priority within the European Council itself, in the Foreign Affairs Council and, of course, in the Fisheries Council.
My impression is that Commissioner Fischler and his staff stood practically alone in this struggle, apart from one important but isolated speech by the President of the Commission.
It is incomprehensible, given that the European Union is home to so many millions of Moroccans and that we have provided that country with so many trade concessions to ensure its products access to our market, that they should have reciprocated our openness and cooperation so little.
This meant that the Community authorities at the highest level had major political trump cards to play, with the help of those Member States most closely concerned.
We see now, however, that these cards were not played.
Why was this the case? In time we will see why, but in any event, I fervently hope that we can rapidly negotiate a reasonable agreement.
Let us now proceed to the subject of my report, which is Guinea­Bissau.
The protocol governing fishing arrangements between the European Union and the Republic of Guinea­Bissau was signed in June 1997 and came into force in December of that year, remaining valid until June this year.
Following an armed conflict in that country in 1998, the Commission presented to the Council and Parliament a proposal for a decision requesting that this agreement be suspended.
Parliament' s Girão Pereira report, at the beginning of 1999, considered the Commission' s proposal to be justified and legitimate and delivered a favourable opinion. Parliament thereby authorised the suspension of the agreement for the duration of hostilities, after which the suspension would be lifted and the Government of Guinea­Bissau would be given help for ad hoc support actions for the local fishing industry, for infrastructure and for monitoring activities.
As a result of certain procedural and legal problems raised by a previous Commission proposal, the Commission is now tabling a new proposal.
The purpose of this new text, as with the previous one, but using a different legal formula, is to grant the legitimate authorities of Guinea­Bissau a sum equivalent to the unpaid part of the financial compensation laid down in the agreement currently in force, which totals around EUR 6.5 million and which is intended solely for supporting local fishing activities, for improving monitoring measures and for reconstructing fisheries infrastructure damaged in the intervening period.
On the basis of a programme of actions proposed by the Government of Guinea-Bissau, the Commission will pay over 50% of the compensation that has been provided for and will pay the balance when the government of that country has submitted a detailed report on the progress of the actions it has proposed and the results that have been achieved. This report is due to be submitted to the Commission by 31 May 2001.
The date for payment may, however, have to be postponed if major problems are encountered in the organisation of Guinea-Bissau' s administration, that is, its government, following this armed conflict.
Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries has therefore approved the date of 31 May 2003 as the final deadline for the processing of payments instead of the initial proposal of May 2001.
Therefore, given that the Commission' s proposal is basically the same as the one to which we gave our assent in March 1999, given that the amount of money stipulated is exactly the same and given that the proposal has precise objectives, I, as rapporteur, feel that Parliament should deliver a favourable opinion on this proposal.
Mr President, Commissioner, I trust that we have not bitten off more than we can chew this late in the day because this first fisheries debate of 2001 really is a far-reaching debate.
It gives me special pleasure, Commissioner Fischler, to be able to welcome you here today.
For a long time, fisheries debates were held in Strasbourg on Fridays.
This year we have done away with Fridays and brought the debate forward to Tuesday, and while many Members are still not listening to us today, you at least are here and I thank you for that.
The new year is a time of hope and expectation, especially for our fishermen.
I need only mention the reform of the common fisheries policy and the Commission's eagerly awaited Green Paper.
However, I am forced to admit that the worry lines on my fellow Members' brows and - as far as I can see from here, on your brow, too, Mr Fischler - are still as deep as ever.
One reason must surely be the continuing and difficult negotiations on the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
I am afraid that there is still no light at the end of that particular tunnel.
The Commission's cautious and diplomatic approach - if I may express it thus - be it on your part, Mr Fischler, or on the part of Commission President Prodi, has met with little response and hence no real progress on the other side - I am tempted to say the opposing side.
I think that is a crying shame because I want an agreement although, let there be no mistake, I do not want an agreement at any price.
The financial framework is limited and EU payments must be in proportion to the benefits granted in return.
In the final analysis, the Kingdom of Morocco needs to take a realistic and trustworthy approach.
Otherwise, Morocco's obstructionist stance hitherto may well come back to haunt it, because fisheries are not the only link between Morocco and the EU.
The EU should not be the bull in diplomacy's china shop, but nor should it merely be an irritating fly buzzing around.
The next round of financial compensation for Spanish and Portuguese fishermen is coming up.
It really is time we started thinking about and naming alternatives, however drastic they may be, because aid cannot and should not be a permanent solution.
We are looking forward, at last, to taking a closer look at the study on the cost-benefit analysis of the fisheries agreement and drawing the necessary conclusions.
Mr Gallagher addresses this particular point in his report.
We had an initial presentation an awfully long time ago and after that mum was the word.
But we must watch out - it could be the calm before the storm, because there is every sign of a storm brewing.
But first I should like to thank Pat Gallagher for his excellent report.
As one of our most active comrades-in arms in the Committee on Fisheries, he has yet again done a creditable job.
There really is no longer any need to make a point of stressing just how important an analysis of measures and developments is, especially in view of the reform of the entire fisheries policy.
But just what will the Commission's long-awaited Green Paper propose?
The objective - on this we are clear - must be to reconcile the need to improve fish stocks with the social and economic importance of fisheries, in which case it is vital for interest groups to be more involved and, given the considerable shortcomings now coming to light in the agricultural sector alone, for example as the result of BSE, it also means finding a new, attractive way of marketing fish as a healthy, protein-rich food.
As I am sure you are all aware, a huge programme of work awaits us.
I am looking forward to a stimulating and controversial debate in the interest of the future of European fisheries. In any case, I think we should not slacken in our efforts.
Mr President, I thank Mr Fischler for having come before this House.
He is here because, at the Conference of Presidents, the Group of the Party of European Socialists asked him to come. May I remind you, Commissioner, that in October 1999, a month before the agreement expired, you said here that you "would do everything in your power to find a solution" and that you "would get your feet wet" .
Fourteen months later it is the Community fleet that is getting wet, but the water is up to its neck.
But I am not one to blame you.
I believe you have done what it was within your power to do, which really was very little.
The problem for me is that there has not been a concerted effort by the various Commission services, and there has not been enough political pressure from the Council, and what is worse, in my opinion, is that there has been no clear thinking, skill or hard work in parallel by the government of the country most affected.
Mr Varela, I believe Mr Prodi' s visit - which I think was very positive - rather than reassuring the sector has made it more worried, precisely because of the moment in the process when it took place.
Such are the doubts and vacillations that the sector feels at the moment.
The sector keeps on repeating that it does not want an agreement at just any price, and it is afraid that an agreement will be signed just to save face.
The sector says that what the Moroccans are offering - the technical conditions that they want the Community fleet to submit to - is unacceptable, and there are a number of limitations on freezer trawlers and shrimp vessels that are unacceptable.
I think the Moroccan authorities need a clear message from the Union.
The Union would like to have fair cooperation with its partners, and now we all realise that we would have gained a lot if the Moroccan Government had responded in time to Community appeals.
It is unacceptable that for 14 months the Moroccan Government repeated that it did not want an agreement, and now they are trying to blame you, Mr Fischler, for the failure to conclude one and for the negotiations having broken down.
The result will be that the next Austrians - like yourself - or Swedes who negotiate in Rabat will think that what the Moroccans want is exactly the opposite of what they are thinking or saying.
This whole absurd process, which has been going on now for 14 months, is not having any positive effects for one simple reason: because in certain sectors in the Union it is generating a rejection of the European Union itself.
Here we spend days on end discussing the Union' s democratic deficit and good governance, and then, when we have a subject on our hands that directly affects more than 4 000 fishermen, we pretend not to see what is obvious and not to do what any government would do to stand up for such an important part of its productive fabric.
There are some who say that President Prodi should have blocked not just fisheries cooperation but the whole MEDA II programme.
With regard to the Poignant and Gallagher reports, which bring forward many points for debate on the forthcoming reform of the CFP, I think that if a number of amendments are approved we shall be able to achieve two balanced resolutions and correct some contradictions.
But a balanced agreement - such as the one we should reach on the Green Paper - does not mean that it is a compromise between various extreme positions but rather a coherent report endorsing the future of the whole sector and the viability of fishing as an economic activity throughout the European Union.
The balance that we socialists desire can only be achieved through a fisheries policy based on scientific criteria and adapted to the market, with the suppression of the political discrimination that still persists.
The reform process must be participatory, in the words of Mr Poignant, whom I congratulate on his work, performed under difficult conditions.
His report reveals many of the problems that we are going to have to discuss during the process of reforming the common fisheries policy.
He has supplied many solutions, for instance the socio-economic aspect of fishing, the development of the social aspects of the CFP, and the updating of criteria that define regions as fishery-dependent.
The Gallagher report is also interesting in that it refers to social aspects or regards agreements with third countries as a fundamental part of the CFP.
We are requesting clear legal and scientific opinions on access restrictions.
We believe that the reform of the CFP should not contain any discriminatory element whether political or based on nationality.
Our amendments support keeping the current 6/12 mile zone.
Lastly, I should like to congratulate Mr Varela - and also Mr Cunha - for the excellent report on the challenge of globalisation and the dangers that certain aspects of it pose for the Community fisheries sector.
The international side of the CFP, our ever more necessary participation in multilateral organisations, is a challenge that still awaits us.
This question is going to return and be debated many more times in this House.
I congratulate Mr Varela on his political foresight, which could almost be called poetic.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate all the rapporteurs on the excellent work that they have done.
I speak specifically of the issue of regional management of the common fisheries policy.
In fact the term zonal management better expresses the kind of development that we would like to see implemented. This would involve much fuller participation in decision making by all those with a direct interest in each of the ICES divisions, whether engaged in fishing, fish processing, science or conservation.
If such a system were already in place we would not be facing the difficulties we face at present over the Commission's proposals for a cod recovery plan for the North Sea.
It is the clear view of those most directly involved that, as initially announced, the plan would have both a disastrous effect on the industries concerned and an adverse effect on cod stocks, and this view is supported by conservationists.
The Scottish MEPs are most grateful to the Commissioner for meeting us and for his assurances that these proposals are not yet firm ones.
A great deal of work has been done locally, both in Scotland and around the North Sea, on conservation measures in general and on cod recovery in particular.
I hope that the Commission will take the results of this work very seriously indeed.
In particular, I would ask it to abandon the idea of requiring 140 mm mesh size and also to recognise the extent to which the Scottish fleet depends on a mixed fishery.
Accordingly, instead of imposing blanket restrictions on some 15 000 square miles of the North Sea, I trust that it will opt for seasonal closures in areas where the cod concentration is high.
Mr President, Commissioner, it was inevitable that the Gallagher and Poignant reports would not only comment on the past but would focus in detail on the CFP review, and I consider it entirely appropriate that the MEPs should seek to influence the review process in advance of any formal consultation with Parliament.
I contend that the principal objective of the CFP, namely the conservation of fish stocks, has not been realised and as a result we have had to face dramatic year-on-year fluctuations in quotas, as exemplified by the current cod crisis.
In addition, we must re-examine the process by which, and the level at which, decisions are made.
Various amendments tabled with my name attached seek to establish certain important principles for the CFP review, including that relative stability should remain since the good reasons for its inclusion as a founding principle remain valid.
That in the light of experience with areas like the Shetland Box, specially protected areas based on scientific advice should continue in the future.
And a system of zonal management should be established based on the ICES areas and with representation from fishing, science and conservation interests able to participate meaningfully, not to renationalise the CFP, not to take away power from the Council or the Commission but to allow each Member State with quotas in a particular zone to assist in devising and recommending controls which are relevant, appropriate to these areas and, therefore, more likely to succeed.
Recent events have led to even greater lack of faith within Scotland in the decision-making processes and in the structure of the CFP itself.
How can, for example, the Commission justify continuing levels of industrial fishery and even increases in white fish by-catch while on the other hand reducing quotas of fish for human consumption?
Let us use the opportunities arising from the review of the CFP to achieve a solution which works.
I challenge the Commission and the Council to look seriously at zonal management within a framework of Community-wide objectives, of course, but so that interested parties can participate more fully and so that the new CFP, once agreed, can actually achieve its purpose, namely the long-term sustainability of European fisheries.
Mr President, the excellent work done by Mr Poignant and Mr Gallagher deserves recognition, but I sincerely believe that their zeal - and they are people with vast experience and knowledge of the sector - has in some respects led them to go beyond the subject of their reports.
The problem is that the amendments emphasised this view, and generally in some respects they have even come to approve contradictory points.
I hope that in tomorrow' s votes these issues may be calmly corrected, because my group would like to vote for both these reports.
As for the matter of fisheries and globalisation, it must be recognised that the low level of Community self-sufficiency in fisheries products has encouraged the liberalisation of trade sooner and more fully than in other sectors. While the nature of fishing itself, the growing nationalisation of fisheries or other circumstances may have their own particular features, they also have effects similar to those of globalisation and can have an especially hard social impact, with sometimes serious effects on working conditions or the displacement of fishery-related activities.
I think the excellent Varela report points out corrective measures for these negative effects.
I should also like to congratulate Mr Cunha.
Finally, on the subject of Morocco I want to point out two things: first, the negative effects that the lack of agreement is having and will have in disadvantaged areas of the Community both on the fishermen themselves and on fishery-related dependent activities.
Because they are disadvantaged areas, restructuring activities stand very little chance of success.
The second point is that the attitude of the Moroccan negotiators hardly squares with that of a state linked with us through an association agreement.
In this situation it is to be hoped that the Commission will be able to make the Moroccan authorities understand that the association can only be based on reciprocity, and that, if necessary, it will be able to adopt suitable measures.
What the media is saying is that if there is agreement, it may even be highly detrimental to the interests of the European Union.
I should like there to be an agreement, and I hope the Commission will be able to assert its right to reciprocity.
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to draw your attention to a point that I believe constitutes an omission in the common fisheries policy.
It is important that this should be considered in the reform to be initiated in 2002, since it concerns the situation of fishing in the outermost regions.
It is also important that the common fisheries policy should take account of the amendment made in the Treaty of Amsterdam and highlight the potential that flows from their situation. This applies particularly to Portugal, with its outermost regions, the Azores and Madeira, but also to the French and Spanish outermost regions.
The European Union has an opportunity to draw up an exclusive economic zone in these particularly less-favoured regions, and this strategic value in this field must be emphasised for the future.
With regard to Morocco, we are grateful for the information that the Commissioner has just given us, although for the Portuguese this is scant consolation.
The situation in Portugal is that 40 boats have remained inactive since December 1999 and if the agreement is concluded one day, many of these businesses may by then have become unviable.
I therefore support the remarks made by Arlindo Cunha and Rosa Miguélez Ramos to the effect that both the Council and the Commission must attempt to adopt a more dynamic approach in their dialogue with the Moroccan Government.
In general terms, we have maintained an attitude of prudent optimism towards the revision of the common fisheries policy in 2002.
It is widely known that the view from Portugal is highly critical, because whereas fishing should be a source of employment, the Portuguese experience is that the common fisheries policy has been a source of unemployment.
We hope that maintaining the quotas, which was decided on this year, is a first positive sign for the future.
We are particularly interested in the fact that attention has been paid to the feeling of discrimination that has emerged from consultations held in recent years, and the fact that the problem of planning and development has been given due consideration.
Lastly, as Mr Gallagher has pointed out, we would like to see an exclusion zone of 24 miles for coastal fishing.
Mr President, I still have my doubts as to the methods used, especially in Mr Poignant' s report, and I still believe that the opinions of the fisheries sector expressed at the regional meetings deserve a more thorough examination.
In addition, Mr Gallagher and Mr Poignant have presented views in many cases contrary to the measures that the CFP should contain.
We cannot fail to recognise the effort that has been made a posteriori to try to unify viewpoints, but the European People' s Party believes that in some fundamental areas there are still some clear contradictions.
We have therefore tabled a series of amendments above all to try to eliminate the impression that Parliament does not have a definite attitude towards the future of the CFP, because that is not the case.
It may be that we do not agree on specific measures, but if something comes out of these reports it is that Parliament is in total agreement with the fisheries sector in that the CFP requires some fundamental changes.
I therefore ask for our amendments to be approved, because far from entering yet again into sterile discussions they reflect this desire for change and the need for careful thinking about the fisheries policy, with our sights set on the future and not the past.
If there were no clear need for this, the Council of Ministers last month would have given some indication that this were the case.
Things cannot go on like this.
The fundamental flaws that have encumbered the CFP since the beginning have to be paid for by the industry at the end of every year with a series of increasingly brutal cuts to its operations.
When you come to the extremes that have been reached this year, you have to wonder what economic sector could survive with these rules of play.
If resource levels are getting worse and worse, it is because a sequence of failures in the policy that governs fishing not only allows it to happen but actually causes it.
A sector constrained by a series of outdated, contradictory and often incomprehensible rules can only have very limited responsibility in this state of things, and yet it alone has to pay the price.
The CFP is in need of very far-reaching changes that will provide solutions for a fishing industry which, unlike the rules which govern it and even despite them, has managed to survive and has done everything it can to evolve and continue to provide coastal regions with wealth and jobs.
That is why I must again stress that, when there is evident dissatisfaction with the resources policy, the brilliant results of which we have just seen yet again at December' s Council meeting, with a TAC system that encourages discards, when issues such as relative stability and freedom of access have yet to be resolved, not to mention the matter of bringing the only Community policy that still discriminates on grounds of nationality into line with the Treaties, the Commission cannot seriously propose a draft Green Paper like the one it has drawn up.
If the Commission really believes that the future of European fisheries depends not on the simple modification of a regulation, but on the proposal of measures already contained in current regulations, if the Commission' s great proposal and great discovery for the future CFP is to be multiannual TACs and the encouragement of aquaculture, perhaps the moment has come, Mr President, to ask in all seriousness for it to make room for other people who can bring in new ideas and the tiniest sense of responsibility.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like, very briefly and concisely, to make three observations on the planned revision of the common fisheries policy.
My first point concerns access to waters and to internal resources.
Maintaining the traditional activities of every fishing community should be one of the European Union' s main concerns.
I therefore feel that it is crucial to at least preserve exclusive access to so-called "territorial waters" , particularly given that activities involving small-scale fishing have a considerable effect on the coastal resources of every Member State.
My second point relates to the principle of relative stability and the full use of fishing rights obtained outside Community waters.
The principle of relative stability is a fundamental pillar of the common fisheries policy.
However, the application of this principle to fishing quotas obtained by the European Union through financial compensation, either in agreements with third countries or in waters governed by regional fishing organisations, may lead to perverse situations.
For example, the Community is not taking full advantage of the quotas that it obtained with such difficulty in the waters of some third countries, even though there are Member States keen to use them.
Therefore, although the so-called agreements "with southern countries" lay down that once Member States have made use of their respective fishing rights, the unused part should be made available to all interested Member States, this mechanism is not implemented under the so-called agreements "with northern countries" .
The European Union is not making full use of the fishing quotas for the open sea that it has obtained through regional fishing organisations, even though there are Member States that are keen to take over the quantities that are not caught by the "highest bidders" , as they are called.
They are thus exposing themselves to the risk that their share will be reduced once a review of quotas allocated to the parties involved takes place.
My third point relates to the role of the European Union on the international stage.
Since the Union as a whole is a world-class fishing power and one of the largest markets for fish produce, it must claim and adopt a role that matches its importance in international organisations and specifically in regional fishing organisations.
I am very grateful for the Commissioner' s speech and I urge him to use the power of all 15 Member States in negotiations with Morocco and not simply to argue the case for Portugal and Spain.
Mr President, the common fisheries policy, as many have pointed out, has failed to conserve fish stocks at adequate levels to support a viable industry.
This is due, at least in part, to the conflicting nature of some of the objectives of the CFP as laid down in Regulation 3760/92.
It is impossible to simultaneously satisfy both the market and industry while conserving resources.
When the CFP is revised next year it is essential that the conservation of fish stocks and the protection of the marine habitat be made its primary and overriding objective, and the only way to do this is to implement a rigorous and comprehensive precautionary approach to fisheries management.
The precautionary approach should mean that before any stock can be fished on a commercial basis there must be, at the very least, a scientific assessment of the stock and a conservatively-based total allowable catch.
In other words, the current pillage of certain types, certain deep-water stocks by some EU countries would not be allowed to happen.
It means that any new fishing gear or any significant modification of existing gear must be evaluated for its potential impact on the target stock as well as any species caught as by-catch or any impact on the marine habitat.
It means being conservative when one decides the level at which one wants to maintain a fish stock.
The use of maximum sustainable yield or any of a number of other reference points is quite simply wrong, for they lead to over-fishing and stock collapse.
Targets and limited reference points must be established which will maintain the fish stock at a high enough level that the risk of stock depletion or collapse is insignificant.
The best definition to date of the precautionary approach is the one contained in the UN fish stocks agreement, and many of these and other principles are defined there.
The EU has accepted these ideas for some stocks and I think it is high time that it implemented them for its own stocks.
A number of things have been said already about Morocco and I just want to say that we would insist that it is entirely up to Morocco, as a coastal state with sovereignty over its fish and its exclusive economic zone, to decide what it wishes to do with these resources.
We are therefore opposed to any kind of political or economic pressure being brought to bear on Morocco in order to encourage it or to coerce it to sign an agreement with the European Union.
Secondly, we are adamant that no potential agreement with Morocco should involve any access to waters of Western Sahara.
We do not recognise Moroccan sovereignty there and so Morocco has no right whatsoever to discuss access to EU vessels there, nor for that matter has the EU any right to enter into such negotiations with Morocco or to allow EU flag vessels to go there as has happened in the past.
Mr President, the socio-economic importance of the fishing industry is well known, not only for the jobs that it creates directly and indirectly, but also for the economic development of many fishing regions and communities, including the small coastal fishing sector that ensures the European Union' s supply of fresh fish and the preservation of its traditions and cultures.
Nevertheless, as has been confirmed at regional conferences, there is profound criticism of the common fisheries policy, both with regard to the TAC system and quotas and with regard to the system of Multiannual Guidance Programmes, which have led to discrimination and have not brought any major benefits to the industry. This makes it essential that Member States which have achieved their objectives should not be penalised through further reductions of their fishing effort whilst other countries have not achieved the objectives laid down in previous MAGPs.
It has also become clear that most of those working in the fishing industry harbour doubts about scientific opinions on the management and conservation of fish products, although they do not question the need to conserve species.
What is needed, therefore, is a thorough review of the common fisheries policy, involving fishermen and other interested parties in the decision-making process, to ensure that their experience and knowledge can contribute to the creation of a more workable and realistic system.
We need appropriate structural measures to guarantee the survival of communities dependent on fishing and socio-economic measures that improve the standard of living of fishermen, who must not suffer as a result of possible measures to protect species, as has happened to the sardine fishermen in the north of Portugal.
We must also take account of the specific nature of the outermost regions and it is particularly important, as the Gallagher report states, that we move towards extending the exclusion zone to 24 miles, which is, in fact, something on which Parliament has already taken a decision.
With regard to current negotiations in the World Trade Organisation, it must be emphasised, as it is in the Varela Suanzes­Carpegna report, that Community fishing activity cannot be analysed from a purely economic angle based on trade in goods.
Fishing in the European Union is multifunctional in nature; it contributes towards the integration of the social and economic fabric of coastal areas, representing a way of life and a factor for cohesion in large areas along our coastline, while at the same time guaranteeing food supply.
I also wish, Mr President, to mention international fishing agreements, which have a fundamental role in supplying the European market by means of the European fishing fleet.
What is of particular concern, however, is the information that we have received not only on the delay in the fishing agreements with Angola, but also on the difficulties in renewing the fishing agreement with Morocco.
We need more than just a rehashed explanation. What we need is the adoption of measures that will guarantee the protection of fishermen and the rights of shipowners who are caught up in this situation, as is currently happening in Portugal.
Mr President, 2001 is the year in which the Commission is to draft a new common fisheries policy.
In my view, it is of utmost importance that the Commission should actively involve the fisheries industry itself in the preparatory activities leading up to its decisions.
When translating research results into catch restrictions, the Commission should not only take the advice of scientists, but also the fishermen. If not, imposing total allowed catches and quotas will meet with unnecessary resistance from them.
Fishermen, especially in the Netherlands, recognise the benefit of catch restrictions, provided there is a good reason for them.
A bad example is the recent catch restriction imposed on Dutch fishermen for plaice and sole, which will set them back EUR 35 million.
This is a restriction which, according to the European Fisheries Council, is required in order to protect cod, whilst biologists claim that such recommendations were never made and that this was a political decision.
European fishermen are active in very different waters.
This requires a regional approach which is entirely in compliance with the European Union' s principle of subsidiarity.
That means that in the case of the Netherlands, it will develop the policy for the North Sea in conjunction with other North Sea countries.
These countries will decide whether the fragile system of the North Sea can accommodate ships from other regions.
If the Union insists on other ships having access to the North Sea, the quoting of as yet unquoted fish species would be a real way of keeping additional catches of quoted fish within limits.
Finally, I would echo rapporteur Gallagher in his request for a cost-benefit analysis of fisheries agreements which the Commission concludes with third countries.
Do all Member States benefit proportionately from spending Community funding in this way? I doubt it very much.
Mr President, when we discuss the excellent reports by my colleagues Mr Varela, Mr Cunha, Mr Poignant and Mr Gallagher, it is against a background of crisis in the EU fisheries sector.
As we contemplate the radical reforms of the CFP, which are clearly necessary and long overdue and which are highlighted in these reports, we do so in the knowledge that fish stocks are in spiral decline.
Too many fishermen are chasing too few fish.
As a result, EU fishing fleets are shrinking and many thousands of jobs are being lost at sea and on shore.
The situation in the North Sea is of particular concern.
Savage cuts in the total allowable catches and quotas were announced in December by the Council.
Now the Commission is seeking to implement emergency interim measures to aid the recovery of cod stocks, which have fallen to unsustainable levels in that sector.
I am extremely grateful, like my colleagues, the other Scottish MEPs, to Commissioner Fischler for agreeing to meet us earlier this evening to discuss these dramatic emergency measures.
We welcome Mr Fischler's generous offer to meet with leaders of the industry to discuss alternatives to the draconian proposals which have been widely publicised by the Fisheries DG in the last few days.
A sensible, multiannual cod recovery plan embracing realistic technical conservation measures, the closure of cod spawning grounds and the decommissioning of the larger new fishing vessels will surely be more sensible than the pursuit of a plan which would allow industrial fishing to continue in vast restricted zones and which would potentially lead to the bankruptcy of half the Scottish fleet.
The Poignant and Gallagher reports have attracted some amendments, which seek to do away with the 6/12 mile limits and break open the Shetland Box and gain free access to the North Sea.
Clearly there are some Member States that still regard the resources of the North Sea as a rich prize.
I hope that this debate may bring them to their senses.
Mr President, how should and how will the European Union's common fisheries policy look after 2002? This question has stirred the emotions of everyone involved in fisheries for some time now.
The Poignant and Gallagher reports are important milestones in the preliminary debate.
The actual debate on reform will, however, not start until the Commission's Green Paper has been submitted within the next few months although, quite understandably, representatives of highly disparate fisheries interests in the European Union are already trying to influence the preparatory process within the Commission.
A great many demands have been made on the Commission.
I think it is still too early for the European Parliament to commit itself one way or another.
We should confine ourselves, within the framework of these two reports, to addressing the problems and discussing various possible solutions.
Both rapporteurs have done a great deal of work and have highlighted the basic problems of the common fisheries policy and I am grateful to them for that.
I should like to single out just three of these basic problems.
First, the problem of access to waters, which should at least be re-examined as part of the reform.
Protection zones must be defined on the basis of scientific studies and the relevant conclusions must be drawn from their results.
Secondly: regionalisation is another catchword which repeatedly gives rise to controversial debate.
But regionalisation does not mean some form of renationalisation.
We have a common fisheries policy in the EU and that is how it is going to stay.
Thirdly: I should like to finish by again highlighting how important it is for the whole fisheries sector - fishermen, science, industry and so on - to be involved in the forthcoming reform process.
This is the only way we shall be able to ensure that the new common fisheries policy is well accepted by those whom it affects.
Mr President, European Union fisheries policy is a vast subject.
I would like to tackle it from the point of view of globalisation and in relation to the specific problem of Guinea-Bissau.
As far as the Group of the Greens is concerned, I would remind you that we are in favour of a fisheries policy that respects the natural balance, in favour of developing offshore and inshore fishing, which creates jobs, and in favour of selective fishing, which takes account of available stocks.
This is a question of achieving economic growth to satisfy businesses as well as protecting social aspects.
We are against granting subsidies that encourage excessive industrial fishing, which catches everything indiscriminately, to the point of wiping out species and harming food safety and biodiversity, a fisheries policy which allows fleets to grow out of all proportion, and so forth.
Because of this, we consider that untrammelled market forces represent one of the factors leading to such over-investment and that these issues should be taken into consideration in the next round of WTO trade negotiations on liberalisation.
We therefore request that the Commission present appropriate proposals, both on the issue of the future direction of the subsidised sectors and on social aspects to the other members of the WTO.
Furthermore, we are, generally, not particularly in favour of the bilateral fishing agreements between the European Union and third countries, often small countries, whose entire budgets are occasionally no larger than the subsidies granted them.
It is essential that we remain as integrated as possible.
However, we accept that a reserve of EUR 6.5 million was allocated to Guinea-Bissau, given that it is assigned to an action programme which will support the local fishing industry, infrastructure and controls and that a detailed report on how these funds are being used will be submitted to Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Varela on his far-sighted report, which was accepted by the entire committee, and Mr Cunha, who has also done an excellent job.
However, it cannot be denied that, as has already been mentioned, the points and issues we are discussing today are the same as those dealt with by the Gallagher and Poignant reports.
I will not go back over the technical reasons why these issues are sensitive: the 6/12 mile limits, protected areas, maintaining the principle of relative stability, regionalisation which can somehow be interpreted as renationalisation.
I, too, see the nature of these issues as very specific and share the view stressed by my fellow Members that they are sensitive.
With regard to this, I repeat that, for the very reason that we are going through a period of reform - and if we are carrying out reforms then it is because our current strategy is not working or the possibility of reform would not arise - we must be very aware that we cannot leave everything as it is, nor, moreover, can we continue to be inconsistent in our recommendations.
In this regard, the Group of the European People' s Party has tabled amendments aimed precisely at achieving greater coherence between the positions.
I would, however, make one entreaty to the Commissioner and to all of us: it is important that a balance is found, for a major political reason apart from anything else.
At the last part-session in December, we all - Commission and Parliament - criticised Nice because the countries' desire to protect their own national interests took root once again and we condemned that Council for placing the Community method in crisis.
Now we must work to ensure that a common policy is genuinely achieved in this typical sector, but in order to do so we must respond to those who are complaining - namely the operators - that there is insufficient participation or backing for the choices made, therefore that there is no cooperation in the decision-making process.
If we do this, we will be able to prove - and I am convinced that we are capable of doing so - that it is possible to achieve a sound common policy, valuing differences rather than penalising them and involving the operators of all the Member States, particularly the fisheries operators in all their diversity.
Mr President, it is always comforting to see the same few faces at every fishing debate and I would like to reassure the Commissioner and colleagues and friends that we may be small in numbers but we all have an active interest in fishing and no matter how late the debate is, rest assured we will be there.
The reform of the CFP and the forthcoming launch of the Green Paper mark a critical time for the fishing industry.
On the one hand all of us here in this Chamber want to see the existence of the fishing industry, not least because we enjoy eating the product; but on the other hand we are faced with grave scientific evidence of depleting fish stocks, so much so that certain species may no longer exist in the future.
In Scotland, as mentioned this evening by many of my Scottish colleagues, the issue of cod is dominating the news agenda.
Some say that even before the launch of the Green Paper there could be little left of the Scottish fleet because of cuts in TACs, quotas and the proposed cod recovery proposals.
Others say that in order to have a fishing industry at all we need to conserve, they hark back to the 1996 article in Nature warning of the collapse of cod stocks.
I really do not know how you square the circle, but by the end of 2002 we must.
From talking to people in the industry, those involved in scientific research and those involved in conservation, it seems there is a willingness to be involved and a need for greater participation of all those concerned.
In Scotland, the Scottish Fishermen's Federation and the WWF have joined forces and suggested a better way of working.
The proposal for zonal management and greater regionalisation of the CFP is a serious one that has the support of fishing and conservation groups alike.
In other countries there are also suggestions. This can only be good for debate.
In conclusion, this year and next will provide an opportunity to get the CFP right.
I look forward to debating this on future Tuesdays in Strasbourg.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, President Prodi was decorated by the King of Morocco and at the same time signed a cooperation agreement with that country, which excluded fishing.
The European fleet in the Canary-Saharan Banks has not taken to sea for a year now and thousands of workers are grounded.
The Commission is not facing up to its responsibilities and is willing to sign a limited and ill-judged agreement that can only lead to the destruction of our fleet in two or three years' time.
Resolutions adopted in this Parliament are scorned, as is Parliament itself, and the Member States, Spain in particular, turn a blind eye.
This is the deplorable image that shipowners, fishermen and the populations affected in Galicia, Andalusia, the Canaries and Portugal have today of the European Union.
I am sorry to have to say this, Commissioner Fischler, but things could not have been handled more badly.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to congratulate both MEPs, Mr Gallagher and Mr Poignant, on the way in which they have set the tone for the new Green Paper, for it feels like this debate forms part of the groundwork for this paper, and we could say that we are using these reports for our own ends in an appropriate manner in order to adopt a position on this.
If we consider the fisheries policy, then there is actually one aspect which needs to change on a number of levels, and with regard to that debate I should like to put forward a few initial points, which are also based on the situation in my region, so as to give you an indication of the expectations we have from the Green Paper.
To begin with, there is the issue of control, especially quota control, within the EU.
This will need to be regulated more effectively in future, for any policy hinges on control, and if we want to adopt a policy in a truly structured manner, sound control is vital.
This is also the key point, and in due course, we will need to consider sanctions in this field in the event that countries do not have adequate systems for quota control.
The second important point for the future policy is a restructuring programme which needs to be developed to replace the present multiannual orientation programme.
European subsidies should benefit actual capacity reduction first and foremost, as well as environmental and quality investments with the following action points: a sea-day scheme in all EU countries - in my own country this scheme has worked excellently, which was also evident from the fisheries conference held in Brussels a couple of months ago.
A second point is a premium scheme for the use of nets, which restricts additional catches. This is a truly technological improvement.
The third point is the so-called set aside scheme for regions which are hit hard by the dwindling fish stocks.
I am, for example, thinking of regions in Europe which heavily depend on cod stocks and the decline thereof.
Europe should definitely invest in this.
A fourth point, in my opinion, is the reorganisation of the fisheries policy which must be further developed.
A fifth point is the actual investment in food safety, because the dioxin issue will soon be hitting the fisheries industry, and we must be able to deal with this adequately.
A sixth point is that, in the light of the environmental problems in candidate countries upon EU enlargement, we will need to pay particular attention to the problems which occur there in the field of food safety.
Mr President, we are faced with the total inability of the Commission and the Council to negotiate on behalf of the citizens.
The latest Euro-barometer data shows scepticism is rising, perhaps as a true reflection of this inability to negotiate.
In the agreement with Morocco they have had no weight whatsoever.
Even the French Presidency told us at the time that it was unable to secure an agreement.
We are going to have a major social problem on our hands, and we have no real alternative.
Now some of our fishing towns are going to develop their economy partly around and thanks to the drug that Morocco grows and markets and we Europeans consume.
To Moroccan blackmail of negotiating with the resources of some fishing grounds that belong to the Sahrawi people, the Commission responds by seeing Community fishermen as real enemies, cutting their quotas and signalling to Morocco that that is the way to go, without proposing an alternative.
Can anybody be sure today that all the Community boats that have had anything to do with fishing in Morocco are tied up? Well, then, Morocco-European Union relations must be seriously affected.
All the funds poured into this agreement should be used to finance alternatives in the areas affected.
Meanwhile, the Commission Presidency is trying to settle a very long-standing problem at the last minute.
We are concerned that the solution proposed is just a makeshift solution for the sake of the media and not a real solution to the problem.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, globalisation is a growing phenomenon which will entail innovations and will bring substantial change to all sectors of the economy.
I fully agree with Mr Varela when he describes globalisation as a phenomenon whose repercussions vary according to specific cases.
Although, for many, it is a challenge which generates wealth and opportunities, for others, those who have difficulty in adapting to change or are unable to do so, it is a source of problems and discontent.
Adaptation to a global economy has had varying effects on the fisheries sector.
In fact, in situations such as that of Sicily or Sardinia, some of the traditional coastal fleets, which have grown up and survived in a local context thus far, feel threatened by the impact of globalisation. The work of such fleets is frequently the lifeblood of local communities.
Therefore, when we talk of negotiations underway within the World Trade Organisation on the liberalisation of trade, we must take into account the different specific circumstances in order to avoid bringing about total liberalisation of customs duties which could lead to irreparable damage and the destruction of the entire sector.
We must, therefore, uphold a tariff policy based on reciprocal trade, taking into account the fact that, in many countries, imports from Europe are subject to non-tariff barriers which hamper the smooth functioning of the free market.
Moreover, we must prevent the fishing of certain migratory species which, in Europe, are subject to tying-up periods but which, in other countries, can be fished and then sold on the Community market.
It would also be appropriate to revise the system of existing trade preferences, for sometimes the level of development of third countries no longer justifies the granting of these preferences.
Finally, we must uphold the European Union policy which makes access to the Community market for products coming from third countries dependent upon access for the European fleet to the fishing waters of the countries with which we are negotiating.
Mr President, honourable Members, on behalf of the Commission, I should first like to thank all the rapporteurs, the Committee on Fisheries and the other committees involved for their comprehensive work in the run up to today's debate.
I should also like to extend special thanks to the Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, Mr Varela, for coordinating all the work and for his interesting own-initiative report.
Mr Varela, you make it quite plain in your report that it is impossible to discuss the future of the common fisheries policy without taking account of the broader economy surrounding fisheries.
Like every other economic activity, fisheries are affected by globalisation.
I fully endorse much of what you say in your report and in the resolution attached to it.
You highlight the fact that European fishing is committed to the principle of multifunctionality, i.e. the principle of a sustainable fisheries economy which preserves fish stocks and protects the marine environment and makes an important contribution to the economic and social structures of coastal areas engaged in fishing.
I particularly welcome your support in the fight against illegal and irresponsible fishing.
We shall have an opportunity to discuss Community solutions to this burning issue.
But I can already see that you, too, are in favour of a more resolute approach here.
I think that we need further discussion on three points in the report.
First, the report shows a certain tendency towards more protection from international competition on the grounds that fisheries provide a great many jobs in certain coastal areas.
That is certainly true, but if we unilaterally insist that jobs must be safeguarded solely with the help of the fisheries policy, without taking overall local conditions in a coastal area into account, then we run the risk, under certain circumstances, of subsidising in the wrong direction.
That would be counterproductive, both for fish stocks and for jobs.
Fisheries needs to stand on their own two feet.
This may lead, in numerous cases, to a reduction in the status quo, but when regions are affected by such structural adjustments, then the Community must, of course, help.
The most efficient form of help we can provide is by giving young people a future and offering them alternative employment to fishing.
Secondly, I should like to comment on the WTO negotiations which you mention.
As you are aware, we do not yet know if a new WTO round will even start and, if so, to what extent.
But even if there is a comprehensive round, I very much doubt that the Community would be willing to accept reciprocity in fisheries on the questions at issue, such as investments or the right of establishment.
Until now, only natives or nationals of an EU Member State have been allowed to invest in the fisheries sector.
Thirdly and finally, I should like to remind you that it has been accepted since the beginning of the common fisheries policy that the Community has one seat and one vote.
This purely numerical disadvantage is more than offset by the advantage of having a greater say in the shaping of international fisheries policy.
To summarise, Mr Varela, your report makes an important contribution to the continuing debate on the future of the common fisheries policy.
The Commission will certainly take your thoughts into maximum consideration in its forthcoming Green Paper.
That brings me to the reports and motions for resolutions from Mr Gallagher and Mr Poignant.
Both reports start from the same premise.
The fisheries sector in the Community is under equal pressure from several quarters.
Fish stocks are declining, there is excess capacity in the fleet and it is becoming more and more difficult to access third country waters.
I am delighted that you basically subscribe to the analysis in the Commission report on the application of the system for fisheries in 1996-1998.
It is true that some progress was made - I need only mention the flexibility in year-to-year stock management or the new TACs in the North Sea for non-regulated species or the regulation on technical measures or the introduction of the VMS - but we still have to admit that we have failed to reverse the negative trend in numerous important stocks, such as cod or hake.
Both rapporteurs also highlight the following serious shortcomings, as identified in the Commission report: effort limitation has either not worked or has been unsatisfactory, the regulation on technical measures in the Mediterranean has been patchily implemented, the fourth MAGP is not nearly ambitious enough and control arrangements have not been made stricter, as we proposed in 1998.
Meetings with various representatives of the fisheries sector have also shown that we need either to improve or to overhaul numerous aspects of the fisheries policy if we are to achieve responsible, sustainable fisheries.
Differences of opinion notwithstanding, the majority of those affected are agreed that we need to do more.
In particular, we need stricter controls, we need better application of the rules, we need to reduce discards, we need to promote scientific research and we need to involve those affected, especially the fishermen themselves, at an earlier stage and more intensively when taking decisions on fisheries policy.
The Commission therefore agrees to the motions for resolutions on several points. However, it has the impression, as regards the delicate question of the 6/12-mile zone, that the majority of those affected are in favour of maintaining the status quo.
The Commission will publish its Green Paper in a few weeks' time, together with the reports under Article 14 paragraph 2 of Regulation 3760.
We must use the ensuing debate to discuss how to rectify the shortcomings identified in the reports and suitable solutions for doing so in order to put the fisheries sector in the Community back on a viable basis.
On the evidence of the motions for resolutions, the main objectives of the reform process identified by all three rapporteurs are as follows: to reduce excess capacity and improve coherence with environmental policy measures in order to maintain and re-establish stocks; to ensure that the people directly affected are more closely involved in decision making and to resolve local or urgent problems more efficiently in order to ensure that the rules are adhered to and applied and fisheries management is improved overall - in other words, everything which qualifies as good governance.
Then, to create a fisheries sector which is both sustainable and economically viable and internationally competitive - while at the same time helping those who are forced to look elsewhere for work; to develop a modern foreign fisheries policy which is closely coordinated with other Community policies in order to achieve responsible and rational use of resources, and, most importantly, to redevelop the Mediterranean dimension.
This brings me to Mr Cunha's report on Guinea-Bissau.
This resolution will guarantee the activities of the Community fleet in question, while at the same time supporting the local sector.
I am delighted that the rapporteur supports our proposal.
The sum of EUR 6.5 million now released will be used specifically to restore the fisheries-related installations which suffered serious damage during the armed conflict in Guinea-Bissau.
This will help the Community fleet to make better use of the agreement.
In detail, we want to support the following activities: reconstruction of the infrastructure, controls on and monitoring of the fleet and new research programmes.
I should like to make a few comments here on the terms of payment: a tranche of 50% of the overall amount will be paid out first, as soon as the government has submitted an action programme.
The remainder, in other words the second half, will be paid out once Guinea-Bissau has filed a detailed report on the implementation of individual activities under the action programme and the use of the funds earmarked for them.
Finally, a brief word on the proposed amendments.
Proposed Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 extend the deadline for implementing the activities required to 2003.
I think this proposed amendment is both reasonable and justified and the Commission can therefore support it.
We fully share the concern expressed in proposed Amendment No 4 but, as we already inform the budgetary authority of all financial and budgetary transactions under the terms of our Interinstitutional Agreement, proposed Amendment No 4 is in fact superfluous.
As far as the contributions to the debate on the current state of negotiations with Morocco are concerned, I should like to thank Parliament for its obvious confidence in the Commission's work.
I have to tell you that the agreement ceased de facto to apply 14 months ago, and that the Moroccan side was, unfortunately, not prepared to enter into serious negotiation on a new agreement until the end of October last year, in other words, just three and a half months ago.
We did, however, make good use of the time up to Christmas, with one technical discussion a week in either Brussels or Rabat.
Negotiations were held practically every day in Rabat between 2 January and 9 January.
We really have done our utmost here. For the rest, it is wrong to say that we have received no support from the Council.
Both the main countries affected and the presidency have supported us in our efforts and I think that, at the end of the day, the meeting between the King of Morocco and our Commission President was a useful one.
I hope that negotiations will again get properly under way, and that hopefully we shall soon be on the home straight.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Bangladesh
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A5-0360/2000) by Mr van den Bos, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the People' s Republic of Bangladesh [7595/1/1999 - COM(1999) 155 - C5-0356/2000 - 1999/0086(ACC)];
the oral question (B5-0004/2001) by Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, to the Commission, on Bangladesh.
Mr President, Bangladesh is rich and poor at the same time.
Rich in human resources, poor in capital means.
It is one of the world' s poorest and most densely populated countries. It is regularly afflicted by natural disasters.
This is why it is important for Europe to give as much aid as possible.
The agreement with the European Union bears witness to good relations and provides an excellent backdrop to stepping up development cooperation and trade.
In addition, the agreement lays the foundation to the political dialogue which provides for human rights, good governance and democratic freedoms.
On my recent visit to Bangladesh with Mr Miranda, I noticed that they attach far greater importance to relations with Europe than we often realise.
The government as well as the opposition, but also academics, journalists, industry and non-governmental organisations look up to Europe and expect a great deal from us, more than America, for instance.
We should not disappoint them in this expectation, and make every effort to promote positive developments.
The following recent trends can be cited as favourable: economic growth by more than 4%, a fall in the population increase, falling illiteracy and greater participation of women in the political and social arenas.
This is in contrast to the fact that the country labours under the burden of an increase in domestic violence against women, but also in violence on the streets and in political confrontations.
Abused women accounted for more than 30% of the patients in a hospital we visited.
Child labour is still widespread, despite the recent progress made and initiatives presented by the government and industry.
Mass-scale political strikes regularly bring life in Bangladesh to a standstill.
Foreign investment is only possible if the government ensures more peaceful social conditions.
There is also instability politically speaking.
There is a deep historic distrust between the two major parties, despite the fact that you can hardly tell them apart in terms of content.
The opposition must resume its constructive role.
Without peaceful cooperation between the key parties, the country cannot come out of its political and economic impasse.
It is therefore essential for the forthcoming elections to be above board.
The European Union should not fail to send observers, including members of this Parliament.
In addition to flooding and erosion of the river banks, the population is also suffering on a large scale from the poisoning of drinking water.
In principle, the European Union can provide valuable aid to help alleviate all of these problems.
Reinforcement of the government apparatus should take centre stage in aid provision.
The state is functioning ineffectively in very many ways, especially in the finance and education sectors.
It is unfortunate that with regard to aid, the European Commission does not have the sound reputation among donors which it should really have.
Often, funds only become available after long delays, it at all.
The delegation is not sufficiently involved in defining the programme.
The shortage of personnel leads to a lack of supervision in projects.
In short, this is a good, practical example which illustrates the need for reforms in the management sector.
In order to provide efficient aid, it is vital for the European Commission, the EU Member States and other donors to dovetail their policies.
The many non-governmental organisations which are present fulfil a key role in the implementation of programmes.
The resources are pooled sector-by-sector, which benefits effectiveness and harms European visibility.
But the advantage outweighs the disadvantage.
Premier Hasina assured us that the Chittagong Hills peace agreement is being implemented to the letter.
From our visit to the site, we gleaned a different impression, if the truth be told.
Neither the Land Commission nor the Regional Council were functioning. The military presence has not let up.
European aid can only be given to this region if substantial progress is made when the peace agreement is being implemented, which, unfortunately is not yet the case.
The development of Bangladesh hinges on the good governance of the country' s own leaders. Europe cannot offer anything but aid.
My conclusion is that the country should not be as poor as it is now.
Absolutely not. If only the country' s resources were better employed.
Mr President, in actual fact, suffice it to say that I concur with Mr van den Bos, and I would like to take the opportunity to emphasise how fitting Parliament' s recommendations are here.
Bangladesh has always been one of those poor countries which are regularly in the news, and the disasters which hit that country are always heart-rending.
When we now study the statistics, we notice that, all of a sudden, the country could be considered a success story, with economic growth of 5% of the GNP per capita, with growth in export of no less than 12.8% in the five years between 1993 and 1998, and even boasting a decrease in the population growth.
Mothers now have three children instead of seven.
In short, you could be forgiven for thinking that everything is moving in the right direction, but, of course, this is the difference between a country which is very, very, very poor and a country which is only very, very poor.
It remains a problem if you realise that 60 million people live under the poverty line, and you have economic growth which cannot keep up with the population growth.
Out of the 162 countries on the Human Development Index, Bangladesh does not come last, but 145th, which is very sad indeed.
So we welcome this toll-free access of the country' s goods into the European market.
We think that this will have a favourable impact, but we believe that we, ourselves, should make a greater effort to, for example, breathe new life into the jute organisation which died a death.
Finally, I, too, would appeal for more use to be made of the human rights clause which is encapsulated in the first article of the agreement, so as to realise those aspects which Mr van den Bos expressed so eloquently.
Mr President, Commissioner, today, at last, we have an opportunity to express our opinion on the new cooperation agreement concluded with Bangladesh.
Our fellow Member and rapporteur, Mr van den Bos, with whom I visited that country last year, has already stated that we have approved this.
But he also outlined some of the central thoughts of the Committee on Development and Cooperation as to what the Community' s future action in Bangladesh should be.
Without wishing to repeat what has already been stated, I would nevertheless like to highlight some issues, on which we would also like to hear the Commission' s thoughts.
This is the most heavily populated of the so-called 'less-developed countries' .
The fragility of its economic situation, marked by the predominance of the primary sector, which involves around 65% of the working population, and also the acuteness of social problems, are highlighted by the most varied indicators.
And as if this were not enough, there are also the terrible disasters that constantly afflict the country.
In addition to these factors, the political situation, as has already been mentioned, still shows a worrying degree of instability on all counts.
We were able to confirm this for ourselves during our visit to this still young country. We saw the widespread poverty and the problems facing health and education but also some possibilities that are opening up, such as initiatives arising from cooperation, which are taking place at every level, either under the auspices of the government or which are being implemented by NGOs, the interesting use of microcredit, even though it benefits limited numbers of people, and the role and the particularly difficult situation of women.
We also saw the disastrous effects of erosion and of successive floods, and also the dangers and consequences of the huge environmental and health disaster caused by the presence of arsenic in drinking water.
We were also able to see the shortcomings in the political arena, which were quite clear in the climate of great violence that marks relations between the government of Mrs Hasina Wajed of the Awani League and the opposition, particularly the Nationalist Party of Bangladesh, which does not participate on a regular basis in the work of the national parliament.
We also saw the problems and delays in resolving the conflict with the people in the southern part of the country, specifically the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
As you all know, the European Union is Bangladesh' s main trading partner.
Around 45% of that country' s exports come to the European Union.
Bangladesh has also benefited from various development instruments, such as aid for technical and financial cooperation with Asian countries, food and humanitarian aid and exemption from customs duties on exports.
The European Union has also provided Bangladesh with a considerable amount of external aid that has been earmarked for it and on which, in fact, the country is heavily dependent.
We also know that the current agreement carries on from the 1976 agreement, and can be extended according to future needs.
The question we now face now with regard to the circumstances I have just described is to know what real objectives and priorities this new agreement hopes to achieve and in general, what effects we hope to have on sustainable development in the field of administration and on the participation of the public and public organisations in national life.
In the resolution that we adopted in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, we indicated the directions that we felt to be the most appropriate.
Mr van den Bos has already mentioned them in his speech.
We now hope that the Commission will express its agreement or disagreement with the guidelines that we proposed.
We also hope, however, that the Commission will state to what extent it will be willing to provide political support for Bangladesh in order to overcome the problems to which I referred earlier.
Given the requests that the government and the opposition have already made we would also like the Commission to tell us how it intends to support the forthcoming electoral process and whether it will be sending a mission to observe the elections that have already been scheduled for this year.
Mr President, let me first of all say that I feel it is a privilege to discuss these matters, as we are doing here on the basis of your report.
For me it represents a sort of idyllic political consensus.
We agree on your report and we welcome it very much and this is not just nice, it is also really valuable for Bangladesh and other partners.
It is very useful that we in Europe should profoundly agree on how to work with our partners.
If we were discussing aimlessly without any sort of direction, they would not have a good partner, so it is really important that we agree.
A year ago I deliberately chose Bangladesh as my first destination on a normal bilateral field trip.
We went there after the UNCTAD conference in Bangkok.
I wanted to go to a non-ACP LDC country to start in the right place.
I also wanted to start in a country as Commissioner doing field trips, a country that I knew well already in order to better be able to assess how the Commission works.
If I went to a country I did not know, there would be too many disturbing impressions, but this one I knew quite well and I am happy to say that I was positively surprised by what I saw in the field.
We were closer to the poor women, we were further out in the villages than I had expected and we worked more through Bangladeshi NGOs than I had expected.
This is a good basis and also one of the reasons why Parliament and Commission are in harmony about where we go now.
There are big problems to discuss with the Government of Bangladesh, notably its inefficiency: it performs as badly as the Commission, so the two of them have a lot to talk about, but we know that and we are clear about it saying "our delivery problems are clear and well-known, but please do not add to them by also being slow and unclear in your decision-taking process".
This is why the new agreement that we are now deciding on is so important, because it, in fact, brings cooperation one step further forward and clarifies priorities.
We will go from one country to another across the world and bring what we are doing up to normal standards concerning the basis of cooperation and priorities.
So this is all very good
As to the questions that have been put concerning the elections, on 27 January we are sending the assessment team from the Commission over there and we will be ready, willing and eager to include representatives of Parliament in an observation capacity.
If this is what we finally decide to do, we think it may be very useful.
Bangladesh has done quite a number of valuable things in recent years: regionally, agreeing more with her neighbours and approaching solutions to very old problems.
As to the Chittagong Hill tribes, we take the view that the issue there is moving too slowly.
I clarified this when I was there in February last year.
On the other hand, problems relating to land-ownership and other things are very difficult to solve in any country.
The attitude is important and I believe they are trying to do something meaningful.
What Mr van den Bos has mentioned concerning donor coordination and the many NGOs in Bangladesh is interesting and important.
Many innovations have taken place there.
Microcredit is a great achievement and it is not only one very famous organisation that has been successful.
But I would come back, when we talk about development in Bangladesh, to the role of women.
This is quite remarkable.
Their ability to change the life and the situation of families is extraordinary, but I would, in fact, point to the many young women and girls in the textile factories who in a strange way represent the chaotic way of modernisation.
The alternative - not having jobs - is quite problematical, but the kinds of jobs they have are also very problematical.
At the end of the day our liberalisation, the access for them to our market, is part of the hope of these women and of Bangladesh, so I think we are on the right track and I very much appreciate the support and the agreement that we have on what to do in Bangladesh.
Mr President, I am very pleased to be able to speak in this debate on European Union cooperation with Bangladesh, a country I know well, a country I was proud to visit with the European Parliament's delegation in the autumn of 1998.
There are, of course, a great number of people with Bengali roots settled in London and other parts of the European Union, people originally from Dhaka, Sylhet and other parts of Bangladesh.
I know from them and from my visit that Bangladesh is a country of proud, hard-working people and a country with great prospects, but one which does need assistance from the more wealthy and developed parts of the world like the European Union.
This report helps provide that support and should be commended, and accordingly I pay warm tribute to the rapporteur and my other colleague.
But the rapporteur said something which struck me, as did Mrs Maes.
The rapporteur said that state structures in Bangladesh work badly and Mrs Maes derided some of the advances that Bangladesh has made in recent years.
Yet in many ways I think that Bangladesh is amazing for the way that it does work.
It does work despite its turbulent and violent history, despite the political problems, despite its other difficulties and despite the poverty.
It does function and, as the Commissioner has just said, that is amazing considering all the difficulties.
I believe that this is fundamentally a credit to the people and indeed to the Government of Bangladesh.
Now on the positive side - and some of you from other countries may not be aware of this - Bangladesh has lately been admitted as a full test cricket playing nation.
Perhaps more significantly, reserves of natural gas have now been discovered in the Bay of Bengal.
The European Parliament has to help ensure that Bangladesh is not exploited by the big multinational companies, that it is able to use its reserves properly and to sell them at the most competitive price, which may not mean just to India or to Russia.
The cricket aspect may seem irrelevant but it does show a determination to succeed and Bangladesh will do well in this field of test cricket and this will be an inspiration to millions of people in that country.
The report makes it clear that if the European Union works in partnership with local people it can help on big issues.
It can help with family planning, the key to stability for Bangladesh.
A poor or developing country cannot sustain a birth rate above two children per woman.
The idea that a large family is automatically the route out of poverty must be eradicated and women, all women, must be able to choose whether or not to have children.
European companies must also make certain that they do not exploit the cheap labour and do not continually perpetuate the working environment in factories, where the women suffer and work very long hours for very little money.
Furthermore the European Union has the expertise to help with other problems in Bangladesh - the flooding that we have heard about, that destroys great swathes of the land on a regular basis is not inevitable.
Europe has the know-how to prevent the deforestation.
We have the knowledge and experience, for example in the Netherlands, to help improve low-lying land and land susceptible to flooding.
We, as a European Union, already help Bangladesh with grants, with least-developed country status, and with the preferential access to markets that this brings with it.
But we can, I believe, and we must do more.
The future of Bangladesh also depends on its youth.
To my mind too many of the young people in Bangladesh leave to be educated abroad in Europe and the United States, which I commend, which is good; but then many of them do not go back to Bangladesh to take back their education, their experience and their great strength.
We must encourage them to do so.
I will end as I began, by saying that Bangladesh is a country with a future.
Just as the last part of the twentieth century belonged to the countries of south-east Asia, the Tiger economies, I believe that the first part of this century can belong to the countries of south Asia.
With help from this Parliament, Bangladesh can share in that sense of belonging, in the wealth, the prosperity and ultimately the success that will bring.
Mr President, like others in this Chamber, I am one of the fortunate group of people who has visited Bangladesh, not several times like the Commissioner but in such a way as to be able to form some modest impression, and it is against that background that I wish to emphasise how important it is for cooperation between the EU and Bangladesh to be continued and developed further.
There are a number of conditions present in Bangladesh that are not present in a number of other developing countries, in as much as Bangladesh - and this, I think, is very important - has only one language and one religion and consists of only one ethnic group, which means that the ethnic conflicts we see, for example, in Africa do not exist there. Nor do religious wars.
However, it also means that it would be still worse if we were to let down just such a country, precisely because Bangladesh does not have a number of the problems we see in other countries, and we should be failing the country if we were not to commit a good deal in terms of aid, including development aid. Bangladesh can only hold its own if we are willing to help the country, and that means both the EU, as the Commissioner mentioned, and also the Member States, among which I can call attention to my own country, Denmark, which is one of the largest providers of aid in the area.
There are three points I should like to emphasise in addition to the general need for aid and development.
There is the need for good governance and support for democracy.
Others have touched upon these, so I shall not comment further upon them.
There is the need to continue helping to promote women' s independence, for example by continuing and developing further our support for microcredits.
Women suffer a good deal of oppression in Bangladesh and, as a number of speakers have already pointed this out I shall not go into any more detail on this subject either.
In this connection, I should like to say that women were precisely those who left me feeling most encouraged following my visit.
However, I should like to emphasise our need to make further progress now.
We cannot be satisfied with microcredits. We must move on to the next phase of development, whether it be concerned with textiles or something else.
I come, then, to my third point, which the Commissioner perhaps takes a rather different view of.
I believe that, in this context, we can perhaps make use of information and communications technology, precisely in order to support women too - since they are now a mainstay of society - and so as to give a boost to their cause and, all in all, to strengthen the country' s further development.
Mr President, we very much welcome the cooperation agreement which is an affirmation of the good relations between the European Union and Bangladesh and provides a framework for their further expansion.
Article 7 of the agreement deals with regional cooperation, and I would firstly like to touch on two points which relate to Bangladesh's regional situation and her relationship with neighbouring countries.
Although there is still some tension in border areas with India, there has been a great improvement in relations between the two countries.
Evidence of this has been the signature of the water sharing Treaty with India.
Following this there has been an interim agreement for sharing the waters of the Tista river and Indian assistance in preparing the project report on the proposed Ganges barrage which will be located on Bangladeshi territory.
The two countries have also recently begun talks on fighting floods which have deluged both countries with tragic consequences.
This cooperation is good news and to be encouraged and supported.
I have to say I do not see the same positive approach on the part of the Burmese authorities.
In fact, in the last few days, there have been troop deployments by the Burmese in support of Burmese attempts to construct a dam on the Naf river close to the Bangladesh border, sixty miles south east of Cox's Bazar.
In the past, such actions have resulted in military action.
A particularly regrettable aspect of this activity is that anti-personnel landmines have reportedly been laid along the border by the Burmese.
Bangladesh is the only south Asian country to have signed the Ottawa Convention banning these weapons.
Deplorably, Myanmar is not a signatory to the Convention and there are indications that she has planted mines inside Bangladeshi territory including on agricultural land.
Myanmar should accede to the mine ban Treaty immediately and Bangladesh should take steps to ratify the Treaty.
I hope the Commission and Council will pursue these points in their dealings with both countries.
On a separate matter, the report describes the impact of population growth in Bangladesh on food security and economic development.
The population of 127 million is likely to grow to over 200 million by 2030. This represents a huge push factor for emigration including to the European Union.
Bangladesh must facilitate the re-admission of nationals who are illegally in the territory of an EU Member State.
This is recognised in the declaration attached to the cooperation agreement.
It is important that the Government of Bangladesh should take early steps to enter into negotiations with those Member States that so wish and to conclude mutually acceptable re-admission agreements.
I trust the Commission will also attach importance to this.
Mr President, I would first like to say a few words about the intervention of jute organisations and Bangladesh's role as a host of the old organisation.
A year ago there were quite dramatic problems and I tried to see if it were possible to rejuvenate the old organisation.
There was no agreement between our Member States to do what we in the Commission would have liked to do, which explains the phase that we have been going through with this organisation.
The good news, however, is that the need has been accepted for a special effort, based in Bangladesh I hope, to promote the use and new uses of jute as a raw material, so perhaps it is now possible to continue with the substance of what the old jute organisation could do.
There was a meeting in Dhaka at the beginning of October and all the different parties agreed to create what is called an international jute study group.
The draft proposal for the constitution of this body will be discussed and hopefully finalised at the meeting of the International Jute Organisation to be held in Dhaka at the end of this month.
Subsequently it will be submitted to UNCTAD in Geneva and, once adopted, sent for signing and ratification to the governments concerned and the UN treaties section.
So we now have very high hopes that a new body that can promote renewed international cooperation in the jute sector will come out of the long painful discussion about the old jute organisation. This is very good because the International Jute Organisation is the only international organisation of this kind that is actually based in a least-developed country.
This is what I can report on this matter that was brought up in our discussion here.
To Mrs Djubkaer I would say: yes, it is a strong asset for Bangladesh that it is a nation and we definitely should encourage the use of that potential.
The Chittagong Hill Tracts problem is a challenge to that picture of Bangladesh but fortunately, compared to the past, the tensions are lower and they still seem set on the right course.
As to the role of IT in Bangladesh, yes of course we will try to be useful and do something but I do not honestly see it as an easy shortcut, so we will stick to the basic priorities of our agreement with Bangladesh.
But we will use IT in all possible applications.
As to what you say about focusing specifically on women in this respect, I would say that Bangladesh may be one of the places where it would be possible to experiment with this.
So we should be open to these possibilities.
I agree very much with what Mr van Orden said about the regional aspects.
It seems that Bangladesh is the nice guy around and we certainly should recognise this as a fact and we should relate to Bangladesh in that perspective.
It has neighbours who are not all very easy and the whole region is more problematic than we may often think.
There are some eleven million Bangladeshi living illegally in India.
That is a large number in a European context, so from the point of view of stability, democratisation, orderly elections and so on, it really is facing quite some challenges.
Let me once again thank you for this very positive debate.
I look forward to working with Parliament on our relations with Bangladesh.
Things are moving so rapidly there that compared to the past we may be able in just a few years to expect and to detect real changes as a result of our cooperation there, and it is a great inspiration.
Finally, we look forward very much to welcoming Bangladesh as one of the leading participants in our conference in May in Brussels on LDCs, to be held with UNCTAD.
This will be a big opportunity for Bangladesh and the other least-developed countries to present themselves not as patients on a sick bed in hospital, with the rest of the world looking at them like curious doctors, but as partners in the global society, representing cultures and potentials which are important in keeping alive the diversity of globalisation.
So we are also looking forward to that partnership.
The first EC-Bangladesh Joint Committee meeting under the new cooperation agreement is now planned for the first half of March 2001, so the train is on the move.
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Article 42(5).
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.40 p.m.)
Use of depleted uranium in Bosnia and Kosovo (Balkan syndrome)
The next item is the Council and Commission declarations on the use of depleted uranium in Bosnia and Kosovo.
I shall give the floor to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Danielsson straightaway.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the Commission, the information concerning health risks posed by depleted uranium to the population and to staff in peace-making missions in the Balkans, as well as its possible environmental consequences, has caused great concern in Europe.
It is a concern which must be taken with the greatest seriousness.
The issue ought to be investigated by organisations and institutions with competence within this area.
In November of last year, representatives of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visited Kosovo.
UNEP has been working for some time on a report on the toxicological and radiological consequences of the use of depleted uranium in the Balkans.
We welcome this report, together with the report which the World Health Organisation (WHO) is at present in the process of compiling on the same subject.
The issue of possible health risks to those soldiers who take part in peace-making efforts in the Balkans is mainly a responsibility for NATO and participating States.
The EU countries which take part in these missions do so on the basis of national decisions.
In the interests of the greatest possible transparency on the issue, views are, however, being exchanged within relevant consultative bodies.
A discussion is to take place over lunch during the meeting with the General Affairs Council on 22 January.
This also reminds us of how important it is that the effects upon health and the environment of military crisis management initiatives should be discussed now that the EU is developing its crisis management capacity.
This is a natural part of a crisis management organisation' s activities, and work of this kind is being done both within NATO and the WEU, as well as within the UN.
The issue of the possible health risks and environmental consequences involved in the use of depleted uranium also draws attention to a very important issue: that of the general environmental problems in the Balkans.
The populations of Kosovo, Yugoslavia and other war-torn countries in the Balkans have been sorely tried, with tragic and long-term consequences.
It is in the interests of Europe as a whole to overcome these consequences in cooperation with the governments in the region, which are all democratic and peace-oriented.
Through the Commission' s aid programme, the EU is offering support to the countries of the region in their efforts to get to grips with their environmental problems.
Before giving the floor to Mrs Wallström, to speak on behalf of the Commission, I have received a request for a procedural motion from Mr Alavanos.
In view of the fact that we cannot possible reorganise our debate on the basis of procedural motions, I would ask you to please tell me immediately, Mr Alavanos, in accordance with the terms of the Rules of Procedure, to which Rule your procedural motion refers.
(The President gave Mr Alavanos the floor after he had clarified that his point related to Rule 37)
Madam President, under Rule 37 of our Rules of Procedure, the Council and the Commission may ask to make a statement to the European Parliament; however it is up to the President of the European Parliament, it is specifically up to you to organise the debate.
In this sense, and because the debate is public and European public opinion is horrified by what it has heard, I think that we all have an obligation, if we are to avoid being accused of complicity, to ask the High Representative of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union who, until recently was the Secretary-General of ÍÁÔÏ and who is under investigation by the International Tribunal in the Hague for crimes against humanity, according to a statement by the public prosecutor in the Republica and other newspapers, to explain why, as Secretary-General of ÍÁÔÏ, he gave the go-ahead for a mini nuclear war in the Balkans.
Especially as Mr Solana has thrown part of the blame on to the European Parliament.
You must give a reply here.
He has said that we, too, are partly responsible for the mini nuclear war because we called for action in the Balkans.
I would remind you that we agreed on the organisation of this debate at the Conference of Presidents last week.
I shall give the floor straight away to Mrs Wallström, to speak on behalf of the Commission.
Madam President, the population is concerned, because there are indications of a link between this depleted uranium in munitions and effects on people's health and on the environment.
At the same time, however, we are aware that there is no proof yet of the existence of such a link.
Not a single scientific study, not one of the studies that have been conducted in Spain, Italy or other countries, has come up with evidence.
For this reason, following on from the remarks made here by the High Representative of the EU, Dr Solana, I should like to say that this discussion does not in any way amount to a rehabilitation of Slobodan Milosevic.
The missions undertaken in Bosnia and in Kosovo by the troops of NATO and of EU Member States were missions against a war criminal.
We owe an undiminished debt of gratitude to these people for having committed themselves in this way to the cause of human rights.
Those who bear political and military responsibility also deserve our appreciation.
Let me state that here categorically on behalf of my group.
We hear, however, that the deployed weapons set off chemical processes on impact, processes which result in the creation of uranium oxide, for example, and which may pose problems.
Over the past few days we have been hearing about examinations conducted by the Pentagon in January 2000 from which it emerged that this ammunition sometimes contains small amounts of plutonium too.
This entails risks, and the troops must be instructed to take particular care in areas where these munitions have been deployed.
In view of these considerations, it is indeed necessary to conduct tests for safety's sake.
These tests are not a sign of weakness but a sign of the credibility of democracies which investigate such matters and sweep nothing under the carpet.
We owe that to the military personnel and the staff of non-governmental organisations who were involved, as well as to the civilian population of the region.
We must establish whether there are actually effects on human health and the environment, so that we can either sound the all-clear or take such weapons out of circulation for all time.
At the same time, it is also essential, during the period in which these weapons and their effects are being studied, that existing alternative ammunition be used which is equally efficient without having any of the feared effects.
May I express my thanks to Dr Solana and the Commission for their willingness to keep the European Parliament informed, so that we can make our final assessment in due course on the basis of their information and thus guarantee the safety of our citizens and our troops as well as ensuring the credibility of any military operations we may have to undertake in future in defence of human rights.
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking the Commission, the Council and the High Representative for agreeing to take part in a debate on this subject and to reassure the High Representative that we are not going to reopen here a backdated debate on the motives behind the operations in the former Yugoslavia; it would not be right, apart from anything else because the context has changed radically.
Today we have a reasonable hope of including these countries in the European Union; yesterday we were in the thick of the nightmare of ethnic cleansing and atrocities encouraged by the nationalistic dictatorships of Izetbegovic, Karadzic and Milosevic.
It is appropriate for the European Parliament to be the forum for a responsible, transparent debate on the issue of the possible relationship between the use of depleted uranium shells and a substantial number of deaths and cases of ill health among the soldiers of different countries who have participated in operations, initially in Bosnia and more recently in Kosovo, and on the concern regarding the direct and indirect impact on the civilians involved.
There would be no cause for alarm if there were no more than the suspicion that the frequency of these cases exceeded the average for the same age categories, and it is precisely for this reason that we must establish the exact causes.
To this end, various initiatives have already been undertaken at national and international level.
We call upon NATO itself to support these initiatives, making use of the contribution of the US administration where necessary. In order to obtain all possible reassurance from the world of science, we call upon the Council and the Commission to take an active part in this coordination operation and exchange of information and we urge the Commission to set in motion its own autonomous scientific enquiry.
Lastly, the moratorium and the precautionary principle: this is not a question of asserting a principle, the precautionary principle, which was established in the context of food safety, and transferring it wholesale to foreign policy.
Rather, it is a matter of realising that the military problem has become a civilian problem and concerns the protection, for a long time after the operation itself, of the health and lives of civilians as well as soldiers.
Madam President, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party wants to see uncertainty replaced by certainty and confidence.
Young men and women must be able to report for peace-keeping and peace-making service in the confident assurance that everything is being done in the interests of their safety.
Every risk must be investigated, every soldier who is concerned must be able to obtain a thorough examination free of charge, and civilians who may have been exposed to danger must receive every attention and, if necessary, be examined, partly so that we can learn from experience.
It was, of course, out of regard for civilians that we intervened in Kosovo and Bosnia, and we did so on sound moral grounds.
The examinations must be thorough, they must be carried out by independent experts and there must be transparency about methods and possible factors of uncertainty.
If there are any reasons at all for concern, alternatives to depleted uranium must be invested in and, until certainty has been arrived at, its use may have to be suspended.
I should like to thank Mr Solana for promising that all information will be published.
We shall hold him to this, and he will also be held to account if the promise is not kept.
I should also like to thank Mr Solana for pointing out our common responsibility for the military and humanitarian action, which is the reason why we are sitting here.
It did in fact produce results and paved the way for democracy in the Balkans.
It was a moral duty to take that action, and we can be proud that we complied with that duty.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, High Representative, I am delighted that this debate is taking place at last.
We tried - unsuccessfully - to have this debate during the last parliamentary term in April 1999, when the NATO bombing was starting.
A few days after that, on 5 May to be exact, because we were convinced that this type of weapon was being used, I together with 11 fellow Members sent a letter to Mr Solana, the then NATO Secretary General, to request that a stop be put to the use of such weapons which were likely to cause health problems at a later date for the local population and the military forces involved, not to mention irreversible contamination of the environment.
We did not receive any answer at that time.
I think that is worth pointing out.
NATO drip-fed us with a series of information bulletins. In support of this, I would refer you to the comment made by the United Nations Environment Programme assessment group, at the end of 1999, that it did not have sufficient data to assess the state of depleted uranium contamination on the territory of Kosovo.
What Mr Solana has just told us, a few moments ago, namely that the action taken would be completely transparent, is novel and it is good news, but I feel rather doubtful regarding this commitment to transparency considering the attitude adopted by NATO over the last year.
I feel even more doubtful when I hear the statements of the current NATO representatives.
There are a number of points which I should like to clarify.
I think this is necessary.
When we are told that a link must be established between the state of health of the military forces and the presence, or absence, of depleted uranium, we have to be careful, as this is no simple matter, and there are several parameters which must be taken into consideration in order to explain the poor state of health of a number of members of the military: chemical pollution, a whole range of aspects of environmental damage, living conditions.
It is known, moreover, that the effects of radioactive contamination do not become apparent until after a relatively long period of time.
It would not, therefore, be proper to say at this stage, as some scientists have done, rather thoughtlessly in my opinion, that there is no connection.
It is too early to say.
Perhaps it is true for some military personnel, but I would be astonished if it were possible to generalise.
My second point is that depleted uranium is not a naturally occurring substance, as people would have us believe, or a less radioactive one.
It is approximately 20% less radioactive than natural uranium.
It is a by-product of nuclear processing and must accordingly be treated as waste.
I would point out that we have a European directive adopted in 1996, which should have been transposed by the Member States, stipulating that, where the radioactivity of such waste exceeds a concentration of 10,000 Becquerels per kilo, its radioactive contamination must be prevented from spreading.
In this instance we are talking about a concentration that is 4,000 time greater.
It is therefore quite absurd to use arms of this type to spread it in the environment, creating insoluble particles which collect in the respiratory and digestive system and then to claim that the existence of a problem remains to be proven.
Either there is a problem here, of necessity, or I have failed to understand this European directive.
Why should the conditions applicable to the people of Europe not be applicable to the people of Kosovo or Bosnia or to military personnel?
I should like to end with one last comment. Please excuse me for going on a little too long.
Mr Solana, I must tell you that the end does not justify the means.
(Applause).There is no one in this House that supported the Milosevic regime.
Yet it is not Mr Milosevic and his allies who are the victims of the radiation, who have ingested depleted uranium, but the local population, the military forces and the representatives of NGOs.
(Applause)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, High Representative, a month ago, in adopting the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Fifteen intended to set themselves out as a community of values.
The credibility of such an ambition is not won by texts alone, but by our real-life responses to significant events, by means of strong political actions underpinned by ethical principles, even though this action, quite possibly, costs a great deal to those taking it.
True merit is recognised when one' s back is against the wall.
The Balkan syndrome, ten years after the Gulf War, is one such significant event.
It brings the Fifteen face-to-face with their responsibilities in a spectacular fashion.
In my opinion and that of my group, accepting these responsibilities means taking bold decisions in at least three respects.
There is, firstly, the human aspect of the problem.
People have died, more are suffering, and still more are now living in anxiety and in fear of the future.
These people include military personnel and many civilians.
The barbarous thing about some types of weapons is that they continue to cause casualties, indiscriminately, after the war.
We are clearly faced with a situation of this type in the Balkans.
In the past, the international community has done itself credit by prohibiting anti-personnel mines on these grounds.
It should now, by the same token, ban weapons containing depleted uranium.
It is up to the European countries which manufacture them, including Great Britain, Portugal and, unfortunately, my own country, France, to agree to put an end to the manufacture, storage and, of course, the use, even experimentally, of such arms.
This would be doing no more than to comply with the principles of the 1980 Geneva Convention, which prohibits weapons with indiscriminate effects.
At the same time, all victims must be granted the right to health care, all potential victims must be granted the right to scanning, and all the regions concerned must be granted the right to decontamination and rehabilitation.
Is ducking one' s responsibilities by claiming today that the dangerous nature of these arms had not been identified at the time, even though a great many government inquiries and internal reports clearly demonstrated as much, really a serious and fitting attitude? I sincerely feel that this is a rearguard action, out of step in terms of the information now available to our fellow citizens.
This brings me to my second point, the democratic challenge which this tragic case poses for us, for there is a long litany of culpable silence, counter-truths and lying by omission in which both NATO and some Member States have indulged as much as possible.
Having agreed in the past to act as a sort of intermediary between these parties, Mr Solana, you cannot now be surprised to find that we are asking you to give us some explanations regarding the serious matters which are gradually emerging.
There is, as you have said, an undeniable demand for truth regarding past matters and transparency regarding future matters, but, in all honesty, in this respect I do not think that either the Fifteen or NATO can possibly think they have paid their dues after what you have just told us, Mr Solana.
(Applause)In the end, we must take this difficult ordeal as an opportunity to reassess our concept of the organisation of European security and relations between the European Union and NATO.
In our opinion it is high time that we ceased to allow ourselves, both on the European continent and in the rest of the world, to be dragged into the tragic deadlocks of American strategic options.
I am thinking of the horrific effects of the Gulf War on the Iraqi people, particularly the children.
I am thinking of the systematic destruction of the economic potential and the ecological heritage not only of Yugoslavia but also of its neighbouring countries - take the Danube, for example - compounded, as we have just seen, by confirmation of the widespread use in this conflict of arms and munitions which, in addition to causing countless innocent casualties in the short term also represent a long-term threat for people coming into contact with the areas which have been bombed.
This, Mr Solana, has nothing to do with defending human rights.
No, as far as Europe is concerned, the end must not justify the means.
I am convinced that, one way or another, these are questions which many people now have in mind.
Today is one stage in the process, and it will be followed by other stages.
I hope that increasing numbers of us will align ourselves with this move for change.
(Applause)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Solana, there are few occasions on which it can have been so important that the truth of the matter, the whole truth, emerges in a parliamentary debate as this one.
The vast majority of countries that comprise the European Union, whether they are members of NATO or not, participated in various military and police operations in the Balkans, through their armed forces and security forces.
They did so because they felt that this was the most appropriate way to protect civilian populations and their fundamental rights and to contribute to peace and to the country' s reconstruction and democratic rehabilitation.
The situation is that in some of these countries, including my own country, Portugal, several worrying cases have arisen.
In Portugal, these cases are of leukaemia and other pathologies associated with radiation in soldiers who served either in Bosnia or Kosovo, one of which has already proved fatal.
These cases have raised and continue to raise, in medical, scientific, military and political circles and consequently in the mind of the public of these countries, justified concern at the possible relationship - which, I emphasise, has not been proved - between exposure to depleted uranium contained in used missiles and the outbreak of the diseases I have just mentioned.
It is therefore crucial to ascertain the truth of this relationship, first of all because important human values that require respect and serenity in the face of the legitimate concerns of the soldiers and their families are under threat.
Secondly, because scientific information is as yet incomplete and we need to establish beyond a doubt whether there is a cause and effect relationship between the use of weapons containing depleted uranium and the health problems that we have been seeing.
Also, because it is unacceptable that there should still be controversy over the degree of information that NATO claims to have given the governments and military authorities of the countries participating in missions in good time and the conditions under which their armed forces and the security forces took part in military and police operations.
Lastly, because it would be incomprehensible and even paradoxical for our countries to have participated in missions for peace and to promote human rights in the Balkan region and to possibly left there an unsolved public health and environmental problem that affects precisely the populations that they seeking to protect.
This is a matter which, in any event, must be taken seriously and to its conclusion, regardless of the consequences.
Mr Solana, I thank you for your first speech, not least because of the spirit of openness that you demonstrated.
You were Secretary-General of NATO at the time of the military operations under question and you are now responsible for the implementation of the European Union' s common foreign and security policy.
You are therefore in a position, if you like, to make an enormous contribution to the European Parliament's ability to find, together with the governments of the Member States, NATO and other international organisations, the best solutions to this case at scientific, political or even military levels.
That is what we hope for from the Council and from you.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1950, when I was 20 years old, a campaign exploded throughout the entire world: in Europe, in our universities, in schools - they attempted without success as yet to penetrate the churches - and it was the campaign against Ridgway, the "Plague General".
It was the time of the war waged by the US, by the West, by the capitalists in Korea against the rights of the Koreans. The entire communist organisation, the entire hypocritical structure of you good old communists of the '50s, '60s and '70s, mobilised itself to inform us that Ridgway, the "Plague General", was on the 50th parallel - this was before the Atlantic Alliance in the Far East - and was using chemical and bacteriological weapons to defend the unjust, capitalist society oppressing the Third World and his own people.
Communist campaigns, socialist campaigns - for then you had the Stalin Peace Awards at various crucial moments, between 1950 and 1953 - a few trembling papists here and there, would you mind conceding us a moment of respite from your retrospective moralising, from your constant quest to apportion blame? You conceded very little.
Of course the Dresden bombings in the Great War may not have been necessary and may have been criminal, but the truth is that you do not gloss over this: you communists will not leave us alone with your pacifist line-up.
Well then, a European Parliament which is now faced with a motion calling for such respite is cowardly, reckless, antidemocratic and irresponsible: antidemocratic in any case because it is disregarding the commitments called for by parliaments and governments in times of need.
We cannot wait to find out the scientific truth about these weapons, but if they had been used to prevent Vukovar being raised to the ground as it was, we would have spared the lives of tens, hundreds of thousands of Bosnians, Kosovars, Serbs and others in Croatia.
I therefore thank you, Madam President, and I await the revelation of the truth which must be ascertained in the face of our tendency to distort and abuse it ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, we need to establish the facts in this case.
We have received certain assurances from Mr Solana but we know, and our Italian colleagues in particular will remind us of this, that it will be difficult for those whose sons have died of leukaemia to accept that assurance unreservedly.
These days we cannot easily accept death when better health and prosperity seem to have brought us so near to immortality.
We now need to reinforce Mr Solana's assurance with repeated testing offered as widely as possible and with the maximum openness from the American authorities.
I have been asked, particularly by my colleague Lord Inglewood, who represents the area of Cumbria where test-firing of these weapons has taken place, to insist that the question as to the possible effect upon the civilian population should be taken into account when this testing is carried out.
If he is going to reply to this debate, Mr Solana might like to address that point.
There were a large number of British soldiers in the Balkan War and, of course in the Gulf, and as a British Conservative I will say this: Of course, we are concerned about the possible impact of the use of depleted uranium, but against the background of Mr Solana's statement, we do not believe that NATO should adopt a moratorium on the use of such weapons.
We have to fight terrible wars against terrible people.
Such a moratorium could place our forces at a potential disadvantage and thereby potentially endanger more lives than the NATO forces.
As Mrs Wallström has said: The real and immediate danger in the Balkans comes from general environmental degradation following years of neglect, corruption and war.
This is what the European Union needs to address while we monitor very carefully the results of medical testing.
In conclusion let me say that Mr Wurtz's contribution was very revealing of the constant agenda of the left which aims to separate the European Union from the United States and would result in depriving Europe of any real influence in the world.
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, the evidence coming from Bosnia in particular points clearly to a massive increase in cases of cancer where bombings took place during the Balkans war and where ammunition rounds of depleted uranium were used.
It is now believed that the depleted uranium rounds were used by the bombers which carried out attacks on the suburbs of Sarajevo and elsewhere during the Balkans war.
The people of the Balkans are entitled to full and unequivocal answers with regard to the carcenogenic effects of the depleted uranium shells which were used during the war.
This Parliament and the European Union should, and must, be most vigorous in pursuing full answers to these most important public health and human rights issues.
On a separate but related matter, I was quite disturbed to read that depleted uranium shells have been fired into the Irish Sea by British Ministry of Defence forces at the Solway Firth between England and Scotland and also at a range on the Cumbrian coast, just seven miles from a British nuclear plant.
This depleted uranium has been used in Cumbria up to 1995, and it is believed that as many as 1400 depleted uranium shells have been fired into the Solway Firth, which is an inlet of the Irish Sea.
As a Member of the European Parliament, representing Leinster, which is along the Irish Sea, I am deeply concerned at these revelations.
I am calling on the British government to make a full statement on the matter.
I want to know whether there are any possible public health consequences from the use of depleted uranium shells in the location to which I have referred to today.
It is up to the British government to make a statement on these matters.
Mr President, the scandal of the depleted uranium missiles is just the latest chapter in the despicable war you have waged against Serbia.
Mr Solana, you are discussing transparency now that the scandal has emerged but you are two years too late.
Do you take us for fools? Do you really think the United States will let you get away with this even though it has taken forty years to see the films, the documentation and the victims of the human experiments they carried out on their own forces on the ships irradiated following the Bikini nuclear tests?
All we know, at any event, is that you have paid little heed to the precautionary principle that people keep harping on about here.
All we know, as Commissioner Wallström has just said, is that the smiling face of your spokesman, Mr Shed, concealed the use of these shells.
All we know is that the incidence of leukaemia among our soldiers is abnormally high.
If a causal link were to be established, then you would be responsible for a war crime, as the statements made referred only to military personnel, as if the uranium were capable of differentiating between military and civilian personnel.
Quite frankly, ladies and gentlemen, if you want the truth, then look for it yourselves, and do not expect Mr Solana, the European High Representative, to condemn Mr Solana, the former Secretary General of NATO.
Mr President, today we are tackling an extremely important subject which requires great reflection over extremely long periods of time, and, moreover, we are doing so on the basis of a wave of emotion which, seeing as we are not specialists, is ill-suited to the politics we are obliged to carry out here.
With regard to the precautionary principle, to which previous speakers have referred, I am somewhat concerned because, although we are tackling the issue of BSE, I do not imagine anyone would ever contemplate saying that we should not eat any type of meat, even in the absence of well-founded scientific results.
As the Commissioner, with whom I am in complete agreement, said just now, we must first examine what the environmental situation in the region was, but we must also ascertain, with great care of course, the relationship of cause and effect between the equipment used - the weapons - and the impact on health.
I must, moreover, point out that depleted uranium is used in civil contexts in many other sectors, and we should certainly investigate these extremely thoroughly.
We must also bear in mind the risk of inciting panic, where strong positions are adopted, among those who send staff to the region and those who are sent there by the Member States.
It is my view that we should analyse this issue extremely carefully and confirm that we certainly all have good cause to be grateful to NATO for its past and future interventions.
We do not support the call for a moratorium.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are holding this debate today because of the concern we have for people.
Some of these people are the military personnel, our troops, who are there, but we are also concerned about the civilian population, the millions who live in Yugoslavia and in Kosovo.
We do not seek to establish here and now whether the war in Kosovo was justified or not.
It would be inappropriate to engage in such a debate.
What we must do - and I entirely agree here with the High Representative of the CFSP - is to examine with the utmost care and precision whether a link exists between the incidences of illness and the quantities of ammunition with depleted uranium which were fired during the war in Yugoslavia and Kosovo and in Bosnia too.
If we intend to do that, we must pledge ourselves to certain important principles, so that we at least, as elected representatives of the peoples of Europe, can restore the credibility which NATO has forfeited through this and similar episodes.
Foremost priority attaches to precise and independent tests by international experts with the aid of every possible scientific method.
Secondly, we need a radical change in our information policy, and in this respect I must thank the Council, and above all the High Representative of the CFSP, for their undertaking to make all information available to Parliament.
Thirdly, and finally, we must demand an immediate moratorium on all arms and ammunition of this type until we have the complete results of the tests we have commissioned, so that we can then take our decisions in a responsible manner.
Mr President, to become embroiled in a scientific debate, in which many see a link - and some do not - between the use of depleted uranium and an increase in the number of fatalities, is every politician' s nightmare.
There is the risk that in this way, the political debate tips over into a scientific one.
I believe we should uphold the task of the politician, which is twofold, in my opinion.
First of all, the European Union' s responsibility is towards the local population.
It is up to the Member States to assume responsibility for their soldiers.
In my view, it should be the EU' s responsibility to look after the local population out there.
The second responsibility we have is not to be tricked into focusing all statements on the use of depleted uranium.
There might well be other causes for the increased number of fatalities.
I therefore believe that a comprehensive enquiry should be instituted into all the abnormalities which occur locally and in the national armies.
Finally, something which irritates me no end is that Mr Solana, as well as a number of fellow MEPs, establish a false link between the end and means to used to reach the end, or the link between the war and the means deployed.
I was in favour of intervening in the war, but I am against taking irresponsible risks.
Mr President, we have a responsibility towards two parties: on the one hand, the young people who took part - commendably - in the military operations in Bosnia and Kosovo and, of course, their families, and, on the other, the beneficiaries of those peace-keeping missions, the Balkan peoples.
It is true, the direct or indirect relationship between the use of depleted uranium shells and the cases of leukaemia, which are multiplying, has not yet been proved indisputably, although the link appears more than likely, but these cases exist and are so numerous as to justify the greatest concern.
It is therefore right to pursue, with a coordinated approach, all the scientific investigations necessary to clarify the impact of this type of arm on health and the environment, but, in the meantime, it is also right to apply the precautionary principle, which has never been so appropriate as on this occasion, and that is why it is urgent and vital to impose a moratorium.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, daily, and indeed almost hourly, we receive new information about potential dangers.
That is why it is very gratifying that Parliament is dealing with this issue today.
I thank the High Representative for promising us complete information and transparency.
For us too, it is a new experience to be discussing matters of security and defence policy in this way.
It will certainly benefit European security and defence policy to be discussed outside the constellation that prevails in the Member States, where governments and oppositions are constantly trying to score political points on these issues.
In Germany, for example, the Red-Green coalition Government under their Minister of Defence has been trivialising all these risks, which is something that has certainly not been happening here in Parliament.
We in the European Parliament have an opportunity to receive factual briefings and information, and that is a very good thing.
What is damaging - and it has been a feature of this debate too - are belated recriminations about the Gulf War and the war in Kosovo.
Mr Wurtz, if you cite the Charter of Fundamental Rights and our high European principles in this context, I must remind you that, at the time when fundamental European principles were at stake, when ethnic cleansing, expulsions and terror were the order of the day in the Balkans, your political grouping stood helplessly on the sidelines.
This also has to be said in such a debate.
We are calling for relevant information to be collected, for the information available in the Member States to be coordinated at the European level with UN data through the specialised agencies of the United Nations and submitted to Parliament again.
An armed conflict must always be governed by the precept that no more force may be used than is necessary to achieve the military objective.
For this reason we need information and research on weapons systems which are less harmful than the one we have been discussing today.
This is where the European Parliament can exercise its responsibility in the framework of European security and defence policy by making its own constructive contributions.
Mr President, High-Representative, the mandate which you had for action in Yugoslavia was not a mandate to use weapons which the conscience of humanity rejects and condemns and the potential toxicity of which, as measured now, was known to military leaders at the time.
If now that disclosures have begun and more will follow, you feel alarmed by this fact, to seek accomplices in this Parliament that is, I am sorry to say, evidence of cowardice and bad taste.
Mr President, we are worried about the effects of these bombings in the Balkans, we are worried about the soldiers who took part and we are worried about the inhabitants of the areas which became battlefields. We call for a broad environmental inquiry into any deterioration in the environment throughout the Balkans.
Our concern has reached proportions which you cannot begin to imagine here in the House, at least among public opinion in my country.
The joint motion for a resolution also calls for a moratorium...
(The President cut the speaker off) (Applause)
Mr President, we here have now been assured from various quarters that information will be given and matters discussed openly.
Until now that openness has been missing.
Naturally we must have the right information to support our action, but I have the same opinions as have been expressed here with regard to putting the precautionary principle into practice.
We have as our next point for discussion the issue of a rapid reaction force.
In this connection we clearly have to adopt a position on our approach to the matter of people' s health, although we might not see a direct connection, for instance, with leukaemia.
It is very possible that other harmful effects, for example in connection with drinking water, will be evident in the long term.
Can we really work on the basis that when we do good and solve conflicts, at the same time we will be causing the civilian population so much anxiety and insecurity in the future?
Mr President, I find it slightly bizarre to talk about the precautionary principle in relation to weapons, which are after all designed to be bad for your health.
The problem, of course, is that you only have to mention the word "uranium" and there is an outbreak of what can only be described as mass hysteria.
Of course, the illnesses and deaths must be investigated and I welcome the action taken by NATO member states to that end, but we have to make a judgment on the facts and the facts are very clear at the moment.
There is no link between depleted uranium and the illnesses.
If we look at the study of Gulf War veterans that was done in the United States and compare that with the study of the control group, there is no difference in the death rates, or illness rates, or the rates of cancer between the two groups.
We must ensure that we are working on the basis of scientific fact and that is why it is not appropriate to call for a moratorium at the moment, when there is no scientific link between the two.
There are a lot of other issues to do with the Balkan War which we should be investigating, like unexploded cluster bombs and the environmental damage which the Commission has outlined, but let us stick to the facts.
Mr President, I also want to start by saying thank you to all the Members of the European Parliament for their statements, because they have underlined the need to take seriously the fears and anxieties in respect of all those who suffer from symptoms and illnesses as well as the need to gather all available information and to examine also the long-term health effects.
The Commission, I assure you, will do all in its power and competence to establish a sound scientific basis in relation to this issue and we will also, of course, cooperate fully with other national and international bodies working in this field: NATO, UNEP, IAEA and the World Health Organisation.
The Commission's efforts will be integrated into our wider programme of support in the Balkans with respect to health and the environment, because we must look at the accumulated effects.
We also welcome the opportunity to report back to the European Parliament on the progress of our efforts to establish a solid scientific basis on the effects of depleted uranium.
We would like to come back to report to you and of course we are always willing to answer any questions that you might have.
Mr President, I just want to take the opportunity of asking Commissioner Wallström and others to speak in their respective native languages here in the Chamber - in Mrs Wallström' s case, Swedish.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I have just been looking at the text of the joint motion for a resolution.
I should like to point out that the name indicated as signing for the Liberal Group, the Lord Bethell, is most welcome to join our Group.
I should like to place on the record how pleased we are to have a new member today who signs on our behalf.
Well, by the time of the vote we shall have established which groups Lord Bethell does and does not belong to.
I should like to inform the House that I have received seven motions for resolutions under Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure as well as one joint motion for a resolution sponsored by six groups.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon tomorrow.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Perhaps we could just settle that point of order now.
Lord Bethell is, and remains, firmly a member of the British Conservative Group.
Mr Van Orden, I cannot allow you to make statements on behalf of Lord Bethell unless you have written authorisation from him.
Mr President, since we are discussing the joint resolution on the Balkan syndrome, I would just like to point out that my own name and that of my group have been included erroneously on this joint resolution.
Mr Wurtz, I explicitly said a joint motion for a resolution sponsored by six groups, not seven.
I am thoroughly familiar with the sensitivities of your group on this point, which is why I specified it quite explicitly.
Rapid reaction facility
The next item is the report (A5-0392/2000) by Mr Newton Dunn, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation [COM(2000) 119 - C5-0272/2000 - 2000/0081(CNS)] on the creation of a Rapid Reaction Facility.
Mr President, this proposal is about money for an instant, non-military response by the Union to crises.
It is first pillar - for those who understand Union jargon - and is driven by the Commission.
It is not a military, rapid reaction force, which is, of course, second pillar, and driven by the Council of Ministers.
However, I have been invited, lobbied and asked how I am going to deploy the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy's soldiers, tanks and planes.
I have been asked whether we are going to use naval bases in Cyprus and to address a conference of Canadian soldiers.
I want to make it absolutely clear that this is nothing to do with the military rapid reaction force: this is a financial facility for the Commission to respond to crises very rapidly.
Although the Commission will deploy the money as fast as is necessary, Parliament retains control as one half of the budgetary authority.
We shall vote the money and we shall look forward to the reports from the Commission on how it has spent the money.
We expect the Commission to spend the money on responding to crises by buying medicines, hiring doctors or nurses, chartering aircraft to carry the medicines, nurses or policemen - whatever is required - to the crisis, wherever it is - not necessarily within Europe.
In the past the Union has been rightly criticised for being slow in responding to crises.
We have failed to send an immediate response when it was most obviously required, and this proposal is part of Commissioner Patten's praiseworthy efforts to improve the Union's aid programme, which is in a bit of a mess, to say the least.
I hope very much that Parliament will support it, and I will come back to that.
We would be very interested to know whether, when the Commissioner responds to this debate, he would be able to outline the types of situations that he envisages this may be used for - although, of course, we have some ideas ourselves.
I have been asked by a number of colleagues who have read the report why, if it is such a good idea, there are so many amendments in it.
The original Commission proposal was dated April last year, but after that nothing happened.
It was blocked, it appears, by the French Presidency, with no explanation of what was happening.
So I tabled a question at Question Time asking for an explanation and miraculously - but maybe there was no connection - the French Presidency and the Commission got together to negotiate to remove the blockage.
They came up with an alternative text but, I am sorry to say, the Council has never had the courtesy to inform Parliament of the new version of the text.
So the many amendments in my report are an attempt to amend the original proposal and for us to comment on the new compromise text which we happened to obtain, even though it was never given to us officially.
Parliament has only one reading on this, which is another reflection which was not corrected at the Nice Summit of the democratic deficit.
It should, of course, be codecision, but it is not.
However, we were able to threaten to use our single reading to withhold it - like the famous isoglucose case some years ago - and if we withhold an opinion, nothing further can happen.
So we have an effective veto.
But, happily, the committee in Parliament has looked at this proposal in great detail and is in favour of it.
Hence the many amendments proposed by the committee.
Finally - I am not going to go into the details of the amendments - I am happy to say that the committee adopted the amendments almost unanimously, with the single exception of the British Conservatives. They will no doubt explain why that was so.
That was the party which I felt obliged to abandon because it had become totally negative about Europe.
I very much hope that when we vote on this proposal they will at last feel positive and give it their wholehearted support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Budgets welcomes the proposed rapid reaction facility.
We support this Community mechanism, which is designed to make resources available for urgent non-combat activities related to crisis management and conflict prevention.
It is right and fitting that the European Union should help to preserve or restore public order and to facilitate dialogue, conciliation, mediation and the prevention of human rights abuses.
All of this, however, can only be achieved or become achievable if the facility really is able to respond rapidly.
That is why we emphatically support the Commission's proposal that implementation be based on the committee system, including the involvement of an advisory committee, with the emphasis on the word 'advisory'.
Now over the years, as you know, the Commission - with Parliamentary backing, I hasten to add - has been pursuing a strategy of gradually transferring activities from the ambit of the common foreign and security policy, in other words from the second pillar of the European unification process, to that of the Community, the first pillar.
This trend is continued by the current proposal for the rapid reaction facility.
So far, so good.
But the funds for this purpose must be allocated under Heading 4 of the Financial Perspective.
And all Members of this House have been made aware by at least the last two budgetary processes just how tight our finances are in the foreign-policy budget.
Every year, this allocation has been the subject of our bitterest budgetary wrangling with the Council.
We have no need of a crystal ball to predict a similar situation this year.
For that reason we have asked the lead committee to do two things: firstly, to call on the Commission and Council to outline their intentions and particularly to explain how they intend to divide up responsibilities between themselves in this field and how they intend to finance the relevant activities, and, secondly, to add a recital to the proposed text stating quite clearly that rapid reaction interventions must be financed within Heading 4.
Should that be impossible, provision must be made for a revision of the Financial Perspective.
In addition, we want an obligation to consult Parliament on each action to be financed under the facility.
The rapporteur and the lead committee have complied with these budgetary wishes.
For this we are very grateful to them.
Mr President, the European Commission boasts a whole raft of competences which are important in terms of a civil contribution to keeping those situations under control which threaten to get out of hand.
Those competences can be deployed in the stabilisation phase following a violent conflict, to prevent the situation from hitting crisis point again.
In addition to the usual aid personnel, these competences also involve monitors, the deployment of government officials, trainers and police.
They translate into projects and aid policy specifically designed to bring stability to a certain region.
We very much welcome the dimension of political and organisational coherence in all these civil instruments in the form of a rapid reaction facility.
In this way, the EU' s responsibility for the international legal order can be developed much more effectively.
Furthermore, it gives the Commission and the competent Commissioner a chance to bring forward their own initiatives and proposals in this field.
In our opinion, the interplay between the rapporteur and the Commission has led to an excellent resolution.
Particular efforts have been made to avoid introducing or maintaining superfluous structures which delay the decision-making process.
The rapporteur is right to point out the need for funding this facility and the need for a well-trained unit for financial management and implementation.
My group prefers the Commission text to the rapporteur' s amendments on a number of scores.
For instance, I find the list of examples and goals in Article 1 (1), which is what the rapid reaction facility will serve to achieve, very useful.
The report mentions the clear involvement of the European Parliament in the policy.
Given the fragmented commitment of the Member States, also in the future, the report is right to call for a system of information exchange.
Who knows whether more far-reaching coordination and guidance will be possible in the time to come.
We learn from our knock-backs, albeit with some delay.
Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo are important examples where a great deal went wrong and, slowly but surely, we learnt from our mistakes.
The rapid reaction facility is, as far as this is concerned, an enormous step forward.
We hope, of course, that it will need to be deployed as little as possible, but that is wishful thinking.
We know that in politics, it is useful to have this option up your sleeve, as a complement to the rapidly mobilised military unit which falls within the remit of Mr Solana.
We think that in future, the European Union' s civil instruments will matter most in the sphere of maintaining law and order, and this is, of course, also what we want.
For we too, like everyone else, would like to choose civil instruments over military instruments, but we need not press this point too much in this arena, given the large degree of hesitation whenever the need arises to deploy military instruments.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Newton Dunn, who guided us so expertly through this complex preparation of the report in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence, and has done so again.
By way of example and evidence, I can confirm that only one amendment was tabled for the plenary with regard to his report.
Our group will, incidentally, support that amendment.
The proposal to institute a rapid reaction facility by means of which financial resources can be freed up quickly, receives the unqualified support of my group.
It is our express preference to deploy civil instruments first in the event of a threatening conflict situation.
This is the second concrete step in that connection, after formulating the requirement of a rapidly mobilised police force.
We are waiting with bated breath for a detailed proposal for a total package with so-called "headline goals" in this area.
We would like to see a balance struck between the EU efforts in the fields of civil and military crisis management.
The EU must be able to respond quickly in emergency situations with a wide and well-attuned range of instruments at its disposal.
This is why simple procedures are being proposed for the rapid reaction facility.
Comitology can be avoided by remaining within the Community framework.
However, in theory this limits the number of countries where the instrument can be deployed, but we do not foresee any practical problems.
Where is the European Union not active?
In cases where the Commission makes a formal proposal - which is understandable - to deploy the facility so as to guarantee the implementation of EU programmes, we would like to see the term 'EU policy' added.
This will widen the scope.
In order not to hinder effectiveness, we have suggested not defining the financial boundaries beforehand, or including timeframes in the scheme.
The rapid reaction facility must be flexible by nature.
We would ask the Commission, especially in the beginning, to carry out many and frequent assessments, and to report on these to our Parliament.
In this context, we are also very keen to find out how the facility will relate to the ECHO programme.
This is a new instrument, and we can learn from its growing pains.
Finally, I should like to ask whether the Commissioner would be prepared to discuss possible scenarios for commitment at some point in the future, for we are now theorising about instruments, but we must also talk about the practical implications at some stage, and for this purpose, a scenario discussion would, I believe, be very desirable.
Mr President, when things go wrong in a certain region, the world has come to expect ever more from Europe, and rightly so.
We have the means, the organisational set-up and intention to help in emergency situations, and from that point of view, Africa can expect precious little from America under Bush.
That is why I welcome the Commission proposal to set up a rapid reaction mechanism alongside the military unit and to supplement ECHO.
This new mechanism will certainly meet a need, so much so that demand could soon exceed supply.
In my opinion, the resources available for this year are an insult to the serious commitment of the RRM.
Even if the amount is doubled or trebled in later years, it remains a joke compared to the many initiatives which can qualify for RRM action.
It is about fast decision-making, acting and funding.
The impressive list of operations from the otherwise excellent Newton Dunn report comes, therefore, as a bit of a surprise.
It contains many important tasks of a not entirely pressing nature, such as providing education, monitoring elections or clearing mines.
Could the Commissioner clarify what, according to him, the scope of application will need to be, also in the light of limited financial resources?
The RRM initiative, a first pillar construction under the remit of the Commission, appeals to me. It is of utmost importance for our Parliament to be totally involved.
Will we be informed about proposed action in good time?
We often hear about issues of competence and rivalry between Mr Patten and Mr Solana; a distribution of tasks between the governments and the Commission in terms of military and civil affairs is very much an option on paper, but could well lead to major problems in reality. Can the Commissioner give us any reassurance in this respect?
European politics, military and civilian action must be coordinated effectively. This is another expectation which the world has of us, and rightly so.
Mr President, ever since Amsterdam the Union has been proudly proclaiming its role as a fire brigade for crises in Europe.
The only problem is that it does not even possess buckets with which to draw water.
With the rapid reaction facility, the Union has now acquired some buckets at least, and I do welcome that.
However, I should have liked to see this fire brigade equip itself with hoses too, but Members of this House are among those who have told us that, while this fund does not meet all our needs, fire hoses are simply expensive commodities.
Nevertheless, the facility is a step forward, but I must re-emphasise that it is still a lopsided mechanism, because it only funds action after the event.
Far greater importance surely attaches to action before the event, to preventive measures.
Police forces alone cannot prevent crises, which is why we also expect funding to be provided for the European civilian peace corps that Parliament called for in its resolution of 1999, and we ask Dr Solana to pursue these things more persistently.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Newton Dunn on his report and for the ease with which the committee has taken on board all sorts of suggestions.
We consider the Commission' s initiative to be an important one.
Nevertheless, I must point out that, although in our Group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, there is, understandably, no single point of view on this issue, the majority of us are in favour of this rapid reaction force.
We believe that it is important, that it must be established as a European Community policy, and that greater emphasis must be placed on conflict prevention as part of Europe' s contribution to peace.
We would therefore have liked to have seen greater funding allocated, and better coordination between the various applicable programmes to improve their effectiveness, as well as greater co-responsibility when it comes to the eventual - and sometimes, unfortunately, necessary - military intervention, which would perhaps not become necessary if the earlier stages were carried out properly.
Mr President, the discussion on the rapid reaction facility is starting to drag.
Member States are still not agreed on the nuts and bolts of this mechanism.
Apparently, it will also be some time before agreement is reached, and that while the financial implications for the Member States are minimal.
There is no need for them to increase their contributions to the Union' s external policy, they only need to grant approval to facilitate the shifting of existing resources.
Laborious negotiations have once again shown that ambitious goals regarding one of the Union' s external policies evaporate in practice because of the firm positions held by the national Member States.
Removing the geographical restriction of programmes created by the Union is not a licence for the European Union to intervene anywhere in the world at will.
I therefore applaud the specifics which have been added to the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy with regard to this proposal.
This mechanism specifically focuses on actions within the context of European programmes.
This mechanism can provide help where the implementation of those programmes is at risk due to crisis situations.
However, I do not share the conclusions of the report on a different score.
Indeed, unlike the rapporteur, I wish to retain the crisis committee from the Commission proposal.
In this way, we will prevent a situation from arising where initiatives meet with insufficient backing within Member States.
Furthermore, we will lend the Union' s and Member States' initiatives the necessary coherence.
Not insignificant, in the light of all the criticism which the Union' s external action has had to put up with over the years.
I also have my reservations about the suggestions made in the explanatory statement with regard to the amendment of the legal basis of this regulation.
Article 308 is the only article on which this proposal can be based.
Moreover, I wonder whether the addition of Article 179 will benefit the speed of this mechanism.
It appears to me that codecision for Parliament will delay matters unnecessarily.
What we do need to be able to do is to call the Commission to account afterwards on the use of this mechanism.
Mr President, the proposal for a regulation creating a rapid reaction facility is one of those which are founded on thoroughly laudable intentions but which are liable to fail as a result of red tape and turf wars.
The European Union has played a rather unconvincing role hitherto in the realm of rapid reaction and conflict resolution.
The reason for this does not seem to lie so much in a shortage of manpower or financial commitment as in a failure to manage, plan and coordinate initiatives and activities.
Be that as it may, the declaration of intent to become more active in the resolution of conflicts and in crisis management must be interpreted as an important step in the right direction.
The EU has sometimes done marvellous things to improve the situation in crisis-torn areas, especially with financial resources.
But money is no substitute for political will and political influence.
If the EU wishes to play a more prominent role in future, it must have the political will to involve itself more actively in the implementation of appropriate measures.
I am only the representative of a small country, but I can assure you that Austria, with its long tradition of neutrality and non-alignment, has amassed a particular wealth of experience in the domains of political mediation and crisis management, which makes parties to a conflict more willing to accept it as a mediator.
Perhaps this is one of the very areas in which the EU should be making greater use of the experience of its smaller countries.
Crisis management and mediation attempts are not so much about huge financial resources and large bloated organisations as about the trust that warring parties are prepared to place in an offer of intervention.
And this is precisely where the EU has been failing.
We have an image problem in the eyes of the parties to the numerous conflicts in the world today.
That cannot be surmounted with new administrative units and financial plans alone.
What is really lacking is a credible desire to assume greater global responsibility in the realms of mediation and crisis management.
Mr President, I hope I have the Commissioner's attention, as he is in conversation with Mr Brok at the moment.
Throughout this Parliament we have been calling for the Commission to introduce more efficient financial management and administrative procedures so that it can deliver external assistance and implement its programmes such as mine action urgently, in times of crisis or when lives are at stake.
It seems to us that this was the underlying motive behind Mr Patten's proposal for the rapid reaction facility.
I hope this is the case and I would ask for a reassurance on this point from the Commissioner.
It is a pity that the term "Rapid Reaction Facility" has been used for what after all should be a procedural matter, a financial management instrument.
It is easily confused with "Rapid Reaction Force"; it has been confused in the media and even in Parliament's own session news this week.
Perhaps in the interest of clarity and to avoid confusion, the Commission could change the title to something like "Urgent Financing Facility".
We support the principle as I have described it, but one or two unfortunate elements seem to have crept in.
Firstly, instead of referring to the facility in the context of CFSP and the Commission's own first pillar external actions, it has been put into the context of the common security and defence policy.
Now we have expressed our concerns about the EU meddling in military matters on many occasions and our reservations have not been eased by developments at Nice.
This is a separate issue.
The Commission's financial facility should not be mixed up with these defence issues.
Secondly, there is a thread of political correctness running through the proposal.
I am baffled for instance by the idea that the fight against gender discrimination would fall into the crisis management category, triggering the use of the rapid reaction facility.
Thirdly, for us more importantly, Mr Newton Dunn, the rapporteur, has taken the opportunity to introduce an amendment in pursuit of one of his pet subjects, namely the establishment of a European public security force, in other words a European gendarmerie or armed police.
This is the main reason why we cannot accept this report.
We do not want a European army and we certainly to not want a European police force.
We do want the Commission to carry out its external assistance with greater efficiency and we welcome measures to that effect.
Mr President, the European Parliament has always upheld the need to increase the European Union' s non-military intervention capabilities.
We therefore welcome the Council' s proposal and support Mr Newton Dunn' s report, which puts forward proposals that improve the text. These are clearly issues which come under the first pillar.
Nevertheless, we all know that, in the context of the second pillar, the military mechanism of a rapid reaction force, designed to fulfil Petersberg-type tasks, is being created.
It is envisaged that these tasks will be carried out in third countries where the non-military rapid reaction mechanism will also operate.
But how, and in what cases? What kind of procedures will this relationship employ?
What kind of coordination? I therefore think it would have been beneficial for the document to have addressed this aspect as well.
As a Member of this Parliament, I wish to contribute to the breaking down of some of the barriers that separate fields of competence from one another so that greater cooperation within the European Union is achieved.
Mr President, my party fully recognises the need for the developed countries to make available resources for international crises and for our response to be rapid and effective.
In this context, the Commission's proposal looks attractive in that it provides the mechanisms for affording a response to crisis situations.
However, we believe that for our efforts to be both rapid and effective, they should be planned, funded and executed on a truly international scale, utilising the resources and the capabilities of the whole free world, including the technical genius and the good will of the United States.
The mechanisms for ensuring this already exist in the form of the United Nations and its various agencies.
Although imperfect and always capable of reform, these agencies have provided good service and have relieved much suffering.
For the future, the way to ensure that responses are maximised is to continue working through these agencies, ensuring that resources are used wisely and efficiently.
As far as the Commission's proposal is concerned, this is simply reinventing the wheel, putting the political ambitions of the European Union before the needs of suffering people.
People in crises need a European rapid reaction facility as much as a fish needs a bicycle.
We should abandon these grandiose plans and instead support and develop the existing agencies which have a better track record that the EU will ever have.
Mr President, in discussing this matter I very much welcome the proposal from the Swedish Foreign Ministry that I have just seen today for a goal-oriented action plan for conflict prevention, because as I have said before, we in the European Union should be sending a philosophy for peace to areas of conflict and not just armies.
The European Union is the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution and that is something we tend to forget.
Look at the last century: the first half of it was marked by the worst conflict the world had ever seen: two world wars and millions of people dead and killed.
Yet who could have foreseen that in the second half of that century those same people would come together in the European Union.
As I know from my own experience, the principles at the heart of European Union will resolve conflict wherever they are applied in the world.
Therefore do you not think it is a very positive and sensible suggestion for the European Union to have a department that does precisely that? In other words, the Commission should have a department of peace and reconciliation and a Commissioner for peace and reconciliation to go to areas of conflict in advance and apply the principles of conflict resolution, particularly those principles at the heart of European Union itself.
Mr President, I am very sorry to have heard in the debate MEPs from my own region in the UK from different parties say that they will be opposing this report.
I am pleased to support the rapid reaction facility and I do so as a Member of Parliament's Development Committee.
In the week that 600 people lay dead after the earthquake in El Salvador, this European Union must be able to move more quickly just as we failed to do in response to the impact of hurricane Mitch in that same country back in 1998.
I ask Commissioner Patten in closing the debate, first to assure us that the facility will be utilised in response to crises world-wide in support of the EU's development goals and not just in Europe's own backyard.
Second, could he tell us how he could make such a promise when year after year the Commission proposes funding interventions in Central and Eastern Europe and in the former Yugoslavia at the expense of budget lines benefiting the developing countries.
Third, will he undertake to bring forward a detailed operational relationship between the rapid reaction facility and the financing of ECHO and indeed explain why he has not at one and the same time brought forward proposals to speed up our humanitarian assistance as part of the reform programme which he knows we support.
Finally, can he tell us is he shares our belief that development is the best form of conflict prevention and to commit himself to enhancing the EU's development programme to avoid the need for crisis intervention in future years.
N. Korea
The next item is the following oral questions:
B5-0560/2000 by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, to the Council, on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea,
B5-0825/2000 by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, to the Commission, on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to say a few words on the question tabled by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, especially on the basis of the findings obtained by Mr Santer and other colleagues of ours on their visit to North Korea.
I believe that we in the European Union have a more important role to play there than we have previously done and that our policy cannot stop at support for the KEDO programme.
It is certainly regrettable that, with eight Member States having now established bilateral diplomatic relations, we have not been able to adopt a concerted approach in our dealings with North Korea.
Last year was an exceptionally interesting one in the Korean peninsula, especially on account of the rapprochement between North and South Korea and the reuniting of families that was made possible by this thaw in North-South relations.
We must be aware that this area still has the potential to be a major trouble spot, but there is nevertheless a real political opportunity now to achieve a lasting peace settlement.
That is why it is essential that the European Union, as an international player in a multipolar political world, should become active in this domain.
It is a matter of supporting a policy which can pave the way for democracy and human rights in North Korea and which, on that basis, can play a significant part in the development of ever greater understanding between the two parts of Korea, an understanding which, following the meeting between the two Presidents, has sparked off the first public debates about national reunification for many decades.
Such a policy must also be combined with a means of obtaining details of the food situation and the health system in North Korea and must enable us to incorporate appropriate measures of aid into a political strategy so as to bring about an improvement in the general situation and perhaps also to initiate the development on which the long-term peace of the region depends, for the peace of that region, of course, is of global importance too.
As an arms supplier, North Korea is an important player on the world stage, and its development of modern weapons of mass destruction and delivery systems makes it a country which could undoubtedly pose a serious threat to other parts of the Asian continent and to other continents.
Madam President, I believe that we must therefore seek improvements in these domains, so as to curb the proliferation of armaments and thus contribute to global stability.
I hope that you will support this motion for a resolution and that the Council and the Commission can agree on a coordinated approach with Parliament which will enable us to make our contribution in that part of the world, not least in our own interests.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, during the meeting held in Pyongyang between 25 and 27 November of last year within the framework of the political dialogue, the European troika emphasised the most important parts of the European Union' s strategies towards the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea - strategies which had been approved by the Council at its meetings on 9 October and 20 November.
Allow me just briefly to mention the three most important of these strategies.
First of all, the European Union' s support for work on achieving lasting peace between the two Korean States.
Secondly, the importance of the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea' s adopting a responsible attitude when it comes to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, as well as putting a stop to exports of missiles.
Thirdly, respect for the UN' s Convention on Human Rights.
When it comes to establishing diplomatic relations with the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea, the Council agreed on 20 November of last year that the interested parties must consult between themselves and inform the Council of the content of their discussions with Pyongyang.
The Council has repeatedly urged the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea to comply fully with its commitments under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and cease to produce, test or export any missiles or missile technology.
The European Union has also called upon the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Furthermore, the European Union has informed the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea that it expects concrete measures to be taken on these issues.
In all contacts with the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea, the European Union has emphasised its great concern about the serious violations of human rights in the country, about the number of political prisoners, about the absence of national legislation and about the Korean authorities' refusal to cooperate with international mechanisms in defence of human rights.
Demands have been made for improvements on these issues.
We shall continue to highlight the importance of these issues.
The European Union welcomes the decision by the Democratic People' s Republic to resume its reporting under the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights during the year 2000 and hopes that the country will now, on the basis of its own report, be able to enter into a useful and constructive dialogue with the UN Human Rights Committee
On the issue of measures to be taken, the Council has called upon the Commission to begin dealing with the issue of technical measures of support which may be taken within those sectors to which priority has been given.
The Council and the Commission will, as soon as possible, be examining what measures are possible in order to open the European market to North Korean products.
Feasibility studies will be conducted in those areas regarded as having priority.
The European Union will make efforts to extend the political consultations with the Republic of Korea, whose efforts to effect a rapprochement between the two Korean States are fully supported by the European Union.
It is also a question of establishing areas in which joint measures might be taken, for example on the issue of technical aid and economic cooperation with the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea.
Madam President, I very much welcome the opportunity of saying a few words on this extremely important subject.
Recent events on the Korean Peninsula are of great interest and concern to all of us in Europe and the contribution that we make in helping to promote reconciliation on the Korean Peninsula, in helping to bring, as it were, the North Korean government and society in out of the cold.
Those efforts reflect the extent to which Europe has a global role to play and they match, in a sense, the role that Japan has been playing the Balkans - helping to support stability there.
We similarly have responsibilities in other continents.
A European Union approach towards recent developments in the Korean Peninsula was agreed at the General Affairs Councils of 9 October and 20 November last year.
This approach aims, as I have said, to support the inter-Korean reconciliation process in order to bring about peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.
Taking this approach as the basis for Commission action, the Commission will maintain and is considering increasing its assistance to North Korea.
Overall, in the last few years, that assistance has totalled - including the contribution to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation - about EUR 275m.
However, any increases should be measured in response to signs of progress of the DPRK in areas of principal concern to us and, I know, to Members of this House.
Respect, for example, for human rights; non-proliferation issues; access for the population to external aid; better operating conditions for NGOs - a point I was able to make to the DPRK Foreign Minister in Bangkok last summer - and the opening up of the DPRK's economy and the structural reform that will be a necessary part of that.
This approach has been outlined to the North Korean authorities at the recent Senior Officials Troika meeting in Pyongyang at the end of November.
I understand that my services are keeping Parliament fully informed of this issue.
Parliament has shown an active interest in this subject for some time.
The humanitarian and food assistance delivered to the DPRK - around EUR 200m since 1993 - will continue.
A new food security programme for 2000, totalling EUR 20m, has just been adopted by the Commission.
I should point out that we have moved from regular food aid to structural food assistance and, in particular, the provision of inputs and technical assistance to enhance agricultural production.
The implementation of humanitarian projects approved in the year 2000 will extend well into the summer of this year.
Humanitarian aid - mainly medicines, water, sanitation and winter clothes - is planned to continue on a more selective basis, but at a level adequate to respond to real humanitarian needs.
We also have the scope to match, with additional assistance, any further progress made by the DPRK authorities, notably in terms of access to the most vulnerable populations and the improvement of working conditions for non-governmental organisations.
In addition, the Commission is now considering possible measures in the fields of technical assistance and trade, which could be gradually extended if North Korea makes progress in the areas I have mentioned.
As a first step, these measures include a general increase in the DPRK textile quota by 60%, 50% in the case of a few product categories.
A fact-finding expert mission will be sent shortly to assess needs and identify areas in which pilot technical assistance projects could be pursued.
But they certainly include an area which, I know, has been of interest to Mr Ford - that is the whole question of the energy industries in North Korea which will be so important to the country's economic future.
As to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the European Community and the DPRK, the Commission is considering the appropriate timing of such a step in close coordination with Member States.
Finally, clearly the Nobel prize-winner, President Kim Dae-Jung, has been typically visionary in the efforts that he has made to promote reconciliation on the peninsula.
Equally clearly, President Kim Dae-Jung has been very realistic about what can be achieved in the short term.
I do not think he makes extravagant claims about the pace and development.
What is important is to keep our eyes on the horizon and to keep working towards it.
We should take our inspiration from President Kim Dae-Jung, who is one of the great statesmen of our age.
I hope that with his encouragement the European Union will continue to play its part in ensuring that the Korean Peninsula, the region and, indeed, the world, enjoy peace and prosperity.
The consequences if we were to continue to isolate the DPRK, if the DPRK was to continue to be prepared to be isolated, are too grim to contemplate.
Madam President, the resolution on North Korea, on which Parliament is about to vote, has a political significance of the first water.
Not only will the European Parliament itself establish its position on the northern half of the Korean peninsula, but it will also have defined the new direction of this position for all the European institutions.
In my capacity as president of the ad hoc delegation, whose visit to North Korea inspired the drafting of this resolution, I should like to share three key considerations with you.
The first is the advent of a new era in bilateral relations between the two Koreas, characterised by the policy of rapprochement, or Sunshine Policy, of President Kim Dae Jung, who made an important initial gesture with his historic visit in June 2000 to Pyongyang.
Europe has a duty to support the efforts of the Korean people as a whole and the Korean political leaders with a view to achieving stability and lasting peace in Korea.
This is the context in which our policy on Korea must be viewed and the scope of our policy actions must be defined.
Secondly, Korea is the last nation in the world that is still divided by a wall.
Following the example of Germany and Yemen, Korea can now begin to see the prospect of cooperation with a view to overcoming this internal frontier.
Europe, which the two Korean states have asked to assist them in defining new economic and political relations within Korea, must accept the challenge and point the Koreans towards the path to integration after a long and difficult time as a divided nation.
The European example of the gradual creation of area without internal frontiers is being called upon to serve as an example in this instance.
Once again we have a political responsibility to provide every conceivable aid to a Korea which is slowly overcoming its historic divide.
Finally, I would like to tell you that, more specifically as regards North Korea, confrontation and isolation must be consigned to the past once and for all.
The North Korean leadership seems willing to be open and to pursue dialogue with South Korea, the United States, Europe and Japan, and although, in the final analysis, they must be judged on their actions, I am convinced that a European policy of dialogue, structured and critical dialogue, will make a significant contribution to changes in the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea that will benefit the entire world.
Madam President, can I say we have made enormous progress over the last three years in terms of relations with the DPRK.
We have now had three interparliamentary delegation meetings and the resolution calls for the Koreans to come here again to continue the dialogue.
We have seen the European Commission move from not talking to the North Koreans to having an ECHO representative in Pyongyang and we have now moved from five Member States with diplomatic relations to, I understand, thirteen in the process of establishing diplomatic relations with the DPRK.
I would like very much to see the European Community also establish diplomatic relations with the DPRK.
We give money to the KEDO project as Mr Patten has said, we give humanitarian and food aid and are hoping to give other structural assistance, a total of EUR 275 m.
It is crazy to be doing that without having the ability to have a political dialogue.
We need a dialogue on human rights, we need a dialogue on weapon sales, we need a dialogue on economic development.
The reality is that with the collapse of the Soviet empire, the failure to make the transition from the Stakhanovite heavy industries of the past to the new light industries and a series of natural disasters, the economy is in complete crisis.
Observers are estimating that the resulting food crisis has led to the premature deaths of 3 million North Koreans, one in eight of the population.
Today their only exports are raw materials and military hardware.
If we can find a solution, we can help the people of the DPRK to help themselves with food aid and assistance in restarting and rebuilding agriculture, mining and non-nuclear energy projects.
And if we involve ourselves in removing the imperative to export military material then we may force the incoming Bush administration to reconsider its apparent blind commitment to national missile defence with the threat to world peace and stability that poses.
I would like to congratulate President Kim Dae-Jung of the Republic of Korea on his commitment to the sunshine policy which will allow the normalisation of inter-Korean relations and welcome Kim Jong Il's positive response.
Dialogue is the way forward.
Europe should pursue this not only because it is currently the policy of the Republic of Korea but because it is the right way to go.
Our advantage is that we are not Japan or the United States and we can act as honest brokers in this most dangerous area of the world.
Mr President, it would appear that the hopes raised by the June Summit between the two Kims from North and South Korea are not going to be fulfilled. The optimism is fading.
North Korea is finding it difficult to make good those few, largely symbolic commitments it made in the military field, it is delaying the reunification of families who were separated by the war and have remained so for 50 years and it is showing no sign of intending to make the return visit of Kim Jong Il to Seoul, planned for spring this year, a practical reality, and it is not yet known when or whether this will take place.
President Clinton's decision not to go to North Korea, even though he wanted to in order to finish his presidency with a historic visit, could now mean a long pause in Korea's process of opening up to the outside world.
In spite of this, I hear tones of optimism and I see European countries queuing up - Mr Brok touched on the issue just now - and falling over themselves in the rush to recognise the Stalinist Pyongyang regime, turning a blind eye to what goes on in the country, to the tragic violations of human rights.
Therefore, I say: yes, certainly, let us encourage rapprochement between the two Koreas; of course we must provide assistance for the North Koreans to save them from starving to death - Mr Ford mentioned this just now - but, at the same time, we must lay down stringent conditions to ensure that the aid reaches the places where it is genuinely needed and does not serve to support a paranoid, unpredictable regime which is wont to resort to the threat of missiles and nuclear arms to ensure its survival.
Madam President, I should like to thank the honourable Members for the valuable interventions that have been made in this discussion on the important issue of the European Union' s relationship with the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea.
Allow me just to make a few brief concluding remarks.
It is gratifying that an agreement has now been made within the European Union to make a better attempt to coordinate the issue of establishing diplomatic relations with the DPRK.
A number of EU Member States, including my own country, have had diplomatic relations with the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea the whole time. Others have recently decided to establish relations, while a further group is waiting to take a decision on establishing relations.
I personally believe that a diplomatic presence is of great importance.
Twenty years ago, I myself had the opportunity to serve in Pyongyang and know what it means to be confronted directly with the reality of that country.
I would also remind you of the statement made by South Korea' s President Kim Dae Young on his visit to Stockholm in connection with receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
He made a public appeal at that time for a more important role for the European Union where the situation on the Korean peninsula is concerned.
I believe we must take his appeal seriously.
We should be prepared also to respond to this type of appeal when the time is right.
It is important for us to agree within the European Union about what we are to do when we adopt a position on such measures.
We ought to have an agreed view on to what extent there are reasonable opportunities of making progress in what we are doing, and it is obviously also important for conditions in the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea to be such that it makes sense to do something.
VOTE
Mr President, our group, as you know, did not vote for the Sjöstedt report in committee.
We would support it here, however, if Amendments Nos 5 and 6 were adopted.
We have discussed this with the other groups.
In the case of Amendment No 5, I am informed that other groups would be able to support the amendment if two linguistic alterations were made.
The first is the replacement of the word 'review' by the word 'examination' as the English translation of the German Überprüfung; this is only a linguistic adjustment.
The second, however, would be an oral amendment.
We ask that the word Rechtssicherheit in the German version of Amendment No 5 be replaced by the word Klarheit and that the English term 'legal certainty' be accordingly replaced by the word 'clarification'.
May I ask you to note this oral amendment and to put the adjusted version of Amendment No 5 to the vote.
Mr President, I am prepared to support those amendments that have just been proposed concerning Amendment No 5, because the proposal including these changes is significantly better than the original version.
I would therefore encourage MEPs to approve the oral amendments which Mr Liese tabled from the Group of the European People' s Party.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report without debate (A5-0379/2000) by Mr Bowe, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the implementation of Directive 96/59/EC on the disposal of polychlorinated biphenyls and polychlorinated terphenyls (PCBs and PCTs) [2000/2112(INI)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0367/2000) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries on the proposal for a Council decision setting the terms for financial support to Guinea-Bissau in the fisheries sector [8263/2000 - C5-0361/2000 - 1998/0355(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0360/2000) by Mr Van den Bos, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the People' s Republic of Bangladesh [7595/1/1999 - COM(1999) 155 - C5-0356/2000 - 1999/0086(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0392/2000) by Mr Newton Dunn, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation creating the Rapid Reaction Facility [COM(2000) 119 - C5-0272/2000 - 2000/0081(CNS)]
Before the vote
Mr President, I want to propose a technical oral amendment to Amendment No 28.
I apologise for not spotting the technicality in committee.
Amendment No 28 reads at present: "The Community shall each year set a global ceiling for funding action under this Regulation."
As Commissioner Patten pointed out during the debate, it is not the "Community" which sets the budgetary ceiling, it is the Budgetary Authority.
I should like to propose orally that we delete the word "Community" and insert instead the words "Budgetary Authority", so that the amendment would now read: "The Budgetary Authority shall each year set a global ceiling for funding action under this Regulation."
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0338/2000) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the situation of frontier workers [2000/2010(INI)]
After paragraph 2
Mr President, I would like to correct an apparent slip of the pen by means of an oral amendment.
I would point out that only 'the country of employment principle' is referred to in the paragraph, when it should read 'the country of residence or employment principle' because of course I cannot determine what choice the Commission has to make, it must do that for itself.
But I would like to add 'the country of residence or employment principle' , twice.
Before Amendment No 6
Mr President, it has been agreed with the rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, that when it comes to Amendment No 2 of Paragraph 6, we should regard this amendment as an addition to the original paragraph.
This means, therefore, that if Amendment No 2 is approved, the original paragraph will also have to be put to the vote.
Mr President, I would suggest we vote on Amendment No 6 first, and then on the original paragraph two, because that would be a more logical way of proceeding.
After the vote on Amendment No 6
Mr President, I would now like us to vote on the paragraph all the same.
After the vote on paragraph 6
Mr President, you mentioned that I had signed that motion on behalf of the Liberal Group.
I want to make it absolutely clear that this is a mistake, or if it is not a mistake, it is some mischievous prank by the dirty tricks department of the Liberal Party.
I was born a Conservative and I trust that I will die a Conservative.
(Applause)
We would never have thought otherwise.
It was a mistake on the part of the services.
.
(FR) We think the report presented by Jonas Sjöstedt, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the protection of natural habitats in Europe is particularly important, especially for France, as this is one of the countries where the implementation of the Habitats Directive, which is now over eight years old, and the Wild Birds Directive, which is now over 20 years old - as well as the establishment of the Natura 2000 Network - has suffered the greatest delays, to the point that it has been seriously compromised.
Yet, the more time that passes, the more the (semi-) natural habitats are destroyed, and the more difficult it becomes to preserve or to re-establish the ecosystems in all their diversity and richness.
Far from being "marginal" , the need to maintain and promote biodiversity (and hence the diversity of the ecosystems) stands out as a political issue of prime importance, with universal implications for our living conditions (including for climate change).
It is not a matter of setting up localised "reserves" where species would be protected as if they were in a museum, but of incorporating environmental concerns in all Community and Member State policy.
The implementation of the Habitats and Wild Birds Directives must henceforth be implemented speedily and effectively across the board.
. (NL) The VU&ID (Flemish People' s Union) MEPs Nelly Maes and Bart Staes did not support the amendments tabled by the ELDR and PPE-DE Groups in relation to the habitat directive.
We regard these amendments as an attempt to undermine the existing habitat directive.
We would point out that the existing habitat directive affords the government sufficient opportunity to step in when the implementation of existing projects is hampered by the habitat provisions.
After all, Article 6 (4) of Directive 92/43/EC states: "If, in spite of a negative assessment of the implications for the site and in the absence of alternative solutions, a plan or project must nevertheless be carried out for imperative reasons of overriding public interest, including those of a social or economic nature, the Member State shall take all compensatory measures necessary to ensure that the overall coherence of Natura 2000 is protected.
It shall inform the Commission of the compensatory measures adopted."
The VU&ID MEPs have since submitted a parliamentary question to the Commission, asking it to provide an overview of all the notifications it has received in this matter since the directive came into force.
I am in total agreement with the Habitats Directive and its objectives in terms of protecting the endangered outstanding natural heritage of the countries of the European Union.
This heritage and its biological and genetic diversity are the planet' s most precious assets and we must indeed ensure that they are protected, reproduced and handed down to future generations.
Even so, I voted against the Sjöstedt report for two crucial reasons.
Firstly, it is unacceptable to blackmail European appropriations allocated to our countries by making them conditional, in article 11, upon compliance with the Habitats Directive as it stands.
If it were simply a matter of ensuring that European funds are not used to finance projects destroying these outstanding ecosystems, then I should have endorsed the resolution and voted in favour of it, but it is unacceptable and unprecedented to make a European Union policy conditional upon compliance with another and that social conditions should be subject, for example, to environmental conditions.
My second reason is that the resolution does not clarify the concept of "disturbance" and the legal discussion, which is so deliberately vague that legal battles could be revived, which might lead to bans on traditional hunts where these are authorised under the Birds Directive and the subsidiary law in the states.
It is precisely because the European Union deliberately maintains this ambiguity that some countries experience problems in issuing their "Nature 2000" lists and in implementing the Habitats Directive calmly, without resistance on the part of the farmers in those countries, even though everyone acknowledges the noble nature of the objectives of the directive.
Cunha report (A5-0367/2000)
Mr President, last summer I went on holiday to Guinea-Bissau, and, as is my wont, I exchanged a few words with one of the local elderly pensioners, or rather with a fisherman from Guinea-Bissau would have dearly loved to have become a pensioner.
Having been told that I am the representative of the Italian Pensioners' Party, he complained to me: "I go out to sea to fish, I work whenever it is possible and I would like to work many days so that I can have a pension as well.
However, unfortunately, because our sea is fished by European Union fishing boats, I cannot find enough work to contribute to a pension, and I do not see anything of the European Union financing allocated to the Government of Guinea-Bissau for the Government does not give me anything at all".
I therefore voted for the report, but on condition that things improve in future.
This report and its amendments deal with financial support to Guinea-Bissau in the fisheries sector.
Despite our many reservations, we voted in favour of them out of solidarity with the people of that country, especially its fishermen.
Firstly, because the objective of the fisheries agreements between the European Union and third countries are, as is explicitly stated in some other reports, intended to spare European Union fisheries resources and, consequently, to increase catches from the waters of other countries.
Next, because we do not know exactly how this aid will be used and what its precise ultimate destination will be.
Unfortunately, however, too much of this aid is often nothing more than a de facto rebate granted to the European companies investing in these countries.
Moreover, such aid is often also misappropriated by the local administration.
Despite all that, at the end of the day, this money, which is supposed to assist the local people, will, even so, be better employed over there than the money given to major employers over here who are shedding jobs.
Van den Bos report (A5-0360/2000)
Mr President, after staying in Guinea-Bissau for a fortnight last summer, I went on to Bangladesh, where I did not stay very long for it is not a very wealthy State.
I approached an elderly man there as well, and he, aware that I am the representative of the Italian Pensioners' Party, asked me: "But what is a pension?" Sadly, Mr President, the people of Bangladesh are so badly off that they do not even know the meaning of the word "pension".
So I said to myself: "When the Van den Bos document is put to the vote, remember to vote for the motion, Fatuzzo, but also remember that we ought to monitor the transaction and ensure that the aid given to the people of Bangladesh through this agreement also serves to provide a pensioner or two with a State pension".
The Committee on Development and Cooperation welcomes the fact that the rate of growth of Bangladesh' s export industry is thrice that of the country' s domestic production. These exports, however, are almost exclusively the work of the major companies, mostly Western, which have set up factories in this country.
While there is no doubt that these firms are getting rich by exploiting the underpaid workers of this country, including children, this is not about to enable Bangladesh to emerge from its underdeveloped state or to enable its working population to escape poverty.
The report calls for an increase in "the efficiency and competitiveness of the private sector" on world markets.
This is a clear indication of who it hopes to benefit from the elimination of the "infrastructure bottlenecks" , especially "transport and energy infrastructure" , as well as making "the financial system efficient" , or ensuring "a transparent and accountable institutional environment" , a euphemism for taking action to penalise anyone who, in the widespread corruption, upsets the Western investors.
In these circumstances, the proposal to release European funds is chiefly targeted at supplementing the shortfalls of the Bangladeshi State and at having the European institutions bear the costs of the development of infrastructure that the large corporations need in order to enable them to derive most profit from one of the poorest peoples in the world.
Mr President, I certainly voted against Amendment No 9 about creating a European rapid reaction facility.
I nonetheless voted in favour of the report as a whole because I think it good that the European Parliament should once again make it clear that the EU ought to give priority to non-military crisis management measures.
That is an important observation that cannot be repeated often enough.
Against that background, I note that the justification, in any case, refers to the European Parliament' s unanimous recommendation to establish a civil peace corps.
I think it is good for that to be repeated.
That too cannot be repeated often enough.
Unfortunately, the countries holding the presidency - Finland, Portugal and France - chose not to pay any attention to the European Parliament' s unanimous recommendation.
Against that background, I think that the Swedish Presidency has a brilliant opportunity to take the initiative.
I have on a number of occasions had occasion to suggest this directly to Foreign Minister Lindh and Prime Minister Persson.
Unfortunately, however, it would appear that the Swedish Government has not properly understood what is meant by a civil peace corps but believes that other measures under way are the same as a civil peace corps.
It is unfortunate that it does not want to study the report properly and that it does not respect the European Parliament's point of view by at least doing something.
I hope that this is a misunderstanding between myself and the Swedish Government.
In spite of our having discussed this many times, misunderstandings may of course arise.
I therefore wish to take the opportunity to challenge the Swedish Government once again.
Now that Sweden has the Presidency of the Council, it should, if it is serious about the EU' s not becoming a military superpower but a factor for peace, immediately ensure that an initiative is taken in accordance with the European Parliament' s recommendation for a civil peace corps.
Mr President, what is the Rapid Reaction Mechanism? I asked myself this question when, upon my arrival in hospital to have my foot put in plaster, I saw some doctors knocking a small hammer against the knee of a patient, which immediately jerked upwards.
But then, as I examined this morning's documents, I realised that the Rapid Reaction Mechanism is a major financial initiative which will make it possible for Europe to intervene swiftly and immediately in order to take peace to places where peace is under threat.
This is a commendable undertaking, and I therefore voted for the report, but I fear that it may be too ambitious for us to implement since we do not yet have a genuinely united Europe.
- (DA) We have voted in favour of the report because the intentions behind non-military crisis management are sound.
At the same time, however, we would emphasise that it is in practice impossible to separate desirable civil intervention from unacceptable military intervention.
Moreover, we call upon initiatives to be carried out through international organisations such as the UN, the Council of Europe or the OSCE.
.
(FR) Given that rapid police intervention is, like war, the continuation of politics by other means, and in view of the fact that we have no more confidence in European Union policy than we do in that of Member States, we are opposed to any form of military or police intervention by the European Union, wherever it may be.
The report gives the Balkans as an example, but an "independent" European police intervention force would be no better than that provided under the auspices of the United Nations, or the United States, in other words.
At the most, it would support the position in the region held by the major European industrial groups that are casting covetous glances at the market for the reconstruction of what the NATO bombers destroyed.
Indeed, the expressed wish that "the RRF will have no geographical limitation" foreshadows acts of piracy to benefit the former colonial powers in Africa or elsewhere, like those that France has committed in the past to protect dictators from the opposition of their peoples, or like those that Great Britain is committing at this very moment in Sierra Leone.
We therefore voted against the creation of the Rapid Reaction Facility, just as we shall vote against any budget allocations to support it.
We must welcome the fact that the Council proposal follows on directly from the conclusions of the Cologne, Helsinki and Feira European Councils which urged the Union to "improve and make more effective use of resources in civilian crisis management."
The European Union has vast experience and the resources necessary to set up, at very short notice, operations such as the monitoring of elections, border control, police force training and outfitting.
This potential must be exploited to the full, especially as the Union has not been capable of reacting quickly enough and the instruments for funding operations of this type were not flexible enough.
The European Commission does not provide for any "geographical limitation" to the Rapid Reaction Facility (RRF).
It does, however, stipulate that the interventions must have a "short life span" .
If events call for more long-term intervention, then the resources currently available, such as the thematic programmes, should be used.
Under the MEDA Programme, by way of example, the RRF will be used in particular for the training of immigration service officials and cooperation in combating terrorism.
.
(EL) The proposal for a regulation creating a rapid reaction facility is nothing more than the framework for what may well be non-military but which is equally imperialistic political and economic intervention What the sovereign masters of the European Union want is a rapid facility to mobilise human and financial resources which can intervene directly not just when there is a "crisis" (which the authors of the text would do well to define), but even when there is simply concern that so-called assistance and cooperation programmes with these countries might be at risk or even merely affected.
Of course, the brains behind the text do not conceal their intention to supplement the proposed measures with the European Public Security Force (armed obviously) which can be deployed in "law and order operations".
Typically enough, the Committee on Foreign Affairs outdoes the Commission with its amendments abolishing the EUR 12 million ceiling on each intervention, the Crisis Committee and the nine-month limit on each intervention.
The MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece will never cease to condemn this EU policy, which aims to make third countries politically and economically dependent and suppress the grass-roots movement.
Not only are we opposed to any form of imperialist rapid or even slow reaction facility, we shall do everything within our power to unite all the people in these countries against any imperialist plans to subjugate them and to claim the place which they deserve in a new, fair, international order.
In deciding to create the core of a European army, the Nice Summit has opened a new chapter in the history of the European Union.
For twenty years, it has been attempting to win popular backing by claiming to be building a social Europe.
Faced with failure, following the Balkan conflict, it has had a change of heart.
It now openly admits that its objective is the establishment of a European superpower that will defend European interests "all over the world" .
The imperialist nature of this is plain to see.
It will do so in conjunction with the United States within NATO.
In future, by coordinating its diplomatic and military forces, the EU will be trying to optimise what its Member States have done individually throughout the last century.
This is to be carried out in the name of "maintaining" or "imposing" peace, and "humanitarian operations" .
Both within and outside NATO, which is dominated by the United States, the EU is attempting to 'sell' us on its scheme in the name of Europe' s "independence" vis-à-vis the United States. We do not need this Euro-militarism.
We are just as radically opposed to this European army as we were to the NATO army, as the first effect will be a dramatic increase in the military budget, which will inevitably go hand in hand with heightened militaristic propaganda.
Scientific and technological research will be siphoned off into the military sector.
It will transfer an increased share of the state budget to businesses in that sector, with the goal of establishing a European military industry (EADS, Dassault, BAE) capable of getting the better of the United States.
The workers have nothing to gain and everything to lose in the EU' s "new" imperial designs.
.
(IT) There is clearly no doubt that it would be highly appropriate to create a Rapid Reaction Facility and, moreover, the three Community institutions have already expressed positive views.
However, over and above our common goal, we feel that certain elements of the Council's proposal deserve careful consideration.
The first is essentially theoretical: the objectives of the mechanism in question do not appear to be very clear, apart from the tasks of supranational policing.
The rapporteur goes so far as to propose explicitly the establishment of a European Police Force.
And if this were the case we could consider the proposal, but it would have to have a different legal basis and, most importantly, a different Community institutional system from that defined by the recent Intergovernmental Summit at Nice.
In actual fact, in our opinion, the ultimate purpose of the Rapid Reaction Mechanism is to make Community policies and programmes effective more quickly and to maintain that effectiveness more consistently.
Moreover, the original impression came from the description of the conditions for triggering the Facility, which, being very general, still does not give a practical idea of them, when it would have been enough, without prejudice to the normal intervention conditions laid down by Community regulations, to highlight those conditions which, on the basis of their urgency, trigger the Reaction Mechanism.
Then, it appears strange that the governments of the States within which the Mechanism may be triggered are not among the parties notified of the triggering of the Mechanism.
Moreover, it seems odd that they are not notified, since they have been targeted by policies and programmes which, in the case in point, need to be safeguarded.
Finally, objections could be raised to the increase in the volume of information sent to the European Parliament, even through the consultation procedure alone, but, since we hope that the list of topics subject to codecision will be extended, we feel that, in specific cases of geographical or political importance, the Commission must not hold back from informing Parliament.
In the light of these considerations, we support the changes proposed by the rapporteur and we have therefore voted for the motion.
.
For the past eighteen months, British Conservatives have been calling for the Commission to introduce more efficient financial management and administrative procedures so that it can deliver external assistance and implement programmes, such as mine action, urgently in time of crisis or when lives are at stake.
They support proposals with these objectives in mind and therefore welcome the Commission initiative for a Rapid Reaction Facility (or Mechanism), in spite of its confusing title and some unnecessarily politically-correct elements.
Their fundamental objection is to the amendments which seek to use this proposal as a vehicle for establishing a "European Public Security Force".
This concept, for some sort of European gendarmerie, has far-reaching implications and no place in the Commission proposal under discussion.
We were prepared to support the Commission proposal if it did not contain these amendments (9 or 39) but abstain if they were included.
Oomen-Ruijten report (A5-0338/2000)
Mr President, as representative of the Pensioners' Party, how could I not speak on this document, which lays down how the pensions and health care of frontier and other workers, who work in different regions from those in which they live and work at other times of their lives, should be regulated.
A pensioner from the border between Italy and Switzerland, which is party to these agreements, asked me whether it was true that the pensions of people who work in other States of the European Union had been raised. "If only they had!"
I replied. "I would be very happy, and so would you, for you would be able to find much more, much better work in the other European States.
In any case, I will raise the issue when I give my explanation of vote on the Oomen-Ruijten report, which deals with this subject".
- (DA) The Left party attaches importance to removing obstacles to the free movement of labour.
We have therefore supported this own-initiative report which proposes greater efforts to combat the problems created by differences in social and fiscal systems.
However, we are not in favour of producing a directive obliging the Member States to assess the impact of new legislation on frontier workers.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of Mrs Oomen-Ruijten' s report on the situation of frontier workers in the European Union.
We have done so because this report highlights the many serious problems faced by frontier workers.
A large proportion of these problems can be solved if the Council demonstrates a capacity for action.
In spite of the failure to introduce qualified majority voting in this area at the Intergovernmental Conference in Nice, we want to use our vote today to send a powerful signal to the Council and call upon them to complete a thoroughgoing review and simplification of Regulation No 1408.
We believe that the rules for coordination must be simple and easy to administer. We cannot therefore support a new directive which adds new procedures to Regulation No 1408.
In connection with the debate, we have emphasised that we cannot support the remarks in the report concerning the financing of social security arrangements through taxation.
In addition, we want to stress that we do not consider, either, that health benefits such as medical treatment can be compared with general services, and that responsibility for this area must continue solely to be the responsibility of the Member States.
For the most part, this report confines itself to general considerations without putting forward any practical decisions.
Even when it does put forward a positive measure such as "proposals to extend access by dependent family members of frontier workers, retired frontier workers and dependent members of their families to health care provisions and benefits" , the Council is asked only "with all possible expedition to adopt a position" .
While we support this request, we abstained from the vote on the report.
All the workers of the European Union ought to benefit from the same social protection, with each of the component areas (social security, retirement pensions, family benefits) standardised according to the practices of the country where they are most favourable to workers.
In the meantime, in order to improve the situation of frontier workers, they and their families should be able to choose, in each of these areas, between their country of residence and their country of employment, according to the situation most favourable to them.
. (DE) Finding practical solutions to the problems of the 420 000 cross-border commuters also means making people aware and appreciative of the single market and the freedom of movement it guarantees.
This is why I warmly welcome the fact that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report addresses a number of these problems and their origins as well as proposing measures which will mitigate the effects of these disparities between the systems of taxation and social welfare for those who are affected by them.
The discrepancies between national legal provisions and the principle of free movement are primarily due to the fact that Regulation 1408/71 is outdated and, because of the many changes that have occurred in the period since its adoption, can no longer offer employees the legal certainty they require.
The direct consequence of this inadequate coordination is that frontier workers are often at a disadvantage in terms of welfare benefits, unemployment, pension provision and health care.
In the last-named area, I particularly welcome the initiative of players in the health sector to offer 'exportable' services which take account of the specific circumstances of cross-border commuters.
Just as numerous legal uncertainties have arisen in the domains of health and social welfare, a similar situation has occurred in the realm of tax legislation, and the various bilateral taxation agreements have not succeeded in resolving these uncertainties.
This creates areas of inequality, both between cross-border commuters and between local authorities, and these can only be eliminated in the foreseeable future through coordination of all our tax systems on a European scale.
For this reason, we cannot but support Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's proposal that a directive be adopted which commits the Member States to examine all legislative bills concerning tax and social welfare for their effects on cross-border commuters and to create compensatory mechanisms.
Despite numerous opinions that have been delivered by the European Parliament in favour of the harmonisation of social and fiscal legislation, and despite the presentation by the Commission of concrete proposals for the updating and simplification of Regulation 1408/71, the Ministers of the Member States have been blocking this necessary reform process in the Council, thereby preventing the single market from becoming a reality for people in Europe.
- (DE) The report on the situation of frontier workers with which the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has presented us undoubtedly stems from the laudable intention of ensuring that frontier workers are not subject to discrimination in terms of pay, working conditions and social security and of resolving the problems that still persist in these areas.
That is what we all want.
However, it is an exaggeration to suggest, as the explanatory statement of this report suggests, that the internal market, of which the free movement of workers is a cornerstone, is an absolute farce in the daily lives of these people.
That is just as much divorced from reality as various assertions in the resolution; some of the demands it makes are tantamount to kicking at open doors, at least in relation to the circumstances of the 85,000 frontier workers in Luxembourg.
It is simply untrue that family members are excluded from provisions and benefits in the country of employment.
Of course there are differences between private schemes and the public welfare systems, but such differences apply equally to those who are not frontier workers.
Of course there are differing systems of provision for the elderly.
These not only differ from one Member State to another but even differ within Member States.
My pension entitlement would be greater if I had been employed in the public sector.
That, however, is not a problem that specifically concerns frontier workers.
Of course there are differences between Member States in terms of the structure of pension schemes, contributions and pensionable ages.
The frontier workers who are employed in Luxembourg rejoice in these differences, because our pensions are far more generous than those in Belgium, France and Germany, where our frontier workers live.
Although some elements of the social security system are tax-funded in Luxembourg, this does not result in inequalities, because frontier workers are also entitled to the relevant benefits, such as those under the care-insurance scheme, a right which even applies in Belgium and France.
The resolution bemoans the fact that there is no longer a clear distinction in Member States between social assistance and social security.
This is not true either.
Social assistance is not really a problem for frontier workers at all, because they are employees with no need of social assistance.
Nor do I understand what periods of secondment have to do with frontier workers.
There is, of course, a directive covering employees seconded by their employer, but that directive cannot be applied to frontier workers.
And as far as the judgments of the European Court of Justice in the Kohl and Decker cases are concerned, it is clear that all citizens of the Union, and hence frontier workers too, can benefit from health services in other Member States.
Here too, the report is trying to force an open door.
I felt it was important to make this clear, because it is not the first time that Parliament has made such half-baked demands in one of its reports.
Back in 1998, when we discussed the Lancker report, I emphasised that it was absurd to claim that there was any inherent discrimination against frontier workers.
At that time the Belgian Socialists had made the ridiculous proposal that a compensatory fund be created for loss of income suffered by frontier workers.
It is important to frontier workers that there should be no tampering with the principle that income taxes and welfare contributions are payable in the country of employment.
This is the prerequisite if frontier workers are to enjoy all the social benefits that are granted in the country of employment to workers who reside there and to their dependants.
That is how it is in Luxembourg, and that is how it is supposed to be everywhere - no more and no less.
Motion for a resolution on environment directives (B5-0038/2001)
Although the directives on conservation of natural habitats, the elimination of PCBs and PCTs, and the protection of waters from nitrate pollution are only inadequately applied in the Member States, this does not mean by any means that these are poor directives which must be changed, as some people in this House would seek to have us believe.
These directives fully live up to the ambitions of the citizens of Europe, who are demanding that greater attention be paid to environmental matters and are seeking arbitration from the European authorities.
The great numbers of complaints and petitions received by the Committee on Petitions regarding environmental infractions and violations of these directives testify to these expectations.
The fact is, if the directives are only partially implemented, it is because the Member States had not weighed the consequences when adopting them.
They had not taken on board the implications of the financial costs or the amendments, which could be fundamental, that these directives would require in their policies.
This is true both of the Habitats Directive and the Nitrates Directive since they both require the review of agricultural and regional planning policies which may cause pollution or destruction of natural environments.
The implementation of the Habitats Directive is intended to provide long-term protection for a European network of biologically outstanding natural habitats and to exempt them from future redevelopment in order to prevent conflicts in land use or damage to those environments.
These objectives have, admittedly, been very badly presented in the Member States, causing occasionally very bitter conflicts between the owners and users of these areas.
Yet there was no shortage of positive results in those instances where proper coordination was achieved, since the Habitats Directive does indeed make it possible to support heritage-friendly management methods by making adequate compensation available.
This Habitats Directive is truly innovative in terms of regional planning and nature conservation in that it reconciles the management and the use of outstanding natural sites in order to make the best use of land.
To this end, the European Union must make every effort to support the implementation of this directive.
The European Union absolutely must not yield to the industrial interests which would negate the very spirit of the directive.
The Commission, as Guardian of the Treaties, must firstly adopt a firm stance with regard to the Member States in order to ensure that they implement these directives and, secondly, to stand firm against attempts to amend these directives even before they have been able to demonstrate their full relevance, particularly in the areas of dealing with nitrate pollution in water and protecting and raising the profile of outstanding natural sites.
For the above reasons, the Group of the Greens supports all the reports presented, particularly the Sjöstedt report, which will contribute to improving the implementation of the Habitats Directive.
The reason why we abstained, then, is that we do not feel that the last-minute attempts to change the nature of the report, seeking to weaken the Habitats Directive and to urge that it be amended, are in line with respecting the directives on which we are voting.
Parish report (A5-0357/2000)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, I would be most grateful if you would reserve just a snippet of your attention, which I am sure is in no short supply, for the explanation of my vote for the Parish report on young farmers.
I would stress the importance of milk produced by young farmers and of supporting the product at this difficult time for the farming world.
I remember a film from the 1960s, directed by the famous Federico Fellini with Anita Akberg in the leading roll. There was a poster of her urging all the passers-by to drink milk.
She was extremely successful and the ideal actress to persuade the Italians to drink milk.
Well then, I would like similar appeals to be made to the European citizens now as well, so that farmers can sell their milk, which is, I regret to say, under threat from "mad milk".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of the Parish report is the future of young farmers in the European Union.
Once again we hear calls for new subsidies, for so-called installation aid.
I voted against the report.
The report presents the situation as if all were well with the farming world.
But nothing is well with it.
BSE has cast doubt on the entire agricultural system.
We spend almost DEM 100 billion of our petty cash on agriculture every year.
That, indeed, represents half of the European budget.
We are starting to ask ourselves what we get in return for this money - swine fever, hormone-treated calves, dioxin-infested hens and now the BSE epidemic.
I believe we are slowly becoming disgusted by this food chain we produce and perhaps disgusted with ourselves too.
Instead of grasses and cereals, we are feeding cattle with corpses of domestic cats, caged rats and other animals, and I believe this is precisely the point that must now be included in this discussion.
The use of waste products and excrement in food production is the logical consequence of a senseless agricultural policy, which undoubtedly has to be brought to an end right here and now.
We must discuss first principles, so that these subsidisation payouts, the instruments of a command economy, can be consigned to the history books.
That is precisely what we have to tell the young farmers.
We must talk about that with young farmers, about the fact that they will have to be able to survive in the market without subsidisation.
This is certainly not the thrust of the report, which is why it must be rejected.
.
(EL) The report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is a move in the right direction.
More funds are needed to set young farmers up and reverse the exodus towards the towns.
Young farmers may be the key to reviving abandoned areas, small islands and traditional communities from which the life force is draining.
What we need is to use new technologies, such as the Internet, to create a new pleasant, cultural, technically advanced environment with a human dimension for them to work in.
One important point not contained in the Agricultural Committee report is that young farmers need to be given a basis on which to develop alternative, organic, family holdings, given that over-intensive farming leads nowhere except to mad cows.
- (SV) We Swedish Social Democrats welcome many of the measures proposed by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in order to improve the situation for young farmers.
We nonetheless believe that the EU' s agricultural subsidy ought to be reduced considerably and are therefore opposed to the demands for an increase in the agricultural subsidy, presented in paragraphs 7, 11 and 14 of Mr Parish' s report.
We are in favour of assisting young farmers without financial resources to meet the considerable expenses involved in setting up business, purchasing farms and equipment.
We therefore voted in favour of this report in spite of our reservations, for there is no guarantee that the bulk, if not all of this aid will not go to the children of wealthy farm owners and that, once again, those least well off will be left by the wayside.
At this early stage, we would denounce the misappropriation of these funds to benefit the children of wealthy farm owners.
.
I believe that the report from our Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is most balanced and should be welcomed.
As a representative of a rural constituency, I am acutely aware of the concerns expressed by farmers over the very future of farming in Ireland.
It seems incredible but it is true, that in Ireland, where agriculture has long been one of the economic bases of the country, farmers are now beginning to wonder whether their sons or daughters will be able to carry on the family tradition.
Mr Parish' s report is very timely, and the study on "The Future of Young Farmers in the European Union" by independent consultants which was commissioned at his request at the beginning of last year provides a much-needed focus on the whole issue.
Young farmers are an essential part of the farming future.
They perform a very important role in the social life of villages and rural communities, promoting a whole range of activities and participating in local associations.
Farmers help to promote a healthy and prosperous countryside by maintaining the landscape.
In Ireland the National Development Plan for 2000-2006 provides a wide range of measures which will assist young farmers embarking on their farming career.
These include a new enhanced Scheme of Installation Aid to encourage the taking-over of farms by younger farmers and assist young farmers as they first set up in farming.
Some £30 million has been provided for this scheme, which I hope will shortly be approved by the Commission.
In addition, a comprehensive range of tax incentives are in place, aimed at reducing the cost of ownership transfer.
These incentives include Stock Relief, Stamp Duty, Capital Acquisition and Probate Tax.
Coupled with the Early Retirement Scheme, it is clear that the supports available to young farmers setting out on a career in agriculture will be of considerable benefit, and these measures should assist in the earlier and more efficient transfer of land to younger farmers.
Many young farmers taking over a holding have to make necessary on-farm investments in order to optimise production efficiency and to ensure the economic sustainability of their holdings.
In this regard some GBP 230 million have been provided for on-farm investment under the National Development Plan.
Investment schemes will cover Farm Waste Management, Improvement in Dairy Hygiene Standards and Housing and Handling Facilities for Alternative Enterprises.
These Schemes will be open to an increased number of part-time and full-time farmers, including young trained farmers, and will contribute to securing the viability of many farmers.
They will focus in particular on young farmers.
It should also be noted that the nature of these schemes shows a clear commitment to the protection of the environment, an issue which will figure strongly in the future development of both Irish and European agriculture.
To conclude, it is imperative that we, at European level, address ourselves towards ensuring a future for European agriculture.
The Common Agricultural Policy has been a European success story, and we want to keep it that way.
The future lies with our young farmers and with agricultural practices which are sustainable and protect the environment.
We must lend our full support to these objectives.
.
(PT) The situation and the prospects of young farmers depend a great deal on the situation and prospects of Agriculture in the EU itself.
As we all know, agriculture and the rural world are in decline, a decline in which the common agricultural policy has played a large part, promoting, as it does, land concentration, intensification of production, the gradual verticalisation of agricultural produce, all of which contribute to desertification and rural depopulation, as proved by a fall in the number of those employed and in the number of farms of around 22% and 20%, respectively, since 1990.
Young farmers represent the new lifeblood of farms and are crucial to guaranteeing the future of agriculture in the various regions of the EU.
The fall of around 28%, in the last decade, in farms whose owners are under 35 years of age proves the current negative prospects.
Special measures for Community support for young farmers are therefore crucial, although the fundamental problem lies in the need for a sea change in the CAP.
The Parish report, with which I broadly agree, despite its lack of coherence, does not focus on the necessary changes to policy.
It toys with the existing framework.
Nevertheless, three amendments which I tabled and which I believe to be important have been adopted. These are:
the need to commit ourselves to high-quality, sustainable agricultural production, which yields products which are safe and have a high added value, through support for biological agriculture, support for natural breeds and the consolidation of designations of origin and the creation of support mechanisms for regional products of special quality;
improving appropriations for rural development and structural funds to support and create broad public service networks, create infrastructures and give a boost to local markets in the rural world;
the need to simplify and integrate legislation affecting young farmers.
The fact that we are discussing a report on the situation and prospects of young farmers in the European Union assumes very special significance in the light of the BSE crisis.
What has happened since the well and truly hysterical dramatisation of the crisis in most of our Member States will surely do nothing to motivate young people to remain in farming, let alone encourage them to see their future in rural areas, where, as the report so admirably states, they have a very important role to perform in the social life of villages and rural communities, promoting and maintaining the countryside and contributing to the economic, social and environmental needs of the community,
We have greater cause for concern about the future of farming in the European Union than ever before as a result of this mainly consumer-led crisis of confidence, given that the number of farmers under the age of 35 has been showing the sharpest decline for some time and now stands at 28% and that the percentage of farmers in the population of almost every Member State is falling.
Our report contains all the most important and correct diagnoses as well as all the demands which have to be fulfilled if sufficient numbers of young people are to continue to see their future in farming.
This is a list of demands to which not only the European Commission but also the Council and all the Member States must pledge themselves if they want to prevent the depopulation, desolation and decline of rural areas in the European Union and the accompanying exacerbation of our social and cultural problems.
In the EU we need sustainable, high-quality agricultural production.
We must defend and safeguard the designations of origin of our quality produce, such as our wines, in the wider world, including the World Trade Organisation, because our future in the European Union and that of our export trade depends on top-quality products, for which there is a prosperous and discerning consumer market within and beyond the frontiers of the Union.
There is a tendency to put the blame for the present problems, and especially for the BSE crisis, on the agricultural community, which is expected to produce increasingly cheap food.
Because I was a member of the Consumers' Consultative Council of the European Commission for many years, I should also like to refer here to the responsibility of consumer organisations, which, heedless of producers' incomes, have been pressing incessantly for lower consumer prices for food.
Again and again in the seventies and eighties, and more recently too, they spoke out against the payment of appropriate producer prices in the framework of the common organisation of the markets in agricultural products.
So they too are partly responsible for the industrialisation of farming, for the fact that cows have been turned into carnivores and that the right of farmers to receive proper reward for their efforts has been disregarded.
This has to be emphasised in the present debate.
I am an enthusiastic proponent of this report, because it contains and clearly enunciates all the things that are right and important for the preservation of family-owned farms in Europe, without which there can be no support for organic farming with its high-quality regional specialities, which consumers must learn to appreciate and for which they must be prepared to pay a fair price.
It has been noted that the situation of young farmers is a serious problem in the European Union and they do not have any real prospects despite the support provided by the Union and the Member States.
This is why I consider this report to be so important and why I am delighted that we have voted in favour of it.
The economic situation is unfavourable and sometimes extremely serious, particularly for young people.
There is a real lack of prospects for young farmers, as well as a significant decrease in the numbers of farmers in general, with an increase in the age of those remaining.
What can the European Union do?
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, having been asked to give its opinion on this subject, did not wish to focus on aspects which fell within the remits of other committees.
We therefore chose to highlight the issues associated with education, training and information policies and the social and cultural life of young farmers.
We note that young farmers experience problems resulting from education and training that is often poorly suited to their needs.
Even Agenda 2000 neglects these fundamentally important aspects.
The European Union must encourage, through its Socrates and Leonardo Programmes, measures to strengthen education and training facilities for young farmers in order to raise their skills to the required level.
IT training must be set up.
Internet access must become a reality, and young farmers must be able to become acquainted with integrated production and marketing management systems so as to manage their holdings effectively.
Depopulation may be combated, in particular by maintaining public services in rural areas (schools, post offices, transport services), and social facilities may be maintained by pooling the resources of several communes, for example, or by resorting to the use of mobile services.
If the right conditions for revitalising farming are fulfilled, then young urban dwellers enthusiastic about nature and keen to improve their quality of life will be able to settle in the country and rural youth will no longer abandon the farms passed on to them by their parents.
- (SV) The Swedish Christian Democrats have voted against the draft report since we find it incompatible with the principle of subsidiarity, in spite of the fact that the subject as such - the situation of young farmers - is of pressing importance.
We especially object to paragraph 10 in which the unreasonable proposal is made that the 'EU should consider making it mandatory for the Member States to provide minimum levels of installation aid to young farmers' .
In our view, this is emphatically not a supranational issue.
Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report (A5-0365/2000)
Mr President, the Pensioners' Party, which I represent at the European Parliament, considers that the Commission, Parliament and the Council should change a major part of the fisheries policy and calls upon them to do so. The section in question is the part which refers to the now established practice of fishing the waters of other countries and then relieving our conscience by paying a sum of money to the governments whose waters we have fished.
I have always been told to give to those who have not.
However, I am afraid that we Europeans are not giving anybody anything but are going to fish the waters of others instead.
I am quite aware of the problems of fishermen, which we do have to resolve, but we must resolve them in some other way, not to the detriment of the peoples whose only livelihood is fishing.
Gallagher report (A5-0333/2000)
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying, on behalf of my group, that we are very strongly in favour of continuing a form of common fisheries policy within the European Union, because we understand that the management of resources is the best way forward for securing guarantees for the continuation of social and economic development in a lot of coastal regions of the European Union, which would have no other benefit and could not get employment or other developments except from their own natural resources, for example fishing and aquaculture.
However, that said and giving credit where credit is due, we must also recognise that there are a lot of deficiencies within the common fisheries policy.
In particular, the total objection to having a regionalised policy within the common fisheries policy is incorrect.
This House has rejected that proposal again today.
Regionalisation does not mean renationalisation or moving away from a Community model; it means giving communities which are bordering each other and are fishing similar species the opportunity to come together to manage those species.
On top of that, we must also put greater emphasis on a uniform inspection system across all European Union waters and give more powers to the Community inspectors to ensure that all regulations are being properly enforced.
Finally, I must say that there is a need for conservation.
We have seen a huge depletion in the fishing stocks within the European Union waters.
The way to resolve conservation questions is not by moving to different fish stocks and bringing them into a quota system, but by ensuring that we have certain no-go areas where we can allow fishing stocks to re-mature.
This example has already been proven in certain areas by voluntary agreements in Irish waters and by maintenance of these non-fishing areas - so-called set-aside areas, to give the analogy with the common agricultural policy - for a certain period of time.
That is the one way of guaranteeing that we can keep a food source going, provide employment and protect environmental considerations within our fishing waters.
That is why we supported the Gallagher report.
Mr President, I voted for this report on the common fisheries policy, but I call upon the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission to monitor more effectively one of the factors referred to in paragraph 20 of the report, which is disregarded, namely how and whether the size of the pensions and situation of the pensioners in the fisheries sector and, in particular, in the small-scale fishing sector, are monitored.
We have a responsibility to pensioners to concern ourselves, as well as with all the other important aspects of fisheries, with how the national States protect retired fishermen, as they are the last to receive sufficient protection in the area of pensions.
.
(EL) My group voted in favour of the resolution.
However, I must highlight one particular issue.
According to current Community legislation, Greek fishermen have exclusive fishing rights within a zone of 6 nautical miles, as opposed to the 12 nautical miles which apply to the other Member States of the EU, especially the Mediterranean countries.
This means that Greek fishermen are not being treated equally and are at a disadvantage compared with the other countries under the common fisheries policy.
Given that, according to the statement in Article 5, paragraph 1 of Annex IX to the International Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Community has sole responsibility for conserving and managing marine fish stocks and, by extension, the competence to adopt the relevant rules and regulations, the Commission should make use of these powers and give Greek fishermen exclusive fishing rights within a zone of 12 nautical miles.
Similarly, the European Parliament called in resolution Á4-0018/99 (C-153/1-6-99) for the Commission to propose extending the exclusive fishing zone to 24 nautical miles in order to guarantee a suitable decentralisation policy and protection for the interests of coastal areas.
The Commission should adopt this resolution by the European Parliament.
The parliamentary reports on which we are required to deliver our opinion cover various aspects of the common fisheries policy, including the management and conservation of fisheries resources, structural policy, the European Union' s external relations on fishing, market organisation, monitoring and controls.
The Commission has expressed the following priorities: improving the coherence between the various objectives of the CFP, especially between the conservation of resources, economic effectiveness and employment in fishing-dependent regions; greater consideration of the economic side of fishing; improving the integration of environmental and fishing policy; improving administrative instruments, particularly integrating multiannual instruments; seeking a more transparent decision making process and maintaining the external aspects of the CFP.
We can, of course, support all these points in principle.
I think it necessary, however, to highlight the following points which the Commission does not seem to have emphasised sufficiently.
While it is true that the TACs must be determined chiefly on an objective scientific basis, dialogue with workers in the sector must certainly be established at institutional level and must be stepped up.
The representatives of fishermen must be involved at the earliest stages prior to the scientists' deliberations in order to increase confidence and to enable decisions to be taken which are well-founded and more readily acceptable.
Such consultation will be even more essential when the time comes to draw up multiannual guidelines.
Inspection and penalty systems must absolutely be harmonised between the various fishing areas, in order to prevent distortions between Member States.
The system of inspections carried out by Community countries on third country fleets operating in Community waters must be intensified.
Finally, while maintaining the TAC and quota system at the heart of the CFP, we wish to restate the value we attach to respecting the principle of relative stability and our opposition to the privatisation of quotas.
Poignant report (A5-0332/2000)
Mr President, I voted for this report for I - and the Pensioners' Party - consider that, before taking important decisions, the European Parliament - and not only Parliament but all the government bodies - should consult the groups, peoples and citizens concerned.
The document states that the Commission consulted a large number of bodies before taking a decision on the common fisheries policy: representatives of the fishermen, representatives of the companies which live off fishing and representatives of the fishing boat equipment companies.
It has consulted them all, performing a sort of consultation regionalisation.
That is all well and good, but has it also consulted the fish, Mr President?
In 2003, Blue Europe, with its common fisheries policy, will be changed.
2001 already marks the end of one of the fisheries management instruments, the MAGP IV, or the Multiannual Guidance Programme.
We have two years before 31 December 2002 to consider and make a decision on a common policy which, according to the European Commission' s tally, raises 18 questions, ranging from free access to territorial waters, the control and management of the market in fishery and aquaculture products to international fisheries agreements, scientific research into fish stocks and the specific characteristics of the Mediterranean.
The CFP is being reviewed, and even overhauled, against a complex, multi-sided context.
Firstly, resources are finite.
Stocks such as hake, cod, sardine and tuna, are endangered or at risk.
There is wastage.
Every year, worldwide, over 15% of fish caught are thrown back into the sea, particularly in the EU, on the pretext of maintaining prices or in order to respect restrictions, whereas countries such as Norway make the most of fish that fall outside the permitted limits.
They make up 20 million tonnes of the total global catch of 122 million tonnes.
International and regional organisations are also concerned about fisheries management, from the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, and the General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean, to the North West Atlantic fisheries institutions, in which the EC participates.
Europe has also passed 25 bilateral agreements with countries including Angola, the Seychelles and Madagascar and is attempting to come to an agreement with Morocco, no mean process and one that is currently in difficulties.
More importantly, globalisation, and the associated problem of cheap imports, is now affecting the market.
Essentially, the CFP, which often contains too many excessively obscure regulations, must reconcile contradictory objectives, i.e. conserve fish stocks, according to the precautionary principle, while protecting coastal communities and economies which sometimes depend on the fishing industry for employment, as in the case of the Manche region.
Similarly, we need a clear CFP that is flexible enough to take into account specific regional characteristics, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean and even, as the Italians hope, those of the Adriatic or other sub-regional "seas" .
In particular, we must reconcile the major opening up of the European market, importing 60% of consumption, with the need to protect our fishermen, who see the Japanese, American and Korean markets closing.
In order to handle such diverse problems, the European Commission has used an effective method that involves extensive consultation of fisheries and environmental organisations as well as producers.
(Speech cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
Joint motion for a resolution on depleted uranium
Mr President, on behalf of my group I would like to welcome the compromise resolution which we have just passed.
A strong and united voice calling unequivocally for a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium weapons is a positive step forward, even if it does not go as far as we would have liked.
The Greens and EFA were calling for a complete ban on the production, export and use of depleted uranium weapons and we believe that we have a legal as well as a moral basis for doing so.
The UN Convention of October 1980 banned the use of certain indiscriminate weapons; the 1996 resolution of the Sub-Commission on Human Rights also explicitly condemned depleted uranium weapons because of their non-discriminatory character.
The use of these weapons has already, therefore, been condemned in international law.
We would also have been more reassured if the resolution had included our concerns about the methodology which is being used to assess the risks of depleted uranium.
A growing number of scientists are now challenging the conventional methodology, which is based on doses of external radioactive rays rather than internally ingested or inhaled particles.
Research shows that deaths from leukaemia resulting from the Chernobyl explosion have been one hundred times more than predicted by the relevant radiological protection boards, which have based their predictions on external rays.
The enormity of this error conceals the fact that even very low doses of radiation, like that from depleted uranium, can in fact have devastating health impacts.
It is therefore essential that we get this methodology right or else all the tests and screening in the world will be simply worthless.
Finally, I would like to refer to the report on the front page of last week's European Voice, which proclaims that the new EU rapid reaction force is apparently planning to use depleted uranium weapons.
Now remember this is a humanitarian force, which is planning to use a weapon that will leave an enormous legacy of cancers among the very civilians it is supposed to be there to protect.
This is nothing short of scandalous and must be overturned.
Mr President, I voted against this document because I feel that there has been too much hypocrisy at play in this issue.
I suspect, or rather, I fear, that this is what happened:
"Mr President, which weapons shall we use against Milosevic?"
"The ones we usually use!" replied the President.
"Which weapons do we usually use?" asked the general.
"Do you mean depleted uranium shells as well?"
"Yes, why not?" said the President.
"But," the general protested, "they can be extremely harmful to those who use them because they are dangerous in war - we have tested them."
"But, as you know, my dear general," replied the President, "war involves calculated risks and we must run these risks as well."
Mr President, in times of war we have to make do, as they say.
I do not think we can be surprised at these sad incidents, which could only have been prevented by having a united, independent Europe.
Mr President, I supported the joint resolution on depleted uranium and I welcome the fact that Parliament decided to retain the reference and the call for a moratorium on these weapons.
I would have preferred a stronger resolution but I know how difficult it is to achieve that.
What I do want to say, however, is that I deplore the attitude displayed by Mr Solana here this morning.
At the same time as declaring he was in favour of transparency and openness in relation to this issue, he admitted that he only began to take action on it when it became a public issue about a week ago, despite his role as Secretary-General of NATO during the Balkans War.
He also failed to mention or to give a view on the question whether there ought to be a moratorium on these weapons.
I deplore also his attempt to make this Parliament complicit in the decision by NATO to use these weapons.
The use of these weapons was disproportionate to the challenge that was being faced by NATO, particularly in the war against Serbia, and was therefore unnecessary and was a callous disregard of the effects on the population at large.
It was a callous disregard of the effect it would have on the NATO troops, and indeed it was a callous disregard of the after-effects on aid workers and peacekeeping forces, both military and police, in the aftermath of that war.
I would urge, as others have urged, that the new rapid reaction force should not have available to it these types of weapons.
Indeed I will be calling on my own government in Ireland to refuse to participate in this rapid reaction force unless there is a clear commitment that these weapons will not be used.
.
(EL) Ôhe only purpose which the joint motion for a resolution on the "Balkan syndrome" serves is to cover up the criminal policy of NATO and the European Union which, on the pretext of defending human rights, invaded Yugoslavia, causing incalculable personal injury and material damage.
And to ensure that the bombings were even more destructive, they had no qualms about using weapons with depleted uranium shells, despite the fact that they were well aware of their deadly long-term impact from the war against Iraq.
Because the joint motion for a resolution refuses to acknowledge the correlation between cases of cancer and leukaemia in soldiers who served in the occupying forces in Bosnia and Kosovo and during the Gulf War and depleted uranium, it confines itself to a wish list of transparent discussions and working parties and merely calls for the Member States who are members of ÍÁÔÏ to propose that the use of depleted uranium weapons be stopped and for ÍÁÔÏ to study the possibility of using different types of weapons, in other words to continue killing, but with "clean" weapons.
Typically, the proposed amendment from the group of the left calling for a ban on the production, testing, use and sale of depleted uranium weapons was ostentatiously rejected by the conservative majority of the members of the European Parliament, attracting a mere 23% of the votes.
Of course, the European Parliament acted true to form, as the war criminal, the former Secretary-General of NATO and the current High Representative of the EU, Javier Solana, cynically pointed out in his intervention, because it was the European Parliament itself which insisted on military intervention in the Balkans, both in Bosnia and Kosovo.
We would, of course, be deluding ourselves if we expected war criminals to accuse themselves.
That job belongs to the people.
The Communist Party of Greece has repeatedly called both for a ban on the use of depleted uranium and for the occupying forces to leave the Balkans immediately and for NATO and the EU to bear the cost of treating and compensating victims and cleaning up the environment.
The MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the joint motion for a resolution and call on the people to organise and develop their own united resistance to, and launch their own counter-attack on, the barbaric new order.
- (DA) The joint motion for a resolution contains many sensible ideas but does not do justice to the very difficult situation in which NATO has placed the civilian population in the Balkans, the soldiers who were stationed there and their dependents.
Approximately 20 Balkans veterans have died from leukaemia, and the figure is growing.
American soldiers in KFOR were warned against breathing in depleted uranium.
They were warned against touching anything which might be suspected of having been in contact with depleted uranium; they were called upon to leave areas suspected of having been polluted by dust from depleted uranium weapons; and they were urged to wash their uniforms often.
We do not think that the American army provides warnings of this kind without good reason.
There have also been a number of investigations showing that breathing in depleted uranium is extremely dangerous to health.
The consequences for the civil population in those areas exposed to military action by NATO have by no means been thoroughly investigated.
However, only the future will decide the matter.
We therefore believe it is quite inadequate merely to carry out another investigation into the consequences of using depleted uranium weapons.
We believe the matter has now been quite carefully examined.
In our view, the precautionary principle must, in any case, also cover those who report for international assignments, as well as the civil population in war zones.
These weapons should be covered by the provisions of the Geneva Convention concerning chemical and nuclear weapons.
All production ought to be stopped, and all stockpiles destroyed.
We demand an end to the use of depleted uranium weapons now.
The fact that, for at least 10 years, the armies of the most powerful countries have known about the harmful effects of depleted uranium weapons, including the effects on those using them, proves that army leaders have as much contempt for their own soldiers as they have for the civilian population and the enemy forces.
We have good cause to be outraged at the effects that using such weapons has had upon NATO soldiers.
We have even more reason to be outraged at the effects on the civilian population, the people who were killed by depleted uranium weapons in just the same way as those killed by conventional bombs.
Yet, what should we make of the hypocritical surprise shown by the representatives of all these political parties that took part in the decision to bomb Serbia and Kosovo, the majority of whom did so after supporting the Gulf War? They gave army leaders a free hand and, today, faced with the public' s reaction, they are pretending to be concerned about the consequences of their decision while trying to shirk their own responsibilities.
We voted in favour of the draft amendment from the Confederal Group of the European United Left which requested a "ban on the manufacture, testing, use and sale of depleted uranium munitions" , even though we accepted that this would not turn an unjust war into a "clean war" .
We voted against the compromise resolution to register our protest against the use of depleted uranium weapons, against warfare itself whenever it is used, but also against the hypocrisy of the parties supporting such wars.
The general public is particularly concerned about the link between the depleted uranium used in weapons and public health.
At the moment of impact, these weapons unleash chemical reactions, whose effects upon soldiers, civilians and the environment are still not known.
Moreover, uranium, even the depleted variety which is 20% less radioactive than natural uranium, is still a form of nuclear waste and dangerous to use.
There may be a link between the cases of leukaemia found in soldiers who have served in the Balkans and the use of such weapons by NATO.
Even though conclusive proof has not yet been brought forward, and even if there is no consensus among scientists, what we have today is more than mere suspicion, as is shown by the results of various enquiries.
This concern is therefore well grounded and should not be treated lightly.
Until we obtain conclusive proof, we should apply the precautionary principle and impose a moratorium on the use of such weapons.
This is the very least on which we can decide today, before a total ban is imposed, should the studies confirm the danger.
NATO should be totally open about the use of these weapons and about the conduct of its operations in general, and the European Commission should itself begin an independent scientific enquiry.
We owe it to all the people who are currently suffering or living under this threat to demand truth and transparency.
At a time when international law is tending towards the obligation to intervene legitimately on humanitarian grounds in defence of human rights, the civilian population cannot be put at risk by the armed forces supposed to protect it.
The explanatory statement sets out our justified concerns regarding this important issue, which affects the health of soldiers involved in operations in difficult areas.
The local populations involved naturally have a vested interest in this, especially in relation to the necessary criteria for the social, economic and environmental reconstruction of the affected areas.
In its entirety, therefore, the resolution is fair and I fully support it.
However, as it stands, paragraph 6 goes too far, as it stands, in calling upon NATO member states to propose a moratorium, as the precautionary principle is included in the draft which urges NATO to consider other types of weapons until the results of the enquiry on depleted uranium are published.
Since I am unable to support paragraph 6, I have therefore decided to abstain from voting on the whole text.
.
(PT) We are voting against the joint motion for a resolution that has been tabled because we cannot accept that we are still trying to deny the obvious, i.e. the serious effects on the health of people in areas affected by the use of weapons containing depleted uranium.
Since the beginning of the nuclear age, which started at the time of the Second World War, we have been aware of the risks and the precautions when dealing with uranium and other radioactive substances because this is a highly toxic element (both chemically and radiologically), when inhaled or ingested and is also a threat in genetic terms.
The use of this type of ammunition by the US and other NATO countries during the Gulf war, in Bosnia and in Kosovo has already caused the death of thousands of soldiers, suffering and death for the inhabitants of areas that were bombed and the environmental pollution in affected areas, with medium- and long-term consequences, which will affect not only the present generation but also future generations, which is prohibited by the Geneva Convention. This makes it quite clear that there is no such thing as a "clean war" .
Therefore, given the scale of the crime that has been committed against whole civilian populations, it is crucial that we investigate, try and convict the leaders responsible for this crime against humanity, and immediately ban the manufacture, testing, use and sale of this type of weapon containing depleted uranium, not simply approve a moratorium.
.
The British delegation of Labour MEPs welcomes the action taken by NATO member states to investigate the causes of deaths and illnesses suffered by troops who served in the Balkans.
We believe that consideration of the use of depleted uranium should be based on scientific fact.
We note that as yet there is no evidence to link depleted uranium and ill health suffered either by troops or civilians.
For that reason, we do not believe that it is appropriate at this time to call for a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium weapons.
.
I voted for the moritorium on weapons using depleted uranium.
Ideally I would have preferred a total ban in view of the very high probability that they cause indiscriminate damage to health.
I further deplore them on account of their unacceptable impact on the human and natural environment more widely.
I particularly wish to register profound concern about the environmental damage that is almost certainly being caused by test firing at the Dundrennan Range on the Solway Firth.
These waters already suffer unacceptable levels of radioactive pollution from Sellafield.
Mr President, after all the distressing incidents which occurred during the bombing of Yugoslavia and the disclosures about the use of depleted uranium ammunition, the top priority today is to ban this type of ammunition, which has dangerous consequences both the second it is fired and for a long time afterwards, and which is undiscriminating, i.e. which makes no distinction between those who are at risk of suffering its effects.
We also need, equally urgently, to formulate a large-scale assistance, prevention and reconstruction policy for the whole of Yugoslavia affected by the use of this ammunition, in order to protect public health and the environment, clean up the ground and the waters and safeguard the unimpeded development of the country and the region in general.
The joint motion for a resolution under discussion does not completely cover the first objective, but it does have the merit of calling for a moratorium on the use of these weapons.
As for the second objective, a few general, abstract references are made to existing assistance programmes which, however you look at it, are of limited scope, while there appears to be no sign of any intention to engage in new, efficient intervention at the level of real needs, as circumstances requires.
For the rest, the motion for a resolution extends - with a few brief references - to very serious matters, such as the analysis of and the need for research into depleted uranium, but makes no mention whatsoever of the constant efforts being made to confuse and conceal the facts, independent research which we all know about and even official texts issued by NATO countries on the danger of depleted uranium and the protective measures which they themselves impose on their forces.
It is for these reasons that I am unable to vote in favour of the motion for a resolution.
I shall return a blank ballot paper because the call for a moratorium on the use of depleted uranium may be a positive step in the right direction, not that this means that war, internationally illegal bombings and other similar, fruitless interventions will stop.
In all events, constant efforts must be made and a mass movement throughout Europe and the whole world must endeavour to bring about a definitive ban on all these weapons, thereby dealing a blow to the high-handedness and arrogance of the militaristic perception of politics and the world.
Finally, I wish to state that I am nonplussed by the political sleight of hand during our debate: just as we were accused in the past of serving NATO and the bombings by criticising Milosevic's policy, now Mr Solana accuses us, in our criticism of the use of depleted uranium, of forgetting the human rights of Milosevic's victims.
In both cases, anyone with a lack of arguments on the matter at issue will forget the principles of rationalism and flirt with the irrational, which is the precursor to any type of totalitarianism or Stalinism.
Resolution on Korea
Mr President, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group voted in favour of the resolution on Communist Korea.
It goes without saying that we thoroughly deplore the deeds committed by the Communist dictatorship in North Korea since 1950.
The scorn for human dignity that has been displayed is nothing more than the result of the unbridled materialism on which Communism in particular and revolutionary ideology in general are based.
This group expresses the hope that North Korea will in the near future resume a policy of genuine freedom that is an indispensable condition for peace.
In this respect, we are delighted that both North and South Korea have been on better terms for some time now.
This drive to find peace is a source of great hope for thousands of families that have been separated for half a century.
We must do all we can to encourage this change.
Nevertheless, we can but condemn the willingness, indicated in the resolution, to entrust the task of managing relations with Communist Korea to the European Union rather than to Member States.
Need we remind you that diplomacy is one of the regal powers of every sovereign state? Each state is free to conduct diplomatic relations with any other.
Each nation should be able to retain the freedom to conduct the foreign policy of its choice, the one most suited to its political and economic interests.
However, I sincerely doubt that the Community institutions, swollen as they are with fine-sounding but half-baked principles, are mature enough to deal with the reality.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Council priorities for the meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the Council priorities for the meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the European Commission, I am very pleased that, at an early stage in the Swedish Presidency, the opportunity has already been provided to debate this important issue concerning the preparations for the forthcoming meeting with the UN Human Rights Commission.
In the course of the debate, I shall, of course, follow carefully the points of view put forward and interpret the mood of the Assembly before the continued discussion to establish the EU' s position.
The presidency' s objective in the run-up to this year' s session is to unite the EU behind agreed positions, to encourage the applicant countries to back the EU' s statements and resolutions and, as far as at all possible, to muster general support for the proposals - especially, this year, regarding the situations in Iran and Chechnya.
For understandable reasons, it is still unclear quite how the Human Rights Commission' s special session on the situation in the Middle East, held last autumn, is to be followed up.
What is, however, clear is that the issue may be expected to become one of the dominant issues during this year' s session and that the EU will be one of the central players.
In March of last year, the Council requested an assessment of the EU' s human rights dialogue with China.
The conclusions are expected to be adopted at the Council' s meeting at the end of January.
These will define the objectives of the dialogue and specify the forms to be taken both by the dialogue itself and by the regular assessments of the outcome of the dialogue.
It is still unclear whether a resolution on China is to be adopted in this year' s session.
The EU is in close contact with the United States, which was last year' s proposer.
The same applies to another issue that has attracted attention in the Human Rights Commission, namely the resolution regarding the human rights situation in Cuba, for which the Czech Republic and Poland took responsibility last year.
Among the resolutions on particular themes, the EU will, in the future too, take responsibility for the resolutions concerning the rights of the child and the death penalty.
Where women' s rights are concerned, the Human Rights Commission will be deciding upon a number of resolutions to which the EU is strongly committed, even though they are not EU initiatives.
It is as yet uncertain what initiatives will be required from the EU when it comes to the Human Rights Commission' s resolution concerning the World Conference Against Racism, while the EU's participation in the preparations for this World Conference will undoubtedly be one of the greatest challenges during this six-month period.
The so-called omnibus resolution on the rights of the child, prepared in cooperation with the Latin American group, has unfortunately become so extensive that it has become almost impossible to deal with.
It is therefore the EU' s ambition to reduce the size of the resolution to a minimum and, in the process, make the rights perspective central.
This ambition is reinforced by the desire to make a useful contribution to the preparations for the UN' s special session on children in September 2001.
Work in opposition to the death penalty is a priority issue for the EU' s common foreign policy within the area of human rights, as may partly be seen from the EU' s guidelines adopted in 1998.
An important feature of this work is the Human Rights Commission' s resolution concerning the death penalty.
The ambition, this year too, is to achieve as strong support as possible for this resolution.
An important prerequisite for the EU' s active involvement in issues affecting human rights is good access to relevant information.
In this area, the EU countries' and the Commission' s representatives around the world have an important role to play when it comes to gathering information.
Close cooperation with private organisations is a central factor, as is cooperation with regional organisations.
Last but not least, the EU will continue to give every support to the UN' s High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my colleague, Mr Patten, who had to leave to go to Moscow for a meeting, I should like to praise Parliament for holding this debate today, because it affords us a valuable opportunity for an exchange of views on the forthcoming Commission on Human Rights.
It is important that the views of Parliament are taken into account, as the European Union works towards establishing positions on the main issues which will be covered in Geneva.
New positions on the initiatives in Geneva will only be finally determined after lengthy negotiations, which are, of course, an integral part of the process.
NGOs and others are right to highlight the usefulness of discussion and scrutiny of the positions.
Representatives of the presidency, the Commission services and several Member States attended a meeting of the Human Rights Contact Group held in Brussels on 11 January.
A wide range of NGOs got an opportunity to set out their views with regard to key country and thematic concerns and this input will no doubt prove helpful to the deliberation process.
The 56th Commission on Human Rights of last year inevitably had its high and low points.
The adoption of the resolution tabled by the European Union on the death penalty was a welcome achievement.
The European Union may repeat this move this year, reflecting the fact that the issue remains of paramount concern.
The Swedish Presidency has signalled more generally that the efforts made by the European Union in connection with the death penalty will be continued and intensified.
There was disappointment at the adoption of a no-action motion on China.
Some members of the Human Rights Commission voted against, making clear that such motions can only serve to stifle discussion and undermine the very raison d'être of the gathering.
As I have noted, decisions regarding EU resolutions for this year's 57th Commission in Geneva have not been finalised, as is usual for this stage of the process.
The presidency and Member States are examining the situation in several countries, taking into account, where appropriate, the information from the United Nations' special rapporteurs and other evidence available.
I will venture brief comments on some issues of interest which, whether or not they form part of an EU initiative, will doubtless be topics of discussion for those attending the 57th Commission.
Familiar concerns remain with respect to China, concerns which continue to be heard as part of the EU-China dialogue.
Positive developments in recent months include the signature of a memorandum of understanding on human rights with the United Nations High Commissioner last November.
It is nonetheless essential that dialogue leads to concrete change, a point reiterated by the European Union in Geneva last year.
With this in mind, the human rights dialogue with China is currently the object of an evaluation exercise which will lead to the adoption of conclusions by the January General Affairs Council.
They will form the basis for carrying forward the dialogue in a constructive and meaningful manner.
As regards Iran, the resolution adopted at the 55th session of the General Assembly in New York welcomed the positive changes in that country.
However, it also noted, with concern, continuing difficulties with regard to the restriction of freedoms, the use of executions and torture and discrimination directed against religious minorities and women.
The interim report submitted to the General Assembly last September by Mr Copithorne, the special representative, reflected the need to invigorate the progress towards improving human rights.
Access by the special representative remains, of course, a key preoccupation.
Finally, as a thematic concern, children's issues will deservedly receive much attention this year, not least at the special session of the United Nations General Assembly scheduled for September.
With this in mind, the European Union will continue to play an active role in the resolution on children's rights at Geneva and, as last year, will seek the useful cooperation of the Latin American and the Caribbean group.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the President-in-Office and the Commissioner for their remarks.
In particular for what they have had to say about the death penalty and the situation in China and Iran.
I only regret that the word Russia was not mentioned by either gentleman because it occurs to me that the situation in Russia is worrying.
This needs to be considered by the Commission in particular if we are to look towards a satisfactory human rights situation in Europe as a whole.
With any luck the timing will be good and Mr Patten will be able to raise certain questions with the Russian President.
It is very timely that this matter should come up because it is nearly ten years since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
At that time we had very high hopes that the whole of Europe would become a human rights-favourable zone but of course things never turn out exactly as one hopes.
The situation in particular in Byelorussia has deteriorated dramatically and there have been the most horrible civil wars and massacres on a massive scale in the Balkans.
We must congratulate ourselves in Europe on some progress but not enough has been achieved.
I am particularly happy to see what has occurred in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The human rights situation in those countries has improved dramatically and in the Baltic States with the build-up of the mixed economic system.
Some people do not consider that to be a human right, but I believe in fact that it is and represents another step forward that we should welcome.
It moves me very deeply every summer to see in the resorts of the Mediterranean and elsewhere large numbers of holidaymakers from eastern and central Europe including Russia holidaying in the way that we have done for many decades.
It is, as a British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, used to say, the main purpose of a foreign policy to allow citizens to be able to travel with a minimum of bureaucratic interference and annoyance.
I believe though that I should mention two or three of the particular problems of Russia.
One of them is one in which I have a registered interest, namely the question of Media-Most, and the alternative television system of Russia.
I hope that Mr Patten is well briefed on the question of the present detention of the chairman of Media-Most, Mr Vladimir Gusinsky.
He is rather surprisingly in his house near Malaga in Spain.
I find it bizarre that the Spanish police are fulfilling a request made by the former KGB in this way.
The war on dissent continues on the part of Mr Putin.
He seems not to have a sense of humour.
He does not like to see himself portrayed on the television by a glove puppet with jokes being made at his expense.
It seems that it is not appropriate for the President of Russia to be lampooned in this way and so he will not tolerate it.
It is a most unpleasant feud made all the more unpleasant by the fact that one side is enjoying the support of the President of Russia.
This is not satisfactory and I hope it will be dealt with during Mr Patten's visit.
Very briefly, the other points I would mention in respect of Russia are the situation in the Russian army, in particular in Chechnya, but also internally because the Russian army is notorious these days for the cruelty which it exerts and in particular the treatment of its young conscript soldiers.
I have also watched with concern in the past year the tendency of the present leaders of Russia - many of whom are ex-KGB because they were appointed by a former colonel in the KGB - to be a little bit trigger-happy in the arrest of so-called British, American and Russian spies.
This is really something that is quite unnecessary I would have thought in the post cold-war environment.
So, with those reservations I congratulate the Commission and the President-in-Office and look forward to an improvement in human rights in the coming year.
Mr President, last year I attended the 56th UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva and last week, I attended the Human Rights Contact Group: much more needs to be done and, if anything, the situation is worsening across the world.
The promotion and defence of human rights is a high priority for the European Union and remains one of the fundamental principles of the Union.
Indeed, I believe the concept of human rights should inform everything we do in the name of democracy because a negative human rights situation is often caused or exacerbated by the absence of democracy and inefficient and corrupt government structures.
Human rights do not exist in isolation, neither should they be considered in abstract.
They are the fundamental rights of all people regardless of who they are, where or to whom they are born.
Yet as we speak in this Chamber, the human rights of men, women and children are being violated.
This is why the Council and the Member States must work for the universal ratification of the main human rights instruments available to all countries, in particular, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural rights, the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, already mentioned, the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination and the extremely important Convention against Torture.
We also call for immediate measures to be taken to protect homosexual persons from degrading and inhuman treatment to which they are still subjected: because of their sexuality, they still face the death penalty in certain parts of the world.
We also call on the EU to support the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the other international organisations and NGOs in the fight against repression of the independent media already referred to by Lord Bethell and the repression of journalists and writers and to urge all states to end censorship, to protect the right of access to official information and to stop the restriction on access to modern information technology, often a saviour to people being repressed.
We also call upon the Council and the UN Commission on Human Rights to give full support to the drafting of the International Convention on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances.
Once again, and I hope not in vain, we call for the abolition of the death penalty.
Countries can, will and should be named and shamed, but in this House and together with the Council and the UN Commission, we must redouble our efforts to ensure that men, women and children are born equal and can live as equals, enjoying the fundamental freedoms of human rights.
That is the message that this House must carry to the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and I hope everyone in this House will support such an intention.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the European Union is an important community of values standing for democracy, humanitarianism and human rights.
This is the basis not only for our internal work but also for our foreign policy.
In many respects, the EU has a good policy on human rights. What, however, is missing is a coherent and consistent strategy for the way in which the work on promoting this is to be carried out.
The various institutions are not always coordinated and there is a lack of follow-up and analysis, and this, of course, reduces our influence.
Prior to the session in Geneva, I and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party hope for a strong and unified Europe which will vigorously pursue a number of issues.
It was good to hear of the ambitions of the Swedish Presidency here today.
It is good that the Council supports the resolution on the death penalty and on the rights of the child and of women.
On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I would also call upon the Council to support the drawing up of protocols to the Convention Against Torture, as well as to support a new international convention concerning those who have disappeared.
The issue of refugees must also be raised.
Violations of human rights occur in many countries.
These must always be criticised, and when they occur in EU countries too.
In certain countries, the situation is alarming, however.
I really want to appeal to the Council to try to bring about a resolution on China, where outrages against Chinese citizens are becoming worse and worse, especially violence against Falun Gong members, which has been stepped up.
The President-in-Office of the Council mentioned Iran and Chechnya.
I should also like to add Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Indonesia and Afghanistan.
In these countries, too, the situation is very alarming.
Both the UN and the EU are important voices in the international debate.
Many countries listen and take note of signals from 'Brussels' .
We can make use of this position to fight actively for human rights.
It requires consistency, courage and a more thoroughly worked out strategy.
I hope that the Swedish Presidency can help formulate such a strategy, not only prior to Geneva but also for the future, which is a natural arena for the EU' s foreign policy.
Mr President, human rights are an inseparable part of the basis of human dignity and law in the Union.
They are also universal principles, despite certain differences in emphasis.
However, the EU will have no human rights strategy whilst the responsibility continues to remain primarily with the Member States.
As there is no strategy, tactics then become the strategy.
With human rights that means that political expediency might dictate where and when to intervene when violations are occurring.
To some extent that is inevitable.
A community based on respect for, and defence of, human rights, such as the EU, should, however, be able to achieve a more consistent, determined policy on human rights than is the case at present.
It would be desirable if the Union had a common voice in this important area.
For that reason the opportunity we now have well beforehand to discuss the Council' s priorities in the forthcoming meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Commission is a welcome one.
Human rights violations must be taken seriously at all times and not just when a political excuse is needed.
Human rights have intrinsic value, which becomes blurred when they are used as a tool to achieve other, perhaps quite legitimate objectives in themselves, in individual cases, or when gross violations are kept quiet about for politico-commercial, or other, reasons.
This is a tendency that can also be discerned in our approach to the questions on the Human Rights Commission' s agenda, regionally, nationally and with regard to the issues themselves.
For example, suppression of the freedom of speech or torture with the perpetrators going unpunished, which Amnesty International has recently campaigned against, deserve to be looked into more thoroughly.
Ad hoc action is not enough, then, but neither must human rights merely be a rhetorical sweetener present everywhere, like a political 'NutraSweet' , with no real practical effect.
For the EU' s voice to carry further and more audibly it must have a consistent policy, one that is genuinely its own, and must firm up its work in this area.
Interinstitutional cooperation should therefore become more vigorous in the future and the role of the European Parliament in particular should be made more prominent.
Above all, we here in Parliament should also activate and honour our rhetorical commitments.
That means long-term, systematic involvement in human rights work when it is not directly connected with benefits to be gained or current events covered by the media.
We have to make the reporting and monitoring process more effective, which will require not only good will but also adequate resources and diplomatic willingness.
Non-governmental organisations and civil societies are sources of indispensable help.
They can also bring a breath of fresh air to that vacuum in which we busy about far too much with matters of only rather narrow, topical interest.
Mr President, Mr Vitorino, President-in-Office of the Council, in preparing a resolution on a subject like human rights, there are in fact two possibilities: we can state principles and avoid naming specific areas; or we can do as we have in fact done, namely name a number of specific areas and so run the risk of forgetting some things.
That is partly what this speech is about.
However, I want first of all to say that I am very pleased indeed that something about the situation in China has been included, and I want heartily to support the amendments tabled.
Something ought perhaps also to have been included about the situation regarding religious freedom for the Falun Gong sect, but it was not.
There is nonetheless some quite sharp criticism, and I am very glad about that.
I am also pleased that Chechnya has been mentioned.
I think this is an area to which we do not pay enough attention.
It is an area which may yet become a powder keg for security policy in that area, and perhaps also in our own area.
There are some areas to which I think too little priority has been given.
The Swedish Presidency says that it will give high priority to the work done towards abolishing the death penalty.
I am extremely pleased about that, and I very much agree that this is an area to which high priority should be given.
In this connection, we need to keep our eyes on our so-called friends.
I think we have to be aware of the situation in the United States.
Following the American presidential election, the number of death sentences carried out in the United States will reach record levels.
We are in a situation in which there are people on death row in the United States who, we are quite convinced, have not been given fair trials, nor who will in fact be given fair trials unless outside powers help them, for the system will not of itself produce these.
I also think we have to remember another of our 'friends' , namely Turkey - an applicant country - which we do not mention at all in this resolution.
It is a problem that we still have a country so close to us which will not abolish the death penalty, which will not introduce general democratic rights for ethnic minorities and which has not acquired control over the methods its police use, either on the street or in its jails.
Turkey does not comply with the Convention Against Torture.
By establishing a Fortress Europe, we are not doing much to help those people who flee from countries of that type, and allow me, in conclusion, to say to the Swedish Presidency, 'Remember, we do not improve the situation of refugees by building a Fortress Europe around ourselves.'
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the views of our fellow members are clear.
Mrs Malmström and Mrs Frahm have just spoken on the subject of China. Lord Bethell spoke about Chechnya.
However, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you refer to the Union' s consensus position.
We know from experience that the Union' s consensus position is the method that you have come up with in order to avoid adopting any serious position in Geneva.
We already saw this last year, when the Union hid behind the United States and other countries until the last moment in order to avoid adopting any real initiative on Chechnya and on the People' s Republic of China.
Unfortunately, I fear that my own party, the radical party, will again this year be one of the only parties, along with Wei Jinsheng and a few others, to speak up for the issue of human rights in China and Tibet; who will bring the issue of Chechnya to the fore, while the Council, and the European Union which it represents, will again be absent from the United Nations.
You will be working on the matter of the death penalty, knowing full well that this issue today concerns the United Nations General Assembly and the Commission on Human Rights and, thus, once again you will be hiding behind fine principles in, if I may say so, a rather hypocritical manner.
Mr President, in previous debates on the human rights situation I have advocated repeatedly that the European Union should take more preventive action and respond more rapidly to crises.
It therefore surprised me somewhat not to hear either the presidency or the Commission breathe a word about the human rights situation in Africa just now in the introduction.
That is why I shall make bold to start out by drawing attention to a highly topical situation, and one which is potentially very explosive on the human rights front, namely the situation in Congo following the assassination of President Kabila.
Despite confusing, and often conflicting information, it is gradually dawning on us that there is a risk of a power vacuum developing in Kinshasa.
That is why it is so important to quickly and effectively urge the new leaders to do all they possibly can to maintain calm and serenity in Kinshasa and to respect human rights.
At the same time, I believe all those countries that are involved in the conflict, be it directly or indirectly, must be urged in no uncertain terms not to interfere in the current internal crisis.
If the neighbouring countries do not lie low then the crisis could escalate further, with all the consequences this might entail.
It is important for the thread of the Lusaka peace process to be picked up quickly though, and for the inter-Congolese dialogue to be able to start, with the cooperation of all concerned.
I say that with the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in mind, when the international community had to witness the murder of hundreds of thousands of people, which prompts me to push for more assertiveness from the European Union, and greater alertness, also on the part of the UN, where Central Africa is concerned.
This brings me to the agenda of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Notwithstanding the numerous treaties and conventions, the rights of women, children and other vulnerable groups are still being violated on a huge scale.
Throughout the world, one woman in three suffers physical abuse.
Fifty million children work in unacceptable conditions and two million girls below the age of fifteen are forced into prostitution every year.
I would like to ask that special attention be given to two forms of human rights violations that have taken on alarming proportions in Europe over the last few years.
Firstly, there is the phenomenon of paedophilia and child pornography.
Whilst we rightly criticise Asian countries because they allow child labour, or African countries because of their child soldiers, we are regularly shocked here in Western Europe by paedophilia and child porn scandals.
I would like to draw your attention to the excellent report by Mr Kirkhope on the subject.
Two new revelations show how serious the situation is.
A network of people offering photographs of sex and acts of cruelty with children via the Internet was rounded up in Italy recently.
Last week, the British police succeeded in shutting the Wonderland club down, seizing 750 000 degrading photographs of children in the process.
A second disturbing phenomenon is that of trafficking in human beings.
Every year, around 30 million or so people are smuggled into other countries, half a million of whom end up in the European Union.
Trafficking in human beings has become a very lucrative international industry, often risking the lives of the passengers.
So many corpses of drowned illegals get washed up on Spanish beaches that it has sparked off a macabre debate as to who should pay for the burials.
In both cases, the desperation of poor people is being exploited by unscrupulous money-grabbers.
In both cases there is a need for information to be provided in the countries of origin, and for coordination between international police forces, in a bid to tackle these abuses.
Sweden has a good reputation when it comes to defending human rights in the world.
I really hope that Sweden will do its reputation full justice over the next six months and put all its efforts into the recommendations that Parliament has formulated in these two important areas.
Mr President, the UN Commission on Human Rights is not just a discussion forum but also an exceptional instrument for the dissemination and defence of human rights.
Undeniably, the composition of the Commission and the dubious solidarity between member states who have little respect for human rights often prevent us adopting clear-cut, distinct conclusions, or even any conclusion at all.
However, the very fact that a serious breach of human rights in a United Nations member state should be mentioned at Geneva is really a political fact in itself.
The countries on the receiving end of the criticism decry "name calling" and are lobbying hard in advance to prevent any discussion, and this is exactly where the European Parliament, being so committed to the defence of human rights, can fully play its part.
In conjunction with the relevant NGOs, and particularly with Amnesty International and the human rights leagues, Parliament can address the Council and Member States in order to insist that, in Geneva, the Fifteen present well-founded common positions on priority issues.
For 2001, the priority issues that I believe should be discussed in Geneva are, first and foremost, the death penalty, torture, forms of discrimination against women, failure to respect children' s rights, freedom of the press and freedom of information.
Among recent forms of human rights violations, the instances of disappearance or extrajudicial execution, often preceded by torture, are particularly despicable.
The victims are undoubtedly always political opponents of the regimes in power.
These violations, against which there is no possible appeal, have been recorded in the Russian Federation (in relation to Chechnya), in Sierra Leone, Indonesia, Colombia, Iran and Iraq, in Palestinian territories occupied by Israel and in Turkey, amongst other places.
I could go on and on.
This list is long but it is not comprehensive.
Parliament will do itself credit by demanding that the governments of Europe adopt a firm position on this issue.
We have just approved the new Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We must act in accordance with our principles.
The victims' families are awaiting our action.
Mr President, it is more than 50 years since we adopted the Declaration of Human Rights, but we probably need to ask ourselves whether the human rights situation has in actual fact improved.
That is not an easy question to answer, but we know more today than we once did, thanks partly to the many NGOs and journalists who constantly report on human rights violations around the world, and knowledge is a prerequisite for action.
But there is, in fact, an obligation to act upon information, so that not to do anything is to let down those whose rights are being violated, and in this area the EU has an independent responsibility.
As many speakers have mentioned, the EU has quite a high profile in the area of human rights, and that is both a good and a bad thing.
It is crucial that we are consistent and specific.
In relation to Central and Eastern European countries, we have had success with our policy, which can probably best be characterised as an iron fist in a velvet glove.
However, that is not enough, for human rights violations do not, of course, stop at Europe' s borders.
Therefore, it is also gratifying that we have focused on human rights in connection with the new ACP-EU partnership agreements.
However, we must be certain that we are in a position to follow through and take action if it proves that human rights are being violated.
If we have to introduce sanctions in Central and Eastern Europe, then everyone will be affected.
The situation of the developing countries is quite different in this respect.
If we are obliged to introduce sanctions, which more often than not will only affect the poor sector of the population, we therefore need, where developing countries are concerned, to establish a special strategy with regard to sanctions so that we do not only hit those we really wanted to help, as well as those who have suffered in the past.
This constitutes a very large task for the EU as a whole and also for the European Parliament.
We must be clear which sanctions are to be imposed.
However, it is of course crucial for us to work with human rights more generally so that we can obtain some comparable figures, for Parliament is inclined to intervene as soon as we hear that a human right is being violated somewhere or other.
When we go out into the world, we must try to be very specific and see what the human rights situation is like in the countries concerned. We can organise meetings with human rights activists and human rights organisations in the area and we can arrange for the final report to deal with human rights issues.
I should like, in conclusion, to say that those areas dealt with in the resolution are important, but that they are not, of course, the only areas demanding our attention.
That is why I have touched upon a number of other areas today.
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on three issues in this debate on the preparation of the annual human rights conference in Geneva, and the European Union' s role in this.
I would like to say a few things about the situation in Burma, and in Indonesia, and about the child soldier phenomenon.
It is already almost ten years since Aung San Suu Kyi was chosen as President of Burma and the Burmese Parliament received a majority of her party, the NLD.
Since then, Burma has been suffering under a military dictatorship, scores of MPs have been murdered or have fled, and there is talk of unprecedented acts of terror being committed against political opponents and minorities.
I have long been a member of Pidi-Burma, a group under the leadership of former Premier Bondevik of Norway, and I have visited the refugee camps of the Burmese in Thailand. I have a rough idea of what is happening in the country.
I now hear that there is a possibility of talks between Aung San Suu Kyi and the military command, and that next month, a delegation from the European Union under the leadership of Sweden is going to travel to Burma.
However, beware of being led up the garden path.
The military regime out there has made so-called concessions before, which later proved to be absolutely worthless, and this often happened just before an EU-ASEAN Summit, or just before the conference in Geneva.
Our advice is please keep a highly critical resolution about Burma to hand in Geneva and do not have any qualms about pushing for investment freezes or sanctions on that front.
I emphasise this point not because I am any particular fan of sanctions, but if there is one country that does deserve them, it is Burma.
Then there is Indonesia, a country in the midst of a democratisation process and where the government is having to deal with tough opposition.
The country is facing enormous problems in a number of regions such as Aceh, the Moluccas, Irian Jaya and Timor.
By all accounts, more than a million people have now fled and tens of thousands have been killed or wounded.
Disaffected soldiers and fundamentalist Muslim groups are mainly the ones to blame for serious violations of human rights.
The government is not doing enough about it and so a resolution in Geneva would be both beneficial and necessary.
The idea would not be to attack the Wahid government, but to urge it to deal with the human rights violations more effectively and bring the culprits to justice.
Lastly, I would like to draw attention to the growing problem, particularly in Africa, of the child soldiers, who are incited to commit the most terrible, drug-induced acts.
We see evidence of this in the Sudan, and Sierra Leone, and the phenomenon is also on the increase in a number of other countries.
What we are talking about here is a double human rights violation.
First, these children are abducted, and then they are brainwashed, using drugs and other techniques, into maiming and murdering people.
And when I look at the regime in Sudan, I feel this warrants additional criticism because it admits these groups to its territory in southern Sudan in order to carry on a reign of terror in Uganda.
These groups also abduct girls from schools in northern Uganda for special services.
What this in fact means is that these children suffer a triple injustice.
There is an urgent need for a robust statement on these practices in Geneva, as I see it, and I also call upon the European Union to table a resolution in this vein.
Mr President, naturally I support the criticism of China with regard to Tibet, of Russia with regard to Chechnya, and I endorse the criticism voiced in relation to the human rights violations in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, also when it comes to the repugnant public lynchings that are carried out.
I approve of the criticism levelled at Iran and its lack of religious freedom, freedom for women and press freedom, but do not forget Burma and Indonesia and the child soldiers.
That was the message I particularly wanted to get across.
Mr President, last year, only a few votes prevented the inclusion of the continuing human-rights abuses in China on the agenda in Geneva.
I hope we can be more successful in the coming months in winning over countries that will be represented on the Commission on Human Rights at its 57th session.
Last weekend, in my role as chairman of the Tibet Intergroup of the European Parliament, I attended a conference in Switzerland, where parliamentarians from the EU Member States, the applicant countries and the United States discussed ways of inducing their respective countries to raise the issue of China's gross violations of human rights.
These abuses not only affect the Tibetans but the Uighurs and Mongols too.
Free speech, freedom of assembly and freedom of movement are suppressed.
The Tibetans cannot practise their own religion or celebrate their own culture and certainly cannot engage in autonomous political activity.
Tens of thousands of them have been subjected to persecution, imprisonment and torture.
A sustained campaign is being conducted with a view to converting Buddhist believers into atheists.
We cannot close our eyes to this second cultural revolution.
I am not unaware, Commissioner Vitorino, of the dialogue between the European Union and China.
Nor am I unaware of the role played by China as a member of the WTO and a future global power.
Attempts are being made to deal more sensitively with major trading partners.
I trust that, some day, the old guard of blinkered centralist leaders will be replaced by new reformist elements.
But we cannot wait until that day finally dawns.
We cannot be passive onlookers and fail these masses of people who are being subjected to mental and physical cruelty.
Human rights are not a Western invention.
The new agreements between the European Union and third countries rightly stipulate that contractual obligations will be suspended in the event of either party's failure to respect human rights.
We therefore appeal to the Council and Member States of the EU to take the initiative in Geneva this time; as you said, Mr Danielsson, we are one of the key players.
Along with the United States, Canada and, as I have learned, Switzerland and the applicant countries for accession to the EU, we should try to convince the countries of Africa, Asia and South America that it is high time the subject of China was put on the agenda in Geneva.
Human rights are not of secondary importance. Human rights are universal fundamental rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to say thank you for the strong support which I understand that this Assembly and its honourable Members have given to positive action by the European Union in the course of the Commission' s forthcoming meeting in Geneva.
I would also thank you for the many practical points of view which have been presented in the debate.
Allow me to comment on a few of them.
First of all, Russia and, more specifically, Chechnya. Lord Bethell is right.
It was Chechnya and not Russia that I mentioned.
I just want to emphasise that it is the Council' s view that the situation in Chechnya is still serious.
It cannot perhaps be said to be as urgent as it has been in previous years, but it is our judgement that we ought to follow up the resolution presented and adopted last year because of the serious situation in Chechnya.
We have not therefore in any way forgotten this important issue.
A number of speakers discussed the situation in China.
I want definitely to repudiate notions to the effect that the European Union is trying to hide behind other countries when it comes to combating violations of human rights in China.
At the same time, it is important that, when we do something about the human rights situation in China, we can in actual fact bring together a sufficiently large group of countries in the UN Human Rights Commission in order to achieve some progress.
There are problems here, to which many of the Members referred in their speeches.
Right now, we are engaged in a dialogue with China.
There will be an opportunity here next month to have a discussion with the Chinese about how the European Union views the situation.
However, we also need to conduct further discussions with the incoming administration in the United States because the United States is traditionally the proposer and has been so where this resolution is concerned.
I can therefore promise the honourable Members that the European Union is continuing to pay attention to the situation in China.
Mrs Frahm discussed the issue of the death penalty, which is incredibly important.
Obviously, the European Union must distance itself from the death penalty wherever it is used - including, of course, in the United States.
I am particularly grateful that Mr Johan Van Hecke and others have discussed the human rights situation in Africa and am only sorry that I myself did not do so in my introductory speech. It is, of course, not only a question of concern about human rights.
Rather, we all know that, in many African countries, the problems are more deep-seated. It is not, therefore, only human rights that are the problem.
That must not, of course, prevent us from paying attention to the problems that exist.
I can promise Mr Johan Van Hecke that the European Union will take careful account of what has been said in this debate where Africa in particular is concerned.
In conclusion, a few words about the situation in Burma/Myanmar.
This year too, the European Union is preparing a proposal concerning the situation in Burma/Myanmar, to be presented at the meeting of the Human Rights Commission.
It can only be seen as one element in a general strategy for discussing the human rights situation in Burma/Myanmar.
For example, Sweden has for many years been responsible for a resolution in the UN' s General Assembly about the situation in Burma/Myanmar, and the European Union as a whole is actively engaged in the discussions in the International Labour Organisation (ILO) when it comes to the fact that forced labour still exists in Burma.
A range of measures have been mooted there, which the European Union strongly supports.
I would therefore express my thanks for all the practical points of view and promise to include them in the Council' s continued deliberations prior to the Human Rights Commission' s important meeting in Geneva later this year.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, let me very briefly say and reiterate that the Commission will fully take into account the opinions expressed by the parliamentarians and emphasise that in my presentation I did not touch upon all the subjects that could be taken into consideration.
That is why this debate today is extremely important, as is the parallel debate with the NGOs, so that we can gather as much information as possible and incorporate it in the position of the European Union in preparation for the meeting of the Commission on Human Rights.
A few concrete words on some of the remarks.
First of all, addressing Mr Thomas Mann, I emphasise once again that the Commission is looking forward to evaluating the dialogue on human rights with China and we hope to see concrete conclusions from that evaluation at the General Affairs Council this month, as the President-in-Office said.
In our concerns, of course, we did not forget Africa, or Russia, or Burma, or even some horizontal issues which are extremely important, like the protection of minorities, discrimination of all kinds or the abolition of torture - I think those are recurrent concerns as far as defending human rights is concerned.
I would conclude by emphasising that we place great emphasis on preparing the position of the European Union for the UN General Assembly on Children's Rights, and I welcome the willingness of the Swedish Presidency to take this position very seriously in September.
Let me also tell Mr Van Hecke that I fully share his concerns about the threat of trafficking in human beings.
May I remind you that the Commission has just adopted two proposals for framework decisions, one aiming to fight trafficking in human beings for sexual exploitation and the other to fight against trafficking in human beings for economic exploitation.
These will be two important penal instruments to harmonise the legislation to combat criminal trans-national networks that exploit trafficking in human beings.
We are in the lead in raising awareness and giving the police and the judiciary of the fifteen Member States the necessary harmonised legal instruments to fight against those threats to human rights and to stability in the 15 Member States.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Vitorino.
I have received seven motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Thursday, at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 4.10 p.m. and resumed at 4.30 p.m., pending the beginning of the statement by the Presidency-in-Office of the Council)
Programme of the Swedish Presidency
It is my very great pleasure to welcome Mr Persson, the Swedish Prime Minister.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to say that it is an honour to welcome you to the Chamber for the first time, for the start of the Swedish Presidency, We wish you every success.
Without further ado, I shall give you the floor.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, for your speech.
I shall now give the floor to Mr Prodi, the President of the Commission.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, I would like to thank you for attending and for your substantial speech.
If you will allow me, I would like to ask you a brief question on an urgent matter.
In a few days' time, the Union is due to make a statement on Afghanistan.
It will have to adopt a common position. in recent weeks, the Security Council imposed an embargo on just the Talibans. Mr President, I would like to know if the European Union will also adopt this position.
As to the future of the European Union, we have given ourselves over to a certain amount of posturing, trying to make an impact.
Some forecast that we will vote against the Treaty of Nice, a perfectly legitimate action, I feel.
There has been no response on democracy, no response on the rule of law; the programmed destruction of the Commission was consummated in Nice.
Many members and, I hope, the majority, will legitimately come out against this Treaty.
Having said that, we are used to a great deal of flexing of muscles in the House and we will have to see what will happen when Parliament enters the ring to vote.
Mr President-in-Office, I am not sure if you should be too concerned, since the past has many things to teach us.
I am not, of course, Mr President, asking you to make a statement against the Treaty of Nice, I am merely asking for your understanding.
At the signing of the Treaty of Cologne, the Council, of which you were a member, threw Parliament a bone in the shape of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in order to keep it quiet.
A little too late, Parliament realised that this was indeed its intention and, this is the important point, that this was what you decided at Nice in the way you decided it, in other words, the weighting of votes in the Council and the membership of the Commission.
Having said that, at Nice, it was no bone that was tossed to Parliament, Mr President-in-Office, but a poisoned chalice.
Suggesting an Intergovernmental Conference in 2004 to Parliament and the Commission is like offering a poisoned chalice because there will be no Parliament in 2004.
We will be busy with the pre-election campaign for the preliminaries in January and February 2004 and then with the election campaign proper in March, April and May.
The elections will be held in June, then we will have a well-earned rest in July and August.
There will be the low-level preparatory meetings in September, the great budget issue in October and November and finally the Intergovernmental Conference in December.
Mr President, from now on, if you could show a little understanding and ask your colleagues in the Council either to bring forward this conference to 2003 or to postpone it until 2005, you may be able to salvage the honour of Parliament, which very often does not seem to know the meaning of the phrase.
Madam President, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities would like to congratulate Sweden on the Presidency.
We think it is a good custom for the presidency to alternate.
We are looking forward to the Gothenburg Summit and hope that a great many citizens will be there under the alternative arrangements.
We call upon the presidency of the Council to re-open the negotiations on the Treaty of Nice so that this can be scrutinised democratically.
At present, the outcome is more centralism and less parliamentary democracy.
It is also startling that the negotiations ended with a decision to hold all summits in Brussels, with the Swedish Prime Minister' s not knowing about this decision when we believed he was involved in making it.
It is provocative that Czechs and Hungarians can be treated as inferiors and be given fewer seats in Parliament than countries with fewer inhabitants.
It is unwise to introduce majority voting for the purpose of appointing the individual countries' Commissioners. In that way, they of course become the EU' s representatives in the Member States instead of the Member States' representatives in the EU.
With an EU government formed through majority voting, an EU State is on the horizon instead of the electorate' s preferred vision of a Europe of nations and democracies.
We call upon Sweden to introduce genuine flexibility in the negotiations on enlargement so that the majority of the countries can be involved in the collaborative work and participate in the next elections to the EU Parliament in 2004.
The Treaty of Nice has been called an enlargement treaty, but it is a non-binding declaration which specifies the seats and weighting of votes in Parliament, while the binding enlargement protocol of the Treaty of Amsterdam is to disappear.
We call upon the Swedish Presidency to ensure that an improved Treaty of Nice only comes into force when the EU admits new countries. Otherwise, we shall in fact end up saying yes to a treaty of enlargement, without obtaining any enlargement.
We run the risk of the Treaty of Nice' s becoming merely a treaty for deepening the Union, with more Union and less democracy, and that is something I am sure would not be to the taste of the new Swedish President-in-Office of the Council.
. (DE) Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I may happen to be wearing my Nice hat today, yet I cannot get away from the fact that in Nice, as before in Amsterdam, we once again found that as an instrument the Intergovernmental Conference is finished.
On the other hand, I do not believe the much-praised Convention is fully developed yet as a procedure.
It could, however, serve as the blueprint for a workable procedure.
So in regard to the distribution of powers between the Member States and the Union, a question addressed both by the President of the Council and by the President of the Commission, let me outline my idea of an effective procedure.
During a first stage, parallel to the discussion begun under the Swedish Presidency, at the invitation of the European Council and in fact as early as possible there should be a discussion and opinion-forming process at the level of the national parliaments, which would then, just like the European Parliament, have to submit a proposal by, say, Spring 2002 on this distribution of powers.
Only on that basis should a Convention be convened, with the participation of constitutional experts, experts in European law, representatives of the national parliaments, of the European Parliament, of the national governments, but also of the governments of the candidate states and, of course, of the Court of Justice and of civil society. They would be charged with drafting a proposal for a inventory, and to do so by around Spring 2003.
On the basis of that proposal, the Commission in turn would be instructed by the European Council, in stage 3, to submit a proposal to it on the distribution of powers which could conceivably happen by the end of 2003.
In stage 4, I am envisaging rather more stages than the Commission President before the Intergovernmental Conference is convened, this proposal would have to be submitted for fresh discussion at national level, which would have to conclude by mid-2004.
Then, in stage 5, the Intergovernmental Conference would be convened, which should be brief and efficient.
In that way, we will ensure that we have a procedure that effectively includes the national parliaments, which has not been possible so far with the Convention, and that an agreed proposal is submitted to the Heads of Government.
Instead of the institutions acting side by side, as they have done in the past, they would therefore be acting together.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, it is so pleasant to see Sweden holding the presidency of the EU for the first time.
We Moderates have always fought for Sweden in Europe, but unfortunately we have to point out that Sweden is only responsible for 'half a presidency' since it is Belgium, instead, which will be responsible for the issues relating to the euro.
On the other hand, we hope that Sweden, as the country holding the presidency, will be able to achieve the success required in the work of enlargement.
The common security and defence policy has to be made more concrete during the Swedish Presidency.
Development in this area has been surprisingly rapid, but the ambitions must now be given some substance.
Relations between the EU and NATO will be of the greatest importance.
Commitment and the ability to solve outstanding problems are required if we are to avoid confusion and if we are to give the EU a complementary role in NATO' s military power.
I hope, therefore, that the fact that NATO does not even get a mention in the Swedish programme is more of a chance occurrence than part of a strategy.
In ten years' time, the EU will have the most dynamic economy in the world.
Sweden is one of those countries which have made the furthest strides in the development of the new economy.
We have companies which are world leaders in telecommunications and the Internet.
This is mainly due to the series of deregulations which took place under the Moderate-led government between 1991 and 1994.
The markets for telecommunications, mail, electricity and rail traffic, as well as agriculture, were liberalised.
At the time, Mr Persson was mainly opposed to these initiatives, but he seems to have changed his views.
I am delighted about this and I hope that Sweden, encouraged by good experiences, will be able to push through this kind of development.
The Stockholm Summit will provide an excellent opportunity.
May it become a deregulation summit for jobs and prosperity.
The debate surrounding globalisation and free trade has received increasing attention.
The time has come to get rid of the EU' s final protectionist barriers.
The EU, together with the new administration in the USA, can remove customs barriers for agricultural products and the textile industry.
That, if anything, will show solidarity with the poor of the world.
Unlike the Left Party which supports the Swedish Government, I find it gratifying that the Swedish Presidency states in its Programme that one of its main priorities is to devote itself to making the EU force the pace of development within the WTO towards tangible liberalisations.
This declaration is totally in line with Sweden' s tradition of free trade and openness towards the surrounding world.
The Minister of Commerce in Sweden, Mr Pagrotsky, has, however, described the Tobin tax (as it is called) as a nice idea, and the Prime Minister has expressed his sympathetic understanding of those who, by organising riots and disturbances, sabotaged the WTO meeting in Seattle.
The Tobin tax is a threat to the poor of the world.
A Tobin tax would only serve to undermine the efficiency of the market.
I would therefore like to ask the following question: Could the President-in-Office of the Council, here before Parliament, give a clear statement as to whether the Swedish Presidency is for or against the introduction of a Tobin tax?
Madam President, Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to welcome the Prime Minister of Sweden, Mr Göran Persson to Parliament.
I usually look forward to all Presidencies, but this presidency is something quite special, and my expectations of it run particularly high.
In my opinion, the priorities stipulated by Sweden, the three Es, are sound priorities.
They concern a limited number of important areas well in line with the EU agenda.
The most important one is, of course, enlargement.
It is a task of historic significance to unite East and West on our continent after years of Cold War.
I myself cannot imagine being able to participate in the completion of any greater or more important task in the whole of my political life.
Sweden' s ambitions of speeding up the process in this area are entirely legitimate.
I hope that the negotiations with the first countries can soon be brought to a successful conclusion and that a target date can soon be set for the accession of these first countries.
I realise that this is going to be difficult.
I also realise that it must be based on realism and that false hopes should not be created.
But, at the same time, it is important for the populations of the applicant countries not to give up hope, but to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The second priority concerns jobs.
Sweden has been pressing on with the issue of employment.
In Stockholm, the intention is to combine employment, social policy, knowledge development and economic policy into one integrated policy.
The method applied is the open coordination method.
What we in Parliament would like is to have a part to play in this method - just as we have in the case of legislation - since it is becoming increasingly important.
I would like to receive some indication to this effect.
The third priority concerns long-term sustainable development.
This is not only a question of economic and social sustainability but also of environmental sustainability.
The EU is, after all, fairly successful where environmental policy is concerned. This is partly due to the fact that those with the least ambitions are unable to block decisions, but it is also due to the fact that Parliament has the right of codecision on environmental issues.
What is missing in the strategy is a link between environmental policy and the previously mentioned areas.
Such a link must be made before the meeting in Stockholm and must be one result of the meeting in Gothenburg.
It was important, especially for the enlargement process, that there was agreement in Nice.
All was not entirely well, however - for example, when it came to the complicated rules concerning codecision making.
The way in which decisions were made behind closed doors was not good, either.
Sweden has openness on its agenda and will push the issue of making documents available to the public.
I trust that Sweden will also actively pursue the goal of a more open decision-making process.
I sincerely hope that Sweden can make a contribution to this issue.
I would also like to say a few words about crisis management.
Active crisis management and military non-alignment is not the same thing as passivity, nor has it ever involved passivity.
Active crisis management is about trying to prevent conflicts.
Sweden and Finland have been the trailblazers in applying civilian methods to crisis management and in resorting to military action only as a last resort. This is good and will be developed in the future.
There is a large majority in favour of this.
Once again, I wish to welcome Sweden as the country holding the presidency.
Madam President, Prime Minister, I too would like to welcome the Prime Minister here.
It is not quite the same as at home in the Swedish Parliament, but you get used to it fairly quickly.
Many issues revolve around the three Es.
Allow me to highlight a fourth one, namely E for Empathy.
We were all deeply shocked after the Christmas celebrations by the image of people struggling for their lives off the coast of Turkey in their attempt to get to Europe.
Many people died in their fight for a better life.
I know that you, Prime Minister, expressed your dismay after the awful tragedy last year when 58 Chinese people were found dead in a container in Dover.
Europe must not be transformed into some kind of fortress.
The European asylum and refugee policy must be characterised by dignity and humanity - that was your message at the time.
But what has happened since? Well, the development in Europe has taken a wrong turn.
It has been proposed that the penalties for trafficking in human beings be made more severe.
This is necessary, but the proposals are unfocused in their effect.
Non-profit-making organisations - churches, religious orders, asylum organisations and private networks which support asylum seekers - are threatened with penalties.
These proposals must be stopped.
In Sweden, protection against the violation of the sanctity of churches has prevailed since the Middle Ages.
European leaders should reflect on why trafficking in human beings to Europe is dramatically increasing.
Europe is being closed.
To impose a visa requirement on 130 countries is not worthy of a democratic Europe.
The basic rule must be that people have the right to travel freely to the EU.
Is the Swedish Presidency prepared to work towards making the list of countries from which visas are required considerably shorter?
I am an ardent supporter of the EU and have for a long time now wanted to see common rules within the asylum and refugee policy, but we Liberals are not prepared to accept any kind of 'cordoned-off' Europe.
This, Prime Minister, is an opportunity for the new presidency to make an important contribution towards humanity and human dignity in the spirit of Raoul Wallenberg, whose memory you have so commendably honoured.
Empathy is the key word.
Mr President, as representative of the people and the regions, we regard Sweden as an ally in our defence of things that are dear to us, such as linguistic and cultural diversity, but if you are going to talk about involving the national parliaments more we would want the same amount of attention to be devoted to the institutions of our constitutional regions, and of our governments.
We would like our regions to be able to engage in direct dialogue, so as to remove the disparity in employment levels that can exist between different regions and one Member State.
We welcome Sweden as an environmentally friendly presidency, but Sweden would be acting completely out of character if it were to send MOX fuel to Sellafield.
This would be in direct contradiction with the signing of OSPAR, under the terms of which all parties are called upon to defend the non-processing option.
Finally, enlargement.
Not only is it fundamental to the enlargement to see the acquis communautaire adopted in the material sense prior, more than anything we want attention to be given to the ethical dimension.
I am talking democracy, respect for human rights and minorities, so that Europe is able to become a real community of values, in short, a Community with a capital 'C' .
Mr President, the programme of the Swedish Presidency is a fine piece of work, but there is still no indication as to how it is to be executed at a practical level.
How does the presidency propose to implement this ambitious programme? As well as the Swedish priorities, there are all the matters left unresolved by the French still to be dealt with.
This is the first time that Sweden has held the presidency of the European Union and it has rightly made enlargement an important priority.
But is it not taking a rather over-optimistic view of how much willingness there is within the European Union to admit the candidate states? The decision not to quote statistics in relation to accession speaks of a healthy sense of realism, given that this is determined by the accession criteria.
It is important for the candidate states to be offered a brighter future, in freedom, necessitating an increase in employment levels and the promotion of sustainable development through environmentally-friendly technology.
The goal of closing as many negotiating chapters as possible with the candidate states over the next six months, is a worthwhile one.
However, we would do well to consider that the internal market must be able to continue to function efficiently in the enlarged Union.
When it comes to the enlargement negotiations, how does the presidency propose to deal with the directives that have not been correctly implemented in the current Member States for some time?
On a final note, the proposal to integrate environmental aspects into other policy areas, such as taxation of energy, is to be welcomed with open arms.
This integration is an excellent point of departure for the sixth environmental action programme, as are the concrete goals and indicators that are to be included in this programme.
However, it is still unclear to me as to how this is to be combined with the proposed liberalisation of the WTO.
Mr President, Sweden has every right to be proud of its policy of making equal rights for men and women a reality.
You can imagine that I was rather surprised to see just how male-dominated your own retinue is.
A key aspect of your line of argument is that the people of the European Union should be our first priority.
Now I come from a country that sets great store by the expression: 'not words but deeds' and you will soon have this opportunity.
For example there is a regulation on the table which regulates access to documents from the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
There are five questions I would like to ask you.
Firstly, what do you propose to do with the heavily criticised Commission proposal in this sphere?
My second question is this: are you going to radically adapt the current French Council proposal with a view to achieving greater transparency?
Thirdly, are you prepared to get off to a flying start in bringing the Council working groups together, so as to be able to reach an understanding with Parliament as quickly as possible?
Fourthly, will you grasp the nettle of radical change and make the Council documents available on the Internet now, thereby putting transparency into practice?
My fifth question is: do you consider that European citizens are less entitled to openness with regard to the Brussels administration than American citizens are as regards their Washington administration?
Lastly, a final question: do you have the courage to initiate your own process of openness in relation to the post-Nice era, of precisely the kind put forward by the President of the Commission? What would your answer be to that?
I think, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that it is extremely important for us not just to hear fine words, but above all, what will your deeds be?
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I wish Sweden good luck in its first presidency.
The three Es are three good priorities that we share. I would like to talk briefly about enlargement.
We support this as much as you do.
It must be successful.
We must never forget that success is largely dependent on our ability to manage our internal affairs properly as well.
The legacy of Nice is not a good legacy.
You will have to deal with it.
However, to move on to your second priority, employment, which relates to my temporary position in Parliament.
In the course of its development, the Union had five years to prepare for the external market, but with binding legislative instruments.
It was the same for the euro.
We are currently taking on the new challenge of improving employment and even achieving a return to full employment, as some dared to say at the Nice Summit, with our approval and we have all seen what could be achieved without binding legislative instruments.
This means, however, that we should reinforce convergence and incentive instruments.
This primarily means better coordination between macroeconomic, especially, in our case, macrofinancial policy, and employment policy in the European Union.
Mr President, you will be chairing the new European Council in the spring, which will be the first Council to deal with general macroeconomic objectives along with employment objectives.
You will set a precedent by forcing discussion and by forcing governments to compare results, rather than merely intentions.
We also need coordination of all the various aspects of European policy in order to promote employment.
Our competition policy is one of the best-defined policies and one that works the best. Should its only goal be to achieve healthy economic competition?
Mergers and restructuring are frequent occurrences. What is their added value in terms of employment and growth?
The Commission applies the current criteria.
The Council would probably be well advised to adjust the balance of these criteria.
Competition should also work in favour of employment. We have the same need for internal policy coordination in the Union reforms of public procurement contract procedures or in the regulations for services of general interest.
I did have more questions but I am out of time.
Mr President, Parliament is a place where we do not actually debate very much.
You will get used to it and you will find it does not sadden you too much.
It certainly saddens me.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, I should like to congratulate Prime Minister Persson on an ambitious and results-oriented programme.
I hope it means that the EU will take several steps forward and that it will also reinforce the image of the EU in Sweden.
Among the issues closest to people' s hearts, one of the most important nowadays is that of food safety.
I have noted that the Prime Minister has expressed his hesitancy about eating meat in view of the ways in which animals and meat products are treated.
Despite the fact that I am an old farmer and an inveterate meat-eater, I can nowadays understand people who feel like that.
Parliament will be adopting positions on some eighty food safety directives.
We are now beginning to discuss the proposal for a European food authority.
I would be interested to hear what the Prime Minister' s attitude is to such an authority.
In a common market, common rules and regulations as well as common controls, and - if the rules are not followed - a common system of sanctions are required.
Such an overall solution requires more than the proposed food authority.
My opinion is that it has to function in cooperation with the EU' s Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin and with the Commission.
Within the sphere of influence of such a triangle, advice and consultation, risk assessment, risk management and sanctions could be dealt with within the framework of existing regulatory mechanisms and could provide an identical level of food safety throughout the Union.
I hope to have the support of the presidency for this idea.
Mr President, representatives of the Council and the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, it is very gratifying that the Swedish Presidency has accorded the environment a high priority. This is vitally necessary, and it also entails responsibility.
To reverse the deterioration in the living environment requires radical political decisions - a break in the trend.
Expectations are high in view of the statement of Mr Persson, the President-in-Office of the Council, to the effect that sustainable development on the EU' s agenda will lead to a green strategy for the 21st century.
This involves providing the economy with ecological ground-rules, integrating environmental issues in all other policies and introducing the necessary means of control.
It is therefore incomprehensible that the Swedish Government is acting in opposition to such environment-related taxes at EU level as minimum levels of carbon dioxide and energy taxes.
Why was a negative decision made on this in Nice?
Another question of great immediate interest is how the Swedish Presidency is planning to assume the task - which it has inherited from Nice - of formulating a strategy for the political future of the EU.
You, Mr President-in-Office of the Council - along with a large proportion of the population of the Member States - are, of course, opposed to a federal development of the EU.
What is your vision and how do you envisage subsidiarity and the division of powers in the future?
How is the President planning successfully to maintain a Swedish policy of non-alignment and neutrality while, at the same time, his task during the presidency is to continue to develop the EU' s military capacity?
Finally, I would like to congratulate the Swedish Presidency.
Mr President, I would firstly like to wish the Swedish Presidency of the European Union luck.
As the President-in-Office of the Council knows, the work of a presidency does not consist solely of defending its national interests, but also of seeking consensus so that European integration may move forward.
And the only way to move forward is to establish harmonious cooperation between the three institutions: the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
We are therefore reassured to receive the offer of cooperation you made Parliament today, especially in view of the statements to which Mr Poettering referred just now, in which, apparently, you declared that the Commission is an institution suffering from a serious democratic deficit and that, following the 1999 elections and the low turnout of citizens in your country, the European Parliament should be dissolved.
I do not know whether these reports are true or not, or whether they have been denied or not, but I believe, Mr President, that these statements require some explanation.
Having said that, when discussing the Europe of values, you referred to the need to export the system of the Charter of Fundamental Rights to third countries.
I do not know exactly what you meant by that.
If we are to expect third countries to adhere to certain values, to which we have not ourselves been capable of adhering, then perhaps the most logical interpretation is that you have now become a fervent supporter of making the Charter of Fundamental Rights binding in nature and perhaps even including it in the Treaties.
In opening your speech, you referred to the European Union project, which you defined as an association of welfare states.
The welfare interpretation of a Europe with emphasis on the tangible, on cash, the net beneficiary and the net balance, is a legitimate but incomplete vision of Europe.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the Europe of welfare must be subordinate to a Europe of values, since the essence of the European Union is an ongoing appeal for peace, understanding, harmony and solidarity, and we would appreciate your continuing to bear this in mind.
Mr President, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, it is, of course, not possible for me to comment on all the views, but I can discuss some of the main features of several of the speeches.
Naturally, I will not go into questions relating to Swedish domestic policy, since we can deal with such matters in other contexts.
Instead, I will concentrate on the major European issues.
I sense a strong desire on the part of several of the representatives - not least on the part of the representatives of the large political groups - to work together with the presidency towards greater transparency.
This is an issue on which, as you all know, there are different approaches within the Union, which is why we are going to have a difficult and complicated task on our hands over the next few months.
Nevertheless, we think that one of the essential prerequisites for building confidence in the European Union, in its policies and its institutions is that there be transparency; that it be possible to follow the way in which an issue is dealt with; that accountability can be demanded; and that debate can be engaged in.
In that way, a European political space can be created for conducting a debate, which in turn is the prerequisite for building institutions which will go on to create increased democratic legitimacy.
What has been said by Mr Poettering, Mr Barón Crespo and others on this subject is, of course, excellent and something to which I subscribe.
Many have referred to enlargement, especially Mr Barón Crespo in his powerful visionary speech.
I have also been asked by Mrs Malmström whether we can specify a date for when the first applicant country will gain accession to the Union.
This is something which I - which we - wish to see, but we are not going to give that indication.
We will not conduct that debate until we know that the substantive negotiations which will have to be held are also to be successful.
I think we would be giving the wrong signal if we were to indicate a certain point in time when the first of the countries currently negotiating membership were to join the Union.
It would be the wrong signal because we would first like to see the difficult negotiations with which we are faced result in a breakthrough.
Such a breakthrough can take place during the Swedish Presidency and we may then very well be able to specify a date in Gothenburg.
I hope that this will be the case.
I would like it to happen, but I am not sure if it will.
When we talk about the major issues and enlargement, it seems that we are more or less in agreement.
There is no firmer support for enlargement than that offered by the European Parliament.
This is more a project of the European Parliament than of any other institution.
It is Parliament that has been responsible for enlargement.
Naturally, I am extremely anxious that it should also be possible for the Treaty we signed in Nice to be approved, because that in turn is the prerequisite for its being possible to implement enlargement.
I hope we can resolve the differences on factual matters which exist between the Commission, the Council and Parliament so that we can make some progress on the issue of enlargement.
Enlargement is our common responsibility, an historic opportunity to put an end to the division of Europe into East and West.
I agree with what Mr Andersson said in his speech, to the effect that the Treaty of Nice - despite its flaws and shortcomings - nonetheless opened the door to enlargement, something which it is important to mention.
In their speeches, several Members have also talked about the environmental issue.
I attach great value to the statements of Mrs Hautala and others.
In my opinion, the environmental issue should not be seen as a brake on economic development but, instead, as a driving force.
All the major environmental problems we see at present will be resolved by new technology.
This is something of which I am convinced.
I am also convinced that we, in practice, already have the technology. It is available.
We know what, in all likelihood, needs to be done.
When our citizens see what is happening, for example on the climate issue, and that we cannot get together and produce some kind of joint response, that is naturally something which will undermine confidence in our institutions.
I therefore believe that the Gothenburg Summit will be an important point of departure, enabling us to show that there is a path to success whereby new technology, research, development and faith in human ability are in actual fact promoted through political investment.
If we place the emphasis on this, we shall also be at the cutting edge of the technological development which is a prerequisite for a competitive Europe. Look at environmental concern as a driving force and not as a brake and as nostalgia for a time which has passed.
Look at environmental concern as a visionary contribution to a better and more modern Europe. We ought to be able to adopt that approach alongside the creditable work Commissioner Wallström is doing with her environmental care programme for issues relating to chemicals and the way in which the use of these is regulated.
Add all this together, and we should be able to obtain a promising outcome in Gothenburg.
I take note of what you have said about the environmental issue and I share your views to a great extent.
Employment is, of course, largely a policy which already is, and for the foreseeable future will remain, a responsibility of the national parliaments.
In the open coordination which is a feature of the Lisbon process, we have found a way of jointly pursuing the development of employment in the Union.
I fully share Mr Rocard' s view that, if we are to come closer still to full employment, the macroeconomic discussion is going to become ever more central.
To put it more simply: how can we make use of the fact that we are cooperating within a European union in order, for example, to provide more stimulation for economic growth? Our situation is such that we are not vulnerable to outside influences.
An isolated country is vulnerable, but not so a union of countries.
This is something we should discuss, and - I freely admit this - it is particularly important in the case of those countries which are already cooperating over the euro.
They have more opportunities of taking advantage of their situation or of stimulating more robust economic growth and, in that way, increased employment.
I am quite sure that discussions of this kind will take place in the group of euro countries. After all, the work which forms the core of the European Union has to do with the internal market and that method of working in terms of community legislation that is in the spirit of Monnet.
That core has, of course, already been built.
What has now been added is cooperation within another field, something which we, for instance, call the Lisbon process.
There are different expressions.
Irrespective of which form of cooperation we choose, the same requirements for openness and transparency apply.
I do not wish to see a situation in which States and governments hold discussions between themselves which could be considered as being closed and secret and which make public control impossible.
Irrespective of which methods we apply, openness is of fundamental importance.
Many other things have been said which I feel strongly about, but let me just say that there are two contributions which I find to be of a special and exceptional nature, but which are of central political importance and which, I want to emphasise, I have subscribed to.
What Mr Olsson says about food policy, food quality, the interest of consumers in their right to protection and the renewal of consumer confidence is very much in line with my own thinking regarding the presidency' s approach.
Mr Olle Schmidt talked about policy on refugees and about a generous attitude on the part of the European Union towards those who turn to us in search of safety and protection.
The Geneva Convention must, of course, form the basis of any thinking about this subject, but we should also have ambitions over and above this.
As a wealthy section of a global community, we really should be able to afford such a policy.
Together, not individually.
These are ambitions we could very well have arguments and discussions about, and it is an area in which we could take the Union forwards.
I am very sympathetic to what Mr Olle Schmidt said in his speech about a humanitarian refugee policy.
In conclusion, I would like to say that those of us involved in the Swedish Presidency will frequently be in your beautiful building to conduct talks and discussions, but we would also like you, for your part, to get in touch with ourselves.
We will also be happy to receive you as guests in our somewhat cold and distant country, a country which, however, will be full of warmth and fellowship on such occasions. Of that I can assure you.
You are all very welcome.
I am looking forward to cooperating with all the political groups in Parliament with a view to developing the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, as you heard from our Group chairman earlier in the debate, the EPP visited Berlin last week.
Before leaving, I and some colleagues were able to visit Potsdam where of course the conference took place where President Truman, Prime Minister Churchill - bizarrely replaced by Mr Atley mid-conference - and Marshal Stalin agreed to confirm the Yalta division of Europe.
The Swedish Presidency, as we have heard during the debate, has raised high hopes that we may achieve over the next six months the restoration of a unified Europe, but I believe the time for rhetoric has passed and what we are all looking for now are results.
I wonder if four questions could be transmitted to the Swedish Presidency.
First of all, does it intend to convene a council or a special meeting to which the government representatives of the candidate countries would be invited, not only to facilitate the negotiations, but to give the important signal to the public that enlargement is not merely a political exercise, a mirage, a constantly distant objective, but that we are genuinely making the progress which is required?
Secondly, could the bureaucratic negotiations be tempered by an understanding of the past? It does seem cruelly difficult in a sense that the way the enlargement process is presented is merely a question of conforming to some technical acquis, ignoring, perhaps, the specific difficulties that the Baltic Republics and other Central and Eastern European countries faced under the Soviet system.
With the timetable which we have set ourselves: does the Swedish Presidency agree that this necessitates transitional periods, and, finally, can we confirm that no new hurdles will be placed in the path of the candidate countries.
Clearly today it has been Sweden's day.
We all very much hope that in six months' time in Gothenburg, once again, it will not only be Sweden's day, but Europe's day.
Mr President, I warmly welcome the Swedish Presidency, although the situation in which they find themselves as they assume the presidency may not be a very enviable one.
We have recently had perhaps the most confused Summit the EU has ever seen.
Problems are being thrashed out right up to the time the agreement is about to be ratified, and that does not, on any account, give a good picture of summits generally or the work of the Council.
For that reason, it is very satisfying to note that Sweden, as the country holding the presidency, has indicated its desire to help steer the work of the Council in a specifically more transparent direction.
The programme of the Swedish Presidency is full-bodied and ambitious, and it really is time environmental issues in their broadest context were finally taken to the core of any debate in the European Union.
The programme of sustainable development drafted for the EU, which has been agreed will form part of the Rio Plus process at the Gothenburg Summit, must contain all those elements of sustainability that have been prioritised for the presidency of the EU.
In my opinion, all three E' s are a guarantee of this sustainability.
But I am nevertheless slightly worried, and I will now address my words to the Commission, about the timetable for drafting the subjects for debate, for example, for the Gothenburg Summit.
How will this timetable make it possible for the European Parliament to be fully involved in the drafting of the programme relating to sustainable development, for example? However, I would like to thank the country holding the presidency for including the issue of the northern dimension on the agenda.
And I would once more like to address a question to the Commission, which is how adequate resources - staffing resources, for example - can be guaranteed so that this northern dimension policy also receives the go-ahead for an extension from the Commission.
Mr President, I too should like to welcome the Swedish Presidency and its programme which contains many good priorities.
Just like a whole succession of speakers here today, I am worried about the tendency to frequently and stridently emphasise the intergovernmental model at the expense of the model we commonly call the 'Community approach' , i.e. one which involves the Commission' s being given a greater role and importance.
I note the Prime Minister' s assurances of openness, irrespective of which model is chosen, but the question is, of course, more far-reaching than that.
The interesting contribution by Commissioner Prodi confirmed the challenges we face.
I listened with interest to the Prime Minister' s comments on the environmental issues.
They sound fine, but there is a problem in that the majority of today' s environmental problems are directly linked to energy consumption, and the problem is that Europe at present has no energy policy.
The Member States have not even managed to agree about a common charge on carbon dioxide.
The Swedish Government has stated that it wants to see such a charge, but only if a unanimous decision on this can be reached which, however, is the same thing as no decision at all.
For ten years, this question has been blocked by individual governments.
What makes the Prime Minister and the Government think that it could be resolved at this present time? Without a charge on carbon dioxide, the EU will not be able to meet the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
Furthermore, the strategy for sustainable development, which is going to be taken up for discussion in Gothenburg, will be severely compromised if the EU does not take a coordinated grip on these energy issues.
Commissioner Prodi raised the issue very creditably, and many other speakers have done the same.
The question is whether the Swedish Government will be prepared to think again.
Finally, I wish to say that I, just like Mr Olle Schmidt, would have liked to have seen a fourth 'E' , standing for empathy and relating not only to the refugee issues but also to relations with the Third World.
Reference has been made here today to the Tobin tax, but I think that this will be impossible to implement.
One way of accumulating more money for global issues would be to encourage all Member States to fulfil their commitment to giving 0.7 per cent of their GNP in aid.
In addition to this, as Mrs Carlsson said, the rates of duty on products from developing countries should be reduced.
Is the Swedish Government prepared to act in this spirit?
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, this debate has made it very clear that the majority of Members of the European Parliament is disappointed by the outcome of Nice.
The real reason is as follows. In Nice, transparency and democracy for the European Union fell by the wayside.
What happened? We find the Council applying the qualified majority principle in more and more areas.
That prevents any scrutiny by the national parliaments, whose decisions can, of course, be outvoted by the respective majorities in the Council.
But this democratic scrutiny has, unfortunately, not been replaced by democratic scrutiny by the European Parliament nor, unfortunately, by codecision by the European Parliament.
Here, I am convinced, lies the crucial weakness of what was decided in Nice.
Mr President of the Council, Sweden has a great tradition of democracy and transparency.
I expect the Swedish Presidency to support us in our endeavour to remedy these weaknesses of Nice and to strengthen the legitimacy of democratic decisions in the European Union again, and I am convinced it will do so.
I want to address a second point.
During its term of office the Swedish Presidency must prepare for the introduction of the euro, i.e. of the notes and coins, in 12 European Union countries.
The question we keep asking ourselves is this: who actually represents the euro externally? I am persuaded that the European Commission ought to undertake to do more here than it has to date.
The French Presidency gave us clear information.
Accordingly, the president of the 12 EU countries represents the euro externally.
That in turn leads to a paradoxical situation.
The Swedish Finance Minister represents the European Union externally for general economic policy questions, while when it comes to the euro, to the euro currency, this job goes to the Belgian Finance Minister. If even we in the European Parliament cannot understand that, how are the citizens of the European Union supposed to understand it?
How are the markets to understand it? We must do our outmost to return to a sensible situation here.
You, Foreign Minister, can make a major contribution here.
If you manage to persuade your fellow-countrymen that the euro is a good project, that it is stable from within, that its external stability is also constantly improving; if you can persuade them to support this great project of European integration, you will also help ensure that the citizens gain a better understanding of this aspect of the European Union.
The debate is closed.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0001/2001). We will examine questions to the Council.
Question No 1 by (H-0952/00):
Subject: EU-China Summit In a new report the IOM reveals that the Chinese white slave mafia is very well organised and that women are being sold on markets throughout China.
The profits are comparatively high (often over EUR 30 000) and the IOM fears there will be a dramatic increase in trafficking in Chinese women both internally and to Western Europe in particular.
At the EU-China meeting on 23 October 2000 the European Council and Commission discussed the question of responsibility for the repatriation of illegal Chinese immigrants.
Did the Council also bring up the problem of the widespread trafficking in Chinese women and girls?
The Council felt that it was a very positive development to be able to open a dialogue with China concerning migration issues, particularly those concerning illegal migration and repatriation of Chinese citizens who have been found residing illegally on Member States' territory.
Prior to the summit meeting with China, a meeting was held in Brussels with officials from the country holding the presidency, the Commission and a Chinese delegation in order to identify and establish areas of possible future cooperation.
Particular emphasis was placed on the exchange of information between authorities and organisations working on issues concerning trafficking in human beings and illegal migration.
There are plans for further meetings of the same nature, and the next one will be held in Beijing in a few weeks' time.
Preparations for the meeting are currently under way at expert level.
As Mrs Theorin undoubtedly is aware, the European Council in Santa Maria da Feira expressed its concern regarding the tragic events in Dover last year and condemned the criminal acts committed by persons profiteering by such smuggling of human beings.
The European Council gave the Union the task of intensifying cooperation in order to combat such cross-border crime.
The French Presidency responded to the urgent request by the European Council and put forward several initiatives as elements in the fight against the criminal networks which organise smuggling and trafficking in human beings.
Even if the specific problem mentioned by Mrs Theorin was not discussed at the EU-China meeting on 23 October of last year, the Council is very much aware of the problem concerning trafficking in women and girls.
It is about trafficking not only from China, but also from certain other countries not far from the EU.
As the country holding the presidency, Sweden has, in the autumn of the year 2000 and in the context of the ASEM collaboration (in which China also takes part), raised the issue of trafficking in women and children.
The first step was an experts' meeting at the end of November last year attended by experts in the field from both Asia and Europe.
The recommendations from this meeting will be presented at ASEM' s meeting of Foreign Ministers in Beijing in May of this year.
Swedish Presidency, I am very pleased that this issue is being treated seriously by the Council, because it is extremely serious.
Tens of thousands of women and girls are bought and sold in China every year, many of them to the West.
The most popular areas are the poor provinces.
In a new report, IOM has stated that the authorities in the West have met with quite serious difficulties when they have tried to get to grips with trafficking in women from China, and that this trafficking will increase dramatically if forceful measures are not employed.
Trafficking in women is also rife within China.
As a direct consequence of the one-child policy and the preference of Chinese families for sons, there are currently 70 million unmarried men in China.
The International Coalition against Trafficking in Women reports on town councils buying hundreds of women who are then distributed to the single men in the town on the grounds that they are to be pitied.
It is a very good thing that you formed this council after the Dover scandal.
I wonder whether the expert organisations, for example IOM and the International Coalition against Trafficking in Women, will be included in this Council.
In what way is the Council prepared, by using its contacts with China, to bring the matter of trafficking in women in China to the fore?
There is every reason for the working parties which have now been appointed to quickly and effectively make contact, within the framework of the Union's work, with other international organisations working with these issues.
IOM is probably the organisation with the most expertise in the area.
I assume that such contacts will be established very quickly.
Allow me also to point out that the fight against trafficking in women is in general underlined as an important issue in the programme of the Swedish Presidency.
We will gladly work towards combating this dreadful phenomenon on a broad front, that is to say, not only with regard to China, but globally.
As the author is not present, Question No 2 lapses.
Question No 3 by (H-0956/00):
Subject: Facilities for EU citizens in Mecca In accordance with Article 20 of the EC Treaty, every citizen of the EU is entitled to protection in third countries by the consulate of another Member State if the citizen' s own country is not represented there. What facilities are provided by the EU for EU citizens in Mecca during the Haj?
The honourable Member should be made aware that two decisions have been adopted in application of Article 20 of the EC Treaty.
The first concerns assistance for citizens of the European Union from the diplomatic and consular representations.
The second relates to implementation measures for the aforementioned decisions.
The annex to this decision states the conditions under which the Member States' diplomatic representations may assist each EU citizen.
The United Kingdom is providing consular services in Mecca during the Haj pilgrimage.
There are several consulates in Jeddah which can assist EU citizens during the pilgrimage.
Mr President, I thank the Swedish representative for his reply but it does not satisfy my enquiry.
He is quite right to say that certain types of consular services are provided in Mecca during the Hajj by the UK Government for British Muslims.
However, those consular services are not available to Muslims from other EU Member States who would be there under the same terms and conditions operated by the Saudi authorities as UK Muslims.
It seems a little bizarre that whilst we are supposed to have equal representation and treatment for all EU citizens, in circumstances like the one I have described, there is unequal treatment and unequal representation for EU citizens.
Could the Swedish minister please assure us that he will take up this matter and examine circumstances in which this kind of unequal treatment takes place, to ensure that regardless of religion or nationality people receive the same treatment from consular services by individual Member States?
I can not only assure Mr Bowe that the matter will be taken up, I can even reassure him that his concern is somewhat unfounded.
The decision that I referred to previously stipulates that if the person seeking consular help is a citizen of one of the Member States of the European Union, the diplomatic or consular representation from another Member State shall treat the person seeking help as if he were a citizen of the Member State represented by the embassy or consulate.
There is therefore no need for the discriminatory situation feared by Mr Bowe to arise. Instead, an EU citizen will be treated equally.
I am convinced that, in this case, the United Kingdom's representation is acting with solidarity and treating all EU citizens equally.
This is at least stated in the decisions that have been taken.
Question No 4 by (H-0957/00):
Subject: Market monitoring and the EC labelling system Is it possible at present to guarantee an adequate level of efficient market monitoring with regard to compliance with the provisions of EC labelling at European level?
The Council is very keen to have effective market monitoring so that it is possible to be sure that the fundamental requirements of the directives relating to EC labelling and drawn up on the basis of the 'new approach' are complied with.
This approach is a new way of harmonising technical requirements for products in the directives.
The monitoring of how this EC labelling of products is used is a common concern for the Commission and the Member States.
It is primarily the Member States' responsibility to ensure, by means of approval or in some other way, that these bodies comply with the requirements for competence and that they operate effectively.
The Commission has been assigned a central role for ensuring uniformity and a high standard with regard to the monitoring bodies.
The supervisory bodies are national, and the Member States notify the Commission of which national bodies are to carry out the control.
In turn, the Commission sets up programmes to ensure that the market monitoring is organised in a uniform way between the Member States.
In order to monitor the new approach, the bodies whose names have been notified by the Member States will, for example, establish collaboration groups for each directive.
. (DE) Mr President, the EC label is an important factor of consumer protection.
But it is a purely quantitative measure.
All that is necessary is to prove compliance with existing European legal provisions.
That is certainly not enough for the consumer.
Consumers also want quality testing and certification procedures so that they can find out whether a product is of above-average standard and therefore also meets their requirements.
That is why third-party certification is quite crucial, especially for safety components.
We saw from the rail accident in Eschede that very serious accidents can occur if the railways only do their own monitoring, without any third-party certification.
Do you think that in future we should place more emphasis on third-party certification in the European Union?
As I said earlier in my initial reply to the honourable Member, in the first place it is the Commission which is to ensure uniformity with regard to the assessment of so-called compliances.
I would therefore like to propose that, in the first instance, the honourable Member turn to the Commission for any further information concerning this matter.
Question No 5 by (H-0965/00):
Subject: Hunger strike by political prisoners in Turkey The spectre of death is haunting dozens of political prisoners in Turkey who have been on a hunger strike to the death for the past two months in protest at the inhuman conditions in Turkish prisons.
At the same time, the Council of Europe has announced that torture continues to be standard practice in Turkish police stations, while Amnesty International has denounced the torture, the impunity and the general violation of human rights by Turkey and called on the European Union to demand an immediate end to torture and not in 2002-2003, as provided by the procedure for Turkey's accession to the Union.
Will the Council make representations to the Turkish Government to take measures to improve the situation in Turkish prisons so that the prisoners also end their hunger strike? Will it adopt Amnesty International's call for an immediate end to torture in the context of the procedure for Turkey's accession to the European Union?
The Turkish Government is, in all probability, well aware of the Union's firm conviction that the situation in Turkish prisons needs to be improved and torture abolished.
The Council welcomes the fact that Turkey has begun a reform of the prison system and that the country is also willing to cooperate with the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture.
Torture is one of the most pressing problems in Turkey.
The Council has also given the issue priority in the draft partnership agreement that exists for the accession of Turkey, specifically by referring to strengthening legislation and taking all measures necessary to strengthen the fight against torture and to ensure that the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture is obeyed.
This means among other things that the Council expects Turkey to make significant progress in this area before the end of this year.
With regard to the standard of Turkish prisons, the EU has repeatedly demanded a prison system in Turkey which conforms to international standards.
Therefore, in its medium-term priorities in the draft partnership agreement for accession, the Council has included the requirement that conditions in Turkish prisons be changed to conform to the UN's rules as regards minimum standards for the treatment of prisoners.
With regard to the lives which have unfortunately been lost during the recent riots in Turkish prisons and the report on torture and abuse during the transport of prisoners, the European Union has raised the issue in bilateral contacts with Turkish authorities.
Naturally, the EU does not tolerate torture and abuse of prisoners.
In their contacts with the EU, the Turkish authorities have denied all allegations of torture and abuse.
The Council will, of course, continue to monitor the situation closely.
I too am one of the members who have huge hopes of the Swedish Presidency on the question of human rights, because it is the presidency of a country which has shown through its deeds that it has tremendous compassion and that it is revolted by opportunism when it comes to human rights issues.
And I should like to say that the President-in-Office's "yes, but" stance worries me somewhat saying that the Council will continue to monitor developments, that there may have been some unfortunate incidents, but Turkey has given its assurances that nothing is amiss.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office if, in the wake of this tragedy which we have watched unfold, with over 60 officially dead, with maltreatment, with people who may be in prison because they spoke in their mother tongue, with some 200 prisoners continuing their hunger strike, the Swedish Presidency will publicly take an initiative and demand explanations and undertakings from the Turkish Government and, likewise, if the Swedish Presidency will finally take an interest in securing the release of Leyla Zana, the MP awarded the Sakharov prize by this Parliament;
Allow me just to remind you that, according to the Council, the partnership agreement with Turkey, which currently exists in draft form, offers an excellent opportunity for continually 'keeping a tight reign' on Turkey when it comes to torture, the conditions in prisons and human rights in general.
The Council naturally intends to use all opportunities that exist within the framework of this agreement to ensure that developments in Turkey head in a direction which is compatible with the common values we hold in the EU.
A large proportion of the prisoners in Turkish prisons must be regarded as political prisoners.
In Turkey, people are also still being convicted on political grounds.
I was present myself at a trial on 21 December last year in Djarbakir in south-east Turkey where a Syrian priest was threatened with three years in prison for simply talking about the genocide committed against the Armenians and Assyrians in 1915.
This was his only 'crime' , and for this he was to be convicted.
Will the Council demand changes to Turkish criminal law and raise specific cases like this one, involving people being imprisoned on political grounds?
In actual fact, I can answer Mr Sjöstedt's question in the same way as I answered the previous question.
In declaring Turkey an applicant country for membership of the EU, which was done at the Helsinki Summit, the EU now has completely new opportunities of closely following developments in Turkey and of pointing out every deviation from the standards which should apply to a candidate country.
I therefore see it as a very urgent task, also under the Swedish Presidency, to ensure that developments in Turkey proceed in such a way that we can gradually see the country draw nearer to the European family in a more concrete way than we have seen up to now.
Question No 6 by (H-0967/00):
Subject: Open Council meetings The Swedish Presidency has declared openness to be tremendously important to the work of the European Union.
How many of the Council meetings to be held during the Swedish Presidency between 1 January and 30 June 2001 will be completely open to the public?
As has undoubtedly also emerged from the presentation of the work programme by the Prime Minister a short while ago, the Swedish Presidency attaches particular importance to the work of the Council' s being open and accessible to European citizens and to legislative work' s being open to public scrutiny.
The Swedish Presidency is actively working towards making as many debates as possible open within the formal frameworks which apply.
The Council's Rules of Procedure do not permit completely public Council meetings, which is something Mr Sjöstedt is also aware of.
However, public Council debates can be held.
In Helsinki in December 1999 the European Council decided that, on a half-yearly basis, the General Affairs Council and the Ecofin Council should hold public debates on the Council's work programme.
This decision has now been incorporated into the Council's Rules of Procedure.
Other Council constellations are also holding public debates.
One of the first priorities of the Swedish Presidency was therefore to draw up a list of public debates which were to cover as large an area as possible of the Council's work.
Therefore, we have now presented a list of the public debates which are to be held during our presidency.
Nine such debates will be held in what could be regarded as the important and central Council constellations beginning this Friday when Ecofin is to hold a debate on its work programme.
Following this, the debates continue during the first half of the year up to the last public debate in the Council (culture) which, in June, shall discuss the protection of minors against damaging content in the media.
With these measures, we have taken transparency in the work of the Council a step further.
There are undoubtedly further steps to be taken, but, Mr Sjöstedt, do not allow the best to become the enemy of the good.
No, I shall not allow the best to become the enemy of the good.
It is just that if we continue at the pace of the Council of Ministers it will be a hundred years before we have public meetings for real.
Nine debates are actually not particularly impressive, if I may say so.
I think that it should be a matter of course in a democratic society for the citizens to have the right of access to their most important legislative body, and in the European Union that is of course largely the EU's Council of Ministers.
It is quite simply a fundamental demand for democracy.
If it is now the case that the Council's Rules of Procedure prevent even the voting and the entire Council meetings where the Council is, so to speak, legislating from being open, we ought to change these antiquated Rules of Procedure immediately.
Will there, therefore, be no such initiative from the Swedish Presidency, which is pursuing the issues relating to openness so intensely - which is something I regard as immensely important and positive?
As Mr Sjöstedt is undoubtedly aware, the Swedish Presidency intends to use all the energy imaginable to try to move the situation forward with regard to the question of transparency during Sweden's half-year of holding the presidency.
We think that we are probably doing this with the increased number of debates that are open.
We can draw parallels with most national parliaments.
Take, for example, the Swedish Parliament.
The legislative work in the committees in the Swedish Parliament is not public but closed, and there are reasons for this.
There is a need to be able to agree politically, but there is of course also a need for maximum transparency.
I can assure you, Mr Sjöstedt, that we will do all we can to move the situation forward, but Rome was not built in a day.
Even a long march begins with a small step.
Question No 7 by (H-0970/00):
Subject: Democracy and human rights in Belarus On a platform of shared values, the EU regards it as its duty to defend democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
Belarus, a neighbour of the applicant countries of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, is a country in which none of the above three principles can be said to be upheld in an acceptable manner and there is clearly a risk that the effects may spread to the surrounding countries.
On 16 October 2000 in Minsk, the parliamentary troika of the EU, the Council of Europe and the OSCE delivered a sharply critical report on the lack of democracy in Belarus in connection with the elections held there.
The many people who have disappeared include former Interior Minister Yuriy Zakharenko, former Deputy Chairman Victor Gonchar, and the Russian film-maker, Dmitriy Zavadskiy.
What practical initiatives does the Swedish Presidency intend to take to promote an improvement in democracy in Belarus and what measures and steps will be taken to clarify what has happened to those who have disappeared?
Unfortunately, the honourable Member is absolutely right in saying that democracy, human rights and the principle of the rule of law are not respected in an acceptable way in Belarus.
The Council is well aware of the situation that has prevailed for a long time in that country and is following the developments very closely.
The EU has repeatedly appealed to the authorities in Belarus to respect international standards in these extremely important areas.
At the same time, the European Union has made the most of every opportunity to encourage the development of a healthy civil society in Belarus.
The Swedish Presidency will, with great resolve, continue the efforts of the previous presidencies to encourage improvement in democracy in Belarus.
The Council feels that it is only through such improvements that the people of Belarus can fully exercise their power over the future of the country.
By voting in a new president, the people will get the chance this year to take a crucial decision on what their future will hold.
Within the relevant frameworks, the Council will offer the democratic powers every encouragement to guarantee that voters have a real and credible choice of candidates.
The EU' s support of civil society, individual organisations and media is an important element in furthering democracy.
As a neighbour of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, Belarus will soon border an enlarged EU.
Therefore, the Council is particularly keen that, in the long term, Belarus is established as a partner and it is also keen to ensure stability in the region as a whole.
Naturally, the Council has complete confidence that the new democracies in the applicant countries will more than cope with the challenges they may come up against.
The three countries mentioned have all played an important and active part through their bilateral diplomatic relations with Belarus.
Furthermore, they can serve as valuable examples to Belarus when it comes to success with regard to reforms and democracy.
Like these countries, the EU has maintained that a policy which aims to isolate Belarus would militate against its own objective.
Therefore, the EU has striven to keep the communication channels with the authorities in Belarus open and offer them incentives to improve relations.
At the same time, the Union has continued to exert pressure for the country to honour its commitments and to give the OSCE Assistance and Monitoring Group the freedom to act when it attempts to legitimately fulfil its task.
During the coming weeks, the Union will once more present its point of view directly to the authorities in Minsk.
The Union will, of course, also take this opportunity to raise the issue of people who have recently disappeared.
It is a great pleasure and honour to be able to welcome here Lars Danielsson and the Swedish Presidency.
The Swedish language, the language of honour and heroes, has probably never before flowed in this House as it is doing today.
My warm thanks for your reply.
At this point I would like to take up some attendant issues.
They concern the political union which exists in reality between Belarus and Poland and the extent to which the Swedish Presidency is also putting pressure on Russia, as part of a political union with Belarus, to realise the democratic implications, and the implications for its status in the international community, of being in a union with a country which can hardly be described as a democracy.
You mentioned the presidential election in Belarus in 2001.
But 20 percent of the candidates in the so-called parliamentary election last autumn - I was there myself as an observer - were dismissed.
I would also like to emphasise the value of the EU taking action so as to avoid a proliferation effect.
We are, of course, noticing a disturbing development, Mr Danielsson, in the neighbouring country of Ukraine.
We cannot underestimate the possibility of what is happening in Belarus spreading, for we should never forget that the regime in Minsk in fact has blood on its hands.
I think that it is absolutely right to see the development in Belarus, as Mr Sacrédeus does, in conjunction with the development in Russia and the development in Ukraine.
In the work programme concerning the cooperation between the EU and Russia which the presidency will present in the General Affairs Council on Monday next week, there is much talk of the need for discussions with Russia concerning the situations in the neighbouring countries of Belarus and Ukraine.
We hope that we will encounter rather more understanding on the part of Russia, also with regard to Russia's responsibility when it comes to actually being able to influence the development in Belarus in a positive way.
We will then combine this with the urgent efforts that I described earlier in my initial reply.
We think that it is important to influence Belarus, which is of course closer to the rest of Europe perhaps than many people think if they have not looked properly at the map.
It is absolutely essential that we take every opportunity, on the part of the Union, to bring about a development towards democracy in Belarus.
Question No 8 by (H-0974/00):
Subject: Women persecuted without asylum or refuge In some countries women suffer cruel persecution and punishment, basic human rights violations which may involve mutilation and may cost them their lives.
In many cases, this is a consequence of the application of fundamentalist laws or the carrying-out of ancestral practices and traditions.
The European Union says that it intends to protect women from such unacceptable persecution and punishment, but it has not yet found a way of translating its declarations into political actions and decisions offering grounds for hope.
Would the Council be in favour of the adoption of measures whereby such situations afflicting women might be considered grounds for granting asylum and refuge, in political terms, in the European Union?
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council whether he is in favour of women being treated as individuals, for the purposes of visas and asylum requests in the European Union, without having to be dependent on a husband or guardian.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, are you in favour of our treating women asking for a visa or for asylum as people in their own right?
I would appreciate an answer, one I hope will be yes.
Naturally, I am in favour of such a scheme.
Each individual will of course be treated precisely as an individual.
We must also remember that in many asylum cases we are dealing with family reunions of different kinds.
In that case it may mean that if part of a family has been granted asylum, that will affect the consideration of asylum for other members of the same family.
Then we are, of course, deviating slightly from the principle of individual treatment, but the basic answer to the MEP' s question is: yes.
Question No 9 by (H-0976/00):
Subject: Iraq and the lifting of sanctions Will the Council, under the Swedish Presidency, indicate what level of priority it attaches to the situation in Iraq and, in particular, will it make a clear commitment to press for the lifting of sanctions affecting the health and welfare of men, women and children?
The living conditions of the Iraqi people, together with the endeavour to achieve lasting security and stability in the area, are the most important issues for the Council with regard to its policy towards Iraq.
The Council is at present examining the possibilities open to the Union for making a contribution in the humanitarian and cultural sphere within the framework of existing resolutions concerning Iraq from the UN Security Council. This concerns in particular the resolution on the oil for food programme.
But it is also important for the Iraqi Government to cooperate in order for such a programme to be implemented.
Of course, the European Union will also in the future fully apply the resolutions drawn up by the UN Security Council against Iraq.
Resolution 1284 from 1999 provides the opportunity to lift the sanctions, provided the Iraqi Government cooperates fully with the UN inspectors responsible for disarmament in Iraq.
In this connection the Council also notes and welcomes the establishment of a working party within the UN which will draw up general recommendations on improving UN sanctions, on how they are to be better directed and on how to avoid unnecessary human suffering.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his answer and also to wish him well for the Swedish Presidency.
However, as a follow-up to what he has already stated, does the presidency feel that the operation of the Compensation Commission on Iraq, which is based in Geneva, should continue? As you know, this commission also deals with the question of reparations in the aftermath of the Gulf War.
We have already seen the negative effects in publicity terms of the sanctions and how they are being used by Saddam Hussein to beat Western Europe, as well as the Americans and the UN, and to rally his people back.
The statement last night was that this was a victory of good over evil and that Saddam Hussein was good and the rest of the world was evil.
We are playing into his hands by ensuring that people are denied access to medicines, food and the other necessities of life.
I think it is important to remember that the fundamental prerequisites for being able to lift the sanctions against Iraq are that the Iraqi regime cooperates fully, in particular with the UN's inspectors, with regard to the control of whether Iraq still has access to weapons of mass destruction.
This is also the decisive point for the Union when it comes to discussing possible changes to the sanctions.
As regards the UN Compensation Committee based in Geneva, which, as you know, has been working since the Gulf War to settle claims resulting from the war, I think it is sensible to wait for an assessment from the UN of how this work is continuing before we in the Union take a stand on whether or not this activity will continue.
Allow me to stress that I believe it to be necessary for us in the Union, from a general point of view, to contribute to this discussion of principle on the sanctions instrument itself and its effects.
We have many examples today of good political grounds for introducing sanctions against a particular country, but we have difficulty in ensuring that these sanctions actually affect those we want them to affect, i.e. the governments in these countries.
I think that, on the part of the Council, there is every reason, both as regards Iraq and in general, to continue the discussion on the form the sanctions instrument should take.
As the author is not present, Question No 10 lapses.
Mrs Ferrer asked me to take over her question and said she would inform the relevant service accordingly.
Mr Van Hecke, according to the Rules of Procedure, a written note should have been sent to indicate that you were taking over the question, as has been done in the case of Mr Crowley.
I must apply the Rules of Procedure.
My hands are tied in this matter.
I am very sorry.
Since they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 11 and 12 will be taken together.
Question No 11 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0983/00):
Subject: Burma
Could the Council give an assessment of the progress, or otherwise, being made through their policy of 'constructive engagement' with the military regime in Rangoon?
Question No 12 by Richard Corbett (H-1004/00):
Subject: ASEAN and Burma
What is the Council' s reaction to the ASEAN meeting of 24 November 2000 at which the ASEAN leaders reportedly insisted that EU meetings with ASEAN must involve all ten ASEAN member states, including Burma?
Does the Council agree that repression in Burma has actually worsened since the strengthening of the EU common position in April 2000 and that it remains inappropriate to engage in cooperative ministerial discussions with representatives of that regime?
The Council shares the honourable Members' concerns regarding the situation in Burma/Myanmar, including the new restrictions which have been introduced against the National League for Democracy during recent months.
The Council also notes the recent relatively positive development thanks to the endeavours made by the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Burma, Tan Sri Razali Ismail, and the opening of a channel for dialogue between Aung San Sui Kyi and the military junta.
The Council has on a number of occasions expressed its concern in statements and initiatives and in the EU's Common Position of 1996.
The Council has also repeatedly demanded that human rights be respected and specific measures taken towards democracy and national reconciliation.
The Council would hardly describe its policy as constructive engagement, but rather as an attempt to achieve change by applying pressure by means of sanctions and through dialogues.
As the honourable Member, Richard Corbett, reminded us, the EU's Common Position was tightened significantly in April of last year in the light of the Council's concern over the worsening situation in Burma/Myanmar.
At the same time, the Council agreed to send another troika mission to Rangoon.
It seems now as if the mission will be undertaken later this month.
The Union has made it clear, including at the last ministerial meeting between the EU and Asean in Vientiane in December of last year, that they are expecting the EU troika to be given the same opportunities to meet all the parties involved, whether they are from the Government, the National League for Democracy or ethnic minorities.
The ministerial meeting in Vientiane, which Burma/Myanmar participated in, presented an appropriate opportunity not only to strengthen the bonds which unite the EU and Asean but also to express the Union's concern regarding the situation in Burma/Myanmar directly to the Burmese foreign minister.
The Council also welcomes the fact that, in the Common Position which was agreed on in Vientiane, both the EU and Asean undertake to support the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Envoy for Burma, Tan Sri Razali Ismail, in his efforts to bring about positive change in Burma.
Mr President, may I also welcome the Presidency-in-Office.
I appreciate the answer but I do have to ask, with the knowledge that of course Aung San Suu Kyi has been under virtual house arrest now for about 120 days: how can you suggest that a prisoner is able to carry out a meaningful dialogue or negotiation with her jailer?
That is my first question. Secondly, should not she and the NLD actually be offered basic freedoms before we are prepared to embrace the SPDC in this way?
You say that the troika will have access to areas and to as many individuals as it wants.
Are you imposing conditions on this troika visit, which would mean that they are absolutely obligated to give that kind of access?
Finally, just one last sceptical comment: in 1994 Aung San Suu Kyi did have some negotiation with the SLORC, as they were called then, and they said all the time that she was being far too inflexible, this woman is impossible to deal with because she keeps asking us to respect the results of the 1990 election.
I wonder whether you are concerned that they might be still playing games with the European Union and the international community and they will again say: "look, this woman is impossible."
Firstly, allow me say that I naturally fully share the concern expressed by Mrs Kinnock regarding the situation in Burma/Myanmar.
The Council has the same basic opinion as that expressed by Mrs Kinnock in her question, namely that it is obvious that we must impose stringent conditions on Burma/Myanmar with regard to human rights.
I would like to remind you that the European Union is active in several areas with regard to the fight for human rights in that country.
The Union is active within the ILO, in the UN Human Rights Commission and in the UN General Assembly.
A condition for the contacts I have described and those which we hope to be able to make at the planned visit with the troika is of course that we receive full access to all so-called parties in Burma/Myanmar.
This goes without saying, but unfortunately we can now see that the situation in Burma/Myanmar is also getting more unsettled for other reasons.
There are obviously border conflicts going on now between Bangladesh and Myanmar, which could also affect the situation within Burma/Myanmar.
So, allow me to assure you that the Council fully shares Mrs Kinnock's concern with regard to the situation.
This does not in any way mean that we should dance to the tune of the Burmese Government.
We are making strong demands for complete accessibility, with regard to both the NLD and ethnic minorities. The latter must not, of course, be forgotten in this connection.
Thank you for that very comprehensive answer.
As you know, the next ministerial meeting between the EU and the ASEAN countries is due to take place in Europe.
At the moment we have a ban against travel into any of the EU Member States by any member of the military regime in Burma and their families.
They will, therefore, not be able to take part in that meeting.
ASEAN countries are pressuring the Union to lift that ban.
Can I have your assurance that you will not give in to such pressure?
The Council does not give in to pressure.
The Council has still not made a decision regarding Burmese participation in the forthcoming ministerial meeting between the EU and Asean which Mr Corbett referred to.
The Council will eventually make a decision on the basis of the Common Position approved by the Union concerning relations with Burma/Myanmar.
I can assure Mr Corbett that we probably have exactly the same opinion regarding what is necessary for the Council to be able to accept Burmese participation in this ministerial meeting.
Question No 13 by (H-0985/00):
Subject: Fisheries and Swedish Presidency Will the Council, under the Swedish Presidency, outline what level of importance it attaches to the fisheries sector having regard, in this connection, to the extremely difficult situation being experienced at present by fishermen in Ireland and other EU countries and will it outline its priorities with regard to the next development programme for the fishing fleet for the period 2002 - 2006?
It is not clear from the honourable Member' s question whether it is directed at the Council or the Swedish Presidency.
Nevertheless, I am pleased to be able to take the opportunity, as also requested by the honourable Member, briefly to mention a few priorities with regard to the future policy for the Community's fishing fleet.
Firstly, allow me to say that the presidency attaches great importance to the common fisheries policy and that we are fully aware of the difficult situation faced by the fishing industry after the drastic cuts in quotas etc. at the Council's meeting in December of last year.
However, the cuts were necessary in the light of the situation regarding fish stocks, particularly with regard to cod and hake, and which also affected a number of other species.
As the Council sees it, the obvious remedy for this situation in the long term is to establish a lasting balance between the fishing capacity and the available resources in order to enable a lasting and sustainable utilisation of living marine resources and to safeguard the future livelihood of the fishermen.
The presidency therefore intends to arrange a general debate in the Council on the follow-up to the development programmes which have been taking place over several years once the fourth of these development programmes has been completed on 31 December 2001.
The Commission will table its proposals in the near future.
We are well aware that a balance has not been achieved by the present programmes and that they have been controversial in certain quarters.
In addition to the structural problems which were specifically mentioned in the question, the presidency's priorities also include starting work on the Commission's green paper on the future of the common fisheries policy and drawing up a proposal from the presidency on fishing and the environment, i.e. the integration of environmental issues and the principle of sustainable development in the common fisheries policy.
This is part of the Cardiff process, and the Council is obliged to present such a document at the meeting of the European Council in Gothenburg.
The presidency does not consider there to be much scope for taking support measures to the advantage of an individual Member State. Rather, the common fisheries policy ought to be developed for the benefit of the fishing sector throughout the Union.
It has surely not escaped the attention of the honourable Member that the drastic cuts in fishing opportunities will be followed by plans for the restoration of the threatened stocks.
In this connection we have invited the European Parliament to cooperate by submitting its opinion in January on the proposal for a recovery plan for cod in the Irish Sea, and these measures can come into effect as early as 14 February 2001.
We appreciate the work the European Parliament has done in this regard but we are still not convinced that this will actually become reality.
I hope, therefore, that Parliament is willing to cooperate with the Council on this point.
Thank you for your response and also for giving us a few more moments.
I am delighted that you have been so realistic as to describe the cuts as drastic, because that is all they can be described as.
However, I also realise that it is necessary to have cuts in order to ensure that we have sufficient resources for this generation and, indeed, future generations.
I refer to your comments on recovery plans.
I would ask you to assure us that you will make every effort to ensure that when the recovery plans are being discussed it is not only the scientists but also the stakeholders and the fishermen who will be involved in these discussions.
All the fishermen I know are realists and they realise that it is necessary to have closed areas to protect the breeding grounds.
In short, can you give us an assurance that you will make an effort to have the fishermen involved in any recovery plans?
I fully agree with the honourable Member' s view.
When we discuss such important issues, it is important that all parties concerned are able to take part in the discussion in an appropriate way.
I think that it is quite obvious that this type of discussion should have a scientific basis, but all those involved, including representatives of the fishermen, should of course have the opportunity to participate in it.
I can therefore assure you that, as far as the presidency is concerned, we will do all we can to ensure that there is a thorough discussion with as many of those involved with these important issues as possible.
I should just like to ask the President-in-Office if there will be compensation available because of the cuts and what effect this will have on the livelihoods of fishermen? Are there any proposals for compensation to fishermen?
The question raised by the honourable Member is, of course, very important, particularly for the fishermen who are affected.
However, I am afraid that the question has been directed to the wrong person, i.e. the President-in-Office of the Council.
This is, as we see it, a question which should preferably be directed to the Commission, which is responsible for this area.
Thank you very much, Mr Danielsson, for having done more than your duty in this first Question Time.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 14 to 22 will be answered in writing.
Questions Nos 23 and 24 will not be taken since their subject is included in the agenda for the current part-session.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.43 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Civil aviation
The next item is the report (A5-0393/2000) by Mr Simpson, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3922/91 on the harmonisation of technical requirements and administrative procedures in the field of civil aviation.
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Mr President, I have been given a very generous eight minutes on my report here in front of this packed Chamber this evening - I suspect that is because many people find this report quite technical and detailed.
Whilst drawing up the second liberalisation package in 1989, the Council and the Commission agreed that Community air transport policy had to address the harmonisation of the regulatory framework applicable to civil aviation.
Subsequently, Council Regulation 3922/91 was established in which the technical requirements, known as Joint Aviation Requirements, formulated by the JAA, were given the force of law within the Community.
It is against this background that the Joint Aviation Requirements, known as JAR-OPS, agreed by the JAA in 1995, are now being transposed into European Union law.
This in itself has proved to be a difficult exercise.
But the Community has committed itself to adopting harmonised safety requirements for the operation of aircraft.
In this regard, the JAR-OPS 1 Regulation constitutes a good basis from which we can work, with minimum changes, in order to amend the appropriate regulations.
However, there are areas in which Parliament needs to act.
Firstly, in regard to cabin crew.
Operators should have the responsibility for training, but this should be done on a harmonised basis, with a distinct, uniform, European-wide certification system which would be accepted by all Member States.
There is no doubt in my mind that in most cases the operators are best qualified to organise training.
But this should not preclude other qualified organisations from having the possibility to do training, providing, of course, that all training is approved by the National Civil Aviation Authorities.
In addition, the cabin crew directive should now be incorporated into this regulation.
Secondly, the difficult issue of flight time limitation was not addressed by the Commission.
The relevant part, known as Subpart Q, is missing.
This is nonsensical, because you cannot have a directive which purports to have safety as a major part of it leaving out the issue of duty time for cockpit crews.
In this area, the social partners have been trying to reach an agreement for ten years.
Ten years and no agreement must be a failure by any measurement you wish to adopt.
However, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism recognise that the best people to deal with this problem are indeed the trade unions and the airline operators and, in a spirit of compromise, have agreed to give all sides until 1 May 2001 to reach an agreement that will form the text of a new Subpart Q.
However, should they fail in their endeavours then, at the second reading stage, Parliament, through the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, will act and legislate in this area.
I am hopeful that the relevant social partners will reach an agreement.
I am grateful to them for their current efforts.
Amendments have been proposed that also look at the problem of cabin baggage.
Sadly, airlines at present do not strictly enforce cabin baggage regulations, which has led to passengers bringing more and more bags into airline cabins.
Amendment No 16 addresses this problem, which was highlighted to me by the cabin crew themselves and even some airlines.
I find it totally amazing that groups in Parliament will vote against this amendment.
This is a safety issue, and as their rapporteur I would ask them to seriously reconsider their opinion.
This amendment is totally acceptable to all airlines and cabin crew and it in no way stops passengers having cabin baggage.
What it does is stop the excessive cabin baggage which has led to passengers being injured from luggage falling out of overhead bins; to passengers having restricted access in case of emergency evacuation procedures and, which I know from my own experience, to aircraft toilets being used to carry bags.
Whilst I appreciate that MEPs are amongst the worst culprits for excessive cabin baggage, I would hope their sense of responsibility would enable them to recognise that a problem exists, that this problem compromises safety and that Amendment No 16 should be supported.
I believe that the report before us is worth supporting.
However, in conclusion, I feel I must reiterate the warning I made earlier that we need an agreement on flight time limitation before 1 May from our social partners.
If they can deliver that agreement for us, then I believe we will have a document that we can rightly be proud of.
I have to say that if they fail in their endeavours, I am sure Parliament will feel obliged to act on their behalf.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Simpson, we have to agree with much of what you said.
It is true that it became clear in 1989 with the liberalisation package that the European Community must not only ensure fair competition but must also ensure safety in aviation.
The present amendment of the regulation aims to do that and I think it is right for the European institutions to clearly assume their responsibility.
That means that if we are responsible for regulating aviation safety in Europe, we must also take the appropriate action.
But at the same time we must also make it clear that Parliament and political bodies such as the Commission and the Council should not disregard the vote of experts.
So I very much welcome the fact that we held a very pragmatic debate in committee and nobody really tried to enter into the details of the technical rules or, so to speak, to put political knowledge above the knowledge of the experts.
You quite rightly also pointed out, and I think that is quite clear, that we need rules on duty time, and I myself am surprised that in spite of this long process the social partners have still not managed to put rules together.
That is why I also think it is right for us as Parliament to make it clear once again that we expect the social partners airlines and employees' representatives to fulfil their obligation.
We are prepared to introduce this into the regulation too, at second reading.
On the other hand, we are equally prepared to put our own rules in place if the social partners do not fulfil their obligation. For one thing is quite clear: safety in aviation must take priority.
Yet safety in aviation cannot be ensured just by having rules, especially not overarching rules.
That is why I also say quite plainly: however much we can agree with large sections of the report, we do not consider it appropriate for Parliament to introduce its own detailed provisions into this regulation in certain areas under the heading, for instance, of "one cabin crew member operations" or length of experience, i.e. how long someone has already served as a cabin crew member.
So unfortunately we will not be able to vote for your Amendments Nos 9 and 10, which concern such proposals.
I was somewhat surprised to see how intently the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism considered and discussed the question of hand baggage.
In my view that is not an issue for a parliament to discuss and I can only say to Mr Simpson and my other colleagues: let the airlines regulate that; it is not the job of Members.
Mr President, Mr Simpson, Commissioner, I hoped for a moment, just after seeing the news - and in fact things were looking a bit that way - that we would start with a debate on fox hunting, which will doubtless prove to be an extremely lively debate in Britain' s House of Commons this evening.
We are also going to be discussing dangerous matters here.
We highlighted one particular aspect recently at any rate, that of the flight time of pilots, and we also put questions to the Commissioner on the subject at an earlier stage.
I am delighted that a situation has arisen in the meantime in which the partners have had it pointed out to them once again that they still have the chance to enter into consultation or reach agreements.
If they do not do so then, as others have already said, this will automatically mean asking the Commission to draw up legislation in this area which will at least prevent accidents from occurring as a result of pilots spending too long at the controls.
Research from which we once obtained answers now takes too long, and these negotiations could speed this up, and perhaps in time we will gain an even better understanding of what all the important factors might be.
One aspect that we did not raise during the discussions, because it only came into play later on, is the one that we have also tabled an amendment on, namely that of long haul flights.
It is becoming increasingly apparent - and claims to this effect are now being made not only in Australia, but also in England, concerning British Airways - that long haul flights can cause people to develop thromboses.
We cannot yet be completely certain of this, nor do we have all the relevant facts in our possession yet, but we recognise the seriousness of the situation all the same, and wonder if it would not be sensible to request the Commission - via an amendment in this case, otherwise we will do so using other means - to come up with some initiatives on this front.
Finally, and this is something we have given no thought to hitherto, there is the fact that some aviation companies with large aircraft are starting to fly at a higher altitude, which also produces symptoms of illness.
We will revisit this issue at a later stage.
Mr President, Mr Simpson's report is truly excellent, and I am qualified to say so for I consider myself to be one of the few people who are familiar with the technical as well as the political side of the sector, having recorded almost 10 000 flight hours precisely as a member of a flight crew before devoting myself to politics.
I would point out that safety is the priority in air transport.
Safety can be considered to be based on two elements: the technical element, such as the resources, aircraft, airports, radio aid, air traffic control and so on and so forth, and then the human element, which is extremely important and, although not the principal cause, has been found to be a contributing factor in an extremely high percentage of aircraft accidents. The human element is, of course, extremely complex and, for simplicity's sake, can be divided into two main categories.
One of these is training, and in this area all the appropriate controls and checks must be carried out. I can say from my own experience that flight crews are properly trained for, apart from anything else, there are no substandard pilots.
As a general rule, substandard pilots do not fly: they are all resting in peace underground.
The other category is workload.
The problems here are enormous: on the one hand, there is the need to make both aircraft and staff fly as much as possible, and on the other, there is the need to avoid pushing human beings, especially, beyond their physical and mental limits.
Sleep, the disruption of circadian rhythms and so on clearly influence flight safety as well as the personal health of the members of the flight and cabin crews.
Here, then, is the gap in the regulation, for it considers primarily the technical aspect of the resources - aircraft load factors, loading operations, length of runways, screen heights etc. but it is effectively lacking in any provisions on the workloads of the staff.
I am not talking as a trade unionist here but precisely as a user of air transport who would dearly like to have a guarantee - although I regret that a 100% guarantee is impossible - which is as high as possible and avoids excessive exploitation of the human element which is liable to have serious or even fatal consequences.
Another factor to be taken into consideration is competition.
If there are no standard rules, some of the airlines who exploit their staff will be able to reduce their costs and therefore offer more competitive prices, distorting what ought to be fair competition in a sector which is now almost completely liberalised.
However, we could even go so far as to talk of unfair or irregular competition if this factor were not taken into account, and I wonder at the fact that neither the Union as a whole nor Parliament, specifically, has succeeded in regulating the matter satisfactorily.
Parliament should feel truly ashamed at not having managed to express a clear opinion or produce an effective definition of all aspects of the issue.
Mr President, as mentioned in 1989, the Council and the Commission agreed that they had to address the harmonisation of the regulatory framework applicable to civil aviation in order to maintain a high level of safety and to ensure fair competition in the internal market.
Hence, the Community adopted Council Regulation 3922/91.
This regulation listed a number of technical requirements - JARs - produced by the Joint Aviation Authority.
It was not the purpose of this regulation to re-open a debate on the substance of JAR: the purpose was to ensure harmonisation.
In addition, it should be recognised that JAR-OPS has been implemented on a national basis and is applicable to European countries outside the EU.
Therefore changes must be kept to a minimum as there cannot be two different sets of operational regulations in force across Europe.
The Commission's original proposal highlighted four areas which were found to be incompatible in EU law: exemptions, leasing, registration and cabin crew training.
Unfortunately, the debate so far has centred on cabin baggage and flight time limitations for flight crew.
On the first point - cabin baggage - the amendments are anti-competitive and cannot apply to third-country carriers.
Sufficient regulation is already in place, which does not allow on board hand baggage which cannot be safely stowed - I can vouch for that as a cabin crew member for 26 years.
On my second point - flight time limitations, which are already highly regulated and agreed through national governments - civil aviation is now included in working time regulation.
Irrespective of the decision taken on 1 May, this issue would have to be referred back to national governments for further discussion.
It is not for Parliament to legislate on flight time limitations.
Finally, I believe that in future safety and highly technical reports such as this should be subject to a simplified procedure in order to process necessary changes more speedily.
Mr President, Commissioner, there are some things that are not quite as we would wish them to be in European aviation.
Last year, in particular, showed us repeatedly that it is high time to find more common European solutions to ensure that flying in European airspace follows orderly lines again, not to speak of the great dream of limitless freedom above the clouds conjured up by Reinhard Mey.
But first and foremost, flying must be safe.
We all want flying to remain safe, to see further improvements here in the forefront the rapporteur, Mr Simpson, to whom we owe thanks for an excellent report.
There are, however, different views on how to achieve greater safety.
I and luckily I am not alone in my view would hope that we leave the practical task of regulating the safety provisions, especially in regard to cabin crew and the accompanying provisions on crew training, to the European Aviation Safety Authority.
Surely it should be enough for the European legislator to set out the objectives, rather than getting bogged down in too much detail.
Unfortunately, this position did not gain consistent majority support in committee.
As a result the text we will be voting on tomorrow includes some rather too detailed provisions, for instance on the kind of training course required and so forth.
Perhaps less would be more in this case.
Be that as it may, Europe still has a great deal to do on the question of aviation.
As we saw in Nice on a very general basis, here too on a more specific basis we could plead for fewer national solutions and a more European approach.
The Simpson report is a good step along this road.
Let us take that step tomorrow and then pursue it further in a politically convincing manner.
Mr President, Vice-President of the Commission, in the past, Parliament has continually demonstrated its commitment to the harmonisation of safety standards at the highest possible level for the Union.
Now it must continue to do so, and to ensure, as a matter of urgency, that this is clearly visible to the European citizens, who every year continue to suffer the problems of the European area.
We all agree that the objective is to successfully do away with national discrepancies in order to arrive at a set of common safety standards at the highest possible level.
Air safety cannot be confined to European Union territory, and it is important for European citizens who travel or live near airports to be confident that aircraft from third countries fulfil all the necessary safety criteria.
The Union must therefore have control methods to ensure that, in accordance with international regulations, third country aircraft arriving at our airports comply with international safety regulations.
This means common control methods and technical and administrative organisation and support.
It is therefore inevitable that safety in this sector should become a matter for international cooperation within the framework of the different instruments for technical assistance and support for investment in third countries.
Mr President, I will end by pointing out the need to assist the Commission in its work in this very complicated field and the priority which must be given to creating the European Air Safety Agency, as well as the need for independent regulations, which we are currently considering, on issues relating to rest periods for aircrew.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mr Simpson for his magnificent work as rapporteur on this proposal.
I believe that his work has contributed a considerable amount to this Parliament' s understanding of a very technical and complex proposal and it is of course no easy task to translate it into a language which is accessible to the average citizen.
In this respect I believe that he has been very successful.
Having said that, the amendment we are proposing to the Regulation currently in force has twin objectives: firstly, it intends to move forward with the harmonisation of the regulatory system in the field of safety in civil aviation by extending it to the harmonisation of the operational requirements for aircraft; secondly, it intends to establish procedures which will allow the Community to manage the variables and exceptions which the Member States are obliged to adopt from time to time as a result of operational needs.
With regard to technical requirements, the report mainly deals with two aspects.
In accordance with JAA regulations, which lay down the requirements, the Commission' s proposal does not contain any provisions on flight and duty times or on rest periods.
This is a very controversial issue and the reality is that no agreement has been reached in this regard within the JAA.
Of course, the Commission hopes that the negotiators representing the operators and the crews will be successful, and Mr Simpson has urged them to reach a voluntary agreement on safety systems relating to flight and duty times and rest periods.
If they are not capable of reaching agreements by May, we will then have to consider whether or not we should act.
In any event, of the relevant amendments, the Commission accepts the spirit of Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 17, but with a different wording.
With regard to Amendment No 1, the Commission shares Parliament' s desire to regulate the safety of flight and duty times and rest periods, but prefers that compliance with this objective not only be pursued by means of the specific proposal that we are debating today.
There are other possibilities, such as amending the Regulation after the adoption of the present proposal.
I would like to add that any proposal presented by the Commission in the future will have to guarantee the high level of safety that we all wish to see.
Therefore, if the Commission makes use of the voluntary agreement between the negotiators, to which I have just referred, to produce a proposal, it would amend the agreement where necessary in order to achieve the necessary high level of safety.
With this reservation, I repeat, the Commission accepts the spirit of Amendment No 1.
Various amendments have also been adopted on the requirements applicable to cabin crews.
While this proposal deals with the operational requirements of cabin crews, the training and professional qualification requirements are the subject of a separate and supplementary Commission proposal.
We must take care to ensure that the two texts are in agreement and compatible with one another.
Amendments Nos 9 and 10 can be accepted without changes, but the wording of Amendments Nos 6, 7, 8 and 11 will have to be modified, as well as Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 17, which we now accept only in principle, and their wording will also have to be modified.
Finally, the amendments on technical requirements, specifically Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 16, are acceptable, although the final text of Amendment No 4 will reflect the solution to the problem in question as found by the Council.
In relation to the procedures for the approval of temporary variables and exceptions, the Commission does not accept Amendments Nos 2, 14 and 15.
The Commission is already under institutional obligation to carry out the consultations laid down in the amendments.
Likewise, Amendment No 3 must be rejected, since derogation of the Regulation is envisaged once the European Air Safety Agency has been created.
Lastly, with regard to Amendment No 18, the two issues it addresses are concerned more with the health of passengers than the operational safety of flights.
As was mentioned in the Communication on the protection of air passengers, the Commission intends to establish groups of experts to examine the risks to passengers' health, including those resulting from cosmic radiation, with the aim of determining what these risks are and proposing the necessary measures.
With regard to the specific issue of arterial thrombosis - which has been raised by some of you - the Commission has written to the airlines to request that they provide passengers with information on the risks, on factors for predisposition and on what they can do to minimise those risks, specifically in relation to the problem of thrombosis and in relation to health problems in general.
The Commission considers that such information would be a very valid precaution and that it would be appropriate in terms of improving passengers' rights.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Priorities in road safety
Mr President, 40,000 fatalities on Europe' s roads is 40,000 too many.
This Chamber reacts with sensitivity to all the events taking place around the world, but we do not give sufficient attention to the Grim Reaper at work on the roads of Europe.
Without in any way underrating the significance of mad cow disease I am nevertheless asking for a sense of proportion.
Thousands more of our fellow creatures die in traffic accidents than from BSE.
This should be a cause for panic.
I would like to thank the Commission for its outstanding analysis of the situation.
EU cooperation is needed more than ever, as there are dramatic differences in the levels of road safety within our Community.
Four times as many people die in road accidents in Portugal than in Britain.
However, there is plenty more scope for improvement in every country.
The traffic environment must be made to become as safe as possible, but drivers are always responsible for their own safety and that of others on the road.
A car in a garage is completely harmless, but when it is being used wrongly it is like a deadly weapon.
Traffic regulations are not cookery book recipes that everyone can adapt to their own taste.
The time for individuality on our roads is past: we need just as strict compliance with the regulations on the roads as we do with air travel.
I will mention three important ways of reducing the number of road fatalities.
Firstly, there is compliance with speed restrictions. I often drive in the Mediterranean countries, and, believe it or not, close to within the speed restriction, and I am constantly being overtaken.
And it is no wonder, because only very rarely do I see any speed controls in operation.
The accident statistics for these areas speak plainly.
This laxness is paid for in human life and the tears of those left behind.
Around two out of every three drivers in Europe go over the speed limit in built-up areas and half break the speed limit on the open road.
If mad cows should be removed from pasture land, mad speed merchants should be removed from the roads.
An effective, if not very popular, remedy is automatic speed controls and heavy penalties.
Certainly in my country, Finland, the EUR 100 000 fines paid by some amount to just routine fare collections.
Secondly, in vino veritas: there is truth in wine.
It is also true that alcohol plays a part in no less than 9 000 cases of death a year.
I think it is important that Member States switch to an alcohol limit of 0.5 per mil, which can also be monitored.
If Member States lack the courage to do this, the matter must be dealt with through decision-making at European level.
People sometimes have to be protected from their own governments.
In repeated cases of drunken driving, or when the driver is well over the limit, there should be a long ban and the car should be confiscated by the state.
The third point has to do with taxation.
High taxes on cars lead to old and unsafe cars on the road.
My country is a sad example of this.
Finland is the Cuba of Europe when it comes to the age of cars.
Cars that fulfil stringent safety standards should also benefit from lower taxation.
In general, taxation should focus on a car' s use and not its purchase price.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a safe trip.
Remember to fasten your safety belt in the back too.
Mr President, first of all I thank the rapporteur for her splendid work on behalf of us all and also thank Mr Vatanen for his contribution, speaking on behalf of the PPE-DE Group.
I fully endorse many of the points he made, not least in respect of blood-alcohol limits.
In fact there are only two points that I wish to make this evening.
They relate to safer car fronts and the very important issue of blood alcohol.
On safer car fronts, I think it is worth pointing out how clearly the rapporteur has made the case for the Commissioner to come forward with a directive.
In fact this Commissioner pledged to this House in January last year, a year ago, that we would have a directive on safer car fronts.
A year on there is no directive.
What we have in February is a hearing.
More talk.
No action.
Meanwhile, two thousand people in the last year have needlessly, unnecessarily lost their lives because the Commission would rather talk than act.
I hope tonight and tomorrow the Commission listens to the vote of this House and decides to proceed with its commitment to have a directive on safer car fronts.
No more talk, please.
Let us see some action.
And, indeed, the same is true for blood alcohol.
We have had talk on this issue, year in, year out.
We all know that ten thousand people a year in Europe are killed in drink-related crashes.
We must tackle that particular problem.
But I find it highly ironic, and I am sure the timing is not coincidental, that on the very day that we are debating blood alcohol, drink driving, road safety, the day before this Parliament is to vote on drink driving, the Commissioner has already made her mind up.
She has issued a recommendation on drink driving.
It would have been nice, would it not, for the Commissioner to have at least listened to the debate, learned what the outcome of the vote was tomorrow, before she decided to pre-empt the parliamentary procedures and issue this recommendation.
We know a recommendation, alas, is simply not worth the paper it is written on.
Member States need and support clear guidance. We believe it is time for the Commissioner to get tough on drunk drivers and drink driving, to come forward with a directive to reduce the limit to 50 mg.
In the United Kingdom, which has traditionally had a good record, we have sadly seen over the Christmas period a rise in the numbers of people drinking and driving.
In my own region, in some parts of my region, 17% of drivers tested were above the UK legal limit of 80 mg.
It is quite clear that we need action.
Indeed the British government is asking for a solution at European level, in a European context.
So all I make is a very simple request to the Commissioner tonight to listen to the debate and to heed the vote tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her outstanding report on a subject which touches the daily lives of every citizen, wherever he or she happens to be in Europe, namely our own safety on the roads and that of our children.
I would like to address three particular points.
Firstly, I would advocate drawing up European legislation with regard to a European pedestrian test and the four associated crash tests.
After 22 years of EU subsidised research, it is clear beyond all doubt that these tests are of value and that hundreds of lives can be spared every year as a result.
This is absolutely paramount for many pedestrians and cyclists, particularly in a densely populated country such as the Netherlands, but also elsewhere of course.
Of course it is very nice of Commissioner Liikanen to allow the car industry more time to make their own arrangements, the bottom-up approach, again giving them time until June, but now in 2001, but it is all taking too long for my liking.
Managing also means making choices, and the time is ripe for this.
A second point I would like to raise relates to alcohol limits in the blood.
Some members of my group will support the rapporteur' s proposal to produce an EU regulation setting an alcohol limit of 0.5 per cent.
We do not wish to extend this limit but we do think that harmonisation of this limit will enhance people' s legal certainty in a Union where many citizens cross the internal borders daily, and where the mobility of employees is precisely what we want to promote.
I am not in favour of setting lower limits for certain categories of young road-users though.
The signal we send out must be clear.
Either a standard is safe or it is not.
And 0.5% is a socially responsible, easily measurable and enforceable quantity to my mind.
Now, Commissioner, I would just like to unburden myself of the fact that I think it is extremely discourteous towards Parliament that the Commissioner evidently already decided, in advance of this evening' s debate - in which, when all is said and done, people are calling for a regulation on the alcohol limit - that a recommendation to the Member States will suffice.
This will encourage a non-committal attitude and will certainly do nothing to increase transparency from the citizens' perspective.
My final point relates to the long-term 'Vision Zero' objective.
I have a problem with this.
An objective must be realistic and achievable, that is what motivates and stimulates.
Naturally we can reduce the number of victims, but it would be wishful thinking to believe we could eliminate road accidents altogether.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly I would like to express my thanks for the magnificent work done by Mrs Hedkvist Petersen.
There are many reasons for the accidents and the extremely high number of victims on European roads.
The causes are many and varied, and the report has been able to mention and summarise the most important ones.
Furthermore, the Commission communication on priorities in road safety contains six points detailing the aspects on which we can have the greatest impact in order to achieve better results.
I am going to focus on the aspects which refer to the management of the black spots on the roads and the reduction of the effects of impacts on road infrastructures.
A high number of accident victims are users of two-wheeled vehicles, motorcyclists and cyclists, for which roads are also intended.
For cultural and climatic reasons, there are an extraordinary number of these accidents in certain Member States.
Serious studies have concluded that the majority of serious accidents or deaths amongst these groups result from impacts with crash barriers, that is to say, against roadside protective barriers or against vertical road signs, both of which are designed and created for four-wheeled vehicles.
The majority of these accidents happen at the black spots which some Member States are indicating and identifying.
My amendment of the legislative proposal on the design and placing of these soft protective barriers at these black spots is not therefore gratuitous.
We must not be satisfied with a mere recommendation to the Member States or leave this simply to be dealt with through subsidiarity, which would greatly affect its implementation.
We must now be bold.
Let us legislate, let us seek a greater degree of harmonisation, let us promote measures for the rational and safe use of roads by pedestrians and cyclists, and let us seek formulas to reduce heavy traffic, at least in populated areas; let us harmonise the speed limits by means of an ambitious legal framework, as the Commission recommended in 1986, thereby removing the Member States' inertia.
Let us be vigilant of the environmental impact of traffic, such as noise and environmental pollution.
I would also like to reiterate the importance of legislating on the maximum permitted levels of alcohol.
Finally, I would like to thank the Commissioner for being so very open to our proposals.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the appalling figure of 42,000 deaths a year on the roads of the European Union, the estimated 1.7 million injuries, are a constant reminder that we must give top priority to the issue of road safety.
These figures do not only represent immense personal suffering, they also mean enormous economic losses and costs.
These are estimated at EUR 100 billion, accounting for some 2% of the gross domestic product of all the European Member States.
That is more than all the European Union Member States put together spend on culture.
I want to give warm thanks to the rapporteur and I especially welcome the fact that she has concentrated on three priority areas: accident prevention, injury prevention and post-impact care and rehabilitation.
In my view that makes it clear that road safety cannot be improved to the required level by individual, selective measures but only by a whole raft of measures, which include road user education, speed limits, alcohol limits, better road infrastructure, traffic control systems, improved vehicle safety standards, stricter checks on observance of road traffic rules and also constant assessment of vehicles on the roads.
That is why I find it extremely regrettable that the amendment on harmonising the re-registration of cars that have been involved in accidents in the European Union was not adopted, although independent reports clearly demonstrate that there is a substantial link between vehicles that have been in an accident once and their renewed involvement in accidents with an ensuing higher death toll.
I just want to address the previous speaker for a moment.
You know I tabled an amendment concerned in particular with the question of motorcyclists and safety barriers, and I would be glad if you and your group could endorse it tomorrow, since I myself am a motorcyclist and am therefore obviously very familiar with this problem.
Mr President, I can only support the Commission in not presenting a Community regulation on blood alcohol content.
My colleagues are holding a sham debate, a totally sham debate.
The socialists and our group decided jointly a year ago, when the proposals from the previous period were taken up again, that we do not want Community legislation here.
The point we make is this: we want checks.
That is the crucial question, not what the law says.
It is crucial to have on-the-spot checks.
Here I can only reply to my UK colleague: if your police carried out checks over Christmas, it would take these people off the roads and prevent the accidents.
So I can only repeat that the crucial factor is to check the blood alcohol level rather than to issue a Community regulation.
That is why we will reject the first part of Amendment No 4.
If it is nevertheless carried, my group will reject Mrs Petersen's entire resolution, because it is hypocritical to call for Community legislation when there is no need whatsoever for it.
Talk to your countries.
Most countries agree with the common view of this House that 0.5 parts per thousand is quite adequate, as the Commission rightly said.
That is what we recommended to all these countries.
The people you should talk to, Mr Watts, are those who do not apply that.
So it is not a question of a sham debate or of what the law says; the police must carry out-on-the spot checks and pick out all the drunken drivers.
That will give us the greatest road safety.
Secondly, we will not accept Amendment No 6 either, with which the Greens are once again trying to start another sham debate, namely on a general speed limit of 120 km/h.
We already have speed limits on most European roads.
In my country we have speed limits on 95% of all roads.
Where do the accidents happen? On the 95% of roads, because there are not enough speed checks there either.
So, fewer laws and more checks will do more for road safety.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a known fact that, if death from radioactive weapons is due to human insensitivity, then deaths from road traffic accidents are due mainly to human stupidity.
And it not only behoves an organised state not to be stupid in its own acts and omissions; it must also protect its citizens from the consequences of their own stupidity.
It is as part of this endeavour that the excellent report by our fellow member, Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, on the Commission communication on the priorities in road safety defines the way forward.
Action is needed on three fronts: first, by taking legislative, regulatory action, secondly, by promoting new technologies in vehicles and in the road infrastructure and, thirdly, by taking administrative action and running an information campaign.
Of course, if we take care to ensure that any measures taken receive widespread support, then they will be even more effective and if, at the same time, we draw on the experiences of the Member States in these areas, then we shall be sure to strike a happy medium.
For example, everyone could agree to a drastic reduction in alcohol levels for certain categories of drivers, such as those carrying dangerous loads.
In addition, modern technology can and should be used in order to put the measures decided into practice and to control the application of current provisions.
And, of course, we should mobilise local society and regional bodies and ensure that they are more closely involved in road safety issues by addressing the people directly. At the same time, the information campaign must, of course, continue to run, using cleverer ways of getting through to the public, especially young people.
Likewise, it might be worth examining the possibility of rewarding the safest vehicles through the road tax system and demanding minimum safety specifications depending on the type of road, so that road design and construction can be integrated into programmes subsidised by the European Union.
Finally, we call on the Commission not to "race" through cases such as today's.
That is what road safety needs.
Mr President, the frequency of road accidents is so tragic and so underestimated as to justify the adoption of all possible initiatives as soon as possible at all levels of government and on all aspects of the matter, including human behaviour, the infrastructure and vehicles.
The only selection criteria we need - although I fear this will be difficult, given the nature of the debate thus far - is to identify the operations which would be most effective precisely because they are simple to implement.
I believe that the areas of human behaviour and infrastructures are those in which we can expect the quickest results: for example, the results of making it mandatory to wear a helmet and seat belts were remarkable in Italy.
Motorcyclist deaths have fallen by 45% across all the age groups since it was made mandatory to wear a helmet last year.
I am aware that measures such as making it compulsory to wear seat belts and helmets can be difficult to enforce, to implement, and that if they are not implemented then they are meaningless, merely words on paper.
However, this does not mean that we should disregard the drink-driving issue, and I would therefore not be against slightly higher common blood alcohol limits, even though Italy might lose out slightly.
Mr President, Vice-President of the Commission, I checked the statistics while preparing this short intervention and I was shocked to discover that, statistically at least, more than 55 people have been killed on the roads of the European Union since we convened this morning.
The European Union loses 4 people an hour.
Road traffic accidents are the most common cause of death among children and young people.
Every year, we lose a university or large school full of young people no less, because 15,000 young people die on our roads every year.
Add to that the fact that I personally have the unhappy privilege of coming from the Member State with the second highest number of fatal accidents in Europe.
And what is more, Greece is the only country in Europe in which, unfortunately, there has been no downward trend over the last ten years.
Entire families are being sacrificed on the asphalt alter.
Road safety can, and must, be a top priority both for the whole of Europe and for each individual country, which is why I shall support the proposal made by Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, whom I should like to congratulate on her report, that we need strategic planning for road safety and we need to set a series of strict but realistic numerical targets.
This will attract citizens' attention and provide an effective focal point.
We, ladies and gentlemen, have a huge responsibility both here and in Brussels.
It is, for example, unfortunate that no legislative proposal has been submitted on the compulsory adoption of the four types of test designed to make car fronts safer for pedestrians, a research programme which, it should be noted, the European Union has been funding for the past 22 years.
In addition, further support for the European programme to evaluate novice drivers, support for strategies to promote the use of seat belts, the development of telematics systems, the mandatory fitting of daytime running lights to motorbikes and cars and other proposals in the report could benefit road safety and public health enormously at relatively little cost.
Mrs De Palacio, I am sure that you are familiar with part of your communication which highlights a disturbing disparity between the different Member States in the quality and safety of roads and number of victims claimed.
Unfortunately, this disparity closely mirrors the difference in the quality and speed of economic growth of the Member States of the European Union: the safest country is Sweden and the least safe countries are Greece and Portugal. What does this mean?
I will attempt to answer this question as positively as possible: it means we cannot invest in safety without investing in Community action.
I feel that Parliament, with a few legitimate exceptions, is calling for greater courage from the Commission, and I would therefore like to thank the honourable Member for her report, which makes the Commission's communication totally clear and more effective.
More courage - to get straight to the point - means two things: firstly an undertaking to specify limits and rules in our prevention policy, or - without wishing to offend Mr Jarzembowski - any control will be useless.
If we are going to control the speed at which people drive, it does make quite a difference whether the limit we set is 100 or 200 kilometres per hour.
The same applies to drinking.
We feel that the Commission should present a directive setting the maximum blood alcohol limit at 0.5 parts per thousand for all the Member States.
I say this as a citizen of a country which has established a higher limit precisely in order to forestall any accusation of self-interest in our argument.
The principle of subsidiarity is all very well - although I feel that it would be grossly inappropriate to take away the licences of all drunk drivers - but the problem is working out at what point a driver is to be considered drunk according to our highway code.
Commissioner, I feel that employing this sort of courage is the simplest and most effective, but also the only way of achieving the ambitious objective we have set ourselves of reducing the number of victims claimed by the roads of the European Union by 40% over the next few years.
Mr President, let me thank the rapporteur for the great commitment she has shown in this matter.
Last year, nearly 43,000 people were killed on the road networks of the EU.
One of the main reasons for this was the use of alcohol.
There is no getting away from this fact.
Six years in the European Parliament have given me great respect for the fact that we have tremendously differing views on many issues, but we should all agree that alcohol and driving never go together.
Despite this, people are killed every day on the road networks of the EU because of this precise combination.
We can also entertain very different opinions as to whether we should have common rules within the EU or whether each country should solve this problem on its own.
Allow me to point out two things for those who are in two minds about this issue.
My first point is that no EU country would find it acceptable if another Member State tolerated a situation in which a train driver, an airline pilot flying an aeroplane with 300 passengers on board or a sea captain responsible for the safety of 1000 people or were to drink alcohol before he or she assumed responsibility for his or her passengers.
Why is it, then, that we do not impose the same requirement on those who drive on our roads?
The other point I want to make is that 95% of fatal traffic accidents actually take place on the roads.
All I want is that we should take the problem of these 95% as seriously as we do the problem of the 5% of accidents which occur in connection with the other types of transport.
That is precisely why I consider the report to be an ideal basis for our future work on this issue, which is also why I am going to vote in favour of it tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, safety on Europe's roads is a vital matter and the figures speak for themselves: 42 000 deaths a year and 1.7 million people injured.
Something has to be done about this.
We must seek to make our roads safer.
There is very great suffering among those who lose a family member as a result of a car accident.
Our society is becoming increasingly mobile, and I am in favour of it.
But that is precisely why it is our duty to tackle the risks.
Here, we as politicians must assume our responsibility towards society at European, as also at national and regional level, and call for better and more adequate road traffic measures.
The analysis of road accidents is decisive.
The way to compile accident statistics therefore includes recording, processing and interpreting accident data.
A systematic examination of what happens on the roads can provide important data to help ensure greater safety and prevent accidents.
The construction method of transport modes, as also road design and people themselves, are weak points.
We must identify and seek where possible to remedy them.
I see this as a most important aspect.
And here I think road user education is essential.
We must raise people's awareness of the dangers and risks involved in road use, as the precondition for their acceptance of measures.
Even children, a specially high-risk group of road users, must be taught through play how to behave on the roads.
Young people must be informed of the risks they and other road users face once they have obtained their driving licence.
One point is especially close to my heart: measures against drink driving but also against the use of medicines and drugs when driving.
Many measures have already been taken to combat drink driving, including many awareness-raising measures.
Yet people often do not realise that taking drugs and medicines can cloud their minds and affect their driving just as much.
The EU road safety programme aims to define the main priorities clearly.
Above all, we need to take a systematic approach to these problems.
It is vital to call for cooperation between the Commission and the Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, road accidents are the most frequent cause of death and serious injury among children and young people, in fact generally among EU citizens under the age of 45.
We must no longer accept this as a stroke of fate but must do something about it.
The condition, however, is that we stop believing that road safety depends primarily on how well road users behave or remain in control of themselves.
Apart from setting out a clear obligation, Articles 41 and 94 of the EC Treaty also provide us with the legal basis which some Members of this House doubt for a great number of effective measures to improve road user safety.
It is up to us finally to attach adequate political priority to this issue.
In fact, there is perhaps hardly any policy area in which the common responsibility of the EU, the Member States, regional and local authorities and the appropriate organisations is recognised so clearly.
Subsidiarity is, therefore, particularly applicable here.
That is precisely why we should not underestimate the added value of EU measures versus Member State efforts.
Calculations of the economic costs of traffic accidents show that they are considerably higher than the costs of preventing traffic accidents.
So that justifies the call for increased financial resources even in times of economic austerity.
But beware, let us make no mistake.
It is not always the case that the more money we put in, the higher the level of safety we can achieve.
This can be demonstrated by information campaigns on best practice in the EU states and binding measures to reduce the causes of accidents, such as alcohol, drug-taking and the use of medicines, as also a directive on expanding safety tests which will make the car industry take a more creative approach and promoting the European New Car Assessment Programme (EuroNCAP).
I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, on her excellent report and urge you to endorse it.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is interesting to listen to this discussion and it will be interesting to continue working on the issue of road traffic safety in Parliament after this discussion and after our decision tomorrow.
I am told that the majority of the political groups consider a regulation at European level on alcoholic content to be preferable, since this is an exclusive competence which we can utilise by virtue of the Treaty.
I agree with Mr Stenmarck when he says - and this is made plain by the previous discussion - that we should never accept safety levels that are lower than those which it is possible to bring about.
However, this is something we do accept when it comes to roads but which, of course, we do not where aviation is concerned.
In my opinion, it is important to have such a regulation at European level where alcohol is concerned.
Mr Jarzembowski presented some interesting views but, unlike Mr Jarzembowski, I think that we should utilise the opportunity of issuing a directive as well as introducing police controls and other alternatives.
We need to utilise all opportunities, and that is what we shall do.
We have not said no to a directive before.
Now, we have the chance of taking a political initiative, so let us do so.
Turning now, Mr Bautista, to the issue of black spots, which was raised by the Greens, I believe that it is important for us to keep an eye on what happens.
It would be interesting to see a report on the situation out there in the Union.
I am well aware of the fact that this is an important issue for cyclists and motorcyclists.
Finally, there is the matter of education and the situation of children.
Just as Mrs Schierhuber said, we need to have road safety education.
We must utilise this opportunity, together with all the other measures at national, local, regional, and European level.
We must make vigorous joint efforts to this end.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Hedkvist Petersen wholeheartedly on the very thorough motion for a resolution which she has prepared on road safety. This demonstrates the European Parliament' s interest - which we have seen today in your speeches - in creating an ambitious policy for combating the scourge of traffic accidents.
I would also like to express my gratitude to all of you who have spoken, who have given voice to your opinions and who have enriched this debate.
In response to the European Parliament' s request, I would remind you that last March the Commission presented a communication on road safety which listed a series of concrete measures to be implemented over the next few years, specifically the last two years of implementation of the second action programme on road safety.
I would like to stress that, in general, I am in complete agreement with the contents of the report and also with what the resolution itself says, both with regard to the action programme under way, whose implementation will soon be completed, and with regard to the future road safety programme which the Commission intends to present in the next few months.
I also wish the European Union to have an effective and lasting policy for reducing the number of accidents, which is currently completely unacceptable.
In the first stage we will have to implement the final priority measures established within the framework of the road safety programme, which is currently under way and, in particular, propose that the obligation to install speed-limiting devices be applicable to a greater number of lorries, specifically by lowering the tonnage above which such a measure is required.
Furthermore, we will have to promote the exchange of information on black spots and the techniques for reducing them and, in general, to increase the safety of road infrastructures and adopt measures to improve the car fronts in the event of collision with vulnerable users of the road network.
These road improvements must include a different design for current crash barriers, which are enormously unfriendly to cyclists and motorcyclists.
The second stage must include the adoption of a more systematic approach with regard to the future action programme, for which we must establish quantifiable objectives on a European scale, which will be drawn up with the cooperation of the Member States, in order to achieve greater efficiency and complementarity between the measures adopted in Brussels and those established on a national level.
Because it is clear that the establishment of specific objectives - as we have seen in those countries which have adopted them - provides a stimulus and has the effect of a psychological incentive on the authorities, which leads to them exercising better control and therefore to a reduction in accidents.
Nevertheless, I do not intend today to deal with the aspects on which we agree - you know these from the communication - but I would like to expand a little more on the reasons for the two points of disagreement.
The first is drink-driving.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are absolutely right.
Yesterday or the day before, the written procedure on the recommendation for 0.5 to be the maximum limit for alcohol in the blood was finally adopted by the Commission.
The date is purely coincidental.
It was in the communication in March.
You must not believe that there has been any manoeuvring by anyone.
I thought that this was at a more advanced stage.
I am sorry.
Please do not imagine that the date has been in any way chosen to coincide with this debate.
But I would like to explain why no proposal for a directive is being presented.
This is not being done for two fundamental reasons.
Firstly, I must say that the United Kingdom, one of the countries where the alcohol limit is greater than the 0.5 which we recommend -as Mr Watts mentioned a moment ago - is the country with the second lowest number of accidents in the European Union after Sweden.
If Great Britain had a limit of 0.2 instead of 0.8 it would probably be the country with the lowest number rather than the second lowest and would have far fewer accidents.
I do not know.
What I mean to point out is that it is a fact, an objective fact, that Great Britain, with a limit of 0.8, is the country with the second lowest number of accidents in the Union.
I am not recommending 0.8 but 0.5.
It is not enough to recommend or to lay down that an alcohol limit be respected if the national authorities then fail to adequately control the reality of that alcohol content in drivers' blood.
I would like to say to you that if some Member States do not currently control the alcohol content in blood, I doubt that we will have better results just because we have reduced it to 0.5.
What we need is better control on the part of the authorities.
Secondly, there are customs, habits and reasons why I feel that this is the classic type of issue which should be left to subsidiarity, and that is why we are only recommending the level of 0.5.
I know that you have a different opinion - I have seen it - and, of course, the truth is that, furthermore, there has not so far been a sufficient majority in the Council to move forward with an initiative of this type.
If, suddenly, all the Member States agree, it will be very easy for them, amongst other things, to implement a level of 0.5 in their countries.
Do not tell me that the United Kingdom wants a European directive to resolve a problem in Great Britain because I would not believe it.
Then let them implement 0.5 in the United Kingdom.
Why do we have to force them to do so? If the United Kingdom wants to do it and we already have a recommendation, let them comply with it.
With regard to car fronts, I clearly heard Mr Watts' s criticism that the Commission prefers to speak and not to act.
I cannot accept that criticism.
The Commission wishes to act in the most effective way and, sometimes, delaying an initiative for a few months can, in reality, be a much quicker way to ensure that it is implemented.
And we have given the automobile industries six months to reach an agreement.
They do not have until 2002, Mr Watts, but until June 2001.
In this respect, I would like to tell you that this initiative is not only my responsibility but it is also the responsibility of the Commissioner for Industry, Mr Liikanen, and that is what we agreed.
In saying this I wish to point out that we have by no means rejected the idea of creating a regulation in relation to front sections of cars which are more respectful when it comes to accidents involving people - unprotected bodies - but that we simply wish to be even more effective by gaining the support of the automobile sector.
With regard to the future action programme for 2002-2010, we are a priori open to all the ideas included in the motion for a resolution.
I am even prepared to reconsider the issue of the level of 0.5.
I am not going to maintain rigid positions on this issue.
I do not believe that that is the main problem.
The problem of control is much more important.
In any event, I am counting on your cooperation, your help and your support, and I congratulate the rapporteur once again.
Mr President, my name was mentioned.
It is important for the record to clarify the situation in the UK relating to the UK Government's view on blood alcohol.
I am sure that the DG on Transport and Energy has a copy of the UK's road safety strategy that was published in March 2000.
It makes it very clear that the new government in the United Kingdom is committed to a solution within a European context.
I believe you would now find a much more positive response to a proposal for a directive than perhaps was the case with the previous administration.
Mr President, on a point of order.
If I have understood my colleague correctly, then it is enough to have a recommendation that the UK Government will lower the blood-alcohol level.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Intermodality and intermodal freight transport
The next item is the report (A5-0358/2000) by Mrs Poli Bortone, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee on the progress of the implementation of the action programme of the communication on intermodality and intermodal freight transport in the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, I will refrain from defining intermodality, adopting the definition which the Commission itself has used in the past instead.
However, the operations supporting intermodality are becoming ever more urgent for a number of reasons: the need to rationalise traffic and optimise transportation times, and economic and environmental requirements, for intermodality is a key element in sustainable mobility.
As matters stand, intermodality poses a series of drawbacks stemming from the lack of integration between the various modes of transport, together with deficiencies peculiar to some of these modes.
The development of intermodality hinges primarily upon the level of efficiency provided by the rail services on offer, which unfortunately, in many Member States, rate poorly in terms of quality, efficiency and cost-effectiveness.
Moreover, as the Commission has pointed out on several occasions, the development of infrastructure continues to focus on unimodal systems, whereas intermodal transport requires a network-based approach focusing on complementarity and connections between the various modes.
Lastly, open intermodal information systems able to manage intermodal transport and network services efficiently and to guarantee a rational and constant real-time information and message flow have yet to be put in place.
A specific analysis of the friction costs allied to intermodal freight transport reveals that the main drawbacks compared to traditional unimodal transport can be identified as high costs, longer time frames, inferior quality, higher risks of damage to goods, restrictions as to the types of goods that can be transported, and more complex administrative procedures.
These friction costs can be attributed first and foremost to the absence of coherent system networks and connections linking the latter, leading to a loss of efficiency and an increase in transfer costs.
Furthermore, the differing profitability and service quality levels amongst the various modes of transport do not sit easily alongside notions of customer satisfaction and real-time goods transfers.
The culprit is the absence of broad electronic message systems linking different partners in the intermodal chain and the lack of an identification and information system for goods organised on an intermodal basis.
Lastly, the entire system is dogged by a series of bottlenecks stemming from the absence of harmonised time frames and timetables amongst the various modes of transport, as a result of which the needs of the freight transport chain do not correspond to the operational demands of the resources employed in the process. By way of illustration, the working hours of drivers and crews do not tally with intermodal operations, and terminals are not always able to accommodate round-the-clock train and shipping timetables.
Clearly, the intermodal transport framework in Europe varies somewhat, with totally contrasting circumstances apparent in the various Member States.
Hence the need to accord priority to the monitoring of the different circumstances, with the support of the Transport Intermodality Task Force, with a view to singling out specific lines of action designed to address emerging priorities in individual Member States.
The aims which the EU intends to pursue through the development of intermodality relate to the need to establish an integrated system comprising the various transport modes which offers seamless, customer-tailored door-to-door services, makes for efficient and cost-effective use of the transport system and promotes competition between operators.
In its communication on intermodality and intermodal freight transport in the European Union, the Commission highlighted the objectives to be pursued in the intermodal transport sector and divided them into priority areas for action, known as "key actions": infrastructure and integrated means of transport, interoperable and interconnected traffic operations, and services and regulations common to all transport modes.
The objective is to establish an information system providing for real-time transport management, as well as the use of electronic transactions in transport, by means of the development of real-time electronic information and transaction systems, the harmonisation of transport message, procedure and document standards using Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) systems, a uniform liability regime designed to offer the end user a clear set of transparent conditions and procedures with regard to liability for cargos which may be damaged or lost during transportation, the development of information society technologies of benefit to intermodal transport, through the creation of an open structure which makes it possible to follow the movement of goods along the entire intermodal chain, and paperless transport, involving the harmonisation of document regulations and the creation of a single electronic window.
The Commission has also planned a series of horizontal measures, using research and technological development projects to introduce innovation aimed at utilising new technologies to develop innovative services and increase productivity.
Clearly, a discussion on intermodality requires, at the same time, a sharp cultural change in the culture of enterprise.
The globalisation and liberalisation of the markets are already producing a substantial increase in the demand for the transportation of goods and commodities.
The high growth rates are inducing competition which will increasingly affect the volumes transported and, therefore, mergers and other forms of association between operators in the sector will be absolutely inevitable.
Finally, I would like to thank the Members who contributed actively to the preparation of a resolution acceptable to the majority of the committee.
I should also like to inform you that, as far as the few amendments tabled are concerned, I essentially endorse all of them, with the exception of Amendment No 3, with regard to which I am somewhat perplexed by the reference to State aid.
Mr President, intermodality is still in its infancy.
Not even 8% of our freight is transported by several different modes of transport.
Yet the distances travelled on average have been increasing since as early as 1970, a trend which favours the use of more than one mode of transport.
Freight is growing out of all proportion too, and is expected to increase by 70% over the next ten years.
It is surprising that there is no breakthrough in intermodal transport in the offing.
Perhaps the pressure on the transporters and the shippers is not yet so great as to bring about this breakthrough.
But that being the case, a few warnings are in order for the relevant sectors.
Firstly, the road network will not be able to cope with the 70% increase, not in the urban or regional distribution, and not in terms of long distance transport either.
To depend exclusively on road transport must therefore be deemed a sin of reckless faith, which used to be a mortal sin.
Secondly, environmental considerations will play an increasingly important part over the next ten years.
Driving a lorry through certain parts of Europe will meet with increasing opposition.
The people will put up increasingly stubborn resistance to transport violations of their environment.
We have already seen this in the failure of the directive that sought to harmonise bans on weekend driving.
So there is no question of our being able to opt for intermodality.
We are being forced into it.
Now if you take that as your point of departure, none of this is really going to make any headway.
Of course the sectors must apply themselves more effectively, and come up with some more innovative ideas, but then the government must get down to work too, and simplify and streamline procedures, for example.
The trans-European water networks must be brought to fruition quickly and as a matter of priority.
Everyone talks about rail transport, but water transport - where there really is still room for growth - no longer seems to feature at all in the European or national lists of priorities.
No one coordinates the efforts undertaken by each individual State, when that is surely one of the essential tasks of the European Commission.
It is a pity because road transport, in combination with inland navigation could make a substantial difference in north and northeast Europe.
But before we reach that point, numerous obstacles still have to be cleared away in terms of legislation, matters of a technical and practical nature.
Incidentally, the same applies to the ancient practice of coastal navigation, which has long allowed itself to be elbowed out, but is now making a powerful comeback under the modern name of short sea shipping, providing everyone pulls together at any rate.
If we look at the advances that have been made since the excellent action programme of 1997, then we see a number of positive aspects, for example the task force transport intermodality.
The extension of the PACT programme, pilot actions in combined transport, will also spur matters on.
In view of the fact that the Union is to undergo enlargement and acquire some new members before long, we must take account of the new situation during the accession negotiations even now.
But unfortunately, intermodal transport is still too expensive anyway.
This is down to shortcomings in the field of infrastructure, inefficiency in the field of management and information, and innovations that do not make the grade.
All the same, we must develop a trans-European transport network in the form of a multi-modal infrastructure network, and the business community and government must join forces at all levels in the process.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in transport policy we still do not pay intermodal transport the attention it deserves.
Hitherto, in fact, only 8% of European freight transport is intermodal, as my colleague just said.
That is why this kind of transport is often not taken seriously enough yet.
But intermodal goods transport is both the expression and the measure of the European integration strategy, which seeks to integrate not only the individual, national transport markets but also the various transport modes.
Following the liberalisation strategy that is not quite completed yet and the harmonisation that has begun, the single market needs this integration strategy if it is to have a viable future.
That is why the reports on the progress in implementing the action programme for intermodal transport also reflects the progress made in European transport policy.
The communication from the Commission and the report have raised many, indeed all the important issues: the reviews of the trans-European networks aimed at establishing a genuinely intermodal network, measures to create value-added logistical systems, the measures that are still needed to harmonise load units and so forth, genuinely intermodal information, standardised transport messages and documents, the development of a uniform intermodal liability regime and many others.
Here, as we all know, we need a whole range of regulatory, political measures to ensure that intermodal transport really has a viable future.
Because the framework conditions are so complex and because the development of intermodal transport is still far from being a self-sustaining process, we need a great number of successful pilot projects.
So I hope we will get a well-funded new PACT programme, that will be usable by the candidate countries even at this stage, for it is there that many of the decisions are taken that concern our future.
The signals are not all set wrong there yet.
I also hope that we will give intermodal transport due importance in the Sixth Framework Research Programme.
In our view, in future pilot projects should look more at strategic aspects, i.e. at linking up the existing intermodal part-networks.
Another aspect that has not really been addressed is this: perhaps we could look into the conditions for creating new European, intermodal operators.
For we do not yet have any real operators in this area.
Perhaps, theoretically at least, and as a kind of precedent, an international company could manage Alpine transit transport on an intermodal basis.
Of course we are also in favour of the European Reference Centre for Intermodalism that keeps being announced and hope it will soon become a reality.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent work.
Our group is in favour of adopting the report with its amendments.
At present intermodality is expensive owing to friction costs, inefficiency, frameworks of infrastructure, and partly also because road transport tends to be favoured.
The report and the Commission communication propose many actions worthy of support that would increase the volume of intermodal transport.
New technology must be utilised effectively, for example in increasing ebusiness, so that the most suitable route and services can be obtained for various situations.
I would also like to point out that this form of transport is the most efficient system for long journeys.
In the development of transport facilities, priority must be given to remote regions and areas which are seriously deprived in terms of the trans-European networks.
The improvement of collection and distribution systems in congested areas is crucial.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I would like to thank both the Commission and our rapporteur for their work on this issue.
We have already said a great deal on this subject, and so I shall keep this very brief.
We have been able to ascertain that a modal shift has taken place in recent years, although the manner in which, and the extent to which, this has taken place has been very low-key to date.
We want to give this trend a huge boost.
That being the case, it is important that the modalities themselves, specifically rail, internal and coastal navigation, are booming and that political freedoms have been granted too, in the form of liberalisation, interoperability and a number of other things which the sector can use to seize its opportunities.
Yet we would also like to increase the number of opportunities available to SMEs, in particular, although this sometimes entails financial assistance.
That is precisely why we have tabled an amendment for forms of state aid to SMEs, also for environmental purposes.
Incidentally, I am not in agreement with the advantage enjoyed by the Galileo project in these matters, but that is something we should discuss on another occasion.
I would point out that the alarming increase in transport, also as a result of e-commerce, means that unfortunately, intermodal transport is just a drop in the ocean at the moment, but will have to make headway in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, road safety, intermodality, the costs of transport infrastructure: my perspective on these issues, placed one after the other on today's agenda, is that of one who is concerned with the problems of mountainous areas, particularly the Alps.
The subject of road safety brings to mind the Mont Blanc tunnel tragedy, which is an example of the need for European coordination guaranteeing safety in both operative tunnels and those under construction.
Then there is the matter of intermodality across the Alps, where, apart from the Swiss decision to invest heavily in rail transport, there are serious delays in the construction of the other links and the other new rail tunnels already provided for by Community documents, such as those along the Turin-Lyons-Brenner link, or under discussion, such as the Aosta-Martigny tunnel.
Clearly, if the wise sayings "Whoever breaks it pays for it" or "Polluter pays" crop up in a discussion on the cost of the roads, then, apart from anything else, there needs to be fewer heavy goods vehicles and more rail transport in the Alpine region in future.
In the short-term, there needs to be severe restriction of the number of goods vehicles passing through the region, including the Mont Blanc Tunnel when it reopens at the end of this year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank Mrs Poli Bortone for this ambitious and constructive report, and for her speech, which offer great support for the activities of the Commission in this field.
I would also like to thank all the Members who have spoken in the debate today.
The Commission agrees that an efficient intermodal transport system for goods is crucial to the Union and the candidate countries and, of course, it is essential if we want to guarantee mobility in the coming years.
I believe that the efficiency of an enlarged single market, the competitiveness of our industries and the sustainable development of the Union depend on this.
The Commission will evaluate the intermodal transport infrastructures in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in order thereby to facilitate the revision of the guidelines for the Trans-European Transport Network.
The European Reference Centre for intermodal transport, with its headquarters in Strasbourg, will be operational this year and will be soliciting the information which the intermodal industry needs and which may help in the creation of new policies.
The Commission intends to continue supporting intermodal transport, through research in the framework programmes for technological research and development and also by extending and enlarging the pilot actions for combined transport (the PACTs).
As the report indicates, we will have to invest in the necessary infrastructure and its management.
In this respect, there are various speakers - Mr Caveri, for example - who call for the great transport axes which are already in the TENs to be developed.
We wish to study the use of current budgetary resources, reconsidering their use, in order to promote the large-scale assimilation of intermodal transport by industry.
I must tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that I hope, given the degree of adjustment and development, that we are now on the finishing touches.
With regard to the White Paper on the common transport policy, as well as the delivery of the revised Trans-European Networks, which I have promised you, I hope that the Commission will be able to definitively approve a text on that issue over the next few weeks.
Intermodal transport is one of the key elements in it.
We are at an important stage in the development of intermodal transport, since we have to move on from promoting pilot actions and projects to ensuring that industry incorporates them in a generalised sense.
The work that we have undertaken has confirmed that the knowledge, systems and technologies exist in Europe to carry out this type of activity, which facilitates the safe and durable transport of goods.
The charging policies that we are going to present will support the competitiveness of intermodal transport.
Finally, I would like to say that I am in complete agreement with the proposals to develop compatible electronic systems, made by different speakers, amongst others the rapporteur, Mr Stockmann and Mr Pohjamo.
These compatible electronic systems must specifically support intermodal transport: these support instruments are a prerequisite for achieving efficient European transport, which has a good cost-efficiency ratio and which respects the environment.
I am also very happy with the agreement between Parliament and the Commission on this issue and I can assure you that the services of the TREN Directorate-General will continue to play an active role in the promotion of intermodal transport.
I would like to end by thanking the rapporteur and all the speakers and I hope I will continue being able to count on your work and cooperation on this subject, when it comes to discussing the White Paper on transport.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Charging for the use of transport infrastructure
The next item is the report (A5-0345/2000) by Mr Costa Paolo, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on transport infrastructure charging.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am pleased to present this own-initiative report, drawn up by the Parliamentary Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism with the aim of bringing about progress in an area which I hope our work will help you to understand better.
As you know, it derived from a 1995 Commission Green Paper, which called for measures to internalise the external costs incurred by environmental, safety and congestion considerations, in order to bring about a fairer and more efficient system of charging users for access to transport infrastructure.
Basically, the report calls upon the Commission to intervene by harmonising the definitions of internal and external costs, harmonising or identifying charge calculation methodologies, and then, of course, leaving the implementation of these measures to subsidiarity and the decisions to be taken by the Member States.
In my opinion, in essence, the report ensures that the recommendation to apply the "polluter pays" principle is included in the wider principle of "user pays".
This is its contribution, and it has two consequences which I wish to emphasise now. The first is that if the methodology which we hope the Commission will decide upon and we will be able to endorse enables us to produce a clearer definition of the internal and external costs and a clearer system for charging users, we will create the conditions to be able to transfer the financing of infrastructure from purely public resources and general taxation to the users as such.
We can therefore now picture the enormous effort before Europe - the Europe of today and the Europe of tomorrow - in the process of constructing new infrastructure, the effort of involving private capital in this operation as well, which would not be possible if we do not succeed in identifying this situation.
The next step is to consider that, where the attribution of some of these costs is meaningless, as, for example, in the case of the Italian motorways, which have already fully achieved their payback - the revenue from these charges which exist today could constitute funds to be used in cross-subsidies, in order to ensure that certain costs charged to road users serve to improve infrastructure in other modes of transport which are certainly more environmentally friendly.
I would stress that this whole system, which transfers the financial burden from the State to the user, must have a safeguard, and that is the last principle, according to which those who have the most difficult circumstances because they are disabled or because they live in rural or remote areas where access is difficult, can in some way be exempted, and a series of subsidies, including State subsidies, can therefore be developed to compensate for this.
Our objective in producing this report is to draw together certain fundamental principles which I have already mentioned: the "user pays" principle, the "polluter pays" principle and the principle of cross-subsidisation etc. together.
How can we do this? The methodological suggestion given here is that a series of good practices exist now in Europe, which we have attempted to explore and put together in a seminary whose papers we will make available to anyone one who wishes to study the issue in more depth and which we have financed with the help of the Commission.
Well then, these practices can now, in my opinion, be generalised and made available to everyone.
This would make it possible - and I feel that the time is now ripe - to obtain operative indications for advancing European policy in this direction in practical terms.
. (DE) Mr President, Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Costa, ladies and gentlemen, I want to give high praise to the rapporteur for his success in achieving a broad consensus with his report, after we have spent years in this House hotly debating the right way to charge for transport infrastructure costs.
Commissioner, Vice-President, I hope that after the vote tomorrow you will peruse all the drafts for the White Paper on transport policy again and check whether they follow the same lines as proposed by this House.
After all, normally the Commission's proposals always take account of the Member States' views, and perhaps in future they will also take more account of Parliament's views.
I believe that the Costa report offers an opportunity to re-think some of the habits the various departments have grown so fond of.
I also hope that we do not mix up the subject matter of the White Paper with the subject of the trans-European networks.
We are about to review the trans-European networks; these are both important subjects.
To present them to Parliament as a single package would, in my view, be extremely unwise since they are in fact separate subjects.
Allow me to make just a few comments on the Costa report.
Amendment No 1 makes it quite clear that we want use-based transport charging, which can be verified on the basis of the construction, expansion and improvement costs.
That is the first issue.
So there are two aims of which we must not lose sight when we harmonise these transport infrastructure charges.
Firstly, we must finally achieve a single market in this area.
For when you think that we still have enormous distortions of competition because of divergent fiscal and other charges between the Member States, a whole 8-9 years after the completion of the single market on 31 December 1992, then the question of equal competition is bound to arise.
Secondly, we really all think that after the meteoric rises in oil prices over the past year, in whatever way we want to convert and achieve a more fair and environmentally compatible system, the total charge for undertakings must not rise.
We do not want any forcing up of prices.
Last point: in relation to external costs I have two requests.
Firstly, about three years ago, Parliament decided in toto to work out on a scientific basis what the external costs actually are.
How can they be calculated and how can they be charged? We never received that report.
Secondly, we must differentiate when we calculate these external costs.
To give just one example: congestion costs.
It would be absurd to charge an undertaking for the fact that the drivers are stuck in a tail-back because the Member States have not expanded the roads, so that the undertaking not only has higher petrol and working costs but also has to pay additional charges to the Member State responsible for the congestion.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Costa, for his excellent work on what is a very difficult, detailed but important dossier.
Congestion, pollution, gridlock, global warming, floods, freak weather.
Is it the end of the world? No, it is just rush-hour in my region.
The same problems are occurring in regions and Member States across the European Union.
We all have the same transport crisis and there may be common solutions to these common problems.
We must all accept the fact, for example, that the fastest growing source of global warming gases is the transport sector.
Something surely, colleagues, must be done.
However, as we all know, everyone wants someone else to do it.
That is our challenge.
I hope Mr Costa's work, his report and the conclusions we will reach tomorrow will provide a framework within which we can begin to tackle these problems.
We must promote better understanding of our common problems and, indeed, find common solutions to them across the European Union, but on the basis of consensus and mutual understanding.
Secondly, we must promote an exchange of ideas.
Many localities and regions have excellent ideas, and that knowledge and information must be disseminated throughout the European Union.
Indeed, that is my third point: Europe has a key role to play here in disseminating best practice as to how best we tackle the transport challenge.
Fourthly and finally, in terms of what Europe's contribution can be within the framework of this particular initiative, I hope that governments, local authorities and those implementing taxes and charges can do so within a framework that is developed and integrated at a European level, and do it together.
However, I want to say that there is great concern and anxiety about this particular Commission initiative and, indeed, about Mr Costa's report, although I personally feel that many of those concerns were fully addressed in committee where, I know, there was widespread cross-party support for Mr Costa's work.
There were concerns, for example, about subsidiarity.
But that was more than adequately addressed when we said to the Commission: you have a key role to play in trying to pull this research together.
But, clearly, Member States and their role will be fully respected in terms of their rights to determine their own taxation levels.
Indeed, the work we have done has already gained and secured widespread support.
I can refer to a letter from the organisation that represents the motoring clubs across Europe, including, for example, the AA and RAC, who are broadly sympathetic and supportive of our work, because they know that unless Europe takes a lead on this issue, unless we begin pulling together the best of the ideas from across the European Union, then the cities, towns and rural areas, will continue to suffer from unacceptable levels of congestion and pollution.
I commend Mr Costa's report, his work and, above all, his ability to bring us all together in a single common objective of trying to tackle the transport crisis.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Costa, for his most excellent work.
I would also like to say thank you for the interesting debate on the subject with some illuminating examples.
I think it is important that the issue is now being dealt with by Parliament.
The main principle of the report is quite right, that users should pay for the transport infrastructure and its maintenance costs.
Charges for the use of the transport infrastructure must take account of the costs to society, but also the ability-to-pay principle and the need to support remote areas.
The importance of charging for the use of the transport infrastructure will increase as a means of controlling the situation in the future.
The system of charges must be flexible and dynamic, so that it would offer incentives for the introduction of new technical services.
As there are plans, however, for a combination of fares and taxes, we have to take care that we are not simply left with a system of taxation.
There are still a lot of problems attached to a system of charges.
Covering overall costs with fares will work in areas where there is a lot of transport.
Conditions vary regionally, however, to a significant extent, so the same bases for charges cannot apply everywhere.
Long distances, scattered populations and difficult natural conditions must be taken account of when the instruments in respect of charges are determined, just as the report states.
In my opinion, it is important that we look into the possible impact of the scheme before charging becomes a reality.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I would like to thank Mr Costa, who did, when all is said and done, put in a huge amount of work, having started by following the activities of the high-level working group on this subject, because it is an own-initiative report.
Ultimately, we were left with a report that we would have preferred, at the very least, to send out a different signal to the Commission, in particular.
In fact we expect more from the Commission than the signal sent out by what, in a sense, remains of the Costa report.
Allow me to explain as follows - it will also speak of a certain amount of exasperation.
Every so often, I cherish the hope that we will be sufficiently clever to gain insight into a certain period and do what we have to with it.
I have already anticipated for quite some time that fair pricing would be a rational, intelligent debate and would deliver measures.
When I see how long it all takes, that is when I start losing patience.
If I can draw something of a comparison between the way in which the discussion on the changes in the agricultural policy is now taking place against the backdrop of the problems surrounding food safety - in Germany, among a number of other countries, my own included - then I predict than something similar will happen where the transport policy is concerned, and the environmental problems we are now experiencing, irrespective of the failed climate conferences, etc.
I am also exasperated at the fact that almost everyone still hides behind all kinds of issues to do with our supposed inability to establish the cost scientifically. We can do it for accidents all right, but not for other things.
I have a problem with this.
Again, there is more than enough data for us to make headway with this whole affair.
I therefore hope concrete measures - of the kind, incidentally, that first featured in Mr Costa' s report and a number of which we quite deliberately re-submitted - will be included in the actual White Paper.
Not that we expect everyone to go along with them, but the primary intention is to send out a signal to the Commission to attempt, in the meantime, to coordinate, if not harmonise, these measures - which will include a kilometre levy and so on - at European level, so as to avoid a situation where one country does take action and another does not.
One country will say that none of this is scientifically feasible, while another will simply get on with implementation, which is a most curious state of affairs of course.
That is why we have put a number of subjects back on the table and we hope that some of them make it through.
Apart from that, I wish everyone luck at the drafting stage.
Mr President, I would also like to join Members in recognising the considerable work that has been carried out by the rapporteur and the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, who have incorporated many amendments.
I would, however, like to come back to some points I think worth emphasising to make the report as effective as possible.
First of all, I feel it is imperative to point out that the main thing is to promote the sustainability of transport, which is a fundamental, long-term measure needed to protect our environment and avoid congestion.
On this issue, I do not believe that it is possible to consider freight transport on the same level as private transport.
The former is currently widely favoured as an economic activity, whereas the latter allows freedom of movement, a fundamental freedom.
We must extend the quality choice range in the variety of transport available.
That should then drive us to consider the need to improve services of general interest in these sectors that are so important to the people and to the economy.
Secondly, I also believe that we need to pinpoint priority issues.
We cannot consider rail users and road users on the same level either.
This means that the cost of road use is added to the total of costs borne by society such as environmental costs and the costs of accidents.
All studies have clearly shown this.
We must give this factor priority in terms of Community action.
To sum up, with regard to changes in charging, I believe that this type of charging should not further increase costs, particularly those paid by users.
Any infrastructure charging system, like the one proposed in my group' s amendment, should improve the services of general interest, which some transport services provide, in order to offer all citizens equal access to high-quality, safe and affordable services.
Mr President, Commissioner, it may be common knowledge that our group is not convinced of the need for all the current competences.
However, these go unchallenged in the sphere of the European transport policy.
Yet this cross-border problem demands a cross-border solution.
That is something we are all agreed on in this House.
That is why I am surprised that opinion is so divided on this.
After all, we have agreed that we must strive for a sustainable transport policy, which allows for mobility both now and in the future.
Seen from this perspective, it is necessary for users of different forms of transport to foot the bill for the costs they incur, in order, in this way, to be able to repair the damage caused or prevent it from happening.
This concerns both the internal costs of the infrastructure and the external costs, which are less easy to convert and allocate.
In the present resolution, the emphasis is very much on the internal costs, which can be quantified very precisely at this stage.
Although these costs form a substantial part of the total costs incurred, it is wrong to suppose that this means the total costs are known.
The lack of complete knowledge concerning the magnitude of a particular cost item is not a legitimate reason for excluding this item from the methodology to be devised.
I can fully identify with Mr Bouwman' s amendments on this point, as I could with his contribution.
I would agree with those of you who have doubts, that passing on all costs incurred must not leave transport operators with such narrow margins as will put their livelihoods at risk.
In order to avoid this, however, we must not attempt to keep transport prices as low as possible, thereby keeping the costs to be passed on as low as possible, but what we must do instead is offer the transport operators legal support with a view to passing the costs incurred onto the group that should by rights foot the bill, namely the end-users.
Finally, I would point out that the optimum situation from the competition viewpoint is when there is a level playing field for all transport modes.
However, that must not be our sole point of departure.
In our efforts to secure sustainable mobility, we must concentrate specifically on those forms of transport which do society and the environment the least damage.
Supporting the development of such modes of transport may not be ideal from the competition perspective but is completely justifiable, also politically, given the goal to be achieved.
You will appreciate that I am unable to vote in favour of the present resolution as it stands.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to start by thanking the rapporteur both for the enormous amount of work he has done and also, in particular, for his willingness to accept the suggestions, amendments and proposals of all the rest of the committee, to the point that I feel this report can be said to be a highly collegial report produced by the committee as a whole.
Moreover, the current situation is clear - the White Paper and the Green Paper illustrated it perfectly: there is a great problem because of the environmental and social costs we have to bear and because of the attack on free trade that the difference in taxes and taxation systems in our countries imposes upon their economic systems.
With this report, therefore, we have identified a possible situation, a road to take, and it is now up to the Commission to take it.
I recall the benchmarks that we all share: greater proportionality with regard to use in the distribution of costs, attentiveness to social costs, but also protection of disadvantaged geographical areas and sectors of the population, "yes" to environmental sustainability but, at the same time, reconfirmation of the right to mobility as a universal right.
The only recommendation I would venture to make, Commissioner, is that all this is good, particularly the shift to the "user pays" principle, but with the reservation that we cannot allow this principle to penalise the citizens or businesses.
Shifting to the "user pays" principle means entering into the rationale of providing a service for which a price is set, and we must therefore guarantee the citizens and businesses what they want and what they are willing to pay for: namely quality.
Quality in the context of transport, in my opinion, means above all safety, accessibility and coordination of infrastructures.
If we can provide this, then, at the same time, we will have overcome our present difficulties and set the wheels in motion for a new perspective for the future.
Mr President, I would like to add to the praise for Mr Costa, the rapporteur, because this is an extremely difficult subject and there are very conflicting opinions.
Furthermore, he has had many amendments to work through.
When all is said and done, I believe that the text presented is clear and consistent - no mean feat.
I think that this contribution by the European Parliament will enable the Commission to make good progress in its subsequent work.
The issue of infrastructure charging is perhaps one of the most difficult for the general public to understand, but it is perhaps also the key to achieving our objective of a sustainable freedom of movement, given that the number of people travelling and the amount of freight transported within the Union is expected to increase considerably.
Today, we know that road travel produces the most pollution but that it is also cheaper in terms of both infrastructure financing, which is often funded by the community, and in terms of its use.
Therefore, if we really wish to travel without causing so much damage to the environment, we will certainly need to establish charging; that is, how the various types of transport pay the real price of costs.
All the same, I believe that we must be very aware that the rail system is not and will not for many years be in a position to compete to a great extent with road transport, in particular in terms of freight transport or combined transport links, which are urgent priorities.
There are still considerable infrastructure costs and infrastructure and investment needs, and rail companies' profits do not provide enough to cover them.
Compared to road tolls, those on the railways are still too high with a concomitant strain on operating costs.
The issue of charging is therefore absolutely central to this matter and if we really wish to improve transport we need to be in a position to absorb efficiently the external costs of transport; as mentioned; in other words, so that road transport actually pays for all the costs it entails, as does rail transport, and so that the prices charged accurately reflect this transparency regarding costs.
We should not, however, close our eyes to one political stumbling block in all this.
The political stumbling block is that our fellow citizens want to travel.
They believe that they have the right to freedom of movement, something I think we should bear in mind, and very often they do not differentiate freight transport and the private car.
This was obvious last September.
Therefore, on a political level, we must take a cautious approach, which should be both gradual and selective.
A gradual approach means that we cannot impose extra costs on road travel until the railway is in a position to take over from it, and for the time being the railway is not in any such position.
A selective approach is needed, because I believe that we have to distinguish between private transport and goods transport and that we may also have to gradually introduce taxes on heavy goods vehicles, if we really wish to improve pollution in regions like ours, that act as crossroads.
Mr President, we must make it very clear that this is not about the EU raising taxes or imposing a new tax over and above the existing national taxes.
It is an attempt to find a common set of criteria, of cost components for the transport infrastructure, and minimising substantial discrepancies across the EU.
However, it is up to the Member States to set and levy charges, albeit in a common framework.
At present, revenue is not earmarked for transport infrastructure.
Quite often, I know in the UK, it is used for bolstering government coffers.
I am sure it is the same in other EU Member States.
Transport costs should be paid by the user, but governments should not charge rural users if there is no public transport, and this report makes that very clear.
This report is about a level playing field: not to charge more but to charge more efficiently.
Hauliers in the UK complain that they are at a competitive disadvantage, and that is true.
Non-UK truck drivers do not pay UK road tax.
Other EU countries' average is ten times lower HTV taxes.
The same applies to diesel fuel: it is three times more expensive in the UK.
That leads to distortion of competition across the EU.
Instead of the UK Eurosceptics criticising this report, they should welcome it because it will do a lot to help our hard-pressed hauliers.
Mr President, I have not yet reached the point that a number of people whom I have heard speak this evening have reached.
As matters stand, infrastructure investments are made in waterways and other transport modes, for example.
Nobody knows exactly how much is invested.
On the other hand, the state receives revenue from transport, such as road tax.
Nobody knows precisely how much this amounts to, but one thing we do know is that it is not directly re-invested in roads and other forms of infrastructure.
This report addresses the balance between revenue and expenditure; intangible costs such as environmental and noise-related costs are also taken into account.
Some people also want to recoup the cost of traffic jams from those who get stuck in them, according to the 'polluter pays' principle.
I think this is an excellent principle and I would like to see it applied in full, but not to traffic jams.
Traffic jams are indicative of failed government policy on the infrastructure front, which is why the government itself, certainly in the Netherlands, must be regarded as the polluter.
This report talks about balancing the payment of social costs between the different modes of transport.
Let us take a moment to consider the train in this light.
Road transport always seemed to cause far more pollution than rail transport.
Following research, this seems not to be the case.
Now the question is: what are we actually seeking to achieve by making social costs visible in this way?
Do we really want an objective, rational assessment of the costs of the transport modes, or, if certain results do not meet with our approval, for example if rail transport becomes prohibitively expensive as a result, will we end up making a political assessment?
We want people to travel by train and so it must be made more affordable.
That is fine by me, but not by using this method. We are not going to tax water and road transport heavily first on the basis of the theoretical model, and then spare the train.
Road and passenger traffic already pay far more than their share in terms of social costs.
So either we stop beating about the bush, so that everyone knows what they can be for or against, or we operate a well-balanced and proportional system with guarantees for the disabled, people who live in rural areas and have no choices, and the competition position of the Union.
Commissioner, I must say, this is a hornet' s nest you have got yourself into.
Why should a system of this kind only be applied to the transport sector? Why should it not be applied to aluminium factories, hospitals, ski runs, hypermarkets, parliament buildings and high-voltage networks too?
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Costa, but I would like to point out that he deserves congratulations not for his psychological capacity to unite wills, but for having included certain factors in the report which allow us all to be united.
I would like to highlight two of these factors, the ones which lead me to support the rest of his proposals.
The first is that the report, "stresses that such methodology needs a gradual and step-wise implementation based on transparency and sufficient information."
The second factor which leads me to approve this report is the subsidiarity issue, because, undoubtedly, Mr Costa' s report makes it absolutely clear - he has said this with complete transparency - that there is going to be an increase in the cost for users, as the cost of funding by the States is going to be passed on to users.
We cannot ignore that fact.
We therefore need this gradual implementation, which seems to me to be absolutely essential because, when we speak of tariffs in relation to internal and external costs, in the fullest sense of the word, which is currently difficult to define, we are talking about an increase in cost for the user.
Therefore, in fact, we are talking about favouring rail transport.
I believe that this is one of the bases which justify the imposition of tariffs.
The fact is that road transport - automobiles - have a clear and very serious environmental impact, so much so that they alone are replacing, and therefore increasing, what all the other industrial sectors are saving in terms of greenhouse gases.
The time has therefore come to tame the automobile.
Nobody wants to be deprived of an automobile, but we must tame it.
On the one hand, by means of research, aimed at reducing consumption.
On the other hand, however, we must also influence drivers.
It is clear that these tariffs are going to produce an increase in the cost to users so that they might consider the possibility of using public transport and the possibility of making more rational use of the railways - both for goods and for passenger transport.
I believe that this is the key factor, which truly justifies the Commission and Mr Costa' s proposed imposition of tariffs.
That is why we are going to support him but, of course, this gradual implementation seems to me to be fundamental to the consumer being able to accept and take this process on board.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Costa on his handling of this difficult dossier.
It is an intractable subject and the fact that there are 126 amendments shows how divided opinion is, but at least it has led to a more realistic position.
Broadly speaking, I would, in theory, agree with the report that we need to have a more accurate idea of the marginal social costs of transport.
However, in practice, it would appear that such measures would be attended by unexpected and unintended effects.
That is why a great deal more research will need to be done before the prices can be calculated correctly.
I do not see eye to eye with Mr Bouwman on that score.
One of the undesirable effects is that the cost to roads will rise by a relatively small amount, around 10 to 15%.
This contrasts with the 100% rise in the cost to rail, and the 50% rise in the cost to internal navigation.
The desired modal shift will come under review again then.
My second concern is that the cost to transport will rise by a substantial amount.
That would be to the detriment of Europe' s economic position.
Finally, I do not go along with the rapporteur' s proposal to depart from the 'user pays' principle, in that he wants to grant extra assistance to remote regions, for example.
Firstly we must consider in real terms whether this would lead to distortion of competition and an increase in the total costs.
I am against cross-subsidies for the same reason.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to the Costa report the discussion about a common framework for levying transport infrastructure charges has got going again.
If we want a single market that works, we need a transport system that works, in which the conditions of competition are equal or at least comparable for all those involved in transport.
The gradual harmonisation of transport infrastructure charges is the most important step towards that.
The way we agree to calculate costs is certainly important to the maintenance, operation and new development of infrastructure whether full costs or marginal costs, social marginal costs or social net costs.
But almost more important in terms of equal opportunities in competition is that we reach agreement, and do so as fast as possible.
Yet we must remember one thing. If we want to see fair competition between the various transport modes too then we need to go on discussing the implementation of the external costs.
To prevent that discussion also means preventing the integration of the various modes of transport and is therefore no more than lobbying, or a policy of lobbying for the status quo.
I will fight out the question of who is holding sham debates in this House with Mr Jarzembowski elsewhere; at present I only have two minutes' speaking time.
For heavy goods transport we urgently need a Europe-wide, kilometre-based heavy goods charge; here we could also envisage reducing the motor vehicle taxes.
Many transport associations are themselves seeing it that way now.
Only if we charge transport costs on the "user pays" principle can we obtain a market-compatible instrument to tackle the emerging crisis in goods transport, for we all know about the next leaps in goods transport costs: rising costs as a result of enlargement eastward, of e-commerce, and that is on top of the rates of increase we have seen up to now.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mr Costa for his magnificent report and all the speakers for participating in this debate.
I am happy to be able to say that the Commission has received the report and its conclusions with great satisfaction.
I am aware of the great amount of work and the enormous effort that the rapporteur, Mr Costa, has put in to trying to achieve the greatest possible consensus, and for which he has been praised by Mr Jarzembowski and other speakers.
I would like to say that, with regard to such a sensitive and thorny issue as charging for infrastructures, it is a great achievement - and I stress this - to have almost squared the circle, because it is really difficult to reach a consensus on a proposal such as this.
This report is based on a series of seminars with the members of the Commission' s own high level group on charging for infrastructures and on an information conference on best practice in charging for infrastructures.
By this I mean that this is a well-worked, well-informed and studied document and we owe that firstly to Mr Costa and to the other speakers who have shown their great interest in such a thorny and difficult issue.
The report is therefore well-worked and makes a solid contribution to the understanding of the policy of charging for infrastructures as well as its application, a key issue in the orientation of transport policy and in making progress with a policy which guarantees lasting transport and mobility for the future and in dealing in a rational way with the extraordinary demand to which we are going to have to find a solution in the years to come.
The report also coincides with the Commission' s policy on charging for transport infrastructures.
The Commission believes that the lack of coordination in fiscal policies, the lack of coordination in Member States' charging, hinders the efficiency of transport operations and restricts the development of the single market and economic integration.
Whatever the treatment of the different means of transport, it imposes real costs on European companies and on society in general.
Consequently, the Commission has proposed the gradual implementation - and I am sorry that Mr Izquierdo has left, because he has not seen that not only has Mr Costa accepted that amendment, but that the Commission is happy that he has - of a harmonised framework for charging for infrastructures in the European Union which is applicable to all means of transport.
The Commission' s policy of charging for infrastructures provides a framework for the reform of charges and taxes on transport, with a view to reflecting environmental costs, infrastructure costs and the cost of managing demand for transport.
Progress has been made, as in the case of the approval in December of the measures on railway infrastructures through the conciliation procedure.
A great deal, however, remains to be done.
I am therefore pleased to be able to assure Parliament that the concerns highlighted in the report in relation to charging for infrastructures will be taken fully into account in the next Commission White Paper on the common transport policy, which I referred to previously and which, although somewhat later than the dates initially envisaged, will enable us to make progress in solving one the most complex problems of that transport policy: charging for infrastructures.
All of that will be possible thanks to the magnificent work of the Members of this Parliament and Mr Costa in particular.
Thank you very much, Mrs de Palacio.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.40 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
Yesterday' s Minutes have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I must apologise, because this is not a comment on yesterday 's Minutes, but on the Minutes from the day before yesterday.
Unfortunately, I noticed too late that my name was not on the attendance register.
However, I was here the entire day and took part in all the roll-call votes and other votes.
I would be grateful if this could therefore be corrected.
Mr Posselt, of course the Minutes will be corrected to reflect the true situation.
Mr President, Mrs Maes is not present in the Chamber.
She is attending a Bureau meeting of our group.
But I noticed that she is not listed on yesterday' s attendance register.
She was quite definitely there.
She spoke in the debate on the Swedish Presidency.
I would ask you to amend the attendance register accordingly.
That will certainly be done, Mr Staes.
(Parliament adopted the Minutes)
Mr President, on Monday afternoon, Parliament proposed that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs should look into the situation of the workers of the European corporation, Danone, threatened with the loss of 3000 jobs in the biscuit sector, 1700 of which are in France.
We do not know when the committee is going to meet to discuss this matter and it is very urgent as the European Board of Danone is going to meet tomorrow.
Today, the workers of this company, in France at least, are on strike.
I would like to hear your reply on the subject of this inquiry and, in the meantime, on behalf of myself and my fellow party members, I would like to express solidarity with these workers. It is appalling that a corporation worth millions should be able to drive thousands of workers throughout Europe into unemployment and poverty.
Mrs Laguiller, I would suggest that, given the importance and the nature of the matter, you speak to the chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Mr Rocard.
Mr President, I wonder if you have seen the exclusive report in today's edition of Le Figaro.
It contains an interview with a Corsican terrorist under the headline 'Armata corsa: menace terroriste sur Paris et Strasbourg.'
The terrorist belongs to the Armata Corsa organisation.
The interview appears on the front page of today's Le Figaro and says that the Armata Corsa is threatening direct strikes on Paris and Strasbourg if its demands, which include the release of prisoners, are not met.
The newspaper says that it has published the article in order to alert French public opinion to the immediate danger threatening it and it also states, by way of information, that emergency measures have been taken in Paris in order to deal with this immediate threat.
It says nothing about Strasbourg.
I should like to draw the bureau's attention to this major issue and ask if it knows anything about this and if it has made representations to the authorities in Strasbourg for additional measures to be taken to protect Parliament because it seems to me that anyone who so wishes can enter the Parliament building and I fear that we may have to deal with highly dangerous and unforeseen circumstances.
Mr Marinos, I wish to say, first of all, that I am grateful for your information, or at least for the fact that you have shared it with us.
There is a feeling in Parliament, which I think is shared by all Members, that the authorities governing this institution take account of and give great priority to the issue of security.
I therefore feel that everything necessary is either being done or being considered in order to guarantee the smooth functioning of this Chamber in Strasbourg or in Brussels in the most secure conditions possible.
In any event, thank you for your information.
Mr President, as rapporteur in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on preparations for the accession of the Czech Republic, I have a request to make of you.
It has come to our attention that a member of the Czech Parliament, Mr Ivan Pilip, has been arrested in Cuba.
He has evidently been accused of spying. The truth is that he met civil rights campaigners and that his actions were quite normal for a member of a freely elected parliament.
Mr President, I urge you to arrange for a request to be made to the Cuban authorities for Mr Pilip and those accompanying him to be released immediately, because the Cuban regime does not have any moral grounds for giving lessons in democracy to members of a freely elected parliament.
I have all the more reason for asking you this given that in April this year a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union is due to take place in Cuba.
How can one possibly justify holding a meeting of this kind in a country where members of parliament are arrested if they talk to civil rights campaigners?
Thank you very much, Mr Schröder, I shall convey your information and your concern - which, I think we all share - to Mrs Fontaine, the President of this Parliament, who will certainly state Parliament' s position on this issue.
Mr President, I rise to request that the threats of terrorism against this House be taken seriously and that the Secretary-General draw up a plan to actually guarantee the safety of this House.
I shall repeat what I said a few moments ago: I believe that Parliament takes security issues extremely seriously, and we all feel that the circumstances in which we work and the fame of Parliament itself make it a target.
The competent authorities are therefore very attentive to this issue and to looking at measures to improve the situation so that we can work safely and in peace.
Mr President, also on the question of the security of the House, you will recall that on 28 November 2000, the Turkish Foreign Minister addressed the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy of this House and he was interrupted by demonstrators.
This was a cause for great concern.
At the time, we drew the attention of the President to this matter and she promised she would look into it and find out what the circumstances were, how the demonstrators had got into Parliament, and take appropriate steps to ensure that such things did not happen again.
In the context of what we have been discussing, the security of this House, I wonder if you would follow this up and see what steps have been taken to improve security and report on that particular incident last November.
Mr Van Orden, the President of Parliament and the Bureau fully note your comment and you will soon have a response to the important issue that you have raised.
Balanced participation of women and men in the decision-making process
The next item is the report (A5­0373/2000) by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on a report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee on the implementation of Council Recommendation 96/694 of 2 December 1996 on the balanced participation of women and men in the decision-making process [COM(2000) 120 - C5-0210/2000 - 2000/2117(COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you all know, respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of women is a very recent affair.
It was not until the twentieth century that women acquired the right to access education, the sciences, the arts and paid employment and that they were finally recognised as beings with political rights.
The 20th century began with women fighting for the right to vote.
At the start of the twenty-first century, the demands of half the population on the planet centre around achieving a fair division of responsibilities and obligations between the sexes in all sectors of economic, social, family and political life.
The need for women to be promoted in the decision-making process and for a balanced participation of women and men in the democratic institutions, reflecting the balance of the sexes in nature, is a sine qua non of democracy and peace and of the cohesion and competitiveness of the European Union.
In response to this need and on the basis of documented proposals by the European network of experts which made up the Commission in 1992, the Council adopted an important recommendation to the Member States on the balanced participation of men and women in the decision-making process in December 1996.
We can see from the details provided by the Member States that little progress has been made over the last three years and that there are huge discrepancies between the Member States.
The most satisfactory results are in countries which have a long tradition of promoting equality of the sexes, such as Sweden and Finland, where the proportion of women in parliament and government is over 40%.
Sweden, as you all know, has a cabinet of 10 male and 10 female ministers.
And of course, at the other end of the spectrum, there are countries such as Greece and Italy, where the proportion of women is below or around 10%.
The problem obviously relates to the upper rather than the lower echelons of administration, where the real decisions are taken, where the real power is exercised, where the future of the European Union is planned and organised.
Clearly, courageous measures are needed if the problems and contradictions inherited from past covenants between the sexes are to be resolved.
We need a new institutional and social framework which reflects all the changes that have taken place since, which guarantees equal opportunities and divides responsibilities fairly and evenly between the two sexes, so that any decisions taken reflect the wishes, values, priorities, interests and abilities of both sexes of the human race.
Now that women are fully involved in the production process and outnumber men at European universities, there is no excuse to exclude them from policy- and decision-making processes, nor is it right that women should bear the burden of family obligations and home-making alone.
According to studies and research, men and women working and taking decisions together, a balance between the male and female, could result in a more balanced and fairer world.
This balance must not, of course, drop below 40% for each sex, which is considered an acceptable percentage, especially in Scandinavia, where it has been applied for years now.
What is certain is that, once there is a critical mass of women in the decision-making process, priority issues relating to the quality of life, such as environmental protection, social policy and welfare, medical care, education, the fight against drugs and trafficking in human beings and the peaceful resolution of conflicts will emerge on the political agenda.
If we are to move in this direction, i.e. if we are to achieve a balanced participation of the sexes, we need to adopt specific initiatives and measures, such as revising the party political structure and the procedure for selecting candidates.
The legislation on public funding for political parties should make provision for greater funding for parties which guarantee a gender balance within the party and for sanctions for parties which have too few women, as was recently decided in France.
Governments, especially in countries in which the proportion of women is below 30%, should consider how to adapt and reform their electoral systems.
Similarly, if quotas introduced are to be effective, they must be linked with other measures relating to political parties and the reform of the electoral system.
We also need to tackle stereotypes by teaching the role of the sexes from an early age and to cultivate women's ability to hold high office.
We need to strengthen the social infrastructure in order to care for and support senior citizens and, finally, the Member States need to take part in the next Intergovernmental Conference to reform the Treaty so that there is a strong legal basis which will guarantee a balanced participation of the two sexes in the institutions of the European Union, so that we can finally do the obvious and ensure that the natural balance of the sexes is also expressed in the centres of power and that any decisions taken on the future of Europe are not taken in the absence of women.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, how can we strive to create a balance between men and women in their working life, both in the private sector and in public institutions, and both at European and national level?
We need an effective strategy leading to positive measures. We need to combat ignorance and outmoded clichés about gender roles.
Our role model should be those confident women who very effectively occupy senior positions and who actively participate in the community.
However, they, and this applies equally to men, have to be able to manage their domestic commitments just as well as they cope with the professional demands placed on them.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I would like to congratulate Mrs Karamanou on her report, which includes many important sections, such as the demand for the role of women to be enhanced or for action to be taken to counter women's inadequate representation in management and decision-making bodies within companies and also, I have to say, in trade unions.
The lack of equal opportunities in the labour market needs to be tackled by developing talent early on.
We also support the call for gender-specific statistics in order to produce meaningful comparisons of objectives and outcomes.
We are in favour of cooperation between the two sexes and therefore want to see women's concerns, outlook and experience making a contribution. They really do enhance a man' s world.
However, on some points there is not a majority amongst the Members of the PPE Group in the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.
That is why one half voted for the report and the other half against - now that is equality.
The main concerns are covered in the four amendments which I have tabled jointly with Astrid Lulling.
Mrs Karamanou has already agreed to one of them: career and family are no longer to be described as a double disadvantage which women have to face, but rather as a twofold burden which they have to cope with and which they can indeed cope with in practice.
Another amendment opposes the idea that women need to be trained in areas like public speaking and assertiveness if they are to get on in the world.
For one thing, men also have shortcomings in these areas and, what is more, these days many women do not wait to be given financial support to do this.
They are doing it themselves and have been doing so for a long time.
However, the two most important amendments are about rejecting the establishment of quotas.
We know that there are various systems in the Member States. Some have quota arrangements of one kind or another.
Some want a kind of exchange system, alternating men and women, and others stipulate that the parties have to pay fines if an adequate proportion of women is not guaranteed in their lists.
The principle of subsidiarity should come into play here.
Surely it is not right for individual measures in Member States to be eroded by Europe through the back door.
Elsewhere, governments are called upon to review the differential impact of varying electoral systems.
That is not a job for governments - it is a job for the parties.
They should look at this and draw up their voting lists carefully with this in mind.
It is their job and not one for governments.
We regard these amendments as so important that we have requested a roll-call vote.
If you could give us your support on this, Mrs Karamanou, your report could well secure an overwhelming majority.
Anyone deeply concerned about equal opportunities needs to make sure not only that the overall objectives are right, but that the detail is right too.
The more precisely we word this, the greater its credibility will be, especially among those who do not have sufficient experience in this field, and that will make it all the more likely that we will secure a broad consensus today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the policy of the Group of the Party of European Socialists is for every female citizen of the EU to have access to decision-making processes at local, regional, national and European level.
Equal participation for women in political and social decision making is not only our legitimate right, but a social necessity.
We do not just enrich a man' s world; we are participating in all areas of this supposedly male world.
As the new millennium dawns, we are continuing to fight alongside our colleague Mrs Karamanou, who I would like to thank sincerely for her persistence and hard work, in order to move closer to the objective of equality in the distribution of power between men and women.
It has been a long haul from the first women's suffrage, in Finland in 1904, to gender-balanced political lists in France, and we still have a long way to go before we can take women presidents, mayors, ministers and party chairs for granted as a part of everyday life.
The European Union has made considerable progress in this regard.
We have now been able to increase the proportion of women in the European Parliament to 30%, and it is, incidentally, markedly higher in the left-wing groups than in the Conservative and more right-wing groups.
25% of the Commission is made up of women, and the figure is 24.8% in the governments of the Member States and 22.5% in national parliaments.
I am pleased to bear glad tidings from my own country. Since the last government reshuffle in Germany, women now make up 37.5% of the Federal German Government, and this has been achieved by my party, by my political family.
We are therefore confident about our own role and can act as a driving force for equal rights and the demands arising from the Karamanou report.
I must call upon the House to support the rapporteur, Mrs Karamanou, as regards the three issues just raised by Mr Mann, and stick to the original text presented by the committee.
It would be a mistake to reject quotas, as the parties are being urged to do.
Furthermore, we also supported quotas as advocated in the report to the World Conference on Women in Beijing.
The right thing is to keep all mechanisms open.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mrs Karamanou on a very good and comprehensive report.
One of its main themes is the need for an integrated strategy.
If we are to tackle the very serious imbalance of representation of men and women, not only in the political sphere but also in decision-making at all levels in society, this is essential.
We should remember that just last year the Finnish presidency looked at nine sectors in the Member States, including national, regional and local parliaments, the civil service and the supreme courts.
Wherever it looked it found women were under-represented.
The problems have been recognised for a long time, but progress on solving them has been slow.
We repeat ourselves constantly in these reports, calling for better statistics and training, awareness campaigns to encourage more women into politics in the same way as they have already very often become key players in their own communities and local groups, and for measures to make it easier for men and to women to balance work and family life.
We have to keep on saying these things because they are needed.
But, in addition, we need positive action, such as quotas, to make a real difference.
This report does not dictate what should be done in individual Member States, but calls upon the governments to look at their own situation and take action to improve the balance of women and men, using legislative means, if necessary, as some have already done.
Where these measures have been used, they have been successful, not only in getting more women elected to Parliament but also in raising awareness, providing good role models for other women - girls in particular - and improving debate and decision-making all around.
So the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance will support all the conclusions of the report because it will contribute towards achieving equality and real democracy.
Mrs Karamanou, I think that the low level of representation of women and, indeed, young people in our parliaments is the result of a democratic deficit, not a surplus. Closed electoral lists drawn up directly by the parties - as recommended in your report - where it is not even possible to express a preference vote, represent the best system for achieving proportional representation of parties, or rather party officials and candidates selected by parties, be they women or men, in our parliaments.
On the contrary, I think the slow progress in representation of women and young people in our parliaments is actually due to electoral systems which prevent candidates standing against each other and being chosen, if only in primary elections, by the people rather than by party secretaries.
I doubt if the statistics are particularly telling either way - I wonder what Margaret Thatcher or Hilary Clinton would think of your position on the majority system - but a great deal of data and evidence exists to demonstrate the opposite of your theses.
Another recommendation, made in the explanatory statement to your report, is to go so far as to grant public financing incentives to the parties which get the most women into parliament.
Although done with the best of intentions, that could be the road to bureaucracy and subsidised representation and representativeness in our parliaments, and it is a road I do not feel we should take.
Women' s representation requires more democracy, not less.
Mr President, Commissioner, this report deals with the balanced participation of men and women in the decision-making process by analysing the different situations and the lack of participation of women.
We always point out that we women make up half of the population and therefore we need greater participation so that women can feel duly represented.
However, it is important to point out that the incorporation of women into public life and the labour market in prominent positions is very recent.
And we should also point out that it has happened thanks to the efforts of women themselves, who have had to overcome enormous difficulties.
It is a long road along which we must continue to make progress, until such time as it is so normal to find women in the positions which have always been occupied by men that reports such as this are no longer necessary.
Women need support, they need more training, more convenient hours of work and sufficient help so that they can reconcile their professional lives with their family lives.
Greater participation by women means improvements in democracy and the full recognition of their rights on equal terms with men.
We agree with the majority of the report - and we would like to support it totally - with the exception of the specific reference to establishing fixed obligatory quotas, because that could create added problems for women themselves.
We argue for more balanced and higher-level participation by women than there is at present, particularly in certain countries of the European Union.
The European network of equality committees of the national parliaments, which already exists, should be strengthened, because it is a very appropriate forum for the exchange of experiences and of good practice.
Women must be involved in all areas - not just in the defence of their own rights - by participating in the resolution of everyday problems, in the institutions and on company management boards, in unions and in social and cultural organisations.
Mr President, a successful man once said that half of heaven is borne up by women.
But the voices of women are absent when it comes to taking key decisions and setting priorities.
In other words, women, who make up more than half of the world' s population, are seriously under-represented in political, economic and social areas.
This is unacceptable in a democracy.
Nowhere is the rift between de jure and de facto equality greater than within the decision-making process.
In order to achieve a balance, a concrete plan of action with a set timetable is needed.
An important part of such a plan is a benchmarking system.
I am therefore very pleased that Mrs Karamanou would like to see such a system.
I propose that the EU' s objectives regarding women in the decision-making process be based on the average of the three most successful Member States within each field, with annual reports from the Member States.
It is mainly women who are victims of violations of human rights, such as rape, sexual offences, abuse in the home and trafficking.
Women are under-represented on the legal and legislative bodies that judge these crimes. This leads to the latter being given low priority.
Often, the perpetrators are not prosecuted. The equal participation of women in decision-making processes is not only a matter of demanding social justice and democracy, but is also essential if women' s experience and knowledge is to be made the most of.
Failure to utilise women' s decision-making abilities is an unacceptable waste.
In Sweden, the Social Democratic Party has opted for the allocation of quotas. This comes after many years' struggle to increase the number of women involved in the party, which is to say qualified women.
Women represent 50 per cent of our Government and 44 per cent of the Swedish Parliament.
The only party to have openly opposed this is the Conservative Party. All these women, however, are qualified.
Women should not only bear up half of heaven, they should also accept responsibility for decisions concerning our whole world.
Mr President, I want to express my thanks for a good report.
It should be obvious to everyone that men and women should have the same opportunities to participate in decision-making at all levels, but unfortunately this is not the case.
So what can be done? We need greater equality in the home, access to good child care, shared parental responsibility, more encouragement within educational systems to break with traditional gender-linked roles, and flexible working hours in order to accommodate individual requirements.
In addition to this, we also need working methods in politics, industry and trade unions which are not based on men' s priorities.
Despite the fact that politics continues, to a far too great extent, to be a male domain - in some countries more than in others - the problems are greater still in industry and trade union organisations.
This is unacceptable and needs to be the focus of more attention.
Equality is not a women' s issue and can only be achieved through cooperation between both sexes.
Therefore, men must be involved - in a totally different way than at present - in working towards equality.
For instance, more men should be actively involved in working towards equality within this Parliament.
We need more women in decision-making positions, but - and this is where I agree with Mrs Theorin - not because they are women but because it is unacceptable for so much skill and experience to go to waste.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Karamanou' s report places emphasis on a very important issue: equality between men and women is extremely precarious.
All the figures consistently demonstrate this and we are making slow progress.
That is why, in my view, we have to keep emphasising the issue of decision making and what Europe can do.
Europe has played a leading role in the struggle for equality of treatment, on the one hand, and equality in decision making, on the other.
This has been largely inadequate, however, bearing in mind the contents of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, where decision making on policy is taken into account only with regard to European Parliament or local elections.
I would just like to tell you about the French situation, where we have a law which is currently being implemented for local elections.
In the battles we are waging we discover that every day in the French press there are truly fascinating articles and debates about the way that the real situation is being transformed, for, Mrs Karamanou, alongside Greece, France is the most backward country in Europe in this regard.
Today, with the game of musical chairs that is being played by the government, women make up 8% of the national parliament.
That is less than 10%, and that means that the French situation is significant.
The debate we are having today in this Chamber is one that has been going on continuously for two or three years in France.
I have just one argument in defence of equality, not just political equality but equality in general.
This argument, which is both political and philosophical, is this: there is no equality without restrictions, and I challenge the Group of the European People' s Party to prove otherwise.
Let us not talk of positive discrimination quotas or anything else.
There can be no production in our society without restrictions in order to ensure equality.
This is the only comment I wanted to make.
It was our final argument in the battle for equality.
That is why I want to add very quickly, by way of conclusion, that there is nevertheless something important which must be clarified in today' s debate about decision making, which does not cover the whole problem regarding sexual equality, and that is the difference between political and economic matters.
We now know what we have to do in the political arena, and I believe we are making progress.
Certainly, I am gaining a great deal from the current experience in France.
As regards economic equality in general, and decision making in particular, however, the problem is much more serious and much more extensive.
As my fellow member in the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has just mentioned, what happens within trades unions and in professional elections has as yet hardly been formulated.
We have to work on this.
It is a much more complex issue.
I believe that in future we must no longer talk about political equality without finding the appropriate mechanisms. These will not be the same mechanisms in terms of constraints as those used in the political arena.
The means of guaranteeing better representation of women both in industry and at a professional level must be found.
Mr President, when I started out in politics some thirty years ago, and I went along to the preliminary meeting of the Mexico World Conference on Women, which took place in New York, I accompanied the only female diplomat our country had at the time.
All the discussions in New York on how we could help women penetrate the world of decision making, the world of employment, etc., were wasted on her.
She had reached her goal under her own steam, but she had made so many sacrifices along the way that she had become a woman whom I do not wish other women to take as a role model.
For women who made their way into politics, diplomacy, etc. many years ago, are women who had to make huge sacrifices.
What we want is to give women the opportunity to find their niche in decision making, politics and the world of employment in a normal way, with some help from society.
We might well question how this should be done. How can we help women?
For years, we have been looking for strategies for a society which pays lip service to the idea that women must be given all opportunities, but which has so little input when it comes to setting up binding, effective strategies in order to achieve this.
The few strategies which were set up have always been strategies with target figures or quotas - call them what you will.
The target figure system or the quota system is not a system which only applies to women.
In my country, where the two language regions, Dutch and French, should coexist in harmony, we also apply quotas for language proportions.
The quota system, therefore, is not a system specifically designed for women.
People now act as if it were a system which only applies to women, but it is a system that is used in many areas of society.
It is likely that it will also be applied to other areas in future.
I have quoted one example.
I cannot understand, therefore, those who are so anxious about this system.
Each time, I wonder whether the reason why they are against the quota system is because, ultimately, their aim is to prevent women from joining at all, or whether it is genuinely because they have fundamental objections.
I am in favour of a quota system.
This view is not shared by the majority of my group, but is by a number of others.
I am an advocate of the system.
I successfully introduced it in Belgium as the only country in Europe, and it was soon copied in France.
I believe it is one of the few practical options which exist at the moment.
I support the Karamanou report. Congratulations.
Mr President, Commissioner, despite the fact that the number of women in education, employment and politics has increased and continues to increase, it is clear that there are still great problems and inequalities in the social sectors under discussion.
Those who trust in the idea that, thanks to official equality and the passage of time, self-regulatory mechanisms will work in favour of social balance, are mistaken, because they do not appreciate the fact that, although equality before the law and equality of opportunity are necessary conditions, they are not sufficient in themselves.
Women with the necessary abilities often do not make it, but we know many cases of men who attain positions of power without having sufficient merit and they are never called 'quota men' .
Parity democracy, which we have been talking about for many years, is an instrument which is intended, through balanced representation, to put an end to the model of structural power which has kept women out of the decision-making process.
It is essential to create administrative structures which promote and monitor gender equality, and it would also be very helpful to resume the work of the European network of experts in the promotion of women in the field of decision-making, which had considerable success in the past.
On the other hand - as Mrs Karamanou' s excellent report points out - it is especially important to promote the participation of men and women in all policies at a proportion of a minimum of 40% and a maximum of 60%.
In this respect, the systems of alternating men and women on party lists, promoted in certain political parties, have had unquestionable success.
So the aim must be the adoption of national electoral regulations which provide for the creation of parity lists.
The next Intergovernmental Conference must include amendments to the Treaty in this respect, so that this objective may be fulfilled in all the institutions and policies of the Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, fellow women MEPs, if we want to improve our democracy - and that should be our objective here - it is essential that we share responsibilities and power.
Mr President, the participation of women in decision making is not only a necessary condition for the rights and interests of women to be respected, but also an essential basis for consolidating justice and developing democracy.
The reality of the situation shows that, despite various recommendations and resolutions, this is an area in which major imbalances still remain, with a huge under-representation of women in decision-making bodies, both in economic and social spheres of activity and in politics, and this contributes to maintaining existing imbalances and discriminations.
As the rapporteur, whom I congratulate on her work, emphasises, it is therefore crucial to adopt bold measures to promote the participation of women in decision-making, which will also require men and women to take on an equal share of responsibilities in public and private life. We must also encourage new anti-discriminatory practices, and that includes within political parties and public and private administrations too, with the aim of eliminating the psychological and practical obstacles to the participation of women in decision-making structures and in political life, thereby preventing retrograde action such as the recent case in Portugal, where the government abolished the Ministry for Equality.
We must change this situation.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I am in favour of a much more balanced participation of women and men in the decision-making process than is currently the case.
But, unlike our rapporteur, I am not conceited enough to claim that everything would be different and better if women participated equally in the decision-making process.
Nevertheless, we must not accuse all men across the board of having the wrong intentions, for example in relation to defending the rights of children or to the environment, to name just a few of the areas mentioned in this context by our rapporteur.
Fortunately, there are men who are talented and fervent supporters of the rights and interests that are close to our hearts.
Unfortunately, there are also female politicians who just cannot be relied upon, even when it comes to putting more female candidates on the electoral lists.
In my long political career I can tell you that it has mostly been women who, afraid of competition from me, have tried to put spokes in my wheels.
It must, of course, be said that, despite the good policies of equal treatment and equal opportunities which have been developed since 1975 by the Community and, above all, despite the well-intentioned recommendation of the Council in 1996 on the balanced participation of women and men in the decision-making process, progress towards these objectives is slow. It is moving at a snail' s or a tortoise' s pace rather than at the speed of a racehorse.
The reason why I voted against this draft resolution on the Commission report in the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities was because it makes a number of exaggerated claims and demands, which are counter-productive for women who want to participate fully in the decision-making process.
I am therefore against the reference to a 40% quota, below which measures would be called for to achieve a balanced representation of both genders.
I am of the opinion that such measures are essential now and in the future, irrespective of the percentage of participation that is achieved.
I am against the demand addressed to political parties that they adopt quota systems and, in particular, the zipper system to set up the electoral lists.
This zipper system would be incompatible with the electoral law of my country where, fortunately for me, it is not the political party which decides the place of a candidate on the electoral list, but the people, by means of preference votes.
What we need to do is to call on political parties to reform their structures and procedures with a view to getting rid of the direct and indirect obstacles to the participation of women, given that Member States could encourage political parties to put a larger number of female candidates on their electoral lists, by means of financial incentives if necessary.
Finally, I find it absurd to demand that only women be trained to take on leading roles and to take decisions when many men, who already have such roles and jobs, would greatly benefit from such training.
My Group has tabled amendments to get rid of the counter-productive demands I have just described and I hope that these amendments will be adopted.
I would just like to make one more comment, which I should not really do before the vote, on the French translation of our amendments.
It is defective to the extent that these amendments are not only incomprehensible but, as co-author, I am bound to say that, when I read these amendments in French, I feel like a mother hen who can no longer find her chicks.
So, Mr President, it is the German text which takes precedence.
I ask Members to be aware of this and to bear it in mind when we vote.
Mr President, Commissioner, as the rapporteur has told us, the number of declarations, resolutions and undertakings on equal opportunities for men and women is pretty respectable.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is ultimately the legal basis and it defines equal opportunities between men and women as one of the main priorities of European policy.
However, although there has been some modest progress, there are still some conspicuous shortcomings.
There is a marked imbalance in the involvement of men and women in the decision-making process, and there are alarming differences between individual Member States.
Throughout Europe, there are especially few women in leading positions in administration and in political decision making.
This means that everyone involved in the economic and social world has to play a part if responsibility is to be distributed evenly across the public and private sectors, in business, politics and family life.
Above all, we need to recognise that the equal opportunities deficit in the labour market is partly attributable to the low proportion of women in Europe's businesses, in its trade unions and in its public sector, and partly attributable to an inadequate social infrastructure, distorted stereotypes and low pay.
One important area we need to tackle is education and training.
Amongst other things, women have to learn to lay claim to a role in leadership and decision making.
You cannot talk about balance when women account for just 40% of all those involved in politics at European or national level.
Quotas are therefore an important instrument if we are to approach this target.
But it is not just a question of increasing the number of women, but also about enhancing their role in society and recognising the quality of their work.
Party and government structures need to be examined and where they are found to be lacking we need to jointly create binding requirements, such as ministries for equal opportunities.
Greater involvement of women in public life needs to be regularly monitored using up-to-date statistics. This would also clearly demonstrate that not only have we reached targets but that we have also regressed in certain areas.
This means that we have to promote equal opportunities while, at the same time, defending what has already been achieved.
Mr President, I would like to express the point of view of working women not only because it is on them, of all women, that the burden of social organisation weighs most heavily, but also because the workers' movement can take pride in having been the first to fight for the recognition of equality between men and women.
Long before the ruling class gave women the right to vote, the workers' movement had already, within its own organisation, given leading women the place they deserved.
The fate of working women is linked to the status of the working class as a whole.
It is women who are the main victims of insecure employment, enforced part-time work and the low salaries that are paid for such work.
What is unacceptable is that insecure employment, enforced part-time work and low salaries are allowed to exist.
Speeches about equality between men and women will continue to be just so much hot air as long as countless working families are deprived of adequate housing and as long as there are not enough public amenities, child care centres and nursery schools.
In all areas, European institution policy is no more favourable to the interests of working women than Member State policy.
Although I will vote in favour of the report because of the good intentions that are stated in it, they are still nothing more than good intentions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, even today we cannot assume that men and women can work alongside each other with equal rights in all areas.
That much we all agree upon.
But we also know very well that participation in decision making, be it by men or women, is not an automatic right.
The situation varies widely, depending on the field, the specialism and the area of responsibility.
This is bound to be a factor when reaching a decision about any man or woman seeking to hold a particular office, applying for a job or wishing to join a particular committee.
However, we can legitimately ask if this always applies. Is it not true to say that there are still certain prejudices in our society which militate against a person or a sex from the outset?
The male nursery school teacher or woman fire-fighter are still exceptions to the rule - as are women who make it to the very top on management boards, as directors or on political committees.
As a rule, this under-representation is not because of any lack of skill or expertise.
A woman always has to do something extra to prove herself - expertise on its own is not enough, her entire circumstances play a part.
Her children, her family and even the simple idea of the weaker sex are barriers to progress.
For far too long we have been telling women that they have to be better than the men they are competing against.
For that reason alone we need things like the report before us to wake society up from time to time and keep up the momentum.
I believe that the double burden of family duties and a career should not be used as grounds for discrimination, nor are they a double disadvantage as stated in Recital D. Combining a family and a career in fact demonstrates a high degree of organisational skill and life experience that should not be underestimated, and should be regarded as a particularly useful skill for those in leading positions.
It should also be assumed that men have the same family commitments as women, and all we women debating here this morning who have a family would be unable to do all this if our partners were not also committed to their families as fathers.
Unfortunately, we have not quite reached that point yet, and it can still be said that whereas a family provides support for a man, it is a millstone for a woman.
So, right from the outset, when we are educating young people, we need to counteract these entrenched social images.
I doubt whether simply demanding quotas and percentages is the right way to achieve greater representation, and it should surely not be this Parliament' s job to call for 40% representation in all political fields at national and international level.
For awareness to grow we need balanced reports and discussion papers that emphasise equal representation, and I therefore urge you to support the PPE Group' s amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish, first of all, to congratulate our fellow Member, Mrs Karamanou, on the excellent report she has presented to us.
I am not offering my congratulations as a mere formality.
I am doing so in order to be fair and because I believe they are deserved.
This report is not only excellent, but its explanatory statement is a study of the greatest interest to anyone concerned about equal rights for men and women and will undoubtedly serve as a seminal reference work for the future.
This proves the eccentricity of the Bureau's decision to reduce the length of explanatory statements to one page.
This Chamber does not produce paper by the metre.
We are engaged in politics and politics must have a sound basis.
Your report, Mrs Karamanou, is a fine example of the importance of the political texts drawn up in this Parliament.
In my speech I shall focus on the electoral system.
This is a crucial problem because it predates our own participation in politics.
Women must be given the opportunity to be elected in order to prove what they are capable of.
Some electoral systems make the participation of women even more difficult.
These are, as we have seen, systems that use single name lists.
This practice has systematically penalised women.
It is not so much the electorate that is to blame, but the structures of the parties themselves, which create enormous difficulties by means which are often less than legal.
Thus, although there is a move towards attempting to change this system of single name electoral lists, with procedures being created, in France for example, to set the balance right and to achieve a quota of 50% for both sexes, the Portuguese government has announced the creation of a new electoral law that will partially replace the proportional system with the single name system.
This is an initiative that gives great cause for concern and we must be aware that, in this case, this will clearly discriminate against women who wish to participate actively in politics.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Karamanou on her excellent presentation of the situation in Europe as regards equality of the sexes and on her ordered approach to proposals and solutions.
I am sorry that the spokesman for the PPE who expressed the greatest opposition to the report has left because the debate would have been highly interesting.
Allow me to start by making a political observation.
The title of the report: "The balanced participation of women and men in the decision-making process" has a dual meaning.
The decision-making process takes place in the centres of power; but it also means balanced participation in the most important decision-making process for the future, which takes place in the family.
So it refers to both sexes and the numbers of women in decision-making centres cannot be increased unless the proportion of time which men spend on family matters is also increased.
This automatically means that if we want to achieve the required target, we need to make changes to the family, society, the economy and the cultural identity which we have had for centuries.
The debate revolved largely around whether or not quotas, i.e. a quantitative commitment on participation, was an acceptable solution.
I would say, from a philosophical point of view, that a set of numbers or rules can never change a social fact of life.
However, history shows that rules and targets can bring about change, especially if they are accompanied by a set of policies.
So what we need to do, and this is clearly expressed in Mrs Karamanou's report, is to implement three types of policy simultaneously if we are to achieve this important objective, which concerns democracy in our societies.
The first type of policy is mainstreaming equal opportunities in the economy and employment, in social systems and social protection and in education systems and the cultural identity of our societies.
The second type of policy concerns specific measures and specific positive action to support the policy of participation in the decision-making process.
These measures relate to electoral systems, where it has been proven that there is a close correlation between electoral systems and the participation of women, they relate to the need for continuous statistics which throw the facts into relief, they relate, of course to political parties and their internal political commitments and they relate to laws for positive action.
Excellent examples have been cited in this Chamber, which prove that wherever quotas have been applied in conjunction with all the policies which I have just mentioned, they have had positive results.
And we cannot ignore the fact that the only countries which have made any serious headway with the participation of women are the countries which had applied specific policies.
Not always with legislative undertakings on quotas but with political undertakings by the political parties and always with specific quantitative targets.
Finally, there is a third type of policy which relates to intervention by the European Union and collaboration on the part of the Member States, such as political networks of women, indicators at European level - I refer to the Finnish Presidency and the 9 indicators, the application of which could create national undertakings and national targets - benchmarking, training and, finally, support for women in the national states and on the European political scene with an important international role, because this is what creates the standards for power and the standards for women politicians for later generations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall close by repeating what the Prime Minister of Luxembourg said when the question of whether or not there should be specific targets for employment in the Member States was being debated: 'The expression of political desire, the expression of political intention is not enough.
Policy without specific quantitative targets and means is simply literature.'
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at noon.
Competitiveness of EU forest-based and related industries
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0384/2000) by Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: The state of the competitiveness of the EU forest-based and related industries [COM(1999) 457 - C5-0306/2000 - 2000/2159(COS)]
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I would first like to express my warmest thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Seppänen, and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, for an excellent report and some excellent cooperation.
The Commission has drafted a creditable communication on the state of global competitiveness in the forestry industry.
This document has meant that forestry matters have been made the subject of very necessary debate in the EU, which, unfortunately, happens all too rarely.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is mainly satisfied with the policies set forth by the Commission and Parliament' s draft report.
We would like to stress the importance of the whole forestry chain in our own opinion, and that includes the importance of the profitability of forestry and wood harvesting, which is responsible for the raw material base of the forestry industry.
Sustainable agriculture in Europe still depends on the family forest businesses practised by twelve million private forest owners and the activities they are engaged in.
The Hague Convention on World Climate Change failed.
We, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, have followed the climate agreement process actively, as, in our opinion, the Kyoto Protocol takes totally insufficient account of the importance of forests.
Forests and all wood products are a considerable carbon sink, and their importance in this respect has to be recognised.
The coordination of matters of forestry in the EU is poor.
There are more Directorates-General to deal with them but there is a lack of uniformity.
Personnel resources have been increased in the area of the environment, but the Directorate-General on Agriculture responsible for forestry has very few resources to work with, as does that for industry.
For that reason, I support Amendment No 1 by Mrs Schierhuber on behalf of the PPE-DE Group.
Likewise I want to show my support for Amendments Nos 3 and 4 in particular, which are from the opinion by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Our committee approved them by general consensus.
Mr President, Commissioner, may I start by declaring an interest, or two interests, in this issue.
I have an interest in a forestry business in New Zealand, inherited from my father, so that gives me a practical interest.
More recently I visited Finland to see the forestry industry at work as the guest of CEPI, the Confederation of European Paper Industries.
So you see the strong Finnish theme in this report continues even with me.
Can I welcome this communication and express my pleasure at its emphasis on the importance of this industry.
Like the rapporteur and other colleagues I recognise that forestry is a very important industry, important for the economy and important for the environment.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
In itself it has made quite a contribution towards the consumption of paper and this is to be welcomed, even if our colleagues on the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy had to make it a little bit longer than he would wish.
Better to say too much about forestry than too little.
I note with interest his reference to telecommunications and the changes in the shape of the communication industry.
I happen to believe that despite all these wonderful aspects of modern technology, we will continue to need paper for our reading, because it is the medium that most people are still comfortable with and I certainly am.
Also, of course, we shall continue to need timber for all the other uses to which it is put, such as in construction and other possible new uses.
The rapporteur and the Committee on Agriculture draw attention to the potential for research into new uses of timber.
Can I sound one note of warning.
It is a little unrealistic to ask the Commission to ensure that paper prices in Europe are competitive.
I think that might be stretching the Commissioner's powers a little bit.
I see he is smiling so perhaps he agrees with me.
Nevertheless, the Commission has to ensure that fair competition takes place.
That is the key issue here, rather than trying to favour our industry.
This is a valuable, sustainable industry, very important to the economy of Europe and to our environment, and this is a very timely report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his resolute approach to the work he has done, which is so typical of him, on this report, which is a broad portrayal of human life in growing forest stock country.
One third of our land area is covered in forest, and if you include our neighbours to the east in the picture, there is still more forest.
Forest-based industry actually employs two and a half million people, which is no insignificant matter, and, as we know, accounts for a tenth of industrial output.
When we calculate the amount of carbon that is sequestered in forests I think we also have to take into account the stands of forest stock that were grown and tended prior to 1990.
Otherwise, this work of many decades will not be taken into account when the effect of greenhouse gases is calculated.
And so it is that we are rewarding just those who have destroyed their forests and are now hurriedly trying to do some planting, while they have first and foremost been destroying them for centuries.
They who have tended their forests properly for decades, lived off forestry and know this delicate balance, would be penalised, because there are Member States in which people no longer have anywhere to plant a tree, unless they start planting them on their own roofs.
For this reason, paragraph 17 in this report is very important.
Forests and seas are among the most important carbon sinks and stores, and it has also been seen that the ability of forest soil in the north to absorb carbon is even greater than that of trees.
But, ladies and gentlemen, the situation is such that we cannot grow seas: of the two we can only grow forests.
Forests create peace.
That is becoming an ever greater factor when it comes to contentment - I think it is fine for Nintendo - and it creates ecological balance.
A dead tree is sympathetic, and you can lean against it, whether it is warm or cold; you can only lean against a rock when it is warm.
The use of wood is thus cause for diversification, and especially now, when we are at the stage where communication is moving further away from paper, which is wood-based.
I would propose that the Commission should annex to some appropriate document a set of ideas for the multipurpose use of wood, as we are now on the crest of a wave with regard to wood-based production.
Now the basis of the activity is changing and the focus is on new approaches.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Seppänen, for his excellent work and the spirit of cooperation that he has sought to promote in his approach to this important issue.
Furthermore, the Commission deserves thanks for a new type of communication, in which a field of industry has been comprehensively examined from the point of view of global competitiveness.
The report is comprehensive in its present form.
During the Portuguese Presidency an additional objective was added to it at the committee stage: that the EU should be the world' s most dynamic and competitive economy in the forestry sector also.
Our group supports the views set forth in the report and most of the amendments to it.
We ourselves are tabling a few amendments, which we ask you to support.
I would in particular like to mention Amendment No 3, which raises the question of the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises.
When it is at its best, the forestry sector can serve as a model for other sectors regarding how renewable natural resources can be exploited, how carbon from the atmosphere binds in products and how the materials supply chain works in an environmentally sustainable, yet, at the same time, economically profitable, way.
In this sense, the importance of construction with wood should be highlighted more obviously.
It is also important to recognise the importance of forestry for less developed areas, and especially for rural areas in difficulties.
This importance is particular evident in the area of employment.
The Union should work more effectively in the future to develop small businesses that use raw timber, for example.
Mr President, I welcome the rapporteur's emphasis on sustainable forest industries which are indeed of primary importance to the European Union.
However, the Commission's communication is rather a hodgepodge which lumps together willy-nilly the publishing industry which is knowledge-based and content-focused with primary forestry industries and also paper production.
The publishing industry is both unhappy and bemused, to say the least, and this is not how we promote the European Union nor how things work in the Member States.
The publishing industry feels that there is a lack of recognition of its particular requirements with regard to the expanding IT sector.
The Commission could be open to the accusation, indeed, that perhaps it prefers an IT sector devoid of content.
I would recommend, Commissioner, that you look seriously at this question and review this whole division of labour.
May I also take issue with the report's paragraph 2: peat is not a wood substitute, it is a fuel/fertiliser in its own right.
I know there are particular Irish and Finnish interests here, but I do not believe that we can accept peat as a forest-based industry.
It is a completely separate fuel sector which has also fertiliser as a component.
Climate change: the rapporteur makes some interesting comments here.
I agree with him that we should urgently implement the Kyoto Agreement.
That is what we all want to do.
Forests are, of course, important storages of C02 but the potential for expansion of forests in the EU is limited, even if welcome.
However, I fail to understand the reference to the oceans.
We have had oceans since time immemorial, and this has nothing to do with our present problems with climate change, so I agree with my other colleagues and cannot see what possible relevance that paragraph has.
Finally, with regard to the paper industry: it should clean up its bad former record on the pollution of the environment, and it is also important to inquire into the difficulties of monopolies in the paper sector, particularly with regard to cartels in the recycling sector.
Mr President, I should like to refer briefly to the importance of forestry from a rural development as well as a family-farm perspective.
European agriculture will always remain critical to the well-being of European rural economies - indeed, it represents the main option for economic activity.
Nevertheless, production controls ensure that many farmers cannot increase their income from farming and, therefore, alternative income-generating opportunities from off-farm activities are vital if rural populations are to benefit from economic growth.
We have seen the success of rural development programmes, including the LEADER scheme and other such activities which have helped create much needed employment in small and medium-sized enterprises in rural areas throughout Europe.
However, the option to engage in forestry activity can also be a very constructive and environmentally friendly mechanism for farmers to increase their existing income.
In the Irish government's national development plan for 2000-2006, a total of IEP 580m is being provided for forestry activities.
This would be cofunded under the common agricultural rural development programme.
This latter investment will support a planting programme in Ireland of over 20 000 ha per year over the period of the plan.
The focus will be for on-farm forestry, with grants, planting and maintenance, as well as income-support premium.
In addition to CAP support and measures, an allocation of IEP 80m has been provided in the regional operational programme for investment in harvesting equipment, forest roads and general woodland improvements.
With regard to the EU operational programme for forestry and the generous funding available for afforestation, it is imperative that the end product of this investment is a quality, sustainable forest product, one capable of yielding over time a return both for the individual farmer and the community.
Because of the relative resilience of trees to survive, the necessary silvacultural practices could be neglected in the early years of establishment of new forests.
This must be avoided if the European sector is to meet the challenge of quality and competitiveness in the future.
On a broader perspective, Parliament should be aware of the serious threat to the world's tropical forests, which are diminishing by 15 million hectares annually.
Not sufficient research is being done on the growing of tropical hardwoods.
In this regard, we should be aware of the work of the European Forest Institute and its encouragement and research into the planting of new tropical forests.
If we are to address the need for sustainability, we must tackle these problems very early on.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission communication is highly topical, especially bearing in mind the still very worrying situation of the people working in the forest-based and related industries who were the victims of the December 1999 storms.
We must therefore welcome this broadened approach to industrial policy and the Community forestry strategy.
To talk of competitiveness at a time of keen worldwide competition, the challenges involved in the enlargement and restructuring of the rural world whilst acknowledging the diversity and the multi-functionality of the forest is, of course, a good thing.
However, I feel bound to inform Mr Seppänen that I was rather disappointed by his report, which seems to me to take a somewhat simplistic approach towards the competitiveness of the wood industry.
I get the regrettable impression that he sees forests exclusively as industrial production units based on intensive single-crop farming necessitating a revolution every thirty years.
Returning from Finland, where I witnessed precisely this kind of intensive cultivation, which it is absolutely crucial to the paper industry to promote, I nevertheless think, Mr Seppänen, that the wealth of Europe resides specifically in its diversity.
While I may be convinced of the validity of this approach to cultivating the Nordic forests, I think the report should have taken account of forests where biodiversity subsists, for example in France, as well as industries other than paper industries.
It seems to me that there was a tendency to forget everything to do with timber and other wood-based construction materials made in other parts of Europe.
In conclusion, we will support this report as its approach is quite significant, as well as the excellent amendments tabled by our colleagues, except for Amendment No 5, which seems to us irrelevant.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to both congratulate and commiserate with the rapporteur, Mr Seppänen.
This report on the forest-based and related industries covers just about every important area imaginable, and very much of what it says is correct.
However, I would still like to comment on a couple of points.
First, I think what is missing here is a reference to the dramatic developments in this sector as regards mergers and acquisitions.
This particularly applies to the paper industry at present, where more and more companies are merging because they believe this is essential if they are to remain competitive.
My fear is that Europe, which I hope will itself be growing together, will increasingly be faced with circumstances comparable with those in Canada and other countries, where the pressure which companies are coming under is simply passed on to their forests, which are being exploited in the most brutal way.
I therefore hope that the Commission will bring forward appropriate and clear proposals, if at all possible in the form of directives.
As regards the environment, we should not fool ourselves.
Nine years after Rio we are still a long way from being able to meaningfully implement what was agreed there in terms of sustainability.
In the long run, we will probably have to prepare for our northern forests to absorb what the tropical forests of the Third World cannot, for whatever reasons.
So in future forests will above all be very greatly involved in environmental protection, which brings me to my third point, that is to say the Internet.
I personally very much hope that the idea of the paperless office and perhaps even of a paperless Parliament, by virtue of the Internet, will not just give rise to quiet smiles but actually become a reality.
Although this would have a corresponding impact on jobs in the industry, it would make sense environmentally speaking.
That is my last point.
To sum up, this report creates a negative impression.
It relates too much to existing industries, and it rather gives the impression of trying to protect something that really can no longer be protected.
We only have to remember what happened to the steel industry.
I do not think it makes sense to subsidise this sector.
But the idea of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises which is contained in Amendment No 3 is very positive.
It is also extremely important for us to consider the issue of cartels, given the most recent trends in this sector.
Mr President, unlike Mr Chichester, I have no links with the strong Finnish theme in this report, except for the fact that I worked, with the greatest of pleasure, at the Commission under the authority of Commissioner Liikanen.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission for presenting this communication on the 'forest-based industry' . I would also like to thank the rapporteur for accepting some of my amendments in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, even though he sees no need for Amendment No 5, which I presented.
I would like to ask just one question, Mr President, which ties in precisely with Amendment No 5 and relates to the position of the publishing industry within the Commission services.
I read in the press that, in November 2000, Commissioner Wallström acknowledged the fact that the publishing industry must not be regarded as belonging to the forest-based and related industries, as the place it now occupies within the European Commission might lead one to believe.
Is this also the opinion of the Commission? If this is the case, what are its plans for the future?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, wood is a renewable material, a construction material with a future.
Wood regrows, it rots and finds its way back into the natural cycle from which it came.
So we should not forget wood in the Sixth Framework Programme on Research - we should make sure that the priority area for wood is accordingly drawn up with due care, especially in the field of biotechnology.
I believe that wood will be a lot more important for us in the future than it has been in the past.
As wood is also very widely used in the international construction industry, the wood industry faces numerous problems.
It has to deal with a huge number of technical trade barriers, a multiplicity of national standards and authorisation procedures and also, to some extent, bureaucratic testing, monitoring and certification requirements.
This is an area where the European Commission should apply SLIM.
And perhaps the wood sector is an ideal one for introducing model procedures, possibly including BEST.
I would like to thank Hans-Peter Martin, as promoting small and medium-sized enterprises is, of course, a central and essential matter, and one where we have an important partner in the Commission.
However, there is also the matter of making appropriate changes to building laws and regulations, because fire regulations in Europe in particular vary widely.
We believe it is high time that the construction products directive was adopted. This directive in particular would enable great progress to be made in marketing wood.
As regards world trade, I would like to stress that Japan has very restrictive legislation in this area.
This is something we also need to discuss because wood is, after all, not just a raw material and a construction material, but it will also be highly important in future through biotechnology.
That is why we especially want to promote smaller biomass power stations, which will make an important contribution to Europe's energy self-sufficiency, so that this is also an area where wood has an important role to play.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission and Mr Seppänen, who produced the draft report.
As a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I am especially encouraged by how the report has managed to take account of ecological and even partly socio-economic conditions in the industry, active, as it is, in the market.
I myself wish to raise the issue of peat, which is dealt with in the second paragraph of the report.
The report calls for the inclusion of the peat industry in the forest cluster.
This is most justified.
It will support many aims of the energy policy which the EU is trying to drive through, and which it has just mentioned in the Green Paper on energy.
Peat will reinforce the situation regarding our self-sufficiency in energy and its guaranteed supply, which, alarmingly, are in decline; and it will promote the combined production of electricity and heat, and bring with it the synergic benefit of the use of wood and peat for energy.
Given that peat growth is on a year-to-year basis, it is clearly also a renewable energy source.
Moreover, peat has many regionally positive effects that favour employment.
On the whole, peat should be compared to wood rather than carbon, for example, which is now how it is classed by the EU, going against what is factually correct.
The renewability of peat is an incontestable biological fact.
Peat grows continually through the assimilation of bog plants and the production of forest litter.
Its origin is in principle exactly the same as that of other biomasses that derive from plants, for example wood.
The time necessary for the process is longer, however.
According to a new, impartial scientific report, peat should be distinguished from fossil fuels, which take millions of years to form.
Owing to its origin and essentially renewable nature, peat must be classified as a biomass fuel, but because it regrows substantially more slowly than other plants, a new, third category should be established and placed between fossil fuels and energy sources whose renewability rate is fast.
Peat is a biomass fuel with a slow renewability rate.
It is undeniable that burning peat, as with wood fuel, produces greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere.
The Kyoto agreement does not include emissions from burning wood in the overall emissions burden, as the carbon that is sequestered in wood would be released in any case when the wood decays.
Furthermore, studies on carbon levels and gas circulation in peatlands have come out in recent years and their results show it would be desirable to have a re-evaluation of peat fuel emissions which took account of gas levels in bogs as a whole.
When we speak of peat it is worth reminding ourselves of scale.
The area devoted to energy use is very small compared to the areas of marshland used in forestry and agriculture.
The peat harvest accounts for less than one per mil of the total area of northern peatlands.
Nevertheless, the economic exploitation of peat is important in those areas where there is a lot of marshland.
For example, in Finland we use less than half the annual growth of peat each year.
We therefore do not touch the capital, because the interest is enough to get by on.
The report urges the Commission to strengthen the coordination and coherence of Community sectorial action having an impact on forest clusters, in order to improve competitiveness.
This need for coordination and coherence would in particular appear to apply to peat, and one important step on the road would be to change the way it is classified and its status, to correspond with its true nature.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Madam President, I wish to put a request to you and the House.
My report was to have been debated this morning, but has been put back to this afternoon, along with the vote.
Unfortunately I cannot stay, so I would be grateful if it could be deferred until the next part-session.
Mrs Pack, you will understand that it is not for the President to comment on these observations.
Let me say only that, in the precise case referred to me, Mr Ferri' s report was timetabled for this morning, but we did not have time to deal with it.
Mr Ferri is absent this afternoon and cannot stay behind to present his report.
I think it appropriate, unless there are any objections, to agree to his request to postpone the report due to his absence this afternoon and in view of the fact that the report could not be discussed at the appointed time.
Madam President, we are quite happy for you to temper justice with mercy, as it were.
However, I would like to support Mrs Pack and make the fundamental point that if we are having shorter part-sessions it is not acceptable for reports not to be voted on because rapporteurs are no longer present on Thursday evening.
We agree with the procedure adopted today, but we would like you to make it clear once again, including to committee chairs, that Members should ensure that they stay until Thursday evening.
Mr Swoboda, I agree entirely with you.
It Mr Ferri' s report had not been timetabled for this morning, I should not have had this opportunity.
Madam President, I want to make two brief points in this context.
The first is that all week we have been hearing people talking about the decision to abolish the Friday sitting.
Now whatever decision was taken and however we voted in that decision, a democratic decision was taken by the House and the next opportunity to change that will arise when we discuss the calendar for 2002.
I think it is undemocratic to keep raising it.
Secondly, if we look at the agenda for this week, we see that the agenda for Monday evening was free.
So perhaps we could also look at ways of making better use of our time and using the Monday evening for debates.
Then we would all be finished by Thursday afternoon and could go home and do our jobs on Friday.
Madam President, I am one of those who were most opposed to doing away with the Friday sitting.
I am therefore entitled to state that I think that, when a request is made to postpone the vote on a report which is timetabled for the end of Thursday' s sitting, and which must be presented by a Member who has to travel 2000 km to get home and who, if he cannot take the only flight available, on Thursday afternoon, is then forced to go home on Friday evening, we ought also to show some flexibility with regard to his situation in future.
Unfortunately, this is a vote I consider irresponsible, and it places us in this situation, which we must manage in as responsible a manner as possible in the coming months.
We do not need to start a debate on the issue.
Madam President, in the context of these issues, a teething problem has arisen with the four-day week in relation to transport.
It is impossible until next December to get on the Strasbourg-Brussels flight at 4.30 p.m. on a Thursday.
That has resulted in many of our staff and press officers having to leave on the 12.30 p.m. flight on Thursday.
That is not acceptable.
Could you please talk to the powers-that-be and put extra flights back to Brussels on Thursday evening to accommodate our staff, so that they can stay here all Thursday.
Mrs Doyle, since you raise the subject, I can inform you that Strasbourg Town Hall has appointed Mr Ries as the official representative to deal with all these problems, and any others, which may emerge.
I had a lengthy meeting with Mr Ries this week and, on my initiative, we discussed these specific problems, because they are problems that I am well aware of, and not just for one nationality but for all the Members of the House.
Madam President, Parliament voted to reduce the Strasbourg part-session to four days, with a consequent reduction in the number of working days for ancillary staff.
We are asking that they should not be penalised financially.
Mrs Bordes, this is not a procedural motion.
VOTE
Madam President, while flying from Milan to Strasbourg I was in the pilot' s cabin chatting with the pilot, as I sometimes do, and he was telling me all about his problems relating to working hours, pay and pensions.
I told him that administrative procedures in the civil aviation sector, including provision for regulating the work of aviation employees, were due to be debated in the European Parliament, along with technical regulations, and I assured him that I would ask for a recommendation to the Member States to give pilots higher and earlier pensions, for pilots are of key importance for our safety.
Madam President, last Monday I took the floor to give evidence to the honourable Members of this House on the recent decision of the Spanish government granting clemency to fourteen torturers.
In no motion for a resolution on human rights do we find the slightest reference to the Kingdom of Spain though many countries are specifically mentioned.
This is most regrettable as the pardon from the Spanish government has been granted in order to guarantee impunity to torturers and to maintain torture as a fundamental practice in its strategy of repression.
On human rights, once again, hypocrisy has been voted through in this Parliament.
United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva
The liberalisation of the air transport sector and the stiff competition between airlines has caused serious problems by eroding safety standards for passenger aircraft.
It is therefore imperative that we introduce harmonised requirements in order to maintain a high standard of safety which is not undermined by competition.
Both the Committee on Transport and the rapporteur have improved on the Commission's proposals.
It is also imperative, where no proposals for agreed rules are made by interested parties, that the European Parliament itself take the initiative on flight times and on working times and other requirements for the flight and cabin crew by 1 May 2001, taking account of the needs of workers and safety requirements.
This matter is even more urgent given that the Commission, unfortunately under pressure from the airline companies, has failed in the text to propose any measures limiting flight times.
The only reason we voted in favour of this joint motion for a resolution is the stance adopted in favour of abolishing the death penalty and the affirmation of a few basic principles regarding the equality of women, the treatment of children and opposition to racial discrimination.
Although the resolution explicitly mentions a number of countries, such as Tibet, Chine, Afghanistan, Papua-New Guinea and Chechnya, where human rights are effectively violated in many, if not all areas, not a word is said regarding the major powers, the European Union in particular, which, while they do not necessarily violate human rights at home, violate them in their former colonies, either directly or by giving protection to dictators that ride roughshod over human rights.
When human rights appeals come from those suffering from the lack of human rights or from associations working genuinely to relieve the burden of oppression, at least in the areas they are responsible for, we show our solidarity.
Yet, as far as the major powers which are responsible for the exploitation and oppression of the greater part of the world, and their political representatives, are concerned, references to human rights are, generally speaking, nothing more than hypocritical declarations contradicted by their diplomatic and military action and by those 'reasons of state' generally used as a front to conceal the sordid interests of major financial groups that do not care one bit about human beings or their rights.
Hedkvist Petersen Report (A5-0381/2000)
Madam President, still in the pilot' s cabin on the plane from Milan to Strasbourg and still chatting to the pilot - I even remember his name, Antoine - I told him how worried I was about air travel, because we can never be sure whether flying is safe and sometimes there are accidents.
'What do you mean, Mr Fatuzzo?' replied the pilot.
'Flying is the safest form of transport there is.
It is on the roads that most accidents happen. Of all forms of transport, the car causes by far the most deaths and injuries.'
So I am really delighted to welcome this document - and I have voted for it - through which Europe is taking specific action to reduce the very serious damage caused by road accidents.
Madam President, I wish to speak on this report because it is necessary for the European Union to find a more effective way to ensure that Member States who make commitments in relation to matters of life and death actually comply with those commitments.
The report points out that during the 1990s the number of road deaths fell in the European Union by 26%.
In Ireland, however, the fall has only been by 13%.
We have the third highest accident rate in the European Union and we have the highest fatality rate in the European Union.
The National Safety Council just last August indicated that as far as they were concerned they did not see any political commitment to actually dealing effectively with road safety.
It estimated that of the 62 000 young people who sat the leaving certificate examination in June 2000 within eight years 1000 would be dead in unnecessary car accidents.
This seems to me to be a grotesque situation and quite simply should not be tolerated by the European Union.
If Member States make commitments to implement the matters which affect life and death than we have to find ways of ensuring that they comply with those commitments.
Congratulations are due Mrs Hedkvist Petersen on her conscientious, thorough and innovative work.
Road safety is indeed a serious area in which we cannot afford to indulge in hypocrisy and hyperbole, which the rapporteur avoids absolutely.
There are some Members in this House who will take advantage of this issue to demand that the principle of subsidiarity be strengthened, leaving Member States to manage road safety decisions as they wish.
I, however, share the rapporteur' s opinion as, while acknowledging the key position of the states in this area, she nonetheless recognises that this is an area where responsibility is shared between Community, national, regional and local authorities.
The great disparities between Member States, particularly with regard to speed limits and 'authorised' blood alcohol levels, do nothing to reduce the number of accidents on the roads of Europe.
Within the European Union, road accidents are the number one cause of death in children and adults under 45.
I, therefore, like the rapporteur, consider it essential that the Commission does not confine itself to a recommendation on alcohol levels, but sets a clear limit at 0.5 mg/l.
Similarly, additional support must be given to the European assessment programme for new car models (Euro-NCAP).
This could be achieved, specifically, in the form of a proposal for a directive.
In the same way, we must consider intensifying the existing link between the environment and road safety (leading us, for example, to reassess road signs and marking to make them safer).
We must all accept our responsibilities, and that is what the rapporteur sets out to do in this initiative which does her great credit.
I shall therefore vote in favour of this report.
I would like to commend Ms Hedkvist-Petersen for her very thorough report on a subject that is of great concern to all of us.
The statistics are quite staggering: 42,000 deaths on the EU' s roads every year, an estimated 1.7 million people injured to one degree or another.
It is clear that this issue requires the concerted efforts of all concerned: EU, national and local authorities, as well as the many voluntary organisations and initiatives which aim to tackle the problem of traffic accidents.
The number of fatal accidents varies greatly from one Member State to another ranging from 60 to 243 per million with an EU average of 116.
In my own country, Ireland, there are 129 persons per million inhabitants killed on the roads each year.
I find particularly disturbing the fact that road accidents are the most common cause of death amongst children and people under 45 years of age in the EU.
This is an intolerable situation.
The figures show clearly that the number of fatal accidents can be reduced drastically throughout the EU.
It is crucial that our commitment to saving lives on the roads, in particular those of our young people, is not just a lip-service.
There must be adequate resources injected into proactive policies at Union level so as to help individual Member States improve their traffic safety records.
At present the Commission' s road safety budget is EUR 8 million per year.
I believe that the Commission needs to send out a strong signal of its determination to reduce road casualties.
I would call on the Commission to increase significantly the road safety budget and indeed to encourage Member States to follow suit.
Money spent on reducing road accidents is money well spent.
Inadequate road safety costs society and the Member States a great deal of money.
The human tragedy is immeasurable, but attempts have been made to quantify the damage, and these show that the enormous economic cost of traffic accidents in the form of medical and emergency treatment, damage to property and loss of income amounts to about EUR 100 billion per annum.
Things are certainly moving in the right direction.
During the 1990s, the number of road deaths in the EU fell by 26%.
This trend must now be maintained and strengthened.
Parliament has consistently held that one of the major political goals of transport policy is to give priority to measures to improve safety for all modes of transport, as well as providing the necessary financial resources for this purpose.
The number of fatalities and injuries on Europe' s roads is not something which is predetermined.
We must make improving road safety a political priority and provide the financial means to match.
While everyone is in agreement in condemning the considerable number of road accidents in the various European Member States, the EDD Group is unable to agree completely with Ms Hedkvist Petersen' s report on the appropriate means to tackle the subject, for the solution cannot be ever more European authority, more money and more criminalisation.
This cocktail, which has already been applied in varying degrees in a number of countries, has proved ineffective.
On the other hand, reconciling practical measures with specific national characteristics would seem to be an avenue worth exploring if we want to achieve positive practical results.
The means of transport that the car represents, with all it entails, is more a matter of training, behaviour and culture.
So how is it therefore possible to find solutions standardised for the whole of Europe?
In our view, Ms Hedkvist Petersen' s report represents the very antithesis of the subsidiarity we strive to preserve, not out of dogmatism but in order to be as efficient as possible while respecting everyone' s diversity, all in the interests of our various peoples.
What stage are we at with the implementation of real solutions, the type of solutions that require significant investment? Reforms in training (for example, driving lessons for school age children, or emergency braking in driving schools), systematisation of the active and passive safety components right from the bottom of the range by means of tax incentives to car manufacturers, or even the modification of the infrastructure by completely eliminating the 'black spots' , are the real issues of any intelligent road safety policy.
Though, of course, this is undoubtedly more difficult than adopting a purely punitive approach, which involves, for example, installing a radar monitor in an unmarked police car, at the end of a completely deserted sliproad to a three-lane motorway.
I wholeheartedly support the report by my Socialist colleague which calls for new measures to tackle road deaths and promote road safety in Europe.
Shocking statistics show the severity of the problem.
It is simply unacceptable that as many as 42,000 people are killed and over 1.7 million injured on roads across the European Union every year.
Of course, the numbers vary from country to country.
In Portugal and Greece, there are as many as 243 and 212 deaths per million, whilst at the lowest end of the spectrum, there are 60 and 61 deaths per million in Sweden in the UK, respectively.
Every person killed is one too many.
Every case is an individual tragedy which tears apart a community.
We desperately need to improve road safety with safety equipment in cars, seat belt campaigns and better road signs.
The Labour Government in Britain is at the forefront, leading a campaign against drink-driving.
The lives of all our citizens, especially our young people, are too precious to take for granted.
Poli Bortone Report (A5-0358/2000)
Road traffic accidents are the most common cause of death among children and persons under the age of 45 in the EU, which makes the problem a major public health issue.
In Sweden, 'Vision Zero' has been approved unanimously by Parliament as an overall objective of the work on road safety.
However, in order for these road safety objectives to be achieved, reliable tools are needed for meeting the targets.
Effective traffic surveillance, including vehicle inspections, speed monitoring using modern camera techniques, breathalyser tests, seat belt checks and pupillometer measurement in cases where drug-use may be suspected, is what is needed in the short term to bring down the number of fatalities on the roads.
In order for the target of zero road fatalities to be realistic, more use must be made of public transport so as to reduce the number of vehicles on the road.
We will support the report in the final vote, but we take the view that the efforts towards harmonisation are excessive.
The report is a parliamentary initiative, the main thrust of which is to demand proposals for the harmonisation of road safety at EU level.
We consider this desire to increase road safety to be all well and good, but this is not an issue in which the EU should be investing resources. Rather, it is an issue which is best dealt with at Member State level.
Madam President, back in my seat on the plane, I started chatting to the person sitting next to me - a pensioner called Lino Miserotti - and at one point he remarked that we were flying over Düsseldorf.
I looked out of the window and saw the city. Close to it are some huge sheds, visible even from that great height.
I asked my neighbour what they were, and he told me that they are a terminus for lorries and railway wagons 'That is an intermodal centre,' he said.
'These intermodal transport centres are very useful because freight has to be deposited in those sheds, so that transport is better, faster and cheaper.'
That is why I voted for this report.
Madam President, I wanted to explain that I particularly voted for the Poli Bortone report because Amendment No 1 was adopted.
This amendment reflects the concern felt about delays in creating the trans-European rail networks and rail corridors.
This is an issue of particular importance for the Alpine region, from which I come, and especially so in the case of the Munich-Verona cross-Alps line.
We hope that as a result of Parliament's latest vote, the Commission will regard itself as being obliged to further speed up the relevant preparatory work and to push ahead with greater concentration and effort than has been the case up to now, so as to solve this urgent problem for the Alpine region.
Costa Paolo Report (A5-0345/2000)
Madam President, on the very crowded motorway between Bergamo and Milan I was sitting next to Lino Miserotti again, and we were talking about motorway tariffs.
Lino Miserotti told me he thought it was right for him, as a pensioner, to have to pay to use the motorway, thus contributing to the construction and maintenance of an important item of transport infrastructure, but that it would be good if people who were still working did not have to pay a toll.
So, in voting for this document, I am asking for a distinction to be made between those using the road for work and those using it in their spare time. The former should not have to pay as much as the latter.
The report adopted in committee struck a very careful balance between those who wish to move faster to build on the common transport charging framework with concrete measures and those who feel that public opinion is not ready for such a radical rethinking of the way society pays for the use of its transport infrastructure.
The rapporteur is pleased with the substantial agreement on the fundamental principles contained in the report, namely that the Community is competent to establish a common methodology for calculating transport costs; that external costs should be included in such evaluations; that revenue should be directed to reducing environmental damage and encouraging modal shift to less polluting transport alternatives; that implementation should be governed by subsidiarity; that the users and polluters pay in proportion to use; and that exemptions should be made for the less mobile members of society and those living in rural areas.
For these reasons, whilst I am sympathetic to many of the amendments tabled by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance for concrete measures, I cannot support them here, since they would jeopardise the consensus on the above principles and can be examined later in the course of the implementation of a charging framework.
As usual, the at first sight laudable intentions of a European Parliament report turn out to conceal the worst.
In this case, the matter is charging for transport infrastructure.
You have to read between the lines, though, to see exactly what it is talking about and if you do so, you come across two of the pet themes of this institution: the creation of an environment tax and the war waged on road transport and the car.
The one main purpose hinted at in the report is to impose yet more taxes on the road users, who are already treated like Europe' s cash cows, and perhaps even to install toll gates and charge for the use of the main roads or minor roads.
What planet do we think we are on?
When the price of fuel is prohibitive, at five to six times the refinery sale price because more than 80% of the price is made up of taxes, you might well think that the road user is already paying more than enough for the right to use the public road network in proportion to the use he makes of his car.
That is without mentioning all the other types of road tax; it is too long a list and the litany of amounts involved is too depressing.
Indeed, after reading this report, one wonders just what the taxes we pay are actually used for.
Nothing, apparently, since in France, for example, the administration' s skimming off half the national wealth does not enable it to ensure the safety of the people, to achieve general welfare, to preserve their quality of life or to provide a consistent and effective transport policy.
The state, the States, should think primarily of the way they use our money before giving Brussels any sort of power to needlessly make the situation worse.
I share the report' s preliminary approach, which stresses the need to take the external costs of charging into greater consideration.
Obviously, infrastructure needs to be meticulously maintained and modernised.
But what funding must be sought? The report stresses that nothing must hinder the development of the market in Member States, i.e. that business profits must not be made use of.
The social dumping practised by the road industry or the scandal involving motorway concessions, for example, are not challenged in any way.
Not wishing to increase taxation also entails preventing state intervention so as not to obstruct the sacrosanct rule of competition.
On the contrary, the rapporteur advocates pursuing "the aim of phasing out distortions of competition between Member States" .
Nowhere does the report make any reference to a state response to social needs, yet, on the other hand, the only response to the "all market" solution is to appeal to private companies, for both the construction and the management of infrastructure.
As a result, the only parties to pay that are clearly identified in the text are road users, and that is why I shall not be voting in favour of this report.
Karamanou Report (A5-0373/2000)
We agree with some of the elements of the report, specifically with the need to develop transport infrastructure for environmental sustainability and the preservation and improvement of the right of all citizens to movement and accessibility to public transport services, although we think that these points should addressed in greater detail in the resolution as a whole.
Nevertheless, we can only oppose the establishment of Community criteria that treat all users of transport alike, taking no account of the various levels of infrastructure that currently exist in the Member States.
For these reasons, we will not be able to vote for the report.
We politicians must develop a system that leads to a breakthrough in the principle of cost transparency for transport providers.
This resolution is an important step, and calls on the Commission to present some concrete proposals at long last.
Transport problems can only be solved on the basis of a European consensus.
As a representative of a country that has to cope with the considerable problems of traffic in transit through the Alps, I call on the European Union to devote more attention to this subject than it has to date.
The Union has not yet adequately accepted its responsibility in this area.
Fair competition between transport providers is only possible if external costs are also included in taxes.
It is essential for ecological and geographical aspects to be covered in this uniform system, for the benefit of both the environment and the public.
In the light of the principles of subsidiarity and democracy, I find it hard to entertain the idea that the European Union should be given its own right of taxation.
This applies also to the field of transport.
These proposals would, according to the calculations of the Dutch Government, increase the price of petrol by a further 15 per cent and the price of diesel by 21 per cent, as well as increasing the price of tickets for medium and long-distance train journeys by almost 50 per cent.
The consequences of this for sparsely-populated Swedish counties which have already been hit, such as Dalarna with its high levels of outward migration and considerable decrease in population, are obvious and totally devastating.
The rapporteur wishes to introduce new Government taxes and EU taxes, and also levies on roads, railways and airports, car insurance, lorries and buses, petrol and diesel.
Part of the funds obtained would go to the Governments of the Member States and then be earmarked for investments in infrastructure, and part would go to the Commission to use as it sees fit.
Should the resolution be approved by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers, the EU would be given its own direct power of taxation, as in an actual nation state.
That is a development to which the Swedish Christian Democrats do not wish to contribute.
I take a very serious view of further increasing the costs of transport for people and goods.
It is patently obvious that this will be a merciless blow which will fall hardest on the sparsely-populated counties.
Moreover, it is hardly in keeping with the spirit of the European Community to make it more difficult and considerably more expensive for people to meet each other in and between the various countries.
Madam President, there is a lot of talk about quotas in Mrs Karamanou' s report.
I have abstained, and this is why.
I have been national secretary of the Pensioners' Party in Italy since 1983, and throughout that time people have been asking why I represent the Pensioners' Party when I am not a pensioner.
They say I am too young to be retired, which is very nice, but it often bothers me that people should think someone who is not retired might not be able to stand up for pensioners.
Madam President, do you think not being retired means I cannot defend pensioners with determination, conviction and constancy? So does not being a woman mean a man cannot defend the rights of women just as well?
That is why I am not so keen on quotas.
Madam President, a majority of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats voted against the Karamanou report.
This signal could be misinterpreted or even turned against us to score political points.
We are not, of course, opposed to equal opportunities policy and we are certainly not against women's participation.
We agree with the principles enumerated by Commissioner Diamantopoulou at the end of this morning's debate.
We are in favour of mainstreaming measures in business, in public institutions, in education, training and culture.
We are in favour of building up political networks and we need European indicators such as benchmarking.
We are also in favour of concrete actions and measures being implemented in the EU Member States.
We have demonstrated this in countries where Christian Democrats and Conservatives are in power.
Women are demonstrably holding leading positions in our parties.
For example, in Germany, my own party, the CDU, has a woman leader and in the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats a considerable number of the national delegations are led by women.
So there is no doubt that we support the objective of equal opportunities, and this was also apparent from the speeches that my female colleagues and I made this morning.
However, the rapporteur, Mrs Karamanou, and her Socialist Group were not prepared to support our amendments rejecting the establishment of quotas throughout Europe.
There are various different systems in the EU Member States for ensuring that women are properly represented numerically speaking.
And, contrary to what appears in the report, these are not laid down by governments, but by the parties, when they are drawing up their lists.
That is the way it should stay - that is what the principle of subsidiarity is all about.
So any attempt to make out that my group, because a majority of its Members voted against the Karamanou report, is in some way opposed to balanced participation of men and women in the decision-making process, any such attempt is certainly doomed to failure.
Madam President, it is not only necessary for the overall thrust of ideas and initiatives to be right - above all the detail must also be right.
We of course voted against the right-wing amendment which apparently viewed the report' s proposal that the proportion of women, or of men, in elected bodies should be at least 40% as excessive.
We voted in favour of this disputed clause in the Karamanou report even though we are convinced that quotas are no solution, far from it, to the inequalities which women suffer both in decision-making positions and, much more, in society in general.
I voted in favour of the Karamanou report.
Reports and contributions to this debate remind us that some of our worst fears are justified.
Discrimination still exists, and it still takes women with "fire in their bellies" to make it through the dense system of hidden prejudice and break through in political, trade and other organisations.
Affirmative action is still necessary - until real equality exists, not just where great talent is present, but also for those who are less forceful.
Women are universally under-represented where decisions are made.
At the start of the third millennium, women are still fighting for the right, on paper at least, to participate in the capitalist system, a right which socialism gave them at the beginning of the century.
The Communist Party of Greece sees the problem of the lack of participation by women in the decision-making process not simply as a problem of democracy; it is a sign of social inequality and exploitation of the classes, which is why it mainly affects working class women.
The apparent interest in democracy in the family expressed in the motion for a resolution is in fact an interest in reversing full employment (the motion frankly admits as much), and reducing and privatising welfare services.
Moreover, so-called equal opportunities policies and various EU programmes have proven to be nothing more than the means to promote capitalist restructuring.
They aim to divide the burden equally and to reduce social services to the family, thereby striking at the working classes and exacerbating the situation of women in practice and, as a result, they are responsible for excluding women from the mainstream.
Women will only gain their rightful place both in the family and in political and economic life by joining the mass grass-roots movement fighting to reverse the policies responsible for their under-representation.
Real participation by women cannot be achieved with quotas for their participation in institutions which fight against their interests and promote part-time work, the privatisation of health, welfare and education, longer working hours and a later retirement age.
We disagree with the imposition of quotas on political parties because they are organisations which people join voluntarily and they alone have the right to decide on their structure and how they operate.
To impose quotas on political parties is to interfere in their internal affairs and trample on the collective will of a political organisation.
We shall not oppose administrative measures to improve the participation of women in the decision-making process, provided that they are accompanied by the corresponding grass-roots policy and can therefore effectively remove barriers to the participation of women.
Administrative measures not accompanied by such a policy give rise to self-delusion and are misleading, which is why we cannot support isolated measures of an administrative nature, as proposed in the resolution.
These were the reasons why the Communist Party of Greece abstained from the vote.
I shall vote in favour of the report because it has the merit of once more highlighting a recurrent problem regarding the involvement of women in political life.
The report, quite rightly, points out that education is an essential tool in combating stereotypes and in equal training for children of both sexes from the earliest age.
However, two aspects which I think essential are missing.
The first is the economic situation: as long as women are the primary victims of an economic system which forces them into part-time work, secondary income and insecure jobs, to expect them to get involved in political life will remain a pious hope.
The second is the political situation: the report could at least put forward rules for elected representatives which require new people to be elected in each legislative term thereby enabling a turnover in members which would favour the election of more women.
Similarly, there should be a ban on holding more than one office, and there could be a time limit on re-election periods.
Seppänen Report (A5-0384/2000)
Madam President, last week I went to see a pensioner who lives in a village in the Bergamo valley. His name is Giuseppe Carminati and he is a woodcutter.
He told me he spends a lot of time on his own up the mountain, deep in the woods, sometimes at night because wood that is cut by the full moon burns better in the fireplace - but I have always known that. 'I do feel very lonely,' he said.
'But now that the European Parliament is voting to assist forest-based industries, please tell the President of Parliament, as a representative of all of you, that I will feel that the European Parliament is closer to me in my woodcutter' s work.
Even at night, by the full moon, it will be as if Mrs Fontaine is with me to keep me company, and then my work will be easier.'
The Seppänen report on forest-based and related industries is a step in the right direction, endeavouring as it does to overcome the confines of commercial competitiveness and create wider and deeper prospects for European forests. It is particularly important in this context to:
develop forest-based industries within the framework of viable development;
ensure that natural resources are renewable;
formulate a forest strategy and coordinate the various Community policies which affect it;
promote research and develop forest products for multiple purposes, such as medical applications.
Particular importance should be attached to forests in the Mediterranean and the Balkans which previously supported numerous communities and which are now in danger of disappearing.
That is why we need special Community action programmes for forests in the Mediterranean and the Balkans.
The Seppänen report has not received our support for a variety of reasons.
For one, the Commission and rapporteur largely limit sustainability in the forestry sector to replacement planting alongside cutting.
That, however, is not justified.
First of all, in this way, Mr Seppänen does not pay sufficient attention to biodiversity, whilst production forest can easily lead to monoculture.
It is therefore essential to plant a diverse range of species.
The original producer plays an important role in this, but is often bowing to the pressures of free market forces.
It is therefore necessary to circumscribe market forces.
It is regrettable that the report does not take this sufficiently into consideration.
Secondly, the report insufficiently highlights the need to minimise emissions.
Wood burning is not a sustainable source of energy, because CO2 and other polluting substances are released in the process.
More sustainable alternatives include gassing and composting.
Furthermore, it is questionable whether forests could be used as carbon sink in order to achieve the Kyoto emission targets.
After all, wood burning must also be included as a source of carbon.
Additionally, the rapporteur does not do justice to the principle of subsidiarity when he asks for Community action in the field of education, technology and resources for the Commission.
Both within and outside the EU, sustainability is a factor in competitiveness which is gaining in importance.
It therefore deserves more of a boost than proposed by the rapporteur.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.55 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to speak on the subject of this afternoon' s agenda.
This morning, the President saw fit to propose postponing Mr Ferri' s report.
I agreed, as rapporteur on the subject of long-stay visas, to having my report discussed at 5.30 p.m. this afternoon.
Since then, however, I have received apologies from a great number of members who intended to take part in this debate.
The Chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, Mr Watson, apologised as he will be unable to attend.
I also received apologies from Mr Pirker, Coordinator for the PPE Group, Mrs Terrón i Cusi, Coordinator for the Socialist Group, and from Mr Hernández Mollar, who were scheduled to speak this afternoon.
There are other Members, too, in exactly the same position.
I feel that the absence of these Members who were down to speak on a report which was one of the priorities of the French Presidency means that we cannot have the proper debate which we ought to have on a subject on which Parliament must be consulted before the Council may decide.
In my capacity as rapporteur and on behalf of the PPE Group, I am therefore requesting, Mr President, that my report be postponed until a later part-session.
Mr President, I cannot agree with Mr Deprez.
I have some sympathy with your plight, Mr Deprez, but we only agreed the agenda at the beginning of the week, and Mr Ferri's comments this morning were incorrect.
He claimed that his report had been on this morning's agenda.
Read the agenda.
It shows the debate as running from 5.30 p.m. to 6.30 p.m., and his report was at the end of the list with the Deprez report.
In other words, it was clear from the outset that the Deprez and Ferri reports would be considered and voted on this evening, and I have made my own arrangements accordingly, and I wish to insist on this.
The President also said this afternoon that the vote would take place at 6 p.m. instead of at 6.30 p.m., and the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance would end at 5.30 p.m.
That means that we have half an hour to consider this topic.
I am vice-chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and I can tell you that if our colleagues are not here, I am quite happy to use all their speaking time and to state my views on the Deprez report, which is excellent.
Mr Posselt, that is an announcement of an intervention of almost twenty minutes during the debate on the Deprez report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Posselt's last statement, his threat to talk for 20 minutes non-stop about the Deprez report, really is an argument for deferring the report at this stage.
However, the basic problem here is something quite different.
Mr Posselt has in fact said everything that needs to be said.
What we are witnessing here - and we have already debated this once this afternoon, as we also did on Monday and Tuesday - is, and I shall make no bones about it, an attempt to systematically undermine Strasbourg as the seat of Parliament.
Tactics like this are capable of achieving just that.
Mr Posselt, even if it would make a valuable contribution if you were to speak for 20 minutes - and I too could also speak for 20 minutes, as no one else is left from my group either - in reality it would mean that the work Mr Deprez has so carefully done would not be debated in the way it deserves here.
To that extent I can understand Mr Deprez's desire that his report, which is based on the approach developed in the committee and which should be reflected here in this Chamber, should be given a reasonable hearing in the plenary.
So I really am in favour of deferring a report as important as this one, and for my part I would recommend acceding to Mr Deprez's request.
We are not getting into a debate on a procedural point. We are hearing a proposal, one opinion against, and one in favour.
Now, commenting on what Mr Deprez has said, I have this to say.
Mr Deprez, on behalf of your group, you asked for the debate to be adjourned.
Then we heard a different opinion from Mr Posselt, who belongs to the same group.
But in any case, that is a secondary issue, because under Rule 146 of the Rules of Procedure a decision cannot be taken now on a matter like this.
We cannot vote on this point now.
You can request and propose - that is, a political group or at least thirty-two Members can do so - adjourning the debate to another time in Parliament' s schedule, but only at the beginning of the debate.
You cannot do so now.
You can only present that proposal, on behalf of your group, when the debate starts at 5.30 p.m., not now.
Excuse me, Mr President, but surely in this instance the rule should have been the same as for Mr Ferri' s report this morning.
This morning, Mr Ferri' s report was postponed even though, according to your interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, this should not have been allowed.
Given that it was possible to do this for Mr Ferri, I do not, therefore, see why it would not be possible to do so in my case in order to organise this afternoon' s agenda better.
I am not asking for a special favour, simply for the application of the procedure applied this morning.
But I am not applying this morning' s procedure; I am applying Rule 146 and, despite the applause from Mr Ford and others, I am going to read it out to you: 'At the start of a debate on an item on the agenda, a political group or at least thirty-two Members may move that the debate be adjourned to a specific date and time.
Such a motion shall be put to the vote immediately.' So, not now, but at 5.30 p.m.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Trial of former Khmers Rouges in Cambodia
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5­0055/2001 by Mr Belder, on behalf of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, on the law on the Khmer Rouge trial;
B5­0057/2001 by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the law on the Khmer Rouge trial;
B5­0063/2001 by Mrs Hautala, Mrs Maes, Mr Gahrton and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the law on the Khmer Rouge trial;
B5­0070/2001 by Mr Tannock and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the law on the Khmer Rouge trial;
B5­0075/2001 by Mrs Randzio-Plath, Mr van den Berg, Mr Corbett and Mr Iivari, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the international tribunal in Cambodia;
B5­0080/2001 by Mr Vinci, Mr Herman Schmid and Mr Manisco, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the law on the Khmer Rouge trial in Cambodia.
Mr President, at long last we have a result. The leaders of the Khmer Rouge' s reign of terror are being brought before an "international" tribunal.
We are pleased that the Cambodian National Assembly has decided on this unanimously and would like the court rulings to be carried out as soon as possible.
After all, it is intolerable, certainly for the friends and relatives of the victims, that so far, not one single Khmer Rouge leader has been punished for his or her crimes and that the protagonists of years gone by are still free citizens in Cambodia, not to mention the former Khmer Rouge members' involvement in the government.
However, the content of the adopted legislative draft has forced us to make a number of critical comments.
After years of tug-of-war between the United Nations and Cambodia, it is becoming clear that a shaky compromise has been reached.
It is precisely those legal affairs against which UN experts expressed their veto in a recommendation three years ago, that have now been included in the model adopted.
The country' s regime, which is also culpable, has managed to squeeze every last drop out of the negotiations in this matter.
Dubious statements from Cambodian government leaders seem to suggest that they are attempting to delay the fair course of justice.
The minister in charge, Mr Sok An, recently claimed that the guiding principle behind this thinking was to maintain stability and peace in the country In other words, former Khmer Rouge members whose testimony could jeopardise current stability, need not be brought to trial.
King Sihanouk too is taking the unwilling authorities under his wing by pretending that "stability is more important than revenge" .
By way of conclusion, Mr President, we call on the international community and Cambodia to ensure that the Khmer Rouge killers are brought to justice in a speedy, fair and comprehensive trial, and to prevent the tribunal from degenerating into a charade.
Mr President, I very much welcome the establishment of courts to try the suspects of the former Communist Khmer Rouge regime.
It is important so that Cambodia can move forward into the future that those responsible for heinous crimes against the Cambodian population be brought to justice.
The Khmer Rouge regime was one of the worst human rights abusers of the twentieth century, being responsible for an estimated 1.72 million deaths in a short, four-year rule.
Although I welcome the establishment of the courts I have a number of reservations.
We have to remember that the members of the ruling Cambodian People's Party, including the prime minister, Hun Sen, were once activists of the Khmer Rouge, serving under the dictator Pol Pot.
Hun Sen has already decided who can and cannot be taken before a tribunal, thus challenging the powers of any court.
There have been genuine fears that several senior members of the regime might escape justice, in particular the former Khmer Rouge foreign secretary, Ieng Sary.
He was given partial amnesty after he defected with about 10,000 supporters in 1996.
Ieng Sary and other Khmer Rouge leaders were sentenced to death in absentia in 1997 by the People's Court, which was organised by the Vietnamese army occupying Cambodia at the time.
The amnesty granted by King Sihanouk refers only to this conviction and makes no reference to future convictions and therefore it is important that he is tried.
No Khmer Rouge leaders has ever been tried and only two are in detention, one being the person who ran a notorious torture centre in Phnom Penh from which only seven out of more than fourteen thousand inmates emerged alive.
The tribunal has an unusual framework for participation of both international and Cambodian judges and prosecutors.
Normally, in other war crime courts, there are only foreign judges and prosecutors.
This becomes ever more worrying when we see that while the UN-nominated judges will be screened by the Cambodian Supreme Council of the Magistrate, a body controlled by the ruling party of Phnom Penh, the UN has no power whatsoever to screen the judges appointed by Cambodia.
Finally, we also need to look at the involvement of China in all of this.
Although it has always maintained that it only provided the Khmer Rouge with technical expertise in agriculture, the Cambodian documentation centre recently unearthed evidence to show that it was directly involved in the setting up of the interrogation and torture centre in Phnom Penh where thousands of Cambodians died.
Mr President, there are people here who are old enough not to have forgotten the extraordinary and harrowing reports that came out of Cambodia in 1975, with aerial pictures of a deserted capital as the Khmer Rouge, their leaders schooled in the violent tenets of French revolutionary tradition and possessing a mixture of political idealism and mass psychopathology, moved two million people from the city to the countryside to begin a new society in year zero under the leadership of the "great" Pol Pot.
The sick were dragged from the hospitals or left to die.
What followed was to shock the world.
The human rights abuses of Bosnia, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Chile, Angola are dwarfed by the sheer scale of the atrocities that took place under the Khmer Rouge.
The deliberate deaths of between one and two million people constituted a real genocide.
Perhaps, to be accurate, we should call it a sectocide for the intention was not to wipe out a race but an entire class, with victims selected on the basis of whether they were educated, whether their hands showed signs of manual work, or even whether they wore spectacles.
It is not surprising therefore that following Pol Pot's death and the defeat of the Khmer Rouge, there should be a need for some kind of national catharsis through the application of justice and a calling to account of those responsible.
Personally I hope that the prosecutions will not be restricted to the top 20 leaders but be extended to those who daily brutalised and executed their victims.
If the Cambodian people want these trials to proceed, and the political situation is sufficiently stable to permit them, then it is only natural that the international community, through the UN, should wish to support them in that aim.
We should beware, however, of imposing justice on other states, especially if such proceedings might unravel a political truce or accommodation that has brought peace or stability to the region and promises a better future.
Amnesties are sometimes necessary if unpalatable.
In Cambodia, though, it looks as though the people and government are ready to take the risk of overturning previous amnesties in order to secure justice.
If that proves to be the case we should wish them well in this venture.
Mr President, it is a positive step that the draft law on the trial of the Khmer Rouge members in Cambodia has been adopted in the country' s National Assembly and that King Sihanouk is to sign it after it has been discussed by the Constitutional Council.
The form the trials will take has been agreed between the UN and the Cambodian government.
As the Cambodian judicial system is still frail, the trials are to be organised in such a way that both international and local judges will be presiding.
During the time of the Khmer Rouge, nearly all those in the country' s legal profession were killed, and the country has not had time to evolve a new professionally run judicial system.
The international community has been concerned that many of those found guilty of genocide will not receive sentences, despite the law that supports the trial.
This concern is well-founded.
Those who caused the Cambodian state so much damage and its people so much unspeakable suffering must be held legally responsible for their actions.
In addition to this, however, account must be taken of the requirements of stability and the country' s future.
Last spring I myself was able to see how ordinary people were aiming at forgiveness, so that life could go on.
It is not always easy to distinguish clearly between the victims and the persecutors.
Restarting a spiral of large-scale revenge is to be avoided.
Although Cambodia' s problems and its bloody history are still close to us in terms of time, the country has been able to build the foundations of democracy.
Cambodia is the only country in Southeast Asia to have abolished the death penalty.
A friend of mine who works in the region said that at present Cambodia is the only multi-party system in the former French Indo-China, although there is still much to do to strengthen democracy and the rule of law.
While we joyfully welcome the legislation on a trial, we must give our dedicated support to the positive developments that have started in the country.
Mr President, what we have just seen is an attempt to wreck the Thursday sitting just as Friday's sitting as been done away with, partly by undermining these topical and urgent debates.
However, I would like to say that the subject of Cambodia very much demonstrates the importance of our topical and urgent debates.
As Mr Tannock has quite rightly said, the genocide which took place in Cambodia was often hushed up during the 1980s. No one cared about Cambodia.
It was this House which, following its first direct election in 1979, was the first to give repressed peoples a moral voice, although it had virtually no powers at that time.
And this House took a very special interest in the fate of the people of Cambodia.
I recall that in the 1980s our colleague Otto von Habsburg, who I was working with at the time, regularly got the subject of Cambodia onto the agenda.
And if the Cambodians wanted to communicate with the peoples of Europe, they did it through the European Parliament's debates on topical and urgent subjects of major importance, here in Strasbourg.
A politician who recently died, Son San, a Democrat who trod the difficult path between the Khmer Rouge on the one hand and the pro-Vietnamese puppet regime on the other, gradually pushed ahead the re-establishment of a democratic Cambodia, chiefly with the help of the European Union and of the European Parliament.
Today we have an opportunity to build on this, and I am very pleased that the horrifying genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge will now be properly punished.
But it is also very positive - and I would like to say that Mrs Iivari is quite right here - that we as the European Union have a chance to actively support democracy, the rule of law and plurality in modern Cambodia.
However, this example should make us aware that it is not always a question of absolute power or authority.
This House, thank goodness, now has greater powers as regards external policy than it had 20 years ago.
It is a question of giving those who are deprived of their rights a moral voice and that is one of the primary duties of this House.
Mr President, the Commission has fully supported the efforts of the United Nations and the Cambodian authorities in their attempts to achieve an early agreement on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal.
During the past year, the Commission bilaterally, and together with the EU Member States, has called on the Cambodian government to express its support for the process leading up to the agreement on the Tribunal and has recalled that the Tribunal should meet international standards of justice, fairness and due process.
After some delays in the passing of the legislation, the draft law was adopted by the National Assembly on 2 January and by the Senate on 15 January.
It is now due to be ratified by the Constitutional Council and King Norodom Sihanouk.
While we welcome the adoption of the legislation regarding the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, both by the National Assembly and by the Senate, it should be borne in mind that we are still awaiting the official statement from the United Nations on the draft text.
There are indications that the text is not completely in line with what had been agreed with the United Nations.
Nevertheless, the first reaction from the UN after receiving an unofficial translation, has been cautiously positive, and the Commission hopes, therefore, that the remaining outstanding issues can be resolved so that the UN can improve the new court and the agreement between the Cambodian government and the United Nations can be implemented expeditiously.
One other outstanding issue which the Commission will follow closely is the question of which Khmer Rouge leader will be put on trial.
Although Prime Minister Hun Sen has given assurances that nobody would be immune from prosecution, he has also indicated that this is a very sensitive issue for parts of the Cambodian population.
In particular, Hun Sen has warned that "war could break out" if the Khmer Rouge deputy premier Ieng Sary is put on trial.
So there are very good reasons why we should follow this closely.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place this evening, at 6.30 p.m.
Visa requirements between Russia and Georgia
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5­0056/2001 by Mr Belder, on behalf of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, on the visa regime in existence between Georgia and Russia;
B5­0058/2001 by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the visa regime imposed by the Russian Federation on Georgia;
B5­0061/2001 by Mr Dupuis, Mr Pannella, Mrs Bonino, Mr Turco, Mr Della Vedova, Mr Dell'Alba and Mr Cappato, of the Technical Group of Independent Members, on the visa regime in Georgia;
B5­0064/2001 by Mr Gahrton, Mr Lagendijk, Mrs Schroedter and Mrs Isler Béguin, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the question of visas between Russia and Georgia;
B5­0071/2001 by Mrs Schleicher and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the visa regime imposed by the Russian Federation on Georgia;
B5­0076/2001 by Mr van den Berg, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the visa regime imposed by the Russian Federation on Georgia;
B5­0081/2001 by Mr Markov and Mr Vinci, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the visa regime in force between Georgia and Russia.
Mr President, we can certainly support the thrust of the present resolution. After all, it is a clear departure from the Russian Federation' s unilateral decision to impose a visa obligation on Georgia.
The wording of Paragraph 2 - request for suspension of Moscow' s visa regime vis-à-vis Tbilisi - merits further development in our opinion.
Naturally, we expect both parties to display the will to enter into joint consultation.
Much more serious, in our opinion, is an omission in recital D. It has a direct bearing on the very essence of Georgia' s political stability.
Recital D is right to require safety guarantees to be put in place for the group of approximately 35 000 Georgian refugees, some of whom have now returned to the southern region of Gali or commute there on a daily basis for their work.
The separatist Abkhazian regime is today in power in that region but - bear in mind - this is in the presence of Russian troops, so-called peacekeepers, who assume a purely passive role.
However, what is missing in recital D, is a reference to the large group of Georgian refugees from Abkhazia who have been on Georgian territory until now.
These are an estimated 175,000 to 190,000 refugees and displaced persons, and they are living in truly abject conditions.
It is precisely this specific humanitarian problem which poses a direct threat to the authority of President Shevarnadze.
These days, the refugees from Abkhazia are putting the thumbscrews on Georgian authorities to secure their return home.
In short, they are a continuous source of unrest in Georgia.
A situation which Russia is apparently keen to maintain by not forcing Abkhazia to accept a solution for these refugees. Indeed, various schemes have been outlined under international supervision which the Abkhazians have so far put on hold.
Given these and other highly volatile political situations in the Caucasus, we welcome the suggestion in Paragraph 8 - the appointment of a special European envoy to this strategically and economically important region - with open arms.
A watchful European eye may have a preventive effect on this hotbed, and what is more, our presence will hopefully promote internal compliance with formally signed fundamental rights.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have had to wait a long time to get this resolution on the agenda.
Georgia is a long way away, it is true, and a few years ago, the Balkans seemed just as far away.
We have now seen the outcome of that situation and just how close they are in fact.
I think that, in many respects, Georgia and the Caucasus as a whole already are today what the Balkans were yesterday, the Balkans of the 1990s.
Chechnya, Karabakh, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Georgia as a whole are very frequently experiencing tragic situations.
Georgia today is a country literally in the stranglehold of its larger neighbour, a country being blackmailed through the oil supply, the gas supply, the electricity supply, blackmailed through visas, with this unbelievable discrimination between the citizens of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and those of Georgia.
This situation is the work of Moscow, the new imperialistic policy pursued by President Putin.
Georgia is sinking fast, poverty is becoming widespread and the European Union, if you will excuse the language, does not give a damn, either about Georgia, or about this new focus of conflict at the very gateway to Europe.
No solutions are contemplated, although I do not see why it should not be perfectly possible, in a European Union which will have 450 million members, to have 455 million.
The only solution which might stabilise the whole region, right on Chechnya' s doorstep, and put a brake on Russia' s hold in this region, the only serious proposal, by which I mean a proposal that Georgia should accede to the European Union in due form, has not been made.
We ought at least to recognise that the European Union must, as a matter of urgency, visit Chechnya. This invitation is particularly directed at Commissioner Poul Nielson.
Mr President, Commissioner, he who sows the wind shall inevitably reap the whirlwind.
These words take on their full meaning when applied to the countries of the southern Caucasus. What region of our own continent, or the next, is more crossed by tensions and issues?
What region has a greater need for pacification and normalisation? The southern Caucasus is effectively caught in the pincer grip of regional powers - Russia and Turkey, of conflicts of interest, and hence related military conflicts, from the Nagorno Karabakh plateau to the mountains of Chechnya, or the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The region is stagnating, ossified in political, economic and energy transition processes which continue to exist only in theory.
A situation which has until now been held in a vegetative status quo, which may be considered nonetheless as the lesser evil.
At least, everything was done to defuse the different justifications for war in the framework of an ad hoc stability agreement.
At least the recent incorporation of these three countries, as small geographically as they are strategic regionally, into the Council of Europe could be interpreted as a sign of interest from the nations of Europe, bringing hope of normalisation for the region and a guarantee of a more favourable future for these peoples.
How, then, is the recent unilateral decision by the Russian Government to impose a visa regime for the citizens of Georgia to be interpreted except as deliberate ostracism severing economic trade and historic links between the formerly fraternal Soviet states.
How is this administrative segregation between the citizens of the same country, which is recognised by the international community, the people of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Tbilisi, to be interpreted except as official external ratification overriding the integrity of a sovereign state?
Indeed, is a government bill tabled in the Duma to provide for the possibility of annexing a foreign state, or part thereof, even if there are no borders?
These are just so many deliberate, calculated sallies in Russia' s muddled geopolitical game, and just as many reasons for us to use our votes to express our condemnation of Russia' s machinations involving its former vassal state and to take practical action to assist the political stabilisation of this region and its economic take-off, and, of course, to appoint, as the resolution proposes, a Special Envoy for the Caucasus: since a gust of wind in the southern Caucasus may indeed blow Europe away.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament's delegation for relations with the South Caucasus is deeply concerned about the dramatic events currently being enacted there.
The unilateral imposition of a visa regime on Georgia, with the exception of two regions of Georgia, will create new divisions in a country which is a member of the Council of Europe, wishes to develop democratically, and with which we have concluded an agreement precisely in order to support it in all areas.
These developments are leading to tensions with neighbouring states and to huge obstacles for the Georgians themselves, some of whom work in the Russian Federation and are now experiencing difficulties. In order to obtain a visa, they have to travel back to Tiflis.
In some cases they cannot even afford to do this.
And the other side is that these disruptions will also have economic consequences.
We are very much concerned that because of its oil reserves the entire South Caucasus is now at the mercy of commercial interests and has also become a European trouble spot.
We should not just wring our hands about this, we should actually do everything in our power.
We know from our Georgian friends in national parliaments and from the embassy, which has contacted us, that they really are in dire straits, and that they fear further developments, especially as a wedge is being driven between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which Moscow evidently regards as greater friends.
Georgia fears that it will become isolated.
So these are truly dramatic events.
At the end of December, gas pipelines from Russia to Georgia were even blocked on the alleged grounds that payments had not been made, even though the financing arrangements were quite different.
So these are all things which when explained logically sound quite harmless, but which demonstrate to us that the situation has dramatically intensified over the last six months.
We are therefore asking the Commission to consider, in conjunction with the Council, whether we could not review and work out a better approach to these conflict situations, based on appropriate decisions which will help people there who want to build a democratic society and seek a peaceful future, and to support Georgia in observing human rights and complying with the other obligations it has entered into within the Council of Europe.
It is very hard in these difficult circumstances for Georgia to observe all its current human rights obligations.
That is why we are calling on the Commission to act here.
We have made requests and have largely reached cross-party agreement in Parliament that something should be done.
We need to work together to come up with solutions which will promote a peaceful way forward.
Mr President, I would like to firmly support Mrs Schleicher, who has worked with great commitment on behalf of the Caucasian region and in this case Georgia in particular.
We all know what these reprisals are about.
On the one hand they are linked with geo-strategic interests and with energy and oil interests, and on the other hand they are associated with the brutal war being waged to eradicate the people of Chechnya.
It is very clear to us what is being attempted here - to destabilise Georgia, just as Chechnya has been destabilised.
We all have an interest in preserving what is in any case very fragile nationhood and in supporting the first faltering steps towards democracy in this region and in Georgia.
That is why I would like to call on the Commissioner to pay even greater attention to this region.
Humanitarian aid in particular has a strong stabilising effect in addition to its purely humanitarian function.
I am delighted that a delegation from our neighbours, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, is currently visiting Chechnya, and I wish to appeal to the Commissioner to travel to Georgia and Chechnya in the near future and have a close look at the human rights situation there on the spot, just as the Council of Europe is doing in such a thorough way.
I appeal to the Commissioner to make our humanitarian aid the number one political priority - the Caucasian region has been a priority for the USA and for Russia for a long time. I say this because I have the feeling that the European Union, apart from Mrs Schleicher, who is doing marvellous work, is failing to take up this challenge.
We must not allow ourselves to repeat the mistake we made with the Balkans, where we also woke up to the situation too late, and again attract opprobrium by doing too little too late.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying a few words about humanitarian assistance to this region.
We are the single most important provider of humanitarian assistance to the northern Caucasus and, over the years, we have also been the main provider of humanitarian assistance to the southern Caucasus region.
A year ago exactly I was in North Ossetia and I tried to get into Chechnya but the Russian authorities would not allow this for security reasons.
But we are still there.
Right now our biggest problem is the abduction of the men who worked for one of the organisations we are funding in Chechnya.
This, of course, has caused a great deal of concern.
The immediate reaction was to withdraw from Chechnya.
However, many organisations in Russia have urged us to reconsider this and to come back.
As a humanitarian provider this puts us in a dilemma.
On the one hand, we need to be there, and we are very pleased that Parliament understands the need for ECHO to operate on the basis of a "remote control operation" in these circumstances.
On the other hand, sometimes it is a little too easy for us to tell the organisations we are funding to go there - it is the voluntary staff who have to go.
We have to find a balance that is ethically acceptable as a donor.
At the moment we are reconsidering whether or not to go back to Chechnya, as we are needed there.
Let me turn to Georgia.
The EU has already expressed serious concern over the Russian Federation's unilateral decision to introduce visa requirements for Georgian citizens.
The entire international community, including Russia, is committed to supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the independent states.
Applying a special visa regime or allowing exemptions for the inhabitants of secessionist regions could imply support for the legitimacy of their regimes and undermine Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
In addition to the introduction of visa requirements, Georgia has faced a number of other crises in its relations with Russia in recent months, in particular, over interruptions in gas supplies, the pace of withdrawal of military bases and rescheduling discussions with the Paris Club.
Concerning Russian gas supplies to Georgia, we urge that all actions are based exclusively on commercial and contractual considerations.
I want to stress that it is in Russia's interests to be seen as an internationally credible and reliable gas supplier.
I say this as a European.
We are naturally concerned about the humanitarian, social and economic consequences for the Georgian people, as well as the overall stability in the Caucasus.
Russia too has no interest in seeing increased instability in the Caucasus.
Georgia is a member of the UN, the OSCE and the Council of Europe and it has a partnership and cooperation agreement with the EU.
It deserves our support.
We call upon the states of the region to use the mechanisms of the OSCE, as well as any other appropriate peaceful instruments, to resolve that dispute quickly.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place this afternoon at 6.30 p.m.
Human rights
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Situation in Turkish prisons - B5-0059/2001 by Mr Duff, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the situation in Turkish prisons;
B5-0065/2001 by Mr Cohn­Bendit and Mr Lagendijk, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the situation in Turkish prisons;
B5­0072/2001 by Mr Van Orden, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the situation in Turkish prisons;
B5-0077/2001 by Mr van den Berg, Mr Katiforis, Mr Sakellariou and Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the operation by the Turkish government to end the hunger strikes in its prisons;
B5-0082/2001 by Mrs Uca, Mrs Morgantini, Mrs Ainardi, Mr Sjöstedt, Mr Cossutta, Mr Korakas, Mr Miranda, Mr Seppänen, Mrs Frahm, Mr Papayannakis and Mr Theonas, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on Turkish prisons.
Situation in Algeria- B5-0062/2001 by Mrs Caullery, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, and Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the situation in Algeria;
B5-0066/2001 by Mrs Flautre, Mr Cohn-Bendit and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the human rights situation in Algeria;
B5-0083/2001 by Mrs Boudjenah and Mrs Eriksson, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the situation in Algeria;
B5-0086/2001 by Mr Obiols i Germà, Mr van den Berg and Mrs Napoletano, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the political situation in Algeria.
Situation in Turkish prisons
(Verts/ALE).
(IT) Mr President, one year after Helsinki we have been following events in Turkey with anguish and apprehension. Thirty-three people were killed when the security forces intervened on 19 December, and what news is available on the state of health of those detainees forcibly transferred who have been on hunger strike since 20 October last, remains alarming.
And we can only condemn the campaign of systematic repression and the ban on any expression of support for the prisoners, which has targeted human rights organisations in the first instance.
We are well aware that the situation in Turkish prisons means we cannot ignore the violence and intransigence of certain prisoners and the fact that, in some cases, the Turkish authorities had lost control of whole sections of the prisons, as well as the constant reports from various authoritative sources of summary executions of prisoners who have tried to detach themselves from the organisations they belong to, and lots being drawn to select which prisoners are to fast until death.
But it has been demonstrated that the Turkish government is incapable of ensuring peace and security in the prisons without the excessive and ineffective use of force, so it is the Turkish government that bears prime responsibility for what has happened and it must find the remedy for it.
The remedy cannot be blind repression and paranoia about security.
It is the Turkish government' s duty to prevent an already tense situation taking root and deepening into hopeless violence, boosting and strengthening violent and extremist groups and parties.
It is up to the government to act.
Obviously the European Union, like all of us, has a direct interest in a process of stabilisation and peace, and we hope it will be rapid.
We have the clear duty to report and evaluate any progress towards greater respect for human rights in Turkey, which is why our group strongly supports the idea of sending a delegation into the Turkish prisons as soon as possible.
Mr President, the recent events in Turkish prisons are tragic by any standards and it is an enormous pity that the situation had been allowed to deteriorate over such a long period with the almost inevitable consequences.
However, these events must be put in context and we should acknowledge the resolve of the Turkish authorities to introduce a more human, acceptable, and indeed controllable, prison regime.
As relations between the European Union and Turkey develop in an increasingly positive manner, we need to take a measured approach in our comments on Turkey's problems.
At the same time our relationship with the Turkish authorities should be sufficiently robust that we can make justifiable criticisms.
I have to say that in the United Kingdom in the past we too have had difficulties in maintaining the right prison regime for those convicted or detained for terrorist offences.
We too have had situations where terrorists have more or less had total control over their accommodation and recreation areas and we too have had to deal with the tragedy of hunger strikes.
It is not easy.
The prisons themselves take on symbolic significance.
The situation in the prisons becomes yet another facet of the armed struggle against the established government.
We should keep this perspective in mind.
Turning to the resolution itself we rightly deplore recent events but my feeling is that we should be more welcoming and encouraging concerning the reforms initiated by the Turkish Government.
After all Turkey is responding to the demands that we placed upon her to bring her prisons more into line with European systems.
We should remember that many of the inmates are revolutionaries who will accept nothing short of control of their situation.
Of course a prison regime must be humane and there must be mechanisms to enable prisoners to express legitimate grievances.
This is in everyone's interests but we cannot expect governments to negotiate with prisoners over their conditions and regimes.
The current problems started because the armed groups were not prepared to concede control over the prisons to the authorities.
The response by the security forces is not the cause but the consequence of the problem.
The Turkish security forces had to retake the prisons by force facing organised armed opposition and the circumstances of many deaths is not clear while of course every death is a tragedy.
I know that the Turkish authorities are greatly saddened by recent events.
They are also thoroughly committed to reform and open to close cooperation with the Commission and with the Union and its Member States on reform of the penal system.
They see this as part of the natural process of adopting the acquis.
We should rightly express our concern at what has happened and that the situation was allowed to deteriorate so far.
Let us now offer all possible professional advice and assistance and encourage rapid reform without giving further opportunities to undemocratic forces who seek to overthrow the Turkish Government and frustrate Turkey's progress towards membership of the European Union.
Mr President, I would say to Mr Van Orden: you had to release your own Irish political prisoners almost with military honours.
I remember the scenes on the BBC.
These are problems which cannot be resolved by violence but only by political solutions.
Mr President, today's debate and subsequent vote follow on from the debate which we held in this House on 14 December last year, when the urgent vote was cancelled following the decision by the three political groups to withdraw their motions.
That decision was a gesture of confidence on the part of the European Parliament in the will and the ability of the Turkish authorities to manage the hunger strike crisis in a non-violent, humane and efficient manner.
In fact, the motion for a resolution by our fellow members in the liberal group, which is signed by the honourable Mr Duff, states that Parliament is satisfied with the Turkish government's decision to postpone its plans to transfer prisoners to these prisons and to obtain the society's consent to the reform of the prison system.
Similar hopes were expressed in the resolution of the group of the Greens signed by Mr Cohn-Bendit, which quoted statements made by the Turkish Minister of Justice.
Some members may have been won over by the arguments set out in the letter on the matter from His Excellency the Ambassador of Turkey, who again did us the honour of sending us what is now his customary letter in such cases, in which he stressed that the Turkish government was handling the matter with the utmost seriousness and that Parliament needed to leave superficialities to one side when dealing with matters as important as the prison system in Turkey.
In the wake of all of which, honourable members, how tragic that the superficiality of the European Parliament has proven, in this case at least, to be closer to the mark than the seriousness and political maturity of the Turkish authorities.
As you know, a few days later, on 20 December, army and police divisions went on the attack in order, naturally, to save the prisoners' lives, as the Turkish ambassador informs us in another letter. Twenty-four prisoners were killed and 131 were wounded during this attack.
And, of course, three Turkish soldiers also died. And what is the upshot of all this bloodshed?
The hunger strike in the Turkish prisons is continuing on a massive scale, making it impossible to exclude the possibility of more attacks, more deaths and more bloodshed.
Our joint motion for a resolution quite rightly suggests the need to avoid further tragedy and therefore calls on the Turkish government to take immediate non-violent measures to avoid any such developments.
That is our main demand.
Of course, what we also need is an objective inquiry with international guarantees and for responsibility to be apportioned for what happened on 20 December.
I think we also need the situation to be addressed with the assistance and under the supervision of the European Union. I talk of supervision because Turkey is, of course, a candidate country and its candidature must meet the Copenhagen criteria, which are damaged by such incidents, incidents which, of course, are recorded by us and, I assume, by the Commission, which is called on in our resolution to specifically mention the situation in Turkish prisons in its annual report.
These are, I am sorry to say, the stubborn facts and they are not counterbalanced by the overbearing, not to say insulting tone of the advice meted out by Turkey's representatives to the European Parliament.
Mr President, it really is virtually pointless to discuss how Turkish prisons should be organised.
Last week, I received a great deal of material from the Turkish delegation of the Parliament dealing precisely with the internal conditions in these prisons.
I do not think, however, that the problems we are basically discussing are about the good or bad treatment of offenders.
A great many of the prisoners in Turkish jails are, after all, convicted for political offences.
It stands to reason that they will continue their political struggle as political prisoners.
In this way, the efforts of the Turkish Government involving military troops and repressive measures also becomes part of a political battle directed against the Kurds and other minorities that populate the Turkish prisons.
The situation is totally impossible for Turkish society and the Turkish Government.
A totally different approach must be taken.
The political parties and the popular movements in Turkey must be allowed to operate as freely as parties and movements in the rest of Europe.
The battle between different forces must be fought by peaceful means.
As long as that is not happening, I cannot see how there would be any possibility of Turkey' s becoming a Member of the European Union.
The Turkish Government must show the way.
It must be accepted that Turkey consists of different national and cultural groups which must all have the same rights.
Languages and cultures must be accepted in the schools, especially in the Kurd-dominated areas.
I believe that the only thing that can be done is to grant amnesty to these political prisoners and to release them from jail.
When this happens, there will be no more problems in Turkish prisons than in English, German or French prisons.
Mr President, when a debate on the unacceptable situation in Turkish prisons was scheduled during the last plenary session of the European Parliament in December 2000, and the relevant motions for resolutions were withdrawn due to a lack of coordination between the political groups involved, the disturbance in the Turkish prisons was still in its infancy and the reaction of the Turkish authorities had not yet manifested itself in all its barbarity.
Of course, for a less problematic country than Turkey, the very fact that the European Parliament intended to take an interest in the matter would be incentive enough to put a stop to any thought of violating its legal and moral obligations.
Turkey, however, did exactly the opposite, confirming yet again that it is indeed a problematic country.
It blatantly and disdainfully ignored the Parliament of the European Union, which it nonetheless aspires to join and, applying its favourite standard practice, engaged just a few days later in the shameless slaughter of dozens of prisoners, provoking an international outcry.
Today's condemnatory - and in my view excessively lenient - resolution is, nonetheless, the obvious and a positive albeit, unfortunately, inadequate reaction in the case of Turkey, which has repeatedly proven that it is indifferent to such reprimands.
So what we need, at long last, is for the European Union and the wider international community to deal with Turkey - in deed not just word - using the same weights and measures and the same rules as those used in similar problematic cases in order to impose respect for democratic principles, human rights and the rule of law, i.e. without postponing expedient political and other action and interests and without showing tolerant understanding of so-called Turkish idiosyncrasies.
And as regards the European Union in particular, to make it crystal clear at long last to Turkey and to its non-European supporters, not just in words but - I repeat - with deeds, that the door by which Turkey is to enter the European family, even though there is some doubt as to whether it belongs there, will remain very firmly shut unless it absolutely and unreservedly brings its internal and international conduct into line with the rudimentary rules of law and ethics which underpin the workings of a modern cultivated society.
Mr President, I should like to start, on behalf of the Communist Party of Greece and the Greek people in general, by expressing our solidarity both with the political prisoners in Turkey and with all the Turkish people who suffer under the Turkish regime.
I should then like to point out that every crime has its perpetrators and its accessories.
There are those who commit the crime and there are those who aid and abet.
The perpetrator here is, of course, the Turkish regime which, a priori, sees every left-winger, every Communist and every Kurd as a terrorist, whom it then tries to eliminate.
The accessories, however, are more serious; they are the international imperialist system, the United States, ÍÁÔÏ and the European Union, all of which have tremendous economic, strategic and political interests in Turkey and are using all possible means to support the militaristic regime in Turkey, the regime which has no qualms about opening fire, because what we had here was not in fact a case of political prisoners setting themselves on fire; it was a case of their being killed with flamethrowers.
So these accessories need to be sentenced, the accessories who granted Turkey candidate status, the accessories who do nothing to help the political prisoners.
We identified the problem back in August, we asked on more than two occasions for the president of the European Parliament to intervene - and nothing was done - and the last time we called for intervention was when the attack had already been carried out - and again nothing was done.
I am afraid that the resolution before us is very weak, it barely even condemns the action by the Turkish regime; more importantly, it does not condemn those who are behind the Turkish regime.
It would, of course, be strange if those who yesterday applauded the war criminal Javier Solana were to take a different attitude towards Turkey.
Mr President, the resolutions of three political groups were withdrawn during the last part-session under obscure circumstances and today we are debating a joint motion for a resolution by five groups on the same subject.
This is not the time to assess what has happened and what has changed and what we perhaps encouraged with our attitude.
Turkey is a candidate country for membership of the European Union.
However, there is evidence of doublespeak on several counts and the matter is very serious.
I personally am in favour of Turkey's European prospects.
However, we have noticed - even recently - that people who have played and who still play an important role in European developments, such as former chancellors Kohl and Schmidt, tend to be in favour of Turkey's European prospects when they are talking as politicians but, when speaking at private seminars and conferences, maintain that Turkey has no place in the European Union.
This conflict of words paints us into a political corner.
Perhaps, politically, it helps those who we say want an economic Europe; however, it does not help the political Europe which interests the European Parliament.
So as long as certain parties behave in a way which gives the impression that the system which currently has the upper hand in Turkey could take hold in Europe, then we are again painted into a corner.
Why? Because every time we look for arguments against Turkey's European prospects, we find them in Turkey's failure to adapt to European practices.
And the prospect of adaptation must be an absolute effort as far as we are concerned.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must be absolute and we must be fair: absolute as regards compliance with European criteria by Turkey, as regards its prospects, and fair as regards the way in which we control them.
This policy serves us, it serves Turkey and it serves its people.
If, for any reason, we are not absolute on matters of respect for human rights, democracy, freedom and, at the same time, compliance with international law, then we shall not be doing either ourselves or Turkey any favours.
Situation in Algeria
Mr President, at the start of this part-session, the request from our group, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, for a debate on the situation in Algeria was accepted.
The reception accorded this request was just what one might expect, namely a wave of fine feelings, fine but perfectly gratuitous, on the part of the usual ranks of those for whom the all-purpose defence of human rights has become a sort of knee-jerk reaction in the place of any real political analysis, sometimes, as is the case for at least a few, with no result other than to hide more obscure intentions.
So our own message is not compassionate but political.
We, of course, wish to express our distress at the heinous violence which bruises the Algerian nation a little more each day, but we are also aware that the Algerians have had more than enough compassion.
Since, thanks to the courageous policy of their president, President Bouteflika, it has been demonstrated - and that at least is an achievement - that no voice of reason, no promise of amnesty, no attempt at reconciliation, in a word, no political solution will be accepted by the fanatics. We must take action, and we must recognise that those Member States that grant their leaders asylum, and sometimes more than that, are well and truly guilty of collusion in the events we are condemning here, with each speaker outdoing the last in a spiral of hypocrisy.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the heart of the matter.
Several Member States are actually guilty of conniving with the perpetrators of massacres.
They express regret officially, whilst, behind the scenes, protecting, concealing and welcoming. Sometimes they even welcome in France, in full knowledge, the perpetrators of criminal acts committed in my own country.
We believe that any proper defence of human rights must begin with the reinforcement of the rule of law in Algeria and must contribute towards ensuring the authority of a government and a president elected in what we persist in considering democratic elections.
Democratic human rights monitoring should not apply exclusively to the established governments.
I am thinking in particular of the other countries of North Africa, Morocco, Tunisia and Libya.
It must also help support them, in particular, aside from all the details which have been blown up out of all proportion, when they come up against such an indiscriminate killing frenzy, which is all the more dangerous because it is secretly supported by external powers, powers which are not even European, if you get my drift, and which are taking advantage of an unstable situation to pull strings behind the scenes, working through these fanatics.
The old games between empires are at work, and the victim is not just the Algerian people, but Algeria itself, and its oldest and ultimately most faithful friends.
So, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us attempt once and for all to get a clear grasp of the state of affairs in Algeria.
Yes, there are external forces at work in Algeria.
Yes, once again Algeria, although, admittedly laying itself open to this with its centuries-old internecine divides, has been given over to power struggles and my own country, France, which undoubtedly bears some responsibility towards this country, will continue to accept them in the name of ancestral friendship and to ensure that the government and the president which the country has chosen succeed in ensuring as best they can in the face of instability and certain external machinations - including, I repeat, by some of our friends - peace and the authority of a state which is, even today, a constitutional state.
Mr President, Commissioner, we must not lose hope.
The hopes raised in Algeria and throughout the world by President Bouteflika' s civil concord initiative must not give way to the disenchanted view that there is really nothing that can be done in this country to eradicate violence and establish the rule of law.
In the same way that we have made a commitment to supporting those who, in the Basque country, have rebelled against indiscriminate terrorism, it is our duty to do all we can to support those in favour of concord and reconciliation in Algeria.
It is Europe' s duty, and it is also in its interest.
It is in Europe' s interest to extend the area of peace and stability which it has succeeded in establishing within Europe to the southern Mediterranean, by continuing the Barcelona Process.
It is in Europe' s interest to listen to the appeals it receives from the whole of the continent of Africa to re-establish forms of cooperation which will easily turn a page on the painful history of decolonisation.
We Europeans must become aware that we have as much to gain as to offer in getting this off the ground.
Our own future will depend on the way we succeed in assisting the continent of Africa to emerge from poverty and chaos.
I am resolutely opposed to the temptation to seal ourselves off in a Fortress Europe which would be bound, one day, by its very nature, to find itself under siege.
That is why I shall support the joint motion for a resolution which will be put to the vote in this House shortly.
On this occasion, I would ask our Algerian partners to understand that we certainly do not want to look like we are sermonising out of some sort of feeling of superiority, but as people of goodwill, determined to assist them, if they so wish, in putting an end to their current tragic plight and to re-establishing with them, in future, the bonds of friendship which have linked us throughout history.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in Algeria, the month of Ramadan has been marked by a new escalation in the terror: after all the dreadful massacres which have taken place since 1991, at the start of the civil war, not to mention the thousands of people traumatised or missing, and the anguish and terror of their families.
Despite the civil concord law initiated by president Bouteflika, there has been no halt to the violence.
The Algerian people still aspire to peace and reconciliation, yet these appear to be irreconcilable with lack of punishment.
As the international human rights organisations have shown, the fight against Islamist terrorism is being waged illegally.
It is crucial for the Algerian authorities to agree to bring all those responsible for all these crimes before the courts.
In this context, one question arises.
What is the meaning of the apparent impotence and passivity of the armed forces? In Algeria, no one can deny the intransigence of the senior military hierarchy which has been in power for 39 years, blocking the political system and cultivating a lack of transparency.
For too long Europe has elected not to intervene in events in Algeria, siding with the established administration.
We need urgently to adjust our simplistic Manichaean view which sees Islamism as solely responsible for the current deterioration.
Algerian society is deeply stricken by widespread corruption and social and economic exclusion.
Europe' s failure to adopt a strong position entails the risk that the social forces for change, which offer hope for the future and which are attempting to free themselves of the pressures relating to power, will be endangered and smothered.
By remaining attentive to the threats affecting the people, and by making it possible to recognise a right of asylum, solid bridges may be built between the two sides of the Mediterranean.
In order to help Algeria to gain democratic freedoms, relations should cease to be purely a matter of state, but should be in the interests of the peoples.
Let us never forget that any infringements of rights primarily affect the working classes and provide an ideal breeding ground for all sorts of extremism.
Mr President, last Tuesday night, 11 people were murdered at a false roadblock in the Ain Defla province; on Saturday, 24 December, a young cabaret singer was murdered in a discotheque in the town of Annaba; a week before that, 16 high school students were savagely murdered inside their own boarding school.
Algeria has just experienced its bloodiest Ramadan for two years.
Over two hundred people - men, women, children, the elderly - have been murdered; girls have been abducted and raped.
The horrendous, barbarous and inhuman violence perpetrated by the Islamist guerrilla groups appears to be on the increase, if indeed it ever actually ceased.
This information is obtained mainly from the newspapers.
Indeed the relative official silence, except perhaps in the case of foreigners, can only be regretted.
So I should like to pay tribute to the Algerian press, one of the most independent in the Arab world, which has paid such a high price at the hands of those who are implacably opposed to any form of freedom of expression and who dream of an uneducated people subject to their diktats.
Yet, in the last year, and more, thousands of terrorists are supposed to have surrendered their weapons in return for a total amnesty.
The election of President Bouteflika had given the people hope, but we are forced to acknowledge that the path taken by the 'civil concord law' is a very long way from leading to peace.
Even though the Algerian people displayed remarkable resistance in order to reject fundamentalism, the amnesty for such murders - described by some as crimes against humanity - and the lack of punishment enforced upon the perpetrators of these crimes appear to have exonerated them to the point that they are continuing their murderous work.
Surely attention should be paid instead to the opinions of the associations of the families of the victims of terrorism, which are outraged that they have received no form of compensation while 'penitent' Islamist rebels are given financial support in order to be reintegrated into society?
Surely the doubly courageous fight of Algerian women should be recognised, since they are the main victims of terrorism yet, at the same time, still subjected to a family code which flouts their most basic rights?
Finally, the economic and social situation is also perilous, when it already proved a propitious breeding ground for the rise of Islamism in the 1980s.
Subject to intense external pressures - I am thinking of debt - Algeria finds itself in a crisis which has already led to an unprecedented rise in unemployment.
More than ever, solidarity with the democrats and with an Algeria which is fighting against terrorism and death and for a free future is urgently needed.
Mr President, much has already been said by other Members.
This new terrorist tragedy where even three-year-old toddlers are killed without hesitation takes us back to a situation we hoped was behind us. While we all recognise that, sadly, Algeria will have to live with terrorism for some time to come, this upsurge during Ramadan is turning the clock back.
We did hope President Bouteflika' s initiative would have a positive effect, but the events of the last few days give us cause for concern.
That is why, like other Members, I believe we must not hesitate to condemn terrorism and offer full cooperation to the Algerian government to defeat it.
Having said that, we must not let the terrorism obscure the genuine progress being made towards democracy and the rule of law, and the fight against terrorism cannot justify the continued domination of Algeria by the opaque, inscrutable power of the army.
So, on his visit, President Prodi was right to sign an agreement and to give EUR 5 million to bolster the independent press and establish a statute for journalists.
I think that is exactly what needed to be done, along with offering victims of violence asylum in our countries. Unfortunately, that is not possible in some of them, while it has been possible, on the other hand, to provide hospitality for many terrorists who have organised very dangerous networks from there.
Finally, I think we should consider sending a delegation to Algeria.
It is a long time since Parliament visited that country and the first thing we need to do is find out exactly what is going on.
Mr President, why is there a deafening silence when it comes to Europe' s response to the mass-scale crimes in Algeria? This silence is in stark contrast with our condemnation of what else goes wrong in the world.
The massacres in Algeria have not ceased.
People continue to mysteriously disappear.
Torture is still the order of the day.
In the past year alone, two to three hundred people were killed each month in the most appalling way.
If we take stock of ten years of excessive violence, the statistics are horrifying.
One hundred and fifty-thousand people killed and another ten thousand people vanished. That is twice as many as under the Pinochet regime.
President Buteflika made fine promises to curb violence, enter into dialogue and look into disappearances.
But little of these promises has been translated into action.
People still go unpunished.
Barbarians who in the dead of night carry out monstrous slaughterings, continue to get off scot-free.
Similarly, security troops who are guilty of wrong-doings are not being brought to justice.
Plenty of reason, therefore, to take the Algerian authorities to task about this. But why, in fact, is this not being done?
Is it because of the French business interests in the former colony? Are the Member States keeping quiet because they are hoping to secure some lucrative business deals themselves?
Are we fearful about Algerian terrorism in our own countries?
Or is it mainly the fear of further fanning the flames of Muslim fundamentalism?
The most fundamental task of the state is to protect its people. It is shameful how the Algerian authorities do not come up to the mark in this respect.
It is high time that the European Union took a stand for the sake of the Algerian population and put its own interests second.
The violence has got to stop.
An association agreement must be struck at the earliest opportunity, thus allowing us to intensify the political dialogue.
My question to the Commissioner is the following: what is the latest? For we cannot keep quiet any longer.
The Commission shares Parliament's concern about the situation of the Turkish prisoners who are still on hunger strike.
The health of certain of these prisoners is a matter of serious concern.
It calls upon the Turkish authorities to seek a peaceful solution.
In any event, the Turkish security forces should exercise restraint.
Concerning the operations conducted by police and army in 20 prisons in December last year, the Commission expects that investigations will be carried out into the causes of the deaths and the casualties which occurred during these operations and that those responsible will be identified.
Allegations of torture and ill treatment of prisoners during their transfer after the operations should also be investigated.
The Commission recalls that the improvement of detention conditions in Turkish prisons is addressed in the accession partnership for Turkey which received political approval by the Council on 4 December 2000.
In the accession partnership, the improvement of the detention conditions to bring them into line with the UN standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners and other international norms is considered as a priority.
Turning now to Algeria, I can say the following: The Commission backs the Algerian authorities' efforts to bring about national reconciliation and end the violence.
Democracy, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms are key principles that the European Union applies even-handedly to all its partners.
We applaud Algeria's acceptance of the relevant clause in the negotiations for an association agreement.
The violence, however, produces new victims every month.
We are particularly concerned by the upsurge of violence during Ramadan which claimed many lives across the country.
Algeria must also find a way of addressing the past crimes of terrorists who have renounced violence.
Though understanding the difficulty of tackling terrorism in Algeria, the Commission nevertheless remains concerned at the human rights violations and, in particular, the disappearances.
It is vital that resolute action be taken against retrograde moves and violations in the matter of human rights.
We continue to raise these issues at every level of the political dialogue with the Algerian authorities.
Mr Prodi, for example, stressed the need to restore peace throughout the country during his visit to Algiers on 12 and 13 January.
As part of this approach and in order to provide material support for Algeria's efforts, the Commission, represented by Mr Prodi, has signed financing agreements granting EUR 13 million for two human rights projects.
One consists of support for the country's media and journalists and the other one relates to modernisation and educating the police force, making it able to work as a police force should in a democracy.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Depending on when the debate ends, the vote will take place at around 5.30 p.m.
As you know, after the topical and urgent debate, we will have a short break until 5.30 p.m. and then the decision will be taken as to whether or not to postpone the debate on the Deprez report.
The vote will then take place after the discussion on the Deprez report at 5.30 p.m. instead of at 6.30 p.m.
International Criminal Court
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0060/2001 by Mrs Malmström, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the ratification of the Treaty of Rome to establish the International Criminal Court;
B5-0067/2001 by Mrs Frassoni and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group on the speedy establishment of a truly permanent International Criminal Court;
B5-0069/2001 by Mrs Bonino and others, on behalf of the TDI on the speedy entry into force of the Treaty of Rome on the International Criminal Court;
B5-0073/2001 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on the ratification of the Treaty of Rome to establish the International Criminal Court.
B5-0078/2001 by Mr Sakellariou and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the ratification of the Treaty of Rome to establish the International Criminal Court.
B5-0085/2001 by Mr di Lello Finuoli and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the International Criminal Court.
Mr President, I welcome the fact that this matter features on the agenda here today, for the International Criminal Court is doing well.
The deadline for the states to sign this Treaty of Rome was 31 December.
We all know how difficult is was to bring it about.
Despite this, we saw how in the very last days of 2000, all of a sudden a huge number of countries signed the Treaty.
At the time, 120 countries voted in favour and 7 against.
At present, more than 130 countries have signed it, including the United States which originally voted against it, but also Israel, Iran and Yugoslavia signed it at the last moment.
At any rate, this widespread support for the Treaty demonstrates that the Treaty cannot be considered a northern-hemisphere treaty or one of developed countries.
The support for it is far too widespread for that.
We now need to ratify the Treaty, and that is what the resolution is about.
It is a joy to see that 27 countries have already ratified it, eight of which are in the European Union, but Sweden, the United Kingdom, Portugal, the Netherlands, Ireland, Greece and Denmark have not yet signed it.
They are thinking about it, but it has not yet happened.
Of all the applicant countries, not one single country has ratified it, and Turkey did not even sign it.
We therefore need to roll up our sleeves, and we call on the Council to add this matter to the agenda.
It is important for Europe to take the lead.
That is something we can do ourselves, and we should not just lay the blame on others in the process.
We can take action, and it is important that we do so without further delay.
Mr President, I will be brief. The next speaker but one on the list is down as Mr Franz Xaver Mayer.
But it is Mr Hans-Peter Mayer who will be speaking for our group.
One is a first-class politician on agricultural matters; the other is a first-class jurist.
I simply wanted to clarify that for you to avoid there being any confusion about who will speak.
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
You are as it were our resident lookout.
Nothing escapes you!
Thank you for pointing that out.
I am sure that I would have noticed later on, because the right Mr Mayer is also in the Chamber.
(Verts/ALE). (IT) Mr President, I must say I do envy Mr Posselt his powers as a tribune, which not all of us in this House possess.
However, the twenty-seven countries which have ratified the Treaty of Rome include eight Member States of the European Union, while the other seven have failed to respond to the call.
That is one of the paradoxes of the European Union and it is also a consequence of the lack of a genuine common foreign policy.
Indeed, what other motive can there be for the Member States of the Union which have not yet ratified the court statute, apart from hesitation about a real, significant further transfer of sovereignty and a certain lack of confidence in themselves, perhaps still fearing that one day they may somehow find themselves in the uncomfortable position of the accused?
That obviously applies even more to the other major players on the international scene.
It was right to note, as we did in our resolution, that President Clinton signed the Treaty of Rome at the end of last year, but it is legitimate to wonder if he would have done so had the Florida vote chanced to give the victory to Al Gore.
There is still a long road, fraught with obstacles, to be covered before the court can actually start work. As the resolution suggests, it is vital to prevent changes to the statute and there needs to be action to bring the implementing regulation rapidly into force or, at least, finalise it.
We hope the European Union will make this one of its foreign policy priorities since we are all in agreement, in theory, and we also hope Parliament can continue to play an influential role to make the court a reality, putting the issue of the criminal court on the agenda for every meeting of the mixed delegations, and supporting and adopting resolutions like the one we will be voting on shortly.
I therefore regret the fact that the joint motion for a resolution does not pick up the issue of the mixed delegations, but I fully endorse the proposal and hope we will be able to adopt it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in a few minutes Parliament will be adopting a resolution on the International Criminal Court for the eighth time in four years.
This is evidence of Parliament' s determination and resolve in following, step by step, the slow development of an increasingly necessary international justice - as demonstrated by the cases of Milosevic, Mladic, Pinochet and so many others. They are now beginning to lose the impunity which has so far ensured that so many assassins and criminals have been able to carry on in their posts undisturbed, and even take retirement with full honours.
It also demonstrates how committed Parliament is to that development, pointing the way for the European Union in many cases.
I remember the early resolutions, when we called loudly for a European Union with 15 Member States united and resolute in this fight, defending the essential principles of the court: the independence of the prosecutor, the court' s autonomy in trying criminals, the definition of the purpose of the court' s mandate and so on.
Those objectives have been achieved.
Mrs Frassoni has rightly stressed the importance of confirming those objectives and defending the content of the statute from those who sign up to it - such as Clinton, for instance, or others - to continue to belong to the Court Assembly of Member Parties, but actually in order to influence the negotiations negatively, even seeking exemption for American soldiers.
Exemption is not what is needed; what is needed is to achieve the sixtieth ratification as soon as possible. That is the real test for the fifteen.
I hope the issue will be on the agenda in our relations with third countries, and I hope the seven countries of the Union which have not yet ratified the statute will do so this year.
Mr President, it does indeed cause some confusion when two people have the same surname and not even the parliamentary staff are able to distinguish between them.
Our post also gets mixed up sometimes for the same reason.
Following the horrific events of the Second World War, the United Nations refloated the idea of setting up an international criminal court.
Further impetus was given to this initiative by the violations of international law in Yugoslavia and the massacres in Rwanda.
Some people are asking where the International Criminal Court will have jurisdiction compared with the courts which already exist.
The ECJ in Luxembourg rules on the application and interpretation of the treaties of the European Union.
The International Court of Justice in The Hague rules on international disputes.
The International Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg passes judgement on violations by States of rights arising from the Human Rights Convention.
The International Criminal Court is being set up for the four particularly serious crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of aggression.
Until now the United Nations has authorised special courts, for example the ad hoc criminal tribunals for the crimes committed in Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
In the future, the International Criminal Court will send out a clear signal that perpetrators of any of these crimes will be prosecuted and punished.
War criminals will no longer be able to hide behind the borders of sovereignty.
The new Court is an important achievement for the international community which will allow it to close loopholes in criminal prosecution.
I should therefore like to call on all of the Member States to ratify the Statute soon, and I would recommend adoption of the resolution.
Mr President, this joint motion for a resolution on the ratification of the Rome Treaty to establish the permanent International Criminal Court comes at an opportune moment.
Only yesterday in this House we debated our priorities for the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
The Swedish prime minister once again reiterated the importance of human rights during the Swedish Presidency.
The discussion this afternoon is yet another vivid reminder of injustices around the world.
Therefore it must follow, and I hope the House will agree, that if we are serious about the human rights of men, women and children, then we must have a permanent International Criminal Court to prosecute those who carry out or commission crimes against humanity.
We need a criminal court with international jurisdiction, which can independently judge those accused of such atrocities.
Only with complete determination to implement the Rome Treaty will we be able to end the impunity of the perpetrators of these crimes and contribute to the deterrence and prevention of such crimes in the future.
As we have heard, 139 governments have signed the Rome Treaty yet sadly only 27 have ratified it.
Sixty such ratifications are needed for the Treaty to enter into force and for the Court to be set up.
Therefore I believe it is imperative that the Member States set an example.
Already Italy, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Germany, Austria and Finland have notably and honourably ratified the Treaty.
It is now time for the remaining Member States of the Union to follow suit.
Cynicism is an easy option and I will not indulge in it.
I believe we should welcome the signing of the Treaty on 31 December by the United States of America and we should also welcome the Yugoslav Federation signing the Treaty on 19 December 2000.
We must now call upon those parliaments to ratify the Treaty.
Nonetheless, at the same time we must urge all states to continue to support the work of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.
History teaches us that we must never forget.
Therefore, look back across the last millennium.
Look now across the world as it is and remember that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Future generations will never forgive us if we turn our minds away from those who have suffered such terrifying atrocities and who continue to suffer as I speak.
Words are not enough.
The time for action is now.
Sign the Rome Treaty on the ICC and thereby signal our commitment and our challenge to the rest of the world.
As co-author I urge the House and the Council to support this motion.
Mr President, if we look at the list of EU Member States which have already ratified the Treaty, we see that five of the six founder Members have already completed ratification.
Only the Netherlands has not, although it campaigned exceptionally hard for this Court and also for its headquarters.
We therefore wonder what lies behind this.
Of the remaining nine Member States of the European Union, there are only three which have already ratified it, including much maligned Austria.
I should also like to call on the other States of the European Union to initiate the ratification process as soon as possible.
We need this Criminal Court so that international crimes against humanity - which, as you know, have unfortunately not diminished but tended to increase in number - can finally be referred to a significant, objective and worldwide body.
Earlier we spoke about Cambodia.
We are debating the former Yugoslavia.
The special tribunals which are set up there are certainly justified.
But we must be aware that they are being defamed by some nationalist forces in these countries who say that they are victors' courts.
To prevent this from continuing to happen, it is tremendously important for there soon to be one unified criminal court throughout the world so that we no longer need to operate through special courts.
The Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague is very commendable. It needs our support.
But you will have seen that two days ago President Kostunica, who only recently was making solemn speeches in Parliament, refused to receive Justice Del Ponte because she was allegedly not of equal rank in accordance with the rules of protocol.
This is scandalous.
It shows how important it is not only to enshrine legal standards in international law throughout the world, directed against expulsion, mass murder and aggression, but also to provide the corresponding instruments with which to enforce them.
This is first and foremost this Criminal Court.
We have worked hard for it and it is high time that it be able to take up its duties.
Even though the setting-up of the International Criminal Court does not come within its remit, the Commission hopes that the required number of 60 ratifications will soon be reached so that the Court can become operational.
As of 31 December, the statute was signed by 139 countries and ratified by 27.
The Commission notes, with satisfaction, that the United States signed the Rome Statute on 31 December and the Yugoslav Federation earlier on 19 December.
In its relations with third countries the Commission will make every effort to recall the necessity to sign and ratify the statute as swiftly as possible.
In the meantime, the Commission will continue to provide grants to initiatives in support of the International Criminal Court.
So far, approximately EUR 4.8 million of grants have been provided to support the activities of NGOs or institutions working on information campaigns concerning the International Criminal Court.
The Commission will provide further support for these activities this year.
We want to promote this and use our cooperation with NGOs to keep up the momentum to make this Court a reality.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at around 6.30 p.m.
Earthquake in El Salvador
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0068/2001 by Mr Nogueira Román and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the earthquake in El Salvador;
B5-0074/2001 by Mr Galeote Quecedo and others, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on El Salvador;
B5-0079/2001 by Mr Seguro and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the earthquake in El Salvador;
B5-0079/2001 by Mr Wurtz, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the earthquake in El Salvador.
Mr President, disaster has struck once again in El Salvador, two years after Mitch, the terrible hurricane whose effects are still being felt to this day and for which, I might add, it would seem the European Union still has not come up with the money it had promised.
I welcome the resolution which we were able to draft together, but I do consider it to be the bare minimum after all the disasters which El Salvador has experienced, and now after this last earthquake disaster.
If truth be told, I find it a bit of a flimsy resolution, for although the feeling of solidarity which we all share and which gave rise to this resolution may be expressed well, we need to translate our solidarity into action, and that is why, on behalf of our group, we have tabled a few more amendments in order to bring this idea more into focus and to reinforce it.
Among other things, this is to enable the existing plans for improving the situation to be put into practice, especially the reconstruction programmes, but we should also deliver the money that Europe had set aside for this.
Despite this, we believe that the entire world, and we, along with the world, must express our dismay and solidarity, now that thousands of people have fallen victim to this earthquake.
An earthquake in a poor country is, of course, all the more serious the less resistance and less resilience the country has.
El Salvador has survived a war and natural disasters, and now there is this on top of everything else.
In order to work ecologically in environmentally responsible circumstances, the government too should set its political preferences for certain forms of politicisation of aid to one side, and we, on the other hand, must meet our obligations.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the figures and images coming out of El Salvador are terrifying, with the hundreds of dead, the thousands of wounded, the hundreds of people who have disappeared and the approximately 26,000 who have lost their homes.
There are continual aftershocks in El Salvador and even in Nicaragua.
This situation occurring in Central America is nothing new.
As Mrs Maes and Mr Poméz Ruiz pointed out, Hurricane Mitch, in November 1998, also had tragic consequences in both human and material terms in that part of the world.
Central America is one of the world' s poorest regions.
Around 40% of the population live below the poverty line and Europe therefore has a particular responsibility to the region not only because it is a region that has experienced much serious conflict and where there is still tension, particularly over borders, but also because we need to assist their recovery for the sake of democracy.
I am happy to say that all bodies there are democratically elected, but very undemocratic habits still remain in these Central American countries.
Apart from this, they have a very large foreign debt and only two countries are involved in the initiative that has been launched.
Therefore, the impression we receive from the principal authorities in Central American countries - and on Tuesday we had the opportunity to receive the President of Honduras - is of a people that is suffering and that, just when it sees a little light at the end of the tunnel and starts to pick itself up in order to confront its problems and its history, is struck by tragic situations caused by these natural disasters.
Europe acted promptly in sending emergency aid, both in November 1998 and this time.
Nevertheless, the problem requires - as my two fellow Members have already stated more than adequately - more structural aid.
It is vital that the Commission implements its reconstruction programme for Central America.
What we are proposing, Commissioner Nielson, is that there should be a rapid redefinition of this programme, with greater resources, both human and financial, to achieve the objective of assisting El Salvador as well.
On 26 March of this year, another meeting will be held between the San José Group and the European Union in Guatemala.
A positive way to conclude this meeting with the San José Group would be to proceed to implement the reconstruction programme for Central America with the new procedure for helping the victims in El Salvador.
Mr President, my group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, would like to add its voice to the expressions of sympathy for the families of the victims of the recent earthquake, and for the people of El Salvador, following this latest tragedy.
In fact, I had the honour and gratifying responsibility of presenting a report to this House, on behalf of the Committee on External Affairs, on aid for the reconstruction of Central America following Hurricane Mitch, which was adopted unanimously.
The truth is that I feel frustrated that our hopes and efforts have not been accompanied by efficiency on the part of the people responsible for the implementation of this programme.
On that occasion, I pointed out that, when the hurricane struck, the Commission acted quickly in terms of initial aid.
This has been the case this time as well, but we must continue to provide this aid. We must be more efficient.
The scale of the earthquake was considerable.
This region was beginning to recover and it is going to be essential that we make an immense effort to achieve levels of economic, social and democratic security.
The European Union has to do some very hard work in this area and, amongst the problems to be faced, there is one I would like to highlight: the fraudulent diversions of the aid sent.
The European Union - and the Commission in particular - must prevent this from happening, by guaranteeing that associations, NGOs and local authorities actively participate in the utilisation of the aid, for the sake of the efficiency and justice of the efforts made by the European Union.
Mr President, the PPE-DE Group is shaken and filled with consternation at the news of the severe earthquake in El Salvador.
We express our deep sympathy and solidarity with the many who died or were injured and the many who have lost their family and their possessions.
The PPE-DE Group supports the motion for a resolution tabled by several groups in the European Parliament.
It is good to know that the Community has responded to this natural catastrophe so promptly by dispatching experts and money.
This is a convincing example of solidarity.
This is a suitable occasion for me to add that, as a positive member of the generation of 68, when I was a reserve officer in the German army in the seventies, I did not throw stones as other young men did, but searched with my own hands for the dead and injured in an area of Italy which had suffered an earthquake. On that occasion we were able to rescue very many people who had been buried alive.
This is a great joy.
I can still see the dreadful images from the seventies of the earthquake in Italy, and I can understand the sense of distress prevailing in El Salvador.
It is excellent that Europe has sent help so quickly.
It is to be hoped that the aid will not come too late and that it will enter El Salvador through the proper channels.
Mr President, I really must say that I am quite amazed at how one can manage, in a debate about an earthquake in El Salvador, to say that one was a reserve officer in the German army and a "positive" member of the generation of 68 and to talk about stone-throwing members of the 68 Movement.
I do not know what one has got to do with the other, apart perhaps from the fact that Mr Knolle felt compelled to tell us a little of his own biography, but this is perhaps not without interest either.
According to the descriptions of my colleagues, the events in El Salvador are dramatic and we have heard many speakers state quite correctly that if the question being asked here is how quick and efficient our aid is, then in the case of this natural catastrophe it does actually seem to be arriving quickly, our initial assistance I mean.
What concerns us, however - and what also characterised the discussion about the motion and how it should be worded in our group - is the fact that we know from experience that this has not always been the case.
We call on the Commission to ensure that the aid - when the European Union helps by providing a go-get-it approach, know-how, equipment and people on the ground - does not only arrive when the people have, for the most part, already helped themselves or when the next natural catastrophe is due to be dealt with.
The European Union's credibility, both internally and in its relations with its partners, is threatened when money is admittedly made available and aid is promised, but because of bureaucratic obstacles the aid either arrives far too late or not at all.
On the one hand, therefore, this is about immediate help for the poorest of the poor, who need our solidarity, but on the other hand it is also about the fact that we need to bear in mind that our aid is futile if it becomes entangled in a jungle of red tape.
That is why we are glad that this motion has been drafted jointly by several groups.
We hope, Commissioner Nielson, that the Commission will work just as quickly on this motion as Parliament has.
As for Mr Knolle, I hope that he does not encounter any stone-throwing foreign ministers.
Mr President, let me reply to Mr Seguro, who talked about the situation in Honduras.
I want to make it clear that as part of our decision last year, supported by this House, to increase our stake in the whole HIPC initiative - EUR 1bn, we decided to spend it globally, not just on the ACP countries.
The reason for this was that, as a consequence of Hurricane Mitch, Honduras was included in the HIPC initiative.
We needed to find a budget line outside European Development Fund money to make it possible for the European Union to be even-handed and support Honduras.
Honduras will receive EUR 15m as debt alleviation from us because of this.
This is, of course, in addition to what Honduras is receiving from the Hurricane Mitch mid- and long-term rehabilitation and reconstruction follow-up as part of the regional programme.
Several Members have raised concerns about the slow delivery of the more long-term reconstruction part of the Hurricane Mitch follow-up.
I can only agree with the criticism.
I myself have characterised this as a real scandal.
It took almost one and a half years for the Commission services to find the six to seven people to send to Managua to form the unit to run the implementation of the regional reconstruction programme of EUR 250m.
This is pathetic.
It is not just bureaucracy, it is a totally dysfunctional set-up of different parties who do not talk to each other.
This is exactly why I am still in the market for more TNT to blow up those kind of structures which are blocking good performance in the Commission.
The situation today for the implementation of this programme is that these people have now been working in Managua since early autumn.
Of the EUR 250m, we have specifically earmarked and started the execution in a number of the states covered by the reconstruction programme of more than EUR 80m.
So EUR 80m out of EUR 250 are now set to work.
Things are finally starting to happen on the ground.
I still want to make the very clear distinction - which I urge everyone who has spoken in this debate to note - between the immediate humanitarian short-term response to disaster and the long-term reconstruction work.
They are two totally distinct types of activity and this has to be borne in mind.
Nothing has moved slowly in the Hurricane Mitch follow-up, except, as I mentioned here, finding seven people to send to Managua.
But this is bad enough.
Let me now turn more specifically to the terrible situation in El Salvador.
Of course, the Commission fully shares the consternation and solidarity expressed in Parliament's resolution on the terrible earthquake which struck several countries of Central America, and in particular El Salvador.
The Commission - President Prodi, Mr Patten and myself - immediately expressed its condolences to the families of the victims and the authorities and announced a quick and efficient Community response to this catastrophe.
As in the past, when it assisted El Salvador after the 1986 earthquake through the construction of a new hospital and provided very substantial humanitarian and reconstruction aid to the countries stuck by Hurricane Mitch, the Commission stands ready to help Central America and El Salvador to face the present dramatic challenges.
As soon as the earthquake occurred the Commission humanitarian aid office, ECHO, directed a field expert stationed in Honduras to go directly to the scene and he was there by Sunday.
ECHO also arranged this Monday for a mission to be sent to make an initial assessment of the needs as regards cooperation with other donors and the local authorities.
It left yesterday.
On Monday I decided that the first response in terms of money should be EUR 2 m.
This would cover the things that we knew would be necessary in any case.
Without any type of coordination or further studying, it was clear that drinking water, sanitation, shelter, food aid and medical supplies would be needed.
We also were immediately clear as to the organisations we should ask to take care of this on behalf of the Commission, namely a couple of European NGOs and the Red Cross family.
We will follow up these initial decisions with further commitments, depending on the feedback we get on what we are going to do compared to other donors and so on.
Let me add here that this terrible catastrophe once again proves that poverty as such is dangerous.
Most people think that earthquakes and these types of catastrophe are much more damaging in our sophisticated societies with all the elaborate infrastructure we have, yet in El Salvador the immediate consequence has been that more than 50% of water provision to the whole nation is cut off because of damage to pipes, electricity etc.
So the secondary impact is enormous, often because the systems are vulnerable, not functioning very well.
For instance the flooding in Mozambique caused much greater damage to dams, road, bridges and so on than it would have done if the country had had normal, well-maintained, strong and more expensive infrastructure.
So poverty is dangerous, and this has to be kept in mind.
For this reason, we are giving more emphasis to disaster preparedness activities as part of our humanitarian assistance.
We are also considering as favourably as possible the requests for a re-orientation of resources available in Commission-supported development projects in the zones and sectors affected, including those foreseen in the framework of the post-Mitch reconstruction programme.
My view here is that we need additional resources for this.
It is not acceptable to divert money from the post-Mitch reconstruction programme which has had enough problems already due to our bureaucratic difficulties, but it is an asset that we have a unit in place in the region which consists of people who are specifically engaged in these kind of reconstruction activities.
Of course, this is an asset and we will definitely come back to the more long-term problems for El Salvador when we get beyond the immediate humanitarian response.
So I thank you for the very strong support here.
We will come back on how to do these things.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
I now turn also to colleagues in their offices who should be here not at 6.30 p.m., as stated on the printed programme, but at 5.30 p.m., depending on when we are able to begin the vote.
The President already said at midday today that it would be 6 p.m., and it may be that it will be 5.50 p.m., and depending on the result of the vote on Mr Deprez's request it may even take place earlier than that.
I would therefore request, in accordance with the decision of the Conference of Presidents, that you please ask your colleagues to come into the plenary as early as 5.30 p.m. for the vote and help us to ensure that we are all here at 5.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.15 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Long-stay visa
The next item is the report (A5-0388/2000) by Mr Deprez, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the French Republic with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on freedom of movement with a long-stay visa.
Excuse me, Mr President, but I thought that you had received an official request to postpone my report to a later part-session.
Mr President, as far as I am aware, a signed document was submitted to you earlier on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
Therefore, I assume that you have received it.
And, again, as far as I am aware, this document is valid.
This certainly shows that the President of this sitting is utterly impartial.
I have not received this document, but I take it that what you say is true.
You are aware of the procedure concerning requests to postpone a report, we take a speaker in favour of the request, then one against, and then, if necessary, we hear from the rapporteur.
Mr President, I was distracted by Mr Knolle, but I will spare you the details of what he wanted to tell me.
Those who were in the Chamber just now know what I mean.
If I remember correctly, Mr Deprez wanted his report to be postponed.
Now I do not know why I have been given the floor first.
As rapporteur, he has in fact not yet told us why he is requesting this postponement.
That is why it would be only fair for you to give him the floor first.
Afterwards I will give my opinion and that of my group on this.
As a rule, we ask for a speaker in favour of postponing the report.
You were the first to raise your hand, Mr Schulz, you were the quickest.
However, I would, naturally, like to allow Mr Deprez to speak.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this morning' s sitting, the President informed the House that the Mr Ferri' s report had been postponed to a later part-session.
At that point, I myself accepted that the report that I had worked on and which, moreover, was unanimously adopted by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, would be postponed until this afternoon.
However, in the meantime, I was informed that most of the people who had taken part in this debate in my committee, and who I hoped would be able to speak before the House, had unfortunately sent their apologies as they were unable to take part in the debate.
This affects more than half of the speakers who were to attend this debate on a matter on which we are basically at odds with the Council, since, in the legal basis, there is a contradiction between what I propose and what is acceptable to the Council, and this is likely to have significant consequences for thousands of people who, every year, would like to benefit from free movement in the Schengen area.
Regretfully, then, I have had to note the absence of Mr Watson, chairman of the committee; Mr Pirker, coordinator of the Group of the European People' s Party; Mrs Terrón I Cusi, who was due to speak and who is coordinator of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and Mr Hernández Mollar, who also sends his apologies, being unable to attend, as well as two other speakers.
In these circumstances, concerning a matter where we require all the political groups to adopt a clear position, where it is a question of fundamental conflict between Parliament and the Council, I believed that it was important to have an in-depth debate and a full vote.
That is why I request that this report be postponed until Parliament' s next part-session.
Mr President, of course I entirely agree with Mr Schulz's last point, but I should like this once to state quite clearly that, now that the Friday sitting has been abolished, there is a systematic campaign to abolish the Thursday sitting too.
On the other hand, the responses to this are far from systematic.
On Monday, Mr Seppänen said that his report was too important to be taken on Thursday evening.
Nevertheless, following Mr Seppänen's speech, this House made a democratic decision to take his report on Thursday evening.
Then at midday on Wednesday, the President of the sitting explained that with the agreement of the groups Mr Seppänen's report would be moved to Thursday morning.
This morning we were presented with an agenda, out of which it emerged that the Ferri and Deprez reports would be dealt with this evening.
This morning nobody protested against this.
At lunchtime Mr Ferri realised that he would be leaving and asked for his report to be postponed.
His request was granted, and Mr Deprez sat there and did not protest.
This afternoon Mr Deprez realised that his speakers had gone astray and now this evening he wants his report to be postponed.
This is looking increasingly like a Punch and Judy show, I really do have to say.
I should like very clearly to oppose this postponement.
Mr Schulz, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery and I are Members of this committee.
We can air our views on this issue, and we should go ahead with the debate.
However, I would hope that proceedings could be more orderly in the future.
Mr President, I shall be taking more than five minutes, because the speakers from my group who have withdrawn have left 15 minutes.
Therefore, I can take 20 minutes.
So, Mr President, I shall speak as slowly as appropriate, because I believe that you do not intend to disallow a genuine debate that includes a full presentation of each argument.
Mr Deprez, I shall apply the Rules of Procedure.
You have been allotted five minutes and I shall allow you to speak for five minutes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my report is based on an initiative by the French Republic concerning third-country nationals, who are holders of what is called a national long-stay visa; in other words, one valid for no more than three months, which has been issued by a Member State of the Schengen area. These third-country nationals are awaiting their residence permits in the Member State that approved their entry.
Under current Community law, namely, Article 18 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, third-country nationals are only permitted to transit through the territory of other Member States in order to reach the country which issued the long-stay visa.
Following their arrival in this country, third-country nationals cannot travel any further within the Schengen area until they have obtained what is called a residence permit.
This is exactly where the problem lies. It can take several weeks, if not several months, for a residence permit to be issued, mainly due to cumbersome administrative procedures, poor coordination of administrative departments in some Member States, and because the person concerned has difficulty in finding out the correct procedure to follow.
Accordingly, and this concerns thousands of people every year throughout the Union, a holder of a long-stay visa and who has not yet received a residence permit, is in the least favourable position by comparison with other third-country nationals as far as freedom of movement in the Schengen area is concerned.
The fact that a whole raft of extremely stringent conditions must be fulfilled, in each of our countries, in order to obtain a national long-stay visa makes this situation even more paradoxical, and, to my mind, even more scandalous.
Apart from cases involving family reunion, applicants for long-stay visas are subjected to a preliminary in-depth enquiry.
They must prove that they have adequate resources and, depending on the circumstances, produce either a document to certify that they have been accepted in an educational or research establishment, or a valid employment contract.
The objective of the French Republic is simple and is very clearly stated in the Explanatory Statement.
The aim is to enable freedom of movement in the Schengen area for holders of a national long-stay visa who are awaiting their residence permit.
All of us, or so I hope, at least, share this objective which aims to facilitate freedom of movement for these nationals.
Therefore, the problem lies not in the objective itself, but in the way that the French Republic has chosen to achieve this goal and the consequences of this in terms of the discretionary powers of Member States with regard to citizens' rights.
It is rather surprising that the French Republic initiative takes Articles 62(2) and 63(3) as its legal basis, as both of these relate to procedures and conditions for issuing visas.
Yet, if the real aim of the initiative is to facilitate freedom of movement for nationals, the required legal basis is Article 62(3), which stipulates that the Council shall, within a period of five years of the Treaty of Amsterdam' s entry into force, adopt measures setting out the conditions under which nationals of third countries shall have the freedom to travel within the territory of the Member States during a period of no more than three months.
Ladies and gentlemen, the choice of legal basis is never an innocent choice.
In reality, the legal basis selected in the French initiative proves that the main aim of this initiative is to harmonise conditions for issuing long-stay visas by bringing them into line with uniform short-stay visas.
This means that, if we accept the proposal as presented by the French Republic, it would give any Member State involved in the closer cooperation under the Schengen Agreement the right to be informed of all requests for a long-stay visa made in every other country of the Schengen area, through what is called the prior consultation procedure, and, as a consequence, it would be able to block the freedom of movement by persons that this country does not approve.
In practice, if we accept these arrangements, it would mean that, through the prior consultation procedure, the French government could request to be systematically informed if Spain were to issue a long-stay visa to an Algerian national tomorrow, and it would have the right to object to the request, without anyone' s knowledge, because currently no one knows which countries make use of the prior consultation procedure and the Council refuses to release the list of countries.
Therefore, I myself chose to amend the initiative of the French Republic in order to bring it into line with the stated objective, as set out in the Explanatory Statement, which is to facilitate the movement of holders of a national long-term visa while awaiting their residence permit.
Moreover, I support the aim to implement a uniform long-stay visa system, as already currently exists for short-stay visas.
However, I hope, and I believe that we should all hope, that this initiative should be part of a clear, consistent, overall proposal from the Council and not part of an initiative which is sketchy in scope and shaky in its arrangements, like this one.
That is why I shall ask the House to accept the amendments that I have made with the full support of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
Mr President, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak for the Committee on Petitions.
This is not the only issue concerning legally resident third-country nationals where we have a problem concerning the appropriate legal base.
I am thinking, for example, of the extensions of the 1408/71 Regulation concerning the coordination of social security systems.
The Tampere Summit in 1999 spoke of according similar rights to third-country nationals as those enjoyed by EU citizens. Yet we still have those who wish to view them as short-term travellers, rather than as people who have much contribute to the Union.
Otherwise why would our governments be so keen to encourage inward investment from American and Asian companies? We believe we need political coherence in our policy-making in this area.
The lack of such coherence partly explains the argument over the legal base.
The Committee on Petitions supports the view taken by the rapporteur, Mr Deprez, and thanks him for his diligence in this matter.
It was our committee's view that we could reduce the number of such disagreements with the Council in future by reducing the number of individual national initiatives in this area and looking instead for Commission proposals which go through an initial vetting procedure.
I know that the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has already raised this with the Swedish presidency and we must hope it bears fruit.
On the substantive issue, while being aware that not all Member States are involved in the Schengen Agreement, of course, it seemed to our committee that we should bring the rights of third-country nationals into line with those of citizens.
This is particularly important where partners, not parents as it says in my explanatory statement for some very strange reason, are affected by a different legal status, and we have had a number of petitions on these issues which we added to our opinion.
We felt it was also important to support the position of Mr Deprez, as the need for this proposal itself is more the result of bureaucratic delay than decision-making.
It is our hope and expectation also that the Committee on Petitions will automatically be asked for an opinion in good time on such issues in future.
Mr President, I should like first of all to congratulate Mr Deprez on his brilliant report which deserves our full support.
We have of course worked very hard on this report in our Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
My dear Mr Deprez, I could not have wished for a better time for this report to be dealt with, because this is an excellent time - whenever Parliament sits is an excellent time - but I would have wished you better speakers.
But irrespective of this, I believe that the speakers who will now take the floor instead of the original speakers are perfectly able to make a contribution to this debate.
I should like to say quite clearly that both Mr Deprez's comments on the legal basis and his criticism of the Council and the Commission's approach to this area deserve our full support.
The Council and the Commission are acting just as unsystematically on this important issue as we almost did just now and as we have done this week regarding the agenda.
Where asylum and immigration are concerned we are dealing with a completely confused policy where individual initiatives are put to us one after another - sometimes by the Council, sometimes by the Commission, sometimes by individual Member States - but where there is no strategic approach.
But this is also precisely what this proposal - which is perfectly sensible in practice - is suffering from.
There is no strategic approach which draws a clear distinction between asylum and immigration, which regulates both appropriately and which deals with the important issue of burden-sharing, and all of this gives rise to problems.
These problems are then once again resolved by the back door by means of bureaucratic chicanery, and they are not resolved for good: these are pseudo-solutions.
If this initiative really does make the lives of those people who have a long-stay visa in the European Union easier then I welcome it.
But you cannot treat cancer with aspirin.
The way in which we have handled this important field in the last few years - and unfortunately still do so - cannot be allowed to continue.
That is why I believe that Mr Deprez's critical comments are more than justified.
Practical easing of restrictions in the interests of people, yes.
Sensible burden-sharing where burdens arise, yes.
And of course free movement for third-country nationals within the European Union.
But we call on the Council and the Commission finally to move from patch-up jobs to a systematic, strategic policy in this area and to present an overall, unified vision through which we can move step by step.
Ladies and gentlemen, the French initiative that we are discussing today once again demonstrates the importance of clarifying all the measures on free movement which present the problem of opening up borders.
All the statistics show that migratory flows have not diminished and that they will even increase over the coming years.
Therefore, the problem of free movement of third-country nationals within the Schengen area will again rear its head and become even more acute.
Yet, the citizens of Europe expect a clear and consistent overall policy on migration.
The amendment of Article 18 of the Schengen Agreement is the key element of the French initiative.
A holder of a long-stay visa should not enjoy fewer rights than a person who holds a short-stay visa.
The issue is to facilitate the free movement of migrants who return home regularly, whatever visa they hold.
We should be aware that, currently, third-country nationals may only transit through the territory of another Member State in order to reach the country which issued their long-stay visa.
From then on, they can no longer move around within the Schengen area until they have obtained a residence permit.
This is where the difficulty lies.
In terms of the principle of free movement, third-country nationals with a long-stay visa are in the most unfavourable position, even though they might have had to wait several months or even years to obtain the visa.
Furthermore, the text of the French initiative omits the problem of family reunion, a problem which arises in particular when citizens of the Union marry third-country nationals.
Why not therefore treat those who hold a long-stay visa as already resident so that they can enjoy the same right to freedom of movement? As Mr Deprez also highlighted, the legal basis of the proposal could have been envisaged in a different way so that it covered all aspects mentioned in these arrangements.
To sum up, it seems right to reject an imprecise and incomplete initiative relating to a matter as sensitive as Community immigration policy.
In order to respect and fully guarantee Community legislative power, we must urgently adopt legislation on rights to freedom of movement, immigration and asylum.
The only way to prevent a Fortress Europe being built is to make our repressive visa policy considerably more flexible. The current system does nothing to reduce the migratory flow, on the contrary, it encourages networks of smugglers of illegal immigrants to thrive.
Mr President, I absolutely agree with Mr Deprez.
This is a really important issue which goes to the whole heart of why we have the European Union.
The fundamental principles of the Union are freedom, respect for democracy, human rights, and if you remove freedom of movement, if you stigmatise people because they have applied for a visa or they hold a particular type of visa, I believe you undermine the fundamental principles of the Union.
That is why I welcome the broad thrust of Mr Deprez's report.
It is a well-considered report and, as he said quite rightly, it is relevant to thousands of people.
But even if it was relevant to only one person, we would still be acting, I am afraid, years, decades, after the time when we should have acted.
It is, as he said, a means to achieve a goal and I welcome his legal basis of Article 62(3).
I share Mr Deprez's concerns and his amendments afford freedom of movement for those awaiting a definitive visa.
I welcome his refinement of the French proposals.
There is a real need for these proposals.
We must treat people fairly and with dignity and remove the stigma of visa stays.
Some Member States will have reservations, but we must recognise that change is essential and that people must not be penalised in terms of their freedom of movement by unjustifiable and cumbersome administrative procedures.
I congratulate Mr Deprez on an intelligent and reasoned approach, with measures that facilitate freedom of movement for third-country nationals on Member State territories for a maximum period of three months.
This is a guarantee.
We should welcome it and therefore welcome his report.
Finally, perhaps this report will at some time enable us in this Chamber and in the Union to have a rational and reasonable debate on immigration and visa issues, decoupled from the ugliness of nationalism and xenophobia.
I welcome Mr Deprez's report.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I should like to offer my congratulations on the thorough and exhaustive work of the rapporteur, Mr Deprez.
The Commission supports the objective pursued by the French initiative to facilitate freedom of movement within the Schengen area for holders with long-stay visas prior to the issue of a residence document with equivalent status to a visa.
However, the Commission cannot support the selected legal basis, which has obvious implications for the content of the actual instrument.
The Commission accordingly shares your rapporteur's position.
It considers that the proper legal basis for this regulation is Article 62(3) of the EC Treaty, "measures setting out the conditions under which nationals of third countries shall have the freedom to travel within the territory of the Member States during a period of no more than three months".
For the sake of consistency with that legal basis, the Commission also agrees with your rapporteur on the need to amend Article 21 of the Convention for the implementation of the Schengen Agreement, which regulates the movement of foreigners, rather than Article 18.
The latter article merely specifies that long-stay visas are issued on a national basis and sets the conditions for transit by holders of long-stay visas.
The only further point that the Commission might add to those made by the rapporteur is this: it regards the amendments to the Common Consular Instruction as going far enough.
It is also necessary to amend the Common Manual so that border police can be informed of the new status of the long-stay visa.
Finally, the Commission can confirm its intention of shortly presenting an overall proposal for legislation as regards the right to travel in the Schengen area to avoid fragmentary action that would not be conducive to transparency and clarity in the public mind or certainty as to the law.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the report will take place immediately after the votes on the topical and urgent subjects of major importance, which are about to begin.
VOTE (continuation)
Mr President, this is the last explanation of vote of the part-session and if, with my foot broken and in plaster, I succeed in getting to the end of this last explanation as well, I shall have some hope of not having put my foot in it too often.
That said, I want to tell you that I consulted my daughter Elisabetta about this report. She is a young lawyer and also a regional assembly member for the Pensioners' Party in Lombardy.
Her advice as a lawyer was to vote for the report as it stood, because it would mean more cases and lawsuits.
But as a legislator and assembly member, she said she should do, and advised me to do, what was best for the citizens, and vote for it only if it was amended.
And that is what I have done, Mr President.
We should like to thank the Fatuzzo family for their comments on the Deprez report.
The directive proposed by the French Republic is based on the mutual recognition of deportation orders as soon as they are issued by a Member State of the European Union.
The Communist Party of Greece rejects this approach because, at a time when deportation orders are already being abused in various countries of the European Union, the new directive will foster further violation of the law.
Experience has shown that the administrative authorities are even prepared - all too prepared - to issue deportation orders against legal immigrants who happen to violate certain rules (including the highway code), using the pretext of the threat to public order and national security.
The new law on aliens currently passing through the Greek parliament contains provision to this effect.
For these reasons, we voted against the Deprez report.
The Deprez report proposes that the holder of a long-stay visa who is awaiting a residence permit should enjoy the same rights to freedom of movement as the holder of a residence permit. This marks an improvement on the French initiative which proposed that a long-stay visa should offer the same rights in terms of movement as a short-stay visa.
In 1986, when, on the pretext of combating terrorism, France reintroduced tourist visas, the European Parliament requested that these be withdrawn, perceiving "discrimination towards citizens of non-member countries" .
Today, such discrimination has been made commonplace by the Schengen Convention and by communitising policy on migration.
Visas are refused by consular offices that operate with a total lack of transparency and rarely have to explain their reasons.
European consulates simply refer to "the migratory risk" or registration in the Schengen Information System.
In addition to the vast number of official rejections, an incalculable number of verbal requests have been refused point-blank.
A good deal of trafficking goes on in consulates because so few visas are issued.
This constant humiliation of nationals from the Southern hemisphere has no purpose except to stop them crossing borders and no effect except to encourage illegal immigration.
The Deprez report rightly concludes that there is a lack of transparency and democratic control when it comes to visas and movement in Europe.
That is why I shall vote in its favour.
Adjournment of the session
That concludes the agenda.
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 6.15 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 18 January 2001.
Announcements by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, on 26 January, ETA claimed another victim in a bomb attack in San Sebastian, which cost the life of Ramon Díez García, an army cook, and injured two other people.
I should like to offer the European Parliament' s sincere condolences to the family of the victim and to send our wishes for the prompt recovery of those injured in this attack.
Unfortunately, all we can do is to reaffirm our feeling of revulsion and absolute condemnation of this indiscriminate violence.
At the same time, let me welcome to the visitors' gallery Mr Luis de Grandes and Mr Jesús Caldera, respectively the heads of the Popular Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party delegations of the Spanish parliament.
They have come to present to the European institutions the agreement for freedom and against terrorism signed by their political parties on 8 December 2000, to which many trade unions, employers' associations and Basque peace associations, among others, were signatories.
Your stance is all the more courageous, gentlemen, since ETA recently declared that all the present and future signatories to this agreement will be targeted by their actions.
Please be assured that you can count on the European Parliament' s solidarity.
Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you to observe a minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a statement to make.
The President of the Court of First Instance of the European Communities issued an order on 26 January in which he set aside the decision of the European Parliament of 23 October 2000 recognising the French Government' s notification announcing the ending of Jean-Marie Le Pen's mandate.
The order states that Mr Le Pen should rejoin Parliament and, of course, it is my responsibility to apply this court decision immediately.
Furthermore, I have asked the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for an opinion on what action the European Parliament should take in respect of this matter.
I have already noticed one new element: the President of the Court of First Instance has conferred upon the European Parliament discretionary powers in relation to a decree ending the mandate of the European Parliament. If this decision were to be confirmed, the Le Pen case would be a further step to establishing the powers of the European institutions over national governments
Madam President, when, at your instigation, I left the Chamber of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, I paraphrased General MacArthur' s famous saying, when forced out of the Philippines by the enemy, "I will come back" .
Like him, having returned, I can today say, "I am back!"
The Court of Justice has indeed reinstated me as a legitimate Member of the European Parliament, acknowledging the sound basis of my defence.
Indeed, the House must be aware that, on the pretext of a trivial incident occurring during the election campaign, the Socialist-Communist Government elected several days later has, for three years, flouting all legal principles, conducted a veritable witch hunt against me with a view to ridding themselves of a political adversary in Parliament, even though I had the mandate of millions of voters.
It is, I believe, this fumus persecutionis, in combination with the violations of the law and of parliamentary immunity, primarily, which led the Court to make its ruling.
I am certain that all democrats will rejoice at this principled and just decision.
I wrote to you yesterday, Madam President, because the largest democratic country in the world, India, is going through a particularly tragic experience, and I think it would be appropriate for Parliament to show its intention of standing by the Indian authorities and people at this time, and I would ask you, with your approval, to observe a minute' s silence.
Thank you, Mr Dupuis.
I did of course send a message to this effect to the Indian authorities immediately.
Thank you for your suggestion, which, I believe, is the same as the suggestion Mrs Gill wished to make. I will readily invite you to observe a minute' s silence in honour of the victims of this horrendous disaster.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Madam President, thank you very much for that message of condolence, which is what I wanted to talk about concerning India.
Madam President, I rise concerning Rules 7(1), 7(2) and 8(4) of our Rules of Procedure to ask whether you or your services have received a communication from the British Government informing you that the Conservative Party has asked to change one of three names on its list, which would remove the name of someone elected in the East Midlands region in the European elections last June.
The change would be to remove the name of Mr William Newton Dunn and replace it with Mr Javed Arain, the fourth-ranked Conservative, who is here with us today in the public gallery.
You will no doubt know that the system of proportional representation was used for the first time in the UK in the last European elections and the people who voted in these elections voted for a party whose views they agreed with, not for an individual.
Perhaps if no communication has been forthcoming you could contact the British Government to ask for their official, legal position.
Finally, under Rule 7(3), I ask that the committee responsible, mentioned in this rule, look into the credentials of Mr Newton Dunn to see whether he has, in fact, proceeded in accordance with the Act of 20 September 1976, as detailed in our Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, Rule 2 of our Rules of Procedure says that we all sit here as individuals, not as agents of political parties and we do not take orders from outside.
(Applause from the centre and left) The essence of democracy is that individuals have guaranteed rights against the state.
The Conservatives, I am sorry to say, are now wishing to introduce a new doctrine that political parties have power over individuals.
That is the beginning of totalitarianism and that is why I left them.
(Applause from the centre and left)
Madam President, Mr Newton Dunn is perfectly correct when he draws attention to Rule 2, but what he forgets is that the elections in 1999 took place under proportional representation.
No elector voted for Mr Newton Dunn, or indeed for me or for Mr Heaton-Harris.
They voted for a party list and Mr Newton Dunn represented himself as fully in support of the Conservative Party, its leader and its European policy.
He has now completely abrogated that position and he is therefore denying the democratic rights of the voters of the East Midlands, over 40% of whom voted Conservative.
I call on Mr Newton Dunn to resign.
Although this British debate is very diverting, Mr Helmer, we do have an extremely important Commission communication on economic and social cohesion.
Madam President, I shall be very brief, but I too wish to speak on the subject of Portugal.
This was an enormous tragedy and the most serious aspect is the fact that six people were killed.
In addition to these deaths, which we can do nothing about, it has unfortunately already been predicted that there will be huge material damages and it will therefore be necessary to obtain the solidarity of the European Union.
As Mrs Figueiredo stated, we hope this House will support us in Strasbourg.
Madam President, it is the case that, although the United Kingdom electoral system is a list system, the names of those on the list appear in the order in which electors are invited to vote for them.
Therefore, it is the case that we are here as individuals as well as representing a political position.
That is very important and it should be known that the United Kingdom Conservative Party was among those parties that voted for the provision that names should be on the ballot, not off the ballot.
I should like to draw your and Parliament' s attention to a man-made disaster with which we shall be confronted in the course of the next few days.
Last week, I and two of my colleagues, Feleknas Uca and Konstantinos Alyssandrakis, were on a visit to Istanbul where we met former prisoners, their families and their lawyers, together with human rights campaigners in Turkey.
A large number of prisoners in Turkish jails are on hunger strike, with some of them prepared to die because of the Turkish Government' s policy towards prisoners.
I should like to call upon you, Madam President, to make contact with the Turkish authorities and press for a new dialogue to be embarked upon between the Turkish Government, on the one hand, and prisoners' organisations and the human rights organisations, on the other.
Otherwise, we shall see a succession of fatalities next week, for the hunger strike has been going on for months.
Thank you, Mrs Frahm.
I have certainly taken note of your comment.
Madam President, for reasons of a topical nature, I am in a position to give this issue my wholehearted support.
The day before yesterday, I had the opportunity to speak to Turkey' s Minister of Justice, and I made him aware of the urgent nature of the situation.
I would therefore ask you to take action accordingly.
Madam President, I wish to add my voice to those of the speakers who raised the issue of the tragedy that took place in Portugal last weekend.
In order to gain some insight into what happened, we need only bear the following in mind: last winter was the driest of the century and last December and January were the wettest in living memory.
These factors meant that all of the country' s actions to control the floods failed.
Furthermore, everything happened so quickly that unexpected deaths and floods occurred as a result.
We therefore need to make a much greater effort than might be considered necessary, because the situation has been truly exceptional.
Madam President, I too would like to express an opinion on the issue raised by Mrs Frahm.
I was a member of the delegation, as she rightly said, and like the rest of the delegation, I too was highly embarrassed in front of the parents of the political prisoners because, although they did indeed beg us to help their children, we were unable to respond.
I am surprised that, despite repeated appeals, by both my fellow Member Mr Korakas and me, still no representations have been made to the Turkish authorities.
I should like to ask you to make such representations as quickly as possible, before we start to mourn even more victims than we are mourning already from the attack on the prisons by the Turkish authorities in December 2000.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in the last few days, various parts of Portugal, especially in the north and the centre of the country, have suffered from terrible weather conditions, with torrential rain that has led to the loss of human life, the destruction of homes, families being displaced, damage to buildings, enormous harm to farming, fisheries, industry and trade, the destruction of communication lines and the closure of harbours and ports.
Not all of the damage has, of course, been fully assessed yet, but the total cost may reach billions of escudos. This will require the mobilisation of Community special assistance grants in order to deal with the economic and social problems caused by this devastation.
Therefore, in addition to sending our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and expressing our sympathy for the people who have lost their homes and their possessions, in which, I am sure, all Members of this Parliament join, we ask you, Madam President to make representations to the Commission, urging it to provide, in conjunction with the Portuguese Government and the local authorities, emergency aid for the most badly affected communities so that economic activity may be restored.
I would also ask the Conference of Presidents to include this matter in the topical and urgent debate in Parliament' s next part-session.
Madam President, as a Basque MEP, I would like to express my rejection and condemnation of the terrorism and violence of ETA.
I would also like to express my condolences to the family of Ramón García and to all the families of victims of terrorism and violence.
On behalf of the Basque Nationalist Party, I would also like to say that our overwhelming priority is the ethical principles of human rights and, above all, the right to life.
You have presented us with the anti-terrorist agreement drafted by Spain' s Popular Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party.
I must tell you that this agreement does not offer anything new and that it contains only repressive measures, police measures and impositions.
It does not offer any valid proposal to resolve the political conflict in the Basque Country.
It is now ten years since the Basque parliament approved the right to self-determination but, nevertheless, the Spanish Government has deliberately ignored this free democratic decision adopted in the Basque Country.
In the Basque Country we need less fascism from ETA and less centralism and imposition from the state; we need more dialogue, more democracy and more respect for the democratic decisions of the Basque parliament.
Madam President, two days ago, after the announcement concerning the pardons for 14 torturers and the medal awarded to the former head of the political police of San Sebastian, Amnesty International concluded and I quote: "The award of pardons and honours for torturers sends out a clear message.
The violation of human rights will not be effectively punished in Spain."
This is not the first time that pardons or honours for torturers have been granted or awarded by the Spanish authorities.
In its June 1999 report, Amnesty International stated its belief that there is a climate of impunity in Spain.
Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam . . .
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, Parliament knows, because we have said it many times and today we have explained it to some of you, that in presenting and defending an agreement in favour of freedoms and against terrorism in the Basque Country, we are defending and presenting an agreement which goes beyond the merely political field, since it is an agreement in defence of freedoms, in defence of life, in defence of pluralism.
There may be people who do not support this agreement; there may be people who criticise it; there has even been one organisation - the terrorist organisation ETA, of course - which has threatened to kill the signatories, and those people who might sign it later, for defending it.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, despite all of this, we will always continue to defend freedoms.
We will always continue to defend the right of any citizen of the Basque Country, whether they are in favour of autonomy or of independence, to be able to move around our country without escorts.
I want no more and no less than Mr Gorostiaga does: I want to move around my country with my children, like they do, without having to take escorts.
Madam President, I wish to speak briefly, following the latest speeches by the representatives of the Basque Nationalist Party and Euskal Herritarrok, to express my solidarity and agreement with the statement you have made, Madam President, on behalf of the European Parliament, in defence of democracy and peace in Spain.
Our main problem in Spain is terrorism, and fascist positions such as those of Euskal Herritarrok are a threat to peace in Spain and in Europe.
The fact that there are internal problems in Spain resulting from the political differences between the central government and the Basque parliament does not prevent us here in the European Parliament from standing for peace and democracy and against fascism.
Economic and social cohesion
The next item is the Commission communication on economic and social cohesion.
I give the floor to Commissioner Barnier.
Commissioner, as Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, I have to say that the report on cohesion is indeed an excellent basis for discussion and I trust that we shall be holding this discussion in the Committee on Regional Policy very soon and that it will be a very global discussion.
Now, as a Member of the European Parliament, I have to say that it is clear from the report on cohesion that there has been a relative improvement in our efforts to achieve economic and social cohesion in the European Union and that, as you rightly said, we have had more success with the economic indicators than we have with the social indicators.
Some countries, such as Ireland, have taken greater advantage of the opportunities given to them than have other countries.
So the message which we should send out from the House today is that we need more efficient administration on all sides, especially on the part of the Member States and regions and, of course, we need incentives, such as the performance reserve, so that we can use European taxpayers' money more efficiently.
Obviously, I agree that we need to start focusing on the poorest regions and countries of the European Union right now and again after 2006.
But we must not forget one very important point: today's poorer countries are not going to get richer purely and simply because enlargement will artificially reduce the average per capita GDP in the European Union.
That is something we must bear in mind if we are to avoid straying into misguided policies.
I therefore think that we need to concentrate resources, we need to make better use of resources, we need to call for better administration both on the part of the Commission and of the Member States and regions; however, that must not cause us to forget one basic fact: that more people will want a slice of the cake after enlargement and as far as I am concerned, Commissioner, it is vital that we increase the size of the cake, that we increase the resources of the Structural Funds after 2006.
I should like to hear your views on this.
Mr Hatzidakis, I go along with your analysis, of course.
I formed my own assessment in the same spirit and on the same bases as yourself.
I should point out to the House that if the twelve candidate countries were to actually join the European Union right now, then the mean GDP for the Community would drop by 18 points.
This would automatically have the mathematical effect of raising regions which continue to be in difficulties above the mean in one fell swoop. It would not, therefore, be fair.
We are going to have to find some solution for these regions which would thereby be placed automatically above the Community mean.
Mr Hatzidakis, you tell me more money will be needed.
At this stage, I can express only a personal opinion.
We have not yet reached the point of discussing the future Financial Perspective.
I have only given you a rough indication, and a personal opinion at that.
I think that the figure of 0.45 % of Community GDP, which will be achieved in 2006 in line with the Berlin decisions, if we add together the Structural Funds, the Cohesion Funds, pre-accession appropriations, SAPARD, PHARE, ISPA, as well as the appropriations placed in reserve to support the first accessions in 2004, for example, will give a total representing 0.45% of GDP.
I see this as a reference point.
To elaborate further, my frank opinion is that if we take on board another twelve countries in the state they are at present, then we shall not be able to conduct any credible policy at anything less than this percentage.
That is all I can say for the present.
Madam President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for the open manner in which he chose to present his report in plenary.
It is the beginning of a debate - an honest debate - that we want to be involved in as parliamentarians.
The Commissioner and Mr Hatzidakis said that regional disparities will become twice as great.
The challenge to achieve cohesion will be greater: we have an unprecedented expansion of the Union and we still have poor regions.
There is a multi-million euro question which is, to use the words of a former French Commission President: "Have we got the means to match our ambitions?" That is not to say that the means have to be financial, but we must also look at other policies.
It is clear that there will be a cap on budgetary contributions.
Therefore I ask you, Commissioner Barnier and your colleagues, to look at the opportunities offered by other policies, in particular the real and tangible benefits of involving the private sector in regenerating our regions.
Can you be sure, Commissioner, that an enlightened view will be taken, in particular by Mr Monti, the Commissioner responsible for competition, to ensure that we have private sector innovative approaches to reducing regional disparities across the Union?
Thank you, Mrs McCarthy, for your assessment.
I can indeed confirm the attitude of the Commission, which I, in particular, share, and our determination to take part, not just here but also in the national parliaments, and in and with the regions, in as decentralised a way as possible, in a major debate.
My whole team in the Directorate-General is going to participate in presenting the results of the assessment of this snapshot and open the debate over the next two years, in an extremely transparent and open manner.
The current annual allocation is approximately EUR thirty billion.
Once again, I have told Mr Hatzidakis what I though of the lower limit beyond which we should not go if we wish this policy to have any credibility.
I also think, like you, Mrs McCarthy, that this European policy must act as a lever, bringing other funding and other synergies to bear.
That is why I attach great importance to partnership, the modernisation of private funds, and the intervention of the European Investment Bank as our partner.
I quite understand, moreover, your concern for greater coherence with the competition policy for which Commissioner Monti is responsible.
We have to find a way forward which reconciles complying with the Treaties, especially in terms of the rules of competition, and regional policy.
Quite simply, Mrs McCarthy, let me share my personal conviction that we shall not achieve solidarity and cohesion in Europe simply by counting on the laws of the market, on supply and demand or on a simple tax transfer policy.
I do not believe that liberalism alone can help the poorest regions cease to be the poorest or that it can help reduce the gap between them and the richest regions.
That is why I shall fight to ensure that we continue to have public intervention in Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like, on behalf of my group, to thank you warmly for your excellent report. I am sure it will provoke solid, but also controversial discussion, and so I would just like to take this opportunity to stimulate debate a little with a two-fold question.
The current system will actually remain in force until the year 2006.
Given that we are negotiating with the candidate countries with the aim of their acceding in 2004/2005, how then, can we make it clear to them that, even if they join under the current conditions, they cannot rely on our being able to continue the system, in other words, how are we going to make them understand that irrespective of what they sign up to now, they are going to have to adapt to an amended cohesion policy? Secondly, perhaps you could allay a little the fears which prevail across a good many regions by explaining to us how is it going to be possible for the regions which may receive less support after 2007, regardless of the ceiling we apply, not to lose support and solidarity at a moment' s notice?
How can we make it possible for them - as has, in fact, been done hitherto using the phasing out method - to achieve the upturn gradually, without their being dropped from the system straightaway? You may be able to assuage quite a number of fears with your answer.
Thank you for asking this question, Mr Jarzembowski. It is probably the main question to be debated in terms of finance.
Let me specify, nonetheless, that the Berlin Financial Perspective made provision to set aside some EUR 39.5 billion for the candidate countries likely to join before 2006, to enable them to be integrated into the current cohesion policy. After 2006, however, they will of course be entitled, like the current Member States, to participate in a policy which will probably be rather different.
My report outlined four possible approaches to cater for the regions which would automatically find themselves above the cut-off threshold as soon as we incorporate a number of very poor countries into the Union, and all I can do at this stage is outline these options.
The first option is to continue to apply the strict threshold of 75% of Community GDP which is the current threshold below which regions are eligible for Objective 1 status, and therefore a greater concentration of appropriations.
The second option is to link this 75% threshold with a phasing-out policy over a set period, supported by a substantial amount of money, in order to facilitate the transition for regions which, post-enlargement, would suddenly find themselves above that threshold.
A third option is to raise the threshold above 75 % to make more regions eligible.
In that case, we should probably have to tackle the issue of finance.
The fourth option is to have two thresholds, one for regions currently within the Union and one for the regions of countries joining the Union.
I am not in a position, nor do I have any wish, to decide the matter right now.
I am here to listen to your views.
I shall be listening to the views of the Member States, and the members of parliament and elected representatives of these regions.
In the end, though, we shall have to opt for one of these four alternatives.
Mr President, Commissioner, you said that in the future, the main focus of cohesion will lie in the East and that a cohesion policy of this kind will only be possible if there are sufficient means available.
Would you agree that we also need to allow sufficient time for this, because we know from experience that it takes time to develop regions? How can we rely on the Commission having the commitment to allow both time and money, in order to pre-empt the effects of the cohesion policy?
EUR 4 billion are available in Category VIII for the year 2002. Would it not make sense to deploy this with a view to achieving cohesion in the East, even before enlargement takes place?
Where do you stand on this?
Mrs Schroedter, we do need time.
In the report I even mentioned the fact that for the countries which are currently in the greatest difficulty within the European Union, the regions lagging furthest behind in development, it would take another generation to reduce this gap.
I pointed out that it would take roughly, and I can only make a rough prediction, two generations for the countries scheduled to join us in approximately 2004-2005.
I concur with your view that we shall be able to make a greater success of enlargement and the actual accession of these countries if we make the best possible preparations at this stage.
That is why, alongside my fellow Commissioners, Mr Verheugen and Mr Fischler, who are responsible, respectively, for the PHARE programme and the SAPARD programme, whilst I myself am responsible for the ISPA programme for the environment and transport, I am committed to ensuring that this money is used properly, and that part of the technical assistance associated with these funds is used to set up territorial frameworks.
This is the real weakness of the candidate countries whose regional divisions have not existed for very long.
The Voivodships in Poland have only been in existence for two years.
We must therefore support the territorial frameworks by means of these Structural Funds.
Indeed, I never miss an opportunity to urge local communities within the current Union to set up twinning partnerships and decentralised cooperation agreements with candidate country regions in order to establish more ongoing cooperation on the human level within each territorial community.
We attach great importance, therefore, to using these pre-accession funds as usefully as possible.
I cannot, however, make any commitments, Mrs Schroedter, as to what we shall do with the money placed in reserve after 2002 - I mentioned approximately EUR 40 billion - if these countries do not join in 2002. For the time being the funds have been set aside to cater for those accessions that do actually take place.
In response to your question, however, I should like to point out that we have pre-accession instruments and that these are what we should be using, when the time comes, to carry accession through successfully.
Commissioner, I agree that there can be no union without economic and social cohesion, and that there can be no cohesion without means.
I also agree that the Structural Funds used have been effective and positive.
My specific question is therefore: is enlargement possible without an additional effort on the part of the European Union - from the moment of the first accessions - above and beyond this budgetary reserve?
Secondly, Commissioner, I must say that there is disquiet in certain European regions and some of your replies do not provide any comfort, although it is true that we are in a context of a very rapid dialogue.
However, for this very reason I believe it is necessary to specify something else.
You say that we have to find a solution for those regions which are currently receiving funds, especially the Objective 1 regions.
I would like you to be more specific, Commissioner.
What is going to happen, according to your criteria, to Castilla-La Mancha, Estremadura, Andalusia, Galicia, regions of Portugal and Greece, and 'Länder' which have just entered Objective 1? Let us be specific, because disquiet in those regions will only be prevented by clarity.
Mr Izquierdo Collado, I do not have all the answers at this stage, and if I did, you would be justified in criticising me.
We are only launching the debate.
The budgets have been determined; the regulations have been defined.
All these EU regions have received guarantees until 2006.
I have endeavoured to tell the truth, because we cannot make speeches on enlargement and the enlarged European Union, integrating the closely related peoples of Eastern Europe, without looking at the figures as they stand.
This is a truthful report.
Yet I did not want to wait until 2005 before telling the truth and asking the questions which have to be asked of the Commission proposals, when the time comes, by the Heads of State and Government and by Parliament.
So there is a problem, but there is no need to panic.
I should also like to say, in answer to your specific question with regard to specific regions, Extremadura, southern Italy or the Länder of eastern Germany, that it will depend on the level of income achieved by around 2005-2006.
What I do know, however, is that if we retain the criterion of per capita income - which I hope we do, since it is an objective criterion - then the average Community GDP is going to drop as a result of enlargement.
The rate is going to drop to a greater or lesser extent, Mr Izquierdo Collado, according to whether the twelve candidate countries join at the same time or not.
Once again, then, there is no need to panic.
The drop will perhaps not be as much as the 18 points I mentioned earlier.
The fact remains, however, that some regions currently covered by Objective 1, which are currently enjoying a good level of development even though this is still below average, are liable to find that they are above average following enlargement.
We are going to have to find a solution to this.
As I have said myself, these regions are not suddenly going to become rich just because Eastern European countries are joining the European Union.
We are going to have to find a substantial solution for these regions and continue to support them, and I have outlined a few possible approaches.
One of these, for example, would be to have a total budget allowance, similar to the system we set up for Ireland and other regions, to cover phasing out and a transitional period, particularly for those regions which were closest to the average. Even then, even with the new average, there will still most probably be, even looking at the maps provided in the report, which I urge you to examine carefully, extremely poor regions such as still exist in Spain, Portugal and Greece, and even in Italy, within the European Union of today.
A solution, a largely financial solution, will have to be found for the band of intermediate regions, and what I am seeking to do is to ask the questions to obtain the help I need in order to find appropriate solutions when the time comes.
Mr Costa, as I said earlier quite forcefully - you will forgive me repeating it - I wanted to initiate this debate immediately, early enough to discuss the essential issues and our vision of Europe, which is not just a supermarket but a community.
I want us to discuss solidarity and to reach agreement on our political objectives.
Thereafter, once we have agreed on the objectives and priorities and the line of approach, we must give ourselves the resources to carry them forward.
So, discussing the money involved at this stage would be a poor way of opening the discussion.
I know perfectly well that we shall have to discuss finance when the time comes.
That is my first point.
My second point is solidarity. We must continue to promote solidarity between States.
You are well aware that there are States that are net contributors and others that are not.
I therefore feel that this form of redistribution is quite fair and quite efficient.
Thirdly, I must thank you for stating in your initial speech that enlargement entails problems and risks but also provides opportunities. This is also my view.
If you look at developments over the last twenty years, with Spain, Portugal and Greece, my own personal conviction - and I never miss the opportunity to say so in the public debates I take part in - is that in the medium and long term, any enlargement process ultimately contains more opportunities than risks and problems.
Quite apart from morality and politics, it is just not in our interests to allow people living on our doorstep to continue to live in poverty.
Poverty, of the kind we have right next door to us, as in the countries of Eastern Europe or Albania or the Balkan states, always leads to the same outcome.
When people do not have enough to eat, they emigrate.
People living in poverty are prey to all sorts of nationalist conflicts, war, trafficking, and mafia exploitation.
It is therefore in our own interest, quite apart from moral or political concerns, to undertake this enlargement and to pay the price for sharing progress.
I must also thank you for giving me this opportunity to say that this debate must also prove that in the great challenge of enlargement there are more opportunities than risks.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have not yet had the opportunity to read the report, but the first report on cohesion clearly showed that the common agricultural policy was not contributing to cohesion in the European Union.
The Agenda 2000 reform was limited to maintaining the status quo in the CAP.
I now wish to ask the Commissioner whether he can tell us anything about the report' s conclusions on the CAP.
Mr President, what I have to say to the Commissioner is far simpler.
Very quickly, then, I would like to suggest that other criteria are used for the allocation of funds than just the rate of GDP and of unemployment.
Surely other factors such as population concentration and distribution, potential or lack of potential in terms of new technologies and research, and geographical accessibility should be taken into account? And finally, my last question: surely the current situation forces us to contemplate redefining the Financial Perspective before 2006?
Commissioner, at the beginning of your speech you indicated that the challenges facing us are globalisation and enlargement.
Together with other MEPs, I have just attended the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, where it was clearly shown that with the problem of globalisation we are entering a new era, in which the European Union must play a fundamental role in the world.
This problem of world social balance must form part of our economic policy and, since you referred to it, I would like to ask you what the European Union is going to do in this respect, because this is clearly going to have an influence on our internal economic problems and also on our budgetary problems.
Secondly, Commissioner, I would like to ask you: to what extent do you consider it fair that States, such as Spain, which still receive cohesion funds, are considering zero deficit as an economic policy, at the risk of...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, thank you very much Commissioner, you mentioned that we will also require new rules for enlargement, and probably more money too.
I would like to ask a couple of questions on the subject of new rules and, as such, on the subject of new ideas.
Would it really be feasible, indeed would it also be wise in the future, to largely target the support at one particular area, time and time again?
Would it not make more sense to place more emphasis than we have done hitherto on particular project ideas, or else on particularly needy areas? This would also allow us to spend the money in a more targeted way.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am pleased to be able to say that I am glad to hear this.
I have not yet had the opportunity to read the report, but I liked what you had to say about it.
I would like to ask you whether the Commission is prepared to fight to see the Community budget increase from the current 1.04%, to 1.27%, as has been approved? I ask this because if we have the budget that has been approved, then we will have money.
My second question is: what will happen to the outermost regions? You have not said anything about these regions and they are of concern to me.
Mr President, I want to thank the Commissioner for using the word solidarity in connection with this report.
This is, of course, precisely what cohesion policy and regional policy are about.
I also want just briefly to ask whether the future debate will also cover all other policy areas in the European Union which are important for regional growth - education, research and social policy - so that it is possible to make use of everyone' s ability to get involved and contribute to regional growth.
Mr President, I am the one who should apologise for having gone on too long, most of all to those Members of Parliament who were unable to ask their questions.
I shall, however, remain at your service, as you know, in the weeks and months to come in order to continue this discussion.
Mr Cunha, if you read the report, you will see that we actually say that the CAP, whose objectives are production, export capacity and sufficiency, has not actually become involved in the way we might have hoped in this territorial cohesion policy, particularly because, in the regions likely to benefit from cohesion policy, farm sizes are that much more modest.
I have, therefore, myself, stressed the fact that we should, as I said earlier, improve synergy through the common agricultural policy.
One of the means to do so would perhaps be, in future, to boost the emphasis on the rural development arm of the CAP, which was started in Berlin.
Mrs Darras, I do not believe that we shall need to renegotiate the Financial Perspective in the matter of cohesion policy.
The plans made in Berlin seem to me perfectly adequate.
In anticipation, we even made provision for 2002, and now it is quite clear that no new countries will join in either 2002 or 2003. Sufficient sums were set aside to cope with these accessions, and so I do not think we shall need a new Financial Perspective.
You mention changing the criteria, if necessary.
We might continue to discuss possibilities, Mrs Darras, but I should like to point out that we are not too far off the real situation when we work on the basis of the standard of living, of per capita GDP, because it can be observed that where there is the lowest standard of living there is also the highest rate of unemployment, the worst environmental conditions, and the lowest levels of Internet access.
Thus, in some way, taking a snapshot of the per capita standard of living, we have produced an accurate snapshot of the real state of the regions - and indeed it is no mere accident that my predecessor, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, and all the other Members of Parliament who have given some thought to these questions all agreed on this criterion.
Now, you know we can combine this criterion with other aspects, especially unemployment, but I would like us to retain this criterion as I think it an objective one.
Mr Nogueira, I do not have sufficient time to take part in a debate on globalisation.
I even, as you identified earlier, mentioned the new context of cohesion policy associated with globalisation, which constitutes the risk which Jacques Delors and others clearly identified fifteen years ago, and which impelled them to propose this cohesion policy.
In the same single market, there is a risk that wealth, trade and people will continue to be concentrated in the same locations and that the poorest regions are impoverished and marginalised further.
That risk in the single market is exacerbated in a Europe living in an age of globalisation.
That is why I think we do indeed need a cohesion policy and support for cohesion in future.
Mr Rack, yes, I am willing to look into new methods with you, particularly as far as development of the new Objective 2 policy is concerned.
I wonder, for example, about the sense and usefulness of the Brussels-driven zoning for Objective 2, in which I am required to officially specify, in agreement with the Member States, whether every individual district, community or village is or is not to receive Objective 2 status.
I do not think that all this bureaucracy is particularly useful, and that is why Objective 2 policy, concerning regions other than the most underdeveloped, could be simpler and more decentralised, with instruments subordinated to Community policies or to regional development, the urban areas, mountainous regions, island regions, border regions or cross-sector objectives such as social cohesion and the fight against poverty.
I am perfectly willing to look into developing instruments which are decentralised in terms of their administration within the Member States and which do not convey the impression of excessive bureaucracy that the people of Europe sometimes have.
Mrs Torres Marques, I cannot go any further than I already have on the subject of the Financial Perspective.
I have not forgotten the outermost regions; I even mentioned them in my opening remarks.
There is a specific paragraph on these regions.
As Mr Prodi requested, I do a great deal of work for these seven outermost regions.
This is why, a few weeks ago, the Commission published an important report on adjustments or exceptions in the field of structural aid, and aid for agriculture and fisheries which, overall, have been well received by the authorities in these outermost regions and I think that, pursuant to Article 299 of the Treaty, we must continue to have a special policy for these outermost regions precisely because they are our outermost regions and, as such, our most remote active frontiers in the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic or near the American continent.
Mrs Hedkvist-Petersen, thank you for pointing out the importance of the term 'solidarity' . I also consider it important.
The title that we wanted to give this report, ladies and gentlemen, is "European Unity, solidarity between nations, regional diversity" , and, as you will see when you read it in detail, I was careful to stress - since this was a concern of mine - the need to coordinate Community policies with regional development and cohesion, particularly in terms of research or the social agenda while noting that Member States and national governments will, of course, retain their jurisdiction on social policy.
I am working within the scope of the Community' s current jurisdiction.
Thank you, Commissioner.
That concludes this item.
Mediterranean region
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report by Mrs Muscardini (A5-0008/2001) on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the common strategy of the European Council of 19 June 2000 on the Mediterrannean region - European Council Declaration on the common strategy on the Mediterranean region [C5-0510/2000 - 2000/2247(COS)], and
the report by Mr Naïr (A5-0009/2001) on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: to prepare the fourth Meeting of Euro-Mediterannean Foreign Ministers: Reinvigorating the Barcelona Process [COM(2000) 497 - C5 -0630/2000 - 2000/2294(COS)]
Mr President, I would like to thank those Members who, through meetings, discussion and dialogue, have contributed to what we consider to be a step forward in Europe's strategy for the Mediterranean: the Mediterranean as a gateway not just to the Middle East but also to the Atlantic, a cultural as well as economic area, consolidating the South-South dialogue but also the North-South and East-South dialogues at a time when impending enlargement calls us all to assume specific responsibilities.
Development must respect human dignity and the protection of the environment and health.
Economic development must not disregard human rights or mutual respect for differences.
We all realise that Europe needs a new philosophy, namely that in order to be effective, common strategies must be realistic and practicable. Therefore, we must set ourselves clear, achievable targets so that, step by step, progress can be made towards development, security and stability.
On the one hand, a poet would say: "Woe betide the man who does not dare to dream great dreams!" but a statistician would reply: "Woe betide the politician who gets carried away on empty dreams and does not see or resolve the problems which are staring him in the face!"
We have attempted to make our hopes practical and realisable in the short and medium terms.
In other words, we have put forward proposals which will give all the countries of the Mediterranean the same dignity and the same opportunity for development in a new multi-faceted relationship with an increasingly large and more complex Europe, a relationship that will have to fight for its international credibility in the tough competition with the whole of the rest of the industrialised world.
Protecting the environment and health, dignity for workers, safeguarding the quality of products in order to protect the consumer and safeguarding a free - as long as it is fair - market, attentiveness to the specific cultural differences and traditions including architectural styles of each country and registered designation of origin products, a ban to prevent us Europeans from outrageously abusing the partnership relationships and exporting products to our partner countries which we have banned in Europe because they are dangerous, the boost for the development of all the capabilities of our Mediterranean partners, including assistance for placing the thousands and thousands of young people who have studied or trained in Europe in employment, child protection, the fight against the exploitation of minors and modern-day slavery, attentiveness to the situation of working women and, in any case, to the dignity of all human beings are significant steps forward, just as Europe's commitment and endeavours to do all in its power to bring about peace and mutual respect in the Middle East must be substantial and given priority status.
It cannot be denied that, although the successive Summits were a milestone in that they pinpointed a large number of problems, they did not do anything to resolve them.
Indeed, I regret to say that the governments have not implemented the proposals adopted at Barcelona: democracy, the rule of law, transparency, social rights and an internal policy to prevent communities being forced to leave their countries.
A new policy of trilateral trade, safeguarding typical productions, including European productions, condemning and preventing counterfeiting and fraud, food and environmental safety, the development of craft products and the establishment of programmes to fight desertification and facilitate the conversion of non-drinking water into drinking water and the development of tourism are some of the many points which we have discussed.
At this point, I would like to thank the officials of the committee and of the political groups for their work, which was particularly demanding because of the need to meet the earlier deadlines.
The time is now ripe to tackle practicable projects, and practicable projects are those which do not originate from specific preconceptions or concealed motives but from a policy's ability to marry the needs of the citizens with economic and social concerns.
This is why Europe as a whole, not just Mediterranean Europe, to which, as an Italian, I have the honour to belong, must now recognise its strategy on the East and on the South and its commitment to these regions as absolutely essential, and confirm that if healthy, lasting progress is to be achieved, the requirements of the economy must go hand in hand with human dignity.
This text was not written in order to be published as a mere declaration of intent: it was written to be implemented, and for this we place our confidence and our trust in the Commission and the Council, so that their cooperation with the European Parliament becomes practicable and updateable.
Mr President, as draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport on the Barcelona Process, I would like to communicate some of the concerns and suggestions which have been unanimously approved in committee.
Firstly, I wish to draw attention to the need to promote cultural programmes, which I know is not what attention is usually drawn to.
We know that the Euromed Heritage programme has been the most successful of all programmes for cooperation with the Mediterranean.
Furthermore, we believe that culture promotes wealth.
For example, where would Egypt be without its cultural tourism, which has been one of its main links with the world and one of its main sources of wealth? Culture, therefore, is one of the factors which is most easily accessible, closest to hand, most developed and which has accumulated the most experience in the field of Mediterranean development, which means that it can be closely linked to communication between people and can continue to open doors.
At the same time we wish to draw attention to education.
We believe that if a Mediterranean trade area does not deal with the issue of education, it will become an area of Mediterranean colonisation.
Therefore, the only way that there can be a social scheme capable of being incorporated into the business world and the Western world is through education.
Furthermore, we believe that that is where a genuine and indigenous scheme also can be found for establishing the pillars for future development.
Furthermore, the only way in which we can spread our ideas about human rights is by creating a better trained and better educated population.
We are therefore not talking about clichés, but about reality.
Another point that also concerns us is the way in which the Commission adapts to the philosophy and circumstances of the countries towards which the aid is directed.
I believe that a large part of the failure of the MEDA programme is due to the fact that we are applying a European-scale mentality, which suits Commission projects.
What we need, however, is many small projects.
We need to look to the internal social structures of the countries involved, the universities, the educational institutions, the museums, the cultural field, and society itself, so that we can rely on it for future development.
Mr President, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has on several occasions made considerable contributions to the debate on the European Union' s Mediterranean policy and on reinvigorating the 1995 Barcelona Process.
We played a major part in the discussion on the MEDA activity report that I presented on 5 September 2000, which was adopted almost unanimously by Parliament, as was, moreover, the amendment of the MEDA Regulation (MEDA II).
We would have liked the meeting at Feira to refer to the MEDA programme, since it is the main instrument for implementing this policy and will be allocated a financial package of EUR 5.37 billion for the period 2000-2006, excluding funds from the European Investment Bank.
Furthermore, we hope that this budget will be increased, as European Union Mediterranean policy should not have to suffer because of the appropriations that have been legitimately allocated to the Balkans.
All the debates, regardless of the committee in which they are held, whether it be Foreign Affairs, Industry, Agriculture or Culture, or in Parliament, are unanimous in constantly reiterating the same recommendations. As far as we are concerned, we would like to stress, first of all, the need to define a Mediterranean strategy, in conjunction with third countries.
Secondly, the need to develop decentralised cooperation that aims to enable contracts with local authorities and civil society, particularly NGOs, for both cross-border regions and in the South-South context, as well as for regional integration. Thirdly, we should like to highlight the decision of Parliament and the Commission to carry out an annual assessment of the human rights situation in signatory countries.
My fourth point is to stress the urgent need to adopt the Charter for Security and Stability so that we can play a more active role, particularly in restoring peace in the Middle East. We consider it particularly important to encourage local measures and sustainable development, although this was omitted from the Feira Council conclusions, and to carry out progressive evaluation in this area, to implement major programmes on the environment and water, to reinvigorate the Start programme, and for third countries of the Mediterranean region to take part in the Sixth Research Framework Programme of research and technological development.
The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy gave its unanimous opinion on this range of questions.
Mr President, assuming a driving role in the European Union means implementing a series of guidelines which have thus far existed more on paper than as part of practical action.
We have already committed ourselves to developing a lasting partnership with North Africa, Asia Minor and the Balkan states, but we are pursuing this too slowly.
It is one of the duties of Europe, which has the task of being the driving force of a balanced system of trade, the market, development, growth and economic prosperity.
This is also necessary in order to stem the disturbing migration flows of this last decade, which are a clear indication of the lack of a bilateral cooperation policy.
It is precisely from these last two issues that we must start if we genuinely want to restore the Mediterranean area to its former glory and, above all, to resume our leading role with political dignity.
It is essential for Europe to be at the forefront in this geo-political scenario, using the association agreements as springboards towards the financial instruments granted by the EIB and, in particular, by the MEDA programme.
At the same time, the adoption of the Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Peace and Stability, in which the two sides of the Mediterranean cooperate actively and the bases of which derive from the rights of individuals, of the family unit, of cultural diversity and of religious dialogue, cannot be put off any longer.
In fact, the issue of immigration, which is one of the greatest challenges, must be tackled in respect for cultural and historical differences and itself become a means of development.
It cannot be denied that the European labour requirements are constantly increasing, but, at the same time, we must put an end to illegal immigration and the numerous existing cases of illegal trafficking.
Failure to establish an effective, solid barrier blocking all that works against legality or the laws of democracy can only exacerbate division, annoyance and even violence once again, which would cancel out all the effort put in and undo any progress made in dialogue thus far.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Swedish Presidency sees the EU' s Mediterranean cooperation as an important and pressing issue.
I therefore listened with great interest to Mrs Muscardini' s and Mr Naïr' s presentations of their reports.
It is gratifying to note that criticisms made in both reports relate to the Swedish Presidency' s main priorities.
In political terms, the presidency wishes to promote democracy and human rights, social and economic progress and progress on environmental matters and, in addition, equality and the struggle against various forms of discrimination.
In the economic and financial sphere, we want to work towards an economic and financial partnership which is both dynamic and has a human face.
The concept of prosperity includes both economic growth and social equilibrium.
To date, no conference of trade ministers has been held within the Barcelona Process, in spite of the fact that trade and the economy form one of the three pillars of Barcelona cooperation.
The presidency is therefore going to arrange a meeting involving the 27 countries' trade ministers.
The aim is to give a dynamic edge to the most important aspects of trade covered by the Barcelona Process and to agree upon the guidelines for continued work.
The need for regional integration is another important issue which should be discussed.
Other priority sectors include rules of origin, accumulation, harmonisation measures, norms and standards and intellectual property protection.
In this context, I also wish to point out that the presidency shares the view that agricultural products ought not to be excluded from the free-trade discussions.
It is also important to encourage and support trade and cooperation between the partner countries themselves.
This is a neglected area in which a great deal must and can be done.
More than five years have gone by since the Barcelona Process was embarked upon.
A lot has been achieved, but it has not been possible to implement many of the plans.
To some extent, the way matters stand in the peace process has restricted the potential for progress, but other factors too have had a part to play.
We are convinced that a good deal can and should be done to give more impetus to Mediterranean cooperation and to make everyone involved feel that they own more of the process.
I shall therefore be listening with great interest to today' s debate, which I am convinced will make a valuable contribution to strengthening the EU' s Mediterranean cooperation.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the two rapporteurs, Mrs Muscardini and Mr Naïr, who have produced sound, high-quality reports on the future of the Mediterranean policy.
I feel that a boost needs to be given to the political, cultural and economic aspects of the Mediterranean policy: because we must increasingly consolidate democracy and the parliamentary system, because we must expand the borders of the rule of law, because we need to realise the importance of protecting human rights, because we need cultural exchange promoting mutual awareness of societies, particularly where Islamic communities are concerned, because we need to create multiethnic, multiracial, multireligious and multicultural societies and therefore reassert the principle of respect for minority cultures as part and parcel of democracies and emphasise the importance of peace in the daily lives of the citizens of the southern side of the Mediterranean, thereby excluding from the cultural process all radical or fundamentalist behaviour and all hate, which leads to conflict, massacre and war.
Moreover, commercial interexchange is important for Europe, and it is also important to be able to provide and guarantee vocational training and adequate financial instruments, and also support and advice in respect of the currencies of these countries, for, apart from anything else, the free-trade area will then have to become a euro zone.
This is what we expect.
However, I feel that the European Union needs to do an about-turn for, in my opinion, the current line is to withdraw from the expected prospects and commitments.
The cutback in the MEDA programme, for reasons which I see as excuses, and delays in the partnership processes are alarming.
Declarations of principles have been followed not by action but by delays in action.
We must prove wrong the theory that enlargement means a decline in interest in the Mediterranean.
We call for decisive reversal of the trend; we also call for resolute commitment to the Mediterranean peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, and not just between these two peoples but in the entire area, to tackle the problems of the Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran, so that all this can bring peace and tranquillity to that region of the world.
Let us therefore make our Mediterranean a sea of peace - for it used to be a sea of culture - where children, women and citizens can trade and move freely throughout the area.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteurs and point out that this debate has brought progress in Parliament's position on the issue of the Mediterranean policy, progress which is extremely important because, apart from anything else, over and above the differences between political groups, I can see that we have common ground on this matter which adds to our strength and the strength of the European institutions.
The Union's Euro-Mediterranean strategy is just as important as its strategy on enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, but we have outlined a path to follow for enlargement whereas we are still searching for a strategy for the Mediterranean policy, even though we have the partnership established by Barcelona behind us and despite the region's numerous problems, starting with the continual conflict.
I will not dwell on this as the matter will be discussed later on when Mr Solana is here.
For now, I just want to say that we call for a more active, more substantial role to be played by the European governments, giving the High Representative the power to develop a policy which is not in conflict with or an alternative to the policy of the United States, but is much more substantial than the strategy currently employed by Europe with regard to the partners, whose job, I regret to say, we cannot do for them.
We must therefore always bear in mind that the agreement must be based, first and foremost, on understanding and dialogue between the Palestinians and Israelis.
On the other hand, we cannot lose sight of other areas of conflict such as the Western Sahara.
We must never forget that the United Nations exists but that, within that framework, there is room for a European initiative, and my opinion is that, at the moment, there is room for a European initiative in the Western Sahara issue and that we could put an end to this last colonial battle.
On the subject of the partnership, I feel that we should tackle the more recent aspects, to which we invite the Commission and the Council to attach more importance than we have here today.
I would like to focus on human rights and the rule of law.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union represented a considerable step forwards: that is, we acknowledge that the social and individual rights of all people are recognised on Union territory.
This places us in a position where we can have dialogue with these countries, tackling the question of a Euro-Mediterranean citizenship where human rights issues are not a question of us interfering in their affairs but of the common need to establish values which are at the basis of the kind of peaceful coexistence we want.
Similarly, with regard to immigration, I would argue that it is in both our and their interest to fight illegal immigration and therefore establish a European-scale policy.
With regard to agriculture, I would point out to the Swedish Presidency that it is very easy to say that we are going to open up agriculture to free trade as well.
You must realise, gentlemen, that, even now, when they are subject to duties, our products are already competitive with local products on the markets of those countries: let us therefore take care for liberalisation could destroy a sector which is of vital importance for some countries.
Our Moroccan friends remind us that agriculture means keeping people in the countryside, maintaining employment and protecting the environment.
Let us therefore avoid superficiality and undue haste in developing strategies on sectors where we need to progress in a partnership which does not harm these countries.
Mr President, I would firstly like to offer our thanks for the work carried out by Mrs Muscardini and Mr Naïr and for their receptiveness to our proposals, and I would also like to say that our group supports both reports.
More specifically, I would like to highlight some positive aspects which have been introduced, particularly in the field of human rights, and more especially an amendment from our group which asks for condemnation of the death penalty and a moratorium on pending executions.
It would be cause for great hope if the moratorium were to take effect immediately.
On a different issue, I would also like to express our confidence in the impetus that the amendments provide in the regional and local field and to civil society, especially to private investment as a genuine driving force for development, over and above state aid and European aid at the highest level.
I will not go into any more detail, because I believe that the main points have been made clear by Mrs Muscardini and Mr Naïr in their speeches.
However, I would like to make two observations in relation to the debates which we have held in committee and in our group.
One of these concerns political priorities and the other concerns the coherence of our actions.
We do not all believe that we have to set the priority of enlargement towards the East against the priority of the Mediterranean.
I also believe that the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Lindh, made this clear the other day in committee.
They are two real priorities but they are different.
Enlargement is an operational priority for which we have set objectives, we know where we are going and we know what we want and, in reality, there are no alternative strategic options.
On the other hand, Mediterranean policy is a strategic priority, in which we do not know where we are going or, to be more precise, we are moving inexorably towards a place to which we do not want to go.
The foreseeable change in income, bearing in mind current demography and economic growth, indicates that our average per capita income will rise and the average per capita income in North Africa will decrease and, unless this is prevented, the problems we all envisage, and which there is no need to mention, will increase.
We know what will happen, but we do not know how to prevent it, although we want to prevent it at all costs.
Let us not, therefore, set political priorities against one another.
My other point concerns the coherence of our actions, because, in order to get results, we must be more coherent.
Clearly, we need will and we need resources, but, in fact, resources are not being used; and this means that there is insufficient capacity for management on our part, and there is insufficient capacity for absorption on the part of the receiving countries.
More is requested and then is not used.
Therefore, somebody should ask 'why do we not readjust the figures?' But what we really need is a budget and it must be used.
For all these reasons I believe that we need conviction as well as the capacity for absorption.
I hope that these reports will help us to find the correct method, but quite honestly I am not convinced they will.
Mr President, I am going to focus on an aspect of the common strategy for the Mediterranean region which is not being taken into account in all respects: the South-South dialogue, which is an important driving force within the strategy for relations between the European Union and the Maghreb countries.
The creation of centralised authorities and mechanisms which thoroughly monitor the most pressing problems is essential.
The management of projects on specific points and on common aspects is a need which has become a real one in relation to cases in which, on a private level, citizens and cities from both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar have been cooperating with wonderful results and without Community patronage.
For the purposes of this local management, it would be necessary to create a new body which, as a decentralised and permanent mechanism, would bring together all the institutional, political and social leaders of these territories which are so close and yet so far away.
The 14 kilometres which separate the European Union from the Maghreb are real, but let us ensure that this does not become an insuperable distance which prevents the closest possible cooperation.
Immigration, its causes and consequences - which are sometimes terrible and irreparable - business, agricultural and fishing exchanges, social, technical, educational and university exchanges, aspects of common development, such as those in the energy sector, and the essential democratising political aspects which the European Union must promote in those countries all require the creation of new mechanisms and instruments which, in a decentralised fashion, would respond to these needs, which are local but which have widespread repercussions.
Mr President, although the Barcelona Process raised hopes and expectations, today we must register disappointment.
What yesterday were laudable ambitions, such as calls for an area of shared prosperity, for a balancing of North and South, a commitment to enhancing peace and stability, are now urgent issues.
While we all see the need to relaunch the partnership, there is, however, a divergence in the options we favour.
The future of the very concept of a partnership lies not in adjusting the needs of these populations to the market forces at work in the North and to our personal ambitions, but instead in ensuring their own development and resolving their urgent issues.
I believe, therefore, that Europe should adopt some approach other than simply supporting these countries in establishing the free-trade area that Europe was to set up.
Enabling cooperation agreements, particularly through public services, seeking other financial resources, by introducing a Tobin-style tax, for example, and reducing or even writing off debt would give real substance to a fair and useful partnership.
This approach would favour North-South relations without the element of domination.
The same applies to human rights.
Our associations with countries in the Mediterranean region can only be built on trust. We are, therefore, extremely concerned about human rights violations in Tunisia, for example, because the agreements signed by both parties oblige them to respect human rights.
The same applies to the European Union' s respect for the rights of all citizens.
I am thinking here of the need for a more integrated and more generous approach to migration.
It is inhuman and ineffective to advocate the free movement of goods and capital but not of people.
Experience shows that closing borders serves only to force immigrants with no identity papers and no rights into the hands of smugglers and other unscrupulous dealers.
How can we speak of managing immigration in a more humane manner, how can we hope and pray for further integration, if we do not question its foundations?
We must safeguard the freedom of movement of persons and equality in social, economic, cultural and political rights.
To sum up, in order to create an area of peace in the Middle East, the European Union needs to take much more direct and resolute action.
From now on, the United Nations resolutions must be applied in full, Israel must respect its commitments and we must recognise the Palestinians' legitimate right to their own state.
The same problem - I am about to finish - can be seen in the Western Sahara, where there is a risk that armed conflict will be resumed.
Despite all this, the European Union has everything to gain by bringing together all parties, such as associations, local authorities and unions, who are already establishing a different form of partnership.
Mr President, Mrs Muscardini' s report on Mediterranean policy, or what claims to be a report on this subject, stands out, first of all, for one simple reason but one that is always disregarded in this Chamber.
At long last, it puts the problem of common foreign policy back in its natural context, by which I mean the geographical context, i.e. physical space, the confrontation of land and sea, the grouping of nations in terms of their own areas of activity, their own bonds and their own community of interests, even if these are focused away from those of the mythical Europe, a continent so intangible that it does not have any real borders.
So this report puts foreign policy back into context.
As I mentioned, geographical position is the repository or sanctuary, if you prefer, or, in other words, the narrative which enables us to read, understand and hence respect the invariable political factors that are dictated by geography.
This shows, moreover, just how problematic, if not, as we might more accurately say, impossible, it is to implement a common foreign policy through pathetic puppets such as Solana.
Yet, the way that political Europe currently operates automatically rules out the geo-political approach since, as there is no definition of what constitutes Europe' s common interest - by which I mean a European res publica - it still favours, after all the usual free-for-alls, the law of the jungle, allowing the strongest at any given time to make the rest of the 15 support its strategic choices, even if it has to shove them down their throats.
We therefore come to understand that, in this game, the upper hand on Mediterranean policy, as well as on many other subjects, is held by northern Europe - i.e. Great Britain plus Germany and its age-old allies. That is why priority has clearly been given to enlargement to the north and to the east including the Balkans, where we are paying the price of German policy, while our friends in the Mediterranean region bear the costs of every adjustment.
Therefore, the rapporteur and my good friend, Mr Naïr, are both justified in denouncing Europe' s lack of commitment to the Mediterranean region and Middle Eastern affairs.
I would just like to add that all the Latin countries may sooner or later reject, perhaps even violently reject the prospect of a future which relegates them to the sidelines of a group over which they no longer have any influence.
Even today, we believe that it is the duty of the southern European nations, or rather the northern Mediterranean nations, to work together with the southern Mediterranean countries, firstly, the three Maghreb countries, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, to create this area of solidarity, which is a part of our history and geography and that is, moreover, of importance to us in the century that is just beginning.
Mr President, the two reports which we are debating today have at least one thing in common: they contain a whole raft of unfulfillable wishes and desires with regard to the Mediterranean region.
Financially, we simply lack the resources to do an awful lot and what is more, the European Union' s external relations have been such that we cannot afford to be overly confident.
It is high time we established priorities, thus allowing us to do the things we do outside the Union well.
Recent statements made by Mr Solana confirm the need to prioritise.
He referred to the Union' s strategy documents, including those with regard to the Mediterranean countries, as purely bureaucratic exercises.
Ideas on paper hardly ever turn into reality in practice.
However, the endless recitals and paragraphs in the documents before us do raise expectations among our partners, expectations which we cannot possibly fulfil, because we also have other responsibilities.
Both reports are disparaging about those other responsibilities.
According to the rapporteurs, our relationship with candidate countries, in particular, has led to the neglect of the southern countries, and that must now be put right.
However, I do not agree with this line of thought.
Enlargement deserves all our attention in the near future.
If we want to do this properly, we will have our hands full.
There is therefore certainly no chance of spending as much money on our southerly neighbours, certainly not if we bear in mind how reluctant Member States are to put more money into the Union' s fund.
Additionally, both reports take an optimistic view of the Union' s influence in the political arena.
We should not be under any illusions, particularly when it comes to the role which the European Union could play in the Middle-East peace process.
I regret that both reports run the risk of not being taken seriously due to unrealistic goals.
Indeed, the European Union could very well be of significance, especially in the economic sense, but also when it comes to the problem of refugees.
We should only concern ourselves with matters where the European Union can provide added value and can really be of significance.
Being modest as to in our abilities will enhance the quality of the European Union' s external relations.
Mr President, as the representative of a country that once had direct access to the Mediterranean, I would like to convey my express support for fostering better relations between the EU and the Mediterranean region, and accordingly, for this report.
It is not just a political, but also a historical commitment we must make.
Needless to say, the EU' s activities with regard to securing peace in the Mediterranean, especially in relation to the centre of conflict in the Middle East, constitute a special responsibility, which, sadly, the representatives and members of the European Union, and particularly their foreign policy representatives, have been unequal to in the past.
However, the pursuit of an autonomous and active European peace policy must remain one of the EU' s goals.
That said, there are also other reasons besides the security aspects, as to why it is important for the EU to play a more active role in the Mediterranean region.
The EU cannot, nor should it, spare any expense in the social and cultural spheres, in supporting democratic developments, in intervening in the event of human rights violations, in promoting economic development, and in improving dialogue and cooperation in as many areas as possible, if it wants to see discernible progress.
If we are to avoid all these proposals, as detailed in the report, remaining no more than declarations of intent, we will need to work on the list of priorities, which has also been called for in this House, and which sets out in precise terms the order in which these intentions are to be carried out and the financing thereof.
Incidentally, my tone was not one of regret when I mentioned our former access to the Mediterranean.
Mr President, as we can deduce from the speeches by the rapporteurs, and at this stage it is hardly necessary to repeat it, the Mediterranean region must be one of the European Union' s highest priorities, because the problems of the southern Mediterranean - the political upheavals, the economic stagnation, the population growth - affect us, directly or indirectly, as Europeans.
Examples of this are the migration flows in our direction, the deterioration of our environment and the dangers presented to our society by radical fundamentalism.
In summary, balance on our southern border is essential to our stability.
It is therefore important that we share the view that the Union' s natural desire for enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe must not lead to a deterioration of its policy towards the Mediterranean.
Therefore, while in 1995 my group supported and strongly promoted the open process in Barcelona which, at last, after almost 40 years, drew up a global strategy for the Community countries in relation to the Mediterranean countries, it now supports the objective contained in the reports which we are debating today to strengthen the Barcelona Process.
In particular, in relation to Mr Naïr' s report, we have tried to improve it in committee by means of various contributions and I would like to thank the rapporteur for being receptive towards them.
We have insisted on the importance of strengthening interparliamentary dialogue, which must be consolidated as one of the key elements in boosting the Barcelona Process.
We would like to point out that we should promote the liberalisation of the economic systems of our Mediterranean partners and carry out the structural changes necessary to compete in more open markets.
We have proposed the creation of a monitoring centre for migration flows, responsible amongst other things for creating mechanisms to combat, in a coordinated fashion, the mafias which profit from illegal immigration.
We would like to point out that relations between the European Union and the Mediterranean countries are based on a global strategy, one of the elements of which is undoubtedly fishing, and therefore we trust that the Moroccan Government will adopt an attitude which reflects the current urgency in the negotiations which are taking place.
Finally we would like to point out to the Commission that, within the framework of the reforms taking place in its external service, the human resources dedicated to the Mediterranean association need to be reinforced, a specific structure needs to be established in the Commission, and progress needs to be made on the devolution and decentralisation of aid.
In summary, my group is in favour of the European Union playing a broader role in the Mediterranean and we hope that human and material resources are provided that are a match for the challenges facing us.
Mr President, the idea that the Mediterranean is the number one priority of European Union external policy stems from the conviction that, although the Mediterranean is no longer the centre of the world, each and every one of the great contradictions and challenges of the twenty-first century are concentrated there.
The Mediterranean provides a dramatic example of the issue of war and peace.
The issue of North-South relations is spectacularly alive in the Mediterranean.
The very fashionable issue of the clash of cultures or dialogue between cultures is symbolised by the Mediterranean.
The emergence of xenophobia and racism, or tolerance and multiculturalism, is most intensely illustrated in the Mediterranean.
The question of democracy and human rights or authoritarianism is alive in the Mediterranean and will continue to be so in the coming years.
The issue of regional responses to the challenges of globalisation is being raised in the Mediterranean.
The issue of women' s emancipation or repression is also at its most intense in the Mediterranean region.
There is no need to insist therefore that this is our fundamental priority, because the prospects for its future remain completely open, while enlargement will take time, it will have its costs and its problems, but the only reasonable outcome that anyone can imagine is that it will eventually take place.
In the Mediterranean, a 'sandbelt' or a 'slumbelt' may be created in the twenty-first century, and both issues are dramatically highlighted.
The two contributions presented here today, in the European Parliament, are contributions to the relaunch of the Euro-Mediterranean policy.
I believe that Mr Patten and Mr Solana would do very well to read these reports, and in particular, the report by my friend and teacher, Sami Naïr, because it makes a very coherent and well put together list of themes, which calls for a political proposal.
This policy was well defined in Barcelona five years ago but today it needs not only a new expression of will but also the ability to implement initiatives.
We must achieve - above all in the Mediterranean, and we Mediterraneans know this - something very important: things need to be explained.
Nevertheless, if anything is lacking today, it is symbolic specific action, a strong signal that the Union, the Council, the Commission and Parliament, are truly interested in this relaunch, which goes beyond words and speeches.
In this regard, I would like to draw attention to an aspect of Sami Naïr' s report: the need to create strong initiatives in the fields of South-South trade and for subregional integration or integration in the southern Mediterranean region.
We need something strong. I do not know exactly what it may be, but it must truly win over public opinion in the South so that people can see that the European Union clearly has, as well as a well drawn-up policy, the will to create banking and financial instruments, railways that lead to subregional integration in the South or networks of roads and motorways.
This message must make a genuine contribution to this renewal of the will for integration which, above all in the Maghreb, is a cause for hope at the moment and which must count on an ambitious and also generous contribution from the Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I certainly endorse the line taken by Mrs Muscardini and Mr Naïr's reports, and their content, but there is a need to focus on certain factors which are not dealt with.
It is important to start from this consideration: the European Union's strategy for the Mediterranean, developed at Feira, in addition to failing to provide practical recommendations, does not take into account certain developments which have taken place in recent years in the Mediterranean Basin. After centuries of struggling and marginalisation it has resumed a key position in world trade again, which, after the discovery of America, had been dominated by the Atlantic routes.
Thanks also to the new production boost in Asia, Europe now trades more with Asia than with America.
For these trade routes between America and Asia, the Mediterranean provides a valuable centre for unloading goods for northern Europe, which means that carriers do not have to make detours.
This is thus a new development which the European Union cannot ignore and which has already yielded the first, astonishing results.
And it is towards this integrated, well-structured system that we must endeavour to direct our funds, a system which is already equipped with transport intermodality in the form of aircraft, railways and motorways.
Without this practical step, the funds will frequently not be exploited, as is the case at present.
Mr President, I believe that the great merit of these reports is that they tone down the optimism of the Commission' s communication regarding what it calls the progress made since Barcelona, and that they open the way to ambitious and fairer paths for the partnership to take.
What were the objectives of that partnership? They are, once again, the creation of an area of peace, the improvement of mutual understanding amongst the peoples of the region and the creation of an area of shared prosperity.
The first two goals have not been achieved, as Mr Naïr has said.
Unfortunately, this is true.
We have not created an area of shared prosperity either, only the very beginnings of a free-trade area involving some of the countries, established on European terms, because the main beneficiaries of these are the industrial products in which we have a competitive advantage.
I am continually surprised, moreover, that those who are the quickest to call for an extension of a free-trade area, imposing the liberal model on terms that are extremely unfavourable for the countries of the South, are also the first to speak of interference, even neo-colonialism, with regard to human rights issues.
In Barcelona, the vital contribution of civil society to the development of partnerships was recognised for the first time in a text to which the European Union and 15 countries of the southern Mediterranean subscribed.
We must admit that we have failed spectacularly on this issue.
We have been unable to support the dynamic efforts of citizens and democratic projects, in the face of the hard line adopted by most governments, but is this from lack of any real will to do so? How can we use the association agreements and the MEDA programme to support them?
What sort of effective strategy and what set of relevant measures can we create in order to avoid this schizoid situation where what we say and what we do are two quite different things? Do we really wish to reinvigorate the Barcelona Process, or would we rather condemn ourselves to the Europe of the Fifteen' s continuing to pursue relations in the same traditional mould as some self-styled 'realistic' states?
Mr President, the European Union's policy towards the countries of the Mediterranean is a far cry from the Barcelona Process and an even farther cry from the real needs of the people in these countries.
As Mr Naïr rightly said, the European Union only appears to be interested in the Mediterranean for reasons of security and only intervenes economically in order to gain a foothold on the markets in the southern countries.
The new common strategy goes even further in the same direction; it even tries to involve the Mediterranean countries in the aggressive CFSP.
Euro-Mediterranean collaboration is the main vehicle for interference in the internal affairs of the Mediterranean countries, and, ostensibly, all this is being done in the name of common prosperity, democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
At the same time, the European Union remains resolutely indifferent to the tragedy of the Palestinian people and the murder of Palestinians by the state of Israel on a daily basis.
The Communist Party of Greece defends collaboration between people on equal terms and without one country's interfering in the internal affairs of another.
In particular, we would point out that it is the developed capitalist countries which are responsible for the current state of the underdeveloped countries.
That is yet another reason why the developed countries are duty bound to help these countries develop their productive base and raise the standard of living of their inhabitants.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I certainly greatly welcomed Mr Naïr's report, which does not contain any fabrication but gives an unbiased description of a problem which needs to be resolved, first and foremost at political level, and also Mrs Muscardini's report, which is in-depth and gives just as true a picture.
It is, of course, no longer necessary to remind the House of the role, the function and the importance of the Mediterranean in the very origins of European culture and the way that it is both the cradle and the vehicle of our civilisation.
However, we cannot ignore the fact that, thus far, our joint action in this major geographical area has not been effective and has certainly not been exhaustive.
Poorly managed programmes, maladministration, even a certain lack of clear thinking and political timeliness have prevented us from making what is - I am sure - the will of our institutions a practical reality, that is from achieving the three objectives focused on at Barcelona: an area of peace and stability, an area of shared prosperity through free trade and greater understanding between peoples.
As a Member of the Committee on Budgets, I can only hope that the Commission will be willing to change the way it runs the MEDA programme and the very structure of the programme, in the manner indicated by Mr Bourlanges, that is, basing its approach on radical streamlining of the cycle of procedures, greater recourse to macrofinancial support, and less complex commitology.
The Commission, which is already presenting the initial draft budget, also needs to endeavour to be more transparent by producing an annual document highlighting the expenditure commitments which can be made for each country.
This is an area we must tackle if we genuinely want to implement our policy.
Mr President, the Barcelona Process is a splendid idea, only strictly speaking it is 2000 years overdue.
A system based on partnership with the same rights and obligations is supposed to emerge from a colonial and a post-colonial system.
Seen from a historical perspective, the ruling structures were always constructed in such a way as to produce a North-South divide, and now it is only right that Europe, whose countries - or rather, certain European States from within this system - were almost always the beneficiaries, should also take responsibility for rapprochement and parity, and should promote these aspects too.
The goal of the Barcelona Process is undisputed.
Its success depends not only on formal negotiated outcomes, but also on the extent to which we are able to dispel the prejudices we ourselves harbour towards the Mediterranean States and their inhabitants.
There can be no doubt that the realisation of the Barcelona objectives will prove decisive to a peace strategy of the twenty-first century.
Equally, it is important to ensure that no Mediterranean country is excluded.
Libya, the country that lies almost exactly at the heart of the Mediterranean States, goes unmentioned in the Barcelona paper.
The process of rapprochement will not work unless the EU endeavours to invite Libya to take part in it.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are all familiar with the catalogue of problems affecting the Euro-Mediterranean region and their causes: they are basically the same as in 1995 when the Barcelona Process was launched.
They have already been mentioned in the debate: from illegal immigration to droughts, from external debt to the failure to respect human rights, and terrorism, which ruthlessly destroys the lives of innocent human beings and families, as we are seeing in Spain, in Algeria and in the Middle East itself.
Today more than ever we must make the statement that only cooperation, dialogue, economic and cultural exchanges, solidarity and mutual understanding can turn the two sides of the Mediterranean into a prosperous and peaceful area.
Neither the European Union nor the Maghreb or Mashreq countries can afford not to take advantage of the human and cultural resources that enrich the region.
The problem is that we are not doing that properly.
The association agreements are dead letters in many respects.
The financial instruments are not being used as they should and the political, economic and social development of those countries is not keeping up with the pace of horizontal cooperation, which is very necessary, nor with the modernity required today by a world which, technologically speaking, is taking giant steps forward.
It is time to move from contemplation to action, to demand performance and effectiveness in the efforts to implement the strategy which has been drawn up and, in this respect, I would like to emphasise the demand for human resources to be strengthened, as indicated by Mr Galeote.
Mr President, today we are debating two reports which are political reports par excellence and with which I fully concur.
That being the case, instead of elaborating on these two reports, I should like to say a few words to corroborate the arguments behind them.
A few months ago, we had a entire debate because the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, said that European history dates from the time of Charlemagne.
The very name Europe which, as Europeans, we all bear, derives from the name Europa, the daughter of Libya and Poseidon, the God of the Sea.
Europa was Zeus's wife, the mother of Minos, Sarpedon and Radamanthe.
Why am I telling you all this? Because mythology itself, which is a narrative record of history, highlights the relations which exist between Europe and North Africa.
The Mediterranean is, to all intents and purposes, the only European sea, and as long as we, in our plans and policies, look down on the other side of the Mediterranean from on high, then we shall get nowhere.
We need to get a few things straight.
If, in the twenty-first century, we try and base policies on the attempt by certain European countries to find traces of the recent colonialism to lean on then, politically, Europe will get nowhere.
We must realise that the starting point for today's debate, based on the two reports, based on the decisions taken in Barcelona, is to see the other side of the Mediterranean as part of Europe.
The European Union itself must take initiatives - development, cultural and, most importantly, peace initiatives - so that the two sides of Europe can stand opposite each other without our again hearing echoes of "Hannibal ante portas" or "Delenda est Carthago" or a modern version of Scipio.
There are Europeans on the other side of the Mediterranean and we would do well to remember that.
Mr President, the Barcelona Process was not lacking in good intentions or financial resources.
Despite this, the outcome was meagre, which is very disappointing.
There was too much gesture politics going on and too little capacity to carry out the plans.
Three quarters of the committed funding never left the kitty.
Instead of a reduction in the means, this will now lead to an increase, which is a little bizarre, to say the least.
It makes no sense to budget for even higher amounts if the absorption capacity remains restricted and the Commission delegations are understaffed.
It would be far more preferable if the European Union were to show its solidarity with the Mediterranean countries by opening up its markets more, not only for products from industry, but also for those from agriculture and horticulture.
We have a very long way to go before a free-trade area is established.
The economies of the partner countries are still very vulnerable.
Their mutual trade is still being restricted and has protectionism written all over it.
Additionally, the political distrust which exists between the partners must first be dispelled.
The Barcelona Process can only succeed if the Mediterranean partners continue to work on democratisation.
The human rights clauses in the Association Agreements should not remain hollow phrases.
Any violations should be penalised by a drop in financial support.
But if we reduce the amounts which cannot be spent anyway, then this will not make any impact whatsoever.
We must bring our ambitions into line with the degree to which they can be implemented.
The question is whether the report' s many sound wishes can all be realised at the same time.
It is better to do one thing which is slightly inferior than to do a great deal of things which are downright inferior.
Fine words and fine budgets are not enough to guarantee stability and welfare.
It is about the willingness to carry out true political reform, and this is what the Barcelona Process still lacks.
Mr President, the Mediterranean is the cradle of European civilisation.
The legacy of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome shaped our culture, our literature, our very understanding of the common European heritage.
Around the Mediterranean the three monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - were founded and fostered and spread throughout the known world.
Our debt to the Mediterranean is not only historical and cultural, it informs our common interest today in enlargement.
It is true that covers mainly countries from Central and Eastern Europe, but the candidate countries include the two famous Mediterranean island peoples: the Maltese and the Cypriots.
I very much hope that the Mediterranean programme and the enlargement process may be seen as complementary and not conflicting.
It is suitable that today the presidency should be manned by Mr Danielsson from Nordic Europe.
An example of North-South solidarity was when Prime Minister Aznar attended the Gdansk commemoration celebrating the foundation of the Solidarnosc movement.
I hope that improved relations between the EU and North Africa may result from the Mediterranean programme.
Today we wait for the outcome of the Lockerbie trial from a Scottish court in the Netherlands, but I understand it is the intention of the British to foster, in future, better diplomatic and other relations with, for example, Libya.
I have a question for the Council.
Could Mr Danielsson confirm that the EU' s Mediterranean programme is coordinated with the enlargement process to which the presidency attaches so much importance? I wonder if it might be possible for the Commissioner in his reply to dwell on the criticisms of underspending sometimes levelled at the MEDA programme.
Is it the case that the Commission stands ready when necessary to give administrative support in the formulation of suitable programmes, as they did in the past when I wrote a report on the Alfama and Mouraria areas of Lisbon? Is it the case that, if there were to be underspending, the money could be relocated?
Finally, concerning paragraph 54 of the Naïr report, could the Commissioner also confirm that the two Mediterranean candidate countries might be able to participate in the Euromed Heritage programme.
Commissioner, last November, you yourself said in the French press that the objective of the Barcelona Process was both simple and ambitious, i.e. an area at peace, enjoying shared prosperity, promoting the emergence of civil society while respecting human rights and ensuring the mutual understanding of different civilisations.
These three points should guide us in our relations with our Mediterranean partners.
It was in this spirit that the Group of the Party of European Socialists collaborated with the rapporteurs, Mrs Morgantini and our friend, Mr Naïr.
For we must now set priorities that have genuine measurable objectives and we must allocate adequate resources to achieving them.
We know that these priorities are, first of all, to make progress along the difficult road that is the Charter for Peace and Stability.
The French Presidency tried to do this against an extremely complicated background and the Swedish Presidency, I am sure, will continue along this route.
We would hope so and we shall all keep an eye on this.
The Barcelona Process should not be held hostage to the Middle East peace process.
Quite the opposite; the continuing tensions and the state of war between the Israeli and Palestinian people serve only to highlight the current need to improve dialogue between the countries bordering the Mediterranean.
We should also step up the negotiation, ratification and implementation of the association agreements, since this contract formalises the commitments of both parties and ensures an effective partnership. We are delighted to learn that an agreement has just been signed with Egypt.
Furthermore, we cannot continue investing just one euro in the South for every 10 we invest in the East.
This imbalance becomes more explosive with every passing day.
Firstly, of course, we must bring the reform of the MEDA financial instrument to a successful conclusion so as to improve the quality and speed of its implementation.
Finally, we call for decentralised cooperation to be relaunched on new bases, so that we can fulfil the hopes and respond to the profusion of initiatives from civil society, both European and Mediterranean, because the partnership will be worth nothing if it is not a partnership of peoples.
Indeed, I was interested to note that the Swedish Presidency intends to focus on the cultural, social and human aspects of the Mediterranean partnership.
Commissioner, our relationship with the South needs the input of more than just words and political symbols.
Our partners are expecting practical steps to be taken, as Mr Naïr stressed in his report, which I thought was particularly valuable.
Mr President, only a year ago, the eastwards enlargement policy was considered to be a possible line of development for Europe. Today, it is undeniably a fundamental part of European policy.
I hope that the same will become true of Mediterranean policy as of today, not only because the Middle East is one of the most insecure areas on our borders or because the southern side of the Mediterranean is the greatest source of migration towards Europe, but also, I am glad to say, because, as President Prodi recently stated, having already discovered America we have now discovered Asia, and the Mediterranean has resumed its key position in world trade and exchange which must be exploited on both northern and southern sides.
In my opinion, if this is true the performance of the MEDA programme cannot be taken as the benchmark, although I am convinced that careful evaluation of its results would shed a different light on things, but there are three lines to be explored: firstly, increasing mutual understanding through decentralised cooperation, which can be strongly encouraged; secondly, a training programme for the ruling classes of the Mediterranean, which Europe must involve in order to guarantee itself a better future; thirdly, defining sustainable sea transport policies in the Mediterranean, which will become a central point either of danger or of major development for both northern and southern sides of the Basin.
Mr President, we all stressed, both today and yesterday, the importance that we attach to Mediterranean policy and to the need to urgently reinvigorate the Barcelona Process, which is all too often disregarded.
The past year has not lived up to these expectations.
Admittedly, it was possible to hold another Euro-Mediterranean conference during the French Presidency, but this meeting produced few decisions and, above all, no genuine strategy.
Furthermore, I believe that it is time to give our Mediterranean strategy a firm foundation and to dissociate it from the vicissitudes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I sincerely hope that the European Union will achieve its goal of strengthening economic, political and cultural ties with the countries of the Mediterranean Basin.
We shall soon be discussing the partnership agreement between the European Union and Egypt. I am delighted that this agreement was finally signed last week.
As the rapporteur on Egypt, I sincerely hope that we can take this opportunity to encourage the other partners who have not yet signed up to an agreement to do so as soon as possible.
It is also worth considering the European Parliament' s role in this process, which is still too limited. Then perhaps we might be able to shape the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Forum on the model of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, which meets twice yearly and can set up working parties and initiate fact-finding missions.
We could also, perhaps, improve the organisation of Parliament' s regular participation in ministerial meetings between the Barcelona Process members.
To sum up, Mr President, I would like to ask the Council and the Commission to explicitly recognise the role of towns and large cities, and I should like to thank Mr Naïr, the rapporteur, for agreeing to table an amendment that I made to his excellent report.
The Mediterranean countries should be encouraged to develop their relations and to share their experiences on specific urban issues.
The problems of modern times are most serious within towns and large cities.
Mr President, this joint debate is tackling issues which will shortly be at the centre of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Forum.
We are all convinced that the future of the Union's Mediterranean strategy depends largely on the success of the Middle East peace policy, which we must be more zealous in supporting even though it is the United States which is at the forefront of this political initiative.
The success of the Euro-Mediterranean project and the concrete results of economic cooperation between the European Union and the countries of the area should benefit the peace policy.
Moreover, eastwards enlargement, which received fresh impetus from the Nice Summit, must go hand in hand with an equally strong boost for the Mediterranean strategy, which has to evolve.
Another boost, including financial support, is therefore needed for the Barcelona Process and the MEDA programmes, particularly the programmes targeting professional training, university exchanges, projects promoting cooperation with the Union's research centres and technology parks, and especially with the cities and regions of Mediterranean Europe.
Economic and social progress must also lead to the consolidation of the areas of democracy, but, as has already been stressed, we must not lose sight of the fact that full respect for human rights is essential if the partnership is genuinely to succeed.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mrs Muscardini and Mr Naïr, on the excellent work they have done on an issue as sensitive as the conflict in this part of the world.
I would also like to start my speech by informing Parliament - I believe this is good news - about the MEDA programme, with which perhaps some of you are already familiar.
On 12 December the Council approved a budgetary contribution in this regard, which represents an increase of 10% on the annual investment for the MEDA programme.
This means that, compared to the EUR 684 million used during the previous period, that annual contribution will now total EUR 764 million per year.
I believe that this demonstrates the goodwill that dominates relations between Parliament, the Commission and the Council in this field.
On the other hand - and unfortunately - we must note, however, that sufficient means are not being made available to find an appropriate destination for this aid, since, in the period 1995-1999, almost 30% of the budgeted aid was not implemented.
This is disappointing management.
I do not know what the problem is, but there is a problem.
Furthermore, I would like to refer to the social, cultural and human dimension of these 15 North African countries, to which our various societies must move closer, and with whom we must promote comprehension and improve mutual understanding.
It also requires a special effort in terms of the teaching and training of young people, which must be based on tolerance, since young people are the future of these nations.
Neither must we forget dialogue, as well as the promotion of fundamental rights.
Finally, I would like to say one thing: we have an obligation to do this well, because if we do not do it out of love, we will have to do it out of fear, because what is at stake is the security of southern Europe.
Mr President, it is very appropriate that we are debating these two very good reports only a few days before the Euro-Med Forum, which is due to sit next week.
Various speakers have mentioned the importance of that forum, which must be raised over the coming years if we are to get the Barcelona Process back on track and expanding.
I would like to speak mainly on the funding for the Euro-Med programme, for MEDA, and say I am disappointed at the very low take-up.
The report mentions that is due to poor administration and procedures within the Commission.
A former colleague of mine, Mr Patten, is doing his best to make sure that we do get spending in the right sort of areas - efficiently, effectively, and to meet the needs of the various countries.
I am first Vice-Chairman of the delegation for Malta.
They are not allowed to bid for as much work as they want.
We need more transparency in the spending that is agreed upon.
We need to know where the money is going and - very importantly indeed - we need a better audit trail of where the money has gone because a lot of talk in the media is about misuse and money going down the wrong avenues for the wrong reasons.
That is an abuse of the position that we hold here.
I expect to see a better relationship between Parliament and the Commission in the interest of all the countries in the southern Mediterranean area.
There is a great deal of work to be done, it can be done and, indeed, it must be done.
Situation in the Middle East
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the situation in the Middle East.
I would like to welcome Mr Danielsson, President-in-Office of the Council, and, without further ado, I shall give him the floor on behalf of the Council.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the Israeli election for prime minister on 6 February, the peace process in the Middle East is at an uncertain stage.
During the negotiations in Taba, the parties came closer than ever before to a negotiated solution.
At the same time, the violence in the Palestinian areas and the large number of dead and injured has meant a serious reduction in trust between the negotiating parties.
The Israeli Government faces change, irrespective of the outcome of the election for prime minister on 6 February but, at the same time, there should hopefully be a strong desire for peace on the part of both the Israeli and Palestinian populations.
The Israeli election for prime minister and the forthcoming formation of a government will be important factors in determining the future direction of the peace process.
Despite the difficulties, the parties have not wanted to forfeit the progress achieved in spite of everything.
In Taba, the parties negotiated directly with each other and without any third party present.
The atmosphere on that occasion was serious and results-oriented, and both parties declared themselves optimistic about the opportunities for achieving a final settlement.
However, time did not permit any such final settlement to be reached in Taba, but the parties agreed upon a joint concluding statement on 28 January which may constitute a platform to build upon further whenever the negotiations for a final settlement are resumed.
I would draw the honourable Members' and Parliament' s attention to the fact that this statement particularly emphasises the European Union' s role in the continued work for peace.
The presidency is not alone in receiving requests from many quarters to see a strengthening of the European Union' s already major commitment to the whole Middle East issue.
The EU has an important role to play in as much as we are the most important trading partner of practically all the countries in the area, as well as the largest donor of public aid to the Palestinian areas.
Through its Special Envoy, Mr Moratinos, who has been present the whole time, the EU has of course been able to follow the negotiations in Taba.
The very fact that Mr Moratinos has been able to participate and show the European Union' s support for the negotiations and its readiness to assist the parties has been of great value to the Union.
I also want to emphasise that, in recent weeks, the presidency has had regular contacts at the highest level with both the Israeli and Palestinian leaderships.
A recurrent theme for the presidency in these contacts has been the European Union' s desire to assist the parties in whatever way they wish.
Throughout, these contacts have taken place in close collaboration with the High Representative and the General Secretary of the UN.
I also want to emphasise the significance of the fact that the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Mr Solana, is part of the international commission under the leadership of Senator Mitchell which is investigating the current violence in the Palestinian areas and which, hopefully, will eventually submit proposals to prevent a recurrence of this violence.
The ever lengthening crisis has presented the Palestinian population with severe economic and humanitarian problems.
The Palestinian Authority has also been grappling with major budgetary problems since the Israeli Government stopped the transfers of tax funds it is obliged to make in accordance with the 'Paris Protocol' .
In a statement of 22 January, the General Affairs Council called upon Israel to resume these transfers.
On the initiative of Commissioner Patten, the European Union has also used extra appropriations in order to make funds temporarily available to the Palestinian Authority.
The human rights situation continues to give cause for concern.
The European Union has intervened with the Palestinian Authority in connection with the death sentences recently carried out.
The Union has also intervened in Israel to condemn the extra-judicial executions of Palestinians, corroborated by military sources.
We shall continue to monitor these issues.
Unfortunately, there is no new information about initiatives or progress in the peace negotiations between Israel and Syria and between Israel and Lebanon.
In dialogue with the parties and also in close collaboration with the new American administration, the European Union will continue to do what it can to bring all aspects of the peace process to a successful conclusion.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking both the Council and the Commission for their information and comments and by saying that my group is also moderately optimistic - let us hope furthermore that the data indicated by the High Representative proves to be right - at this very sensitive time just a few days before the elections in Israel, and in the midst of a transfer of government in the United States, which will have to rebuild its policy in the region.
However, we must not forget that, up until today, there have been more than 400 deaths as a result of the Intifada, which has taken us back to a situation which we thought we would never see again.
My group also sees the increased European presence in the region over recent months as something to be greatly welcomed.
As the presidency mentioned, it is true that the participation of Mr Solana in Sharm el-Sheikh and the committee of enquiry, and the presence of the European Union in Taba through its permanent representative, Ambassador Moratinos, have enabled us to make effective contributions to the peace process.
We believe that we have to intensify this quest for political presence in the region on the part of the European Union, which we believe is compatible with the fundamental role which the United States Government must continue to play in this whole process.
In Taba, both sides acknowledged that they have never been so close to a final agreement, but we must be aware that the apparent euphoria must not make us blind to the real situation.
The Israelis and the Palestinians must be aware that they share a common enemy, the extremism to which fundamentalism of one kind or another leads, which is the main danger to the peace process and to stability and prosperity in the region, and which also poses an undeniable threat to the whole of the Mediterranean region.
On the other hand, I believe that we must be aware that we are faced with a national conflict, handed down from history, which has impregnated the education systems of some countries and has promoted hate amongst the younger generations, which means that we clearly cannot expect a magic solution and that we must confront the problem with perseverance.
I think it is highly appropriate to link the debates on the Middle East peace process to the new impetus which the European Union is endeavouring to give to the Barcelona Process, as we are doing this afternoon and as Commissioner Patten has done, because surely the greatest contribution Europe can make at the moment to the peace process is to keep alive the spirit of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, strengthening its vitality and maintaining its development in the face of political pressures.
Both Israelis and Palestinians have come to realise recently that it is crucial to end the violence and re-establish a climate of security in the region, but they have also worked together on the development of creative formulas to solve the problems dividing them: Jerusalem, the definitive mapping of borders, the refugees and the settlements which Mr Solana referred to.
The European Union has the particular responsibility of consolidating these foundations despite the internal political changes of recent days.
We must support both sides in their journey towards a solution to the conflict, based on the peaceful resolution of differences, on tolerance, on respect for human rights and the consolidation of peace.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, from your speech a few minutes ago, it seems that you deserve another title: high representative for hope.
Let us hope that you are right!
Unfortunately I do not share your optimism, even though it is cautious, but I admit that your words have, to some extent, allayed my concerns.
Ladies and gentlemen, although the peace process may have run out of steam, the underlying principles still apply and are indisputable.
Firstly, the Oslo fundamental agreements still exist and continue to be in force.
No one, Mr Sharon included, can cast doubt on their validity, in moral terms and under international law.
I expressly refer to the 'Land for Peace' principle, among others, which has formed the basis for rapprochement and negotiations since Madrid.
Secondly, the Security Council Resolutions Nos 242, 338, and needless to say, also No 194 on refugees, must be fulfilled, so as to create the foundation for a just and lasting peace.
Thirdly, I come to the crucial problems that we must solve if peace is to be restored, as you yourself said Mr Solana: the return of all occupied territories and demolition of all settlements on these territories, Palestinians to have rights to parts of Jerusalem, the possibility of the return of Palestinian refugees, which perhaps causes the biggest headache of all.
I shall close by repeating something that has been said and given due emphasis before in this House. The European Union has a huge moral duty, and it is vital for reasons of self-interest, to play a political role in this peace process, which is in keeping with its political commitment.
The division of labour of the past, according to which the USA made policy and the European Union paid for it, is no longer acceptable.
Nor has it yielded any worthwhile result to date.
It is not a case of the EU stepping into the shoes of the USA in the peace process, rather, what we want is for the European Union to join forces with the USA in a bid to find a just solution.
Now that would be what I would call a new peace process.
With your presence, Mr Solana, and that of the UN Secretary-General, Sharm al-Sheikh created a new framework for peace negotiations.
We would like to think that this new model will be retained and will deliver better results than its predecessor.
(Applause)
Thank you very much, Mr Sakellariou.
Parliament is amazed at how elegantly you surf between languages, so much so all we can hear is the wash!
Mr President, the EU is the key donor to the Palestinian territories.
According to the UN, since the closures, more than one million Palestinians have been living under the poverty line of two dollars a day.
The human effect of the closures is possibly even worse.
Commissioner Patten stated it a moment ago: sick people cannot even get to the European hospital in Gaza because even ambulances cannot get through the barricades.
It is therefore of key importance that we continue providing aid.
I am delighted that the Council and Commission share our view.
I returned from the Palestinian territories last Sunday together with a delegation from Parliament.
We are all agreed on one thing: it is important to give money, but we are not giving enough.
The Union must also assume its political responsibility.
It is only managing to play a valuable role in the peace process in very small steps.
That is due not least to the dissension within the Union.
I would therefore like to hear from Mr Solana what he intends to do in order to bring the Union to sing from the same songsheet.
Once detailed maps of Jerusalem are available, as well as plans for the settlements, and a scheme for the return of and compensation for refugees, I wonder whether the Union will have the in-house expertise it takes to adopt an intelligent position of its own, or will we leave this to the Americans?
We must make sure this discussion does not become black and white.
By maintaining a certain degree of neutrality, Europe could, in fact, make a valuable contribution.
Both sides of this conflict are violating agreements.
We must call them both to task about this.
Killing people is unacceptable under any circumstances, whether this is in the form of executions carried out by the Palestinian Authority or the Israeli army' s assassination policy.
But, Mr Danielsson, Europe will lay itself open to the criticism that it is applying double standards if it takes four and a half months to call the Israelis to account, whilst this is done promptly in the case of Palestinians.
This Parliament too, with its secondary delegations, one for Israel and one for the Palestinian territories, is running the risk of sending out the wrong message.
We must now work on unanimity and understanding of the legitimate concerns on both sides.
Mr President, in Davos, President Arafat reiterated the need for peace and gave an honest account of the shameful, tragic living conditions of the Palestinian people, who are subjected to violations of human rights by the Israeli army.
The media interpreted this as greater inflexibility on Arafat's part with regard to peace and criticised Peres for not standing up to him.
The truth of the matter is that Peres knows that what Arafat is saying is true.
The visit of our parliamentary delegation to the area also served to confirm this.
The Palestinian people are forced to live in an open-air prison, the roads leading into and out of the villages are under military occupation and closed off, countless check points on the main roads prevent the Palestinians from reaching their places of work and collective punishments are enforced.
This is just one example: Sabrine was born on 24 January at a check point. At the next check point her umbilical cord was cut.
The mother had left the village of Antis at 5 p.m. and arrived at Ramallah hospital at 8.30 p.m. The journey should have taken 40 minutes.
Her epic ordeal was recorded in the Israeli newspaper Ha' aretz.
People who are seriously ill are turned back and medical staff beaten up.
In Gaza, we saw hundreds of metres of land where enormous palm trees and olive and orange trees had been uprooted and destroyed, and houses demolished. It had become desert land.
Was there something wrong with the trees? Only in that they could have served as cover for any Palestinian attacks against the settlers who are overrunning the country and treating it as theirs, destroying Palestinian houses and crops.
Meanwhile, the number of settlers and settlements is increasing every day in what ought to be the State of Palestine, the territories which have been occupied since 1967.
The Palestinian Legislative Council cannot function properly. The members of the different districts are unable to move about or to meet.
Arafat himself said that his movements are hampered.
Others have spoken of the tragic stifling of the economy.
Imports and exports are blocked, and the European Union is witness to that: every day, the Commission in Jerusalem receives notification of the various violations; even civil structures and schools provided by the European Union have been bombed.
These are economic disasters whose effects will be felt for years to come.
All this is well-known, and none of us, particularly those in responsible political positions, can say that they were unaware of the facts.
Our diplomats send back clear reports on the Israeli settlement policy and also clear reports - as we told all the Palestinian leaders we met - of the violations performed by the National Palestinian Authority.
But they all asked us - from Arafat to the men and women in the refugee camps - why Europe does not intervene in an active, political way. "We have confidence in Europe," they said, "and a political partnership with the Middle and Near East would benefit Europe."
This is our view as well: Europe must be able to develop an effective foreign policy which is in line with the fundamental values which we always claim to hold: respect for international laws and human rights. In terms of Palestine, that means upholding the UN Resolutions.
There is a pragmatic strain in the Palestinians; we have witnessed it and it was evident at Taba as well: they are pragmatic in implementation but resolute when it comes to principles and rights. We, too, should have realised this, for we are always discussing it.
Mr Solana is right: Europe is now playing a larger role but it must do much more.
The United States has failed: our task is not to replace it but to become equal partners in the negotiations.
It is not enough for us to provide economic aid: what we are being asked for - and our responsibility...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, representatives of the Council Presidency and the Commission, High Representative, ladies and gentlemen, I have, of course, listened to all the speeches and I have also read the reports.
In my view, the real nature of the problem, illustrated and interpreted against the backdrop of the Treaties establishing the European Union themselves, from the Treaty of Rome onwards, and against history and European law, has been wiped from all your minds, except for the odd refrain, muttered like a prayer, of human rights and so on and so forth.
The present situation places us in the same condition of complicity with the worst of the worst, with the murderers and torturers, those that abused the right to life and attempted to destroy the law, as we witnessed from 1985 onwards in what was to become the former Yugoslavia.
There is no strategy, no awareness of the institutional objectives of our Union in our approach today, at least in terms of the abstract goals set forth in the human rights charters and in the charters of the rights of European citizens and others.
There is none of this in what the High Representative, Mr Solana, happily, courageously and, most importantly, sincerely recommended as an EU foreign policy, a bureaucratic, ineffective operation with no added value in terms of practical implementation or foresight.
This is our problem: there you are, Mrs Morgantini and company, falling over yourselves to tell us about the woes and tragedies of the Palestinians, of Palestinian men and women, of Arab men and women, of the Middle East. You are so relentless, so implacable, with such clear, diligent consciences; you only acknowledge Arab or Palestinian men and women if they are on the wrong end of an Israeli bullet, in which case you give them the honour of a burial, the honour of your recognition.
In the face of the Palestinian, Arab or Middle Eastern citizens, who die every day, assassinated by their Saudi or fundamentalist right- or left-wing regimes, assassinated by the firm, historic alliance of Sheikhs and Middle Eastern rulers, who are allied with the great oil multinationals and with you, the more or less communist left; in the face of the situation of the Kurds, which is not just a Turkish problem but also an Iraqi problem and the problem of others as well; in the face of the everyday lives of the Saudi and Palestinian men and women, you are only concerned with them if Israel is involved, and it may have done them some serious damage.
You only acknowledge the existence of the Palestinian people when they further your condemnation of your current permanent enemy, be it the United States of America, Israel or the European Union, which is acting to protect certain values, as it did in the case of Belgrade and Milosevic, as it did throughout the crisis in Yugoslavia.
Therefore, Mr President, this is the truth of the matter: the greatest threat to peace is Israel's real weakness.
Israel might be prepared to take a risk - and this is why the Israeli people appear, surprisingly, to prefer the old warrior Sharon to the wise, sensible, courageous Barak - but it feels that any concession could turn out to be excessive compared to the peace to be gained.
This is the problem: when there are 100, 150 kilometres of territory to cross, one more kilometre conceded might, in effect, represent one more trench to fight from in a war sparked off by an unfair peace agreement. This is what they fear.
But who fears, exactly?
The Israeli democracy is afraid of this, but you could not care less! For heaven's sake!
What sort of Europe is this? If anything, the right to national and personal independence is not to have 60% of your money spent on the armies of the local dictator, on consolidating corruption and class, bureaucratic, military and extreme right-wing control of men and women everywhere!
Where is it laid down that the European Union must be the guarantor of the national states, of their independence and self-determination? Nowhere in our hearts and culture does the nineteenth century right to the national state exist today: civil, political and human rights with regard to any state, central or centralised authority do exist, and you are unaware of all this!
Israel must become part of the European Union, one of our borders.
Israel does not realise either that it cannot continue to defend itself as a national State, a small bridgehead of democracy but forced for 50 years, more so with each passing day, to risk its own life and peace and the peace of others.
Therefore this, Mr President, is our hope: we are preparing a written statement, which has already been signed by 30 Members, calling for the full inclusion of Israel in our Union. A battle will have to be fought in Brussels and in Tel Aviv but it is an urgent matter.
As radicals, this is our aim and we will make every effort to achieve it, for it is a wise course of action which will lead to freedom.
Mr President, I was interested to read the conclusions which the General Council reached early last week regarding the Middle East peace process.
The intention to work in close cooperation with the new American Bush administration within this diplomatic minefield deserves the support of the European Parliament.
This view bears witness to an understanding of the political constraints of the European Union in the Middle East.
This realism was expressed very aptly by the High Representative of the CFSP, Mr Solana, in a recent interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung: "We can be persuasive, exert pressure, and grant financial aid, but we also know our limits.
The only country which can provide credible security guarantees for both sides is the United States."
In its conclusions, the General Council also particularly urges Israelis and Palestinians to make every effort to bring the current negotiations in Taba to a successful end.
According to spokespeople from both camps, these have now been concluded, and not without hope for the future.
However, how, in this specific context, have the Council and Commission taken the harsh accusations which the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mr Arafat, levelled at the state of Israel and its armed forces, in Davos at the beginning of this week? Against the backdrop of the Israeli presidency elections to be held on 6 February, this verbal attack thwarted conclusively the plan for a meeting between the Israeli Prime Minister Barak and Arafat in Stockholm today.
Mr President, I would therefore like to hear the view of the Council and Commission on Mr Arafat' s international stance, which was anything but constructive.
At the end of its conclusions, the General Council lectures Israel on its economic and financial policy vis-à-vis the Palestinian Authority.
However, an equally critical tone on the public execution of two so-called 'collaborators' by the same Palestinian Authority is missing from this document.
Why is this? After all, the Palestinian human rights organisations dared lodge a protest against a highly deficient judicial process which was challenged with good reason.
I take it that the Council and Commission are not applying their own standards of democratic rule of law on a case-by-case basis.
Mr President, the clear stance taken by the Swedish Presidency and Commissioner Patten in this debate have not betrayed my confidence.
Mr President, the European Union can no longer confine itself to observing from afar what is happening on the other side of the Mediterranean and clear its conscience by making mainly generous donations of funds, the use of which it has not always been able to regulate, as Commissioner Patten has just reminded us in so timely a fashion.
The European Union must accept its due responsibilities, alongside our American counterparts.
This is what you are striving to achieve, Mr Solana, in close collaboration with Mr Moratinos and many of us welcome the work that you have undertaken to this end.
Whilst waiting for the results of the changes taking place in Washington and those which will inevitably follow the results of the forthcoming elections in Israel, we understand that you are bound to be cautious and that it is difficult for you to make any sort of forecast at this time, Mr Solana, even if we might have detected a note of optimism in your speech, something we should be only too delighted to share.
The view of the Group of the European People' s Party, one I am sure is shared by many of the Members in other political groups, is that, through your work, the European Union should be involved, perfectly impartially, in the current Conciliation Procedure in order to enable the expected appeasement that comes before the hoped-for reconciliation to be reached.
The European Union can put itself forward as mediator only on condition that it is impartial. It cannot be neutral, as if it were not already directly involved.
Yet, unfortunately, this is not the impression that was recently given by the European Union, when it showed that it was divided in its opinion in the vote within the United Nations General Assembly of 20 October 2000.
Mr Solana, if you are to speak on behalf of the European Union, we must show a united front. So what is the state of affairs?
I direct the question to you as well as to the Council representative. In your work with the governments of the Member States, have you noticed any commitment to harmonising our points of view?
That is my first question.
My second question is directed to both the Council and the Commission. It is the same question that I asked you in the previous debate, Mr Solana, when you could not find the time to give an answer.
Do you not think that the time has come for the European Union to take some intelligent action on the status of Jerusalem? As I recall, we heard the Speaker of the Knesset and his Palestinian counterpart make some courageous proposals at Strasbourg.
Mr Solana, can we count on you to make it clear to your fellow negotiators, in the necessary diplomatic and firm manner, that Jerusalem is not just a city sacred to Judaism and Islam but also to all forms of Christianity?
Mr President, this debate is one more lesson that teaches us that the word peace means nothing if it is not accompanied by a political gesture, if it is not accompanied by the willingness to take the risk of making a decision.
Peace is a dangerous word if the European Union is required to use it but is not able to follow it up with action.
The action called for is political action, the full, direct assumption of political responsibility in the Middle East peace process.
The European Union, Mr President, must be fully involved in the peace process as more than merely a trading partner or a major contributing country, or it will not be involved at all.
I would remind you of the context which a number of other Members have already illustrated clearly: on the one hand, three United Nations resolutions on territories and displaced persons, disregarded by Israel even in terms of the affirmation of the principles they contain; and, on the other hand, a permanent state of emergency in the Palestinian territories: 120 thousand workers prevented from working, three billion dollars worth of damage already done, salaries only paid to government officials and administrators thanks to the intervention of European Union ready cash, half the civilian population under 18 years old killed.
Mr President, I do not care which side fires the bullets: whether they are fired by Israelis, Iraquis or Turks, it is the duty of the European Union to condemn the killing of children.
Lastly, Mr President, I am extremely concerned about apartheid, a word which should have no place in a discussion on the Middle East or Palestinian issues but which, I regret to say, applies to the situation we have to focus on.
My impression is that a system exists in the region whereby an Arab life and an Israeli life have different values, particularly in terms of humiliation and submission to the situation.
In the face of all this, it is impossible to preserve a neutral stance.
We must uphold rules and principles, especially if the Bush government is going to prove incapable of guaranteeing the affirmation of these rules and principles or unwilling to do so.
It is true - as Mr Solana said - that the negotiations are advancing, but, alongside the negotiations, the Israeli government is also proceeding with the establishment of fresh settlements.
This is why we cannot fully share Mr Solana's optimism.
Commissioner Patten tells us that we must look beyond the immediate crisis.
We agree.
Today our political duty is to achieve a peace agreement; tomorrow it will be to ensure that the agreement and international law are respected: the Middle East is relying on Europe, Mr President, because it has confidence in Europe.
If we do not believe in Europe ourselves, then their confidence will be of no avail.
Mr President, as some speakers have already said, the timing of this debate is critical, not just for the parties involved but for the European Union too.
It is critical, first of all, because the election of the Israeli prime minister is imminent.
This week, all sense of time has been suspended, pending the election results.
The talks at Taba were also suspended, at least officially, even though they did manage to make progress in terms of setting up committees on matters such as borders, Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees.
Finally, although I picked up on Mr Solana' s optimism, the possibility of holding a summit this week in Stockholm has been put off too, following Mr Arafat' s statement made at Davos on Sunday, which was aggressive, or to put it more diplomatically, was unhelpful, to say the very least.
It is a critical time too, as I was saying, because of the transition in the United States. Bill Clinton is no longer in office.
President Clinton had made the peace process one of the priorities on his agenda.
Only time will tell how George Bush and Colin Powell now see their role in the Middle East.
At any rate, this is the first time for years, as Mr Danielsson said, that high level talks have taken place, as they did most recently at Taba, without American officials present, but with Mr Moratinos, our EU peace envoy.
This may be Europe' s opportunity to make progress and to play a more prominent political role in this matter, to gain recognition for its voice and its know-how, since we are keen to do more than just bankroll the region.
We know that our aid is vitally necessary for the Palestinians whose economic situation is desperate, but we would like to export much more than just euros.
We would like to export our values, such as democracy, respect for human rights, education and tolerance.
At this point, I welcome Mr Patten' s commitment to transparency in the use of European aid.
In the words of Albert Einstein, "Peace cannot be kept by force but can be achieved by understanding."
Let us work together from now on so that the European Union can be a factor in spreading this understanding.
Mr President, I would like to counsel, if I may, Mr Solana and my very good friend Commissioner Patten to exercise caution in relation to the Middle East at this present time.
I say that, not because I am scarcely an enthusiast for a European foreign policy, but because I believe that at this present time in Israel we are in a very difficult situation.
We have an election and I must remind the House that the State of Israel is the only democracy that exists in the region and that is something that is worth noting.
We have an election for a prime minister which will be crucial in relation to the future of the peace process so we must take care not to be seen as interventionist or interfering.
I remind the House, because I gather there is much fear that Mr Sharon may be elected prime minister, that the peace process in the Middle East, from the Israeli point of view, has always advanced under the Israeli right and it was Menachem Begin who started the rapprochement with Egypt.
I ask the House and I ask the Commission and the Council to proceed with caution.
I ask the European Union to do what it does best.
It has an influence over the Palestinians and it should exercise that influence.
It should be asking Chairman Arafat, for example, why the Palestinians permit in their textbooks the sort of anti-semitism which I hoped we had long put to one side in this world.
We should be asking Chairman Arafat to ensure that the aid that goes to the Palestinians goes to those who really need it.
So, in small measures and not in large - because the United States must take the lead in these matters - the European Union can play a role, but it should not exaggerate its importance.
The role is with the parties themselves, assisted by the great republic across the Atlantic.
Mr President, in this long peace process in the Middle East, we feel as if we are on a kind of roller coaster.
Time and time again we feel as if we are slowly and painfully climbing a slope and then, when it seems as if we are about to touch the sky, we plummet sharply back to square one.
This is a hellish and never-ending rise and fall - and it is also a bit like the legend of Sisyphus - which threatens to sap the strength and even the hope of almost everyone.
At the current time - and despite having heard optimistic words - one has the impression that we are once again at the bottom of the curve, with an Oslo Process which has been forsaken by many, with the conflict on the ground at an impasse and with elections in Israel which promise to offer an outcome which is far from favourable to peace.
Nevertheless, it is now that we have to recharge the batteries of our confidence and increase our efforts.
Today this process can be summed up in two affirmations: firstly, we cannot lose sight of our inescapable objective, which is peace in the region, a peace which must be established and consolidated on the basis of an acceptance by all sides of the rules of international law and decisions of the UN Security Council: and, secondly, Europe must once and for all, in attempting to resolve this conflict, assume the responsibility that befits our political influence, our values and our interests.
It is neither dignified nor coherent to continue to renounce the leading role which we should play, restricting ourselves to being, rather than negotiators, mere spectators to what the United States does or does not do.
We are, unfortunately, still in the old situation of 'paying but not playing' .
The actions of Ambassador Moratinos have been magnificent but, in order to be more effective, he needs political support which, unfortunately, he is not being given.
I believe that the Union should no longer delay in taking a leading role, and it is not enough to make statements but it should be precisely defined and filled with content including firm economic and political commitments.
Mr President, we have reached yet another crossroads in the peace process.
A great deal will depend on the forthcoming elections in Israel.
Whatever the outcome, we must call for the new government - whoever the winner may be - to continue the peace negotiations without delay and to do so with renewed energy and, if possible, intensify these negotiations.
It is a unique moment for the European Union to gain influence and importance during these talks, given the current situation in the United States, where the new administration has probably not been fully established.
It is our duty as the European Union to reinforce our position in the peace talks, in view of the exceptional interests - mainly humanitarian - which are at stake, in view of our geo-strategic position vis-à-vis that region and in view of our important mutual trade relations.
The most recent wave of violence and terror must be condemned in any event.
The demand for repatriation of the 3.7 million migrants will definitely not make the peace talks easier, nor will the distribution by the Palestinian authorities of schoolbooks which, instead of preaching the language of reconciliation, preach the language of hatred and animosity, or Arafat' s tough stance in Davos, for that matter.
Despite this, I would express the hope that peace and stability in that region can as yet be achieved in the relatively short term, but I would add at the same time that it would be extremely regrettable if the European Union had not contributed to this in a major way.
It is a test of our credibility at international level.
Mr President, I spent last week with a delegation from the European Parliament seeing the situation on the ground at the flash points of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, i.e. in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Ramallah, Gaza and in refugee camps.
I am still reeling from the shock.
I travelled there believing myself to be well prepared through radio, TV, press and Commission documents as well as personal conversations I had had beforehand, but the reality was altogether different.
The living conditions were dreadful and shocking.
The situation was explosive to an unimaginable degree.
The concept of a state of war best describes the situation.
The situation of the people in the occupied areas, particularly in the refugee camps, some of which have existed for over thirty years, can be described as unfit for human habitation.
Neither human rights nor fundamental values such as dignity, freedom or democracy, not even the rights to freedom from bodily harm and hygiene are guaranteed and observed.
In the country I come from, people tread extremely carefully when it comes to criticising Israel.
There, it is far easier to portray the terrorism and executions committed by Palestinians, along with the claim that Palestinian children are sent into battle.
But consider this: those who have lived for over 35 years in a refugee camp of tin sheds, with sacking over windows and doors and no form of infrastructure, will have little faith in negotiations, especially when these same negotiations have dragged on for seven years now to no avail, and not even UN resolutions are recognised.
Incidentally, gatherings of people are dispersed by Israeli soldiers often enough.
We experienced this at first hand because our group came under fire.
Fortunately no one was injured.
What we found was an explosive atmosphere generated by fanatical people who are incapable of reaching compromises and for whom principles rule the day. They are there on both sides, I might add, although there appear to be more of them amongst the fundamentalist settlers, many of whom are still fairly new to the country.
Mr President, we often use the word 'tragedy' as if we were talking about a natural disaster, such as an earthquake.
To use the word 'tragedy' for situations such as the spread of mad cow disease - which is certainly heading towards disastrous proportions - or for the situation in Palestine is, in my view, inappropriate because, in both cases, specific people are responsible.
The horrific earthquakes that have struck El Salvador or India cannot be compared with the situation of frustration and humiliation suffered by the Palestinians at the moment.
This situation was absurdly aggravated by specific and identifiable people on 29 September on the terraces of the mosques in Jerusalem.
I am a friend of Palestine and I am not an enemy of Israel.
I believe that the provocation by Ariel Sharon in September, which was permitted by the people who could have prevented it, and the hundreds of Palestinian deaths since then, have created a climate in Palestinian society which makes it difficult for President Arafat to accept late - although maybe reasonable - peace proposals which, had they been presented earlier, would, in my view, have lead to an agreement.
Hence, a thorny issue, such as the right to return of the Palestinian refugees, could have been presented by the Palestinian Authority to its own constituents as an issue involving sensitive details which had to be dealt with in conjunction with the Israeli Government on the proviso, of course, that that government agreed, in time, to Palestinian demands that were easier to accept.
It remains to be seen whether, on the international stage, the new United States administration will adopt more of an isolationist approach than the previous one.
However, I believe that the departure of Clinton has meant that, for the moment, United States diplomacy in the region will be less active.
With all due respect and consideration for our American friends, I believe that this is an additional reason for the European Union to make an even greater effort to truly promote its role in the region.
Finally, I would like to make a couple of points.
Firstly, let us hope that the High Representative, Mr Solana, is right to predict that an agreement may be possible before 6 February - Inshallah - but let us not forget that Sharon is still casting his shadow.
Secondly, I have just returned from a visit by the European Parliament delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council and I would like to encourage all of those who are able to do so to go to Palestine, to go to Gaza and the West Bank, to go there, to have meetings, to look people in the eye and listen.
Perhaps they would come to understand better.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, High Representative, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one honourable Member - he is no longer present in the Chamber - said today that he felt the "role is with the parties themselves" . If that were to be the case, and it was solely down to the warring parties, then I ask myself where is peace to be found?
Where have they managed to secure peace, and maintain it too? No, I believe there is a need for mediation - and I would agree with all those who have made this point - especially with robust European participation.
Because unfortunately, hatred, coercion and attempts to put the partner under pressure using these methods, have regained the upper hand.
I do not feel, as has been said here, that we can expect to see the situation improve after the elections in Israel, particularly if Sharon takes over, bearing in mind what happened under Menachem Begin.
The point being that Mr Sharon has done nothing recently that could lead us to conclude that he is prepared to agree a peace deal.
On the contrary, his road to power is paved with various measures that prove the opposite to be true.
I completely agree with Commissioner Patten.
During all attempts to engage in talks - with both parties, of course - and indeed, that is the only way to perform a mediation role, we must make it crystal clear that we cannot tolerate a situation where the resources we deploy in the Middle East cannot be used productively because Israel, in particular, is putting Palestine under such pressure and cutting it off.
I have already come across this several times before in Parliament - the more Israel endeavours to cut off Palestine' s lifeline, the more aid Europe will send, which means that Israel can save on financial input to the peace process to a certain extent, and Europe alone then has to pick up the tab.
This is completely unacceptable.
If we must shoulder this financial burden - and I, for one, truly feel that we must - then obviously there must also be strong political engagement.
Notwithstanding all the pessimism, which unfortunately, I myself share, I hope that the High Representative will ultimately prove justified in his optimism, and that he will be able to strengthen Europe' s role.
If the US were to withdraw from the process or keep more in the background, clearly this would be Europe' s big chance to play a fitting political role in the Middle East.
Mr President, the situation in the Middle East currently presents us with a paradox.
On the one hand, some of the participants in the peace talks believe that both parties have never been so close to reaching an agreement.
The High Representative also seems to share this optimistic point of view.
On the other hand, one of the candidates in the Israeli elections declared the Oslo peace process to be dead in the water.
The fact is that we are, once again, at a crossroads where the European Union should send out a message and a warning.
I address my comments to the Council and to the Commission.
The message should be that it will not be possible to not reach a fair and lasting solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine without reference to international law, such as that laid down by the United Nations Security Council resolutions.
The requirements that Israel must evacuate the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees must have the right of return, Israel must have the right to live in peace within secure and recognised borders and Palestinians must have the right to their own sovereign, viable and undivided state, whose international borders are open and which is not under military control, are inextricably linked and all these rights must be fulfilled at the same time.
Jerusalem is an historic city and, as it were, part of the heritage of the entire human race. It must again become an open city again, to which everyone has access.
The world community, particularly the European Union, would not allow the fair balance to be upset, putting either party at an advantage or at a disadvantage.
Under these circumstances, the warning could be formulated thus: that the European Union formally calls for an end to violence and for talks to go ahead but, at the same time, as commercial partner and financial sponsor, it will take the necessary action against any parties who believe they can pull out of the talks and abandon the attempt to find a global and definitive compromise that is universally acceptable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like just briefly to comment following this very interesting debate on the important and difficult issue of the situation in the Middle East.
The recurrent theme of the contributions from the majority of the honourable Members is that the European Union must play a greater political role.
The major role we already play in terms of economic cooperation with this conflict-stricken region must be supplemented by a greater political role.
In all humility, I should like to state that, right now, the European Union is playing a greater political role than it has ever done before.
Why do I say this? Partly in response to Mr Morillon.
I believe there is today a greater desire than in the past for what Mr Morillon calls a harmonisation of policy vis-à-vis the Middle East.
True enough, there may still be differences of degree in the way this is felt.
Nonetheless, there is a very strong common desire, noted by the presidency in its contacts with all the other Member States, to work together for a peaceful solution.
I should like to say that, during the first 30 days of the Swedish Presidency of the European Union' s Council, no issue has occupied the Swedish prime minister, as President of the Council, more than that of the situation in the Middle East.
Nor has there been any issue that has occupied the Swedish Foreign Minister, as President of the General Affairs Council, more than the situation in the Middle East.
I believe the same applies to the High Representative, who can certainly answer that question for himself.
The European Union is, then, also engaged in the political process in the most intimate way possible, but we are still awaiting the practical results.
I share the High Representative' s, Mr Solana' s, cautious optimism, but we have to remember, of course, that what we are dealing with in the Middle East is a basically very difficult political conflict.
If we are to be able to achieve any kind of progress, it is genuinely necessary for the European Union to be closely coordinated internally, to cooperate closely with the United Nations and its General Secretary and to cooperate closely with the United States, which has been indefatigable in its attempts to solve this conflict.
If this happens, then I believe our optimism may also be rewarded with practical results.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I only wish to clarify certain issues, without getting into a great historical debate, since I do not believe that this is the moment to do so nor is it the moment for us to all to start discussing problems that are not germane.
Ladies and gentlemen, some of you have recently visited the region.
I must tell you that I have been visiting it since 1991, more or less continuously.
We have seen an enormous amount of suffering.
Those of us who have seen so much suffering want to try to reach a peaceful and lasting situation.
That is the commitment that those of us who are involved in trying to find a solution at the moment wish to achieve.
I would like to say that it is not advisable at the moment to appeal for frenzied optimism.
It would not be sensible to do so, but I honestly believe that the connotations of the problem have never been so well defined and we are therefore in a better position to move towards a solution.
Why do I say this? We all know that, in order to find a solution to this immensely serious problem, we must define the territory and be prepared to talk about it, we must define the security conditions and be prepared to talk about them, we must define the future of Jerusalem and be prepared to negotiate it, and we must negotiate the issue of refugees and be prepared to do so.
For the first time the four or five most important parameters have now been defined, and both sides have accepted them as the important parameters to be defined and accepted, and they have begun to negotiate them seriously and in depth.
This is an historic step forward.
The problem that leads me to be less than hopeful is that, unfortunately, time has not been well managed.
If we had had a rather longer period of political calm, I sincerely believe that we could be optimistic at this time.
But now I am not so optimistic because time unfortunately depends on the electoral and political calendar and there is little we can do about it.
But anybody who wants to negotiate, in this case with the European Union, must accept the challenge of reaching agreements on the basis that there will be two states in the region, which are capable of defining the four parameters which I have mentioned: territories, security, the capital and the refugees.
The European Union has proposed possible solutions to these four issues.
Please do not imagine, ladies and gentlemen, that the people involved in the various presidencies, in this case the Swedish Presidency, have not put forward suggestions and ideas for making progress.
The problem is that the proposal does not always miraculously coincide with the exact solution necessary at any particular moment.
However, Mr Morillon, with regard to Jerusalem, you must believe me when I say that many suggestions have been put forward.
These suggestions cannot perform miracles, they cannot fall outside a particular framework with which we are all familiar, and you have clearly indicated what this must be.
I will also say that, with regard to the settlements, the European Union has taken a brilliant and generous position.
This position indicates that a policy of settlements such as the current one is not acceptable.
We have said so, we will continue to say so and I can assure you that, for my part, I will always condemn the current policy.
There will be no definitive solution without a solution also to this issue of the settlements.
We know this and anybody who has been involved in this horrific conflict knows this.
The concern which I do have and the cause of the deep sadness which I also feel is that, as some of you have said, the Oslo Process is beginning to lose the political support of both sides, which it had a few years ago.
It is true that the Oslo Process - not peace - is not accepted as intensely and in the same way by all the parties as it was a few years ago.
For some, it has not offered the security that they wanted, and for others it has not brought the change that they expected and wanted in their everyday lives.
Hence the frustration of some and the lack of security of others.
And that, to a large extent, explains why the current debate is experiencing such difficulties.
I would like to say that, on the part of the European Union, we will do everything possible, with your support, and with the support of the governments and parliaments, to continue making progress, but it is true that there is a limit to what all of us can do to promote the process.
It is the parties directly involved which have to reach an agreement, and the rest of us can only try to put in place the economic, social and political conditions for that agreement to be reached.
My own experience over recent months has shown me that the parties have never before spoken in such a devoted and generous way and have never come so close to solving the problems.
And that was my hope.
Unfortunately, you are perhaps right and it has been a vain hope.
I would be extremely sorry if that were the case.
Mr President, I hope this will not seem like an anti-climax after the excellent speech that we have just heard in response to the debate, but there is one point which has come up in a previous debate and in two speeches this evening that I would like to deal with once and for all.
At least one of the honourable Members who made the point today is in the Chamber and perhaps I can deal with it now, for the record, and we can regard it as having been sorted out.
It is the question of textbooks, which I know has been of concern to a number of honourable Members of the House.
I want to make it clear that the Commission rejects any attempt to use the educational system to promote intolerance or hatred.
It is worth noting that the main focus of the Commission' s assistance has always been to promote a culture of peace, tolerance and human rights in the Middle East.
For example, in recent years we have financed several projects, worth about EUR 4.5 million, to foster dialogue between Israeli and Palestinian youth.
I want to make this point absolutely clear.
The Commission has never allocated funds for the development of a new school curriculum nor for the printing and distribution of school textbooks.
The development of school curricula and the preparation of textbooks are the responsibility of the Palestinian Centre for Curriculum Development.
It was established in 1995 with the assistance of Member States through UNESCO.
Since then the Centre has undertaken the charge of harmonising the hitherto separate educational systems - the Egyptian for the Gaza Strip and the Jordanian for the West Bank - and of organising a new curriculum that meets the needs of the new situation.
Only last year did the Palestinian Authority issue their own textbooks for Grades 1 to 6.
No sign of anti-Semitic content has been found in these new books.
Books used prior to that were, I am advised, the official textbooks in Jordan and Egypt and were authorised by Israel for the West Bank and Gaza until 1994 at least - after they had been subject to some editorial control.
I hope that has made clear the Commission' s position on this issue.
The Commission has had nothing to do with textbooks and we deplore any promotion of intolerance particularly among young people and particularly through the education system.
It was worth making the point at this stage, because it has been raised before.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Plan Colombia
The next item is the debate on the following oral questions:
B5­0002/2001 by Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, to the Council, on the plan to build peace and prosperity and strengthen the State, known as 'Plan Colombia' .
B5­0003/2001 by Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, to the Commission, on the plan to build peace and prosperity and strengthen the State, known as 'Plan Colombia' .
Mr President, I wish, first of all, to thank the Council and the Commission for the willingness they have shown today to address an issue of such importance, current relevance and seriousness as the situation in Columbia, which the Committee on Development and Cooperation is monitoring and will continue to monitor with the greatest attention and concern.
It has become clear that the European Union cannot only not remain indifferent to the current situation in that country, in the same way that it cannot - or rather must not - adopt half-hearted positions on this issue.
We are all aware of the situation in Columbia.
Indeed, there is no shortage of documentation from the most varied sources attesting to the tragedy affecting Columbia and the real risks of the conflict worsening, with serious danger, moreover, of it spreading to the rest of the region.
In this regard, I would emphasise the concerns expressed by representatives at the highest level of various Latin American countries at the meeting held on this issue in Rio de Janeiro, in the middle of last year.
The crucial factor in the current situation is undoubtedly 'Plan Columbia' , which was agreed in September 1999 between Presidents Clinton and Pastrana, and it is essential that the Council and the Commission stick to their positions and distance themselves even more vigorously from this agreement.
They must do so first of all because of its blatantly military nature, but also because it is not the result of any consultation process. Instead, it has generated widespread opposition both inside and outside the country, because it completely fails to address the grave phenomenon of paramilitary activity and, consequently, because it threatens the very negotiation process that has already been started.
Also, because this plan, which concentrates on the elimination of drug production and trafficking (by attacking producers, particularly through the use of chemical and biological fumigation), not only threatens Columbia' s rich biodiversity, but will also exacerbate the tragedy of displaced people, who might even have to become refugees in neighbouring countries.
We are familiar with the statement by the General Affairs Council of 9 October last year.
We obviously agree, in essence, with its proposals and we interpret it as moving away from 'Plan Colombia' .
In fact, we believe this to be the position of the vast majority of Member State governments.
It is also true, however, that some are attempting to read a complementarity-based approach into this Council declaration with regard to 'Plan Colombia' .
We therefore consider a clarification of the Community position to be crucial, which will prevent an interpretation of it which we believe is abusive, even if this runs counter to the opinion of any of the Member State governments, particularly from the only one that has publicly given a financial and political commitment to the plan.
As a matter of fact, I believe that the European Union, and the European Parliament itself, must not support an initiative that clearly stems from a bilateral agreement between the Colombian Government and the US administration.
I feel all the more strongly about this because I do not think it should be the European Union' s task to heal the wounds resulting from the actions of third parties.
Basically, as we stated in the motion for a resolution adopted by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and as we have stated in a previous resolution by this Parliament, our understanding is that any action by the European Union must be accompanied by a strategy of its own which does not have a military dimension.
This is the attitude that I hope will prevail on the approach of European governments towards the Colombian Government on 30 April in Brussels.
Incidentally, it is our view that this European Union strategy should start from the premise that the armed conflict that is affecting Colombia is by no means confined to the drugs problem alone.
It actually predates that problem by a long way and is fundamentally rooted in deep-seated, pernicious political, economic and social phenomena in the country.
That is why I feel that a reform that guarantees another form of distribution of wealth and, specifically, a different form of land distribution by implementing a process of agricultural reform, is crucial and a matter of priority.
In fact, we also feel that the problem of drug production and trafficking requires a global approach on the basis of shared responsibility and international cooperation between the producer countries and the consumer countries, which, in the first instance, involves combating the laundering of money generated by trafficking.
The European Union' s strategy must also take account of the crucial importance of putting an end to the actions of the paramilitary groups and the impunity with which they operate, often in conjunction with Colombian military forces. These groups are mainly responsible for the wholesale massacres of communities and even of Europeans working with them.
By the same token, the European Union cannot brush aside the sense of trauma that pervades Colombia as a result of the persecution and massacre of countless leaders and members of the Patriotic Union, committed immediately after their participation in an electoral process.
In short, the European Union must fully commit itself to a genuine peace process, which 'Plan Columbia' cannot be taken to be and which it even thwarts.
We also need to continue to cooperate with Colombia and consolidate this cooperation, which would require, as a matter of priority, an effective commitment by the Colombian Government to implementing structural reforms and the involvement of communities and their organisations in solving the enormous problems that are affecting and overwhelming the country.
I hope that this is also the view of the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking the honourable Member, Mr Miranda, for putting his question to the Council and, in that way, giving us the opportunity to discuss the important issue of how the European Union can best contribute to peace and mutual understanding in Colombia.
Let me also begin by saying that the specific situation in Colombia and what the European Union may be able to do in that connection were matters which the Swedish Presidency had the opportunity to discuss face to face with President Pastrana during his visit to Stockholm last week.
The European Union is aware of the serious, multifaceted and interdependent problems faced by Colombia.
We believe that an integrated strategy is absolutely essential if it is to be possible to solve these problems.
On several occasions, the European Union has confirmed its intention, as far as possible and in the most appropriate way, to support the efforts to get a peace process under way in Colombia, founded upon respect for human rights and basic freedoms.
In its statement on 19 January of this year, the European Union expressed its deep concern about the fact that the armed conflict in Colombia had become more serious and at the fact that the suffering of the civilian population had increased.
The Union is convinced that the conflict can only be solved by means of a negotiated agreement and therefore calls for the peace negotiations to be resumed.
Since October 1999 when President Pastrana, here in the European Parliament, asked for the EU' s help for his plan for peace, prosperity and a strengthening of state power, the Council has had the opportunity, in response to a number of questions from honourable Members, to repeat the main features of the European Union' s position on Colombia and to inform the European Parliament of the way in which the work on this important matter has developed.
At its meeting on 9 October of last year, the Council confirmed its political support for the efforts to achieve peace that have been made by the democratically elected bodies in Colombia, as well as its desire to join the international community in actively monitoring the negotiation process - a process which, within the framework of consultation with civil society and with the agreement of all parties involved, should lead to a peace founded upon human rights, humanitarian law and basic freedoms.
Within the context of a continuation of the current peace efforts, the Council also gave notice of its intention to introduce a practical and independent European programme for socio-economic and institutional aid to the peace process in Colombia - a programme aimed at promoting and safeguarding respect for human rights, humanitarian law and basic freedoms, at improving living conditions for the local population, at encouraging the replacement of crops and the protection of bio-diversity and at supporting the programme of structural reforms in all areas which give succour to the armed conflict.
At the second meeting with the support group for the peace process in Colombia, held in Bogotá on 24 October last year, the Commission stated that the Community' s support for President Pastrana' s peace efforts would amount to EUR 105 million during the period 2000-2006.
Approximately EUR 40 million of these funds would be allocated to economic and social development and the fight against poverty, approximately EUR 30 million to so-called alternative development and EUR 25 million to support for reforms of the judicial system and for the promotion of human rights.
The Commission has also stated that it is going to increase the additional support granted to disaster aid projects through ECHO.
The Member States are still studying how much is to be set aside for a European aid package for Colombia, but the majority have already communicated their intentions on this matter.
The Commission has undertaken to coordinate the efforts to set up an aid package of this kind.
When it comes to the fight against drugs - discussed under paragraph 8 of Parliament' s resolution of 7 September of last year, to which the honourable Member refers - the European Union has also emphasised the crucial importance of combating this scourge which directly affects all European states and their citizens.
The EU has set up a mechanism for cooperating with Latin American and Caribbean countries on drug issues, a mechanism whose action plan was approved in April 1999 and received considerable political support from Heads of State and Government at the 1999 Rio de Janeiro Summit between the European Union and Latin American and Caribbean countries.
To facilitate the changeover to other products for export, Colombia is also covered by the Generalised System of Preference, or GSP, and, since 1990, also by the Occasional Extra System of Preference.
A number of chemical precursors were signed in 1995 between the European Union and the Andean countries and have now come into force.
The Council has not expressed an opinion on the United States' s contribution to Plan Colombia, a significant part of which is intended to be used in the fight against the drugs trade, because this is an issue affecting bilateral relations between Colombia and the United States.
In conclusion, I should like to remind the honourable Member of the guidelines - adopted as part of the orientation debate at the meeting of the General Affairs Council on 22 and 23 January of this year - for reinforced operational coordination between the Community, represented by the Commission, and the Member States in the area of external aid.
Hopefully, this will help us in the future to adopt an integrated approach to situations such as that in Colombia.
The EU has offered both political and financial support to the peace initiative of President Pastrana of Colombia.
We are well aware of the concerns that the military component of Plan Colombia has created especially among representatives of civil society both in Colombia and in Europe.
The EU reservations about some aspects of Plan Colombia are well known to President Pastrana and to his government.
The Commission does not intend to take part in any initiative with a military dimension.
In terms of the fight against drugs we will continue to subscribe to the global and balanced approach endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly special session on drugs of June 1998.
Thus in Bogota last October the EU stressed the need not to put alternative development projects at risk by non-selective operation of illicit crop eradication.
Within this context we continue to focus on positive measures such as demand reduction, promoting new crops, offering market opportunities in Europe and strengthening the rule of law.
As honourable Members may know, the EU decided last October to establish a European support package for the peace process in Colombia whose overall amounts should be decided at the next donors' meeting.
This package of European support covers contributions both from EU Member States and the EU itself.
All EU Member States indicated their willingness to provide financial contributions to this package and the majority of them have already put forward their pledges.
As the Swedish Presidency just announced, EUR 105 million of programmable aid will be made available by the Commission over the period 2000-2006.
These funds will be dedicated to modernising administration, strengthening democracy and the rule of law, respect for human rights, protecting the environment and developing alternative crops.
Emphasis will also be put on tackling a series of structural problems in the country and, in particular, political, social and economic reforms.
The Commission will also continue to provide humanitarian aid to assist the all too many displaced people in Colombia.
This non-programmable aid has amounted to EUR 24 million since 1997.
This year it is envisaged that about EUR 10 million will be made available for these kinds of interventions.
These areas of cooperation are also priority areas for the government.
The EU intends to make its contribution effective as soon as possible.
For this reason a mission including experts supplied by the Commission and the Member States is at this moment in Colombia in order to identify a project in an area called the Magdalena Medio, for which the Commission could earmark around EUR 20 million.
In this region, violence is at its highest level and the EU initiative will target the promotion of dialogue between the parties in conflict.
This will constitute effective implementation of the concept of a peace laboratory.
The conclusions of these experts' mission should be available by the end of February.
Apart from our financial commitment, Europe is also increasing its political role in the conflict.
I shall mention the presence of several Member States in the Group of Friends which secured the meeting area with the National Liberation Army agreed on 26 January as well as the meeting promoted by the presidency with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in Paris on 15 December.
One last word about the risk of an extension of the Colombian conflict to neighbouring countries.
Many have raised their concerns, notably Ecuador and Brazil.
There has been, indeed, an increased flow of refugees crossing the border in the affected areas.
For this reason the EU emphasised the need for a regional approach to the drug problem and more specifically to the Colombian conflict.
This will be one of the major topics of the next EU-Andean Community meeting on drugs scheduled for the second quarter of this year.
The objective will be to put more emphasis on an overall strategy in order to counter the phenomenon of the transfer of illicit crops from one country to another.
Summing up, we very much welcome this debate and we very much support the line expressed by Mr Miranda.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the conflict which has been going on in Colombia for more than thirty years cannot be resolved by military means.
We agree, Commissioner, that violence can only create more violence.
That is why the PPE Group takes a positive view, not only of what strictly constitutes the Colombia Plan to put an end to the production and trafficking in drugs, but also of the concerted efforts of President Pastrana to hold dialogue with the guerrilla movement and his proposed strategy to deal with the problem at its roots and attack its causes, because the objectives of this strategy are to create alternatives which will facilitate the economic and social recovery of Colombia, the resolution of the armed conflict with the guerrilla movement, the strengthening of the democratic institutions, social development and finally the fight against drug trafficking.
In fact, unless the violence is not brought to an end through dialogue, unless rural workers are offered alternatives which will enable them to lead dignified lives, unless the serious problem of displaced people is resolved, unless human rights are respected, unless the foundations on which the rule of law is based are strengthened and impunity is brought to an end, unless drug trafficking is brought to an end, peace in Colombia will be nothing more than a fantasy.
It therefore seems to us to be essential - and we are delighted about it - that the European Union should support President Pastrana' s peace efforts in the way that the President-in-Office of the Council has just announced and also in the way that the Commission, through Commissioners Patten and Nielson, had announced previously and which it has just reiterated.
Thanks to this aid, we are making a contribution to resolving the situations of social justice and to improving the living conditions of the local population, as well as strengthening the democratic institutions.
It also seems essential to us that FARC' s leaders return to the negotiating table and that the time period for the peace zone be extended beyond the weekend which President Pastrana has just proposed, so that the peace talks may continue and reach a successful conclusion.
But this is also why, since we are determined to find peace and well-being for the people of Colombia, we ask that President Pastrana intensify his fight against the paramilitaries and armed groups which violate human rights and spread pain and death amongst the civil population, and we also ask him to apply the United Nations resolutions on human rights. This is the only way, with the concerted effort of all of us, with a truly intense and decisive fight for peace, that it will be possible for hope to return to the people of Colombia.
Mr President, the violence in Colombia is a matter of great concern to Parliament. We have already passed a series of resolutions in support of the peace process in recent years.
We hope for a genuine peace process, based on a consensus amongst the various parties to the conflict and civil society, including NGOs, farmers' organisations and local communities. That is quite different from a plan amounting to financing fumigation and likely to exclude dialogue with the main players involved in the peace process.
Europe' s external action in Latin America has proved successful when Europe has conducted its own independent policy, promoting solutions and imbuing its cooperation programmes with its own political values regarding human rights, democracy and social cohesion.
It is worth recalling events in Central America leading to the San José dialogue. On that occasion, the European Community as it then was supported a regional solution instead of taking sides in the East-West conflict.
The European Union must adopt this distinctive approach and promote it at international level.
To this end, as I understand it, the Council and the Commission are prepared to support an independent autonomous approach and to fight against drugs.
However, the fight against drugs goes beyond crop-spraying. Furthermore, collusion with the United States' military plans is out of the question as far as we are concerned.
Crop replacement has to be preceded by a dialogue with the peasant farmers, who must be offered other possibilities for development.
A commitment to sustainable development is also called for: we are already aware that fumigation using Fusarium oxysporum is harmful to the environment.
Government cooperation is required to facilitate redistribution of the land so as to guarantee the farmers' survival and put an end to mass migration.
In short, a different plan is needed, one based on negotiation.
As regards Community cooperation, we are somewhat concerned that the EUR 105 million of aid planned may not be allocated to specific projects to combat poverty and promote human rights. We should like to receive more details concerning these various funds.
In particular, we would like some guarantee that NGOs will cofinance the projects for which the funds are intended and will therefore be involved in their management This would also represent a guarantee for the future of Colombia and of this Plan Colombia.
According to the information available to me at present, there are currently no NGO cooperation programmes cofinanced by the Commission in Colombia.
If indeed there are some, I would like details on them. What type of programmes are they?
In short, we believe that the European Union must pursue its own policy in Colombia. This policy should involve genuine peace, dialogue, the elimination of poverty and prospects for sustainable development.
No other route can lead to peace, especially not unpredictable military moves by the United States. The latter are certainly not acceptable to this House, and after what I have heard today, I trust they are not acceptable to the Council or to the Commission either.
I believe it is important to make this clear. If we succeed in drawing up a sound peace plan for Colombia with the European Union acting independently, today will have been a good day.
Mr President, the population of Colombia is suffering under a regime of poverty, violence and drugs.
These three problems can only be solved in interrelation to one another.
Many Columbians live in dead-end situations.
More than half the population earns less than two dollars a day.
The inequality is shocking.
Three percent of Columbians own 70% of the land.
Many farmers rely on growing coca and poppy as their only means of existence.
Social inequality, violent traditions and the lack of state power give guerrilla fighters and paramilitary units free reign to sustain their unscrupulous acts of terror.
Their fight for power is essentially a fight for drugs.
Lawlessness reigns supreme, and human rights violations are legion.
Needless to say, the world drugs problem must mainly be tackled at root level, that is to say also in the producing countries themselves.
That is why it is essential for farmers in Columbia to be offered a reasonable alternative to producing drugs.
This should also be the focal point of the European contribution.
In addition, Europe and America must, of course, also open up their markets to alternative products from Columbia.
A unilateral military approach will not offer any solace as long as the deeper causes are not addressed.
So far, the contamination of plantations has resulted in serious environmental damage and horrific disorders in people, as well as in a shift of production.
However, we should at the same time not be naïve.
We need to realise that a hard-line approach is sometimes required vis-à-vis the drugs mafia.
It is not always possible to win over big-time villains by negotiation alone.
Europe should mainly focus on the outcome.
The world must be set free from drugs and the Columbian population from poverty and violence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, exactly which Plan Colombia are we discussing here? Is it the first version which was sent straight to us, in English, from the United States before being submitted to the Colombian Congress or the second version, intended for Europe, which stresses the social aspect but certainly does nothing to conceal the basically military nature of the plan.
This programme of aid to the Colombian Government aims to combat drug production and trafficking. How is it going to do this?
By providing the Colombian Government with weapons.
This military equipment is apparently going to be used to destroy cocaine plantations.
You will forgive me if I am somewhat dubious about the use of these weapons in a country which, since 1948, has been devastated by a war sparked off by socio-economic reasons that are valid today, but which is increasingly becoming a war between the military-paramilitary alliance and the people.
Exactly who does Plan Colombia see as the opposing forces? Officially, it is the Colombian State combating drug traffickers.
In reality, the drug barons are protected by paramilitary groups, who are in turn trained by the Colombian army.
These are the groups that are killing peasant farmers, the coca growers, and driving out the people living in areas valued highly by the oil companies.
That is without even mentioning the pressure exerted on the supporters of the 'Nunca Màs' project who are fighting to keep the memory of these atrocities alive.
On the pretext of combating drugs, a war is being waged against the civilian population,.
This plan provides direct support to the murderers, by which I mean the paramilitary groups, that have already killed over 150 people since the start of the year and whose close links with the army are obvious.
Moreover, on no account can the European Union sanction the lack of democracy or legitimacy evident at the signing of this agreement between the American and Colombian Governments.
The European Union and the Member States should not cooperate with this plan; they should oppose it, as do the NGOs and local social movements.
There is no question of sharing the responsibility with America.
Responsibility for what? Millions of deaths?
Can we accept Plan Colombia? I support the view of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
We shall, therefore, vote in favour of this resolution which, far from recommending arms donations, proposes quite the opposite approach, i.e. to encourage scaling down armed conflict, to fight the association of the military and paramilitary groups, to show respect for those working in defence of human rights and to improve the living conditions of the population in conjunction with social movements, rather than against them.
Holding talks is the way to achieve peace, not waging war.
Mr President, although the whole of Latin America suffers from inequalities which ultimately lead to violence, Colombia is where these tragic dynamics are manifested in their crudest and most dramatic form. Indeed, as a doctor and teacher of medicine, I can tell you that a branch of epidemiology known as the 'epidemiology of violence' has come into being in Colombia.
The European Union has made conflict prevention and the peaceful and negotiated resolution of conflicts a fundamental principle of its international role.
Plan Colombia, drawn up between the United States and President Pastrana with no involvement by the Colombian Congress, is diametrically opposed to that principle.
Consequently, I returned yesterday from the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre bearing a specific undertaking I am prepared to defend in this House. A group of parliamentarians drawn from Latin America, Europe and other parts of the world gave this undertaking to make it quite clear that we should say no to Plan Colombia and yes to a negotiated and peaceful solution to the conflict.
Herein lies the difference between the European Union and others who have intervened.
Arguably, the best way to combat drug trafficking is to dismantle the international networks for the distribution and laundering of dirty money.
The best solution to violence is to persevere with peaceful efforts to achieve democracy, negotiating with and dismantling the paramilitary networks linked to the army and to the state apparatus.
The best solution to poverty and inequality is to push ahead with social reform to ensure rights for all.
The opportunity before us is there for all to see.
Mr President, some confusion has arisen over the current dramatic situation in Colombia. It might be useful to recall that just a few days after his election victory - which incidentally was the greatest and most significant victory by a Colombian President in recent years - President Pastrana met with the top leadership of the FARC, the largest and most long-standing guerrilla group in the Americas.
It was the first time in thirty years of conflict that a President-elect came face to face with the leaders of a guerrilla movement on Colombian soil.
Three weeks after his investiture, the leadership of the ELN, the second largest guerrilla group in the country and representatives of civil society reached an agreement in the German town of Mainz.
Negotiating tables were set up, and a demilitarised zone the size of Switzerland was established under guerrilla control.
Unfortunately however, this whole period has been characterised by a conspicuous absence of peace.
Furthermore, violence, murders, extortion, kidnaps and sabotage by left and right-wing armed groups have become more widespread than ever.
Combined with the widespread climate of violence the country is enduring this situation has given rise to considerable scepticism regarding resolution of the conflict.
What can the European Union do, faced with such a situation? As stated by the Commission and the Council, the only possible way forward is to support a specific European Union response aimed at promoting the strengthening of institutions, respect for human rights, alternative development, humanitarian aid and social development.
Commissioner, Representative of the Council, let me put it to you: do you really believe that at this critical juncture Colombia can allow itself the luxury of foregoing the aid and resources being assembled thanks to international solidarity?
An effort is clearly called for. It is also clear, Mr President, that moderation becomes reprehensible when it shies away from commitment.
The European Union cannot and must not enter into any commitment other than a firm commitment to offer strong support for peace.
For peace to be possible, three conditions must be met: cessation of criminal violence, a return to the negotiating table on the part of the guerrillas - President Pastrana has issued an appeal for them to do so and we hope it will be heeded-, and a firm commitment by the government to ensure that all the players in the peace process - every single one of them - reap the benefits of peace, along with civil society.
Mr President, I am convinced that generosity, realism, and bold and imaginative proposals are the way forward. Above all, good will is the key to a solution to the Colombian problem which the European Union is able to endorse, as the Council and Commission representatives have stated here today.
Mr President, the European Union should combat the illegal drugs trade and support a genuine peace process in Colombia but it cannot, must not, should not, do so by cooperating with Plan Colombia.
This is a barely disguised military strategy, sponsored by the US, whose effect will simply be to escalate the conflict, to aggravate the abuse of human rights and at best displace drug production.
Three quarters of the US contribution to the package is military assistance; only 6% will focus on human rights and only 4% will be put towards helping displaced people.
How anyone can argue that this is a plan that will support the peace process is baffling when only 1% of the US contribution is set aside for this specific purpose.
Plan Colombia was not a product of consultation with civil society at a local, national or international level; it was never approved by the Colombian Congress.
It has been the object of opposition in every sector of society, local communities, democratically elected governors, the Catholic Church, non-governmental organisations.
Support for it would therefore damage the trust and credibility the EU has earned with its projects and in its relations with local communities.
As for aerial spraying, what is proposed is no less than the use of biological weapons.
The toxic fungus spray used to kill the coca has been found to have caused fever in local people, to kill cattle and fish and it has been shown to attack the immune system of humans with effects up to and including death.
Dr Mondragon, giving evidence in this Parliament earlier this month, showed that the fumigation of 22,000 hectares of illegal crops last year in Colombia did not prevent 38,000 hectares of new cultivation because the problem is one of no alternative for the peasant farmers.
I welcome tonight, Mr Danielsson' s statement that European support will be independent.
This Parliament must support his efforts with Swedish NGOs behind the scenes to promote the peace process for all parties involved that was started in Costa Rica.
I am very glad that he was representing the Council and not Mr Solana, who scuttled out before the start of the debate, and who so badly misrepresented the EU when at the Madrid meeting last July he made a pre-emptive statement in support of Plan Colombia.
I very much welcome Commissioner Nielson' s commitment tonight to have nothing to do with the military strategy.
That is what this Parliament calls for, but he should disown the Commission press statement of September last year which expressed support for the plan.
Mr Salafranca says there is confusion.
There is no confusion.
It is not an expression of bad faith in President Pastrana and his attempts to pursue the peace process to point out at the same time that he has failed so far to disband the paramilitary groups, to end the abuses by the Colombian Army or to offer proper protection to human rights defenders, 25 of whom have lost their lives in the last three years.
Mr Salafranca condemns abuses by left-wing and right-wing groups.
He is right to do so but we do not give any succour to the guerrillas, whose abuse of human rights we condemn, when we say that over 75% of human rights abuses are caused by the paramilitaries and the army.
This Plan Colombia is a plan for war not a plan for peace and tonight Europe rejects it completely.
Mr President, I would just like to endorse everything that Mr Howitt has said.
Plan Colombia is promoted as a means of combating of drug production and trafficking, but since drug eradication and crop spraying started six years ago, the actual coca plantations have almost trebled, which shows that this is not an effective method.
It does not work and it is also an ecological disaster.
Since the drug wars started in the 80s, violence has increased in a terrible way in Colombia.
Seventy-five to eighty per cent of the killings are committed by the paramilitary forces to protect big farmers and oil companies.
The Colombian Government pretends that it is trying to combat paramilitarianism but in fact it is turning a blind an eye to it.
It knows very well that there are clear links between the paramilitaries and the armed forces.
If military equipment is increased in accordance with what Plan Colombia is proposing, it will clearly reach the paramilitaries.
It will increase the massacres; it will increase the disappearances; it will increase the violations committed against ordinary innocent people.
Any plan which includes a military element is not a solution for Colombia.
It just exacerbates the situation.
Many Member States have a major problem with the military component and it is very cynical to say that we want to help the social area when clearly this plan is a military plan.
Mr President, the European Union is finally realising that there are serious social problems underlying the tragic situation in Columbia, specifically the need for the fair redistribution of wealth and land between the few who have everything and the many who have nothing.
Clinton and Pastrana's 'Plan Columbia' , which reinforces military structures for combating drug trafficking, has the effect of preserving this social imbalance, just as the paramilitaries, loyal allies of the Pastrana army and drug traffickers, preserve it.
It is no coincidence that Carlos Castaño is friendly with the government and is head of the drug traffickers and paramilitaries.
It is no coincidence, while the paramilitaries are murdering peasant farmers and political and democratic representatives, that, under the pretence of fighting drug trafficking, American spray planes are destroying the harvests with fumigation and forcing peasant farmers to leave their villages.
If the European Union genuinely believes in the provisions of its Treaties and its recent Charter on justice and human rights, it must support the social claims of the Colombian people and oppose 'Plan Columbia' , for it is a plan for war, not for peace.
Ladies and gentlemen of the European Union, if no genuine redistribution of land is carried out in Columbia, even European Union aid will end up lining the pockets of the drug traffickers, of the large land owners and multinationals.
This tragedy is about the redistribution of land and fair social justice.
Mr President, as many Members have said, speaking on 'Plan Columbia' , this United States military plan, the European Union must intervene autonomously and independently, pursuing a non-military strategy, promoting and safeguarding respect for human rights, humanitarian law and fundamental freedoms and, most importantly, doing something to improve the standard of living of the local communities.
On several occasions, including in recent months, we have drawn up resolutions on human rights in Columbia, resolutions adopted in this Chamber.
Well then, I would like to take the opportunity afforded by this debate to condemn another incident: since 15 September 2000, three Italian citizens, engineers employed by a company which makes sweet-making machines, have been in the hands of the National Liberation Army. Together with these three Italian citizens, there are three other Europeans and thousands of Colombians.
Not only have they been held prisoner for four months, it has not been possible to communicate with them at all.
The Italian authorities are doing everything in their power but there is a certain unwillingness, even on the part of the Colombian Government, to undertake serious negotiations with the National Liberation Army in order to reach a solution.
Now, I feel that we must make human rights our priority, and I would therefore like to take this opportunity to ask the President of Parliament to send a letter to the Colombian authorities calling for respect for human rights and urging the government to make every endeavour to ensure, since it says that it is negotiating with the Liberation Army and the other forces, that any agreement reached will, without fail, include the immediate liberation of all the European and Colombian citizens - both Europeans and non-Europeans - who are deprived of their freedom and are prisoners of the militaries.
Mrs Ghilardotti, the Bureau takes note of your suggestion concerning the letter you wish the President of the European Parliament to send, and will inform her of your request.
Mr President, in my capacity as a Member of the European Parliament and Secretary-General of my party, Eusko Alkartasuna, and because of all it stands for in the Basque country, I want to support a peace process in Colombia. I will not, however, support just any kind of peace process but only one based, in the words of one of the NGOs most closely involved in helping Colombia, on respect for human rights and aimed at genuine sustainable development and social justice for Colombia and the surrounding region.
Endorsing a programme as ill conceived as Plan Colombia will not resolve the conflicts, because it does not deal with their roots. Furthermore, it places us in the ridiculous position of having to draw on funds to cushion the effects of that very plan.
Aside from my serious misgivings about plans such as Plan Colombia, I am bound to point out that parties such as Spain' s Partido Popular and the Spanish Socialist Party are totally inconsistent in their attitude. They are putting forward an anti-terrorist approach here today, which is quite contrary to that required to reach a negotiated end to conflicts.
However, on the other side of the Atlantic they advocate precisely the opposite approach.
Our Spanish neighbours -or at least those who are seeking solutions in Colombia whilst denying them on European soil - certainly seem to be adopting the 'do as I say and not as I do' approach.
Mr President, the discussion we are having this evening in plenary is evocative of the hearing of the Committee on Development and Cooperation that took place back in September of last year.
There is widespread agreement as to the fact that Plan Colombia and these pronouncedly military components pose a threat to the peace negotiations now under way, and will engender an escalation of the conflict in Colombia after more than three decades of civil war, over 300 000 dead, and when we had hoped that it would be possible to engage in dialogue once President Pastrana took office, and resolve the country' s problems, i.e. the conflict.
The point has been made repeatedly today that the world drugs problem must be tackled at its roots.
Naturally I agree with this, but the problem of the conflict in Colombia must also be tackled at the roots, and Europe cannot afford to make the same mistakes as the USA, by believing that the drugs trade is at the root of the intensifying violence and conflict, and at the same time, closing its eyes to the unjust social system and difficult political system in Colombia.
Commissioner, Representative of the Council, last September, Parliament called upon the Union to develop an independent strategy for tackling the drugs problem.
A month later, in October, the Council declared that the Union supports the peace moves and also wants to attend the negotiations.
What we have heard you say today sounds very promising and I believe the Union must continue its work along these lines.
It is farcical to believe that we can resolve the conflict in Colombia by deploying military means in order to fight the drugs trade, whilst forgetting the social and political problems facing this country, and it is also a betrayal of the Colombian people, who have already waited so long for peace and stability in their country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, how many times has this Parliament condemned the murder and war taking place in Colombia? How many resolutions have we adopted?
That is why I was delighted to hear the kind of statements the Council and the Commission made so eloquently today. But anyone who believes that Plan Colombia - negotiated by the USA with Pastrana, Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra take note - represents another step in the direction of peace, ought to reflect once again on the fact that it will intensify the war and give succour to the military conflict in neighbouring regions, in other states.
I do not recall President Cardoso of Brazil consenting to this plan or greeting it with enthusiasm.
The role of the European Union here must be to continue to support the peace process and drive it forward, but also to encourage the government in Colombia to restore the rule of law, which is conspicuous by its absence.
There is no real separation of powers, there is corruption - we know all that is there - and it is not the task of the European Union - and I am very grateful to you for making this point - to add fuel to the fire, but rather to play a positive and committed role in this peace process.
That too is our mission.
Mr President, pursuant to Rule 122 of the Rules of Procedure and following the personal criticisms levelled against me, I should like to reply to the remarks made by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and Mr Howitt.
I think I made myself quite clear, even though I always make every effort to put my ideas forward as courteously as possible and with every consideration for my colleagues. I always try to refrain from personal criticism.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, I challenge you to tell me at which point in my speech I supported the military dimension of Plan Colombia. Please do so.
At no time have supported it and I wish to make it abundantly clear that I am totally opposed to it. Indeed, as Mrs Ferrer stated, my political group totally condemns this plan' s military dimension.
Mr Howitt, I maintain my belief and my statement that President Pastrana acted in the best of faith.
If you feel he acted in bad faith, you should have made that clear before Parliament' s plenary session.
I only need to respond to a few of the speeches.
To Mr Howitt I would say, referring to a press statement half a year ago, that the position of the Commission is the one I have stated tonight.
We have our own plan.
We have our own philosophy and we will cooperate with all parts of society in Colombia to strengthen the role of peace.
We do not need to relate to Plan Colombia.
What we are doing forms no part of it.
To Mrs Sauquillo I would clarify what the planning is on an indicative basis and how we hope be able to spend the EUR 105 million from the Commission: EUR 40 million to projects in the sphere of social and economic development and combating poverty.
This includes a series of decentralised initiatives in the areas of health, education, development of agricultural and traditional production, and coastal fishing.
EUR 30 million in support of alternative development, EUR 25 million in support of administrative and judicial reform and EUR 10 million in actions to support the promotion and defence of human rights.
Over and above this we are envisaging a level of around EUR 10 million per year, part of which we expect to be ECHO activities.
I mentioned the displaced persons whose numbers keep growing, so we have a clear commitment to continue ECHO' s presence there.
We are expecting to stay at the level we have been at in recent years as far as NGO cofinancing is concerned. This has been at a level of EUR 2.4 million; it could be a little more or a little less.
We have activities amounting to EUR 1.3 million over recent years for programmes to protect the environment and tropical forests.
Many of these activities will be carried out in cooperation with or through different NGOs.
It is essential for us to do this if possible with Colombian NGOs and I will be asking European NGOs when they engage in these tasks to find partners in Colombia as in other cases and create partnerships.
This will in fact strengthen the message that we are trying to get across.
Some other activities aim to stimulate the government to do what we think is right: to concentrate more on poverty, to take more seriously the social aspects of these conflicts.
Here the government of Colombia is the partner we need in our attempts to shape a peaceful development there.
It is not just an issue of whether or not we are using NGOs.
This will depend very much on the subject and activity from case to case.
But the transformation and the strengthening of a peaceful civil society, which is part of the solution and an element in the solution, can only be stimulated by a stronger involvement of NGOs.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
I have received the following motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure:
B5-0087/2001 by Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on Plan Colombia and support for the peace process in Colombia;
B5-0088/2001 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and Mrs Ferrer, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on support for the peace process in Colombia.
Mr President, I wish to ask for clarification on two points.
Firstly, is it in accordance with the Rules of Procedure and acceptable to submit an alternative motion for a resolution to a motion tabled by a committee? This is an issue I wish to see clarified.
Secondly, I wish to ask whether this second motion for a resolution stands or whether it has been withdrawn.
I would like clear information on this matter.
Mr Miranda, according to the case law - forgive my use of the term - of this House, alternative motions to the motions tabled by a committee may be submitted. This in no way contravenes our customs or practices and the political groups' rights of initiative remain inviolate; with regard to your second question, however, I am not in a position to give you an answer at the present time, but according to the information available to the Bureau, nothing has been withdrawn.
I should like to say in reply to Mr Miranda' s question that my political group is indeed considering withdrawing that proposal so as to be in a position to support the amended proposal by the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Thank you very much, Mr Salafranca, for that clarification.
Mr President, just for the record: it is my understanding that, after a careful process of negotiation between the PSE and the PPE, the PPE will be withdrawing their resolution.
If there is any change to that, this Parliament needs to be notified far in advance of tomorrow.
Secondly, to be absolutely clear and not to extend the debate, at no point did I suggest Mr Salafranca accused President Pastrana of bad faith.
But in his attempts to mute criticism of the Colombian Government, I think he thinks we think that President Pastrana has bad faith.
We are not suggesting that.
He has good faith, but his government has not delivered the goods.
Mr Howitt, I am not going to reopen the debate on this issue.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.45 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Rail transport
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A5-0013/2001) by Mr Jarzembowski, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 91/440/ECC on the development of the Community's railways [C5-0643/2000 - 1998/0265(COD)];
(A5-0014/2001) by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 95/18/EC on the licensing of railway undertakings [C5-0644/2000 - 1998/0266(COD)] and on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity, the levying of charges for the use of railway infrastructure and safety certification [C5-0645/2000 - 1998/0267(COD)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen - who I see are rather thin on the ground - following tough, but fair, negotiations between the French Council Presidency and representatives of the European Parliament, we, Parliament that is, managed, on the evening of 22 November, to make clear progress in the Conciliation Procedure on the three fundamental directives on railway liberalisation - namely those concerning the further development of the railways, the licensing of railway undertakings and the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity - such progress being towards the further opening-up of the railway sector.
I will summarise the progress made in three points, and I would like to welcome you Madam Vice-President.
We were able to get the Council' s agreement on three points.
Firstly, it was agreed that all railway undertakings should definitively be granted rights of access to the entire rail networks of all Member States for international freight transport, by 2008 at the latest.
In so doing, we ensured that from this point onwards, all Member States will be obliged not just to open the marked-out routes of the so-called new trans-European rail freight network, but also their network in its entirety, to the railway companies from the other EU States.
Secondly, the exemption clause - originally planned by Austria - which would have enabled Member States to evade the strict European requirements emanating from the respective national regulation authority, has been dropped.
As I see it, this means that across the EU, the national railway companies or their associated agencies will be the last ones to be entrusted with the licensing of railway undertakings, the allocation of railway infrastructure capacity, or railway infrastructure charging, rather this will fall to agencies of a truly independent nature.
So these are the two crucial components: the opening-up of all networks for cross-border traffic and the establishment of an independent regulatory authority in all Member States, so as to guarantee fair competition.
Permit me just to say a few words about Mr Swoboda' s report. The third crucial component to be achieved in my view, is that we managed, by means of a new provision, to make a start on the long-term goal of applying the 'user pays principle' when it comes to the cost of railway infrastructure usage.
In this way, we have ensured that infrastructure charges can be raised in the long term with a view to cost-effectiveness, so that the construction, maintenance and also development is funded by the user, and not by the tax payer at the end of the day.
In other words, as I see it, we will still need, in the long run, to implement the separation of rail service operations from those of infrastructure management.
But in any event, we need the network to be maintained by the users.
That is why we must make it our long-term goal to cover costs through charges.
As I see it, in taking these three essential steps, we are already breaking down the national, fixed railway structures and creating new possibilities for competition between the railway undertakings.
Parliament has fought for this, in conjunction with the Commission.
The Commission was not exactly enthusiastic to begin with, but it fought alongside us in the end, in a bid to achieve this liberalisation, and I would therefore like to say a special thank you to the Vice-President for her cooperation in the Conciliation Procedure.
I believe that as a result, Parliament, together with the Council and the Commission, has established the framework for an attractive railway sector, which will offer a wider range of customer-orientated, cross-border freight services in the future.
After all, what we want is to modernise the railway sector by means of competition, so that, ultimately, more freight is transferred from road to rail. This is because it is absolutely vital, on environmental protection grounds, to get freight off the roads and onto the railways over long distances.
Incidentally, the course taken by the Conciliation Procedure has again borne out the importance of the codecision procedure, and we have only had codecision rights in the transport sector since the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Without the codecision procedure we would not have managed to break down the Council' s position.
If you recall, the French President-in-Office of the Council had believed that following the first reading of the Council' s common position, all negotiations would come to an end, and we would have to accept the situation.
But no, a fair Conciliation Procedure enabled us to make progress and achieve a single market, at least for cross-border freight traffic, with effect from the year 2008 at the latest.
Permit me just to look ahead for a moment.
It is simply not enough to only ever produce laws, directives and regulations, nor is it enough just to have them transposed into national law.
My group calls upon the existing railway undertakings - and I see one is represented up on the platform, for which I am grateful - to take the necessary precautions now, so that they are in a position to make use of the new provisions when the European law that we are now in the process of adopting has to be transposed in the year 2003.
Thus, for example, the Deutsche Bundesbahn, perhaps in conjunction with the Dutch national railways or other railways, should truly exploit the opportunity to make cross-border freight traffic a reality.
I believe this is where the traditional railways must really rise to the challenge of pushing through the opening-up of the market that we have created.
If, however, the traditional railways do not exploit the new opportunities presented by liberalisation, then many industrial enterprises will consider doing business directly with small railway companies, using European law.
They will be entitled to do so.
There are 180 licensed railway companies in Germany, and they are licensed to operate wherever they wish, even if they have only operated on a regional basis hitherto.
I therefore believe we should prevail upon all parties concerned, the railway companies and industry, to take the necessary precautionary measures without delay, and make use of the competition, so that more freight can be transferred from road to rail.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, yes, it was a difficult birth, but in the end it was a successful birth.
As with any birth, there were people to assist.
Sometimes there are also people who get in the way, but in this case I should like to mention only those who assisted, in particular Commissioner de Palacio, who, as transport commissioner, was a very great help to us in finding a good solution.
I want to stress this in particular, in recognition of her outstanding work.
The French transport minister, too, who at first perhaps tried - unsuccessfully - to intimidate us a bit, in the end reached a very good compromise with us.
I should also like to thank Vice-President Imbeni in particular, who led the parliamentary delegation very circumspectly and very precisely, and also our committee Chairman, Mr Hatzidakis, who backed us in word and deed and showed confidence in the rapporteurs.
I am also saying it was a difficult birth because it took a long time, longer than it should have.
But since it is constantly being said that Parliament is so slow and hesitant and fast track or other procedures are required, I should like to point out that we had the first reading on 10 March 1999, but did not receive the common position until 13 April, over a year later, and that despite the urgency impressed on the committees by Mr Jarzembowski and myself.
But we then quickly dealt with the common position on 5 July and adopted the corresponding amendment that same day.
After that, the Council again took a relatively long time to make its comments.
I should like to stress that Parliament works quickly when it needs to, and especially when there is close cooperation as between myself and Mr Jarzembowski.
It is the Council that always has great difficulty in reaching a common position.
So what does this railway package contain? I believe there are some very important steps, namely the specific steps it contains, but also the forward-looking stance that goes with them.
Firstly, what I would call a bespoke liberalisation, a liberalisation that is not untrammelled, that does not go beyond what sensible and reasonable experts think, but is purposeful.
I, too, Mr Jarzembowski and a few others, would have liked to have seen something more.
We could have been bolder.
Be that as it may, the first steps have been taken and they should be followed through, because I also believe that what we have in the text here can, should and, indeed, ought to be put into effect sooner than we have agreed, which for me is the minimum.
Secondly, regarding the cost structure. It is true that, on the one hand, we said, for the short term - and following the Commission' s example - that only marginal costs could be asked for, in other words what an additional train costs on a particular route.
But in the long term the aim must be to cover costs completely.
Of course, this means covering costs not only on rail, but on the road as well.
Proper account must therefore also be taken of environmental costs, which - even if Mr Jarzembowski still does not quite believe it, he is already half convinced - are certainly appreciably higher for road than for rail.
Thirdly, we have not abolished the derogation for individual Member States.
It hurts, but we can live with it, and I think we shall get over it in time.
I shall, too, and I also thank you for your support in getting a particular principle introduced, or reintroduced, namely that, to a limited extent and where there is good reason for doing so, public services can have priority, of course not to hinder the most important part of traffic, namely commercial traffic, freight traffic, which is the most important since that is what we particularly want to shift from road to rail.
We have also managed to get the duration of the framework agreements for railways to use the infrastructure set such that the investments that railway undertakings make will really pay off and actually be made.
Overall, I believe it is a well-rounded package with good provisions.
You might say we can go home content tomorrow after the votes.
We have all played our part. But not so.
Two things are most important.
Firstly, the Commissioner has helped us in as much as she has quite clearly stated that further steps will be proposed by the Commission.
As I said, I also hope that they will be bespoke and purposeful, which is very important.
The second point, which is also quite important, is that, as I have already mentioned, we must gradually arrive at a system for internalising external costs, i.e. they must be considered for road and rail side by side.
That will do away with some of the distortion that still persists, namely the unfair treatment of rail as compared to road.
Far-reaching changes will not be achieved over night.
So there is no need for hauliers to be afraid.
But the railways will and must gradually be given justice and with it, indirectly, the support that is in fact merely the creation of a situation that is fair.
But the question of labour law and working hours is also important.
Here, too, the treatment is unfair.
Here, too, the Commissioner has promised, and the Council has already decided in principle, to help us to put an end to the unfair undercutting of tariffs and prices in the Member States of the European Union - a particularly common practice by the Willi Betz company - in order to arrive at a fairer system in this particular field with regard to labour law and working hours, another area where the railways are disadvantaged compared to the legal and especially the actual circumstances on the roads.
Of course, there must be investment in the railways.
It is not enough to say OK we now have a fine system, but nobody invests.
This investment is necessary.
I say that especially because of the impending enlargement.
If enlargement means having a lot more heavy lorries on our roads, there will be opposition.
If enlargement means we get a transport system that is a little fairer and also friendlier to the environment, it will meet with greater acceptance.
That is how I understand the railway package that we are proposing today - that we get a transport system that is a little kinder to the environment and a little more just.
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, since 1994, when I was elected to the European Parliament, I have heard many a debate on the frightful problems facing the European railways and I imagine that many such debates were also held before I was elected.
Despite the fact that we have known about the problem for years, I think that the compromise now being debated as a result of the conciliation between the European Parliament and the Council is perhaps the first major decisive step towards the creation of a proper new, unified rail transport network and towards much needed liberalisation - much needed in my view, Mr President, because this is how we can support the competitiveness of the European railways, which have been on the decline for years without our being able to do anything substantial about it.
Surely, everyone involved in this issue will want to give praise where praise is due, i.e. to the European Parliament and, of course, the Commission, for the simple reason that they have been urging the Council for years to take the action which it has, I think, now been forced to take - action which will certainly benefit European citizens, consumers, rail passengers and rail freight customers.
I remember that when a compromise was reached between the 15 ministers, the Helsinki Council felt that it had come to the end of the line as far as the liberalisation of the railways and the new institutional framework are concerned.
It is significant, I think, that Parliament, with the Commission's help, has managed to change Council's mind, giving us a far better compromise than the Helsinki compromise.
I do not intend to go into the details, because the two rapporteurs, who know the subject inside out and whom I should like to congratulate on the results of the compromise, have already done so; I should merely like to reiterate how important the clause on further liberalisation of rail transport is and to point out that, generally speaking, there will be no exemptions or derogations for the Member States - unless absolutely necessary because of the nature of the Member States or their position on the map.
I should like to close, Mr President, with a wish: that from now on the Council will operate with greater transparency, that it will talk to the rapporteurs early on, that it will attend European Parliament committees not simply to strengthen the role of the European Parliament but so that faster decisions can be taken, faster than the 16 kilometres an hour which is the present average speed of the railways.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating all those who made the agreement we are discussing this afternoon possible. Firstly the two rapporteurs, Mr Jarzembowski and Mr Swoboda, then the French Presidency and finally the Commission, more particularly the Commissioner, who is present this afternoon.
She is to be congratulated amongst other reasons because, thanks to her presence on the Conciliation Committee, a number of significant factors were introduced allowing Parliament to emerge with the feeling of having won a specific victory, namely the document we are debating today, and not with the sense of having lost a battle over international passenger transport and national freight transport. Rather, it felt the decision had been postponed for strategic reasons.
I therefore feel we are enjoying a very positive and constructive atmosphere, in which we can tackle tasks such as that before us today.
Undoubtedly, the agreement represents a historic step forward in line with other developments we are currently involved in or are about to embark on and are going through Parliament, such as enlargement and the final introduction of the single currency.
Mr President, this decision does indeed open up the network, and as soon as it is opened, its management and rationalisation will be within our grasp.
We need not concern ourselves about the time-scale of events, because the logic of events will allow us to move forward.
That independent authority is important in the agreement. We are of course referring to the railways, attempting to promote them.
Mr Jarzembowski said that the objective was for the user to pay the cost.
True, that is the strategic objective, but at the moment we need to promote trains and therefore we should not rush things.
At the outset, we need to offer incentives for transporting freight by train. To date, trains have not proved a viable way of transporting freight.
Our freight trains travel 50% slower than trains in the United States and we have not yet been able to make a competitive offer.
We need to improve the freight network, and the companies themselves have to be competitive as regards overcoming the difficulties of rail transport.
Companies must be enabled to find a solution to sending their products from the company to the railway and once the destination is reached, from the railway to the company.
Unless this is achieved, we shall not move forward as we ought. We are all certainly aware that the proposals before us represent a net benefit to the environment.
We must therefore express our appreciation to all those who have made this agreement possible and congratulate Parliament on its unanimity.
Mr President, Commissioner, the compromise reached in the legislative consultation between Parliament and the Council on the development of rail transport is one of the most important results to have been achieved in the transport sector during the Finnish and French presidential terms.
I would like, on behalf of my group, to thank the rapporteurs, Mr Jarzembowski and Mr Swoboda, for their reports on the railway package as well as the Conciliation Committee, for their excellent work, which can be considered to be a breakthrough in this important issue.
Our group is in favour of improved competitiveness in the railways and liberalisation.
The legislative consultation between Parliament and the Council resulted in a satisfactory package that meant the job of developing rail transport could be tackled with vigour.
The development of rail transport will remain on the agenda in the future, as the Commission is promising a second railway package to include further liberalisation and the aspect of safety.
I consider the safety aspects of railways, as with other forms of transport, to be particularly important.
The utilisation of the best technology that promotes safety, and its wider application, must become a key point of focus.
The development of rail transport is vital to solve the problems of traffic congestion.
It will ease the problem of both road and, furthermore, air traffic congestion.
At the same time, however, we have to ensure that the trans-European transport networks also extend to more sparsely populated and remote regions.
As has been stated here, environmental considerations also powerfully advocate the development of the railways.
In the future, we will have to carefully observe how this railways package will be implemented in practice, and there must be further liberalisation in the light of the experience we gain from that.
Special attention has to be paid to the coordination of different forms of transport as well as the overall functioning of the network.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteurs, congratulations.
A great deal of work has been done, and as you know, the Group of the Greens holds the development of rail transport dear.
That applies to both public transport and freight.
Ultimately, we have had to take measures in order to stimulate the development of rail, railway licences and railway infrastructure by, among other things, opting for liberalisation in this case.
I would point out that we have a duty, in view of some forms of liberalisation elsewhere, jointly to keep monitoring safety and the social aspects which are related to liberalisation.
We are, to a certain extent, in favour of efficient transport, but we are mainly in favour of environmentally friendly transport.
I would like to make one critical comment, and that is that the environmental advantages of rail compared to road transport are dwindling fast. This can be put down to one simple reason.
Parliament has taken decisions on the Euro I to V standards and limit values for a truck fleet which is rapidly being rejuvenated, and it is now up to us to quickly improve the emission limit value and the energy efficiency of rail transport.
Otherwise, the advantage which we mentioned a moment ago will no longer apply.
Research has now provided adequate evidence of this.
Against this background, I believe that it is fair to say - we have asked questions and have received answers in this connection - that a great deal of fine-tuning is still required, and I would now like to see the sector make a political gesture.
We have taken the political decision, but we now want to see the sector send us a signal that it is about to launch into further development.
Mr President, my group is keen on removing unnecessary border restrictions in railway traffic.
Moreover, from the point of view of the environment, space occupation, safety and working conditions, we would like to see a great deal of freight, which is currently being transported by road, transferred to rail.
This removal can best be achieved by reaching sound agreements among the EU Member States.
This is why we consented to the agreements made by the Council in December 1999 at the end of the Finnish Presidency.
These agreements provided for through trans-national corridors and for sufficient exemption and transitional provisions in order to lift possible drawbacks in good time.
Unfortunately, the majority of Parliament believed that this arrangement was inadequate and that instead, liberalisation and privatisation should be brought more to the fore.
This opinion fits in with a fashion trend which has led to a neo-liberal stampede against public services, public companies and organised employees, especially in the sectors of postal services, rail and energy supply.
Those were companies that could prove to us that we can organise our economy in a more democratic, environmentally-friendly and less profit-orientated manner, but that are now being forced to attend to the pursuit of profit and competition.
Advocates of liberalisation consider rail as an awkward state monopoly with irritating and demanding trade unions.
But the alternative could lead to chaos and conflict of interests and to new monopolies without any democratic control.
Liberalisation could, of course, benefit private companies that can gain more freedom and more opportunities to tap into fresh income, but that does not guarantee a choice in favour of more environmentally-friendly modes of transport.
Considerable disadvantages could arise, on the other hand, within existing railway companies, for their staff and for the democratic decision-taking with regard to their future transport policy.
Consequently, in this case my group was more on the side of the Council than the majority of this Parliament.
Therefore, if it had been up to my group, this conciliation would not have taken place.
Despite this, I took part in it, taking the view that irreconcilable positions would block a positive outcome, and that it is also not a good idea for the Finnish compromise to be withdrawn.
Although I have voted against the direction previously opted for by Parliament on 22 November, I called on the parliamentary delegation to reach a compromise.
When that was achieved, I abstained from voting out of regard for this procedure, just as the majority of my group will do tomorrow at the final vote.
The outcome of this conciliation will lead to more liberalisation than we deem useful, but less than threatened to be the case initially.
Moreover, I fear that this conciliation package will soon be overtaken by liberalisation plans from the European Commission which go even further, and which my group will be unable to endorse.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, a radical reform of the railways was absolutely necessary, particularly in order to reverse the current trend which is, unfortunately, to do everything by road, with, consequently, a negative impact on rail freight services.
However, beyond this reality, which is certainly used as a pretext, the final proposals in this report go far beyond what we were hoping for.
The only major issue here, though, is not the three, five or seven years that it has taken to obtain this result.
For we still have one major concern and that is the desire that some people have expressed to liberalise the sector completely. This is unacceptable to us.
We should be cautious, as this liberalisation of the transport of goods will have an adverse effect on both local planning and social cohesion, particularly if the service provision no longer has any respect for the concept of a comprehensive rail network and the idea of providing a service for the population as a whole.
Moreover, an important, if not crucial, test for the continuation of the concept of public service will be the opening up of the passenger service market, which some see as part and parcel of the same process.
In short, will this total liberalisation of rail transport services have any consideration for the concept of public service, rather like the case of the postal service? I fear not, as the principle of profitability will then automatically come to the fore, a principle directly opposed to that of public service.
Ladies and gentlemen, the same applies to the notion of safety.
Of course, the infrastructure must be safe and must be a matter for the authorities, but operators cannot achieve a lawless and fiercely competitive market without the risk of bottlenecks or a serious accident which would compromise everything that has been done.
To sum up, whilst we recognise the need for Europe-wide investment in order to give the rail industry the boost it needs, we are still extremely concerned about this incipient liberalisation.
We hope to see proper assessment made before implementing the next stages, as we are aware there are other options which can and must be explored.
Mr President, it is to 'railway speak' that we owe numerous figures of speech.
For example 'the train has departed' is what we say when we arrive late.
Unfortunately the same can be said of our train.
The package of three proposals for directives concerning the railway infrastructures, to which we will give our assent tomorrow, is long overdue.
The ultimate outcome of the lengthy negotiations within the Conciliation Committee, has in fact come ten years too late.
The statistics bear this out, I am sorry to say.
There has been a massive decline in the amount of freight transported by rail over the last few years, and there is every reason to believe that it will be very difficult to reverse the trend in the foreseeable future.
If we call to mind that we accomplished the single market for freight in 1970, and the internal market in 1992/1993, then since this is now the year 2001, we are clearly going to reach our destination late, added to which, our train is travelling on a go-slow stretch.
Setting a deadline of 2003 for the opening-up of the trans-European rail freight network certainly sounds reasonably committed, as does a deadline of 2008 for national freight traffic, but this is surely sending out the wrong signals.
When you consider that the question of committing eastern freight traffic to the rail has not even been properly addressed then clearly this is yet another area which will set us back.
There are other, better signals too, a green light as it were.
We must not overlook what has been achieved in the way of positive results.
Thus, for example, the creation of independent regulatory authorities does at least give the go-ahead for more competition, and we can only hope that the necessary reforms do not get stuck on the sidings.
The exemption provisions for certain Member States are, after a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing - and not including the small country of Luxembourg - only really for the benefit of the truly peripheral Member States, and at least the project for improving the railways and freight transport is up and running.
Interoperability is the next item on the agenda, and we are currently setting the points for more intermodality.
At some stage it will be all systems go for Europe' s rail passengers, and not just on Europe' s roads.
We must not lose hope and with that in mind I would like to say a big thank you to both rapporteurs and to the Commissioner, whose combined efforts have already been mentioned today and for which they have rightly been commended.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, there is talk in this Chamber of who the winners in this conciliation are.
In my view, it is the citizens of Europe who are the winners.
Once we have successfully implemented this conciliation, we shall also have opportunities to create a better environment in Europe, and in that way we are serving all citizens.
I see the environment as one important reason why we must get to grips with the issues relating to railways. We know, of course, that road transport is increasing at the expense of rail transport and that it has been doing so for a long time.
We must reverse that trend.
It is also important that we should create opportunities for combining forms of transport so that it is possible, over long distances for example, to use both road and rail transport.
Another problem, of course, has been the high rail charges which have presented obstacles to more efficient railway traffic.
The railways' organisational structure is also at fault.
I think we have achieved a good conciliation we can rightly congratulate ourselves on, even if we might sometimes wish it could have gone further.
Where the marginal cost charges are concerned, I also think this is a good conciliation.
In this way, it will be possible even for long-distance operators to compete.
This is important in Europe, where distances are long.
The regulator, who is to be appointed under the terms of the conciliation and who is to oversee the system, is also an important factor because it is important to create confidence in the railways and in the solution we have now arrived at.
I think, then, that we have a good result and I want to thank everyone involved.
Finally, I hope that we can all make sure that it is turned into a reality.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the era of the railway in Europe is underway, and not before time.
It certainly is high time that we developed Europe' s railways properly and, more importantly, allocated resources to this task.
At last, we can be confident, we can meet the expectations of all citizens and believe that the shift from road to rail is underway.
The conciliation on what is called the 'railway package' will have allowed us to lay the foundation stone.
At the moment, we have to provide substantial investment for railways to meet our expectations and be recognised as the means of transport that produces the least pollution and helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
I shall continue to remind you of the worrying predictions made by scientists regarding the climate change that is, to a great extent, caused by road transport.
Glaciers are being melted at a faster rate than steel rails are hardening in the mould.
Although we welcome the decision made at the France-Italy Summit to build a new railway between Lyons and Turin, the European Union should be far bolder in its infrastructure plans.
In some cases, the question still arises as to whether it is better to build a new motorway rather than considering rail.
I am thinking specifically about the Moselle valley freight tunnel, the so-called 'A32' project.
The European Union must lead the way to ensure that rail becomes the preferred means of transport for all citizens as well as the natural and even the only means of transporting goods.
Mr President, Commissioner, what is positive about this compromise is that obstacles to cross-border freight traffic will be dismantled in the foreseeable future, which definitely improves our chances of being able to transfer freight from the roads to the railways.
Our guiding principle must be to create a truly level playing field on the competition front, through harmonisation and by taking comparable cost components into account.
But then there is more to competition than a debate about lowest costs and highest profits, it is also about striving for sustainability, social competence, user-friendliness, quality and service.
Why should a private-sector supplier be a priori any better at this than one under public ownership? We have a duty to explain what we understand by general public services, and whether we think they can be provided more effectively by publicly owned operators than private operators, or less so.
I believe that having equal conditions of access for all will not prove profitable in every case.
Private companies must make a profit or else face their demise.
Publicly owned companies can, in fact, sustain losses in areas where this is necessary for social reasons, on account of their redistribution potential.
It will not do for the profits to be absorbed by the private sector and the losses to be borne by society.
What we need is for the public and private suppliers of services in a European internal market to adopt an approach that is in the interests of the common good.
This will require uniform framework conditions.
Experience will show whether the nascent liberalisation of the European railways will mean better services for rail users.
Certain Member States have already implemented more far-reaching liberalisation measures, with very mixed results.
Germany - I am sorry to have to say this gentlemen from the Deutsche Bundesbahn - is a prime example of how not to go about it.
Stretches of track have been shut down en masse at regional level, there have been railway station closures, ever-increasing cycle times, repair workshop closures, and drastic cuts in staffing levels.
This has nothing to do with competing for services to the general public.
Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in common with the vast majority of Members of this House, I too believe that the outcome of the Conciliation Procedure on the reports concerning the railway package has enabled us to take a big step towards opening up the market in international freight transport.
The reports by Mr Swoboda and Mr Jarzembowski set the right tone.
The separation of rail service operations from those of infrastructure management is pre-requisite to the liberalisation of the European railways.
I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to all concerned for the difficult, but ultimately productive, work undertaken within the Conciliation Committee.
As is apparent from all the other areas that have already undergone liberalisation, competition has a positive effect on the area concerned.
In freight transport, the advantages are tangible and plain for all to see.
If the European railways can improve their competitive position vis-à-vis other modes of transport, especially road transport, this will have a positive impact on the environment and will also help solve the serious problems attending road transport.
In order to achieve these goals, and in fact this is logical, competition must not stop at respective national borders. It must be able to flourish on a Community-wide basis.
Only in this way will the railways become a real alternative.
Parliament has scored a major success in achieving this goal, all be it with transitional periods.
The same conditions must apply to passenger transport as apply to freight transport.
The problems emanating from the other modes of transport - road transport for example - are not just caused by heavy goods vehicles, but also by passenger transport, of course.
The railway will only be able to win back shares in the transport market if it becomes a viable alternative, and what that means these days is an international outlook, quality of service and customer orientation.
If the railway sets itself this major challenge, it has everything to gain, and all of us with it.
Mr President, Commissioner, if we truly want to improve the environment and allow railways to take the pressure off our over-congested European roads, I believe we should pursue three objectives. Firstly, those responsible for managing the infrastructure and charged with ensuring good use of the latter must be completely separate from and independent of service operators and users.
Secondly, the railways must be integrated with other forms of transport to achieve a genuine door to door service.
Thirdly, just as there are toll-free motorways so certain sections of the railway track must be free of charge.
The cost of transporting a tonne of goods should not be prohibitive. Furthermore, if we really want to change the present situation, free up our roads and achieve genuine environmental improvements, the cost has to favour the railway.
Mr President, all of us here are aware that rail transport plays an important role in the proper development of human activities, protection of the environment and sustainable local planning. That is why I believe that we cannot be satisfied with the results of the conciliation between the European Parliament and the Council.
This compromise perpetuates the race to open up the markets and introduce competition in rail transport services, for goods and passengers alike, in order to satisfy the economic rationale of profitability, instead of meeting the requirements of the users and employees in this sector.
The report approves the plan to liberalise rail transport, and, more particularly, the plan to make infrastructure managers independent of the State.
If this is adopted, there is a risk that rail safety will be jeopardised.
However, there could have been other options.
Even if historical and national differences exist, coordination of public rail transport services on a European level is not an insurmountable obstacle.
Besides, that is what rail workers are calling for.
We must move towards establishing public Europe-wide services within the framework of a common policy...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Mr Jarzembowski observes in his explanatory statement that we have to strengthen rail transport, to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of railways in order to reverse the downward trend of their share in the market in the last 15 years.
He observes that little progress has been made by the Member States in implementing the separation of the rail service operations from those of infrastructure management and we do not see in most countries any effective opening-up of the rail market.
In the United Kingdom considerable credit could well be paid to the former Conservative government for effecting just that, a policy which has been continued by the current Labour government.
However, last October the Hatfield train crash took place in Hertfordshire, part of the eastern region which I represent in this Parliament.
Four people lost their lives and many were seriously injured.
The accident took place on a bend with the train travelling at 115 mph.
It appears that the infrastructure authorities were aware of the fracturing of the rail as early as November 1999 and a further report was made in January of last year.
No remedial action was taken.
The British transport minister, Lord McDonald, has announced there will be no be no public inquiry.
However, named members of Railtrack, the infrastructure company, and of Balfour Beatty possibly face manslaughter charges as a result of this accident.
I turn to the Commissioner, who I am sure is aware of the details of this particular accident, which I would point out is not unique within the European Union, and I would hope that she would be able perhaps to dwell on the consequences of the crash.
In the United Kingdom there has been chaos on our railways, there has been plummeting customer confidence in the rail system, remedial work has caused huge financial investment and Railtrack has threatened a delay in work on the Euro Channel Tunnel Phase II programme which is very much part of the integrated European rail system that we all support.
I very much hope that the Commissioner may be able to give some support to the relevant authorities in the United Kingdom.
This is not merely a domestic issue.
It has European ramifications as far as the Channel Tunnel work is concerned.
It may well be that additional support can be given through the TENs programme and I look forward to my discussions with the Commissioner on this extremely serious development.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to express my satisfaction with the final outcome of the conciliation, along with all or almost all those who have already spoken.
It has to be made abundantly clear that this initiative is aimed at saving the rail network, modernising it and adapting it to the new state of affairs. We are hoping that at the dawn of the twenty-first century rail will once again become what it was at the start of the twentieth: a reliable, efficient, fast and - for those times - safe form of transport, stimulating development, and indeed offering guarantees of wealth and territorial balance.
I believe we took a significant step in that direction on 22 November last year.
The decisions we are to adopt today aim to improve the quality of the service.
Contrary to the views expressed by some honourable Members, I believe that the problem with rail transport nowadays is not whether it should be public or private, although it is generally public.
The problem is that it does not work.
Let us be clear about this.
There would certainly be scope for discussing some of the measures put forward here if we were dealing with a rail network which worked.
The trouble is that given the current situation, where a public service is guaranteed by public undertakings with a monopoly in the area of the Member States of the Union, it does not work.
It simply does not work in the present situation of compartmentalised and divided national rail networks.
What we are seeking to do is in fact to effect a change - I would go so far as to say a revolutionary change - where the railways are concerned.
Ladies and gentlemen, what we have achieved today through this debate and what I hope we will achieve tomorrow - I have no doubt that you will vote for the agreed text - is not simply opening up the network, but setting up something new and different.
We are setting up a European rail network which does not yet exist, to replace 15 national juxtaposed networks.
It is a revolutionary change, and we need to be aware of what we are seeking to achieve.
Some people have complained that we spent too much time on this, others that we rushed things.
I would like to say that we might well all have liked to move forward faster. However, it is fair to say that in the short time - just over a year - since I took over responsibility for this area, determined progress has been made and the whole process has accelerated.
Furthermore, the codecision procedure has worked very well. In particular, I would like to thank the whole Parliament for the work undertaken, especially by Mr Imbeni and the rapporteurs, Mr Swoboda and Mr Jarzembowski.
Nevertheless, I should also like to thank the Finnish Presidency for its contribution at the time, and particular thanks are due to the French Presidency. In that case, the French transport minster was a knowledgeable railway enthusiast.
It was suggested that this would make it harder for us to achieve our aim. On the contrary, it helped us to reach the point we find ourselves at today.
Concerns have been expressed regarding enlargement. Clearly, this will result in the European rail network we are currently setting up being extended beyond the current borders of the Union as they are redrawn.
The key components are opening up the whole network and separating functions, as Mr Jarzembowski has rightly pointed out. However, there is also the crucial and decisive issue of levies.
Many of you, ladies and gentlemen, have raised this issue.
The White Paper will cover the matter of non-discriminatory levies for infrastructure.
In this regard, the conclusions of the Costa report are to be included in the White Paper, and I am grateful to Parliament for this.
I should add that in addition to discussing what has already been achieved and will be completed today and tomorrow, we are going to deal with road transport and the action we need to take for the future.
I must reassure Mr Swoboda that the measures he referred to, aimed at achieving fair competition within road transport and between road transport and other types of transport have already been put forward or are about to be.
In addition, this year we intend to present the directive on rail safety some members of Parliament were concerned about.
I trust I can rely on your support regarding the adoption of the directive on interoperability. Furthermore, we plan to draw up a communication opening up national freight transport and international passenger transport to the market, as I stated when both of these directives were being processed.
The communication should even be ready before the end of the year. However, in addition to this communication we plan to present a new directive, amending 91/440/EEC, to open up access to the national freight network and international passenger transport.
Furthermore, there will be an amendment to Directive 96/48/EC concerning the interoperability of the European high-speed railway system.
As I said earlier, we will present a second rail transport package before the end of the year, and I hope it will be processed quickly.
Safety is a key factor, as is environmental improvement - both affect the citizens directly. Nonetheless, I should like to share with you some final thoughts on some of the issues that have been raised here.
There has been talk of privatisation, because liberalisation is to take place. It has been said that public services will not be guaranteed.
We must not confuse the issue, ladies and gentlemen.
What we are concerned with today is opening up a trans-European network and a trans-European railway to competition, and ensuring that properly licensed European operators may be either public or private.
Furthermore, nobody is talking about privatisation of any sort.
There is no question of privatising the operators and especially not the infrastructure.
On the contrary, investment in the infrastructure will be called for.
The situation is that in some countries not a single euro has been invested in infrastructure over the last thirty years.
Safety provisions will require that conditions be such that safety can be guaranteed. This applies not only to the rolling stock but also to the fixed infrastructure.
To reiterate my previous remarks, public service is not, unfortunately, properly assured at present, which is exactly why we are striving to improve it.
A moment ago Mr Ortuondo Larrea said that two other issues had to be dealt with: intermodal transport and balancing other forms of transport with road transport. This very morning I read a press note from one of the employers in the road haulage sector.
It complained about the White Paper, regretting that it was too rail-orientated. This kind of thing is always happening.
The situation we have to cope with is abundantly clear: a 40% increase in demand for freight transport in the next ten years. Not all of that 40% should go to the roads.
It has to be absorbed by forms of transport other than the roads. We must go on assuring growth, quality of life, employment and the welfare of the citizens of the European Union.
This can be achieved through specific measures of this nature.
It will, of course, have to be complemented by a joint study of the various forms of transport, of competition amongst them, intermodality, interlinking, and interoperation. The end result will be a more efficient system which will benefit our economy and our citizens.
Trade relations with certain industrialised countries
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0004/2001) by Mrs Erika Mann, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council regulation concerning "the implementation of projects promoting cooperation and commercial relations between the EU and the industrialised countries of North America, the Far East and Australasia" [COM(2000) 381 - C5-0455/2000 - 2000/0165(CNS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner and Members of the Commission, at this late hour, I would like to use the speaking time available to me to give you a brief introduction to the Commission proposal for a Council regulation concerning the implementation of projects promoting cooperation and commercial relations between the EU and the industrialised countries of North America, the Far East and Australasia, together with my report on it.
Apart from the rather misleading formulation of the title, which mentions the industrialised countries and which does not of course include all the industrialised countries in the world, but only those with which we do not have any free-trade areas, cooperation or partnership agreements, I would expressly like to thank the Commission for its proposal for a regulation.
As I see it, this is not the only area where it has done some splendid work, bearing in mind all the difficult political debates on this issue that have taken place in the Council, and also the cooperation with the European Parliament, which has perhaps not always been easy, no, it has done something else rather wonderful in that is has actually brought the many and varied, small-scale existing projects and programmes to be found in the aforementioned countries together in a single budget line, thereby creating a legal basis as well.
I would therefore like to take this opportunity to say a heartfelt thank you to the Commission for the excellent cooperation we have had.
The Commission proposal for a Council regulation under consideration seeks to create a solid legal and budgetary framework to underpin actions taken under the various bilateral agreements signed between the EU and the six industrialised countries mentioned.
These actions are currently financed from a number of different budget lines and some have to be undertaken as pilot schemes or preparatory actions due to the absence of a legal basis for the budget lines in question.
In producing this proposal for a regulation, the Commission has now created a legal basis.
In drafting the proposal, the Commission aimed to ensure that Member States retain the primary responsibility for export promotion.
Community action is thus restricted to measures that complement the endeavours of the Member States and other EU public bodies, and - as we always put it so nicely - thereby create European added value.
The proposal provides for regular reports to be made in future to the European Parliament and the Council.
We have amended it slightly in several places and we have also inserted the stipulation that the regulation is to expire at the end of December 2005.
In addition, I have tabled an amendment which I hope the Commission and Council will support, requesting the Commission to submit a new proposal as early as the year 2003, in which it might like to outline the overall framework for a new trade policy and philosophy.
This would also solve the dilemma that we are still facing, namely the fact that we have no positive definition of trade policy whatsoever in our Treaty. Instead we only define it in a negative way by excluding what it does not cover.
I would be grateful if the Commission could use this positive definition in future.
I believe the post-Nice Process lends itself extremely well to this, and in this connection I would also ask the Commission to always keep in mind that Parliament is not happy with the current wording of Article 133.
This should come as no surprise to you, Commissioner Patten, rather I assume that, naturally, you are familiar with Parliament' s view of the matter.
Incidentally, I would also be grateful if you would include your position in this new wording, i.e. your position in relation to one of the countries, namely the United States, which you have now set out - indeed you have provided a very comprehensive overview of our relations with the United States.
I would also like the ruminations that are currently taking place within the Commission, especially on the part of Commissioner Lamy - who would like a policy statement to be produced in the sphere of trade policy at some stage - to be included in a review in the year 2003.
The projects, which are now to be financed in concrete terms under this budget line, encompass cooperation projects, business-related training programmes and programmes for promoting trade relations.
These include the above-mentioned programmes concerning the United States, and especially those set up with Japan.
On a final note, I would like to say another big thank you for all the experimental projects you have tested out in relation to the various countries.
It would be beneficial if you could draw conclusions from this, and summarise what you think could be passed on to programmes with other countries, what, in your opinion, may not have proved as successful or what you think does not stand a chance of surviving the post-2005 period.
If you carry out this review, then as I see it, we will have an excellent foundation on which to base a real trade policy and philosophy.
In the light of globalisation and the next world trade round, you will then have established an excellent basis to my mind.
Once again, I would like to thank you warmly for this.
Mr President, a number of existing budget lines have proved useful when financing Community action involving cooperation and trade relations within the framework of the various bilateral agreements signed by the European Union and industrialised third countries.
Nevertheless, the ever-increasing challenges faced by European companies call for a more clearly defined legal framework and for a single budget line. It would then be possible to develop these operations in a more coherent and coordinated manner and bring added value to the activities undertaken by the Member States.
The regulation put forward by the Commission is therefore very timely, and Mrs Mann' s excellent report is even more so. On behalf of my group I would like to congratulate Mrs Mann on her work, thanks to which, the Commission' s proposal is now much more coherent and effective.
My group also tabled a number of amendments to this proposal.
These were aimed chiefly at making decision-making processes more transparent by involving the European Parliament in the programming and definition of the various subprogrammes to be undertaken in the partner countries. Our amendments were also intended to ensure greater transparency for the activities of those involved, both the European Union and the associated countries, in connection with programmes involving cooperation and commercial relations.
In particular, my group has requested the Commission to submit the relevant documentation after decisions have been taken concerning definition of the nature of the objectives of the various programmes and the timetable for invitations to tender. As we see it, this is the only way to improve efficiency and access to these programmes by European citizens and companies.
Lastly, I should like to refer with regret to the fact that Parliament was unable to adopt this report - the Mann report - at last December' s part-session. Had the report been adopted the programme could have entered into force quickly, as planned.
Let us hope that it will, nevertheless, serve its purpose.
Mr President, it is sometimes easier to offer congratulations at such a late hour, but when you have a report like this in your hand, you could offer them at any time of day.
I think Mrs Mann has produced an absolutely outstanding piece of work.
I would like to focus once more on two particular points.
One is the issue of transparency and the other is the problem of a trade doctrine which still endures.
On the matter of transparency, I would urge the Commission, in particular, to throw its weight behind Amendments Nos 9 to 11.
I think that is precisely the line we should be taking, in other words, not only should Parliament be kept duly informed, but since so much has been made of transparency under the European transparency initiative, a fully comprehensive array of documents should also be made available on the Internet, so that they can be called up any time, and can, in their turn, help enhance the credibility of what we all stand for, namely the development of a new Europe.
What is extremely interesting - and you certainly cannot say that of every report - is the justification part that has been appended.
This brings me to the second issue, that of the fundamental organisation of trade policy.
It certainly has not become any easier to get the message across that what trade means to us, when it is properly organised, is increased prosperity, worldwide I might add.
After Seattle and Davos, we have grown increasingly aware that we are dealing with irrational opponents of globalisation.
It is all a matter of having the right rules. What it comes down to is fine-tuning, and to some extent, to information too.
If only all those who do not have a good word to say about globalisation could recognise, for example, how strong Europe has already become in the sphere of foreign direct investments, as is evident from this report, or indeed in all kinds of other areas.
What we need to do is set about convincing them.
It is to be hoped that the Commission, in particular, will quickly get to grips with these fundamental issues, so that we can submit corresponding programmes setting out the basic principles, well in advance of 2005 and use them to win the public over.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Mann for her work, but she has managed to make a totally technical report out of what is a rather political issue.
In fact, the question of trade and trade relations between the EU and the industrialised countries, particularly the US, is a very hot topic.
So it is a pity that she missed the opportunity to address it in a more political way.
However, the proposal to establish a single budget line could simplify the work of the European Parliament as a whole and increase transparency.
I do not therefore have a problem with her technical proposals nor indeed the Commission' s proposals.
It is a pity, however, that we failed to discuss whether we needed more export promotion and, if so, what for, and to go into this whole question in more detail.
Instead she used the opportunity to expound a rather theoretical framework on trade which is her own rather than anyone else' s.
She also failed to deal with issues such as coherency with development issues and the very strong trade complex that we had.
But once again simplifying the work of Parliament and the Commission is to be welcomed and therefore we will not be opposing this report.
Mr President, Commissioner, I rise in my capacity as Vice-President of the Japan delegation and welcome the new draft regulation, which at last creates a fundamental legal basis, all be it one which will initially only run to the year 2005, for the projects on promoting cooperation and trade relations.
Firstly, I would like to echo Mrs Mann' s commendation of the Commissioner for the excellent cooperation we have had, but I would especially like to join the group of delegates present here today in praising your work, Mrs Mann, because it was no easy task and I know it has been a tripartite business, involving the Commission, the Member States and Parliament.
We must try to find a reasonable basis, because we will only make progress in this matter if we work together.
I believe that we have, in this new draft regulation, a solid basis for a political and economic debate with the industrialised states.
That is why I do not want to restrict it to trade alone.
I believe it is important to achieve a closer association with the industrialised countries of North America, the Far East and Australasia, and to step up our exchange activities.
This is necessary if we are to press home to people again- including MEPs - the significance of Asia.
I believe there are still some marked differences in this respect.
There are some excellent programmes when it comes to Japan.
I believe the Executive Training Programme in Japan is exemplary and could be adopted elsewhere, indeed there is now a similar project in Korea which is in its pilot phase.
The Gateway to Japan project is also outstanding as a trade promotion project.
Other industrialised countries could emulate it.
Conversely, I believe we delegates should consider taking our example from the relations between the legislative bodies, the American Congress for example, and Asia, because contact between the European Parliament and Asia is not firmly established enough yet.
I therefore believe we should seize on this example, in a bid to build closer relations between the two houses of the Japanese parliament and the European Parliament, and just as the Americans do, working from a legal basis, so should we use the same opportunities with regard to Asia.
Permit me to close with a brief remark. Even though we have adopted this kind of division of responsibility, partly for reasons of experience, on account of the different legal basis, we should be aware, nonetheless, that we have very different styles of working.
Take for example my area, Asia, which keeps me extremely busy.
I believe we should underpin the ASEM Process much more firmly in political and parliamentary terms.
One thing we must be sure to do is hold a conference for parliamentarians before the next ASEM meeting.
So regardless as to what the legal situation is, Europe and Asia must grow closer together.
Mr President, Commissioner Patten, I too this time must depart from my usual custom and praise my colleague, Mrs Mann, for she certainly deserves it.
In these eighteen months I have been a Member of the European Parliament, I have become familiar with the fact that Mrs Mann is well versed in a number of areas and particularly transatlantic relations; and this report is an indication of that also.
I disagree with Mrs Ahern, who seems to have left the Chamber already, that the report is not sufficiently political.
There are actually very political elements contained, for example, in the explanatory statement, which I, at least, enjoyed reading.
Of course, the tone is not one of party politics.
I warmly support the targeted programme of measures to make the general commercial policy of the EU and its Member States more effective.
Closer cooperation might even be regarded as an inevitability when we take into account the amendments made at Nice to Article 133 and those many speeches which were made during the night at Nice in favour of a solution that would also go much further.
I agree with the rapporteur, too, that the post-Nice agenda should include finding a new approach to the EU' s commercial policy.
The rapporteur' s opinion on the processes of globalisation is also to be supported, and especially her opinion regarding a closer common competition policy, which concerns my own committee in particular - the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The deadline set for the Commission to submit proposals to Parliament must also receive our support, as too should the use of the 'sunset' clause in this regulation.
These dates set should not, however, mean that the Commission should not have an ongoing obligation to keep Parliament up to date on the progress of the action programme.
Of all the actions covered by the proposal I would in particular like to emphasise the importance of cooperation projects with the United States of America.
For example, TABD, the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue, has, as far as I can see, worked well and succeeded in preventing trade disputes and bringing about coordinated views in areas requiring a swift reaction.
A good example is the Istanbul World Radio Conference last spring.
Transatlantic trade is still the thread of life as far as the global economy is concerned, and the importance of cooperation in this area must not be underrated.
We have to remember that there is also a strongly political element connected with this cooperation, the basis for which was created in 1995 with the signing of the New Transatlantic Agenda.
Furthermore, Parliament wants to be involved in this work and has therefore attempted to seal its relationship with the US Congress in the spirit of the transatlantic dialogue that my colleague, Mrs Read, also mentioned earlier.
Mr President, I have taken part earlier in the day in two debates on the Middle East and the Mediterranean and now we move on to slightly easier terrain, perhaps, but a very important subject indeed.
Let me begin first by thanking Parliament for the support that it has given to this Commission proposal, firstly by allocating a budget for the implementation of this regulation in line with the Commission' s request for 2001 of EUR 15.6 million.
We are extremely grateful to Parliament for that.
Secondly, I would like to thank Parliament for adopting unanimously, as I hope it will, the favourable report from the rapporteur, Ms Mann.
I take this is as a strong token of Parliament' s broad endorsement of the Commission' s proposal regarding the industrialised countries.
At this stage may I express our warm gratitude to Ms Mann, and indeed to her colleague Ms Read, for their consistent, constructive support for the development of our transatlantic relationship.
Since I am visiting the United States, Canada, Japan and Australia during the course of the next three months, I am very pleased that we have made this progress this evening.
Our relations with the industrialised countries have significantly deepened, and indeed broadened, in recent years.
We are moving away from a narrow focus on trade to comprehensive relationships encompassing everything from the Common Foreign and Security Policy, justice and home affairs, education and culture, environmental issues, science and research and, which I regard as particularly important, people-to-people exchanges.
In the case of the United States and Canada, these comprehensive relationships are already a reality, while other partners like Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and Australia are keen to develop similar relationships.
The cornerstones of these relationships are the common values and the similar interests that we share.
So while we see on the one hand an increasing demand for closer cooperation with some of our most important partners, on the other, we have lacked the legal framework to be able to follow things up.
Indeed, we currently only have legal bases for actions with Canada and Japan.
The latter is limited to market access activities and it expires at the end of this year.
For the United States, we do not have a legal basis at all, compelling us to implement projects under the new transatlantic agenda as pilot projects or preparatory actions which do not require a legal base but which are limited in time to either two or three years.
The Commission proposal under discussion aims to resolve this situation by establishing a solid and common legal base which can underpin our relations with the industrialised countries.
A common legal base is appropriate since our relations with all these countries are based on common values and shared interests.
It is also appropriate because it would enable the Commission to develop similar programmes to the extent possible with all or some of these countries.
In addition, if linked to a single budget line as we have proposed, we would have clear administrative advantages.
We would greatly improve efficiency by aiming for economies of scale and create optimal flexibility.
Improved budget transparency both for Parliament, and I must say for the Council, would also be achieved.
Finally, a common legal base linked to a single budget line is in line with the Commission' s policy of limiting the number of small legal bases and budget lines. I would like to emphasise the importance the Commission attaches to this proposal.
The benefits of a common, legal and budgetary framework to support our relationships with the industrialised countries are clear.
I am confident that our first report to Parliament on the results of the implementation of this regulation which we present in a couple of years' time will prove that to Parliament' s satisfaction.
Let me turn to the 14 amendments adopted by Parliament.
I am delighted to say that the Commission can accept 11 of them.
Ms Mann and Mr Ferrer, referred in particular to Amendment No 5.
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 refer to the division of responsibility between the Community and Member States on market access and export promotion.
Ms Read pointed out that the Member States are very sensitive to this issue.
Accepting these two amendments would result in a substantial shift away from Member States, well beyond what we agreed for the Japan market access regulation a few years ago.
Although I am not afraid of having occasional disagreements with the Council, I would advise against the adoption of these two amendments.
Amendment No 14 of the Budget Committee would be a derogation from the 1999 comitology decision and therefore is not acceptable either.
At any rate, on that amendment, I do not believe that it is the number of participants in committee meetings that should really matter to us or to Parliament, it is how many of them are reimbursed by Community funds.
This is a horizontal issue which should find a general solution instead of being addressed in every regulation and I hope we can proceed on that basis.
Again, I would like to thank the rapporteur very warmly for her constructive and intelligent help in developing our relationship with some of our closest friends around the world.
We are, in this particular instance, correcting an anomaly and filling an important gap as Mr Jarzembowski pointed out a few moments ago.
So I thank Parliament for their understanding and I trust that it will not take too violent exception to the fact that there are three of the 14 amendments which I would advise against.
Thank you very much, Mr Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Energy efficiency labelling
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0006/2001) by Mrs McNally, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Community Energy Efficiency Labelling Programme for Office and Communication Technology Equipment [COM(2000) 18 - C5-0061/2000 - 2000/0033(COD)].
Mr President, this report concerns the proposed adoption by the European Union of the United States' energy star programme as it applies to office and communication technology equipment.
This, colleagues, is not the sexiest title on this week' s agenda, perhaps, but it is directly linked to the future of our planet and to the possibility of even more devastating weather events, mass movements of people and crop failure.
Our irresponsible and profligate use of energy, with its consequential emissions of C02 and other environmental hazards must stop.
Ironically enough, it is in the United States, where the energy star scheme originated, that we have recently seen the absurd spectacle of power cuts in California, largely because of the incredible increase in the use of computers and other office equipment with the accompanying need for air-conditioning within a framework of quite bizarre and unwise deregulation.
Things would have been even worse without the energy star programme.
This scheme, which is voluntary, was introduced in 1992 and is now very widespread.
It has been officially adopted in Australia and Japan for example.
Members may in fact have seen the energy star logo on computers bought in the EU, although this means nothing yet since the technology has to be specially activated, which is done only in the United States.
This evening we are discussing the draft regulation which will implement the US/EU agreement on which we shall vote in the next session.
It is a voluntary scheme and it is hoped that between now and 2015 savings of 10 terawatt hours and 5 million tonnes of C02 emissions will be achieved in the EU through this scheme.
I now enter the world of science fiction and explain that to be energy-efficient, computers must go to sleep, but they must wake up instantly when they are required to do so.
When they are asleep their electricity consumption is cut on average from 100 watts to 5 watts.
Given the number of computers in homes, schools, workplaces, etc., you can see how the savings mount up from the good sleeping habits of those machines.
Until now, the European Union has produced its own energy efficient standards, often mandatory and the European Parliament has taken seriously its responsibility as a co-legislator to see that such standards are sufficiently stringent.
That is why there would be very serious reservations from Parliament about adopting this US energy star scheme if that were to be our only measure and especially if there were no provisions in the agreement for regular review of the results, with the objective, of course, of always being at the leading edge of the relevant technologies.
Luckily that is not the case however, and the Commission is to be given powers to negotiate improvements in the technical specifications.
And it has been made quite clear to the US authorities in a side letter to the agreement that the European Parliament, which would have been a co-legislator with the Council for similar measures at European level, will be consulted by the Commission on matters concerning technical specifications.
In the amendments to my report, we make it clear that further measures are certainly needed, including the glaringly obvious one of switching the machines off sometimes and withdrawing particularly inefficient machines from the market, either voluntarily or, if necessary, with legislation.
I am quite sure that the Council will see the wisdom of these amendments and of the regular and earlier monitoring of the energy star scheme as one, but only one, component of our energy efficient action plan.
We believe the current legal base is the correct one and we join the Commission in their suggestions.
As rapporteur, I would like to thank the Commission for their cooperation and help and of course thank my colleagues, especially Mrs Müller, who drafted a very useful opinion from the Environment Committee.
We all hope that the energy star scheme is a success and we look forward to watching computers throughout Europe going to sleep at the correct time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in general, the Commission' s proposal for a regulation on a voluntary labelling programme is to be welcomed, and Mrs McNally has produced an excellent report on it.
Consumption labelling is, in my view, an important free-market instrument for promoting the use of energy-efficient equipment.
The energy-star label should help to promote energy efficient standby equipment.
The energy-saving potential of this equipment cannot be underestimated, and by introducing such a label the European Union will be providing the impetus needed to encourage people to use energy more sparingly.
Saving energy goes hand in hand with reducing carbon dioxide emissions, as agreed under the Climate Protection Agreement.
I think it is all the more likely to succeed if applied just about globally to office equipment.
This would give us a joint labelling scheme, not only with the USA but also, indirectly, with Japan and some other countries.
In this way, we would be taking account of the global market, which would help remove barriers to trade.
The fields of telecommunications and information technology would seem to be particularly important in this respect.
I think it is of the utmost importance for national experts on energy policy, as well as other interested parties, to be involved in setting up the European Union Energy Star Board, so that national interests can be properly represented.
The Energy Star Board will be required to draw up a report on the market penetration of products bearing the Energy Star logo.
Given the rapid pace of technological development in office and telecommunications equipment, I think yearly intervals would be appropriate.
That is the only way to ensure that the label is only used to distinguish those products which consume markedly less energy than the average for all similar equipment on the market.
Against this background, I urge you to support my opinion, which is appended to this report and which was adopted in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to echo the thanks extended to the rapporteur, Mrs McNally, but also to Mrs Emilia Müller, the rapporteur of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Saving energy and reducing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are important EU goals.
It is not always possible to achieve these goals without effort and without sacrificing certain comforts, but sometimes it is quite a simple matter.
Sometimes, all it takes is to deploy the technical means, which are already in existence, yet people do not always have the political will to do this with any vigour.
Eleven per cent of electricity consumption in private households in the country I come from, Germany, is caused by standby losses.
Add to that the private and public spheres and the losses total 20 TWh per year, which corresponds to the output of two large power stations that we are simply running for no purpose.
So although no demands are made on the capacity of the piece of equipment, it still consumes energy.
Now of course the easiest thing to do - as Mrs McNally has already said - would be to switch the piece of equipment off when it is not in use.
That would be one way of resolving the problem in many spheres, for example, we should simply do more to encourage the public to get into this habit with their television sets.
But in quite a few spheres, it is no longer possible to switch equipment off at all, and it is particularly important for computers, by their very nature, to quickly fall into 'sleep mode' , as Mrs McNally puts it, and also 'wake up' instantaneously, because you sometimes need to be able to log onto a computer straightaway, and do not want to have to slowly coax it into life.
There are technical problems to be dealt with, but they can in fact be solved by technical means, without wasting energy.
There are new and innovative techniques designed to reduce the no-load losses almost to zero; they just have to be incorporated.
None of this is problematic from a technical viewpoint any longer.
That is why it is a positive thing to be discussing the Energy Star scheme and to label equipment that incorporates these new technical possibilities and is highly energy-efficient.
It is the right way to go, which is why the PPE-DE Group supports the Commission' s proposal, as well as the report by Mrs McNally.
However, I feel we need to go further still.
When I took on the responsibility as shadow rapporteur for the PPE-DE Group, I made enquiries of experts in the various organisations, non-governmental organisations, Ministries and in the Commission, but I also asked people who are confronted with this issue on a daily basis, for example a computer dealer who is a friend of mine.
I asked him what he thought of Energy Star and he replied that he thought it was a good thing.
He said there were technical problems to begin with, because the computers went into 'sleep mode' alright, but failed to 'wake up' again quickly enough.
He felt that although we have now solved all the technical problems, no one is interested in whether or not a computer has an Energy Star, and he did not think it was a selling point.
That is why I think we should consider whether or not we should just apply the principle we are advocating here, i.e. giving highly efficient equipment a positive label, or whether we should also aim to rid the market of the worst offending products, which are highly inefficient, and simply refuse to allow them access to the market after a transitional period.
I feel that is something else to think about - Mrs McNally' s report makes the same point - and then we would have a comprehensive energy efficiency programme in this sphere.
Hence my appeal to you to adopt these amendments.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs McNally sincerely for her excellent work, as this issue is a very important one.
We are all agreed on this matter.
The present trend in matters of energy efficiency is not always the best possible alternative, however.
For example, the aim for household appliances should be that all power-consuming circuits should be switched off.
But this is not possible in all cases: modern equipment often lacks an on/off button, as was mentioned here earlier on, making it utterly impossible to switch it off, even if the consumer wants to.
Many machines have a small red lamp that glows constantly to show that the equipment is still on and that it is consuming energy to some extent.
If we imagine the infinitesimally small amount of one watt per hour per appliance in a household this volume of energy consumption is multiplied very quickly.
With just a thousand appliances the figure reaches one kilowatt per hour, and with a million, one megawatt per hour, at which point we are talking about much larger volumes of energy consumption.
On the other hand, a quiescent current has its positive side, when, for example, the air in the room has to be heated.
In the northern regions of the Union, rooms, houses and buildings are heated and the heat produced from appliances and bulbs cuts heating costs.
But then again, in warm conditions, especially in the southernmost countries of the Union, where rooms must be kept cool with air-conditioning, the costs resulting from quiescent currents are doubled.
The general aim must be to promote the use of technology that consumes less energy; for example, the use of glow bulbs in equipment should always be avoided when they can be replaced with LEDs.
Furthermore, there must be more focus on consumer information than is the case at present.
It is difficult for the consumer to appreciate that equipment that is cheap to buy but an 'energy guzzler' will prove expensive in the course of time.
Energy efficiency labelling must be standardised in such a way that all consumers of any age, including children and the elderly, understand how much energy a piece of equipment consumes.
The information must be easily intelligible to all.
Merely to mention wattage means nothing to many people.
The manufacturers of equipment must explain, for example, in the instructions for use, how to save energy using the equipment in question.
Mr President, I must first thank Mrs McNally for her excellent report.
I would also like to thank Parliament for its broad support for this proposal. In the Commission' s view this proposal will make a significant contribution to improving energy efficiency and therefore to controlling demand, which the Green Paper identifies as crucial to assuring a reliable supply.
We are also called upon to reduce consumption and spend less, making better use of what we have available.
In addition, I should like to thank Mrs Müller for her opinion on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
A substantial improvement in the efficiency of end use of electricity is required if we are to meet the European Union' s commitment to reduce CO2 emissions by the year 2010.
Office technology equipment represents a significant percentage of energy consumption in the service sector and offers wide scope for energy saving.
The Commission has therefore put forward the Energy Star Programme as a key measure to reduce the consumption of energy by office technology equipment. It completes the measures adopted by other end use sectors such as domestic electrical appliances and lighting.
Since 1994 the Commission has been working on the introduction of this programme with the full support of Community industry and independent experts.
The Energy Star Programme is voluntary and makes use of a marketing device: a quality label enabling buyers to identify products which consume energy most efficiently.
Furthermore, thanks to the adoption of the programme the Community will be doing more than introducing a programme for labelling office equipment - which has proved very successful where it has been implemented - and putting in place a viable measure to reduce CO2 emissions. We shall be able to seize the opportunity of applying a standard which is in practice acquiring international significance.
What we are engaged in is important not only for us but because of its impact in other parts of the world.
In this context, I believe it is essential for us to become joint leaders at international level together with the United States.
Mr President, I am aware that Parliament was not very happy with the procedures followed in connection with the conclusion and signature of this agreement.
However, we were bound by the procedures laid down in Article 300 of the Treaty, and I am delighted to note that Parliament feels that the advantages of the agreement outweigh such differences of opinion.
Furthermore, at Parliament' s request, in a letter annexed to the agreement, we have informed the other party, namely the United States.
We shall ensure that Parliament is kept informed of the review of the technical specifications, a point raised by Mrs McNally and with which we totally agree.
As regards the amendments, I am in a position to say that we can accept all the amendments tabled by Parliament, with the exception of Amendment No 9.
The Commission agrees that the energy efficiency of office equipment must be monitored, but it does not feel that we should call for a special unit to be set up, as stated in the aforementioned amendment, if only because the necessary resources will not be forthcoming. I therefore ask you to reconsider the matter, ladies and gentlemen.
If this amendment were omitted, I think we could adopt the proposal at first reading and make faster progress. The final decision rests with Parliament of course.
Please take this into account.
I can assure you that no further resources will be made available, so in the end it will not serve any useful purpose.
On the other hand, we do in principle accept Amendments Nos 5, 11, and 15.
Concerning Amendments Nos 11 and 15, we accept that the Commission should present a report to the Council and to Parliament. However, the Commission feels that the best time to do so would be after three years had elapsed, as was the case for the first assessment of the Energy Star Programme
That concludes my summary of our position.
Once again, I should like to express my thanks to the honourable Members who have taken the floor, and especially to Mrs McNally for her splendid work. I trust we shall all reach agreement at the earliest opportunity, if possible at first reading.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Recognition of professional qualifications
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0012/2001) by Mr Wieland, on behalf of the Parliamentary Delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications and supplementing Directives 77/452/EEC, 77/453/EEC, 78/686/EEC, 78/687/EEC, 78/1026/EEC, 78/1027/EEC, 80/154/EEC, 80/155/EEC, 85/384/EEC, 85/432/EEC, 85/433/EEC and 93/16/EEC concerning the professions of nurse responsible for general care, dental practitioner, veterinary surgeon, midwife, architect, pharmacist and doctor [C5-0680/2000 - 1997/0345(COD)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mrs McNally said earlier, her report was not a particularly sexy matter.
I think reports grow less sexy the later it gets, but I do not want to offend Mr Ferri, whose turn it is next.
This draft directive amends and supplements a total of 10 directives, some of which date back to 1977.
The President has saved me some time by already enumerating the professions concerned.
Why did this report require so much care, including a time- and energy-consuming Conciliation Procedure, even though many may perhaps say the honourable Members are acting as though the world is being turned upside down, when it is basically just a matter of detail? Why did the vast majority of us insist on this Conciliation Procedure?
There are essentially three reasons.
Firstly, apart from architects and, in some respects, veterinary surgeons, they are all health-care professions in the widest sense.
In everyday life, you can seek restitution for loss or damage suffered, but a human being is not a Golf, a Skoda or a Citroën that you can take to a professional or even an amateur mechanic to tinker about with.
In such cases you can make a claim to make good the loss.
But when it comes to health, the damage cannot normally be made good.
That is why we have compensation for pain and suffering.
From my own practice as a lawyer, I know of no one who would not gladly have repaid such compensation if the damage to his health could in that way have been reversed.
If I may digress slightly, I think the whole procedure is a good example of why the Council ought in future to meet in public.
From Greece to Ireland and from Italy to Finland, our citizens would have been very interested in much of what was said there and would have thought, "What are our governments proposing here?
We want better safeguards!"
There is therefore a lot of interest in these matters.
Secondly, and this brings me to my second concern, we have the internal market.
Wherever a diploma has been obtained, we want it to be used in the context of the free movement of people and services.
Of course, the Member State on the other side and the citizen is interested first of all in asking anyone who wants to pack his bags and go to another Member State straight after his exams about the training he has received.
Likewise, if somebody decides to go to another Member State 10 or even 30 years after taking his exams, the citizens and the host Member States want to know what the person has been doing in the last years since his exams.
Has he undertaken further training? Has he kept himself abreast of developments?
This brings me to my third reason.
Parliament is keen that we should produce readable texts.
I have already mentioned that I am a lawyer.
When I was reading up on this matter, I have to say it was like going from one disaster to another.
What we produce here is basically rubbish so far as the interested public is concerned.
We must produce consolidated texts more quickly in future.
For these various reasons, Parliament accepted 11 amendments with a large majority, and my only regret on going to conciliation was that I did not ask for that majority to be checked, because that would have shown that well over 400 of us were in favour.
I must therefore also thank Mrs Gebhardt, with whom I worked closely to achieve that large majority, and who had confidence even though the conciliation delegation had three EVP members, that being how things turned out by the rules of the House.
I will not bore you with the details - deadlines for transposition, the matter of qualifications obtained in third countries, replacement of the word "similar" by the word "equivalent" and the conclusion of Italian pharmacist studies.
Briefly, three more basic principles.
Firstly, the Commission has said that it will produce consolidated texts in future.
I can only urge all rapporteurs to call for this soon to be done in their own fields, too. Secondly, lifelong learning.
We must not just keep on talking about it, we must make it a requirement.
I believe we have reached a good compromise.
For reasons of subsidiarity, we have not produced any legislation, but we had our way with the preamble.
Thirdly and lastly, the specialised training course for general practitioners was extended to three years.
France was persuaded to increase it from two and a half to three years, while we have conceded to Member States Belgium and Finland that this special type can also be accepted with a longer basic training.
I can therefore say that conciliation produced a good outcome, and I would ask you to vote in favour.
But I should also like to say that we very much regret that the Commission was unfortunately not on our side from the outset on the points we were calling for and on which the Council finally gave way.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen of the late shift, anyone who wants to do good work in politics must find the willpower and the patience to persevere.
Mr Wieland possesses both qualities in good measure.
With him as rapporteur, it was therefore almost a pleasure for myself and my colleagues to work towards the outcome that is now before us.
We can be slightly proud of that. We have managed for the first time to get something that is normally only talked about enshrined in European law.
I mean the necessity for lifelong learning.
In the field of medicine, we shall in future not only have rules and criteria for the recognition of diplomas, examination certificates and other attestations of competence.
We are now saying for the first time that passing the final professional examination is not enough, but that training must continue, in the interests of patients in particular, but also in the interests of doctors and nursing staff.
Given the very rapid pace of technological and scientific progress in medicine, lifelong learning in one' s chosen profession is particularly important.
But we must not be content that it now appears in this recognition directive.
Rather, our legislation should be a contribution to making this initial success and with it lifelong learning into one of the mainstays of working life for everyone in Europe.
I should like to mention another point that has always concerned me in connection with the recognition of professional qualifications.
I will dress it up in a question that has still not been answered by this directive: why are we so reluctant to recognise qualifications obtained outside the European Union? This question troubles me when I see how markets are becoming globalised and how easily we allow capital to move around.
Our citizens are able to bring goods and money with them from every corner of the world, but very personal assets in the form of professional knowledge and skills are not freely transferable.
There is something wrong there.
We must put it right quickly.
I therefore ask the Commission to abandon two arguments when preparing future recognition directives.
First, that it affects only a small number of EU citizens.
Second, that the Treaty provides only a limited basis in law.
Things will go a lot better then, you will see.
Mr President, I would like to join with my colleagues in thanking the rapporteur for his ongoing and diligent work on this issue which may not grab the headlines, but is of extreme importance to each and every one of the people that we represent here in this Parliament.
In particular, the areas that we are talking about in this present raft of recognition of qualifications, are areas where we have experienced huge shortages within the EU in the recent past.
Also there have been cases highlighted where barriers were put in place and people who wanted to move from one Member State to the other could not have the qualifications recognised.
One of the important issues raised within the discussions at conciliation and also within the report itself is in clearing up some of the wording used.
In particular there is the question of replacing the word "similar" with the word "equivalent" .
I am presently dealing with a case in Ireland where someone who has trained as a physiotherapist in one Member State cannot get their qualification recognised in Ireland because of the formal academic aspect even though in every other country in the European Union work experience is recognised as the equivalent of the academic qualifications.
On top of that, there is also a necessity for us to make sure, once the legislation is passed at a European level, that the Member States strictly enforce the legislation and open up the opportunities that are available.
Too often we have seen hidden barriers put in place to prevent people from one profession or another moving to a country to operate.
If we are truly to bring about the idea of the single market, and if we are truly to live up to the principles of the freedom of movement of persons, than we must dismantle these barriers, which we can see are not so much at a European Union institution level but are actually at Member State level and indeed in some Member States at the level of certain individual professions.
We need rigorous enforcement of all legislation so any complaints can be dealt with quickly.
I would commend this report to the House and ask it to support it.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to extend warm thanks to the Members of your Parliament who have taken part in the debate, for all the sound work they have done.
In particular, I would like to single out Mr Wieland as the person who drafted the report and who has managed to bring the entire process to a successful end.
The Commission is delighted that the Council and the European Parliament have reached agreement.
The Commission can identify with the result which, after all, aims to facilitate the recognition of qualifications and to improve legal certainty.
With this, Parliament has reached a result with the Council which is in the interest of all those clutching qualifications and looking for jobs elsewhere in Europe.
It will be of great benefit to the mobility of employees, and that is important.
As I already stated, I would particularly like to thank Mr Wieland, but also other Members who have worked with him, for all the sound work they have done in order to reach this agreement.
Mr President, I would like to extend general thanks to your Parliament for the fruitful cooperation with both the Council and the Commission.
Thank you for your kind words, Mr Bolkestein.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Multidisciplinary Group on Organised Crime
The next item is the report (A5-0398/2000) by Mr Ferri, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the report of the Multidisciplinary Group on Organised Crime - Joint Action on mutual evaluations [10972/2/1999 - C5-0039/2000 - 1999/0916(COS)]
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Wieland, this resolution of mine may not be as sexy as it could be, for justice is usually naked, or at least, attempts are made to strip it of its effectiveness.
In reality, I see this motion for a resolution as being quite an effective, substantial initial step in that it is practical.
In any case, I would like to start by making the point that the Member States, often out of a misconstrued sense of power, attempt to block what can appear to be a renunciation of sovereignty, particularly in the field of criminal justice.
Therefore, combining Community sovereignty and the sovereignty of the Member States in this area is not easy.
The mechanism for mutual evaluation by the Member States set forth in the 1997 Amsterdam Joint Action Plan, which - albeit somewhat behind schedule - has become operative, allows us to carry out the first stage.
The first five countries have been selected: Denmark, Ireland, Greece, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and a Committee of three experts has been set up.
The group evaluating a country may not contain members who are nationals of that country and so the action is, so to speak, quite unrestricted.
These initial assessments have revealed, first and foremost, that there is often a lot of political involvement in legal matters, particularly as regards requests for judicial cooperation on urgent measures, confiscation of property and searches, and this takes different forms, either involving the Ministry of Justice or different judicial authorities from that requesting assistance, etc.
Of course, certain positive elements have also been noted, such as a computer system from the Netherlands known as KRIS, which has been used as a model.
We are, of course, fighting extremely sophisticated organised criminal networks which use advanced technology.
Methods change and so we also have to learn to deal with crime in different ways.
The reports from Italy, Belgium, Spain and Finland are also ready, but as yet unofficially.
However, we hope that there will be a monitoring system for the evaluation mechanism, to be the responsibility, in the long run, of the Court of Justice. Parliament has advocated this on several occasions too.
In actual fact, in this regard, it is most important to stress that a number of approximation rules need to be proposed.
I refer, for example, to dual criminality, which often holds up the ordinary, quicker passage of justice; I refer to the situation where a crime has been committed which is not a crime in the other Member States.
For example, Luxembourg once refused to comply with the requests made by the judicial authority of another country because the act was not a crime under Luxemburgish law.
There are therefore various impediments, and if we do not succeed in eliminating them, judicial cooperation will, in effect, be nothing but a word.
Therefore, in order to make it effective, another resolution has already been prepared on the mutual recognition of final decisions.
I have referred to it in this motion for a resolution as well in order to provide a mosaic, a complete raft of actions intended precisely to make this judicial cooperation more effective.
We all realise the urgent need for an electronic register, a centralised documentation instrument recording at least the final decisions, at least within the Community framework.
Clearly, it would be extremely useful to be able to quickly have the confirmation of final rulings against defendants or criminals who have already been convicted, at a wider level within Europe, but computerisation would already be a good basis - not necessarily on a huge scale - since information technology should now make it possible for us to achieve significant results quickly.
The motion for a resolution calls for relatively rapid intervention by Eurojust - we have verified it on several occasions - and particularly by the so-called European Public Prosecutor who, at least on matters of serious crime - organised crime, telematic crime, white collar crime, Mafia crime, etc. can effectively take the lead.
We therefore call for cooperation from the judicial authorities, public prosecutors and judges of the different Member States as well, which will then become part of the European Public Prosecutor as support at the level of the different States.
In short, it is a proposal supporting the European Judicial Network and what is known as 'good practice' . I would stress this because, when all is said and done, common sense and good practice in applying the various procedures calls, first and foremost, for the direct transmission of requests between judicial authorities.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our guiding objective is the creation of a great European area of freedom, security and justice, in which it is vital that we strengthen the security of European citizens and the fight against organised crime.
Following what was agreed in Tampere, it is crucial that we harmonise national legislation on criminal offences and the applicable sanctions in the field of organised crime. In other words, it is essential that we focus our efforts on adopting common definitions, incriminations and sanctions with regard to the approximation of legislation in criminal matters.
This evaluation mechanism, which Mr Ferri has just mentioned and which forms the basis of the excellent report that he presented to the Committee on Citizens' Freedom and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, was instituted on the basis of the action plan against organised crime approved in Amsterdam in June 1997.
This can already be considered, per se, as a significant step forward, reinforced by the establishment of the European Judicial Network and other initiatives to modernise and increase the effectiveness of systems to prevent and combat crime.
Under this evaluation system, although it is envisaged that the Council will adopt the necessary measures after one complete round of evaluations - in other words, three years, with five countries being evaluated per year - we should welcome the decisions taken by some Member States to determine in advance the reforms and improvements considered to be most urgent within their own legal systems, bearing in mind the results of these evaluations.
We are all keen to have the results of the evaluations of the remaining countries, one of which is my own country, Portugal, conveyed to us quickly.
I welcome the fact that the matter that has been chosen for the first round of evaluations is that of delays in the operation of the system for mutual legal assistance and in the treatment of urgent requests for the confiscation of property, with particular regard to procedures used in cases of organised crime.
The emphasis on the problem of delays is particularly positive.
Indeed, we are concerned to see an increase in overall delays in trials and we are fully aware of how damaging this is.
Justice which is delayed or which comes too late is, ultimately, always a negation of Justice itself.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on behalf of my group, I support the analysis, conclusions and considerations presented by the rapporteur, and I also share his concern about the problems highlighted by the Multidisciplinary Group.
I thank Mr Ferri for his work.
In the EU there are 15 different penal codes, a large number of police forces, some of them competing with each other, and 15 legal systems, all deeply marked by their own mentality, tradition and culture.
Until the EU' s criminal law systems are harmonised - something which is to be desired - judicial cooperation will continue to operate through a complex and antiquated system of requests for legal assistance, an emotive term for almost all public prosecutors and judges.
But European cooperation is more urgent than ever.
For example, 77% of all cases of organised crime in Germany in 1998 had an international connection.
There is a great need for the Council to act.
In Luxembourg, for example, the Minister of Justice must give his personal authorisation whenever the banking sector is involved.
The Netherlands use their own classification of urgency instead of adopting the urgency of the requesting State.
The five countries have insufficient staff and inadequate technical and financial resources for dealing with requests for legal assistance.
On the positive side, we can mention the Netherlands' KRIS programme, the Irish system and Denmark' s experience with the Nordic countries.
Where contact points exist within the Judicial Network, there is good experience and results, but the network has no influence over formal requests for legal assistance.
The creation of contact points alone is still no guarantee of the qualitative leap needed in European cooperation.
At some contact points, the willingness to make regular exchanges also left much to be desired.
If the Council is serious about successfully fighting cross-border crime, which simply disregards democracy and the rules of the legal economy, the recommendations of the rapporteur and the committee must be translated into action.
I do not want to go over the details of what Mr Ferri has already said, but it does mean that the candidate countries need to be fully involved in the strategy for fighting organised crime at an early stage.
The Judicial Network must be further expanded, for example with internet pages about the various legal systems, with videoconferencing facilities and, finally, Eurojust should become a meaningful adjunct to EUROPOL and OLAF.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the work that he has done on a very difficult and complex issue.
He has brought some logic and sense to it but while giving praise, I have some criticisms and some points that I cannot agree with.
On any of these issues we must be very careful that we do not come out in a rush of Christian frenzy, thinking that we are going to solve all of the problems of all of the crime in the European Union simply by setting up another institution or another office with more staff, and coordinating and harmonising more power into a central authority.
There are already examples of where cooperation and coordination work.
We have Europol, and other institutions like this, where different agencies in different Member States working together can achieve results.
We also have the opportunity to assess other Member States and take the best practices from them and use those as a common minimum standard for all Member States.
However, we still have differences of law within the Member States.
We still have different legal systems, for instance.
In Ireland and Britain we still work under the old common law system whereas on the mainland of Europe you have the civil law system.
It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to marry these two together, so we must always work on the basis of three tenets of how things should operate.
Number one: effectiveness, number two: speed, and number three: justice; and we must not forget the word 'justice' .
People should have the right to defend themselves when they are accused or allegations made against them.
Perhaps it is only a problem of interpretation, but some of the suggestions for the fast-track approach seem to be saying we have to cut through some of the present legal impediments for instance with regard to the right of appeal.
I am particularly happy that Ireland gets honourable mention because of the Criminal Assets Bureau.
I would encourage each and every Member of this House and every Member State to look at how the Criminal Assets Bureau operates in Ireland and how successful it has been since its establishment.
One proposal which I oppose - and we have asked for a separate vote - is on the question of a European Public Prosecutor' s Office. I am totally opposed to a European Public Prosecutor' s Office with its powers extending over the territory of all the Member States.
Finally, sanctioning Member States is a very dangerous area.
We already have experience of how it can go wrong and how difficult it is to reverse.
It is better to rely on cooperation; the carrot works a lot better than the stick.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission would like to congratulate Mr Ferri on the excellent report he has presented, which contains a very astute and clear-sighted analysis of the problems we face in the field of judicial cooperation and presents an ambitious and exacting vision of the efforts required to overcome these problems.
The Commission broadly supports the analysis and the vision laid out by the rapporteur.
We agree, in particular, with the approach that consists of stating that improving judicial cooperation - or even, to use Mr Ferri' s words, "a radically new joint effort" - must never be seen as a weakening of the sovereignty of the Member States. Instead, this should be seen as a tool, and perhaps the most important tool, for making this sovereignty effective in the face of the sophistication and power of organised crime, which today poses an extremely serious threat to the structures of democratic government, to the very functioning of the rules of the legitimate economy and to respect for citizens' rights.
We are clearly on the way to achieving this, but it must be emphasised that this progress has been made not as a result of regulatory instruments - because many of these instruments are no longer in force: for example, the conventions have not been systematically ratified by the Member States - but mainly because, in the meantime, practical mechanisms have been created, such as, for example, the mechanism for mutual evaluation. This has given tangible proof of the need to find a new model and, in certain cases, has already led to Member States introducing the necessary amendments to their own legislation.
This process of professionals in the field exchanging information, whether it is carried out in the framework of mutual evaluation, in contacts within the judicial network or, quite soon, I hope, in the framework of cooperation within Eurojust, is crucial and must be pursued.
Parliament is now being consulted on the renewal of the Grotius programme, which is an important tool for enhancing cooperation between legal professionals and similarly, on the project of creating a European network for judicial training, which will facilitate the development of closer cooperation links between magistrates' colleges in the various Member States.
Of the suggestions and requests made by the rapporteur, I wish to highlight just three aspects: firstly, Mr Ferri referred to the need to amend Article 35 of the Treaty on European Union so that the Court of Justice of the European Communities is given the power to decide whether the Member States comply with their obligations.
This loophole in judicial control is, in my opinion, linked to the nature of Title VI of the Treaty on European Union itself, which remains heavily impregnated with an intergovernmental spirit.
I wish to emphasise that it would perhaps be more productive, at the appropriate time, to call for a more categorical and complete arrangement, either using the working method or the institutional framework method of the 'third pillar' , according to the Community method, which would thus ensure greater control by the Court of Justice, as well as decision-making processes that involve greater participation by the European Parliament itself.
I do, nevertheless, harbour some doubts as to the prospect of being able to adopt measures for punishing Member States that do not comply with their obligations.
One of the measures recommended by the draft resolution is the creation of a European Public Prosecutor's Office, with jurisdiction over the whole Union.
As Parliament knows, at the last Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission proposed that the Treaty should provide for an independent European Public Prosecutor, but with the specific and sole aim of safeguarding the Community' s financial interests.
This proposal was not accepted in Nice and the Commission will certainly take this decision by the Council into account, having already moved ahead with improving the arrangements and means necessary for OLAF to be able to fulfil its duties.
By the same token, we hope that the creation of the Eurojust network will also be something that contributes to this aim, which was not achieved in Nice.
As to the issue of extradition, I wish to assure Mr Ferri that I share the concerns expressed in his report with regard to the simplification and acceleration of extradition procedures, which are, in fact, the theme of the third stage of mutual evaluation.
This is why the Commission has included a specific initiative on the adoption of fast-track arrangements for extradition in its programme for 2001.
I wish to close, Mr President, by stating that I share the concern expressed by the rapporteur that, in this field, all legislative initiatives must be implemented with respect for individual rights and fundamental freedoms and that this respect for citizens' rights and freedoms is inextricably linked to the fight against organised crime.
At a time when the Union has proclaimed the Charter of Fundamental Rights, it is our duty to seek to act in such a way that the progress made in the field of judicial cooperation, the mutual recognition of judgments, the coordination of crime-fighting activities by the police and the courts and the simplification of extradition procedures accord with the principles that we advocate and that they are not achieved at the expense of the rights of individuals.
The construction of an area of freedom, security and justice cannot by achieved by using the lowest common denominator where respect for citizens' rights and freedoms is concerned.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I did not rise to speak yesterday at the beginning of the sitting, but I do wish to clarify an issue concerning something said by the President of this Parliament.
With regard to the tabling of the so-called Antiterrorist Agreement in Spain, the presidency of this Parliament stated that this was signed by various associations and unions, and the Church was mentioned.
I wish to state, for the information of everyone here, that this is not the case, despite the pressure exerted by the Government and the Socialist Party.
This statement has not even been signed by organisations that support the government in Madrid and, with all due respect, I must say that this situation, which is discussed here with such frequency, the situation of the Basque country, is complex and it requires efforts to maintain dialogue. This is what was requested, for example, in the manifesto that I submitted to President Fontaine, signed by four thousand intellectuals and others involved in culture in Catalonia.
Lastly, I wish to say that the situation is so complex and is so finely shaded that even Mrs Fontaine' s own party is standing in municipal elections in France, in Bayonne, in Biarritz and in Anglet, in coalition with Basque nationalist parties, including Mr Gorostiaga' s party, which is no favourite of mine, but which I imagine is not a favourite of Mrs Fontaine' s either.
Mr President, last Saturday Marie-José the last Queen of Italy and daughter of King Albert of this country died.
She was a recognised democrat and historian.
Sadly she did not live to see her exiled son and grandson allowed to return to their homeland.
Thus her funeral shamefully could not take place in Italy as they would not be permitted to attend.
This Italian constitutional article has no place in modern Europe and is in clear breach of the freedom of movement provided for under the European treaties.
I have three times attempted to gain the support of this Parliament in condemning this law.
The issue is being decided at present by the Court of Human Rights and will not go away.
I call upon the Italian government to use the opportunity afforded by the sad death of Queen Marie-José to fulfil its legal obligations to the European Union and grant the two male princes the same rights as every other Italian citizen and let them go home.
(The Minutes were approved)
Decision on urgent procedure
Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries.
(ES) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, I wish to express our rejection of this emergency procedure, which the Council requested of Parliament on 18 January and which asks us to deliver our opinion before 14 February.
Our committee has given a commitment to process this legislative proposal as rapidly and as diligently as possible, whilst adhering to the legislative procedures that have been laid down, according to which the vote will take place on 13 February in the Strasbourg part-session, as has already been scheduled on the agenda.
I wish to take this opportunity, Mr President - because lately these last minute rushes have become a regular occurrence - to say that the Commission and the Council are given considerable notice, a whole year' s notice, of Parliament' s timetable, which should give them - and us too - sufficient time to work on processing these proposals.
We were consulted too late, on 7 December to be precise, but even so, we appointed Mr Nicholson as rapporteur and he presented his draft report immediately, the following day, which was 8 December.
As I say, we plan to vote in committee on Monday 5 February and debate the report in Parliament' s sitting of Monday 12 in Strasbourg, in order that the vote can be held on 13 February and thereby meet the deadlines that we have been set.
I simply wish to point out that we have shown nothing but good will and have shown ourselves to be completely willing, but we do not want to be asked the impossible and, even less, to do our work badly.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Progress of EU and Member State measures to combat BSE
The next item is the Commission statement on the progress of anti-BSE measures taken by the EU and Member States.
Mr President, first I would like to state quite briefly that we are now dealing with such a colossal issue that nobody can afford to blame anyone in any event.
We must no longer blame anyone else.
Finland, Sweden and Austria did not blame anyone for BSE.
We implemented certain action as long as ten or fifteen years ago, and, probably as a result of that, any risk that we might have BSE is perhaps diminished.
We are not claiming that there is none, but we have implemented the action that everyone should now finally be implementing.
Firstly, we should specifically ensure that each Member State genuinely complies with the decisions that have now been taken, for they are not being complied with in every Member State.
For this reason, it is an excellent move on the part of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to propose setting up a subcommittee to monitor food safety and, for example, the situation regarding BSE and other such problems, so that the dangers and risks that exist might be prevented in the future, especially when we take the matter of enlargement into consideration as that will involve some very large countries with livestock joining this Community.
Mr President, Commissioner, speaking on behalf of the Greens at the time of the parliamentary resolution on the BSE crisis, I told you that the European countries which claimed to have no cases of mad-cow disease were the countries that were not looking for it.
Alas, you will see that subsequent events have proved me right, as they often prove us right when we give timely warnings of the risks to which the earth and mankind are exposed by unbridled liberal economics, but our warnings are not heeded until the predicted disaster has come to pass.
Today I can say that the BSE crisis has been underestimated by the Commission and, more especially, by the Member States.
Under pressure from which lobby? Everyone in this Chamber knows that Europe's main mission since 1993 has been to operate as a large market without frontiers, a market where anything can be bought and sold, even infected meat and bone meal.
Has this self-centred policy now been abandoned? I have returned from Porto Alegre, and I can tell you that the Brazilians and Argentinians whom I met there admit that they have been doing the same thing in various places, namely feeding animal carcasses to cattle.
I very much fear that, if they started looking, they too would find cases of BSE.
Be that as it may, fifteen years after the first case of mad-cow disease, Community decisions are still lagging several steps behind the disease.
The last meeting of the Council of Agriculture Ministers was no exception to this rule.
Instead of purely and simply banning the use of animal fat in certain forms, as the Scientific Veterinary Committee had tacitly suggested, the Council preferred to take a half-measure by prescribing heat treatment of fats.
The update you have just presented to us, Commissioner Byrne, is disturbing on several counts.
We have learned, for instance, that one Member State allows the inclusion of untreated specified-risk materials in feed mixes, that others are not managing to remove the spinal column at the abattoir and that some of the approved tests have turned out to be rather ineffective in the field.
Lastly, I must ask some questions about the number of tests conducted by Member States, because some of the figures pose problems, such as those from Portugal, Greece and the United Kingdom, the country at the source of the epidemic, which conducts only 600 tests per day, as against 37 000 in Germany and 150 000 in Ireland, for example.
What do you intend to do, Commissioner, to harmonise these campaigns properly, to ensure that the same level of protection against this epidemic is finally guaranteed throughout Europe and that the consumer does not have to bear the whole cost alone?
Reorientation is necessary and must be governed by two objectives: to transform the common agricultural policy into a system of safe food production and to extend such reforms beyond cattle farming and the current crisis by addressing the issue of battery rearing in general, rather than clearing up one mistake to go on to cause another.
After beating your breast about the BSE crisis today, Commissioner, do not now go on to promote genetically modified organisms.
Mr President, the case we are now considering deserves to feature in a guide to what not to do in politics in terms of managing public affairs.
First of all, the delay in implementing these measures - measures for eradicating BSE - is deplorable. These measures are always adopted reluctantly, in the wake of panic in society and this prolongs the public' s exposure to risk.
It is now more than four years since this Parliament drafted recommendations that would have enabled us to prevent this disease.
Secondly, the lack of resources with which to implement the measures that have been proposed and to manage the crisis itself is also deplorable.
These shortcomings betray a degree of blindness and, at times, genuine breaches in European construction.
Although differences exist between Member States, it is surprising that, over time, the logistical resources for analysing and eliminating meat meal or risk-containing material have not been found.
The financial shortcomings, on the other hand, are clear, both at Community and national level.
Both the Community Treaties and national constitutions impose the obligation of protecting citizens' health.
It is therefore absurd to try to fund this crisis by taxing meat consumption or through the income of cattle farmers, which is causing small farms to go under.
At times we appear to be our own prisoners.
Within the World Trade Organisation, we have accepted limits on our production by ceding a part of our vegetable protein market to the United States. So what are we going to do now?
Are we going to replace animal meal with genetically modified soya, imported from the United States? Agenda 2000 laid down a reduction in aid to livestock farmers.
We were aware of the consequences of this.
How did we think that we would survive in the face of increasing costs and a drastic reduction in prices? On the other hand, however, Agenda 2000 does not implement measures for the development of large-scale livestock breeding either.
Finally, the almost religious respect for the Financial Perspective laid down in Berlin will prevent us from being able to cope with exceptional situations.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us be realistic: this crisis requires a change in the European Union' s position towards the WTO, a review of the Berlin Financial Perspective and a review of the common agricultural policy to correct its imbalances and its general orientation.
Mr President, it is with some regret that I find myself participating again in a Parliament debate on BSE I regret that the initial steps taken by Commissioners Byrne and Fischler have not achieved their objective of controlling BSE and restoring consumer confidence in beef.
It is to say the least disappointing, that some Member States were prepared to conceal the real incidence of BSE in their national herds and equally unwilling to implement the control measures proposed by the Commission and agreed by this Parliament.
Their action or lack of action has led to an understandable but justified consumer resistance with beef consumption at one point dropping by 27%.
Our now costly emergency plan to restore consumption and consumer confidence calls for 100% participation by each Member State.
There is no place for dissidence at this critical time and those found in breach of the regulations should, in my view, be severely censured.
There were occasions in the past when farmers were found to be in breach of food regulations and deservedly condemned.
On this occasion, however, they are by and large innocent victims of a situation beyond their control.
They are the victims of animal-feed manufacturers who use meat and bone meal in bovine feed and there is some evidence, regrettably, to suggest that unscrupulous manufacturers have continued to use the product since the new regulations were introduced.
In my view we are now prepared to resort to extreme measures and I accept Commissioner Byrne' s view that in the present situation they are the minimum necessary.
Be that as it may, the harsh reality is that farmers who are guarantors of food supply and quality are devastated, their incomes eliminated and the ethos of farming desecrated through the destruction of a prime food product.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that the BSE crisis is affecting me both politically and personally. The institutions - in this case the national governments - appear only to react to crises, and never take preventative action, as if history has taught us nothing.
For example, Commissioner, you have had a mandate from the Agriculture Council to apply the measures described to us.
I wish you luck because I can already imagine the merry dance you will be led when you propose these measures: some Member States will request exemption, others will request an extension, for example for the spinal cord from 12 to 20 months, and others will claim to offer consumers safe meat.
So this is all déjà vu to some extent and I can only hope that you have the strength and nerve to stay on course, in the sure knowledge that this will not be easy.
What has come to the fore in recent months is a by now familiar subject, namely the monitoring by Member States of the application of Community measures.
I feel that this is the real point that should be raised with the Council because the measures to be applied are established but then the Member States either do not apply the measures - hence there are many infringement procedures, but they always take a long time - or are not in a position to implement checks.
The result is that, in the end, measures which appear severe have to be taken because the checks do not ensure guarantees or safety in any way.
This is something which gives rise to further difficulties because Member States tend to either conduct few checks or, when they do carry out checks, do not communicate the data available to other institutions.
Therefore, Commissioner, Parliament will constantly be urging you to action, but you can also count on our support in this uphill task.
If I may make an observation: it is a fact that whenever you try to solve a problem, other problems arise.
For example, what are we to do with the animal meal? We are to burn it.
Of course, it is clear that, even today, we do not have the incineration capacity, and so it is stored.
It is also clear that there have been no studies carried out on the environmental impact of the incineration of hundreds of thousands of tonnes of animal meal.
A further question is what we should feed to cattle as a protein supplement. Perhaps the Members already know - although it is worth reminding them - that Europe already imports 30 million tonnes of genetically-modified soya derivatives and that the elimination of meal can only increase imports as Europe is soya dependent.
So what should our approach be in the face of all this? All that can be said is that there are no miracle cures, but we must be open to finding appropriate solutions on a case by case basis and ensure that we do so.
Mr President, by failing to take the necessary action in good time, the European Union is largely responsible for the extent of the BSE crisis.
The evidence is overwhelming: an average 27% drop in consumption and an ever-increasing number of export embargoes.
In France alone, the beef and dairy industries account for 400 000 jobs.
Victims of falling exchange rates and dwindling consumption, cattle farmers are in a desperate plight and face the threat of bankruptcy.
They can no longer afford to keep livestock on their farms.
Milk producers are exceeding their quotas.
Consumers, worried and disorientated, no longer know what to buy.
Abattoirs, condemned to inactivity, cannot stock carcasses pending the results of tests, because the results are taking too long to come through, since staff are not trained to deal with this new situation and laboratories still await official registration as test centres.
Today there are only post mortem examinations.
What has happened to the research into blood tests? According to Commissioner Byrne, a patent application is pending.
Are we doing all we can to support research, especially public research? The systematic slaughter of herds is expensive and ruins farmers' selective breeding programmes.
Now that screening tests are compulsory, is it necessary to go on destroying healthy animals or healthy parts of animals? This systematic destruction also disposes of healthy carriers of the disease.
Would it not be wise to keep part of this stock - in total isolation, of course - for research purposes? As for fighting bulls, which are considered to be at risk and are therefore subject to compulsory destruction like all other cattle that die outside abattoirs, even though there is a market for their meat, it cannot withstand being frozen for the time it takes to obtain the result of the tests and therefore ceases to be fit for consumption.
The ban on meat and bone meal was ultimately dictated by the fact that it was impossible to trace the sources of the meat and bone input.
How should the meal be stored, burned and replaced? Sites are selected by order of the public authorities without any consultation of the local populations, environmental-impact studies or risk assessments.
In order to comply with public health requirements, burning must be carried out in special facilities, and there are not yet enough of these.
In spite of a protein deficit, the Member States dependent on imports of oil-protein crops cannot give assurances that the protein in their feed does not come from genetically modified crops.
Yet Europe continues to take farmland out of production under the set-aside scheme.
For this reason, it is becoming a matter of urgency to reopen talks within the WTO and to rethink the Blair House agreements.
Europe must not reduce its support for livestock farmers, as it seems intent upon doing, by abolishing the premium for suckling cows or reducing cattle quotas, etc.
Even though farmers are prepared to make strenuous efforts in order to guarantee traceability and high-quality produce, Europe must not demand even greater sacrifices of them, as the Agriculture Council did at its last meeting. On the contrary, Europe must support its farmers, even if it means paying direct grant aid.
An exceptional situation calls for exceptional measures.
The price of public health is well beyond the means of the agricultural budget alone.
Part of the cost of guaranteeing food safety and restoring consumer confidence should therefore be charged to the general budget.
Mr President, Commissioner, the measures proposed by the Commission so far in order to deal with the BSE crisis are mostly too little, too late and unilateral at that. The Commission does not act, it reacts.
It is not pro-active enough to get a real grip on the situation.
Many of the questions which bother the people affected have yet to be answered.
How do we explain the different prices for BSE tests in Europe? What will we do to address distortions of competition?
Why is there no effective help for the innocent victims? I refer in particular to farmers in countries which are still BSE-free and to meat product companies, abattoirs etc., all of which are struggling or fear for their existence.
We are helping the wrong people.
The incineration campaign in particular is blurring the data, sweeping the problem under the carpet and, most importantly, doing nothing to help the innocent victims.
In countries which cannot incinerate, cattle are left standing in their stalls.
The people affected cannot reasonably be expected to shoulder the burden.
Seventy per cent of the supplementary budget has been earmarked for this alone.
Why are BSE tests on live animals not being promoted or imposed? You must realise that, if we lose our farmers, then we also lose the very basis of our existence, because it is mainly the farmers, especially in our regions, and I refer here to the Alpine regions, who take care of the countryside.
If we lose the farmers, we lose our very existence.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, here we are gathered once again to talk about BSE.
May I remind you that, only a few months ago in the Chamber in Strasbourg, I denounced the excessive cautiousness of the decisions proposed by the Commission.
So we have good reason to be surprised today at this furore, at this outbreak of panic in some countries which long believed that they would escape this scourge but which have nevertheless had time to observe the measures being taken in neighbouring countries.
We must not let ourselves be engulfed in this wave of panic, because we bear political responsibility.
Today the Commission is proposing a number of measures and, when I listen to my fellow Members, it strikes me how important it is that these measures should be harmonised.
As I said, we bear political responsibility.
That is why, as I have been doing for years, we must expose the shortcomings of the common agricultural policy, which has tended to favour large-scale farmers while overlooking the real world of the small farmers who are the lifeblood of our countryside.
We shall need a great deal of courage if we are to establish a sustainable form of agriculture in which the healthiness and safety of farm produce and of the rural environment are the paramount considerations.
We shall need not only courage but also determination to explain the new measures for the redistribution of agricultural premiums and, above all, to stand up to the Council in order to ensure that the reform process goes beyond declarations of intent.
We are living through a veritable Europe-wide tragedy.
We must grasp this opportunity to redefine a European agricultural policy, without playing to the galleries in the manner of José Bové, but by developing a policy that fulfils the expectations of consumers and our farmers, to whom we are bound by a strong sense of solidarity.
There is no point in taking authoritarian, technocratic or restrictive decisions on the future of cattle farming.
The establishment of extensive farming practices will automatically regulate production.
Higher quality but smaller quantities, more stringent controls and the implementation of emergency measures are the order of the day.
Let us demonstrate the resolve to take these steps without delay in the general interests of the people of Europe.
This is what they rightly expect of us.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, within the space of a few weeks the BSE phenomenon has developed dramatically and is now a virtually universal problem in Europe.
The situation has become alarming, given the fall in consumption and exports and the prospect of having to administer huge stocks of beef and veal.
It is an extremely critical situation, since it has driven cattle breeders to the brink of ruin, while the amount allocated to the EU agricultural budget is almost bound to prove insufficient.
In this context, Commissioner, the first imperative is that Member States show discipline and solidarity in implementing the adopted Community measures so as not to increase the size of the collective bill.
Even though we shall have to await the February meeting of the Council, and probably other major European gatherings too, before all the consequences can be assessed, we can already highlight a few key issues.
To that end, let me point out the primacy of food safety and consumer protection, and the consequent need for tighter controls to lend credibility to the decisions that are taken as well as the need for a European food agency to be set up quickly.
Let me also emphasise the need to establish greater solidarity between the various sectors within the CAP in each Member State, particularly by applying the cross-sector rules enshrined in Agenda 2000.
I might also mention Europe' s duty to comply with international provisions and to support the development of the production of vegetable proteins to replace meat and bone meal in animal feed.
Finally, may I stress the need to take on board all the lessons we have learned from the development of agriculture which has resulted from our successive common agricultural policies and from our international commitments.
Has not our past development, rooted in a quest for maximum competitiveness and a larger share of the global market, gone too far in the direction of industrialisation and profit-seeking? For my part, I believe it has reached its limits and that we shall have to rethink it, particularly in the context of the WTO talks and the framing of a new CAP.
Be that as it may, how could agriculture be given the promise of a new dawn if BSE were to bring about the demise of its producers?
This, Commissioner, is precisely why I also plead for genuine, serious consideration of the expectations of livestock breeders and all the other players in the agricultural production process, who must receive help to ride out this crisis.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, without for one moment minimising the problems with BSE, I want to point out that, in the prevailing climate of panic, we must not forget all the other problems and risks, and also opportunities, which exist in our food industry.
Let me give an example.
If ruminant fat is guaranteed free from proteins, it is also free from dioxins, cinolons etc.
At present, distrust of the European food industry, of agriculture and of our countryside and farmers is spreading like wildfire.
This is very dangerous not only for employment in Europe and for the countryside, but also for our environment and our cultural heritage.
But just think if we could seize this opportunity.
A wise old man once said that chaos is a neighbour of God.
Let us use the present chaos creatively, for today we have our electorate' s support for opening up and transforming the entire food sector.
Mr President, BSE is still a danger.
The danger has not been averted.
And if there is less of a chance of catching BSE now than there was a short time ago, then it is thanks to our work here in Parliament and, I freely admit Mr Byrne, it is also thanks to the work which you have done.
The new Commission and you personally are consistent in your approach, but I must nonetheless criticise certain aspects of the proposals.
One chink in the Commission' s armour at European level was that of milk replacer and the fat contaminated with protein residue.
Unfortunately it was closed too late. What is being done now is a step in the right direction.
But fat is still being added, albeit heat-treated fat.
And, Mr Byrne, the question is, where does the mechanically recovered meat go, if not into the food chain?
Is it used for bonemeal, is it used for fat and will brain residue left behind when the skull is sucked out end up in it?
Is it sterilised enough at 133 degrees? As we know, these prions are clearly proving to be resistant to heat treatment.
It would be better here if we said that the only fat in milk replacer must come from the milk itself.
If you really must have fat, then put the butter which has been removed back in or feed the milk straight to the animals.
The second problem is the brain.
We still have a situation in which the brain from animals under 12 months old can be used.
We can also use pigs' brains.
The proof of the sausage cannot be in the eating.
So what we need to do is to remove both cows' and pigs' brains from the whole sausage, from the whole food chain.
The third aspect is testing.
Mr Böge said earlier that we want to test after 18 months.
I must correct him here: Parliament's resolution states that all animals which enter the food chain must be tested, starting at 18 months.
This too must be guaranteed and we must not let up in our pursuit of this objective.
Mr Byrne, we must not allow animals which are not being tested now to be slaughtered, because we urgently need these results for diagnostic reasons - as Mr Böge has already said - in order to evaluate the overall threat of BSE in Europe.
Commissioner, albeit somewhat belatedly, we are taking stricter and stricter measures.
However, what you have said begs the most important questions about which neither you nor the Council have said anything.
I refer to coordination and control.
You have indirectly identified the shortcomings; we know that there are serious shortcomings but where are the proposals?
Legislation on inspections, for example, is making no headway whatsoever at European level.
My second point concerns alternative solutions.
Other Members have raised the same point.
What is to be done with the meat and bone meal which has to be destroyed? What is to be done with the dangerous substances which we remove from the food chain?
I know from my own country that this is a problem. But what I do not know is how they can be reliably destroyed or, more to the point, how the costs can be covered.
That brings me to my last point: how are the costs to be covered, even at European Union level?
As far as I know, we have about EUR 1.5 billion in our coffers.
Your lowest estimates put the cost at EUR 3.5 billion and many are saying that it might be as high as 7 or 8.
Proposals for covering the cost as the budget now stands and with the financial perspectives which you support there are none.
What are we going to do? We want more credible answers.
Mr President, I would certainly like to emphasise the fact that there is a need - and this has been repeated on several occasions - to restore consumer confidence with regard to operators in the sector.
In order to do this, I call upon the Commission, as I have done on countless occasions, to provide clarification, that is to make all data available to allow correct information to contribute to reducing this collective psychosis of which, it appears, even we have been victims in part.
I would like to stir things up by saying that if we limit ourselves to the facts, to the current state of affairs, one is much more likely to be struck by lightning than infected by BSE.
By this I do not mean that we should not adopt all necessary precautions to prevent even a single human life being put at risk, but we should take care, because the media are causing such damage and are paralysing the sector, often without any objective information to provide accurate news.
The provision of accurate information is thus an indispensable requirement if the problem is to be addressed in the proper manner and if we are to prevent psychosis being encouraged in an unjustified - I repeat - often unjustified manner.
It is important to let consumers know what they are eating: in this respect the move towards compulsory labelling to provide consumers with accurate information on the animal's characteristics, from birth to slaughter, should be speeded up.
With regard to interventions, the need to allow operators in the sector to overcome this moment of crisis should be not be forgotten.
Thus, direct economic intervention should be used: it should be remembered that many breeders have thousands of head of cattle and they don't know what to do faced with the reduction in demand for their product.
We need to create stockpiles through public intervention. This direct intervention must ensure that companies in financial crisis receive the direct State support.
Mr President, before taking part in this debate, I reread a very interesting document, the text of a complaint lodged with the Court of Justice in 1996 by the French farmers' association Syndicat agricole français de la coordination rurale and by Philippe de Villiers against the Commission, which the plaintiffs accused of mismanaging the BSE crisis, putting the principle of the free movement of goods before public health and failing to apply the precautionary principle.
While we are on the subject of complaints, what has become of the one that the Commission lodged against France, alleging that my country was refusing to ensure the free movement of meat? I did not hear Commissioner Byrne update us on that point in the statement he just made.
The lessons to be learned with regard to the present situation are that public health must be the prime consideration, that every potential risk must be anticipated, even if the cost is high, and that we must respect the right of a Member State to apply more stringent safeguards than its partners.
In particular, we demand measures designed to ensure maximum safety, even if they are a heavy burden on the Community budget.
The European Union and its Member States must acknowledge their mistakes.
The only way of avoiding this type of problem in the future will be to impose draconian rules enshrining caution and respect for nature. such rules will clearly entail extra costs, which in themselves will handicap European agriculture in the global marketplace.
To compensate for this handicap, it will be necessary, in the context of the forthcoming WTO talks, to secure acceptance for the idea that each region of the world should be free to choose its own agricultural model, and it will likewise be necessary to undertake a radical review of the Uruguay Round model, which tends to expose agriculture to global competition without allowing for any protective or compensatory mechanisms.
Commissioner, I speak to you not as a neutral referee but as a representative of the executive institution of the European Union.
I am concerned, and this morning's speeches confirm this feeling of unease because the BSE problem, despite your explanations and the interventions you have mentioned - which are obviously a response to an economic crisis - represents a structural crisis to which we have yet to provide a response.
BSE is a moral problem: over the decades agricultural policy has been constructed around agriculture, but now a veil of distrust is coming down over the sector that we, as institutions, cannot afford to allow.
The agricultural sector is a sector comprised of working people, families who work the land and people who, occupied with everyday commitments, are paying a price which is not theirs to pay.
It is absolutely essential that we rewrite the rules but we cannot ask working people to pay a price - which amounts to bankruptcy in many European countries - which is not theirs to pay.
The response to an earthquake is not "We'll see what we can do" ; the response to an earthquake is appropriate and, above all, immediate intervention.
European agriculture is currently experiencing one of the most critical times in its history: our dealings with the agricultural sector are not without repercussion and ultimately not only farmers will be affected but Europe itself because, in the end, the farmers and people of Europe look to us, to Europe, to the institutions, as the entity that must meet their demands.
Commissioner, you have the melancholy satisfaction of being proved right and that never makes one popular or even happy.
The very people and the very Member States who were shrugging off your warnings two years ago, who were denying you a qualified majority, as you said just a few months ago, are now clamouring for compensation and support as the beef market collapses and we face the prospect of millions of animals in store, unsellable, undisposable of over the next two years.
In the United Kingdom we see this with some sympathy.
People will say to me: Well, yes, you were first.
We were first in the whole cycle from complacency to despair and back again.
And if today the beef market is sound in Britain and beef consumption is rising, it is only because people have seen how draconian the measures need to be.
Every question I now want to ask the Commission comes from that experience. Firstly, the extent of BSE.
What are the tests showing?
What do the Member States themselves say? We see reports that some countries which claimed a year ago to be BSE-free, now anticipate up 500 cases in the course of the next year.
If Europe has fallen into line with the principle of culling animals over 30 months, is that in itself enough? What do the tests and the research findings say about the incidence of the disease in animals younger than 30 months.
Thirdly, what capacity do the Member States have for destroying the materials that are now being removed? Which Member States have the incineration capacity?
Are some still saying that they will put this material into landfill?
These are all serious questions, which we know you will try to answer.
We think you should go further and I would just like to echo what my friend Mr Garot said which is that Europe most of all owes you its solidarity.
Mr President, I welcome the proposals to ban the production of mechanically recovered meat from all ruminant bones of all ages.
In the UK at the moment, we have a ban on MRM from beef and also we do not have any animal going to the food chain over 30 months, but the problem is MRM beef coming in from other EU countries.
As far as I know, there is no adequate test to make sure that they are BSE-free.
So I welcome the ban.
With regard to the removal of the vertebral column, you have brought up the question: where should it take place, abattoir or at the point of sale? But is it really necessary?
We must take into account the Scientific Steering Committee' s review, but surely if the spinal cord is removed adequately that should be enough. Whatever happens, all these safeguards must be monitored carefully.
I am pleased that there is going to be a monthly report from other EU countries as happens in the UK at the moment, but please bring in these measures quickly.
Make sure they are properly in force and please learn from the UK' s past mistakes.
Mr President, Commissioner, the BSE crisis has simply highlighted and revealed to public opinion in Europe the fragility and lack of rigour in the way Member States' comply with and observe European rules on potentially dangerous materials used in the manufacture of animal feedingstuffs.
Despite all the debates held on the crisis itself, we still allow some potentially dangerous substances to enter the food chain, since, for example, there is still no ban on animal fat for animal consumption.
Our citizens, who are powerless in the face of political decisions taken by politicians whose criteria are above all economic, demand greater rigour and responsibility.
What responsibilities will the Member States, the Commission and Parliament itself adopt with regard to the people affected by the human form of BSE? There is still no uniformity in the measures adopted by the Council, which means that the precautionary principle will lose its effectiveness.
Further research is required to discover the nature and the transmission mechanisms of this disease in all its forms and, lastly, we must have greater controls for plants producing animal feedingstuffs, which are a major factor in the transmission of the disease.
If codecision in agriculture truly existed, this crisis would have taken a very different direction.
Mr President, the current situation in which cases of BSE in the European Union are multiplying makes it clear that it is not enough to make declarations of intent with regard to the reform of the CAP. We need to get to the root of the problem and move rapidly towards a genuine reform of the current common agricultural policy.
Budgetary and Community constraints cannot be used as an excuse for not adopting the necessary measures to solve the problem, and, at the same time, we must support livestock breeders.
The aim of the CAP reform that we need to implement must not be to make budgetary savings but to achieve balance in the distribution of assistance amongst producing countries and productions, taking account of specific regional requirements and the situation of each Member State.
New resources must be found for new requirements and so it is becoming necessary to conduct a review of the current financial framework that was decided on in Berlin.
Finally, I wish to mention Portugal, in order to ask the Commissioner to explain the unfairness of maintaining this particular ban on exports in an area in which there has been a significant reduction in cases, whilst in other countries, they are continually increasing.
This position is illogical.
Commissioner Byrne, I am not noted usually for complimenting you on your good performance but on this occasion I wish to be fair.
It is totally wrong for Member States now to blame the Commission when you were pointing out as long as a couple of years ago the problems that were going to occur.
What Member States have done by trying to make out which beef is the safest in Europe, is to destroy European beef.
There is no doubt about that.
We need to take action now across Europe.
I am a farmer who farmed through the BSE crisis in the UK.
I saw the value of my cattle drop to virtually nothing.
It is very painful for the farming industry to see this happen and it is happening now throughout the whole of Europe, so action needs to be taken.
I do not think we want to re-invent the wheel so we should look to the measures that have been taken in Britain and have restored consumer confidence.
I would urge, and I know Commissioner Byrne agrees with this, to have one policy throughout Europe.
If we do not, the European press will take each Member State in turn, they will look at the safety measures that are in those states and they will compare and then people' s confidence in beef in general will collapse.
There is no doubt that the older cattle, however painful it is, have to be taken out of the food chain.
They must be destroyed.
Not only is there incineration but there is now a sodium hydrolysis method of dissolving cattle.
I am sure you are looking at that, because that could be a better and possibly a cheaper method of disposing of these cattle.
We need also to look at imports of cattle from outside the European Union, because not only do we need to get our act together, I believe there is a lot of complacency about this in the rest of the world.
At the end of the day, we must get beef consumption up, we must convince the consumer that it is safe and let them eat European beef.
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, bearing in mind how much this is going to cost all Europeans, the fact that our aim is to restore confidence and that the issue is no longer the regulations in force but the implementation and observance of these regulations, should we not be thinking about how we can restore this confidence? Can we expect the irresponsible Minister, who insulted those who rightly warned us of this risk by calling them irresponsible, to restore this confidence?
Or the Minister for Health, who demonstrated a lazy incompetence in this matter?
Commissioner, given that these people are so discredited, will they be able to restore confidence, they, who are responsible for the current confusion, for the lack of control of banned feedingstuffs, for the environmental messes that are occurring, with illegal burials of hundreds of cows? Are these people, as discredited as they are, going to be able to restore the confidence that we need?
Commissioner, unless we demand that these people are held responsible for their actions, we are the ones who will be held responsible.
I can assure you of that.
Mr President, I should first of all like to draw your attention to the financial implications of the BSE crisis.
Firstly, the Commission eventually adopted the Agriculture Committee' s proposal to use the scope that was left in the agricultural budget of EUR 970 million after all.
I should add straight away that this scope appeared to be a little bigger than it actually is now, given also the present state of the euro, which has already absorbed 250 million of that amount.
The second point is that the funding is therefore not complete.
It merely constitutes a beginning.
I would urge the Commission to look into other funding options, especially in the face of this crisis, with regard to a proposal for a consumer levy.
We might consider a temporary levy on meat, as a result of which we would at least be able effectively to cover the cost of far-reaching measures this year.
It is in itself nothing new that we are guaranteeing safety in this way, also with regard to other products.
Just consider the environmental levy on certain products which is applied in certain EU countries.
The third point which is of significance in my opinion, is the question of how we deal with Member States which have knowingly flouted EU rules.
Let us be honest, last year, Germany' s red/green coalition claimed time and again that it did not have any problems; the problem subsequently arose and was shifted elsewhere. How do the Commission and the Council deal with this?
I have to say that in this connection, the Commission has been far more consistent over the past few years than the Council, just to quote an example.
The final point is to look for a solution. At the end of the day, the only solution is sound chain control, sound inspections and tough measures at times.
In this connection, I believe it would be politically inappropriate to claim at this moment in time that a change in the European agricultural policy vis-à-vis small holdings or organic agriculture will solve the problem.
That is not the issue.
It is about food safety.
The politicians in Europe had better be careful about using this crisis for their own political ends.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is basically an animal health problem that has assumed the proportions of a huge crisis because it has affected food safety, even though medical specialists say that it is not highly infectious.
It is a problem that emerged in the United Kingdom more than a decade ago and which, since then, has spread to the whole of continental Europe.
At the time, the Commission probably underestimated the problem and did not adopt the necessary measures to prevent the disease spreading.
We must acknowledge that it was a mistake to wait until 27 March 1996 to adopt emergency measures, starting with the ban on animals and meat meal from the United Kingdom and to give in to pressure by then derogating this decision two years later, on 16 March 1998.
It is time that we learnt from our mistakes and adopted effective and appropriate measures, which can be complied with without trying to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Most importantly, these measures must be uniform, because what is causing the greatest confusion, lack of direction and distrust is the lack of clear and concrete criteria.
You have told us what the Scientific Steering Committee thinks and what the Council intends to do, but what action is the Commission prepared to take, when is it going to act and how will it do so?
Furthermore, we must ensure that all of these rules are complied with, because controls have proved to be our greatest shortcoming.
I have always said the same thing: it is crucial that the Commission coordinates and harmonises controls and, most importantly, that it controls the controller.
Clear and practical rules are essential because there are fifteen countries, each with its own problems and in some countries - in my own, to be precise - in which responsibilities for control in this field lie with the seventeen autonomous governments.
Lastly, I would suggest to the Commission that it should make an effort to communicate risks, because the profusion of news and comment in the media is contributing to the confusion and alarm in society.
In addition to all of this, Commissioner, we need to think about the future of the CAP, because the root of this problem lies in the competitiveness that has been forced on the agricultural sector.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I should like to thank the Commission for the information which it has given us on the fight against BSE and to tell Commissioner Byrne that my impression is that he has the situation in hand and that his proposals are clear and decisive.
I think this is what we need because, apart from BSE, we also have hysteria and panic to deal with in several areas.
This initial information which we have been given is without doubt most comprehensive.
But I must say, Commissioner, that I would have liked to have seen the information on the countries which you so nicely listed compared with the results of controls carried out by food and veterinary health inspectors.
I must say, in all honesty, that I only have to think of the ignorance and squirming with which the Agriculture Council has reacted to proposals over recent months, including Parliament's proposals, to lose all confidence in information provided by Member States and ministers.
Of course, there is always some cause for objection with most measures.
But we all know that the measures being decided now are the result of a failure to act, including over recent years, and we cannot afford to lower our sights.
A few speakers have already referred to tests.
The point is: if we do not test all animals, then the results are meaningless.
I have heard that the abattoirs are simply refusing to slaughter animals.
What is being done?
They are being clubbed without being tested.
That is just not on. We must intervene here, we must sort this out throughout Europe.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt said we need more and better controls and indeed we do.
But we also need clear-cut, comprehensible laws in Europe.
We shall be dealing with hygiene regulations shortly.
I say to you, in all honesty that, from what I hear from the Member States at the moment, I have no cause for optimism whatsoever.
We are back on the same old merry-go-round, it is just not on.
We need to stand together and give Europe clear-cut laws.
That is the only way to get a grip on the problem.
Mr President, I will be very brief.
All I want to say is that we are in danger, as has been emphasised, of repeating the same things.
We will be repeating the same things in ten years' time because there have been considerable delays in conducting scientific research into prions.
We have known about prions for 15 years Commissioner Byrne, but after 15 years we do not know which molecular mechanisms are responsible for neurodegeneration, we do not know if they pass through the placenta barrier, we do not know if they pass into milk, we do not have rapid tests...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Nisticò, your question is not a point of order.
I know that I need to be flexible, but please do not try to take advantage of this.
The Commissioner has the floor.
Mr President, may I first of all thank all the Members who made such valuable contributions to this debate, all of which have been very carefully noted.
I would like to say by way of a preliminary reply to what has been said, that those who spoke on the question of consumer confidence are putting their finger on an issue that is of particular importance, in addition to the issues that we are addressing today relating to public health.
May I draw your attention to one particular aspect of public confidence that a number of you, in particular Mr Whitehead, referred to.
Sometimes it depends to a very large extent on where Member States are in the cycle of BSE as to the effect on public confidence.
Public health issues are crucially important but I want to address the consumer confidence aspect for a moment before I go on to the public health aspects.
Mr Whitehead rightly observed that in the UK the level of consumer confidence is high.
The consumption of beef in the UK is higher than it was before 1996. Why is that the case?
What lessons can we draw for consumer confidence from that? I believe it is because people see that the incidence of BSE in the UK is falling despite the fact that the number of cases is still the highest in the European Union by some considerable distance.
So why are consumers relaxed about it to the extent that they are now consuming beef more than they were before 1996? I believe it is because they realise that the scientific advice had been correct; that the lawmakers have responded correctly and put safety measures in place and that the public authorities in the UK properly implemented that legislation and the consequence is that we have a falling incidence of BSE.
So consumers have concluded from that: somebody is in charge, they are doing something about it, they appear to know what they are doing because the incidence is falling.
Therefore their confidence rises and they consume beef.
That feeling has to be achieved in the rest of Europe, but it will take time because consumers do not have that sequence of events in their minds in the rest of the European Union and we all know why: because a number of Member States who declared themselves to be free of BSE within a very short space of time after making the declaration had to then admit that there was BSE in that Member State.
That quite obviously provoked an immediate reaction in consumer confidence because it says to consumers: the people in charge do not know what they are talking about and are not protecting me.
We do not want to make microbiologists out of consumers, but they must have the feeling that there is someone in charge, who knows what they are doing and that what they are doing is effective in ensuring the protection of the consumer.
Let me now deal with some of the issues that you raised surrounding public health and the procedures that are needed.
A number of you mentioned the question of testing.
This was discussed in the Council last Monday.
Testing at 30 months remains the norm, but will be kept under review.
A huge number of tests under way will provide invaluable information within a very short period of time.
We do not yet have enough tests and have not had them long enough to draw the appropriate conclusions.
The statistical sample is not big enough, but when it is we will draw those conclusions.
This will put us in a much better position to decide if further needs to be done.
In relation third countries, I can say that the SRM decision that we made some time ago applies to third countries and to imports from third countries from 1 April next.
I have written to all third countries, alerted them to the Community measures and also advised them of the dangers of meat and bone meal.
And my services will hold a conference shortly with third countries to press this point home further.
On the question of the vertebral column, of course the spinal cord must be removed and destroyed.
Somebody mentioned earlier: Is this not enough - why do we have to remove the entire vertebral column if the danger resides in the spinal cord? Well, of course, that fails to take into account the need to address the question of the dangers that may be posed by the dorsal root ganglia and the removal of the vertebral column is specifically directed to that particular point.
The removal of the vertebral column has been a requirement from 1 October.
The question is how and where.
As I explained there are complications and risks depending on where it is done, at the abattoir or in the butcher' s shop.
We do not have enough time to go into detail in relation to this but I repeat what I said earlier that this is an issue that we will have to give very careful consideration to.
In respect of derogations, all Member States are currently carrying out tests on fallen and at-risk animals.
This has been done on the basis of a random survey and this will help to revise the extent of the disease and give us more information.
Then appropriate decisions can be made in the light of that situation.
The specific issue of the number of inspections will be addressed in the report that I am requesting Member States to furnish me with.
You will remember that I wrote to Member States on 4 January including an annex asking for detailed information.
We have a lot of that information now in response to that letter and we will obviously be in contact with Members States all the time seeking further information and making sure that everything is kept under review.
References were made to the reform of the CAP.
This is largely a matter for my colleague Franz Fischler, but Member States are not yet fully availing of the opportunities to provide for what might loosely described as a greener CAP.
In this context I should say that Franz Fischler and I have established a joint committee with our services to look into this very issue and to see to what extent adjustments need to be made so that we can achieve a situation whereby food is produced by more natural methods.
That is not to say that we are going to abandon the idea of the industrial production of food.
We cannot do that.
(Applause from the right) That is a knee-jerk reaction that does not respond to the needs of the consumer.
We must produce a lot of food to feed people and that must be properly addressed as well.
But there is a desire from consumers that we should address the question of the natural production of food.
I am not fully convinced that has been fully addressed in the past and after my discussions with Franz Fischler we are now going to look at this more carefully.
Somebody made reference to the fact of the CAP supports being more focussed on large farmers than on small farmers.
I am not necessarily convinced that is the case, but there does seem to be some evidence to that effect and that is another issue that will obviously have to be addressed as well.
My distinguished predecessor Ms Bonino had something to say on the subject of enforcement.
Of course, enforcement of measures is a key issue.
The Food and Veterinary Office has a key role to play.
Reports of the implementation measures will also oblige Member States to be very careful.
You made very relevant comments on fats also.
It is not just a question of banning them.
Animals have to have fat in their diet.
The issue is where is this fat going to come from and are these fat sources safe.
The opinion of the Scientific Steering Committee might need clarification on this particular aspect.
There was considerable discussion in the Council last Monday on this issue.
The conclusions refer to the fact that ruminant fat will have to be pressure cooked in the manner that we are all familiar with, but in addition a view was expressed that perhaps the time had come for the removal of animal fats from ruminant feed and that is an issue that is going to be considered.
In considering that issue, you must ask what are the alternatives: vegetable fats, soyas, someone mentioned genetically modified substances.
There are many complex issues which have to be addressed but I do not want to delay bringing forward the appropriate proposal for the pressure cooking of ruminant fat in the meantime.
I should say in the context of the Blair House Agreement, my colleague, Franz Fischler is well aware of the demands of farmers to renegotiate the Blair House Agreement.
A number of you made reference to budgetary considerations and I must say that the Berlin ceilings have been reached.
Any increase in budget must now be agreed unanimously by all Member States.
Someone also made reference to the fact that some Member States are increasing their own taxation, increasing VAT to pay for this.
That is a matter for each individual Member States.
The Commission has no competence to levy VAT at the point of sale of any products, and that includes agricultural products.
Reference is also made to distortions of competition and we are faced with a crisis here.
We do not have the luxury to harmonise all national measures before putting in place essential health protection measures.
We must proceed with that and at the same time if the measures that we are putting in place require adjustment or fine-tuning to eliminate competition distortions then we must do that.
Others made reference to the need to ensure that we have harmonised measures throughout the European Union and I fully agree with that.
I have said that on a number of occasions.
I do believe that consumer confidence is undermined if consumers see different responses in different Member States to the same perceived risk.
That undermines consumer confidence.
I have said that on a number of occasions and that message has got through.
I detected a mood in the Council last Monday that ministers accepted the proposition that we have to abandon unilateral measures in individual Member States and go forward with the measures that address the problem on a Europe-wide basis.
I should have also mentioned earlier when I addressed the question of testing that live tests are not available yet.
But we are carrying out a considerable amount of research in relation to this and a considerable amount of money is being spent on this.
There is some is hope on the horizon in respect of live tests but nothing is absolutely clear as yet and I would not like to raise expectations or hopes in that regard.
Mrs Grossetête made reference to the operation of the CAP and I do not disagree with anything she said about its operation and how it affects large farmers, small farmers and so on.
Can we continue for example with the situation where 45% of aids are paid for arable crops, a sector which is very intensive and which employs far fewer people than other principal sectors? This is an issue which must also be addressed.
Mr Posselt referred to fats and dioxin and the question of dioxin is under active consideration by my services and by myself at the moment as a result of the publication of the report of the Scientific Steering Committee within the last couple of weeks on this very issue.
They are found in fat.
It is practically impossible to filter out dioxins.
They have to be tackled in other ways and we are working on this at the moment.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf then asked me to address the question of a total ban of ruminant fats in animal feed.
As I said earlier in this response, this is something that is being considered, was addressed by the Council last Monday and is being addressed in the context of further advice.
There are control problems which make it difficult to ensure that segregation can be effective I will be happy to keep you informed of this issue as the discussion evolves.
Someone asked the question as to how mechanically recovered meat is going to be dealt with.
Well I have say that it is going to be included in the definition of an SRM.
So we extend the definition of SRM to include mechanically recovered meat which then has to be disposed of in the way that the law requires.
That will be done in a manner consistent with the legislation as it currently stands.
Mr President, allow me to make a comment to Mr Byrne.
On the subject of animal fats, I would again propose that we leave the fat in the milk, i.e. that we use the butter.
It is perfect for the calves.
It is what nature intended: the fat is easily digested and there is no risk of infection.
You have made what is, I am sure, an interesting scientific point, but I do not think it is a point of order.
The debate on the statement by the Commission is closed.
Substances having a hormonal or thyrostatic action and of beta-agonists
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0002/2001) by Mr Olsson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive, amending Council Directive 96/22/EC concerning the prohibition on the use in stockfarming of certain substances having a hormonal or thyrostatic action and of beta-agonists [COM(2000) 320 - C5-0357/2000 - 2000/0132(COD)]
Mr President, Commissioner, we have just concluded a debate on the problems involving BSE - problems connected with food production in which profit interests may be very important and drive production tremendously hard.
We must remember that, in a globalised food market, there is a requirement for political limits upon how food is produced so that other social objectives are not forgotten.
Within the European Union, we have had rules about not using hormones to promote growth.
We have had complaints about this, mainly from the United States, and a WTO panel has been set up which has said that our proofs are inadequate.
This was the background to the Commission' s having an assessment made of those hormones which have been used.
There are six of these.
According to that assessment, there were different levels of risk factor.
All the hormones involve certain risks. Above all, they are carcinogenic.
One hormone, oestradiol 17ß, was worse than the others.
The Commission is therefore now proposing a change to the legislation so that oestradiol 17ß in particular is completely banned - both for use in feed or as a growth promoter, and for therapeutic purposes.
Where the other five hormones are concerned, an extension is proposed to the provisional, temporary ban that applies.
I and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy fully support the Commission' s positions.
It is extremely urgent to take this matter further.
Naturally, it is also important to continue investigating the other five hormones to see how hazardous they may be, but it is constructive that oestradiol 17ß is now banned once and for all.
With this investigation, we have therefore obtained clearer arguments which hopefully mean that those who hold other views will respect our position, our ban and the import ban that at present applies.
There is something of a variety of arguments, and I should like here to discuss a number of arguments which I have contributed to the report and which have been approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
It may be that, from a legal point of view, they do not carry much weight, but they carry a great deal of weight politically.
Firstly, there is the environmental argument.
It is dangerous to use hormones in this way.
In the United States, where they are used, it has been discovered that they are disseminated in the environment beyond the confines of animal production.
Secondly, there is the argument on the grounds of animal protection.
We must consider whether it is reasonable to give animals feed supplements which cause abnormal growth.
Does that not cause them stress of a kind which creates a conflict for us when it comes to caring for animals and our ambition to treat animals well?
In the light of such considerations, there is a general obligation to make an ethical assessment.
This will be all the more important in a society in which knowledge is increasing and in which science is discovering more and more about different production methods.
We must therefore reflect upon whether hormone use accords with the basic ethical rules we human beings have.
The issue is, of course, that of whether change as far-reaching as this means that the very conditions of life for human beings or other biological creatures are being transformed.
We should probably have no right to effect such a transformation.
I support the changes that have been made.
At the same time, I want to emphasise that there is a crucial difference between the committee' s and the Commission's proposals, for we in the committee do not wish to apply the committee procedure proposed by the Commission but want to arrange for any amendments to go back to Parliament for approval because there is so much by way of politics - and not only of science - in all of this.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Olsson has presented an excellent report on the subject of the use of hormones in stockfarming.
Food safety must take priority in all our decisions because consumers have a right to safe, risk-free food.
Substances with a hormonal or thyrostatic action and beta-agonists as growth promoters in beef production have long-term effects and may therefore have repercussions on human health.
The main persons affected by hormone residues are high-risk groups such as pre-pubertal children and pregnant women.
During the WTO dispute settlement procedure, the scientific committee came to the conclusion from its evaluation of the risks of the six hormones that oestradiol 17â clearly had a carcinogenic, tumour-initiating and genotoxic effect.
If there is the slightest suspicion that an individual substance may have harmful effects, as is the case with oestradiol 17â, then we must react with a definitive ban.
We are also duty bound to be cautious with the other hormones at issue if we are to have a high level of food safety and health protection.
Compliance with the hormone ban must also be strictly controlled within the European Union.
European consumers are also extremely sensitive when it comes to imported products, which is why the monitoring system for meat imports from third countries must be reviewed.
Only if we apply the precautionary principle can we show consumers that we mean business when we talk of food safety in Europe.
That is how Parliament can send out a clear signal and pave the way forward.
Mr President, the concern of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy stems from the legal disputes with the United States and Canada concerning the European Union' s obligations in the context of the WTO and the application of the precautionary principle, to which we attach great importance.
On the basis of the opinion delivered by the Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures relating to Public Health, the SCVPH, we have called for moves to ban oestradiol 17â, a recognised carcinogen.
In general, our amendments to the Commission' s proposals are designed to encourage the Commission to adopt a more dynamic approach by seeking and developing its own scientific information with a view to avoiding any impression that the EU is seeking only to gain time and intends to continue using the current lack of adequate scientific information to maintain its provisional measures in force indefinitely.
It is therefore important that the provisional ban on the five other identified hormones, namely testosterone, progesterone, trenbolone acetate, zeranol and melengestrol acetate, should apply until the Community finds more complete scientific information from any source - particularly by means of a research programme of its own in this field - which could shed light on the gaps in the present state of knowledge on these substances and enable the EU to take a sufficiently well-founded decision to continue or lift the ban.
As far as these substances too are concerned, we also want the Commission to accept the opinion of the Standing Veterinary Committee which was established by Article 1 of Decision 68/361/EEC and to make every effort to obtain further information in order to resolve this problem within a reasonable time.
I must emphasise that these proposals are designed to promote a European agricultural system which is respectful of the environment, of animal welfare and of human health.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we now know that the use of certain substances in livestock can have very dangerous effects on the human organism.
Moreover, the statement made by the Commission on the state of progress in the fight against BSE clearly demonstrates that, where prevention is possible, it is always far more effective than intervention after the event; as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.
So we must be particularly vigilant with regard to the substances that are administered to livestock.
This vigilance must be practised across the board, from veterinary treatment to husbandry practices.
Recent studies have shown that oestradiol 17â is carcinogenic.
It is therefore imperative that the use of this substance should be strictly prohibited in any livestock intended for human consumption and that all imports of meat from non-EU countries should be monitored.
Long before the BSE crisis we are now experiencing, I vigorously upheld two principles in this House: the first was the precautionary principle, as the best means of protecting consumers and preventing panic, which, as we have seen, has disastrous effects on human behaviour and on the farming sector, and the principle of supporting scientific research in order to acquire within the shortest possible time the most accurate data on which to base our decisions.
The report that the honourable Member, Mr Olsson, has presented to us focuses on these two principles, and I find that gratifying.
There are indeed doubts about five other hormones, and it is important that the scientific research in this field should be undertaken without delay.
However, in the absence of definitive findings, it is absolutely essential that the temporary ban on the use of these substances for the treatment of livestock should be renewed and that the utmost care be taken with any derogations.
Mr President, first of all a thank you to Mr Olsson for a really good report which is very much along the lines of what I think is a good proposal from the Commission.
I believe we all agree that using hormones in this way to promote animals' growth is unacceptable in itself.
As Mr Olsson said, it is unethical.
It has serious consequences for animal welfare and the environment, and the six substances we are talking about here also damage human health.
The definitive ban on using oestradiol stands to reason.
The substance is carcinogenic.
I also think it is important, however, that we now obtain a provisional ban on the use of the other five substances.
This would, in actual fact, be an example of a very proactive and commendable application of the precautionary principle, which I should very much like to support.
I should also like to support the rapporteur' s view that it ought not to be possible to lift or weaken the bans without the Council' s or Parliament' s approval.
It is important for us to retain political responsibility on this matter.
Let me also say finally that I find it quite incomprehensible that the American authorities should close their eyes to the risks involved in this production method.
If they were to look at the development of certain types of cancer in the United States and the development of obesity in the American population, the American health authorities would surely hear all the alarm bells ringing.
I therefore hope that the renewed adoption of a ban on the use of this hormone-treated meat here in Europe might capture the attention both of American consumers and of the American health authorities so that we avoid having to have further discussions of this matter under the auspices of the WTO.
Mr President, first of all I wish to thank the rapporteur Mr Olsson for his report and also the committees who gave their opinion on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 96/22 on the prohibition of the use of hormones in stock-farming.
The main purpose of the Commission proposal is to increase our level of food safety and to comply with our international obligations deriving from the sanitary and phyto-sanitary agreement of the World Trade Organisation, the so-called SPS Agreement.
This assembly is well aware that the current ban on use of hormones for growth promotion was challenged at the World Trade Organisation and that the final ruling in 1998 criticised the risk assessment on hormones used in food-producing animals presented by the European Community.
As you are aware, the Commission initiated a complementary risk assessment on these hormones in the light of the clarifications regarding risk assessment provided by the appellate body of the WTO.
In April 1999, the Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures relating to Public Health issued an opinion on the potential adverse affects to human health arising from hormone residues in bovine meat and meat products.
This opinion was reviewed and confirmed in May 2000.
The main conclusion was that no acceptable daily intake can be established for any of the six hormones evaluated when they are administered to bovine animals for growth promotion.
As regards to the hormone oestradiol 17-B, the scientific committee found that it has to be considered a complete carcinogen insofar as it has both tumour and tumour initiating affects.
For the five other hormones under consideration, the need for further information was identified.
In the light of these conclusions the Commission proposed firstly to ban definitively all the uses of oestradiol in farm animals in the light of the finding that this substance is a complete carcinogen.
Secondly, the Commission proposed to maintain provisionally the current prohibition on the five other hormones until more complete scientific information is made available.
This measure will be kept under regular review and is thus fully compatible with our international obligations.
I am most satisfied that the report supports this approach.
With this proposal the Commission has also provided the necessary legal basis for adaptation of the lists of definitively and provisionally banned substances by the regulatory committee procedure in order to allow for rapid reaction to new evidence and thus further to enhance consumer safety.
I regret very strongly that the introduction of the regulatory committee procedure for the adaptation of the lists of substances has not been supported by the report.
Many of you here know my view on this issue.
I have discussed with you in bilateral meetings on a number of occasions the question of the use of the comitology procedure and I note that request by the Commission is not being accepted in the amendments that have been put forward.
I would ask Parliament to reconsider its view on this issue, because I believe that it is of considerable importance that the question of comitology be seriously addressed in this issue.
I believe that if Parliament insists on the adaptation of the annexes to be done by way of codecision rather than comitology, that Parliament will be guilty of not properly looking after the safety of the consumer health in this issue, an issue that Parliament has discussed in this debate earlier today, both in the BSE context and on this particular issue.
How can we possibly justify a delay of a year and a half in the adjustment and adaptation of the annexes in circumstances where a scientific committee may have advised the Commission to add for instance a further hormone to the list of annexes? How can that be justified?
Someone said that this is a political issue.
I emphatically reject that proposition.
It is a scientific issue. That is the very reason why this issue was considered in the WTO.
It comes as some concern to me that there is a risk if Parliament adheres to the view that it appears to have on this issue, that we are going to have a situation whereby comitology will not be accepted in this way but rather there will be an adherence to codecision.
I have been through this before.
I have had this debate with Parliament and I know what is going to happen later in the day.
Members of this House will arrive in here to vote on this issue and they will follow the whips.
The vast majority will not know the detail that they are voting on because they are not informed on this particular issue.
It is also a major concern to me that so many people today will vote on an issue which is of considerable importance to consumer without knowing that they are putting in place a procedure which would put at risk consumer health by delaying the procedure under which I can, on the basis of clear scientific advice, put something into an annex which will protect consumer health.
I sincerely ask you ladies and gentlemen, to revise your view on this issue, give consumer health a greater priority.
Consider the question of consumer health as more important than the interinstitutional wrangling between Parliament and the Commission on the question of whether there should be a full codecision in cases such as this.
This is a scientific issue, based on scientific advice: it is an executive decision which will be taken by the Commission and put into an annex in circumstances where there is a full droit de regard by Parliament on that issue.
I have said here before when debating this issue that I will not lightly disregard the view of Parliament on any issue where comitology arises.
So I sincerely ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to give serious consideration to the rights of consumers, to the question of the proper protection of consumers and also bear in mind we are going to have a food and safety authority in operation hopefully next year.
It will have a role to play in rapid reaction.
If it identifies an emerging risk, it can advise that there should be an executive response to that risk immediately.
Sometimes that will mean a legislative response introduced by the Commission.
If that can be done by comitology we will get the kind of speedy response that the consumer requires.
But if it can only be done by codecision we will have a delay.
Now allow me to address in detail the amendments which have been proposed in this report as well as the amendment tabled by Mrs Grossetête.
I will begin with the amendments the Commission cannot accept.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 as far as comitology is concerned for the reasons that I have already identified.
Nor Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 14 which reject the introduction of the regulatory committee procedure for updating the lists of provisionally and definitively banned substances and which re-introduce the codecision procedure.
Amendment No 1 focuses on a well-founded decision on maintaining the ban.
The Commission cannot accept this amendment as it prejudges the outcome of any possible future research.
Under Amendment No 2, the Commission would be committed to fund research on the five provisionally banned substances.
This is not acceptable.
There is no legal obligation under either Community law or the WTO framework for the Commission to finance research.
Rather the WTO requires parties to evaluate the risk on the basis of all scientific data.
Nevertheless, such studies are not excluded from the European Union' s programmes on food safety.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3 and 11 which insist on the need to introduce effective monitoring systems to protect health.
I would like stress that monitoring systems already exist both in the Member States and at Community level.
For instance meat imports are already controlled, notably according to the directive on controls and residues, Council Directive 96/23.
Finally, the Commission proposed that the provisions in the directive concerning oestradiol would not apply to animals treated for technical or therapeutical purposes before 1 July.
Amendment No 15 by Mrs Grossetête proposes that this provision be linked to the availability of suitable alternatives.
The Commission cannot accept this amendment on health grounds given the clear scientific evidence as regards oestradiol.
In addition, a recent study indicated that there is no lack of alternatives to oestradiol for therapeutical or zootechnical use in the Community.
This study should be made available to Parliament in the near future.
On the other hand the Commission can accept Amendment No 8 as well as in principle the part of Amendment No 10 dealing with scientific data because they introduce useful clarifications to the text.
To conclude, I wish once again to thank Mr Olsson for the excellent report and his support on this important issue.
In summary, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 as far as the point of comitology is concerned, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15.
On the other hand it can accept Amendment No 8 and in principle the part of Amendment No 10 dealing with scientific data.
Mr President, I naturally respect Commissioner Byrne' s view, recommending the committee procedure.
However, what we are aiming at is not to delay the handling of this matter but to be able to conduct a debate here for, on this issue as on many others, there is a lack of scientific clarity.
Yesterday in Stockholm, I met a representative of the American Department of Agriculture, who did not take the European view of science.
In this Chamber, we need, then, to debate issues which are not only scientific but are also about ethical stances and the precautionary principle.
It is not, then, about postponing dealing with this issue. Rather, the aim is to obtain a more thorough political debate.
Thank you, Mr Olsson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
New frontiers in book production
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0005/2001) by Mrs O'Toole, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on new frontiers in book production: electronic publishing and printing on demand [2000/2037(INI)]
Madam President, may I congratulate Mrs ÏáToole on her report, which throws into relief the dramatic changes which have taken place in the world of books over recent years as the result of new technologies.
All of us who love books, both as readers and writers, must rethink our relationship with books from square one.
A revolution has taken place which makes books even more interesting, even richer, even more indispensable to each and every one of us.
At the same time, however, it means that there is vital need for us to develop European and national policies to address the problems caused by new methods of production and distribution.
To the question of whether books should be protected from uncontrolled market forces we say yes, given the huge cultural importance of books and reading in our society, which we must strengthen as much as we can.
The new prospects for spreading information and enlarging the reading public via the Internet are accompanied by the problems of intellectual property and the status of authors and the risk of large swathes of the population being left with no access to the new media.
A lack of equal opportunities for the computer illiterate, rural areas and minority groups may prove to be fatal, especially where it compounds the considerable degree of illiteracy which already exists.
The problem is so serious that there is even talk of yet another threat to social cohesion, a threat which needs to be dealt with promptly through decisive policies on the part of the European Union.
But all the Member States should facilitate access for the young to books and encourage them to read during their education, because it is they who represent the future of the European Union and there can be no future without books, be they in hard or soft copy.
Madam President, this highly stimulating report by Mrs O' Toole gives us the opportunity to think more deeply about the future of book-publishing and to develop new initiatives.
As the report quite rightly emphasises, books play, and will continue to play, a vital role in extending the influence of our diverse European cultures, and indeed the remarkable growth in the number of published titles testifies to the wealth, the vitality and the diversity of these cultures.
So it is only natural that we should have opted for an initiative designed to promote culture, an initiative which takes increasing account of the role of books as indispensable carriers of our cultural heritage.
This, incidentally, is a feature of the cohesion policy we are pursuing through the Structural Funds.
Are you aware of that, ladies and gentlemen? Let me give you some examples.
Thanks to Community support, the number of libraries in Greece will double between now and the year 2006, rising from 526 to 1170.
Over the same period, EUR 38 million will be devoted to the development of archives, libraries and reading under the operational programme on culture in Portugal, more than half of which will be financed from the European Regional Development Fund.
The same thing has been happening in the domain of competition policy, where great emphasis is being placed on the value of books to the people of Europe.
This is reflected in our cultural initiatives too.
When we discussed the Culture 2000 programme, Parliament emphasised the major role that should be assigned to activities for the promotion of books and literature.
The first year of implementation of the programme shows that this wish has been fulfilled.
Mrs O' Toole' s report invites us to broaden our horizons and to consider all aspects of the technological revolution with a view to preserving the range of European publications in all its diversity, seizing new opportunities, dealing with any risks, guaranteeing access to knowledge and, last but not least, guaranteeing the rights of creative artists.
The digital revolution constitutes both an opportunity and a risk.
But that is very well expressed by Mrs O' Toole in her report, so I need not dwell on that point.
Allow me to make just one remark, which relates to the risk of exclusion that could emerge if we do not pay special attention to the needs of disadvantaged people.
Digital technology can do nothing for culture and education unless it is accessible.
Madam President, I refuse to accept that there must inevitably be a technology gap between generations, between social strata, between those who are 'switched on' and those who are not, between those whose life and work will derive maximum benefit from digital technology and those for whom such technology will remain an object of fear and a threat to their place in society.
I believe we must do everything possible to close this digital divide rather than merely declaring (a) that it exists and (b) that we cannot do anything about it.
On the contrary, we certainly can do something about it.
That is the civic duty and the social responsibility of everyone of us here, in Parliament or in the Commission.
Besides, Madam President, I believe that globalisation, if it is harnessed, and digital technology need not automatically destroy national and regional cultures.
It is certain that the cultural industries will be radically and rapidly transformed to incorporate the new reality of the information society.
So we must guide these momentous changes rather than merely watching them unfold and allowing ourselves to be left behind. We must be in at the start of their development to ensure that digital technology is able to offer new access routes to published material as well as a rich diversity of such material.
One of our first initiatives, financially modest but exploratory in nature, is the establishment of a cooperative network of publishing houses.
There is no doubt in my mind that this is the area in which the Commission has its most important role to play, and I was determined that the proposal for the implementation of the Culture 2000 programme in the year 2001 should provide for specific support for the realisation of several projects involving cooperation between authors and publishers.
If the experiment bears fruit, we shall launch more initiatives for the promotion of the publishing trade in its role as a carrier of culture.
I believe that this opens up a new path which has not yet been adequately explored and that we have a key role to play here as a source of inspiration and innovation.
Besides the specific initiative of the culture programme, I can name a host of support activities through which we are helping to ensure that the book publishing and distribution trades achieve their own digital revolution; in this way, we are pursuing the very aims that our rapporteur has set out.
The e-learning initiative, which I launched in May of last year, relates to the infrastructure of the education system, because any future action in that field depends on a sound educational infrastructure.
The services of the Commission have prepared a detailed programme for the implementation of the e-learning initiative.
The Commission is also funding pilot projects and will continue to do so, especially under Minerva, part of the Socrates programme, which is devoted specifically to the use of technology in education and which, along with the Leonardo programme for vocational education, is one of the cornerstones of our activity.
In addition, the development of partnerships between the public and private sectors can also remedy shortfalls in the provision of training.
The Commission' s e-Europe action plan, for its part, is designed to ensure that the information society also serves to further the aim of social integration.
Access to the Internet, to multimedia resources, will be made available in many public centres, including centres in disadvantaged areas, by the end of 2001 and to all school pupils by the end of 2002.
Another focal point of our efforts is the development of services which help to provide content in the fields of e-education and e-culture.
The e-content programme has just been adopted for a four-year period with the aim of encouraging the creation and use of digital content.
The market can also be stimulated now, thanks to our collaboration with the European Investment Bank and the creation of a venture-capital fund for multimedia businesses.
The promotion of multimedia content is the aim of this collaboration between the Commission and the EIB, which has agreed to step in with funding for the cultural industries.
We have opened up a new avenue here which bodes well for the future, for this future that digital technology holds out to us.
This prospect, ladies and gentlemen, also merits greater commitment on our part and should be given a higher profile.
I personally agree with the idea advanced by several of you - Mr Graça Moura, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte and Mrs O' Toole - who have advocated the organisation of a year of books and reading.
For various reasons, it is not possible to devote a special year to books and reading, but I believe we should sit down together and think about a books and reading day or week or month, which could be staged some time after the start of 2002.
We shall not look at any specific dates or format just now, but do let us discuss this together, so that we can select the best possible option for inclusion in the Culture 2000 programme.
I am very receptive to the idea of discussing this with interested parties in the framework of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport with a view to finding the solutions that will best serve the interests of books, reading and cultural diversity.
As Members of the European Parliament will appreciate, technology is no more than an instrument, but it could be a very valuable instrument in our bid to maximise the potential of our European cultural heritage.
And so I thank Mrs O' Toole and the Committee on Culture for their work and the important contribution they have made to the pursuit of this goal.
Thank you, Mrs Reding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place very shortly.
VOTE
Madam President, with regard to the first paragraph we shall be voting on, if I have understood correctly, a compromise with its authors is possible is the sense that Amendment No 1 can be withdrawn once a split vote has been held on the first paragraph.
Paragraph b) would include the entire first part up to 'Plan Colombia' and, in the second paragraph, the remainder of the text.
We can avoid the vote on Amendment No 1 by holding a split vote on the original text of paragraph b).
Madam President, the Socialist Group accepts Mr Miranda' s proposal and we would vote in favour of the first part and against the second part.
Madam President, we would accept this proposal.
Madam President, there is also a possible compromise on the following vote.
With regard to Amendment No 2 by the Group of the European People' s Party and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, if I understand correctly, the following would happen: we would initially hold a split vote on the original text, from "Whereas 'Plan Colombia' " up to "social partners" .
We would then vote on a second part - which, I think, those tabling the motion will choose to reject - and finally, as an appendix, we would vote on Amendment No 2.
In other words, we will first hold a spit vote on the original text and then vote on Amendment No 2 as an appendix to the paragraph.
Mr President, I was the shadow rapporteur for the PSE on this.
What Mr Miranda says is correct, but it is misleading to say that is an amendment.
As the notes in front of you say there was a mistake by the services and in fact the wording that was put in by both the PPE and ourselves was not reflected in what was printed.
Therefore Mr Miranda' s interpretation of what we should vote on is absolutely correct and I totally support him, but this is not a question of a further amendment.
There was a genuine, technical error by the services.
For absolute clarity, I have the wording here from the original.
Missed off at the beginning of the amendment were the words "whereas Plan Colombia is not the process of dialogue amongst the various social partners and..." and then the rest remains.
We abstained from voting on this report, just as we shall abstain on the report concerning the fisheries agreement with Angola for one and the same reason.
It really is not our intention to be obstructive if there is the remotest possibility that the people in these two countries who earn their living from fishing might receive a share of the licence fees paid by the European Union for fishing rights in the waters of Côte d' Ivoire or Angola, even though we are aware that such a share would at best be minimal.
What we are condemning is the hypocrisy involved in speaking of granting aid to these countries and the even greater hypocrisy of claiming to be helping their people.
The very figures cited by the European Parliament rapporteurs reveal the extent to which such agreements are governed by relations that are disgusting in their lack of fairness; we see, for example, that the licence fees paid to Côte d' Ivoire by European vessels have not risen over the past ten years, in spite of inflation.
It is also apparent that the European contribution to the same country in 2003 will have fallen to less than half of the 1991 level.
And then we see in black and white that the European Union reserves the right to suspend payment of its licence fees for fishing rights to Côte d' Ivoire and Angola in the event of civil unrest in those countries.
Whether they are cloaked in the mantle of 'aid' or 'agreements' , these figures and these one-sided clauses speak only of exploitation of the African continent by the European powers.
Jarzembowski report (A5-0013/2001)
Mr President, I voted in favour of amending the directive on the development of the Community's railways.
I have read the Conciliation Committee's report and I must express my hope that Mr Jarzembowski becomes a frequent member of conciliation committees because he has achieved all that it was possible to achieve.
This outcome means the liberalisation of the rail freight transport systems all over Europe.
I hope that Mr Jarzembowski achieves equally good results when tackling the Council with regard to measures to help the elderly and pensioners.
I am genuinely impressed by the success of the Conciliation Committee on this occasion.
, in writing.
(FR) The two reports from the Conciliation Committee on the development of the Community' s railways and on the licensing of railway undertakings express satisfaction that a compromise has been reached which will open rail-borne freight transport completely to the private sector in 2008 at the latest.
This compromise paves the way for new proposals for the liberalisation of the remainder of the railway system, namely passenger services.
The recent tragic accidents in England, however, and the many accidents on privatised networks, such as the German network, are constant emphatic reminders of the damage that is done by privatising this public service.
And to claim that opening rail transport to the private sector will resolve the social chaos resulting from the fact that goods are largely transported by road is deceitful, to say the least.
For decades, rail services have been withdrawn in all parts of Europe for the benefit of the private road-haulage and bus companies.
Today, with the road networks on the brink of suffocation, some sources of private capital are turning to the railways in search of new profits, aided and abetted by both the European authorities and the national governments.
Neither the users of public rail services nor the general population have anything to gain from privatising these services.
The same applies to railway workers, who protest and campaign against deregulation and privatisation and their ravaging effects on jobs and working conditions.
It goes without saying that we are solidly behind these workers and their unions in their condemnation of these abominations.
For this reason we have voted against these two reports.
.
(IT) I think it is appropriate, in this explanation of vote, to set on record the clear progress made in the development of the European rail network following the recent decision at the Italo-French summit in Turin to approve construction of the Turin-Lyons rail tunnel and the resulting new high-speed railway line.
This decision finally gives the go-ahead for a project which is essential to the goal of improving the rail system and transferring freight traffic from road to rail through the Alps.
As I have already told this Chamber, while the Swiss Lotschberg-Simplon and St. Gotthard project is making progress, the Turin-Lyons project suffered considerable delays at the planning stage; however, we now have a coherent sense of purpose for this century through the Trans-European Transport Network.
I must add that the decision by Italy and France, fully supported by the European Commission, is in line with the transport protocol of the Alpine Convention.
Moreover, it is encouraging that, just last January, the Commission, after years of showing no interest in the Alpine Convention, requested the Council to authorise it to sign the protocol, calling for this important document to be ratified soon.
As it stands, the project, which favours the relaunch of rail in the Alpine region to reverse the increase of freight traffic on roads decisively, will be appropriately supplemented by the development of new rail routes.
In this respect, the Commission is already aware of my hope that the Aosta-Martigny rail route will finally become part of the trans-Europe network to be established in the coming years.
I would like to conclude by expressing my satisfaction at the decision, also adopted in Turin, to reopen the Mount Blanc road tunnel after the summer.
I feel that, in setting limits on the number of lorries which can use the tunnel, the French and Italian authorities have exercised good sense.
I call upon the Commission to facilitate the application of this decision to reduce numbers. This must be a radical, well-regulated operation.
Wieland report (A5-0012/2001)
Mr President, I voted for the directive on the recognition of professional qualifications for nurses, pharmacists, doctors, midwives, veterinary surgeons, etc.
I feel that these recognition directives will be of particular benefit to doctors and professionals, who will now be able to move easily around the European Union. However, after I broke my right foot and required medical attention in Italy, Belgium and France, I noted that there were differences in the medicines and treatments offered to me.
I now believe that it would be good for all patients to be able to move freely around Europe receiving treatment from doctors who have had the same training.
I would thus like to see a single European qualification.
McNally report (A5-0006/2001)
Mr President, I voted for the report concerning the energy efficiency labelling programme for office computers.
As I was telling my pensioner friend, Giuseppe Rossi, who accompanied me to the airport at Bergamo when I was leaving to come to Brussels, this regulation seeks to save energy when users go home from their offices leaving their computers switched on, by putting them into sleep mode.
At the end of a long discussion and explanation of the benefits of this document, my retired friend asked me: "Wouldn't it be simpler to make employees turn off their computers completely when they are no longer using them?" This is the question which I am still asking, Mr President.
Mr President, I voted for the ban on oestradiol-17 and all those substances which are so damaging to the human organism because they slow down, as has been noted, the growth and development of the human beings who come into contact with them.
I know that Ministers for the budget of the Member States are not entirely opposed to continuing the use of these oestrogens which, as we know, accelerate the growth of animals, making them grow more quickly.
But I wondered, why on earth was this the case?
I now believe I have found an answer in the fact that perhaps they - our Ministers - hope that increasing the speed of growth of animals would also accelerate the speed of development of humans: humans would thus be elderly and retired for less time, resulting in savings for State budgets.
Mr President, I voted in favour of intensifying trade relations with the United States, Canada, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand, which is surely a positive step.
I hope that cooperation will be intensified in future to bring about also a direct action to improve the standards of living of the elderly in these countries.
I also hope that we can examine the current pension systems of these countries to see if we can derive any suggestions for improvements of the legal conditions which govern the lives of the elderly in the European Union.
The Mann report will not receive our support for various reasons.
First of all, the projects lack a legal basis.
That is right, because these projects do not constitute EU tasks.
Cooperation between Member States is a way to complete these, without independent EU authority, unless the Member States grant a mandate to this effect.
Despite this, the Commission and rapporteur have discovered a legal basis in Articles 133 and 308.
The Commission fails to specify precisely which activities fall under Article 133 and which under 308, so that ambiguity as to competences continues to exist.
In addition, the Commission proposes one budget line.
However, funding for multiannual programmes and large-scale projects is undesirable, because the Commission is not allowed to pursue independent policy on behalf of the said partner countries.
Furthermore, the Commission has promised to pull up its socks by carrying out fewer tasks.
The Commission should represent the EU Member States at WTO level.
Its complementary role is manifesting itself in the coordination of Member State activities.
There is hence no scope for further deepening or extending.
The Commission is inundated with topics of a European nature, such as agriculture, effects on developing countries and trade conflicts.
That is why a more common trade policy is not expedient.
In our opinion, the rapporteur' s report is an improvement on the Commission proposal, but it fails to sufficiently underscore the said points.
That is why we abstained from voting.
Muscardini report (A5-0008/2001)
Mr President, I voted in favour of the strategy presented by the Council concerning relations with Mediterranean countries.
My country, Italy, is a Mediterranean country.
I believe the European Union should pay more attention to the countries on its southern borders, which are only separated from us by the sea.
To whomever follows up this part of our policy in the future, I propose extending the regulations which allow cumulative work periods to count towards a pension to all workers from countries of the southern borders of the Mediterranean. These regulations should thus be extended from European Union States to countries on the other side of the Mediterranean.
Many workers from these Mediterranean countries move around Europe and it seems only fair to me that they should have access to the benefits of a single pension.
The Barcelona Process opened up encouraging prospects for relations between the European Union and the twelve countries of the Mediterranean.
Nevertheless, the conclusion was soon reached that this instrument was not up to the task.
This is due to political reasons, including the complex peace process in the Middle East, which is an important factor but not the only one.
Making a commitment to simplifying the MEDA programme, making it more flexible and increasing the number of policies for the endogenous development of the Mediterranean countries are vehicles for change raised in this report which warrant our full support.
However, if I may dwell on the importance of the Mediterranean to the European Union, it was high time that the European Council adopted a common strategy for that region.
It is therefore to be hoped that, this time, there will be an improvement in the necessary political will so that Member State-Mediterranean country cooperation, both with the European Union and between themselves, progresses.
This must be done, of course, not in order to balance the 'Nordic dimension' but because an approach built around this type of cooperation is desirable and will prevent Europe from becoming a continent with only one centre of power.
Furthermore, today there is already an increasingly common need to give the European Union a sense of the sea, and providing it with an 'Atlantic dimension' may well be the next step.
I should like to address a few words to the rapporteur, my friend and colleague, Cristiana Muscardini.
I followed the process of allocating this report in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy very closely.
The outcome of Mrs Muscardini' s work has fully justified all those who, from the outset, supported her appointment as rapporteur, as there was only one vote in the Committee against her report and no abstentions.
When such things occur, we can only praise the worth of the person who has planned and drawn up the document.
This was, of course, her duty, but it is nevertheless gratifying that the European Parliament has recognised this in its plenary sitting by voting overwhelmingly in favour of the report.
I, or rather we, therefore owe my friend and colleague, Cristiana Muscardini, our heartiest congratulations.
Naïr report (A5-0009/2001)
Mr President, I voted in favour of the Barcelona Process and I would like to see it accelerated by this document.
This is a continuation of the previous explanation of vote, Mr President.
In my opinion, the Mediterranean countries are part of Europe in the same way as Turkey is part of Europe.
I hope for, and I am in favour of, Turkey joining the European Union and, if this does happen, I feel that we should carefully examine the possibility that Mediterranean countries could also enter the European Union.
It is my view that these are two sides of the same coin.
I must give the rapporteur my sincere congratulations on the work he has done.
His report on the Barcelona Process is extremely comprehensive, so I need do no more than highlight a few points which are of special importance to me.
First of all, let me emphasise that the aim set forth in the Commission communication "Reinvigoration of the Barcelona Process" was twofold: to draw up a balance sheet of the Barcelona Process and to formulate recommendations in preparation for the ministerial conference in Marseilles in November 2000.
To be perfectly honest, the balance sheet is not a healthy one.
Of the three components of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership - the political component, the cultural, social and human component and the economic and financial component, only the last-named has been set in motion, and note the way this has been done!
In this domain, the imbalance is flagrant.
We are asking our partners to open their markets in the sectors where we are most competitive.
When it comes to agricultural produce, on the other hand, the European Union is too reluctant to lift the barriers that currently penalise those partner countries.
As the rapporteur says, the Union wants a "free-trade area run on Europe' s terms" .
The worst feature of this deplorable attitude is its irresponsibility.
Let us end the hypocrisy and stop declaring our commitment to creating an area of shared prosperity.
It is time for loud and strong condemnation of the scant importance that Europe, preoccupied as it is with the eastward enlargement process, accords to its Mediterranean Partnership.
This is a miscalculation.
Europe has everything to gain from the sustained economic and social development of the region on the opposite shore of the Mediterranean, Europe' s inland sea.
Breathing fresh life into this Euro-Mediterranean Partnership is becoming a matter of urgency.
The rapporteur proposes several avenues for us to explore.
For my part, I suggest that we start by intervening in a more proactive manner in the political arena.
The new international situation undoubtedly presents an opportunity that we must grasp.
The European Union has a role to play in the Middle East peace process.
The settlement of the Middle East conflict is the key to establishing peace and stability in the region.
This means recognising that Israel and all the other States in the region have a right to security and that the Palestinian people have a legitimate right to live in a viable and internationally recognised State of their own. by the same token, the Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Peace and Stability should be adopted as soon as possible.
The European Union must also invest more financial and human resources and promote interregional cooperation and the involvement of civil society.
I shall close on an optimistic note by expressing my satisfaction at the desire of Swedish Presidency to initiate serious examination of the Barcelona Process, following on directly from the initial steps that were taken by the French Presidency.
We can only hope that this intention will be quickly translated into action.
That is why I voted for Sami Naïr' s report.
The Naïr report on EU Mediterranean policy is more than ambiguous.
It does not provide any basis to establish proper cooperation structures between Europe and the Mediterranean countries.
In fact, while we can go along with the rapporteur on the need to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms, we have problems with the report when it addresses other economic and social issues.
First of all, the report follows the Commission line which vaunts free trade and advocates the liberalisation of the economies of Mediterranean countries.
Point 21 is particularly revealing in this respect and speaks of "encouraging liberalisation of the Mediterranean partners' economic systems and implementing the structural reforms required to enable them to compete on more open markets."
The report addresses the crucial issue of debt only in terms of reducing and converting the Mediterranean countries' external debt, instead of calling on European governments to cancel such debts, as we ought to be doing.
With regard to migrants, the Naïr report takes a restrictive line, referring to the administration of migrant flows and seeking to criminalise immigrants.
Frontiers have never stopped the movement of men and women.
To regard them as illegal immigrants is playing into the hands of the mafias and traffickers.
We should resolve to open borders.
Lastly, while the rapporteur recognises the Palestinians' right to their own state, he makes no mention of their legitimate demands, namely the release of all political prisoners and the right of return for refugees.
For these reasons I did not vote for this report.
Resolution on Plan Colombia (B5-0087/2001)
We have voted in favour of the Plan Colombia resolution in order to denounce the plan which was put in place by the United States and which, on the pretext of combating traffic in drugs, is resulting in the forced displacement of local populations, mostly peasant farmers, in order to boost the profits of the major landowners.
The main purpose of the military interventions that are carried out under the US plan is to make it easier for the large capitalist groups to exploit Colombia' s resources.
We are against US military intervention in Colombia, just as we are against British intervention in Sierra Leone and French intervention, whether direct or indirect, in Rwanda, the Congo or Zaire.
We also oppose the plans to privatise large sectors of the Colombian economy as well as the measures to reduce the purchasing power of the population, such as cuts in retirement pensions.
For, in this respect, we are well aware that the main purpose of the aid that is granted by both the European Union and the IMF is to create favourable conditions for investments by the bourgeois classes of the imperialist powers.
Be that as it may, we are against any repression and displacement of local populations, and that is the reason for our vote.
- (FR) The United States' Plan Colombia was adopted in an entirely undemocratic manner, with no consultation whatsoever of the various social and political players in the field and without the endorsement of the Colombian Congress.
All it does is to offer an extremely dangerous solution, what is actually a military intervention plan in the guise of a campaign against narcotics trafficking, criminalising small-scale producers, destroying their crops by means of fumigation operations harmful to both humans and the environment and forcing these people to leave the land they have been cultivating.
By proposing a resolution designed to bolster the peace process in Colombia, the Committee on Development and Cooperation has dissociated itself from the murderous intent of Plan Colombia.
We cannot but endorse the proposals for agrarian reform and support for the peace process in association with Colombia' s immediate neighbours.
The resources allocated by the European Union will naturally have to be monitored with a view to ensuring that they are not used to fund repressive measures.
The only way to take the first step towards peace, however, is to condemn the paramilitary groups and to enter into dialogue with the FARC and ELN.
The fight against drug trafficking and the real drug barons demands radical measures, specifically resolute and effective action against the laundering of profits from trafficking and the introduction of a Tobin tax on movements of capital, which, by redistributing such income, would help to satisfy the needs of the entire Colombian people.
Mr President, I wondered why Mr Fatuzzo has nothing to say on this.
I would have thought that he would have had a minute to share with us.
We are being deprived because we have no explanation of how he voted on the Plan Colombia.
I wonder through you, President, if it is possible to ask him if he could explain to assembled masses here how he voted, because it is important that we know.
Yes, I know that every Member has a right to explain his or her votes. Mr Fatuzzo also has the right to refrain from explaining particular votes, and we thank him for doing so.
Ferri report (A5-0398/2000)
Denmark has a legal opt-out, meaning that we do not want to give the EU authority in the legal sphere.
However, cross-border crime is a dramatically increasing problem, necessitating cooperation between the Member States.
If I have chosen to vote in favour of this report and its recommendations but not in favour of paragraph 5 concerning a common Public Prosecutor' s Office for the EU, it is because we in Denmark have been afflicted in recent years by a large number of foreign criminals whom our old-fashioned judicial system and unduly lenient legislation are in no position to stop.
We have never before seen such brutality, cynicism and contempt for human life as we are now seeing in connection with drug trafficking, trafficking in women, the smuggling of human beings, terrorism, money laundering and robbery of our country' s citizens.
Since Denmark has the most indulgent legal system, criminals are flooding in on the principle of least resistance.
The majority of our politicians do not want to look reality in the face and they try to make people believe that international conventions prevent us from protecting our peaceful and decent citizens.
This EU initiative is necessary for giving an impetus to the recreation of law and order in Denmark.
We are obliged to get together with our European partners and combine our efforts at a level which gives constitutional states more power than criminals.
.
The UK Labour Members of the PES support the spirit of this Resolution, but have reservations regarding some of its content.
We do not support the inclusion of the European Public Prosecutor in this text (paragraph five).
The Resolution seeks to give such a body power over Member States' territories, which is an inappropriate response to the cooperation between nations the Report called for.
The legitimacy of such a body to override national judicial rulings would be questionable, and the judicial discretion of Member States' legal authorities should be preserved.
In addition, some parts of the text are potentially ambiguous with areas of legal confusion e.g. paragraph nine on indirect sanctions to be applied to Member States (paragraph nine) and the call to extend the powers of the European Court of Justice in its rulings over instruments decided outside the sphere of the EU.
Finally, the UK Labour Members support cooperation in criminal matters, but have reservations concerning the reference to the 'harmonisation of criminal laws' in paragraph thirteen, which suggests that Member States should standardise criminal law throughout the EU.
Whilst this may be desirable in some areas, cooperation in criminal matters should focus on information sharing, coordination of bodies with some approximation of laws where this is beneficial, but not as a general rule.
.
(EL) In the motion for a resolution in Mr Ferri's report, the real need to fight organised crime is used as a pretext to extend and mobilise the instruments of national and transnational repression and suppress any form of national sovereignty.
The motion calls for measures to abolish malfunctions in the application of the system of mutual judicial assistance, strengthen the role and extend the powers of the Court of Justice, set up a European Public Prosecutor's Office, speed up the harmonisation of the criminal legislation of the Member States and so forth.
These are institutions which cruelly violate the national sovereignty of the Member States and the basic principles which have governed judicial proceedings since the French Revolution.
And what is the purpose of all this? Ostensibly to construct a so-called "area of freedom, security and justice" as outlined in the Treaty of Amsterdam and at the Tampere Council.
Except that we should add "...for the new order of things, in the post-EMU era".
What is in fact being constructed for the people of Europe, brick by brick, is an area of "restriction, insecurity and injustice".
This is also clear from the fact that so-called "terrorism" (as understood by the authors of these texts, who have never been tempted - for obvious reasons - to define a vague legal concept before listing it as a prosecutable crime) is identified with organised crime. Using terrorism as a pretext, they hope to come down on any form of political opposition and mass grass-roots resistance to and refusal to obey their choices and to make their reactionary measures more palatable to the people.
And who exactly is talking about organised crime and terrorism? Surely massacring the people of Yugoslavia and poisoning both civilians and EU soldiers with uranium bombs is not just organised crime, but sustained organised crime?
Surely the operations which suppressed the grass-roots movements in Prague, Nice and recently in Davos and Zurich can only be described as terrorist operations? Not to mention the barbaric attacks on farmers, pensioners and the grass-roots movement in general in Greece and the other countries of the ÅU?
We agree that organised crime must be combated.
But it cannot be combated by the forces which use state instruments of suppression against the struggle of the grass-roots movement, the forces which lead imperialist organisations such as the EU and which are responsible both for the huge upsurge in crime and for the links between organised crime and political mechanisms and personalities (e.g. the KLA).
We believe that this motion is yet another addition to the arsenal of weapons needed by big business in order to suppress grass-roots rights and freedoms, that it tramples every notion of national sovereignty underfoot, that it helps to build the "Justice of the New Order" and that it is dangerous to the people of Europe, which is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against it.
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The ELDR Group has voted for the Ferri report because we want to see a more effective and coordinated fight against organised crime in the EU through developing EU capabilities complementary to national criminal justice systems.
But we opposed paragraph 5 calling for a (European) "Public Prosecutor' s office with jurisdiction over the Member States' territory as a whole" , implying that the European-level prosecutor would substitute for national prosecuting authorities.
We support an EPP working in parallel with national authorities, but not replacing them.
We accepted paragraph 11 (b) as meaning an alignment of national definitions of serious offences so that criminals cannot escape justice by exploiting loopholes, but we are clear this does not mean the harmonisation of all national justice systems.
We accepted paragraph 8 since we support a sensible rationalisation of working languages for essential cross-border cooperation between professionals such as judges and prosecutors on matters like extradition warrants.
Although we supported paragraph 9, we feel the proposal for sanctions showed up weaknesses at the heart of the purely intergovernmental procedures currently in force.
There are no means to enforce respect for agreed judicial assistance measures, as there would be if the area fell within Community competence.
. (DE) The European Parliament calls in this motion for a resolution for the Treaty on European Union to be revised in order to give the European Court of Justice powers to investigate if Member States are honouring their commitments under European legislation in this area.
That Parliament does not want to confine itself in this resolution solely to EU legislation and wants to include the instruments of the European Council is both Utopian, as things now stand, and extremely difficult to implement from a legal point of view and would be a dangerous precedent which would give rise to a great deal of confusion and legal uncertainty in the future.
The idea of imposing sanctions against Member States who are not efficient enough in complying with letters rogatory grossly contradicts the fact that many of the instruments adopted in Title VI of the Treaty on European Union are not binding.
A careless attitude towards sanctions against EU partners is a worrying development, giving rise to fears that our Europe of Law will slowly turn into a Europe of the Law of the Jungle.
Finally, I should like to point out to the rapporteur and the Members of the House that the first two main concerns listed in the explanatory statement as regards the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg no longer apply since the law passed on 8 August last year.
O' Toole report (A5-0005/2001)
Mr President, I should like to explain why the Greens were in favour of these proposed amendments.
I refer to points 11 and 13 in the explanatory statement which, in the final analysis, constitutes the basis for another, more important, explanatory statement, and the tricky points in paragraphs 7 and 12, which we have in any case supported.
Paragraph 7 expresses the wish to find a legal framework for the problems which are bound to arise on this new market.
That was in fact the main reason for this own initiative report.
So why question it?
Paragraph 12 demands, requests, calls on the Member States to consider how to apply specific VAT arrangements to publications which are downloaded.
The problem already exists and this would simply serve to completely confuse current policies.
Paragraph 12 does not in fact contradict paragraph 13, because paragraph 13 merely calls on the Member States, if necessary, to reduce or abolish any VAT rates which apply to books - especially for institutions such as libraries etc. -, i.e. not to treat publications on the new e-market any differently.
That is no contradiction.
On the contrary, it could be an important step for the future, for this new market and for books as a cultural commodity.
That is why the Greens voted in favour of it.
Mr President, I voted in favour of the document on electronic publishing, which I read with great interest, considering the reasons I could give for voting for the motion.
I remembered, Mr President, that sometimes, of an evening, when my wife and I go to bed, I read her a book, and she, hearing me read, falls asleep: obviously listening to my voice has this interesting and relaxing effect.
So this leads me to ask: "Why don't we introduce an electronic record which can read books for those who have poor sight, those who cannot read? With this reading system they too could learn, they too could read, and we would be showing solidarity with those who unfortunately have a disability, for example visual problems, who would enjoy listening to and reading many different stories."
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(PT) I voted in favour of the report because I feel it addresses an important issue in a balanced way, by highlighting the importance of promoting literary and linguistic creation, of preserving and improving Europe' s cultural and linguistic diversity, of safeguarding universal access to the written and spoken word and the deepening of knowledge and a sense of citizenship, by presenting specific measures for that purpose.
I think it is equally important that we step up the fight against functional illiteracy and that we encourage awareness campaigns among the general public promoting the importance of books and electronic publishing, given that there is a need for technological progress that will improve authenticity protection and the rights of right holders, specifically the right of authors to be informed and credited when their works are used.
We need to ensure that the e-publishing agenda is fully taken on board and that this important field can be developed in a meaningful manner alongside the traditional form of publishing, and that there is room for both.
I welcome the emphasis the document puts on linguistic and cultural diversity and the important contribution of the written word to the development of culture in the different European regions.
Seeing that there is much emphasis on linguistic and cultural diversity I trust that references in the report to 'all languages' encompasses lesser used languages.
E-publishing is especially important for books with a limited market, academic books and books in lesser-used languages are in this category.
It is therefore important that the Commission and Council take this into consideration when considering this report.
That concludes voting time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12.15 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 1 February 2001.
Agenda
The next item is the final draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday, 8 February, pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
I have received no requests for amendments to the agenda for Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday; however, Mr McMillan-Scott has asked to be allowed to speak.
Madam President, I refer to the draft regulation on European political parties.
At the last part-session in Strasbourg the Commission was going to give us a statement on that matter.
Subsequently, it was withdrawn and I understand that the Commission has now come to a view on the funding of European political parties.
This is a matter of some sensitivity, especially since there are certain parties represented in this House that might regard themselves, for some reason, as ineligible for such funding, even if they approved of the funding in the first place.
Could you ask the Commission if it would make a statement on this matter at some stage before the House?
Secondly, Madam President, while we are on Tuesday's agenda, it is worrying to me that the European Parliament is holding a debate on the Commission's work programme for 2001 but does not have a resolution on that matter.
This is especially important since there are some 200 measures contained in the Commission's work programme for 2001 which Parliament will debate, but on which it will have no resolution.
This is a bad precedent.
There should be a resolution, especially since we are supposed to be scrutinising the work of the Commission.
Finally, could I make the observation that far from being the Commission's work programme for 2001, we might rename it the work programme of the Commission, Parliament and Council.
Mr McMillan-Scott, the reason that there is no resolution tabled is because the Conference of Presidents believed that there are no grounds for one.
Madam President, I may be mistaken but I understood that the intention was indeed to have a resolution.
But first we should refer the work programme to the relevant parliamentary committees to assess it, and should then bring forward a considered resolution with the committees responsible for the various areas adding their views.
That is my understanding: there will be a resolution, but not immediately.
Madam President, this is not just a matter of Mr Cox understanding what was agreed.
In line with the fact that there is a political programme for legislature, which began belatedly last year, the Commission has presented a programme for this year and the measures appear in the annex, which do not number 200 but 485, according to my group's counting; 205 are legislative and the others are not, and of those there is a substantial number which is carried over, since they were not implemented last year.
Therefore, it is not sensible for us to table a resolution in which all these extremes are included; the procedure which we have agreed is that the relevant committees will examine the resolution in detail and, all things being equal, in April we could vote on this in full knowledge of the facts.
In relation to extending this programme to the Council, that may be an interesting suggestion for the future; but the interested parties at the moment are the Commission and Parliament.
Thank you, Mr Barón Crespo.
That, then, is the way we shall proceed.
Mr McMillan-Scott, as regards your second question, the Commission is not due to make a statement on political party funding during this part-session.
If you would like to include this item on the agenda, we could ask the Commission to make a statement on Thursday evening, for example, if you agree.
Madam President, thank you for that very helpful suggestion.
Not many of us will be here on Thursday evening, unfortunately.
It might be helpful if the Commission could take this on board and tomorrow morning, in the statement it makes on the Commission's work programme for 2001 - or the Commission and Parliament's work programme, as I like to call it - make such a statement in public.
Relating to Thursday:
President.
I have received a request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists to withdraw from the agenda the oral question to the Commission, tabled on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, regarding the Stability Plans in Ireland and France.
Madam President, it is quite understandable that Mr Barón Crespo, for whom I have great respect, should now want to amend a decision made by the Conference of Presidents.
That is totally legitimate and I would do the same on another issue.
However, I hope that he does not obtain a majority, because in this case we are not talking about an infringement of parliamentary procedures, we simply want some information from the Commission.
This does not adversely affect the normal working procedures in the relevant committee in any way.
But right now we require some information from the Commission.
Furthermore, deliberations in the Council of Ministers are continuing, and why should we not have an in-depth debate on this issue, given that we will not, after all, be making any decision? That is the point I would like everyone opposing this question to consider.
We will, after all, not be adopting a resolution, but receiving information.
What is more, and Mr Barón Crespo is very well aware of this, this was discussed in the Conference of Presidents.
Mr Wurtz contributed some ideas - and I have to say that Mr Wurtz's group and my own do not form a permanent coalition - but when we do share the same position on something, why should we not then act accordingly? We do not wish to exclude anyone, so I would therefore request that we should leave this oral question on the agenda, so that we can duly discuss this here.
Madam President, I want to put a question on the issue of our order of business, so I am not expressing a view for or against.
This is the question - both parliamentary and political - but for a different reason, to the President of the Socialist Group.
If the Commission is setting a precedent and, more to the point, if the Council sets a precedent this week, should we not be told, at the earliest date and when the House is as full as possible, of the precedent and the response of the House.
Is it really ideal, if we are setting precedents, that the European Parliament should contemplate a debate at 5.30 p.m. on a Thursday, which if it is anything like the 5.30 p.m. debate I attended on the Thursday of the January part-session, is not to be recommended as a time for setting precedents.
So, Madam President, can we invite the Commission and indeed the Council to express themselves in this House earlier in the week, so that we can treat this properly? My fear is that Thursday evening is not the optimum time to try to do it.
Madam President, I would very much like to say that Mr Poettering' s comments about myself could be rather misleading.
I would, therefore, like to clarify matters.
I do not understand what underlying motives Mr Poettering or Mr von Wogau have in submitting this request. I myself shall raise another issue.
I believe that it is basically the right time to hold this debate, as it is the first time that the Commission will use the instrument bestowed upon it by the Treaties to send a recommendation, a sort of political sanction, to a Member State by referring to the requirements set out in the Stability and Growth Pact.
In other words, we are criticising Ireland extremely severely and France slightly less severely for having used some of the fruits of their growth to tackle social issues more, and even too much.
I believe that this is a political issue that warrants discussion.
Basically, we did not insist on a resolution at the close of this debate, so that the relevant bodies set up for this purpose could then be left to do what they have to do, but I do believe that a frank exchange of views on this issue is needed at this time.
I have some information for Mr Cox.
The Commissioner in charge, Mr Solbes Mira, has made himself available so that he can be present on Thursday afternoon at 5.30 p.m. in Strasbourg.
I do not doubt for a moment that Members will also make sure they are present, should the question be upheld, of course.
I shall now give Mrs Randzio-Plath the floor as the Rules of Procedure state that we must hear another speaker against the speaker of the group who tabled the request, and then we shall take the vote.
Madam President, as committee Chair I do not simply wish to point out that we actually have a report which enables us to carry out a careful analysis of the stability and convergence programmes; this work is not only very substantial but also needs to be done very conscientiously, because what is really at stake is whether we as Member States of the European Union adhere to the Maastricht criteria, both before joining the single currency and, above all, after doing so, as there are already 12 Member States in the eurozone now.
This is an extremely demanding process, which really calls for very careful political judgment.
That is why, Mr Poettering, we do indeed need to have all the information, but the information that we receive is chiefly contained in written reports, and I believe that this House would be well advised to entrust this work to the relevant specialist committee in the first place.
I would like to recall the difficulties we had in agreeing the Stability and Growth Pact here at all, and that there was a big question mark hanging over whether investment in education should be added to the budget deficit.
At that point, this was questioned not only by Members of the PSE Group, but also by Members of the PPE-DE Group.
That is why I really urge that we should on no account hold a debate, which will happen of necessity if the question remains on the agenda, but that this should instead be done in committee.
Mr Solbes can help us in the committee, we can deliberate on this matter and that will allow us to reach a balanced and appropriate decision in the plenary session on the basis of the report by our rapporteur.
I shall now put to the vote the request to withdraw this item from the agenda.
(Parliament rejected the request)
The agendas for the current part-session and the following part-session at Brussels are thus adopted and we can now, therefore, begin to discuss the procedural motions.
Madam President, I just wanted to respond to the insinuation from Mr Liese that Mrs Borst does not want to enter into a discussion about euthanasia.
That is completely untrue.
The Dutch Government and, for that matter, all my Dutch colleagues here are willing to enter into an open, honest debate about the facts at any time, but not about insinuations and remarks that are rather near the knuckle.
We will give you the information.
I also understand that the Dutch Government is willing to receive all Members of the European Parliament who should like to obtain information or should like to enter into a discussion in order to discuss matters in the Netherlands, but Mrs Borst's agenda unfortunately does not permit her to be here this week.
Madam President, I should like to dispute the fact that Mr Liese, whom we all know, would insinuate something.
A hearing has indeed been organised by a number of groups and, also in line with the wishes of a number of groups, Mrs Borst was invited to explain the precise legal situation.
If Mrs Borst cannot accept an invitation then naturally you must see whether she can come another time.
Then there is no question of insinuations.
In any case, I think it is extremely useful and necessary that the Dutch minister for health comes to provide clarification here before the Members of the European Parliament as well, because in our group, and in other groups too, there is exceptionally sincere concern about the Dutch euthanasia legislation concerned.
Madam President, I should like to say that I thought it was sensible of the Group of the Europe People's Party not to speak about the complex and difficult and heavily laden issue of euthanasia this coming Thursday as an urgent matter.
In my country, in the Netherlands, we have had a societal discussion for about 20 years, a very good, societal and balanced discussion and, of course, we can never come to a conclusion on a Thursday afternoon in such a small debate, with one minute of allotted speaking time.
I think that when it comes to these matters we...
And there is another thing.
We are always talking about subsidiarity here in this House.
An issue of national criminal law is under discussion here, which has been decided by the Dutch Parliament.
I think that we must keep a close eye on the term subsidiarity here in this House, too.
Madam President, like Mr Wiebenga, I am amazed that the Christian Democrat/Conservative Group thinks that euthanasia laws in Member States are an appropriate matter to raise at European level.
In the United Kingdom, Conservatives have been very quick to condemn European human rights guarantees as an outrageous interference in national affairs and as a breach of subsidiarity.
We will no doubt hear a great deal from them on that theme in the next few weeks and months in the run-up to a British general election.
It is quite extraordinary that they have supported raising the matter of euthanasia in a Member State at European level, and I note this for the forthcoming election campaign.
Madam President, this issue has everything to do with subsidiarity, it has been said.
It is indeed up to countries themselves to pass laws.
But the question here is whether the Euthanasia Act conflicts with European and international Treaties.
This is a serious concern that we have and it is our responsibility to discuss this issue as well as the cross-border effects that it has.
So, apart from the subsidiarity which each of us respects, it is about that.
Anyway, I can read to Mrs van der Laan what Mrs Borst has written back to Mr Liese because I have a copy.
She writes that she seriously considered coming but her conclusion is that it would not be the right decision for the minister for public health to come and speak to us.
That surprised us. It surprised us that she does not think that Parliament is the right place to discuss this issue.
Madam President, very briefly in reply to Baroness Ludford's speech on the question of whether or not there should be a debate on euthanasia, I think it is entirely proper that Parliament should debate euthanasia.
I would personally recommend that there be no vote at the end of such a debate, and indeed my own delegation would expect a free vote because it is a matter of conscience.
Just for the record, I wish to make it clear that my delegation has taken no position on this matter in the EPP Group.
Mind you, Baroness Ludford's speech suggests to me that there might be some form of political euthanasia which I would support.
Madam President, it is obvious that we all face questions of life and death which we are also possibly confronted with in our personal life and in our family, that we wrestle with the question of what a dignified death is, what society's responsibility is.
So at the very least we should have the courage to respect each other: both parties with their different opinions base these on ethical principles.
There is not one party here that has the exclusive right to ethical principles and nor is there one party which can address the other, the Liberals, the Greens and the Socialists, under the heading of human rights violations.
If we want to have a serious debate, an open debate - and that is what we want - then it is unrelated to subsidiarity because that is a separate issue.
With regard to content, it is a matter of showing respect for something which involves everyone very deeply.
The facts as they were presented by the PPE-DE Group in recent weeks, the tone in which they were presented and the heading under which they were described, i.e. human rights violations, have certainly not promoted this respect.
It is a false start.
If Mr Liese wants to organise a debate he can, but then he must not do so from one position, he must invite people to conduct a public debate together.
We are willing to do so, but not to take part in a vulgar party-political attack on something that is of great importance in Dutch and Belgian society and which is treated very fundamentally as such with different views, with respect for each other's position but in a manner in which you could say that the whole of society has proceeded very carefully.
So I should also like to enter into this debate with Members who hold a different opinion to mine.
I was not intending to take the floor, but having heard many of the Dutch Members give their opinion on the problem of euthanasia, I should like to make a brief point as, at the Conference of Presidents, I spoke on behalf of my group to oppose the debate. This is not because I am against a debate on euthanasia - and my group is certainly not opposed to a debate on this - but we did not believe that it was a good idea to hold such a debate under the urgent procedure, and to rush through it, not to mention the risk of interfering in a national debate.
We are in favour of a debate, but a debate that is well-organised and which gives us the opportunity to hear from a wide range of moral authorities as well as experts, since we believe that this is a crucial ethical debate.
I also believe that the debate is taking place in other European Union Member States as well as in the Netherlands.
It takes a great deal of time and it has not yet been resolved, following sometimes several months of discussions.
In conclusion, we believe that if such a debate is to be held in Parliament, it must be organised in a serious and efficient manner.
Madam President, first of all I fully support the debate on euthanasia in this Parliament.
But I would like to take the opportunity to inform you of the very deep concern among many of my constituents in Ireland, that a European Commissioner, in partnership with a Swedish minister, spoke on behalf of the European Union in condemning the new American administration's actions in ending funding to family planning organisations that provide abortion in less developed countries.
On a point of subsidiarity, we do not have legalised abortion in Ireland and we do not support the use of tax-payers' money in providing abortions; but neither does the European Union.
In fact, within this institution we have voted that abortion should never be used as a means of family planning and that it never should be funded for that purpose.
The Cairo Conference and the Beijing Women's Conference both stated the same thing.
I would like to ask why a Commissioner would presume to speak in this manner in direct conflict with agreements that have already been signed and why she should presume to overstep subsidiarity in speaking on behalf of my country.
Madam President, since the plenary session held in Parliament a few weeks ago, the bodies of 12 immigrants from African countries have appeared on the Spanish coast, specifically in Andalusia.
This is a further occurrence of something that has been happening for some time, every week and every month, and young people and even pregnant women continue to die.
I could send you photos which have appeared in the Spanish press so that you could see how serious this situation, this tragedy, really is.
Years ago - and with this I shall end, Madam President - we in Europe believed very hypocritically that these unfortunate events only happened on the Rio Grande, which separates Mexico from the United States; these days they are happening on the Spanish coast and nobody is doing anything about it.
I believe that this Parliament should put this issue to the Spanish Government and should acknowledge that this is a European problem.
It is unacceptable to turn a blind eye to this grave problem.
Madam President, very briefly and in relation to Mr Nogueira's speech, in which he rightly reminded this House of the human tragedy which is taking place on Spain's southern frontier, with regard to which we all feel involved and profoundly moved, I would like to add that the Spanish Government, by means of its coastguard service, the Civil Guard helicopter service, civil defence units and every type of organisation, governmental and non-governmental, participates actively, continuously, permanently, often exhaustively, and endangering the safety and lives of those involved, in lifesaving and in attending to these shipwrecks.
Therefore, I would like to add to what Mr Nogueira has said by stressing that the Spanish authorities and Spanish society are doing everything within our power to deal with this terrible human problem.
Madam President, I have a message for you concerning my colleague Mrs Lucas.
She was arrested today at 9.30 a.m. while she was in Scotland taking part in a demonstration against a nuclear weapons base.
She said she was taking part because recently such weapons of mass destruction have on many occasions been deemed to be against international law.
It should not be able to happen that a Member of the European Parliament is arrested en route to a parliamentary sitting and we request that you take action in this matter.
In fact, a Member' s immunity from arrest may only be waived after Parliament has debated the matter, and if that were to be the case now Parliament, for the first time, would have to discuss whether nuclear weapons are in violation of international law.
Mrs Hautala, I can assure you that we shall monitor Mrs Lucas' situation very closely.
Madam President, I rise following Mrs Hautala's statement about Mrs Lucas being imprisoned on her way to the part-session here today.
It seems strange to me that she was imprisoned on her way here because she represents the South East of England and was arrested five or six hundred miles further north.
Maybe, instead of telling the UK Government whom they can arrest and why, the parliamentary authorities could send her a map of the UK and some advice from our travel services as well.
Madam President, being consistent and on the same matter I wish to point out that the British Government is absolutely even-handed in its arrest policy.
It also arrested a couple of members of the House of Commons, a few members of the Scottish Executive and various others who were actually breaking the law, which is generally the reason you get arrested in the United Kingdom.
We were according equal rights to Euro-parliamentarians by arresting them along with all the others.
May they be kept locked up for a suitable period of time to deter them from being so stupid in the future!
Madam President, I know that this is not provided for in the rules, but I feel I have a moral duty, especially after Mr Balfe's speech, to express my support with Mrs Lucas' action.
Mrs Lucas may have done something illegal but I feel that there is a right to disobedience, especially since she was not just messing around but she had gone to protest against nuclear weapons, which are a hazard and a danger to us all.
I would like to thank Mrs Lucas and the other women who have been arrested and express my solidarity with them.
Madam President, first of all I should like to thank you very much because the aeroplane from Amsterdam to Strasbourg flew this morning and on time as well.
I think that your intervention with regard to the French Government was fantastic.
Thank you very much.
But I am taking the floor about another matter.
I put questions to the European Commission on 10 November about favouring public broadcasts regarding the auction of radio frequencies in the Netherlands.
Three months have passed since then.
I have still not had a reply to these questions.
Now this is a very sensitive issue, so I understand that it is very difficult for Mr Monti to reply to it, but the auction is taking place this summer.
I should very much like an answer to these questions either this week or next week.
I have already informed the competent services of this but nothing has happened yet.
Perhaps you could do something for me.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I would very much like to help you, but I am aware that the Commission has taken note of your comments, which should certainly bring about positive results.
Madam President, I should also like to say that the Portuguese Members who flew here today on the Lisbon-Frankfurt flight had to wait 45 minutes for a vehicle, sent from the Parliament in Strasbourg, to come and pick them up and then had to wait another forty minutes - together with our Italian colleagues, who were already there and who had been waiting for two hours - to be taken to Strasbourg.
It is totally unacceptable that Members of the European Parliament should travel less comfortably than chickens or pigs, which travel in accordance with European regulations.
Furthermore, I also wish to say that, according to the information given by Mr Moscovici to my head of delegation, there will be direct flights from Lisbon to Strasbourg starting in April, but according to information from Air France itself in Lisbon, this is not the case.
I should like to ask who is the higher flier, a member of the French Government or the French national airline?
We shall look into this matter very carefully.
Madam President, while we are thanking Air France for the fact that the aircraft flew between Amsterdam and Strasbourg, I would point out that this was probably because the flight between Copenhagen and Strasbourg was cancelled.
On this occasion, it was therefore a case of one man' s loss being another man' s gain.
I would also ask you to consider the possibility that Air France might not have enough aircraft, given that the cancellation was due to technical reasons.
I think I can safely inform you that there will be some tangible improvements over the next few weeks.
Madam President, I should very briefly like to welcome a new Member of the European Parliament, Yiannis Patakis, who comes from the same town as I do. May I join everyone else in welcoming him and wishing him every success in his work.
Madam President, I would be grateful for your attention.
There are 30 people sitting up here.
But if someone on this side asks for the floor, it is rare that any notice is taken.
Mrs Flemming asked to speak right at the beginning.
I would simply like to ask you to look at the right-hand side of the House as well when requests to speak are being made.
Mrs Schleicher, we take note of requests from all sides of the Chamber.
You may be unaware that procedural motions are now tabled after the agenda has been adopted.
I think I am right in saying that this rule was received very favourably.
It is something that many Members had requested and when I proposed it, I believe that it met with the approval of the majority of the House.
Procedural motions, therefore, are now tabled after the agenda has been adopted and this is what we are currently doing.
Furthermore, it has not escaped your notice that few of the speeches were genuine procedural motions. However, as I am unable to determine this before we begin, I must allow Members to speak freely.
Madam President, I should like to inform both you and the House that a group representing the relatives of people who disappeared without trace in Cyprus visited Brussels last week.
They met the political groups and raised the question of their lost relatives for the umpteenth time, but purely from a humanitarian point of view.
Twenty-seven years after 1974, there is still a huge number of cases - over 1000 - of people whose fate is still unknown.
Their relatives have every right to know what became of their loved ones.
Efforts to find out, including under the auspices of the United Nations Organisation, have proven futile and I should like to raise the question of the European Parliament's possibly doing something to help.
Madam President, would you, as President of our Parliament, consider sending a message of congratulations to Ellen MacArthur, my constituent from Derbyshire who came second in the round the world yacht race? I know that the race was won by a compatriot of yours - a Frenchman.
He was gallant and kind in his congratulations.
If you, on our behalf, could congratulate them both, I and many others would be very grateful.
Request for waiver of Mr Ribeiro e Castro's immunity
The next item is the report (A5-0038/2001) by Mr Zimeray, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the request for the waiver of Mr Ribeiro e Castro' s immunity.
, deputising for the rapporteur.
(ES) Madam President, Mr Ribeiro e Castro has been accused of involvement in a crime of slander, a crime punishable under the Portuguese Penal Code of 1982 and under Law No 58 of 1990.
The origin of this case is a report on the commercial practices of a private employment agency, broadcast on 16 February 1995 by TVI, Televisão Independente S.A., of which Mr Ribeiro e Castro is director of programmes.
During the programme it was stated that the employment agency did not offer serious jobs and charged excessive commissions for searching for jobs, which, furthermore, were very unpromising.
The agency brought proceedings against Mr Ribeiro e Castro, and against other employees of TVI, seeking compensation for the damage done to its reputation.
Parliamentary immunity is not a privilege designed to benefit individual Members of the European Parliament, but a guarantee of the independence of Parliament and its Members with regard to other powers.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market considers that the waiver of parliamentary immunity by the Member does not have legal effects.
The alleged offence took place in February 1995, the request was made in May 2000 and the mandate of Mr Ribeiro e Castro did not begin until 17 November 1999, when he succeeded Mr Paolo Portas.
Much time has elapsed between the alleged offence and the request being presented; this is an offence which affects freedom of expression, in relation to which this Parliament has always recognised immunity, and the fact that Mr Ribeiro e Castro has asked for a waiver of his immunity does not affect this decision.
Consequently, the Committee on Legal Affairs, in accordance with Rules 6(4) and 6(6) of the Rules of Procedure, having examined the reasons for and against the waiver of immunity, recommends that the European Parliament does not waive the immunity of Mr Ribeiro e Castro.
Mr President, I am surprised that Members can joke or argue about the fact that a Member of Parliament has been arrested on European Union soil. It would appear to be a very serious incident which, moreover, is linked precisely to matters we have been discussing for some time in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
To get to the point, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market proposes not to waive the parliamentary immunity of Mr Ribeiro e Castro.
This proposal - and this is what I would like Members to consider - is based on the contents of the Treaties and on certain well-established principles.
Firstly, immunity is a guarantee of the independence of the European Parliament and its Members in relation to all other authorities; secondly, relinquishment of parliamentary immunity by the Member concerned has no legal effect; thirdly, immunity is valid throughout all sessions, including while Members are travelling to and from the place of meeting of the European Parliament; fourthly, the immunity of Members of the European Parliament is independent of national parliamentary procedures, even if the law of the State of origin is applied; fifthly, the political aspect of the case, the possibility of fumus persecutionis, any political motives behind the request for waiver, the amount of time that has elapsed between the alleged facts and the request for waiver and the seriousness of the charge are always taken into consideration; sixthly, sometimes the punishment for the alleged facts differs from State to State; seventhly, the aim is certainly to ensure equal treatment for all Members of different nationalities.
On the basis of these principles, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market calls upon the House to adopt the Zimeray report.
However, Mr President, I must take this opportunity to stress two points, which, I repeat, it is the duty of Parliament and all its Members to consider fully.
The provisions of Articles 9 and 10 refer to the beginning of the European Community, when the Members of this Parliament were members of national parliaments, and, in that context, the reference to national immunities is clear.
However, we have to be aware that, nowadays, the European Parliament plays a major role in the balance between the institutions, and I feel that it is extremely important to make the European Parliament fully independent of the Member States.
Parliament must always be informed of any proceedings to be initiated against its Members, and if the judicial authority of the place where the alleged facts have taken place does not inform Parliament then it is the responsibility of the Members to do so directly, for it is Parliament which has to decide which provisions should apply, as, moreover, is the case in some European countries.
Mr President, I trust that I shall not have to apply for political asylum in a country which is not my own at any point in the future, but, above all, I feel that the statement delivered in the Chamber on the Member who has been arrested in Scotland should be deemed to be clear notification by a competent authority.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Safe loading and unloading of bulk carriers
The next item is the report A5­0037/2001 by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive establishing requirements and harmonised procedures for the safe loading and unloading of bulk carriers [COM(2000) 179 - C5­0254/2000 - 2000/0121(COD)].
Mr President, the sinking of the oil tanker Erika off the French coast approximately one year ago has rightly exercised our minds a great deal.
Less in the public and the political spotlight is another form of sea transport, namely, the transport of bulk goods, in particular, ores and coal.
The consequences of the sinking of a ship in this category are actually less in terms of pollution, but the number of crew members who die as a result is considerably higher.
Let us take a closer look at accidents involving bulk carriers: 146 accidents in the last ten years, in which 780 seamen drowned.
Of the bulk carriers, 69% were more than fifteen years old.
Two main reasons for these accidents are indicated. Firstly, the lack of expertise of the crew and secondly, the physical condition of the ship.
In the majority of cases, a fault in the hull of bulk carriers is involved, caused by damage resulting from incorrect loading or unloading.
This problem is recognised at an international level.
The International Maritime Organisation, the IMO, issued the Bulk Loading and Unloading Code, the BLU Code.
This contains tasks both on ship and shore which are to be carried out before, during and after loading and unloading.
The IMO urges all participating countries to declare the BLU Code applicable to the terminals in their country.
With the proposed directive, the Commission, on behalf of the Member States, wants to respond to this call.
It intends to incorporate the BLU Code, with a few amendments, into Community legislation.
The main points are firstly, the appointment of a terminal representative, secondly, the drawing up of a loading and unloading plan and thirdly, the right of intervention by the competent authorities in the event of a disagreement between ship and shore.
Along with this, as an equivalent of the so-called "ISM Code" for ships - that is, a quality management system - the Commission also proposes to make a quality management system obligatory for the terminals.
The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism thinks this proposal by the Commission is a step in the right direction.
It will not prevent all accidents, seeing that fatal damage often arises outside the European Union.
Nevertheless, it gives an impetus to the sector to proceed safely and cautiously and thus to prevent unnecessary damage.
Precisely because the problem, like the sector, is of a global nature, an international solution is of great importance.
We therefore support the incorporation of the BLU Code into Community legislation.
It is important that the text of the directive adheres as closely as possible to the BLU Code in order to prevent distortion of the competition between countries inside and outside the European Union.
In spite of our endorsement of the Commission's proposal, a number of improvements need to be made to this proposal.
First of all, I should like to highlight the need to guarantee the safety of the crew, in view of the large number of casualties mentioned.
Emphasis on that point in a few places in the text is in order.
A second point: the captain bears many responsibilities.
It is also logical then that he is fully informed and that in the event of emergency repairs, his judgment forms the basis for the decision as to whether or not the ship should put to sea.
For the rest, it is also important that classification societies receive reports about damage to bulk carriers, seeing that these bureaux often have to form their opinion about the condition of a ship.
They can only do so if they have sufficient information at their disposal.
Thirdly, the role of the competent authority which is informed of or verifies irregularities during loading or unloading.
It must be obliged to interrupt the procedure in order to guarantee the safety of the ship and crew.
Fourthly: it is common knowledge that the capacity of the port State control, or PSC, in the Member States is inadequate.
In this directive, the PSC authorities are at risk of being given extra tasks.
For this reason, the Commission must see to it that these tasks are actually carried out.
Finally, a few more observations about Amendments Nos 14, 13 and 16.
We have already seen that we must adhere as closely as possible to the text of the BLU Code in order to counteract distortion of competition and obscurities.
Amendment No 14 does not tie in with this, however, and I therefore cannot support it.
The necessary disquiet has arisen over Amendment No 13.
The voyage data recorder is an instrument for recording travel data.
Information about loading and unloading is not recorded on it.
Furthermore, in the IMO, agreements have already been reached about the obligatory use of a voyage data recorder in bulk carriers.
The effect of this can be found in the Erika II package.
Apart from this, if there is a voyage data recorder on board a ship, then it is the responsibility of the port State control to inspect it and not that of the terminal operator.
The latter does not have the knowledge for this.
In brief, you should understand that I cannot support Amendment No 13 either.
I hope that my fellow Members see the logic of this.
I am quite unable to support Amendment No 16 tabled by my fellow Members Mr Simpson and Mr Fava.
It imposes requirements on ships from outside the European Union, which have not been internationally agreed.
That is not legally possible.
Anyway, work is being done on this. I hope that reassures those making the submission.
Mr President, if we accept this report, in a slightly amended form, I am of the opinion that we will have considerably improved the guarantees for the safety of bulk carriers and their crew.
Mr President, allow me to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr van Dam, on an excellent report and also expressing my gratitude to the Commission for having made a genuinely serious attempt to get to grips with this important issue.
In recent years, the Commission has tabled a number of proposals for increasing maritime safety in various ways, and this as a result of a number of accidents affecting both people and the environment.
The complaint may be made, as it has by myself in various connections, that the EU often reacts after the event instead of taking vigorous action beforehand, but it is good, nonetheless, that a real effort is now being made.
Erika I has been succeeded by Erika II, and there is presumably more to come.
During the next few months of the session, Parliament will have a number of reports on which to adopt positions in this area.
In this report, we are dealing with safety in connection with the loading and unloading of bulk carriers.
There is no doubt that bulk carriers in particular have been especially badly affected by accidents, at least during the last decade.
There are a great many reports and a good deal of statistical information to indicate this - a fact which the rapporteur in particular has pointed out.
A good half of the vessels that have foundered have done so as a result of accidents involving the hull.
Lack of maintenance is a cause of accidents of this type, but many accidents also occur in connection with loading and unloading.
Over the last decade, this has been observed by the UN' s maritime body, the IMO.
A special report has called upon Member States, classification societies and shipping companies to be alert to errors in loading and unloading.
A number of interim measures have been proposed, for example.
It is important to take an overall view of this problem.
There is an explosive growth in the number of shipments.
More and more of the traffic comes from Eastern and Central Europe or from third countries.
This means that the way in which loads are secured is going to become one of the most important issues of all for us.
We are concerned here not only with bulk carriers but also with other forms of shipping and other forms of transport.
The fact that loads are not always adequately secured is now a growing problem for shipping and for road and rail transport.
The Commission ought therefore to come back with proposals as to how these problems might be solved.
Since this is not only, or even mainly, a problem for the EU but is a global issue, it is also important for the Commission to pursue issues of this kind further within the IMO or in other international contexts.
I should be grateful if the Commissioner could say something about the initiatives the Commission intends to go on taking on this important matter.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to express our almost total approval both of the Commission's choice of legislative instrument, a directive, and of the content of the proposal.
The issue under consideration has already been analysed by international organisations: principles and rules have already been set in place for incisive action, aimed at preventing the very frequent accidents and the casualties sadly recorded, as both the rapporteur and Mr Stenmarck said.
However, these provisions are not binding, as the Commission has reminded us, and this is the point.
This is why we must intervene at European level with legislation which is based on the provisions and makes them binding for all the Member States.
When drawing up European legislation to complement international legislation, the Commission rightly consults all the interested parties, particularly the authorities of the port State, and focuses duly on the prevention of accidents during the delicate operations of handling the cargoes and the issue of repairs.
The amendments adopted in Committee take the right approach, stressing certain points: firstly the obligation, rather than the capacity of the competent authorities, to block the loading and unloading operations whenever the safety of the ships is endangered. Furthermore, in the event of damage which is serious enough to jeopardise the safety and seaworthiness of the ship, it is now clear that the decision on whether or not repair is necessary is to be taken by the port State control authorities.
However, with regard to the crew and, in particular, the huge problems arising from the low level of training of the crew even today, I propose, on behalf of my group, that the amendment tabled by Mr Simpson and Mr Fava should be altered to replace the word "qualification" with the word "experience".
Lastly, it is important that this legislation enters into force as soon as possible and that the Member States make every endeavour to ensure that it is implemented effectively.
Indeed, even though there is European or international legislation in this area, the Member States fail to apply it properly.
We therefore support the Commission's call for the Member States to apply these provisions as of 1 January 2003.
Mr President, I would also like to thank my fellow Member, Mr van Dam for his report.
We support the proposal of the Commission.
International regulations do indeed exist, a kind of voluntary agreement, but they appear either not to be complied with or are incompletely complied with.
If we are considering safety in shipping, then we can see that a striking number of accidents occur involving bulk carriers.
So we must do something about it.
We therefore support the report compiled by our fellow Member, Mr van Dam.
My group has two observations to make.
We will not support the proposal on the black box that is made in Amendment No 13.
What is involved here is the loading and unloading of ships.
It does not involve ships that are sailing.
The problem of the black box is therefore out of place here and belongs, rather, in the Erika II package, where it will be dealt with in the place where it should be dealt with.
Secondly, I have tabled an amendment in relation to Article 8.
We have rightly changed the right to stop a loading or unloading operation into an obligation.
I think that is a good thing.
Also the Member State determines who is authorised to do this.
I think that is also a good thing.
But when a port authority is authorised, it may be that a port authority also has a commercial interest in the loading and unloading of ships and then a conflict of interests may arise and we think that that is not a good thing.
That is why in a number of cases we feel that a Member State must also be able to assign control to the authorities that are in charge of port State control.
Apart from these two points, we are able to support the proposals in general.
Safety at sea is a very important issue.
We must invest in it.
It struck me, Mr van Dam, that you said that people must be invested in too, both people who exercise control ashore, the port State control and other types of control, and the people on the ships who have to know their job, because I think that that is an important element in the promotion of safety at sea.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr van Dam, I think it is an excellent report.
I think that the Commission has done its work well too.
Against the background of the type of accident that we know about from the Erika, but particularly against the background of the knowledge that we have now acquired that there are 8000 ships that do not comply with standards and are actually sailing on our seas in a manner and with a risk of accidents that are not favourable.
It has all been said before. One hundred and forty-six ships have gone to the bottom in ten years.
That means 780 deaths. That also means that in large areas of the sea, the environment may become polluted.
Of the 146 accidents - and it has all been said by a number of others before - one third can be traced back to problems with the hull and one third to navigation problems.
We do not need to explore the whole problem of navigation now.
We have already done that before, but the problems with the hull worry me in particular.
In the knowledge that a captain, together with the terminal operator, has to make a loading and unloading plan which must be put into effect and also monitored, we concur with the consideration not to include the so-called voyage data recorder in this amendment.
However, we really would like to give the Commission something to consider, because anyone who has ever been round those terminals, iron ore terminals and coal and steel terminals, in a number of ports in Europe will have seen what goes on there.
Not only are cargoes dumped in the terminals but mechanical shovels are used as well and mechanical shovels can cause damage.
In my opinion, this report provides a solution to this by specifying who must do what.
This does not quite solve the whole problem of training though.
However, what is not reported here is that part of the voyage comprises loading and unloading itself.
The information about loading and unloading, whether twisting or torsion occurs in a ship, is not reported.
In view of the fact that it is mainly ships of 15 years and over - just remember the discussion which we had about oil tankers and in which we ascertained that age is not always an indicator - that cause the majority of problems which result in these disasters, I should like to point out to the Commission that what goes on must be recorded in some way.
Finally, it can be said that we agree with the manner in which the other problems in the report have been resolved, matters concerning ISO quality management and, in particular, Community law too, into which a number of the BLU Code's sections have now been incorporated.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr van Dam and the whole of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism for the work they have carried out on this directive.
As the rapporteur has pointed out, the directive is intended to incorporate into Community law the so-called BLU-code agreement, that is the code of practice for the safe loading and unloading of bulk carriers, which is already applied within the scope of the International Maritime Organisation, but which will not be mandatory until it is incorporated into Community law.
On that basis, I would like to point out that we can accept the majority of the amendments proposed, both by the rapporteur and by the different groups in general.
We accept Amendments Nos 2, 5, 8, 10 and 15 in their entirety, and we accept Amendments Nos 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12 in principle, but we will have to revise the terms in which they are incorporated.
However, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 4, 13, 14 and 16 for reasons which I will explain.
Firstly, because, according to Amendment No 4, the competent authority will have to have experience in the loading and unloading of bulk carriers.
We cannot accept this, if we take account of the principle of subsidiarity.
It is not appropriate to interfere in the responsibilities of the Member States, which must have sufficient room for manoeuvre to create the competent authority which they deem to be most suitable, in order to guarantee the correct application of the directive and in order to carry out the role of arbitrator between the master of the ship and the terminal representative in the event of disputes.
We reject Amendment No 13 because it intends to assign the representative of the terminal the task of checking that standards for the installation of the black box or voyage data recorder are complied with.
Ladies and gentlemen, the inclusion of this requirement in the directive is superfluous, since the same provision is included in two other, more general proposals for legislation in the field of marine safety. I am referring specifically to the proposal for a directive on control of the port State, in the Erika I package, and the proposal for a directive on the Community system for monitoring, control and information on marine traffic which appears in the Erika II package.
Above all, by means of this latest proposal, we are going to guarantee the incorporation of black boxes in all Community ships.
This will happen in different stages, but it will eventually apply to all ships.
By way of clarification, the intention is that black boxes will be incorporated in new goods ships as from 1 July 2002; and that for existing goods ships, in the case of those of 20 000 tonnes gross or more, this will apply from 1 January 2007 and for those of between 3 000 and 20 000 tonnes, from 1 January 2008.
Amendment No 14, which refers to an element of one of the technical annexes, contravenes the BLU Code, the code of practice for the safety of loading and unloading of bulk carriers, and the principles of the directive with regard to the shared responsibility of the master of the ship and the terminal representative, in relation to certain aspects of safety in the interaction between the ship and the coast.
Lastly, we cannot accept Amendment No 16 which seeks to lay down qualifications for crews which are not included in the STCW Convention (International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers), because it would discriminate against Community crews.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will end by once again thanking the rapporteur, Mr van Dam, and the whole of the committee, for their work.
This is another of the initiatives presented during last year by the Commission in order to step up the demands and requirements for marine safety, which will enable us, if not to prevent all marine disasters, because that would be difficult, since there is always the possibility of uncontrollable causes, at least to enormously restrict the risks.
As has been pointed out, over the last ten years more than 780 people have been lost in accidents involving bulk carriers within Community territory.
We believe that that is something that we cannot sit back and accept when measures can be adopted to guarantee the safety of crew members' lives.
We are not talking here only about the problem of marine pollution, which we mentioned, for example, in relation to double hull oil tankers; we are talking about something which goes much further, that is, the safety of the crews on Community ships and the ships which visit our shores.
Furthermore, ladies and gentlemen, we are once again combating unfair competition from ships that are sometimes sub-standard or which show little concern for checking and monitoring the whole issue of ship safety. We also have to take account of the way in which bulk carriers are loaded and unloaded.
I believe that, with all these measures, the safety package is well focused within the Community sphere, and we can view 2000, in a way, as having been the year of marine safety, from the point of view of the maritime sector.
The other day we presented in writing the measures on documentation in the coastal shipping sector and I hope that tomorrow the Commission will give the green light to the ports package.
Ladies and gentlemen, during 2001 we are going to continue working in the maritime sphere in order to give it all the impetus, dynamism and scope it needs to absorb some of the demand for transport and to be fully integrated into an intermodal transport system which is more rational and more respectful of the environment.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Maritime safety and prevention of pollution from ships
The next item is the report (A5­0031/2001), by Mr Bakopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation concerning the Committee on Safe Seas and amending the Regulations on maritime safety and the prevention of pollution from ships [COM(2000) 489 - C5­0475/2000 - 2000/0236(COD)] and on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending the directives on maritime safety and the prevention of pollution from ships [COM(2000) 489 - C5­0476/2000 - 2000/0237(COD)].
Mr President, maritime safety and the prevention of pollution from ships are, unfortunately, highly topical issues.
A series of accidents has monopolised our attention recently, many lives have been lost and the environmental impact has been disastrous.
The European Union currently has numerous directives and regulations on related matters at its disposal.
At the same time, however, the European Union has to monitor and react to legislation introduced by international organisations and, more to the point, it has to do so instantly, so that the Member States do not appear to be shirking their international obligations.
Consequently, the European Union needs rationally organised and centralised powers for maritime safety policy.
That is why the European Commission has submitted this communication, which contains two proposals: one for a regulation and one for a directive.
The purpose of the proposal for a regulation is to replace all the existing committees dealing with safety at sea and the prevention of pollution from ships with a single Committee on Safe Seas.
All other existing committees dealing with related matters will be disbanded.
The purpose of this committee is to facilitate the implementation of amendments to the relevant international conventions by the Member States.
It is also important to note that the new Committee on Safe Seas will operate in accordance with the provisions of the regulatory procedure in Council Decision 1999/468.
As you all know, this procedure makes provision for and safeguards the powers of both the European Parliament and the Member States.
At the same time, however, the European Commission has opted for a procedure which ensures that it has the right to decide whether an international amendment to the regulations raises or lowers maritime safety standards.
In summary, the procedure which it has opted for in order to achieve this basic objective is as follows: the Member States implement the most recent provisions of international conventions, except for those expressly referred to and incorporated in a Community act, which are dealt with directly by the European Commission, which either refers them for exclusion to the Committee on Safe Seas or does not refer them, in which case they apply automatically.
In other words, they are only referred to the Committee on Safe Seas if the Commission considers that incorporating an amendment to an international convention into a Community act would lower maritime safety standards in the European Union.
This is the substance of Article 4, the basic article of the proposal for a regulation.
Finally, the purpose of the proposal for a directive is to amend existing directives in order to incorporate the Committee on Safe Seas.
This obviously needs to be done. The European Commission has presented the right proposal in an attempt at rational organisation and enhanced supervision of both Community and international law on maritime safety and the prevention of pollution.
The small number of amendments aim to clarify the text and hence to safeguard Parliament's rights to take part in the regulatory procedure.
Finally, I should like to thank the members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism for their highly constructive comments and unanimous support for my draft report.
Mr President, the speeches made this evening certainly show the importance that we attach to combating these coffin ships and I believe that we are right to continue with our efforts.
Indeed, some time ago, in this House, I shared my regrets about the French Presidency' s record on maritime safety.
I expected great things of this presidency, because it was genuinely extremely concerned.
I was, however, deeply disappointed. Furthermore, I hope - thanks to our efforts in Parliament, in conjunction with the European Commission - that we will not be lowering our guard, to use the Commissioner' s expression, and that we will, in fact, ensure that maritime safety is improved.
Basically, the European Union lags behind considerably in the area of maritime safety, particularly compared to the United States, which has had strict regulation in force for a very long time.
Since such coffin ships are banned from American waters, they inevitably take the opportunity to come and pollute the coastlines of Europe instead. If Parliament fails to take effective action, the danger of more shipwrecks close to our beaches will increase.
Unfortunately, it seems to be a monthly occurrence.
I therefore hope that we shall soon vote in favour of a genuine framework resolution which will bring together all the measures needed to protect our environment.
Mr Bakopoulos' report is very good and aims to set up a Committee on Safe Seas, which is a step in the right direction.
This is a first stage in bringing together the various measures, as replacing the five existing committees with a single Committee on Safe Seas will enable the European Union to react rapidly to developments in international law.
I would like to thank the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism for having agreed to the amendments that I tabled.
Maritime safety affects a range of sectors and I believe that it is particularly important that the title of this committee includes terms which relate to prevention of pollution from ships.
In protecting ourselves against these coffin ships, we are also showing our concern for the protection of the marine environment as well as shipboard living and working conditions.
I do hope, therefore, that the European Parliament will heed this recommendation and give the Committee on Safe Seas and the Prevention of Pollution by Ships the opportunity to take account of the Community provisions which govern these two other areas.
We shall very soon - or so, at least, I hope - be making a statement on an amendment to the rules regarding shipwrecks, so that the polluter pays principle can be applied across the board.
We must monitor classification societies more closely in order to improve the quality of their inspections, and we should also pay attention to the responsibilities of ship owners, who all too often escape prosecution because of complicated financial and legal arrangements.
Commissioner, we are counting on you not to lower your guard.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Mrs de Palacio, and your team for the very constructive and energetic way you have cooperated with us.
A good example of this occurred during the last few days.
The final EU classification of ports and harbours as part of the trans-European networks attracted a great deal of attention in the case of the medium-sized ports, because European status gives these ports stimuli for growth and investment incentives which are vital for the regions involved.
The solution reached up to now through conciliation is acceptable, but I would ask you, when ports are being classified, to apply a measure of goodwill in some cases at least, as the dividing lines are essentially set in an arbitrary way.
The medium-sized ports will be grateful to you - and to us - if this is done.
In particular, everyone is now aware that the Commission and Parliament are not pausing for breath.
One after the other, we are discussing proposals to improve maritime safety.
Nor should we allow ourselves to let the pace slacken, given the situation at sea.
The accident off the Galapagos Islands is just the latest in a string of disasters with devastating effects on nature and on human populations.
The public is aware of these issues and the debates about safety flare up at regular intervals.
We must make it clear to the coast dwellers affected that the European Union may have been tardy in addressing these problems, but that the right approach has been adopted, after years of pressure on our part.
Europe is doing something about maritime safety and the prevention of pollution.
In this way we need to give a clear signal to the IMO and the world in general, both now and in future.
The Commission has brought forward its proposals in almost record time.
Last November we approved the Erika I package.
The Council reached agreement at the end of December so that the directive can come into force as from 2002.
The Erika II package is now just around the corner, and I am delighted that the second package too will result in genuine progress in safety at sea.
I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the enormous amount of work done on the ground, that is to say by the classification societies' inspectors and by the port States.
I saw this with my own eyes during a visit last week to the port of Antwerp together with Mr Piecyk.
Huge demands are made of the inspectors and we need to give them our support.
The report before us by Mr Bakopoulos makes a valuable contribution to achieving further progress on safety.
The fact that it was approved unanimously in committee is a testament to his convincing work.
I trust that Parliament will be equally convinced when it comes to vote.
I am not just speaking for myself, but for a large majority, when I specifically welcome the setting up of the Committee on Safe Seas that has already been mentioned.
I also particularly welcome the second part of the Commission document, because what is the point of having the committee if the relevant directives and regulations are not brought into line with the new structure? We do not want a dispute over powers, we need administrative clarity; we do not need a dozen working parties or committees, what we need is a clear and dynamic structure, and I believe that will set Europe on the right path and make us a model for the rest of the world.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as the rapporteur has said, this document examines two Commission proposals: the first concerns the establishment of the single committee, to be known as the Committee on Safe Seas, and the second concerns a directive which amends the existing directives in order to incorporate the committee.
The purpose of this - as Members have already pointed out - is to streamline the operation of bringing the Community legislation in force into line with the international provisions and conventions on maritime safety and the protection of the marine environment, and with technical progress.
We socialists support the streamlining effort contained in the proposals and we welcome the proposal to replace the current five committees with a single regulatory committee.
This committee will certainly contribute to greater certainty and coherence in the incorporation of international law into Community legislation.
However, we would wish both the title and the mandate of such a committee to encompass the two concepts of maritime safety and the prevention of pollution.
Lastly, I would like to focus particularly on a further consideration: Parliament's role in these operations.
It is vital to guarantee that Parliament has the right to participate in the regulatory procedure.
We therefore call upon the Commission to ensure that Parliament is always in a position to monitor the activities of the committees, including the activities of the Committee on Safe Seas which is to be established.
We thus call for greater transparency and a substantial flow of information from the future committee on safe seas and the prevention of pollution as well.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bakopoulos for a very successful report.
Increased safety is very important for maritime traffic.
Our group supports the main ideas in the report.
The proposed regulation and directive will make it easier to take account of international amendments to Community acts on maritime safety.
The problem has always been one of delay, which is the result of the Community' s slowness in drafting legislation.
The intention of the proposal is to remove the problems mentioned earlier.
Procedures must indeed be simplified.
Combining several committees that at present operate separately into one Committee on Safe Seas, responsible for matters of maritime safety, is the right way to help clarify how these matters should be dealt with.
Sea safety standards are an attempt to meet certain minimum conditions, and one advantage of the pre-inspection procedure contained in the regulation is that it will clarify the question of applicable law and increase legal certainty.
In future we must ensure that procedures followed in the Member States specifically to implement international agreements on maritime safety and Community legislation can be made simpler.
However, we must safeguard the opportunities for Member States to act within the context of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
In future too it must be a matter of principle that the IMO should be in charge of international maritime safety by concluding international agreements, passing resolutions and agreeing conventions.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly my group, the Group of the Greens, would like to congratulate Mr Bakopoulos on his report, which we agree with completely.
We also congratulate the Commission on its proposal and we are genuinely pleased with the creation of this committee on maritime safety which is going to unify in a very significant way and coordinate the application of 12 directives and 3 regulations.
Commissioner, you have been determined to unify sky, land and sea and in the end you are going to manage it.
I truly hope that you do manage it.
Our group will support you.
I believe the principle of caution and precaution must fundamentally prevail so that these directives, standards and international agreements are made more demanding, as this committee on maritime safety proposes.
We are going to make a series of recommendations.
We believe that the committee on maritime safety must not simply be a committee which does a reasonable job from an administrative point of view, but that it must incorporate the feelings of non-governmental organisations, of environmental protection organisations and of unions so that all these views may be represented.
We also recommend that the committee puts a special emphasis on the areas in a special geographical position, with special traffic conditions, with special environmental circumstances such as, for example, the Straits of Gibraltar or the English Channel, where we all know that the number of accidents and incidents is well above the average, and where the dumping of crude oil has a great environmental impact and a great economic impact on tourist areas.
We therefore hope that the committee places special emphasis on these areas with special conditions, and I would like to ask you two questions in this regard: how will the work of the committee on maritime safety and the European Maritime Safety Agency, which is going to be established soon, be coordinated? Is this committee also going to manage or work on the three legislative initiatives contained in the Erika II package?
Mr President, setting up a Committee on Safe Seas, ostensibly in the aim of improving the implementation of legislation governing maritime safety, environmental protection and shipboard living and working conditions, will reinforce the reactionary nature of European Union policy in the shipping sector.
The Commission's proposals contain reactionary arrangements which undermine the role of international organisations such as the International Maritime Organisation and the International Labour Organisation.
Basically, they institutionalise the EU Member States' refusal to participate in initiatives to accept or apply amendments to international conventions or resolutions, their obligations as contracting parties to international law notwithstanding.
In acting as the guardian of the interests of European big business, the European Union is interfering in changes to the international law which has evolved since the war and, having graduated to global guardian, it is sacrificing safety, human life itself and environmental protection just so that the monopolies can increase their profits.
We are radically opposed both to the basic thrust of these policies and to the practice of taking fragmentary, inefficient action in order to allay the acute concerns and reactions of the public, the trades union and ecological organisations in the wake of the plethora of fatal and highly environmentally dangerous accidents at sea.
Moreover, the attempt being made by Europe as an economic, political and shipping centre, within the framework of the trade war with other shipping centres, such as the USA, Japan, Australia and others, to fashion its own mechanism for controlling maritime transport and imposing its own choices undermines the International Maritime Organisation.
This will lead to distinctions being made outside generally accepted principles and this in itself is fraught with dangerous consequences for the basic safety of shipping in practice.
The main issue as regards the safety of ships in general and tankers in particular is the unaccountability of big shipping business and the policy which supports it at national, regional and international level.
This unbridled unaccountability is not only being maintained; it is being extended.
A typical example is the situation which prevails regarding ships under flags of convenience, which are directly connected with falling maritime safety standards and which are generally responsible for most accidents and for the most serious accidents.
We believe that a policy based on protecting the safety of ships, passengers, crews and the environment must, first and foremost, fight the unaccountability of shipowners, apply strict sanctions against those who violate the law, which is being flagrantly flouted time and time again, with impunity, within the framework of the ÉÌÏ and international conventions.
This policy needs to adjust operating factors to the enhanced requirements of ships, help improve shipboard living and working conditions and safeguard the rights of crews and trades union, including their right to intervene in safety issues.
Thank you very much, Mr Patakis.
The President wished to welcome you before your maiden speech to the House and to wish you success as a Member of this Parliament.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this comprehensive report.
As a Member of the European Parliament representing the east coast of Ireland, I am particularly angered by the extent of shipments of nuclear waste within the Irish Sea.
Only recently, there were two shipments from the Netherlands to the Sellafield and Thorp nuclear reprocessing plants operated by British Nuclear Fuels in Cumbria, and I have been informed that another 17 such shipments are due to take place from the Netherlands in the coming years.
Moreover, the German Government has stated that it is ready to restart shipments of spent nuclear fuel to Cumbria and that it will continue such operations until 1 July 2005.
This will mean an intensification of such shipments.
Even though there has been widespread falsification of documents by BNFL over the last two years involving nuclear shipments to Japan, such shipments are now due to recommence.
This is not withstanding the fact that BNFL has been fined USD 60 million over this incident alone.
I am especially pleased that there is now growing international opposition to shipments of nuclear waste from Britain to Japan.
The Argentinian Navy is presently on alert to intercept a British ship carrying enough nuclear waste to give off twice the amount of radiation as the Chernobyl disaster.
The British Nuclear Fuel's vessel named Pacific Swan is rapidly becoming the pariah of South America because the captain intends to negotiate the treacherous waters of Cape Horn with 90 tonnes of waste vitrified in 192 glass blocks.
I believe that the countries of the OSPAR Convention must now form broader international links with other countries along the main shipping routes of nuclear waste, which includes countries around the Panama Canal, South America, and the coast of Africa.
Within the European Union an environmental impact assessment must be carried out on the construction of new roads, water and sewage facilities and large infrastructure projects.
To date, the British Government has refused to conduct an international environmental impact assessment on the significant risks posed to the environment and people's health along the transportation routes of nuclear waste.
I am now calling on the British Government to bring forward a full and comprehensive environmental impact assessment outlining the environmental risks of transporting of nuclear materials within the Irish Sea.
Such an assessment should also be evaluated by the European Commission.
In conclusion, I would like to see the reprocessing of nuclear products terminated at Sellafield.
However, in the interim, there needs to be an international agreement outlining the safety standards for such shipments.
I must commend the rapporteur, Mr Bakopoulos, on this report.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, I think that three minutes gives me plenty of time to state a position because this report, generally speaking at least, does not divide the House and any disagreement is the exception which proves the rule.
I think that it is only to be expected that the House should unite almost unanimously behind the report presented by Mr Bakopoulos, whom I should like to congratulate on his work, first, because the aim of the Commission's proposal is to replace the five existing committees dealing with safety at sea with one committee, thereby cutting the red tape and, secondly because, in its legislative proposal, the Commission grasps the opportunity and safeguards the right to decide when an amendment to international regulations raises or lowers maritime safety standards.
Amendments to international conventions will either be dealt with by the Commission and/or referred for exclusion to the new Committee on Safety at Sea; if they are not referred, they will apply automatically.
This will, I think, improve and simplify matters and create legal security.
That being the case, I imagine that Mr Bakopoulos preferred not to propose amendments merely in order to make Parliament's importance and presence felt and, because he agreed with this extremely logical proposal, merely proposed a few amendments in order to highlight the importance of and safeguard Parliament's presence during the regulatory procedure.
Having said which, Commissioner, I think that the presence of everyone here today proves not so much that we agree with Mr Bakopoulos's report, which goes without saying, but that we are most concerned about the issue of safety at sea.
As you know, we have fast-tracked our reading of the first three reports on the so-called Erika I package on safety at sea and the safety of shipping, i.e. the withdrawal of single-hull tankers, the proposal on shipping registers and the third proposal on port controls.
We intend to push straight on to the Erika II package and its three individual legislative proposals. I think that the Commission's initiatives in general are beginning to pressurise the International Maritime Organisation into acting more quickly and more decisively on this particular issue and encouraging it to adopt solutions at international level, which is always a good thing and something that we all prefer over regional solutions.
Once again, my congratulations to Mr Bakopoulos.
Mr President, Commissioner, across-the-board consensus such as we have on the subject at issue is not, of course, conducive to lively debate, but this sort of consensus, albeit with one or two exceptions, is proof positive that the action being debated is the right action, as in the case of this initiative by the European Commission to propose and promote a new committee to deal with safety at sea and, of course, the corresponding regulations, which must be amended.
Similarly, wanting to secure the right to select amendments made by supranational regulatory bodies, so that only those which help to improve safety standards are incorporated into Community legislation, is the right objective.
This double proposal clearly seeks to facilitate the implementation of amendments to conventions by the Member States of the Union and, of course, by having just one committee, to improve efficiency in the implementation of safety policy.
The rapporteur, who has done an excellent job, and the parliamentary committee have proposed a number of amendments to Parliament in line with the European Commission's initial idea which highlight the need to include the prevention of pollution from ships and shipboard living conditions, which are, of course, closely bound up with safety at sea.
The report also makes provision for the proposal for a directive to include the role of the European Parliament which, given that it has been defined, must not be overlooked.
Generally speaking, this proposal is a further effort on the part of the Commission to organise the drafting and application of maritime safety policy and the prevention of pollution from ships more rationally.
The rapporteur and the parliamentary committee have, I think, supported this effort by tabling amendments which improve and supplement the proposal and which we hope Parliament will accept.
Mr President, Commissioner, questions of the safety of sea transport and the protection of the maritime environment have been very much to the fore for just over a year now in the wake of the Erika disaster.
Although the wreck of the Erika was a catastrophe for European shipping, the accident also had some very positive consequences.
The publicity surrounding the disaster and increased political pressure has resulted in more effective monitoring on the part of the Commission of legislation on shipping.
The Commission has also very promptly managed to submit a number of legislative proposals to make shipping safer for discussion by Parliament and the Council.
Like the fellow Members before me, I would also like to thank the Commissioner for this active involvement.
I also wish to thank you for having taken an initially positive view of the need to create a thematic network with regard to short route navigation, which is a very important initiative on the part of AMRIE.
Before Erika the Union already had, and has had most definitely since, acts in place that pretty much cover the whole area of vessel safety and the prevention of pollution from ships.
The truth is that the Erika accident would probably never have happened if all the regulations in force at the time had been properly complied with and if, furthermore, that compliance had been monitored correctly.
The Commission' s proposal to replace the committees currently dealing with matters of maritime safety with one committee is to be supported.
At the same time, responsibility for maritime safety policy will fall more clearly to the new committee being set up.
The new committee must monitor and, if necessary, improve the way legislation is implemented and take an active role, on the Union' s behalf, in the IMO and other international organisations.
In connection with the amendment to the regulation, the Commission is reserving the right to judge whether any international amendment to the regulations might be harmful to European maritime safety.
I also support the Commission' s proposal regarding its proposed procedure in this connection.
It is very important, however, as the rapporteur quite rightly points out in his report, that Parliament' s rights to take part in the regulatory procedure should be satisfactorily safeguarded.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like, firstly, to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Bakopoulos, for the splendid work he has carried out and for the speed and efficiency with which this matter has been addressed and resolved.
I should also like to thank everyone involved for their contributions and collaboration and, most especially, Mrs Grossetête, who has put forward the viewpoint of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
As for your congratulations to the Commission for the work done so far in the maritime sector, I shall pass these on to the staff of the Directorate-General for Energy and Transport following the magnificent work they have carried out throughout this long year, in which they have undoubtedly made a very considerable effort to respond to our citizens' growing demands.
I am sure that you have been requesting such an effort for a while now, but the Erika disaster has acted as a kind of catalyst.
As has been pointed out, the purpose of this proposal is twofold. On the one hand, it is to replace all the current committees responsible for maritime safety with a single committee.
The proposal therefore constitutes an effort at simplification, clarification and coherence.
On the other hand, the purpose is to help update Community maritime safety legislation in accordance with developments in the international Conventions.
I want to reiterate my gratitude for your work and your proposals and, specifically, for the amendments which are a reminder that the European Parliament performs what the Commission is pleased to say is a crucial role in the regulatory procedure.
The Commission is going to incorporate all these amendments once it has adjusted their wording in accordance with the standardised formulations on comitology agreed between the institutions.
We also wish to thank Parliament for having reminded us that the single Committee whose creation we are proposing is going to deal not only with maritime safety but also with the prevention of pollution from ships, something which will, in fact, have to be reflected in the Committee' s name.
Despite the fact that we are prepared to incorporate the prevention of pollution from ships in the name, we are not, however, able to incorporate protection of the marine environment in a generic sense.
This is simply because protection of the marine environment in that sense might also refer to potential pollution of the sea by, for example, effluent from inland waters such as rivers or to potential pollution caused by types of waterside activity not connected with the problem of maritime safety.
That is why we are unable to accept this generic definition, which would mean incorporating other types of competence, which the Committee is not qualified to exercise. However, what we will, of course, be able to incorporate is the specific addition, 'prevention of pollution from ships' .
We accept Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6, 8, 9 and 10 in their entirety.
Amendments Nos 1, 3, 7 and 11 simply require a number of modifications.
The only ones we are unable to accept are Nos 5 and 12, and for the reasons I have just pointed out, namely that they refer to aspects of marine environmental protection not connected with maritime safety.
Before concluding, I should like to say that, as Mrs Grossetête has pointed out, we cannot lower our guard.
We have to go on extending our remit to cover the whole range of maritime traffic which, as I have said on previous occasions, has changed out of all recognition over the last hundred years, in terms of the number of vessels, the number of tonnes of materials being transported and the nature and quality of those materials.
Mr Fitzsimons referred to the problem of transporting nuclear waste, for example, and we have certainly included this issue in our discussion of the Erika II package.
Specifically, the directive concerning minimum requirements for vessels carrying dangerous or polluting goods takes account of the need to respect the Irradiated Nuclear Fuel Code concerning fuel containing radioactive material.
In reply to Mrs Langenhagen and Mr Hatzidakis, we can also see that, if there is a truly global sector, it is the maritime sector, a fact we have all known for a long time.
In recent times, the aviation sector has reached a similar scale, but the maritime sector has a longer tradition behind it.
We therefore have to try to ensure that the International Maritime Organisation incorporates as many of our requirements as possible.
In this respect, the countries of the European Union are acting as a spur or driving force for transmitting environmental awareness to the International Maritime Organisation, and for communicating the requirements for shielding the marine environment and making it safe and for protecting the lives and ensuring the safety of crews.
In reply to Mr Bautista Ojeda, I wish to say that the powers of the Maritime Safety Agency and those of the Regulatory Committee are quite distinct.
The latter' s function is strictly laid out and defined in Community maritime safety legislation and is limited to approving Commission proposals for updating current directives and regulations.
The Regulatory Committee therefore has a legislative function, while the agency has absolutely no legislative function and does not in any way intervene in legislation, although it may make suggestions to us.
This is a body designed to provide technical assistance to the Member States and to the Commission, and is an advisory body whose function is to monitor the application of Community standards and to disseminate information, and therefore transparency throughout the sector.
It does not, however, have a legislative function.
There are therefore two distinct areas of operation.
I believe in fact that, as one of the honourable Members pointed out in another speech, the incorporation of ports into the trans-European networks is a key factor in promoting what we are all aiming for, namely the incorporation or integration of all transport systems into the intermodal system.
I want to conclude by thanking you for your contributions and for all your work.
A moment ago, Mrs Langenhagen said that port inspectors have a lot of work to do.
Well, I think that you and, of course, the Commission staff involved with the maritime sector have also been working hard recently.
Interoperability of the trans-European rail system
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0016/2001) by Mr Savary, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the common position of the Council with a view to the adoption of the European Parliament and Council directive on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system [C5-0564/2000 - 1999/0252(COD)].
Mr President, I would like to thank you for allowing me to speak on the second reading of a report that is extremely important for the future of Europe' s railways and for building the European rail system.
The last months, under the leadership of Mrs de Palacio, the Commissioner, will certainly have been crucial for the future of rail transport in Europe.
Following the conciliation on the Swoboda and Jarzembowsky reports, the opening up, or liberalisation, call it what you will, of networks is now an accepted fact.
We still have to overcome the many instances of technical incompatibility and this is, of course, not the easiest thing to do, since these networks were built according to very distinctive technical and industrial characteristics in every individual country.
The aim of the draft directive is precisely to ensure the technical and procedural interoperability of cross-border travel between the various 15 European networks.
The current situation is extremely complicated.
There are about 15 signalling systems, five or six electrical voltage ratings, different loading gauges and different track gauges, different procedures, different railway cultures, and information systems that are not consistent from one rail company to another, thereby compromising efficient rail travel.
Although opening up of the roads was easy, because discontinuities could be eliminated instantly, the opening up of the railway is still coming up against a whole raft of technical obstacles.
In 1996, an initial directive was adopted which was easier to implement because it concerned a new network of high-speed trains. This now shows us the way forward in terms of methodology.
The method adopted was to lay down "technical specifications for interoperability" for each rail subsystem in conjunction with rail companies, infrastructure managers and manufacturers.
Every subsystem is covered by a specification, which is then subdivided to cover the individual components which must also be verified as compatible.
We are facing a truly enormous task and we have chosen to adopt a procedure inspired by the high-speed rail project, i.e. a gradual procedure.
This task will take so much time that it is important in the short term to make what progress we can, with the minimum cost-benefit ratio.
The essence of the method involves selecting and evaluating the costs and the benefits of each step forward in terms of interoperability in order to assess its relative importance and either prioritise it or opt to implement it at a later date.
Of course, the areas we really must push forward in the first instance are sharing information, procedures, data communications and all procedures involved in cross-border travel. We shall find out at a later stage, through a gradual convergence process, how to deal on a gradual basis with the problem of making tracks, gauges and rolling stock compatible.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that it is up to me to thank all the Members of Parliament who were involved in this report, as considerable work was undertaken at first reading.
Parliament voted on a total of 46 amendments which had been tabled.
Of these 46 amendments, 33 were accepted as they stood - and at this point I must pay tribute to the Council and the mediation by the Commission - and we can say that this vote will, or should, mark the successful completion of a broadly consensual legislative process.
The Council and Commission have accepted many amendments and have enabled Parliament to make a significant shift of emphasis in order to consult rail users and staff, to involve the candidate countries in this work from the very outset and also allowed a certain leeway in terms of exemptions, given that some countries had justifiable concerns on this subject.
The Council also made considerable contributions to ensure that the new rolling stock provided both safety and access for passengers with reduced mobility.
In short, I feel we have today a sufficiently sound text to be implemented fairly quickly, informed by our experience with the high-speed train project and benefiting from the excellent collaboration between the various parliamentary groups within the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism - and I would like to praise all my fellow committee members, from all the groups - as well as collaboration between the Commission, the Council and Parliament. Personally speaking, I am delighted that we have created such an ambitious document so quickly which today really gets the European rail system underway.
Commissioner, there are two other crucial issues which will need to be addressed. The first relates to charging, which today remains the major issue in the turnaround from road to rail, and the second relates to funding of infrastructures, such as intermodal flat wagons, which is needed so that we can really make swift progress in this area.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the Brussels part-session two weeks ago we voted on the 'railways package' and agreed that this was a great achievement for Parliament and for rail freight in the European Community.
Tomorrow we will be voting on the Savary report at second reading on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system.
Approximation of technical standards is an essential and important step if we are to facilitate safe cross-border rail freight.
At first reading, all sides put a lot of hard work and effort into this very technical Commission proposal, and I would sincerely like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Savary, today.
All that effort has paid off, as, with just a few exceptions, the Council has accepted all Parliament's amendments.
The Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats is pleased to see its views largely reflected in the amendments accepted by the Council, which also explains why we are not tabling any further amendments now, at second reading.
I did, in fact, table one amendment in committee that was adopted by Parliament at first reading but not subsequently accepted by the Council.
It was three votes short of being adopted.
This was the stipulation that maintenance and approval of warning systems should be carried out by external and independent certification bodies.
Apart from quite understandable economic interests in many Member States, this amendment has to be seen against the background of the many serious rail incidents which may have been caused by inadequate checks.
These approvals and checks were in the past and to some extent continue to be carried out by the rail operators themselves, rather than by independent third parties.
When this was discussed in committee all sides, including the Commission, showed great understanding on this point.
The wording that has now been adopted for Article 18 and Annex VII to some extent takes account of our concerns, but we are not completely happy with this as things stand.
The Commission's undertaking to include proper independent approval and maintenance of rail systems in the railways package is sufficient for us to speed this otherwise excellent compromise on its way without tabling any further amendments in the plenary session.
Nevertheless, when we examine future rail dossiers we will be watching very carefully to see if the Commission has honoured its promises.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would of course like to thank Mr Savary for his excellent report. He has done such a good job that we can adopt it without further ado and we have not even needed the excitement of the conciliation procedure, which I was so looking forward to.
However, I am very pleased, as has already been said, that we were recently able to approve the railways package which Mr Jarzembowski and I put so much work into, and that we have achieved a well-rounded package to which Mrs de Palacio also made such an important contribution.
This is not just a half-hearted compromise, but a really good package.
My second point is this: can we rest on our laurels now?
Have we done everything that needs to be done as regards railways? Mr Savary has already indicated that there are still some problems to resolve.
The Commissioner has already announced that work is to be done in some areas on market opening in freight and passenger transport, and has already started the relevant work, and I regard this as being very important as regards working conditions and the regulation of working hours.
The big problem is competition between road and rail.
The work we have now done and will be voting on tomorrow means that we will be making rail transport more competitive.
I would remind all those people who are always talking about competition that competition means, or ought to mean, that the initial opportunities, the competition conditions, should be reasonably equal, and that certainly cannot be said when it comes to road and rail.
During the Swedish Presidency we have been discussing sustainable development and giving greater priority to environmental matters, and in the specific context of a motion on the energy dependence of the European Union, we are have been talking about reducing that level of dependence.
That ought to mean that when it comes to transport policy we should be taking greater account of the potential of railways.
I am deliberately not talking about giving priority to rail, but it would already be a great step forward if we could create a level playing field between road and rail.
I have already touched on the issue of regulating working hours, and I will not go into the incredible cost-cutting tactics adopted - even on the roads - by means of artificial self-employed status in the road haulage industry, nor into the "Willi Betz syndrome" and associated regulations, which have also been mentioned several times, nor into issues relating to tariff classification, also including, of course, the issue of external costs.
However, all these issues are very important in the context of enlargement.
When we consider how widely the situation of railways in the various candidate countries varies, and how poor and even appalling their infrastructure is in some cases, then we must do everything we can to solve these problems not just at EU level, but also at candidate country level.
I say that because it is no use having the best, the most modern and integrated railway system in the western part of Europe if we cannot, at the same time, achieve better conditions on the railways in eastern and southern Europe, and this is an area where the European Union needs to make a major contribution.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to congratulate Mr Savary on his determined efforts and very successful report on this important but problematic subject.
This report, together with those reports aimed at liberalising the railways that were adopted last week, is a breakthrough in the development of the European railways.
The idea got under way during the Finnish Presidential term, and was continued with successfully by France.
Improved competitiveness in the railways is vital to relieve road and air congestion.
The development of rail transport is also a step towards more environmentally sustainable transport systems.
Improved interoperability of the railway system is a necessary requirement for the whole rail package to succeed.
There have been far too many long delays with regard to this matter, but now Mr Savary has managed to untie this difficult knot.
There is still much to be done but now the work is off to a good start.
Our group supports Mr Savary' s proposal to adopt the Council common position as it stands.
It has taken account of Parliament' s important amendments and thus the proposal should be swiftly advanced.
At the same time we must remember that the interoperability of the rail networks is a long-term project.
For that reason, it is important that a timetable is put in place to carry out the work and that we determine just which networks should be given priority.
I would further like to thank Mr Savary for also having understood the special needs of Finland.
The compromise achieved regarding the use of Russian railway carriages and wagons between Finland and Russia will not put the aims of the report in jeopardy, but will ensure that transport on the Union' s eastern border will continue undisturbed.
I believe that the importance this decision will have for the whole of the Union will be clearly evident when the time comes that north-western Russia' s massive wealth of natural resources starts to be exploited seriously.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Savary, firstly we should do this without a debate, but it is good to have a debate so as to spend some time highlighting all that has gone well.
There was proper consultation.
You requested proper consultation with the social partners, the railway sector, but you have also set an example yourselves by consulting everyone properly, with the consequence that we have a product with which we can do something.
What we are speaking about here is really a so-called railway package.
Part one was the liberalisation, the deregulation of international transport which we spoke about last time.
Part two is interoperability, in other words, that transport can take place between countries with different systems.
Part three is still to come.
I already brought this matter up last time.
As far as part three is concerned, we are of the opinion that the emissions standards and also the use of energy as regards the railway package need to be improved. We understand that this is not just the responsibility of this Commission and also that Commissioner Wallström is going to work hard at it in the near future.
Everyone knows that the standards for trucks and lorries have been raised, in other words, the relative advantage for the railway is declining, and that also means that, assuming that this type of transport is better than others, you have to work at the emission standards.
I should just like to bring up a few other small points, small in a certain sense.
What we are now going to see is that gigantic investments are necessary here.
Gigantic investments - they have already been mentioned in recital nine - which are to be borne by both the government and the sector.
The government, which means that at the same time we are dealing with another package, as has just been mentioned, of external costs.
There will have to be a specific form of assistance to keep this sector at such a level that it is competitive on the one hand, but is supported on the other hand.
That sounds like saying the same thing twice over but we should pay attention to it in our debates on the White paper.
The second thing I ask myself is whether there has been societal consideration and whether the Commission has studied the qualifications of people in the railway sector who are particularly needed in order to facilitate this interoperability.
I am unaware as to whether this study has been released yet and what it has produced and what it is going to mean for the future. A specified language must be spoken.
Which language are we going to speak? English, as in international shipping or aviation?
So, will English also be the language of rail transport? If that is the case, I immediately propose that from that moment onwards, we only speak English in Parliament as well.
That will make all communication very easy.
Mr President, in the run-up to the Parliamentary debate of 16 May last year, Mr Savary showed that modernisation, expansion and internationalisation of the railways is different from simply following a trend from the end of the last century.
The trend emanated from a retiring government which is making itself redundant as a result of liberalisation and privatisation.
The rapporteur has made it clear that a modernisation policy need not conflict with the continued existence of state-owned or of justifiable exemption positions for areas which are separated from the rest of Europe by the sea.
Much of what we resolved then has now been adopted by the Council.
I congratulate the rapporteur on that outcome.
Unlike Mr Jarzembowski's proposals, my group endorses the result.
I shall leave the technical details of the proposal to one side now and call attention to persistent problems.
It is necessary to remain vigilant at all times for developments which continue to threaten the cohesion of the European rail network.
In the nineteenth century, different railway gauges and different types of rails prevented the railways from being able to operate as a European whole.
In those days it was not just the individual countries but also the railway companies competing with each other that were to blame.
Within the European Union, the Pyrenees still form a national border where the railway gauge has to be changed.
In the twentieth century, it was electrification and the associated safety systems which broke up the rail network once again.
Where the steam locomotive could still travel over the border, as a consequence of a change in mains voltage henceforth the locomotive had to be changed.
The threats of the twenty-first century reside in a combination of technical development and competition.
Until recently, it seemed that in Germany magnetic levitation technology would bring about divisions in the rail network once again.
Only recently in the Netherlands such a line from Amsterdam-Lelystad-Groningen was still being considered, even now that it is no longer possible for it to continue via Bremen and Hamburg to Berlin.
However interesting a number of aspects of the technology may be, in the short term it primarily means a system separated from the rest of the network.
The interests of private companies which want to make their latest technology profitable should not be the deciding factor here.
In spite of European integration, we still see continuing disintegration of the railways.
International railway regulations are becoming increasingly hard to obtain.
Train tickets to distant destinations often have to be purchased outside the country of departure.
Not so very long ago, you could take a passenger train straight from Cologne to Athens, from Paris to Lisbon or from Amsterdam to Copenhagen.
Not any longer.
Four months ago the direct night train from Stockholm to Berlin disappeared.
Apart from implementing technical measures, which is what this report is about, it is vital that an end is also put to the fragmentation of rail traffic.
An end must also be put to the current situation in which the railways relegate passengers to aeroplanes and freight transport to lorries over long distances.
Mr President, in an ever-widening internal market, differences between systems are becoming more and more of a problem.
Within the railway sector, the EU' s 15 Member States have 4 different electrical systems and 15 different signalling systems.
Within 10 years, there may be 25 or 27 Member States.
The differences between systems will presumably be still greater then.
This is not a problem we shall solve just by finding ourselves new and, to all appearances, modern solutions.
Given that, last summer, we inaugurated Europe' s longest combined bridge and tunnel in order to link Sweden and Denmark, it might well be imagined that the problem of non-interoperability had also been solved, but the reverse is true. There is one signalling system in Denmark and a quite different system in Sweden.
Just to add to the complications, trains are driven on the left in Sweden but on the right in Denmark.
There are various reasons why there are, in actual fact, such major differences between European countries, and these all have to do with history.
One reason is that European countries have each electrified their railway systems at different times.
Another is quite deliberate - never to make it easy just to go ahead and drive a train straight into another country.
In today' s Europe, in which we now talk about the four freedoms and in which people, goods, capital and services must be able to move with complete freedom across all borders, every obstacle remains a problem. However, we need to remove such obstacles of various kinds.
We need to harmonise and to become, as the saying goes, interoperable in different areas.
It is therefore an important step for the Commission now to take initiatives whereby, step by step, we obtain the same railway system.
The trans-European railway systems, in particular, constitute an obvious first step.
It is important for this work to be characterised by two realisations.
Firstly, the work will, in fact, have to take a certain amount of time, for it is going to cost significant sums of money, especially if we, in time, extend the trans-European networks to include other networks.
It should also be pointed out that we need to combine with the Central and Eastern European countries to conduct the same operation there in the long term.
The other realisation is that, in the short term at least, it is a question of finding solutions without having the same system in every country.
The fact that trains can now already be driven across European borders does, in any case, show that this is possible, and it works partly because new technology can be built into locomotives.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report is a fine example of how this Parliament manages, on an issue as important as the interoperability of the Union' s railways, to take decisions quickly and to avoid a Conciliation Committee and a third reading.
I therefore wish to congratulate Mr Savary on his openness to dialogue, on his competence and on his demonstration of how crucial the action of the European Parliament is to improving standards as important as those with a social aspect, improving the position of rail users and eastwards enlargement.
This is a warning to anyone who wishes to reduce our Parliament' s ability to act for the sake of more rapid decision making.
This directive, which supplements those that we adopted in the last Brussels mini-session will, I hope, enable Europe to move beyond good intentions and give rail transport a greater role than it currently enjoys.
For a country such as Portugal, located at the south-western edge of Europe, the interoperability of rail transport is crucial.
Any country situated at the end or at the beginning of a railway line is always dependent on other countries if it is to enjoy a high level of cross-border traffic.
Connecting ports to railway lines that are interoperational is a decisive step towards improving the service that is provided, towards reducing transport costs and towards making European rail companies profitable.
Mr President, Commissioner de Palacio, ladies and gentlemen, although my sympathies lie very much with the rubber tyre, I am delighted that we have achieved a good result, not least as a consequence of Mr Savary' s hard work.
It is clear that competitiveness on the railways has to be improved, and this is particularly important in congested Central Europe.
Europe needs a long-term railways policy, built on a common objective.
Rail transport must be subjected to an honest appraisal that weighs benefits alongside costs.
Then both industry and environmental organisations will be able to achieve consensus.
That is a miracle which is still realisable.
Improved competitiveness on the railways must first and foremost come about by reducing the costs rail transport incurs and raising standards of service.
At present, rail transport still, unfortunately, costs the taxpayer too much money, whether he or she takes trains or not.
It is time the inefficient state dinosaurs were made extinct to make way for a new, efficient, service-minded transport business.
The railway companies are still very much a relic of the past, and their standards of service are poor and inflexible when it comes to freight transport.
As for passenger traffic, that is an entirely separate matter: the most important factor with regard to service in this area is keeping strictly to the timetable.
The proposed directive being discussed is a rational one on the whole.
The standardisation of technical features will result in improved competitiveness on the railways without there being any negative effects on the status of other forms of transport.
Prioritising action by means of cost-benefit analyses will also be an important factor in determining how the most urgent measures should be implemented first, without wasting money.
This directive, if anything, is an example of the sort of added value cooperation at EU level can offer.
In this connection I would still like to remind people about something that is important for Finland.
Finland shares a border with Russia that is more than one thousand kilometres long.
Russian traffic accounts for a full 40% of freight services handled by the state railways.
Because Russia has the same rail gauge as us, one that differs from that in the rest of the EU countries, there are also a lot of Russian carriages and wagons that run in Finland that are built in accordance with the GOST standards.
Finland has been accused, sometimes with good reason and sometimes not, of Finlandisation.
But the use of Russian carriages and wagons in rail services that ply between our two countries is due to the fact that when we send our own carriages and wagons across the border we are often looking at their tail lights for the last time.
For practical reasons we must be able to use Russian carriages and wagons in the future.
Mr Savary, the rapporteur, has done his best to take account of this, and I wish to thank him for it.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have come on a long way since the days of 'Stephenson' s Rocket' in the area of rail transport.
In spite of that, there is still a long way to go before we reach the terminus.
As, ultimately, my words will hardly prove immortal, I will curtail my speaking time by forty-five seconds.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, all the important points have already been made, so I can only emphasise them once more, but I am glad to do so.
I would like to congratulate my colleague, Mr Savary, on his report and for succeeding in getting the directive on the interoperability of the trans-European conventional rail system through the various hoops of the parliamentary system.
This was a matter of urgency, because interoperability is a fundamental prerequisite for liberalising international freight traffic, and this is something that we have together got on track, as it were, through the railways package.
The problem with conventional rail systems, as compared with high-speed trains, is that the various national systems in Europe are largely incompatible, yet they have involved enormous investment and can only be converted in stages through rebuilding and modification, and this needs to be done whilst still providing a rail service and in the face of continuing competition from other modes of transport.
Nevertheless, the convergence process needs to be stepped up for the sake of the railways themselves.
The directive, therefore, needs to be implemented as soon as possible.
This is also to be welcomed if an internal market is to be created for the supply industry.
I hope that rapid progress will be made with the bodies and procedures envisaged for establishing technical specifications and that they will initially concentrate on what can be achieved most quickly, that is to say on train control, safety and signalling equipment.
The rapporteur and this House have secured the inclusion of social provisions as well as technical specifications in the directive, and also strategic consideration of the candidate countries when drafting the TSIs.
That is positive.
As regards safety, I would, of course, have welcomed a more clear-cut vote in favour of independent third-party certification bodies, given that there is still a monopoly situation in some countries and that there are, therefore, conflicts of interest when it comes to certification or rather self-certification.
It seems to me that referring to subsidiarity in this context is too simplistic.
I am happy to support Mrs Jeggle in this area and I am now pinning my hopes on the railways safety package.
Mr President, I would firstly like to say that the Commission is pleased to see that the European Parliament has given priority to this report, to this initiative.
Specifically, the common position adopted by the Council on 10 November 2000 was received by the European Parliament at the end of November and the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism was able to debate a first draft report on 4 December 2000.
I would also like to express my satisfaction and gratitude to the rapporteur, Mr Savary, and to the whole committee, but especially Mr Savary.
Thanks to his capacity for negotiation and for work on the whole of this issue, which is furthermore very complex, we have been able to make rapid progress.
In the end, the whole of the railways package, which we approved in the course of 2000 and this year, the beginning of 2001, is decidedly French in nature, due to the important targets which have been adopted, no doubt with some Finnish touches, since the Finnish Presidency also played an important role.
Ladies and gentlemen, this directive is an essential provision of a technical nature, which also has great political importance, because it is the key element for the implementation of what we indicated when we approved the railways package, that is, to open up the transport of international goods to competition.
What we are doing through this latest interoperability measure is building a European railway.
This goes much further than opening up a sector or modifying some specific technical requirements.
This is a truly important moment in the short history of European integration. It is the construction of a European railway.
In this respect, we are also providing something very important for the European technology sector: the European railways industry, which includes some of the world' s most technologically advanced industries, is being given the possibility of operating within a massive internal market of great dimensions which will lead to a lowering of costs and greater profits, which will therefore optimise all production and greater competitiveness at international and world level, beyond our European borders.
As you know, the European Parliament has just reached an agreement with the Council in relation to the whole of this proposed package and the year 2008 has been set as the final date for the complete opening up of the railway goods network.
Both Mr Swoboda and Mr Jarzembowski, who were rapporteurs for this package, played a decisive role.
I believe that these measures will clearly not be effective unless, at the same time, we enable Mr Savary' s suggestions to be implemented, that is to say, that we go ahead with the removal of technical incompatibility.
And that is exactly what this measure does.
I must say that some of the major users and some operators who intend to use and benefit from the possibilities offered by this trans-European rail network have recently indicated to the services of the Commission a large number of technical or operative obstacles which hinder the organisation of international goods services.
It is in this context that this directive acquires even more importance and the interoperability of the conventional trans-European rail system will enable us to overcome some of these obstacles which we are facing by trying still to reserve certain national markets.
In this respect, I would like to congratulate you all once again on the achievement of having this directive approved on second reading.
Its adoption will guarantee a European dimension, create a competitive market for interoperable rail products. It will lead to the development of significant economies of scale which will benefit companies and the removal of technical barriers caused by the excessive fragmentation of the sector, which are often the result of collusion between monopolistic operators and their national suppliers within a captive market.
The Commission will devote itself heart and soul to implementing this directive, never losing sight of the fact that its success depends on the ability of all the rail agents involved - managers of infrastructures, rail companies and related industries - to employ their experience creatively and find effective and economic technical solutions, preventing the overlapping of solutions, which is unfortunately taking place in some cases.
Mr Bouwman asked me some questions and I would like to reply to them.
Specifically, before the adoption of the technical requirements on interoperability, consultations will be held to ascertain the opinions of the various users and parties involved, including infrastructure managers, operators, rail companies etc. and also the transport and user organisations and others.
This is one of the issues that I wanted to highlight.
With regard to the economic impact of interoperability, on the question of whether or not it makes sense to guarantee a single system in the future, an issue which in a sense Mr Vatanen also raised, I must say that, before proposing any decision on harmonised technical requirements, we must carry out a cost-benefit analysis which will justify the economic effort which will be required.
Therefore, as has been pointed out, what we are proposing is a two-stage process of harmonisation.
Some measures will be implemented rapidly, as the rapporteur, Mr Savary, has pointed out.
These will include administrative-type measures such as driving licences for train drivers, so that they may travel beyond national borders, a national licence, which will be a European licence, issues such as the documentation of the goods and signalling, which should be quicker to implement.
There are others, however, which are much more complicated to implement, such as, for example, harmonising the size of tunnels so that they may all have the same standard measurements.
That will take somewhat longer.
I would like to assure Mr Swoboda, as I have said repeatedly, that before the end of the year we hope to propose the pending measures, such as the directive on safety in rail transport, the issue of the opening up of goods transport to competition and the issue of passenger transport.
Of course, the whole issue of the enlargement of the European Union is a key factor for the rail sector, because rail transport is a key element in the development and the balanced growth of the new countries.
Thank you very much, Mr President, and thank you very much Mr Savary and the whole of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Recovery of cod stocks in the Irish Sea
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0042/2001) by Mr Nicholson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing measures to be applicable in 2001 for the recovery of the stock of cod in the Irish Sea (ICES Division VIIa) [COM(2000) 745 - C5-0683/2000 - 2000/0292(CNS)].
Mr President, I would like to point out that the rapporteur is not present.
I would therefore like to read out a short piece of text.
I have not been authorised to do this, but I am the coordinator of the PPE Group.
I believe that this text, which emanates from my group, at least provides us with a satisfactory introduction.
It is very short.
I would then like to propose that we work our way through the list of speakers to the extent that the Members are actually present.
As I see that you are evidently all in agreement, I would like to read out the English text, which I have taken from EPP Highlights, on the subject of cod stocks in the Irish Sea.
The PPE-DE rapporteur, Jim Nicholson, will report tonight on the Commission proposal for emergency measures to control cod fishing in the Irish Sea.
With cod supplies at an all-time low Mr Nicholson is calling for restrictions to stop trawlers from catching juvenile cod.
He also calls for financial packages to be made available to those fishermen who decommission their vessels and for those who stay in port for the duration of the stock replenishment period.
Mr President, I am sorry that Mr Nicholson cannot be here himself today.
Now that I have read out that text, I would like to move on to my own comments.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are today debating the report by the honourable Member Mr Nicholson, whom I would like to thank for his swift and accurate work.
He was working under great time pressure.
Nevertheless, we have not let ourselves be influenced by the urgency of the Council's timetable, and we are very pleased that we are able to give this subject rather more attention today.
Cod stocks and their condition have long since overtaken negotiations on the TAC and quotas and our hard work in that area, but unfortunately in a purely negative way.
That should give us politicians, and indeed everyone involved, food for thought.
Although the price of cod and other fish will rise, at the same time fishermen will have problems making a living and providing for their families in the long term.
The future of an important and historical sector of the economy in our coastal regions is increasingly at risk.
The fishing bans do not now only apply to the specific area covered by the report but have also been extended to large areas of the North Sea.
Stocks have suffered a further drastic fall in all areas.
On a positive note I would like to say that under your leadership, Commissioner, the Commission has reacted swiftly and consistently without waiting for regulations or proposals.
It is now our job to oversee these measures and to jointly learn lessons from this for our future policy. The Member States are, of course, particularly prominent on the list of those responsible.
But we keep coming back to the same question: why did things have to get to this stage?
Must it always take such horrendous news to stir us into action? When will we finally incorporate sustainability into our fisheries policy?
The storm warnings for the Irish Sea were not just issued yesterday, nor did they apply to the Irish Sea alone.
Our present predicament demands that we should work together in the interests of consumers, fishermen and fish stocks.
Are we, despite all the Commission's efforts, giving the fishermen affected enough opportunities to put forward their own ideas about resource management and market stabilisation? Are we working together closely enough at all levels to ensure that the most recent economic developments are promptly reflected in our policy?
If we do not at long last collaborate closely, the next crisis could be fatal for us. For example, the renewed debate on dioxins is deeply worrying.
At the end of the day, we need to be proactive instead of reactive.
When will we learn that lesson?
How many sectors of the economy still have to give credence to this because of our catatonic state? I particularly have in mind the chaotic BSE situation.
It is even more important than ever - and this applies across the board - for us to anticipate predictable developments and have the courage to take the wind out of our critics' sails. And that means using not just words, but also deeds.
The proposal before us is a step in the right direction.
In particular, I welcome the flexible approach towards establishing a closed area and the pragmatic use of derogations.
This approach demonstrates that attention really is being paid to the interests of fishermen, by not actually imposing a total fishing ban but instead, where possible, by allowing other fishing to continue, with appropriate monitoring of course.
But at the same time I wish to stress that this is only one step in the right direction.
Similar problems await us in other waters, and even if they have not manifested themselves so clearly to date, the Irish Sea should be a warning for us all.
There is still a great deal to do.
I call on the Council and the Commission, as a matter of urgency, to develop further measures under the fisheries policy, not least so that our actions will really have an impact in future.
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur in his absence and Mrs Langenhagen for her speech.
Mrs Langenhagen has painted a very bleak picture of the state of cod in the Irish Sea.
The Irish Sea, as Mrs Langenhagen has said, is an example to us all of how a stock, if not managed correctly, can be decimated.
In just six years the amount of cod caught in the Irish Sea has halved.
In 1993, 11 000 tonnes of cod was caught and in 1999, 5 500 tonnes were caught.
This regulation for 2001 is necessary, however painful, if there is to be a cod fisheries at all in the Irish Sea.
It is an example to other areas as well.
A similar situation has arisen in the North Sea.
The cod stocks have declined so much that there has been a reduction of half in the total allowable catch and a new cod recovery programme introduced.
Vast stretches of the North Sea have been protected whilst the spawning season gets under way.
However, another consequence of the ban in cod fisheries over the next few months has been that the other areas where there is no ban are beginning to worry.
For example, in the Western Isles fishermen are concerned that because of the cod ban in the North Sea - and to some extent in the Irish Sea - cod stocks off the Butt of Lewis and south of Barra will be adversely effected.
After years of sustainable fisheries in these waters people fear that the adverse effect of these protective measures will be a decimation of their own stocks.
These fears can only be compounded when just last week in Mallaig, with the opening of the scallop beds, a dramatic increase in boats could be witnessed, which would otherwise have been fishing for the banned species.
We have to think about the adverse effects on other fisheries when protective measures are introduced.
It is somewhat ironic that in protecting fish stocks in one area we are inadvertently destroying stocks in another area.
In conclusion, the reform of the common fisheries policy and the launch of the Green Paper in March are critical to stock preservation and to the fishing industry.
We have to get the balance right between sustainability and a successful industry on the other hand.
The reform of the common fisheries policy, I believe, is an opportunity.
We must make sure that we get the reforms right.
I thank the rapporteur in his absence.
Mr President, in his report on the Irish Sea fishery Mr Nicholson recognises that this area has the dubious honour of pioneering the use of emergency measures to arrest the decline in cod stocks.
But in the North Sea, too, we are subject to emergency measures this year, necessary measures aimed at maximum protection of cod during the spawning period between now and the end of April.
Why is it then that, after so many years of a common fisheries policy whose principal intention is to conserve stocks, we have to resort to emergency measures in the Irish and North Sea cod areas? While accepting the need for these short-term measures, we must also learn from past mistakes and prepare sensible long-term management proposals to try to deal with these situations.
The technical measures which have been pioneered in areas like Scotland must be built on and improved and extended to all areas of fishery.
Appropriate action must be taken to prevent the displacement of effort leading to damage in other areas and to other stocks.
The impact of industrial fishery must be properly assessed, in terms both of its allowable white fish by-catch, and of its effect on the whole marine food chain.
Clearly a significant downturn in fishing activity can be expected in the next few years, and clearly with that significant downturn in activity will come a significant downturn in the income of many families and many communities in our fishing areas, both in the catching sector and in processing.
Just as the economic and social effects of the lack of a new agreement with Morocco have been felt in very particular areas, so the effects of these emergency measures in the long-term cod recovery plans will have an effect in very particular areas.
There is a case for looking at similar financial compensation measures for these areas.
The CFP review provides a challenge and an opportunity.
I hope that the solution we come up with will be one that actually works.
The best means of doing that is to make sure that the new fisheries policy includes significant and adequate involvement of stakeholders - of fishermen, processors, scientists and conservationists from particular areas such as the North Sea, so that we can work together to recommend proposals for management which are tailored to and targeted towards the needs of these particular areas.
Mr President, the majority of the earth's surface consists of sea.
People cannot live there but we make ever more intensive use of it.
Not just to travel from one continent to another, but also to drill for oil, to extract other minerals, to dump waste and to generate electricity using tidal power stations.
Mercury, lead and radioactive waste are reducing sea-life and making fish ever less fit for human consumption.
Shallow coastal regions, river mouths and other transitions between fresh and salt water, where fish used to have their spawning grounds, have been greatly altered as a result of human interference.
The sea has long been regarded as the source of an inexhaustible food supply.
It is being fished with ever larger vessels and with ever more refined technology to clear out the sea.
This is being done in the seas bordering Europe, but to an increasing extent further away as well, by European ships along the African coast.
I have previously taken a stance by rejecting agreements which the European Union enters into with countries in the developing world in order to be able to go and fish the sea there until it, too, is exhausted.
In the short term, it is true, this will provide a solution to the European food requirement and in exchange we will also pay something to poor countries for it.
In the long term, however, it is definitely not a win-win situation from which we all stand to gain.
The demand for fish continues to grow while the supply continues to decline as a result of overfishing and pollution.
There are still fishermen who believe that the sea remains inexhaustible.
Last week I heard a fisherman who was being interviewed on Dutch television say, "The fish will always be there, that has always been the case and it says so in the Bible as well" .
These sorts of certainties, which appeared to be true for centuries, will increasingly vanish in the future.
That is why it is good that times and areas are designated in which the fish stock has to reach a certain level and when and where fishing is prohibited as a result.
For the same reason, the fishing quotas must be restricted.
The rapporteur recognises that the supply of cod in the fishing ports on the east coast of the Irish and North Sea has declined dramatically in the last ten years.
The quantity currently permitted is less than a fifth of that at the beginning of the nineties.
The actual catches, which are smaller than those permitted, fell to a quarter.
That is how exhausted the sea is.
In spite of this, the rapporteur wants to extend the exclusion period in which the catch is less restricted, by six weeks between 22 February and 30 April and he criticises the large area of sea to be closed off to fishing during the spawning season.
Groups of fishermen protest if they get the impression that governmental measures are unilaterally to the disadvantage of their country while their colleagues from other countries are allowed to carry on clearing out the sea.
Then pressure arises to mitigate measures and to permit more exclusions.
In this way, attention is at risk of being diverted from the necessity of fishing quotas.
Owing to the short-term disadvantages, everyone expresses outrage and opposition to fishing quotas.
But we would be better advised to close more areas completely for a prolonged period than to let the fish die out completely as a result of inadequate measures.
This is currently under discussion with regard to the North Sea as well.
Mr President, the survival of cod is seriously endangered in various European waters.
The Commission is rightly introducing measures which should protect this species of fish from extinction.
But like the emergency measure which the Commission has announced for the North Sea, its measure for the Irish Sea is also half-hearted.
The Commission's measures are chiefly based on political feasibility and lack the necessary scientific basis.
In the case of the emergency measure for the North Sea, a measure which particularly affects the Dutch fishing fleet was opted for.
Politically it is feasible, the fact is that things are going well for the Dutch fleet and other Member States and fleets appear to hate this.
That is why the Dutch protest and the alternatives put forward do not win approval anywhere.
Closure of an area does not have a sufficient effect on the recovery of the cod.
Neither in the North Sea nor in the Irish Sea. The fact is that fishing will move to open areas where spawning may be taking place and young cod may be present.
If fishing moves to areas where concentrations of young fish are present, then the measure itself will hamper the recovery of the cod.
In addition, it is striking that the North Sea emergency measure does not prohibit targeted fishing of cod with stationary nets, in which precisely those fish ready for spawning are caught, within the twelve-mile zone and within the plaice box.
As a result of greater fishing pressure in open areas, stocks of other species of fish and seabed ecosystems will also be damaged.
The alternative measure that has been put forward by the Dutch State Secretary for Fisheries, on the other hand, offers cod a much better chance of survival.
This plan, a suspension of all cod-related fleets for a substantial number of weeks per year, can still save the cod.
And at least as important, this plan is supported both by maritime biologists and the maritime sector.
However, the Commission does not consider the policy to be feasible.
Its emergency measure may result in our only finding cod in one kind of European water soon, that is to say in formalin.
Unfortunately, Mr Nicholson is adopting the half-hearted stance of the Commission in his report.
Of course, the blow to the fishing industry is great, but the blow will be much greater if there are no more cod left soon.
The Commission must examine how it can accommodate the fishermen financially, undoubtedly the fishermen will have to make sacrifices.
In order to provide for the future, Dutch fishermen are willing to do so and I am convinced that the Northern Irish fishermen possess the same willingness.
That just leaves the Commission.
Mr President, can I first of all apologise to you, your predecessor and the House for my late arrival.
My problems began this morning at a very early point when my flight from Belfast to London was cancelled.
Thanks to British Midland International and the good work of their staff, I got here rather late, but still I am here.
I apologise, as I did not intend to be discourteous to the House.
I listened with tremendous interest to Mr van Dam talking about half-baked approaches by the Commission and how well the Dutch fishermen were responding.
Mr van Dam should go back and read my report because I neither criticised the Commission nor the fishermen.
This is not an easy problem.
It is a very serious problem.
To some extent the fishermen in my region faced this problem last year.
For them, this is the second year of closure.
I should tell Mr van Dam and the Scottish fishermen, who are now facing the first year of closure and are creating a lot of waves, that the fishermen from my region not only took this in their stride but actually responded in a very positive way.
They cooperated with the Commission in the technical measures and were prepared to look very sincerely at them.
It is not easy for fishermen to take on board a closure of their area for such an extensive period.
It is even more difficult when there are no support mechanisms to help the industry find a way forward.
This is what I want to concentrate on.
When I raise the problem of the Commission coming forward with concrete proposals - be it set-aside or support mechanisms - the Commission says: " let the national authorities come forward with ideas and we will take them on board in a very positive way."
But the problem is that the national authorities will not come forward with any sincere proposals to help the fishermen in the region.
Certainly not the United Kingdom authorities - and it does not really matter whether it is a Conservative or Labour Government.
Neither of them would ever come forward with any positive support to help the fishermen.
I have one amendment to my report and I ask the Commissioner to take it on board.
It is to allow the fishermen, under the supervision already agreed at the early part of the closure, to continue right through that closure.
If at any time the discards exceed part of that closure, then the fishermen will quite readily accept.
At this moment, the Commission has set its face against accepting this amendment.
This is unfortunate because the cooperation that is being given by the fishermen to the Commission is a shining example to other parts of the European Union.
As Mr van Dam said, there is a tremendous problem, there is tremendous concern and we have to ensure the future of cod for the future of fishermen.
I hope the Commission will be able to take on board the very positive aspect that I have put forward in my amendment.
Mr President, Mr Nicholson's report underlines the serious crisis now affecting fish stocks in the waters around Britain and Ireland.
The very fact that the Commission has found it necessary to implement emergency measures in four separate areas to save exhausted fish stocks, serves to illustrate the total failure of the common fisheries policy.
As of today, 12 February 2001, more that 40 000 square miles of the North Sea will be closed for 12 weeks to all white fish trawling.
In addition, there will be emergency closures covering the West of Scotland, the Irish Sea, as we have heard, and North Atlantic hake and all of this comes on top of the savage cuts in total allowable catches and quotas announced by the Council last December.
The common fisheries policy in its current form has been operating for 18 years.
The system of tax and quotas has led to massive quantities of healthy fish being dumped dead back into the sea.
Over two million tonnes of fish a year, 25% of the total fish catch in the EU, are discarded in this manner.
The system of MAGPs has also been a disaster.
Member States who attempt to observe these rules are punished while other Member States ignore the MAGPs entirely.
So, the CFP has failed in its core objectives.
It has failed to sustain fish stocks and it has failed to secure a future for our fishermen.
This latest round of cuts and emergency measures will again drive hundreds more out of the industry.
The cod recovery measures in the Irish Sea last year cost the Irish Sea fleet a devastating drop in income of 42% during the closed season.
Despite this appalling crisis, despite the fact that there are too many fishermen chasing too few fish around the North Sea and the Irish Sea, this House voted overwhelmingly at its last part-session in January to do away with 6 and 12-mile limits around our shores, to open equal access to the North Sea and to break into the Shetland and Irish boxes.
These decisions will be regarded by many fishermen in the UK and Ireland as the last straw.
Sixty-five per cent of the entire fishing resources of the EU are to be found in the waters surrounding the British Isles, that is the UK and Ireland.
Why should we sit back and allow our fish to be plundered and allow our fishermen to be impoverished?
It was extremely foolish and short-sighted of this House to vote the way it did on the reports last month.
It may well prove to be the last straw that breaks the camel's back and may drive the UK out of the common fisheries policy.
Mr President, the situation of the stocks of different species and the measures for their recovery is always a very controversial issue.
The Socialist Group supports the conclusions of Mr Nicholson, in his report, in relation to the Commission proposal for the recovery of cod stocks in the Irish Sea.
We understand very well that the over-fishing of a species for one year is paid for over the following years and that the recovery of stocks is very costly and slow.
However, we also understand that the inactivity of a section of a fleet over a long period means the loss of jobs and markets and many difficulties for the future of that fleet.
I therefore agree with Mr Nicholson that this is an issue which requires a great deal of balance and consideration.
The sector often complains - with good reason - that it is ignored when proposals are adopted by the Commission, since these are almost exclusively based on scientific reports which do not take account of the experience and everyday lives of the fishermen.
I would ask the Commission to combine this everyday reality experienced by the fishermen with the work of the scientists and, when formulating proposals, to take greater account of the socio-economic situation of the regions which depend on fishing.
All of this should be done with the greatest transparency, clearly explaining to the sector the reasons for which particular measures are adopted.
I do not believe that the common fisheries policy is a failure.
In this respect I completely disagree with the Member who spoke before me.
I believe that, in the same way that the reform of the common agricultural policy is only possible through a redefinition of the rural world, the reform of the CFP also has to be very ambitious and develop in parallel with the reform of the fishing world, of those regions which depend on fishing, which will surely have to face the future by bringing other approaches into play, which are different to those which they have been employing up till now and which depend exclusively on an extractive model.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Nicholson for his report, and for the speed with which he researched and did the work.
I appreciate his very open and honest attitude to this.
He has not gone back and told fishermen around the Irish Sea that the European Commission is trying to persecute them or to do them an injustice.
He has put the problem to the public at home the way he has put it here.
A problem exists.
Our colleague over in the far corner of the House spoke earlier and quoted the Bible.
The Bible, someone said, tells us that there will always be fish in the sea.
Well, I want to quote a more up-to-date document about the codfish.
I am quoting the author Mark Kurlansky in his book 'Cod: A Biography of the Fish that changed the World'.
According to Kurlansky, the Encyclopaedia of Commerce and Navigation printed in New York in 1858 said that the codfish was a species so well-known that there was no need to explain anything about it, that it was extraordinarily prolific and that someone had counted the eggs of a middling-sized codfish and found that there were 9 835 000 eggs.
The encyclopaedia came to the conclusion that mankind could never exterminate this species.
We have proven both the Bible and this nineteenth-century encyclopaedia wrong.
Mr Stevenson is too young to remember the cod wars which were fought around the coast of Iceland in my lifetime - in fact, at a time when I was already in politics.
The British - with due respect to all States in the Union - sent warships to Icelandic waters to ensure that their fishermen were protected when going there to fish the stocks in Icelandic waters.
It is good that opinion in Britain is changing in favour of the right of coastal fishermen, which I always accepted, to exploit their own resources.
With all due respect to Mr Stevenson, who is a good representative of his people and very enthusiastic, I do not accept that the common fisheries policy is a failure.
I do not accept that British fishermen have been wronged, because if you look at the figures the British fishing industry is getting its natural share of European fish.
The only country that has been 'wronged' are the Irish fishermen who have been denied their natural share and who were never allowed to exploit the seas.
In the sixteenth century the British went to war with the Hanseatic League over Icelandic cod and they only withdrew from that war after some casualties because they discovered a new source of cod off the coast of America.
This is an old story.
But do not go back and tell the fishermen of Europe that it is the European Commission which is to be blamed.
It is trying to solve a difficult problem.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to make it clear that in the course of this Strasbourg part-session, during which the Green Paper on the reform of fisheries policy will be on the table, we will have ample opportunity to discuss fisheries policy in general.
For that reason, at this point I only wish to comment on the report actually before us now.
I think no one would deny that it is an incontrovertible fact that cod stocks are at an all-time low in the Irish Sea.
Another incontrovertible fact is that if we wish to protect the stock of cod, there is only one thing to do: we must leave the stock alone during the spawning season.
That is why it is very important to close the spawning grounds in good time before the start of the spawning season, even if that is very painful, and even if that inevitably creates problems for fishermen.
And time is short, because the spawning season starts in the middle of this month.
I know that everyone involved up to now, and I would particularly like to thank the Committee on Fisheries and the rapporteur, has gone to great pains to ensure that we meet the deadline we have set ourselves.
You will be voting on the report tomorrow, and that just leaves enough time for us to make a decision in Council so that the regulation can come into force on 15 February.
The Commission is totally in agreement with the report before us and I would like to thank you once again for your support.
I shall now turn to the amendment that has been tabled. Unfortunately, I have to reject this amendment.
Why? Last year we carried out a number of trial catches with semi-pelagic trawls, precisely during the second half of the closure period.
These trials clearly showed that the risk to cod is very high during this period and that there is a significant by-catch of cod.
However, the Commission is willing to allow semi-pelagic trawls to be used during the first half of the closure period, subject to the conditions mentioned by Mr Nicholson, namely that there should be a specific observation system in accordance with Article 3 and that these activities will cease if the by-catch of cod becomes excessive.
We are also aware that the second condition I mentioned involves a certain risk, but because of the observation system, if there should be a further closure next year we will be in a position to say whether or not this exception can also be made during the first part of next year's closure period.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Fischler.
And thank you for being so brief.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.30 p.m.)
Madam President, I would like to take advantage of the Commission President' s attendance to ask him about a serious matter.
Every year, the European Movement in France organises a very important event, "Europe Day" , on 9 May.
This year we wish to organise a day dedicated to the euro.
Since last September, this movement has been asking you to fund this day. It is not possible to organise the day without your support.
Yet, to date, we have received no assurance that the Commission' s contribution will be paid.
If we have no such assurance by the end of the week, the European Movement in France will have to abandon the idea of organising this year' s "Europe Day" .
I believe this would be extremely harmful to the common cause to which we dedicate all our strength.
Mr Prodi, do you wish to give Mrs Berès such assurance now or later in the course of your speech?
Mrs Berès, I am not familiar with the details of the question you have raised, but I will investigate the matter immediately and give you a response today.
Thank you, Mr President.
Vote on a request for urgent procedure
The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has decided to apply the procedure without report to that proposal. I shall give the floor immediately to Mr Watson, who is Chairman of that committee, to give us its opinion.
Watson (ELDR), Chairman of the Committee on Citizen's Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
Madam President, the committee which I have the honour to chair is very much aware of the importance of this matter and the urgency of its adoption before 25 March 2001, to allow the Nordic Union to be fully involved.
We would have preferred to have been informed of this earlier by the Council.
They have brought it to us at the very last moment.
Nonetheless, in the circumstances it is our view that we would not wish to delay the vote on this, and we consider it best to treat this as a matter without report; we would therefore suggest that it be put straight to the vote in this part-session.
There being no Member who wishes to speak against this urgent procedure, we shall put the matter to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request for urgent procedure)
Commission work programme for 2001/Nice
The next item is the joint debate on the presentation of the Commission's programme for 2001 and the oral question to the Commission tabled by Mr van Velzen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats, on the follow-up to the Nice European Council (B5-0006/2001).
I now give the floor to Mr Prodi, President of the Commission.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is only right that we should hold a general debate on the state of the Union once a year.
I would like today's debate to be another step forward along the road we are to travel in 2001.
It is a road which will clearly be marked by a number of events and priorities, which I shall mention shortly, but, most importantly, it will be taking us already - and I am tempted to say at last - in the direction of the Europe of tomorrow.
The Commission of which I have the honour of being President has always asked to be judged by what it does. That is why it is extremely important for me that cooperation between the Commission and Parliament, and the Commission's fruitful relationship with the Member States in the Council, lead to substantial, practical results.
This is why I hope that this annual debate will become a valuable forum for free, open, common debate in which we can discuss our successes and problems in a constructive atmosphere, with a view to accomplishing the projects which are of real concern to the citizens of Europe.
I know that, on these occasions, the tradition is for the Commission President to present a detailed review of the policies implemented, but I am sure that nobody will object if I depart somewhat from that tradition and confine today's discussion to our main priorities for 2001 and to the longer-term question of Europe's future.
I will not dwell on the last 12 months.
When I stood before this House, a year ago, I announced the four strategic objectives that my Commission had set itself: one, to promote new forms of governance on a European scale; two, to stabilise Europe and consolidate our influence in the world; three, to set new economic and social priorities; and four, to improve the quality of life for all.
With a view to improving the quality of life of the European citizens, we published our White Paper on Food Safety and a proposal for a regulation laying down requirements and basic principles in the area of food safety.
We also proposed to set up a European Food Agency, which will come into operation next year.
In addition to this, we proposed to set up a European Air Safety Authority and prepared new, tough legislation on maritime safety following the Erika disaster.
To promote a new social and economic agenda for Europe, we put forward detailed, ambitious proposals to the Lisbon European Council. As a result, the EU now has an integrated strategy that will allow it to become the most dynamic, competitive knowledge-based economy in the world.
The key to stabilising our continent is our strategy for enlarging the European Union.
Throughout 2000, the Commission resolutely pursued accession negotiations with the candidate countries, and we also launched the public debate on a genuine migration policy.
Finally, to promote new forms of European governance, we set to work on a White Paper which is scheduled to be published before the end of the summer.
Essentially, ladies and gentlemen, my Commission delivered on its commitments during 2000, seeking clear, simple solutions.
Today, before this House, I want to say how proud I am of my staff, for whom 2000 was a year of far-reaching internal reforms.
My fellow Commissioners and I are aware that we have made considerable demands of our colleagues, not only in terms of workload, but especially because they have had to adapt to changes in working methods and to taking greater individual responsibility for their action.
Internal reform, while clearly not a political objective in itself, is nevertheless one of the Commission's ongoing tasks for 2001.
Indeed, every organisation of every kind has to adapt continuously to a changing world.
That is what we are trying to do right now.
However, no administration can be expected to cope with so much stress for very long, however genuinely necessary the changes are.
I am therefore determined to bring the internal reforms to a swift conclusion, in a climate of consultation and transparency, while fully complying with all our undertakings.
The Commission's political decisions are set out in the work programme for 2001 which was adopted at the end of January and immediately forwarded to Parliament.
The key elements of this programme are structured around a number of major events.
These are not a random collection of disparate items. They are linked by the constant guiding principle that our action must meet the practical needs of Europe's citizens and protect their interests.
The debate on the future of the Union, which I shall be saying more about shortly, is also based on that principle.
But first, let me describe the Commission's major initiatives for this year in greater detail.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, all our work since the Lisbon Summit and in preparing for Stockholm has had one constant aim: to create and preserve the conditions in which we can leave to our children a dynamic, just and prosperous Europe whose citizens have the latest skills, good jobs and an active role within our Community.
On the basis of the Commission's input, the Lisbon Summit last year produced a strategy for achieving this goal.
Next month, at Stockholm, on the basis of the Commission's reports, the European Council will review progress to date - the areas where we have forged ahead, but also the areas where we are lagging behind.
One of the key goals of our strategy is to restore the right conditions for full employment.
We are already seeing some encouraging progress: last year, 2.5 million jobs were created, more than two thirds of which taken up by women.
This is a truly high figure, although it will clearly have to be repeated over a number of years to resolve the issue of unemployment.
However, in some sectors, as our Stockholm report makes clear, progress has been far too slow.
European leaders therefore need greater political will and to be aware of the urgent requirement to fulfil the promises made in Lisbon on, for example, the Community patent, the Galileo programme and the liberalisation of gas and electricity, programmes which are vital for our future.
Nor, as yet, do we have a coherent strategy on lifelong learning.
What we need now, therefore, is fresh energy to accelerate action in some key areas.
We identify 10 key areas in our report for Stockholm, in particular - although I will not list them all - frontier technologies, integrated financial markets, and the new skills and mobility provided by the new European labour markets.
At Stockholm, I will urge the Heads of State and Government to seize the opportunity and not to rest on their laurels: we need to push ahead resolutely with the reforms already agreed upon in Lisbon.
To give you an idea of our report, here are three important recommendations it contains. Firstly, to eliminate barriers that discourage people from entering the work force or restrict the mobility of workers.
To do this, we need more efficient tax systems, more investment in education and lifelong learning and, lastly, specific measures to address the skills gap.
We also need action to guarantee the portability of professional qualifications and pensions between different sectors and countries.
Secondly, also by way of example, we need to accelerate economic reforms.
Services represent three quarters of our gross domestic product but there is still no genuine internal market in this sector.
Thirdly, Europe must be at the forefront of innovation if we are to be able to create a European Research Area.
I do not need to say any more about this.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there has to be a stable balance between our policies to ensure that all Europe's vital assets, our economic assets but also our social capital and our environment, are preserved for future generations.
If we are to get that long-term balance right, we need a strategy for sustainable development.
The Commission is working on just such a strategy, which will be discussed at the culmination of the current presidency, the Gothenburg European Council.
We are aiming to translate the rather abstract concept of sustainable development into practical, comprehensible terms and concrete, visible action which will affect the citizens' working and everyday lives.
It will therefore be a strategy for innovation and increased investment in that area, which will also exploit the opportunities provided by frontier technology: a strategy fixing prices at a level which better reflects the costs of environmental degradation.
A long-term political project of this kind clearly requires effective prior consultation.
In order to promote this discussion, Madam President, I have already written to you, proposing a major debate in the European Parliament on these issues.
The views expressed by this House will, indeed, be valuable to the Commission in developing its strategic proposal for the Gothenburg Summit, a proposal which, I repeat, must be practical, or it will be a weak summit.
We intend, moreover, to stimulate lively discussion not only within the European institutions but, more generally, with our citizens, by issuing a consultative document.
Our aim is to achieve an all-encompassing, coherent, long-term orientation for the management of European affairs.
Turning now to the Union's relations with the rest of the world: we are receiving clearer signals from our citizens every day, telling us that if we really want to harness the potential of globalisation for the good of us all, we must be willing to take decisions in this area as well.
In the short term, this means including a new round of trade negotiations in our priorities for 2001, although that is not wholly up to us.
Indeed, a new round would be the best way of strengthening the multilateral system with further trade liberalisation and new rules that meet the demands of civil society.
We must also negotiate in crucial areas such as competition and investment, and focus more sharply on the interests of developing countries.
Indeed, the developing countries are the key element in the whole process.
Trade policy cannot just be concerned with the interests of the business world: we have to ensure that it benefits the world's poorest peoples.
We therefore call upon Parliament and the Council to accept, this month, our proposal to allow the 48 poorest countries in the world to export everything but arms to the European Union quota free, tariff free across the board.
(Applause)Yesterday, I received a telephone call from the United Nations Secretary-General, who has just returned from the Middle East. At the end of the conversation, he specifically asked me to call upon you and upon the Council to proceed with this project, advocated by Commissioner Lamy, the entire Commission and the presidency, which, despite all the problems it will bring us and our countries, does represent a change.
We are also ready to cooperate with the new US Administration and Congress on trade issues.
Naturally, President Bush has his regional priorities, but I know that he and his colleagues understand the importance of the multilateral system.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, another major milestone on the road ahead is, of course, the introduction of euro notes and coins at the end of the year.
As soon as it takes the form of coins jangling in our pockets, the euro will become a tangible everyday reality for the citizens.
Over the next ten and a half months, the Commission will be working hard together with the Swedish and Belgian Presidencies to complete the preparations for this extremely important event: a historical event which will have a permanent effect on the lives of Europeans.
This will require a huge and - in particular - unprecedented organisational structure.
However, not everyone welcomes the idea of giving up an old, familiar currency for a new and unfamiliar one, and there are bound to be some teething problems.
We must therefore make every endeavour to make the public understand the advantages the euro will bring us all and that it will be the symbol of a vigorous, modern economy.
In any case, it is already the symbol of a typically European project, carried through on time, as planned, by Europe for Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to conclude by returning to the issue I raised earlier: the debate on the future of Europe after Nice.
Despite all the limitations of the Treaty of Nice that we have already discussed, it does, to my mind, have two merits: firstly, its very existence, which is no small achievement. As far as we are concerned, there are now no further obstacles to enlargement.
Secondly, it opens up the broader, post-Nice debate on the future of the European Union.
As I said to you in January, and in line with the declaration annexed to the Treaty, the first stage of the process will be one of "open reflection".
This will enable the December European Council to initiate a second stage, which I have termed "structured reflection", leading ultimately to a brief, decisive Intergovernmental Conference.
I am convinced that this is the right approach and there seems to be widespread agreement on it.
What I want to talk about chiefly today in this Chamber is the first stage, because it relates to 2001.
The open reflection stage, which we have already entered, is, in my opinion, crucial for three reasons: firstly because of the paradox that the words and actions of the European citizens are making more obvious every day, that Europe is increasingly necessary but also seen as increasingly remote.
We therefore need a debate which will involve everybody and all levels of society if we are to relaunch and complete the great project of establishing a European Union.
Secondly, the disappointing outcome of the Nice Conference. What was missing at Nice was, above all, an in-depth discussion in the preparatory stages about what we want from Europe and for Europe.
The talks went on and on, but they never touched on the fundamental issues. This debate can be postponed no longer.
Thirdly and finally, there is an increasingly widespread impression, which I share, that the method common in the past of constructive ambiguities, of leaving things unsaid, is no longer appropriate.
We have now entered a new stage in which the basic issues are staring us in the face and cannot be ignored.
Since 1981, first the Community and then the Union have been going through a continual process of adjustment, restructuring, enlargement and adaptation. For almost a whole generation, a constant earth tremor has been shaking our institutions, and it has swept away the landmarks familiar to the public in our countries and sown doubt over the wisdom of our decisions and of the direction in which we are headed.
We have taken decisions of historic dimension which will unite the continent.
It would be both absurd and dangerous to build this unity around a vague agreement, around fuzzy undertakings and conflicting hidden agendas.
So what public debate are we talking about? It has to be a constitutional debate on the fundamental nature of the Union.
I trust the judgment of our citizens and their elected representatives provided the debate is pitched at the right level: this is not about the curvature of cucumbers or Euromyths and distortions but about genuine issues, issues of concern to the citizens, most of whom want Europe to do more, not less.
The questions the European citizens ask are not about cucumbers, but we have to admit that they are not chiefly about the institutional debate in which we have been engaged since Maastricht and which is now - we cannot deny it, especially after Nice - going round in circles.
I think the real problem is that, somewhere along the way, we lost the thread of the agreement between our Member States on which direction we should be taking.
Our disagreements are less and less easily hidden behind the hair-splitting protocols and the complex formulas. These disagreements arise partly, I feel, because the debate has been poorly conducted in recent years.
Too often it has been an argument purely about power. We must get to the heart of the issues.
There is bound to be some disagreement on the ultimate purpose of the Union for, thankfully, we are all different, but I find some consolation in the thought that we can at least agree on the essentials. This brings us to the heart of the matter, to the fundamental questions I want publicly discussed.
For example: are we all clear that we want to build something that can aspire to be a world power? In other words, not just a trading bloc but a political entity?
Are we all aware of the vital issues at stake here and upon which the future of our communities depends? Do we realise that our nation States, taken individually, would find it far more difficult to assert their existence and their identity on the world stage?
Another question: how much social and economic solidarity are we prepared to show one another?
Not just to prevent monetary shocks or to prevent the internal market breaking up but because we believe that our peoples should help one another, taking part in a joint enterprise. And again: are we prepared to show the same solidarity when it comes to internal and external security?
Then: what sort of environment shall we leave to future generations?
Finally: what are the most effective ways of enabling the European peoples to protect and uphold the values of democracy, solidarity and justice?
To my mind, these are the sorts of questions we should ask in this year's debate.
They are specifically political, not institutional, and it is in answering them that we will decide the level at which we wish to live and work together.
By opening this great debate on these subjects, I am not asking you or the citizens to embark upon a discussion with no fixed parameters. It is not a case of 'back to the drawing board' .
We are talking about a Europe that has achieved many great, useful things during the 50 years since the Community and Union were founded, a Europe that has achieved peace and prosperity and, most recently, established the single currency.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, these are the questions that you, together with the members of our national parliaments, and our governments, must start to ask and answer.
Let me be clear on this: I am not confusing the public debate, which must be completely open to civil society, with democratic representation.
European and national parliaments have the legitimacy of being elected.
When the time comes for a structured debate leading to concrete results, the method we follow must take account of that.
We shall then be entering the second stage, following Laeken.
No one now imagines that this stage can proceed without European and national parliaments being closely involved, firstly because Europe is not just a matter of cooperation between States - it is also about relations between peoples and has long been so - but also because the deadlock between nationalistic positions will not produce the vision and imagination needed for a fundamental rethink of Europe.
After Laeken, once suitable preparations have been made, the structured debate will have to be based on a formula which unites all the key players - the European Parliament, the national parliaments, the governments and the Commission - a formula which will be increasingly refined by Laeken itself and the subsequent European Councils in 2002.
It is from this ongoing dialogue between the European Council and the convention, or conference or assembly or forum, whatever we choose to call it (let us not get into the dangerous territory of terminology) that the right questions would be able to emerge. Finally, all the institutional implications could be drawn from it.
Clearly, then, there can be no question of limiting the scope of this exercise to the four topics listed at Nice.
I fully endorse what Mr Michel Barnier said to your Committee on Constitutional Affairs, namely that what must emerge from the post-Nice debate is a coherent, durable design for our enlarged Union. The Commission will, of course, contribute its share of the work and take a number of initiatives.
It has already done so by proposing, in particular, the reorganisation of the Treaties, which is already on the table. It will do so again by helping Parliament and the successive Presidencies to organise the "deeper and wider debate" called for in the Nice declaration.
It will also do so through the White Paper on governance.
Do not expect the White Paper to deliver a ready-made definition of the competences of the Union and the States.
It will not take up positions on constitutional questions. What it will do is help by proposing ways of genuinely decentralising the administration of the Union and ways of applying our common policies at the most appropriate level, that is, as closely as possible to the citizens.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is sometimes said - and I tend to agree - that European integration was the most important event in the second half of the twentieth century.
And with dependable regularity, at every stage of European integration, certain critics have decried the project as an impossible, or even laughable, utopian dream.
When the European currency was first conceived, comments were made which I cannot bring myself to repeat. Instead, at the end of 2001, we shall see coins and bank notes being issued.
We have got to where we are, and we should be proud of it.
(Loud, sustained applause)
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, as the Union expands eastward to the countries of Central Europe and the Baltic, within just a few years' time our relations with our eastern neighbours remaining outside the Union will become more and more important.
The biggest potential for the Union to cement a state of peace in our immediate surroundings and to acquire new economic partnerships lies with Russia and the Ukraine.
Unfortunately, this is not yet visible in the work of the Union.
We like to find excuses for it, saying that these countries themselves still do not have the right economic conditions or political will to find suitable forms of cooperation.
But we have already invested a considerable amount of money and resources in cooperation with the southern Mediterranean region, and we are still waiting for the results to materialise there.
We also need a long-term approach to the East.
I did not notice any mention in the President' s general report of our relations with the East, which perhaps was not possible within the framework of a broad overview.
In recent years, the Union' s investment in Russia in terms of finance has been one tenth of what is being spent in the Mediterranean region.
Just half of what has been spent on cooperation in the Mediterranean has gone to all countries of the former Soviet Union.
This is out of all proportion with the relative importance of these two neighbouring regions.
Forms of economic cooperation in particular must be concrete and feasible.
Waste water from St. Petersburg and the surrounding area, with its population of some nine million, is flowing either untreated or via waterworks that function badly into the shallow, relatively salt-free and ecologically vulnerable Gulf of Finland.
This has already resulted in harmful and lasting changes to the balance of nature, and the situation is continuing to deteriorate.
President Prodi called for environmentally sustainable development.
A sewage works for the Leningrad region would be one tangible and excellent example of a Nordic area of cooperation, and one which should now be got under way.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on behalf of my group, I wish to welcome the Commission' s work programme for 2001. This complements the legislative programme which, on my group' s initiative, Parliament requested as a condition for approving the Commission' s appointment.
The programme has not been short on proposals: there are 485, 155 of which date from last year and which have been carried over.
It must be pointed out that last year 50% of the programme was successfully concluded.
You do not need to make many proposals; instead, you should try to bring those that you do propose to a successful conclusion.
I should also like to point out, once again, that an agreement was in place, establishing that the programme would be presented in January, following consultations with Parliament' s committees.
It is to be hoped that next year you will be more successful in meeting the deadlines.
I repeat that the crucial question raised in this programme is undoubtedly the involvement of Europe' s citizens in the European project, which is the mark and the essential prerequisite of its success.
This means that together we must address the issues concerning our citizens, such as the economic and social agenda, which we shall be discussing in March, food safety, the introduction of the euro as the cash currency, and the fight against organised crime, not forgetting the Millennium Round.
I wish to state that my group firmly supports the Commission' s everything but arms initiative, which will enable the 48 poorest countries in the world to export a limitless range of products.
These are the key aspects of the programme.
We have, nevertheless, been the target of criticism, which we must accept and address.
One criticism that has been made concerns the way in which the bureaucrats in Brussels have dealt with the mad cow issue.
I think that here too we must defend the Commission and Parliament and say that for several years we have done our duty, we predicted this crisis and we must continue to insist not only on the investigation into those responsible, but on the need to respond to the concerns of our fellow citizens.
Creating a single market is not just a matter of deregulating and of eliminating rules that protect citizens, in a quest for limitless profits. Creating a single market is also about endeavouring to guarantee essential services and also, in a context of greater competition and freedom, to do so in a civilised way.
This point is worth remembering, because it appears that at the moment, the only aspect being discussed is the virtue of deregulation and not the virtues which must also feature in a civilised society.
With regard to governance, Mr President, what is required more than a reflection, which is currently very fashionable and rather ethereal when it comes to new forms, is to take up the tried and tested democratic practices which enable us to understand the messages of Pericles, 2500 years ago, for example.
I would ask you, instead of speaking to us in very general terms, to put forward a specific proposal in this context of reflection on the debate, in which the Commission, on the basis of the work by the University Institute of Florence, proposes treaties that are simplified, simple and comprehensible. We need proposals that will save President Havel from having a suitcase full of treaties, protocols and annexes in his office.
This is what we need.
We also need a Commission proposal on the distribution of competences and on how the Charter can be incorporated.
This means talking about everything, in other words, putting forward a very wide-ranging proposal.
Mr President, I would like you to make fewer generalised appeals to civil society and to speak more with us, its elected representatives, both in the European Parliament and in the parliaments of the Member States.
I think that what is crucial this year is not to stage a cosy, round-table discussion, or some kind of chat show; what we need to do when we reflect is to see what procedure and what method we should be using.
Here, Madam President, I feel I need to make an observation.
We regret the fact that no Member of the Council is present.
Nevertheless, we do not feel that it is good parliamentary practice to allocate five minutes extra to the European People' s Party in the person of Mr Poettering, because he will have to thank those Members that voted for there being a question to the Commission this month rather than to the Council, as we ourselves had proposed and as it seems will be done in March.
This is a fair parliamentary debate and we are seeing a situation in which the terms of the debate are being falsified and the allocation of speaking time between the groups and Members rendered meaningless.
We therefore believe that the Council more than anyone should be represented here, as we proposed, in order to explain under what terms it drafted the Annex IV Conference, so that it is neither playing to the gallery nor launching some kind of spontaneous or Soviet-style trial with no legal basis.
We therefore feel that it is extremely important, with regard to the structural reflection mentioned by President Prodi, to call for his last proposal to be enacted.
In other words, there must be a forum, a conference or a convention with the participation of the Members of the European Parliament, the Commission, the Council, governments and also members of the various Member State parliaments.
We need such a conference, not only to discuss the issues, but also to make proposals that can finally be decided on and resolved.
I shall end, Madam President, because I have run out of time, by saying to the Commission, which is equipped with the necessary machinery to make proposals, to do so. We will then be able to strengthen an alliance that we consider to be absolutely essential to taking the debate firmly forwards and to providing solutions for the future of European integration.
Madam President, my group too warmly supports the approach whereby the main priorities are actually set forth in this discussion, and just for a moment we can ignore the 'business as usual' attitude that we do tend to encounter in our everyday work here.
Right at the start I wish to say that the fact that the Union lacks the tools to work in such a way that it is actually able to answer the challenges of increasing globalisation, for example, and the tools to enable it to protect its citizens from the chaotic effects of this globalisation, is becoming a major problem.
I am now referring to the fact that at the Nice Summit it proved utterly impossible to take the decision that, in future, matters to do with taxation might be decided upon by means of a qualified majority.
This means that we shall be leaving this area of taxation to market forces.
We are to allow market forces to shape our tax system, and this will obviously be a major obstacle to our being able to build what we here call the European social model, in which we want to steer the development of society by means of taxation.
Population growth was mentioned here.
It is absolutely clear that we must combat growing racism, as we will not otherwise be in any way able to deal with immigrants and asylum seekers.
In this we all have a great public responsibility.
Madam President, very often strong words are uttered in this House on the subject of our citizens.
Here today, too, it has been said many times over that the public must be included in the decision-making process, although, unfortunately, this very often gets forgotten in practice.
I will take one very topical example of this.
The institutions are at this very moment trying to put together a regulation on transparency, which would safeguard the right of the public to acquire information on decision making in the Union.
I would like to warn my colleagues and all those present that now it appears that this regulation on transparency is turning into more of a regulation to shield the confidentiality of the work of the institutions, or, in other words, it has precisely the opposite objective.
We cannot accept this sort of thing, and we also need more public debate on this issue.
Neither can this matter be discussed entirely in camera, as is happening at the moment.
Madam President, sustainable development was mentioned by President Prodi in his opening address, and this is a major objective as far as my group is concerned.
If we do not succeed at Gothenburg in achieving a real programme of sustainable development we will have wasted an opportunity that perhaps will not return again.
It is here, if anywhere, that the Commission must demonstrate leadership and set forth its views.
But it would seem that there are always problems with this in practice.
Today the Commission will publish its White Paper on policy on chemicals, but I have reason to suppose that the Commission' s approach to this too will be to protect the short-sighted financial interests of industry rather than guarantee that we would actually be rid of hazardous chemicals.
This is something we cannot possibly accept as we are speaking about sustainable development.
Environmental competitiveness is something that should be taken seriously, and the Commission would be better off listening to companies and financial players that have realised that sustainable development can also be good business.
Major reform in agriculture is at present under discussion, and we want to encourage it, and we insist that the Commission take a comprehensive view and not just content itself with taking small steps forward. In this we can look forward to a real change in the paradigm.
To conclude, Madam President, if you will allow, Annex IV of the Treaty of Nice is certainly the best thing about this agreement.
It states the enormous obligation of Parliament, the Commission and the Council also, and the Swedish Presidency, to take seriously our re-evaluation of the process that underlies the structure of the European Union.
My group fully supports your initiative regarding our obligation to include civil society in this debate over the next six months prior to the Laeken Summit, as well, obviously, as the national parliaments and indeed those of candidate countries.
It saddens me when I hear that my colleague, Mr Barón Crespo, wants to point out here that we must be mainly satisfied to listen to national parliaments.
No, civil society is very much a reality.
We will have to take it seriously finally and we should no longer have to witness any Intergovernmental Conference in which just the national interests are safeguarded, with all this happening behind closed doors.
Madam President, the agreement reached at Nice will now pave the way for the enlargement of the Union.
This was the central objective that needed to be achieved during these treaty negotiations and I now believe that the way ahead is clear for candidate countries to join the Union in the near future.
The most immediate objective for the 15 existing Members of the European Union is to ensure that the Treaty of Nice is ratified across the Union as soon as possible.
The provisions of the Treaty of Nice cannot come into effect until the ratification process has been concluded within the 15 Member States of the Union.
I note with interest that the agenda for this debate which we are having today is headed "follow-up to Nice".
I would caution all interested parties against discussing broader developments within the Union before the ratification process has been comprehensively concluded within the European Union.
This is really the central dichotomy that exists within the Union at this time.
Those who talk about broader political integration within the Union take for granted that the ratification of the Treaty of Nice is a done deal.
It is not a done deal.
It is a deal that has to be sold to the 370 million citizens of the Union in a manner that is easily understood and in a manner which commands the public support and good will of all our citizens.
This is a criticism I would level against those in particular who propose putting into effect complete federal structures within the European Union.
There is at times an attitude in some European quarters to the effect that 'we know best; we will bring about the appropriate changes and the people will thank us for them later' .
That is not how political persuasion operates.
We put forward proposals.
We then persuade the people of Europe to support them, whether within our respective parliament structures or by referendum.
It is up to us, who support enlargement of the Union and who recognise the absolute right of candidate countries to join the Union, to convince our voting citizens of the importance of the provisions of the Treaty of Nice and of its broader political implications.
What the European Union should not do is to carry out any further debate on new political developments within the Union before the Treaty of Nice has been ratified within any of our respective Member States.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I have listened with some amazement to the speech of the leader of the European People' s Party, which stressed the absence of the Council and the institutional detachment which, to some degree, has been observed in this Chamber, and which also strongly criticised the sectorial policy of the Foreign Ministers of the Member States.
I believe that this is symptomatic, with regard to what President Prodi has just shown, of the programme: a programme which, in a way, closely resembles a catalogue of dreams but which - and herein lies the difference - is characterised by the search for a debate, as President Prodi has illustrated in his report.
There has been talk of market liberalisation, of privatisation and, more recently, of sustainable development and environmental damage, and one can see the clear contradiction when we talk of liberalisation on the one hand, and sustainable development on the other: contradictions which are revealed by a Commission and a Europe which, for too long, have been associated with the lobby whose only concern may well not be to create the Europe we were talking about but increasingly a Europe for businessmen, which I do not want and, nor, I believe, do many of us.
The problem is therefore fundamental, one which is increasingly forming the subject of debate on modern Europe, one which some - using an American term I do not like - call the welfare state and which we Europeans have always called the social state.
The basic problem is and remains: social State or liberal State?
More State and less market or more market and less State? There has been talk of two and a half million jobs created last year and we have heard President Prodi say that two thirds of these went to women: I believe that what President Prodi has shown us is an excellent result, which should however also be evaluated on the level, dear President, of territorial distribution within Europe.
Of these two and a half million jobs, for example, I do not know how many went to Italy and, in particular, to southern Italy, where unemployment is extremely serious and where, if we wished it, we could maybe - this is my suggestion, but it is worth careful consideration - combine the problems of sustainable development and those associated with resolving the question of employment: I refer to the possibility of providing incentives to promote the access of young people to the world of work in the form of a minimum starting salary, with the aim, for example, of achieving hydro-geological redevelopment of the region.
There are a great number of people who are idle and Europe could find a solution of this kind to solve two problems simultaneously.
I am also thinking about your words, Mr President, on the internal reform of the Commission.
I know that you are working on this with conviction, and this conviction with which the Commission is working is having an influence on, for example, the internal job situation, on the employees of the Commission, who are worried by job cuts and a reorganisation which could have repercussions for the job situation of Parliament employees.
It is a widespread concern in this regard: I therefore call upon you to initiate a final debate, no longer on roles so much as on the political content of Parliament and the Commission' s initiative: definite, clear-cut choices which describe a Europe in which the memory of the cucumbers - to which President Prodi referred - is increasingly faint and remote.
Mr President, some Eurosceptics are in favour of the Treaty of Nice because federalists protest against it.
Some federalists are in favour of it because Eurosceptics are opposed to it. However, both groups may well have good reasons for opposing it.
Eurosceptics are necessarily opposed to shifting power from the national parliaments to Brussels.
Federalists are necessarily opposed to decision making' s being taken from voters and elected representatives and put into the hands of EU officials and ministers.
In short, Nice means less democracy.
We all have a common interest in securing a democratic debate prior to the next treaty.
There must be an end to treaties behind closed doors.
The next treaty must be negotiated openly by elected representatives, and it must be discussed not only openly but also with the direct involvement of citizens and, in the end, be approved in referenda in those countries where referenda are allowed.
Against this background, federalists and 'Euroroyalists' will be able to discuss the way in which the future Europe is to be organised.
What is to be discussed in Brussels, what is to be decided in Strasbourg and what is to be decided in the national parliaments?
The Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities is campaigning for open, slimmer and freer European cooperation.
We want to see the majority of all decisions taken in the Member States and in local areas.
The wealth of Europe lies in its diversity, and we cannot, for example, see any compelling need for the EU' s being able to alter a decision taken by Århus city council about the organisation of local bus services.
That is a matter we are well able to decide for ourselves.
Finally, I hope that the information tools that the Commission is now going to be using will be used in a pluralistic way to promote discussion between all those holding different points of view about European integration.
Mr President, today' s debate on the oral question on the follow-up to the Nice European Council, even though the draft Treaty has not yet been signed and the next IGC is not due to be convened until 2004, is clear indication of just how impatient some parties are to launch another round of negotiation.
For these people, particularly for the Commission - as the Commission President has just stated - this is supposed to be, at long last, the great European constitutional process that the Nice Council denied itself, a process which should be set in motion forthwith by means of a European convention inspired by that which, last year, drew up the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Such unseemly haste, such over-excitement, must not, however, be seen as a substitute for due consideration.
The concept of a European Constitution makes reference to the concept of a European State, which is something that the nations of Europe do not wish to see.
Moreover, the Nice Council, please note, refrained from including this idea in the objectives for the future IGC.
What the Europe of the future actually needs is not the status of a future European State with its own constitution but a network of nations that is respectful of the national democracies and is enshrined in a fundamental treaty.
In the short term, we must consider the method of the future debate.
Let us be honest, the convention which framed the Charter of Fundamental Rights was a failure because it continually muddled areas of jurisdiction and confused areas of responsibility, and came up in the end with a text which, although it might have been music to the ears of those advocating the European superstate, was not acceptable to the members of the Union as a whole.
It is true that in future we shall have to have a different procedure for preparing for IGCs, but it will certainly not be through bodies such as the convention existing in a state of perfect weightlessness. That would only force us into new deadlocks.
In the first instance, debate with regard to the forthcoming IGC, must be organised in and around the national parliaments and on their responsibility.
In the second place, the forthcoming IGC should negotiate only credible proposals, i.e. those supported by at least one in four of the national parliaments within the European Union following votes in their parliaments.
In this way we would be sure of not wandering off track and we would remain firmly anchored to the national democracies.
President Prodi, we understand how difficult it is to summarise in a short document the complexity of the issues dealt with by the European Commission.
I shall therefore limit myself to only two, and I should be grateful if these could be looked at again.
We can see what is going on in the agricultural sector: we, as the European People' s Party, feel that there is an absolute necessity to review the terms of the common agricultural policy and, above all, to understand the scope of future strategies.
Consider the financial burden the agricultural policy places on our budget. However, we must also consider the political cards which will be played on agriculture, and the issue of globalisation.
You yourself recalled the Lamy proposal, an extremely important proposal but one which will have major implications for agriculture.
Let us also think about what will happen on the food production front in terms of safety, what will happen in the fields of typical productions and biotechnology.
If we then add the issues of enlargement and the relaunch of agriculture in some areas such as the Mediterranean basin, we shall want to know what Model of European Agriculture the Commission intends to create and, above all, we shall certainly want assurance that this agricultural model will not be placed on the foreign policy table and regarded as a bargaining counter in situations arising out of international requirements.
The second issue concerns the Mediterranean, whose importance was shown by a forum in which we took part last week.
Well, as regards the Mediterranean, substantial problems still remain unresolved.
On this issue, we want a policy to be agreed which guarantees the same privileges for the South as those granted to other areas of the European Union.
Mr President, the Commission President has told us that the institutions must be responsible, transparent and efficient and he has promised to bring forward a White Paper on governance.
If we need to improve the quality of governance of the Union, we might make a start with the Commission's work programme itself.
We should be focusing policy-making on areas where EU-wide action is indispensable.
We should be ensuring that the principle of subsidiarity is fully respected.
Is this really the case with the Commission's recommendation on a common European format for curriculum vitaes: No 379 on their list of measures to implement this year?
Each new legislative proposal should include a justification of why action at Union level is necessary and we might help, as my colleague Mr Clegg has suggested, by establishing a standing scrutiny committee in this House to ensure that measures proposed meet the criteria for subsidiarity and proportionality.
Your state of the Union speech, Mr Prodi, should be accompanied by a detailed list of proposals individually justified and explained, not hidden away in annexes to the document.
The proposal should be the outcome of serious debate in the College of Commissioners, not passed on the nod as A points.
Our committee should cross-examine individual Commissioners on the proposals in their area of responsibility.
Finally, the annual work programme should come to a vote here in Parliament.
Nice showed the failures of intergovernmental Europe.
It is up to us to make a more persuasive case for a federal Europe.
Mr President, President Prodi, I endorse the call for specific answers.
The political unity of Europe made no headway whatsoever in Nice.
On the contrary, Nice was a renationalisation-fest.
What came unstuck there, President Prodi - and I think it is important that we recognise this - was Council's presumption that it is Europe's legislator.
That is by definition what parliaments are for.
President Prodi, the Commission's attitude is unclear and extremely vague, especially on the question of the post-Nice process.
You have criticised the Treaty, but I hear that the Commission is starting a huge run of newspaper advertisements hailing the Treaty of Nice as an historic breakthrough and success.
You find reason to criticise, but your Commissioner Barnier is outlining a mere forum for debate, rather than a constitutional process and a convention.
Mr President of the Commission, I call on you to give a straight answer to a straight question: are you on Parliament's side when it comes to demanding a constitutional process and a convention and for decisive democratic principles, such as the division of power, checks and balances, public legislating and so forth, to be added to the list of Nice leftovers?
Mr President, integration policy took a step backwards in Nice - not a trace of stronger democracy, more transparency or a greater ability to act and take decisions.
Which is why I believe that we need to use the post-Nice process to save the Union from Nice.
I want to raise four points which I feel are important in the brief time available.
First, I call on the Council to correct the number of seats in the European Parliament for the Czech Republic and Hungary immediately; there must be no discrimination against these two countries.
Secondly, we need a clear, jointly agreed starting point for the debate on the future of the Union - re-founding should not mean renationalising.
Thirdly, we need to convene a reform conference modelled on the convention, which has the credentials and authority to propose reforms and, fourthly, if an Intergovernmental Conference is preferred, it should not, in my view, be held in 2004, when the terms of office of the Commission and Parliament expire and they are unable to participate fully.
Mr President, for years, priorities have been increasing in number, either because objectives are not completely achieved or because the frantic acceleration of the political, technological and economic processes are bringing to our attention urgent needs which are always new and increasingly difficult to tackle.
The problem of employment and the dignity of working conditions and of standards of living is still unresolved; as for enlargement, our capacities to tackle this adequately with regard to our own peoples and the peoples of the candidate countries, the necessary structures, the economic adjustments and the political and social relationships require further development and greater consistency.
It is not a question of speeding up enlargement or slowing it down; it is a question of achieving it in a manner which is appropriate to the situation and according to timeframes which are compatible with the time needed to ensure that a morally correct choice is not turned into a disaster.
The fight against illegal immigration, organised crime, the exploitation of women and children, drugs and the trafficking of weapons and human organs must be constantly at the centre of our focus, but we have to say that documents which are flawless in form are not being matched by meaningful progress on the ground.
We are awaiting European regulations on the use of the Internet.
In fact, without rules, there is no freedom, only infringement of national and international laws.
The reinvigoration of the Mediterranean policy, as decided by the European Parliament in the last part-session, must be implemented - and quickly - as must the initiatives for peace in the Middle East.
But of all the urgent situations there are, one is currently an absolutely top priority: food safety and security for the citizens.
In the name of false progress and the illegal profits of some, we are irreversibly destroying both the present and future health of the consumer and entire farming and food production sectors.
The consequences will be disastrous if we cannot give a firm, frank, timely response.
Already, there have been too many delays in governments' interventions after the first reports, many years ago, of mad cow disease, gelatine-coated beef, and dioxins in chickens, in short, in respect of all the food frauds which have been shown to be not only commercial swindles but environmental and health time-bombs.
We ask you, President Prodi, to urge the Council to set up a control and verification committee immediately, but, in the meantime, we would like to see an increase in monitoring by your presidency.
Mr President, we have a multitude of outstanding questions post-Nice to which we require specific answers.
They concern the dividing line between national and European powers, simplification of the Treaty, the legal status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the role of national parliaments in the architecture of the European Union.
Why should the final responsibility continue to rest with the Member States? This question relates closely to the definition of the purpose of the European Union.
We should be clear on one point: remits need to be clearly defined if we expect people to accept legislative and political decisions at European level.
Our top priority must therefore be to ensure that national parliaments are more involved in the run-up to the planned Intergovernmental Conference. First, in order to get the discussion process in the Member States started as early as possible and, secondly, in order to clarify in advance any problems which might arise during subsequent ratification.
Mr President, allow me to begin by expressing my great disappointment at the fact that no minister from the presidency is present at this important debate.
President of the Commission, as the mist clears following the Nice Summit, it is clear that the last-minute compromise behind closed doors has its obvious limitations.
Now, sobriety has returned, and a broad civic debate has been promised on Europe' s goals, future and responsibilities. That is the way it should be.
The promise is binding.
But how is that to be arranged?
If the citizens of Europe really are to take part in the discussion about the future of the common European project, they are also going to be able to exercise influence.
Is the Commission prepared to take proposals and ideas on board and also put them into effect? In that case, the EU will be transformed, opened up and simplified.
We know that many citizens want to see a clear constitution.
When are they to obtain one? We also know that issues concerning the environment, asylum and cross-border crime are important issues in connection with which our citizens want the EU to be strong, vigorous and willing to act.
Are the Commission and the Council prepared to give the EU these tools? The outcome of the Nice Summit puts people off, unfortunately.
We know that there is a general feeling of irritation about the fact that the EU meddles in all too many questions of detail.
Is the Commission prepared to give the celebrated subsidiarity principle real substance and to find a method of limiting the eagerness for regulating detail which characterises all of us in Brussels and Strasbourg?
Citizens of the EU and of the candidate countries, as well as national parliaments and, of course, this Parliament, must be given real influence over the agenda for, the decisions about, and the method for shaping the EU' s future.
But how? This is the major unresolved issue discussed by all my colleagues.
After what happened in 2000, it is becoming difficult to agree with you, President Prodi, when you say that your programme relates to Europe and to 2001. Judging by your programme, we might believe that the extremely serious and crucial problem of mad cow disease does not exist.
Your proposals speak in idealistic terms of the new economy and of millions of new jobs without considering the need to create them as a matter of priority in the least developed regions.
These regions suffer from the highest rates of unemployment and from the emigration of their most highly qualified technical specialists. Your proposals do not consider the economic and budgetary problems inherent in the necessary enlargement to include new states or the terrible situation of immigration from the developing world.
They ignore the crisis caused by ultraliberal globalisation which has been challenged, specifically in Porto Alegre, and say nothing about the huge disappointment that was Nice. No mention is made in this context of the fact that the States can, historically, no longer prevent our citizens taking direct democratic decisions about the Union, and no mention is made of the emergence of stateless nations and of bodies with political and legislative personality.
President Prodi, the Commission should not turn a blind eye to the fact that a process that must be concluded by the adoption of a European constitution is taking shape in European society.
It would be good to see the Council, which is not represented here today, the Commission and Parliament adopting together the initiative that Europe' s citizens are calling for.
Mr President of the Commission, the Eurosceptics have today changed sides and have become the majority in this House, and they paint a bleak picture of everything to do with Nice. They find it difficult to conceal their own failure, which is in direct proportion to the political arrogance that they showed and which they have unfortunately rushed to assume once again, having learnt nothing from their past mistakes.
It is exactly the opposite that an enlarged European Union requires if it is not simply to move from the leftovers from Amsterdam to the leftovers from Nice and then, in 2004, to new frustrations.
Europe requires a different strategy, a different idea.
The majority must be prepared to understand the reality of the situation without preconceived ideas.
Their failure in Nice is quite enough.
What is important now is that they understand the test of truth that occurred there: the clash of whimsical abstraction with the reality faced by the people of Europe.
There is the question of what direction to take, but there is also the question of pace.
Trying to impose a state-led political superstructure when there is no such thing as a single European people or even a single European public can only lead to further disasters.
What is required is more centralism and less democracy.
Of course the people of Europe will resist.
No one wants to give up the democratic essence of their own country, their own language and culture, where they are close to the power that they have elected, that they understand and that they control.
Unless we understand this, unless we are prepared to listen more instead of speaking so much, unless we try to open up the way for leadership by the national parliaments and unless we stop discussing Europe in such dramatic terms, casting aside certain obsessions that serve no real purpose, the post-Nice debate will fail, just as the pre-Nice debate failed, and this would be a shame.
It will be a shame if the federalists continue to prefer their ivory tower to the real situation faced by the people of Europe, if they persist in repeating the frustrating experience of Nice and to weaken Europe. The path that has been prepared cannot succeed.
What is happening now is not underpinned by any doctrine.
We need a completely different strategy for Europe, a strategy in which nations are led by their citizens, not another strategy which sets citizens against nations.
Furthermore, what we need more than a European debate is 15 national debates on enlargement and 27 national debates on Europe, free from euphemisms and ambiguity, with the issues laid clearly on the table.
Mr President, to make the debate on the future of the European Union - which is beginning at long last - truly effective, we need a sound institutional triangle.
If you do, furthermore, take on board the proposal from our fellow Member, Klaus Hänsch, the proposals you presented this morning should enable us to re-establish the natural complicity which there should be between both our institutions in order to have successful dialogue within the institutional triangle.
If we wish to pursue this route, however, it is not useful to condemn the behaviour of the Council in this or that instance.
We need a strong Council; we need a Council that participates fully in the institutional triangle.
There are reforms which could be undertaken without revising the Treaty.
Let us support any such initiatives within the Council rather than resorting to procedural arguments to deplore the non-attendance of the Council, as Mr Poettering did earlier.
The second point I would like to discuss, Mr President, is the White Paper on governance.
This is something we are impatiently awaiting.
We suppose that this will foreshadow the debate to be held on one of the items in Annex IV, on the distribution of competences.
I should however at this early stage like to draw your attention to one point.
This morning you stated your wish to see a Europe that was closer to its citizens.
We feel that there is indeed room for improvement in this respect, if we wish to make progress.
We hear all too often in our constituencies and in our own countries of the problems that people have in getting their projects validated by the Commission.
The unwieldiness of the procedures and the concentration of projects do not make a useful contribution in this respect.
My third point relates to the debate on the future of the European Union.
I feel that, this morning, you have introduced the elements which make it possible for us to approach dialogue under acceptable conditions.
We must indeed raise questions as to content; institutional matters will come after.
The issue of the political clout of the European Union in the world and the issue of solidarity, or what I prefer to call the issue of the social model, are indeed critical matters on which we must again find the resolve to live together within the European Union.
In terms of method, we welcome the fact that you have taken on board the idea that, in the structured dialogue phase, the four partners participating in the convention will have to again find their capacity to work together.
We need to distinguish between bodies that are dedicated to debate and bodies that are dedicated to deliberation.
The convention should remain a forum for deliberation because experiences in Amsterdam and Nice have proved that the representatives of the European Parliament are not allocated enough of a place at the IGC and because we prefer the convention model and we are convinced that all proposals may be drawn up in this context.
There is no divide between issues relating to human rights which might lie within the jurisdiction of political bodies and issues relating to institutional aspects which would lie within the sole jurisdiction of diplomatic bodies.
Nice showed that the convention model makes it possible to advance more quickly, in a more structured manner, and enhancing much more our collective mode of operation.
Mr President, enlargement is the most important European project of our time.
I would thank the Commission for its determined efforts.
Now comes the difficult part, however.
Now, it is a question of keeping the impetus going.
The first wave of enlargement must be completed in one and a half year' s time in Copenhagen in December 2002.
That is the Commission' s objective, and we shall hold them to it.
I would call upon the next countries to hold the presidency to maintain very close contact with the candidate countries and to help by removing obstacles from the path in time.
However, it is not only, of course, the candidate countries which must adapt to us. We too have to adapt.
An EU of 27 Member States must learn to concentrate its forces upon the major and cross-border tasks. That is not, of course, what we are doing at present.
A year ago here in Parliament, you said yourself, Mr President of the Commission, that the European Union should be freed from all the, and I quote, "things that are absolutely ridiculous" which the Council of Ministers and Parliament have got you administering.
You repeated those words several times, and you are right.
Now is the time to do something about it.
Let us have a slimmer, but at the same time stronger, EU.
Let us stop trying to keep far too many balls in the air.
I propose that you appoint a bold Commissioner to the task of combating trivial extra tasks and petty regulations, and I propose that the Conference of Community and European Affairs Committees of the Parliaments of the European Union, COSAC, be given the ability to stop legislation that violates the subsidiarity principle.
In return, the Commission must be strong so that the European Union is energetic in the other areas.
Mr President, there are, not unnaturally, different assessments in this Parliament regarding the Treaty of Nice, but even those who are highly critical of the Treaty - and there are many - will agree in this debate on the future of Europe that the best way forward is to use the post-Nice procedures and to make the most of them to improve our Union, to rectify the shortcomings of Nice and to have a proper debate on the future of the Union.
The way that this should be done - and my views are very close to those of the Commission - is to have a first-year wide-open debate - let a thousand flowers bloom - then move to a broad, deliberative body that will draft the changes that are necessary.
This could be composed in the same way as the convention that produced and composed the Charter of Rights with representatives of the European Parliament and national parliaments and governments.
Finally, there would be a short, sharp IGC to approve the results at the end.
Obviously, we will be dealing with the four issues that were mentioned by the European Council including one issue which overlaps very much with the Commission's White Paper on governance.
I would be interested to hear the Commission's views on how these two processes are going to tie in to each other, because there is a degree of overlap there.
There will also be other issues that should be addressed.
The future of the High Representative, the question of extending the codecision powers of Parliament to all legislative procedures, taking in those few that are now by anomaly left out.
We must also look at the issue of codification of the Treaties.
I would plead for a special procedure.
This year, why not set up a committee of experts from the Member States and the institutions to complete the task that was started in Florence of codifying and simplifying the Treaties so that the political work next year can start on the basis of a text that is already simplified and codified?
The technical work would thus be out of the way before we move on to the political work.
I would advocate that way forward.
Mr President, the post-Nice agenda of the Heads of Government is motivated by political cowardice and not by the need to prepare Europe for enlargement.
The topics are intended to allay the people' s fear of an intangible shift of power towards Brussels at the expense of national jurisdiction, but all they will do is increase the sense of alienation.
It is impossible for there to be a definitive distribution of competences between the European and national levels.
The cooperation process is dynamic not static.
Things that are taboo at first, such as the euro, may appeal later on.
This is determined by social need, which cannot be predicted.
It would, of course, be marvellous to have a broad forum on the future of Europe, but the outcome is a foregone conclusion.
There are fundamental differences of opinion on this matter amongst the countries, across the political divide, and even within the political parties themselves.
If we want to restore the confidence of the people then we must introduce a culture of greater openness and decisiveness in Europe.
So what we need is a political unit which does not stand for re-nationalisation of policy, but which strengthens the political European institutions.
That is what we need to see on the agenda, and that is what would testify to courage.
Mr President, I start with the Commission's work programme for 2001.
The case for the EU to do less and do it better has never been clearer or more pressing.
The European Parliament should say so in the coming weeks as the committees look into this programme.
With some 600 initiatives, of which almost 200 are legislative measures, there is a lot of work to be done on scrutiny and on setting our own priorities, which we look forward to doing.
Turning now to the question of the post-Nice process, I would rather see it as our European future.
We look back into the history of the European Union over the last generation and the continent of Europe over the last century.
I should like to recall some words by Milan Kundera in his book The Book of Laughter and Forgetting where he says: "People are always shouting that they want to create a better future. It is not true.
The future is an apathetic void of no interest to anyone. The past is full of life, eager to irritate us, provoke and insult us, tempt us to destroy or repaint it.
The only reason people want to be masters of the future is to change the past."
Well, we have changed the past and Europe is a different place from what it was in the post-war era.
The four Nice leftovers are not small or casual affairs.
Our view on the core issues is clear.
We want to see a bigger role for national parliaments, on a systematic and constructive basis.
We would welcome a clearer delineation of competences, as the Berlin Declaration by the European Democrat Union last month favoured, provided that it is not an excuse to strengthen the centre.
Likewise, simplifying the Treaties would serve the public interest, but this must not be the pretext for introducing a fully-fledged European constitution, especially if the latter were the founding document of a federal state whose preamble was a legally-binding charter of rights.
All of these issues need and deserve the widest possible public debate.
But despite lip service to open consultation in the past, the Nice IGC process, like Amsterdam and Maastricht before it, was ultimately the preserve of national civil servants negotiating behind closed doors.
The next consultation must be different.
It needs to involve real and wide consultation throughout civil society, reflecting the open culture and open politics which we claim to favour.
Mr Corbett quoted Chairman Mao.
I would rather quote George Bush Senior: society is "a thousand points of light", not "a thousand flowers blooming".
Our debate on the EU's institutional future must draw on all of society, harnessing not just the resources of a closed Brussels policy world but the democratic potential of the Internet and - yes - of opinion polls. The EU must sustain a truly open society.
The people must have their say, including those in the candidate countries.
We must also reschedule the next IGC.
In 2004 we will see a lame-duck Commission on its last legs and the European election cutting across the IGC.
Better to schedule the conference for 2003, with the 2004 European Parliament elections allowing a popular verdict on some of the key choices being made by governments with enlargement under way.
There are important questions.
In Britain, as in other countries facing general elections in the next couple of years, one of the central issues will be: in whose hands is the future of Europe safe? With the Council of Ministers and the Commission firmly in socialist hands, Europe today is going down the wrong track.
In Britain the choice could not be clearer in our coming election: to guarantee a decentralised Europe that works, only the Conservatives offer an agenda which can get the post-Nice process right.
To secure our European future, like the British, most people in Europe want to be in Europe but not run by Europe.
(Laughter and applause)
Mr President, unlike the previous speaker, who quoted George Bush senior, I would rather quote Berthold Brecht.
George Bush talked about "points of light" , but Berthold Brecht said: "die im Dunkeln sieht man nicht" (you cannot see those in the dark), which brings me straight to the heart of my short speech.
The fact of the matter is that one in five people in this world do not have access to clean drinking water, primary health care or primary education.
Europe, which is not only a trading bloc, but also one of values and standards, is an area that could make a huge impact on that level.
Last year, we sealed an agreement with each other, on the other side of that table, on which occasion the Commission, the Council and Parliament put their signatures to Budget 2001.
In this budget, they doubled the appropriations in all regional programmes for external aid, both for primary health care and primary education, not over and above but within the scope of the budget.
Targets were set and extra staff were made available.
It is of the utmost importance to our Socialist Group for the Commission to actually take steps now in its work programme for this year in order to instruct the EU delegations in the regions, and our counterparts, with whom we jointly do business, as well as our own service. We also want the Commission to make additional staff available for the purpose of acquiring expertise in health care and education, so that we can actually make rapid progress in this respect too.
If the Commission takes this line, it will lead to a more results-orientated style of working, with less emphasis on the open-ended hoarding of budgets.
It will mean that more effort will be made to achieve direct results in fields that are also extremely fundamental to development.
It could be a fantastic signal for Europe to give out, i.e. that we are not just concerned about the fabric of society within our own borders, but also about what is happening overseas.
I hope the Commission will deliver some sound results on that score this year.
Mr President, most people now realise that Nice was a flop, apart perhaps from those who think that Europe should tread water.
So it comes as no great surprise to learn that a broad post-Nice discussion is now underway.
It seems to me to be absolutely crucial for the Commission to keep the upper hand in this discussion, particularly as it will now culminate in a number of procedures to be established at the Laeken Summit.
Parliament has now taken the initiative to produce an interim report by the summer and a definitive report by the end of the year, i.e. shortly before the Laeken Summit.
Despite this preparation, it would be useful to set down a few markers now.
Our group would also like to do the same in this debate.
First and foremost, we must establish what the most serious shortcomings of the Treaty of Nice are, so that the post-Nice agenda has the right content.
We believe we should be chiefly concerned with improving the democratic quality of the Union.
The mistake made in Nice, i.e. the go-ahead that was given to start deciding on certain issues by qualified majority voting but without affording Parliament codecision rights, is indefensible, because it puts the national parliaments, as well as the European Parliament out of the picture.
This will have to be rectified.
In addition, the highly complex decision-making processes will have to be reformed.
The new rules can no longer be explained to the people, which surely cannot have been the intention.
In this debate, I do not find the discussion about producing a clear demarcation of the areas that form part of the policy of Member States and those that fall within the Union' s remit, to be threatening.
On the contrary, I feel it is step in the right direction. It would be better still if such a clear division of labour could be linked with the European constitution.
Finally, we must put a stop to the endless series of IGCs, which largely consist of officials.
It would be far preferable to adopt the convention model, as used for drawing up the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It is my fervent hope that the Commission will withdraw its idea to set up a forum, because a broad body of this kind is not suitable for reaching sound decisions.
Moreover, a convention has the advantage that the national parliaments can take part as well.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the President of the Commission on his speech today and on his report on the year 2000.
I would also like to highlight the important role which this report attributes to the European Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights, on which I would like to congratulate Commissioner Vitorino for his great contribution.
The Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Mr President - and now we will have to see how we can include this Charter in the Treaty - also have another side.
To defend fundamental rights means to attack those who violate them within the European Union.
And I therefore believe that all initiatives relating to the third pillar are of paramount importance to this Parliament.
This has been said today by Mr Poettering and many other speakers.
For us, the communitisation phase of the issues, which, in Maastricht, were in the third pillar, is paramount.
And I believe there is an initiative, Mr President, which the Commission has highlighted in its six-monthly scoreboards, to which we attach great importance: I am referring to the European arrest order.
I believe that there can be no place in the European Union for terrorists, for those terrorists who yesterday placed another bomb in Madrid and who have tried to end the lives of people, of European citizens.
I therefore believe that if we do things for real, if they can be done, if they can be made tangible, if they can be seen, such as that idea of putting the alleged terrorist before that judge who has issued an arrest order in European territory, European citizens will understand that this is what integrating Europe is about and that this is something useful. This is how we will make a real contribution to bringing Europe closer to the citizens.
Mr President, I am sure that this initiative, which is one of the Commission's priorities, will soon be a reality.
I would therefore like to encourage you to continue along these lines.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, we are all in favour of your action and initiatives to move the Union towards a union of security and of your action in connection with asylum and immigration.
However, I should like to call for a few basics; we expect the consequences to be evaluated and we expect you to think your initiatives over carefully so that they do not contradict any aspects of previous initiatives.
This care - and I have an example to illustrate this - is sometimes missing, as for example in the draft which the President referred to on so-called family reunion currently being discussed in the context of immigration policy.
If, when we talk about family reunion, we mean the core family, i.e. spouses and dependent underage children, then it is an excellent measure, which is in the interests of integration policy and it has our full support.
But if you then extend the circle of people which qualify as family far beyond those who would normally receive the right to move to the Union a year later, then not only have you clearly failed to consider the consequences, you are also contradicting your communications on future immigration policy.
If you go ahead and extend the definition of family to unmarried partners, grandparents on both sides or students' live-in partners, give them the right to move here a year later, classify them as asylum seekers and also give them the right to work, then the immigration system will become unmanageable and uncontrollable and, in certain circumstances, all cases of immigration will come under your so-called family reunion system.
Plus, you are depriving the Member States of the right to decide which and how many workers can move to the Union and you risk negating all the good points as a result.
Mr President of the Commission, we want to continue to give you our support, but we can only do so if your initiatives do not contradict each other and if the initiatives solve the problems rather than create new problems.
To my astonishment, the next speaker is Mr Ferber for two minutes.
Ferber (PPE-DE).
(DE) Mr President, it is your job to chair the debate, not proclaim your astonishment.
Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has presented us with a tough programme of work for 2001, leaving us in no doubt as to the fact that it is hard-working and that it wants to be hard-working.
But just seeing what else has to be done this year, merely in order to clear the backlog from 2000, i.e. from last year's programme of work, and I am already worrying that we will have carry-overs at the end and hardly any time left for new initiatives.
In other words, you should have anticipated the need to focus on the fundamental issues to be worked out in the post-Nice process, namely the division of powers, and seen if you as the Commission, as the institution with the right of initiative in the European Union, could set a good example here.
That way you would not need to carry so many subjects over to the following year, or even the year after that, and the people would realise just what important decisions are taken in Europe as a whole.
I really would urge you - and I have read everything that you have proposed very carefully - to check if any of the subjects within the framework of a sensible division of powers are perhaps not absolutely necessary.
There is a second point that I should like to touch on because I am a dyed-in-the-wool supporter of representative democracy.
I am a little concerned about your approach to new governance.
What I should like to know is what role an elected parliament, which must answer for itself, including to its citizens at home, has in relation to associations which have no such responsibility.
It is here at European level that endless representatives of associations keep popping up and beating a path to our offices and one sometimes wonders exactly who has accredited them back home, whom exactly they are representing here in Europe. Surely the purpose of this new approach cannot be to give those with no credentials a say and to undermine those with credentials, namely us here in the European Parliament, in the process.
President.
My dear sir, I think you misunderstood me earlier.
The cause of my astonishment was merely your speaking time, not you personally.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
I should like, nonetheless, to move straight on to the next debate because, with the schedule for the night sitting, it is already nearly midnight and we must be grateful for every extra minute which we have.
Industrial restructuring and mergers
The next item is the oral question (B5-0008/2001) by Mr Rocard to the Commission on Community initiatives in connection with the social consequences of restructuring and mergers in industry.
Mr President, Commissioners, this is an oral question addressed to the Commission.
Several months ago, the President, Mrs Fontaine, addressed the Lisbon European Council with concerns, to quote her, "the devastating effect [of unregulated mergers] on the Union' s social cohesion" .
She urged the Heads of State and Government, and I shall quote her words once again, to "ensure that, before such mergers can take place, a serious assessment of their social impact is carried out so that the necessary accompanying social measures can be taken" .
In so doing, Mrs Fontaine was highlighting the major problem of how to reconcile the necessary flexibility in businesses with the necessary safety of workers?
Since Lisbon, Mr President, restructuring has intensified further.
We now hear that there are more than three hundred mergers every year.
Every new day brings further sources of anxiety for employees whether in the sectors of what is curiously termed the 'old' economy, which is the bulk of the economy, or in the new information technology sector.
In this respect, the Nice Summit sent out some very positive signals.
Overcoming the thirty-year deadlock on the European Company Statute, including the section on employee participation, and the adoption of the social agenda, illustrated the importance that the European Council attaches to improving the situation of the European Union' s workers.
The request we would make of the Commission through this unanimous oral agreement - and let me stress that there was unanimity within the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs - is that they use this new political will as a firm basis to truly guide their proposals.
It is our honour, therefore, to ask the Commission to make some specific commitments.
First of all we want better provision to be made for the social effects of restructuring.
How, for example, do you plan to use the new European Industrial Relations Observatory, to be operated by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin, which this great House, the European Parliament, was so dedicated to creating? We would like you to undertake a reassessment of the existing directives on social matters with regard both to their record of implementation and to the new challenges presented by their restructuring.
We urge you to propose the necessary revisions wherever they are needed, particularly in order to have stricter scrutiny of workers' rights to information and consultation and as far as possible to bring forward the provision of information to the social partners in the restructuring process.
In this regard, we would appreciate the Commission' s immediately proposing, now, not in 2002, as announced, revision of the current directive on the European works council, a directive which itself stipulated it would be revised after a few years. The time for that has now come.
We also urge you to revisit the directive on collective redundancies in order to incorporate the procedures needed to prevent the requirement to inform workers being contravened.
Finally we would like to see the internal procedures for competition policy within the Commission being amended in order to take greater account of social factors. We know that Mrs Diamantopoulou is not completely averse to this idea.
Well, "not completely averse" is a polite way of saying it, as I am in fact fairly sure that she is in favour of the idea. Would it not be only natural, when a firm asks Brussels for permission to go through with a merger, for the Commission to ensure that the minimum requirements for the information and consultation of employees as laid down in Community legislation have indeed been respected.
These, Commissioners, are our demands, which have a symbolic value as far as public opinion is concerned, a justified value as far as the employees are concerned, and, if I may say so, are useful as far as the economy is concerned, for how is it possible to manage a knowledge-based economy without the employees being involved?
Within my committee, we were unanimous in our discussion of this oral question and also on a motion for a resolution that is now before us.
I must point out that a further motion was tabled by the Liberal Group.
As we are of one mind with our liberal friends, who voted in favour of the first resolution and, above all, in favour of the committee' s question, we think there has been some technical hitch and that our liberal friends did not receive proper information. Do not, at any rate, see this as discord.
It is a matter we are going to sort out. Until now we have worked in perfect agreement, and that includes with our liberal friends.
Commissioners, we impatiently await your responses.
Mr President, honourable Members, Europe must face industrial restructuring and its social consequences by combining innovation with social cohesion and improving its capacity to manage change.
Our positive and pro-active answer to change covers three main fields: improving our capacity, anticipating and managing change i.e. in the Dublin Observatory; creating or developing the legal mechanisms which can ensure adequate protection of workers in situations of industrial restructuring and promoting in general their own capacity to anticipate change; and developing corporate social responsibility.
The establishment of an observatory on industrial change is one of the actions proposed in the social policy agenda adopted by the Nice Summit as a means to develop a pro-active approach to anticipating and managing change.
I personally attach much importance to this matter in view of the current situation regarding mergers and acquisitions.
The Dublin Foundation has included this initiative in its four-year rolling programme.
In the framework of its current limited resources, the Dublin Foundation has planned in its 2001 work programme to set up the observatory's steering committee.
This work will provide a basis for further development of the observatory from 2002 onwards, if additional resources become available.
The directives on collective redundancies and transfers of undertakings, dating back from the seventies, were conceived and adopted in a context of full employment and slow change.
Since then the situation in the economic world has radically changed.
It is true that their provisions are no longer adapted to the needs of companies and workers.
Today they focus on promoting anticipation, prevention of crisis, employability and adaptability.
Our answer to the weaknesses of the existing rules, and the only efficient way to modernise national systems of worker involvement, consists in refocusing the information and consultation procedures on economic and strategic issues and putting the long-term evolution of employment within each company at the centre of them.
That is the aim of the Commission's proposal on information and consultation.
Once this general framework is adopted and widely applied, the specific rules on collective redundancies and transfers of undertakings will make sense; first of all, because crises in the employment relationship like these would in many cases have been prevented.
Secondly, even when they cannot be avoided, the normal losers would have been alerted well before and would be in a position to adapt better to inevitable changes in their employment situation.
I know that you are very supportive of this approach and that you share the Commission's satisfaction with the irreversible progress recently achieved on this sensitive dossier.
With your cooperation and a strong political will from the Council, we may finalise it before the end of this year and that will be a decisive step forward.
I also share your point of view according to which the European Works Council Directive will also have, sooner or later, to be updated.
Nevertheless, we will have much to gain from pursuing the evaluation of the rich experience of practical application of the directive.
In addition, before doing so, we would conclude some unfinished tasks which are also at the centre of your concerns.
First of all the information and consultation dossier must be finalised.
Then at the end of last year we had another major and long-awaited achievement: the European company statute.
It is worth mentioning in the context of this debate because this new form of incorporation will certainly be widely used by companies in Europe operating on a trans-national basis, above all, when they restructure themselves and adapt to new economic and market conditions.
One of the outstanding positive elements of the statute is that it contains well developed provisions on worker involvement, which reflect the modern approach also translated in the national information and consultation proposal.
This will surely contribute to a better treatment of the social dimension of corporate restructuring in Europe.
Then the five other legislative proposals are on the line, following the unlocking of the European company texts: the three twin statutes for cooperatives, mutual societies and associations and the draft directives on trans-national mergers and transfers of the registered offices of companies from one Member State to another.
All of these instruments will require the same kind of provisions as the ones found in European companies.
This is another reason for waiting a short while before launching the revision of the European Works Council Directive, which, incidentally, will have much to gain from the debates held on these other dossiers.
They will inevitably inspire and facilitate the acceptance of the solutions which will be on the table for discussion when we turn to the task.
Finally, I know that there is concern in this House about information and consultation of employees in the context of mergers and acquisitions control.
As you know, from previous speeches, we are holding a debate within the Commission on how better to address this concern.
Under the merger regulation, workers and representatives are already entitled in some cases to be auditioned by the Commission's services, which conduct an inquiry on the conformity of a merger with the Treaty.
Our idea consists in making these auditions more systematic.
On the other hand, we could usefully remind merging companies of their responsibilities and obligations with regard to worker information and consultation on these operations which very frequently affect them.
As social cohesion is now top priority for Europe, public authorities can no longer be expected to be solely and wholly responsible for it.
Like every other part of society, businesses are expected to undertake their share.
Promoting corporate social responsibility is now an essential part of the European strategy for social cohesion.
The guiding principle of corporate social responsibility for companies is to be competitive and profitable by living up to their social responsibilities.
In response to the Lisbon Council's appeal to companies' corporate sense of social responsibility the Commission has included this theme in its own social policy agenda published in June 2000 by stressing its importance in addressing the employment and social consequences of economic and market integration and adapting worker conditions in the new economy.
It has announced a communication to support initiatives related to corporate social responsibility and management of change.
The Commission will issue a Green Paper this year to facilitate further development towards a framework for corporate social responsibility practice at European level.
In conclusion, it is the combination of the different lines of action which I mentioned to you, as well as adequate action from public authorities, private organisations, companies, workers and the social partners at all levels, that will allow us to deal properly with the social implications of industrial change and corporate restructuring.
All of them are important, all of them require an innovative and open attitude on the part of policy makers.
I know that is your stance on this and I thank you for your support.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have to inform you that I have received a motion for a resolution under Rule 37 paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
The vote on this motion will take place on Thursday.
Mr President, this is never the most gratifying moment to make speeches of this kind.
I am delighted with the Commissioner' s response.
I think we will find that it contains all kinds of points worth acting on - particularly if we give it another good read through - in order to reach the goals we are seeking to achieve through these questions, and find the necessary solutions.
Whenever restructuring takes place there is a debate as to whether our institutions are sufficiently well-designed to cope with such eventualities.
That is quite logical.
Indeed the Treaty on the European Union, specifically Article 136, bestows this task on the European Union.
Needless to say, we must tread a fine line, i.e. the companies concerned must be given as much leeway as possible to make their own policy decisions, and so promote commercial growth of their operations, which will help to combat long-term and structural unemployment in Europe.
On the other hand, we have a moral duty to engage in consultation.
Volkswagen in Germany is a good case in point.
If these consultation obligations are properly observed, then it is far easier to resolve a particular structural problem than were this not to be the case.
If you compare the restructuring of Volkswagen with restructuring operations now taking place in other European countries, which do not have such a good record when it comes to observing consultation obligations, then the differences are plain for all to see.
That is why it is so very important for these consultation obligations to be included in the agenda as soon as possible, and for the matter to be resolved, preferably within the term of the Swedish Presidency.
That is what we aim to achieve with these questions.
Mr Rocard was right in saying that the resolution was submitted on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Having said that, we still need a number of amendments, precisely in order to underline the point that companies must be given as much leeway as possible to make their own policy decisions.
Of course, that is what the resolution implies, but the point is not made quite as clearly as we would wish.
So we will go along with the resolution, but only if it includes the amendments we have yet to put forward. Obviously we still have up to Thursday to discuss this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, do you sometimes get the feeling that this Parliament suffers from collective dementia, by any chance? We had the self-same debate exactly a year ago, on 17 February.
I would not find this disconcerting, were it not for the fact that we also discussed this topic back on 27 October 1999, and I could mention a few other occasions.
Ladies and gentlemen, what is it that Europe needs? It was agreed last year in Lisbon that we want to become the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, and Parliament has thrown its weight behind this objective, in a spirit of generosity and with a large majority.
That is why, on Thursday next, we will hold a debate on a European research area, and the need to invest in research, technological development, innovation and education.
In addition, it is more important than ever for businesses to exploit their competitive potential to the full, because an uncompetitive business costs jobs.
Seen from this perspective, it is sometimes unavoidable that businesses have to undergo reorganisation and occasionally take painful measures such as transferring or replacing workers, or making them redundant if the worst comes to the worst.
Needless to say, the rights of workers as laid down in the various European directives must be upheld in the process.
You will understand that the Liberal Group cannot endorse the question raised by Mr Rocard or the resolution tabled by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs as it stands, for it provides renewed evidence of the fact that Parliament has a very selective memory.
After all, only the Nice social agenda is discussed in the joint resolution, whilst Lisbon is forgotten for the sake of convenience.
We will therefore table a number of amendments in the spirit of the Lisbon objectives.
Mr Rocard thinks that not responding immediately to an e-mail signifies automatic acceptance; he is wrong on that score.
But we will withdraw our resolution.
Mr President, unfortunately it is very timely that we should be discussing these issues today in the light of current examples of restructuring.
As has been mentioned earlier, the Anglo-Dutch company Corus - the steel company - is a classic example of a company making decisions based on profit with no regard to the disastrous social costs of its actions.
Corus has just announced total job losses of 6 000 in the UK - nearly 3 000 in my own constituency in Wales.
Despite months of speculation over possible plant closures the company was unwilling to reveal its future plans to the government, let alone to its own workforce, until the formal announcement was made on 1 February.
There was no prior consultation with the workforce, although since announcing the decision the company has been holding what it calls "consultation".
There is speculation that Danone, a profitable company, is to shed 3 000 jobs in Europe.
Again there has been no consultation with the workers and no discussion about alternative ways forward.
That is why it is so important to adopt the directive on the information and consultation of workers without delay, together with a review of the European Works Council Directive and the Collective Redundancies Directive, which incidentally proved to offer so little protection to the Corus workers in my constituency.
Companies cannot be free to wreak such havoc on people's lives and communities.
There is a positive framework of controls and sanctions which we can use.
We must make sure they are effective.
Mr President, faced with massive mergers and industrial restructuring resulting in thousands of redundancies, many employees, many European citizens, have found Europe to be powerless if not actually colluding with these actions, in line with the law of free competition.
It is high time that we provided means to intervene on behalf of employees.
There is an intolerable contradiction between the Council and the Commission' s declared priority of promoting employment and the massive redundancies that big businesses are making, and who are, at the same time, making fantastic profits.
Michelin, Moulinex, Danone and Alstom are not businesses experiencing difficulties.
They are perfectly competitive, and have a record of making more than adequate profits, but they are laying off thousands of people nonetheless.
The case of Danone is very instructive, making 3 000 people redundant in Europe and 1 700 in France.
In the year 2000, this firm' s European installations made a net profit of EUR 795 million, or 17% more than in 1999.
It is not possible to sit back and simply watch the unfolding spectacle of mergers that make men and women redundant, plunging entire families into chaos.
The European citizenship we so often refer to in this society will continue to be nothing more than just so much hot air as long as employees are not properly informed and consulted on choices which determine their own future and that of their region and their country.
How, furthermore, can we find it acceptable for groups to benefit from grants of public financial aid to promote employment without being obliged to comply with the commitments they have made? In such instances, the aid funds should be paid back to the community which will have to bear the social costs resulting from the choice of financial profitability over employment.
I do not think that the problem boils down to employability or adaptability or to simply dealing with the social fallout, as the Commissioner suggested.
I therefore endorsed the proposals made in the resolution as well as the amendments that clarify and strengthen certain aspects.
We shall have to go much further to respond to the democratic demands of the working citizens of Europe.
I therefore feel that rights should be developed to the point where it is possible to halt scheduled redundancies and ongoing mergers.
Any merger contract must include social clauses.
Penalties must also be introduced for failure to comply with the directives on worker consultation.
At this time when there is a great deal of debate on the subject of European identity and the direction that European integration should be taking, I feel that a text specifying certain employee rights in the face of financial objectives would be the least that could be done so as to give the European Union a degree of credibility.
I shall therefore vote in favour of the resolution which I hope will be enhanced by a number of amendments.
I have received a motion for a resolution pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
Since it is now time for the vote, the debate is now suspended and will be resumed at 3 p.m.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTE
In order to justify European aid, the rapporteurs emphasise the difficult economic situation in Cambodia and Laos and the performance of the bomb disposal programmes that are essential after many years of conflict in this region, while carefully avoiding pointing out, in both instances, the significant responsibility of the imperialist powers, including France and the United States.
If this were simply European aid, pure and simple, paid as reparation for years of looting and destroying these two countries, without any form of recompense, then it would have our support.
However, this so-called aid is no more than a flimsy screen designed to conceal the goals which are revealed, nonetheless, in the phrase about turning around the downward trend of European Community exports to this region of the world, or, to put it in plain terms, enabling the predators in the shape of major European businesses to conduct, and intensify as far as possible, what is effectively still a policy of plundering this region of the world.
We have therefore abstained from voting on these reports.
Dover report (A5-002/2001)
The United Kingdom had obtained a derogation of the regulations on maximum hours of work and on night work of adolescents.
The Commission, and this report, now propose waiving this derogation.
We might have been able to welcome seeing the United Kingdom apply rules granting young people in work greater protection.
The fact is, however, that the perfect agreement that has been reached between conservatives, Labour Party members, liberals and socialists, on the end of this derogation period is based on the fact that, as the report itself says, "the possibilities for derogation [are] sufficient in order to provide the necessary flexibility" and this will not therefore have "adverse effects on employment opportunities for young people" .
This clearly demonstrates the fact not only that this regulation of the European institutions may be sidestepped, but that, even when it is applied, it does not protect youths from employers' thirst for profits.
We have voted against this report.
Unfortunately, the young workers of Britain are not likely to see a great improvement in their situation as a result of our adopting this resolution.
The directive will not meet the needs of young workers any better just because we have put an end to the scandal of this derogation for the English (as the United Kingdom did not fully comply with the directive limiting the work of children and adolescents).
This debate should, instead, have provided an opportunity to amend the directive to remove all the derogations it contains, which prevent it from being properly effective.
There is no justification for authorising young people of 14 and even 13 years of age to work in any way whatsoever [Article 4(2c)], outside compulsory school attendance [Article 8(1b)] and during school holidays [Article 8(1c)].
Nor is there any justification for the derogations allowing young people of less than 18 years of age to work more than 40 hours per week, over 8 hours per day [Article 8(5)], and do night work [Article 9(2)].
There is no justification for applying any restriction to application of the directive in the case of domestic service in a private household or to work in a family undertaking [Article 2(2)].
There is no point in denouncing child labour in Africa or Asia if we do not protect our own young people against economic exploitation and work that is harmful to health, safety and development and if we do not ensure that they receive training leading to qualifications in a system quite separate from that of the employers.
I wholeheartedly support this report by Mr Dover which aims to improve working conditions for young people in Britain.
It supports the view that the UK falls into line with a 1994 directive which limits the working hours of young people to eight hours a day or 40 hours a week and bans night work, although it provides for exceptions in special circumstances and for certain kinds of work.
Employment, particularly youth employment, is of course extremely important for both our young people and our economy.
We must not do anything to harm the job prospects of young people in Britain.
Sometimes, however, employers take advantage of our young workers and force them to work unnecessarily long hours.
Long hours and difficult working conditions are extremely dangerous and can be harmful to the health and productivity of our young people.
It is therefore vital that working hours are monitored and that employers are prevented from exploiting youngsters at work.
Exploitation is harmful and irresponsible.
We must act to curb it and ensure that our young people are protected from exploitation and its destructive effects by hard-pressed or greedy employers.
The legislation for reducing the working hours for young people already exists.
We just need to make sure that it is used.
The sensible measures put forward by the Commission should encourage the utilisation of these measures.
I find it ironic that the Tories who constantly argue against Brussels bureaucrats interfering and who opposed this legislation, do in fact support this report on social policy.
This illustrates their totally schizophrenic attitude towards Europe.
The Labour Government is at the forefront of providing jobs for our young people and also measures to protect them at work.
I strongly urge the House to show its support for the protection of young people in Britain and to vote in favour of this report.
Savary report (A5-0016/2001)
Mr President, I voted for this report, which seeks to promote railway infrastructure in Europe.
A European rail system is an important goal for Europe.
Before I left to come to Strasbourg, some pensioners urged me to vote for the report tabled by the committee chaired by Mr Hatzidakis, saying: "We want to travel throughout Europe by train and we want to travel in luxury.
We would like there to be sofas, bars, high quality restaurants and televisions on trains.
Europe can and must provide us with this as well.
We are sure that Mr Hatzidakis will make it possible."
Mr President, with the imminent accession of the Central and Eastern European countries to the Union, an efficient rail transport network is becoming more and more crucial to smooth cross-border rail transport, which is why we need to integrate the national networks into a single European network.
Ironing out differences in the specifications used by individual railway undertakings is an important step towards a trans-European network.
Creating transport connections and removing traffic bottlenecks in less favoured or remote regions is another important step.
Developing the infrastructure will also give these regions a chance to participate in and profit from the internal market.
I am very pleased to welcome the report by Gilles Savary on the interoperability of the rail system, since it approves the common position of the Council without amendments.
This common position incorporates 33 of the 46 amendments put forward at first reading.
Like the rapporteur, I think the future of the European transport system necessarily involves revitalising the rail sector.
As we have often had cause to point out, within the European Union, investments in railways are differentiated to a great extent on a national basis.
It goes without saying that these national disparities represent a considerable obstacle to the development of rail transport in Europe, despite the many advantages offered by this less polluting form of transport.
At the same time, the establishment of the internal market has brought about a considerable increase in the movement of goods and persons around the European Union.
This increase has mainly benefited the road sector, particular as regards freight movement.
There are many reasons for the decline in the railways.
One reason is that rail has been organised on individual national lines.
There is no single market for railway services within the Community.
Moreover, the networks are not always terribly well suited to new patterns in the organisation of economic activities and urbanisation, or indeed to the changes that these have entailed in traffic flows.
Having said that, it is clear that the future of the European transport system necessarily involves revitalising the rail sector and in short order.
I am speaking in favour of this because I believe that rail has a key role to play in solving the mobility problems facing the European Union.
On a daily basis, the citizens of Europe suffer from pollution, congestion and the risk of accidents as a result of an excessive dependence on roads, a dependence that has only been exacerbated in the course of the last thirty years.
The objective of sustainable mobility is thus closely linked to revitalising the railways.
I am pleased, moreover, that the European Parliament has succeeded in getting through some amendments, which seek to have important social standards taken into greater consideration, such as vocational qualifications and conditions of health and safety at work.
The Council also took note of a number of sensitive areas, such as, for instance, the protection of the existing railway system, the need to adopt a system of exemptions or specific cases, such as the situation of some countries that are isolated from the rest of the Community, or the difference in track gauges.
Similarly, the Council has put forward a realistic common position that draws up a gradual schedule for work and takes account of the problems which enlargement will present for the rail sector.
For all these reasons I voted in favour of the Savary report.
We shall vote in favour of this report since it is important to promote the interoperability of the trans-European rail system.
The road transport network is currently saturated and in need of an overhaul.
We must also undertake procedures to increase rail transport in order to relieve the pressure on the roads.
Yet, behind the laudable objectives of the rapporteur in terms of revitalising the railway sector, we see the spectre of liberalisation, since another objective of this report is to contribute towards opening up of markets in transport services and equipment assets and towards promoting the competitiveness of the rail sector as a whole.
We must express our grave reservations on this count, since we remain steadfastly opposed to liberalisation.
If the intention is indeed to create a solution that is a real alternative to road transport taking over everything, then there must be harmonisation of the disparate rail transport infrastructures in Europe.
In this respect I am forced to agree with the rapporteur.
Furthermore, I feel that incorporating social standards, vocational qualifications and health and safety and working conditions in the process of creating a trans-European rail system would be the very least we could do.
However, I shall be extremely vigilant in ensuring that harmonisation is carried out on the basis of the best existing social rights and not at the expense of users and employees in this sector.
There is, however, a dangerous failure to address one question: in what context is network interoperability to be achieved?
In the context of public services coordinated throughout Europe, which are guarantors of jobs and safety, or in the context of a market which has been sacrificed to competition and profit? The three directives in the railway package recently adopted by Parliament and the Council would suggest that Europe sees the future of trans-European rail transport in the second of these.
Van Dam report (A5-0037/2001)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, I voted for the van Dam report on the safe loading and unloading of bulk carriers. And why is that?
This time, I took the advice of Mr Fatuzzo the sailor. I say "sailor", Mr President, because you may not be aware that I nearly made ships my career.
I might even have worked on bulk carriers. Therefore, my potential colleague, Mr Fatuzzo the sailor, the man I am not but could have been, said to me: "I have been sailing for many years on bulk carriers.
I have read the report seeking to prevent ships sinking but, in my opinion, Mr Fatuzzo the MEP, ships sink because they are too old.
Old, unusable ships need to retire. This would make sailing safer."
I do not know whether to thank the MEP or the sailor.
There are other types of merchant vessel, apart from the oil tankers in the news, which are in a deplorable condition.
The consequences are perhaps not as spectacular as those of wrecked oil tankers, but the human death toll is far worse, when it is known that 146 bulk carriers have sunk in 10 years and that 780 crew members thereby lost their lives.
In voting for this report, we voted in favour of practical measures contributing to stepping up the safety of bulk carriers and their crews.
We must, however, point out the contradiction that exists between the concerns for safety and the concerns relating to what the report terms the risk of "distortions of competition" for European ports and terminals.
Safety is inevitably sacrificed in the attempt to safeguard the profits of shipowners and contractors.
It is a good idea to give the master the option of objecting to loading or unloading operation he considers might endanger the safety of his crew or ship.
However, it would be hypocritical to disregard the fact that the laws of competition and of the market (including the labour market) imposed by the shipowners and contractors are such that the master' s theoretical option of objecting does not carry much weight in the face of the means available to the capitalist forces in maritime transport to impose dangerous, and occasionally lethal, conditions on navigation and on living on board ships.
In 10 years, almost 150 bulk carriers have sunk, causing 800 deaths.
This is the tragic record of a sector which has been abandoned to the laws of competition and the market.
Like the rapporteur, I consider that the physical condition of the ships and the incompetence of the crew are the chief factors behind these wrecks.
So, in the first place, we have to do something about inspecting these ships, their crews and shipboard working and living conditions.
I therefore support any binding measures to improve safety standards, port State inspections and to ensure that loading and unloading terminals and masters are aware of their responsibilities.
For that, however, we have to set aside human and financial resources to actually implement the legislation in the Member States, particularly by increasing the number of inspectors.
Moreover, if we are to tackle the impunity from prosecution and leniency which prevail in maritime transport then we also have to drive home the message that shippers and shipowners are responsible too, if necessary by providing ourselves with the means to enforce judicial and financial penalties.
I shall vote in favour of all the proposals to that end.
Bakopoulos report (A5-0031/2001)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Since it is on safety at sea, I could not fail to vote in favour of Mr Bakopoulos' report too, concerning the establishment of the Committee on Safe Seas and the Prevention of Pollution by Ships.
This time, Mr President, I communicated via e-mail with one of my former bosses who worked on the ships on which I travelled between New York and the Bahamas when, at 21 years old, before entering political life, I worked as a sailor, as I said before.
This gentleman, who has become a purser - his name is Augusto Fazio - said to me: "Well done. The European Parliament is right to concern itself with the safety of the sea and to prevent it becoming polluted.
But are you also concerning yourselves with the safety of us sailors who work on the ships?" "Of course," I said.
"Be patient. There will also be reports dealing with your safety as well."
And here's to the cod as well!
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.36 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Industrial restructuring and mergers (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the oral question (B5-0008/2001) by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, to the Commission, on Community initiatives relating to the social consequences of industrial restructuring and mergers.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Charter of Fundamental Rights has enabled us to take a great step towards the reconstruction of a Europe of the citizens; this is what Mr Méndez de Vigo likes to tell us; this is what we have heard on many occasions from Professor Rodríguez Bereijo, the representative named by the Head of the Spanish Government, Mr José María Aznar, for the convention drafting the Charter.
And I believe that this is to the liking of the Europeans.
To build, through this long process, a social Europe seems to me to be a great challenge and a great opportunity, which must be taken advantage of.
But this construction is taking place at a specific moment, in particular economic, social and political circumstances.
The Lisbon Summit decided to liberalise the telecommunications, gas, electricity and transport markets.
We are experiencing a process of general globalisation and a change in the concept of industrial society and the labour market.
We may ask ourselves: and what about the human factor?
Both Nice and the social agenda agreed at that meeting highlight the need to count on the workers in management changes and combine the security and flexibility of economic growth with labour relations and the consequences for the social environment.
And that is why, within the globalising dimension, we cannot ignore the importance of certain companies in certain regions and areas, for example the outlying regions, such as Galicia, where I come from myself, where they are the only or the main source of employment and where the threat of globalisation without guarantees would make families worried and nervous.
Secondly, economic competitiveness and a healthy society must not be contradictory terms but rather harmonious ones.
Thirdly, industrial restructuring, to use the expression in a broad sense, which is perhaps acceptable and inevitable from an economic point of view, cannot ignore the social consequences of that restructuring, which must be prepared for, since the objective of Community economic policies and measures must be to achieve a high level of employment.
Fourthly and lastly, national Community aid, tax incentives etc. should be conditional upon long-term temporary binding commitments in the field of employment and local and regional development.
These four points are only some of the considerations that the Commission and the Council must take into account in the face of the phenomenon of industrial restructuring.
Of course, the participation of the works committees, the representatives of the workers, is expected.
Mr President, globalisation reduces economic distances.
We must commit ourselves to preventing it from increasing social differences.
Mr President, Commissioner, the cases of industrial restructuring which are most traumatic, because they are unforeseeable, are those dictated by aggressive, acquisitions-seeking behaviour in the market. Much has been said about the lack of technical adaptation and market trends, but the extent of their social consequences is never considered.
Do we know how much they have contributed to the impoverishment of people and regions? Do we know how those that suffer from them recover from depression and at what cost?
Do we know in what way and how much these factors contribute to the long-term unemployment of people over the age of forty? Do we know in what way and how much these factors contribute to the fact that the true retirement age in the European Union is between fifty-five and fifty-seven?
The Lisbon resolutions were designed to respond to these points by giving priority to employment, to the viability of social protection, to combating social exclusion and also by preventing changes to the economy.
We do not know how much these approaches are contributing to increasing social security costs and we do not know how many people are becoming more dependent on systems of social protection.
Who is it that ultimately pays for social restructuring? Is it the market or the taxpayer and the working person?
Prevention and fair, balanced change are impossible. The social partners say so and have even just signed a pre-agreement document in order to implement the directive on European society concerning information and consultation.
Commissioner, we have also heard it said that the market is not governed by the laws of nature and that the political authorities should act by means of legislation, institutional action and social dialogue.
Social insecurity and the increase in crime are becoming part of post-industrial society and affect both traditional sectors and the so-called new economy.
The Portuguese, French, and now Swedish Presidencies have raised expectations by pushing ahead with dossiers that had been hitherto neglected.
The Commission' s programme for 2001, however, gives no hint of these dossiers being brought to a successful conclusion.
Mr President, in her speech before the House this morning, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel expressed her amazement and alarm at the frequency with which this issue comes up in this House, and wondered why this is.
I too am amazed at how often it crops up. We are concerned at the tragic implications of industrial restructuring and mergers - of which the workers are all too often only informed at the last minute when all the decisions have been made - for unemployment, working conditions, the very competitiveness of Community businesses and economic cohesion, and we appeal to companies' sense of responsibility and express our sympathy, but then we do not follow the cases up.
Community legislation does not go far enough and, what is more, in many cases it is disregarded or applied too leniently.
I could produce a long list, as many Members have done, of relevant cases which we have discussed in recent years.
One of the objectives set by the Lisbon Council was to achieve a high level of high quality employment.
How can we achieve a Europe which is both competitive and has a high level of high quality employment? Of course, this can be accomplished by improving coordination and the play of balance between the Union's different policies, but there is no doubt that the Community legislation on the subject needs to be more effective and more stringent.
Therefore, we can wait no longer - and here the Commission must assume its responsibilities - for a revision of the directive on European works councils, mass redundancies and relocation of enterprises, which does not make specific provision for a system of effective penalties for failure to comply.
But what really appals me - and here I refer to the Council in particular - is that it is already two years since Parliament expressed its opinion at the first reading of the only instrument which would allow us to deal effectively with these issues, the information and consultation directive, and in these two years, despite the general agreement that dialogue is the best way to deal with problems, the Council has not yet been able to summon up the courage or the strength to adopt a position on the matter.
Parliament can no longer tolerate such behaviour.
Mr President, the Financieel Dagblad (Financial Times) published last Friday, 2 February, carried the front-page headline: "Corus gives a fifth of its workers their marching orders" .
A little further on in the financial pages, there was the headline: "Corus experiences sharp upturn" .
The contrast in the pictures - it is a shame I cannot show them to you - was almost more telling: on the front page there was a picture of a sad steelworker from Wales, and in the financial pages a graph of how the profits went up when these redundancies were announced. This sort of news is commonplace now.
It confronts us with the fundamental question as to what actually motivates businesses these days. Are they only in it for the money or do they have a broader vision and mission?
In the Netherlands, the Socio-Economic Council published two important opinions recently, one about doing business in a socially responsible manner, with the grand title: "The acquisition of values" , and the other was about corporate governance and industrial relations.
In its opinions, the Council expressly opts for a broad characterisation of a business as a joint venture between various stakeholders, and so it expressly avoids focusing attention on the creation of shareholder value for the shareholders, who seem to be the main reason behind many of the restructuring operations that have recently taken place.
I see no evidence of this broader perspective or these more fundamental discussions in the European debate.
The European Parliament has put this issue on the agenda again today, but this discussion must also filter through into other areas of European policy.
To my mind, it lacks coherence in this respect.
I will cite two examples.
As regards the legislation on partnerships, people argue in completely one-dimensional terms from the perspective of the shareholders.
A case in point was the discussion on the thirteenth directive on takeover bids, when Mr Bolkestein well and truly dismissed Parliament' s amendments.
Another example can be found in competition policy.
Commissioner Monti made it abundantly clear in our Committee on Employment and Social Affairs that he only wants to approach mergers from the point of view of the markets and consumers, and has little interest in the bigger picture.
A Green Paper on corporate social responsibility, as announced this morning, is not enough.
I feel the Commission must make it its business to develop a more integrated outlook, and to ensure that this works its way through into the various policy headings.
Newspapers may display a certain amount of schizophrenia, but not politicians and policy makers.
Mr President, as the honourable Members have said, some of the directives were obviously adopted in times of full employment and very slow change.
Certain parts of the legislative framework therefore need amending and changing.
But I think that we should acknowledge the attempt being made in Europe to strike a balance between competitiveness and social cohesion.
Restructuring, mergers and takeovers do indeed often have dramatic consequences.
We recently saw over 5 000 jobs lost in a single month as the result of takeovers.
But if we look at the competitive environment as a whole, if we look at the environment in which European companies operate, then we will realise that there would be very adverse consequences if there were no reorganisation or restructuring, if European companies did not take an active part in the business economy.
And we need to calculate how many jobs are saved every time, because unless they restructure, some sectors risk disappearing altogether in the future.
In this extremely difficult environment, there are four strands to our efforts to combine social cohesion and competitiveness.
The first is forecasting.
This morning we examined how, through the Dublin Institute, we are trying to study, forecast and prepare changes.
The second is the legislative and institutional framework.
As you know, huge changes were made this year to legislation on the European company statute and to the five directives which follow and complete the legislative framework on the European statute, and the directive on information and consultation finally went to the Council after years of discussion between Parliament and the Commission and we achieved a majority within four months.
We reckon that, with the undertakings made by the Swedish Presidency and following the Belgian Presidency, significant changes will be made to the legislative framework.
I should point out here that legislation alone is not enough and that serious efforts have been made to extend controls. We are also endeavouring, in cooperation with Commissioner Monti, to check that the directives on information for workers are being properly applied during all mergers and takeovers.
In addition, a committee was recently set up within this legislative framework, one of the basic subjects of which is social dialogue and the role of social dialogue in helping to ensure that mergers and restructuring proceed smoothly.
The third strand is specific policy.
The strategy on employment and the availability of money from the Social Fund mean that problems of mass redundancies can be dealt with at national level, by retraining workers, through special structures to support their reintegration into the job market or by helping them start up their own companies.
Finally, the fourth strand is the role of companies, the social responsibility of companies.
This is one of the new basic items on the social agenda; we expect workers to change, to agree to a new, flexible environment, to train, to be prepared to move from one sector to another or one place to another.
But we cannot just ask workers to change their behaviour, which is why companies too have a new role in this area.
We are trying very specifically to define - and the second stage will be to look at this from an institutional point of view - to define the social responsibility of companies, their responsibilities in the wake of restructuring and their responsibilities in the local area, in the society in which they operate, which is why, as we said this morning, a Commission communication will be presented at the end of June.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Copyright and related rights in the Information Society
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0043/2001) by Mr Boselli, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, with regard to the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the Information Society [9512/1/2000 - C5-0520/2000 - 1997/0359(COD)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive regulates the protection of copyright and related rights in the information society.
It is an important directive and its path has by no means been easy.
We have reached the second reading and Parliament is now called upon to express its opinion on the position adopted by the Council which, as you will remember, was forwarded to us 18 months after it had been adopted at first reading.
The reason for this is that a controversial, delicate compromise had to be found between all the interests covered by the directive.
I see this difficult, delicate compromise as a step forward for, apart from anything else, it includes many of the points proposed by Parliament at first reading.
There was room for improvement in some parts of the directive and this is what I have attempted to do.
Although some compromise amendments were adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, opinion is still divided, particularly with regard to the article on copying for technical purposes, or caching, and the article on private copying.
There are many amendments regarding this point which I do not endorse.
The reason why, as far as private copying is concerned, the compromise amendments adopted in committee represented a major new development benefiting the authors lies in the fact that they stipulate that private copying - and I quote - must be "made by a natural person for private use and for ends that are neither directly or indirectly commercial, on condition that the rightholders receive fair compensation".
This amendment introduces a new principle into Community legislation, in that it limits the scope of the definition of private copying, to the benefit of the authors, while clearly, at the same time, safeguarding the legitimate interests of the consumer.
This amendment, adopted by the committee, halts the huge increase in exchanges of unauthorised copies between users of sites such as Napster, and it will mean that it is no longer possible to describe the exchange of unauthorised works between Napster users as private copying.
I see this as an improvement on the text of the common position.
With regard to the other element, technical copying, I feel that the balance achieved in the common position is more than sufficient to protect both rightholders and consumers.
Although the intention behind the amendments tabled on this issue - Article 5, point 1 - to provide greater copyright protection is commendable, none of the amendments are acceptable, apart from anything else because they relate to application, not regulation which is the subject of this directive.
Furthermore, these amendments are intended to introduce a system of dual authorisation of works on the Internet, one for hosting and one for caching, which would be a heavy burden for the network management.
Therefore, to sum up, the vote in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market showed that it is possible to reach a broad consensus, to adopt the directive and to improve the common position without running the risk of a long, tedious conciliation procedure; all this after three years of debate, argument and dispute.
In my opinion, this is an opportunity which the European Parliament must take: if, tomorrow, it supports the agreement reached in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and adopts the amendments which are the result of a broad compromise between a large number of political groups, then we will, at last, be able to adopt the directive.
This will benefit not only the European Union, which has been waiting for legislation on the subject for a long time, but also and most importantly, the rightholders.
Indeed, if the directive is adopted, not only will the exceptions which are still disputed enter into force, but also, most importantly, the rule established by Article 2 which lays down the principle of authorisation of rightholders for the use of works in new digital environments.
For all these reasons, it should I hope, be possible, at last, to adopt the text of this directive tomorrow.
Mr President, before beginning my speech, I must confess that I have a double interest in this issue.
On the one hand, I am an owner of intellectual property, being the author of several books and publications, and, on the other, I am a member of the Internet Foundation, which has various supporters in this Parliament.
Today coincides with an important event from the point of view of intellectual property in the information society, that is the judgment of the San Francisco Appeal Court in the Napster case, which brings us closer to finally resolving the vexed question of the use of the Internet to breach intellectual property rights.
The judgment of the San Francisco Court of Appeal confirms intellectual property rights and establishes certain measures for the protection of intellectual property in the United States.
The challenge facing us is to ensure that Europe also establishes a system which would safeguard intellectual property, otherwise we could find that, by means of installations in Europe, the effective protection measures which are currently being adopted in the United States under the Millennium Law, which has been in force for more than two years, could be violated.
We are lagging behind the United States, and, in this respect, I am in agreement with the rapporteur in the sense that we should bring this directive into play as soon as possible.
Now, in doing so, the Socialist Group is concerned that we do not throw the baby out with the bath water.
We have tabled two amendments which we consider to be very important.
Firstly, the amendment relating to what is known as private copying.
Private copying, which was a traditional right of any person obtaining an intellectual work or intellectual property, must now, in the information society, be subject to very strict requirements, because of the enormous ease of reproduction.
This amendment proposes that the private copy should be intended for the personal use of the person making it, because otherwise, given the ease of reproduction, we run the risk that many copies can be made for the private use of persons other than the person making the copy.
Secondly, another very important amendment is the one relating to the incidental and transitional nature of reproduction.
If, as a consequence of the processes established by the information society, it is necessary to make a copy of a transitional and incidental nature, this should be intended to be of a genuinely transitional nature.
It would be unacceptable to create large libraries of intellectual property so that, at any given moment, the person who has been using that property can access it at will.
We believe that the accumulation of requirements that they be of a transitional and incidental nature is essential to safeguarding intellectual property.
I hope that in tomorrow's vote the various political groups can come to an agreement in order to offer alternatives which will truly guarantee the protection of intellectual property in the information society, since in a few years time, all intellectual property will probably be of the type that travels around the great communications networks.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to heap praise on Mr Boselli for his handling of this topic.
It was a tough job and he had to walk on eggshells to do it, but I feel he has managed to strike a better balance with the aid of his compromise amendments.
I also think - and perhaps we should really look into this as a Parliament some time - that there has perhaps been more lobbying over this issue than I have ever experienced in my brief career as an MEP.
If you consider that over 300 lobbyists have an interest in this report, then that means half a lobbyist to every MEP, and perhaps a few question marks are in order here too.
It would be a good thing if the common position, together with Mr Boselli' s compromise amendments were to be adopted tomorrow.
The liberals disagree on quite a few points, but as I understand it, we are at least united behind it, and I think that is indeed a positive sign.
In addition, there are a number of issues that Mr Boselli and Mr Medina have already mentioned today.
I have yet to see whether the compromise amendment on private copies goes far enough because I still have not read to the end - and as a lawyer, I dealt with intellectual property in my practice over a long period of time. I have yet to discover whether it is now no longer possible for a student to make copies for all his or her fellow students which they are allowed to use in private.
I have my doubts about this because I think it will allow illegal copying to continue with a vengeance.
So I am in favour of restricting private usage.
I also have my doubts about the technical measures that Member States are at liberty to introduce.
I fear that this will have a distorting effect on the internal market and will lead, in the final analysis, to the Court of Justice having to settle the matter again on the basis of the internal market principles.
Caching, now that is something I still have some difficulty with, the way things are going at the moment.
I believe this only has to do with the e-commerce directive, so I hope the Commissioner will take another look at the issue.
I would like to close with a comment, and I hope - on behalf of the Liberal Group at any rate - that an even-handed and fair balance will be found in this directive for all market participants and all parties concerned, and I feel that the digital copy should be regarded as an opportunity and not a threat.
Mr President, my thanks to all the honourable Members for their constructive cooperation and, above all, to the Commission and the rapporteur, Mr Boselli.
Numerous problems, numerous conflicts of interest have still not been resolved.
Harmonising cultural traditions is no easy task.
A compromise does not really satisfy anyone and the European Parliament does not hold a magic wand.
There is talk of a balanced common position.
A balance between whom? Between rightholders and the public interest.
First and foremost - and this is my opinion and the opinion of the Greens - the rightholder's status under copyright law must be strengthened.
Copyright law must serve the rightholder.
His position must be strengthened for future contract negotiations.
As a politician for culture, my responsibility is, firstly, to give rightholders a secure basis for their existence and, secondly - and I do not mean secondarily but equally - to guarantee the public free access and, at the same time, ensure that high-quality works are available to the public in all their diversity.
We are opposed to extending the list of exceptions; some of the contentious points can perhaps be resolved between the parties, because we too are keen to find a satisfactory solution which we can all live with.
The Greens, you may have noticed, confined themselves to proposed amendments which relate solely to the rightholder - I refer to Amendments Nos 34 and 36.
Perhaps, you will say, they anticipated future contracts.
Allow me now to reply: much is anticipated in the recitals which is of benefit not to the rightholder author but to other interested parties.
And as the Napster case has already been raised, Europe should discuss whether or not it wants a miniature version, a European Napster, and then it should hold a round table discussion between providers, producers, rightholders and consumers.
But I would not want Napster to find its way to Europe, in through the back door simply because copyright law is weak and the wording woolly.
This too is a possibility which we should debate.
We shall also have to hold a discussion at some point in the future - soon, I hope - on performing rights societies and on the possibility of contracts for copyright contract law.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after considering this issue of the directive on copyright and harmonisation which primarily involves a list of exceptions, I feel that we have quite simply agreed to maintain a confused situation in order to give ourselves time to give some thought to this matter.
This confusion is due to the fact this directive represents three different interest; i.e. authors and creative artists, consumers, who are also users, and producers and market makers.
Producers and market makers are trying to fit in between the other two and I feel that the directive is also in this uneasy position with its list of exceptions, to which the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has just added another, extremely problematic, exception regarding broadcasting.
I believe that we are favouring the opinion of consumers.
However, what are we trying to make them buy? I put to you the question: just what shall we buy in the near future, if we fail to protect and defend creativity?
That is the question we should ask ourselves.
As it happens, outside my parliamentary career, I have written books and I use public libraries and research centres.
In both cases, we need to have some protection, some security rather than insecurity, in order to be able to produce works.
If I look at this from the consumer' s point of view, I am surprised that Parliament, the defender of Market Europe, defends production in this market in such an ultimately very poor fashion, because, given this list of exceptions, people will refuse to pay for goods which they will want for nothing.
You must admit that it is surprising.
The conditions in which these goods are produced are not being questioned either; yet, to produce goods, we need creative artists and authors.
I have no idea what you will sell or buy when you no longer have any creative artists or authors but, in any case, Market Europe will not fare very well.
That is what will happen to the markets.
Now, if we take a close look at the details of the directive, it becomes apparent that if we say, for example, that archives come into being immediately, or after an hour, this means that everything broadcast on television is archive material.
Anyone with an interest in history is slightly surprised to hear archives being defined in this way.
If archives are just that and if private copying is widespread, what can we do to ensure that culture, and indeed cultural diversity, is not just heritage, museums, not just a list that we will find in places that are the stuff of archives and museums, but that it is a living creative field? To do that, we must - like it or not - assist artistic creation.
To assist artistic creation, we must support copyright rather than criticise and attack it.
That is what my group will try to defend by its vote tomorrow.
Mr President, the report that has been presented on copyright and the information society, or rather the alleged information society, is a perfect example of the increasing depravity of a Community system whose only motivation is, in fact, to create a market where all products, goods and services are included.
Although the harm caused by this system is obvious, because harmonisation provides less protection than that previously afforded by Member States, despite that fact - I shall not give an example - the Commission and the Council are now proposing to transform all cultural services into saleable commodities, as Mrs Fraisse has just clearly said.
Using as an excuse the concept of the information society, which the financial markets are in the process of levelling out - we have come a long way in the last three years - this directive and the common position, which the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market suggests we adopt, seek to make all European creativity, i.e. all creative artists, subject to the international trade regulations of the World Trade Organisation, though it is here dubbed the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
It is utterly ironic that the European Union institutions are basically in the process of becoming a subservient lapdog to globalisation without restriction or conscience.
That is why I believe that many of us here in this House will try to stop the acceleration of this process which completely strips the concept of Europe of all content and all meaning.
I hope that we shall reject the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market because they break with the tradition of a Parliament - as Mrs Fraisse quite rightly said - which has, until now, defended diversity in cultural production in Europe and the specific, and indeed exceptional role, of creative artists, writers and artists in European civilisation.
The information society is no more than a snare and we are indulgently allowing it to be used here in an attempt to confiscate the most timeless and most precious thing we can own - intellectual property.
Mr President, all copyright consists in a balancing of two sets of interests, on the one hand the authors' , producers' and production systems' interests and, on the other hand, the consumers' interests.
It might be said that consumers' interests are society' s interest in seeing the dissemination of both knowledge and cultural expression rather than the suppression of these and their subordination to the interests of capital.
Naturally, creators and authors must, and ought to, be assured of a fair economic return, but I have to say that, for me and the People' s Movement I represent, there are two crucial main points.
The first is to ensure the public' s or consumers' interest in being able to use both knowledge and culture.
In Denmark, the country I come from, we have a very well developed tradition of youth and adult education, and this must not be interfered with.
The second point is that the systems of enforcement and sanctions that have been developed and are practised in the different legal cultures in the different countries must not be interfered with either.
We have our own special system in Denmark, and I do not think it should be substantially interfered with.
I can say that I have seldom been exposed to such intensive lobbying as in connection with this proposal, and that is by no means strange.
There are billions of kroner and euros in the system in a sector dominated on the producer side by, above all, the American entertainment industry, but it is not of course this that we must mainly take an interest in.
I might also add that copyright is, of course, among the most complicated aspects of the legal world and that, within the copyright field, the law relating to digital products is practically incomprehensible.
I cannot imagine that more than a few per cent of MEPs at the most have any idea at all of what the problems really relate to.
Against this background, it is an interesting fact, and one worth noting, that the proposal has been so balanced that I shall recommend my group to vote in favour of it.
Mr President, thank you for giving me the floor, despite the fact that I have not yet written a book and have not read a great many.
The protection of intellectual property has always been a cause for concern to the European Union and to the European Parliament, because we know that only this protection guarantees that we have culture, that culture flourishes and that economic production takes place.
This could have been an historic moment for the European Parliament.
But it is not.
For the first time in our lives, the protection of intellectual property is being undermined.
With the consent of the European Parliament.
As we have found out, the European Parliament still has only one objective: no conciliation.
After 18 months of deliberation in the Council, we have been told to get a move on.
After 18 months of deliberation in the Council.
And then the Council says "unanimously", although it could have voted by a qualified majority, given the balance we keep hearing about.
And then Parliament is asked not to make any more amendments.
We might just as well shut up shop and go home.
I have never seen Members put under such pressure by their governments and parties.
But with the Council and the governments on either side, in the Council and in Parliament, what need is there for Parliament?
Parliament has its own responsibility and it must live up to it.
The common position has dramatically undermined authors' rights.
I am on the authors' side and I call on Parliament to restore these rights - at least to some degree.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that many people must have been rather anxious when Mr Harbour said he wanted to see a review of the directive within 18 months.
So, is there to be a return to all that lobbying? Is it not all a bit too soon?
Everything that can be said about the directive has already been said.
It is therefore a little difficult to begin to speak now.
I nonetheless want to express my warm thanks to our wonderful rapporteur.
I also want to say that the official line of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party at first reading was more balanced than that of the parliamentary majority.
We may therefore also consider that essential parts of the common position need to be changed.
At first reading, we were concerned that the parliamentary majority was jeopardising the Internet' s function and that there was a danger of creating a system which also made it unattractive to have material on the Net in Europe.
The results of the Human Genome Project have been published on the Net in the last few days, partly in the journal, Nature and partly in the journal, Science.
Via Nature, everyone can access the material but, via Science, it can only be accessed by paying SEK 3 million. That is, of course, a protection of copyright.
But is it the same thing as promoting the spread of science and knowledge?
Where is the right balance to be found? This is something I believe we should reflect upon when we adopt a position on the directive.
I also want to point out once again that our group' s official position now is to have as few amendments as possible.
The common position is a fragile compromise which must not be disturbed. Otherwise, we might not get the WIPO Treaty signed, which is of course the most important thing.
Mr President, serious infringements of and a lack of protection for intellectual property have long been a way of life in Greece, well before the advent of the information society.
With the new technologies available, artists are now looking more than ever to the European Union to deal with this issue at Community level.
Clearly, there are numerous contradictory points, multiple pressures and disputed theories and we ourselves - over and above the lobby - have seen another side of authors, another side of consumers of these works and, in this sense, I think that the work undertaken by Mr Boselli and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market is the work of a magician.
I think they have seriously improved on the Council's common position, which did too little to protect intellectual property.
It is important that we limit the exceptions and I think that the amendment by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal market is a careful amendment, although it might have gone further.
We also have to take care with libraries and archives because, if we make various amendments here, we will end up infringing intellectual property rights.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on having the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of Job and the tenacity of myself.
In particular, this issue, which is difficult and has been a very arduous task for all of us in the Legal Affairs Committee, has thrown up a number of conflicts, one of which most often mentioned within this House is the conflict between copyright-holders and consumers.
Many people feel that these two differing groups cannot be reconciled.
I believe that within the present text we have the opportunity to reconcile these two parties, and to lay down a number of fundamental principles which could be copied in other parts of the world.
These principles comprise, firstly, remuneration for those who are entitled to remuneration for creative works and for new ideas; secondly, the right of access to those works; thirdly, the rights of libraries and other institutions, educational institutions in particular, to make use of these works for research purposes; and fourthly the introduction of a number of exceptions to the copyright legislation to ensure that people with disabilities will not be unfairly discriminated against and to ensure that educational institutions can continue.
This is no easy task.
Each of us has a right, and indeed a responsibility, to ensure that we can maintain the best possible balance for all within the fundamental principles of consumer rights and protection as well as remuneration for the artists.
Mr President, I would, of course, also like to commend Mr Boselli' s determination to achieve a balance in a text that has been under discussion for nearly three years.
His task was made all the more difficult by the Council' s failure to adopt all Parliament' s amendments at the first reading stage.
As has been mentioned, the aim of the new directive is to adapt current legislation to the new technologies while respecting the international treaties adopted in 1996.
There is a legal void with regard to copyright protection in the digital age.
The Internet is a powerful tool but it must not be an unregulated area.
The cultural and economic stakes are high and, with the Internet expanding at an incredible pace, a legal framework in Europe must be found, as in the United States, where this kind of framework was adopted two years ago.
It is, therefore, an urgent matter, all the more so because this directive is a key factor in the fight against illegal copying, a matter particularly close to my heart, and because pirate copying is the scourge of the information society. It becomes all the more crucial in a digital age because the first copies and any subsequent copies retain a quality close to that of the original.
Consumers are acknowledged as being entitled to make private copies.
It is only natural that the eligible parties are fairly compensated in return, it is only fair.
In order to ensure that we are talking about purely private copies, the law must be written in sufficiently restrictive terms and the wording of the definition must be perfectly unambiguous.
So I am in favour of a restrictive definition of private copying.
In order to protect works of art against illegal copying, eligible parties must be given the opportunity to use technical protection.
That is why hackers, as they are called, must be fought by clamping down on the means they offer to the public to overcome protection systems, thereby encouraging the illegal copying of protected works of art.
This new context is constantly changing and raises many questions and concerns.
The directive must balance the interests of consumers and eligible parties.
It is trying to resolve these issues as quickly as possible but in a necessarily imperfect way.
If we amend this directive, we shall, in two years' time, be able to determine its shortcomings and weaknesses in the light of the incredible developments in the information society.
Mr President, as we say in my country, 'until the baskets are washed, it is still harvest time' . In other words, hope remains for authors and performers that this Parliament will have a change of heart, if not today then tomorrow.
I say this because I believe that a balance can be reached between the democratisation of knowledge that the new technologies and the Internet offer us with one click of the mouse and the continuity of the creative act, which will die out as a result of non-payment and lack of fair compensation for its value.
The virtual contradictions that mask financial interests and demagogic opposition are therefore unacceptable in this real social debate.
Let us not be naive, Mr President.
Creation and performance are economic factors and always have been. Hence the need for copyright and performers' rights.
Unfortunately, the Commission proposal and the Council common position reveal a degree of thoughtlessness that warrants our criticism.
In the name of consumer freedom, the consumption of art is pitted against artistic creation, in the same way that the Council accepts creative freedom as an obstacle to knowledge and to Europe' s citizens becoming enriched by culture.
New media technologies are not the enemies of intellectuals and authors, but we cannot pretend that, in this cyber world we live in, protecting the weakest member, i.e. authors, means defending a monopoly.
Let us not, in the name of consumers' rights, sacrifice authors' rights, and, above all, let us not accept the idea that artistic creation should be suspicious of technology, which is the cardinal sin of the text we are discussing.
Mr President, despite the considerable efforts that have been made and despite a certain amount of progress, which is due to the attitude of our rapporteur, whom I warmly congratulate, we still do not have a text that brings together the three fundamental freedoms of the cultural act: the freedom to create, the freedom to communicate and the freedom to consume.
Unless we achieve this quickly, some of Europe' s fundamental values will disappear for good.
Furthermore, our languages will be of little use if, at the altar of technology, they become merely the remnant of the identity that gives any European uniqueness in the eyes of the world.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the honourable Members from the various groups for supplying the 32 signatures which allowed me to submit a number of amendments in Parliament.
I am absolutely convinced that we must endeavour, on a couple of points, to revert back to Parliament' s opinion from the first reading, which we adopted exactly two years ago by a very large majority.
It is mainly to do with tightening up on private copying, establishing clear regulations for the on-line storage of data so that the responsibility of Internet providers is better defined in line with the e-commerce directive, and the possibility of Member States being able to introduce technological protection measures without disrupting the internal market.
Why am I defending this opinion? First and foremost for reasons of principle.
Is there anything more important than protecting private property? Is there anything more personal than the product of human talent, the creation of something which rejuvenates.
The European Parliament has always been the guardian of Europe' s cultural heritage and that is how it must stay, also in the digital age.
If we do not put a brake on indiscriminate copying, there will soon be nothing left to copy. After all, if we fail to provide protection, people will lose the incentive to be creative and produce new works of art.
But there is more to this debate than principles.
Copying will also cost jobs.
According to current estimates, one hundred thousand jobs have been lost in the European Union owing to the copying of CDs.
The State loses out on income too.
Apparently, the State of Belgium alone, which I know very well, misses out on one billion Belgian Francs in VAT as a result of this practice, and the same goes for all government coffers.
We must be in no doubt about what it is we are risking.
I would like to echo Mr Rothley' s sentiments.
So all in all, I think there is good reason to support the amendments which I tabled, together with many of my fellow delegates, for which I would like to thank you in advance.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive is of great importance to growth and competitiveness in Europe, but the directive does not need to be worded in such a way as to make using the Internet more difficult and more expensive.
If we impose higher costs on e-commerce and increase the cost of connection, Europe will not be the world' s most competitive economy in ten years' time, which was, of course, the goal set in Lisbon.
If we in Parliament are to increase people' s confidence in us as European legislators, European legislation must be coherent. The e-commerce directive and this directive must be in line with each other.
We must not therefore alter Article 5.1 or recital 33. Copyright must not become a patent right because of the new technology.
Our good will towards copyright holders must not involve our creating regulations which restrict freedom of expression or obstruct the free flow of information.
The ceiling above which an outsider' s server may be closed down must be set very high.
If every bit of data that passes through the server every second is to be monitored, we forfeit what basically has made the Internet successful and has increased productivity in countries with high Internet use, namely the fact that everyone gets to be involved and to share knowledge.
I would therefore ask you to support Amendment No 4.
Our copyright legislation must be created around the work and around the artist entitled to remuneration, and not around the technical form.
TV channels must decide for themselves how they make their programmes and the music they want to play available.
A right to copy on-air broadcasts for storage on electronic systems is required because, otherwise, the giant recording companies will be able to control the radio and television companies' music output.
I would therefore ask you to support Amendments Nos 31 and 32.
Copyright is not absolute. Exceptions are required.
I therefore hope that the Chamber will safeguard the exceptions for libraries and for people with disabilities so that we do not undermine democracy by shutting people off from information.
Finally, we have a WIPO position to defend, and we must vote consistently.
I am hoping for a positive decision, for then we shall be accepting international responsibility.
Mr President, even as we try at second reading to tweak the common position on copyright here and there, we should not lose sight of the fact that, whatever the outcome of tomorrow's vote or of the impending conciliation procedure, we have achieved both very little and a great deal.
Very little because the level of harmonisation of copyright in the European Union will not be very high, much lower in fact than in many other less important areas.
National traditions are simply too varied here and the interests of all those involved are too diverse and too contradictory.
But, compared with the current situation, we will have achieved a great deal if the directive as contained in the common position or, even better, with the amendments adopted tomorrow, can be improved and can enter into force quickly.
At least we now have a standard definition for a few core concepts.
The full development of the information society will no longer be impeded by a grossly insecure legal framework and rightholders and their agents will have ways of protecting their interests.
Technical means of protection in particular are developing at a very fast pace.
At the same time, however, we must guarantee wide public access in the interest of cultural diversity.
This obviously includes not criminalising consumers or charging them several times over.
It also includes developing cultural heritage, such as the cultural heritage stored in television archives, and ensuring that libraries are able to fulfil their valuable role in the online world.
Like some of my fellow Members, I feel that the outcome of the vote in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has compromised the hard-struck balance in favour of the exceptions and I therefore hope that at least some of the proposed amendments tabled by my group will still be accepted.
Mr President, as an author and member of the Portuguese Society of Authors, I have a personal interest in a matter in which the cultural standing of European integration itself is also at stake.
It makes no sense for Europe to herald the fundamental value of its cultural and linguistic pluralism and, at the same time, render it devoid of meaning.
I do not know of a single author in Europe who agrees with the compromise amendments on private copying.
This means something.
I also wish to say that it would be much better if the directive were to give this satisfaction to authors now and were then to be reviewed within eighteen months.
Most of the exceptions to copyright that are provided for open the way for a cancerous type of process, which will give rise to the wild, uncontrolled proliferation of copyright abuses.
The more exceptions are provided for, the further the right to regulate is weakened and the more harm is done to the harmonisation and coordination of national organisations in this field.
It is extremely important that the range of exceptions should be limited.
It is not enough to remove the possibility of using copies for purposes that are directly or indirectly commercial.
Copies are very frequently used for atypical purposes such as exchanges, loans and gifts, and there are many other causes for the uncontrolled proliferation of further copies, which has serious consequences for authors and publishers.
Unless the concept of private use is made to mean only home use or copying with the author' s permission, instead of solving the key problems, the directive will continue to be an incentive to unbridled piracy.
To conclude, I shall quote from one of the messages that I have received from various Portuguese authors, one of whom is the Nobel prize winner, José Saramago, who writes: "as artists, we are particularly concerned that large-scale unauthorised copying will make it impossible for all those who make up the creative community to earn a living.
Those who have nothing to do with the creative process will consume the fruit of other people' s labours without making any productive reinvestment, unless private copying effectively retains its status as private copying" .
Mr President, we need to be clear about what we are trying to achieve in this directive.
This directive, as a piece of intellectual property legislation, must try to incorporate structures to reward the creative industries, which in my own Member State alone contribute GBP 60 billion to our national economy and GBP 8 billion of exports.
They also employ 1.4 million people.
At the same time we must not strangle or restrict freedom of access for legitimate users.
This fits in with the EU action plan and the forthcoming summit in Stockholm.
The fact is that the Internet genie is out of the bottle.
We cannot stop technology, but neither can we allow it to render copyright dead or to let it be abused as a safe haven for piracy, parasites and mass illegal copying.
Yesterday's Napster ruling clearly showed that copyright has to be applied to cyberspace.
We must not encourage people to infringe copyright.
The composition of the compromise amendments tabled by the rapporteur has maintained this balance between rightholders and users effectively.
The exceptions which currently exist in Article 5 mean that the generous provisions on exceptions that we have in the UK will continue to help vulnerable users and ensure that schools, libraries and research and education institutions can benefit from private copying.
In the UK we also record programmes so that we are able to watch at the time and place we choose and that, of course, needs to remain intact.
It is however regrettable that some unnecessary, unhelpful amendments have crept in at the last stage in committee.
I refer to: Amendment No 11, which seeks to give an exemption to broadcasting companies which no one else enjoys and which would reduce performers' and artists' rights in contravention of the WIPO Treaty; and Amendment No 4 which, in the second part, introduces an unnecessary and unwarranted EU restriction of the freedom of national courts to decide how to deal with injunctions, in particular concerning piracy, and amendments on levies.
While this is well-intentioned, we cannot support this approach because it could be interpreted, taken in a vague sense, to mean that levies should always be introduced when you have no technical protection in place.
The UK does not operate a system of levies and we do not want to see it introduced through the back door.
Finally, as with every other piece of legislation on the Internet that comes before us in this House, we should use the provisions of the directive, the review clause in Article 12 and the role of the contact committee to prevent both the abuse of private copying and any abuse or limitation on fair use.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to join the House in thanking the rapporteur.
It is amazing how calmly and composedly he has cut his way through this jungle of interests.
The lobby has already been mentioned.
It was indeed persistent but, on balance, it was, I think, a fair discussion and for that, too, I am grateful.
A great deal has been said about the need for balance.
I am afraid that the common position has not yet struck the balance needed.
Parts of the directive penalise the internal market, parts penalise consumers and parts penalise innovation.
The directive penalises the internal market because, at the end of the day, the harmonisation is only cosmetic and the Member States are defending their conventional payment systems tooth and claw, even though they are basically unsuited to the digital world.
We want to prevent that, which is why we suggest in proposed Amendment No 12 that the Member States should at least submit new compensation systems to the Commission and obtain a recommendation.
The directive also penalises consumers because it is quite possible that consumers will have to pay once when they buy a CD or a DVD and then again in the form of a levy.
Then when they come to make a copy, the data is copy-protected and the Member States have not even undertaken to look at copy protection systems and legal copying.
And the common position penalises innovation because it tries desperately to keep the global fee system alive in the digital age, despite the fact that new technology basically makes global fees superfluous, because copy protection allows the rightholder to be paid directly for copies and that is the fairest solution of all.
That is a directive for a citizens' Europe.
It offers the citizen security and fair freedoms in the digital world.
Mr President, I am delighted to see that both the Legal Affairs Committee and the rapporteur accepted that it was unwise to reopen a large number of issues in this area and that much of what was achieved in the common position reflects a balance on this very complicated problem.
I hope that the House will also limit the number of amendments that are adopted and not interfere too greatly with the common position.
It is a directive which I and the British Conservatives welcome because it is vital that European citizens are given proper protection of their creative rights and creative works in the digital era and this directive will deliver that to them.
This is essential because, not only is there an enormous music industry and film industry, we must not forget the highly successful computer games industry which is generating a huge amount of revenue in the United Kingdom and in a number of other countries across the EU.
But the British Conservatives also firmly uphold the rights of those who take advantage of the public interest exceptions.
Groups such as the disabled, including blind people who need access to Braille copies in order to access the Internet, groups such as researchers, universities and libraries: these kinds of rightholder exceptions are vital for promoting research which is so important for our economic health.
A less high profile exception that is important economically is the right of reverse engineering of computer software.
We would entirely reject those amendments which are seeking to inhibit the use of those public interest exceptions.
We therefore accept the need to tighten up the wording of Article 6(4), to clarify its role and to restrict it to truly on-demand interactive services.
Having said that, there is another exception which is more controversial, which is ordinary private copying.
We are all pleased to see the rules have been tightened up to prevent it being abused and used as a loophole for piracy; that is something that we would also support.
I would lastly express some reservations about Amendment No 11.
If this amendment is passed, I fear that the broadcasters will have an advantage.
They are getting something for nothing.
I think this skews the common position a little and, unless someone can convince me otherwise, I would have grave reservations about Amendment No 11.
We have a sensible and balanced position and I fear Amendment No 11 may tilt that balance in the wrong direction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the common position, as amended by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, is an attempt to strike a fair balance between the interests of artists, authors and rightholders and the interests of consumers.
The common position therefore regulates when third parties can copy copyright protected works such as texts, graphics, music or films.
Member States are also required to protect copy protection under the law.
It is important, from the consumer's point of view, that private copies will be allowed in future.
There are - and this has been addressed several times today - differing views as to what constitutes a private copy.
In my view, the definition should include the family environment.
That means that the proposed wording accepted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has my full support.
Finally, it is also important from the consumer's point of view that new remuneration schemes, i.e. levies on equipment or media, can only be introduced if they help to achieve equal levies throughout Europe.
Unilateral national action, such as the so-called PC levy, which keeps cropping up in discussions in the Member States, would only make equipment even more expensive.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has also tabled proposals here and I call on Parliament to support them tomorrow.
Finally, the directive also regulates when broadcasting organisations are entitled to use their archive productions for on-demand services and when they must first sign a contract with all the rightholders involved in the TV production giving them the right to do so.
The rights, the archives of broadcasting organisations are of immeasurable cultural and historical value.
We must therefore do everything we can to make these archives accessible, including for online use.
I therefore urge the House to support Article 11 and I agree here with my fellow Member, Mrs Villiers.
I think that there is every reason to offer a separate regulation for public radio.
I would firstly like to apologise for having arrived late for this debate: I was in another meeting and that is why I am speaking last, despite the fact that I have had the honour of taking responsibility for this issue on behalf of the European People's Party.
Mr President, my first words are words of thanks, and I can also add my thanks as Chair of the committee, for the work carried out by the rapporteur.
I say this sincerely.
I believe that it would be hard to find a more complex issue, on which pressure has been unleashed from all the interest groups, which have legitimately fought to have their positions adopted by the various political groups.
There are few issues on which we have received so many, if not tonnes then at least metres of faxes and e-mails as we have on this one.
The rapporteur has been masterly in his navigation of these turbulent waters; he has always remembered that a rapporteur is rapporteur for a committee, not for any group or any position: he is rapporteur for a committee and he is duty-bound to reflect the majority position of that committee.
I am pleased to say that the amendments put forward by the rapporteur were supported by a huge majority in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Mr President, please allow me now to make some comments which are going to reiterate what has already been said, because at this point in the debate everything has really been said already.
This is a much-criticised directive, and it is worthy of criticism; but this is a case, as is so often the case in European integration, in which what is best and what is feasible are not the same thing.
As has already been said, we are starting from a situation in which there is complete divergence between the laws of the various Member States, where in reality the concept of copyright, the whole gamut of obligations and rights which this concept is represented by in our different laws, is not even similar.
It is not simply that are not the same, but that they are not even similar.
To try to harmonise them is an heroic quest.
This directive is a first step, but Parliament accepted this gamble on first reading and therefore it has to be consistent and continue in this vein on second reading.
At first reading we could have adopted disruptive positions; that was not Parliament's approach, and we accepted a directive full of exceptions.
At the moment, the amendments of the Committee on Legal Affairs, added to certain other notable amendments which deserve to be supported, improve this directive on certain substantial points, such as private copying.
I refer to what has already been said.
And in summary they improve the directive by making it a first step in a system of harmonisation which will have to be carried out over time, a first step which furthermore will enable us to fulfil our international commitments, since until this directive sees the light of day, the two WIPO Treaties will not be able to enter into force.
That is also an important responsibility at a time when we talk so much about globalisation.
Mr President, thank you for giving me the floor on this important subject.
I should like to begin by saying that the discussion on this subject has taken a long time, as Mr Boselli indicated a little while ago - I think he said three years.
That indicates the importance, as well as the controversial nature, of this proposal.
After long discussions, in which this Parliament played a very constructive role, we are meeting today to consider what I hope will be a balanced compromise.
We now need to agree as rapidly as possible on a set of rules on copyright and related rights in the information society at European level, in order to increase the competitiveness of the Community and to implement our obligations at international level.
This directive will be a cornerstone in the establishment of a harmonised legal framework on copyright, in a digital environment in particular.
As such, it belongs to those measures for which the Lisbon Summit at the end of last year set us a clear deadline.
The Community needs such a framework if it is not to lag behind its major trading partners and, as was remarked this afternoon, we are already lagging behind the United States.
Furthermore, without such a framework in place, rightholders and users cannot respond to the challenges posed by technology in the market place.
The adoption and implementation of this directive is also a precondition for the European Union to ratify rapidly the two WIPO treaties which were adopted in 1996.
Here we carry an important responsibility as the coming into force of the WIPO treaties depends largely on this directive and therefore on us.
The formal decision to ratify the treaties was adopted by the Council on 16 March 2000.
Parliament has already endorsed that decision, but without this directive neither we nor the Member States could move towards ratification of those treaties.
Throughout the legislative process, Parliament has played a significant role.
The important changes to this directive introduced after the first reading clearly reflect the influence of this Parliament.
We welcome the constructive approach of the rapporteur, Mr Boselli, and of the Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, Mrs Palacio - whom it is a particular pleasure to see again today - and also the members of the committee which Mrs Palacio chairs.
They have shown a keen sense of appreciation of the issues at stake in this directive, reducing the number of amendments to 15.
Most of those amendments were, in fact, compromise amendments, also on crucial issues.
The Commission appreciates the efforts made by the rapporteur on private copying and by the Committee on Legal Affairs when it voted not to amend the technical copies exception.
The Commission is in a position to accept all of the compromise amendments.
We have, however, concerns about some of the other amendments which have been voted.
I shall now say something about each of those amendments, although very briefly.
Firstly, Amendment No 2.
It deals with remuneration schemes and the products to which they apply, even though such schemes are outside the scope of the directive.
This directive requires fair compensation for certain of the exceptions, one of which is private copying.
The system of fair compensation envisages flexibility for Member States, rightholders and users to establish the basis on which those exceptions apply.
Amendment No 4 does not respect the principle of proportionality because it seeks to lay down conditions for the granting of injunctions.
But the issue of sanctions is already adequately dealt with in the directive.
Amendment No 11, about which I shall be speaking in reply to some remarks made a little while ago, adds a further exception for broadcasters, framed in terms which were rejected by Parliament itself at first reading.
The exception proposed goes too far and risks putting the Community in breach of its international obligations under the WIPO treaties, for which this directive is meant to be the instrument of ratification.
Amendment No 12 as currently drafted risks undermining the Commission's own powers to take measures when Member States take action that affects the functioning of the internal market.
For this reason the Commission cannot see its way to accepting it.
Amendment No 13 adds nothing to the text of Article 6(4) which already provides for fair compensation for private copying.
In the light of the above, we support the compromise amendments by the rapporteur and the Legal Affairs Committee but not Amendments Nos 2, 4, 11, 12 and 13.
Moreover, a series of further amendments, namely Amendments Nos 16 to 45, have also been tabled in Parliament.
The majority of those amendments have been rejected by the Legal Affairs Committee.
Three amendments, however, namely Amendments Nos 26, 27 and 28, are new.
In all cases, however, the issues raised by those amendments have been thoroughly considered, not just in the course of this second reading, but throughout the history of this directive - considered by my services but also by Member States.
None of those further amendments are acceptable to the Commission.
I should now like to address some of the questions and comments made this afternoon more specifically.
First of all, there are the questions and remarks made by Mr Medina Ortega, Mr Manders and Mr Echerer on private copying and on the use of the words "for private use".
The question is should or should not the Commission support Amendment No 5 and if so, why?
In reply to that question, I should like to say that the Commission is of the view that Amendment No 5 provides greater security for rightholders while at the same time allowing legitimate private copying in a manner which is enforceable both by Member States and by rightholders and it clarifies what is commercial by including ends that are both direct and indirect.
There are several safeguards built into this directive which qualify the extent to which private copying may take place and thereby act as a deterrent to piracy.
That is particularly the case in relation to the protection of technological measures.
The Commission is of the opinion that the reference to "private use" is too narrow a formulation and would give rise to difficulties in enforcement especially in the private domain.
Then there is the question and a comment made by Mr Manders on Article 5 and in particular on the words "transient" and "incidental".
On that point, Article 5(1) has been at the centre of attention in all institutions.
There have been many amendments tabled both in the Legal Affairs Committee and again here in Parliament which propose changing the text of the common position.
The Legal Affairs Committee very wisely rejected all those amendments when it voted on 6 February 2001 and the Commission accepted the text of the common position which states that the acts of copying, in order to be exempted, must be transient or incidental and that they should form an essential part of a technological process.
The Commission prefers "or" to "and" in this context because making the conditions cumulative by adding "and" may make the whole exception too narrow and less operational.
In addition, including "essential" seems to make sense, as it would be difficult to justify why the exception should privilege acts of reproduction which are not an "essential" part of a technological process.
The current text of Article 5(1) together with the interpretative guidance provided in recital 33 ensures - in the Commission's opinion - a satisfactory balance between the rights of rightholders and the legitimate interests of other parties involved such as telecom operators, users, consumers and other parties.
Together with Article 8 on remedies and sanctions, Article 5(1) will help to provide for effective copyright protection against piracy whilst at the same time promoting the smooth operation of networks.
In particular, it gives service and access providers the necessary legal certainty for their activities on the networks.
Responding to comments made by Mrs Fraisse, Mrs Villiers and a number of others on Amendment No 11, may I say the following.
There is already an exception for broadcasters based on an amendment adopted by this Parliament at first reading.
It introduced a new exception for broadcasters relating to so-called ephemeral reproductions.
To introduce a further exception would not only disturb the balance of rights achieved, but could also lead to a violation of Member States' international obligations.
In relation to Amendment No 11, a similar amendment was proposed at first reading.
The Commission could not accept that amendment as it disturbed the balance between the parties concerned and might have caused considerable damage to authors, performing artists or other holders of the rights concerned.
The Commission is in agreement with Mrs Fraisse, Mrs Villiers and almost all speakers in rejecting this amendment.
I wish to thank Mrs Palacio for her support throughout the history of this proposal.
If it had not been for her leadership and guidance in the Legal Affairs Committee, it would not have been possible to steer our way through both the first reading and now the second reading, and the Commission is duly grateful to her.
The Commission would also like to thank the rapporteur and Parliament in general for the excellent work performed.
The common position represents the views of an entire cross-section of diverging interests: the creative and artistic communities, the academic, educational and scientific communities and also consumer groups and bodies representing socially disadvantaged users.
Nonetheless, in spite of the complexity of the groups whose interests have to be taken into account, the directive ensures a sufficiently high degree of copyright harmonisation and it should be possible to reach a final agreement today.
We have gone very far in meeting the concerns of everyone so, as Mr Boselli put it earlier this afternoon, I hope that this proposal will be approved tomorrow and that it will be adopted with as little change as possible.
Deliberate release of GMOs into the environment
The next item is the report (A5-0032/2001) by Mr Bowe, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms and repealing Directive 90/220/EEC [C5-0685/2000 - 1998/0072(COD)].
Mr President, we are now close to the end of what has been a three-year process of reforming the legislation for the control and genetically modified use of organisms as products within the European Union.
We have now completed the process of reconciliation and we have a text for final approval.
The text before us meets many of Parliament's demands at first and second reading.
We have the precautionary principle reaffirmed.
We have tighter risk assessment of all GMO releases.
We have schemes for monitoring traceability that will ensure continuous assessment of all releases throughout the ten-year life of this time-limitation for consents.
We have achieved the phasing out of all harmful, antibiotic-resistant marker genes.
We have a clear timetable.
We have a clear and transparent process and a clear timetable for the approvals which ensure the mandatory consultation of the public which guarantees public registers of locations of GMOs grown and used.
Steps have also been taken on the issues of liability, traceability and labelling.
Parliament can only be satisfied on those issues, however, when we see the additional legislation and flanking measures which I understand are now in preparation within the Commission.
In short, we have in front of us today for our approval the toughest GMO legislation in the world, so tough, in fact, that some natural foods in common use today would not pass through this procedure.
Should we approve this legislation tomorrow it would mean the beginning of the end of the present informal 'moratorium' on GMO commercial approvals.
Certain Members of the Council have, however, already made it clear that they will scrutinise individual applications for approval and may not allow commercialisation until legislation on traceability and labelling is in place.
I welcome this.
This is a final safeguard to the recommencement of an approval process which has been long awaited but it can be no reason for opposing the final approval of the new 90/220 legislation we have in front of us now.
This legislation is an essential building block and foundation for the success of those measures still to come.
I therefore commend this important legislation to the House.
It is essential to ensure the safe and proper use of GMO products within the European Union.
It is essential to ensure the building of public confidence in these products, it is essential to ensure that this new technology, which promises so much, will in the end deliver what we are seeking from it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we often begin our speeches in the European Parliament by thanking the rapporteur.
I wish to do so again today, and it is meant as more than just lip service.
Mr Bowe has done a magnificent job and brought a very complicated procedure to a close.
I should also like to thank you, Commissioner Wallström and the Chairman of the Conciliation Committee, Mr Ingo Friedrich.
Both put a great deal of effort into finding an agreement; unfortunately, the same cannot be said of everyone else involved in the conciliation procedure.
We have brokered a good compromise.
The new regulation gives Europe a high standard of health, consumer and environmental protection.
The disputed antibiotic-resistant marker genes will be banned in Europe in the future.
Potential environmental dangers must be closely monitored.
Labelling of GMOs has been improved, although we expect further action by the Commission on this.
We have not passed a regulation preventing the application of green biotechnology and the PPE-DE Group welcomes that.
The PPE-DE Group is in favour of green biotechnology, provided that care is taken to ensure that rules to protect the environment and human health are respected.
Yesterday scientists and researchers from all over the world announced that they had completely decoded the human genome.
The euphoria which this announcement triggered throughout the world contrasts strangely with the emphatic rejection triggered by the release of genetically-modified plants, especially in Europe.
I think that neither euphoria at the human genome project nor total rejection of genetically-modified plants is called for.
In both areas there are huge opportunities, but there also risks which must be contained by suitable legislation.
The application of genetics to medicine is by no means risk-free; there have already been deaths during research into gene therapy in the USA because the rules were not applied properly.
The so-called reproductive cloning of human beings is no longer a chimera and is being seriously pursued by a number of scientists, as we have again seen over the last few days.
The artificial distinction between clones of human embryos for stem cell research and so-called reproductive clones will become blurred in the long term and I believe that the first cloned baby will probably be born before the promised relief for patients with Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease.
Just as red genetic engineering is by no means all opportunity, green genetic engineering is by no means all risk.
There is a realistic chance that genetically-modified plants will allow us to make huge progress with renewable primary products.
Specifically modified plants will perhaps soon allow cheaper and safer drugs to be manufactured.
We should therefore make use of the opportunities in both areas and limit the dangers with suitable legislation.
Developments in the release of genetically-modified plants from research into the human genome - for which we have practically no rules in Europe - will result, once the preliminary report is accepted, in a suitable set of rules for all the Member States in the European Union, which is why we should adopt this motion.
The PPE-DE Group will be voting in favour of the Bowe report.
Mr President, after three long years, we are, at last, nearing the end of the process of revising Directive 90/220/EEC.
Anyone who has watched the progress made, step by step, towards this goal, as I have, cannot fail to agree that we are providing the European Union with legislation on genetically modified organisms which, in addition to improving upon the previous legislation, also places us at the forefront on an international level.
Just one example is the procedures for granting authorisations, particularly in terms of transparency and accessibility to the public, which is an essential condition for the necessary research trials to be able to proceed in a favourable climate. Further examples are the assessment and monitoring of the cumulative effects on the environment, and the phasing out of antibiotic-resistant marker genes.
The lion's share of the praise for this progress must certainly go to our rapporteur, Mr David Bowe, who has succeeded in combining decisiveness with flexibility. It is certainly the fault of the Commission, rather than Mr Bowe, if we are still labouring under the burden of being unable, at present, to adopt flanking legislation on the tracing and labelling of GMOs and GMO derivatives placed on the market and thereby present the consumer with a complete framework of certainties.
The undertaking, confirmed yesterday in a letter from the Commission to the Members of the parliamentary delegation, is important in political terms but does not entirely make up for the delays in preparing a clear, well-defined proposal.
For these reasons, I am convinced that we should endorse the conclusions of the conciliation procedure, but with one explicit reservation: the moratorium on commercial approvals must remain in place until the gap has been filled.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the new directive is a huge improvement over the old one, on that we are all agreed.
The public register was a fundamental and central cause for concern to us Greens.
Monitoring is included, as is the testing of long-term effects.
We expressly welcome all this.
However, we shall abstain - and with good cause - because the main points of the directive have not been clarified.
There is unholy confusion in the area of genetic engineering at European level and no steps have been taken to label derivatives and GMOs and guarantee their traceability.
We have not clarified the question of exports of GMOs to non Member States.
I think that we have a moral responsibility to apply the same standards to third countries here as we do to ourselves and, more importantly, we have not clarified liability as a central factor.
The EU Commission is to make proposals here, it is true, but we do not know what they are.
I rather feel that we are buying a pig in a poke.
The BSE crisis should be a lesson and a reminder to us.
It is just not on, expecting the taxpayer to stump up for the damage and passing the risks onto society, while the genetic engineering companies only get the profits.
Which is why I do not expect any more GMO consents to be granted until legislation has been passed on liability.
So far, all we have is a declaration of intent; we do not have corporate liability and it is just not on, insisting that anyone who wants to register a car must produce an insurance certificate, while someone producing dangerous organisms, some of the long-term consequences, risks and dangers of which are still unknown factors, need not.
There is therefore no reason for Member States such as Germany and France to lift their de facto moratoria.
I think we have a huge crisis of confidence in consumer protection and unless derivatives are labelled, in other words, unless there is transparency and liability and responsibility can be taken ...
(The president cut the speaker off)
Mr President, we in the Group of the European United Left wish to retain the moratorium on releasing genetically modified crops for commercial cultivation.
This position is not changed by the clear improvements due to Directive 90/220 and which we are now discussing.
In the conciliation, it was, in particular, we in the Group of the European United Left, together with the Greens, who fought for the improvements which have now in fact been made, for example the gradual elimination of antibiotic-resistant markers, greater transparency and better risk assessments.
We have also achieved at least a half victory when it comes to public registers of GMOs, but it is still very unclear whether the Member States really see themselves as being obliged to report publicly on all GMOs cultivated for commercial purposes.
Clarification from the Council of Ministers and the Commission is needed on this matter.
It is not advisable to adopt laws on matters about which, right from the beginning, there are different interpretations.
We have still not seen the new rules promised to us by the Commission and required for labelling, traceability and accountability.
Until we know what they look like and until they have been fully implemented, we cannot contemplate lifting the moratorium.
Nor do we believe that, when the moratorium is lifted, it should be possible for any Member State to be forced to cultivate genetically modified crops.
We consider the strategy devised by the Commission whereby new crops are to be approved before these rules are fully in place to be objectionable and contrary to the precautionary principle.
It is also significant that there is a desire here to pre-empt the reading in Parliament and in the Council of Ministers.
There is now no demand for genetically modified food in the European Union.
More and more parts of the world are abandoning GM crops.
There are major differences of opinion between researchers about the risks involved in GM crops.
This applies both to the risk of contaminating other species and to possible effects on human health.
To insist, in this situation, upon the cultivation of more GM crops for commercial purposes would be foolhardy and lead to a very great deal of opposition.
Recent scandals and problems involving food policy ought to have taught us to proceed carefully.
The interests of consumers and the precautionary principle must be allowed to take precedence over the commercial interests of a few large companies.
We want to retain the moratorium on commercial cultivation.
There is a risk that the revision of this directive may be taken by the Commission as a pretext for approving new GM crops for cultivation.
That is not something to which we can be a party.
In spite of the fact that, in the conciliation, our group has had an important role to play in making these rules as tough as possible, we cannot vote in favour of the final result.
Mr President, I compliment Mr Bowe on his work in this area.
Commissioner Byrne's White Paper on food safety sets the ground rules and parameters within which the practical application of genetic research impacts on public health and the environment, and I have no doubt the vigilance of Parliament is a further safeguard.
While I have always favoured the application of safe and tested genetic research to agriculture, equally its practical application in future must be tempered by inevitable changes to agricultural practices resulting from the unrelated but nonetheless devastating consequences for farmers and consumers resulting from BSE.
The vigilance we are rightly demonstrating on the release of genetically modified organisms on the environment and food safety must be intensified with regard to research in the sensitive and ethical area of gene technology and its impact and implications for mankind.
There is a silent abhorrence of some of this research by citizens who expect us to reflect their concerns in this Parliament.
As I said on a previous occasion we should not play God with research.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, on behalf of the radical Members of the Bonino List, I would like to express my full support for the directive on the deliberate release into the environment of GMOs.
It has taken three years - too many - from when Commissioner Santer, urged by Emma Bonino and Ritt Bjerregaard, the then Commissioners for Consumer Policy and the Environment, presented the proposal to amend the old Directive 90/220/EEC, a proposal which has resulted in the text we are debating today and upon which we are going to vote tomorrow.
We are going to vote in favour of the motion, for we feel that this proposal for a directive guarantees a rigorous legal framework for GMO authorisation, protecting consumers, economic operators and research scientists.
The proposal includes the major elements of innovation, environmental risk assessment and risk monitoring. The new legislation also contains the precautionary principle, the rigid, ideological application of which, all too often proposed to us, would have the opposite effect to that desired, of paralysing not only research and innovation in the agri-foods sector but even commonly accepted aspects of our way of life, as the Italian Minister for Health, Umberto Veronesi, who is first and foremost a scientist, has pointed out in the last few days.
Improvements have been made in the areas of labelling and traceability, and a public information mechanism has been provided for.
On a more general note, it is my opinion that this directive represents a step forward in renouncing a prohibitionist approach to scientific progress.
Mr President, as well as the economic aspects, the new directive also expressly highlights the safety dimension, and rightly so.
As I have already pointed out on numerous occasions in earlier debates, we must pay particular attention to the ethical aspects of this sensitive issue.
Genetic modification of organisms constitutes interference with the characteristic properties of these organisms.
Given my belief that all these organisms were created by God, I recommend that we proceed with great caution.
We need to reflect on the ethical implications of the new developments in this sector.
Consideration of the ethical issues surrounding human genetics demonstrates that biotechnology can have far-reaching consequences.
Clear boundaries are essential in this respect.
I am delighted that the lion' s share of the amendments were included in the Council and Parliament joint text in the end.
It is to be welcomed that the environmental aspects now fall within the scope of the directive.
It is also important that the antibiotic-resistant markers are to be eliminated in the fullness of time.
The Council should approve the Cartagena Protocol without delay.
It is important for exports to third countries to be carried out in a proper manner.
The argument that the development of genetically modified organisms will help to solve the world food problem should actually be put into practice.
The stories about the so-called terminator gene, which is said to prevent children from growing, are very disturbing.
It is my hope that abuses and incorrect practices can be prevented through effective observance of the protocol.
Mr President, all in all, the joint text has my backing.
Mr President, after years of work on this report, we have now arrived at what I hope is a final position in Parliament.
We largely have Mr Bowe to thank for this.
The rapporteur has done a fantastic job.
In this connection, I want to congratulate him on the report.
Let us just remember that genetic engineering provides humanity with new, unguessed at opportunities.
Just as always in the past, however, new knowledge also entails new risks and increased responsibility.
It is important that we be aware of the risks and accept our responsibility.
This applies both to environmental issues and to ethical considerations.
At the same time, it is important to make it clear that, when it comes to improving people' s health and guaranteeing sustainable production of more food for a growing world population, we must not reject any form of science. Instead, we must make use of science.
I would therefore simply urge that we make our decision in accordance with the proposal before us today.
Mr President, we refuse to endorse the draft directive which lays down the procedure for authorising genetically modified organisms, for fundamental reasons that I will set out in my explanation of vote, as well as for a very straightforward strategic reason.
It is because we are told that the implementation of this authorisation procedure, despite the fact that it is flawed, must be approved and we are also led to understand that the moratorium on authorisations, which was adopted by the Member State governments in June 1999, will be lifted pending the further information needed.
In these circumstances, we believe that it would be much wiser for Parliament to wait for the actual implementation of all the additional guarantees that the Commission is promising for tomorrow, such as a future text on the liability and requirement for insurance by those who release GMOs - I stress this point - or even a future improvement of the provisions on labelling and traceability.
On the other hand, if we approve the authorisation procedure today, there is a considerable risk that we will have been duped, if, tomorrow, we find that the moratorium is lifted on the sly - something that the Commission would love to see.
The debate is suspended.
The debate will be resumed this evening at 9 p.m.
Reform of the beef and veal market
The next item is the statement from the Commission on the proposals for the reform of the beef and veal market.
I give the floor to Commissioner Fischler.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me the opportunity to present the seven point plan to reform the beef and veal market which the Commission recently adopted.
What exactly is this plan?
We all know that the beef and veal market is in serious crisis; consumption in the European Union has plummeted; prices in Germany, for example, have fallen by 39.2% for steer and by 41.8% for cows.
These historic lows have already triggered the intervention safety net in Germany and the Netherlands.
In addition, our exports have, unfortunately, collapsed.
Fast action is called for.
Storing meat is clearly not enough per se. It would result in an unmanageable beef mountain, quite apart from the fatal consequences for taxpayers, consumers and farmers.
We therefore also need fast reform.
The Commission's seven point plan is a sort of emergency package to prevent excess production over the next few years by taking another step towards extensive production, towards sustainability and towards organic farming.
However, this plan does not revolutionise the system completely for the simple reason that we first need to give our incipient reforms a chance.
Only a small part of the Agenda 2000 reform has really been implemented.
We have only just made the first step towards an overall 20% reduction in intervention prices, with a further 7.1% to follow this year and again next year.
The countermove - increasing direct payments and tripling the extensification premium - has still not entered into force by a long shot.
In short, implementing Agenda 2000 fully in the year 2002 will by itself contribute towards extensive cattle-raising and less production-orientated subsidies.
Today we are discussing the emergency package as a result of BSE and this neither anticipates nor replaces the mid-term review of Agenda 2000.
I repeat, in 2002, i.e. next year, agricultural policy as a whole will be up for review, as demanded in Berlin.
The Commission will spend 2001 analysing individual sectors in detail, so that it can then present a comprehensive, well thought out concept for the future.
We need to take our time here if we are to avoid falling prey to hurried, political posturing.
The seven point plan will not take food out of the mouths of European farmers.
It is our only chance of mitigating farmers' loss of earnings, at least in the medium term.
The Commission cannot, unfortunately, afford to make up the loss of income in full.
Unsold beef, the lack of consumer confidence and escalating costs are a highly explosive mixture which could decimate beef-farming and agricultural policy.
Our seven point plan should allow us to remove the detonator from this ticking time-bomb.
But our plan should also ensure that beef and veal are safer than ever for consumers and that consumer confidence is restored in beef and veal.
Allow me now to outline these seven points briefly.
First, we propose to reduce the permissible stocking density for the special premium for steers and suckler cows from 2 to 1.8 livestock units.
Secondly, we want the Member States to respect the so-called 90-head limit without exception, i.e. a holding will only be paid the special beef premium for a maximum of 90 animals.
These two measures should increase the incentive for extensive farming.
Thirdly, in order to make organic farming more attractive, we propose to allow organic farmers to cultivate fodder such as clover on set-aside areas.
Fourthly, the Commission wants to set the number of rights for the special steer premium individually for each holding. This measure will also act as an incentive to reduce intensive production.
Fifthly, our package also makes provision for a higher percentage - at least 20%, but no more than 40% - of animals which qualify for premiums, i.e. suckler cows, to be heifers.
This should also limit beef and veal production, which depends to a considerable degree on the number of suckler cows.
Sixthly and finally, we want to set the present ceiling for intervention outside the safety net of 350 000 tonnes for 2001 and 2002, in order to prevent prices from falling even further and the safety net from having to be used in other countries or over a longer period of time.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I say that the measures which the Commission is proposing here today will not take full hold for a year or two.
We have no alternative.
Beef and veal production is not akin to a light-bulb factory and the agricultural Commissioner is not a foreman who can turn off the production line and watch everything grind to a halt.
In the short term, we must consider what we are going to do with the huge quantities of unsold beef.
With all due respect for the ethical aspects, with all due sympathy for those who say that it is a tragedy to destroy the cattle, we must not delude ourselves.
Hundreds of thousands of cattle have been squashed into stalls in Europe for months because farmers cannot find anyone to buy their old livestock.
The safety net has already been deployed in two Member States.
This week alone we shall probably put up to 30 000 tonnes of meat into storage.
And yet none of this is enough.
That brings me to the last point of the package of measures.
As soon as compulsory BSE tests for animals over 30 months old have been introduced in all the Member States, we want to replace the programme of safe removal with a new special buy-up programme which allows the Member States to decide if they prefer to store beef at their own expense or if they want to remove this meat from the market straight away, in which case we and the Member States will compensate farmers jointly for the value of the animal in a ratio of 30% from the Member State and 70% from the EU.
This measure is no more than a provisional emergency measure and should not last beyond the end of this year.
In the medium term, there is only one way forward and that is: act today in order to limit beef production tomorrow, promote less intensive production methods and encourage organic farming.
I therefore ask you to return your opinion on today's proposal as quickly as possible.
Thank you for your attention.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his statement.
Mr President, Commissioner, it all sounds very hunky-dory, but a lot of it is cosmetic.
Why not go in for a proper reform and do away with endless quota regulations, ceilings, minimum and maximum livestock densities, slaughter premiums and fattening bonuses? Why not just pay the farmers and say: you decide, do you want to slaughter the calves now, irrespective of how fat or thin they are, or do you want to get out of production completely?
Would that not be a more reasonable course of action?
And then I ask you: are you going to operate the guillotine - will you make it a rule that holdings with more than 90 animals will not get any subsidies?
Mr President, I would at least like to compliment the Commissioner on providing such a clear commentary.
I would mainly like to respond in my capacity as rapporteur for Budget 2001.
My first question is as follows: what will the additional cost of these measures be in animal premiums, over a period of four to five years? According to provisional calculations, it will cost EUR 157 million this year and as much as EUR 1.75 billion over the years to come, and we are talking in terms of animal premiums.
My second question is does BSE have anything to do with the size of the farm?
I was under the impression that it did not, yet you have set a 90-animal limit per farm nonetheless.
That seems to me to be in conflict with an effective programme for fighting BSE.
Nor have I heard anything about a maximum premium per hectare, for the number of animals per hectare. Could you comment on that too?
You are going to dispense with the 350 000 ceiling on beef taken into intervention, which is in itself a good decision.
But could you comment on what the financial implications for the European Union are expected to be over the coming year?
Mr President, my warmest congratulations to you, Commissioner Fischler.
These measures are a step in the right direction.
They remain within the system, without changing the need to review the system for the next reform and take even more audacious action.
But this package sends out the right signal.
I have just one objection: why not divide up the bull premiums over a transitional period? Half could be used to slaughter calves, i.e. for recovery, so it would not be Herod's premium, and the other half could be channelled into grasslands, to get into extensification, to get out of mass meat production and to achieve middle-of-the-road production.
I also note that the figure of 90 animals applies to every holding; holdings with more animals do not fall outside the rule, as the newspapers wrongly reported.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I promise to be much briefer.
In reply to Mrs Roth-Behrendt's questions - and this also applies to the others - we should be clear about one thing: what we are proposing here today is not a new agricultural reform.
As I, in fact, said.
Nor are we in a position to engage in agricultural reform at the moment. I think it would be wrong if we were to look now at the reform of the beef and veal sector in isolation.
When we talk of agricultural reform - and we shall do so in good time, I can assure you, you will be hearing from us - then we must include, for example, the question of silage corn, the question of milk quotas, the question of what to do about dairy cattle versus beef cattle.
And there really is too little time for that, especially if you want to prepare something carefully.
What we have tabled here today is nothing more - but also nothing less - than a clear concept to get us out of the current crisis.
Now to Mrs Roth-Behrendt's question as to whether we should change over from quotas to direct payments.
There are no quotas for individual cattle fatteners under the current system.
First we need to introduce quotas for individual cattle fatteners; what you meant, I think, is that we should deregulate the whole thing and get into rural development.
But this is precisely the sort of question which can only be resolved in the context of a general debate on agricultural reform.
I personally - and I say so quite openly - am against the guillotine.
I am against any instrument of murder and hence I am also against the guillotine.
Which is why I favour seeing this 90-head limit as a franchise, by which I mean that everyone gets a subsidy up to 90 animals.
Mr Maat felt that was a contradiction because it makes no difference if it is a small or a large holding when it comes to BSE.
I think you are quite right.
But the 90-head limit is not a measure to fight BSE, it is a measure to create incentives for more extensive beef production in the future.
We have already looked into what Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf said about early marketing premiums.
The thing is, we had this sort of premium in 1996 and in later years.
We have calculated that this premium alone cost EUR 200 000 million.
Unfortunately, the end result is somewhat questionable, because 40% of calves are slaughtered with a low weight in any case.
That means we would pay nearly half the veal farmers a premium with absolutely no end result.
Which is why we have shunned this measure, especially in view of our limited resources.
Mr President, Commissioner, now that the Greens are finally in clover, does it not make sense to choose the much easier path through the whole complicated premium structure by going for a climate-related grassland premium and forgetting the rest?
Secondly, Commissioner, I should like to point out that one point needs greater clarification because otherwise, I think, the internal market will fall apart.
If, as it would appear, the costs of disposing of bonemeal and material from slaughtered animals are not clarified uniformly in the Member States, and are partly taken up by government levies and partly passed on to farmers through prices, how do you intend to resolve this problem? Otherwise we shall not be able to keep the internal market together.
Commissioner Fischler, I agree with you when you talk about extensification, but I do not endorse the measures that you are proposing because, ultimately, they will not facilitate extensification.
If you are in favour of this approach, why do you not do the following: end subsidies for production and then pay in proportion to the least amount of animals per hectare? Then you will actually be bringing about the extensification of the sector because, otherwise, by maintaining aid for production, you are implementing a contradictory policy: on the one hand you are encouraging production and on the other, you are paying for it.
This system defies belief!
The second question I wish to ask you is this: given that this sector is undergoing a profound crisis and that there is an EAGGF-Guarantee, half of which is, in practice, spent on just one type of production, I should like to ask Commissioner Fischler whether it is not time to require...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, I have three brief questions.
My first question is that you admittedly spoke about measures on organic farming, but what do you intend to do about all the certified and approved products, which are also subjected to very strict criteria?
My second question relates to calves. What are you doing or what do you intend to do about rearing calves with their mother, because, currently, milk given to calves that are 'battery farmed' also presents problems that you have not considered.
Lastly, my third question is what are you going to do to avoid measures likely to penalise only small farmers without affecting large farmers?
Mr President, first on the question of grasslands, grassland premiums or, first and foremost, general permission to use set-aside areas.
I think that we need to tread somewhat carefully here.
We must not forget that organic farms by definition produce much less and that the organic farming system automatically has a built-in brake on production so to speak.
If we generally abandon the brake on production in the cereals sector, then we no longer meet the requirements for a bluebox measure.
Which is why I think we need to tread carefully.
As far as introducing a general grassland premium in lieu of a beef premium is concerned, we discussed this in connection with Agenda 2000.
I have no objection in principle here, but there is a feasibility problem, because you must admit one thing: a meadow in Schleswig-Holstein cannot be treated in the same way as a hectare of meadow in northern Finland or a meadow in southern Portugal.
There are huge differences in yield, quality and requirements.
But Europe does not have a system for evaluating these differences, which is why we need to consider this question at greater length.
But, as I said, I have no objection in principle, just a feasibility problem.
As far as the question of disposal costs is concerned, the fact is that very different systems are currently being applied here.
In some Member States it is done through tax measures, in other Member States the costs are simply absorbed by the national budget and in others still the farmers, or at least the agricultural sector, is left to pick up the tab.
Since these are national measures, national assistance rules apply.
And we are doing that, we have accepted that.
However, not all Member States have sent in their replies as requested, not by a long chalk.
But, hopefully, we should be in a position by the next Council to formulate a more accurate overview.
However, and I must stress this, a certain self-discrimination by the Member States within the framework of government aid cannot be prohibited under Community law.
That is also a fact of life.
But I agree with you, that it should not be allowed to go too far as, otherwise, we really shall create two types of farmholding or two types of farmer in Europe.
In reply to the question on certified products: the certification of products is set out in the provisions which we introduced on 1 September last year.
It was agreed, with Parliament's consent, that this would be done in two stages.
The first stage is in force and the second will follow on 1 January next year.
However, this second stage must already be complied with for any meat which enters storage.
Because if we do not insist on this now, we will not be able to remove this meat from storage after 1 January 2002 because it will no longer meet labelling requirements.
Then there is also national certification.
This national certification, which is carried out by CHA in Germany or SOPEXA in France, is subject to a notification requirement. In other words, these certifications must be notified.
Then there is also private certification.
These private certifications are governed solely by the principle of truth. This means that the truth must be told about what is written on the outside of a product.
With products involving government aid, certain rules must be respected.
We are currently reforming this system, because we quite clearly take the view that the fact that a product comes from a particular region is no automatic guarantee of quality and that quality has to be defined.
Only if the quality is right and only if it is checked can we talk of a proper quality label.
But we have difficulties here - I freely admit - with combinations of quality and origin, when it is suggested that the quality automatically goes up if a specific product comes from a specific region.
As far as calves' milk is concerned - and I assume that you are basically referring to milk replacer here - the relevant adaptations are being prepared.
However, they come within the remit of my colleague Commissioner Byrne.
As far as the implementation of the White Paper on food security is concerned, suitable proposals will also be forthcoming here.
Mr President, I have three short questions to ask Mr Fischler.
One of the questions I am often asked is if one case of BSE breaks out in a herd of dairy cows, why does the entire herd have to be slaughtered? The systems vary from country to country in Europe.
What is the Commission' s view on this? Is it necessary or not, or is it just a precautionary measure?
The way in which the tests are funded varies from country to country.
Is that good for the unity of the market and if not, is the Commission planning to do something about it?
Thirdly, we still import large quantities of beef from outside Europe.
How does the Commission ensure that these cattle have not been fed animal meal, and are the controls adequate?
Mr President, Commissioner, in one of your proposals you referred to the possibility of cultivating clover on fallow land, but you will understand that in the countries of the South this is not always possible and is sometimes very difficult.
I would like to ask you, Commissioner, whether you could adapt this good proposal to the countries of the South, so that it would be attractive to them and would allow the viability, for example, of cultivating pulses in these conditions.
My second question, Commissioner, is how do you explain the difference between slaughter premiums which currently exist? There are countries whose slaughter premium is currently double that of others.
I would like you to explain, Commissioner, how this issue is calculated, in order to prevent these enormous disparities: sometimes double in one place in relation to another.
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commissioner three questions.
How soon does he think the 350 000 ceiling on beef taken into intervention will be passed and how far does he expect it to go? Is it not better to incinerate animals over 30 months old rather than start putting too much of this old beef into intervention?
Finally, I do not understand the 90-animal limit because surely extensification, greening the agricultural policy is the way forward. I can take the Commissioner to many farms in the UK where there are over 90 cattle being raised on an extensive-type regime and to smaller farms where cattle are intensively produced.
So surely it is the extensification payment that should be altered, not this 90-animal ceiling.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in reply to Mr Mulder's question on slaughtering herds: there is no Community provision which prescribes that the herd must always be slaughtered if a case of BSE occurs in it.
Several options have been created here and a derogation should also be permitted in the future.
What is important to the Commission is that there should be a plan of what will be done if a case of BSE occurs.
This plan must be notified to the Commission and will be evaluated by the Commission's scientific committees.
If the committees consider the plan acceptable, it is automatically approved by the Commission.
This system has worked perfectly so far.
As far as the costs of the test are concerned, may I remind you once again of what I said earlier in reply to Mr Böge's question.
As far as massive imports of meat into Europe are concerned, I would qualify the term "massive" somewhat, because relatively little beef is imported into the European Union.
The question of removing risk material and, more importantly, the question of whether the meat is from animals which were tested and whether the country in question guarantees that the animals were not fed with feedingstuffs containing meat and bonemeal are clear and this must be implemented accordingly.
The Commission is currently working on the relevant proposals and my colleague Commissioner Byrne is working on this.
Now, I fail to see how Mr Jové Peres can say that slaughter premiums in the South are twice or several times higher.
That is news to me.
The slaughter premiums are the same everywhere.
In reply to Mr Jové Peres' question: we do not want to incinerate meat arbitrarily; we want to store this meat, provided that it is quality meat.
This disposal scheme is for meat which cannot be stored, which is not eligible for intervention; because only meat from steer qualifies for intervention, not meat from old cows.
There has been a great deal of criticism here.
We had suggested disposing of the meat from old cows, but we want to take account of this criticism and we therefore now offer two options: either a Member State does as Great Britain has done over the past five years - and this has also worked perfectly in a number of other Member States - or a Member State has the option of buying this old livestock.
If it believes it can manufacture products from it, then obviously they must never go into commercial circulation, because first we cannot pay the full value of the animal and, secondly, this meat will then be competing with normal meat.
That is out of the question, but if there is additional recovery potential here and if individual Member States see such potential, then they may make use of it.
The 90-head limit does not apply to cows, only to subsidies under the special beef premium; only stocks or rather only up to 90 animals a year are subsidised and no more.
That is the ratio. For the rest, we also made this suggestion in connection with Agenda 2000.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to stress that I am grateful to see Point 7, the special purchasing programme.
It makes the position clear.
This means that tests are carried out before storage, and above all each Member State can make its own decision.
I am very grateful for that.
That creates a very acceptable basis for debate.
I have a question concerning the stocking density.
The ratio of forage area to cereal is 2.0 to 1.8 - so do I automatically increase the base area to give farmers an opportunity to further improve their living by growing cereals?
Now for my second question.
And I would like to welcome Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf with his bow tie, maybe that is a reference to the fact that he now has clover grass, but we could also use Lucerne grass, that is just as good. Can you tell me why we do not use pulses, which we urgently need as a substitute for animal meal in these areas, and why does everything necessarily have to be organic?
Commissioner, you said that the European Union was unable to compensate farmers for their losses.
I cannot believe that Europe would be prepared to abandon them in their plight.
How are you planning to resolve this?
My second question is that you outlined to us a plan to unleash and rebalance the market on what consumer estimates was this based, 10%, 20% or 25% less?
My third point concerns the cultivation of protein-rich crops on set-aside land.
What impact do you expect this to have on reducing our deficit and our level of imports?
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether there is anything that the Commission can do to encourage the removal of the older animals from the national herd? It is obvious from the testing that has been taking place, at least in my own country, that all of the younger animals and animals over 30 months that have been tested are not in any way reacting positively to the test.
So it is important to remove the older animals.
Can the Commission encourage the removal of those older animals?
Mr President, I have already pointed out why only organic farms can be considered for planting clover or clover grass. By the way, I am sure that Lucerne is also included, I see no problem with that.
It is vital to bear in mind that we should not let this measure undermine our WTO commitments, or else the whole thing will collapse and we will have achieved the exact opposite of what we want to achieve, because in that case we would not be able to help our farmers, and we would actually be harming them.
As regards growing high-protein feed in the form of field beans and field peas and so forth, we have undertaken to investigate this whole issue from the demand side as well as from the supply side.
This investigation is under way.
It is too late for the present production year anyway, because changes to the existing market regime would be needed in any case, and from a purely technical point of view it is too late to do that before these high-protein plants are planted.
So this is only achievable for the next production year, and that means that we still have time to carry out a proper investigation.
As far as imports are concerned, it is true to say that we annually import - chiefly from South America at present - around 30 million tonnes of soya and other high-protein feeds.
The shortfall which has now arisen in the form of 2.5 million tonnes of meat and bonemeal amounts to less than 10% of that.
It is also necessary, and no final decision has been taken on this yet, to check whether this ban on feeding animal and bone meal to pigs and poultry will remain in force or whether the ban will be modified.
In this connection, my colleague Commissioner Byrne is currently having inspections carried out in all 15 Member States to establish whether there are models that already work or whether there are problems with checks everywhere.
So I cannot yet give a definitive reply on this.
Turning to Mr Hyland's question about tests, let me make one thing crystal clear: our first goal must always be to guarantee consumer safety.
That is why we believe that it is of paramount importance for all animals over 30 months old to be tested, even if individual animals then have to be disposed of.
Why? Because we otherwise run the risk, if we leave this totally in the hands of the Member States or the sector itself, that there will be a kind of pre-selection between those animals that are tested and those animals that people do not want to test.
That implies certain risks which we want to avoid at all costs.
Our aim is to bring forward the date of 1 July so that all animals over 30 months old are tested in all Member States as from 1 April at the latest.
That means that the alternative I have presented to you here can also be put into practice.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for the answers you have given to all these questions.
That concludes the debate.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0007/2001). We will examine questions to the Commission.
Mr Izquierdo Collado has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, as you know, in today's Question Time there is a question of mine relating to widespread fraud in the flax industry, with thousands of millions of euros being gained fraudulently.
In the question I ask the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, for his opinion of the political responsibility of Mrs Loyola de Palacio following the report of the Spanish prosecutor, which confirms this fraud.
Mr President, this point of order is to ask you for express support in relation to what I am going to say.
As well as finding it incredible that this question has not been considered a priority for an oral reply, I would like to tell you that, although it is reserved for a written answer, I already have in my hands a written reply, because a newspaper in my country has already stated: "In his written reply to a question put by the Socialist MEP, Juan de Dios Izquierdo, Mr Prodi has indicated that, on the basis of documents available to the Commission, he can only reaffirm his full confidence in Mrs de Palacio.
Furthermore, in response to another Socialist question on the possibility that the case may destabilise the entire executive, etc."
Mr President, I have not yet received the written reply, as you might expect, and yet I have it here.
I do not think that it requires much imagination to know which group has been behind the scenes, applying pressure so that my question should not be given an oral reply in Parliament and so that this newspaper should already know Mr Prodi's precise reply.
Mr President, I would ask you to investigate the situation and to protect the Members of this Parliament, because this is not an example of the transparency which Mr Prodi promised us at the beginning of his mandate.
Mr Izquierdo, I am President for this sitting, as you know, I am not the President of Parliament.
Nor is it likely that I will ever be President of Parliament.
I will communicate your speech to the President, and I can tell you that the President has received a letter from you and another one from Mr Berenguer.
I believe that you will have received a reply from the President, which has probably been sent by fax.
In it, I believe that the President - who, pursuant to Rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure, is assisted by her office, which is empowered to allow and put the questions in order - replies, and I have the reply before me, by pointing out the criteria she has used to put the questions in order.
In short, I can tell you that the President and the services considered that the question was addressed to Mr Prodi, and he was not expected to attend the plenary sitting.
The President of the Commission does not usually attend this Question Time.
There are a number of Commissioners, including Mr Kinnock and Mr Byrne, who we know in advance will reply to questions.
This is communicated to the Members of the European Parliament and they therefore ask specific questions.
Furthermore, the President of Parliament has decided, as well as considering the chronological order, to select the five questions which, in her judgment, are priorities and urgent, which are the five which make up the first part and which we are going to deal with now.
That is the explanation I can give you, with complete transparency.
In any event, I take note of your comments, which will appear in the Minutes, and I regret that a newspaper from any country can make statements on written or oral replies which are yet to be given.
Mr Berenguer has the floor for a point of order.
I would ask him to be as concise as possible.
Mr President, since I have been mentioned by the presidency, I would like to say that I have in fact received a reply, which I do not agree with. I do not agree with the presidency's interpretation of the questions made by Members of this House.
I do not agree with it because it seems that that interpretation can be seen as a way of reducing the legitimate initiatives of Members to monitor the Commission.
My question specifically asked whether the Commission - not the President, but the Commission - felt threatened by the words of a Spanish MEP, a member of the People's Party, in which he said that, if the Socialists criticised Mrs de Palacio for her involvement in the flax scandal which took place in Spain when she was Minister for Agriculture, they would threaten to bring down the Commission.
If this is not considered by the presidency to be a priority, if this is not a question which, because it is not considered a priority, could not be answered by, for example, Vice-President Kinnock, then I am truly amazed.
In any event, and while I express my disagreement, this is not what I wanted to say.
Like my colleague, Mr Izquierdo, who was requesting support from the presidency, I wanted to say that it was unacceptable for replies addressed to Members of this House to be published in a pro-government newspaper in Spain, before the Members are made aware of that reply.
And, while strongly protesting at this anomaly, I would ask you to consider my question withdrawn.
I do not want the Commission to reply to the ABC newspaper before replying to me.
And since I do not want the Commission to go through the shame of having to notify the Spanish press of its replies before the Members to whom they are addressed, I am not going to participate in this behaviour and I withdraw my question.
Thank you very much, Mr Berenguer.
I am not thanking you for having withdrawn your question, naturally, but for having brought your speech to a close.
I cannot make any value judgment since, furthermore, I share the nationality and electoral constituency of the Members who have asked the question, on the issues raised.
I am acting as President of the sitting of the European Parliament and the support that I can offer Mr Izquierdo Collado is, of course, to communicate his comments to the President of Parliament so that she may hear them directly.
Furthermore, Mr Izquierdo Collado has whichever channels open to him that he considers appropriate to make this protest, shall we say.
Part I
Question No 45 by (H-0014/01):
Subject: Consequences of the use of depleted uranium bombs in Kosovo Intense concern has been caused in Europe by revelations concerning the development of leukaemia among members of the international forces who served in Bosnia and Kosovo, which has been attributed to the use of depleted uranium bombs.
In reply to one of my previous questions (H-0429/99) the Commission indicated that (a) the report by the Regional Environmental Centre for Central and Eastern Europe had been forwarded to the Environment Ministers of the Member States in June 1999 and (b) detailed analysis of the situation regarding funding for clean-up measures had not yet been carried out.
In view of the fact that no answers to this particular issue were forthcoming at the January part-session and that the Commissioner referred to a meeting of an independent group of experts, does the Commission not consider highly alarming the implications of the report for the health of civilians and servicemen in these areas? Who will assume responsibility for medical examination programmes for the populations of the areas affected by depleted uranium bombs?
What are the conclusions of the meeting of independent experts to which the Commissioner referred and what additional measures are to be taken?
The Commission refers the honourable Member to the statement given by Commissioner Wallström to the plenary session of this House on 17 January.
Since that date the Commission has convened a meeting of the group of experts established under Article 31 of the Euratom Treaty to give an opinion on the possible health consequences of the use of depleted uranium.
The report of that group will be ready in a few weeks' time.
The World Health Organisation will also issue a report on the subject in the near future.
The Commission will then consider appropriate action to be taken in the light of the scientific evidence produced by these activities.
In response to the particular questions of the honourable Member, the Member States of the Union have not informed the Commission of their actions taken following receipt of the Regional Environmental Centre report.
The Commission has no plans to initiate medical examination programmes.
As the honourable Member will know, it is a regrettable fact that the people of the region face a variety of threats to health from several sources and some of those threats are obviously environmental in origin.
Within the means at its disposal the Commission is working with the United Nations mission in Kosovo - Unmik - through the European Agency for Reconstruction, to eliminate these threats according to priorities for intervention.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
Although it was somewhat general, I should like to ask if the few weeks which the report from the independent committee is expected to take can be narrowed down? Also, in order to break the general thrust of his reply a little, can the interventions to deal with the extremely serious environmental repercussions for the people in the area be quantified and specified?
Mr President, in response to Mr Alavanos's first question, I am informed that the report from the expert committee that is being convened under the Euratom Treaty will be published within weeks rather than months, so it is in the relatively near future.
As regards the detailed response that is justified to the question on health problems, there is a great deal of material at the Commission and certainly I, or indeed my responsible colleagues, would be happy to give full details to the honourable Member of whatever is at their disposal.
This would be rather more useful than my trying to make a recitation in the limited time available in this House.
Mr President, Commissioner, at yesterday' s meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, we did indeed hear Mr Haavisto who prepared his report on the results of the group of experts.
On the other hand, although he spoke about depleted uranium, he made absolutely no mention of the statement made by NATO on 18 January, in which it was admitted that, in addition to depleted uranium, plutonium had also been used.
Are you planning to undertake plutonium tests in the region and do you intend to make European Union funds available in order to carry out decontamination work?
Mr President, as I indicated in my first answer, there are certain budgetary limitations that have the effect of restricting some of the actions that we undertake in the region, not only as the Commission but also in our cooperative activities with other organisations.
I am certain that the honourable Member recognises the nature of those limitations.
It therefore means that on some occasions it is quite probable that the activities to secure decontamination and protection for public health are not as extensive as, ideally, we would like them to be.
The fact remains, however, that the Commission, acting on behalf of the Union, is probably the lead actor in all the activities to improve conditions of public health and to provide for decontamination and environmental protection.
So far as the NATO statement of last month on plutonium is concerned, I am not in a position to give a comprehensive answer at this stage.
I am certain that if the honourable Member wanted to write explicitly on the NATO statement and the possibility of the use of plutonium and its side effects in that region, either in the course of acts of war or otherwise, my colleagues in the Commission would be more than ready to provide a comprehensive reply.
I invite the honourable Member either to write directly to me on the subject - and I will certainly see it gets to the right quarters - or to take it up directly either in the committee of which he is a member or specifically with one of my fellow Commissioners.
Question No 46 by (H-0055/01):
Subject: Radioactive pollution of the Aegean and the Ionian Seas According to reports in the Greek press, as well as in the Turkish press, according to Le Journal du Dimanche, depleted uranium shells have been used by the Greek and the Turkish navies in exercises in the Aegean and the Ionian Seas for the last ten years.
The inhabitants of the islands and along the coastlines of these two seas, as well as the citizens of neighbouring countries, are concerned about possible radioactive pollution, because sea currents carry radioactivity beyond the area where the shells were fired.
Does the Commission intend to set up an independent commission to investigate this matter and to inform the inhabitants of these regions and all the citizens of Europe about the real state of affairs so as to prevent an 'Aegean syndrome' taking hold, whether or not it is justified? Does it intend to work towards this goal with the governments concerned?
What preventative measures does it intend to take?
Mr President, the Commission's attention was given to the use of depleted uranium in armour-piercing shells as long ago as 1993.
At that time, the Commission's reply to Parliament related to the specific issue of the test-firing of shells in coastal waters, and it offered the view that such action would not have a significant impact on the environment.
The Commission continues to hold that view on the basis of the evidence that, in the marine environment, the only exposure pathway is the slow dissolution of uranium.
It is important to note that the amount of uranium that could be dissolved is very small compared to the natural abundance of uranium in all sea-water.
The movement of uranium away from the test-firing location by tides and currents could not, therefore, be distinguished from natural background concentrations.
The Commission understands public concern about the use of depleted uranium materials for military purposes.
However, the Commission draws attention to the fact that the firing of uranium penetrators at land-based targets has implications which are different from those of firing ammunition in the marine environment, because use on land can result in the dispersion of uranium oxides which may subsequently be inhaled, whilst that is clearly not the case in the marine environment.
Commissioner, am I to conclude, from what I understood of your reply, that the Commission believes that there is no cause for concern and that it has no intention of looking into this? Have I understood correctly?
Is that what you meant? That the citizens have no cause for concern and that there are no dangerous quantities of uranium in these seas?
Mr President, it is not a question of the Commission in any sense being complacent, either politically - because it is responsible to the public - or indeed scientifically.
The points that I made in my earlier response related to the natural concentrations of uranium in sea-water of all descriptions and in all locations.
On the basis of that scientific reality the feeling of the Commission and all other scientifically advised persons and bodies is that the evidence of uranium deposit in sea-water is such that the firing of shells for target purposes in the marine environment does not make any significant addition to uranium concentrations.
It is only on the basis of that widely accepted and well-documented scientific evidence that the Commission takes its view.
In addition, I did draw attention in my first answer to the strong distinction that has to be made between possible consequences of the use of depleted uranium material and munitions in a land environment where the oxides can be inhaled, and in a maritime environment where the consequences of the use of depleted uranium do not have the same consequences, since obviously no inhalation can take place.
Mr President, I am amazed by the Commission's reply and greatly fear that it may soon be contradicted, just as similar assurances on previous occasions have been contradicted.
These shells have been used in tens of thousands of military exercises and have exploded in the air, not just in the water.
That means that gases will have been carried both to the inhabited islands and to the inhabited shores of Turkey.
I am amazed at how the Commission can come here with what I can only describe as an offhand manner and assure us that, because they fall into the sea, these depleted uranium shells do not cause any problem.
In all honesty, I can find no explanation for these statements, Mr President.
What can I say?
All that is left is for me to condemn yet another attempt to conceal a crime perpetrated not just in Yugoslavia but during NATO exercises.
And there you have it.
Can I draw the honourable Member's attention to the title of the question he set down earlier.
The title of the question was "Radioactive pollution of the Aegean and Ionian Seas".
The answer was given, not only now but as long ago as 1993, based very heavily on strong scientific evidence in relation to that question.
If the honourable Member has evidence to support the contention that there has been damage as a consequence of target firing, either to the coasts of Greece or indeed of Turkey, or to islands in the Aegean or Ionian Seas, I know, that as a conscientious Member, he will want to put down questions or make representations on that specific basis.
If and when he does - and I am answering the question - I will give him the basis for a scientific view of what the consequences of the use of depleted uranium are in those circumstances.
He will understand, however, that without notice of that question I am hardly in a position to give him the detail that he would want on the specific environmental questions that he raises.
I am certain that he would not, as a responsible Member of the European Parliament, want to contest serious scientific opinion or indeed be alarmist in a way that would be upsetting to his constituents.
Question No 47 by (H-0037/01):
Subject: Serbia and the Common Foreign and Security Policy The Parliament of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia recently passed an amnesty law covering those refusing to serve in the people's army and prisoners convicted of criminal acts against the army or of 'anti-state activities'.
According to statements by the Yugoslav Minister of Justice Moncílo Grubac on 9 January, this amnesty law does not apply to those convicted of terrorism.
That means that around 700 Albanian Kosovar prisoners cannot obtain amnesty, having been convicted of 'terrorism'.
What is the Commission's response to Yugoslavia's refusal to release the Albanian prisoners? What action does the Commission intend to take in order to see to it that the formal pledge given by Yugoslavia (cf. statements by the Minister of Foreign Affairs Goran Svilanovic in Washington and promises made by President Kostuníca vis-à-vis the EU) is observed, and all Albanian political prisoners are released?
The honourable Member is correct in stating that the proposed amnesty law, which is still only a proposal before both the Serbian Parliament and the Parliament of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, will not cover anyone convicted of offences considered to be acts of terrorism.
The European Union has already repeatedly called for the release of all Albanian Kosovar prisoners.
The EU ministerial troika which visited Belgrade on 8 February also expressed concern at the fact that the proposed amnesty law will not cover all those convicted of political offences by the Milosevic regime.
The Commission has been fully involved in these initiatives, and the European Parliament's ad hoc delegation, which visited from 8 to 10 February, also raised this issue in the relevant quarters.
The Serbian and federal authorities have indicated their intention to urgently re-examine the cases of those not covered by the law, particularly to ascertain whether the convictions are sound or not.
As of today, the prisoners have still, regrettably, not been released.
The EU will keep up the pressure to ensure that they are.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his answer and his words of encouragement, but what we have to take on board is that we are in a transitional phase at the moment, when it comes to EU aid to Serbia. We are in the transitional phase between emergency aid and aid which is more structural in nature.
I believe we have well and truly reached a point where we can start banging the table for a while.
There is a great deal of scepticism on the part of the Albanian Kosovars towards the Kostuníca regime.
The people are getting rather desperate.
There have been hunger strikes.
The people now want to see real progress.
I understand there is an adviser from the Commission amongst Mr Kostuníca' s immediate entourage, a man who has already won his spurs amongst the President of Montenegro' s entourage I might add.
What I would like the Commission to do is exploit this transitional period to the full by telling Serbia that we are not going to carry on delivering aid unless they solve this pressing problem.
I certainly understand the instincts of and the rationale offered by Mr Staes, and not for the first time.
I can give him the assurance that all influences and all means of representation are being employed in the most forceful possible way in order to try and secure the outcome that the Commission, the Union generally and Members of this House - including Mr Staes - want and that would be consistent with humane and just treatment.
The Commission, however, is not disposed, certainly at this juncture, to contemplate the possibility of sanctions of various kinds, including the ones suggested by the honourable Member, simply because the Commission is making its contribution and its commitment on behalf of the Union in full knowledge of the dire needs of people and organisations in that area.
We very much hope that by using the means that are currently being employed we will, without great delay, secure the outcomes which will serve the interests of humanity and be consistent with the views continually expressed by the Union, the Commission and this House.
Mr President, I believe that the legal basis on which the Commission is working is totally inadequate.
Mr Hækkerup was very clear - there is absolutely no need for an amnesty law by the Belgrade authorities, since only the UN, represented by Mr Hækkerup, can decide whether to imprison, sentence, or continue to detain these people.
The only issue to consider is their immediate release from Serbian prisons and their transfer to the UN mission in Kosovo.
There is therefore no need for the Commission to put pressure on Mr Kostuníca to pass an amnesty law or to enter into a set-up which is completely illegal in international law.
The Commission and Council must make Mr Kostuníca and Mr Djinjic comply with the orders of the international community, which is demanding the return of the 700 hostages to the UN authorities.
I would like to know what the Commission intends to do about this.
Whilst I have absolutely no reason to doubt the figure given by the honourable Member, there are different estimates.
The official estimate of the number of prisoners affected in this specific area and this specific instance is 300, rather than 700.
The point that we continually try to make in our representations is that regardless of the precise numbers there is a principle of humanity to be followed, and we want to see it applied without any further delay.
However, whilst I understand the argumentation over the legal base, we would be further complicating an already delicate situation if we were to seek to act in a peremptory fashion or advise others - including the United Nations - that they should do that.
Clearly there is less patience now than yesterday, and there was less yesterday than last week.
That feeling is being strongly communicated in the relevant quarters.
But it would be irresponsible and misleading of me to indicate that we are going to make any major departure from the course that we have followed and have every reason to believe we can produce a successful and humane conclusion.
Question No 48 by (H-0069/01):
Subject: Arrest of children in Turkey According to the Union of Human Rights, 29 children aged between 9 and 16 years of age have recently been arrested in Diyarbakir in Turkey on charges of belonging to a terrorist organisation and imprisoned.
The Union for Human Rights maintains that the children have been mistreated and need immediate psychological assistance.
They are now in danger of being tried and sentenced to lengthy prison terms.
What measures will the Commission take in response to this in connection with negotiations for the accession of Turkey with a view to securing the immediate release of these young children and convincing Turkey finally to respect the undertakings which it has made to the EU concerning the introduction of greater democracy in social and political terms?
Mr President, the Commission is aware of the arrest of 28 children and young people in Turkey described in Mrs Zorba's question.
According to our information, 28 children and young people were arrested by the police in a small town in south-east Turkey on 9 January.
The local security forces alleged that these children had taken part in an illegal demonstration, that they had shouted out pro-PKK slogans, and that they had protested against the Turkish military presence in northern Iraq.
Children and young people aged between 9 and 16 were arrested and taken to a prison in Diyarbakir.
According to information provided by the Turkish Union for Human Rights, these children have also been mistreated in prison.
Following protests by the parents and the Turkish Human Rights Society, 22 children and young people have now been released, but six young people aged between 14 and 17 are still in custody.
The Commission has made representations to the Turkish authorities on this matter in the strongest terms.
The Commission has called for an immediate and full explanation of the facts.
This incident is a matter of grave concern to us.
The Commission wishes to emphasise that whatever these children may be accused of, such accusations can in no way justify taking children into custody, throwing them into a prison far from their parental homes and detaining them there for several days.
This kind of behaviour is totally irreconcilable with the human rights standards prevailing in the European Union.
The Commission expects the Turkish Government to address this matter immediately. This incident demonstrates that there is an urgent need for political reform in Turkey if that country is to move closer to the European Union and its values.
The Commission recalls that comprehensive protection of human rights is one of the political criteria that the candidate countries must meet in order to open accession negotiations with the European Union.
This is also reflected in the priorities of the Accession Partnership with Turkey presented by the Commission in November last year.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Your reply was most satisfactory.
However, given that the public prosecutor has referred the case, calling for these six children to be sentenced to up to five years' imprisonment on the basis of the charges, I should like to know if there is something else we can do and exactly how long you intend to wait.
Mrs Zorba, unfortunately I cannot confirm that the process has started at all and that penalties have been called for as part of the process.
I know that the Turkish Government has made direct contact with the criminal prosecution authorities, but we do not know the outcome of that contact between the Turkish Government and the local authorities.
I am certainly willing, Mrs Zorba, to intervene in this matter once again at whatever level you consider appropriate.
And I believe that will be useful, because strong international pressure and intense international interest are the only things that really help in such cases.
I congratulate the Commissioner on his reply.
However, he talks about EU values and standards.
In response to questions I put about the continuation of the bombing of Iraq and sanctions on Iraq, the Commission showed no concern for the fact that 5 to 6 000 children have died because of sanctions on Iraq.
So when I hear the Commission talk about EU values and standards, in view of its support for sanctions on Iraq I wonder how sincere it is about the children in Turkey.
Mr President, I am sorry, but I fail to see the connection between the question of United Nations sanctions on Iraq and the arrest of 28 children in Turkey.
Question No 49 by (H-0085/01):
Subject: Safety of childcare products In Sweden in particular, criticism has been levelled against EU rules on safety requirements for childcare products.
Consumers have substantially less say in the standardisation process than industry.
Certain products with which children come into contact are not currently safe enough.
The aim should be to ensure that such products are inherently safe and do not require constant parental supervision.
What are the Commission's views regarding the current standardisation process and the balance of power between consumers and industry, and can we expect that the objectives of the mandates for children's articles and other products pursuant to the product safety directive will be achieved and become reality?
Part II
Questions to Commissioner Kinnock
The Commission is fully aware of the importance of the participation of consumer representatives in the standardisation of work.
The importance of the participation of all interested parties in the process has been recognised in several resolutions and communications.
The Commission is actively supporting this through different initiatives.
In particular, the Commission gives important annual financing support, amounting to EUR 830 000 in 2001, to the European Association for the Coordination of Consumer Representation in Standardisation - the organisation known as ANEC.
It is also important that consumer organisations identify this subject as a priority in order to allocate the necessary resources.
The Commission also encourages the Member States and the standardisation bodies to facilitate the participation of consumers in the standardisation process, at national level as well.
The general product safety directive, which aims at ensuring that products placed on the market are safe, gives a specific role to European standards.
This role is reinforced in the new version which is about to be adopted by the Council and the European Parliament.
In order to elaborate these standards the Commission will give to the European standardisation bodies standardisation mandates in which the level of safety to be achieved will be specified.
Consumer organisations will be consulted on the content of the mandates.
The Commission will verify that the standards developed comply with the requirements of the directive and the mandates, both when it comes to aspects related to safety and to the participation of consumers, before the publication of the references of the standards in the Official Journal.
The Commission will carefully check that all the standardisation mandates under the directive, in particular those relating to children's products, are satisfactorily executed.
I would thank the Commissioner for his answer.
I have a number of questions.
The more I read about this procedure, the more it sets me thinking.
Does the Commissioner not think it a touch strange that representatives of the industry to be regulated, that is to say the industry which produces toys and other items for children, should act as chairmen of the standardisation committees whose job it is to establish rules, at national or other levels, for those products that are released onto the market? Does the Commissioner himself not think it strange that products with which children come into contact on the market are not tested, which is why no one can really assess their safety?
Does the Commissioner not think it a little strange that, in the most recent cases involving, for example, chocolate eggs, toy cap pistols and non-flame-proof clothes used by children for dressing up in, the judgment has in every case turned out to be favourable to the industry instead of in accordance with children' s interests? I think it is quite clear that there is a need for a new method of standardisation based on objective assessment criteria rather than upon subjective criteria that are in the interests of the industry.
Issues such as this are always kept under review.
As you are aware, the general product safety directive is the overall framework legislation that deals with this issue.
My services and I keep a very close eye on how the legislation is implemented, throughout the European Union, to ensure that consumers - and children, in particular - are protected from dangerous products.
You will be aware that there is a safety measure contained within the general product safety directive; that was the measure used last year when we brought forward a safeguard measure relating to phthalates in children's toys.
That is one of the measures that can be used by way of an emergency measure to protect children.
Could I briefly ask the Commissioner if he can be specific now on an issue many of us, including Mrs Hulthén, have raised with him before, that is the potential dangers of plastic inedibles which are given away with sweets and other things and which are not a foodstuff.
They are a plastic, but they are not really designated as one or the other.
Is he confident now that these substances are actually safe for children?
I am aware, Mr Whitehead, that this is an issue in which you have a particular interest and it has been an issue which you and my services have consulted on for some time.
But it is an issue which is being dealt with by DG Enterprise and my colleague, Mr Liikanen.
The Commission has recently been questioned on the safety of associated products, often consisting in a toy accompanying the food product in a separate background.
In the light of the information collected by the Commission in cooperation with national authorities, the Emergency Committee of the General Products Safety Directive reached on 16 May 2000 the conclusion that no specific danger relating to the associated product has been identified.
Non-food items, particularly small toys, or toys containing small parts are not risk-free.
However, the risk would depend on the characteristics of the non-food product itself.
The existence of a possible risk has convinced the Emergency Committee to explore the need to reinforce the existing instruments, particularly the protection offered by Directive 88/378 on safety of toys and the related standard EN 71/1.
The competent services of the Commission are currently working on possible improvements.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 50, 51 and 52 will be taken together.
Question No 52 by (H-0122/01):
Subject: The Commission's actions regarding criticisms by a former Member of the Commission What is known as the ECHO scandal of 1997, when irregularities resulted in the disappearance of huge amounts of EU aid and documents relating to the case later disappeared from the Commission's archives, has been the focus of much attention in Sweden and Denmark.
On TV programmes in both countries, former Commissioner Anita Gradin and her former chef de cabinet have voiced criticism of the Commission's handling of the affair.
In response to the comments they made, Commissioner Kinnock wrote to both of them arguing that they had no right to criticise the Commission as an institution.
If, contrary to expectation, there is a rule which says that they do not have a right to criticise, it would represent a dramatic step backwards for free speech in the European Union.
On what legal grounds does the Commission argue that a former Member of the Commission and her former chef de cabinet do not have a right to voice such criticism of the Commission?
Mr President, I am very grateful to the honourable Members for their questions about my correspondence with my friend and former colleague, Mrs Anita Gradin, and her former chef de cabinet, Mr Christer Asp.
The questions enable me to report publicly and fully to this House on an issue that I know has aroused interest particularly in Sweden.
On 13 November 2000 Danish TV broadcast a documentary programme in which statements were attributed to Mrs Gradin and Mr Asp that appeared to relate to an employee of the Commission who had been unanimously acquitted of specific charges by the last Commission after due disciplinary process had been followed.
As a result of that broadcast, and as Commissioner responsible for Personnel and Administration, I was obliged to write to Mrs Gradin and Mr Asp on 22 November to request confirmation and clarification of the reported remarks, in order to enable the Commission to establish whether or not the remarks in question would require any action by the Commission.
That was the sole purpose of the letter.
It did not, either in tone or in content, demand explanations, offer criticism, seek to gag anyone or imply in any way that either Mrs Gradin, as a former Commissioner, or Mr Asp, as a former official, had no right to criticise the Commission as an institution.
In order to make that absolutely clear, I will readily provide copies of that letter and all other relevant correspondence to the honourable Members as soon as I have confirmation from Mrs Gradin that she has no objection to that course of action.
Mrs Gradin has indicated by an indirect route that she would be agreeable to such a release of correspondence but naturally, as a matter of courtesy to her, I prefer to have direct confirmation of her agreement.
Mrs Gradin replied to my 22 November letter on 29 December and I wrote a further letter to her on 25 January 2001.
As I pointed out in that letter to Mrs Gradin, and as the House will be aware, the Staff Regulations applicable to all EU institutions make it clear that the Commission as an institution and as an employer is legally liable to assist employees in defending themselves against attack.
That obligation also means defending an acquitted person against any questioning of their innocence of the charges on which they were acquitted.
My 22 November letters to Mrs Gradin and Mr Asp therefore related entirely to such legal obligations and considerations and to absolutely nothing else.
As I made clear in my letter of 25 January to Mrs Gradin, whilst all liberties of speech are precious and must be upheld, the expression of certain opinions - for instance those that may be considered to defame others - can have legal consequences in all democratic societies, and have specific implications for the Commission as an employing European institution.
In that letter I also made clear beyond doubt that my letter of 22 November was not in any way an attempt to limit free comment or to prevent criticism of the Commission either by Mrs Gradin, or indeed by Mr Asp or anyone else.
All this will be evident to honourable Members when they have the chance to read the exchange of correspondence, as I hope they will.
That will also enable them to see that the basis for consideration of the actions of former commissioners and former officials is the Treaty and the Staff Regulations.
Mrs Gradin has obviously always taken her duty of discretion provided for in the Treaty seriously as a responsible and reputable person.
I am sure that will continue.
Well, that really takes the biscuit!
That is probably one of the most ridiculously evasive answers I have heard in a very long time.
Mr Kinnock says that we would have known what the letter contained if we had been able to study it. Marvellous, if we only get to see it after the debate!
I applied to Mr Kinnock' s office so as to be able to study the letter before the debate, but I was told that I could possibly get to examine it after the debate.
That only goes to show that Mr Kinnock has not understood in the slightest what openness really means.
Mr Kinnock appears not to have learned anything from the scandal involving the Commission to which he previously belonged - the Santer Commission, which fell because it did not understand the link between transparency, on the one hand, and corruption and fraud, on the other.
If Mr Kinnock had learned anything from the Commission to which he then belonged, he would have understood.
I refer to the type of threatening letter which he obviously wrote and which Mrs Gradin understood as such, to judge from the statements she made to the Swedish press.
Mrs Gradin must surely have read the letter before she made her statement.
In the same way, Mr Asp must surely have read the letter before he made his statement.
They no doubt knew, in any case, what the letter contained, and they obviously perceived it as a threat.
It does in fact dishonour Parliament and is an insult to this House to turn tail and evade responsibility, as Mr Kinnock is now doing.
I would ask Members to take account of the fact that they are allowed to ask supplementary questions.
This is not an opportunity for you to give a lesson to the Commissioner in the reply, but of asking the questions which you consider to be appropriate.
I have no way of knowing previously whether you are going to ask a question, but I would ask you to obey the Rules of Procedure.
I would thank the Commissioner for his answer and should like to ask a question: where does Commissioner Kinnock believe that criticism ought to be directed?
Should it be directed at the fact that some millions of euros which should have gone in aid have disappeared and that taxpayers' money has been mismanaged; or should it be directed against those who express their disappointment at the fact that these issues have not been successfully clarified?
I think the answer should be simple, and I believe that the people of Europe also think the answer is obvious.
My second question concerns the fact that, if the Commission wrote a letter to former Commissioner Gradin, it must have believed that she had in some way attacked an individual.
I myself saw the TV programme and I am able to say that she did not do so.
She was completely loyal to the decisions taken in the Commission.
How could you believe that former Commissioner Gradin had directed criticism against individuals? You must obviously have thought she had done so, because you wrote the letter.
Thank you for your answer.
Mr Kinnock refers to the letter to Mrs Gradin and Mr Asp.
We have not of course read it directly, but a copy of the letter to Mr Asp - which I assume has been correctly reproduced - has now been published in the Swedish media which, after referring to the television programme, state that Mr Kinnock wrote in the following terms to Mr Asp: "As you perhaps know, this statement has, fairly or unfairly, been interpreted as criticism of the Commission as an institution.
Because you were formerly employed at the Commission, your statement raises the question of what kind of obligations you have because, as an employee, you have to comply with various terms of employment and Staff Regulations" .
Clearly, this can hardly be interpreted as anything other than an insinuation that Mr Asp did something he ought not to have done and that he might perhaps even deserve a reprimand.
My question, therefore, is as follows: what legal basis is there for this letter? What kind of legal regulations are there to say that former chefs de cabinet or Commissioners do not have the right to criticise the Commission as an institution, and on what legal basis are such people even to be reminded of Staff Regulations and their various terms of employment?
Mr President, I would like first of all to say to Mr Färm by that if he examines the Staff Regulations to which Mr Asp is subject, then he will see the basis on which he was written to by his former employing authority and he will see that what was said in that letter was entirely in keeping with the regulations and the requirements of communication - no more, no less.
Mr Andersson may have his own view about the case that was referred to in the TV documentary.
That is not what this question is about and it is not what my letter to Mrs Gradin was about, but he is a democrat and he will understand.
In Sweden, as in any other Member State, or democratic society, caution must be exercised in making a declaration about anyone who has been acquitted of a particular charge that could imply defamation of that person.
That is a general rule that is understood and upheld by democrats everywhere, but in the case of the Commission as an employing institution, as I pointed out earlier, there is an additional implication that if a Commission official is attacked and if it is a Commission official in a specific case who has been acquitted under due process of a charge, than that official can make claims upon the Commission and therefore on taxpayers' money under Article 24 of the Staff Regulations in order to fight that case of alleged defamation.
The point that I made to Mrs Gradin, which I am sure she completely understands - especially since I explained in full in my most recent letter, simply relates to that legal reality and the proper discharge of the functions of the Commission as a legally constituted organisation with obligations set down in law in the form of the Staff Regulations.
Mr Andersson may have his own views about the particular cases referred to in the TV documentary.
He is entitled to those views whether they are right, wrong, substantiated or otherwise, but he will understand, I am certain, that all the actions taken in relation to people named in that television documentary, and one in particular, relate to the legal questions - as I emphasised in my letter to Mrs Gradin and in my earlier reply - and not to wider judgments which may be a matter entirely for Mr Andersson's view and his own conscience.
I will not say or do anything at any point which could result in unfair and unjustified charges on the Commission, the European Union and on the taxpayers' money, when there are other means of ensuring that the law is upheld so far as individuals are concerned.
I say to Mr Gahrton that the problem is not one of transparency in this case, it is of the deficiencies either of his hearing or his understanding.
What I said was not ridiculous.
I will send him a copy of my reply and when I have the agreement of Mrs Gradin for the release of the letters that we exchanged, including my personal letter to her of 25 January, written in an official capacity, he can see it.
But I am sure that he will understand, as someone who observes the courtesies and recognises the basis on which a personal letter is written, that it is not for me to release a letter which I wrote to Mrs Gradin.
If Mrs Gradin wants to release it or gives me permission to release it, that is absolutely fine with me and, as I said, she has indicated by an indirect route that she would be agreeable to that.
I am not surprised at that - I know Anita Gradin very well - but until I have formal confirmation I cannot release the letter.
It is not in any way a secret.
I simply hope that Mr Gahrton's powers of comprehension will advance greatly by the time that he reads the letter because he did not show much evidence in the course of his contribution of having any more than the most rudimentary understanding.
I have a supplementary question concerning the Commission' s Information Office in Stockholm and its former head, Linda Steneberg.
As the Commissioner must know, a criminal investigation is under way concerning financial irregularities at the Commission' s Office in Stockholm.
The Swedish police have begun questioning a number of the employees and wish to question Mrs Steneberg, who has now been promoted and works for the Commission in Brussels.
Mrs Steneberg is refusing to cooperate with the Swedish police and to travel to Stockholm for questioning.
Is it not reasonable for you, as the people with responsibility, to call upon your employees, or even order them, to appear for questioning so that financial crime that has taken place within the Commission' s area of responsibility might be investigated?
This question has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the question on the order paper.
I will, however, respond to it in the interests of transparency.
The person named by the honourable Member, who is a Commission official, has indicated total readiness to respond to all enquiries from the Swedish prosecutor.
That will take place in due course.
Question No 53 by (H-0083/01):
Subject: Candidates for Director-General posts The Commission's memorandum on 'Targets for the Recruitment and Appointment of Women 2000' states that the proportion of women in A1 and A2 posts is to increase by 20% by 2005.
According to the latest information in my possession, there are still only 3 women among the Commission's 49 Directors-General.
It is, therefore, surprising that the Commission has again appointed a man as Director-General for aid and development despite the fact that there was a very well qualified female candidate.
The selection board consisted of 8 men.
How is equality of opportunity safeguarded in the appointment of the Commission's Directors-General?
The Commission is very conscious of the need to increase the proportion of women in A1 and A2 grades.
It is for that reason that, since 1995, annual targets are set for the appointment of women to these and to other management posts.
The Commission's overall target, as announced at the beginning of our term of office in 1999, is to double the number of women in these two grades during its term in office, thereby raising the number of women in A1 and A2 posts to 44 or about 20% by 2005.
To achieve this, the annual targets are set on the basis of anticipated turnover in the grades each year.
In 2000 the target for the appointment of women to A1 was two appointments and the target for A2 was five appointments.
These targets were exceeded with three new appointments being made to the A1 grade and seven new appointments to the A2 grade.
As a result, the current number of women at A1 level is four out of 54 and the number of women at A2 level is 21 out of 178.
The Commission intends to continue its practice of setting annual targets because it has evidently assisted improvement in the gender balance, although patently not enough.
The Commission will adopt the annual target for 2001 next month.
In addition to the policy of target setting, the members of selection boards are reminded of the principles of equal opportunities to be taken into consideration in the selection of candidates.
The Commission seeks to appoint the most suitable candidate for a post and, where there are equal merits relating to the relevant post, to give priority to the female candidate.
The outcome must arise from objective assessment by the appropriate authority of each individual situation and is not therefore automatic for persons of either gender.
In the case referred to by the honourable Member, the advisory committee on appointments shortlisted a female candidate with good qualifications.
The Commission considered that the candidate chosen had a profile more particularly related to the tasks of the post in question.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Unfortunately, we women come up against a glass ceiling within the EU' s institutions, too.
I am grateful for, and pleased with, the action plan with practical objectives you have taken as your starting point, but a timetable also needs to be established.
It is extremely gratifying that you should want to work to end discrimination but, since the Commission has now once again appointed a man to the post of Director-General - this time as the Development Directorate-General - I wonder if the Commission' s objectives were just so much rhetoric.
The eight men on the selection board had to choose between a woman with wide political and administrative experience at a high level and solid experience abroad, and a man with no political background, less administrative experience and no experience abroad.
I can only draw the conclusion that the male candidate was appointed on a quota basis.
In Sweden, successful appeals are made to the Labour Market Court in cases involving considerably less flagrant discrimination than this one.
Is the Commission prepared to tear up its decision and give this post to the most competent candidate, or must an appeal be made to the European Court of Justice in this case? Is the Commission prepared in future to have at least 50 per cent women on its selection boards and not 100 per cent men?
As the honourable Member underlines, the system that we are seeking to develop in the European Commission does not yet bear any comparison with arrangements that have existed in Sweden, and indeed in some other Member States, for some years.
We can do nothing more in the circumstances than continue to strive to meet the best standards which we heartily recommend to others throughout the European Union.
These are standards which I, and my colleagues in the current Commission, sincerely want to meet.
If I could respond to the specific issues raised by the honourable Member: there is not enough representation of women at any level, including the managerial ranks, in any of the European Union institutions.
We are, as the honourable Member was good enough to acknowledge, making a serious effort to improve upon that in the European Commission.
But in the European Parliament, for instance, I think I am right in saying that out of the ten directors only one is a woman.
The position in the Council, if anything, is not even as good as that.
So in each of the institutions, including the others like the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors, there is patently need for very substantial improvement and I am very happy to have the opportunity at this Question Time in Parliament to underline that very forcibly yet again.
I believe we will reach the targets by 2005.
They are not over-ambitious targets.
Indeed, several of us would argue in the current Commission that they are over-modest.
They are however realistic given our starting point.
What we hope will be the case is that by securing that at least 20% of senior management jobs are in the hands of women by the end of this Commission, it will provide the incoming Commission with a much firmer and higher base from which to work towards genuine gender balance across the Commission, particularly in managerial roles.
I take the point that the honourable Member made about the single-sex nature of the selection board.
It is not in fact a selection board.
It is an advisory committee on appointments.
The final selection of candidates is made by the portfolio Commissioner, by myself as the Commissioner for Personnel Administration, and the President.
The basis on which the selection was made, as I said earlier, involved no criticism of, or disrespect for, the high qualifications of the woman candidate who came before us; it related, as I said, to the fact that the candidate chosen had a profile more particularly suited to the tasks of the post in question.
No preference on gender grounds was shown towards a man.
Mr President, following on the discussion, would Mr Kinnock like to confirm to the House that career development based on performance and merit is going to be the foundation of the reforms that we approved in this House last year? Will he also take the opportunity to tell us what progress he is making in introducing structured performance appraisal throughout the Commission and in his moves towards a linear career structure.
Mr President, this question, as Mr Harbour will be aware, has direct relevance to the question raised by Mrs Theorin because we believe that amongst the many other justifications for making changes, as regards appraisal and the advance towards a more linear career structure, will be to give fairer treatment to women officials, and indeed to make the Commission more attractive for the employment of women, particularly women who have family obligations.
So far as progress is concerned, on 28 February 2001 the Commission will give consideration to a series of eight detailed draft proposals which will then be submitted for consultation to all the staff, and for formal negotiations to the staff representatives, as well as to two orientation papers, one of which relates to pay and pensions and the other to the more linear career system.
We are therefore at the point - on the linear career system, on systematic appraisal and on a host of complementary activities - of making formal proposals, and of beginning detailed consultations on them.
This is with a view, by the summer break, to compiling finalised proposals either for Commission decisions - which have the force of law - or proposals to this House and the Council where amendments to the Staff Regulations are required.
The support and interest of this House is invaluable in all of these reform activities, both those relating to improvement in the gender balance and, much more widely, those seeking to ensure improvements in the efficiency of Commission staff and in professional support for them.
I hope that this support and understanding will continue.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would be interested to know whether the country of origin is in fact also a criterion applied in selecting women.
Mr President, the Commission seeks to fulfil its obligations to maintain a reasonable gender balance, not only in managerial roles but right throughout the staff of the Commission.
The reason we do this is because this is a unique multinational and multilingual Union, and it is essential that the executive administration of the Union reflects the diversity of cultures and languages in the staffing of the Commission.
The same applies to trying to secure a much improved gender balance.
I can honestly say to the honourable gentleman that no preference is given on the basis of the sex of a person or the flag that they happen to be born under or the passport that they carry.
Consequently we will strive to maximise the premium allocated to merit, whilst trying at the same time, by a variety of practical means, to maintain an improved gender balance and also to sustain a regional geographical balance as befits our multinational organisation.
Questions to Commissioner Byrne
Question No 54 by (H-0011/01):
Subject: Decisions concerning BSE Will the Commission describe the position in the various Member States following the December 2000 decisions on action against BSE?
How have the decisions been implemented in the individual countries and how is the Commission verifying proper compliance with them?
What monitoring facilities have been set up?
How is the Commission verifying that animal or bonemeal is not present in feedingstuffs in the individual Member States? Have all Member States got adequate residual capacity and full registration of livestock so that any infection can be traced?
How many animals have accumulated in the individual countries?
How much offal has accumulated for destruction and how is it being stored?
The Commission has recently received information from the Member States on their implementation of BSE control measures, and in particular on the new measures on animal feed and the testing of animals for BSE.
The information was provided in response to a questionnaire sent to Member States on 5 January 2001.
This questionnaire has enabled the Commission to obtain a reasonably complete picture of the way in which the measures are being implemented, and this seems broadly satisfactory.
A working document which summarises the responses of the Member States to this questionnaire was also circulated for discussion at the Agriculture Council on 29 January.
Member States are responsible for the implementation of these measures.
In the case of the feed ban, implementation includes regular microscopic examination of feedstuffs and inspection of feedstuff plants.
This in turn is audited by the personnel of the Food and Veterinary Office who have already visited a number of the Member States to this end since December 2000, and intend to visit the rest early in 2001.
The reports on these inspection visits will be made available to Parliament and published on the Internet in the usual manner.
Legislation on the identification and registration of bovine animals specifies that each Member State must set up a national database for bovine animals and that the computerised databases should become fully operational no later than 31 December 1999.
The fully operational character of the national databases for bovine animals has been verified by the Commission for Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom as regards Northern Ireland.
Portugal, France and Germany have requested the recognition of the fully operational character of their national databases and the Commission is in the process of studying these requests.
The Commission does not have exact figures for the amount of processed animal protein that has accumulated in Member States.
It is aware that the disposal of this material poses a problem for some Member States and that those States are actively seeking a solution.
Thank you for your answer, Commissioner.
I am very glad that we are to be told the result of the questionnaire at the next meeting of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I nonetheless sense from your answer that there is a very big difference between the status of the individual Member States, as we knew there was before 1 December.
Only a very short time has, of course, elapsed.
In view of the health situation, a particularly long period ought not to be allowed to elapse, out of consideration for both consumers and farmers.
This is also because, right now, there is distortion of competition between farmers in the individual Member States, because the compensation offered is very different from one country to another.
I hope it will not be the slowest, but the fastest, countries which set the pace, for I am completely convinced that it is in that way that we shall achieve a result in which all the current 15 EU countries have implemented these BSE decisions.
I am very concerned to ensure that we have Community measures in relation to all of these issues and that all Member States apply the Community law in the same way.
This was not necessarily the case earlier last year and towards the end of last year, but I see some signs that it might be achieved following the Community measures that have now been brought forward.
I have every hope that any differences that arise in Member States will soon be a thing of the past.
Question No 55 by (H-0019/01):
Subject: BSE What follow-up measures have been taken by the Commission and in the Member States in respect of Parliament's 1997 report on BSE? What measures is the Commission taking to ensure compliance with the Community legislation in force on prevention of this disease in the Member States?
The Commission replied in its final consolidated report to Parliament's report on BSE of 1997 by setting an ambitious work programme.
In two more biannual follow-up reports to Parliament it gave a broad overview of the emergency measures taken to combat BSE, to increase the safety of animal feed and to implement the new approach in the fields of scientific advice, risk analysis and inspection.
The Commission services have since been restructured to assure the independence and transparency of the scientific committees, the reinforcement of the inspectorate and the separation of consumer protection from the markets.
A solid body of legislative measures has been introduced on which the Commission has regularly reported to Parliament.
These measures include, for example, the requirement to remove and destroy specified risk materials, to pressure-cook animal waste and to actively survey the animal populations for the presence of TSEs.
The Commission has also made use of the new legal provision of the Treaty of Amsterdam to propose regulations under the codecision procedure on the prevention and control of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies and on the processing of animal by-products.
These regulations will bring together in a single substantive legal text a wide range of measures which are currently based on safeguard provisions of Community veterinary legislation.
If the negotiations run their course as expected, the regulation on TSEs should be adopted next month.
The proposed regulation on animal by-products is expected to be voted on by Parliament shortly.
In the meantime, the Commission continues to monitor the situation on the spot, requesting scientific advice and taking legal measures whenever needed.
The evidence resulting from the very regular visits of the Food and Veterinary Office and the scientific opinions of the Scientific Steering Committee has become the basis for the consumer protection policy of the Commission.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his reply and I take note of the fact that, from a legislative point of view, the Commission has made considerable progress since 1997.
I would like to ask a supplementary question, as a result of the perplexity expressed by my constituents at the horrendous errors and contradictions of the Spanish authorities.
Specifically, a regional Agricultural Minister has ordered that dead cows be deposited in an open mine.
There have been statements from one minister saying one thing while another minister says the opposite. At least in Germany ministers have resigned.
My question is: apart from legislative measures, does the Commission intend to take executive measures in relation to the Member States?
Will the Commission exercise a greater presence in our States in order to offer the citizens guarantees? Has the Commission at any point considered employing infringement proceedings, by means of a letter of infringement, so that the Community citizens may realise that the Commission it truly fighting for their safety and health?
The implementation by Member States of safety measures put in place at Community level is of crucial importance.
There is little point in passing legislation at Community level if it is not fully and rigorously implemented by the Member States.
There are a number of responses available to the Commission in the event that there is a persistent failure by any Member State to properly implement these safety laws. These are, for instance, the initiation of infringement proceedings against that Member State or, alternatively, by taking Community measures which can be understood to mean the putting in place of safety provisions which would prevent the Member State in question from exporting its product.
In this instance I assume that when you are talking about these issues you are talking about beef.
These are obviously very powerful measures.
They are required to be brought into effect in circumstances where there is a failure by Member States to implement the safety provisions.
It is appropriate to bring these measures into place, however, only in circumstances where the breach has been persistent.
There has to be a pattern of behaviour by a Member State of ignoring the law.
One or two incidents would not trigger the infringement proceedings nor require the taking of Community measures.
This is an issue which is kept constantly under review by my services and myself to ensure that there is full compliance and to ensure that the consumers are properly and fully protected, both by the laws and the implementation of the laws.
Mr President, I am not going to spend or waste part of my time responding to or criticising any of the Member States who are or are not complying with the legislation, but I would like to ask the Commissioner a series of specific question on the issue of harmonisation.
If the Member States are required, and I am in agreement with this, Commissioner, to comply with the rules that are dictated from here, those rules need to be clear and the same for everybody.
What level of compliance can be demanded when we are talking about applying tests? A period of 30 months is imposed on the Member States and they agree to it, but there are, however, some Member States that already apply a period of 24 months.
What guarantees are being offered to consumers? Do you not think that this issue causes considerable alarm and insecurity among consumers?
The same could be said about the issue of removing the vertebral column, on the subject of risk materials. There is only talk of removing the vertebral column for two Member States and for animals of more than 30 months.
There are exceptions for some Member States, but what are they? And what is the reason for them?
Why, on 7 February of this year, did the Standing Veterinary Committee carry out the evaluation for removing the vertebral column from animals of more than 12 months? Where is the harmonisation?
It is very difficult, Commissioner, for safety assurances to be given to consumers with regard to beef when there is legislative dysfunction.
It is important to understand what we are talking about.
I understand that the honourable Member is asking me about the measure that was introduced last week at the SVC for the removal of the vertebral column as distinct from the spinal cord.
The spinal cord has been designated as a specified risk material (SRM) for a long time and has been removed in many Member States as such for a long time; it has been removed now as a matter of law in the European Union by all Member States since 1 October 2000.
If you are referring to the vertebral column, I will deal with that aspect of your question by saying that the proposal that I put before SVC for their decision last week was firmly based on the advice of the Scientific Steering Committee.
The situation is that something over 95% of the infectivity is located in the SRM in an infected animal.
The removal of the vertebral column is regarded by the scientists to account for an additional couple of percentage points so that, in the context of the whole question of the removal of specific risk material, this is an ultra-precautionary measure.
In advising whether this should be done, the Scientific Steering Committee examined the available evidence from Member States and came to the conclusion that it was appropriate to remove the vertebral column in circumstances where Member States did not have a substantially BSE-free regime or did not have control measures in place which would be equivalent to very low BSE-incidence.
Bearing in mind that advice, a conclusion was reached that it was appropriate to grant waivers to the five Member States that you are referring to, two of them because they had very rigorous control measures in place, and the other three because they were in category 2 of the geographical risk assessment that was published last July, thereby identifying those Member States as being at very low risk.
Accordingly, the waivers were granted in those circumstances.
It is a Community-wide measure.
It applies to all Member States.
However, in circumstances where it is appropriate, in the individual circumstances of an individual Member State, and strictly on the advice of scientists who advise me, it was considered appropriate to allow for derogations.
Not only did the Scientific Steering Committee give advice on which that decision was based, but the Standing Veterinary Committee came to the same conclusion, as did the Commission.
This was a justifiable response.
There are many Member States which take the view that I went too far.
There are Member States that take the view that I did not go far enough.
Proportionate responses in these circumstances are what we tried to achieve.
With regard to the 24 months, I assume that you are referring to the fact that there is a requirement to test animals above the age of 30 months.
There is one Member State that has reduced that on its own territory to 24 months, but that has absolutely no trade implications between that State and other Member States; that Member State has presumably concluded that it would be worthwhile reducing it to 24 months having regard to the age profile of a couple of positives that they have found.
I substantially agree with the basis of your question, which is that it is better to have Community measures right across the board rather than have individual measures, but sometimes individual Member States or a particular measure that is somewhat different from the Community measure can be justified in circumstances where a particularly unique situation is obtained in a Member State.
Question No 56 by (H-0021/01):
Subject: BSE and consumption of cattle bones The Spanish Minister for Health recently aroused concern among consumers in Spain when she advised 'housewives' not to buy 'cheap meat' and not to use cattle bones when making stock.
Does the Commission consider that any link exists between the price of meat on the market and consumer guarantees?
Does the Commission believe that cattle bones present risks and have to be banned?
Is their sale outlawed in any Member State? If so, does the ban operate across the board, or does it affect only a particular type of bone?
Community hygiene legislation applies to all meat or meat products irrespective of their price, ensuring the same high level of consumer protection.
It is not acceptable that cheap meat should be less safe than dearer meat.
The Commission is very carefully following all issues relating to material which could present risks as regards transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
In this context, it gave a prominent mandate to the Scientific Steering Committee to review the current list of so-called specified risk material if new scientific evidence becomes available in this field.
In June 2000 the Commission adopted Decision 2000/418/EC which requires the removal of a series of bovine, ovine and caprine tissues from food and feed chains.
In particular it provides that bones of the skull from cattle over 12 months of age have to be banned in all Member States.
In addition, it extends the list of specified risk material to the vertebral column of bovine animals over 30 months of age in the United Kingdom and Portugal.
Following further opinions of the Scientific Steering Committee, the Commission presented a proposal at the Standing Veterinary Committee meeting of 7 February, which designated the vertebral column as a specified risk material to be removed and destroyed for cattle over the age of 12 months.
This proposal was accepted by the Standing Veterinary Committee and, when it is formally adopted, Member States will be required to ensure removal of the vertebral column.
This may take place at the point of sale, that is in the butchers' shops, from 31 March 2001.
The proposal included provisions for derogations from the obligation to remove the vertebral column, on the basis of scientific committee opinions, for five Member States - Austria, Finland, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
This derogation is conditional on continued and improved surveillance for the presence of BSE in those Member States, with increased testing of certain categories of animals required.
The derogations will be reviewed if necessary in the light of the results of these tests and further scientific advice.
Mr President, I think that Mrs Redondo expressed it very well in her speech and that, indeed, in this BSE crisis there are Member States who are advantaged pupils, who prepare for the examinations months in advance, and others, such as ours, the government of my country, who are at the bottom of the class, prepare for the examinations five minutes before and when they fail, blame the teacher.
And this teacher is you, Commissioner.
The Spanish Government became aware of the first case of BSE in October, although it kept it a secret until December.
The lack of transparency and the improvisation with which my country' s government is acting with regard to the crisis are, in my opinion, the reason for the massive drop in consumption in Spain, for which the cattle farming sector is paying. This is especially the case for my region, Galicia, where cows are an element of social cohesion and, more importantly, are - as a well-known and admired writer says - a totem.
I therefore ask you: can the Commissioner give assurances to consumers that in Spain the measures adopted by the European Union are now being fully complied with? Are there any future measures for which we should be preparing ourselves?
As I said in response to an earlier question, I firmly believe that the implementation of the safety measures is of critical importance and that this implementation must be rigorously applied in all Member States.
I have written to Member States, I am regularly in contact with Member States, I discuss this issue in the Agriculture Council quite regularly, and the importance of the implementation of laws is something that the Ministers for Agriculture and the governments in Member States are fully aware of.
I agree with you in the event that there is a failure in the implementation of the laws which we have put into place, that this can result in a falling-off in consumer confidence.
If consumers feel that the laws that have been put in place for their benefit are not fully implemented, then they see themselves as being at risk.
I believe that all Member States now fully understand the importance of this.
There may have been some laxity in some Member States in the past but I am quite convinced now, from my observation of the situation and from hearing the observations of, in particular, Ministers for Agriculture and Health in the various Councils, that there is a full and complete appreciation of the need to fully implement the legislation.
There are renewed efforts in all Member States to achieve this for the benefit of consumer health.
Commissioner, are you aware of, and do you agree with, the fact that in Spain the Guardia Civil is the new authority responsible for ensuring food safety for European citizens, that it is responsible for ensuring food safety with regard to BSE? Are you aware that the Guardia Civil does not reveal the identity of some of those arrested for meat meal fraud?
Do you agree with this?
Are you aware that this afternoon Mr Fischler said to us in this House that it is not necessary to sacrifice all the animals on a farm where only one case has been declared?
And are you aware that the Spanish Minister for Agriculture - they do not allow the Minister for Health to talk - is saying that we absolutely have to slaughter all the animals?
Is this not a contradiction?
Are you aware that what citizens are receiving is this contradictory and chaotic information?
What do you say about the issue of the Guardia Civil?
Answer me please.
Mr President, I imagine that the involvement of the Guardia Civil in these circumstances probably relates to what you identified yourself: in circumstances where there is a failure to comply with the law by some meat plant or somebody else who has a responsibility to handle meat, a criminal offence may very well have taken place and in such circumstances it is probably appropriate that there is a criminal investigation.
The specifics of the involvement of the Guardia Civil in this particular issue is something that I have not got any detailed information on but I assume that the involvement is in the way that I have identified.
In response to your question about the culling of animals in circumstances where there is a positive finding relating to a herd, at present it is a decision for the Member State involved to determine whether it is appropriate to cull the entire herd or not.
It is a matter for the Member State to decide.
Some Member States do that.
Other Member States choose to kill all cohorts which is obviously a different defence or protection measure and there are those who take the view that it is at least as good and may even be better.
As I stated, it is a matter for each Member State to decide how to respond in these circumstances.
I also wish to draw your attention to the fact that the TSE regulation is now passing through the legislative process, as I mentioned in answer to an earlier question.
That regulation provides for the culling of the herd and the killing of cohorts and it also provides for other measures that a Member State notifies to the Commission which the Commission, through its scientific advisers, is satisfied provides at least the same degree of protection for consumer health.
That other measure can be allowed in those circumstances.
In reply to your question on the culling of the entire herd, that is a matter entirely within the competence of the Member State to decide.
Mr President, can I ask the Commissioner specifically: are bones for soup stock other than the vertebrae and skull perfectly safe and all right to use? Is osso buco, which I think is made from the shank of cattle, all right to eat and is oxtail, which is actually I suppose an extension of the vertebrae, all right to eat?
As I indicated in the earlier part of my answer, the bones that are identified as being required to be removed are those that are specified risk material.
Any other material from an animal which does not fall within the definition of specified risk material is fit for human consumption.
Mr Carnero González has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I will try to be precise and quick in expressing my surprise that 8 questions, from various Members, on the same subject, the Western Sahara, have been included on the agenda in the third block of this sitting, and it is therefore impossible for the Commission to answer.
I would like the President of Parliament to explain what criteria are used to make such decisions, because, quite simply, I find them very hard to understand.
Mr Carnero, when Question Time began, I pointed out the criteria, which are in the Rules of Procedure and the directives annexed to the Rules of Procedure and in the letters that the President of Parliament - not of the sitting - sends to Members.
The problem is then of exactly defining the criteria.
In any case, I am certainly taking note of this matter, which I will of course pass on to the President of Parliament.
As the time allotted to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 59 to 118 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.30 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Deliberate release of GMOs into the environment
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Bowe on the report and on the positions assumed which, given the thorny nature of the issue of genetically modified organisms, is genuinely well-balanced.
What is the conclusion? The conclusion is that rules and monitoring are necessary.
I am sure that we will be able to find some point of contention - for example, the issues of traceability and labelling remain unresolved - but given the crucial need for regulation, I feel that this task has been more than adequately performed.
It must also be remembered that there are many things at stake in this complex matter of genetically modified organisms: it could even be said that, from many points of view, the role of the European Union itself is at stake with regard to many of its forthcoming commitments, such as the World Trade Organisation reforms, the research programme we are about to launch, the development and employment programmes, the relations which will ensue from the creation of new markets, and the globalisation processes which will lead to the redefinition of economic processes.
So, as far as GMOs are concerned, we must not forget that the situations in many different countries are different.
I would mention, at random, China, South Africa and Mexico, which already grow genetically modified organisms, and other countries such as Cuba which we know are preparing to do so; then there are other countries again, such as Nigeria, Thailand and the Philippines, which are extremely interested in the potential offered by biotechnologies.
So the question is this: what role does the Union intend to play in a future which has already become present reality? I feel that the answer which is most relevant to the European Parliament's role can only be to set a course and establish a strategy which reflect a position of total involvement.
This does not mean either accepting or rejecting, and still less bringing forward or extending the time frames.
Above all, it means giving a sort of green light to all studies, applications or patents relating to biotechnologies.
The Bowe report has more than succeeded in achieving this result.
Mr President, the result of the conciliation that we have before us is a substantial improvement upon the rules for the release of GMOs into the environment.
We are to obtain more stringent risk assessment requirements.
The long-term effects of the many authorisations are also to be looked into.
We are to have better monitoring, and we are to see time limits placed upon individual authorisations.
I think that all this together will make an important contribution to the protection of the environment and the protection of public health.
However, I have a couple of questions for the Commission about a number of matters I think it is important to have clarified today, for there are, of course, still a number of deficiencies in this area.
Firstly, I would ask the Commission to give an assurance today that, whenever we devise vertical legislation in different areas concerned with GMO crops, we also make sure that this vertical legislation respects the general directive we are now adopting on releases into the environment.
My second question concerns labelling and traceability, for I really find it worrying that the Commission has not by now been in a position to submit a proposal on labelling.
On this matter too, however, I would ask that we be given a more detailed explanation of the letter sent by Commissioner Byrne and Commissioner Wallström to the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and stating the desire to provide citizens with better information on GMOs.
I do not think that the word "better" is enough.
It is important for full information to be given and for there not, therefore, to be a system provided in which there are still a whole lot of gaps in the information given to consumers about GMOs.
We are not interested in buying a pig in a poke.
It is important that we obtain real consumer choice and that short measure is not given in this area. I therefore hope that we can obtain a statement on this issue today.
I could also do with an assurance from the Commission that, as has been mentioned, the way to new authorisations will not be opened until the new rules have come into force in 2002.
The desire to insert conditions corresponding to the new rules in any authorisations given before the law comes into force is, of course, very commendable. However, if the law has not come into force, then it will not, of course, be possible to enforce these rules if the authorised businesses contravene them.
I am therefore definitely of the view that one ought to respect the fact that the legislation must come into force before a start is made on issuing authorisations under the new rules.
That is the only way we can be sure that it will, in actual fact, also be possible to enforce the rules.
Mr President, rapporteur Bowe concluded that the conciliation procedure concerning the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms had a satisfactory outcome overall.
The Liberal Group would agree with this, although naturally there is still room for improvement, for example regarding the protection of biodiversity, but these are matters to be revisited at a later date.
The primary objective of the new directive is the safety of the environment and public health.
It follows logically from this that although it may be acceptable to use GMOs, there must always be systematic, independent and in-depth research prior to the release, into the potential risks to the environment and to public health.
What is important in this respect is that the directive introduces mandatory monitoring after the placing on the market of GMO products and a mandatory time limitation of maximum ten years for first-time consent.
This will enable us to encourage research into and use of GMOs on the one hand, whilst still being able to monitor the situation.
Comprehensive information promotes the consumer' s freedom of choice.
The consumer must be able to have absolute certainty as to whether a particular product does or does not contain GMOs.
The only way to do this is through labelling which is the very model of clarity.
So we are pleased to hear that the Commission is planning to produce proposals along these lines in the very near future.
Lastly, I am delighted that the Commission has pledged to bring forward proposals for supplementary liability provisions for the various types of environmental damage in all areas of the European Union, before the end of this year.
It is still extremely important to keep a close eye on all the risks of damage to the environment and public health, and to restrict them using all possible means.
Mr President, Commissioner, the matter before us today is to determine whether or not tomorrow' s vote will result in the lifting of the moratorium on authorisations for the cultivation and placing on the market of GMOs.
The answer is, quite clearly, no, it will not.
We must pursue the moratorium since the revised 90/220 Directive does not meet all the requirements that we stipulated at the beginning.
While there has been some improvement, amongst other things, in the biological monitoring of future affected areas, inasmuch as it is possible to actually identify such areas, this will, however, be at the discretion of the relevant authorities.
The final compromise does not respond to consumer concerns, since consumers would like to see guarantees of food safety and to see proper assessment of the risks of releasing GMOs into the environment being carried out.
The BSE crisis could have been avoided, had more courageous decisions been taken as soon as the first warning signs emerged.
We must not make the same mistake twice.
I hope that the Commission will shortly outline proposals to guarantee the complete traceability of GMOs and to establish a reliable labelling system for all GMO-derived products.
Only then will we be able to authorise the release of GMOs into the environment.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Bowe, was right when he said this afternoon that not only his work but also the work of Parliament has moved this directive forward a great deal in terms of standards and restrictive use.
However, I would like to point out the concerns that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and Parliament had at first and second reading.
I do not think that we can talk about all of them now, in the time that we have, but I will mention the use of antibiotic-resistant marker genes, the need to respect the Cartagena commitment (the international agreement), the civil responsibility clause, preventing this cultivation from being extended to other plants, the public register of plantations and the localisation of genetically modified organisms and the very serious subject of exports with initial consent and agreement.
Some of these concerns were taken up during the conciliation procedure, but there are others that are still a commitment and some others that may require long periods of time, for example the disappearance of the use of antibiotic-resistant marker genes.
In our opinion there are currently public health problems related to resistance to antibiotics, and there are infections that used to be cured with common antibiotics which cannot now be cured, not only naturally, but due to genetically modified products, due to the presence of other antibiotics, for example in livestock.
However, the time-scales are long and the problem is already there.
We think that there are other promises, which are only promises, that can be fulfilled, that perhaps the Commission is fulfilling, but we think that the moratorium should continue until all of this legislation is in force, Mr President.
I will finish by saying that this afternoon there was a speech from Mr Fischler in which he spoke about the economic catastrophe that BSE represents for Europe.
Let us not fall into this error again, that is, let us not take measures in a hurry, taking into account economic interests, if this carries risks for food safety and could later be an economic catastrophe as well as a food catastrophe.
Mr President, over the last few years we have seen a completely new development: the conversion of pharmaceutical companies into biotechnology companies, an explosion in the number of companies specialising in the development of genetically modified organisms, a steady increase in the allocation of public and private funds to support research in the field of genetics, the legal race to patent GMO seeds and even to patent the manipulation of the human genome, the truly astonishing speed of mergers and break-ups between biotech companies and even the emergence of new political frontiers and a new debate on ethics, agriculture, public health, the environment, hunger and poverty.
In short, biotechnology is bringing about a real revolution in science, economics and politics.
A revolution that brings hope but which also involves risks.
Therefore, the 'yes, because I say so' or 'no, because I say so' forms of fundamentalism will get us nowhere.
The answer lies in a fair balance between the freedom to conduct research and the need to protect public health and the environment.
I feel that this revision of the directive on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms respects this balance because, on the one hand, it does not impose restrictions on research or experiments and on the other, it lays down clearer and more restrictive rules on the release of GMOs into the environment, thereby protecting consumers and biodiversity.
Nevertheless, the revision of this directive will only be complete when the Commission goes ahead with legislative initiatives that implement, in a way that leaves no room for doubt, the principles that are now being declared on imposing responsibility for the environment and for the labelling and traceability of products containing GMOs.
Mr President, we have already talked a great deal about genetic modification here in Parliament.
Some of us believe that biotechnology has a glorious future ahead, whilst others are sceptical and point to the dangers, the risks and the scientific uncertainty.
Parliament has three tasks when it comes to the issues surrounding GMOs, the first being to create a vision.
A vision that points the way and is broadly based. That is precisely what Parliament has had such a struggle with.
The parliamentary majority swings back and forth between the position of NGOs and that of the business community.
Given the polarisation of opinion, sound admission procedures are a must, i.e. procedures that guarantee safety, afford the consumer and the environment protection and uphold the precautionary principle.
The review of Directive 90/220 strikes a good balance, the best in the world in fact.
I think that we, together with the rapporteur, can be proud of the negotiated outcome.
Our second task is to take decisions and to foster decision making.
We must put an end to all the legal uncertainty within the industry.
A tricky situation has arisen within the industry in recent years.
There is a de facto moratorium but no decision has ever been taken to this effect.
We must make a breakthrough here, but this will only be possible if there are sufficient safeguards for consumers and if we can offer them legal certainty.
Consumers must have a choice and the Commission must provide guarantees to this effect.
Parliament' s third task is to take responsibility.
If we want to give the go-ahead, then we must also be prepared to take the responsibility that goes with it.
Why not give ourselves some encouragement by pointing out that the old situation was worse and that it will be possible for there to be a moratorium in the new situation.
But as I see it, we must also have the courage to say that with this directive, we have incorporated sufficient safeguards to give biotechnology a chance in Europe.
Each product must be examined in order to ascertain whether it satisfies requirements, but our responsibility goes further than that.
Parliament must continue to press for a form of monitoring of the social implications of biotechnology.
The assessment must not be restricted to matters of safety alone.
The usefulness to society of biotechnological inventions must form part of the assessment carried out by governments and the business community, so that we can go a step beyond the safety aspect.
This will benefit consumers all over the world, as well as industry.
Mr President, I would point out a paradox: the transgenic plant multinationals say that they are already ready to replace antibiotic-resistant marker genes with alternatives, but if that is so, why are they asking to be able to continue to use these markers until 2004, until 2008 for laboratory use?
And is the fact that they are planning to replace them not the same as admitting that they are dangerous, contrary to what they have always maintained hitherto?
So let us not lose sight of the fact that all those transgenic plants which it is intended to release into the environment and onto the markets carry these markers, which means that there are two conflicting truths, and where there are two conflicting truths, one is always a lie.
I am in no way opposed to science, but I am against reckless scientists whose thoughts are often of the gold mine of patents rather than the advance of knowledge.
Moreover, remember BSE.
Mr President, it will only become apparent in the distant future as to whether genetic modification is a blessing to humanity or a curse.
It was human beings that brought a plague of rabbits to America and Australian muskrats that undermine the Dutch dykes.
Subsequently, human beings saddled the world with chemical waste dumps and dumping sites for radioactive waste.
Recently, we have let an AIDS epidemic run riot and we have allowed mad cow disease to develop.
This has all come about owing to a combination of ignorance, impatience, laziness and pursuit of profit.
If we had known then what we know now, I am sure we would have done things differently.
If, before long, people start getting ill from consuming new products, existing plants and animals are supplanted by other species, and existing living beings are no longer resistant to new diseases, then we will know that we have made another big mistake.
So we have every reason to restrict our activities to scientific research for the time being, and to isolate all new products that emerge from this.
Unfortunately, we are now giving way to the pressure exerted by industry to permit commercial applications.
This is undoubtedly highly lucrative for these companies, but it will cost society as a whole enormously in the longer term.
It seems that the choice with regard to genetic modification is now between maintaining the old regulation, which is poor, but which does at least include a moratorium, and a new regulation, which is somewhat better but will abolish the moratorium.
I have noted that the actual choice cannot be made on the basis of this document.
Mr President, questions such as the presence of GMOs in our food and uncertainty about their effects on humans and on the environment are now in the public domain, and that is for the best.
In France, the press gave a great deal of coverage to the European Parliament vote on this directive at second reading.
French and European citizens alike are expecting the Members they elected to have a clear standpoint - the scandals involving contaminated blood and mad cow disease should give them a right to this, as if any justification were necessary.
Along with other Members, I believe that the findings of the Conciliation Committee fall far short of alleviating the concerns voiced by European society.
The notorious lack of any requirement for traceability is a source of provocation to all the people who wish, quite legitimately, to be kept informed.
Yet, the right to information is not always acknowledged.
The proposed regulations must guarantee the reliable labelling and traceability of GMOs and derived products.
In addition, we must ensure that those who produce and release GMOs are held responsible.
We must denounce the lobbying by unscrupulous laboratories and the multinational companies who represent them.
To sum up, I would like to take the opportunity afforded by the final reading of the directive in order to highlight the responsibility of the Council, which failed to adopt all Parliament' s amendments after first reading which went in this direction and which would have produced a quite different text.
What is going to be adopted as the definitive text is in danger of completely invalidating the moratorium of June 1999, whereas the precautionary principle would instead put the lives and health of men and women before any other considerations, especially financial considerations.
Mr President, I would like first to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bowe, and the members of the committee for their excellent and flexible cooperation during conciliation on such a complex piece of legislation.
We are now nearing the end of a long debate which started as long ago as December 1996 when the Commission presented the report on the review of Directive 90/220 concerning GMOs.
During that period the European public has become increasingly aware of the application of new technologies and has raised genuine and rightful concerns, in particular, with respect to the different ways that biotechnology can affect everyday life.
The Commission has no doubt that this piece of legislation responds to these concerns in a transparent and responsible manner and constitutes an important first milestone towards restoring public and market confidence.
During the debate, several Members of Parliament reminded the Commission of its intention to present appropriate proposals concerning traceability and labelling of GMOs and products derived from them.
The process has already started and I can confirm that the interservice consultation within the Commission on a draft proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation concerning traceability and labelling of GMOs was launched yesterday and will be decided in the Commission at the beginning of March.
This proposal will, among other things, ensure that each consumer product which contains a GMO will be marked as such on the label.
It will also ensure that GMOs can be identified at all stages of the production chain.
It will allow control measures for withdrawal from the market in case of unforeseen events after placing on the market and appropriate labelling.
By June 2001 the Commission will present labelling proposals which are designed to give consumers more information about food derived from GMOs.
We are in particular considering moving away from the present approach of the DNA-protein criterion.
Such an approach will give consumers maximum choice between genetically modified and conventional products.
These proposals will include processed food in the labelling systems.
Finally, I will again reaffirm the Commission's intention to present before the end of the year, a proposal for a directive on environmental liability which will include GMOs.
As I said before, we are now approaching the end of a long debate concerning the revision of Directive 90/220.
This text already includes general legal obligations concerning traceability and labelling.
It will set the basic rules for an overall legislative framework in biotechnology.
It is therefore of the utmost importance that this directive is adopted now, paving the way towards a strict, transparent, efficient and predictable authorisation system for GMOs.
Mr President, after three years' work on this report it is difficult not to be a little emotional.
Having heard what has been said by my colleagues tonight, I want first of all to say how much I appreciate the kind words about the work I have done in the last three years and how delighted I am with the final outcome: a set of legislation which will provide the toughest laws on GMOs in the world.
There is no question that this House and the other European institutions will be taking their responsibilities to the people of Europe seriously when they approve this legislation tomorrow.
There is one point of confusion which I wish to clear up.
Many speakers have spoken about the problem of a moratorium.
This is an informal gentleman's agreement, as it is called, between the Commission and the Council.
Approving our legislation tomorrow will do nothing to lift this moratorium or change the situation with regard to the moratorium.
That is a decision that has to be taken between the Member States and the Commission.
What they do will decide what happens to the moratorium, not what we do tomorrow.
What we must do tomorrow is support this piece of legislation because without it we do not go forward, we go backwards.
Without it, we do not go forward into a strong regime of legislative control, we go backwards to the old directive, the discredited directive, which is of no use to any of us.
It has caused the Commission and the Council to halt the approval of GMOs and has caused this Parliament to work for nearly three years on replacing it.
We know very well that this is just the first step in the process.
There is other legislation under way.
We had the privilege - and I thank the Commission for this - of seeing its draft legislation, the regulation which has already today been passed for consultation within the Commission.
At first appearance, this document seems to be an important and very good step in the right direction and I am sure it is going to join the 92/20 revised directive within months as part of the legislative framework to control GMOs.
I can only say to the House that we must accept our responsibilities.
We must do what we have to do for the people of Europe and that is to support this piece of legislation tomorrow.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Community Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)
The next item is the report (A5-0033/2001) by Mrs García-Orcoyen Tormo, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council regulation allowing voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco­management and audit scheme (EMAS)[C5-0661 - 1998/0303(COD)].
, rapporteur.
(ES) Mr President, almost eight years have gone by since the appearance, in June 1993, of the Community regulation allowing voluntary participation by companies in a Community eco-management and audit scheme.
This regulation, known by its acronym EMAS, opened up the use of market mechanisms in order for organisations to make a voluntary commitment to adopting a more pro-active approach to improving their environmental performance.
Its success depended largely on the concept thriving that the environment can and should be part of business strategies as another factor which, as well as environmental safety, provides added value for the business itself.
It represents a considerable change in mentality for the business world to consider respect for the environment more as a factor of competitiveness and progress, rather than as an annoying legal obligation, in many cases at heavy financial cost and with a questionable degree of appreciation of the effort on the part of consumers.
This revised and updated regulation makes an important contribution to a modern environmental policy, in accordance with the principles of sustainable development, important for real improvement in the environmental behaviour of companies and also for the recognition of this improvement by others, particularly by consumers.
During these eight years of practical application we have learnt various lessons.
The first is its use as a market tool.
Almost 3 100 industrial establishments across Europe have participated in this system, which is growing in numbers at a pace of nearly 50% per year.
Despite this significant development, there is still potential for progress.
The new regulation therefore incorporates several considerations facilitating participation by European companies in this environmental improvement system.
It is worth highlighting the extension of the scope of application to all types of organisations, including the service sector, and the possibility of incorporating public administration, establishing incentives and special consideration by public administrations for certified companies when awarding public contracts, encouraging participation among small- and medium-sized enterprises, coordination between the European system and other international environmental certification systems.
In this last aspect there has been considerable simplification and unification of nomenclature and requirements, which will provide significant clarification of the role that EMAS should play in the European context.
Another of the lessons that we have learnt is the need to maintain and even increase the credibility of the system.
This text has stepped up measures to ensure its quality and credibility, as well as public access to information.
The role of the environmental statement is increasing, as is the work of the environmental verifiers, who have to check that organisations are complying with the requirements of this regulation.
These requirements have also been strengthened by Parliament' s amendments, of which the following stand out: the obligation to comply with environmental legislation by participating companies, establishing more demanding standards for the qualification and training of the environmental verifiers who accredit the companies, public reports on the environmental performance of companies, with absolute credibility for third parties, greater involvement of the interested parties in the process of monitoring the environmental performance of companies and, in particular, of employees and users, extension of environmental responsibility, which goes beyond the company' s facilities, to include indicators of the performance of products and services, in line with the approach of the new environmental directives, and also an increase in the role of the coordinating bodies with the aim of facilitating the homogenous application of the system in the various Member States.
In order to arrive at the results that I have just mentioned, I have to say that the conciliation procedure was extremely positive and interesting.
We arrived at it with 24 amendments, of which only 4 were accepted without change and 3 were withdrawn in the course of the negotiations.
20 amendments were accepted on the basis of compromise formulations, which gives an idea of the intensity and the success of the negotiations.
I would therefore like to thank the experts from Parliament, the Commission and the Council for the work that they did during that period, and the members of the Conciliation Committee for being willing to make a decided effort to strengthen this directive. I think that the European Parliament can consider the final result of the conciliation to be very satisfactory, given that the large majority of its amendments have been incorporated fully or in revised form into the joint text, and I therefore propose that it be approved tomorrow in Parliament at third reading.
Mr President, the rapporteur has already explained that the European Parliament helped to get EMAS II, as it is referred to, framed more strictly and not watered down too much; she also explained that the Conciliation Committee refused to give ground and did not deviate from the fundamental requirements for this voluntary eco-audit system.
It is precisely because this is a voluntary eco-audit system that we need to give it credibility and we have succeeded in achieving this in our dealings with the Council.
I believe a basic requirement of EMAS II is to ensure that existing environmental legislation is respected.
It would have been a disgrace if this principle had been dropped at third reading.
We have also succeeded in achieving greater transparency, that is improved information for the public and other stakeholders.
My group also thought it was very important for employees and their representatives to be actively involved in the organisation.
There has been a great deal of discussion about this request, and it is evident that the somewhat more complicated wording now found in the text is more to the liking of those representing the Council than the very clear requirement which the European Parliament had originally formulated.
My group is nevertheless satisfied, and on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists I would like to emphasise once again that both legal compliance and the involvement of employees and those representing them are important for EMAS, and I await the Commission's assessment with bated breath.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur on producing a result that is good for Parliament.
I also think it very important that the whole basis for working has been the notion that first we have to endorse current legislation and then these voluntary agreements can be made in addition.
In fact, working on this basis we could imagine too that in the future new agreements could be made with companies.
We must clearly define those areas in which we should try to achieve important goals as far as the environment is concerned faster and perhaps more effectively, within the framework of legislation.
This proposal is now extending the system that has been in force since 1993 by including various organisations having environmental impacts.
We are no longer just speaking about industrial companies, which is good.
Pro-active participation in matters of the environment is important not only for the environment but also for businesses themselves.
The present-day consumer is laying ever greater emphasis on the environmental impact of products when they make spending decisions.
It has been quite rightly said that for this system to be implemented effectively it will take commitment on the part of staff to common values.
This in turn will require employees to be properly informed, but they must also be given the opportunity to make their own contribution to the development of environmentally friendly action.
It is inevitable that joining an eco-management scheme will require a commitment to making regular environment-related declarations and reports, substantiated by independent experts, and to making them public.
I believe that we are all very pleased that the EMAS regulation which the Commission proposed in October 1998 is now entering the final stage of its adoption.
The EMAS regulation which you are considering will set up a solid environmental management system capable of allowing organisations in many activity sectors to have a better environmental performance.
It will provide an appropriate answer to the necessity of making both private and public sectors aware of their responsibilities towards our environment on which their activities have an impact.
Last, but not least, the EMAS regulation will lead to the disclosure of reliable environmental information and provide for interaction between different interest groups.
This will be an important step in helping to build a bridge between economic operators and public authorities on the one hand, and citizens on the other.
It is therefore with great pleasure that I welcome the agreement on a joint text reached on 22 November 2000 by the Conciliation Committee.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs García-Orcoyen Tormo, as well as all the members of the parliamentary delegation and the Conciliation Committee.
Allow me also to hope that European institutions will set an example to contribute to the development of EMAS by applying it themselves.
This will be good for the environment and beneficial to the credibility of the European institutions.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Food supplements
The next item is the report (A5-0025/2001) by Mrs Müller, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to food supplements [COM(2000) 222 - C5-0234/2000 - 2000/0080(COD)].
Mr President, I would ask permission to speak regarding the Rules of Procedure.
The proposal for a directive which is being debated ought to be rejected pursuant to Rule 143 of the Rules of Procedure which specifies that, at the beginning of the debate on a specific item on the agenda, its inadmissibility may formally be moved.
I am making such a proposal, and the reason why I think the proposal for a directive ought to be considered inadmissible is that it is, in my view, contrary to the Treaty.
It is contrary to Article 152 of the Treaty, relating to public health, and there is no doubt that this proposal for a directive is entirely motivated by a concern to protect public health.
Article 152 specifies that incentive measures may be taken, but excluding any harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States.
The proposal in question provides for a particularly intensive harmonisation of the laws and regulations of the Member States and is therefore contrary to Article 152.
I searched the Commission' s proposal and Mrs Müller' s report in vain for a discussion of this question of where authority lies.
I think the debate should be considered inadmissible until it has been clarified that the problem of authority is in order, and I would request that a vote be taken.
Does anyone wish to speak for the motion?
Mr President, I should like to speak in favour of the proposal, for it must stand to reason that Parliament has to keep to the basis of the Treaty.
If there is the slightest suspicion that Parliament is not complying with the basis of the Treaty, then negotiations should be suspended until the matter has been clarified.
Does anyone wish to speak against the motion to consider the report unacceptable?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when the Commission presents a proposal for a directive to us, I naturally assume that it is legally in order.
That is one of the reasons why I was appointed rapporteur.
I believe that there can be no question of our not voting on this directive.
We have heard one speech for the motion and one against.
For the sake of clarity: if you vote for this motion, you consider this report unacceptable. If you vote against the motion, you consider it acceptable and we will therefore proceed to the debate.
Mr President, with an issue of this importance it is necessary that we indicate to those still on the premises that a vote is taking place.
It is very unusual for a vote to be called in this way with about 12 Members in the House.
Many others outside are completely unaware - as are those of us who are here who happen to wish to speak in this debate - that this issue is being considered.
If there is a way in which you can alert those on the premises of Parliament to that fact that there is a vote and adjourn until they are present, maybe we will get a more representative result.
Mr President, it is highly irregular that people are behaving so undemocratically as to continue to make comments during the vote, and secondly, we have now voted.
It is for you to announce the result of the vote, and then we will simply carry on with the debate.
I believe that is the only way, and the best way, to deal with a topic that we have already spoken about on so many occasions before.
(Parliament rejected the motion)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when we talk about food supplements, we chiefly mean vitamins, minerals, fatty acids, amino acids and certain other substances.
So we are not talking about enriched food, nor about food additives.
We are talking about concentrated sources of nutrients supplied either individually or combined in the form of capsules, tablets, powder or similar presentations.
Vitamins and minerals are involved in many biochemical processes in the human body.
An optimal supply of these substances is vital for human health and performance.
I regard it as being very positive that we can enrich our daily intake of food with vitamins and minerals.
This directive on food supplements provides for the approximation of the laws of the Member States.
Some Member States currently classify food supplements as food, and others as medicines.
The directive clearly classifies them as food products, which creates a level playing field for manufacturers and also removes existing barriers to trade within the single market.
At the same time, we are establishing legal certainty for European consumers.
The Commission' s proposal is therefore basically to be welcomed.
However, discussions in Parliament have made it clear that certain parts of the proposal need to be modified.
I particularly wish to highlight the area of application.
The Commission's proposal for a directive adopts a rather narrow approach as regards the substances it covers.
This applies firstly to permitted minerals and their compounds.
Some important minerals are not covered by the Commission proposal, despite their being used in many EU countries.
These minerals should be accepted as a matter of principle.
Of course chemical compounds still need to be submitted to scientific tests. This needs to be done before the directive enters into force, in order to avoid important food supplements having to be withdrawn from the market.
In addition to vitamins and minerals, there are also other substances covered by the term "food supplements".
But we should not overreach ourselves and try to regulate everything in one go as regards food supplements on the market.
There is a consensus that other substances besides vitamins and minerals need to be subjected to scientific tests before they are covered by the directive.
Nevertheless, defining these additional substances using the heading "physiological" brings with it new problems as regards classification as medicinal products or drugs, and would totally confuse the market situation, which is quite contrary to the aim of the directive.
Blurring the dividing line between medicines and food supplements would lead to a lack of clarity as regards health-related claims, which have not so far been regulated.
Surely none of this can be the objective of this directive on food supplements.
As regards dosage and thus consumers' health, the system of safe maximum amounts is to be welcomed.
Nevertheless, we also need to ensure that consumers do not run the risk of substantially exceeding the daily requirement of food supplements when they take a daily vitamin tablet.
With vitamins A, D, and B6, for example, there would be a health risk.
The Commission proposal clearly covers this.
I totally support this.
With regard to food supplement labelling, the proposal for a directive provides for clear consumer information.
Labelling should tell consumers how to use vitamin and mineral products correctly.
Products are required to meet the highest purity and quality standards.
Both individual substances and the final product have to be produced in accordance with good manufacturing practice.
A compulsory notification procedure is essential in order to guarantee minimum levels of official control. Above all, notification is only meaningful if a uniform procedure applies to all Member States.
This directive will provide European consumers with a common legal framework which places great value on product safety and helpful labelling without limiting the range of products on the shelves. In other words, it provides a legal framework guaranteeing the free movement of goods whilst simultaneously ensuring a high level of protection.
Finally, I would like to very warmly thank the shadow rapporteur for working with me in such a cooperative way.
Many thanks, Mrs Corbey.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Müller, on this report, and I am full of admiration for the very open way in which she has conducted her work and consulted with everyone.
So I do not understand why Mr Bonde, Mr Blokland and friends, are now trying surreptitiously - because she also consulted with the EDD Group - to postpone this debate without reference to the rapporteur.
This is unacceptable by the moral code of this House.
I also have respect for the expert way in which the rapporteur has mastered the technical ins and outs of the dossier.
We have Mrs Müller to thank for the fact that the text of this directive has been extended and improved.
Food supplements are used, indeed consumers often need them, but the industry varies a great deal from Member State to Member State. In addition, you can order everything from the Internet nowadays, all the products are freely available everywhere, and special firms have been set up, which makes it all the more necessary to create a single market for consumers.
This means harmonisation, harmonisation for the consumer.
The consumer must be given sound information and must know what is permissible and what is feasible, that is necessary.
But it is also necessary for the industry because the industry is now being given the opportunity to supply the whole European market, and Mrs Müller has extended the directive in several ways which will please not only the consumer but industry too.
A discussion has now got underway on the physiological function.
What occurred to me, and I have said the same to the industry today, is that when you visited the industry the first time round, you had no problem with this aspect, and at the end of the saga the members of the industry told me that they understood that they were allowed to maintain it in those countries where it is now, but that they were also very keen for us to go that extra mile.
Mrs Müller has made an excellent job of presenting this proposal, which can be extended at a later date, and I would like to thank her cordially for this.
Mr President, we are discussing a very important directive today.
The market for food supplements is developing apace.
This has to do with people' s lifestyles and eating habits.
It also has to do with consumers' insecurity about their own health.
People' s health is a matter of the utmost concern.
Food supplements can be an aid to health, so those who can afford it will gladly buy themselves good health.
But we must also be aware that it is easy to talk people who are insecure into feeling that they must buy themselves good health, and that quality is not always guaranteed.
We must therefore separate the wheat from the chaff.
The consumer is entitled to safe products and sound information.
There are major industrial interests at stake when it comes to food supplements.
There is no internal market but there are numerous rules at national level.
This is inconvenient, but as the PSE Group sees it, consumer protection must take precedence at the end of the day.
Divergent national provisions, uncertainty as to the safety of products and a growing market clearly demonstrate the urgent need for a European directive on food supplements.
That is why the Commission's proposal is so important.
The Commission has established a clear basis for determining safe upper limits of vitamins and minerals.
I am pleased to compliment Mrs Müller on her consistent, professional and serious approach.
On behalf of the PSE Group, I would like to broach three subjects.
Firstly, the scope of the directive.
The Commission has proposed that only vitamins and minerals should be brought within the scope of application of the proposal.
That is understandable but it fails to take into account how the industry has grown.
Herbal extracts, amino acids, and essential fatty acids are used in food supplements too.
I personally think it is important to define the scope as broadly as possible, thus including substances with a nutritional and a physiological function alike.
The advantage of this broad definition is that it creates legal certainty for producers and gives consumers a wide choice of safe products.
The second point I would like to address is the need for scientific testing.
Far and away the most important aspect of this proposal is the principle that only ingredients that have been scientifically tested are permissible.
The maximum permitted quantities are determined according to the basic principles laid down in Article 5.
That is the basis for consumer confidence.
Naturally, any country may decide for itself whether or not to permit untested ingredients.
The directive does not detract from this in any way.
But it is unacceptable, to my mind, for them to enter into circulation in the internal market without so much as a by your leave.
Scientific research and approval are required for that to happen.
Lastly, a few words about labelling.
It is very important for the information to be correct and to include a warning about exceeding the dosage.
A good diet is crucial and is an aid to good health.
No consumer should be put to great expense as a result of misrepresentation and no consumer should feel obliged to buy good health.
All in all, I think it is a marvellous proposal.
Once again, my sincere thanks to the rapporteur.
We support this report wholeheartedly, subject to guarantees that ingredients are scientifically tested.
Mr President, in 1999, the turnover in the European Union for vitamins and minerals alone was over EUR 1 600 million, even without taking other food supplements into account.
That just shows how fashionable these products have become, which is quite natural, when all is said and done.
The wish to be and to stay healthy is probably the most widely shared one.
Every day, then, millions of European citizens take thousands of pills, capsules and tablets.
It also shows how urgent is the need for regulation of this market in Europe, a market which is expanding rapidly, lacks transparency, and, above all, varies greatly from one Member State to another, as has been noted.
The differences are sometimes quite considerable and concern areas such as product composition, dosage, and criteria relating to purity, labelling or the required approval procedure.
We must, therefore, fill these gaps so that we can protect consumers, so that they are extremely well briefed and as clearly informed as is possible, while enabling the free movement of goods within the European Union, as, I am sure, everyone will agree.
When voting on Mrs Müller' s excellent report, on which we must congratulate her, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy included vitamins and minerals in the definition of food supplements, as well as other substances listed in the annexes.
We welcome this contribution.
Our aim was to ensure that, in the long term, the directive would cover all the food supplements already on the European market, so that European consumers can enjoy the same safety guarantees.
In the same spirit, our group tabled three additional amendments, Amendments Nos 33, 34 and 35. Amendments with the same effect were also tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, seeking to ensure that the scope of the directive includes substances that have physiological effects, i.e. non-nutritional substances which are nonetheless vital to a person' s well-being.
Fibre, which is known to aid digestion, in the same way as plant extracts, is included.
I would like to point out that this proposal was already included in the text of the French Presidency and is currently in that of the Swedish Presidency.
The very reason that we are here today is to create a legal framework in order to harmonise the sale of these food supplements.
We should not create a legal void in Europe with regard to ingredients which have physiological functions.
There are millions of consumers who would find that incomprehensible.
Mr President, I very much welcome the guiding principles of this directive, namely the safety of the consumer and the single market.
The basic underlying food-safety legislation is that safety should be established on the basis of scientific risk assessment and that consumers should be able to purchase products of their choice provided that they are safe.
It is important that safety criteria form the basis of the directive, rather than arbitrary recommended daily allowances which would be unnecessarily restrictive and not related to safety.
In the UK and Ireland we indeed have a liberal regime and consumers there do not want their rights restricted.
Most vitamins and minerals have a clear nutritional function; other ingredients commonly included in supplements are not nutrients and do not therefore have a nutritional function but do have physiological function.
The definition of a food supplement in the directive should reflect all supplements.
If products are now excluded from the general definition, there is a danger that such products will in the future fall outside the scope of the legislation and remain unregulated.
I very much recommend that you take on board the physiological function which unfortunately the rapporteur - and I do not agree with her - asked to be excluded from the report.
Mr President, in connection with Parliament' s debate on the proposal for a directive on the approximation of the laws relating to food supplements, I have received hundreds of approaches in the form of approximately 500 signatures by way of protest and a long list of detailed e-mails and letters from ordinary, concerned Danes and from professionals who are nervous that their access to food supplements might be limited.
I assume that it is not only Danish consumers who are expressing this great interest in the directive.
Those who have approached me have all pointed out that a number of experts have placed many question marks over those investigations showing that vitamins C, E and A in particular may be dangerous in too high doses, and that alternative investigations seem specifically to show that high doses of these vitamins have had positive effects free from side effects.
Claim and counter-claim, then.
Because the need for vitamins depends upon a long list of factors which differ from one Member State to another, such as climate and which vitamins are present in the traditional food, the question arises of whether this area is at all suited to EU harmonisation.
Ole Krarup also sowed the seeds of doubt about the legal basis.
When these differences are taken into account and the major interest of consumers taken seriously, my conclusion is that a vote against the proposal for a directive is called for.
Laws governing food supplements ought to be established at national level where both the individual consumer and the non-governmental organisations have a much greater opportunity to have their views heard and considered and where, therefore, the legislators also have a better opportunity to assess the different positions.
Mr President, I am sorry that most of those who sought to stop this debate did not bother to stay to hear it.
I compliment the rapporteur on her report and all the work she has put in.
Food supplements can be a tonic or a health aid.
In rare cases the nature of the supplement or the nature of an individual mean that too great a dosage could be harmful, and so, for generations, we and other countries have set safe upper limits.
With these and with proper labelling the consumer can exercise a safe, free and informed choice.
In Britain, Ireland and elsewhere we have not gone down the route of some of our fellow Member States, which is to take the recommended minimum daily allowance that was set by the American Government in 1943 to ensure that GIs serving in Europe did not suffer from scurvy and beri beri, and to treat that as the basis for maximum intake before classification as a pharmaceutical.
We fear that route leads to higher costs to consumers or an incentive to use unregulated foreign suppliers.
Our belief is that the two systems can coexist.
That is the purpose of Amendment No 50, in my name and that of Mrs Doyle and others.
It allows the RDA to be taken into account when it is close to the upper safety limit.
I believe that the positive list, as it stands, is far too limited.
We should at the very least expand it by the amendments to this effect.
Labelling must allow for accurate health messages, such as for folic acid.
Lastly, I support the reinstatement of the word "physiological" alongside "nutritional", as otherwise a significant number of items on sale and acceptable today could risk being banned.
It was a word included, I believe, at the behest of the Council's working party of experts.
Folic acid is an example.
These are not just my views and those of my delegation.
They are the views of the British Labour Government and, more importantly, the views of the new UK Food Standards Agency.
Mr President, I am glad to be able to follow someone who has so vigorously supported the Labour Government, as Mr Bowis just did.
I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur after the sometimes stormy passage of her report and the mini-ambush which she almost suffered tonight.
In the UK we are the largest manufacturer - and indeed consumer - of health supplements of one kind or another, vitamin and mineral supplements to the diet.
We have been stringent in ensuring that false claims are never made for them, and that is why in the UK they have never been marketed as medicines.
But they do bring benefits to millions who would accept that they are a supplement to, but not a substitute for, a balanced diet.
We believe that the upper safe levels are sufficient to make the difference between foods and medicines even clearer.
Obviously the situation is different in some other Member States, and any attempt to regularise the position makes sense in the general context of emergent food law.
I support the rapporteur's view that all substances which have been validly in use in the Member States, according to the laws of those countries, should continue until such time as they can be tested and perhaps found wanting.
I rather doubt if many will be, and I do not think that the annexes themselves contain anything like the number of exceptions that we should see.
With every day that passes, we hear of other substances which are causing concern because they may be excluded.
That is why the word physiological - and I would beg the rapporteur to think again even at this late hour - is important in terms of people who are genuine sufferers and who derive great benefit from these products.
We ought to hear from the Commissioner tonight that there will be measured progress towards effective analysis by the requisite deadline, be that 2004 or later.
Effective labelling, so that the consumers can choose both the context and the regularity of what they are getting, is the best way forward.
That will help many consumers and worry none.
Mr President, I would like to support my colleague Nuala Ahern's comments that physiological products should of course also be included.
However, I welcome the fact that vitamins and minerals are classified as food products, as I believe that we should give responsible consumers the option of using them.
But I also believe that the Commission should be asking why food products are losing so much of their vitamin content, for example why broccoli has lost 80% of its vitamin content over the last 10 years. I would like to make a particular appeal for labelling not just of ingredients but also of production methods.
There are vitamins which if naturally produced are more effective then when they are synthetically produced.
I believe that consumers also have the right to know whether or not they have been produced using genetic engineering.
I would like to pick up one last point relating to what Mrs Sandbæk said.
I particularly wish to call on the Commission to make sure that this report is not misused to support "functional" foods, because I agree with Mrs Sandbæk that traditional foods should not be artificially enriched with added vitamins.
But I wish to stress that we welcome consumers being given the option of taking additional vitamins.
Mr President, in the UK there are no specific laws controlling the sale of supplements sold as food.
As a consequence, the UK consumers enjoy access to a relatively wide-range of products with minimal restrictions and competitive prices.
No one is forced to buy these products and those that do buy them tend to be well informed about their purchases.
Thus, for the Commission to suggest that we approximate our laws on food supplements is in fact to propose creating laws that do not exist at present in the UK.
The reason the UK Government has not created them is that there has been no need for them.
By and large the market regulates itself and where false claims are made, unsound or potentially dangerous products are marketed, the existing legal structures have proven adequate.
Nor in the market where there is considerable international trade have any particular difficulties been experienced with the movement of goods and a healthy trade on the Internet has developed and is expanding.
There would seem to be scope for the admirable dictum: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Apart from keeping the technocrats busy with yet more interference in other people's lives, there is no need for additional law in this sphere.
The Commission should not be attempting to make it.
We would be better off without it.
Mr President, I would like to heartily congratulate Mrs Emilia Müller on the extremely well-balanced report she has produced.
Indeed, as a research scientist, I cannot fail to appreciate the scientific rigour with which such a sensitive subject, where there are so many sometimes conflicting positions, has been treated.
I would like to thank the Commission for accepting the amendment I tabled on the need for good manufacturing practice to be followed in the preparation of the different vitamin and mineral supplements, for that is the greatest guarantee of quality in terms of consumer protection.
Similarly, an excessively permissive position was not adopted on the doses to be used, and rightly so; indeed, the framework of the recommended daily intake was used in specifying doses, thus avoiding encouraging the idea that the greater the dose the greater the effect.
As a pharmacologist, I must point out that, both in terms of pharmacokinetics and in terms of pharmacodynamics and toxicology, for example, excessive doses can have the opposite effects to those desired or can even, if taken over long periods, harm major organs and systems of the body, which means that there is absolutely no need to increase the doses of mineral vitamins to the maximum level tolerated.
In conclusion, Mr President, in my opinion, Parliament can adopt once and for all the document adopted by the Commission.
Mr President, I would like to join in congratulating Mrs Emilia Franziska Müller on her excellent work on this directive.
There are two principles that govern Community food legislation on which, fortunately, this directive is also based: food safety and the guarantee that the label provides adequate and correct information.
It is essential that we remove any risk to the health of consumers caused by free choice, and ensure that they can make their choice based on accurate and clear information that does not lead to confusion or deception.
Consumers must have access to clear instructions on the dosage and use of the product.
In many cases, as had already been said, it has been found that ingesting some food supplements in excessive doses causes serious health problems.
This is not acceptable, and we need to ensure, through Community legislation, that there is good, consistent information across all the Member States.
Focusing on Article 2, both the work of Mrs Emilia Franziska Müller and that of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy as a whole provide a legal concept of a balanced food supplement.
The scope of application is neither too limited nor so wide that it enables products that do not comply with what a food supplement is to come under the definition.
With regard to Annex I, I think that, finally, the proposal from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which has been successively extended with compromise amendments, is correct and should be adopted by this House.
With regard to Article 5, which sets out the maximum quantities of vitamins and minerals in food supplements, according to letters a), b) and c) of paragraph 1, I think it is necessary to keep these sections, as the approach that we should take in Europe should be strict, maintaining control of the maximum level of vitamins and minerals based on the maximum safe intake levels.
On this point, I would support the idea that a European approach should opt for greater defence of consumers as opposed to an option of greater deregulation.
In this respect I welcome the fact that we are 16 against 15.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Emilia Franziska Müller for her patience with me for making her job a lot more difficult than it might otherwise have been.
Quite truthfully, a lot of what Mr Titford said resonated very strongly with me.
I took some persuading that a directive such as this was necessary at all.
I finally accept that, for example, in relation to oil-soluble vitamins there is a case to be made in terms of safety.
But having scoured medical literature and asked colleagues to point out to me the scientific and medical evidence, I cannot find examples of people who have overdosed or killed themselves with vitamin C and various others.
Commissioner, as one of the busiest commissioners it is a matter of some fascination to me that this particular directive should come out of the pile, given the workload you have.
I cannot understand the priority it has been given, but I accept that there is a general need to have harmonisation at upper safe levels.
Basically we must be driven by informed consumer choice and safety.
We must assume that the intelligence quotient of the average European citizen is reasonable.
We must desist from getting into the 'nanny state' frame of mind.
Dare I suggest that the next directive - seeing as you are in this mode at the moment, Commissioner - should be a directive on bedtime.
When we get up in the morning can we go to bed at night? There seems to be a need to direct our lives, to minimise risks and to tell us what to do.
Please do not take me seriously but I really am frustrated with the way we are headed.
Points made in relation to the physiological effects must be reinstated.
I appeal through the President to my colleague to look at this again.
I am quite upset at the way the oral amendment was bounced.
I do not want to be told that I cannot take fibre, garlic, cranberry juice or folic acid, if I happen to be pregnant.
I do not want my life regulated to that extent.
It brings the Commission and the European project into disrepute with citizens who are otherwise not Eurosceptic at all.
I appeal to you to get the balance right.
It is most important.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would also like to join in congratulating the rapporteur, who I think has done an excellent job, and the rest of the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, who have also worked hard.
One of the objectives of this directive is to harmonise, and the directive has been drawn up - the Commission says so - to eliminate barriers to internal trade.
But it does not fully harmonise, as there may be differences between the Member States in the way that they deal with the declarations on the products.
Ladies and gentlemen, the internal market does not work.
At the end of 2000 the number of violation proceedings initiated by the Commission associated with this problem was 27.
According to the Commission, this diversity of regulations has created barriers to Community trade, and the principle of mutual recognition has not solved the problems.
Harmonisation is therefore necessary.
I am going to refer specifically to Amendment No 51, which is tabled by a group of us who have a series of problems, as the situation of lack of definition that the legislation of eight Member States is currently in could result in the production and sale of these food supplements, which are not included in this directive, being banned, once it is transposed.
Meanwhile, the national legislation of the other Member States that regulate these food supplements would allow them to be produced and, as a result of the rules of the internal market, to be sold across the European Union.
Commissioner, this is not harmonisation.
We need to allow the production and sale of such substances in the countries where there is no national legislation, as long as their composition is identical to the substances that are already sold in one or various Member States, while Community rules, through its scientific committees, extend the scope of application of this directive.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Two or three-wheel motor vehicles
The next item is the report (A5-0015/2001) by Mr Lange, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 97/24/EC on certain components and characteristics of two or three-wheel motor vehicles [COM(2000) 314 - C5-0334/2000 - 2000/0136(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, motorised two and three-wheel vehicles, that is motorcycles and scooters, are mainly used in two areas.
Firstly, to respond to the need for mobility in urban areas and, secondly, for leisure purposes, particularly in sensitive areas of countryside with many attractive bends.
In both areas, and I say this as a motorcycle enthusiast, the drivers of these vehicles have a special responsibility, because two-wheel vehicles should not have a greater impact on urban areas or sensitive areas of the countryside than motor cars have.
It is therefore both legitimate and essential for us to ensure that motorised two and three-wheel vehicles should have the same level of emissions as motor cars.
The European Parliament has set a very successful example through its input into legislation reducing emissions from motor cars, with the introduction of EURO III and IV, and also emissions from both light and heavy commercial vehicles, with a view to improving air quality in Europe's cities and sensitive environmental areas.
We cannot therefore make an exception for motorcycles and scooters.
Hence this proposal that there should also be a two-stage approach for motorcycles and scooters, with the first reduction stage being introduced in 2003 and a second reduction stage, and this is the important thing, coming into force in 2006.
Industry naturally needs time to develop new engines and new exhaust emissions cleaning systems.
We must give industry this time, and that is why the second stage in 2006 is important.
The Commission's proposal for 2003 is essentially the current state of the art - vehicles complying with these limit values are generally speaking already on our roads.
There is already a list of registrations which indicates that over 80 vehicles already comply with the 2003 values.
We do not want to tinker about with that - what we want is a second binding stage for 2006, applying the EURO III 2000 motor car levels to motorised two-wheel vehicles.
However, we want to see one thing start in 2003 that already applies to cars and to light and heavy commercial vehicles. I have in mind concentration on the sustainability of emissions-related parts.
Of course, it does not make much sense if a two-wheel vehicle achieves marvellous emission limit values on the test bench if in practice, after just a few thousand kilometres, these limit values are history.
That is why we want to see a start made on sustainability for motorised two-wheel vehicles in 2003 and why we also want to create a situation whereby if there is a serious suspicion that particular models are not complying with emission limit values on a long-term basis, the authorities are empowered to check this using in-service surveys to ensure in-use compliance.
I have been told that it is not yet possible to do anything as regards 2006, because we do not yet have a new motorcycle test cycle, and because the test cycle needs to be revised before we can do anything.
I do not agree with that.
As with heavy commercial vehicles, we have said that it would be good if we had a worldwide cycle, but we want to stick to our objective.
That objective is that by 2006 we should achieve a level corresponding to the motor car level for 2000, allowing a little more time for motorcycles, but they must reach that level by then.
If there is no other test cycle by then, we will just have to use the same cycle that applies to cars.
Mr Goodwill and I have built in a slightly longer lead time for certain smaller manufacturers who would have particular problems in converting their production lines. I think that is appropriate and does not affect the overall result.
I believe that that if we accept the proposals of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and enter into the conciliation procedure with the Council, motorcycle riders will in future be able to exercise both their responsibility and their freedom, and that should be our common objective.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Climate Summit held recently in The Hague dealt with the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol, to notoriously meagre effect.
This forces us to confront the seriousness of the situation that the motorised transport sector is currently facing.
Transport accounts for a huge proportion of CO2 and NOx emissions, road transport being the worst culprit.
It is true that two and three-wheel motor vehicles only constitute a very small percentage of total road traffic volume.
It is therefore all the more striking that their contribution to emissions is relatively high.
According to the forecasts of the Auto Oil Programme II, unless there is a change in policy, this proportion will only increase.
The current generation of two and three-wheel vehicles still satisfies the requirements placed on other older vehicles.
However, these categories are regularly confronted with more stringent emission standards.
In order to allow two and three-wheel vehicles to perform to optimum effect, it is desirable to adapt emission standards on a continuous basis.
Therefore, I personally am content with the line proposed by the rapporteur.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, I am pleased that the rapporteur has advocated a longer period, although not as long as our committee would have liked, for the smaller manufacturers of two and three-wheel vehicles.
Mr President, all in all I am delighted with Mr Lange' s report.
The implementation thereof should mean a step in the direction of a sustainable transport system, and, of course, that is what Parliament wants.
Mr President, this amendment to the directive is part of the process of tidying up the loose ends not covered by the Auto/Oil Programme.
I cannot wait for the other directives coming along on small pleasure craft and the small spark ignition engine which will complete the story.
Motorcycles constitute a very small percentage of traffic volume.
Advances in engine technology for cars and trucks coupled with a 6% rise in motorcycle mileage in the 1990s have meant that the proportion of pollution from bikes is increasing.
I therefore welcome this proposal but with certain reservations.
My major concern is the short time between 2003 when the new standards will apply to new models and the date when that is extended to all new motorcycles.
This will put tremendous pressure on the smaller European manufacturers, like Triumph and CCM in the United Kingdom.
Although these modifications are technically feasible, small companies do not have the resources to do the work in only 12 months and the development costs would have to be recovered from a smaller volume of vehicles.
This would put European manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage as compared with the big boys from the Far East.
I am pleased, therefore, that the rapporteur has recognised this by extending this transition phase to two years.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur by leading by example by converting his own classic Harley Davidson motorcycle with a retro-fitted catalytic converter.
It is not a case of saying one thing and doing another from that side of the House.
I have some reservations regarding on-board diagnostics and in-service testing.
Regarding on-board diagnostics, a motorcycle is often the first vehicle that a young person buys with limited resources and therefore this will make the vehicle more expensive.
Secondly, I am rather cynical about what the owner of the bike will do when that little green light comes on saying that the exhaust system is not performing to standard.
I suspect he may be tempted just to take the bulb out.
Maybe at this stage of the game we should keep these two balls in play and see how the game progresses towards second reading and possible conciliation.
Lastly, on the subject of fiscal measures. Whilst I support market solutions like tax incentives, these should be applied by Member States according to national criteria if they so wish.
This proposal is to be made under Article 95, that is to say qualified majority voting, and despite the 28 vetoes given up by Tony Blair at Nice, the UK has not yet given up its right to determine its own taxes, and therefore this should not be within the scope of this directive.
Subsidiarity is something that should be protected.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive upon which we are about to vote is a substantial step forward in the Union's intention to pursue ambitious goals in the field of the restriction of air pollution.
We are currently in a paradoxical situation: although motorcycles represent only 2-3 % of the total volume of transport, motorcycle emissions account for an increasingly high proportion of the total emissions.
The amendments tabled by Mr Lange, like almost all those adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, enhance the Commission's proposal.
In particular, the insistence on the development of Europe-wide test cycles specifically for motor vehicles, but also the call to make type approval subject to confirmation of the effectiveness of the anti-pollution measures are indications of the European Parliament's will to take firm action in such a sensitive area as this.
In this regard, it would appear important to stress that the majority of these objectives are widely endorsed by the sector's businesses.
This means both that Mr Lange's negotiations with them have been successful and that awareness is growing among producers too of the need to contribute to improving our environmental conditions.
Therefore, the decision to fix, as of now, not only the date for revising the initial limits set - 2006 - but also the limits for the second stage, is an indication of Parliament's decision to apply continual pressure to industry to make progress.
Moreover, the introduction of the opportunity to revise these limits in line with the hoped-for technological developments is evidence of the will to continue the dialogue with manufacturers in the future as well.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Lange for producing another excellent report on an important issue, that of atmospheric pollution and ozone smog.
Several hundred thousand motor cycles cause just as much atmospheric pollution in my country, the Netherlands, as all the six and a half million cars put together.
We cannot have a situation where new cars have to become exceptionally clean in 2005, but motor cycles get off scot-free.
Nor is it acceptable that new lorries produced after 2007 will become exceptionally clean, whilst motor cycles remain unaffected.
So I hope that when it comes to tomorrow' s vote, all delegates will vote in favour of equipping new motor cycles with a catalytic converter in 2006.
Finally, I have a question for the Commission.
I believe it is now high time we abolished the exemption for diesel motors, i.e. for trains from 1978.
Trains too, must, and could, be far cleaner.
I hope the Commission is prepared to respond on this point.
Mr President, Commissioner, the high number of motorcycles on the roads and in the cities of the European Union is a clear reality, particularly in the Mediterranean Member States, which enjoy good weather throughout the year.
Mr Lange' s report, whose environmental concern our group shares, constantly compares 2- and 3-wheel vehicles with 4-wheel vehicles.
However, their ease of use, the fluidity that they give to traffic in cities, their simplicity for parking and the low cost of purchasing and maintaining them should be more than sufficient reason for the necessary anti-pollution measures not to decrease their use.
The European industry needs more time to apply the proposed measures.
I therefore ask that the Commission, in cooperation with the manufacturers, evaluate the applicability and the cost-efficiency relationship of these measures and essentially of the periods proposed, as we run the risk of indirectly favouring the large companies in the sector, which are precisely not the European ones.
We need tax incentives to facilitate the sale and use of less-polluting vehicles that are easy to use, improve traffic and are more integrated into our cities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lange, because he has once again spearheaded a very important debate here.
I believe that two and three-wheel motor vehicles are particularly fashionable and in vogue at present and we should therefore make a point of ensuring that they comply with the latest exhaust emission standards.
There has been great progress in research in this field, and it is now up to us to implement this research.
The inventory of emissions drawn up by the Commission demonstrates very clearly the progress that has been made with NOx emissions: up to 80% for four-stroke engines as against a maximum of 70% for two-strokes.
These values really look quite respectable.
That is why I am in favour of staged reductions which, if they are reasonable, will certainly mean great benefits for motorcycle drivers and others using these engines.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the European Parliament, and Mr Lange, for their lively debate on this issue.
The rapporteur recommends the adoption of the Commission' s proposal on limit values to be implemented as from 2003.
The rapporteur, however, is suggesting a second stage for mandatory limit values to apply from 2006.
This stage would be based on a test cycle for passenger cars.
The Commission acknowledges the need for this second stage.
We shall be putting forward a separate proposal for this by the end of 2002.
The forthcoming proposal will be based on additional research into the technical performance and economic viability of equipment that is more advanced with regard to reducing emissions.
In this next stage, emissions will have to be measured in relation to an improved test cycle.
The situation will thus be made to match the real driving dynamics of motorcycles.
The Commission has not included mandatory limits to apply from 2006 in its proposal, as it does not yet have access to the information that would give the right sort of scientifically persuasive support to the introduction of test cycles.
The Commission actively supports the development of a worldwide, harmonised test cycle for motorcycles.
The work was started in 1999, and in May of 2000 the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe extended an official mandate for this, having the support of the Member States of the EU, Japan and the United States.
The work programme is progressing according to schedule.
For that reason, we believe that the new cycle will be introduced in sufficient time for it to start being applied in 2006.
This is in line with Mr Lange' s views.
Consequently, the Commission cannot support the amendments proposing that a decision be now made to start the mandatory second stage in 2006.
The relevant amendments are Amendments Nos 3, 5, 10, 11, 23, 24 and 25.
However, the Commission is obviously prepared to take part in formulating a general Interinstitutional Agreement as soon as possible.
The rapporteur mentions several measures to ensure more reliably that emission control equipment functions efficiently throughout a vehicle' s lifetime.
The Commission recognises the importance of these if we want to make sure that there is a genuine reduction in emissions whilst driving.
A motorcycle, however, is a very different product from a car in technical terms.
In applying requirements for motorcycles attention has to be paid to the consequences, meaning there has to be a careful appraisal made of technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness.
I might reply to the question put by Mr de Roo regarding rail transport that the matter is also being looked into but no proposal has yet been made.
The Commission in principle accepts the amendments in which the Commission is urged to examine the points of view mentioned earlier.
However, we reject the amendments which propose dates for the mandatory application of requirements, or provisions that take no account of the final results of research.
This is a reference to Amendments Nos 6, 13, 14, 15, 20 and 22.
The Commission adopts the same position with regard to Amendments Nos 8 and 17, dealing with carbon dioxide emissions from motorcycles.
The report contains several amendments the Commission would be able to support, such as Amendments Nos 4 and 12, if Member States were given the opportunity to encourage the retrofitting of emission control equipment and parts in older motor vehicles.
The same holds true for Amendment No 1 and the latter part of Amendment No 9, in which it is proposed that a year-long exemption be granted for the special class of trial motorcycles, and the first part of Amendment No 9, which recommends application to present models to start, not from January, but from July, 2004.
The Commission nevertheless rejects Amendment No 26, which would delay application to present models by a whole year.
In principle, the Commission also supports Amendments Nos 7 and 16 on requirements for defeat devices and by-pass arrangements, and believes it is able to include such requirements in its current proposal.
The Commission can thus accept Amendments Nos 4, 9, 12 and 18, and, in principle, Amendments Nos 2, 7, 8, 16 and 21, and, in part, Amendments Nos 1, 4, 19, 20 and 22.
The Commission cannot, however, accept Amendments Nos 3, 5, 6, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 23, 24, 25 or 26.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Vehicles with more than eight seats
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0039/2001) by Mr Miller, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Council common position with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and the Council relating to special provisions for vehicles used for the carriage of persons comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat, and amending Directives 70/156/EEC and 97/27/EC [9012/1/2000 - C5-0456/2000 - 1997/0176(COD)].
Mr President, earlier today we heard in the context of the copyright and GMO legislation how it has taken three years for Parliament to reach the point of being in a position to approve it.
Can I say that this report has been under negotiation for nine years and it is only now coming to fruition.
Since I took over the rapporteurship of this report I have tried to involve all the interested parties from the manufacturing side right through to the user side.
On the manufacturing side, I have had several meetings with the European constructors' association as well as individual bus companies.
All of these organisations are happy with the common position and the amendments.
In fact, they welcome the clarification it brings to the market.
I have listened to the users carefully and I have consulted widely. It is only after these consultations that I have put forward the amendments that you have in front of you tonight.
I would also pay tribute to the shadow rapporteurs who worked with me closely throughout the compiling of this report.
Unfortunately not all of them were able to persuade their groups to follow the line.
Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5 are specific detailed technical amendments designed to assist the manufacturers and relate to gangway slopes of 12.5% on existing class I and II buses.
These amendments have to be taken in conjunction with Amendment No 7.
In Amendment No 6 I am seeking to replace that with Amendment No 10 which refers to the ISO standard and not to separate Member State standards which I had initially put in Amendment No 6.
Amendment No 4 sets out in more detail the user groups that this report is trying to assist.
This list is, however, neither exhaustive nor prescriptive.
It was never intended to be and leaves plenty of scope for the inclusion of others.
Amendment No 8 opens up access to public transport to all those groups referred to in the aforementioned Amendment No 4.
For the first time, we are making public transport accessible to all those people with reduced mobility.
This will be done by providing a kneeling system with either a lift or ramp but it also takes into account infrastructure improvements which have been carried out as well.
Maybe I should declare an interest at this point.
Just before Christmas my mother unexpectedly lost her sight.
As a son I obviously wish to help her, as I wish to help all visually impaired people within the European Union.
It is what I was elected to do and I am sure it is what the vast majority of people in this Parliament were elected to do.
These citizens are important users of public transport and they depend on us in the European Parliament to get it right.
We have that chance tomorrow by voting for those amendments.
I must, however, also mention Amendment No 9 which was submitted later by the PPE-DE Group.
When this came up at the Legal Affairs Committee it went through unanimously but then, all of a sudden, we heard that the PPE-DE Group wishes to reject the common position.
I am sorry and disappointed that their amendment rejects the common position.
That would set back accessibility for those citizens I mentioned earlier by several years.
I understand that one of the reasons that they are proposing rejection of the common position is because it will shackle the industry.
It will tie up the industry in red tape.
Can I ask those in the PPE-DE who are intending to speak on this how they would feel if they were shackled to a wheelchair or to sticks or to having to have a guide dog? That is shackling, not what we are trying to do with the industry.
I would be ashamed if their Amendment No 9 is carried.
I would be ashamed for every Member of this Parliament who puts their hand up or presses a button to vote for that amendment.
I therefore urge you to vote against Amendment No 9 but support the other amendments.
Mr President, it has been, as always, a pleasure to work with my friend Bill Miller on these technical directives and I believe that we will have made a significant improvement to this directive if it is approved.
So I will not go through the amendments.
He has done a good job on that.
I just want to address the question of why we on this side have chosen to propose a motion of rejection.
It relates to the whole issue of whether Parliament should be handling technical directives.
I recall that in a speech not long ago in this Parliament Commissioner Liikanen talked about some of the problems he is facing on potential pedestrian protection legislation for cars.
He presented us with at least 60 pages of complex technical mathematical calculations and he challenged us: is this the sort of thing this Parliament should be considering? This directive is 150 pages long and it has it own share of technical calculations, graphs, charts and other detailed technical provisions.
The same arguments apply.
I want to pick up on a point made by Bill Miller.
He is right to challenge us on the question about disabled access, but he said and I quote him, "It will make public transport accessible to all users".
Regrettably that is not the case.
If it were, we would support it.
This piece of paper includes provision to make buses more accessible for disabled users, but it does not address the whole question of operating regulations for public transport systems across the European Union. The issues which our colleague Mr Howitt quite rightly says we should be putting in here: changing the infrastructure to make buses more accessible for disabled users.
What have we actually achieved after nine years?
Do we really have mutual recognition of technical standards between countries? Have we really achieved the sort of significant advances in safety that we want?
I had a look through these 150 pages. I may be wrong - Commissioner, you may be able to tell me this - but I could not find in here any provision for mandatory fitting of seat belts.
Why is that not in here if we are serious about the Council saying to us in this document that it has come up with a practicable solution with a high level of safety and user-friendliness.
If we really had achieved that, then we should be proud of it.
There are provisions, certainly, for things like strength of superstructure but the worrying thing here - and I ask the Commissioner to address this - is that this is not all.
At the end there is a list of things that the Commission and Council want to bring back to us. It does not address school buses.
It does not address the latest developing technology of buses.
There are going to be new provisions for superstructures.
When is all this going to end?
When are we going have realistic and sensible measures and the sort of technical committee structure that this Parliament asked you to introduce at first reading in 1997 and which is simply dismissed here? I quote in conclusion: "The Commission was unable to support the approach and in consequence did not amend its original proposal."
Not a single word of explanation.
That is why my group will be recommending that this is rejected tomorrow.
Mr President, there is much in the text to promote access to buses by disabled people - passenger handrails, non-slip surfaces, standards for wheelchairs and a wide definition of reduced mobility to include all disabled people.
However, the key to tonight's debate is Amendment No 8: a guarantee of level access to all new buses in urban areas for persons with reduced mobility.
To achieve this requires a boarding aid, a lift or a ramp, because a low-floor bus on its own is not enough.
Our failure to agree this crucial part of the text would leave disabled people quite literally falling through the crack, a crack for which we would ourselves be responsible.
The rapporteur - to whom I offer my heartfelt thanks - has forged a compromise which seeks to share responsibility for access between bus manufacturers, operators, local planning and transport authorities.
But as we negotiate the final outcome I say to Parliament and the Commission that even a raised kerb at every bus stop can never be the full access solution.
Bad parking or obstacles on the pavement can still prevent boarding, whilst a simple manual swing-over ramp, built into the floor of each new bus, is cheap and will work time after time.
Yet nine years after this directive was first discussed, when the disability movement for a generation has put accessible public transport at the heart of its demands, those on the opposite side of the House threaten to vote, not simply against the amendment, but to destroy the whole directive.
Do they do so on grounds of cost? No.
The study of accessible buses commissioned by my own government shows low operating costs outweighing the marginal extra capital costs, while a 14% increase in passengers brought in extra revenue.
Do they do so because of objections from manufacturers?
No. A check today, again in my own Member State, shows that British bus manufacturers and British bus operators are unanimous in their view that they want the directive to go through.
Do they do so because of a genuine difficulty at all?
No. Because the parliamentary committee that scrutinised these proposals in detail voted for them unanimously.
Mr President, my only conclusion, as we have heard tonight, is that those who oppose do so because they share the prejudice that disability access is an unnecessary technical detail.
They are wrong.
For a disabled person it means the freedom to travel or the restriction to stay at home.
Tonight we have the chance to grant that freedom to vote for accessible public transport.
We must and we will.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have before us today the standard European bus directive, on which we adopted a position at first reading.
The rapporteur then was Mr Murphy.
Murphy's Law is of course famous, but I have to say that Mr Murphy did a first-rate job, because he recognised that this directive involves implementing a number of important political principles, namely access for the elderly, children and the disabled.
We are fully in agreement with that.
We need to do something for those groups: buses and public transport must be accessible to them and we want to put all our combined energies into achieving that objective.
So why are we rejecting this directive? Because at first reading the Commission brought forward a proposal comprising over 100 pages of detailed regulations, and during the first reading debate all the groups agreed to reject the directive for reasons of principle.
Now the Commission and the Council have come back with their common position, which is not 100 pages long, but 150 pages.
At first reading we said that we could imagine at most three pages covering the key political principles.
This directive contains some really choice passages of a kind you very rarely find.
For example, on page 17 we have Figure 17, which is about permissible configurations for rear corner seats, and shows a plan view of the prescribed seat area, with both rear corner seats, in relation to Annex I Section 7.7.8.6.3.4, and as with aircraft design a maximum radius of 150 mm is prescribed.
I know that we in the European Union have set the radius of curvature for bananas and cucumbers and goodness knows what else, but I find it hard to imagine that we now need to set a radius of curvature for the standard European bus.
The directive also contains a formula that must even be hard for engineers to understand.
I have to say that this document is not a suitable basis for political decision making.
So the position is that designers, bus purchasers, consumer protection organisations and also disabled persons' organisations are in agreement with this directive, but are all very unhappy. They all say that we want to achieve the objective of using disabled-accessible buses in Europe.
We in the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats want a new approach here, which quite simply means limiting ourselves to key policy aspects.
First of all, that means standards for access for the elderly, for children and for disabled persons.
This is extremely important and needs to be guaranteed. Secondly, we want safety standards for drivers and passengers.
Thirdly, we want the principle of mutual recognition.
The reason this principle of mutual recognition is so important is that a bus obviously needs to be different if it operates in a small poor village in Sicily, where it is very hot, as compared with a bus which has to cope with London's rush hour, with millions of passengers and where quite different demands are made of the bus. A bus operating in northern Finland, in conditions of extreme cold and covering great distances would again have to be very different.
That is why the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats is calling for the rejection of the common position and is requesting a vote.
We believe that it is important for us not to make everything in Europe the same. The European public is also opposed to this desire towards sameness.
We wish to see mutual recognition.
I have confidence in British, French and German buses, and that is how things should remain.
Mr President, at first reading of this directive, Parliament indicated very clearly to the Council and the Commission that it wished to replace the detailed legislation with general guidelines and to allow a technical committee to prescribe the detailed specifications.
However, the Council' s common position rides roughshod over Parliament.
The Council has not in any way taken account of Parliament' s firm repudiation of detailed legislation.
The report is about more than just buses.
It is about the way in which the EU is to legislate.
I am not of course opposed to making sure that people with disabilities can use European buses.
What I am opposed to is the mode of procedure.
I find it quite unreasonable that, as a politician, I should have to take decisions about how many millimetres bus door handles and luggage racks should measure.
In my own country, the EU is often made into a laughing-stock for meddling and for regulating in too much detail.
People quite rightly question an EU that is in many ways unwieldy and bent on regulating.
MEPs' credibility is brought into question if we take decisions about things we do not know anything about.
An example is Annex V of the Council' s common position.
I am not ashamed to say that I do not understand the formula according to which the closing power of automatic doors is to be calculated.
I do not want to contribute to making ourselves and the EU into laughing-stocks.
Despite the fact that I was not involved in the first reading in 1988, I would remind this Parliament that it voted 485 to 1 in favour of the general guidelines rather than the detailed legislation.
Why should Parliament change its mind now? For the Swedish Conservative Party, this was an important issue in the 1999 elections.
I was elected on a mandate to combat politicians' inability to leave things alone.
I cannot therefore vote in favour of the Council' s common position.
I would therefore call upon the whole Parliament to vote in favour of Amendment No 9, tabled by my colleague Mr Lehne and rejecting the Council' s common position.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Miller, as well as the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, whose work has enabled this case to be brought to a successful conclusion.
As you no doubt recall, this proposal for a directive on the construction of buses and coaches gave rise to lengthy and involved debates at first reading.
This draft has been before us for three years already.
We have come a long way since then.
A consensus has been reached between the Council, Parliament and Commission.
As well as the institutions, the various parties involved such as bus and coach manufacturers, public transport operators and user groups, including those which represent passengers with reduced mobility, have also arrived at a consensus.
That is why we welcome the work of the rapporteur, who succeeded in bringing together some often divergent interests.
It is now possible for the proposal to be adopted quickly, which will allow the safety of buses and their passengers to be improved.
The Commission can accept the eight amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, either in full or in principle.
Amendments Nos 1, 7 and 8 are acceptable as they stand.
Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 5, which relate to the permissible slope of the bus' s floor area, are acceptable in principle, but may, of course, be reviewed at the drafting stage.
Amendment No 4, which gives a list of people with reduced mobility, will most probably be challenged by Member States, as it introduces the risk of excluding some categories of users.
Would it not be better retain the general definition, which is, for that very reason, more comprehensive? Finally, Amendment No 6, which seeks to change the figure of the wheelchair, is acceptable in principle, but not in the form proposed in the report.
The reference to an ISO standard or to an authorised diagram, as the rapporteur proposes in Amendment No 10, would be preferable, bearing in mind, however, that we must ensure that size, shape and weight of the wheelchair, together with its occupant, are compatible with the physical characteristics of access areas.
On the other hand, the Commission does not wish to repeat the debate held at first reading on the regulatory approach to vehicles.
We do not, therefore, endorse the idea of challenging the timeliness of a directive, by which I am referring to Amendment No 9.
To sum up, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 10 in principle and can accept Amendments Nos 1, 7 and 8.
I want to reply to Mr Harbour on this question of principle.
Since Lisbon, when we discussed new proposals, we must consider alternatives.
For instance, we are talking about disabilities at the moment.
I have had a lot of discussion about design standards for the disabled in the information society to try to find ways to make all the tools for the information society available for people with different kinds of disabilities.
We should try to analyse when a new approach directive can be used vis-à-vis old approach directives.
We must see what type of regulatory reforms we can have which serve this purpose in an easier way.
I do not want to have this debate now because we have opened it for the future proposal.
This has progressed so far that the Commission proposes to accept it in the way I have presented.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Community incentive measures in employment
The next item is the report (A5-0018/2001) by Mrs Jensen, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision on Community incentive measures in the field of employment [COM(2000) 459 - C5-0384/2000 - 2000/0195(COD)].
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the shadow rapporteurs from the other parties for cooperating so well on this report.
I think it is to be welcomed that we can muster a broad majority for a proposal that extends Parliament' s earlier decisions.
By means of this proposal, we are establishing the framework for the EU' s employment policy over the next five years.
Employment policy is based, of course, upon what we call open coordination which, most recently at the Lisbon Summit, has been highlighted as a method that may be used within many other areas of policy.
Open coordination means that countries may use different methods of achieving common goals.
And the common goal in this case is higher employment.
What we have here are recommended guidelines for the policies of the Member States.
Countries must report on what they are doing to make the unemployed better able to meet the demands of the labour market.
Encouragement must be given to the spirit of enterprise and to flexibility in the labour market, and countries must work to promote a better relationship between work and family life.
This reporting, carried out by the Member States every year, therefore forms the point of departure for the Commission' s annual report on employment in the EU which, together with the Commission' s analyses and statistics concerning development, forms the basis for the Council' s recommendation to the individual countries.
The process is open.
There is a free choice of policy, and if a country goes down a markedly different path than the one recommended, it can be criticised, but nothing more. Is the process too informal, then?
A whole lot of reports, meetings and conferences and a whole lot of words, but no certainty that the objectives will be achieved. On the surface of it, the process is indeed perhaps not formal enough.
However, this policy whereby countries measure their efforts against each other and exchange experiences - benchmarking and employment of best practices, to use the modern terminology - means that a broader public gets to see which countries are doing well and which less well. To a large extent, open coordination works by becoming a subject in the public and national debate about employment policy.
In those countries where youth unemployment is high, the public is bound to ask how it can be that their politicians are not achieving the same good results as politicians in other countries.
Is there anything we can learn from the efforts of other countries? Transparency, understood as openness to the public, is in actual fact a very important agent in this process.
We therefore want to see more focus upon providing information to the public at large and upon involving the parties in the labour market, together with local and regional authorities, to a much greater extent than is contemplated in the Commission' s proposal.
Article 129 provides, of course, for the possibility of introducing pilot projects.
We want an exchange of information about the ways and means of involvement at local level.
This could be a pilot project.
There is no question of our having new projects which mimic practices with which the Social Fund has familiarised us.
It is about developing analyses, knowledge and information about the whys and wherefores of local and regional involvement in employment policy.
By means of its communication concerning the role of local and regional authorities, the Commission has already made a start upon work of this kind.
In this year' s Budget, Parliament too has introduced a new budget line for preparative initiatives to promote local participation in employment policy.
We have done this precisely to promote a broader knowledge of European employment strategy. By including in this proposal the role of local and regional authorities in employment policy, we ensure that there is a legal basis for this initiative.
When, in this way, we ask the Commission to do more work than is contemplated in the Commission' s own proposal, then appropriations must of course follow, and my report therefore proposes an increase in appropriations to EUR 65 million in contrast to the Commission' s proposal of EUR 55 million.
To put it briefly, the open coordination method must be open in two senses.
It must be open in the sense that countries retain the freedom to organise their own policies and that there must be a number of ways to achieve the same objectives.
However, it must also be open in the sense that the general public is involved far more than it is at present.
The policy on employment, or Luxembourg process, is to be commended, but why does it have to be a matter of such secrecy?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this morning President Prodi reported that over a million new jobs were created in Europe last year, and that two-thirds of these were for women.
This demonstrates that employment programmes and work in this area can have very positive effects.
I also believe that the method adopted by the Commission is the right one, that is a combination of benchmarking and promoting best practice with a view to making Europe the world leader in the knowledge-based society.
The Commission has also applied its funding very carefully.
Expenditure was only 50% of commitments.
So a great deal has been achieved with very limited means, which is particularly commendable.
And perhaps it will also be possible to trim administrative expenditure further in future.
The potential is certainly there.
On the other hand, we should do everything in our power to improve and extend this programme in future.
The relevant committee has made appropriate proposals to this effect, and the European Parliament would be proud if the positive achievements of the past year could be carried forward.
In the field of information technology alone - the information society - we will be unable to fill around a million jobs by 2004 because of inadequate training.
I believe that it is a great challenge for us to create new, interesting and good jobs in this area and also in the field of biotechnology, where we need research to solve the problems associated with BSE. In short, we specifically need to invest in these new areas.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Commission proposal has the basic objective of encouraging cooperation between the Member States in terms of analysis, research and monitoring of employment policy, determining best practices and promoting the exchange and transfer of information and experiences.
Thus, based on the need to support and develop the European Employment Strategy, the Commission is proposing a series of measures, which include analysis, research and cooperation between Member States on employment, which will be very helpful for achieving the new strategic objective established in Lisbon, which is to make Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, with more and better jobs and with greater social cohesion.
We therefore fully support the Commission proposal, although I feel that it could be improved on some points which, broadly speaking, are as follows: firstly, and with regard to the planned Community measures, one of them supports a more strategic approach to employment in the Union, through analysis and evaluation of the factors that explain employment tendencies, the general political framework, etc.
On this point the Commission proposal does not envisage that the analysis and evaluation will be conducted in a specific way, for men and for women, something that I consider to be essential if we take into account that unemployment in Europe is largely among women.
It is not excessive to say that, if employment among women were not taken into account, in some regions of the Union there would even be full employment.
With this in mind, and given that employment incentive measures must be one of the key tools for developing equal opportunities, we need to consider what women' s employment needs are.
We therefore need to consider which are the studies aimed at offering more childcare and social assistance in the home.
In this respect, we need to ensure that there is sufficient supply of quality services, particularly when dealing with dependants, which in the majority of cases are the responsibility of women.
We therefore need to encourage the incorporation of women into the labour market and encourage them to remain in it, with an equal distribution of family responsibilities between men and women.
We need to take into account the reinsertion of women and, without any doubt, differentiating between the studies by sex would help us to understand the problems that this raises.
Mr President, this evening, we have returned to the European Parliament, at 11.40 p.m., to discuss the document on the Community incentive measures in employment, an extremely important document which calls not only for our presence here but also for that of Commissioner Diamantopoulou, who is thus demonstrating a certain concern for employment issues.
Moreover, since 14 February, Valentine's Day is only a quarter of an hour away, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all lovers: I hope that there are some in this rough, tough, severe Parliament as well.
With regard to the document under consideration, I have tabled an amendment on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party calling for the scope of the directive to include an analysis of policy developments from the viewpoints of certain categories of people such as the elderly, the disabled and other vulnerable groups.
Mr President, this programme appropriates EUR 55 million over five years, chiefly to statistics and the drawing up of documentation on the employment strategy; we are talking mainly about aid to the Member States to achieve the above statistics.
A small proportion of the amount, which I feel should be increased, is for pilot projects intended to identify new forms of employment and work.
In my opinion, these should certainly include - as Commissioner Diamantopoulou said in her first speech - the new activity of caring for the ever-increasing number of elderly and disabled people carried out by young workers who are able to find work in this field and, at the same time, make life easier for the elderly.
I have already tabled this amendment in committee, Mr President, but I am afraid that the left-wing section of Parliament, the socialists that is, rejected it.
I am tabling it again in the Chamber in the hope that, this time, the request for the scope of the directive to be extended to include this activity as well will be accepted by that section of Parliament which professes always to be sensitive to the problems of elderly and disabled people, that is the left side, and that Mrs Jensen's central section will vote for this amendment too.
Tomorrow morning, I shall request a vote by name on this amendment, although I am sure that this will not be necessary and that it will be accepted unanimously.
I truly hope that Europe will concern itself, at last, with elderly and disabled people in the field of employment.
Mr President, first of all I want to say to the previous speaker, Mr Fatuzzo, that I am sorry that we in the Group of the Party of European Socialists are unable to support his amendments, for they simply do not fit into this context.
Back to the report, however.
First of all, I want to congratulate the rapporteur.
There is reason for doing so, for this is Mrs Jensen' s first report, and it is also a very good piece of work she has done.
As we all know, the report was, of course, adopted by a very large majority of the committee.
That is gratifying, for this is a very important piece of work.
This decision must ensure that the employment policy we talk so much about is not just a matter of fine words, but that these are in actual fact backed by vigorous action.
Nor must there be any doubt that we in the Group of the Party of European Socialists support open coordination whenever this is the most effective tool for achieving the desired objectives.
Employment policy is so important because it is the test run for the open coordination method, and it is of the very greatest importance to show that this method is being taken seriously and is producing the desired results.
Employment policy will simply be a model for many of the other areas - which are already part of the ambitious plan adopted in Lisbon last spring - in which we should also like to use the open coordination method.
And in the next few weeks, when Heads of State and Government take the Commission' s telling-off seriously and give some impetus to the many outstanding initiatives in the wake of the Lisbon Summit, we shall hopefully also have it confirmed that the open coordination method can be used.
The incentive measures must support employment policy, and that is why the incentive measures are important.
I am therefore very pleased that we in the committees were able to reach agreement on a series of amendments and improvements to the Commission' s proposal.
These amendments relate to five different points.
First of all, information must be provided about employment policy.
Secondly, the parties in the labour market, together with the relevant local and regional authorities, must be involved.
Thirdly, the focus must be placed upon equal opportunities for men and women, in which connection I should like to thank the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
Fourthly, an assessment and revision of the open coordination method must be set in motion. And fifthly, the programme must be extended to include pilot projects as well.
What, in other words, we are concerned with here is a quite extensive alteration to the incentive measures which, in a way, were good enough originally.
In this way, we have extended their area of application, and I therefore also hope that, together, we can increase the financial resources we have for implementing the measures so that it will not in any case be possible to accuse Parliament of only producing fine words and not backing them up with genuine action.
I hope that the Commission and the Council are ready to demonstrate the same drive that we have tried to demonstrate here in Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am speaking on behalf of the Italian radicals.
Despite Mrs Jensen's fine work, I feel that this report is not of great significance.
I know that there is effectively a need to do what the Commission, through its proposal, and the Treaties themselves call for, namely to combine best practices with all speed, to promote innovative processes and approaches and to assess the results.
I do not feel, however, that, in order to do this, there is still a need in the Europe of today to invest EUR 55 million over a small number of years in order to produce more detailed analyses, to attempt to find links between the experiences of the different countries and to promote cooperation - although it is not clear what this means in terms of employment - between the individual countries.
Do we really believe that, in order to carry out benchmarking, today, we need to perform once again yet more studies, to sprinkle euro dust on a thousand small more or less nepotistic channels - some to the trade unions, some to the different business organisations, some to the non-governmental organisations - to finance new studies which will end up, covered in dust, taking up space on the shelves of libraries? Mr President, I really do not think we need this.
There may be a need to coordinate the recording of statistics or to consolidate and update the Eurostat comparison methods - I can see that - but I do not feel that we need to be spending money on further studies and analyses, on information exchange, on pilot projects which, when all is said and done, artificially create jobs subsidised by European, State or local public finances and will continue to do so in the future, but which will serve no practical purpose.
We waste time, we confuse the European unemployed, but we do not carry out those reforms which are truly necessary and with which we are all familiar.
A few minutes ago, in this Chamber, we were talking about groups of people who are disadvantaged in terms of employment.
In my country, Italy, thanks to a few reforms - extremely minor reforms opposed by the trade unions - liberalising the labour market, we created hundreds of thousands of new jobs last year, mainly in the disadvantaged areas of the South, for women and young people, but we did this through structural measures, which is what is needed, and not, I regret to say, thanks to new, enormously expensive studies.
Mr President, I disagree with the previous speaker so first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, on this comprehensive report.
Indeed, there is much that we can support in this report, in particular the emphasis given to the proposed Community-level/local-level mixed approach to employment policy.
In the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities we emphasise that the analysis and evaluation of this action in the field of employment should be carried out on a gender-specific basis, given that women are bearing the brunt of unemployment in Europe.
Commissioner, the Lisbon objectives of bringing up the employment rates for women, a target for 2010 of 60% can already be considered too ambitious.
In the Kingdom of Spain where the employment rate of women is probably the lowest in the European Union, it hardly reaches 30% of the active population.
That is why the Committee on Women's Rights asked for an analysis of the causes of this tremendous gap: part-time working, pregnancy, parental leave, household responsibilities, etc.
That is why we, Euskal Herritarok, ask all the Members of this House to back all the amendments proposed by the Committee on Women's Rights and of course the actual report by Mrs Jensen.
Mr President, after the abortive Nice Summit, we would do well to remember an event that gave the EU a great boost: the Luxembourg Employment Summit.
That summit succeeded in convincing the Member States actively to do more to improve employability and adaptability, to establish a new entrepreneurial spirit and to enhance equal opportunities.
Since then, model measures in the Member States have been a central plank of Europe's employment strategy.
A thorough assessment and evaluation of what these have achieved is to take place: reintegration into working life, activities to promote equality of opportunities, elimination of exclusion, and targeted measures to create a suitable environment for setting up small and medium-sized businesses.
Are we right in our view that European added value can be created if actions in the Member States are interlinked with Community initiatives and with Community education, training and further education programmes?
We want to involve local and regional stakeholders more actively by means of pilot projects and therefore call on the Commission to top up the funding it has proposed.
I believe that a priority here is improved coordination of employment and economic policy, which are, after all, two sides of the same coin.
We now need to have the courage to make more of our potential and not only be consulted when the employment policy guidelines are being drawn up - that is not enough.
As a European Parliament we need to get involved on a more consistent basis in the employment week in Brussels in November, whilst here in Strasbourg we should at long last find time to devote a whole day to a debate on the creation of jobs of the future and the implementation of national action plans. As part of this, proper attention needs to be paid to the achievements of the social partners and the experiences of employees hit by unemployment and assisted by job creation measures.
Mr President, that would be our contribution towards a good campaign on Europe's employment strategy.
Mr President, a job - work - is the most important means of preventing exclusion.
The European Union is little able to tackle the question of employment directly.
The Luxembourg process, as it is known, with its yearly reports on employment and its approach to best practices and learning by example, is an excellent attempt to reinforce cooperation among Member States and encourage success and transparency.
A big step forward will be the subsequent Luxembourg process, which invests in new technology and uses it to put Europe on the path to growth.
Action to bolster employment must focus too on where best to obtain added value, in other words, education and training, research, the adoption of new technology as a tool of growth and, in particular, as one of sustainable growth.
We shall have equality by attending to the matter of public social services, which also make it possible for women to be fully represented in the labour market.
Mr President, I wish, first of all, to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, on the timeliness and the quality of her rapport.
One of the Union' s objectives is to promote a high level of employment.
Therefore, within the framework of the Luxembourg process, the Member States have been cooperating in the field of employment policy, and are responsible for selecting specific measures for its implementation. In fact, it could not be otherwise.
More recently, the Lisbon European Council set the Union the strategic objective of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth generating more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.
This report seeks to make a contribution towards meeting this new challenge set in Lisbon, covering equal opportunities for men and women in the field of employment, an important pillar in the European Employment Strategy.
The report aims to foster cooperation between Member States in analysis, research and monitoring of labour market policy, identifying best practices and promoting exchanges and transfers of information and experience. All of this will be flanked by an active information policy, so that Europe' s citizens can easily see what the strategic objectives in the field of employment are.
We must ensure that the social partners and relevant local and regional authorities are involved in this effort, which must be a communal effort.
Furthermore, it is equally crucial that a study should be made of infrastructures that help men and women to gain employment and to remain employed, such as crèche places and home help, a point that is made clear in the opinion of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
The European Parliament is already a key player within the consultation process in defining the annual employment guidelines and must now also participate in a quantitative and qualitative evaluation of the effects of the European Employment Strategy in general.
I wish to say a final word about the allocation of resources for employment incentive measures.
The use of public funds must be dealt with in a balanced and extremely rigorous way.
An increased budgetary appropriation in this domain would therefore appear to be something that is essential and to be welcomed.
It must also be emphasised that the allocation of resources must meet real, specific needs and take account of the implementation of the budget for each heading.
Mr President, I too would like to join my colleagues in thanking Mrs Jensen for her report and congratulating her on it.
In the limited time that is available it is important that, as a number of speakers have already touched upon a number of disadvantaged groups or groups who are not doing so well in employment areas, we consider a number of aspects, the three most important ones being: equality of opportunity, equality of access and equality of training.
Equality of opportunity must mean that all jobs, all services that are available, are open to all equally.
Equality of access means that there should be no physical impediment towards people accessing training or employment opportunities.
Equality of education means that people must have the skills that are required for the jobs that are going to be available.
We have moved from a time when there was heavy industrialised and intensive labour areas of industry, to other smaller networks, smaller cooperation.
We need to look more towards giving the skills and training to young people, middle-aged people, elderly people and those living in urban and rural areas to guarantee that they have equality of access to that training and new jobs.
The national action plans on employment, under the Luxembourg process, are very useful to us in ensuring that we use the carrot and stick with the Member States.
We can give extra resources where they are providing good jobs and meeting their targets and we can take them back when they are not doing it.
Mr President, as it is now after midnight, I say to you, Mr President and to you, Commissioner, happy Valentine's day!
This is a very good report.
I say that without surprise as it is by Mrs Jensen, so of course it is a good report.
However, it was a slightly better report before the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs 'improved it' .
Some of the amendments that have come through have not made it a better document.
I refer to just two aspects.
The first aspect - taking my life in my hands - refers to some of the amendments of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.
I strongly support women's rights.
I strongly support the rights of young people, of old people, of disabled people and many other minorities.
But only the women have their own committee to speak up for them.
At times, perhaps, their voice drowns out some of the other groups, in my judgment.
I take as an example Article 3.1(1) where the original text said: "To the maximum possible extent analysis will be gender-specific".
I agree with that.
It should be gender-specific to the maximum possible extent.
But the Women's Committee has taken out the words "to the maximum possible extent".
Apparently "maximum possible" is not quite maximum enough.
I believe it was fine as it was.
I use that as an example, but I am still supportive of women's rights.
I have my tomato-proof suit on just in case you were thinking of doing something.
The second point concerns the budget.
I believe the Committee on Budgets made a reference to the budget increasing from EUR 50 million to EUR 55 million, but on the basis that this should be proportionate to the implementation.
Last year's budget was EUR 50 million.
Only two-thirds of that was spent; 25% of that was eaten up by administrative costs.
To go up from EUR 55 million to 65 million - which is the latest amendment - is, in my view, disproportionate.
It is a reflection of the enthusiasm of the committee for this particular project.
Sometimes it is all too common that in order to signify the importance of a subject more money is offered to it.
I should like to hope that, increasingly, colleagues could recognise that money is not just a reflection of importance, and that it is possible to vote strongly for a report without increasing the money.
I fear I may have to wait a long time to see that.
Given my advancing years it may be my successors who see that approach first.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12.20 a.m.)
EC/Mexico Agreement (economic partnership, political coordination and cooperation)
The next item is the report (A5-0036/2001) by Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision establishing the Community position within the EC-Mexico Joint Council with a view to the adoption of a decision implementing Articles 6, 9, 12(2)(b) and 50 of the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement [COM(2000) 739 - C5-0698/2000 - 2000/0296(CNS)].
Mr President, my report refers to the fourth consultation of the European Parliament on the EU/Mexico Agreement.
Since it is also probably the last consultation for the foreseeable future it has particular importance.
The report concerns aspects of the agreement that are not covered by the so-called interim agreement, i.e. services, investment and aspects of intellectual property.
From a European perspective, the EU/Mexico agreement is generally seen as a milestone in the forthcoming relations with Latin American countries.
It has the largest scope of any agreement the EU has ever concluded with a third country, providing EC operators with more rapid preferential treatment than Mexico has ever before granted to any of its preferential partners.
Indeed, with this agreement, the EU has not only succeeded in achieving NAFTA parity but has actually achieved a result that goes beyond NAFTA privileges in a number of areas. Among those are the ones that I focus on in this report.
However, I believe that some of these gains for the EU are being made at the expense of the people of Mexico.
Although my report approves the proposal for a Council decision, it does so with some reluctance and with a number of serious reservations and recommendations for reform which I should like to set out now.
First and most important is the issue of poverty in Mexico.
It is essential that the agreement more fully reflects the fact that Mexico has an ambiguous position in terms of its development status.
On the one hand, it is a member of the OECD and thus is considered to be one of the industrialised countries; but, on the other hand, it is a country with 95 million inhabitants where well over half the population - 65% - live in poverty.
That means it is absolutely essential to take seriously the coherence principle of the European Union.
To me, the bottom line must be that a reinforced economic partnership with Mexico and better access to Mexican markets must not contradict development objectives and must not exacerbate the existing asymmetry between the two parties.
It is therefore of considerable concern that in a significant number of places the agreement is likely to hinder, rather than to support, poverty eradication, human rights and sustainable development.
I will outline some of these in a moment.
A good example is the fact that the agreement foresees the almost total prohibition of performance requirements which will prevent the Mexican side from specifying the terms on which it would like to see trade and foreign investment.
That means that Mexico will not be able to ensure that trade and foreign investment support its own emerging markets and its own development objectives.
Looking at the agreement in more detail, starting with services: For the Commission, the negotiated trade package in services is: "of key offensive interest".
Indeed the liberalisation covers very nearly all sectors.
So its terms and scope are very far-reaching.
But, more worryingly, it contains a stand-still clause which, by prohibiting Mexico from introducing any further standards and conditions in the future, could seriously damage the social and economic development and policy autonomy of this country.
Furthermore the agreement states that: "no mode of supply is a priori excluded from coverage".
If that implies that education and health might be covered without safeguards, this is an area of further concern.
I am sure Members will recall that in the European Parliament in 1999, in our response to the approach to the Millennium Round, we made a specific demand that health and education be excluded from the revision of the GATS.
It would therefore be inconsistent to include education and health in the EU/Mexico agreement as sectors that could be liberalised.
Finally, Mexican civil society groups believe that the Mexican negotiators went beyond their powers in making this agreement, since the agreement establishes the powers of the Joint Council to dismantle Mexican trade and services legislation, which clearly should be within the remit of the legislative power.
Parliament should support civil society in Mexico, which is asking for this unconstitutional provision to be changed.
On investment, the different economic crashes we have seen in Mexico make investment a particularly sensitive issue.
However, the definition of investment in the agreement includes direct investment, real estate and purchases of securities, and therefore seems to open the door to speculative movements and thus to further financial instability.
I could go on citing more problems that we can see in the area of intellectual property rights, on conflict resolution and, indeed, on human rights.
But to conclude in terms of where we need to go now, we need to have a clear statement from the Commissioner about the agenda of the Joint Council meeting on 27 February.
There are a number of key issues which I have raised which must be on that agenda.
I would like to know from the Commissioner present if and when we will get the agenda of this meeting, if he is going to include the kinds of issues that I have raised in my speech - and also in the report itself - and when we will get the results of that meeting of 27 February.
The Joint Council meeting must include the competences of the Joint Council along with the Mexican constitution, ensuring their compatibility.
It must include effective monitoring of human rights.
It must include a commitment to coherence and compatibility of trade measures and it must ensure that the European Parliament is closely associated with this agreement in all its future changes.
Mr President, before I begin my intervention on this report, I should like to ask that it be recorded in the Minutes that in accordance with Rule 161 of the Rules of Procedure the explanatory statement in the report under discussion is the responsibility of the rapporteur alone and only reflects her personal opinion, not the opinion of the Committee on Industry.
There is no reason why citizens should know our Rules and certain statements may lend themselves to confusion and give rise to misunderstandings.
Thank you, Mr President, and now I shall begin my intervention.
The proposal for a decision contained in the Commission proposal, which is the subject of the report we are beginning to debate, is the culmination of a long process that began in 1995 with the signing of a joint declaration between the European Community and Mexico. This declaration established some objectives that were to become an agreement that would replace the Cooperation Agreement signed in 1991, in order to strengthen and enhance the political, economic and commercial relations between the European Union and Mexico.
The Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement, also known as the Global Agreement, was signed in December 1997.
Therefore, the Commission proposal on which Parliament has been consulted must be considered in the context of the Global Agreement signed by the European Union and Mexico - the most important agreement the European Union has ever signed, I think it is worth remembering.
This is also the context of the interim agreement dealing with the economic and commercial aspects of the Global Agreement, the aim of which was to allow negotiations to begin as soon as possible for the liberalisation of the commercial aspects of Community competence included in the Global Agreement.
With regard to the proposal for a decision with which we are concerned and the agreements it deals with, my Group sees them as being very positive because they strengthen the possibility for Community operators to act in spheres of particular interest by guaranteeing them access to the Mexican market on equal or even better terms than those enjoyed by NAFTA countries in the area of services, investments, payments and respect for intellectual property rights, with the resulting benefits and legal guarantee that all this may bring to the European Union.
These considerations by themselves would justify the unreserved approval of the proposal for a decision by my Group and, I hope, by this Parliament as well.
Furthermore, in addition to the economic advantages, my Group is well aware of the political benefits arising from the adoption of this proposal for a decision, and also that the European Union-Mexico Joint Council, which will meet at the end of this month, needs to adopt it, because only once it is adopted can the provisions on political dialogue and cooperation in the areas of education, combating poverty, and social and environmental matters come into force.
My Group in particular and this Parliament in general have always been highly sensitive to such questions, because they are the guarantee that the economic benefits which will undoubtedly accrue from the overall agreement will help promote a political system that is more democratic, more respectful of human rights and more in tune with social justice.
Mr President, as chairman of Parliament' s Delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and Mexico, I wish to congratulate the participants on concluding the final stage of one of the most ambitious projects the European Union has ever undertaken.
I should also like to take advantage of the presence of the Mexican Ambassador to the European Union, the diplomat, Jaime Zabludovsky, to congratulate him on his active contribution to this agreement.
This agreement establishes the bases for closer relations between the European Union and Mexico.
In this respect, I should like to emphasise that, on this occasion, we have managed not only to obtain institutional declarations, but we have created a legal framework that will bring together these two peoples who share many common values, if both parties are able to take full advantage of the potential of this agreement.
To this extent, I wish to emphasise that, in addition to the mechanisms that have been established in the fields of political cooperation and trade, an instrument has also been created to boost and further cooperation in more than thirty different areas.
Almost three years have passed since Parliament delivered a favourable opinion on the interim agreement between the European Union and Mexico.
One year later, Parliament also expressed its support for the overall agreement, which was then ratified by the Fifteen Member States of the Union.
Throughout this period, we have witnessed the great changes that have taken place in Mexican society and which have culminated in what can be called a genuine celebration of democracy: last July' s elections.
On this subject, I should like to take this opportunity to pay public tribute to President Ernesto Zedillo for his commitment to democratic reform.
I should also like to convey to the new leaders of the Mexican administration my sincerest hope that they will continue in the current direction and repay the trust that the Mexican people has invested in them.
To conclude, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we need to call for two things: firstly, we must ask the Commission, in the person of Commissioner Nielson, through the intermediary of the European Union delegation in Mexico, to undertake an assessment on the ground of the agreement' s potential for trade and cooperation and to ensure that his results are distributed to the various parties concerned. Secondly, we must once again ask the parties concerned in the Chiapas conflict to maximise their efforts in dialogue based on respect for democratic principles, so that an end can be brought to an anachronistic situation that has no place in modern society.
Mr President, I should also like to express our solidarity with the people of El Salvador, who have, once again, fallen victim to a natural disaster.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as the Nicaraguan writer Sergio Ramírez has pointed out, the political map of Latin America can be interpreted today by means of some diverse and highly contrasting landmarks.
One of these could be the 'tequila effect' which has irradiated from Mexico since the last presidential elections, a genuine example of civic pride which, we trust, will have beneficial consequences to help shape the new political map of the United Mexican States. There we hope to see a separation of powers and guarantees that governments will alternate in power, and we are sure that the necessary interrelationship between economic modernisation and political modernisation will increasingly prosper.
Of course Mexico is a country of light and shade, like any country in the European Union.
That is why I noticed the excessively critical tone used by the rapporteur of this report in her explanatory statement regarding the social and economic situation in this Latin American republic.
I believe we should be careful in our statements and I am surprised by the rapporteur' s doubts on questions of Mexican constitutional competences when dealing with trade in services.
With regard to investments, I do not think the assessments made are appropriate, since the degree of internationalisation of the Mexican economy in recent years has been remarkable, to the point where Mexico is the country that has most used the Community financial instrument known as the ECIP. This is clearly reflected in the growth in investment by foreign companies and in the free trade agreements, both the one signed with the United States and Canada and the recent one with the European Union.
In the latter case, Mexico has made a strategic effort to diversify its relations, which had focused so much on the United States, and this will moreover provide European goods with tariff treatment similar to that given to US goods, especially with regard to industrial products.
We shall obviously be voting in favour.
Mr President, in the short space of time available to me I must say that we consider the proposal for a Council decision that we are debating today to be positive overall, because at the time we were pleased with the signing and subsequent ratification of the agreement with Mexico, because we understand that it is an important - I might even say unheard-of - step in the relations of the European Union with a Latin American country.
But this agreement, like everything else in life, can be improved.
We understand of course that the agreement is a trading issue, but we feel there is a lack of concrete measures on the development of Mexico, our sister country.
Similarly, nowhere in the functions of the Joint Committee (Article 44) did we find provision for a study of the repercussions of putting the association agreement into practice, something that we believe is frankly essential.
We also regret that there is not even a mention of the environment in this agreement, not even -as my colleague Caroline Lucas has pointed out - a reference to the Protocol on Biosafety within the sections on intellectual property.
Lastly, I must point out the profound inconsistency in the fact that, whereas in Mexico the agreement has been ratified by institutions elected by the people, in the European Union, which thinks of itself as a model of democracy, this agreement is not passed on directly for approval by this Parliament, which has been directly elected by the people of Europe, but it is simply consulted.
Mr President, our Group supports and appreciates the report by Ms Lucas as a positive contribution to the proposal made by the Council regarding the Joint Council meeting and its development.
The observations and recommendations on democratic transparency in matters as delicate as services, investment, intellectual property and conflict resolution are made out of respect for Parliament, the Mexican people and the Constitution of that country, and are also aimed at preventing any damaging effects on Mexican society.
The European Union is obliged to ensure that our relationship and agreement with Mexico do not help increase problems, as has happened with the usual United States intervention and, more specifically, with the worsening of the Chiapas situation, since this area is the focus of multinational interests.
Hence it is important that this agreement should succeed, since it would mean a different type of relationship between the European Union and Latin America, for instance in the forthcoming agreements with Mercosur and Chile, and it would be a major source of hope for the continent.
Mr President, this EU-Mexico agreement gives me an opportunity to say that it makes a lovely change for the European Parliament to be discussing free trade, something to which it usually pays just lip service.
When this agreement was completed, however, my first thought was lucky Mexico.
Here is a country which can enter into a trade agreement with the EU without having to join the club, without having to pay the membership fee or take on thousands of directives and regulations every year.
Why can't the UK do the same I thought.
On another level I must highlight the observations of the rapporteur that there is an increased sensitivity amongst Members of Parliament about who makes the decisions on trade: whether it is the Council or the Commission.
Actually that sensitivity is not confined to this Parliament.
Many of my party members and constituents share that sensitivity and are alarmed at the Nice developments which seem to place far too much power in the hands of unelected Commission officials.
That is to say that I would not be content if the power was vested elsewhere in the EU, because the greatest sensitivity is that we as a country are having trade agreements affecting the UK negotiated and finalised by a third party, which may or may not be entirely in our national interests.
Further, as to conflict resolution procedures based as they are on a WTO model, we have already experienced the banana war where innocent British companies have been penalised for matters which have nothing to do with them and over which they have no control whatsoever.
Altogether we are happy that the EU and Mexico have reached an agreement but we do not believe that the UK should be bound by it.
We would much rather make our own agreements on our own terms.
Mr President, first of all I should like to express my satisfaction at the conclusion of the Association Agreement between Mexico and the European Union. Many of us present here have played an active part in preparing this agreement over the last few years.
With regard to the report we are dealing with, I should like to point out two aspects I consider important, the treatment of which is surprising.
First, this text mentions the Mexican constitution at least eight times, arguing that if Mexico signs the agreement with the European Union this will supposedly violate that country' s supreme charter.
In this regard, I should just like to recall that on 20 May 2000 the Mexican Parliament approved this cooperation by 89 votes to 11 with two abstentions.
The same figures apply to the approval of the commercial decisions of the Joint Council for the Interim Agreement and also those of the Joint Council for the Global Agreement.
No parliamentary group appealed to the nation' s Supreme Court of Justice, the body authorised to settle such matters, on grounds of unconstitutionality.
On another subject, with regard to human rights, it should be remembered that Mexico has signed more than 50 international treaties on human and workers' rights, including many of those mentioned in the report on the table.
It also recognises the mandatory jurisdiction of the Interamerican Court of Human Rights in such matters.
It seems then, that the rule of law prevails in Mexico.
In addition, the current administration has signed an agreement with the United Nations and has set up a special embassy at that international organisation for human rights and democracy.
I must also mention that in 1999 the democracy clause was included in this agreement.
Lastly, I think the best guarantee of being able to exercise individual rights and freedoms is economic prosperity; as everyone knows and as has been demonstrated on many occasions, free trade agreements provide in the medium term a solid basis on which to achieve it.
Mr President, it has already been said that our group will approve the Council proposal.
Mexico is an important country.
It is the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. Accordingly, this agreement is of great political importance.
But I would like to stress that it is also of great importance to us to approve this agreement, because it is evidence of the common foreign policy of the European Union. I address this remark in particular to the Commissioner responsible for foreign policy.
In this, I differ from my British colleagues for whom it would be preferable that the Member States concluded individual agreements with Mexico.
I regard the fact that the European Union is tackling this issue as a united front as a great step forward.
For us, the agreement with Mexico has a high priority.
What is more, it is the first in a series of agreements we are currently negotiating with Mercosur and Chile.
Implementing the Mexico agreement therefore serves a pilot function.
As far as our foreign trade policy is concerned, this will improve our trading situation in Mexico.
The share of Europe' s trade with Mexico has fallen back to simply ridiculously low levels.
This situation must improve and I believe it is also in the interest of Mexico not to be solely dependent on trade with the USA but to have a well-balanced trade position, with Europe playing a role.
This, I believe, is a truism.
To this extent, the agreement is in our interest as much as it is in the interest of Mexico.
While approving the EU/Mexico agreement, we should nevertheless honour the fact that Mexico is changing.
The election of President Fox means that, for the first time since the Mexican revolution, there has been a changeover of power.
Mexico now ranks among the states in which democratic changeovers of power will become the norm.
There is also hope that the conflict in Chiapas, in the south of the country, will be settled peacefully.
Mexico has opened itself up to the USA, but it is also prepared to open itself up to Europe.
I would therefore very much welcome it if, for instance, the newly elected President of Mexico were to pay a visit to Europe in the not too distant future, and perhaps speak to us here in this Chamber, and if European heads of state were to visit Mexico.
A final word on the Lucas report: as is always the case, it is clear that we do not agree on the explanatory statement contained in the report.
Here, the rapporteur is free to express his or her opinion. But I would like to say in this connection that cooperation with Mexico, a country with which we entertain friendly relations, is critical.
What is more, this works in both directions.
We want to have the freedom to say what we do not like in other areas and we also ask our friends to tell us what they do not like.
That can best be exemplified by the situation with the USA: we have had some very serious clashes with the USA - and vice versa too, I might add - without that having changed our cooperation partnership and our mutual trust in any way.
Mr President, my group is very much aware of the importance of the EU-Mexico free trade partnership agreement to both partners and backs the rapporteur's initiative on most points.
Mexico is the European Union's most important trading partner in Latin America after Brazil, and I am particularly proud that Europe has reached a result that goes beyond NAFTA privileges in a number of areas which are good for Europe but also good for Mexico.
We consider this agreement a milestone in future relations with Latin American countries.
In the context of today's debate, the European Liberals would like particularly to stress the importance of the standard human rights clause in this agreement, especially respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights.
We would like to underline how vital it is to monitor the human rights situation in Mexico as I have seen with my own eyes.
In this context I find the rapporteur's proposal to proceed to a reform of Articles 39 and 59 of the global agreement judicious.
A side agreement on cooperation on human rights is to be envisaged.
Our main hope is that the opening up of the Mexican economy will contribute towards economic and social development in Chiapas.
We declare our willingness to start this process and I hope that the march of Marcos on Mexico City will mean a breakthrough in peace.
It is now up to President Fox to make what he promised the European Parliament delegation during his campaign come true.
I will follow it closely.
Mr President, we gladly give the agreement between the European Union and Mexico the benefit of the doubt.
At the same time, we would request the Council and Commission to provide the European Parliament with continuous and comprehensive updates on the mutual effects this agreement has.
This explicit request is tied in closely with the promising initiatives which the new Mexican President, Vincente Fox, is currently developing.
These are efforts which are clearly aimed at supporting neglected population groups, in the first place the country' s very extensive Indian community, by investments and considerable regional autonomy.
A courageous goal in the face of huge resistance, both politically and socially.
This holds a pleasant, joint development task in store for the European Union and the United States.
At the end of the day, we in Strasbourg and Brussels do not wish to have the reputation worldwide of being cool and collected customers.
In short, wider market access and an improvement of the Mexican position in the world economy requires an approach which is more humanitarian than one-dimensional liberalisation.
We can certainly identify with the social focus which the rapporteur, Mrs Lucas, has opted for amidst the needs of the Mexican population.
In her explanatory statement to the agreement, she mentions the adverse effects this agreement has on the Mexican constitution several times.
However, that is primarily a domestic matter, in our opinion.
But that does not affect our wish for the rapporteur' s commitment to rub off on the Council and Commission in their dealings with the Mexican partners.
. (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have an interesting case before us.
I think that a sharp mind must have worked on this report.
The rapporteur has managed, in an exemplary fashion, to tease weaknesses out of an agreement and, reading the explanatory statement contained in the report, Mrs Lucas, I get the impression that it may be paving the way for some form of Euro-imperialism.
I have two specific points to make. Firstly, as regards the democratic weaknesses which have been pointed out time and again in the explanatory statement, we are setting standards for Mexico which only a strong country can allow itself to set for a weak country.
The need to adapt Mexico' s constitution to bring it into line with this agreement in particular is questionable to say the least. It reminds me of the deficits which the European Union has itself towards its own citizens due to a lack of democratic legitimisation.
The second point which, in my opinion, should not be forgotten is that Mexico is not only an important trading partner for the European Union but, in the mid 1990s, went through what the then President of the International Monetary Fund, Michel Camdessus, called the first financial crisis of the twenty-first century.
That is why, to my mind, it is especially laudable that special reference is made to problems which countries like Mexico and, especially now, Argentina have through being closely tied to the US dollar.
It is very regrettable that the Commission does not follow mainstream opinion, which says that we must pay attention.
From my own perspective, I would even prefer to go in the direction of the Bretton Wood system.
The relevant precautions are lacking, as is positive assistance to Mexico. Perhaps the only criticism I would have against the report is that we do not point out in the recommendations that, in the field of financial crises, we should be extending our help.
Mr President, the agreement with Mexico is in fact a milestone in our relations with the countries of Latin America.
It has a larger area of application than any previous agreement between the European Union and a third country.
I have always been very critical towards, but, at the same time, very solidly behind this agreement with Mexico. For us, it is not only a matter of keeping the interests of the European Union in mind - which is very much the case with many in this House - but also the interests of Mexico and its people, who mostly live in poverty.
The agreement will therefore only be a milestone if it improves the living conditions of the overwhelming majority of Mexicans.
Of crucial importance will also be how democracy and human rights are implemented.
The Fox administration will have to be measured in terms of that and not just in terms of its economic success.
Special heed should be paid to the services sector and direct investments, since Mexico must not be regarded as an extended workbench.
Rather, investments must contribute to enhancing regional development. They must be in line with clear social and ecological standards, which must not only be scrutinised but also adhered to.
It also behoves us here in the European Parliament and the Mexican government to ensure that the greatest possible benefits are reaped for the people of Mexico.
But how the Joint Council performs its tasks in connection with the further development of the agreement and how Mexico' s Parliament and the European Union will be integrated are also important for us.
And as there is nothing that could not be improved, I hope Mexico and the European Union, as equal partners at the same eye level, will resolve the discrepancies and remove the errors which doubtless still exist in the contract.
I say this as Vice-President of the Delegation for Relations with Central America and Mexico.
I stand by this agreement and if these objectives, about which Mrs Lucas has said a great deal, are fulfilled, nothing should stand in the way of success. Then this agreement would really be a milestone in the history of the contracts concluded between the European Union and a Latin American country.
Mr President, Mr Seguro mentioned at the end of his contribution the terrible situation in El Salvador.
I would like to take this opportunity to inform Parliament that today I have decided to release another EUR 5 to 8 million to support people in El Salvador.
This is quite significant.
Turning to the matter under discussion, Mexico has gone through a radical modernisation process over the last decade.
The NAFTA agreement has played an important role in this.
It led to a major increase of trade and investment flows between the US and Mexico and also Canada.
Neither the EU nor Mexico wanted the NAFTA agreement to result in less intense relations between the EU and Mexico.
We both accepted the challenge and decided to adapt our relations.
This culminated with the entry into force last October of our economic partnership, political coordination and cooperation agreement, often called the global agreement.
This agreement, which consists of a free trade area, political dialogue and cooperation provisions reinforces Mexico's existing relations with Europe.
Due to the very complex distribution of competence between the Community and its Member States, the free trade agreement is made up of two separate legal texts.
The first, Decision 2/2000, covers the areas of Community competence and was adopted by the Joint Council in Lisbon on 23 March 2000 after Parliament gave its opinion on 16 March 2000.
It entered into force on 1 July 2000.
The second text covers the remaining areas - services, investment and intellectual property - and should be adopted by the Joint Council on 27 February 2001.
The later text, which we are debating today, will liberalise services in two phases.
Firstly by including a stand-still clause which prevents both parties from introducing new discriminatory measures or reinforcing the existing ones.
This clause only applies to discriminatory measures and therefore does not exclude the possibility of adopting new, restrictive, non-discriminatory rules in order, for instance, to protect the environment further.
Secondly, this decision provides for the elimination of substantially all remaining discrimination between the parties over a maximum period of ten years.
The decision will comply with GATS rules - mainly the obligation not to exclude any sector from the liberalisation process.
Moreover the text includes measures concerning investments and related payments which complete the undertakings already made by both parties at the OECD and through bilateral agreements signed between Mexico and most of the Member States.
The European Parliament has been invited to give its opinion on this second decision.
Once this decision is adopted by the Joint Council on 27 February 2001, the free trade agreement will be fully in place.
But this decision has also a bigger impact.
The global agreement will be fully implemented and thus the political dialogue and the cooperation pillars will enter effectively into force.
Mexico is traditionally one of the EU's most important trading partners in Latin America with a significant growth potential, and the EU is Mexico's second trading partner after the US.
The achievement of the free trade agreement will provide EC operators with access to the Mexican market similar to NAFTA.
Our trading relationship, which has declined over previous years, should improve markedly now that we are able to compete on a level playing field with the US and Canadian products and services.
We should be satisfied by what we have achieved in this area.
The EU-Mexico Free Trade Agreement is the first agreement of this type which the EU has signed with a Latin American country.
Apart from trade, we should make full use of this comprehensive agreement to further deepen our already excellent bilateral relations with Mexico.
The institutionalised high level political dialogue will provide a good tool to agree on common positions, on issues of mutual interest: for instance, UN reform, efforts to launch a new WTO round and the human rights situation of both parties.
The agreement will provide us with new possibilities for cooperation on the basis of the guidelines laid down for the period 2000-2006, whether on strengthening the rule of law, judicial reform, tackling poverty or investing in human resources.
It is a new, very ambitious beginning.
I share the views expressed by most Members in this debate, and we will be very happy to see this flourish in the coming years.
Mr President, on a point of order, there was one specific piece of information that I asked for from the Commissioner.
It was about the agenda of the joint Council meeting on 27 February.
Could he tell us if and when we can get hold of that agenda, what will be on it and what kind of report we can expect from that meeting?
The way the division of labour is organised will mean that we will, of course, inform Parliament about the results of that meeting.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Facilitation of unauthorised entry and residence
The next item is the report (A5-0315/2000), by Mr Ceyhun, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the French Republic with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive defining the facilitation of unauthorised entry, movement and residence (10675/2000 - C5-0427/2000 - 2000/0821(CNS)) and a Council Framework Decision on the strengthening of the penal framework to prevent the facilitation of unauthorised entry and residence [10676/2000 - C5-0426/2000 - 2000/0820(CNS)].
Mr President, when I left the House of Commons in the United Kingdom in 1997 I thought I had got away from debates that took place after 10 p.m.
It is very comforting, however, to see that we are able to debate matters of great importance later in the evening.
I am also interested to note that in the United Kingdom debates now seem to have been truncated into times that are well before 10 p.m.
The balance of power, in that sense, has certainly shifted.
I was privileged to be an immigration minister in the last government.
It is important for me to emphasise straight away that the EPP is in agreement with the aim of the French initiative.
It is vitally important to curb illegal immigration and to deal with the criminals who are exploiting poor people to their own advantage, both financially and in other ways.
However, sadly, as shadow rapporteur I am unable to speak in support of many of Mr Ceyhun's amendments, as I believe that these do not actually address the issue but could on the contrary have the effect of exacerbating it.
In particular, it seems to me difficult to try to decriminalise the facilitation of illegal immigration for some groups rather than others.
The notion that those acting with humanitarian intentions should be immune from prosecution is very problematic and certainly subjective.
I, as a lawyer, also have to question why the law should apply to some and not to others. The humanitarian motives referred to in many of the amendments of Mr Ceyhun are, again, very difficult to define or to interpret in a fair and proper manner in a court of law.
This does not imply that humanitarian organisations should refrain from aiding such people after their proper entry into a Member State - I would very much support that continuing, and certainly being a feature in future - but rather that they have no more right to participate in any illegal act, in our view, than anyone else.
In this context it also has to be stressed that illegal immigrants whose entry is assisted by traffickers should surely be no more immune to prosecution than other illegal immigrants.
Of course there is a difficulty with the implementation of a common immigration and asylum policy.
I, as a British Conservative, have doubts about that.
But tonight I am perfectly happy that we should look at it in the context of how it will develop.
We are not yet ready.
We do not yet have that policy in place.
Given that such a policy may be implemented, this report appears at an inopportune moment.
It is imperative that the parameters of the common immigration and asylum policy should be established before any inner standards - such as those addressed in this report - are set.
Improving the legal status of refugees, as stated in Amendment No 2, is not, to my knowledge, part of any common immigration and asylum policy.
As regards compensatory payments, the rapporteur does not detail how the money would be spent.
An increase in the EU budget surely requires more justification than is shown.
It is always important to distinguish between asylum and immigration: those are two separate issues, the latter of which is covered by the 1951 Geneva Convention.
Amendments underlining the importance of that convention are certainly welcomed by me and the EPP.
We support the French initiative.
We merely regret that this report has appeared before its time and is unacceptable.
Mr President, I am sorry, I was confused about the time.
I should first like to congratulate my colleague Mr Ceyhun for the work he has done and his efforts to cover all the sensitive issues surrounding these two initiatives.
Secondly, I must stress to this House something which is an absolute priority for the future of the European Union, our society and the political project we are constructing from here.
It is the need for a Community immigration and asylum policy, something we will not be able to achieve without commitment, effort and hard work from the European Union' s political institutions.
I should like to reiterate a number of issues that this House and the Council must take clearly into account when making future decisions.
It is essential to distinguish between the disinterested humanitarian aiding of illegal immigration and the activities of criminal networks as laid down in Article 27 of the Schengen Convention.
It is also important to distinguish clearly between those who benefit directly and actively from illegal immigration, such as those who organise and take part in the transport of illegal immigrants, and on the other hand the passive and indirect beneficiaries, who are the ones who profit from the work of illegal immigrants.
It must also be stressed that the economic benefit itself may be direct or indirect, depending on the nature of the activity performed.
I realise, however, that carriers cannot be held liable for transporting persons who request political asylum immediately upon arrival within the territory of a Member State.
Carriers have neither the ability nor the authority to assess the admissibility of an application for asylum, and hence I understand that under no circumstances can they be directly or indirectly persuaded through these instruments to carry out an assessment of suitability.
Sanctions must be proportionate and balanced and the punishment must be made to fit the crime.
The means and ends must strictly respect the obligations accepted by the countries which are parties to the 1951 Geneva Convention as regards asylum-seekers entering an EU Member State.
The purpose of such measures must never be to dissuade asylum-seekers from exercising their legitimate right to seek the protection of a signatory state, since this would constitute an infringement of the Geneva Convention.
Lastly, I should like to point out that the Member States need to be aware that certain regions of the European Union are particularly affected by illegal immigration, and because of their geographical position they are having to shoulder much of the burden imposed by the immigration policies, so budget lines should be developed to allow compensatory payments, which will increase solidarity within the European Union in this area.
Mr President, we all remember with horror the container containing 58 dead Chinese people that was found at Dover last summer.
Recently, we saw drowned people washed up on the Spanish coast.
Such tragedies occur around Europe every day, if not always in such spectacular forms.
The gangs that earn money from exploiting people' s desperation and smuggle them across borders under horrendous safety conditions must, of course, be punished.
This is an inhumane business.
Joint efforts are required here at EU level.
However, the initiative proposed by France only deals with a small part of these incredibly complex issues concerning migration and refugees.
Despite fine declarations of global responsibility, the EU Member States have not been able to agree on a common asylum and immigration policy.
It seems that the only thing that can be agreed upon is repressive measures.
The smugglers must of course be punished, and airlines that allow persons without valid documents to board must pay fines.
It is unreasonable to leave it to the cabin crew to assess people' s need for protection.
One must also ask why people stake everything they own in order to be smuggled into an unknown country in unsafe conditions.
Is it really possible to get into the EU by lawful means when we require visas from 130 countries? I do not believe it is.
The EU is in the process of building a Fortress Europe.
The Liberal Group would have liked to have seen a more comprehensive programme on migration issues.
A common policy is required in this area.
The report written by the rapporteur is an important modification of the French proposal, because he attempts to see the nuances.
Certainly the gangs must be punished, but there are people who conceal refugees without any prospect of profit because they are convinced that the refugees are risking life and limb if they are sent back to their home country.
Relatives, friends or individual organisations must not be punished for this.
A distinction must be made.
It is also important to emphasise that the purpose of this proposal for a directive is not to make it more difficult for people to seek asylum or migrate to the European Union.
With the amendments tabled by the Liberal Group, we will support Mr Ceyhun' s proposal in the hope that the Council will get its act together and agree on a common European asylum and migration strategy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today the issue of immigration crosses all areas in our European societies, from the situation of legal immigrants to that of illegal immigrants, from the right of asylum to the right of freedom of movement, from socio-economic and cultural rights to political rights.
In the majority of EU States, figures on the granting of refugee status and traditional immigration channels are falling systematically.
On the other hand, the figures for overall immigration have remained stable in recent years, proving that restrictive policies on immigration and visas have succeeded only in increasing the number of illegal immigrants.
On a daily basis, men, women and children die in the attempt to enter illegally into a Europe which has become a real Fortress.
For the most part they fall victim to smugglers and traffickers.
Unfortunately, their ordeal continues once they have entered European States as, without regular papers, they can be freely exploited and forced to suffer intolerable living conditions.
We should point out that some legal immigrants have been made illegal by restrictive legislation.
Some of these have been living in Europe for over twenty years.
They can no longer be expelled, nor can their situation be regularised.
What means is available to them to earn a living and support their families?
The solutions laid down in the proposed initiatives replicate these repressive measures and grounds for exclusion.
They give rise to tragedies such as those in Dover, Gibraltar or the situation of those immigrants without regular papers in Spain, Belgium and France who are on hunger strike in order to obtain recognition.
Who is really responsible?
Not only do these proposals not meet these requirements, but they even go so far as to challenge the right of asylum or the right of family reunion.
While it is clear that we must staunchly fight the organised networks trafficking in human beings, it is unjust to condemn natural or legal persons who, in good faith, assist asylum seekers fleeing conflict, famine and the horrors caused by economic and democratic deficits.
These initiatives, therefore, lump all categories together in an inadmissible and dangerous fashion.
While the proposed amendments limit some of the damage, we reject the initiatives and would vehemently urge the authors to go back to the drawing board.
It is only possible to combat illegal immigration within the framework of an overall Community policy that is clear and that respects the dignity of human beings based on genuine respect for fundamental rights and based on a new North-South relationship.
Finally we would point out that the best weapon to combat discrimination and human exploitation is to acknowledge rights and thus to regularise their status.
Mr President, the policy pursued by many Member States and, to an ever greater degree, by the EU too in this area gives us all a direct share of responsibility for the corpses at Dover and for the bodies washed up on the Spanish coast.
What we are doing is treating the symptoms.
We are doing nothing about the real disease.
The disease is, of course, the fact that there are 20 million refugees in the world.
The present project will lead to there being fewer humanitarians and more mafiosi involved in the trafficking in human beings and in helping to transport refugees.
It is said that trafficking in human beings is a lucrative business, but I maintain that, with projects like this, it will become still more lucrative.
The price will rise, and the mafia will, of course, add the cost of their fines to it.
That means more money from desperate people in the pockets of the mafia.
There will be fewer suppliers and ever more demand.
That means higher prices.
We know this, of course, from the market economy in general.
It will mean more unscrupulous players and, therefore, more Dover-style accidents.
I have to say that the rapporteur has done his best to temper the proposal.
He has really made an effort, but it is nonetheless still a matter of treating the symptoms.
We are not treating the disease.
Our group will, of course, support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur and the Liberal Group.
Above all, we shall support the proposals completely to reject this move, and my group will vote very differently in the final vote on the report.
Mr President, the radical members of the Bonino List will vote against the proposal for a Council initiative and therefore, while voting in favour of some of amendments improving the rapporteur' s proposals, we will also vote against the report as a whole.
The fundamental reason for this is one that affects these and all initiatives dealing with the framework of criminal legislation in the Union.
As a European federalist, and therefore not a Eurosceptic, I consider it monstrous that criminal legislation should be adopted and implemented without any approval by a democratically and legitimately elected Parliament with the legitimacy to grant it. Here, as elsewhere, I find the road the European Union is taking monstrous.
Criminal law cannot be removed from parliamentary debate. Because of the very delicacy of the matter, it cannot be abstracted from more general considerations relating to society, risks, weights and counterweights, fundamental causes, and economic and social causes.
The only line on which European integration policy is advancing rapidly is that of repression, because that is easy.
Decisions are prepared by groups of civil servants from the Ministries of Justice and Home Affairs, whose only concern is the efficiency of the repression mechanisms, without any consideration - it is not their fault, that is their craft, their professional approach - or concern for issues arising from society, the economy, work, international policy or development.
We are travelling very fast down the line of repression while, on the other lines, such as guaranteeing the right of asylum and the right to a defence, the European Parliament, the European Union, the European Commission and the Council are incapable of making progress.
So that is the main reason why we cannot accept the Council' s proposals. We cannot accept a report which does not reject them out of hand because, even on this matter, the European Parliament - as usual - is just being consulted and does not have any real powers.
As to the merit of the argument - as Mrs Boumediene-Thiery and Mrs Frahm have said - it is an illusion to imagine that strengthening the ban on immigration produces anything other than a strengthening of illegal immigration and the forces of illegality overwhelming us.
Our frontiers are being overwhelmed by the illegality produced by our prohibitionist laws. That is the reality.
We should not delude ourselves that we can solve the problem by tinkering with the penalties for carriers of illegal immigrants without democratic consultation.
It is possible - although I hope this does not happen - that we will only succeed in making things worse.
At the same time, the fundamental economic causes are not being addressed.
Commissioner Lamy put a brave proposal to the European Commission for unilateral liberalisation of imports from the poorest countries. That is a means of attacking the fundamental causes, not just doling out charity, alms and assistance but opening our markets to their agricultural products and basic manufacturers.
'Everything but arms' the proposal was called. It was sunk by the lobbies in the European Union and, consequently, pressure from migrations is growing ever stronger.
So the Lamy proposal gets sunk and, at the same time, we delude ourselves that we can solve the problem by a few months' increase in the penalties meted out to those who ply a trade we have presented them with as a gift, for profits we, with our laws, make possible.
We cannot delude ourselves - I say this to Mr Ceyhun and Members on the left - that partial improvement - we are in favour of certain amendments - of this repressive framework can change the situation.
Only as a lesser evil do we support the distinction between immigration for economic profit and immigration for humanitarian purposes, but we do not think it can solve the problem, as you on the left point out yourselves, when you assert that economic causes are ultimately responsible for immigration.
How can you sustain the argument that economic causes are the fundamental causes and, at the same time, take such a strong stand against the entrepreneurs and profiteers running illegal immigration?
This prohibitionist attitude is not confined to immigration alone, but also to the labour market and the new forms of employment - part-time work, temporary work, short-term contracts, seasonal contracts - and it is an attitude that the left, and the unions too, are largely responsible for in Europe.
Let us not try to salve our consciences by attacking the entrepreneurs and those who exploit labour for, in the eyes of the exploited, the people condemned to die in their own country of hunger and a total lack of the means to survive, the European entrepreneur-exploiter may well be the only hope of advancement and salvation for them and their families.
So I conclude, Mr President, by confirming the vote of the Bonino List radical Members against the motion.
Mr President, I consider the two initiatives by the French Republic seeking to better define and strengthen penal sanctions against assisting the illegal entry of aliens into European territory to be particularly welcome.
Illegal immigration, which is growing rapidly, is indeed becoming a major problem for the countries of Europe.
A good indication of this is the increase in the number of asylum requests, which have virtually doubled in the last three years in the main European countries, even though approximately three quarters of these are rejected as unjustified, thereby greatly increasing the number of immigrants illegally resident on our territory.
Europol currently estimates that 500 000 illegal immigrants enter the European Union every year.
This influx of marginalised individuals provides a breeding ground for all sorts of crime and exploitation.
According to the United Nations Organisation, even within Europe some half a million people from this illegal staff pool are reduced to slavery, mostly women and children, who are victims of sexual or economic exploitation.
This situation is a source of shame for Europe and I must say that I am shocked when I read the Commission communication of 22 November 2000 on the Community immigration policy to find that it includes only one tiny paragraph, and a vague one at that, on illegal immigration.
I am shocked, too, to see that the Commission' s first practical proposal in application of this policy was for a particularly lenient draft directive on family reunion.
Once again, one has the impression that the concerns of the Commission are out of step with the concerns of Member States, which raise genuine practical problems.
For, after the French Presidency, which made the fight against illegal immigration one of its priorities, we now have the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and his Italian counterpart, Giuliano Amato, sounding the alarm and demanding an action plan to combat such trafficking.
That is why I totally agree completely with Mr Kirkhope that the amendments by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs are quite misplaced, as they water down the French text.
I also agree that these texts have been brought out at just the right time.
Contrary to the claims made in some of the committee' s amendments, there is no need to wait for a general policy on immigration before taking steps immediately in the specific field of illegal immigration.
There is a clear need for such action as a matter of urgency.
Indeed it is a requirement of the Treaty of Amsterdam, since Article 63(3) stipulates that, for the five years following its entry into force, measures must be taken as a priority against, I quote, "illegal immigration and illegal residence, including repatriation of illegal residents."
The French Republic' s initiatives on illegal immigration must therefore be approved, followed up and reinforced.
We must, incidentally, note our approval of Article 67(1) of the Treaty of Amsterdam which, amid some more unfortunate provisions, had the wisdom to retain Member States' right of initiative in parallel with the Commission' s, even in those aspects of immigration policy which it sought to communitise.
This exceptional juxtaposition, which, in this instance, turns out to be very helpful, is unfortunately only a temporary situation since it is scheduled to last only for a transitional period of five years following the entry into force of the Treaty.
It is therefore going to expire on 30 April 2004.
However, at that very time, at the beginning of 2004 we are due to have an intergovernmental conference that will specifically have to look into the distribution of competences between the European Union and the Member States.
I believe that it would be a good idea for its agenda to include a proposal for extending the duration and scope of States' right of initiative.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our starting point is based on the need to combat illegal immigration and, in particular, the resulting forms of exploitation.
The situation has been exacerbated, not only because it has proved to be extremely lucrative and less risky than other forms of trafficking, such as drugs trafficking, for example, but also because this activity actually benefits from shortcomings in the legislation and action of Member States and from all the factors that allow illegal immigrants to enter and remain in these countries.
The proposal now before us, which is intended to strengthen the fight against illegal immigrants entering and staying, must pay particular attention to two factors: first of all, the issue of employers' responsibility and the consequences that using an illegal workforce may entail. We must look at the situations in our own Member States with regard to the illegal employment market - and the issue of trafficking in human beings, which must be fought hard, paying particular attention to the trafficking of women and children for the purpose of sexual exploitation, which is one of the most odious aspects of this type of trafficking.
Tragic events such as the one that took place in Dover last June or those that have come to light following the successful 'Cathedral' police operation are situations that no democratic society can tolerate.
What we must do is target those who assist illegal immigration.
It is crucial that each Member State adopts the necessary measures to ensure that the deliberate facilitation of the unauthorised entry, movement and residence of immigrants is considered to be an offence punishable by effective, proportionate, dissuasive criminal penalties.
The European Union is now facing new challenges caused by migratory flows in evidence throughout the world. We must address these challenges as one wide-ranging issue.
The Member States must have a common immigration and asylum policy that is appropriate to their demographic, economic and humanitarian needs.
Mr President, I want to congratulate my colleague Mr Ceyhun for approaching a very difficult and sensitive issue.
Referring to what Mr Kirkhope said, this is an issue of great importance and I could not agree with him more.
I am sure he would agree with me that it is very sad that on an issue like this, which covers the pages of many of our newspapers, there is - to the best of my knowledge - no press here to cover it.
We have also to recognise that this report is just one piece of a jigsaw. It is a very difficult jigsaw that we are trying to put together.
We need a proper system of immigration and asylum that will cater for the needs of Europe in the modern world.
I say to Mrs Frahm and Mr Cappato that this is what we are aiming for, and I do not believe the rhetoric you used just now is helpful in such a very difficult situation.
On specific points, Mr Kirkhope referred to his anxieties about paragraphs 11 and 12, and I know the points that he is making there.
But the reference is to legally recognised organisations, NGOs, with which all of us are familiar.
We have to ask ourselves is someone or an organisation that is helping people in desperate circumstances escape persecution a criminal? Are they the organisations that we ought to be legislating against?
I would say not. We know, and others have said, that people escaping from these situations are desperate people escaping conflict, war and circumstances like that.
That is why we need these measures.
We must do more.
We must do more to help those developing countries and help the countries that are war-torn and with regimes that we do not like.
But we cannot do that overnight.
I do not believe we are helping those people who are trying to get out by doing nothing and leaving the situation as it is, so they have to clamber into the back of lorries and suffocate and endure torture and misery.
We have to make certain that we have a proper asylum system that is not skewed by the overemphasis on illegal immigration.
Our job in the new few months, as a Parliament, will be to report on the Commission's opinions in a way that reminds all Member States that their national interest must not override our global and humanitarian obligations.
. (DE) Mr President, today, in Germany, a man is appearing before the court who immigrated illegally from the former East Germany to West Germany.
He has quite rightly been brought before the court, not because he immigrated illegally but because he grassed on illegal immigrants from the former East Germany to the state security police.
In my opinion, it should still be possible for people who betray refugees or illegal immigrants to the police to be prosecuted. Why?
Both the Commission proposal and the report admit that illegal entry can lead to an application for asylum being approved.
Yet this is tantamount to admitting, albeit unintentionally, that, for most people, it is no longer possible to enter the EU legally.
This confirms, also unintentionally, the criticism made by the UNHCR of the EU and its isolationist policy towards refugees.
That is why the promised immunity from prosecution does not help refugees who are accepted as asylum seekers, because they must then betray the people who were actually able to help them in their application for asylum.
The conclusion is that separating commercial from humanitarian facilitation serves no useful purpose because the policy of isolation is increasingly being promoted and aid for refugees is becoming more of a financial burden.
If a decision cannot be reached to dismantle the fortress that is the EU, then at least this report must be rejected and aid for refugees must be promoted both in terms of commercial and humanitarian facilitation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing here with a very narrow area; we are discussing combating facilitation, i.e. aiding illegal border crossing.
It is a very positive desire to want to do something considering that, every year, half a million people enter the European Union illegally, half of whom have been facilitated in this way.
Organised crime does brisk and relatively risk-free business with these people, which is why the initiative is to be welcomed, though it has not been put in an overall context.
Looking at Mr Ceyhun' s report, I have to say that the intentions, namely to help refugees, are good. But what the report proposes in terms of measures is anything but conducive to combating facilitation.
Rather, in my and our estimation, what is being proposed here will lead to the expansion of facilitation. Furthermore, the business will continue to be risk-free for criminals.
According to these proposals, persons or groups will a priori be immune from prosecution if they take illegal immigrants across borders for humanitarian reasons and without payment. But what will the consequence be?
How quickly do you think criminal organisations will make use of such a legal construct? The whole thing would then be not only useless but counterproductive.
What is more, your proposals are moving in a direction in which our understanding of the law and our legal system are being turned on their heads.
They will introduce subjectivity, since legal persons or groups rather than the courts will decide whether a criminal act, namely facilitation, is a criminal act or not.
That is a reversal of our legal system and will certainly not lead to the desired goal.
In conclusion, Mr Ceyhun, I am convinced that you doubtless acted in good faith but the instrument you are proposing is neither legally nor effectively conducive to achieving a positive outcome.
What we need is a comprehensive system and I believe we are working towards this together.
I am also convinced that, during the course of this year, working jointly with the Commission, we will be successful.
Mr President, Commissioner, zero immigration policies may well have reduced legal immigration into Europe to zero, but at the same time they have caused the number of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants to rocket together, of course, with the fees charged by all types of carrier.
It is becoming increasingly clear that turning Europe into a fortress, by reinforcing its borders and intensifying repressive measures, will not reduce migratory pressures as long as the prosperity differential between the European Union and its neighbours persists or increases.
As far as traffickers are concerned, as I maintained in my report on Albania, concentrating mainly on traffickers, as if they were the root cause of immigration, does not help us to understand or manage this phenomenon.
The fact, as other members have said, that carriers often save human lives, by helping people to escape from persecution by totalitarian regimes, and provide services to refugees protected by the Geneva Convention and desperate people who have nowhere else to turn, is often passed over in silence.
We must, I think, distinguish between disinterested, humanitarian aiding of illegal immigrants and the aiding of illegal immigrants by members of criminal networks for the purpose of gain, as proposed by our rapporteur, Mr Ozan Ceyhun, whom I congratulate on the many improvements which he has made to the French initiative.
Finally, I should like to say that any initiatives along these lines must be incorporated as quickly as possible into an integrated European immigration policy, which will have legal channels and, more importantly, which will guarantee the legalisation and social integration of those already living in the European Union.
But, Commissioner, this sort of policy does not seem to be making any headway; on the contrary, the Council appears to be desperate to take what are, for the most part, repressive and fragmentary measures, rather than to introduce an integrated immigration policy as called for by the European Parliament.
Mr President, one of the objectives highlighted by the recent Tampere, Feira and Nice Summits, by resolutions of this Parliament and by the Euro-Mediterranean Forum, which we held in Brussels only last week, is the combating of the organised networks that traffic in immigrants.
This is a despicable traffic, which causes so much harm and even tragedy amongst the immigrants themselves and great concern within the European Union, a concern sometimes greater than that seen in some of these immigrants' countries of origin, although it is a hard thing to say.
We must therefore receive the two French initiatives with satisfaction.
But the report by Mr Ceyhun suffers from a lack of legal rigour, which if not corrected will make it impossible to vote in favour - and believe me I am sorry - particularly on the point I am about to mention.
I am personally acquainted with the magnificent work that some NGOs are doing in this field; the humanitarian care many of them are giving surpasses their own means.
But from that to generalising that if an association performs the criminal action of providing organised aid for the entry, residence or movement of illegal immigrants it should be exempt from liability, is going too far. This is because profit or financial benefit, as for example happens in Spanish criminal law, is an aggravating circumstance but it is not the essential component in characterising the crime of trafficking in human beings.
This does not mean that there are not aspects of the report that can be accepted and which I applaud, such as the compensation for the regions that most suffer from migratory pressure or prosecution of employers who use and abuse these workers illegally.
Finally, in any case, I believe that in this battle against illegal immigration the cooperation of the countries of origin is absolutely necessary, since without it any attempt to combat these criminal networks is doomed to failure.
The European Union alone cannot control this migration phenomenon if it cannot count on the essential collaboration of the countries from which the migration originates.
Mr President, last week in Stockholm the Council asked for the Tampere agenda to be revitalised.
I really do not understand at all.
I do not understand why they have not been able to revitalise and fulfil it over all these months.
What I see is that with initiatives like this one they will not only revitalise it, they will bombard it.
At this time of night, and coming from a Spanish and Portuguese evening that Ms Cerdeira and I attended, I am tempted to surrender to Mr Cappato' s rhetorical charms and agree with him completely, because in fact the only thing I can understand is that the ministers meet on one side and on the other there is some machinery which points towards other objectives.
I do not understand why the Council does not go after some coherent political proposals, which follow one behind the other in pursuit of the clear objectives of creating a common, coherent and global immigration policy and asylum policy in the European Union, instead of advancing piecemeal on absolutely specific and partial topics which throw this policy off balance and make it increasingly difficult to make progress on the Tampere agenda.
Seeing that in the Council the ministers have also decided - paradoxically in my view - to support this French proposal, and it should be either discussed immediately or moved on, my Group will in any case try to send them the clear message that we in the European Union must not confuse compassion, the work of some people in the front line helping immigrants, with the traffic in people.
We shall try to do so by supporting the amendments that Mr Ceyhun has drawn up so well and also the amendments that Ms Cerdeira has added to the report.
If we succeed, we shall vote in favour of this report and we shall try to send this message to the Council.
If not, we shall see tomorrow what we can do with it: we shall probably have some difficulties.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to thank Mr Ceyhun, the rapporteur, and remind you, as he did, that the trafficking of human beings, particularly the trafficking of women and children, is, in itself, an odious phenomenon which is a growing source of concern, because it is not just a question of immigration policy or of security policy. This is basically an issue that concerns the violation of human rights and human dignity.
Throughout the world, tens of thousands of human beings are trafficked for the purpose of exploitation every year.
The importance of this issue does not mean - and I think that this criticism is unfair - that we are addressing it because we are obsessed with building a Fortress Europe.
This issue, which is complex and requires us to be very precise in the terms we use to discuss it, is today at the very top of the international agenda and, I think, received a broad, worldwide consensus when the United Nations Organisation promoted the adoption of a Convention against Transnational Organised Crime last December. This convention contains two additional protocols, one on the illegal transporting of immigrants into a country - smuggling, to use the English term - and another specifically covering the trafficking of people.
These two protocols were signed by 81 States at the High Level Conference in Palermo last December.
Amongst the signatories to the United Nations Convention are all the Member States of the European Union and the Commission.
I personally took the opportunity to call upon both the Member States of the Union and the candidate countries to proceed as quickly as possible with the ratification of this Convention, which will only enter into force when 40 countries have concluded their accession process.
The European Union is, therefore, able to demonstrate its contribution to a worldwide fight against the trafficking of human beings.
Various speakers reminded us just now that, following the Dover tragedy last June, the Feira European Council called for measures to be adopted to combat illegal immigration and the trafficking of human beings.
This initiative by the French Government therefore addresses this concern and the Commission has no difficulties in acknowledging that, in principle, it should be supported.
We must, however, clarify the terms of the debate properly.
Today, I have, or rather the Commission has, been accused of paying little attention to the issues of illegal immigration and, furthermore, of not paying sufficient attention to drafting a comprehensible immigration policy.
I hope you will not be offended if I do not go into great detail, at 11.15 at night, in order to refute all the accusations and if I simply tell you sincerely that I do not consider these criticisms to be at all justified where the Commission is concerned. For example, our immigration policy does contain a security component.
This component cannot be the main one, or exclusive, but we cannot ignore the fact that the trafficking of human beings is a serious problem, that also requires security measures.
I am therefore surprised - I shall not say shocked, which is a very strong word - that Mr Berthu has only found one paragraph on illegal immigration in a Commission communication which seeks to address the issue of legal immigration and that he has not, for example, discovered that the Commission has presented two proposals for framework decisions.
One of these proposals is intended to eliminate the trafficking of human beings for the purpose of exploitation, specifically to ban child pornography on the Internet. I am also surprised that Mr Berthu has not noticed that the Commission has presented a proposal for a framework decision to eliminate the trafficking of human beings for the purpose of economic exploitation, in other words, for the purpose of promoting illegal work.
Similarly, just as we agreed to discuss the French initiative, in which security features very prominently, the Commission has already initiated a discussion in the Council on a proposal for a communication on a European asylum system and a communication on legal immigration, in other words, on the rights and duties of third-country nationals who are allowed to enter the Union legally.
We have tried to define a balanced policy but the contradictory criticisms that have been made in this House show that we may well not have achieved this yet. These criticisms have not convinced me, however, that the Commission is not on the right track.
We have two fundamental concerns about the French proposal, which make it difficult for us to accept the proposed text.
Our first concern is about the legal basis, which is not a minor issue.
We feel that the French initiative must be completely underpinned, notwithstanding its reference to aggravating circumstances, by a legal basis under the first pillar, such as the Treaty establishing the European Community, Article 63(3)(b).
It can clearly be inferred from this article of the Treaty that competence for illegal immigration has been given to the Community.
It is also clear that the Community per se does not have Community competence in criminal issues.
Nevertheless, I wish to remind Parliament that there is case-law from the Court of Justice of the European Communities which indicates that, in cases in which the Community, within a clearly defined jurisdiction, has power conferred upon it by the Treaties to regulate activity in order to achieve a Community objective, it also has the power to decide whether the fact that this activity does not comply should be punished at national level by criminal sanctions.
This, as I see it, is especially true in this case.
Our second concern involves the scope of Article 1(a) of the draft directive.
In its current wording and as matters stand today, this measure in the French proposal contains no reference to the objective of financial gain.
The Commission is willing to study this approach, in other words, not to lay down the requirement of financial gain, but this would have to be balanced by a carefully worded exemption clause for cases where illegal entry, movement and residence are subject to assistance for humanitarian reasons.
This is the only way it will be possible to distinguish clearly between humanitarian assistance under international commitments, specifically respect for the Geneva Convention, and the trafficking of human beings which is punishable by law.
I wish to conclude, Mr President, by saying that the Commission feels that other elements must be included in the French proposal, such as, for example, establishing an obligation for administrative coordination and cooperation between the competent national departments, creating a system for the exchange of information between Member States and imposing the obligation on Member States to adopt the appropriate measures to provide humanitarian assistance to illegal immigrants.
I wish to make one final comment, which is that, in line with the Tampere conclusions and the Commission 'scoreboard' , we have presented a proposal for a framework decision on combating the trafficking of human beings. We would therefore like the joint work of the Council, Parliament and the Commission to show clearly that there is no overlap between the French initiative and the two framework decisions presented by the Commission, but rather complementarity.
These framework decisions are part of the broader issue of the fight against illegal immigration, which involves a proactive policy of legal immigration under the terms proposed by the Commission in its communication issued last November. Of course, this also involves other complementary policies that the Commission intends to propose to the Council in May, specifically on the issue of a policy of return and of the conditions for sending citizens from third countries back to their country of origin.
I hope that the conclusions of the informal Stockholm Council meeting last week will enable us, at the Laeken European Council, to take stock of this debate on a common immigration policy and on a European asylum system which respect our international obligations and which guarantee the stability and security of the Union' s Member States.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.20 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 14 June 2001.
Membership of political groups
I would like to inform you that, with effect from today, 2 July 2001, Mr Holmes will no longer be a member of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities. He will now sit with the Non-attached Members.
I would also like to announce that, pursuant to Rule 7(2) of the Rules of Procedure, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has carried out a verification of credentials regarding Mrs Olga Zrihen Zaari and Mr Miguel Mayol i Raynal.
I therefore propose to confirm these mandates.
I note that Mr Holmes is leader of the UK Independence Party.
I wonder whether that means that the UK Independence Party is now transferring in its entirety, or at least the two Members who are present here, to the other group.
I only have information about Mr Holmes.
Agenda
The next item is the final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 28 June 2001.
Relating to Wednesday:
Thank you for pointing this out to me, Mrs Napoletano.
As you know, we are doing all we can to improve the situation.
In any case, I think that there have been some improvements.
I hope that some of you have noticed this, but I am well aware that there is still much to be done and have, therefore, taken a careful note of what you have said.
Madam President, there were no flights at all from Amsterdam to Strasbourg this morning.
The flight was once again cancelled.
I have drawn your attention to this on several occasions in this House.
The number of flights, which was originally three per day, has been cut down to two.
We then assumed that those flights would probably continue to operate, but Air France has once again decided to cancel the flights altogether.
I should like to draw your attention to this.
We all had to fly via Paris, Brussels or Frankfurt again, which meant that we were late arriving here, although we were at the airport before 8 a.m.
Thank you, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I can only say that I am sorry to hear this.
You have indeed pointed this out on a number of occasions, so please rest assured that I will try to do all I can to follow up this matter.
Madam President, whatever one' s personal opinion may be of events in Yugoslavia over the past 10 years, bombings, holding governments to ransom, endeavouring to stigmatise and humiliate an entire nation and its leaders for resisting NATO policy; whatever one' s personal opinion of how this country was governed by a president and his advisers repeatedly elected in democratic elections, one must, I think, agree that the unprincipled manner in which he was abducted from his own country, despite categorical opposition from the upper and lower houses of parliament and the supreme constitutional court, and handed over to a court which, as we now know, was set up on the orders of the USA in order to serve political interests and help terrorise anyone who opposes the new order, are unacceptable methods, to put it mildly; some of us think this is the work of hoodlums and deserves to be roundly condemned.
I therefore call on you to intervene. I am asking for a stop to be put to this deplorable situation and for Mr Milosevic and his advisers to be returned to their country, because only the people and the courts in their own country have the power to judge them.
To remain silent in the face of this sort of international terrorism is basically tantamount to complicity; it shows disdain for any notion of international law or national sovereignty and paves the way for international political activity to be criminalised.
I would like to thank my fellow members for their support, but it is high time everyone accepted their responsibility; otherwise how can we talk of international legitimacy and respect for institutions?
Madam President, I will be very brief.
I would just like to remind Mr Wurtz that Mr Milosevic was the force behind his political family.
My whole group and I fought, therefore, against him, in particular during the Yugoslavian conflict.
I cannot help feeling some disgust, however, at the vultures circling around this carcass and at this farcical judicial system which is still designed for the victors and never questions their actions.
Whether we are talking of Nuremberg, Tokyo or The Hague, today, everyone believes that victors should at least have to answer to history if they are not subjected to the all-too-weak legal systems of their fellow men.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, without wishing to defend a Member from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I feel that the essence of the speech we have just heard on Mr Milosevic concerns not so much whether or not he has committed crimes as the following question, which is a serious one: how far can limits be imposed on a people's autonomy in matters of putting its citizens on trial? Who gave the United States the right, which they exercise today, to put on trial all those who are suspected of having committed war crimes, when they themselves are often suspected of committing crimes in wartime?
Well then, the task of a self-respecting European Parliament is to analyse this fact: whether Mr Milosevic is a criminal or not will be decided by an appropriate court. Our task is to decide whether or not the autonomy of peoples is sacred and sacrosanct.
Madam President, as the chairman of the group and a number of honourable members have commented on my speech, I should like to clarify that I was speaking solely for my own part and on behalf of the members of my party and, secondly, that I merely pointed out that, whatever ones personal opinion of how Mr Milosevic and his advisers governed their country, we cannot condone this sort of action, especially when the upper and lower houses of parliament in his country refused to pass this sort of law and his country has not ratified the statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
I think that we need to respect the institutions and sovereignty of every country, otherwise I am not sure exactly what sort of European Parliament this is.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I simply wish to say to Mr Dupuis that the matter of the name he has referred to is under negotiation, progress has been made and I hope it will be resolved soon.
For the rest, I repeat what I have said once before in this Chamber: our neighbouring State has existed so far only because of the continued moral and material support of Greece.
Otherwise Milosevic and company would have broken it up long ago.
We should concentrate now on supporting and helping it to survive in this present very difficult situation rather than confuse the issue with matters which are secondary.
Madam President, I should like to endorse Mr Dupuis' remarks about not calling Macedonia "FYROM" and to recommend that the whole of Parliament align its practice with the Dutch text of this week's agenda which lists the Council and the Commission statements on Wednesday morning as being about "Macedonia", whereas the English text says "FYROM".
Mr Dupuis is quite right.
How can we expect a country to have an identity when it is called by an acronym? Let us please put an end to this nonsense.
Madam President, with all due respect, I should like to remind the House that, as far as the recurring issue of the name of FYROM is concerned, this name has been endorsed by FYROM itself.
Ladies and gentlemen, please do not subrogate to this nation by speaking on its behalf.
They personally agreed to this name at the United Nations.
Do not worry, a solution will be found and, anyway, that is not the problem.
Helping FYROM or Macedonia in its present state.
That is what Parliament should be doing.
Madam President, I wish to speak about pensioners and elderly people who are not self-sufficient, who have disabilities.
On Thursday 28 June, the German Provincial High Court and Court of Appeal upheld the appeal brought by a private German rest home for elderly people who are not self-sufficient, which is a member of an association of private European rest homes known as ECHO, ruling that the German law which grants funding and aid to public rest homes but not to private rest homes for elderly people with disabilities is illegal.
I want all the elderly people who need to, to be able to find a public or private home where they can receive assistance, in a situation of free competition.
I call upon you to make every effort to bring this about.
Resale rights
The next item is the report (A5-0235/2001) by Mr Zimmerling, on behalf of the Parliamentary delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art (C5-0220/2001 - 1996/0085(COD))
Madam President, I think this directive will be a success.
What we have here is a classic example of European work.
First of all, Parliament came up with a pioneering proposal as regards which the Council then needed four years to establish a common position adopted by the 15 Member States which was characterised by exclusively national interests.
Parliament then required the Council to think in European terms at second reading, while the optimum demands were made on behalf of artists and auction houses.
Finally, a solution that everyone involved considered to be acceptable and satisfactory was found following tough negotiations with the Council and the Commission.
We have put European competition in the art market back on track, while auction houses and galleries in the EU are being given equality of opportunity.
In this context, I think it is particularly important for the Commission to also look regularly into the issue of whether - and, if so, when - the European art market, and not only national art markets, are affected, and that corresponding adjustments are made.
We have improved social security for artists and their heirs, who have now also been uniformly guaranteed a financial stake in the increases in value of their works.
I therefore believe that we have, in this way, taken a first important step in the direction of more competition and more security in European art circles.
I must ask the House to approve the result of the negotiations.
Madam President, 12 out of the 15 Member States of the European Union have introduced a resale right on the resale of works of art.
One Member State has not applied it and three Member States have not yet had recourse to this mechanism.
Since existing legislation differs greatly, not just as regards its specific objective but also with regard to the rates applied and those entitled to receive royalties, this situation represented a gap in the internal market.
The compromise reached by Parliament, the Council and the Commission seeks to bridge this gap and to bring an end to the distortion of competition from which the Community is currently suffering.
Furthermore, the resale right represents a fair return for artists or their successors, since it compensates for the fact that the laws of the art market dictate that a work of art usually only gains value over a period of time, whereas artists cannot wait for their twilight years to be able to live from their work.
Lastly, the resale right is a form of tax on financial speculation in the art world.
It is a tax that the art market can easily bear, as is proven by the introduction of a special VAT system on works of art in Directive 94/5, a special system which has not prevented an increase in sales quite the opposite not even in Member States which did not operate a VAT system.
The rapporteur has said all that was necessary with regard to the compromise reached, which I personally supported.
In this compromise, the European Parliament made two essential gains:
on the one hand, the threshold subject to resale right was brought down to EUR 3000, which is still quite high, but which could be brought down further if the Commission believes this is necessary. This becomes more acceptable insofar as a Member State resale right is maintained below the European threshold;
on the other hand, the refusal to have an extremely long deadline of 15 years; this was retained by the Council of Ministers in the text adopted after first reading and has now been brought down to a maximum of six years.
This precedent would have been set at a particularly inopportune moment, at the very time when the Community is preparing for its enlargement to new members.
Given that the external art market is under no illusion as to the importance of the draft submitted today for the vote by Parliament, there is, therefore, no real reason to reject this draft text, and that is why our group will be voting for the motion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, having started in April 1997, we have now reached the third reading of the Resale Rights Directive.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the conciliation committee and Mr Zimmerling for their efforts.
But unfortunately, I shall have to adhere to my old point of view.
The vast majority of my group are still not happy with the proposal.
We are concerned here with the difference between the English term 'copyright' and the Dutch word 'auteursrecht' , for what is at issue here is the sale of a work of art.
Should an artist' s heir be able to exercise his or her rights seventy years after the event? I do not think so.
A sale implies that all rights and duties are waived, and that is what the financial compensation is for.
The suggestion to increase the minimum price to EUR 3 000 is an improvement.
Anything lower would seriously hamper budding artists.
This brings me to my next point of criticism.
Our main objection to this proposal is that it is diametrically opposed to the principle of subsidiarity.
The Commission has been unable to demonstrate that discrepancies in legislation in the Member States will, in the long run, have a direct, negative impact on the internal market.
Furthermore, it is quite likely that the European modern and contemporary art market, which is of particular significance for London, will be moved to Switzerland. This was, in fact, already evident a few weeks ago at the Basel Art Fair.
The art market could, in fact, move outside Europe altogether, where this right does not exist.
Surely that cannot be the aim of the exercise. It appears from the proposal that that is a problem.
Provision is made for all kinds of unnecessary exceptions.
Harmonisation has therefore gone out of the window.
Is it not a contradiction in terms that, whilst attempts are being made to harmonise resale rights worldwide, the opportunity is being created for the Member States to abandon the minimum price at will via all kinds of loopholes?
Then there is implementation.
In addition to the red tape which is involved in keeping track of the different sales and purchases of a work of art, exceptions complicate the matter even further.
Artists do not welcome this either.
If the sale takes place between private persons, resale rights do not apply.
Would you not agree with me that the trade in art between private persons will experience a dramatic upsurge? That is not the only example I could quote.
Finally, the directive does not offer all artists the same treatment, except in the case of sales via galleries and auction houses.
The directive is unclear and is not fraud-proof.
It is also superfluous, for there is no distortion within the internal market.
My group does not welcome legislation of this kind.
The citizen experiences this, in fact, as unnecessary interference from Brussels.
My group has voted against it twice. It deems the changes and improvements in respect of the proposal to be insufficient and will therefore be voting against it for the third time.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, further to what Mrs Sanders-ten Holte has said, it can be seen that there are two sides to every question.
A majority of members of visual artists' associations and representative bodies, with whom I have spoken during the last few years, now want to see European resale rights.
Even the majority of those in the art trade want to see common resale rights.
Politicians have been trying for years to negotiate a compromise acceptable to everyone.
Admittedly, the Council has not really striven for harmonisation but, rather, put together a framework with a number of ingenious loopholes.
Admittedly, the Council was not particularly flexible and did not pay very much attention to the European Parliament' s proposals, but it is, at the end of the day, an acceptable compromise.
I cannot speak for the Commission, but there are one or two things to indicate that the Commission, too, was not happy, or in agreement, with all the Council proposals, especially those regarding the transitional periods.
In what was not so much a debate as a veto policy, the Commission, too, played its role, however, in making resale rights possible.
Now we have this document, on the subject of which I would say that, although we might well protest, we ought to be saying 'yes' to what is, at long last, a victory.
We have this paper, which can be improved upon, but it is precisely because we now have the paper that such improvements can be made.
Opponents should be somewhat more careful in their criticism rather than appear, as critics, to be all of the same mind.
That is because there are some people who reject resale rights on principle and others who would like to level specific and very serious criticisms which may be of vital importance to themselves or to particular players, for example to the smallest art galleries which, in fact, are instrumental in creating a pool of talent.
It is they who assume the major risk.
They have a great many problems with the tax differentials, administration and insurance contracts.
They are scarcely allowed to take visual artists' work on commission. For the most part, they have to buy such works.
If these smallest galleries have to buy works of art and are then - as anticipated in this proposal - unable to resell them three years later, and if perhaps, only after that period, have to sell them for less than their purchase price, they are bearing a risk and are losing out on two counts, namely in terms of both the price and of the resale rights.
My group will nonetheless vote in favour of this proposal, although there are still one or two improvements to be made in terms of both resale rights and of related aspects.
Finally, I should not like to brush aside one further argument, for that is not something I can do, but, rather, to qualify it somewhat. It is only one specific lobby that is arguing the point about market migration.
We have supply and demand, and there are certain things that are sought in Europe, and which have always been sought in Europe, and not in the United States, and vice versa. It is important that this European decision, which will hopefully be taken by a majority of us tomorrow, should exert enormous pressure in favour of representatives campaigning for resale rights in Switzerland and also in the United States.
They are waiting for us to say yes, and I hope that this is what they will hear tomorrow.
Madam President, this report relates to the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee, and it is therefore far too late to affect the course of this directive - not that a single or group of MEPs could do that anyway.
Nevertheless I will take this opportunity to put on record my party's opposition to this measure.
In so doing I must point out a few home truths to this House, even though I know these will be unpopular with the institution, which prefers to live in its own world, totally detached from reality.
First, although this measure aims to remove distortions in the internal market, it is fair to say that there is no such thing as a Community market in the resale of artists' work.
There is in fact a major market in the UK - mainly in London - and very little else in Europe.
Therefore, the major effect would be not so much to distort as to disrupt the UK market.
The net result of this will be to drive the trade elsewhere: to Japan, Switzerland and the United States, none of which countries will have the same concern for EU-based artists as the London market.
Secondly, such money as is collected will invariably go to the wrong people.
Seventy per cent of the 'droit de suite' funds collected in France in 1996 went not to the artists but to the descendants of seven artists, including the relatives of Matisse and Picasso.
This does not exactly conform with the images of helping the struggling artist.
Thirdly, the law itself is cumbersome and will add considerably to the costs of art markets by adding a tier of bureaucracy and expense.
Many small firms will be excluded from low-value sales altogether, limiting the opportunities for new and aspiring artists to market their works.
Instead of helping artists, this will hinder them, and there will be fewer small firms left in business.
Who will then buy the works of unknown artists? Altogether this is an ill-conceived, irrational and ultimately unnecessary piece of legislation.
The legislation itself will be the instrument which creates distortions in an otherwise satisfactory market.
As is so often the case, Parliament and the European Union should leave things alone.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement reached by the rapporteur, Mr Zimmerling, is a compromise agreement on an extremely interesting issue.
The agreement was criticised by some artists' groups who told us they believed that the new directive would, paradoxically, cause unacceptable discrimination between famous artists and those who are in difficulty, that it would give no support at all to artists who need it most.
They pointed out to us that, in fact, this would create a distortion between a minority of privileged artists, whose works are sold in art galleries and auction houses, and the majority of artists, who would be officially refused the resale right since their works of art are sold privately or sold to museums by private collectors.
In fact, as you might imagine, we had lengthy debates on setting a threshold of between EUR 1 000 and EUR 4 000, above which the resale right would apply, arriving at a compromise of EUR 3 000, which is a reasonable amount.
What is more worrying, on the other hand, is the exception to the rule of equal opportunities in law, which could well lead to appeals before the Court of Human Rights in Luxembourg due, in particular, to the fact that the date on which the directive will enter into force in Member States which currently do not have a resale right is so far away 2010.
In any case, I am afraid that, as the previous speaker said, the resale right itself although it clearly responds to legitimate concerns will create bureaucracy that is more likely to cripple the art market than to bring genuine satisfaction to the creators themselves.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, a majority of my parliamentary group - I am also saying this because Mr Graça Moura is unable to be here at the moment - will doubtless approve the conclusion reached by the conciliation committee.
In spite of this, a good many more members of my parliamentary group also have reservations, shared by political colleagues in my own country of Austria which, at present, does not have resale rights at all and has not seen any need to introduce them either.
I also promised my French colleague, Mrs Fourtou, that I would again voice some of these reservations today, although I am a committed supporter of fair competition in the internal market and always speak up for European regulations whenever they make sense in terms of the internal market and our common integration policy.
On 13 December of last year, I therefore informed plenary of the concerns expressed about resale rights by artists, the art world, gallery owners and, above all, young artists, as well as by the auction houses in my own country and by our parliamentary group.
On that occasion, I concluded by saying that the present basis for the decision was unsatisfactory.
I certainly think that the conciliation committee made a lot of changes to try to accommodate these reservations.
Moreover, the rapporteur is also to be congratulated.
For many, these misgivings could not, however, be completely resolved, something which finds very clear - albeit only symbolic - expression in the wordings concerning the transitional regulations, such as the following: 'The deadline for implementation of the directive will be 4 years.
Those Member States which do not apply the resale right at the time of the entry into force of the directive shall not be required, for a period expiring not later than 1 January 2010, to apply the resale right for the benefit of those entitled under the artist after his death.'
A further deadline is cited by way of supplement.
This wording shows how sensitive the subject is and how various compromises had to be made.
I should also like to say, however, that the purpose of introducing resale rights is to enable practitioners of the visual arts to benefit from the subsequent financial success of their works.
We must ask ourselves if this goal has been achieved. Partly in the wake of scientific investigations and, in addition, the conclusion reached by the conciliation committee, many believe that resale rights constitute a redistribution of resources from young, and often less well off, artists to older, successful artists and, above all, to their heirs.
One of the investigations I have to hand provides a very good five-point summary of the reservations, which I should very probably point out, since they show that not everyone is now in a state of euphoria.
Firstly: since the art and auction trade can only bear a very small part of the resale rights tax and since - thankfully, in my view - this tax cannot be fully passed on to the purchasers of works of art, resale rights might lead to a reduction in the purchase prices of works by young artists.
The second problem is that artists successful later on in life - perhaps just a few out of the total number - might regard resale rights as an enforced redistribution of resources in those later phases of their lives.
Thirdly, this is an undesirable development, however, since it would confine young artists within a world of consumer opportunities.
Fourthly, the tax could change the nature of competition in the art trade. If this were to happen, there could be a real risk of migration.
Fifthly, the initial sale price might be influenced by account having to be taken of the fact that, in the event of a subsequent sale, the resale rights tax would be payable to the artist.
These reservations are also shared by many in my country and in my parliamentary group.
That does not detract from the result of the conciliation, but I would ask you to understand that not everyone today is laughing.
Madam President, for reasons of equality, if nothing else, a right similar to copyright or other intellectual property rights is needed for intellectual works which can be reproduced ad infinitum.
And what we have created are resale rights for the figurative arts.
These rights are property rights because they vest economic rights and benefits in the artist.
However, they are property rights sui generis because they indirectly recognise the importance of aesthetic values while, at the same time, awarding artists a sort of honorary tax.
It is a fact of life that works of art cannot be bought and sold without the intervention of art dealers.
However, unlike the trade in consumer or other capital goods, the trade in works of art is not an end in itself.
The point about the art trade is that it disseminates aesthetic values and aesthetic messages.
But these messages cannot be disseminated without artists.
And while their contribution is unique, the works which they produce only gradually acquire a market value.
It is therefore wholly unfair for the dealer - who is no more than a middleman - to reap the full benefit of this value.
Besides, it is up to them to encourage artistic creativity.
That is why it is wrong that artists in certain countries do not recognise this right.
We therefore need to correct the mistake in the Berne Convention making resale rights potential rights.
The fact that certain countries insist on long transitional periods or on postponing the date of application does not flatter its supporters.
Europe, as the area of artistic creation and culture par excellence, must show third countries the right way forward.
Everyone stands to gain from this solution.
Mr President, we, the British Conservative MEPs, are not happy with this proposal.
We believe it is not necessary for the completion of the single market.
In practice we do not believe it will help financially those who need it most.
Indeed, there is some evidence it may actually make them worse off, as my colleague Mr Karas pointed out.
It is going to drive a significant part of the contemporary art market out of the EU to Geneva and New York, and that will cost jobs in the trade itself and in supporting industries.
Those jobs are our jobs - Europe's jobs - and our businesses.
On balance, we believe it will damage rather than enhance Europe's economy and the position of its working artists.
Moreover, it will make a global agreement on 'droit de suite' less rather than more likely because there is no incentive for the beneficiaries of this agreement - New York and Geneva - to strike a deal with the European Union.
In short, we believe it is an ill-conceived project which is against the best interests of Europe in general and the single market in particular.
I begin by expressing the thanks of the Commission to the rapporteur, Mr Zimmerling, for his report.
In particular, the Commission notes with pleasure that an agreement has finally been reached.
I shall be brief in my remarks; much has been said about this subject, not only today, but in the past, so I shall restrict myself to what is absolutely necessary.
The resale right is going to be part of Community law.
It will allow artists to benefit from that right wherever their works are sold in the European Union.
That means that an end will gradually be put to the distortion of competition affecting the internal market in this area.
The directive will give the Commission a basis on which to act in order to promote recognition of the resale rights at international level.
The Commission has already committed itself to taking appropriate action in that direction.
But the Commission is still concerned by the long delays in application which may lead to 10 years elapsing before the directive is able to produce its full harmonising effects.
The Commission has therefore made a statement, which is to be published in the Official Journal together with the directive, in which it points out that such delays should be considered exceptional and should remain so in order to maintain the effectiveness of Community action within the internal market.
Thank you very much, Mr Bolkestein.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Better legal protection for accident victims
The next item is the report (A5-0174/2001) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, with recommendations to the Commission on a fifth European Parliament and Council directive on motor vehicle liability insurance to improve the legal protection of accident victims.
Mr President, Commissioner, the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, has unfortunately been detained today at an important meeting in Luxembourg and has asked me to stand in for him today and, in fact, to speak on his behalf, which is something I am happy to do.
With the fifth draft directive on motor vehicles, we want further to improve the protection of accident victims and, at the same time, take account of the requirements of the internal market.
What are we proposing?
Firstly, any loss arising out of a traffic accident in the European Union - whether those involved are from the same or from different countries - ought, in future, to be settled within a reasonable period. Otherwise, there should be the threat of financial sanctions.
Secondly, the sum insured ought, in future, to amount to at least EUR 2 million, irrespective of the number of victims and the nature of the losses.
I have doubts, however, as to whether this amount will be sufficient.
In December 1998, a British judge decided the case of a Dutch student who had broken his neck in an accident and since been paralysed from neck to toe.
The court awarded the accident victim compensation of approximately GBP 9 million, some GBP 8 million of which related to purely financial loss.
Thirdly, there are still doubts as to who is obliged to assume liability for an accident caused by a vehicle without a number plate or with a false or stolen number plate.
In such cases, we need clear regulations in favour of the accident victim.
In future, compensation should be paid from the guarantee fund of the country in which the accident occurred.
Take, for example, the case of a Dutch hit-and-run driver who causes an accident in Italy with a vehicle stolen in Poland that has false German number plates.
Who is liable? In future, it should be the Italian guarantee fund alone, which would obviously try to obtain redress.
Fourthly, the period for which a policyholder working temporarily in another Member State is protected ought, in future, to be increased to twelve months.
During this period, he ought neither to have to register a new address for his vehicle nor to have to effect a new insurance policy.
Those are only some of the proposals.
They are really there for the purpose of tying up loose ends.
At a later stage, we shall deal with the real problems of the future, i.e. reform of the compensation provided for non-material losses in the European Union.
We discussed this last year in Trier at the Academy of European Law: in other words, the protection of pedestrians and cyclists as vulnerable road users.
That was the theme in Trier this year at the Second European Road Traffic Law Conference: in other words, the accident victim' s right to claim directly against his own insurer.
I consider that to be a modern concept.
The Commission should therefore set to work.
Mr President, firstly I want to make it absolutely clear that I have every sympathy with what our rapporteur wishes to achieve in taking forward this proposal.
As we have often noted before, motor vehicle accidents unfortunately touch the lives of far too many of our citizens as mobility across Europe grows.
The Fourth Directive made great strides in dealing with these problems.
However, I want to concentrate on the fact that the proposal "requires" Member States to implement in their national law the provisions relating to an improved compensation procedure.
In essence, we have created a preferential system for European motor accident claims and therefore, logically, it makes sense to give those who experience an accident in a purely national context the same advantages.
Logically, yes, but does this way forward respect subsidiarity? I am afraid not and this is an important point.
I have therefore retabled an amendment to make this merely a recommendation to Member States.
The point is that the issues raised here are a matter for national private civil law.
It would involve substantial changes in tort law in England and Wales, for example.
We would be putting motor vehicle accident victims in a class apart.
What about the victims of medical negligence, industrial injury or any other type of claim against insurers?
At present our committee is looking carefully at the harmonisation of civil law.
In that respect we have been rightly critical of a piecemeal approach, improperly researched.
I merely wish to make the point today that this proposal does, and must, involve a much bigger debate with tremendous implications for our respective systems of civil law.
It deserves proper and transparent treatment.
Mr President, Mr Rothley's own-initiative report is indeed most welcome at this stage in the evolution of the single market.
There is no doubt that the Fourth Motor Insurance Directive needs updating after 15 years in force.
This period has afforded us sufficient opportunity to assess the effectiveness of the directive in contributing to a genuine single market for motor insurance.
It is clear that there are a number of gaps remaining and that the insuree and the claimant still face certain difficulties which need to be addressed.
I thank Mr Rothley for his research in this area and for clearly identifying the areas in which the legal protection of accident victims can be improved.
As long as there is room for improvement in this area, it is incumbent on us, as European legislators, to push forward and bring about a better set of conditions.
While a certain amount of progress has been made, it is clear that a single insurance market does not yet exist.
This deprives consumers of the best that companies across Europe can offer in terms of choice, in terms of flexibility and, of course, price.
Motor insurance is a multi-billion euro business and further competition must be encouraged so that consumers can reap the benefits.
One glaring inconsistency in the motor insurance field is in the area of temporary residency.
Current rules often place consumers at the mercy of insurance companies.
This must stop.
I strongly support the notion that citizens who wish to take up temporary residency outside their home country should be allowed to bring their personal motor vehicle without running into financial and administrative obstacles.
The freedom to live, work or study abroad must mean just that - freedom - and not hidden barriers.
Having to re-insure and re-register can be such hindrances.
In my own country we currently have the shortest re-registration period, with only one day allowed.
It is frequently difficult for temporary residents to obtain local insurance cover at a reasonable price.
A one-year grace period during which the home country insurer would be obliged to continue cover is perfectly reasonable.
This would mean one less headache for citizens considering temporary residency in another Member State.
We often hear in this House that European citizens somehow feel far removed from decisions taken at European level, that the issues dealt with are not ones that impinge on their daily lives.
It is all the more welcome, therefore, that we in Parliament should take the initiative in matters such as this where we can make a real and tangible contribution to the rights and legal protection of our citizens.
Mr President, Commissioner, the number of road accidents within the EU is unacceptably high.
That certainly applies to the tens of thousands who lose their lives on the roads and the hundreds of thousand who are injured in road accidents every year.
Certainly in those cases, but even if there is only material damage, the suffering should not be exacerbated by endless tugs-of-war with the insurance companies.
As cross-border transport, both in the freight and in the private sector, increases, so do the problems in obtaining motor vehicle insurance cover.
Mr Rothley has specified these in his report and, in doing so, has underlined the need for something to be done.
While number plates now bear the European emblem, indicating the Member State inside the circle of stars, in many cases the number plate provides no information.
Cars brought back from another Member State retain their old number plate for far too long while, on the other hand, it is made unnecessarily difficult to retain the number plate temporarily in another Member State.
As far as the minimum cover for legal liability is concerned, I share the rapporteur' s view that it is high time it went up.
Unfortunately, it seems that EUR 2 million will be needed in practice to cover the damages in virtually all cases.
I therefore support the appeal to the Commission in the draft resolution to send a proposal to Parliament this autumn.
This period may be brief, but the rapporteur has already provided the blueprint for the proposal in this report.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that the Commission regrets the absence of Mr Rothley this afternoon.
This is not the first time that I have had an exchange of opinion with Mr Rothley and his colleagues on motor vehicle insurance matters: I remember vividly the discussions we had on the Fourth Motor Insurance Directive: that directive has now been adopted.
Therefore I know that Parliament has a special concern for the effectiveness of the insurance cover which protects millions of European citizens who may become involved in motor vehicle accidents.
Indeed, the most recent developments for the EU motor vehicle insurance framework - the Fourth Motor Insurance Directive to which I have just referred - resulted from a specific request from Parliament.
The legislation was adopted last year.
From the end of 2002 it will help improve the situation of visiting motorists, namely those unfortunate European citizens who are victims of a road accident while they are outside their home country.
That directive was also a remarkable development because it was the first occasion on which Parliament made use of its new powers under Article 192 of the Treaty.
The European Parliament now calls upon the Commission, in my person, to take further action in this field.
This time the object of Parliament's requests is not to fill a gap in existing rules but to modernise and reinforce the single insurance market in this area.
Let me say on this point that the Commission is fully aware of the need to modernise the motor vehicle insurance directives - after all, the first of these directives was adopted 30 years ago.
For that reason, and in consultation with Member States, industry and victim support groups, in 1998 the Commission started a comprehensive exercise to review our insurance directives.
That exercise is now at a very advanced stage, but has not yet been completed.
I should therefore like to express my sincere thanks to Parliament in general, and to Mr Rothley in particular for his initiative, which is in line with, and provides a new impetus to, the Commission's work in this area.
Let me also say that some aspects of the actions proposed in the resolution, such as a harmonised deadline for registration of vehicles imported from another Member State, may go beyond the scope of the insurance directives.
That has already been pointed out during the discussion in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, when it was also stated that if we are to go in that direction we will require a different legal basis from that used for insurance matters.
In addition, other actions, such as the insurer's obligation to provide a claims declaration, ought to be implemented in such a way that these actions do not run counter to the principle of the freedom of tariffs which inspires the Community's insurance legislation.
In conclusion, I should like to reassure Parliament, that even if we are not in a position to submit a proposal within the time limits requested in the resolution, the Commission will do its best to secure the rapid adoption of a comprehensive proposal aimed at modernising the legal framework of motor insurance.
Thank you very much, Mr Bolkestein.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Out-of-court settlement of consumer disputes
The next item is the report (A5-0134/2001) by Mrs Wallis, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on action taken on the Community policy on out-of-court settlement of consumer disputes.
Mr President, I was struck today by an article in The Wall Street Journal; the subtitle read: "Why do America and Europe differ on the importance of consumer interests?" It went on to say, from a US point of view: "when it comes to putting the consumer at the center of its economic model, Europe remains stubbornly old-fashioned."
E-commerce, of all types, still lags behind in Europe.
By 2005, 11% of US retail sales will be online, only 6+% in western Europe.
Our hope must be that this Commission initiative for a European Extra-Judicial Network will help build consumer e-confidence and force those European figures up.
These were the problems that we wrestled with during the passage of the Brussels regulation: how to allow Europe's consumers access to cross-border justice without over-burdening business and yet, at the same time, exposing business to necessary competitive forces.
We must be clear that this is an attempt to deal with a large number of low-value cross-border consumer disputes, outside the normal legal system.
Alternative means that almost replace the lower end of our traditional court systems will be introduced.
This is a very ambitious project, and such an exercise needs to be seriously undertaken and properly funded.
One of my greatest concerns about this initiative is its funding, both substantively and in terms of its publicity.
Our citizens know where their local courts are, but will they know how or where to access the EEJ Net? From what I have seen, I am not over-optimistic.
Secondly, is the system coherent and efficient? At the moment, progress is very variable in the different Member States.
The Commission must get tough in this respect, hence our suggestion of a service-level agreement with each clearing-house.
Only such an arrangement will ensure that our citizens get the service that they really deserve.
This brings me to the amendments.
We can happily accept Amendments Nos 2 and 3, but we have grave concerns about Amendment No 1.
Not to allow the clearing-houses to give legal advice flies in the face of reality.
Some of the centres already operating as Euroguichets, have trained lawyers on their staff.
They could not function without that.
We cannot offer our citizens a second-rate service.
Good legal advice, or knowledge, at the outset of a claim is essential if it is not to veer off in the wrong direction, causing aggravation, disappointment and denial of justice.
Lastly, let us turn to the legislative method, ADR and the EEJ Net, are examples of soft law or co-regulation.
If this is the way of the future, it is important that Parliament be fully involved from start to finish.
For example, most of us would applaud the other sectoral initiative in this field, the FIN Net dealing with financial services for instance, but when was this initiative referred to Parliament? If we are replacing or enhancing our legal system and access to justice, these issues are key to civil society and they cannot and must not be tackled without the input of democratically elected Members.
Mr President, we welcome this report so deftly piloted through Parliament by Mrs Wallis because, in the brave new world of e-commerce, there is going to be the same share of crooks and mountebanks as in the non-digital environment.
For this reason consumer protection matters at least as much.
It comes in two forms.
First, it provides legal protection, and, secondly, it provides a means of enforcing that protection.
Clearly, especially as regards small claims across international borders - in other words, between different legal systems - conventional court systems will be of limited real help, as Mrs Wallis has just pointed out.
Hence we welcome this initiative to create a user-friendly, extra-judicial network across Europe.
Indeed we believe it should go beyond the physical limits of the Union since the Net is no respecter of national boundaries.
As is so often the case, the devil lies in the detail.
We look forward to seeing that detail and wish its progress well.
Mr President, Mrs Wallis' report is an important contribution to the debate on Community policy on out-of-court settlement of consumer disputes.
I also commend her recommendations to this House, and indeed share her concerns.
We all know from our own experience that lengthy and costly litigation through the courts is losing its appeal as a means to resolve disputes.
The notion that most people want judges, well-dressed lawyers and fine courtrooms as a setting to resolve their disputes is no longer correct.
People with problems, like people with pains, want relief and they want it as quickly and as inexpensively as possible.
The success of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms is beginning to create a cultural shift away from traditional litigation.
In a recent case in the UK, an eleven-month trial running into millions of pounds was replaced and resolved by mediation in a matter of days.
We see examples of this across Europe.
But if the single market is to grow, then we need to make it easier for consumers to shop across borders with greater confidence.
This will only happen if consumers can buy goods and services and be confident and secure that if problems arise they can be resolved easily.
Not in the first instance in court where the average cost for a cross-border case is EUR 2 500 and it takes between 23 and 29 months to resolve.
In reality, we know that consumers are not encouraged to shop on the Internet outside their own Member State and that national consumer organisations - including in my own Member State - are not advising consumers to go down this route because it is fraught with difficulties.
My own personal experience with Internet shopping has not inspired me with e-confidence.
After purchasing CDs from a renowned high street store, namely HMV, I received an incomplete order with a promise of further delivery.
Most reputable shopping sites ensure that money is not taken from an account.
Two months on I have still to receive outstanding items and my visa card has been debited the full amount.
Yet the value of these items is small and court redress would be costly and nonsensical.
Consumers are also increasingly tempted to buy even more expensive items across borders, like washing machines, fridges, financial services and cars.
ADR is a valuable way to access justice providing services and remedies which are appropriate to the cost of the item.
But it is not the panacea to all consumer disputes.
The consumer must still have the right to go to court as a last resort.
In the absence of an agreement directly with the trader or the trading site, the consumer should be encouraged to look at the benefits of ADRs.
It is vital, as Mrs Wallis, has said, that the consumer is aware and informed of this option.
In my own Member State, citizens advice bureaux are acting as a clearing-house.
Consumers who make claims have, therefore, a local point of access and information.
This is vital.
For consumers in the UK there is an even bigger bonus as a by-product of boosting confidence in crossborder shopping on the Internet.
We can shop in a larger market and often buy goods up to a third cheaper.
This has to be a benefit in what we call "rip-off Britain", by driving down high prices in our own over-priced internal home market.
Mr President, I have been a keen supporter of the alternative and out-of-court settlement of disputes for years.
Not only can this be a means of coping with the ever increasing pressure on regular, judicial bodies; more than anything, it offers citizens a low threshold for the swift and inexpensive settlement of complaints.
In fact, over the past couple of years, when dealing with different consumer issues, such as remote sales, I have time and again stressed the need for alternative ways of settling disputes in order for the internal market to function well.
Consequently, the alternative settlement of disputes has been included explicitly in a number of directives.
The internal market has given consumers the opportunity to expand their horizons enormously, and they no longer rely on what is on offer within the national market.
Certainly at a time when cross-border sales and purchases are increasingly being made via modern communications methods, the benefits of the European market are becoming apparent.
But the consumer may also be dissatisfied at times. This applies at Member State, as well as international, level.
In the case of cross-border purchases, the complaints procedure is much longer but, above all, also more laborious.
Many consumers are so put off by the complex procedures - not helped by the fact that they are drafted in a foreign language - that they do not pursue their complaints.
That is deplorable.
In the light of this, I welcome the Commission' s proposal with open arms.
I should also like to congratulate Mrs Wallis who has managed to pinpoint a few sore points in her report, with which I could not agree more.
Allow me to mention a few more key words with regard to the information desks to be set up.
These need to be simple procedures, a low threshold for the consumer who is looking for legal solutions and sound regulations governing the use of the consumer' s own language.
As for the latter, the Commission should reconsider how it intends to implement its plans practically speaking.
I should also like to know when the information desks will be set up in the different Member States.
The Netherlands plans to launch these in 2001.
In my opinion, the information desks should focus on the role of offering guidance to the consumer.
In that respect, I do not see eye to eye with Mrs Wallis.
The real legal advice must therefore be given by duly qualified people.
I also believe that the information desk should not, and cannot, act in the role of advocate, for then it would be responsible for the advice given.
In my view, the information desk should be a facility and an effective guide and must act as a conduit to channel disputes to the alternative settlement of disputes procedure, for example.
In this connection, I believe that my amendment should be carefully re-read, also by the rapporteur.
We run too many risks when we start issuing them with legal tasks.
I speak from experience as Chairman of the Disputes Settlement Committees Foundation.
Mr President, it is very important that a framework is developed within the European Union in order to guarantee that the rights of consumers are protected at all times.
This entails putting into place systems which will allow the 370 million consumers of the European Union to access justice promptly, and to secure redress when consumer rights are infringed.
Justice delayed is justice denied.
This is why I welcome this communication, which seeks to put in place procedures to deal with out-of-court settlements of consumer disputes.
It is up to the 15 Member States of the European Union to implement the provisions of this recommendation.
Each Member State will have to put in place procedures which can deal with out-of-court settlements of consumer disputes.
Ultimately, these new structures will be able to help resolve cross-border disputes for aggrieved consumers within the European Union.
Each government within the European Union will also have to set up central contact points, which will provide consumers with the requisite information about out-of-court resolution disputes bodies which are operational within their jurisdiction.
Such central contact points will explain to consumers to whom they may address their complaints and seek appropriate redress.
The central contact points will provide information and assistance with regard to the resolution of cross-border disputes within the European Union.
I would urge the European Commission to allocate substantial funds to ensure that this new scheme is widely publicised across the European Union.
If we want these new structures to be a success, wide publicity is going to have to be put in place.
These new procedures are also going to have to be monitored in a structured manner, so as to ensure that any discrepancies in the operation of these new schemes within the different Member States of the European Union are ironed out.
In conclusion, Mr President, this proposal is only part of a range of measures implemented by the European Union to protect consumer rights.
Consumers need to be protected, both in the off-line world and in the increasingly important on-line world where consumers are purchasing many goods and services over the Internet.
A new information technology age has arrived.
We must ensure that consumers' rights are protected as these technologies continue.
I congratulate the rapporteur on this fine report.
Mr President, we wish we could be considering a perfect and polished Commission working paper on the settlement of consumer disputes, specifically those requiring cross-border solutions.
Nevertheless, and the rapporteur, Mrs Wallis, makes this point very well, the best always arrives late and is often the enemy of the good, which appears in the meantime. We must, therefore, express our satisfaction with the Commission' s limited initiative.
This indicates a possible way forward for the rapid and inexpensive resolution of often low-value consumer disputes. What is required, as we know, is the creation of a European Extrajudicial Network, which is capable of resolving these disputes by means of the credibility, probity, transparency and technical expertise of organisations that have arisen from the free association of consumers and which are able to form a chain of control that protects consumer rights and the average quality of life of Europe' s citizens.
This would enable us to move towards regulating the protection of the economic rights of private individuals and removing the burden of bureaucracy imposed on them by the cumbersome traditional legal machinery.
Unlike the invisible hand, the internal consumer market is, in this case, organising its own self-regulation, which will be coordinated and supported by the European institutions, thereby enhancing the credibility of the Union itself and its closeness to the citizens.
Mr President, the way ahead is clear; Mrs Wallis has explained how we must now progress and my group will therefore vote in favour of the report we are now debating.
Mr. President, I am not only an advocate but a convinced advocate of the benefits of arbitration.
This largely comes from my experience of legal practice, both in the area of domestic law in my own Member State and in the area of international commercial arbitration.
I had the honour of being a member the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce for seven years, and drafted the last piece of legislation in my own Member State on International Commercial Arbitration, so I am a convinced advocate of the benefits of arbitration, as distinct from court procedures.
Therefore, I believe that the establishment of the EEJ Net is an essential step in ensuring that consumers have practical access to simple, low-cost and effective means of resolving cross-border disputes.
It is the natural follow-up to the 1998 Commission communication on access to justice and the notification by Member States of their out-of-court bodies applying the principles set out in Recommendation 98/257.
In addition, this is a significant step forward in fulfilling the Tampere Council conclusions in providing better access to justice in Europe.
The continuing expansion of economic activity within the internal market means more and more that consumers' activities are not confined to their own country.
The continued growth of e-commerce, coupled with the introduction of the euro, underlines the urgency of the need to actively promote consumer confidence to ensure a truly competitive and effective internal market.
The involvement and support of all the Community institutions, including the European Parliament, is essential to raise the profile of this initiative and to ensure its effective delivery and to guarantee its eventual success.
Member States, in close cooperation with the Commission, have already made substantial progress since this initiative was proposed in March last year.
All, with the exception of Germany, have now informed the Commission of the body that will perform the functions of their national clearing-house and the process of setting up these bodies is under way.
The Commission is providing financial assistance for the start-up costs and will examine how best to provide further infrastructure and targeted support.
In addition, both Norway and Iceland have expressed their wish to participate and have been attending meetings with Member States' experts and with the Commission.
We are also examining how best the enlargement candidate countries can be brought into the network.
Much work has been completed with Member States' experts and with wider stakeholders to turn the network into a successfully functioning reality.
In particular, one result of this work has been a Memorandum of Understanding, setting out the minimum functions and operational guidelines for the clearing-houses, which is now close to finalisation.
This document marks an important step in ensuring coherent cooperation throughout the network.
It includes requirements for the provision of practical information and advice to be given to consumers, a general system for complaint handling, based on the European Complaint Forum, its translation, and monitoring to ensure the network operates efficiently, the requirement for either the clearing-house or the national authority to make practical arrangements with national ADRs to ensure smooth cooperation and the need to monitor their compliance with the principles in the Commission recommendation.
Network cooperation is envisaged through regular meetings, the development of network strategies and continual review of the network to ensure constant improvement.
Uniform methods for collecting data on the performance of the network, for its evaluation and to identify specific consumer problems are also part of the plan.
The group of Member State experts meets tomorrow to finalise these details.
It is also provisionally agreed that the network should become operational on the 16 October of this year.
This coincides with the launch in Belgium of their Euroguichet, which will act as the clearing-house, and with the Annual General Assembly of the Consumer Associations that takes place on 18 and 19 October.
I see the EEJ Net initiative as a priority.
It is an essential component of a number of initiatives currently being developed by the Commission aimed at creating confidence to enable consumers to actively take part in and benefit from the internal market.
It will also be important for businesses in facilitating greater cross-border trade, particularly of course, for SMEs.
It will put the practical framework in place to allow the ADRs' potential for resolving cross-border disputes to be fully exploited.
The organic nature of this framework will enable it to be sufficiently flexible and adaptable to meet new challenges and be kept under constant review to ensure the delivery of an effective mechanism for all citizens and for the effective operation of the internal market.
Mr President, I should like to hear what the Commissioner has to say about the amendments.
Mr President, these are amendments to the excellent text that has been put forward by the rapporteur.
As they stand, I do not have any objection to them, in particular the first one which identifies the need to have access to legal staff.
That is desirable and included in our proposal.
The others seem to me to be perfectly reasonable.
For instance, Amendment No 3 makes reference to the involvement of the EEA states.
Some of them are already involved and we want more of them involved, including the applicant countries.
So the Commission fully supports this.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
COM in fruit and vegetables
The next item is the Commission statement on the common organisation of the markets in the fruit and vegetables sector.
Mr Byrne has the floor, on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, the Commission would like to thank the European Parliament for the resolution tabled on the report of the Commission on the operation of the common organisation of the market in the fruit and vegetable sector.
This resolution contains a number of very interesting points and the Commission has taken careful note of them.
As you know, the intention of this report has been to act as a platform for a wide-ranging discussion among Member States, the European Parliament and the sector.
Since January, the report has been on the agenda of the Council working groups and of the SCA meetings and has been discussed in the last Council.
The Commission is taking note of all opinions and positions and is currently actively studying and evaluating aspects related to the report and to the future of the sector and its COM.
In this context, the Commission welcomes the points raised in the resolution by Parliament.
In particular it supports the objectives of increasing the concentration of supply via producer organisations, reducing problems linked to operational programmes and improving the overall market regulation.
The Commission would like to reassure Parliament that it is fully aware of the need to continue to work urgently on several aspects of this report and your current resolution. When this process of evaluation has been completed, the Commission intends to come forward with proposals to improve the COM where appropriate.
In conclusion, the Commission would like once more to thank Parliament for this resolution.
It is prepared to maintain all necessary contact between its services and Parliament and looks forward to full discussion and cooperation on the future of the COM in the fruit and vegetable sector.
Thank you very much, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen.
I should like, first of all, to thank the Commission for its brief statement.
I am sorry that the Commissioner responsible is not here, but I am very grateful to you, Mr Byrne, for joining us here today.
I can only regret the fact, however, that you limited yourself simply to making a statement of good intentions and to thanking Parliament, without actually going into the problems or proposing any potential solutions.
A year has passed since the Council instructed the Commission to undertake a specific study of the situation in the fruit and vegetable sector, which is currently suffering more than any other, in a report on the workings of the COM in fruit and vegetables.
In order to prevent disruption to support for this sector, an extension was approved for the improvement plans for the year 2000.
We have now reached a point where, in 2001, this extension is coming to an end and the situation is creating considerable uncertainty in the sector, which risks causing farmers to abandon their land despite the gains that have been made as a result of the improvement plans.
This problem requires a decision, which can be implemented immediately by setting in motion support mechanisms replacing the current improvement plans as these come to an end.
The nut sector is of great social and environmental importance to the European Union, and to the southern countries such as Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal and France, because these countries have many small farms that create a great number of jobs and which also have a considerable and direct influence on the environment.
Parliament has declared itself to be in favour of seeking a definitive solution for this sector, within the framework of the COM in fruit and vegetables.
What we need now, Commissioner, is for the Presidency and the Commission to speed up their work on finding a definitive solution for the nut sector in the European Union within the framework of the COM in fruit and vegetables and, until then, to extend the improvement plans.
With regard to the other problems of this COM and to those discussed in the report, I think that we need to support producers' organisations and strengthen the instruments that the COM places at their disposal, especially the operational funds.
We would also want to encourage links and mergers between producers' organisations and to see operational funds belonging to producers' organisations that have merged - or the actions carried out jointly by various organisations - financed at a rate of 70% instead of the current 50%.
They would therefore receive the same treatment that the current regulations give to actions undertaken within the industry or between trade organisations.
I also feel that there needs to be a revision of the regulations in this field, in order to harmonise funding with operational funds or through rural development funds, with the sole proviso that adequate control mechanisms are put in place in order to ensure that funding is not given twice.
This is creating distortions in the sector' s financing.
Lastly, a more detailed study would also need to be undertaken of other aspects, such as the regulation of citrus fruits, measures for specific products affected by international competition and the standardisation of trade with third countries.
In broad terms, these are the concerns of the Group of the European People' s Party and of a southern country, about the COM.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for joining us today.
Commissioner, once again, the report submitted by the European Commission on the operation of the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables, with a view to a future reform, is a disappointment.
It is not only a disappointment to Parliament, because it adopts almost none of the recommendations of the requests contained in the Resolution of 26 October 2000, but it is also a disappointment to the whole production sector.
The report does not adopt the work and the suggestions of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development or those of Parliament itself, despite the fact that Commissioner Fischler stated a while ago that these would be taken into consideration.
The report is incomplete: it fails to present practical solutions and nor does it make an in-depth study of the situation. Neither time nor energy has been expended on it and, I repeat, it is a disappointment.
No solutions have been suggested for a sector which, in some parts of the European Union, is responsible for 25% of total agricultural output and provides the most employment. Are you aware, Commissioner, that out of every EUR 6 received by a fruit and vegetable producer in southern Europe, only EUR 0.012 comes from the European Union?
Do you think that this can be called a genuine common organisation of the market or a real system of support?
Is the Commission aware of this sector' s capacity for absorbing employees, particularly labour from the Maghreb, and does it realise, furthermore, that this sector has been more badly affected than any other by the liberalisation of trade with the countries from which these workers come? Do you not think that if it can find work for so many people - in objective 1 territories - we should take this into consideration and support the sector wholeheartedly instead of continuing to force farmers to bear the whole burden?
Commissioner, please undertake the necessary reforms that will provide real and unequivocal support for fruit and vegetable producers' organisations.
Please give real support, which has until now been lacking and which will enable these to increase not production, but the already high levels of food quality and safety and which will resolve the environmental problems affecting the sector.
Please use the proposed reform to facilitate the concentration of supply in the face of distribution monopolies, the operators who dominate the market and who set their own prices and conditions.
Please propose solutions that put an end to the problems of the operational programmes and funds, the excessive bureaucracy and the harmful consequences of trade agreements with third countries.
Commissioner, how many times must we in Parliament repeat that the nut sector requires a definitive solution? How many times must we request that, until the reform of the market in the form of aid per hectare takes place, the improvement plans for the nut sector, which are crucial to preserving rural life in some very underdeveloped areas, which have no real alternatives, be extended?
Commissioner, let us not make things so easy for the United States, Turkey or China.
Let us protect our farmers and the nuts they grow, at least to the same degree to which these countries protect their farmers and crops.
For months now, uncertainty has reigned in the production sector.
In Andalusia, people have been shouting slogans such as 'We won' t swap fish for tomatoes' in an allusion to the agricultural concessions made to producers from the Maghreb during the fisheries negotiations.
The Commission has already ensured that we will not have fish and is now on the way to ensuring that we will not have tomatoes either.
Mr President, at the press conference following the last Council of Agricultural Ministers, Commissioner Fischler made it clear that he would not be making any proposals on the nut sector because he was waiting to hear Parliament' s opinion on his report on the operation of the COM in fruit and vegetables.
Leaving aside the fact that the issue of nuts has been included in three resolutions tabled by this Parliament in the last year, and that the Commission' s report was designed for the Council and not for Parliament, it would be appropriate to look at the background of the issue of fruit and vegetables.
A radical reform of the COM in fruit and vegetables was carried out more than five years ago but, unfortunately, time has shown that the concentration of supply has not reached the hoped-for level and has highlighted other issues which seriously limit the effectiveness of the measures implemented in that reform.
In October last year, Parliament adopted a report which highlighted the fact that only 40% of produce is marketed through producers' organisations.
Given that the main instruments of the COM in fruit and vegetables centre on producers' organisations, we can only conclude, as this House did at the time, that what we have is only half a COM.
Consequently, at the time, we tabled a series of amendments designed to improve the effectiveness of the COM, including amendments to resolve the problem of nuts.
In that debate, the Commissioner, Mr Fischler, stated that, although he viewed many of the amendments sympathetically, these went beyond the scope of the proposal submitted by the Commission.
He also declared that since the Commission was due to present a report on the matter in a few months' time, it would submit proposals to this effect.
In January, the Commission presented a report on the operation of the COM in fruit and vegetables but, regrettably, did not follow this up with proposals.
The report in question is essentially descriptive.
It contains some very interesting information, which broadly concurs with the information contained in our report of October last year.
The difference between the two reports lies in the fact that the Commission' s report is merely descriptive whereas Parliament' s report provided assessments and proposals.
There are, therefore, two problems.
The first is the procedure to be followed once the Commission' s report has been presented and the second is the method to be decided on to resolve the problems affecting the sector as quickly as possible.
As regards the procedure, the problem lies in the fact that the Commission' s report contains no analysis or assessment.
The Commission reveals that only 40% of production is marketed through producers' organisations, but makes no assessment of whether this is too much or too little. It makes no analysis of the effects of this factor on the effectiveness of the COM and nor does it assess the advisability of making proposals.
There is no sense in Parliament presenting a report on supposedly well-founded statistical data.
What is needed is a report that discusses assessments and proposals, but the Commission' s report does not provide for this and furthermore, the European Parliament put these forward in October last year.
The fruit and vegetable sector has for some time been afflicted by a series of problems which need to be resolved as rapidly as possible: the COM in fruit and vegetables has a budget that does not reflect its importance as an economic activity; the regulations prevent the appropriations available to the COM in fruit and vegetables being used effectively and producers' incomes are suffering the effects of upheavals in the market resulting from the gradual deterioration of Community preference and the continual increase in production costs.
We therefore need to assess and compensate for the effects of trade agreements being signed with third countries and we need to encourage the concentration of supply via producer organisations.
All of these issues, and some others - such as those concerning problems of operational programmes and funds - already feature in the report Parliament adopted last October and the urgent need to resolve these problems requires the Commission to present proposals within the meaning defined in the report that we adopted.
Now, in order to respond to the legitimate concerns of the Community' s fruit and vegetable producers, Parliament must call on the Commission to present proposals, which we shall comment on once they have been made.
I do not wish to end without making a brief mention of nuts, because my fellow Members have focussed mainly on this issue.
If any matter is genuinely urgent amongst all the urgent matters of the COM in fruit and vegetables, it is to resolve the nut issue.
In October, Parliament also put forward definitive proposals on this matter in order to resolve the problems.
I therefore find it incredible that the Commissioner claims not to be aware of the proposals that Parliament has made repeatedly on this subject.
We must, as a matter of priority, provide a definitive solution for this sector and until the Commission matches the proposals already presented by Parliament, we must extend the measures currently in force.
Mr President, I would like to say to the Commission that once again we are faced with a problem which relates to Mediterranean agriculture; an agricultural problem - fruit and vegetables - in which Mediterranean production in particular is directly involved.
I would like to draw the Commission' s attention to the fact that this is happening far too often.
I say this to the Commissioner present, but in particular so that he may pass it on to Mr Fischler.
We continually have difficulties with production in the south of Europe, with Mediterranean production, and this is no accident. It deserves Parliament' s attention because, in comparative terms, these problems receive much less attention than problems involving northern agriculture.
Furthermore, the Commission must understand that it is irritating for the European Parliament to have to insist on issues which, according to the Commission' s own words, should already have been resolved.
This is noted in the recitals which head the motion for a resolution which we are presenting on the occasion of this oral question.
In recital A, it is noted that the European Parliament affirms that there is great consistency between the Commission and the Council but, however, later on, we believe that the facts do not reflect this.
There was also a commitment from the Commission to resolve this series of problems caused by the last reform of fruit and vegetables.
This is not reflected either.
In recital C, for example, it is noted that the Commission constantly tells us that it is aware of these problems, but it is not consistent, because it does not translate its projects into facts and is yet to present its corresponding legislative proposal.
This motion for a resolution therefore asks the Commission to present proposals to improve the functioning of the COM in fruit and vegetables, in particular with regard to the reorganisation of the producers' organisations and with regard to nuts.
Commissioner, you must be aware that the only aid not to have been given continuity by Agenda 2000 has been that intended for nuts.
Mr President, you know as well as I that the roads of Spain are blocked, and the Commission cannot ignore this problem, because this sector is paying for the consequences of a violation of the principle of Community preference and a dreadful marketing policy.
I ask that the needs of this sector be responded to.
Mr President, Members of the Commission, I should first of all like to welcome the Commissioners who are with us today and to remind the Commission, as represented here, that what has happened in the fruit and vegetable sector is totally unacceptable.
Today, in Europe, we basically have two types of agriculture: the first is heavily subsidised and depends on support from the CAP. The second depends on the market and on the risks that farmers are forced to run in this market.
Unfortunately, the fruit and vegetable sector, and particularly the nut sector, fall within this second group of products, a type of poor stepson of the CAP, which has to make a living from the market and which has to run risks in the market, with all the uncertainties agriculture is facing.
The common agricultural policy has not provided an adequate response to this problem.
Nuts, as the Commissioner knows, are a crop grown in parts of southern Europe, in arid and semiarid areas, where there are often few alternatives to dry farming. One cannot even use the argument that this is an intensive form of farming that damages the environment.
Quite the opposite is true. We have seen this sector being all but abandoned over the last few years and we now run the risk of entering a legal vacuum, because the Commission, for reasons unknown to us, has decided not to submit any proposals.
It is truly deplorable that this should be the case, and so this motion for a resolution that we are tabling in Parliament today is designed to make the Commission aware of this omission, this vacuum, and to make it submit adequate proposals for the fruit and vegetable sector.
In this context, there are three situations that I think we must consider. The first is the need to provide a response, to legislate on the operational funds for producers' organisations.
It is also clearly crucial, as Mrs Ayuso González and other Members have said, for cofinancing to be raised to 70%.
Support for the workings of the operational funds must be effective.
Secondly, we must be aware that establishing the operational funds as the main agricultural policy instrument for the sector is not enough, because there are many regions, such as Spain and Portugal, where producers' organisations are almost non-existent, and where less than 10% of production passes through such organisations.
We must come up with measures that respond to the needs of producers in these areas and, until producers' organisations are in place there, it would be unfair and unacceptable to marginalise them.
Thirdly, Commissioner, it is high time that we adopted permanent support measures for nut producers. Why not consider direct aid?
If almost all sectors are given such aid, why should this sector, which is so poor and so marginalised within Europe, not be given support? I hope that the Commission will rapidly submit the proposals that we are calling for.
Mr President, the motion for a resolution on the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables, especially dried fruit and nuts, is most opportune and we should give it our full support.
The present economic climate has dangerously upset the delicate competitive balance for Community producers in this sector and the Commission needs to react immediately in order to prevent them from going under altogether.
We are all aware of the importance of this sector, of which previous speakers have painted a dramatic picture.
The facts of the matter, and the present economic climate which I referred to earlier are as follows, especially for our products.
As you know, the devaluation of the Turkish lira, on the one hand, and the particularly aggressive policy of other producers, such as the USA, on the other, have put Community producers in a most unfortunate position.
So what are we proposing in order to help the Commission? That programmes and aid which are about to expire be extended and that urgent, effective support be given to Community producers and ways be found of supporting producers, especially in the present economic climate.
I also want to point out, as other speakers have done, that the producers of these products, especially dried fruit and nuts, are small, poor producers and, more specifically, Mediterranean producers.
Their organisations fall short when it comes to pooling their products and competing with their own resources on this difficult market, as I mentioned earlier.
So what we want, in addition to any other measures, is for special attention to be paid to producer organisations and for ways to be found of supporting them, so that they can organise themselves efficiently and deal with the problem.
So I too am adamant.
We must vote in favour of this motion for a resolution and we want the Commission to respond to this concern on our part.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are all aware of the economic, social and strategic importance of the fruit and vegetable sector, particularly for the countries of southern Europe, including Portugal. It is therefore crucial that the Commission draws up a reform of the common organisation of the market in this area, given that the last reform was carried out in 1996.
The Commission must put right the most negative aspects of this COM, such as those concerning nuts, the sector's poor relation, and increase the aid ceilings for operational funds for producers' organisations.
It is unfair that a sector such as that of fruit and vegetables should continue to receive only 4% of Community aid when it creates more employment in the European Union than almost any other sector.
It is, therefore, crucial that the Commission takes account of the proposals presented last year in the Jové Peres report, which were adopted by this Parliament, specifically in terms of increasing production thresholds and levels of support, in terms of increasing co­financing of the operational fund for producers' organisations and in terms of safeguarding this important sector of agriculture, which is also suffering from the pressure of imports. These are the result of bilateral agreements in which this sector has sometimes been used as a bargaining chip, with no account being taken of the interests of the southern countries or of the importance that it has for employment and for the development of these countries.
Mr President, a number of Members have raised the question why the Commission has not brought forward some proposals concerning the report.
The Commission is still in the process of listening to opinions and comments.
However, as I mentioned previously, the Commission's services are already well into the process of evaluating these opinions.
The comments of Parliament are, of course, included in this evaluation.
It is too early to say when any possible proposals and solutions might be presented.
The Commission cannot issue a calendar of any steps ahead.
Many factors are involved, including budgetary aspects and the need to harmonise future policies between market sectors.
I can, however, assure you once again that the Commission services are considering this issue as a priority.
It hopes to move as soon as possible to a situation whereby full discussions can be held with all interested parties in the fruit and vegetable sector.
Regarding the question as to whether the Commission will propose a long-term solution for nuts, the Commission services are aware of the situation in the nut sector and the points of view of all interested parties.
In this context, the Commission is in the process of evaluating whether and to what extent some further support may be available.
This evaluation process is taking place in the wider context of the report.
In any case, any possible future support could only be envisaged if coupled with reconversion.
However, the policy of a one-year stop-gap extension of nut improvement plans does not seem, to the Commission, to be an appropriate way of addressing this particular issue.
The most needed adjustments to the 1996 reform were, in fact, ensured by the adoption in December last year of Regulation 2699/2000.
With this regulation, we simplified and improved the schemes for financing of operational funds, for processed tomatoes, peaches, pears and citrus fruits and also addressed the question relating to export refunds.
Finally, a number of Members asked some technical questions dealing with the different mechanisms of the common market organisation for fruit and vegetables and I hope that you will accept that this is not, of course, within my own daily responsibilities.
I would prefer to leave these questions to my colleague, Franz Fischler.
It has not been possible for Commissioner Fischler to be here tonight, but he has informed me that he would be very pleased to discuss these issues with you in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development at the earliest opportunity.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I have received one joint motion for a resolution, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO): Air transport and the environment
The next item is the Commission statement on the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO): Air transport and the environment.
Mr de Palacio has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission' s communication of last December on the Community objectives for the 33rd Assembly of the ICAO, constitutes - and how could it not do so - the frame of reference for preparing and assessing the results of that 33rd Assembly, with regard to both reducing noise and the sound emissions of aircraft and also reducing gas emissions.
I would like to say that the Transport Council of last April saw fit to support this strategy proposed by the Commission.
This communication is very explicit on the subject of reaching agreements within the ICAO, with regard to both the reduction of aircraft noise and measures for reducing gases which increase the greenhouse effect, as well as the restriction of operations of aircraft which only marginally comply with the acoustic standards of Chapter 3 and which are the greatest sources of noise at airports.
Another of our objectives is to reach an agreement as a result of this Assembly, with a resolution which allows the contracting countries to fulfil their obligations in the field of reducing greenhouse gases more easily and comfortably.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is one aspect which we can already say is likely to have a positive result at the ICAO Assembly.
I am, of course, talking about the constitution of the new Chapter 4, with a reduction of 10 decibels on the maximum emissions authorised in previous chapters.
In this respect, furthermore, the ICAO Council has adopted rules which guarantee rigour in relation to the recertification of aircraft with the aim of preventing repetition of the current situation where recertified or reclassified aircraft have passed from Chapter 2 to Chapter 3, which is the source of all our controversy with the United States.
Furthermore, the preparations by the ICAO Assembly are intended to ensure that the contracting countries are sufficiently flexible to implement those instruments which allow - in the words of the ICAO - a balanced response to noise management.
This balanced management is based on four elements.
Firstly, measures for the reduction of noise at source.
Secondly, rules relating to the occupation of land.
Thirdly, lower-noise procedures, which allow pilots to limit noise at the time of take-off and landing.
And, lastly, measures intended to limit the operations of aircraft from Chapter 3 which are the noisiest.
It is, above all, this last point which - as you know - presents the most difficulties in our discussions with the United States.
In order to facilitate an agreement within the ICAO on this point, we are holding parallel discussions with the United States and with the developing countries.
It should be pointed out that neither the ICAO nor, of course, the United States can ignore the problems caused by aircraft noise for many airports in densely-populated regions.
In this context, we note that, in some large airports, this type of noise disturbance is reaching truly critical levels and that, therefore, it is extremely urgent that we introduce measures to resolve this situation and allow these airports to continue operating.
For others, however, the problem of noise is much less important.
We will therefore have to consider decisions - we are working on this - in which there is a certain flexibility, taking each airport individually.
Furthermore, this point is going to make it easier for us to reach an agreement with the United States.
However, there is a certain degree of risk caused by using certain differing approaches to restricting the operability of Chapter 3 aircraft - the noisiest ones - which may distort competition between the different airports.
In this respect and in order to prevent an explosion of the Community situation, the intention is to negotiate with the United States and, of course, within the ICAO, so that we can frame these individual decisions for each airport within a general framework which lays down different levels of operative restrictions in accordance with specific areas of sensitivity.
In any event, I once again commit myself and the Commission services to maintaining an open dialogue throughout these months with this House and I hope that we will finally reach an agreement within the ICAO which will ensure that we resolve this issue of airports and the noisiest aircraft and, at the same time, avoid any type of confrontation with the United States, which would benefit no-one.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, I should like to start by welcoming the initiative by Vice-President de Palacio in deciding to attend plenary and present the Commission's strategy to us and, of course, the situation as regards the 33rd assembly of the ICAO in September.
This was one of the matters discussed at our committee meeting last week; it is a matter which has concerned the European Parliament for a very long time and we, the committee, had intended to put an oral question to the Commissioner.
That is why we are delighted that the Commissioner herself has taken the initiative and come to address Parliament and clarify the Commission's stance.
This is a matter of vital importance to the electorate which put us here.
For the sake of the environment and for the sake of our quality of life we need to reduce the noise emitted by aeroplanes, especially as air traffic is increasing and the situation is getting worse year on year.
There have been some developments, which the Commissioner has described for us and on which I should like to comment.
I must say that I personally have reservations as to whether these developments can bring about a positive result.
However, we must be resolute and we must demonstrate that Europe is on an equal footing with the United States of America.
We are friends and we want to remain friends, but they must realise that they have an equal partner on the other side of the table who wants to resolve this problem the best way possible and find rules which will be applied as quickly as possible.
And I trust that the United States will take the same approach and speak with one voice and not several voices as has been the case in the past.
We also need to clarify another point, i.e. that we are calling for an international solution because this is an international problem and international problems require international solutions.
We are here to talk.
We hope that they take the same view. Otherwise circumstances will force us, the European Parliament, to take unilateral action and adopt solutions already adopted by the European Parliament.
The 33rd assembly of the ICAO is an opportunity which we must make good use of and not allow to slip through our fingers.
For our part, I should like to say that the European Parliament - and I think I speak for most of the members now - has confidence in Mrs de Palacio's ability to negotiate on behalf of the European Union and I trust that we shall finally reach a result at this assembly which will resolve the matter once and for all.
Mr President, Commissioner, many thanks for the explanation you have given here in the plenary sitting, although I believe that the meeting of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism was better attended than this sitting. But anyway, a symbolic presence counts for something as well, of course.
I am left with a few questions.
Chapter 4 is sound, except for 10 db, which is excellent.
It appears that the re-certification or shifting of aircraft between categories has been regulated.
If I have understood you correctly, it is now impossible to have a repeat of what we have experienced in the past, namely a shift from category 2 to category 3.
That is now ruled out, if I understand you correctly.
I welcome this.
We must at least ensure that it is impossible to make changes for the worse at any airport.
The situation must not be worse than it is at present at any airport.
As you yourself said that the sensitive areas should be examined for each airport, things should therefore start to improve quickly, preferably as soon as possible, for a number of airports.
But my question is, then, whether the agreements for classifying airports apply worldwide? Who lays down the standards?
Does the European Union have a say in this?
Can we be stricter?
How do we go about this?
What is happening about competition between airports? When we discussed Mrs Lucas' report, we then stated that competition was one of the key points.
Competition between airports at the expense of those living near airports and the environment is unacceptable. Do you know yet how we will tackle this in the Union?
What will be the role of the local authorities? You stated that that would be done via the Planning department, but that is typically a local power.
So how will you tackle this? As you can see, I have quite a few questions.
Then there is the phase-out.
If I have understood correctly, we have not yet accomplished this, and airport classification should help solve that problem.
If there is no phase-out, in other words if those chapter-3 aircraft remain in the air until they reach retirement age, if I can put it that way, is that not too long? Should we not be somewhat more ambitious and introduce new aircraft onto the market more quickly?
What is the state of play on a uniform method of measuring noise? Surely it is a matter of extreme urgency for both Europe and America to measure noise in the same way, in other words for the 'footprint' to be determined in the same manner everywhere.
I also have a question on air pollution. You have said very little on this matter.
What is stipulated in the air pollution agreement? One final question: what is happening with the directive on hushkits?
Is it being repealed?
Will you be making a proposal to revoke it, or will we simply retain it? Have the Americans commented on this at all?
Does it or does it not form part of the package?
I am still left with a few questions, but I believe we are on the right track. I hope that we can in any case find a solution in September.
Mr President, I very much appreciate the Commissioner's statement.
I believe we are all agreed that the forthcoming ICAO general assembly meeting is going to be a key one as far as aviation and environment are concerned.
As Mr Sterckx has said, I was the rapporteur for Parliament's response to the Commission's proposals on air transport and the environment last year.
You may recall that Parliament put a very strong emphasis on the need for a positive outcome from this ICAO meeting.
We said, crucially, that if ICAO did not deliver what we need then the EU will have to seriously consider adopting its own complementary measures to ensure that environmental concerns are more properly integrated into the aviation industry.
Let us recall just two key points of the context of those discussions.
First, air transport is growing at a phenomenal rate, with global passenger numbers due to double in less than 20 years' time.
Secondly, the current policy framework artificially subsidises aviation and therefore stimulates this growth still further.
Aviation fuel is not taxed, it is not subject to VAT and it is not covered by the Kyoto Protocol.
So what does Parliament expect from this ICAO meeting? On noise reduction: at the Cape Working Group meetings over the past few weeks and months the EU has proposed phasing out Chapter 3 planes and upgrading Chapter 4.
That is a minimum requirement: to try to reach the target of noise reduction of, at best, -14 dBA, but at the very least, -10 dBA reduction at source.
If ICAO cannot do that, we will need to look at differentiation, as the Commissioner has said, in introducing operational restrictions on Chapter 3 at a number of noise-sensitive airports.
But the EU may also need to look at introducing an aircraft noise limitation directive in order to achieve that reduction of, at the very least, 10 dBA, in recognition of the particular problems of a densely populated area like the EU.
On emissions, we need concrete and efficient measures to reduce aircraft emissions, including not only voluntary measures but also emissions-related levies.
Aircraft should fulfil ambitious but feasible emission reduction targets.
If ICAO will not deliver then the EU will have to develop its own emission limits.
I very much regret that we are not able to have a Parliamentary resolution on this subject.
I believe a strong message from this Parliament could have strengthened the negotiating hand of the Council and Commission at ICAO.
I hope that both Council and Commission will hear very strongly the strength of feeling which is shared by all groups in the European Parliament on this subject and seek to get the best possible deal in September.
But if such a deal cannot be struck, they must come back to Parliament so that we can work together to ensure that the EU's own treaty commitments and obligations on integrating the environment into all areas of policy can take proper effect in the field of aviation.
Mr President, it is true that we need an international breakthrough in terms of the ICAO.
If we accomplish this breakthrough, I will be the first to extend my best wishes to Mrs de Palacio in this connection.
Given that the noise certification standards have not been adapted since 1977 and that aviation has expanded so enormously since then, I believe it to be of huge importance that we agree on a drastic approach very quickly.
We must introduce modern, quiet aircraft which meet stricter noise standards, phase out noisy aircraft and, needless to say, reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.
In the light of this, it is my conviction that there is no room for supersonic aircraft which may fly at an enormous speed but use up far more energy than the current aircraft, thus contributing to more greenhouse-gas emissions.
In my opinion, it is of vital importance for us to continue in the same vein, along the lines of the resolution on aircraft fitted with silencers, which we adopted in March 2000.
I wish the Commissioner great success in the negotiations.
We will continue to follow the proceedings at close quarters for, if no solution is found, we will unfortunately need to act at European level, which I do not consider to be desirable.
Mr President, I very much appreciated the Commissioner's speech. She showed clear conviction and also a certain amount of grit and determination in such a sensitive matter as this.
Of course, it is not possible in the three minutes available to me to analyse the entire issue, so I will focus on just a few points.
Firstly: the improvement of aircraft.
Clearly, less noisy aircraft means more modern aircraft and more comfortable aircraft, but, most importantly, it means safer aircraft, and not just in terms of the engines: in fact, for example, during landing, a large part of the noise is made by the landing gear rather than the engines.
With regard to the issue of competition between airports, it is undoubtedly necessary to give responsibility to local authorities as well.
Clearly, the airport authorities can be persuaded to grant derogations, to make exceptions in order to increase the volume of traffic, but if the local authorities have decision-making powers and take a stance, then it will be the communities involved who will decide the interplay between money/trade/profit and noise prevention, not just the airport managers.
On the subject of airports, the rules need to be fairly flexible for, clearly, an airport such as Malpensa, near where I live, where 70 planes take off or land an hour, is quite different from some other airports which only have four or five planes landing or taking off a day.
Obviously, if there is little movement during the day, a small increase in noise levels could be acceptable in view of the almost ridiculously small number of planes passing through.
As regards subsidies, I have to say that, although air transport is subsidised to a certain extent, it is much less so than urban, rail, sea and all other types of transport.
Therefore, it does not seem appropriate to complain about subsidies to the air transport industry.
Finally, I hope that, at the ICAO, the European Union will be able to achieve the goals and results that the Commissioner has set herself, irrespective of Parliament's resolutions.
Commissioner, please allow me firstly to begin more or less at the end: I wish you all the luck in the world at the next ICAO Assembly.
Please count on the support and backing of Parliament, and we hope that the European Union' s objectives on this issue are achieved.
The European Union must be at the forefront by adopting a series of measures which do not only relate to the issue of this statement on air transport and the environment, but also to its effects on the quality of life of the citizens of the European Union.
We must achieve some concrete and quantifiable objectives.
And we must also achieve a timetable which makes realistic demands.
Because otherwise, we will not achieve any of the objectives we have discussed so many times in committee relating to noise levels of aircraft, the situation - as Mrs Lucas has expressed very well - of the increase in the demand for air transport, the situation of certain airports which are not in a position to deal with the air traffic they are currently receiving, the measures proposed by you - by the Commission - such as taxes relating to noise, restrictions on the operation of certain types of aircraft within the European Union, or clear policies in relation to the use of land with regard to air transport.
A second problem which I believe to be of concern is that of gas emissions.
There is a lot of talk of the greenhouse effect, caused by CO2, when air transport could reduce its greenhouse emissions by between two and four times; I believe that, given the significance of this, we must take a clear and determined position in this regard.
However, at the same time, neither can we forger what air transport has meant for the development of the Communities, for the economic development of the states and also for the quality of life of the citizens, for speed and for the opportunity to visit and discover other places.
I believe that we need sensible, concrete and totally efficient measures which will genuinely improve the environment and the quality of life.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like, as a member of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, to thank you for thinking also of the competitiveness of the European aviation industry in the course of your negotiations.
The Sabena disaster just goes to show how thousands of jobs can be hit within the shortest period of time.
Finally, the costs that have to be borne by airline companies are also a decisive factor affecting ticket prices.
Ticket prices are very important for social, but not exclusively social, reasons.
The crucial problem when it comes to noise is congestion.
When we fly out of Brussels, we often see five, ten or fifteen aircraft queuing on the runway, waiting for permission to take off.
I believe that the fight against congestion in general, but particularly in the field of aviation, must be given priority and that we must make efforts to acquire more efficient systems so that such congestion can be reduced accordingly.
However, the basic and further training of personnel is also crucial, and not only in the control tower and on the aircraft.
If consideration were to be given to providing special training, specifically from the noise and environmental viewpoints, a very great deal could be achieved in this area.
Finally, it is also a question of infrastructure.
We are all aware of the problems with Eurocontrol, and enough is known about the difficulties of dividing air space efficiently between civil and military aircraft.
I believe the Commission should exercise significantly more pressure so that we might more quickly find successful ways of getting on top of congestion and, at the same time, guaranteeing passengers greater safety and comfort.
My final point is that the Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Development is currently being drawn up.
I consider it necessary to press very hard for a solution for the traffic sector in particular.
In this area, we need new approaches in the Sixth Framework Programme.
We know that congestion will be one of the main themes of the next few years.
I believe we need intelligent solutions that will help us guarantee the mobility of the population and, at the same time, get on top of the problems.
With a view to being able to offer the population convincing solutions in this area, we should therefore do more to initiate our own research programmes specifically for aviation in the context of the Sixth Framework Programme.
Mr President, I should like to apologise for coming in late; this debate has proceeded rather quickly but I have listened to what the Commissioner said elsewhere.
What she said did not appear very clear or precise at all in terms of the situation as it stands.
I find that disappointing.
We gave you a brief in March 2000.
We expect you to stick to the brief or to come back and tell us something different.
We need to know what progress you have made with that brief.
We need to know what you are doing about it.
We need to know what progress has been made on noise emissions, gaseous emissions, and indeed on fuel economy.
Successful negotiation requires preparation and hard work.
We need to know that is being done and we need to hear from you that it is being done.
We need you to go out there and tell the Americans very clearly that noise and gaseous emissions from aircraft are a serious problem in Europe, a more serious problem than in the USA because we are a smaller place and we have a different infrastructure.
The projected growth of air traffic demands is clearly an issue that requires action now.
We need you to stick to your brief.
We will be watching very closely.
But essentially we need our Commissioner to stand up for Europe, to stand up for Europe and its industry, to stand up for Europe and its environment and to stand up for Europe and its people.
We expect you do it.
Let us hope that you can say something further at the end of the debate that will reassure me.
Mr President, if I could echo other colleagues from all parties and indeed national groups who have said that the time for talking is now perilously short.
We all, Commissioner, whilst saluting the way in which you have maintained your negotiating position, expect you to tell us that it is not indefinite - and neither is your patience.
You have a mandate from every party and group in this House to tackle the problem of the increasing pollution of the skies and the damage to the lives of those who live around airports as a result of the current situation.
There is a belief still that the endless expansion of air traffic is an unmitigated good, that everyone gains from it.
They do not.
There are social limits to growth and to how much we can enjoy even something as life expanding and enhancing as travel.
We heard many threats and some bluster from the United States last year, when it looked as though hushkitted aircraft and Chapter 3 planes would be leaving our skies, perhaps in the year 2002.
But Europe as a whole suffers problems, particularly those who live around airports who suffer not only noise pollution, but also aircraft emission pollution with consequences for the environment.
We must see the beginning of change.
In the East Midlands of the United Kingdom, where I live, a number of small new airports are coming into being.
Many of them are desperate to compete with 'through-the-night' traffic.
This means air traffic using older aircraft, which are going to stagger on for another few years, if they are allowed to, with few controls on how they operate.
Obviously, that is something on which the Member States can act.
Unless there is a framework for taking older aircraft out of service, we will never have the degree of control we need.
I join with other colleagues who have spoken.
Mrs Lucas put it very lucidly for us all - in saying that if there is a failure to agree in September we should not just leave the matter there and agree that we tried and failed.
This House does not want the Commissioner to fail, we want her to succeed.
If we are telling her so rather bluntly, it is in a friendly spirit.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us agree on one first thing: airports are a source of wealth and development.
Otherwise, I wonder how you got here if you did not fly.
This is clear: airports are necessary.
What we clearly have to do now is create fewer problems for the surrounding community, but we also have to remember that the community often builds up around the airport because of the activity of that very airport, because of the economic development it generates and the infrastructures which accompany it.
We have to see things fairly.
The second issue is that of the responsibilities of the local authorities.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a question of subsidiarity.
Each country has its own rules and I am not going to tell the countries what they have to do on this issue.
The third issue concerns the hushkits regulation, which was introduced and adopted in 1998 by Parliament together with the Council, unanimously.
Ladies and gentlemen, if at any point I present or propose to you a modification of this regulation, it will be to replace it with something which is even better for the communities surrounding airports. It will be in order to make improvements.
Furthermore, to do so in a way which does not lead us to controversy and international dispute as has been the case with the current regulation.
Of course, the Commission, the Community as such, is not part of the International Civil Aviation Organisation but rather it is the Member States who are members.
We have a kind of secondary position in one corner.
That is the current situation.
The regulation has been condemned by the United States in accordance with Article 84 and we succeeded in postponing the decision at the last meeting of the ICAO Council a week ago and leave until November, that is until after the assembly, the decision on whether the complaint from the United States against our hushkits regulation is justified.
We will have to wait and see the result.
I would like, together with the United States, the developing countries and the other countries which make up the ICAO, to agree on regulations which improve the characteristics of aircraft and bring about the modernisation of the fleets of the different countries as soon as possible.
There is another issue, highlighted by Mr Sterckx, Mrs Lucas and others as well such as Mr Blokland and Mr Hatzidakis and that is the renewal of the fleets.
There are two different aspects to this.
Firstly, thanks to our regulation, we have managed to move things ahead within the ICAO.
That is why I said before that we have already achieved positive results.
There is going to be a Chapter 4 with a reduction of 10 decibels.
There is not going to be an agreement on phasing-out because, until Chapter 4 enters into force, it cannot take place, as happened before with Chapters 2 and 3.
That is to say that it will be at the 2004 assembly, surely, when we can agree dates for abandoning the Chapter 3 aircraft.
We have agreed that the methodologies and evaluation systems for a reclassification of aircraft are a key issue.
We must move beyond the current situation, with Chapter 2 aircraft reclassified as Chapter 3, which meet the criteria of this last chapter only under certain flight regulations and furthermore in a very restricted way, which means that, in other circumstances, they greatly exceed those noise levels and do not comply with the rules of Chapter 3.
That is the origin of our complaint about hushkits.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are seeking some points of agreement with the United States and with certain other countries, and I believe that the best thing is for us to reach an agreement amongst all of us.
Of course, I am going to defend the positions of the 15 countries of the European Union.
However, I would like to remind you of the situation a year ago, when the pressure - which is now less, amongst other things because we are negotiating and it seems that we are reaching agreement on some points - from the United States was much greater and there were threats of trade reprisals against a number of countries.
This pressure came from various countries, delegations of countries and also various representatives in this House.
I do not want to find myself in that kind of situation again, because it was clearly me who was taking the strain.
What I want is to reach an agreement with the United States which will allow us to achieve the objective we all share of reducing the noise levels around our airports.
That is what I am working on, but I am also seeking agreements with other countries, because the ICAO does not only include the 15 countries of the Union but also the United States and a number of other countries from other parts of the world which have rather different interests from ours and with whom we have to reach agreements.
A further two issues have been referred to: the issue of competition between airports, the noisiest ones and the quietest ones.
That is why we are proposing to take decisions on individual airports on a case by case basis, within a global framework in which the different levels of restriction of operations and noise-levels are reduced to two, three or four in accordance with the specific areas of sensitivity of the surrounding community.
There are certain geographic conditions - I am thinking, for example, of Strasbourg airport, where there is a problem of boxing-in between mountains and phenomena of echoes are produced which aggravate noise problems - and other issues which justify the adaptations and specific measures for protection of these areas.
We are suggesting that decisions be taken individually, which is what the United States is calling for, or that a general regional geographical approximation be carried out, as we are requesting.
The intermediate solution which we are negotiating with them is a geographical framework with a maximum of 3 or 4 levels of sensitivity.
A situation without special limitations and another two or three levels of specific operational restrictions.
Mr President, I will end by thanking all the speakers and thanking you for your support, with the hope that it might be possible for a delegation from Parliament to participate in the ICAO, alongside us.
I believe that there may be a common interest in incorporating a parliamentary delegation into the debates, and we will have to see how we could articulate it according to what happens in other types of negotiations.
It has been pointed out by one speaker that air transport has its limits.
Ladies and gentlemen, everything has its limits.
We all know that airspace is limited, capacities are limited, but I believe that, as things stand, we have not yet reached that point.
What we have to do is achieve better management of all resources, specifically in relation to these transport limits, not just in the case of air transport but of transport in general, with growth possibilities within a sustainable development. I hope that, if things go well and we get through the internal discussions within the Commission, in the coming weeks we will be able to begin to discuss the White Paper on transport where, amongst other things, we propose the high-speed train as an alternative to air transport for journeys of less than 800 or 900 kilometres.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was closed at 7.59 p.m.)
European Council meeting of 15-16 June 2001 in Göteborg - Swedish presidency
The next item is the joint debate on:
the European Council report and Commission statement on the European Council meeting of 15 and 16 June 2001 in Göteborg and
the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council, summing up the Swedish presidency.
It is my pleasure to give the floor to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Persson.
Madam President, honourable Members of this important Assembly, allow me to begin first of all by thanking you for your constructive cooperation during the Swedish presidency.
It is important for the European Union' s different institutions to support, inspire, criticise and cooperate with one another but never forget that we have a common mission to develop our Union.
The Swedish presidency' s objective was to proceed from important decisions to the implementation of those decisions.
Our ambition was not to add new decisions but, rather, to implement decisions already taken.
We wanted to concentrate on three areas, which I had the opportunity to talk about when I was in Parliament at the beginning of the presidency.
These were enlargement of the Union and issues relating to employment and the environment.
In addition, we wanted to develop the Union' s common foreign and security policy.
I make no claim to provide a comprehensive review of the Swedish presidency in my report. Instead, I would offer some reflections upon the last six months.
We have worked incredibly hard with the Commission in order to press on with the enlargement negotiations.
The objective of this work was to show that the timetable drawn up by the Commission for the enlargement negotiations was realistic.
We can now see that, during the Swedish presidency, we did everything we intended to do, and a little more besides.
The very ambitious timetable drawn up by the Commission proved to be realistic.
This was the basis for the European Council in Göteborg when we said that, in our judgment, we should have completed negotiations with the best prepared countries before the end of 2002 and that we also anticipated the first of today' s candidate countries' participating, as Members of the European Union, in the elections to the European Parliament in 2004.
We were given a clear signal concerning the enlargement we wanted to see.
We were given this because the negotiating work had been successful.
This does not, of course, mean that the enlargement process has been carried out, but an important step has been taken.
What is required is continued concentration and continued support for the Commission' s work and for the forthcoming presidencies, but also an appreciation of the fact that many of the difficulties represented by the enlargement process are, in fact, to be found within the European Union as it stands and not in relations with the candidate countries.
The most demanding task for us within the European Union is to work out common positions for the fifteen Member States.
There is a further demanding task.
Our friends and colleagues in the candidate countries have the task of implementing reforms in their countries of such a kind as will prepare them for membership of the European Union.
We must not forget, however, that we ourselves have to conduct an internal debate within the Union which, from a political perspective, is probably as difficult as the reforms which our friends have to implement in the candidate countries.
We said in Göteborg that enlargement would be a fact by 2004. To cite the French President' s description of the project, it is an irrevocable process.
At the same time, we also said that we must be realistic and appreciate that there are certain countries, such as Romania and Bulgaria, which need extra support in their preparations.
We are not talking here about extra financial support, but about support in the work of negotiation.
When Sweden took over the presidency, it was also our ambition to develop the foreign and security policy.
We did not, however, emphasise this so much in our presidency programme, even though we mentioned it.
Instead, we adopted the strategy of taking action.
I am convinced that what we have managed to achieve in terms of foreign policy will be something that develops during forthcoming presidencies, for such development is to the European Union' s advantage when it comes to external relations.
I am thinking, above all, of three important factors.
Increasingly, practical foreign policy is linked, firstly, to values, democracy and human rights; secondly, to economic relations, especially trade; and, thirdly, to a just and progressive aid policy, to which, from our point of view, it will continue to be linked.
This last consideration is something to which we devote too little time and attention.
It is an undervalued factor in external relations.
These three factors indicate a development parallel to that of the European Union.
If we are then able to act in concert on the basis of our values, we can also exercise influence.
During the Swedish presidency, we have developed our relations with Russia.
Not for a moment have we concealed our disapproval of the situation in, for example, Chechnya.
Never have we concealed our views on the situation in Russia where the freedom of the media is concerned, but we have, at the same time, developed relations in order to create economic cooperation and a dialogue characterised by trust.
We have also said that Russia is not enough.
Russia is just one important factor.
In that part of Europe, it is also a question of developing relations with Ukraine, which is a large, strategically important country with a European identity and which must have the option of belonging to Europe.
According to the Göteborg conclusions, Ukraine is a country which, together with Moldova, will, in future, be invited to participate in the European conference.
In that way, the European Union is also developing a relationship specifically in terms of foreign policy.
During our presidency, we also met the American president for the first time in the group of Fifteen.
The fifteen Member States took part in a dialogue directly with the American president, just as we had met the Russian president.
In that context, there was naturally a great deal of talk about the Kyoto issue, about which we most certainly do not, of course, have the same views - a fact which there was no point at all in concealing.
On the contrary, there is reason for conducting a very open and tough debate, because we believe that the United States is not complying with those obligations it had earlier sent signals it was prepared to stand by.
I am pleased that the European Union remained completely united in its dialogue with the United States about Kyoto.
That was incredibly important.
Relations with the United States are not just about Kyoto.
They are also, of course, about the situations in the Balkans and the Middle East and other international issues on which we hold similar positions and have every reason to cooperate.
During the Swedish presidency, the European Union' s active presence in the Middle East has also, of course, been emphasised.
That is important.
The Middle East is the European Union' s neighbour.
If the crisis in the Middle East escalates further - and we can, of course, all see that there is a very great risk of this happening - it will also become our own crisis, which is something that must be prevented using every political means available.
Where the Middle East is concerned, too, this has been an extraordinarily active period from the points of view of the presidency, the Commission and also Secretary-General/High Representative Javier Solana.
In this way, a list can be made of foreign policy activities.
Think too of North and South Korea, where the peace process must continue and be brought to a conclusion.
The European Union, too, might be able to play a role there in the right circumstances.
A picture is emerging of a European Union which is becoming more and more active in the field of foreign policy because we stand for common values, common views and a common approach.
When we act together, we exercise influence.
That is the signal.
Enlargement, foreign policy and environmental issues - these issues were incredibly important to the Swedish presidency.
The Commission and Commissioner Wallström provided us with a very good basis in the form of the Sixth Environmental Action Programme and, subsequently, the Commission' s report on sustainable development.
In Göteborg, we were able to establish principles for dealing with environmental issues in the future.
We were able to establish that these processes must now also be integrated into the Lisbon process.
In that way, we were able to take a decisive step towards sustainable development in its three dimensions: economic, social and ecological.
That was an extraordinarily sound foundation provided by the Commission and each successive presidency and Commission must now make that foundation more secure and give it ever more practical expression.
Perhaps matters are not progressing quickly enough.
It is my feeling that they never do when it comes to the issue of the environment.
On the other hand, we have the processes.
We have a direction in which to move, and the first necessary political decisions have been taken.
I believe that the decision taken in Göteborg was an extraordinarily important one.
Obviously, we also discussed the economic issues in Göteborg.
We dealt with a number of the decisions which had, as it were, been left over from the Stockholm Summit - European Single Sky, the issues surrounding patents, general economic development, the demographic issue and lasting pension systems.
Also on the agenda were matters which do not, of course, give rise to such a very great deal of opposition within the European Union today but, rather, provide something of an impetus for working together on issues which we know will, in actual fact, be of crucial importance to people' s lives in our part of the world during the next 20-30 years.
We have also had occasion, during our presidency, to pilot through to the decision-making stage a proposal concerning transparency in the European Union and the accessibility of documents.
Let me say that it would not have been possible to arrive at that decision but for the very active support of Parliament.
This is an excellent example of how Parliament, together with the Council and also the Commission, can implement a change.
I am obviously not completely satisfied.
We could have gone further but, as in all political contexts, not everything is achieved.
We obtained a compromise along the right lines.
It made the European Union more open, but it was not the finished product.
I should like to see the debate continue, but our citizens are nonetheless now better placed to keep track of the things we are doing in the Union and, on objective grounds, to examine these critically and present alternatives - on objective grounds, I say, precisely because the information is available.
During the Swedish presidency, we have also begun the debate on the future.
It will dominate the Belgian presidency and will, when 2004 comes around, result in a major decision being taken.
The guidelines from Nice have been assigned, that is to say what will mainly be found within the framework of the debate.
Now, both you and I know that, in a debate on the future of the European Union, we shall not be satisfied with concentrating on the four issues we cited in Nice. Instead, there will be a broader debate.
Let it be just such a broad debate.
Let it be a debate on what the European Union is, in actual fact, aiming for and on what it wants to do, and let there then be a discussion on how this is to be achieved.
We must not always begin with a discussion on building and developing the institutions and then eventually conclude with the political discussion on what it is we want.
Turn the debate on its head: invite the people of Europe to take part, broaden the debate and do not set any limits to it.
Progressively structure the debate as a proper Intergovernmental Conference aimed at making the European Union more rational and more powerful.
Our ambition was to launch a broad debate, and that is something we have done.
As I said at the beginning, we in the Swedish presidency have taken great pains to cooperate with Parliament.
I was doing some totting up yesterday and worked out that Swedish ministers have taken part in debates and discussions in this Assembly or in other constellations associated with Parliament on 86 occasions.
It has been incredibly worthwhile for us, and it is something I want to thank you for.
I also want to say that we now believe we have obtained a breakthrough with the Members' Charter and can press for a solution to that issue.
That is the way it looks following an initial decision.
I am pleased that, when we talk about Parliament and relations between the presidency and Parliament, we can also say that we have received a great many good ideas and proposals from yourselves.
Finally, I want to thank all the officials in the Commission, in Parliament and in the Council who have supported us during the presidency.
Naturally, I am also deeply grateful towards my own colleagues in the Swedish Cabinet Office and Ministries who have enabled us to say, as we draw the Swedish presidency to a close, that we have made some progress.
In the course of our six months, we took a few steps in the direction we wanted to go.
I now hope that the Belgian presidency will do some further work on these major issues.
I intend to do what I can to help ensure that my colleague, Mr Verhofstadt, is given all the constructive support he needs, in exactly the same way as I, during the Swedish presidency, have had extraordinarily fine support from Mr Chirac and Mr Jospin, the French president and prime minister.
This was an absolute precondition for the success of our presidency and I am deeply grateful for it.
Finally, I want to say that, as our various parliaments around Europe enter their summer recess, there is an issue which I think we have to take away with us, namely the issue which, in all likelihood, is to be a feature of the debate about the future: that of how we are to make the European Union more open and more results-oriented and of how it is to be brought closer to our citizens. How is this to happen?
What is that development to look like? What is possible in an enlarged Union?
The Union will grow. That is something we now know following this presidency.
It will grow and become a large Union with perhaps a further five, ten or perhaps still more Member States both in this Parliament and in the European Council.
Thank you for your constructive cooperation.
I look forward to a continued relationship with the European Parliament.
Madam President, Sweden is sometimes described as a well organised but not particularly exciting country.
That is a picture which fits in quite well with Sweden' s six-month presidency of the EU.
From an organisational point of view, the presidency has operated well.
Swedish diplomats have worked assiduously at cobbling together various compromises.
From a political point of view, it has had a low profile.
Everything has been done to show that Sweden is a loyal EU member - loyal both to the EU system and towards the large countries that dominate the European Union.
This became most obvious of all when the Irish voted against the Treaty of Nice.
Mr Persson immediately made it clear that the Irish people would not be allowed to make use of their right to put a stop to more centralised government and supranationalism within the EU.
The Treaty of Nice was to remain in place.
This is, in practice, an attack on every small country' s right to prevent changes to the Treaty if it wishes to do so.
Sometimes, compromises have been made at any price.
The new rules concerning access to documents were so weak that journalists' organisations in Europe thought that the current rules were better.
In the run-up to the presidency, Sweden prioritised enlargement, employment and environmental issues.
The presidency has worked hard on enlargement.
The pace has been maintained in the negotiations governing how the candidate countries are to be brought into line with the EU' s regulations.
This was important if enlargement was not to be delayed.
The EU' s policy of increased employment is often singled out as a 'left-wing project' designed to counteract the right-wing policy of the currency union.
The issue was discussed at the Stockholm Summit, but the only practical decision remembered from that occasion was a decision concerning the deregulation of the financial market.
That is not much in the way of left-wing policy.
In the environmental area, the presidency has had some bad luck.
Work on the most important environmental problem - the climate issue - was effectively sabotaged by the new president of the United States.
At the Göteborg Summit, there was an opportunity to adopt a sound strategy for sustainable development but, when it came to the crunch, the most radical environmental demands had been removed from the text.
In some areas, the presidency has had great success.
In addition to the enlargement negotiations, the decision to remove duties for the poorest countries of all is a clear step forwards.
The presidency' s work in combating trafficking in women and in pursuit of peace in the Balkans is also commendable.
As usual, however, many of the important decisions are being taken in what is more like secrecy.
Sweden has loyally done further work on the militarisation of the EU and thus, in practice, in favour of the abolition of Sweden' s policy of neutrality.
During the period concerned, Sweden and the other Nordic countries have entered into the Schengen Agreement, which is the EU' s most important tool for constructing tough new borders to keep out those who live outside the European Union.
This area is a real blot on the Swedish presidency' s copybook.
Sweden voted in favour of the proposed fines in the case of transporter' s liability, a proposal that involves a kind of privatisation of asylum policy, which in turn would mean that airlines and other carriers would be penalised if they did not screen out refugees who did not have their papers in order when they made their way to the EU.
At the start of the presidency, Mr Persson stood here and talked of a refugee policy characterised by solidarity.
We can only regret that, since then, the government has, in practice, taken the opposite line.
Finally, a few words about Göteborg, where small militant groups took the opportunity to attack the police and cause extensive damage.
Irrespective of what these groups purport to stand for, this is behaviour that can never be defended.
Throwing stones and causing damage is not politics but criminal behaviour.
That must not, however, conceal the fact that, in Göteborg, there were also tens of thousands of people demonstrating in a peaceful and dignified manner for a better Europe than today' s EU with its EMU and Schengen.
What 50 000 people do is, in actual fact, more important than what 300 perpetrators of violence get up to.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, we spoke a great deal at Göteborg about sustainable development, a fashionable, but woolly concept if there ever was one.
There is no doubt that we must praise the Member States' determination to introduce concerns about public health and the environment into all the policies imposed by Brussels.
It certainly is high time to do so, following mad cow disease and the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
On the other hand, the determination to present the Kyoto Protocol and the forthcoming global pact as a panacea is absolute tomfoolery.
It is a deal designed for fools, and Europe is the only party at the table - another instance where the white man is allowing himself to be accused of single-handedly destroying the whole planet.
Neither China nor India will be taking part, because they gain from development, growth and industrialisation.
The US is taking a similar approach, at a time when growth is slowing down against a background of increased international competition.
My second point is that you do not voice any criticism to condemn the violent demonstrations that rocked the summit.
It is a shame that these tones of indignation are forgotten when it comes to condemning the violence and insecurity that affect millions of our citizens on a daily basis.
The governments of Europe particularly the French government are not even capable of protecting their own people.
Their immigration policy, the culture of making excuses, defending the rights of hooligans in the name of human rights, the abolition of the death penalty are all factors which encourage crime, which are favoured over pointing the finger at a handful of left-wing protesters, which, moreover, Mr Barón Crespo rather curiously called fascists unless Mr Barón Crespo had wanted to acknowledge that fascism had found its origins in socialism, all his leaders having been socialist leaders before becoming fascist leaders.
Lastly, it is scandalous that the totalitarian instincts of the European institutions do not offend anyone.
Only here could we want to systematically force people back to the ballot box when the result of a vote is not the desired outcome.
In 1992, Denmark gave in under threat but Austria quite rightly refused to do so.
The Irish people must resist - their 'no' vote, de jure and de facto, has sounded the death knell of the Treaty of Nice.
All the people who have not been consulted and who will not be consulted due to a fear of them voting against are lending them their solidarity.
Madam President, Prime Minister, all credit to Mr Persson and Sweden for a competent presidency.
You have set a new standard or transparency with your home page, but the Swedish signature appended to the regulation on transparency paved the way for the EU now deciding what you must come up with in Stockholm.
I asked for the minutes of the meetings on transparency.
You did not dare to issue even those, for they would of course show that France, Germany and Spain are opposed to transparency and, were that fact properly to emerge, the three governments would be pressed by their elected representatives and electorate to approve that transparency which Sweden had as an objective.
This is an area in which Sweden has committed an historic betrayal.
Sweden has also violated the Treaty by introducing qualified majority voting as a method of taking decisions on future changes to the rules governing confidentiality.
Before the unlawful adoption of this method on 19 March, measures constituting progress could be adopted by 8 of the 15 countries.
That alone is difficult enough. Progress can now be blocked by France, Germany and Spain, even if we can convince all the other 12 countries that progress is what is at issue.
Parliament is now bringing legal proceedings against the Council.
It is embarrassing for a Swedish presidency to stand accused of a Treaty violation in connection with transparency.
I also want to criticise the police action in Göteborg.
Hooded demonstrators threw paving stones at the police and smashed up shops without being caught.
Instead, peaceful demonstrators were taken into custody when they arrived at the ferry port.
They were not allowed to take part in the peaceful demonstrations.
This is something from which we must learn.
Enter into dialogue with the peaceful demonstrators who use arguments.
Tell the men of violence that throwing a paving stone at someone else' s window may be interpreted as attempted murder.
We who wish to demonstrate peacefully must also learn from the battles. People with hoods on must be expelled from demonstrations.
It must never be possible to confuse peaceful demonstrators with criminals.
There are no excuses for violence, but there are grounds for consideration and reflection.
Why have so many young people given up hope of being able to affect decisions by using arguments?
Why do the media give more coverage to people with paving stones than to people with arguments? Why, in general, have no European media covered the many serious debates arranged in connection with the Göteborg Summit?
Madam President, Prime Minister, Sweden has held the presidency of the Union for the first time.
As an Austrian, I know that it is by no means an easy task.
The objectives were ambitious.
The presidency concentrated on a few priorities, in line with the maxim "less is more".
Above all, some important progress has been made towards enlargement of the Union.
Some agreement has been reached in the chapters on freedom of movement of persons and freedom to provide services, and I would like to offer my congratulations on that success.
However, there is one point on which I cannot agree with the commentators in the newspapers.
I do not seriously think you can say that establishing concrete data for accession is a great triumph.
There are a great many questions that remain to be resolved.
Following the Irish referendum, the process of ratifying the Treaty of Nice has become uncertain.
The question of whether Nice is a sine qua non for enlargement has been the subject of some debate.
But the people of Ireland have given a clear signal that the debate on the future of the Union can no longer be conducted behind closed doors and over the heads of our citizens; the public has to be directly involved.
One objective of the Göteborg Summit was to work out a strategy for sustainable development.
I see the Council's commitment to shift transport to rail and to encourage the full internalisation of external costs as an important clarification of this.
The Community will soon have a chance to match its words with deeds.
The forthcoming negotiations regarding the expiry of the transit agreement with Austria will provide a good opportunity in this respect.
Madam President, it is unfortunate that today' s debate on the Swedish presidency - which was of course something new for our country, with all that that entails - has to begin with an observation that it is in danger of being remembered for stone-throwing anarchists trying to stop the meeting and ruthlessly smashing up Göteborg' s pleasant main street and, with it, quite a few good intentions.
The advantages and benefits to people of cooperation were pushed into the background, while violence and hooliganism came to dominate the reports from the meeting.
I know that almost everyone here in the Chamber shares the regret I feel, but it would have been safer for the future of democracy if we could have been in complete agreement.
The Swedish presidency ought instead to be remembered for the efforts made regarding enlargement.
Securing European freedom and democracy and extending it to include former Communist-occupied Eastern and Central Europe is the absolutely most important task of European cooperation.
Hand in hand with this goes a growing debate in which the major issues for the future of European cooperation are presented.
Sometimes, the talk is more of how the decision-making processes are to be organised than of what we are to cooperate on and what the EU must not meddle in.
I believe that we all too often talk above people' s heads and at a far remove from their everyday lives.
Ireland' s 'no' to the Treaty of Nice is a lesson for us all and a worry not only for the Irish government.
The debate concerning the EU' s future must be conducted in more fundamental and more principled terms.
What we say and do here is therefore of less importance than our engaging in greater discussion in our constituencies.
In my own country, if I may take it as an example, it is important now to make the most of the interest aroused by the presidency.
As the prime minister also mentioned, there now exists the opportunity to conduct a debate on the future of Europe that engages people' s interest.
This means that Sweden must now also tackle the issue of the euro.
The common currency is so central to EU cooperation that the Social Democratic Party and the Swedish government must take their share of responsibility for Sweden' s becoming a member of EMU.
In other countries, there are other issues which must be brought into focus.
I think it is important for Europhiles to stand up for a Europe which is more open to the surrounding world and in which free markets prevail.
In a number of Member States, Europhiles should take greater responsibility for the fact that enlargement is now becoming a reality.
Since the Swedish presidency was making every effort to be a presidency for the whole of the European Union, what was most important was that we obtain a breakthrough in the enlargement negotiations.
The fact that this did not happen with greater enthusiasm and greater courage is not, in the first place, the fault of the Swedish presidency.
It was others who were putting the brakes on.
I therefore hope that the results achieved through the negotiations have advanced the cause of successful enlargement and that the thorniest issues which are still outstanding - agricultural and regional policy - do not upset or interfere with the decisions taken in Göteborg concerning dates.
Let us ensure that these practical achievements loom larger than the stone-throwing and hooliganism on the part of the left-wing extremists.
Let us all work together to ensure that the parliament of the street does not win out.
Madam President, when I was travelling home by plane last week, I got hold of a Swedish business paper, Dagens Industri, which does not normally praise the Swedish government all that often.
They set their seal of approval on the presidency, and a large headline read, 'Passed with great credit' .
I should like to say the same.
The Swedish presidency had three important and major ambitions.
There has been a great deal of talk about enlargement.
There is no doubt that this issue was handled very well.
What is now important in terms of the future - for us in Parliament, for Sweden and for other countries in the Council - is to maintain the pace so that we can meet the objectives we have set.
When it comes to employment, the achievement was not perhaps so outstanding.
The examples of deregulation were definitely not so outstanding, for many on the right were disappointed that these were insufficient.
It was a question of passing on the baton in the important process concerning jobs and growth.
A number of new objectives were set. For example, the subjects of family policy and the older labour force were addressed.
Only a small part of the latter is currently present in the labour market, and that is something that needs to be changed for the future.
When it comes to sustainable development, there are two possible perspectives.
The first involves a comparison with the Commission' s document and, clearly, not everything from that perspective was achieved.
The second perspective is in relation to the current situation.
Clear, unambiguous improvements have been made, and the most important thing is that the environmental issues have been introduced into the Lisbon process.
What is the problem today as far as these environmental issues are concerned? Well, the problem is that they are sidelined and that they always come last.
They are now to be considered jointly with economic and social policy each year as part of an ongoing process.
That, if anything, is a success.
I also want to say something about global responsibility.
The policies on transport, agriculture and fisheries were singled out.
I would also mention transparency, consultation and the provision of information and, in particular, foreign and security policy.
On this subject, I should like to say that it is heartening that Sweden has assumed such a large amount of responsibility in this area.
It is also pleasing that the Swedish people have understood that we are not talking here about some form of militarisation but, on the contrary, about creating peace and stability in a future Europe and the areas bordering upon it.
If Swedish opinion polls are to be believed, there is an incredible amount of support regarding this issue.
Turning now to the debate about the future.
Should there be a convention?
Yes, but a convention is not enough. We must broaden the debate so that it extends beyond a convention and is conducted with civil society.
If we are to conduct the debate with civil society, we must do what Prime Minister Persson said.
We cannot begin with the institutional issues. Instead, we must begin with what it is we want the EU to be doing in five, ten or fifteen years' time and with how we are to do those things.
In that way, the institutional issues come last.
Turning next to Ireland.
We must respect Ireland, but we must also respect the other Member States.
There are those who say that we should now call it a day.
Should not the Swedish parliament or the other parliaments be allowed to discuss the Treaty of Nice? What kind of view of democracy is it that says that we should pack it in for the moment because the Irish people said no?
Are not the other nations presumably also entitled to discuss the issue either in their parliaments or in the particular way they have chosen to? We shall then be able to see what the final result is in 2002, and it will be up to the Irish people to assess the situation at that time.
Finally, a word about the riots.
I fully and firmly support what Mr Barón Crespo said.
We must draw a distinction between the small number of people who throw stones and those who wish to express a view about continued work within the EU.
We must provide the stimulus for a debate with civil society, but we must be tough with those whose only argument is a stone in the hand.
Madam President, I too would like to express my appreciation of the Swedish presidency, of the way it has developed the institutional plan for the Union and, above all, of its contribution to the preparations for enlargement.
I feel that, for the first time, many Europeans are aware that there will be representatives from 25 European countries in this House in just three years time.
However, we are also aware of the problems arising not just from the pause brought about by the Irish referendum but also from the increasing difficulty of involving the European citizens in planning the future Europe.
My opinion is simple: we must give fresh impetus to the cooperation between Parliament and the Commission. The Commission must - and here I am expressing, once again, my total confidence in President Prodi and the Commissioners - demonstrate that it can handle its responsibilities and is capable of working towards a shared vision.
Parliament must take greater pride in being the representative of a democratic institution which will soon include half a billion people, at precisely a time when such a large proportion of the public is critical of globalisation.
We are the primary example of a supranational power which is still growing, and this, Madam President, must be stressed: this is Europe's contribution to the future of world government.
I would also like to express my appreciation of the determination with which the Swedish presidency has upheld Europe's position on the environment and emphasised the key points of the Kyoto agreements, not just in terms of rules but also in terms of triggering off a new debate within the scientific community on research, technological innovation and industrial competition, placing Europe's position in the context - as Commissioner Wallström said - of the European strategy for sustainable development.
Finally - albeit a day early - I would like to express my best wishes to the Belgian presidency and say that I have every confidence in the presidency of a founding country of Europe.
The Belgian presidency will enable us to contribute to that process which will give us a Europe of 25 countries in just three years, but will also bring us a more democratic Europe which is tangibly closer to the principle of subsidiarity, Madam President.
Many Europeans, including those who voted against the motion in the Irish referendum, are calling for us to reduce the excessive amount of regulations.
Basically, they are demanding that Europe deal more effectively with its strategic priorities and stop wasting so much time on matters of minor importance.
Madam President, as many other colleagues have said, one of the most worrying aspects of the violence at Göteborg is that it detracted from the action of many people who were there to demonstrate peacefully so as to make their legitimate concerns known to government leaders.
The violence overshadowed the real message that came from the genuine demonstrators outside the summit, which was that people want to be more involved in this process of building the Europe of the future.
They want to take part in a real public debate.
The post-Nice process and the Convention are crucial in ensuring that genuine democratic reform can be achieved and that European citizens can play a part in that.
We welcome the commitment that was made in Göteborg to move ahead with accession negotiations so that the newest Member States can take part in the 2004 elections.
We also welcome the establishment of a European sustainable development strategy, albeit a much watered-down version of that originally presented by the Commission, which had contained ambitious targets and concrete measures.
Sustainable development is about people: their economic and social needs as well as environmental conservation.
Putting this into practice has huge implications.
We cannot go on plundering our natural resources and then look to science and technology to try and mend the damage.
We need a new approach.
Mr Persson referred to the importance of establishing the processes.
The Cardiff European Summit in 1998 adopted what is referred to as the "Cardiff process", integrating environmental considerations into all areas of EU policy as the first step towards sustainable development.
Göteborg did not provide the next major step in practical terms, after the Cardiff process, but the important link is there and the strategy can be built upon.
Hopefully we will see this happen and will see progress in the spring summits from now on.
This is essential if the EU is to make a major contribution to the Rio+10 world summit in 2002.
Another welcome decision at Göteborg was the plan to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, even without the USA, before the Rio+10 conference.
This will send a very clear message, not only to the United States, but also to the rest of the world, about our commitment to this goal and our determination to combat climate change.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the images from Göteborg were alarming.
Vandalism, a blind destructive frenzy and criminal violence, all of which should be condemned, and my Group most certainly does condemn them.
We must never allow anything like this to happen again.
But people who want to make their views known, who want to exercise their right to demonstrate or who want to protest against political decisions should still be able to do so peacefully without any restrictions in future, just as some 20 000 peaceful demonstrators also did in Göteborg.
Committed citizens will continue to see European summits as a political opportunity to express their ideas and expectations, and that is a good thing, because we need to take the public's views into account more when building a democratic Europe.
Politicians and governments should no longer be allowed to sweep over the heads of the public and ignore their sentiments.
The Swedish presidency in particular has made great efforts in this direction.
It has made an effort to tackle the problem of the democratic deficit in Europe, and we really must recognise that.
Unfortunately, the results have been somewhat disappointing.
However, that cannot be laid at the door of the Swedish government alone - all governments have to be held to account here.
When it comes to a public debate on the future of Europe, that debate should be a wide-ranging one.
It needs to be purposeful and result-oriented. Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, you know that we in this House want a convention to prepare the next intergovernmental conference.
We have done some preliminary work here, and it will now be the job of the Belgian presidency to initiate this convention before Laeken.
I very much welcome the fact that there are already proposals on the table to extend the agenda and to address further issues in the debate on the future of Europe.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is by some strange turn of events that the latest protests, a new phenomenon at European summits, reached their climax at Göteborg.
'Strange' because Sweden's various governments have always placed transparency at the heart of European politics, and Sweden has now found itself running the least transparent body, the body to which all the decisions, even the most unimportant, fall, thanks to a false idea of the supremacy of the intergovernmental method. Mr President-in-Office, I hope that your country and you yourself will reflect on this point.
When Parliament requests more powers, it does so also in the name of that representativeness which it undoubtedly has and which the governments, in that form - not in general but in that form - do not have.
Therefore, from that point of view, Göteborg could be a useful lesson for those governments that are still hesitant about a slightly different vision of Europe, a vision which many Members in this House share.
I would like to congratulate the Swedish presidency on one point in particular, and that is the undertaking assumed - which nobody has singled out because it happened rather on the quiet - regarding the International Criminal Court.
The Swedish presidency led the Fifteen to adopt a very important common position, a strong position in favour of ratifying not only the International Criminal Court but also the campaign and, three days ago, it also ratified the Court's Statute.
This is an undertaking to which I would like to pay tribute because, in this way, Sweden has contributed to the creation of something which, with Milosevic's arrest, is increasingly close to being achieved.
Finally, there is one thing that I am glad to see you did not manage to do, and that is to decide the locations - mathematically, Italian style - of the agencies, maybe removing the possibility of locating the Food Agency in Parma and giving it to Helsinki instead. This would have been a mistake which, I am glad to say, did not happen.
In any case, "Well done" to the Swedish presidency for its achievements with regard to both climate change and the Court.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the Swedish presidency will, unfortunately, be remembered for the fact that, for the first time since the European Communities were founded, police officers, who are, by the way, European police officers, fired real bullets at European demonstrators.
The Swedish presidency will be remembered for this violence and this contempt, the contempt with which European leaders have treated the result of the referendum in Ireland.
The Göteborg Summit has shown that the European Union was almost becoming a Forbidden City, as foreign to the people of Europe as the Manchu dynasty to the most remote Mongolian tribes and treating them with just as much contempt.
The EU is totally indifferent to the peoples' sovereign views remember, if you will, the 'no' vote of the people of Denmark of 28 September 2000, which was treated with equal contempt. I believe that the European Union is in the process and I know that this will perhaps cause some shock of reviving a colonial style approach towards the nations within it, with the slight difference that, in this case, the colonial power intends to develop colonisation rather than to initiate it, as has been the case in the past.
That is why I believe that the reaction of the Irish people, who, for a long time, have had their fingers burnt by history, heralds a general feeling of rebellion amongst the people of Europe - to face up to this new type of almost endogenous neo-colonialism that is emerging, which has wanted to rule over them since Maastricht, Amsterdam and now Nice, and to bring them the benefits of an essentially healthy undertaking namely Europe - whether they like it or not.
Mr President, the Göteborg Council took a step in the right direction when it confirmed that the process of enlargement was irreversible and that it had set the goal for the first wave of candidate countries to join in time for them to take part in the 2004 European elections.
At the same time, however, this same Council made a serious error when, in paragraph 4 of the presidency conclusions, it appeared to link the decision on enlargement to the fate of the Treaty of Nice.
This is an error of legal, political and moral judgment.
It is an error of legal judgment, because, as the President of the Commission stated on 21 June 2001, 'the ratification of the Treaty of Nice is not legally necessary for enlargement to take place' and, moreover, Mr Poettering, this may also be the reason why the President of the Commission is not here today.
In any case, I shall not go back to this point because, again from a legal point of view, no one has since contradicted what Mr Prodi said.
It is also an error of political judgment because, from a political point of view, the Treaty of Nice is only essential for enlargement for those wishing to build a European 'super state' .
Do they wish to combine the super state, European enlargement and the Treaty of Nice, therefore, at the risk of causing all these projects to fail together?
Lastly, it is an error of moral judgment, because, by upholding the statement made by the General Affairs Council of 11 June 2001, the Göteborg Council showed utter contempt for the democratically expressed opinion of a nation, which shows the Europe that it hopes to achieve in a strange light.
For our part, we want the countries of the East to join a free and democratic Europe, and that is why, Mr President, we are supporting the clear, courageous choice of the Irish people.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, first of all, I should like to underline that the Swedish presidency has most certainly been a great success, unfortunately not in every respect, but that would be impossible to achieve.
The final balance is very positive.
I also welcome the support that you continue to pledge with regard to the Belgian presidency.
Perhaps you will allow me to draw your attention once more to a few elements.
First of all enlargement.
Enormous efforts are being made on that score by the Central and Eastern European countries, but the question of whether the European Union is ready for enlargement is becoming ever more pressing, of course.
For example, if I consider how long it has taken us to adopt a common position on the free movement of persons, I am a little apprehensive about discussing far more complex issues, such as agriculture or the funding of the EU.
It is therefore of the utmost importance to ensure that the European Union is ready on time.
But it is also important to prepare our own public opinion for future events.
That is not only necessary in Central and Eastern Europe, but also in the European Union, as we have witnessed during the Irish referendum.
It is great to have Mr Milosevic in The Hague, but I do hope that the money pledged will also be paid out swiftly to the population in the former Yugoslavia, for we need to offer prospects, particularly in those regions.
We must also ensure that the European Union takes steps in Macedonia to promote the peaceful co-existence of the two nations and the prevention of any future explosions in the Balkans in this respect.
Mr President, I believe that, where Russia is concerned, our relationship with Mr Putin should not purely be amicable. We should, above all, criticise him for the inadequate enforcement of human rights and, especially, for compromising the freedom of the press.
On that score, our message to Mr Putin should be crystal clear.
Finally, the energy policy was a minor failure on the part of the Swedish presidency.
It is extremely regrettable that the French/German axis has caused the derailment of the liberalisation process within the European energy market.
This appears to me to be a major task for the Belgian presidency.
Mr President, stones are neither left nor right wing, they are simply anti-democratic.
And the best way to deal with stones and anti-democracy is to defend our own European democracy, explain to our citizens why we need Europe, enter into a debate with them and show them concrete results.
My group Chairman has already expressed thanks, and I should like to echo this, in respect of Mr Persson, Mr Danielsson and Mrs Lindh, who have recently cooperated with us in a very concrete manner to give shape to a number of matters.
I would like to say a few words on Europe' s underlying rationale and on a matter that our citizens understand very well, namely foreign policy.
Citizens realise that Europe was, in itself, probably the most successful conflict prevention project of the last century, and they also realise that Europe can contribute towards peace and stability.
Over the past few months, under the Swedish presidency and in close cooperation with Commissioner Patten and Mr Solana, we have witnessed how, concerning a number of important issues, Europe has played a more pivotal role, as it were.
That was the case in the 'Everything but Arms' sector, which represented a movement towards a more open Europe in trading terms to achieve a world trade round in which development was central.
That was also the case in our protest against the American 'missile defence system' initiative and our belief that we need to invest in conflict prevention more efficiently and at an earlier stage.
That is similarly the case now that we are on the brink of a war in the Middle East. Despite this, we have tried to bring both parties around the negotiating table, thus considerably strengthening Europe' s presence in recent months.
And that was also the case with regard to possibly the most sensitive and most complex problem for Europe, FYROM/Macedonia.
I would like to comment on conflict prevention, because I am very well aware that the Swedish presidency has exerted a great deal of pressure in a direction which appeals to us greatly.
We could, of course, invest enormous amounts in technologies in the hope that that would provide us with a safety shield, as it were.
I do not deny the fact that we need new technological developments, but this American initiative is not the right way forward.
What we need to do is to invest in diplomacy, conflict prevention and citizens' networks and to enter into all those development aid and trade commitments which, together, create stability in the world.
In that way, we can prevent those dozens of conflicts which are taking place at the moment from continuing to spread.
This form of thinking in terms of foreign policy is a new security concept.
In my opinion, the Swedes have helped shape that new security concept in Europe.
This is a European value which, I believe, is appropriate and which suits us very well. I should like to thank you for this.
Mr President, Commissioner, Prime Minister, the Swedish presidency also deserves praise from those of your opponents in Sweden who are usually niggardly with their compliments.
If it is now permissible to say so, I have often felt both joy and pride during these last six months.
Nonetheless, I have a substantial objection regarding the decision in favour of transporter' s liability, with large fines for those who do not comply with the EU' s rules.
In practice, this means that the responsibility of local authorities for those who come to the European Union seeking asylum is to be taken over by airline employees.
That is unacceptable.
Prime Minister, you talked in January here in Parliament about a generous attitude on the part of the EU and about ambitions for a humane refugee policy that go beyond the requirements of the Geneva Convention.
Transporter' s liability as conceived by the EU is neither humane nor generous. Quite the contrary.
To put it in the terms that you yourself used, we in the EU, which is a wealthy part of a global community, ought in actual fact to be able to afford to be both humane and generous.
You have had the foresight, Prime Minister, to give Raoul Wallenberg the place he deserves in history.
May we never betray his memory.
Mr President, allow me to turn my attention to the European Council conclusions in Göteborg and particularly the situation in the Middle East.
I believe that that attention is justified. The headline of today' s Neue Zürcher Zeitung, which reads: "Gewalt statt Waffenruhe im Nahen Osten" [violence instead of a cease-fire in the Middle East], illustrates this.
The end of the Palestinian intifada (uprising) is not yet in sight.
At the same time, the tension between Israel and Syria is again rising dangerously.
There is therefore no chance of a return to the so-called peace process in the Middle East, despite all recent diplomatic efforts on the part of America and Europe.
What are the options left to those mediating parties? The conclusions of the European Council in Göteborg do not really address this cardinal issue.
They excel in wishful thinking.
Upbeat terms such as "cooling-off period" and "additional trust-building measures" are supposed to ward off the deep-rooted violence.
Should the United States and the European Union therefore leave Israel and the Palestinian Authority to their own devices?
Not at all! What is important is that both mediating parties are aware of their diplomatic and military powers.
The High Representative, Mr Solana, has broached the subject of essential distribution of roles.
Without beating about the bush, he recognises, in his Middle East reports at the Göteborg Summit, the United States' s key position in the required resumption of the peace process.
This sincere statement causes the High Representative to underline the importance of permanent, mutual consultation, thus making 'our efforts complementary' .
It is precisely this objective that requires balanced, European action in the region.
That is why I would ask the Council and Commission to inform me of the specific conditions they attach to the considerable support they lend to the Palestinian Authority. Surely, at this moment in time, adequate control of violence must be the primary condition.
For precisely that condition will help break the present deadlock in the Middle East.
Mr President, to many observers, what happened outside the Göteborg Summit appeared to be of greater importance than what took place inside.
I am referring, of course, to the violence displayed by the demonstrators and to relations with the United States.
With regard to the latter, although it is true that points of disagreement still remain, on capital punishment, for example, on the Kyoto protocol and on the anti-missile shield, considerable progress has clearly been made, Mr President, on the joint declaration on the Middle East and on the joint approach to the Balkans.
On the issue of the violence, I think that we must make a clear distinction between displays of violent action - and violence must be eradicated because in a democracy ideas cannot be advocated by force - and the message that was conveyed in the course of the protests.
In the interest of everyone, Mr President, globalisation must be a ship that has more crew members and fewer shipwrecks.
With regard to internal issues, we must make a clear distinction between promises and the reality of the situation.
I think that the repeated wish to maintain the timetable for negotiations on enlargement is a factor, but I also feel, Mr President, that the problem of not knowing how this accession process is to be financed or which of the candidate countries will be in the first wave of accessions is significant.
It is crucial that we bear in mind that our project for integrating Europe does not only gain legitimacy once every five years when elections to the European Parliament are held. Our project must be given legitimacy each and every day.
To this effect, it is not enough for there to be greater and closer police coordination, or for the Commission to set a course for our integration project. What is crucial is that we reach agreement on a common vision of the Europe that we want.
No such agreement exists today and yet it is essential if we are to ensure that this project is more what it has been until now: it must be much more the fruit of the dreams and the enthusiasm of our citizens than of the will of our leaders.
Prime Minister Persson, Commissioner Wallström, Mr President, I would like to thank the Swedish presidency particularly for its perseverance in seeking to highlight issues which are important for the environment and for bringing the environment to the heart of policy together with economic and social issues during its six-month presidency.
Unfortunately, not all of the Council were able to achieve the progress on environmental issues that the work put in by the presidency merited.
It is true that conciliations were finally concluded, but not perhaps at the ambitious level that Parliament would have liked to see. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the Swedish presidency really has sought to achieve results.
Sustainable development is an important step in taking the environment into account in European policy.
Strengthening the ecological pillar in sustainable development is also essential since when sustainable development is monitored year by year, we have to be able to set clear targets for the ecological pillar to make this monitoring possible.
We have to have measurable goals, quantitative and qualitative targets, sufficient perspectives on how the environmental situation can be monitored to enable us also to tackle the threats we face successfully.
In my opinion the Swedish presidency otherwise succeeded very well, although it would have been good to see a decision on the Food Authority reached at the Göteborg Summit, as work on this should begin immediately.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the Swedish presidency on its success and also express my regret that the Irish referendum result overshadowed many of their achievements, particularly in the field of enlargement.
The European Council in Göteborg was generous in response to our predicament and I welcome its willingness to help the Irish Government find a way forward.
I regret that it is not going to be easy.
With a little more effort by the political establishment in Ireland, a 'yes' vote could easily have been obtained but now that the referendum has taken place, many people, including supporters of the Nice Treaty, will be reluctant to overturn it.
It also must be said that the recent remarks of Mr Prodi in the Irish media to the effect that enlargement can proceed even if Nice is not ratified, unfortunately adds to the confusion.
However, my major concern arises because of the existence of a strong eurosceptic core at the heart of the Irish government.
While the Taoiseach was speaking to our European partners inside the Council in an attempt to repair the damage inflicted on our reputation, his finance minister, Charlie McCreevy, was outside describing the Irish rejection of the Nice Treaty as a remarkable and healthy development.
I wish to take the opportunity of warning the Council and the Commission to be careful, as Mr McCreevy's continued eurosceptic approach could well be an indication of his intention to provoke another row with the EU over Ireland's budgetary policy in the run-up to a possible autumn Irish general election.
I hope that the ratification of the Nice Treaty proceeds successfully, and that when we revisit the issue in Ireland, we will have a different result.
Mr President, I, too, would like to congratulate the Swedish presidency on a very successful first presidency of the Union.
Notwithstanding that a handful of extremist demonstrators tried to spoil it in Göteborg, we will ultimately look back on solid achievements under your presidency of the Council.
I say the words "presidency of the Council" advisedly because it is not, of course, the presidency of the Union.
Every institution has its own president.
We have Mrs Fontaine, the Commission has Mr Prodi, the Council has a Member State government by rotation.
There is actually no such thing as a presidency of the Union, yet every presidency often presents itself as the President of the Union.
This contributes to a feeling in public opinion that puts too much weight on the presidency.
Expectations are raised too high.
But when you take over the presidency you are not assuming executive office, you are taking the chairmanship of one of the institutions with an inherited agenda for a very short period of time, and people expect too much of it.
That is why there are sometimes disappointments at the end of the presidency.
Less so this time - and that is because you have done so well - but I would advise future presidencies not to build themselves up into something that they are not, and to get down to the solid work that is necessary for what that post really means.
Your greatest success has been in accelerating the enlargement negotiations and it now looks as though all the candidate countries except Romania and Bulgaria could well be in by the time of the next European elections.
That means that this Parliament will have at least 732 Members, possibly more.
It will be many more if there is any slippage in that timetable, because any country that has not signed its accession treaty by the beginning of 2004, but comes in during the next Parliament, will have its MEPs added on top of the 732.
That is going to cause huge administrative and financial problems for this Parliament.
We will do our best to deal with that, but I suspect that, if there are problems, we will get the blame in public opinion for a decision that was taken by the governments.
None of this is of course the fault of the Swedish presidency.
On the contrary, the acceleration of the enlargement negotiations should help in that respect.
But it is something that all Member States, and all of us, should bear in mind as we move to the Convention to prepare the next Intergovernmental Conference.
I hope that it will be a proper Convention, and that the next Intergovernmental Conference is not prepared by the usual small group of foreign policy advisers, but by a wider representative body.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the Swedish presidency on being very successful.
I am particularly pleased that the presidency succeeded in putting sustainable development at the core of European politics.
It is extremely important that the European Union is perceived by our citizens as more than an economic exercise and a free market because that, without any doubt, will alienate them further from the notion of European integration.
It is important to bear in mind that economic integration and getting the economy of Europe right is important.
It is equally important to bear in mind that there cannot be economic development in a modern economy without a strong social dimension.
I would argue that sustainable development and employment are part and parcel of the social dimension of the European Union.
I also wish to congratulate the Swedish presidency on putting the notion of conflict prevention on the agenda in a much stronger way than up to now.
Given the traditions of the Swedish people, this is obviously an area very close to their hearts.
It is very close to the heart of the people of Ireland who, unfortunately, recently rejected the Nice Treaty, precisely because they misunderstood to some extent the nature of the European Union and what we are attempting to do in relation to the Rapid Reaction Force.
I am pleased that the presidency has been a success and that these issues have been put on the agenda.
It is now up to us in this Parliament and future presidencies to develop them further.
Mr President, I can only endorse the conclusions of the final Göteborg document.
Moreover, I would like to stress a few points which I feel are extremely important for Europe's growth: pensions and the project for financial sustainability, the new cycle of negotiations on international trade reform, the issues relating to public health and a strict relationship between the use of natural resources and economic growth.
On this point, for example with regard to some of the areas related to agriculture, we might have wished for more ambition, partly because the current fear is that some of the situations which have been consolidated within the European Union, specifically those relating to the agricultural sector, will be sacrificed to enlargement matters.
With regard to food safety in the context of enlargement too, in our opinion, the tendency is sometimes to subdue rather than aim towards a way of working which will provide guarantees to the consumer.
We are still too fresh, if you will pardon the expression, from the crises we have had in recent years - dioxins, mad cow disease - not to see food safety as a priority in the political decisions we have to take over the next few years.
Now, on a political note, we feel that, in some areas, the relationship between the Council and the European Parliament has not been what we would have wished it to be, and on extremely important political matters such as the relationship with Russia and the space shield, for example, we have seen alarming acceleration.
If we do not have an adequate debate in Strasbourg, we will be in danger of creating a series of points of no return which could cause deep rifts, particularly in a politically sensitive period such as this one, where some countries - such as Italy, Spain and Great Britain - have stable governments but in others - such as France and Germany - things will change every time there is an election.
Therefore, some positions might be subject to pressure which is due more to electoral positions than overall European positions.
In our opinion, the European Parliament must have the extremely important role of redressing the balance.
Mr President, the European Council at Göteborg took two conflicting decisions.
On the one hand, it confirmed the timetable for enlargement, as the European Parliament hoped it would, by moving the goal to complete negotiations forward to the end of 2002.
This is wonderful news!
On the other hand, at the same time, the Heads of State and Government decided to disregard the implications of the Irish 'no' vote at the latest referendum.
Yet, this 'no' vote casts major doubts over the timetable for ratification, and perhaps even as to whether ratification will be achieved.
In order for the Treaty of Nice to be ratified, we must now wait for the national elections in Ireland and for these elections to produce a victory in Dublin of a more united majority than the current majority on this issue, and for this majority to be willing to gamble its credibility on this now highly sensitive area.
We also need the new leaders to find persuasive arguments to convince the Irish people to change their minds.
Those telling us today that this will be a mere formality are the same people who were burying their heads in the sand before the recent referendum.
This means that, for the candidate countries, the Treaty of Nice is no longer the key to the door of the European Union it has now become the lock, a stiff lock, firmly bolted into place by the Irish people and there are no guarantees that it will be reopened.
That is why opening accession negotiations on the basis of the current treaties, in other words, the Treaty of Amsterdam, is the only thing that can guarantee that the timetable promised at Göteborg will be respected.
That is what Mr Prodi attempted to say and he was made to keep quiet.
The policy of burying one' s head in the sand is not the right strategy to follow.
Institutional reform still has to be carried out, whether or not we have the Treaty of Nice.
The European Parliament believes that the reform can only form part of a constitutional approach.
In the meantime, however, it is our duty to tell the candidate countries that the only way for them to ensure that the proposed timetable will be respected is by negotiating on the basis of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
If the Treaty of Nice is finally ratified by the autumn of 2002, there will still be time to support it.
If it is not ratified, enlargement can still go ahead.
Mr President, the topic of sustainable development has been afforded a very prominent position in the second chapter of the European Council' s conclusions.
Mr Persson talked about sustainable development which has social, economic and ecological dimensions.
I share his view.
I agree that sustainable development should be added to the Lisbon criteria.
I wholehearted agree with everything that has been written in this connection, for example to the effect that trends which threaten the future quality of our lives must be reversed.
I also agree with the statement that 'sustainable development will present significant economic opportunities. This has the potential to unleash a new wave of technological innovation and investment, generating growth and employment.'
But, Mr President, paper can wait.
The ink with which these fine conclusions were written was not even dry when, for the discussion of two matters of environmental legislation last Monday, the entire Council cried off.
I actually wonder whether those Prime Ministers speak on their own behalves when they reach those conclusions, and I also wonder whether they actually follow what has been agreed in Europe in their weekly cabinet meetings? Also, do they ever stop to think whether those conclusions are consistent and in line with what they tell each other in the first six months, or once every six months?
The moral of the story - I am addressing the Swedish presidency, but this applies equally to all other presidencies - is that the European Parliament, but also the European citizen, cannot be fooled any longer.
We are actually fed up with one fine declaration every six months.
We also want you to proceed with the agenda and add a concrete dimension to the issues.
We have heard too much idle talk.
This chatter is no longer acceptable or even believable.
Mr President, I want to begin by congratulating Mr Persson on what has, in many ways, been a successful presidency.
There are many positive things to be said about, for example, its approach to enlargement towards the East and to the issues surrounding transparency, as well as about its efforts for peace in the Balkans.
I only have a short time in which to speak, so allow me to address two issues concerning which the results have unfortunately, in my view, been relatively poor.
One area in which more ought to have been achieved is, of course, the European Union' s sustainable development strategy.
The result from Göteborg was, in the main, a framework decision with extremely little content.
I can only hope that, even once the presidency is over, the prime minister will continue to push on with these issues and ensure that we obtain lucid content, clear objectives and timetables when it comes to taking the long-term view in a number of areas.
I note with satisfaction that the prime minister particularly mentioned relations with the Third World, which are naturally a very important part of the work on sustainability.
We cannot bring about sustainable development without adopting a global approach from the beginning.
I think, however, that the results have been poorest when it comes to the debate on the future.
I do not think that Sweden took the opportunity it in actual fact had as the country holding the presidency to discuss in depth not only the content and direction of the European Union' s future, but also the organisation.
I believe that things have, in a way, been made too easy for those who follow.
I have heard more from Belgium on this issue, before the country takes over the presidency, than I have heard from Sweden.
That is serious, because it is important that we get to have a debate on this issue, especially with a view to transparency, democratisation and the business of securing grassroots support.
It is important for Europe, but it is important, above all, for Sweden for, there, we still have a debate which very often comes down to a 'yes' or a 'no' to the European Union and which is not focused upon the content of the Union or upon the way it should look as an organisation.
I can therefore only hope that, during the next few months and as part of the troika' s work, the prime minister will play an active part when Belgium now most certainly pushes ahead with these issues.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I too have to pour some cold water on the matter, since as I see it the Swedish presidency failed in two ways, because it did not manage to settle the dispute between two Member States over Gibraltar and thus free up the logjam in European air transport policy.
The public finds it incomprehensible that although important legislative projects like the one on increased compensation arrangements for overbooking in passenger air transport was negotiated in Council, they have not been adopted.
It is just as incomprehensible that important legislative initiatives like the creation of a single European sky are already blocked within the Commission.
Mr President-in-Office, this would have been a good example of an area where the Council could have done something, because everyone knows that disputes like the one over Gibraltar cannot be settled at ministerial level, between transport ministers.
It is a job for the top man, but in this case the top men have failed on two counts.
I do hope at least that the minutes of the Göteborg Summit are factually correct.
I say that because the Göteborg minutes say that the Council hopes that this dispute over Gibraltar can be settled over the next few weeks.
So we are keen to see if a result will be forthcoming at least two weeks after the Swedish presidency.
Commissioner, I also have a request for the Commission, an urgent appeal in fact. The Commission absolutely must adopt the legislative initiative on the creation of a single European sky before the summer break and forward it to the Council and Parliament.
You know as well as we do that the many delays, the incidences of planes circling above the ground, are not just annoying for the public, because of delays in reaching their holiday destinations, and because of business appointments that cannot be kept. It is also expensive.
You know just as well as we do that the ridiculous combustion of air fuel in the sky is environmentally unacceptable.
That is why we need a sensible European system to bring an end to these delays.
We look forward to seeing your proposal on this before the summer is out.
Mr President, like Mr Jarzembowski, I wish to refer to the transport issue.
I read with concern in the conclusions to the Göteborg Summit in particular that the Commission is to proceed with its plans to propose a framework to ensure that "by 2004 the price of using different modes of transport better reflects costs to society".
This clearly reflects the principle of infrastructure charging which has been promoted by the Commission since the publication in July 1998 of its White Paper on fair and efficient pricing in transport, subsequently approved in the Costa Neves report, which Parliament approved in January.
These proposals are anything but fair and efficient, especially as far as road transport is concerned.
The Commission's own research shows, for example, that the per kilometre cost of running a car in the UK under infrastructure charging would increase by 97% by 2005.
Surely we have learned some lessons from the fuel price protests which brought many Member States to a standstill last autumn.
Road users are already being forced to pay through the nose to subsidise other forms of transport, in particular the United Kingdom, and the Commission's proposals will only aggravate this.
Despite several years of study and consultation, even the so-called "experts" within this field admit that the science involved in so-called social marginal costing - the process by which these charges are set - is untested and uncertain.
Charging people off the road will not encourage the general public to change their travel habits, it will merely provoke widespread dissent and anger.
The road user should not be the target of a witch hunt.
Member States should be free to set their own tax regimes and decide their own priorities for infrastructure charging and improvements.
I urge every Member of this Parliament to acknowledge the horrendous impact this would have and encourage them to join me in opposing any such proposals every step of the way.
Mr President, the Göteborg Summit was the first summit in the history of the European Union at which top priority was given to safeguarding the sustainability and viability of the social economic development model.
If we judge the results of the summit on the basis of which strategies were supported, the most substantial success achieved was the introduction of a step-by-step procedure for monitoring environmental policy with the annual control introduced by the spring summit of the European Council.
Similarly, the requirement to devise national strategies and coordinate the policies of the Member States will be particularly important for countries lagging behind in this sector.
We might also describe the initial objectives and measures defined in four sectors - climatic change, safeguarding sustainability in transport, dealing with public health risks and responsible management of natural resources - as being of major importance.
I say "might" because no specific concomitant measures on pollution management costs aimed at individuals or companies were adopted.
Likewise, the summit was clearly backwards in coming forwards in protecting public health, a sector in which there are huge risks; one need only cite mad cows and foot-and-mouth.
Just yesterday, the first confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was reported in Greece.
The summit was also backwards in coming forwards in the biotechnology sector, where the European Union basically needs to get moving and apply a technology which will offer important advantages to society in the 21st century.
So the summit clearly failed to come up to expectations and consequently I would not say that it was a landmark summit.
However, it is a starting point for moving from declarations and intentions to the application of an integrated environmental protection policy closely bound up with social and economic development.
To conclude, the summit may have announced that the objectives of environmental sustainability are to be incorporated but, unfortunately, it failed to adopt any timetables, binding indicators, objectives or specific measures.
Mr President, I witnessed the violence at Göteborg.
To me it symbolised the growing distance between the leaders and the led.
I regret that the summit came to the conclusion that it should set aside the Irish referendum result and proceed with business as usual.
The referendum in Ireland gave us an opportunity to sit back and think about the way in which Europe develops.
The purpose, apparently, of the Nice Treaty was to provide for the enlargement of the European Union to include the new democracies.
It is the paramount duty of all politicians in Europe to achieve that as soon as possible.
However, I disagree with the President of the Commission, who wrote in The Wall Street Journal last week that Nice was essential for enlargement.
Nice is not essential for enlargement.
We could, within the accession treaties, make the necessary adjustment to QMV, voting rights, the number of MEPs and so on, for each country which accedes to the European Union.
We should take this chance now of providing for the peoples of Europe, represented by their national MPs and by their Members of the European Parliament, by establishing not a Convention, but a parliamentary conference.
That parliamentary conference should prepare the ground for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
Above all, it should begin to identify the sort of choices that Europe needs to make for the future in the economy, social policy, the environment, transport, and the budget - the sort of Europe that the two great political families, the centre left and centre right of politics in Europe, actually look for.
That would provide, at the European elections of 2004, a real choice between the proposals of the centre left and the proposals of the centre right.
That would make the European elections meaningful and would actually accord with the views of most people in this House that the business-as-usual approach, the top-down approach, cannot be sustained any longer.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday.
Takeover bids
The next item is the report (A5-0237/2001) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on company law concerning takeover bids [C5-0221/2001 - 1995/0341(COD)].
Ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank my fellow Members for their cooperation during the discussions, and in particular Jimmy Provan for the very fair opinion that he has just presented here in plenary.
Nevertheless, I am going to stir things up a little.
I say that quite simply because we should not forget that our amendments at second reading last December have been at the heart of this debate.
We wanted to create a level playing field in Europe as regards company takeovers.
It is quite clear that the result that emerged from the Conciliation Committee did not give us what we wanted.
Parliament offered all kinds of compromises during the negotiations.
Jimmy Provan has explained that a compromise was not reached because the Council rejected any kind of compromise, dug its heels in over the key issue in its common position, and was absolutely unwilling to budge a single millimetre.
One of our offers for a compromise, one of the last that we made, was for a directive on the level playing field to come into force. This is, by the way, something we proposed some time ago, and which the Council, as I discovered last weekend, has had before it since 1972, that is to say much longer than the 12 years that have been mentioned here.
The entry into force of the duty of neutrality is to be made conditional on such a level playing field directive coming into force.
Even this, although it really seems quite self-evident, was rejected by the Council.
There was merely agreement with the idea of the Commission convening a group of experts to address this subject and then possibly develop some proposals.
I would like to know what the logic is of convening a group of experts once the directive has already been adopted. Normally, you set up the group of experts first and then adopt a directive on the subject in question.
I am not convinced at all by the procedure being adopted here.
I have therefore come to the conclusion that this is not so much a compromise as a capitulation by the majority of the Parliament delegation in the face of the Council's position.
All this in the context of a number of important decisions going through the conciliation procedure. I have in mind, for example, the Directive on money-laundering , the whole subject of the Lamfalussy follow-up, and everything else in that area.
I believe that if we agree to this directive, we are debasing the institutional role of this House, and for that reason alone we should not agree.
Quite apart from that, there are any number of objective reasons why we cannot agree to it.
The result of this directive will be that in future protected companies will be able to take over unprotected companies.
That is the clear consequence of this.
Because if we do not have a level playing field, if national legislation in certain Member States makes it permissible to protect companies by limitations on voting rights, by golden shares, by multiple voting rights, by a variety of means of intervention by the administration, and if this is in fact not the case in other Member States, then I would like to know where the level playing field is.
Alternatively, let me draw a comparison between the United States and Europe. The Americans have gone in exactly the opposite direction.
They have introduced a "business judgment rule" according to which company boards can protect themselves if they wish, whereas in Europe we forbid that.
So what will the results of a decision of this kind be, if it is easier for American companies to take over European companies than the other way round? Furthermore, the trend in America also gives the lie to much of what we have been able to read in the papers this morning.
The papers always maintain that things would degenerate into chaos or that it would have a negative impact on Europe's financial market if we suddenly rejected this directive.
The American experience suggests the opposite, they have gone down exactly the opposite path, and no one could say that America's stock market is less dynamic than Europe's.
So it is evident that these connections do not apply.
I would also like to remind you about the vital concept of location advantages.
Delaware is a state that has relatively restrictive legislation on company takeovers.
It is interesting to note that 40% of the companies quoted on the New York stock exchange are based in Delaware, rising to 60% of indexed companies.
My question to you is: why should that be? I can only suggest that I believe these conditions to be a very important factor when companies make decisions about their location.
No one has anything against protecting shareholders.
I am a shareholder myself.
So it goes without saying of course, as a matter of logic, that like most individuals who are shareholders, I am in favour of protecting shareholders, but on equal terms.
The phrase used by Jimmy Provan, "one share - one vote", simply does not apply in Europe.
That is the key problem.
Because this phrase does not apply, it would be wrong at this stage to introduce strict neutrality which would ultimately lead to major imbalances in Europe and would thus probably harm the internal market more than benefit it.
To sum up, the Swedish Prime Minister called the directive unique.
I agree - in its present form, it is uniquely bad.
That is why it must be rejected.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Provan and Mr Lehne.
I will take as my starting point the position which was adopted at the second reading of the European Parliament on 13 December 2000 with 399 votes for the motion.
An amendment adopted at this time radically changed Article 9 of the common position, enabling an administrative board to take defensive measures without consulting the shareholders once the bid has been made public.
The defensive measures could have been subject to prior authorisation of the supervisory authority by the administrative board or in response to a request from shareholders holding at least 1% of the voting rights.
Then we had conciliation.
Conciliation was a lengthy operation on an extremely difficult subject.
In view of the Council's downright refusal to take this amendment into account, amongst other things, we presented a substantial series of compromise solutions which ranged from the possibility of shareholders holding 20% of the voting rights requesting that a meeting be convened to discuss defensive measures to the introduction of a clause linking the entry into force of the directive on takeover bids to the entry into force of a directive creating a sort of level playing field, that is common rules of play under European company law.
Nothing was achieved and the Council continued to refuse any form of compromise we proposed.
I recall, amongst other things - and I am reminding myself more than anyone - that a proposal for a directive whose objective is to create a level playing field does exist: the fifth directive on company law, concerning the obligations of shareholders and third parties in respect of the structure of public limited companies and the powers and obligations of their social organs. This proposal was adopted by the Commission in 1972 and then lay untouched in the Council's drawers for over 10 years pending the common position, after which the European Parliament expressed its opinion on it on several occasions.
The five years necessary to transpose ....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, as Mr Provan pointed out, the two institutions with responsibility for adopting this directive, Council and Parliament, are divided.
In the Council, a minority opposes it and Parliament is divided more or less down the middle, given that in the delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the final evening of debate, the voting was concluded with 8 votes for and 6 against, with one Member abstaining.
I would say that the divisions now also extend to the various political groups.
My own Group will decide this afternoon on how it will vote, which means that until tomorrow we will probably not know for sure whether or not the directive will be adopted.
I should like to begin by saying that I disagree with Mr Provan' s assessment of a possible rejection of this directive.
Because the problem we face is whether, as a consequence of the directive being adopted, European businesses - as Mr Lehne pointed out - could be held to ransom by the major international financial operators, who are known colloquially as the 'Sharks of Wall Street' .
This is the danger we are currently facing and, as a Member of this Parliament, I state my intention, of course, to vote against the directive, because I believe that the danger of our businesses being devoured by these financial operators, and of being stripped to the bone if they have assets - I am talking here about heavily capitalised companies - immediately condemning workers to unemployment, is much greater than the alternative danger, which is that the operation of the internal market may be impeded.
As Mr Lehne pointed out, the Americans themselves have adopted the rather expeditious solution of having at least one State - Delaware - in which highly capitalised companies can be based and where the monitoring of these companies by financial sharks can be prevented.
With regard to public opinion or the press, I also disagree with Mr Provan, because his words do not match what is written in the newspapers that I read.
In my opinion, a vote against, at this time, by the European Parliament on an issue as important and significant as this would enhance the prestige of this institution.
Because the information that I have from governmental institutions indicates that many governments would probably change their position within the Council if they were aware of the impact of this issue on the business world and, above all, on the unions.
Now, in the formula laid down in the proposed directive, the workers are the unwanted guests. The workers are invited to the table but they cannot join in.
They cannot take part in the meal and cannot take part in the decision-making. They are simply informed of the decision that is to be taken and, once it is taken, the document provided by the workers is just seen as another document - similar to what the Council does when Parliament has a consultative role - and then the decision is reached without any account being taken of the workers' opinions.
I and most of the Members of the Socialist Group will, therefore, probably vote against adopting this directive.
Mr President, I wish to begin by paying tribute to Mr Provan's chairmanship of Parliament's Conciliation Committee.
He did a marvellous job in very difficult circumstances.
I should like to say, on behalf of the ELDR Group, that we are fully and undividedly behind the agreement reached in conciliation and will vote accordingly.
Most of the reasons have been well rehearsed before and we have heard some of them again this morning.
This directive is crucial, indeed critical, to the financial services action plan.
Therefore if we are genuinely interested in the competitiveness and good functioning of Europe's economy, we have to proceed with this directive.
My Group believes that it is in the long-term interests of Europe's citizens.
I want us to consider the interests of those we are really trying to protect with this directive, namely the minority shareholders, so that we can begin to secure investment and ownership in enterprises across Europe.
It is now beginning to be the case, and will increasingly be so in future, that many of those investors are Europe's citizens investing for their future, savings and pensions.
Recent events have shown that citizens are becoming increasingly frustrated with the inability of politicians to deal with the effects of globalisation and other aspects of corporate life.
For example it seems quite possible that a group of motivated shareholders may be beginning to achieve an about-turn on the projected building of the Ilisu dam in Turkey.
Shareholders can act against the Wall Street sharks.
Shareholders are property owners; they have rights and responsibilities which can be exercised in many ways this House would wish to endorse.
Shareholders will often also be employees.
The conciliation result represents a substantial compromise.
This directive has the potential to be the means to allow our citizens to be investors in the future of Europe's enterprise and to secure the health and vitality of our economy.
Mr President, it is a privilege to have the opportunity of taking part in this debate.
As one of the majority at the conciliation group in Luxembourg on 5 June, my primary motive in voting was to ensure that Parliament would have the chance to vote on this third reading.
It would have been a scandal if, at 1 a.m. in Luxembourg on 5 June, 15 of us had voted it down and prevented Parliament having this debate.
We can assure all those visiting this House today that there will not be a more important decision affecting the well-being of industry in Europe than this one.
My group will have a free vote on it and I believe others will as well.
We will, as individual Members of Parliament, stand by our consciences on this issue at tomorrow's vital vote.
Sometimes I feel I am living in a looking glass land when I hear that all sorts of disastrous takeovers will occur if the directive is carried.
Members must remember that takeovers will go on in all events.
The issue is whether we have a common set of norms in Europe which govern us all.
Will we have a single basic law for takeovers or will we let the chaos continue?
Mr Lehne makes a powerful point about the damage that can be done by golden shares, about the unfairness of the absence of a level playing field.
We will not move closer to a level playing field by throwing out this directive.
That will make it impossible over the next decade to get anywhere near a level playing field.
We must, therefore, move forward on this occasion.
It would be shocking not to do so.
It will probably take four years, if we carry this tomorrow, before it comes into effect.
Trade unionists and employees of companies throughout Europe will still have to wait four years to get what Mr Medina Ortega already regards as not enough.
But they have far less at the moment.
If the directive goes through, the board of a bidding or offeree company will have to declare its hand at the time of the bid.
It will have to declare its intentions in regard to jobs and the location of work.
The trade unions or other employees' representatives will have the right to comment on that before the offeree company comes to a decision.
The shareholders of the offeree company will need to know what the view of the employees is.
None of this is law at the moment.
We are about to deprive people of something of vital importance, unless we carry this!
Mr President, Commissioner, European companies, workers and savers urgently need a European capital market which is free from protectionist constraints, integrated and efficient.
The strength of the euro itself will depend on the strength and attractiveness of the financial markets.
The competitiveness of public limited companies is an essential factor for an efficient capital market which is geared to the creation and protection of value for large and, in particular, small shareholders.
In this sense, precisely the most disputed article of the directive - Article 9 - is a step in the right direction towards providing, within the single European market, a reliable, homogeneous legislative framework for public takeover bids.
This is why the Italian radicals of the Bonino List are going to vote for the directive.
Moreover, when we refer to the United States model, I feel that it is not right to pick and choose: either we take the entire model, Mr Lehne, or else we reject the model completely.
In recent weeks, the conservatives and protectionists, who have opposed this measure, have had a wonderful excuse in the shape of the asymmetries between the different countries.
The case of the bid by what was actually a subsidiary of Electricité de France to take control of the second Italian private electricity group, Montedison, is symbolic.
EDF is a company which is not quoted on the Stock Exchange, which is 100% the property of the French government and which enjoys a legal monopoly in France.
Clearly, its aggressive policy of shopping around in Europe is an intolerable distortion of the European capital market.
In promising to reinforce competitiveness and competition in the markets of some public services, we are letting statism and monopolistic management in by the back door.
In conclusion, Mr President, in order to avoid these types of operations prompting reactions such as the golden share, block decrees or rejection of legislation such as that which is to be put to the vote tomorrow on the competitiveness of companies, it is necessary for the Commission to intervene with its powers with regard to State aid and abuse and facilitation of dominant positions, to prevent these asymmetries from destroying the European capital market.
Mr President, I should like to start by acknowledging the work which Mr Lehne has put into this report, even though I have not always agreed with him.
When publicly listed companies are subject to possible takeovers they should be able to take defensive measures, but when management acts it must behave even-handedly towards all shareholders in any one class.
That must be included in the rules.
If that does not happen, the integrity of the market is eroded. That leads to an unwillingness of capital to invest and thus under-capitalisation, and hence under-performance of Europe's economy.
In turn, pension funds will not be able to secure proper retirement provision for their members and the currency will weaken.
This conciliation has seen 15 new provisions introduced into the common position, so it cannot be maintained seriously that Parliament's rights have been trampled on.
To claim that could undermine our credibility in the future when we may have real cause for concern.
The principle of having a takeover directive has been supported at first and second readings and now, after 12 years, we have a final agreed text.
In this Parliament we frequently complain that we are unfairly perceived as immature and irresponsible, and hence disregarded.
Let us now prove these critics wrong and vote for the conciliation.
It is one which most commentators and all but one European country, Germany - a country which I normally hold in esteem but which welched on a unanimously agreed position of the Council - support.
This, as Mr MacCormick very lucidly pointed out, is the first step towards creating a single market in corporate ownership.
It is an integral component of the single market and is in the interests of all Europe's citizens.
Mr President, when it comes to adopting a position on this final interlegislative phase of the directive, we must not base our positions on its content, but instead consider the role of the European Parliament in the codecision procedure.
If we look closely at what has happened, we will reach the conclusion that, so far, the system has not worked.
I know that it is difficult for decisions to be reached in Council, for governments holding divergent positions and countries with different legal traditions to reach agreement, but I have the feeling, or rather I am certain, that this consensus in Council is being sought with no awareness at all of the European Parliament' s thoughts on the legislation' s content.
Of course, when agreement is reached within the Council, any proposal by Parliament which goes against this comes to be seen as a threat to an agreement that has been reached, sometimes in extremis and which may hang in the balance.
In these circumstances, the Council ultimately becomes intransigent and adopts a position that always implies: either you do what we say or the law will not be adopted.
Mr Provan' s words have shown that the Council has attached less importance to achieving an agreement with the European Parliament than to the feeling that a certain country would not meet a commitment that it had previously given.
When Parliament studied the content of the common position at second reading, it was particularly concerned about two issues: workers' participation and the obligation to neutrality imposed on boards of management.
With regard to these two items, a majority of the European Parliament had the audacity to oppose what had previously been decided on in Council.
I consider it to be extremely serious that no consideration was given at first reading to the positions of the European Parliament on workers and their representatives being fully informed and being able to state their opinion on the takeover of their companies and this justifies the European Parliament' s opposition to the common position.
Furthermore, the fact that this Parliament sought a balance between those for and against allowing defensive manoeuvres, far from deserving the criticism heaped upon it by certain self-interested sectors, should have their gratitude, because the European Parliament' s position was not to allow any type of defensive manoeuvring as was suggested, with considerable bias, to the media.
You simply have to study the content of the amendments tabled to see that this statement is false.
We do not look favourably on the Council position of rejecting any possible agreement with the positions of this Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say a few words about this report.
In my opinion, the guiding principle we should all abide by is not only to talk about the internal market, but also about the European social model, as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon model.
This evening, we will be talking to one of the Commissioners about socially responsible entrepreneurship. And that means that we will not only be talking about shareholders, but also about stakeholders, along with consumers, environmental organisations and employees.
Information and consultation are also currently under discussion.
Not simply information, therefore, but also consultation.
Having a say in the broad sense of the word.
We are looking into the request to review the Works Councils Act.
We argue in favour of an observatory for industrial change.
That is what is happening on the one hand.
On the other hand, there are also people who would like to see a European company statute, and who want takeover bids to be regulated.
In my view, we should be sufficiently grown-up, to slowly but surely reach a package deal in which matters of this kind can be regulated in one fell swoop.
At the moment, however, we are witness to a more gradual approach.
Returning to this Directive, I gather from Articles 6 and 9 d), in particular, that these are only concerned with disclosure of information.
I am drawing on my practical experience as advisor to works councils and trade unions, when I encountered difficulties of this kind on a daily basis.
With regard to this directive, one could revert back to a situation where all that is required is information and where one hardly has the time to form one' s own opinion. This being the case, to say that the opinion may be sent along with a bid is a hollow phrase.
I have heard such hollow phrases all too often, and I do not welcome them.
What we are about to see, therefore, is a very strange coalition tomorrow, with divisions within all the political parties.
I naturally defend the proportion, and that will be the largest proportion, of the Greens who will be voting against.
A strange coalition indeed, made up of people who defend the pearls of their national industries, as well as people who stand up for more say and better consultation as a matter of principle.
I quite definitely belong to the second group.
As Mr Simpson has said in connection with the postal issue, I would have liked the ayatollah of liberalisation to have had a bit more nerve and to have regulated this consultation aspect properly from the outset.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have great admiration for what Commissioner Bolkestein has achieved and is achieving within the internal market.
Unfortunately, I do not see eye to eye with him today, for I am of the opinion that the mediation outcome should be rejected for the following reasons.
First of all, the proposal conflicts with legislation and practices in my own country, the Netherlands.
Although the Dutch Finance Minister may well have stated in a letter yesterday to the Dutch Parliament that the Directive should, in his opinion, be introduced, whoever seeks advice from the social partners in the Netherlands knows better.
In fact, until two years ago, the Dutch government was also opposed to this directive.
Things can change.
The Dutch system makes provision for protecting companies against hostile takeovers.
It aims to afford the Board of the target partnership the opportunity of weighing up all the vested interests in the event of a hostile bid.
In this connection, the Board must have the company' s continuity in mind.
The approach in Mr Bolkestein' s proposal is completely different.
It leaves the decision concerning a hostile bid to the shareholders.
A second argument against Mr Bolkestein' s proposal is the inequality which it creates within Europe.
Article 9 only prohibits the legal protection structures.
All other methods of countering company takeovers, such as government intervention, are being left out of the equation.
Mr President, one final point.
One of the arguments used in favour of adopting the directive is that it has undergone a great deal of doctoring for twelve years and that, if the compromise is rejected, all the work will have been in vain.
That is not an argument, in my opinion.
Mr Bolkestein has agreed to have studies carried out into a number of points.
Besides, I am of the opinion that studies should have been carried out during the twelve years of preparation, not after adopting the directive, but that is just by the by.
The Commission could prepare a fresh proposal for a directive very quickly which, if handled intelligently, could indeed provide a level playing field in Europe and could enter into force before the current proposal, which, after all, has a five-year transitional period.
Mr President, the job Parliament has here today is quite simple: to adopt or reject the compromise achieved in conciliation.
What did we achieve in conciliation? Out of 15 amendments tabled in second reading, compromises were reached on 11.
In this House we have a duty to deal with the facts, not to listen to the jungle drums beating from misinformed sources.
I welcome the changes in amendments, made by my own political group, to recognise the legitimate interests of employees in a takeover bid.
Here the common text has been modified from a requirement to provide new information to a requirement to provide information to employees at three points in the directive: in Article 6(1), Article 6(2) and Article 9(1d).
There are minimum standards.
There is nothing to prevent boards of companies or Member States going further than the requirements in this directive, nor does it prejudice obligations to inform and consult under either national or EU directives.
We can only, in conciliation, go as far as amendments allow us in second reading.
No amendments were tabled requiring the board of a company to consult prior to a takeover bid.
It is no secret that Article 9, and the right of boards to take defensive action without shareholder approval, was the bone of contention in conciliation.
But is simply not true to state that the board of a company faced with a hostile takeover cannot take action or is obliged to remain neutral or passive.
Defensive and frustrating action is possible with shareholder approval.
Indeed, our amendments to the common position mean that a board can get fast-track approval in 14 days.
I have always believed that politics is the art of the possible.
In conciliation the Council and the Commission stuck to their key objective in this directive, of protecting the minority shareholders, protecting the interests of investors and defending shareholders against unscrupulous directors and inefficient company boards.
Article 9 and restrictions on frustrating action was the Holy Grail of this text.
Therefore we had no scope to rewrite it to allow unapproved poison pill action.
But we did achieve a deal on Article 9: we forced the Commission and the Council to freeze the article and to have a group of company law experts to examine key issues, and to come back to Parliament in March 2002.
This also includes - as the Commissioner can confirm - the possibility of reviewing Article 9 in the light of the findings of that group.
The entry into force of this directive is therefore postponed and Member States can postpone compliance with Article 9 until 2006.
My delegation will vote for this directive.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Thank you for your speech, Mr Beazley. However, as you see, I am afraid we only have a small wooden hammer with which to keep order and this is not sufficient.
I would like, first of all, to say that I agree with you.
However, I must also inform you that this matter is not the responsibility of the Presidency Bureau but the responsibility of the Conference of Presidents.
In my opinion, provision should be made for an interval to be left between the last speech - which is almost always the Commissioner' s speech on behalf of the Commission - and the start of voting time, in order to allow everybody the time to listen to the Commissioner' s speech carefully and to be present here for voting time.
I must also say - and I apologise if I offend the people sitting in the public gallery - that the public is not supposed openly to express its opinion or its opposition regarding what is said in the Chamber when it is present during sittings.
I am saying this because I noticed several visitors applauding just now: this is not permitted by the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I wish to draw your attention to Rule 22(3), which states that: "The Bureau shall take decisions on matters relating to the conduct of sittings".
It is a Bureau responsibility and I ask the Bureau to take its responsibilities seriously.
Of course, Mr Corbett, but the agenda of the plenary sessions is set by the Conference of Presidents.
If the agenda does not leave us enough time to apply Article 22, the final result is that, at every part-session here in Strasbourg, we will end up listening to a Commissioner who is talking amidst great confusion because not all the Members are listening properly.
In our opinion, too much has been packed into too little time.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTE
Mr President, I should not speak on this document because artists do not retire: like love, art never retires.
Therefore, I should not speak about this document for I represent pensioners, but, Mrs Echerer, Mr President, many pensioners are also artists.
At the end of their working life, many pensioners paint or create works of art, and so I want to protect the pensioners who are also artists.
In the same way as there are pensioners who continue to be in love and to live out that love, there are also pensioners who are artists and create works of art.
Therefore, like Mrs Echerer, I support this document.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of the resale right directive was to harmonise the common market.
This aim has been achieved, but with rather dubious success.
Quite apart from that, it is questionable whether there is really any need for harmonisation in this area.
Particularly at a time when things are being streamlined and efforts are being made to achieve transparency, introducing another Community tax is counterproductive.
It impedes trade; in fact it could even be said that it will bring it to a halt, because it is only a question of time before the art market shifts away from Europe in favour of the USA or Switzerland.
In fact an imbalance will arise in the art market, with all the negative consequences that implies.
Small galleries and the young artists they promote will be particularly affected by this new tax, however small.
Even established artists, for whom this directive ought to bring some monetary advantage, have spoken out against it.
It is a total mystery why this directive should be used to force something on the people affected that they do not want.
By saying yes to this directive, Europe has had its day as a patron of art.
That is why we in the Freedom Party have voted against it.
. (DE) Austrian artists are opposed to the introduction of the resale right.
They see the resale right as being a major economic disadvantage, because it will inevitably lead to a drop in the initial sale price.
The introduction of the resale right will lead to a migration of the art market from Europe to countries such as the USA or Switzerland, because there is nothing of the kind there and resale prices for works of art will not therefore be forced up.
Small gallery owners will be particularly hard hit, as they are far less able to withstand this pressure on prices.
It is impossible to see why the resale right should be imposed on artists against their will as a form of copyright.
For these reasons the Freedom Party is rejecting this report.
. Although the "droit de suite" compulsory art resale levy report by Mr Zimmerling has been improved on at conciliation, it is still flawed.
It has usefully raised the threshold for art work affected to EUR 3 000 but, although the large art galleries and auction houses favour this, as the volume of work is reduced, it does nothing for unknown contemporary artists.
It introduces, as a sweetener, a 6-year derogation before application, but my fear as a London MEP is that our world renowned auction houses, such as Sotheby's, Christies and Phillips, will seize this period as an opportunity to move their businesses to offshore jurisdictions outside the EU, such as Geneva, Monaco and New York, with a loss of jobs in London.
This will both directly affect employed personnel and indirectly cause damage to ancillary businesses such as framing and specialist art insurers.
Therefore I voted against this measure which seems designed solely to create a level playing field for the French auction houses, who have had such a concept in place for many years already.
.
During today's vote on the Zimmerling Report (A5-0235/2001) I voted against the report and I also urged all my "Nea Dimokratia" colleagues to do so.
It is my strong belief that the approval of this directive will lead to the displacement of the art market to the USA as well as to Switzerland, and to an unfair advantage that all the artists from the United States will have when they try to sell their artistic work in Europe.
I also believe that the proposal for national limits lower than the Community ones, as far as "droit de suite" is concerned, will eventually harm European artists and will boost the profits of the gallery owners and the auction sales companies.
For all these reasons, and since I am a European artist, I decided to vote against.
Rothley report (A5-0174/2001)
Mr President, before I came to Strasbourg, I met Mr Fortunato Rossi, a pensioner of 80, who said to me: "I have had a terrible car accident.
A Member of the European Parliament - what a coincidence - ran into me: I have got a broken foot and a broken arm and my head is in very bad shape; I have suffered greatly as a result of this.
I went to the insurance company and they said that I am 80 years old, I am not worth anything any longer, I cannot earn anything and, therefore, they are not going to give me any compensation. However, if, on the other hand, it had been I who had run into the Member of the European Parliament, I would have had to pay him at least ITL 2 billion.
Does it seem right to you, Mr Fatuzzo, that an old man does not have the right to compensation when he is hit by another car?"
I replied: "You are right, Mr Not-Very-Fortunato Rossi. I will call for the next report on the subject to provide for fair compensation for elderly pensioners."
If the genuine aim of this report was, as it claims, to improve the legal protection of accident victims, we would have voted in favour.
Even if, however, the recommendations accompanying the report contain some proposals that would make the situation of accident victims slightly easier, this is essentially a complicated balancing act to avoid harming the interests of insurance companies.
So, for example, in this Europe which claims to be united, insurance companies will be allowed to make people they insure pay an extra premium if they are considering living temporarily in another Member State of the European Union.
All this talk of unity within Europe is worth very little when faced with a small additional premium.
We therefore abstained from voting on this report.
.
I support my socialist colleague, Willi Rothley, on his report which calls for a new car insurance directive to improve the legal protection of accident victims.
Our citizens have a right to receive equal legal protection wherever they are in the European Union.
Every year, thousands of people drive across the continent on holiday.
Holidaymakers driving from Bolton to Barcelona must be protected on a legal basis.
The overall aim of the directive is extremely important in ensuring that there is a consistent and high level of legal protection.
I wholeheartedly support the drive for improved compensation for national road traffic accidents, by obliging insurers to provide either an offer or a refusal of compensation within three months of receiving a claim.
Clear and swift decisions are the best way of reassuring victims of the outcome of their claim.
Furthermore, this report welcomes an EU minimum of EUR 2 m with future increases in line with inflation.
Minimum amounts insured are out of date and this figure is a much more realistic sum.
It is not just holidaymakers who will benefit from this new directive.
People buying cars in other countries will also gain confidence from this measure.
Insurers should be able to provide insurance for a maximum of 30 days for anyone who wishes to buy a vehicle registered in another Member State and drive it back to their own country to re-register it there.
Public confidence in the legal aspects of road safety across the European Union must increase so that our citizens can travel freely from country to country without fear of huge legal fees and 15 intimidating legal systems.
Only by improving the legal protection of accident victims can our citizens take full advantage of driving across the EU and make the most of freedom of movement.
Wallis report (A5-0134/2001)
Mr President, the pensioner who talked to me about the previous report was with a friend of his, Mr Tranquillo Verdi, also from Bergamo, and he asked me: "Why is it that you get so absorbed in resolving disputes between consumers and producers of consumer goods but you do not do anything about pensions and pensioners' disputes with the State over pensions, which are also consumer goods? Or maybe pensioners are not consumer goods?
I would like you, Mr Fatuzzo," he added, "to ensure that we receive our pensions quickly and on time". And so this is what I am asking you to do, Mr President.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.30 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.).
ECB and the euro
The next item is the joint debate on two reports:
(A5-0225/2001) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the 2000 Annual Report of the European Central Bank [C5-0187/2001 - 2001/2090(COS)];
(A5-0222/2001) by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on means to assist economic actors in switching to the euro [2000/2278(INI)].
Many thanks, Mr Duisenberg, for your speech.
Welcome
ECB and the euro (continuation)
Mr President, Mrs Randzio-Plath' s report is, bar one paragraph, a balanced report.
The Paragraph in question is the ninth.
In our opinion, it compromises the Bank' s independence.
The Bank' s task is to monitor price stability in the medium term, not overnight.
We want an independent Bank.
It is therefore inappropriate for Parliament to prescribe the Bank' s monetary policy.
This is an essential point, in our view.
Without this adaptation, we will be voting against the report, despite the fact that we give our wholehearted support to the rest of the report.
Looking back to the year the report was drawn up and - inevitably - this year to some extent, we still have a wish list with regard to the bank' s communication policy.
There is room for improvement in its communication with the financial markets and society.
Mr Duisenberg, I asked you at your hearing whether you are able to stay on.
You then replied in the affirmative, yet your stepping down is well documented in the press, as if it were a fait accompli after all.
There is a desperate lack of good candidates.
You have gained a great deal of experience.
I would ask you once again: are you able to stay on to complete your term in office?
Concerning the conversion to the euro, you know my position.
Finally, I should like to comment on cross-border payments.
Banks and companies will all earn back the costs incurred during the currency conversion, or they will receive compensation.
People in Europe will surely not be the only ones footing the bill and experiencing the disadvantages without gaining any benefits.
Mr Duisenberg, I insist that both the Bank and the European Commission assume their responsibilities, assigned in the Treaty, and ensure that cross-border payments which, after all, are no longer cross-border in a European home market, will, on 1 January 2002 cost about the same as remittances at home.
You are undoubtedly aware that they have not become cheaper of late, but have become more expensive, by half a euro on average!
I should like to inform the Directorate-General Competition of the fact that Parliament will resist a fixed fee of EUR 3 for receiving banks.
That would mean that, in some countries, the price would, in fact, increase rather than decrease, and that would be unacceptable!
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the debate that we are holding today has the virtue of enabling both a discussion on the macro aspects of the euro and the practical aspects of the euro and I believe that this is the right time to hold it.
Is there one person in my group that questions the independence of the European Central Bank? No, there is not.
Does this prevent us from discussing monetary policy? It does not.
And I even believe that the changeover to the euro, if we can make a success of this final phase, assumes that we are discussing economic policy as a whole, including monetary policy and, from this perspective, I can only congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Randzio-Plath, the chairperson of Parliament' s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposals that she has made, and I can only regret some of the votes that were cast in committee.
If we want the euro to be the tool of the future that we hoped for, to enable Europe to be in harmony with prospects of growth for all, we must also discuss the monetary policy that you are implementing, Mr Duisenberg, and this is a subject that the people of Europe have a duty and the power to tackle.
Next, to turn to the practical aspects of the euro, I would like to congratulate Mr Maaten on his report, and to remind him that some of the authors of the amendments are here to discuss them and to go over two or three points.
With regard to the issue of frontloading, Mr Duisenberg, I understand that this is very much like a rearguard action; as proof of this, I refer to the agenda of the recent Ecofin Councils and, once again, as I said to you in committee, this is something that I regret.
As well as the symbolic changeover to the euro on D-Day, there was a psychological aspect regarding the time between Christmas and New Year which meant other provisions were required.
You decided against these and we are sorry to see this.
As for everything else, we still have some months left during which we can run a major publicity campaign so as to ensure that the changeover to the euro is as smooth as possible.
In order to do this, the campaign that will be run must emphasise two main points: first of all, the issue of sensitive groups of people and, secondly, the psychological aspects of the changeover.
I believe that the aim of the whole campaign should be that as many citizens as possible take on board the idea of the changeover from day one and that they cease using two currencies, mentally as well as physically.
To this end, I hope that Parliament will be able to adopt an amendment that we re-tabled on behalf of our group, which would ban dual pricing after a period of one year.
This year should give people time to adapt - a real changeover should occur if dual pricing is banned after one year.
We must eliminate ambiguity from the changeover to the euro, which we must ensure is an experience shared by all citizens, whilst hoping that they will all join us in using the common currency.
Mr President, given the time constraints and also the feeling in my group that the ECB has essentially been doing a good job in difficult circumstances, I would like to concentrate on some remaining structural issues concerning communications and accountability.
As Mr Duisenberg will remember, Parliament has repeatedly adopted a transparency package advocating five separate measures to increase transparency.
I am delighted to report that the ECB has so far agreed three of them, and we must give them credit for this.
We have had no problems in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in inviting members of the governing Council to appear before us.
Last year, we had eleven such appearances.
Secondly, the ECB began to publish regular forecasts or, as they prefer to call them, "projections" in the December 2000 monthly bulletin, and that was a very welcome development.
In addition, econometric models are now published in the working paper series.
It would be nice if they were in more user-friendly form, for example, on CD-ROM, but there is progress.
The two remaining measures that Parliament is again calling for are a publication of a "Beige Book" setting out conditions in each Member State and publication of summary minutes giving the views for and against interest rate changes.
In addition, this year we are asking the ECB Governing Council to deal with a specific problem it has faced in a couple of recent interest rate changes.
There was confusion in the markets about what was perceived as an unpredictable decision and the marketplace was clearly not prepared for that decision.
Indeed, some people went as far as to say it was arbitrary, so we are calling for the publication of votes on an anonymous basis.
Mr President, Mr Maaten's report makes constructive suggestions for the imminent introduction of euro coins and notes in the 12-member euro zone and refers also to the low level of public and small business awareness of certain aspects of the changeover.
In particular in the report I support the comments on the need for frontloading the general public with notes and coins.
I also welcome its emphasis on the role of local and regional public administrations in the changeover.
It is essential that every effort is made to ensure that this so-called flagship event is managed effectively and that the changeover is smooth.
Most of my comments, however, are based on a view from the outside, from Scotland, for the time being part of the UK.
There may be some problems with public awareness within the euro zone, but we have a much bigger problem within Scotland and the rest of the UK.
A Scots newspaper this week published a survey of public attitudes to the euro in Scotland and this showed a lamentable lack of awareness, which was directly linked to a low level of enthusiasm for the currency.
The level of awareness in Scotland may be lamentable but it is not surprising given the attitudes of the political leaders in the Scots and UK governments in recent years.
The new Labour London government has been afraid to show support for UK entry, or even to provide factual information, while the Conservatives have simply shown an almost deranged hostility to the euro and have attempted to mislead the public on the implications of joining.
In principle my party favours the euro subject to entry terms suiting Scotland's economy and after a referendum, but ideally as an SNP member I would like to see Scotland an independent EU Member State being in a position to make the decision based on Scots priorities, while retaining domestic control over taxation.
In the short term, though outwith the euro zone, there is also a substantial need for factual information campaigning on the implications after 2002 in our relationship with the euro zone, whether we ever decide to join or not.
I welcome recent statements from some high street retailers in Scotland that they will be accepting euros in their tills, alongside sterling, from 2002.
This can only enhance Scotland's position as a welcoming tourist and business travel destination, as well as familiarising Scots with the euro notes and coins.
I call on the UK and the Scots governments to encourage the process of public information and to seek the support of the European Central Bank and the European Commission in encouraging Scots businesses to gear up for the acceptance of the new coins and notes.
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, people feel that they are paying for the lamentable situation with regard to the euro.
According to yesterday's Financial Times Deutschland, 49% of Germany's population are against the euro.
Over 50% do not believe that it will boost the economy or emulate the stability of the Deutschmark.
30% expect a decline in the value of their assets and 67% expect price increases when we switch over to the euro.
The euro has certainly not become a job machine or acted as a brake on inflation, which is precisely what was rashly promised to the public earlier on.
I am very grateful to you, Mr Duisenberg, that the decline in the euro exchange rate is cited in the ECB report as one reason for the increase in inflation, and that the report at least refers to the increasing inflation rate differential between the euro countries rather than putting all the blame for the euro's weakness on the dollar.
Monetary stability in the euro area and the external exchange rate stability of the euro are inextricably linked.
It needs to be said just as clearly that the ECB's monetary policy has failed to achieve its own stability targets and that the euro is now even associated with a decline in real income.
The responsibility for this is not, however, chiefly attributable to the ECB, whose scope for action is becoming ever more restricted.
It is more that the policy of the euro countries has contributed far too little to economic convergence.
What is really incomprehensible is that the French proposal to establish an "economic government" has gone unheeded.
The differences in inflation and growth between the individual euro countries, which are in fact increasing, are dangerous and I believe that they should be analysed in great detail in future ECB reports.
Uniform interest rates are too restrictive for some euro countries and too expansionary for others.
A European monetary policy geared to monetary stability is totally at odds with conflicting national economic, tax and social policies.
Mr President, on 2 May 1998, in Brussels, I pledged the support of the Alleanza Nazionale delegation for the euro. However, I observed that the European currency was getting off to a bad start: the Union had no economic policy and the Council of Ministers had not even issued an outline plan or guidelines so that the national States could work together to tackle major areas such as unemployment, flexibility, the conversion of some sectors and the social and cultural effects of the increase in pace that technological innovations such as the Internet were bringing not just in the market place but in other areas of life as well.
Europe had no foreign policy and no strategies of its own for orienting globalisation and world finance, and this, together with the lack of economic strategy and the indifference displayed by institutional bodies towards the citizens, who had been neither consulted nor informed about the matter, meant that the launching of the euro resembled the building of a cathedral in the desert.
Yet there was still hope, for there would have been time to introduce political, economic and financial initiatives to cultivate that desert, if only the political will had been there to develop and implement them.
However, in recent years, the euro has not been doing well, and the date of its impending entry into force is looming up like an unavoidable appointment for which the citizens have no enthusiasm and which is often viewed with trepidation by some of those very politicians who have contributed, in recent years, to the barren path the euro has taken. It is a currency which has consistently been undervalued in relation to the dollar and which has consequently penalised investments and savings.
In the same report, Mr Maaten points out how the criticisms we made then - criticisms which, in recent years, we have brought to the attention of Parliament and the Commission on a number of occasions - were justified: indeed, medium-sized enterprises, trade, the craft trades and the agricultural sector, all of which are major production categories, are not yet ready for the transition to the euro. The banking system is not ready either, despite the multibillions invested in purchasing the necessary equipment.
These and other issues which remain unresolved give rise to the fear that there will be negative consequences, both for the citizens and in terms of the correct assessment of the real value of the euro.
I will conclude by saying that we support the many suggestions made in the report, but we nevertheless condemn the fact that both their proposal and their implementation are long overdue.
This is why we want to know clearly, once and for all, who is responsible for delays, bad planning and failure to assess the situation with regard to the economic sectors and social situations in the field.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are six months away from the fateful day, and it is time to concern ourselves with how citizens are going to handle the disappearance of their national currency.
They are the last people to be consulted and also the last people to be informed.
The most fervent supporters of Europe will feel an unexpected surge of anxiety when reading Mr Maaten' s report, which describes a state of almost total unpreparedness, the limited, even non-existent, use of the euro in international transactions, including between the countries within Europe, the doubt surrounding the possibility that the banks will exchange citizens' coins free of charge, the absurd charges for cross-border transactions, even though they are made using the same currency and the excessive price increases that the currency changeover is bound to provoke.
The litany is long and it does not paint a joyful picture.
The governments demanded the euro for ideological reasons whereas large financial organisations demanded it for reasons that are purely self-motivated. The euro has been around for two years and it has failed to catch on even amongst its most ardent supporters, and still less so within the international markets.
The euro has lost its value against the dollar and nothing points to an imminent recovery.
The changeover to using euro notes is, therefore, a useless and costly operation without a doubt. It will cause a rise in inflation and cases of public or private embezzlement.
It would be better to stop all this while we still have the chance.
Mr President, now that consumers will soon be carrying euros around in their pockets, we would benefit from a smooth transition.
Rapporteur Maaten was right to commit himself to that cause.
The euro' s uncertain success as a currency should not be further frustrated by uncertainty during that transition.
Confidence in a currency is fundamental to every modern economy.
The basis for that confidence, however, is rather shaky in the case of the euro.
That is why we have nothing to lose by taking precautionary measures during the changeover.
It is therefore only fair to do justice to the concerns of all the parties involved.
The ECB' s attitude, however, can be described as somewhat inflexible.
Further to the Maaten report, Parliament has arrived at a compromise date of 27 December as the date on which to make the first small notes available.
It ensures that the changeover is spread out.
Those few days leave little scope for counterfeiting.
I fail to see why this compromise would not be acceptable to the ECB.
Along with the availability of euros, payment by bank card is another bottleneck.
The way in which those transactions are to be processed is not equal to the temporary massive increase in the use of that method of payment.
It is to be feared that people will therefore be forced to use the national currencies longer than necessary.
This leads to uncertainty when paying in old currency and receiving change in euros.
The availability of cash machines and the extent to which payments are made by bank card differ quite considerably from one Member State to another.
In the light of this, has the ECB looked into additional methods for distributing the money? Is it possible, prior to the changeover, to buy euros electronically, for example through transactions on the Internet whereby certain quantities are set aside.
If payment for these could take place electronically, the amounts would only need to be paid out in January.
That would render conversions in January redundant.
It would give an indication of the amount requested and would make it possible to plan ahead.
In addition, it would increase the reliability of electronic payments and provide a stimulus to these.
If something of that kind is not possible, we must ask ourselves whether online transactions are mere pie in the sky for the time being.
Mr President, like the 2000 Annual Report of the European Central Bank, Mrs Randzio-Plath's report makes the usual assertion that the euro will make a decisive contribution to ensuring price stability within the euro zone, by making it less vulnerable to external shocks.
This is the out-dated 'shield' theory.
However, it appears now that that theory is only true up to a point, in that it will eliminate currency fluctuations between Member States.
On the other hand, which is more serious, the euro no longer plays the role of a shield: it is now aggravating the crisis stemming from the economic slow-down in the US, since the euro is preventing each country from taking specific targeted action.
In fact, Chancellor Schröder recently called upon the ECB to shoulder its responsibilities by supporting growth in Germany.
He is wrong and he should realise that he is a victim of the rules of the monetary unification game.
The ECB cannot make a drastic reduction in its interest rates in order to please Germany, because other countries are calling for opposite measures.
And, incidentally, if rates were lowered, this could cause the value of the euro to fall even further, which would give a terrible impression when we are just about to embark upon the physical changeover of coins and notes.
It seems, therefore, Mr President, that the citizens of Europe might have to pay a very high price for wanting a single currency when we have different economies, especially since, according to the latest available statistics, it is this, even more than the euro itself, that seems to be contributing to causing greater divergences in terms of both inflation and growth.
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank Mr Maaten for his report and also for having incorporated the content of previous reports including mine into his own, and for reiterating those points that have not yet been fully implemented, because they have not lost any of their importance.
Thank you very much for that.
Secondly, there is a lot of juggling with figures, but they are all relative.
I would just like to mention a couple from my own country, where we heard yesterday that 63% of people think it is right that Austria should be a member of the economic and currency union from the outset, 43% see the euro as an advantage and 24% are neutral on this, which means that 67% are in favour.
That does mean, however, that we still have a great deal to do.
I would also like to make a few points clear for the benefit of the public.
The euro is not "coming", as you see on many posters, it already exists, and it is a success.
Every country has benefited from it, price stability has grown, Europe's economic independence has been enhanced, exports and tourism have been given a lasting boost by eliminating exchange rate fluctuations, and a start has been made on reducing government and budget deficits.
I call on the governments of all the Member States to inform their parliaments and the public about the advantages of the euro in the euro area and not just to give the impression that something new and unknown is about to arrive.
The next point that I consider important is that the euro is not a political project and, please excuse me, Mr Duisenberg, you cannot say that it is just a matter for the ECB - that is a point in your favour, you are doing your job well in this respect - and for the banks, nor is it just something for finance ministers.
It is a political project and not just a financial product and I therefore believe that we should involve education policy, small and medium-sized enterprises and consumers more in information policy.
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are debating the exceptional report by Mrs Randzio-Plath on the annual report of the European Central Bank.
We do this every year and it is the only opportunity which Parliament has to debate the policy of what is now an important and independent European institution.
This debate is being held within the context of a radically changed global economy.
The downturn in the economy, which has brought us to the brink of recession, has created a great deal of pressure.
The European Central Bank and other central banks throughout the world are under a great deal of pressure to relax their monetary policy.
This pressure emanates mainly from the capital markets, which went into free fall recently and which sometimes appear to have become absurdly pessimistic, just as they were absurdly optimistic until recently, at least according to Mr Greenspan.
The moral of the story is, I think, quite clear.
The central banks must not be guided by short-term prospects on the money markets, be they on a peak or in a trough.
You must be guided, Mr President, by principles of monetary stability and economic development, as laid out in the Treaty.
But if there is to be greater confidence in the euro, the people of Europe and money markets throughout the world must have greater confidence in how you exercise your policy and how you intend to achieve monetary stability.
At this juncture, I think that we need to rethink the system of the two pillars of monetary policy.
Mr President, with just six months to go before the introduction of the euro notes and coins, we must focus clearly on this event.
The report is timely and Mr Maaten's observations are very welcome.
The one clear fact about 'euro day', 1 January 2002, is that it is truly irreversible.
It is going to happen and, therefore, we must be ready.
We have made substantial progress on all fronts.
Taking public information first, the surveys of public awareness about the euro are heartening.
The most recent survey carried out in May by the Irish Euro Changeover Board show that in my country, 95% of people know the name of the single currency, 91% have same prices in both Irish Pounds and the euro and 79% know that euro notes and coins will be introduced in 2002.
Seventy-eight percent have seen pictures of the euro notes and coins and 64% know that an Irish Pound will get you EUR 1.27.
There is still a distance to go, however: only 36% of people are aware of the length of the dual circulation period, which in my country has been shortened to 9 February 2002.
In addition, there has been quite an amount of legislation to cater for the introduction of the euro, covering areas such as finance and social welfare.
In all cases, it is essential that we act on the principle of favouring the citizen.
There are essentially two tasks for national and European authorities: they have to oversee the successful changeover to the euro and provide the public with information about it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to tell you about the difficulties that the people I meet in my country complain of every day.
It is strange, to say the least, to see that the method of self-persuasion used to create the euro has now been replaced by heavy-handed tactics.
I am sorry to say that, in my view, the changeover to the single currency has been forced through.
First of all, the people were never consulted to find out if they were in favour of replacing their national currency.
In this respect, the example of Ireland is a prime example of the way that Europe works.
The people are not consulted any more extensively now about the practical introduction of the euro, even though they are the most important element in this equation.
Indeed, the information campaigns in which politicians have participated continually place the responsibility on the citizens - their message is that if the euro is a failure, the citizens must understand that it will be their fault.
In other words, the task of young people and the retired is to provide information, following the example of governments and civil servants.
Lastly, businesses can give practical training.
For example, who is dealing with the difficulties experienced by businesses in rural areas, which are faraway from the centres of learning that are based in towns? How can we ask businesspeople who work 12 hours a day to go to their local Chamber of Commerce to attend information sessions?
To sum up, for all the reasons I have given, I do not think it is acceptable to allow the citizens to shoulder all the responsibility.
It is too easy to leave what we are incapable of doing ourselves at the door of others.
It was Europe that wanted a single currency, so Europe will now have to put take responsibility for it!
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, ladies and gentlemen, this debate is taking place at a difficult moment as regards economic policy.
Growth is declining and inflation is on the increase.
The Federal Republic of Germany, which accounts for a third of the euro area, is bringing up the rear in terms of growth, inflation and net government borrowing.
It is no longer the locomotive it once was, it is now the last coach in the train.
At this difficult time it is, above all, important for the European Central Bank, which is a young central bank, to gain credibility.
For this reason we too will not be voting for three of the proposals made by the rapporteur in her report.
The first proposal was that core inflation should be the key factor in economic decision making, that is to say inflation excluding energy and food.
This would amount to looking at the world through rose-tinted spectacles, because what matters to the public is not core inflation but inflation including energy and food prices.
The second proposal that we will be rejecting is that of setting inflation targets.
I am convinced that the European Central Bank was right to establish its own definition of stability shortly after it was set up, according to which monetary stability is an inflation rate of less than 2%.
That cannot be altered now.
If anything, it is precisely in the current difficult situation that the European Central Bank should be measured by its own yardstick.
That is the reason why we cannot vote for this second proposal.
The third proposal relates to the accession countries.
The proposal that the accession countries should not in fact be required to meet the inflation criteria of the Maastricht Treaty in the same way, which would also mean a weakening of stability, is something else my Group will not agree to.
Mr President, 1 January 2002 marks another significant step in European integration.
The change from 12 different national currencies to a single currency is the culmination of months of careful preparation and yet I fear some citizens, even at this late stage, have not grasped the significance of the change and its implications, which I believe are extremely positive.
No other EU policy change will impact in such a profound and personal way on all citizens and at the same time.
From children to pensioners, from the corporate sector to small business, each will be exposed to this significant milestone in European administration.
Because there is a degree of complacency with regard to all EU change, every effort must be made in the months remaining before 1 January to alert consumers to the importance of what is happening and, more importantly, to assure them that their interests are placed at the forefront by those whose job it is to manage this important change.
I am satisfied that everything possible is being done, but nothing can be left to chance.
We know that there are some people who are sceptical.
Their views are important to the debate, but we must establish beyond doubt that their worries will not be realised.
For example, we all recall the introduction of decimalisation and, despite our assurances at that time, consumers experienced price increases.
We all need to put beyond doubt the absence of a cost factor in the exchange mechanism.
The House will be aware that banks availed themselves of the transition period to cream off excessive exchange charges and, to some extent, this is still happening.
What assurances can the European Central Bank give that these matters will be scrutinised with the utmost vigour and with appropriate sanctions?
Mr President, by the end of the year, euro notes and coins will be in circulation, and that is almost ten years to the day since the political and legal foundations were laid in Maastricht.
Despite this, many people will not realise until then - and it will come as a bit of a shock - that Europe does affect their daily routine.
That fact on its own is reason enough to pull out all the stops in order to make the transition as smooth as possible, that is to say without causing irritation among the public.
Otherwise, I fear that we will be paying for this in years to come in the form of distrust of the European integration process and, as we stand at the crossroads in Europe today, I do not think that we can afford this.
Excellent work has already been done, but we have not completed the task yet, and I would therefore urge that the following be implemented.
Firstly, information must be more extensive, more dynamic, more effective and oriented more towards the target group.
Secondly, consumers must be frontloaded, in terms of both notes and coins.
And if the European Central Bank remains opposed to this, I wonder, Commissioner, if you would not be able to take action in order to make this possible, by amending the Regulation of 3 May 1998.
Thirdly, electronic payment must be encouraged, that is true, but it must also become cheaper.
A complaint has been lodged with the Directorate-General for Competition in that connection.
Commissioner, I would urge you to ask Mr Monti to finally deal with this complaint.
Fourthly, cross-border payment transfers must become cheaper, and I could not word it better than Mrs Peijs did a moment ago on behalf of my Group.
Mr President, Mr Maaten has done excellent work for which he deserves our appreciation.
Let us hope that a political Europe will follow the economic Europe, so that our European currency will also receive the credit it deserves.
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, the first thirty months of operations of the European Central Bank can be considered a success.
The bank has achieved stability in monetary policy in the mid-term despite the sudden rise in oil prices, the great uncertainty on the currency markets and heightened tension on the money markets.
The faith of citizens in the European Central Bank is primarily based on price stability.
It is important to citizens that the currency is stable and that the real level of earnings and purchasing power remain unchanged.
However, trust can also be increased by increasing openness and transparency in the work of the ECB.
Transparency goes without saying for national central banks, and should also be the case for the European Central Bank.
The changeover to the euro is a unique event in economic history for which there is no precedent in terms of magnitude.
Adopting a single currency is a concrete indication of how far European integration has come.
Our citizens expect us to do all we can to ensure a smooth transition to the euro.
It is important that we prepare carefully to avoid unnecessary problems and thus giving rise to a negative image among citizens.
However, we must remember the fundamentals.
The euro will not fail due to practical problems encountered during a transitional period of two or three weeks.
If it fails due to anything, it will fail because the currency is not sufficiently stable or strong.
Our single currency is as strong as the economy behind it.
A strong economy, healthy business structures and a functioning internal market are vital prerequisites for the trust of citizens and the global competitiveness of the Union.
In this context I would also like to mention my concern regarding the fate of the Directive on Takeovers to be addressed tomorrow.
The directive has taken twelve years to draw up.
After much wrangling, the European Parliament and the Council have managed to reach an agreement through the conciliation procedure.
If the directive fails tomorrow we will be able to say that while many fine words were heard in Lisbon, here we need action.
The value of our single currency depends considerably on these actions on the part of Parliament, the Council and all the institutions of the Union.
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, ladies and gentlemen, the efforts of all of us, of the European Central Bank and of Mr Maaten, whose report has dealt with practically all the foreseeable questions that could arise when the new currency is introduced, are certainly commendable.
Since this is, in any case, a historic event - indeed, hitherto, all the Member States have had to handle currency exchange internally whereas, now, the entire Community will be changing to a single currency - it may be that all the aspects and consequences of the introduction of the euro will not have been foreseen and that some situations - as yet not clearly defined - might arise after the fateful date of 1 January 2002.
From this point of view, it is the duty of all of us to endeavour to make contributions which will not just facilitate the transition but also highlight positive or negative aspects closely linked to the event itself.
This is why I feel I may be allowed to focus on three points.
Firstly: in the period which remains before the established date of 1 January 2002, information must be must stepped up in the peripheral and decentralised areas, since it must not be forgotten that people in rural areas still practise a form of hoarding under the mattress which must be overcome in this difficult situation.
Secondly: after the transition period, during the following decade in which it is laid down that it will be possible to change national currency into euros at Member States' central banks, all the bureaucratic formalities should be reduced in order to allow the poorest people to change small sums of money without any burden being imposed.
Thirdly and most importantly: up until the final exchange date, I call upon the qualified intermediaries, particularly credit institutions, to pay greater attention and apply greater rigour to cash transactions.
I am sure that organised crime networks amass cash supplies for illegal transactions ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I hear that, at the end of this debate, Mr Duisenberg would like to say a few words.
I will then give Commissioner Solbes Mira the floor.
I am now giving Mr Duisenberg the floor.
Mr President, I shall try to answer some of the points raised by Members.
I have already addressed in my introductory statement the most important ones contained in the two resolutions.
I wish to add some points.
Mrs Randzio-Plath asked about the secondary objective in the Treaty.
It is our strong belief that if the ECB is successful in maintaining price stability, and thereby creating an environment of predictable stability for entrepreneurs, that is the best contribution that the ECB can make to fostering growth of output and employment.
Should the European Parliament be involved, if the Treaty is ever changed, in the appointment of the Executive Board? That is an issue the Executive Board should stay out of.
However, the European Parliament is already involved in appointing members of the Executive Board in the same way as the Governing Council of the ECB is involved.
On a proposal by the ministers of finance, the European Parliament and the Governing Council of the ECB, Parliament can offer advice so as to enable the Heads of State and the Council to reach a decision.
I fully agree that monetary policy should work not in isolation but in ever closer coordination.
However, the ECB will never engage in coordination of our policies with other policies in the economic and financial field, because this would prejudice our primary objective under the Treaty, namely to preserve price stability.
Many points were made about the resolution.
I have already addressed some of them in my introductory statement.
I am grateful to Mrs Peijs and Mr von Wogau for their support on various points, namely the guarantee of the independence of the Central Bank.
I say to both Mrs Berès and Mrs Randzio-Plath, that in no way - and they already know it - would the ECB shy away from a dialogue with the European Parliament or its committees.
That has been proven in the past and we will continue to prove it in the future.
Mrs Peijs asked the obvious question: can you stay? The answer I always give, and give again, is "yes".
She also pleaded for cross-border transfers to be as costly or as cheap as domestic transfers.
I agree with her completely.
It may take a little longer than 1 January 2002 to achieve it.
However, I believe that in a single market with a single currency, the distinction should disappear, but it may take some time.
I turn to the important subject of frontloading, which has been mentioned by Mr Maaten in his draft resolution and by many other Members.
Specific questions have been asked: is it possible or advisable to change the automatic teller machines a few days earlier than 1 January 2002.
The answer is "no". That would seriously damage the payments system at the busiest time of the year, namely the last few days of December.
The automatic teller machines must still be able to distribute national currencies.
If they were disabled for that purpose, the payments system would be seriously damaged.
It has to be remembered that between 70% and 80% of total bank note distribution is through automatic teller machines.
It is also important because we too see the potential for problems arising.
It is important that the machines are converted as soon as possible.
In five countries the old automatic teller machines will have been converted by 1 January.
That applies to the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Ireland and Luxembourg.
In other countries it may take a little while longer, but that is mainly due to the fact that some of these machines are in very remote areas which are not serviced every day, for example in Finland and Spain.
It will take a little longer there but in the majority of countries the conversion will take place within one week.
In five countries it will occur within one day.
Mr Maaten also asked in his resolution for some priority to be given to the dispersal of small EUR 5 and EUR 10 bank notes in automatic teller machines.
This point is well covered in the national changeover scenarios.
Apart from Finland, in all other countries it is envisaged to dispense, at least in some of the automatic teller machines, the EUR 5 and EUR 10 notes exclusively via ATMs in the first few days of next year.
There are in place fuller steps that could be taken to smooth the changeover, for example establishing temporary exchange points, for instance in supermarkets.
We encourage that.
In countries where welfare payments are still largely paid in cash we encourage the use of lower denomination bank notes.
We are encouraging banks to open their counters on 1 January 2002.
At this juncture, this is envisaged in Austria, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
We urge other countries to consider the same measures as well.
In its resolution the European Parliament has also made various suggestions.
I will not comment on all of them but the European Parliament also suggests what I just said, namely encouraging banks to open their counters on 1 January, a point which is fully welcomed and supported by the ECB.
It has been suggested that the date of the annual sales should be changed, postponing them by a few weeks.
The ECB is neutral on this point, but I see the merits in it.
Lower fees for credit cards and other electronic means of payment have been mentioned.
This is currently envisaged in Austria, Belgium and Finland.
Here, too, the ECB, because of the nature of the subject, is neutral but I would encourage national authorities to listen carefully to the European Parliament.
Returning to the questions that have been asked, I would say that instead of frontloading, our information campaign, as it develops from 30 August onwards and intensifies over the months to come until the end of this year and in the first couple of weeks of next year, will be such that the public at large will, I am sure, be fully familiar by 1 January, with how the bank notes will look with their security features.
One element of this campaign is that, in the first or second week of December, we will distribute 300 million leaflets to every citizen of the euro area, fully describing the new bank notes and the procedures of the cash changeover.
Mr Maaten asked a question which amused me: "What if, in the last few days ministers do change their minds and do nevertheless start frontloading bank notes?"
With all due respect, not only to Mr Maaten but also to the ministers, the ministers cannot take such a decision because in the Treaty they have handed over the competence for the issue of bank notes to their national central banks and the ECB.
Only the ECB, the Eurosystem, can decide when the bank notes will be distributed and that will be on 1 January 2002.
Mr President, following the speech by the President of the European Central Bank, Mr Duisenberg, I wish to comment briefly on a few points.
I shall refer basically to Mr Maaten' s report, since I agree with Mr Duisenberg' s comments on the report by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
First and foremost, I should like to point out that access to starter kits for coins is not limited to one per person.
I agree with the decisions that have been taken by the various countries.
It is possible to obtain more than one kit in all of these countries.
Mr Duisenberg referred to 'frontloading' , which is the advance circulation of low denomination notes in automatic cash machines.
I should simply like to make one comment, which is that the Commission report to which some of you have referred is a simple report for calculating how much time would be needed to fully replace a national currency with the European currency according to the quantities currently being made available through automatic cash machines.
This is a statistical analysis, which therefore assumes that there will be no increase in the rate at which this money is used and nor does it take into consideration sources other than automatic cash machines.
In any event, I wish to point out that the existence of transitional periods is justified precisely because the entire operation will not be able to be completed immediately.
With regard to sales, the Commission takes the view that these should be delayed for two weeks so that they do not coincide with the introduction of notes and coins.
Nevertheless, this is a national decision, which must be taken by each Member State.
I must make one comment on the risk of price increases resulting from the changeover to the euro: the Commission has considered the matter and takes the view that the crucial factor for preventing the changeover to the euro being used as an opportunity to raise prices is the dual display of prices in both the national currency and in the Community currency.
We have, of course, insisted on other measures, such as requiring public administrations to round down their charges or, in any event, maintaining the principle of neutrality.
Some of the positions held by the Commission have been accepted by the Eurogroup, which issued a statement on 4 June adopting these points.
I should also like to recall, in response to some of the speeches I have heard today, that the period for the dual display of prices should in principle be limited to the first six months of next year and then dual pricing should disappear.
The practical messages for the public that you are proposing as regards the awareness-raising campaigns can be introduced by means of the cooperation that Parliament is pursuing with the consultative group on the practical aspects of the changeover to the euro, which is made up of the individuals in charge of the various national campaigns.
I should just like to make one comment on electronic payment: the Commission has tried to ensure that for the purposes of the changeover to the euro, European banking federations and associations move ahead with reducing charges for electronic payment. We have not, however, made any headway on this matter.
Both the Commission and the European Central Bank are committed to moving ahead with reducing charges for cross-border transactions.
We are aware that this is not an easy task and that varying approaches between national and cross-border payments might give rise to some conflict with internal market legislation.
The Commission is studying potential occurrences in order to facilitate and speed up as much as possible this process of reducing cross-border charges.
1 January 2002 will mark a milestone in the history of European integration.
The whole world will be closely observing what happens in Europe.
I am convinced that the institutions, the Member States, and the Central Banks will prove up to the task and I wish to thank Parliament once again for the cooperation it has given us in all aspects of preparing for the process of replacing national currencies with the euro.
Institutions for occupational retirement provision
The next item is the report (A5-0220/2001) by Othmar Karas, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the activities of institutions for occupational retirement provision [COM(2000) 507 - C5-0596/2000 - 2000/0260(COD)].
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission proposal before us and the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is, I am proud to say, a very good example of successful, dialogue-based work on a Commission proposal between all the groups and experts in this House, while remaining open to compromise.
It is also a good example of how seriously we take our work and of how we implement our projects, observing schedules, and also of how good we are at preparing decisions, unlike the Council.
This example highlights the differences between the European Parliament and the Council in dealing with Commission proposals and decisions.
I would therefore like to start by very sincerely thanking all the coordinators, and in particular Mr Kuckelkorn, Mr Hume, Mr Ettl, Mr Pronk, Mrs Lulling and many others for their cooperation.
Why is this directive needed? It is needed because we have all committed ourselves to creating an internal market for financial services, because we need to eliminate the financial obstacles from the Action Plan for Financial Services - of which this directive is a part - as quickly as possible, because the second pillar does not include any Community legislation for activity under the second pillar, for retirement provision.
What is this directive about? It is principally concerned with issues around coordinating supervision, with the question of approving cross-border activity, with investment rules and with certain necessary accompanying measures.
We in the committee have come up with many suggestions for improvement.
We are convinced that with regard to the Commission proposal we have had wide-ranging discussions and taken points on board.
But let me make it clear right away that we also thought that a change in title was needed to make this clear.
This is the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the activities and supervision of institutions offering occupational retirement provision services.
It is a financial services directive.
It is not a directive that regulates occupational retirement provision as a product taking into account the mobility of employees and all its consequences.
It regulates the activity of the companies offering financial services.
This clarification is necessary.
In connection with this clarification we need to say that this is an initial and essential step along the path towards a European system for the second pillar and occupational retirement provision.
A third point of clarification is also necessary: the second pillar complements the first pillar, but is by no means a replacement for it.
Nor is it a compromise.
In reality, it represents an agreement between the two sides of industry in the context of legal provisions in force between employers and employees.
It therefore has to strike a balance between liberalisation of the financial market and social security.
Social security and employee information need to be accorded a special significance.
I would just like to list the key amendments. First, we have given great emphasis to the principle of the level playing field, that is to say equal access for all providers as long as they meet the requirements.
Secondly, we have clearly defined the prudent person principle, we have set a limit for the switch from quantitative investment rules to qualitative ones, and we have called for a report from the Commission after three years; furthermore, more flexibility in assessment and in guaranteeing security for consumers is needed.
Thirdly, we have called for a switch to the principle of deferred taxation, because in order to avoid distortions in competition we need certain common rules, and we are calling on the Commission to clearly control non-discrimination, as stipulated in the Treaty, and to make that a starting point.
We have defined the work of the pension forum, and we have established biometric risks as an option.
It is not the product that is defined, but rather the obligation to make it available.
To conclude, we have more clearly worded the issue of the country of origin principle and that of information relating to employees and employers and their representatives.
We believe that we have succeeded in striking a balance between a financial services directive and social security and that we will obtain a large majority tomorrow.
I hope that the Council will accept our proposals so that we are not blocked when it comes to implementing this directive in line with the European Parliament's decisions.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur, my colleague Mr Karas, for the time and the effort he has put into this report.
As draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, I would primarily like to stress the importance of respect for the principle of equality between men and women - which is laid down in the Treaty - by institutions for occupational retirement provision, upheld, moreover, by the directives on equal treatment in public and professional social security systems.
I am pleased to underline the fact that my ad hoc amendment has been adopted and is included in the report.
I also tabled an amendment specifying that the institutions for occupational retirement provision should take into account careers that have been atypical or interrupted owing to family responsibilities of both men and women by also providing solutions to guarantee the continuation of membership.
This amendment was not retained in the text but, in my opinion, the institutions for occupational retirement provision clearly cannot escape from providing adequate solutions for these situations.
We have had and we will have in the future more epic debates on the question of knowing whether supplementary pensions must include mandatory cover for biometric risks.
I am in favour of a pragmatic approach - which was also advocated by Mr Karas - namely that institutions must offer cover for these risks as an option, in the form of, for example, disability pensions and provision for survivors.
This will obviously incur a cost, which should not, however, be dependent on gender or an individual health check.
One of the issues which must be resolved in order to establish a genuine single market in supplementary pensions and pension funds is that of providing a tax treatment to avoid the dual taxation of contributions and benefits, as well as the tax exile of pensioners who are trying to avoid paying taxes, but also the mass of bureaucracy involved in the exchange of information and the recovery of taxation between countries.
The Commission only tackled this problem in a statement, and not in this directive. Caution is the watchword, do you not think, Mr Bolkenstein?
I therefore believe that it is premature for Parliament to issue an opinion now in favour of a specific model - in this case, the TEE regime - as has been done in the report, albeit only in a recital, given the fact that direct taxes fall within the sovereign affairs of the Member States.
Let us wait before issuing an opinion in favour of one particular model in this extremely sensitive area.
Having said this, Mr President, I think that the lights are flickering from the shock of these thoughts...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I should like, first of all, to welcome some visitors from Kent who we are fortunate enough to have in the gallery today.
I would also like to thank Mr Karas for all the very hard work he has done on a very difficult report.
We have to bear in mind that what we are creating here is an optional scheme for companies and financial service providers to take advantage of if they want to.
If we do not create an attractive framework, this directive will be a dead letter because no one will use it.
If we overload this directive with prescriptive detail, with centralising details, it will not reflect the diversity of pension arrangements across the EU and, again, we will not have people taking up the opportunities provided by the directive.
So where would we lose out if companies decided that they were not going to bother to use this directive? We would lose out largely on the prudent investor principle.
A European Commission survey recently said that, had we used this principle across the European Union over the last 15 years, our pension funds would probably have performed at least twice as well as they have in fact performed.
Private sector estimates put the increase in the return on savings that could result from using the prudent investment principle at up to 3%.
Pension assets could be around 21% larger across the European Union if we had been using the prudent investor principle already.
What we have here is the potential for increased return on savings without increased risk.
That is a very real and practical benefit to the people who elected us to serve in this House on their behalf.
That is a benefit that we should not throw away by piling into this directive overly prescriptive details, for example, on authorisation, on biometric risk, on guarantees.
We need to take a pragmatic approach in order to gain those benefits of an increased return for our savers in a first attempt at defusing the pensions time-bomb.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to make a couple of fundamental points about the Commission's proposal for a directive.
We have said quite enough about the technical details in recent days, weeks and months - we have exchanged views, we have sometimes argued and sometimes agreed.
I would like to particularly address the Commission and the representatives of the Council.
I would especially like to say a few words to the Commission about the history of this and about the development of this directive.
As rapporteur for the resolution, I have had an opportunity to deal with both the Green Paper and the Commission communication on the results of the consultation.
Whereas in the Green Paper you were still talking about supplementary retirement provision in the internal market and tried to make the European public believe that something was being done for the majority of Europe's citizens, your present proposal for a directive simply reflects the interests of the European financial sector.
As I see it, you have either done a U-turn or you were only concerned about the internal market for financial services all along.
Your intention now is to give the financial market pride of place.
You are shifting this issue onto totally new ground.
This would be acceptable in itself, if we were really only dealing with a pure financial market directive.
However, your proposal encroaches way into the territory of the product formulation of the occupational retirement provision systems already in existence and, as I see it, you are giving the investment sector a significant competitive advantage over traditional providers. This is because you want to give financial products equal tax treatment but without obliging the financial sector to offer the same security as second pillar institutions, which in return benefit from their own security, that is to say from tax advantages.
I am not giving away any secrets if I tell you that we have obtained all the position papers and proposals drafted by the finance industry, and in particular the investment sector.
It is already easy to get the impression that a large part of the Commission's text bears the hallmarks of lobbyists.
I regard the similarities with the finance sector's proposals as a great cause for concern.
I would also like to take this opportunity to give a brief indication of the main themes underpinning our actions in relation to the Karas report in recent months.
Security of occupational pensions is the top priority for us.
In this respect we are responsible for something that we wish to establish, something that, at the end of the day, must work and must benefit our citizens.
Permit me to make a few more comments on the subject of registration and authorisation.
Does the institution have to be authorised before it starts its activity and be checked by the authorities, or is it just registered? Mr Karas has made a new proposal on this, one that we shall be supporting.
Furthermore, the collective nature of the second pillar is important.
This provides a demarcation from the third pillar.
We are not just talking about any savings product here, we are talking about occupational pensions, the nature of which is totally different from speculation in blocks of shares.
We have also considered it important to achieve improvements in relation to codetermination.
However, in this case we agree with the reference to national employment law.
With regard to biometric risks, we support the rapporteur's wording.
We have executed something of an about-turn here, but I think that it is in everyone's interest for us to be able support this directive or this proposal.
In addition to these substantive points, we also regarded a number of other considerations as being important.
We parliamentarians should not let ourselves be frightened off by technocrats who say that all this would not be possible and that it would not be compatible with the treaties.
We are involved in the codecision process and have to act in line with our own views.
We are elected so that our views can act as a correcting force.
The European public expects us to ensure that law is not just made by officials and lobbyists, but rather that political decisions are chiefly made by Parliament.
Nor should we tie our own hands by arguing that it is impossible to negotiate a hundred amendments with the Council.
My message to the Council and the Commission is a clear one: stop playing about with this directive!
To some extent, there have been major differences between us over this report.
There have been heated discussions not only between the groups, but also within them.
Tomorrow we shall be voting on a text which tries to reflect all strands of opinion.
At this point, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Karas, for his work.
If the voting goes as promised, I shall be recommending that my Group votes for your report.
Mr President, I will be brief in saying that my Group had two fundamental objectives in dealing with this proposal from the Commission.
The first is to support the Commission as far as possible in its effort to keep it simple and not to include unnecessary complications such as biometric risk.
The compromise which Mr Karas has engineered in Parliament is one that we can live with.
We would have preferred to have the original Commission proposal in its simplicity, but I recognise the considerable political difficulties which Mr Karas faced and thank him for his efforts in engineering that.
The second key objective of my group was to stiffen the resolve of the Commission, to be more liberal and more 'market opening' in its approach to the abolition of quantitative rules.
The Commission's draft directive envisages that Member States will be able to continue to set quantitative limits on the operation of pension funds.
I am delighted that Parliament looks as if it is going to insist that there is a five-year time limit.
I very much hope that the Commissioner abandons any attempt at realpolitik, involving dirty compromises in the Council, and sticks to what is Parliament's clear desire.
We want to ensure that pensioners have high returns without any additional lack of security, applying the prudent person principle.
Those are the two key objectives for us and if we manage to get them voted in Parliament tomorrow, this legislation will lay the ground rules for a vast growth in private pensions in the Union.
It will improve the investment returns to existing pension schemes and thereby improve pensions.
It will establish, for the first time, a pan-European investor base for growing and integrated euro-area financial markets.
Mr President, Commissioner, the vote taken within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on which the committee was divided and following which, in fact, 133 amendments were reintroduced in plenary, is more than enough evidence of the differences in the approach to this draft directive.
In our group, we are interpreting it in the following manner: the main aim of this directive on occupational pension funds is to eliminate all the conditions restricting financial institutions, particularly in the choice of financial shares, with the exception of general prudential rules of a so-called qualitative nature, and the principle of mutual recognition will be fully applied in addition to these rules.
We are faced with a situation which is well-known in the establishment of the internal market.
As for the degree of harmonisation or integration, or even the degree of liberalisation and openness that is desired, but with regard to what Fritz Scharps calls positive integration not going as far as the objective of liberalisation, from this perspective, I would simply like to bring up three points which we feel are particularly important.
the problem of cover for risks as such, what are known as biometric risks: we support Amendment No 108, tabled by Mr Herzog;
the problem of tax competition - as in Amendment No 117 - another example which shows that we are making further and much quicker progress towards integrating the markets without any previous tax harmonisation: we are unable to support this point of view;
the question of covering risks with capital, which relates to Article 18 of the directive: Amendment No 116, which was tabled, is, in our view, a reasonable amendment.
Our political assessment of this draft directive is, therefore, that once again it has shifted away from its objectives, which are not just the unity of the market but social cohesion and solidarity as well.
Mr President, the directive drawn up by the Commission contains an obvious bias.
It is concerned with using market valuation to encourage supplementary pensions.
Although the report by Mr Karas corrects this bias in places, it also makes it worse in others.
We are faced with a reference model which is primarily that of the industry of supplementary pensions in place in Great Britain and other countries.
Yet, in some countries, these organisations do not or only occasionally enter the financial market; in other countries workers are given cast iron guarantees, but the directive obviously does not aim to do this.
In particular, it is not concerned with the coherence of national pension systems based on the principles of solidarity, security and universality.
That is why we tabled amendments on two aspects. The first, on the one hand, relates to guarantees for the people concerned, and the second, on the other hand, to public supervision and prudential actions.
We believe that this text is unacceptable unless it is subject to considerable amendment.
First of all, we must improve the guarantees given to the people.
The directive includes risks of discrimination and lapses in solidarity.
Membership of a supplementary scheme is not compulsory, which explains the considerable inequalities.
There is no provision for inter-sectoral mutualisations.
The quality of benefits will suffer if the population falls.
Continuity of membership cannot be guaranteed if mobile workers change jobs or sector.
The definition of rights does not mandatorily include biometric risks.
The guarantees of actual benefits are not organised.
And we are aware of the risks taken by those who join fixed contribution schemes, pointed out, moreover, by many well-respected macro economists.
We are proposing amendments on all these points, as well as on the second issue giving us cause for concern which is the need to improve social and prudential supervision.
The Commission is offering insurers the choice of opting for occupational pension schemes.
The Karas report strengthens this provision by casting aside government authorisation.
This opens the door to competition and gives rise to two risks: the first is that solidarity work may be abused and that prudential systems that have been imposed on insurers will be weakened.
Mr Karas incorporated our amendment seeking to establish the principle of interactive management, but that will only have any real bearing if the institutions involved are not treated like standard financial investors throughout the directive.
The prudential framework laid down by the Commission is vague and the report imposes the country of origin principle, which we find unacceptable, since the destination Member State must, of course, also retain the possibility of establishing coherence with internal social law.
Lastly, prior tax harmonisation is still not included in these texts, which means we are once again opening the way to fiscal dumping.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are today faced with a key test on the way that the European Parliament perceives its responsibilities in the area of social protection.
Mr President, rather than reinvent the wheel and go back over everything that was said, it is important to look at the reality: our population is getting older, living longer and retiring sooner.
There must be provision for proper pension protection and payments in the future.
The only way to achieve this is by coupling the different systems that are out there with the second and third pillar, as suggested by the rapporteur.
The areas of concern I have about the amendments and some of the proposals put forward relate firstly to tax harmonisation, which I oppose totally, and secondly to increased regulatory supervision over the operation of these funds, because we already have a raft of legislation governing investment vehicles and investment instruments.
I could advise Members of this House, and perhaps Member State governments whose observers are here today, to look at the Irish model, where we have committed ourselves between now and 2025 to putting 1% of our GDP towards a future pensions fund.
That would mean IEP 700 m per year being put into the protection of pension payments for people from the year 2025 onwards.
If more countries were willing to do this, then we would not have the same sense of urgency or danger that now faces many pensioners in Europe today.
Mr President, our public pensions systems are too expensive and have also ceased to be financeable.
The gap between those actively employed and pensioners is becoming ever greater.
Urgently needed reforms are constantly being postponed.
The cost of these systems within the Union also varies very widely.
For example, Austria devotes 15% of its GDP to pensions, making it the record holder, as the EU average is 11%.
The high costs in countries like Austria are partly attributable to the fact that we have virtually introduced a separate insurance system for each professional group.
This leads to all sorts of injustices that are no longer tenable.
However, as others have already said, there is a crisis looming in pension provision not only in Austria but all over Europe.
The public pension system can simply no longer be financed and is also becoming a burden on the younger generation.
A pan-European market for occupational retirement provision is bound to help in this regard.
However, in establishing this system, this second pillar, we should not impose an even greater burden on our small and medium-sized enterprises.
They could not tolerate a further increase in ancillary wage costs.
The consequences would be disastrous and would, above all, have a negative impact on Europe's employment situation.
The debate is adjourned until 9 p.m.
Support for national strategies for secure and lasting pensions through the open coordination method
The next item is the Commission communication - Support for national strategies for secure and lasting pensions through the open coordination method.
Thank you, Mrs Diamantopoulou, for what I agree is a very significant statement from the Commission.
Mr President, I should like to begin by paying some compliments on the work that has been done so far.
I think, in fact, that some splendid things were put forward in connection with the Göteborg Summit, and I also think that the work which has now been done on the reports from the individual countries shows that it is only right to broaden the agenda.
We must not just talk about the growing burden of the elderly and the economic consequences, but also about how we obtain a good pension system.
I also think, however, that it is important that this work should not just remain work done behind closed doors between politicians, officials and experts.
Moreover, I should like to ask the Commissioner what plans she has to put some impetus into a broader public debate about this coordination of pensions made to run in parallel.
The open method must be open in the true sense of the word, so that the public is also involved.
What will the Commissioner do? Will she give an undertaking that more efforts will be made to increase public...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, they asked me, the representative elected from the lists of the Pensioners' Party in Italy: "What are you going to Strasbourg for? They will never talk about pensions!"
Well, the words of Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou just now have been as sweet as honey to my ears.
I welcome this initiative: it is a great day for pensioners all over Europe!
My congratulations to Mrs Diamantopoulou and the whole of the Commission!
The most important thing will now be to monitor the pension funds and appoint as their guardians in the 15 States, not the Beagle Boys but people who care about the future of pensioners.
I hope that the Commissioner will agree with me.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for the statement.
I look forward to reading the communication.
It is one of the most important debates we need to have.
I have a couple of questions.
There is indeed a major demographic shift under way within the Union, and we must try to ensure that we retain older people in the labour market.
However, there is a big problem: those older people will be the people with outdated skills.
Does the Commissioner agree that this will lead to the revolution we have been pressing for, with a shift away from a concentration on initial education and training towards continuing training and lifelong learning? This will become essential.
There are some contradictions and difficulties: for example, there is a tendency everywhere in the Union to raise retirement ages, and yet at the same time there are widespread public subsidies for early retirement.
Is there not a danger that the finger of blame will be pointed at the Union, because these difficult issues are being forced upon Member States for decision at this stage?
Mr President, there are two main issues here.
First, the transparency of the pension systems.
One of the objectives of the third axis in the modernisation of pension systems is to make them transparent.
This means that information must be clear and readily available not only to EU citizens but also to third-country nationals.
There are major problems in this area at present.
In order to achieve the degree of transparency aimed at, we need some kind of indicators.
Clear information should be available on demand.
We cannot impose the reform structure or the structure of pension systems on Member States, but we can measure it with a series of indicators.
Unfortunately, I cannot give you any more details on this at the moment.
Second, the issue of lifelong learning and the problem of early retirement.
There is a clear link between the age limit and the need of active ageing.
The majority of Member States have an age limit of 65, but this is not the rule, it is the exception.
There are many different early retirement systems in place in all Member States which have caused many problems regarding the financial sustainability of the pension systems.
That is why we propose this combination of policies: on the one hand, we propose the reform of the pension system and a change in the age limit, on the other hand, we propose policies for activating ageing populations, i.e. incentives for retaining older people in the labour market, incentives for training and, in some cases, subsidies for establishing an SME or other undertaking.
So I very much agree with you, we need this integrated approach.
We cannot just decide to increase the age limit, we must implement other policies at the same time.
Mr President, I too should like to thank the Commissioner for this important statement which, in terms of pensions at European level, represents a fresh social challenge with financial implications, as opposed to a financial problem accompanied by a number of social aspects.
In my opinion, the Belgian presidency should be very grateful for your contribution to the debate.
Commissioner, I should like to ask you two questions.
The first one concerns the objectives included in the document.
I note that the ten objectives which we adopted from the original statement have been whittled down to three.
Although there are three key objectives - and that might benefit clarity - in my opinion, a number of crucial elements have fallen by the wayside, such as solidarity between generations and solidarity within one generation.
Another aspect which I miss is the link between the pension pillars.
What are the roles of the first, second and third pillars? Those are questions which are no longer addressed here.
How does the Commissioner intend to include problems of this kind in the debate at this stage?
Secondly, you were right in calling for a global approach.
Göteborg has stated that the agreements must be included in the wider economic guidelines.
That has not been provided for in the plan.
Mr President, I too agree that pension policy involves an enormous challenge.
As far as the young generation of Europe is concerned, this is perhaps the largest challenge we will see in the field of economic and social policy in the decades ahead.
Open coordination is naturally a positive thing and I warmly support it.
It is good that the Commission is now looking for indicators and also seeking to increase public debate on this very important issue.
My real question concerns whether, however, you see any opportunities for slightly stronger measures, in other words in the future could we also highlight questions of pension policy, for example, in slightly more binding documents such as Stability and Growth Agreements and employment policy guidelines, and, for example, issue warnings to those Member States who are not managing their pension policy properly and ensure that, in the future, through reasonable funding, we will be able to pay sustainable, good pensions to the pensioners of Europe.
Mr President, allow me to start by congratulating the Commissioner, although it would appear that I am not alone as the large majority wishes to do likewise.
Even Mr Fatuzzo, the pensioners' representative, is well pleased.
And indeed, what we have heard is impressive.
Of course, from what I have read in the press, you have taken these initiatives in the teeth of opposition from numerous members of the Commission, who consider them somewhat progressive.
The point is: with Article 140 talking of a high level of protection, what can reform mean if it does not maintain a high level of protection?
But, mainly, I wanted to raise two questions. We talk of decent pensions through complementary pillars.
So far so good.
But have you checked if this complementarity can be applied to the entire pyramid of workers, and especially to small and medium-sized enterprises and low incomes, or do we need to take a different approach here? Secondly, as the objective is not just sustainable pensions, but decent sustainable pensions, should we not look at what margins will be earmarked for pensions from increases in the gross domestic product?
Mr President, as far as Mrs van Lancker's questions are concerned, there are ten basic objectives, which I simply split into three categories in order to simplify my presentation; but there are still ten basic objectives covering adequacy, financial sustainability and modernisation.
Of course, one of these objectives is the one you referred to, i.e. the inter-generational balance.
There will be many more indicators, including indicators on the economic and social dimension.
They will, of course, be the subject of discussion in both the Commission and the Council and, as you know, the Social Protection Committee and Parliament are in constant communication.
As far as the role of the guidelines on employment are concerned, I did not quite understand your question.
If what you meant was that some of these objectives should be included in the guidelines on employment, I should tell you that the first cycle of the employment strategy will end next year during the Spanish presidency, when the five-year period expires.
We shall see how we can take the issue of quality or issues relating to older workers into account at the changeover.
As far as the question of decent pensions and the role of the three pillars is concerned, it is very difficult, in fact I would say it is impossible for the Commission to issue specific guidelines on the role of the three pillars in each country.
But what is clear is that we need to safeguard decent pensions, which is why the role of the first pillar is very important.
And, of course, there is always a link between an increase in the gross national product and support for the first pillar, subject to the principles governing the stability and growth pact.
Mr President, young people are particularly affected by pensions since, after all, they contribute to pensions during their working life and subsequently benefit from those pensions.
Do you have in mind providing information, through schools in particular, about the future shape of pensions systems and about the fact that mobility will, of course, be encouraged if these ideas are actually implemented?
Commissioner, we are today going to be initiating a process - which will certainly be very beneficial to Europe - of generating great added value for the much-needed modernisation of our social protection systems.
I wish to ask you a question and perhaps make a small suggestion.
The focus of the Commission' s action will be an annual report assessing the various national strategies.
Do you not think, Commissioner, that it would be useful for the Commission also to work on the basis of other information, to accept what in situ missions and universities can provide and, of course, information or debates that we could provide from Parliament, so that you are not limited to what might merely be the interests of each of our governments, which might be more interested in making propaganda for themselves than in seeing the reform implemented?
Mr President, I want to concur entirely with my colleagues' praise of the Commission' s initiative.
It is splendid, and the Commission is right in what it says.
As you said in your proposal, Commissioner, it is very important that the Member States should be committed to the plans you have now put forward. Unfortunately, I can already foresee aspects of the debate that will take place in my own Member State when the Commission begins discussing pensions.
It would therefore be very interesting, Commissioner, if, today, you could unambiguously confirm the impression I receive when I read your communication, namely that the Commission is not in any way out to undermine existing pensions in the Member States or to harmonise pension arrangements in the Member States.
I assume that you will confirm this, and I believe that doing so will be incredibly important in the forthcoming debate in our respective Member States.
Obviously this problem is a problem faced by young people and in most countries right now there is a risk that future generations will not be able to have the same rights as the present generation.
It is up to the Member States to make the public aware of the problem, given that the extent of the problem varies from one Member State to another.
But I think that the very fact that this discussion has started at European level and that we have agreed to work together on this problem, which now has European dimensions, is important from the point of view of public awareness.
As far as the second question is concerned, first: these reports cannot be annual reports and they will cover longer periods of time.
Secondly, the statistics which the European Commission uses are Eurostat statistics and statistics from the national statistics offices, which receive huge financial support, with the Commission and governments working together to ensure that they all operate to the same standards.
Because I agree with you that not all the national statistics offices are performing as well as they should, there are a lot of lacunae and there are a lot of statistics which are not reliable.
So what we are trying to do is to support the national structures so that they operate to the same standards.
The third question concerns the question of harmonised pensions.
I think that I really need to be categorical and absolute here.
There is no question, no question whatsoever of harmonising pension systems, both for political reasons, because there is no legal basis for such a move, and for technical reasons, given that it is quite impossible for us to homogenise or harmonise systems which have different structures, different funding methods and which often operate in very differently organised economies.
I refer, of course, to the example of Denmark.
But what we do need to highlight is the fact that, although there are different structures, there are common problems which have to do with the demographic problem, with new forms of employment which have to be taken into account, with the question of unemployment and with the question of new family structures.
These are problems common to all countries.
We also have common objectives.
The common objectives are sustainable pensions, the financial sustainability of pensions, both state and private, and the modernisation of pensions, as I set out in my initial intervention.
Common grounds and common objectives bring about a form of collaboration in which everyone keeps their particular structures and quirks but collaborates within an overall framework.
Thank you once again, Commissioner, for making that significant statement here this afternoon and I am sure all colleagues will wish you every success with this difficult dossier.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is 'Question Time' (B5- 0329/2001). We shall look at questions to the Commission.
Part 1
Question No 27 by (H-0541/01):
Subject: ACP capacity-building Would the Commission clarify why it is that none of the Euro 20 million ACP capacity-building project, which has been designed to prepare the ACP countries for the beginning, by September 2002, of negotiations on economic partnership agreements with the EU, has yet been disbursed?
Does the Commission not agree that this delay causes serious difficulties for the ACP, and means that there has been a serious failure to honour a critical commitment?
The Commission is aware of the importance of this project and the need for early action to ensure that the ACP States will be ready and better prepared to open negotiations with the EU on economic partnership agreements from September 2002.
So where do we stand today in the implementation of the project? As foreseen, the pre-qualification tendering procedure for the programme management unit was launched in June this year and the tenders will be opened on 20 July at the ACP Secretariat General.
The committee evaluating the tenders will consist of three members designated by the ACP Secretariat and three members designated by the Commission.
This committee will decide which companies will participate in the tender for the programme management unit.
I expect that this programme management unit will be in place by December this year at the latest; with some luck, a couple of weeks before.
This would keep us within the original time schedule foreseen for the implementation of the project.
The project will not be fully operational before the programme management unit is up and running.
However, in view of the importance of some of the activities in the project in particular, the Commission has taken steps to begin on an ad hoc basis to implement some of the actions foreseen in the project, and this is already going on.
It includes seminars on capacity building sessions of the ACP Ministerial Trade Committee for negotiations of new, WTO-compatible, trading arrangements with the EU.
Two sessions of this kind have taken place, one in Johannesburg on 10 and 11 April 2001 and a second one in Brussels on 13 and 14 May.
Secondly, a seminar was organised at the second meeting of the heads of ACP organisations working on regional integration on 3 and 4 May this year in Brussels and further seminars are scheduled to take place in the period July/September this year.
So all these action-oriented seminars are actually in the process of taking place.
We can either be satisfied that the preparation and implementation is on track or be disappointed and frustrated because it is such a slow track, but this has to do with more general problems, which we may not be able to take care of today.
Let me also say that, important and useful as these activities are, they are not, and never were, preconditions for the opening up of trade negotiations in September 2002 in accordance with the Cotonou Agreement.
But I understand well why the question has been put.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner very much.
The fact is, of course, that we are already more than half way through the preparatory period for these negotiations on EPAs, so these delays are rather difficult for the ACP to deal with; they are delays that affect thousands of livelihoods in the ACP and so there is deep concern.
I understand the Commissioner's difficulty in explaining why this has happened.
I wanted to ask you specifically: is the Commission prepared to be flexible about the start time, end time and terms of these negotiations?
The short answer is 'no'.
The Cotonou Agreement is quite clear and - not that I expected this follow-up question - that is the substance of the problem and the reason I said what I did at the end of my answer.
The dates involved are negotiated dates.
Not adhering to them would create more problems and, in any case, one can always discuss whether one more seminar would change the world, rather than face the need to make difficult decisions that will become part of this entire process for our partners in the ACP group.
As the author is not present, Question No 28 lapses.
Question No 29 by (H-0539/01):
Subject: Kosovar Albanian prisoners in Serbia While the recent partial release of Kosovar Albanian prisoners in Serbia is very welcome, does the Commission agree that this serves to deflect attention from the urgency of releasing all the remaining prisoners, some of whom are very ill? In particular does the Commission have any information on Skender Ferizi, Besim Zymberi and Bedri Kukalai, in prison since the Dubrava massacre in Kosova in May 1999?
The Commission very much welcomes the recent release of a significant number of Kosovar Albanian prisoners.
This does not, however, diminish the need for a speedy resolution of the remaining 203 cases currently before the Serbian courts and which these courts are reviewing.
The Commission has raised with the ICRC the cases of the three individuals mentioned in the honourable Member's question.
We are awaiting a reply.
We do not have any other information concerning their cases.
The International Committee of the Red Cross is following the condition of individual prisoners as well as maintaining contact with their families.
The Belgrade authorities have informed UNMIK and Mr Haekkerup, most recently during the UN Security Council delegation visit to Belgrade.
The cases of the remaining prisoners currently being reviewed should be finalised soon.
We understand that they are considering a proposal from UNMIK that those deemed criminals should serve their remaining sentences in prisons in Kosovo.
The Commission welcomes all efforts towards a speedy resolution of the remaining cases of detention, as well as the resolution of the fate of the 3 600 individuals still listed as missing from all communities in Kosovo.
I want to thank the Commissioner for his full answer and also to congratulate him on the efforts I know the Commission and, indeed, the Council are making to bring about more humanitarian and satisfactory conditions for democracy in that region.
I draw the Commissioner's attention to the fact that many of the prisoners who are still suffering in prison without trial have been wounded and are ill, and no information has been made available to their relations.
In fact, relations visiting or trying to visit these prisoners have been subjected to intimidation.
No normal process of law has been put into effect against them.
It is extremely important, because of the financial contribution we have been making in these areas, to make the authorities accountable to the public for the way these prisoners are being treated.
It happens - and this is a new dimension to our relationship with these countries - that the three prisoners I mentioned have relations in Ireland and, because of the interaction between voluntary organisations in Ireland and Kosovo, pressure is being put on me as an MEP to find a solution to this problem.
I congratulate the honourable Member for acting so vigorously on behalf of his constituents.
I very much hope that the prisoners to whom he has referred will be able either to join or see their relations in Ireland as soon as possible.
The honourable Member knows that I have regularly raised the question of the prisoners with President Kostunica and other senior officials in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
We have pressed the authorities there to re-examine all cases, and either release prisoners for lack of evidence, where that is appropriate, or where there is evidence, launch an expedited appeals process.
I hope the Federal Republic will actively consider handing over to UNMIK those who are legitimately convicted to continue their sentences in prisons in Kosovo.
We will continue to press with this issue.
It is very important.
It raises considerable humanitarian concerns in Ireland and other Member States.
Question No 30 by (H-0546/01):
Subject: Police capability Recently there was a first Police Capability conference with a view to the agreed goal of creating a five-thousand-strong police force to be available for the Union' s civilian peace-keeping operations.
Will the Commission report now to the Parliament concerning what progress was made and what are the next steps?
Second part
The ESDP annex of the Göteborg European Council conclusions sets out where the European Union has got to as regards the development of a police capability for crisis management operations outside European Union territory.
The honourable Member will recall that at the Faro meeting of the European Council in June last year, Member States signed up to an ambitious target of 5 000 police officers for international missions to be available by 2003.
Preparatory work has progressed well since then.
The necessary structures are being established in the Council, including a police unit in the Council secretariat.
The ESDP report to Göteborg contains a police action plan, which sets out the next steps in the process.
A ministerial conference will be held by the end of 2001 at which the Faro commitments should be turned into specific pledges.
The Belgian presidency will also continue work with the police experts' group to look in more detail at the modalities for implementation of the Faro commitments, particularly qualitative aspects, such as training, selection criteria and equipment.
The Commission is being supportive of the efforts of Member States in creating this crisis management capacity, for example with the funding of training projects through the OISIN programme.
The Commission has also become more involved over recent years in local capacity building and police reform in post-conflict situations.
Just to give some examples, the Commission is funding major initiatives for reform in justice and home affairs, including police, in a number of Balkan countries under the CARDS programme.
In that context, the Commission will take over the WEU police mission in Albania.
The Commission is also providing technical assistance and training to the police in Central America, in Guatemala and El Salvador, as part of the implementation of peace agreements in those countries. Furthermore, the Commission has recently started a programme of support to police training in Algeria.
I wish to thank my friend, the Commissioner, whom I have always found very helpful.
This was an extremely full and helpful reply.
I am sure that Parliament is most appreciative.
One matter surprised me a little, although I will read his reply in detail to study it, and this is the police unit set up within the Council.
Am I right in assuming that command of a police force which is sent by us actually rests in the final analysis with the Council and not with the Commission, even though policing is demonstrably a peacekeeping and not a military operation?
The honourable Member invites me to dig deep into the soil of competence and its related terrain.
The provision, deployment and management of EU police officers for external crisis management missions is a competence of the Member States and the Council secretariat.
So a police unit has been established in the new politico-military structures in the Council secretariat to carry out the detailed police action plan, which I referred to earlier, in coordination with the Member States and the Committee for Civilian Aspects of Crisis Management.
I would not dare to trespass on what is legitimately the territory of Member States, but there is a role and a responsibility for the Commission.
I described how we have considerable experience in the field of police training.
Indeed, we can make a particularly important contribution by trying to ensure that training in this area, and in others which are related to civilian crisis management, is compatible with that provided by the UN.
The UN and the European Union - the European Commission - now have more experience than others in this area and it is absolutely imperative that we ensure that the training provided - whether for police officers, people running penitentiaries, justices of the peace or magistrates - is compatible and appropriate wherever their services are required.
There is an important role for the Commission, but it is not the role of a sixteenth Member State.
Will the Commissioner advise me whether these policemen will be, or can be, armed and what their terms of engagement might be?
That will need to be determined case-by-case and situation-by-situation.
Let me explain one of the problems we have in providing the policing capacity which is needed.
What we are looking for is not a conventional community police officer.
What we require is a trained officer - man or woman - who is capable of the traditional policing functions of detection, who is capable of providing community policing, and capable, from time to time, of the sort of paramilitary policing which is needed, for example, in parts of the West Balkans.
In the country I know best there are very few police forces who have that sort of capacity, which includes the regular use of arms.
The police service in Northern Ireland is an example of a service which has that sort of all-round capacity.
That is one reason why it is difficult to provide exactly what is required, but whether or not arms will always be necessary will depend on the circumstances.
I hope that the success of policing will mean that arms, increasingly, are not required.
Questions to Commissioner Lamy
Mr President, the European Union recognises that the lack of affordably priced medicines is a serious problem in many developing countries, particularly for the poorest people in these countries.
We also believe that intellectual property rights are essential for encouraging creativity and innovation.
In our opinion, they also encourage investment in research and the development of new medicines.
The TRIPs agreement, a WTO agreement on intellectual property, should not, therefore, be a barrier it should be part of the solution that you are looking for.
Criticism of this agreement is generally based on the fact that it would limit the political options in developing countries in the area of public health.
Our position focuses, in the main, on one key point.
We believe that the agreement allows WTO members sufficient scope to put in place an intellectual property regime that is able to meet their concerns in terms of public health.
Our belief is that it is up to the WTO members, within the Council for Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs Council), to interpret this degree of flexibility, rather than leaving this up to a panel.
That is why the European Union has already been working for some time in order to reach a consensus between the WTO members instead of leaving the way open to legal disputes.
This is also why we supported the request from African countries to bring up the question of access to medicines at the WTO.
This debate took place at the last Council meeting held on 20 June 2001.
We presented a document, which summed up our views on some of the provisions of the agreement, such as Article 31, for example, which does not specify the grounds for issuing a compulsory licence.
We believe that these concerns regarding public health can, legitimately, be considered as good grounds for granting a compulsory licence.
Another issue is that of respecting procedural restrictions.
On this point, we think the procedure provides enough flexibility in cases of national emergencies and that the current rate of HIV/AIDS infection in some developing countries constitutes this type of emergency and that intellectual property can also be lifted if a patent is required in cases of public non-commercial use.
Our position on this point is, therefore, constructive.
We are committed to protecting intellectual property, which is an important stimulus, but we also believe that this must and can be achieved within the existing legal framework, as long as it is clarified in order to take account of urgent public health situations.
To refer to the recent debate at the WTO, many developing countries, such as India, Brazil and some countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia, presented a document which welcomed this debate.
Like us, they stressed the need to ensure that this agreement does not compromise the rights of WTO members to draw up and implement health policies designed to safeguard public health.
This group of countries also stressed that the use of compulsory licensing was a crucial instrument for putting in place these public health policies and giving wider access to medicines.
Lastly, they believed it was necessary to look into extending temporary provisions to implement this agreement.
According to the information available to us, none of the WTO members have yet requested a debate on reducing the term of patents.
The patent term is currently set at 20 years and further negotiation of the agreement would be needed in order to change this requirement.
The same is true with regard to the idea of a moratorium on possible trade disputes, which is not permitted under the current agreement.
We therefore maintain the position that we have held in this matter, to the satisfaction, I believe, of most of the parties involved, which is to find an appropriate balance between the interests of the patent holder and public health concerns.
We shall continue to discuss this issue in a constructive manner.
The TRIPs Council will be holding further meetings in July and September.
It is, of course, rather premature to issue an opinion on the content of the decisions that come out of these meetings but, whatever those decisions are, rest assured, Mrs Sandbæk, that the Commission is committed to finding the right balance between these two objectives - namely, to acknowledge inventors' rights and to provide access to essential medicines - and we will continue to be committed to this over the coming months.
Thank you very much for your answer, Commissioner, but you say that the present provisions allow an interpretation.
This implies that it is the Commission's interpretation and that the provisions might be interpreted otherwise.
Therefore I should like to ask whether the EU will call explicitly for a mechanism to ensure implementation of an interpretation of the TRIPs which favours public health care for the poor, so that we know what the interpretation will be.
Does the Commission believe that existing transition periods and other provisions give developing countries sufficient flexibility to implement the TRIPs Agreement?
You said that you do not believe that we should enter into new negotiations.
I can understand that the EU will not go as far as to press for an in-depth review seeking to reducing the length and scope of patents protection on pharmaceuticals for developing countries or exempting them altogether, but I should like you to explain further why you cannot do that, as it would be a nice thing for the EU to do.
The first of these three points relates to the interpretation of the TRIPs agreement.
We have our own interpretation which we have made clear, but we will not leave the matter there.
We shall be discussing this interpretation at a meeting of the TRIPs Council, which we and others have requested.
Like others, we believe that the text has achieved the right balance but that WTO members must hold a debate on its interpretation so that it is they and not the judges who decide.
Therefore, this certainly shows political will.
The second point on transition periods has not, as far as I know, been the subject of any requests.
There have been no disputes on this issue either, since, as I am sure you are aware, Brazil and the United States settled the matter out of court last week and I would like to point out that the European Union was not involved.
The third and final point concerns the length of patents protection.
In this case, we believe that the current length of patents protection again provides an adequate balance between the need to preserve intellectual property and public health requirements.
I believe our position on this point to be effective.
We are among those who draw attention to the issue of access to medicines.
Admittedly, there are other issues including those relating to public health systems and the availability of care.
I believe that, in this matter, we are being true to the position that we hold generally, namely, to bridge the gap, using an acceptable and proactive approach, between the concerns of developing countries and those of some countries in the North, that are concerned about the protection of intellectual property.
Mr President, we all know that in the pharmaceutical world there is a very long time lag between inventing a new product and having it ready for the market, generally 10 to 12 years.
The product then still has to be launched and another 20 years must elapse before third parties can manufacture it.
That is why the question arises as to whether instead of resorting to patent rights and compulsory licences, it would not be better to have a development fund for such cases and to make an effort, at international level, to make a large amount of money available so that by means of bulk purchasing medicines can be made available at correspondingly low prices.
Let us not forget that the selling price is a combination of manufacturing costs and licence fees.
Companies would be able to supply medicines at more favourable prices if volume purchasing applied.
So my question is whether the Commission could take an initiative in this area.
That is a very good question.
There is a tiered pricing option mid-way between the strict protection of intellectual property, the patent system in other words, and exceptions to this system such as compulsory licensing, and this is the option that we have considered in conjunction with the pharmaceutical industry and some of the countries concerned.
Tiered pricing involves a pharmaceutical laboratory reducing the prices that we pay on our markets by around 10% for countries such as Africa, for example, whilst still owning its patent.
This process is beginning to get off the ground although its scope is, in our view, fairly limited at the present time, and it will be the subject of an international initiative, which has, moreover, already been launched by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
The idea is for there to be a joint fund, to which several countries have already contributed and which will be used to buy medicines wholesale at low cost, which will therefore solve this part of the problem regarding price-related access, provided that the necessary funds are in place. For the time being, however, the funds are still very limited.
I would reiterate that the price of medicines is just part of a much wider problem which, in the main, relates to the health care system, distribution and the ability of the people concerned, particularly in the case of AIDS, to take their medicine regularly, something which involves extremely complicated medical procedures.
In general, however, to answer your question, yes, the international community is moving in this direction and the European Union will follow suit since some funding has already been earmarked for this purpose.
Question No 32 by (H-0571/01):
Subject: Testing cosmetics on animals and the WTO Under WTO rules, imported products must be treated the same as 'like products' of domestic origin.
In past cases of dispute, a decision is based on the end product and not the way a product is produced.
It has been argued, therefore, that the introduction of a ban on the marketing of cosmetic products if they are tested on animals will result in a trade war as the process, i.e. not testing on animals, would not be taken into consideration.
In light of the Parliament' s vote on 3 April 2001 to move towards such a ban, what action would the Commission take to avoid a potential trade war and does the Commission consider that the WTO rules should be interpreted to include the processing of a product when deciding on its 'likeness'?
Questions to Commissioner Solbes
This question relates to the testing of cosmetics on animals and considering the issue in the context of the WTO.
The Commission shares Parliament' s objective of improving animal welfare and we fully acknowledge that placing restrictions on animal testing would contribute to the achievement of this objective.
On the other hand, the European Union is also required to provide a high level of health protection and to ensure that its policies are in line with its international commitments.
Now, a marketing ban that is based not on the product characteristics but on manufacturing procedures would certainly force many of our trading partners to change their policy and legislation in order to be able to enter our market.
This could, in fact, provoke a reaction.
We should be aware that, until now, animal testing is the only method used in most countries to assess the safety of products intended for consumption, particularly cosmetics.
As far as we are concerned, we remain convinced that there are other methods, aside from a marketing ban - which is Parliament' s position - which can be used to bring an end to testing the finished product and its cosmetic ingredients on animals.
This is the purpose of the proposal that the Commission made in order to ban animal testing within the European Union.
In our opinion it is the acceptance of alternative testing methods by the international community that will provide the most effective contribution to animal welfare.
We are committed to encouraging the use of in vitro cosmetic testing, particularly within the OECD in order to move forward in this direction.
In order to provide a precise answer to your question, Mr Purvis, we believe that there is a strong possibility that the WTO may challenge a marketing ban, if it enters into force.
There are many issues to be considered in this matter such as extra-territoriality and proportionality of this and many others measures.
As for the issue regarding 'like products' , the GATT panels supported the fact that the determination of identity criteria of two products can only be based on the characteristics of the end product and not on the way that the product is produced.
In other words, production methods and processes cannot be taken into consideration when coming to a decision on the issue of a product' s identity.
We therefore believe that any defence against an attack based on a product' s identity has little, or hardly any, chance of succeeding at the World Trade Organisation.
This is also the reason why, on a number of occasions, we have drawn Parliament' s attention to the danger of moving in this direction from the point of view of respecting our international commitments, which we believe should also be one of Parliament' s concerns.
Our proposal must, therefore, be appreciated within the context of protecting animal welfare, guaranteeing a high level of health protection and avoiding legal disputes, which would certainly cause problems for everybody concerned.
We believe that this situation - meaning rules which allow measures on production methods to be established only within strict limits - is far from satisfactory.
This applies to the WTO' s current legislation.
This is the reason why we hope to be able to include these issues in the agenda of the next round of WTO negotiations.
If current legislation can be changed - and we hope that we are able to clarify it in this area - then so much the better.
As the texts currently stand, there is a risk that disputes will arise.
I take it from you that it is very unlikely that any agreement could be reached.
Just a month or two ago the American Ambassador to the EU stated that the cosmetics area could be the basis of one of the biggest trade disputes, putting bananas and all the others far into the shade, if it was not resolved.
So I take it that you are telling us we are going down a path that could lead to near disaster.
Have you tried to quantify the potential for retaliation against European industry of other injured parties, and what that could mean in terms of lost jobs in Europe?
Mr Purvis, it is my job to handle the trade disputes that we are currently involved in. It is preferable that I avoid disputes altogether.
I believe that my task, therefore, particularly in my dealings with the Council and Parliament, is to be totally honest when a Council or Parliament decision might mean we are in danger of losing a dispute.
I am sure you have a good understanding of the risk.
The proof of this, in fact, is that we are now discussing the implications that all this will have on sanctions.
I cannot say what the current situation is because, in order for sanctions to be taken against the European Union, a panel would have to be set up, we would have to fail before this panel and the amount of sanctions would then have to be assessed.
In general, the amount of sanctions is assessed by considering the volume of trade affected.
In a hypothetical scenario, in other words, a scenario where this proposal ends up becoming a European Union proposal, which is not yet the case, if it is challenged and if we lose, the volume of trade in question must be assessed and, at that point, we would have an idea of the system of sanctions.
I would reiterate, so that you have all the details, that in this case, sanctions do not necessarily and do not generally target the industries which are at the root of the problem.
They target others, since sanctions are chosen by the party who wins the dispute at the WTO.
Mr President, it is very good to hear that the Commissioner is not afraid of a trade war but responds very positively to the idea that these important political aims set by the European Parliament, for example, such as a ban on the marketing of cosmetic products tested on animals, are political decisions, not a question of protectionism, and thus it is important that our representatives defend these issues at international level.
You yourself referred to the possibility of bringing up in the next WTO round the question of whether in the future more attention could be paid to the way the product is produced in these trade issues, in other words not merely the end product. Has there been any discussion on this?
Can you shed any more light on this reference of yours? Do you believe this is a possibility?
With regard to the first point of your question, Mrs Kauppi, I am, of course, responsible for applying the policies that the European Union has decided upon, including those taken on external issues.
It is my duty, and I think that I do this openly, to explain that, when a political decision taken by the European Union brings us into conflict with our international commitments, as would be the case here, then the people who are taking this decision must be made aware of the risks they are taking.
If you want to run this risk, do so.
I will handle it.
Incidentally, I believe that there are more intelligent, less risky ways of resolving this issue.
In particular, we could consider a compromise solution between our proposal to ban testing and your position to ban marketing, in other words, that of labelling requirements.
From the point of view of international trade legislation, these requirements present less of a risk than a ban on marketing.
If we could move in this direction, in order to bring together both our points of view, I believe that we would avoid provoking useless disputes.
My second point relates to our desire to have some of the WTO rules clarified, in order to allow the European Union to move in the direction that it wishes, and this concerns production methods, for example.
We hope to move in this direction since we are relatively isolated at the moment.
One of the reasons for this is that we are faced with the belief of some of the developing countries that the use of these production methods may equate to protectionist measures.
We are, therefore, in need of some very strong arguments in order to show that this matter is not about protection, it is a matter of collective preference and that we each have our own ethics.
Within the European Union, animal welfare is part of our ethics, although this is not necessarily the case in other countries - as we can see - and perception varies according to the level of development.
This is our position.
We will do everything that we can so that this issue is placed on the agenda of the next round of negotiations, so that progress can be made.
I make no secret of the fact that, at the moment, our position is hardly shared at all in other parts of the world.
Mr President, I was very pleased to hear just now that Commissioner Lamy believes that it is very likely that during the next round of WTO negotiations production and labelling methods will also have to be considered.
What I would like to ask you, Commissioner, is whether you are willing to accept that imports from third countries are also subject to the same criteria that apply to production at European level, be it in agriculture or elsewhere. Are you prepared, for the sake of public health, and that is what is at stake here after all, to take such steps to counter this opposition during the next WTO round?
Of course, Mrs Schierhuber, I am willing to do all of this because, and I reiterate, one aspect of the European Union' s trade policy is to apply the collective preferential scheme to its external trade in the same way as it is applied to internal trade.
From this perspective, it is quite straightforward.
It is sometimes slightly more complicated, as demonstrated, for example, by the panel on hormone-treated beef, at which we were unsuccessful. As we imposed a ban on hormone-treated beef within the Union, we banned imports of it as well, but the conditions of this ban meant that it was found to be in breach of international legislation.
In general, the principles which apply are those of non-discrimination and of proportionality and the national treatment principle.
These are the principles that we wish to see taken into account in the agenda on the environment at the negotiations, especially everything which relates to the precautionary principle.
We have some way to go before this can be done.
There are risks in what we are doing within the European Union - in some cases, perhaps - with regard to existing laws which are considered to be excessive.
Therefore, on the one hand, we must adjust our internal approach and, on the other, we must adjust international legislation to our own preferences, which is only possible if other countries are in favour of changing this international legislation which is outside of our control.
Since we do not have any particular unilateralist tendencies, we must, therefore, change the legislation on a number of points or, at the very least, clarify its position on these issues.
This is the situation at the current time.
We are aware of your concerns in this area.
We support them, particularly from an ethical standpoint.
I cannot hide the fact that, as things currently stand, some of your plans will pose serious problems from the WTO' s point of view.
Question No 33 by (H-0565/01):
Subject: Greek stability and development programme As the current economic outlook grows bleaker, the Member States are naturally revising the targets set out in their stability and development programmes.
Has the Greek Government provided details of its current estimates for economic growth and to what extent do those estimates differ from the rather ambitious economic growth targets of 5% - 5.5%? The IMF, for example, forecasts that inflation in Greece in 2001 will reach 3.4%, and considers that there is no realistic prospect of the economy growing at the projected rate of 5%-5.5% from this year.
Moreover, Commissioner Solbes Mira has stated that a 3% economic growth rate in the eurozone countries is very high.
In the Commission's view, what impact could failure to achieve these targets have on employment and the balance of public finances in Greece?
According to the spring economic forecasts presented by the Commission, Greece' s GDP will grow by 4.4% in 2001 and inflation as measured by the decrease in private consumption will slow down slightly to 2.8% of the annual average, compared to 3% in 2000.
Given this context, public administrations' accounts will balance out in 2001, the labour market situation will improve and the unemployment rate will fall for the second consecutive year, reaching 10.3% in 2001.
With regard to real production growth, the Commission' s estimate is slightly lower than that given by the Greek authorities at the end of 2000 and is reflected in the stability programme drawn up in spring 2001.
The Commission forecasts take account of shrinking world demand in the first few months of the year and therefore differ from those given by the Greek authorities.
Nevertheless, contrary to what might appear to be the case, the macroeconomic forecasts of the Commission' s stability programme are worse than the Greek forecasts.
For the moment, there are no grounds to believe that the medium-term prospects for the stability programme are any less valid.
We, as the Commission, will soon be initiating work on the autumn forecasts and for the moment do not envisage making significant changes in the case of Greece.
According to recent announcements by the Greek authorities, given the new, less favourable, international climate, the national forecasts will be adjusted more towards the Commission' s spring forecasts.
In any event, in the 2001 update of the stability programme, which is due to be presented by the end of the year, the Greek authorities will undertake the necessary adjustment of their medium-term macroeconomic outlook and an assessment of the impact of this on public finances.
To summarise very briefly, the economic situation is not particularly favourable, but since this assessment still falls within the levels forecast in the stability programme and in its 2001 update, we do not feel that the problems are as serious as some speakers are suggesting.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I should just like to correct your last finding: I do not foresee any deterioration in the situation and, may I say, nor do I wish for one.
I am just a little concerned by what I see.
You say that the programme will be updated at the end of the year.
But Greece's entire economic policy is already being drawn up on the basis of the assumption that there will be a large budgetary surplus rather than equilibrium, as you said, and that unemployment will fall. At the same time, there are absolutely no data concerning Greece in all the statistics on the Union.
You have no official data.
At least those of us who read the statistics do not.
If you have some other statistics, then maybe things are different.
This was the thrust of my question.
And my question does not refer just to Greece; it refers to all the countries of the European Union, which is why I should like you to tell me more about public finances and changes in unemployment.
I think this updating exercise should already have begun.
I shall endeavour to reply to this second point.
As I was saying just now - and Greece' s case applies to the other Member States too - the stability pacts are based on figures provided by the countries themselves.
It is true that the Commission' s estimates in some cases give higher or lower figures than those given in the stability pact, but leaving aside the figures given in the stability pacts, which are, nevertheless crucial to understanding developments in public finances, we can already state that our estimates for a growth of 2.8% today represent an excessively optimistic position. We also feel that our actual growth percentages will be much closer to the Union' s growth potential, which stands at around 2.5%.
Nevertheless, even with this growth rate of close to 2.5% - a little above or a little below - we feel that employment will continue to be created in the Union and, for the time being, we have not yet seen any significant fall in employment growth or an increase in unemployment.
Unemployment continues to fall.
For the moment, therefore, we continue to be relatively optimistic about developments in this field.
With regard to the issue of public finances, it is true that the less favourable economic climate might have some impact.
With this eventuality in mind, the Commission has already stated its position on public finances to the Council, indicating that, in our opinion, we should allow the automatic stabilisers to play their full role in those countries that have achieved a more or less balanced position in terms of public finance and in other countries that have a national debt of around 60%.
In this situation, the countries in which the automatic stabilisers should not be allowed to play their full role should be the four countries with deficits of more than 1% and the three that have a debt of close to 100%.
Italy is included in both groups.
The remaining countries are Germany, France and Portugal where deficit is concerned and Greece and Belgium in the case of national debt.
Question No 34 by (H-0578/01):
Subject: The euro in the former Yugoslavia To what extent is the Commission involved in the introduction of the euro in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro, where the currency is at present the German mark, and what is its view of this development?
Mr President, I will try to respond to Mr Posselt with a degree of detail.
Firstly, I would point out to him that the Commission is not responsible for the introduction of notes and coins.
As he knows, notes are the responsibility of the Central Bank and the system of central banks and, in the case of coins, it is the national authorities who are responsible.
However, with regard to the changeover process, we must distinguish between activities within the eurozone and those outside it.
Within the eurozone, it is the central banks and the mints, or the Finance Ministries, who have decided on the changeover plans.
Outside the eurozone, it is considered basically as a commercial activity and it is left to the whim of the market.
That means that the national banks are not, therefore, involved in the logistics and channels for distributing the new coins or recovering the old coins, and they must maintain the systems they have traditionally used for this type of operation.
Nevertheless, it is true that there is concern within the European Central Bank and in some national banks, in particular the German Central Bank, as a result of the enormous number of German Marks in existence outside the eurozone, that action should be taken to support the changeover situation in the countries outside the zone.
In this respect, on 14 December 2000, the European Central Bank took the decision to allow frontloading or the pre-supply of euros to those financial institutions which are branches or subsidiaries of European banks in the countries outside the eurozone.
Clearly, if the Central Bank is working on the possibility of pre-supply, the first step has been taken for this type of financial body to be able to move ahead with the process following the change of currency.
In the former Yugoslavia there are three different cases: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro.
In the case of Bosnia-Herzegovina, we are talking about a currency board with a national currency linked to the Mark with an exchange rate of 1 to 1.
However, it is the case that that currency belongs to Bosnia-Herzegovina and will not undergo any change in itself.
It will no longer have a relationship with the Mark, but a set relationship with the euro and will be approximately half of the euro, which is the same as the Mark-euro relationship.
With regard to Kosovo, there is a significant level of possession of physical currency.
It is an economy where the currency circulation is based on notes which are not normally from the area and which, in particular, are not from the Mark zone.
The Yugoslavian Dinar is still legal tender, but it is also the case that the Mark is in circulation and it was recognised as a currency which can operate and the circulation of the euro will clearly not change that situation.
There is a specific problem of how to change these Marks which are circulating into euro notes and coins.
According to my information, the German Central Bank, which, at the time, became aware of this situation, is thinking about which solution to adopt for this type of situation.
The problem of Montenegro is similar.
In November 1999, it decided to unilaterally establish a double currency system between the Mark and a parallel currency; on 1 December, the Government of Montenegro declared the Mark to be the only legal currency in the territory of the republic and, as in Kosovo, the Commission has no powers to act and, in our opinion, it will also fall to the Federal Republic of Germany' s Central Bank to take the relevant decisions in order to carry out operations other than frontloading operations which, as I said before, will be carried out using branches and subsidiaries of the European banks which work in that area.
Commissioner, thank you very much for your very helpful and detailed reply.
I would just like to ask a supplementary question.
Just today there have been major reports in the German press according to which the accession countries are planning to circumvent the euro criteria by introducing the euro unilaterally, as it were.
On the strength of what you have said, this seems somewhat unlikely to me, but I would nevertheless like to ask you if this is a concern and whether the Commission is dealing with this issue in the accession countries.
Mr President, this issue has been widely debated and the position is clear for both the Central Bank and the Commission and Council: to participate in the euro means to fulfil the conditions of the Treaty of Maastricht.
That basically means maintaining a period of exchange rate stability for two years, approximately, not from any old moment but logically from the moment they are members of the European Union and, in accordance with the interpretation of the Council of Ministers, they must be part of the exchange rate mechanism for a period of two years.
Some countries have raised the difficulties caused by reversing stable exchange rate systems such as they have at the moment (this is the case with Estonia, with its currency board linked to the Mark) and that it would mean returning to a system of greater flexibility and of currency flotation in order to retrieve a situation of stable exchange rates.
For that reason, the official interpretation and application is that the situation of the countries which have a currency board, if they are linked to European currencies, is compatible with the exchange rate mechanism, although these decisions are clearly adopted unilaterally by the countries involved.
To put it another way, the responsibility to maintain stability of the exchange rate falls to the national authorities and they will not receive any type of privileged treatment, apart from that resulting from their presence in the exchange rate mechanism.
This is the situation which has been maintained and clearly, sensu contrario, the interpretation must be that neither the Central Bank nor the Council nor, of course, we in the Commission, are in favour of 'euroisation' processes which in some cases have been suggested and which, in our view, in no event should allow entry to the euro through the back door or allow countries which do not fulfil the conditions set for all Member States of the European Union to benefit from the advantages of being in the euro legally.
Mr Commissioner, you have primarily concentrated on the logistical and technical aspects, and you have only just begun to touch on the monetary risks that could ensue from what you call the gigantic holdings by foreigners of German marks but also presumably of other euro zone currencies.
If these holders begin to get concerned about how they are going to exchange these holdings, or about what the euro is going to be, is there a risk of them moving into the dollar or other currencies and thereby destabilising the euro even more than it has been?
When there are people who possess significant quantities of notes, above all within the eurozone, and of national currencies outside the eurozone, two types of situation arise: normal saving by these people and the quest for protection in the face of their exchange rate situation.
In both cases it is perfectly justified to possess these holdings.
And there is no problem in changing these holdings into the new euro, via their commercial banks, via the European banks which have branches or subsidiaries in the area.
Certain different cases are raised: the possible existence of European currency on unofficial or black-market networks.
There must clearly not be any favourable treatment for this type of situation.
The same rules must be applied as for exchange in the European Union, that is, in those cases where somebody is identified as the holder of a quantity of a currency, the exchange takes place without any type of risk, even for quantities greater than the minimum amounts laid down in the money laundering directive.
When quantities are exchanged which do not reach the limits of the directive on money laundering, the exchange may take place without requesting identification of the holder of the funds.
However, in my opinion, when the quantities are high and exceed those laid down, identification should be demanded.
You have raised a different problem.
Since this requirement is going to be maintained, is it not possible that some of these holdings will move to the dollar.
Firstly, we do not have that impression, given the figures for the inflow of notes into the different central banks; secondly, in the countries which have signed up to the obligations of the money laundering convention, the same criteria I have mentioned must be applied for exchanges from European currency to the dollar.
The situation you mention could only arise in certain countries which have more lax legislation, which today allow a European currency to be exchanged for another currency, the dollar or any other, without being subjected to those requirements.
Thank you very much, Mr Solbes, for your answers today.
I imagine that there will still be some Members waiting for you in the corridors to continue asking you to predict the future.
But I thank you for your intervention.
Questions to Mr Monti
Question No 35 by (H-0535/01):
Subject: Competition In 1996, a complaint was lodged with the Commission's Competition DG concerning abuse of a dominant position by the port of Helsingborg.
The complainants, two of three shipping companies which use the port, considered that excessive fees were charged because of this dominant position.
Pending a decision, one of the two companies has paid only half the amount of fees for using the port.
The port of Helsingborg, therefore, now has a claim of SEK 240 million (approximately EUR 26 million) on the company.
Almost five years since the complaint was lodged, the parties are still awaiting a decision from the Competition DG.
Notification has been promised several times but as yet nothing has been forthcoming.
The consequence of the delay is that two small companies do not know what financial parameters they have to work within.
Is it reasonable for parties to have to wait almost five years for the Commission to take a decision?
As Mr Stenmarck mentioned, two complaints were indeed lodged in 1997 alleging abuse of a dominant position by the port of Helsingborg.
The complaints have been under active investigation by the Commission since that time.
This case raises many complex factual and legal issues and the markets involved have potentially changed significantly in the light of the opening of the Øresund bridge in July 2000.
The Commission is fully aware of the situation of the parties.
A series of meetings has been held recently with the main parties concerned, partly to obtain their views on recent market developments and partly to establish whether they see any prospect of reaching a mutually acceptable settlement.
If there is no settlement, the Commission will continue its investigation with a view to completing this as soon as possible.
I first want to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
When, as in this case, the issue is a complaint submitted to the Commission in 1996, i.e. five years ago, there is really only one acceptable course of action, namely for the Commission immediately to decide on its position.
This has not been promised by the Commission, which is why I cannot say that I am satisfied with the reply.
It is an issue of fundamental significance that excessive fees have been charged by a port which, it has been alleged, has a dominant position.
I would like to emphasise that I have no view on whether this is right or wrong, but all parties are waiting for the Commission' s decision and all parties are very much dependent on the Commission' decision.
I think it is unreasonable for it to take over five years for the Commission to make a decision.
I would therefore put the question to the Commission: When is a final decision likely to be forthcoming?
Yes, it has been a long period.
I agree with you about that.
On the other hand, as I am sure you are aware, this case is very complex.
From a factual point of view, the Commission has to take into consideration the evolution of the port's activity over almost a ten-year period.
The market itself, which is at the core of any competition analysis, is very difficult to determine.
It depends on the type of traffic considered: foot passengers, cars, transportation of goods and so on.
In addition, as I mentioned a moment ago, the situation has changed greatly with the opening of the Øresund bridge last year.
In addition, to make things more complex, there is no direct precedent.
This explains why, as Mr Stenmarck underlines, this decision is eagerly awaited.
The Commission is in the process of analysing, in particular, the consequences of the opening of the bridge on the definition of the markets.
All parties concerned will be asked to contribute all relevant information.
The case is being given top priority and will be resolved as soon as possible.
But I cannot, at this stage, indicate a time or possible outcome.
That will depend on the facts.
I would like to reply to Mr Berenguer by making reference to a recent event. At the meeting of 20 June 2001, the Commission decided to set part of the procedure laid down in Article 88(2) of the EC Treaty in motion, with regard to aid allegedly granted by the public authorities to the theme park 'Tierra Mítica'.
This decision was the subject of a press release issued on the same day, 20 June.
The text of the decision, without the confidential information, will be published in Spanish in the Official Journal of the European Communities.
Commissioner, the truth is that I composed this question in May and when I learnt that the proceedings had been opened I considered withdrawing it, but, before I had done so, something happened which led me to change my mind.
That was a disproportionate attack against me by the President of the region, Mr Zaplana, for having put this question.
And that is not acceptable, Commissioner.
When, in the face of innocent questions which are simply intended to clear up issues which the government of the Generalitat were hiding, there is a violent reaction, that means that there is more to this than meets the eye and I therefore urge you, Commissioner, to have your services vigorously investigate, removed from the political pressure they are no doubt going to be placed under, what is behind this: tax benefits, the granting of guarantees or, what seems to me more serious, the creation of infrastructures financed with European funds to the exclusive benefit of a private company.
The truth is that the leaders of my Autonomous Community are such peculiar liberals that they propose that hospitals and schools should be private, while the public sector is busy building merry-go-rounds and amusement parks.
Thank you very much, Mr Berenguer.
I do not believe that you have asked a question, but Mr Monti can always reply to your 'non-question' .
I would like to answer the same question put by Mr Berenguer Fuster and say to him that, as in all instances involving proceedings, we are looking into this issue with a great deal of care and attention.
Perhaps I could now give Mr Berenguer Fuster some additional information, in other words the main issues on which the proceedings are based, which are the funding of infrastructures required for the park to operate, the value of shares, and, in particular, the grounds and the name 'Tierra Mítica' which has been transferred to the park' s private management company, the conditions of a shareholder loan of eight billion pesetas, the reduction in city tax by Benidorm city council to benefit the park and, lastly, the possible financial contribution of six billion pesetas by the tourism agency of Valencia - the subject of the written question by Mr Berenguer Fuster dated 11 April 2001.
I wanted these facts to be seen outside the context of the more political comments that Mr Berenguer Fuster made earlier.
Commissioner, with a view to achieving the greatest transparency and clarity in the opening of these proceedings, I would like you to tell us whether you have opened them simply as a result of these innocent questions - because they really were innocent questions seeking information - or whether there are really sufficient reasons, because it contravenes Community directives for a regional government to subsidise what it must not subsidise and in the least appropriate way.
If that is the case, I would like you to respond because, as Mr Berenguer told you earlier, there is information in the media which seems to give prominence to the person who is simply asking questions and to the genuinely guilty party, i.e. the Valencian government.
I would like to add that this complaint is insignificant compared to the original complaint submitted to the Commission.
In fact, the plaintiff has constantly made further complaints as the project for the theme park has progressed.
The Commission received 18 successive letters from the plaintiff in relation to the project.
This is a complicated issue, which has also given rise to a great deal of correspondence between the Commission and the Spanish authorities, which is one of the reasons for the amount of time which has passed since this matter first came to light.
In answer to Mr Berenguer Fuster, I mentioned why the Commission opened proceedings so as to provide Parliament with a more detailed framework.
Perhaps I should mention the other points, namely those in which the plaintiff alleges that the grounds where the park is built were purchased cheaply, that some of the park' s costs were met by the regional authorities, that the principle of the private investor was not respected, that loans were granted to benefit the park, that injections of capital have been given to the park and that funding for training and direct regional funding has been provided.
Commissioner, as the rapporteur some years ago of a report on the European Union' s competition policy, I know that public aid is one of the most complicated issues and that for years it has been distorting the application of competition policy within the Union.
Given the factors which the Commissioner has mentioned in relation to the issue raised by Mr Berenguer, I would like to know - if indeed it is the case that there has been an inappropriate application of public funds, in this case in the region of Valencia - what compensation mechanisms are in place to rebalance competitiveness between similar existing structures in other tourist areas.
In the question submitted by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, there is a slightly more general reference to the rationale of monitoring State funding.
In this case, one might well wonder why the Commission believes that the funding given to a theme park such as Tierra Mítica can affect intra-Community trade.
In fact, the Commission believes that large theme parks like Tierra Mítica are much like other tourist destinations, and this affects - or might potentially affect - tourist numbers.
On the other hand, these theme parks are an added tourist attraction for the area where they are built.
Moreover, the Commission has already adopted several decisions with regard to State funding for theme parks as well as other tourist investment projects such as hotels or marinas.
Lastly, in the present case, even the advertisement for the theme park explains how to find the location from abroad.
Without wanting to pre-empt the outcome of the proceedings that have recently been opened, I would stress, to give a more direct answer to your question, that if the Commission does discover that funding has been granted illegally it will set about recovering the money.
Now is not the time, however, to pre-empt the outcome of the inquiry in any way.
Question No 37 by (H-0551/01):
Subject: Limit on government subsidies for film production in small countries The Swedish press reports that the EU competition authority has proposed a 50 per cent limit on national state aid to the film industry.
This announcement has also been interpreted as the possible introduction of a ceiling as a first step towards reducing the limit to 30 per cent.
These reports have appeared at the same time as the Commission continues to avow its intention to guarantee linguistic and cultural diversity and equality within the EU.
Film production in Europe differs from that in the USA in regard to the large number of languages in the EU.
Against that background, producing films in the small Member States, such as my own country Sweden, without any support at all, is in many cases financially impossible.
A film in a minor language is obviously severely handicapped compared with a film in English, and it is therefore clear that some support is absolutely necessary to ensure that domestic film production can continue in those countries with smaller populations.
Does the Commission not consider that the introduction of an EU ceiling to limit national state aid to the film industry is directly contrary to Article 151 of the Treaties which states that 'The Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity...', and is the Commission therefore prepared to take action to prevent the introduction of such a limit?
Mr President, in the meeting held in Stockholm on 12 June 2001 with delegates from the national film institutes and the cultural departments of all the Member States, the Commission representatives made it clear that the Commission does not intend to take a restrictive approach to aid for film production granted on cultural grounds, as suggested in Mr Sacrédeus' question.
The 50% aid intensity limit was fixed by the Commission, in its decision of 1998 on the French scheme of automatic aid to film production, with reference to the French situation.
According to that decision this limit does not apply to difficult and low-budget films.
It is up to each Member State both to define the notion of "difficult" and "low-budget" films and to fix the aid intensity applicable to this category of work according to national criteria.
Furthermore, apart from this derogation for other Member States with a comparatively limited cultural and linguistic influence, the Commission has made it be known that it will study potential further derogations where they prove necessary to ensure the viability of films with great cultural content.
In practice, the 50% aid intensity criterion constitutes a benchmark that can be exceeded on genuine cultural grounds.
I would like to thank Commissioner Monti for his clarifying reply.
This issue has aroused great interest in cultural circles and among representatives of the film industry in Sweden.
As one man and one woman, people have reacted to the way this could possibly be interpreted with regard to linguistic and cultural diversity in small Member States.
I would like to put a follow-up question to the Commissioner: bearing in mind the answer given, is there any guarantee that film production in countries with languages which are not widespread, i.e. film production in minor Member languages, will regularly be exempted from the 50 per cent rule so that, in principle, all film production in, for example, Swedish, Danish or Portuguese could be counted as not exceeding the 50 per cent rule?
.
I am happy to provide further information in response to Mr Sacrédeus' question.
First, on cultural diversity - a key point in our Community - the diversity of characteristics in the schemes operated by Member States reflects the cultural diversity in the European Union.
Accordingly, the Commission does not wish to impose any particular model under the review.
The Commission does not want to harmonise the provisions of the different schemes but just to ensure their compliance with the four specific compatibility criteria that were set out in the French decision.
On the issue of whether the 50% aid intensity threshold applies to smaller Member States with limited cultural markets and could an exception be envisaged for them: Well, the answer is that the 50% aid intensity threshold applies in principle across the board to all Member States without distinction.
It is to be noted that in the absence of territorialisation, the 50% aid intensity criterion becomes irrelevant.
The Commission might consider applying exceptions to the 50% aid criterion if such a limit would make cultural production impossible.
The Commission has already established an exception for difficult low-budget films.
For certain smaller Member States, in the case of territorialisation, the Commission might consider authorising higher aid intensities on a case-by-case basis, if it is established that the 50% aid intensity level would not ensure cultural production because the cultural area and market diffusion were limited.
Question No 38 by (H-0557/01):
Subject: Sharing third-generation mobile phone networks with rivals The Commission is at the moment contemplating what position to take concerning the idea of sharing infrastructure in third-generation mobile phone networks.
At this stage, the Commission has stated that telecommunications companies might breach EC competition rules if they choose to share infrastructure with their rivals.
The European Investment Bank has also stated that it will take competition concerns over mobile phone networks into account when deciding whether to finance third-generation projects.
When will the Commission state its position on this very important matter? Is the Commission aware of the EIB's plans and does it think that competition concerns should be taken into account when making decisions on EIB funding?
Thank you, Ms Kauppi, for this extremely interesting and timely question.
It is true that currently, given the prevailing market conditions and, in particular, the decline in the market valuation of most technologies companies, network sharing has been seriously envisaged by certain third generation operators as a means to alleviate their debt burden and lower their network deployment costs.
The Commission has already indicated that, in principle, it considers network infrastructure sharing positively, due to the potential economic gains, always provided that competition rules and other relevant Community laws are respected, in particular those of the licensing directive.
This view has been expressed in the Commission communication on the introduction of third generation mobile communications in the European Union that was adopted on 20 March 2001.
Certain forms of networking infrastructure sharing, notably site and mast sharing, could greatly contribute to reducing the environmental impact of network deployment.
So far, the Commission has not been formally notified of any agreement between 3G operators, therefore, it is not yet clear how network sharing will take place and how it will be implemented.
Some operators may choose to engage in network infrastructure sharing within a limited geographical area, while others may opt for full geographical coverage.
In the same vein, some operators may choose to share only sites and masts, whereas others may choose also to share antennas and what I would call 'active elements' of their networks, such as radio network controllers.
From contacts with operators and manufacturers, it appears that the degree of cooperation among 3G license holders will be influenced by the availability of new technology which will enable operators to share even active elements of their networks, without having to exchange or share sensitive information among themselves or otherwise compromise their independence as competitors.
The Commission has already had some preliminary discussions with national regulators on the competition law issues raised by network-sharing.
At this stage, the Commission can only require parties to ensure that when they conclude network-sharing agreements, competition among themselves and with third parties is not restricted or affected.
Any restriction of competition could be tolerated only if it brought benefits to consumers and fulfilled all the other conditions set out in Article 81(3) of the Treaty.
In any event, the freedom of contracting parties to disengage from their network-sharing cooperation and deploy their own networks in areas where they previously shared infrastructure should be preserved.
Given that the Commission has not yet been formally notified of, or had occasion to examine, any case of network sharing, it is uncertain at this stage whether the Commission might need to issue, in the future, any kind of specific guidelines on the competition law aspects of network sharing.
Finally, as regards the EIB, the Commission is aware of the Bank's intention of taking account of competition considerations in assessing projects for loans.
The Commission clearly welcomes this intention as ensuring coherence between the Bank's objectives in rolling out projects in accordance with its mandate, particularly following the Lisbon European Council and Community policy in a liberalised environment.
Mr President, it is always good to put the final question at question time.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his excellent answer. I was very pleased that the Commission takes a positive view of network sharing.
At the moment the different ways in which this can be achieved are still open.
I also understand your view that the competition rules must, of course, be respected and that these concrete assessments will only be able to be made once you have applications and notifications on this issue in your hands.
You also referred to the Commission possibly providing specific guidelines on this issue, should the need arise.
Furthermore, I would like you to confirm that, in your opinion, at the moment all the possible methods of network sharing - both geographical and the other methods to which you referred - are also open from a competition point of view.
Is this your final opinion?
As you underlined yourself, Ms Kauppi, the Commission has an open attitude on this issue, provided that the competition rules are respected.
As to the aspect of possible adoption of possible guidelines from the competition angle on network sharing, as I said in my previous response, the Commission has not yet received any notification of a network sharing agreement.
Thus it is still too early to have a clear idea about possible anti-trust issues which may arise from such forms of cooperation among competing network operators and which may require the Commission to publish some sort of guidelines in order to provide further needed clarification for the industry concerned.
What needs to be made clear is that network sharing is subject to the same rules of competition law as other forms of cooperation or collaboration among competitors.
It would be wrong if operators believed that network sharing deserves different treatment under competition law provisions.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 39 to 77 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.20 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Institutions for occupational retirement provision
The next item is the continuation of the report (A5-0220/2001) by Mr Karas on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the activities of institutions for occupational retirement provision [COM(2000) 507 - C5-0596/2000 - 2000/0260(COD)].
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the parties involved, and especially our rapporteur, for the constructive approach he has taken.
Mr Karas has done a remarkable job with this proposal for a directive.
The sustainability of pensions will be one of the biggest challenges which our societies will have to face in the coming decades.
Occupational retirement provisions will play an important role in this connection in many Member States.
The question of whether the coverage of biometric risks should be made mandatory has been one of the biggest issues for Parliament.
I will concentrate on that issue.
I should like to point out a few reasons why the coverage of biometric risks or guarantees should be kept optional.
Firstly, beneficiaries in many Member States already have cover for these risks via separate insurance products.
Citizens should not be forced to pay twice for cover they do not need.
Secondly, biometric risk cover is expensive and this expense is passed on to the beneficiaries.
Mandatory biometric risk cover will cost each citizen, at a conservative estimate, around 1-3% of annual returns per year.
Compounded over a 40-year savings period this could significantly reduce overall scheme returns.
Thirdly, mandatory biometric risk cover will also damage the level playing field by providing an advantage to insurance providers.
The European citizen will benefit if he or she can choose from a wide variety of providers.
Fourthly, I fully agree with some of the previous speakers.
If we want to promote the second pillar we need to get employers excited about the new rules.
If the rules are too restrictive and costly to the company they will probably have no voluntary supplementary scheme at all.
Finally, I say to Mr Kuckelkorn that we cannot secure something which does not exist.
The worst case scenario for beneficiaries is that there are no flourishing second pillar pensions at all.
Security can only come after that.
Mr President, Mr Karas, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank you, Mr Karas, very sincerely for your work, and in particular for essentially making bricks without straw.
In the world of politics, we sometimes find ourselves dealing with "deceptive packaging".
There is nothing new about that.
In the field of consumer protection, the term "deceptive packaging" is used when the content is not what it says on the label.
The Council - sometimes working in conjunction with the Commission - has recently adopted the image of a product counterfeiter.
I am quite deliberately saying product counterfeiter, rather than refer to a peddler of phoney products, which sounds very harsh.
It is a similar story with the product assessment of occupational retirement provision systems, the second pillar of the pension system.
They are trying to make the public believe that they are talking about a supplementary pension system, without having to meet the necessary quality criteria including the pension requirements that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs regards as necessary, for example, guaranteed payment of retirement provision until the end of the insured person's life, the payment of benefits to surviving dependants or the covering of risks in the case of disability.
In addition to these quality requirements, financial risk and collective agreements between the social partners, which thus give those insured a voice, at present also have a fairly significant part to play.
An additional factor that still militates against the freedom of movement of employees, and above all against their mobility, is the rather uncoordinated tax policy of the European Union in this context.
Particularly in the case of occupational pension schemes, employees who take advantage of the freedom of movement of persons within the EU and make the European ideal a reality by switching jobs to other Member States can lose out because of differences in taxation, including double taxation.
Unfortunately, the key features of a comprehensive second pillar in the pension system have scarcely been taken into account here.
That is why the proposal for a directive before us should not be labelled "supplementary pension system - second pillar", but should rather be seen for what it really is, namely a financial services product which only covers one small part of the full range of the second pillar.
I say that because there is one thing we should not overlook in this context.
Of all the measures relating to pension security, benefits and quality for the end consumer are a priority, whether we are talking about traditional state or adjustable contribution systems or about additional or supplementary pensions systems provided via the capital market.
The Council seems to have forgotten about this in this particular context, even if we have to admit that the capital growth resulting from this product is generally to be welcomed.
The fact that despite this there have been qualitative improvements in some areas of the proposal is no doubt something we owe to the rapporteur, who has tackled all the key issues very prudently.
However, there is one thing we should be clear about, and that is that state pension systems can only be supplemented by good occupational pension systems or private pension funds and schemes, otherwise with increasing life expectancy we could sacrifice social symmetry.
It is not difficult to imagine what that could mean.
With these comments, I recommend that if the voting goes as promised earlier you should vote in favour.
Mr President, I, for one, am quite disappointed both with the Commission' s proposal and Mr Karas' report, as I believe they concentrate wholly on the needs of the financial markets and ignore those of employees and future pensioners.
I would particularly like to focus on two aspects which I think are missing.
With regard to pensions, it is the issue of security which is crucial to people.
There should at least be a value guarantee whereby the contributed capital can be paid out even if it does not grow or increase.
For example, what happens if these pension funds become insolvent or bankrupt or cannot fulfil their commitments? The report does not contain a single word about this.
It is almost even stranger that another important aspect is missing.
When we started discussing supplementary pensions, it was said that this was an important EU issue, as we have a common labour market and expect workers to move between the various European labour markets.
In that case, they will face many problems with regard to pensions.
It is currently very difficult to accrue pension rights earned consecutively in different countries.
How should this be done? No answer is given to this question.
In many countries, long qualification periods are applied.
How will this be handled in a mobile labour market? Many countries have regulations involving double taxation.
How will this be solved? There are a number of such questions.
I therefore think that we need a completely new proposal from the Commission which takes as its starting point the needs of employees and pensioners rather than simply dealing with the needs of the financial market.
Mr President, today, we are, in fact, disregarding the three countries that have already realised their pension systems, to address the Member States with predominantly pay-as-you-go systems.
Out of anxiety about this Directive, France has even, in great haste, included a few small pension funds in the first pillar.
In the corridors, it appears that Member States know very well that their pensions are not sustainable.
But with the elections just around the corner, the P-word has become taboo.
However, their citizens have known for a long time what the score is.
The UK, the Netherlands and Ireland consider the events that are unfolding in countries such as Germany, France and Italy with suspicion.
According to the Treaty, we do not carry each other' s debts.
A naïve thought.
If three major Member States, due to huge budget shortages, lay claim to the lion' s share of the capital market, the interest rate will increase accordingly in the three Member States that have provided for old age, simply on the basis of the law of scarcity.
Inflation will rise, our carefully saved pensions will melt away quickly, and in so far as they are welfare- and inflation-proof, they will get us into major difficulty.
Government leaders have put pensions on their agendas.
Member States have followed suit and monitored each other.
That is anything but sufficient.
We must be far more critical of Member States which do not make sufficient provision within their national debts and budgets for dealing with demographic problems.
Those problems will not only affect pensions, but will also dominate labour markets and the health and building sectors.
Commissioner, I should like to ask you how long it will be before the generation of Europeans that work where work exists can have portable pensions?
It is precisely those people that we need in order to moderate wages in the euro zone and maintain our export position accordingly.
We must not penalise but reward these people for their mobility.
Help has now been given to financial markets. All that remains is to help the people.
What are your plans in that connection?
Mr President, this morning Mr Karas said that there will be a large majority in favour.
I will not be part of that majority.
I believe that the Commission's proposal and also the report imply a continuation of the fundamental change in European retirement provision systems and also in social security in general. By that I mean a move away from legal systems based on solidarity and towards private capital-based systems.
My criticisms relate above all to two issues.
The first is this: are occupational pension schemes in the EU to be subject to Community-wide competition? I have certainly learnt a great deal over the last ten years about competition and what it can achieve, but no one can convince me that an issue as fundamental as social security provision in old age should be subject to competition.
There are three specific problems here.
The first is that there are no binding rules governing the security of contributions paid in. Secondly, I believe that the supervisory arrangements are inadequate, and, thirdly, there is the fact that in your report, Mr Karas, there is the additional option of an occupational pension being paid out by way of a lump sum.
That implies enormous risks in old age.
The second major problem is this one-sided orientation towards financial markets.
Everything that can be said has already been said about that.
As I see it, this has more to do with the present and future of Europe's capital markets than it has with the future of pensions.
The scope for maintaining and updating legal pensions systems based on solidarity has not been used to the full in any Member State of the European Union.
However, what we really need is European coordination of occupational pension systems, as is already the case with legal pension insurance systems.
That problem has not been solved here.
Thank you very much, Mr Karas, for your intelligent work, which has a very clear objective: to ensure that this proposal for a directive will see the light as soon as possible.
To this end, and with a view to removing any obstacles which could be raised by the Council, I have presented two amendments to resolve a problem, a Spanish problem, but one which also affects other nationalities.
I will put it in Aristotelian terms.
Major premise: in Spain there are funds without legal personality, established for the payment of retirement benefits.
Minor premise: these funds are administrated by certain entities which do have legal personality.
Conclusion: these entities must be subject to the same conditions and requirements as bodies which play identical roles in other countries and which do have legal personality.
Mr Karas and I have prepared amendments which he will lay out tomorrow orally, which I hope will solve this problem.
The second issue I would like to refer to has been mentioned by some speakers; it relates to the fiscal problems raised by these funds.
The proposal for a directive does not say a word about it, because that is not its purpose.
There is a Commission communication of 19 April which deals with the problems caused by fiscal obstacles for crossborder pensions.
The most important of these problems, which is in third place chronologically, relates to situations of double taxation or non-taxation when there are differences in the tax systems, as is the case within the European Union.
The solution, according to the communication itself, is the harmonisation of rules on pensions; nevertheless, this committee desists from this audacious route and prefers to use the current rules, which - in my judgment - will be insufficient.
I know that the Commissioner will ask me to approach the States, but I only have a voice in this Parliament and only he can be my interlocutor.
This report puts forward prejudices that are nothing other than stupid but which, in addition, are used as a justification for reducing pensions and increasing the length of one' s working life.
To use arguments related to demography and what the report refers to as the 'constantly increasing life expectancy in conjunction with low birth rates' equates to deceit if the considerable increase in the profitability of work is also concealed.
Given that every worker is increasing their level of productivity, the same number of working people produces more than enough to improve their own standard of living and to guarantee a comfortable pension for three or four times as many pensioners as was possible 25 years ago.
If this increase in production capacity were not entirely channeled into profits for the privileged few, society might be able to ensure that all pensioners were paid a full salary, without having to force them to work longer.
Your economy turns everything into goods, including the pensioners that you wish to hand over to the finance sharks but, in the same way, it is the working class pensioners who are worn out from working that you are turning into goods, and this is appalling.
The inability to ensure that old people live a retirement that is free from material concerns is one of the most striking examples of a self-indulgent society.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive dealt with in this report seeks, as we know, to harmonise conditions for the provision of services by professional pension management institutions and their investment rules but, in a broader sense, seeks to create a single market for supplementary pensions, placing it in the context of actions of financial services towards the greater liberalisation of the movement of capital.
Consequently, we disagree not only with the proposal for a directive but also with the report itself, which seeks to reduce to a minimum the prudential rules liberalising the procedures and the investments of funds in more volatile financial instruments, thereby supporting risk capital, which, in the current climate of financial speculation, is a serious risk for workers' rights.
This situation is particularly serious for Portugal because it could undermine the Portuguese prudential rules, specifically the mandatory investment of 50% of professional pension funds in public stocks, as well as putting unacceptable pressure on the capitalisation funds of the public social security system.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I always greatly admire the attention you pay to detail when you are informing Parliament why the Commission cannot accept certain things.
The debate is closed.
The debate will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Solvency margin for insurance undertakings
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports:
A5-0211/2001 by Mr Ettl, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 79/267/EEC as regards the solvency margin requirements for life assurance undertakings [COM(2000) 617 - C5-0557/2000 - 2000/0249(COD)];
A5-0212/2001 by Mr Ettl, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 73/239/EEC as regards the solvency margin requirements for non-life insurance undertakings [COM(2000) 634 - C5-0558/2000 - 2000/0251(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, the Commission has presented two proposals for directives with a view to changing the legislation governing life and non-life insurance companies.
I would like to comment on both proposals at the same time, as the two have a great deal in common.
By means of these two proposals, which are part of the Action Plan for Financial Services adopted in Lisbon and to be implemented by 2005, the existing legislation on non-life insurance dating from 1973 and on life assurance dating from 1979 are to be strengthened and improved.
The solvency margin is the additional capital reserve that insurance companies have to create as a buffer against unforeseen events.
The general aim of the proposals is to provide improved protection for policyholders by increasing the capital resources of insurance companies and by ensuring more efficient state supervision of insurance companies.
Higher solvency margins or risk buffers not only increase confidence in the performance of insurance companies, they also generally reduce system-related risks on the financial markets.
Efficient, viable insurance companies do much to enable the opportunities of the single market to be perfected and exploited to the full.
These directives establish a basic framework of binding stipulations and checks and allow national legislators to adopt provisions going beyond that degree of regulation.
This approach is understandable, bearing in mind subsidiarity and the considerable cultural differences reflected in the laws governing supervision in the Member States, and from a consumer policy standpoint is to be welcomed.
One point especially worthy of note is that national insurance supervisory authorities will be empowered to intervene as soon as danger looms, even if this is not a classic early warning system. The same preventive supervision is likewise set out in "Basel II".
This document was put forward by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision of the Bank for International Settlements.
The Commission proposals relating to smaller mutual associations should be endorsed.
Although the upper limit for exemption from these directives, expressed in terms of annual contribution income in the last three years, is to be raised from the present EUR 500 000 to EUR 5 million, the provisions will not result in these associations being forced out of the market.
These mutual associations in many cases operate purely at local or regional level, and they will be able to continue these activities.
However, if these associations require a pan-European concession to become active at international level, it will be sufficient to send a simple communication to the national supervisory authority to the effect that they are willing to subject themselves to the provisions of the solvency directive on a voluntary basis.
This will absolutely guarantee that these associations are able to survive, and it will be for individual associations to extend their area of business or otherwise.
Both proposals for directives are to some extent interim measures chiefly involving changes of a technical nature.
The Commission will be submitting a further "Solvency II" package in which it will revise overall regulation of this sector in the longer term.
Things will no doubt hot up then!
The "Solvency I" package before us today should therefore be endorsed, particularly as this is in the interest of the public and of policyholders.
The sooner we can implement these interim measures the better.
For that reason I have endeavoured as rapporteur to give a high profile to informal explanations of the views of the Council and of the Commission under the fast-track procedure, and to work towards a compromise between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
The reports before us therefore already reflect the common position so that it would be possible to adopt both directives at first reading.
I hope that will be possible - it depends on your steadfastness and your capacity for raising objections, Commissioner.
Permit me to make one final observation on the procedure itself.
This particularly applies to fast-track codecision procedures.
This procedure requires flexibility, something that has largely been absent, chiefly at Council level. This is not the first time I have had to say that.
Codecision means more than just one side having to be flexible.
This criticism applies not only to the Council, but also to you, Commissioner, although somewhat less so in this case, and somewhat more in the previous one.
This kind of attitude towards codecision in this sector can only impair the deepening of the European Union or integration.
We also need to reflect upon the ability of our decision-making processes to function properly. Certainly we need to do some thinking in the wake of the Irish referendum.
With those concluding remarks, I urge you to vote for both reports.
Mr President, I speak in two capacities, first on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Their rapporteur, Mr Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya, unfortunately cannot be with us this evening.
The Legal Affairs Committee approved the proposal and had no comment to make on it.
Secondly, speaking on behalf of my Group about Mr Ettl's report, I would like to congratulate him on the work he has done.
He has done a good job and clearly worked very hard on this.
As Mr Ettl has said, these are largely technical updates, but still important.
We have not had a revision of these directives for nearly 20 years, so we are engaging in a bit of a fine-tuning exercise to modernise and update them.
Like Mr Ettl, I will address the two simultaneously as they raise similar issues.
I welcome these proposals as part of the wider financial services action plan which is so important for the future of the economy of the European Union Member States and could potentially deliver such great benefits to ordinary people across the European Union.
There will be increased competition, increased consumer choice and lower prices in financial products which the financial services action plan can deliver, if we manage to get it right.
Like most of that action plan, and based on ordinary single market principles, these directives too are based on the single passport system to enable insurance companies to sell across Europe, so long as they comply with their own home regulations.
That is a principle which is, and should remain, at the heart of the legislation we adopt in this area.
I welcome this effort to update solvency margin requirements: the rules relating to the capital buffer that insurance companies are required to hold against unforeseen contingencies, particularly high claims and poor investment performance.
What we are doing here is essentially a warm-up for Solvency II.
The more wide-ranging reform in this area will come with Solvency II.
Nonetheless we need to ensure that we get the minor amendments properly sorted out before embarking on the more wide-ranging reform which we will see in the Solvency II regulation.
Particularly welcome are the efforts to match regulatory capital more closely with risk profile.
This is a principle we have also seen operating in the proposals on capital adequacy and solvency margins in relation to bank and investment companies.
The same arguments can equally well apply here in that we are encouraging prudent risk management and rewarding those that manage and reduce risk.
I am pleased to see a reference to the use of external ratings removed - it was initially proposed by the rapporteur.
We do not necessarily want to rule this out forever, but it is premature to introduce it in this context.
It is something we should consider in relation to Solvency II, but it needs more thought and discussion before we can introduce external ratings in this context.
I am pleased also that a sensible compromise was reached on early intervention powers, which could be a useful addition to the armoury of the regulators in securing proper prudential supervision.
The similar compromise on future profits was also very sensible.
We are going to see the use of future profits phased out over an eight- or nine-year period, which will give the industry time to adapt to the new conditions.
It is important overall to make the general point that in these proposals, as well as all others we deal with on industrial and financial services, we should make every effort to ensure that they are not overly bureaucratic and that the framework is as easy as possible for firms, both large and small, to operate in.
That is the only way we will get healthy competition.
Finally, I should like to comment on the timing.
It is clear that there is general agreement that we should get on with these reforms as quickly as possible.
Mr Ettl did a very good job in coordinating with the other two institutions.
Like him, I very much hope that we can sort this out at first reading.
It seems to me that we may have been doing some of the Council's homework for it, and tidying up some of those aspects which will contribute to a sensible regulatory framework.
I thank Mr Ettl for the work he has done on this.
Mr President, it is a real pleasure for me to respond to Parliament on behalf of the Commission.
I should like to congratulate both the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Legal Affairs on their rapid and thorough analysis of the Commission's proposals to amend the solvency margin rules for life and non-life insurance undertakings.
The solvency margin is perhaps a somewhat more complicated - a technical, even dry - subject, but it is of very practical and real importance.
It is to protect insurance policy holders by requiring insurance companies to hold extra regulatory capital to act as a buffer against unfortunate circumstances.
The Commission's proposals are to strengthen and update existing rules which, as has been mentioned tonight, have been in force for almost 25 years.
I am pleased to note that the amendments before Parliament are entirely in line with the thrust of the Commission's proposals.
While many are of a technical nature, some represent very practical measures which will provide clarity and improve transparency, such as the requirement for competent national authorities to establish guidelines that govern the acceptance of supplementary contributions by the members of a non-life mutual.
The same goes for the requirement for the Commission's report to examine how national supervisory authorities have made use of their enhanced powers of supervision.
Those amendments are very useful improvements to the original Commission proposal.
In this regard I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Ettl, and the shadow rapporteur, Mrs Villiers, for their efforts and contributions to the preparations of the two reports.
I am happy to be able to inform Parliament that all Parliament's proposed amendments are acceptable to the Commission.
Whilst it is always hazardous to count one's chickens before they are hatched, I understand that there is a shared political consensus to seek adoption of these proposals within a single reading.
It is my own personal hope that their efforts will be rewarded and that this proposed legislation will indeed be adopted with a single reading.
It is fair to say that this report has been a good example of successful cooperation between our two institutions.
The Commission has an ambitious financial services programme which can bring many real and tangible benefits to our citizens and to industry.
It is my hope that the excellent cooperation which we have enjoyed on this report may be carried forward, not just for the wider Commission review of the overall financial position of an insurance undertaking, called Solvency II, but also for the whole financial services action plan.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Electricity from renewable energy sources
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0227/2001) by Mrs Rothe, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market [5583/1/2001 - C5-0133/2001 - 2000/0116(COD)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, renewable energies are not a panacea for reducing emissions of CO2 nor for resolving the energy dependency of third countries, but they can increasingly contribute to alleviating these problems, as long as they become competitive.
I would therefore firstly like to congratulate the Commission on this report, as well as the Council, in particular the Swedish presidency, and the rapporteur, Mrs Rothe, on the effort they have made to find the necessary common ground so that in the end this directive can see the light and, furthermore, that it may do so in a way which is reasonably satisfactory for the majority, although it is true that not all the ambitious objectives which Parliament intended on first reading have been taken up.
This directive for the promotion of renewable energy is a bet on our future and an investment in the environment.
That is why it is important to offer a legal framework to those who have already taken that gamble and are investing in this respect.
Specifically, it is very important to negotiate sufficient transitional periods for current aid to maintain investor confidence.
It is important to give priority to electricity from renewable energy sources in terms of access to the electricity network and that they are not discriminated against in the imposition of transport or distribution tariffs, especially in the peripheral regions.
In order to justify the need for this directive, we must bear in mind, on the one hand, the differing degree of competitiveness still existing between renewable energy sources and conventional sources and, on the other, the external costs obviated by this type of technology.
I therefore believe that we must welcome them and, like Mrs Rothe, I would also like to ask this House to approve the compromise amendments which have been reached after so much effort.
Mr President, I extend my heartiest congratulations to Mrs Rothe for her exemplary work with colleagues in Parliament as well as with the Council and the Commission.
She and Mrs Ayuso González have both expressed certain disappointment at the result, but I would say to Mrs Rothe that she should feel relief that what looked possible at one time has not come about.
She has made considerable progress.
It is eminently sensible to promote renewable energy because it enables us to fulfil our environmental objectives, creates jobs and ensures security of supply.
The items enumerated by Mrs Rothe are targets, not yet mandatory.
But I am pleased that we have the fall-back position should Member States fail in their duty.
There is a definition which excludes the use of municipal waste, gives permission for successful support mechanisms to continue and thereby boosts investor confidence.
My own country, the United Kingdom - the windiest country in Europe - has some lessons to learn from work in other countries.
We need other measures as well as this directive.
I know the Commissioner would agree on the need for a framework for energy support.
We need research and development in the Sixth Framework Programme.
We need to look at the single market to ensure that it does not contradict the aims of this directive and we need to make sure that renewables take their full place when we consider the Security of Supply Green Paper.
Congratulations again to Mrs Rothe.
I very much look forward to a positive result tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to thank Mrs Rothe for the sterling work she has done and by means of which she has laid the keystone for the first component: legislation in the field of renewable energy sources.
Where should we focus our attention? First of all, upon the target figure of 12%, to be obtained by 2010.
It is, of course, very tempting to underline that it would have had a greater impact if it had been a binding target percentage, rather than an indicative target figure, as it is now.
I personally am in favour of imposing binding target figures, as long as the prescribed target figures are realistic and obtainable.
Also taking into consideration the many unknown factors in the development of renewable energy, it appears to me particularly sensible to determine indicative target figures on the one hand, but at the same time to give the Commission some scope to submit proposals containing binding target figures to the Council and Parliament if it were to transpire that results were inadequate.
The second area of attention concerns the clear delineation of waste originating from separate waste collection and waste originating from combined waste collection.
Needless to say, I can only consider the incineration of separate waste and, more specifically, the biologically degradable component of industrial and household waste, as a renewable energy source.
Opponents wrongly claim that the incineration of household waste would curb the use of so-called real renewables, such as wind and solar energy, increase CO2 emissions and undermine recycling policy and restrictions on waste production.
It is therefore proof of sound judgment that, in its definition of what are, and are not, to be regarded as renewable energy sources, the common position leaves room for different types of renewable energy sources and, more specifically, for the incineration of separate waste.
I can fully identify with this position.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate three ladies this evening.
First of all, I congratulate Mrs Rothe, who successfully negotiated on behalf of all Members of Parliament.
Next, Mrs Zackari, who ensured there was flexibility during the Swedish presidency and who, in fact, steered the Council towards a compromise that was acceptable to Parliament, and finally, Mrs De Palacio, who represented all those in the Commission who fully support the cause of renewable energy sources, without whom Parliament would not have been able to reach the compromises made with the Council.
Tomorrow, we will take an historic step towards renewable energy sources in Europe, which will provide 22% of electricity in 2010.
This is a large proportion.
I am very optimistic, even though I am aware that the first steps taken towards a new technology are always the most difficult.
This is because, on the one hand, production costs have yet to be optimised, but the costs will fall as soon as mass production is reached.
There is another aspect that we are very familiar with, as politicians - relations involving power.
The lobbies change sides once the technologies assume a greater economic significance in our societies, and the example of Germany is a wonderful illustration of this.
The unions in Germany, which were against renewable energy sources and in favour of nuclear energy some five years ago, have changed sides because there are now more supporters for renewable energy sources than for nuclear energy.
I believe that this directive has also ensured that our industries are world leaders in areas that still have greater potential than we ourselves do in terms of renewable energy sources.
Think of countries such as Brazil or India where we will gain market share.
I would also like to announce that I am going to nominate certain members of certain governments for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry and in Physics.
When they manage to prove scientifically how a tonne of tomatoes burns all by itself, thereby producing renewable energy, I feel that they certainly will deserve the Nobel Prize.
If I understand matters scientific correctly, you need plastic to burn tomatoes.
In order to avoid these sorts of exceptions, I feel that the Commission has a large part to play in preventing public funds being spent on incineration.
Public funds must be used to develop the right technologies, particularly methanisation.
Mr President, the most important renewable energy source is hydroelectric power.
Without it the part played by renewable energy sources in the energy production of EU Member States would be very low, although the important role played by wind power in Denmark cannot be underestimated.
Other renewable sources of energy are difficult to find.
The view of the Council, according to which the incineration of unsorted waste is considered to be renewable energy, is unsustainable.
Hydroelectric power should be supplemented by forms of energy other than waste incineration.
Parliament is sticking to its target of twelve percent of gross energy consumption being produced by renewable energy by 2010, but this is not far away, so achieving this target may be wishful thinking.
The lack of funding for the Altener Programme indicates that the EU is not playing a major role in achieving this target.
Achieving this target is thus entirely down to the Member States.
Mr President, this directive is a significant step towards meeting the Kyoto objectives and a milestone on the path towards a sustainable energy sector and sustainable energy policy in the European Union.
I would especially like to thank and congratulate the rapporteur.
However, given the shortages of resources which are becoming apparent and in view of the rise in oil and gas prices and the risks attending nuclear energy, we have no cause to sit back and congratulate ourselves on what we have achieved.
Above all, we have to make it clear to the Member States of the European Union that there are economic and social advantages in achieving the targets laid down.
Of course I would have preferred to have mandatory targets, but we now have to do more work convincing people to give renewable energy sources a chance in the market on a voluntary basis.
Labelling of all energy sources is another long-term objective, because energy consumers have the right to know what primary energy sources their electricity is generated from.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to offer my congratulations and also to congratulate Mrs Rothe on having called for mandatory targets, because the likelihood that we will get these mandatory targets is in fact very great.
I also believe that it is necessary to have efficient and fair cost sharing within the European Union, so that incentives for renewable energy sources are comparable and that the same yardsticks are applied.
I wish to call on the Commission to actively apply best practice and benchmarking processes, because it is very important for the Member States, and particularly for the accession states, to find out where the best and worst values are to the found.
I also believe that small and secure cycles have a major role to play in Europe's future and security of supply, and, as we have already seen in the case of water cycles, that they represent the best and cleanest forms of energy production, and so I consider that this affords us many new options.
If the operators of the transmission networks could now also guarantee that there will be no discrimination, and that renewable energy sources will even be given priority, then that is something we could be very satisfied with.
This directive is, of course, an interim stage, but I believe that it is a step in the right direction.
I hope that the Commission will also soon present a general certification model that we can make progress with.
All in all, I believe that with this directive Europe is taking a great step forwards and I would like to sincerely congratulate everyone who has worked on it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as has been stated before, sustainable energy has many advantages.
It reduces the dependence on imports from third countries, it can be generated locally and it offers prospects for regional development.
But more than anything, it is clean energy.
The European Union backed an ambitious wish list during the climate negotiations in November last year.
Europe was prepared to take the lead, for the US could not be counted on then either.
The Sustainable Energy Directive offered a good opportunity to put our money where our mouth was.
At first reading, the European Parliament had opted for binding objectives and for a strict definition, so that not everything could simply fall within its scope.
Unfortunately, this approach fell on deaf ears at the Council, and the European Union, which had called for domestic action for two weeks in The Hague, cried off.
The compromise that is now before us is the best that can be achieved.
My sincere congratulations to the rapporteur.
It is sound work.
This compromise requires a broad base and that is what we desperately need in the times ahead, for Europe cannot take a passive stance and wait to see what is going to happen.
In the foreseeable future, we will once again have plenty of opportunity of showing that we are serious about sustainable energy.
We must now prove that we are prepared to face the challenge.
First of all, a common European research agenda is needed if we are to develop the technology which will speed up the transition to a low CO2 economy and if we are to learn from each other.
The Sixth Framework Programme for research offers the ideal platform for this.
Secondly, large-scale investments are required.
Sustainable energy is often associated with small-scale solutions: a solar panel on every roof and a few windmills in every village.
That is wonderful, but unfortunately not enough.
Sustainable energy also requires large-scale projects, and this is why Government commitment is required.
It is once again time to translate words into action in order to turn this Directive into a success.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Rothe.
I think that she has carried out excellent work and, step by step, has led this process towards an increasingly positive outcome.
I agree with Mr Turmes that the decision which we hopefully will take tomorrow is an historic one.
It means the European Union taking a highly significant step towards a different energy system, a system which gives serious consideration to the climate issue and the need to diversify the energy system and to ensure that an increased proportion of our energy comes from energy sources which do not have an adverse effect on nature or the climate.
A transition to renewable energy sources is an important step.
In parallel, major efforts must be made to ensure that our energy is used more efficiently.
We have established a target in the directive whereby at least 22 percent of electricity is to come from renewable energy sources.
Like Mr Turmes, I am an optimist in this respect.
If demand increases, we know that performance and quality will increase and costs fall.
This is the rule of thumb for all new technology.
Of course, such a development is conditional upon energy policy generally being developed in the right direction.
It is conditional upon subsidies for fossil fuels, particularly coal, being phased out, external costs for various energy sources being internalised in prices and research receiving a considerable boost.
The development we are now seeing is vital for Europe.
It is naturally also vital for the candidate countries and the developing countries.
I hope that, within the framework of this programme and the EU' s operations as a whole, we shall be able to develop systems which support candidate countries and developing countries alike in moving in this direction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs De Palacio, first of all, may I offer my hearty congratulations to my fellow Member, Mrs Rothe, for the work she has done on this very difficult issue.
Admittedly, the negotiations with the Council and Commission were painstaking, but an outcome was reached.
We were able to come to compromise agreements which will allow improvements to be made to the Council and Commission proposals.
I would also reiterate that the aim of the draft directive is to create a framework to enable a considerable improvement in electricity production from renewable energy sources.
This directive provides a response to several major concerns such as sustainable development, environmental protection and respect for the Kyoto commitments, but also with regard to diversifying our supply sources, reducing the European Union' s reliance on energy and, lastly, the creation of new jobs.
Having said this, I would like to go back to two difficult points, which were raised at the beginning of our discussions:
on the one hand, the issue of non compulsory national targets.
The issue is whether the national targets should be compulsory.
We must remain realistic.
Setting indicative targets has never provided much motivation for Member States.
The discussions have not enabled us to reach an agreement, however.
Fortunately, several proposals plan to make them compulsory in the long term.
on the other hand, the issue of whether or not to include waste incineration in the definition of renewable energy.
The Council insisted on including it but this step did not receive unanimous support.
As I personally see it, this seems to run counter to the Union' s efforts in the field of waste prevention and recycling.
It is to be feared that this use of waste would essentially justify their production, which does not seem to be a good solution.
To sum up, I would also say that we must support the provisions laying down facilities governing grid access.
In conclusion, Mr President, as a militant and strong supporter of renewable energy sources, I welcome the progress made, but I hope I have pinpointed the difficulties which still need to be overcome in a world where the market and the search for short-term reductions in costs and prices take precedence.
Mr President, I think it is fair to congratulate Mrs Rothe on the excellent work she has done on this report and, above all, on the spirit of creativity and consensus she has demonstrated in producing it, trying to avoid the conciliation procedure, which would have done the sector few favours given the urgent need for a directive in as important a field as renewable energy.
I believe that on all issues relating to energy, we must be aware that we must improve sources or otherwise we will make planet Earth uninhabitable within a few years.
It is essential that we guarantee support for this type of source for a considerable period, thereby allowing our industry to make decisive and long-term investments in this energy alternative.
Therefore, to ensure a stable framework for renewable energy, within the timescale proposed in the report - although a broader timescale would have been desirable - is a proposal which we all can and must support.
With regard to the goals which we have set for ourselves, despite the fact that we should have been more ambitious, I believe that the objective of 12% of energy coming from renewable sources by 2010 is something which must be broadened but, in principle, it is a good start.
Furthermore, it is essential that, in the future, when this amendment is amended and the sector is more established, we set binding objectives for each Member State and we will thereby demonstrate that the European Union also takes its commitments seriously in the environmental field.
In summary, I consider it essential and urgent that we reach a pact at European level in order to support this type of energy source.
Lastly, although I know it is not easy, we must state that, if we do not act immediately, in a few years time the coming generations are going to be facing a ruined planet.
Therefore, for the sake of solidarity, we must leave behind a much more habitable world, and a future like that urgently requires all these renewable sources of energy.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur and the committee on their excellent work.
This is an important measure which, at last, defines precise targets for increasing the share of electricity produced from renewable energy sources, laying down precise time-frames.
It does not matter if these time-frames span several years; what is important is that we have precise targets against which to measure our progress.
We must be aware, however, that a lot of work will be required to reach these targets and that it will be necessary to follow this measure with sufficient investment in research.
Finally, I would also like to express my support for the joint text, and I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Rothe, in this regard too for her balanced and competent approach to the disputed issue of the incineration of urban waste.
I too would have preferred the text prepared by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, but I feel that the compromise reached with the Council is adequate and should be supported.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, but I also wish to make a couple of observations.
It is a matter of concern for us all that mandatory targets have not been agreed upon, but the various UN conventions provide a model here.
I am thinking of Rio, where as a correspondent I was able to follow things in detail and see how from little acorns great oaks can grow.
Much as there is to criticise in the basic structure of Europe's institutions, by means of this twin-track approach we have given the Commission a chance to take the initiative and subsequently propose mandatory targets.
As she is present, I would like to take the precaution of calling now on the Commissioner to do that.
It is also possible to learn something from successful systems.
Spain, Germany and Austria have arrangements and means of handling renewables that others could also adopt.
This is not to say that the world should simply adopt the German approach, but rather simply save unnecessary additional expenditure which subsequently leads to excuses that it was not possible to reach the targets.
When the rapporteur says that proofs of origin will guarantee transparency, that fits in very well with my repeated demand that the European institutions should set an example by being completely transparent for the benefit of the public.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very happy to congratulate firstly the rapporteur, Mrs Rothe, on the excellent work she has done throughout this year and almost two months, very soon after the Commission approved this directive, as well as all the Members who have participated in the work throughout these months of intense discussion and debate.
I would once again like to express my respect and admiration for the excellent technical quality and knowledge you have demonstrated in your cooperation, your work and your amendments.
I hope that the debate today and the vote tomorrow will conclude the discussions on this directive and that we will therefore be able to adopt a text at second reading without the need for a conciliation procedure.
This is an issue on which - as we have demonstrated - we must work together.
This proposal forms part of the Commission' s response to two great challenges.
The first great challenge is the problem of how the European Union should take its Kyoto commitments seriously, how to genuinely implement measures - undoubtedly at a certain cost - which demonstrate our will to fulfil the commitments made on an international level.
That is our first objective, but we must not forget another interesting element of this proposal, which is increasing the European energy supply, that is, increasing the security of our supply, not to mention issues which some speakers have mentioned relating to the technological capacities of industrial development and, therefore, employment and our presence in international markets.
The Commission is pleased to be able to say that we can support all the transactional modifications proposed by Mrs Rothe.
Although I am not going to list them, I would like to refer to certain points which have been highlighted during the debate.
Firstly, the issue of biomass.
It is a delicate issue and we will have to see whether we can finally include the production of electricity from the incineration of unseparated municipal waste within the scope of the directive.
That is to say, including that biodegradable waste.
You are aware of the Commission' s initial position but I believe that, for the sake of achieving an initiative, the concession made in this area is warranted in order to achieve this result.
Strictly speaking, this waste is of a renewable origin, and that is why the Council has defended its inclusion.
Nevertheless, the Commission had not proposed it within the definition of renewable energy, since this goes against a key point, the objective of reusing and recycling waste, a crucial question in the integral treatment of waste proposed by the Commission within its sustainable development strategies.
However, I must stress that the Commission believes that we must reach a compromise, a pragmatic solution in order to prevent a conciliation procedure and a delay.
We therefore accept the proposals put forward by Mrs Rothe; however, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 14.
Furthermore, we believe that the proposals in Amendments Nos 2 and 4 are not necessary and we agree with and support the proposal in Amendment No 11.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am optimistic - some of the speakers such as Mr Turmes have said so - that, over the next few years, the increase in the use of renewable energy is going to lead to a reduction in costs and, therefore, it is going to make it easier to incorporate its use into our energy mix in a clearer and easier way.
This is a key pioneering initiative.
Some of you - such as Mrs Ayuso, amongst others - have said that today is an historic day.
In a year and two months - since the Commission approved its proposal - we are going to have an approved directive.
I must stress that the reduction in costs is going to allow for an increase in renewable energy for producing electricity, I stress that this is a truly revolutionary proposal in many respects because, although some have said that the objectives are only indicative, these may become obligatory in relation to certain mechanisms, and this is the first time, in a field such as this, that we have set indicative objectives State by State.
This is an extraordinary political burden and, in this respect - I am sorry, Mr Caudron - I cannot agree with your assessment.
In the next few months, I hope to be able to propose an initiative for the extension, the genuine promotion, of the use of biofuels and the acceleration of its incorporation within the European Union.
I would once again like to congratulate Mrs Rothe on her excellent work, as well as all the Members and the Swedish presidency on your work on this initiative.
I hope that, tomorrow, the vote in this House will allow for the approval of certain consensus amendments which will allow it to be adopted on second reading and prevent any further delay, even to the point of conciliation, in the resolution of this issue.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Implementation of the Internet Top Level Domain ".EU
The next item is the report (A5-0226/2001) by Mrs Flesch, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on the implementation of the Internet Top Level Domain ".EU" [COM(2000) 827 - C5-0715/2000 - 2000/0328(COD)].
Mr President, Parliament used the enhanced Hughes procedure to approach this proposal for a regulation. In other words, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has collaborated very closely with the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
I would like to give my heartiest thanks to my fellow Member, Mrs McCarthy, who was the draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and with whom I was able to work in a particularly pleasant and, I hope, effective manner.
I would also like to thank the services of Parliament and the Commission, which gave me a great deal of assistance in this matter.
The proposal for a regulation provides for the implementation of the Internet Top Level Domain '.EU' , and the European Union should thus assert its visibility in cyberspace as an individual site but also one that complements the national domains, and transpose the trusted environment which the EU has created via the internal market onto the Internet.
Generally speaking, I think I can say that the philosophy of the proposal for a Commission regulation has not been damaged by the amendments proposed by the Committee on Industry and the Committee on Legal Affairs.
Mr President, I believe that the parliamentary committees are proposing amendments that will make the text of the regulation more accurate and clear in relation to the demands of businesses using these services and service providers.
As for the general principles, the amendments highlight the desired objective of creating the image of a high-quality brand for the '.EU' domain and they confirm the principles of non-interference, self-management and self-regulation for Internet management, which Parliament regularly advocates. They also make it compulsory for the Registry to manage the '.EU' domain name in the general interest, to observe transparent and non-discriminatory procedures and to conform to best national practices.
The amendments also stipulate that when the regulation is implemented, the principles relating to privacy and the protection of personal data must be taken into account.
More specifically, the Parliamentary committees are proposing that the scope of the regulation should be limited to the European Community.
In order to designate the registry, a call for expression of interest will be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities; and the difference between registry and registration office, as well as their independence from one another, will be highlighted.
As a general rule, registrations will be done on a first-come, first-served basis, but a so-called 'sunrise' clause has nonetheless been put in place to enable the temporary protection of the rights of former right holders.
A policy and procedure designed to revoke rather than prevent speculative and abusive registration of domain names will be adopted; lastly, the Member States will be able to prevent the registration under the '.EU' domain of domain names containing established geographical, geopolitical or historical concepts which impact upon the territorial organisation of a Member State.
The guidelines approved by the Council on 27 June 2001 - in other words, very recently - do not appear to be very far removed from the text that I am proposing for Parliament to vote on, so it should be possible to overcome the difficulties between the institutions.
Admittedly, there are still some difficult discussions ahead, but I feel that we should be optimistic and believe that a common position can be established in the coming months.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would therefore ask Parliament and you yourself to adopt the report with the proposed amendments.
.
Mr President, the initiative to create the ".EU" Domain name will be a necessary boost to expansion in the e-economy.
We know that the key brake on this expansion is the lack of confidence, particularly amongst consumers.
A European TLD, therefore, should be synonymous with a zone of e-confidence.
In addition it should allow European companies to ensure their visibility and presence on the European stage.
As Mrs Flesch said, we have worked very closely on this report.
We have jointly made some very important recommendations.
They give greater clarity to the text and they spell out in detail the role the registry should perform.
I have concentrated in my committee mainly on the issues of the internal market, intellectual property aspects and the general policy framework.
Let me highlight some of the amendments.
The idea of Amendment No 36 was that the registry should adopt terms and conditions to incorporate an accredited code of conduct for online trading and therefore give businesses the opportunity to join an accredited online extra-judicial dispute resolution scheme.
This will respond to business concerns to see added value to ".EU" Domain names and will again create this zone of e-consumer confidence in line with the Lisbon conclusions.
While registration should generally be on a first-come, first-served principle, we have nonetheless proposed that rightholders, who have prior rights in law and public policy, should have the opportunity to pre-register.
We have tried to address the growing problem of cyber squatting by asking the registry to run a mediation and arbitration service, either free or on a cost-recovery basis to deal with speculative and abusive registration of domain names.
We are proposing the setting up of a policy advisory committee, as is the practice in country domain names, to assist in dealing with what can be registered at top level.
Commissioner, we understand the need to make progress on the establishment of ".EU" and the need to ensure we respect the principles of the Internet world, namely self-regulation and self-management.
But it is important to get the principles right from the outset, to ensure success, and that is why we have spelt this out in detail.
Mrs Flesch and I had excellent cooperation.
We now look forward to similar cooperation with the Council and Commission.
We hope they will seriously consider our recommendations, and that we can come to a speedy decision to enable ".EU" to get off to a running start as soon as possible.
Mr President, on behalf of my Group, I should like to give a very warm welcome to this report and to thank Mrs Flesch for her very comprehensive and detailed work, which shows her experience in the field.
I should also like to pay particular tribute to Mrs McCarthy who I have worked with in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Between our rapporteur and our draftsman, they produced a very sound report.
What is important about this report is that they have resisted the temptation to complicate what was basically a simple text proposed by the Commission.
Essentially, Commissioner Liikanen, the word from Parliament is to go and get on with it.
We do not want to over-complicate it.
We have made some worthwhile improvements, but the fundamentals of what you proposed have been left unaltered.
That is important because, we must remember, the ".EU" domain name is actually a late entrant into a highly competitive and crowded market.
It has to justify its existence.
For it to be successful we want companies and organisations to use it.
Therefore, the registration procedures have to be simple, easy and cost-effective.
We must bear in mind that the policies and procedures adopted by the registry will need to reflect best practice in the field.
Because we are coming into this late, there is no excuse for not getting it right.
So some of the safeguards that both Mrs Flesch and Mrs McCarthy refer to, about protection of trademarks and avoidance of vexatious registration - cyber-squatting - are particularly important.
I want to highlight two particular issues of concern that I raised during the debate and was particularly pleased were reflected in the amendments.
Mrs McCarthy referred to her amendment seeking to enable organisations with a prior title to a name to have a priority period of registration.
That is very important.
We do not want to disadvantage companies which are already active in this field which feel that they must protect themselves and want to take on the ".EU".
We do not want them to feel that they are going to be held back in any way.
They must have a priority period of registration to avoid this problem of vexatious registration, of people who just want to make a "quick buck" moving into that field and taking hold of that registration.
It will be very important for the new registry - and I direct this particularly to the Commission - that the launch date and the priority registration period are very well publicised throughout the European Union so that people understand those rights.
Secondly, we have to ensure that the ".EU" name does not, in any way, displace existing Member State domain names.
I proposed an amendment, which I am pleased was accepted by my colleagues, that makes sure that the ".EU" registration is not empowered to issue any sub-domain names using Member State identities.
In conclusion, this is a worthwhile enhancement of the European Union's information society capabilities in a very fast-evolving world.
Mr President, I would like to add my appreciation to that already expressed for Mrs Flesch's report.
I feel that it is a particularly well-balanced and competent report, and so I can only endorse its approach and contents.
I feel that this report represents a further step along the path embarked upon months ago now by the Commission and Parliament together, towards progress in the information society, to catch up, to eliminate that gap which exists between the information society of the continent of the European Union and the more advanced information societies of other parts of the world, specifically the United States.
This is a further important stage, which may be more significant than others in terms of public opinion, but also or precisely because of this it is important that it is completed quickly.
Well then, without wishing to go over the ground already covered by other Members, I would like to stress just one further point: my satisfaction that the path adopted is continuing to secure self-regulation for operators in the context of the Internet as well.
I feel that we must constantly stress that the Internet is a wonderful experience, and it must be so also when we create a European domain for, apart from anything else, it has been entrusted to self-regulation, to the ability of the operators to manage themselves.
Therefore, we must continue along this path of enhancing European information technology, but we must avoid restricting independence or, in any case, smothering in red tape an experience which has been positive precisely because it has been allowed to develop spontaneously.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Flesch, on the excellent result that she has achieved within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, in consultation with the Commission and the Council.
Consequently, no further amendments have been tabled for this plenary.
All of this has been achieved within the space of six months, while the Commission has needed three years to draft a proposal.
It is now important for the Council and Parliament to keep the momentum going.
Indeed, the users have been waiting for this with bated breath.
Mr Liikanen, I will then obviously expect from you a quick, practical and simple implementation which befits the Internet culture.
The introduction of the ".EU" Top Level Domain is said to afford the European Union a higher profile on worldwide information networks, and it also represents added value for the Internet naming system in addition to the national domain names.
Two elements are crucial in this connection.
First of all, the organisation that keeps the register must be independent and must carry out its work in a transparent, non-discriminatory manner.
All interested organisations must be represented in the register.
Secondly, the Member States must establish in good time the domain names they want to use exclusively.
Clear criteria are needed in that connection.
That includes the first come, first served principle, as well as clear rules which can prevent abuse of the system.
In the Netherlands, we remember all too well how the city of Amsterdam had to buy back the domain name www.amsterdam.nl for an extortionate sum of money, because that name had already been claimed by a pornography business.
The swift advent of the ".EU" Top Level Domain offers an excellent opportunity to boost public confidence and that of businesses in online trade.
This would encourage economic growth and the competitiveness of European industry, and hence employment.
The legal framework of the internal market also plays an important role in this field.
Mr President, I too would like to join in the congratulations to the rapporteur, and to the draftsman from the Committee on Legal Affairs, with regard to the proposal put before us.
Like previous speakers, I welcome it because it is time that we in the EU had our own domain.
It will allow more business to operate on the new e-economy, and will also get rid of some of the uncertainty and some of the difficulties there are with regard to the different domains that exist at present.
The one area of concern I have is in relation to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - ICANN.
As this is a body which is regulated under US law, they are already in the process of registering the ".EU" domain and allowing people to buy ".EU" domains as well.
I would like to know if possible from the Commissioner what action he has taken to deal with this possible conflict in the future.
I, along with other Members in the House, have full confidence in the Commission ensuring that there is an innovative and new way of guaranteeing security for this domain in the future.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur. I too, like Mr Carraro, would like to talk about the crucial role of self-regulation for the Internet system.
From this point of view, a consultative committee which is too heavy handed with regard to the relationship between the representatives of trade associations, businesses, trade unions and service providers could cause some concern.
We must avoid making the procedure for managing the ".EU" domain too rigid and concern ourselves, instead, with filling this domain with rights of European electronic citizenship.
This is a proposal that I would like to make to the Commission: to consider immediately how, including by means of the '.EU' domain, new rights can be guaranteed such as rights of access, and rights of interaction with the European petitions institutions, the Ombudsman, and in participation in competitive examinations and procurement competitions.
Thus, with interaction between the citizens and the institutions of the European Union, we will be able to fill the '.EU' domain with material of genuine European telematic citizenship
Mr President, I believe that one of the main reasons for the excellence of this report is the quality of the person who produced it, because it is a real pleasure to work with her.
As is well known, through the Internet, the citizens of the whole world can now discover new realities about countries, companies, associations and, in many cases, ways of life from the opposite ends of the Earth.
The development of this interactive means of communication is exponential and access to it in many developed countries is practically universal and, in others, is just a question of time.
Furthermore, we have all been witnesses to the frequent bad use of the Internet.
I believe that within the Internet top level domain ".EU" we must prevent cases of improper uses of names which may harm the image of the European Union and its Member States, because the top level domain ".EU" is going to be the European Union' s shop front to the world, it is going to be our logo and is going to be part of our heritage, and as such it must be dealt with, supervised, controlled and protected.
In summary, I believe there are certain facets of economic activity which must be subject to control, if the intention is to achieve a good result, and the top level domain ".EU" must, in my view, be one of them, so that it may be synonymous with quality, reliability of the information hosted by it and the consistency of its contents.
I would like to remind you that the European Union has an excellent image and what we have to do is maintain it and support it.
Mr President, following the fairly technical introduction we have heard, we should not lose sight of what this is all about.
It has repeatedly, and quite rightly, been said that Europe does not have a face.
If you are a publicity-minded entrepreneurial type and want to acquire an e-mail address, it will be ".at" ".com", ".net" or ".org".
Europe is now acquiring a face, an address.
It will be valuable in itself if we can bring this off and if the Commission finds the right approach.
We will become ".EU".
The fact that we are so late in doing this has a lot to do with the fact that we have not in reality grown together to form a single entity as we pretend we have.
It is to be hoped that Europe will gradually develop from being a single market to having its own identity, by means of policy.
We know that a lot has gone awry.
I regard it as progress that a certain element of labelling is associated with the ".EU" domain.
I am relying on the Commission and everyone responsible to make sure that there is no sloppiness if we do get this top-level domain, with incidents like the ones described by the previous speakers occurring.
Just remember the "Amsterdam.nl" case.
However, as part of the enlargement and re-regionalisation of Europe I would also like to see all regions having the opportunity to use appropriate sub-domains.
On this point, I am not in agreement with the report before us.
I also, however, welcome Amendment No 15, in which the rapporteur refers to the basic principle of transparency, which brings me to my oft-repeated demand that the European institutions should set an example by being completely transparent for the benefit of the public.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to warmly congratulate the rapporteur of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, Mrs Flesch, on her excellent report.
Mrs Flesch, you have really managed to capture the key aspects of the ".EU" issue in your report and thus set the right course for the European Parliament.
With this regulation, we are helping to construct the European home, in this case in a virtual form.
The ".EU" top-level domain will promote Europe's identity more effectively on the Internet, which has numerous advantages.
E-commerce in the European Union will be promoted.
Through the ".EU" top-level domain, consumers will be able to recognise that a company working via the Internet belongs to the single market and will have greater faith in it.
Up to now, as Mr Martin pointed out, European companies using the ".com" domain have sometimes been taken for American companies rather than European ones.
European companies, organisations and private individuals will get concise new addresses long since bagged by others under the current domains.
For example, there are already well over 10 million ".com" domains in the European Union.
Now that the Council has pronounced itself in favour of introducing the ".EU" top-level domain, just a few days ago in fact, we can help, by adopting the regulation before the summer break, to ensure that registration of the first ".EU" addresses can begin in spring 2002.
Therefore, particularly at a time when over 90% of the most frequently visited web sites are in the USA and about 70% of e-commerce is transacted in the USA, I can only urge you to vote for this proposal.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank the rapporteur for her outstanding cooperation and the excellent way in which she has worded her report.
I should like to home in on a few points.
Firstly, the method of registration of a '.EU' domain.
The principle underlying the registration policy is that anyone who wants to register a '.EU' domain also has the related trademark rights.
Two interests need to be weighed up in this connection.
On the one hand, countering abuse and, on the other, making registration for SMEs and for citizens as simple as possible.
Two models are possible in this connection.
The first model prescribes extremely strict requirements to be applied in advance of someone obtaining such a '.EU' name. This will then lead to a shortage of names because the thresholds are too high.
The second model prescribes subsequent intervention in the unlikely event of improper use or speculation.
That is why I should like to refer to Amendment No 34, which spells this out clearly.
We prefer the second model because it is much more SME-friendly, results in many more domain names and - in my opinion - in many more domain registrations.
That is the right way forward in my view.
My second point concerns clarity on behalf of citizens and businesses. '.EU' offers EU citizens clarity, for it stipulates that registration is only possible for people or businesses lawfully based within the EU.
That is what Amendment No 24 is about.
That translates into more legal certainty, more confidence and an increase in e-commerce within the European Union.
I believe that that is what it is all about.
Finally, my third point.
All of this fits in with the EU policy which we aim to pursue.
We want to assume a favourable position worldwide in the Information Society.
In my opinion, the '.EU' Internet Domain sets the right tone for this, for which I am extremely grateful.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in terms of gross national product Europe leads the world, and I think it is a good thing for us to make rather more effort to market Europe in the future.
I welcome the fact that we want to become the most competitive area in the world and I believe that we still need to put in a lot of effort to achieve that.
Our competitors throughout the globe are sleeping; they have launched good initiatives, which makes it important for us to act as efficiently and quickly as possible in this area.
We have over 18 million companies in Europe, and I believe that it gives them an extremely valuable marketing advantage if they are immediately and easily recognisable throughout the world.
Consumer confidence is fundamental for business and that is why the presence of the European Union on the Internet with a top-level domain is particularly important.
I also consider that an efficient dispute resolution system is needed, and one that is as cost-effective as possible but at the same time neutral and non-discriminatory.
Especially in the case of speculation or misuse of registered names, it should be possible to take drastic action quickly and efficiently, because that is a very significant issue for the parties involved and can create a need for effective action on their part.
It is also very important that the Registry should be put out to tender, as this will guarantee optimum support in Europe. I wish the Commission and, in particular, Mrs Flesch, every success.
I believe that you have taken an important step for the European Union.
The proposal to set up the '.EU' top-level domain was first tabled by the Commission last December after public consultation over the whole year.
In Internet terms, it is a lifetime.
European Internet users are becoming increasingly impatient to have a '.EU' top-level domain where they can register pan-European names.
It is becoming imperative, therefore, that the EU takes the necessary steps to implement '.EU' as soon as possible.
In this respect, I am pleased to note the common orientation agreed last week in the Council, which was a major step forward.
With regard to Parliament, I would particularly like to thank Mrs Flesch and Mrs McCarthy for their contributions as rapporteurs.
Their work has contributed significantly to a situation where we are very close to an agreement between the institutions, which would enable implementation of the '.EU' top-level domain soon.
I am extremely happy about the high quality discussion we have here today in this plenary.
As far as the amendments are concerned, the rapporteurs in particular have proposed a number of amendments, which will significantly improve the text of the regulation.
This includes reinforcement of the key principles of Internet management, clarification of conformity with the Community data protection rules, and more precise definitions relating to the role and the functions of the registry.
The Commission also welcomes the support given by the rapporteurs to the Commission's proposals for an advisory committee.
There are also a number of proposed amendments which the Commission can accept in principle, subject to further clarification.
These include the proposal that the Commission would be authorised to levy a management charge on the registry for services provided.
If the intention is to ensure that the registry remains cost-neutral to the Commission, this is acceptable, although the Commission would welcome a clearer reference to avoid any suggestion that a standing charge of any sort is imposed on the registry.
With respect to the proposals for a policy advisory board to the registry, the Commission agrees that broad consultation with the European Internet community will be a prerequisite for the proper functioning of the registry.
At the same time, it will be important to clarify how such a body would interact with the Commission and the Member States committee.
The 'first-come-first-served' approach for registrations is supported by the Commission, as it is one of the underlying principles for the registration process proposed by the Commission.
We would, however, point out that this general principle must be subject to the rules and principles adopted as public policies in relation to the registration of the '.EU' , just to avoid the problems which have been mentioned by a few speakers tonight.
Similarly, the Commission has no objections to the requirement for registrants to respect a code of conduct, although care needs to be taken to avoid confusion and any suggestion of a priori controls.
Mr Carraro also made comments which I endorse.
The Commission is fully committed to transparency principles and supports the publication of a call for expression of interest in the Official Journal, as was also mentioned by Mr Martin.
However, the procedure of publication of the conditions of implementation of the registry and of the policy framework in the Official Journal may prove a very cumbersome procedure and alternative publication may be more efficient.
Why not this time a website? When talking about '.EU' ; why not go to the public on the website?
There are however, some proposed amendments which the Commission cannot agree with.
In relation to the proposed amendments on the preventive measures to be adopted by the Member States on the geographical and geo-political basis, I would like to point out that should the Member States impose individually such measures to the registry, this could lead to conflicting measures or various incompatible approaches.
The issue of geographical and geopolitical names is, however, an important political issue for some Member States and is fully recognised by the Commission.
I am convinced that the compromise which was reached at the Council, introducing a new paragraph for Article 4.1a may offer an alternative which Parliament may wish to consider further.
The proposal to require the registry to ensure that companies registering a name are legally established in the Community is also problematic.
Given the automated nature of the registry process, it is not practical for the registry to carry out a priori checks on registrants.
Apart from questions of technical feasibility, the Commission would view such a requirement to be an excessive burden on the registry and an unnecessary barrier to registrants.
The proposal that the registry should be obliged to supply information to third parties with a "legitimate interest" is also unacceptable as such to the Commission.
It is not clear exactly how such a provision could apply, and we suggest that the registry will, in any case, be subject to existing legal provisions for disclosure.
There also seems to be a linguistic problem surrounding the concepts of "public policy" and "public order" in the French and English versions.
Here the Commission must reiterate its position that the public authorities must only be involved in those areas of registry policy where matters of genuine interest to the public at large are involved and not in the day-to-day operational decisions of the registry.
Mr Crowley raised the question about '.EU' and I also received an e-mail at the end of June, talking about the creation of 'www.eu' and a welcome to use our services.
Of course, it was slightly embarrassing, but we must make it clear that, after verification, we are aware of the existence of so-called alternate routes outside the domain-named system; top level domains coordinated by ICANN and of the recent introduction of the alternative route www.eu by the organisation called 'The Universal Registry'.
The future '.EU' top-level domain will, however, operate within the ICANN-approved named system, partly because of the need to ensure that most EU users can access addresses under '.EU' , but also because the Commission supports the principle of a single authoritative rule for the domain-named system.
Alternate rules operate quite legally within the Internet, but have relatively limited visibility and can be difficult to access, because the majority of browsers, quite naturally, point at names servers related to ICANN-authorised top-level domains.
To Mr Cappato, the Commission has just accepted a communication on e-Commission and that is a big challenge to guarantee that all the activities of the Commission will be online, that we will be able to give access to all citizens, but also in the medium and long-term, to interact with our partners and citizens.
Of the 40 amendments proposed by the rapporteurs the Commission can accept in full Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 19, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 31, 35, 38, 39 and 40.
The Commission can accept, in part or in principle Amendments Nos 9, 13, 14, 18, 20, 29, 30, 32 and 36.
Mr van Velzen mentioned Amendment No 34.
There are positive elements here but for particular reasons of revocation the Commission included that in the amendments which the Commission cannot accept, which are Amendments Nos 6, 15, 23, 24, 27, 33, 34 and 37.
In conclusion, given 40 amendments of which the Commission can accept 32 in full, in part or in principle, these amendments indicate that Parliament and the Commission are clearly pursuing a common objective to ensure that the '.EU' Top Level Domain will soon be a successful registry.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Radio spectrum policy
The next item is the report (A5-0232/2001) by Mrs Niebler, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on a regulatory framework for radio spectrum policy in the European Community [COM(2000) 407 - C5-0449/2000 - 2000/0187(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner Liikanen, I would like to thank the rapporteur Mrs Niebler for her efforts on this important issue.
Due to their increasing use, radio frequencies are becoming an increasingly limited and valuable commodity.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, I would like to emphasise the importance of the transport sector and the equal rights of each means of transport to use radio frequencies for operational purposes, above all to ensure passenger safety.
Air and sea traffic, for example, are completely dependent on the use of radio frequencies.
The different needs of different regions also need to be taken into account.
Some of the amendments put forward by our committee were adopted by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy while others were not.
On behalf of our Group I introduced two amendments in plenary which reflect the opinions of our committee.
Amendment No 24 concerns the regional aspect and draws attention to the fact that different circumstances such as population density and distances, industrial structure and traffic conditions must be taken into account in harmonising radio frequencies.
Amendment No 25 concerns transparency.
The publication of information on the use of frequencies is important but publication is only beneficial if the information published includes all the data necessary for the effective use of this information.
Transparency is connected to achieving efficient use of unused areas of the radio spectrum.
The annex to the proposal for a decision is too general and apparently confuses reserving the use of frequencies for different purposes with allocating frequencies to users.
I would like to see support for these two amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Niebler has done a brilliant job with this very difficult subject, which I had to deal with on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
No one will deny that, in view of developments in technology, a new regulatory framework on frequency policy is needed.
However, certain basic principles have to be borne in mind here, since although the technology itself is neutral, the way it is used is not.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, whose unanimous opinion I am presenting here, has, amongst other things, considered how it can be guaranteed that adequate transmission capacity is reserved for content addressed to the general public.
In other words, in addition to economic issues, consideration also has to be given to political, cultural and social aspects, and also to the right to privacy and to consumer protection.
This applies first and foremost to broadcast programming content relating to the expression of cultural diversity, freedom of speech and pluralism, which therefore plays a significant part in shaping opinion as part of the democratic process.
This is all the more important given that the proposal quite rightly stresses the fact that radio frequencies are a scarce resource and that this will not change in the longer term.
It would therefore be wrong to place too much emphasis on economic efficiency.
Products geared to the general public should also have a guaranteed place in an open competition-oriented market for electronic communication networks and services.
The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has not entirely taken on board the views of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport in this respect, as we would have wished, but it does recognise the principle of freedom of speech, and this is a key reason why we are willing to vote for the report as it stands.
It is also emphasised elsewhere that democratic, social and cultural interests connected with frequency use need to be taken into account.
The Member States should also be expected to comply with that requirement, including Italy - please note, Mr Berlusconi.
Mr President, Mrs Niebler carried out sterling work in her capacity as rapporteur.
I should like to congratulate her on the quality of her report.
In this connection, I should like to broach two subjects which are a little controversial.
Subject one is the possibility of stepping up the harmonisation of the military use of the radio spectrum.
We know that a huge proportion of the spectrum is used by the military.
That is, of course, understandable in an historical context, but if we are working towards a common security policy, we will also have to question whether the level of efficiency is proportionate to its use.
I believe that that is not the case.
It resembles one large patchwork at the moment.
In my opinion, the private sector, in particular, needs a larger proportion of the spectrum.
What can we do? Normally speaking, we could attempt to harmonise, but that is of course extremely difficult.
That is why I propose a step-by-step plan.
First of all, we must prioritise in terms of military and civil use.
Secondly, Member States must be transparent in terms of the use of the military spectrum.
Thirdly, the Commission, Council and Parliament, and all those involved, must join forces, finally, to open a discussion on this topic and, especially, to look for ways of bringing about harmonisation in the future.
Not easy, but it has to be done.
My second point: a separation of political affairs and technical implementation.
Many of the CEPT actions are technical, but all these technical points have a great many political ramifications.
That is why I believe that it is of great importance for the political aspects to be discussed more among the Commission, Council and European Parliament, and for the technical side to be left to the CEPT to take care of.
But I believe it is crucial for us finally to discuss the political framework in this arena too. That is why I warmly recommend this amendment.
Mr President, I would like to thank all three institutions.
Although Mrs Niebler is not an institution, she has behaved almost like one!
I would like to thank her sincerely for her report.
But I would also like to thank the Commission and the Council.
I would like to thank the Council, because it has changed its position in a way that would have been unthinkable until recently, as I am sure the Commission will agree.
However, thanks are also due to the Commission because it has shown such persistence in pursuing this subject over the years, although we did not expect that it would act so quickly.
Nevertheless, I have to tell the Commission that to some extent it has been unnecessarily tough, not least regarding the amendments put forward by Parliament, and that it has not perhaps shown the institutional flexibility that it might have or that might have been expected from the Commission.
Mrs Niebler has quite rightly pointed out that there is a considerable difference between technical measures and strategic decisions on policy, and that when it comes to strategic decisions the European Parliament really ought to play a greater role than provided for in the report, so that transparency is guaranteed and democratic structures are actually established.
This is even more important if you bear in mind that the Council is by no means in agreement with the Commission that the Senior Official Group should be established.
That only leaves us with the Senior Official Committee, which means that the institutional framework for taking democratic decisions will be distinctly limited.
I personally would therefore support Mrs Niebler's new proposal in which she suggests establishing a "call-back procedure" in the wake of Lamfalussy.
My Group has, in any case, tabled certain amendments.
I hope that the House will be able to accept these amendments.
They will also be supplemented by an oral amendment which I hope the House will support.
We can take on board the Council's proposal, in which it proposes that in cases going beyond technical measures the Commission should propose a legal instrument to Parliament and the Council.
I hope that we will have your support for this and I hope that the Commission will be able to live with this amendment.
Mr President, I would like to express my gratitude that the work of the Echelon committee has received such coverage in the Finnish media this evening.
It is one of the major news stories of the day.
I would also like to say to the Commissioner that we appear to have got into the habit of celebrating Tuesday evenings here together- all the usual suspects, as we are on these issues.
It is almost a little absurd.
The rapporteur and the previous speakers have highlighted the significance of efficient use of the latest resource to be in short supply, namely frequencies.
It is important that we have transparency in the use of these.
As Mr Pohjamo said, it is also important to report the terms for the frequencies used.
It should also be possible to reserve frequencies for services useful to society on special terms.
As has been mentioned, it is actually the institutional issues which are difficult.
I personally am a little afraid that we may have worked a bit too quickly and that we are in the process of developing quite a few hierarchies.
We talk about technical implementation provisions.
We also talk about the political level and the mandates given to the CEPT.
In other words, the system is quite complicated.
Our group came up with a proposal for a call back procedure.
However, I hope we agree that what in this context have been called technical implementation measures do not include technical matters. Otherwise, we would be moving much too far into the CEPT' s territory.
There are also certain other aspects which may need correcting tomorrow.
There is still a proposal to send observers to the High Level Group.
Parliament' s proposal refers to both a high level group and a committee.
We simply cannot have both representation in a high level group and also a call-back procedure.
That would be too much.
We must look at how we can correct this before tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what we need is a set of uniform procedures for frequency allocation.
The objective should be to achieve the greatest economic benefit possible.
The UMTS has demonstrated that there is a need for action here.
If a kind of virtual property arises as a result of frequency allocation, would it not make sense to permit licensing in this field in such a way that a new source of income is again available for finance ministers which, combined with equity capital formation for the companies involved, brings a benefit for both sides?
I think that we need to look for totally new theories for frequency allocation and that we should also have the courage to implement them.
I often get complaints from CB users.
Mr Scheibenbogen writes to me regularly.
This is quite simply because there is still no single market for equipment use in Europe, so that we need to find an approach in the area of hardware too so as to secure a single market.
Article 7 is about publishing information.
I would be interested to hear from the Commissioner in what form this information is to be made available in future.
I would like to see more detail in Article 10(1) about the powers of investigation for regulatory authorities, whilst of course observing the principle of proportionality and preserving business secrets.
I believe that these principles are particularly important for the future, and I will be pleased if we can congratulate Mrs Niebler on the adoption of this very important report tomorrow, because she really has done sterling work.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Niebler for her excellent report.
The radio spectrum has become a central means of communication, bringing with it money and power.
With no standardised allocation procedures, we all know the result of the third generation mobile phone deals - one company in the sector is currently going bankrupt every week.
In some Member States there were no charges at all, while others used hybrid systems.
The result of all this is a confused situation, not to mention unemployment.
This was supposed to give us a cutting edge in global competition.
Because radio waves transcend borders, it is clear that we need common European principles to administer them since, to put it bluntly, fifteen different interpretations of the same thing is a barrier to marketing.
The Electronic Europe strategy demands that everyone should be included on equal terms.
This makes things considerably more difficult and conflict must be removed.
At the same time, cultural diversity should be encouraged and in this regard I mean, for example, public radio broadcasting, which must be given the necessary frequencies.
I approve of this kind of political decision making but when deciding on commercial issues we have to have a level playing field with the same procedure, whether this be auction or some other procedure, throughout the whole of Europe so that the system does not end up on the verge of collapse as it is now.
For this reason I support Amendments Nos 22 and 23 and Mrs Mann' s oral amendment.
I think that this will see us achieve a balance in these sub-areas and gain an understanding of what is important and what is business.
Mr President, the Commission is pleased with the progress on its proposal for a decision on radio spectrum policy.
I too would especially like to thank Angelika Niebler for her report.
This proposal is part of a whole which the Commission would like to see adopted by the end of the year.
The Commission would like to state that the wide-ranging discussions of recent years are now producing results, as the general importance of the radio spectrum and the need for efficient decision making are starting to be recognised.
Today, following discussion in the committee, the issue is having its first reading in the European Parliament.
The timing is ideal, since, after much discussion, the Council, for its part, last week reached consensus on the new text which largely confirms the Commission' s original aims.
Following its examination of Angelika Niebler' s report and the new amendments, the Commission can state that it is satisfied that Parliament in principle supports the Commission' s proposal.
Despite this, the Commission has some detailed observations on various parts of the report.
From the Commission' s point of view the most problematic aspect of the report is that it does not sufficiently distinguish between, on the one hand, issues which fall under the codecision procedure and, on the other, issues to be decided by the committee procedure.
All the amendments to be approved must comply with the comitology rules agreed for the EU institutions, which guide the use of the committee procedures and according to which the Radio Spectrum Committee will also have to operate.
Some amendments propose that all the decisions should be made by the codecision procedure, in other words that this procedure be adopted in agreeing the Community' s common policy and also in agreeing such technical implementation measures required in order to comply with the policies agreed.
In the opinion of the Commission, the latter, i.e. technical implementation measures, should be agreed by committee, where they would be determined using the committee procedure.
In addition, the report presents amendments according to which the European Parliament could revoke or amend measures already realised via the committee procedure.
In the view of the Commission, this conflicts with the Comitology Decision.
I would like to remind you of the main principle of the proposal: whenever the European Parliament and the Council, using the codecision procedure or by other means, agree Community policy concerning the radio spectrum, such as the Galileo project or the Single European Sky project, they agree at the same time that radio frequencies are available in order to realise this Community policy in practice.
In this context the committee procedure is needed to enable us to decide on the technical implementation measures which are essential in order to realise the agreed Community policy.
To clarify the matter further it can also be stated that the committee procedure is not used to agree Community policy which may depend on radio frequencies or such harmonisation which go beyond merely technical implementation measures.
In such cases, the codecision procedure is used.
For this reason the Commission cannot accept those amendments from Parliament which conflict with the central approach of our proposal for a decision.
Parliament' s amendments, according to which, all the decisions made by the committee procedure would be brought before Parliament and where Parliament would have the right to amend or revoke them if they concern issues other than purely technical implementation measures are against the rules set out in the Comitology Decision.
According to the Comitology Decision, the Commission must re-examine draft measures if, according to a resolution by Parliament, they exceed the implementing powers provided for in the instrument on which they are based and inform Parliament of the action it intends to take on Parliament' s resolution and of its reasons for doing so.
In this context the most important amendments from the Commission' s point of view are Amendments Nos 10 and 19, and the Commission also requests that the Members of the European Parliament reconsider their opinion on these amendments as they already have regarding Amendments Nos 21, 22 and 23.
However, I would finally like to emphasise that the Commission greatly values Parliament' s seeking to play an active role in the decision-making process regarding the radio spectrum.
For precisely this reason the Commission referred in its proposal to the existing opportunities for doing so - the codecision procedure and the committee procedure.
As for the other amendments, the Commission can approve Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 17 and 22 - 25.
We accept Amendments 3, 7, 9, 11 - 13 and 20 in principle.
The Commission is unable to approve any other amendments.
To conclude, I can state that the opinions of the institutions on the aims of the proposed decision have converged.
This should be seen as a guiding principle in further preparation for the entry into force of the decision.
On this basis the Commission is ready to continue open cooperation with the European Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
(The sitting was closed at 11.40 p.m.)
Thank you, Mr Cossutta.
Madam President, I learned yesterday that the Bureau was to make a statement today about the memorandum being prepared by this House on enlargement.
You have a great sensitivity for language, Madam President, and you are more aware than anyone that the choice we are about to make on language regulation is the key to a great many other decisions that will have to be taken.
Can you assure us that in the future all elected members of this House will continue to have the right to express themselves in their own language, to listen to their fellow-MEPs in their own language and to write in their own language?
That would be a great help in setting our minds at rest.
Mrs Thyssen, I have noted what you say.
But having said that, I must explain to you that the Bureau will not be adopting the document you mentioned this evening. It will not be until September, when the groups have been able to study it in depth.
Madam President, I should like to draw your attention to the increasing and continuing problems faced by our drivers.
I was told that this afternoon a lawyer' s letter was going to be delivered to the prefect of Alsace, to clarify the uncertainty over the problems between the Ministry of Home Affairs and the French Ministry of Transport, since at the moment, the logical consequence of the regulations is that the vehicles used for taxi transport in the other weeks would no longer be available for use this week.
I believe that in the light of the fact that France is very keen on keeping the seat of Parliament here, it is very regrettable that these kinds of formalities should jeopardise our transport.
Yes, I can tell you that the Quaestors will be looking into this issue.
I am looking at the few Quaestors who are present in the House and I can confirm that they will be examining this issue very closely.
Programme of the Belgian presidency
The next item is the Council statement on the programme of the Belgian presidency.
I give the floor to Mr Verhofstadt, President-in-Office of the Council.
Thank you, Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you are appearing here today with a great political ambition, with a coherent programme which is a significant commitment, and you are offering an alliance with Parliament.
On behalf of the Socialist Group, I can tell you that, in the terms that you have presented the issue - as Prime Minister of a Belgian rainbow government, which has demonstrated that democratic alternation also works in Belgium - of course you can count on our support and our cooperation.
Firstly, with regard to the future of the Union and its challenges, you have insisted that unity creates strength and that there must be cooperation with Parliament.
We agree on the diagnosis of the specific problems.
The question is now to know whether the way we are going to deal with them will be effective.
I believe we have two possible fundamental points of departure, which you have mentioned: on the one hand, the development of European citizenship and, on the other, the introduction of the euro.
It seems to me that over the last twenty years, since the draft Spinelli Treaty, the Adonino report, our work in preparing the Treaty of Maastricht, our drafts of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, Parliament has always been an ally and an accomplice in European progress.
Specifically, at the moment, we believe that it is extremely significant that, faced with the Laeken Declaration, there is an agreement on what you call the 'constitutionalisation' of the Treaties, which demands a public debate.
You have the responsibility to provide it, on the one hand, with a method and, on the other, with content.
That is a fundamental issue: we believe that the convention must be the forum which, with the participation of parliamentarians, governments and the Commission, prepares the work for a decisive Intergovernmental Conference.
You began by talking about your appearance as Minister of Budgets in 1988.
I was the rapporteur who presented the financial perspectives which have allowed us to make progress, but, as you know very well, anyone who ignores the budget is making a big mistake.
I believe it is absolutely essential that you argue that funding must be a public, democratic and fundamental element of our future.
Another basic element is the economic and social agenda.
You have asked for a coherent economic policy.
We need one.
We are in a period of far-reaching conversion and restructuring.
We need to defend our competitive capacity, but we must also respond to the thousands and thousands of workers who are affected by this very broad and decisive process.
It is therefore absolutely essential that we have an ambitious social dimension, that we insist on the quality of employment, and deal with pensions and the demographic future of Europe, and all these things are in your programme.
Finally, Madam President, our international dimension.
The European Union is the first experience of civilised globalisation in history.
We must defend that and take it to the next Millennium Round of the WTO.
But there are also some important challenges in relation to our personality in the world.
You have correctly pointed out that you can receive two telephone calls.
Two is better than none, which is what happened before.
We must consolidate what already exists.
I believe that, in this respect - think, for example of the number of calls received by the President of the United States - what we need is a clear approach, that must maintain a presence in the Balkans, in the Middle East, and I thank you for mentioning Africa.
At the Council of the Socialist International last weekend in Lisbon, we spoke about Africa as a fundamental priority.
That is one of our moral commitments.
I would add something more: for the first time there is a minister in Ecofin who proposes a debate on the viability of an international tax on speculation.
That must also contribute to making globalisation more civilised, and we welcome the fact that the Belgian presidency has taken that initiative.
Lastly, Mr President, and I will end here, I believe that 99 working days is very little; surely you are going to end up without any holidays.
However, if you are able to implement this ambitious project, you can count on our support, our cooperation and our understanding.
Madam President, Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, it has already been said more than once that the Belgian Presidency comes at a crucial moment.
There are ample reasons for this.
To begin with, the indispensable and broadly based debate on the future of Europe which you must initiate.
The Laeken Declaration must be an initial outline of a Union which, although enlarged, can nevertheless work efficiently and with which citizens can identify.
Precisely because of people' s declining interest in Europe, you rightly said that the European Union must pay more attention to the concrete complaints of its citizens.
Another crucial point is the place of the Union in the world.
It is correct that the European Union should exercise more influence on world developments in the monetary, economic, social, ecological and commercial spheres, but also and especially in the field of international policy.
On that point, you are right to point to Africa, where there is a humanitarian problem.
But the EU could also play a more active role in relations with, for example, the United States, Russia and Asia and, particularly, in relation to the peace process in the Middle East.
Be that as it may, the merits of this Belgian Presidency will be largely judged by its internal achievements.
The Belgian programme appears many-faceted and ambitious, involving the European social model, concern for the quality of life and work, better cooperation in the fields of migration and asylum, the transition to the euro, the follow-up to enlargement and many other points.
Prime Minister, an onerous task awaits you.
The European Parliament and European citizens are waiting for a powerful signal.
In Belgium, you have proved yourself able to breathe new life into politics.
Let us hope that you can transfer this to Europe too.
You are said to be a keen and energetic cyclist.
It is true that you frequently enjoy cycling, and in a variety of conditions: without wind, with the wind behind you and with a headwind.
You will now learn that, in Europe, you will often be cycling into the wind.
However, we know that you are undaunted and we wish you the success you deserve.
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, Prime Minister, during your presidency we will be travelling down a long and winding road, which began with Nice and will end with Laeken.
As we saw at Gothenburg there have also been obstacles along that road.
Along the way there was also Dublin, where the people said they did not want to go any further along this road unless there were radical changes made to the plans.
I would now like to ask whether we must therefore return to Nice in order, finally, to get to Laeken.
My own view is that at Nice some big mistakes were made, which must at all costs be put right.
Future Member States were treated unfairly there. For example, they did not all receive their rightful share of seats in the European Parliament.
Secondly, we were by no means able there to confirm and clarify decision-making conventions in the European Union.
You yourself gave an example of this: there are more than thirty instruments at our disposal, which means it cannot really be clear how the European Union functions.
I think that the European Union can continue its expansion, even if the Treaty of Nice should not be ratified in its present form, and you, Prime Minister, have an excellent opportunity in this respect.
At Laeken a consultative committee must certainly be set up, to commence drafting a constitution for the European Union and to deliberate on fundamental issues.
It is most important that this is the path we should take and that future Member States can also be involved in this work, this convention, which must be established at Laeken.
You mentioned globalisation.
I was pleased to note that during your presidential term the Tobin tax is to be discussed, which civil society is speaking so much about.
I think you have a perfect opportunity to show you understand what President Prodi was talking about: that globalisation also causes problems, dividing European societies into two and, furthermore, adding to the two-way split in societies in the global context.
Show you understand this concern, so that globalisation may then finally serve to benefit the development of the European social model, which you have named as one of your goals.
I would also like to mention the forthcoming talks on climate, which are to start in Bonn in two weeks' time.
You must use all your diplomatic skills to bring the United States, Japan and Australia back to the negotiating table.
My group will lend you all the support it can in your efforts to continue the work Sweden began in the name of sustainable development.
I would also like to note that we now have a president of the Council and a president of the Commission, who are both cyclists!
I believe that you understand the need to give sufficient weight to environmental problems relating to traffic and mobility in particular, which are contained in the programme of the Belgian presidency.
In this connection I might say that the President-in-Office of the Council in the Transport Council represents my political group and is doing some creditable work.
Finally, as we approach Laeken, first the king' s mighty castle appears on the horizon.
But do not, however, make this European Council meeting a royal event of bygone days, where decisions are reached over the people' s heads. Remember that democracy and transparency are what are needed more than anything else, and do not in any event build more castles in Brussels for future European summits!
This would not be giving the right signal to the public.
I nevertheless hope that your presidency will come to be even half as popular as a certain well-known royal princess - Mathilde - is in your country.
If you manage as much, your presidential term will have been a job well done.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I appreciated the fact, Mr Verhofstadt, that you frankly acknowledged what you rightly called an 'identity crisis' in Europe between the citizens and the European Union, and that you stressed the need to take their aspirations seriously so that, as you said, we can bring the citizens closer to Europe.
It makes a change from the all too frequent speeches designed to mollify, which people can no longer listen to because of all the contradictions that are glossed over.
It is only natural that new issues will arise from experience, which call for changes, innovations, and sometimes a questioning of matters that were believed to be done and dusted.
No subject should be taboo - we must acknowledge the problems, as you stressed.
In this spirit, I would like to mention a few issues that surface increasingly often in the debate provoked by the changes that are now affecting the European Union.
I believe that these issues should be raised as part of the exchange of ideas that you are hoping to promote during your presidency.
We have been repeatedly told, for example, that the eurozone was shielded from the major repercussions of the economic slowdown in the US.
We must now admit that, unfortunately, this has not been the case.
This is quite a serious misdiagnosis. What sort of analysis is being carried out?
What sort of lessons in economic and monetary policy must we learn from this, so as to avoid the European economy becoming entangled in the American financial bubble that is now about to burst over us? I would reiterate that, over six years, there has been a nine-fold increase in the amount of European capital flowing to the United States which, last year, reached over USD 220 billion.
There is another example that Mr Duisenberg himself sometimes uses - in contrast to the US Federal Reserve, which is required under its mandate to promote employment and growth, the European Central Bank is not required to deal with these problems, which are indeed at the heart of all of our concerns. Do the European citizens know this?
And what do they really think of this, when in fact unemployment is on the increase and growth is in decline? Should we not give some thought to this subject?
I have another example - the Stability Pact requires Member States to rationalise their public and social spending.
If we merely follow this policy over the coming months, will it not lead to an economic slowdown, at a time when we actually need to stimulate growth? In what way can we revise the usual criteria or the way in which they are implemented in order to overcome this contradiction?
Generally speaking, the fundamental question that the new, and rapidly deteriorating, economic circumstances raise and indeed force us to consider is, in my view, the following: what sort of political creativity can we come up with in order to avoid serious tension arising in all our societies even between some of the Member States, and, more importantly, with the candidate countries? This question cannot be answered by some sort of project to elect the President of the Commission by universal suffrage.
I think that we will have to attack the hard core of the neo-liberal model, which pervades European integration to an excessive degree. I also think that we are going to have to listen as well as involve the social actors and citizens in this necessary change.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to know how courageous and daring the Belgian presidency, which you have launched today, is prepared to be in this area?
Madam President, firstly I should to thank the Belgian government for outlining in its legislative agenda the priorities it intends to pursue during its six month presidency of the Union.
It has already made it clear that it intends to promote wider cooperation between law enforcement agencies throughout the Union.
Within the Union a new institutional framework to fight against organised crime is being put in place, following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The European Council has since launched two action plans to combat organised crime, aimed at overcoming disparities in national procedures and encouraging more efficient judicial cooperation.
The creation of Europol represented a major step forward in this context.
It is important that all EU institutions work together to ensure the development of a coherent European strategy against organised crime.
We must, at the same time, overcome difficulties to ensure that crossborder crime is tackled without curtailing the freedoms and legal rights of individuals and economic operators.
We should all recall that the primary motive of organised crime is financial gain.
I support a European-wide political agreement concerning the identification and confiscation of the proceeds of crime in all its forms.
We are all aware of the success the Irish Criminal Assets Bureau has had over the last five years in confiscating the proceeds of crime.
In Europe much has already been done to fight cyber crime.
The Council of Europe is in the process of completing preparations for the world' s first international convention on cyber crime.
The Commission has already presented a legislative proposal on child pornography on the Internet, in line with the provisions of the Council of Europe' s cyber crime convention.
I support the Commission' s framework programme to combat trafficking in human beings; the aim is to develop effective judicial cooperation across the European Union.
Over the next six months the Belgian presidency will have a coordinating role as we put in place the finishing touches to the launch of the euro notes and coins on 1 January next.
It is important that the information campaigns, which are to be intensified later this summer, are successfully managed.
In recent weeks the Israeli foreign minister and the Palestinian leader have visited Parliament.
It is now evident that the European Union has come to assume a pivotal role in pursuing peace within the Middle East.
I very much hope that the Belgian presidency will use this important time to help end the spiral of violence in the Middle East and seek the recommencement of dialogue between all parties in the region.
We are all aware that the EU leaders will be meeting in Laeken later this year to agree the format of a structured debate on Europe' s future.
It is very important that we avoid contributing to the creation of a two-tier Europe.
I certainly do not want to build a European Union that is controlled by the larger Member States to the detriment of the smaller Member States.
Smaller Member States must be strongly represented within the overall EU institutional structure.
Finally, I would urge the Belgian presidency to ensure that the difficult chapters of negotiation with the applicant countries are opened as soon as possible.
Solutions must be found to the chapters of discussion which to date have remained closed concerning the future accession of countries from central and eastern Europe.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I have heard the Presidency being very quick to talk of a Laeken Declaration, but feel obliged to remind them that the Treaty of Nice no longer exists, since it was rejected by an impeccably democratic referendum in Ireland.
The way in which this established fact is being ignored by European officialdom is very characteristic of the undemocratic, dangerously totalitarian turn that the European Union is taking.
For that matter, in other European Member States, even holding referenda is considered too risky.
No referendum on European expansion plans, no referendum on the introduction of the euro and no referendum on Europe' s ever-tightening grip on strictly national powers over, for example, culture or social security.
Gentlemen with the word democracy forever on their lips refuse to let the people decide for themselves.
Last week in the leading Flemish weekly Trends, Frans Crols put it as follows: 'On 1 July, Belgium will become head of the Brussels mafia.
An amalgam of unelected apparatchiks in Brussels who are trying to build an ersatz-superpower in consultation with European politicians who outdo each other in vagueness' .
In that sense, it is very symbolic that the Belgian Presidency should be represented in Parliament by Prime Minister Verhofstadt and by Foreign Minister Michel.
Mr Michel is the man who led the hate campaigns against Austria and against Italy, since the people of those countries paid no attention in democratic elections to the paternalistic voting advice of a self-satisfied Belgian diplomatic machine.
Mr Verhofstadt is an undisputed champion, not only in cycling, but also in lying and breaking his word.
He is the man who came to power in Belgium, and remains in power, by denying his own civil manifestos and election promises and through a policy of systematic horsetrading and lying to the detriment of his own people.
Mr Verhofstadt is the man who cannot defeat the opposition Flemish Block party at the polls and who therefore is trying, at the taxpayers' expense, to have my party banned by the courts with methods that would not have been out of place behind the Iron Curtain or in Nazi Germany.
What the French lawyer Isorni once said about Michel Debré applies equally to Mr Verhofstadt: Qu' il marche à plat ventre sous le poids lourd de ses reniements, he crawls flat on his belly, weighed down by the weight of his denials.
Mr President, Prime Minister and Mr President of the Commission, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities and the cross-party intergroup, SOS Democracy also wish to welcome Mr Verhofstadt as President-in-Office of the Council and pledge our critical and constructive opposition, at the same time as reminding the prime minister of his promise of a meeting with SOS Democracy.
Your speeches in Austria and here today would have been much better if you had also talked with the democratic EU opposition.
We can perhaps help you to understand why people have voted no in the last three referenda on the EU in Denmark, Switzerland and Ireland.
When we discussed the Irish 'no' vote in the conciliation committee, there was not a member who dared to say that the Treaty of Nice could be adopted in a referendum in their country.
Those who expressed an opinion thought it would fail to be adopted.
One person said that it was fortunate that no referendum was to take place, for in that case it would also fail to be adopted in his own country, Portugal.
It is easier to replace a treaty than a country' s people.
Respect the ground rules that have been adopted unanimously.
Respect the Irish 'no' vote.
The Treaty of Nice has failed to be adopted.
Instead, support grassroots discussions concerning a treaty which people will be able to vote in favour of in all the countries, because it does not restrict, but rather extends democracy.
Acquire a more comprehensive circle of advisers.
With all due respect, your new think-tank consists mainly of elderly people who have all contributed to shifting power from voters and elected representatives to officials and ministers.
There are no young people and no women and not a single person who shares the views of the democratic majority which votes 'no' in EU referenda.
Mr Delors, Mr Dehaene, Mr Amato, Mr Geremek and Mr Milliband are hardly in a position to write a treaty which can attract majority votes in referenda.
SOS Democracy has sketched out a thirteen-point alternative which we should like to discuss with you.
It can be read at EU.observer.com, and its demands could presumably be adopted in a referendum because the heading refers not to a more intrusive European Union characterised by secrecy, bureaucracy and remoteness from the people but to a considerably slimmed-down EU, characterised by transparency, democracy and proximity to the people.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, although the Belgian Presidency has only just got into gear, many people have the impression, President-in-Office of the Council, that your tour of Europe began earlier with the rather premature launch of the sixteen priorities programme, or even in the wings at Nice, where your well-oiled communications machine managed to project the notion of Laeken even before it was fully appreciated that Nice, in several respects at least, would prove a failure.
The road ahead of you is not an easy one.
On the one hand, you yourself have chosen it through your ambitious announcements but, on the other hand, you will not have escaped the tricolour rucksack given you as head of government of a country that is traditionally known to be able to reconcile the irreconcilable and, at difficult moments, to have launched visionary proposals that help the European community to progress.
On behalf of the Belgian members of the largest group in this Chamber, I wish you the same success as Jean-Luc Dehaene in 1993.
He was virtually buried under the weight of praise.
We are not part of the coalition headed by you, but we have no intention of putting a spoke in the wheels of your Presidency or of reducing this Chamber to an arena for internal Belgian use.
What our predecessors constructed in Europe is too precious to us for that.
We are even prepared to give you a helpful push, at least when the race official is not watching, but only if your Presidency sets a course that really improves people' s lot, both here and elsewhere in the world.
Mr President, there is insufficient time to dwell on the matters on the agenda, but the list is not really that important.
What does matter is the quality of the solutions and the vision that they project.
Whether we are talking about the conversion to the euro, enlargement, the Laeken Declaration on the future or the legislative matters, one thing is clear: the people are no longer behind us, they have lost their way, the peloton no longer really knows where the European course is leading it.
Prime Minister, work to ensure that people feel at home again in Europe.
There are no miracle cures, but there are key words: information, democratic involvement and transparency.
In December, you have the king' s permission to use his palace.
I hope that you will also be given the use of the royal greenhouses.
Their symbolic value is great.
Naturally, you will also be expected to ensure that the palace at the summit of Laeken is not demolished.
There will be no shortage of demonstrators and troublemakers in Brussels either, unless you ensure that there is real involvement.
Why do you not conduct a Europe-wide NGO consultation exercise?
Not at the same time as Laeken, but about four weeks beforehand.
You would be offering genuine demonstrators the opportunity to make themselves heard in a positive way while it were still of benefit to do so , and if the mass of genuine demonstrators were subsequently absent, the attraction for the anarchist hooligans would be immediately removed.
I look forward to your reaction to this suggestion.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I think, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that the applause from my group just now on the presentation of the programme of the Belgian Presidency has shown you that you can count on the full support of my group and, for that matter, I should also particularly like to emphasise the complete support of the Belgian Socialists in this group.
I was especially glad that you began with Europe' s crisis of identity, because it is definitely not just in Ireland but everywhere in the European Union, even in Belgium, that there is a sense of there being a gulf between ourselves and ordinary citizens.
It will therefore not be 'business as usual' for the Belgian Presidency, certainly not with a historic task such as enlargement in prospect.
In that context, I should therefore like to bring to your attention three points that strike us as being especially important.
Firstly: it is clear that the future of Europe can no longer be worked out in exclusive groups either of diplomats or of technicians.
Europe must again become a political project, and that means, for example, that the debate on the future must really become a large-scale, albeit difficult, exercise in European democracy. It must therefore be carried out in dialogue with civil society and be more than a virtual debate on a website being instead a kind of parliamentary assembly of civil society.
The second point concerns your Laeken Declaration.
As you yourself quite rightly say, the discussion must centre on where we are heading with the enlarged Union and cover how we are to proceed, with what institutions and with what finance.
I should like to ask you, please, to remember to include a healthy environment and the quality of life in this vision of the future of Europe.
I believe it is a wise decision that you wish to prepare for this debate with the help of the advisors of the Laeken group.
But allow me, with the greatest respect for the mainly grey-haired wise men, to say that it will surely not be prepared for without the presence of a single woman.
I truly hope that you will correct this blemish, because the future of Europe concerns the future of men and women alike.
A final point.
I am convinced that people' s confidence in European institutions can also grow through the practical issues.
And I believe that your programme guarantees a social, sustainable and politically stronger Europe.
I should like to come back to one specific matter, namely that concerning the taxation of speculative capital flows.
This may seem a detail in your list of priorities, a symbolic matter, but for everyone, MEPs and NGOs, throughout Europe who are convinced that globalisation has produced distortions, this is a very important issue.
The Belgian Presidency could show, in connection with this matter, that there really is a difference between the thousands of peaceful demonstrators who stood in the street of Gothenburg and have a political message and those who know only the language of violence.
I wish you every success with the Presidency, and you can rely on our support.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you can obviously count on this Parliament being predisposed in your favour.
That of course has to do with your high ambitions, which correspond with our own and also with the great disappointments that we as parliamentarians were forced to endure at Nice and during various presidencies.
But, as you know, the higher you climb, the further you have to fall.
It will count more heavily against you in this Parliament if you fail, than against those of whom less was expected.
There is already a first: regional ministers will also operate during your Presidency of the Council.
And I am speaking here as chair of the European Free Alliance to tell you that the regions are counting on you to ensure that, during this Presidency, their request to be directly involved in the discussions on the future of Europe will be granted.
Our wish is that the role of the European constitutional regions should be strengthened in the Union.
At the same time, we want a federal Europe that is better equipped for its core tasks, such as foreign and security policy.
Is it not appalling that, so close to enlargement of the Union to include five hundred million people and over twenty Member States, we do not yet even have a coherent European migration and asylum policy although, every day, traffickers in human beings dump desperate people on our coasts and allow them to drown?
A safe and just area, able to remove people' s fear of enlargement, is one of your priorities.
The battle against illegal trading in arms, drugs and human beings must be vigorously engaged in, as must the battle against fraud.
Of course, I have a number of other wishes, but I shall be able to make them known to you on other occasions.
I wish you every success.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to give my sincere and heartfelt thanks to Mr Verhofstadt for presenting the work programme of the Belgian presidency.
Unlike Mrs Thyssen, I believe that Mr Verhofstadt is showing us the way.
He has made some revolutionary proposals, and I am slightly saddened, Mr Poettering, that you and many others have not picked up on this.
Mr Verhofstadt is proposing nothing less than saving the Commission, because the election of President of the Commission by universal suffrage is the only way to save the Commission, since we know that the European Union will perish without it.
Therefore, I would say to the dead souls of bureaucracy, who would prefer to choose a president using fundamentally obscure parliamentary manoeuvres, that those who are not on this wavelength must strongly support Mr Verhofstadt' s idea and proposals.
I hope that we too will be allies of the Belgian presidency and the Belgian presidency not just an ally of the European Parliament.
There is, of course, no doubt about the main message of Mr Verhofstadt' s statement, of which we were also aware in advance: the integration process is to be consolidated, where that fine up-beat word 'integration' means more power to the EU institutions and a corresponding weakening of the national democracies.
This is something of which the President-in-Office of the Council and, for that matter, the combined EU machine is very well aware, and they betray the fact when they talk about the distance between the EU and its people.
This is described as a democratic deficit, and it is said that people must reconcile themselves with the EU' s institutions. What, then, is to be done about something that is undeniably, of course, a fundamental democratic problem?
What is to be done when, time after time, the people vote against integration on those notably exceptional occasions when they are asked? Is the voice of the people being listened to?
No, it is not. Instead, a complaint is voiced, most recently to the effect that the Irish people had voted wrongly, and it is also pointed out that there were not a great many people who voted and that those who did must have thought they were voting on something else.
What is more, the vote was about the same as at the elections to the European Parliament.
And so the integration and ratification process in connection with the Treaty of Nice is continued with as if nothing had happened.
However, rhetoric is not enough, as the President-in-Office of the Council so commendably said.
Ignoring a people' s clear statement about the integration process is not democracy, but autocracy.
Autocracy must have a democratic façade, however, and the very telling words of the President-in-Office of the Council are designed to reconcile the people to the EU' s institutions.
The Benelux Declaration of 21 June is a frightening example of this process.
It is a so-called structured debate.
Whether it be called a forum, a convention or whatever, what essentially it is about is excluding one side: the crucial side of the agenda.
The historical model to return to in this case is the Supreme Soviet' s democracy arrangements.
It is a parody of democracy: government by the people, but without the people.
You say that more than rhetoric is needed here, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
I agree, and that 'more' is to ask the question, 'Is integration the solution or the problem?'
I would like to focus on one of the central ideas of the Belgian presidency, according to what has been said this morning.
I believe we can all agree on the following consideration: the free movement of people, goods and capital which we enjoy in the European Union has also given rise to the free movement of criminals within our borders but, nevertheless, since there is no free movement of police or judicial decisions, we are running the risk of creating an area of impunity within Europe.
Furthermore, we must recognise that the progress made since Tampere in the development of the third pillar has not responded to the ambitions drawn up there.
In Laeken, within the planned assessment of the degree of compliance with the European Commission' s scoreboard for the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice, the Heads of Government are being offered an excellent opportunity to provide a political impulse for this process. I would therefore ask Mr Verhofstadt to decide to favour a political declaration of this nature, which would inject new dynamism into the process started at Tampere.
This means creating more efficient instruments for combating terrorism, such as the European arrest order.
The European Union, Mr President, is an area with harmonisable judicial systems in the field of judicial guarantees and respect for human rights, and we must therefore 'communitise' the fight against organised crime.
Mr President, I very much welcome the programme and priorities of the Belgian presidency in the employment and social field.
It is a programme essentially about the modernisation, but also about the renewal and reinforcement of the European social model, and as such it obviously strikes a positive cord with the Socialist Group in this house.
One key element of that programme will be the work you will do to set out clearly the social goals we need to achieve in the reform of our pension systems.
That, rather than a concentration on the concerns of the financial institutions, should be our proper starting point.
Your work should also fit well with the communication announced in Parliament by Commissioner Diamantopoulou yesterday.
In that broader field, you will be putting in place the most important building blocks for an open coordination for social protection, and we wish you well, although I was disappointed not to hear specific reference to social exclusion in that context.
Three specific points in the employment and labour market area: first, in relation to quality of work, it would be very useful if you could work with us in Parliament to incorporate amendments on quality indicators into the employment guidelines for 2002 to jump-start the Commission' s communication on that subject.
Second, also in relation to quality, I hope you will apply some pressure to the Commission to speed up its preparation and launching of a new strategy on health and safety.
The delay is unacceptable.
Finally, I know that you will work with us to adopt, as quickly as possible, the general framework on information and consultation and the company statute.
But I also hope again that you will apply pressure to the Commission to speed up its work on the revision of the European Works' Council Directive.
That too is a very important ingredient and there is no good reason for its delay until the end of this year or the beginning of next.
Ladies and gentlemen, Prime Minister, after what you have said I am satisfied that the great, but also difficult, debate on the future of the Union is in good hands with you.
So, open that door as wide as possible in Laeken so that we can have a thorough debate.
And, as a Fleming, I should like to ask you to ensure that, in this debate, the regions are finally able to play a role in the Union.
As you quite rightly said, a radical intervention is necessary to make it clear to people how important the Union can be for them.
But more is required than that.
The Union must also work through, and carry to a conclusion, the decisions that it has taken and is still taking.
And you have already mentioned a number of things.
As a Liberal, I should like to stress a few more: the Tampere Summit , the rights and duties of the citizen and security.
I am glad that you have said that it is high time that some impact was felt.
That Tampere Summit is almost two years old.
The Lisbon Summit was about achieving the most competitive and efficient economy in the world.
It was a very liberal declaration, but the fire has gone out of it. I am glad that there are a few important liberalising issues on the table and that you have said that, during this Presidency, a few must be solved.
The Gothenburg Summit of a few weeks ago was about sustainability, including the decision to comply with Kyoto.
Therefore, the Commission must table a proposal as soon as possible on the trading of emission rights and, under your Presidency, something must be done as soon as possible with that proposal so that we can apply Kyoto in an economically feasible manner.
That is of huge importance to the European economy, and certainly to the Flemish economy.
The Feira Summit is my last example.
At that summit, already over a year ago, a charter for small and medium-sized businesses was approved.
The Union has had a policy on small and medium-sized businesses for such a long time, but the benefits of the Union sometimes seem very far off, especially for small businesses.
People find it all too complicated, so give concrete form to a few of those provisions of the charter for small and medium-sized businesses.
And if you implement a number of decisions where security, competition policy, small and medium-sized business policy and the environment are concerned, , you will increase the impact of Europe on people and we shall be able to say at the end of the year, as in the TV commercial: "a little pride can do no harm" .
Mr President, we are aware of your interest in businesses, and particularly the role they play in society in each of our Member States.
A genuine policy of cooperation for businesses is even more essential due to the fact that economic growth is slowing down, the number of people out of work in our societies is still too high and because of regional planning, especially in our rural areas.
What became of all our good intentions and the objectives that were laid down in Lisbon in March 2000 to make Europe the most competitive and dynamic area in the world - or those set at Feira last year, where the Council adopted the European Charter for Small Enterprises? This charter has gone unheeded.
No appropriations have been set aside and no practical measures have been planned.
Mr President, what decisions are you going to take in order to draw up a work programme for the practical implementation of the ten policy guidelines laid down in this charter? Furthermore, the Sixth Framework Programme on Research and Development, which will be voted on during your presidency, is in the process of being drafted.
What place will you grant to businesses?
What are your proposals to enable every business to gain access to the consumer society, regardless of its size and business sector? I am thinking in particular of all small enterprises and traditional businesses.
Mr President, I feel I can say that the Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Affairs firmly supports the statement which launched the Belgian presidency' s term of office this morning, particularly one of the points you made, Mr Verhofstadt, to the effect that it is not enough to provide the citizens with tangible solutions to the tangible problems which affect them most.
Of course, the new developments in the Union' s policies such as those you outlined will enable us to win back the citizens' confidence in the European project, but the citizens also feel a strong need to be able to take part in the development stage of the Union' s guidelines and decisions.
The democratic legitimacy of the Union is not an abstract question, of interest only to institutional affairs enthusiasts and experts; moreover, enlargement on a large scale imposes the urgent need and provides the opportunity for a genuine renewal, both symbolic and institutional, of the European Union.
We therefore appreciate your clear, unequivocal commitment to producing a European Constitution.
In this regard, I would like to point out that, only yesterday, in Milan, the Italian President of the Republic, Mr Ciampi, made a speech along precisely those lines.
As regards the Convention, Mr Verhofstadt, as you know, the dispute over the name is not meaningless.
Those who insist on the term 'forum' have something different in mind from what you said.
We support the line you have taken and we are confident that Laeken will opt for the Convention.
Mr President, the Belgian presidency' s ambitious programme for this presidency gives us hope that it is possible to combine tangible, solid steps on the way to an even more successful future for Europe with vision.
You see, I actually believe that the public not only expect practical solutions, but also want to know where we are heading in the European Union.
This will also become apparent in the case of economic policy.
Here too, Mr President-in-Office, we need more democracy and transparency, and I would be pleased if the Belgian presidency were also to take on board the proposals which the European Parliament has already developed.
It is in economic policy in particular that we see that, on the basis of the Lisbon and Stockholm conclusions, further progress needs to be made so that we can also actually bring about growth based on effective employment.
At a time when one negative prognosis about the development of the European Union follows hot on the heels of another, it is important for the Belgian presidency to try, with a steady hand, to set priorities so that we can actually successfully achieve our ambitious goal of bundling and coordinating policies in the fields of the economy, employment and social affairs.
There is still a lot of catching up to do here, and coordination must not only be a word; it must also be reflected in the bundling of policies and in the creation of greater transparency so that steps of this kind are also taken in tandem across the Member States.
The same applies to fiscal policy, Mr President, because here we have unfair competition within the European Union.
I am counting on the Belgian presidency here.
In conclusion, I should like to make one further point: yours is a twofold presidency and you also have the task of leading the eurozone in the run-up to 1 January 2002.
We all know that there is still a lack of information and a lack of acceptance.
I call on the Belgian presidency, together with its colleagues, to make the introduction of the euro really a top-level issue so that we not only have brochures being distributed but also confidence-building measures being initiated by your side, so that as the euro moves from being a virtual currency union to being a reality it is accompanied by confidence and credibility.
Mr President, the Belgian presidency' s ambitions coincide with the ambitions of Parliament.
There is continuity in foreign and defence policy, in the implementation of the single currency and in sustainable development, but there is also insistence on the relationship between European integration, economic competitiveness and the social agenda.
We need to modernise the European social model, which is characterised by solidarity.
Nevertheless, the key issue concerns the relationship between enlargement and reform of the European institutions.
Enlargement must be a success for Europe.
The Laeken Summit must remove the intergovernmental uncertainties of Nice.
It is now a question of method and of political substance as well.
The response can only be provided by a Convention which in which, first and foremost, the national parliaments and the European Parliament participate as democratic representatives of the citizens.
In order to restore the citizens' confidence in Europe, we must make the institutions of this Convention more transparent, more efficient and more democratic.
This is the point - it has even been said today - on which Council, Commission and Parliament all agree.
This is a challenge which is highlighted by globalisation, a challenge that we must tackle together as we work towards a European Constitution.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Belgium is Europe in miniature with all its advantages and disadvantages.
This experience is partly the key to the success of the Belgian presidency.
The Belgian work programme is ambitious, and it is also set against an extraordinary context in order to regain the trust of the citizens, in other words, with the introduction of the euro, a debate on the future of Europe and also a debate on enlargement.
If we wish to gain the trust of the citizen, however, I believe that, above all, it is essential to make Europe credible and to make our policies credible.
(DE) Mr President, in this context I should like to highlight a specific problem, namely the typically European behaviour which we have observed in recent years and which consists of fighting for one' s own country and for one' s own region, even if this is at the expense of Europe' s development, and then being astounded that the public have lost faith in Europe.
However, this analysis goes even further.
The end product of this - and this brings me to what the President of the Commission said - is a denial of solidarity, and we are only too aware of this.
Just as it is in Belgium, it is also an easy but very dangerous policy at European level to convince the rich to refuse to show solidarity with the poor.
I believe that today we need more courage to show solidarity, but the forthcoming enlargement means that we need even more courage.
Making Europe credible therefore also means answering the very simple questions posed by the public, which are part of your programme.
Why do we talk about a Europe without borders when in health, fiscal and social policy we still have borders, which even create competition?
Why do we not simply say: we want enlargement towards the east, but no country is prepared to pay even one additional euro towards the cost of this.
There are numerous questions and I would say to the Belgian Prime Minister: in the language of figure skating, your compulsory programme is outstanding, but you will be judged on your free programme, and in these efforts to win over the public Parliament will be at your side.
(Applause)
Mr President, ambition is a practical joke played by the gods on mankind.
They give us ambitions so we believe we can climb the heights of Olympus and then they ensure that we never reach the top.
The programme of the Belgian presidency is ambitious.
It would be ambitious for a two-year presidency, but for one of 99 days, as the President-in-Office has pointed out, I fear that it is too ambitious.
I welcome, of course, his intention that the Union should listen to the people.
"We have to resolve the Irish question."
How often have those words been uttered down the centuries?
But Mr Verhofstadt has to lead the Council towards a resolution of the problem, posed by the failure of Nice and by the Irish referendum.
The democratic decision of the Irish people cannot be ignored or ridden roughshod over.
Democracy may be inconvenient, but it is all we have between freedom and tyranny.
Moreover, the Irish referendum and the concerns exposed in the demonstrations - even though they were hijacked by extremists - should be telling us something.
As the President-in-Office has said: they are telling us that Europe is not being listened to.
People all over the Union, and indeed in the global market all over the world, have lost their faith in the institutions of governance.
They are looking to us, their elected representatives, not for initiatives, but for reassurance.
Not for change piled upon change, but for stability.
Not for ambition, but, for that rarest of all human virtues - common sense.
If I may paraphrase the ancient Greek proverb for the President-in-Office: "Those whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first raise high."
Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciated Prime Minister Verhofstadt' s call in his speech to make Europe not just a Europe of red tape but, first and foremost, a Europe of citizens.
However, it is not enough, ladies and gentlemen, to tell the Europeans that they are European citizens.
We need to make them feel like European citizens.
The euro is certainly an important step - and I agree with the line taken by President Prodi - but it is not enough.
Without substantial political support, the euro is likely to encounter difficulties, as it has in recent months, in relation to the dollar and other currencies.
This is why we cannot disregard the outcome of the Irish vote but must give it our utmost attention.
This is why we must involve the European citizens in a convincing rediscovery of our common cultural, historical and political identity through an incisive policy linked to the principle of subsidiarity. Therefore, what can be decided at a lower level - and here I agree with Prime Minister Verhofstadt - must be.
The European Union must not concern itself with too many things but must lay down the guidelines, the policy lines for genuine involvement of the people and parliaments in the process of unification and enlargement.
The Convention preparing the forthcoming IGC must therefore directly involve the representatives of the people, that is the representatives of this and the national parliaments.
Involving the people too in the reform of the institutions will give this European Union an increasingly significant political - and I stress, political as well as economic - role.
These, I feel, are the bases for achieving an enlargement which we strongly believe to be an irreversible, necessary step for the European Union: an enlargement in which my political grouping believes and which the government, which my political grouping supports in Italy, stressed both in its meeting with President Prodi and at the last Gothenburg meeting.
However, if we really want to achieve permanent enlargement, it is vital that we involve the citizens and their representatives more and more.
Mr President, the Belgian Presidency is an important link in the preparation for enlargement because, during this Presidency, the first steps will be taken towards the next IGC.
That will be the conference that represents the last chance before enlargement to modify the European institutions and decision making process.
Despite this, the wider context is difficult.
The Germany-France axis will be partly blocked by elections next year in both countries.
Public alarm in the face of enlargement is real.
When it comes to Europe, the courage of the present Member States is not very great, and time is short.
Against this background, Belgium must succeed in having a declaration approved at Laeken which must, at any rate, contain an improvement in the decision-making process and must increase democratic legitimacy.
I am consciously not talking here about much larger projects that are being launched and that are aimed at bringing about a real revolution in all the institutions.
I have my doubts about the political feasibility of these.
As far as the improvement of the decision-making process is concerned, two things are essential.
Firstly, the unanimity rule must be abolished, except for matters related to the institutions themselves and to the transfer of powers.
With twenty-seven or thirty Member States, you cannot continue to work with the unanimity rule.
In conjunction with this change, the co-decision procedure with Parliament must be expanded.
The one must be linked to the other.
Secondly, there is an absolute need to make Europe less complex.
The Treaty of Nice is scarcely comprehensible, let alone explainable.
A host of decisions, directives, regulations, orders, guidelines and recommendations cannot be understood without a dictionary or accompanying notes, and even then they pose problems.
The decisions from Gothenburg are still puzzling even after three readings and four translations. This is true not only for ordinary people but also for extraordinary ones.
European seems to be becoming a twelfth language, with terms that, if they are not incomprehensible, have at least taken on a life of their own.
You must also already have been 'benchmarked' , 'mainstreamed' , etc.
The language of Europe has not become the language of Europeans.
On the contrary. In order to channel the involvement of the population productively, I believe that the Belgian Presidency should make a real project out of such involvement.
You should include this project among your priorities.
Euronews is financed by Europe.
If we want to know something about Europe, we follow CNN, not Euronews.
And you can say the same about many things that Europe does to inform the population.
Make it a project, Prime Minister!
Add this to your priorities and try to agree a relevant course of action with the countries of Europe.
Mr President, first and foremost I should like to thank the various speakers and especially the group chairmen.
I should also like to thank the President of the Commission, Romano Prodi, for his words.
I should like to make a total of four marginal comments on the various declarations.
First and foremost, I should like to comment on the outcome of the Irish referendum and on the suggestions that the Irish referendum be seized upon to argue that, in fact, we need less of a European input.
That should, apparently, be the result of this Irish referendum, at least if we were to take it into account.
Well, I find that a reductionist view.
There is certainly a democratic deficit in Europe, but you do not solve that deficit by having less of a European input, but by creating more democracy in Europe.
I believe that such an attitude is certainly not an arrogant one.
I have always, including at the meeting of the Council in Gothenburg, argued that we must not adopt an arrogant attitude to Irish voters by saying 'there is no problem, we shall not bother about the referendum and will simply continue as if there is nothing wrong' .
No, we must take that 'no' vote seriously and take it on board in our reflections.
The problem must be tackled.
However, it is an unacceptable solution to draw the conclusion from the Irish 'no' vote that we must simply again take the European Union into reverse.
My second marginal comment concerns the convention.
I agree with the various speakers that the governments must also be represented there at a high level, because it would be a mistake to exclude the governments and only to have them represented at a low level, resulting in a possible incompatibility between the outcome of the convention and that of the intergovernmental conference which, in the normal course of things, will be organised in 2004.
In addition, I believe that we must ensure that the constitutional regions are involved in the whole process.
(FR) The third comment that I would like to make, Mr President, concerns the European constitution.
I believe that we should also emphasise the positive aspects during this debate.
Some years ago, when we were discussing a European constitution, this was an idea that seemed impossible to achieve.
Today, I notice that, in speeches that have been made in the last two years, every European policy leader has taken up a position in favour of a European constitution.
I believe therefore that, as expressed in the Laeken Declaration, this is an idea that is possible to achieve.
(NL) Fourthly, I should like to make a comment on the Treaty of Nice.
Like the President of the Commission, I feel that it is absolutely vital that this Treaty is ratified.
No one need explain the weak points of the Treaty of Nice to me.
For four days we discussed and debated them constantly until four in the morning.
However, I believe that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
The advantage is that enlargement of the Union can finally take place, an enlargement that is more than just an enlargement.
It is a change that will finally bring about European unity.
It is therefore vital to ratify this Treaty quickly.
Finally, not one but several speakers wondered if all this were not too ambitious, warning that it is mainly deeds that matter.
Let me make it clear at the outset that I have no intention of playing Icarus, since that is one of the allusions that have just been made.
I believe that it is time that significant plans for reform were put on the table.
Anyone predicting ten years ago that we would have a single European currency, was in fact called an idealist.
The same applied to the introduction of the internal market, when the idea was floated twenty years ago.
I have no desire to play Icarus, but my motto is that of the first President of the European Commission, Mr Hallstein, who said, "Anyone who does not believe in miracles in European matters is not a realist" .
That strikes me as better advice.
(Applause)
Thank you very much, Mr Verhofstadt.
I wish the presidency and Belgium every success.
The debate is closed.
Situation in FYROM
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the situation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since its inception, the European Union has followed developments in the crisis in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia with a great deal of attention and concern.
The EU has also played a very active role in finding a peaceful solution to this conflict.
Since April, Javier Solana, the High Representative for the CFSP, has visited Macedonia on several occasions and has met the political authorities and representatives of the country' s main ethnic groups in Skopje and other areas, in order to gain some understanding of the situation and to encourage a peaceful solution to the crisis.
In April, a European Union ministerial troika, made up of Mrs Lindh, Mr Patten and Mrs Neyts also visited Skopje and, on 10 April 2001, the European Union and FYROM signed a stabilisation and association agreement in Luxembourg, which is the first agreement of this kind between the European Union and one of the Balkan nations.
The conclusion of this agreement helps to give the Union a vital and indispensable role in seeking an outcome to the crisis.
Furthermore, it has also given us an instrument with which we can put pressure on the parties in FYROM.
Since the first outbreaks of violence, the European Union has strongly condemned the violent acts committed by ethnic-Albanian extremists and urged them to bring an immediate end to this action, to lay down their arms and to retreat.
On the other hand, the Union made a firm request to the authorities in Skopje to adopt a measured military response to the rebel provocation and highlighted the need to pursue interethnic dialogue with a view to achieving the reforms that are urgent and necessary to resolving this conflict, particularly reforms relating to the law and to the protection of minorities.
This should also help to isolate the extremist groups, by providing the people involved with a clear prospect for hope.
In this spirit, the European Union and Mr Solana, the High Representative, welcomed the agreement of 11 May to form a broad coalition government, which includes the democratically elected leaders of the major Slav and Albanian political parties.
The EU urged them to step up their efforts to swiftly bring about practical and substantial results on the main issues currently under discussion.
At the Gothenburg European Council, the Heads of State and Government of the European Union reasserted the need to find a peaceful solution to the crisis. In terms, this involves launching a genuine political dialogue within the coalition of governments on all the questions under discussion, including constitutional reforms.
The European Council urged the local political forces to come up with results as quickly as possible.
Their deadline was the meeting of the General Affairs Council on 27 June 2001.
With regard to the security situation, the European Council has very strongly condemned the extremists and the use of violence.
The Council stressed the importance of establishing a lasting cease-fire agreed by the parties, which might require some direct or indirect contact between them.
The European Union and NATO may have a role to play in this as an intermediary or facilitator.
The disarmament plan proposed by President Trajkovski is the other pillar of the security situation.
The plan gives a central role in this process to NATO, since the parties consider that the presence on the ground of NATO and of European Union observers is essential to providing the necessary element of trust.
NATO has already adopted the necessary measures to enable it to act.
This intervention with a view to disarming the ethnic-Albanian rebels is, however, subject to specific security conditions which the parties concerned have not yet fulfilled.
The essential elements of this are concluding a lasting cease-fire on the basis of a political agreement which seeks to bring about a negotiated solution to the crisis.
We must point out that, since the beginning of the crisis, the European Union has closely coordinated its actions with NATO on this matter, by holding joint, regular and frequent meetings between the Atlantic Council and the Political and Security Committee, by regular liaison between various Secretariats, and by direct contact between Mr Solana and the NATO Secretary-General, Lord Robertson.
Both Mr Solana and Lord Robertson have also made joint visits to FYROM, during which a consistent and unequivocal message was conveyed to both parties on behalf of the international community.
In order to ensure that the European Union has permanent political representation in Skopje, the Gothenburg European Council agreed to appoint a special EU representative to work to FYROM, and, on 25 June, the General Affairs Council appointed François Léotard, the former French Minister for Defence, to this position.
Mr Léotard has been in Skopje since Thursday 28 June. Mr Léotard' s mandate is, first of all, to establish and maintain contacts with the government of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the parties involved in the political process.
His mandate also requires Mr Léotard to offer advice and support from the European Union for the current dialogue, to closely liaise with the representative of the presidency and the Commission in Macedonia, with the heads of the Member States' missions and also with European observers.
Mr Léotard must also establish and maintain contact with the other relevant international and regional players, including NATO, the OSCE and the United Nations, in order, of course, to ensure the necessary cooperation.
Lastly, Mr Léotard must assist, if necessary, in implementing possible agreements and to closely monitor all developments and initiatives concerning the security situation, in conjunction with the appropriate bodies.
The path that the Belgian presidency should follow has, therefore, been clearly mapped out by the decisions and the approach taken by the European Union over recent months, by the use of the instruments I have mentioned, by Mr Solana' s considerable commitment, and by Mr Léotard' s work on the ground.
The European Union is demonstrating its active commitment to resolving this crisis.
We are also working together with other actors, particularly the US envoy, Mr Pardew, and with the international organisations in Macedonia, in order to help to make rapid and tangible progress.
At this stage, the new presidency has to be consistent and be determined in pursuing and encouraging political dialogue in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
We must welcome the agreement that was reached last night, under the auspices of President Trajkovski, to resume political dialogue between the political parties of FYROM.
As a result of this agreement, intensive meetings will be held over the coming days.
Particular emphasis will be placed on constitutional matters, as a follow-up to Mr Badinter' s recent visit to Macedonia.
At the same time, and in close cooperation with NATO, the dialogue on the security situation will be pursued with equal determination, since these two aspects of the crisis are intrinsically linked and progress on both points should be made in parallel.
Mr President, the situation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia remains, as the minister has just said, a matter of intense concern to all of us.
In the three months since I last discussed this matter with honourable Members, there has been a steady deterioration in the security situation, a growing polarisation of political opinion and an exponential rise in the number of refugees and internally displaced persons.
The violence in front of the Parliament in Skopje just over a week ago, without exaggeration, brought matters to the very brink of the abyss.
It is welcome that in the last week there has not been a further serious deterioration in the security situation, and it is welcome, as Minister Michel has just said, that the political dialogue pioneered by President Trajkovski has been resumed.
I want to pay tribute to the President' s efforts, I want to pay tribute to the President' s calm decency in the face of this crisis.
As honourable Members will know, the European Union has been intensively involved, from the outset, in efforts to contain and extinguish this conflict.
All of us who have some responsibility for this region are acutely conscious of the danger that a descent into civil war in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia would pose, not just for the community there, that would be bad enough, but for the region as a whole.
Working with NATO, working with the OSCE, working with the United States, we will leave no stone unturned in the search for an end to this conflict and an agreed way forward based on dialogue and political settlement.
One feature of this crisis, has been the very close cooperation between the relevant international organisations and bodies involved, not drawn from any manual or textbook, but because we know how vital it is that we tackle this problem in a united and coherent fashion.
We have not yet succeeded in bringing the conflict to an end, but we are absolutely clear that it is only by working together and working with the democratically elected government in Skopje that we will succeed in doing so.
The leading role on behalf of the European has, of course, rightly been taken by my friend and colleague, High Representative Javier Solana.
He has been to Skopje on countless occasions and I have accompanied him on a number of those visits as well as making visits on my own.
He has worked, and is working, tirelessly for a peaceful solution, ably supported on the ground in Skopje by the outgoing presidency ambassador, Mark Dickinson, and by the head of the commission delegation, José Pinto Texeira. I want to pay a particularly warm tribute to him for his courage and steadfastness and wise advice.
A week ago, as the minister has said, the General Affairs Council appointed Mr Léotard as the European Union' s resident envoy, in Skopje, under the authority of Mr Solana.
I met Mr Léotard last week and promised him the full support of the European Commission in his work.
We stand ready to do all we can, anywhere and at any time.
Mr Léotard is initially locating himself in the Commission' s delegation office in Skopje.
As honourable Members know, in April the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia signed a stabilisation and association agreement with the European Union.
That agreement includes important commitments by the government in Skopje about respect for human rights, including the rights of minorities.
It is essential that those commitments should be honoured, and we all want to see early results in the inter-ethnic dialogue.
That is the only route to a lasting political solution.
The European Commission is providing very substantial support, EUR 42 million under CARDS in 2001.
Much of it will specifically help with the implementation of projects which will assist the Albanian as well as the Macedonian Slav community.
For example, the EUR 5 million we have delivered for the South-East Europe Albanian language university at Tetovo, funds for the census and funds for local government reform and the implementation of small-scale local infrastructure projects, which make a visible difference to people' s lives and communities.
We have made it very clear, and I want to repeat this point today, that we will be ready to come forward with substantial assistance for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as soon as a political agreement is reached between the parties.
I hope that all involved will regard that as a serious incentive to work intensively and constructively with Mr Léotard and Mr Pardew, the United States representative, in the coming days.
Let it also be an incentive to extend the cease-fire and to halt the military activities on both sides which are costing so much politically, financially and in human lives.
I just want to underline this point.
This Parliament would not take kindly to proposals from the Commission, or from anyone, to spend more money supporting reconstruction and development, supporting the budget in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, if at the same time money was being spent, which frankly no one really has, on more bombs and more rockets, and if there was not a clear prospect of a political settlement and continuing cease-fire.
When the foreign minister of FYROM reports to the Political and Security Committee of the Council in Brussels on Friday, she will be in a position to speak about substantial progress, because the alternative is frankly too awful to contemplate.
It is not too late to avoid catastrophe, but it requires the courage of every citizen of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia to pull back from the brink.
It requires those with influence in Kosovo over the rebels to pull them back from the brink and it requires the continued stand for moderation exemplified by the government in Tirana to whom I pay unreserved tribute for their contribution.
There cannot be a solely military solution.
There has to be a political settlement and it cannot come soon enough.
Mr President, we in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party are clearly working on a joint position which we will vote on at noon, in order to condemn violence and support dialogue, but also so that the short-term efforts, such as the appointment of a mediator and the support for the Traikovski plan, should be immediate measures.
It is also important that the medium-term efforts and the Union' s responsibility in this area - the association agreement is clearly an important factor - make positive progress.
I would like to devote my speech to two additional aspects of what is happening in the FYROM and which clearly affect the European Union.
The first is that there have rarely been such difficult tests of the European Union' s external image as the successive crises in the Balkans, and that is still the case.
Although there has been a substantial improvement since the appointment of the High Representative, Mr Solana, due to his management and his cooperation with Commissioner Patten and the Council, it is clear that all our will and our effort must be aimed at making our action more effective and saving our political prestige, since, for the image of the Union - and this has been made clear today by President Verhofstadt and Mr Patten and Mr Michel - a lot is at stake.
Another important effect for the European Union - which has not been mentioned and is indirect, but very important - is its repercussions for the enlargement process.
Although by chance, it happens that the countries directly neighbouring the FYROM - Bulgaria and Rumania - are the countries which have the greatest difficulty in achieving the sufficient economic development with a view to enlargement and the negotiation.
I believe that this proximity has a negative effect on the conflict in many respects - not only economic - and a very direct effect on the process of direct investment in these countries.
I believe that our intervention, or that of our countries, should take good account of this, because countries such as Bulgaria, for example, have made a very positive contribution to stability in the area.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me begin by praising the efforts of the European Union, the Council and the Commission up to now.
We have spoken with one voice, unlike on other occasions when we debated the Balkans, and a powerful moderating influence was quite rightly exercised upon the use of violence, with the emphasis placed on finding a political solution.
Nevertheless, I have two concerns.
One of them relates to the link between EU aid and the parties' playing a constructive role.
This is a very tricky business.
Of course, aid is not automatic.
But - and this is a question to the Commission - do we withdraw our aid to the Albanian Language University in Tetovo if we do not like the attitude of the Albanian parties in the government, or do we halt the construction of small-scale infrastructure if we do not like the compromises of the Macedonian parties? I would be very careful about this.
I am in favour of exercising pressure, I am in favour of the involvement of the EU, but I am against vague threats.
My concrete question to the Commission is therefore about whether that link applies to the new aid, as seems to be implied in the words of the Commissioner, or whether it also applies to existing aid.
In other words, will there be a moment at which the European Commission says to the parties, 'we do not like your attitude, and so we are discontinuing all aid or part of the aid' ?
My second concern relates to the reaching of an agreement.
It has been said that military involvement will only come when there is an agreement within the government and an agreement with the rebels, and it is with this last point that, in my view, the problem lies.
That is because the special representative, Mr Léotard, whom Mr Swoboda has already said, even before he was on the scene, that it would be necessary to negotiate with the rebels.
The world was too small.
Mr Léotard was almost not allowed into Macedonia.
But if the government refuses to negotiate with the rebels, who will negotiate with them? Is the Commission involved behind the scenes, or has it been party to negotiations?
Is the Council involved? Someone will have to make the link between the governmental agreement and the rebels.
I have no sympathy at all for the rebels and believe they should put an end to their violence but, whether we like it or not, an agreement which does not include an agreement with the rebels is not worthy of the name.
The governmental agreement therefore needs to be linked to an agreement with the rebels. My question to the Council and the Commission is: who is prepared to make that link?
Mr President, I should like to assure you that our group is overwhelmingly in favour of the unity and democratisation of the FYROM and, more importantly, in favour of safeguarding rights for everyone living there, for all its citizens.
We have said as much on previous occasions, but they appear not to trust us.
And I wonder why the people living in this area do not trust the European Union.
My fellow members have cited several examples: KLA weapons, extremists being transported by air-conditioned bus under NATO escort so that they can continue to wage war in other areas, the declaration made by Mr Leotard - was that a faux pas or a calculated declaration?
And now we hear you, Mr President-in-Office, calling for a minimum of contact - that is what I heard - with the extremists so as to find a political solution. Are these not the people whom Mr Robertson was calling criminals just a few days ago?
How come we have lost Mr Robertson? We have heard you quoting Mr Badinter.
What are Mr Badinter' s views? If I remember correctly from what I have read in the papers, Mr Badinter said no to a state of two separate ethnic groups.
Do you support that? We have heard Mr Patten say no to more money unless there is a political settlement.
In other words, we are depending on the political will of the extremists.
There is no symmetry between the two sides.
More is the pity.
For reasons which they know best, they do not want the European Union or NATO to get involved in supporting the legitimate government and they are telling them: "sort it out amongst yourselves".
There is no symmetry.
I was in Skopje and I had discussions not with the extremists but with the official Albanian parties there and they told me they do not want majority voting on major issues.
Whether or not this veto will be exercised by a vice-president or whether the constitution will make provision for some other procedure for this is irrelevant.
If we move in this direction, we are moving towards the dissolution of the state.
We therefore need more stable, more serious, more reliable support from the European Union for the unity and democratisation - and they go hand in hand - of this country.
Otherwise we shall fail yet again in our policy in the Balkans.
It will not be the first time!
Mr President, I think we should remember how the multiethnic Macedonian population coped with the conflict in Kosovo.
They received around a quarter of a million refugees, which is a very large number, considering how small a population we are talking about.
That is something we must not forget now that things are going so badly in Macedonia.
I also think that we must take note of the fact that the Albanian population in Albania is not participating in this conflict, presumably because they see a possibility that peace may give them a future.
They can see economic and democratic development.
There is a need for that development throughout this area.
I cannot refrain from reminding you how easy it was for the NATO countries and many EU Member States to find money at the time when the former Yugoslavia was to be bombed.
Where is the same will to find money now that there is a need for reconstruction and for economic and social development in the area? This is the core of the whole peace process.
It is about finding the means, for that is how the way is also found.
Mr President, it is particularly worrying to see armed conflict persisting in a country which borders my own country at a time when intensive negotiations are under way for the sole purpose of settling once and for all the differences which gave rise to the conflict in the first place.
Ethnic segregation, penning nations in after a war or uprising behind fortified borders which no-one considers definitive and which in turn become a new source of conflict is, unfortunately, the pattern which has been repeated throughout the history of this region in the Balkans.
And for centuries, ethnic cleansing has been the method used to impose these solutions.
What we see in our neighbouring country is a repetition of the time-honoured pattern. This time the main perpetrators are organised armed Albanian extremists taking advantage of what is often justified ethnic discontent on the part of their many, unarmed, fellow countrymen, as is always the case, in order to incite them to wage war on other ethnic groups.
The European Union was, historically speaking, the last factor to appear in the area, advocating certain principles which, if they really could have been imposed, would have released the area from the nightmare of its history.
But if modern European solutions are to apply, nations with different ethnic groups need to be persuaded to abandon segregation behind closed borders and agree to cohabit under one state roof.
This enlightened solution is currently being tested in two countries in the wider area: the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Cyprus.
The benefits to the people of a European type solution would be incalculable, but they presuppose abandoning armed violence as a method of forcing historical development and, on this point, the European Union has not excelled either in the case of Cyprus or in the case of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
It has not acted forcefully towards those engaged in violence or it has only done so unilaterally.
Violence will not be abandoned as the result of conferences, talks and visits, especially when international obligations are breached in the process, nor will it be abandoned by giving into the temptation of the old colonising forces and granting armed forces from any one ethnic group favoured status.
One gets the impression that ÍÁÔÏ is reacting as if the armed Albanians were going to turn into the region' s Ghurkhas.
It was the responsibility of the forces which intervened in Kosovo to disarm the KLA. They failed to do so.
It was their responsibility to impose a security zone around Kosovo. They failed to do so or they did so unilaterally, against the Serbs, while allowing the KLA to come and go as it pleased.
It is a well-known fact that the KLA is backed by drug dealing and by contributions which originate in our countries.
According to one newspaper article, the US administration has frozen Albanian accounts which were funding the KLA.
Europe has done no such thing.
How can we expect armed violence to end, to lose its reputation in people' s eyes, if we grant favoured status to armed forces such as those in Yugoslavia or 30-year occupying armies as in Cyprus?
As long as we fail to act decisively where decisive action is required, it is hypocritical to say to nations clashing on the ground that they are responsible for the tragedies which befall them.
They are responsible, but we too are jointly responsible, Commissioner, for the recurring nightmare which is the history of the Balkans.
I understand that because of time, the President-in-Office is not answering.
For many groups there was serious concern about armaments in the Balkans and the non-disarmament there.
I hope that, even if the President-in-Office of the Council cannot answer now, he will take the concerns of all the groups very seriously and bring them before the Council of Ministers.
This is a permanent and not just a local problem.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall very quickly answer all the questions that have been raised.
First of all, the presidency will try to ensure that the European Union steps up its presence in the area.
In this respect, the Federal Republic of Macedonia gives us the chance to apply our overall objective to make the European Union' s external action more visible and more effective.
Like you, we deplore the ethnic tension, which is affecting everyone including the government.
As for disarmament, this is currently taking place on a voluntary basis under NATO supervision.
However, as Mr Patten mentioned, priority should be given to trying to resume the political dialogue.
With regard to the effects of the crisis on enlargement, I would like to remind you of the process that has been launched in Zagreb to bring the Balkans round to the European way of thinking, in order to arrive at a negotiated agreement.
Mrs Lagendijk asked me the question to find out if contacts had been established and how they have been arranged.
I would say just this - in order to arrive at a negotiated agreement, all sorts of contacts are needed, as well as opportunities to establish contacts with rebel forces, and, Mrs Lagendijk, they are a matter for the judgment of those who are at the head of the negotiations.
Thank you for the answers you have given, Mr Michel.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the votes.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a suitable occasion to raise a topical point: we all have groups of visitors and we are glad to see large numbers of the general public in the EU coming to see us and, as is the case here, attending part-sessions.
We also know, however, that it is difficult to find a hotel for fifty visitors.
That is why the visitors have to make do with hotels which are not in Strasbourg but in the surrounding area.
Obviously we want to bring Europe closer to the people and foster personal discussions between the people in the Union and Members of Parliament.
This is achieved on the one hand through their visit to the European Parliament and, on the other hand, by the Member going to see the visitors in their hotel and talking to them there.
As Members we travel to Chile, to South Africa...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I would like to consider this as a point of order, but, at this stage in the agenda, you only have one minute of speaking time.
VOTE
Before we vote on this, I should like to announce, Madam President, that to help things run smoothly I am prepared to withdraw my amendments relating to landmines and particularly call attention to low-threshold biological anti-mine work.
I should like to negotiate further with the Commission on this, but I will not force the issue now provided that we can continue talking.
(Parliament approved the common position)
Simplified procedure - Procedure without report
Amended proposal for a Council regulation concerning action against anti-personnel landmines in third countries other than developing countries (COM(2000) 880 - C5-0053/2001 - 2000/0062(CNS)) on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy
(Parliament approved the proposal by the Commission)
Proposal for a Council directive amending Directives 66/401/EEC, 66/402/EEC and 66/403/EEC on the marketing of fodder plant seed, cereal seed and seed potatoes (COM(2001) 186 - C5-0163/2001 - 2001/0089(CNS)) on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development
(Parliament approved the proposal by the Commission)
Report (A5-0246/2001) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the recommendation of the European Central Bank for a Council regulation concerning an amendment to Council Regulation (EC) No 2531/98 of 23 November 1998 concerning the application of minimum reserves by the European Central Bank (ECB/2001/2 - C5-0141/2001 - 2001/0805(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0215/2001) by Mr Heaton-Harris, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on Special Report No 6/2000 of the European Court of Auditors concerning the granting by the Community of interest subsidies on loans by the European Investment Bank to small and medium-sized enterprises within the framework of its temporary lending facility, accompanied by the Commission' s replies (C5-0023/2001-2001/2015(COS)),
and on the Special Report No 3/1999 of the European Court of Auditors concerning the management and control of interest-rate subsidies by the Commission, accompanied by the Commission' s replies (C5-0158/2001-2001/2015(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0237/2001) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on company law concerning takeover bids
Before the vote
Madam President, in these circumstances, I must put to you a personal question.
But if you voted on this then I will not put the question.
Did you vote on this matter?
No, Mr McMillan-Scott, I did not vote.
My actions were however in line with those of all the presidents before me, who always used the sensible rule of only voting in extremely exceptional circumstances, and not on problems that have divided Parliament to this extent.
Madam President, the Conciliation Committee is of the view that the President of Parliament should vote on that matter ...
(Mixed reactions)
... and had she done so the conciliation procedure would have been sustained.
I believe that is the point.
(Mixed reactions)
The Commission has listened to you very carefully, Mr Cox.
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0227/2001), by Mrs Rothe, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market [5583/1/2001 - C5-0133/2001 - 2000/0116(COD)]
Before the vote
I shall now give the floor to Mrs Rothe, who wishes to make a short statement on a point of order.
Madam President, thank you very much for giving me the floor briefly.
To avoid there being any confusion, I should like to clarify just very briefly that - with the exception of Amendments Nos 2 and 4 - Amendments Nos 1 to 11 already represent compromises which were struck with the Council even before the second reading, within a kind of informal conciliation procedure.
I should really like to urge you to vote in favour of these amendments because I believe that we have succeeded in improving the common position considerably.
Thank you, Mrs Rothe.
Regarding Amendment No 11
Madam President, I should briefly like to call your attention to a necessary language correction.
In the final clause of Amendment 11, the Dutch translation should be amended.
At present it reads: "if the hierarchy were undermined by this" .
A correct translation of the English should read: "if this hierarchy were to be undermined" .
Madam President, I have a similar problem.
I would like it to be recorded in the minutes that there is an error in the Finnish translation of the common position regarding Mrs Rothe' s report.
Article 2(b) regarding definitions should read as follows: " 'Biomass' shall mean the biodegradable fraction of products, waste and residues from agriculture (including vegetal and animal substances), forestry and related industries, as well as the biodegradable fraction of industrial and municipal waste."
The word 'products' has been left out of the Finnish version.
I have not noticed any such omission in the other language versions.
Very well.
Thank you very much for pointing this out to us.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0220/2001) by Mr Karas, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the activities of institutions for occupational retirement provision [COM(2000) 507 - C5-0596/2000 - 2000/0260(COD)]
Before the vote on Amendment No 118
Madam President, thank you for giving me the floor.
Firstly, I should like to say that Amendment No 118 does not replace Amendment No 46; in fact both need to be put to the vote.
Secondly, with your permission, I have an oral amendment to propose to Amendment No 118.
If the change were to be adopted I would be able to vote in favour of Amendment No 118.
The change is as follows: instead of the word 'exemption' the words 'this restriction' should be added, and after 'after legal personality' we add, 'only apply to the institutions responsible for the administration and management of such IORPs, if this restriction cannot be enforced under relevant national law against IORPs without legal personality.'
If this oral amendment is accepted - and I have agreed it with the Member who tabled the amendment - then I would be able to support a vote in favour.
(Parliament agreed to take into consideration the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0211/2001) by Mr Ettl, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 79/267/EEC as regards the solvency margin requirements for life assurance undertakings (COM(2000) 617 final - C5-0557/2000 - 2000/0249(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0212/2001) by Mr Ettl, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 73/239/EEC as regards the solvency margin requirements for non-life insurance undertakings (COM(2000) 634 final - C5-0558/2000 - 2000/0251(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0226/2001) by Mrs Flesch, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on the implementation of the Internet Top Level Domain ".EU" (COM(2000) 827 - C5-0715/2000 - 2000/0328(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on the European Council meeting of 15 - 16 June 2001 in Gothenburg
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0225/2001) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the 2000 Annual Report of the European Central Bank (C5-0187/2001 - 2001/2090(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0222/2001) by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on means to assist economic actors in switching to the euro (2000/2278(INI))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Lehne report (A5-0237/2001)
Madam President, this is the first time I have delivered an explanation of vote and it concerns the decision of the Conciliation Committee to adopt the directive on takeover bids, which had been rejected by a tied vote by Parliament.
In one respect, I am sorry because I would have preferred the directive to have been adopted.
However, my prevailing sentiment is one of deep satisfaction, and that is because, with our votes and the votes of the other members of the Conciliation Committee delegation - 8 to 6 - we made it possible for the decision to be taken by this House.
We knew that there was disagreement between and within the 15 governments, that the trade unions and economic organisations were divided and that practically all the Parliamentary groups were divided in their opinions.
Therefore, why should the decision be 7 to 7 at 2 in the morning in Luxembourg? It was the right decision and I believe that even our friends who would have preferred to conclude the matter in Luxembourg should be grateful to us.
It was a remarkable day, an emotional vote, one of those days which make you even more enthusiastic about that amazing victory of human history which is democracy.
Madam President, the EPLP delegation voted in favour of the mergers and takeover conciliation text.
While we realise that the prime objective of this directive was to protect minority shareholders' and investors' interests against unscrupulous directors and inefficient company boards in a takeover or merger, in conciliation we achieved the incorporation of amendments tabled by the Socialist Group, which meant that this directive would have recognised the legitimate interests of employees in a takeover bid.
Some believe that this directive did not go far enough in this direction and that there is no real genuine consultation of the workforce.
Let us be clear: this was a choice between no information and providing information to the workforce in the process of a takeover or merger.
As a senior British trade union general secretary said, it is a significant step forward and offers a chance to build a substantial foundation.
It would be wrong to oppose the directive because it does not give sufficient rights of information and consultation.
This directive would have had no effect on the acquis communautaire of employment rights in the EU, or in the national Member States.
It was a minimum requirement.
I think you agree, Madam President, that Parliament has not covered itself in glory with its tied result today.
We will have no directive on mergers and takeovers and we will have no information and consultation with rights for workers, even though mergers and takeovers will continue to happen across the European Union.
Madam President, I welcome Mr Imbeni' s entry into the ranks of expounders of explanations of vote.
I have to say that this is not my first!
Madam President, I was very uncertain as to which way to vote - for or against the motion - not least because this is a financial, economic issue of which I do not have much experience. Therefore, I was happy to follow the recommendations made by Mrs Kauppi - in her speech, not in my dreams, I am afraid, Madam President.
Mrs Kauppi is sitting here behind me. It is true that she is young, but she cares about the interests of all pensioners, including Italian pensioners, to whom she has spoken on a number of occasions.
She said that if this directive had been adopted in conciliation it would have benefited pensioners. I believe her and so I voted for the motion.
Madam President, I think it is highly regrettable that the compromise achieved in the conciliation procedure is being rejected today by the smallest possible margin.
This takeovers directive was and is an important part of the final implementation of the European single market.
Preparations for this had been going on for a very long time - twelve years - and I hope that the work will not have all been in vain in the wake of this very close vote. In other words, I hope that the work to formulate harmonised rules on company takeovers in the European Community will carry on, and perhaps one day we will find a compromise in this matter that would achieve majority support in this House.
I would just like to raise the question of how this will affect flows of capital in Europe.
In my opinion, it is very worrying that at Lisbon last year we made some ambitious plans, which now seem to have turned out to be mere empty words.
The rejection of this directive shows that we lack the political will to take the decisions of Lisbon forward.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today' s decision against the joint text for an EU directive on company law concerning takeover bids is regrettable.
As a result of this House' s decision to reject the directive, the European capital markets will continue to be fragmented in a key area, namely the trading of companies.
Future-oriented opportunities to increase prosperity can only be achieved through open markets and free trade.
Sadly, Parliament has deviated from this position.
It would have been infinitely preferable, in my view, if we had called for management boards to be required to remain neutral, as the interests of owners do not always coincide with those of senior executives.
The implication that Germany, for example, requires greater protection from hostile takeovers because golden shares and majority voting shares exist in other countries reflects protectionist attitudes.
One cannot pursue a protectionist course simply because other countries are doing so.
In the wake of this vote, the European national states will now protect their slices of industry and financial trade; in sum, this is a bad day for the internal market, and a bad day for Europe as a location for industry.
- (FR) The rejection of the proposed directive on takeover bids will spell the end of any serious attempts to harmonise financial services in the European Union for a long time to come.
Parliament' s decision reflects a number of profoundly different expectations.
For example, it reflects the legitimate frustration of the supporters of genuine legislative harmonisation, who felt less and less at home with a text that became more and more minimalist, technically unsound and politically imbalanced, and who wanted to punish arrogant governments for refusing to make any concessions towards Parliament.
The rejection inflicted on the EP delegation in the conciliation committee can be explained, however, by the growing strength of a quite different sense of nervousness that led to a retreat into protectionism, which shattered the fragile agreement that had been reached in conciliation.
The German MEPs found that many Netherlands, Spanish and Italian colleagues gradually came to support their strategy of rejection.
As for France, its Socialist government taught rather paradoxical lessons in liberalism, while at the same time allowing a hyper-protected national company to launch a spectacular, all-out takeover bid and rouse the demons of protectionism from their hopelessly light sleep in many parts of Europe.
Many people still regarded the directive as too much of a threat even when it had been watered down and emasculated and even though it did not have to be implemented for another five years.
No-one will mourn the final shipwreck of a text that went from concession to surrender, ending up as little more than the shadow of a common policy.
At the same time, no-one can be unaware that this bad text was largely rejected for the wrong reasons.
After the Irish referendum, the rejection of a directive concerning a vital economic issue is yet another sign that Europe is going through a very serious political and moral crisis today.
. (NL) It is a good thing that the European Parliament has just consigned the result of the mediation on the thirteenth directive (hostile takeovers) to the wastepaper basket.
It means that this rickety proposal for a directive is now no longer on the table and the European Commission can quickly get down to work and work out new proposals.
If the Commission takes account of the feelings of the great majority in Parliament a new proposed directive can be tabled very quickly.
Conditions for rapid adoption by Parliament will be that the decision on a hostile bid should rest not with the shareholders but with the Board of Management, that the Board of Management should decide in the light of all interests, i.e. also those of the employees, that the new proposal creates a true "level playing field" in Europe, which means, for example, that government intervention, in the form of "golden shares" or anything else, to combat takeovers, should be banned, and that companies in the EU are allowed to maintain at any rate the same protection constructions as in the US.
Only in this way can a balanced proposal for legislation be tabled that accords with the socio-economic tradition in most European countries and puts a decisive stop to the market fundamentalism that underlies the proposal just rejected.
.
(SV) The issue is about the institutional regulations of European big business regarding the acquisition and takeover of major companies.
On the one hand, there is the Anglo-Saxon tradition, characterised by laissez-faire and open market principles. On the other hand, there is a corporate and protectionist continental tradition.
It is no coincidence that one proposal was put forward by a German fellow member and that the counter-proposal in yesterday' s debate was advocated mostly by British fellow members.
Although Mr Lehne' s report contains certain corporate-patriarchal consideration for the staff of major companies, we do not believe that any of the alternatives serve the interests of employees.
We reject them both and instead require the Commission to return with a proposal on this issue which deals with ways of protecting the interests and needs of employees and consumers in conjunction with the acquisition and takeover of major companies.
.
(PT) The controversy surrounding the conciliation process for this proposal for a directive, clearly visible in the outcome of Parliament' s vote - it was rejected, since the vote was tied - demonstrated that two ideas with various practical differences were involved in the process of harmonising legislation on takeover bids.
Although some slight progress was made during the conciliation process on protecting shareholders who do not have control of the company and on adopting some regulations on making the information of workers mandatory, the situation still fails to safeguard all aspects of workers' and minority shareholders' ability to take action.
Lastly, although the position arising from conciliation might be of benefit to Portugal, given that Portuguese companies are a potential target and an easy one for cross-border takeovers, there are other, more appropriate ways of protecting national interests.
Hence our abstention from voting.
.
It was with some regret that I voted against this outcome of a conciliation procedure.
I am aware that great efforts were made to give the workforce greater access to information and to protect the rights of small shareholders.
However, I feel that Member States were not sufficiently committed to the extension of worker consultation and indeed, in some Member States, the results will be regressive.
I do not believe we should extend the rights of some workers at the expense of others, nor should we vote for fewer consultation rights than we wish to see in the forthcoming Directive.
Our approach must be coherent.
We now have to push our national governments to raise their standards to those of the best, and not hide behind an international compromise.
For small shareholders, it will take more than the proposals in this document to protect their rights against those of large shareholders whose legal position can require them to seek maximum return within a short-term perspective.
We should not be encouraging this approach.
- (NL) The amended version of the original text has incorporated Parliament' s position, and the delegation of the People' s Party for Freedom and Democracy can go along with this text.
There is a greater information duty for the benefit of workers, and openness must be offered with a view to future employment.
Furthermore, the Commission has pledged to instruct a committee of experts, by March 2002 to report on a number of alleged ambiguities and apparent imbalances which could lead to distortion of the internal market principles.
If the investigation confirms the said suspicions, the Commission will take measures accordingly.
Opponents want to reject this directive and would prefer to wait for a fresh proposal in the short term.
However, we have witnessed how national interests can substantially frustrate and delay a fresh proposal.
The time for navel-gazing is over and we cannot overlook the globalisation of our economies.
European companies must be able to compete with the rest of the world. That also applies to our investors.
We realise that this directive will not win any prizes, but rejection brings us back to square one, and that is not in the interests of Europe.
In the final analysis, to stand still is to regress, and fear is a bad advisor.
We have therefore voted in favour.
The Parliament and Council Directive on the subject of company law concerning takeover bids is designed to harmonise Member State legislation in cases where companies governed by the law of one Member State are subject to a takeover bid, with their assets, i.e. property and shares, admitted to trading on a regulated market.
The main purpose of the directive is to protect the interests of minority shareholders, and, by means of harmonisation, to protect these interests when the takeover bid is of a cross-border nature.
By defining a principle for the equal treatment of all shareholders, the directive therefore seeks to establish minimum conditions for all shareholders to state their views and to study the terms of any bid made. At the same time, it seeks to ensure, by means of regulations on making the bid and time limits on the acceptance period, that the company remains operational during this period.
I therefore give my full support to the agreement that has been reached and, consequently, to the joint project, adopted by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council directive on takeover bids, which thereby seeks to create a set of harmonised rules that will add rigour to the process and ensure equal protection for all shareholders.
. (NL) Most companies used to be small-scale and linked to a town or an area.
Their ownership was not anonymous and their staff worked there all their lives.
For a long time, governments supported the efforts of companies to remain in regional or national hands, and the setting up of companies on a non-commercial basis, so that they could better serve the interests of employees and consumers.
In a society where everything is subordinated to a free market and worldwide competition, companies have now become a commodity.
If it suits the purchasers and the old shareholders, they are closed because their profit margin lags behind the rest of the group, because their brand name can be stuck on other products or their production can be transferred to a country with low wages and inadequate environmental regulation.
The consequences for employment, social cohesion in an area around the company, consumers and the scope for a democratically determined government policy is extremely negative.
That is why manageable, checkable and small-scale companies are far preferable to global giants, that are constantly surprising others and laying down the law to them.
Mergers that provide no right of veto for trade unions and government lead to accidents.
I reject this trade in companies and am voting against the proposal.
. (NL) Unfortunately, as regards the Takeover Directive, I was forced to vote against the findings of the Conciliation Committee.
I consider it a great shame that partly because of my "no" vote so many years of work have been lost.
But ultimately the quality of the end product must be our guide.
The end product is not good, partly because it makes the position of European companies facing American takeover bids too weak and specifically weaker than that of an American company targeted by a European bidder.
Moreover, everything is concentrated on only one aspect, namely increased capitalisation, while other defensive techniques or instruments are not coordinated.
Anyone who believes that as a result of this proposal European companies will be dealt with on an equal footing, is proved wrong.
I regret, in all sincerity, that for these reasons I was bound to vote against.
Recommendation for second reading Rothe (A5-0227/2001)
Madam President, recently, I visited the beautiful island of Capri which has sun, sea and blue sky, and I remembered another beautiful island, this one in Sweden: the island of Gotland. That island is also beautiful, with sea, sky, sun and ... windmills!
Madam President, these islands are very windy and there were devices which convert wind energy into electricity.
There you are: this is the sort of Europe I like, and I believe the European citizens would like it too.
Therefore, I voted in favour of greater commitment to renewable energies.
Madam President, we have just voted on the definition of renewable energy sources, and we also defined the concept of biomass more precisely.
It was said that biomass shall mean the biodegradable fraction of products from agriculture, forestry and related industries.
Although Parliament has unfortunately not reproduced the definition we agreed on last time, according to which peat should count among the renewables, inasmuch as it regenerates each year, I would like to state that peat should be implicitly included in the version now agreed.
Every gardener knows that peat is a biodegradable product.
It breaks down entirely - obviously, as it is generated biologically.
Bacteria and microbes cause it to decompose if it is taken away from its oxygen-free state.
It also decomposes on the surface of marshland.
This is what the theory of peat growth is based upon: marshland grows where there is more peat growing than decomposing.
As these are the facts, and they are not going to change, I hope that Parliament, the Commission and the Council will make the implicit explicit and make clear mention of peat in the future.
This I hope for in the name of environmental protection.
In my own amendment, adopted by Parliament in November, restrictions were imposed on the use of peat: the capital would not be touched, but just the interest would be used.
Environmental organisations, which based their views on outdated knowledge regarding the carbon cycle of marshlands, paradoxically opposed my design to prevent the exploitation of marshes, and this is the result: greed leads to a sorry end, and so, probably, does environmental greed too.
I hope the debate will continue.
- (FR) The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy unanimously approved the report by Mrs Rothe on the Council common position on the directive on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources (RES) in the internal electricity market.
The common position adopted in March differs considerably from the position Parliament adopted at first reading last November, even though the Council has accepted about one third of Parliament' s proposed amendments.
The rapporteur went to great lengths to achieve a compromise before the second reading in the EP and explained to the committee that the Council had agreed to eight of the nine compromise amendments during the trialogue held on Tuesday, 19 June.
The only outstanding point was whether waste incineration should be regarded as a renewable energy source.
The Council wants to include it.
Members, however, have pointed out that the support given to renewable energy sources must be compatible with the other Community objectives, in particular the principle of "respect for the waste treatment hierarchy".
That is why the incineration of non-separated household waste should not be promoted under this directive and under a future support system for renewable energy sources.
Where the two legislative bodies disagreed most profoundly was on the question whether the national targets for the use of renewable energy sources should be mandatory or merely indicative.
In November, Parliament called emphatically for mandatory targets, but the Council was opposed.
The compromise stipulates that if the Member States have not made progress towards achieving their national indicative objectives, the Commission shall present proposals that may contain mandatory targets.
The national indicative targets must be consistent with the global indicative target of 12% of gross national energy consumption by 2010 from renewable energy sources.
At the same time, these renewable energy sources must account for a 22.1% indicative share of total Community electricity consumption.
(Explanation cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
. (IT) The importance of renewable energy and increasing its use in Europe are at the basis of the measure we are examining at second reading.
I would like to reiterate, on this occasion, my satisfaction at the united effort that sets the important figure of 12% as the target for the share of the European electricity market produced from renewable sources which also benefit the environment to be reached by 2010: we know how topical these issues are, especially in relation to climate change.
This means that the 'white gold' , the water used in mountainous areas of Europe to generate hydroelectric power, will clearly acquire greater value as a fundamental resource for the mountain economy.
I am pleased that, as recorded in the Minutes, some of the improvements I suggested figure decisively in the text.
This will make it possible - a substantial, tangible example, albeit on a small scale - for my Valle d' Aosta, an Alpine region par excellence, to focus on and invest in the hydroelectric sector, after being deprived for 40 years of a great asset in terms of the wealth of the local economy by the nationalisation and monopoly of the electricity sector in Italy, a situation which is only now being remedied thanks to the European impetus, which is opening the doors once again for regional competences granted, in the case of my Valle d' Aosta, by the Statute of autonomy.
In this sense, it is a good thing that the European Union is attaching due importance to that - by definition - renewable source, hydroelectric power, providing security and incentive mechanisms on the market which will certainly benefit the mountainous areas as well, particularly those where the electricity companies are directly managed by the local communities.
. -(NL) As a result of market forces, where the main objective is to find the cheapest rather than the cleanest electricity, we are threatened with a new upsurge of polluting fuels such as nuclear energy, coal, brown coal and oil.
In the Netherlands relatively clean power stations have been shut down to enable dirty electricity to be imported.
The replacement as soon as possible of those dirty fuels by solar, wind and hydroelectric power is indispensable for the preservation of our environment.
Instead of campaigning actively for new forms of electricity generation the individual consumer is first asked to buy cleaner energy at a different price from another supplier.
Those suppliers can now supply less clean electricity than the consumer is asking for.
This leads to attempts to include more forms of electricity generation with clean energy.
The incineration of undivided organic domestic waste and wood waste has always taken place, and is now suddenly included in the clean category so that targets can be met.
My support for the generation of clean energy does not apply to this addition.
Large-scale investment that anticipates requests from consumers and is not dependent on waste collection are an alternative to the system at present required by the Council.
Madam President, the Karas report concerns professional pension funds.
Today, Madam President, is not 4 July 2001: it is 4 July 2030.
Do not worry about calculating how old we will be in 2030; just listen to the rest of this explanation of vote.
In 2030, a French pensioner meets an English pensioner and says to him: 'Look what a good pension we have got! Just think: in the year 2000, the European citizens' pensions were less than half the size of ours.
And how did we manage it? By adopting a further European directive compelling all the States to transfer all the pension funds paid to the State up until that time into professional funds, which managed the money well and thus generated good pensions' .
- (FR) The draft directive and the Karas report on pension funds and supplementary systems represent yet another attack on the existing pension schemes in the European Union.
The Karas report draws on the very liberal conclusions of the Feira European Council in approving the directive.
It takes an 'Anglo-Saxon' approach to regulation, based on a minimum of harmonisation, as reflected in the absence of specific rules to define the commitments entered into by the pension funds.
The directive meets the demands of the UK and Netherlands pension funds, which want to be able to intervene at European level by having a single fund instead of separate funds set up in each country.
Once again, the European Union is surrendering to the dictatorship of the single market, this time in regard to retirement pensions, with the consequences we know so well: even worse inequality between workers, the stranglehold of the financial markets and shareholders on retirement savings schemes, and heavier pension fund pressure on employees.
Instead of harmonising downwards and creating a single retirement pension market, we should set up a system based on solidarity and equality at European level.
That is why we voted against the Karas report and reject the proposal for a directive.
. (NL) Entrepreneurs have discovered company pension funds as a source of venture capital.
Governments regard those funds as part of an integrated financial market designed to contribute to the competitive power of the European economy.
In expectation of increased returns pension capital is passed on to companies whose sole object is to make profit.
Soon the shareholders of banks and insurance companies start benefiting from profits, the retired bear the increased risk as a result of protective instruments being eliminated and the disadvantages of moving to a different employer or to another Member State are not resolved.
The proposed European regulation does not do justice to the reasons why those pension reserves were created.
Pensions are a means of redistributing and supplementing incomes, offering everyone lasting social security, even when, at the age of 70, 90 or 110, they are no longer productive.
An equal state pension for all of a sufficient amount is the best guarantee that no one loses the right to an income.
On the other hand company pensions are only favourable for those with permanent highly paid jobs.
They offer no solution to people who have frequently had to change jobs or employers.
That is even more true of supplementary private pensions, which are only affordable by those who are able and willing to invest surpluses in an insurance company in their productive years.
Ettl report (A5-0211/2001)
Mr Ettl' s report concerns the solvency of life assurance undertakings.
I feel, Madam President, that Europe, which cares so much about the quality of life of the European citizens and the quality of all kinds of consumer goods, should force life assurance undertakings to respect this directive and subscribe to the declaration: 'This is a reliable assurance company in accordance with the European directive' .
For example, they could use the format: 'Such-and-such assurance, reliable' , so that the citizens will know that the assurance undertaking uses its funds well.
Ettl report (A5-0212/2001)
Mr Ettl' s second report provides greater guarantees that insurance undertakings other than life assurance undertakings will remain solvent too.
Well then, I was thinking about that last night, Madam President.
I slept extremely badly last night and had a real nightmare.
Why is that? I dreamt, I am sorry to say, that the house where I live was going to be destroyed; I was running out of the bedroom and, distraught, I saw Mr Fatuzzo' s house fall in ruins.
My despair was all the greater because I was insured with a dreadful insurance company.
At that moment, I woke up and remembered that, I am glad to say, I am insured with a good insurance company and, most importantly, my house is still standing and I am in Strasbourg.
Flesch report (A5-0226/2001)
Madam President, in order to illustrate my explanation of vote on Mrs Flesch' s report concerning the '.EU' designation in computers, I have to tell you that, in the last few days, right here in Strasbourg, I met a very attractive girl from one of the Eastern European countries, one of the countries that have applied to join our Union.
While we were talking, as we walked along, the young girl from this country - a Bulgarian country - asked me: -Why do you not authorise the candidate countries that want to join the European Union to use the '.EU' Internet domain as well?' That is why I am putting this question to Mrs Flesch.
- (FR) This report is about a proposal for a regulation on the Internet Top Level Domain '.EU' .
The Commission proposal is a response to the instructions of the Lisbon Council (23-24 March 2000).
The Stockholm Council (23-24 March 2001) confirmed that "the Council will take the necessary measures, together with the Commission, to ensure that the .EU top-level domain is available to users as soon as possible."
This wording may sound a little far-fetched and need some explanation.
The regulation is meant to be a general act laying down a framework for the creation of an '.EU' registry.
This registry should enter into contracts both with the Commission and with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers).
Let me remind you that ICANN was created in October 1998 in order to stand up to American hegemony in Internet running.
This private, non-profit-making company is concerned with four key Internet sectors, including DNS (domain name systems) and allocating Internet Protocol addresses.
ICANN has a Policy Advisory Board of 19 members.
Its external directors and members are appointed on a geographically balanced basis.
ICANN also has four advisory committees, including the GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee) to which the European Commission and the Member States belong.
To my great satisfaction, the European Union has decided to devote more attention to this body so as to play a decisive part in the international running of the Internet and to make ICANN more neutral.
In the same context, if the European Union wishes to exist in cyberspace, it will have to create a domain name like its Member States.
Then the national territories will be able to recognise each other on the Internet by means of domain names such as '.uk' or '.be' .
That would certainly be a factor in speeding up the development of the e-economy and e-commerce in Europe.
I therefore felt it important to endorse the good work done by the rapporteur.
Gothenburg European Council
Madam President, I would also like to comment on the report on the Gothenburg Council.
As you know, it was decided at the Council to tackle the issue of pensions in the 15 States of the European Union resolutely.
In your opinion, how could I not take the floor to explain why I voted for the motion? Yesterday, at lunchtime, at a meeting of the Kangaroo group, here at the European Parliament, I listened with pleasure to the leader of a Japanese company, who said: 'We Japanese industrialists are waiting anxiously for there to be a single European pension in Europe, governed by the same rules and laws throughout Europe' .
Therefore, I am not the only one to call for a European pension!
I rejoice at this and so I voted for this report because the Gothenburg Council has started out along this path.
Madam President, in this resolution, we have expressed our views on the issue of Macedonia, and I would just like to say that I welcome the European Union' s active commitment in Macedonia.
However, we should not proceed in a didactic way, but on the basis of respect for the people and nations there.
Macedonia has an all-party government in which all the nations are also represented.
It has a pro-European prime minister and an outstanding pro-European president.
If we continually talk about minority rights, we must acknowledge for once that the European standards on minority rights which we constantly refer to actually do not exist, unfortunately, in the EU itself.
We really would be well-advised, therefore, to approach the matter with some measure of humility. We can offer our services, but we should be careful not to adopt a didactic approach all the time.
Above all, we should strengthen the government by making it clear that countries such as Macedonia which work with the European Union will also receive massive political and financial support from us.
This was why I thought it was regrettable that Commissioner Patten, who is unfortunately no longer present, said that if we were to provide funds, the money would simply be used for bombs.
This was a most inappropriate statement towards this democratically elected all-party government. I hope that our Macedonian friends, represented by their President, will visit us here in Strasbourg soon, and that the visit by Boris Trajkovski can be rescheduled.
We must tackle the signs of disintegration, but we can only do so by strengthening the country' s democratic authorities.
Madam President, in the interest of a democratic and just European Union I ask the Council to respect the Irish people' s rejection of the Treaty of Nice by immediately halting further ratification.
I also call on the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, to ensure that the requirement for unanimity is upheld.
I likewise request that all further ratifications stop.
I, and those people I represent, support a united democratic Europe and enlargement.
I welcome, therefore, the Commission' s confirmation of my understanding that enlargement can proceed without the ratification of the Nice Treaty.
I believe that enlargement should proceed with all speed so that the accession countries can not only share in the benefits of European Union membership, but also contribute fully to the debate on the kind of European Union we hope to build.
I support a full and open debate prior to the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference, but not in the form of a convention.
- (FR) The European Union is about to invent a new form of democracy: democracy without the people.
That is the only conclusion we can draw from the arrogant way the Gothenburg Council dismissed the Irish vote.
Today the new President-in-Office of the Council, Guy Verhofstadt, has just confirmed this impression by giving us a preview of the conclusions of the debate that is supposed to be held in preparation for the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference.
The way this debate is being organised in France, following the communiqué of 11 April this year published jointly by the Prime Minister and the President of the Republic, makes it quite clear that it has been rigged from the start.
Various people pretend they want to initiate a discussion on the future of Europe, but our country deliberately evaded the issue of the ratification of the Nice Treaty, which is vital in this regard.
The Constitutional Council was not consulted, there was no referendum, the debates in the French National Assembly and the Senate were extremely short, the speeches were mediocre, except for those of members of the pro-sovereignty group, including Philippe de Villiers, who seem to be the only ones to have retained their freedom of thought in this debacle that has hit the national political community.
This means that the document that is most crucial to the future of the Union, the new supranational developments set out in the Nice Treaty, have been taken out of the debate.
For the rest, it is clear that everything has been organised in such a way that the discussion forums only produce conclusions acceptable to the federalists.
Not only are the meetings prepared by the prefects - which says a lot about their independence vis à vis the government - their conclusions will actually be drafted by a group of ten experts freely chosen by the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister.
I myself wrote to the two heads of the executive on 20 April this year to ask them to ensure that this group was made up of all the political elements elected at the European elections.
The result is plain to see: among the appointments that have just been made it would be hard to find any opposition, however slight, to the line pursued by Brussels.
To crown it all, this ridiculous procedure is to be closed in October, which means that the great national debate will have lasted four months, of which two were holiday months.
But it is easy to understand why it will be concluded so speedily: at the end of the year we will be entering the dangerous period when we have to exchange our national coins and banknotes for euros.
Clearly, our national leaders have no wish to be burdened with a debate about Europe at that particular moment.
UE/NGL), in writing.
(EL) The Gothenburg Summit will go down in history not just for what happened inside the conference room but also for what happened outside it.
The tens of thousands of demonstrators expressing their opposition to the anti-grass roots, autocratic, centralised structure of the ÅU were dealt with by the police with unprecedented violence, proving yet again that the leaders of the ÅU make their decisions without consulting the people.
Not only does the European Parliament resolution fail to make any reference to the demands of thousands of demonstrators, let alone the victims of police violence, it also talks of special riot squads, thereby helping to pave the way for even harsher, anti-democratic measures to deal with "the enemy" at future summits of the ÅU and other imperialist organisations.
Faced with the Irish "no" to the Treaty of Nice, the European Parliament has aligned with the Council, which is determined, so it says, to help in any way it can in assisting the Irish government to find a solution, thereby pressurising the Irish government into ratifying the Treaty by the end of 2002 come what may and disregarding the opinion expressed by the Irish people.
When it comes to the tragic developments in the FYROM, the resolution approves both of the interventionist policy and of NATO' s intention not to get drawn into taking on a full peacekeeping role.
Of course, how the EU perceives the process of reaching agreement was clearly expressed by the special envoy Mr Leotard, who called on the government of the FYROM to institute a dialogue with the Albanian extremists.
The resolution even approves of progress made in militarising the ÅU, developing the rapid reaction force and establishing permanent and constructive relations with ÍÁÔÏ and it calls on the Member States to restructure their defence budgets to take account of the sums required in order to achieve the ambitious objectives of the CFSP.
On the question of enlargement, the internal imperialist contradictions which have arisen notwithstanding, its insistence on a policy of trapping new countries in the ÅU is clear, even if the timetable is becoming more and more obscure.
At the same time, because they know that grass-roots opposition to the prospect of integration is increasing in the candidate countries, they are trying to lure them with the prospect of taking part in European elections in 2004.
For the rest, the Gothenburg summit confirmed the direction taken in Lisbon and Stockholm, which requires that the state of the economy be tackled with harsher, even more anti-grass roots measures which hit the workers, starting with the pension system and the national insurance systems in general.
That is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the resolution.
- (FR) In January 2001, the Swedish presidency of the European Union modestly announced three priorities: the environment, enlargement and employment.
Six months later, with the Gothenburg Council, we have to acknowledge failure.
In employment, this period was marked by a huge wave of redundancies in large transnational groups that are making millions of euros in profits, like Marks & Spencer and Danone.
The EU has once again proved unable to counterbalance the dictatorship of the markets and shareholders, for example by introducing a tax on speculation - such as the 'Tobin tax' - by strengthening employees' and citizens' rights of economic control or by introducing European-level legislation banning redundancies.
In relation to enlargement, the only prospect opened to the candidate countries is quite simply for their economy to be absorbed into the single market.
At no moment will the people concerned be consulted on either the contents or the implications of accession.
Yet the Irish 'no' vote shows once again that Europe cannot be built without the people and without their support for a democratic, political and social project.
Finally, at international level, the European Union has shown itself unable to make a positive contribution to resolving conflicts, notably by imposing a just and lasting peace in Palestine on Israel.
The Swedish presidency will be marked mainly by the provocative police actions that punctuated the Gothenburg summit.
Instead of embarking as they should on a thorough review of the European projects, the governments, from their bunker, have for the first time turned to violence and fired on the demonstrators.
We urgently need a different Europe: a Europe based on democracy and social progress.
That is why we voted against the joint motion for a resolution.
.
There is much to commend in this resolution, especially in terms of sustainable development.
I welcome the call for the EU to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, which is an essential international agreement in terms of protecting our planet.
I welcome the renewed commitment to reaching the UN target for development assistance and hope that, at last, this will be achieved as there is a desperate need for this.
I also welcome the need expressed for the EU to prepare fully for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Why then did I abstain on the motion as a whole?
I do not believe that developing a Common Security Policy, which seeks to link us closely to NATO, has any part in the sustainable development of the EU. Nor do I believe that we should be asking Ireland to negate its recent referendum and prepare for the ratification of the Nice Treaty.
Such a call ignores the democratically expressed wishes of the people and does this House no credit.
- (FR) The joint resolution modelled on the report of the European Council held on 15-16 June 2001 in Gothenburg is the combined effort of the green, pink and white liberals and the purple Christian Democrats, i.e. of a syncretic and political majority ranging from Messrs Schröder-Jospin to Messrs Aznar-Chirac, via the Greens, the Joschka Fischers and Dominique Voynets and the ultra-liberals of Alain Madelin. It is like a jumble sale of words, concepts and issues ranging from the death penalty (paragraph 32) to the 'tax package' (paragraph 25), via bananas (paragraph 30), Mr Léotard' s diplomatic mission to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, which has now become FYROM (paragraph 42), not forgetting residually the CAP, development aid, Kyoto, the US tax fraud via the Caribbean tax havens, enlargement and the need for a convention - in unsaid memory of Philadelphia in 1787 - to adopt a European constitution in 2004.
But beneath all this apparent jumble of bric-a-brac lie the two key notes of the oligarchic sect that governs us, namely contempt for the people and the quest for an obscure world 'governance' .
The contempt in which the euro-federal oligarchy in Brussels holds the people is reflected in both paragraph 3, with the refusal to respect the clear implications of the Irish referendum, which is analysed as a kind of deadlock from which 'a way forward' must be found, and in paragraph 9, where the spontaneous rejection by the people of the excesses of globalisation - from Seattle to Gothenburg, via Prague, Nice, Davos, Washington, Salzburg and perhaps Genoa next - is condemned as 'provocation' , forgetting that the right to 'resist' the economic pressure the global market is exerting on the women and men of Marks & Spencer and Danone, not to mention Moulinex, Michelin, Vilvorde, Alcatel, Ericsson and AOM, is one of the basic freedoms that was established two centuries before the European Charter, which proclaims for the rich alone formal rights that the unemployed, the excluded young and the old and poor do not, for their part, regard as fundamental.
Similarly, the nine paragraphs devoted to sustained development - even going so far as a world summit in Johannesburg in 2002 - can scarcely conceal, in the dark recesses of this vague concept that has become a kind of catechism, the quest for a global approach that would miraculously resolve the problems, facing Africa in particular, of under-development, the AIDS epidemic and the economic slavery and poverty so skilfully maintained by the free traders who do not pay the real price for cotton, cocoa, coffee and all the raw materials, i.e. the price of the life of the people whose labour they exploit.
I have noticed that recent events have borne out my predictions on 15 March and 3 May.
Just read up on them in the Minutes, if you so wish.
I said then that pledging support to the Macedonian Government and condemning so-called extremists would not lead to the search for solutions, peace and conciliation, but to the encouragement of violence.
A section of the Macedonian population and of the Macedonian Government believes that all the problems will be solved by ignoring or driving away the large Albanian minority.
That section is keen to buy weapons with EU subsidies.
They continue to reject an arrangement whereby Albanian becomes the language of administration and education for that part of the country where the Albanian-speakers live.
I do not expect a sustainable solution without a state arrangement similar to that in Belgium.
I wish the Council and Commission much success in their attempts at long last to ensure that their interference does not lead to more violence and suppression, but to a peaceful solution which is sustained by all the parties
.
(PT) I did not feel able to vote in favour of the Joint Resolution on the Gothenburg Summit, despite the fact that it contains several positive conclusions, specifically with regard to enlargement, to the circumstances surrounding the summit, to the follow-up to the Lisbon European Council, to external relations and to the Middle East in particular, amongst others.
Nevertheless, I have been forced to abstain by the fact that a majority of Members of this Parliament still insist on a post-Nice model for debate which, in terms of both method and content, goes further, not only than the conclusions of the Heads of State and Government in Nice, but also than the very Treaties currently in force, especially with regard to its harsh criticism of the intergovernmental method and its ambition to establish a broader, not to say quite unrealistic agenda for this debate.
Nor do I consider Conclusion No 5 to be a positive addition, because I do not feel that it is the Irish Government' s place to ratify the Treaty. It is up to the Irish people, in accordance with the constitution of that country.
- (FR) A European Parliament resolution on the Gothenburg summit might have been useful if it had taken a less offhand approach to the outcome of the Irish referendum on the Nice Treaty than the Council did in its conclusions. This is another example of the extremely disturbing decline of democracy in the process of European integration.
Alas, the resolution did not do so.
Henceforth, however, whenever we consider the future of Europe, and in particular its enlargement, we will have to take this quite unambiguous vote into account.
How can we deplore the very largely anti-democratic nature of the European Union in its present form and pretend to want to remedy this if we do not begin by respecting the clearly expressed wish of the people, in this case of the only nation asked to pronounce on the new treaty by referendum, an eminently democratic procedure?
Following on from two referendums that had already shown the growing gap between Europe as it is and the Europe the people want to see, the Irish people' s decision should give us a salutary shock.
The lesson to be drawn from the Irish referendum is that Europe can only endure in the long term if it is founded on respect for the national democracies.
We urgently need to review completely the way Europe is being constructed, basing it on principles quite different from those of Nice, which should represent the final manifestation of a process that began with the Single Act and continued with Maastricht and Amsterdam, concluding with a Europe that is now rejected by its people.
Clearly this is not the direction the Belgian presidency wishes to pursue.
It in fact proposes to make up for the democratic deficit within the Union by introducing a European tax, although only the national parliaments are democratically entitled to levy taxes.
It is in favour of having the future treaty drawn up by bodies whose democratic legitimacy is, if not doubtful, at least very indirect.
It exalts the euro, which no nation wished to see introduced and which, on the contrary, is emblematic of a Europe imposed on the people against their wishes.
The Irish lesson does not seem to have been understood.
Sooner or later, however, we will have to listen to the people. Sooner would be best if we want to restore their belief in a European idea in which they are currently losing faith.
.
Today on the Gothenburg summit resolution I abstained overall, and recommended to my UK Conservative colleagues to do likewise, since, although we fully support the references to welcoming the enlargement process of the EU and the calls for supporting reform of CAP and sustainable development, we had a number of reservations on other aspects of the report.
These include, paragraph 3, which may be seen to suggest that the EU is not fully respecting the decision of the Irish people in their referendum to reject the Nice Treaty; paragraph 6 which recommends a controversial Convention model to take the negotiations forward to the next IGC; paragraph 25 which supports the tax package involving tax harmonisation and a withholding tax; paragraph 26 which recommends social-chapter-inspired works council measures; and paragraphs 33 and 34 which are supportive of an independent ESDP which could decouple us from NATO.
Otherwise there are many positive aspects to the report, so overall an abstention was the correct position in the view of the UK Conservatives.
Randzio-Plath report (A5-0225/2001)
- (FR) The European Parliament' s report on the financial year 2000 of the ECB and that bank' s own Annual Report on the same subject attempt to iron out their differences of appraisal and present a united front on the eve of the physical changeover to euro coins and banknotes.
As soon as we scratch the surface, however, we discover contradictions, which have extremely serious implications because they go back to certain faults in the construction of the single currency that will be very difficult to put right.
Let us begin, for example, with the institutional issues.
The first difference concerns the powers of the Council of Ministers. The European Parliament' s report advocates the strengthening of economic policy coordination and stability programmes (paragraph 5 of the resolution), which would mean strengthening the Eurogroup and its means of action.
The ECB report, however, emphasises that "the first two years of the euro have also shown that the policy-making framework at European level is satisfactory" (page 3).
This makes it clear that the Bank is fiercely protective of its independence, knowing full well that the growing political pressure on the management of the single currency, within a monetary zone that is not optimal, risks leading to difficult conflicts.
But is management by technocrats any better? To tell the truth, both systems are unworkable.
The second difference concerns transparency. The European Parliament' s report calls once again (paragraph 14) for the minutes of the ECB Governing Council meetings to be published, together with a summary of the stance of both the approving and dissenting parties.
The ECB finds this proposal repugnant, for a very good reason that the European Parliament obstinately refuses to accept: in the specific case of the eurozone, made up of separate nations, conflicts between governors could easily be assimilated with conflicts between nations, which would do further damage to the already weak credibility of the euro.
Once again, this brings us back to the non-optimal nature of the monetary zone of the Twelve.
The third difference concerns voting in the Governing Council. The ECB report upholds the "one member, one vote" principle, because the governors of the national central banks deliberate with entire personal independence and not as representatives of their country (page 181).
The European Parliament' s report, for its part, takes note of the reform introduced by the Nice Treaty to Article 10 of the Statute of the ECB, which could make it possible, in future, to weight the votes in accordance with size of country (paragraph 17 of the resolution).
That reform would suit the large countries, especially Germany, which is complaining of the ECB' s failure to act, implicitly blaming this on the disproportionate influence of the small countries within the Governing Council.
However, this would be very difficult to carry through because it seems contrary to the spirit of Maastricht, to the ECB' s position and to the interests of the small countries, which would have something to say about it.
Once again, the idea of a single currency for several nations is beset by contradictions.
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(PT) The European Central Bank (ECB) is pursuing its basic aim of guaranteeing price stability, which means, in practice, maintaining moderation in wage increases in the eurozone.
This is a short-sighted aim, based on controlling inflation, which ignores the contribution of monetary policy to economic growth and employment.
This is a concern which, if carried to the extreme, could cause deflation and unemployment.
The ECB is using this aim as a justification, even in the midst of an economic slowdown, for not reducing interest rates to stimulate investment or reducing the costs of excessive debt for families and other economic agents, forgetting that the eurozone is not a homogeneous area and that the cohesion countries in particular, including Portugal, face specific structural difficulties.
This is the policy for monetary stability imposed by the Stability Pact, which the rapporteur is so pleased with, and with which we disagree, even though it does attempt to implement the ECB' s policies, by means of greater economic coordination and greater development of the quarterly dialogue with the European Parliament.
The ECB, however, requires effective political supervision and not just economic coordination, which is increasingly linked to the objectives of the Stability Pact and to the EU' s neo-liberal guidelines.
. (NL) In the run-up to the compulsory exchange of bank notes and coins of eleven Member States for euro coins and notes all attention is being focused on the annoyance that this will generate shortly after the turn of the year.
Mr Maaten' s proposals attempt to make that process run faster and more efficiently.
But the fundamental problem is more connected with the annual report of the European Central Bank.
Unlike Mrs Randzio-Plath, the rapporteur, I see no reason for compliments.
The value of the euro had to be kept up by means of a stability pact, which forces national governments to reduce the level of expenditure and refrain from taking out loans.
That policy has failed completely, now that the euro has fallen considerably below the dollar, not temporarily, but for a considerable amount of time.
In the meantime, in a number of Member States, including the Netherlands, annual inflation is already higher than the interest rate.
Price stability will probably not survive the coming turn of the year.
It no longer looks as if the euro will gain a position as an international currency, as the dollar has.
As a result, it is not possible either to follow the American model and pass on a portion of the annual government deficit to the rest of the world, which continues to compete for possession of an exchange currency that is falling in value.
In short, the ECB' s efforts have resulted in a flop that forces us to reject this annual report.
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(EL) The report by the European Central Bank under discussion covers its 2nd year in operation following the start of the third stage of EMU.
This is precisely why the European Parliament needs to be even stricter and more demanding in its criticism of the ECB' s annual report, because there are results which hit the workers and because it supports closer links between the general guidelines to economic policy and the stability and convergence programmes.
On the pretext of fighting inflation and adhering strictly to the Stability Pact, that 'plague' on the workers, the ECB has activated the sanctions mechanism in order to achieve that wonder of wonders, price stability, while ignoring the economic and social impact of its decisions.
It announces that wage policy is to be modernised, for which read flexible and insecure labour, and it is pushing for privatisation across the board in order to promote the competitiveness of and reward big business.
But it says nothing about speculation and "scams" on the money markets, given that its policy of cutting interest rates does everything it can to support them.
So far, the European Central Bank has raised or lowered its interest rates in line with US interest rates in a bid to fund speculation.
Will Mr Duisenberg tell us if he subscribes to the views of his counterpart, Mr Greenspan, who feels that the new growth cycle should be based on greater returns from the huge amount of capital at the disposal of companies whose performance is what will shore up stock prices and trigger a new round of investments?
He probably agrees because he has told us that the executive board of the ECB is continuing to monitor wage developments and trends in domestic and foreign demand and that, despite the oil crisis, wage increases were moderate, which he described as highly positive, stressing that inflation will be kept to 2% in 2002 thanks to wage restraint, while the monopolies' profits will, of course, keep on rising.
What else can we say?
The report and the governor of the ECB say it all.
They have told us about the acutely negative liberal policy which pushes economies into recession and what they have announced for the workers is greater unemployment, the abolition of everything they have fought for and a guaranteed level of poverty, given that prosperity is reserved for big business, which is getting bigger by the day.
We are therefore against the European Parliament' s supporting the policy of the ECB, because it is a policy which generates more poverty for the many, i.e. for the workers, and more profit for the few, i.e. for the European monopolies.
It is a policy of inequality and increased exploitation of the workers.
That is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report and we believe that the people will unite in their fight to overturn this anti-grass roots, barbaric and inhumane policy.
. (NL) My group voted against Paragraph 20.
The reason for this is as follows.
Paragraph 20 talks of a tightening of the conditions that countries entering the European Union must meet if they wish to become part of EMU.
We are not against a debate on the Member States' joining of the EMU, but feel that it is a little premature at this moment.
It will be at least two years before the first countries join after which there will be at least two years in which these countries will have to function in the exchange rate mechanism.
We must not tie ourselves down too early, a lot can happen in the meantime.
It will become a lot clearer in one or two years' time.
.
I welcome this third annual report by the Governor of the European Central Bank, Mr Duisenberg.
I regret, however, that the ECB does not follow the high standards of transparency, accountability and openness set by the Bank of England.
The Bank of England was granted operational independence in May 1997 in one of the first acts of the incoming Labour Government.
Minutes of meetings of its Monetary Policy Committee, including voting records and reasoning, are now published after about 6 weeks.
This boosts market confidence in its decisions and is a great example of open government.
It can surely be no coincidence that, since the Labour Government' s brave decision in May 1997, Britain has enjoyed an unprecedented period of economic stability.
It can also be no coincidence that the Labour Government' s decision was criticised at the time by the boom-and-bust Tories, who have an outstanding record on economic instability and incompetence.
The ECB will not have the full confidence of the market until it becomes more open.
Mr Duisenberg will surely face a challenge second to none with the introduction of euro banknotes on 1 January 2002.
I welcome the ECB' s decision to distribute euro coins to consumers and larger banknotes to business beforehand.
However, I am concerned that shoppers and small and medium-sized enterprises will not have smaller notes in their hands until "e-day" itself.
This may well give rise to endless chaos and confusion which should be avoided at all costs.
The practical changeover to the euro on 1 January 2002 will clearly be a litmus test for the ECB and I very much hope that it will rise to the challenge.
I would very much like to see the ECB follow a policy of openness and transparency similar to the Bank of England.
It would be perverse for Britain to go from a position of transparency to one of relative secrecy.
Therefore, if Britain is ever going to embrace the euro, the ECB must be seen also to embrace greater openness.
Maaten report (A5-0222/2001)
Madam President, my last explanation of vote relates to economic actors during the period of transition to the euro. On 1 January 2002, we will, at last, have the euro in Europe.
However, Madam President, last week, I was at the bar of the town where I live - Curno, in the province of Bergamo in Italy - and while I was paying for my coffee, the owner, who was talking to other customers, said: "How are we going to manage in January 2002? If people pay me in lire, will I have to give them their change in euro?
And if they pay me in euro, will I have to give them their change in lire?" I could find no answer to that question in this or any other document and so, in this explanation of vote, I call for the euro to be introduced directly on 1 January 2001, without the transition period.
- (FR) Looking at the proposals in the Maaten report for easy ways to physically exchange coins and banknotes as from 1 January 2002, one is struck by the disproportion between these ridiculous little tricks and the real scale of the problem.
Obviously, this entire operation was conceived from the outset with no regard whatsoever for the difficulties people come up against in their day-to-day life.
And it is still going on.
Indeed what is the point of frontloading the public with euro notes so that they can get used to them (a point which, in fact, has not even been accepted) when at the same time we find that retailers will have to make huge efforts but will receive no financial aid, that they will have no guarantee of counterfeit euros being refunded and that the proposal to allow the national currencies to be used alongside the euro to make life easier for our fellow-citizens was rejected out of hand?
Not surprisingly, it now turns out that the public is not very enthusiastic.
Referring to the information campaigns, the Maaten report even notes that: "it is fair to assess how disappointing the results have been so far" (explanatory statement, page 15).
Its reaction, however, is disturbing. The way to motivate small companies is to warn them that it would be illegal not to switch over to the euro after 1 January 2002:"as 'soft' campaigns have barely influenced small- and medium-sized companies, there is the need to be more explicit" (ibidem).
So Europe will be interfering hugely in the day-to-day life of our fellow-citizens from 1 January 2002. In fact, it will make things worse because the public will realise at once and in a very tangible way that the whole massive changeover operation could only have been conceived by a brain totally indifferent to or ignorant of even the slightest practical problems and that this operation could only prosper in an institutional system cut off from the people.
Our only hope is that one good thing will come out of it, namely that this experience will help change the course of Europe tomorrow.
.
(PT) Despite the negative position that we adopted when the single currency was created, not only due to issues of sovereignty, but also because of the potential economic consequences of a State losing control over monetary and exchange-rate policy, with the resulting consequences for employment, as well as the philosophy underlying the Stability Pact and wage moderation, we feel it is crucial that closer attention be paid to this preparatory phase for the introduction of the euro.
We must create macro-economic mechanisms to minimise costs and, in terms of the transition period, the workers and the small and micro-enterprises must not be the ones who ultimately pay for the introduction of the euro, either through an artificial increase in prices or through the costs of the whole process and the attempts at abuse and fraud that could take place over that period.
It is particularly important to give effective support to the crucial role of traditional trade in enlightening the public, because these traders are closest to the people.
They are a key factor in the entire process of replacing national currencies with the single currency, which requires an extra effort in addition to all of the enormous changes, specifically in terms of accounting, internal and external documentation, IT, etc.
- (FR) I voted for Mr Maaten' s report and I want to emphasise what a good job our rapporteur has done.
I am glad Parliament is finally stating its position on such an important issue, but, at the same time, I regret that it left it until 181 days before the introduction of the euro.
It is high time we took a stance on an issue that is an economic priority and continues to give rise to some doubt and disquiet among the general public.
The Maaten report draws attention to the main problems and suggests practical solutions that could make the switchover to the euro easier.
These suggestions should be taken on board at all levels of decision-making and in every sector.
Let us not forget that the people of Europe also have a key role to play, alongside the companies and financial circles, and that their reactions depend on the effectiveness of the information campaigns conducted so far.
Once again, the disappointing results of these campaigns show how necessary it is to make practical proposals that have a direct effect on people' s daily lives.
If these proposals are put into practice, they should help turn understandable apprehension into legitimate expectation.
- (FR) In my capacity as member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I tabled a number of amendments to Jules Maaten' s draft report on means to assist economic actors in switching to the euro.
I note with satisfaction that they have all been adopted.
During this debate, I very much want to emphasise once again that we must leave the door open to the three Member States that have chosen not to enter the eurozone immediately.
Let me therefore point out that it is important to launch an information campaign addressed not only to the Member States that are participating in the single currency project but also to the others, giving them a special position with regard to third countries.
Our report sends out a political signal in that regard.
Another amendment, which was largely incorporated in the final report, concerned the conversion free of charge into euros of the coins of another euro-zone country.
All the citizens of the European Union have amassed foreign coins from their travels abroad on business or pleasure.
Many of them will not have a chance to spend them before the new euro coins and notes are introduced on 1 January next year.
That is why I put a written question on the subject to the Commission at the end of November last year.
The Commission evaded the question by referring to the disproportionate handling charges.
Yet I wonder whether it is right to expect the citizens once again to have to pay the price of not being able to exchange the coins they have acquired from other Member States.
So I note with satisfaction that Parliament "believes therefore that recommendations should be made to banks to ensure that coins from the twelve eurozone Member States can be exchanged on the same terms as banknotes".
I hope the government and banking authorities will not lend a deaf ear, like the Commission.
- (FR) I congratulate Mr Maaten on his excellent report on means to assist economic actors in switching to the euro.
Six months before the entry into force of the single currency, it would be a good idea for Parliament to show an interest in the economic actors and their preparations for this final stage.
Today, during this final stage, the Member States have a crucial role to play.
For instance, some economic operators will be tempted to raise prices by unfairly rounding them off upwards.
As chairman of the Marseilles tourist office, I have heard tell of practices of this kind and of the anxiety of some of the professionals involved.
A period of adjustment will be needed for the establishment of the single currency, during which the consumers will have to be reassured rather than exploited.
The economic actors concerned must realise that it is wrong to give priority to immediate small profits over consumer confidence and the smooth changeover to the single currency.
Let me also point to the importance of flanking measures for all small and medium-sized companies.
In the tourist sector, for instance, I find that many of them are not adequately prepared.
I deplore this and I assume economic operators in other sectors are just as vague.
The idea of introducing tax incentives put forward in Mr Maaten' s report is a good one.
Following on directly from that, the Member States must endeavour to find ways of encouraging the economic operators to start thinking in terms of the euro very soon, so that they will not have to pay the price of further delays.
(The explanation of vote was cut short pursuant to Rule 137of the Rules of Procedure)
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, my point of order is exactly the same as Mr Provan' s.
I, like many Members in this Chamber, have looked at the official record at lunchtime today and it does say 273 for, and 272 against.
If that is the official record - and that is the record that is published - then I would suggest that the result given by the President this morning is incorrect.
Mr President, obviously my name is not Al Gore and this is not Florida.
I do not want to discuss the question of pregnant chads or whatever they were in Florida, but like the other colleagues, I have looked at the written record and it shows 273 votes for, 272 votes against, contrary to the declaration of the result and the statistical evidence of earlier today.
When, for once and with considerable effort, the Liberal Democrat Group managed to vote as one and we find ourselves on the losing side of such a vote, it is all the more important to us to raise this issue.
There may be various explanations of a technical sort and I should be interested if so, to hear them.
But this touches on something of a very fundamental political nature, and merely technical responses to a record which shows a difference in votes may not be enough.
I am aware of the rule which states that the President' s ruling on votes shall be final.
At this moment, I do not insist on a particular outcome, although I reserve the right to continue questioning the technical and political dimensions.
What I do ask, Mr President, is whether you, on behalf of the presidency, are in a position consistent with Rule 138, to make a clear declaration at this time as to what is the position and what is the result of the vote cast.
The presidency will say what it has to say when the list of speakers on points of order comes to an end.
Mr Poettering has the floor for a point of order.
Since I can see, ladies and gentlemen, that all the speeches are dealing with the same issue ....
(Laughter and comments) You know that presiding over this House requires acute observation skills.
(Laughter and comments)Since I see that you are all referring to the same issue, if Mr Bouwman, Mr Lehne, Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Bourlanges, who have asked for the floor, are going to do the same, I would ask them to give up the floor so that the presidency can give an appropriate explanation.
Ladies and gentlemen, this morning a vote took place which the electronic system recorded as a draw of 273 votes to 273 votes.
The electronic system accurately reflected the reality of the House at that moment.
However, later on, in the verification, the result recorded by the electronic system did not coincide with the number of Members appearing on the list of Members of Parliament available to the services.
This difference must naturally have an explanation, and a simple and logical explanation.
Ladies and gentlemen, the explanation is that a recent replacement had not yet been incorporated into the list available to the services.
This is, as I say, a simple explanation of a perfectly understandable circumstance which I would even go as far as to say was trivial.
You now know the explanation, which will be given in detail at the Conference of Presidents which has been called for the purpose for 4.15 p.m., although I am telling you in advance.
The vote took place correctly, the result is the one you know and which have seen with your own eyes this morning and, therefore, that clears this issue up.
(Applause)Mr Poettering has the floor for a point of order.
Mr Poettering, the calling of this Conference of Presidents is simply a gesture of courtesy by the presidency towards the group presidents, in order to duly inform them of this incident.
Mr Cox has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, when I spoke earlier I said I should like to reserve the right to speak again.
I was personally aware of the explanation, which you have now given publicly.
It is an unfortunate technical slip-up, but I accept it was an honest mistake.
I also accept the declaration, albeit reluctantly.
But if it is merely a technical slip-up, it would be a political mistake to call a Conference of Presidents for the purpose of dealing in a political organ of the House with something for which there is a perfectly reasonable technical explanation.
I shall not attend such a meeting because it seems to me you should make a ruling from the Chair and we should be done with the matter.
This is not a trivial matter.
We accept the logical reason that you have given, but I have to ask you a further question.
Was the Member who replaced Mr Casini indeed entitled to vote, as Mr Casini' s resignation was only announced on Monday evening. Under Rule 8 of the Rules of Procedure, there has to be an exchange of letters between the European Parliament and the Italian Government so that we can actually confirm his entitlement to vote and if that is the case, of course, it is a valid vote.
Mrs McCarthy, I am pleased to inform the House that all the Members present this morning were able to exercise their vote.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome a delegation from the Parliament of Yemen, presided over by Dr Abdelwahab Mahmoud, Vice-President of Parliament, who is in the gallery and who is doing the honour of visiting us on the occasion of the second interparliamentary meeting with the Delegation for Relations with the Mashreq Countries and the Gulf States.
This House is very pleased to note Yemen' s will to come closer to Europe and we pray that this second meeting will be the beginning of an important step towards strengthened cooperation with the European Union which will allow Yemen to once again find the road to prosperity and the consolidation of its democracy.
We wish the Yemeni Delegation fruitful meetings and an excellent stay in Strasbourg.
Human rights in the world and EU fundamental rights
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A5­0193/2001) by Mr Wuori, on behalf of the Committee on External Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on human rights in the world in 2000 and the European Union Human Rights Policy;
(A5-0223/2001) by Mr Cornillet, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on fundamental rights in the European Union.
Mr President, the discussion of this report has in many ways shown the intolerably lightweight attitude to human rights amid the daily pressures of serious politics.
Nevertheless, human rights, which have even been called the last temporal religion of our time, go deeper than the politics of the day.
Politics is necessary in order for us not to have to look history in the eye.
But, at the same time, it may seem less obvious that human rights are not just a convenient tool for driving political objectives, or, at worst, a pretext for action or inaction as dictated by common sense politics.
Human rights are thematic, systematic and, above all, normative.
They are the result of our cultural evolution and they represent those values to which historical change, including the development of the European Union, is anchored.
They must not nor cannot be sacrificed on the altar of mere political expediency or rhetorical commitment.
So that one day the EU might have a genuine common foreign and security policy, it must be founded on a common human rights strategy.
Right now I think we are headed in the right direction.
Internally, the proclamation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and, externally, both the EU' s annual report on human rights and, in particular, the latest Commission communication contain valuable points of view to consider in making human rights work more effective.
Belgium, the country to hold the presidency, whose Foreign minister, Mr Michel, is, I am pleased to say, here participating in this debate, has stressed the need for increased coherence and consistency, which will hopefully go further than the requirements of mere political correctness, as well as greater penetration, transparency and clear priorities regarding human rights, which the conclusions of the General Affairs Council of 25 June 2001 also reinforce.
The annual report placed emphasis on the importance of dialogue and cooperation between governments and civil society.
As Commissioner Patten said during the Finnish presidency at the EU' s first human rights forum in 1999, it would be intellectual vandalism to ignore the opinions of NGOs as the knowledge and experience of the European human rights community is unparalleled in all the world.
But we must begin by improving our own approach.
If there is no strategy, then tactics will beget a strategy, which means that ad hoc political action will disregard the basic, intrinsic principles of human rights and the rule of law.
We are ready to lecture others on these, but we can easily bypass them for compelling political reasons, as was the case just last week in connection with Slobodan Milosevic' s rushed extradition.
It may indeed have been an important legal and political milestone that reflected a new doctrine in the making, where state sovereignty may have to step aside to make way for universal human rights.
We must also be consistent in the way we judge non-member countries and especially certain EU candidate countries, including Turkey.
For harsh criticism to be justified it must be based on fair play and impartial treatment.
Otherwise, EU enlargement may become more and more like a Potemkin village, in which the applicants implement cosmetic changes in order to comply with the EU' s demands issued from behind a deceptive façade, one which even smacks of sanctimoniousness.
This year' s human rights report, which the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy adopted unanimously, contains numerous proposals for making EU human rights policy more effective with regard to non-member countries.
In the light of that, thematic, topical choices would seem to be the best way to proceed, as now is the case with EU guidelines and common attitudes regarding the death penalty and torture.
It is vital to have more dialogue between the EU' s own experts and greater transparency, but we should also be able to make bolder use of existing remedies to prevent conflicts and promote observance of human rights, such as the human rights clauses contained in agreements with non-member countries, when they refer to Russia, for example.
The report' s key theme is freedom of speech, not just because both traditional and very new dangers threaten it, but because it has a strategic importance in improving the human rights of all - first, second and third generation human rights - and in exposing violations.
It would be naïve to play down the importance of human rights.
It is high time we put principles into practice and we took determined, pragmatic action to create an integrated human rights strategy for the EU as a whole.
Mr President, the first thing I have to say is that I do not recognise myself in the opinion which I myself am signing in relation to this report.
This is for one fundamental reason: at the point of voting, two paragraphs were removed from this opinion of the Committee on Petitions which seemed to me to be extremely important. They were voted off essentially by Members from the Right.
I would like to quote these two paragraphs which seemed so important to me and which, when they disappeared from the text, obliged me to abstain from my own opinion.
One of them said - actually it was the end of one paragraph - that 'economic, social and cultural rights are essential to the exercise of civil and political rights' .
A person who is hungry, who has no work and who has no home, is in no position to enjoy civil rights.
I thought this sentence was important and it was removed.
The other, which is perhaps a bit more arguable, said: 'the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union should be supplemented with such important binding rights as the right to work, housing, a minimum income, the right to a healthy environment and the voting rights for citizens of third countries who have resided for five years in the Union, as well as the extension of civil rights to immigrants who arrive in Europe in search of a decent life' .
This paragraph was also removed.
I therefore had to abstain from my own opinion, Mr President.
Nevertheless, I believe that the Committee on Petitions clearly contributes to the defence of the rights of the European citizens.
The proof is that more than 1 400 citizens in Europe send petitions to this committee each year, which relate to the recognition of qualifications, free movement, the rights of immigrants and the right to a healthy environment.
Mr President, I unfortunately have to recognise that in Europe we have a scourge, terrorism, which seriously harms the human right to expression and the fundamental right, the right to life.
We would very much like - and I repeat this in my recent modest capacity and I will continue to repeat it - Europe today to be a continent which is distinguished in the defence of its own human rights and of human rights outside its borders.
I believe that that is the role we must play.
Unfortunately, I believe that we are not playing it at the moment but I hope that we will be able to do so in the future.
Mr President, may I start by commending Mr Wuori for a challenging and focussed report, which has attracted overwhelming support from this Parliament.
I also enjoyed listening to the minister' s speech: Parliament knows his personal commitment to the enhancement and protection of human rights.
The year since Parliament' s last report on human rights has been punctuated with important institutional and policy developments.
The reform of external aid has taken root and Europe Aid is tackling the avalanche of responses to the two recent calls for proposals on human rights, some 1 400 proposals for a total of EUR 1.6 billion.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights has been solemnly proclaimed and it is an important element in the European Union' s efforts to ensure coherence between internal and external human rights policy.
The adoption by the Council of guidelines on torture has provided a clear framework for policy and action in that area and the communication on human rights and democratisation, which was long in gestation, but strong in delivery, was adopted on 8 May and it sets out a clear strategy for the short term and the medium term.
We now have to focus on the implementation of its proposals.
It is evident from Mr Wuori' s report that Parliament and Commission are thinking along similar lines when it comes to human rights.
This is my first opportunity to present the communication to Parliament in a plenary session.
Boiled down to its essence, the communication seeks to promote coherent and consistent human rights policies in the European Union' s relations with third countries, to maximise the leverage afforded by political dialogue, trade and external assistance, and to set out a more strategic and focussed approach for the European initiative, for democracy and human rights.
Several issues raised in Mr Wuori' s report dovetail with points in our communication.
For example, we make clear that Parliament will be consulted on the programming of the European initiative for democracy and human rights for 2002 and the years beyond.
On reporting and evaluation, the Commission is committed to publishing regular reports on the activities that we fund.
The latest report was released on 22 May and it provides a thorough analysis of projects supported under the 2000 budget.
The promotion of human rights is, as the honourable Member' s report makes clear, an indispensable element in the prevention of conflict.
The communication on conflict prevention issued in April confirms the high priority given by the Commission to developing the Union' s capacities.
More systematic use of country-strategy papers will help to ensure the cogent use of Community instruments to address both the root causes of conflict and other human rights problems.
As regards the rapid reaction mechanism, the Commission will provide Parliament in due course with an evaluation of activities undertaken.
The central theme of the honourable Member' s report, freedom of expression, finds an echo in the communication, which makes clear that this will fall under the first of the four priority areas for the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights Programme for 2002 and beyond, and that theme is indeed of pivotal importance.
The right to express one' s opinions without fear or consequence is to borrow a phrase from the great English judge Lord Devlin, -A lamp that shows that freedom lives.'
When state authorities start to close down newspapers, when they start to harass or imprison journalists, it is a sure sign that human rights and freedom are crumbling.
The European Union makes its views plain on this subject in its contacts with third countries, and in international fora such as the UN Commission on Human Rights.
Moreover, the rhetoric is matched with hard support.
Under the European initiative alone, over EUR 5.4 million was allocated in 2000 to projects in support of freedom of expression, free media and the protection and training of journalists.
A large project in Africa and Asia undertaken by 'Rapporteurs Sans Frontières' , offers a good example.
Fact-finding on imprisoned journalists, and the provision of practical assistance to journalists and their families, is coupled with education and media campaigns.
I would like to look now at another thread running through the honourable Member' s report, the relationship between our two institutions.
Parliament has cultivated a high profile with respect to human rights.
As I mentioned when I presented the communication to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on 15 May, the reports and resolutions of Parliament on the Commission' s previous performance on human rights were of great use in drawing up the communication.
The Commission is keen to reinforce its dialogue on human rights with Parliament, and this is reflected in the consultations which will take place on programming the European initiative in 2002.
In cooperation with the presidency, the Commission would also seek to ensure that the timing and location of the human rights discussion forum with non-governmental organisations, and with others, takes full account of the need for systematic participation by Members of this House.
Moreover, we want to enhance the potential of the forum.
We will begin by evaluating the events held so far, in consultation with Parliament, the Council and NGOs.
On human rights clauses, I note Parliament' s concern about the lack of implementing rules on suspension in many agreements.
As we know, the most recent version of the essential elements clause, as contained, for example, in the Cotonou agreement, makes provision for a consultation procedure prior to any suspension of an agreement.
It is state-of-the-art in that respect, but changes to existing agreements would require individual renegotiations with partners, which is an undoubtedly lengthy process.
Nonetheless, the Commission stands ready to discuss the future shape and use of the clause, an issue that I raised at the informal foreign ministers' meeting last month, and it will continue to attach importance to Parliament' s views.
A final word on police and security equipment, a point which is not directly addressed to the Commission in the report.
The Commission intends to submit to the Council before the end of summer a proposal for controlling and, where necessary, prohibiting exports of equipment that may be used for the purposes of torture and cruel inhumane or degrading treatment.
The Commission will examine with Member States whether there is a need for Community action in respect of manufacturing, promoting or using such equipment.
I know this is of concern both to Members and to NGOs such as Amnesty International, and I am glad that we are close to taking such a significant step.
I congratulate the honourable Member once again on the excellent report and look forward to working with him and with the House in taking forward our shared concern in human rights.
Mr President, in areas such as human rights, the European Parliament has traditionally been, in a sense, the eye of the international community and has tried to goad the EU institutions into action.
Many people believe this is totally useless, but I think they are wrong.
Today we can do more than we could yesterday and no doubt less than tomorrow, but even that is very important.
Rather as in the case of sustainable development, respect for individual rights must become an integral element of the Union' s external policy. It must be structured and based on a genuine strategy and it must apply as much to economic relations as to political relations.
This is not yet the case, as the rapporteur, Mr Wuori, points out. But there are signs of progress.
For the rest, I firmly welcome the good cooperation Mr Wuori managed to establish with the human rights NGOs.
If Europe is to appear credible as a Union, basing its action on respect for human rights and sustainable economic development founded on solidarity, we will have to reject all forms of hypocrisy or ambiguity.
We must take a very clear stance in our political and economic relations with countries such as China, Russia, but also Saudi Arabia, the United States and many others. We cannot disregard the fact that in these countries prisoners are executed, civilians foolish enough to belong to ethnic and political minorities are massacred, women are prevented from living free and people are tortured indiscriminately.
Mr Patten raised these aspects and I hope his words will very soon be followed by deeds.
Mr Michel' s statement is reassuring as regards the coming six months, and I hope even longer. I would like to ask him a very direct question.
Will Belgium launch a European initiative and table a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling for a moratorium on capital punishment? As you know, the Finnish presidency made a first attempt in 1999, which failed.
What do you intend to do in this regard, Mr Michel?
Thank you very much, Mr President.
I would like to begin by pointing out that the GUE/NGL Group is in favour of the two reports, by Mr Wuori and by Mr Cornillet.
They are both very good reports.
I witnessed a visit which Mr Cornillet made to Spain in relation to the situation of the immigrants, exactly a year after the incidents in El Ejido and I can testify to his concern.
And Mr Wuori has distinguished himself by producing a very complete report which we have all participated in and which I believe is a source of pride for the Committee on External Relations.
Furthermore, I am grateful for the speeches by the two Commissioners, Mr Patten and Mr Vitorino, as well as the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Michel, because they support the idea of Europe becoming the obligatory reference point for guaranteeing human rights in the world.
It is important to highlight this issue because, so far, it appears that only the United States represents this guarantee when in fact I think the opposite is happening.
Europe' s cultural, historical and social heritage, the four generations of human rights which, since the French Revolution, have been building up within European history, and also the success we have had with European integration are a guarantee of the unique privileged role which the European Union can play in the rest of the world.
Nevertheless, this should not stop us believing that we have an historic shared responsibility with regard to the tragic situation of human rights on the three continents.
Because it is precisely our presence on those continents which is one of the causes of these peoples' difficulties in having their human rights respected.
I think it would be worth establishing European Union human rights observatories in each of the three continents, which would maintain relations with the NGOs and with the instruments of the United Nations, so that the annual reports carried out by Parliament, to the Commission and the Council, may have the effect of improving our interventions.
We must not be surprised if sometimes our multinational companies (as I have observed in Colombia or as happens in Africa and Asia) are funding paramilitary groups which directly attack human rights.
It is our responsibility to bring these facts to light so that we can make progress in the establishment of human rights.
Finally, I would like to point out that, in the European Union, as Mr Cornillet has rightly said, we must offer an example rather than preach and therefore on this occasion we have the opportunity to begin with immigrants as one of the issues which Europe has still to deal with.
We cannot say that we need 70 million immigrants in order to make progress with our economy and then discriminate against them.
For all these reasons, it is important that we support these reports.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mr Cornillet for his work on the fundamental rights situation in the Union.
This is a detailed, balanced report which could genuinely provide constructive impetus for each Member State to give increasingly tangible, concrete substance to the principle of justice and the protection of the principal, inalienable rights of the European citizens.
This report could provide the opportunity for a moment' s reflection, for an initial stock take of the effect of the new Charter of Fundamental Rights, which represents a stage which is only just the beginning and yet so important if we are to achieve a European unification which consists of more than finance and economics, which is also the home of rights and opportunities for all the European citizens, and where special attention is given to those whose rights are most often violated such as children, the marginalised and the poorest people.
Although I support the line taken by the report, I do have a few criticisms.
With regard to the chapter on non-marital relations, I feel that it is unacceptable to envisage equal legal status for marriages between people of the opposite sex and unions between people of the same sex.
Without prejudice to the right for all people not to be subjected to discrimination on the basis of their sexual orientation, there is still a legal and social need to protect the traditional marriage union as a fundamental unit of society, particularly where recourse to fertility treatment or the adoption of minors is concerned, which must remain the exclusive privilege of natural families.
This is precisely because of the need to protect minors for, all too often, we forget that fundamental rights are the prerogative not just of adults but also and above all of minors.
I would, however, like to draw Parliament' s attention once again to the case of the male descendents of the House of Savoy who, in a Europe which is an area of justice, freedom and free movement, have been unable to return to Italy for over 50 years.
It would be appropriate if Parliament could help to resolve this matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is something very important missing from the motion for a resolution on human rights in the world: the principle of the self-determination of peoples.
We Padanians consider this to be a serious omission because it is impossible not to see that the denial or, in any case, the decision not to emphasise this right is one of the greatest possible violations of human rights.
Just consider the events of recent weeks, of recent months with regard to the Palestinian situation: a genuine, tragic violation on a daily basis of the principle of self-determination, which it is Europe' s duty to give greater emphasis in its human rights documents.
Moreover, some of the States who are knocking on the door of the European Union were, until recently, stateless nations.
We must remember now, especially after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, that they are free, independent States.
How, then, can the European Union subject these countries to an assessment of their respect for human rights when, in its own documents, it does not proclaim loud and clear the protection of that principle - the principle of self-determination - that the peoples of those States have been denied for decades?
Then, the part of the report which deals with the protection of cultural rights is wholly insufficient, not to say non-existent.
A guarantee of the right, for example, to see one' s own language or religion protected cannot be considered to be fully effective if that guarantee merely constitutes the protection of the individual freedom to use that language or practise that religion.
In order for there to be genuine freedom to speak one' s own language, we must ensure that new generations are educated in that cultural context, that the traditions and history of that minority are included in school curricula.
For example, in Padania, where I come from, those whose mother tongue is Piedmontese, as mine is, or Veneto, do not have the right to be taught it at school because those languages - Piedmontese and Veneto - are not part of school curricula.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that point 93 fails to include a fundamental issue, the trafficking of human organs, which is a disgrace ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, in this combined approach respect for human rights in and outside the Union is central which has prompted me to reflect yet again on the issue of human rights.
More than ever this topic is high on the agenda.
And rightly so, since there are still harrowing violations.
However, on the basis of my Christian philosophy, I should like to stress that even human rights are not above all norms.
The maintenance of human rights involves protective rules for human life in accordance with the design that God the Creator has for that life.
The Wuori report deals in a realistic way with this concept.
It limits itself to the most fundamental human rights.
But I wonder whether the European Union, with its limited financial and diplomatic means, can supervise the observance of those rights.
The policy of the Union must complement the individual capabilities of the Member States.
The only pressure that the Union can exert through human rights clauses in treaties and agreements is undermined in this report by arguing for flexible application.
We support maintaining critical dialogue, but flexibility must not become the norm for our policy.
Finally, Mr President, I should like to devote a few words to the Cornillet report.
As I have said I am a supporter of proper observance of human rights.
However, I do not believe that the European Union has the authority to concern itself in such detail with observance in Member States.
I also note the lack of a distinction between human rights and government policy objectives.
Too fanatical a plea for government action in human rights questions can simply lead to a restriction of civil liberties.
I should like to discuss Paragraphs 82-84 of the Cornillet report separately.
I regard marriage as a unique gift of the Creator.
Marginalisation of marriage through the introduction of alternative forms of cohabitation will do great harm to society.
Even in my own country I have come to be in a minority with such a view.
Still I cling to the good Biblical institution of marriage as a lasting union between man and woman.
I sincerely hope that the Netherlands government will have second thoughts on the decisions it has made.
I appeal to the Member States of the European Union to pay no heed to the call to follow in the footsteps of the Netherlands.
The attempt in Amendment No 24 to call attention to the position of terminal patients is in itself praiseworthy, but the concrete form it is given is misguided.
For this reason I have requested a split vote on this amendment.
Mr President, Commissioners, first of all, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Cornillet very warmly, for his report is a sign of progress, above all in terms of structure, for it gives us the opportunity to review annually the extent to which we are genuinely fulfilling the provisions of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in the European Union.
However, as is the case every year, progress has been slowed down by various votes and proposed amendments, with efforts being made yet again to pack the report with political ideologies which actually do not belong there. They are political ideologies which perhaps cannot be achieved at home and which also violate the principle of subsidiarity.
They have no place here.
I am against every form of discrimination, and I would like to make this clear with a number of examples.
I am against every form of discrimination against homosexuality, but I oppose the politically-motivated attempts, apparent yet again in this report, to present homosexual marriage as the absolute norm and demand the same rights for it as marriage between partners of different sexes, which is actually still the norm today.
The fact that marriage between persons of different sexes - the core unit of society - is still the norm is a good thing, comrades, as people would say nowadays in Berlin.
I also oppose the attempts to grant all non-EU citizens the same rights to vote and stand for election as EU citizens.
This would be unique in the world, and would constitute discrimination against EU citizens.
I oppose the attempts to recast family reunion as an instrument of immigration by extending the term 'family' to a large and ill-defined group.
This is unacceptable, for it removes Member States' right to decide which workers they wish to, and are able, to admit, and how many.
Let us admit the immediate family by all means, but not the entire extended family.
We will not support the examples which I have cited or other political demands. However, we will certainly vote for the report presented by the rapporteur Mr Cornillet.
Mr President, as shadow rapporteur for my group for the report by Mr Cornillet, whom I should, by the way, like to congratulate on the result of his work, I should like to address the question of respect for human rights in the countries of the European Union itself.
If we look at the facts on the table two complexes of problems stand out.
In the first place this time there are again reports on misbehaviour by government servants, such as police officers, prison staff, security services, and officials involved in the handling of asylum seekers.
Secondly one is struck by the number of reports of forms of unequal treatment and discrimination, especially of people belonging to so-called "weak" groups in society.
Racist violence against foreigners is the most visible manifestation of this phenomenon, but it also relates to the trafficking in women, discrimination in the workplace, to say nothing of homosexuals, since I have had enough of the topic for the time being.
Unfortunately in the preparatory phase in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs this substantive aspect of the human rights problem in the European Union was scarcely mentioned.
All attention focused on the way in which human rights reports in the European Parliament should be produced in future.
I have great appreciation for the commitment and stamina of the rapporteur, Mr Cornillet, but believe that the means are in danger of not achieving their end.
The discussion on the future design and organisation of this work took up a great deal of time and energy and was carried out under an undue amount of pressure.
A compromise turned out to have been almost reached, but elements were lost and now we must simply hope that things will turn out all right with the amendments.
Some aspects of the discussion have not yet been completely concluded and therefore I should like to raise some of these points now.
In the first place, the choice of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights as the coathanger for the report.
This choice, in itself an obvious one, must not, however, become a restrictive corset.
The discussion on the scope of human rights and the concept of human rights is still fluid.
Human rights are also a matter of living law.
Moreover, we must not forget that the Member States are also bound by human rights treaties of the Council of Europe and the United Nations and the specialised bodies.
The findings of the supervisory agencies of these treaties should in fact play a much greater part in the deliberations of this Parliament.
Secondly, there is the question: who does what?
There are two parliamentary committees which deal with the matter: the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights.
There is a great deal of overlap both in the conclusions and in the themes, unnecessary and duplication of work is being carried out and there is stiff competition for staff and resources.
This requires intervention by the authorised bodies of this Parliament in order to coordinate things better.
My third question is: where should the countries of the European Union about which there is concern regarding the observance of fundamental rights be named? In view of the nature of the supervisory mechanism itself the only appropriate answer seems to me to be in the resolution itself and not tucked away in a note, as was the original intention of the rapporteur himself.
I find that in conflict with the fact that every month in this Parliament we rap third countries over the knuckles for violation of human rights.
Mr President, it was Mrs Malmström and myself who wrote the reports on human rights last year.
We are very pleased that the approach adopted then has been carried forward into the reports we are discussing today.
We Liberals support Mr Cornillet' s desire for the new charter of human rights to be a model and criterion of relevance for this Parliament' s work on human rights.
Like human rights watchdogs, we can make use of the charter even before it acquires formal status, and we can at the same time acquire a much needed means of opposing that watering down of the concept of human rights that threatens to turn the latter into everything and nothing.
There has, of course, been a tendency in this Parliament to make every conceivable subject from the party programmes into human rights issues.
It happens with the best of intentions, but it damages human rights because it makes citizens who disagree about one point or another say, 'f those are human rights, then we are opposed to them.'
The whole Austria business did a lot of damage, because it was all about opinions and suppositions.
If, instead, it had been about specific breaches of the charter of human rights, there would have been a lot of sympathy for the action.
That is why we here in Parliament must make the charter central.
We must guard it like watchdogs.
We must use it in such a way as to resist its being watered down by do-gooders.
That is why we Liberals are voting against almost all the amendments: not because we disagree with the intentions behind the amendments, but because we attach too much importance to human rights to be a party to using them to adorn every conceivable point of view that does not fall within the charter' s human rights criterion.
As I say, however, we warmly support the two reports as they stand, except with regard to just a few points, and we are grateful for the fact that we have in this way acquired a better organised treatment of human rights for the future.
We have indeed before us two massive and authoritative reports for which we are indebted to the two authors.
Mr Wuori said, in introducing the debate, that this is about the fundamental principle of respect for human personality in all its manifestations.
Charters and conventions and rights seek to quantify and give exact terms to the impermissible forms of disrespect and then discountenance them everywhere.
The moving section on enlargement in Mr Wuori' s paper reminds us that both a condition and a consequence of enlargement of the Union will be to expand the recognition, enforcement and upholding of human rights throughout this continent.
What could be a more welcome outcome?
Mr Cornillet suggested that we should not take the two papers together.
I think we have to.
We must always remind ourselves, as we call upon others outside the Union to rise to the standards of respect for persons which seem to us fundamental, that we are continually at risk ourselves of falling below the standards.
Last night as the Echelon Committee adopted its report, it made it clear that running systems of random interception of messages breaches the fundamental right to privacy in one' s personal life and communications.
That must stop.
Those who are doing it in the United Kingdom and elsewhere must be urged to put a stop to it.
There are other areas, such as the right to a speedy trial, where other states are not up to the mark.
We must press for rights to be recognised at home as well as abroad.
The annual report on the human rights situation in the European Union, on the one hand, and in the world on the other is a laudable and useful means of reviewing the Union' s policy in this area. It is certainly a necessary undertaking when we think of the infringements of human rights perpetrated against millions of men and women in too many parts of the world.
I will confine myself to two specific issues in this debate.
First of all I am thinking of the disturbing decline of the situation in Tunisia, at this very moment.
In the coming five days alone, militant democrats will be further harassed with at least three political trials coming up: the trial of the journalist Sihem Ben Sedrine, brutally arrested as he stepped from the plane; Doctor Moncef Marzouki; and Fathi Chamkhi, President of ATTAC Tunisia.
The European Parliament has already, on several occasions, condemned this unacceptable repression.
Yet it still needs to acquire effective tools and the necessary political will to ensure respect for the Association Agreement provisions on human rights, so that it can exert pressure that goes beyond mere words.
This question is all the more topical when we remember that on his visit to Tunis Commissioner Patten reaffirmed that Europe wants to act in close conjunction with Tunisia to give new impetus to the partnership. It is indeed a real and beneficial partnership for the people on the two shores of the Mediterranean, but it must be based on the recognition of freedom of expression, movement and opinion.
So when will we see a special Association Council on these issues with Tunisia?
The human rights situation really has declined. Arrests, violence and torture are the common lot of the militant men and women who support human rights and who quite simply want to establish and live in a free society.
But there are also signs of a decline in the rights that affect the day-to-day life of every individual in the European Union itself. Everyone, be he a European citizen or a foreign resident, has the essential right to a job, to acceptable wages, to a roof over his head.
The same applies to political rights, to the right to be treated as a full rather than a second-rate citizen in one' s place of residence.
Accordingly, it should become the established rule that third-country nationals who have resided in the Union for at least five years have the right to vote and stand for election, as advocated by the Council of Europe since 1992.
Let me conclude by saying how urgently necessary this is to the very future of a Union based on solidarity when we remember that the prospect of several candidate countries' participating in the elections...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I would like to draw the attention of this House and the Commission to a matter which has been dealt with brilliantly in the report, a matter which is certainly less tragic than the physical violation of human rights which, I am sad to say, lies before us now, but which relates to a crucial, pivotal factor in the democratic processes of all countries and, above all - I am convinced - in the future of democracy in European and world societies: I refer to the issue of information, to a question which I feel to be central, the question of pluralism - and I will repeat this word, pluralism - of information.
At a time when this is becoming increasingly important, in a historic period in which television, in particular, is becoming an incredibly powerful and influential mass medium in the history of humanity, securing the pluralism of information in Europe means securing the basis for a democratic future.
Failure to guarantee this means exposing our countries and our area to hazards.
In my opinion, the question gains in importance precisely when we consider it in relation to enlargement, for countries are joining the Union whose experience is different, countries are acceding which have a greater need for tangible rules than ever before.
Well then, Europe does not have these tangible rules.
The Commission has been instigating and developing initial proposals for directives since the 1990s and the European Parliament has elaborated on these ideas on a number of occasions, but everything appears to have come to a standstill.
An idea also seems to be circulating which I consider to be dangerous: that world competition, particularly North American competition, should promote mergers rather than guarantee pluralism.
If that is the case, then I say to you that this is a great mistake.
The greater good, the greatest good is democracy.
I call upon Parliament and the Commission to address this issue and to produce a directive on the matter without delay.
Mr President, I had a prepared speech, which I decided to abandon after listening to Mr Michel.
He is no longer here but I am sure Mrs Neyts will pass on my words.
This is what I wanted to say to him.
Are you not slightly embarrassed, Mr Michel?
You came to tell us about human rights in the world. You represent a government that has just failed in judicial terms by arbitrarily banning one of the most important political groups in your country, the "Flemish bloc", whose leader' s only crime is to have stood for election according to the law.
The supposed anti-racism in Belgium - led by an unfrocked Dominican - is funded directly by the prime minister' s cabinet, and all he wants to do is to muzzle the opposition.
In Belgium as elsewhere, love of country is fraudulently assimilated with xenophobia and xenophobia with racism.
They speak of the persecution of minorities while allowing certain minorities, ethnic, public or other, to persecute the majority of the population.
In Belgium there are occult lobbies - mainly freemasons and pederasts - that have been cornering the real power for aeons.
The political or trade union bosses have shared out among themselves the state, finance, the media, the university and the public offices.
One side has the right to a state prosecutor, the other to its judge.
New political groups can only stand for election if they can collect enough signatures and are prepared for police intimidation.
Mr Michel appears before us rather like the hypocrite Tartuffe in Molière' s play: fat and pink, rosy-cheeked and carmine-lipped.
He ought to blush with shame, or laugh like the augurs of ancient Rome who no longer dared believe in their own religion...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, last month we witnessed the remarkable sight of Bulgaria, an ex-communist country, electing the party by its former King, Simeon II, to office, having removed all legal barriers to his entry, ironically in preparation for EU membership.
I have always believed that the great benefit of enlargement of EU to the east is to anchor these countries in a climate of peace, prosperity and an institutional respect for democracy and fundamental human rights.
However, spare a thought for Simeon' s unfortunate Italian cousin, Prince Victor Emmanuel of Savoy and his son Philibert, who are not only formally barred from standing from public office in their country, a founder Member of the EU unlike Bulgaria, but have nurtured the dream since childhood of being allowed to enter the territory of the country of which they are citizens both by birth and descent.
In the past, I have spoken with concern in this house on the Charter of Fundamental Rights with regard to the attempt to make binding its new controversial, social and economic rights, as opposed to the civil and political rights enshrined in the much respected 1950 European Convention of Human Rights.
The EU Treaty right to freedom of movement and establishment also enjoys universal support, and yet is so clearly breached by Italy' s 13th so-called transitional constitutional article, which exiles in perpetuity the male descendants of the House of Savoy from their own country.
There is no derogation afforded to Italy to discriminate on the grounds of sex or birth with regard to freedom of movement of all its citizens, other on the basis of threats posed to public security or health.
It is frankly ludicrous if the Republic of Italy feels threatened by one old man and his son wanting to return home.
I therefore call once again on this House to show compassion and non-selective respect for human rights by joining me in supporting my Amendment No 7 calling on the Italian Parliament to honour the commitment by the last government of Italy to put a speedy end to this cruel and anomalous situation, and align its constitution with the right of all EU citizens to move around the Union freely.
I congratulate Mr Cornillet, in this respect, on his report in what is a very difficult area.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Wuori not only on his report and its recommendations, but also because it reminds us of all the atrocities which are still being committed in the world.
It is normal for us to make our aid to third countries conditional upon their respecting human rights and, naturally, we must continue urging them to do so and putting pressure on them until they do so, but, while we do not make the same demands of the larger countries, we will not deserve to consider ourselves the world reference point for the defence of human rights.
Again and again we threaten the United States when it executes a person, when it murders a human being according to its laws.
But it goes no further than these words which, though forceful, are nevertheless only words.
They sentence to death minors, the mentally handicapped, blacks, Hispanics; in short, the poorest people.
In the statement on the Gothenburg Summit, we have once again called on the United States to establish a moratorium on the death penalty, we have once again expressed our regret that it appears in their federal law and that in 38 of their jurisdictions citizens are executed in the name of the law.
We need to apply even more pressure.
Cases such as that of Joaquín José Martínez lead us to be more optimistic about the influence of the European institutions and, in particular, our Parliament.
We must continue to fight to defend and extend the values of European civilisation.
Without liberty, without tolerance, without respect for human rights, there is nothing.
A country may be a great economic power, it may even be the envy of many others for its missiles, its strength, its powers of veto, but, if human rights are not respected and enforced, it is a society without values, an under-developed society.
This very morning, President Verhofstadt said that when Europe speaks and speaks in unison, we are heard.
We must therefore continue to exert pressure, ladies and gentlemen.
Yesterday also, before the Committee on External Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, the President of Peru, Alejandro Toledo, reminded us that democracy has no borders and human rights have no colour.
Neither, ladies and gentlemen, should they have a cheque book.
Mr President, I should like to thank the two rapporteurs for two outstanding reports.
It is true, as one of the speakers, Mrs Swiebel, said, that they overlap, but I really do not think that that matters very much.
I think it can be said that they complement one another but, above all, they of course form a fantastically good basis for further discussion in Europe.
Mr Michel mentioned that there is a gulf between the EU and its people and quoted the Irish example.
I, of course, come from Denmark where, in a way, the result of the Irish referendum can be appreciated for what it is. However, the situation is, of course, the same in other countries where there are no referenda.
I do not believe that, for example, it would have been at all possible to implement European monetary union if there had been a referendum in Germany.
This would have clearly shown that the Germans were opposed to it.
So we are all basically faced with the same problem, then, and this is naturally also highlighted by the fact that we in this Assembly and all other assemblies continue to say that there is a lot that needs to be changed and that democracy is getting a poor deal etc.
We could, however, use these two reports as a basis for saying that there is, in fact, something that is very good in Europe.
There really is something that operates outstandingly in Europe.
We succeeded in formulating sets of values which 15 countries - perhaps 27 countries following enlargement - can provisionally agree upon.
Where else in the world has that been achieved? Nowhere.
I think it is a brilliant idea for Mr Cornillet to have taken the charter as a point of departure, for it really does offer a very good yardstick for measuring how the development of our rights here in Europe is proceeding.
I think that the charter may be used as an indicator of this development, so that if we regularly - once a year - review the charter, we might acquire a sense of this development.
Mr President, the report was excellent, as was the Belgian minister' s speech, as were Commissioner Patten' s and Commissioner Vitorino' s speeches.
However, there is one problem.
The European Union' s policy on human rights is rather schizophrenic: while we get ten out of ten for reports on ideas, declarations of good intentions, we barely scrape through and we demonstrate cowardice when it comes to applying them.
A great deal of cowardice.
We can make claims and demands on Moldavia, Latvia, Lithuania, certain African countries, certain former central American colonies, but when Mr Bush was here, who opened their mouth, who said a word about the death penalty? Mr Schroeder?
Mr Blair?
Mr Chirac?
Mr Jospin?
No-one said a single word! This pragmatism colours all our positions, even this report.
Although Mr Wuori has produced an excellent report, I should like to ask him, why Amendment No 10 Mr Wuori? Why, when it comes to Turkey, delete the passage stating that the Kurds must be allowed to return or that the European Court decision on Cyprus must be applied?
What has changed in the meantime?
Mr President, the Italian radicals of the Bonino List support the proposal by the rapporteur, Mr Cornillet, to consolidate the legal and other value of Parliament' s report on human rights, not least because we would like to be able to have, at last, a forum for condemning, describing and recording unbelievable incidents completely unknown to the vast majority of you.
We would like to be able to tell you about referendums which have been illegally denied in Italy on subjects of fundamental importance for the Italian citizens; we would like to be able to tell you about referendums in which tens of millions of voters voted and won and were then betrayed some months afterwards by the Italian parliament; we would like to be able to tell you about electoral lists illegally presented at the elections of our country and illegally accepted; we would like to be able to tell you about an electoral campaign which illegally excluded subjects, parties, movements, policies and proposals from the possibility of being chosen by the Italian electorate; we would like to be able to tell you about all these things.
There is no genuine forum protecting human rights and the civil and political rights of the European citizens.
We feel that democracy is under threat, not just outside the Union and not just in Italy, but in the Union as a whole; we also feel that the institutional mechanisms of the European Union itself and the inappropriate division of powers therein make it an increasingly a democratic, if not undemocratic institution.
We call for a forum in which all this can be discussed.
There is a committee ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, we are dealing with a novel report by Mr Cornillet which, as he himself recognises, is limited and incomplete due to a lack of resources, which he has tried to substitute through personal effort and this is worthy of recognition.
It is difficult to analyse what is happening in each Member State and, above all, know the facts and circumstances which affect each country in the light of our recent Charter of Fundamental Rights and, therefore, we must continue to study the procedure in depth.
I would like to thank him expressly for his sensitivity to one of the most fundamental rights of human beings, the right to life, which, together with freedoms of expression and movement, is being persistently violated by ETA in an area of European territory, the Basque Country, and in Spain as a whole.
Unfortunately, terrorism has warranted a specific mention with a new section which refers to the right to life and the intensification of the fight against terrorism, based on the legal instruments agreed at the Tampere Summit to combat it, such as, for example, the arrest order, which we are creating at the moment.
Another aspect, which the Socialist Group in particular should reflect on, given that they do not even accept its application in places where the governments are of its same colour, is that mentioned in points 119 and 120, which recognise the right to vote of citizens of third countries, not only in local elections, but also in European elections.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us not start building the house from the roof.
When we have still not been capable of laying the foundations of genuine integration, which include education, housing, healthcare and the mutual respect for our cultures, there is still much to be done in the field of immigration and asylum.
And false demagoguery will only hinder the resolution of such a serious problem.
Mr President, I would firstly like to point out that it seems to me absurd to hold a joint debate in this House on the human rights situation in the world and in the European Union.
My group said this in the Conference of Presidents and was only supported by the GUE/NGL Group.
Furthermore, Mr President, I would like to ask you to note that I find it incredible that we are organising a debate in this way, because it seems that human rights in the world are more important to us than human rights in the European Union.
The comparisons are odious and I am not talking about the victims of a lack of human rights, but we should be more concerned with dealing with what is exclusively in our hands.
I would like to say to Mr Cornillet that I am grateful for his effort and his work, and I would like to ask him to consider the possibility that in the coming months, and based on his experience, we should seek amongst all of us, calmly and serenely, a method which will allow us to work in the future, taking account of his extremely valuable experience.
His experience has been valuable because this is the first year that we have produced this report, after the declaration of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I would like you to take this into account, Mr Cornillet.
In my last few seconds I will speak not about methods but about content.
Mr Pirker, Mr Hernández Mollar, we do not want to put forward a common immigration policy.
We simply want recognition that Mr Cornillet' s report clearly demonstrates that the people most affected by violations of human rights are minorities and, especially, asylum seekers and immigrants.
If human rights are deteriorating in this respect, we must put forward solutions and conclusions which reflect it.
That is what we want.
Mr President, anyone who believes that apartheid has been abolished is wrong.
It still exists as a caste system in India and neighbouring countries.
European human rights policy has wrongly been silent up to now on this blatant injustice.
In India systematic discrimination has deep historical roots and is completely integrated into the social system.
A hundred and sixty million people from the lowest caste and chained in the dungeons of cultural and religious tradition.
There is legislation against the system, but social practice pays no attention to it.
A dalit or untouchable is without prospects from birth and is doomed to a lifetime of humiliations and an existence on the fringe of society.
Dalits are regularly abused by the higher caste.
Women are raped and no one can attain justice.
There is systematic inequality of opportunity.
There is absolutely no question of social mobility, one of the characteristics of a true democracy.
India is not only the largest, but also the most undemocratic democracy in the world.
There is no cultural or religious justification for the structural violation of universal human rights.
In India itself awareness of the inhumane character is slowly dawning, but there is a great reluctance to change among those who benefit from the system.
The caste system is a culturally constructed form of political and economic exploitation.
A massive consciousness-raising campaign must be launched and Europe must put this crude form of racial discrimination on the international agenda, to begin with at the forthcoming World Racism conference in Durban.
It is not an easy task, but we must have courage, as Mr Michel said, before he disappeared.
We must not as if the whole caste system is itself untouchable.
Apartheid is only unchangeable if we resign ourselves to it and we must therefore not do so.
I should be glad to hear the responses of the Commission and the Council.
Ladies and gentlemen, even though the adoption last year, in Nice, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights represented a step forward for human rights in the European Union, it constitutes only a minimum standard for the protection to which every citizen is entitled.
Unfortunately it is still inadequate to combat the distress suffered by thousands of individuals, whether they are refugees, immigrants or illegal immigrants, in particular where women and children are concerned.
At no time are the countries concerned, whether European or not, called to order or condemned for the violations that they have committed.
Proof of this lies in the reports that have been tabled here today. However good they may be, and for that we can thank the rapporteurs, they still do nothing more than list the many cases in which fundamental rights are giving cause for concern.
Human rights and fundamental liberties are universal and inseparable.
They must not recognise any boundaries, whether of nationality or of gender.
We must reaffirm this argument, strongly and vigorously These rights will only become a reality if everyone is aware of their existence, but also only if everyone has confidence in those who are responsible for applying and respecting them.
It is therefore essential to enforce those rights, but also to make them visible and accessible to everyone.
If we are to be constructive, we must set up a dialogue with all those involved in the recognition, promotion and defence of fundamental rights, particularly those who are closest to the least-favoured individuals, those who are the victims of discrimination.
Another key factor lies in ratifying international instruments and translating them into everyday life: the right to move around freely, to live with one' s family, to be a citizen.
Whatever a society is like, it can only flourish in peace, and there can be no peace without justice.
Apart from these generalised speeches in favour of human rights, nothing will happen without the political will to achieve real equality of rights for all men and women who have a share in wealth and in the construction of Europe and European citizenship.
Instead of fussing about the structures that the European Parliament might give itself in the future, we ought to equip ourselves with the means to ensure that human rights and fundamental liberties are respected, including social and political rights, without which the principles of a state under the rule of law and of democracy will no longer have any meaning.
Mr President, I cannot fail to stress the positive aspects of the Wuori and Cornillet reports on human rights in the world, for a number of reasons: most importantly, the reference to the human rights clause in the conclusion of trade or other agreements, and then the request, which has been made on a number of occasions in the past as well, for closer involvement of Parliament in the coordinated, consistent monitoring of Community action in respect of the violation of rights.
However, I must also point out the considerable vagueness and haziness, particularly of Mr Cornillet' s report, regarding the violation of rights in different countries, especially where the subject is controversial and the governments responsible are not identified.
I would not like this House to have to face, once again, the dilemma in which we can only ever take moral decisions where our values or political affiliations are not called into question.
The European Parliament is an essential actor in the design and practical application of the Union' s policy on human rights.
Its influence in ensuring that treaties are amended with those rights in mind is becoming increasingly evident.
We must therefore pay close attention to the human rights situation in Member States when shortcomings are revealed in our systems.
In my home town of Lyons I am confronted every day, in the most graphic terms, with the suffering of refugees and with trafficking in human beings, particularly in women.
We must therefore harmonise our legislation and adopt a legally restrictive instrument, so as to guarantee real protection for the victims of trafficking in human beings.
We ought to be able, without any problem, to extradite those who traffic in human beings, and to confiscate the profits from their criminal activities, using the proceeds to create a European compensation fund to be used to help their victims.
We ought to be able to give a humanitarian right of residence to the victims of trafficking in human beings and domestic slavery, and we ought to be able to guarantee that people who are arrested and held at police stations are given immediate access to legal and medical assistance and, where necessary, to an interpreter.
We ought to be able to obtain, as a matter of urgency, better protection for unaccompanied minors, in particular by offering them, as quickly as possible, the assistance of a tutor or legal adviser.
I should also like to ask for a certain amount of consistency in this Parliament.
If the Community' s policy on immigration, which is the subject of a report currently being examined at the committee stage, were to be based solely on the selfish economic interests of European countries, it would not really guarantee all the fundamental rights that we are defending here today.
Mr President, the European Charter of Fundamental Rights has gained in importance through the rapporteur' s proposal to use it as a touchstone to test the human rights situation in the Union.
Although the charter itself was only supposed to relate to the actions of the Union, that is, the European institutions, the Member States themselves are now being tested.
But a critical test is more than a shopping list.
In order to expose violations, it is important to quote chapter and verse.
We regard that as effective where the rest of the world is concerned, but "to name and shame" our own Member States we call undesirable stigmatisation.
We are using double standards and that must change.
A group of renowned experts should conduct research into the concrete observance of human rights in the Member States and Parliament must then draw the political conclusions.
That concludes my administrative shopping list.
My group will support the report of Mr Cornillet.
It contains a number of important declaration.
For example, in Paragraph 58 it argues that the Aznar protocol, through which the individual right to apply for asylum is restricted, must be scrapped.
Paragraph 109 calls for a guarantee that everyone in the territory of the Union is given access to health care, that is, regardless of their residential status.
This also applies to the right of children to education.
Combating this divide deserves our support.
Mr President, the author of the Cornillet Report has listed many areas in which, even within the territory of the European Union, human rights are totally or partially flouted.
We shall be voting on several proposals which might represent a certain amount of progress.
Even in those cases, however, we are anxious to express our reservations, insofar as these are recommendations, which the countries concerned will either observe or not, as they choose.
Yet in matters concerning commercial law, the legislature knows how to be more stringent.
In its explanatory statement, the report refers to the Charter of Fundamental Rights which was proclaimed at Nice, where much praise was lavished on a text which combines civil and political rights and economic and social rights as if they formed a consistent whole.
Yet what are proclamations on employment rights worth, when company bosses have a 'divine right' to hire and fire? What is the point of having the right of residence, when the report itself admits that 11,8 % of the population of the European Union are living below the poverty threshold, and therefore do not have the means to provide themselves with suitable housing?
We shall be abstaining on the whole of this report, because declarations of good intentions are not enough to constitute a policy that will benefit the lowest and most oppressed strata of the population.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate Mr Wuori on his report, a very exhaustive report ranging from arms dealing, homosexuality and the rights of minorities to asylum, child labour and capital punishment.
Perhaps indeed a little too exhaustive.
Perhaps in future we should prioritise more and coordinate the timing of such a report better with the annual meeting of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
One positive point at least is that attention is paid to the press and to press freedom.
Journalists are still being persecuted and murdered all over the world and the recent developments in Russia are particularly disturbing.
Independent journalists are attacked, dismissed and even physically eliminated.
The independent television station NTV was taken over by the state corporation Gazprom, which also forced a prominent daily newspaper to close.
I particularly welcome Mr Wuori' s idea of nominating a special parliamentary representative to follow up the specific violations of human rights on which we debate and vote here every month.
Identifying violations is one thing, monitoring them and doing something about them and especially encouraging the Council and the Commission to take up the matter is another.
Allow me to say that the Swedish presidency somewhat disappointed us on this point.
The assertive action of the Belgian government in the Pinochet case, but also in Central Africa, awakens high expectations among those arguing for a more pro-active human rights policy in the European Union.
Especially now that the United States has been voted off the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Europe must play a leading role.
If the Council and the Commission really do take steps in the direction of a more consistent and more coherent human rights policy, they will definitely find a convinced ally in the European Parliament.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Wuori on this magnificent report.
I believe his report is up to the challenge of responding to economic globalisation through a proposed globalisation of political and social human rights, since they are indivisible, and democratic principles.
The essential thing is to know whether the European Union has the instruments to implement that globalisation of rights and, above all, whether it is prepared to use them.
Take, for example, the European Union' s role in the United Nations and the Geneva Commission, which is often weak and even contradictory.
Also, what can be done within the World Trade Organisation which, by the way, is going to meet in Qatar, a world leader in human rights, as the whole world knows.
Also, in the use of the democratic clause with third countries, in which the European Parliament should have a clear role, regulated by the Treaty, and, of course, in bilateral dialogue and in the use of the code of conduct on the export of arms, a code which is still nothing more than a proposal and a suggestion and which does not stop Member States from committing aberrations by selling arms to countries which systematically violate human rights.
The rights of peoples are also human rights.
In this regard, I believe that collective rights cannot be forgotten either, starting with the right to self-determination.
I would like to fly the flag here by asking the Government of Morocco to fully respect the rights of the Saharan people who live in its country' s occupied territories.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mr Wuori and Mr Cornillet on their reports and the excellent work they have done.
However, I regret that Mr Wuori' s report does not refer to the situation of one of the most violated fundamental rights and the most forgotten: the right to education, to receiving essential basic training as a means for escaping the underdevelopment and poverty which so many children and adults are condemned to living in because they are not guaranteed this fundamental right.
In fact, according to Unicef data, 130 million children have never been to school and a further 150 million have started primary education but have left it before becoming fully literate.
In sub-Saharan Africa, furthermore, the figure for children not attending school is increasing, rather than decreasing.
This is in spite of the objectives set by the World Conference on Education for All at Jomtien, in 1990, or at the World Education Forum which took place in Dakar in 2000.
Given this situation, we cannot close our eyes, nor ignore the lack of political will of the European Union and its Member States when it comes to translating the rhetoric of great declarations into budgetary contributions.
If we say we are going to defend human rights, we must also defend the right to education at all costs.
With the same vigour with which we defend the right to life or the right to non-discrimination or the right to freedom of expression.
Let us not forget that human rights are indivisible, inalienable and universal.
Mr President, unfortunately I was not in the chamber when the content of the human rights report was being discussed.
At that moment, we had a problem outside with a small group of people who do not agree with the situation in the Turkish prisons.
This was why I was not in the chamber.
However, I should like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Cornillet, for his report, as he offers a good approach with this report.
I am particular impressed by its structure.
We have already talked about this.
It is quite right to link this report with the human rights charter.
This is certainly the right decision and was undoubtedly a tremendous challenge, and there will have to be a great many further amendments.
We all agree on this.
In terms of its content, however, I should also like to comment on what we have witnessed around Parliament today.
In his report, Mr Cornillet has addressed the situation of prisons in the European Union.
I should simply like briefly to remind us all of one thing: we often visit other countries and criticise the accession countries, especially about conditions in prisons.
Conditions in prisons in the accession countries are unacceptable, in our view.
Yet reading through Mr Cornillet' s report, it is apparent that we have a great many problems with our own prisons in our own countries.
This should not merely be noted down by you on paper: the governments in the European Union must take steps to address this situation.
In any event, some thought must be given to this issue as well.
Mr President, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Wuori, for his excellent report.
Slavery was abolished in the nineteenth century, but now it is estimated that people are being sold from their countries at a rate of four million a year, and the number is growing.
The global markets are so free that human bodies now have a market value.
The violent trade in human organs focuses on the poor.
Some poor people positively rise from their graves, in a manner of speaking, when their organs are transplanted into living people.
The problem is also that human rights violations have become ever more profitable and, in a society of greed, it takes money to protect human rights.
We therefore face the sort of problem that results from greed.
The most widespread is the numbing of the human brain in the name of business.
The global mass entertainment of television creates a false world, a virtual world, where every kind of business or trade flourishes and the importance of democracy is diminished.
The international sex trade has acquired an excellent tool in the Internet. Legislation lags behind because many people think the freedom of the Internet should not be restricted.
I suggest that we establish a European body to make rules for the protection of privacy in the information society era.
The notion of human rights will not work where they are being violated both mentally and physically.
Mr President, the annual report on human rights in the world shows a good grasp of what is currently at stake.
However, the European Union must state more clearly the action it intends to take in three areas.
First of all, history shows us how difficult it is to ensure that human rights are respected in countries where economic development does not exist or is extremely poor.
This evidence should be given greater emphasis.
This means that we should create a global-development methodology, bringing together converging criteria, centred around a principle which I shall refer to as the 'evolutionary principle' .
Secondly, the report points the finger at a number of countries which do not respect human rights.
If we are to avoid falling into the trap of having one law for the rich and another for the poor, and in order to ensure that any action taken by Europe has credibility, we should place greater emphasis on the inseparability of human rights within and outside the boundaries of a state.
Finally, we must acknowledge the special responsibility of those countries which have achieved a high level of democracy and development but which, instead of setting an example, cynically continue to disregard human rights.
The developed countries must set an example to the developing countries, and not the other way round.
Our action will be on a long-term basis.
We must insist, loudly and clearly, that human rights are a universal value and do not depend on circumstances.
With that in mind, it is absolutely essential that Europe should think about setting up a programme of project study and development in the area of human rights, which will take our political will into account.
That is the price that Europe will have to pay in order to gain credibility.
Mr President, given the small amount of time available to me, I am not going to waste a single second on rhetoric or demagoguery and, therefore, I am going to concentrate on issues which, from my point of view, are more significant.
I would firstly like to say that I completely agree with Commissioner Vitorino when he says that the European Union should first teach by example and then preach.
I also wish to congratulate Mr Cornillet on the excellent work he has done, despite a lack of resources.
His work clearly reflects the fact that within the European Union there are still groups and people who suffer discrimination, whose fundamental rights are not properly respected.
I therefore believe that we must make greater efforts in accordance with Article 6 of the Treaty, as well as Article 13, after Amsterdam, since those groups mentioned in Article 13 are still suffering discrimination and a lack of respect for their fundamental rights.
I am referring to issues as regrettable as racism, which still takes place in the Member States; discrimination as a result of the sexual orientation of certain groups, specifically homosexuals, who still suffer legislative discrimination in certain Member States; the protection of disabled people; women, that vast group that suffers discrimination; and immigrants, which this report reveals to be the new group which suffers the greatest discrimination.
Unlike some speakers, I would like to say that I am in favour of recognising the right to vote of immigrants, who only then will enjoy sufficient respect for their rights.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank Mr Wuori for his sound and critical report.
Sound and critical, for he does not shrink back from pinpointing any sensitive areas in EU policy.
One of those areas concerns fact that a number of international Union agreements still do not contain clauses for deferring an agreement in the event of a serious human rights violation.
I should like to quote China in this connection, candidate for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Commissioner Lamy has been hard at work concluding an agreement with China, also mainly within the WTO framework.
But this coming Thursday, a widely supported motion will be discussed which will ask the Olympic Committee not to give China the Olympic Games in 2008, precisely in the light of human rights violations in Tibet, among others, and on account of the dubious way in which the country treats its flora and fauna.
In fact, I support Mr Wuori in his opinion that our Parliament should be involved in the suspension of relations with third countries on account of irresponsible behaviour in terms of human rights.
Moreover, our Parliament has been the initiator in this field on more than one occasion.
I would refer to EU measures in the past against Nigeria and at present against Sudan and Burma.
However, I should like to take the opportunity of drawing your attention to another point which, in my opinion, was neglected in the report, namely the freedom of religion.
I will give you three examples.
One is close to home, namely Turkey, where Syrian Christians are still being put behind bars if they actively profess their religion.
The Netherlands has a community of 12 000 Syrian Christians from Turkey who have fled to Western Europe over the years.
Surely that is very worrying for a country that would like to join the European Union.
Then there is Vietnam, where over the past few months, Buddhist monks have increasingly been arrested on religious grounds.
We will be discussing a resolution on this very topic on Thursday.
And what is, as a matter of interest, the state of play with regard to the trade agreements with Vietnam?
Then there is the continuous threat in respect of the Christians in Indonesia, especially on the Moluccas.
That problem has also been highlighted in this House on several occasions, but what is the latest on the trade agreements, and what exactly is going on in that country in terms of human rights?
I wish that next time we could address this point in isolation, and that is the message that I should like to drive home.
Mr President, it is a tragedy, in the Europe of the 21st century, that there are so many serious problems with violations of human rights, as we have heard in Mr Cornillet' s excellent report.
If human rights are to be respected in practice rather than merely in declarations, we need to defend them vigorously against the hated dark, reactionary forces which hamper dialogue and freedom of thought and conscience.
The Union should, once and for all, find policies and ways and means of wiping out all forms of discrimination based on sex, ethnic origin, colour, religion or sexual orientation.
No cultural tradition can gain recognition if it puts itself above fundamental human rights and equality of the sexes.
We urgently need to wipe out xenophobia, fundamentalism and racial violence and to crush phenomena such as slavery, trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of women and children which stigmatise our civilisation.
We also need to create the mechanisms needed to monitor and apply the Charter of Fundamental Rights and to give moral and financial support to organisations fighting for human rights, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.
Mr President, when Europe' s leaders go on state visits, they take weighty political baggage with them.
The focus is on economic relations, trade agreements, financial assistance, and so on.
Ecological issues are seldom dealt with, while human rights are a peripheral issue.
Yet human rights and the rule of law are the foundation of our society.
My experiences with Asia, from India via Nepal to Korea, show that our commitment to human rights awakens great hopes among citizens there, among the disadvantaged, the excluded, the persecuted, and families and children.
They invest their hopes in our resolution and active involvement on the ground, although we must include the NHO, our competent partner in dialogue, at a much earlier stage in this process.
Their hopes are also awakened by our partnership agreements with the human rights clauses.
These agreements are suspended if massive and systematic human rights violations take place.
This is an effective way of bringing pressure to bear.
The more resolutely we address specific problems, the clearer it becomes that human rights are not a Western but a universal concept.
Our approach does not constitute impermissible intervention in the internal affairs of states, but necessary action against racism, torture, exploitation and the death penalty.
Commissioner, the European Union must take on a far more pro-active and leading role on human rights issues at international level.
Was enough achieved at the 57th Session of the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, for example? The EU Member States were united in their support for the United States' initiative to put the ongoing human rights violations in China on the agenda.
However, there was no support from Africa or South America in the overall vote, although we certainly have traditional alliance partners there.
In advance of important decisions, the European Union therefore needs a far better coordinated strategy so that our commitment to human rights is much more successful in future.
I welcome today' s debate and the European Commission' s long-awaited communication on human rights.
I particularly welcome the commitment to give real substance to the human rights clauses in our trade and partnership agreements with third countries - something we badly failed to do with Mexico.
I also welcome a number of the specific country statements in the draft resolution, including our strong call for the dismantling of paramilitary groups in Columbia.
I share our strong statement of support and solidarity for human rights organisations and defenders, who risk their lives daily in conflict situations around the world to defend principles, which we hold dear.
I have three specific points I want to raise in the context of the debate.
Firstly, whilst I welcome the commitment in the communication to appeal to European enterprises to do more to respect human rights, reflected in paragraphs 55 and 92 of our resolution, I have to say to the Commission that I am disappointed that the Relex DGs appear to have opted out of the draft Green Paper on Corporate Social Responsibility.
I ask them to revisit that before it is too late.
Words should be followed by action.
Secondly, I welcome, and I call for wider attention to, paragraph 108, concerning human rights abuses against disabled people.
The organisation Disability Awareness in Action has recorded over 2,000 such abuses within Europe and they should be dealt with by human rights monitoring organisations and by the Commission.
Finally, I welcome paragraph 16 which calls for a review of the way we deal with human rights issues in Parliament.
Mr President, I would like to thank the two rapporteurs for their fine and excellent work.
At the same time, I would like to agree with Mrs Maij-Weggen' s view that religious freedom has been addressed in a far too limited manner.
This issue concerns the deepest values of millions of people and the whole basis for their lives.
In Egypt, a neighbour of the EU, converting from Islam to Christianity is punishable by death.
The Coptic Christians feel like second-class citizens.
The Christian minority in Turkey continues to shrink.
Why are an increasing number of people of the Christian faith moving from this country? The European Parliament played an important part in ensuring that Syrian Christian priest Yusuf Akbulut was acquitted of all charges in the State Security Court in Diyarbakir at Easter.
There is much to do in this area.
Three hundred thousand people have left the Moluccas - most of them Christians. They are persecuted by Muslim Jihad fighters.
Compulsory conversion has taken place with over 1 000 people being forced into a faith and view of life other than their own.
I would also like to say that the French act on religious freedom leaves a great deal to be desired.
There is considerable concern among many Protestant and evangelical Christians around Europe regarding the implications of French legislation on religion.
What a poor - and I mean poor - example this is for a large number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, including the Czech Republic, as these countries are about to adopt new legislation.
We must be careful to ensure that we do not create an intolerant Europe where only one faith is acceptable.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, given the fact that we are running late, I shall be very brief, but please allow me to state how important this moment is for me.
As a former Member of this Parliament, between 1994 and 1999, it is naturally a great honour to be here in this totally new hemisphere, back in this institution which is so familiar, and be able to take the floor.
On behalf of the Council, I should first of all like to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Wuori and Mr Cornillet very warmly on their sterling report, and I should also like to thank all the speakers for their contribution to the debate.
From now on I will confine myself to answering the very specific questions that have been raised.
To Mrs Frassoni, who is no longer here, but I shall say it anyway, I should like to assure her that the presidency will naturally make every effort to ensure that all the necessary conditions are in place so that a resolution against the death penalty can be tabled at the United Nations General Assembly.
To Mrs Boudjenah, on the subject of Tunisia, I should like to say, briefly, that the Council takes the view that it really is a pity that a country which has made such remarkable social and economic progress should be denied the credit that it deserves, simply because those who are in charge are apparently incapable of understanding that, to us and to their own population, elements such as freedom of expression and freedom of the press are essential, and it is precisely this situation which is preventing the European Union from pushing further ahead with the Tunisian model, which would be worth doing if only the situation with regard to human rights and the treatment of the human rights league was considerably better than it is at the moment.
(NL) To Mr Schröder, I should like to say that during this presidency, human rights will not, under any circumstances, be a footnote.
One of the honourable Members has already alluded to the fact that Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Michel, has already left.
I can reassure that Member: Mr Michel has not simply disappeared, he left to catch a plane to Madrid where crucial discussions will be held concerning the presidency.
For the rest, I should like to assure Parliament that during the next six months, the fight against the trafficking in human beings in general, and the fight against the trafficking in women and children, in particular, will be one of our key priorities.
I should like to thank Mr Johan Van Hecke for his kind words regarding our presidency, and I hope that we will be able to meet his expectations.
I have to say that the aims are rather ambitious, but we will do our best.
Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Sacrédeus, it goes without saying that, in our view, freedom of religion is one of the fundamental rights and freedoms.
We are running out of time so I will just say that, on behalf of my colleague, Chris Patten, who had to leave because he is attending at the same time another parliamentary meeting on Latin America and on my own behalf I would like to thank all participants in the debate.
The Commission is taking note of all the remarks and is looking forward to the resolutions that will conclude these debates as guidelines for our reflection and further action.
Finally, I would like to congratulate Parliament on the broad consensus that has been expressed on the new methodology of the report on Fundamental Rights in the European Union, and express my wish that the approach which has been launched by Mr Cornillet will be retained for the future.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
You have been almost excessive in your brevity.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Bonn Conference on Climate Change
The next item is the joint debate on the oral Questions Nos B5-0327/2001 and B5-0328/2001 by Mrs Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, to the Council and the Commission, on the Commission' s strategy for the Bonn Conference on Climate Change.
Mr President, I apologise for my lateness.
Human rights seem to have been taking up quite a lot of time, and quite right too.
I want to express Parliament' s concern that the Kyoto Protocol may falter and fail, leaving the world without any coherent network of obligations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
We in the European Parliament offer our full support to the Commission and to the presidency in their endeavours to ensure that the Kyoto Protocol survives and comes into force.
We would like to use this brief debate to explore what Europe can do to lead the world in the absence of American leadership and in what ways the Members of the European Parliament who attend the Bonn Conference can speak for the people of Europe and actively participate in the proceedings.
We very much appreciate the work of the Dutch Minister, Mr Pronk, in seeking to find a way to solve the unresolved issues left over from The Hague, and we would appreciate it if the Commission could give us its view on how successful he has been to date and whether or not the work he has done has now cleared the way forward.
But the big question for us is whether it will be possible to show that the European Union, and the other major parties to the Protocol, are prepared to take decisions without the United States.
Here the attitude of the new Japanese government is crucial.
Without the votes of Japan and Canada the Protocol cannot enter into force.
We gather that the omens are not good and that Japan probably, and Canada certainly, lack the political will to go ahead without the United States.
If Japan is prepared to go ahead, then there is the suspicion that the Japanese may want to re-write the crucial proposals within the protocol, notably using the year 2000 perhaps rather than 1990 as the base year for calculating greenhouse gas emission reductions.
One of my colleagues, Mr Moreira Da Silva, who will be leading Parliament' s delegation to Bonn, wishes to move an oral amendment on this point to the resolution we have tabled, since the problem with Japan has really only come to the fore in the period since we tabled it.
Our resolution reiterates in paragraph 3 our basic expectations about the action that will follow ratification of the protocol.
But as Europeans we must make a sober assessment of what this will mean for us if it were to happen and still more if it were to happen without the United States.
First and most crucially: money.
As the protocol stands, financial contributions from individual parties will be based on each party' s share of CO2 emissions.
It is not difficult to see that the United States, with 39% of the total 1990 emissions, would pay the lion' s share.
The question that occurs to me, which should perhaps have been asked earlier, is how the Clinton government ever thought it could persuade Congress to sign up to the Treaty.
Perhaps greater honesty at the outset might have helped provide a more realistic atmosphere.
Without the United States the burden will fall on Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Australia.
The finance available for measures to reduce CO2 emissions in poorer countries will be greatly reduced without US participation.
The strain on the Europeans will be greater.
Are we prepared for this, I ask?
Secondly, if we ratify Kyoto alone or without the United States it will mean taking certain actions that are going to be painful.
We MEPs who follow these issues recognise that.
Every year, every month, far into the night, we deal with directives designed to reduce emissions, but we also know that in most instances when we encounter the Council or their representatives it is extremely difficult to get the Member States to agree to these proposals in their original, very demanding form.
We now face a situation where, according to the European Environment Agency, only the United Kingdom, Germany and Luxembourg reduced their greenhouse gas emissions between 1990 and 1998.
All the other countries of Europe increased them.
So how will Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Finland, Italy and, to a lesser extent, Sweden and France, meet the Kyoto targets? Or will we, as the United States suspects, not be willing to take the actions that will give reality to our ambitions?
We hope that the Bonn Conference and the Belgian presidency will be able to move the Europeans on from words to action.
Finally a word on the participation of the EU delegation in the Bonn conference.
We are tired of being a Greek chorus in this tragedy.
We are tired of coming on to stage when the main action has taken place to lament or celebrate what has happened and to offer philosophical reflections on the sad state of mankind - "Ïßìïé ç ôÜëáéíá" indeed!
This is unsatisfactory because we should ourselves be reckoned as protagonists since we will have to adopt the legislation that will flow from Kyoto and we will have to explain it to the people of Europe.
We may not want to be negotiators ourselves, but our ambition is to play a full part in the meetings with the European Union delegation that decides how Europe will act.
We are not content to remain as a chorus.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by thanking Mrs Jackson for the question she has raised and the remarks she has made concerning this very serious issue indeed about which we are all concerned.
On behalf of the Council, I can only reiterate our commitment, as referred to in the Council conclusions of 8 March and 7 June 2001, to reach an agreement at the resumption session of the Conference of the Parties No 6 which is soon to take place in Bonn.
This agreement is to safeguard the environmental integrity of the Kyoto Protocol, is to lead to an actual reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases, and is to help reach the broadest possible participation of the industrialised countries. In that way, the conditions can be created for the Protocol to be reinforced and to be entered into force by no later than 2002.
We therefore confirm our commitment to try to achieve this.
All these objectives remain unchanged and the European Union is prepared to negotiate with all partners in Bonn on the unresolved issues in a constructive manner.
Although the Council recognises that the European Union and the United States do not see eye to eye concerning the Kyoto Protocol and the ratification thereof, despite this, the Council welcomes the pledge, made by President Bush during a recent meeting with the EU Heads of State and Government leaders, that the United States will not block the Kyoto process, and will cooperate during the forthcoming session of the Conference of the Parties in Bonn in a constructive manner.
During the high-level consultation of 27 and 28 June last in Scheveningen, the European Union managed to establish fruitful contacts with different partners on climate negotiations.
And the European Union was delighted to note that the international community continues to strongly support the Kyoto Protocol and its swift implementation.
That is despite the United States' refusal to ratify the Protocol.
As was apparent in Scheveningen, there is a strong sense of urgency with regard to this matter and also a high level of awareness of the fact that the outcome of more than ten years of international negotiations can surely not be put on the line.
Since the Council is of the opinion that your presence is definitely significant, the Council has invited eight MEPs to take part in the Conference in Bonn.
The specific conditions for this participation, about which you may not be happy, are explained in a letter from the Council to the European Parliament of 18 November 1998.
However, given the wish of the participants for more and regular information, a wish that was underlined by Mrs Jackson, but which certainly reflects the feeling of many among you, the presidency intends to organise informal meetings with the MEPs during the conference at regular intervals, thus allowing an exchange of ideas to take place about the progress and the state of affairs.
Mrs Jackson, I am aware that this may not satisfy you entirely, but on the other hand, it does mean that you will be able to do more than just sing or lament on the sidelines or behind the scenes.
President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I would like on behalf of the Commission to thank Mrs Jackson for raising such an important issue in the House.
As the President-in-Office has already said, in Gothenburg, the heads of state and government confirmed that the European Community and the Member States are determined to meet their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol.
The Union' s summit reaffirmed the European Union' s aim of bringing the Protocol into force by 2002 and asked the Commission to prepare a proposal for ratification before the end of 2001.
Regrettably, the Bush administration continues to oppose the Kyoto Protocol.
At the European Union/United States Summit in Gothenburg, President Bush acknowledged the science underlying climate change and the global importance of this issue.
The United States has indicated that while they will participate actively in the resumed COP6 in Bonn, their basic position, opposing the Protocol has not changed.
We will build upon this indication that the United States does not intend to obstruct the Kyoto process.
To facilitate this, we have agreed that there will be further high-level contacts with the United States on this subject.
The resumed COP6 in July will pick up the threads of the conference in The Hague and try and bring the negotiations to a successful conclusion.
To achieve this, the European Union will take a positive attitude while, at the same time, being realistic about what can be achieved.
The new consolidated texts by the Chairman of COP6, Mr Pronk, are clear and concise and provide a good basis for the Bonn negotiations.
However, the texts still contain a number of important sticking points for the European Union, notably on funding for developing countries, compliance and supplementarity.
These need to be resolved.
In the end, we will strive for an overall package where compromises on one side are balanced out by gains on the other.
We must also take into account the specific importance of Japan and Russia for the entry into force of the Protocol.
The Commission welcomes the strong interest of the European Parliament in the global problem of climate change and the participation of Members of the European Parliament in the Community delegation to the resumed COP6.
As in The Hague, the Commission and Council, the President-in-Office has explained, have proposed that the European Parliament be represented by eight Members.
In accordance with the institutional rules for their participation, the Members can attend plenary meetings, and the Commission will regularly provide information on those negotiations which are not open to observers on a regular basis to all Members of the European Parliament present at COP6.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam Secretary of State, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to speak first of all about precisely this issue of whether or not the European Parliament delegation should participate in the European Union' s coordination meetings.
I wish to state that I was far from satisfied with the way in which the Secretary of State answered the legitimate questions asked by Caroline Jackson.
The European Parliament' s delegation is not asking for privileges. It is asking for its legitimate right to participate actively in the Bonn conference and not simply to play spear-carrier, as we did at the Hague Conference.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, climate change is more than just another environmental dossier. It has become an issue that truly symbolises the international political agenda.
If the Kyoto Protocol fails, the interpretation will be clear: States and politicians move rapidly and effectively when it comes to promoting the advantages of globalisation, but they are incapable of reaching agreement on minimising the less pleasant aspects of our social model.
The current situation could not be worse.
On the one hand, action is more urgent today than it ever has been and the measures announced recently by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change leave no room for doubt on this matter.
On the other hand, it has never been as difficult to take action as it is today: the decision by the United States has dealt a harsh blow to international efforts over the last ten years.
These factors, urgency of action, pressure from the public and the withdrawal of the United States make the Bonn Conference critical.
It will really be the moment of truth for the Kyoto Protocol.
Our position is perfectly clear: it is crucial that we limit climate change and the Kyoto Protocol - and none other - is the most appropriate political instrument for achieving this objective.
Let us, therefore, go to Bonn with the aim of concluding an agreement with as many countries as possible on the 'left overs' from Kyoto so that the Protocol can be ratified and implemented in 2002.
In order for the negotiations to be successful, in particular with Japan and Russia, we will clearly have to be flexible, but in a way that respects the integrity and the spirit of the Protocol.
I should like to say one last word about economic issues.
It is true that, in the short term, implementing the Protocol will result in economic costs to European businesses.
Nevertheless, these costs, as we read only this week in the Commission' s report, will be much lower than was initially thought.
I am, in fact, convinced that in the medium term, the Kyoto Protocol will make the European economy more competitive as a result of the technological transformation that we will achieve earlier than elsewhere in the world.
Mr President, the applause from all groups for Ms Jackson' s speech shows that in Europe, there is consensus on climate policy.
There is obviously some sort of consensus in public opinion in the USA as well, but public opinion in the USA is different from Europe' s.
This is why I believe we should not only be talking to one or two parliamentarians or government representatives; the Europeans should actually be thinking how they can influence public opinion in the USA, and indeed in Japan, if the Japanese decide not to go ahead.
The task of managing climate change is so enormous that going it alone will be extremely difficult.
That is precisely the issue which arises here.
Even if the others do not go ahead, are we prepared to continue the course agreed at Gothenburg, which I support? Making a verbal commitment is easy.
Agreeing to take on these burdens is simple and costs nothing.
However, translating this into reality will be an immensely difficult task.
My fear - I admit this quite openly - is that the Europeans, or many Europeans, will hide behind the US.
In truth, we are a long way off meeting the standards set in the Kyoto Protocol.
We all know that.
The Commission feeds us a never-ending stream of fresh statistics.
We face a Herculean task - I just want to make this clear.
Despite these difficulties, however, let me say that for the first time since the Second World War, Europe now has the opportunity to take on political leadership at world level.
We should grasp this opportunity with both hands, well aware that this is not a simple task.
Incidentally, it is a noble task, not a dirty job, which Europe should address, and if others do not join us until later, we should accept this with good grace.
My third comment relates to the text itself.
I cannot stop myself from saying this: I must point out that what we are demanding, namely "halting" climate change, is sheer nonsense, of course.
I have no idea how this slipped into the text.
There has always been climate change, but this time, we are making our own contribution to it, and that is exactly what this is all about.
I would like to start by paying tribute to Commissioner Wallström, the Commissioner for the Environment.
I do not think any of the parliamentarians have any doubt at all about her passionate personal commitment towards trying to secure a positive outcome from the talks in Bonn, and I would also like to say a word of thanks to my Liberal colleague, Prime Minister Verhofstadt, for the emphasis he placed this morning on saying that the problem of climate change is the greatest single challenge facing the planet.
One thing that this whole issue has brought about - if it was needed - is a great awareness that this is a very small planet upon which we live and that mankind is very capable, through its industrial practices, of changing our environment.
Even the United States now recognises this, although they have yet to come up with an alternative in any practical form to the Kyoto Protocol.
There are great opportunities for, and advantages in, addressing this problem by using technology which is in the process of being developed or has been developed to change our practices and reduce global warming.
This offers great benefits to society, and economic opportunities for those of us who take a lead, but why are we not able to pursue this more effectively?
One problem is vested interests - the classic example being the fossil fuel industries; another is weak political leadership by all of us - we are all responsible for this.
We back down over taking decisions which will be unpopular in the short term with our electorates.
I wish to see harmonised environmental taxation at a European level - the objective being not to raise more money but to change practices and priorities and ensure that industry at the same time is able to compete on a level playing field.
We have had the problems - we have experienced the problems with fuel duty in Britain and elsewhere whenever politicians try really to apply taxes which benefit the environment in this way.
The odd thing of course, in Britain' s case, is that harmonised energy taxation on fuel duties would also probably reduce our taxes.
I have just returned from a visit to Cyprus - one of the accession countries - where I find out that not only is there no fuel duty on the use of petrol but that petrol is actually subsidised.
So, my question to the Commission is this: when it comes to practical forms, when it comes to actually dealing with what I hope will be a positive outcome from Bonn, how does the Council pursue harmonised energy taxation at the same time as dealing with enlargement, which makes the possibility of unanimity so much more difficult to achieve if it we were actually to have harmonised environmental taxation of a sort which is worth having.
Mr President, over the past two years, more wind-energy capacity has been installed worldwide than nuclear energy.
Despite this, Messrs Bush and Blair are trying to breathe new life into nuclear energy.
Along with a clear majority in the European Parliament, my group believes that nuclear energy should not, and cannot, play a role in solving the climate problem, not even in the "clean development" mechanism.
On all other scores - I repeat, all other scores - the Greens can accept a compromise in Bonn.
That compromise must aim to keep Japan on board.
Even a higher reduction target for Europe is to be considered.
The Commission has recently published a study which shows that a reduction target which is twice as high as the current one is not a problem for us economically speaking.
Europe must now seriously look into renewable energy and saving energy.
A further development of solar energy is desperately needed to provide electricity to the last two billion people on this earth.
Providing two billion people with electricity generated by fossil fuels would spell an uncertain climate death to us all.
A weak agreement in Bonn is better than another fiasco.
The 1987 Treaty of Montreal protecting the ozone layer was also a weak agreement, but over the past fourteen years, it has been tightened up on every occasion.
We could adopt the same approach with the Kyoto Protocol.
Mr President, there is great unanimity here on our position regarding climate issues, which I believe is extremely important.
We must use this unanimity to put maximum pressure on those countries which are now deciding the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
In practice, we risk some sort of collapse in climate negotiations, a collapse which would risk setting us back several years.
The worst thing is that those causing the collapse, particularly the US, have no alternative to offer.
Therefore, everything must now be done to save whatever can be saved.
The European Union itself has a credibility problem because, as previous speakers have said, many of our Member States will not meet the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol, either.
We know that these requirements in themselves are insufficient to combat the problem of climate change.
What we see in practice when we meet the Council of Ministers, for example in conciliation on combustion plants and national ceilings for emissions, is that no-one is prepared to take the decisions which need to be taken.
By the time a decision was to be made in Gothenburg on a strategy for sustainable development, many of the most important points had been removed.
Of course the EU' s credibility would also increase if we showed by our actions that we are prepared to meet the targets we set ourselves.
I believe this is important ahead of the meetings which we are about to have with other countries in order to decide the future of the Kyoto Protocol.
I would like, first of all, to compliment Mrs Jackson for raising this oral question.
It has already been mentioned that the Conference for Climate Change will be held in Bonn from 16-27 July 2001.
We know that the US Government and the European Union could not reach agreement in the Netherlands before Christmas on setting a timetable for the reduction of the use of greenhouse gases.
Equally, it is very clear that the US Government is getting cold feet on the Kyoto Agreement.
This is very disappointing.
There is clear and unequivocal scientific evidence that demonstrates the effect of climate change.
Surely, the US and the European Union governments can agree on one item, and that is simply that the use of greenhouse gases depletes the ozone layer which results in higher sea levels and more coastal erosion, and affects the living environment of island communities.
I am calling on the European governments which will be represented in Bonn to use this conference as an opportunity to tell the US that this is not good enough, and that the full provisions of the Kyoto Agreement must be implemented: under the Agreement alone, the US Government would be required to cut emissions by approximately one-third by the year 2012.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no question that at this time of disappointment and rejection for the European Union given the attitude of the United States towards compliance with the Kyoto commitments, the European Parliament must unequivocally reaffirm and reinforce its commitment to making progress on the reduction of CO2 emissions through the ratification of the measures proposed in the protocol.
Having agreed in 1997 on an international strategy for reducing polluting emissions, we cannot accept such a drastic and important change in approach towards the situation, which gives credence to arguments which, under a scientific veneer, intend to postpone the intensity and force of specific actions.
Furthermore, I believe that this proposed resolution is a necessary gesture by the European Parliament towards the Member States as an expression of the renewal of a political will in each of them to combat climate change and to intensify the establishment of the mechanisms necessary for the ratification of the protocol.
At the next climate summit in Bonn, the Member States will have to respond to the key points which were left unresolved at The Hague.
I believe it is essential that at least the leader or 'vice-leader' of the parliamentary delegation should be accepted as part of the European Union' s negotiating team.
Therefore, and in order to take the next step of negotiating with other countries a rapid ratification of the protocol, it is so important that this Parliament should unite in supporting the present proposal, renewing, as I have said, the European Union' s will for international leadership in the field of the environment and as a gesture towards the Member States, so that they do not forget or delay the implementation on a national level of the measures necessary for the ratification of the protocol.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, it has been said in this House a number of times, and it is not unimportant: there is wide unanimity across the political divide on this issue, and you must support it in the forthcoming negotiations in Bonn.
That is not all: for many European issues, we have to battle against public opinion, but in this debate, we have the backing of a huge majority of the public opinion which is urging governments to take further steps in Kyoto.
That means that on the eve of Bonn, we have to propose a number of measures at the Conference, but also at Community and national level.
As has been said a few times, we can, and must, as Europe, play a global role in this debate. This role suits us without a doubt, and largely discredits others, of course, including Mr Bush and his administration.
We must also try to bring the others on board, that we must definitely do, but not by putting concluded agreements at risk.
If the Protocol is adopted with unlimited trade in hot air or unlimited use of coal pits, the effect on the climate will be limited.
I should like to add one point to the debate. I do not think there is room for complacency.
We have not yet ratified the Protocol either, nor have we completed any clear, concrete plans of action. I would therefore urge the Belgian presidency to tackle this issue with both hands.
In what form will we be trading our emissions? Will this be done among States, or also among businesses?
And how will the trade among sectors be regulated? And also, what is the latest on the national plans of action?
What are we going to do about them, and have any budgets been earmarked in this connection? I should therefore ask the Belgian presidency to address this matter properly in the next couple of months.
Although some sceptics still doubt the phenomenon of global warming, nobody can doubt the cooling of relations between the EU and the US over its refusal to recommend ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
The intergovernmental panel on climate change has no doubt that there is global warming taking place and that greenhouse gases, in particular CO2 emissions, are largely responsible.
Even the US National Academy of Sciences advising President Bush largely concurs with this finding.
The EU is now determined to go it alone, but the biggest culprit, the US, with 4% of the world' s population and 25% of global emissions, still will not co-operate.
Sadly, to date, only Romania has ratified the Protocol.
Japan and Canada are now getting cold feet without US involvement.
In my country, the UK, under a Conservative Government, we made a dash for gas, since natural gas produces far less CO2 than coal.
We went on to see it rapidly reversed by the new Labour Government, anxious to preserve jobs in the mining industry.
Mercifully the UK is still online to meet its Kyoto commitments.
We are already witnessing in European winter resorts in the mountains the effects of the rising snow line, but the long-term prospects are far more frightening.
At some point, there is a danger of thermal runaway as the polar caps melt, reflect less sunshine and cause a rapid increase in atmospheric warming.
This threatens flooding around the globe and other climatic changes causing economic devastation with huge migratory pressures on peoples, not to mention potential wars over water supplies.
What is the solution? I believe that all nations must subscribe to policies of sustainable economic development and invest in renewable energy sources.
This also means reopening the controversial nuclear power debate, which I support.
We must also look at using market-based mechanisms, such as tradeable emission permits.
The Kyoto 5% targeted reduction by 2010 from 1990 levels may not go far enough.
We may also have to look again at carbon sinks.
I believe that the US must reconsider its position and come back to Bonn with some really good proposals.
I congratulate my colleague, Mrs Jackson on her continuing interest in this critical area for the future of mankind.
Mr President, the world needs a powerful, political signal.
Kyoto should not remain an empty pledge.
Political leadership is now required to win over the world.
We need to display the necessary flexibility in this respect.
First of all, with regard to the United States and Japan.
We have to abandon the emphasis on domestic action.
We must work towards a science-based approach of the 'sinks' problem.
Secondly, with regard to the developing countries, climate changes impact greatly on the developing countries.
The effects are being felt in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and the island states.
We desperately need a warm-hearted approach to developing countries, and a fund that allows for adjustments being made.
We must realise that if the United States does not take part, the incentive for the developing countries will actually be taken away, for it is precisely the United States that wanted to realise a large proportion of their duties outside of the US.
The European Union now has to assume this role, and do more for the developing countries.
Needless to say, the developing countries will in time need to be included in system of CO2 reductions, but then on the basis of equal emission rights.
Thirdly, we must commit ourselves to taking domestic action seriously and not to promoting nuclear energy.
We must now take swift action and launch a credible and reliable system for the trade in emission rights, and within Europe, we must set up a research agenda to make the transition to a low-CO2 economy possible.
Mr President, the EU delegation did not show itself to its best advantage in The Hague.
Indecisiveness and dissension contributed to the failure of The Hague.
Parliamentarians could play a role if they gain permission to attend the delegation meetings as observers.
As the President-in-Council stated a moment ago, we sang and lamented behind the scenes, but to no avail.
Therefore, we now want to be admitted in the delegation as observers, and we believe that this can strengthen the unity within the European Union.
Mr President, there is a great temptation in politics to consider everything to be a matter of negotiation which can be agreed on amongst people.
So that we might remember what we are dealing with, I will reiterate a few facts about climatic warming.
I would like to remind you that there is now ample scientific proof regarding this matter, and that climatic warming is a hard fact.
There is just one party we have to negotiate with, and that is nature, which does not make compromises. It just is.
The latest time series analyses of seawater temperatures say the same as what we have known about air temperatures for a long time.
During the last hundred years the seas have warmed up by 0.6 degrees, and the trend is accelerating.
In terms of average temperatures this is a very great change.
Glaciers are melting; 85% of them are receding at a very fast rate, as much as several tens of metres a year at their worst.
The Andean ice caps are in danger of disappearing altogether.
The polar icecaps have shrunk by 25% in the last three years.
In northern areas of continents the permafrost is melting at a dramatic rate, especially in central Siberia and Alaska.
This also has large-scale effects on the exploitation of natural resources in these regions.
If we allow global warming to continue, the dreaded, worst-case scenario in northwestern Europe may well take place. Warming could divert North Atlantic sea currents, causing northern Fennoscandia to have a far more severely cold climate than it does now as a result.
As the glaciers melt, the so-called Atlantic pump will cease working and the warm Gulf Stream coming up from the tropics and its extension, the North Atlantic Current, will stop flowing.
This could result in the whole of northwestern Europe becoming colder, which palaeo-oceanographic studies show could happen suddenly, with catastrophic results.
The same facts reveal themselves in every direction.
Just recently the Red Cross confirmed what other aid organisations have been saying: experience of an increased number of natural disasters shows that the change can be put down to global warming.
Unless we act quickly and, furthermore, put pressure on others also to act quickly, these new phenomena will increase exponentially.
Bonn needs to be a success.
Mr President, a thank-you first of all to Mrs Jackson for the initiative behind the debate we are having here today.
I think that climate change is one of the best documented of any of our environmental problems and, at the same time, the biggest threat to the environment and to future generations here on earth.
That is why the US administration' s rejection of the Kyoto protocol is, of course, also completely irresponsible.
I think we have to acknowledge that Mr Bush and his administration have shown themselves to be just as primitive and populist as might have been feared.
However, that attitude in the United States ought, of course, only to give an edge to Europe' s responsibility for global environmental development, as Mr Da Silva too pointed out.
We must stick by the Kyoto Protocol at the conference in The Hague.
We must ensure that the Member States and the EU are in the vanguard of efforts to get the Protocol ratified so that it can, if possible, come into force next year.
With that in mind, we must naturally try to make Japan stick to this solution.
Like Mrs Van Brempt, I would warn against entering into a sub-standard conciliation or agreement with the United States.
Experience has shown time and again that when the United States has ended up with what, in our eyes, is a really bad agreement, it fails to honour it when the time comes to implement it.
On the contrary, we in Europe must ensure that our climate change programme is implemented effectively.
As quite a few people have mentioned, we also have problems here in Europe. At the moment, we are seeing a clear negative trend in the area of transport, for example.
We must work to ensure that, given the future we are now confronting, the United States does not obtain a competitive advantage from showing the kind of irresponsibility we have seen so far.
I hope that the Bonn conference may nonetheless be a decisive step towards meeting the enormous challenge we are all facing.
Thank you very much, Mr Liese.
The Presidency-in-Office of the Council and the Commission inform me, I believe with very good reason, that they have been enlightened by your speeches.
To end the debate, I have received one motion for a resolution, presented in accordance with Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0329/2001). We shall examine Questions to the Council.
We only have 40 minutes.
I must reach a consensus with you for the functioning of this Question Time, because otherwise we will be in an impossible situation.
If the first Members on the list of questions speak too much, the others will be deprived of their right.
We initially have ten questions which are going to be taken together by the President-in-Office of the Council.
If we have supplementary questions, you will appreciate that that would amount to thirty questions and that there would not even be time to hold Question Time.
I am therefore going to apply Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure, which gives the President the authority to organise the debate on exceptional occasions.
If you need it, you can speak for a minute and a half instead of a minute; but please do not, each of you, ask for the floor three times with the subsequent replies.
Please do not refuse this request, ladies and gentlemen.
It is absolutely rational and necessary.
I heard your ruling, but Annex II to the Rules of Procedure says that each Member may put a supplementary to any question.
We have been economical.
We get one answer, but we should each get a supplementary.
Yes, I agree, but Rule 19 refers to such exceptional situations as today' s.
It is therefore necessary to apply the Rules of Procedure in a rational way.
If you continue raising points of order, not even the first ten questioners will be able to put their question or receive a reply.
Mr President, I would simply like to propose a rational solution to the problem.
I believe that we effectively have the right to respond to the President-in-Office' s intervention and afterwards each of us should have the right to a supplementary question.
Mr President, I propose that we all have the right to a second brief intervention which would compensate for that hypothetical supplementary question which we would otherwise have the right to.
The debate will be brief but we would conserve our rights under the Rules of Procedure.
Even with Rule 19, I have flexibility.
Therefore you can put the question again for one minute and the supplementary question, and you will have a maximum of one opportunity each; after half a minute, the microphone will be turned off.
This is my final interpretation of Rule 19.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 1 to 10 will be taken together.
Question No 1 by (H-0516/01):
Subject: The Laeken Declaration The December 2000 Nice European Council approved a Declaration on the future of the Union.
The declaration calls for a wide-ranging and searching debate on the European Union' s future.
Not only the Member States but also states applying for accession, national parliaments, the European Parliament and the general public are all to be involved in that debate.
The European Council has thus improperly and in absolute disregard for the subsidiarity principle, bypassed the democratic legitimacy of the constitutionally established regions.
The Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister Louis Michel recently repeated his intention to allow MEPs to sit also as members of the Belgian Parliament.
We welcome what Mr Michel has to say about the closer involvement of members of parliaments, provided that he also includes the elected representatives of communes and regions.
Will the Council, in deference to the subsidiarity principle, include the constitutionally established regions in the plans it is drawing up for Europe' s future?
Question No 2 by (H-0518/01):
Subject: Laeken Declaration In view of the increasingly important and prominent involvement of the sub-state levels in the various EU decision-making procedures, the broad debate on the future of the Union which is taking shape mainly around the Laeken Summit should also provide answers to institutional issues relating to the involvement, from the legislative and judicial points of view, of constitutional regions (sub-state entities with their own legislative powers guaranteed under the Constitution of the State to which they belong) in the development, implementation, monitoring and assessment of EU policies.
Is the Council therefore intending to amend the Treaties (Part Five, Section 4) in such a way as to grant these regions the right to appeal direct to the Court of Justice when their prerogatives are under threat, as the Member States are able to do?
Question No 3 by (H-0520/01):
Subject: Laeken Declaration It is expected that during the Belgian presidency the Laeken Declaration on the future of the EU will be adopted.
A number of Member States, including Germany, Austria, Belgium and the UK, have established mechanisms for the participation of their regional or federal bodies in Council proceedings.
Given that the autonomous regions of the Spanish state, the German and Austrian Länder and the Belgian regions possess significant powers of their own which are in many cases affected by Community decisions, does the Council support the view that the regions could be directly represented within itself?
Question No 4 by (H-0522/01):
Subject: Laeken Declaration With the declaration to be made at Laeken on Saturday, 15 December, the federal state of Belgium intends to make its contribution to the debate on the future of the European Union.
In that respect, the positive stance adopted by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt on the joint political declaration by seven constitutional regions is particularly pleasing.
At the end of May, he received the regional president of Catalonia, the minister-president of Salzburg, the first minister of Scotland, the chief ministers of Flanders and Wallonia and the ministers for European/federal affairs of Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia, who are pressing for the role of constitutionally recognised regions in the European Union to be strengthened.
Does the Council support greater Treaty-based involvement for constitutional regions in the European project in view of the added democratic legitimacy they bring to the construction of the European Union? If not, why is it opposed to the greater Treaty-based involvement of constitutional regions in mapping out the future of Europe?
Question No 6 by (H-0525/01):
Subject: Laeken Declaration According to the Declaration in Annex IV of the Nice Treaty the debate about the future development of the EU should address, inter alia, the following question: How to establish and monitor a more precise delimitation of competences between the EU and the Member States, reflecting the principle of subsidiarity? The present idea of subsidiarity in the EC Treaty is commonly interpreted as regulating only relations between Union and states.
This interpretation has to be broadened as outlined in the resolution of the European Parliament of 26 October 2000 on better lawmaking.
Will the Laeken Declaration propose to amend the Treaties so that they specifically include recognition of, and respect for, the political and legislative powers of the Member States' internal political units in their executive, legislative and judicial relations with the EU Institutions?
Question No 7 by (H-0526/01):
Subject: Laeken Declaration Annex IV of the Nice Treaty contains a declaration calling for a deeper and wider debate about the future development of the EU.
It also recognises the need to improve and to monitor the democratic legitimacy and transparency of the Union and its Institutions.
In December 2001 the Belgian presidency will be concluded by a contribution to this debate, the Laeken Declaration.
Will the Laeken Declaration recognise that a further democratisation of the European decision-making process calls for a more radical reform, with legislative power vested in two chambers, the European Parliament and a reformed Council that would subsume some aspects of the present Committee of the Regions and would strongly enhance the role of the constitutional regions?
Question No 8 by (H-0560/01):
Subject: Laeken Declaration Annex IV of the Nice Treaty contains a declaration that calls for a deeper and wider debate about the future development of the EU.
Following a report to its Gothenburg meeting in June 2001, the European Council at its meeting in Laeken in December 2001 will agree on appropriate initiatives for the continuation of this process.
According to the Declaration the process should address, inter alia, the following question: How to establish and monitor a more precise delimitation of competences between the EU and the Member States, reflecting the principle of subsidiarity?
Will the Council - following the principle of subsidiarity - refrain from infringing the competences of the constitutional regions? How will the Council establish and monitor this respect for the competences of the constitutional regions?
Question No 9 by (H-0531/01):
Subject: Declaration No 54 attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam on subsidiarity Declaration No 54 attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam, on subsidiarity, states: -It is taken for granted by the German, Austrian and Belgian governments that action by the European Community in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity not only concerns the Member States but also their entities to the extent that they have their own law-making powers conferred on them under national constitutional law.'
Similarly, Declaration No 23 attached to the Treaty of Nice, on the future of the Union, states in its third paragraph: 'In 2001, the Swedish and Belgian Presidencies, in cooperation with the Commission and involving the European Parliament, will encourage wide-ranging discussions with all interested parties' ; and, in its fourth paragraph: 'the European Council, at its meeting in Laeken in December 2001, will agree on a declaration containing appropriate initiatives for the continuation of this process' .
What approach will the Belgian presidency take to Declaration No 54 attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam, on the principle of subsidiarity and the entities having exclusive powers?
What does the Belgian presidency believe to be the best means of resolving potential conflicts arising from decisions of the EU institutions where such decisions clash with the exclusive powers of those entities? Would the correct solution not be for the European Court of Justice to be given the power to rule on any appeals lodged by those constitutional entities and for the Treaties to legitimate the power of those entities to defend their interests in court at Union level?
Question No 10 by (H-0547/01):
Subject: Recognition of the political and legislative competences of constitutional regions and nationalities What proposals does the Council intend to make to ensure that the planned 2004 reform of the Treaties includes the recognition and underpinning of the political and legislative powers of internal units within the Member States (nationalities, federal states, autonomous communities or constitutional regions) in their executive, legislative and judicial relations with the EU institutions?
In a declaration attached to the Treaty of Nice, the Conference of Representatives of the Member State Governments expressed the wish for a broad and more profound debate on European Union' s future to be initiated as a first step in a preparatory process which will culminate in the convening of the Intergovernmental Conference in 2004.
The joint declaration of the Swedish and Belgian Presidencies, the President of the European Parliament and the President of the Commission of 7 March last, confirmed this objective and called for a debate in which all sections of society need to be involved more than ever.
The report by the presidency, submitted to the European Council in Gothenburg, describes the vast range of initiatives which have already been launched in Member States and candidate countries, and also by the institutions of the Union.
This report notes the numerous initiatives that have been taken in various Member States, involving different regional bodies.
It also lists the events organised as part of this debate by the Committee of the Regions.
The various questions raised, which are all on the subject of the role of the regional bodies in the process of preparing for the Intergovernmental Conference in 2004, are concerned with two types of problem. On the one hand, there are the detailed rules for implementing the preparatory phase which precedes the next Intergovernmental Conference, and on the other there is the issue of the role of the regional bodies in the construction of the Union.
As far as the question of the detailed rules concerning the preparatory phase is concerned, it is too soon yet to take a decision on the content of the Laeken declaration.
Most of you, I know, heard what was said by our Prime Minister, and that will have lifted a little corner of the veil.
However, most of the canvas which is currently covered by that veil has still to be painted.
That being the case, all I can tell you is that it is too soon.
However, it is obvious that the preparatory phase will have to take its inspiration from the various contributions which will be made by the European Council in December, and from the discussions and contacts which the Belgian presidency will be having with all the parties concerned.
In that respect I can assure you that the presidency has the firm intention of examining every aspect of the question, including those mentioned by the honourable Members, so that the detailed rules for implementing preparations for the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference will provide the optimum response to the initial requirements set out in the Nice Declaration.
(NL) By way of response to the questions which are related to the content of the role of regional bodies in the future fabric of the Union, I can only remind you of the attention which previous Intergovernmental Conferences have devoted to this issue.
That was particularly apparent from the establishment of a Committee of the Regions, composed of representatives from regional and local communities, a committee which, as you know, plays an advisory role.
It would be premature at this stage to give you a detailed response to this issue of content on behalf of the Council - for I am talking on behalf of the Council - but I am certain that this point will be addressed in due course.
I shall listen to your supplementary questions with interest. I hope there will be time for a supplementary answer.
Mrs Neyts-Uytebroeck, or Annemie, if you will allow me to use your first name, we should not pull the wool over each other' s eyes. I simply want to say to you that, of course, I understand that you are replying here on behalf of the Council.
But all of the ten EFTA parliamentarians present here naturally want to promote the regional process in the European construction, because we are all MEPs from pro-European regions.
We fear that if the constitutional regions are not represented well in the European decision-making process, a gradual aversion to Europe will grow within those regions, because we will feel that our regions cannot have their say, that they are suffocating, as it were.
That is why I should like to ask you, as the driving force in a discussion which is about to start, how you will try to actively involve those regions in the decision-making process and how you will ensure that the Council actually makes a statement in this connection in the foreseeable future.
Mr President, Bart, please accept my apologies, for I am not all that familiar yet with the procedures.
I was under the impression that I would listen to all the additional questions first and then respond to them all in one go.
But your plea for constitutional regions is, of course, not falling on deaf ears, if I can put it that way.
In a previous political life not so long ago, I was, in fact, Minister in the Government of one of those constitutional regions. I therefore identify with your plea entirely.
You have also undoubtedly listened carefully to our Prime Minister. You can therefore count on it that I, on my own behalf and on behalf of Belgium, will do my utmost to broach this subject.
But there are also fourteen other Member States, and it will therefore be important for the constitutional regions to bring harmony among themselves as well.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, this morning we heard the Belgian Prime Minister.
I agree with the basic tenet of his clear and intelligent speech and I hope that with the prospect of the Laeken Council, his action will serve to override the total failure of the Nice Conference.
I must say, however, that in his speech, as in the answer that he has just given to our questions, for which I thank him, I noted the absence of any explicit reference to the political recognition of national and cultural diversity which, together with statehood, is a fundamental element of the European character.
Within this diversity, the stateless nations that we represent have genuine historical and linguistic roots, as well as demographic and economic importance on a par with those of the Member States.
We would like to see acknowledgement of our political, civic and democratic realities, together with the executive, legislative and judicial powers that distinguish us, so that we are able to participate in the European Council, just as we also acknowledge that federal states, Länder and constitutional regions that have a different nature but similar powers must participate.
We would like to see these realities incorporated into the Laeken Declaration.
We would like these realities to be included in the future Constitution.
We hope, in any event, that our governments and our parliaments will participate in the convention drawing up the proposals for the European Union' s constitution.
Our Prime Minister, the President-in-Office of the Council, was unable, in his speech, to include every aspect of the real situation in the European Union about which he is concerned, but I can tell you now that the safeguarding, deployment and development of cultural diversity, and indeed of linguistic diversity, are in his mind as they are in mine, and I believe that we all regard them as fundamental values.
This determination to safeguard cultural diversity will certainly be expressed, probably in the first section of the Laeken Declaration, which will deal with the principles and values that we have in common.
I can assure you, therefore, that cultural diversity, and the desire for cultural diversity, will certainly be included as one of the basic principles of the European Union, and it is a principle to which we are all very much attached.
Mr President, thank you for allowing me to take the floor.
This is the first chance I have had to speak to the House, because your Assembly only verified my credentials last Monday.
Could I just remind you that have taken over from the Basque MEP, Mr Gorka Knörr, who was elected to the Basque Parliament on 13 May and has now become its Deputy Speaker.
Madam Minister, I myself am Catalan, a Catalan from Roussillon, in other words a French national, and I applied to be included in a coalition in the Spanish State, a Basque-Catalan coalition, and that is why I, the Catalan, have taken over from Mr Gorka Knörr, the Basque.
As you know, Madam Minister, Catalonia is more than just a region.
It is a nation, a nation which has always been a courageous defender of liberty and has always been concerned with solidarity values.
Catalonia is a deeply Europhile nation, and yet today that nation has some difficulty in finding its place in this institution.
It cannot be content with the makeshift role which it has been granted in the Committee of the Regions, a committee whose powers, as you know, are extremely limited.
This is why, knowing your position and your history, I hoped, and indeed still hope, that your presidency will enable progress to be made on this issue, not only the issue of Catalonia, but also the issue of all the other nations without a State of their own.
First of all, I should like to congratulate Mr Mayol on his arrival here in this House.
I am able to speak from experience. Mr Mayol, you will find that your mandate is an absolutely extraordinary one, but one which is nonetheless worth the trouble.
I hope that your years here will be fruitful, pleasant and interesting.
You will certainly have to work hard, but something tells me that you are not afraid of hard work.
So, once again, my best congratulations!
Actually I do know a little about Catalonia.
I do not speak Catalan but I can understand it, which is something at least.
The problem you have raised is obviously even more complex than the issue of constitutional regions within the boundaries of a single country.
You are talking about a nation which straddles two countries, if you will allow me to put it so cavalierly, both of which are anxious to maintain their territorial integrity.
I am happy to leave you with the responsibility for the prospects which you have opened up.
On the other hand, I completely agree with you when you emphasise the fact that the Catalans love their nation, their language and their culture, but that at the same time they are very European, very open to the world outside.
I can tell you that we are not unaware of the fact that the Prime Minister of Spanish Catalonia was one of the first people to launch the movement in favour of constitutional regions.
If I know him, and I know him well and have confidence in him, that movement will certainly not come to a halt, and as long as it keeps going it will be skilfully conducted. Mr Pujol and the other Prime Ministers will see to that.
To that extent I believe that the debate will progress in the right direction in the years to come.
The President-in-Office of the Council is very receptive to the points we are making but her colleagues in the Council, generally, have very little to say about subsidiarity in a way that pleases us.
This is the kind of thing that makes an increasing part of the population of Scotland recognise that being a Member State is a much better idea than being a constitutional region.
However, things standing as they do, I would ask the President-in-Office if she would be prepared to discuss with colleagues the oddity of the structure of the Committee of the Regions which, instead of representing the regions in some proportion to their size, represents the states according to digressive proportionality.
Denmark, which is already a Member State, has twice as many Members in the Committee of the Regions as Scotland has.
Even Luxembourg has more!
I do not know the difference between the regions of Luxembourg intimately, but I dare say they are less than the difference between the regions of Scotland.
The debate is getting more complicated with each speaker and you will understand that I cannot possibly go into that issue.
However, I do know that within the Committee of the Regions the representatives of municipalities, cities, provinces, and constitutional regions find it increasingly difficult to build a common platform from which to develop their action.
The Presiding Officer of the Scottish Assembly is one of my very great and dear friends and so I am familiar with the problems you have referred to.
However, I cannot possibly give a detailed answer to your very precise questions.
I believe that the issue of subsidiarity and its meaning in practice is central to the whole debate on the future of Europe - not only in terms of the rights of nations and regions within the Member States, but also in terms of citizenship.
I represent Wales which has a new national assembly, just two years old.
It is a developing body that wants to play a full part in and have strong links with the European Union and help build the Europe of the future.
Would the Minister agree that involving this kind of regional level of government is crucial in terms of developing citizenship and bringing Europe closer to the people - a problem that we are all familiar with in all our constituencies. If this is something that needs to be done on a European level in order to bring Europe closer to people, how will this be reflected in the work of the Council?
As you will appreciate, this is a real debate.
In my first answer I said everything I could say as President-in-Office.
The rest is very much my personal point of view as a member of the Belgian Government.
I hope that you will make this distinction, especially as this is now a more spontaneous debate, which I like very much.
I believe subsidiarity is a very important notion but it is also a very difficult one because it is not very precise.
It is more precisely defined in the protocol to the Treaty of Amsterdam than previously and is perfectly usable.
The local and intermediary levels are essential in bridging the gap between citizens and authorities.
These levels and authorities have a very important role to play.
In light of recent developments, as in Denmark and Ireland, this awareness has grown and will be better taken into account than perhaps in the past.
Annex IV of the Nice Treaty contains a declaration calling for a deeper and wider debate about the future development of the EU.
It also recognises, importantly, the need to improve and to monitor the democratic legitimacy and transparency of the Union and its institutions.
In December 2001, the Belgian presidency will be concluded by a contribution to this debate at the Laeken Declaration.
Will the Laeken Declaration recognise that a further democratisation of the European decision-making process calls for a more radical reform with legislative power vested in two chambers: the European Parliament, and a reformed Council that would subsume some aspects of the present Committee of the Regions and would strongly enhance the role of the constitutional regions?
I will have to limit my answer to reminding you that the Laeken Declaration will be more about the right questions and indications of directions, than about formulae and definite answers.
Hopefully it will only be the start of the more formal preparations for the IGC.
Any answer now to your question would be quite premature.
All I can tell you is that we are very conscious of all these aspects, and that we are not the only ones who are conscious of them.
I would be very surprised if the issue was not addressed in the form of a question.
But do not expect answers yet, it is far too soon.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, the Belgian, Austrian and German Governments included declaration No 54 in the Treaty of Amsterdam in order to refer to the influence that European issues have on the internal bodies of the States, above all in the regions with exclusive competences.
The European institutions, and above all the Council, constantly take decisions which sometimes encroach on the competences of the constitutional regions or the regions with legislative competences in Europe.
Conflicts of competence are created and, in this respect, I would like to ask the opinion of the Belgian Government in relation to the possibility that these regions with exclusive legislative competences may be given the right to bring cases before the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
I would also ask your opinion of the Court of Justice of the European Communities' capacity to pass judgement on these conflicts of competence between the Union and the regions with legislative competence.
Mr Ortuondo Larrea, I shall tell you what I can in reply to your question about how we organise our work. I am sure that you are not unaware, precisely because of the protocol to which you referred, that a certain number of Councils of Ministers will be presided over by ministers of regional and/or community governments.
This has already happened in the case of the informal Tourism Council which took place last weekend in Bruges, and it will also happen in the case of the Education and Scientific Research Councils, and some of the other Councils too.
You can see, then, how we deal with questions of this type.
As far as the possibility of access to the Court of Justice is concerned, I know that this is something that the constitutional regions are asking for.
Sometimes I have the impertinence to wonder whether they are fully aware of the scope and the possible consequences of a positive reply to their requests.
You yourself have pointed out that if the regions had direct access to the Court of Justice in disputes about competence, it would seem almost inevitable that the Court would one day be called upon to give a ruling on the internal constitutional organisation of the Member States themselves.
I would ask you to think about that.
It is not possible for me to reply to your question.
It is a very delicate question, and a very controversial one.
Any reply would be quite premature.
However, if you will permit me I would like to ask you think about what I have just said.
Mr President, I would like to make it clear to the President-in-Office of the Council that it is not permitted in all States for governments of the constitutional regions to participate in the meetings of the Council of Ministers and, therefore, we are unrepresented, as is the case with the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.
I believe that this is a genuine problem for Europe and we must deal with it.
We cannot be taking decisions in the European fora on competences which the laws attribute to regions which are not present to defend them.
As a final comment, Mr Ortuondo Larrea, I would just like to say that this is an arrangement that we came to in Belgium, between Belgian governments, governments with an 's' , always governments in the plural.
I would ask you to refer to your own governments, because that is where I believe this type of question should be resolved in the first instance.
Mr President, I do not represent any region; as you know, I represent the pensioners of Italy and Europe.
Before tabling my question, however, I would like to express my admiration at the President-in-Office of the Council' s willingness to answer so thoroughly all the questions she has been asked.
I paid close attention to the Swedish presidency and I was practically frozen stiff by the coldness with which the Swedes habitually responded 'This is not my responsibility' .
I am therefore genuinely satisfied, having listened to the Belgian President-in-Office speak this morning, by his openness to pensioners' affairs, and I am truly satisfied to have seen the practical undertaking by the Belgian presidency to respond to every question, even the most difficult ones.
I have exhausted the time available to me and so I will not be able to table my supplementary question. I will do so on another occasion.
Mr President, The President-in-Office of the Council said that we want recognition of our national realities and of our constitutional powers.
I wish to reply that these realities are indeed part of European diversity but this is not simply a label to hold on to; it is also the powerful political reality of my country, Galicia, which should be fully recognised, just like those of the States of the borderless Union of Europe, of which we are all a part.
Question No 11 by (H-0545/01):
Subject: Public access to Council documents Now that the Council has enacted the Commission proposal, what is the timetable and the procedure for the public to begin accessing the Council' s documents?
To Mr Newton Dunn' s question, I can answer as follows.
First of all: the Council is impressed with the progress made in terms of openness and transparency since the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force, particularly with the adoption of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents.
The Council would point out to the honourable Member that this Parliament and Council Regulation of 30 May 2001, pursuant to Article 19, will not enter into force until 3 December 2001.
Until such time, requests from the public for Council documents will be dealt with as before on the basis of Council Decision 93/731/EC on public access to Council documents.
Each of the three institutions involved will therefore need to make the necessary arrangements to guarantee that the new Regulation is actually in force as of 3 December 2001.
In accordance with Article 15, they shall establish an interinstitutional committee to examine best practice, address possible conflicts and discuss future developments on public access to documents.
As far as the Council is concerned, the competent bodies are currently looking into the measures that need to be taken in order to fully implement the rights of citizens which they have acquired on the basis of the new Regulation.
I can add to this that it is this presidency' s ambition, wherever possible, to be able to conclude all agreements before this Regulation enters into force, but as I have said before, we cannot do this on our own, and I hope we will receive the necessary support.
I must say I think most Members will think that a six-month delay is exceedingly disappointing, but it is nice to hear something positive. Can you indicate to us what the possible obstacles are?
Does anybody have a veto on this date of 3 December or can you give us a guarantee that it is actually going to happen? You are not going to tell us at the end of the Belgian presidency: I am so sorry it slipped; somebody got it in the way!
Can you guarantee it is going to happen or does someone have a veto?
I am afraid I cannot guarantee that.
I would be a fairy if I could.
I can only tell you that we will do our utmost.
We will take up where the work left off to see to it that the directive enters into force on the set date, 3 December 2001.
Question No 12 by (H-0550/01):
Subject: Equal treatment of Turkey in regard to accession aid The European Council meeting in Helsinki in December 1999 decided that Turkey is a candidate State on the same terms as the other twelve candidate States.
Turkey was therefore promised certain aid during the often long and difficult process entailed by membership negotiations.
The forms of aid currently available to all candidate countries include funds such as ISPA and SAPARD.
Turkey, however, has not benefited from those.
The country has been refused the aid promised at Helsinki on the grounds that the EU did not have the financial resources available.
Is it not time for the Council to ensure that the Helsinki summit decisions to treat Turkey on an equal footing with the other twelve candidate countries are now honoured and that the channels are opened for that country to obtain the aid it was promised, particularly in view of the fact that the Commission recently decided to refund 11.6 billion euro to the Member States?
The European Council in Helsinki, having decided to grant Turkey the status of a candidate for accession, asked the Commission to submit a single framework for European Union financial aid to that country for the pre-accession period.
The Commission submitted its proposal to the Council on 27 April this year.
The main objective of this proposal for a financial framework is to guarantee that financial aid will be granted in accordance with priorities defined by the accession partnership and to bring the existing financial instruments together to form a single instrument, in order to optimise its effectiveness.
The European Council in Gothenburg, which made it quite clear that the accession partnership is the kingpin of the pre-accession strategy, invited the Council to adopt this single financial framework between now and the end of 2001.
The Council has begun the procedure of consulting the European Parliament, and is encouraging Parliament to give its opinion as soon as possible.
Concerning the funding under the ISPA and SAPAR programmes, to which the honourable Member refers, this is structural aid and aid for agricultural development which is only granted to the candidate countries from Central and Eastern Europe to meet their specific needs as transitional economies.
However, that does not mean that Turkey has missed out on the aid promised in Helsinki, on the contrary.
The financial preaccession aid for Turkey has been doubled in 2000 and 2001 compared to the average annual amounts which were allocated in the 1996-1999 period.
In view of normal budget procedures, we should aim to continue to grant this aid for the remaining part of the current financial perspectives. That is until 2006, as you know, and applies to all candidate countries.
I should also like to point out that the EU' s general budget contains a new component, entitled 'Preaccession strategy for Turkey' , in which the resources are increased in the light of this.
As this budget line comprises different budget resources, the financial aid programmes for Turkey can be completed with greater efficiency.
As you know, the European Parliament has approved this approach in its opinion on the framework regulation for Turkey.
I would like to thank the Belgian presidency for its answer and at the same time welcome Belgium as the country holding the presidency of the Council of Ministers in the European Union after the Swedish presidency.
Many of us, including myself, see Belgium almost as our second home in that we live in Brussels during the week but go home, in my case to Sweden, at weekends.
I would like to address the issue of Turkey.
It is clearly the case that Turkey has not understood the difference between, on the one hand, the Eastern and Central European countries which were considered for the ISPA and SAPARD funds and, on the other hand, Turkey, which was not considered for these.
Is the legislation insufficiently clear with regard to Turkey? Turkey also feels that it wants to be treated well and fairly.
I would like to advise you to clarify why Turkey was not considered for these particular funds.
I would like to thank the honourable Member for his kind words and express my appreciation for the Swedish presidency with whom I have enjoyed an extremely pleasant and fruitful partnership over the past six months.
Question No 13 by (H-0553/01):
Subject: Belgian presidency and Afghan women Considering the subhuman conditions in which over 11 million women in Afghanistan are obliged to survive, will the Council consider encouraging the creation of an international Afghanistan committee in coordination with the UN?
Mrs Izquierdo Rójo, we were fellow members of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs during the previous legislative period.
It is therefore a great pleasure for me to be able to reply to the question that you have so judiciously raised.
As I pointed out in my previous replies to questions on the same subject, the Council entirely shares the honourable Member' s concern about the disastrous position in which large sections of the Afghan population now find themselves, and in particular the disastrous position of women and children.
In view of the difficulties in Afghanistan at humanitarian and political levels, and in particular in view of the negative attitude which the Taleban persist in taking, both as regards the UN and as regards women, the Council is not entirely convinced that the setting up of an international Afghanistan committee in coordination with the UN, would be likely to really improve the situation of women in Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, the Council will examine closely the advantages and disadvantages to which such a committee might give rise, as soon as this issue is raised within the UN, and provided that the rules for putting such a proposal into practice have been studied in minute detail.
In the meantime, the Council will be continuing the projects which it has decided on with the aim of helping Afghan women.
On that point, the Council would also refer the honourable Member to the replies which it has already given to previous questions on the same subject, and in particular to Questions H-0032/01, H-0052/01, H-0170/01, H-0088/01 and, more recently, Question H-0481/01.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I thank you for this reply and, as a supplementary question, I would like to know whether you approve of exerting international pressure both against the Taliban regime and against the States that support it, specifically Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
Are you prepared to work during the Belgian presidency so that progress may really be made in relation to this disastrous situation?
My reply was in response to your specific question about an international committee.
As far as international pressure is concerned, i.e. the sanctions and embargoes which have been ordered in respect of Afghanistan, obviously the Council takes the view that these must be continued, and as far as possible reinforced, because we are dealing here with a regime that is completely inhumane.
Question No 14 by (H-0555/01):
Subject: Including the competent authorities in discussions on the regulation of medicine Taking into account the apparent dissolution of the Advisory Council on Medical Training, will the Council take urgent measures to ensure that the changes planned or under way in relation to the regulation of medicine in Member States, including issues such as the free movement of doctors and training, are open to contribution and comment by the appropriate authorities in the Member States, including the Medical Council of Ireland?
As you indicated, the discussion on the role of certain advisory committees has been launched.
On 19 July 1999 the Commission submitted a proposal for a decision to the Council with the aim of abolishing the Council advisory committee for medical training, together with some other advisory committees established in conjunction with sectoral directives for doctors, dentists, veterinary surgeons, pharmacists, general care nurses and midwives.
The Commission' s purpose was to simplify the committee system.
The Council has had some discussions on this proposal, but has not come up with any conclusions yet.
In addition to the examination of this proposal, no further measures of the type indicated in the question are envisaged in the Council.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for her willingness to go over time and take extra questions.
I wish her well during the presidency and hope that her relationship with the Members will be as open and blunt as it has been this afternoon.
Specifically on my supplementary, there is a major concern about the medical councils in the Member States and, in particular, for my own country, Ireland, with regard to ensuring minimum standards of training and qualification for doctors and other people in the medical profession.
As we move towards enlargement of the European Union, with the accession of new Member States, and extend freedom of movement opportunities to countries outside of the accession countries to deal with shortfalls of medical personnel across the European Union, we consider that experts in the field from the existing Member States must be included in any such consultation process.
I have taken note of your remarks.
I am sorry, but I really have to go or I will miss my plane but I will forward them to my colleague who is responsible for this matter.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 15 to 26 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.40 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Macro-financial assistance to Yugoslavia
The next item is the report (A5-0244/2001) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision providing macro-financial assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [COM(2001) 277 - C5-0231/2001 - 2001/0112(CNS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I wish to recommend that the plenary adopt the proposal for a Council decision providing macro-financial assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the in the version originally put forward by the Commission.
We know that there have been some discussions in budget areas of the Council which are aimed at introducing restrictions, but we take the view that at the present political time, it is right to approve the amounts originally envisaged in the proposal.
There is an obvious reason for this: I think that having made it clear for so long that assistance would be available from the European Union if the people of Serbia and Montenegro threw off the yoke of dictatorship, we should keep our word.
Particularly after the events of recent days, which have culminated in Milosevic' s extradition to the International Court Tribunal in The Hague, it is important that the European Parliament and the European Union signal that in response to these internal factors, the funds will be released, so that the people in a country like Yugoslavia can see that fostering democracy and human rights is genuinely worthwhile.
For this reason, Commissioner, conditions should be created so that this can happen as quickly as possible, and I know that this is your intention too.
This macro-financial assistance is not directly linked to a specific programme. It is an initial injection which is designed to help set things in motion.
In this context, it should also be made clear that this assistance must not be tied to overly complicated conditions.
We are proposing a number of amendments to you.
These proposed amendments are designed to enhance control and also call for the involvement of other donors, although we do not view this as a condition. I believe that these are all positions which, ultimately, will not lead to obstacles and delay, but will enhance clarity, strengthen the control options, and also make it clear that we want assistance to be provided speedily.
As you know, this House did not create any difficulties when it was a matter of applying for urgent assistance for this area. As I am sure you recall, through the participation of other committees too, such as the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, we signalled our willingness to proceed as quickly as possible and introduce the necessary amendments.
Let me also make one general political point.
In recent years, we have repeatedly engaged in grand theoretical debates about the developments in Yugoslavia. Yet in terms of our commitment, whether in the field of prevention and civil crisis management or, indeed, through threats and the use of military capabilities, we have generally acted too late.
Our policy has always been 'too little, too late' .
This has led us into the situation which we have witnessed in recent days in Macedonia.
This misguided approach, which ultimately forces us to make even greater sacrifices and provide even more assistance - because we failed to act in time, and because we could not implement the concept of prevention and civil crisis management due to the international community' s total fragmentation of responsibilities in this region - has resulted in major political failure in key areas.
By providing these resources, we want to make it clear once again that this is not due to us, and that as the European Parliament, we are willing to do everything possible as quickly as possible. However, this is also an appeal to the Commission and the Council to make the necessary political decisions in a different way in future.
I recall that two months ago, I was castigated and accused of being irresponsible when I spoke about the possibility of war in Macedonia. People ignore the facts for as long as they can, because they are too cowardly to tell the truth to the public at home.
Afterwards, it all becomes far too expensive for everyone, and the costs again include human lives.
For this reason, we call urgently once again for rapid assistance to be provided so that peace, democracy and human rights can be restored to this region.
It was indeed an extraordinary gesture on the part of the Serbian Government to hand over Mr Milosevic to the International Court of Justice.
This also required courage.
During an earlier attempt to arrest Mr Milosevic, when he was still living in his own house, it was already evident that the army and the police were in opposite camps.
In a way, therefore, I think we should pay our respects to Mr Djindjic and the way he acted, although his motives may well have been inspired by opportunism.
I am also delighted that we have been able to agree internally on the fact that financial assistance should be subject to the extent to which steps are taken in the direction of rule of law, including cooperation with the Court.
In my opinion, Parliament had a clearer take on this than the Council, which did not want to make this aid too conditional.
In this respect, we share the position of the United States and I believe that that in itself was a very good move.
Mr Milosevic has now been extradited by Serbia and Yugoslavia.
All we need to do now is to wait for the international community itself to cooperate with the International Court of Justice.
The SFOR has to deliver the goods now, for the cooperation of SFOR and the political powers behind it, have so far been lacking.
That is ultimately extremely painful and disgraceful.
There is really no cause for any further complaint if SFOR fails to do what it should do in its own province, namely to arrest Messrs Karadzic and Mladic.
In that connection, I would also appreciate it if the European Parliament' s message in this respect were driven home to the Council and to all those others who, under the United Nations, carry joint responsibility for the actions of the SFOR, of which we are right to have high expectations.
Thanks to the excellent services of Mr Korakas, we recently found out that we in Europe fail to see eye to eye in this respect.
It appears that a vast majority in the Greek parliament has signed a declaration which states that it is very regrettable that Mr Milosevic has been taken to the so-called Court of Justice in The Hague.
Mr President, there is a great deal to be done before the community of values with that parliament can be restored.
This confirms that there are many differences within our Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, the economic relations between the EU and Yugoslavia are of a special kind.
For a long time, there were no relations.
After October 2000, the EU promptly made EUR 200 million available to Yugoslavia by way of emergency aid. This just illustrates that even the EU can work quickly and efficiently.
Last week, the EU showed itself in its best light at the donor conference.
We are now discussing here in Parliament macro-financial assistance to the tune of EUR 300 million to cover budget shortages, including a considerable gift in the sum of EUR 120 million.
In my view, the assistance we are discussing this evening is representing the end of a certain era, namely the transition from autocracy to democracy.
This aid is welcome and appropriate at this stage, but in my opinion it also has the feel of a one-off gesture.
It may also be useful to indicate that special conditions apply, of which I should like to mention two.
As Mr Brok has already stated, it is not the case that the approval and spending of these funds are subject to very special conditions, but sound cooperation must be established with the political and safety committee because the EU' s aid to Yugoslavia must be granted in a politically coherent fashion.
That also applies to the assessment of that aid.
Subsequent to this macro-financial assistance, it will have to be carefully examined, particularly on a political plane, if this form of aid is required in future.
My group has reached the conclusion that it is important for the EU to be quick off the mark, efficient and generous, whenever that is useful and needed politically speaking.
It is about being able to transfer resources quickly and efficiently, not being afraid to take the lead and not being frightened to be dependent on other donors.
But we must also be able to change strategy quickly and efficiently.
That is why, in my view, it is important to support this kind of aid in the anticipation that it will probably be the last time that aid will be granted to Yugoslavia in this form.
Mr President, this debate is about assistance for a country which was flattened two years ago by the criminal NATO bombings, which were supported by the European Union.
During our recent visit to Yugoslavia, delegates from the Serbian parliament informed us that material damage alone ran into over USD 100 billion, not counting the livestock lost and the damage to the natural environment, not just in Yugoslavia but in the Balkans as a whole, as a result of the tens of thousands of depleted uranium bombs dropped there.
Then along comes the Council with a proposal to give Yugoslavia macro-financial assistance to the ridiculous tune of a few hundred million - no doubt the thirty pieces of silver for the subordinates in Belgrade who, in the most disgraceful manner and despite a decision to the contrary by the country' s parliament and supreme constitutional court, handed the former president of Yugoslavia, who was democratically elected in four elections, to a court set up on the orders of the USA and ÍÁÔÏ in order to try anyone who resists the new order.
The basic crime which Milosevic committed was to refuse to kow-tow to ÍÁÔÏ.
The real criminals, such as Tutzman, Izetbegovic etc., who did kow-tow, were acquitted.
But history will have the last word.
I am certain that it will judge today' s decision to be one of the ugliest moments in the life of the European Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the increasingly unstable situation in what remains of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, and, it has to be said, in the Balkans as a whole, makes it necessary for us to extend the aid that we provide to the countries of that region, not only for this year, but no doubt for a long time to come.
It also makes it necessary for us, and this should be a matter of priority, to come face to face with the reality of our failure and to ask ourselves what is the cause of it.
The cause is simple.
The European Union was only pretending to follow the logic of peace.
In reality, it was merely using humanitarian speeches to cover up the real logic, the logic of war, a war which was in the interests of several powers and which was intended to destroy Yugoslavia, which is what happened in just a few years.
We can only understand this if we think along geopolitical lines.
Although this is the only means of understanding the reality of power relationships between nations, in other words diplomacy itself, we are still obstinately refusing to carry out a geopolitical analysis. Yet this would reveal the truth, a truth which is glaringly obvious, in other words that there are three powers pursuing converging interests in the Balkans.
First there is Germany, which has never got over the fact that, after both the First World War and the Second, it was to some extent against its interests, or at least against the interests of its European expansionism, that the country of Yugoslavia was created as a single entity.
As soon as Germany was reunified in 1990, it played an important part in breaking the stranglehold of Serbia, its old enemy, so as to be reunited with its Slovenian and Croatian allies, and let us not forget, with two precious Mediterranean coastlines.
In the same way, Turkey easily regained the connivance of Albania, and its military arm, the KLA.
To some extent urged on by the whole of the Muslim world, Turkey has reconquered some very old, very ancient positions in Balkan Europe, and it has obviously done so against the interests of Europe, but in the interests of the United States which, like any empire, knows very well how to divide and rule, and has profited and continues to profit from stirring up very old conflicts and fanning the flames of very old quarrels in what we can only call Greater Turkey, which is in the process of installing itself in the Balkans, to the great detriment, of course, of Greece.
To put it in a nutshell, Europe has worked against itself, and in my view this is a further sign of its failure to conduct a rational diplomacy.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate the passions stirred up by the issue of the Balkans, specifically Yugoslavia.
However, my objective here today is rather more modest.
Of course we must react to the events of recent weeks as a European Community, offering a significant message of support to the Yugoslavian authorities and supporting the stabilisation and economic reform efforts made by that country.
I especially welcome the efforts made by this House, and in particular Mr Brok.
The acceleration of the process has been complex in recent weeks and this makes it difficult for the different committees to express their points of view on the proposal we are discussing today.
As I said before, our objective is limited.
It is important, but it is limited, given the difficult economic and financial situation of Yugoslavia, which requires the international community to offer significant financial support.
The Yugoslavian authorities have implemented important economic reform programmes, which have been welcomed and accepted by the international community.
You have referred to the fundamental issue of the Conference of Donors.
This Conference has shown support for the economic transition and recovery programme, produced in collaboration with the World Bank and also with the European Commission.
The good news has been - and Mr Lange has referred to it - the existence of sufficient funds to finance everything that was intended.
It has even been possible to exceed the USD 1 250 million which was envisaged as aid for Yugoslavia.
What contribution is the European Community making at the moment? We are cooperating via two channels.
The first channel is EUR 230 million, in 2001, which is the Community aid for reconstruction, democracy and stabilisation in the area, the so-called 'CARDS' aid.
However, as well as this, we have proposed 300 million in macro-financial assistance with a very specific aim, that is the reduction of the balance of payments deficit.
Of course, we intend to extend the mandate which allows Yugoslavia to receive EIB loans.
To this end, the Commission made its proposal, referred to by Mr Brok, of 23 May, trying to react, as he said, quickly and to persuade the Council of Ministers to accept.
As he has also said, there has been a certain change in the Council of Ministers, lending more weight to loans and less to donations, a change which we in the Commission do not agree with.
I would like to expressly thank Mr Brok for his support for the Commission' s position.
However, we are talking about a proposal for macro-financial assistance.
And every time we have given this sort of aid, we have done so with certain conditions within the European Union and I do not believe that there is any argument for changing that model.
We are talking about aid which is complementary to aid implemented by other international institutions and bilateral donors, aid which is intended to prevent the external financial restrictions suffered by that country.
That means that we are working in conjunction with the Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
We are referring to 2001, although it may be considered for future years, but, at the moment, we are talking about the restrictions for 2001 and next year.
This type of aid, as you know, is conditional upon certain economic policy demands and is proposed within a stand-by programme of the International Monetary Fund for one year.
As I said before, our proposal was 120 million in donation and 180 in loan, the latter for 15 years under conditions similar to those for other countries.
The basic agreement in the Council has reduced the donation to 75 million, leaving the rest for loans.
We consider that, given Yugoslavia' s high level of debt and its other difficulties, and coherence with other types of similar modernisations which we have carried out in the past, the Commission' s proposal is coherent with our practice.
We will therefore continue to insist in the Council that the conditions we have proposed be approved.
Mr Brok' s report proposes a series of amendments; I will later provide you with a note which explains our exact position.
Our view of the amendments is as follows, to put it very briefly: first, it is not necessary to include the references to CARDS in this particular case, since we are talking about another type of aid, and not about CARDS aid, which is of a different nature.
Certain amendments do not therefore seem acceptable, such as Amendments Nos 1, 11, 15 and 19.
Secondly, the political conditions.
Macro-financial assistance is not the correct instrument for imposing political conditions.
We can therefore accept Amendment No 2 if its wording can be changed.
We have no problem with the references to the assistance which the Union is already carrying out, the approval of the Fund programmes, the reform of external aid, the margins of the Guarantee Fund and the multiannual financial aid package for Yugoslavia; Amendments Nos 3, 4, 8, 9 and 10 are therefore acceptable.
We have greater difficulty with the problem of the references to the distribution of the burden.
We have no problem with Amendment No 5, but to make payment conditional upon what other donors do is neither a condition nor a system which is normally introduced in the case of macro-financial assistance.
Amendment No 13, in its current specific form, would not be acceptable.
One point which you have raised is the reference to its exceptional assistance character.
Of course it is exceptional assistance.
Of course it is of a temporary nature.
And this is already reflected in the text.
Therefore, certain references do not seem necessary to us, such as its not exceeding 2003.
I do not know if it will be necessary for us to reconsider the issue in 2003, but to say now that in no event are we going to do anything in 2003 does not seem correct to us.
Neither does it seem necessary for Amendment No 7 to refer doubly to the concessional and temporary issue.
With regard to the obligatory consultations with, shall we say, bodies of a political nature, we believe that the political debate is taking place now and will take place in the Council.
But once the conditions have been basically defined, the Economic and Financial Committee must be the correct body to carry out the control of what in reality we are going to talk about, that is to say, the practical application of the proposals.
We therefore believe that other types of conditions are not reasonable, such as those established in Amendments Nos 12, 14 and the first part of Amendment No 16.
You request additional reports to Parliament.
We are thinking of the reports proposed in Amendments Nos 16, 18 and 19.
We can accept the one in Amendment No 19, if it refers to information on the previous year.
It is very difficult to give information on the same year unless it is excessively delayed information, but the production of additional general reports, as well as the one we present every year, on macro-financial assistance, we believe to be an unnecessary bureaucratic burden.
Nevertheless, we do understand that Parliament wishes to control and know what is happening with these issues.
We are therefore at your disposal to provide you with information on the implementation of this aid, whenever Parliament may ask for it.
But we believe that it is much better to react to specific proposals than to establish this type of formal obligation, which does not always have the necessary interest.
I would lastly like to comment on certain precise dates which are laid down in relation to the limits for the first and second payments.
You say that the first payment must be made before 31 December and the second before 30 June.
There are two problems.
One problem is bureaucratic, administrative: will we make it by 31 December? This is not the real difficulty.
The real difficulty is that in the system of macro-financial assistance we are working with certain economic policy conditions and these payments can only be made in the event that these conditions are met.
Of course, our objective is the same as yours: to implement aid as soon as possible, to pay it as quickly as possible and in this respect we are going to continue working with Parliament in complete harmony.
Finally, and I will end here, I would like to thank Parliament for its support for the Commission proposal on the granting of macro-financial assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
I hope that at the next Council we can adopt a response which will allow us to quickly confront, as Mr Brok said, this important challenge and be coherent with our own past positions.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
DSABs 3 and 4/2001 - EU own resources in 2001-2002 budget (conciliation procedure)
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports, tabled on behalf of the Committee on Budgets:
(A5-0239/2001) by Mrs Haug and Mr Ferber, on the draft Supplementary and Amending Budgets nos 3/2001 and 4/2001 of the European Union for the financial year 2001 [9802/2001 - C5-0271/2001 - 2001/2049(BUD)] and
[9803/2001 - C5-0272/2001 - 2001/2049(BUD)];
(A5-0238/2001) by Mrs Haug, on the situation concerning the European Union' s own resources in 2001 [2001/2019(INI)];
(A5-0241/2001) by Mr Costa Neves, on the 2002 budget in view of the conciliation procedure before the Council' s first reading [2001/2063(BUD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, we are now completing another phase in the process of attempting to adopt, hopefully in December, the budget for 2002. This is a lengthy and complex process which, on the basis of the proposals made by the European Commission, seeks to achieve agreement between the Council and the European Parliament, the two branches of the budgetary authority.
Such agreement will require respect for the regulatory framework, for the existing agreements and between the institutions concerned, taking account of the representativeness of each one and the priorities that they legitimately define.
We must, therefore, work on the essence of the positions held by each of the parties involved, otherwise we will not be able to reach any kind of agreement.
I must emphasise that the report we are now discussing is a basis for negotiating with other institutions, which has been defined in accordance with the guidelines that we adopted in April; it is not the European Parliament' s final position on the 2002 budget.
As the basis for negotiations, it must not address issues on which Parliament has the final say.
It must lead to a discussion of aspects on which more positions held from more of a remove are required on issues on which the Council has the final say.
This applies to agricultural spending, security policy and international fisheries agreements.
It is the most basic common sense also to address other key issues, such as the level of payments for next year and the pace of the Commission reform.
We are therefore, I repeat, in a negotiating phase.
I must emphasise the essence of Parliament' s positions, with which you are, of course, all familiar.
In December 2000, the Council agreed that, by 30 June of this year, the Commission would present a progress report on a raft of matters, with a view to increasing the levels and the quality of budgetary implementation, improving coordination between legislative and budgetary procedures, and ensuring the success of the Commission reform.
This means that one of Parliament' s priorities is to consider issues of the budget' s quality, and their impact, and to assess and take account of the budget' s implementation.
The progress report has already been presented by the Commission, which is cause for satisfaction, and we are sure that it will seen as the crucial instrument that it is and which we are already beginning to study.
Furthermore, in April of this year, the European Parliament adopted guidelines that suggest the perennial matters in the progress report that I have just mentioned as political priorities, as well as food safety and consumer confidence, together with sustainable agriculture, the definition of priorities and, more generally, better implementation of the budget, including very specific aspects such as e-learning, a key aspect of the priority that is always given to issues of employment and social inclusion, and policy development in the field of asylum and immigration.
In this context, it is understandable that there should be concern at the speed at which commitments are met by making payments in due time and, at the same time, effectively reducing the amount of delayed payments and reducing the amount of RAL (amounts outstanding).
We feel, therefore, that we must take maximum advantage of the payment possibilities laid down in the financial perspective and we want to respect the financial perspective for 2002 to a value of 1.14% of the combined GNP of the Member States.
I must also highlight the following: the need for a precise, rigorous and up-to-date assessment of the implementation of the common agricultural policy reform, specifically taking account of the consequences of the BSE and foot-and-mouth crises.
We also need a timetabled approach to the future, which involves respecting the commitments given by the European Union at successive European Councils, particularly the Lisbon Council on employment and competitiveness, the Tampere Council on asylum and immigration and the Nice Council on the consequences of failing to conclude fisheries agreements with Morocco; the clarification of costs for external policy and common security, particularly with regard to the division of responsibilities between the Council and the Commission, respect for the financial perspective' s ceilings in category 4 too, in which attention must be paid to the traditional priorities of the European Parliament, which are well-known; the precise identification of real expenditure resulting from the enlargement process, with particular emphasis on administrative expenditure in category 5 and lastly, real consideration of the proposals previously made by Parliament, especially those relating to preparatory action and pilot projects.
I shall end here, in the hope that on 20 July - the date scheduled for the conciliation meeting - the positive and constructive spirit that I personally feel, will spread to all of those present.
Mr President, I should in any case like to congratulate Mr Costa Neves on the strategy which he has outlined on behalf of Parliament.
It gives a powerful signal indicating what Parliament does and does not want.
Coming from the Committee on Fisheries, I also notice that, with regard to agriculture, the European Commission has in any case understood that Parliament would like to set aside a large proportion of the budget for food safety and the fight against animal diseases, but as for the fishery guidelines, I have to say that it appears as if the Commission is still on a different planet.
It does not breathe a word about the problem that, after the failure of the fisheries agreement with Morocco, less money is being spent.
Neither does it mention the problems this has caused in vulnerable coastal regions in Spain and Portugal.
Nothing about the problems in the northern regions as a result of the temporary fishing ban due to the worrying cod stocks.
Even the Council is, for the time being, not taking any action further to implement Nice.
Needless to say, it is evident that the transfer of money from one heading to another, from heading 4 (external actions) to heading 2 (structural policy) is no child' s play.
Also because the ceiling of Berlin has been determined per heading.
But financial crisis management, such as the fight against the BSE crisis and aid for the Balkans, has shown that decisive politicians are not hindered by strict budget rules.
The EP' s Committee on Fisheries agrees with rapporteur Costa Neves where he states that both the Commission and the Council may actually be slightly too relaxed in some areas. At the same time, it prompts him to boost the creativity and decisiveness of the Commission and the Council.
Our proposals are as follows. We would earmark the funding that has not been used for fishery agreements under external actions, heading 4, to alleviate the effects in the coastal regions of South-Eastern Europe.
We would target structural funds to address the crisis in fisheries, which have been left over following the failure of the fishery agreement with Morocco, and further to the measures which have been taken to protect cod and hake stocks. We would, for the time being, set aside any balance in the account in 2001 to restructure the fisheries sector and, if possible, use the instrument of flexibility to fight the fisheries crisis.
Finally, we would also like specific research to be initiated into the use of genetic modification techniques in fish farming.
Europe is lagging far behind the United States and Canada in this respect, and only sound research will provide a basis to keep this technique in European fish farming at bay.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy. (ES) Mr President, in heading 4, external actions, the cuts in the preliminary draft budget and those which appear to result from the first reading in Council are, in some cases, significant.
Furthermore, as we know, it will not be possible this year to use the flexibility instrument in this chapter.
We have just heard what the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries has said.
We in the Committee on Foreign Affairs wish to point out that the extension of the Union' s activities in this field, particularly in the field of the CFSP, requires sufficient contributions.
The uncertainty in the allocation of resources compromises the credibility and prestige of an external policy which must be in a position to fulfil its commitments and ambitions.
For all these reasons, the Committee on Foreign Affairs - in the context presented to us by the rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves, of a stage of the budgetary procedure, both in this conciliation procedure and at first reading, and in accordance with the priorities set in its opinion of 20 March, approved unanimously in the Committee on Foreign Affairs - has the purpose of requesting the allocation of sufficient budgetary resources to finance the new priorities.
This of course, Mr President, bearing in mind their healthy, effective and transparent management.
The Commission has included approximately 120 million in relation to the fisheries agreement with Morocco, and we, like the general rapporteur for the budget, ask that the commitments made at the Nice Summit be fulfilled.
Therefore, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we in the Committee on Foreign Affairs wish to say that if the European Union wishes to have influence on the world stage in the economic, commercial, financial and industrial fields, we must be coherent and provide ourselves with the necessary resources to do so.
. (NL) Mr President, this is always a slightly awkward moment in the procedure.
On the one hand, we are preparing for the initial contacts with the Council.
We also know, however, that those contacts will never solve everything entirely.
That is also evident from the absence of the representatives of the Council on the other side of the table.
Their curiosity only gets the better of them once the real procedure reaches completion.
That is why we can only make some general comments at this stage.
On behalf of my Committee, I should like to say that generally speaking, we agree to continuing last year' s policy, although we do have a number of specific concerns.
Our main concern is actually related to the proposals of the European Commission itself.
I have already drawn your attention to it. Particularly the huge cutback which the Commission proposes for the employment chapter gives us great cause for concern.
If you add this to what is happening in the funds, for example in model projects, our concerns only grow.
These concerns are exacerbated even more if one considers other projects which we agreed on last year in the budget, yet which failed to get off the ground.
They do seem to get snarled up in the Commission apparatus, but I do not want to go into that now.
That is worrying because we are making an arrangement here in respect of the budget, namely if the Commission agrees to that arrangement, it is also responsible for the implementation, and it should not try to get out of that responsibility via all kinds of legal or illegal backdoors.
In my opinion, that can be an extremely difficult issue in this procedure.
That is, in actual fact, our main concern at the moment.
It is no longer a matter of money.
It is now simply about appropriately spending the money that is available now and that was allocated in the previous budget.
We know that there are plenty of projects, but ever stricter criteria are being prescribed.
In some cases, the number of countries increases dramatically.
Originally, it was possible for three countries jointly to submit a project. That has now suddenly increased to seven.
We then wonder whether that is how both institutions should deal with each other. I should like to put this to you now.
We will return to the other issues in due course.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we hope that the presidency of the Council can spend more time with us, at least when we hold our mini-sessions in Brussels.
In any event, in this joint debate on Supplementary and Amending Budgets Nos 3 and 4, the mandate for the budgetary conciliation and the report on the situation concerning the European Union' s own resources, the PPE-DE Group wishes to state that it is voting unanimously in favour in the first two cases and in favour by a majority in relation to own resources.
Clearly, the most potentially controversial issue in this Haug report relates to Parliament' s support for the possibility of opening a debate on the establishment of a direct Community tax which would be a source of autonomous funding for the Community budget.
Within all the groups. Mr President, there are differing sensitivities in relation to European integration, and this is all the more obvious when it comes to funding issues.
Therefore, Mrs Haug' s tendency towards this possible tax is too much for certain national delegations.
However, I believe that the majority of my Group will possibly agree with it.
Of more immediate importance is the mandate for conciliation by Mr Costa Neves, and we publicly thank him for being prepared to hold dialogue and for seeking a consensus.
We are sure that, thanks to this way of proceeding, we will be able to achieve successful results.
We are presenting clear proposals for the conciliation of 20 July, which the Council should not reject, because they represent the majority will of this House elected by the citizens of Europe.
Amongst these concerns I would like to stress our doubts about the reserve in agriculture, the low implementation of appropriations in food safety and the future of rural development.
I would also like to stress the will for the Council to comply with the Nice commitments with regard to overcoming the problems caused by the absence of a fishing agreement with Morocco and the need to safeguard Parliament' s external priorities, which are always cut at first reading by the Council and, even more, the indispensable consultation procedure which the Council should carry out with Parliament when adopting commitments on external policy.
Lastly, I would like to mention the need to deal with the problems that have already been mentioned in Category 5, especially the separation of administration expenditure and the identification of the Council' s expenditure in that category.
Ladies and gentlemen, all of this makes up the hub of Parliament' s negotiating position for the conciliation of 20 July, with regard to which we ask the Belgian presidency to maintain an open position and hold dialogue so that we can deal with the final part of the budgetary procedure with guarantees of success for all the parties.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid I must begin by informing Markus Ferber from Bavaria that he will not necessarily find commonalities on those points where he hoped to find them. Let me explain why.
He said that we must first establish a different form of institutional development for the European Union before we talk about the EU' s finances.
I think this is wrong.
This is especially apparent from the issues before us today.
If you ask any member of the public nowadays what the European Union spends its money on, 30% will say 'to cover its administrative costs' , and another 30% will have no idea at all where the money goes.
That means that 60% do not know what we do with the resources provided by the tax-payer.
However, the tax-payers know that what they see as massive amounts of money are involved.
Enormous sums of money are spent, and I think that today of all days, the general public would be astonished, yet again, by what is happening at European level.
On the one hand, we have a Draft Supplementary and Amending Budget.
In one of them, the European Union, the Commission, shows that it has no intention of complying more than cursorily with the will of Parliament, at least as far as the sections on UCLAF or the new OLAF structure are concerned.
We made a very clear statement on this issue during the year.
We wanted to shape personnel and the staffing structure in such a way as to create a new institution which fulfils modern requirements.
In fact, it is only thanks to our colleague Herbert Bösch, who was willing to grasp the nettle, that no attempt was made to redeploy the staff and reshape this same institution - which, of course, was the focus of intensive debate last time - into another, which cannot develop entirely new structures as its personnel remains the same.
This also deserves criticism here.
My second point is this.
We will be returning EUR 11 billion to the Member States.
EUR 11 billion means that we have a budget underspend of around 10%.
We have an underspend in the field of consumer policy, where just 74.7% of funds are being used. Consumer policy - that is a word to savour!
This is the issue we have spent more time and energy discussing over the last few months, if not years, than any other - and yet only 75% of its budget is actually being spent.
We have allocated funds to address one of the European Union' s major problems, namely under-employment.
Let me give you the rate of expenditure in the field of employment policy: 39.6%.
We have millions of unemployed, money has been made available, and yet less than 40% of these funds is being spent.
Explain that to the European public!
We are handing back billions!
In category IV, i.e. external actions, we see that just under 60% of the funds allocated to the European initiative for democracy and the protection of human rights - an issue which we spend hours discussing for every resolution, as well as under "urgent business" - is being spent.
The rest is forfeited and goes back to the Member States.
Let me make it very clear: the European public must be told where the money goes.
However, they should also be told where it comes from.
That is being discussed quite specifically today, for it is always implied that the Member States provide the money. That is the case here today as well.
We must ensure that the public understands the situation.
We must make the revenue side and the expenditure side more transparent.
We cannot continue to explain why we battle against the Council in the budget debates to secure an extra 11 billion, only to hand it back in the Draft Supplementary and Amending Budget at the beginning of the following year because it has not been used.
The money then goes back into the relevant national budgets. We must move away from this situation.
There must be a reliable and accountable source of revenue which is transparent to the public.
Whatever form this takes, we must not cobble together a solution - Markus Ferber is quite right on that point.
We must not be tempted, as a knee-jerk reaction, to agree any old solution as quickly as possible, for an uncoordinated, unstructured debate only leads to confusion. We must be able to manage this.
Once we have set this up on the revenue side, once it is directly linked to citizens, and the expenditure side is then controlled by citizens as well - for they will look very carefully at what we are doing with the money - no further funds will be returned to the Member States.
Instead, they will ask us: how have you actually managed the money?
This is where we draw together the two issues which we are discussing today - the Draft Supplementary and Amending Budget, with massive movements of money on the one hand and own resources on the other. In other words, the issue is this: how much is the public actually paying for Europe?
In my view, there is no need to be frightened about telling the public what we are doing.
We have good arguments, we have very good policy areas and policies, and we can present them persuasively.
There is no need to be frightened of the public: we simply need to approach them very openly and transparently, and invite them to work with us on building Europe here.
Mr President, the package under discussion concerns the EU' s accounts for last year, own resources and next year' s budget.
I would like to express my sincere thanks to the rapporteurs, Mrs Haug, Mr Ferber and Mr Costa Neves.
Last year' s accounts are astonishing: they show a surplus of more than eleven billion euros.
This is because revenue was EUR 3.3 billion more than was estimated and expenditure EUR 8.5 billion less than forecast.
The increase in revenue is a good thing. However, the saving in expenditure is deceptive, based, as it is, mainly on the lamentable under-utilisation of Structural Funds.
A good 20% of payments were not taken up, amounting to EUR 6.5 billion.
These payments will be carried over to the years following, meaning that no real savings have been made at all.
The main reason for under-utilisation was that new Objective programmes were slow to be approved.
Only half of the EU Objective 1 programmes came to be approved in 2000, almost two years after the Agenda 2000 decision taken in Berlin.
Just 8% of the Objective 2 programmes were approved.
No money at all was spent on new Community initiatives for the second year in succession.
Administrative payments are in a pitiful state.
The Commission must improve its ability to pay considerably.
It has to bear the responsibility for seeing to it that matters are dealt with efficiently and on time.
The present omissions will be reflected as backlogs in budgets in the years to come.
The other peculiarity in the accounts is the reduction in the refund made in respect of the United Kingdom' s contribution.
It is odd that amendments should be made to this supplementary budget that go back to the budgets of two and four years ago.
Why were these amendments not made at the time?
Mr Costa Neves' s report provides a good basis for discussions next year.
According to preliminary estimates, administrative expenditure of the institutions under heading 5 will exceed the financial perspectives, which is mainly due to the increase of more than 9% in the Council' s expenditure, which, in turn, is the result of a rise in CFSP expenditure.
Parliament must strongly insist on its demand that a separate plan showing a structure of the posts involved in the administration of this policy should be put forward.
This expenditure is not part of a gentleman' s agreement between Parliament and the Council according to which the institutions do not interfere in one another' s budgets.
Mr President, I wish to speak about own resources.
The tables appended to Mrs Haug' s report and dedicated to the subject of own resources do not give a correct picture of the different share of contributions among the Member States.
It has to be said aloud that the United Kingdom is one of the EU members getting a free ride. It has been given a reduction on contributions.
It should form part of the report' s conclusions that the United Kingdom should be made to pay its contribution according to the same principles as everyone else.
In addition, the report' s statistics disguise the real situation with respect to the customs duties the UK collects on behalf of the EU.
But customs duties disguise the share of contributions made by Holland and Belgium still more, as these countries also collect customs duties on goods bound for other countries.
Holland and Belgium are not the large net contributors the figures show them to be.
The report' s conclusions call for the introduction of a special European tax.
This is no mere accident.
The country holding the presidency, Belgium, has also announced it will pursue the issue.
There are two different opinions on this in our group.
The tax is supported by those who are guided by the spirit of European federalism, while those who wish to preserve their national sovereignty are opposed to the EU having the power to levy and collect taxes.
Federalism is the making of the European Union into a federal state.
If the EU is given the power to levy and collect taxes we will be paving the way for federalism.
As a representative of taxpayers in a small net contributor country I cannot endorse European taxation for the purposes of a federal state.
Mrs Haug' s conclusion in her report is too radical.
Mr President, I too want to speak about Mrs Haug' s report on own resources.
Her advice that we should go for a European tax is premature and unnecessary.
She says that the Belgian presidency is expected to put this forward or start a debate.
I have read the notes on the work programme by the Belgian presidency and there is little or no reference to it.
There is only one reference to the tax on flows of speculative capital - the so-called Tobin tax. That was voted down by Parliament only a few months ago.
At the end of the document there is also reference to direct or indirect funding of the European Union, so that we can once again operate with the European Union' s own resources.
I put to her that the Prime Minister of Belgium only, in the last few days, said that he does not want to pursue this path towards a European Union tax because "it is sensitive".
It is very much a sensitive matter and totally unnecessary.
Mrs Haug mentions that the amount of money coming in from the nation-states through gross national product is going to rise.
I accept that.
I sat in the House of Commons in the United Kingdom for 18 years before coming into this Chamber.
I always thought it was marvellous that the percentage of gross national product coming into European spending was declining.
That downward path has continued during the last two years. I applaud that.
It shows good and effective control of spending and nation-states do not mind passing on that money to the European Union.
I see no reason whatsoever for the European Union to raise its own direct tax.
That is why I have tabled four amendments tomorrow for voting.
Two of those will be on a roll-call vote.
You can see this evening that there is opposition from various countries.
I hope that people will vote in support of my amendments and oppose the European tax.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me first thank the rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves, for his proposal and for such good cooperation.
We on the Committee on Budgets have reached agreement on most areas.
It is my guess that, this year, it will be issues of principle which dominate the budget debate more than individual budget items, issues which will feature increasingly in the debate in the coming years.
I am thinking particularly about enlargement and the development of a common foreign and security policy and its budgetary effects. I am thinking of the reform of the agricultural and fisheries policies.
In addition, I am thinking of internal reform, especially the Commission' s ability to actually implement the decisions of the budgetary authority.
The basic conditions are quite worrying.
Popular faith in the EU is waning in many Member States.
At the same time, we are on the threshold of perhaps the most important change ever - eastward enlargement.
In the face of this challenge, the EU' s ability to carry out its priorities must be strengthened considerably.
It is therefore worrying, even if some finance ministers are rubbing their hands with glee, that the level of budgetary implementation is so low that we now have to pay back EUR 11 billion to Member States.
The problem of promises of aid and assistance being delayed or not being carried out is an obstacle to the whole Union.
It is therefore good that the Commission now wants to increase payments and reform the work in the direction of more modern, efficient and open management.
This is something that the Council must not change.
With regard to the points at issue, I want first to raise the subject of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Although this is a large and complicated issue, we must now increase the pace of change.
Before we adopt the budget for 2002 and, above all, before we fully conclude negotiations with the prospective Member States, we absolutely must be clearer about the future Common Agricultural Policy.
In this context, I would like to point out the view of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
This committee is seeking, in its proposals for amendments, to confirm that agricultural expenditure is to be kept within the framework of the budget, but although there are technical difficulties, especially in the light of enlargement, they are also seeking to redistribute funds in the interest of comprehensive development of the countryside, category 1B.
This is to be welcomed, and I believe that we should continue on this path.
Otherwise, we are currently mostly concerned with the reason for the Commission wanting such large reserves for BSE and foot and mouth disease when they still have the opportunity of adjusting the proposed budget themselves.
In this respect, we would like to postpone any further decision on our position until we have received more answers to our questions.
Let me also briefly comment on the breakdown of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
The fact that this cannot now be implemented will have consequences for the fishing fleets of several countries.
I, for one, am sceptical about the EU' s major subsidies within the agricultural and fisheries policies, but we must still, of course, take into account the problems of the fishermen who have been counting on new opportunities for earning a living.
We must support proactive restructuring and test the possibility of creating funds for this under budget headings other than category 4.
In addition, there is a need for developed proposals from the Commission.
Although the conciliation into which we are currently entering primarily concerns headings 1, 2 and 5, we would like to take the opportunity to highlight a few other points.
Last year, Parliament promoted an extra focus on employment and small businesses.
Following the development of the Lisbon Process at the Stockholm Summit, there is every reason to keep to this set of priorities.
As such, we must also clear up a number of the problems about which Mr Pronk, for example, spoke earlier.
In addition, we would now also like to focus on the area of e-learning, which we believe must receive resources in order for it to be developed into the key area it must become if we are to be able to increase growth and ensure that this growth is more evenly distributed across Europe.
Finally: we are also concerned about the external undertakings.
They have presented the greatest difficulty in 2000 and 2001.
These problems have not, of course, gone away.
We have made considerable commitments to Kosovo and Yugoslavia, at the same time as having major and neglected needs to meet in other, even poorer areas of the world.
This is one of our most vital tasks, but we have huge problems which we must be able to solve in order to implement everything we have promised.
Although there are major challenges ahead of us, I nonetheless believe that, with good will, we will be able to solve them together.
Mr President, the agricultural budget is probably typified by strokes of good fortune as well as huge setbacks.
The setbacks are the outbreaks of animal diseases.
The impact of those setbacks for the following year will probably not be fully known to us until the end of October, to be exact.
One thing is certain: the strokes of luck will not last forever.
We can expect setbacks in the form of outbreaks every year.
I am about to repeat what I said last year, the year before that and God knows how long before that.
It is irresponsible, in my opinion, to have EUR 41 million earmarked in the budget for the outbreak of infectious animal diseases.
If we consider how much BSE and swine fever outbreaks have cost, and what foot and mouth is costing now, then those 41 million are a mere pittance.
I therefore believe that the Commission should adopt a structural approach in order to improve the situation.
Is it possible to have insurance cover in place? Is it possible to have a specific cattle fund, and does it not amount to distortion of competition if the national portion in one country is to be paid by the farmers, while it is entirely government-funded in other countries?
Those are the aspects which the Commission, the Member States and the rapporteur need to work on in the short term, for it is quite likely that we will be experiencing setbacks of this kind again in future.
Mr President, this debate on the EU' s own resources and on EU tax is familiar to us all.
It comes around every year.
The positions are well known, and in a way it seems quite unnecessary to repeat the debate and decisions year after year.
Apart from the questions of pure principle, one might wonder whether higher and new taxes are what EU Member States and EU citizens really need.
We are all highly taxed.
Certain Member States have some of the highest taxation levels in the world - I myself come from one such country.
If we look at them, it is hardly these countries which have experienced the greatest economic growth in the last decade.
Of course the report talks about tax in total not increasing.
However this is a theoretical proposition which has very little to do with practical reality.
I also believe it is the case that if a tax is introduced, particularly a new tax level as in this case, taxation will also increase.
It is almost inevitable.
I would also like to mention the fact that the rapporteur says he is seeking to strengthen the link between the Union and its citizens' .
This is no doubt admirable and important, but in my view it should happen in a completely different manner.
I am very doubtful indeed whether people would feel any stronger connection with the EU through having to pay higher taxes than they do already.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to jointly debate the system of own resources and the next budget at the point of conciliation reinforces the idea that income and expenditure are two sides of the same coin.
There have been calls here for fiscal autonomy and codecision for income and expenditure, but first we must achieve suitable and fair funding of Community policies and we already know that there are differing opinions about the most efficient system for achieving it.
Sooner or later we will have to reach a permanent agreement, but first we will have to debate and clarify the issues selected at the Nice Council.
It seems a pointless exercise to talk about a new philosophy for own resources without having cleared up the fundamental unknown factors first.
It is not very prudent to begin building a house from the roof.
In any event, to use the argument of the issue of net balances - as has been done - does not move in the right direction, but, for many reasons, contributes to undermining the principles of the Union.
The question today is whether the new decision on own resources effectively makes progress towards greater equity and transparency and takes more account of the Member States' tax capacity.
It is clear that the gradual reduction of the maximum reference rate for the VAT resource contributes to correcting the regressive aspects of the system in force.
The Member States' contributions via the fourth resource or VAT must be proportionate with their contribution to the Community GDP as a key element of safeguarding the equity of the system.
Therefore we must keep up our efforts in this direction.
The proposal also has some negative aspects, which are far from negligible.
The maintenance, albeit with a modification of the calculation system, of the so-called correction of budgetary imbalances in favour of the United Kingdom, confirms that this procedure is totally contrary to the desired transparency and simplicity.
With regard to the 2002 budget, I would like to point out that the Costa Neves report - and I congratulate the rapporteur on his work - provides the necessary elements for a good negotiation.
I believe that there is a margin for reaching final agreements with the Council.
I would ask the Commission to fulfil its commitment to propose a suitable instrument and funding to deal with the failure of the fishing agreement with Morocco, which also means that the aid can be used in projects for alternative economic activity in the regions affected.
I feel that I need to give you some information in light of Mr Dover' s speech.
Earlier, you called Mr Heaton-Harris to speak for the Budgetary Control Committee and he was not here, and he is still not here.
I think I know the reason why - because he is knackered or should I say 'physically exhausted' following a football match this afternoon between British Labour Members and British Conservative Members which the Labour Members won by 7 goals to 1.
However, Mr Dover and so were also involved.
You expect Labour members to stand the pace!
Since he is here, I think Mr Dover should be congratulated, not for what he said, but because he is present here tonight when Mr Heaton-Harris is not, and he is a much younger man.
(Mixed reactions)
, Chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
(DE) Mr President, I should like to address Commissioner Schreyer.
I am rather surprised to hear her say I wrote her a strongly worded letter.
She quotes me as having written that she should kindly come to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
That cannot be true.
I wrote a businesslike letter in which I asked her to come to us in the Committee for Budgetary Control in accordance with our agreement between the Commission and Parliament.
If Mrs Schreyer has other commitments, I do, however, assume that she is able to send a senior official to give the Committee the information it requires.
The letter has no other meaning.
Mrs Schreyer, I am somewhat astonished that you read the letter in that way.
It was entirely businesslike.
I just wanted to explain that.
Thank you.
Thank you Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Management of Community programmes
Mr President, what we have here, albeit under a somewhat technical title, namely the creation of executive agencies to be entrusted with certain tasks in the management of Community programmes, is a rather important reform, and an element which is by no means peripheral to the administrative reform which is taking place within the Commission.
I must say straightaway that the Committee on Budgetary Control and this House are very much in sympathy with the principle of the agency that has been proposed to us, and our initial impression is a favourable one, because, in creating this agency, the Commission is responding to a matter of fundamental concern to Parliament, a concern which it expressed in the context of the budgetary procedure for the year 2000.
Parliament was anxious to see the dismantling of the technical assistance offices (TAOs), which were not supervised very well and which did not come under the Commission' s control, and to have them replaced by establishments which would exhibit both the security which goes with the public nature of the institutions and, at the same time, the flexibility of management and operation which is necessary in order to accomplish a certain number of tasks, in particular the implementation of certain programmes.
In short, what we said was, - 'Let us abolish the TAOs, but let us not replace them with central Commission services, but rather let us invent something new' .
These agencies are certainly something new.
The Commission' s proposal forms part of a greater whole, an externalisation policy which comprises three facets. First, there is the privatisation of certain specific, precisely defined tasks, a privatisation which we are in favour of provided that the private persons who will be responsible for these tasks are not given integrated administrative tasks to do.
Second, there are the executive agencies themselves.
Finally, there is a third aspect about which we are more doubtful, but which we are not about to discuss this evening, and that is the creation of national agencies, which will be responsible for running a certain number of programmes in the territory of the Member States.
The proposed regulation which you have before you is concerned only with the statute of the agencies.
Therefore, Madam Commissioner, in principle you have the support of the rapporteur and the support of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
That does not mean, as I am sure you suspected because you know me, that we agree with everything.
There are a certain number of points on which we agree and a certain number on which we disagree.
As far as the first group is concerned, as I have already said, we agree with the principle of the agency.
We also agree with the detailed rules for the management of that body, part of which will consist of staff seconded from the Commission, because we want this agency to be clearly subordinate, both politically and administratively, to the Commission. The other part of the body will consist of more flexible staff recruited on the basis of temporary contracts tailored to the management flexibility needed for programmes of limited duration.
We also believe, and I think that this is a point on which we agree, that these new bodies must be subject to the same controls, and the same obligations regarding communication, audit and OLAF competency, as the Commission' s central services.
On this point, I think we see things from the same angle.
On the other hand, there are a certain number of points on which we still have doubts which need to be cleared up.
The first of these concerns the definition of the tasks that are likely to be externalised and entrusted to the executive agencies.
This is an old issue, and one on which the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control are in step, even if some of us are not entirely of the same opinion. We would like these externalised tasks to be really externalised, because they are of a temporary nature and because they require the use of temporary or specialist staff, but we do not want them to be externalised simply because they would cost less because they would be using less well paid and less qualified staff.
That is not our objective.
Secondly, we believe that the Commission' s legal responsibility should be complete and direct.
This is a point of law on which we may disagree, but I do not believe that we are fundamentally opposed to one another.
In the same way, and this is quite an important technical point which Mrs Theato, the Chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, is particularly keen on, we would like to see discharge being granted to these bodies at the same time as discharge is granted to the Commission.
We do not want them to be separated, and we do not want to have to know about innumerable separate discharges. We want to be able to decide on discharge with a single vote, for both operating appropriations and administrative appropriations.
I am approaching my conclusion. There are still two points on which we still differ, and which are causing a problem at the committee stage.
First of all, the rapporteur had proposed that 25% of the staff of the agency should actually come from the Commission, although the Committee on Budgetary Control did not go along with this proposal and has not, in fact, agreed to it.
On behalf of our group we tabled an amendment which was intended to reinstate this request, but slightly altered, and after negotiations with the Commission we specified that the figure of 25% would not have to be achieved until after a certain time had elapsed, in this case a period of eighteen months, which would enable the agency to reach cruising speed.
I hope to be able to convince committee members in the Socialist Group to support this proposal.
I have not managed to do so yet, but I have not given up hope.
I now come to my last point, and it is an important one. It concerns the nature of the typical staff statutes and contracts.
We disagree on this point, and I am concerned because, following the Cocobu vote, I saw proposals for regulations which rather worried me.
We are concerned to note that staff would be subject to non-renewable statutes.
If this is the case, we shall find ourselves with staff of inferior quality, who are less loyal and who will not be in a position to ensure continuity of service on all occasions, thus giving rise to periods of interruption which will be detrimental to the interests of those who benefit from the services and for whom the programmes are intended.
On this point, Madam Commissioner, I want to ask you for a firm commitment.
We want to have continuity of service, and we want the staff who are used by these agencies to have renewable arrangements according to need, and not to have their contracts cut off arbitrarily and automatically while the programme is still going on.
Those, Madam Commissioner, are the feelings of our committee.
I shall stop there, having reached my conclusion, which is that we support your proposal in principle, while waiting to hear from you certain clarifications on the points which I have raised.
Thank you, Mr President, for your patience, and I should also like to thank my fellow committee members for their warm support.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission says it cannot cope with the ever growing number of Community programmes and their implementation with its statutory number of staff.
That may be right. It means the Commission must delegate and decentralise.
Various models have in the past proved unsuitable or failures.
Either they were not financially transparent, like the minibudgets, or they were conducive to fraud like the TAOs, which is why Parliament demanded their abolition.
Now the Commission is presenting a proposal for a regulation for the statute of so-called executive agencies, which the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, has just explained.
I should like to congratulate him on his very detailed treatment of this proposal.
I should like to underline a number of important points in his report.
The Commission must provide a precise list of the tasks to be transferred, whether they are public or non-public and the type of executive agency to which they are to be transferred.
Unfortunately, we do not yet have the promised handbook about that.
But it must be clear that responsibility for the proper and economic execution of the transferred tasks lies with the Commission, which is subject to discharge by Parliament, which means there can be no discharge for the agencies themselves.
Parliament must be provided with all the information and documents it requires for the purpose without delay.
The agencies are also subject to scrutiny by the Court of Auditors and, where appropriate, also by OLAF.
The Commission is also legally liable for the executive agencies, since they are not anchored in the Treaty as institutions in their own right.
The agencies must be evaluated within not more than three years to check they are operating as they should.
Finally, all contracts with outside agencies must be limited in time.
Mr Bourlanges has just mentioned that.
The framework regulation makes no provision for their term to be extended.
But I think there ought to be provision for that.
It is at all events important that at least 25% of executive agency staff should be seconded Commission officials in order to ensure internal supervision of administrative tasks and to see that the Commission' s responsibilities are fulfilled.
May I first of all use up a small proportion of my valuable speaking time to congratulate you on the excellent work you have done in the Conciliation Committee with regard to the Takeover Directive?
I have stood up to the group discipline of my delegation to support you, but to no avail.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur on the report that is before us today.
He has adopted a very constructive attitude in the Committee on Budgetary Control and I should also like to congratulate him on the excellent working relationship with the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets. It is first-class teamwork, which deserves to be emulated.
Our group gives its unqualified support to the proposal of the European Commission.
We also back the report by Mr Bourlanges.
We are of the opinion that the Commission proposal forms a key component in the reform programme that was set in motion after 1999.
The proposal aims to externalise certain tasks in a clearly defined framework and end the administrative chaos of the technical assistance offices.
The Committee on Budgetary Control did tighten the proposal of the European Commission on a number of scores, as Mrs Theato has already mentioned.
Firstly, the location of the registered office of the agencies.
The text now refers to opening branch offices for agencies.
According to our amendment, this reference is being deleted.
There is still room for improvement.
Mr Mulder has tabled a sound amendment and I should like you, Mr Bourlanges, to consider adopting Mr Mulder' s amendment as a supplement to your amendment, so that we do not need to choose between the two.
Secondly, the provisions on financial audit and control are being tightened.
The obligation has been included to produce a report annually.
That is a major improvement in my view.
Thirdly, we call for one Financial Regulation for all agencies, as opposed to a different Financial Regulation for each agency.
If not, we fear that we will no longer see the wood for the trees.
And finally, OLAF' s powers relating to agencies and relating to the European Commission should be the same in our opinion.
We still beg to differ with the rapporteur on a number of points.
Firstly, his definition of externalisation is rather skimpy.
He would like to restrict externalisation to temporary tasks and tasks of a technical nature.
In practice, it is true that that will often be the nature of those tasks, but we find it too restricted.
A decisive Commission needs flexibility.
The question is what is most efficient, what is most cost-effective? That question should be central, and we as European Parliament should not plug that opening.
And secondly, this has already been mentioned, Mr Bourlanges proposes to include a minimum percentage for the number of Commission officials who need to work in such an agency.
Needless to say, a certain percentage of Commission officials will need to work in such an agency, but it appears inappropriate in our view to place a figure on that percentage.
That will differ for each agency according to the nature and work of the agency.
Mr Bourlanges said in the committee: surely the Socialists are in favour of workers' rights? I would say: surely, the PPE is in favour of abolishing unnecessary rules and in favour of freedom?
And finally, I should like to ask the Commission its opinion on the amendments tabled by Mr Ellis to this report.
- (NL) Mr President, I should first of all like to congratulate Mr Bourlanges.
Needless to say, the proposal we are discussing at the moment has become inevitable after the events of a number of years ago.
It is necessary for us to further regulate the task of the executive bodies so as to avoid the mistakes of the past.
What will be the specific task of those bodies? We totally agree with Mr Bourlanges that that still needs to be regulated.
One thing is certain: they will need to carry out a specific administrative task for a certain limited time.
What are the salient points for the liberal group?
Firstly, the Commission will always remain responsible for what happens.
It would be unacceptable if certain tasks were to be delegated to another executive agency on a discretionary basis.
Secondly, the percentage of the number of officials in such a body will need to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
We are opposed to putting a percentage figure on it, for we cannot possibly put a figure on it at the moment.
That will clearly depend on the tasks of the agency.
Concerning the discharge of agencies, the suggestion that this Parliament should look into the discharge of each agency seems unreasonable to us.
If the Commission is responsible, and if it is the case that the Commission is granted discharge by Parliament, that naturally implies that we indirectly grant the agencies discharge.
That is our strong view.
As for the remainder of the proposals, we generally back the amendments which the rapporteur has tabled.
Mr President, honourable Members, the European Parliament has played an important part in the whole discussion about Commission administrative reform.
The Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control have also played a key role in the question of externalisation.
The rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, in particular provided the initial impulse for the proposal for a regulation that is now before us.
I should like to thank you for your continued cooperation in working out the proposal and also the report.
I have to say that Mr Bourlanges already impressed me when he presented his magnum opus on externalisation in November 1999.
It is after all very difficult to produce good literature.
Many people would say that creating a literary work on externalisation was an impossible task.
But you really succeeded in presenting something of high literary value with this first report on externalisation.
My warmest congratulations.
It is now recognised that the Commission as a whole must concentrate more on its fundamental tasks.
That is the very reason why the subject of externalisation is being discussed, namely in response to the question of which tasks could be performed in a way other than within the Commission' s present administrative structures.
The plan envisages three methods and forms of externalisation, namely externalisation in the form of a delegation of tasks to executive agencies, the delegation of tasks to national agencies, i.e. decentralisation, and the assignment of tasks by contract to third parties.
The framework regulation for executive agencies defines a new form of Community institution that operates in the service of the Commission and has the task of managing and implementing Community programmes independently on the Commission' s behalf, including the associated execution of budget resources.
The regulation therefore provides the framework for the creation of executive agencies that the Commission will set up as and when required.
In this connection I should like to highlight the most important points once again. An executive agency is an instrument in the hands of and under the control of the Commission.
This also again makes it clear that it is wrong to equate externalisation with privatisation, as often happens in the debate, especially with officials.
You made it very clear, Mr Bourlanges, that such is not the case.
It means that the Commission' s responsibility for the execution of the budget under Article 274 of the EC Treaty is retained without qualification.
That is a point that has just been emphasised again by the Committee on Budgetary Control and also by you, Mrs Theato.
An executive agency is set up by the Commission.
The agency' s management bodies are appointed by the Commission.
The Commission exercises control through its own departments.
The operational resources managed by the agency remain in the European Union' s general budget and are administered by the agency in its capacity as an authorising party by delegation of the Commission.
The prerogatives of the budgetary authority are preserved. The budgetary authority approves the allocation to the agency' s administrative resources.
The agency' s establishment plan is submitted to the budgetary authority as part of the budgetary procedure.
We are unable to go along with the suggestion that a fixed percentage of the agency' s staff should be Commission officials.
Regarding the duration of the contracts, however, I can point out that setting up executive agencies only makes sense for tasks taking rather longer than one year.
That therefore means that contracts for contract personnel will run correspondingly longer.
I should also like to add that the European Parliament grants the discharge for the execution of the executive agency' s administrative and operational resources.
To sum up, the Commission is able to accept the following amendments: Nos 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12 in part, as well as Amendments Nos 16, paragraphs 1 and 2, in part and 17 and 21 in part.
I should like to thank the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control for their critical scrutiny of our proposal.
Their contributions will make our proposal more balanced and bring us a step closer to our goal of increasing administrative efficiency.
Mr President, just a brief word.
I should like to have a very clear explanation from the Commissioner on the third part of Amendment No 25, in other words on the point about renewable contracts.
I have discussed the matter with your staff, and I wanted a precise undertaking from you. I have not had it.
This is an issue of fundamental importance to us.
If we do not have a clear undertaking on this point by tomorrow, I shall make arrangements to submit to this House a motion to postpone the vote.
I have made it very clear to your staff that we want the people who work for this agency to be subject to contracts which can be renewed.
Obviously the renewal does not have to be obligatory, but it is something that I have been insisting on ever since I became aware of the proposed regulation which had been submitted to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
I should also like to say, by the way, that the proposed regulation in question had not been notified, for reasons of which I am unaware, either to the Committee on Budgetary Control or to the Committee on Budgets.
I therefore made it very clear to those who were responsible that I would be expecting an undertaking from the Commission this evening. I have not received it.
I would like to think that perhaps the message was not passed on.
You have until tomorrow to think about it, but I shall expect an undertaking from you before the vote takes place.
Regarding Amendment No 25, Mr Bourlanges, the first part is accepted by the Commission, the second part is rejected.
As regards the third part, I agree to your suggestion of clarifying the matter by tomorrow.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Safe operation of mining activities
.
(SV) Mr President, the background to this report and the Commission communication with which it deals is a number of extremely serious accidents which have happened in the mining industry in recent years.
In 1998, a dam collapsed at a mine in Spain, with very serious ecological consequences, and a similar accident occurred in Romania in 2000.
Both these accidents had international environmental consequences.
In recent years, we have also seen similar, but less extensive, accidents involving collapsing mine dams, e.g. in Northern Sweden and in Wales.
This has led to the EU reviewing its legislation with regard to this type of mining operation.
At the same time, we have large amounts of mining waste stored in various places releasing heavy metals and other toxic substances into the environment.
The content of this waste and the extent of the problem are also not entirely clear.
As such, mining waste is one of our major environmental problems.
The safety of mining operations is also a major environmental problem.
In its proposal, the Commission presents its thoughts on possible ways of improving EU legislation in this area.
In the main, we have decided, in our report, that things are moving in the right direction.
However, we have a number of comments on what we believe the more concrete content should be and on what we would like the Commission to propose.
We emphasise that, in the event of an accident, the responsibility should lie exclusively with the company, including responsibility for the environmental consequences, and that the mining industry should be included in the future Directive on environmental liability.
We would like more research in this area.
At the moment, there is a major lack of research into the management of mining waste.
We would, therefore, like the techniques currently found in various countries to be developed.
We would also like the EU to review its own financing of various projects in this field.
With regard to the main proposals, in my report we propose that the study now underway should also take in the candidate countries.
The study means going through old mining waste and identifying cases of serious environmental problems.
We know that the situation may be more serious in many candidate countries than it is in the present Member States.
We also emphasise that we would like a common method to be used so that it will be possible to compare results from different sources.
We believe that, in the cases where it is established that there is a major problem, these must also be followed up with actual action plans.
The most important element of the Commission' s proposal is the proposal for a new framework directive on mining waste.
I, as rapporteur, and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, believe that this is the right approach.
A special directive is needed, as neither the Directive on Waste nor the Directive on the landfill of waste is especially applicable to the management of mining waste.
We also stress that this directive must deal with both old mining waste and existing production.
This directive should also contain a provision obliging the Member States to have legislation on the restoration of those locations which have been used for mining operations.
Such legislation already exists in a number of Member States but not all, particularly if the candidate countries are included.
We would like specific provisions on dam safety which directly address these accidents.
In addition, we would like a direct ban on the method used in Baia Mare in Romania, where cyanide was used in open dams for metal extraction.
This is an extremely dangerous method which risks seriously damaging the surrounding environment if the dam bursts, as was the case in Romania.
A third element of the proposals is that the Seveso II Directive should be reviewed.
It is a question of broadening the scope of the directive in order to include requirements for contingency plans and information for mining operations.
In this area, there is the one amendment to the report, which comes from the Conservative PPE-DE Group.
The amendment proposes that the obligation set out in the Seveso II Directive should be restricted and only cover mining operations concerned with ore processing, i.e. metal extraction.
I believe it is too early to set such limitations before the Commission' s proposal has even been tabled.
It would be unwise to do this at this point. Instead, options should be kept open for all types of mining operation to be covered by this directive.
There was widespread agreement when we discussed this matter in committee.
I would like to thank my fellow Members for their comments and for the support I have received.
We have also enjoyed excellent cooperation with the Commission and now look forward quite soon to receiving the first proposals that have been promised, especially the revision of the Seveso II Directive.
We hope that the Commission will also listen to us regarding the focus of the forthcoming proposals.
Thank you for such excellent cooperation.
On behalf of my Group, I welcome the Commission' s report and the rapporteur' s report.
The incidents which precipitated the study and the subsequent reports in Spain and in Hungary have made us aware of the problems posed by mines and mine-workings, both old and new.
The potential problems - particularly the problems of water pollution - are cross-boundary problems and therefore worthy of European-wide legislation.
After consideration of existing legislation, be it on IPPC, landfill or Seveso, and in each case I have acted as the rapporteur at different stages of development of that legislation, it is clear that none of them can provide a comfortable solution to the range of problems presented by mining operations.
So I would concur with the rapporteur that a new piece of legislation - some kind of new initiative - is required to regulate the mining industry in particular.
I would raise two points with the rapporteur.
Firstly, old sites do not necessarily need to be cleaned up.
Many old sites are literally centuries old and have developed in such a way that they are now sites of scientific interest and contain particular flora and fauna.
I would urge that we should consider preserving sites and using sites in that way rather than simply clearing them off the face of the earth at great expense.
Secondly, I would say that classifying mining waste as waste is very difficult when you consider that large amounts of it are simply crushed rock and quite similar to products that you would get from any quarry in the Union.
Therefore I would say that we have to look more particularly at processed waste from mines which often contains high levels of toxic chemicals.
That does require regulation.
I would say that the amendment from the EPP Group is not particularly helpful, since it tries to reduce the scope of this directive to the mining of metal ores.
From my own experience, the first tailings dams I ever saw were in Derbyshire in the north of England, and they were the result of the mining of fluorospa, not a metal as any chemistry teacher will tell you.
But they present exactly the same problems as tailings dams resulting from mining operations.
I would recommend a positive vote tomorrow and, I hope, rapid action by the Commission to implement the recommendations.
I would like to say that our Group very much supports this report.
We think it is excellent.
The mining sector' s track-record leaves a lot to be desired, not just in Europe, but in eastern Europe and worldwide.
One of the very important things in this report is the need for a future directive on mining waste.
It should cover both operational and abandoned sites and disposal and contain provisions for mining waste action programmes as well as provisions to facilitate more sustainable extraction: site cleaning, waste reduction, and dry-tailing disposal in the case of metal mining waste.
Mining companies need to establish decommissioning plans for new and existing mines and tailing ponds.
I just have to look at it in my own country where mining companies have come in and basically taken what they want. They then leave the mess behind to be cleaned up.
As Mr Bowe said, there may be "historical" mining sites of interest, but we are really talking about tailing ponds which contain many dangerous substances.
Local communities have to live with that and, in some areas, even farming has been affected because the mining companies leave their mess behind, affecting not just the water supplies but also the land in general.
We really have to take into account all sectors in the community.
The mining industry has got away with it for far too long.
We really need an extremely tight clampdown on how mining industries operate and a future directive on mining waste is extremely important.
I would just like to finish by saying that the report itself is excellent and I hope that it gets full support.
I would also like to confirm that our group would be reluctant to support the amendment proposed by the PPE Group for the reasons just mentioned by other speakers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this evening I am standing in for Margot Wallström on this topic because Mrs Wallström had to leave today for the international climate talks in Japan and Australia.
I think the Committee will be fully in agreement with Mrs Wallström representing the European side at this High Level Group because climate protection policy is one of our most pressing concerns.
I should like, on behalf of the Commission, to thank the European Parliament and especially you, Mr Sjöstedt, but also the committees involved, for your constructive cooperation and outstanding report.
The background to the Commission' s communication was the serious environmental damage caused by cyanide following the dam breaches in Spain in 1998 and in Baia Mare, Romania, in January 2000.
The communication mentions the three key actions planned by the Commission after the most recent mining accidents: first, amendment of the Seveso II Directive, then the presentation of the proposal for a new directive on the treatment of mining waste and, thirdly, the creation of a reference document on best available technologies following the procedure laid down in the IPPC Directive, with a description of the best available technologies for reducing everyday pollution and preventing or reducing mining accidents.
The Baia Mare Task Force' s final report reaffirmed the need for these measures.
It was Mrs Wallström who set up this Task Force to obtain more information about the Baia Mare accident and, on that basis, to devise measures to reduce or prevent such hazards in the future.
In their report they welcome this communication and support the Commission' s general approach of creating a transparent and coherent framework for greater safety in mining by making appropriate amendments to environmental law and the instruments.
This refers not only to the three key actions just mentioned but also to legislation that is not specific to mining, such as the proposed directive on environmental liability.
I should like to stress at this point that the three key actions mentioned now have different time frames.
The proposal for a directive amending the Seveso II Directive has already completed a public consultation and, according to the Commission' s work programme for 2001, is likely to be adopted in the course of this year.
The directive will not only cover mining but also, following the tragic accident in Enschede in the Netherlands in May last year, the safe storage of fireworks.
In the light of the amendment that is now before us and of what Mrs Flemming has said, I should like to add that both the mining accidents mentioned in the Commission communication occurred during activities connected with the extraction of metallic ores.
The Commission therefore understands the reasons for wanting to confine the scope of the directive to this field.
But I would ask you to consider that a gradual extension of the scope of the directive - when and only when accidents have happened - is not consistent with the precautionary principle.
Aristotle himself said the improbable will probably happen.
Even tomorrow, there could be an accident in an industrial plant not covered by the Seveso II Directive, in which case we would make corrections retrospectively and wait for the next area, so to speak.
I would therefore be pleased if Parliament would support the Commission in its efforts to be proactive rather than reactive in its proposed legislation.
A comment on the time frame for the second key action.
Work on the proposal for a new directive on the treatment of mining waste is progressing well.
The study of mining hot spots will soon be completed and consultation with the interest groups concerned has already begun.
The proposal will probably be adopted by the Commission in 2002.
Work on the document on best available technologies began with an opening session at the European IPPC Bureau at the end of June.
From past experience, however, producing such a detailed document describing the best available technologies takes two years on average.
Finally, the report calls on the Commission to intensify dialogue with the European mining industry.
This dialogue is already taking place. It will play a central role in implementing Community strategy for safety in mining.
Your support shows the Commission that we are on the right road.
The report motivates us to continue to work hard for a swift implementation of our strategy for the prevention of mining accidents in the European Union and also in the candidate countries.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Coastal zone management in Europe
The next item is the report (A5-0219/2001) by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council recommendation concerning the implementation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Europe
[COM(2000) 545 - C5-0474/2000 - 2000/0227(COD)].
Mr President, the principles of integrated coastal zone management are accepted worldwide as a mechanism to enable sustainable management of coastal areas.
Europe is currently well behind other developed nations in implementing them.
For instance, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have all implemented major legislation to progress integrated management of coastal and marine areas.
Chapter 17 of Agenda 21 commits coastal signatories to integrated management and sustainable development of coastal areas.
The EU' s demonstration programme on integrated management of coastal zones, funded by LIFE, has proved that implementation of integrated coastal zone management results in both economic and environmental benefits.
The EU should be taking advantage of these benefits.
The coastal zone requires special management.
There is an urgent need to integrate planning and management and promote collaborative working of marine and terrestrial assistance at local, regional and national levels.
Through good practices of coastal zone management, we should work towards sustainable management of the coastal zone.
Europe should provide specific leadership to ensure good management of the coast.
This will only be possible if the integrated coastal zone management process is backed up with appropriate legislation.
The EU must establish a legal framework to enable action at other levels.
This recommendation should be seen as a first stage in the development of that framework.
I am astonished at some of the opposition to the idea of binding legislation because it is essential to secure adequate funding for integrated coastal zone management initiatives across Europe.
Integrated coastal zone management initiatives usually focus on a central coordinating mechanism which requires comparatively low levels of core funding.
Yet the integrated coastal zone initiatives already in existence are floundering, due mainly to lack of financial support.
For instance, the EU-funded integrated coastal zone management projects such as the Atlantic Living Coastline in the UK and others have since ceased.
The UK initiative and the Severn Estuary strategy, involving 12 local authorities, have only secured funding for the next six months.
Member States should adopt binding measures to ensure good coastal zone management.
This should happen not later than three years after the adoption of the current recommendation on integrated coastal zone management.
This would be preceded by a national stock-taking to analyse which actors, laws and institutions influence the planning and management of the coastal zone in order to ensure convergence of public bodies and local initiatives, to be completed by the end of December 2002.
In my own country, the Bantry Bay coastal zone chart is the only agreed integrated coastal zone management plan in the whole of the country at the present time.
Even in countries such as the UK, where the EU programmes have funded some of the most important coastal zone management and regeneration projects, local authorities are unable to give priority to funding integrated coastal zone management actions because of the absence of a national policy framework, statutory duties, responsibilities or adequate funding.
For this reason local authorities strongly support EU leadership to ensure cross-European commitment by national governments to give funding and legislative support in this field.
Some people have criticised me for saying that I want to give the EU more power in this area.
My colleague, Mr Davies - who is not here tonight - has criticised me in committee.
I was beginning to wonder if I was the Euro-sceptic or was he?
In relation to environmental protection, it is extremely important that the EU is given some sort of control.
In my own country the government failed to take recommendations and even directives seriously and implement them in a way that actually achieves their original aim.
A recommendation is basically non-binding.
So you will have the situation where Member States do not take seriously the management of a coast.
We cannot say that if we manage our own coasts, that is sufficient.
It has a knock-on effect in other areas, especially where there are shared coastlines.
It is completely unacceptable that some Member States have a very good integrated coastal zone management strategy and plans, whereas other countries do not.
That is completely unfair.
When it comes to environmental issues we need an international approach.
There is no point in trying to tackle it at only a national level.
As everyone knows, environmental issues cross all boundaries.
There is no such thing as national borders.
In this area we are not saying that we want to hand over total control to Europe but we need binding legislation.
Otherwise governments just ignore it.
Recommendations are just something that they comply with if it suits them, but not if they do not.
In relation to coastal zones it is extremely important.
Europe has experienced a great increase in pressures on coastal resources.
From 1960 to 1990 it has been estimated that one kilometre of unspoilt coastline has been developed every day and 30 hectares of dune habitat have disappeared every day.
Coastal populations have also further increased and, at present, about 50% of the EU' s population lives within 50 kilometres of the coast.
So there really is an urgent need to tackle coastal zone management.
The draft recommendation leaves out a very important issue in that it fails to identify the threatened biodiversity of our coastal zones.
The coastal zone is one of the most dynamic areas of the earth' s surface with an abundance of unique flora and fauna which need to be protected.
This has to be addressed.
Another issue is climate change.
We can no longer ignore threats from climate change on coastal erosion.
This has to be taken into account.
Everyone, at this stage, will recognise that climate change is having a major impact on our coastal areas.
In the interests of all industries that rely on the coast we have to take action, and take it now.
We can see the quick destruction of our coasts.
This involves the destruction of industries that rely on our coasts such as tourism, fishing industries and others.
It is important that something happens as a result of this recommendation, that there is some sort of legal framework.
Member States who are reluctant to do this do not want to face up to the fact that our coasts have to be protected.
They want to "cop-out" of their responsibilities.
This should not be allowed.
Mr President, integrated coastal zone management is a necessity, but unfortunately many still do not know what it is.
Be it the Irish Cliffs of Moher, the Algarve in Portugal or the Watt mud flats on the German coast, Europe' s coasts have tremendous economic, ecological, social and cultural importance.
Coasts are not conurbation areas, but nevertheless around one third of the EU population live in coastal regions today.
This presents dangers for the fragile ecosystems that coasts represent.
However, the socio-economic problems have grown too, because coastal regions are far removed from the heartbeat of the conurbations and are neglected by politics.
I need mention only the coastal regions' lack of infrastructure links.
So we must do something for the coasts in Europe.
In view of the growing problems, we urgently need to find a system of planning and management that includes everyone connected with the coasts.
We must create an integrated management to ensure sustainable development and preserve the coasts as habitat.
In Germany we have a saying: too many cooks spoil the broth.
I hear the voices of critics raising their fingers in warning and quoting this proverb. But I say to them, the proverb may apply to broth but not to our coasts.
The problem areas differ a great deal, and a wide variety of sectors are affected, but the links between them are obvious.
Tourists come to my coast, for example, for the crabs.
The artificial deepening of rivers or the discharge of harmful substances threatens the stock of crabs.
No crabs, no tourists, no money!
And there are no alternative job opportunities, certainly not in the fisheries sector.
We are faced with wide-ranging problems that cannot be solved, at least not adequately, by the Member States alone.
What we need is a joining of forces on the coast, and clearly that will not happen without friction.
But it will benefit our environment in the long term.
We will not get very far or make much progress in Europe if we all keep ploughing our own furrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should almost like to say that the quality of our coastal zones here in Europe forms part of our heritage.
Although it is rather late in the evening to talk about coastal zone management in Europe, I believe that it is a subject of particular importance which really needs a legal framework.
Why a legal framework? Quite simply because the development of our coastal zones is sometimes carried out in such a way as to cause the degradation of those zones, despite the fact that, as a fellow Member has pointed out, the habitat of the coastal zones is sometimes a long way away from the major centres of population.
This is not the case in every country, however.
I come from a country where there are major population centres alongside coastal zones, and those population centres have finally destroyed the quality of the coastal zones, resulting in numerous cases of degradation caused by human activity.
This degradation has very serious consequences for biodiversity, for the conservation of species, whether of fauna or of flora, serious consequences for the quality of the landscape, and very serious consequences for water quality.
On that point, we have the framework directive on water, the one on bathing water, and you know, especially at this time of the year when the tourists start to invade our beaches, how important the quality of bathing water is.
All this is very important, and it is also important for the quality of our fishery resources.
We are aware that it is necessary to have a real political will, on the part of all the countries of the European Union and within the candidate countries, because among those countries which will shortly be joining us within the European Union there are coastal countries and islands which are facing the same problems, the problems that arise between economic development and the protection of our coastal zones.
Economic development and protection are not actually opposed to one another, but there has to be a real desire to develop carefully, at the same time fully respecting the need to protect the landscape, biodiversity and so on.
This will certainly require a legal framework.
On that point I agree with other Members.
However, we must have a legal framework which respects the disparities between our countries, because the coasts of the Scandinavian countries do not have the same problems as those of the countries of southern Europe, whether that means France, Spain, Italy or Greece.
We must give a little more responsibility to local authorities and ask each State to set up a legal framework which is appropriate to the regional and local scale.
In France, a coastline conservation authority was set up 25 years ago.
It has resources to acquire coastal zones which have to be protected, and resources to ensure that, afterwards, land-use plans comply with legal regulations.
This is what we should be doing.
I believe that our coastal zones represent environmental and economic wealth which we absolutely must protect in the spirit of a sustainable development policy.
The issue of integrated coastal zone management is of crucial importance to my constituents in Scotland.
As the Commission highlights in its proposal, this is not just a local problem, but is of critical importance for all Europeans.
As Mrs Langenhagen said, one third of EU citizens live close to, if not on, these areas.
Research has revealed a worrying deterioration in the environmental, socio-economic and cultural resources of our coastal zones.
We see aggressive competition between users of these resources.
The environmental problems include habitat destruction, water contamination, coastal erosion and resource depletion and these are all very serious.
These environmental problems have a knock-on effect beyond coastal regions to inland regions.
The roots of the problem include a lack of knowledge, a failure to involve stake-holders and, therefore, a lack of cooperation between the relevant administrative bodies.
At a recent videoconference in Scotland House, that is the home of the Scottish Executive in Brussels, it was interesting to see how the different local authorities in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland were already working within local partnerships with stake-holders to protect the coastal zone.
It gave me great encouragement that action was being taken and that the coastal zone was being given the importance it rightly deserved.
It is, after all, at local level that a real difference will be made.
In conclusion, we need to encourage strong action at a local level which we are seeing already in Scotland, and we need to exchange best practice across the EU in order that our coastal zones can be enjoyed as much by this generation as by the next.
Mr President, in my country fisherwomen represent all that is strongest and most courageous.
I also think that this evening' s debate, once again involving almost exclusively women, shows that we who are taking part in this discussion may well be descended from these brave and strong women of the coasts.
Ladies and gentlemen, political movements which have long supported the very principles found in this document have been mocked in many contexts.
The movement which I represent nationally has long stood for the principles about which we are now speaking, but we have had to suffer a great deal of ridicule.
It is important that we support the binding recommendations that there is a wish to introduce for Member States, so that we can get away from a situation in which the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing and in which fishermen are perhaps in even more danger of extinction than many animal species.
We have an unequal situation with unequal protection of what is to be found in the coastal areas.
We also have a situation whereby we want more sea traffic without wanting to provide protection.
The rapporteur asked why our group opposes a binding legal framework, but the explanations she has given have not convinced us.
We need a legal basis for the matter, but not binding legislation.
We must rely on local action and joint local planning.
Mr President, coastal management which is not only integrated but planned, both in Europe and in every continent, is one of the paramount necessities for the future of humanity.
It is impossible to deal with this issue within the narrow context of the existing Member States.
This is an area in which decisions could be necessary and legitimate at the level of a whole continent, or even of the entire planet.
However, this is also an area in which the European institutions have least power, although they are very fond of finicky regulations in other areas where centralisation is not required.
In this way they demonstrate that they do not represent an authority which imposes its will on national States, each with its particularisms and selfish interests, but rather that they are the result of those interests.
The European institutions, like the national States, are in the service of the private interests of the major industrial and financial groups.
They are incapable of imposing on those groups the policies which are of utmost importance to society as a whole, and there is a real risk that future generations will die as a result.
The solving of major ecological problems is totally incompatible with the private ownership of the major means of production and the use of those means with the exclusive aim of making a profit.
The cases involving the Erika and the Ievoli Sun were a good illustration of the extent to which private interests are opposed to collective interests.
In these circumstances, to vote in favour of a strategy for integrated coastal zone management would be pure hypocrisy.
We shall be abstaining from the vote.
Mr President, everyone agrees that it is necessary to protect natural areas in general and the coastline in particular, especially since our coasts are deteriorating as a result of demographic and economic expansion.
We have yet to decide how to provide this vital protection.
Will it respect local populations and their activities, or are we going to put nature in a glass case, as the Natural 2000 network intends to do? It will, of course, be necessary to have rules and regulations in order to keep the situation under control and to avoid anarchic development.
In France we did this with our Coastlines Act, which has produced some good results, even if our Green Minister for the Environment, Mrs Voynet, has just allowed an exception to get through in the form of the Corsica Act.
However, these essential regional planning measures have to be the subject of debate with the elected representatives and citizens concerned, because they are the ones who have to live with the coastline on a day-to-day basis, and it is absolutely essential to involve them in this protection if we want it to be admired and respected.
Let us not forget that they are the ones who, when the Erika was shipwrecked, organised and took part in the operation to clean up the beaches and coastlines.
In my opinion, it is better to convince than to constrain. That way we gain more support, and therefore more effectiveness and more local democracy.
Restrictions from Brussels are always suspect and often unsuitable, because they have been drafted far away from the local area and the local mentality.
This local approach is essential if we want to see common-sense measures negotiated and accepted.
We must also respect traditional local practices, because they express the economic, social and cultural reality. They are an integral part of the coastline, and are often the best guarantee that our natural areas will be respected.
In practical terms, we must apply the rules of subsidiarity and decentralisation, although consistency remains essential.
Responsibility for management should remain at national level and should include a large degree of local consensus.
This is why we shall be voting against this report, which we believe is too restrictive.
Mr President, as Mrs Stihler has already said, this proposal is of major importance for Scotland.
For example, there is one of our local authority areas that has 26 inhabited islands and a coastline as long as that of France.
Scotland, as a whole, has 462 different coastal plans in place, almost three quarters of them locally based.
Whilst management of coastal zones must remain predominantly local, national strategies to support and coordinate action are vital.
We are fortunate in having a Scottish coastal forum to perform this role.
But such good work can be undermined.
As the Firth of Clyde forum recently explained, we lack any measure of security, political or financial, which would give us a strong footing for pursuing longer-term management.
That is why the Commission proposal is so welcome.
I congratulate Mrs McKenna on the extent to which her report has amplified and clarified the text.
Mr President, honourable Members of the European Parliament, as I have taken over the speech from my colleague, Mrs Wallström, I will speak in English.
The coastal zone is very important for Europe, as other speakers have said.
Its resources provide us with food, energy and homes and create opportunities.
However, according to the reports of the European Environmental Agency, conditions in the coastal zone and its resources continue to decline.
Conditions in the coastal zone can only be improved through a concentrated effort involving all levels of the relevant sectors of government based on the principles of integrated coastal zone management.
I would like to stress that this integrated coastal zone management is not a procedure for land-use planning per se.
It is more a methodology for introducing a coherent approach to the management and use of coastal resources with the informed involvement of all the relevant stakeholders.
In order to encourage Member States to assume their full responsibility in promoting integrated coastal zone management, the Commission has introduced the proposed recommendation.
This calls on Member States to develop national strategies for coastal zone management based on an inventory of the actors, laws and institutions involved in the management and planning of the coastal zones.
This strategy aims to introduce a coherent approach to the coastal zones across Europe but the recommendation intentionally leaves the choice of the format of the national strategies to the Member States to ensure that each national strategy is tailor-made to the institutional, physical and social conditions within each Member State.
At the same time, the recommendation presents a list of features which the Member States are encouraged to address through their national strategies, such as the need for coherence between the many plans, policies and programmes for management of the coasts and the need for coordination between the actors that use and manage the coast, particularly those with responsibility for the sea and the land which forms part of the coastal zone.
Let me turn to the key issues raised in the amendments proposed.
I would like to start by noting that the Commission can accept many of the proposed amendments.
Indeed, many of the proposed amendments strengthen the text by clarifying concepts and introducing further information.
We thank Parliament for putting forward these amendments.
There are, however, certain amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
Several of the amendments proposed, namely Amendments Nos 11, 12, 16, 18, 29, 32, 43 and 49, introduce references to a future Community legislative framework.
These amendments are unacceptable to the Commission for the obvious reason that they prejudge the issue of whether a legislative approach is required.
In addition, a reference to a Community legislative framework would not be appropriate in view of the wide diversity of conditions in the Member States and the Commission' s philosophy of coastal zone management.
The Commission' s present decision to propose a recommendation was based on a thorough assessment of the needs for action at the European level through the demonstration programme on integrated coastal zone management and on a broad public consultation.
In the same spirit, the Commission cannot accept amendments which introduce compulsory language.
"Shall" is not the right word in a non-binding instrument, such as a recommendation and therefore the use of this word in Amendments Nos 29, 32 and 34 cannot be accepted by the Commission.
Similarly, the references in Amendments Nos 17, 20, 33 and 45 indicating the need for binding instruments within the Member States ignore the fact that integrated coastal zone management may be best introduced through voluntary measures in some Member States.
These parts of these amendments are therefore not acceptable either.
Otherwise, the six amendments are acceptable in principle or in part.
The Commission is concerned that Amendments Nos 16 and 42 might give an incorrect, narrow impression of the breadth of the integrated coastal zone management approach.
In particular, in Amendments Nos 25 and 47, while the Commission accepts the need to involve all the parties concerned, this text should not be limited to the special planning process, but should make broader reference to all of the actors involved in the planning and management of the coastal zones and its resources.
The Commission would also note that it cannot accept two amendments, which make inappropriate reference to other Community policies which are better discussed in a different context.
The reference to the INTERREG Programme in Amendment No 16 is inappropriate as the guidelines for INTERREG have been set out elsewhere.
Similarly, the reference in Amendment No 35 to the common fisheries policy and the 12-mile derogation is not acceptable as it prejudges the debate on the revision of this policy.
In addition, Amendments Nos 47 and 48 are not acceptable, at least in part, because they could lead to the endorsement of unsustainable traditional practices including those relating to hunting and fishing.
Concerning the remaining amendments - and this list is longer than the non-acceptable amendments - the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 3 to 10, 13, 15, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 46; and in addition, it can accept Amendments Nos 2, 14, 24, 36, and 44 in principle.
As a result, two thirds of the amendments can be accepted by the Commission.
In conclusion, Parliament has significantly contributed to improving this proposal.
I would, therefore, like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs McKenna, and the draftsmen from the other committees for their efforts.
I am sure that the final text will be an important step in encouraging the application of integrated coastal zone management in Europe.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12.10 a.m.)
Madam President, I saw a few boats landing at Parliament this week and notified the security service.
Not only were there language difficulties; the telephone line was so poor that it was almost impossible to communicate.
I would be most obliged if the number on which the security service can be reached could also be clearly displayed in the House, so that if anyone wants to report an incident, they can do so quickly and efficiently.
Madam President, I understand that over the next few days, the Bureau will be discussing the question of languages and interpretation following the accession of the candidate countries.
Because, as you know, we are all a little touchy on this subject which is, above all, a political issue and cannot be resolved by purely administrative measures, I should like to ask you to tell us what the Bureau's thoughts are on this and how you think we can all take part in this debate, which is absolutely vital.
Mrs Zorba, the guidelines you refer to will be adopted by the Bureau in September and between now and then the groups will have plenty of time to discuss them.
I think it is very important that they should be able to do so.
Madam President, one comment perhaps, as the question of language has already been raised twice.
I should like to point out that the question of language is regulated in the Rules of Procedure, which state that Parliament itself makes the final decision on how languages are to be regulated in the House. Any concerns - including about decisions by the Bureau - are therefore totally unfounded.
G8 Summit
The next item is the Commission statement on the G8 Summit.
I shall give Commissioner Patten the floor straight away.
Madam President, I would like to thank Commissioner Patten for his words, but I cannot fail to express my deep regret at the fact that Parliament has not dedicated a wide debate, which could maybe have ended with a joint motion, to a matter which is so important and so affects our societies and public opinion.
It is strange that a summit with an agenda which is so sensitive to global governance issues should receive such severe, groundless criticism.
Clearly, there has been a problem and there still is, not just of communication but also of democratic participation, not the participation envisaged by the violent antiglobalisation protesters but the participation that we see in national parliaments.
The market will not be the only subject of discussion at Genoa, then. Quite the contrary: in actual fact, the agenda is wholly centred around the fight against poverty.
Fighting against poverty means, first and foremost, employment and the fair redistribution of the wealth derived from the process of globalisation.
As an economist, I would remind the antiglobalisation protestors that wealth has to be created before it can be distributed.
However, if Europe's goal of full employment is to be more than just the egotistic vision of a wealthy Community, it must be translated into a global objective of accompanying the process of liberalisation of free trade with active employment policies which will help to produce active societies and thus lead to social inclusion: by overcoming what is known as the digital divide, by building up human capital, by promoting self-employment.
Making employment a priority must lead to the widespread introduction of minimum levels of protection for all people.
Fighting against poverty means improving cooperation between the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the ILO and the WTO in order to integrate macro-economic stability and development policies with social policies.
As you can see, a great deal has changed since the summits of the mid-'70s.
As Commissioner Patten pointed out, on the first day of the Genoa Summit, the Heads of State and Government, who will be the guests of the Italian President, will meet with the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, the President of the European Commission, Mr Prodi, the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Verhofstadt, the Director-General of the FAO, the Director-General of the WTO, the Director-General of the WHO and the President of the World Bank, and also with the Presidents of Nigeria, South Africa and Algeria, who launched the support and development plan for Africa.
The G8 Summit is certainly an exercise in global governance which can and must be fine-tuned but, already today, its foundations are much wider than those of the summits held during the seventies and eighties.
Madam President, last week I took part in a conference in Stockholm, during which, at the request of his African friends, the African chairman of the plenary session, to which I contributed, began the session with the following words: 'I was asked to bring back to Africa the cure for AIDS, the cure for poverty, the cure for political conflict and the cure for non-availability of information technology - the four diseases that are increasing the already wide gap between North and South' .
It was not of course without reason that he said this.
In 1960, the richest 20% of the world' s population had an income 30 times greater than that of the poorest 20%.
In 1990, the figure was 60% and in 1997 it was 74%, and there is no doubt that it has increased since 1997.
According to statistics in 'The Economist' of 16 June, the world has more rich people than ever before.
The unfortunate conclusion he drew following the meeting was, 'So it seems that I have to return to Africa without the cure for our four ongoing major crises' . We have a problem with many of our meetings.
How much real success is there in changing things?
We can hope that the G8 meeting, at which the individual EU countries, the Commission and the presidency are represented, can perhaps play its part in moving things on a little.
If these meetings do not succeed in producing more striking results, there is of course the risk that the fear of globalisation will become greater and that we shall therefore see still larger demonstrations, for part of the problem is, of course, that people in general simply think that globalisation is a bad thing, while we politicians are of the opinion that it should, in a way, be a good thing and we know that it could, in fact, be so.
However, we fail to see the results, and the documents we obtain indicate greater and greater differences.
I therefore hope that we get to tackle some of the real problems.
I would therefore urge the Commission - and not, therefore, Mr Patten but obviously Mr Prodi - really to focus upon the desperation of the developing countries, for this is of course the world' s greatest problem today.
When the discussion turns to setting up a fund, providing debt relief etc., one must also remember to talk about 'additional money' so that we leave behind the situation in which it is the same money that circulates through the system and is never paid out.
Madam President, in our opinion, the new development at Genoa will not be the G8 Summit but, on the contrary, the meeting of the opposition movement.
Many social and political organisations, including ourselves, see the G8 as illegitimate, as an expression of a serious tendency to take important decisions away from the sovereign powers.
We are not the only ones to feel this: the entire Catholic episcopacy of the host region has declared itself to be of the same opinion.
After the Gothenburg tragedy, it would have been wise to suspend the G8 meeting.
Sometimes, it is a sign of wisdom not to resort to a display of strength; there is the risk that Europe will be catapulted backwards in time to when the forces of the law used to fire on the demonstrations held at the time by the workers' movement.
This G8 Summit has become a futile display of power, an exaltation of the participants' own authority, but there are many who have lost confidence in it.
They have lost confidence in it because globalisation cannot hide the damage it is doing in the world: it inevitably provokes crises, it is exacerbating injustices between north and south, it is not resolving the problems of poverty and illness but generating deep, widespread uncertainty regarding man's future and the future of the environment.
As a result, it is those who are against the G8, the movements of civil society who are now speaking to the world; the young people from wealthy countries are speaking out on behalf of the poor countries of the world and their people. They are finding that demands for democracy and participation are not being met.
They see the demands of individuals, the environment and groups calling for social justice.
The watchword of the demonstrators is: 'Another world is possible'.
This slogan is adopted by workers fighting for employment and proper salaries and by peasant farmers fighting for a different type of farming and for a response to the problems of hunger in the world alike, by all those fighting for a better future.
Where is Europe? Europe remains silent.
I feel that we have a lot to learn from the lesson that, while Europe is silent, a great religious force such as the Catholic Church succeeds in expressing more effectively and interpreting the requirements of the civil society of this great continent, expressing all the criticism of the illegitimacy of this summit and of the inability to manage the great processes of world modernisation.
Madam President, in recent weeks, surveys of public opinion have been carried out, and it is with great surprise that I have to say that one result that has emerged is that the majority of Italians share the concerns of the G8 protesters.
This certainly does not mean that the majority of Italians support the violence we have witnessed on other occasions and which we fear will be displayed this time as well.
Of course, I am not among those who advocate violence, nor are most Italians, but this does mean that, in Italy - and, I would argue, in many other countries in the world - there is a real, deep-rooted concern at a type of world globalisation which is not what a large part of the population wished to see.
It would be a great mistake to see this as a question of right- or left-wing politics.
This is a question which concerns basic problems faced by man. Indeed, it is an issue of great relevance precisely to those such as myself who have liberal tendencies, for one of our greatest concerns is that globalisation of the economy might come to pass without there being any rules to govern the process, which might well have worse consequences.
This brings great opportunities for Europe, but also great responsibility.
Great opportunities because, in actual fact, trends and ideas are currently developing in Europe which could provide at least a partial response to the problems of globalisation.
In the field of human rights, with regard to protection of the environment, with regard to minorities and the establishment of the citizens, with regard to diversity and the acceptance of differences, Europe is spontaneously largely in agreement.
This is shown by the almost unanimous position adopted on the Kyoto Protocol, by the battle to abolish the death penalty and to uphold respect for human rights and by the cohesion policy - as yet maybe not sufficient but still important - that we are developing.
At the same time, this highlights our responsibility as well, for these results are not political results now; as yet we do not have a Europe which upholds these ideals before the world, just individual countries.
Indeed, the image which will emerge from the Genoa Summit is a picture in which Europe does not appear, a picture, that is, which is in danger of being dominated by the one great superpower.
That is not the fault of the superpower, mind you: it is due precisely to the absence of what could have been a continent which takes a different line but is willing to do something about the concerns of such a large part of the human race.
Well then, there are two things we must do: one is to explore this idea, this debate in detail.
I believe that there are some extremely important things we could do ourselves: for example, the idea of going to the forthcoming summit on the environment with a united voice, with one single voice, the voice of Europe; the possibility of developing the idea of internal cohesion.
There is also a problem enlarging funds: a Europe which dedicated more of its resources to a policy - which has already had partial success - of improving certain economically deprived areas, would have great influence.
However, in addition to this, we need comprehensive political action.
If the voices remain the voices of individual countries, as they have been thus far, they will carry even less weight at the world summit.
If, however, we succeed in making progress on the road to European integration and we succeed in ensuring that it is not just some European countries which go to important world summits but Europe, acting with one voice, we will have contributed to resolving not just the problems of Europe but the problems of the world as well.
The Italian government is making progress in seeking dialogue with all the social players.
However, at this point, something further is necessary: there needs to be great drive from the European Union towards integrating the other countries so that these ideas, these hopes, which we are rightly striving to fulfil, are expressed by an entity which is powerful enough to be influential.
That entity cannot be any individual State; Europe must act as a whole.
Commissioner, as far as possible, globalisation must mean globalisation of rights and freedoms. Therefore, I welcome, first and foremost, the 'Everything but arms' proposal, the Commission's initiative seeking to abolish customs duties for the poorest countries unilaterally.
This is a response of economic freedom which we must pursue to the end, apart from anything else because, in this way, we will be better able to respond to those who blame globalisation for the wretchedness and exploitation of entire peoples and areas of our planet, peoples who are exploited by their tyrant rulers, peoples who are exploited by economies which are, more often than not, closed and autarkic.
It is not true, therefore, that economic freedom and the opening-up of the markets are sending peoples to their ruin: in this respect, the initiative of unilateral abolishment of customs barriers is politically fundamental.
However, the globalisation of rights is also fundamental, and someone participating in the summit should make that clear not just to the States taking part but the whole world. Abolition of the death penalty and a universal moratorium on executions throughout the world; 60 ratifications for the International Criminal Court; a global fight against female genital mutilation: there you are; this is the kind of globalisation that the citizens would welcome.
Thus, the problem arises not so much of illegitimacy but of lack of rules or procedures.
It is not enough for the non-governmental organisations alone to participate and the so-called representatives of civil society; this is a problem affecting all the citizens.
Why then should the G8 Summit not be broadcast on-line, where all the citizens could connect and see the agenda, the debates, what is being decided and who is making the decisions? They have a right to know what is going on.
The G8 is not an institution but it is still bound to be transparent in its work and decisions and to make them public.
Madam President, Commissioner Patten, our world leaders will be meeting in Genoa in just over two weeks' time.
The topic of debate will be globalisation and, specifically, the fight against poverty, the environment and conflict prevention.
The streets of Genoa will once again be teeming with demonstrators.
Unfortunately, the images of the rioting and stone-throwing minority will again attract a great deal of TV and media attention.
I condemn this minority, for a stone is neither right nor left-wing, it is simply destructive.
I do support, however, the protest of the minority of peaceful campaigners who oppose a world trade system which leads to the unequal distribution of wealth.
World trade has never flourished more than it has now.
It remains therefore shocking that the 20 richest countries earn, on average, 37 times more than the 20 poorest countries.
A divide which, forty years ago, was only half that size.
Poor countries, and particularly the poor population of those countries, do not benefit from worldwide prosperity.
Nearly half of the world population has to survive on less than USD 2 a day, and one fifth of the world population lives under the internationally recognised, absolute poverty line of USD 1 per day.
In the light of this, it is, and remains, entirely unacceptable for the developing countries to be forced to open their markets to our products, while all kinds of trade barriers in the West appear to constitute an impossible hurdle for the developing countries to negotiate.
The European Union has taken an initial step with the exemplary 'Everything but arms' initiative.
Europe must now keep the momentum going.
I would especially call on all other Western industrial superpowers, including the United States, that are now grossly neglecting their duty to follow in the footsteps of this European initiative.
Similarly, a fresh WTO round is only credible if it actually becomes a development round.
World trade with the intention of fighting poverty.
That would be a powerful incentive on the road to the fair distribution of wealth.
We need much more than that, however.
Due to a lack of political commitment, the international agreements, such as universal access to primary education and basic health care by 2015, will not be achieved.
Even in 2001, 130 million children never attend school and another 150 million children start primary education only to stop it before they can read and write.
The AIDS epidemic is causing an unheard of social breakdown in the developing countries.
Financial pledges in Genoa for an international fund for poverty-related illnesses are, of course, laudable and particularly newsworthy, but they remain the proverbial drop in the ocean if those same donors do not even meet the international agreements: 0.7% of the gross national product for development aid.
That also applies to Member States such as England and Germany, but mainly to the United States which trails behind with 0.1%.
The topic of instability within the financial world markets will also be discussed in Genoa.
In my opinion, it would be useful if the combined world leaders were to back the intention of the Belgian Presidency to study the scope of a Tobin tax on international high-speed capital.
It is precisely this form of tax levy, much maligned by, inter alia, the United States that can prevent financial crises, and the profit from this could subsequently be invested in development projects.
I shall be assessing the G8 Summit on the basis of actual political commitment to fight poverty.
That requires decisive measures, compliance with existing international agreements and the will to put global interests above the sometimes very narrowly formulated, national, economic or industrial interests.
Madam President, G8 summits looked like becoming a routine sort of affair.
That has now changed and more and more people are recognising that they are moving away from economic and financial issues and beginning to take on the role of a sort of world government.
That generates mistrust and encourages rejection.
We may bemoan the weaknesses of the UN, but it is accredited by the international community, as is UNCTAD, although UNCTAD appears to be in a state of enforced inertia.
By contrast, the G7 or G8 have devised their own mandate, acting purely on the strength of their economic clout or clout in general, in their bid to rule the world.
The neoliberal policy promoted as a result widens rather than narrows the gulf between north and south and speeds up the rate at which developing countries fall into poverty and debt.
Anyone who criminalises resistance on the part of those who oppose globalisation in general - as has already happened, not that I condone violence - is guilty of hushing things up and confusing cause and effect.
We should be looking for alternatives to neoliberal policies, not deploying riot police and cancelling agreements on tourism.
What we need is for attention to be paid to our citizens' interests - that is what the European Union should be committing to.
We should be safeguarding these interests and making sure there is no room for what is currently happening.
Madam President, in an article in an Italian newspaper today, President Prodi refers to the conclusions of the Gothenburg Summit on sustainable development as an example of directing globalisation towards objectives of world redistribution of wealth and protection of the environment.
I will focus on this last aspect. It is true that Gothenburg incorporated the environmental dimension into the economic and social dimension.
Protecting the environment is no longer merely a moral matter but an opportunity for a new wave of innovation that will generate growth and employment.
The political importance is clear: this is a point of no return for the Member States but also for the candidate countries and third countries.
Following the announcement that the United States wishes to oppose the Kyoto Protocol, this is a genuine declaration of intent with a view to the forthcoming international events: Genoa, of course, but then, more specifically, Bonn and, after that, Johannesburg in 2002.
However, the point is this: even when they produce such major results, the great international summits do not succeed in communicating with what are known as the Seattle movements and, above all, do not connect with that much deeper, much more widespread, silent demand for security on the lips of the citizens, the submerged base of an iceberg whose tip is represented by the raft of different types of protests.
Why?
Why then is dialogue so difficult, not to say impossible? Of course, there is an element of parading before the media at these summits which is no longer tolerable.
However, I also feel that confidence in the ability of politicians to implement these types of commitments has crumbled.
There are many reasons why and we too bear some responsibility.
Even at Gothenburg, when we needed to move on from words to action it was put off to a later date. There was no Sustainability Council, no time frame, no tangible reference to the implementation of environmentally friendly rules.
When will these things happen?
Madam President, the economy needs to be managed differently from the way it is now; it must not just be controlled by a few but at least be subject to democratic supervision.
Like all economic processes, globalisation is not a natural phenomenon but a worldwide process we have to contend with, taking all the factors at all levels into consideration.
For this reason, we need to influence the way globalisation is managed, working to achieve a democratic perspective, giving the people and governments back a role of supervision and management.
To this end, we will be at Genoa demonstrating peacefully against the G8, and nobody can take away our right to demonstrate.
However, we do warn you of the serious danger represented by organised groups who will be there with the declared objective of starting fights and creating violence on the streets, and we therefore request all those who are going to take part in the demonstrations to publicly disassociate themselves unambiguously, from this moment onwards, from action by irresponsible groups, and to make a commitment as of now to isolating and neutralising the troublemakers.
I would like to make two brief responses to this debate.
Two points which should be obvious to all of us, as democrats concerned about issues such as global social equity, but nevertheless important to make.
First of all, most speakers in this short but interesting debate, with one unfortunate exception, have drawn a clear distinction between violence and open discussion of the serious issues which will be on the agenda at Genoa.
There is a real danger in occasionally implying that there is a moral equivalence between people who go to these conferences with a balaclava helmet in their back pocket, prepared for violence against police officers and against property they do not like, and the democratically elected leaders of the governments who are meeting in the city where the demonstrations are taking place.
Once you blur that distinction, it seems to me that you are on a very slippery slope indeed.
At Göteborg, I do not believe that a government could have made a greater effort to involve civil society in the discussion of what was happening.
We still saw those scenes of violence on the streets of that otherwise peaceful city, however.
So I think it is very important that the message from a democratically elected assembly like this is very clear: that there is no moral equivalence between violent demonstrators and those who are elected.
Secondly, I will not trouble the Chamber with a detailed exposé of my views on globalisation, but I want to make one obvious point.
While it is true that most people have done better out of globalisation this time round, with the combination of opening markets and technology. It is also the case that too many poor people in rich countries have been left behind and too many poor countries have been left behind.
Too many poor people face not the opportunities of globalisation but the challenges of globalisation; the dark side of globalisation. The transmittable diseases; the drug trafficking; the illegal trafficking in human beings; the transnational crime; the environmental degradation; and the sheer grinding poverty.
The only way you can address issues, such as the decline in aid flows during the 1990s, is through multilateral efforts.
Now how you make multilateral efforts without world leaders coming together as they will in Genoa later this month beats me!
You need the democratic leaders of the world to get together to focus on these problems and then to try to give some impetus to solving them.
The problem is not that we have these summits, though I wish the media would focus rather more on what is actually discussed at them rather than what happens on the fringes.
The problem is not the holding of these summits, the problem is ensuring that the institutions which then try to follow up the summits have the maximum legitimacy and credibility with the world's citizens.
They will only achieve that if we are more successful in making multilateral solutions stick.
Therefore, when we talk about the Kyoto Protocol at Genoa, it is very important that we are able to do so in a way which leads to action on climate change and not the collapse of what has been an extremely important effort by the international community to address a major change.
I do not understand those who say that we should not have G8 meetings.
I would have responded as well to what Mr Bertonotti had to say about the role of the churches.
As a member of the church he referred to, I have some views about the way it could contribute rather more to the debate about universal human rights as well to the debate about social equity, but since Mr Bertonotti was unfortunately not able to stay until the end of this debate, I will sit down.
The debate is closed.
Recreational craft
The next item is the report (A5-0218/2001) by Mr Callanan, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to recreational craft.
It is interesting how, in this House we move seamlessly from global economic policy and world summits to the technical regulations of exhaust and sound level emissions from recreational craft in Europe: such is the broad sweep of politics dealt with in this place.
I believe strongly that we must always be extremely wary in Europe of over-regulation, of using 'a sledge-hammer to crack a nut', of introducing unnecessary, cumbersome and bureaucratic regulations.
To put this directive into perspective, recreational craft in the EU are responsible for less than half of 1% of all exhaust emissions in the Union and if it is the case that this regulation turns out to have severe impacts on small boat owners, driving them unnecessarily off the waterways, then sadly this will merely increase disenchantment with Europe among many of our citizens.
In my own country we have a very thriving small canal boat industry to which Commissioner Patten has just referred.
As a former Member of Parliament in the West Country, he will know that industry extremely well.
It is composed of many historic craft, the potential for tourism is extremely great and we must be careful to ensure that they are not regulated out of existence.
It consists of many small enterprises and enthusiasts.
The object of this proposal is to complete the internal market and to protect the health of users and third parties in Europe: those are indeed laudable aims.
However, as I intimated, I do have a number of concerns about the way these regulations have been framed.
First of all, on the issue of retrospectivity.
In my view, retrospective laws are often extremely bad laws - they are grossly unfair to existing users and industries which have grown up under an existing regulatory framework.
Secondly, they very often act as a perverse incentive.
For instance, under the regulations being framed in this directive, if you have an old boat with an old polluting engine, it is perfectly legal provided you do not replace it with a slightly newer possibly even cleaner engine of a greater power rating.
If you do that, obviously improving the environment in the process, then you are subject to the full force of these regulations and would possibly be faced with extremely expensive compliance costs for your craft.
I cannot see that regulations framed in this way benefit anybody.
Furthermore, it is of course extremely difficult to see how they could possibly be policed in practice without having inspectors in every boatyard, every harbour, every port, every river and every canal in Europe, which we are clearly not going to do.
Can I also move on and say a couple of words about some of the amendments which have been proposed.
I will not mention all of them (the House will be pleased to know).
The Socialists have tabled a proposal by Mr Lange which was passed by the Environment Committee (No 30) seeking to impose an additional second table of stricter limits for boats on drinking water lakes.
I understand the raison d'être behind that proposal, but I believe that it would prove extremely problematical.
Very difficult to implement in practice, it would be a barrier to trade and it would completely contradict the Commission's intention to harmonise the internal market which will be further fragmented.
I hope the House will think very closely before supporting that amendment.
The proposed limits in Mr Lange's amendments are extremely strict, particularly for two and four-stroke engines.
They are technically very difficult to implement and the prospective benefits that are produced are not very great.
I am sure that the problems presented in one or two lakes in Germany and Austria could be solved, but imposing these limits throughout the whole of Europe where they are often unnecessary will not do that.
It will result in manufacturers producing engines only for their own local markets in their own country and I would urge Parliament to reject those amendments.
Can I also say a word about Mr Lange's other proposed Amendment No 48 on sound level measurements.
Without going into the technicalities of it, the new method that he proposes would cause many problems particularly if you had an instantaneous difficulty, particularly say wave-slap, resulting in a one-off sound level measurement which would be very difficult to repeat day after day and therefore very difficult to implement in practice.
This proposal could produce modest environmental benefits, but we must make sure that those modest environmental benefits do not come about at the expense at the loss of hundreds of jobs in many small enterprises across Europe and the pricing of many European citizens off the waterways which they have enjoyed for many hundreds of years.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, throughout the European Union recreational craft are used mainly for leisure activities and I do not think this will change in the next few years.
This leisure activity has become extremely popular over recent years.
There are now over 3.5 million motor boats in the European Union and the number is rising.
If you include sailing boats and rowing boats, there is one boat for every 70 citizens.
The use of recreational craft - and here I must disagree somewhat with our rapporteur - is not totally without its problems.
Certainly, exhaust emissions compared with overall exhaust emissions from other engines in the European Union are tiny.
We have brought about a great many improvements with cars and lorries over recent years and we should seek to achieve fundamental improvements in the recreational craft sector.
More importantly, people living on the banks of highly frequented inland waters live with the impression that the noise from motor boats is a constant source of disturbance, even at quiet times.
The point here, I think, is that we need to reduce the level of noise generated by these recreational craft.
People trying to relax at the weekend and local residents in particular sometimes have to put up with a great deal of disturbance, precisely because of the increase in the number of recreational craft.
Nor must we underestimate the noise generated when the water is displaced by boats travelling at high speed.
Implementing the directive will reduce noise and exhaust emission levels.
I too think that the derogations proposed in committee are right.
More importantly, I think the derogations for historic craft and self-build craft are justified.
Building these craft often takes a long time and is a leisure activity in itself.
We need to retain this.
However, as I have already mentioned, recreational craft are used in areas in which there are large numbers of people trying to relax, which is why it is especially important to keep on reducing noise pollution and why I think it would be wrong to allow any further derogations.
However, I think it is right that, even with the need for harmonisation, Member States should still be able to issue stricter requirements for inland waters used for drinking water supplies.
This has nothing to do with making inland waters off limits; it is a move towards reducing costs.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. I think Mr Schnellhardt has highlighted the main point.
The equipment at issue here - recreational craft and, more importantly, jet skis - is used solely for leisure activities.
In other words, it is something our society can do without.
If we are to pollute the environment not because society needs to but merely in the pursuit of leisure, then this equipment should be as clean and quiet as possible.
It is therefore right and proper that we should want to improve on one or two points in this directive.
With all due respect to our rapporteur, this is not about canal boats in Great Britain, it is not about self-build craft which are not marketed.
That is not where the problem lies and we have allowed derogations for these craft.
The main problem is with sports craft and - I repeat - jet skis in particular, which are produced in large numbers and used on sensitive inland waters, including waters used for relaxation and drinking water supplies.
In this respect, we need very strict provisions for these areas in order to transfer the technology which we have already adapted and introduced for other mobile engines - in cars and lorries - to engines for recreational craft.
This cannot be done from one day to the next.
That much is obvious.
We need a certain transitional period here, we are all pragmatists here, and we shall give manufacturers a transitional period.
We need to apply the technology, however, so that leisure activities cause the minimum possible exhaust emissions and the minimum possible noise.
Mr President, Commissioners, this is a directive which the Finnish recreational craft industry, for example, has been looking for because it believes it is important that we have uniform rules.
It is important that we take into account current developments, for example with four-stroke engines, which the Commission' s proposal does.
I believe that the Commission' s proposal, along with the improvements which we are adding here, will reduce emissions considerably.
It is said that exhaust gases will be cut by half.
In this way, we will be able to contribute to improvements in sensitive water environments.
As a Finn, and not necessarily as a representative of the ELDR Group, I must say, however, that I am worried about the two-tier system which the rapporteur proposes.
Otherwise, I believe that on many points he has drawn up a realistic proposal which corrects certain errors in the Commission' s proposal and which takes into account the costs and classic boats.
I, myself, have a boat over 30 years old in my boat house which would not meet these standards; I believe it is a classic boat.
In this respect it is a good proposal, but a division whereby different rules apply for inland waterways and seas is not good.
For example, in the country which the Commissioner responsible for and I know best, it is possible to use the same boat on inland waterways and on the sea in the same day.
When a boat is manufactured, it is not known which conditions it will be used for.
I therefore think that Amendment No 15 is unworkable, and that is also the point made by the rapporteur.
There is much to be done if we are to be able to engage with the recreational craft sector.
In this context, I would also like to have seen us dealing with septic tank requirements, as I believe that this, at least with regard to the situation in the Baltic Sea, is one of the most problematic environmental issues associated with the boat industry.
I would thank the rapporteur for a good proposal.
We have been greatly interested in the fact that the Commission has now tabled this.
It is important in order to ensure that the water environment will be improved.
However, I believe that the issues which Mr Lange addressed with regard to groundwater should be solved at their respective locations, and that is something for which we have other legal instruments.
Mr President, pleasure boats generate a great deal of noise and pollution.
In my city, Amsterdam, the dozens of boats create far more stench than the tens of thousands of cars.
I therefore welcome the fact that the European Commission, at the instigation of the Scandinavian and German boat industry, want to improve that situation.
The modest Commission proposals, however, have been watered down by a majority of the Christian-Democrats and the Liberals in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
The Group of the Greens has tabled one correction amendment.
We are counting on the Christian-Democrats and the Liberals, who care about the environment, to wake up and no longer to tag along behind the Conservative rapporteur, Mr Callanan. If they were to continue to back him, that would be a blot on the European Parliament' s green escutcheon.
What is worse, we in Amsterdam, as elsewhere in Europe, would continue to be faced with the noise and stench of the pleasure boats on and around the water.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Mr Callanan and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy for this comprehensive report.
It is very well timed for European citizens, who are now preparing for their holidays and may experience the problem daily.
Engine noise, air and water pollution are becoming an increasingly common irritant in recreational activities.
I recently read in the press that, in the past, no attention was paid to research and technology on noise pollution and that is the reason for the delays in development.
While exhaust emissions from recreational craft are relatively small in comparison to the total amount of pollution in the environment, the effect of pollution is amplified by the way recreational craft are used.
Noise pollution has been targeted, because motor boats are often used in areas where people go to relax.
Recreational areas free of unpleasant noise are an important but scarce national resource that should be protected.
This has led to the introduction of different emission requirements in the different Member States.
The proposed legislation therefore seeks to avoid fragmentation of the internal market and at the same time to ensure a high level of health, safety, and environmental consumer protection.
The Commission proposal is a good example of synergy between environment and industrial policies contributing to sustainable development.
Comparable legislation exists in the United States on exhaust emissions from recreational out-board engines.
The environmental protection agency is currently preparing legislation to cover recreational in-board and stern drive engines.
These cases are under discussion under the auspices of the transatlantic business dialogue, in which I am also participating.
Mr Callanan and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy are to be congratulated for the amendments which aim to simplify the noise-testing procedures, produce the conformity assessment costs for SMEs and clarify requirements in the case of replacement engines.
The Commission can accept the amendments which aim to clarify and improve the wording of the initial text in relation to partly completed craft and weather conditions, as well as those concerning the simplification of the noise-testing procedures.
The amendments concerning the distinction of stern drive engines, the formulas to be used for the noise-testing procedures and clarification of the coverage of replacement engines can be accepted in principle.
While we have no problem with the general direction of the proposals, we need to analyse further the values and definitions proposed.
As regards the institutional aspects, the proposal envisages, in conformity with the rules governing comitology, a regulatory committee to deal with a number of standard issues relating to the adaptation of technical provisions to technical progress, including measures concerning the evolution of exhaust and noise emission limits.
A regulatory committee is thus essential for the efficient implementation and the regular update of a specific range of technical elements of the proposed directive.
It would be contrary to the simplifying aims of the comitology decision to initiate a formal modification procedure in the case of non-essential provisions subject to regular review.
Consequently, the amendments requiring the rescission of this provision relating to comitology cannot be accepted by the Commission, as they are contrary to its executive powers under Article 202 of Treaty.
Nevertheless, in order to meet concerns expressed by some Members of Parliament, like Mr Lange, as regards further steps in the case of emission limit values, it may be possible to arrive at an acceptable formula in the light of subsequent negotiations.
The Commission will consider the most appropriate ways to take into account the evolution of exhaust and noise emission limits.
For example, the question of possible further reductions in emission limit values could be dealt with in the report to be presented to the European Parliament and to the Council under Article 2 of the Commission proposal.
I am convinced that further work in close cooperation with the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, will lead to a balanced solution offering a clear benefit for the environment and the internal market, while minimising additional burdens to SMEs.
In conclusion, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 6, 14, 18, 19, 22, 27 to 29, 37, 39, 41 and 44.
Furthermore, the Commission can accept in principle Amendments Nos 3, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 21, 23, 35 and 36.
In addition, the Commission can accept in part Amendments Nos 10, 43 and 45.
On the contrary, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 2, 4, 9, 11, 15, 16, 17, 20, 24 to 26, 30 to 34, 38, 40, 42 and 46 to 50.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Aid to uprooted people in developing countries
The next item is the report (A5-0228/2001) by Mrs Carrilho, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on measures in the field of aid to uprooted people in developing countries in Latin America and Asia.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the issue now under our consideration is one of the most tragic facing mankind at the beginning of this new century: the phenomenon of populations uprooted as a result of violent conflicts.
The text of my report contains some figures that are by themselves striking enough.
Nevertheless, recent estimates show that the situation is growing worse.
In the last two years, more than five million people have been forced to leave their homes.
According to current estimates, more than thirty million people are displaced, some as refugees seeking shelter in foreign countries, others forced to seek refuge in safer areas within their own countries.
The continent that has been worst affected is Africa, but the situation in Asia has also deteriorated.
We only need to look at Afghanistan and the refugee camps in Pakistan.
Problems also remain in Timor, for example, although East Timor is making considerable progress in building on its independence and democracy.
With regard to Latin America, the situation in Colombia has become practically intolerable.
We could mention other tragic examples, but the essence of the problem speaks for itself.
What have we done in the face of this situation? Since 1984, the European Parliament has promoted the creation of a budget heading designed for refugees in Asia and Latin America.
It was only in 1997, however, that this heading was given a legal basis.
What are the substance and the grounds for such aid? We all know that there are budgetary headings for emergency aid, such as the ECHO programme and other forms of what we could call 'horizontal' aid.
These aid packages only cover the first six months, however.
They are an attempt to provide a period of basic survival.
The line of aid discussed in this report seeks to fill the gap that exists between emergency aid and development aid.
In fact, in many cases, once populations have passed through the initial survival phase, they still lack the organisational ability needed to obtain development aid - sometimes also because their countries themselves lack the necessary political structures.
There is broad consensus in Parliament on the importance of this aid line, and the proof of this is the 1996 adoption of the Howitt report.
Nevertheless, the 1997 regulation expired in 1999.
What did Parliament receive more than a year later?
A proposal for a regulation that was very similar to the previous one.
At the same time, and with regard to the past, it should also be noted that, due to the shortcomings of the Commission' s planning, the timescale for Parliament' s work was exceptionally tight.
It is only now that we have finished, due to the cooperation of many NGOs, and those who have worked on the process on behalf of the Commission and the Council.
Parliament not only strove to provide greater flexibility, clearer coordination and greater rigour in the assessment and implementation of aid but also fought to include greater coherence between cooperation and development policies in the regulation, bearing in mind the European Union' s political commitments.
It is precisely in order to ensure coherence that we must make more appropriations available: we must increase them from EUR 36 million in 2001 to around EUR 55 million per year over the next three years.
We cannot claim to consider this to be sufficient, but it is important to emphasise that this is a political message which is positive and meaningful at international level and which is also an incentive for the work of the NGOs and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees.
I should also like to draw your attention to the urgent need within the European Union to address the refugee issue in a united way.
Our strategic objectives must be to prevent further occurrences of this phenomenon.
We must invest in conflict prevention and in establishing conditions that save local populations from the tragedy of major large-scale displacement.
We must give priority to cooperation and development policy throughout the European Union' s external policy, not least as an important source of legitimacy for the common foreign and security policy.
In raising the question of Africa as one of its priorities, the Belgian Presidency is working towards this goal and we are very pleased with this development.
We therefore hope that we will have the support of the Commission and the Council, especially because this type of action gives more credibility to the common European project.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur.
As she said, this report is important because it aims to help uprooted people, in other words, refugees, displaced persons and returnees in Asia and Latin America.
Speaking on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I would like to emphasise the need to approve this programme immediately so that we do not lose the appropriations for this year.
Parliament has always been in favour of having a separate action for uprooted people on the basis of the unique circumstances facing them, as outlined by the rapporteur.
I have some reservations about the function performed by the management committee.
My opinion includes an amendment replacing the management committee with a consultative committee in order to enable the Commission to exercise more adequately its responsibility for implementing the budget.
One of my main concerns is that the legal base for these actions expired at the end of December 2000.
I do not know why the Commission left this new proposal so late, especially when we only had a one-year extension granted in 1999.
I have yet to find an adequate response to that.
If we want to improve the spending on this appropriation, it is not acceptable for the Commission to submit each and every project to a committee.
It is important that the committee should concentrate more on annual work plans and look at ex-post evaluation.
Finally, in these particular lines, the Commission has not included a reference amount in the legislation.
This is wholly justifiable as the nature of the programme dictates that any attempt to anticipate future needs will prove futile.
I recommend we approve this report.
Mr President, I am a strong supporter of a programme to help the many refugees in both Asia and Latin America.
In the main, the programme is a success.
I should like to commend the rapporteur for having tackled all the most important problems and thank her for having adopted all my amendments.
One of the greatest human catastrophes of our time is taking place in Afghanistan.
I am therefore pleased to see that most resources go to uprooted people from that country.
More than 50% of the aid at present goes to refugees from Afghanistan.
There are between 500 000 and a million displaced persons in Afghanistan, almost 2.6 million of whom live in the neighbouring countries of Iran and Pakistan.
These people are some of the most disadvantaged in the world, and that applies especially to the women.
We are all familiar with the depressing pictures of veiled, ghost-like women who are shot if they show the slightest signs of rebellion.
Nonetheless, there is a need for increased supervision of programmes such as this.
I have added that OLAF must have the opportunity of exercising supervision on the spot.
I have also asked the Commission to answer the question of whether EU aid to, for example, Afghanistan has been chanelled through an illegal money network by the name of Havela.
Havela is a closed, secretive and worldwide network which, within twenty-four hours, can transfer large amounts of money to anywhere in the world.
The transfers take place without documentation and can therefore never be traced.
The network is considered to be a dominant factor in global money laundering.
To a certain degree, the end justifies the means when we are dealing with as serious and catastrophic a situation as that in Afghanistan, but the methods used must be open and above board, and I have therefore asked the Commission if it thinks it is in order for EU aid to be used to conceal money laundering and funds from drug smuggling and the trafficking in human beings.
Mr President, I am very pleased as shadow rapporteur to commend this report to Parliament and to congratulate Mrs Carrilho on an excellent report.
Last year I was the rapporteur for this report when we extended the budget line for a few more months.
I am also pleased that the Commissioner is here this morning to reply to the debate because I want to talk to him about a big idea.
Are we not in a rather curious position? On the one hand we have asylum-seekers coming to Europe and seeking help, shelter and aid and, on the other, we have displaced people living in camps in countries such as Afghanistan and right throughout the world.
These are the same people and we need to make that connection: the people who come here are actually the same sort of people who are living in camps.
If we can help them to be resettled, then we are not only helping them fundamentally but we are also helping to alleviate a problem that is growing in Europe.
My big idea is nothing to do with this, however.
It is about the Montevideo Convention.
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether he could envisage a new approach?
After the Helsinki and Harare meetings we now give aid to countries on the basis of human rights, good governance and so on.
Yet there are 59 civil conflicts around the world creating uprooted people and many of these conflicts are about looting natural resources, greed and dictators wanting to run their show their own way.
Yet we all recognise each country as an equal sovereign nation.
I find it very curious that on the one hand when we give aid, we treat people with a certain measure of circumspection, but when we recognise the national sovereignty of a country we apply the Montevideo Convention and say they are all sovereign.
When the British ran the British Empire, particularly The Raj, they had a habit of giving gun salutes to different Maharajas and Rajas depending on how they behaved.
It is time that we looked at how we recognise what we call national sovereignty and how we treat so-called independent nations.
We need to differentiate between countries and presidents and governments that are democratic and behave in a civilised way and countries that are dictatorial or brutal.
Then we can give different levels of 'gun salutes' to the latter countries so that we do not treat everybody in the same way.
I warmly thank Mrs Carrilho, my friend and colleague.
I did this report in the last parliament.
But she has more than ably taken on and developed the work that I and Mr Deva have been involved in the past and I warmly thank and congratulate her on her work.
I have three points that I want to make.
Firstly, it is important to say to the Commission that we in Parliament, having established this budget line, have adopted some important principles that we want to see adhered to in the way that it is implemented, strengthening our commitment to non-refoulement.
There have been instances in the past where we could have been accused of complicity with forced return: it is absolutely illegal in international law and the Commission must be vigilant on that.
We want to ensure that this budget line is used creatively, including not just visible support for camps, clean water and so on, but the less visible help that is so critical in refugee situations including psycho-social support and counselling, support on reproductive health issues and indeed, support for refugees with disabilities.
I should like to associate myself with the points made by Mrs Gill on comitology where that is particularly damaging to the delivery of this budget line.
I suspect Commissioner Patten will agree with that point.
Secondly, I should like to reiterate to Commissioner Patten that the fact that the Commission brought forward no money for Latin America in their preliminary budget is bizarre particularly when 2.1 million displaced people exist in Colombia.
He is doing a lot of very good work in terms of emergency assistance there, but the safe and protected return of internally displaced people in that country is crucial and it is bizarre that they do not include that in their plans.
Finally, Commissioner Patten himself told us in Parliament when he brought forward the 12-month extension that it would not be late again; he listened to our views and yet the situation has arisen again.
It is important that we be seen to ensure that the reform is on track, and that means these issues being dealt with much further in advance than we are now once again seeing.
I guess he is a little embarrassed by having to come at this late stage once again here today.
Mr President, from G8 to recreational craft, and from recreational craft to uprooted people.
That is what you might call a range of subjects.
There are certainly sound reasons for having such a range, without my explaining in more detail what I mean.
Until I heard Commissioner Liikanen commenting on recreational craft, I was quite convinced that it was these that would win the debate in the press.
After hearing his contribution, however, I am, in spite of everything, a little less certain of that.
He did in fact manage to talk the subject down.
In the previous debate on the G8 Summit, we of course discussed the usefulness of the global meetings.
As Commissioner Patten strongly emphasised, these are important, but it is just as important that these meetings should be followed up, and the present debate might well be said to be an example of such follow-up.
It is also an example of how - one might almost say - tediously practical the work of democracy also is and of how it is therefore difficult for democracy to compete with the more violent and spectacular global demonstrations.
Nonetheless, this work is absolutely essential.
The proposal no doubt also emphasises very clearly, however, that the only really effective method we have in this context is effective prevention, and I should like to have seen this emphasised a little more.
The proposal also shows - and I think this is a good thing - the need to involve the NGOs in the work.
Without them, success will elude us.
I shall therefore just conclude by saying that - like the previous speaker, Mr Blak - I too think it is heart-breaking to see the developments in Afghanistan.
I can clearly remember the first time I heard about them on the radio.
Developments there increasingly cause one to despair, as does the fact that the international community has so few opportunities for intervening in time.
Mr President, the Greens/EFA Group would, of course, like to congratulate the rapporteur.
I would like to say that we agree entirely with her stance and proposal in this report.
I do not intend to go into detail at all but would just like to say that we are all waiting for the Commission' s overall proposal for Asia and Latin America to arrive soon - after the summer, if I have understood correctly.
More generally, I would like to criticise the Commission and the Council for having shown themselves to have been extremely ill-prepared for the legislative process, which has led to payment of the limited funds available for development aid being delayed for an extremely long time.
Now, many aid organisations and non-governmental organisations are desperately waiting to receive money.
This really is not the way it should be.
I would also like to remind the Commission that, at the Gothenburg summit, an undertaking was given to contribute to sustainable development on a global basis, for example, by ensuring that the UN targets for aid, amounting to 0.7 per cent of GNP, are achieved.
I would like to ask the Commission whether there are any plans regarding how this is to happen, bearing in mind that Germany is now down to 0.25 per cent of GNP and that only Sweden, Denmark and Luxembourg have achieved the target or exceeded it.
What plans are there for achieving this in practice? I think it is shameful that Germany is now down to around the same level as the US.
Mr President, the topicality and the importance of the matter we are now debating; uprooted populations in the developing countries of Latin America and Asia, are clear. I wish to express my total support for the concerns of the rapporteur in general and, in particular, for rapidly reaching agreement with the Council, in order to objectively follow up specific support measures.
Nevertheless, I should like to state my disappointment at the Council' s insistence on introducing a time limit and a tight one at that, for this regulation.
The problem of refugees and uprooted populations is a structural and global problem, which will not be resolved by means of one-off and short-term measures.
By being so unwilling to compromise on this issue, the Council is preventing us from developing a strategic approach, which, incidentally, was present in the Commission' s initial proposal.
We can only censure the Council for this attitude.
Mr President, I should first of all like to echo the appreciation for Mrs Carrilho' s report and also, of course, for the input from our first speaker, Mr Deva.
In fact, I completely concur with the views he has outlined.
The reason why I have taken the floor is to draw your attention to a specific situation, namely that in Indonesia, and the Moluccas, to be more precise.
I am also doing this because it appears from the reports that most of the Union' s funding for refugees and displaced persons in Indonesia has been allocated to Timor.
Needless to say, I fully understand why that was done, given the recent tragedies there and the huge amount of work that still needs to be done there.
Meanwhile, however, the situation on the Moluccas has become far more serious.
More than 300 000 people have fled from island to island due to aggression, especially from Muslim fundamentalists of the Laskar Jihad and disloyal sections of the Indonesian army and police.
On 20 May, another nine people were killed and seventeen wounded in Belakang Soya and Karan Pajang, and even after that incident, violence simply carried on.
People from the Christian communities are also fleeing because they are forced to convert to Islam.
There have even been forced incidents of circumcision.
Similar atrocities are taking place in Irian Jaya.
I would therefore ask the Commission to use the aid for Indonesia not only for Timor, but also for the displaced and refugees on the Moluccas and in Irian Jaya.
I should welcome a reaction from the Commission to this request.
I should also like to highlight how important it is for the European Union to cooperate with the UNHCR and the NGOs.
I could not agree more with Mrs Dybkjær, for they end up doing the practical work anyway.
In this connection, I should like to know from the Commission whether the problems with the UNHCR have now been solved, that is to say whether the UNHCR is now obtaining more funding from the Commission.
For while the number of refugees and displaced persons is increasing, the budget of the UNHCR is being cut back.
That is, surely, not justifiable.
Mr President, I should like to concur with Mrs Maij-Weggen regarding the Moluccas. I should now like to turn to the report by Mrs Carrilho.
In her report, she made a number of essential observations further to the Commission proposal.
With the criticism about a lack of coherence in European policy fresh in my memory, I consider Amendments Nos 3 and 4 to be of particular importance.
Emergency aid also forms part of that development policy and must fit within the general objectives of the European Union' s development policy.
Organisations involved in development activities in the grey area between emergency aid and development aid sometimes threaten to fall between two stools.
I was faced with exactly that situation involving a Dutch development aid organisation.
Furthermore, there are often distressing situations among the target groups of this aid.
That is precisely why I should like to join the rapporteur in her plea for maintaining this budget line.
Mr President, I should like to invite the House to support the report by my colleague, Maria Carrilho, which aims at improving a regulation which we consider important.
Europe must do all it can to help displaced people, in this case in Latin America and Asia.
We must help those who are forced to leave their places of origin for reasons of extreme poverty, wars, various situations of repression and force, and internal conflicts in which civil power crumbles and democracy as the normal way of coexisting is scorned.
The European Union must make a political effort at an international level to encourage countries to adopt a flexible interpretation of the Geneva Conventions and also to promote new instruments of international law to protect these internal refugees.
In our capacity as donors, the European Union Member States and the European Union itself must not hesitate to use every possible means to ensure that the countries with which we cooperate guarantee the safety of their nationals and respect for their human rights.
Of course, taking on the responsibilities of the Union in the field that we are concerned with here must be matched by a consistent financial effort, which should already be reflected in the budgets for 2002.
Alongside the immediate, urgent need for political and financial action to help the uprooted victims, however, we must not lose sight of the need to attack the very roots of the problem.
Our medium and long-term efforts must be directed at the eradication of poverty and the consolidation of the rule of law and democracy everywhere, which can foster development and social justice.
In other words, prosperity and stability so that all can live with dignity in their own lands.
This has been an interesting if short debate.
I would like to comment on a couple of the points that were raised, though I am sure we will have opportunities on other occasions to follow up the speech on sovereignty that was made by Mr Deva.
Mrs Schörling, asked what we were doing in order to oblige Member States to meet the UN target for development assistance.
Had Mrs Schörling been able to be present for the debate we had earlier today on the G8, she would have heard how much I sympathise with the objective which she has, but it is an argument that one has to put to the governments of Members States and to their parliaments, which vote on this public spending of those governments.
I sympathise, particularly against the background of declining aid flows in the 1990s.
Mrs Maij-Weggen knows that I share her concern about the situation in Indonesia, not least the situation in the Moluccas and some of the other islands and provinces and I assure Mrs Maij-Weggen that we will be allocating EUR 3 million to the Moluccas next year and for future years, if that is required.
I would like, however, to begin the substantive part of my speech by congratulating Mrs Carrilho, for the quality of this report.
I am very well aware of the difficult work conditions and the time pressure.
The analysis, conclusions and amendments contained in her report are, in the Commission's judgment, of the highest quality and contribute to improving significantly the original Commission proposal.
I say that without any qualification.
We share all the concerns and the recommendations contained in the honourable Member's report.
I would also like to thank the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control for their contributions to this debate.
On 21 June, the international community celebrated the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Geneva Convention on the status of refugees.
Unfortunately, there was not much to celebrate.
Today, there are more 22 million uprooted people in the world and that figure is increasing.
Every day from Afghanistan- and I will certainly look into the points raised by Mr Blak - to Colombia, from the Balkans to the region of the Great Lakes, thousands of families are displaced by war, famine and poverty.
We know that the international community is affected by donor fatigue.
The UNHCR is struggling to find the resources to cope with these human tragedies and has recently downsized its operations.
Again, in response to the honourable lady, we are involved in discussion not only with the UNHCR, but with other UN organisations to try to put our financial relationship with them on a more sensible footing.
It is a good time to state clearly that the European Community will continue to earmark financial and human resources to help uprooted people to go back to their homes, to start a new life and live in peace and security.
Parliament has decided to send a political signal in this respect by proposing an increase in the financial resources available and we welcome this proposal.
Since 1997, more than EUR 200 million have been committed to finance projects throughout Asia and Latin America in favour of uprooted people.
Money has been used to help refugees to live a decent in camps, to return to their home country, or to resettle in a third one and to become self-sufficient.
The budget line has financed projects to protect uprooted populations in the host countries on their way home and at their final destination.
It has helped host communities to accept and integrate uprooted families.
Most of all it has ensured the presence of the international community in the delicate transition from humanitarian aid to long-term development - a point raised by Mr Deva - by rebuilding homes and schools, ensuring access to drinking water and irrigation, improving health and education services, setting up credit facilities and restoring economic activity.
Indeed, the evaluation carried out in 2000, though indicating a series of management weaknesses that the Commission has addressed with its reform of external aid, confirmed that the budget line is highly relevant and should be continued.
Coming to the specific amendments proposed by Parliament, the Commission agrees with all the changes proposed.
First, we appreciate the strengthening of the human rights of the regulation; second, the clarification of the role of the regulation in the continuum of relief, rehabilitation and development; third, the reinforcement of control monitoring and reporting functions and finally, the strengthening of peace- building and conflict management dimensions of the regulation along the lines of the recently adopted Commission communication on conflict prevention.
Concerning the duration of the regulation, the Commission originally proposed that the regulation should be valid for an indefinite period of time to avoid periodic discussion on a question which seems, sadly, unlikely to go away or change in nature in a significant way.
However, we consider that December 2004 is a very reasonable compromise, particularly in the light of our intention to revise the Asia and Latin America regulation, and will examine the possibility of incorporating the question of uprooted people into a single geographical instrument.
Finally, we take note of the desire of the Parliament to earmark, for the operations to be financed under this regulations, financial resources beyond the amount already programmed.
Once again, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the excellent job which she has done and I hope that as a result our programmes in this very important sector will be both generous and better focused and managed.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11:50 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon)
Mr Meyer, we talked about this matter yesterday.
However, I would ask you to express your concern in writing for the Quaestors.
Mr President, yesterday afternoon there was a demonstration in front of Parliament.
The demonstrators used powerful public address systems, that is, loudspeakers.
This unbearably noisy spectacle hampered both me and other members in the exercise of our mandate.
Please ensure that, first, demonstrators have no cause to enter the grounds of Parliament, as happened yesterday and, secondly, that they are prohibited from using public address systems in the vicinity of the European Parliament.
So as to avoid any misunderstanding, may I point out that I am an advocate of the right to demonstrate and am delighted when groups of musicians visiting members entertain us in Parliament and the inner courtyard with their musical renditions.
We have taken note of your comment, Mr Knolle.
Mr President, we are about to undertake a series of very important roll-call votes.
Can you confirm that Mr Brienza has been registered in the voting system today?
The competent services confirm that he has, Mr Dell'Alba.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTE
The rapporteur asked the Commission to take a position on the part of Amendment No 25 concerning Article 18(2) of the proposal.
This part concerns Community officials seconded to the agency, and other servants recruited by the executive agency.
Mrs Schreyer stated in yesterday's debate that the Commission could not fix the minimum percentage of Commission officials on secondment to the agency, and therefore could not accept the rapporteur's suggested 25%.
Sufficient Commission officials will be seconded to the agency to meet job requirements.
Mrs Schreyer, however, can confirm that other servants will be recruited on renewable contracts.
The final part of that amendment on the nature of the contracts and the obligations and criteria required is also acceptable.
I hope that this statement will allow Mr Bourlanges to support the adoption of his report so that the proposal can conclude its passage through the Council as soon as possible.
I thank him for his excellent work on this matter.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his statement which settles an extremely important issue, giving the assurance that the staff of the agencies will not suffer from job insecurity or be of insufficient quality.
I think that is a very important point.
I take this opportunity to add that we had a very late discussion with Mr van Hulten, the representative of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and - he has authorised me to say this -- contrary to what was envisaged previously, his group could agree to support both Amendment No 13, which was passed by the Committee on Budgets, and also parts 3 and 4, just referred to by the Commissioner, of Amendment No 25.
I am saying this so that there is no misunderstanding, and if I have not expressed Mr van Hulten' s thinking correctly he can put it differently, but it will mean we have a much more united vote in this House.
Mr President, I wanted to take the floor because, today, in the relative confusion of the votes, partly due to the fact that we were voting on important issues, the European Parliament has given, given back or, to be more accurate, has agreed to give EUR 12 billion - to be exact, EUR 11.6 billion - back to the Member States because it was left over from the budget for 2000.
Now, I consider all this to be ridiculous: we have been following this practice for years with the result that, not only are we not in control of the amount of income we receive but, in addition, we are allowing the Member States to take back all this money or to deduct it from their contributions for the year in progress.
I feel that, at a time when enlargement is pending, when we have budgetary problems and we need to be constantly seeking new resources, this system is wholly inappropriate: the Member States not only deny us those expenditure ceilings which were laid down in Edinburgh and confirmed in the Financial Perspective but they also want to take back funds which could be redirected and used to good effect, as happens in any other State budgetary system, where funds are not returned to the citizens, I regret to say, but put to another use.
Therefore, with this protest, I am explaining why we voted against the report.
Draft Supplementary and Amending Budget No 3, submitted to us in Mrs Haug' s report, is essentially about changes to OLAF and European Commission staff. As regards the Anti-Fraud Office, the amendment tabled by the Committee on Budgets, in agreement with the Committee on Budgetary Control, changes the distribution between permanent posts and temporary posts in a way we find commendable and, as a whole, this Draft Supplementary and Amending Budget does not call for any special comment.
Supplementary and Amending Budget No 4 deals primarily with the balance for the financial year 2000, and also provides for a strengthening of the supplementary payment appropriations for the Western Balkans from the 2000 balance, raising them from EUR 350 million to EUR 450 million, or EUR 70 million more for the Balkans and an additional EUR 30 million for supplementary financial assistance for FRY.
The rapporteur agrees to the 'revenue' side of this Supplementary and Amending Budget, in other words the reimbursement, which we support, of EUR 7.5 billion arising from the 2000 surplus to the Member States.
However, the Union for Europe of the Nations Group cannot join the rapporteur in condemning the fact that the European Parliament has no say in the 'revenue' section of the budget.
Mrs Haug' s other report, on the situation concerning the European Union's own resources in 2001, also reopens the debate on increasing revenue, taking the view that the European Union should depend less and less on payments from the Member States, and that the own resources system should be changed so as to achieve financial autonomy.
The resolution therefore states that the purpose of the reform should be to provide Europe with an 'autonomous source of revenue' , and it supports the establishment of a direct European tax, at the same time demanding full association of the European Parliament in the budgetary procedure, in particular as regards revenue.
The French delegation of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group is opposed to all these inappropriate proposals, which in any case infringe the Treaty.
(Explanation of vote shortened pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
In relation to Supplementary and Amending Budget Number 3 of this year, I would like to refer to an amendment which I tabled on behalf of my group, UEN, at the Budget Committee but which unfortunately was not accepted.
The amendment related to Budget line A-3015 which is used to finance the European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages.
I am glad to have the opportunity to explain my amendment.
Many colleagues will be aware of the excellent work carried out by the Bureau in promoting protection for lesser used and minority languages.
This becomes all the more important in the context of enlargement with the cultural and linguistic diversity in many of the applicant states.
As many colleagues will be aware, the Commission is attempting to impose conditions on the Bureau which would have the effect of closing its office in Dublin.
The Bureau was set up some years ago on an initiative of the Irish government and is still co-financed by the Irish government.
The secretariat was originally all in Dublin, though in recent years an antenna was opened in Brussels to carry out relations with the EU institutions.
I have been in contact with the Irish Minister responsible for language matters and I believe that it would be very difficult to sustain the same level of interest in the Bureau among Irish government circles, should the Bureau be forced to close its Dublin office.
Concern over this was also expressed from northern circles because the Bureau is active with regard to the language aspects of the Good Friday agreement.
I believe that the Commission is acting to subvert the will of parliament in imposing such conditions on the grant and consequently, I proposed including a direct reference to the secretariats in Dublin and Brussels in the footnote.
Once the new budgetary procedure begins next September, I will be seeking support once again for such a move.
On this occasion I simply want to draw the attention of colleagues to the machinations of the Commission which I believe could have damaging consequences.
Haug report (A5-0238/2001)
Mr President, on the subject of the use of the European Parliament's own resources, I would like to say, both on behalf of the Pensioners' Party which I represent and on behalf of the associated French, Dutch, Spanish, Swedish, Slovenian, Bulgarian and Lithuanian Pensioners' Parties, who have authorised me to speak on their behalf, that I openly support the proposal that the European Union should levy its own taxes and that this should not mean an increase in taxation for the citizens but, on the contrary, a reduction in the taxes that the citizens pay in their own States.
Only in this way will the citizens see Europe in a positive light.
We have today voted against all calls to introduce a direct EU tax.
We do not think that a tax specific to the EU would be a good idea at all.
It is very doubtful whether such an EU tax would strengthen people' s attachment to, and enthusiasm for, EU cooperation.
Any EU tax would become part of a complex interplay involving national taxes, and there would be cause to fear that it would become difficult for national governments to supervise the combined tax burden.
It is therefore impossible to guarantee that the introduction of an EU tax would not involve further burdens for tax payers.
The introduction of an EU tax also looks like a step in the direction of a more federal EU, which is something neither we nor the majority of Europeans support.
My group, like many Members of this House as well as various experts, takes the view that the EU resources budgeted in the financial perspectives for 2000-2006 are insufficient, especially in view of the enlargement of the EU and the work which needs to be done to stabilise the situation in the Balkans, solve the problems of unemployment and stabilise social systems, to name but a few.
There is therefore good cause to put the question of additional sources of revenue for the European Union on the agenda.
Mrs Haug proposes in her report to abolish the previous system of transfers from Member States and to modify the own resources system so that the European Union can achieve financial autonomy.
She calls for a European tax to be introduced as a direct revenue.
My group cannot subscribe to this approach.
The system of transferring a proportion of gross national product used in the past is based on a principle which is conducive to economic and social cohesion in the Union - the solidarity principle.
To abolish this principle is to rob the European Union of its basis and, for us, this is unacceptable.
We take a constructive view of the idea of supplementing the present system of financing the EU with further sources of revenue in the form of European taxes which do not minimise taxes in the Member States of the European Union.
Our thoughts turn in this context, for example, to the introduction of a Tobin tax to cream off profits from financial transactions or the introduction of a pan-European CO2 tax on companies, which would also help us to implement a forward-looking environmental policy by applying pressure for more environmentally-friendly ways of generating energy and helping to safeguard the Kyoto agreement.
We also take the view that the present financial regulation should be amended so that resources not called up by the Member States stay in the European budget, rather than being channelled back to the Member States.
At the same time, we need to apply stricter budgetary discipline; for example, commitment appropriations not disbursed because they have not been called up by the recipient, should lapse after no more than 3 years, meaning that the allocation notice will need to be altered.
That is why my group rejects this report.
By multiplying free trade areas, abandoning customs duties in a system of generalised unilateral preferences, making gifts of customs duties to the 49 least advanced countries, under the pretext of welcoming everything 'except weapons' and above all submitting to the demands of the masters of the empire, from the GATT to the WTO, the European Commission has sawn off the financial branch the European budget used to hang upon - customs duties, which represented over 55% of Community resources in the 1960s, and only represent 14% of them now.
In addition, with the abandonment of Community agricultural preference, the common agricultural levy on imports of agricultural products from the Commonwealth, Central America and elsewhere, which protected it, is on the way out.
It only produces about 2% of Community resources now.
So much so that only 17% of the European budget' s resources now comes from customs duties and that agricultural levy.
As these two first historical resources are the only ones specifically belonging to the Community and able to make it financially independent of the Member States, their decline means the Community budget depends on payments from the Member States.
That is illustrated by the size of the GNP levy, the fourth historical resource of the European budget, which has only been in existence since 1988.
This constantly increasing levy already provides more than 45% of Community resources and in fact boils down to classic contributions by governments to finance an international organisation.
We have thus arrived at the astonishing situation where the European Commission, the beating heart of federal integration, has pursued a world customs policy which has reduced the Union to financing itself like any other intergovernmental organisation under entirely intergovernmental international law.
(The speaker was cut off pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
I have voted against the proposal.
Sweden' s Christian Democrats do not support items 5 and 11, which propose that the European Union should be given its own powers of taxation.
We do not want to increase the number of tax levels in society for our citizens.
Swedish tax payers pay tax to the municipality, the county council and the state.
Creating another level of taxation, a European one, means an inevitable increase in taxation in the long term.
This is a development which we do not want to support.
If the EU receives what the report calls 'financial autonomy' , this will also lead to political autonomy from Member States and their governments, with all the dangers and the lack of control which this brings with it.
We do not wish to support such a development.
Costa Neves report (A5-0241/2001)
This preliminary draft budget by the Commission, which represents less than 1.06% of the Community' s GNP, is truly the lowest that has ever been drawn up and is, therefore, unacceptable, not least because it represents a reduction in spending, especially in the area of cooperation with least-developed third countries. Not even East Timor has escaped this downward trend in spending.
The report' s conciliatory tone is, therefore, surprising, as is its lack of strategy and priorities. These absences are also surprising in the face of an oft-heralded enlargement, not to mention social issues, which are all but ignored.
The European Parliament needs to be more audacious and should not simply accept what it is presented with, as is happening once again.
As a matter of fact, the presentation of the fourth (!) amending budget in the current year is an example of the budgetary chaos in which the Community operates and also proves us right for having tabled a motion refusing to discharge the budget last year.
In the meantime and if we are to believe the Haug report, the solution to all of these problems would be to create a Community tax!
We consider this kind of proposal to be a red herring.
Apart from issues of principle raised by such a proposal, it must be emphasised that the reduction in the Community budget is primarily a result of the restrictive guidelines laid down in the Stability Pact.
This is where the appropriate answers can be found.
Furthermore, it is a matter of priority to ensure that the participation of the Member States takes place according to their relative wealth - on the basis of their GNP - and that the contribution by the citizens is fair and balanced.
Solidarity is a fundamental issue, which must be addressed together with the Community budgetary revenues.
Niebler report (A5-0232/2001)
Mr President, it is the year 2005.
One pensioner asks another: "What sort of things do you watch on television?" "I watch dance shows, entertainment shows and programmes with beautiful girls in".
"You've got it all wrong," replied the other. "I don't have time to watch that sort of thing.
Every evening, I watch Fatuzzo's European Show.
It is a show presented by Mr Fatuzzo, an expert on pensions, who talks to pensioners about how to increase the size of their pensions.
I advise you to watch Fatuzzo's European Show too."
This has all been made possible by Mr Niebler's report, which allocates radio spectra which, I hope, will be used to broadcast informative material for all the citizens, especially pensioners.
McKenna report (A5-0219/2001)
Mr President, we have just adopted the report by my colleague, Patricia McKenna, and I must certainly recognise that it has turned out to be a good document, covering in detail all the circumstances and problems affecting our coastal areas, both on the geographical, climatic, environmental and biodiversity side and as regards their economic, social, cultural, and leisure and recreational aspects.
I just wish there were a clearer and more committed reference to tourist developments and especially the numerous illegal buildings that have been put up in a speculative manner along many parts of the coast in Spain - and other countries too. They are clearly an assault on proper town planning and a threat to the environmental balance.
I believe the governments involved should act firmly and put a stop to the consequences of their lack of control over these illegal building projects.
Lastly, I must express my dissatisfaction that my proposal was not accepted to give this document, which we have just adopted as a simple recommendation, the rank of a Community directive, which would make it mandatory for the Member States to comply with it and make it part of their own national law.
Mr President, as a representative of the Pensioners' Party I welcome this European Parliament proposal. I welcome this proposal not just as a representative of the Pensioners' Party but also as a native of Genoa, a person born in Genoa.
In Italy, in Genoa and all along the Ligurian coast, unfortunately, when it rains rather more than usual, all the street level houses, flats, shops and bars are flooded.
I hope and pray that this will be the beginning of a European policy for coastal areas which is genuinely effective and benefits the European citizens who live on the European coasts.
This report makes a critical analysis of the proposal for a recommendation on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council recommendation concerning the implementation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management in Europe and tables various amendments which, for the most part, deserve our support. They deserve our support for highlighting the importance of our coastal areas, the causes of degradation and destruction that we are now seeing in various areas and the new dangers resulting from global warming and climate change, which pose perhaps the greatest threat to Europe' s coastal areas.
Nevertheless, it must also be emphasised that the decline in fishing and in related industries, which are fundamental factors for socio-economic cohesion in many of these areas that depend on fishing, are making them highly vulnerable.
Therefore, although the report is, as the rapporteur states, a first, crucial step in protecting Europe' s coastal areas, the Member States must also be committed to achieving this and to ensuring a degree of coordination between the various instruments to be used.
Nevertheless, we have some reservations about the measures described by the rapporteur, specifically those concerning a binding common strategy, since the Member States' role and capacity for action in this entire process are far from clear.
There is little difference in height between shallow areas of the sea along the coasts, the so-called continental shelf, and low-lying coastal areas.
Many of those areas have over the years turned from land into sea or from sea into land, with or without specific human intervention.
Thanks to the US President, Mr Bush, and the large oil concerns, these land areas threaten to be turned into sea once again, for as long as artificial global warming persists, the ice caps will continue to melt and sea levels will continue to rise.
It is precisely in those low-lying coastal areas that a large proportion of the world population is concentrated and key economic centres located.
Not only do eight million Dutch people and two million Flemings stand to lose their residential areas, but so do the people living in the Po plain in Italy, Les Landes in south-western France, and parts of cities including Helsinki, Copenhagen, London, Hamburg, Barcelona, Lisbon and Thessaloniki.
In addition to population pockets, coastal areas also boast areas of special natural beauty, such as the étangs on the French coast and the Wadden Sea in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, which is under continuous threat of being encroached upon by ports and industrial areas.
I share the opinion of Mrs McKenna entirely that coastal areas require far better protection than the European Commission proposes.
The social fabric of many coastal zones has been altered over recent years by the restructuring of the fisheries and traditional agriculture sectors.
Although certain regions have been faced with an exodus of their endogenous population, most of the coastal zones are experiencing an increase in overall demographic pressure, as well as significant seasonal variations in employment, essentially linked to tourism.
Major works required for urbanisation and development can threaten the coastal environment if carried out without sufficient knowledge of the coastal dynamic, by accelerating the erosion of the seashore.
Furthermore, pollution of marine or terrestrial origin is increasingly contaminating soil and drinking water resources.
The coastal territories are the focus of constant antagonism and conflict.
Lack of integrated management of maritime and terrestrial resources causes serious tension between the various sectors of activity, namely fisheries, agriculture and services, with the consequence that the sustainable development of the coastal areas is put on hold.
The strategy proposed by the Commission is an interesting approach intended to resolve the fundamental problems facing the coast: lack of information, insufficient participation by the population in projects, weak coordination between the various planning authorities and absence of real partnership which involves the economic sectors concerned, the regional and local authorities and the interregional organisations, in decision-making.
However, it is essential for the strategy for coastal zones to constitute one of the first examples of implementation of the guidelines developed under the European Spatial Development Perspective, because the principles set out in it are obviously valuable for the Union' s coastal zones.
This could even be an excellent occasion to restore vigour to a particularly inert ESDP, whose true impact still remains very limited.
Finally, I would like to express my agreement with those who regret that the Commission' s proposal does not take account of climate change, when that appears to have an influence on rising sea levels and increasing storm frequency, contributing decisively to risks of flooding, coastal erosion and loss of seashore.
Although we are only now beginning to recognise the new challenges that will face the coastal regions in the decades to come, the integrated coastal zone management strategy cannot decently ignore them.
Callanan report (A5-0218/2001)
Mr President, a few days ago, I was on holiday by the sea, sunbathing on a yacht.
I was not alone: amongst my companions was a beautiful, tanned, very nice, attractive girl who was sunbathing on the deck. She was called Marilyn.
At one point, she said to me: "But you are an MEP!
Can you tell me, then, why yachts and pleasure craft do not fly the European flag as well as the national flag?" I could only reassure her that I was going to vote for this measure and recommend that it be laid down that pleasure craft must fly the European flag too.
Brok report (A5-0244/2001)
I should like to use the opportunity provided by the resolution on macro-financial assistance to Yugoslavia to express my support for the assistance measures, even though they are minimal in comparison with the destruction wreaked in Yugoslavia by the NATO attacks.
At the same time, however, I wish to express my categorical condemnation of the manner in which assistance from donors has been used to circumvent and disregard constitutional procedures in Yugoslavia in order to bring Milosevic to the Hague tribunal.
It is financial blackmail and it offends every aspect of international law.
Of course Milosevic bears a huge responsibility for the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia and he must be brought to justice, but to link financial assistance with anti-constitutional action within the interior of the country in receipt of the assistance, without the knowledge of its democratically elected president, perverts and undermines the very nature of the European Union's aid programmes.
We are obviously in favour of the assistance to the reconstruction and development of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
This report, however, totally conceals the destruction caused by the NATO bombing of FRY.
Worse still, in an astonishing and utterly cynical reversal of perspective, the French version of the justification refers to the deterioration in the Yugoslav economy due to the 'war against NATO in 1999' .
We cannot support a policy which uses financial assistance to force the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to behave like a banana republic politically and economically, while helping neither Serbian awareness of the crimes committed, notably by Milosevic, in the name of the Serbian people, nor the emergence of a state of law, nor indeed the credibility of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as a judicial authority independent of the political powers, nor yet the reconstruction of the country with a minimum of social cohesion and peaceful relations between neighbouring peoples.
For all these reasons we have abstained.
The fact that I agree that we are making funds available for Yugoslavia does not in the least mean that I condone predictable attempts to draft that country into NATO, to subject its economy to foreign interests and to subordinate the rights of Montenegrins and Kosovars to relations with the Serbian government, which appears surprisingly cooperative.
Yugoslavia, impoverished and razed to the ground, requires a great deal of funding, and the former President deserves to be punished for suppression, war and undemocratic government.
Following a judicial procedure at home, an international trial was therefore inevitable.
What is happening now bears little relation to justice, and more to the trading of a political rival by the President of a federal state, in contravention of the federal government and the Supreme Court.
Only when last Thursday, Mr Milosevic was brought to The Hague, did a huge amount of money become available on Friday.
Evidently, one has to lose a war and governing power, and bankrupt one' s own economy, to be condemned a war criminal.
It is never the winners who are condemned, only the losers.
Funding is desperately needed to pay for the damages incurred in war in 1999, but now, it mainly appears to be a means to reward agreeable leaders and punish others.
I fear that the ignorance and nationalism of many of the people involved will only grow.
Resolution (B5-0480/2001) on the COM in fruit and vegetables
Even though this resolution is a generalisation, we agree with it in principle and shall vote in favour of it because it expresses the view that support for locust beans and nuts, which come under fruit and vegetables, should be reinforced.
However, we must register our disagreement with the items at which the resolution becomes more specific.
The first point on which we disagree concerns producer organisations, which we oppose because they undermine cooperatives.
Even where cooperatives are converted into producer organisations, numerous problems arise because cooperatives in Greece are multisectoral, as are farmers, while producer organisations deal with one specific product. As a result, several producer organisations end up working within the same cooperative and, if they work properly, that is, in accordance with the relevant regulation then, in practice, the cooperative is fragmented into as many parts as there are products handled by it.
The problem could have been resolved if Member States had been given the right to recognise these farmers' organisations and if the regulations had referred to cooperatives and producer organisations as being equivalent. This is not the case, however, and the European Union only recognises producer organisations with an anti-democratic legislative framework as producer groups.
The second point concerns the emphasis in the resolution on the operational programmes of producer organisations. We do not disagree with these programmes, we just consider them to be of secondary or tertiary importance.
When we talk of more efficient support for products, we mean better intervention prices, more subsidies and protection from mass imports.
The operational programme limiting environmental pollution is good but it alone will not improve income support for farmers.
Wuori report (A5-0193/2001)
Mr President, I have no intention of joining the regulars who give an explanation of vote; yesterday my timetable simply overran, and, unfortunately, I was too late for the deliberation on Mr Wuori' s report.
The importance of that report is only highlighted by the fact that the EU human rights policy is clearly now at the development stage.
It is based on an unshakeable view of human worth, because without human worth there are no human rights either.
It is important that the EU' s internal problems are reported at least as effectively and transparently as those of non-member countries.
As, eighteen months ago, I raised the issue of police violence as being a human rights problem within the EU, I cannot now help but raise it once again, alongside the matter of freedom of speech that the committee regards as the main point of focus.
There is every reason to analyse the reports of violence that occurred when the Gothenburg Summit was taking place just as seriously as the events themselves.
It was with an equal feeling of sorrow that I read not only about the injuries but also the fairly uncritical attitude of the journalists as they reported the events.
It is difficult to defend freedom of speech of the people and the press in a credible way if this freedom is increasingly being used irresponsibly.
If the EU is to be a globally important human rights player, its citizens will also serve as important models for the administrations of other countries of what the implementation of freedoms might mean in practice.
Mr President, I naturally support the Wuori report on human rights in the European Union but I feel - I am convinced - that the European Union needs to do much more.
We often discuss human rights throughout the world in this hemicycle in Strasbourg, but we, the European Union, continue to provide economic aid in the form of funding to countries in which there is no respect for human rights.
I call upon Parliament and our institutions not to give another euro to countries which do not respect human rights in the world.
It can never be repeated often enough that the European Union must actively promote human rights and democracy in all its activities throughout the world.
Respect for human rights must be a priority in all EU activities, including conflict prevention.
Indeed we must 'export' , as the saying goes, our common values like liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law - the EU' s founding principles.
However, it is essential to respect national sovereignty and not lapse into interference.
The European institutions must put their heads together and come up with more effective methods.
The rapporteur is proposing that the Council and the Commission elaborate more focused common strategies on human rights.
The EU Presidency is invited to ensure that the working programmes systematically include sections on well-defined policies and actions aimed at promoting human rights and democracy.
Specific annual priorities should be established, matched with measures for implementation.
These strategies must be subject to annual review and ensure consistency between the various Community policies involved.
I think it is important for the European Parliament to improve its own structures for dealing with human rights issues.
I welcome the suggestion to appoint a special representative, possibly a vice-chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. This person would deal with all human rights issues and would also ensure that individual cases of violation of human rights are followed up.
(Explanation of vote shortened pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
The European Union is poorly placed to give lessons on human rights.
Amongst others, it invokes the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, but it does not respect them.
What has it done to put an end to the scandalous haemorrhage that repayment of debt represents for the countries of the south? The Member States do not pay the WHO the money it needs to combat AIDS or tuberculosis, because the Maastricht criteria require reductions in public deficits.
'A more consistent crisis prevention policy' presupposes removing the oil multinationals from positions where they can do damage, like Total Fina Elf, whose war-mongering role in southern Sudan and Congo is increasingly apparent.
Furthermore, the European Union must respect the right of asylum and the 1951 Convention by getting rid of waiting areas and detention centres, and not by 'stricter visa requirements' as the report recommends. That is urgent.
Nor is it enough to 'regret' that the Roma are victims of serious discrimination.
They must be granted asylum and collective expulsions, carried out, for example and in particular, by Belgium, must be condemned.
The right to asylum can only be respected and human traffic effectively combated through freedom of movement and a policy to regularise the position of all those without papers.
As for freedom of the press and the battle against excessive media concentration, a populist predator in charge of Italy provides an instructive image of liberal Europe' s doublespeak.
I voted in favour of the Wuori report on European Union human rights policy.
I welcome the call for a better EU human rights strategy towards third countries and candidate countries.
Economic questions take centre stage during accession negotiations, while human rights issues are granted nowhere near the same importance.
I voted against the rapporteur's Amendment No 10 because it deletes the passage calling for the Turkish government to guarantee the return of more than 3 million refugees.
I have visited a number of refugee camps in south-east Turkey and seen the human misery for myself.
Even human rights reports should not ignore refugees.
I should also like to add, à propos the Wuori report, that there are not just Christian minorities in Turkey, as stated in Article 90, there are also the Yezidi, a religious community which is not recognised.
On official documents such as birth certificates, instead of Yezidi, a cross is entered or they are left blank as a sign of non-recognition.
Everyone has the right to worship freely and I therefore call for all religious communities in Turkey to be recognised.
British Conservatives are strong supporters of genuine human rights and, accordingly, have voted in overall support of the Wuori resolution.
However, there are a number of elements in the resolution with which many of us disagree, such as: the redefinition of human rights (paragraphs 50, 51 and 72); the unbalanced condemnations of Turkey (paragraphs 88 and 89); the misunderstanding of the nature and status of caste in India (paragraph 106 etc.); the call for legally-binding criteria for arms exports (paragraph 113).
Cornillet report (A5-0223/2001)
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Cornillet, even though he is absent because, in his report, he has presented us with rich and varied information on the state of human rights in the European Union and has sent the governments and nations of Europe a clear message saying that the European Union insists on being an area of freedom, justice and social cohesion in which the Charter of Fundamental Rights is respected.
However, my group, the Greek MEPs in the European People's Party, and I personally have a number of objections to the final text, which is why we each went our own way, some voting against and others, like myself, abstaining.
These objections have to do with relations with political and electoral rights, with immigrants and with the fact that we believe that political will comes first, with the European institutions adopting, drawing up and applying a common immigration policy and the Member States endeavouring to create the conditions needed for immigrants to integrate into society, wherever they may come from.
Electoral and political rights may be a natural and historic development, but we need a period of consultation and understanding with the citizens, we need dialogue before we can reach a creditable solution.
Another point to which we object is the official recognition of homosexual marriage because we believe that this does not only have to do with sexual freedom, it also has to do with the institution of the family and this touches on sensitive issues for European citizens which are protected in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Mr President, I voted against the Cornillet report on citizens' rights in Europe because I feel that the rights of elderly people are not respected in Europe, at least in many of the 15 States of the European Union.
The rights of the elderly are not respected when we become ill, completely incapacitated and lose our self-sufficiency: if we are lucky we are cared for by our families at home but, if not, we have to go into care homes which do what they can but, in any case, we have to pay for the care out of our own pockets with our own savings, if we have enough, and that is after we have given our work and paid taxes and contributions to the State all our lives.
Europe must take effective, practical action to uphold the rights of the most incapacitated elderly people too.
Mr President, I have taken the floor to express my satisfaction at the historic decision by which the European Parliament has adopted two extremely important amendments which confirm a principle of freedom, calling upon the Italian government and parliament to abolish the thirteenth provision of the Italian Constitution on the exile of the male descendants of the House of Savoy.
I would like to express my personal delight and satisfaction as a native of Piedmont too: this is an important, well-founded decision, for we are dealing with the last case of members of a royal family being forced to remain in exile and it is 50 years since the measure was adopted. Their history, from Emanuele Filiberto to Mafalda of Savoy, is an integral part of the history of Europe; this rule abolition we are calling for, is in conflict with the fundamental values of freedom shared by all the countries of the European Union and affects European citizens of which one, the younger, was not even born when the thirteenth provision was adopted.
Since we are talking about human rights, I shall raise once again the violations of the rights of intellectuals of all specialisms who dare to express independent opinions on history, leading them, for example, to re-examine certain aspects of the Second World War and the tragedy of the concentration camps.
A tragedy which, unfortunately, is currently exploited relentlessly on a daily basis to profit political or financial interests which have little to do with the memory of the victims.
In fact, at the present time, there are thousands of historians, sociologists, researchers, academics or just plain citizens being persecuted in Europe when their only crime is wanting to make a free examination of the dogmas - changing dogmas moreover - that the official authors impose.
As I did in 1999, I shall give just one example, taken from our rapporteur' s own region of Rhône-Alpes.
A penniless young historian, a person I did not know, Mr Plantin, was condemned just for the crime of mentioning, in a bibliography in the scholarly review he edits, works that correct historical errors to which no serious historian now adheres.
He was arrested.
His personal computer was confiscated.
Each of the usual funded associations suing him obtained heavy damages against him and his printer, a rural craftsman.
The magistrates of the Lyon Court of Appeal, Dominique Fournier, Jean-Luc Gouverneur and Marie-Odile Théolleyre, also banned publication of the review with a ruling worthy of Stalin' s court.
The counsellors at the Court of Cassation, Bruno Cotte, Christine Chanet and Guy Joly, failed in their duty by not censuring the manifestly abusive use in the case of a law on publications intended for young people.
What is more, under pressure and quite unlawfully, Professors Régis Ladous and Claude Prudhomme made themselves look ridiculous and odious by revoking, eleven years on, Mr Plantin' s master' s degree which they had marked 'Very Good' in full knowledge of the facts.
All this is going on in the twenty-first century, in France and in other European countries!
Such persecution obviously only strengthens the doubt surrounding the official dogmas.
It is unworthy and intolerable.
It must end as soon as possible.
I am very satisfied that the amendments connected with the recognition of relationships between people of the same sex were added to Mr Cornillet' s otherwise excellent report.
Regarding some other questions, I would like the report to have had more far-reaching views in the area of, for example, the adoption rights of gay and lesbian couples.
Human rights problems that affect sexual minorities are still regrettably common today in the Member States.
I think the references to legislation in applicant countries and to the fact that the equal treatment of citizens with regard to different relationships and family models should be taken into consideration in enlargement negotiations are important.
Some of the Cornillet report' s recommendations are undeniably positive.
We support extending voting rights to residents from non-Community countries, deletion of the Aznar Protocol - a veritable denial of the right of asylum, non-restrictive recognition of refugee status extending, for example to all the persecuted Algerians, measures against the discrimination suffered by the Roma, and recognition of the rights of homosexuals.
All the same, the good intentions sometimes stop halfway: detention centres and waiting areas are actually prisons in all but name, where living conditions are inhuman.
Limiting detention to 'exceptional cases' or 'a maximum period' are inadequate recommendations which maintain the criminalisation of asylum seekers and people without papers.
Article 32 proposes to 'humanise' detention for minors, but they should not have to suffer that degradation at all.
There must be standardised rules across Europe to allow victims of the traffic in human beings and domestic slavery to escape their persecutors.
Long-term residence permits would be much more effective against the exploiters than 'temporary residence permits ... for the duration of the inquiry and the judicial procedure' .
If the recitals and amendments on the right to vote and the rights of homosexuals are maintained, we will vote in favour of this report.
Otherwise we will abstain.
I abstained on the situation as regards fundamental rights in the European Union because certain forces in this House have again exploited this report to give credence to the argument that a Member State would not be respecting fundamental rights in the European Union if it did not amend its legislation to permit homosexual marriages and grant homosexual couples the same rights as married heterosexual couples.
That is going too far.
There should be provision for unmarried heterosexual couples and homosexual couples to settle certain difficulties connected with their position, for instance by concluding an agreement.
However, there can be no question of granting them the rights of a surviving spouse in terms of social security, or, for example, the same rights as a married couple, with or without children, in terms of taxation and adoption.
Unmarried couples can separate far more easily and cheaply, while divorce proceedings are always complicated, expensive and painful.
A regulation like that advocated in the report would end up discriminating against married heterosexual couples.
That cannot be allowed to happen.
In a chapter on European citizenship, there is an attempt to get it accepted that a Member State is violating fundamental rights if it does not grant the right to vote and to stand for the European Parliament and local elections to nationals of third countries legally resident in their territory for at least three years.
The right to vote is acquired on the basis of reciprocity by citizens of Member States of the Union living in another Member State.
The Portuguese can vote and stand for election in Luxembourg and I could do the same if I lived in Portugal.
However, why grant an Algerian, for example, the right to vote in a Member State if a national of that Member State does not have the right to vote in Algeria?
I cannot agree with these demands, quite apart from the fact that we are talking about areas of civil and political rights that come under national sovereignty.
Each Member State is free to grant such rights to nationals of third countries and offer such solutions to its residents.
There can be no question of this Parliament condemning Member States which decide not to do so.
As a Swedish Christian Democrat, I have voted against the items (78 and 82-84) which seek to control Member States' legislation in the area of family policy.
This is a national issue, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, which has no place in a report on human rights in Europe.
I have also voted against items 119 and 120 on giving people without citizenship in a Member State of the EU the right to vote in European Parliament elections.
Responsibility and duties must be linked to rights and eligibility.
This should be an obvious principle and fact of life.
Wuori report (A5-0193/2001) and Cornillet report (A5-0223/2001)
Two reports, one on human rights in the world (the Wuori report) and one on fundamental rights in the European Union (the Cornillet report), were debated by the House today.
These are two provocative texts, both in what they say (mainly in the Wuori report) and in what they fail to say (mainly in the Cornillet report).
The Wuori report supports the imperialist aspect of the European Union right from the outset saying, just so there can be no doubt, that "the principle of national sovereignty should not deny the ÅU the right to seek to exert influence - and possibly to intervene - with a view to halting gross and systematic violations of human rights".
The peoples of the Balkans and of other regions in the world have paid and are still paying dearly for this 'welcome' mission by the ÅU. Thousands dead, even more poisoned by depleted uranium bombs, the FYROM hostage to 'invincible' Albanian extremists and protectorates across which European monopolies and their political backers are scattered.
The disgraceful manner in which former President Milosevic was recently abducted, in direct defiance both of the constitutional jurisdiction of his country and its president, and handed over to the opportunistic International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague are eloquent examples of how the EU thinks human rights should be defended.
However, the report goes further still, calling for new international criminal tribunals to be set up on Chechnya, East Timor and Iraq.
The 'rapid-reaction mechanism' for conflict prevention, that is, the euro-army, is seen as a basic tool within the framework of EU strategy and 'smart sanctions' rather than 'blind sanctions' are advocated.
Without making any reference to the criminal consequences for the people of Iraq of the embargo to which the EU made a decisive contribution, it proposes in an excess of indifference that embargoes be imposed on other countries, using existing offences against human dignity as a pretext.
Despite busying itself with absolutely everything, the report does not conceal its preferences or selectiveness.
For example, although it is directly critical of the Socialist government of Cuba for repressing 'free' journalism, it is particularly polite and cautious in the case of Turkey and Ukraine, even though it is a well-known fact that dozens of journalists are in prison in Turkey and that a journalist was murdered during the last round of elections in Ukraine.
Finally, the report's extended reference to Turkey does not contain a single word on the continuing hunger strike in Turkish jails or on the victims of Turkey's intransigence.
That is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 2.05 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent subjects of major importance
The next item is the debate on topical, urgent and important questions.
Death penalty in the world
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0486/2001 by Mr Méndez de Vigo and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats;
B5-0497/2001 by Mr van den Berg and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists;
B5-0504/2001 by Mrs Malmström and Mr Rutelli, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party;
B5-0484/2001 by Mrs Frassoni and others, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance;
B5-0512/2001 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left;
B5-0527/2001 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Technical Group of Independent Members
on the death penalty in the world and on the introduction of a 'European Day against Capital Punishment' .
Mr President, it would appear that, considering that there are very few subjects on which the entire European Union is united and the abolition of the death penalty is one of them, we must, first and foremost, welcome and take pride in the initiative taken by Parliament and the Council of Europe together to hold the Congress on the death penalty, which took place on 22 June.
Secondly, we must make it clear that it is time to move on to the next stage, which is to prepare for the General Assembly of the United Nations and the possibility of adopting a resolution on a moratorium on executions.
I feel that this must be our task in the coming months and I hope that the Belgian Presidency will live up to the commitment it made yesterday before this House and support us.
Mr President, Mrs Frassoni is right when she says that today we are united on this matter, but twenty years ago we certainly were not.
We have therefore made progress.
Today the European Union is united against the death penalty, and this is reflected in the European Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights in Article 2, where it mentions the right to life.
I recall that, when we were discussing this Charter, many in the Convention used to say to us: 'It is inconsistent to say that this Charter is directed to the institutions of the Union,' and you, Mr President, will no doubt remember this, 'and at the same time demand the abolition of the death penalty, when the European Union cannot condemn anybody to death.'
It is true: there was an inconsistency there.
We accepted it, however, because we believed that the Charter had to embody the values and principles that underpin the construction of Europe.
I must also tell you that recently, Mr President, when I was on a flight here, I was reading the news that the Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs had said that the Constitution of that country would have to be rewritten because, in order to join the European Union, it was necessary to abolish the death penalty, as laid down in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I remembered the title of that Oscar-winning film, 'Life is Beautiful' , and realised that our work does occasionally bear fruit.
Therefore, Mr President, I believe not only that we Europeans should proclaim our desire that the death penalty should be abolished, but that we have a right and a duty to interfere in the affairs of other countries so that they do the same.
For that reason, complying with a resolution of a conference held two weeks ago in Strasbourg, we have asked in this resolution - which I am sure will gain the unanimous support of this House - for a special day against the death penalty to be set up: a European day, which I hope will soon be a world day, since I believe there is room for hope.
My good friend, Mrs Ana Palacio, who reads everything that is published, has today given me the editorial from the Herald Tribune, in which a Supreme Court judge, Mrs O' Connor, who has always been in favour of the death penalty, is today saying the opposite.
Mr President, I believe that, if intelligent people change their minds, we shall be able to win this battle throughout the world.
Mr President, the death penalty is unethical because it is wrong to take someone else' s life.
Too often, innocent people are given the death penalty. The penalty is irrevocable, and a subsequent appeal, even if fresh evidence is submitted, is no longer possible.
The death penalty is downgrading and is in contravention of the universal principle of justice.
Joaquín José Martínez was recently acquitted in the United States. He came to visit us here in Parliament after he had been in prison for quite a few years.
It became apparent that in his case, everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong.
According to Amnesty International, at least 1 475 prisoners were executed and more than 3 000 death penalties given in 2000.
China, Iran, Saudi-Arabia and the United States account for approximately 88% of those.
The first world congress against the death penalty took place here in Strasbourg between 21 and 23 June: 87 countries in the world uphold the death penalty, to which the under-aged and also mentally handicapped people often fall victim.
We very much regret the fact that countries which often boast a very high standard in terms of human rights still elect to use this penalty, and execute - what often later appears - innocent people, while it is often clear from statistics - this is especially pronounced in the US - that social and racial aspects play a major role.
We are also extremely concerned about the fact that the organs of those involved are subsequently offered for sale.
I agree with Mr Méndez de Vigo that a European day against the death penalty would be extremely useful.
Allow me to draw your attention to point 4 of the resolution which states that we urge the Belgian Presidency now to try to organise another vote in the sitting of the General Assembly of the United Nations in September on a resolution to abolish the death penalty.
We hope that the Presidency, on behalf of all EU countries, will be able to count on sufficient support so that this time the resolution can be adopted.
Mr President, Commissioner, no one is unaware of the loathing felt in this house for the death penalty, wherever it may occur.
The European Parliament is continuing its long and dedicated battle against this barbaric punishment, and we know that we have a good ally in Commissioner Patten.
Commissioner, we really appreciate your work in this area.
Our joint fight has resulted in one applicant country after another abolishing the death penalty.
This requirement is irrevocable for membership of the European Community.
It is high time that Turkey also abolished the death penalty - without delay.
It can sometimes feel hopeless fighting against the death penalty when the world is the way it is.
Mr Van den Berg has just mentioned figures showing the worldwide situation.
It is important to note that 90 per cent of all executions occur in only four countries.
The worst by far is China with over 1 000 executions this year alone.
It is also deeply tragic to have to place the US on the same list as the dictatorships.
Over and over again, we have appealed to the American leaders to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty and to stop sentencing teenagers and the mentally disabled to death.
Just the suspicion that one single person has been falsely executed - and we know this has happened in the US - should be sufficient reason to abolish the death penalty.
However, there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
It is encouraging that there is a certain, albeit slow, shift in opinion in the US.
It is also the case that, during the 1990s, 30 countries abolished the death penalty.
Here in Strasbourg, a successful conference was held two weeks ago.
Both the EU and the European Council will continue to fight tirelessly.
In order to further strengthen the fight against the death penalty and to ensure that this issue is always on the agenda, a year ago in this House my colleague Mr Rutelli proposed a European day against the death penalty.
We could hold this every year until the death penalty is abolished everywhere.
It is encouraging that this is also the view of this House, and I hope that the Council and the Commission can work with the European Parliament to bring about such a day.
Mr President, I am going to be very brief.
In the last five years, I have had the impression that whenever we place this dramatic issue, this routine horror of the death penalty on the agenda, the House has been a kind of debating society.
Everybody expresses their condemnation and their righteous indignation, but when the moment comes to decide what to do about the indifference, the apathy and the determination of some countries to insist on these barbaric institutions, the mood changes because obviously money talks.
Mercantile relations are very important for everybody, and while it is good to denounce the sin, we need to identify the sinners.
That is why in this resolution that we are going to pass, I would like very much to add the names of the sinners.
First of all, the People's Republic of China.
We have read yesterday and today what happened with the so-called 'suicide' of 15 women in a concentration camp.
We passed resolutions in this House two years ago about the trade in human organs transplanted from executed people.
Now we have to start thinking about, for instance, not voting enthusiastically for giving the Olympic Games to the People's Republic of China without reservation.
The same applies to the United States of America.
That is why I am tabling two amendments to our resolution.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me make one comment first of all. Our resolution mentions 87 countries which still have the death penalty.
I do not think that figure - which is provided by Amnesty International - is accurate.
There are actually 71 countries which continue to apply the death penalty, and I think the difference is important given that there are 180 countries in the international community and that means the majority of abolitionist countries is much bigger than Amnesty International' s figures suggest.
Furthermore, I do not think we need to regard Amnesty International either as a bible for a whole series of issues, or indeed as a representative of civil society, which is not at all the case. It is an association which does a certain job and which, in my opinion, also deserves a critical look from us from time to time, if not more frequently.
Secondly - as Monica Frassoni said, along with Mr van den Berg and Mr Manisco - I think the problem is to come to the United Nations Assembly General with a resolution on the moratorium.
The problem is not to abolish death.
I think there are sometimes temptations in that direction.
Our problem is to abolish the death penalty because we believe there is a way to render justice without recourse to it.
The problem therefore consists of obtaining a moratorium, an entirely secular initiative, designed to lead other governments to consider the arguments against the death penalty and conclude, in a wise, secular way, that it is no longer necessary.
Consequently I believe our work over the next few weeks will be important to enable the Belgian Presidency to present a resolution on a moratorium in New York.
Mr President, we in the European Union must support any action leading to the abolition of the death penalty.
The abolitionists, who have met in Strasbourg at the first world conference against the death penalty, can count - and know they can count - on our full and active support.
A European day against the death penalty - as Mr Méndez de Vigo was saying, and I agree with him - is a good idea, but it is not enough.
We must also encourage the Community institutions and the European Union Member States to take our belief to its ultimate consequences - our belief, which without any doubt is reflected in all our legal systems, that the death penalty is against the law and is just as bad as other historical monstrosities, such as slavery.
The European Union should, therefore, as we request in the resolution, consider the abolition of the death penalty to be an essential aspect of its relations with third countries, and consequently this should be reflected in the conclusions of international agreements, aid programmes and trade relations.
Since Mr Van den Berg has already done so, I do not wish to mention such aberrations as the execution of minors or the physically disabled, nor to talk about cases of innocent people condemned to death.
I shall not go into the figures, either - because what Mr Dupuis has just said is true - and in any case I think they are irrelevant: a single case is itself a monstrosity.
The abolition of the death penalty is an elementary principle in the state of civilisation in which we now find ourselves, and nobody should be deprived of their life by a court sentence.
I therefore support both this resolution and the European day against the death penalty, but I believe we still have to go a little further in all our work to achieve the abolition of the death penalty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to salute the initiators of the first World Congress against the Death Penalty, which I consider the crowning achievement of abolitionists the world over.
Very important work was accomplished during those three days and I also salute the personal commitment of our President who, with her counterpart from the Council of Europe, called on the governments to establish a world moratorium on executions. That moratorium was signed by the 40 countries present, here, in this very Chamber.
Fighting for the abolition of the death penalty - as has been said here - means fighting to strengthen human dignity and extend human rights.
I think the European Union is doing that and it must continue its efforts, but I also think it is sometimes important, in an assembly like the United Nations, to put one' s own house in order first.
By that I mean that countries like Turkey, Russia and Armenia, members of the Council of Europe and applicants to join the European Union, must eliminate the death penalty from their respective criminal codes.
That, in my opinion, is a sine qua non of whether or not they become members and a guarantee that this fundamental principle of human rights is respected within the European Union.
Then, as Robert Badinter has underlined, the debate has moved forward enormously. One hundred countries have already abolished the death penalty.
Even in the United States, where 80% of people were in favour of the death penalty five or six years ago, that figure is down to 66% today.
That means that the struggle is making progress, and so much the better.
However, that has not prevented the existence of another highly symbolic case in the battle against the death penalty: the case of Moumia Abou Jamal.
From amongst the 3 700 people who are still on death row in the United States, Moumia Abou Jamal stands out as a symbol because he is in prison and on death row for being black, and in that respect his case reminds me a little of the struggle of Nelson Mandela.
He is in prison for being an intellectual writer, and in that he reminds me a little of Solzhenitsyn, and because he dared to write at a time when no one was writing against the atrocities of the Philadelphia police.
And finally he was a militant, an activist as they say in English.
He now finds himself on death row for these three reasons and I think it would be a marvellous signal if a country like the United States, which claims to be the greatest democracy in the world, were to abolish the death penalty and free Moumia Abou Jamal.
Imagine the weight that would carry for countries like China and the other countries that continue this barbaric practice!
I am counting massively on the Belgian Presidency to move this idea forward with the full support of all of us here.
Mr President, I think we also have to thank Mrs Fontaine.
In the Spanish press we have read an article which, I believe, is a good reflection of the feelings of this Parliament against the death penalty.
I do not know if it has appeared in the press in other countries in Europe.
Secondly, I should like to recall here, Mr President, that on the other two occasions on which I spoke against the death penalty I talked about a Spaniard who was on death row in the United States, Joaquín José Martínez.
I had the chance to talk to him and his parents last week, and among other chilling details that they told me was the 100 million pesetas that they had to raise to have their son released.
This is a common situation for minorities in the United States.
I confess that I never thought he could be released, and I am delighted to have seen him here alive.
The death penalty in my view is barbaric, Mr President.
Eighty-eight per cent of these death penalties are concentrated in four countries, and so Europe must talk to these countries to get them to stop murdering each other legally.
Our presence in the United Nations should also be used, as it always has been, to come out against the death penalty.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Beijing's application to host the 2008 Olympic Games
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0487/2001 by Mr Thomas Mann and Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats;
B5-0498/2001 by Mr van den Berg, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists;
B5-0505/2001 by Mrs Malmström and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party;
B5-0524/2001 by Mrs Frassoni and Mr Wuori, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance;
B5-0525/2001 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Technical Group of Independent Members
on Beijing's application to host the 2008 Olympic Games.
Mr President, it is about twelve years ago that on Tienanmen Square, the student protest and the call for democracy was quashed in a bloody fashion.
During that time, Commissioner Patten was very active in Hong Kong in another role, and well known for his commitment to human rights.
One could claim that ever since that period, in fact, the conservative trend in China has dominated, to the detriment of reformers, and that China is, in fact, still looking for a way out of the impasse in which it eventually ended up.
Historically speaking, one could say that those two trends are still present, of course, but over the past couple of years, a decision has been made to occupy the political centre very firmly via a central role of the Communist Party - a very classical, old-fashioned role, in fact - and to open up the economy in a powerful manner.
This creates enormous tension between the two trends, of course, which leads to enormous inequality in the country.
It is clear that China cannot continue in this vein.
In my opinion, and my group shares that view, we need a dual strategy: one of commitment, cooperation, talks and political involvement, for ultimately, they will need to take fresh steps at that Congress in 2002, which for them is a stepping stone towards a new generation.
They too will eventually need to adopt a different position in such a huge world nation which has the pretension of occupying a place on the world stage of the future and of playing a role there as well.
In the spirit of the Olympic Games, however, and given our position and values in Europe in terms of human rights, we cannot possibly support China' s application today.
That is why we, as a group, are also critical of China and support the criticism levelled at China.
I believe that commitment also means talking in clear and open terms.
That is why we are here: to talk openly.
That is why our group supports this resolution. China is not the kingdom of darkness, but in terms of human rights, a great deal needs to be done before that country can qualify for the application to host the Olympic Games.
As Commissioner Patten is constantly being described as Chinese, I think it is high time to point out that he was governor of Hong Kong at the time.
Perhaps not everyone knows that, especially our guests.
I point this out so that they can understand the connections.
Mr President, on Friday next week there is a vote on who will be hosting the 2008 Olympic Games.
The Olympic Games are an opportunity for men and women from all around the world to come together to compete on equal terms, in a spirit of peace and cooperation between nations.
That is the theory, despite the fact that a large number of participating countries are brutal dictatorships which hold both democracy and human rights in contempt.
The Olympic Committee has a responsibility to promote the values which lie behind the Olympic Games.
We in the ELDR Group have demanded that the International Olympic Committee set up guidelines for the countries which are to organise the Olympic Games, guidelines which include respect for human rights and democratic principles.
One of the hottest tips for the Olympic Games is Beijing.
Beijing is the capital of one of the world' s most hardline dictatorships.
Persecution of those with opposing views, torture, censorship of the media and the Internet and more executions than all other countries put together are just a few examples of the way the Chinese regime tries to keep its population in check.
The occupation of Tibet and the oppression of its people continue, and religious minorities are not allowed to practise their religion.
For two years, there has been a systematic persecution of followers of the Falun Gong movement, with tens of thousands of followers being arrested and tortured, in some cases to death.
In recent days, 15 women in a Chinese labour camp were tortured to death, with the authorities saying that it was suicide.
Those who want Beijing to host the Olympic Games say that sport and politics should not be mixed.
However, that is exactly what the Chinese regime will do.
If Beijing were to host the Olympic Games, the propaganda value for the Chinese regime would be enormous, and it would reduce the pressure on the country to change its policy.
In a report on Beijing' s candidature for the Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee writes the following: 'The overall presence of strong governmental control and support is healthy and should improve operational efficiency of the Games organisation.'
Calling the oppression 'healthy' is hair-raising.
Human rights activists of all kinds are united in their demand not to let China organise the Olympic Games.
A decision in favour of the Olympic Games in China is a breach of the whole Olympic ethos.
The ELDR Group would therefore like to appeal to all members of the International Olympic Committee to vote against Beijing on Friday.
Mr President, the Olympics are an event which celebrate man's beauty, which remind us of all that is most noble in the human character.
If we accept China's application to host the Olympic Games today, it would be like gilding the executions, the persecution of all political dissidents, the material and environmental destruction and the deportations which take place in China with the fine colours of the Olympic rings and all the flags. The result would certainly not be a reduction in these incidents; quite the contrary: it is more likely that the show of indifference on the part of the international community would encourage them.
This does not, of course, mean that we are happy with this situation.
We hope that the day will come when we will have the chance to be pleased, or rather to be enthusiastic about celebrating the Olympic Games in China, but that day has not yet come; it is still a long way in the future and we must be consistent in our actions.
Considering what my colleagues have said I feel that I can stop here, for this is another of those issues on which the whole of Parliament is in agreement.
I hope that our opinion will carry some weight.
Mr President, our resolution starts by quoting the Olympic Charter, which states that Olympianism has as a goal 'to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of humankind, with the object of creating a peaceful society' .
Lucio Manisco reminded us just now of the traffic in organs, and I remember we had to fight very hard in this Parliament to get that resolution through.
We were literally taken for madmen, for people who were inventing things.
Today, the direct evidence of doctors who participated in the operations is in all the papers, and nobody can deny the evidence any longer.
Nor can anybody deny the evidence of the executions, obviously, or the semantic changes: China now conjugates the verb 'to commit suicide' as a transitive verb.
Fifteen girls have committed suicide in the last few days in China, and hundreds of Falun Gong militants have committed suicide in the last few weeks and months. Nothing has changed in Tibet, and for the information of everyone hoping the year 2002 will see a new leadership in China, the favourite to succeed is none other than the former Chinese governor of Tibet, notorious for his policies of destruction and systematic incarceration.
I was very pleased to hear what Mr van den Berg and Thomas Mann had to say, and I think there are more than enough indications for it to be considered at least inappropriate, and I do say inappropriate, for the Olympic Games to be held in Beijing.
Obviously, we all hope that it will rapidly become appropriate, and not just appropriate, but welcome, to hold the Olympic Games in Beijing, but there is still a long way to go, and I think, Commissioner Patten, that is also a result of this policy of critical dialogue which is increasingly becoming a policy of active complicity with the Beijing regime.
Mr President, if the huge sports festival of the Olympic Games is to be celebrated somewhere, then there has to be a cause for celebration.
That is not the case in China.
The human rights situation has not improved since the start of the political dialogue with the European Union.
Quite the contrary, in fact. The regime' s repression of political opponents carries on undiminished.
Dissidents often disappear behind bars for a ridiculously long period of time.
On a large scale, offenders are given the death penalty after a very brief trial.
The Chinese leaders are extremely frightened of the peaceful, religious movement, Falun Gong.
Followers of this movement are arrested, tortured, admitted to psychiatric hospitals or executed at random.
Recently, another 15 women were tortured to death in a labour camp.
Tibet is being systematically stripped of its own character.
The environmental and animal welfare situation is atrocious.
It is extremely naive to assume that large, international sports events and politics can be kept separate.
The history of the modern Olympic Games shows very clearly how the sports festival can be used to enhance the glory of a political regime.
The global media attention will only exacerbate this potential.
Especially states which could do with a complete make-over of their international reputation will seize the opportunity of setting a new Olympic record in exploiting this event politically.
The Chinese population will derive little pleasure from the Games.
The Games cost approximately USD 20 billion, and part of Beijing will need to be flattened and the inhabitants driven out of the city.
Economic ties between China and the world will also mean that liberal values and standards could enter the country.
That is why there is hope.
More welfare will ultimately lead to more political freedom.
The Chinese are a patient people.
In order to organise the Games, they have to practice patience and ensure that China has something to celebrate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to disagree with the majority in the House.
I could accept most of the points made by Thomas Mann and others.
I have voted and shall continue to vote in favour of all the resolutions tabled here on issues of human rights, religious persecution or on the Tibetan situation in China.
I feel, however, that this resolution is on the wrong track, because I am convinced that choosing Beijing as the venue for the Olympic Games will serve to support the reformist forces and that holding the Olympic Games could be a catalyst for major change.
I feel certain of this.
No one can accuse me of complicity and I shall continue to defend human rights in this House. I am certainly not a propagandist for the Chinese government.
It would be a mistake to isolate China and we must continue to level criticism at China in this House and in the appropriate international forums.
We cannot isolate a nation-state of 1.3 billion people.
I was against Chinese isolationism decades ago, when even the Chinese authorities wanted it and I am also against us attempting such a move.
Incidentally, the Cuban situation is a telling example of what can happen: the United States have maintained a stubborn embargo against Cuba for years.
They have achieved nothing and we see that the North American embargo is actually proving to be the main political prop shoring up Fidel Castro' s dictatorship in Cuba.
This is, therefore, the reason for my vote and the reason why my group does not support this resolution, because we feel that it is the wrong way to support progress on reform in China.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.30 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, I have great pleasure in commending the whole of this resolution to the House.
The recognition of the rights of children is of vital importance.
I am glad to be able to say that 25 years ago I published an article which, at least from a certain point of view, helped in pushing forward that case.
I do not want to talk about the whole motion for a resolution today, however.
I want to talk about one particular problem which is dealt with in the amendment by my group.
I am old enough to have children over the age of 25.
I see visitors in our gallery who are about the age of 25.
Like many people I can just imagine what it would be like to have a child ripped from your hands at the age of 20 days and never to see them again, be yourself in prison for five years under torture and cruel treatment, and then spend the rest of your life at liberty trying to find your lost child.
Sara Méndez from Uruguay was in this Parliament yesterday to press forward the case for recovering her child, or getting information about her son Símon, who was ripped from her arms aged 20 days after her illegal capture in Buenos Aires in 1976.
That is a dreadful thing to happen and we should add to this admirable motion for a resolution a clause calling upon those who are in authority in Uruguay to recognise the evil of disappearances, to recognise their bounden duty to bring children back to their parents and to end this scandal and disgrace.
I hope we will carry the motion for a resolution and make that point.
Mr President, ten years after the first World Summit for Children, the UN has decided to take stock.
In September 2001, on the eve of the summit, our group is naturally tabling a resolution in witness of our commitment, as we have always done.
I remember a time when it was difficult to mention the word children in this House.
The Dutroux affair had to happen before budget lines could be freed up and a certain number of resolutions passed for our children.
We have therefore had some successes.
The latest is the reference to children in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and some of us in this House, notably under the leadership of Mary Banotti, have won a few battles.
It is therefore important to restate our commitment and determination on the eve of this summit, and we must also dedicate ourselves even more firmly to the cause of children, not just in Europe, but throughout the world, because there are now 600 million children worldwide in families living on less than a dollar a day, facing the real evils of malnutrition, lack of education and lack of health provision. We must mobilise against those evils.
To that end, our resolution proposes providing an institutional context to serve children. First, the various decisions we take should be subject to assessment of their impact on policy on children and family policy, secondly, the Commission should have a unit to deal with children' s issues and, thirdly, a special envoy should coordinate policies on children.
Finally, Mr President, we think it is important to be in a position to establish a European solidarity fund for the world' s children.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our group is pleased with this initiative and with the broad consensus that we were able to achieve on the compromise resolution, in which we saw our main concern included, as it was in our own draft resolution: a deep concern at the terrible situation seen in many armed conflicts and the cruel and barbaric use of great numbers of children who are recruited as soldiers at a very tender age.
Our censure of such behaviour is clearly voiced in the resolution.
I am also, however, going to table some amendments, for which I would request the House' s support, since it seems the resolution contains a loophole: there is no mention of the family and in any discussion of children, we must also consider the family.
When it comes to these resolutions, we always tend to be concerned about the most terrible situations of suffering and neglect, as I said earlier, involving children used in armed conflict, etc.
Generally, however, children live within a family environment and a policy for children must inevitably also be a policy for the family, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
As I am fond of saying, a world fit for children must also be a world fit for the family.
I should also like to say that I was moved by Mr MacCormick' s words and that we shall be supporting his amendment.
Yesterday, at the compromise meeting, doubts were expressed as to whether or not we should include a specific case, but his words convinced me. They convinced me perhaps because in Portugal too, the issue of children disappearing and of the terrible suffering endured by the families - and some cases in Portugal have been dragging on for years - is also an issue which is of constant concern to us, given the impotence of the State and of police forces.
These cases involve terrible, heartrending pain, which is also worthy of comment by this House.
Mr President, this week - as other honourable Members have mentioned - Sara Mendez was here in the European Parliament.
It is sometimes good in a wide-ranging resolution and in a broad framework to zoom in for a moment on something very concrete.
Someone who over 24 years after the event is still searching for her son Simon.
The military in her country took life in absolute freedom away from her, but they themselves still enjoy that freedom.
I believe that it is right - and I appreciate the fact that our President, Mrs Fontaine, also lent her support - that we should support her, because it makes something clear about who these people are.
Because if we eventually see the day when in the pandemonium of lawlessness the international rule of law prevails, it will be because of such brave individuals who have persevered for so long.
That is why I hope that we, standing above the parties and quite apart from arguments with each other, will shortly support the amendments made on that point.
A second point on the optional protocol.
I should like to ask the Commissioner something about this.
So 29 countries have signed up to it. That includes all fifteen European Member States.
The protocol provides for children in armed conflicts to be as it were kept out of the sphere of child exploitation and child soldiery.
Only four countries have ratified it.
At least ten are required for it to come into force.
So there is a great need on our part to say: exert pressure in the Council too, on the various organisations in Europe and on the countries to get them to sign, so that we can achieve a success.
In conclusion I should like to say that I differ on one point from the honourable Members of the People' s Party.
Not on the content of their amendments on the family.
I very much appreciate them.
There is no disagreement between us on that.
However, in the context of the rights of the child we felt that the treatment of the subject deserves separate attention and as such does not belong here.
We shall not vote against.
We shall abstain, because we have no substantive objections to the texts you have submitted.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the expectations of the Belgian Presidency are rightly high, and with regard to the enforcement of respect for human rights the Belgian Presidency can certainly play a notable role.
The same applies to the determining of a common EU position on the occasion of the extraordinary session on children' s rights at the United Nations.
It would be generally appreciated if the Belgian Presidency were to succeed in getting the European Union to speak with one voice.
It can build on the efforts already made by the Swedish Presidency to decide on a common strategy.
As far as content is concerned there should be especial emphasis on the fact that as regards free access to education for all children and guaranteed health care provision, binding agreements should be made.
The European Parliament should pay extra attention to the situation of children in the candidate-Member States, specifically Bulgaria and Romania.
For that matter it could be decisive if the European Parliament were to take the initiative of inserting the dimension of the rights of the child into the rights of human beings in general.
In addition I should like to urge the EU in bilateral exchanges between European Member States and third countries to focus attention systematically on the situation of children in the third countries.
This approach will undoubtedly bear fruit if pursued consistently.
Mr President, Commissioner, according to the International Labour Organisation, whether we like it or not, we are indirectly responsible for the fate of 250 million children aged 5 to 14 years.
They make carpets in Nepal and luxury shoes in Thailand, they work in the coffee and cocoa plantations in Africa, and all for export, for us to enjoy.
In Europe it takes more underhand forms: apprenticeships give rise to abuses of working time. Child models are used.
We have child sports stars to entertain us as we watch television. On top of that are the things no one can tolerate: sexual abuse which destroys whole lives, pornography and prostitution.
I think our position should therefore be implacable.
Forcing children to work restricts their intellectual, physical and psychological development, so I do not think it is any good continuing to have countries signing conventions to get rid of labels, knowing they are doing it as if they were buying a pair of shoes.
The minimum to be demanded at the Conference in September is every child' s right to education, every child' s right to leisure, and every child' s right to be informed of his or her rights.
We must secure that, at least.
If we do not do so, it will effectively mean that children' s rights are like a pair of shoes. When they are dirty and full of holes, they end up in the bin.
Mr President, Commissioner, first I would like to say how truly thrilled I was to hear that the Belgian Presidency has made the issue of children's rights part of its presidency programme.
I would like to congratulate them warmly.
We have great expectations of this presidency and we will be keeping a very steady eye on what is happening and on progress.
I would also agree with Mrs Hermange who rightly pointed out that, up to very recently, children could not even be mentioned in this House.
We were constantly told they were not part of the competence of the Treaties and our concerns for their welfare were beyond the reach of this Parliament.
Happily now we can discuss them.
As long as I have been here in Parliament we have observed the awful dangers that many children in the world live in: a litany of miseries which are listed in this resolution here today.
Not too far from here children are still viewed as disposable objects for international adoption, for example.
We should hang our heads in shame that we have more legislation on the books of the European Union relating to animal welfare than we have relating to the welfare of children.
And lest anyone should attack me on that, I would like to say that I support animal welfare legislation as well.
But the situation is shameful.
There has been a political push forward.
You will see in this resolution that we call, for example, for a dedicated unit in the Commission looking at children's rights, looking at legislation so that we can assess its impact on the children and also on the lives of their families.
It is with great pleasure that I commend this resolution to the House.
I am happy to be one of the sponsors of Sara Méndez and her lost child.
Through my work in Parliament I too have experienced the fact that so many children are deprived of the company and love of both their parents, very often due to selfishness and lack of understanding about the particular needs of children.
Mr President, there is no freedom of religion in Vietnam.
The resolution before us emphasises this serious state of affairs, supporting freedom of religion for religious societies of Buddhists not recognised by the Vietnamese government.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Belder, if you will excuse me, I think that Mr Patten wanted to speak about the previous order of business.
However, Mr Patten, strictly speaking you are down to speak at the end of the debate.
Do you really wish to speak now?
You were quite right, Mr Patten.
We shall now continue with religious freedom in Vietnam, and the presidency of this sitting would like to apologise wholeheartedly for having to cut Mr Belder off.
We shall now listen to Mr Belder, the author of the question, for two and a half minutes with increased interest.
Mr President, it was worth waiting a moment for the contribution of Commissioner Patten.
There is no freedom of religion in Vietnam.
The resolution before us emphasises this serious state of affairs, supporting freedom of religion for religious societies of Buddhists, Roman Catholics and Protestants not recognised by the Vietnamese government.
Societies of these three denominations that are recognised by the state are reminiscent of the traditional Communist pattern: they are monitored by the Vietnamese authorities.
A second proof that Vietnamese citizens have no freedom of religion.
This unconstitutional situation issues directly from the nature of the country' s political constellation.
Obviously the Communist rulers of Vietnam are as terrified as ever of any free association and opinion. That applies even more if this takes place on the basis of definite religious views.
Even today the Vietnamese government indoctrinates its citizens with pure antireligious ideas.
Within this general, restrictive social context the Protestants of the Central Highlands in the south of Vietnam occupy a special place.
They are exposed to double social discrimination, or worse still, persecution.
As members of various ethnic minorities they are literally the doormats of the 'kinh' , the so-called true Vietnamese, who consider themselves superior.
In addition for the past 15 years a Vietnamese government-encouraged mass exodus of 'kinh' into the fertile lands of the Central Highlands migration has simply amounted and amounts to common or garden theft of land.
Those 'Non-kinh' and 'backward' Christians must simply accept this violation of their rights.
Vietnam wants to be a player in the international field.
See its participation in the ASEM process.
It is therefore perfectly reasonable for the Council and the Commission should take Hanoi seriously to task about the desperate lack of freedom of religion in its own country.
I therefore emphatically call on them to do so.
It is not good enough to embed freedom of religion in the constitution and to practise the opposite.
Surely the era of Stalin and his like must at last be over.
First of all, I would like to say that this is not anti-communism.
It would be good if communism could co-exist with religious beliefs, and people should have the right to express their religious beliefs if they live in a communist country.
It is quite clear that in Vietnam that is not the situation.
In the resolution, reference is made to two very old Buddhist monks who spent two decades in detention under house arrest for their peaceful support for human rights, democracy and religious freedom.
This is completely unacceptable.
The problem in Vietnam is also that domestic human rights monitoring is not allowed, and that independent human rights monitors continue to be prevented from visiting the country.
We have to put pressure on Vietnam to release all prisoners who are being imprisoned or detained for peacefully expressing their religious and political beliefs.
We should also ask the Vietnamese to stop harassment of prisoners and surveillance of prisoners who have actually been released.
Furthermore, they need to look at their criminal code sections on crimes against national security to ensure that these laws cannot be applied against those merely exercising their right to freedom of expression, as well as at the administrative detention directive which allows for the detaining of individuals for up to two years.
This is completely unacceptable.
One of the things I am disappointed with is that there was no reference to the recent decision of the Vietnam National Assembly backing the concept of a dam in the northern province, which might become Southeast Asia's largest hydro-power project, possibly involving the relocation of more than 100 000 people.
I wish that they would take into consideration the international aspects of this in relation to the immense social and environmental problems that will be caused.
I think, Mrs McKenna, that our friend Mr Posselt is referring to communist regimes rather than to communists, which is somewhat different.
As some of you may know, I went on a short trip to Vietnam recently.
I accompanied the Most Venerable Quang Do, the number two in the Unified Buddhist Church, in order to enter Vietnam and take the patriarch back to Saigon, where he could, at last, receive the necessary medical care.
The patriarch was imprisoned for 20 years.
He was freed in 1997 and, despite being set free, he is still under 'administrative' detention and it is still impossible for him to travel freely and freely practice his religion.
Our mission was cut short because today, in the churches, in the Vietnamese pagodas, there are more police officers than monks.
During the day I spent in the pagoda, I myself saw two monks, I managed to see two monks and I saw at least ten police officers and then, when everything happened, I saw more police officers who were obviously plain clothes men appear from the road.
I say all this to describe the situation in Vietnam, a situation which is not confined to Saigon.
In dozens of other pagodas in the country, monks took to the road to accompany the Most Venerable Quang Do but were stopped, very often by louts who beat them up; in other cases, it was police officers who used force to take them back to their pagodas.
This is the reality of Vietnam today; it is the reality, once again, of a regime which describes itself as reforming but where there are no reforms to be seen, and I believe that, in this respect, this resolution is important.
It is also important because it calls on our delegation for relations with the Member States of ASEAN, South-east Asia and the Republic of Korea to go to Vietnam and make a clear assessment of the situation in the area of religious freedom.
I call on all our fellow Members to urge the Chair of the Delegation, Mr Nassauer, to make this trip in the next few days, in the coming weeks and not in the coming months.
This is urgent - the lives, freedom, at least a minimum of freedom for these people are at stake.
I would also like to ask the Commission and the Council to make representations to the Vietnamese authorities and remind them that there are examples of former communist countries, such as Poland and Hungary, where the communist classes understood the need to change. They still exist as political forces today.
In other countries, these communist classes did not understand and were swept aside.
This is an important message which we must send to the Vietnamese authorities without delay.
South Africa
Mr President, in the context of the long-suffering continent of Africa and, in particular, for the whole subcontinent of southern Africa, the Republic of South Africa stands out as a crucial factor for political stability and for development.
Today, with even greater importance given the extremely serious crisis in which neighbouring Zimbabwe has become entangled.
The Republic of South Africa proves that there is a way forward for Africa, that there is an alternative to poverty, to underdevelopment, to war, despotism, corruption and poor governance.
We are, nevertheless, familiar with the problems affecting the Republic of South Africa, such as the extremely high incidence of AIDS, the very high level of unemployment, the poverty and the serious social inequalities, economic stagnation and the terrifying level of violent crime.
I must reiterate the genuinely tragic effects of violent crime suffered by the South African people, particularly women, as well as the communities of immigrants from Europe.
The Republic of South Africa will not be able to overcome the enormous challenges it faces without the support and the solidarity of the international community.
We are pleased to note that the European Union is playing an important role in this area, to the extent that is provides, together with its Member States, 70% of international aid.
The European Union' s cooperation with the Republic of South Africa has a projected budget for the period until 2006 of around PTE 180 billion, that is around EUR 9.02 billion, to which we can add an equal amount of funding from the EIB, the main aims being to combat poverty, to encourage economic and social development, to create jobs, to stimulate the private sector and to consolidate democracy and the rule of law.
It is nevertheless crucial that under this cooperation, new actions are planned and that measures already in place that have a direct impact in terms of fighting crime are improved, such as measures for providing the police with organisational and institutional support and support for the modernisation and improvement of the judicial system.
We hope that this ambitious cooperation programme, which must be implemented down to the very last euro, will prove decisive in helping the Republic of South Africa to overcome the serious problems it faces.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the beginning of the 1980s, almost all, if not all of us, excitedly and emotionally watched South Africa' s transition unfold.
We all remember the exemplary way in which President Nelson Mandela led the process, and his choice was not accidental.
South Africa' s transition was acknowledged by the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to the two presidents: the last president of the apartheid era and President Nelson Mandela, that great African statesman.
Recently, however, we have seen an increasingly critical situation, particularly with regard to crime.
This is a very serious issue, which is of great concern to the Portuguese citizens resident in that country.
In the last four years, 400 Portuguese citizens have been murdered, and this year alone, 14 Portuguese and therefore European citizens have been killed, which is causing turmoil in the Portuguese community in South Africa and in Portugal. The turmoil generated by these events often obstructs the matter from being debated calmly.
The intervention of the European Union can, therefore, be extremely useful in helping South Africa to address this problem, because the social and economic crisis underlying crime, as well as the increase in crime are issues that are crucial to consolidating South Africa' s progress on a path that has already impressed us. The alternative, which would be very sad, would ruin an experiment that we all hope will succeed.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is often said that history repeats itself and, with regard to South Africa, this seems to be happening.
We all know what this country has been through.
It has emerged from years of social segregation and apartheid which have left permanent marks.
Today, the crime and problems in this country are related, above all, to the years of social deprivation and segregation it suffered.
Yet today this country is preparing to host the World Conference Against Racism.
Today, Nelson Mandela is fighting anti-white racism.
Today, despite everything, this country has just won a decisive victory over the pharmaceutical industry which had decided not to provide it with any medicines: in any case, the South African people does not have access to tritherapy or AZT, medicines now capable of saving its population.
Now it is my turn to repeat myself and to say that I will keep repeating this here: abolish the third world debt, enable men and women to live in dignity at last and assign this money to education and health, which are at the very basis of this country' s resurgence - this is what is important.
We have to stop beating about the bush and, at last, raise the real issues after years of apartheid.
Today, we have to fight social segregation, and the only way to do that is through the cancellation of the debts of third world countries and those of, among others, South Africa.
Mr President, as previous speakers have already said, we are gradually losing all hope of South Africa's becoming a stable factor in Africa.
The tremendous impoverishment of large sections of the population, which goes hand in glove with the massive spread of AIDS and with drug-dealing and racketeering, are real causes for concern.
Do we not realise that poverty and the need for survival are a crisis waiting to happen in Africa? This is where the crisis prevention is needed that we have spoken of so frequently over recent weeks, this is where we need self-help development programmes for the black population, health protection, support for preventive health care and, most importantly, educational support, before it is too late.
All this was discussed at length.
We also discussed something else, namely no arms exports to countries where poverty may disturb social peace.
Unfortunately, the Council has not honoured the promise made in the European Parliament.
Sweden, together with Germany, Great Britain and Italy, supplies arms to the value of 43 billion in local currency.
All the intentions expressed here, namely conflict prevention programmes without arms exports, have been forgotten by the Swedish government.
That is not all.
The whole thing was set up by bribing the South African government.
That shows that our code of conduct for arms exports is still full of holes and that we still cannot use it as an instrument for real conflict prevention.
We need to work on this.
We need clear criteria and transparent mechanisms so that this cannot happen again.
Mr President, the document we are about to adopt contains, in my opinion, points that might seem contradictory.
We reiterate our support for the government of South Africa but, at the same time, we ask it to make greater efforts in a number of areas, such as improving the living standards of the black population, reducing inequalities, creating employment, respecting minorities, fighting crime, and preventing and treating AIDS.
By putting pressure on the South African authorities in this way, we are on the one hand covering up the responsibility which many of our countries and the so-called 'western world' should be assuming for the colossal injustice that the South Africans had to start from in the democratic reconstruction of their society.
On the other hand, it seems that we are giving the message that those who are in power there are not doing everything they can to put an end to the problems we are pointing out, and that conclusion would be another injustice on our part.
These are the priorities of the Pretoria government, and trying to overcome these problems is what makes that country an acceptable model for the whole of southern Africa.
I believe it is vital to emphasise that we understand the effort that South Africa is making, often in a courageous and innovative manner, with significant victories such as the one it has just gained in the matter of AIDS, for instance, against the great pharmaceutical industry.
Furthermore, however, I should like to remind you that I was the rapporteur last year when we debated the trade, development and cooperation agreement with South Africa, and I do not remember from this debate that the European Union was over-generous with our contribution to increasing the South African government' s ability to overcome all these major challenges.
Now we are the ones who are demanding that they should be more effective.
Of course, we must remain vigilant, but without forgetting the serious difficulties that South Africa is facing, and of course we must turn our concerns into supportive cooperation to give the South Africans a better chance to achieve their objectives, which, moreover, coincide with our own demands.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is fashionable these days to be pessimistic about Africa, sometimes on the basis of rash generalisations.
In an ocean of instability, however, of never-ending wars and conflicts, such as in the long-suffering Angola, one regional power could guarantee a degree of order and peace in southern Africa - the Republic of South Africa.
A real political miracle has taken place there, which is firmly ingrained in our minds: the country moved from apartheid to democracy.
South Africa made a peaceful choice for democracy and thereby put an end to decades of racial oppression.
Nevertheless, South Africa still faces serious problems that have been described here today, from violent crime, into which the country is threatening to sink, and into which it could very well sink, to the terrible disease of AIDS.
The changes in South Africa have given rise to great hope, however.
The wisdom and the prestige of Nelson Mandela gave South Africa enormous authority in the world.
His political successors now have great responsibilities to history and to the heritage of values bequeathed to them by Nelson Mandela.
South Africa can only be a power that has a positive influence on the destinies of its region and of the world if it avoids sliding into racial or ethnic conflict.
The immigrant communities are living in fear and anxiety.
The Portuguese community, one of the largest and most affected by the violence, has already been brave enough to demonstrate on the streets and demand protective measures.
We must support South Africa, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, and help it, without adopting a paternalistic attitude, to develop and to combat a lack of safety, conflict, violent death and murder.
A drift towards violence would be a tragedy not only for South Africa but also for Europe and for the whole world.
Amongst the many resolutions adopted by this Parliament, this is one of the most important and topical.
The Portuguese and other European citizens living in South Africa will then feel that Europe is not abandoning them to their fate and will keep the flame of hope alight. Most effective in achieving the remainder of what needs to be done, however, will be the diplomacy of the Commission and the Member States.
I would remind you of the words of the great French philosopher, Montaigne, who said: 'Every man contains within him the entire form of the human condition' .
To a certain extent, it is the human condition that is at stake in that great country.
Belarus
Mr President, these are tense times for President Lukashenko.
In just over two months' time presidential elections will be taking place in his country, White Russia.
Not without reason the power-hungry White Russian head of state is rather concerned about the outcome.
For example, will the opposition succeed in uniting behind one candidate? Will it, moreover, be able to develop a strategy for cooperation with the growing number of critics in the Lukashenko camp?
In addition the neutral attitude of his Russian counterpart Putin must be uncomfortable.
What is more, recent opinion polls cannot be reassuring either.
Finally, the grave accusations of two senior magistrates of the White Russian Public Prosecutor' s Office, place the president himself, together with the country' s present Attorney General, in a very unflattering light: it is alleged that on their orders specially formed death squads liquidated no less than 30 citizens in the period 1998-2000.
These include prominent missing persons such as the former White Russian Minister of Internal Affairs Zacharenko, the opposition politician Gontshar and the White Russian television reporter Sawadski.
In order to secure his reelection above everything else the autocrat in Minsk eschews no means of neutralising his political rivals - 'depicted' in the state media as enemies of the people and criminals - in advance.
No wonder that over half the population state in opinion polls that they do not expect fair and free presidential elections on 9 September.
Once again, an understandable attitude.
Because President Lukashenko is trying to frustrate all efforts in that direction - specifically a network of local, officially registered observers, actively supported by the OSCE mission in Minsk.
In this connection see particularly the presidential decree of 12 March, approved by parliament on 7 June.
In view of the influence on developments that Moscow can exert on developments in Minsk, participation of Russian monitors in an OSCE mission to observe the presidential elections of 9 September would be advisable.
I should like to know whether Commissioner Patten is able and willing to take initiatives in this direction.
I would like to address Commissioner Patten and, in particular, ask him and everyone else to note point 7 of the resolution on Belarus.
In this point, the European Parliament "calls on the Russian government and President Putin to support, within the political union between Russia and Belarus, a democratic multi-party system and pluralistic development in Belarus" .
There is a way to influence Belarus via Russia.
The political union which exists between these two states should be exploited to the full by the European Union.
We have great faith in Commissioner Patten and would like him, in all contexts, to bear this in mind within the framework of the Union.
Let me finally say that, in the parliamentary elections in Belarus in October 2000, a quarter of the candidates refused to stand.
This shows what kind of regime we are dealing with.
Mr President, first of all I should like to mention that two years ago the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy asked me to produce a report on the relations of the European Union with Belarus, and I confess that I should very much like to be able to finish it as soon as possible and in a positive fashion.
My visits to Belarus on several occasions have left me with a pessimistic, hopeless image.
It is an authoritarian, personality-centred regime, in which the opposition has no chance to express itself.
The opposition ranges from democratic communists to Christian democrats via social democrats, within a framework of a lack of freedom, as I have said repeatedly.
The constant violation of human rights is also very worrying.
I therefore think that the European Commission, the European Union, the Council, Parliament, all have to give a clear signal, together with the OSCE and the Council of Europe, for the Belarus government to adopt democratic rules and give some hope to its people.
Mr President, yet again I must concur with the previous speakers: our future neighbour Belarus is still a long way from being a democracy and democracy is now the only basis on which we can live together in Europe.
It is with concern that we must concede that even the four basic conditions which we set for preparations for the presidential elections have not been met.
The opposition is still being persecuted and criminalised.
It still has no free or fair access to the media, especially state television.
Disappearances are still not explained, especially the fate of Mr Kontscha and the Russian cameraman Mr Zawadski, for whom journalists are now holding a commemorative week.
However, today, I should like to highlight the case of Professor Bandaschewski, who has tried for years to enlighten the people in the areas contaminated by Chernobyl.
Because he told the truth and because he opposed people moving back into these areas, he has now ended up in prison serving an eight-year sentence.
Can you imagine?
It is intolerable.
Belarus still represents a challenge for European diplomacy.
We must be critical where criticism is needed but we must also provide support where we can.
Belarus is of strategic importance to the EU, which is why we must do everything we can to ensure that democracy is restored there.
Mr President, Hutus of Bantu origin form the majority tribe in Burundi with a population of 6 million.
The Tutsis of Nilotic origin are the minority tribe, but they dominate the government and the army.
Such tribal polarisation as we often see in Africa has been a major factor in the internal conflict, not only in Burundi but in neighbouring states.
In 1993 Burundi's Hutu President was assassinated and within a month over 100,000 civilians were killed.
A further 150,000 civilians have been killed since then.
More than half a million are refugees in Tanzania's refugee camps to this day.
The Democratic Republic of Congo has experienced similar conflict and almost 2 million civilians have been killed there or are missing over the last two to three years.
In the Horn, East and Central Africa covering 12 countries, there are 20 million displaced persons, displaced from their homes and their villages.
These people were poor before.
They are even poorer today.
They have no education, no access to health care, no employment and no shelter.
They depend totally on the World Food Programme for their food and they fear those who run the refugee camps where they live.
It is not surprising, therefore, that these refugee camps are breeding grounds for disease, discontent and disorder.
Young men and women are lured by the warlords to join their unruly gangs.
These innocent and desperate people, who were ordinary civilians before, probably farmers, are easily persuaded to train and be armed to support the greed and power struggle of the warlords.
The Lusaka and Arusha peace accords have failed to end the violence and internal conflict.
Repatriation of refugees is not satisfactory as the people are simply afraid to return to villages devastated, overrun and terrorised by the terrorists or the warlords.
How can we allow these displaced millions, these desperate refugees, to live in their camps as beggars for life.
How can we extinguish the fires of conflict and civil war in these developing countries? Containers full of medicines, tents, food, blankets and other such things bring temporary relief, but this is not enough.
We must be more active and rethink our strategy.
We must first of all give the poor a stake in their rural economies so that they may own their own land and have an opportunity to build their lives.
Secondly, we must give them the appropriate technology - third world technology - which they can then use to start local enterprises to break this cycle of dependency on us.
We must rethink our strategy and reassess the quality of people that we have in place as our ambassadors and representatives, their experience, and see how we can perhaps use local experts with international reputation and competence to advise us, to act on our behalf, to use the limited resources that we have to its best effectiveness.
We must embark on this with great urgency.
I have great confidence in Commissioner Patten to lead this, and Commissioner Nielson, and I hope that they will get together and make sure that the EU's next decade is much better than the last 40 years, a period in which, I consider, much time and resources were wasted.
Firstly, on Vietnam, may I say that I share the concerns of honourable Members about the human rights situation and, in particular, about recent developments in that country.
These appear to suggest that the progress which has been achieved by the Vietnamese government, both politically and economically, since the 1992 Constitution was adopted may be slowing down or even going into reverse, particularly where political freedoms are concerned.
The European Union's policy toward Vietnam, as it is towards all countries, is to encourage and support continued progress on human rights and democratisation and to raise concerns both publicly and in private where abuses or a deterioration in the situation is observed.
In Vietnam, permitting freedom of opinion and freedom of religion are of paramount importance to the European Union.
The Constitution of Vietnam guarantees freedom of belief and religion, and in recent years the state has developed more cooperative arrangements with the Catholic Church.
However, the Constitution also specifies that it is forbidden to violate freedom of belief or religion or to take advantage of it to act against the laws or the policies of the state.
This provision obviously reflects the desire of the Vietnamese authorities to try to control the pace of change and to maintain their grip on society during the transition process.
It is also plainly a restriction on freedom of opinion, and the press law is similarly restricted.
The cases mentioned in today's debate seem to me to be more concerned with freedom of opinion than with freedom of religion, a freedom which of course the European Union holds to be equally important.
Father Ly has called publicly for the United States not to ratify its bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam, linking this action to human rights issues.
Similar calls have reportedly been made by members of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam.
These calls are clearly contrary to the government's policy and difficult for them to tolerate in a society unaccustomed to public dissent.
What is needed in Vietnam is continued progress in the country's reform programme so that the administration learns to deal with a wider range of views and to appreciate the value of accommodating dissent in the system of government.
We will continue to support progress and to take every opportunity to draw attention to the fundamental importance of freedom of opinion.
The first article of the EC-Vietnam Cooperation Agreement which we signed with the government of Vietnam in 1995 states that respect for human rights and democratic principles is the basis for our cooperation.
We will shortly be holding in Hanoi a meeting of the EC-Vietnam Joint Commission at which all aspects of our relations will be reviewed including our shared commitment to respect for human rights.
In the meantime, the Commission delegation participates with the Member States represented in Hanoi in all EU démarches to the government of Vietnam on human rights issues, as well as in the regular discussions on human rights which the EU missions pursue with the Vietnamese authorities.
I can assure Parliament that in this process, we will continue to raise particular issues of concern and individual cases, and will continue to encourage action to address human rights abuses in Vietnam.
I will make those points when I am in Vietnam myself later this month.
I would have referred specifically to a point raised by Mr Dupuis, but since he is not here, I will pass on.
The second subject that I would like to deal with is South Africa.
The Commission shares the European Parliament's view that South Africa/EU cooperation should seek to redress the existing inequalities inherited from the apartheid era and to work to improve the living conditions of the population with programmes targeting employment, health, education and housing.
That is what our European programme for reconstruction and development is about.
We strongly share the European Parliament's concern that there is an urgent need to combat the HIV/AIDS problem in South Africa and I am sure - as I said this morning during the debate on the forthcoming G8 Summit - that will be one of the subjects which is discussed then in Genoa.
The Commission also agrees that there is a need for a climate of greater security in South Africa as a prerequisite for a peaceful society and for economic development.
We fear that the crime situation is not only a threat to the inhabitants of the country and to its social fabric, but also threatens South Africa's reputation abroad, discourages foreign investment and has a detrimental effect on the economy as a whole.
As the House knows, the priority areas under our current multiannual indicative programme for the years 2000-2002 are poverty alleviation through the provision of basic social services, private sector support and the consolidation of the rule of law and promotion of human rights.
The Commission has funded two programmes to support the South African police force.
The most recent one is currently being implemented.
While it is true that last year saw no new projects or programmes in the health sector, the public health sector support programme 2000, which was agreed in 1999, became operational during the course of the last year.
Programmes under consideration for funding in 2001 include a major health programme on primary health care, and that will also cover HIV/AIDS in selected provinces.
Preparations for the programming of the next multiannual indicative programme are about to start and they will take place in the course of the next year.
In this programming phase the Commission will give very proper consideration to the concerns and interests expressed by the European Parliament.
I now turn to Belarus.
I want to say how important it is for Parliament to discuss this subject and I very much take the point raised by a number of honourable Members about the importance of raising our concerns on Belarus with the Russian Federation.
That is something we have done, are doing and will continue to do.
I welcome this timely debate.
I congratulate honourable Members on highlighting the extremely worrying situation in Belarus.
The Commission shares the deep concerns contained in the resolutions that are before us today.
I join Parliament in calling on President Lukashenka to reverse the present alarming trend towards increased authoritarianism by decisive action to improve human rights, press freedom and democracy.
In the short term this means, in particular, ensuring free and fair elections and addressing the situation of missing opposition figures and political prisoners.
Improved cooperation with the OSCE will be a vital ingredient in this.
The presidential elections on 9 September will be the next test of the democratic credentials of the country and we are in close touch with the OSCE-ODIHR discussions over the desirability of an international election monitoring mission.
There are some - I emphasise 'some' - encouraging signs of greater unity among opposition parties.
However, all the indications are that the authorities will again fail the democratic test, just as the parliamentary elections last October fell disappointingly short of the conditions established by the OSCE.
The European Union has a clear position: as long as the present intolerable situation remains we cannot consider closer economic or political relations with Belarus.
Unless and until there are significant improvements, our financial assistance will remain limited to direct help to those involved in promoting civil society and democracy, and humanitarian assistance where it is needed.
The European Union has condemned the recent government decree on external funding for non-governmental organisations, and we are urgently seeking clarification on how it might affect our own assistance programmes.
Speaking personally, I would prefer to see our present limited assistance suspended, rather than have it subject to prior approval by the authorities.
Our restrictive policy on political dialogue has not prevented the European Union from repeatedly airing our deep concerns about prominent public figures who mysteriously disappear or who are imprisoned for political reasons.
Recently the European Union has raised the cases of the former interior minister Yury Zakharenko, the former head of the election committee, Viktor Gonchav, the businessman Anatoly Krasovsky and the photographer who was referred to in the debate, Dmitry Zavadsky.
It is disturbing that despite this pressure there has been no progress in these cases.
The debate today has highlighted a further case: the imprisonment of Professor Bandashevsky, following his work on the alarming social and environmental consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.
European Union heads of mission in Belarus have recently undertaken a study into the impact of Chernobyl on public health.
The Commission is keen to discuss with Member States how the European Union should respond to these disturbing findings and on how we should react to Professor Bandashevsky's imprisonment, taking account of the strong views that are felt by honourable Members.
I have no hesitation at all in defending a fair, but tough, line on Belarus, but it is a pity that it is necessary.
Belarus is a country at the heart of Europe that has the potential to become an important political and economic partner for the Union, particularly following enlargement.
This is the positive message that we must continue to send to the people of Belarus.
In this way we can lend our support to those forces in society that are pressing for the reforms that are so necessary, the reforms that will one day assuredly arrive.
Finally, I refer to the important speech made by Mr Khanbhai, who raised a number of very important issues, triggered by the position of Burundian refugees in Tanzania.
The Commission is concerned about the lack of progress towards peace in Burundi.
How could we not be? We are concerned about the continuation of violence against the civil population resulting from persistent clashes between the Burundian army and the rebels.
In the current circumstances a voluntary return of Burundian refugees in Tanzanian camps is not, frankly, likely and a forced repatriation is hardly advisable.
The continued and growing presence of a huge Burundian refugee population in Tanzania is causing tension between the two governments.
By the end of May there were approximately 523 000 refugees in camps in Western Tanzania, of whom over 383 000 were Burundians.
In particular, the Tanzanian government is accused of not preventing Burundian rebels from using refugee camps as bases for their attacks.
In reaction to recent allegations by the Burundi government to this effect, Tanzania's President Mkapa suggested an immediate forced repatriation of all refugees, without taking into account the prevailing security situation in Burundi.
The government of Tanzania has since reassured the UNHCR that its policy towards the Burundian refugees is not in question, and it undertook to respect its earlier commitment to facilitate a gradual voluntary repatriation once the security conditions in Burundi permit.
For our part, the European Commission will contribute EUR 25 million towards the implementation of the UNHCR plan for voluntary repatriation of Burundian refugees to be launched once the situation is favourable.
For now, the Commission is taking the necessary measures to assist the government of Tanzania to cope with the refugee population.
Through the humanitarian aid office, ECHO, the Commission is funding more than a third of the total humanitarian aid available to refugees in Tanzania.
Last year ECHO's budget for aid to Tanzanian refugees was nearly EUR 27 million. This was increased to over EUR 32 million this year.
Mr Khanbhai also raised a number of important issues about the management of our assistance and development programmes and about our representation in Africa and in other parts of the world.
I look forward to future opportunities to discuss those matters with him and the whole House, not least in the context of the communication which we have just produced on our external services.
Thank you very much Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Illegal exploitation of natural resources in Democratic Republic of Congo
The next item is the joint debate on five motions for resolutions:
B5-0485/2001 by Mrs Maes, Mrs Isler Béguin and Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo;
B5-0492/2001 by Mr Van Hecke, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on the looting of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo;
B5-0502/2001 by Mr Van den Berg, Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco and Mrs Carlotti, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo;
B5-0510/2001 by Mr Van den Bos and Mrs Dybkjær, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo;
B5-0517/2001 by Mr Miranda, Mr Vinci and Mr Sylla, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to call special attention to a problem that forms part of a tidal wave of disaster engulfing a whole region, a million people.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is at this moment being ravaged by war.
A war that turns mainly on the considerable natural wealth of the country.
For years the land has been used and abused, a population has been sidelined for the sake of the lucrative exploitation of what nature has to offer.
War is an ideal situation for very lucrative deals, because there is seldom any control or accountability.
The example which most fires the imagination today is the extraction of and trade in coltan, a material without which none of us could communicate with such mobility and ease.
We pay ridiculously little for this material, while today the local population, for the first time in history, is facing serious famine.
The war that is currently raging permits not only so-called 'legal' exploitation of this type, but also much less covert forms of plunder.
In addition it is clear that the lucrative trade in uranium and nuclear waste almost exclusively benefits Western interests.
We could also ask questions about the role of Western embassies and their associated agencies.
I should particularly like to draw attention to one aspect of this long-drawn-out state of abuse.
For many years the European countries and the United States have extracted uranium, which was responsible for such horrors as Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
To make matters worse Western nuclear waste is dumped in the same region.
Radioactive waste from the 1960s and 1970s is still an unmistakable direct threat to the population.
Consequently it is encouraging that Prime Minister Verhofstadt spoke ambitious words yesterday about tackling the situation in the region.
It must not stop at empty words.
The end of the cold war and the arms race means that the demand for the termination of the trade in uranium and nuclear waste is not an exaggerated one, but extremely reasonable, a demand that as it were flows naturally from the values to which Europe is pledged.
Mr President, the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of access, control and trade in key mineral resources.
The wealth of the country is appealing to its greedy neighbours.
All six nations involved in this conflict share responsibility for their illegal actions, as must those in other countries who have helped this profiteering.
Is long-term regional instability a price worth paying for short-term theft? Alongside plundering, looting and racketeering by foreign armies, criminal cartels see the DRC as a weak link.
The United National panel of experts warns: "These criminal cartels have ramifications and connections worldwide and they represent the next serious security problem in the region".
I would like to ask the Commissioner what the difference is between Milosevic ethnically cleansing his neighbours and African leaders looting and killing 2.5 million of their Congolese neighbours? When can we see some of these leaders sitting in the dock in The Hague?
I see no difference between one sort of killing and another, expect that one is white and the other black. When the final United Nations findings are published, the EU and the UN should respond by considering freezing financial assets of rebel movements and of the leaders of criminal cartels and foreign powers that do not withdraw.
We, in the centre right of Parliament, want firm action to prevent the DRC's destruction.
The irony is that the wealth stolen from the Congolese could provide the foundations for real long-term regional growth and stability.
This needs African leaders to lay down their guns, however.
With our historic connections with Africa - particularly during the Belgian Presidency - there is a real opportunity for something to be done very soon.
Mr President, the report of the panel of experts on the illegal exploitation of natural sources of energy is particularly brave.
Normally those reports are quite vague about names and surnames, but here the names of the various people responsible are listed.
In that respect too it is an extraordinarily useful report.
It makes it clear that not only government leaders in the region and of course a number of the 'war lords' in the areas involved but also a number of industries in Europe with export and import operations that are illegal, or at least involve the use of illegal material, share a great part of the responsibility.
The report is lucid and clear in its recommendations.
It is in fact the second such report after the Fowler diamond report.
It also gives us the opportunity to operate quite effectively as an international community.
Mr Verhofstadt said here earlier in the week that if we had this in Europe, it would be called a world war.
The number of people affected by this disaster is extremely high.
I believe that it is right - in terms of equal treatment and application of the right criteria - to use the same standards in the Congo as we use elsewhere.
We are capable of doing so, because we know a number of the companies.
We can get them round the table.
We know a number of the governments with whom we have links.
We can also exert heavy pressure on this point.
It is a complicated game.
That is clear.
Uganda, Rwanda, Congo, the new debate, the Lusaka agreements, the facilitation of a dialogue.
If we do not remove the source, however, the financing of the arms trade and armed conflict, will continue.
We can make everything dry up there.
I would consider it of extreme importance if the European Commission, in fact Mr Patten with his colleague Mr Solana, would think about ways of mounting specific operations in the context of the UN Security Council to exert sufficient pressure to bring it to a halt.
On that point one more comment for the Belgian Presidency.
When he was here this weekend, Mr Verhofstadt, together with Minister Reynders and others, very quickly released credits that had been blocked.
Now of course I understand that there is a need to get the parties around a table and get them moving.
At the same time, though, you must of course be careful.
Making loans available and not at the same time making firm demands and meanwhile allowing the illegal exploitation of natural resources, is not the most credible way of going about it.
I am in favour - and that is a lesson from the past and on that point we need not be outdone by the Americans - of being hard and clear.
In fact exactly what we have said in previous debates: deeply committed, but also hard and clear and making our demands, on our own industry, our own Member States and the six countries involved.
I hope - and expect - that you will support the Belgian Presidency in such a way that it will lead to some effectiveness on this point.
Mr President it is sad that Europe seems to be giving real political priority to Congo only now that Belgium is president.
The Balkans and the Middle East demand all our attention.
Does this not basically indicate that strategic and geographical considerations are ultimately more important to Europe than purely humanitarian ones? For from the point of view of human misery there is every reason for the Union to concern itself intensively with Congo.
There are already one and a half million dead to mourn in the country.
Hundreds of thousands have become refugees and some 28 million people are being oppressed, plundered and violated under the military occupation.
A weak central authority is not capable of governing the huge country with its many natural resources.
Congo is extremely vulnerable to merciless neighbouring countries, which by military force are systematically robbing the country of its principal sources of income.
The population sees none of the proceeds.
It is difficult to state that the European Union has allowed Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi to go their shameless way and allows them to continue their occupation with development aid.
Angola, Zimbabwe and Zambia also participate without scruples in the violence in this country.
It is high time that clear conditions were imposed on these foreign profiteers.
Continuation of development aid will be possible only if all foreign troops leave the country.
Western companies involved in the illegal exploitation of Congolese riches should also be exposed.
They are also contributing to the continuation of the war.
We may expect Kabila to finally initiate an inter-Congolese dialogue, and carry through the process of democratisation.
It is the task of the Belgian Presidency and the Commission to win over the European Union once and for all for the lamentable fate of the people of Congo.
The Commission is well aware of the information referred to in the proposals for a resolution submitted to Parliament and in the press concerning illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This information has been broadly confirmed by the Commission's interlocutors on the spot, including non-governmental organisations and in an interim report by the United Nations, to which a number of honourable Members referred.
The honourable Member referred to that report during a speech which made a powerful case for an international criminal court able to extend its remit around the world, not unlike the Tribunal at The Hague focused on the Balkans.
That report covers the illegal exploitation of the DRCs natural resources and other wealth.
It was presented to the Security Council by the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, on 14 April 2001 and it was the subject of a heated debate.
The Secretary-General decided to extend the mandate of the experts who compiled the report by three months, so that they could add to the research and the information already provided.
The report will be an important point of departure for the international community, which will have to take a position on it.
The profits to be made from coltan mining and other mining by the warring parties in Congo are bound to have an impact on the devastation in Kivu.
The region's decline began under President Mobutu and has a number of causes, one of the most significant being ethnic tensions.
The situation became much worse following the genocide in Rwanda and Rwanda's intervention in both the country's wars which were originally fought to secure external borders.
The international community is aware of the link between economic interests and the continuation of the war in Kivu.
The only lasting solution is nonetheless to advance the peace process and to build legitimate institutions able to regulate the exploitation of resources.
This is the objective supported by the Commission through its activity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
That is the context in which we envisaged the gradual resumption of aid in tandem with the implementation of the Lusaka agreement and the progress of the Congolese dialogue.
Honourable Members, and particularly Mr van den Berg, focused their arguments on the relationship between the illicit trade in some commodities and the conflict.
We know the problems that have been caused with diamonds elsewhere and the arms trade.
It is extremely important, where we can, to take initiatives and pursue them on both.
That is why we have been so active in working at the United Nations on small arms and we must make use of the Community's competences, when we can, and with the Member States deal effectively with the illicit diamond and with other illicit trades which have caused so much suffering and impoverishment in Africa in particular, but in other countries as well.
Thank you very much Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Earthquake in Peru
Mr President, the city of Arequipa will never be the same again.
The loss of human life that has happened there, the economic damage and also the irreparable destruction of the historical and monumental heritage of this most beautiful city have astounded us all.
Southern Peru is experiencing a tragic situation caused by the earthquake of 23 June, the devastating effects of which have left over a hundred dead, over a thousand injured, and have destroyed over ten thousand homes, leaving over 40 000 people homeless in the provinces of Arequipa, Moquegua and Tacna.
The earthquake has also caused severe destruction in northern Chile and in Bolivia.
The economic damage has set these regions back by more than 20 years.
The scale of the disaster has affected infrastructure and economic development.
Some towns, villages, districts, settlements and roads have been destroyed by the earthquake.
Faced by such a disaster, the forces of international solidarity and especially European solidarity were swift to act.
The European Union humanitarian office mobilised in record time, and I should like to congratulate those responsible in the European Commission on their rapid intervention with a package of measures which, right from the first few hours, included food aid, temporary accommodation, supplies of products for purifying water and deliveries of medicines.
In this context I must also feel proud of the solidarity expressed by the Spanish government and people, who have contributed very generously.
At times like these we have to look to the future, and the reconstruction and rehabilitation plans must be coordinated quickly and effectively.
To these ends, a strategic communication should be drawn up covering all aspects of aid coordination and the reconstruction and rehabilitation plans that I have mentioned for the affected areas.
This sad human tragedy may be an occasion for Latin Americans to be more united and determined when facing their numerous difficulties, and also for them to deepen their ties and their process of regional integration with, perhaps, larger doses of solidarity.
Mr President, both the Commissioner, Mr Patten, and the Members of this House are well aware of the situation in Peru, and the last speaker, Mr Ojeda, has summed up the situation very well.
The starting point for Parliament' s resolution is, in effect, the Commission' s rapid action, and I should like to join in congratulating the Commission and particularly the Commissioner, Mr Patten, on this rapid action.
Nevertheless, the purpose of our resolution is to remind us that this initial aid is likely to be insufficient, given the extent of the disaster.
We have in fact just been visited by the new President-elect of Peru, Mr Alejandro Toledo, who has met members of Parliament and also the Commission and has told them of his needs.
We do not think this is the moment to adopt a resolution on Peru' s economic policy and, in this respect, we do not consider it prudent to support the amendment tabled by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, since we believe it is a subject that requires rather more time for consideration.
Above all, we do not believe it is the right moment to tell the government of Peru how it should prepare its budget for 2002.
We do hope, however, that, regardless of the overall context of the resolution, the Commission will over the coming weeks and months consider the special situation of this country, which has been through quite a critical time from a constitutional and economic standpoint, and which now, after an impeccable electoral process, seems to have started on the road to recovery in democracy and with the confidence of the whole population.
We hope that, based on these views - I repeat, regardless of what happens here - the Commission will go ahead.
There is a subject to which the Commissioner, Mr Patten, is quite sensitive: the effectiveness of Community aid.
It seems that, in the past, the financial resources earmarked for the Latin American area have not been used fully effectively.
Since the start of his mandate, Mr Patten has been concerned with the effectiveness of the operations, and we should like to know whether at this moment (although it may still be premature) the aid that the Community sends is achieving its results, and also what measures he foresees for the development of future aid.
While aid is being granted, it is important that it should be monitored and that the Commission should inform us whether in effect this aid that we are approving, which is paid for with our taxpayers' money, is achieving positive results.
Apart from that, I repeat, I want to join in congratulating the Commission and the Commissioner, Mr Patten.
I hope that in this new stage Peru may find an important ally in the Commission and the European Union, and that the Commission may soon present to us proposals for aid for the recovery of Peru and aid for cooperation with the Andean Community, which, as we know, finds itself in difficulties, not only in Peru but also in other countries.
As the House knows, a strong earthquake struck southern Peru on 23 June 2001.
Up-dated figures from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs indicate that almost 190 000 people were affected and some 35 000 homes damaged or destroyed.
Through its humanitarian aid office ECHO, the Commission reacted, and I am grateful for the generous remarks made by the honourable Member, Mr Medina.
The Commission reacted very promptly.
A decision to allocate humanitarian aid amounting to EUR 1.15m was taken two days after the earthquake to help meet the first urgent needs of the victims.
This is the first time, in fact, that the Commission has made use of its new system for responding immediately to the sudden onset of humanitarian crises which came into operation less than two weeks ago.
Furthermore, five emergency humanitarian operations are already under way.
The Spanish Red Cross is distributing food aid and emergency relief items for 1 000 families to the tune of EUR 250 000.
Oxfam is spending EUR 200 000 on emergency water storage and distribution facilities and sanitation.
Save the Children Fund - EUR 300 000 on blankets and tents.
Medicos Del Mundo - EUR 100 000 on blankets, medicines, water tanks and plastic sheets for shelter.
The International Federation of the Red Cross - EUR 300 000 on shelter, food and support to the rescue efforts for health, water, sanitation and other relief supplies.
That is how our emergency relief is being spent and I think it is being spent in sensible ways.
According to information received from the field, the international response has been generous and the immediate needs seem to be covered.
Nevertheless, the Commission services continue to monitor the situation in case additional aid is required.
A debate on a resolution on the Peruvian earthquake is not perhaps the most appropriate framework to discuss the political situation in Peru, but I would nevertheless like to stress that we are extremely satisfied with the capacity shown by Peru and its transitional government to carry out transparent and clean elections after the political disasters described very effectively by the honourable Member in his maiden speech.
We shall look forward to hearing from him many times in the future.
It was a pretty vigorous maiden as maidens go!
The European Union Observation Mission for the elections was extremely positive.
Like honourable Members, I discussed the catastrophe and the European response on Tuesday with President Toledo during his visit to Parliament.
We want to congratulate the interim government and the people of Peru for the maturity shown in this situation and for the support and cooperation provided to our team in the field.
I was able to say to President Toledo when he was here with us that the approximately EUR 60m in programmes for the alleviation of poverty blocked by the conduct of the elections in 2000 will now be released.
We want to proceed with those projects as rapidly as possible.
I follow very much the point raised by Mr Medina, you want to get on with those projects as soon as possible and I know that poverty alleviation is one of the new President's priorities.
We also want to sit down with the new government to discuss programming our future assistance.
The President himself underlined his commitment to reforming the judiciary and making sure that there is in place a rule of law in the institutions to make that rule of law effective.
I feel that that is a very important way in which we can see the encouragement of more private investment in Peru and more confidence on the part of the international community.
We all express our condolences to those who have been affected by this terrible earthquake but at least it has given us the opportunity of expressing in this House once again our solidarity with democracy in Peru and our encouragement of the new Peruvian government.
Thank you very much indeed Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Results of the multiannual guidance programmes for fishing fleets
The next item is the report (A5-0188/2001) by Mr Busk, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Annual Report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the results of the multiannual guidance programmes for the fishing fleets at the end of 1999 (COM(2000) 738 - C5-0107/2001 - 2001/2056(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to thank my colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries for the considerable interest and support elicited by my report on the multiannual guidance programmes for fishing fleets.
It shows that this is a very important report.
The multiannual guidance programmes proposed by the Commission make a lot of sense.
The overriding problem is that they are not being implemented in the Member States.
Therefore, we never find out whether or not they would be a success.
It is quite simply unacceptable that they are not being implemented in their entirety.
According to the Commission, there are 7 or 8 Member States which do not comply with MAGPs.
If one adds to these the countries which do not have a fishing fleet at all, not many countries are left which comply with the common decisions.
We simply have too large a fleet fishing for too few fish in the EU.
There has only just recently been a ban on cod fishing in the North Sea, and this clearly shows that there are some very weak links in the chain when it comes to the ability of the common fisheries policy to secure sustainable fisheries.
European fishermen are entitled to a more stable fisheries and quota policy as a basis on which to organise their industry.
One of the most important tools for securing sustainable fisheries is simply to ensure that the size of the fishing fleet corresponds to the quantity of the fish that can be caught.
Technological progress entails a still greater need to reduce fishing fleets.
We are now, of course, in the unfortunate and regrettable position arising from the failure to renegotiate a fisheries agreement with Morocco.
The EU' s over-capacity when it comes to the fishing fleet is therefore a great weakness.
I look forward to the Commission' s using the new tools in the form of Articles 6 and 10 of the Council Regulation which of course enable the Commission to withhold aid for, respectively, fleet renewal and the modernisation of vessels.
It is naturally sad that the Member States do not have a greater incentive to implement those decisions which they themselves have been involved in taking on a joint basis and that some countries feel superior about the fact that they are to implement the guidance programmes, given that they are not exceeding the quotas.
I find that deeply regrettable.
One is almost tempted to propose introducing a system of rewards for those countries which comply with the common decisions and reduce their fishing fleets.
I am obliged to criticise the form taken by the Commission' s annual report, which is impossible to read unless one is an expert in the area.
The various figures are set out without any comments as to their reliability.
For that matter, they are included in the report in such a way that it is largely up to the reader to interpret the figures and make what he considers to be the correct interpretations.
In other words, the annual report is not easy to read and it provides absolutely no overview of the situation.
For example, there is no clearly set-out table to permit comparison of the individual Member States.
It is, unfortunately, a very poor point of departure for the reform of the common fisheries policy in 2002.
The Commission therefore has a very great deal of work ahead of it, Commissioner, if a new and better guidance programme for the reduction of the fishing fleet is to be carried out and if this is to be implemented in all the Member States.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Busk, because he has done an excellent job.
Our group is going to support this report from the first line to the last.
I also thank him for the collaboration which we have had with him at all times in the work we have carried out.
The report echoes yet again the request by this Parliament that the European Commission should make an example of and apply truly dissuasive penalties to those Member States that repeatedly fail to comply with the fleet objectives they have been assigned, so as to avoid once and for all that the general objectives for the Community fleet should be forever jeopardised, despite the very high social and economic sacrifices made in some regions of the Member States that have traditionally complied.
This lack of compliance with the MAGPs has led the European Commission to present its proposal to extend MAGP IV until the end of 2002, unfortunately setting out a number of conditions which are absolutely unacceptable.
In a further attempt to adapt the fleet to the resources, the Commission has again forgotten that there are countries that have broadly complied with their objectives, and is presenting a global proposal which will punish everybody with the threat of new cuts in fleet size and the intention of withholding aid for the modernisation of the fleet.
As I have said so many times (the last time was right here, during the last part-session), the structural aid for modernisation is the only guarantee to maintain a competitive fleet and to ensure the best conditions for the quality of Community fisheries products and the quality of life and safety of our crews.
Far from understanding it in this way, the Commission shows it has completely lost touch with reality by persisting in suppressing such aid, and in real terms the new MAGP proposal literally says that it will suppress the article that allows fleets to seek modernisation, for safety reasons.
With the review of the common fisheries policy, the Commission talks a lot about listening to those involved and consulting the industry and the administrations.
Time and time again, they have all made it perfectly clear - and they are unanimous in this - that they consider the modernisation budget to be indispensable.
Because of all this, I ask the Commissioner to explain to me the reasoning behind this proposal
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the common fisheries policy has the difficult and, at times, thankless task of reconciling the interests of an activity as old as mankind with preserving fishery resources and marine ecosystems.
The continual erosion of fish populations will, in the long term, threaten the survival of European fishermen and the preservation of the species.
And without fish, it goes without saying, there can be no fishing.
It is therefore crucial, as Commissioner Fischler suggested, that we make a clear decision to accept short-term losses in order to achieve economic and environmental benefits in the long term.
The overcapacity of the Community fishing fleet, which marine scientists estimate to be 40%, a figure adopted in the March 2001 Green Paper on the future of the common fisheries policy, is one of the main causes of the excessive pressure that fishing exerts on fish stocks.
It must not be forgotten, however, that other activities apart from fishing, namely tourism and various forms of pollution, also contribute to the destruction of the marine environment.
For this reason, the multiannual programmes for reducing the fishing fleets are an important component of the measure that has been implemented in order to protect species that are being fished at dangerous levels.
The basic aim of these programmes, which are truly complex and hard to implement, is to achieve a balance between resources and catches, not to punish fishermen.
A permanent reduction of the fishing fleets is, of course, viewed with apprehension by fishermen and others in the industry.
The reduction must therefore be implemented rigorously and transparently and with fairness to all those concerned.
The results for 1999 are mediocre and disappointing and it is, therefore, worth emphasising the recommendations contained in Mr Busk' s report, calling on the Commission and the Member States to adopt clear and precise criteria for measuring the capacity of ships and fishing fleet categories so as to guarantee control of developments in the fishing fleets and the multiannual plan objectives.
Member States must have the courage to respect the limits that have been set.
Fishing must, increasingly, become an activity which is not predatory but rather one which is friendly to the sea and to marine life.
Mr President, once again we are seeing the same situation.
Several Member States are behind in their obligations to reduce their fleets and once again nothing is being done to improve matters.
The next report, by Mr Nicholson on cod in the Irish Sea, clearly shows the failure of the present approach to fleet management.
The Commission is proposing to extend the MAGP by one more year in order to debate fleet policy in the context of the Green Paper.
We support that.
We think it is a good idea.
However, there needs to be a major rethink about fleet policy.
We would agree with the Commission that fleets are too large and must be reduced.
We also feel that the Council should wake up and join the real world, because it seems to think that this is unnecessary.
As a step in the right direction the Greens support the idea of penalties for those countries which are not observing their legally binding commitments to reduce fleets.
We must get serious about this problem and also look at the countries that are claiming to have met their obligations under the MAGP, to ensure that they are not transferring their vessels to other flags.
We must ensure that they are doing what the MAGP intends they do in the long run.
Mr President, the structure of the fishing fleet is determined by the socio-economic circumstances of a region, by the Total Allowed Catch (TAC) and the quota in combination with technical measures.
The multiannual guidance programme (MGP) has generally acted too much as an end in itself and too little as a means to an end in all this.
The end is to maintain fish stocks in a sustainable way.
If a Member State' s fleet keeps to its quota, it has met the principal objective.
Threatening to reduce the quota if the MGP targets are not met ignores that objective.
One then finds the odd situation that fleets that meet the MGP target but structurally overfish go unpunished, while fishing fleets that do not overfish are penalised because their engine capacity is too great.
On the latter point it was a considerable step forward that in 1999 account was taken for the first time of countries that regulate their fleet capacity through a days-at-sea scheme, in other words capacity limited by activity.
Unfortunately an end has not yet been put to the confusing number of units to denote fleet capacity such as gross registered ton, gross ton and kilowatt propulsion capacity.
It is an illustration of the lack of vision of fleet structure and the inflexibility of the Commission' s fisheries policy that as yet no proper unit has been found for fleet activity.
With the increasing catching efficiency, the need for an indisputable indicator of the catch per unit of effort is great.
On the other hand, great engine capacity need not indicate a greater fishing effort if we consider that the freezing capacity also requires extra engine quality as on some ships.
Sustainable fishing can only be achieved if there is room for an efficient fleet within the permitted catches.
Grants for newly-built ships disrupt the operation of market forces and encourage an expansion of capacity.
I therefore call on the Commission to end these grants, and I know that I have the support of Dutch fishermen in this.
The Commission needs support among the fishermen, if it is to have a chance of succeeding.
The MGP must not be seen as a separate instrument with independent objectives from the other policy measures such as the TACs and the quota.
By giving fishermen in their product organisations scope to shape policy for themselves within a single framework, such support can be created.
These producers' organisations can then be tackled on the division of the quota, transparency of catches and the registration of ships.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am going to speak on behalf of my fellow Member, Dominique Souchet, and set out the position she upheld - which I also share - in the Committee on Fisheries.
This Annual Report - whatever the rapporteur' s qualities and however much work he puts in - appears repetitive, conventional and quite pointless each time.
The pointlessness of this exercise underlines, if there were any doubt, the vacuity of a process, namely the MGPs or multiannual guidance programmes, the principal effect of which is to encourage fraudulent behaviour, favouring certain fleets to the detriment of others.
The purchase of virtual wrecks from outside, in order to break them and thereby have unjustified reserves of kilowatts available, distorted the mechanism from the start.
This corruption has even become a veritable national sport in certain States.
Indefinitely lamenting the poor quality of the statistical data on MGPs therefore does not make much sense.
To embark, as the Commission proposes, on a course of punishment and penalties for Member States - which would, in fact, hit the workers - would be dangerous.
What we need is simply to take note of the failure of the MGPs instead of trying to artificially prolong the life of this ineffective and counter-productive measure.
Despite their elevated cost, these MGPs have not achieved their objective.
Adding to the total allowed catches - the TACs - they were badly designed from the outset and have made the second-hand market rocket to the detriment, in particular, of young small-scale fishermen who are just starting out in this profession.
Everyone recognises this failure in private.
It would be sensible to have the courage to recognise it publicly and draw conclusions from it.
The main conclusion should be the need to include in the new common fisheries policy, along with the abolition of the MGPs, reorientation of the sustainable management of resources according to a reformed system of TACs and improved, fine-tuned multiannual quotas based on refined assessments of resources made possible by a substantial increase in scientific research and close collaboration with workers in the process.
In wishing to prolong the MGP policy the Commission is in danger of committing itself to a dangerous path, and we are warning it against this.
This is not the way to reconcile fishermen with the common fisheries policy.
First of all, may I take the opportunity of congratulating the rapporteur.
He, like myself, has been given the great problem of trying to deal with a highly technical report and trying to find a way through.
My report comes later.
I want to take the opportunity to congratulate him on an excellent report.
I think those of us who participate in the fisheries committee in this parliament do not always get the credit for what they achieve or indeed what the Commission achieves.
I have to ask the Commission and indeed, we all have to ask ourselves, why is the multiannual guidance programme not being implemented?
It is all very well to complain about it, but we have to ask the question 'why'? The main reason why it is not being implemented is because Member States and national governments are not prepared on many occasions to find the matching funding required to bring about what is necessary to restructure an industry which we all know and agree must be restructured.
Until we find a way of encouraging all the Member States to do this, there is no point in one Member State doing it, there is no point in two or even three, four or five Member States: it has to be right across the board of all Member States or else you will end up with massive recriminations between Member States as to who is doing what.
The fact that we have not been able to give it that priority in the Member States is certainly something that we all view with great concern.
I would be inclined to say to the Commissioner that, no matter what you call it or how you achieve it, what you should do is to take the problem, give it a good shaking, get on with it and to try and force Member States to bring about the result everyone agrees is required and sort out how it will really affect the industry.
We have the Member States going one way, we have the Commission going another way, we have scientists telling us another thing and in the middle we have fishermen and the fishing industry wondering what way they can go.
Mr President, it is essential that fishing effort - and I mean effort as opposed to capacity - is matched to fishery resources.
Member States must also be obliged to fulfil their fleet reduction targets so I welcome the general thrust of Mr Busk's report.
Unfortunately, an amendment in committee added a reference to the Cunha report and brought with it the concept of quota penalties, a proposal which is against the acquis communautaire.
As the Commission itself stated in this House on a previous occasion, and I quote: "The automatic reduction in quotas for non-complying countries seriously undermines the basic principle of the common fisheries policy which is that of relative stability".
Quota penalties are impractical as well as unjust, punishing fishermen for their Member State's wrongdoing.
Quotas should be based on science and conservation objectives, not misused as automatic penalties.
I ask therefore for a separate and split vote on paragraph 4 of this text and I urge Members to reject the references to the Cunha report and make sure that effective sanctions are targeted against those who are obliged to fulfil MAGP targets, that is, Member State governments, and not fishermen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6.30 p.m.
Cod stock in the Irish Sea
The next item is the report (A5-0213/2001) by James Nicholson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2549/2000 establishing additional technical measures for the recovery of the stock of cod in the Irish Sea (ICES Division VIIa) (COM(2001) 165 - C5-0140/2001 - 2001/0083(CNS)).
Mr President, I am grateful for the support I had in producing this report.
As I indicated in the earlier debate, it is a technical report.
Sometimes it requires a bit of knowledge to get to the bottom of the problem.
Thanks also to the Commission.
To some extent we are dealing with the issue of Box 7(A) in the Irish Sea, which has been closed off at times recently, in cooperation with the fishermen.
I certainly welcome that.
Discussions were based on the debate about what happened in the North Sea.
That area was also closed when the Norwegians were working on the project, and scientists came forward with new conclusions that did not affect the industry.
This report also helps French fishermen.
It operates in conjunction with the cod recovery plan in the Irish Sea.
Everyone accepts now that there is a problem of cod stocks.
No one has been able to agree on how you work towards their recovery, however.
I certainly hope this study and the proposals that come forward will, in conjunction with the fishermen, help the fishing industry, the fleet and those who actually work at sea.
To a large extent this report is technical, as I have said.
It involves the difference between a 4mm thick double twine that is equivalent to a 6mm thick single twine on the cod-ends on the actual net that catches the fish.
I hope the scientists are right and that this improves.
We all have to accept that this is about the protection of juvenile cod in the Irish Sea.
I hope it is successful.
If stocks are to recover then the juveniles have to be allowed to mature and develop if the industry is to recover.
One area I am encouraged about is the fact that there is better cooperation and dialogue between the Commission and those involved in the industry.
That must be welcomed by everyone.
We all have a part to play in this: fishermen, the Member States, scientists, and the Commission.
Each has to know where the other is coming from if we are going to succeed.
Everyone has to cooperate if we are to succeed.
I would like the Commissioner here tonight to confirm that this cooperation is working to the maximum and as well as he would wish.
Perhaps he could suggest ways of improving that, especially in the months ahead when, near Christmas, we decide what the TACs and quotas are for those areas and are bound to face grave difficulties.
The Commissioner may be aware that for the last two years the Irish Sea has been closed at spawning time to aid stock recovery.
Fishermen in that area have cooperated fully, as they have this year about the North Sea.
Do these new methods have an effect? Can you tell us that the desired effect has been achieved, as far as the scientists are concerned?
There is growing realism that there is a problem. But are we on the way to solving that problem?
Have we got the right methods and mechanisms in place to resolve it? All these new measures create extra costs, at a time when we have reduced fishing and have a fleet that is, to some extent, in financial difficulty.
We seriously require support through the industry: decommissioning, a reduction in size of the fishing fleet and fishing time so that we can at least leave those left in the industry some hope of survival.
I hope, Commissioner, you will encourage the cooperation that is required.
It has come about to achieve this technical agreement.
I hope that you will encourage cooperation between your staff, scientists and those involved in the industry.
That is the way forward.
Can I first of all congratulate my friend and colleague, Jim Nicholson, on his report.
Technical measures to aid the recovery of cod stocks in the Irish Sea are of very great importance and they are of considerable consequence to fishermen in Scotland who are now desperately searching for ways to rejuvenate cod stocks in the North Sea.
We are therefore studying the success of the measures taken in the Irish Sea with huge interest.
Fish stocks, as you know, have collapsed in the North Sea, recently forcing the Commission to introduce emergency measures for the first time, when they closed 40 000 sq miles to cod fishing for 12 weeks, and to introduce emergency measures to protect northern hake stocks.
Our once proud Scottish fleet, which landed 400 000 tonnes of cod per year in Scottish ports in 1970, is now limited by strict TACs and quotas to a mere 20 000 tonnes per year.
The situation is no longer sustainable.
The Commission Green Paper on reform of the CFP contains proposals, which have received widespread support from the industry, for maintaining the 6- and 12-mile limits to protect in-shore fisheries, preserving the successful conservation zones such as the Shetland Box and maintaining the concept of relative stability to limit access to the North Sea.
The Commission has also recommended devolving some aspects of fisheries management to zonal committees, involving key stakeholders such as fishermen and scientists in an advisory role.
All of this is highly commendable and will assist in the process of stock recovery and juvenile recruitment.
It is also necessary, however, as the rapporteur has pointed out, to introduce a wide range of technical measures such as mesh sizes.
For this reason alone, I am alarmed that we continue to allow industrial fishing for sand eels and Norway pout in the North Sea.
Industrial fishing is completely incompatible with the development of a sustainable fishery.
How can we force our fishermen to utilise 110 mm mesh sizes in the EU sector from 1 January 2002 for cod, haddock and whiting when we continue to allow these Klondykers to scoop up everything in their path using small-mesh nets.
This destructive practice has got to stop, and I hope that the Commission will take the necessary steps to control industrial fishing as part of the overall CFP reform.
Mr President, this is a very necessary technical proposal and I fully endorse Mr Nicholson's report and the proposal to which it refers.
But speaking of recovery plans in general, of course it is not only the Irish Sea that has seen catastrophic declines.
The North Sea too has been confronted with drastic depletion of stock leading to partial sea closures and another cod recovery plan and the hake recovery plan.
There is a manifest need in fisheries management to take account of the local eco-system and the regional differentials which exist.
The broad brush approach, I would contend, has not worked with stocks on the decline and recovery very slow, if evident at all.
That is why regional management is the way forward.
In addition to the short-term technical proposals referred in this type of report, the approach of the Commission's Green Paper, which is both more regional and conservation-orientated, must be embraced.
In this regard, I also welcome proposals to make additional funds available for tie-up schemes as a necessary part of the management tool box for conservation purposes, going in tandem with the recovery plans.
Compensated tie-up schemes are also essential for the preservation of the CFPs social role.
In Scotland, the need for recovery is acknowledged by all the stake-holders, but fishermen also must have the financial and the social protection that they need to encourage them while taking responsible actions.
Therefore, I ask the Commission to ensure that a system is set in place which allows for compensated tie-ups, but without being subject to the whims of Member State governments, to ensure that a more level playing field exists between fishing industries in the different Member States, which from time-to-time will be affected by recovery plans.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can keep it brief.
First I should like to thank Mr Nicholson for his report and, secondly, I should like to state that the Commission fully supports this report.
Scientists have come to the conclusion that 6 mm thick single-twine netting is equivalent in terms of selectivity to 4 mm thick double-twine netting.
There was therefore no reason to prohibit 4 mm thick double-twine netting for fisheries in the Irish Sea.
We have therefore amended the regulation accordingly.
I should like to thank you for your positive attitude to this Commission proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended until voting time at 6.30 p.m.)
VOTE
The next item is the vote.
Report (A5-0213/2001) by James Nicholson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2549/2000 establishing additional technical measures for the recovery of the stock of cod in the Irish Sea (ICES Division VIIa) (COM(2001) 165 - C5-0140/2001 - 2001/0083(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0327/2001) by Caroline F. Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the European Union's strategy for the Bonn Conference on Climate Change (COP-6, part 2)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0214/2001) by Jonas Sjöstedt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission communication on safe operation of mining activities: a follow-up to recent mining accidents (COM(2000) 664 - C5-0013/2001 - 2001/2005(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0188/2001) by Niels Busk, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the annual report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the results of the multi-annual guidance programmes for the fishing fleets at the end of 1999 (COM(2000) 738 - C5-0107/2001 - 2001/2056(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE- Resolution B5-0327/2001
We shall be voting for the resolution on the European Union's strategy for the Bonn Conference on Climate Change.
It responds to an urgent need, by confirming the intention to forge ahead in the face of President Bush' s unilateral opposition to the Kyoto Protocol.
It also contains positive articles, such as the article which reaffirms the need to promote 'clean development' by encouraging technologies which exclude nuclear energy, the large-scale use of fossil fuels and the use of carbon sinks.
Or the article which favours internal-action policies and measures for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, rather than the use of 'flexible mechanisms' (which the resolution restricts to no more than 50%).
Or the article which calls for, beyond current stipulations, for the WTO to comply with environmental priorities established externally by an international conference, in order to prevent countries which do not ratify the Kyoto Protocol from obtaining unfair competition advantages.
This resolution shows how far the situation has deteriorated today.
The Union has been reduced to defending the Kyoto Protocol which was, in any case, far from perfect.
Kyoto unduly favours the mechanisms of an unequal market.
The Protocol sanctions the successive climb-downs which environmental policy has seen since the Rio Conference under pressure from established interests and supporters of economic liberalism.
We cannot be content with this state of affairs.
As yet, there is no proof that the climate change concerning us is not caused by a natural climatic cycle that has been in progress since the beginning of our planet.
Admittedly, we cannot deny that air pollution is increasing, that human activity lies at its root and that it is our duty to give consideration to the development of an effective policy to preserve the environment of Europe and the world.
In this context, I support the idea of providing aid to developing countries which will enable them to ensure respect for the environment.
I favour a system of encouraging States to become more responsible over a system of fines for not respecting their commitments, so I do not support the idea of a 'censor' who would fine the States according to criteria which I find unacceptable and which would exclude nuclear and other forms of energy.
On the other hand, in order to be consistent, we must begin immediately to develop non-polluting forms of energy such as bio-fuels through the use of tax incentives.
To sum up, we must be firm about the goals we need to attain but flexible in the means we use to reach them.
Report A5-0214/2001
The two recent mining accidents, which were mentioned in the explanatory statement, were representative of ecological disasters, the effects of which have been felt well beyond the regions where the accidents actually occurred.
Since the Baia Mare disaster, the main shareholder, who is Australian, has withdrawn his capital and has washed his hands of the destruction of the fauna and flora of Tsiza and of a large area of the Danube.
If we want to prevent this type of disaster happening in the future, at the very least, we must introduce restrictive legislation to make not only mining companies but also all the owners and all their shareholders responsible for the damage caused. If they do not comply, all their assets and their capital will be confiscated, including those invested in other sectors.
We will not achieve anything by merely expressing desires or even issuing recommendations unless we call into question the sacred right of ownership, when exercising this right is having disastrous consequences for a whole population and will continue to do so in the future.
We voted in favour of some of the proposals in this text, but we abstained on the text as a whole because it is too vague.
.
(FR) The report by Mr Sjöstedt follows a Commission communication and deals with an extremely important question which is all too often overlooked, the impact of mining on the environment.
The report draws lessons from two recent major accidents which occurred at Doñana in Spain in a mine producing metal concentrates and at Baia Mare in Romania.
Given the blatant current lack of rules and monitoring requirements, there is an essential need for a systematic review of the Community environmental policy in order to take account, finally, of mining activities (and particularly their waste management).
There is therefore a need to clearly define the mining companies' responsibilities in this area, for they currently take advantage of the lack of strict regulations.
We shall be voting in favour of Mr Sjöstedt's report.
Report A5-0188/2001
The rapporteur focuses a great deal on the need to reduce the capacity of the Member States' fleets and to establish a system of penalties that will compel the Member States to 'comply with the provisions requiring them to reduce their fishing fleets under the MAGPs' .
He also points out that not all Member States have met the criteria laid down in the MAGP.
He furthermore calls for more precise criteria for measuring fleet capacity.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur does not name the Member States that have failed to meet the MAGP objectives.
Portugal was one of those that fulfilled the MAGP criteria from the very outset, since it did not take the opportunity, like some others did, to modernise and even to increase its fleet.
Bearing in mind the Green Paper on "the future of the common fisheries policy" , what we need is for the States that have already made large reductions not to be forced to make further reductions in the future. Another factor that must be considered is the balance between a Member State' s fish consumption and the capacity of its fleet.
Furthermore, reducing the fishing effort does not necessarily mean a reduction in the number of vessels.
This reduction could be implemented by improving catching techniques or by not fishing for a certain amount of time, with the appropriate compensation for boats that are forced to remain idle.
That concludes the vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 6.45 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament, adjourned on Thursday 5 July 2001.
I hope that you have all had an excellent holiday and that you are ready to start work on this session.
Tribute
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, it is once again my sad duty to open this part-session with a further condemnation of the mindless and brutal terrorist attacks which occurred in Spain during the summer.
On behalf of the House, I would like to express our unwavering solidarity and our deepest sympathy to the families of the victims and I do so with a great deal of emotion and sadness.
The European Parliament today pays tribute to Justo Oreja Pedraza, a Spanish army general, Luis Ortíz de la Rosa, member of the Spanish national police, Mikel Uribe, member of the regional Basque police, and José Javier Múgica Astibia, town councillor in Leiza for the Union of the People of Navarre, whose family is present today. I would like to say to his wife, children and his sister-in-law that we admire the courage you have shown in the face of this tragedy, which has taken a loved one from you.
José Javier Múgica Astibia always stood up for freedom and democracy and he refused to bow down to terror.
Unfortunately, this cost him his life.
Terrorism intends to continue its reign of terror by placing bombs in airports, on railways or in towns where there are tourists.
Our thoughts are also with María Eraunzetamurgil and her grandson, who were victims of a horrendous attack. We still do not know who carried this out.
Despite the diverse political views held by its Members, the European Parliament forcefully condemns these barbaric actions, as they constitute an absolute denial of democracy and the fundamental values on which the European Union is founded.
I would like to ask you to observe a minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Request for the waiver of parliamentary immunity
By way of a letter dated 20 July 2001, I received a request from the Spanish government, via the intermediary of the Spanish permanent representative, for the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr Silvio Berlusconi and Mr Marcello Dell' Utri, which was drawn up by the Spanish judicial authorities.
Pursuant to Rule 6 of the Rules of Procedure, this request is submitted to the relevant committee, namely the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
In order to assist matters, I would inform you that there are no grounds for the request for the waiver of Mr Berlusconi' s parliamentary immunity, as he has not been a member of the European Parliament since 11 June 2001.
Madam President, I would like to speak on behalf of the Socialist Group on the announcement you have just made. We take note of that announcement.
We believe it is a step forward. However, we would like to express our concern and criticism of the way in which this issue has been dealt with.
You and I are Members of Parliament. We have shared responsibilities in Parliament and we also share a legal training which reminds us of that aphorism, 'justice delayed is justice denied' .
You have just shown how, in this case, justice is surely not going to be done in relation to one of the Members of the European Parliament, apart from the fact that the requests for waiver of immunity must also give the Members of the European Parliament the opportunity to defend themselves, something which has not been possible in this case for a year now.
I would like to point out on behalf of my group that we - independently of the electioneering considerations we have been accused of - have believed that this issue is important for the European Parliament, for our dignity, and we believe it is a step forward that the Committee on Legal Affairs is aware of this.
However, given that the Presidency' s interpretation is in direct conflict with the integrating nature of Community law, I would ask you, Madam President, having become aware of this case, that we might resolve the issue of how we deal with waivers of immunity in this House in a positive manner and according to the integrating nature of European law.
Therefore, I would ask you once again to approach the Committee on Constitutional Affairs so that it may make a proposal for a reform of the Rules of Procedure which would clearly establish how we should act, not only in cases such as this, but in all cases of waiver of immunity.
(Applause from the PSE Group)
Mr Barón Crespo, you are well aware that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has already been working on a report on this issue for several months.
In addition, I believe the fact that the appropriate Spanish authority - namely the governmental authorities - referred this case to me is a most encouraging step towards a very positive outcome to this matter.
Madam President, I have only indicated my wish to speak because Mr Barón Crespo considered it fitting to take the floor here again.
I must tell you that, quite frankly, I do not think it was necessary to have addressed this subject here again.
Since this has been done, however, I would just like to say one or two words on the matter.
Of course, the process of waiving immunity is a difficult one, and we need common rules to govern this.
But, Mr Barón Crespo, it has already been decided that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market shall deal with this.
Therefore, your comment here was unnecessary.
I would particularly like to stress, Madam President, that, in all questions related to this process, you have conducted yourself completely in accordance with the law, and I would like to emphasise this here once again.
We would like to wish the former Member of this Parliament, Silvio Berlusconi, every success as Italy' s Prime Minister.
We are certain that we also have the support of Italy in building a sound future for Europe.
(Applause from the PPE Group)
Thank you, Mr Poettering.
With regard to the membership of committees:
Agenda
The next item is the final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
Relating to the week of 3 to 6 September in Strasbourg: Relating to Monday:
I have two requests from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to place on the agenda a report by Mr Carnero González, on the amendment of the Rules of Procedure relating to the membership of inter-parliamentary delegations of mixed parliamentary committees, and a report by Lord Inglewood, on the European Parliament decision on the modification of the Rules of Procedure on provisions relating to the justification of amendments.
I shall now give the floor to Mr Corbett, who is replacing Mr Napolitano, to move this request on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Napolitano who cannot be here.
It concerns these two reports about relatively non-controversial amendments to our Rules of Procedure.
These reports were adopted in committee last autumn and we in our committee were unanimously of the opinion that nine months is a long enough gestation period for any report.
We have of course enquired as to why the Conference of Presidents has not placed these two reports on the plenary agenda already.
We are anxious to know quickly because we need to know what will happen to these reports before we move to the general revision of the Rules of Procedure scheduled later this year.
It is therefore a matter of urgency.
We have been told that the Conference of Presidents has not had time to consider this in full because the matter is still being examined by the meeting of secretaries-general of political groups with the deputy Secretary-General of the European Parliament.
We all know about Coreper in the Council.
Perhaps not all of us are aware that there is a sort of Coreper in the European Parliament that filters reports before they come to the Conference of Presidents, before they come into plenary.
This is a highly dangerous way of proceeding and, after giving them nine months to consider the matter, it is now high time to put these reports on Parliament's agenda, if not today, then later in the week.
I am sure the committee would be willing to accept an undertaking that they be put on for the next part-session.
But I must move this on behalf of the committee, supported unanimously by every political group in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
I am not sure that I understand, Mr Corbett.
I thought that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs was making a request for this item to be placed on the agenda of this part-session.
In my view, fellow Members must be clear as to what we are talking about.
Do you still request that this item be placed on the agenda of this sitting? We consulted the appropriate services to see if it could be included this evening, and as long as the House is in agreement of course, we could do that tonight.
Is this the issue that we are discussing and voting on?
Madam President, that is the proposal formally put forward by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
We wish to make sure that this is properly addressed.
Madam President, we see how seriously my Party takes matters in this House.
As a Member of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, speaking on behalf of Lord Inglewood, I must say that it seems very nearly a year is sufficient time for the powers that be to have considered this matter.
If it is not placed on the agenda this week this is clearly going to cause difficulties for the committee in question.
I would urge all Members of the House, including my colleague Mr Provan, to vote in favour of this suggestion.
Madam President, I had the honour to represent Mr Poettering at the Conference of Presidents' meeting, when this matter was discussed, as you well recall.
The issue was whether we had time to take a lot of reports, because the agenda for this part-session is already highly complicated and very busy.
I suggested that these two reports be taken with a major report from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs by Mr Corbett himself, and said it would be good to put together a whole package of changes to the Rules, because we need certain levels of voting throughout.
There did not seem to be any dissent in by the Conference of Presidents at the time and it was hardly questioned.
Therefore the recommendation of the Conference of Presidents was that these should be taken together as a package when Mr Corbett's own report comes forward.
Madam President, I believe that this amendment of the agenda resolves an issue which remained somewhat in stalemate at the Conference of Presidents.
I do not believe that there is excessive divergence between the political groups, because we consider the three issues on the agenda to be important and we could deal with two very important issues in a more balanced way in the morning: the issue of the conclusions of the temporary committee on 'Echelon' and the issue of terrorism.
I believe that this would resolve an issue which we believe was not sufficiently clarified at the Conference of Presidents.
), rapporteur. Madam President, I note the proposal and if the report on terrorism is not moved by this proposal, then I would have nothing against moving it.
Mr Schmid has done an excellent piece of work with his report on Echelon and it is something which must be voted on by the whole House as soon as possible.
However, I tend to the view expressed by Mr Vitorino that one has heard of both God and Echelon but one cannot be sure that either of them exists.
I also take the view, which I believe, Madam President, is sustained and supported by your words at the beginning of today's sitting, that it is extremely important that we debate and vote on the issue of terrorism - which is a very real one - as soon as possible this week.
Should Mr Barón Crespo's proposal not have the effect of moving the report on terrorism then I would be very happy to support it.
Madam President, I submitted a request, which is different to that of Mr Barón Crespo, in that my request is to make other changes to the agenda.
Madam President, at the Conference of Presidents, my group proposed that we hold a debate on the G8 summit in Genoa, essentially on its content. Why?
Because the European Union participated in the G8 summit in Genoa - and I refer to the graphic testimonials if anybody has any doubt.
The photograph of the leaders included the President of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, and the President-in-Office of the Council, the Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Verhofstadt, and, therefore, since they participated actively in the summit, one on behalf of the Commission and the other on behalf of the European Council, and since the summit dealt with a series of issues which are important to this Parliament, to Europe and to the world, we also believe that it is our duty to comment on the content of the G8 Summit.
I would also like to point out that my group proposed - and there is agreement on this in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs - that, in relation to possible violations of the fundamental rights of European citizens and the management of public order during the summit, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms should produce a recommendation with a view above all to learning from past mistakes, in the light of the Laeken Summit.
Finally, Madam President, please allow me to address the Members, particularly from the Liberal Group, because on this occasion it so happens that Mr Verhofstadt is a liberal Prime Minister of a coalition government and the most recent friends of President Prodi, at least the Italian ones, sit within the Liberal Group.
And I am addressing Mr Cox so that he might have the opportunity to send compliments to the representatives of his group who sat on the European Council.
Madam President, my group fully supports the suggestion to conclude our debate on Genoa by a resolution.
I do not propose, however, that we should enter into a debate on the content of this resolution.
That is something for the various groups to do.
My group believes that Parliament must deliver an opinion on the results - or the lack of results - of the G8 summit, as well as on the extremely serious events which took place during the summit, and on the extraordinary success of the initiatives of the Genoa Social Forum, which also concern us at a time when we are involved in a far-reaching debate on the future of the European Union.
Madam President, I did not wish to speak at all but since the President of the PSE Group appears to be upset that I am doing too little to promote liberalism in Europe by not having a resolution, I should point out to the honourable Member that in my group we looked at the precedents.
It is not the first time a Commission President has attended a G8 meeting, or that a Prime Minister and President-in-Office has attended a G8 or G7 meeting.
The precedents will show the honourable Member, as they showed me, that it is not our custom to promote our friends in politics by having resolutions after such meetings.
I would also like to express my support for the motion for a resolution.
I do not believe that there is any political justification for failing to follow our debates by a resolution, when a political debate has been held in the presence of the Council and Commission.
The groups will negotiate the content of the resolution.
Therefore, if some groups do not want us to discuss the violence at Genoa, that is their right, but they will show their opposition by voting against any proposal made in this direction.
I shall therefore put to the vote the motion to table a resolution following the debate on Genoa.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Relating to Thursday: With regard to Thursday and the topical and urgent debate, I have a request for amendment from the Group of the Party of European Socialists to replace the item 'Foot-and-mouth disease' by the sub-item 'Afghan refugees seeking asylum in Australia' , which is currently under 'Human Rights' .
Mr Baron Crespo, I do not know who is due to speak in favour of this request.
Madam President, the reason for our proposal is very simple: what is happening at the moment with the Afghan refugees and the treatment they are receiving from the Australian government - and I mean the Australian government because the Australian Federal Supreme Court is finding fault with it - does not only involve a violation of human rights; it is an issue which involves a blatant violation of the principles of maritime law and humanitarian law ratified by all countries, including such an important European ally as Australia.
We must speak out clearly in this regard, by condemning a political attitude which verges on xenophobia.
Madam President, it is clear that the proposal concerning the Afghan refugees is a topic that must and can be open for discussion.
This is also provided for in the agenda.
Given the new measures enacted in the United Kingdom in connection with the current spread of foot-and-mouth disease, we consider it vital that this matter be discussed.
Since these topics are not mutually exclusive, we would ask Parliament to cover this topic too.
Madam President, Mrs Maes has already put the point across very well.
What really matters is that we can specifically discuss the Afghan refugees under the heading of 'human rights' .
However, we all appreciate the enormity of the problems there have been in Europe in connection with foot-and-mouth.
It is therefore of major importance for the European Parliament to make its views known concerning foot-and-mouth.
We could combine both topics. We could discuss the Afghan refugees under the 'human rights' heading and foot-and-mouth disease under a separate heading in the topical and urgent debate.
In that connection, I would like to make an urgent appeal to our Socialist MEPs to leave the agenda as it stands.
Madam President, from what I have heard, there have been two interventions against and none in favour.
The comments made by Mrs Maes strongly reinforce the fact that the two items could both be dealt with, as I myself also said.
The situation of the Afghan refugees requesting asylum in Australia is already on the agenda, under 'Human Rights' .
So, we will certainly be holding a debate on this issue, in any event.
So, how shall we deal with this? I think that we must take clear action and withdraw the item on foot-and-mouth disease from the agenda.
Fine.
I shall put to the vote the request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Regarding the sittings of 19 and 20 September in Brussels: There are no amendments.
Speeches relating to procedure
Madam President, on behalf of our group, I should like to ask you personally a question.
In connection with the Macedonian peace proposal, the Macedonian parliament must hold a debate as a matter of urgency.
Would you address the president of that parliament? We are all hoping for broad parliamentary support for the peace proposals, but this will not happen without any effort.
Parliament has a major role to play.
Hence our request to you to ask the president of the parliament, in a letter or message, to discuss this peace proposal as a matter of urgency.
Mrs Maes, the response that I am going to give you will, I believe, exceed your expectations.
I am in fact going to visit Macedonia in a few days' time, at the very request of all those people who are involved in this matter and who hoped that the President of the European Parliament would go to Macedonia, because this Parliament, I think it is true to say, is very well regarded and this certainly is a most encouraging sign.
Naturally, as soon as I can, I shall give you further details about this invitation, which I have only just received.
Madam President, on Wednesday of last week an aircraft of the Binter Mediterranean company, which flies between Málaga and Melilla, crashed near Málaga airport killing four and injuring seventeen.
It is the second time in two years that the city of Melilla has suffered a tragedy of this nature.
On this occasion, thanks to the skill and professionalism of the pilots - one of whom died - almost all the passengers survived.
Madam President, I would ask you to communicate our feelings and our solidarity to the families of the victims and the injured, with the conviction that the European Commission and this Parliament are demonstrating their concern for the quality and maintenance of the safety of air transport, as the debate we are holding this very Tuesday will show, when the European Commission presents its reports on this subject.
Madam President, yesterday in Vietnam, Mr Ho Tan Anh, a Buddhist monk, set fire to himself.
Last July, this Parliament adopted a very articulate, precise resolution, in which Parliament specifically requested Mr Nassauer, the chairman of the delegation for relations with South-East Asia, to organise a mission to Vietnam as soon as possible in order to meet, first and foremost, the religious leaders who are currently imprisoned, and to assess the situation with regard to religious freedom in Vietnam.
Therefore, Madam President, I am asking for your support and the support of the House so that Mr Nassauer can organise this mission in the coming days.
In my view, setting fire to oneself is extremely serious and it is a very clear sign that the situation in Vietnam is deteriorating and I believe that our delegation should pay an urgent visit to Vietnam, as Parliament had already decided.
Mr Dupuis, I shall pass on your request to Mr Nassauer.
He is not here in the House at the moment, but I shall tell him exactly what you have said.
Madam President, although I am sure that you will have done so already, seeing as this is our first sitting after the summer I would like to remind all the Members that, a few days after the last part-session in Strasbourg, a tragedy occurred in this city: a huge tree near Parliament fell on some people who were attending a concert and many died, including a number of young people.
I feel that, this being our first meeting after the summer recess, it is our duty to express our sympathy once again and send our condolences to the mayor of Strasbourg, the relatives of the victims and all the citizens for, apart from anything else, Strasbourg is our host city and the tragedy took place just a few metres away from the Parliament building.
Of course, Mrs Napoletano, as you already said, I immediately expressed our heartfelt sympathy and sent our condolences to the Strasbourg authorities as well as to the families of the victims.
This is a truly awful tragedy, and I wanted to express the feelings of this House by sending our condolences.
Mr Blak, as I will be visiting Denmark in a few days, I shall certainly make it clear that there was no discrimination.
I am sure, however, that Mrs Banotti would like to reassure you of this fact straight away.
Madam President, when I heard that poor Mr Blak was in trouble again I naturally rushed to see what could be done about it as quickly as possible.
Apparently Denmark is now entering the digital age with television.
Consequently there has been a technical glitch with the reception of Danish television here, which of course I shall immediately attempt to rectify.
If my Danish colleagues want a particular radio or television station, they must agree as to which particular one they want.
This is a chance for my Danish colleagues to get together in a spirit of harmony and decide what precisely they want and I naturally will facilitate that as quickly as possible.
Madam President, now we can see why NATO forces in Kosovo not only made no attempt to apply UN Security Council Resolution 1244, mainly as regards disarming the KLA, but declared it to be a protected body in Kosovo. They may not have arranged but they certainly allowed its equipment to be updated and, basically, they may not have encouraged but they clearly - albeit indirectly - allowed KLA criminals to penetrate the FYROM, where the present situation has now arisen.
This situation, Madam President, was the alibi that NATO needed in order to intervene, in order to apply this despicable agreement on voluntary disarming by the KLA and dictate constitutional change.
Thus, with the KLA being used as a lever and with direct support from the USA, yet another country is being broken up in order to create a new Bosnia-Herzegovina type protectorate.
In our view, not just the USA and NATO, but the European Union, which is supporting NATO action in the area, has a great deal to answer for.
This is not just our view; it is shared by a great many journalists who, like us, are wondering what the next step will be.
We Greeks are particularly worried because we can see that the forces intervening in the Balkans are not working towards peace, they are working to stir up tension and armed conflict.
We are worried because, apart from anything else, we can see the fire spreading dangerously close to Greece, with the connivance of the Greek government.
As you are due to go there, we call on you to pass on our view that this policy should stop and that NATO should leave the Balkans so that the peace which existed before these interventions in our region can be restored.
Madam President, firstly, I would like to wish you all a good session this year.
I promise that I will only speak when it is absolutely necessary and I will start immediately by saying that, last Sunday, 26 August, I was in Genoa, my native city.
I was going to go for a swim in the sea - it was an extremely hot day - at the 'Italia' bathing resort off Corso Italia, and I was about to dive into the water when I was recognised by an old childhood friend, a municipal councillor called Egidio Saccone, the owner of the establishment, who said to me: "Mr Fatuzzo, as a Member of the European Parliament, speak out and try to ensure that enthusiasts who practise all kinds of sports - swimming, boxing, field and track events, football, cycling, tennis and so on and so forth - receive a pension as well.
I am sure that they will listen to you, they will tell all the 15 States and they will do something about it."
And ... then I went for a swim!
'Hand in hand for peace' : that was the theme of the Adep demonstration scheduled to take place on 1 September in Ankara.
In actual fact, the demonstrators were unable to hold hands because the police prevented any demonstrating taking place: they entered the headquarters of Adep, which is a democratic party, and arrested hundreds and hundreds of people, going so far as to shut them in the stadium.
As we know, stadiums have been the scene of appalling, tragic incidents.
I therefore call upon the President to make representations to the Turkish government to ensure that the freedom of movement and speech and the freedom to demonstrate can be exercised by the Kurds and Turks, who simply wanted to be able to march together for peace, and to ensure that the people detained in the stadiums and Turkish prisons are released immediately.
I shall do so, Mrs Morgantini.
Madam President, I would merely like to expand on what Mrs Morgantini was just saying.
The ban on the peace demonstration on 1 September led to the death of one person who was fleeing from the police.
Today, 500 people remain in custody.
I ask you to do what you can to see to it that the 500 people still in prison are released immediately.
Once again, I shall certainly do so.
Madam President, I appeal to you to write to the Taliban authorities about the unfortunate case of Shelter Now.
Members of Parliament may have heard that a number of aid workers have been arrested by the Taliban authorities, largely on the basis that this is a Christian-based organisation which contravened the Taliban's rules on religious intolerance.
I appeal to you to write to the Taliban authorities demanding fair treatment for those arrested and their rapid release.
They have committed no crime apart from trying to help Afghanistan and the Afghan people.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest and neediest nations in the world and it sets a very frightening precedent if aid workers are attacked because of their faith.
It will undermine aid operations throughout the world and especially in Afghanistan.
I would like to draw Parliament's attention to the fact that these aid workers, both European and Afghans, may face the death penalty under Taliban law.
I urge Members of the House to support an appeal to the Taliban authorities to release those arrested.
Of course, Mrs Villiers, we are all well aware of the facts that you have described and this is further evidence of what I see as the insane and destructive nature of the Taliban regime.
You know that Parliament has expressed its view on this matter on several occasions and therefore I shall certainly be taking this action.
Madam President, before the summer break the Parliament's Bureau finally decided that it would publish the names of all the assistants of Members paid under Article 14 secretarial allowances, but since then we find that the Bureau and the Quaestors have qualified their decision and are requiring the individual consent, of both the Members and the assistants, before they appear upon the list.
Surely, this makes a mockery of transparency and transgresses the principle that the names of all those who are paid from public funds should be published.
Can I ask you to request the Bureau and the Quaestors to review their decision?
Mr Duff, in order to clarify matters, it was not the Bureau that reversed this decision - it is the directive on personal data protection which stipulates that this is necessary - and you will agree that it is difficult for the Bureau or the Quaestors to disregard the needed protection of personal data, which requires the consent of the persons concerned.
We have studied this matter very closely, in a strict manner, and, of course, the opinions of our legal service were absolutely firm on this point.
Madam President, last month in San Sebastian a booby-trapped toy seriously injured a baby in the arms of his grandmother who was killed by the explosion.
That lady you mentioned, was Maria Eraunzetamurgil, but you said that nobody knows who did it.
Six people have died as victims of the unofficial dirty war that has already killed 66 other victims since 1977.
We expect those responsible to be put on trial.
Mr Barón Crespo said 'justicia aplazada, justicia negada'.
I spoke about 1977.
Mr Segundo Marey, who was kidnapped in error at the beginning of the socialist period of the dirty war, also died last month in Hendaía.
Those that were condemned as responsible for the kidnapping - high officials of the Spanish government and police - were released after only a few days in prison.
All those victims also deserve our sympathy and respect.
Madam President, the position taken by Mrs Morgantini and Mrs Uca on the situation in Turkey has our full backing.
I should like to add that it is now ten months since political prisoners in Turkish prisons went on hunger strike in protest against the government's plans to keep them in tiny isolation cells.
The toll to date is tragic: thirty-two young people have died on hunger strike and a further thirty-one were killed in last December's attack on the prisons by the Turkish authorities.
The most recent victim was Hulya Simsek, who passed away on 31 August.
She was the sixth relative of a political prisoner to die on hunger strike.
On behalf of the Communist Party of Greece, I wish to use this platform to condemn the criminal indifference of the Turkish regime and the hypocrisy of those who, while battling for human rights, have not lifted a finger to put pressure on the Turkish government to stop this intransigence in the face of the prisoner's just demands and to respect human rights in general.
They include the European Union, which has a particular responsibility now that Turkey is a candidate country.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, indifference in the face of crime is tantamount to complicity.
Madam President, I am not absolutely sure whether this is a point of order, but it is a reply to a previous intervention.
This Parliament knows that the Spanish Constitution - probably because it was created following a dictatorship - is the most respectful constitution in terms of fundamental rights and public freedoms in the whole of the European Union.
This Parliament also knows that the person who spoke previously is an example of this because he has been able to take part in free elections, in which he has been able to express his opinions.
This Parliament also knows that when there have been violations of legislation in the fight against crime, those violations have been tried by ordinary courts with every judicial guarantee and there are currently people belonging to the State apparatus in prison as a result of those violations.
I cannot say the same about many colleagues from my party, from the Socialist Group or from other parties who, because they disagree with the opinions that have been expressed, have purely and simply been murdered.
And there are now around a thousand of them.
European Company Statute
The next item is the joint debate on:
Report (A5-0243/2001) by Mr Hans-Peter Mayer, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Draft Council regulation on the Statute for a European Company (SE) (14886/2000 - C5-0092/2001 - 1989/0218(CNS)), and
Report (A5-0231/2001) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Draft Council directive supplementing the Statute for a European Company with regard to the involvement of employees (14732/2000 - C5-0093/2001 - 1989/0219(CNS)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the idea of creating a European form of company obeying the same supranational rules in all Member States is almost as old as the European Union itself.
The Societas Europaea (SE) is the flagship of European company law.
The academic foundations were laid in the late 1950s.
In 1970, the Commission submitted a proposal for a regulation on the statute of an SE. It contained uniform law down to the last detail.
In 1989, the Commission submitted an entirely new proposal for a regulation which excluded social and labour law, fiscal law, law on competition, protection of industrial property rights, insolvency law and industrial constitution law.
Finally in Nice, political agreement was reached on a Council regulation on the statute and on a directive on worker participation.
As regards the legal base: the 1989 proposal was based on the present Article 95 which establishes the right of co-decision.
The Nice proposals are based on Article 308 whereby Parliament would simply be consulted.
Article 95 is just as appropriate a legal base for the regulation as Article 308.
For the purposes of democratic legitimacy - and in line with decisions of the Court of Justice - the legal base giving Parliament most say should be chosen in such a case.
Consequently, Parliament reserves the right, following adoption by the Council, to bring a case before the Court to examine the legal base.
As regards the regulation: pursuant to Articles 2 and 3, there are different ways in which an SE can be established.
The capital of the SE must be at least EUR 120 000.
There are two different systems of managing limited liability companies under the company law of the Member States. The 'single' system in Britain, for example, provides solely for an administrative body.
The 'dual' system, applicable in Germany, for example, provides for a supervisory body and a management body.
European unification now requires that both systems be available in each country so that it is possible to choose freely between them.
Hitherto, company law of the Member States has been such that national companies can only transfer their place of business if they are dissolved and re-formed in another Member State.
With an SE, a transfer will not result in the company being dissolved or in a new legal entity being created.
The growing together of what used to be separate markets means that we must finally create organisational forms which reflect the new situation in Europe.
However, there are serious shortcomings in the structure of the SEs.
SEs will differ from one Member State to another.
There will not be one European SE, but an SE with French, Spanish or German features, for example.
Furthermore, even within the same Member State a variety of different SEs will be created to cover various company features such as co-decision making.
I consider it essential that, parallel to the entry into force of the regulation, accompanying fiscal rules should also be adopted.
The precise nature of the SE will, naturally, be determined in part by fiscal legislation.
To this end, the series of amendments from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is to be welcomed.
In conclusion, I advocate launching the SE on its maiden voyage.
This will show where repairs are still needed so that one day it will fulfil our hopes and become the flagship.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Mayer pointed out that the idea of creating a European limited liability company was already being discussed more than 30 years ago.
The former President of the European Commission and Member of this Parliament, Mr Santer, made this form of company a more prominent subject for discussion in the second half of the 1990s.
Mr Santer and a number of his fellow campaigners here in Parliament wanted it as a way of attracting global players from Europe to compete in world markets.
The European limited liability company has hitherto foundered in the Council of Ministers especially because of the issues surrounding the position of workers.
In 1970, a regulation on the European limited liability company one-sidedly stipulated just the German model of co-decision-making, although co-decision-making is simply not an item for export.
In the late 1980s, Parliament was presented with two documents which were intrinsically linked. Dr. Mayer has already outlined these: a regulation on issues of company law - the statute - and the directive concerning the position of workers in the limited liability company or SE.
Three models were established, of which one had to be chosen.
Even in this matter, there was no general consensus.
It was only in 1997 that a solution emerged in the form of a proposal from Parliament.
This proposal was underpinned academically by the work of a group of experts under the chairmanship of Etienne Davignon, and the Davignon Report was signed by trade union members and members of employer associations.
Whichever way you look at it, this was a breakthrough because it fell back on the recipe for success established by the Directive on the European works council, a subject which we shall touch upon again in the next item on the agenda.
The following basic principles for the creation of a European limited liability company were now proposed: flexibility, negotiated solutions and minimum standards.
Thus, the customs of employee participation existing within the European Union were also skilfully incorporated.
In other words, in some countries participation is established through legal channels and in others by means of collective agreements.
Now these are combined: as regards the European limited liability company, a special made-to-measure collective agreement is drawn up between the founding board of directors and a special negotiating body of employees and, in the absence of an agreement, the minimum laws governing worker involvement shall be applicable for half a year to a year.
The Davignon Report calls these reference rules. The EWC Directive talks of subsidiary requirements.
I think this is the better term as it refers to subsidiarity in an exemplary manner.
This idea was also decided upon in Nice.
We support the regulations governing participation agreed in Nice.
The report from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs proposes two significant amendments to the Council' s draft.
Firstly, we would like a different definition of the term participation from that used by the Council.
The designated body representing workers is nothing more than a special European works council for the European limited liability company, incidentally with better legal powers, something which we should remember when amending the Works Council Directive.
However, there are, and remain, laws governing information and consultation.
It would be wrong to use the term 'participation' here.
Secondly, the original Commission proposal made it clear that the procedure for electing employees onto the supervisory or management board is to be governed according to the provisions applicable in each Member State.
In Germany, therefore, employee members must be directly or indirectly elected in accordance with the election of members to supervisory boards pursuant to the German law on stock companies. I am convinced that, in this regard, it is essential not to make a distinction in the electoral process.
Under German law on stock companies, members are elected.
Under the arrangements governing the European limited liability company, employee representatives will not be elected.
The regulation and directive in question have retrieved the European limited liability company from the frozen depths of European legislation.
However, both - and here I agree with Mr Mayer - exhibit major shortcomings.
We must finally take the first step, however.
After six years, these two legal instruments should be tested and, if necessary, improved.
We must get a foot in the door. The next gust of wind will open that door.
I think that, with this European model, we are on the right track, including where the social dimension of the internal market is concerned.
The European model is, of course, not purely a matter of market economics and, therefore, not purely a limited liability company either. Rather, it is a limited liability company also involving the participation specifically of the employees.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are delighted with the proposals that are before us.
Mr Mayer and Mr Menrad have already noted that there is still room for some improvement as far as those proposals are concerned.
Nevertheless, I believe we should be very pleased with the progress made on this extremely important subject.
Before, it was mainly the American multinationals that considered the lack of a European Company as a deficiency, because they wanted to work in Europe rather than in the individual Member States.
It is also for that reason that, as long as thirty years ago, Professor Sanders introduced the concept of 'Societas Europaea' during an inaugural speech at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam.
We are pleased that the proposal is now before us after thirty years.
We regret the fact that it is still not possible now finally to bring the tax systems in Europe closer together and to gear them to one another.
This does not mean that taxes should be harmonised.
I believe that a band of competitive tariffs should remain in place, but I still think that it is important for a European Company to have the tax systems in the various Member States at least geared to one another.
Indeed, we may now have one European Company, but each Member State will still need to apply its own social legislation and its own tax systems.
It will ultimately be the market which will require that an actual European Company with its own statute be created, something which, at present, is still being hampered by the independent actions of the various Member States.
We therefore welcome the European Company.
We hope that the evaluations will follow promptly and believe that the market will eventually determine the European Statute a few years following those evaluations.
This will benefit a Europe that has the euro and the internal market.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Menrad and Mr Mayer on their reports.
I would also like to back up what Mr Mayer said about the legal base.
He is quite right.
We have had people playing fast and loose on the whole question of the legal base.
We started off with Article 95 as legal base and we have moved on to Article 308 because it suited certain people.
That is wrong and Parliament is right to say that at some future date we should be challenging this in court.
Concerning the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on Mr Menrad's report on the information and consultation of workers, I take the two examples of Corus and BMW Rover.
The first thing workers knew about the situation they were facing was when they were driving into work and they heard it on the radio.
In this day and age that is totally intolerable.
Workers should be informed at the very start about the situation pertaining to their jobs because they are part and parcel of that company.
I should know.
I remember many years ago I turned up at my place of work to find that the gates of the factory were locked and all of us were standing outside.
We were told by someone who was sent out that we had all been made redundant.
I remember that quite clearly because the people who owned the factory still lived in big houses, still drove big cars and still went on holidays.
I was a worker in the factory and nine months later I had not received any redundancy money: all I got was my back pay.
That is the sort of situation workers should not be faced with ever again.
That is why I congratulate Mr Menrad on taking this small step on the information and meaningful consultation of workers because it is a step in the right direction.
It is not perfect.
It will come back and we will improve it.
However, it is a step in the right direction and I support it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not wish to go into any more detail, but it has already been explained why the European limited liability company is so important.
That is why the circumstances in which this form of company arose and the problems with which we must deal here are all the more regrettable.
We all know that the Nice Summit was not exactly a raging success and, instead, produced a meagre result as far as the treaty negotiations are concerned.
With this limited liability company, the Heads of State and Government intended to be able to offer us, as a minor success of this summit as it were, something which would at least take Europe a step further.
In principle, this is of course to be welcomed.
However, it is regrettable - absolutely regrettable - that the Heads of State and Government have disregarded the law and the Treaty by actually changing the legal base on the basis of the motto 'we have now come to the agreement that, as regards this matter, Parliament is not to interfere' . They have replaced Article 95, which was clearly the legal base for one part of the process, with Article 308, which they have also used to replace Article 137 which clearly would have been the legal base for the other part of the process according to the text of the Treaty.
The result is no co-decision making; the result is unanimity in the Council, with decision-making resting solely with the government.
Personally, I do not think that Parliament can accept this.
Therefore, by a large majority in the Committee on Legal Affairs, we have amended the legal base and re-established the correct legal base, in other words Article 95 and Article 137.
It is also interesting that this has been expressly established in the recitals to the original proposal and that the legal services have given their support to this.
We have proceeded with consultations as with a co-decision procedure.
I would like to warn the Council of the following: If they amend the legal base for this important process again in its second reading, then they are running the very serious risk of legal action from Parliament in this matter. I believe that we will win this action in the Court of Justice.
The practical value of the process is, in our experience, rather limited anyway.
I am referring to the letter from the president of UNICE.
We have already referred to this within the committee.
We have requested that fiscal regulations be revised, and I hope that this revision is carried out soon.
Mr President, my group and myself, a rapporteur many years ago, are in favour of the regulation, but not because we are particularly taken with it, since what is presented to us here as a European limited liability company is incomplete.
There will not be one European limited liability company, but 15 European limited liability companies.
What complete disorder!
I do not want to go into the details.
The Council has confirmed what is common knowledge: that the Council itself is the problem when it comes to European legislation. The Council, not the Commission and not Parliament: the Council is the problem!
It still wants only to decide on matters unanimously, and if there is a legal base for doing so - in this case Article 308 - all the better. So we do not need Parliament.
But we will - as Mr Lehne said - very carefully consider whether this legal base is adequate, and in emergencies we shall involve the European Court of Justice in the matter.
In the hands of the Council, Community law is becoming a new style of international law, with the difference and the practical advantage that it does not have to be ratified either by the European Parliament or by national parliaments.
This is the strategy of the Council.
Why should this European limited liability company be such an attractive prospect?
Why should it be adopted?
Is it not the case that this European limited liability company is threatened with the same fate as the previous company patent under the Luxembourg Convention? In this case, the Council, after many years of laborious work, also came to a compromise, and the whole of industry, all parties concerned, were not interested in it.
Perhaps things will not be different with this form of European limited liability company. So what are the advantages?
Why should we create a European limited liability company? What are the fiscal advantages, for example?
I, for one, cannot see any.
Just one more remark: It may well be that the tenth Directive concerning cross-border mergers of limited liability companies will again be unearthed after this flop, by way of a supplement as it were, because nothing will come of this European limited liability company.
But hold on a minute, my friends from the Commission and the Council, nothing came, first time around, of the tenth Directive concerning cross-border mergers of limited liability companies and involving the abolition of participation, and nothing will come of it this time!
Now that we have come to grips with the European limited liability company as it were, I would like to remind you that other company forms are next on the list: the European association, the European mutual society and the European cooperative.
I hope that the Commission lays down proposals on these matters in the near future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to speak in this debate dealing with a key proposal for the process of European construction.
The possibility of having a genuine European limited liability company is in line with the thinking which has led us to a European internal market, to a monetary union and to the last phase of the full use of the euro, which we are now approaching.
Nevertheless, as one of the rapporteurs has pointed out, it has taken us thirty years to arrive at this thinking - a little more than thirty years - from the first proposal, in 1970, until now.
My observation on behalf of the Liberal Group has two aspects to it: on the one hand, we will of course support the proposal; we believe that it represents a step forward within the achievements of the process of the European construction.
We must also say, however, on the other hand, that we are not satisfied. As the proposed amendments to both reports point out, the structure proposed for the creation of a European limited liability company is still too complex.
There are various options and the possible varieties of European company may even arise within a single Member State.
It is now thought that if the different methods and options are taken into account and a combined calculation is made, up to two hundred different figures may be reached.
We do not believe that this is the most appropriate way to consolidate a European company which would act in accordance with the reality which we have achieved thanks to the European internal market and the monetary union.
We have therefore also presented a series of amendments on behalf of the Liberal Group aimed at consolidating this key figure for the Economic and Monetary Union and we would very much like the Council to accept them.
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Group of the Greens, I should like to say a few words on this subject.
Immediately before the summer recess, we experienced the difficult situation involving the Take-over Directive, the social aspect of which, in particular, appeared unacceptable to a majority of this House.
We can be very clear about this.
In this case, the Directive is certainly acceptable, although I share the view of Mr Rothley and others that it is still deficient.
However, that is due to a number of other factors.
Ideally, we should have liked to have seen a kind of package deal emerge, combining the Take-over Directive and the European Company Directive, which would also have taken care of aspects related to participation, information and consultation.
At the moment we are facing the difficult situation in which things happen in a certain sequence but in which we cannot entirely follow their interconnection.
In the final analysis, we naturally agree that, in the framework of what we would then term 'a European social model' , use should be made of the information and consultation rules that have been included in the reports of Mr Menrad and Mr Mayer which are, by the way, excellent, in my opinion.
We should like this to be done in a non-Anglo-Saxon manner, as I indicated in connection with the Take-over Directive.
If we now compare the European works council, as it exists at the moment, with the legislation under discussion with regard to information and consultation, then this comparison works out in favour of the current model.
However, as will immediately be evident from the document, we still have the improvement of the European works council ahead of us.
A great deal needs to be done there, so much so that I am not sure what the exact outcome will be.
We therefore ultimately agree on this approach.
With regard to information and consultation, we are naturally keen advocates of what is being described as 'Rhineland working relations' .
We accept this as what might be called a minimum guideline.
For a number of countries, such as Austria, Germany and the Netherlands, the transposition into national legislation will therefore be of the utmost importance, because they generally apply superior regulations, and adaptation could prove problematical.
Finally, I would draw your attention to the fact that I especially support Mr Menrad' s Amendment No 7 concerning the definition of 'participation' .
It is a challenge for the Commissioner to agree to this and also to handle the legal bases correctly.
Mr President, after 30 long years of negotiations, the Employment and Social Affairs Ministers managed to reach agreement last December on a statute for a European company.
The creation of a European company has long been seen as essential to a comprehensive body of European company law which promotes business.
In an increasingly globalised business environment, the arrival of the SE is timely.
Capital moves easily across borders as multinational firms seek out the most attractive business locations.
The Union can achieve a great deal in the creation of a single market for goods, services and capital.
There has long been a need to create a European company to complement this picture.
Members of this Parliament hail from 15 different sovereign states and are aware that company law differs widely from one Member State to another.
I welcome the fact that this regulation foresees five different ways in which an SE can be established.
Member States' company law allows for two different systems of company management.
The regulation proposes that both systems be available in each country.
Hence companies will be able to choose the approach which best suits their needs.
In view of the slow-down in the US economy and consequently the world economy, it is essential that we, as legislators, do all we can to facilitate business and job creation.
The creation and management of European companies must take place with as few hindrances and bureaucratic obstacles as possible.
Companies must be afforded the flexibility they need to stay lean and move swiftly in a highly competitive environment.
The rapporteur refers to taxation.
It must be made clear that taxation policy is a matter for each Member State and its national parliament.
Any proposal that corporate tax be paid by SEs and could go into EU coffers is totally unacceptable.
The Irish government has a policy of low corporate tax to encourage investment.
Our 12.5% rate has proved itself by actually increasing tax revenue while at the same time promoting sustained growth.
Ireland could not countenance any suggestion of harmonising corporate tax rates, especially in this period of economic slow-down.
I commend Mr Menrad and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for their work on employee rights.
We in Europe have long held that a partnership approach works best.
Companies are reliant on their employees.
There must be no erosion of the workers' rights that have been won over time.
A European company without participation in some form is unthinkable.
There are a number of models of worker participation.
It is positive that the regulation avoids a one-size-fits-all approach.
In conclusion, the scale of employee participation will be decided through free negotiations between the companies concerned and the workers.
Madam President, I am speaking this evening on behalf of my colleague Lord Inglewood who has been shadowing this for the British Conservative Group and who has unfortunately been delayed due to the inadequacies of plane transport from here to Brussels.
He asked me particularly to make that point to you.
I broadly welcome this as a pragmatic proposal.
I do not want to reflect on what might have been.
I want to address a few remarks to the Commissioner about the implementation of this proposal because it is a welcome advance that we will actually get something into the market place - and that is how we should regard it, - because companies will have the option of whether to adopt this form of company statute or not.
It is entirely pragmatic and practical that we will initially have a proposal that will be subject to governments among the 15 Member States.
I want to say to the Commissioner that considerable attention has to be given to ensuring that the rules for this new company statute are consistently implemented across the Member States.
Currently, we have inconsistent application of company law within the existing Member States' statutes on things like publication of information, timely publication of accounts, proper completion of accounts - all those sorts of issues are currently implemented differently.
This new statute has to be implemented consistently and we have to make sure that courts in Member States who will be responsible for this have the training and ability to do so.
I also join in what colleagues have been saying about issues to do with taxation and company law.
Mr Mayer, in an excellent report, wisely says at the conclusion that he advocates launching the European statute on a maiden voyage.
Well, it will show where repairs are needed - that is certainly true.
But we must not overload this with other expectations about aligning company law, particularly tax harmonisation.
I join with colleagues who have said how dangerous this is as a concept.
We must not overload this statute with things that it was not designed to carry, otherwise it will sink very quickly indeed.
Mr President, in relation to the last intervention by Mr Harbour, I must tell him that there is not much danger of the ship sinking, since it is travelling very light.
I have never seen such a light regulation or proposed regulation as this one.
It is so light that we are going to have practically no company harmonisation.
As Mr Rothley has said, what we are going to have is fifteen different national laws on the European company, fifteen different European companies and, as Mr Gasòliba i Böhm said, we are going to have more than two hundred possible combinations of different types of company.
This is truly the softest type of legislation I have seen in my life.
Secondly, the Council intends to take legislative power away from us: Mr Gallagher spoke of acting as legislators.
If we take the Council' s route, Parliament will be deprived of all legislative power.
I believe that Parliament would probably take the correct route by challenging this decision before the Court of Justice, because the Treaties cannot be unilaterally modified by one Community institution.
Thirdly, as Mr Rothley pointed out earlier, the type of European company we are going to create is not going to provide any special advantage, above all any fiscal advantage; if we do not take action in the field of taxation, it is going to be very difficult to bring about the creation of European companies and, therefore, it seems to me very important, as the majority of previous speakers have proposed, that the fiscal field be involved.
Mr Harbour spoke of the possibility of the ship sinking.
I would say that the danger is that the ship will capsize as a result of a lack of ballast.
Mr Harbour probably has some naval experience and he knows that, when a ship carries no weight, the easiest thing is for the ship to capsize and sink for other reasons.
Therefore, it seems to me that the important thing at the moment is: first, to insist on Parliament' s legal prerogatives, and, secondly, to insist that in order to have a law on European companies we must also incorporate tax aspects.
Without taxation it will be very difficult for us to implement a European economic law, a European company law and a European commercial law.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive on the involvement of employees in the European company gives us our first opportunity to establish at Community level a precise definition of what is meant by the right to information, consultation and participation of employees in all companies.
The proposal determines the registration to a trade regime by companies which may choose this new statute following a negotiated agreement on employee involvement.
Under these conditions, the Group of the Greens is not turning its nose up at it; the group supports Mr Menrad' s report and its proposals, the aim of which is the swift adoption and effective implementation of this directive.
Of course, we will do this in the belief that this required condition certainly does not allow us to consider that European legislation genuinely fulfils current needs.
As soon as the vote is over, we must carry on and get back down to work on this issue.
You are aware that this directive will in future only apply to the employees of companies that choose this new statute, in other words, a small minority.
That is why we must obviously stop ourselves from celebrating and trying to make an impact.
We will only have made progress when we have simultaneously adopted this directive, revised the directive that we discussed earlier on European works councils and approved the Directive on Information and Consultation of Employees under conditions that differ slightly from the position adopted by the Council.
The co-decision procedure must be used in order to perform this legislative work under conditions which guarantee a genuine debate, involving society and citizens.
I would like to stress that the Group of the Greens rejects the pressure that inevitably leads to restricting its right to legislate, on the pretext of being efficient and swift, particularly because, as we all know, this dossier dates back a long way.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating the two rapporteurs on the work they have done, which, while certainly not reaching the zenith or the high point which the studious amongst us may have wished for, nevertheless represents important progress in the development of what in the future will be a genuine European company with all the characteristics appropriate to that concept.
Max Weber defined the company as an organisation which, while controlling them, is intended to produce goods and services for a market.
Obviously, a company can be owned by a physical person or by a legal person, and it is general practice, also derived from the will of the individual businessperson to restrict their responsibility - particularly relating to property - towards third persons, that the businesses of certain economic entities adopt the form of companies.
Of course, the company means plurality, the organisation of goods, but above all of services.
It is therefore logical - and I am referring essentially to the social aspects - that there be particular study, analysis and regulation of the involvement of workers in the European company statute and that in a dual system, with a general council and a management and supervisory body, or in a single system, with simply an administrative body, the feelings and knowledge of workers be taken into account, listened to and accepted by means of their representatives, and that workers understand the progress of the company, the risks, the vicissitudes and the objectives it is pursuing.
I do not have time, and I believe it is unnecessary, to refer to the methods and degrees of participation, to the negotiating body or to the role of the European company in the structuring of European social life.
However, please allow me to refer to the role of the representatives of workers at the point of closure of all or some of the establishments in one or various nations, staff relations, the creation of subsidiary companies and, in general, to all the decisions which are essential to the ordinary life of the company.
Also important are the transitional period of three years, a high degree of uniformity in the application provisions of the regulation and the transposition of the directive, which would endorse the raison d' être, facilitate the nature of the European company and help to create more Europe, to the benefit of companies, employment and consumers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when dealing with this subject we must also inevitably return to the events in Genoa.
We shall of course deal with the violation of civil rights later.
This evening, I would like to touch upon the protest of ten thousand, predominantly young, people against globalisation and economic power.
We must take more seriously than before their concerns surrounding the increasing division in the world between the rich and the poor and the exploitation of our natural resources.
Precisely because many problems can no longer be resolved at a national level, the European Union is specifically responsible for monitoring unbridled economic and financial dealings.
Up until now, the European Union has pursued this aim very hesitantly.
One of several possibilities open to us is to establish the legal base for employee participation, information and consultation before decisions are taken.
The European limited liability company - really an inevitable idea, and also a sensible idea in itself, within the European internal market - is however only acceptable to us as European Socialists with the appropriate inclusion of employees and their trade unions.
Company decisions are therefore only really thought out if employees' points of view are considered.
Management alone cannot make important decisions.
The numerous failed mergers and events at Renault Vilvoorde, Danone, Marks & Spencer and in other companies in the past are, in our opinion, good evidence of this.
Additionally, I would like to thank the French government for reaching a compromise and for also finally convincing Spain that this legislation must be given the green light.
I would like to criticise the procedure decided on by the Council.
In this regard, I share the criticism of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
However, I would like to say, Mr Lehne, that I did not find the reasons you gave very convincing, since the Council has, of course, been able to count on the support of Parliament.
We have also pursued this procedure rapidly and constructively in the course of the Committee' s work.
It is not because of us that the procedure would have failed.
So, there was essentially no reason to change the legal base.
I share the criticism and think that the Council should consider this carefully and also stipulate their reasoning, for we have not, to date, actually heard the reason for changing the legal base.
I would like to extend my thanks to Mr Menrad for working rapidly and constructively with us in the Committee on Social Affairs to bring this report to the vote.
I would also like to thank him for being more specific in response to proposals from my group.
However, I believe, Mr Menrad, that we are agreed that we must not adopt Amendment No 12.
I have at any rate recommended this to my group.
Finally, I would refer to the appeal to secure a majority of votes tomorrow to enable this ship - as one member put it - to be launched on its maiden voyage, despite some reservations and also in spite of some inconsistencies, which we could not allow to go unmentioned.
I think, however, that it would be sensible to bring in a law that takes employees into consideration and includes their interests in time for the introduction of the euro.
The planned revision does not need to be deferred for six years.
We can certainly carry this out earlier.
Mr President, is the directive on the European limited liability company a good thing or not? Last night, knowing that I would have to speak this morning, I dreamed that I was Mr Fatuzzo the MEP.
However, I was an older Mr Fatuzzo MEP with whiter hair and I was also rich, very rich, absolutely filthy rich, so rich that I could swim in a pool of gold like Donald Duck' s Uncle Scrooge.
With me in the pool was Mr Menrad, the rapporteur, and you were there too, Mr President.
That is right, I dreamed that all three of us were swimming in euro coins.
Why is that? Because I had become rich when, following the adoption of the European limited liability company, I had become an industrialist, I had built factories throughout Europe and I had established registered offices of the European company in all 15 States of Europe.
This directive is excellent and is the first step along a path that will lead many people to the wealth that made me - the first to set up a European company in all the States - so rich, so stinking rich.
Well then, Mr President, to conclude my expression of support for this directive, I can only invite Mr Menrad, who has been working on his report and the directive for many years, and you as well, Mr President, to come for a swim in my pool full of euros, to come and stay with me for a holiday in my newly-acquired castle.
Only in your dreams, of course, Mr President!
Mr President, legal doctrine and politics talk a lot of the European social model and it should be pointed out that, at least in terms of the collective rights which regulate industrial and labour relations, European company law, as we are seeing this afternoon, is experiencing the trauma of a very difficult birth, after a pregnancy which has lasted thirty years.
I would also like to point out that, in light of the Treaty of Maastricht and the Social Protocol, since 1974 there has only been one legislative instrument adopted at European Union level.
Therefore, those of us who are tuned in to the thoughts of millions and millions of workers can today be satisfied because this second approximation is taking place, and then we will also see the reform of the Statute.
However, Mr President, the least we can say is that we are going too slowly and with so many preventions and precautions (with regard to certain countries represented in the Council, including my own) that, in the end we have frankly witnessed an anticlimax.
Very little has been produced.
However, I am going to support it, of course.
After so much drought we have this little drop of fresh water which, although it is still insufficient, is beginning to eradicate this terrible anguish which our citizens are also suffering.
I would like to remind the members of the Council, as Mrs Weiler has said, that what is happening in Europe and in the rest of the world is that the people are extremely concerned, given the social advances they had achieved in each individual country, that the process of globalisation, the process of European Union construction - and next the enlargement of that Union - should not under any circumstances lead to a reversal of those social advances.
Nevertheless, we are seeing that many governments, and some sections of political opinion, as well as sections of business, now intend to remove many of the achievements which had been made at national level.
I would like to congratulate Mr Menrad because he has defended, from the point of view of the best Christian Democrat tradition, as well as our Social Democratic tradition, the social achievements made in his country of origin and intended for the whole of Europe.
That must be our perspective: to move forward and to take the direction of the most advanced countries, and not of the least advanced; to take up the arguments of those who are thinking of the citizens, of the workers, and not of those who are considering how to remove the historic achievements of those citizens and workers.
Therefore, Mr President, despite many doubts, doubts about the legal basis - I believe we will have to make an effort to defend the rights of Parliament - we must not delay this company legislation for one more second since, together with the directive on information and consultation, it must make rapid progress.
And there will still be time, with experience, to improve on the current deficiencies.
Mr President, I should like to start my remarks by referring briefly to comments from the other side of the House, from Mr Medina Ortega, who complained about what this legislation does not do, with particular reference to social harmonisation and tax harmonisation - omissions which I personally welcome.
But from our different positions across the House we should not really complain about what this legislation does not do.
We should be happy about what it does do, which is to enable a European company statute to come into force after 30 long years.
As has been said, this is voluntary.
We do not know at this stage how many companies will be interested in starting up such companies, nor what flaws they might find in the legislation if they do.
We do not know what companies might be interested but are deterred from starting up such companies, again because of flaws in the legislation.
Other changes might be needed.
I discussed with one of the rapporteurs, Mr Menrad, the idea of putting into his report an amendment that this legislation should be looked at again within a reasonable period of time to see what improvements might be needed in the light of experience.
He was happy to support this, but very wisely suggested that any such amendment should be put into the main body of the statute report, in other words, the Hans-Peter Mayer report.
On that basis I did not table any such amendment here but would highlight Amendment No 16 in the Hans-Peter Mayer report which specifically covers all issues, therefore including consultation issues.
Too often EU laws get set in stone.
We need to become much lighter on our feet.
This should become the rule rather than the exception.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate and thank Mr Menrad for his tenacious and efficient approach to the dossier on employee involvement which has been a stumbling block in negotiations on the Statute for a European Company for several years.
Although the first proposal for a regulation dates back to 1970, we had to wait for the Nice European Council before we finally reached an agreement on a draft directive on employee involvement, which supplements the draft regulation on the Statute for a European Company.
It was therefore a delicate balance that was found at the Council meeting on 20 December and it is vital to ensure that we retain this balance.
That is why Amendment No 4, which requires Member States to make appropriate provisions for negotiations in the case of structural changes, seems hard to accept as it amounts to bringing into question the hard-fought agreement.
The same applies to Amendment No 7 which seeks to remove the exhaustive list of rights held by the body representing employees in the participation process, which, in practice, leads to a participation system that disregards specific national characteristics and casts doubt upon the safeguard mechanism of rights to participation, set out in the Annex to the directive.
Key players in the economy and society have been waiting for the Statute for the European Company for more than 30 years.
We must therefore ensure, ladies and gentlemen, that we fulfil the need expressed by companies for simplicity and flexibility and that we do not, as a result, complicate this statute by incorporating new restrictions which would discourage the companies concerned, and particularly small and medium-sized companies, from using this new tool that is at their disposal.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to offer my congratulations to the two rapporteurs, Mr Menrad and Mr Mayer, and also, and especially, to Messrs Gasòliba, Rothley and Lehne, who have added specific aspects.
I am glad that the Mayer and Menrad reports were discussed together because this also underlines the fact that we are endeavouring to live out the social market economy and, rather than play social policy off against economic policy, consider these as complementary and common factors and establish a symbol of unity.
On which basic conditions is this European limited liability company founded?
Globalisation brings home to us what it means for there to be no borders; the internal market is hopefully on the verge of implementation, enlargement of the European Union will unite the continent, and there will be notes and coins for economic and monetary union, with the euro as the visible sign of Europe' s coming together, the symbol of a growing European identity and the expression of the Union' s intention to be a resolute presence on the world market.
We are agreed upon the objectives.
However, transposition is often half-hearted.
The keys to this are the legal base, an absence of European fiscal regulation and essential discussions on modernising the regulations governing European mergers.
A number of tasks have failed to be undertaken in the Member States at the necessary pace and with the necessary determination.
The jurisdiction - the key word here is unanimity - corresponds to the realities of power politics, not however to the requirements of European politics.
Finally, I call therefore on the Ecofin Council to devote more of its time to fiscal assessment at Community level and to the necessary fiscal regulations and less time to proposals which undermine the stability pact and weaken the euro.
Mr President, may I begin by thanking the rapporteurs and others who have spoken in the debate this afternoon in the support of the Commission's proposals relating to the European Company Statute.
As we all know, this has been one of the most laborious and long-standing matters which we have dealt with in the European Union, with over 30 years of painful and intricate debates.
Throughout this period, Parliament has always expressed its clear support for the idea of making a Community law form of incorporation available to businesses.
However you have on different occasions, most recently in 1990, 1996 and 1998, expressed serious concern about some of the controversial aspects of the texts which were then being discussed, notably with regard to employee participation, which clearly was the most complex issue involved.
The texts which were finally politically agreed by the Council following the Nice Summits reflect most, if not all, of Parliament's concerns.
Those texts are not perfect, but they do translate the broad consensus which now exists within the Council of Ministers and Parliament on the rules which should govern this new form of company.
That consensus, as is well known, was extremely difficult to achieve and it must be safeguarded if we wish to see the texts finally adopted.
In five years' time we shall review both the regulation and the directive after an initial period of experience with their application.
That will certainly be an opportunity to deal with their possible inadequacies and shortcomings, some of which have been rightly pointed out this afternoon.
For those reasons, and taking into account the delicacy of the consensus established within the Council, the Commission believes that the only realistic option at this stage consists in having the texts agreed in December 2000 adopted by the Council as soon as possible without any changes.
We are aware of Parliament's reservations, as voiced by many speakers this afternoon, about the legal basis chosen unanimously by the Council.
The Commission has always supported the strongest possible role for Parliament and we regret that it has been deprived of codecision powers in this matter.
But we must admit that there are strong legal arguments in favour of the legal basis adopted by the Council.
Even though the Commission did in the past consider other possibilities, we recognise that the Treaty as currently worded makes it difficult to use a qualified majority codecision legal basis in this context, especially with regard to the proposed directive.
Since many speakers this afternoon have voiced their doubts on the matter of the legal basis, perhaps I can say a few more words on this important matter.
The Commission proposed, for both the regulation and the directive, two legal bases allowing for the adoption of the acts by qualified majority voting within the Council.
But at the end of last year the Commission was confronted with the fact that the Council had unanimously changed the proposed legal basis of both texts to Article 308 of the Treaty, which requires unanimity.
The Commission is aware of and very much regrets the fact that this change has deprived Parliament of its codecision powers on a matter on which it has always expressed a strong interest.
But the Commission cannot ignore the fact that the texts agreed by the Council in December 2000 follow very closely the opinions delivered by this Parliament over the years.
In addition, from a strictly legal perspective, the Commission can understand the reservations expressed by the Council on Article 95 as the correct legal basis for the regulation, since the regulation is not aimed at harmonising national company laws.
The rules in question address only the future societas Europaea and they do not affect other national provisions applicable to public limited companies at all.
So, although the Commission regrets that the legal basis was changed, there is substance to the Council's opinion on the legal basis, and it cannot, just be dismissed out of hand.
Turning to taxation, which also has been mentioned by a number of Members of Parliament, you may know that the Commission originally proposed specific tax rules for inclusion in the European Company Statute, but the Council insisted on deleting them.
I am firmly convinced that tax rules are still needed and I am pleased that the Commission and Parliament seem to agree on this fundamental point.
The Commission will probably be producing its analytical study of company taxation in the internal market and a related policy of communication next month.
Amongst other things, these documents analyse the tax obstacles for cross-border economic activities by all companies in the EU and possible ways of dealing with them.
Members of Parliament only have to talk to business people in various Member States to know that those tax obstacles are extremely real and very serious.
The documents I have just mentioned also look into the specific situation of companies formed under the Statute for the European Company and the Commission believes that they will provide an excellent framework for determining the best way forward.
In particular, I believe that serious thought should be given to a comprehensive solution for the current company tax problems for businesses active in more than one Member State.
In the aftermath of the study I alluded to just now, the Commission intends to launch a broad debate on the future of company taxation in the internal market and the need for fundamental reform, not least in order to achieve the EU objectives of becoming the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, as agreed at the Lisbon European Council of March 1999.
In this context we shall take up the tax issues relating to the European Company Statute and treat them as a priority.
Bearing in mind the specific issues involved here and the intention companies have expressed of creating European companies, I am confident that Parliament will support final adoption by the Council without further delay and I thank Parliament in advance.
European works council
The next item is the report (A5-0282/2001) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission report on the application of the Directive on the establishment of a European works council or a procedure in Community-scale undertakings and Community-scale groups of undertakings for the purposes of informing and consulting employees (Council Directive 94/45/EC of 22 September 1994) (COM(2000) 188 - C5-0437/2000 - 2000/2214(COS)).
Mr President, we are referring to the working of the works council directive up to the period 1996, i.e. before the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland signed up to that agreement.
The experience up until that point was positive, with clear benefits being brought about by this directive.
However, recent events have shown some weaknesses in the works council directive, noticeably in relation to restructuring as we have seen several cases recently of major restructuring in multinationals in which workers have not been consulted.
We should note that, even before the adoption of this directive, the Court of Justice in various cases held that works councils were parties concerned for the purposes of merger control proceedings.
That presupposes a duty to inform and consult on the part of the employer.
We should like to see a strengthening of the directive in relation to consultation in the event of restructuring.
The Commission in its report also refers to the vagueness of the requirement for an information and consultation meeting to be held with the workers as soon as possible in the event of exceptional circumstances which affect employees.
That also needs to be tightened.
Article 27 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights says that workers should be guaranteed information and consultation 'in good time' , which is a rather more strict interpretation than 'as soon as possible' .
The Committee on Legal Affairs would like to see strengthening in relation to that point.
In addition, we find that part-time workers are dealt with differently in different Member States.
We would like to see the Commission look into that aspect, and into the question of time off for activities in the works councils, which varies from Member State to Member State.
This should also apply regarding the matter of training, which also varies considerably.
We would like to see the Commission come forward with proposals to ensure that there is harmonised training across Member States in order to ensure that workers' representatives are able to put their case as effectively as possible.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I would first of all like to thank Mr Menrad for having taken into account most of the proposals made by our committee, particularly - and I shall mention them briefly - on the definition of information and consultation, enhancing the procedure, enhancing the role of trade unions, reducing the thresholds for membership of these councils and reducing the time limits for establishing European works councils.
I would, however, like to stress three points that I consider to be vital.
The first point was mentioned in paragraph 12 with the reference to the 1998 directive on redundancies for operational reasons, which provides employee representatives with the possibility of notifying a competent authority on the basis of information submitted by the company' s management, if they believe that alternative solutions have not been explored in order to avoid redundancies, site closures or if there is doubt surrounding the legality of the procedure.
I believe that, with regard to current problems in European-based companies, including sometimes those problems which occur when there are mergers and acquisitions authorised by the Commission and by its Competition Directorate, the issue raised, and which was also raised by Mrs Diamantopolou, the Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, in the wake of the Marks & Spencer case, is how do employees, their representatives and their works councils go about notifying the European Commission and showing that their social right is sometimes brushed aside because the issues involved are purely financial and stock market-related.
From this perspective, I support Amendment No 5 by Mrs Ainardi and Mrs Figueiredo, and personally I shall be voting in favour of this.
The second point, which is related to this amendment, is that of sanctions.
I believe that we must put in place considerable sanctions which will act as a deterrent, and also specify - and this is the underlying meaning of one of Mr Menrad' s paragraphs, but I would have liked this to be clearer so that employees and citizens are aware - that, in the event of non-compliance with the procedures for information and consultation, decisions to make employees redundant or to close down sites can be overturned.
I will conclude, as Mr Menrad did, by asking the Commission to realise the urgent nature of this request by Parliament, not to wait until 2002 and to formulate a proposal that reflects the determination of the overwhelming majority of the groups to see an increase in the rights of employees of companies that are based in Europe.
Mr President, my colleague, Mr Menrad, has put a great deal of thought into his work and raises some interesting points concerning the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the existing directive.
However, it should be noted that certain countries only implemented this directive last year and that at least one country has not yet implemented certain provisions at all.
It is clear that companies and their employees still need some time to complete the learning process involved in establishing European works councils.
Premature changes to the rules can only cause confusion, though it is clearly useful for the Commission and Council to take note of Parliament's views at this time.
As the rapporteur knows, I believe in information and consultation.
I support the principle of works councils, I share his wish for their success.
However, as he also knows, I am not at all happy with certain elements of his report.
I still believe it goes too far in reference to sanctions in reducing thresholds in terms of sizes of companies and - frankly - in pushing the trade union agenda as an end in itself rather than in promoting the interests of employees.
For these reasons, I have tabled four amendments, for which I have already secured some cross-party support and I also propose to vote against Recitals 5 and 7, as he knows.
Having said that, I thank the rapporteur for accommodating some amendments in committee and I confirm that I am still willing to vote in favour of his whole report, despite my serious concerns, if the PPE-DE Group supports two of my amendments, in particular Amendments Nos 1 and 3, as we have already discussed.
In that way we could show that our own mini-European works council of a German rapporteur, a Dutch group coordinator and myself from the United Kingdom have set a good example in achieving a positive result.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mr Menrad for his thorough work in drawing up this report, including the hearings he organised together with the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs in order to examine closely the incorporation of the directive into national legal systems.
This study shows, without a doubt, that the incorporation of the directive into national legal systems is, for the most part, having positive results and that European works councils have been set up in around 2000 European companies.
In many companies, the directive has contributed to eliminating the barriers to information and consultation.
What is more, the timely participation of the Company committees in some of the decision-making processes has certainly yielded positive results, first and foremost for the workers in areas such as health, safety and equal opportunities but also for the companies in that the number of disputes has fallen.
Having said that, the Menrad report - which we support - also reveals a series of gaps in the directive itself, and I consider it absolutely essential that the Commission takes measures to amend the directive to deal with these gaps without delay.
I would, in particular, like to focus on three elements which, in addition to those cited by other Members, I feel are the most sensitive points and those which require swift action to be taken.
Firstly, the information timeframe: there is no clear stipulation in the directive regarding the timely provision of information and, in recent years - we have often discussed the matter in this House - we have adopted resolutions but have, I regret to say, had a great deal of negative incidents such as workers learning of their fate from the press or being presented with a final decision by companies.
In this regard, we could cite cases such as Ahlston, Adb, Marks and Spencer and many others.
Well then, if this is the case, it is necessary, absolutely essential for the directive to be more precise, for it to lay down timeframes which ensure that information is provided and consultation carried out before any decision is taken, to provide a real opportunity for negotiation, otherwise it will serve no purpose at all!
Secondly, I am sure the Members will agree with me when I say that there are no rules in a legal system which, if disregarded, lose their effect.
It is strange that it is only in the area of work and social rights that this is almost the norm!
There have thus been many disputes and incidents of recourse to industrial tribunals in recent years, precisely because the failure of companies to respect the stipulations of the directive does not on any account place in question the validity of the effects of the decision taken and certainly does not do so automatically.
It is therefore necessary for appropriate, dissuasive penalties to be laid down and, similarly, in serious cases of breach of the directive, it is necessary to provide for the suspension of a decision in order to allow negotiations to continue.
Mr President, I should also like to thank Mr Menrad for his report, even if I do not agree with all the proposals it contains.
The Commission' s report on the European works councils shows that there is a fair way to go before the law is implemented in practice and all the undertakings concerned have set up works councils.
Is it therefore a correct response to require that still more businesses be covered by the directive and to demand tougher sanctions against those companies that do not implement the directive? The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party cannot support reducing the size of those companies covered by the directive to five hundred employees in one Member State and one hundred in each additional Member State.
I am also sceptical about some of the requests for sanctions that have been put forward here in Parliament.
They may run counter to national systems which, in actual fact, operate well. Nor can it be reasonable for companies to be penalised differently for the same offence, as will happen if their managements' actions are rendered invalid or if, by failing to provide enough information and by not consulting sufficiently, they are excluded from public subsidies or public procurement.
Mr President, the relevance that employees and citizens give to European social policy is being distorted further with each passing day, because of numerous cases of restructurings and redundancies.
The revision of the Directive on European Works Councils is obviously a crucial way of clawing back this credibility.
So what do the employees who are victims of these restructurings have to say about the possibility of using this directive? To take some examples, they say that the current legislation on the right to information and consultation is flouted on a regular basis by companies, due to the lack of precise definitions for these terms, that they have no administrative and judicial support which is needed in order to check compliance with the directive, that the directive only applies in very restricted circumstances and is not at all applicable in many transnational companies with numbers of employees lower than the current threshold, that it is inconceivable that authorisations for mergers are granted when the only criterion to be fulfilled is that of observing the competition law and that the social, regional or environmental impact of mergers is not taken into account, that they are powerless when mergers are taking place, during which previous consultation procedures are no longer used, since new procedures have yet to be set up, and, finally, that they are disgusted to see that the same companies which undertake these severe restructurings have occasionally received assistance from the Structural Funds.
In my view, Mr Menrad' s report, which is the result of work that was carried out in an open, cooperative spirit, involving the social actors concerned and members of the Commission, which organised a broad public hearing on this issue, recommends bridging these gaps with a precise definition of information and consultation, by reducing, as proposed, the thresholds of employees required to establish a works council, by requesting that specific premises for consultation are maintained during mergers, by requesting that decisions made and which flout procedures can be overturned, and by introducing sanctions, including financial, for companies at fault and finally, by taking into account the opinion of employees and providing evidence that the procedures of the directive have been observed, prior to giving authorisations to mergers.
Within this context, these proposals have the support of our group.
Obviously, we still need to ensure - and this requires a combined effort - that the directive is revised quickly and effectively.
Mr President, as thousands of employees in Europe are faced with a wave of restructurings, redundancies and redundancy programmes, the Menrad report on European works councils, although it will not radically change the situation, will at least provide a new source of support for employees to enable them to cope with extremely difficult situations and to have some bearing on the decisions being taken.
At a time when growth is giving us cause for concern, we should give thought to the content of this growth and the necessity to develop it, by encouraging job stability and skills.
There is an urgent need for genuine consultation with employees, an urgent need to dispense with the attitude of treating men and women as goods which are no longer useful, because shareholders consider that they are not profitable enough, even in spite of the true economic situation.
Mr Menrad' s report is the fruit of considerable labour, and I would also like to acknowledge his efforts.
The report is also the result of the willingness of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs to listen to representatives of the employees of large European companies.
Using these meetings as a basis, the Menrad report was able to make a reliable assessment of the situation by showing the need for considerable amendments to the content of the directive.
I support many of the proposals made in the report.
I would like to reiterate some of them which in my view represent major steps forward for employees.
For example, the call, set out in the second paragraph, for information and consultation to take place at regular intervals before the decision by the company or group, so as to allow the workers genuinely to influence the management' s decision-making process. Furthermore, in particularly serious cases, this information could even extend to giving the employees' representatives the possibility of gaining a negotiating period before a decision takes effect, as described in item 14.
I shall again quote the second item, which contains a clause that the decisions of the management will only be regarded as legitimate if an orderly information and consultation process as defined in the Directive has taken place beforehand, or item 13, which proposes the introduction of sanctions for non-compliance.
Lastly, there is also the call for companies to repay funds and financial aid provided if they do not observe the law in this area, and to exclude them from public procurement.
These proposals are a step in the right direction, but I believe that to ensure action for employment is effective and to improve economic performance in Europe, we could have gone further with regard to the right of employees to participate in the future of companies.
This is the goal of the amendment that my group tabled, which calls for the possibility of employees' representatives to have the right to a suspensive veto.
This would involve giving a guarantee to employees' representatives that their alternative proposals would at least be examined and taken into account.
Many decisions which have spelled disaster for companies and for employment could have been avoided if employees had been able to influence these decisions.
This right, which is an expression of social justice and democracy within a company, also guarantees efficiency for the economy and society.
Once again, the Menrad report represents a considerable step forward and this is why it has the support of my group.
Overall, the progress made in implementing the Directive on the establishment of a European works council has been positive, since there are now approximately 650 European works councils, most of which were set up on the basis of pre-Directive agreements, in other words, on a voluntary and agreed basis.
There are still 1 200 companies, however, which have not established European works councils.
As the effects of globalisation demand new measures, the cornerstone of which are trans-national representation and information, it is advisable to consider the factors which stand in the way of European social dialogue in companies, and the report presented by the Commission which evaluates both legal transposition and practical application of the Directive in Member States now gives us that opportunity.
The debates which took place in committee were useful and I would also like to congratulate Mr Menrad for his preference for dialogue and the work he did to achieve conciliation.
Nonetheless, the broad consensus which existed within this committee on the need to develop information and consultation, on both a European and national level, must not hide some differences in approach which my colleague, Mr Bushill-Matthews pointed out.
I do believe that it is important to reiterate in this Chamber that genuine social dialogue in a company requires tools that are flexible and which can evolve, and not a standard, restrictive and detailed framework, such as that which some of our fellow Members would like to reintroduce when the 1994 Directive is revised.
That is why I would like to stress how important we consider that the imminent reform of this directive does not take the shape of a far-reaching reform of its spirit and particularly, that we retain the difference in terms of function between the Directive itself, which is the tool of social dialogue in a company, and its Annex which punishes the failure of social dialogue.
Furthermore, lowering the thresholds for applying the Directive must not be an aim in itself; rather, this should be perceived as a straightforward option to extend this mechanism.
This is why I agree with Amendment No 3, tabled by our fellow Member, and the French delegation will support this, but we are rather more puzzled by Amendment No 14.
Finally, I would like to provide an explanation for the text included in paragraph 2(i), namely that information and consultation of employees must be carried out, with due regard for the principles of confidentiality of the information.
This is a very important provision which particularly refers to cases where timely information and consultation of workers, which is perfectly natural, could conflict with the law by virtue of the legislation on the securities market.
The provision is therefore fundamental in order to encourage competitiveness of companies in the global economy and the safeguarding of the European social model.
I hope that the Commission will take this into account when preparing its proposal for revising the directive.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur for the quality, constancy, sense of responsibility and coordination, in addition to his attempt to obtain consensus, which has enabled him to present a report in which the need for both sides of industry to be able to deal with mergers, relocations and restructuring as painlessly as possible is emphasised.
On many occasions, these events take place with unnecessary complications that lead to other, equally disastrous consequences which, in turn, affect workers and the rights from which they benefit in the Member States, which are constantly being weakened by these so-called relocations and greater mobility.
I should like to highlight the rapporteur' s comments about Article 127 of the Treaty, which lays down clear rules, which apply to both competition and social legislation, specifically on informing and consulting workers.
We must clearly enshrine the right of workers and citizens to freely choose their destiny and also where and how they wish to work.
The truth is that the damaging examples of this much sought after mobility of companies and employers are still shocking public opinion in my country even today.
I shall take this opportunity to condemn what the representatives of one particular company - on this occasion it happens to be British, with headquarters in London and offices in the Republic of Ireland and in Portugal - are doing with vast contingents of Portuguese and Polish workers. These workers are placed, given the exceptional situation in Northern Ireland, in high-risk situations, with no contract, no protection, and no security, often being left to their unpleasant fate.
This may seem to be their bad luck, but this really does seem to be the fate of Portuguese workers who are simply looking for better salaries and better working conditions.
Yet, they are stuck in the position of not even being able to return home.
Mobility is a threat not only to those who cling to it because they are socially disadvantaged, but also organised workers.
These provide a warm welcome for the aforementioned disadvantaged workers and choose to stand up for them, helping them to integrate.
And it is they who are their only resource, the workers representatives and their solidarity, as well as the unions, in these very distressing circumstances.
I would, therefore, like to see this law made effective and extended, since it is still a long way from achieving the social objective that the Community itself and the Treaties advocate.
Mr. President, I would also like to thank the rapporteur for the work he has done on this report.
It is important to bear in mind, given what we heard already this evening, that Lisbon was not about competition, but social cohesion as well.
Companies are increasingly being expected to behave in an ethical and socially responsible manner.
Sound employment practices and good working relationships with employees are key indicators for such ethical assessment and we need to see the recommendations in the report in that light.
The report points out a number of ways in which a revised directive could make works councils more effective and prevent some of the problems and breakdowns we have heard about: regular meetings, not the token annual meeting that is all 85% of them manage; increasing the representation of women, who are virtually invisible in many of these bodies, just as they are in too many boardrooms; training to improve the quality of representation and communication; and the facilities and safeguards to ensure that works council members represent all sectors effectively.
The sanctions for non-compliance are also critical.
We either want responsible social partners, or we do not.
My group does, so we welcome this report and look forward to seeing Commission proposals based on it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is the result of a major piece of work undertaken by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, coordinated by our colleague Mr Menrad, whom I congratulate on the openness he has shown in considering the proposals tabled during the debate, including several from our group, although I personally think that the report could have gone even further.
We are all aware of the countless difficulties and serious problems of unemployment that workers and their works councils are facing, particularly those in multinational companies, in the processes of restructuring and relocation that have intensified over the last few years without the rights of workers being respected in the majority of cases. These workers have been treated on many occasions as mere economic commodities.
The current directive must, therefore, be fundamentally changed, particularly in terms of the procedures for informing and consulting workers and of the possibility of intervention by the European works councils, specifically through additional sanctions and a suspensive veto in cases in which restructuring, relocations and mergers do not take account of the reasonable rights of workers.
It is crucial that the Commission presents proposals for amendments to this directive, as we have already requested on numerous occasions, and that it at least includes the improvements contained in the Menrad report and approved by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, in addition to the proposal upon which our group insists.
It is essential that there should be a robust and timely consultation process for all workers and the possibility of the right to a suspensive veto on a decision that may have harmful consequences for workers, in such a way as to allow negotiations to take place and for these harmful consequences to be avoided.
It is equally important, as the Menrad report states, that companies that do not satisfy workers' rights regarding their information and consultation and all other aspects of the directive, with the new amendments that we ourselves are proposing, will not only not receive any financial aid from Structural Funds and be obliged to return any Community or national aid that has been granted them, but they will also be excluded from public contracts and subsidies.
I hope, therefore, that the Commission accepts these positions.
Mr President, a few moments ago, when I spoke on the previous item on the agenda, I pointed out the definition of what we understood by a company and I stressed that a company, as an organisation, implies plurality and that a company consisting of a single person would not legally be classed as a company.
And plurality means the obligation to regulate the role of workers throughout the organisation.
I believe that Mr Menrad' s report responds magnificently to this issue and we must congratulate him on the quality of his work.
The objective of the Directive is to improve the right of workers to be informed and consulted by the multinational companies or groups which operate in Europe.
It is estimated that currently more than 1 100 multinationals, which employ approximately 15 million people, would be affected by this Directive and by its modification.
I agree with the rapporteur when he asks for and expects the Commission to amend Directive 94/45/EC, making information and consultation rights into a means for facilitating social dialogue as a key element of social and labour relations in the companies affected.
I also agree with him when he asks for the role of these participation, information and consultation bodies not only to be relevant at times of industrial transformation and crisis, but that they should be of a permanent nature in a global economy in which we see symptoms and characteristics of globalisation, and, furthermore, that the exercise of these rights be enshrined at the appropriate procedural moment.
And all of this is so that workers are guaranteed that their voice will be heard, not only at times of restructuring, but whenever decisions are taken which are essential to the permanence and future of the company and of their workplaces or delegations.
This is the content of the amendments I have presented and which the rapporteur has been kind enough to incorporate.
Every day we hear news of essential social importance which shocks us: all the delegations of a company are being closed in one or various countries; the company is studying a massive reduction in jobs; a merger is announced and the workers are wondering what will happen and how many will be fired or sent home, and these decisions are often taken for stock exchange reasons - to improve share prices - rather than for fundamental reasons.
Communication after the decision serves little purpose in these cases.
The company is an organisation, sometimes a community, with somewhat conflicting interests.
I would like to stress that the content of these rights must also refer to training, to ongoing learning, to health and to safety, to equality of opportunity, to the environment, to the incorporation of young people into the workplace.
All of this will make the company into a better-reconciled community, with less conflict.
This will increase productivity and increase employment, and will improve living conditions, thereby leading to a better Europe.
Mr President, many people are very concerned about globalisation.
They join forces in organisations, and the most extreme also throw stones.
In the meantime, the EU is blamed for making the negative aspects of globalisation worse.
I believe that the discussion we are having today and the discussion we had concerning the Menrad report in our committee demonstrate the very opposite.
They show that the EU can, in a very practical way, contribute to mitigating the negative aspects of the free market, in this case restructurings.
The EU cannot abolish these, and nor should it, for they are a part of a modern market economy and they can have positive effects.
However, we can try to mitigate the negative effects by properly involving employees in the process.
What we are doing today and what we shall hopefully do in the future by means of a new directive is, in a very practical way, to make the market a little more democratic.
The directive has already had an effect.
The Commission' s report shows this.
Works councils have been set up as a result of the directive.
As other speakers too have said, there are, however, many things which can be improved, and I hope that the Commission will allow itself to be inspired by Parliament' s report today.
Some of the improvements must take the form of cultural changes within companies.
Undertakings must realise that consultation and the provision of information are not a laborious and onerous duty but a constructive part of modern management and that creating partnerships also creates responsible employees.
At the same time, I hope that the Commission will lose no time at all in proceeding further with its deliberations concerning a new directive, and I should like to see an expansion of the topics on which employees are consulted.
I think that, in general, we must look at the position of our fellow workers.
We must understand that they are ordinary people from ordinary backgrounds who come together in the works councils.
They must be given time off work, and there is a need for premises, training and translation facilities so that they can carry out their tasks as employee representatives.
I also believe that employees must be able more readily to involve trade union experts.
We must appreciate that there is a need to improve their conditions.
A future directive might properly implement the constructive changes proposed by Parliament.
These are not fanatical and far-reaching changes, but very constructive ones, and I hope that the Commission will take them on board when it proposes a new directive.
Properly designed, the latter can be a further step in the direction of a European social model.
Mr President, I am pleased to support this report.
I have spoken several times in this House about the recent loss of 3000 jobs in Wales when the steel company Corus announced massive redundancies.
When the Employment and Social Affairs Committee held the hearing in April this year and workers' representative from Corus European works council told us that in many ways it was a model works council.
It met twice a year, it provided excellent training and it enabled experts to attend meetings.
Yet it failed to tell the workers that they were about to get rid of 6000 jobs even when there was massive public speculation about these job losses.
This report states that the main goal of the directive is to remove obstacles to information, consultation and communication with the workforce to enable dialogue to take place.
This is vitally important.
It must be more than paying lip service to consultation.
There must be a definition of consultation to ensure it is meaningful and comprehensive and carried out in good time, as others have said.
In other words this must happen before decisions are made and not after and there must be sanctions against those who do not comply.
I agree with Mr Menrad that we need a revision of the directive to prevent repeats of the Corus experience and to look at other issues he identifies such as the involvement of women.
I hope that this debate will help achieve that.
Mr President, I shall not vote against the report, for the sole reason that some trade unions are hoping that it will be adopted, whatever my views may be on their policy.
Even so, however, I shall not give my approval of the report.
In fact, in order to counteract a limited increase in the rights of European works councils, the report calls upon us to approve competition rules and the confidentiality of information.
The report also stresses that the role awaiting the councils is that of reducing the risk of conflict which may, the report claims, prove to be a factor in a company' s success, or rather, in an employer' s success.
In France, it is very clear that the final decision on all issues that affect workers' lives is made by employers.
Works councils have been rendered powerless, such as when Moulinex, Aventis, Danone and many other companies made unacceptable redundancies, or they are tricked into approving the employer' s decisions, or even into nominating the victims of redundancies, as was the case at AOM-Air Liberté.
Therefore, the only right which would, in truth, be a right for workers would be the right to employment, or a ban on redundancies, in other words, at least in companies that are making profits.
Mr President, the Commission was entrusted with the task of investigating the effectiveness of the European works council. The European works council has become more and more important: in 1994 there were 40, and in 2001 there are 650.
In this respect, the European works council has promoted a European awareness outstandingly well and has furthered the interest of employees in transnational measures and in acts of solidarity in exactly the same way.
However, there are problems; this we learnt during the hearing in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
It is totally unclear what is meant by appropriate information.
How can employees cultivate alternative plans if they receive information far too late? For example, if a radical restructuring of the company is envisaged, an enhanced consultation procedure must be provided.
Moreover, the European works councils usually meet once a year.
At least two meetings a year, if not three, should take place.
The European works councils must be able to get to know each other better. They must also understand the different mentalities.
The former is the condition for promoting solidarity and ensuring sustained action, and as always women are seriously under-represented.
Women do not even make up 10% of European works councils.
A great deal of motivational work is needed within the companies in this regard, and this must be expressed practically in votes later on.
I have spoken with many works councils - also within my constituency.
It is particularly important for them that we offer more training opportunities to compensate for language difficulties.
I expressly agree with Mr Menrad, who is in favour of language courses for EWC members.
Investment in training of employees is also essential - and I am thinking here of accounting regulations, employment law, social law - and we must work towards being able to say: What shall be on the agenda? The protection of health, the necessity of dealing with safety at work or the issue which Mr Menrad is always pursuing: employee participation.
The rapporteur succeeded in including 75 proposals from the Committee on Employment and other proposals from the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Indeed, he knew how to build bridges with us in the Committee, and 38 out of 38 were in favour.
May tomorrow' s vote be just as successful!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Menrad, for the timeliness and the quality of his report.
Social dialogue within the European Union is a crucial factor for European integration itself.
Hence the need to re-examine this directive on European works councils in companies that operate throughout the Community.
Since 1994, 650 European works councils have been created, in contrast to the 40 or so that existed in the past.
There is no doubt that this has been a success.
At the same time, great changes have taken place in the European labour market that require new responses and a stringent definition of the concepts of informing and consulting workers in companies operating throughout the Community, ensuring that this takes place in good time and under the appropriate conditions for a subsequent decision to be made.
The range of themes covered by this process of information and consultation must be further extended, and the range must also be improved in matters of particular sensitivity for workers as a whole.
Regular meetings for such a body are also necessary, for in around 85% of cases they meet just once a year, which is clearly insufficient.
The size that a company must be in order to be covered by this directive also warrants our attention, with a more reasonable threshold being required, a point on which we agree with Mr Menrad.
The provisions relating to the protection and rights of workers' representatives, who are freely elected by the workers, should be strengthened and there should be a balanced representation between men and women.
Currently, 90% of the members of the specialist negotiating groups and of the European works councils are men.
Lastly, I wish to emphasise that the procedure for informing and consulting workers can lead to a deepening of the relationship between employers and workers in all Member States, thereby contributing to the development of a form of European consciousness.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in April 2000 the Commission presented a report on progress in the implementation of the 1994 directive on the institution of a European works council for Community-scale companies.
The report has a relatively positive outlook, for today more than a third of the companies affected have implemented these works councils, yet it must be said that recent history surrounding certain redundancy programmes have made this process of informing and possible consultation more necessary than ever.
New draft directives have therefore been added to the 1994 text subject of this report.
With regard to these drafts, I think that three different courses of action should be taken.
Firstly, the inclusion of measures so that, within a reasonable time, the majority of companies involved would have a European works council.
From this point of view, the idea of lowering thresholds of employee numbers above which companies are affected does not seem very reasonable.
We should in all cases honour the 1994 Directive.
The second course of action should consist of proposing a global text that is a combination of different texts, rather than a stack of directives.
The third measure should be to guarantee that autonomy and freedom in company management are preserved from the time when these companies can completely fulfil their duty to inform and consult.
The report by Mr Menrad, while I appreciate the work contained therein, has not been able to avoid certain pitfalls.
It must be said that codetermination, a management technique favoured in Germany but in that country alone, has led him to accept socialist amendments from our fellow Member Mr Harlem Désir, amendments that our group had, upon my initiative, rejected in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
I am thinking most notably of the thresholds above which companies are involved and the institution of part vetoes using sanctions in certain cases, which I truly regret.
Regarding the Socialist Members, it must be said that they demonstrate a degree of stubbornness when they reject, for example with the postal or energy services, the Commission' s proposals with the view that what already exists should be applied, or vice-versa, as is the case here, to rely upon the widely perceived lengthy nature of proceedings to jump the lights when it suits them.
In my opinion, competition, the opening up of markets and the creation of an internal market go hand in hand with informing and consulting employees.
This is the reason why, with sadness but with certainty, I am going to abstain, if paragraphs 4 and 14 in particular are adopted as they stand.
Mr President, may I begin by saying that the Commission welcomes this report on the operation of the European works councils directive.
It will certainly form a very significant input into our review of the directive.
In particular I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Menrad, for the effort he has put into this report over a long period.
The report clearly reflects his profound knowledge of the subject.
I am also conscious of the time that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has devoted to this issue and in particular the extremely useful public hearing which the Committee organised earlier this year, giving all actors the opportunity to express their views.
The report acknowledges the overall success in the operation of the directive, while identifying a number of weaknesses.
The directive was the first piece of Community legislation to provide for a specifically transnational aspect of employer/employee relations and in doing so it broke completely new ground.
From that beginning we now have a situation where there are European works council agreements in 650 companies or groups in Europe, covering about 60% of relevant employees.
In each of those companies meetings are now taking place between management and employees from several Member States.
That would have been almost unthinkable some years ago and it is a considerable achievement.
Because of the inherent flexibility of the directive, this has been achieved notwithstanding the wide variation in employee participation and industrial relations systems in the Member States.
As the report acknowledges, the directive has undoubtedly contributed to the development of a European consciousness among employee representatives.
In acknowledging the directive's success, I should also like to acknowledge, as the report does, the role played by the trade unions, in particular the trade unions at European Union level.
Their input into and coordination of numerous negotiations has made a major contribution to the success of the directive.
To acknowledge the overall success of the directive is not, of course, to say that there have not been problems with this application.
The Commission's report to Parliament and to the Council in April 2000 identified a number of legal and practical problems relating to the application of the directive.
Parliament's report, prepared in response to the Commission's report, has elaborated on that analysis and identified a number of weaknesses in the operation of the directive and it proposes a series of changes to address those weaknesses.
Parliament may be assured that we shall examine all its proposals carefully.
A key issue highlighted in the report, one which, as the report notes, has been the focus of much public interest of late, is the clarification of what we mean by information and consultation.
We need to ensure that employees are informed and consulted at the right time, when they can still influence decisions.
The report highlights some of the cases where, regrettably, employees have not been properly informed or consulted on major decisions affecting their livelihoods.
Since I share Parliament's concerns on this issue and since I am determined to do all in my power to meet those concerns, I was extremely encouraged by the decision of the Employment and Social Policy Council on 11 June to adopt unanimously a political agreement on a common position on the draft directive establishing a common framework for informing and consulting employees.
The common position was formally adopted by the Council on 23 July.
As Parliament may be aware, the Commission's proposal for this directive contained comprehensive provisions on information and consultation both as regards content and timing.
I am pleased to see that Parliament's report has references to the Commission's proposal as a benchmark in this regard.
I know that Parliament is now actively working on its second reading of the draft directive to allow for its adoption as soon as possible.
There will be issues to be resolved between Parliament and Council, most notably on the issue of sanctions, a subject which has been raised by a number of speakers this afternoon.
This is an issue where the Council's common position is furthest removed from the shared desire of Commission and Parliament to see effective sanctions: sanctions for failure to meet information and consultation obligations.
Notwithstanding this, however, I believe that the political will now exists throughout the institutions to reach final agreement on this text quickly, thus putting in place a comprehensive framework for information and consultation throughout the Community.
Just as some of the issues raised in Parliament's reports relate to the information and consultation draft directive, so others - such as the role of trade unions, the issue of training for employee representatives and the length of time allowed to negotiate agreements - are touched on in the context of the draft directive supplementing the Statute for a European Company with regard to the involvement of employees.
I am happy that Parliament has delivered its opinion on this text so promptly thus paving the way for its final adoption, I hope, at the October Employment and Social Policy Council.
Parliament's report acknowledges - and it will be clear from what I have just said - that the revision of the European works council directive is closely linked to these two legislative texts currently under consideration, that is to say firstly on information and consultation and secondly on employee involvement in the European Company.
I have always believed that, because of that linkage, we should focus on finalising those two texts before addressing the revision of the European works council directive.
That remains the Commission's strong view.
But now, happily, we have the final adoption of those texts in sight and therefore it is my intention to be ready, as soon as the information and consultation directive is finalised, to address the revision of the European works council directive.
The first stage of that process will, as indicated in the report, be a formal consultation of the social partners.
Before concluding, may I give some brief replies to two specific questions.
Firstly, a question by Mr Désir and Mrs Flautre on what the Commission are doing to address the social aspects of merger control.
In brief, the answer is that the Commission has indicated its intention to examine the interaction between Community competition law on mergers and the social consequences of such mergers.
The second question was put to me by Mr Désir.
He asked about the Commission's plans as regards the timing of the revision of the European works council directive.
I would reply that the Commission plans to address the revision of the European works council directive as soon as the information and consultation directive is adopted.
The first step would be consultation of the social partners which, if conciliation on the information and consultation text is completed by the end of this year, could be launched early next year.
The Commission has consistently taken the view that the timing of any revision of the European works council directive is inextricably linked to adoption of both the information and consultation directive and the final adoption of the European Company statute proposal.
In conclusion, may I once again thank Parliament very much indeed for its in-depth and knowledgeable reports which will provide crucial input into, not only the Commission's thinking, but also the thinking of the other actors in this important issue.
Thank you, Commissioner Bolkestein.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Monitoring application of Community law (1999)
The next item is the report (A5­0250/2001) by Mr Koukiadis, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Commission's seventeenth annual report on monitoring the application of Community Law (1999) [COM(2000) 92 - C5­0381/2000 - 2000/2197(COS)].
Madam President, we should all look on the report on the application of Community law as one of the all important reports because this is the report which reflects the real state of the European Union, which measures its heart beat and how it relates to the man in the street on a daily basis.
This report is the first to be drafted for this new decade, which is also the beginning of a new century, and I think that it could turn out to be an opportunity to take a more integrated approach to the problems associated with the practical operation of the single market, the European Union as a whole, and the vision of enlargement.
In view of three new factors, impending enlargement on an unprecedented scale, the quest for the deepening of the European Union and the ever-increasing rate of legislative intervention, we need to radically rethink how we control the application of Community law.
This entire subject is inextricably bound up with the review of the Treaties and should be one of the top items on the agenda for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
The White Paper identifies the problems; all we need to do now is to see how we can resolve them.
Unless we eliminate delays in transposing directives and unless we forge a uniform interpretation of Community law, there will be no single economic area and it will be impossible to promote the idea of European citizenship.
A citizen from one country who goes to work in another country and has trouble getting his professional qualifications recognised feels like a foreigner, not a European.
Competition rules applied selectively in various countries adulterate European competition and so on and so forth.
That is why the question of the application of Community law must be a matter of concern to each and every one of us and why we must put it at the top of our agenda.
It is futile to spend hours at a time debating whether or not this or that amendment will get through and then do almost nothing to check if a directive is being applied.
Greater importance needs to be attached to this report because it reflects real life in the European Union.
A second line of approach taken in the report is to question what becomes of suggestions by the European Parliament from previous reports.
I have read several previous reports containing interesting suggestions.
I was surprised to discover that most fall by the wayside.
However, more importantly, the Commission report contains no explanation as to why these suggestions were not applied.
We need to find a way of ensuring that Parliament's suggestions are followed up.
The third basic comment is that, despite the improvements reflected in the data on the application of Community law, these improvements are not constant; there are reversals and the improvements are not impressive enough to appease us.
The general diagnosis remains the same.
We should therefore pay serious attention to this phenomenon and deal separately with the multiple reasons and causes for it.
I should like to use the time left to draw a few general conclusions.
The best rate of transposition is in Denmark, with an average of 98%.
As far as procedures for controlling infringements are concerned, we must remember that the control system as a whole is based on 4 stages.
Letters of formal notice, which constitute the first stage, ran into large numbers.
The three countries which received most letters were France, Italy and Greece, with 236, 160 and 154 and the three which received the fewest were Denmark, Finland and Sweden, with 40, 43 and 46.
The number of reasoned opinions, which constitute the second stage, was fairly small, proving that this procedure is effective for certain countries and extremely effective for others.
In all events, the relative reduction in the time taken to send out letters of formal notice and reasoned opinions is one positive aspect of attempts to speed up the control procedure.
As far as referrals to the Court are concerned, the number of cases of non-compliance again fell significantly.
Our general conclusions are as follows: first, there has been a gradual reduction of 35%-40% from one stage to the next; secondly, the order of countries committing infringements remains the same at all stages; thirdly, at the third stage the number of cases of non-compliance is marginal for certain countries, with other countries persisting; fourthly, the efficiency of control procedures should not be used to play down the fact that these procedures are used by the Member States as a way of delaying the date of transposition, thereby creating a new de facto transitional period.
The fact that certain countries with different systems constantly perform worst, while certain other countries perform best means that, basically, infringements are a matter of political will.
In other words, the problem of the application of Community law is a political problem and not a legal or technocratic one, as many believe.
It masks the clash between national sovereignty and European authority and reveals just how much the European conscience has matured.
Finally, the Commission has not analysed the circumstances or reasons behind these statistics.
I do not wish to take up any more of your time but I would like to say a word or two about the amendments.
I can accept two of the three proposed amendments.
I do not understand Mrs Thors' amendment and it requires clarification if it is to be accepted.
Mr President, it should not surprise anyone, particularly if they have any legal training, that the control of the application of Community law should fall to the Committee on Legal Affairs.
That is obvious.
I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Koukiadis on his kindness - and I would go as far as to say his wisdom - in including the conclusions of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs in his report.
I am speaking as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment, and this suits me because I would like to pose the question out loud, before you all, of what kind of Europe it is we want to build.
In 1996 in Turin, the French President, Mr Chirac, said that if Europe only makes progress along the economic route, the commercial route, it would be a failure.
He said that we had to deal with the situation of the Europeans, that we had to revive the idea of the European, and that that would herald the road to success.
Now that my country, Spain, is beginning to prepare for the Presidency, the competent authorities, the President, Mr Aznar, and the Ministers, talk every day about the idea of creating more Europe.
What does more Europe mean? Probably realising the contents of our Charter of Fundamental Rights, that is to say, a Europe which is concerned about Europeans.
That is why this report is important and essential, and I would like to highlight certain points in it.
Firstly, something that should be of concern to all of us - in the Commission and in the Council - and that is the transposition of directives, because it is precisely in the social sphere that a very low percentage of directives is transposed when compared to other fields or to transposition in general.
Secondly, there are certain especially sensitive subjects; our professions always accompany us and, as a works inspector, I am enormously concerned that in the fields of safety and health at work, directives are not transposed more quickly.
Thirdly, equality.
I believe that we must demand from the Commission more power to impose fines, which would have sufficient coercive effect, greater inclination to coordinate the different governments of the Member States, in order to achieve that greater coordination and, in summary, greater intensity in its activities, so that the principles enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights might become reality.
Mr President, our debate today is somewhat absurd.
After we had prepared the report, two important documents came from the Commission.
I am thinking firstly of the White Paper on governance and secondly of the communication on the Information and Communication Policy.
Having studied these documents, I am quite confused about the way in which the Commission intends to help us supervise the application of Community law and about how it intends to prioritise the issues concerned.
Where, firstly, the Information and Communication Policy is concerned, the communication says that the future of what is known as the European justice system is in the process of being looked into.
In sharp contrast to what is stated in the communication, we in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market had been given to understand that this network of specialised lawyers, which can provide people with advice and which operates at the Commission' s delegations in the Member States, was viewed as valuable by the Commission.
The June communication now tells us that the Commission is considering how the system is to look in the future and that the tasks of the lawyers concerned are perhaps to be transferred to national administrations.
Who, I should like to ask the Commission, believes that a national administration will help people obtain justice from the self-same administration?
Secondly, I am confused about the fact that, according to the White Paper on governance, there is a desire for 'networks of similar existing bodies in the Member States capable of dealing with disputes involving citizens and EU issues' , at the same time as an intention to improve people' s knowledge of their rights under Community law.
How does the Commission intend that we should monitor the application of Community law?
I believe that we need to do some serious thinking, and I think that the Commission could have been more practical when it came to how this very issue was dealt with in the White Paper.
Mr President, I wanted to speak in this debate on compliance with Community law because, as a member of the Committee on the Environment and the Committee on Petitions, I am familiar with non-compliance with that Community law, above all, as previous rapporteurs have said, in the social and environmental fields.
It is true, as my Spanish colleague said, that there is a low level of transposition in the social field of only 71% of directives, but it is even truer that in the Commission, on environmental issues, there is not only poor transposition, but flagrant non-compliance, which is the worst thing: lack of application.
This is something that we note every day in the Committee on Petitions, since it is the main form of non-compliance: 40% of non-compliances reported by citizens to the Committee on Petitions relate to the environment.
As Mr Koukiadis rightly says in his report, the right to petition is the principle par excellence of the recognition of European citizenship and therefore we should be worried by this repeated non-compliance in the social and environmental fields, which are so closely related to the rights of that European citizenship.
If we examine each of the petitions which reach the Committee on Petitions - naturally I am most familiar with the petitions which come from my country - we will note the enormous interest amongst European citizens in collecting information and perfectly understanding Community law in order to report non-compliances with great rigour.
We therefore believe that in the annual report a section should be dedicated to petitions, as the rapporteur rightly says, because it is in that committee that a real contribution to compliance with Community law is made.
Mr President, with 1075 formal notices, 470 reasoned opinions, 178 referrals to the Court of Justice - twice as many as in 1998 - the 1999 balance sheet for the application of Community Law is proof enough of serious discontent.
To tell the truth of the matter, Europe legislates too much and too badly.
It even manages to legislate in areas where it has no competence.
It did this in 1979 with the 'conservation of wild birds' directive and more recently, without any legal foundation, on the status and financing of European political parties.
If Member States drag their feet in transposing Community law into national law, if disputes have multiplied in number, it is because European regulation is often restrictive, finicky, unsuited to local realities and far removed from the worries of our fellow citizens, that is, when it is not directly opposed to their will and our republican principles.
Additionally, last year the French government proclaimed its disagreement with the 'genome' directive.
Mrs Guigou, the Minister of Justice, felt that this directive, was "incompatible with French bioethical laws, with the code for industrial property and also the civil code that prohibits the marketing of the human body".
Can we, in the name of Europe and its qualified majority, impose legislation upon a people who reject it? This is a fundamental problem.
Should we standardise everything and sacrifice our differences, our true European diversity? We do not think so.
In addition, in a democracy, it is not the business of the Court of Justice to create legislation through case law. It is up to elected representatives.
At the present time, MEPs, uniquely elected by universal suffrage, have no true right of legislative initiative, a monopoly that is jealously guarded by the Commission.
It is not by using the threat of fines and penalties in the unrelenting attempt to apply poor texts, as Article 15 so clearly wants, that Europe will solve problems.
Stubbornness has its limits and when a text is poor, there should be the clear-mindedness and the courage to change it, as we are proposing to do with Article 12.
It would therefore be a good idea to legislate less in order to legislate better, to respect national will and democracy by applying the principle of subsidiarity to the maximum.
For example, regulation on the transport of hydrocarbons is becoming an urgent matter, but once again it has been postponed indefinitely for purely mercenary reasons.
Contrary to that stated in item M of the preamble, we do not think that strict application of Community law will lead towards the emergence of an unwanted European nationality.
We are too worried about the respect of identities, of democracy and the right to difference.
Mr President, the application of Community law is the cause of an ever-growing number of problems, for according to the Commission' s own report, it has opened 2270 files on this subject since 1999, compared with just 124 in 1978.
This rapid increase is caused on the one hand by the constant proliferation of Community Law, and on the other hand, from the increased severity of a Commission that has at its disposal, since the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, effective instruments of oppression, notably Articles 226 and 228 of the EC Treaty.
The report we are debating today in the European Parliament adds further to this sense of repression, for it urges the Commission to use these articles more than ever before, to threaten Member States with fines or penalties to a greater extent, and even to propose a new system of automatic sanctions applicable to those who do not transpose Community directives quickly or sufficiently enough.
So why do Member States, who are supposed to have accepted the Council' s directives, drag their feet when it comes to applying them? This is the big question everybody seems to avoid.
As far as I am concerned there are three answers.
Firstly, a bizarre side effect of the extension of qualified majority voting causes institutions to have what I will call a type of regulatory illusion.
We think that because we have voted by a majority in the Council, everything is solved.
In reality, however, if members of the minority have good enough reasons and if application does not follow through on ground level, nothing is solved.
And to redress the balance, we launch Europe into a downwards spiral of repression that better consensus at the start would have prevented.
Second cause of non-application: the unsuitability of certain parts of Community Law, such as the 1979 Directive on the conservation of wild birds, toughened further by the Court of Justice behind the back even of the Council.
In a case such as this, which, take note, is from a unanimously adopted directive, what is lacking is the opportunity for an automatic revision to be made after a ten year period, at the request of a single Member State.
Finally, the third cause of non-application: certain directives are still not transposed or are badly transposed because the governmental representatives sitting on the Council wanted to turn over a new leaf in relation to Europe by closing their eyes to future difficulties that they of course knew would be inevitable.
This is for example what has taken place in France with Directive 98/44 on the patentability of living matter, which now proves to be non-transposable because it is contrary to several essential parts of our own law.
This is, alas, the usual behaviour of French leaders, up to the highest level.
Nowadays, we agree to sign such and such a European text, not daring to raise objections, and tomorrow we will have to deal with their application.
It is precisely this that has just taken place with the Treaty of Nice, and France will have a high price to pay.
Mr President, the rapporteur should be congratulated on his wide-ranging and important report and he has rightly identified the problems of transposition and application of Community law, mainly with regard to directives.
But we may have seen nothing yet, because we are moving into an era of new legislation - the era of co-regulation.
Will this in future form part of Community law, whose application and uniformity we should be looking out for?
In its White Paper on governance, the Commission states that co-regulation will not be appropriate where rules need to apply in a uniform way.
Nor will it be appropriate where fundamental rights or political choices are called into question.
Yet this year we had to produce Parliament's own-initiative report on the EEJ-Net, a European alternative dispute network set up by the Commission using a co-regulatory approach. Yet what could be more fundamental than our citizens' access to justice or the way that law is applied and dispensed?
Will we be watching every arbitrator and regulator to make sure that Community law is correctly applied? We have enough trouble at the moment with the normal judiciary.
We need to be aware of these issues.
They are fundamental to our citizens and also to the rights of this Parliament as a co-legislator, not to mention their possible fragmentary effect on the achievements of the internal market if they are not very carefully monitored by this Parliament.
Mr President, as has been said, the application of Community law does of course constitute nothing less than the decisive turning point in the European Union.
The EU stands or falls according to whether or not a common, effective legal system is established.
Community law, the 'acquis communautaire' and European unity are based upon European law.
However, the problem, which is illustrated very clearly in the Commission' s report as well as in the previous reports and in this one, is that there is no such thing as European law, any more than there is such a thing as a single European people.
There are profound differences between the different legal systems.
The Roman-dominated common law and the Nordic legal traditions are incredibly different on a range of crucial points.
Legal systems cannot, as it were, be transplanted like flowers from one pot to another.
There are a number of structural, or what might be called cultural, differences, and that is also transparently obvious from this report.
Paragraph D contains a statement well worth noting.
The European Parliament believes that one of the reasons for the poor implementation of Community law is the inability 'correctly to understand secondary Community legislation' .
I thought that this was a translation error, even though the translation services are well thought of, but we find the same turn of phrase in a number of other languages: 'l'impossibilité d'une compréhension correcte' , 'umuligt at opnå en korrekt forståelse' etc.
It is therefore impossible to achieve a correct application of secondary Community legislation.
That is certainly an interesting acknowledgement.
It might even be imagined that, as previous speakers have suggested, integration and supranational regulation have consequently gone too far, but that is not the conclusion.
As is made clear, using almost military technology, on page 11 of the report, the conclusion is that we must establish a system leading to the 'elimination of national opposition' .
If Community law and national legislation are inconsistent, respect for national legal traditions will decline, and this may perhaps be an explanation of why, not only in Denmark but also in Ireland and many other places, there is growing opposition to this system.
The report on monitoring the application of Community law that is before the House today is the seventeenth that has been produced in response to the request originally made by this House in a resolution in 1983.
These reports give, as the House knows, an annual record of the work of the Commission in discharging one of the most vital parts of its role as guardian of the Treaties by taking action against infringements under Article 226 of the Treaty.
It is obviously right for the House to scrutinise these activities.
The Commission is gratified by the fact that Parliament has given a warm welcome to this latest report and grateful also to Mr Koukiadis and his colleagues for their work.
Every year, each of the two periodical reports on suspected infringements produced before infringement proceedings are open and each of the two reports on established infringements that are produced after notice has been given to the Member State concerned cover some 2 000 or so cases investigated by the Commission.
The bulk of these are individual cases of incorrect application of Community law by the Member States' authorities.
Clearly it is only possible to deal with such a caseload with a procedure which combines the advantages of individual examination of cases, speedy processing and compliance with the principle of collective responsibility applied in the Commission.
The development of an efficient computerised system is also essential to fulfilling this task.
For this reason a single management database has been set up, covering all infringement files opened by the Commission and covering data on the transposal of directives by Member States.
One benefit of this system is that it enables the Commission to take action systematically against Member States which have not adopted national measures to implement directives before the time allowed for transposal is completed.
As the House will know, this is not an obsession with uniformity for some bureaucratic reason.
It is essential in the interests of equity across the Union.
The development of an efficient computerised system will also make it possible to report in greater detail to the public on the action taken by the Commission to monitor application of Community law whenever a decision has been taken to issue a reasoned opinion or to refer a case to the court.
The Commission is continuing its policy of issuing immediate press releases, which we first established in 1998, and in addition, since January of this year, decisions giving notice of an infringement, issuing a reasoned opinion, referring the case to court or terminating a case have also been published on the European Communities' Europa server as soon as they have been adopted by the Commission.
The peer pressure exerted by this greater transparency of decisions that relate to infringements by Member States may also help to promote more rapid conformity from Member States as they all now learn immediately of the decisions taken against each of them.
Greater transparency can also be seen as a guarantee of fair hearing of complaints.
The House will be aware that because the Commission has a privileged position in bringing infringement proceedings it therefore has a unique ability to safeguard the interests of complainants.
The guarantees offered by the Commission have been built up over time and they now mean procedural arrangements, which ensure registration of the complaint, strict confidentiality and information for complainants who may make their views known before any decision is taken to close the case.
We are dedicated to ensuring maximum strength and maximum dependability in these vital procedures.
In its reply to the Ombudsman on the criticism of the management of the infringement case concerning the award of the contract for building the Thessaloniki metro, the Commission has therefore pledged itself to consolidating the administrative rules for complainants in order to facilitate contracts between complainants and Commission departments.
Parliament will be informed of this consolidation as soon as it is complete.
The report adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market - which is the basis for the motion for a resolution before the House today - contains several findings and recommendations.
For brevity, I hope that the House will permit me to deal only with the main ones.
I begin by saying that the Commission does not agree with the report's conclusions that the growing volume of infringements handled by the Commission departments, in particular on the basis of complaints, reflects a deterioration in the application of Community law.
The main reasons for that are as follows.
Firstly, the overall volume of complaints and of cases handled is actually stable.
The number of complainants registered even dropped slightly in 2000.
Secondly, account must be taken of successive Community enlargements and the expansion of Community law, particularly in connection with the Community's wider powers and the growing public and business awareness of Community law.
These are all factors that affect the number of infringements handled by the Commission and on that basis the increase in the absolute number of cases handled is a positive development rather than something that should cause disquiet.
As Mr Koukiadis states in his report, it is important that every effort should be made to get to the root of infringements and find ways of reducing their number without relying exclusively on the standard infringement procedure.
As regards the interpretation of statistics in the annual report, the scope for interpreting the figures is still restricted because of the many causes of infringements, the Commission's great dependence on complaints and the political dimension of the work arising from the fact that proceedings are at the Commission's discretion.
The Commission is in a position to determine an order of priority for proceedings by reference to, firstly, the perceived damage to the Community legal order, secondly the perceived damage to the interest protected by the rule that has been breached, thirdly the recurrent nature of certain infringements which are the subject of individual or collective complaints and fourthly the harm caused to Community's financial interests.
In addition, topical events in any given area of the Community law can also trigger an increase in complaints to the Commission and cause the Commission to step up its action to satisfy the needs of the political agenda.
The various stages in the completion of the single market were a good example of that.
The increasing awareness of the possibility of infringement of environmental law is another instance.
All of these points are of course made in very clear terms in the White Paper, which is, as some Members have reminded us, to be considered in this House tomorrow.
It must be borne in mind that the national courts are the first guardians of the Community legal order and therefore the Commission deals with a relatively small proportion of Community law infringements.
It also has to be recognised that, since much of this law is made up of directives which have to be transposed into the Member States' domestic legal systems, once they have been transposed, the instrument concerned belongs to domestic law and any infringement must be dealt with by the national courts.
I know that is understood in this House, but I spell it out for the record in the hope that it might eventually trickle through to the understanding of the press in Member States and maybe eventually to the public, who are persuaded daily by the newspapers that there is a great centralising process going on in the European Union when in fact the opposite is the case.
The report from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market refers to the need to shorten the time taken to deal with complaints.
Naturally we sympathise with that objective and we are therefore contacting relevant Member States with a view to securing faster compliance with Community law and reducing Member States own handling times, particularly by greater use of the computerised system.
As I have already said, in the interests of greater transparency the Commission is now publishing its decisions to send letters of formal notice, to issue reasoned opinions, to refer cases to the Court or to close or withdraw cases immediately a decision has been taken.
I would also stress that specifically in response to Parliament's concern, the 18th Annual Report relating to the year 2000 will contain a specific section on the management of exceptions to the harmonisation which Member States enjoy under Article 95 of the Treaty.
The Commission also notes Parliament's concern about the need to improve cooperation between the Commission and the national authorities responsible for implementing secondary legislation.
As you know, there are regular contacts between Commission departments about specific problems with the application of Community law through package meetings and so-called directives missions.
However, the Commission is also looking at ways of improving the procedure for the notification of national implementing measures as an extension of the IDA programme for the interchange of data between administrations.
That work involves the networking of Community and national legal databases covering directives and national implementing measures and will also give the public easier access to Community law and assist with the training of lawyers in Community law.
The network will also provide direct access to the reports on domestic application of Community law produced by specific national authorities.
In conclusion, Commission action on monitoring Community law is crucial to fulfilling our essential mission of preserving the Community legal order, fairly, firmly, consistently, and with public understanding.
The active interest of this House in such activities is invaluable and we are therefore grateful to it for its continuing support and understanding.
Thank you, Commissioner Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Commission reform
The next item is the oral question (B5­0330/2001) by Mr Harbour and Mrs Guy­Quint, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the Committee on Budgets, to the Commission, on the reform of the Commission.
Mr President, on behalf of all my colleagues I would like very much to welcome Mr Kinnock here to discuss the reforms.
I would like to say to him that it is not through lack of effort on our part that it has taken a long time to get this question on the agenda.
It has been very disappointing that we have not made progress with the Bureau to elevate the importance of this discussion.
Nevertheless we will make up for it tonight and it is a pleasure to have you here.
Clearly the reforms - and I know you will be able to tell us much more about them in a moment - are at a critical stage.
We know you have been consulting extensively.
In a way that presents us with a dilemma in Parliament.
You will know from the support for my report last year that colleagues have taken a very deep and intensive interest in the whole package of reforms and we have given you strong support for them.
Indeed, we have been very conscious of the fact that these reforms need to be implemented as quickly as possible so that staff do not get disillusioned and they can see that change is ahead of them and new working methods coming before them.
We have made some suggestions that are reflected in the question tonight.
We do not want to disrupt that process.
On the other hand when you send us the elements of the Staff Regulations, as legislators we need to make sure that those changes to the rules are going to work in favour of good administration and not against it.
You made out the case persuasively, as it says in our report, that in many cases the current Staff Regulations are deficient in that respect.
The question we have tabled tonight goes to what we regard - and I hope that you will share our opinion - as the very heart of the reforms you are putting together.
The achievement should be an organisation in which advancement is on merit, an organisation in which all members of staff in the Commission know that they have clear goals, know what those goals are, know that if they meet or exceed those goals their performance is going to be fully recognised.
They should know that they work in an organisation in which appraisals of their performance are not bureaucratic exercises that are carried out every two years and put in a filing cabinet and not referred to again, that the appraisal process is part of the overall quality of management and processes within the Commission, part of giving all members of staff the feeling that it is part of their personal development.
It is setting them goals, it is identifying the need for training for development, for promotion and identifying the things that they need to do to contribute to the development of themselves and to the organisation overall.
That question of appraisal links very strongly to an aspect of the reforms about which we know you are engaged in heavy discussions at the moment.
I hope you will not mind if I mention that tonight even though it is not part of our question.
That is the question of career structure and your proposals to move to a linear career structure.
It is clear that appraisal and career structure are inextricably linked together.
It is my argument - and indeed that was expressed in my report and supported by colleagues - that if the appraisal and development system works properly there are no obstacles to achieving the linear career structure - and that is the whole thrust of what you are trying to do.
There should be no reason for setting artificial barriers to people's progress through an organisation.
If there is a need for qualifications or training to move to the next job the development process will identify that.
And so a properly designed and effective appraisal system, which we have asked you a number of questions about in the question we have tabled, is also linked very strongly to that move, and indeed it is the very foundation of a linear career structure as well.
My colleague, Mrs Guy-Quint, is going to cover all the detailed budgetary questions with her considerable expertise in that subject, but I would just like to mention two final elements of our questions, to set them in context.
The first is one that we have specifically asked you about as an aspect of a modern public organisation: a policy for whistle-blowing - and the English terminology is now being widely accepted as a very good way of identifying a policy where officials believe and are confident that if they find wrongdoing they can report it without fear of recrimination or their careers being affected.
The second links in with a debate we will be having later this week on the code of administrative behaviour: how do you see that as an integral part of the overall reforms?
In conclusion we very much look forward to hearing your responses this evening and also your reassurance that the reforms are proceeding to plan as you would wish.
We hope you will also identify ways in which you would like more support from this House in what is for us an absolutely crucial development for the future of the Commission and indeed for the future of Europe itself.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, following on from what Mr Harbour has just said, I will now very briefly talk about technical problems of concern to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
I would nonetheless like to tell you, Commissioner, that I am delighted with the advances that have been made in the area of cooperation since our last meeting in a plenary session.
In fact I, in addition to many other Members, regret that the Commission should make proposals and generate information, but does not really consult the other institutions, the trade union organisations or the staff committees of these institutions.
Now, since February, my prayers have been answered, because this procedure, thankfully, has been given a great deal of attention and has been widely listened to by the institutions you are currently consulting.
I know that you will notice that a wide consensus has been reached on many proposals.
On this subject, I would like to say something quite different to my colleague Mr Harbour.
It turns out that there are still two delicate points for us to consider in these negotiations.
To be precise, the structure of careers, that is to say linearity, or else the status quo, and also the pensions system.
If, recently, I understood you correctly, it appears that you are currently searching for a compromise between these two career systems.
It is my personal wish that a realistic and modern proposal will be found through your negotiations.
I would also remind you that as far as pensions are concerned, even if very often it is thought that a pensions system by pre-funding is the way forward, there are many of us, the trade unionists, employees and others, who think that the current system of distribution can be upheld or in any case combined.
I shall now come back to budgetary concerns relating to the reform.
Firstly, and as a matter of precaution, I have to remind you that the implementation of a system for early retirement has not received Parliament' s endorsement other than upon the specific condition of budgetary neutrality, wherever it may be implemented.
In relation to the entirety of the reform, we would therefore wait for, as soon as is possible, a complete document stating the budgetary aspect of the current negotiations.
It is therefore very important that the Committee on Budgets should have better knowledge of your current predictions on the global cost of reform.
In fact, in March we heard talk of EUR 500 million.
Today, EUR 600 million is stated.
In addition, further measures proposed and the demands of other institutions have put a large strain on the funds required for the balance of category 5, hence our concern.
Another element of doubt that makes the 2002 budgetary decision more complex is Council' s failure to respond to the 2001 letter of Amendment No 1 on the implementation of early retirement schemes.
If the Council still insists on its proposal to raise the age for early retirement, we have a question: what will be the consequences for your draft, and, more importantly, do you think that it would be wise to continue under these conditions? We do not currently have a document that allows Parliament to measure the consequences of these positions.
Although we are very attached to the idea of reform, we cannot make blind decisions on choices that are so technically, humanely and financially important.
To decide in this way would be like signing a blank cheque to the Commission, which is not in our nature.
To this day, we can only remark that the preliminary draft budget put forward by the Commission exceeds the category 5 ceilings of 5 million and that Council is now putting forward a draft budget where these ceilings are most certainly respected, with a margin of 58 million, but where all the policies of the different institutions would not, as a result of this, be respected.
The solution: should category 5 support the two largest projects - enlargement and the cost of reform - on its own? Should we continue these efforts solely on reform or also on enlargement?
In any case, we need a response.
Would it not be possible to extend reform over a longer period? On the eve of voting on the draft budget, we are aware that the responses you provide clearly depend on so many pieces of the same puzzle, but it is very important that you clarify matters in order for us to make a decision.
Mr President, I am very grateful to both Mr Harbour and Madam Guy-Quint for tabling this comprehensive question which permits me to make a full report to the House on progress with various aspects of the Commission's reform strategy.
As I hope the House will understand, providing detailed replies to every part of this oral question this evening would take up all the time allocated to the debate.
I am therefore making a full progress report on all individual reform actions available today to honourable Members in written form.
Perhaps some honourable Members will have received that full report and here I will concentrate on the most salient recent developments with the human resources policy elements of our reform strategy and I also refer, as requested by Madam Guy-Quint, particularly to the budgetary issues.
I first report, without any complacency, that in the five months since the Commission adopted the detailed consultative document on reform and modernisation of human resources policy, progress has been sustained and progress has been satisfactory.
The joint high-level group chaired by the former Secretary-General of the Council, Mr Niels Ertsbøl been particularly useful in facilitating a very thorough constructive and productive process of consultation with staff representatives.
The Commission has conveyed its warm thanks to Mr Ertsbøl.
In consultations and negotiations on the complex matters of personnel policy, it is natural of course that some delays have been experienced.
I am very glad to say, however, that they have not been of a nature or of a length likely to cause any severe disruption to the reform schedule.
As I previously emphasised to the House, and Mr Harbour has repeatedly and in my view rightly emphasised too, the Commission is aware of the need to sustain the momentum of change, not only in the interests of the institution but also in the interests of our personnel and of the public which we serve.
We are sure that we can maintain the necessary pace while simultaneous achieving the understanding and the support required for fully effective implementation of the essential changes.
Against that background, the Commission adopted a document on 18 July entitled 'New orientations for the reform of personnel policy'.
This has been communicated to Parliament but of course because Parliament rose at roughly the time we were producing that document, there was not an opportunity to formally bring it before Parliament at that juncture.
The document includes a timetable for the completion of the current negotiations.
By the end of this year the Commission will be in a position to adopt finalised decisions on all issues that do not require changes to the Staff Regulations and also to present a formal proposal for a revised set of Staff Regulations to the interinstitutional Staff Regulations Committee.
We hope that the intensive consultations undertaken with the Secretaries-General and Presidents of this Parliament and of the other institutions will facilitate the support that is essential to the changes that are necessary to fulfil, I remind the House, the clear reform mandate given specifically to the Prodi Commission by this House and by the European Council.
The Commission appreciates the supportive purposes of honourable Members in their reference in this oral question to implementation of the new career development policy ahead of formal agreement.
We advise the House, however, that such efforts would be certain to attract formal complaints and court cases and therefore lead to delays and indeed to unnecessary ill will.
We will therefore continue to fully observe the conciliation agreement which we reached with the staff representatives in March.
In any event, as the July timetable shows, discussions with Commission staff representatives will be concluded in the near future and many substantial changes in personnel policy that do not require amendment to the Staff Regulations will then be decided by the Commission and implemented immediately.
I am pleased to report that the basic objective of our February proposals, of which we are again reminded by Mr Harbour, of directly linking career advancement to proven merit has been accepted in the negotiations to date.
Changes in detail made as a result of negotiation and consultation have, I am glad to say, produced improvements in the proposal.
Details relating to these matters and to Mr Harbour's questions on benchmarking, appraisal, management and pensions are available in the progress report which I am circulating to the House today.
To save time I therefore turn to the concluding part of the question put by Mr Harbour and Madam Guy-Quint relating to budgetary matters.
Firstly I note the reference in the question to EUR 600 million as 'a cost reform' and I must say that the House is in danger of accidentally misleading itself.
It is essential to stress with maximum emphasis that a clear distinction must be made between the costs of meeting the Commission's carefully measured request for 717 new posts including 118 posts in Delegations, submitted in the amending letter last September, and the far smaller gross costs of investing in reform.
The new posts needed to enable the Commission to fulfil its policy and operational obligations to 2006, set out in fine detail in the amending letter and accompanying documents, will cost around EUR 542 million.
The gross cost of personnel policy reform to 2006 will be around EUR111.9 million.
The largest part of additional human resources spending is therefore not related to any significant extent to the design and implementation of the reform strategy.
I underline the fact that neither the request for Commission posts, nor any of the Commission's reform proposals, would cause a breach of the limitations set down under heading 5 of the 1999 financial perspectives and the Commission will fulfil the undertakings to stay within the limitations which we volunteered last year both to this House and to the Council.
However, as Mrs Guy-Quint mentioned, the House should take account of the fact - as a table I am also circulating today demonstrates - that recent proposals made by institutions other than the Commission would have the effect of significantly increasing the forecast rates of growth of expenditure on personnel and administration under Heading 5.
The institutions which are at present contemplating an above-average rate of growth in Heading 5 expenditure will doubtless want to give further attention to this matter.
It is conceivable that part of the estimates which they are making relate to the anticipated costs associated with enlargement.
That is a matter of interest and requires a focus from all of us.
The fact remains that, as things stand at the moment, any danger of breaching Heading 5 of the financial perspective emanates entirely, solely and completely from the ambitions of institutions other than the Commission and has absolutely nothing to do with the modest and temporary proposals that we make for additional investment associated with reform, which is a fundamental mission of the Prodi Commission, given to us by the overwhelming majority of this House and the unanimous decision of the European Council.
Although discussions with staff representatives are not yet concluded, the Commission wishes to emphasise that as examination of all relevant figures will show - and the relevant figures are in the documents that I have circulated today and in the document adopted by the Commission on 18 July - the increase in yearly expenditure under Heading 5 generated by Commission reform will be modest and temporary.
The figures published in the new orientations document in July show the maximum yearly increase due to reform - if the measures were adopted by all institutions - would be EUR 34.3 million higher in 2005 than in 2001.
Thereafter, after 2005, the cost will actually decrease, leading to permanent savings of EUR 23.5 million by comparison with 2001.
Taking those factors into account and in specific answer to the question before the House, the Commission considers that our reform strategy does not require that we request a revision of the ceiling of Heading 5 and we will not make such a request.
Obviously following from that, we do not consider that it is sensible or necessary to make what would be a false distinction between urgent and less-urgent aspects of reform.
On the question of staging the reform over a longer period, I simply remind the House that first of all, a substantial part of the House argues - rightly in my view - for sustained momentum of change, for the sake of our staff as well as for the sake of the institutions.
Secondly, it was the explicit mandate of the Prodi Commission - not any other Commission - to undertake and achieve the reforms in its quinquennium.
We certainly intend to do that.
At EUR 111 million, over four years, with investments that would result in actual cost savings, as we have demonstrated, none of the reform investment is expensive.
All of the reform investment is essential.
There is no question of our seeking or accepting a blank cheque.
Every argument that we have made, every figure that we have put, every proposition that we have tabled is carefully calculated.
We expect no-one to take anything on credit or on trust.
It is clear that negotiations on modernisation of the career system have led to a consensus about the objectives of changing the system and also about conditions for reforming the system.
Those negotiations have not, however, yet produced agreement on the detailed practical means of implementing the sort of reform that is needed to produce a more continuous modern career structure.
The prospects of gaining such an agreement are, however, very much alive, I am glad to say.
Over the past weeks in August, work has therefore continued in order to produce fresh and detailed models and options, which will be the subject of resumed discussions with staff representatives and with other institutions this month.
It is realistic to anticipate that by the end of October the Commission will be in a position to take a final view of the whole of the human resource policy reforms, including a career structure that is more linear and in the best professional interests of the permanent and independent European public service.
To turn such proposals into reality the understanding and support of Parliament, both as a democratic assembly and as an employing institution, will be essential.
I am optimistic that support and understanding will be provided.
As Mr Harbour reminded us, last November the large majority of this House gave support to his report which explicitly favoured the principle of making significant change - not the status quo or anything like it - in order to establish a more linear career system for the European civil service, for all the reasons he was kind enough to set out again tonight.
I hope that such a positive stance will be maintained by the House and by the administration which serves the House.
Negative attitudes would frustrate the will of this House that was clearly expressed by a huge majority in September 1999, in November 2000 and on several other occasions.
The reason that the will of this House would be frustrated by negative attitudes is that these would impede or prevent the Commission from making changes which are at the core of the modernising reform that has been explicitly required by the Council, by Parliament and by the European public.
I hope that the constructive and cooperative attitude to reform that has repeatedly been manifested by this House will continue strongly and consistently.
Mr President, I must talk about control issues, as I am sure Mrs Morgan will do. I would like to welcome her and congratulate her on recently becoming a mother.
Mr Kinnock, there is a Spanish phrase which says, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' .
You have a very difficult task and I have the impression that, in order to progress from intentions to actions, you must put your foot down and take risks, as President Prodi promised us when he began his five-year mandate.
There are issues of budgetary control which I would like you to expand on in your written reply.
I remember that, a year ago, you told us that eighty officials were expected for the central auditing service to begin work in full in April on an evaluation of the management and control system.
We do not know whether this is yet under way.
We do not know whether centralised prior approval is yet under way insofar as a high degree of experience in the authorising bodies has been achieved.
We do not know whether specific prior controls are operating, on the basis of a risk analysis and according to the wishes of the authorising officers.
We have great doubts, Mr Kinnock, about the future of the financial regulation, which must be created urgently. It will not be your exclusive responsibility, but we are very unclear about this.
We are worried. You are going to produce a new version.
When will this be?
What is happening with the Convention on the protection of the Community' s financial interests? What is happening with the helpdesk which you were going to set up so that the measures in the White Paper could be consulted by officials?
I could go on and on.
We have the impression that the task is enormous, that there is a timetable to be created.
You know that you have our support.
We want you to take risks.
We will support you if you make a mistake, as we supported Mr Prodi when he told us about it, but perhaps we need someone to put their foot down and timescales to be respected and promises to become realities, Mr Kinnock.
Mr President, when we embarked on this exercise all of us knew that the reform of the Commission was never going to be easy, it was never going to be smooth and it was never going to be quick, because we had 40 years of entrenched views and in trying to change that we were always going to have to overcome some problems.
Despite these obstacles, I have to say, having listened to the Commissioner, we have congratulate him on the progress that he has made so far and we also have to congratulate the staff trade union for having gone into negotiation and made headway in a number of areas of reform.
It is important that this question is down here because I would like to touch on a couple of points that some of my colleagues have raised.
Mr Harbour - rightly so - raised the question of timing.
Timing is important because, if you get the timing wrong, it impacts on the morale of staff and once the morale of staff starts to fall then that has an impact on career improvements, advancement, etc., and once that starts - they do not move forward.
All these points go together.
I was glad that Mr Harbour touched on the question of the linear career structure, it is a big issue and one that we have to face up to as the Commissioner is well aware.
I would add that I agree that whistle-blowing is now in the public knowledge.
However, whistle-blowing has a different ramification in the west of Scotland: it tends to indicates flutes and that does not go down too well in my part of the world.
I slightly disagree with my colleague Mrs Guy-Quint.
On the question of consultation: we have been consulted at every opportunity.
She did argue again for a more protracted period of reform, but as we said, if we spin it out longer and longer it impacts upon the morale of the staff and that impacts on the performance of the staff.
We have to keep this as short as possible.
The whole question of retirement: I was the person responsible for piloting the question of the retirement package through Parliament and it is a wonderful package.
I would love to be offered the same.
Can I say to the Commissioner, we heard quite clearly about the breaking of the Heading 5 ceiling.
We realise that it is not in the domain of the Commission and maybe it is high time that some of us were to look at some of the other institutions and how they were getting on with on with that.
In conclusion, we have made significant progress.
It is important that we are kept informed of the progress.
I am glad to hear what the Commissioner said, because only by that and by monitoring what is happening can we have an impact.
If obstacles do occur, we can then start trying to tackle them, here and in the other institutions as well.
Mr President, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party also wants to say that we very strongly support the initiatives you have put in place in the personnel area, Mr Kinnock.
It is no easy task you have embarked upon, and it is therefore important for Parliament to offer its full support.
It has, of course, been a widespread feature of society over the last few years that organisations have been obliged to re-think the way they organise their work in order to maintain competitiveness and exploit the opportunities offered by modern technology and public administration and, in so doing, give the electorate full value for their tax contributions.
Moreover, it is precisely the electorate that has a lot of difficulty understanding why the EU' s institutions maintain such a rigid and old-fashioned personnel policy in which promotions are made on the basis of very formal criteria rather than on the basis of effort.
There is no grass-roots understanding of why EU employees do not have to meet the demands for fresh thinking, flexibility and adaptation that apply in the rest of society.
In that connection, I should like, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, to support the Commission' s proposal for the linear career structure which has been mentioned quite a few times this evening and in which promotions are made on the basis of ability and effort.
I should also like to regret the fact that, in a letter to the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, the President of the European Parliament in actual fact went against Parliament' s own views on this point, as expressed in the Harbour report.
Moreover, I hope that this has not created too much in the way of difficulties for the Commission in the negotiations.
It is vital that the Commission' s reforms should involve a personnel policy that rewards commitment, hard work and adaptability, and that is something we must support.
Against that background, I shall look forward to the Commission' s compromise proposal for a career structure. I should also like to acknowledge the Commissioner' s pointing out what is creating the problems in Heading 5.
I think that remark was rather apposite.
Mr President, I have not so far received a report, either in Italian or English.
Maybe they are in my office.
But if I understood Mr Kinnock correctly, in his opinion the only way to respect the ceiling of the Financial Perspective is to abolish the other ten languages and just keep the language that I am speaking now.
My problem is not English.
My problem is that I do not want to speak only English with a mother-tongue English-speaking Director-General of the Commission, for example, and I do not want one culture to have excessive influence.
Mr Kinnock, two years ago, in September 1996, Parliament conferred upon the Prodi/Kinnock Commission a very clear mandate: reform.
Two years have passed since then, Mr Kinnock, and - as far as I am aware - the only reform which you have implemented is to take the gold medal for 20 years of service away from civil servants, which, in all sincerity, does not seem to amount to much.
In Italy, there was a Ministry of Public Administration Reform for 20 years, and then they removed the word 'reform' because it was becoming rather ridiculous that reforms were taking 20 years and it became the Ministry of Public Administration, full stop.
It would appear that this reform - and it is not by chance that Mr Pomés Ruiz mentioned the Financial Regulation - is, so to speak, just a castle in the air: we have been talking about it for two years but I feel that all the proposals are raising difficulties and a whole range of problems.
Therefore, I wonder when this reform will come to an end, when there will be an end to this discontent.
I am sure you are not unaware of the fact that the European officials are not too happy with the way things are going.
I am not going to defend them as a corporation, but I will say that this matter is serious because it was the task of this Commission to reinvigorate the European public administration.
In my opinion, rather than reinvigorating it, the Commission is scouring it out.
Mr President, we all know how difficult it is to reform an administration: it is basically a case of replacing the current equilibrium, which is grounded in the inertia and routine of years and of habit with one that is different; excellent in principle but uncharted territory and always experimental in practice.
This is, of course, a daunting challenge, and one that we welcome.
For this reason in principle we support, without writing a blank cheque, of course, the initiative for the reform of the Commission.
It is, however, worth remembering that this is not simply an administrative reform, but also a political reform, where in addition to the traditional balances it is necessary to be safeguard the traditional European institutional balance, in which issues of power are raised that cannot be dealt with in the same way as a reform of a more neutral nature.
So what is our main cause for concern?
First of all, we need to know whether we are heading towards a strengthening of independence and autonomy in European public service, and I can offer good advice to those taking the decision on this matter, or whether the discretionary nature of career progression privatises the hierarchical relationship, making a European official very similar to an official in a multinational company. Furthermore, on what objective criteria are these competences to be awarded?
How can we prevent merit from being watered down into benefits, into obedience to management, creating a structure of senior officials, some of whom will be quickly promoted, others more slow to rise up the ladder? And how can we prevent this polarity from taking on the form of national considerations, the defence of national interests, in opposition to the actual purpose of the Commission, which is responsible for protecting European interests?
These are the political risks of these reforms, our fears and our concerns. It is your task, Commissioner Kinnock, and it requires your integrity and intellectual honesty to prove that these risks, these fears and concerns are unfounded.
The onus of proof, however, is on the Commission and specifically on Commissioner Kinnock.
Mr President, I am aware of the fact that I trespassed on the patience of the House earlier in order to try and make a full reply.
I will now try to be as brief as I possibly can in response to the very good points that have been made by honourable Members in the course of this debate.
Perhaps if I try to go through the more salient points made and simply make the most brief answers that will assist the House, especially against the background of the fact that in their post today and probably in their offices already, there is a very comprehensive lengthy reply to every aspect of the oral question set down by Mr Harbour and Madam Guy-Quint and secondly a very full table of 23 pages going through each of the 98 actions for reform proposals and giving a detailed account of the state of play on each of those at the moment, whether those proposals have been completed and implemented, which several have, or whether they are currently the subject of consultation or whether they have been presented to this House, or to the Council, or both, for the legislative amendment required to put them into effect.
All the honourable Members, including Mr Pomés Ruiz and Mr Dell'Alba and others who have enquiries of that kind can, simply by referring to that table, get the most up-to-date information available to any one in the European Union, including the Commission itself.
In response to Mr Harbour's questions relating to whistle-blowing and to the code of good administrative behaviour, obviously we require changes to the Staff Regulations in order to secure the necessary advances on the existing legislation relating to the duty to report suspected wrongdoing that has an effect on the financial wellbeing of the European Communities.
The proposal has been made in detailed form.
We are now seeking the cooperation of the Council and Parliament in the course of consideration of the modernisation of the Staff Regulations next year.
I am optimistic that this cooperation will be forthcoming.
The result will be that the European public service will have the best and most secure provision for safeguarding the interests of staff and the institutions and the European public of any public administration anywhere in the European Union.
As far as the code of administrative behaviour is concerned, the principles of that code are already set down in the Staff Regulations.
In day-to-day practice, since we have implemented the code, the answer to the question on the oral paper today about whether the code of administrative behaviour is in practice incorporated in the activities of the Commission is yes.
On the career structure question, it appears that people have either adopted misinformed views or been given misleading opinions.
I assure the House that the intention behind the reform generally, and specifically the intention behind the proposals we have made in relation to career structure, is not to try to emulate some form of private sector multinational.
It is to establish, to make an assessment upon, to recognise merit and to provide reward in the development of an individual's career according to the very best principles of accountable, efficient, independent, professional civil services at European Union level.
No more no less.
If anyone is trying to give the impression that we are trying to set official against official, to destroy the contribution of loyalty made by officials over the years, to overlook the individual qualities of individuals by making the proposal that we do, they are sadly misled.
I am prepared to go into the most thorough detail in order to ensure that we do not get any repetition of the misunderstanding that has led to various communications that have manifested a complete failure to comprehend the purpose and detail of what has been proposed so far.
I am very glad to say that in the Commission the staff unions, or a majority of the unions representing Commission staff members, have gone into these issues in the most thorough detail and have actually developed attitudes and ideas that can lead to significant improvements on the original propositions and options that were put.
It is on the basis of that constructive dialogue and negotiation, which has lasted over the past five months, that we are now putting refreshed and reconsidered options which I hope will recommend themselves not only to staff in the Commission but to the other institutions.
There is nothing to fear and there is everything for the staff, the institutions and the public interest to gain by the modernisation of the career structure of the European Union institutions from the inherited structure which is over 40 years old.
Everything else in the European Union has changed and it is time that the career structure and the recognition of commitment and capability caught up with those other changes.
Can I say to Mr Pomés Ruiz that the answers to the questions that he has raised, for instance on audit, are available in a number of documents which have been conveyed to Parliament.
But for quick and easy reference, I draw his attention to the set of tables that he will have in his office today or at the very latest tomorrow - I suspect that they are there today - which will give him complete and up-to-date details on each of the aspects of reform relating to the establishment, development and operation, for instance, of the internal audit service.
Mr Miller refers to timing.
That is an apposite point.
Our commitment to sustained momentum is nothing to do with any desire to rush the Commission, its staff, Parliament, the Council or anybody else.
The point is that in managing very substantial change that affects our institutions and the people who work for them it is in nobody's interests to delay, evade, or unnecessarily prolong the deliberations.
Let those deliberations be thorough and the negotiations candid and well-informed.
But when the prospect of change hangs over people's heads it can be destabilising, demoralising and demotivating, which is in nobody's interests.
That is why we are not rushing.
These changes are being considered properly and democratically in a process of consultation and negotiation.
We have honoured every commitment on that and we will continue to do so.
As regards the early retirement package mentioned by Mr Miller, the package we have now has retained its attractiveness for staff and its cost neutrality.
We have kept our promises.
What we need now is for the Council to act quickly and effectively, because the increased efficiency and cost neutrality and the benefit to the operation of the European Union that can derive from the Commission's proposal last year could be drastically reduced or even lost altogether if any part of the Council prevaricates.
That is not in anybody's interests.
I take Mrs Jensen's point: what we are proposing is to link effort to recognised assessment and reward.
I think I have covered Mr Marinho's point relating to the nature of what we are seeking to do, which is consistent with principles of public service, but now I come to Mr Dell'Alba's point about language.
He is a Member of this House for whom I have great respect despite our political differences.
His point about language hegemony was a cheap point, which regrettably diminishes my respect for him, and what he says has absolutely no foundation at all in anything that I or my fellow Commissioners have said or done.
He might have intended it as a joke but I do not think that in the European Union of 2001 we should joke about things like that.
We have been told that, in the two years we have had as a Commission, the only reform has been to get rid of the medal for 20 years' service.
But when I look back over these two years I see that we have kept promises to establish, for the first time ever, an independent, professionally led and staffed internal audit service, a central finance service, audit capabilities in every directorate-general, an audit progress committee that bears comparison with any comparable mechanism in the private or public sector anywhere in the European Union.
We have drafted a new financial regulation which came to this House on time and to the Council on time and we are waiting for its enactment.
We have developed a strategic planning and programming system. It is capable, with the use of activity-based budgeting and management, of being implemented in the European Commission, on time, provided that we get the necessary support from elsewhere.
On time, in keeping with the promises we made on 1 March 2000 we have set out the most complex and extensive set of proposed reforms for personnel management and conduct in the European Commission and European public service comparable to the work that has been undertaken in the administrations of Member States over five and ten years.
It is a slur on the people who work in the Commission and the huge commitment that they have shown, in working 75 hours a week or more, month after month, to suggest that this Commission has done nothing in two years.
I will not tolerate that kind of attack on the officials of the Commission and the way in which they have demonstrated their dedication to the public interest by seeking to fulfil the mandate given to the Commission by this elected House.
We have not finished the reform.
It will be some time before we have even implemented the mechanisms of reform, let alone securing the changes in attitudes, conventions, behaviour and so-called 'culture' that will result.
One group of people really does deserve credit: the civil servants of the European Union, both those who have contributed to the design and development of the reform programme and those who, in a time of turmoil, have shown patience, understanding and commitment in thinking up the ideas, considering the proposals being made, suggesting improvements and showing the goodwill that demonstrates a high standard of professional commitment to the cause of Europe.
We will continue along that path, hopefully with the cooperation and constructive support of Members of this House and the Council.
But if in the end we do not succeed in making all the changes that are needed in the time available, one thing I want to ensure is that every tax-paying citizen and every voter in the European Union understands that a failure to meet the targets and deadlines is in no way the responsibility of the European Commission or the people who work for it.
The responsibility for failing to fulfil the mandate lies elsewhere - maybe with the very institutions that gave us the mandate in September 1999.
I would much prefer to be able to show people in the Member States that Parliament, the Council and the Commission heard and heeded the demands for change and modernisation and have worked together to bring about the changes needed to ensure that the citizens of Europe have the high quality, efficient, transparent and professional administration they deserve.
The Commission and its staff have committed themselves to that.
I hope that this House will continue to show the same commitment.
Mr President, I have asked for the floor for personal reasons to speak just on the language issue, for the rest is a political matter.
I read in La Stampa on 15 August that Mr Védrine and Mr Fischer had been complaining.
I wanted to make an understatement and, as the Commissioner has pointed out, it is difficult to make a joke in a language that is not one' s own.
I failed and I apologise. It was, of course, a joke, as the Commissioner said.
The rest is clearly a different matter and I respect what the Commissioner has said.
My comment referred purely to the first part.
Thank you, Mr Dell'Alba.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 9.52 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes from yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, a small error: in the English version of the Minutes, at the end of that section, it stated that Mr Napolitano is chairman of the CONT - I presume the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In fact, he is chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
We will correct that, Mr Corbett.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, I wish to raise a matter of a highly sensitive nature for this House and which affects the debate about enlargement.
It concerns a statement by the Turkish Foreign Ministry about Mr Poos' report on the accession of Cyprus to the European Union.
In that statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry makes an unfair and slanderous attack on an honourable Member who presented his report to the relevant committee.
The committee accepted the report as it stood with only two votes against.
I can see that parliamentarianism in Turkey has not yet reached the stage where they can understand what is in this report and what responsibility, if we can call it that, Mr Poos has taken on.
It is a report of Parliament.
I would therefore like to see Parliament respond to this unfair attack.
Madam President, to give you just one example of the bad taste, it says here in point 1 of the statement:
'Mr Poos is known for both his opposition to Turkey and for his personal links with the government of Cyprus.'
(DE) That is a slander bordering on the criminal.
I would like to see a response to this accusation from Turkey not from Mr Poos but from this House and also from the Commission.
Thank you, Madam President.
(Applause)
Thank you.
We shall look into this very carefully.
There are no other points of order.
I would just like to tell Mr Helmer that the officials are currently working to put the British flag back. There was a problem this morning with the British flag, which we are trying to sort out as soon as possible.
Situation in the Middle East
The next item is the Council and Commission statement on the situation in the Middle East.
Madam President, Commissioner Patten, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by apologising for arriving slightly late, but I have come straight from Brussels.
I would like to thank you for your understanding.
Ladies and gentlemen, as Minister Michel said when he spoke before the European Parliament' s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy on 28 August 2001, there has, in recent months, been an escalation of violence in the Middle East. The alarming result is the total collapse of trust between the two parties.
On the ground, this has created a profound sense of helplessness amongst all the people concerned.
Unfortunately, not a day goes by that is without bloody incidents and new acts of provocation, thereby indefinitely postponing a cease-fire, and an end to the infernal cycle of reprisals, all the while adding to the growing list of victims.
This situation, recently described by Minister Hubert Védrine as 'monstrous and revolting' , is naturally giving rise to grave concerns about stability in a region that is on our doorstep.
The international community cannot tolerate such an escalation for much longer. It must strongly condemn the aggravating factors, namely the terrorism and the suicide attacks perpetrated by Palestinians in Israel.
Apart from the fact that these acts of terrorism are an abomination in that they target innocent civilians, they simply encourage Israel to pursue an increasingly repressive policy.
Shooting at Israelis, whether Jewish settlers or soldiers, by Palestinians activists from Palestinian-controlled zones, and also the excessive and disproportionate use of force by Israel only fuels the cycle of violence.
Using combat aircraft in residential areas, launching missiles to systematically destroy buildings housing police and security services of the Palestinian Authority, and assassinating Palestinian activists are hardly convincing components in a strategy geared towards achieving peace and security.
Israeli military incursions into areas that have been transferred to Palestinian control are violations of signed agreements.
The closure of Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem, especially Orient House, and the seizure of files are political measures that are not very likely to appease Palestinians.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if we consider the current prospects of resuming a direct dialogue, where would that leave us? To start with, it is against a very worrying backdrop of the radicalisation of positions by the different parties involved in the conflict that the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, recently and publicly proposed resuming a direct dialogue with the Palestinian Authority in order to scale down the violence and to enforce a cease-fire, two objectives which have so far seemed out of reach.
During his recent visit to the region, the German Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Joschka Fischer, managed to obtain an agreement from the Palestinian leader to set up a meeting between Mr Arafat and Mr Peres.
It is hoped that this meeting, which will obviously require very careful preparation and preliminary meetings at intermediary levels, will succeed in overcoming the current security deadlock.
It is, in fact, to help with these preparations that the EU Special Envoy, Ambassador Moratinos, visited the region at the end of August.
Unfortunately, his mission had to be diverted very quickly from its original objective when fresh violence and tension erupted following Israel' s assassination of Mr Abdul Ali Mustafa, the leader of the Palestinian Liberation Front, on 27 August.
This assassination led to extremely violent clashes in South Jerusalem, where the Jewish settlement of Gilo is located, as well as in the Beit Jalla and Bethlehem districts, located in the border region of the Palestinian West Bank.
Under extremely heavy international pressure and through intensive shuttle diplomacy by Mr Moratinos, his security advisor and the team of European monitors, combined with direct telephone contacts between Mr Peres and Mr Arafat, a local cease-fire was arranged, prompting the Israeli Army to withdraw from Beit Jalla at the break of day on 29 August.
Also in the context of the preparations for a meeting and talks between Mr Peres and Mr Arafat, the High Representative, Mr Solana, assisted by Ambassador Moratinos, made a renewed visit to the region, arriving in Jerusalem on Sunday, 2 September last.
He will hold a series of meetings with the Palestinian and Israeli authorities on 3 and 4 September.
He will therefore be in a position to give the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the Member States his impressions and assessment during the meeting in Genval, near Brussels, on 8 and 9 September.
(FR) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to efforts made by the European Union, I would like to stress that the Belgian Presidency set itself three objectives with a view to helping resolve the crisis in the Middle East. The first is to promote a policy of impartiality, which is absolutely necessary if the European Union wishes to gain Israel' s trust.
The second is to enhance the role of the European Union in the region, in particular by making optimum use of the trust which the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana, has earned since taking part in the Sharm el-Sheikh Summit and in the drafting of the Mitchell Commission report.
The third is enhanced consultation between the European Union and the United States, given the key role that the Americans will be playing in resolving the Middle East issue.
Let us return for a moment to impartiality, whose principle and justifications are not always correctly understood.
Some go so far as to claim that the European Union must henceforth align itself with the Palestinian and Arab positions.
In my view, this is an aberration.
First of all, we should remember that one of the difficulties is precisely due to the fact that Israel is opposed to any UN involvement in resolving this conflict, as it believes that the organisation would be biased against it, because the 22 countries of the Arab League and the 55 members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference would outnumber Israel and abuse its numerical strength.
Attempts - and now it is a question of more than mere attempts - to compare Zionism with racism, as at the Durban Conference and, therefore, to transform the Israeli-Arab conflict into a racial and religious conflict, when in fact it is a political conflict requiring a political solution, will certainly not have helped matters.
Fortunately, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has personally been able to win the respect and trust of Israel, with his much more measured approach.
Next, still on the subject of impartiality, how could the European Union justify its preference for one of the parties in the conflict, when it is involved in a partnership with both Israel and with the Palestinian authorities? The European Union is, in addition, working with Syria and Lebanon within the Barcelona process, one of the aims of which is precisely to establish an area of stability, peace and prosperity in the Euro-Mediterranean region.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, the principle of impartiality is wholly in line with the Oslo accords. These accords rule out any action that could prejudice the outcome of the final negotiations in which the parties will negotiate directly with each other for the permanent settlement of the Palestinian question.
Having mentioned the aims of the Belgian Presidency, let us now consider progress in the recent efforts made by the European Union.
The European Union backed the report of the 'fact-finding commission' , widely referred to as the Mitchell Commission, whose recommendations were published in New York on 21 May 2001 and accepted by both parties.
The European Union also lent its support for the Tenet cease-fire plan that came into force on 13 June 2001 with the agreement of both parties.
We are aware of our progress with regard to observing this agreement.
In spite of this, the plan aims to increase security cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian security services.
In order to fill the vacuum created by the absence of any direct dialogue, the European Union agreed upon a strategy of ensuring a presence in the region through an uninterrupted string of visits by prominent political leaders.
In the run-up to the Belgian Presidency, Foreign Affairs Minister Louis Michel personally visited the six countries most directly concerned, during a six-day tour from 18 to 25 April 2001.
Since then, there has been a steady stream of foreign ministers, as well as the Prime Minister and Mr Solana, visiting the region. Most recently it was the turn of our German and Italian colleagues, and visits by the Irish Foreign Affairs Minister and Jean-Claude Juncker, Prime Minister of Luxembourg, will soon take place.
Despite having a very busy agenda, the Belgian Presidency hopes to be able to return to the region shortly, in early November, for example, if circumstances allow.
Madam President, I would have failed in my duty to acknowledge the efforts made by several institutions and key figures within the European Union if I also failed to highlight the extremely active role played by Commissioner Patten to ensure not only the financial survival of the Palestinian authorities but much more besides.
Of course, he does much more than that. Clearly - and I cannot stress this enough - the European Union has hereto been the most important donor for the region and the Palestinian Authority and, without our financial assistance, without the imagination and ingeniousness that we have to use to continue to supply the authorities with adequate funding to enable it to function, the situation would be infinitely more difficult.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the General Affairs Council meeting of 16 July 2001, the European Union clearly set out what it expects of the parties involved.
So as to ensure that peace returns to the region, the European Union said that it was particularly in favour of the principle of establishing an impartial monitoring mechanism, considering that such a mechanism would be in the interests of both parties.
This proposal was included in the brief statement made by the Heads of State on 21 July 2001, at the end of the G8 Summit in Genoa, which I should mention at this point.
The Fifteen are continuing to reflect on the means of implementing this mechanism.
Lastly, the Presidency, on behalf of the Council, has of course issued statements whenever it was deemed to be necessary.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to say in conclusion that this insane cycle of killings - and there is no other way to describe it - carried out by the continuing violence and terrorism is proving with each passing day to be totally ineffectual as a way of resolving the crisis.
The serious deterioration in the security situation and the complete lack of trust between the two parties probably render unlikely any prospect of seeing the protagonists putting an end to their conflict by themselves.
Outside help now appears essential.
With this background, an impartial monitoring mechanism, even on a small-scale, would be in the interests of both parties as a means of ensuring full implementation of the Tenet plan and the full and immediate application of the recommendations of the Mitchell Commission, respecting its deadlines and the planned order of events.
(NL) In the meantime, it is the responsibility of both parties to ensure that calm is restored.
This means that they must each review their attitudes.
On the one hand, the Palestinian Authority must adopt measures to stem the flow of violence and terrorism, without which any attempts to relaunch a political process would fail.
For its part, Israel must create conditions that will favour a return to the negotiating table, mainly by lifting at the earliest opportunity all restrictions imposed on the Palestinian population.
The so far very local cease-fire which the parties agreed upon on 28 August for the Beit Jalla/Bethlehem-Gilo sector and which is being complied with must be consolidated and extended to include other hotspots of conflict and tension in the Gaza Strip and on the West Bank.
The creation of direct dialogue must allow the parties - provided that the situation on the ground becomes stable -to gradually make the transition from a crisis management scenario to a crisis resolution scenario.
In my opinion, the immediate aims of this direct dialogue are the gradual extension and observation of the cease-fire.
This should occur sector-by-sector as it were, together with the improvement of the living and working conditions of the Palestinians.
(NL) This alone, however, is not sufficient.
Alongside this, it should also be possible to offer a political perspective very promptly.
This political prospect is set out in the Mitchell report which, in turn, should only be viewed as an intermediate stage towards the eventual relaunch of negotiations on a permanent status for the Palestinian regions.
It is high time we returned to the letter and spirit of the Oslo Accords.
It should be remembered that those Accords paved the way for significant progress, which must be safeguarded at all costs.
The problems that have arisen are less the result of the imperfections of those Accords than the product of the failure of the parties to scrupulously apply all aspects of the Accords.
(FR) Lastly, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, although the intensive and so-called final negotiations, which took place between July 2000 and January 2001, in locations ranging from Camp David to Taba, were not able to secure a framework agreement due to, on the one hand, mistakes made by all the parties involved and also because of artificially restrictive timetables, I still cannot stress enough the bold progress that was made in mapping out possible solutions to extremely delicate and highly complex issues of truly vital importance to both parties.
It will, of course, be very hard to climb that mountain again, but priority must be given, firstly to restoring the trust lost by both parties, and also to the chances of achieving a satisfactory negotiated solution.
That is why, instead of the current climate of pessimism that is now so deeply ingrained in public opinion shaken by the crisis, the leaders on both sides must quickly build new hope for a better future based on security, mutual respect and peace.
Only a political process - one which finally results in the exchange of land for peace, puts an end to the occupation and allows the emergence of a sovereign, viable, democratic and peaceful Palestinian state that is committed to coexisting alongside Israel, and is therefore also willing, of course, to acknowledge this right to coexist with Israel - only this situation can finally give Israel and, more importantly, the region as a whole the security, stability and peace, to which their people aspire.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot resign ourselves to the logic of war and violence developing in both parties.
The going will be tough, but we must get going.
(Applause)
I would like to thank Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck and I shall now give the floor to Commissioner Patten.
Madam President, the Minister has set out with great clarity and comprehensiveness the situation in the Middle East at the moment and, as the Minister has said and everyone in Parliament knows, the situation in the region has gone from bad to worse and threatens to become worse still.
In considering what I should say this morning I was struck once again, by the difference between the strength of the adjectives and the nouns that we use to describe the situation and the strength of the verbs we use in trying to resolve it.
It really is an intensely difficult problem.
The continuing violence - according to the news this morning there has been another suicide bombing in Jerusalem - and the endless recriminations and refusal of the parties to rise above their grievances and choose the path of peace is not only profoundly regrettable but also frustrating for everyone in the international community who is trying to find a way out of the current impasse.
Both parties, as the Minister said earlier, have failed to seize the opportunity offered by the recommendations of the Mitchell report, offered again in the Tenet plan.
But again we come back to the point that there is no better basis for an end to the violence, for laying the foundations for a peaceful and prosperous future, than Mitchell.
What is the alternative?
The alternative is more bloodshed, with an international dispute turned into a bitter feud and continuing collateral damage internationally, as we are seeing this week at the conference in Durban.
So what can the European Union do in these circumstances? The Minister has explained, very clearly the extremely important role the Presidency has been playing, trying to mobilise international opinion around proposals which offer a way forward.
The Minister has also noted the efforts made by all the European Union foreign ministers and, of course, Javier Solana, who has been attempting to bring Israelis and Palestinians together and to get them to return to the negotiating table.
We obviously have to continue to urge all concerned to implement all and not just some of the recommendations of the Mitchell report immediately.
We will go on doing that and delivering that message.
We must also urge the parties to reduce the level of distrust which has been built up in recent months.
They must reaffirm their commitment to the fundamental long-term goals of the Middle East peace process, secure borders for Israel through the negotiated establishment of a viable Palestinian state on the basis of the relevant UN resolutions.
Palestinian leaders must make clear day-by-day their unequivocal condemnation of and opposition to attacks on the innocent and violence in all its forms.
It is sometimes suggested by critics that we in the European Union have not been sufficiently strong in our condemnation of terrorism.
That is a grossly unfair criticism.
For example, in its statement after the attack in Jerusalem on 9 August the Presidency unreservedly condemned the bombing of a Jerusalem shopping centre and it abhorred that cowardly attack, which mainly claimed the lives of innocent civilians.
After the attack in Haifa on 12 August, the Presidency once again put out a statement condemning recent suicide bomb attacks in the strongest terms and pointing out that these attacks targeted at Israeli citizens are hateful and repugnant in the extreme.
So we have made clear our opposition to terrorism in all its manifestations, but if we are to stand a better chance of ending the cycle of violence and weakening the position of radical forces. Palestinians need to be able to see a real prospect of an improvement in their daily lives.
This should include the implementation of existing agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.
For a start, the lifting of the closures, the transfer of tax revenues, safe passage between Gaza and the West Bank, reopening of the airport and creating export facilities that will allow Palestinians to benefit from their agreements with the European Union and with other partners.
I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anybody should suppose that further impoverishment of the Palestinian territories and increased employment among young Palestinians can have anything to do with the restoration of security.
I am sure that we all took away rewarding reading matter during our summer break.
I spent a good deal of my summer reading about the 1930s and about the relationship between economic impoverishment, economic hardship and political extremism in country after country.
We must go on reiterating the point that trying to do so much damage, putting such a tough squeeze on the Palestinian territories, is not to restore security or the way to lay the foundations for a future in which both parties can live happily and amicably together.
(Applause)Third-party monitoring of the proper implementation of those agreements and a functioning dispute settlement mechanism would obviously help to address Palestinian frustration with the current non-implementation of existing agreements.
All this would help to bring about a revival of the Palestinian economy, give Palestinians a stake in their own futures and improve the prospects for a better future to be achieved by political negotiations.
These efforts need to be supported by a range of confidence-building measures to overcome the current deep distrust, not only between the leading politicians, but also between the two peoples.
This is an area in which Parliament has quite rightly taken a particularly strong interest.
I want to remind Parliament that in the past two years alone the Commission has allocated about EUR 50 million to peace-building programmes fostering Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian cooperation in particular.
These programmes promote peace through joint projects and awareness campaigns for tolerance and peace.
We have an important role to play in supporting the voices of moderation wherever they exist.
The sad fact is that the longer this dreadful situation continues the fewer moderates there are going to be, but they show considerable courage in their own communities and they deserve our continuing support.
The Commission stands ready to use all the instruments available to it to help alleviate the very severe financial difficulties facing the Palestinians.
Our package of support for the Palestinian authority is a successful example of how the European Union can deliver assistance in a sensible, fast and effective manner and I am extremely grateful to Parliament for its support in our work.
European support for the Palestinian Authority budget is secured until November and the Arab states are currently considering extending their budgetary support until the end of the year.
It is still too early for any concrete announcement regarding further Commission intervention.
We have just reached mid-term in our current support operation and we are awaiting Palestinian compliance with a number of conditions to be followed by an evaluation and assessment of the pretty grim macroeconomic and fiscal outlook.
Palestinian needs in 2002, and the contributions of other donors will have to be looked at in the context of an assessment of the economic situation in the Palestinian territories currently being carried out by the World Bank.
It is expected that this exercise will be concluded by the end of September.
Once these data are available, the Commission will consider how best we can contribute further to international efforts.
Of course, we will keep in the closest touch with Parliament about our assessment of the financial requirements of the Palestinian authority and about our continuing determination to ensure that even in the present appalling circumstances our financial assistance depends, as far as the Palestinian side is concerned, on transparency, proper budgetary prudence and a commitment on the Palestinian side to fight corruption.
Those are all points that have all been made to us by Members of this House and they underlie our determination to secure a proper agreement between ourselves and the Palestinians before we started releasing money in budgetary support.
In the meantime, I can only repeat what the Minister said so ably a few moments ago.
What is required is a recommitment to Mitchell as rapidly as possible.
Unless we see that, the situation will get even worse, with considerable damage right across the region.
(Applause)
I would like to thank Commissioner Patten and I shall now give the floor to Mr Galeote Quecedo.
Madam President, it is true that the situation seems to have settled into a horrendous vicious circle in which there are threats and acts of violence from both sides, such as the attack just a few hours ago in West Jerusalem.
We should all be wondering how we have been able to get into this situation, when, in January of this year, the then Labour Government of Israel put forward a peace proposal which today seems almost unimaginable.
However, the Prime Minister, Mr Sharon, could also be asking himself whether the sense of insecurity which his compatriots are feeling today is greater or less than before he won the election comfortably.
Yasser Arafat could also be asking himself whether his people are living better or worse than eleven months ago when the Intifada began.
I do not believe that we should be attributing blame here and I do not think we should be indulging in a simplistic reading of the events, but there is no doubt that the break-up of the negotiations has had a profound effect on Israeli and Palestinian public opinion.
In Israel this has meant that broad sections of the left in that country, above all those who were most involved in the negotiations at Sharm El Sheik, Camp David and Taba, are deeply disappointed in the Palestinian leader.
This emotional reaction is combined with a more reflective reaction from some representatives of the right in Israel who agree on denying Mr Arafat the opportunity to negotiate.
My group, Madam President, believes that this attitude is profoundly mistaken and that it in no way contributes to a recovery of the peace process.
In the current circumstances it may be that Mr Arafat still has additional room for manoeuvre in terms of halting the violence, but he surely has less than the Israeli authorities are demanding of him.
And, in any event, there is not the slightest sign on the horizon of any alternative possibility of negotiation on the Palestinian side.
There is clearly nothing edifying about the situation of the Palestinian territories, whose citizens are living with a sense of humiliation and indignity, which is fertile ground for radical fundamentalism.
But now more than ever the Palestinian Authority should demonstrate that it is prepared to comply with, and ensure compliance with, a peace agreement which in no way is going to fulfil all their aspirations.
Despite the pessimism reigning on both sides, or perhaps because of it, the role of the international community is now essential.
The European Union now has a broader margin for action, which it must exploit through specific contributions, using its economic influence in the area for political ends, ensuring that its development aid is applied to projects which bring specific benefits to the population and that, of course, it is coherent with the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and creating better and closer coordination with the negotiating forces of the US Government.
Madam President, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Madrid Conference, the European Union must recover the principle of 'peace for land' , which inspired the peace talks.
Like ten years ago, we Europeans now have to double our efforts, and my parliamentary group would therefore like to ask the Belgian Presidency to propose to the Council that we need to reinforce the team of our Special Representative, Mr Moratinos.
(Applause from the right)
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to express, on behalf of the Socialist Group, our condolences for today' s latest victims and begin by stating one fact: that we have returned in terms of rhetoric and actions to a situation which had begun to unravel after the Madrid Conference.
I am not going to give a lengthy description of what is happening.
I do believe that we Europeans should consider ourselves committed to and involved in this process.
I prefer to talk about this than about equidistances, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, because there is no total equidistance between a consolidated, sovereign and democratic State such as Israel, and a possible embryonic State for a people which do not yet have a homeland.
I believe that that is an important element to which we should add - as a message to Mr Sharon' s government - that the policy of 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' brings nothing but disaster.
We Europeans know something about this, because it is precisely that policy which we have abandoned by means of the European Union.
Furthermore, economic and human asphyxia is not the way to resolve the conflict and a policy of this type only serves to reinforce the extremists on both sides.
I therefore believe that, from the position of friendship that we feel for Israel, we must express this clearly.
Secondly, Madam President, for the first time we Europeans are signatories of an agreement.
We were at Sharm el-Sheik and the High Representative is currently in Jerusalem.
Our Foreign Affairs Ministers, Mr Fischer, Mr Michel and Mr Ruggiero, are visiting the area and I believe that this also demonstrates our European will.
I believe that we do not just have to express political will, but that Parliament has to help to find the light at the end of this tunnel.
That is why I proposed to the Conference of Presidents - and it has been accepted - that, instead of producing a resolution today, in the heat of the moment, without knowing the result of the consultations, we use the weapon granted us by the Treaty of Maastricht and produce a recommendation so that the Committee on Foreign Affairs can assess whether or not there is any progress throughout this month.
I believe that in this game of lethal symbols which the Israel and the Palestinians are engaged in, we should also ask for positive symbols.
One of them, which seems to me important, is that Orient House in Jerusalem be reopened, because it has always been a platform for peace.
I must remind you that, as President of the European Parliament, I had the opportunity to visit Orient House.
Nothing will be achieved by removing all the bridges to dialogue.
Lastly, Madam President, in the middle of this dramatic crisis, it is cause for hope that there are Israeli and Palestinian voices which have the civic and political courage to sign a joint manifesto.
I am referring to the appeal made jointly by some of the protagonists of the peace processes of recent years, for example Mr Beilin and Mrs Ashraui, who have signed a manifesto - I have the original text in English - in which, under the title "No to bloodshed, no to occupation, yes to negotiation, yes to peace" they say something which the directorate of the Party of European Socialists decided to jointly support at its meeting on Sunday.
I will quote a section of this manifesto which, in my opinion, sums up the will which we have to apply to this process.
It says the following: "We still believe in the humanity of the other side, that we have a partner for peace and that a negotiated solution to the conflict between our peoples is possible".
That is the approach which we Europeans have to support.
We must ask the Americans to be more active and to try once again to guide the people of the region.
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I am not going to insist on the seriousness of the situation or of the escalation.
However, I would like to insist on what Commissioner Patten has said: the violence has not perhaps reached the level it could reach.
Sometimes we say 'things cannot get any worse' , but in this case the situation could get worse.
Therefore, our obligation is not only to resolve the problem but, of course, to prevent it getting any worse.
However, apart from the fact that we are trying to put an end to the violence by means of dialogue, I believe that I should add certain aspects, directly related to human rights, to what previous speakers have said.
Of course, the fact that there are innocent victims represents a direct attack on human rights.
It is therefore necessary to point out specifically and to insist, both to Israel, which frequently uses disproportionate State force, and to the Palestinians, who do not control their activists, that human rights are continually being affected.
I believe that the European Parliament should currently be sensitive to the fact, condemned by certain NGOs, that four Palestinians may be executed if Yasser Arafat does not commute the sentences handed down for internal activities within the Palestinian area or for collaboration.
I believe that this Parliament should try to prevent these executions.
Recovering dialogue: I would like, in the time available to me, because everything is getting worse and, of course, the Durban Conference has merely exacerbated the situation, to mention what I believe are the eight issues to which we should lend clear support.
Firstly, I believe that the priority should be to resolve the problem of impartiality.
I agree that impartiality is not the same as equidistance, Mr Barón, I agree with you.
I believe that impartiality is a necessary concept, but in politics impartiality is often not achieved without equidistance.
Therefore, equidistance may be an instrument, although I do not doubt that the objective is impartiality.
I believe that it is urgent and important to recover impartiality towards everybody, in particular towards Israel.
Secondly, we must clearly insist on the mission of impartial observers from the European Union.
Thirdly, the Mitchell report must continue to be the direction we take.
There is no other, at the moment at least.
Fourthly, we must prevent the inappropriate use of the Barcelona Process for the Middle East conflict.
The Barcelona Process suffers with the Middle East Conflict but it is not the appropriate course for resolving that conflict.
Fifthly, we must insist on the need for the United States and Russia to participate.
The sixth issue is that we must clearly promote as far as possible every type of contact, as is happening at the moment.
The seventh issue is that the actions of the Ministers, of the Commission and of the Council must be aimed at promoting dialogue between Mr Arafat and Mr Peres, between Palestinians and Israelis.
And in this regard, Madam President, we keenly await the report to be presented by Mr Solana and which Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck has announced.
Finally, and here I agree with Mr Barón Crespo, any symbol is positive; any possibility, such as the opening of Orient House, is positive; anything which will stop the conflict escalating is important and the essential thing is to return to peace and dialogue.
Madam President, the most tiresome political debates are the ritual political debates.
Debates in which everyone acknowledges the seriousness of the situation and subsequently repeats what they said last time.
The debate on the Middle East threatens to become something of a ritual debate.
We too, in Parliament, are always asking for the European Union to play a more active role.
The Council and the Commission subsequently respond: we are making every effort, but we cannot do anything alone and there is division in the ranks.
This position was expressed most clearly by Mr Michel last week.
It is clear to us, including myself, that diplomatic success is impossible without the United States.
But what is the United States doing? In this connection, I would concur with Mr van den Broek, the predecessor of Mr Patten as Commissioner for External Relations, who said that the United States is, in fact, pursuing a declaratory policy.
It says that things should be done differently.
It calls on the parties to stop what they are doing, and then nothing happens.
If the European Union wishes to adopt the same policy, that should be made clear, and we should then no longer talk about the European Union' s playing an active role in the Middle East.
In this debate, I should like to make a fresh attempt to break the deadlock, in this case the ritual debate, by invoking the European Union' s economic role.
If the truth be told, I am getting a little tired of the response by the Commission and Council who say: Mr Lagendijk, economic sanctions are ineffective.
As Mr Michel said last week: we know where we start but we do not know where we finish.
What I want, the appeal that I am making, is not for economic sanctions à la Iraq.
That is not what I want at all.
What is important is that it is unacceptable for the European Union to carry on as we have always done while the region is under threat of war.
We are doing business with the Israelis and are simply the Palestinians' largest donor.
We cannot continue as if nothing were wrong, while the region is on the brink of war.
I only want to know, and I am addressing this question to the Commission and the Council, whether you would be so kind as to examine the options - and I am choosing my words carefully - for trying, via the economic ties we have with both parties, and I emphasise 'both' parties, to apply pressure in order to bring the parties back to the negotiating table. I was, from that point of view, pleasantly surprised that Mr Van den Broek, Mr Patten' s predecessor, thinks along the same lines.
I appreciate that this is difficult.
It might even be impossible.
However, it would be unacceptable if the use of financial instruments by the European Union were ruled out.
The Council and the Commission have repeatedly stated that they are willing to make every effort to break the deadlock.
In my opinion, this includes that instrument too.
Even if it is painful, I do hope that the European Union does not make the same mistake as the United States, namely say that something must be done and subsequently do nothing.
(Applause from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance)
Madam President, the Middle East is currently experiencing its darkest period since, or even before, the signing of the Oslo Accords.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, in this context, it does not make much sense to talk of a policy of impartiality.
We are not taking sides against Israel by condemning outright the policy of its current government. This was a policy that the statesman Yitzhak Rabin had the insight and courage to turn his back on, an action which cost him his life.
Sadly, now that all prospects of a just peace for the Palestinian people have been dashed, bloody attacks are being made on innocent Israeli civilians, which exceed the boundaries of legitimate resistance by an occupied people.
These intolerable actions only serve to increase the hatred and feelings of vengeance.
A vicious circle was precisely what we feared most in the event of Ariel Sharon' s election, and this is what we are now caught up in.
I support the comments made by Commissioner Patten.
We must concentrate on doing all we possibly can to help to find a way out of this impasse that is causing so many deaths.
In this spirit, and I repeat what Mr Barón Crespo has said, we can only welcome with great pleasure and profound admiration the eminently dignified and courageous work that a group of key figures, both Israeli and Palestinians, ministers, members of parliament, writers and lawyers, carried out this summer. The outcome of this collaboration was the publication of a joint declaration in which they made a commitment to work together, on the basis of principles that are acknowledged by the international community, to restore trust and hope in peace.
In conjunction with the laudable efforts of our diplomatic staff, I propose that we lend our support to this initiative by using all the resources at our disposal, by inviting, for example, the two main players - the former Israeli minister, Yossi Beilin, and the Palestinian minister, Yasser Abed Rabbo - or by awarding them the Sakharov Prize, or even by setting up a European committee to support their joint declaration.
In doing so, we shall, in our capacity as the European Parliament, be making a real contribution to peace. Thank you in advance.
(Applause from the GUE/NGL Group)
Madam President, it is a matter of deepest concern and regret for us all that the prospects for a just and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has receded in recent months.
We are all aware that the levels of violence have dangerously escalated and that the excessive and disproportionate use of force has resulted in the deaths of many innocent civilians.
It is clear that commitments entered into by various parties, instead of being built upon, are in fact being reversed.
The levels of violence and the levels of provocation have risen to new heights, and this is the primary reason why the parties are now no longer engaged in dialogue.
Dialogue is the only way forward if we are to end the violence in the Middle East at this time.
Where dialogue does not take place, the gap is only filled by mutual misunderstandings and ritual condemnations and fear.
One of the primary challenges now for the European Union and the broader international community is to ensure that there is a resumption of an active and effective mediation process within the Middle East.
There is an urgent need for a third-party monitoring system to be appointed in an effort firstly to end the violence which is taking place now on a daily basis, and secondly to resume peace talks.
It is also time that the obstacles to the implementation of the Mitchell report were removed.
We should recall for a moment that the key findings of this fact-finding committee include the following recommendations: the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority should reaffirm existing agreements and immediately cease violence; there should be a resumption of security cooperation; there should be establishment of a meaningful cooling-off period and incitement in all forms should be discouraged.
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Wurtz talked of the Middle East' s darkest period.
Perhaps he was thinking of Mr Riad Al-Turk, the leading opposition figure in Syria, who was re-arrested today.
Perhaps he was thinking of the shocking images showing how 50 homosexual men were recently treated in Egypt.
Perhaps he was thinking of the trial of Nawal El Sadaawi, or perhaps of the trial of Mr Ibrahimi, also in Egypt.
Perhaps he was thinking of all the women in Saudi Arabia and other countries, who have absolutely no rights in their own countries.
This describes the Middle East of today, the Middle East that we do not discuss.
This is the Middle East that we encourage to reject democracy, to reject the rule of law, and we continue to consider and propose a policy of impartiality for Israel.
Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, I think that it is impossible in politics - and even less so in this particular case - to propose a policy of impartiality.
The European Union' s policy must, of course, be a policy to promote peace, but, most importantly and primarily, it must be a policy to promote democracy.
Yet, we still have a great deal to do in order to achieve this.
We all knew, and now we know exactly how far Mr Barak stretched his profound determination to reach a fair peace agreement with the Palestinians, and we know that it was the determination of Mr Arafat and his democratic supporters alone that sabotaged and destroyed this peace process.
It is clear that some Members of this House would like Mr Sharon to conduct a different policy.
Unfortunately, Mr Sharon' s policy is not very different.
Of course, he has made some mistakes, but in the main, he is acting in response to the deep-rooted feelings of the Israelis, who no longer trust Mr Arafat - I do not mean the Palestinian people - and I think we can understand why this is the case.
I think that this is the fundamental problem and the European Union cannot respond, Mr Patten, by considering sociological proposals to improve the economic conditions.
This is a political question and it concerns the involvement of the European Union in this process.
The Union has an historical duty to be involved.
Instead of continuing to advance reluctantly with regard to enlargement, the European Union has no choice but to propose that Israel, with its population of five million people, becomes a full member of the European Union.
This is the only way to ensure the security of the Israeli people and also, therefore, the security of the Palestinians and thus to guarantee peace for the future.
Any other suggestion is just hot air.
As Mr Lagendijk pointed out, we have said a great deal.
Perhaps we should now get down to the business of politics.
(Applause from the TDI group)
Madam President, in the Committee on Foreign Affairs last week, acting President of the Council, Mr Michel, did not pull any punches during his speech on the European Union' s input to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he stated that the role of the European Union is very limited.
This is mainly due to two factors, as Mr Michel openly acknowledged: Israel considers the EU to be pro-Palestinian, in other words not to be an impartial external mediator in the dispute between neighbours; and, secondly, there is no unanimity within the European Council as to a common strategy to be adopted for the Middle East.
How can the EU respond? It can, at any rate, moderate the Israeli criticism of pro-Palestinian partiality by resolutely distancing itself as the Council, the Commission and individual Member States from the unprecedented anti-Israeli smear campaign which is currently being conducted at and around the UN Conference against racism in Durban.
At the same time, the European institutions must openly condemn the behaviour of the President of the Palestinian Authority.
Mr Arafat' s accusation, levelled at Israel, of pursuing a racist policy only fans the flames of Palestinian violence.
Meanwhile, the German Foreign Minister, Mr Fischer, is attempting to round up the EU Member States in order to revive the Middle East peace process.
His plans, summarised in a non-paper, have the backing of four major EU Member States (France, Great Britain, Spain and Italy), as well as of the High Representative, Mr Solana, according to the German press. Have the other members of the Council or the Commission been consulted?
I would also add another question to this: has an understanding been reached with the US Administration? Surely, both the President of the Council, Mr Michel, and the non-paper emphasise the indispensability of Washington in order for the peace process to get back on its feet.
The essence of the non-paper is the mediation and arrangement of an initial meeting between the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Peres, and Mr Arafat.
This meeting should be the cautious beginning of a gradual peace process.
Certainly in the non-paper, the Palestinians demand an end to the violence, but that is no longer an absolute condition for Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Does the European Union not in this way, in fact, brook the Palestinian Intifada, which has now grown into a fully-fledged guerrilla organisation with fully-equipped paramilitary units? If the Council and the Commission are to avoid this elementary question, then all well-intended mediation attempts will irrevocably fail.
Madam President, as Europeans we will only be able to act as mediators if we are not only neutral towards both sides but also show the necessary respect for the needs and expectations of all parties to the conflict.
German Foreign Minister Fischer has perhaps shown us what European mediation could be like, by contrast to the embarrassing comparisons made by the Finnish Foreign Minister between the crimes of the national socialists and Israel and the aggressive attacks against Israel made by the Belgian Foreign Minister.
I was also shocked to see shops in Brussels with signs saying "We do not stock Israeli products" .
Perhaps some day European politicians will understand that no one is interested in their personal interpretations of the conflict.
Our task is to help to calm the conflict, and this will only be possible if we recognise the Palestinian people' s need for independence and freedom, while also recognising Israel' s need for security and above all, too, recognising Israel as a democracy.
Madam President, the latest attacks and actions clearly demonstrate that, at the beginning of this academic year, the spiral of violence is unfortunately not coming to an end.
This violence has cost the lives of more than 150 Palestinian children and adolescents and dozens of Israeli children.
Following the statements we have heard this morning from the Presidency-in-Office of the Council and from the Commission, it is clear that the European Union is not remaining, must not remain, impassive in the face of this situation and that the objective of sitting down at the negotiating table - although many of us are longing for another Madrid Conference - seems practically utopian compared to the objective of an immediate halt to the violence.
I do not know if the next meeting between Mr Peres and Mr Arafat will lead to that halt to the violence - time will tell - but what does seem clear is that, in order for violence to end, I believe two conditions are essential.
Firstly, the will of the two sides.
It is clear that this 'dialogue' of suicide bombings and bombings by F15s and F16s must end.
The moderates must speak up, as Mr Patten rightly said.
I believe that this is the time for the moderates and, in this regard, the European Union must support all the options.
Secondly, the international community must act: the United States, Russia - where the Israeli Prime Minister is today - and the European Union, which must hold all the cards so that it can play its rightful role on the basis of two undeniable premises.
One was mentioned by the Presidency-in-Office of the Council: international law is being permanently violated and it must be reestablished.
And, secondly, the European Union must have a single commitment and that commitment is the cause of peace.
But two things must be taken into account: that peace must be the fruit of justice, Madam President, and that moderation becomes a vice when it rejects a commitment to a just cause such as the cause of peace.
Madam President, the Israeli Internal Security Minister has just said: 'Palestinian terrorism is trying to demoralise the citizens of Israel, change their daily life and impose fear with a view to the government granting political concessions' .
Unfortunately, the Sharon government has been dramatically changing the personal and collective daily lives of the Palestinians for some time.
The Sharon government is mistaken in assuming philosophies such as that expressed by Minister Landau, because the Palestinians are not looking for the Israeli Government to grant political concessions.
Nobody can grant what is not theirs.
The Palestinians simply want the rule of law to prevail and the principles of international law to be respected and put into practice as they have been proclaiming for decades, though so far fruitlessly.
The Palestinian demands are clear and easily shared by citizens of good will.
They are simply asking for an end to the military occupation they are subjected to.
It must be remembered that they are not fighting the Israeli occupiers because they are Jews, but because they are occupiers.
They demand the evacuation of the Jewish settlements, established on their territory with the clear objective of making a viable Palestinian State impossible.
Finally, they aspire to the proclamation of a true and genuine independent State.
I believe that, before it is too late, the European Union is morally obliged to find a system which will lead the occupier to respect international law.
It is that simple.
I also believe that the forces of reason and of political intelligence in Israel should mobilise themselves in order to convince their co-citizens that the longer the occupation and repression lasts, the more radical the Palestinians will be.
I will end by congratulating Commissioner Patten, with whom I am delighted to agree.
Madam President, it was quite depressing to listen to the representative of the Council, given that she appears to believe that the Middle East conflict is being played out between equal parties whom we ought to treat equally, adopting a policy of equidistance.
Has the Council forgotten that we are dealing here with a militarily and economically superior occupying power which, in contravention of international law, is oppressing a native population and stealing its land? Moreover, the occupying power has the full support of the United States.
Why, then, must the EU treat Israel and Palestine equally?
Did we treat Milosevic and the Kosovans equally?
Did we treat Mandela and the apartheid regime equally? In occupied Belgium, did you treat your resistance fighters in the same way as the occupying forces?
No, equal treatment would naturally have been absurd in every one of those cases. In a report, our own conflict prevention network has recommended that we put economic pressure on Israel.
One is led to wonder, Mr Patten, whether you decided to close down the CPN because it comes up with uncomfortable truths.
According to yesterday' s Süddeutsche Zeitung, the EU - or, properly speaking, the big five Member States of the EU (we other, small countries are not asked) - is now, according to a non-paper, to pursue a Middle East policy approved by the United States. It is therefore a requirement that it be approved by the United States.
What has become of the EU' s role as a defender of international law?
What has become of the EU' s ambitions for an independent foreign policy? What has become of its ambitions to supplement its excellent economic and administrative support for the Palestinians with a powerful and well thought-out policy?
They seem to have evaporated into thin air. That is something I regret.
Madam President, I would have preferred not to speak this morning because, in actual fact, words do more damage than the Palestinian stones.
I have had enough of words which are not matched by action and I am starting to doubt the power and effectiveness of Parliament and our institutions.
Sometimes, I feel like the little girl in the story "The Emperor' s New Clothes" .
We all know exactly what is going on.
Mr Sharon speaks and acts clearly, and he says when he speaks in parliament that his intention is to bomb and kill, targeting, in particular, the Palestinian leaders, and to raise houses to the ground, not just in order to destroy the houses but as part of a clear plan.
When I was in Palestine and Israel between 23 July and 22 August, I saw houses raised to the ground in the settlement areas to gain more territory for Israel; I witnessed the taking of Orient House and saw the Israeli flag hoisted immediately - a totally colonialist gesture.
Therefore, Mr Sharon is going ahead with his plan, which is to restore only 42% of the territories to the Palestinians, who are forced to live in bantustans, without a State or borders. He is making himself plain.
Why do we not believe the things that Mr Sharon is saying explicitly? Why are occupiers and occupied placed on the same level?
Like the President-in-Office of the Council, I am appalled and horrified by this situation, but I am also, on occasion, appalled and outraged at the way we describe the facts; of course, I condemn the throwing of bombs at civilians in Tel Aviv as an appalling, criminal act, but I feel that it must be said that the root of the matter is the need to put an end to the Israeli military occupation.
I have met Mr Arafat several times - the last time together with French and American delegations - and he said to us: "We are not asking for much.
We are asking for international law to be respected.
This is our request and I have accepted everything: the G8, Sharm-el-Sheik and Mitchell."
The Mitchell plan was not rejected by Mr Arafat. It was rejected by Mr Sharon because the Mitchell plan stipulated the end of the settlements and new settlements are still being established today.
Behind the fighting and violence, there is, in actual fact, a plan being executed: more destruction of houses and more settlements.
This is a fundamental barrier to the possibility of peace.
Together with Mr Hanan Ashrawi, Mr Yaser Abed Rabbo, Mr Yossi Beilin and Mrs Galia Golan, I signed the document presented at Ramallah: they demand peace, a fair peace.
Just as those courageous Israelis who are defending the rights of all and who, together with me and many others, have been sleeping in the Palestinian houses bombed at Beit Jala demand it.
Without a doubt, Europe must act.
I would like to thank Commissioner Patten for the things he has said and I support Mr Galeote Quecedo' s proposal to reinforce our political presence in the field.
I consider it absolutely essential for international observers to be sent but, once again, it is Israel who has refused to cooperate. Why do we not say so openly?
Why do we not make the situation plain? Dialogue is essential for peace but respect for the law and for human rights are just as essential and cannot be treated as separate issues.
Madam President, some decades after the Holocaust and the extermination of the Jews in the Soviet Union, Durban is evidence that anti-Semitism is still alive in the political world of the third millennium.
If Europe does not take a firm stand against the statements made at Durban equating Zionism to racism, it will be dealing another mortal blow to the survival of the West as a culture which embodies the right of nations and peoples and it will fall back into the abyss which engulfed us at the time of the Nazi concentration camps and communist persecutions.
When, after the attack outside the disco in Israel - just hours after Mr Arafat' s visit to the European Parliament in Brussels - and the attack at the pizzeria, Europe spoke out, there began to be hope that dialogue would be resumed, but Europe has subsided into silence.
Terrorist attacks on civilian targets in Israel have become everyday occurrences, forcing the Israeli army to defend the civilian population. Moreover, Israeli civilians have also failed to show respect for the human dignity of the Palestinians on a number of occasions and violence has become a symbol of and synonymous with a tragic period of history, one, indeed, in which Europe is incapable of speaking out and, what is more, fails to remember that, in actual fact, the Palestinian leader has never commanded his forces to stop the violence but, on the contrary, has released Hamas and Jihad terrorists from jail.
We must realise that terrorism is becoming an international phenomenon and that greater political commitment is needed to oppose this unwelcome development.
Europe provides a considerable amount of economic aid to the Palestinian Authority: we would like to see proof that the Union' s funds are being used to help the people to work towards the success of the peace process as well and not to provide weapons for terrorists.
In the light of recent events, we request a detailed report on this point and we call upon Europe to play a useful part and to demand from both Israel and Mr Arafat a genuine peace process, not just the words or terrorist bombs of recent years and months.
Madam President, this has been a distressing summer in the Middle East and I am extremely sorry to say that the European Union is partly responsible.
On several occasions, suicide bombers, armed by Hamas and encouraged by the Palestinian Authority, caused bloodshed in the heart of Israel, and each time, the European Union did nothing more than issue verbal condemnations, whilst all the time continuing to give generous funding to the Palestinian Authority, which has recently freed the most dangerous terrorists.
Can we hope to fulfil a credible role when we continue to provide considerable sums of money, unmonitored, to an authority which is an authority in name only, and which remains one of the world' s most corrupt political entities?
A recent report by the Court of Auditors revealed that there has been serious mismanagement and many cases of misappropriation under Yasser Arafat. Were sanctions imposed?
Did you demand transparency, Commissioner? On the contrary, the complacent attitude and leniency shown by the Commission could only be taken as incentives to continue along this disastrous route.
As you know, peace was a possibility at Camp David, peace was within reach.
What did Mr Arafat do? Once again, he lacked the bravery of President Anwar al-Sadat and dashed all our hopes.
He said no to peace at Camp David.
One month later, the Intifada was resumed.
This time, however, there were elements of a genuine anti-Semitic crusade and the most dangerous terrorists were at large.
Did the Commission and the Council take specific action in response to a further breach of the Oslo accords?
Did they even subject their funding to any conditions? The answer again is no, and I confirm that generations of young Palestinians continue to receive education instilling martyrdom and hatred, which is funded by the European Commission.
How can we fail to see that the Intifada is revealing its true nature, which is fanatical, mystical and insane and which completely rejects the existence of Israel.
We can, of course, criticise Israel but how can we fail to see that the rejection of Israel, when systematic, unbalanced and unjust or even when it involves sending away both parties without favouring either, may serve to disguise the anti-Semitism which still exists?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the historian Léon Poliakov quite rightly said that anti-Semitism is to refuse a human being the right to exist because he is Jewish and anti-Zionism is to refuse a State the right to exist because it is Jewish.
Madam President, in July with my colleagues Mr Galeote, Mr Laschet and Mr Morillon I had the opportunity to visit the Middle East.
We had conversations with Foreign Minister Peres and Chairman Arafat and other very senior people there.
It was made clear to us that the Mitchell proposals are still accepted by both sides.
The problem is how to put them into effect.
This cannot begin until there is a cessation of terrorism and only yesterday there was another suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem.
The Europeans should cease worrying about having a role.
They have one.
The question is whether they will exercise it in a balanced and useful way.
The United States and the Europeans must work in harmony and not allow themselves to be played off one against the other.
In the past the European Union has been seen merely as a supporter of the Palestinians.
It was an institution looking for a role.
Now Mr Solana is winning the confidence of the Israelis as well by a more balanced and realistic approach without being too prescriptive.
I am reassured by the Presidency remarks this morning on the need for equi-distance.
On the Palestinian side, the danger is that intransigence will be fuelled by events such as the UN racism conference in South Africa, through the influence of radical Arab forces in the region and by the breakdown of liaison between Israeli and Palestinian security agencies.
Instead of suppressing Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other extremist elements, the Palestinian agencies are now too often in bed with the extremists.
I fully accept Mr Patten's analysis that further impoverishment of the Palestinians will not discourage extremism but I have no doubt that the European Union should use its financial leverage with the Palestinians to greater political effect.
We must make it clear that continued funding requires the Palestinians to bear down with greater effect and greater consistency on the extremists.
We need to take care also over this question of international monitors.
The precedents are not good.
The most likely form of increased international presence on the ground is a resuscitation of the liaison between the Israeli and Palestinian security services reinforced by American and European elements.
This might not catch the headlines but through removal of misunderstanding and more effective action against extremists, it may actually help create some of the conditions for peace.
Madam President, President-in-Office, Commissioner, thank you very much for your remarks here today, especially for the clear language which you, Madam President-in-Office, used and which is not always found in the Council' s statements.
You actually described what the Israeli government is doing, namely murdering its opponents, whom it accuses of being terrorists, as murder.
In the light of this fact I find it embarrassing and sometimes in poor taste to make reference to schoolbooks when we see that Orient House is occupied, Palestinian territory is invaded and occupied and Palestinian police stations are systematically destroyed regardless of the human casualties.
Anyone who says Mr Arafat is responsible for what is going on there cannot be very well informed about politics.
Everything we have tried and proposed in the past has failed, sending observers - I am glad Mr Van Orden also advocates that - all that has failed because of the Israeli government' s refusal to accept it.
Even the Mitchell report, which we all support as a common point of reference, cannot be implemented because the Israeli government under Mr Sharon - who is wanted by the police in your country, Madam President-in-Office, which is why he cannot be invited to Brussels - wants to interpret the Mitchell report and determine when it will be applied.
In view of this situation, I am no longer calling for greater involvement in the process.
We want to be involved, but we are not accepted. What else can we do?
We have a treaty with Israel and we ought to give some thought - you have also mentioned this in the past, Commissioner, where treaties have been broken - to whether we can maintain that treaty in force or whether we ought to suspend it.
Madam President, President-in-Office, Commissioner, the spiralling level of violence in the Middle East blinds us to the fact that it was not so very long ago that, instead of the current feelings of despair, there was optimism and hope that a permanent peace could be achieved.
Unfortunately these hopes were to be cruelly shattered and it is hard to forget that the present Intifada arose directly from the unnecessary and provocative visit by Mr Sharon to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
However, nothing justified the subsequent acts of terrorism by either side, and in the current highly charged emotional situation, with the areas of conflict so widespread, it is very difficult to see a cease-fire emerging.
It is clear that the only way of breaking the current deadlock is through the intervention of a third party.
The only feasible third party would be a team of international observers.
We know this is acceptable to the United Nations and the Palestinians, but regrettably it has been rejected by the Israelis.
The United States has endorsed the Israeli position.
Regrettably its blind allegiance is paradoxically damaging to Israel's cause.
Instead of being a puppet of the Israelis, the US should be independent and use its influence to pressurise them to end their violence, just as we, in the EU, must use our influence with the Palestinians to do likewise.
If both we and the US work together in common cause, there is just a possibility that we could halt the continuing slide into regional conflict and restore peace negotiations once again on the basis of the Mitchell recommendations.
That should continue to be our primary objective.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to thank all the speakers who have taken part in this debate, not only to explain and clarify their positions, but also to express their feelings and emotion regarding the tragic situation in the Middle East, and, of course, the appalling events of yesterday.
Ladies and gentlemen, I understand only too well how tempting it is, when faced with the seemingly endless cycle of acts of violence and violent retaliation, to give in firstly to our emotions, whether positive or negative.
This is a very human response and if we did not react in such a way, we might wonder, in fact, whether we are human.
I believe, however, that if we want to help find a solution, we must control these emotions and overcome them.
We must also be able to control our frustration - and God only knows how frustrated we are by this process, where we take one step forward and two steps back, and sometimes even two steps forward and three steps back. We must always begin again, pick up the pieces, maintain contact with both parties and use the carrot and stick approach - if you will forgive me using such a crude expression - as circumstances require.
This is a process to which, I believe, all the bodies of the European Union, including the Presidency, of course, are devoted, in the full knowledge that by continuously working hard to try to safeguard opportunities for a solution, there is a great danger that neither side will be satisfied.
I would like to endorse the comments of those Members who have reiterated that the European Union' s role in a region of the world so close to our own is today much more important than it was several years ago.
However, very many of you have also said that a solution cannot be found without much more active and dynamic support than is currently being given by the US administration and other bodies or other governments.
Lastly, and to sum up, Madam President, I would nevertheless like to say to those who have criticised the concept of impartiality, as they may rightfully do so, of course, that by maintaining a position of equal distance between both parties does not mean we believe that their circumstances are identical.
To use the English expression, and these will be my closing words, 'equidistance is not equalising the parties involved.'
Madam President, I have a question for the President-in-Office.
There are reports in the press today that the Prime Minister of Israel did not receive the European Union' s High Representative. So Mr Sharon has not seen Mr Solana.
Can the Council give us more information?
Was it because there was no time, because Prime Minister Sharon has gone to Moscow, or was there a political intention not to receive the High Representative? Has the Council been informed of this?
I should like to know.
Madam President, I cannot provide an accurate answer to this question at the moment.
However, I am, of course, more than willing to find out all the necessary information so that I can give you the answer later.
Thank you, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck.
I shall now give the floor to Commissioner Patten.
Madam President, if I may offer one brief reflection on that last question, I cannot believe that anybody would seriously refuse to see my friend and colleague, Dr Solana.
Nobody has done more than Dr Solana to try to move forward the peace process in the Middle East and today and on other occasions Parliament has paid proper tribute to the role that he has played in the Middle East as the representative of the European Union.
It has been an interesting debate, focusing on some familiar and central themes.
There have been some disagreements, but by and large it is fair to say that most Members take the same view of the situation and there has been perhaps a shared sense of frustration about how we can best contribute to resolving this appalling and deteriorating situation.
Obviously we are going to come back to the subject again and again in the coming weeks and we will be able to respond to some of the very positive suggestions made in this debate.
For example the suggestion made by Mr Galeote about the resources available to Ambassador Moratinos, who has been doing such an outstanding job.
I should like to comment on the speeches made Mr Zimeray and Mr Laschet and I will do so with all the diplomatic restraint for which I am famed, not least in Asia.
Over the last two years I have had the great pleasure and privilege of listening to hundreds of speeches in this Chamber, probably more than any other Commissioner.
I am bound to say that I have not heard many speeches less well informed than Mr Zimeray's.
I would wish that Mr Laschet's speech had been a little better informed as well.
I know of no serious commentator on the Middle East who argues that we would all be better served if the Palestinian authority was brought to its knees.
Most Members of this Parliament are aware of the Commission's efforts to make sure that the European support for the Palestinian authority is money that is properly spent, well spent and spent in ways that help to promote pluralism, the rule of law and clean government in the Palestinian territories.
I am surprised that the honourable gentleman did not know that, before we make each month's payment, we have to have the seal of approval of the International Monetary Fund to ensure that the money voted by this Parliament is being spent in a sensible way.
These are all issues we have discussed at great length with Parliament, which has been rightly concerned to ensure that European taxpayers' money is spent properly, transparently and to good purpose.
I would be delighted to come back to this subject again in the future, but I want to underline that point today because I do not think it is helpful when Members of this House give the impression we are not spending European taxpayers' money sensibly.
I also want to deal with a subject which I have dealt with again and again.
Perhaps if I talk about it once more today, I will be able to save one or two honourable Members who have not yet got the point from raising it in correspondence and in speeches in Parliament in the future.
It is repeatedly suggested, not least in some sections of the Israeli press, that the European Union has been implicated in funding Palestinian schoolbooks which contain anti-Semitic passages.
I want to be very clear on this.
None of the projects in support of the Palestinian authority, none of the projects in support of UNRWA financed by the European Commission, include the production or distribution of school textbooks.
It is true that this year, for example, we have contributed EUR 35 million to the UNRWA's EUR 170 million education budget.
I would just like to point out that we are not the largest contributor to that budget.
The largest contributor is the United States and I do not think anybody is suggesting that by contributing to the education budget of UNRWA the United States is guilty of the things with which we are charged in the Commission.
Assistance to the educational system is focused on infrastructure, equipment and direct assistance for current school expenses, such as salaries for teachers.
It would hardly help to contribute to security in the Palestinian territories if teachers were being laid off in large numbers because nobody could afford to pay them.
Furthermore, no request has ever been made to us by the Palestinian authority to finance curricula or textbooks.
We reject any attempt to use the educational system as a vehicle to promote intolerance and to hinder the efforts by the parties still committed to peace in the Middle East.
It is particularly regrettable in this context that school children may be exposed to intolerance by the parties involved in the conflict.
The Commission has always and will always continue to focus its assistance on promoting a culture of peace, tolerance and human rights in the Middle East.
Recent studies of Palestinian books have shown that anti-Semitic language contained in old Egyptian and Jordanian textbooks used by the Palestine authority and UNWRA, particularly before 1994 and 1995, is being removed.
These new books, rightly or wrongly, have been criticised for not conveying a clear message of peace and friendship with the Israeli people.
I wish they did convey such a message.
However, textbooks are not going to change the tragic reality of daily life in the Palestinian territories or in the Palestinian camps.
It is important that UNWRA is running a substantial tolerance and awareness programme in its schools to counteract any negative influence on the pupils, but it cannot be very easy for a teacher in the camps to be teaching children about tolerance and awareness when they go out of the camp in the evening and see tanks and guns and stone throwing.
Teaching a tolerance and awareness programme in those camps must be one of the most difficult jobs in the world.
I beg honourable Members who take up rather partisan positions on these matters to think of those who are working day after day in the camps and elsewhere in the Middle East to promote decency, to promote the sort of values which we share in this chamber.
I do not think that rather cheap attacks on what is being done by UNWRA and by others are the sort of thing that one should hear in this Parliament.
Finally, I would like to say something about Mr Lagendijk's speech, because I normally agree with the honourable gentleman.
He makes some of the most thoughtful and interesting and well-informed contributions to our debates.
Of course, we all have the ambition to take steps on behalf of the European Union that would make a bad situation in the Middle East better.
It is, of course, possible for us to contemplate or take steps that would make a bad situation worse.
The honourable Member talks about economic measures.
It is true that we have a very important economic relationship with both Israel and with the Palestinian Authority and with the other states in the region.
I am not unaware of the consequences of that relationship in political terms.
We are trying to ensure, as I have said before, that the assistance that we provide for the Palestinian Authority promotes pluralism, promotes clean government, promotes an independent judiciary, promotes the rule of law and promotes democracy.
That is what we should be doing.
We are also insisting with the Israeli authorities that our agreements with them are honoured to the letter as well as to the spirit - that is what we said to them during our discussions at the customs cooperation meeting in July.
But I have the gravest doubts about going beyond that.
The record of economic sanctions in international affairs is not - alas - a very happy one.
I have great respect for the honourable Member's views and I am sure that we can exchange further thoughts about this issue, but I would need a great deal of persuasion that we should start talking the language of sanctions in trying to frame a more effective policy for the European Union in the Middle East.
It is easier, of course, to see how our relationship with the parties might consolidate peace in the longer term than to see how the economic relationship could advance peace in the shorter term.
I understand the frustration, but nevertheless I remain doubtful about the ability to use economic sanctions.
(Applause)
Thank you, Commissioner, for giving such clear answers.
Madam President, before we bring this debate to a close, I have received some information which will allow me to answer Mr Poettering' s question.
Since it is an important question and the lack of a response could give rise to misunderstandings, I shall pass on to the House the details that the Council secretariat has just given me.
The High Representative, Javier Solana, will remain in Jerusalem to await Mr Sharon' s return from Moscow. Mr Sharon has suggested to Mr Solana that they meet tomorrow.
The meeting will, therefore, take place tomorrow.
Madam President, I have personally been taken to task by Commissioner Patten, as have several Members, which is why I think we at least have the right to respond.
It is unusual for the Commission to have the last word, having taken Members to task and especially having pointed out that it is not up to a Member to check up on funding granted by the Commission, particularly to the Palestinian Authority.
I maintain all that I said about education in Palestine.
Even if the European Union does not pay for these books directly, it certainly pays for the teaching.
What Chris Patten has just told us is a justification for teaching that instils hatred and martyrdom.
The debate is closed.
Progress of the 12 candidate countries in 2000
The next item is the joint debate on:
the oral question (B5-0331/01) by Mr Brok to the Council, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and the statement by the Council on the Enlargement process;
the report (A5-0251/2001) by Mrs Carlsson, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Estonia's application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000) 704 - C5­0604/2000 - 1997/2177(COS)];
the report (A5-0252/2001) by Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Latvia's application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000) 706 - C5­0606/2000 - 1997/2176(COS)];
the report (A5-0253/2001) by Mr Souladakis, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Lithuania's application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000) 707 - C5­0607/2000 - 1997/2178(COS)];
the report (A5-0254/2001) by Mr Gawronski, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Poland' s application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)709 - C5-0609/2000 - 1997/2174(COS)];
the report (A5-0255/2001) by Mr Jürgen Schröder, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Czech Republic's application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000) 703 - C5­0603/2000 - 1997/2180(COS)]
the report (A5-0256/2001) by Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Slovakia's application for membership to the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000) 711 - C5­0611/2000 - 1997/2173(COS)];
the report (A5-0257/2001) by Mr Queiró, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Hungary's application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000) 705 - C5-0605/2000 - 1997/2175 (COS)];
the report (A5-0258/2001) by Mr Van Orden, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the 2000 Regular Report by the Commission on Bulgaria's progress towards accession [COM(2000) 701 - 1997/2179(COS)]
the report (A5-0259/2001) by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Romania' s application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)710 - C5-0610/2000 - 1997/2172(COS)];
the report (A5-0260/2001) by Mr Volcic, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Slovenia' s application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)712 - C5-0612/2000 - 1997/2181(COS)];
the report (A5-0261/2000) by Mr Poos, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Cyprus' s membership application to the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)702 - C5-0602/2000 - 1997/2171(COS)];
the report (A5-0262/2001) by Mrs Stenzel, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Malta' s application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)708 - C5-0608/2000 - 1999/2029(COS)].
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, European integration has undeniably made great progress over the last 50 years.
The European project is highly attractive and has contributed to peace, stability, democracy and prosperity.
The appeal is so great that the European Union is currently preparing to double its number of members.
The current enlargement process is in itself nothing new for the Union. However, it is unparalleled in its magnitude, the variety of candidate countries and its political and historical dimension.
In today' s debate, I should like to discuss three questions with you. Firstly, why enlarge, even if I believe that the answer is evident to this House; secondly, and this might be of more interest to you, what is the exact stage we have reached in the negotiations; and thirdly, how should we prepare for the future?
Why enlargement? You, Madam President and honourable Members, may know the answer to that question, but maybe some of what I am about to say will seep through the walls of this Hemisphere and enter the sphere of public opinion, which is still regularly exercised by this issue as, of course, it is fully entitled to be.
From now on, the future of Europe and enlargement of the Union are inextricably linked.
Enlargement is the future of Europe.
Pursuant to the objectives set out in Helsinki, the European Council of Nice took all the necessary steps to ensure that the Union will be in a position to welcome the new Member States.
We could have easily rejected the compromise reached in Nice, but we opted not to do that so as not to send out the wrong message, namely that of an indecisive and reticent Europe, at the wrong time, that is to say on the eve of the reunification of Europe.
Enlargement specifically embodies the magnanimous and open vision of the original European project.
The decision in favour of enlargement, rightly deemed irrevocable at the European Council in Gothenburg, reflects the importance which the founders of Europe attached to international solidarity. Today' s Member States remain just as committed to this aim.
Enlarging the Union is an historical duty.
Our peoples, who have been separated by history for far too long, must have a chance to be reunited.
In addition to the genuine historical challenge, enlargement is also a political project.
This project brings us, European leaders and elected Members, face to face with our responsibilities.
We must henceforth make every effort to ensure a stable, secure and prosperous future for our fellow citizens in an enlarged Europe.
Enlargement was, and still is, imperative in order to prevent destabilisation in the candidate countries, as well as the expressions of such destabilisation.
The growing influx of refugees, the rise in crime, etc. spring to mind.
The unfortunate events in the Balkans in the last ten years have shown that a region cannot be stabilised without introducing and consolidating the enlargement or association process.
In some of the countries of the former Yugoslavia, destabilisation has led to a deterioration in the rule of law and to the emergence of new hotbeds of international crime.
The Union will have to strive hard to combat transnational criminal networks.
In its efforts to stabilise the region, the Union introduced an association and stability process at the Zagreb Conference, which will naturally result in a European perspective.
Moreover, the positive results of future enlargement are already tangible.
In Central and Eastern Europe, stable governments have been established which have adopted the common values, or the values which they have in common with us, such as democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and the protection of minorities.
The remarkable improvement in the security of Europe and new prospects for economic development are the direct result of this.
Enlargement, even if it is still to be translated into reality, is already making Europe more prosperous and enhancing its influence.
In addition, we are also noticing - to put it in blunt, materialistic terms - that the amount of foreign direct investment - and I mean that in the candidate countries - is constantly increasing.
The Union has become the largest trading partner of the thirteen candidate countries.
The Member States therefore reap many benefits.
The enlarged Europe will consist of 500 million citizens and, in economic terms, these are 500 million consumers.
That is sufficient to allow the Union, also in economic terms, to better assert and defend its specific character in a world which is increasingly turning into a 'village' , to borrow a term from a Canadian sociologist.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the candidate countries, enlargement has become a strong incentive to take the measures needed to make the transition to a market economy.
The implementation of these measures is still painful and has sometimes even been extremely painful.
In several candidate countries, however, these changes have already led to rapid, balanced growth, making it possible to improve people' s standard of living.
So, what stage have the negotiations reached? Since July, the Belgian Presidency has, as it pledged it would, been continuing the work begun by the Swedish Presidency, on the basis of the principles set out in Nice and according to the timetable agreed at the Gothenburg Summit.
The Presidency is taking great pains to keep within the confines of its role of facilitator, to avoid taking over from the Commission and to allow the Commission and relevant Commissioners to conduct the negotiations.
The Member States' governments warmly welcomed the presentation of our work programme on enlargement at the General Affairs Council meeting in July. They all stressed the importance of carefully monitoring the implementation of the commitments made by the candidate countries, as did Mr Brok, when he expanded on the question that he submitted.
We would like to open up all the negotiating chapters.
Malta still lacks the chapter on agriculture and Bulgaria still has eight chapters that must be examined.
Furthermore, in accordance with the Gothenburg conclusions, the Belgian Presidency will support the efforts made and to be made by Romania, which still has 14 negotiating chapters to be opened.
In the case of several candidate countries, we will soon have completed the critical mass of the chapter that is provisionally concluded.
By this, I mean that the number of chapters which have already been negotiated, and for which provisional agreements have been reached, is such that the question now becoming increasingly specific and, therefore, increasingly urgent concerns the differentiation in treatment of candidate countries, each according to its merits, as well as the question of knowing how the negotiations will end.
This time could, in fact, come sooner than we were expecting.
The Belgian Presidency is striving to maintain the intensive pace of negotiations.
At the first meeting of substitute members on 27 July 2001, seven chapters were examined, five of which were concluded.
Seven have now been able to be concluded with all the candidate countries.
These were the chapters on statistics, small and medium-sized enterprises, research, education, health and consumers, as well as foreign relations.
Those chapters that are still to be negotiated - and this will come as no surprise - are some of the most difficult.
In addition to chapters on the free movement of workers and the environment, we tackled issues involving justice and home affairs, competition, transport, energy, fisheries, agriculture and taxation.
In some of these areas, considerable progress was made.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the enlargement process cannot, however, be reduced simply to the conclusion of negotiating points.
Every country must comply with and continue to comply with the economic and political criteria of Copenhagen and must implement these effectively.
This applies in particular to a country with which we have not yet begun negotiations.
I am, of course, referring to Turkey.
During a visit by the Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister, Louis Michel, to Ankara in July, he reminded the Turkish authorities that they have every interest in focusing on implementing the accession partnership. This will enable Turkey to comply with the political criteria set out at Copenhagen.
As for Cyprus, we are pleased with the progress that has been made in the accession negotiations.
However, the pace of negotiations does not depend on the efforts of the Commission, the Council or the Presidency alone.
External events can sometimes influence them, or disrupt them.
I am thinking, for example, of the beginning of the election campaign in Poland, or of the new Bulgarian government that has come into power.
I am nonetheless counting on a positive outcome in both cases. Indeed, I believe that these changes will not slow down the pace of negotiations, which so far has been swift for both countries.
Another important event will take place in November, when the Commission publishes in-depth reports on the preparation of candidate countries.
The information contained in these reports will allow the Presidency, at the Laeken European Council, to provide the following presidencies with clear indications as to what needs to be done.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, how then do we manage the future? The conclusions of the European Councils in Nice and Gothenburg gave a boost to the enlargement process.
The quality of this process is now just as important as the number of chapters being negotiated.
On this point, I would like to say to Mr Brok that he is of course right, at least in my personal opinion, to urge us not to ask more of the candidate countries than we ask of ourselves.
That is very true, but even so, the candidate countries have every interest in ensuring that the acquis communautaire is implemented in the optimal fashion, because otherwise there is a risk that the initial stage of their membership of the European Union will be very difficult and very painful. I believe that we must help them to avoid this sort of situation.
Achieving the aims that we identified at Nice and Gothenburg will depend on two very important factors.
First of all, the determination of EU Member States - of all of us, in other words - to translate the commitments that we have taken into action.
Member States will have to adopt common positions within the deadlines specified in the road map, and will have to determine transitional periods if necessary, even if this may, and will, give rise to difficulties.
The second factor is, as I pointed out, whether the candidate countries can provide, within a reasonable time, sufficient and substantial information on their ability to comply with the required criteria, and also on their ability to prove that this process has been set in motion.
(NL) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I will wind up my speech but, before I do, I should like to say something about the outcome of the Irish referendum, especially in connection with enlargement.
The outcome of the referendum has led to all manner of speculation on the feasibility of enlargement.
Although enlargement on a purely legal plane is feasible without ratification of the Treaty by all the Member States, it must nevertheless be underlined that non-ratification of the Treaty would send an entirely wrong political signal to the candidate countries at a time when a segment of public opinion in those countries is starting to question the merits of this process, which is perceived as a restriction on their newly regained sovereignty.
I am always reminded of that prime minister of a candidate country who stated in Brussels recently: 'We have been told for ten years that we will be joining in ten years' time.
Well, if that situation lasts too long, nations and governments will begin to lose their patience.'
In view of the magnitude and institutional repercussions of enlargement, I advocate the Union adopting a realistic, responsible and ambitious stance.
The enlargement of the Union must indeed be responsible; this means that the vital functions of the Union must be safeguarded.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, let it be clear that enlargement will put pressure on key components of the common or Community policy - the common agricultural policy and the structural funds policy spring to mind.
To combat this will require courage and determination from the Member States and therefore from all of us.
Enlargement also requires that we adopt an ambitious attitude in terms of devising new common policies.
The introduction of a genuine common policy on fighting crime and harmonising asylum and immigration policy is needed now more than ever.
In addition, the Union must also step up its efforts in the field of the common foreign and security policy.
The Union must acquire the resources in order to deal with a destabilising crisis on the borders of an enlarged Europe - the Europe of tomorrow, in other words.
It is crucially important that the Union have the necessary tools to manage unstable areas.
As the initial accession stage approaches, the Union must enhance its dialogue with the neighbouring countries of an enlarged Europe.
What will be important, and is already important, is to reassure these countries about the impact of enlargement in terms of partnership and association agreements. Our very fruitful and extensive dialogue with Russia, but not only with Russia, is a concrete example of this.
By way of conclusion, I should like to say that enlargement remains a political project.
Whether this project is managed well or badly will determine whether Europe' s unity will be strengthened or weakened.
In our society, a broadly-based debate must be held in order to clearly set out the risks and benefits of the project.
Misunderstandings must be cleared up.
The concerns of the citizens of the Member States, but also of the citizens of the candidate countries, must be taken seriously and must be responded to appropriately.
As the initial accessions draw closer, more and clearer information must be provided than has been the case to date.
Enlargement offers enormous scope.
However, it also imposes conditions and restrictions on both parties.
The credibility of accession requires efforts on all sides.
The Belgian Presidency has pledged to maintain the intensive pace of negotiations.
It will ensure that the conditions for accession are met.
The candidate countries will still need to make great efforts in order to implement the acquis communautaire.
We have a very long way to go, but we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
We can now start counting the months, rather than the years.
We can now also start telling all the candidate countries with which we have begun negotiations that they are future Member States.
Finally, there is no doubt that the accession of, certainly, twelve countries in the short term and that of thirteen countries in the somewhat longer term will turn our Union into something other than what we have known so far.
That has been the case with each new accession.
Each new acceding state, each new acceding nation has added something extra.
I will not enter into any detail, for that could lead to bad feeling and that is not my intention.
It is evident that this will also happen when new Member States join.
The adventure which we started around ten years ago - at least the concept of it - is thus reaching successful completion, but that success will only be achieved if we all make the efforts needed.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your extremely detailed speech and I shall now give the floor to Commissioner Verheugen. I would point out that, in principle, our guest speakers have limited speaking time, but we can, of course, be flexible where necessary.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, it is almost a year since the European Parliament' s last major debate on enlargement.
I therefore welcome the opportunity to take stock of the year and describe the tasks that still lie ahead of us.
I should like to begin by sincerely thanking the European Parliament and all its groups and committees for their great commitment to the process of EU enlargement.
You have all done a great deal to give this historic project political credibility and to give democratic legitimacy to the enlargement process.
In the decisive closing stage of negotiations the Commission continues to rely on Parliament' s support, and I am pleased to be able to say, on the basis of the contribution from Mr Brok, the rapporteur, and the presentation from the President-in-Office, that there continues to be a high level of broad solid agreement between the three institutions, Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
After the Councils of Nice and Göteborg it is clear that enlargement will come, and come soon.
The point of no return is definitely behind us.
The project is now irreversible.
I do not want to reawaken the controversy surrounding the Treaty of Nice, but I would like to point out that this Treaty contains essential political conditions for the conclusion of the accession treaties.
I, too, have my doubts as to whether the treaty is the best possible solution both to the question of institutional adjustments and to that of the combination of deepening and enlargement that many, myself included, believe necessary.
But I fear there will always be differences of opinion over the best possible solution to this problem.
But living in Europe means living with compromises.
The Commission is therefore pressing for ratification of the Treaty of Nice here in the European Parliament and in the parliaments of the Member States.
As we all know, the treaty fell at the first hurdle, the referendum in Ireland.
The answer to such a referendum cannot be a simple "as you were" .
If we simply close our eyes and continue, we shall be shipwrecked and miss out on a great historic opportunity.
Enlargement must not be sacrificed to growing alienation between Europe' s citizens and the European institutions and decision-making processes.
The answer to the warning signal from Ireland is also, but not only, a question of proper communication.
Perhaps Europe' s citizens are looking for a more fundamental and more complex answer.
As I see it, there is an intrinsic link between the debate about Europe' s future and the debate about our future borders.
We need to make that link.
Nice has paved the way for negotiations to be steered towards the really substantive questions, as the candidates urgently require.
The 'road map' presented by the Commission and approved by the Heads of State and Government is more than a timetable for negotiations.
At heart it is a commitment by the 15 Member States to find common positions by particular deadlines, even in areas where interests are widely divergent.
At the same time, this tells the candidates that their efforts are worthwhile and that nothing is being put off.
After almost a year, we can say that the Nice strategy has motivated the candidate countries enormously and that the transposition of Community law is running more quickly and more smoothly.
At the same time, the candidate countries are showing greater flexibility in adjusting their positions and there have been genuine breakthroughs in negotiations as a result.
The treatment of the free movement of workers issue is an instructive example of this.
The desired time frame for the first accessions was then clearly defined in Göteborg.
That came at the right moment.
On the one hand, the progress in negotiations made it possible to define the finishing line for those applicant countries that are adequately prepared; on the other hand, the Göteborg decision gives the parliaments and governments of the candidate countries the necessary political tailwind to mobilise all their forces and respond to the doubters that most certainly exist.
Making the 2004 European elections the point of reference for the accessions is an idea that originated here in the European Parliament a year ago.
We reached agreement on it in our debate last year.
I am very pleased that we actually managed to follow the way pointed by the European Parliament at the Councils in Nice and Göteborg.
I believe it was a wise decision not to set any specific accession dates for individual countries at Göteborg or to define groups for accession.
The basic principles of the process - namely individual merits, differentiation and the chance to catch up - are working.
If we stick to these principles, we shall arrive at a natural and real accession scenario that is justified by the results of negotiations alone.
The Commission will be sticking to this line resolutely.
I am also saying this to counter the view that in the end the decisions taken will be purely political, political here in the bad sense of the word.
The Commission will not propose the conclusion of an accession treaty for each individual applicant until it is convinced that the applicant is well enough prepared and satisfies all the conditions.
I am not therefore going to speculate today about how many, and which, new members will already be represented in the next European Parliament.
All I can say today is that 10 of the 12 countries we are negotiating with have decided that they want to use the Göteborg time frame.
It would be a serious breach of trust if we were now to say to individual candidates: "You are in, in any event" or "Whatever happens, you are going to have to wait a little longer" .
We shall therefore have to prepare ourselves for the possibility that we might have to accept an initial accession group of as many as 10 applicants.
That sounds more drastic that it actually is, because those 10 together represent around 75 million citizens, while all 13 candidate countries together make up a population of 185 million.
The President-in-Office has already indicated how much progress we have made in the negotiations.
I can, in fact, confirm that the question of the substance of the individual chapters is more important than the mere compilation of figures.
It is quite possible that countries which have concluded fewer chapters than others are nevertheless further on in their preparations.
The example of the free movement of workers has shown the difficulty of the issues we now have to deal with.
The compromise based on the Commission proposal will bring the most liberal and most flexible solution to the problem yet seen.
We shall need as much freedom of movement as possible, and for a number of years also as much security as possible.
I would also like to use this example to point once again to the Commission' s understanding of its own role in enlargement.
The Commission has to look to the interests of the Union as a whole.
It is in the interests of the Union as a whole that enlargement should not demand more of any Member State than it is actually able to give.
In making its proposals, the Commission also has to take into account what the applicant countries and future members are able to bear and what they are not.
Unless we are able to compromise, we shall not make the necessary progress, especially since we are now faced with highly controversial issues such as justice and home affairs, competition, taxation, transport, the budget, regional policy and agriculture.
When it comes to negotiating the chapter on justice and home affairs, the protection of the future external borders is a central issue.
We are faced here with a classic conflict of aims.
On the one hand, enlargement must not lead to a new division of Europe.
There must be no new dividing lines created.
Traditional cross-border contacts that often go back hundreds of years must not be made impossible or intolerably difficult, especially in places where the same language is spoken on both sides of the borders and there are close cultural ties.
On the other hand, at the end of this round of enlargement we will have an eastern border extending almost from the North Cape almost to the Bosporus.
That border will have to meet the security needs of today' s EU citizens.
A secure frontier is one of the essential prerequisites.
New members will not be able to be fully integrated into the Schengen system until the border system fully meets Schengen standards.
The other topics, such as taxation and competition, and to a large extent also agriculture, raise enormous social questions.
On the one hand, this concerns the functioning of the internal market, but on the other also the matter of social cohesion in the countries undergoing transformation.
We shall have to decide how much flexibility the Union is able to show so that enlargement is not experienced as a social shock in the future new Member States the day after accession.
When it comes to agriculture, we are dealing with an acquis that may change radically in the next few years.
Many observers believe it would be better to go for agricultural reform first and then talk to the candidate countries about agriculture.
If we were to do that, we would be setting a new condition.
There would not be an enlargement timetable that was anything like reliable.
The end of the project would be put off indefinitely.
As regards the financing of enlargement, the Commission will ensure that the budgetary effects of its proposals for negotiating positions are fully in line with the expenditure ceilings agreed in Berlin for the period up until 2006.
Account must, of course, be taken of the necessary adjustments for the number of new Member States provided for in Agenda 2000.
But even with those adjustments, we shall not exceed the ceiling decided in Berlin in 1999.
I want to turn now to the situation in the candidate countries themselves.
The transposition of Community law is now proceeding apace everywhere.
Most countries have taken highly effective organisational measures to deal with the massive amount of legislation in time.
The instruments deployed, in particular twinning and interparliamentary cooperation, have also proved their worth.
The Commission will be describing the progress made in meeting the Copenhagen criteria in the progress reports for the year 2001.
These reports will be discussed by the Commission and adopted in early November.
What we can say today is this: the trend of the last few years is continuing.
All the applicant countries with whom we have been negotiating continue to satisfy the political criteria.
It is clear that the prospect of membership has made a decisive contribution to stability in the young democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.
The value of the system' s stability for Europe as a whole can be seen everywhere where there are no concrete prospects for accession.
We see increasingly that a definite expectation of accession is the strongest and most effective motor for necessary reforms.
I should like to leave you in no doubt that in the negotiations the Commission is continuing to press for human rights and the rights of minorities to be fully respected.
That includes banning all discrimination on grounds of age, gender, sexual orientation or religious conviction.
We are continuing to observe carefully the position of minorities and the development of the rule of law.
It is symptomatic that national minorities in the applicant states are particularly keen on rapid accession because they see membership of the European Union as their most effective form of protection.
While the situation of the Russian minorities in the Baltic countries continues to improve, the integration of the Roma remains a thorny and substantial issue.
It would be pure illusion to think that social and cultural discrimination against the Roma could be abolished before accession.
That will take decades to achieve.
But we are asking all applicant states to develop credible strategies to improve the integration of the Roma and to put them into practice before accession.
I can also at last see light at the end of the tunnel as regards the condition of orphanage children and the adoption trade in Romania.
I want to be cautious because we have already experienced many disappointments, and in the past many fine words have not been matched by deeds.
But with the present government that is starting to change.
Its readiness to enforce a moratorium on international adoptions was an important sign.
There are such overwhelming indications that the existing system has knowingly and deliberately encouraged the abuse of children that the entire system will have to be radically reformed before international adoptions can be allowed again.
I am convinced that parents who really want children and reputable non-governmental organisations that help them to satisfy that desire will be the first to understand that protecting children against possible abuse must be the top priority.
At this point I should like to mention that the European Parliament' s rapporteur for Romania, Baroness Nicholson, has personally done the greatest service in uncovering an incredibly corrupt system and that the progress we can now see would not have come about without her persistence.
(Applause)
So far as the economic criteria are concerned, even when we apply the necessarily strict yardsticks we can see that here, too, the positive trend is continuing.
Free-market reforms have not yet been completed everywhere, but the market economy has been established everywhere.
In most cases, the applicant countries are already competitive on the internal market because the exchange of goods and services between them and the EU has to a large extent already been liberalised.
The overall economic situation is another matter.
We need to be very, very realistic here.
It is true that the candidate countries are achieving higher growth rates than the EU-15 average, but economically they are still a very long way behind.
It will be a very long time before we can speak of a real approximation.
Here, too, we should be speaking in terms of a period of a whole generation.
This means that, even after the accessions, enlargement will not have a drastic economic effect on the present Member States.
Most of the positive economic effects are already with us.
They will continue to grow.
But enlargement will not at first bring large annual boosts to growth for the EU 15, although, of course, border regions and the future Member States' neighbours in general will experience stronger positive effects.
All the same, the economic effect must not be underestimated.
There will be a sustained improvement in EU growth in the long term.
The European Union' s roll in international competition will be strengthened.
The economics and finance ministers and the Commission are watching the macroeconomic direction taken by the future new members closely.
In some of them, inflation rates and budget deficits are too high.
The balance of payments in some candidate countries has structural weaknesses.
There is intensive dialogue with the candidate countries about macroeconomic stability and there is no dispute about the objective.
In the light of the impending introduction of the euro I want to point out once again that the new members will not automatically belong to the euro zone.
That requires special preparation and a separate decision.
The Maastricht criteria will have to be satisfied in full.
But there will be no opting out of monetary union either.
At present, there are clear priorities: first the Copenhagen criteria for accession, then the Maastricht criteria for the euro.
I can already say that the Commission' s next strategy paper will focus on the assessment of the third Copenhagen criterion, namely the complete application of EU law.
That is a perfectly logical sequence.
Up until now, the main thing was the transposition of the acquis itself.
Now we are looking primarily at the ability to enforce and apply it in full.
As you know, there were still major deficits in this area last year.
We have strongly urged the applicant countries to remove those deficits.
I must repeat here what I said on an earlier occasion: severe deficits remaining in the areas of administrative capacities and the legal system may become serious obstacles to accession.
Before concluding, I want to say a brief word about two regional problems, Cyprus and Kaliningrad.
Our strategic objective is still to receive a united Cyprus as a new member.
We are therefore continuing to give our strong support to the UN Secretary-General' s efforts to find a solution to the Cyprus conflict.
I am very pleased to be able to say that we are working closely and confidently with the United Nations in this question.
It was no accident that the UN Secretary-General' s meeting with the Turkish Cypriot leader, Mr Denktash in Salzburg last Tuesday was preceded by a meeting between Mr Denktash and myself the day before.
I must thank the foreign ministers of Greece, Turkey and Cyprus, the presidency and the special representatives of the United Nations, the United Kingdom and the USA for their close cooperation and constructive dialogue in this matter.
I very much hope that things will now get moving again on the Cyprus issue and that talks on substantive issues will soon begin.
We should now concentrate all our efforts on resolving the conflict and refrain from speculating about what we might do if we fail.
The Helsinki resolutions apply and give us all the room for manoeuvre we need.
Kaliningrad is an entirely different matter.
It concerns the effects of enlargement on our neighbours, in this case Russia.
While fully recognising Russian sovereignty over the Kaliningrad territory, we have made proposals to Russia about how Kaliningrad can benefit from its position as a kind of island within the EU in future.
Dialogue in the matter has started, albeit rather sluggishly.
We would like to see a faster tempo here.
The immediate neighbours in the region, Poland and Lithuania, share our point of view.
It is a general principle that enlargement should not harm third countries.
In Russia' s case in particular I am absolutely convinced that Russia will benefit once the political and economic dynamics of the enlarged Union on Russia' s borders show their full effects.
Now one question remains. How can we ensure that people in the European Union and in the candidate countries will agree to the objective of enlargement?
We need to make greater efforts here. I agree with what Mr Brok said about it.
I have a proper degree of scepticism about opinion polls.
But we cannot ignore the Eurobarometer findings and the trends in opinion in the candidate countries.
However, we must not see the question of acceptance as purely a problem of communication.
If we have problems of communication in politics, in my experience the problem lies with the policy.
Many people are frightened by enlargement.
If those fears are based on fact, we can deal with them by information and participation.
But if the fears are unspecific or part of a very general unease about the way European things are going, then we need more than a communication strategy.
Then, the key issue is: What does Europe still mean to the people in the European Union? How can we make the idea of European unification as inspiring again as it once was?
If today' s European Union does not inspire people, how can we expect the prospects of an even larger EU to give rise to positive expectations? The answers to these questions must be found in another debate, but that debate has already begun.
If we can develop clarity of goals and of language, if we can find enough courage and vision, then social acceptance for enlargement will also be forthcoming.
(Applause)
Mr President, President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first to say a word to the Council.
Please do not take it personally, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, we think highly of you, we are always pleased to see you and you do excellent work.
But there were long drawn out negotiations over the date for this debate so as to enable President-in-Office Louis Michel to be present.
Then we agreed on this Tuesday.
Now he has stayed in Durban, which I do not want to criticise in itself, but I would like to say that the Council must be reformed,
that foreign ministers are the wrong people, not only because EU policy is not foreign policy, but because foreign ministers do not have the time to perform their duties in the European Union!
We are going to be talking about governance - Commission President Prodi will be saying something about it later -, and the change must begin with the Council, not only as regards transparency, but we also need new structures so that the relevant members of the national governments are also always present here in Parliament.
In other words, to be specific, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, if you had full powers over European policy and were not now dependent on your foreign minister, we would welcome that.
So that is no personal criticism of yourself.
(Applause)
We are very pleased that there is a broad majority across the groups here in Parliament - and with the Commission, too - on the questions of enlargement, and we say emphatically - as Mr Brok has also said - that enlargement is to everyone' s advantage, and we must say it in our member countries, too.
National politicians, too, must say that enlargement is to the advantage of the present European Union and of the accession countries.
No one would have thought 20 years ago that today we would be talking about the countries of central Europe being able to join our community of values.
That is a tremendous historical development.
And I would also like to say a word of recognition to the accession countries, which have embarked on tremendous reforms after 50 years of communism.
What they are doing is not a simple matter and instead of only ever giving voice, in the countries of the European Union, to certain fears about the dangers we should also say a word of recognition for the people in the accession countries for making this tremendous effort.
(Applause)The accession countries also have dignity.
I cannot understand why heads of government in the countries of the European Union tell the heads of government in the accession countries: Yes, we must demand a long period for freedom of movement because we have national elections.
The accession countries also have dignity and an internal political situation, and our national heads of government ought to recognise that.
(Applause)I do not believe there will be a mass migration.
I have the figures for the Federal Republic of Germany: in the last ten years, 900 000 people came to the Federal Republic of Germany from Poland, but 700 000 of them went back again.
Commissioner, you are quite right: If the countries have the prospect of becoming members of the European Union, their citizens will not migrate but will prefer to stay at home.
That is after all quite natural human behaviour, and so we should not demonise this question or abuse it for internal political reasons.
We need a great deal of flexibility for the questions of freedom of movement.
Commissioner, I very much welcome what you said about border controls.
On the one hand, the borders must remain open, the right to asylum must be guaranteed.
People wanting to enter the Union across the external borders must also be treated humanely, and that is why we advocate a European border police.
We should show solidarity, that is the countries with no external borders with the countries that have an external border.
A European multinational border police would be a sensible way of cultivating mutual solidarity here.
We must, of course, also think of the border regions of the present countries of the European Union, which will have problems, and I note from a press release that you are also particularly sympathetic to the problems of these border regions.
We will also increase acceptance in our border regions.
I would like to draw your attention to one very particular problem, Commissioner, namely developments in Romania.
We were very concerned to see that an opposition party that is not represented in parliament but which has a long tradition, the PNTCD, was banned there last week with dubious legal arguments, and I would ask you to look into the matter, because democracy and debate on a democratic basis are a high value and we ought to pay attention to that in those countries.
A final comment, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck: We know that in your case European policy is in good hands.
We are approaching the Laeken summit, and if the decision about the convention, about a conference, is taken there, would you kindly ensure that the accession countries, too, are involved in the process in a sensible manner for the purpose of consultation and information, because we owe it to those countries because we shall have a common future with them in the European Union.
(Applause)
Mr President, since our debate last year on enlargement, there has been very considerable and commendable progress.
During this past year, several of the states in the Helsinki group have already in effect caught up with those in the earlier Luxembourg group.
It is a year where the emphasis and the élan which was brought to this task by the Swedish Presidency has borne fruit.
This is a process that I am sure will be continued and deepened by our friends in the Belgian Presidency.
I welcome the fact that the European Council, with the encouragement of the European Commission, adopted the date of the next European election as a target timetable, all the while emphasising and respecting the fact that we should continue with a case by case analysis based on differentiation.
It may well indeed be possible that ten states could be ready by that time and if that is the case, that would be very welcome.
But we should not impose on those who are ready by that time the burden and failures of those who may not be and therefore we must still cleave to this notion of differentiation as the leitmotif through which we should analyse the outcomes.
There is a very disquieting level of public support indicated by opinion polls.
The Commissioner is right in that we should not get carried away excessively by following every poll but when they are so consistent, underneath it there is a message.
And again I would congratulate the Commission in the past 12 months on the deepening and extension of the information and communications policy.
But it is very clear that that alone will not be enough.
We need political leadership and political vision.
We need the big picture to be put in place to convince people what the nature of this historic project is of.
In that regard there is the question of the free movement of labour.
I am bound to say on behalf of my own group that the Liberal Democrats here in this House are unhappy at the pace with which the thought of having a systematic ban on the free movement of labour became the politique acquise.
We think that indeed there may be a burden but more empiricism and more reflection may have helped.
At the end of the day whether it is realpolitik or empiricism that brings us to this conclusion, my group would appeal that each Member State would reflect on its own position and where possible would opt out from this particular policy.
Already I understand four states, Ireland, Denmark, Sweden and Netherlands have given such an indication.
I would appeal to other states to do so.
But inside this there is another real issue.
The frontline border regions are the regions of our European integration process.
We here in this House must express our concern for an enhancement of regional policy focus in those places because these regions will carry the most immediate consequence of enlargement.
This solidarity is something we must inject into this debate, as Europeans, with greater vigour and not simply leave it to local or national interests to make the case.
On the question of the current state of the enlargement debate, I meet many friends in the candidate states in politics and diplomacy who worry about various tensions that have emerged.
My own sense is to say to them they should take reassurance from this.
We are now getting real.
The shadow boxing has finished and these tensions reflect the reality that we are now in a vigorous process.
Finally three very quick points which I do not have the time to develop.
I should like to be reassured by the Commission that the failure to establish paying agencies for Sapard in so many states for reasons which I understand will not mitigate against the carryover of funding that we have dedicated for structural agricultural reform.
Secondly, I welcome what the Commissioner had to say on Cyprus and Kaliningrad.
I salute what he says about the optimum desires for Cyprus and I hope the UN process will take off with his and others' encouragement but we must remember never to make the best the enemy of the good.
Finally, on the question of the Irish referendum, the message given both by the Council and the Commission today is an important one.
Yes there may be legal means to get us over the legal niceties but there is within this a political signal and message and the signal must be, that however we may criticise the Nice Treaty, and we all do, we must get over that hurdle as a precondition politically not to do with enlargement but to do it ourselves.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner, first of all I would like to say on behalf of my group that we are extremely pleased that during the year now ended negotiations have truly made rapid progress and it has been possible to close one chapter after another.
My group truly regards 2004 as a target timetable by which it is possible - not certain, but possible - that as many as ten new countries may join the European Union.
Simultaneous accession by such a large group would,, of course, bring the advantage that we would avoid new division lines between the applicant countries, and in my opinion this is something which we must earnestly strive towards.
Mr Hänsch did a fine job of explaining how the enlargement process is one in which both the current and the future Member States of the European Union will benefit: everyone can benefit from this.
I wish however to stress that this means that we must truly be able to create an economic and social dynamic so that these benefits will be realised even in the pre-accession period.
Here I wish to stress the emphasis which my group places on this point: sustainable development must be sustainable not only economically, but also ecologically and socially.
We need to emphasise that the applicant countries must take very seriously any Community legislation which aims to strengthen these sustainable characteristics.
It goes without saying that children's rights and the principle of non-discrimination are the sort of principles to which we, as Europeans, must hold fast.
Mr. President, our group hopes that it would be possible to deploy additional resources in order to expedite this dynamic.
Here we refer to the fact that the Community's funding framework for the years 2000-2006 contains some resources which could possibly be freed, since quite obviously no new Member States will be joining in 2002.
Those resources which are freed on account of this fact could be deployed, even in the pre-accession period, as tools of agricultural and structural policy in order to strengthen this positive dynamic.
We would like to see the common agricultural policy strongly reformed in such a direction that, instead of making direct aid payments to large farmers in the European Union or in the applicant countries, these resources would be firmly shifted to rural development and quality-oriented food production.
Finally, Mr President, one very important shortcoming in this process is that the involvement of citizens has, up to now, been particularly poor.
We would like to take part in serious consideration of how we could increase the participation of ordinary citizens in the enlargement process also in the applicant countries, since at the moment what is happening is that it is only the narrow élites of society who find enlargement to their advantage, and it is these people who are pushing enlargement.
A great many people, however, are perplexed, and fear that enlargement will be to their detriment.
The position of women and the fight against poverty must be taken into account, and our group would like to emphasise these matters.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, on behalf of my group I should like to say that we - at least the vast majority - consider the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to the European Union to be of strategic importance and we strongly support this accession process.
Madam President-in-Office, if you have compared this accession process with others, I think it must be made even clearer that this accession process is qualitatively quite different, not only because of the number of countries, the languages, the territory, the population, but also historically, because it is a far-reaching cultural opening towards Central and Eastern Europe such as has hardly been discussed before, because it is an economic and social challenge on an entirely new scale, and, of course, also because of the far-reaching foreign and security policy implications.
In the light of that, my agreement to what many of the previous speakers have said must be qualified.
I think the policies pursued by the governments and also by the Commission are seriously flawed, even though I do recognise the commitment you have shown, Commissioner Verheugen, the progress made in negotiations and the great support given by the EU to the accession process.
I would like to highlight five questions:
Firstly, in my opinion the involvement of the citizens has been minimal.
Secondly, hardly any attempt is being made to use the opportunity presented by eastward enlargement to overcome the Nice crisis and for the democratic and social shaping of European integration.
Thirdly, equality for the accession countries has not in my opinion been adequately achieved.
That applies to the question, which has already been raised, of the excessively long transitional periods for the free movement of workers just as much as to the lack of clarity that is now emerging over transfers to agriculture.
Fourthly, I have to say clearly that the Commission' s recent decision on funding for border regions is irresponsible.
A year ago, Mr Verheugen, you made quite different promises in the regions concerned.
You are being measured against them there and I am measuring you against them.
As you well know and others here have already mentioned, these are the very regions, above all others, where expansion will be experienced directly.
Whosoever wants it to be an economic, social and political success and not a breeding ground for nationalist sentiment must change this position.
Fifthly, I find it totally unsatisfactory that the number of Czech and Hungarian members of this Parliament was decided undemocratically in Nice and that that has still not been changed.
Mr Hänsch, I was also surprised that the amendment I tabled in the matter to the report on the Czech Republic was supported by the European People' s Party and others in the Committee on Foreign Affairs but was not supported by the majority of the Social Democrats.
Whether that was out of deference to the national governments that decided it, I do not know.
At any rate we should agree that Parliament will in this matter be calling uncompromisingly for a change.
I would like to thank everyone, including Mr Brok, for their reports.
I believe that here, too, a critical, thoughtful attitude was formulated towards many aspects of the eastward enlargement strategy.
But I would also like to draw attention to two differences, which in part also affect other reports.
The first is the stereotypical concentration on economic and social deregulation and privatisation at the expense of social division and destruction which, given the scale of it, are unacceptable.
The second difference concerns Mr Brok' s report.
When it says that the expansion of the EU and NATO are sensible complements to each other, I would think that eastern enlargement of the EU also offers prospects for a productive and cooperative shaping of the relationship between Europe and Russia.
But NATO expansion, especially under the conditions of current US and NATO policy, is in my view fraught with serious and in part incalculable risks.
Finally, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office, it remains my great wish that the citizens might be able to experience EU enlargement as something that concerns them not primarily through glossy brochures, but that they might help to shape it as a democratic, social and ecological reality.
Mr President, the enlargement of the European Union is an irreversible process.
We must be quite clear about this.
The conclusions of the Göteborg Summit of EU leaders with regard to the enlargement negotiations and the accession process stated that the road map should make it possible for those countries that are ready to complete negotiations by the end of 2002.
I am confident that, under the Belgian Presidency of the European Union, extensive progress will be made with regard to the enlargement negotiations.
Key chapters of discussions which it was said will be opened during the Belgian presidency include competition policy, transport, energy, taxation, customs union, veterinary and hygiene aspects of agriculture, fisheries, justice and home affairs, and financial control.
The aim of concluding the enlargement negotiations with the more advanced countries by the end of 2002 is an achievable objective.
The leading candidates are provisionally closing chapters at an impressive rate and the leading candidate country, Cyprus, now has 23 chapters concluded.
But it is equally important that the European Union and the applicant countries get down to negotiating the more difficult chapters of talks, which to date have remained closed.
It is in the interests of all contracting parties that the bottom line issues that remain outstanding are debated, resolved and finalised.
We must all continue to play an active and constructive role in the enlargement process.
The enlargement of the Union is an economic and political opportunity for Europe.
The expansion of the single market should be of real and tangible interest to European exporters and to indigenous European companies seeking investment abroad.
On a continental level, the enlargement of the European Union will contribute to further stability.
An enlarged Union will be able to play a more positive and influential role internationally, both politically and economically.
It will help to consolidate democratic and civil structures in eastern and central Europe.
It will contribute to the development of greater free market economies.
Our input into organisations such as the World Trade Organisation would be very much strengthened by the enlargement of the European Union.
As an Irish Member of the European Parliament, I would like to take this opportunity of restating that the result of the Nice Treaty referendum in Ireland should not be interpreted or construed as a vote against the enlargement of the European Union.
Irish public opinion is strongly in favour of the enlargement process, as indicated by a recent Eurobarometer poll which found that 59% of the Irish people were in favour of the enlargement of the Union.
This figure is the second highest amongst the 15 Member States of the European Union.
Hopefully this Eurobarometer poll will be reflected when the Irish electorate next have an opportunity of making a decision on the issue.
Welcome
Progress of the 12 candidate countries in 2000 (continuation)
Mr President, Commissioner, this morning' s debate on enlargement has revealed considerable convergence of approaches and methods as well.
Moreover, it was observed on several occasions that enlargement is not just a matter of extending the Union geographically, economically and politically, of integrating 10, 12 or maybe 13 countries, mainly in Central and Eastern Europe, which have survived the tragic experience of 50 years of communism, but that, in enlargement, the Union itself is at stake.
It was President Prodi, in what is probably his best speech as President which he delivered at the University of Lublin, who said and I quote, "European integration is dependent on a shared understanding of what policy goals should be pursued in the Union" .
This does not, of course, simply mean that we must monitor carefully the candidate countries' respect for the three Copenhagen criteria: freedom, democracy and human rights, a competitive market economy able to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union, and gradual incorporation of the Community acquis which, as Commissioner Verheugen pointed out this morning, also requires full incorporation of European law, which has proved to be maybe the most difficult part of the process for the candidate countries.
No, it is indeed a question of discussing, rethinking and reviving a European project all over again.
Neither can we expect immediately, so to speak, an easy outcome of the reforms, which are sometimes just institutional hot air.
As both Commissioner Barnier and Commissioner Lamy rightly observed, we cannot discuss the institutional reforms if we do not first define a political project.
Implementation cannot precede conception or else we will become so used to not saying what Europe does that we will not even know what Europe is.
What, then, is the project on which we should initially focus the debate of Parliament' s, the only genuinely democratic institution and maybe the only institution which is capable of involving the public as well?
A Europe which has a federal currency, an intergovernmental defence policy and an open economic market area clearly has considerable potential, but also areas of considerable confusion.
Some are of the opinion that these areas of confusion can be resolved by drawing up another document following on from the Charter of Fundamental Rights, in other words a genuine Constitution; others wonder whether we really need a European Constitution, a form of constitutional patriotism based on the German model which is supposed to provide patriotism which would not otherwise exist.
For others, at the heart of the project lies enhancing and increasing economic cooperation around the euro, and, more then any other characteristic, this would make Europe' s relationship with globalisation clear and would indicate our ability to be a genuinely global force, at least at European level.
For still others, the core concern, the crux of the matter is the need for a foreign and security policy which is truly common.
Well then, if I may focus on this point for a moment, the debate which took place just this morning on the Middle East revealed that this is, if not the heart of the project, certainly the centre of our difficulties.
Commissioner Patten rightly said, this morning, that we feel that we have been frustrated in our desire to contribute to the peace process or, to be more accurate, the resumption of negotiations or, more precisely still, cease-fires in Palestine, by the events which have been repeated during the last few hours.
I am, of course, pleased to hear that anti-Semitic school books are not being financed with European funds, but, frankly, I do not think that this should be the focal point of the debate we must initiate within the Union.
What is missing is politics, political decisions, political action such as, for example with regard to the Middle East, the accession of Israel to the European Union as proposed so often by our radical friends and others. This decision would genuinely change the course of events, providing a new security policy and, at the same time, committing Israel and the entire region to it.
There you are, focusing on these issues - strengthening the euro, adapting the institutions and a genuinely common foreign and security policy - will give the European project what it lacks today and what enlargement requires of us.
Mr President, the June movement is voting in favour of enlargement, but the agreements must also be so good for the candidate countries that their electorates are inspired to vote in favour.
The EU Summit must learn from the referendums in Denmark and Ireland.
Given the way in which the enlargement negotiations are at present going, a majority of people in one or more countries is going to vote against.
Keeping documents and correspondence secret is a sure way of creating mistrust.
People will think that the EU has something to hide when it does not dare to produce documentation.
For a couple of years now, I have been trying to obtain a non-bureaucratic electronic copy of the rules the candidate countries have to accept.
The Commission still refuses to produce such a document.
Why not do voters the service of putting all papers on the Internet so that they can be read in Karup and Prague, Bogense and Budapest? I am not demanding that internal negotiating positions or military secrets be made publicly available.
However, papers that are to result in laws must be made available now.
We must also discuss whether we are making the correct demands of the candidate countries.
Where and when have our people demonstrated in favour of being able to buy cheap land in the countries of Eastern Europe? Might we not offer transitional arrangements concerning agricultural and recreational land until such time as the countries concerned have, for example, 90% of our income?
Who in the West has any desire to pay subsidies to people in Eastern Europe whom we are forcing out of their jobs? Might we not allow extended transitional arrangements so that they can adapt to competition in the common market but be allowed to protect local markets until such time as they are more competitive?
Might we not be a little more magnanimous and much more flexible?
Why not allow the 12 candidate countries to be involved in devising the basis for cooperation in the next treaty?
Why not disregard the Treaty of Nice and create a treaty which can be adopted in referendums in all the countries - a treaty in favour of an open, slimmer, freer and more democratic Europe? The prospect of membership would then create enthusiasm among people and increase the turnouts at elections in such a way as to produce large majorities in favour of enlargement.
People want to be united instead of divided Let that be the challenge.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in its report on the progress of the Czech Republic, the Commission writes, and I quote: "The Czech Republic continues to fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria."
This is a remarkable statement.
The Commission's report does not contain a single word about the Benes Decrees.
The Commission overlooks the fact that upholding the Benes Decrees, which justify the expulsion and murder of many thousands of people after the Second World War, is clearly contrary to the accession criteria established by the Community.
The Czech Republic's stance, that it does not wish to repeal them, amounts to a disregard for fundamental basic values and human rights which the EU expressly upholds.
This means that Europe is sending out a signal which does lasting damage to the EU's credibility on matters of fundamental and human rights.
As a representative of Austria I should also like to say a word on Temelin.
Temelin has significant safety defects.
The Commission's report on the safety of Temelin also confirms that Austria's misgivings about the reactor are justified.
Notwithstanding this, the Czech Republic is trying, by activating the reactor, to present us with a fait accompli.
This is not the kind of behaviour that we expect when working in a partnership.
The place to resolve this problem is Brussels.
I await a European initiative to close it down.
Commissioner Verheugen, you described Temelin as the safest nuclear power station in Europe.
This is not only not very helpful, it is also counterproductive if we are to identify a strategy for abandoning the site which is acceptable to everyone.
We will resume this debate at 3 o'clock.
Mr President, I have taken the floor to inform the Members that, last night, responding during a debate on the oral questions tabled by Mr Harbour and Mrs Guy-Quint, Mr Kinnock said and confirmed that all the Members of Parliament would receive the Commission' s written answers last night, and the Vice-President of the Commission invoked this information in support of his answers to the Members present last night who did not know anything about this.
When I checked, I found that these documents did not arrive either yesterday or this morning, and it is not known when they will arrive.
I have mentioned this because - in view of the tone of yesterday' s debate - if the members of the Commission could manage to give the Members of Parliament correct information and not say one thing and do another, I feel that this would be an absolutely essential achievement.
We will take that up with the Commission services and see if we can get it to you as quickly as possible.
I am sure that if there was a commitment, it will be met.
Mr President, in relation to what Mr Dell'Alba has said I simply wanted to report, without wishing to defend the Commission, that I also spoke to the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Kinnock, today and apparently the reports are already on their way.
There has been a technical problem, so no one was being devious; there was just a technical hitch.
Mr President, as the joint initiator and author of this question, perhaps I might be allowed to say a brief word.
I also met Mr Kinnock this morning to discuss yesterday's responses.
His services told me that the report had actually been sent to Parliament yesterday for distribution to Members.
So that is something that should be looked at, because Mr Kinnock made it clear yesterday that the Commission was keen to give Members a response straight away to the detail of my question.
We ought to investigate this.
If the Commission sent the report to Parliament, it is our responsibility that it has not been circulated.
If the delay was on the part of the Commission, we should ask why there was a delay.
We will have a look at that and try to discover what has gone wrong.
VOTE
Mr President, I would ask you to check the second part of recital M. The Swedish-language version states that it is a question of strengthening European citizenship.
The English version uses a similar concept, right enough, while the French version talks about nationalité.
Nationality and citizenship are not the same thing.
European citizenship is what we support.
According to my text, it is quite clear.
It says: "... and the strengthening of European citizenship".
That is the text that we are voting on.
(Parliament adopted the resolution) President.
That concludes the vote.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Hans-Peter Mayer report (A5-0243/2001)
Mr President, Mr Mayer' s document is the first stage in the adoption of the directives on the European company, the European limited-liability company.
Only yesterday, when I spoke during the debate, I said that the European company is a good thing, so good that I could see myself celebrating the success of the European limited-liability company by swimming in a bath tub full of euros.
I would like to continue yesterday' s discourse by saying that many pensioners came in to see me and asked: "Seeing as you are swimming in gold, why do you not create a European pension as well, so that we pensioners can all become rich as well like the European limited-liability companies?" I hope that there will soon be a European pension.
Mr President, I welcome the fact that at long last we have resolved this issue of the European Company Statute.
It is logical that if we have a single market there should be a single system of company registration, which ought to make registration simpler and reduce red tape.
In the defence industries in the last few years we have had considerable cross-border cooperation and consolidation but we have not helped those companies because we have not provided them with a single company structure.
Hopefully this will now do that.
We also have to bear in mind that there are other issues that have to be addressed, such as the manner in which companies are taxed and the way that is approached.
And if we are really to encourage transnational consolidation, we have to look at the question of how pension funds are dealt with so that people are able to take their pensions with them when working within a single company structure.
.
Madame President, I, like many of my colleagues, was very happy to see that after 30 years of negotiations and many false starts, we eventually had a compromise text on a European Company Statute.
I fully supported the text as adopted by the Council.
However, I was and I am totally opposed to the amendments which have been adopted and which support the harmonisation of taxes.
We all wish to see the ability for companies to operate on an EU basis under one common regulatory system.
This can potentially lead to employment and assist economic growth throughout the Union.
Over the past decade, Ireland has been progressively reducing its taxation which has been led to an increase in employment, an increase in budget surplus and continued sustainable growth.
I am opposed to the standardisation or harmonisation of taxes and these issues can be and must be dealt with by means of co-ordinated measures.
.
(PT) As we all know, this proposal for a directive has been under discussion since 1970 and, despite the very basic agreement concluded at the Nice European Council, with the creation of a regulation on the statute and a proposal on the involvement of workers, the first step was nevertheless taken to make the European Company a legal entity.
The fundamental aim of the European Company is to eliminate any obstacles to the mobility and functioning of companies that operate on a European scale, enabling them to merge and allowing multinational companies to extend their business activities to other countries in the European Union, thereby increasing the benefits of the Euro and the internal market.
Furthermore, the European Company is seeking to create a statute for a supranational society, giving an identity and a face to European capital.
The current regulation, therefore, broaches mainly constitutional issues, and calls for Community and national law to fill existing loopholes in legislation.
It is not by chance that the rapporteur mainly focuses on the issues of harmonising tax provisions and creating a uniform framework in other areas, such as competition, worker participation and insolvency.
The rapporteur is also seeking to use this regulation to establish a connection with the Directive on the involvement of employees and expresses concern at the situation of SMEs. Nonetheless, the aim of the regulation is to serve the huge multinationals and the interests of UNICE [Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe].
Consequently, the proposal on the participation of workers itself is inadequate. The amendments tabled by the ELDR Group are even more unacceptable and we have, therefore, voted against them.
A Statute for a European Company has been a subject of discussion in the EU since the Seventies.
Together with the Directive on employee participation, the European Company Statute known as Société Européenne (SE), upon which the Nice Summit agreed, appears to be as far as it is possible to go, given the different legislation of the 15 Member States.
We support the Council' s proposal and reject the amendments demanding uniform EU rules on taxation.
I know the problem.
We can all sympathise with you, but it is very difficult to get colleagues to leave the Chamber quietly.
They always have something else to do.
However, we will make that point as often as we can.
Menrad report (A5-0231/2001)
Mr President, Mr Posselt, not only is there a great deal of noise while I am delivering explanations of vote, but I discovered this morning that an amendment to the Rules of Procedure has been tabled by Mrs Bastos, a Portuguese lady, proposing to reduce the number of explanations of vote and to force Mr Fatuzzo to shut up.
I support this initiative, although it will still have to be voted upon in the House, when I will learn to what extent Mr Fatuzzo' s explanations of vote are appreciated. With regard to Mr Menrad' s report, Mr Fatuzzo voted for the motion for he considers that it is right for workers to be informed about what will happen to them when their company closes.
I call for not just the workers but the ex-workers, the pensioners of such companies to be consulted as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the positive outcomes of the Treaty of Nice is the European Company and we are now debating this in the context of Mr Menrad's report on the involvement of employees, which I welcome.
My concern is simply that if we constantly extend workers' rights and in particular if we lower thresholds, as is the case in this report - from 1000 employees to 500 for the rules on worker participation to be applied - we will place too great a burden on this European Company.
The European Company is supposed to attract companies to Europe.
This new company model is intended to open up Europe as a business location and make it more attractive.
That is why it is also necessary, in particular where worker participation is concerned, for us to keep a sense of proportion and not to burden the companies adopting this model with these new rights in such a way that it is simply no longer of interest to those who wish either to enter Europe or to use the European Company to be more mobile within the European single market.
In my view sufficient account has not been taken of this and that is why I have voted against.
The European Council directive claims to grant additional rights to the workers of European companies.
These so-called rights are simply the participation of workers' representatives in 'the SE' s administrative or supervisory body' .
Even by taking Parliament' s amendments into account, these minority representatives will not be able to influence any decisions.
Furthermore, the legislator wants to ban them and even their freedom of expression with fellow workers by imposing a confidentiality clause on them.
As a result, these representatives are only summoned when required to approve their employers' policy or to be silenced.
We refuse to approve this farce.
That is why we abstained from voting on this text.
I believe that it is important to mention the background to this proposal for a directive, which seeks to supplement the regulation on the European Company with regard to the involvement of workers.
The first proposal for a European Commission regulation dates back to 1970 and was presented to the European Parliament at the end of the 1980s.
Some of the core elements of this directive are the binding provisions concerning the participation of employees' representatives, the information and consultation requirements within the administrative or supervisory bodies and the obligation to obtain authorisation before implementing decisions such as shutting down or relocating establishments, cutting back or expanding establishments, changing establishments, the establishment of subsidiaries or holding companies. Election procedures and the working methods of employees' representatives should follow normal practice in the Member State concerned.
These proposals have failed on the issue of participation.
A great deal more negotiating was needed before the Nice European Council reached agreement on 20 December 2000.
The proposal for a directive governing information and consultation of workers specifies that the scale of participation will be decided through free negotiations between the companies concerned and the workers represented by a special negotiating body.
Should the result of the negotiations lead to a reduction of participation rights, the majority required for a decision to approve such an agreement shall be the votes of two thirds of the members of the special negotiating body representing at least two thirds of the employees.
In the event of a breakdown of negotiations, a safety clause is provided to protect participation rights.
The purpose of the amendments made by the European Parliament is to establish minimum requirements for information, participation and consultation of employees; to harmonise the national implementing provisions of the Member States, since acquired rights are not called into question; to ensure that even in the case of substantial structural changes after an SE has been created, negotiations on employee participation are planned to take place at a later date; to lay down clear rules on management' s obligation to provide information, specifying areas to which this obligation applies; to ensure that the election or appointment of workers' representatives to the SE' s administrative or surveillance body shall take place according to the legal provisions of the Member States.
I must conclude by saying that I voted in favour of the amendment to change the legal basis of this proposal.
In my view, the European Parliament must use the co-decision procedure for a piece of legislation that concerns 75% of European workers.
Thirty years of difficult negotiations, exemptions and exceptions, a legal basis that only serves to give illegitimate powers to the Commission in Brussels, an attempt to transform a directive into a regulation using an implementation group.
Undeniably, the Statute for a European Company is a real labyrinth and economic and political actors are hardly enthusiastic about it, to put it mildly.
In truth, the only benefit of the European Company is that it is being imposed as if it were a true component of supranational law - it certainly is similar to the single currency, being an ideological construction that seeks to forcibly replace national structures and impose an uncontrollable level of Community decision-making.
Some claim to be concerned about workers' rights.
The Directive, however, clearly bypasses these rights in favour of the unquestionable right of the management board to create a European Company.
The Directive even allows a reduction in the right of workers to participation.
So this is simply another stage in the unrelenting globalisation process, which begins with everything at European-level being made uniform.
In this scenario, it would be an obvious advantage for all the ultra-liberals to have a workforce, which is also globalised and has the least amount of rights possible.
This is bordering on a perverse interpretation of global worker unification, as the so-called anti-globalisation left-wing extremists are now calling for, with the help of many slogans.
The greatest perversion of all undeniably resides in the objective alliance between capitalist internationalism and subversive or Marxist internationalism, which aims to impose levels of decision-making which override nations, their democratically appointed governments and their democratically elected parliaments.
And yet the nation is the only level at which social and political legislation for workers, freedoms and prosperity for all exists and can be defended best.
- (NL) Society cannot survive without businesses which produce goods and provide services.
However, that should not lead us to overlook the fact that businesses can also form a threat to society.
They want as low taxes as possible, as little worker participation as possible and as few rules as possible to protect against environmental pollution and animal torture.
Large businesses, in particular, are out to make the highest possible profits for the owners and also often to secure the highest possible share options for management.
In many cases, the pursuit of profits clashes with the pursuit of the healthiest possible living environment, the prevention of work-related illnesses, a safe working environment, democratic decision-making and the desirability of sufficient financial means to pay for public services.
That is why it is necessary to arrange for as much openness as possible, so that society as a whole can co-determine the actions of businesses.
Moreover, businesses which infringe rules should not under any circumstance receive contributions from European funds.
Menrad report (A5-0282/2001)
Mr President, a few days ago, I was on Lake Como, admiring the beauty of this wonderful Italian lake from a boat.
While I was in the boat, I met a worker, who said to me: "I am very pleased that you are going to adopt the Menrad report, which will mean that I, a worker, will be informed of the day when I will be made redundant.
I will know it a long time in advance, so this is certainly good news!
But why is it that workers are not informed not just of when they will be made redundant but also of when they will receive a pension, how large that pension will be and, in short, of everything it is important for workers to know about their pensions? As things stand, they receive no information at all."
- (DA) We have voted in favour of Amendment No 4, not because we are opposed to appropriate sanctions in the event of employers' or employee representatives' not complying with the directive but because we are opposed to paragraph 2 of Article 2, no. xiii) which may create difficulties for national agreement-based systems which at present operate very well.
We did not want a negative vote to prevent the progress of this report, thus taking into account the desire of many of the trade unions.
By abstaining however, we are showing our rejection of the proposals, which, on the pretext of increasing the rights of workers, have obviously been written with employers' interests in mind.
The report talks of 'competitive needs' but disregards the need to provide workers with the right to live and earn a wage. The author of the report perceives helping employers as a need.
Yet, when it comes to workers' rights, these are immediately restricted to the right to be informed about the redundancies that are to be made - preventing them is out of the question.
Workers' councils are being refused the simple right of veto, even though, faced with an increase in collective redundancies, often in large companies which have been making huge profits for many years, a simple ban on redundancies would be enough to protect workers.
So, what exactly is this 'partnership between employers and workers' advocated by the report, where one of the partners has the right to take decisions which ruin the life of so many workers, even an entire region, and where the other partner has no rights, not even the right to safeguard his job?
.
UK Conservatives believe in the principle of works councils.
But we also consider that it is for companies and their employees to decide what best works for them rather than for the EU to set out one-size-fits-all legislation.
Works councils should provide a bridge between employers and employees.
Over-prescriptive legislation can turn them into a barrier.
Flexibility, not rigidity, is required.
The one area where there is a need for greater legal certainty is the issue of confidentiality at a time of mergers and take-overs.
We are no further forward on this.
.
(FR) Firstly, I would like to remind you that the main objective of Directive 94/45/EC is to eliminate any obstacles to informing, consulting and communicating with employees in Community-scale companies.
It is true that this directive has been transposed within the allotted time frame.
It is also true that its application has led to the creation of numerous European works councils.
Approximately 650 works councils have thus been set up in companies that employ at least 1000 people, with at least 150 of these in two Member States.
However, there are still 1 800 companies in the EU that meet the conditions, especially in relation to thresholds over which, according to the Directive' s provisions, a European Works Council should be set up.
Furthermore, the recent large-scale restructuring operations and redundancies that have highlighted the gaps in European legislation are still fresh in everyone' s minds.
It is unacceptable for employees to find out about decisions affecting their company through the media.
We are accountable to European citizens, who are ever more doubtful of the existence of a European social model.
This period of industrial change should prompt us to think carefully about how we can improve existing arrangements.
It is exactly this that the report from the Parliamentary Committee on Employment and Social Affairs sets out to do, for, on the occasion of this application report, it outlines the direction to be taken by the European Commission when it drafts a proposal for an amendment to the European Works Council Directive (scheduled for 2002).
This will be a matter of implementing the following improvements: precise definition of the concepts of information and consultation of workers; a general obligation to call extraordinary meetings of the European Works Council, as quickly as is possible and at an opportune time; the implementation of a consolidated consultation procedure on particular questions, specifically involving workers; the lowering of the threshold relating to the number of employees in companies affected by the directive from 1000 to 500 employees for a whole company and from 150 to 100 per establishment in at least two Member States; the establishment of penalties, at national and European level, to be applied in cases where the Directive is not respected.
I would therefore also ask the European Commission to incorporate these suggestions into its proposal for an amendment to the European Works Council Directive.
.
(FR) Less than 5% of the companies affected by the 1994 Works Councils Directive have meetings for employee representatives more than twice a year; 60% have not even set up works councils and, in the rare cases where they have been set up, it has been to the detriment of the representation of workers in national companies particularly in terms of time set aside for consultation and training.
This is a good illustration of the refusal of employers to inform and consult workers' representatives and their intention to decide alone on the fate of millions of employees.
The latest redundancy programmes drawn up by the management at AOM, Marks & Spencer, Lu-Danone and even Moulinex have, once again, shown that the interests of managers and small investors are completely opposed to those of employees and the needs of the population.
Today, the most important thing for employees faced with looming unemployment is the chance to block these redundancies, not just to have been told about them beforehand and by different means.
The resolution' s proposals relating to redundancies are merely symbolic and have no meaning for the thousands of employees that have already lost their jobs.
We support all the provisions that facilitate better information and more rights for employee representatives and all the measures which provide more resources to bring about the mobilisation necessary to thwart managers' plans.
- (NL) No business can operate without the people who do the work.
The shop floor has great insight into what goes wrong and how things can be improved.
That insight is often ignored; after all, these workers are not hired to pass judgement.
According to traditional power relations, only ownership and management count.
Workers seem nothing but a necessary evil who are completely irrelevant to the business and who are only hired temporarily from the outside world.
In the case of reorganisations, it is the shareholders and managers who make the decisions; the workers feature at the bottom of the list.
Thousands of people are asked to leave because another product requiring other skills is deemed more profitable, because production is shifted to a country where wages are lower or even because the business wants to penalise the workers for wanting better working conditions.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur is not suggesting that workers should be given the right to free access to information and to suspensive veto.
If suspensive veto were to be applied during restructuring, alternatives could first be considered and developed in full public view and with the use of all the expertise available, and the monopoly of management and owners of the businesses would subsequently be broken.
Blokland report (A5-0267/2001)
.
(FR) The fact that, after eight years of negotiations, the European authorities cannot even obtain reliable information on the production of waste, particularly industrial waste, and its treatment, is indicative of their powerlessness.
This is one way in which they have shown their incapacity to follow a policy in this field that is capable of limiting environmental pollution and preventing environmental disasters now or in the future.
The explanatory statement clearly records that "no agreement was reached" between Member States, that there was "considerable opposition in the Council" and that there was rejection by "business".
The treatment of certain types of waste, particularly from the nuclear, chemical and petroleum industries, requires cooperation on an international level, yet the powerlessness of the European authorities mirrors the intentional powerlessness of Member States.
Neither wants to clash with the private interests of large industrial groups or to impose upon them draconian measures that could reduce their profits, in order to preserve society' s environmental interests.
We have abstained because the proposals in this report are too vague.
Koukiadis report (A5-0250/2001)
.
(FR) We have voted resolutely against the Koukiadis report because, with a frighteningly clear conscience, it proposes to increase control measures to better apply Community Law, without first ascertaining whether the rapid rise in cases of poorly executed application could be indicative of the widening of the gap between Europe and its citizens.
Nowhere does the report ponder the thought that poor application may be the result of a kind of defensive reaction from nations or individuals against legislation that they feel is alien to them, too finicky, or adopted according to anti-democratic processes.
The solutions put forward intermittently in the European Parliament' s or Commission' s reports consist of increasing supranationality, increasing penalties and facilitating a swifter and more direct application of Community Law by increasingly bypassing national Parliaments.
In the recent Commission White Paper on European governance, there is even the astounding theory that European Law is too meticulous because the Council and Parliament are greatly increasing the amount of detail, because they do not have enough confidence in the Commission.
It would therefore, I suppose, be a better idea to give this institution a freer hand in order to improve the quality of Community Law.
Specifically, there are currently the stirrings of a movement aiming to speed up the transposal of directives into national legislation, employing rapid methods such as orders, as used recently by the French government.
These methods, which dispense with the fundamental role of national Parliaments, can only aggravate this gap between Community Law and the situations of Member States.
On the other hand, the only solution is to restore the role of nations and national Parliaments in the European decision-making process.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 13.05 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, I am interested in knowing what has become of the Commission - the Commissioner is there, we did not see you just now - and whether the Council is also going to take part in this important debate on the individual countries, which does actually constitute the substantive debate on enlargement.
I am very disappointed that this does not seem to be the case.
Perhaps you could note this in a suitable letter.
I believe that it shows a lack of respect for this Parliament if this important debate on the individual countries, which really is a central component of the enlargement process, is not followed by the Council.
Progress of the 12 candidate countries in 2000 (continuation)
Mrs Schroedter, you have been a little too hasty in your remarks.
I was still reading the reason why we are here, continuing the debate, after which I was going to tell the House why Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck has not yet arrived.
She is engaged here, in Parliament, in a meeting of committee chairmen who have requested her presence.
As soon as the meeting finishes she will join us.
Commissioner Verheugen, on the other hand, arrived punctually, in the middle of your speech.
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the progress of the 12 candidate countries in 2000.
In addition, I have received a motion for resolution in accordance with Rule 42 (5) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, it is now ten years since Estonia won back its independence.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world has become more secure, and our European home is now more dynamic and inspires more hope.
The conditions for European cooperation changed radically when the Wall came down, and the EU has so far been able to live up to these.
The presence of a successful Western Europe and of political visionaries such as Kohl, Reagan, Thatcher and, for that matter, Gorbachev, is partly responsible for this success, but it was, above all, individual people' s longing for freedom which made possible this revolutionary change to the age in which we live.
It was courageous men and women, both young and old, who feared reprisals but who loved freedom more.
It is a fantastic inheritance to have experienced this dividend of freedom and liberation.
Let us remind people of the way in which democracy triumphed over dictatorship and oppression was exchanged for freedom.
The enlargement process must be seen in this perspective.
Just as the Coal and Steel Union succeeded in its task of securing peace in the participating countries of Europe, we must now make sure that the European Union increases freedom and the opportunity for more people to participate in freedom of movement and that it increases prosperity, promotes diversity and contributes to solving our common problems involving crime and the environment.
This is probably not as dramatic a task as was once the task of reconciling historic enemies, but I think that it is at least as large a task, involving just as many benefits but being perhaps more difficult to carry out.
That is precisely why it is my political group' s most important task of all to continue to fight for freedom and now to enable our fellow human beings in Eastern and Central Europe to participate on the same conditions as ourselves.
In this way, we should also be showing, especially to today' s young people, that we believe in an EU that is able to change in order to live up to its own ideals.
This must not be some wait-and-see project.
The EU' s commitment will be commensurate with the active work done by the candidate countries.
I want to praise the Commission' s work on this aspect but still put a question mark over the Council' s ambition and ability.
Allow me to say a few words about Estonia, that fascinating little country on the Baltic.
Through singleness of purpose, sound political leadership and cooperation, Estonia has come a long way in its preparations for EU membership.
In my report, I tried to make it clear that, in many areas, the EU has a lot to learn from the Estonians, for example in the area of trade and within what we call the new economy.
In many respects, developments in Estonia constitute a success story in which an incredible amount has happened during the last ten years.
I addressed the subject of security policy in my report.
We cannot view enlargement of the EU in isolation or fondly imagine that the EU has powers it at present completely lacks.
The Estonians, who also want to see themselves participating in NATO soon, are aware of this.
The Estonians, who were oppressed, expelled from their homes and driven to despair under the Soviet Union' s Communist dictatorship, know that the only important thing is to defend freedom.
Those of us in the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats share their analysis and support them in this.
The Group of the Greens here in Parliament are anxious about poverty in a country that has experienced a remarkably greater degree of prosperity since the liberation.
I view the Greens' amendment as an attempt to defend existing structures and a social model that have entrenched unemployment in the EU.
I believe, for my part, that the economy of the EU needs more dynamism and less hegemony, and I do not therefore wish to support that amendment.
Finally, a few words about minorities, mainly a large proportion of Russian speakers in the case of Estonia.
It is not a straightforward issue.
We are concerned here with power, prejudices and ancient wrongs.
The precondition for integration and a successful sense of community is the successful rule of law, together with institutions and laws that are non-discriminatory. However, that is not enough.
When it comes to practical work too, political leaders must take these issues seriously.
That applies just as much in our own countries.
Overcoming differences requires tolerance and mutual respect and takes time.
In this respect too, Estonia is on the right road.
I want to thank those of my fellow MEPs who have been involved with this topic, and I also wish to extend my thanks to the Committee Secretariat.
Mr President - unfortunately I cannot greet the Council yet, although I have a number of things to say with it in mind - Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, amidst the squabbling over direct aid in agriculture or the future allocation of the Structural Funds, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the project to heal our divided Europe is of historical importance and that its significance is such that it also determines Europe's standing in the world.
More fainthearted talk of delay not only harms the project but also Europe as a whole.
That is why I would call on the Council, together with Parliament and the Commission, to do all it can to ensure that the first new members are able to take part in the European elections in 2004.
Given the current state of play in the negotiations, we are realistically talking about 10 countries.
This also means that not just one Baltic country but all three will be involved.
Should enlargement be delayed further then there is also the danger that the negative implications of this for the people in our own countries will cause problems.
Even now the fact that increasing numbers of firms are relocating to neighbouring countries in the East because of environmental and social dumping is intolerable.
The EU's environmental and social standards can only be upheld, however, if there is actual membership.
I will give just one example from Latvia: I think it is incredible that EU companies can permit themselves to boycott the social dialogue while the Commission simply stands by and watches.
In any case, it is a characteristic of the enlargement process that the people's existing rights of participation play no part in it.
Why are we surprised at the diminishing interest of the people in the accession countries if enlargement is practically solely a project of the political elite?
Mr Verheugen, you mentioned the positive attitude of the national minorities towards enlargement.
I cannot say the same for the Russian minority in Latvia.
No debate of any kind is taking place in society about the successes achieved and problems experienced either in the accession process or with enlargement; neither is it a joint process.
The communication strategy is to have separate projects for East and West and as such is ill-conceived even in terms of structure.
It prevents people from getting to know each other.
How many people in the West are aware of the European treasures in the Baltic cultures; how many know anything about what is of significance there? In our countries it goes without saying that projects in rural and urban areas are developed by the stakeholders.
In the accession countries it is a Commission-led top-down process.
Why do they not attach any importance to having the same quality of participation as is demanded here by the Member States? In Latvia too the administration is the weakest point and of course an administration is only strong if it offers a service facility to all of its citizens, regardless of their social standing and language.
It needs to be able to organise and implement procedures to allow them to participate.
As a predominantly rural country, Latvia is particularly affected by the foolhardy project to export the EU's unsuccessful agricultural policy to the accession countries.
Surely we all need to work together to convert direct aid into ecologically and socially sustainable structural development.
It would be beneficial not only to Latvia but also to consumer protection and thus to the entire population of the EU and the accession countries.
I should like to stress once more that in this whole process the social dimension is being wholly neglected.
It is illusory to believe that processes of transformation in society can be managed by free market forces alone.
We cannot ignore the alarming gulf between rich and poor.
But we could reduce it if the idea of Europe were understood as a common political task for the people of Europe regardless of their region and social position.
Mr President, in debating the twelve reports on the twelve candidate countries today, we are making a positive contribution to a development without, as yet, any understanding of what the results of that development will be.
I hope and pray that Parliament and the Commission, the term of office of which expires at the start of 2005, will have the joy and honour of making these twelve countries members of the European Union in a new European configuration, the aim of which is obviously not to create new borders, but to create a community of states and nations working towards common objectives of peace, social prosperity and global collaboration.
I think that, as a political objective, this is the major objective for all of us and we must all serve it faithfully.
I am the third rapporteur for the Baltic states.
All three states have more or less the same problems, as do most of the candidate countries, given that they all have a history of the same socio-economic and political system and are now in a process of reform.
What is special about these countries is that, until recently, the enlargement of the European Union only involved countries with similar social and economic systems.
Now we are moving towards countries moving from centralised economies and state control to market economies and democratic procedures.
In this sense, this move, which unites Europe ideologically and politically without forming borders which divide something between us which we should not divide, is most positive.
Lithuania, on which I am reporting, has the same general problems and two specific problems.
One specific problem is the Ignalina nuclear power station and the second is Kaliningrad.
I believe that every effort will be made at Ignalina to secure Lithuania's energy supply and deal with the secondary and primary repercussions on both society and the economy and I trust that things will go smoothly.
As far as Kaliningrad is concerned, it is indeed here in this Russian enclave that the policies which give us the opportunity to create a new Europe will be judged and, even if it is not integrated into the same economic and political system, it will work with us, exist alongside us and share a common future with us rather than clashing with us.
In this sense, I believe that Commissioner Verheugen, who has demonstrated sophisticated political skills, will help move things along here.
He has proven as much in other difficult cases because - let us not deceive ourselves - the real political problems will be numerous.
I should like to refer to Cyprus, given that it has already been mentioned and even though it is not the subject of my report, merely to say that it is because of Commissioner Verheugen's correct political handling of the case that he says, yes, there is the issue of Turkey's occupation of northern Cyprus; however, at the same time, he says that Helsinki expects the accession of Cyprus to proceed irrespective of whether or not the question of northern Cyprus is resolved.
Put simply, this is a message to all quarters that it is political Europe's intention to proceed on the basis of its own principles and perceptions and without allowing anyone to dictate how issues relating to human rights, democracy, international standing and international law are to be handled.
From this point of view, I hope and trust that Commissioner Verheugen will do his very best.
As far as tomorrow is concerned, the crucial question is: what do we as Europeans hope for?
A united Europe which integrates as it goes along or a microcosm of economic transience and short-termism? If Europe and its people truly want to achieve some sort of ideal, some sort of vision - and I believe that they do - then it must be a social and political vision, not a small-term or short-term economic vision.
In this sense, I think that we should move towards this vision of an integrated Europe of peace, collaboration, cohesion and development and impart visions of this sort of Europe to our people, leaving aside petty confrontations on transient issues which have no future.
Mr President, the current Slovakian Government has, since 1998, made considerable inroads into the accession process.
If Brussels was very sceptical at that time, the country is now joining the ranks of candidate countries that are first in line to join the EU.
It is no longer playing second fiddle to the members of the so-called Luxembourg Club if one considers the number of concluded negotiation chapters.
Credit where credit is due.
To the Slovakian Government, but also to the population which has managed to sit and wait for far-reaching reforms, which also have their drawbacks, of course.
Take the unacceptably high level of unemployment.
The high speed with which the negotiations have taken place is not merely a reflection of an energetic government.
Slovakia is one of the smaller candidate countries and can therefore afford a higher degree of flexibility.
The country is taking advantage of this.
The support for EU Membership remains as high as ever, and it is fair to say that there is political consensus surrounding this issue in Slovakia.
However, one can question whether a government of a different make-up would have managed to make the same progress.
Nevertheless, there are points of criticism.
In the light of the Council' s and Commission' s strategy to conclude a number of negotiations next year, these points of criticism deserve extra attention.
If Slovakia is to keep up with the frontrunners, an extra effort will need to be made in this connection.
That is why, with all due respect, it is not so much the role of the European Parliament to be kind, but rather to give the right incentives.
I have therefore adopted in my report many of the critical observations which my fellow MEPs have made in the various committees.
These observations will hopefully speak for themselves as it is impossible to list them all here.
Slovakia is transposing EU legislation at a rate of knots, which, in fact, as in other candidate countries, begs the question of whether all these new laws can actually be implemented and whether sufficient, qualified staff are available for this task.
This is all the more pressing in the sphere of financial control for which, admittedly, draft legislation has now been submitted in Slovakia, but in respect of which it is fair to continue to question the country' s aptitude to process EU subsidies in an adequate manner once it is an EU Member State.
Fortunately, the Slovakian Government is in the process of recruiting additional officials, which, in itself, is a considerable step forward.
Commissioner Verheugen was right this morning to declare this topic a priority, and I should like to give him my unqualified support in this.
I should also like to provide him with the word 'transparency' as a key concept in this connection.
In the spring, we were startled by the news of irregularities committed by a high official responsible for the distribution of EU monies.
Needless to say, the Government took action, which is praiseworthy in itself.
However, the inquiry is still under way. The matter should, in our opinion, be subject to a thorough investigation, particularly to establish whether this was simply one incident or whether this was a symptom of a more systematic phenomenon.
We would, in this framework, also like to receive the initial assessment of the anti-corruption programme which the Slovakian Government adopted a while ago.
I have, in the past, regularly expressed my concern regarding the large discrepancies in income between the different regions in Slovakia.
The country is not unique in this either, and it will soon have fresh opportunities to do something about it thanks to EU membership.
Nevertheless, I cannot shake off the feeling that many plans take a long time to come to fruition.
That is unfortunate because what matters is relations between rich and poor in Slovakia.
A worrying trend is that concerning the deployment of elected regional councils.
This decentralisation is important from an EU point of view, because the country' s administration will become more efficient and democratic control will improve as a result.
Parliament recently took a few decisions, but the Slovakian Government partners do not consider these to be satisfactory.
That is why the coalition has come under pressure.
A year before the possible conclusion of the negotiations, there is now the threat of a Government crisis, the implications of which are not entirely clear.
We do not decide on the regional re-division of Slovakia.
We can, however, ask that every effort be made to stave off a crisis.
The present coalition has a job to finish, and the involvement of the Hungarian minority remains every bit as important in this connection.
In fact, they themselves subscribe to this wish.
Surely during further discussions on this topic, it should be possible to reach a final compromise which is acceptable to everyone.
That means that everyone must be accommodating, for everyone is responsible for the cohesion within the Government.
A free vote in Parliament is not always the best solution in this connection.
We continue to receive complaints about the treatment of minorities, and not only from Budapest.
Progress has been made with regard to the Roma people.
Nevertheless, we can continue to question the speed with which improvements are being made and the willingness of local authorities to commit themselves fully to these.
Unpleasant incidents are still occurring.
I repeat once again that next year, at the - what we hope will be - final assessment, the first genuine and concrete results of the Roma policy will be revealed.
It will be an exciting year for Slovakia, a year of hard toil in order to maintain the momentum of the negotiations, and we hope we will be able to pass a verdict on the end result next year.
Mr President, whereas the debate on enlargement held last year happened to take place on the day commemorating the tenth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, today' s debate, although it does not have the same symbolic importance, is nonetheless taking place in the wake of two very important events.
Firstly, the Nice Summit, at which the European Heads of State and Government undertook to reform the Community institutions so that these could accommodate a Europe enlarged by a further twelve countries.
We all share the conviction that failure in this area would damage the project of enlargement for many years to come.
Secondly, the Göteborg Summit, which brought the Swedish Presidency to a close.
In their conclusions, Europe' s leaders categorically stated that the process of enlargement was irreversible, having for the first time set a deadline at the end of 2002 for concluding negotiations with applicant countries that are ready, with the stated aim of these countries already being able to participate as Members in the 2004 European Parliamentary elections.
To this political commitment we must add the emphasis placed on the principle of differentiation, according to which the applicant countries will continue to be assessed solely on the basis of their merits.
It is in this context that we should consider the report on Hungary' s accession to the European Union and developments in its application process over the last year.
Hungary' s integration into the European Union is a truly national ambition for that country.
Tangible proof of this is the agreement reached by all the political parties represented in the Hungarian Parliament in favour of accession and by the consensus obtained on first holding a referendum on this decisive step for their shared future.
By channelling all of its energies into fulfilling this national objective, Hungary has already been able to conclude negotiations with the Commission on a substantial number of chapters, (22 out of a total of 30), which gives us hope that negotiations on welcoming Hungary into the European Union within the 2002 deadline set at Göteborg can be concluded.
This fact, combined with the existence of a 'road map' of clearly delimited negotiations, is of great political importance, since it has not only enabled Hungary' s leaders and the Community' s negotiators to plan and undertake their work in line with the previously established timetable. It has also contributed to preventing a climate of anxiety and disillusionment arising in Hungarian society as a consequence of it being impossible to give commitments on deadlines for concluding negotiations on joining the Union.
Mr President, with regard to developments in Hungary' s application procedure, the main aspects that I wish to highlight are obviously ongoing, although some new situations can also be mentioned.
As for the former, reference must be made, first of all, to Hungary' s economic situation, which is continuing to improve, despite signs of the slowdown that are being felt everywhere.
Gross domestic product growth stands at around 6% and exports continue to perform very well, as does investment in housing.
Consumption, employment and foreign investment have also achieved very healthy figures.
We can conclude that today, Hungary has a solidly developing market economy and if it continues to make progress in the field of structural reforms and in consolidating public auditing, it will be able to withstand the pressure of competition and market forces within the European Union, without having to jump through any hoops.
Nevertheless, inflation remains high, at around 10%, and the government must keep a close eye on this by implementing the appropriate measures for reducing pressure for price increases.
There is also the situation of the Roma population, which remains difficult in spite of the progress that has been made under the mid-term programme.
This is why we are warning that this programme must be complemented by immediate practical measures for social support in the fields of education, employment, housing and health, amongst others, in conjunction with representatives from that community, which will be jointly monitored with them. Some of these measures are already in place.
Mention must also be made of the need, which has been fully accepted by Hungary' s political leaders, to step up the fight against corruption. The approval and implementation of a very thorough package of legislation against corruption, to enter into force with immediate effect, should be emphasised.
We are aware of the difficult situation inherited by countries in similar areas and with similar recent histories to that of Hungary, and we know that this battle must be fought throughout the European Union and beyond.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Hungary recently approved a law on protecting Hungarian minorities living in neighbouring countries, which evoked various reactions and controversies, particularly in Romania and Slovakia, where the largest of these minorities live and work.
The Hungarian authorities have insisted that this new law does not have any extraterritorial effect and will not have any consequences that are not in complete harmony with the legal systems in force in the neighbouring countries in which these minorities live.
In this regard, I must once again repeat what is stated in the report, which is that the Commission must provide an assessment of this type of law in terms of its compatibility with the Community acquis. The Commission must also appeal to Hungary' s spirit of good neighbourliness and cooperation with its neighbours and, in general, with all Member States.
The fact that this law contains a provision - Article 27 - laying down the supremacy of Community legislation over its national laws and the fact that the Hungarian government has demonstrated willingness to hold bilateral discussions with its neighbours on issues of the law' s interpretation and implementation give me grounds for optimism about the resolution of any potential problems that it may raise.
Mr President, in the short speaking time granted to me as rapporteur, I can only present the main conclusions of this report.
I am nevertheless convinced that my fellow Members will agree with me in my interpretation, analysis, and support for this report.
The European Parliament will therefore continue to make its essential contribution to the process of bringing together the European peoples and nations and of truly raising the awareness of the citizens of the Europe of Fifteen and of the applicant countries to the advantages and also to the obligations inherent in European integration.
Mr President, over the past year we have seen many very encouraging developments in terms of Bulgaria's progress towards accession.
While there have undoubtedly been many areas of disappointment, three months ago there was a very dramatic political development in Bulgaria.
In the general election on 17 June we saw the governing UDF routed by a new political force, the Simeon II National Movement, led by the former King Simeon who, as Simeon Sakskoburggotski, is now Prime Minister and will be visiting European Union institutions and NATO in Brussels for the first time next week.
In the elections some 60% of the electorate preferred to vote for parties that were not represented in the previous parliament.
It was a resounding vote of no confidence on the government in office, and a heartfelt demand for real progress, improvement and change: a leap of faith.
The previous UDF administration faced enormous difficulties and I wish to acknowledge its success in many areas.
It was the first of the post-communist governments to see out its full term.
It took forward Bulgaria's application for European Union membership and put Bulgaria in a position formally to open accession negotiations in February 2000.
As a result, 11 negotiating chapters have now been successfully closed.
A further 10 have been opened and are under negotiation.
It is expected that five more will be opened this year.
Only four chapters therefore will remain to be opened by the beginning of next year.
On the macroeconomic level there has been excellent growth in GDP.
Bulgaria has been a pillar of regional stability, first through all the international difficulties with the Milosevic regime in neighbouring Yugoslavia, then the Kosovo conflict and most recently with the tensions in neighbouring Macedonia.
Bulgaria has acted throughout in a manner supportive of European Union and NATO policies, but the regional instability has inevitably had an impact on the Bulgarian economy and on investor confidence in the region.
But the formal process of negotiation and the aspiration to take reform forward are clearly not enough.
Certainly the Bulgarian political system has confirmed its democratic stability.
Certainly structures have begun to be put in place to deal with the fundamental problems of weak administrative capacity, of corruption and of excluded minorities.
The fact is that most of the people of Bulgaria, through all these difficulties and upheavals, have seen little improvement in their own lives and standards of living.
My report is in effect a final report on the performance of the last government and an indicator as to the problems that need to be addressed by the new administration.
The challenge for the new government is to maintain its coherence and to translate its aspirations, its ambitious programme, into concrete reality.
I am very encouraged by what I have heard so far.
The new government team, particularly concerning the economy, balances its vitality and enthusiasm with professional competence and a degree of modesty in view of the tasks ahead.
The priorities for the government are continuity and the preparations for European Union and NATO membership, with acceleration of political and economic reform, concentrating on tax reforms to stimulate the economy, squeezing out corruption, reform of the judiciary, modernisation of the customs service and border security, and legal changes to ensure that Bulgaria has a functioning market economy through amendment of banking laws and improvement in the bankruptcy laws.
In many ways the new team offers a breath of fresh air.
It has a clear agenda and is willing to consider novel solutions drawing on sound experience from other countries.
It will be judged by the quality, rather than quantity, of its legislation, by its ability to implement its policies and by its determination to bring about real reform that will benefit the population at large in a tangible manner.
At a time of regional crisis and an international economic downturn, this will not be easy.
It is time to build the widest possible consensus for reform in Bulgaria.
Bulgaria previously set itself the target of concluding negotiations by 2004 with a view to European Union membership by 2007.
Many regard this as ambitious, but not unrealistic.
I have agreed to remove such references from my resolution for the sake of consistency with the approach adopted in the other enlargement reports.
I do not support amendments which would seek to add further conditionality to Bulgaria's membership application.
Of course each candidate country should be judged on its own progress towards accession, without any hidden political barriers and without having to follow the course of any other candidate country.
I trust this House will give every encouragement to Bulgaria and its new government on the path to EU and NATO accession and support my resolution.
I feel sure that the new government of Bulgaria will respond positively to the points that I have made.
Mr President, I thank my colleagues in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy for giving me another opportunity to work on Romania's accession to the European Union of Romania.
At the moment, Romania has a unique opportunity, unequalled in modern times, to make very swift progress.
For the first time in living history, it has a stable government, elected on a democratic mandate.
It has clear political leadership, a greater understanding of the European Union's Community values and exceptionally good economic signals.
The reform process is under way under the tutelage of the European Commission and with the efforts the Romanian administration has made on the acquis communautaire a larger number of chapters is under negotiation now than had been anticipated.
If Romania continues to move ahead in this way and has the courage to undertake the painful political structural reforms, there is nothing to stop Romania joining the European Union without delay and it is pleasing to know that 79% of Romanians are enthusiastic about this prospect.
The accession process is continuing.
The number of chapters is increasing and I am pleased to announce that the Commission could receive all the position papers from the Ministry by Christmas, if it is able to do so.
Certainly that is what the European Ministry for Integration in Romania is hoping for.
President Iliescu announced in Gothenburg that he hoped and believed that all chapters could be fulfilled during his period of office.
We in Parliament are dismayed and I am sure others must be too, that the visa restrictions have not yet been lifted.
The Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs are meeting today and I sincerely hope that they will come to the conclusion that visa restrictions are no longer necessary for Romanian citizens.
It is pleasing to note that the German Ambassador to Romania last week opened the new embassy by laying the foundation stone and saying that this embassy will have no visa section.
The Romanian Government has decided to be judged by action and not by words.
It has already done excellent foreign affairs work through Romania's chairmanship of the OSCE and made excellent progress in its relationships with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
It might be dogged by poverty, but good things have happened; industrial productivity has gone up by 17% and inflation is coming down little by little.
Romania's largest investor is still France, but other EU Member States such as Germany, Italy, Greece and the United Kingdom are coming in.
It has at the same time been cementing its relationship with North America and particularly with the USA.
But Romania's destiny remains in Europe and her future lies with NATO and the European Union.
Perhaps Ceausescu's bitter legacy, however, was responsible for the fact that the political will for change was slower to emerge in Romania than in some other former Soviet Union candidate countries.
Indeed, the treatment of children in Romania, as the Commissioner mentioned this morning, rapidly became a global media horror story.
Today, however, Romania is in the process of change, helped all the way along the line by the Commission's faultless work in Brussels and Bucharest and guided by long-term friends here in Parliament right across the political spectrum.
We are working as a team to assist Romania in her progress towards the European Union.
As the Commissioner said on another occasion, the progress of integration is unstoppable.
Romania is an integral part of that process and social change in the last few months has been rapid.
Gay rights are now part of law, an anti-trafficking law has recently been passed and domestic violence law has gone through.
A children's act, on children's rights, which will incorporate adoption law, both local and international, is now being prepared.
The high-level group for Romanian children is moving towards registration.
This will incorporate a wise persons' panel to assess Romania's capacity to come back into the inter-country adoption world when the time is right.
It is imperative that the children's act is not hurried.
Local adoptions have doubled in the last few months and 20 000 children are leaving special schools this week and will be going back into normal schools and normal life.
That is tremendous progress.
Here may I pay special tribute to my Spanish colleagues in the European Parliament, who have had many pressures on them from different families in Spain.
I am delighted that the new Romanian Government has nominated very competent officials to review the problems that these Spanish families are facing.
I will keep a very careful eye on this and report back to my Spanish colleagues.
In conclusion, Romania has much to offer the European Union and the world.
Its deep-rooted knowledge of its early European status in the Roman Empire gives it every encouragement to work through these difficult times and in due course become a full Member of the European Union.
Mr President, Slovenia hopes to be among the first of the 12 boats who will enter the European Union in 2004 to cross the finishing line, to use an image often employed by Commissioner Verheugen; just this morning it was stipulated that there can be no turning back now.
Indeed, Ljubljana hopes to finish incorporating the Community acquis during the Spanish Presidency, within the second half of next year that is, maintaining the steady rhythm demanded by the current Belgian Presidency as well.
The Slovenians have been diligent in closing the chapters of the acquis, and they have succeeded in resolving some very complex issues, a prime example being the environment, for which they received recognition from the European visitors to Ljubljana.
Slovenia surprised the European Union by concluding, before the deadline moreover, the negotiations on the free transfer of capital as early as spring 2001, despite some problems with opinion makers.
In Ljubljana, the difficulties which would arise for the Slovenian government in terms of public opinion if the dates were to be put back and the Slovenians, who were obviously very pleased to see the conclusions of the Gothenburg and earlier Summits, were not to enter Europe, were explained to the European guests.
As usually happens in the last stage of the entry of a country into Europe, the sceptics come out of the woodwork, but it is often a matter of internal political tactics.
Slovenia is aware that it must settle the issue of the restoration of goods within the time frames specified, even though in some - quite clear-cut - cases, appeals to the courts have slowed the process down.
However, the time limits for the charges have expired in any case, and there are also delays in denationalising foreign capital.
In any case, Slovenia is one of the countries where, despite macro- and microeconomic stability, foreign capital flows are very low and are often just the result of reinvestment from previous years.
Greater transparency - a word used very frequently in this Chamber - was required in order to proceed to privatisation, so that the launching of companies, banks and enterprises on the market does not end up being a purely national affair, with foreign investors being kept at bay.
The privatisation rules have finally been fixed with the large banks as well, in which the State will continue to hold - for a certain period of time at least - a sort of golden share or what is known as the 'veto' holding.
Foreign interest exists in this sector and negotiations are in progress.
Slovenia is currently working strenuously for stability in the central and southern region, and, following the disappearance of Milosevic, the issue has become a little less dramatic.
There are psychological reserves in this field: "We have not yet set foot in Europe" reflect some observers, "and already international capital is threatening to restrict our sovereignty" .
This is a development which is evident in other small ex-royal socialist countries.
Nevertheless, Slovenia gives the impression of realising that it must complete opening-up of the market within the time frames laid down in the agreement with Europe.
Various measures such as providing backup for the courts which are swamped with work or creating an ad hoc mobile group of judges to support the district courts with the greatest backlog are speeding up the work related to the many outstanding civil actions, most of which concern precisely the issue of the restitution of goods and property.
The Commission' s report bewails the sluggishness of the administrative system: laws have been adopted in this area too.
Slovenia is prepared to amend its Constitution to bring it into line with the conditions for accession to Europe.
With regard to relations with neighbouring countries, it has, notably, a cultural agreement with Austria in which it acknowledges the existence of a German-speaking community in the country and, not long ago - and this is a very important issue - the sea and land borders with Croatia were defined. They are currently being ratified by the two parliaments.
These are the major events which have taken place in the area of cross-border cooperation.
The macroeconomic indicators are still positive and inflation and unemployment are below the European average, while the GDP is not far off the European average.
Considering the preparations which have been made or are currently being completed, Slovenia seems well prepared for integration into the European Community.
Mr President, for the second year running, I have the honour of presenting you with the report on Cyprus' membership application to the European Union.
The motion for a resolution before you was adopted in committee by 55 votes to 2 with 1 abstention. It proves to be an account with many contrasts.
On the one hand, it underlines Cyprus' excellent performance in relation to the adoption of the acquis: 23 chapters have already been closed and the remaining chapters do not present insurmountable difficulties.
On the other hand, the motion deplores the continuing division of the island.
The hopes that the international community had placed in proximity talks, held under the aegis of the United Nations, were dashed last November by the unilateral withdrawal of Mr Denktash from the process.
This withdrawal has been supported by Turkey to this day.
Although precious time has been wasted in the process of trying to find a solution to the political problem before accession, I can only recommend that the European Parliament adhere firmly to its previous position founded on International Law and justice.
This position, which is also that of the United Nations, the Council of Europe and all the other European institutions, including the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, was confirmed on 10 May 2001 by the European Court of Human Rights.
The political solution we seek cannot include the persistence of a de facto situation created by force.
It must, on the other hand, turn the page on the past and resolutely face the future.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations made a proposal to both the Greek and the Turkish Cypriots for a federal system based upon a democratic model that would respect the distinct characteristics of each of the parties.
Such models work in many European countries - Germany, Belgium and Switzerland among others - where they have proven both their viability and their vitality.
Solutions to all longstanding issues can be found through the negotiation process, whether these issues be the reciprocal wrongs which have accumulated since 1960 (the problem of refugees, property, the retreat of troops, for example), with the support, as the need arises, of the International Community.
Cyprus' problems are not irresolvable if the political will is there to give a boost to proceedings now.
The cold war is over.
All the walls in Europe have been knocked down.
The enemies of yesteryear have become our partners.
It would be in the widely acknowledged common interest of all countries in our region, especially Turkey, to resolve this bone of contention.
Both communities on the island - and recent opinion polls are proof of this - want to be part of the European Union.
Those who have chosen stagnation as their only strategy, maybe as a strategy for survival, should respect this will.
By guaranteeing a large majority to the motion for a resolution on Cyprus, the European Parliament will strengthen the negotiating position of Mr Kofi Annan.
In late 2001 and early 2002, the General Secretary of the United Nations will have a last chance to make a breakthrough in intercommunity negotiations.
If, however, his efforts continue to be sabotaged by one of the parties, history will forever condemn those who are opposed to international order.
Should this happen, the European Union can only honour its engagement made at the highest level at Helsinki in December 1999, being conscious of the fact that a political settlement does not constitute a prerequisite for the accession of Cyprus to the European Union.
In the meantime, I can only call on the legitimate government of Cyprus to contribute steadfastly to the removal of obstacles to remaining problems so that accession negotiations can be settled before the end of 2002.
Mr President, this is already the second report on Malta which I have had the honour of tabling.
The European Parliament without doubt views the accession process of Malta, this small Mediterranean island at the interface between the European Union and Africa, positively and is supporting it constructively.
The report is, on the one hand, guided by the Copenhagen criteria, which apply equally to all of the accession countries, and on the other hand, it examines Malta's special characteristics, which result from its island position and from its economic and social structure.
Malta's basic political situation is, of course, unchanged.
Malta is continuing to fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria.
Its institutions are democratic and function smoothly.
There are no particular problems as regards human rights.
The overall situation as far as economic, social and cultural rights are concerned is satisfactory.
In terms of the economy, Malta is a functioning market economy and is in a position to withstand competition from the EU in the medium term, provided that it carries out the structural reforms that are still pending.
Malta is doing well in this field, with regard both to phasing out import levies on finished products by 2003 and abolishing the remaining capital controls by the end of 2002.
The far-reaching privatisation programme which was adopted in 1999, and which includes plans to privatise major utilities over the next five years, is also heading in the right direction.
The reduction of the budget deficit from 11.8% of GDP in 1998 to 5% this year is a positive and significant result, as are the positive developments in the economic data.
Despite oil prices, inflation stood at 2.4% in November 2000 and, after rising slightly in 1999, the unemployment rate fell to 5.3% of those capable of gainful employment.
It should be borne in mind, however, that this positive process needs to be consolidated by a further cut in structural expenditure.
The favourable progress that Malta has made towards joining the EU is also reflected in the stage that it has reached in the accession negotiations.
With 17 chapters, Malta heads the list of those candidates which were able to open negotiations only in 2000.
This shows that Malta has made up the time lost through the 22-month suspension of negotiations and is therefore well placed to be in the first round of new Member States.
As far as Malta's general political situation is concerned, namely the different positions of the government on EU accession on the one hand, and the opposition on the other, not only has nothing changed but the views of the government and the Labour opposition have if anything become more polarised.
As rapporteur, I can only note this with regret.
Of course this does not mean that the European Parliament should ignore the position of the Labour Party, which would like Malta to follow in Switzerland's footsteps.
Nonetheless, we must do all we can to safeguard the continuity of Malta's accession process and therefore to support a constructive dialogue with all its constitutive entities and at every level of its society.
The matters of particular concern to the European Parliament in relation to Malta's accession process, of course, include issues related to internal security and maritime safety.
As far as internal security is concerned, Malta has now set out an effective policy to combat corruption and money laundering, which will allow Malta both to accede to the Council of Europe's Criminal Law Convention on Corruption and to ratify the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions and thus to respond to a short-term priority of the Accession Partnership.
In the environmental field too, we endorse Malta's efforts to support short-term priorities of the Accession Partnership to maintain clean air and water and to stem rising levels of waste, and are thus sympathetic towards Malta's policy to ban the use of plastic bottles.
In my capacity as rapporteur I also showed sympathy for Malta's specific concerns about the free movement of persons and its fears of there being an influx of foreign workers onto its labour market.
The Commission's concession on the free movement of persons takes account of this rather psychologically conditioned fear.
Malta is not a country in transition.
It has repeatedly referred to the fact that it should like to be treated on the same footing as the other accession countries.
The Commission's efforts to make sources of funding available here so as to make up for this shortcoming are to be welcomed.
On the other hand, the Maltese authorities need to make the necessary preparations to enable structural and regional aid to be administered on a decentralised basis.
I should just like to turn briefly to the Council.
Malta's position on the agricultural chapter should, I hope, also soon be on the table.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Like all the rapporteurs who have already spoken, I am delighted to see that negotiations are advancing and advancing well for all the candidate countries.
Despite the difficulties, the work that has been carried out is considerable.
It must be said that, on a technical level, the negotiators must be congratulated on the great efforts they are making and we also congratulate you, Commissioner.
However, I would like to insist on two points that have not been forgotten but which, in our opinion, should be emphasised.
In the first instance, I am thinking of the social repercussions of enlargement.
It seems that the Commission, the Council and the rest of us should take greater steps to face up to the disorganisation of society that will inevitably result and is already resulting from economic reforms forcibly imposed in the candidate countries.
Restructuring of companies, privatisation, modernisation of working methods, which seem necessary to us, create unemployment, disrupt social protection systems and have disastrous consequences for families and individuals.
Let us all make a greater effort to limit these social problems that could, if we are not careful, become serious political problems.
The second point I want to stress concerns contact with public opinion, both in candidate countries and Member States.
Negotiation should be left to the specialists.
I would once more congratulate them on their responsible approach.
However, the accession of a country to the European Union affects its whole population.
Opinion polls show this.
As the deadline approaches the amount of opposition increases, but so does the number of those who are concerned and anxious.
We need to provide more information and explanations, making things seem as undaunting as possible.
This is a huge exercise in public relations to which the Commission - and we ourselves as well, of course - should devote more effort.
Mr President, it is great to hear the Commission, the Council and Parliament commit themselves so strongly to enlargement, as has happened here today.
Beneath the happy surface, however, there are of course anxieties, also on the part of the people in the candidate countries, and we must listen to these.
As the Commissioner also said, these anxieties cannot be conjured away.
We must not in any way postpone enlargement, but we must listen to countries' requests for transitional arrangements, whether on the subjects of land purchase or the environment.
An agreement is only sound if both parties are satisfied.
We must not make demands of others that we do not make of ourselves.
I am thinking in this context, for example, of the environmental demands for waste water treatment with which Brussels does not yet, of course, comply.
We must therefore be willing to listen to those countries which wish us to be flexible.
Enlargement is not merely a gift to them on our part. It is also a gift from them to ourselves.
We want them to accede to the EU with their values and their knowledge of what it means not to have freedom and democracy, for that is the most important thing of all.
It is perhaps they who know most of all about this, for it is they who have experienced the loss of freedom and democracy.
Mr President, although I should like to congratulate all the rapporteurs, the two minutes I have prevent me from doing so.
I should like to emphasise two aspects: the treatment of cultural minorities, and information and communication in respect of the population.
The European Union should be more than a market.
It is also a community of citizens and, in addition, a collection of peoples and of smaller and larger cultural communities.
The way in which human rights and the rights of minorities are guaranteed still leads to problems in some countries.
Everything seems to run more smoothly on paper but, in practice, we see, for example, that, in most countries, the Roma are still really being treated like second-class citizens and that we are still being confronted with third-world situations which are on a par with the worst slums in Africa and in third-world cities.
As for the treatment of other minorities, what is written so neatly on paper and in laws appears, once again, not to bear any resemblance to reality.
I would, for example, like to refer to the treatment of the Hungarian minority both in Slovakia and in Romania.
It is not looking so good in practice as it is on paper.
Communication with the population is a major problem because people have substituted a spontaneous enthusiasm for Europe with a more critical stance.
If no promises are made or promises remain unfulfilled, this critical attitude will naturally increase.
However, I do wonder whether the Commission is pursuing the right policy by not addressing the people in those countries in the language of those people.
Is it safe to leave communication entirely to the governments? I have noticed that some governments do not even inform their own MPs, never mind whether the population knows what is being said at the wonderful Infopoint in Warsaw in all Member State languages apart from Polish.
I wonder whether we are communicating or simply hiding?
Mr President, I was very pleased about the speech given on behalf of the Presidency, and I was particularly glad that importance was attached to how people in the candidate countries experience the situation.
We must not ignore the fact that there are to be referendums in quite a lot of the candidate countries.
I hope that people in the candidate countries read, in particular, that part of Mr Brok' s report consisting of the statements from the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for these, in my opinion, give due weight to what is really important to the individual citizen.
I hope, however, that they do not read the part concerning the common foreign and security policy and, in particular, NATO membership.
We all know that a common European defence would cost a fair amount of money.
Calculations show that, for our part of Europe, it would mean a 50% increase in budgets.
I dare not even imagine what it would mean for the candidate countries.
I hope that people read the good part of the reports, and I hope that it is this, and not all the other parts, that will be pivotal to the enlargement process.
Mr President, I should like to thank and congratulate all the rapporteurs.
To pick up on something Mr Haarder has already mentioned, our duty and responsibility is to the countries of eastern Europe, not because of the gift that we give them but because of the new enthusiasm and spirit that they can bring into what is becoming a stagnating European Union.
In particular I want to focus on Hungary.
As one of the leaders and front runners for enlargement, it has proved itself capable of throwing off the yoke of totalitarian communism and building a new market-based economy, creating new opportunities in education, improving its infrastructure and industrial capacity and developing its tourism and agriculture.
It has already completed 22 of its 31 chapters of accession to the European Union.
I welcome the implementation of the SAPARD programme to help further rural development and community development within Hungary.
In particular, I call upon the Commission to help alleviate some of the difficulties the Hungarian negotiators are facing with internal bureaucracies within the Commission and speed up that whole process.
In conclusion, we must open our arms and welcome the rejuvenation that the arrival of the countries from central and eastern Europe will bring about.
Mr President on the basis of the Christian idea of charity, I wholeheartedly support enlargement of the European Union.
Much to my delight, the Communist system collapsed in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989.
That happiness was generally shared in Western Europe at the time.
It now requires a sequel, namely our aid to the candidate countries, to enable them to join the European Union and, in that way, actually return to Europe.
This line of thinking also shows realism, for the predominantly eastward enlargement of the Union benefits the Member States and candidate countries politically and economically speaking.
Just to give you an example: after 1988, reciprocal trade experienced turbulent growth.
The resolution following Mr Brok' s oral question is right, therefore, to underline the shared benefits of the enlargement process.
However, this view of enlargement is definitely not shared by everyone.
This is borne out by recent opinion polls.
These studies show a contrast between general public opinion in the candidate countries and that within the 15 EU Member States.
In the candidate countries, enlargement is widely supported.
In the Member States, however, only 43% of the citizens can muster any real enthusiasm.
In fact, in a number of EU countries, those against outnumber those in favour by quite a margin.
As if the burden and insecurities of this major enlargement were to rest on EU shoulders only.
Moreover, Mr Brok' s motion for a resolution does not take account of this imbalanced public opinion.
It encourages both Member States and candidate countries to provide their populations with more and better information.
I fear that that will not entirely cause the noted lack of European commitment to disappear.
Whatever the case, the incentive in the resolution is mainly aimed at the Member States.
However, those in favour are not alone by any means.
The EU Member States are most definitely populated by scores of people who feel for Central and Eastern Europeans.
The extent of their initiatives, private or church-based, since time immemorial, and often long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, speak for themselves.
Members of the Council and the Commission: make sure you definitely involve these allies in your information campaigns on enlargement.
I would like to turn to another point of the motion for a resolution which caught my attention.
Paragraph 49 states that there is no need for candidate countries to meet stricter conditions than the Member States themselves.
That seems to me to be self-evident.
What is more, the European Union has explicitly restricted its admission requirements to compliance with the Copenhagen criteria.
As long as the candidate countries cannot co-determine far-reaching cooperation in various areas of policy - such as the CFSP and the asylum, immigration and monetary policies - the European Union may not impose new criteria in these areas.
Mr President, there is a saying in Dutch which means that the last mile is the longest one.
This will once again be apparent when we complete the accession negotiations with candidate countries which have made most progress.
After all, there are a number of difficult issues left to deal with.
I hope that the European Union will know how to give a tangible sign of its willingness to enlarge.
Moreover, to quote the well-known biblical saying, it is better to give than to receive.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following today' s debate on enlargement, we will have to reach a verdict on an overall motion for a resolution formulated by our fellow member, Mr Brok.
The merit of this text is that it takes the decision of the Irish people to reject the Nice Treaty seriously and does not disguise, and I quote, "the uncertainty" that this brings into "the timetable for enlargement".
We are therefore very pleased to see Mr Brok himself include, in point 2 of his motion for a resolution, the recommendation made by us the very day after the Irish vote, to include alternative solutions within the framework of the accession treaties.
On the other hand, it is completely unacceptable to exploit the result of the Irish referendum to justify the abandonment of the intergovernmental process.
If current Intergovernmental Conference practice is often opaque and unintelligible, this is not due to the method itself which associates governments that have been democratically elected by their citizens.
It would not be at all difficult to make the intergovernmental process more transparent and comprehensible.
We must take practical steps to achieve this, keeping away from the pursuit of ideologies which, when we do not approve of a decision, lead us to conclude that, in order to prevent such a thing being repeated, the legal framework within which it occurred needs to be abolished by majority vote.
This really would be a case of hallucinatory thinking, or, as our fellow member Mr Berthu stated last night, a regulatory illusion.
The lesson to be learnt from the Irish referendum is certainly not that we must make the process of European integration even more undemocratic.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the economic and political benefits of enlargement will undoubtedly be far greater than its probable cost to the budget.
I would add that this is already the case today.
Nevertheless, it is our task precisely as one arm of the budgetary authority to discuss and engage in some serious and sober preliminary budgetary planning - at the same time allaying our emotions and fears - and to approach the figures in a rational way.
On the basis of our experience with the pre-accession programme and given the take-up capacities and administrative structures in the new Member States, we can also assume that in respect of both agricultural policy and the Structural Funds integration into the Community programmes will be gradual.
On this basis, even if ten new countries join before 2006 in a big bang, we will be able to meet the financial requirements of enlargement up until then within the financial perspective, as agreed in Agenda 2000: EUR 7 billion in the final stage for agricultural policy given gradual integration and from EUR 6.1 billion in 2004 to around EUR 10.9 billion for structural policy, and this compared with a current Commission preliminary draft budget of around EUR 100 billion for 2002 to put it in context.
There is no doubt, however, that for the period after 2006, even taking into account compliance with future world trade obligations, we will very probably have to discuss the issue of revenue and expenditure in the European budget because in the final stages in 2013 these comparative figures could amount to EUR 17 billion and EUR 26 billion respectively.
Let us not confine ourselves to looking at these two areas of budgetary policy.
I have grave concerns about whether the Commission's reflections on how Europe is to be governed or the practical plans in this House to overcome the languages problem really do take sufficient account of the requirements which will need to be met if we really are to safeguard European national identities and preserve the ability of the European institutions to act in the interests of the citizens of a larger European Union.
A further far more intensive debate needs to be initiated here to ensure that we are capable of acting in the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the development of Estonia and Latvia has been rapid and I congratulate those nations on such an achievement.
Freedom and independence incite nations into action.
This should also be the case with people, and the control of individuals over their own lives needs, of course, to improve.
This is not a project for some élite, and this point must now become clear in these applicant countries.
Europe's boom phase of economic growth has now ended.
In the opinion of many we are on the way to a downturn, even a recession.
This economic standstill will affect those applicant countries even more than our economies, since the former are considerably more frail.
The popularity of the Union has, however, declined in many applicant countries such as Estonia to less than half of what it was, even before this economic standstill which has now taken place in Europe.
The fact that a severe budgetary discipline has been followed is, in these Member States, seen as one reason for this.
A downturn would reduce further the popularity enjoyed by the Union.
For this reason then I ask, and urge as a priority, that we energetically seize the challenge of narrowing social differences and the social and economic gulf, since this is the base upon which we will be able to get the large majority of people in these countries to support membership.
This also means that unemployment within the Union itself must not grow, otherwise it will erode the very base and the broad support for enlargement which exist here within the Union.
In other words, the worsening economic situation may pose a threat to enlargement within the agreed or envisaged timetable.
Therefore, let us get to grips with social inequality before this entire matter is pushed too far into the future.
Mr President, it is fantastic to live through this exciting period in the history of Europe when we are finally unifying the continent.
I hope that, in just a few years' time, our new friends and colleagues will be able to sit down here with us in the Chamber instead of just listening from the gallery.
We shall then be able to unite in solving the problems that exist and in creating good conditions of life for the citizens of Europe, and not before time.
It will soon be twelve years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and many Europeans promised that those countries which had finally thrown off the yoke of communism would quickly be able to obtain membership of the EU.
There is still a great deal to do, and this is also described in the excellent reports we are discussing today.
Great progress is being made, and I am delighted that the Belgian presidency has such lofty ambitions.
It is important that no more demands should be made now.
There is more than a little to do in the EU, as well.
Many of us are disappointed at the poor result from Nice and hope that Laeken will prove to be very ambitious.
Integration is a mutual process that requires efforts on the part both of ourselves and of the future Member States.
However, we together have a huge task in convincing the population in all the countries of the practical benefits of a united Europe.
It is also a question of communicating pride in the Europe we have built so far and the Europe we shall build together.
Mrs President, Commissioner, in the current political situation there is no political alternative to enlargement supported by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, as our group chairman has already stated.
The future of the European Union is not and should not be enlargement, contrary to what the President-in-Office of the Council said in his introductory speech.
The future after 2004 of an enlarged Union is uncharted territory.
The Union could be a consolidated free trade area, or else a supranational Union where objectives of sustainable development and social cohesion are the fundamental objectives of a reformed policy.
If we fight for this second option, then the next Intergovernmental Conference in 2003-2004 will be the last chance for the Fifteen to correct the failures of Nice and assume their responsibilities so that a Union of 27 Member States can be governed democratically and effectively.
The question is not, however, of a purely institutional nature: it is also a budgetary issue.
If a policy of solidarity between the Member States is pursued, this means that, in the future, the Union' s financial resources will have to be increased for, in economic terms, the integration of the markets of the candidate countries with those of the Union has been taking place for 10 years at the cost of increasing territorial and social inequalities in the candidate countries.
Current European aid is essential and alleviates the cost of the transition, but if we really want to preserve a model of European society based upon solidarity and negotiation between all players in a 27-State European Union, there needs to be a clear commitment from both sides to this objective that exceeds the commitment to incorporating the Community acquis and will oblige each of the 15 current members to provide additional aid.
If we want enlargement to be a success whilst preserving our chances of an interdependent Europe, we must not, as Mr Verheugen rightly said, bury our heads in the sand.
From this point of view, I am very shocked by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy' s rejection of the majority of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Mr President, I think this is an excellent set of reports and that the Committee on Foreign Affairs has done a good job.
Having said which, I think that no-one can hide their concern about how the enlargement of the European Union is proceeding and about the serious repercussions, especially the social repercussions, in a number of countries moving towards accession.
As president of the EU-Bulgaria Joint Parliamentary Committee, I should like to say that, yes, there has been important intervention on the part of the European Union and issues such as the nuclear sector, restructuring of the agricultural sector and investment programmes in Bulgaria have been given positive momentum; however, at the same time, I cannot, for example, ignore the recent EUROSTAT report published a week ago, which shows that social rights fought for in Bulgaria are literally being demolished.
I think we need to look into all this.
Mr President, I am pleased to participate in this important debate on the enlargement of the European Union and in particular to acknowledge progress on Malta's application for membership.
This House was pleased when in September 1998 the government of Malta informed the Presidency of its intention to reactivate Malta's application and since then, with the structures put in place by the government, Malta has demonstrated its sincerity and determination to become part of an integrated and enlarged Europe.
Coming as I do from a small island state similar to Malta, I can testify to the EU's commitment to the development of small and underdeveloped peripheral regions.
In my view, despite the many criticisms, the vision of Europe's founding fathers continues to be realised.
I look forward to the participation of Malta and other applicant countries in the Europe of the new millennium.
It is worth noting that by June 2001 Malta had closed negotiations on over 17 different chapters, including important issues ranging from education and training to telecommunications, fisheries and consumer protection.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make five points from the point of view of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Firstly, where the reunification of Europe is concerned, all of us are aware of its historical dimension and our own political and moral responsibility.
It must succeed and it will succeed because it is right and proper.
Secondly, the economic data show positive developments.
Economic growth in Central and Eastern Europe continues to be above the EU average.
The macroeconomic situation has improved.
EU exports to the accession countries are on the up and the accession countries are already benefiting now from the accession negotiations because under this process they are also being given orientation aid for necessary reforms, which would have had to be implemented anyway after 50 years of Communist dictatorship, even if they did not have the prospect of joining the EU.
Thirdly, and the Commissioner touched on this, economic and monetary union - the euro - will not be achieved immediately upon accession.
It is important that we point out that once the Copenhagen criteria have been fulfilled, the Maastricht criteria will need to be met - without any opting-out clauses and that this will probably require at least another three, four, five or more years.
Fourthly, money and balance sheets are, after all, not the be-all and end-all.
The economic indicators are positive, but they are only a means to an end and not an end in themselves.
We said this today in the debate on the Middle East: a means to an end which is to create peace, provide security, guarantee social stability, build up a democratic polity and safeguard growth and employment.
Fifthly, there is much to be done: to meet the stability criteria, to regulate state aid, to remove regional disparities, to reform pensions, social security and health services, to make rapid progress on privatisation, and to guarantee the independence of the judiciary and the public authorities.
We have reached an important stage.
We look towards the goal with optimism.
Mr President, I wish to join with others in also expressing my delight at the support shown for enlargement today.
It is crucial that the EU send out a signal that we desire enlargement for our own sakes.
It is also important, however, that there should be broad grassroots support for the project among the populations of the candidate countries.
It is, of course, the countries themselves that must hold the debates on membership, but it is also our task to ensure that the conditions are of such a kind that this development is perceived as progress by the populations of the candidate countries too and that they are not given the feeling that it is a case of the strong riding roughshod over the weak.
Enlargement must therefore be based upon mutuality, respect and equality. Above all, we must, for our part, understand that there will naturally be changes to the way in which the EU develops once new countries and people come on board.
Their starting points are not always the same as ours, and it is precisely that fact which can also be a source of enrichment for us.
Mr President, I welcome the debate this afternoon and welcome Mr Verheugen's comments this morning, which were extremely positive.
I should like to make one crucial point.
The key to the enlarged community has to be the integrity of the single market.
We must ensure that the complete integrity of that single market will emerge at the end of these negotiations.
If it is not the case, then there will be considerable resistance to enlargement from businesses in the Community and from the workers in the Community who feel themselves disadvantaged.
I take one particular example.
Recently in the Czech Republic there was restructuring in the banking sector.
One of the major banks in the Czech Republic - IPB - was forced into administration and this was done to the benefit of another bank - CSOB.
There appears to have been some use of state aids to support the position of the CSOB in order to support the position of a private sector rival to the IPB.
Clearly that whole saga is very unsatisfactory.
It is not transparent and it is not in accordance with the terms of the association agreement.
We must ensure that those sorts of events do not continue to happen.
As chairman of the joint parliamentary committee, I should also like to say a few words in relation to Lithuania.
I welcome Mrs Souladakis' report.
It is clear that the Lithuanian government has made enormous strides to catch up.
I am very hopeful that they will be alongside the original group within the next 12 months.
But again, they have to ensure implementation of the single market, particularly as regards counterfeiting in the audiovisual sector.
Ladies and gentlemen, it will not come as a surprise to anyone that I, as a member of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, will be broaching the subject of women, for a not inconsiderable majority of the population of the candidate countries consists of women.
Very vulnerable women, at that.
Let us not forget that most accession countries are also countries of origin and transit of trafficking in women.
Let us also, therefore, discuss women for a change, as opposed to farmers, employers, trade unions, and the like.
Let us talk about this large majority whom we wish to make Europe-minded and not frightened of Europe.
If we do not devote any attention to that group, things are bound to go wrong.
We therefore need to set up a proper information campaign by means of which women' s organisations, but also all individual women in the country or in the cities, can be reached for the purpose of explaining, among other things, the acquis communautaire as it relates to women.
In that way, Europe stands a better chance of being accepted, and the situation for women will improve considerably.
Finally, I should like to point out that, in his speech this morning, Commissioner Verheugen failed altogether to mention the situation of women in the candidate countries, something which I deeply regret.
Mr President, I am positive from Greece's experience that, contrary to what Mr Brok' s motion for a resolution maintains, the already frightful situation in the nations preparing for accession to the European Union will deteriorate even further, given that the purpose of accession is to serve big business, not the workers; workers who, in the run up to accession, are already feeling the pernicious political, social and economic repercussions of privatisation and the surrender of their economies to foreign economic interests.
For reasons of solidarity, therefore, we must vote against the reports.
We do not want to be accomplices.
As far as Cyprus is concerned, we have taken note of the positive points in the Poos report, which is why we shall abstain rather than vote against it.
However, our general political position, as stated above, also applies here.
We also note that the pre-accession procedure, especially post-Helsinki, has not only failed to resolve the Cyprus question, it has encouraged Ankara and its vassal Denktash to take an even more intransigent stance.
We are particularly worried by the fact that accession negotiations are being used to pressurise the Cypriot leadership into accepting a federal solution, i.e. into legally recognising the invasion and occupation of Cypriot territory and totally abandoning the relevant UN resolutions.
I refer you to the statements on the matter made by the president of the European Council, Mr Michel.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in most cases, the alienation between institutions and citizens revolves around people' s prosperity.
The issues that are around in our countries are a fear of immigrants, anxiety about loss of jobs and concerns surrounding the relocation of businesses.
Those issues are equally present in the candidate countries, where joining the European Union is measured by the acquisition of, and increase in, income and by employment.
If we study the latest employment figures in the Central European countries, we see that employment has fallen everywhere in 1999 and 2000, except in Hungary, Lithuania and Slovenia.
This is why it is vital that we give our attention to this development.
As far as social policy is concerned, I should like to talk mainly about two points.
I tend to think along the same lines as Mrs Maes.
Paper is accommodating, but one must also learn to read between the lines and look for the hidden meaning.
I should first like to turn my attention to social security.
The great danger is that traditional social security will be dismantled before the new system of social security is operational or is fully operational. As a consequence, a whole generation of people will not be able to benefit from either system.
My experience and the discussions I have had in a number of countries show this to be true.
This is a terrible prospect, since it indicates that a large group of people are becoming poorer.
These people compare the situation with the previous one and feel that they are worse off now than in the past.
That is the first point and I would ask the Commission to focus much more closely on the problem of social security than it has done to date.
Secondly, I should like to mention the organisations which are being set up and developed by the social partners.
Again on the basis of my local contacts, my observation is that here too things are progressing with great difficulty and very slowly.
So, we must once again look beyond the words and face reality.
Let us help them and let us help the social partners to help each other.
. (NL) Mr President, to my surprise I have just heard in the English interpretation of proceedings that my name is now Michel.
It is true that I work closely with Minister Michel, but full metamorphosis has not yet taken place.
I should like to begin, ladies and gentlemen, by apologising for the fact that I arrived a little late and was not here promptly at 3 p.m.
That was because I was also taking part on behalf of the presidency in the Conference of Committee Chairmen.
Since I do not have the gift of ubiquity, I could not be here on time, for which I again apologise.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, many of you have referred either during this morning' s speeches or in the (incidentally very interesting) reports that you have introduced - usually with much pleasure and sympathy - to the contacts you have had with people in the candidate countries, the visits you have made, and so on.
The same applies to me.
I have been visiting the capitals of all candidate countries with which we have entered into negotiations at least once and, in certain cases, twice, three times or more.
It is true that that creates a bond and leads to a more than purely theoretical political interest in the countries concerned.
I find it almost touching to see how you, in your progress reports, are concerned almost like godparents with the welfare of the candidate countries on which you have to report.
I should, by the way, like to emphasise that this Parliament, in its successive constituent forms, has been one of the great engines of enlargement.
An engine that has never misfired and never stopped, and I believe that you can wear that badge with pride.
But there is more.
I should like in particular, not only echoing Mrs Lalumière, but also because it reflects my own feelings, to congratulate most sincerely the Commission, Commissioner Verheugen and his department on the gigantic task of negotiation that they are carrying out.
At present, they are conducting over 300 different sets of negotiations.
You have only to multiply the number of headings by the number of Member States.
Of course I know that there are parallels, but two cases are never entirely similar.
Public opinion, which is scarcely aware of this because it is insufficiently informed, therefore thinks that accession is taking so long because we are either having second thoughts or because we have not taken particularly effective decisions.
It has no clear idea of how complex this whole matter is.
That is not the fault of public opinion.
That is the fault of all those, including ourselves, who have not told the public the facts.
Although the work is not yet complete, it has been said that the end is in sight.
As a result, tension is rising, of course, as are the number of sweepstakes on who will be crossing the finishing line first.
I agree entirely with Commissioner Verheugen that it would be wrong of us to speculate at this point on which candidate countries will be in the first wave and which will not.
It is still far too early, but we must all start discussing together how we can effectively translate these accessions into reality.
I would like, if I may, to tell a little anecdote here to highlight just one aspect of all this: when Sweden, Finland and Austria joined - and that was also a chronicle of a much-heralded fact that had long been known about - there were nevertheless insufficient interpreters and translators.
That problem will, of course, become even more complex, but all the institutions will have discuss this too in good time.
I said this morning that enlargement is the future of the Union.
Mr Jonckheer, a compatriot of mine but from a different party, has denied that, saying that the future is uncertain.
I repeat what I said this morning.
I must add that I did not say this just for formality' s sake.
I said it because I am firmly convinced that it is true, although I am just as prepared to say that the future will not be limited to enlargement, but that is the first great challenge that we have to meet in the near future.
That is absolutely certain.
My country' s Prime Minister shares this view, and in fact will undoubtedly be providing, and I say this to you very definitely, a role for candidate countries in his proposals for the preparation for the IGC.
This is in answer to a concern expressed this morning by group chairman, Mr Poettering.
During the so-called "Gymnich meeting" at the end of this week, the candidate countries will be taking part in the discussions on the future of Europe.
During the informal Council of Ghent and, of course, during the European Council of Laeken, enlargement will be discussed at length.
It will be approached in the spirit that Commissioner Verheugen and I myself set out and also in the spirit which you have supported almost without exception in your respective speeches.
Mr President, as Romano Prodi said in this debate last year, in Europe we are all minorities.
Today Commissioner Verheugen said that to live in Europe is to live with compromises.
To my mind these are crucial to European values.
It is for the vast majority to make compromises for the minority.
Therefore I was unhappy when I learnt that the European Parliament rapporteur on Slovakia had accused the Hungarian minority parties of setting ultimatums and using methods that are used only in wartime when they made their future in the government dependent on an administrative reform.
The rapporteur's remark seems very unfair and does not take note of the different steps in the development of self-government at different levels, nor is it consistent with the views expressed by the Prime Minister of Slovakia.
The Hungarian political representatives have, in spite of the adoption of new administrative borders that were promoted by nationalist and left-wing parties and deprived them of chances of adequate political representation, signalled that they are ready to continue in the government but that their future participation is dependent on giving real content to the administrative laws.
That is what we are asking for in Resolution No 39.
We should refrain from unfounded accusations.
Mr President, investments in roads, railways and other forms of infrastructure are among the most important that can be made in the countries of the old Central and Eastern Europe.
Anyone who takes a bird' s eye view of Europe can see very clearly where the old borders between East and West run.
This means that the EU and the EU' s Member States have a lot to gain from contributing to investment in better road and rail networks in the candidate countries and from ensuring that these are linked together with the networks in the rest of Europe.
For a country such as Poland, which the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has studied from a transport point of view, that is quite obvious.
Poland is far and away the largest of the candidate countries and, in the last ten years, it has invested extensively in improvements in roads and railways.
We often talk in East-West terms within the EU but, where a country such as Poland is concerned, it is probably just as important to see the issues from a north-south perspective.
Poland is now already one of the most important countries in Europe when it comes to transport between North and South in Europe.
Clearly integrating Poland into the EU' s transport system is the same as broadening the waistline of Europe.
North-South transport would obtain a wider range of possible transit routes.
This would ease the burden on Germany, which is something positive - especially from an environmental point of view - and it would also increase competition, which is good for trade.
On the day when Poland, together with other candidate countries around the Baltic, becomes a member of the EU, we shall also jointly be able to make greater demands in terms both of marine safety and of the management of the sensitive environment in the Baltic.
There is therefore a lot to be gained from Poland' s becoming a member of the EU once the negotiations have been successfully completed.
Mr President, enlargement is not an end in itself.
It is clearly a means; I would go further, it is a means within a group of means.
For example, the other means are: political deepening, economic and social cohesion and budgetary sufficiency.
The success of enlargement depends on whether these three elements are clearly present.
If it is a means, what is the end? That people live better, qualitatively and quantitatively, in the countries of the current Union and in the candidate countries.
This is therefore true in the case of a country such as Bulgaria.
We hope that during the next political stage which that country is going to experience after the latest elections, the Europeanist will and effort shown so far will remain as strong and that, furthermore, essential actions will be strengthened in various fields.
Firstly, in the political field.
We must say clearly to the Bulgarian Government that this Parliament would not even consider voting for an accession agreement while, for example, Article 157 of the Penal Code remains in force, which establishes unacceptable discrimination against homosexual citizens in Bulgaria.
We clearly also have to ask the Bulgarian Government to make progress on the reform of judicial power, on the fight against corruption, on improving the social living conditions of the citizens and, particularly, on the fight against unemployment.
We must also ask for progress on the protection of the environment and, above all, for compliance with the commitments made so far on the closure, within certain time limits, of units 1 to 4 of the Kozloduy nuclear power station.
Finally, we want to say to Bulgaria that it is this Parliament' s desire that it be well incorporated into the European Union and on time, but, of course within the political, economic and social framework established.
Mr President, if the political problems cannot be resolved at long last, the issue of Cyprus has the potential to derail the entire enlargement process or to leave us in the ridiculous situation where hundreds of thousands of Turkish Cypriots are notionally EU citizens without having being consulted, while at the same time facing EU sanctions of a political and economic nature.
We cannot afford to close our eyes to the reality.
I look forward to Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot politicians sitting alongside us as parliamentarians in this Chamber and to the creation of a bi-zonal federal state.
But in discussing this issue, it is not acceptable simply to say that the problems of Cyprus started with the Turkish invasion in 1974 without mentioning the divisions of the island from 1963 when Greek Cypriots murdered Turkish Cypriots.
If there is to be true reconciliation between these peoples, then complete objectivity is needed and in this report before us that is too sadly lacking.
Mr President, in its opinion on the country reports the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has confined itself to only a few points which are significant for all of the accession countries without exception and which are, as you would expect, included in the introductory report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
Our committee calls for a more developed schema governing the future representation of the candidate countries in the European Parliament than is provided for in the Treaty of Nice.
We call for the discrimination against Hungary and the Czech Republic to be rectified and we think it is necessary for provision also to be made for the period after the 2004 European elections for any candidates acceding then.
Other important concerns of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs relate to the candidate countries' participating as soon as possible in the so-called post-Nice process.
A constitutional reform in Europe without the participation of the future members is politically indefensible.
Of course the candidates will not be able to have an equal say in the decisions for as long as they are still candidates, but they will be affected and we should therefore also attach importance to their opinions.
Our committee continues to be in favour of actively involving civil society in the Member States and the candidate countries in the process of reforming our future institutions.
A prerequisite for this will be high-quality, comprehensive and above all not only one-sided information.
A further concern has obviously already reached the ears of the Commission.
Commissioner Verheugen already mentioned in this morning's debate that the application of Community law will be a priority in the ongoing assessment of the candidates' readiness to join the European Union.
We can only fully agree with him.
I have mixed feelings about another comment which Commissioner Verheugen made this morning.
Commissioner, you said that the border regions would spearhead the EU enlargement process.
In the light of the great restraint being exercised by the Commission where support for border regions is concerned, I fear that some border regions may see themselves as spearheads in a different sense, in the sense that they are being speared.
Perhaps here too it will be possible to find a solution by working together constructively.
Mr President, Malta is one of the twelve candidate countries which meets the general requirements set by the European Union on all counts.
The Stenzel report gives us an excellent description of all these developments and I fully endorse it.
However, there is the problem of why a significant proportion of the Maltese people, all of whom we welcome with open arms, has a number of objections and concerns.
For example, the agricultural population totals 1000 people and agriculture is a problem for Malta and for these 1000 people.
Perhaps they are worried that, because it is so small, a property developer could come and buy up the whole of Malta.
Some other nations are worried about their cultural identity.
The vision of Europe which we impart must be a vision which safeguards all the rights of the nations which accede at a later date, be they cultural, economic or social.
In this sense, because our debates are often highly technocratic and focus solely on indicators, Maastricht, approximations and so on, we should understand that, for these nations, most of whom are experiencing economic problems, the economic factor takes precedence.
If we want to bring these nations - and our own nations - on board, we need to show them a Europe of security, peace, culture and individuality, not just the sexual individuality which is often the subject of debate, but cultural individuality, because people do not just have multiple sexual needs, they also have multiple spiritual and cultural needs and linguistic diversity.
In this sense, I think that Malta, which is Europe in miniature, is a good prospect; at the same time, however, we should use Malta to look at other aspects of our policies.
Mr President, at this stage of our assessment and appraisal of the pre-accession progress of the candidate countries, the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities wants to make it perfectly clear that, as an integral aspect of respect for human rights, adopting the acquis communautaire on equality between men and women is a sine qua non to accession.
In other words, these countries have to harmonise their national legislation with the acquis communautaire in the area of sexual equality, on the one hand, and develop institutions and mechanisms which allow appropriate policies to be applied on the other.
It is clear from the opinions of our committee that women everywhere have difficulty accessing the job market and are under-represented at the centres of power.
They also refer to specific problems such as high unemployment in Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Latvia and violence against and human trafficking of women in places such as Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Turkey.
At the same time, we have welcomed positive achievements, such as state mechanisms in Lithuania to facilitate suitable policies and the employment rate among women in Cyprus, which is close to the Community average.
Moreover, as the rapporteur Mr Poos mentioned, Cyprus is top of the league of negotiating countries and meets all the economic and political accession criteria.
Consequently, we are entirely justified in believing and hoping that Cyprus will become a full member of the European Union as soon as the pre-accession procedure is completed even if, despite our efforts, no solution can be found to the Cyprus problem in the meantime, due to Turkey's intransigence.
What our committee is calling for, Commissioner, to come back to women, is for candidate countries to take part in Community programmes which help safeguard women's rights and for civil society, and especially women's non-governmental organisations, to be encouraged to take part in these programmes.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Europe was founded on the idea of putting an end to war between the various nations in it.
At some point in their history, these nations decided never again to allow themselves to fall into the cesspit of genocide.
At the same time, they abolished the diplomacy of threat and pressure and replaced it with the language of reconciliation, compromise and understanding in good faith.
Primarily, enlarging Europe can only mean one thing: extending the application of these principles.
And nowhere in Europe today is there a more pressing need for the application of these principles to be extended than in Cyprus, whose history of violence, threat, blood-stained borders, military occupation, armed reckonings - all the situations from which Europe has drawn back in horror - is repeating itself for both nations living on the island.
The upshot of this for northern, Turkish-occupied Cyprus has been economic ruin and the abolition of political freedom for its people.
They live under a military regime in the guise of a pseudo-democracy.
In southern Cyprus, which constitutes the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, and which functions as a true democracy, even if it is handicapped by the Turkish occupation, the economy is flourishing, prosperity is increasing and all the economic and political criteria set in Copenhagen have been met; however, the people are deprived of the natural, supremely human right to travel around their country, to return to the houses in which they were born, to their small villages, to travel the length and breadth of the country without coming up against barbed wire, road blocks, divided towns or armed soldiers ready to shoot.
Under these circumstances, the accession of Cyprus into the European Union, which should not be delayed, will also bring new peace to international relations between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus in the eastern Mediterranean in general - the European Union's blessing on all three countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur on Latvia's application for membership of the European Union, Mrs Schröder, has made some very important and pertinent observations.
They also seemed to me to be very critical.
That is why, with your permission, I should now like to highlight two positive points which present the overall picture in a perhaps more favourable and also, in my opinion, a more realistic light.
In many reports - and the same is true of the report on Latvia's application, there is a statement at the beginning which is simple and which is important but which cannot be taken for granted.
Latvia satisfies the political criteria for membership of the European Union.
This simple sentence represents splendid achievements, achievements which deserve respect and recognition.
In the light of the difficult situation which these countries were in at the outset and the complicated basic conditions, satisfying the first Copenhagen criterion is a remarkable result.
This is especially true for the three Baltic states which, compared with all of the other candidates, were forced to a far greater degree into the totalitarian structures of the former Soviet Union.
This applies particularly to Latvia, given the complicated ethnic make-up of its population.
It is precisely against this tragic historical background that the systematic and continuous efforts of its parliament and government to integrate all of the country's inhabitants into society deserve our respect and support.
Latvia is also an excellent example of how clear political prospects for the future can strengthen and accelerate social and economic development.
On 15 February 2000 the accession negotiations were formally opened.
In the same year, growth of 6.6% in gross domestic product was achieved and in the first quarter of this year growth even reached 8.2%.
These are just a few of very many other indicators which point to the opportunities - the opportunities to create political stability and economic dynamism - which enlargement brings.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, enlargement is the greatest challenge that the European political project has ever faced.
It is, however, not an end in itself, but a means towards political, economic, cultural and civilisational ends.
Enlargement must mean more and better Europe and not less Europe, even if it increases in area and territory.
Enlargement must be supported and well received by national public opinion.
Public opinion in many countries is favourable towards enlargement for reasons other than simple economic calculations and national self-interest.
These countries hope that enlargement will strengthen Europe and will be fair and, unless this happens, they will feel cheated.
For example, and if we take account of the opinion polls, the Portuguese are clearly more in favour of enlargement than - irony of ironies! - the Belgians, the French and the Germans.
Why should this be the case? It is because the Portuguese have benefited from the support of the European Union at a crucial time in their recent history and feel that other Europeans share this right.
These very Portuguese citizens would not have the same attitude, however, if they were afraid that enlargement might weaken the European project and harm Europe' s internal cohesion.
I am delighted at the orderly, methodical and smooth course of the negotiations, but the hard core of the trickiest dossiers has still not been broached.
Some Members have recommended today, in this part-session, that the ten applicant countries should join the European Union by 2004.
I think this is too soon.
We must not delay the process of accession through expedient measures, neither should we rush things.
We must respect the pace of each applicant country.
In the 1930s, the celebrated French writer Paul Valéry, coined the famous phrase, which said, and I quote, that civilisations are now aware of their mortality.
He also pointed out that Europe' s greatest weakness was its inability to form a political entity with powers that are both solid and legitimate.
This is the problem.
I hope that enlargement contributes to establishing this legitimate and strong entity and not the opposite.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, may I start by drawing your attention to the fact that the conclusions of the Wiersma report on the possible accession of Slovakia to the European Union have the full backing of the PPE group.
Slovakia is an example of how, with political will, a country initially at a disadvantage, in this case a country which, under the Meciar regime, lost nearly four years compared with everyone else, can catch up with the other countries negotiating for accession and join with them in resolving problems quickly.
What is most impressive is that Slovakia has successfully stabilised its economy over recent years and has started and, in many cases, completed comprehensive structural reforms, including privatising the banks.
However, the European Union also needs Slovakia to accede, lying as it does between Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, because it will be easier to guarantee an area of freedom and security in an enlarged European Union along a continuous external border.
However, Slovakia will only be able to accede quickly if it is equally quick in implementing government and administrative reform. This includes making the judiciary independent, introducing effective financial controls and reforming the communes and local authorities, all within the next few weeks.
This will also indirectly guarantee the involvement of national minorities, especially the Hungarians, in over 500 communities.
Slovakia should therefore keep up its resolve to deal with outstanding accession problems in liaison with the Commission and the European Parliament, so as to pave the way for fast accession to the European Union.
Mr President, two topics in one minute.
First topic: there are still major deficiencies in the social sphere, including in the country I myself am monitoring, namely Latvia.
I believe it is important to understand that a modern society is most successful if there is a partnership between politicians and the two sides of the labour market.
That is why we must not forget the social dialogue.
It is not merely the internal market which is important for enlargement.
Second topic: there is a positive spirit at present, and this must continue.
We must not believe that enlargement will be without its problems, and we cannot expect enlargement to be nice and easy.
It will have its shortcomings; there will be untidiness and incoherence; there will be lengthy transitional arrangements; and there will be no thorough agricultural reform and no complete structural reform.
I am not saying that we must accept everything.
I believe, however, that we must contrive to show magnanimity and that we are obliged to accept that enlargement will be messy and untidy.
Naturally, we must comply with the Copenhagen criteria, but we must count on enlargement' s not being as seamless as we perhaps might have hoped.
I hope that we go for major enlargement, show magnanimity and obtain the 'big bang' in 2003.
Mr President, Mr Queiró and Mr Friedrich have given Hungary ten out of ten for accession efforts on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Hungary was the first country to raise the Iron Curtain and to start intensive preparations for full membership.
Today, thank God, fear of enlargement is clearly beginning to recede.
We could see in Burgenland, which borders on Hungary, that the Euro-sceptics did not stand a chance and were losing more and more ground.
The same applies in Austria and Germany with regard to the Czech Republic and Poland, although here the problems are patently worse.
But I think that this is a positive development and that this development is thanks to Hungary's policy of settling its minority problems, which it has done in an exemplary fashion, and of taking a clearly pro-European stance across the political divide.
I should like, first and foremost, to call on the Czech Republic, for which I also have a soft spot and which I hope, like Hungary, will be one of the first wave of candidate countries, to follow Hungary's example and resolve its minority problems, discard its historical baggage and, at the same time, find a consensus between the political parties on the question of political integration.
I think this is paramount.
I am positive that the so-called candidate countries - not an expression I particularly like - will not become the ballast of European unification; it is precisely Hungary, the Czech Republic and others which can become the driving force behind European integration.
The same applies to Slovakia, although it has internal political problems.
But if it resolves them, I think that Slovakia, together with Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, will become the countries to drive European integration forward.
We should therefore take a less anxious view of this project, which we should not call enlargement to the east but, to quote Pope John Paul II, the "Europeanisation of Europe".
Because a European Union without Hungary or the Czech Republic is no European Union!
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Brok for preparing this report on enlargement.
The decision to open an enlargement process highlights the great, long-term vision of our predecessors.
However, this great vision and long-term perspective is not being matched by an adequate financial and budgetary initiative.
I feel that Member States' contributions need to be revised in order to include our new commitments and needs even before 2006.
Like everything new, enlargement is causing uncertainty among the public.
We must reassure them from the economic as well as political point of view, particularly where the structural and cohesion policies are concerned.
Wealthy Europe must be more generous and the governments must be the vehicles of this generosity.
With regard to Slovenia, I have already had the opportunity to thank Mr Volcic for his valuable contribution and his report.
In my opinion, the accession of the candidate countries will be our first opportunity to tackle the issue of relations with the Balkan countries after the war.
The first, absolute necessity which the European Union must establish and confirm, where it is lacking, is multiculturality based on recognition of and respect for differences, all differences whether physical, intellectual, ethnic, religious, economic or other, to prevent any more ethnic or religious wars.
Europe and the European Union must demand reciprocity from all the countries with which they sustain relations or for which they are finalising solidarity programmes in the area of multiculturality, for this dimension is the basis of all the democratic structures of the States.
I hope that, in the future, Slovenia' s situation will be mirrored in all the Balkan States and bring peace and prosperity to the war-torn communities.
Lastly, I feel that, for the European Union, the economic element of globalisation is not about maximising profit and its social element is not about standardising societies, but globalisation is about the readiness to harmonise existing differences.
Mr President, the upside of the fact that we are so late debating the old progress reports is that we can inject some up-to-date input just before the new reports are finalised.
I have observed developments in Lithuania with interest, and not only since I became the shadow rapporteur for this country.
It demonstrates the classic problems of a candidate country, problems which apply across the board and do not therefore need to be restated.
One specific aspect, and this also costs the EU a great deal of money, is Lithuanian energy policy.
The sector as a whole has already cost three heads of government their job.
First on the subject of Ignalina, which Mr Souladakis has already addressed.
I think that it is up to us to ensure, when the closure process is implemented, that locals are kept properly informed at all times of what it is actually planned to do and what their prospects are in this relatively isolated area.
My personal impression is that this is not yet the case.
As a result, some Lithuanian politicians, admittedly without portfolio, are irresponsibly raising people's hopes in order to curry votes.
This triggers anti-European sentiments because the debate is over-simplified.
Privatisation of the oil and gas sectors is also causing a degree of ill feeling among the people because western investors have acted as if this is a banana republic.
Now, no one even bothers to distinguish between EU nationals and Americans.
People have become sceptical of western capital and more receptive to so-called national solutions.
However, allegedly national solutions in Lithuania are in fact generally a front for Russian money.
I just want to make sure that everyone involved both inside and outside Lithuania is aware of this and bears it in mind when making political and economic decisions.
Mr President, with regard to the accession of Cyprus, we should be pleased by the result of the vote in the Committee on Foreign Affairs: 55 in favour and just 2 against.
This demonstrates the excellent work of negotiation and consensus carried out by the rapporteur and the cooperation of the whole committee on this report which was not devoid of difficulties, owing, above all, to the occupation of part of the island by Turkey and the stalemate in the dialogue between the Turkish and Cypriot Governments.
My group has wanted to promote a text which does not hinder or compromise a renewal of the negotiations between both sides, but quite the opposite, one which motivates and speeds up the process of resolving the problem which is undoubtedly seeing a change of attitude from the Turkish Government.
We are in favour of approving the report with the amendments presented by our Group which reflect its concern at the political division of the island, supporting, in this respect, the efforts of the United Nations to reestablish the conversations and urging the conflicting sides to achieve a resolution to the problem as soon as possible, for the good of all the citizens of Cyprus.
Cyprus has now closed 22 chapters in the negotiation and presents itself as a firm candidate for accession.
However, intense work will have to be done on the incorporation of the Community acquis, especially in terms of compliance with environmental legislation, where significant shortcomings in the areas of waste management and water quality and management have been noted.
Cyprus must also make progress on putting a stop to its macroeconomic deterioration, as well as on the control of capital movements.
Nevertheless, we insist that a unified Cyprus would be the best guarantee of peace, security and prosperity for the region.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, maybe it is an opportunity as well as an honour to have the last word in such an important debate. I think that this debate has highlighted the potential for the European Parliament, especially when it comes to Romania, on which I should like to say a few words.
As a former national member of parliament, I know that a national member of parliament can do very little.
What Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne has done for Romania, with her report and her hard work, is to get things moving there.
The Commissioner acknowledged as much this morning and I think that we could use this as an example to the numerous groups of visitors who question exactly what we in the European Parliament can do.
To start with, the head of government in Romania reacted as perhaps every head of government in the world would react.
He claimed that Mr Verheugen had said, not to worry, it is only the European Parliament.
Talk to the Commission if you want to become a member of the European Union one day.
I am sure that Mr Verheugen said no such thing.
All the Romanian media quoted him, although they then acknowledged that it makes sense to take a closer look at Parliament's reports and opinions; we have reached a legal position on the question of orphans and homosexuals in Romania which now has to be implemented, something which was unthinkable a few weeks ago.
I should like, if I may, to comment on a question which divides the House.
The Socialist group and Mr Sakellariou have tabled a proposed amendment asking if the report should mention euro-Atlantic structures, yes or no?
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy says yes, if Romania wants to join these euro-Atlantic structures, then we want to support this and I think it is important, especially in Romania's case, that we do.
We know that Romania will not accede in the first round in 2004 and a decision to invite Romania to join the North Atlantic Alliance in 2002 is therefore all the more important.
This would bring stability to the whole of Europe and I therefore call on you to reject this amendment tomorrow and support the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
I should like to inform the House that I have received a motion for a resolution from the Committee on Foreign Affairs pursuant to Rule 37, paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
It gives me great pleasure to hand the chair back to the President.
White paper on the reform of European governance
The next item is the Commission communication on the White paper on the reform of European governance.
I will now give the floor to the President of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi.
Thank you, Mr Prodi.
Madam President, I would like firstly to congratulate the President, Mr Prodi, both on the White Paper and on his comments here today.
It seems to me that the forty pages of this White Paper are forty dense pages, full of reflection and proposals.
But I also believe that your comments were splendid, succinct, full of ideas and vision, and I would like to congratulate you on behalf of my group.
Furthermore, I believe that your manner of presenting the White Paper has been correct.
You have done so modestly, and that is to your credit.
The White Paper is a departure point.
It is just a text which leads to reflection and now we have to ask our co-citizens to participate in this reflection, to offer ideas and to send projects.
I believe that all of us in this Parliament agree on the analysis of the situation, that we all wonder what is happening to the European Union and why our co-citizens sometimes show a lack of confidence.
I believe that the White Paper explains this well: the benefits of the European Union are general and they often pass unnoticed; however, the disadvantages are specific.
I remember the effect in my country when lorries of strawberries were overturned by French farmers.
This always happened at the same time of year, one week, and it was just a very isolated incident.
That created enormous anti-European feeling: 'Why does the European Union not worry about us, the European Union does not care for us' .
That ended as a result of the efforts of the European Commission, amongst others.
Surely the Spanish, or many of them, do not realise that.
I believe that our main problem is that we are European without knowing it and without doubt this White Paper has a good role to play in this pedagogical zeal to explain what Europe is and what the European Union is for.
The second idea that I would like to highlight on behalf of my group is that this White Paper stresses the originality of the system which has operated over the last fifty years.
Furthermore, it supports the continuation of this system which we call the 'Community method' , yet nobody questions this.
Today I have been very glad to hear President Prodi talk about maintaining the balance between the institutions: this seems to me essential.
The Group of the European People' s Party, which has always tenaciously supported the European Commission having a monopoly on the exercise of legislative initiative, believes that it is very positive that that legislative initiative, when it comes about, should count on the participation of many more players: of what we call civil society, of local and regional authorities; above all especially if we do so, as Mr Prodi said, without in any way altering the balance between the institutions or the constitutional status of the Member States.
Of course, this Parliament is also going to cooperate in this task of contributing ideas.
And it is doing so by means of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs whose rapporteur on this issue will be Mrs Kaufmann, and it is also doing so on all those issues which are eventually going to be combined with the reflection of the Commission which President Prodi called the third reflection, which is going to come together in the debate of the IGC 2004.
This White Paper is very important because we are at a moment of the historic constituent process of the European Union, and that process opened with declaration 23 at Nice.
I am sure that the presence of Commissioner Barnier is in response to this.
Therefore, this will be a further element of this process, which is important, and visionary, and which is necessary when Europe is preparing for the euro, for enlargement and for the debate on what we Europeans want.
Madam President, this White Paper between ourselves is worth more than all the recent grandstanding speeches of national leaders, because it combines clarity of purpose with a substantial degree of self-criticism.
President Prodi has drawn attention to the paradox that people want the Union to be doing more in several fields but they still distrust the system of government.
The Commission is therefore quite right to focus on improving the Commission's representative capacity, especially at the pre-legislative stage.
I would also want a strong emphasis on improving the post-legislative phase, monitoring far more closely the way European policies are put into effect on the ground.
My group welcomes the Commission's emphasis on decentralised management and on a reinforced role for the regions.
The European region plays a vital part as the intermediary between the citizen and the supranational authorities.
We also note the kind suggestion that Parliament feeds into the European system the views of its own electors.
What else we are up to, I am not quite sure.
But the place that we intend to do this is in the new convention that we trust will be set up at Laeken, a concept that strangely receives not a single mention throughout the entire White Paper.
Would Mr Prodi agree that the White Paper will be a most sensible contribution to the work of that convention? Would he say exactly the way he sees the furtherance of the work on the White Paper fitting in with that of the convention?
Madam President, President of the Commission, your White Paper has been widely praised, but we were disappointed in it, because it has not proved the important document that we had expected after your promises.
It is difficult to find any specific detail in the current reform of the Commission, in the fundamental declarations in Nice on the future of the Union or in the new IGC.
We are therefore searching for the meaning.
Could it perhaps be the case that differences of opinion in the board of Commissioners and pressure from some Member States have combined to reduce the scope of this White Paper?
We also support greater involvement of mainstream society.
That is positive.
However, as Democrats, we are concerned about the sections on better policy and better legislation, and on the orientation of policy initiatives and institutions.
We attach special importance to institutional equilibrium.
Other speakers have already made that point, for example as regards the impact on the powers and role of the European Parliament of a greater use of "soft law" instruments.
In addition, we wonder whether the new regulatory bodies we are promised and the proposed external executive bodies can be adequately monitored.
We have not forgotten the whole chapter involving the BTB.
Neither have you, I hope.
We are positively disposed towards the proposal that the Council and the European Parliament should play an equal role in supervising the way in which the Commission fulfils its executive task.
But I have other concerns.
As a regionalist, I feel bound to say that the importance of the region has actually declined.
There is virtually no trace here of 'bottom-up governance' .
We cannot find the 'multi-level governance' in which all administrative strata are involved - which was also asked for by Mr Duff.
The differences of opinion in the board of Commissioners have obviously actually led to regional involvement on the final decision-making being scrapped.
The Commission limits itself to a more systematic dialogue with European and national associations of regional and local authorities at an early stage in decision-making.
In contrast to the draft White Paper and the report of the Commission' s preparatory working party 4 C, provision is no longer made for a differentiation in regional involvement depending on the type of Member State: unitary, decentralised, regionalised or federal.
As a result, we are now going backwards compared to the present constitutional powers already enjoyed by some regions in certain Member States, for example Belgium.
You can imagine that this will not excite much enthusiasm in our regions for the governance outlined here.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, it is well over eighteen months, Mr Prodi, since you announced that the reform of European governance was one of the Commission's four strategic objectives.
It is to your honour that, like earlier Commission presidents, you want to leave your personal mark on the Commission.
Your concern to take measures which will at last close the gap between the Union and its citizens is one which I wholeheartedly support.
As does the overwhelming majority of the House.
We want to do something, at long last, to turn a citizens' Europe from a slogan into a reality.
With all due respect for your concern, Mr President of the Commission, I must say to you in all honesty that I am disappointed in what now lies before us.
I have handed out this White Paper and asked our citizens what they think of it.
Do you know what the immediate problem was? They had no idea what the 40 odd pages were about.
It is all pure Eurospeak, was the reply.
How, I wonder, can we possibly close this gap if the language is incomprehensible to its target audience?
The White Paper contains positive ideas, such as strengthening the role of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions or stepping up consultation with organisations in civil society, it is true.
Nonetheless, I should like briefly to address a few crucial questions.
The basic political problem of the White Paper is obvious, I think, right from the start.
It says that people think the Union is incapable of acting where action is needed, for example, on unemployment.
This reading of the problem is simply not true.
The citizens do not think the Union is incapable; on the contrary, their experience on a daily basis is that the Union and its Member States have proven they are incapable.
Mr Prodi, you quite rightly said in your speech that, when we speak of governance, we are really talking about democracy.
You quite rightly addressed the problem of the democratisation of the European Union here today, but why can I only find trace elements of it in the White Paper itself?
One last word on the question of revising the Treaty.
The White Paper makes provision for a consultation stage up to March 2002.
The final proposals are then due to be submitted a further six months later.
Surely it is absurd to present proposals geared to the current Treaties in the autumn of this year, when we will already have been working flat out, hopefully in a convention, on revising the Treaties.
Dispensing with amendments to the Treaty, as you have posited, is not, in my view, a viable proposition, quite apart from the fact that you suggest a revision in the White Paper itself.
All in all, Mr President of the Commission, even after what my fellow members have said, I see a need for extensive discussion and I offer you Parliament's and my personal assistance.
Mr President of the Commission, in our common language, the word "governance" does not exist, and it may well be that it does not exist in other European languages either. It could be said that it is revealing - and not just because of the linguistic wrangle which took place this summer - that, despite its best efforts at external openness, transparency and accountability towards the public, the Commission chose, right in the middle of the summer, to adopt a document with an untranslatable title.
There were other terms available which would have been translatable and, most importantly, comprehensible, both linguistically and otherwise: the rule of law, the separation of powers, thorough guidelines for Community mechanisms, democratisation of the Treaties, a European Constitution, legal certainty and so on and so forth.
You decided to ignore almost all these pillars of our national States even though, as you know, they are greatly lacking in our European Union system.
I hope that "governance" is not going to become a kind of de facto, free-trade Italian-style Constitution which favours partisan ideals, which, as we are quite aware, is the case with the current Italian Constitution.
Civil society, for example, Mr President, is what exposed Israel at Durban, prompting countries to walk out of that conference. Those countries had a sense of responsibility which I did not see in our Union.
I do not know whether that is the civil society to which you are referring, but I am somewhat fearful because, as Mr Swoboda said, although, today, you have delivered a very pro-Parliament speech, the text itself contains very few references to Parliament.
It is precisely because I want a strong, authoritative Commission that I am saying this.
I do not want it to be reduced to a think tank or, at best, a supervisory body for a couple of industry sectors.
So, Mr President, be bold!
In my opinion, this text does not go far enough.
This operation will not suffice as it stands: if the rule of law and the legal certainties are to make proper headway in this Union, they must be defined now.
Madam President, I too want to thank the Commission for a good analysis in the 'Governance' paper.
In some places, the report is so critical that I might have written it myself.
What I do not see, however, is an attendant list of practical, precise and binding proposals which would open the legislative process to the people.
In Italy, Mr Prodi has a good proposal about naming those who have been consulted.
We are concerned here with a list, which ought to accompany any bill, of who has been consulted, and all the answers given in consultations should be available on the Internet.
Mr Prodi also has another proposal about preferring regulations to directives.
That runs directly counter to our era' s demand for decentralisation.
On the contrary, countries require greater freedom in implementing directives. Strawberries need not be of the same size in Italy as in Finland.
The paper talks a lot about more consultation, but it looks as though the aim is to create more support for the Commission' s 'top-down' proposal.
What I do not see is a proper concept of democracy that involves starting from the bottom.
Which issues cross borders? Which can we not manage for ourselves?
In which areas do we want the Commission to produce proposals? Mr Prodi always has fine things to say about transparency, but he also has a department for refusing the right of access to documents.
Could the Commission not merge that department with the department for fine words about transparency, leaving just the one department? For example, I have still not received a complete list of the people consulted in the 1,500 committees and working parties that exist today.
Those who support Mr Prodi are not delivering the goods.
It looks as though he too has been imprisoned in his own fortress.
Might I suggest that Mr Prodi issue his promises about transparency as a regulation, binding his supporters in every respect.
Mr Prodi, the introduction to your White Paper on European governance makes the problem clear. We are losing the citizens' confidence, as the no vote in the Irish referendum showed.
However your solutions are extremely weak.
Better governance would be more transparency, increased consultation, increased communication, increased participation and a more open method of communication, for example.
To be brief, Mr Prodi, these are the changes that would certainly be desirable for the European institutions to make to the way they work, but they will only have a marginal effect if they are not combined with deep-rooted changes in the balance of institutional powers.
The people think, and we also think, that certain problems would be better resolved by better European cooperation, but, at the same time, they resolutely and constantly attaches most legitimacy to the national framework.
That said, the conclusion is very simple: to strengthen the legitimacy of European cooperation, to make contact once more with the citizens, great influence and a much more visible role need to be given to the nation states within the European decision-making process.
This is the basic condition for a true democracy, a word that is scarcely mentioned, moreover, Mr President, in your White Paper.
All the rest is just idle chit-chat.
For example, how can it be that, in your White Paper, we find developments in the involvement of regional and local structures in European politics, developments in decentralised management, in coregulation with various - non-identified - organisations, and how can it be that there is absolutely no mention of the essential role of national Parliaments in the European decision-making process? I imagine, Mr President, that, in your position, you were not able to resolve this issue, but the White Paper could at least have raised it.
The best communication you could hope for is useless if European policies do not revolve around the crucial role of national democracies.
I would like to thank Mr Prodi, the Members of Parliament who have spoken today and all those who have taken part in this debate.
The debate is closed.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Questions to the Commission (B5-0332/2001).
Part I
Question No 37 by (H-0602/01):
Subject: Managing the huge potential of the waste market With waste generation in the EU amounting to around 1 300 million tonnes a year and total waste generation increasing by around 15% over the period 1995 to 1998, managing waste represents a huge market for the Member States without even taking into account the potential of the market following enlargement.
What new initiatives does the Commission intend to bring forward to highlight this market, and how can it demonstrate to Europe's young people the potential for new employment opportunities in this market?
Mr President, as Mr Collins so rightly points out, waste management is a huge market.
Indeed, it is the biggest environmental market, accounting each year for around EUR 44 billion and 0.5 to 0.6% of Community GDP.
Moreover, companies whose primary activity is waste management employ between 200 000 and 400 000 people.
In terms of new initiatives, the Commission is currently in the process of developing several that will highlight the potential of the waste market.
First, the Sixth Environmental Action Programme in the waste field; this aims to decouple degeneration of waste from economic growth.
It announces that the Commission will come forward with thematic strategies on both the sustainable use of resources and on recycling.
This will take a long-term look at both questions.
One of the aims of the recycling strategy will be identifying policies and instruments to encourage the creation of markets for recycled materials.
Secondly, in addition to the aforementioned thematic strategies, the Commission intends to propose legislative initiatives addressing specific problems such as batteries and packaging waste.
Together with legislation on electronic waste and end-of-life vehicles, these initiatives should further boost the waste management markets.
Thirdly, following the Gothenburg European Council, the Commission is in the process of preparing a report on how environmental technology can promote growth and employment.
This will be presented to next year's spring European Council.
Finally, the integrated product policy will address issues dealing with design, manufacturing, use and disposal across the whole life cycle of a product and will therefore impact upon waste generation.
It is a challenge to demonstrate to Europe's young people the potential for new employment opportunities in this market.
Certainly, all stakeholders have, at all levels, a role to play.
The Commission can play its role by keeping waste management issues high on the Community policy agenda and providing high quality information.
However, it is clear that education remains within the competence of the Member States.
I thank the Commissioner for her very comprehensive and most informative reply.
Question No 38 by (H-0639/01):
Subject: Infringement of competition rules in relation to DVD sales The DVD market is characterised by the existence of two different systems in Europe and in the United States and Japan, with the result that European consumers are unable to purchase DVDs from countries belonging to a different zone, where prices appear to be lower and delivery faster.
The justification given by large undertakings is that this is a means of protecting themselves against piracy. In my view, however, this is a clear violation of free-market competition rules, to the detriment of European consumers, and I have been informed that the Commission is investigating the matter.
Can the Commission outline the results of this investigation, and can it say how it will deal with the infringement of competition rules in the market for DVDs?
As a direct result of complaints from private citizens, the Commission launched an investigation on DVD pricing and on the DVD regional coding system in June 2001.
The citizens' complaints related to the fact that DVD prices were significantly higher in the Community than in the United States and that, because of the DVD regional coding system under which the world is divided into six geographic regions, a DVD obtained from the US could not be played on a DVD player sold in the Community.
The position of the major film production companies is that the basic purpose of such a regional coding system is to allow them to protect their copyrighted intellectual property and the traditional pattern of releasing their films at different times in different parts of the world, as well as to protect against piracy.
The Commission shares the honourable Member's concerns that the Community's consumers may suffer as a result of the DVD regional coding system.
It prevents them from benefiting from a broader choice of DVD titles and potentially cheaper prices.
The Commission is therefore investigating whether the DVD regional coding system is compatible with Community competition rules.
In this context all aspects relating to the establishment and the ongoing operation of the system are being examined.
Having sent requests for information to all companies concerned by the system, the Commission is currently reviewing the first batch of material.
Commissioner, I should just like to ask you if the same phenomenon applies to other products, i.e. if there are coding systems for other products, because the culture industry is extremely sensitive, there is huge competition from America, which we are unable to withstand, as we know all too well. But I know that you are sensitive to the question of competition and I am sure that your investigation will bring in results.
Thank you, Mrs Zorba, for this encouragement.
We do not have information on other products being characterised by this system of regional coding.
At any rate not such typology has been conveyed to us by way of complaints, unlike in the case of DVD, which is the subject on which we are conducting the inquiry and to which your question is addressed.
If we had evidence in other areas we would, as always, try to be effective in implementing the competition rules.
Question No 39 by (H-0641/01):
Subject: Lloyd's petitions Following the investigations which it has conducted over the past year, is the Commission yet able to say whether Directive 73/239/EEC on non-life insurance undertakings has been properly transposed and implemented by the UK Government?
As a result of many complaints in conjunction with a number of petitions lodged by EU citizens with the Committee of Petitions of Parliament, the Commission has been examining very carefully whether the requirements of the first non-life insurance directive have been properly transposed and implemented with regard to the association of underwriters know as Lloyd's.
To date the Commission is unable to confirm that all requirements of the first non-life insurance directive have been fully respected with regard to Lloyd's.
The situation is extremely complex.
There are a number of specific provisions in the directive concerning Lloyd's that are clearly reflected in UK national legislation.
The Commission is seeking to complete its inquiries as quickly as possible.
These inquiries are now very close to completion whereupon a decision will be taken, either to close the case or to launch formal infringement proceedings under Article 226.
The Commission will inform Parliament of its decision as soon as it has been taken.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Bolkestein for his reply.
I recognise that he has reiterated what he said in a very full statement to the Committee on Petitions.
He informed the Petitions Committee back in July that the Commission would be ready at the end of the summer to give its response.
When I look outside the Chamber today, with the pouring rain, I think we are very close to the end of the summer.
I guess I am not going to get any clearer statement other than "as quickly as possible".
Could I perhaps also ask Mr Bolkestein whether he is aware of the failure of Independent Insurance in the United Kingdom over recent months and the appointment by the British Government of an inquiry into the Equitable Life insurance company?
Are his services looking at both of those insurance undertakings to satisfy themselves that in those respects the British Government has been properly applying European insurance directives?
The questions which have been put to me just now are twofold.
The first question is rather of a meteorological nature.
It would be absurd to deny that it is raining outside.
Whether that is tantamount to stating that the summer has ended would perhaps be premature.
I have been reliably informed that summers usually end about 21 September and the Commission is still striving to meet a deadline, although I must admit that the case is of such complexity that it will need a thorough investigation by not only the MARKT directorate-general but also by other parts of the Commission.
It may not be possible to meet that deadline exactly, but the Member who has just spoken can count on my personal endeavour to adhere to it as closely as possible, since the Commission ought to take a decision one way or another as soon as possible.
Concerning the second question that was put to me, the Commission has taken cognisance of the most unfortunate failures of the two insurance undertakings that were mentioned.
The Member will appreciate that Lloyd's is a unique case.
There is no other organisation in the world like it.
I would therefore hesitate to create the impression that what happened to the insurance undertakings to which reference was made is of any particular relevance to the case of Lloyd's.
My service is looking at the failures of the other two insurance companies.
Naturally one is interested.
I have tried to follow it in the press although I do not know whether the press reports are exhaustive.
The people who help me in insurance undertakings have also taken a close interest, but may I assure the Member that we are fully stretched in looking at the Lloyd's case itself.
Thank you very much, Mr Bolkestein. We shall await the end of the summer, as you have suggested.
Second part Questions to Mr Busquin
Question No 40 by (H-0606/01):
Subject: Exploiting the results of EU-backed research In June, the Commission and the European Investment Bank signed an agreement to strengthen cooperation in order to boost research and technological innovation by offering financial support to researchers.
Given the need to exploit the results of EU-backed research and crucially to ensure downstream development and new job opportunities, can the Commission outline how it intends to raise awareness of and equality of access to these funds in Ireland and the other Member States, and what has been the initial reaction to this joint research and innovation agreement?
Questions to Commissioner Nielson
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me firstly remind you that following the Lisbon European Council, the Commission and Member States were invited to implement, with the support of the European Investment Bank, measures aimed primarily at strengthening investments in technological research and development.
The joint memorandum establishing a framework for cooperation between the framework programme for Community research and the Innovation 2000 initiative from the European Investment Bank is a response to this request.
This joint memorandum aims to energise European research and innovation by drawing on existing synergies and developing new ones.
It is not, however, an instrument of the framework programme nor one of the Innovation 2000 initiative.
The Commission and the European Investment Bank have separate decision-making processes.
Efforts are being made to stimulate public awareness of this joint initiative. I would like to point out, for example, that it has been mentioned on television, in the daily papers and by six press agencies in the days following the signing of the memorandum.
In addition to this, the Commission and the European Investment Bank websites are linked and offer information on the memorandum.
A didactic guide explaining the sources of finance, whether these are supplementary, sequential or parallel, from the Commission and the European Investment Bank will shortly be available on the Internet.
Presentations and workshops are planned for the launch of the next framework programme.
Finally, the invitations to tender relating to this programme will draw the attention of candidates to this possibility of supplementary financing.
The Commission also believes that equal access to this finance is crucial.
For this reason, assessments will be founded upon a certain number of principles that have been acquired over a long period, to ascertain quality, transparency, equal treatment, impartiality as well as efficiency and speed of implementation.
Subsidy requests from the Commission and loans from the European Investment Bank will follow the procedures currently in force.
On the one hand, experts from the Commission will carry out an evaluation according to the regulations stated in the framework programme, which are specifically based on scientific quality, innovative nature, added Community value and prospects for economic development.
On the other hand, the economists and financial analysts from the European Investment Bank will assess the projects in order to ensure that they fulfil the objectives of the EIB, including those linked to their Community mandate, that they satisfy the criteria of economic and financial viability, especially in terms of the repayment of loans, and finally that they are acceptable in environmental terms.
The signing of the joint memorandum has already received a favourable response from researchers, universities and entrepreneurs, particularly with regard to venture capital.
They recognise the potential of such an agreement and the opportunity it offers in terms of combining Commission financing for integrated projects such as those proposed in the framework programme and loans from the European Investment Bank.
This is therefore a complementarity that we have been eager to implement.
I thank the Commissioner for his response.
However, I was looking for something more specific, if possible, under three headings.
Firstly, what consultation before the money is made available has been organised with research foundations, for instance universities, private research foundations and so on?
Secondly, will outside technical assistance be used in the operation of the programme? If there will be outside technical assistance, who will be operating it?
Thirdly, on the evaluation by the Commission and the EIB: is the evaluation purely based on economic return from the work or is it to ensure that there is ground- breaking scientific work which may not have an immediate economic return but could potentially in five or ten years time?
Those three areas are of vital importance to people who are involved in cutting-edge technology that we do not know about today but will be using in ten or fifteen years' time.
I think that Mr Crowley' s questions are absolutely pertinent.
That is the reality on the ground.
So, what is happening at the moment? We currently have a framework programme for technological research and development that the Commission has been funding since its adoption by Parliament and the Council.
Until now there has been no link between what we do and what the European Investment Bank also does to support loans for innovation and infrastructures.
The objective therefore is to establish a link between the two.
This idea of mutual recognition should obviously not be a mechanism whose sole purpose is to complicate matters.
This is, therefore, why each body upholds its own procedures.
We have our own specific procedures for scientific assessment as well as for the framework programme and the European Investment Bank has its own financial and economic criteria.
It is true that we are currently, with the European Investment Bank, studying solutions that will hopefully be used in the development of new processes that help innovation and new financing procedures, taking account of experience already gained on the one hand by the framework programme for research, and by the European Investment Bank on the other.
This work is in progress.
I cannot foresee what the results will be but I can already tell you that the mechanism has already been implemented at Heidelberg, amongst other places, where a technology transfer centre is to be financed by the European Investment Bank under conditions that are very favourable to this centre, which has chosen to work with the European Investment Bank.
This would not have been possible without the privileged contacts that we had in relation to research programmes.
There are examples, therefore, but a great effort with regard to information and the study of dossiers still needs to be made.
I thank you for your question and I hope that it will contribute to the dissemination of this information.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to thank Mr Busquin for his initiative, because the European Investment Bank has an excellent set of tools for actively supporting research.
My question is, can the European Investment Bank also grant indirect subsidies, e.g. to organisations helping small and medium-sized enterprises, so that the small and medium-sized economy in Europe which, as you know, accounts for 60% of the gross national product and employs two-thirds of the workforce, can also benefit.
We need indirect arrangements here too.
Yes, that is clear and is precisely the idea of the "Innovation 2000" initiative that the European Investment Bank put forward at the Lisbon Summit.
This is, therefore, absolutely possible right now; a sum of EUR 1.5 billion has additionally been set aside by the European Bank within the framework of European Investment Fund.
As there is currently a strong bond between the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund, the "Innovation 2000" project includes EUR 1.5 billion to support technological innovation, especially in small- and medium- sized enterprises.
It is possible that this information is, unfortunately, still relatively unknown and I think that it would be useful for it to be disseminated.
Question No 41 by (H-0604/01):
Subject: Eradicating poverty and the European Community's development policy In a statement jointly issued by the Council and the Commission on 10 November 2000, the main objective of Community development policy was confirmed as reducing and, eventually, eradicating poverty.
Despite the extraordinary and unique efforts of the European Union, which provides approximately half of all public aid to developing countries, the fact remains that in sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, over 40% of the population are still living below the poverty line, and world-wide, 800 million people, 200 million of them children, are suffering from chronic malnutrition. Now, almost one year later, what progress would the Commission wish to point to in relation to the worthy objectives set out in the joint statement, and what more does the Commission believe we can do to encourage other countries to follow the EU' s lead and play their part in reducing and eradicating poverty?
Mr President, since November 2000, the Commission has taken a number of important steps towards strengthening poverty reduction in Community development cooperation.
With regard to the EC's own efforts, progress on implementing the poverty focus has been reported through various Commission papers.
The Commission is midway through the process of preparing poverty-focussed country-strategy papers for the ACP countries which will implement the Cotonou agreement.
Developing countries' own poverty reduction policies are the foundation for these country-strategy papers.
A working paper of the Commission services has been drafted on measures taken and planned to take forward the poverty focus of the EC's development policy and poverty awareness training has been offered to the Commission's development staff.
The communication has been produced showing how the Commission is mainstreaming gender equality in development cooperation.
Gender inequality is a significant determinant of poverty.
Progress has also been made in developing policy coherence for poverty reduction, for example, a communication has been prepared on core labour standards and social development.
With respect to other donors, it should be noted that many EU Member States have already made poverty eradication the main objective of their bilateral development programmes.
The EC is explicitly and financially supporting the poverty reduction strategy papers as the main vehicle for ensuring universal and coordinate donor support for efforts by developing countries to eradicate poverty for their populations.
Regular contact has been established between the Commission, the IMF and the World Bank and with the UN agencies to coordinate our support for the poverty-reduction strategies of developing countries.
We strongly endorse the principle of country ownership of development policies which is intrinsic to this PRSP approach.
Finally, it should be highlighted that the Commission has contributed to work by the Development Assistance Committee, the DAC of the OECD, to develop policy guidelines for Member countries.
All in all this means that we have never been in a situation where the coordination and consensus among the donors has been better.
It is very important that we play our part in this common work.
Furthermore, a consolidated report will appear in the annual report on implementation of external aid from the Commission and that annual report will appear later this autumn.
Mr President, very briefly I want to thank the Commissioner and congratulate him on the progress he is making in the particular area of poverty reduction.
It is a terribly important area but in the new ACP-EU partnership agreement there is a special reference to the tackling of corruption.
In the context of poverty reduction, what progress is the Commission making in tackling corruption?
One of the things I noticed throughout the ACP-EU partnership debate was the lack of emphasis on education.
The importance of education cannot be underlined enough.
It is extremely important that, in the tackling of poverty reduction, education is given a high priority.
Would the Commissioner agree with this particular statement?
I shall answer the last part of the question first.
The real dilemma is that everything is lacking and everything is needed.
The response from our partner countries in the ACP group has, to a large extent, been dominated by quite a high priority on infrastructure.
We will continue road building - big roads, small roads - but education and health are the next two items on the list of priorities.
We will be continuing a high-intensity effort on education.
Regarding corruption and the new instrument in the Cotonou Agreement - Article 97 - I can inform Parliament that it will be used.
Within a short time all this will come out in the first case of the new Article 97 being actively used.
This is not to say that we have a powerful and guaranteed effective instrument but it does mean that everything is out in the open and that we are addressing this problem.
It also means that we want to do this by means of a cooperative effort and not just as a sort of punishment.
The lack of capacity to do things right is also part of why things are done wrongly.
A broad-based effort is necessary.
We have to stick with it and we are going to use it.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions No 42 and 43 will be taken together.
Question No 42 by (H-0613/01):
Subject: Child sex tourism The international organisation, ECPAT, works in conjunction with tour operators to combat child sex tourism.
The Commission has hitherto provided a grant covering 60% of the cost of the project but ECPAT has now been notified that this support from the Enterprise DG will be withdrawn as of next year and the organisation has been recommended to apply for funding from other DGs instead.
The project is the only one of its kind and the Commission's support is fully in line with the Council's 1999 decision on efforts to combat child sex tourism.
The Enterprise DG has a responsibility, therefore, to ensure that the ECPAT project continues to receive support from another DG before the support in its present form is withdrawn.
Can the Commission promise that this unique and innovative project will continue to receive support?
Question No 43 by (H-0616/01):
Subject: Long-term aid to combat child sex tourism ECPAT is an organisation working to combat sexual exploitation of children, particularly in countries where European travel companies operate.
The financial support which ECPAT receives from the Enterprise DG is reportedly to be withdrawn from next year.
During the period that ECPAT has received funding from the Enterprise DG, very important work has been carried out, primarily for the incalculable benefit of an unknown number of children, but also for the travel industry, which has drawn up its own code of conduct.
Does the Commission have any idea how the highly important work done by ECPAT can continue to receive EU funding to ensure that forceful measures to combat child sex tourism can also be taken in the future? Can the Commission envisage transferring the project to another DG?
The European Commission has been co-funding measures against child sex tourism since 1997.
The Commission intends to continue to fund such measures in the coming years.
The transfer of the management of budget line B7-626 - fight against child sex tourism in developing countries - from the Enterprise DG to the European Cooperation Office means that the human rights and democracy unit of EuropAid is now in charge of identifying and co-funding projects dealing with child sex tourism.
Organisations such as ECPAT, which are interested in obtaining co-funding should submit their proposals to this unit, which will continue to implement Commission policy in managing the budget line for the fight against child sex tourism, taking into account the best interests of target groups and best practice in project implementation.
If the proposal is accepted, the EuropAid Cooperation Office is ready to guide ECPAT through the further steps.
We will continue with this.
We believe that the change here will actually improve the efficiency of our activity in this area.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I note with satisfaction that the Commission is going to continue to provide ECPAT with resources.
Let me just say, however, that the child sex trade has not disappeared just because the newspaper headlines have disappeared.
It is therefore incredibly important that the Commission should continue with this work.
I nonetheless have a problem with the proposal put to us by Commissioner Nielsen, to the effect that this must all take place via Euroaid.
If I have been informed correctly, Euroaid requires that the implementing organisation be an NGO in a developing country.
That would rule out ECPAT, which does not carry on its main activities in the developing countries.
Nor has my own country been spared.
We have recently received a report from ECPAT, estimating that approximately 400 children in Sweden aged from 4 months to 17 years have been exploited.
These are frightening revelations, showing that we cannot withdraw support but must continue to give increased support to these organisations.
I therefore take the Commissioner' s words as a promise that this will happen.
The organisational form is something to which you will have to attend.
I am not sure that we have a problem concerning the fact that this is not an NGO in a developing country.
There is no intention whatsoever of changing the eligibility criteria for judging an organisation.
The principles are totally unchanged.
It is a question of improving handling efficiency.
Doing this in the same office that is handling matters relating to the human rights budget line should increase the intensity and awareness of the staff involved.
I do not think we have a problem.
I want to thank Commissioner Nielson for his positive answer.
In answer to Mrs Theorin' s justified question, he has produced an important clarification to the effect that this does not mean any change to the criteria for assessing whether an organisation, in this case ECPAT, is or is not eligible for continued EU subsidy.
Allow me to say that your fellow Commissioner, Mr Liikanen, has, in the same way as yourself today, Mr Nielson, given positive answers to questions raised by myself and a number of fellow MEPs here in the European Parliament.
It feels as if there is a genuine commitment to fighting the assault on human dignity constituted by one of our modern age' s most loathsome forms of the slave trade.
Allow me also to say - and I believe I can also speak here on behalf of Mrs Theorin - that we hope that the time is past when we have to ask questions about long-term financing for ECPAT' s activities and for the fight against child sex tourism.
Let there be an end to this jumping from one Directorate-General to another.
We definitely agree on the subject.
I just want to add one remark concerning the proportions in terms of money.
The organisation that has been discussed here is the biggest recipient in this field but we are still talking about quite a small amount of money.
Concerning the character of the problem, the visibility and the very official and strong involvement that we show by doing this at Commission level is a very important part of what we doing.
The economic support we are providing here is not a lot of money: about EUR 360 000.
Concerning the real problem, we should not get the wrong impression about proportions.
It is as important that we do it swiftly and efficiently.
Question No 44 by (H-0614/01):
Subject: Humanitarian aid for children During the seminar of 1 and 2 March in Norrköping, Commissioner Nielson presented shocking figures on armed conflicts and their impact on children.
According to UNICEF estimates, 2 million children were killed over the past decade as a direct or indirect result of armed conflicts, whilst a further 6 million children were left disabled or seriously injured, 1 million were orphaned, 20 million were forced to flee their homes and more than 300 000 were themselves involved in the fighting.
According to the Commissioner, these figures are not totally reliable because there is no effective system for recording such data.
Bearing in mind that the Commission's Humanitarian Aid Office has spent around EUR 40 million on these children since the start of 2000, will the Commission act on the wish expressed by the Commissioner responsible and develop a standardised information system which might be used by those responsible on the spot - peace-keeping troops, staff working for humanitarian organisations, etc. to gather and record data, which would help to determine the real scale of the problem and deal with it more systematically?
Reliable figures on the impact of armed conflict on children are hard to come by.
Although data is available it is often context-specific, anecdotal or piecemeal.
The same consolidated numbers - two million children killed in armed conflict, 300 000 children involved in armed fighting, etc, which were brought to the attention of the international community in the excellent report prepared by Graça Machel back in 1996 are repeatedly invoked without qualification, although they cannot continue to hold true.
I first highlighted the serious lack of reliable data at my meeting with the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Mr Otunnu, in December 2000.
Inspired by the discussion with him I took the opportunity of the seminar organised by the Swedish presidency in Norrköping in March this year to call for increased efforts to improve the knowledge about children in conflict.
Since that time ECHO has sought to build momentum for the initiation of a large-scale data collection project.
The main purpose of the endeavour is to get an impression of the real scale of the problem because the lack of reliable data is both detrimental to our advocacy efforts and a major obstacle to improving our humanitarian response.
But I do not want to initiate just another project resulting in a report which might never be used.
Numerous studies have already been conducted on children in conflict.
But, as long as there are no common concepts and common definitions, a complex project seeking to establish hard facts has little chance of succeeding.
Therefore, rather than focusing on instant results, we are seeking to build broad international support for a comprehensive initiative on a data collection methodology which will enable comparisons across regions and over time.
Last month, ECHO participated in the seminar in Florence - Filling Knowledge Gaps: a Research Agenda on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children - organised by the office of Mr Otunnu, Unicef and others.
The workshop succeeded in establishing a network of researchers from both the north and the south, who are ready to undertake research around four themes, one of which will be data on children affected by armed conflict.
In parallel with this initiative, ECHO will continue the cooperation with Unicef.
As the UN agency mandated with protecting and assisting children, Unicef has the potential to play a central role in data collection.
Therefore the Commission is encouraging Unicef to develop a substantial international data collection project on children in conflict, using Mr Otunnu's research network as a sounding board.
I am ready to make a political as well as a financial commitment to improving the availability of data on children affected by armed conflict as long as any new initiative includes general agreements on definitions, concepts and methodologies for the data collection.
The goal is to create a system that enables people working in the field, from all different kinds of organisations, to feed information into a uniform system.
This will also have a strong effect on the advocacy work in the countries in conflict because they will know that the numbers, the boys and girls we talk about, the real statistics that emerge from this operation, have been produced on their own home ground and are not something which may or may not be true found in a report.
Commissioner, I share your care and concern to improve the system and you have our support.
I have two real - not rhetorical - questions.
You said that often there are no common concepts or common definitions and that often we do not have the support on the ground which we need in order to conduct a proper investigation.
Who is stopping you? I think that this is not just a national question.
There are also political aspects which I do not expect you to take completely in hand, but they are there.
I also have a second question, which relates to this and the previous debate.
Wars do not only kill children; they also leave them orphaned or in poverty, which are traumatic experiences, and there are other aspects and I should like to ask if you are honestly addressing them.
For example, we have seen sexual abuse of children by our soldiers, soldiers of the European Union, in Somalia and elsewhere.
There is a huge campaign in Bosnia and Kosovo to prostitute children, young children, both boys and girls.
Is there anything you can do about this?
In relation to this question the most important supplementary aspect here is: who is stopping us? Obviously we are being stopped in this effort by those who are causing the problems and who are responsible for the conflicts.
The conflicts we are facing today are conflicts where the civil population is not detached from the conflict.
On the contrary, they are more than hostages; they are victims.
This means that nobody fights an honourable war and the guilt of having abducted children and made them participants in the warfare is psychologically the main reason why it is so difficult to get the truth.
The environment is difficult, politically, and in every other sense of the word.
A free press does not have easy access to the places on the earth where these things happen.
Next week I will be in Afghanistan to show our support for the organisations we are funding there and who have volunteers working there.
The visit will also show the people of Afghanistan and the victims of the conflict that we are taking more than just a political interest.
We are taking a real, tangible, humanitarian interest.
By doing what we are doing we may also be pushing the limit for what is possible.
Question No 45 by (H-0636/01):
Subject: Humanitarian aid in the Caucasus What percentage of the humanitarian aid earmarked in 2001 for Chechnya and for Chechen refugees in neighbouring regions, including the Republic of Georgia, has already been distributed in the crisis region, and what is the schedule for the remainder of 2001 and for 2002?
Mr President, since the beginning of the conflict in 1999, the Commission has granted some EUR 44 million in humanitarian assistance to the victims of the Chechnya conflict.
So far this year, three funding decisions totalling EUR 18.5 million have been adopted.
They cater for the most urgent needs of those affected by the conflict, benefiting IDPs and the most vulnerable population in Chechnya as well as Chechen IDPs in Inguchetia and Dagestan.
This implies that in 2001, EUR 18.5 million of the EUR 25 million originally provided for have already been committed.
In order to determine further funding needs this year, the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office will undertake another assessment of the humanitarian situation in September and subsequently submit a funding proposal to the Commission.
The main objective of this forthcoming decision will be preparation for the winter.
The geographic scope of the aid activities will be determined as per the identified priority needs.
The minimum amount required to this end is currently estimated at around EUR 11.5 million.
In 2002, ECHO intends to continue funding operations in line with its humanitarian mandate.
Obviously, the scope of ECHO's involvement will depend on the security situation and the humanitarian working conditions.
This notably concerns our operations inside Chechnya where things are still very difficult for us and where we are still engaged in a so far unsatisfactory dialogue with the Russian authorities concerning radio communication, access, and working conditions and security in general for the people working for our money there.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I should just like to ask two more questions.
First, what is the situation regarding humanitarian help for Chechen refugees in Georgia? Unless I am mistaken, you have not yet said anything about that.
And secondly, are you planning a mission to Chechnya and does the Commission plan to set up a permanent representation there?
Mr President, on Georgia, I can give the following information: an estimated 7 000 Chechen refugees are believed to be in the Pankisi Valley in Georgia.
Since the outbreak of the conflict in the autumn of 1999, ECHO has allocated a total of EUR 820 000 in humanitarian aid to this beneficiary group.
The operations funded focused mostly on basic healthcare.
However, given the limited budgetary resources and the increasing humanitarian needs in the northern Caucasus, allocations need to be prioritised.
Therefore, so far this year, no funding has been earmarked for Chechen refugees in Georgia.
An ECHO assessment to be undertaken in September - the one I spoke about - as well as the further evolution of needs on the ground will determine possible further ECHO assistance in favour of Chechen refugees in Georgia.
This is a very cautious evaluation, but so far I am confident that the balance of our actions is correct.
On the Chechnya situation proper, I am not currently planning any mission there.
We are following very closely every activity there.
The setting up of an internal office is not considered to be the most efficient way to proceed at this time.
We go in and out and are monitoring as closely as possible and as closely as we are allowed to.
Question No 46 by (H-0666/01):
Subject: Oil exploration in Sudan Is the Commission aware of the scorched earth policy practised by the government of Sudan to clear the way for oil exploration and exploitation by major European oil companies in the Upper Nile region of Sudan?
In light of this policy what action is the Commission planning to take to assess the impact of this oil exploration on the human rights situation in the area? Would the Commission promote a temporary investment ban on European investment in the Sudanese oil sector and a closure of its borders to Nile Blend crude oil until a lasting peace has been agreed in Sudan?
Would the Commission ensure the introduction of binding human rights legislation to hold companies accountable for their activities overseas, either directly or through affiliates?
I will start by quoting the last part of the question - 'would the Commission ensure the introduction of binding human rights legislation to hold companies accountable for their activities overseas either directly or through affiliates?' I would react by warning against rushing into the principle of extra-territoriality in our legislation.
I have a clear impression of this House's strong opinion concerning the Helms-Burton Act with its extra-territoriality and the problems it creates.
It is necessary to approach this with caution.
As regards Sudan, we are following the political situation closely and we are actively participating in the political dialogue between the EU and Sudan that was resumed in November 1999.
Despite continued concerns about the human rights situation and the lack of progress in the peace process, the political dialogue is considered to be generally positive and it has been agreed to continue it for another year.
The Commission supports initiatives in favour of human rights in Sudan and is planning a study to prepare a more comprehensive strategy in this area.
The Commission is aware that economic issues, like sharing Sudan's oil wealth, play an ever increasing role in the conflict.
So one could say that the development of this oil sector has raised the stakes for the peace negotiations.
Hopefully it could be turned into an asset for that peace negotiation process.
The Commission is aware of the accusations that many people living near the oil concessions have been forced to leave and that they have been exposed to human rights abuses.
We believe that there is no doubt that militias armed by the government to protect the oil fields and militias supported by the SPLM are involved in human rights violations.
However no accurate independent and objective information is available to confirm a large-scale scorched earth policy organised and implemented by the government.
As regards a possible investment ban, the Commission doubts the utility of unilateral sanctions as a foreign policy tool.
We are convinced that a policy of engagement rather than isolation is the best way to have our concerns heard and expectations met.
As far as legislation is concerned, the Commission already promotes respect of human rights by EU companies wherever they operate, in particular through the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises.
This instrument, although not legally binding, entails strong recommendations by 33 governments to their multinational enterprises to operate in a socially responsible manner worldwide.
It is clear that this is not the same as what is asked for in the question but having broad international support for these principles is in any case necessary to promote efficiency.
I believe this is the best way of proceeding.
I will be brief.
I do not see the relevance of this idea of ex-territoriality.
We are talking about major European oil companies and they should be held accountable for their activities.
We must not forget that the money and the profits that are being made by these companies are coming back into Europe.
Major European companies have to be accountable in how they operate in other parts of the world.
If there was binding legislation that major European companies had to adhere to, then you would not have the situation we have at present.
This does not just concern major oil companies, it also concerns other European multinationals which ignore their responsibilities for human rights, for the environment and for basic civil liberties.
They are making huge profits and we here are benefiting from those profits.
We have to address that issue.
If I were in a more cynical mood I would say that you are slightly optimistic in saying that we are benefiting from the profits of the oil companies.
What I said about the principle of extra-territoriality is right.
It is a real problem to legislate here for what is going on in another country.
The real problem is that what is legal on paper or in practice in a country like the Sudan can be very different from what we would accept as being legal here.
But that difference is part of the reality of our world.
So I will stick to my warning against this Parliament following what the American Congress has done with the Cuba problem, seen from their point of view and the Helms-Burton Act, by imposing outside their own principles of jurisdiction.
We can agree with them or not, but these principles were only decided on by them.
That is the core of the problem.
Although the ethics of this discussion point in the direction that the honourable Member has expressed, the mechanics and the legislative aspects of evoking this principle are still something I would counsel against.
I had the opportunity to visit the Sudan earlier this year, as did Mr Corrie, though not at the same time, and he led an official delegation.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his balanced response.
It seems to me that what is needed here in Europe is an appreciation of the facts of the situation - what is actually happening.
Many allegations have been made.
The Sudanese Government denies them.
We want to get at the truth.
I would like to hear whether the Commission is going to make any effort, or is making any effort, to try to establish whether or not there is a scorched earth policy.
The Commission representative in Khartoum said to me that our aid to the Sudan is severely limited because of political constraints.
If only we could start to get more aid into that country we might do more to end the civil war there and actually get greater respect for human rights across the whole of that country.
That should be the ambition of us all.
This is one of the very difficult cases where we, on the one hand, are strongly involved in humanitarian support but where the issue of access and of staying clear of the warring parties to deliver to the people in need has been a major problem.
On top of that the whole performance and the political problems in relation to the government and its policies and human rights aspects have created quite a sour situation over some years.
Now the effort to be instrumental in a peace process by engaging in a deliberate dialogue seems to be working.
That is as much as we can say now.
I am perfectly well aware of the views and advice of our head of the delegation in Khartoum and that certainly indicates that the dialogue that we are in the middle of is making some progress.
So we are looking at ways of balancing the stick and the carrot.
I cannot be more precise at the moment.
In both the Swedish and international media, Christian Aid is reported to have demanded that, for example, the Swedish oil company, Lundin Oil, whose board also includes the UN Secretary-General' s adviser for the Balkans, Carl Bildt, should leave Sudan.
Have Commissioner Nielson and the Commission had any contact at all with Christian Aid and Lundin Oil and, for that matter, also perhaps with UN adviser Carl Bildt on the subject of these allegations of human rights violations in connection with the road building being done so that oil can be extracted in southern Sudan?
This oil company has, I understand, now been purchased by an American oil company but that does not change the picture.
It neither adds to nor subtracts from the problem.
Nor in my view does the presence of the former Swedish Prime Minister on its board of directors affect the problem.
We have no specific relations with the organisation mentioned or this specific oil company.
The oil activity in the Sudan should be looked upon as a resource for the country to be utilised to the fullest extent possible for the good of the Sudanese people.
We see many cases of a perverse use of oil resources.
If we look at it from a point of view of distribution policy, very few of the developing countries with oil resources are enjoying socially positive effects from that.
One of the elements that we raised in the discussion on priorities in East Timor, at the very launching of our presence there, was to advise them that they should be sure to get first-class consultants to assist in handling the whole issue of the oil resources which are now part of the economic future of that country.
Internal distribution is important and this should be discussed with probably most developing countries.
Thank you, Mr Nielson, for your long and outstanding cooperation.
Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, Question 47, tabled by Mr Howitt, shall be answered in writing.
Questions to Mr Liikanen
Question No 48 by (H-0600/01):
Subject: Prices for unmetered access to the Internet A main instrument in the eEurope process is benchmarking.
The Commission' s website (at http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/benchmarking/index_en.htm) provides a list of the benchmarks to be published by the Commission.
In Section 3 of that list is the vitally important matter of unmetered access to the Internet, which has become established in the UK market and hopefully soon across the Union too.
Unfortunately, the Commission has not yet provided the benchmarking data for this key indicator.
Will the Commission now provide this information for the European citizen via its website, giving comparative data on current average retail unmetered prices in the fifteen Member States, as well as the unmetered wholesale products available from incumbent operators?
Mr President, cost of access is the key determinant of Internet use and policies to reduce the cost by introducing more competition are central to the year of action plan.
In view of this the Internal Market Council in November last year endorsed a set of indicators to benchmark the year of action plan, which included the cost of access.
When defining the access price indicator, the Council specified the source to be OECD, supplemented if necessary by a Commission study.
The advantage of the OECD data was that it enabled comparisons to be made with third countries and especially the United States.
OECD data was used in the Commission's report to the Stockholm European Council.
The data includes unmetered access, however their methodology considers only prices charged by the dominant telecom operating in each country.
In practice, this meant that there were too few figures available to merit their inclusion in the website.
To overcome this methodology, the Commission called for tender for studies to measure Internet access prices in the EU.
The response was good and price data will be measured on 1 November 2001 and made available to the Commission not later than 15 January 2002.
It should then be repeated half a year later.
All the research will be published by a benchmarking section of the e-Europe website.
Although OECD analysis is limited, it gives an indication of the impact of unmetered access on the price of the Internet.
The cost in September 2000 of unmetered access in the OECD report was - and here we use dollars because they use dollars, next year we will use euros - USD 25 in the UK, USD 35 in Spain and USD 50 in Germany.
New figures from August 2001 show no notable variation in unmetered access prices.
The USA remains at the lower end with USD 20.
It is also clear from the benchmarking exercise, that unmetered access is growing rapidly in the EU.
For example, provisional data from the Internet use survey shows that in June the proportion of households with unmetered ADSL access has increased by over 200% from last October's survey.
The overall penetration of ADSL remains low, that is a fact, but there have been several spectacular advances in Member States, for example, Belgium went from 1% to 11% in the eight months separating the two surveys.
That was such a comprehensive reply that I cannot think of a supplementary question, so I will not ask one.
Thank you for your decision, Mr Newton Dunn.
As the author is not present, Question Nos 49 and 50 lapse.
Question No 51 by (H-0617/01):
Subject: High-speed tyres in Sweden In April this year, when many car owners in Sweden were about to buy new summer tyres, an absurd situation arose.
The tyre industry claimed that an EU directive stipulated that every new car must be equipped with tyres capable of coping with the vehicle's theoretical top speed.
The fact that the maximum speed limit in Sweden is 110 kph was not relevant and many cars had to be fitted with tyres capable of coping with speeds of 270 kph and in some cases as much as 300 kph.
Despite the risk of fines and the new registration test, it is common for car owners to ignore the high-speed tyre requirement. Many tyre dealers have pre-printed forms for customers to sign releasing the dealer from liability for fitting tyres which can only withstand speeds up to 190 kph.
Is this interpretation of the directive correct, and does the individual car owner have the right to ask for tyres to be fitted to the vehicle which are not capable of coping with the its theoretical top speed?
At European level the specifications for tyres to be fitted to passenger cars are dealt with by Directive 92/23/EEC of 31 March 1992.
European legislation on type approval of motor vehicles stipulates that every new car must be equipped with a certain category of tyres specified by the manufacturer of the vehicle and capable of coping with the vehicle top speed.
However, this directive governs solely the initial entry into service of the car before its registration in the fleet of one Member State.
No indication is given concerning the use of the vehicle, including for the aspects relating to the top speed of replacement tyres.
Another piece of legislation - Directive 1999/37/EEC on the minimum set of information to be put on registration papers for motor vehicles - does not include any specification for this characteristic of replacement tyres.
Therefore the interpretation by the tyre industry and distributors in Sweden of the relevant EC legislation is correct.
However, the fact that at European level no specific prescription is given does not automatically allow car owners to replace the tyres with the model they wish.
At national level and according to the principle of subsidiarity, the police and judicial authorities of the Member States have responsibility for enforcement of the relevant road safety provisions and the imposition of corresponding sanctions when needed.
In principle, fitting a car with tyres not capable of coping with its top speed could invalidate the conformity of the vehicle with the EU type approval.
This potentially dangerous situation could be penalised by the police, if it is in contradiction to national legislation.
Many thanks to the Commissioner for his answer.
In Sweden, the maximum speed is 110 km/h, but now many Swedes have to have tyres that can cope with speeds of up to 250 km/h.
That costs a lot of money, of course, and causes a lot of inconvenience for car owners.
There are really no aspects of road safety necessitating this type of tyre.
I therefore think that it remains very difficult to justify making such demands, entailing large additional costs for car owners.
I understood from the Commissioner' s answer that an owner changing the tyres on his car for the second time is entitled to have another type of tyre, if permitted by the national authorities.
Is that a correct interpretation of your answer?
Mr President, I must say that this is a rather complex part of EU legislation.
Before I give a precise reply to the last question I want to consult my experts, but perhaps I can give one reply to the problem under discussion.
Even though in Sweden the speed limit is 110 to 120, tyres are expected to cope with higher speed limits because, if a Swedish car goes over the bridge to Denmark and from Denmark to Germany where there are no speed limits on motorways, they will be travelling at higher speeds.
The same security should be guaranteed throughout Europe.
I will come back to the honourable Member of Parliament on the first question as soon as possible.
Question No 52 by (H-0620/01):
Subject: Pedestrian-friendly car In many EU countries a debate is going on about improving road safety, and one project put forward in this connection has been that of the "pedestrian-friendly car" .
Is the Commission planning a new directive on this topic, or is progress in this area being made by means of possible voluntary commitments by industry?
Mr President, the Commission is aware of the matters for concern which have been raised by the honourable Member.
In order to discuss these questions the Commission issued a communication, on 11 July 2001 on the protection of pedestrians.
It is important to remember the significance of this topic.
Each year, 9 000 pedestrians and cyclists are killed, and 200 000 are injured, in accidents involving a motor vehicle.
The European motor industry has now, after discussions held with the Commission, made a commitment to incorporate a raft of safety features from 2002 onwards.
These aim at improving pedestrian safety in accident situations.
As to how regulation is to be implemented, there is a choice between, on the one hand, a voluntary agreement of the industry based on agreed objectives and, on the other hand, the conventional legislative route.
In July, the Commission found that the content of the industry's commitment matched the objectives set by the Commission.
The final decision on whether the safety standards will be implemented by a commitment - which will be closely monitored - or by legislation, will be made by the end of the year.
According to the agreement, the car manufacturers promise to ensure that all new passenger cars will go through a series of tests with the purpose of ensuring that the cars are designed in such a way that pedestrians and cyclists who are involved in an accident will suffer as little injury as possible.
The discussions which have taken place with the Association of European Car Manufacturers on the commitment of the industry have been based on the following objectives: first of all, attaining the objectives proposed by the EEVC committee which deals with the improvement of European vehicle safety; secondly, implementing measures to improve the safety of pedestrians in the short and medium term; thirdly, adopting new and improved technology which will effectively improve the safety of pedestrians; and fourthly, finding an innovative solution in which passive and active safety features will be combined.
The objective of the commitment is a reduction in the number of fatalities and also a reduction in the number and seriousness of injuries.
It is estimated that the annual number of deaths would be cut by two thousand if all motor vehicles on the roads of the European Union met the requirements of the EEVC tests.
This reduction would represent 20 percent of the present level.
Thanks to new technology, deaths could be reduced even further.
If the Commission decides to propose legislation, this would be based on the content of the commitment.
The industry is making a commitment that as from 1 July 2005 all new types of vehicles will meet requirements which relate to the first series of passive measures recommended by the joint (that is, the Commission's joint) research centre.
The improvements will be added to the existing models in stages, with the result that these will be included in the features of all new vehicles by 2012.
In the next stage, the manufacturers will commit to installing other safety equipment.
This means that from 2010 onwards the objectives set by EEVC will finally be attained, either in accordance with EEVC's technical proposals or by other measures which will have an impact on safety at least equal to this.
As one example we can mention that from the beginning of next year all new cars will be fitted with day running lights, and inflexible "bull bars" will be banned.
From 2003 onwards, all new vehicles would be fitted with anti-blocking brakes.
The Japanese car manufacturers, who are represented by the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association JAMA, expressed their official approval of the matter by making an identical commitment in July.
The ASCEA and JAMA commitments cover over 95 percent of the market for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in the EU.
Negotiations concerning similar commitments are underway with the South Korean car manufacturers, which would lead to almost one hundred percent coverage.
As the honourable Member is aware, the Commission has sent the commitment which was approved in July to the European Parliament and Council for comment.
Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner for his thorough response.
I see that the Commission is devoting thought to traffic safety, even though in my opinion a phrase such as "pedestrian-friendly car" is wrong, since there can be no such thing as a one thousand or two thousand kilogram steel object which would be friendly to a person when it hits that person at a speed of several tens or even hundreds of kilometres an hour.
But the question, above all, was whether the Commission will issue a Directive proposal on the matter, or whether it is prepared to make an agreement with the car manufacturers.
Is the reply of the Commissioner to be interpreted as meaning that, at some stage, the idea will come to predominate within the Commission that the quickest results can be obtained by making an agreement with the car manufacturers, in other words that the preferred line of action will be to follow this procedure rather than enacting a Directive on the matter?
Mr President, the Commission left final decision making until after the opinion of the Council and Parliament had been heard.
Both alternatives have their good points.
It is clear that the agreement route will be quicker, but this also represents a new way of action.
However, a resolution of this type has already been made previously, in connection with the Auto-Oil decision.
The legislative route is more traditional and familiar, but will be more time-consuming; however the Commission wishes to make this decision now that the reporting round is complete.
Question No 53 by (H-0629/01):
Subject: Origin of information technology as used in SENSUS and AVENTINUS On Wednesday, 13 June, the Commission decided to undertake an inquiry into the Europol scandal.
This inquiry must not be confined to 'the management of SENSUS' .
OLAF must examine all tendering procedures and all contracts under AVENTINUS and SENSUS.
Such an independent inquiry is the only certain way of obtaining a clear picture of the murky doings of Europol.
One of the most important questions which remains unanswered is the origin of the basic technology used under SENSUS and AVENTINUS and Europol' s Europolis and Eurint systems.
Will the Commission ask OLAF to examine all tendering procedures and contracts relating to AVENTINUS and SENSUS? Can the Commission confirm that the patented Polygon technology belonging to Polygenesys of Munich is being used under SENSUS and AVENTINUS and Europol' s Europolis and Eurint systems?
If so, how was this technology and/or the right to use it acquired?
The honourable Member refers to an inquiry launched by the Commission on 13 June following press articles on Europol.
In order to avoid a possible misunderstanding the Commission will have to point out that it has not launched an inquiry into the Europol-related matter to which the honourable Member refers.
As far as the Commission is aware the matter concerns accusations of fraud unrelated to the Sensus contract.
The Commission understands that internal investigations by Europol have led to the Dutch judicial authorities now investigating the matter.
As far as the action the Commission has undertaken concerning the Sensus project is concerned, the Commission has initiated an internal review of the management of this project as indicated in the Commission's reply to the oral questions by the honourable Member.
Following this review and also on the basis of ongoing, more general recommendations, both from the Court of Auditors and the external monitoring panel of the Information Society Technologies programme, the Commission is implementing changes in procedures which will ensure significant improvements in project management.
The Commission attends the meetings of the management board of Europol and meetings of the heads of national units in an observer capacity.
It has no mandate to investigate Europol other than in the context of direct contractor relations such as through the Sensus project.
In the context of Sensus and as explained in the replies to written questions, the Commission is not currently planning a financial audit of Europol's participation in Sensus.
But the need for such an audit will be assessed again when all the cost claims related to Sensus have been submitted by project participants.
That should happen in the next few months.
Sensus and Aventinus were involved in pre-competitive research using many basic technologies for the production of a demonstrator.
The objective was to overcome linguistic barriers between European law enforcement agencies in their fight against organised crime such as drugs smuggling and illegal immigration.
Sensus is an assembly of software models including linguistic content, utilisation and report generation, workflow and database management systems.
There is therefore no specific basic technology.
According to information received by the Commission, although Polygon was originally intended to be used in Sensus, in the autumn of 1999 a different technology was selected instead.
The Commission service has been assured by the contractors that Polygon is not a component of the Sensus demonstrator.
The coordinator of the Aventinus projects has confirmed that Polygon was not used in either Aventinus I or Aventinus II.
As far as technologies used in Europolis and Eurint systems are concerned, the Commission is not in a position to address the question of the honourable Member.
Of course, I thank the Commissioner for his very full answer, from which we can nevertheless extract some new elements in this thriller, if I may call it that.
Still, I am very troubled, Commissioner.
I have the feeling that in the light of what is happening at the moment at Europol, there is insufficient monitoring, and that in some way or other we shall have to design a system at European level for monitoring Europol more effectively.
I know that the present OLAF Regulation is not sufficient for this.
I should therefore like to ask the Commissioner to investigate possible proposals.
A second supplementary question concerns the coordinator of the Sensus programme.
We all know that he is an agent of the German secret service.
The man was sentenced at the end of last year for forging documents.
I should like to know from the Commissioner, since we do not yet know from previous answers, whether or not the man is still co-ordinating the SENSUS programme.
If that is not the case, I should like him to inform us who is coordinating the Sensus programme.
I thank the Commissioner for his answer.
Mr President, as far as Europol is concerned, it is not really with the present legal basis under Commission control in the same manner as the Commission budget normally is.
So the only way for us to audit issues concerning Europol in the context of a particular contract.
If we have a contract for Europol, when a final financial statement has been completed, we can control the issue.
As far as the name of the coordinator and his position, I hope I can provide that detail directly to the honourable Member.
I will check the situation today.
Question No 54 by (H-0645/01):
Subject: Defence industries In response to my oral question H-0447/01, tabled at Question Time on 13 June 2001, the Commission indicated that it was considering what action to take pursuant to its 1997 Action Plan for implementing the EU strategy on defence-related industries.
It also indicated that it would be able to report on the action it intends to take this autumn.
Can it now outline what proposals it intends to table?
Would I be correct, Commissioner, in summing up your thorough answer in one word, "no", i.e. the Commission is not going to do anything? When I spoke to you some months ago in this very Chamber you said that by autumn we will have made progress.
But it seems to me that what you are saying is that the Commission is not going to do anything to follow up its communication or its action plan.
What you have said is a summary of what has happened up to now but not an indication that there really is going to be dynamic action in the foreseeable future, as it is autumn now.
I would like to say that the standardisation part, where we are actively now moving, is a very important one.
The fact that we are working now on a normal daily basis is progress.
As far as legislative proposals are concerned, I am not in a position to give a definite answer today.
As the time allotted to questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 55 to 96 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was adjourned at 8.20 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Outcome of the Bonn conference on climate change
The next item is the Commission statement on the outcome of the Bonn conference on climate change.
Thank you for inviting me to report to this House on the climate change conference in July.
The conference was a success, particularly for the European Union.
On 23 July it reached a consensus political agreement on modalities to implement the Kyoto Protocol.
It thereby resolved all the main outstanding political issues which were left open after the first part of the conference in The Hague last November. This paves the way for the ratification of the protocol.
Allow me to give you a brief assessment of the Bonn Conference before I turn to the main decisions on substance.
The outcome of Bonn represents a major achievement for the European Union.
Following the United States' withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol, the European Union has taken the lead in defending the protocol.
This included a declaration by the European Councils in Stockholm and Gothenburg and resolutions from the European Parliament.
High-level missions by the Swedish and Belgian presidencies and the Commission visited the United States, Canada, Russia, Iran, China, Australia and Japan to seek support for our position.
The EU's commitment to bring the Kyoto Protocol into force before the World Summit on Sustainable Development - Rio+10 - in September this year was shared by many other parties.
This made the success in Bonn so important.
The agreement struck in Bonn indeed prevented an unravelling of the international efforts to combat climate change following the failure of the conference in the Hague and the announcement by President Bush that the United States will not support the Kyoto Protocol.
What also might have happened was an alternative proposal to the Kyoto Protocol by the United States.
This would have thrown the international efforts to establish an effective international framework for combating climate change into disarray.
The talks in Bonn therefore represented a race against the clock.
It has to be said that the United States honoured President Bush's promise not to prevent other parties from going ahead on the Kyoto Protocol.
During the final plenary of the ministerial segment of the conference no party objected to the adoption of the political agreement reached.
At the same time the EU and other parties have expressed the hope that the US will rejoin the Kyoto process.
Nothing in the agreement prevents it from doing so.
The European Union showed a strong and unified position during the talks and the Belgian presidency did a good job in coordinating our position.
I should also acknowledge the political support from the NGOs and MEPs present at the meeting, participating in a very constructive way.
The outcome of Bonn represents a victory for multilateral international relations.
Against the background of the current debate on globalisation it sends another political signal that the international community is able to address global problems to the benefit of all countries.
The agreement was a breakthrough, but of course there remain a number of steps to be taken before the Kyoto Protocol can enter into force.
First, the political elements agreed upon will have to be translated into legal texts.
This will be finalised and formally adopted by the conference of the parties at its next session, COP 7 in Marrakesh in November.
What are the prospects now for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol? Entry into force requires ratification by 55 parties representing at least 55% of the CO2 emissions in 1990 of the industrialised countries.
Given that the United States has no intention of ratifying the protocol for the time being, this means that ratification by at least Japan and Russia, in addition to the EU and the candidate countries, is necessary to bring the protocol into effect.
As the candidate countries supported the EU's positions our attention focuses particularly on Japan, but also on Russia.
Japan feels strongly linked to the Kyoto Protocol and has repeatedly stated its aim of bringing it into force by 2002.
At the same time Japan has so far refrained from clearly committing itself to ratifying the protocol, even without the United States.
Russia's position was unclear throughout the negotiations and at the last minute it became clear in Bonn that it would not raise any objections.
This is despite the fact that Russia will benefit economically from the Kyoto Protocol and the establishment of an international emissions trading system as it will be in a position to sell emission credits due to its generous emissions targets.
Both countries now have a major responsibility in determining whether or not the international community takes an important step in combating climate change.
Hence Bonn represented an important step but is not yet the end of the process.
I should also highlight the constructive role played in Bonn by the developing countries, G4-77/China, under the chairmanship of Iran, sharing EU positions on many points.
Our good relations with this group proved to be an essential element in achieving a successful outcome.
In the difficult situation in which we found ourselves, the EU was forced to make concessions to other parties to obtain an agreement in Bonn and rescue the Kyoto Protocol.
These concessions relate mainly to a generous counting of carbon zincs towards industrialised countries' emissions targets and, on the last night of the negotiations, to the legally binding character of the compliance regime.
The agreement on zincs means that around 70% of the overall 5.2% emission reduction target for industrialised countries under the protocol can be covered by zincs instead of actual emission reductions.
Nonetheless, given that emissions have increased in most industrialised countries since 1990 a significant emission reduction effort in those countries is still required.
Giving up on the legally binding character of the consequences for non-compliance was another concession necessary to get Japan on board.
However, in exchange, the system itself is quite ambitious and, even though for the moment only politically binding, creates a strong incentive for parties to comply.
Once implemented the Kyoto Protocol will have a more elaborate and stringent compliance system than any other multilateral environmental agreement so far.
The agreement includes a declaration by the EU and a number of other countries of a funding package of EUR 450 million per year by 2005 for capacity building, technology transfer and adaptation to climate change for developing countries.
The main progress of the Kyoto Protocol is, in any case, to establish the architecture and general rules of an international framework on climate change: for example, binding emission targets, the flexible mechanisms for achieving those targets, a compliance regime, support to developing countries on which further decisions can build.
Besides its importance in addressing one of the biggest global challenges - climate change - the Kyoto Protocol will establish a new major international market for emissions rights among industrialised countries.
It will also channel new resources to developing countries and the economies in transition in central and eastern Europe.
It is certainly also important for the political acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol that investments in nuclear facilities are excluded from joint implementation and the clean development mechanism.
As I said earlier, the agreement in Bonn paves the way for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
The European Union is committed to ratification by our Heads of State and Government.
I therefore intend to present to the Council and the European Parliament soon, and certainly well before the end of the year, first of all a ratification proposal for the Kyoto Protocol.
This will include a Council decision on the burden sharing among the Member States of the Communities, overall a 8% emission reduction target on the basis of the political agreement of the Environment Council of 16 June 1998; secondly, a communication on a cost-effective implementation strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the EU based on the final report of the Commission's European climate change programme, the ECCP; thirdly, a proposal for a framework directive on an EU-wide emission trading scheme as a core element in a cost-effective Kyoto implementation strategy.
I would like to express my appreciation for the ongoing support of the European Parliament for the EU's position in the international climate negotiations and your continuing interest in this issue.
It was reflected in your strong Parliamentary delegation in Bonn.
I hope to continue our good cooperation in the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Bonn Conference sent out three political messages of enormous importance.
An environmental message, an economic message and one concerning governance.
With regard to the environment, this Conference will go down in history as the one that brought to an end the talks and negotiations on climate change that had been dragging on for ten years and the one that enabled us finally to take action.
It is true that the agreement is less ambitious that we had hoped and was drawn up mainly at the expense of concessions made in negotiations by the European Union.
The alternative to this tiny step forwards, however, would have been incomparably worse. Without the political agreement that was achieved in Bonn, the Kyoto Protocol would be dead and we would have had to waste another ten years working on a global policy to mitigate the damage caused by climate change.
I should, therefore, like to congratulate Commissioner Wallström on her excellent role in the political handling of this dossier since her appointment, and I also congratulate her for the announcement she made today about presenting to this House the process of ratifying the Kyoto protocol, the practical measures on the emissions trading system and the European programme for climate change.
I should also like to highlight the excellent cooperation maintained between the European Parliament delegation, the Commissioner for the Environment and the Council, through the Belgian Presidency, throughout the Conference.
The second message from Bonn is a change in the economic model: from a fire-based, fuel-using economy, to one which is coal-based.
In this economy, a ton of coal has a set price and carbon dioxide emissions represent a cost that must be factored into the overall costs of all products and into the annual financial statements of all companies.
We will therefore be seeing, in all economic sectors, a conversion to cleaner technologies.
Obviously, the competitive advantages will go to those who convert the quickest.
This is precisely where the mistake in President Bush' s calculation lies that is already beginning to concern North American businessmen, as we saw in Bonn: In the short term, Kyoto will cost less than was thought and will bring competitive advantages in the medium term.
The third message from Bonn concerns globalisation.
Climate change has become more than an environmental dossier, it has become an issue that symbolises the environmental regulation of globalisation.
The Bonn conference thereby demonstrated, for the first time, that those who have moved quickly and effectively to promote the advantages of globalisation are also able to act to minimise the harmful effects of that same globalisation.
This is the great hope that was generated in Bonn: it is possible to find common solutions to global problems.
Commissioner, I too want to begin by offering my congratulations on what happened in Bonn.
Many of us went there with misgivings about the likely result of the conference.
These were, of course, felt particularly keenly in July when it was feared that what had been discussed previously would simply go by the board.
I want to emphasise that my political group and I are deeply impressed both with the Commissioner's work and with the Swedish and Belgian presidencies.
I am talking here not only about what happened at the Bonn conference itself but also about the sound preparatory work which, for example, the Commissioner carried out by travelling around a number of countries to try to convince them of the importance of the Kyoto Protocol.
We can only regret the fact that there is no political will for change on the other side of the Atlantic.
It is only to be hoped that, in time, there will be political developments aimed at persuading the United States too to take part in this necessary work.
American companies will probably also appreciate in the long term that they are missing something by not being involved in this development.
There is no going back now.
If we are to be able to make some impact upon climate change, everyone must participate, especially the United States which is one of the biggest producers of greenhouse gases.
It is now a question of putting words into action.
As I have pointed out throughout these discussions, the Kyoto Protocol is only the beginning.
It sounds hopeful when the Commissioner now promises that we shall have a ratification proposal before the end of the year and that the intention is to return with communications and proposals on trading in emissions rights.
On this issue, I want to emphasise what Parliament has said previously, namely that trading in emissions rights must never become the biggest part of the commitment.
A real change has to take place.
We must change our transport systems and we must reduce emissions if there is to be less of an effect upon the climate.
That also applies to sinks.
There are, of course, a number of shortcomings in the Protocol and the decision.
It had been hoped that the sinks would not have been so important.
Norway has set a good example by saying that it does not intend to make use of its sinks in the same way.
It would be all to the good if more countries were to follow that example.
We must wait to see what happens at the conference in Marrakesh.
Sooner or later, it will also be time to begin discussing how we are to make further progress.
Practical proposals are required if progress is really to take place and if we are not simply to get bogged down in the Kyoto Protocol.
Allow me, finally, to thank the Commissioner and the Presidency for the sound work they have done.
Mr President, I should like to say to the Commissioner that, at a time of violent clashes in Genoa and concern over globalisation, the outcome of the Bonn Summit should have renewed peoples' faith in the political process.
I hope so - it certainly did mine.
Together with Mr Pronk and the Belgian Presidency, you have achieved a great deal.
You provided an immense service to the environment and strengthened European influence.
I would like to congratulate and thank you.
I was pleased with aspects of the deal, the compromise over nuclear power for example was as good as we could get.
But overall the agreement is weak.
What matters, however, is the process that has now been established.
I know that Mr de Roo has instructed me in the past about how the process and the importance of it cannot be overestimated, pointing for example at the way in which the Montreal Protocol has been developed into a really effective instrument from a rather poor beginning over the past decade.
But the Kyoto process is going to be very much harder.
The priorities are to have it ratified, to get our own Member States to implement effective action plans, and not only to launch emissions trading but to prove that it can work, which is the hardest task of all.
And if we can make it work, then I hope that American business will be attracted and the whole political climate across the globe will change.
You have still a lot to do.
The vast majority in this House will strongly support you in your continuing efforts.
I thank you again.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the miracle of Bonn: the Kyoto baby learns to walk.
The Kyoto protocol is not dead, as President Bush has stated, but alive and kicking.
Kyoto is a baby that has learned to walk at the age of four.
Most babies learn to walk around their first birthday.
Better later than never, as we say in the Netherlands in this case.
One thing that is certain is that the Kyoto baby needs to grow considerably in order to keep climate change under control.
But that other environmental baby, the Treaty of Montreal of 1987, also needed fourteen years to combat the gap in the ozone layer effectively.
The same will apply to our Kyoto baby.
President Bush is already experiencing that there is much truth in the Dutch saying: he who breaks, pays.
He who walks out of negotiations, loses.
The Japanese Minister, Mr Kawaguchi, arrived in Washington today for a six-day visit to try to persuade President Bush to change his mind and participate.
There are very good reasons for doing so.
CO2 emissions are twice as high in the United States as in Europe.
It is no surprise then that there should be studies, like that of Florentin Krause, which show that the United States, by pursuing a shrewd energy policy, could both meet the levels of Kyoto and achieve 1% extra economic growth.
In order to step up the pressure on President Bush even further, my group and, fortunately, Parliament too, proposes organising CoP-9 in the United States in 2003.
By then, the Kyoto baby will be a child of school age and will have to learn to talk, especially about the international trade in CO2 rights.
In Bonn, American business seemed very interested in participating in that international trade after 2008.
The companies felt that they had been left out in the cold by their own President.
The European Union persuaded them by teaching the Kyoto baby to walk, but now it needs to learn to run.
I would like to ask the Commission to submit the Kyoto protocol for ratification before CoP-7 in Marrakech, and to put the proposal for internal CO2 trade before CoP-7.
Finally, regarding the transport sector, which is so difficult to curb, I would advise the Commission to publish proposals restricting the CO2 emissions from vans and trucks.
In conclusion, I should like to express a word of thanks to the troika for the unanimous leadership of the European delegation and to the Belgian Presidency for its special balancing skills; to the Commission for the flexible and effective cooperation in Bonn, to the G-77 for the constructive attitude and to the environmental movement for its strikingly constructive contribution to teaching the Kyoto baby to walk.
Commissioner, if we measure the achievements of Bonn against what we hoped for five years ago with regard to climate change, the results are meagre.
On the other hand, if we measure what was achieved by that battle that you waged, Commissioner - in conjunction with Parliament' s delegation and that of the rest of the Commission - to conclude the agreement that was finally reached, we must thank you, Commissioner, and this delegation for having concluded an agreement that is fundamentally consistent, in that all the countries adopted this approach. The result of this was to isolate the United States who, unfortunately, is sticking to a position that is not in the interests of the world as a whole.
I also feel that the exclusion of nuclear energy as an alternative to reducing greenhouse gases is a positive development.
We cannot conceal our reticence over emissions trading and its monitoring or the use of sinks.
The European Parliament has already stated, on several occasions, that sinks should only be used in a limited and carefully monitored way.
These issues are of concern to us.
We are also concerned about follow-up and monitoring mechanisms for compliance and the issue of possible sanctions in the event of non-compliance.
Of greatest concern to us is the fact that the report by the European Environment Agency states that unless decisions are taken immediately, by 2010 emissions will increase by 6%.
In our future work - and here I agree with my fellow speakers - it is, therefore, we industrialised countries that will have to lead the way in this reduction of emissions.
It is crucial that we ratify the protocol and make greater reductions than those laid down in the agreement.
We must introduce legally binding measures, take action on transport, which emits huge quantities of CO2 and clarify the amount of aid to be given to developing countries to ensure that they take similar action.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to join in congratulating the Commission on its negotiating tactics and success.
I think it is as the Commissioner said: the protocol has been saved.
Obviously, this in itself will not solve the problems.
The problems inherent in climate change and what needs to be done to stop climate change go far beyond what was agreed in Bonn.
But it is an important first step.
We must counter those who criticise the Kyoto protocol in principle - a number of members from Germany, for example, have said that the whole protocol is useless - and those who, as environmental politicians, have said it is useless because it does not go far enough, by saying that, if your house is on fire and you think it will take ten fire engines to put it out, you are hardly going to turn the first fire engine away and say, please do not start fighting the fire until all ten fire engines are here; you do what you can as quickly as possible, bearing in mind that other measures are needed.
These other measures are being negotiated both at international level and, of course, in the European Union.
Now we have to tackle the question of implementation.
You made a number of important announcements on that today, Commissioner, and you have our support.
We must keep talking to the Americans at international level.
A lot of people, including here in Parliament, are hugely critical of the Americans because of their policy in just about every political arena.
I think we should concentrate on fundamentals.
We should make it clear to our American friends that we do not agree with them on numerous counts but that we can live with our differences.
However, in this area, we Europeans cannot live with the fact that the Americans keep holding back.
And we need to tell them as much again and again.
Mr President, I too say bravo, Commissioner. Well done.
For the rest, it never fails to astound me just how united Europeans are on the question of climate change and the measures needed to counter it.
I think that climate policy is a policy people can identify with in Europe and we should turn this to our advantage.
I also think that it is our duty to work on the American public, so that they follow our lead.
Perhaps, in this case, we are one step ahead of the Americans, just as public opinion on other questions is often one step ahead of Europe.
I should like to comment on one point of view: the impact of this climate policy on energy policy.
The whole point of climate policy is that it requires us to put a price on CO2 in the future.
Let us suppose that your estimates are right and that CO2 costs about EUR 30 a tonne. That means that electricity from brown coal will rise by about 3.5 eurocents and electricity from hard coal will rise by about 3 eurocents.
The price of renewable sources of energy will not rise, i.e. they will become more competitive.
But nor will the price of nuclear energy rise.
As is it not excluded from emission trading and is only banned where there is joint implementation, this works to the advantage of nuclear energy.
This completely changes the weightings within the energy spectrum.
That is not the subject of this evening' s debate, but it will be subject of debates over coming months and years.
I just wanted to point that out.
For the rest, I share the view of many of my fellow members who said that this is a process.
We have only just begun it and we must stick with it.
The very fact of having been there is, I think a very good thing.
Mr President, Commissioner, may I add my congratulations?
Kyoto has ultimately not remained an empty promise.
At the last moment, Bonn produced the political signal that was necessary.
It is a signal on the basis of which Kyoto can become a reality.
We must make a start on this project as soon as possible, not only in Europe, but also in other parts of the world.
Political agreements must now be translated into concrete action with visible results, because that is the way to strengthen political support for climate policy.
The signal must now be seen and heard everywhere.
The struggle against the emission of greenhouse gases is a worldwide challenge in third-world countries where the results of the rise in sea level and the change in weather patterns are making themselves painfully felt.
It is a global task, for which Europe must take its share of the responsibility.
We must invest and not forget that at present there are two billion people without electricity.
Sustainable energy can give a boost to development.
Much more discussion is needed with the United States, where the main fear is loss of jobs.
We must now demonstrate that, in fact, the economic effects are favourable.
Sustainable development must lead to sustainable growth.
Within the Union, we must now quickly begin the ratification process and launch the system of emission rights.
Industry is keen to have clarity and to start rightaway.
We must make the transition to a low-CO2 economy and give this a concrete form.
This requires research and innovation.
It is of great importance for us to join forces in a common research programme.
The framework programme for research and Article 169 offer a good basis for this.
Climate policy is also a component of the Sixth Environmental Action Programme.
It must be adopted across the product and packaging policy, transport policy and energy policy.
In each Member State, action programmes must be introduced and clear political choices must be made on the way in which Kyoto is realised.
In this way, Kyoto and Bonn will culminate in an unparalleled burst of innovation.
It is now time for action.
Mr President, the Members of Parliament have been too kind to me personally because the Commission has the best climate change team in the world.
It is thanks to their excellent preparation of our negotiations and the preparatory work within the European Union that we have been able to succeed.
But we were also able to speak with one voice in Bonn, which led to better results, and we stayed united.
We worked well with NGOs and I believe that this also contributed to this good result.
As you said, the real result in Bonn was that we put the international framework in place.
Of course we had to make some very unsatisfactory concessions, and the end result and the real reductions were limited in a way that we are not at all happy with, but we will have to live with this framework for a very long time.
It will be subject to many adaptations and political changes and exposed to market forces, which will lead to change over time.
However, we took the initiative from the very beginning and we were able to carry it through to an international agreement.
Now we can work within that.
We can change and develop it.
The total emission reduction required, for example, for Japan is 14% and for Canada around 15% so there is still a real effort to be made for these countries.
But of course we are not happy with some of the substantial concessions we had to make.
The second point I want to make which underlines what you have stated is that we now have to move from words to deeds.
Again it is only by showing the way, leading by example, that we can stay credible.
So I will shortly be presenting these three proposals to continue this work.
We should stay in the lead in the world debate about climate change.
We should be the first to present different initiatives at conferences or whatever, to exchange good practice, and so on.
I would like your cooperation.
My intention is to keep the initiative and ensure that we lead the world in combating climate change.
We now have to concentrate on Marrakesh and putting all the legal texts in place so that these can be implemented.
Everything will stand or fall with their implementation.
Thank you, Commissioner.
At the end of the debate, I have received six draft motions for a resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Safety and air transport
Mr President, the advent of competition in the air transport sector has certainly resulted in the lowering of prices of air travel for the 370 million consumers of the European Union.
However, there is a growing dissatisfaction among air travellers with regard to the quality of service which they are receiving from many airlines within the EU.
It is very important that air passengers are fully aware of their legal rights when problems arise with flights.
These are matters which I am addressing in my report.
We cannot deny that the issue of developing deep-vein thrombosis is not a serious concern for air passengers.
I am calling on the European Commission as a matter of urgency to allocate more monies from the EU research budget to carry out an independent evaluation of the possible public health risks for air passengers travelling on long-haul flights. This includes the need to carry out a comprehensive study into the whole issue of deep-vein thrombosis.
I am calling on the European Commission to carry out this independent research in consultation with EU airline companies and EU consumer groups.
I believe that European Union airlines should not be afraid of addressing the issue of deep-vein thrombosis.
The solution to this problem may not be as hard as some EU airlines may envisage.
It is very important that passengers are fully informed as to what they should do to guarantee that deep-vein thrombosis will not develop.
European Union airlines, consumer groups and air crew workers must all work together to guarantee that all public health issues concerning air travel are fully addressed.
Safer travel for air passengers in Europe must at all times be the ultimate objective for EU governments and EU airlines.
I have nothing in principle against the implementation of voluntary codes of practice for European Union airlines.
However it is very important that any codes of practice which are drawn up by EU airlines are fully evaluated and monitored to ensure that they are rigorously enforced.
While voluntary agreements play an important role with regard to the whole issue of air travel, EU institutions and EU governments must not be afraid to intervene and legislate on issues to promote and protect air passenger rights.
In this report I am calling on the European Commission to bring forward specific proposals outlining how the charter of passenger rights in Europe can be marketed to a greater extent.
This will help to guarantee that all air passengers in Europe are kept fully informed as to their legal rights with regard to air travel.
This charter of passenger rights currently exists in European Union airports but many passengers are not fully aware of its existence or do not fully understand its provisions.
This report includes a proposal calling on European Union airlines to inform passengers of the percentage degree seat pitch available to passengers travelling in economy class.
It is clearly the case that there is more room available for economy class passengers travelling with some airlines than with others.
I am also calling on the European Union and the airlines to improve access for disabled passengers, children and the elderly and to prohibit European Union airlines from charging an extra fee for assisting persons who are immobile onto any aeroplane within the European Union.
Finally I believe that this report had the broad support of the political groups within Parliament's Committee on Transport.
I am hopeful and confident that the European Commission will now bring forward the necessary legislative proposals to ensure that passenger rights for the citizens of the European Union are greatly improved as a matter of urgency.
, representing the Draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
(DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first, our thanks to the rapporteur.
The Commission proposal for a European Aviation Safety Agency comes in response to a long-standing demand by Parliament.
The Aviation Safety Agency is our second agency in the transport sector; a third for the railways and rail safety will ensue.
I think this strategy of creating European agencies is an ideal way of helping the European transport markets to integrate.
The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has already proposed a number of important amendments for the Aviation Safety Agency, such as strengthening the agency, giving it more independence and extending its remit.
I also think it is important - and I speak here on behalf of Mr Kuckelkorn - that we accept an amendment proposed by the Committee on Budgets on funding.
Come what may, we must ensure that we have efficiency, transparency and controlled costs.
These two agencies give us the opportunity to take a clear line right from the outset.
My group has also tabled a number of proposed amendments.
The first concerns the composition of the administrative board.
We are calling for employers and employees to be given a seat on the board.
Another proposed amendment concerns the creation of local offices of the agency, which have been suggested in order to allay the fears of a number of Member States about loss of sovereignty.
We expect the Member State in which the agency is located to make a financial contribution.
One purpose of this rule is to prevent a Member State from pressurising its agency, i.e. the agency established on its sovereign territory, into setting up local offices.
Here too I am positive that this is a reasonable and legitimate concern on the part of Parliament and I therefore call on you to support it.
Mr President, in the extremely interesting debate that we have heard this morning following Mr Prodi' s presentation of the White Paper on governance, he said that the control exercised by this Parliament, including control over budgetary matters, should not be concerned with questions of detail but should check whether the instruments are achieving their objectives and should adopt more of a political approach and less of an accounting one.
Perhaps this is why the Committee on Budgetary Control has made a few suggestions for the creation of an Aviation Safety Agency, such as, for example, that we again adopt the model of control used by the two agencies set up in 1975, which are Cedefop, in Thessaloniki and the Dublin Foundation.
According to this model, granting discharge to the agencies was the responsibility of the European Parliament.
Between 1990 and 1997, nine agencies were created, but it could be said that creating an external agency gives the Council carte blanche to do what it likes.
This idea is not borne out by reality, however, because the agency set up to deal with the issue of Kosovo in Thessaloniki in 1999 is a return to the model according to which it is Parliament, at the behest of the Council, that gives discharge to the Director and the board of management.
This is, I believe, in harmony with the form of governance that we are seeking to adopt on the Commission' s proposal and that would be beneficial to the Agency itself, because in this way, the external agency does not have to mean lesser control of Community funds, a control which is the responsibility of the European Parliament.
We also emphasise, in the fourth amendment, the need to incorporate in its rules of procedure the requirement for periodical external assessments of the Agency.
I must repeat that the external Agency will have freedom of action, but we would like to have an independent expert cast an eye over it from time to time to see whether the Agency is fulfilling the objective that has been proposed for it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has examined the proposal for a regulation very carefully.
It obviously supports the aim of creating a European Aviation Safety Agency.
However, we realise that we somehow need to harmonise the legal framework within which such agencies are created.
A great many agencies have now been set up: the Aviation Safety Agency, the Food Agency, the Agency for Medical Products.
It is high time we had a clear legal framework for starting up these agencies.
The two previous speakers have already commented on certain aspects.
I am grateful that the Commission announced in its White Paper on European governance that it intends to take a somewhat clearer line here.
Sparks obviously fly when these agencies are created because decision-making powers are transferred to external institutions even if, Mr Schmitt, the final decision does not, of course, always rest with these agencies.
It is especially important to us that the supervisory committees be made up of equal numbers of representatives from the various European institutions and for the European Parliament not to lose its rights of influence by outsourcing decisions.
It is also important to us for the legal recourse created within these agencies' procedures to be in keeping with the European Treaties and the principles of the rule of law.
Another particular cause for concern is that the powers of intervention created for these agencies need to be in keeping with the fundamental civil rights on which we agreed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We have tabled proposed amendments on these points and we are grateful that they are at least being accepted in part.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me firstly thank our rapporteur and all the Members for the speed with which the European Parliament has worked on the proposal concerning the implementation of a European Aviation Safety Agency.
I think that it is not totally out of place to say this, and that it practically amounts to the launch of an appeal to the Council and the Commission, to make sure that the proposal comes to fruition as quickly as possible, for the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has, naturally, first ascertained the industrial interest in such an agency.
As you already know, we have an urgent need for the equivalent of the American Federal Aviation Administration if we want the Airbus standard to be commercially viable at international level, in particular the new A 380 programme.
The Committee on Industry has been very sensitive to these issues. It has not dramatically increased the number of amendments and has made sure that we can proceed as fast as possible towards the effective creation of this tool that the European aeronautical industry has been waiting for with bated breath in the great international competition which places it, fairly regularly and not without controversy, face to face with its great American rival.
This is why we are satisfied with the proposal, in the hope that the Council will prove to be generous enough in the assessment of the amendments that are presented to it.
My second important point concerns the problem of political control.
We think that the concept of safety is formulated by specialists and technicians, but politics cannot be pushed to the sidelines.
With each of the large-scale events and accidents that have recently taken place, for example with Concorde or the Mont-Blanc tunnel, we have requested answers from the public authorities.
It is therefore necessary that this new agency be a technical tool for standardisation and certification primarily fed from the work of experts and manufacturers, but it should also be politically controlled.
This is the reason for which we have put forward amendments requesting that the executive director of such an agency, or even the agency itself, can make itself available to Parliament or, at the very least, be heard by Parliament.
There are those who even hope that it should have parliamentary representatives on the administrative board, for the administrative board is a body that is not technical but political in nature.
Finally, we are hoping that, in the committees of experts, the greatest cooperation will be open to all parties concerned, notably in relation to the creation of the "single sky" or problems relating to air control.
We think that this should be carried out in consultation with both sides of industry and workers' representatives, otherwise we will be creating insurmountable obstacles to the objectives we are pursuing.
So, ladies and gentlemen, these are the main conclusions of the Committee on Industry.
Mr President, I apologise to Mr Schmitt and to Mr Collins for the fact that I was delayed elsewhere and did not hear their introductory remarks.
The opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, of which I was the draftsman, was unanimously carried and we are delighted to see that many of our recommendations have been endorsed by the two rapporteurs.
We have to move on from the old excuses, the legal challenges mounted by IATA and the opposition to even modest voluntary agreements which we still hear on some sides.
This is essentially a matter of the safety, as well as of the convenience, of the consumer.
For that reason we particularly welcome the adoption of amendments on consumer health and safety in the Schmitt report's emphasis on the provision of information on health and safety requirements for airline passengers and the Collins report's adoption of the proposal that there should be an evaluation of health risk and research into matters like deep-vein thrombosis.
The fact is that passengers today suffer not merely from being dumped from airlines, from the problem of lost baggage, but from other things which are often not the fault of the airlines themselves.
They principally suffer from a lack of information.
If the new agency does one thing, like the food standards agency which we are about to set up, it must be open, it must be transparent.
We need to see how its investigations work.
We need to see how its personnel are selected.
It must be done on the basis of merit and without any links to the industry.
All of those are possible if we adopt these two reports.
I hope the House will give an emphatic welcome in the vote tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I should like to congratulate Mr Collins on his work, his serious, objective and rigorous work in drawing up this report on protecting the rights of air passengers in the European Union.
I fully agree with the rapporteur when he states that it is necessary - and I would say quite urgent - that we improve the current level of protection in cases of denied boarding, flight cancellations, unjustified delays which, in many cases, lead to connections with other flights or with other means of transport being missed and a long list of similar problems, which is growing every day, not to mention the fact that we Members of this Parliament are long-suffering victims of these inconveniences.
We must put a stop to this deterioration of quality before it becomes irreversible.
I must thank the Commissioner for the efforts that her department is making to achieve this, but in order to achieve this, we must undertake a thorough and appropriate review of current legislation in this field and improve all aspects of it that will lead to greater and better protection of passengers' rights.
We also need to closely monitor the voluntary agreements signed by airlines, which are also designed to improve air transport conditions.
Mainly, however, what is essential is a form of vigilance that ensures total compliance with current legislation, which often appears to be nothing more than a useless piece of paper and as such, cannot serve the purposes for which it was intended.
This is the aspect on which immediate and effective action can and must be undertaken.
To start with, we should firmly insist that a 'Charter on Passenger Rights' be properly marketed - as the rapporteur has already suggested.
Precise, clear, intelligible and full information is necessary to ensure that passengers are aware of their rights and of how to exercise them and, of course, we cannot accept these posters being hidden away in obscure corners into which few people go in many airports.
This information must be sufficiently publicised and made available to all users and not only in airports but also at points of ticket sales, in travel agencies and also, as far as possible, in the media.
Unless we ensure that passengers have access to information on their rights, which in many cases means that they cannot exercise these rights, there is no point at all in embarking on a legislative process whose outcome might also end up being nothing more than a useless piece of paper.
Mr President, I want to talk mainly about the European Aviation Safety Agency, the EASA, but I am bound to make an observation about passengers' rights, also directed to the Commissioner.
Whatever the airlines promise and whatever agreements they reach among themselves to display splendid lists detailing the rights of passengers, in practice very little comes of it.
Also from my own experience, it is clear that many things often go wrong.
I should therefore wish to call for as many binding agreements as possible that are also laid down in legislation as well as for sanctions for failure to fulfil all kinds of promises to passengers.
As I said, I wish to speak mainly about EASA.
The setting up of EASA and the provisional definition of its responsibilities are an important step on the way to complete harmonisation of safety rules in civil aviation.
This is necessary and desirable, given the growing importance of the sector at European level, of unambiguous competition rules and of uniform standards, and in view of the need to strengthen the EU' s influence at a global level.
We have opted for a cautious start which, in the first instance, will only involve European certification of new types of aircraft, such as the A 380.
That is quite reasonable because the Authority still has to find its niche alongside the national aviation bodies, which will, of course, continue to have a role.
Duplication must be avoided by efficient pooling of available expertise and capacity.
Based on a certain timeframe, the mandate of EASA can then be expanded to include other aspects of flight safety, such as the human aspect, the quality of pilot training, etc.
Legislation and the amendments too rightly cover the health and wellbeing of the passengers on board and of the environment, particularly the question of emissions.
Our citizens are increasingly worried about these things.
The work of EASA will have to help reduce these concerns.
The amendments by the European Parliament make it clear that the independence of the Agency has priority.
It must be able to operate free of political interference and certification processes.
At the end of the present Regulation, the inevitable comitology crops up.
We continue to have our doubts, however, whether this will contribute to the efficient and independent functioning of EASA.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Liberal group, I should like to compliment Mr Schmitt on his report.
Safety, decisive action and accountability are the three benchmarks for my group.
Is the Authority contributing to safety in aviation? In our eyes it is, certainly now that aircraft that are registered in third countries, but whose flights are carried out by a Member State, fall under this directive.
I have submitted an amendment to define the Authority' s overall responsibilities more precisely.
The Commission should come up with a proposal by the end of next year at the latest on what new tasks EASA can assume.
The most important of these is the granting of permits for aircraft crew in the European Union.
What matters is the increased safety of people in aircraft, both passengers and crew.
It is not only a matter of the quality of the steel.
EASA must also be able to take decisive action and that depends on the structure, but also on the quality of the managers.
That is why the board of management and the director must have relevant experience.
As a ten-year term is quite enough, only one reappointment should be sufficient.
Finally, accountability.
We consider it important that all these independent agencies should be accountable to Parliament.
The best way of achieving this to ensure that the Commission has a place in the structure of these agencies.
If we weaken the role of the Commission too far it will create serious problems of political accountability.
We took the same line on these and other points with the European Maritime Safety Agency.
I also followed Mr Collins' report with great interest because I myself was rapporteur for a comparable subject, namely liability in aviation.
We can identify well with the final version.
Many of our amendments have been adopted, for which we are grateful.
I should like to mention two more things.
Firstly, I consider it essential that passengers should be informed in good time.
Finally, Mr Lynn submitted a number of amendments to stress the fact that airlines should to their utmost to alert passengers to the danger of aviation-related thrombosis, even on short flights.
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Group I would like to welcome both of these reports.
In the limited speaking time I have, I want to focus on just one aspect and that is the health aspects of flying.
It is true to say that in the past the airlines have been woefully neglecting passengers' health.
That is beginning to change but there is still a long way to go.
I particularly welcome the fact that Mr Collins has devoted a clear section in his report to health and I strongly support his calls for the airlines to be far more proactive in giving information about health risks.
We need far greater clarity.
Information should be available when you book your ticket.
It needs to be there in doctors' surgeries.
There needs to be a health briefing in the same form as the current safety briefing on board, including advice on the preventative measures that can be taken.
Of course life is not risk-free but there has to be a balance in that risk and if people know what the choices are, they are more likely to be able to make an informed judgement.
On deep-vein thrombosis for example, although for over ten years there have been reports of people getting blood clots after travelling by plane no comprehensive independent research has been carried out.
According to a recent report in The Lancet by a London-based consultant, as many as one in ten people get blood clots of some kind on long-haul flights.
Clearly serious health risks are very slight for the vast majority but for a few they are very real.
We need to respond to that in terms of both research and the action resulting from that research.
More space in aircraft, for example, and less emphasis in getting as many people on board, in as small a place as possible with as much profit as possible.
There was another example in the press this morning.
A Canadian researcher was saying that as a result of air recycling in the cabin some passengers are at risk of catching diseases as serious as tuberculosis.
His claims have been refuted by the airlines.
The issue here is not the rights or wrongs of this latest allegation but the fact that this type of uncertainty will continue unless we have a new proactive strategy based on more and better research, appropriate action by the airlines and better information to the public.
Mr President, I am in favour of anything that leads to the standardisation of safety regulations in air transportation.
The creation of a European Aviation Safety Agency, in place of the current informal collaboration between the fifteen Member States, would be the least that could be done to establish common rules in the field of aviation.
It would however have taken, according to the report, twenty years of bargaining for this measure of simple good sense to be taken.
In spite of the euphemisms used, the report recognises that the length of negotiations is due to the difficulty of reconciling EU Member States' national interests, and behind these the various, even opposing, industrial interests.
Thus, the report brings to mind the principle of subsidiarity relating to the functioning of airports, and insists on the necessary confidentiality of enquiries made by the agency with regard to legislation on industrial property.
The fact that the differences in interests between the industrial groups concerned have not disappeared augers badly for the authority which will be granted to this agency to impose all the measures useful for the safety of passengers.
Mr President, like motherhood and apple pie, no-one could possibly be against safety, especially when it involves aeroplanes.
But make no mistake: the real agenda of this proposal is further political integration.
For, as the Commission so eloquently puts it in its own document, it intends to create the European Aviation Safety Agency through the gradual integration of national systems.
That seems to me to be a driving force for the whole of the European Union - the gradual integration of national systems.
I wish that phrase could be plastered in massive letters on billboards around the United Kingdom so that my fellow subjects could really understand what is really going on.
As Mr Duisenberg put it recently when he described the euro as a symbol of political integration, we have here yet another symbol - the European Aviation Safety Agency.
But what is particularly striking here, apart from the fact that we already have an independent intergovernmental agency in the Joint Aviation Authority, is the stark admission that continued intergovernmental cooperation is to be abandoned as it is developed and I quote from the rapporteur's report: "would have involved lengthy ratification procedures in the national parliaments of the states concerned . . ., which would not necessarily have been successful".
How awkward and inconvenient democracy is.
Rather like the Irish population when they run a referendum, you can never rely on it to behave.
Much easier, therefore, to create another European institution and get rid of the whole messy business.
Administratively convenient it may be, democracy it is not.
But it is symbolic of the European Union's experience.
Given the aviation content here, and with due deference to the rapporteur, I can only conclude with a phrase that really will not translate from the English: "What a Messerschmidt".
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, first I should like to join Ojeda Sanz in thanking Mr Collins for his excellent report and Mr Schmitt for his excellent report.
Both have presented us with a magnum opus.
As far as the question of aviation safety is concerned, Commissioner, you have now presented us with a proposal on establishing common rules in the field of civil aviation and creating a European Aviation Safety Agency long after the single market was completed and other Commissioners had let the subject drop.
This will at last allow us to replace the safety regulations adopted by bureaucrats in the Member States with uniform, European provisions accepted by Parliament.
At last we can create a truly uniform European area of safety in the European skies.
We hope that safety will be enhanced by strict and uniform controls.
In this respect we support your proposal.
The purpose of the amendments proposed by the committee, as Mr Schmitt rightly said, is to strengthen the technical independence of the European Aviation Safety Agency still further, without wanting to diminish your personal parliamentary responsibility.
We trust that this agency will be able to start work in time to grant the symbol of the independent European aviation industry, namely the new Airbus A380, a joint project involving numerous employees, numerous engineers and numerous workers in European countries, the first uniform certification for European airspace.
If it does, then I think we will have done both the aviation industry and safety a huge service.
Mr President, Commissioner, I shall deal specifically with the Collins report.
I wish to congratulate Mr Collins on his work and also the Commission on having presented us with this report on protecting the rights of air transport passengers.
This is an issue which concerns an increasing number of people, more Europeans, because the numbers of air passengers are increasing.
Dissatisfaction is also growing, however, with regard to the transport available to us and with the conditions in which they are provided.
The European Parliament and the Commission have the responsibility of protecting the interests of Europeans travelling via air transport.
It is true that the problems faced by passengers are not entirely the fault of the airlines; they are also caused by the airports, and we must confront both of these situations.
These days, airports feel like underground stations, in which the density of people is such that there is no degree of comfort and it is difficult to feel safe.
With regard to transport, passengers demand safety but they also want to know in advance the conditions in which they will be travelling.
I am grateful to Mr Collins for having accepted many of the amendments that we tabled to his report, because I feel it has been genuinely useful to include them.
Passengers must know in advance and be able to compare the conditions that the transport offers them.
Not only the prices, but also the conditions of safety, of comfort - the distances between seats, for example - and also conditions such as the air quality. One possibility that has been mentioned, admittedly, is for flights to become no smoking, but the conditions of safety against pollution have been reduced in order to reduce air transport costs.
We must confront this problem vigorously and I also wish to ask Commissioner Loyola de Palácio whether she still intends to table legislation in this field by the end of the year, and, if so, what will it be?
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Collins on his report, which I believe brings a sensible compromise to the Commission's proposal.
As aviation is the most regulated form of transport, I welcome the commitment by the industry, as agreed in Lisbon in May, to implement the voluntary passenger service commitment.
This is undoubtedly the best way forward as over-regulation would be extremely damaging to the aviation industry Europe-wide, and in particular in the United Kingdom, and would result in our being uncompetitive.
The report is explicit in saying that the desire to protect air passengers should not hinder competition, whilst at the same time the voluntary agreement is comprehensive and detailed in those areas which need to be improved.
I hope the Commission will resist in bringing forward legislative proposals as it is only right and proper that the industry should be given sufficient time to implement fully this agreement.
On one tiny point here from Mr Collins: the UK is the only country which has in place a minimum seat pitch requirement for safety reasons and I therefore believe that the European Union could follow that example.
Turning to the Schmitt Report, we should congratulate Mr Schmitt on clarifying and improving the Commission's proposals, although I still have deep reservations in a number of areas.
Nevertheless I believe that there is general agreement that a pan-European body is required in particular in the area of aircraft manufacture, although there is still ambiguity in relation to ICAO rules, which clearly state that both individual certification of aircraft and design changes and modifications are the responsibility of states of registering.
Finally despite asking the Commission on a number of occasions, we are still unclear as to the future role of national civil aviation authorities, the JAA, as the proposed regulation does not define its parameters.
In addition, I believe at this stage efforts should be concentrated on achieving uniform applicability of ICAO, JAA, and Eurocontrol standards that are already in existence.
The EC should not seek to parallel and create unwilling distortions of the current ICAO-based safety framework.
I look forward to the Commission's response.
Mr President, I welcome the proposals to provide legal rights for passengers as well as the increase in denied boarding compensation and the right to reimbursement for delayed flights.
The idea of new contract standards between carriers and consumers is not only welcome but long overdue.
To be delayed is a nuisance.
To be denied information as to the cause of the delay, with little by way of an apology or compensation, is unacceptable.
Hopefully, with the support of the airlines and the work done by Mr Collins in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, things will now change for the better.
We can never take aviation safety for granted.
Today my colleague Mrs Cerdeira told me of the tragic crash last week of an old CN-235, converted from military use, on a Melilla to Malaga flight, with loss of life.
I extend the sympathies of Mrs Cerdeira and myself to the relatives of the victims.
Regarding the contributions of Mr Titford, I assumed he was speaking in a personal capacity.
Only people with a bizarre outlook on life and a peculiar political perspective can downgrade the importance of aviation safety in the pursuit of their own nationalistic objectives.
Safety should never be used as a political football.
I condemn Mr Titford for so doing.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I should like to congratulate the Commission and particularly the Commissioner on the various important initiatives being put forward for this sector.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Collins and Mr Schmitt, on their magnificent work and mention one idea that I feel is particularly important in this matter.
The passenger protection dossier is, together with the single sky, safety and protection of the environment, an important dossier for air transport, for passengers and also for the image of European integration in the eyes of the public.
We are all aware of the importance of this means of transport and also of the contradiction that exists between the Europe of the air and terrestrial Europe: whilst traditional borders are disappearing, we are seeing these borders persist in the air transport sector.
Initiatives such as those that we are now discussing are, therefore, of great importance to the European public.
I come from the Balearic Islands, where dependence on the aeroplane is, as you all know, extremely high.
I know what it is to suffer airport chaos or interminable delays.
I therefore welcome the Commission' s intention to seek a balance between legislation and the voluntary commitments affecting airlines, airports and airport authorities, not to mention the tourist industry.
This is an ambitious communication, which seeks to achieve this balance between the needs to establish guarantees for passengers and to ensure that air transport is efficient and competitive.
We must get the message across to users and make them fully aware of their rights, which are recognised by law when problems with flights occur.
I regret the impasse in which many initiatives in this sector are trapped within the Council and I hope that the appropriate agreements will be concluded so that we can move ahead without any further delay.
In the wake and in commemoration of the terrible accident that befell an aircraft en route from the Spanish city of Melilla, I should like to conclude by congratulating the Commission and Mr Schmitt on their work on the proposal to establish the European Aviation Safety Agency.
Reports such as the one by Mr Schmitt will be able, if not to prevent, which is impossible, to considerably reduce the number of these terrible accidents.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when it comes to the Schmitt report, we must congratulate both the Commission, on its proposal in response to the call from Parliament and, of course, the rapporteur on his sterling work.
The basic features of an agency such as this must be independence of action and efficiency, both of which apply in the present case.
However, having myself acted as rapporteur for a similar agency, the Maritime Safety Agency, which we recently debated here in the House, and having therefore addressed a similar issue, I should like to take this opportunity, without repeating the views already expressed, of endorsing the general view that similar rules should govern similar administrative mechanisms.
This obviously logical precept does not always apply to European Union texts or to European Parliament texts because, as we all know full well, each final text depends on the circumstances at the time in the various debating fora, especially when it comes to the vote.
For example, the proposal by our parliamentary committee which prevailed in plenary on the administrative board of the Maritime Safety Agency is completely different from the corresponding proposal in the case being debated today and amendments to improve it have, of course, been proposed.
Similarly, the Commission proposals also differ.
Is there any justification for these differences? The same question could be applied to numerous points in many of our legislative texts.
This is not something the relevant Union services, including Parliament, can be proud of. Having said which, I think the Commission could run a comparative check on these texts and then table proposals for similar provisions to be adopted for similar cases and existing unwarranted contradictions to be abolished.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Collins on his excellent report and indeed for accepting my amendments on the health aspects of air travel.
Brenda Wilson is a Greater Manchester constituent of mine who is an active campaigner for the Aviation Health Institute, an organisation working internationally to improve air passenger health.
Tragically her son Neil died of a deep-vein thrombosis after a short flight to Benidorm.
He is one of an alleged 2000 air travellers who, according to some in the medical profession, die each year from deep-vein thrombosis, not just long haul, not just economy class, and therefore there is growing concern about the potential link between air travel and blood clots.
The research is ambiguous.
The World Health Organisation is putting GBP 7 million into research and I am asking you tonight to give your commitment to a European Union study to look at potential links between DVT and air travel and preventative action.
I am also asking the Commission to take up the idea in my amendment on improved health briefings and health warnings on tickets in advance of flying.
This will allow passengers, as consumers, to exercise the choice perhaps not to drink alcohol, perhaps to take aspirin three or four days before flying or to wear these new compression socks which help regulate blood flow in the legs.
There is no need to be an alarmist.
We know that air travel is safe but there is nonetheless a small risk for some passengers that they may develop blood clots.
We owe it to our European passengers to increase our knowledge and science in this area.
I would like your assurance that you will now respond to our call for research and meet as a matter of priority with the aviation industry to look at improved health warnings on tickets.
We are in favour of voluntary action but if it is true that the airlines have known for 30 years about the risks of DVT then maybe we need legislation.
Mr President, I should like to say, first of all, that we are discussing two quite different initiatives here.
One is of a legislative nature and concerns the creation of a European Aviation Safety Agency.
The other initiative concerns Parliament' s report on the Commission communication on protecting the rights of air transport passengers.
I wish to warmly congratulate both rapporteurs.
I shall begin with the initiative on the creation of the European Aviation Safety Agency.
I should also like to congratulate Mr Schmitt, of course, on his work.
In proposing common regulations for the civil aviation sector and the creation of a European Aviation Safety Agency, the Commission has borne in mind the objective of achieving a high and uniform level of safety, which is an essential factor for air transport.
It is also, perhaps the most fundamental passenger right.
We want to achieve this high and uniform level of safety throughout the European Union and also greater environmental protection.
This system of common regulations will also have the effect of promoting the internal market and of improving the competitiveness of the European aeronautical industry. It is, of course, also an important factor for the Airbus project.
From now on, a single certificate will be sufficient for a company to be able to supply its products to the whole European market, whilst access to external markets will be simplified, as a result of the conclusion of agreements that will facilitate the harmonisation and the mutual recognition of the certificates.
The proposal under consideration today, therefore, represents a considerable step forwards, particularly if you take account of the objectives it is seeking to achieve.
It also, however, represents a genuine innovation in the field of Community integration, if we bear in mind that, until now, the civil aviation sector has been greatly influenced by the sovereignty of Member States and by intergovernmental cooperation - an issue that the speakers have already raised.
With regard to the implementation of Community objectives, the Commission is authorised to adopt the appropriate technical standards and administrative procedures.
The purpose of creating this specialised Agency is to assist the Commission in implementing policy but the Agency will also have its own powers, since, in some cases, it will replace national administrations in issuing products with certificates of conformity with Community legislation - I repeat, this is crucial for the Airbus project, as Mr Jarzembowski said a moment ago - and, in other cases, will supervise the issuing of certificates by national administrations.
The parliamentary committees that have worked on this text have understood the importance of what is at stake and I thank them for their support for the Commission proposal.
With regard to the amendments that have been tabled, I can tell you that the Commission can accept most of them, because they improve and clarify our original proposal.
In fact, many of them are very similar to the comments made by the Council itself and will, therefore, be adopted in the consolidated modified proposal, either in part or, in some cases, with minor stylistic changes.
The Commission also unreservedly accepts strengthening the powers of the Executive Director, something to which the rapporteur referred in his speech, and the provisions on the Agency' s budgetary control.
On the other hand, we cannot accept some of the proposed amendments.
I shall list them with their numbers and explain why.
First of all, we do not feel that it is appropriate to include the revenue of the Agency and, therefore, its entire budget in the budget of the European Union.
This decision would run counter to the flexibility of management that we would like this body to have.
The Commission cannot, therefore, accept Amendments Nos 4 and 56.
Some amendments could cause a degree of confusion, could be difficult to implement or fall outside the scope of the proposal and must, therefore, be rejected.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 3, 15, 17, 19, 28, 29, 54 and 65.
Nor can we accept Amendments Nos 5 and 62, which deal with the scope of the Regulation, as they stand, although, in this case and as a compromise, we can accept proposals being tabled in the year following the adoption of the Regulation, with regard to air operations and staff privileges.
With regard to the other areas, we cannot accept airports being definitively excluded.
We can only accept proposals being tabled later on these matters.
With regard to the publication of the results of inspections by national administrations, set down in Amendments Nos 24 and 30, the Commission does not consider this to be appropriate because confidential information, which could be the basis of criminal proceedings, is involved.
Such action nevertheless, does comply with Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 on public access to the documents of the Community institutions.
I must also take a stand on the amendments dealing with the Agency' s independence, specifically, Nos 21, 32, 42, 43, 45, 53, 64, 70 and 71.
We all want this to be an independent body when it acts on technical issues, but this does not mean that it can be free from any kind of political control.
We would like to see the Agency independent of individuals, or of the various lobby groups that, as you would expect, exist in this sector and which are very active. We do not want to see the Agency independent of the Community institutions because, I repeat, there must inevitably be some form of political control.
Therefore, the Commission cannot accept the suggestions that seek to reduce its powers of control over the Agency.
Nevertheless, Amendment No 36, which reflects Parliament' s will not to participate in the Agency' s Administrative Board seems quite appropriate, if that is what Parliament wishes.
The work currently being undertaken in this House, as in the Council, proves that we are moving towards consensus on all aspects of this measure, with the exception of that of the influence of the Member States and the Community on control of the Agency.
It is, therefore, important that the Commission has the support of Parliament on this matter.
I should like to congratulate your rapporteur once again and thank you for the excellent work you have carried out.
With regard to the Commission communication on protecting passenger rights, first of all, I should like to congratulate Mr Collins, on having produced a detailed and stimulating report, which I read with great interest.
Having read the report, I have drawn the conclusion that Parliament and the Commission are, to a large extent, in agreement.
Both institutions attach high priority to the protection of passengers and we agree that this protection must be guaranteed by two approaches, which are not contradictory, but complementary.
The first approach is the voluntary agreements signed by the airlines and the second is laws that must be complied with.
Lastly, I shall give a brief summary of the actions planned for the near future and which, as you shall see, fully address your concerns and your suggestions.
Firstly, the monitoring of the voluntary commitments.
We fully concur that these agreements must provide for a mechanism for ensuring compliance with them if we really want them to be effective and to work properly and, therefore, to have credibility in the eyes of travellers.
Over the forthcoming months, we will be working conscientiously on these monitoring measures and on the out-of-court settlement of disputes.
I have already held a meeting with the airlines, to whom I made it very clear that this is a key issue, and I think that we can reach solutions that are acceptable to everyone.
Furthermore, passengers need to be well informed at every step, from the time they plan their trip until the flight itself, as Mr Ojeda said just now.
The airlines have given a serious commitment to provide better information, in line with their voluntary commitments.
With regard to the consumer reports comparing the profits of the various airlines, we will soon be instituting an experiment to try out various methods then to review legislation in light of the experience we have gained.
This is crucial.
Some passenger interests are so important that we must give them protection under the law.
In practical terms, we intend to propose legislation to Parliament and the Council in two specific areas: denied boarding and flight cancellations.
In relation to the first matter, we have drawn up a draft, which we are now fine-tuning, with the help of the comments of the various interested parties.
The second matter concerns the contracts airlines have with their customers.
At the end of this year we shall present a consultation document and, once we have received the reactions of those concerned, we will draft a proposal.
In the document, we shall be paying close attention to the rights of the disabled, an issue that some of the honourable Members have also raised today. We also hope that Parliament and the Council will rapidly approve the regulation, so that the standards of the Montreal Convention on the responsibility of Community airlines can apply and so that these new standards may enter into force by the end of next year.
Lastly, I shall refer to something that various speakers have highlighted, most recently by Mrs McCarthy and which concerns us all: the problems of passenger health.
We feel it is crucial to undertake a thorough and exhaustive assessment of the risks of travelling by aeroplane.
We are, therefore, financing research into cabin conditions under the Fifth Framework Programme and we are looking into how we can better support the studies into deep-vein thrombosis started by the World Health Organisation.
I must tell you that I have written personally to the chairmen of every airline to highlight this issue and to ask them, with the information now available, to immediately adopt measures to improve the situation.
In any event, although both initiatives will take a while, they will provide a solid basis for policy making and we shall keep this House fully informed.
To conclude, Mr President, I must say that I am delighted to see the degree of agreement between Parliament and the Commission. I must also tell you that on a flight with a certain airline, which was delayed by more than twenty minutes, we were informed that we had the right to a free flight with the same company for a period of one month, on the same route, just because there had been a delay of more than twenty minutes, in line with the conditions stated in their contract.
I am telling you this because the concerns and the actions of both Parliament and the Commission are yielding tangible results for the public, for users and for consumers.
Mr President, just a quick question to the Commissioner: we have stated on a number of occasions in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism that we are still unclear as to the future role of the national civil aviation authorities and the JAA as the proposed regulation does not define its parameters.
I would be very grateful for the Commission's response.
It may not be possible this evening, but I would like more clarification on that area.
.
(ES) Mr President, at a certain point, the two institutions, EASA and JAA, will converge and work together.
Some competences will remain with the JAA, such as staffing, for example but, with time, these will be incorporated into EASA.
In other words, at a certain point, the two institutions will converge, but only briefly.
In any event, I can send you the particular details of the matter, Mr Foster.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
System of ecopoints for heavy goods vehicles transiting through Austria
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
(DE) Mr President, the vote on deleting the 108% clause is about more than just Austria's environmental concerns.
Transit traffic in a sensitive Alpine region is the secondary issue.
Primarily, it is about the fact that Austria has a valid agreement with the European Union.
The Commission is now trying, in its proposal for a regulation, to cancel this valid agreement unilaterally and expects the European Parliament to validate this illegal move.
If we vote in favour of this proposal, we shall be helping to break an agreement to the detriment of a Member State of the Union.
What this can and will do is to destroy any trust in agreements concluded and hence any trust in the legal security of the European Union.
A large majority of people living in the Alpine regions in question came out in favour of accession to the EU in 1994, believing in the sanctity of contracts.
If we vote in favour of this unwarranted abolition of the protection clauses, we shall foster reticence towards the Union and force people back on to street blockades.
In this sense I urgently call on you to support Mr Swoboda's report or, given the present weather, not to leave him out in the rain.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats will be voting in favour of the Commission proposal.
First, because the objective of the ecopoint system has more or less been achieved.
The objective was to reduce overall NOx emissions from heavy goods vehicles in transit through Austria by 60% by the end of 2003.
In 2000, we had already achieved a 56% reduction; in other words, we are well on the way to achieving the target set in the agreement by 2003.
Secondly, the Commission proposal does not touch the ecopoint system per se.
The target of a 60% reduction has been retained.
The Commission expressly calls for the ecopoint system to continue.
Only the so-called 108% rule is to be abolished.
This rule runs counter to the very objective of the ecopoint system, i.e. to protect the environment by reducing NOx emissions.
It acts as an incentive to buy and use environmentally-friendly lorries.
The 108% clause sets an upper ceiling on the number of transit journeys and imposes sanctions where it is exceeded.
However, this clause only applies if the lorries have produced 8% fewer emissions a year.
That is a contradiction in itself.
Which is why the whole thing makes no sense.
Thirdly, reducing ecopoints does not reduce transit traffic through the Alps as a whole because it will either be switched to routes through Switzerland or trickily converted to bilateral traffic to and from Austria or traffic using east European lorries which are subject to a different licensing system and do not come under the ecopoint system.
On balance, all this means is that there will be no further reductions in NOx emissions in Austria.
Fourthly, the sanctions attached to the 108% rule are disproportionately high.
For example, exceeding 100,000 journeys in 1999 was punished by cutting 150,000 journeys in 2000.
The last point I wish to raise is this: doubts as to whether primary law, in this case an act of accession, can be changed by secondary law, i.e. by a Commission proposal for a regulation, as is the subject of today's debate, are to my mind unwarranted.
Protocol no.
9 makes explicit provision for the ecopoint system to be reviewed in 2001.
On this basis, the Commission proposal is therefore legal.
That is why I am in favour of abolishing the 108% rule and adopting the Commission proposal as it stands.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the ecopoint system was agreed during Austria's accession to the EU.
So what we are talking about is an existing, legally valid agreement which expires in 2003.
The objective, as has already been mentioned, is to use more environmentally-friendly lorries in transit through the Austrian Alps and to reduce NOx emissions by 60% in comparison with 1992, which has almost been achieved.
The agreement also sets an upper ceiling on the number of transit journeys, the so-called 108% clause.
Now the Commission wants to abolish the 108% clause by the end of 2003.
The rapporteur, Hannes Swoboda, rejects the Commission proposal and I concur with this view, although there is a conflict between Austrian and German interests, for example, here.
But our concern here must be to act within the context of a European transport policy and that means having a taxation mechanism for ecologically sensitive regions.
In all events, I should like to highlight three problems, as I have done in my proposed amendments.
First, the number of journeys needs to be calculated correctly.
A number of speakers have expressed doubts as to the accuracy of the statistics, because they also include some bilateral journeys.
Care must therefore be taken to calculate the number of journeys correctly, so that sanctions are not wrongly applied.
That brings me to my second point, sanctions.
In 1999, as has already been mentioned, the number of transit journeys was exceeded by 100,000, resulting in a cutback of 150,000 journeys by way of "punishment".
I think the current sanction mechanism is excessive and wrong because it hits individual road hauliers, even though it means state action.
Something needs to be done here.
And my third and final point. Our ultimate transport policy objective is to have a sustainable transport system which allows sustainable mobility in the long term.
However, the Commission has so far omitted to present a conclusive overall concept for the Alps for 2003 onwards and we need one now as a matter of urgency.
Mr President, Commissioner, even though we have taken into account all the concerns that Mr Swoboda and others have expressed as regards the upholding of the commitments that the Union undertakes in signing the Treaties, I believe that in this specific case we have to vote for the Commission proposal.
This is the line my Group has agreed upon and intends to follow tomorrow.
This is because the experiment conducted over these years will instead be used from now on to define a coherent strategy for transit journeys across the Alpine region, which will, in future, be based on as broad a shift from road to rail as possible.
The current system has proved essentially effective, since the basic objective has been or is in the process of being achieved, while on the other hand it is proving ineffective, or rather in some cases I would say it acts against the incentive to make vehicles crossing Austria more eco-friendly, as well as being difficult if not unfair to implement, and therefore the clause has indeed proved to be effectively of little use, even though worthwhile in its intention.
I believe that no serious difficulties should arise and that there should be substantial respect for the agreement in that the desired objective has been achieved, and that the clause should not be implemented because it does not help us at the moment.
It will instead be used or applied, like others, to harmonise different schemes that we should use to work out a better way to cross the whole Alpine region in future.
I hope and we hope that this too will be taken into account in the forthcoming White Paper, both in favouring the choice of those rail links that we have been waiting for for too long, and in identifying tariff measures that will, through better attribution of infrastructure costs, help to encourage more coherent conditions with regard to the Alpine region as a whole.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Swoboda, our rapporteur, and Mr Kronberger are both Austrian.
That is, of course, no coincidence and they have both explained the situation in Austria in detail.
However, I do not see this as a purely Austrian problem.
This report and tomorrow's vote are about a decision with far-reaching implications.
I am not trying - nor do I have any intention of trying - to play the internal market, competition and environmental and transport policy off against each other.
I see two points at issue here.
First, to repeat the concern expressed by my fellow members, we should not emulate President Bush by ending an agreement unilaterally.
Secondly, how serious are we about our European environmental and transport policy? How serious are we about implementing it and how efficiently do we want to promote it?
So we are not just talking about reducing nitrogen oxide in the Brenner pass. We need a coherent transport concept for the whole of the Alps and we need to internationalise the external costs.
Until we apply real costs, roads will be cheaper and neither combined transport nor the railways will be able to compete.
The whole of the ecologically sensitive Alpine region needs our support within the terms of the Alpine Convention.
Our citizens, and I do not just mean in these sensitive regions, are counting on the European Parliament and the sense of responsibility of all its members.
Mr President, this topic involves much more than just a traffic problem.
It is a matter of how the European Union treats its promises to newcomers, the rights of its smaller Member States and interests other than simply those of the economy.
For years, Switzerland and Austria have protected their Alpine valleys against noise and air pollution from goods traffic.
That kind of protection gains in importance as this environmentally-unfriendly means of transport increases.
When Austria joined the European Union, a compromise was agreed that enabled this Member State partially to maintain this protection by reducing NOx emissions by 60% between 1992 and 2004.
Others also benefit from that measure, since it encourages the restriction of transport or its transfer to rail connections that are better for people and the environment.
The underlying principle was not to wait for cleaner technologies, but to empower a government to limit transport by establishing ceilings.
Seven years after this compromise, the Commission is trying unilaterally to deprive Austria of that right and at this late stage to give free rein to north-south road traffic, even if the limit of 108% is exceeded.
If the European Union behaves in this way with its smaller Member States, that will increasingly provoke antagonism and opposition.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left supports the rapporteur in his rejection of this attack by the Commission, the large Member States and the big transport conglomerates.
Mr President, not only the number and distribution of ecopoints in Austria, but also the ecopoint system itself, lead to a highly-charged discussion with repeated heated clashes between supporters and opponents.
This time is no exception.
When Austria joined the European Union, limited access for in-transit transport of goods was agreed until the end of 2003.
The Commission wants to revoke one of the components of this agreement.
The rapporteur regards the unilateral (partial) termination of protocol No 9 without acceptable alternatives as a breach of agreements entered into.
The present system in Austria - does not seem to be flawless.
The fact that no account is taken of large groups of road users when measuring emissions does not contribute to a clear picture of emissions caused by in-transit traffic.
At the same time, Austria has not yet fulfilled its obligation to offer sufficient alternatives to the Alpine route.
I am convinced that Europe cannot do without transport, but neither can it do without a healthy natural environment in which we ultimately all live.
Therefore I support initiatives to limit emissions in general and in vulnerable areas of natural beauty, in particular.
The rejection of this proposal by the Commission therefore does not stand in isolation, but falls within this framework.
The question does arise, though, what the future of in-transit traffic through Austria will be after 2003, when the ecopoint system has disappeared.
In order to tackle environmental damage to the Alps constructively, a policy for vulnerable areas is essential.
For as long as this is lacking, ad hoc measures will appear which are seldom constructive in nature.
Hence my question to the Commission if it is going to tackle this topic in the long-awaited White Paper.
In short, I do not consider it sensible, while there is no wider policy for vulnerable areas, to take unilateral measures that cannot be expected to promote sustainable mobility.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I speak as an Austrian, but I also speak as a European for three reasons.
First, the Transit Agreement was part of a Union promise to Austria. The promise being that the sensitive Alpine region would not be buried under an endless avalanche of transit traffic.
Austrians trusted in Europe's word.
66% of Austrians were in favour of accession to the Union.
If this Commission proposal is adopted, this promise will be broken.
I speak to you as a European; this is the sort of thing which will come back to haunt us if another referendum somewhere in Europe turns out badly.
Secondly, transit traffic and hence the 108% clause, which it is proposed to abolish, forms part of the Act of Accession to the European Union.
In other words, the Transit Agreement is primary law.
I ask you in all conscience: what is an agreement worth if the European Parliament can undermine primary law in a vote? This is also a question of principle, not just Austrian, but European principle.
Thirdly, a question to all of you: what are words on paper worth? To quote the new Article 6 in the Treaty of Amsterday: "Environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the definition and implementation of the Community policies and activities referred to in Article 3", such as the free movement of goods.
Tomorrow's vote will be a measure of just how seriously this House takes the objective of this article in the Treaty of Amsterday.
Or, ladies and gentlemen, do we just pay lip service here to environmental protection and sustainable development?
The contest tomorrow is free movement of goods versus environmental protection - it is a fundamentally European question, which is why I call on you to vote in favour of the report.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, we need to get one thing straight here. This hypothesis, that the Community is breaking Treaty law is simply nonsense.
Treaty law makes provision for adjustment and this proposal adjusts just one point of the law.
So it is not a question of breaking Treaty law.
The non-attached member is moaning that we are not treating the environment properly and is calling for environmental protection.
Well my question to my fellow Austrian member is this: when will you stump up the money for the Brenner base tunnel? Then you would be doing something for environmental protection.
We are, in fact, taking far too long about implementing the Brenner base tunnel. That is the only real solution to the problem of transit traffic in the Alps.
Instead of bandying fine words, Madam, you would do well to push ahead with plans for the base tunnel and stump up the money.
That would be your job in a government in which you are represented.
We do not need vox pops!
Mr Stockmann made a great number of valid points, namely that the main objective, to reduce NOx emissions, has in fact almost been achieved and that the 108% clause is disproportionate and inaccurate.
Mr Stockmann, vote with us tomorrow in favour of the Commission proposal and you will achieve exactly what you want to achieve.
I can understand that you do not want to stab your Austrian rapporteur in the back, but consider carefully how you intend to vote tomorrow.
Vote in favour of the Commission proposal.
Just two more brief comments.
If we maintain this clause, there will be no change in real freight volumes; instead the transit journeys which are no longer possible will be replaced by a journey using one haulier into Austria, transhipment and a journey using another haulier out of Austria.
In other words, transit would be split, we would have more exhaust emissions and more costs to consumers.
That is not the solution.
The solution is to build the Brenner base tunnel so that we can shift freight from the roads to the railways in the long term.
That is what we should be fighting for.
Mr President, may I first express my appreciation of Mr Swoboda' s arguments and also of the thoroughness of the work he has done.
At the same time, we are fully convinced that the set objective of the protocol in question is a good one: the environmental protection of Austria within the Alpine region.
The Commission intends to maintain this objective, and we are also convinced, as the proposed regulation to the Commission suggests, that the 108% clause should be eliminated.
I shall confine myself quickly to two puzzling facts.
The first is a matter of logic: the clause operates on the number of transit journeys, regardless of the ecological performance of the vehicle, and therefore more ecologically friendly vehicles mean more ecopoints saved, more journeys accumulated and a greater risk of going over the 108% quota.
The result is a paradox: operators are discouraged from choosing less polluting vehicles.
The second puzzle is a practical one: the sampling system is unreliable, the critical threshold would seem to be exceeded by 0.6%, or 10 000 journeys, but according to a Commission study there are 92 000 vehicles that entered Austria and did not leave.
We are dealing with a system that has demonstrated that it is absolutely unreliable: the 108% limit has not been proved effective; the penalties are quite excessive, with 150 rights of transit less as a result of exceeding the 108% threshold.
Mr President, these are the technical and objective reasons why the Italian delegation will vote in favour of the Commission proposal.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the long term, our views are not so very different.
As far as we can tell from the Commissioner's future plans as they stand now, she wants the same thing we all want and need, i.e. specially sensitive transport rules for specially sensitive areas. That was precisely the intention of the original Transit Agreement between the Community as it was then and Austria, standing as it did on the brink of accession in every sense of the word.
And the solutions worked out just under ten years ago and the compromises brokered for Alpine transit at the time have, on the whole, worked.
The ecopoint system has brought about a net improvement in the environmentally problematic nitrogen oxide situation, despite all its weaknesses, and the quantitative upper ceiling and 108% rule, which is what this is all about, has at least gone some way towards acting as a safety net, as hoped, despite a whole series of problems.
So why now and why, given the current situation, terminate a fundamental element of the arrangement prematurely for such as short period of time? This is the question people in Austria are asking and they are not getting an answer.
Unless the idea is to end transit traffic restrictions, including - more to the point - in sensitive Alpine regions.
I think we shall all be doing future European transport policy a disservice if we jeopardise the common, long-term objective or completely lose sight of it for the sake of a few relatively minor inconsistencies and squabbles.
That is why I think the position adopted two months ago by an admittedly narrow majority in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism is the right one.
This committee position could be used as a springboard for renewed efforts to find jointly acceptable solutions, rather than creating huge emotional and political problems for Austria and its citizens.
Austria versus the rest of the world? That cannot and should not be.
We should all being pulling together to find good, forward-looking solutions to European transport problems.
That should be our objective and I trust that we shall return a vote tomorrow which guarantees that.
Mr President, Commissioner, I do not think it is right to separate the supporters of the Commission' s measure and those against it into those who have the environment at heart and those who do not.
This is an error into which we must not fall, and I must say this with all due respect to the Members from Austria: your representation of the situation is not useful to your fellow citizens.
We are all concerned with safeguarding and protecting the environment, and the question of the Alpine passes, amongst others, affects not only Austria but also a large part of a sensitive area like the Alpine region on the Italian side.
Why do I say this? Because in the Commission' s proposal, which we share and support, we see the same environmental concern.
It has been said that the ecopoints system will not be touched because it has produced results, and this has been confirmed.
On the other hand it has been observed - and this cannot be denied - that the ceiling system actually punishes those hauliers that try to adopt ecologically friendly procedures, as has been said, while instead encouraging bad practice, as you well know, and even fraudulent practices: for instance, many lorries go in with a bill of lading, unload in Austria and then leave, and so are not subject to the points clause.
All that does no more good to the environment than it does to the transport system.
Of course, there is also a problem of guaranteeing mobility, there is a problem of guaranteeing competition among haulage companies, but there is most of all an environmental problem.
I ask you to take in the aspect of concern for the environment that is expressed in the Commission proposal; I agree with you all that we certainly need to find stable, definitive solutions for the future, which will really protect us from these risks.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to thank Mr Swoboda for the work he has carried out, although having said that, I must tell him that I cannot agree to his suggestion or to what he says in his report, because the Protocol is categorical on this matter.
Article 11 of Protocol No 9 discusses NOx pollution..
Nowhere does it mention noise or any other type of pollution.
The objective of Article 11 is to limit gas emissions and NOx emissions and nowhere does it mention any other types of pollution that could have been suggested but which, at the time, were not suggested and were not included.
Furthermore, when Article 11 discusses a revision - and I am here attempting to answer what was said earlier - the Commission is not trying to steamroller nor to exceed the legal obligations that bind us all, but to adhere strictly to the provisions of Article 11 of Protocol No 9 to the Act of Accession, in other words, to undertake a revision, to see precisely how it has developed. And yet people are suggesting that we are proposing equivalent measures in order to reduce NOx emissions.
Please read it.
I requested the text in order to read it out to you.
Unfortunately I do not have it here with me, but I can quote you part of the text, which states that, pursuant to Article 71, which covers codecision, it authorises the Council and now Parliament - following recent changes to the Treaty codecision applies - to adopt Community measures that - and I quote verbatim - "guarantee equivalent protection of the environment, in particular, a 60% reduction in pollution" .
Ladies and gentlemen, I must tell you that we are not trying to steamroller or to exceed the provisions of Protocol No 9 to Austria' s Act of Accession.
I fully realise that there may be difficulties and I also know that Austria is suffering as a result of the vehicles transiting through it, as are other countries, which may, incidentally, suffer from other types of problem too.
I also understand that regions such as the Alpine regions and other particularly sensitive areas of the European Union can and should be given special protection where transport is concerned, road transport above all.
Not the whole of Austria, however, which is what this Protocol refers to.
The Alpine regions are a part of Austria, but not only of Austria.
To this end, the principle of ecopoints - let me make this quite clear - has been positive and has reduced NOx emissions by more than 50%.
We have not reached the ceiling of 60%, but a reduction of over 50% has been achieved.
I stated, although I did not give a firm commitment, that I intend to propose, as stated in the White Paper on transport policy - which I hope you will soon be able to read, that for particularly sensitive areas such as the Alps, measures must be taken to limit the potentially harmful effects for the environment.
The system of ecopoints itself could be one solution.
Perhaps.
I am not saying that it is the solution, but it could be one.
There must be an ecopoint system - which leads me to the final point - that really works because this, Mr Swoboda, is the problem and this is another point on which I disagree with you.
You say that with a ceiling of 108%, hauliers still see a benefit, for the moment, in improving the environmental quality of their lorries.
You are wrong, Mr Swoboda.
It is not in their interest at all, because if their ceiling is 108% why should they make improvements when, with this number of trips they reach a ceiling that they cannot raise by reducing emissions, since they cannot travel more often without penalties being imposed on them?
At the moment, the two clauses contradict each other, which is why we are proposing that they be removed.
If we want to continue improving emissions, the 108% clause must be withdrawn, because otherwise, some of the better lorries might stop transiting through Austria because they have too many ecopoints and lack transit rights as a result of this 108%.
This could lead to the use of lorries that pollute more.
This is of no importance: it is no longer in anyone' s interest to improve the quality of their emissions because the ceiling is set at 108%.
This is why we are proposing that it be removed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, starting from the premise that there can always be divergent legal interpretations, as I freely admit, I feel that the provisions of Protocol No 9, Article 11 state that a review should be carried out, that equivalent measures should be proposed and that the objective is NOx emissions.
They also state that, if we want to continue improving NOx emissions, our only option is to remove the 108% ceiling because, if we maintain this ceiling, there is no incentive to improve environmental quality with regard to emissions by European hauliers transiting through Austria.
I therefore urge Parliament to support the Commission proposal and to reject - I am sorry, Mr Swoboda, but for the first time we cannot agree - Mr Swoboda' s proposal.
Mr President, I should like to stress that the Commissioner was quite right in what she said.
The Treaty can only be revised, and rightly so, if equivalent measures are introduced.
Exactly what are they then?
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Cultural cooperation in the EU
The next item is the report (A5-0281/2001) by Mr Ruffolo, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on cultural cooperation in the European Union [2000/2323(INI)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this motion for a resolution has arisen from some simple but not obvious observations.
The first observation concerns a lack of coordination among the cultural programmes of the Union, especially between those included in Culture 2000 and those in the programmes financed by the Structural Funds.
The second observation is especially that there is a gap between the programmes managed at Union level and national cultural policies, based purely and simply on the reciprocal provision of information.
A positive response to these two observations depends on the recognition of two points: first, the principle of subsidiarity not only does not exclude cooperation but demands it.
It must not be understood in terms of sectarian cultural protectionism, but in a positive and active sense as a fertile encounter of diverse cultures.
The second point to recognise is that the richness and specific character of European civilisation lies in the diversity of its national and regional cultures.
Therefore, the expression 'unity in diversity' has been chosen as the motto of the report.
European culture is clearly not a homogeneous unit: it is a collection of diverse cultures, each with its own historical roots and its area of radiation; I might almost say it is a symphony in the technical musical sense of the word, in that it develops through consonance and dissonance: a symphony not created by a single composer, however, but resulting from the course of history, through dramatic conflicts and occasional religious, nationalist and ideological massacres.
Nonetheless, today, at last, there is a convergence on common humanistic values of liberty, equality and, if not fraternity - which would be too much to ask - then at least mutual tolerance. These are values which are recognised in a common area; they are distinguished both from distinctly consumer cultures and from fundamentalist ones, and are based upon the great traditions of Christianity, liberalism and socialism.
A common European culture was, besides, recognised at the time of Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam, when Erasmus rode to Oxford on a mule to take his friend In Praise of Folly.
There was a lingua franca but no monetary union, and so on his return his honestly earned pounds sterling were confiscated from him.
Today there are no more journeys on mule-back because we use aeroplanes, there is no longer a lingua franca but we have our wonderful simultaneous interpreters.
In short, all the material conditions are in place for a European culture to spread its message of peace and civil order throughout the world, because Europeans can tap into a rich vein of cooperation in the cultural field.
Such cooperation is affirmed, or rather invoked in the Treaties and official speeches, but funding does not follow as it could and should do.
Instead, concrete decisions end up loudly contradicting the solemn declarations, decisions and non-decisions, like the unfortunate one at Nice which paralysed European cultural policy.
This motion for a resolution is an attempt to react to this paralysis, to pragmatically encourage cooperation among European countries in the field of culture, beginning with the obvious requirements of adopting a common vocabulary, comparable statistics, the reciprocal provision of information, systematic comparisons, a selection of best practices and the opening up of areas in which it seems most suitable and appropriate to adopt common approaches and policies.
I ardently hope, Mr President, that the Commission will match its efforts to the aims and give the resolution the attention it deserves, placing the problem of culture and cultural cooperation at the centre of the great European project.
We are different and united at the same time: this is an opportunity to show it!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Ruffolo' s report seeks to achieve better and deeper cooperation between the Member States, with regard to their respective cultural policies.
It also makes another good point that should be highlighted: the Commission' s cultural policy, specifically in its implementation of the Culture 2000 framework programme, should prevent a degree of fluctuation in the criteria for the selection of candidates.
The Commission is swamped every year with a huge variety of proposals, but the resources available to it are ridiculously limited and there are many agents and operators whose valid proposals are passed over as a result of these limitations.
The Commission is currently trying to come up with procedures that will, in its opinion, provide a better response to these problems.
The follow-up to Culture 2000 will soon be studied and we shall make a statement on it.
Using the instruments described in Mr Ruffolo' s report will ultimately provide the Commission with more precise data on the cultural policies of the Member States and on the cultural requirements they feel they have.
A cultural policy at European level must take these factors into consideration when defining its objectives and outlining its criteria for selecting candidates.
We should not forget that we are talking about a European cultural policy and not about national policies.
These, incidentally, are also covered, to a great extent, by the Structural Funds, and it therefore makes sense to take account of the dual nature of the resources involved. Nevertheless, we must methodically separate the scope of a European cultural policy, on the one hand, from the range of national policies, on the other.
At European level, therefore, the institutions should concern themselves mainly with the implications of the cultural heritage common to all of Europe and avoid confusion with national policies developed by the Member States without prejudice, of course, to stimulating multilateral dialogue between the contemporary creations of these States.
A European cultural policy must contribute to actively placing Europe' s huge and multifaceted cultural heritage within the grasp of its citizens.
Mr President, I welcome what I believe we will all agree is an exemplary piece of work.
We now have a comprehensive blueprint for the way in which cultural policy could operate in the Union.
The rapporteur has worked particularly well with the initiator of policy and legislation in the European Commission.
I should like to make a few points.
First of all we have to acknowledge in this House and beyond that the creative and knowledge industries have become a driver in our new global economy and that the skills that we need therein have become vital to our performance in the European economy.
More than this, the social and philosophical needs that we have in mastering the cultural question become central to ensuring that we have stability in our globalised world.
This means that we have to recognise the importance of funding for cultural activities.
We have to face some very difficult questions: for instance, an increasingly small part of our economy in the new global world is agriculture.
The common agricultural policy, as we all know, takes a vast amount of our funds.
If we are to recognise the primacy of the knowledge and information economy in the new global economy then we have to face the reality of looking at different priorities for our fundings.
All the measures in the Ruffolo report are deliverable, but in order to deliver we must ensure that we have cooperation across institutions and at different levels of government.
This means that we must look, for instance, at the structural funds and the way in which we monitor the amount of money that is spent on cultural activities.
Recently a Commission official said to me that we could not do this.
I have to inform him that all he needs do is to go to any of the municipalities in the Union and they will tell him how to do it.
That is what officials are employed to do.
He could even look at the Single Programming Documents in order to do this.
It is possible to do it when we need to.
I say this not to slight the Commission or their staff but to say that cooperation is needed in order to achieve what Mr Ruffolo, in such an exemplary manner, has set out.
Mr President, I want first of all to thank Mr Ruffolo for all the dedicated work he has done on this report.
Allow me to remind you that it was also at Mr Ruffolo' s request that a statistical comparison of the Member States' cultural activities was made.
This was a very interesting and relevant document.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has no doubt that culture is a fundamental component of the EU' s identity.
Our group believes that respect for, and promotion of, cultural and linguistic diversity and of the common cultural inheritance is an essential factor in integration and the promotion of human individuality.
We want to see a European cultural policy which is not in any way aimed at uniformity but which offers the kind of identity that arises in the encounter of differences - a policy which contributes to social cohesion and which is essential to the sense of being a European citizen.
Cultural policy is one of the EU' s small policy areas, and that is the way it should be, too.
The EU must expend its energies on the key areas: the internal market, economic policy, foreign policy and asylum and immigration policy, and that is why we must also be very cautious about otherwise well-meaning initiatives in the area of cultural policy.
Allow me also to remind you that people want decisions to be taken as close to themselves as possible.
That was what the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, emphasised here in the House earlier today.
The EU must not be involved in governing Europe in detail. That is best left to the Member States.
That is why the ELDR Group has tabled amendments designed completely to remove conclusions 8 and 10.
We believe that these are conclusions intended to broaden the scope of Article 151 of the treaty, and that is not something we want to be a party to.
We also believe that the proposals are contrary to the principle of subsidiarity, something we take very seriously.
Finally, we do not consider that the time is ripe for extending the economic framework of the EU' s activities in the area of cultural policy, something to which the proposal also refers.
The ELDR Group cannot support the report if conclusions 8 and 10, or the compromise amendments to these, are adopted.
Mr President, a very good evening and welcome to Europe's first culture channel.
But joking apart, what can I say to you in just a minute? Perhaps I should try to take the wind out of the sceptics' sails.
This is not about intervention, it is not about interfering in national cultural policy, no new wave of harmonisation is being started; on the contrary, it is about bringing sermonising politicians down to earth and saying, could you please stop using subsidiarity as a veto.
It is about saying, if you really mean that culture is one of the most important models for the peaceful integration of Europe, then you must put your money where you mouth is.
We try to join forces in so many areas; why should culture go it alone?
Joint investment by Europe in culture - I like that expression better than subsidy, it is not just a question of financial support - is long overdue.
May I run over time slightly in order to pay my respects and offer my thanks to all the members who have patiently fought to make headway here over the years, long before my arrival here.
I should like to thank them for every millimetre of ground won and I too shall fight for more, millimetre by millimetre.
Mr President, Commissioner, the nicest compliment that can paid to Mr Ruffolo, I think, is to ask a question which, to my mind, is the most significant, the question of the budget.
If he tells us that 0.1% of the Community budget is set aside for culture, when we know full well that a Europe of Culture is advancing, how much is coming from the European Structural Funds, as Mrs O'Toole stated?
What I would like to know, and I think Mr Ruffolo would also like to know, is what are the European Structural Funds set aside for culture, what this represents and what this means for a Europe of Culture currently under construction. If this Europe of Culture is effectively under construction, then let us take on board all of Mr Ruffolo' s proposals: it could be that he is proposing to change the Treaty by proposing a cultural observatory.
Perhaps we could also propose a cultural policy, and I would really like to know your feelings on reinforced cooperation, on the extension of the qualified majority, in short, on all that could be used to build a cultural policy in Europe in a concrete and non-abstract fashion.
Mrs Echerer told us no long debates, and I agree with her, of course, but I must say that as far as I am concerned there should be a clear description of budgetary expenditure on culture.
We know very well that wherever we go in Europe, we find out that it is not such and such a programme that provides the appropriate financing but these often talked about Structural Funds.
Why can we not find out what is happening with these Structural Funds? This would perhaps be the best proof and the best argument if those Members who are not interested in culture are to support us in our cultural project.
Mr President, we have before us a great own-initiative report which is so important that, in my opinion, it could easily have been called 'Bases for a common cultural policy' , because this is what they could be if the Council takes a sensitive approach to our requests.
Our cultural identity is being protected all the time and this is right and proper because it is an important part of Europe' s cultural heritage.
The rapporteur himself, in a cogent phrase, defined the situation in Europe as the unity of diversities.
But do the Members of the Council not think that it is also time that we discussed what is common to all our cultures, to seek it out, to cherish its common components, ways of life, customs, shared values, knowledge, art and scientific development? Do they not think that it is time to state that a European culture does indeed exist, to develop joint cultural policies and to set common objectives for all our member States?
In a globalised world and given the danger of passively adopting one particular dominant culture, cultural convergence within the European Union represents a powerful political bulwark that we should not reject.
To those nationalists who, from within or from outside the Union, reject the future of the European Union because, according to them, we do not share a common identity, we must reply with the words of Levy Strauss, who said: "We do not need one, because we have something much stronger: a common destiny" .
The purpose of my words, Mr President, is to congratulate Mr Ruffolo for having reminded us so brilliantly of the path that we must take in the field of culture.
One final comment.
The request that a work of art be installed in infrastructures and installations financed with Community funds seeks not only to protect and to spread art in Europe, but to ensure that the public knows and remembers that this airport, that motorway, or such-and-such railway line, comes from the Community, a fact of which today, unfortunately, people tend to be unaware.
Mr President, this resolution is Parliament' s first legislative initiative in cultural matters based on Article 192 of the Treaty and is distinguished from the other resolutions approved by Parliament in the field of culture not only in its content but also in its procedure, certainly the most authoritative yet allowed under the Treaty.
The resolution has come at a delicate time for the European Union, on the eve of major institutional reforms; it is therefore seen as an indication and a contribution from Parliament to the debate on the future of Europe.
If all this is true, you will of course allow me, Mr President, sincerely, in my capacity as committee Chairman, to congratulate the rapporteur in advance this evening - something that we generally do as a matter of course when we vote - because I really believe this is a step forward, a major revolution that Parliament is on the point of making.
Actually, the lack of coordination at the level of cultural programmes, which the rapporteur has highlighted, is in my mind the most important fact in being able to make Europe grow and, as Mr Ruffolo has said, culture has until now had a much lesser role than the economy.
With the Maastricht Treaty conditions improved but it remained marginal; then in Nice it was held paralysed in the bonds of unanimity.
All that shows how Europe can be made, Commissioner, not just through the economy, but through a major cultural initiative, of which Parliament should take full note.
Precisely because this resolution is wanted and has, I believe, been passionately discussed by the committee until they reached unanimity - wanted by the rapporteur and discussed and wanted by the committee as a whole - I believe it really shows a difference, a diversity, a new reason for this Parliament, as part of a strategy that must, at a cultural level, lead us to unity in the cultural diversity that this great Europe has, in order for there to be a future in a real strategy over the coming years.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12.10 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, this concerns a matter arising from the Minutes in connection with the distribution of the report promised by Mr Kinnock in response to my oral question on Monday, which was raised in the Chamber yesterday afternoon.
I should like to confirm that this report is available.
I received it by e-mail from Mr Kinnock' s office, but as far as I can tell it has not yet been officially distributed to Members.
I know that Mr Kinnock was very keen that we should all have it as soon as possible so can I ask you once again to make sure that this is distributed.
On the same topic could I ask you, Mr President, on behalf of all the Members of this Parliament, if we could have a similar report to the one prepared by the Commission on the progress of the human resource reforms as regards the work that is going on with the staff of Parliament.
We are currently in a position where we know less about the progress of the personnel reforms in this House than we do in the Commission.
Could I ask you to discuss with your colleagues and arrange for a statement and a report to be made to this House as soon as possible about the progress of these crucial reforms which were solidly supported by the House when it approved my report last year?
On the first part, I was here when the President gave you the assurance that Mr Kinnock' s report would be distributed.
I will ask the services to make sure that is done.
On the second part, the Bureau of Parliament is meeting tonight.
Unfortunately I will not be there but I will ask for this to be raised at the Bureau this evening.
(The Minutes were approved)
Echelon
The next item is the report (A5-0264/2001) by Gerhard Schmid, on behalf of the Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System, on the existence of a global system for the interception of private and commercial communications (ECHELON interception system) (2001/2098(INI)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the presidency has read the European Parliament' s motion for a resolution on the ECHELON interception system with great interest and will be following the debate on the subject intently.
I am delighted with Parliament' s thorough investigation into this matter.
This initiative is in line with the traditional democratic supervisory role of legislative meetings.
It reflects the concerns of many EU citizens with regard to that system.
Moreover, I should like to draw attention to the fact that, during your activities in this connection, the Council presidency has, at all times, shown its willingness to cooperate loyally with Parliament.
The Portuguese, French and Swedish Presidencies have all accepted Parliament' s invitation to clarify their position in this matter, both at plenary meetings and at meetings of your temporary committee.
It is therefore in that capacity that I am here today attending the discussion of the report and of the resolution of the temporary committee and that I wish to express my sympathy with Parliament' s concern in this matter.
As you will know, the word 'sympathy' in Greek - to refer to one of the old languages - means 'empathy' .
The fact that the parliamentary bodies of my own country have also devoted attention to the interception of communications, as evidenced in two Belgian parliamentary reports which were sent to Mr Schmid and which are mentioned in his report, reinforces my belief that the political issue involved is complex, yet important.
I hope that you will nevertheless understand that I, as President of the Council, must limit my reaction to those aspects which are related to the Council or the Union' s institutions in general.
It is not my role to react on behalf of or in respect of individual Member States.
The basic principles that must govern all communications interception systems are well known.
Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights - an article that the EU must respect under the terms of Article 6 of the Treaty establishing the European Union - stipulates that everyone has a right to the respect for his privacy.
Under the same Article, and also according to the Court of Justice' s established case law, there shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and which is necessary to achieve precisely stated aims and where this respects the principle of proportionality.
Basing its work on these principles, the Justice and Home Affairs Council met on 29 and 30 May 2000 and reiterated the Council' s commitment, as regards the Echelon network, to the respect of fundamental rights and people' s freedoms.
The Council also stressed that although a telecommunications interception system may be an important tool to combat crime and to defend national security, under no circumstances, however, should this system be used to gain commercial advantage.
These principles were also included in the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 29 May 2000 between the Member States of the European Union.
Article 20 of this Convention thus specifies the conditions in which telecommunications interception may be permitted within the framework of cooperation between Member States in criminal matters.
(FR) The respect for one' s private life is now also one of the rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights adopted in Nice at the end of last year.
Article 7 of the Charter lays down that any person has a right to the respect for his privacy and family life, the respect for his home and his communications.
The Council is obviously willing to make full use of these provisions.
You will see that Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000, on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data by Community institutions and bodies, is evidence that the Community institutions already share the determination to protect people against the abuse of their personal data.
(NL) The right to respect for private and family life and data protection are closely related.
Moreover, we know that thanks to continuous technological advancements, the efficient protection of personal data cannot remain restricted to the Union' s borders but must be extended worldwide.
That is why the Union is trying to promote a dialogue with third countries, as well as a transatlantic dialogue with the United States and Canada.
An initial meeting of experts on legal systems for data protection has already taken place last May in Brussels during the Swedish Presidency.
During a Legal and Home Affairs meeting involving top American officials, which took place on 17 July of this year, both the presidency and the United States recognised the need for reaching an agreement in this area.
A second meeting was to take place under the Belgian Presidency, this time at the invitation of the US, to lay the groundwork for future agreements.
With this report by Mr Schmid drawn up on behalf of the Temporary ECHELON Committee, Parliament has more than met what is expected within the Union in terms of quality.
Therefore, Parliament and the Schmid report are fundamental to greater awareness of this issue.
The Council and the presidency, each within their own remit, will make every effort to guarantee fully respect for private and family life and data protection, both within the Union and elsewhere.
After all, electronic communication is only set to increase in future.
Communications are, by definition, private in nature, and their confidentiality must be guaranteed.
It would, therefore, be totally unacceptable, on grounds of principle, for communications to be tapped without a very legitimate reason indeed and without those tapping the communications being subjected to any kind of democratic control.
The Belgian Presidency sets great store by the security of networks and information.
A policy which is predominantly based on Commission communication COM (2001) 298 which, on the one hand, draws attention to the need to fight cyber crime and, on the other, indicates the need to protect data in the field of telecommunication.
Today' s communication offers fresh food for thought, and the Belgian Presidency intends to continue on this path.
Accordingly, we wish, first of all, to make progress in the development of an alarm and information system which aims to combat the risks inherent to the use of IT.
More specifically, the presidency hopes that the Telecommunications Council of 15 October next will result in a clear, common objective. That should enable the Telecommunications Council of December to lay down a detailed action plan and timeframe in terms of e-security.
Moreover, we intend to examine further the progress made by the Member States in the field of systems security within the framework of the implementation of the e-Europe 2002 action plan.
Different initiatives have been launched in the Member States in order to encourage citizens and businesses to make use of safe IT material.
In addition, the sixth Framework Programme concerning research, which is currently being discussed in the Council, should also emphasise all aspects related to security of networks and information traffic.
(FR) The revision of telecommunications legislation also contains some provisions updating European regulations, particularly on the protection of personal data and privacy.
Parliament will soon issue an opinion, at first reading, on this important text. The text includes, amongst others, general provisions on the confidentiality of communications, and on the general principle of deleting traffic and location data relating to these communications.
The general principle is, of course, qualified by the option given to the authorities responsible for public safety and for combating crime to request access to the information on a case-by-case basis.
As you know, the debate is still open on the length of time such information can be stored.
To sum up, I would like to return briefly to the issue of intelligence gathering.
In the military capabilities commitment declaration, annexed to the Nice European Council conclusions, the Member States acknowledged that serious effort would be needed in the area of intelligence so that, in future, the European Union has more strategic intelligence at its disposal.
The European Parliament motion for a resolution highlights the need for democratic monitoring of intelligence operations that might be established within the European Union.
This is a general principle, which we can only support.
More specifically, the presidency currently believes that, should this type of intelligence capability be established within the EU, we would have to investigate the procedures that would need to be implemented in order to ensure democratic monitoring of these activities.
These procedures would naturally have to take into account the particular nature of the intelligence field which, in order to function effectively, requires that information gathered remains confidential.
Mr President, to sum up and in conclusion, I would like to congratulate Mr Watson once again for his excellent work and I hope that you have an interesting debate.
I shall be staying in the House to listen to what you have to say.
Mr President, we welcome the fact that the report recognises and accepts that Echelon exists.
This is something that the Green Group stated a long time ago in this Parliament and we have now been vindicated.
However, the report fails to draw any political conclusions.
It is also extremely hypocritical in that it criticises the Echelon interception system, while at the same time we are planning to establish a European secret service.
In other words, it is not that there is a problem with this system as such, it is just that the EU wants to be able to do the same and have its own system.
The report naively gives the impression that if you have some sort of democratic control, all will be okay.
It is a well known fact that there is no effective public control mechanism of secret services and their undemocratic activities anywhere in the world.
By their very nature, secret services cannot be controlled and therefore we, as Members of this Parliament, who claim to be concerned about human rights and basic civil liberties, should be questioning their very existence.
But, on the contrary, the report serves to legitimise a European secret service which will inevitably infringe fundamental rights in the same way as the Echelon system.
The temporary committee and the report focus mainly on the threat to European industrial competition and the threat posed by industrial espionage.
But this is not the vital and fundamental issue.
The real issue at stake, which is totally lost in this report, is that nobody can communicate in confidence any more.
This is the real threat to us all.
Political spying is a greater threat than economic spying.
Recently there have been reports in British newspapers which point out that European leaders have ordered police and intelligence agencies to coordinate their efforts to identify and track anti-capitalist demonstrators.
This will give a green light to secret services to put under surveillance people whose activities are entirely democratic and legal.
Whole political and social scenes will be criminalised.
Very private information about people will be accessible to police and secret services without those people having any say or control.
The report goes to great lengths to push these kinds of dangers under the carpet.
It also ignores the plans that are forging ahead on the Enfopol interception system in the EU.
We, as Members of the European Parliament, should be demanding that people' s freedoms and the right to privacy, as enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention and Article 6 of the EU Treaty, are protected and that people are not forced to live under permanent control where the possibility exists that every communication they make will be accessible to unknown forces.
Finally, the report lets the UK off the hook.
It should have requested at the very least that the UK dissociate itself from the management of the Echelon system and it should also have asked Germany to close down the interception base which is located on its territory.
These Member States, which are collaborating, were let off the hook totally.
Mr President, Echelon is an interception system which does not differentiate between communications, data and documents. It does exist and represents a considerable step forwards.
From now on, the Union' s institutions, particularly the representatives of the Council and the Commission, will no longer be able to say that information reported in the media is inaccurate.
There is, however, inconsistency between what has been ascertained and the conclusions of the report, for the system flagrantly infringes the fundamental right to privacy guaranteed by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union.
In fact, because of its technical capabilities, the system nullifies the relationship of proportionality which, precisely within the meaning of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, has to exist between interference in people' s private lives and the benefits of interception for protection purposes.
This is all the more serious in that interception is currently carried out by means of these technical capabilities by a third country on EU territory and to the detriment of the citizens of the countries of the Union, without the possibility of any sort of legal, administrative or parliamentary control.
A further problem is that one of the countries managing the Echelon system is the United Kingdom, a Member of the European Union, while other Member States such as Germany have made their territory available for the siting of antennae, listening posts and other equipment.
Quite simply, the group of English-speaking countries managing Echelon is doing what it likes with the privacy of European citizens, as is explicitly noted in point 26 of the conclusion, cited by Mrs Flesch moreover, which means that Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights is being infringed.
However, rather than trusting the United Kingdom not to abuse the information, we should at least have recorded its infringement of this article and noted the fact that its participation in the Echelon system is incompatible with its responsibilities under the European Treaties.
Genuine safeguarding of fundamental rights in the USA is essential for the credibility and democratic legitimacy of that country.
However, we have, yet again, chosen to waste an opportunity, at least for us, to uphold a democratic principle.
For others, on the other hand, at a historic moment when great, dark clouds are gathering over the right to dissent in the EU and at world level - as we have learnt from Genoa - it would be unthinkable to abolish or at least attempt to modify and reduce the capabilities of an indiscriminate listening system, one of the most useful systems for social monitoring and, where necessary, crime prevention.
Mr President, this report and its failure to draw the appropriate conclusions reduce the fundamental right to privacy, so solemnly enshrined in our Treaties and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, to a right which only exists on paper, or rather to a right which, tragically, is worth no more than the paper it is written on.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, I would like to congratulate Mr Schmid on his competent and skilful work, and also to praise Mr Coelho, who conducted the debates and organised this work in a very courteous manner.
We cannot, however, accept the political conclusion of the report, and we will therefore vote against it, and I call upon all my fellow Members to do the same.
As previous speakers have mentioned, the report confirmed the existence of a US espionage system, operated by the Americans in collusion with two Member States, in breach of Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union and of the most basic rules on respect for one' s private life, a system which involves intensive industrial espionage to the benefit of American companies.
The report has shown that the European firms Siemens, Dassault, Phillips, Thomson and Airbus were the targets of espionage, and this has consequently had a serious effect on employment in Europe, on our commercial stability and on Europe' s defence industries.
Most of the Members in this House from the United Kingdom have put solidarity with the US before solidarity with Europe.
This is something we regret, but the report does not answer two fundamental questions.
The first is, although it has been established that at least one country, the United Kingdom, has been involved in espionage activity against Europe, in breach of the Treaty on European Union, what sanctions must we take? This is the first question, which remains unanswered.
The second question is that the Committee' s work has demonstrated perfectly well that, as long as we are within NATO, and as long as we are tied to using NATO' s technical and logistical resources, an independent European and common security policy will not be possible.
This is something we deplore.
The conclusion of the report is quite simply disquieting.
Mr President, as a European citizen, even more than as a Member of Parliament, I would like to quietly express my indignation at the way the committee' s work was carried out.
In its work, the committee systematically violated the Rules of Procedure, failing to comply with the obligation for transparency in Parliament' s activities and infringing the right of access to public documents.
Without wishing to belittle the work of committee chairman, Mr Coelho, or the rapporteur, Mr Schmid, in any way, it was necessary to organise the work in this way not in the interests of European security - which is an abstract concept in this context - but in order to conceal the responsibility of the Member States of the Union.
The report states quite clearly that Echelon does exist, that it systematically spies on citizens and companies of the Member States of the Union on a huge scale and that the United Kingdom is part of the system, but it does not condemn this fact openly because systematic and generalised interceptions, filtered using search engines are already being carried out by Germany, while Holland, which clearly has the necessary technology, is in the process of producing legislation which will allow it to carry out interceptions as well.
We can see from the report that Echelon is a prime example of a system which does not recognise citizens' right to privacy and subordinates privacy to national security, which is primarily endangered by the inability of politicians to foresee, prevent and deal with threats.
In the face of all this, the practical, immediate solution that emerges from the report is to invite companies and citizens to encrypt documents, as if the indissoluble link between cryptographic, code breaking and technical interception systems were not well known.
Mr President, the only political response which it is possible to give today is to be found in my minority opinion. Democratic scrutiny is essential.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to make five brief observations. The first is to thank all of those who worked so hard to achieve this final outcome: the specialists and technical experts whom we invited and those who wrote and e-mailed us with their studies and opinions, the coordinators of the political groups and the Members of the European Parliament, the staff of our committee, who provided high quality support for our work and the rapporteur, Gerhard Schmid, who has produced an outstanding report and provided evidence once again of his great qualities as a human being and as a politician.
It was an easy task to chair this committee with this kind of rapporteur.
Secondly, Echelon exists, whether under this name or any other.
The European Parliament should be in no doubt about this.
Thirdly, Echelon runs a risk, a serious risk of its network being abused. This is a commercial risk, which compromises the concept of fair trade, but also presents a risk for civil liberties.
The same Union that proclaimed the Charter of Fundamental Rights and which I hope will make it binding cannot be negligent in this matter.
Fourthly, we must improve the relationship between the European Union and the United States. We must be more effective.
In our mission to the United States, we were well received by Congress but met with the hostility of the Administration.
The report contains various important recommendations.
Europe and the United States must cooperate fairly - and I mean fairly - for the sake of the common values that they most definitely share.
Lastly, 44 recommendations have been tabled.
Giving the lie to those who predicted that the committee would not produce anything tangible, we are making 44 recommendations to the House.
I must emphasise the need to strengthen the European Convention on Human Rights with regard to protecting privacy in the information society, the need for Parliamentary and judicial control over the activity of the secret services, the need to extend defence practices such as the use of cryptography and electronic signatures, and the need for the European Institutions themselves to set an example by using these technologies.
Lastly, the request is made to the Union' s Member States to ensure in the future that the use of their countries by information gathering services, whether their own or of third countries, respects the European Convention on Human Rights.
Mr President, first of all, a big thank-you is due to Mr Schmid for an outstanding piece of work.
I think there are two good reasons for highlighting this work.
For one thing, it has been a mammoth task, but I also think that Mr Schmid can justifiably be commended specifically for not having succumbed to what might be referred to as sensationalism.
It would have been tempting to do so on this particular issue, but he confined himself to the facts and to what is actually the case.
We have, of course, managed to ascertain that ECHELON exists, and this naturally highlights the dilemma arising, on the one hand, from the fact that countries have a legitimate interest in using interception as one means of protecting themselves and their citizens against attacks and terrorism and, on the other, from the fact that the same citizens, as well as companies, have a need for protection against the misuse of precisely this type of surveillance.
Moreover, I specifically think that Mr Schmid' s report, which we must adopt today, is forward-looking and contains sound proposals for initiatives that might be taken.
I can only highlight a few of these: first and foremost, that the Member States should prepare a code of conduct to ensure the protection of citizens and companies throughout Europe, as required by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I also think it right to point out that there is a need to reach an understanding, and arrange for an agreement to be prepared, between the EU and the United States so that there might be mutual respect for the protection of citizens and companies.
We have a need for international rules in this area that are as tough as is humanly possible.
The need for legal and parliamentary supervision of the intelligence services in the Member States is also emphasised. Finally, I think that the fourth important point is that both the EU and the Member States have an obligation to ensure that people are thoroughly informed about the risks of interception and about the ways in which they, as well as companies, might best protect themselves against misuse of the system.
I want to say that, with this report, the Member States can no longer put their heads in the sand where this issue is concerned.
They can no longer say that it is just something they have read about in the newspapers.
There is now a need for countries to take responsibility for protecting their citizens and companies against violations.
Mr President, it is fortunate that the report, which most of the members of the temporary committee voted in favour of, acknowledges the existence of the Echelon network, despite American authorities maintaining a guilty silence.
I myself did not vote in favour due to the poor quality of the report' s conclusions.
Echelon is, in fact, one of the essential parts of the NSA, a sprawling global espionage network which employs approximately 90 000 people and which has the technical capacity to carry out hundreds of millions of interceptions each day.
This system is a real instrument of war against individual freedoms, and is controlled by only eight people, one of whom is the President of the United States, cynically called the 'gang of eight' by the chairman of the Congress monitoring committee.
The industrial and political espionage system was set up during the Cold War and its role is to defend what some dare to call the free world. The people who hold these views met us in Washington, in this state of mind and not without a degree of annoyance.
They asked us why we had come to try to cause trouble for them, when the money, armies and secret services of both the United States and Europe are defending the same values.
These are values that mean, for example, that on entry visas to the United States, the question 'Are you involved in Communist activities?' has been replaced by 'Are you involved in terrorist activities?'
It is now clear why no state or company has ever complained about the workings of Echelon - it is obviously to acknowledge the debt for services rendered.
It is now known that the United Kingdom and Germany act as intermediaries in this system, despite being members of the European Union and signatories of all the conventions on human rights.
Other countries, however, such as France, have similar practices.
Our response to Echelon will not be fine sounding speeches or technical measures such as encryption. We will respond by providing accurate information to the public about the choices it has in terms of society and by strictly applying the basic rights enshrined in the conventions on human rights.
Industrial espionage is the lot of a society motivated by profit and competition; political espionage is the by-product of an undemocratic society and this is the basic problem posed by the Echelon system.
We must respond to the global policing of interceptions with vigilance and popular intervention on a global scale and I maintain that European laws of today are better equipped to protect people against industrial espionage than against individual espionage.
This is one perception of Europe, but it is one that I do not support.
The temporary committee' s report expresses a thought-provoking blend of power and impotence, something we can, of course, see in the introductory quotation from one of the great satirists of antiquity, Juvenal, who formulates the hard but highly thought-provoking question, 'Who watches the watchmen?' Everyone seems to be agreed that the Committee' s main conclusion is an important demonstration of the fact that this Parliament can achieve a certain power.
The main conclusion is that completely convincing documentation has now successfully been put together to show that this worldwide surveillance system does in fact exist, but that is something of which we were, in actual fact, already well aware.
The Committee has assembled and registered documentation that has actually been available for years, at any rate to whoever has been prepared to do research into this state of affairs. However, it is valuable to have the huge amount of documentation that has been assembled.
It is required reading for every democrat.
However, this is, of course, where the impotence comes in, first of all through the documentation we have to do without.
The report concludes that it is 'surprising, not to say worrying, that many senior Community figures including European Commissioners, who gave evidence to the temporary committee, claimed to be unaware of this phenomenon' .
The statement is the closest approximation to an acknowledgement of the fact that the senior figures in the Commission are hiding behind a wall of silence and selective memory loss.
To put it bluntly, they are full of lies.
Did you hear that, Commissioner? A further demonstration of impotence lies in the sad conclusion that there is no effective supervision in terms of the national constitutions.
The report has an annex containing a survey of parliamentary and judicial supervision in the Member States.
Quite a few Member States have neither judicial nor parliamentary supervision and others - such as my own country, Denmark - have formal systems which, in practice, have shown their astonishing lack of effectiveness.
The sad answer to the question, 'Who watches the watchmen?' , is nobody.
Mr President, I believe that if ever there was a time to congratulate a rapporteur and the Chairman of a temporary committee, this is it, since they have produced a report which has been produced against all the odds.
The results of the work of the Temporary Committee on the ECHELON interception system, in my view, send the important political signal that the European institutions, and in particular the Commission, must take much more care over the security of their communications and that the Member States and the European Union must create a new legal framework to protect their citizens and to guarantee that the privacy of their communications is not jeopardised as a result of interception because those States have the technological means and potential to use it inappropriately.
These days, electronic mail, mobile telephones, videoconferencing and the Internet have broken down the physical borders between countries across the world.
And the most serious thing is that organised crime is using these means for their own advantage and even funding.
This gives rise to a question: why not direct all this potential for intercepting communications which, as has been demonstrated, the countries making up the ECHELON system have at their disposal, to combat terrorists, drug traffickers or the organised mafias which traffic in human beings, instead of using it for an international competition between States which is unfair by any reckoning?
All Member States of the European Union must dedicate all their efforts to defending the rights of their citizens, whether they be economic, social or political in nature, since anything less would represent a lack of compliance with the commitments laid down in the Treaties and, in particular, with the recent Charter of Fundamental Rights proclaimed at the Nice Summit by the fifteen Member States.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Gerhard Schmid, and other colleagues on the committee.
As Mr Schmid said, he had at the beginning a very difficult brief.
Let us remember that the pressure for this report came as a result of some quite fanciful journalism in different countries and some wild, weird and wonderful assertions, most of which served to undermine the very case that the authors themselves were trying to make.
The surprise of this report is the fact that very few of these allegations are substantiated.
Several speakers this morning have referred to the UK' s role in this matter.
The report acknowledges that every state in the European Union and elsewhere in the world needs some sort of interception to protect national security, safeguard its economy and fight crime.
That is nothing exceptional.
All the Member States do it, cooperating with each other and with other friendly democratic countries.
For example, to counter terrorism threats we need to collaborate with those who have the right skills and can help.
I know the United States is helping Spain in its current difficulties.
The UK also already ensures that any operations on UK soil are carried out with the full knowledge and consent of the UK government and are subject to UK law.
That means - I hope Mrs McKenna is listening - that everything is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
I hope we can put to rest some of the assertions and allegations that are still flying around about what is going on in the UK as well.
Furthermore, the UK stands completely by the conclusion reached in Council that in no circumstances may telecommunications interceptions be used to gain commercial advantage.
Numerous allegations were made before the report was published.
They have been repeated today by a colleague who has since left and, as Mr Schmid will testify and the report shows, there is no evidence to substantiate them.
I thank the rapporteur on his very comprehensive report and Mr Coelho for chairing the committee.
I too should like to thank the rapporteur for an outstanding piece of work.
I want to thank him for having taken the lid off this area and for having found an appropriate balance in the report.
It would not have aided further developments if Parliament had gone off in all possible directions at once.
This is one of the best examples of the European Parliament' s being able to make a difference and of its being able to perform a task which otherwise could not have been carried out because the individual parliaments would not have been up to the job. It is also a good example of there being a common area of effective operation in Europe that is of potential benefit to all citizens.
The purpose of the task can be summarised in three points. Is there such a thing as an ECHELON system?
If so, what does it do? And is there a need for democratic initiatives?
We can conclude that the system exists. Some say that we knew that already, but it is nonetheless necessary in a community founded on the rule of law to also supply proof of the fact.
We can also conclude that there are unacceptable interceptions of private and commercial communications and, against that background, the European Parliament proposes a long list of initiatives concerning what can be done.
Above all, a higher degree of democratic supervision could be introduced.
In that connection, it was also very pleasing to hear the presidency of the Council speak here today.
It offers hope that something will happen, both in the Member States and in the EU, for it is really astounding to hear those who exercise power reveal the extent of their ignorance and say that they have never heard of the system, even though there have been plenty of odds and ends written about it.
Had it not been for the European Parliament, they could have remained ignorant, and there is now a rather special form of democratic deficit that amounts to the inability either to hear or to read.
'Who watches the watchmen?' Well, the people do, of course; and if democracy is not working, the representatives of the people must be replaced by other representatives.
Mr President, we have now heard it said several times that Echelon really does exist.
The question is: what does Echelon entail? It entails a monitoring system which is tantamount to a massive global violation of fundamental rights, infringing not only the privacy of industrial communications but also the privacy of every form of communication between individuals.
This violation of human rights is surely the real scandal of Echelon.
But what exactly is the statement on this issue from the European Parliament? The essence of the message contained in this report is, in fact, that we condemn this system because it is operated primarily by the United States and because it works too well.
What countermeasure does the report propose? As a countermeasure, it proposes the establishment of an EU intelligence service.
As we know, there are also monitoring standards such as ETST, and European monitoring plans bearing the name Enfopol have come to light too.
Neither of these points is mentioned in the report, which essentially focuses on the monitoring that is undertaken by national intelligence agencies in violation of fundamental rights.
If we are tempted to follow the path that some Members would wish us to pursue and restrict our efforts to establishing control over the intelligence services, relying on democratic control of these bodies to solve the problem, we must first look at the various secret services around the world; as we do this, it will become clear to us that democratic control has never worked.
I know of no country in which it works.
So in my view it is no solution.
Let me make one more point on the subject of foreign policy, to which several references have already been made.
If an EU armed force is established, the logical consequence would be the creation of an EU intelligence service as well.
I am opposed to both of these developments, because I believe they will result in the militarisation of the EU.
If there is any serious intention to create an area in which peace, security and justice reign supreme, the intelligence services will have to be disbanded; the surveillance authorities will also have to be dissolved.
Then, perhaps, even former employees of the surveillance authorities will be taking advice from computer hackers on how to protect themselves with the utmost effectiveness against government infringement of their fundamental rights.
Mr President, people outside this House must really wonder what is going on here.
First of all, we conclude that there is in fact such a thing as ECHELON, and then this politically elected assembly chooses not to draw political conclusions.
We then go on to conclude that privacy is being violated, whereupon the European Parliament, which at other times talks of course about guaranteeing people' s rights, chooses to shift responsibility for guaranteeing these rights from the EU and the Member States to the individual citizen who then has to protect himself through encryption.
Finally, the observation is made that Great Britain and Germany are, in different ways, parties to this cooperation, and yet the report recommends ever closer cooperation on intelligence matters and no conclusions are drawn in relation to the two Member States that are involved in infringing our rights.
On the contrary, they are free to participate in this cooperation.
I believe that the European Parliament has lost an opportunity to make it clear that it is serious about citizens' rights.
It is more than just a matter of high-flown speeches and expensive documents.
It is also about taking action, and action is what is completely missing from the report.
That is why I shall not be able to support it.
Mr President, I should like to say a big thank you to the rapporteur, Mr Schmid, and also to Mr von Boetticher and to the committee chairman, Mr Coelho.
You have all carried out important work.
ECHELON proved to be less extensive than we had believed, and the issue has now been somewhat defused.
The ECHELON debate has nonetheless helped increase awareness of these issues, something which was vital.
Interception and military espionage are phenomena which we shall not be able to abolish, or which we even wish to abolish, as long as terrorism and threats to the EU and its citizens exist.
The issue for the future concerning the way in which total security systems are to be developed without violating fundamental principles has advanced a stage.
There is no proof that the United States has damaged global competitiveness by spreading information about companies.
However, the report shows the need we have to develop security and encryption.
I particularly welcome the clear opposition to bribes.
As a Swede, I feel that is an extremely good development.
Obviously, cooperation at EU level on this issue involves having national control stations in accordance with the network proposed.
The committee' s work on ECHELON helped bring us closer together, thanks to the very special qualities of the rapporteur, Mr Schmid.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for a sound report.
The most important conclusion may appear simple: ECHELON does in fact exist.
It took a long time for us to establish this, however.
Allow me to highlight two aspects of the report.
In my view, there is not enough about personal privacy and the protection of individuals.
That is why it was good that the rapporteur should have especially emphasised those issues in his presentation.
As was also pointed out, management interests are obviously very important, but these are not the whole story.
According to certain indices, the surveillance system has not only been used for industrial espionage, but also for intercepting the communications of individuals or organisations.
ECHELON has, of course, the capacity to intercept communications such as e-mails, faxes and telephone conversations between individuals.
The British journalist Duncan Campbell even believes that ECHELON is used to intercept communications from Amnesty and the Red Cross.
If that is true, it is an incredibly serious matter.
Just as was stated earlier, the EU will, in that case, have to be able to take action, in common with national parliaments and governments.
In a democratic state governed by law, protection of the individual must always come first, just as the President-in-Office of the Council indicated earlier.
My second remark concerns encryption.
Encryption offers the only effective protection against interception.
However, encryption technology is still in its infancy, and there are quite a few barriers to the export of civil encryption systems.
Nonetheless, the extensive exchange of information that takes place in Europe lends topicality to the issue of common standards and rules for encryption.
The institutions of the EU must be able to act jointly on this issue.
Mr President, may I say that I share the indignation, doubts and criticism voiced by numerous honourable members in the House about Echelon which, as we can see from the Schmid report, is not the stuff of detective novels.
However, I should like, if I may, to focus on one point.
As I understand it, Echelon allows certain Member States of the European Union - one Member State at least and maybe others - to attend top-level meetings in the European Union armed with knowledge of the negotiating tactics, positions and strategy of the other Member States. What I want to know is, if this is true, then exactly what are the final decisions worth?
How can we trust them, how biased, to use the English expression, are they? And how can the Heads of State and Government of the other Member States accept them?
Madam President-in-Office, I would be most interested in hearing your views on this.
How long will it be before we read the memoirs of some US president or high-ranking British officer and see how much political capital they made from Echelon and how big a laugh they had at our expense?
Mr President, I have to say that I was slightly surprised that Mr Coelho, who did an excellent job in inspiring difficult debates and maintained a completely objective approach, was given so little speaking time.
I would also like to thank Mr Schmid who has obviously worked very hard on this issue, even though I disagree with some of the points in his report.
The resolution poses a fundamental problem.
It highlights that the Echelon system exists and was set up by the United States with the help of the United Kingdom, in particular.
On the other hand, the resolution raises the problem of whether the participation of an EU Member State in the Echelon system is compatible with European law.
This is a genuine problem in cases where Echelon is used to carry out commercial or industrial espionage and to quote from paragraph F of the resolution "if the system is misused for the purposes of gathering competitive intelligence, such action is at odds with the Member States' duty of loyalty and with the concept of a common market based on free competition, so that a Member State participating in such a system violates EC law."
In my view, this point is fundamental and that is why this report, in spite of its values, leaves me with mixed feelings.
In particular, I do not accept the way the use of the territory of a Member State by a third party state - whether or not an ally - is trivialised with the argument that another Member State, France, in this case, could have the resources to set up its own global interception system.
This is not the same situation at all and that was not part of the work of the Echelon Committee.
Today, economic conflicts can be very serious and industrial espionage is only an instrument and, therefore, we should perhaps take care to ensure that we do not use this sort of war-mongering vocabulary to refer to our allies, and, even more so, to the EU Member States.
We in Parliament have a right to expect the Member State or States involved, the Council and the Commission to take preventative measures and action.
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mr Schmid in my capacity as a member of the Temporary Committee on Echelon for his extensive, far-reaching endeavours in collecting and organising a truly impressive mass of highly technical information.
The report and its extensive conclusions and recommendations section, in particular, represent a major contribution on the part of Parliament to the protection of European citizens' and companies' freedom.
The main results have already been presented by Mr Schmid and so I will not go back over that ground in my speech, although not all the conclusions are consistent with some of the information given in the report, as Mr Di Lello pointed out.
To increase the effectiveness of the report and with a view to the protection of citizens' privacy, in particular, as well as companies, may I suggest to Mr Schmid, once again, and to the Members that they include some amendments tabled by Mr Di Lello and others, specifically Amendments Nos 12, 20, 21, 22 and 30.
These amendments have been rejected by the temporary committee but I believe this was purely out of concern for practicality.
It has, in fact, been maintained that a form of huge-scale, global non-differentiating interception such as Echelon, based solely on recognition of a number of keywords and using search engines, would be invaluable for combating terrorism and crime.
Now, the amendments which I recommend should be put to the vote state, on the other hand, clearly - and rightly so - that these interceptions are contrary to the principle of legality and proportionality which should govern every operation compromising the confidentiality of communications, and therefore cannot be permitted.
It may be that, in the future, we will have to amend the laws in question in line with the development of information technology but, as things stand at the moment, this is the situation.
Including the amendments cited in the Schmid report would be a decisive contribution towards ensuring that the European citizens feel that their interests are fully represented and that the Unions' institutions do not lose credibility as a result of the report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Gerhard Schmid for his excellent work.
Wiretapping and spying are an intolerable invasion of people' s privacy and are in direct contravention of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
When the Cold War ended, a massive system that had reached the pinnacle of its development sought a fresh role: it would seem to have gone from spying on enemies to spying on friends.
It was exactly the same in NATO: when the communist system ended the highly paid personnel who depicted images of enmity suddenly looked around for new roles to play, and they appear to have found them.
It even feels as if a sort of bellicose mood somehow lingers in the United States of America.
They are now building a missile shield against a threat that is actually hard to see.
Furthermore, certain recent selfish moves on the part of the new US administration seem bewildering to us here in multicultural Europe.
What is actually happening over there? Perhaps we ought to go and take another look, as only one in three of our American colleagues have a passport.
They are notoriously not the most widely travelled of people.
I think we must now establish a watertight agreement at charter level that we do not engage in industrial espionage amongst one another, and our most important trading partner and friend, the United States, must be persuaded to adhere to this principle.
At the same time we must ensure that we are able to check that nobody is violating the privacy of European Union citizens.
And thirdly, here in the appropriate committees, we must continually monitor the situation to ensure that that is what is happening.
We have important work to do in this area.
Mr President, it is a known fact that, when the Cold War ended and the system of the two superpowers broke down, numerous national secret services extended the scope of their activities to commercial and industrial espionage.
The United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and our own United Kingdom excelled in this sort of espionage by setting up Åchelon, as our committee has confirmed thanks to the excellent work carried out by the rapporteur, Mr Schmid, and the coordinators.
In my opinion, Åchelon is one of the greatest scandals of all time.
It is a political scandal, it is an economic scandal and it is a scandalous mass violation of human rights and the rules of democracy, which is why any strategic plan dealing with Echelon-type espionage systems should force governments and international organisations to face squarely up to their responsibilities.
Globalisation needs to go hand in glove with legal guarantees that both privacy and the rules of healthy competition will be protected.
We need to improve the security of information technology infrastructures and the application of efficient parliamentary and judicial controls on how secret services operate at national and European level, otherwise our citizens will lose all confidence in the information society.
Finally, European companies need to develop ways of protecting themselves by reviewing their internal procedures, informing and training staff and using firewalls to protect their electronic communications.
Healthy competition between companies should be the cornerstone of the global economy.
In all events, intelligence services should operate on the basis of respect for fundamental rights, as set out in the Charter and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is high time we gave European citizens an answer to their question: quis custodiet ipsos custodies?
Mr President, I have the greatest reservations regarding the mild and, in parts, hesitant nature of the report, for it underestimates the dangers of global monitoring of communications and does not propose adequate autonomous defence measures for Europe.
In theory, the European Union could certainly negotiate a memorandum of understanding allowing the Member States to use this information but, for the moment and in the short term, the European Union must think about protecting itself autonomously with a different cryptographic system from those currently in place, such as the state of the art Hermes system which is the product of European research, with remote point-to-point transport so that the data cannot be captured by the spy satellite.
The report appears to avoid this specific question: can the use of data collected using Echelon by the security services of one of the Member States, the United Kingdom, actually lead to tangible cases of espionage against European citizens or companies by the United States? These are questions which we must ask ourselves, seeing as the same US Congress raised the issue of whether the surveillance carried out by the NSA on US citizens was not a practice which contravened the Constitution.
It has been said and must be said again that even NGOs such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace and even people who are completely above suspicion such as Mother Teresa of Calcutta have been intercepted by the Echelon system.
That is worrying.
The President of STOA, an ex-Member of Parliament, Mr Pompidou, commented that many European companies have already suffered because of the existence of ECHELON, but they do not expose it because they still trade with the United States and have to continue to do so in the future. Therefore, we wonder what legal protection there is to protect European companies against such damages.
What means do they have of proving that they have been wronged? Moreover, what funding is there for European research in major, strategic sectors such as cryptography?
These are questions which the report does not answer.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Coelho, the chairman, and the honourable Members of this Parliament who participated in the work of the Temporary Committee on Echelon, especially the rapporteur, Mr Schmid, for the comprehensive and well-written report on the Echelon interception system.
I should also like to thank Parliament as a whole for this very important debate.
The Commission has been following the parliamentary work over the past year with great interest.
The issue touches on complex technological and political considerations.
The report presents a large number of references to the existence of a global interception system.
These build up a body of evidence.
The Commission stated on 30 March last year: "It is the very nature of intelligence activities that those that are not involved in those activities are not able to confirm nor deny their existence" .
Even though the Commission is not involved in intelligence gathering activities, we do not question the findings of the European Parliament.
The report by the Echelon Temporary Committee is based on careful and thorough work.
The European Union is founded on respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, based on Article 6 of the Treaty and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
As the guardian of the Treaty, the Commission attaches the utmost importance to the observance of those principles.
The abuse of large-scale communications intelligence is something that can make an individual living in a democratic society feel very uneasy.
Privacy is a fundamental right.
Any derogation from this right has to be specifically provided for by law, necessary for the achievement of objectives, in the public interest, proportionate and subject to adequate checks and guarantees against any form of abuse.
The Commission is determined to look at the practical implications of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights where, in particular, the protection of communications and personal data will be further enhanced.
The Commission has already stated that it considers it would be preferable for the Charter to be integrated into the Treaties for the sake of visibility and legal certainty.
At the same time, the Community has to act within the scope of the powers conferred upon it by the Treaty.
The findings of the committee concerning the compatibility of a system of the Echelon type with EU law distinguish between two scenarios. First, the use of such a system purely for intelligence purposes and second, abuse of the system for the purpose of gathering competitive intelligence.
The Commission shares the opinion that the operations envisaged in the first scenario in the interest of state security fall within the scope of title V of the Treaty on European Union, which sets out the framework for the establishment of a common foreign security policy.
This lays down no provisions on intelligence activities.
Member States remain responsible for the conduct and supervision of intelligence operations, unless the Council decides otherwise.
The EU Treaty does not empower the Commission to exercise its prerogatives as guardian of the Treaty in this field.
Maintaining an interception system for the purpose of gathering intelligence, even in the context of a Member State' s defence or national security, is outside the scope of the directives in force on data protection.
As to the second scenario, the gathering of competitive intelligence does not come within the scope of a common foreign and security policy.
It is not an activity that would be allowed in pursuit of a common foreign and security policy.
As far as Community law is concerned, such activity could fall within the scope of data protection directives.
This is the case if data gathered by Echelon-type systems is collected or subsequently passed on to commercial undertakings for purposes unrelated to the prevention of criminal offences or state security matters.
We are all aware that electronic communications play an increasingly important role in everyday life.
Properly functioning electronic communications infrastructures are crucial for our economies.
As was stated in Lisbon, Europe wants to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.
A precondition for this is the need to build trust in electronic communications.
This concerns both our citizens and our businesses.
The development in technologies can bring protection against surveillance.
It is reassuring that the use of fibre-optic cables instead of satellites for transcontinental communications has decreased the possibilities for large-scale routine interception.
The argument that the rise of the commercial Internet has significantly diminished the possibilities for interception is convincing.
Today the majority of Internet communications by cable no longer leave the European continent.
The Commission has taken important steps over the past years to develop a policy to improve the security of electronic communications.
Encryption has been mentioned here often.
The availability and free circulation of encryption products and technologies in the European Union has now been ensured with the dual-use regulation in place since September 2000.
The support, through the Community' s research framework programme, in particular with the information side of technologies programme, has improved the conditions to develop top-of-the-range European encryption products in order to enable EU citizens, companies and governments to protect their communications.
I would ask for your support in this context in our discussions on the next framework programme.
However, it is not sufficient to guarantee a widespread use of encryption.
Citizens and small businesses are not always aware of the potential effects.
We need to inform them about the possibilities of encryption.
We need to empower them.
In June this year the Commission adopted a communication on network and information security.
The purpose is to tackle this awareness problem and to further develop a European approach on security-related issues.
I am pleased to note that the conclusions of the report under discussion are very much in line with the approach adopted by the Commission.
The honourable Members are aware that there is already a legal framework in place at EU level addressing data protection and obligations for operators.
There is also an emerging policy on cybercrime, which will be discussed later today.
Network information security is now coming as a third element to complete the picture.
However, communication is not meant to contain a fully fledged action plan.
We have already initiated some broad action lines where progress needs to be made.
I will highlight some of them.
To raise awareness, public information and education campaigns should be launched and best practice should be promoted.
A European warning and information system is needed to strengthen the activities of computer emergency response teams - CRTs - or similar entities and improve the coordination amongst them.
I have noted Parliament' s support for this idea.
Then we need to examine how best to organise at European level proactive and coordinated measures to develop forward-looking responses to existing and emerging security threats like the European information security observatory.
Finally concerning the legal framework, we will set up an inventory of national measures which have to be taken in accordance with the relevant Community law.
Here I reply to Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel' s question.
I would also like to mention that further action is needed to support the development of technology, to streamline standardisation and certification work, and for the introduction of security in government use and better international cooperation.
As a next step, it is our intention to develop a road map before the end of this year containing concrete actions with firm deadlines in order to start putting a European information security policy in place.
Finally, the Commission is constantly improving the production of its own information systems in terms of availability, integrity and confidentiality, especially in view of the changing nature of the various existing and potential threats.
The entry point to the Commission networks is constantly monitored and actively tested.
Similar efforts are conducted through projects for secure video conferencing, secure telephone systems and encryption of databases.
Furthermore, security audits of Commission information systems are conducted on a regular basis.
A new information system security policy has been drafted and is currently being prepared for discussion within the Commission services.
In addition, the Commission is reviewing its overall security policy as a result of internal reorganisation activities and policy developments.
The new internal Commission security provisions will follow the model of the Council security regulation adopted earlier this year and will be based on the following principles: proportionality of security measures in relation to existing risks; shared responsibility and accountability of staff, management and security experts; the creation of all elements into a coherent security strategy, such as personal information and physical security; and finally, close cooperation between European and national security organisations.
The Commission intends to allocate additional resources to the security domain.
However, scarce technical and human resources, especially in the field of information security specialists, hamper the full deployment of security policies.
This concern is common to most public administrations including the European institutions.
I welcome the support in the report to allocate more resources for the task to be undertaken and I sincerely hope that Parliament as a budgetary authority will follow the position of the committee.
The trust of European citizens and businesses in electronic communications and the well-functioning of information infrastructures has become crucial for economies.
Let me reiterate once more that the Commission attaches the utmost importance to respect for human rights and respect of rule of law.
Mr President, at the end of this debate I should like to say a few words of thanks, first of all to the chairman of the committee.
We did not know each other before the committee was formed, and yet within a few days we were cooperating as if we had been working together for years.
This is not to be taken for granted; it is no everyday occurrence.
Thank you very much for that.
I thank the members of the committee.
We did not always agree, but the atmosphere between the members was never unpleasant, and our cooperation was constructive.
These are also things we cannot always count on in this House.
So let me express my sincere thanks to them too.
My thanks go the Secretariat, the Secretary-General and his staff, and to the many people who have helped us with their advice and information.
Some of them are mentioned in the report.
There are others who have not been mentioned in their own interest.
My gratitude to them is no less heartfelt.
(Applause)
Combating terrorism
The next item is the report (A5-0273/2001) by Mr Watson, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the role of the European Union in combating terrorism [2001/2016(INI)].
Madam President, this part session marks the beginning of a political year which presents us with tasks which could be described as historic: in the coming months we have to launch a constitutional reform of the Union, we are going to introduce the euro and we are going to face the most important chapters in negotiations which will lead to an unprecedented enlargement of the European Union.
For thousands of European citizens, however, these debates pass over their heads.
The fundamental concern of these citizens today is that their children receive a pluralist and open education in their schools; that they may safely walk the streets of their towns; that they may be able to publicly express what they think; that they may be able to exercise their right to a free vote; that they may be able to hold a position representing their people, without endangering their lives or those of their families.
And these thousands of European citizens rightly expect local, national and European administrations to guarantee their fundamental rights.
That is why it seems to me essential that the Community institutions, as well as dealing with the constitution, the euro and enlargement, respond to what we European citizens, in Spain for example, who live there, consider to be our first priority: the fight against terrorism, that is, the fight for freedom, for respect for human rights and for the rule of law which we Spaniards have built after four decades of dictatorship.
The creation of a common area of freedom, security and justice is what the European Council in Tampere in October 1999 called for. We must congratulate the current Belgian Presidency for having made this one of its priorities, and we place great value, of course, on the laudable work of Commissioner Vitorino, who I hope will find support in this debate for the use of his powers of legislative initiative.
I believe that the European Parliament, the House which represents the European citizens, has had a special responsibility in this task, which our President, Nicole Fontaine, has taken on with a decisiveness and courage that those who have directly or indirectly suffered terror will never forget.
I am sure that your successors will have this same attitude.
I therefore also believe that we can be reasonably satisfied in voting for this report today on the role of the European Union in the fight against terrorism, the importance of which is demonstrated by the fact that its rapporteur is the very Chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Rights and Freedoms, Graham R. Watson.
He is presenting this House with a text approved in committee by a huge majority, as he has said, and which contains such fundamental considerations as the statement that democratic dialogue must be based on mutual respect and non-violence, or the recognition of the debt that society owes to the victims of terrorist acts and their families.
In approving this report we are making a series of recommendations which, when implemented, will allow us to create a common definition within the European Union of the crime of terrorism; to adopt the principle of mutual recognition of judgments; to replace the formal extradition procedures with a European search and arrest warrant for those crimes which cause particular revulsion in society.
I am talking about terrorism of course, but also human trafficking, crimes against children, illegal drug and arms trafficking, corruption, fraud and organised crime.
Madam President, with absolute respect for all the parliamentary groups, regardless of their political orientation and, of course, for the free vote of Members, I would now ask you to support the report because this is a fundamental issue which goes beyond party disputes.
Through the implementation of the measures proposed in it, justice will have more instruments for guaranteeing the fundamental freedoms that formed the basis for the construction of Europe and which have been restricted by terrorism for thousands of Europeans.
Madam President, I would firstly like, of course, to congratulate Mr Watson on his excellent work and his important and difficult report.
Mr Watson has not theorised, but has taken account of what afflicts us and, in particular, he has dealt directly with what is inflicted on us by ETA, and of what affects Basque society, Spanish society and, in my case, Catalan society.
His total condemnation and his call for the need to respect victims must be a constant element in our statements and our positions.
I would firstly and clearly like to highlight in this report the fact that important positive action measures are proposed for the legal and police areas: the establishment of minimum standards, the establishment of a form of extradition, the recognition of judicial resolutions, the execution of arrest warrants and the approximation of national legislations.
I believe that these measures improve the important and priority legal and police action.
In the time that I have available, I believe I should stress that the report has not renounced important values in the fight against terrorism in Europe.
It is very important that Recital N incorporates the idea that ideologies are legitimate if they are compatible with democratic respect and values.
It is significant that in Recital O, the expression 'democratic dialogue' reappears, as a fundamental principle, based on mutual respect and non-violence.
It is also significant that Recitals R and S state that measures must have restrictions on the part of States so that there is no abuse of the legal regulations.
I believe that all of this is important, given the balance which is provided by priority and efficiency of action and respect for European values.
I must mention my satisfaction with these changes, because they change the resolution, approved by written declaration in September 1999 and in which I expressed my disagreement - even though I signed it - with the removal of the expression 'democratic dialogue' .
Through this report the European Union is fully recovering its values on this issue, because peace, understood as the exclusion of violence, on the one hand, and dialogue, on the other, is an essential pairing for the European Union, inside and outside Europe.
Europe, when it goes anywhere, inside or outside, does so with this pairing of 'peace and democratic dialogue' and clearly, as I insist inside and outside, I do not want to give any example because I would not want it to provoke comparisons which would alter what is positive about this report and this debate.
I am very satisfied that this report can be approved and that it will be an effective tool for resolving this serious problem which affects many people.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a report about terrorism.
I should therefore like to examine now what is meant by terrorism, because it is recognised as something evil and is often used as an excuse to legitimise the infringement of fundamental rights by the state.
And so I have considered the things that are designated as terrorism in this report.
Trafficking in drugs is one example.
As we all know, the line between illegal and legal drugs is drawn in a fairly arbitrary manner and cannot be inferred from the principles of health policy, for example.
Many people here in Parliament, indeed, consume copious quantities of drugs.
But I am well aware that the report refers to illegal drugs.
I simply mean to say that drugs are an intrinsic feature of every society; they always have been, and no doubt they always will be.
Criminalisation will not get us anywhere.
The report then deals with trafficking in human beings, for example.
If the smuggling of human beings is meant - and these two concepts are frequently confused - it would be sufficient to include a reference to the fact that people who have had to enter the EU by illegal means have been recognised here as genuine asylum seekers. They are compelled to seek help from people like the snakeheads because we have created Fortress Europe here.
If traffic in human beings is meant, in other words the essential denial of people' s fundamental rights and the imposition of forced labour, this raises the question why the report on which we have just voted devotes so little attention to the protection of victims, of those who are traded.
That would surely be the best way to go about eradicating abuses such as traffic in human beings.
At this point, the report says that terrorism is also to be found in the context of illegal trafficking in drugs and arms.
I have already said something on the subject of drugs; as for arms, I believe trafficking in arms is illegal but, what is far worse, it is immoral.
Quite simply, the question is whether this immorality only applies to illegal arms trafficking. Does it not, in fact, extend to the legal arms trade?
Is it not terrorism when civilians are attacked by NATO bombers and killed or made to suffer for the rest of their lives? There are people who resist, who take action, such as civil disobedience.
They know very well that such action is illegal.
Whether it is a crime is another matter.
The report refers to corruption and fraud; many people are sick of government corruption and fraud and decide to do something about it, and we are supposed to construe that here as terrorism.
If the House does not even accept the Greens' amendment that seeks to establish fundamental human rights as a common minimum level of protection for everyone in the EU, the proposed recommendation must be rejected for the sake of those same fundamental rights.
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur for his work on the extremely serious, topical issue of terrorism, which has recently been spreading with appalling, renewed vigour.
We may have been deluding ourselves in thinking we had banished this scourge which had stained Europe with blood for so long.
It may be that contemporary terrorism is more difficult to fight because it is less ideological and more sensationalist, because it is not based on political ideals but purely on violence, with precisely the aim of destabilising the institutions and terrorising the public.
What, then, should be Parliament' s role? On the one hand, Parliament must certainly address the causes of that social and cultural malaise and distress which clearly lead to terrorism, but, most importantly, it must endeavour in some way to prevent the emergence of terrorist groups, to anticipate it and to identify the first signs as soon as they appear.
There are so many resources available to us: so many data banks, so many police resources and so much legislation, and yet, all too often, when faced with the emergence or transformation of large-scale criminal phenomena such as those related to drugs, crimes against children, the trafficking and exploitation of human beings and, of course, terrorism, Parliament continues to be taken by surprise and ends up arriving too late, incapable of defining effective preventive actions.
This was the case of those violent groups, many of them in contact with terrorist organisations, who infiltrated the peaceful, legitimate anti-globalisation movements.
I therefore look forward to the measures envisaged in the report to contain the spread of terrorism, particularly the European search and arrest warrant and the abolition of the formal extradition procedure.
I would like to end, Madam President, by saying that - to give just one example - there are still Italian citizens who used to be part of the Red Brigades and have been condemned as guilty of terrorist homicide for almost 20 years now, who have been in hiding for that entire period as the guests of other European States, despite repeated applications for their extradition.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I listened with great attention to Mr Watson as he spoke about his report. I support the report for the most part, although I do wonder - as we often ask ourselves - what exactly terrorism is.
During the debate, we talked about the need to define the nature of terrorism today. In my view, the measure discussed in the report deals with European terrorism, not just that despicable method which - I regret to say - is developing in present-day Spain, for if we can call that method despicable then we must see the methods used in other European countries by movements with much more dubious aims as just as contemptible.
Italy has suffered a terrible period in which we witnessed the murder of activists in their offices, the murder of young people in the squares and children burned alive in their homes, in the name of an ideology which ultimately led to the murder of the government adviser, Mr D' Antona, and which often leads, in practice, as happened in this case, to the death of young people during demonstrations which result in blind violence which has nothing to do with opposition to the globalisation of the markets.
Therefore, I look forward to a coordinated policy of all the European States which excludes the abominable special laws which proved to be genuine tools of political persecution when it was a case of striking one party and then tools of political protection when it was a case of protecting others, as Mrs Angelilli said just now.
I look forward to the introduction of the European search and arrest warrant, but let it be genuinely established now. Let the governments be called upon to incorporate the measures into their legal systems and to ensure that, as of the next few months, we no longer witness events in our squares such as those which took place in Genoa a few days ago.
Madam President, the report describes very graphically the dangers of terrorism in both its old and new forms and the threat it poses as well as the powerlessness of Europe' s traditional institutions in the face of the terrorist threat.
If I may take the liberty to contest perhaps only one point, the threat of terrorism really has nothing to do with a democratic society - even though such societies are often the target of terrorist activity - but is a far more pervasive threat against all people, whatever the political conditions in which they live.
That is why it is so difficult, and perhaps not even so important, to define the concept of terrorism more precisely.
Maybe we should rather do as the report suggests and proceed from a definition of terrorist acts which focuses on the threat they pose to individuals and groups of people.
Agreement at European level is the prerequisite for more effectively coordinated action, and the acceleration of extradition processes, which the report proposes, is certainly important too.
The principle enunciated in Article 29 of the Treaty on European Union, which calls terrorism a form of international crime, must be binding on all EU Member States, whose political representatives of particular ideological persuasions defend acts of violence inside or outside the EU as justifiable.
I recall the discussions on the Middle East conflict, when some of our colleagues were suddenly able to sympathise with terrorist activities on one side or the other, although these were quite simply death squad operations and attacks on the civilian population.
Besides the organisational requirement, namely cooperation between the responsible institutions, the political will to combat terrorist activities is also essential.
There is never any justification for threatening an innocent person.
Madam President, if something characterises the production of this report on terrorism, it has not just been the rigour and know-how of the rapporteur, Mr Watson, whom I would expressly like to congratulate, but also the willingness and understanding of almost all the political groups in this House to reflect not only their rejection and condemnation of terrorism, the people involved in it and the methods it uses, but also to reach a consensus on the legal instruments which we must create at European level in order to combat and pursue the crimes involved in terrorist activity and organised crime.
We can state unreservedly, without any doubt - at least on my part - that the approval of this report would represent a European pact against terrorism.
Because, for the people of Europe, violence and terror are absolutely incompatible with democracy, dialogue and the rules of the game which the democratic States have set ourselves in order to live together in peace and, in particular, in order to resolve absolutely every - and I stress, absolutely every - one of our problems and differences of whatever nature.
Nationalist or independence movements that use terrorist organisations such as ETA in Spain as decoys are only really hiding the reality of their trade whose only objective is to spread terror, destabilise democracy and indiscriminately murder children, young people and adults of any trade or profession.
Another argument endorsed by this report is the urgent need to update the legal instruments which a new area without borders, such as the European Union, must have so that it is not easier for the violent people and terrorist groups to carry out their criminal acts than it is for the police and judges to pursue and punish them.
Because, Madam President, Commissioner, it is contradictory that there should be barriers and borders for judges and police while, for example, criminal groups organise themselves in one country of the European Union, carry out attacks in another and then return to shelter under legislation that is obsolete and incompatible with a common area of freedom, security and justice.
Hence the need for the four recommendations, which are the backbone of the report.
It is true that Spain and its government are particularly interested in what we resolve here today, but so should other countries such as France, Belgium, Italy or the United Kingdom or the other countries of the Union, because the roots of terrorism are in violence, its funding, the technological means it employs and the recruitment of young people who are trained, with money and hatred, to kill.
And this is a problem, ladies and gentlemen, which transcends the borders of the European Union.
Madam President, we are moving in the right direction.
I must insist once again on the urgency of the proposals and the urgent need for us to continue truly creating a new area where there is only room and freedom of movement for those of us who want to live in peace and freedom.
Commissioner Vitorino has the political support of this House.
We genuinely await his proposals with great interest.
Mr President, I belong to and represent the Basque Nationalist Party, the party which has been governing the Basque Country uninterruptedly for more than twenty years.
It is a party which, while calling for an independent personality, sovereignty and a right to self-determination for the Basque people, nevertheless firmly rejects and condemns the use of violence and terror as instruments to achieve any political objective and, even more, condemns the unacceptable State terrorism, which we Basques have also suffered, perpetrated by the apparatus of the Spanish State.
Our society and Spanish society clearly have a special sensitivity in relation to the issues dealt with by Mr Watson in his complex report on the role of the EU in the fight against terrorism and, in general terms, we agree with the content of the report and also with the amendments presented by the Confederal Group of the United European Left/Nordic Green Left and my own from the Greens/European Free Alliance.
Northern Ireland was lucky enough to enjoy the decisive support of US Senator Mitchell, which led to the Good Friday agreements and a genuine peace process, despite the ups and downs that it is suffering along the way.
How long will we Basques have to wait for Europe to realise that peace is in its hands, that it must stimulate, promote and oversee a sincere and democratic dialogue between the opposing sides? That would be the best recipe the European Parliament could recommend against terrorism and in order to achieve peace.
I particularly value Recital O of the report, which makes it very clear that democratic dialogue based on mutual respect and non-violence is the best means of resolving conflicts, thereby rectifying previous resolutions by this very European Parliament.
What I regret is that the attempt to reflect this same idea in the final recommendations has failed.
I must, therefore, consider this document to be incomplete and insufficient.
However, despite this insufficiency and having reflected on it, I am going to vote in favour of the Watson report in order to give an opportunity to Recital O, that is to say, to democratic dialogue as a means for resolving our conflict.
Mr President, it has been a very happy coincidence for the sake of democracy to have had the previous debate on the Echelon network.
The hypocritical position of the Member States on the violation of citizens' rights that has been underlined by various speakers can help us in our analysis of the report on terrorism.
The report, very regrettably, ignores state terrorism.
But what is even more regrettable is the fact that there are no specific recommendations to foster measures that could implement political dialogue for resolution of conflicts.
Despite that, this House will most probably accept this report.
Then it will be for you, Commissioner Vitorino, to propose a text that you have already negotiated, mainly with the Spanish and French authorities.
On Monday I mentioned the victims of the Spanish dirty war.
Let me now recall the memory of the journalist, Fernando Pereira.
As you know, he was killed by the action of the French secret service against Greenpeace.
Mr President, I am sure we all agree that terrorism is one of the most critical challenges our society has to face.
It is a global phenomenon, with cells operating throughout the world.
It can therefore only be effectively combated internationally.
Fighting terrorism also means defending human rights and democracy.
The cowardly terrorist attacks and murders we have seen recently, which have been at their most virulent in Spain, testify to the need to intensify European anti-terrorist cooperation.
International terrorism, which draws support from many a dictator or Islamic fundamentalist regime, cannot be effectively combated in the European Union unless the competent national authorities cooperate with each other.
Our House also bears responsibility in this respect; to exercise this responsibility, we must nail our colours to the mast by adopting this report on the role of the Union in combating terrorism and making it clear that we are unanimously committed to the fight against terrorist activity.
I wish to thank the rapporteur for his outstanding work towards this goal.
Our proposals are intended to create the conditions for effective European cooperation among the Member States in order to put an end to the murders committed by terrorist organisations such as ETA in Spain.
Mr President, terrorism is the destruction of democracy.
There can be no successful dialogue with criminal terrorism for it is a lie incarnate.
Releasing terrorist prisoners and seeking to buy them off with places in rigged government is exalting terrorism and not eliminating it.
Northern Ireland is an example, with all terrorist prisoners from both sides released while not one murder weapon has been decommissioned by either side.
The tormented victims of brutal terrorism are largely forgotten.
I welcome this report' s action call on this issue to look after the interests of these tormented victims and its emphasis on the immediate need to ensure that there is no sanctuary for terrorism in this European Union.
Action on that is imperative.
Mr President, this report is of the utmost importance to the citizens of Europe.
This report should receive the widest possible dissemination throughout the Community.
It is a complex and difficult report that should impact clearly on each and every citizen, so that they can understand precisely what Parliament is trying to accomplish on their behalf.
It does credit to the Chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, Mr Watson.
We will be voting in favour but, nonetheless, we will do so with reservations on many of the paragraphs and recommendations.
No doubt we will revisit the subject after consultation with our national parliaments and citizens' groups.
We must define exactly and precisely what we mean by terrorism.
We must not confuse terrorism with peaceful protests, with legal and lawful protests by the citizen.
There are a number of paragraphs that we have reservations about but, despite these reservations which we will probably revisit in subsequent discussions and debates on the issue, we will be voting in favour of this.
I congratulate Mr Watson and all concerned in putting together this report.
Mr President, Mr Watson' s report confirms that the European Union is powerless and has painted itself into a corner in its fight against the ever-increasing phenomenon of terrorism.
It is powerless both because terrorism has changed shape and is now backed up by modern technology and funds and because there is little judicial and police collaboration on the part of the Member States and no common legislative framework.
In Greece, a new anti-terrorism law was passed in May 2001 in a bid to systemise and up the ante in the fight against terrorism without violating fundamental rights and the principles of the rule of law.
However, combating terrorism, be it in Greece or Spain, is a matter for the European Union as a whole.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights should be used as a reference point for any new initiative.
In other words, under no circumstances should increased criminal activities by terrorist groups be used as an alibi, be it at national or European level, for taking measures which are incompatible with the rule of law and democratic principles.
However, in the case of terrorist offences, the Council should immediately abolish formal extradition procedures and adopt the principle of mutual recognition of decisions on criminal matters, including pre-judgment decisions, as proposed in the report.
In addition to these measures, it also makes a great deal of sense to prevent terrorism through education, social and other policies to encourage citizens, especially young people, to value dialogue and reject all forms of violence.
Mr President, may I first of all take the opportunity to congratulate Mr Watson on the preparation of this report.
It is a very balanced and very good report.
Terrorism has been a major problem in the Western world and in Europe it has been prevalent certainly since the Second World War.
It has been proved that a dedicated few can hold a majority to ransom.
We have to face up to the fact that there has not been full cooperation between Member States.
We in Northern Ireland have experienced that very painfully over the past 30 years.
If terrorists have a safe haven they will continue to flourish because they have somewhere to retreat to.
We must end safe havens.
I have some reservations, in that if you abolish extradition what you put in its place may not be effective.
If we do abolish extradition, whatever replaces it must work and must be seen to work, especially between Member States.
The Member States must be free to protect their citizens.
I believe it is the duty of every Member State government to protect the innocent, not the perpetrators of violence.
There must be maximum cooperation to achieve this.
We also see terrorist cooperation throughout the world.
The recent arrest of three IRA activists in Columbia brings home very clearly how widespread terrorism is throughout the world and how terrorists cooperate in the development of new and better weapons.
We also have to recognise that many terrorist organisations are involved in racketeering, drug smuggling and many other forms of normal criminal activity.
They use certain words and pseudonyms.
They threaten the communities in which they live.
We have to recognise the victims.
There must be mutual recognition.
No one has the right to murder in the attempt to achieve a political objective.
We must also remember it is easy to terrorise: I have experience of this.
But believe you me, it is much more difficult to build peace after the terrorism.
Mr President, terrorist acts are intended to weaken democracy and the fundamental values on which Europe is being built.
It is therefore necessary - and this is what we have understood - the strengthen the fight against terrorism and create mechanisms and initiatives which strengthen cooperation between the Member States, bearing in mind, furthermore, the intensification of terrorist actions within the European Union.
Also, the Member States must promote a commitment to rejecting any form of violence among their young people.
Of the four main recommendations in this report (the definition of the crime of terrorism and applicable penalties, removal of the formal extradition procedure, the application of the principle of mutual recognition of criminal judgments and the European search and arrest warrant), I wanted to specifically highlight the last one relating to compensation for the victims of terrorism which, perhaps, has been the one least mentioned by other Members. In this respect, I wish to highlight the fact that this House already adopted, on 24 November 2000, a report for which I had the honour of being rapporteur, which determined, for the first time, the definition of victims and their role in the judicial process.
Lastly, I would like to stress that, if we are capable of implementing the recommendations of this report, we will have taken a very significant step in developing the European area of freedom, security and justice.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Watson for his work, laying out the role the European Union must play in the fight against terrorism.
I would also like to thank the President of Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, for her personal attitude on opening this sitting in greeting the family of a victim of terrorism, the Councillor from the Union of the Navarrese People, José Javier Múgica, whose widow and three children were present in the Chamber and who have asked me to pass on their thanks to the whole House and to its President.
This Parliament has managed to become a torchbearer in the European fight against terrorism.
It was the first Chamber to produce a recommendation in writing that it was necessary to politically isolate political parties which do not condemn terrorism.
And it has been this Parliament which has managed to gather more than 400 signatures of Members of this House in a public commitment to combat the terrorism of ETA.
We are now discussing the Watson report, and in this regard I would like to stress the need for the Union to have a European search and arrest warrant which replaces the formal extradition procedure for terrorist crimes as soon as possible.
Because terrorism, and specifically the terrorism of ETA, affects all the citizens of Europe, not only the victims, but even Members of this House.
I regret that Mrs Dührkop is not present due to illness.
She could have told us of how ETA deprived her of her husband, Senator Casas.
My own wife and family have also been subject to three attacks, which cost the life of a policeman.
And other Members could also speak of their suffering.
Spain and other places in Europe suffer terrorism.
We are not going to indulge in theorising, because we are aware that, as the Watson report proposes, we have to oblige the Member States to finally reach an agreement, because terrorism represents the greatest violation of human rights suffered by the European people.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to stress the very practical, realistic and topical nature of this report.
Indeed, as well as violent terrorism, it talks about a less explosive, very widespread terrorism operating under cover of political groupings whose objective is clearly to fight against democratic systems.
Recitals E, F and G make this clear, stressing that terrorism is on the increase in almost all the European countries and that the nature of terrorism is changing radically, but that there are also, according to recital G, in particular, international networks enjoying strong - as the recital says - logistical and financial support.
Well then, that is precisely what happened in Genoa during the G8 period.
International terrorist organisations used the Black Blocks to exploit genuinely peaceful organisations, working under cover of groups purporting to be non-violent and their complicitous leaders, who were supported in turn by the parties of the Italian and European left, which even lent them the platform of the European Parliament yesterday to hurl frenzied abuse at the Italian government and against the values of democracy and respect for people' s ideals, values which Parliament supports and develops.
This too, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, is terrorism: it may be less potent but it is still effective.
Recital M and recommendation No 3 state this explicitly, and Amendment No 2, tabled by the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, is also negative evidence of this for, if it were to be adopted, this amendment would have Parliament believe that where the democratic and Constitutional structure of a country is working properly there is no terrorism.
Well then, following this reasoning, we could cheerfully label Spain, Ireland and maybe even Italy as undemocratic countries with dysfunctional Constitutions, whereas their governments are the victims of terrorism, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, and cannot be held accountable for it.
This too is a form of terrorism.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to begin by congratulating Mr Watson on the excellent report he has presented us.
He is right to emphasise the need for effective, clear and rapid measures to prevent and combat all acts of terrorism whatever form they may take and whatever they may be trying to achieve.
We reject and condemn all terrorist acts, which are unacceptable because of the blind violence that characterises them and which mainly affect innocent citizens.
We know that terrorism is one of the most terrible challenges facing our societies.
Over the last ten years, the European Union has seen an increase in the number of violent and terrorist acts.
This increase demonstrates that traditional methods of judicial and police cooperation are inadequate, particularly if we take account of the fact that new forms of terrorism are continually arising, such as computer or environmental terrorism.
We also know that these acts increasingly stem from the activity of international organised networks, which manage to exploit the various legal loopholes and the diversity of national legislation.
It is deplorable that most Member States do not have specific legislation in this field.
Only six Member States, including Portugal, have specific legislation and out of these six, only four, again including Portugal, have adopted a definition of the concept of terrorism in their legislation.
By adopting the principle of solidarity in the fight against terrorism, the Treaty of Amsterdam has opened up new possibilities for coordinated action by the European Union.
With the commitments given in Tampere, terrorism has become an integral part of the global approach to fighting crime.
The report we are now debating warrants our support, particularly because it advocates the approximation and harmonisation of the legislation of the fifteen Member States.
Mr President, being the penultimate speaker - Commissioner Vitorino has the honour of closing the debate - exempts me from expressing many considerations which have been expressed by previous speakers, and they have done so very well.
I am only going to make two points.
One of them is addressed to those Members who have said that what we are voting on today, this arrest warrant, replaces extradition; that is not the case at all; it accompanies extradition for certain crimes which are particularly odious, such as a terrorist crime, precisely so that the European Union may become more efficient.
And I am going to make my second point, Mr President.
I believe that if we look back to 1992 when this Parliament voted in favour of the Maastricht Treaty, we will see that there were considerable gaps in the issues of justice and internal affairs within the third pillar.
It was a great innovation that the European Union was going to deal with issues which had always been at the heart of the Member States.
Very little time has passed since then, practically seven years, since Maastricht entered into force, and nevertheless, what progress has been made!
Progress has not just been made in terms of European solidarity on a specific problem, the terrorism of ETA, which is extraordinarily important and which is of fundamental importance politically; but progress has also been made in the construction of Europe.
This is the way to move forward together in Europe and to deal with the real concerns of the citizens, as has been said here.
Therefore, as well as expressing gratitude for European solidarity, I would like to say that this Watson report - and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, who has made great efforts - also represents a very important milestone on this journey which we, including all of us here in this European Parliament, are making together in the construction of Europe.
Thank you, Commissioner Vitorino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Madam President, as well as thanking the Commissioner for what he has just said, I would like to ask the presidency, in order to reinforce the gesture we have made by means of this debate, to allow us to vote on the Watson report first, not last, as is currently planned.
Mr Barón Crespo, given the applause, I think that the House fully agrees with this proposal and, since there are no objections, we shall begin voting with the vote on the Watson report.
Welcome
Madam President, I must insist on an issue which I have raised several times during these points of order.
Since the last part session in this Parliament, thirty people from Africa have died on Spanish beaches trying to find work in Europe.
During this same period, another 2 800 have been detained and I believe it is now time, Madam President, for this Parliament to deal with this very fundamental problem which should make us all ashamed and which requires this Parliament' s action.
VOTE
Madam President, Recital M evidently refers to the definition which the Council of Europe gives for the term 'terrorist act' .
In fact, reference to this definition is also made further down in that report.
I should like to ask whether the Dutch text of Recital M could be brought completely into line with this definition.
The Dutch text should read: "...en die leiden tot streven naar..." , and not only: "...die leiden..." , because there is no link between the violence and the pursuit at the moment, and it is clear that the Council of Europe did intend this link in the definition.
Madam President, I had to wait to see whether the amendment proposed by the Liberal Group was carried.
We are now looking at Amendment No 2, which relates to the BSE risk in the candidate countries.
This risk is only referred to in the report on Poland.
This is why I have tabled an amendment referring to the fact that this risk is also present in other countries, because the wording would otherwise have amounted to discrimination against Poland.
But I made a mistake: the amendment says 'in all other countries' , but it should read 'in other countries' .
There are different risk categories.
Subject to that alteration, I recommend that the House adopt this amendment so as not to discriminate against Poland.
(Parliament agreed to take the oral amendment into account)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0255/2001) by Mr Jürgen Schröder, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Czech Republic' s application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)703 - C5-0603/2000 - 1997/2180(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0256/2001) by Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Slovakia' s application for membership to the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM)(2000)711 - C5-0611/2000 - 1997/2173(COS)]
Before the vote
Madam President, I should like to ask the House to approve an oral amendment to the Slovakia report, which reads as follows - in German:
'bedauert, dass es nicht gelungen ist, einen Kompromiss im Hinblick auf die Neugliederung der Verwaltungsbezirke zu erreichen, der auch die Zustimmung der Vertreter der ungarischen Minderheit finden konnte' [regrets that it was not possible to reach a compromise over the rearrangement of administrative districts which was also acceptable to the representatives of the Hungarian minority].
(NL) Madam President, I am making this suggestion in order for it to gain broad approval.
I have also discussed this matter with the rapporteur.
Mr Oostlander, is this amendment at the beginning of the report and could we vote on it now? Does it duplicate any other amendment?
That depends on the Group of the Greens.
If they want to vote on their amendment first, then this amendment, which is a weaker version, could be voted on subsequently.
In that case, I shall consult Mr Wiersma.
.
Madam President, given the formulation of the amendment and given our concerns about the on-going discussion in Slovakia on regional decentralisation, we can support this amendment, also in the context of the knowledge that negotiations and talks are going on about the competences of these provinces.
We all hope that the coalition government in Slovakia will find a solution to the overall package of regional decentralisation.
In that framework, as rapporteur, I support this amendment.
I hope my group will follow my lead.
Madam President, if I understood Mr Oostlander correctly, this relates to our Amendment No 3.
We are prepared to withdraw it, and the text would then be worded in accordance with Mr Oostlander' s oral formulation.
Fine. I think this proposal is perfectly acceptable.
(The House agreed to take the oral amendment into account)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0257/2001) by Mr Queiró, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Hungary' s application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)705 - C5-0605/2000 - 1997/2175(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0258/2001) by Mr Van Orden, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission' s 2000 Regular Report on Bulgaria' s progress towards accession [COM(2000)701 - C5-0601/2000 - 1997/2179(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0259/2001) by Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Romania' s application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)710 - C5-0610/2000 - 1997/2172(COS)]
Before the vote
Madam President, I want to clarify my remarks of yesterday on my report to avoid any misunderstanding on inter-country adoption by Spanish families of Romanian children in the last ten years.
I can say categorically that the vast majority of these cases have been processed fully and properly by the Spanish authorities and by the families in question.
Indeed I know that they have resulted in many happy outcomes, some of which are known to my Spanish colleagues here in Parliament.
I can add that the authorities in the European Union Member States have, of course, been acting with full propriety on this sensitive matter and that none have acted more rigorously than the Spanish authorities.
I am grateful to Spanish colleagues here for drawing this need for clarification to my attention and in particular to Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado and Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra.
I look forward to continued fruitful cooperation with all of my Spanish colleagues in this Parliament in the future.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0260/2001) by Mr Volcic, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Slovenia' s application for membership of the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)712 - C5-0612/2000 - 1997/2181(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0261/2000) by Mr Poos, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Cyprus' s membership application to the European Union and the state of negotiations [COM(2000)702 - C5-0602/2000 - 1997/2171(COS)]
Before the vote on Amendment No 16 by the ELDR Group
Madam President, unlike Mr Wiersma, I will simply speak in Dutch.
A minor error has crept into the nominal list, namely Amendment No 16 of the Liberals is identical to Amendment No 9 of the Group of the Greens.
This is as we agreed. It therefore seems more practical to me if we combine the votes on these to avoid confusion.
There are no objections from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, so I shall put to the vote Amendment No 16, from the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Group and Amendment No 9, from the Group of the Greens.
The rapporteur is also in favour of this.
Before the vote on Amendment No 5 by the Group of the Greens
Madam President, we would like to present an oral amendment to Amendment No 5.
Instead of "triggered by unrest and acts of violence starting in the early sixties" , we wish to replace the words "triggered by" with the words "which followed" .
The intent of this oral amendment is just to clarify any misunderstanding that would justify the invasion by Turkey of Cyprus.
Are there any objections to taking into consideration the oral amendment?
Madam President, my group voted for the Watson report, which is an excellent and very comprehensive one.
But it proposes very radical changes which can potentially pose problems for some of the Member States, particularly those in the front line of terrorism.
Without a clear and mutually accepted definition of terrorism, states must be able to take whatever measures they deem appropriate to deal with these serious threats.
However, this does not preclude the Member States from identifying those areas where there are difficulties in cooperation between Member States and finding ways to improve such cooperation.
Effective measures need to be introduced to prevent the formation and activities of violent groups in Europe and collaboration between such groups.
I commend Mr Watson on his report.
Madam President, I voted against this report because it makes no mention of state terrorism.
I consider that the European Parliament has closed its eyes to the fact that state terrorism is operating with impunity and that the European Union is rejecting the basic principles that we are supposed to fight for.
.
(EL) The positions taken in the Watson report on an initiative at EU level to combat terrorism seriously threaten to undermine grass-roots movements and democratic freedoms.
The aim of this initiative, so the rapporteur says, is to ensure that all the Member States adopt minimum legal rules relating to the constituent elements of criminal acts and to penalties in the field of terrorism.
The rapporteur considers beyond all doubt that the ÅU has achieved such a level of democratic operation that taking recourse to any method other than democratic dialogue or settling conflicts through the channels provided should be made a criminal offence.
He calls on the Member States to take effective measures to prevent "violent" groups from forming or a "support framework for terrorists" from being created and maintained.
It is clear, I think, from the above that the sole purpose of this whole diatribe is to terrorise and subjugate anyone and everyone who opposes the violent attack unleashed by the global capitalist system, especially now that the Socialist system has been overturned.
Using the pretext of justified opposition to the often suspicious motives behind personal terrorism, its purpose is to crush the new and successful mass uprising in Europe against the anti-grass roots policies and new imperialist order, as expressed at both national and European level (e.g. Nice, Gothenburg and, most importantly, Genoa), if possible as it arises.
The voices of European government officials equating demonstrators with criminals and terrorists are still ringing in our ears.
The aim now is to further strengthen and harmonise the criminal arsenal available to the Member States for dealing with terrorism.
It will not be long before demonstrations and any form of civil disobedience are banned and made criminal offences.
The unanimous decision taken recently by the EU Council of Justice and Internal Affairs, which met immediately after the demonstrations in Gothenburg and just before the demonstrations in Genoa, points in this direction.
Surely the abolition of the right to congregate and the violent suppression of the mass demonstrations in Gothenburg and Genoa are acts of terrorism?
Surely the two people killed by the Swedish and Italian state terrorists are the victims of terrorist action and deserve compensation? The Belgian Presidency has already started intensive preparations to take even more violent action against "street terrorists" in the run up to the demonstrations being planned to coincide with the Laeken Summit.
Greece is one of the countries which recently pushed through special legislation supposedly designed to fight terrorism and organised crime.
This law, which was voted through by a couple of dozen MPs present in the house, constitutes a direct threat to the democratic freedoms which the Greek people have fought and died for; it abolishes fundamental rights and places civil and trade union action directly in the line of fire of government high-handedness.
A broad spectrum of high-profile democrats, trades union and other social organisations has rallied against it.
It is for these reasons that the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report.
Madam President, I would especially like to thank you for your kindness in inviting the Members present to listen to my 17 - which are actually 16 - explanations of vote, apart from anything else because an anti-Fatuzzo amendment has been tabled in the document amending the Rules of Procedure, which seeks to limit the number of oral explanations of vote delivered during voting time to a maximum of three.
I am therefore very pleased to accept your invitation to the Members to listen to Mr Fatuzzo' s explanations of vote, the first of which today concerns the Watson report on the role of the European Union in combating terrorism.
The Pensioners' Party, in the person of myself, voted for the motion. It recommends that, in order to genuinely combat terrorism, absolute silence of the press and television in matters of terrorism should be established.
The terrorists want their crimes to be publicised and the media must refuse to satisfy them.
Directives must be adopted which lay down absolute silence of the press and television where terrorist acts are concerned.
The Ruffolo motion for a resolution on cultural cooperation in the European Union contains numerous positive proposals and proposed amendments to the original Commission proposal, such as:
earmarking 1% of the gross budget for artistic and cultural works
an annual Commission report on the European Union' s cultural policy
the three-year cultural cooperation plan
setting up a European observatory for cultural cooperation
converging VAT.
I should like to take this opportunity to point out that one of the main outstanding obstacles to cultural cooperation between the Fifteen is the fact that the Parthenon marbles have been appropriated by the British Museum.
The European Parliament supported the return of the marbles to Greece when it officially adopted the Lomas written statement a few years ago.
I think that we should take more action in this direction.
.
Extradition procedures between Member States cannot, in practice, be extinguished without common minimal standards for procedural law in order to guarantee fundamental rights.
The rejection of the Verts/ALE amendment requiring that Member States reach such an agreement means that the report, which is serious and important, is fundamentally flawed.
This is of such fundamental importance to European citizens that regrettably this has prevented me from voting in favour of this report.
I would like to express my support for this own-initiative report, which urges Member States of the European Union to be better coordinated in the fight against terrorist acts.
In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of terrorist activities within the European Union' s borders and every Member State has been affected by these activities.
Traditional forms of judicial and police cooperation are often found to be inadequate in combating this new form of terrorism, which stems from the activities of networks operating at international level, which are based in several countries and exploit legal loopholes arising from the geographical limits of investigations, sometimes enjoying extensive logistical and financial support.
We must, of course, condemn these acts, which traumatise whole families and create a climate of terror in the areas that are particularly affected.
More importantly, however, we must make firm proposals that seek to put an end to these despicable acts.
This is the aim of the report, which contains some interesting proposals, such as:
the creation of a 'European search and arrest warrant' with a view to combating terrorism in the context of action against crime, whether organised or not, trafficking in human beings and crimes against children, illegal trafficking in drugs and arms, and corruption and fraud,
establishing minimum rules at European level relating to the definition of criminal acts and to penalties in the field of terrorism,
abolishing formal extradition procedures and adopting the principle of mutual recognition of decisions on criminal matters relating to terrorist offences,
adopting the appropriate legal instruments for the approximation of national legislation concerning the compensation of victims of terrorist crimes.
Like the rapporteur, I also believe it is essential to work on preventing terrorist acts.
To achieve this, Member States must continue to conduct education and social policies that aim to combat all forms of social, economic and cultural exclusion.
Poverty and a lack of education help to create a favourable hunting ground, which can be exploited by fundamentalists.
We can no longer turn a blind eye to these acts, which threaten the democratic future of our societies.
.
The British Conservatives voted in favour of the Watson report in order to send a message that we will give no quarter in the fight against terrorism, and particularly to show solidarity with our colleagues involved in the on-going fight against terrorists, notably ETA.
However, while the Conservatives have a long and proud record of fighting terrorism, our concerns about undue interference and politicisation in due legal process are equally long-standing.
We are anxious that extending Community competence into this area will impair the ability of Member States to take those measures which they consider necessary to tackle this problem.
We feel that it is premature to grant Europol far-reaching powers, and maintain our conviction that different national legal traditions mean that the way forward must be by cooperation, not harmonisation.
We will never, under any circumstances, give succour to those who seek to use force to undermine legitimate democratic institutions.
, in writing. I regret that I found myself unable to support the request for Parliamentary unanimity on this report.
As a Green, my preferred route is always non-violence and I believe there is absolutely no justification for violence as a means to change in a democratic state.
Where the ballot box is an option, violence is not.
I welcome the distinctions made in paragraph T in relation to third countries.
My "no" vote should not be interpreted as support for terrorism but is based on one key factor.
This is the issue of mutual recognition of decisions on criminal matters.
Unless there are agreed common minimum standards for procedural law, this should not go ahead.
We cannot use the fight against terrorism to undermine the legal procedures and democratic safeguards which differ between Member States.
Parliament chose not to adopt Amendment 1 which would have demanded these minimum standards.
I must also admit to an underlying unease about supporting a report which omits certain issues such as state terrorism, the proscription of certain organisations active in non-EU countries and the basis for such decisions and, indeed, the lack of a definition of "environmental terrorism" .
However, the lack of a commitment to minimum legal safeguards is the deciding factor in my voting "no" .
.
I decided to vote in favour of this reform although I have many reservations about the effect of some of the recommendations.
I do so in the hope that we will see meaningful cooperation between Member States in the eradication of violence and terrorism.
Ulster Unionists have stood against violence for decades and will continue to do so in the future.
We see the globalisation of terrorists with the arrest in Columbia of three activists in the IRA.
This brings home how widespread terrorism and the effects of terrorism have become.
Ruffolo Report (A5-0281/2001)
Madam President, two weeks ago I was in Verona.
I went to the Verona Arena to see a wonderful opera by Giuseppe Verdi, La Traviata.
It was, I am sad to say, the first time I had ever seen an opera live, and it was so beautiful that I feel it is right to make it possible for the whole of Europe to enjoy these cultural products.
Therefore, I welcome reports such as Mr Ruffolo' s report on cultural cooperation.
Clearly, it is not just Italy which has cultural activities to share but the other 14 States of the European Union and the 12 candidate countries as well.
In its explanatory statement, the report calls on the Commission and Member States to show a greater commitment to culture.
There is a reason for this, since the report also states that, in 2000, a mere 0.1% of the Community budget was earmarked for the cultural and audiovisual sectors.
What does the report mean, then, by the terms relating to 'European culture' , which are constantly used by the authors? Apart from the fact that this expression itself is ambiguous, how does European culture differ from universal culture, which is rich with contributions from every continent?
In one of its recitals, the report includes sectors such as copyright, resale rights, liberalisation of the telecommunications market, international competition law (including funding of cinematographic works, resale price maintenance for books, theatre subsidies and media concentration) in the context of culture.
We claim that we are talking about culture when we are actually referring to markets, if not business!
On the other hand, the report does not raise any of the most basic questions. Is everyone living within the European Union guaranteed access to culture?
Do they all have even a reasonable level of literacy? Were they all able to receive an education that suited their abilities?
These questions do not interest the European authorities, which are too preoccupied with regulating competition in the cultural business world.
We therefore voted against this report.
I welcome the fact that the European Parliament, the body that represents the aspirations of European citizens, has taken its right of initiative to urge the European Commission to propose firm measures in the area of culture.
Since 1974, the European Parliament has stressed the importance of developing a cultural policy at Community level, and for a good reason.
Culture is a fundamental aspect of the European Union' s identity. Culture is a basis which affords people the opportunity to meet, to relate to one another and experience a shared sense of belonging.
Of course, this does not involve putting forward a European cultural policy that seeks to impose uniformity.
On the contrary, this involves emphasising cultural and linguistic diversity and the sharing of a common heritage.
At a time when our citizens are questioning Europe, we must work in order to enhance the feeling of European citizenship. This is a prerequisite for building a European constitution.
This is the background to Mr Ruffolo' s report, which suggests several routes to follow.
The Commission is also requested:
to present to the Council and European Parliament a draft recommendation, in which the Commission will undertake to submit an annual report on cultural policies of the Union and of the Member States, and in which the Commission will call on the Member States to contribute actively to drawing up and carrying out a three-year cultural cooperation plan;
to create a European agency to monitor cultural cooperation;
to convene, as part of the review of the Culture 2000 framework programme, a second Cultural Forum which, on the basis of this resolution, will redefine the values, objectives and forms of cultural cooperation in Europe;
to carry out a study into the opportunities for bringing principles more closely into line at Community level governing the tax treatment of works of art and artistic work;
to restate, in view of the forthcoming WTO summit, the position of the European Union.
I shall conclude by reiterating that, as rapporteur for the Sixth Research and Development Framework Programme, I proposed amendments that seek to enhance cultural research.
.
(DE) Closer European cultural cooperation is a welcome and desirable aim.
I voted for the Ruffolo report because I firmly believe that closer cultural cooperation will be mutually enriching.
Familiarisation with other cultures helps nations and peoples to understand each other and fosters peace.
The culture and language of the migrant communities in Europe must not go unmentioned in this context, and I call on the European Union to ensure that some of its financial aid is used to support the cultural activity of these ethnic groups.
Cultural cooperation in Europe is a fundamental aspect of closer European integration.
By learning about each other' s cultures, the people of our countries can undoubtedly develop a sense of European identity.
I consider this particularly important, because Europe is still remote from its people, for whom it is something situated in distant Brussels.
Besides its unity, Europe is also characterised by its cultural diversity.
That is of inestimable value and helps peoples to live together in peace.
I am determined to work for a Europe whose inhabitants do not merely coexist but, above all, engage in fruitful interaction.
Schmitt Report (A5-0279/2001)
Madam President, as you know, the number of elderly people and pensioners has been increasing constantly for some time now, which makes me very happy as representative of the Pensioners' Party.
This ever increasing number of pensioners and elderly people travels throughout the world, especially within the European Union, and is choosing to do so increasingly frequently by air.
These pensioners have complained to me a number of times about the treatment they receive on board aircraft, the times of flights and delays, and I can therefore only commend and vote for a report which seeks to improve the quality of air transport.
It is now urgent to have consistent and common safety requirements in air transport.
Air traffic has increased considerably and we must treat safety issues with particular attention.
We agree that this is a necessity.
However, we are not in favour of creating a European Aviation Safety Agency (AESA) on the basis proposed.
The issues at stake are obviously related to the increase in international air travel.
The AESA has been created to coincide with the liberalisation of our air space and is an instrument which can be used in the war with the United States over requirements.
Rather than this being an attempt to achieve consistent safety requirements, this is an attempt to increase competition.
The AESA is needed in order to bring about the proposed deregulation in air transport and, in the future, navigation staff and services will also be affected by the decisions taken by this agency.
At the moment, navigation staff are actually informed and consulted, but they are never acknowledged as experts.
This gives cause for concern at a time when massive structural changes and lay-offs are being made at AOM, Sabena and Swissair as well as at other airlines.
This agency must focus on one task alone, namely safety; employees must be involved in this work and the experience and knowledge of each Member State must be made consistent across the board.
- (DE) Mr Schmitt' s report is supported by the majority of my group.
The advantages of creating a European Aviation Safety Agency in place of 15 national agencies are undisputed:
It can create uniform authorisation procedures,
it can standardise the rules on air safety and environmental protection, and
it can create standard provisions relating to the safety of products, persons and installations.
At the same time, the new Agency would be a recognised partner for aviation authorities in other parts of the world.
The functions of the Agency are clearly defined: consultancy, providing technical support to the Commission, issuing the requisite official documentation, conducting checks and inspections, monitoring the implementation of statutory provisions, devising and funding research projects and cooperating with the agencies of non-EU countries.
The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has adopted other important amendments which would make the Agency more independent of the Commission as well as defining the obligation of the Agency to keep the European Parliament informed.
My group also attaches importance to the provisions that are designed to increase transparency.
These would subject the Agency to the following controls:
General Community budgetary procedures would apply to the Agency,
Community anti-fraud legislation would apply to the Agency, and
the Agency would be subject to regular external assessments.
For these reasons the vast majority of our group voted in favour of the report.
.
(NL) There is a grave risk that the aviation industry is facing chaos.
As various companies charging different rates and offering different levels of service vie for the same busy connections, the chance of carelessness and risk-taking is greater than in public transport on the ground, which has been reasonably well regulated, so far.
Moreover, airspace is becoming increasingly crowded, leading to many near misses.
The fact that aviation is not only dangerous but also unhealthy is evident from the incidence of thrombosis which occurs in passengers who are cooped up in very confined spaces for long periods of time.
That is why I would welcome a body that can unambiguously implement the best possible safety rules in Europe.
If we consider twelve years of a 'Joint Aviation Authority' to be too non-committal and wish to set up a new body which, in agreement with EU legislation, must achieve the highest security level possible, the question is raised whether this new European agency for safety in aviation should be independent of the European Commission.
It is certainly unjustifiable to deregulate aviation traffic in the short term for the benefit of what we call a 'single sky' , where air safety functions are given to competing companies, existing control services are dismantled and airline companies are in a position to reduce their staffing levels further.
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I would like warmly to welcome Mr Schmitt' s report which calls for the establishment of a European Safety Agency with a view to improving air safety.
If this proposal comes to fruition, a uniform, high level of safety in civil aviation with common safety requirements will be created.
There are many benefits, both financial and practical, to be gained by creating a single pan-European Aviation Safety Agency: if various national regulatory and certification procedures can be replaced by a single European, uniform system, various asymmetries will be abolished.
This will ultimately lead to lower costs, a standardisation of procedures and more importantly, less red tape and bureaucracy.
Indeed, it is easier to monitor one safety system as opposed to fifteen.
It is highly important that passengers feel safe when travelling on the airlines and establishing common European rules on civil aviation will go some way to achieving this.
Swoboda Report (A5-0266/2001)
Madam President, Mr Swoboda has tabled a document on heavy goods vehicles transiting through Austrian territory, particularly the valleys and the beautiful areas there are in Austria with which we are or would like to be familiar.
I very much hope that the European Union will strive to ensure that noise and other pollution from heavy goods vehicles and other vehicles are dealt with more resolutely, so that the air remains clean and pure, particularly in the residential and tourist areas frequented by pensioners and elderly people.
.
(IT) By agreement with Europe, Austria and Switzerland have laid down limits for heavy goods vehicles, and new railways, currently being built or designed, are planned.
This is part of the trans-European transport network, which proposes the Turin-Lyon rail link as an alternative to road travel.
The Commission recommended the route for the Aosta-Martigny tunnel, which was restored by the authorities in the Val d' Aosta, in accordance with the Protocol on the Implementation of the Alpine Convention in the field of Transport signed by the States and soon to be signed by the Commission.
The Mont Blanc and Fréjus tunnels will now serve as a test to see whether the intention is genuine: the former was closed to traffic following the tragedy whereas the latter has seen a great increase in the transiting of heavy goods vehicles.
The communities of the valleys leading to the tunnels voiced their anxiety and concern: in the Chamonix valley there was a request for a ban on heavy goods vehicles and in the Val d' Aosta a request was made for a quota system.
There are no limits on heavy goods traffic in the western Alps.
Italy and France are going to establish such limits - I recall a draft law I submitted to the Chamber of Deputies - together with the local communities, and communicate them to Europe so that Europe can modify the trans-European transport network and specify the changes in the Commission' s White Paper, which will also cover vehicle transit through the Alps.
Measures must be laid down to govern road tunnels between Italy and France, in order to achieve a uniform system throughout the Alps now that the Mont Blanc tunnel is being reopened.
- (DE) We, the undersigned Members of the European Parliament from the Austrian People' s Party (ÖVP) and the European People' s Party (PPE), voted unanimously today against the Commission' s proposal for the amendment of Protocol No 9 to the Act of Accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden regarding the system of ecopoints for heavy goods vehicles transiting through Austria, an amendment which would advance the expiry date of the so-called 108% clause whereby a ceiling is imposed on the number of journeys and which would not replace the clause with another form of restriction.
This plan devised by the Commission is contrary to the letter and spirit of the provisions that were negotiated at the time of Austria' s accession to the EU.
We, for our part, continue to put our faith in the 108% clause; by virtue of our vote on paragraph 2(a) to (c) of the legislative resolution, we have helped to ensure that a consensus of all the European institutions - the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament - will be found at all future stages in the quest for appropriate and sustainable solutions to transport problems in the areas designated as sensitive, areas which include Austria and the Alpine region.
The conclusion that Hannes Swoboda reaches in his report on the Commission proposal regarding the system of ecopoints for heavy goods vehicles transiting through Austria, namely that we should reject the document presented by the Commission, has my own and my fellow group members' full support.
We go along with the rapporteur' s argument that the ceiling on the volume of traffic on transit routes through Austria must be maintained because the original aims of Protocol No 9 on road and rail transport and combined transport in Austria have not yet been achieved.
These aims involved the reduction of nitrogen emissions and noise levels and the improvement of road safety.
Instead of progress towards these goals, we have seen a steady rise in the number of journeys, which rose by 16% between 1993 and 2000 on the main haulage route through the Inn Valley and the Brenner alone and by 52% in Austria as a whole - in other words, a total of 580 188 additional journeys!
The EU ceiling of 40 milligrams of nitrogen dioxide per cubic metre is constantly being exceeded by more than the tolerance margin in readings taken at the Vomp measuring station on the A12 autobahn.
The same applies to the other Alpine passes that are crossed by transit routes.
Despite a few reductions in pollutant emissions that have resulted from technical improvements to heavy goods vehicles, the overall level of carbon dioxide emissions has risen.
If the original aim of continuous and sustainable reduction of pollutant emissions is to be achieved, the number of transit journeys by heavy goods vehicles must be reduced.
For these reasons, we advocate rejection of the Commission' s proposal.
To add another proposal to our debate, let me say that efforts should be made to follow the Swiss example and create rail links for the transport of heavy goods vehicles through Austria.
Motion for a resolution on the enlargement process (B5-0538/2001)
Madam President, in relation to the enlargement reports - not just Mr Brok' s report, but also those on the individual applicant states - it is interesting to see that Mr Brok has recognised the rejection of the Nice Treaty in Ireland.
He has confirmed what we have said all along, that basically the Nice Treaty is not necessary for enlargement.
Enlargement can go ahead without the Nice Treaty.
It is deplorable that our own government is trying to force people to change their minds.
In relation to the accession reports on the individual states, I have grave concern about the emphasis on the common foreign and security aspect, the fact that countries are being coerced into joining Nato.
The report on Malta, for example, deplores the fact that Malta is divided on the issue of membership.
I believe it is up to the Maltese themselves to decide on whether or not they want to join.
If there is a clear division, then there should be a free choice.
In Malta, Ireland is being used as an example of how you can be a Member of the European Union and a wonderful economic success and still remain neutral.
All of this is false.
We have to stop dangling artificial carrots in front of the applicant states and be honest.
Ireland is no longer neutral.
It is cooperating in common foreign and security and defence policy.
Ireland' s economic success is not solely down to the EU, as many economic experts will tell you.
Madam President, in terms of the European Union' s enlargement process in general, I have to say that I voted for the motion.
The Pensioners' Party supports the enlargement of the European Union for two reasons: first and foremost, the States of Central and Eastern Europe lived for over 50 years under a totally oppressive dictatorship and their request to be part of Europe with us deserves recognition.
The other reason, Madam President, is that there are already a great many pensioners and elderly people in the current European Union.
With the accession of the candidate countries they will become even more numerous, and I can only rejoice that there will be lots of pensioners in Europe who might vote for the Pensioners' Party in the future.
There are three reasons why we welcome the debate that has just been held in Parliament on the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union.
First of all, it appears that, as of 2004, around 10 of the 12 candidate countries (with the likely exceptions of Romania and Bulgaria) may all join at the same time.
The Members belonging to the Mouvement pour la France think that this is excellent news, which will allow us to make up for some lost time, after such a long wait.
The second reason is that we have remarked upon a change in tone when referring to the candidate countries, which are now treated like States that are worthy of respect.
The resolution even stresses that the European Union must ensure that the dignity of the people of the candidate countries is never compromised by making inappropriate demands upon them.
We had often condemned the haughty and even contemptuous attitude of the federalists, who demanded that the countries in the East relinquish their sovereignty.
Let us hope that this new development will provide more than just a change in vocabulary.
Lastly, the third reason we welcome the debate is that paragraph 10 of the resolution appears to accept a more flexible Europe that is made up of various circles.
In our view, this is a more realistic position, on the condition, however, that the circle in which France is placed is not dominated by ultra-federalism. This would allow flexibility for all countries, in return for increased rigidity for a sub-set, which would be illogical.
The resolution still contains, however, some unsatisfactory, even unacceptable paragraphs.
For example, it is a contradiction to demand better monitoring of external borders of candidate countries as well as a relaxation of their asylum policy. It is hardly responsible to call for a structural policy to be applied to the whole of the European Union following enlargement, whereas we should instead focus the policy for a limited period on the new member countries.
It is unacceptable to assert that the lesson to be learned from the Irish referendum is that we need to find a method of revising the treaties, which are likely to provoke such opposition (Recital E). It appears that the change in tone does not go as far as respect for national democracies that vote 'no' !
- (DA) So that there shall be no doubt that we are well disposed towards admitting the new candidate countries, we have voted in favour of the report.
There are nonetheless quite a few aspects of the report and of the enlargement negotiations as a whole that are particularly open to criticism.
Recital E, in particular, to the effect that '... the citizens of Europe do not understand the historic endeavour of the Union to bring peace, security and prosperity to the entire continent' is strikingly arrogant.
In the roll-call vote, we voted against change, but we are not in principle opposed to changing the procedure for amending the treaties of the European Union.
However, we have misgivings about whether the proposed change would make any practical difference at all to the result it is hoped to achieve by means of a possible convention model.
On the positive side, however, is the fact that paragraph 2 talks about 'devising alternative options as a precaution' .
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(FR) Behind a presentation that is supposed to be optimistic, the description the reports give of the Eastern European states forming the majority of European Union candidate countries is gloomy.
'Worrying levels of corruption' , 'overpopulation of prisons' , 'enormous traffic in women and children for the purposes of prostitution and sexual exploitation' , 'high level of unemployment' , 'poverty' , 'seriously damaged environment' , 'unpromising economic outlook' , 'acceleration in the spread of the HIV virus' , 'oppression of minorities' , 'discrimination against the Roma' , these are some of the expressions used in relation to one Eastern European country or another, or, in some extreme cases, to all.
Despite this, the report expresses satisfaction with the fact that privatisations are going ahead, even in the health sector, denying healthcare to a significant proportion of the population, and with the fact that foreign investments and exports are on the increase in these countries.
The return of these states to brutal capitalism and the increasing stranglehold of powerful investors from the west are already causing a considerable rise in social inequalities.
However, despite a few sanctimonious warnings given by the reports to the governments of these countries, what they are mainly asking for is for the remaining obstacles to the penetration of foreign capital to be lifted and for 'the flexibility and mobility of work' to be increased, that is to say, for their working classes to be submitted to a higher level of exploitation.
Being supporters of a completely unified Europe from one end of the continent to the other, we have not voted against enlargement.
Our abstention expresses our opposition to the master and slave relationship that the European Union is seeking to impose on these countries in collaboration with their privileged classes, in addition to the anti-worker policy imposed under the pretext of enlargement.
- (DA) We have not voted in favour of Mr Brok' s decision.
It is an expression of a development of European cooperation that we cannot support.
We do not therefore consider the development of a common defence to be of benefit either to present or future Member States, and we are opposed to involving NATO in a decision concerning enlargement of the EU.
We believe that the decision skates all too easily over the problems created by Schengen for quite a few candidate countries, for example when it comes to regional cohesion in the form of trade, and other contact, with neighbouring States outside the EU. The issue of Kaliningrad' s future, to which the rapporteur does not give serious treatment, also comes under this heading.
Moreover, the decision has all too little to say about the problems raised by the transitional arrangements demanded by the EU, for example concerning the freedom of movement of the labour force.
Such arrangements would, for one thing, prolong the problem of illegal labour from candidate countries in current Member States and, for another, give people in the candidate countries the sense of being second-class citizens of the EU.
Furthermore, we think that the decision is far too weak when it comes to the agricultural and structural funds.
We welcome the fact that the rapporteur emphasises the necessity of putting both the environment and the social consequences of the arrangements into the equation; but, if enlargement is to be an equitable process, a minor adjustment in these two crucial areas is far from being sufficient.
Finally, the author' s arrogance towards countries' populations is completely incomprehensible, and we wish to retain the right of each individual country' s population to decide for itself.
.
(PT) The contradictions contained in this motion for a resolution, to which 31 proposals for amendments have been tabled, show that there are considerable differences of opinion on the prospect of enlargement and the objectives that people wish to achieve.
The European Union' s leaders have given commitments to the candidate countries that they are now not only behind in fulfilling, but are also making unacceptable demands which could clearly threaten objectives that they are trumpeting and which should actually be the broad guidelines for accession negotiations, such as the peace, development and prosperity of all peoples, taking into consideration the principle of economic and social cohesion.
On the one hand, however, the resolution voted for by a majority of the European Parliament states that "the dignity of the peoples of the candidate countries must never be wounded by insensitive demands from the EU" and the need to correct certain discriminatory aspects that were approved in Nice is acknowledged. On the other hand, it unacceptably ties the enlargement of the European Union to that of NATO.
The resolution expresses satisfaction with the conclusion of the agreements on liberalising agricultural trade and urges further privatisation, bearing in mind current and future obligations within the WTO, whereas, in social terms, it opens the way for transitional periods in the free movement of people, thereby covering the German and Austrian positions, which we reject, of preventing workers from candidate countries obtaining legal status for seven years,.
The motion for a resolution also fails to adequately address the issue of the future budget of the European Union, despite knowing that major disparities exist in the levels of development, not only between the countries of the European Union but also between the average of the fifteen current Member States and that of the twelve countries applying to join the Union, which we cannot accept.
The move towards economic and social cohesion requires a thorough revision of the financial perspectives and a substantial bolstering of Community funds in order at least to maintain current levels of support for cohesion countries, including Portugal, and to give significant support to the development of the candidate countries.
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(FR) In this current process of enlargement, the Council uses the same framework for all 12 candidate countries without taking into account the specific nature of those from Eastern Europe, insofar as we are forcing them to change their entire systems, which makes this round of enlargement a qualitatively different issue to any previous enlargement.
The European Union is therefore asking each candidate country to prove their ability to face up to competition by destroying their environment, their system for social protection and their means for a true policy of modernisation and full employment, thereby encouraging the development of poverty and unemployment.
Far from continuing to give gold stars to those who have privatised the most and to those who have reduced their budgetary expenditure the most, there should be an audit of the true socio-economic effects of these measures, a moratorium on privatisations, public aid for development, and the definition of a Europe-wide social plan for the European Union that is open to the East and to the South, protecting employment, the environment, health and standards of living.
Instead of this, the EU is preparing to welcome these new countries into the Community as members of a second division, commanded to apply the acquis communautaire and excluded from the effects of the CAP or even the structural funds.
The citizens of these countries should be consulted beforehand, preferably by means of a referendum, and Europe give the commitment to accept their response whatever it may be.
This is why we have not voted for the process of enlargement to be pursued under these conditions.
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(FR) The enlargement process is without doubt a great adventure.
Yet up to this point it has been reduced to the rank of a commercial-style takeover bid or a company merger, instead of being a major event in history, reuniting all the Christian peoples of Europe at a time when the secular enemy once again is threatening the south.
Within this framework of a camp of freedom and light, pitched against a camp of integrationist obscurantism, Ukraine and Russia, the advanced guard of the West, would have comfortably found their place.
The result of this derisory technical fudging of a political issue at the summit is the expression 'acquis communautaire' .
In around thirty chapters, from agriculture to taxation, via the environment, SMEs, education and transport, the laws of the candidate countries, their administrations, their sociologies and even their morals are being closely examined with a police-style scrutiny that must remind these former countries suffused with a proletarian morality of heavy-handed practices that have still not been forgotten.
Such states are also seeing their penal codes criticised as an obstacle to their accession, because they forbid certain sexual practices.
Many have received lectures on their levels of fraud and corruption, as if European VAT has not been, since 1993, a major factor for serious tax fraud.
Malta is even being reproached for attracting too many offshore companies because of its favourable tax laws.
As if Ireland has not been guilty of this with the CSFs and as if the United States does not practice this system on an enormous scale; a practice condemned by the World Trade Organisation, but tolerated by Europe that will climb down as many rungs as is necessary in its submission to the empire.
At no time has enlargement been the opportunity for a dialogue on experiences and the sharing of success stories.
Poland has good reason to point our that its agricultural heritage will be open to a European heritage of 8 million animals slaughtered for foot-and-mouth disease or BSE and 136 000 people incubating the fatal atypical Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.
Instead of enriching and preserving the heritage of the vegetable and animal biodiversity of these Eastern countries, not to mention their heritage of social relations that have not yet been broken by this ultra-capitalist savagery, the European Commission debases this historic meeting to the level of an unconditional annexation.
An Anschluss, in fact.
This explains why the dossier has been entrusted to a German Commissioner and the European Parliament report to a member who is, as if by chance, also German.
Things are, it is true, clearer than ever.
There is enlargement of course, but as in 1990, it is still German.
The 1945 brackets are being closed.
The Empire is rebuilding itself.
Mitteleuropa is here, everlasting in its geography and its history.
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(NL) Mr Brok' s assumption is based on close ties between NATO and the European Union.
It is true that Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary were recently persuaded to join NATO with the prospect of a possible acceleration in the accession process to the EU.
This line of thinking takes no account of the fact that four current EU member states, namely Ireland, Sweden, Finland and Austria, do not belong to NATO and neither do they have any ambitions in this direction.
I am opposed to the idea that NATO must be seen as a military organisation of five member states, being the US, the European Union, Canada, Norway and Turkey.
Moreover, in my opinion, Mr Brok' s views are not only problematical in respect of NATO.
The enlargement of the EU can heighten national contradictions, partly because many of the companies still existing in the east fail to meet the environmental acquis for which we can, at best, expect typical, temporary low-wage industries modelled on the Mexican example in return.
The new Member States will be plagued by the problems of the former DDR on the one hand, and of Mexico, which serves as the US' s poor backyard, on the other.
Mr Brok' s optimism ultimately leads to a Europe full of unsolved problems, partly because he disregards all the social issues.
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(FR) At a time when the Member States of the European Union are finally putting together, following the Erika catastrophe, a more stringent set of provisions for maritime safety - a field in which the common interest is obvious - it can only be regretted that the space set aside for this crucial subject in the various resolutions relating to the candidate countries directly involved should be so discreet.
No one can forget the images of the wreck of the Erika and the views of its home port, Valetta.
We are all aware that the merchant fleets of six candidate countries appear on the Paris Memorandum blacklist.
In addition to Turkey, these are Malta, Cyprus, Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria.
These countries' adoption of the Erika I and Erika II packages and their commitment to get on top of the issue of accepting flags of convenience should be made one of the priorities in accession negotiations.
The safety of our coastal regions depends on it.
Carlsson report (A5-0251/2001)
Madam President, a few days ago, during the summer, I went on holiday to Estonia.
While I was there, I saw a fisherman - although it was summer, it was very cold up there in the north - fishing in the Baltic Sea.
I stopped for a chat and learned that he was a pensioner who was trying to catch a few fish to supplement his pension. "Why are you doing that?"
I asked him.
"Don' t you have good pensions?" "I am afraid that our pensions are very low" he replied.
I therefore hope that we will make sure that pensions are large enough in all the candidate countries, especially Estonia.
- (DA) I have voted against the reports on enlargement of the European Union inasmuch as the real political goal of the EU' s project of enlargement is the economic and political subjection of the populations of the candidate countries.
It is about annexing a group of countries and not about real negotiations between equal parties.
A long-term strategy for peace and prosperity would be aimed at opening the EU' s markets instead of making unreasonable demands upon the candidate countries to enact extensive legislation over which they have no influence.
The most important task for the People' s Movement against the EU is to internationalise grassroots opposition to the EU project as a whole and to work for a free Europe in which there are full opportunities for open cooperation that are not stymied by the EU' s closed, supranational bureaucracy.
I would like to give an explanation of vote with regard to the votes cast on today' s enlargement reports and firstly state that I agree with the points Patricia McKenna made concerning foreign and security policy matters in connection with enlargement.
At the same time I wish to say that I voted in error in favour of Amendment No 4, which was tabled for Mrs Carlsson' s report, as in fact I opposed this amendment, which I consider to be of dubious value with regard to the area' s stability.
Schroedter report (A5-0252/2001)
Madam President, I voted for the accession of Latvia to the European Union.
In the Baltic States, there are many cultural treasures which I am sure many pensioners - and many young people as well - from throughout the European Union would like to visit.
It can only be a good thing to have the possibility of seeing these marvellous works of both nature and man in the European Union, which should therefore be enlarged to include Latvia as well.
Souladakis report (A5-0253/2001)
Madam President, Lithuania has a great problem of energy and unemployment.
I voted for the motion but I call upon the European Union to provide more substantial financial and other aid to combat the lack of energy and the shortage of jobs in the State of Lithuania.
Gawronski report (A5-0254/2001)
Madam President, Poland must be the first candidate country to enter the European Union.
This is because the peaceful revolution which brought Eastern Europe into the democratic world, the world of democracies, originated precisely in Poland, as we all know, with the work of Solidarnosc and the election of a Polish Pope.
I therefore voted for the motion and I hope that there will soon be Polish representatives with us in this Chamber.
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(FR) As a member of the EU-Poland Joint Parliamentary Committee, I am happy to be able to give my opinion on the report by Mr Gawronski.
This is, in fact, an analysis of the state of progress of accession negotiations with Poland and to check that the Copenhagen criteria, the conditions to be fulfilled at both political and economic levels and in terms of the implementation of the acquis communautaire, are being respected.
As far as Poland is concerned, the government has shown its willingness to implement the necessary reforms that will allow it to join the European Union as soon as possible.
It appears that, on the face of it, Poland will be able to participate in the next European elections in 2004, which I am delighted about.
There remain, however, several recurrent problems, notably in the area of agriculture.
It is extremely important that a compromise agreement be reached between the Polish authorities and the Commission on Poland' s participation in the common agricultural policy and, on the basis of Commissioner Fischler' s proposals, to implement a phasing in of direct payments, which should gradually integrate the Polish agricultural sector into the Community system.
It also seems necessary to return to a question that has not been mentioned in the report for it raises too many controversial issues.
All the same, I would like to remind you of the painful problem of the restitution of property confiscated after the Second World War.
I am, of course, aware that the Polish authorities are finding it particularly difficult to solve this problem for both financial and emotional reasons.
However, the debate should be held in such a way that a balanced solution can be found which, hopefully, will deal carefully with all the sensibilities involved.
Lastly, the efforts of the Polish parliament to adapt national law to the acquis communautaire must be highlighted.
It is obvious that these could be seen as measures that simply complicate people' s daily lives.
A policy of information and communication should therefore accompany such measures to convince the Polish people of the advantages of joining the European Union.
Whatever happens, I would insist on the fact that, for citizens of both Member States and candidate countries, the cost of enlargement in every sense of the word is nothing when compared with the cost of non-enlargement.
We all have a historical responsibility for this matter.
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(FR) This report 'urges' Poland to speed up the effective implementation of the acquis communautaire so that she can respect the commitments she has given and fully benefit from the advantages inherent in accession to the European Union.
But what exactly is the content of the acquis communautaire that the Polish people, especially the Polish farmers, can expect?
We certainly support the demand of all candidate countries, especially Poland, not to be treated like members of an EU second division.
Yet the CAP reforms and structural funds require much more than strict budgetary calculations.
Agriculture plays a major role in satisfying needs and fundamental rights, from the right to the sovereignty of food to questions of health and the environment, via regional balances and jobs.
Candidate countries such as Poland should participate fully in the definition of an entirely new European agricultural policy.
As far as the Polish industrial machine is concerned, it is whipping itself into shape for a Europe that has demoted it from the rank of favourite to that of outsider in terms of accession.
In fact, the formulae applied have left entire regions disaster stricken, with an official unemployment rate of 16%.
The socio-economic failure of Poland will be that of so-called 'liberal' formulae imposed by accession.
This is the reason why we have not voted for this report.
Jürgen Schröder report (A5-0255/2001)
Madam President, Mr Fatuzzo is not alone here, which is nice for him.
We Members of Parliament are not normally late going to lunch, but I wanted to explain why I voted against Mrs Nicholson of Winterbourne' s and Mr Schröder' s reports.
Of course, I want to welcome these countries, the Czech Republic and Romania, to the EU with open arms, but I wanted to protest about Parliament' s attitude to nuclear power.
It is not our task to advise independent countries on how they are to manage their affairs regarding energy, and our own credibility suffers if we discuss the issue of nuclear power time and time again in a populist manner that ignores the facts.
Numerous international study trips have been made to Temelin, for example, and it meets all the international criteria.
Why should this brand new nuclear power station be demolished? Romania, on the other hand, has coal-fired power stations that are 40 years old - they are nearly as old as me - so it is only reasonable for them to build the modern Canadian nuclear plant there.
I must just say that if people in the candidate countries are reading our thoughts on nuclear energy they are almost certainly choking on the coal dust and their food is going down the wrong way as well.
Madam President, I wish to associate myself with the comments just made by Mr Vatanen.
I too did not support the Jürgen Schröder report, specifically because paragraphs 43 and 44 call into question the completion of the Temelin nuclear power plant and, in fact, contradict the earlier paragraph 42 which welcomes the Melk Accord between the Czech Republic, the Austrian government and the European Commission in December 2000.
The content of that accord and, in particular, the investigations into the environmental impact assessment that was agreed, have substantially been carried out.
On my examination of the information there are no safety reasons why the commissioning of Number 1 reactor should not proceed.
On the basis of this contradiction in the report I did not support it.
Madam President, the Czech Republic has asked to accede to the European Union and I have voted for the motion.
Point 7 of the report, on pages 7 and 8, says that, in order to reduce the deficit, the Czech Republic must reform its health and pension systems.
I do not agree.
Health and pensions must not be used to balance States' budgets.
The health and pensions of the citizens must be the last item on a State' s budget to be altered.
A good administration must come first.
.
(ES) The Spanish delegation of the PPE-DE has voted in favour of the report by Baroness Nicholson on the accession of Romania to the European Union in view of the explanations given by the rapporteur with regard to the adoption of Romanian children by Spanish families, explanations which I am grateful for.
It considers that, in this way, the concerns of future Spanish mothers and fathers, who have correctly carried out all the necessary procedures for adoption and have then been extremely alarmed by the revision measures and paralysis of cases adopted recently, may be effectively dealt with.
The Spanish delegation of the PPE-DE is actively monitoring the implementation of these measures and will take all necessary action with the Romanian and Community authorities to protect the rights of children to be adopted, by means of the introduction of provisions which will remove any possibility that, under the guise of adoption, cases of trafficking in children may be covered up, as well as the rights of parents who have a generous desire to adopt and who, to this end, are making every kind of sacrifice.
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(FR) The report 'is concerned about the rising budget deficit, which, after deducting privatisation receipts, could reach 7% of gross domestic product in 2001, and therefore calls on the Czech government to carry out urgently needed reforms to the healthcare and pensions system' and 'recalls that budgetary consolidation must not be carried through in such a way as to compromise the mid-term objective of social cohesion in accordance with the European Social Model, in particular the fight against poverty and social exclusion' .
In direct opposition to European ideology, the rapporteur adds, as if in response to pressure from the demonstrations in Prague against the IMF and World Bank summit, that 'future-oriented public investments are urgently needed for the improvement of social protection, public health and education' ...
This schizophrenia will become more and more apparent between the proclamations of good intentions and the 'liberal' formulae directed towards mass privatisations and competition.
It is proof of the refusal to draw up an effective balance sheet for failed policy and disintegrating formulae.
We demand a moratorium on these policies and criteria for European construction that do not impose methods that are detrimental to standards of living and basic needs.
For these reasons, we were unable to vote for this report.
.
(DE) The FPÖ members voted for the enlargement report on the Czech Republic.
However, I wish to reiterate our position on paragraphs 42-44 of the report.
The Melk Accord between Austria and the Czech Republic has failed to achieve the desired results so far.
Its objectives have not been met.
A satisfactory outcome can only be obtained if the Temelin issue is dealt with at European rather than at bilateral level.
What is required, therefore, is a European initiative on the closure of Temelin which sets forth a timetable and financing options for its final phasing out and involves the Commission and the Member States.
With regard to Mr Schröder' s report I wish to say that hazardous nuclear power stations are not the internal problem of just one country.
For that reason it was important to adopt paragraphs 43 and 44 of the Temelin report.
It is to be hoped that they will give the right message to the Czech government and also that the zero variant will be taken seriously in any discussion of Temelin' s future.
Wiersma report (A5-0256/2001)
Slovakia has applied to enter the European Union and is making progress in incorporating the Community acquis into its legal system.
The Pensioners' Party voted for the accession of this country, and I am pleased to note, as page 14 of the report states, that Slovakia has authorised the use of many different regional languages in its Republic.
This is an example that we ought to follow in all the Member States.
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(NL) Unfortunately, the country reports hardly mention the risk of eastern newcomers reverting to their traditional situation pre-1940, when they were the West' s poor relations.
At that time they had to export cheap minerals and agricultural products in order to pay for the import of expensive industrial products.
Only by sealing their markets off from disrupting and currency-consuming imports did they manage to protect their industry and create a level of security for 40 years.
If we do not afford the newcomers any sustainable protection, they will not be able to protect themselves against the clearance sale of land and businesses to people living in countries with a stronger economy, nor against the imports from such countries.
This could result in them being condemned to long-term poverty and deprivation.
This also brings with it the risk that the electorate in those countries will favour forces which will promote themselves as protectors of national independence, national identity and the national economy.
Certainly in Slovakia, with its weak economy and Roma and Hungarian minorities which are not favoured by a majority of people, poverty not only incites an aversion to the EU, but also creates internal conflict.
A time bomb is ticking away unnoticed under the EU' s enlargement plans.
Queiró report (A5-0257/2001)
I voted for the report on the state of accession negotiations between Europe and Hungary.
Although I fully support this report, I would have preferred it if it had stated that the Hungarian citizens, in company, moreover, with all the other citizens of the States of Europe, should be informed that, in joining the European Union, they will benefit from being able to add the years of work performed in the State in which they live to the years of work they have performed in other States.
Thus, accession to the European Union will bring better, larger pensions for many cross-border workers.
.
(FR) The European Union promised Hungary a rapid entry into Europe.
However, this promise has not been kept.
This is why the report 'insists (...) on the need to fix firm dates for the conclusion of negotiations and accession - since the Treaty of Nice has now been signed - so as to help forestall any disappointment or even discontent on the part of the Hungarian public' .
Disappointment is becoming the norm, however. The amount of time the process is taking is the main reason for this but also the widespread sacrifices we are trying to pass off as a bitter pill that must be swallowed in order to prepare for a brighter future at the heart of the EU, with certain countries having to swallow this very pill without even any guarantee that they will become full members of the EU.
The fear that people will associate social regression with structural adjustment criteria imposed by the IMF or by the EU is shifting the debate.
The report 'welcomes (...) the approximately 60% rise in the national minimum wages, and calls on the Hungarian government to encourage the signing of collective bargaining agreements by industrial sectors' yet the substance of the social measures advocated evaporates when the report 'notes the adoption of a new labour code based on the principle of the flexibility and mobility of labour with a view to adapting the rules and organisation of the labour market to the need for economic growth...' This is a liberal formula that we do not accept, either for the new candidate countries or for the European Union as it stands today.
For these reasons, we were not able to vote for this report.
.
(PT) Despite having delivered, as you would expect, a favourable, vote on this report, I must express my disagreement with its conclusion No 13, which is the consequence of an amendment tabled in committee being adopted.
This amendment requests the Hungarian government remove the provisions of the Penal Code, specifically Article 199, which discriminates against homosexual men and women.
If this were in fact the issue, the aforementioned conclusion would not require any comment.
The situation is, however, that following consultation with the Hungarian authorities, I have been informed that the penal provision in question only affects homosexual relations involving partners under 18 years of age.
This is not, therefore, a law of sexual discrimination, but one designed to protect minors, which completely changes my position.
Consequently, although I requested a split vote on this matter, I have voted against the paragraph in question.
Van Orden report (A5-0258/2001)
Bulgaria has also applied to join the European Union.
I am somewhat concerned by the political situation in this State, Madam President.
I hope that King Simeon, who has become Prime Minister of the Bulgarian Republic, but who does not hold an absolute parliamentary majority and who has acquired the reins of the country by bringing to the government ministers from the both the Turkish and the communist communities, will also be able to incorporate the Community acquis into the Bulgarian legal system without delay, so that the country can become part of the enlarged European Union as soon as possible, entering the European Union among the first wave of States, if possible, rather than the second.
Nicholson of Winterbourne report (A5-0259/2001)
Madam President, on the Nicholson report, I voted against it because paragraph 20 seeks to delay the completion of the second nuclear reactor at Cernavoda.
It is a "CANDU" nuclear reactor of western design.
There are no safety implications involved.
Paragraph 20 of the report calls for the creation of a sustainable energy strategy.
That strategy has already been put in place.
It has been paid for through the PHARE programme.
I am surprised that a committee like the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy seems to be unaware of this fact.
For that reason I voted against the Nicholson report.
That particular item was inaccurate, unnecessary and an aggravation to a country which is seeking to join us.
I wish that the anti-nuclear people on these committees would realise that this constant sniping at the applicant countries on this issue is not doing our relations with them any good at all.
Madam President, I voted for the entry of Romania into the European Union.
This is not solely - although it is partly - for the reasons contained in the report, but because I cannot disregard the relationship that exists between Rome and Romania.
It is a well-known fact that Romania is a community of people made up, for the most part, of the descendants of Roman soldiers who had set up a large camp there.
And it is a well-known fact that the language spoken by the Romanians is a Latin-based language, unlike the languages of all the other regions.
Well then, these ties have convinced me still further to do all I can and to support the - moreover, extremely positive - report on the state of Romania' s accession negotiations.
I hope that this country will manage to close the gap on the other States which have applied to accede to the European Union as quickly as possible.
.
Recently a TV crew from Romania asked me, was I seriously suggesting that the condition of children' s institutions in Romania could jeopardise their application for membership of the EU.
These young journalists were totally amazed at the deep concerns many of us have about all aspects of childcare in Romania.
Our concerns about trafficking in children as the world was beating a path to their door in search of children became obscured between the desperation of parents looking for children to adopt and the clear indications that many of those who were facilitating commercial trafficking in children became part of the politics of Romania, and indeed those countries whose nationals were pressurising for open adoption, notably the USA.
Baroness Nicholson has, in her excellent report, highlighted these issues and by her deep concern has finally alerted the Romanian Authorities, and her report will hopefully result in the radical changes required to protect children.
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(FR) Broadly speaking, we can only agree with the new strategy decided on at the Helsinki European Council of 10 and 11 December 1999 that aims to open negotiations with all Eastern European candidate countries - but not at any cost.
Although social degradation in Romania continues and in no area is the process of reform complete, the rapporteur dares to say that 'Romania today has opportunities for swift progress unequalled in modern times.
Firm political leadership, exceptional economic signals, clear articulation of, and commitment to, the reform process...'
Yet its true intentions come to light later on: '...a NATO decision to invite Romania to become a member of the North Atlantic Alliance in 2002 would be an important contribution to regional security; welcomes therefore Romania' s efforts to satisfy the requisite conditions for NATO membership and, in particular, Romania' s efforts to restructure its military sector and to adjust its defence policy' .
There is the strong possibility that Romania will be offered NATO membership as a substitute for accession to the European Union, which is increasingly unimaginable, since the reforms are prohibitive for development due to the huge costs involved in integration.
We are nevertheless asking Romania to prepare herself...for entry into NATO.
For these reasons, we were not able to vote for this report.
Volcic report (A5-0260/2001)
Madam President, I voted for the report which acknowledges the state of the accession negotiations between Slovenia and the European Union.
In two days time, next Saturday, I shall be the guest of the Slovenian State Secretary for Foreign Affairs in Ljubljana.
Why is that? Because he belongs to the Slovenian Pensioners' Party, and this will be the first meeting between the Pensioners' Party represented at the European Parliament and one of the many pensioners' parties that exist in the candidate countries.
The most important of these is the Slovenian Pensioners' Party and I hope that this party, which is succeeding in getting Slovenia into Europe, will join forces with me in working to improve the lives of pensioners throughout Europe.
.
(IT) Regretfully, the Alleanza Nazionale delegation to the European Parliament is going to vote against Slovenia' s accession: regretfully because we believe in the democratic and Europeanist sentiments of the Slovenian people, a people which - we are sure - will make a substantial contribution to the integration of a Europe which is becoming increasingly capable of united political and economic action and of protecting the historical and cultural diversities of its communities.
However, Alleanza Nazionale cannot vote for Slovenia' s accession today because of the indifference displayed by the Slovenian government towards the legitimate, longstanding claims of the Italian exiles.
This indifference dashes our hopes, although we continue, nevertheless, to call upon the Slovenian government to acknowledge without delay that the concept of democracy also includes acknowledging the damages and suffering that they have inflicted on many Italian-speaking citizens in the past and providing appropriate compensation.
The accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union is clearly a very different issue from the accession of the countries of Eastern Europe.
The accession of Cyprus carries far more weight and is far more important because it could be used as a lever for finding a fair solution to the Cyprus question based on UN resolutions and for defusing political tensions in the eastern Mediterranean, especially following the invasion of the northern part of the island by Turkish forces, which have persisted in their barbaric occupation for more than a quarter of a century now.
Accession will not disadvantage any of the communities on the island and it is interesting that, despite opposition from Turkey and the Denktash regime, the majority of Turkish Cypriots, 90% according to a recent article in the Turkish newspaper Radikal, are in favour of the accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union.
Mr Ñoos' motion for a resolution is correct, balanced and well pitched politically.
If the Council takes its cue from the European Parliament, instead of constantly giving in to pressure from Turkey, we would have positive and quick results both for the Republic of Cyprus and for the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities.
Poos report (A5-0261/2001)
.
(EL) The only good thing about the report by the Temporary Committee on the Echelon Interception System is that it admits that such a system exists and that similar systems also probably exist.
However, it tries to take our mind off our concerns by playing down its powers and general impact.
Worst of all, the report attempts to give personal and other data collection a legal basis, considering it a legitimate tool in helping to develop an EU security and defence policy to serve the needs of the rapid reaction force, to fight "terrorism" etc.
It also considers that collaboration is needed with the intelligence services of the Member States of the ÅU.
All in all, it "urges the Member States to review and, if necessary, to adapt their own legislation on the operations of the intelligence services to ensure that it is consistent with fundamental rights as laid down in the ECHR and with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights" .
The report talks of "democratic monitoring and control" and "calls on the monitoring bodies responsible for scrutinising the activities of the secret services, when exercising their monitoring powers, to attach great importance to the protection of privacy, regardless of whether the individuals concerned are their own nationals, other EU nationals or third country nationals" .
It voices a degree of concern about industrial espionage, clearly in order to protect the excessive profits raked in by the monopolies.
In all events, the report proposes encoding messages as the main form of protection.
These positions are irritating and most provocative when compared with the rudimentary demand for protection for privacy and for trade union and political activity.
They are an attempt to convince us that we need to live with monitoring, with the personal electronic files of the Schengen Agreement and under the watchful eye of Europol and to shift the onus of protection to each and every one of us.
It is for these reasons that the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report.
I voted for the report on Cyprus as well.
This summer, Madam President, as well as going to the seas in the north, I went on holiday to Cyprus.
I divided my time equally between the Greek and Turkish parts of Cyprus.
I went to the seaside and got a nice tan.
I spent time first with a beautiful Greek Cypriot girl and then with a beautiful Turkish Cypriot girl.
There was no difference between the first and second parts of the holiday: I had a wonderful time in both Northern and Southern Cyprus.
I therefore hope that Cyprus will enter the European Union as soon as possible.
I voted against the motion on Echelon because, in my view:
First, it plays down the importance and the role of a global monitoring system which is directed by the USA and to which a Member State belongs (United Kingdom).
Secondly, it draws conclusions which cannot be fully substantiated, such as that it is not used for military purposes.
Thirdly, the approach taken in the motion to the issue of legal data collection leaves the way open for what is extremely dangerous indifference in this area to continue.
Fourthly, it gives the United States its blessing to continue its spying missions within the European Union, subject to what are, of course, wholly inadequate conditions.
Fifthly, instead of calling for support for transparency and democratic scrutiny of secret service activities, it flirts with the idea of setting up a "proper" European Echelon system.
.
I appreciate the hard work that my friend and colleague, Jacques Poos, has put into preparing this report but regret that I cannot vote for this in the final vote.
Had the amendments tabled by my friend Andrew Duff been passed, I would have been able to support the report.
Europe has, in recent years, seen and accepted the separation of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the dissolution of the former Soviet Union and the gradual break up of Yugoslavia.
Yet we seem unable to accept the rights of the Turkish population of Cyprus to be accorded their rights to a separate administration and indeed, if this cannot be achieved, the right to secede from the Republic of Cyprus and follow a path of self determination as far from the smallest country in the world.
The Cypriot Turks have as much right to self-determination as the Cypriot Greeks.
For many years the Greek Cypriot sought enosis (union) with Greece.
The Turkish Cypriots should have the same right, though my own preference would be for two equal states united in some form of bi-zonal, bi-communal federation within the European Union.
.
(FR) Cyprus is today the candidate country that has advanced the most in its negotiations with the European Union - 23 chapters provisionally closed out of 29 - and we can, on paper, envisage its accession taking place as soon as 2004.
In practice, however, this will pose formidable problems due to the illegal occupation of the northern part of the island, 37% of the total territory, by Turkey since 1974.
The European Union considers that the Cypriot government in the southern part of the island represents the whole island, in accordance with international law, and that it is therefore negotiating for the accession of all the island' s inhabitants.
It is right to take this approach, for to act differently would mean recognising border changes imposed by force.
However, the result could mean the inclusion in the EU of a closed area - for all communications with the north have been cut, except with Turkey, where human rights are not respected - the European Court condemned Turkey on 10 May for its behaviour in Cyprus - and where the economic situation is completely unregulated.
How can we manage contradictions such as these?
The Poos report that has just been adopted by our Assembly rightly states that if Turkey were to decide to annex the northern part of the island, "it would put an end to its own ambitions of European Union membership" .
However, if it is not annexed, if it refuses to re-enter into negotiations, that is to say, if the current situation persists, what do we do? At the very least, it must be said that Turkey' s attitude does not correspond to what we would expect from a country wanting to be a candidate for EU membership.
.
(DE) First of all, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Jacques F. Poos, on his report.
I am pleased that the Committee on Foreign Affairs has taken up my key demand, namely that the adoption of the Community acquis concerning equality between women and men is an indispensable condition for membership.
However, I wish to voice my disappointment, and that of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, that other specific demands have been disregarded.
In this context, I should stress that the employment rate among women in Cyprus is far lower than the Community average.
Measures are required to promote women' s access to training and employment, improve the situation of women in the jobs market and help them to achieve a better balance between life and work.
I therefore think it is regrettable that Cyprus is not taking part in the Community programme on equal opportunities for women and men.
Given that it is considered the country that has made most progress in negotiation of the chapters concerning the Community acquis, it is hoped that in the first national programme for adoption of the Community acquis, Cyprus will confirm its involvement.
In the EU Member States, the concept of gender mainstreaming has been incorporated systematically into the most important policies and reforms undertaken in recent years.
In light of Cyprus' forthcoming accession to the European Union, Cypriot legislation needs to be adapted further to bring it fully into line with the other Member States, and gender issues should be dealt with in the framework of the Karolus programme, which aims to bring about better application of the Community acquis by an exchange of national civil servants.
Finally, I should like to underline that although Cyprus does have legislation to combat trafficking in women and domestic violence, progress is still required in both these areas.
.
(NL) Unfortunately, I am unable to support the Poos report because it assumes that the government which rules Greek-speaking southern Cyprus, is also authorised to conduct negotiations on the country' s accession to the EU on behalf of the Turkish-speaking north.
In the fifties, I shared the view that an undivided and independent Cyprus would be preferable to an island carved up between Greece and Turkey following decolonisation.
Unfortunately, this Cypriot state of unity which was established in 1960 did not appear to be viable and fell apart as early as 1964.
During my visits to Cyprus in 1964 and 1966, it was already clear to me how foreign troops, by UN order, kept the regions occupied by different population groups separated.
This was therefore long before the Turkish occupation of the north in 1974.
I do not expect that the withdrawal of that army will result in the Turkish-speaking minority wishing to rely again on the Greek-speaking majority.
A peaceful solution on the basis of free will is now only possible thanks to a confederation.
If the EU renders it necessary to take the north from the Turkish population, war will follow.
I denounce this war and the ensuing split between victors and vanquished.
Stenzel report (A5-0262/2001)
I too voted for the report on Malta, Madam President, and I have seen that point 8 of the report, on page 7, calls upon Malta "to introduce legislation against discrimination pursuant to Article 13 of the EU Treaty" .
But Madam President, we are asking Malta to do something that Italy, for example, has not done!"
In Italy, there is discrimination against the disabled and sick who are over 65 years old, who are not entitled to an allowance, and the sick who are less than 65 years old, who are entitled to an allowance.
I cannot see any difference between a disabled person over 65 and a disabled person under 65!
Collins report (A5-0249/2001)
This last report concerns the communication on the protection of passengers who travel by air.
This time, a pensioner, Mr Roberto Roberti, came to my aid. As we left the aeroplane together in Strasbourg, he said to me: "What a horrible meal we had on the plane!
I wish they would serve Parma ham, spaghetti with pesto from Genoa, polenta from Veneto and sweet-smelling tomatoes from Naples!"
Well it is now lunch time, Madam President, and what better way to conclude the morning' s work than by saying "Buon appetito!"
.
(FR) We have approved several points in this report that are likely to bring about an improvement in air passenger protection, but we have not voted for it in its entirety because:
it seeks to exonerate airlines from a whole range of shortcomings by shifting fault onto airports and air traffic control, yet it is the fact that all airlines operate in order to make a profit that puts passengers at risk;
the deregulation and liberalisation of the air sector, on which this report mistakenly heaps praise, have stepped up this quest for profit and, as a consequence, have multiplied the problems arising from such an approach, for both passengers and airline workers.
It shows utter disregard for everyone involved to believe, as stated in the report, that passenger safety can be improved without affecting competition and to count on the voluntary commitment of the airline companies.
We wish to give notice that we have voted against Mr Collins' s report, not because we are opposed to providing information to customers or because we consider these issues to be unimportant but because we consider that these are issues which ought not to be discussed in the European Parliament.
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(DE) European air travel is expanding rapidly, and this trend is likely to continue in the coming years.
Protecting users of air transport, i.e. passengers, and guaranteeing their safety, health and consumers' rights are becoming more and more important as air transport increases, especially as the new possibilities for travellers to book and buy airline tickets via the Internet offer advantages but also pose risks.
The Commission' s proposal on which the report is based offers better protection to air transport users, especially as regards access to information about their rights as passengers.
It also offers the airlines the opportunity to enter into voluntary commitments with the airports.
I especially welcome the proposed strengthening of the legal framework to protect consumers, as it sets forth clear, binding and legally enforceable rules which must be complied with by all the airlines.
Experience has shown that these framework rules are essential so that air passengers are fully aware of their legal rights in the event of a dispute.
This does not mean that I am against voluntary commitments on principle, but I would prefer legally enforceable rules to govern the relationship between the airline and the airport as well.
This is not envisaged in the report, however.
The question which therefore arises is this: who is to regulate compliance with the voluntary commitments, and what methods should be used to address non-compliance?
Based on these considerations, we also support Mr Collins' demand that any issues which cannot be settled satisfactorily in the interests of consumers through voluntary commitments should be dealt with in separate proposals at a later date.
On behalf of my group, I therefore support Mr Collins' report.
.
I warmly welcome Mr Collins' s report which calls on the European Commission to allocate research funding to study risks to long haul air passengers.
In view of current concerns over the health risks on long haul flights, such as deep vein thrombosis, this report comes at a fitting time.
The report also goes so far as to recommend additional measures aimed at protecting the rights of all European citizens, such as those with disabilities.
I fully support this.
In addition, the report' s recommendation to appoint an EU air passenger ombudsman, to whom passengers can complain when encountering problems with airlines, would go some way towards empowering European citizens who have encountered problems with European airlines.
Finally, the call for a more simple procedure for logging complaints would simplify and demystify the complaints procedure for European citizens.
This would be a victory for ordinary citizens against big business.
Schmid report (A5-264/2001)
- (FR) We voted against this report, in protest not just at its accommodating attitude to the Echelon system, although we are not so ridiculous as to hope that the European Parliament can influence the decision of those who set it up, but above all in protest at the whole system of relations between states, as well as between financial and industrial groups, of which worldwide espionage is but one of the many consequences.
In their competing efforts to systematically bleed the planet, the big powers use political and military espionage as an instrument of their rivalry.
The industrial and commercial secrecy extolled by all the defenders of the capitalist system in order to conceal from their people the many ways in which they appropriate and waste the riches of society is inevitably accompanied by industrial espionage.
All these practices, in which every state that has the means to do so participates, infringe the democratic freedoms and rights of the individual.
Basically, this report' s only concern is to protect European industrialists from the handicap of their American rivals discovering their little secrets via the Echelon system.
Even the changes introduced by some of the amendments for which we voted do not alter our opposition to the report as a whole or our disagreement with all the minority opinions, the most innocent of which differ from the majority text only in the derisory desire to improve, control or enhance the morality of a system that can neither be controlled nor made more moral.
And we are certainly not claiming to be defenders of 'the logic of the free market' , which is nothing but the law of the jungle.
- (FR) I was one of those who had called for a committee of inquiry.
For the sake of efficiency, I then endorsed the idea of a temporary committee.
Today, I have no regrets!
Our committee (of which I was a member) did sterling work and Mr Gerhard Schmid, its rapporteur, proved highly capable.
A few months ago, most of the political leaders quite simply denied the existence of Echelon.
Now, in early September 2001, everyone (or nearly everyone) recognises that this American illegal espionage network covers much of the world and is 'watching' the commercial markets and the citizens' private lives!
True, this system is 'performing' less well than might have been feared, but it exists and that is intolerable!
The rapporteur proposes measures.
Several groups find them inadequate.
I can understand the views of some of them, because they are true democrats.
But I will not be told what to do by people, especially from the extreme right, who 'could not care two hoots' about the freedoms of the individual.
For me, what is important, indeed fundamental, is to bring this matter into the public arena.
Nothing will ever really be the same again, whether in regard to the WTO negotiations, the development of new technologies or research (see my amendments to the Sixth Research Framework Programme)!
Nobody will be able to pretend they did not know!
Thanks to the excellent Schmid report, which I endorse, our fight in this area is only just beginning.
- (DA) We have voted against the report from the Temporary Committee on the ECHELON interception system.
The report has a positive aspect, but all too many negative ones.
The positive aspect is the Committee' s confirmation that ECHELON exists.
Among the negative aspects, the following three points, in particular, must be emphasised:
1.
In spite of the Committee' s conclusion that ECHELON does in fact exist, no precise political consequences of this have been successfully formulated.
In our view, that is the least that could have been expected of a politically elected assembly.
2.
The committee has chosen to focus upon the illegal interception of communications from private businesses and completely plays down the serious infringement of the right to privacy as formulated in, for example, the European Convention on Human Rights.
What is more, the Committee draws no political conclusions in this area other than that the obligation under the Human Rights Convention to safeguard citizens' fundamental rights is also of benefit to individual citizens, who are urged to use encryption to protect themselves against the illegal interception of communications.
3.
The Committee observes that one Member State is participating in the ECHELON cooperation on the illegal interception of communications. On this issue too, however, it does not draw any political conclusions at all.
On the contrary, it encourages speeding up the development of European cooperation on intelligence matters - a form of cooperation in which the ECHELON country, Great Britain, is free to participate if it so wishes.
We are disappointed in the outcome of the Committee' s work.
The European Parliament has not complied with its responsibility to strengthen human rights.
The fight for human rights is seemingly strongest when solemn speeches have to be made.
When it comes to practical action, citizens' rights are subordinated to the interests of private enterprise.
.
(PT) The report of the European Parliament' s Temporary Committee on the Echelon case states that there is no longer any doubt about the existence of a worldwide communications interception system involving the participation of the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but seeks to play down its reach and capacity and fails to understand all the serious consequences of the existence of an indiscriminate communications interception system, and for this reason, I have voted against the report.
It is unacceptable that a network should be maintained for the gathering and processing, in a secret and completely unmonitored way, of potentially any type of information, specifically political, economic and military, which clearly breaches the fundamental right to respect for privacy, enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and in Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union, which demonstrates the need to completely dismantle this global telecommunications interception network.
Although the report suggests some measures for developing systems and adopting protection mechanisms, specifically to protect privacy, in the face of this system - and other, similar ones... and although it discusses measures of cooperation between Member States, which must take place at judicial level and not be information-gathering measures, on the basis of case-by-case analysis, under the supervision of the courts or even measures for monitoring information systems, particularly by national parliaments, what lies at the heart of all of this is that the system will continue to function and that an EU-level information system could be created and integrated into the CFSP and the CESDP, which is equally unacceptable.
It is incomprehensible that in the report' s conclusions, no request is even made to the United Kingdom to disassociate itself from the Echelon system and to Germany to close the interception base located in its territory.
It is deplorable that the EU is more deeply concerned with industrial espionage than with the monitoring of individuals and is quite nonchalant about the fact that some Member States have a system for spying on other Member States, with the participation and possible control of third countries, specifically the USA.
.
Given that Parliament voluntarily limited itself in the nature of the Enquiry, there is much to be welcomed in this Report.
I am pleased that ECHELON' s existence is recognised and that the need for transparent international agreements is acknowledged.
However, there are 3 main reasons why I voted against the Report.
Firstly, I believe that member states involved in ECHELON must disengage from this murky, undemocratic system - the report does not make this clear.
Secondly, I feel there is a calm acceptance in this Report that the EU must run an intelligence system as part of the CFSP.
I believe that the CFSP threatens freedoms such as open access to information and personal privacy.
We know that, whatever the safeguards on paper, these do not always apply in practice.
Thirdly, the implications of such systems for individuals are not clear.
While the report says much about the need for protection of privacy and monitoring of the secret services, what should the individual do? They can no longer communicate in confidence.
There is no real answer.
Thus, I cannot support the report.
- (FR) The main effect of Mr Schmid' s voluminous report is almost to make us forget the original question.
In fact, neither the rapporteur' s talent nor the courtesy of the chairman of this committee can make us forget that the strategy followed throughout was to drown the fundamental questions in a general debate which, ranging from moral judgments about the activities of the secret services to doubtful statements about technological matters, attempted to cover everything and everybody except Echelon and those who help to run it.
Yet at a time when the process of European integration is so clearly running out of steam, such fundamental questions would have deserved better than this deafening silence.
And we will certainly have to pose them again.
Firstly, to the extent that it has been shown that EU Member States participate in Echelon, does this whole business not amount to anything more than a blatant violation of the EU Treaty? And if so, what sanctions are being envisaged?
The rapporteur answered yes to the first question.
But what consequences did he draw from this? None, because he did not even address the tough but logical issue of sanctions, not even to explain why he refused to contemplate them.
So people are sleeping easy in London and Berlin, because this Parliament, normally so prompt to be roused to indignation by the slightest attack on the constitutional state in any of the four corners of the world, has not even remonstrated about a blatant violation of the principles of the Treaty!
Secondly, since it has become clear during our activities that the European Union cannot embark on any large-scale defence and security operation without technical and logistical support from NATO, is there any point in laying the foundations for a European system equivalent to Echelon without first giving a political clarification of the relations between the European states that are members of Echelon and the Union, and in particular between the Union and NATO?
For the real source of the rapporteur' s embarrassment is indeed the fact that so long as the EU so obviously remains technically and financially shackled to NATO, the supposed European solidarity will give way to Atlantic solidarity, the sequel to the cold war, which is incompatible with the existence of an independent, European common defence and security policy.
The plain fact is that the majority of this Parliament - the same Parliament that adopted preventive 'apartheid' measures against the new, democratically elected Austrian government, that seriously considered placing Silvio Berlusconi' s government under surveillance - is refusing to take measures against Member States that have now been proven to be supporting an activity that contravenes the provisions of the Treaty, that does serious damage to European firms and represents a permanent threat to individual freedoms.
The least one could say is that there are indisputably two weights and two measures and that to be fair we can only describe this business as a real scandal.
Yet for once, looking at the real problems raised by Echelon, we could have held a genuine debate on the basic principles and objectives of European integration: we could have seen the European nations for what they are, with their own history and their own loyalties.
We could have asked ourselves what type of Europe we wanted to build.
The answer this gives us by default - a Europe shrouded in fog and in words left unsaid, a coward that submits to the law of the strongest - is, in many respects, quite dismaying.
.
(NL) A few years ago, the existence of ECHELON was still emphatically denied.
After all, the organisation was secret, and the objective of such secrecy is to prevent the people from knowing of its existence.
Such a state of affairs is, of course, completely at odds with democratic decision making, transparency, public order and the protection of individuals.
It is a major step forward that it is now openly being admitted that an EU Member State has been working with the United States, Australia and New Zealand on worldwide espionage for a long time, something which may well adversely affect people, organisations and businesses within the EU.
However, the report does not draw any worthwhile conclusions from this.
It accepts that as a result of the outcome of the Second World War, with the United States playing a dominant role in Western Europe, such agreements were made and that these have persisted through time.
The conclusion should be that the United Kingdom should choose between membership with the EU and that of ECHELON, that cooperation with this system on the part of citizens of EU Member States will be penalised, that similar espionage systems of other Member States will be abandoned and that telephone traffic will no longer be tapped.
The passive stance of a two-thirds majority of this Parliament is sanctioning a Europe of snoopers.
I do not agree with this.
.
(IT) I voted against the motion with great indignation: we would never have imagined that we might be spied on as Europeans, as free citizens, as businesses, not just by our Nato allies but even by our European partners as well.
There needs to be an enquiry into the United Kingdom' s behaviour in order to understand fully not just the government' s responsibilities but also what European sentiments link the United Kingdom to the rest of the European Union and even whether these sentiments and political will actually exist.
There are certain questions we must ask.
Since this espionage system exists, why was it not used to prevent the violence which took place during the international summits, most recently the summits in Gothenburg and Genoa?
It there any plan to dismantle the system or to make it democratically useful to all so that we can achieve even the globalisation of personal thoughts?
How are the United Kingdom, and Germany too, going to explain this betrayal to the European citizens? Could it be that the slowdown in European cohesion, which is becoming increasingly politically and culturally insipid and increasingly weak economically, is partly caused by new information being received and disseminated using Echelon?
These are important questions which require a committee of inquiry to be set up.
- (FR) There are two main reasons why I am opposed to the motion for a resolution drawn up on behalf of Parliament' s Temporary Committee on the Echelon interception system.
On the one hand, the proposal for a covenant between the European Union and the United States hardly seems relevant for, however good the intentions, it would most likely have no practical effect.
At the same time, if, as its supporters say, Echelon can act as an effective multilateral instrument in the fight against organised crime, terrorism, drugs and arms trafficking and money laundering, then it is not a covenant of mutual good intentions that we need to sign with the United States.
What we need to negotiate is the means of enabling every state that wishes to be involved in active international cooperation in these essential areas to join the Echelon system, which would thus become an open system.
On the other hand, the motion for a resolution is used as a pretext to address a whole range of questions that have no bearing whatsoever on the temporary committee' s real task.
In the midst of this hotchpotch we come across paragraph 5, which reflects the federalist obsession with seeing the next IGC make the Charter of Fundamental Rights legally binding, so that it can constitute a legal basis for appeal, as though the existing protection guaranteed both by national constitutions and by the universal and European declarations on human rights were null and void.
This really is a distortion of the debate on Echelon that cannot be accepted.
.
(IT) The Italian socialist delegation and the other socialist Members, particularly the French socialist Members, abstained from the final vote on the Schmid report.
I too abstained from the vote, and I would like to explain why. I have good reason to believe my views are shared by the other Members.
I find it absolutely incomprehensible, not to say outrageous, that the European Parliament, particularly the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to which I belong, should have rejected certain amendments - the ones I referred to when I spoke during the debate: Nos 16, 17, 18, 19 and 22 - which seek explicitly to emphasise that large-scale, indiscriminate interceptions such as those performed by Echelon are a blatant violation of the human rights recognised by the European Convention on Human Rights and other international conventions.
In rejecting these amendments, with the support of the majority of socialists, Parliament has implicitly made it possible - although it may not be completely aware of this - for the private communications of European citizens henceforth to be listened in to by Echelon and similar systems 24 hours a day, with no respect for the principles of legality and proportionality upheld by the European Convention on Human Rights and our Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I call upon the Council and the Commission, who are more aware of the need to respect the principles enshrined in the Treaties, to correct this dangerous drift.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.43 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Conclusions of the G8 meeting in Genoa
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the conclusions of the G8 meeting in Genoa.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I give you the floor.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since the end of 1999, massive demonstrations have accompanied every major international meeting.
We saw demonstrators from far and wide gather at the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation, IMP and World Bank meetings and the meeting of the World Economic Forum at Davos.
Since the end of last year, the summits of the European Council have also become the subject of massive protest campaigns.
Nice and Gothenburg spring to mind.
The recent G8 Summit in Genoa was the latest cause for massive protest.
If these manifestations were conducted without any violence, we would be able to focus on responses to questions and concerns expressed by the demonstrators and those who support them.
Unfortunately, the protests in Nice, Gothenburg and Genoa were attended by a high level of violence despite the fact that the organisers of the protests had dissociated themselves from the violence. Alongside the disruption for the people living in the cities where the summits and protests took place, and the material damage to houses and goods, the clashes have unfortunately also taken their human toll: a number of wounded and - what is worse - two fatalities.
We are willing to establish a constructive dialogue with civil society, with the NGOs and with all those who give peaceful expression to their concern about globalisation, but we reject and condemn the violence which has more than marred the latest protests.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union must respond in two ways to the events I have just described.
Firstly, it must prevent violence, whatever form it takes, in order to safeguard the area of freedom, security and justice that the Union represents, not just in law but also in fact.
Over and above that vital concern, it must also respond to the anxieties and questions of all the protesters. As you no doubt are aware, the Justice and Home Affairs Council considered the first aspect at its 13 July meeting, while the General Affairs Council considered the second one on 16 July.
The Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers called for close international cooperation based on the existing legal instruments and the use of instruments such as the provisions of the Convention applying the Schengen Agreement and the joint action of 26 May 1997 on cooperation in the field of law and order and security.
Nonetheless, responsibility for the maintenance of law and order on the territory of EU Member States always remains within the sole remit of each state' s national authorities.
The Council does not have the power to adopt a position on a matter for which the Treaty has not given it competence. Let me assure Parliament that my country will be guided by the desire to prevent rather than the resolve to repress.
The General Affairs Council emphasised, and I quote, 'the need for the European Union and its democratically elected governments to make every effort to interpret the political dimension of globalisation and to address the concerns which globalisation is giving rise to in our societies, so as to properly manage the structural changes under way with the aim of contributing to the international community' s political, social and economic progress' .
'In this context' , and I am still quoting, 'the ministers feel it would be useful to continue a constructive dialogue on globalisation and its consequences with the social partners, the NGOs and the other representatives of civil society. Parliaments should be involved in this dialogue.
The Commission and the Council will publish a detailed rationale of the already very positive role played by the European Union in this regard.
The Council considers that the political debate on globalisation and the dialogue with European civil society is a task which the European Union must carry out in the coming years so that it can influence its repercussions and fully benefit from its advantages. The Council emphasises the need to enter into a deeper dialogue with the developing countries so as to take into account their concerns vis-à-vis globalisation.'
Madam President, the presidency of the Union is particularly interested in these issues and over the coming weeks the Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt will publish his personal views in an open letter that will be very widely circulated.
(NL) Along with a number of MEPs, I belong to the generation which was graduating and starting work when a storm of protest, partly fuelled in the United States, but with a definite European identity, broke out. Tradition associates it with the magical year of 1968, but anti-establishment activity had been brewing for a number of years and was to carry on for a few more years still.
It was a very exciting time, brimming with ideas, new concepts and action.
I would not have missed it for the world.
However, I also remember my embarrassment on behalf of those who were as old as I am now and claimed to be on our side, to understand us completely and to know exactly where we were coming from.
I will therefore not make the same mistake, but what I would say, on behalf of the presidency and on my own behalf, is that anti-establishment activity in itself is a good thing. The pensée unique, whatever pensée unique that may be, can never remain fruitful for long, and history is never-ending, whatever thoughts Marx, Engels and much later, Fukuyama may have had on the matter.
In my capacity as President-in-Office of the Council, I will not hazard an ideological debate.
However, I do want to underline that the management and organisation of globalisation is precisely the task of the international, even global, organisations, and that the European Union is a excellent example of such organisation.
It is therefore paradoxical for the protesters to fight precisely those institutions and organisations.
The World Trade Organisation, for example, does not organise the economic and commercial anarchy, as some seem to think.
It organises and regulates trade, it determines rules which apply universally and it operates by consensus of all affiliated states, which now number over 140.
(FR) Ladies and gentlemen, it would be quite improper to pretend that the globalisation of trade, the globalisation of industrial production and the increasingly monetarist approach to the economy offer nothing but advantages.
It would be wrong to claim that the emergence and development of the new technologies have only brought benefits.
We have to admit that these developments give rise to new divisions, new exclusions.
In addition to the old division between poor and rich, whether individuals or nations, we now see the division, at the very heart of our societies and between the nations of the globe, between those who have access to the new technologies and those who do not, or who do not have the necessary training to make use of them.
Insofar as the protests raise all these questions, it is up to us to answer them.
Insofar as the debate is an ideological one, for instance where the protests are levelled against capitalism, the responses will obviously vary depending on our respective ideological positions.
Over and above these ideological divisions, however, I believe there is no dispute about the need to keep globalisation under control. How can we derive the most benefit from it?
How can we minimise the damage it does?
How can we prevent exclusion and enable the largest possible number to enjoy its advantages? It is up to our societies, and especially the political authorities in our societies, to provide the answers.
Over and above laying down the necessary rules to contain globalisation, the members of the international community must pursue a deliberate policy to safeguard international peace, to share the benefits of the growth of world trade more fairly and to ensure greater respect for the principles of justice, democracy and respect for human rights.
In this context, the international organisations, in particular the United Nations, must play the role their founder expected of them.
The European Union is particularly well equipped to cope with globalisation.
In a sense it is a blueprint at European level for regulating globalisation.
The Union has managed to reconcile the establishment of a single market with respect for social justice and environmental standards.
It is, if you like, a model of its kind.
For the protesters to single it out as a particular target is yet another paradox.
The European Union and its institutions therefore have a great deal to do in the way of clarification.
I told you that we propose to embark on this task, but we can only do so in a peaceful context, free from violence.
(Applause)
Madam President, it was with some satisfaction that I listened to the statements of the Council and the Commission for we have, at last, started to address the fundamental subject of the G8.
Indeed, in recent weeks, we have endeavoured to discuss issues of law and order, and we will have the opportunity to deal with this subject as well.
However, there has been very little talk of the results of the Genoa Summit, which I consider to be positive, in terms of the fight against hunger in the world, against poverty and against AIDS; positive results of a summit under Italian management which, at last, saw the President of the United States and the President of the Russian Federation in dialogue across the table: these were things we would have not have believed possible, and so a powerful message of peace issued from the G8 cities.
We would have liked to launch this debate in Parliament on the contents of the summit before the summit actually took place, but were prevented from doing so by the rejection of our proposal by many left-wing Parliamentary groups.
We are convinced that, for the first time, as Commissioner Vitorino pointed out, the G8 witnessed a focused debate on practical issues between the leaders of the world' s most industrialised countries and the leaders of the African countries, in which they discussed practical issues and also launched a project for cooperation on the proposal for African union, presented by the industrialised countries with the aim of setting up a partnership with these countries.
An operation to reduce the debt of 23 countries by USD 50 billion, which is 70% of the total debt, was launched.
The go-ahead was given for a project which seeks to modernise the countries of the developing world: this is an extremely positive development.
Positive, tangible results were achieved, but then it was attempted to turn the G8 summit into a mere question of law and order.
There is much to be said on the subject of what happened, about the exploitation even of Parliament which went on. Parliament must not become the scene of debates on major national issues; it must not become the forum for national debates.
Clearly, there can be no objection - and we must make this quite clear - to anti-globalisation demonstrations carried out using lawful methods which do not involve acts of violence, but globalisation cannot be opposed, the summits cannot be opposed through violent demonstration and attacks on the police.
The inquiries carried out by the Italian Courts reveal that European citizens, who came to Italy from elsewhere to organise violent demonstrations of the Union, are also responsible.
Mr President, I would like to end by pledging once again the support of the Italian police force and stressing the need for closer cooperation between police forces and between Ministers for the Interior. Such cooperation may have not have been adequate at the G8 summit and we must concentrate on improving in this area.
Finally, in my opinion, the proposals made in Parliament to place Italy under observation are ridiculous. Italy does not need lessons in democracy from any political grouping in Parliament.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the Socialist Group has requested this debate for two reasons.
The first is because the conclusions and work of the G8 summit were obscured because the debate concentrated on public order.
I must especially thank Mr Vitorino for having talked to us about the results of a summit whose agenda was set by a government, that of Olivo, in Italy, and which was discussed in the European Parliament - Mr Tajani, you were engaged in a municipal campaign, but it was discussed here - and, furthermore, we have asked for a resolution on this debate which has been replied to and denied by the PPE.
We do not understand why they want to speak but refuse a resolution.
However, in any event, ladies and gentlemen, what I would like to point out is that we clearly said that the President of the Commission and the President of the Council were in the Genoa photo and we regret that they have not had time to come to this debate if they considered it so important.
And I must point out that some positive advances have been made.
Commissioner Vitorino has referred to them.
I would say that, on the cancellation of debt, little progress has been made.
The fund for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis is a positive step, although it is still not enough.
Africa must be a priority; also the desire for flexibility in the TRIPs Agreements and the 'everything but arms' initiative as well as the extension of the system of generalised preferences are aspects which we Europeans should be proud of and should value more.
In addition to this there is our firm position on Kyoto which, despite United States resistance, has allowed us to reach a solution in Bonn.
I believe that as a Parliament we must bring this to account and hold a debate because, furthermore, my political family, the Party of European Socialists, which is a member of the Socialist International - we are internationalists and we have been globalised since the Nineteenth Century - is an organisation which is present in 160 countries in the world, and is not just an organisation of white men, that is to say, it is an organisation of all continents.
Therefore, the issue of globalisation which, at our last congress of the International in Paris, two years ago, led to a resolution on the challenges of globalisation, must be, as far as we are concerned, a permanent element of European policy.
Lastly, a comment on issues of public order.
My group has said, from the outset, that it is awaiting the conclusion of the investigation which is being carried out in the Italian Parliament on these issues, because we respect the Parliament of an important democracy which is a member of the European Union.
This does not prevent us from demonstrating a very critical position in relation to the rights of European citizens contained in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
There are no public order policies which restrict citizens - and I say this to the Belgian Presidency - in their right to demonstrate and give vent to their feelings.
A responsible public order policy must guarantee those rights, not repress them.
Just as football cannot be prohibited because of fights between hooligans, rights cannot be restricted because there are nuclei of provocative vandals.
A final request, Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen: to mention civil society has become so commonplace that it is almost impossible to make a political speech without talking about it.
But what I cannot understand is that people talk about speaking with civil society and then they put a comma and say, 'and with Parliament, of course' .
Society becomes civil when it elects its representatives and therefore the first duty of the President of the Council and the President of the Commission, when they go to these summits, is to come to Parliament and report on them.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the events of the last G8 summit in Genoa could prevent us from focusing on the genuine major issues at hand.
I will therefore concentrate on these latter issues rather than on aspects which, although important, will be discussed within the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and on which it would be appropriate to wait for the opinion of the Italian Parliament, which has set up a special committee of inquiry.
Parliament will, of course, be able to address the issue in a fully informed manner in the future, although, at this point, we can certainly condemn and deplore the use of any form of violence by any party whatsoever in an attempt to resolve issues.
It is therefore absolutely essential for Parliament to discuss the major issues of globalisation now and then to lay down a clear political line to follow, undertaking to define tangible parameters to shape the globalisation process, ensuring that its ultimate goal is the development of a new, comprehensive humanism which places at the centre of history the dignity of the human person rather than large-scale financial interests.
In this sense, far from being an inevitable source of suffering, globalisation is proving to be a great opportunity to genuinely change the balance of play in the world and confront the dreadful scourges afflicting much of humanity which, in these times in which we live, mean that none of us can be sure of our moral innocence.
Even if we take into account the not insignificant humanitarian decisions taken at the G8 summit, it is not easy to accept the considerable unwillingness to change the development model, even partially, step by step. The model remains essentially focused on consumerism and an unregulated market rather than on accepted criteria of solidarity and participation.
The basic need is therefore to identify a political and institutional position which is acceptable to everybody and which can be used as a guideline for the globalisation processes. This clearly has to be something more than just the G8.
We must speed up our work on this issue if we want to avoid irreparable damage, for we must start from the realisation that the globalisation of politics - the democratic control of the processes of globalisation - proceeds at an exasperatingly slow pace compared to developments in other sectors.
There is no current "off-the-shelf" recipe, but I feel that we could start from proposal of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prizewinner who envisages a permanent summit made up of the European Union, the G8, the World Bank, the group of 77 developing countries, Onlus and undertakings to launch and manage a great, worldwide Marshall Plan based on a common universal strategy.
That could be described as a utopian dream, but, as Thomas More, the father of Europe would say, without a utopian dream, what would our politics be?
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I believe the G8 summit in Genoa will come to be regarded as a milestone in our political life and will probably be seen as marking a turning point in European and international political life. This is not, unfortunately, because of the joint undertakings given by the richest countries in the world to respond to the serious problems facing the poorest countries - and let me point out that the North-South gulf has never been so wide - but rather because of the particular context in which this summit took place.
Mr Vitorino has rightly reminded us of certain decisions or at least guidelines that were adopted at that summit, but I do not think we should give them more importance than they deserve.
It is true that we heard a rather timid acknowledgement of the importance of relieving the debt burden on the poorest countries, but no more than that.
It is also true that a global health fund was set up to combat infectious diseases, but the total funding is pretty inadequate; it was set at EUR 1.3 billion, while the UN Secretary-General believes that EUR 10 billion is needed.
On the other hand, there is no sign of any common resolve to rectify the inequalities by achieving the long-promised objective of contributing 0.7% of gross domestic product to development aid.
There is no more talk of that.
The participants did, however, vigorously reiterate their faith in the virtues of the market, free trade, the development of new genetic engineering technologies and the international trade rules.
Today, the European Union certainly wants to launch a new WTO round, but is that any answer to the problems caused by the unfair WTO rules? The WTO' s decision-making rules are indeed unfair in that they penalise the poorest countries compared with the rich ones, if only by giving the poor countries limited access to the information that would enable them to play a proper part in this decision making.
So, no response at all, no real response to the demands and protests of tens of thousands of demonstrators - and, more generally, of a very broad sector of European public opinion - who reject or challenge a globalisation that is essentially financial and commercial.
It is not globalisation as such that they are protesting about, but its basically financial and commercial nature.
I think that distinction needs to be made.
I therefore believe that the European Union must take specific initiatives in this regard and first of all it must no longer seem deaf to the voices of protest.
In this context I welcome the Belgian government' s proposal to debate the Tobin tax at the next Ecofin summit.
I think that is a good initiative, which ought to be followed by others of the same kind.
First and foremost, however, we need to establish a real dialogue with the parliaments: Mr Barón Crespo is right to say that parliaments are, after all, the prime representatives of public opinion; that is obviously true.
The European Parliament and the national parliaments must be the forum where the governments explain their initiatives.
In addition, however, to the parliaments - for we are no longer living in the conventional world of politics we knew 50 years ago - we must talk to the associations, talk to organised civil society.
In my view, that is essential.
Many associations have put forward important ideas and serious arguments; to dismiss them is a political error.
Like everyone here, I deplore and condemn the violence of the Black Blockers demonstrators but, at the same time, I can only condemn the unacceptable behaviour of the Italian police who trampled on human rights in Genoa.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the morning after the G8 meeting my group, which was very much present in Genoa, immediately called for this debate to be entered on the agenda of this new session of Parliament.
The conservative majority in this Parliament, which is feeling very defensive, prevented this debate from concluding with a resolution in which Parliament expressed its opinion.
It will not, however, manage to prevent us from raising the serious questions arising from the events at Genoa again and again on our political agenda, in one form or another, throughout the coming period: the aftermath of Genoa is only just beginning.
One of the issues raised by Genoa is the very legitimacy of G7, or G8, perceived as a kind of board of directors of the big powers of this world.
I will not go into that today.
Another issue raised by Genoa is, of course, this whole problem of violence, in particular the unheard-of repression of peaceful demonstrators, who were pursued even to the headquarters of the Social Forum of Genoa.
Yesterday we took the initiative, in association with the Green Group, the Attac association and socialist MEPs, of organising a major debate on the subject with the coordinator of the Genoa Social Forum, Mr Agnoletto.
The extremely grave incidents that were discussed and described during that debate made us even more convinced of the need to shed full light on the course of events that led to the dramatic incidents and acts of violence we saw and on the entire chain of responsibility for respecting the rules and values in which the European Union believes.
For the rest, I proposed that we set up a monitoring committee right here to work in liaison with Italian members of parliament, the Social Forum in Genoa and other partners who wish to help discover the whole truth of the matter.
In the same spirit, we have reiterated our support for players in the social movement who do not want to see their message be perverted by acts of violence of the Black Block type, which our enemies find easy to manipulate.
We will not allow this magnificent commitment on the part of our citizens to be discredited, let alone criminalised, in this way.
That brings me to the third, and perhaps in our view the principal issue of the aftermath of Genoa, namely the political responses we will or will not be able to make to the questions asked by these men, these women, these innumerable young people who are quite wrongly labelled anti-globalist, whereas most of the time what they seek is a democratic globalisation based on solidarity.
At a time when the European Union is debating its future, its ambitions on the world stage and its relations with civil society, we for our part do not see these questions as a threat to be averted, but far more as a chance we must seize if we want Europe to move forward.
Madam President, the positive results of the G8 must bind our governments to respecting the agreements established on combating poverty and regulating globalisation; we must not see, as we have in the past, the commitments made not being respected or being excessively delayed.
Two thirds of the world live in conditions of extreme poverty.
Our aid must be targeted at genuinely benefiting communities rather than adding to the economic and political wealth of governments who have contributed to exacerbating the wretched conditions in which their peoples live and continue to prevent respect for human rights.
We call for focused actions targeted at implementing initiatives which are genuinely useful for the people, and we must also, therefore, attempt to rethink the concept of globalisation.
Is a European way possible? Can we prevent globalisation becoming a boomerang which always strikes the poorest communities?
I regret to say that, at Genoa, according to some elements of the media and certain politicians, public disorder pushed the issues discussed and the guidelines defined by the summit leaders into the background and yet, for the first time in the presence of representatives of the developing world, issues were tackled which are fundamentally important for the peaceful future of the human race.
Unfortunately, even the legitimate opinions of the peaceful demonstrators were obscured by the globalised violence of those who have become professional rioters. Faced with the urban guerrilla warfare which has reproduced the acts of violence perpetrated at the Nice and Gothenburg Summits, we must tackle two pressing issues.
Firstly, how can we ensure that democracy is respected on similar occasions in the future?
In other words, we must ask ourselves how future summits held in European countries need to be organised in order to ensure that the meetings of representatives of the different institutions are productive and not the cause of fruitless, violent controversy. Secondly, what political and cultural measures can we take to prevent legitimate demonstrations of dissent turning into organised, exploitative acts of violence?
Is there an area of justice within which Interpol could play a role of preventing and controlling the spread of violence and terrorism?
Moreover, in the face of Commissioner Vitorino' s call for greater cooperation to prevent violence, we wonder why Echelon which, with the help of Great Britain, listens in on everything that happens in Europe, did not warn us before Gothenburg and Genoa and help to prevent the violence which took place there.
These are worrying questions and we will come back to them.
It is not Italy which needs to be placed under observation but that part of Europe which speaks of human rights in this Chamber and then allows those same rights to be violated, and the self-interested generosity of certain left-wing voices which condemn violence as a means of persuasion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, Europe needs to act today to make it possible for the goals set at Genoa to be implemented. Its governments must not exploit tragic events that should be tackled by a common effort, for the purposes of internal politics.
Europe must regain a sense of European Union rather than national self-interest!
Madam President, when it comes to political responses to globalisation, we ask you not to force us to choose between Genoa and Durban, between the G8 summit of the major democracies of the western world, the Genoa Summit, and the UN meeting in Durban.
Of course, we will choose the Genoa Summit over international fora where it is the dictatorships of this world that have the majority and the decision-making power and whose final decisions are those of a racist conference, not a conference on racism.
Otherwise, we would be saying we are dissatisfied with both the G8 method and the method of this European Union.
We feel that the western democracies must relaunch the method of democracy and the rule of law, that they must attack rather than playing a defensive game and must relaunch the initiative of the globalisation of rights and democracy.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, if the European Union genuinely has the political will, it should not be possible, at this advanced stage in the process, for the statute of the International Criminal Court to still not have been ratified.
It should not be possible for the universal moratorium on the death penalty not to have been approved by the UN.
It is on these issues that the western democracies must fight back.
On the subject of the G8, these summits must be made public. It is not a question of coopting representatives of NGOs or representatives of the poorest countries.
It is a question of involving the parliaments and all the citizens, broadcasting the debates on these issues to them live via audiovisual communications and the Internet, opening the doors of these international summits to all citizens and revitalising the democratic model and the rule of law.
This, I believe, is the way to improve the G8 summits and this European Union, and it is the alternative to satisfying those who call for institutions in which the worst dictatorships in the world have the right of veto to be at the central controls of globalisation.
Mr Ferri, that was not a point of order.
Madam President, I would like to thank the Belgian Presidency and Commissioner Vitorino for their introduction and to make two points of a political nature.
Firstly, I think everyone is aware of the active, prominent role taken for the first time by the European Union at the G8 summit.
Although it may well be true that the results could have been better in practical terms - as other Members have stressed - I would like to quote a politician who is not from my own culture but who is known to many in this Chamber: "The longest journey begins with a single step!"
And without a doubt, a completely new way of working was established in Genoa compared to that adopted for all the other G8 summits.
Secondly, I am sure that the goal of all the Members of this House is to achieve increasingly closer Union between the peoples of Europe, and that we base our future work and our political activity on consensus, democracy and the law.
Well then, with regard to the Genoa Summit and the messages which subsequently emerged through the media, what concerns me is an attempt to deny representative democracy. I find this unacceptable.
It may be part of the culture of others, but we must reject violence because violence is contrary to the way civilised human beings relate to each other in our culture and, above all, we must adopt an approach which is totally different from this blanket opposition.
I will end with two brief points for consideration.
We did not support the resolution because - as I am sure some of you will remember - in July, we wanted a debate to be held so that we would arrive prepared, as the European Parliament, together with the Council and the Commission, at the Genoa Summit.
This was refused us: we only had time for an oral question.
Secondly, in my opinion, in view, apart from anything else, of the tendencies of some of the previous speakers, I would wait for the conclusions of the work currently being carried out by the Italian judiciary before firing accusations or making scathing judgments about the work of the Italian police force.
Madam President, the course taken by the G8 in Genoa provides food for thought for the governments, particularly the governments of the eight protagonist countries, but also for the Commission and the Council, the institutions, the parties and the movement in which an interesting debate has been opened on the very definition of "no to globalisation" .
This is not the time to tackle the issues of public safety and law and order, which are now assuming a European dimension, as has been pointed out, and which require effective responses which also respect rights such as the right to freedom of association and demonstration which is enshrined in the European Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I am glad to see that Parliament' s Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has decided to prepare a recommendation to the Home Affairs Council before it next meets in November.
However, we cannot fail to express here our deep pain at the loss of a young human life, that of Carlo Giuliani, and our unequivocal condemnation of the violence perpetrated by minority groups in Genoa and elsewhere, and our concern at excessive crowd control measures employed to protect the citizens by sections of the police force who had assumed responsibility for the citizens' safety.
An inquiry into all this is being carried out by the Italian parliament as well as by the Courts, and we ourselves will be able to make use of the results very soon.
With regard to the agenda, it has to be said that, as an informal event, the G8 summit is in danger of raising expectations which are hardly ever matched by practical undertakings.
However, partly due to the attention that the movement has succeeded in drawing to these summits, it would be almost impossible to avoid addressing the role of the poorest countries and undertaking more convincing action with regard to the issues of debt, poverty, trade, the fight against disease and the environment.
To sum up, although it is the responsibility of the movement to reflect on its future, starting with the methods it should use to fight globalisation, and to reflect on the danger of it encouraging unfocused, provocative protectionist tendencies, the task of orienting the global processes, which have hitherto favoured economic concentrations, speculative investment and wide gaps and intolerable injustices, falls to the institution.
The next appointment will be the WTO round of negotiations, when the responsibilities of the European Union and the Commission will be far greater than at the G8 summit.
The European Commission' s "Everything but Arms" initiative was consolidated by the final statement from Genoa.
It is our responsibility to uphold it consistently in our relationship with our citizens and the poor countries which are excluded from the flow of world trade.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of Italia dei Valori, an Italian political movement belonging to the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party which was present at Genoa and witnessed the events which took place there.
In short, we feel that a summit such as the G8, in the form it has taken hitherto, is substantially unproductive.
Never more so than at Genoa has it been clear that similar displays of muscle and power on the part of the world' s greatest nations are just cinema which certainly does nothing to alleviate hunger in the world or to enhance equality between peoples if it is not matched by practical action to cancel the debt, redistribute wealth, safeguard material rights and eliminate all exploitation of developing countries.
Secondly, amongst the great many people who were exercising their genuine, lawful right to demonstrate for their convictions, there were also many troublemakers who infiltrated the demonstration in order to perpetrate unjust and unjustified acts of violence and thus sabotage the work of both governments and demonstrators.
It is necessary - and this is the third point - for Parliament too to issue, first and foremost, a clear, unambiguous statement condemning and reproaching these people for their actions: they are the criminals who sparked off the violence.
Fourthly, with regard to these criminals, I regret to say that the law and order agencies of the Italian government partly failed in their task.
Their endeavours were both excessive and inadequate: inadequate in that their information activities, intelligence and preventive protection measures did not suffice, and excessive in terms of the crowd control measures employed by certain sections of the police force; this was true only of certain sections of the police force but, regrettably, methods of crowd control were used which could and should have been avoided.
Lastly, of course this sort of behaviour is to be condemned, but we must not focus on individual members of the police force but on those who gave the orders or who should have controlled or coordinated the activities from both the technical and police points of view.
We regret that this has not been the case.
Let us await the conclusions of the Courts and the Italian Parliament calmly and let us hope that, in future, there will be no more acts of violence.
Madam President, the Minister began her speech by talking about her generation.
I belong to the generation that, in Italy, is called the 'ebb' [apolitical] generation - I am too young for either '68 or '77 - and I am used to thinking of the police and the carabinieri as those who ensure personal safety and who have made it possible to defeat terrorism in Italy.
The most surprising and shocking thing for me in the Genoa events was therefore to actually see how, within the forces of law and order, something tiny, a mere change of government, a defamatory campaign by the anti-G8 movement, inadequate organisation and a bunch of violent hooligans, was enough to bring out in some of them - I stress some of them - a desire to become the instruments of blind and profoundly stupid intimidation.
This, Mr Tajani, Commissioner Vitorino, is a European, not a national issue.
The divide that, from Nice to Gothenburg to Genoa and, perhaps tomorrow to Laeken - even if the Minister' s fine words perhaps give us grounds for optimism - is being erected, for right or for wrong, whether we like it or not, between people who, in good faith, want to take action for a better world and the institutions - the police, Parliament, government - is something that should concern us all, on both left and right.
I am convinced that if police cooperation had been applied effectively and with respect for individual rights, if free movement were a true right, with the same level of priority as the free movement of capital, if the Charter of Fundamental Rights were in the DNA of all of us, the worst events of Genoa would, perhaps, not have taken place.
That is why I believe that, to prevent another Nice, another Gothenburg or another Genoa, we need two things, and the first of them is transparency.
In Italy, the Courts are already hard at work, as is the parliamentary committee of inquiry.
Here, we must make a precise assessment of the lines along which the cooperation between European police forces was conducted and ascertain whether or not the Charter of Fundamental Rights was violated in the treatment of prisoners.
The second and last thing, Madam President, is to understand whether suspension of the Schengen rules can justify the indiscriminate, collective ban on free movement.
These are the things we must do in this House, and I hope we shall all work together to achieve them.
Madam President, the G8 meeting in Genoa gave nothing of substance to the poor people of the developing world: that is the truth.
Worst of all, it laughed at the request by Kofi Annan for the allocation of a sum that would have been at all adequate and not just alms for the fight against AIDS.
The pretensions of Western leaders to lead the world and their agencies for managing the world economy along free-enterprise lines have, since Seattle, been the object of criticism and active protest from a movement of thousands of associations and millions of people and even some States - I am thinking of South Africa - who are asking for an alternative, democratic model of globalisation oriented towards satisfying the often tragic needs of communities, especially in the developing world.
In Genoa, then, the Genoa Social Forum - that is, a thousand or so organisations, all of them peaceful and non-violent, half of them Italian - called on 300 000 people to come together and express their dissent and their alternative goals.
You have all seen the pictures and film footage of what happened in Genoa in the media.
That is proof, Mr Ferri!
I have read the newspapers and watched television.
A few hundred hooligans, then, between 600 and 800 according to the Italian police themselves, were left to run riot in Genoa, even though it was known where they were staying, to destroy businesses, banks and public property, while the full strength of the police was most brutally unleashed against the peaceful demonstrators.
They broke into the residences where they were sleeping and beat them; hundreds of young men and women were arrested, and in the police barracks they were beaten up, insulted, tortured, forced to stand for hours with their arms against a wall and their legs apart, forced to sing fascist anthems and praise Mussolini; and the girls were even threatened with rape.
I was in Genoa over those days and I was a direct witness of the police jeeps driven at full speed and the police charges against peaceful marches, as well as the hundreds of tear-gas grenades thrown at thousands of defenceless people, amongst whom were children and disabled persons.
I then went to the prisons where hundreds of young people had been transferred - Italians, Spanish, Germans, Austrians, Swedes, Swiss, aged between 18 and 20, and I collected their statements: all of them, I repeat all of them, had been beaten, insulted or tortured, many had stitches in their heads, and all that had happened in the barracks after their arrest.
Right-wing authoritarian processes have a history in Europe!
Together with the underlying factors, this history includes accidental events, on the one hand, and the complicity or inertia of the moderate, liberal and Catholic right on the other.
The attitude emerging here of underestimation by the Council, and also by part of the political groupings represented here in Parliament, of the general trend dramatically revealed in Genoa which is taking hold of Italy, is therefore - if I may say so - irresponsible, not only towards democracy but also towards these groupings themselves.
For much less, for Haider' s idle talk, Austria was subjected to surveillance and sanctions by the other 14 Member States of the Union.
Mr Vinci, there were also charges against the police and not just the police excesses that I have condemned, let us make it clear.
But that is not the problem I want to deal with today.
There is one point, however, which unites us all, which is: what can Europe do? Minister, you have said that Europe can be a model in facing the problems of tomorrow' s globalisation.
That is true, but not this Europe, let us be frank, Minister.
Yes, the Europe of human rights, for which we were the cradle, the Europe of respect for minorities and diversity, the Europe of the 'No' to the death penalty, which responds to the concerns of so many, perhaps the majority of human beings.
But it would really respond to their concerns if Europe had a voice and an instrument to express this idea forcefully in the world.
A divided Europe can have no part in this.
The G8 summit did not give the idea of a Europe able to back up its decisions.
The G8 summit has given the world the idea of the great superpower and a divided Europe that is weak and ineffective because it is fragmented.
This is the real problem facing us.
If we want Europe to respond to the concerns of globalisation, let us move ahead on the road towards building a political Union and giving Europe a single voice.
If, at a G8 summit, there were not four European states speaking but just one speaking on behalf of the whole of Europe, there would no longer be a great America and a number of little States; there would be two voices with the same weight.
Minister, your government could make a great contribution in this direction at Laeken by presenting and taking forward a draft Constitution that is not divorced from the reality of the problems, as the debate still is today, but which, in a few years' time, when the euro has become the common currency and globalisation is no longer a contentious issue, can be an instrument for Europe to speak in the world with a single voice and as a single political unit.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the events of Genoa show us several things.
The first, I would say, as regards the European or world leaders, the Euro-globalists who were barricaded in that town, is quite simply that they may govern badly, but they protect themselves well.
The second does not, for all that, tempt us to support the brutal and deliberately violent counter-demonstrations that were organised and that did not create too much indignation among their ranks so long as they were used against the national right-wing parties.
When the targets are Flemish, Italian, French, German or other national militants, that is seen as entirely acceptable and there was no shortage of leaders within the French socialist party to encourage and organise the so-called democratic harassment.
Until the day when, like the man hoist with his own petard, the socialist leaders find themselves at the receiving end of the stone throwing.
Indeed the bloody events of Genoa show that protests against globalisation are not the expression of a moral protest born of the desire for a fairer redistribution of the wealth of the planet.
In fact today, like yesterday, the issue is political and ideological.
Lucas Casarini, leader of the White Overalls movement, said as much in an interview with La Repubblica.
Negri, imprisoned for armed insurrection against the Italian state and now partially free, expressed the same view in a book.
These people are no longer socialist internationalists, proletarian internationalists, but they are still internationalists.
The people who demonstrated in Seattle do not represent the voice of the poor throughout the world; they are a political instrument directed against the Western world.
In Genoa, they launched their attack from the very heart of the empire they supposedly wanted to destroy; but in reality another equally subversive form of globalisation is dialectically opposed to liberal globalisation.
We do not support either one of them; the real reply lies in the defence of national identities.
Madam President, after the spirit of Rambouillet at the first G5 summit, we have reached the sad events in Genoa and many of us are beginning to think that these summits have become too large, unwieldy and bureaucratic and have lost the old, productive atmosphere of confidential meetings.
The Commission spoke about this a while ago and this is certainly a subject to examine in greater depth.
On occasions such as these, however, many of us have also realised that there are forces in Parliament that are able to exploit even tragedies for their own ends, for the death in Genoa was a tragedy.
This was simply to achieve their political objectives: that is, to discredit the centre-right government in Italy.
To achieve this outcome, they use the European Parliament, organising in Parliament, as they did yesterday, for example, meetings with exponents of antiglobalisation movements that spread ridiculous, false accusations and offend a European Union Member State by calling it an incomplete democracy that should be placed under supervision.
I regret to say that an active part is played in these demonstrations by Italian Members of this House - I need only name Mr Vinci - who perhaps do not realise that they are discrediting not so much the centre-right government but the whole of their country.
My question is quite obvious and simple: if a left-wing government had been in power in Italy, would there have been the same mobilisation of forces in this Parliament, with pilgrimages by our fellow Members who had never dreamt of going to previous summits but who - as if by coincidence - were present in Genoa?
I hope that the protests in Genoa and elsewhere never succeed in preventing world leaders from continuing to talk to each other, as could well happen.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the denial of democracy and a social dimension in European integration is creating conflicts.
What is our response? Countless young people have waited all summer for this first session of the European Parliament.
In Genoa, they encountered a state and a Europe which have deeply traumatised them.
Their trauma is heightened every day that we fail to give them a satisfactory response.
What is this Parliament' s response? On the first day, Mr Poettering congratulated Mr Berlusconi.
The Christian Democrats and right-wingers in this House have rejected the resolution and made it clear that they will also reject a committee of enquiry.
Let me make it clear what they are identifying themselves with: police violence, systematic brutality and even torture in the prisons or at the time of arrest, hundreds of arbitrary arrests, sexual harassment, and Nazi slogans in the police stations.
I was in Genoa for a week.
I visited the prisons.
I spoke to the people in charge, and I took notes for ten hours with people who had been systematically abused and mistreated, in some cases for up to thirty hours.
Yet you want to sweep everything under the table!
The Christian Democrats are allowing the Italian right to dictate the course of today' s debate.
One of them even had the gall to say that there is no evidence.
Ladies and gentlemen, please vote for an enquiry. We will provide bags full of evidence of hundreds of cases of torture, abuse, brutality and excesses by the police.
This is not merely a matter for the Italian police, for these young people all over Europe have waited for this first session, hopeful that the guardians of fundamental rights sit here in this House and that this House will not remain silent or make common cause with Italy' s rightist government.
Let me say a few bitter words as an Austrian.
What would have happened if these appalling events at a summit had taken place in Austria a year ago? One dead, 500 injured, 470 arrested and imprisoned, with 90% of them having to be released later due to lack of evidence because the police had picked them up at random as much as 50 km outside Genoa and trumped up evidence against them.
This has a European dimension, and this House must address the issue....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, the political results of the G8 summit, let us be frank about it, were virtually nil or even negative, and yet everything was clouded, as we all know, by the violent clashes.
We register here the strongest possible protest against the Italian government and police forces, who were tolerant and permissive with the violent, but savage against the innocent.
Europe has been able to judge, and it has judged with dismay and indignation the atrocious images of acts carried out in the developing world, persecutions as seen in Chile, as have been perpetrated by a Member State of the Union.
We also here express our utter condemnation of the mindless violence by some groups of demonstrators and our severe criticism of those organisers who reject violence in words but who were unable or unwilling, in fact, to break off all relations with those in the movement who preached or advocated violence.
Any tolerance in this respect plays into the hands of the enemies of the people' s cause.
Any naivety by those who believe that it is enough to be right for right to prevail and who do not take the trouble to oppose, isolate and exclude the violent of all kinds is not a virtue but bears a poisonous fruit. It is a real boomerang that will hit back against the need to extend and expand the great movement against neo-free trade globalisation.
Madam President, the European Parliament should take a very balanced view when its debate covers the responsibilities of national parliaments, so as not to give the impression of interfering in the various countries' affairs in one way or another.
On the G8 I share the opinion of the Council and Commission on the good and bad sides of it, but I also wonder why, every time an international summit is organised, from Seattle to Gothenburg to Genoa, conflicts break out that threaten public order, as if people were trying to fight an invisible tyrant. We should reflect on this paradox and initiate a dialogue with the young people, giving politics back its role.
Violence is rejected without equivocation. Violence is incompatible with democracy, and extremism is often the cradle of violence.
The violence in Genoa is being investigated by the Italian magistracy, in whom we should have every faith.
There is, however, a political issue: there are various ways of defending institutions.
We should not confuse the Black Block that was looking for violence with those who were exercising their right to demonstrate in the streets.
That confusion leads to a spiral that produces more violence and sows the seeds of terrorism.
In these situations it is very difficult to enforce the law without using force, but that is the responsibility of governments.
To isolate the extremist movements we must start with the moral authority of national and European institutions and the ability to show every respect for the rights of the citizenry.
Madam President, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs is going to make a recommendation on the proposal presented to us by the Justice and Home Affairs Council with a view to ensuring public order during meetings.
We are going to place value on the need to defend the freedom and fundamental rights of citizens.
Since the Treaty of Nice, the European Parliament has had the duty to exercise the right to monitor respect for these rights and that is conferred on us by the Treaty.
We must also exercise democratic control of the security measures proposed by the Council, of their proportionality and effectiveness.
I am not going to throw accusations at the Italian police, but I believe that to suspend the right to movement of certain citizens while allowing the entry of the people who did what they did in Genoa could be described at the very least as ineffective and inefficient.
We are going to do all of this.
But I believe that today, Madam President, what we must demand of the European institutions above all is a political reaction to a situation which is not a natural catastrophe, for which a civil protection plan can be presented, as Minister Duquesne appeared to do a few days ago in our committee, but a political phenomenon which we must react to.
And that reaction must also, and above all, come from this European Parliament.
We in this Parliament have the obligation to create fora for political mediation given a demand which is becoming stronger and stronger, and we must do so above all because the European Union has this democratically elected institution.
It is the only international organisation which has one and, given the widespread feeling that there is a lack of opportunity to exercise political demand in an international forum, we must be able to take a step forward and to offer this forum as soon as possible, in the hope that the other institutions will do the same.
Madam President, in spite of what was said earlier on the other side of this House, it is clear that the police exercised systematic physical and psychological torture in Genoa.
Like others, I regret that we do not have a resolution in front of us in which we could have expressed our complete condemnation of police brutality and of the violence of the Black Block at Genoa, our conviction that those responsible must be brought to justice, our commitment to uphold the right to protest peacefully, and our determination to clarify the growing evidence that much of the violence and damage to property which occurred in Genoa was the work of agents provocateurs.
But we have another task before us and that is to address the reasons fully why 300 000 people chose - in their own time, and at their own expense - to go to Genoa, just as hundreds of thousands have gone to Seattle, to Gothenburg and elsewhere to demonstrate about the continuing debt burden of the poor, about the increasing and grotesque inequalities between rich and poor and about the growing corporate control of many aspects of our lives.
That means that we need to confront the reality that the neo-liberal economic policies of the European Union are currently part of the problem, not the solution.
For example, it is the EU which is ruthlessly driving forward the agenda for a new, ambitious, comprehensive round of trade talks at Doha in November in the face of opposition from the majority of developing countries and of social movements around the world.
Commissioner Vitorino said that there was agreement in Mexico last weekend.
Well, there might have been agreement between the Quad countries, but it certainly was not endorsed by the African countries, the LDCs, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, the list goes on.
Moreover, in most EU Member States, the level of official development assistance remains far below the UN target and, contrary to the Gothenburg declaration, the Council is proposing for its 2002 budget a further 3.2% cut in commitments on foreign aid compared to last year' s budget.
As Members of the European Parliament, we have a responsibility to ensure that the citizens of the European Union continue to enjoy the right to protest peacefully.
We also have a responsibility to listen to what they are demonstrating about and to respond because, if we do not, we cannot be surprised if the reputation of the EU institutions as remote and out of touch continues to grow.
Madam President, I went to Genoa at the invitation of the Genoa Social Forum and I was surprised because I had never seen such police conduct, and I say that having fought for democracy and freedom in Spain since 1966.
Not even under the Franco dictatorship did the police behave as I witnessed in Genoa.
It was more similar to the situation which I experienced on 11 September 1973 in Santiago, Chile, when Pinochet' s coup d' état took place.
This raises a serious problem for the European Union: to guarantee that, just as the G8 can meet, all people, young people who want a different world, can also meet in a democratic fashion.
That is the responsibility of the European Union, of the European Parliament.
I therefore believe that we will have to ensure that progress is made in terms of democracy and freedom for all.
Mr President, although we do not yet know the full story of the police violence inflicted on the anti-globalisation protestors at the recent G8 summit in Genoa, there is enough evidence to suggest that the death of the young protestor Carlo Giuliani was not just caused by a police blunder.
Similarly, the methods used by the Italian authorities do not seem to be just the result of the police being unable to cope with the rioting, which we of course condemn.
After all, the private Italian network Sette broadcast scenes of people dressed like Black Blocks calmly chatting with the anti-riot police and then going away.
Even if it does not suit those who have a narrow conception of the sovereignty of states, we must make it clear that the events of Genoa do not come only under the heading of Italy' s domestic affairs but directly concern the European institutions, and chiefly among them the European Parliament because it is directly elected.
First of all, Europe is concerned because the Union must not simply be a stepping stone of liberal globalisation, but also an area of freedom in which the citizens have the rights guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights and, more recently, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Furthermore, when citizens of all nationalities come together to exercise their collective freedom, their freedom of opinion and their right to demonstrate, it is the duty of the European Community to guarantee that they can effectively exercise these rights.
Secondly, Europe must not remain inert in face of such disturbing manipulative operations.
Europe cannot allow a government in its midst to use methods that are so incompatible with the values of democracy and freedom in which it believes.
Lastly, as responsible democrats we cannot allow the violent actions of a minority of activists to be lumped together with the pacifist beliefs of thousands of people protesting against liberal globalisation, for the Union must, in its turn, become the motive force of democratic globalisation based on solidarity.
I deplore the rejection of the proposal to table a European Parliament resolution on the subject.
I would have liked to see a committee of inquiry set up.
Like some of my socialist comrades and other colleagues, I will play an active part in the monitoring group referred to by Francis Wurtz and we will carefully examine the conclusions of the Italian committee of inquiry.
Mr President, the efforts of big business to rule the world, now that the Socialist camp no longer ranks as a formidable adversary, the anti-grass roots policy punishing workers in developed countries and plundering the riches of the developing world are obviously - please do not laugh, Sir - going to provoke a reaction on the streets.
Despite attempts to lead and mislead, such as we have heard here from the Council and the Commission about involvement in dialogue with civil society, we are certain that this movement is set to become even more radical and to turn even more resolutely against the capitalist system.
And at the same time, unbridled police violence is being used, such as that seen in Gothenburg and, even more so, in Genoa.
Without wishing to play down the responsibility of the Italian government, we would point out that the suppressive measures taken in Genoa originate in the European Union with the Schengen Agreement, police collaboration, the decisions taken by the Council on 13 July and the preparations to crush demonstrations in Belgium.
No matter, history teaches us that, however strong the oppressors, however much violence they use, the oppressed eventually come out on top.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Data protection in electronic communications
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A5-0270/2001) by Mr Cappato, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector [COM(2000) 385 - C5-0439/2000 - 2000/0189(COD)];
(A5-0284/2001) by Mrs Cederschiöld, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the strategy aiming at creating a safer information society by improving the security of information infrastructures and through the fight against cybercrime.
Mr President, it is a pity that, after a whole day during which Parliament has debated matters in which it has no legislative competence, only in the afternoon and then the evening will we actually be talking about areas in which we do have legislative power.
It is rather a bad Parliamentary habit, and we should try to resist these headline-grabbing temptations.
Having said that, the European Commission' s proposal for a directive is an important document and will help to protect rights and also freedoms on line, not only as regards the electronic communications of citizens within Europe, and thus we congratulate the Commission on the work that has been done.
I must start, however, by saying that the Commission itself should, I believe, take greater account of the fact that the difficulties and delays in implementing directives in the Member States mean that we are in danger of having European laws that are increasingly specific and detailed, which attempt to keep up with technological progress, but then we find ourselves updating a 1997 directive, now four years old, when this directive has still not been implemented by all the Member States: it is a specific directive relating to a general directive from 1995 which itself has not yet been adopted by the Member States.
It is therefore this legislative method that should probably be debated!
Having said that, however, I genuinely believe that important measures for protecting European citizens' privacy are guaranteed and specified, measures that the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights and its rapporteur fully upheld in committee and which were adopted.
I would now like to focus on two points that are, perhaps, more politically controversial: the power of public and state authorities to have access to European Union citizens' personal data, and unsolicited commercial e-mail.
On the first point, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights accepted the European Commission' s desire not to grant the kind of carte blanche or blank cheque that some countries in the Union would have liked, to be able to intercept and access European Union citizens' personal data, for instance by accessing data collected by telephone companies.
The Commission is right to insist on and uphold this point.
We hope that it will also follow us in a further request expressed by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, of placing a precise obligation on all derogations from the directive or European regulations that are not completely exceptional, based on a specific law accessible to the public, and limited in time; this will have the consequence, which we have written into the report, of prohibiting generalised surveillance.
I think it is important that the Commission should uphold this, because I believe the greatest threat to citizens' privacy is the omnipotence of the state in accessing personal data.
On the other point - unsolicited commercial e-mails - I have preferred, and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights has followed me, not to accept the Commission proposal of imposing a harmonised Europe-wide opt-in system, but to leave each Member State the choice of opting in or opting out.
I believe, in fact, that both systems are ineffective at stopping so-called spamming: true spammers who block up electronic mail boxes are people who do so fraudulently, hiding their addresses, and so have no interest in respecting either opting-in or opting-out.
In the absolute ban of opt-in, I see a threat to the freedom of expression of those who conduct e-commerce correctly: for freedom of expression it is not so easy to separate commercial messages from non-commercial messages, and there may be journalistic or political texts that are sponsored and as such could be treated as commercial messages.
I also believe that today there are instruments for self-regulation, filters and technologies that can solve the problem much more flexibly and effectively than the courts can.
Furthermore, the costs that the consumer has to bear are set to fall with the liberalisation of telecommunications that the Commission is pressing for in the other directives in the package.
Therefore, with flat rates and broad band connections, even the cost problem of connecting for a few seconds is becoming less important. That is why, faced with the possible risks of the opt-in system, we are opposed to a single, harmonised European system.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
(DE) Mr President, I should like to speak about the issue of electronic data protection, which has already been mentioned.
To come back to the points made by Mrs Cederschiöld, I have heard in many forums and many other communications media in the Internet and e-mail that there has been a great deal of annoyance among users.
This is logical, for if we examine the principles of opt-in and opt-out using the example of letter mail, opt-out simply means that e-mails are paid on delivery, i.e. by the addressee. After all, it is the users who pay the Internet access fees.
I would get very annoyed about this too.
This is not to say that this is a bad intervention, but I would vote for an opt-in system for e-mails.
Otherwise, I think that the directive' s major shortcoming is what is not regulated, namely monitoring by the state, which is explicitly excluded.
I think that this poses the greatest threat to fundamental rights in the European Union - and fundamental rights are there to protect citizens from the state.
This is excluded here, which means that the directive is inadequate.
The rest offers quite a good level of protection.
However, if we draw together the opinion on cybercrime and Parliament' s opinion on terrorism, it is quite striking that a great many things are thrown together and criminalised: for example, "everything which is illegal offline should be illegal online" .
This is the case anyway, so we do not need any directives on cybercrime.
No one has yet given me a plausible explanation of why we actually need this, and which new laws will be adopted and crimes defined which are not already covered elsewhere.
In my view, this whole cybercrime issue is primarily intended to legitimise intervention in fundamental rights.
Finally, I should like to remind you of an anniversary which took place two days ago. A hundred years ago, the typewriter was banned in Turkey.
Why? Because it was feared that it would enable people to communicate anonymously; they could no longer be identified by their handwriting, and this would open the door to crime.
Banning the typewriter was intended to prevent this.
Perhaps this would be appropriate once again today?!
Mr President, I welcome the Commission' s strategy on cybercrime.
This is, as Mrs Cederschiöld said, a very controversial and difficult area which raises issues of how to regulate the Internet and yet not stifle its development; and also significant issues regarding crime surveillance and privacy, data protection and retention, yet we need to be aware the cybercriminals do not respect our personal integrity.
We now have a growing phenomenon of so-called data streaming - hacking into computer systems and stealing credit card details in bulk.
The total cost loss to the UK last year was GBP300 million, an increase of 55% on 1999.
We need more secure systems if we are to boost consumer confidence in using the Internet.
Commissioner, in your strategy I want you to prioritise tackling the very disturbing growth in child pornography on the Internet.
We need to clamp down on sexual exploitation of children.
Again, there has been a very massive growth in cross-border child pornography.
In the UK, members of the so-called "Wonderland Club" , an Internet paedophilia ring, were arrested and found to have sites in 12 different European countries.
In my own region, the Greater Manchester Obscene Publications Unit has had success in cracking down on paedophilia with new Internet tracing software.
That is why, with the backing of many of the children' s organisations across the European Union, we are calling for a number of actions.
We want you to look at the possibility of involving credit card companies and Internet service providers in supporting the blacklisting of sites trading in illegal pornographic content.
We want to see the expansion of 24-hour hotlines and electronic watchtowers.
We want to see the creation of a European rating system for child-friendly Internet providers and the display of child safety messages.
We want child pornography on news groups blocked.
We want closer involvement by Europol in prosecuting cyber paedophiles and better cooperation between European law enforcement agencies.
The European Union must act to ensure that there are no safe havens in Europe for cyber paedophiles.
Our message, therefore, is that we are stepping up our action and closing down these sites.
We want you, Commissioner, to take action in this area.
Mr President, may I say that both the committee and the rapporteur have taken a very balanced and level-headed approach to this issue. Unfortunately, virtual reality, while it has a great deal going for it, engenders not virtual but very real crimes which we need to deal with without making bogeymen of ourselves.
We must be ready to prevent and punish these crimes as and when they appear.
Secure infrastructures and crime prevention need to go hand in glove with respect for freedoms and personal data protection.
This is something which we should never forget and which needs to be kept in a state of equilibrium.
Obviously we need coordination at international level and obviously the role of the Member States and of the European Union is to operate in international organisations with an appropriate strategy because we cannot resolve the problem alone.
The Internet is international and needs to be addressed internationally.
Obviously we need better definitions of the various types of crimes.
We cannot talk in general terms and what appear to be the most important issues today, i.e. pornography, hackers and racism, will not necessarily be the most important issues tomorrow.
Commercial crime is also very important and I think that we need to work with industry and the banks here if we are to be sure that the solutions found are indeed the most suitable.
One particular aspect, which colours all the rest, is intellectual property, which is in huge danger and could end up disadvantaging authors and artists.
I think that we need working protection rather than excessive measures which will stop the Internet from operating.
The debate is now suspended and will resume at 9 p.m.
Presentation by the Council of the draft general budget for 2002
The next item is the presentation by the Council of the draft general budget for 2002.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, in the months between now and December, we have a great deal of work to do in order to reach the necessary agreement on the next budget.
The positions of the European institutions are currently quite far removed from one another on very important issues.
As far as the European Parliament is concerned, there are prior conditions that must be met: the first is to ensure rigour and transparency in the budget and in its implementation; secondly, to only adopt a position if and provided that the necessary information is available to us.
In this context, I must once again make my continuing objections perfectly clear.
Where agriculture is concerned, we need information on the results that have already been achieved by the last reform of the common agricultural policy; with regard to the medium-term budgetary impact of the BSE and foot-and-mouth crises and also with regard to the obstacles holding up the rapid establishment of the new food safety authority and even with regard to the prospects for the short and medium-term development of these issues.
As for the structural funds, we want to be sure that the budget will have the necessary means to undertake speedy payment of the commitments it has taken on.
Under the terms of the proposals that have been tabled, just over 1% of the commitments taken on in 2002 will be paid within the same year.
In the field of internal policy - category 3 - we can see that new expenditure on new actions and bodies is increasing yet the overall sum remains the same.
The margin is, of course, decreasing.
With regard to the European Union' s external action - category 4 - new needs are clear and cannot be met by previous reductions in commitments, either through cuts in appropriations committed or through delaying payments, as is happening now.
Nevertheless, appropriations have been earmarked for the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which we all know will not be concluded, in an attempt to thereby freeze EUR 125 million in a category that is clearly experiencing difficulties.
Since this is non-mandatory expenditure, I feel sure that Parliament will also shoulder its responsibilities in this area.
In category 5, administrative expenditure, on the one hand the content and pace of the Commission reform is limited and on the other, expenditure is duplicated in the field of security and defence and there is an attempt to confront enlargement without spending additional appropriations, the opposite of what the interinstitutional agreement lays down.
With regard to pre-accession expenditure, payments are being delayed and it is hard to see how this proposal can improve the situation.
The implementation of previous budgets does not give any grounds for being sanguine about the future.
Given the well-documented difficulties in meeting certain longstanding and more recent commitments, how can we accept the fact that in 2001, Member States have been given back almost EUR 10 billion, which remain unused? On the one hand, there are discussions about whether the euro is a good or a bad thing and on the other, 12% of the 2000 budget remains unused, which alone indicates how important it is for Parliament to take increasingly effective control of the budget' s implementation.
We will only take decisions on agricultural issues if we have a full understanding of the present situation and an idea of how things are going to change.
We cannot accept the level of payments that has been proposed, all the more so because we want to make good past delays without undermining the current situation.
We want a clear and objective definition of priorities and targets for the entire budget.
We do not agree with the earmarking of appropriations which we know from the outset will not be used.
Specifically, we need to identify current expenditure resulting from enlargement.
We are hoping to see a real reform of the Commission and a corresponding increase in efficiency.
To sum up, we want to fully shoulder the responsibilities we have as a budgetary authority which stem from our very raison d' être, which is to represent those who elect us.
This is what we shall do, whilst stating once more our complete willingness to cooperate in finding the best solutions for outstanding issues.
Mr President, some things are quickly learnt.
It does not take an expert on budgets to work out that the Council is submitting a proposal to cut down on posts.
The Council is being self-congratulatory while ably wielding the axe.
The Dutch Finance Minister, your colleague, recently claimed in public that the European Parliament is the big spender of the two arms of the budgetary authority.
If one considers the struggles one faces in the course of the budgetary procedure, he appears to be right.
It is true that Parliament often adds a little extra to the proposals of the Council.
This is not because it is eager to fleece the taxpayer, but precisely because it wants to be a reliable authority, because it feels obliged to guarantee that the European tasks and responsibilities are actually carried out.
Fine words and promises must, however, be translated into action, and that often costs money.
I am already anticipating Minister Zalm' s criticism that another parliament building is surely a pure waste of money.
I would therefore like to say to the Council that it should not come and cry on our shoulder now that many of these money-wasting decisions are taken at European summits.
Allow me to quote the summit in Nice as an example. During that summit, the participants burnt the midnight oil in meetings to decide whether the Council should have one vote more or less.
In order to ease the pain for the losers, Parliament chairs were being handed out lavishly.
That, of course, is also telling of how much the Council values Parliament. It is better to have more votes behind closed doors than to have people' s representatives in parliament.
This cattle auction will yield us 32 new colleagues, whether we like it or not, and our total number could temporarily even increase to as many as 800.
Those members will need assistants and offices, and that was not, of course, taken into account when we first set out to build the current buildings.
Do these summits ever stop and consider these issues? For we are left dealing with the implications.
I would therefore suggest that at the end of European summits, the political conclusions should be published, alongside a rough estimate of the financial implications.
And I would invite the President of the Council to act on this straight away.
My second observation concerns the costs of the Council itself.
Within category 5, administrative expenditure, the Council is the fastest growing institution, and that creates added tension within this category.
To the Council, the financial perspectives are sacred, and that is why they aim to solve the problem by transferring certain expenses, which they would have gladly included in their own budget, to category 3, such as 3.5 million for Eurojust, and nearly 1 million for Schengen.
That limits the scope of the European Parliament to determine its own priorities in this category.
But I am an optimist: this situation also has benefits. For in this way, we gain a little more insight and we can indirectly increase democratic control.
It does, of course, show where the priority of the governments lies if we are only given this control for the purposes of salvaging the Interinstitutional Agreement and saving some money.
The reallocation of Eurojust to category 3, however, is not such a clever move.
Do not get me wrong, I do not want to include Eurojust in the Council' s budget, but I would incorporate it under the administrative expenditure heading.
This, given the nature of expenses, would also be the most logical solution, as the Council also tacitly recognised during the trilogue.
I hope that we can at least agree on the principle, namely that operational expenditure belongs in category 3 and administrative expenditure in category 5.
Or is the Council perhaps losing its nerve after all, given the increasing number of operational activities in its own budget?
As already stated, the Council often has a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to deciding to lower the proposed expenditure.
What Terry Wynn said is true: we have, after all, suggested a radical overhaul of expenditure, and consideration of what expenditure is still necessary, whether things should be done differently, whether a number of institutions are overlapping in terms of responsibilities, whether there are bureaux that duplicate the work.
That has led to a guarded reaction from the Council, which surprises me greatly, for if we want to economise, then surely these are the areas where it can be done.
We will also therefore take fresh initiatives to consider radical cutbacks nevertheless.
But the Council does like to haggle, and it does not always take the actual needs into consideration in the process.
Given the time constraints, I shall only mention one example, namely the Commission' s reform process.
That is a priority for us both.
Despite this, the Council only approved 89 of the 317 requested posts.
You are quite welcome to be critical of the reform process and you need not approve all plans blindly.
The repercussions of the schedule for advance resignation now await you.
Given the above, I wonder now whether the Council is not simply waiting for us to take responsibility, for then it would, in the final analysis, be Parliament again which is calling for extra funding.
Thrift is something to be welcomed, but one does need to enable the institutions to carry out their tasks. If not, the citizens of the Union, the taxpayers, will have something to be really disappointed about.
That concludes this item.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Questions to the Council (B5-0332/2001).
Question No 1 by (H-0594/01):
Subject: Investigation of irregularities at Europol On Tuesday 12 June the Council announced that the operation of Europol was being investigated.
One of the central questions concerns the origins of the information technology on which Europol' s Eurint and Europolis systems are based.
Europol may well be using pirated information technology.
Can the Council confirm that the patented Polygon technology from the Munich-based Polygenesys company provides the IT base for Europol' s Eurint and Europolis systems or has been incorporated into them?
If so, since when has Europol been using that technology, and how did it acquire it and/or the user rights to it?
I should like to answer the question of the honourable Member Bart Staes as follows.
Firstly, the Council acknowledges that it bears responsibility for Europol in a general sense.
The execution of contracts, however, is a matter which, in the first instance, falls under the competent services of Europol.
The question is therefore being dealt with at the moment by the director of Europol, under the supervision of the board of management.
However, the Council has information that all contracts entered into by Europol at the time are now being examined by an independent external bureau as a result of a decision by Europol' s board of management.
The inquiry into the supposed theft of software and its possible use has been forwarded for further investigation to the public prosecutor in The Hague.
A parallel judicial inquiry has opened in Germany.
We must therefore await the results of the judicial inquiry before we can provide further details.
I should like to point out to the honourable Member that the discovery of fraudulent practices was the result of the nonetheless efficient operation of the existing present monitoring structures, since this is how they were brought to light.
I should like to thank Mrs Neyts for her full answer, a very concrete answer to a very concrete question.
I should, however, also like to approach the matter from a political perspective.
Mrs Neyts may say that the present cases of fraud were discovered through internal monitoring.
Nevertheless there is a perception on the part of the public and by a large part of the political world that there is insufficient democratic control of Europol, and various avenues are being explored to intensify that control.
Among other things under consideration are a modification of the OLAF Regulation and in the Belgian parliament the idea is circulating of setting up a Committee P and a Committee I on the Belgian model for the supervision of police forces and intelligence services for Europol too.
Does the Minister see any chance of a debate on this subject being held within the Council and within European institutions, so that we can reassure citizens regarding democratic monitoring of what is, after all, an important police service, although still in an embryonic state?
.
(NL) I would say in reply to the honourable Member - and he will understand this - that we want to wait and see what concrete shape may be taken by the interesting ideas that are crystallising at present.
Question No 2 by (H-0595/01):
Subject: Discrimination in the way in which the catch reduction decided upon by the Council of Ministers has been distributed amongst the fishing fleets of the various Member States On 18 June 2001 the Council of Ministers decided on the way in which the catch reduction would be distributed amongst the fishing fleets of the various Member States. The outcome was a serious case of discrimination affecting, in particular, the Spanish (and especially the Galician) fleet, which would be required to withdraw hundreds of vessels from service whilst hundreds of French and Irish vessels would be exempted.
What justifies the fact that the Spanish (including the Galician) fleet is constantly subject to measures which restrict its activity on a pretext of resource conservation which does not apply to other countries?
I can say to the honourable Member that on 18 June this year the Fisheries Council took no decision in respect of hake fishing.
However, on the basis of the critical state of the cod and hake stocks outlined in the Commission' s communication of 12 June and on the rebuilding of cod and hake stocks which was presented to the Council, and I quote: "The Commission adopted an emergency regulation on 14 June establishing measures for the recovery of the northern hake stock.
Article 2(2) of the Commission Regulation provides for a derogation for vessels of less than 12 metres overall length using a mesh size of less than 100 mm from a maximum share of 20% of hake in the retained catch, provided that the vessels - not the catch - return to port within 24 hours."
On 22 June Spain asked the Council to amend this provision.
On 20 July the Council noted that there was no majority for amending it in the way proposed by Spain.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, only the discrimination suffered by the fleets of southern Europe, from Portugal and Spain - particularly Galicia - can explain the tangible discrimination we are now discussing.
The European Union' s institutions still consider these fleets to be intruders in seas that belong to all of us. This discrimination manifests itself in the application of the principle of relative stability which, for example, grants a country from northern Europe 40% of catches taken in Community waters, whilst Spain and Galicia receive only 6%.
As a result, we must ask once again: what is the Council' s position on the necessary communitisation of fishing rights in European Union waters in accordance with the principles laid down in the Treaties?
Mr President, I can only say that I suppose that the state that tabled the amendment will come back to the subject and the Council will then debate it again.
That is all that I can say at this moment.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity, in the presence of the Presidency-in-Office, which says it is going to study this issue again, to say that the excuse of conserving a resource such as hake, without sufficient or confirmed scientific reports, is at the origin of the discrimination against the Spanish fleet, which we are discussing here.
The Commission has told us in the Committee on Fisheries that this discrimination is for social reasons in favour of Great Britain and France, and that that is the reason for the exception.
Madam President, my question is why does the Commission, and in this case the Council, by a majority and for social reasons, not defend Spain, and specifically a region such as Galicia, which is an Objective One region and is therefore more needy, and whose fishermen traditionally fished in those waters which are now common.
These fishermen, for social reasons, do not sleep at home, owing to the enormous distance they have to travel.
If the reasons are social, I would ask you please to take account of the protection of Spanish fishermen.
I can only say after the five very pleasant and most interesting years which I spent in this august assembly that I am perfectly aware of the seriousness and the sensitivity of the subject.
I take that into account.
We do not doubt that these five years you have been with us in Parliament will help you to communicate this very serious problem to the European Council.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 3, 4, 5 and 6 will be taken together.
Question No 3 by (H-0599/01):
Subject: The EU' s rapid reaction force in Sweden In response to the chaotic situation which arose in Göteborg during the EU summit in June, when police and demonstrators clashed, it has been suggested in various Member States that it ought to be possible for the EU' s rapid reaction force to be deployed to control riots and civil disturbances.
Anders Mellbourn, the head of the Swedish Foreign Policy Institute, for example, wrote in Dagens Nyheter on 24 June:
'This probably means that the police will have to be supplemented by some kind of riot police units which possess a combination of police and military training.
This is hardly the kind of task to entrust to conscripts: it calls for professional soldiers or else police with military training.
Operational cooperation between the police forces and the military of several EU countries is required [...] It is not easy for the EU to bring together a standing force of 5 000 police officers for civil crisis management.
Dialogue to prevent conflict needs to be supplemented by increased intelligence activity.
All this is also needed in order to be able to contribute to effective conflict- and crisis-management in the Balkans or the Middle East.
But it is also needed - albeit, one hopes, rarely - to cope with certain domestic crises in Sweden or neighbouring EU countries.'
Does the Council agree that in future it ought to be possible for the EU' s rapid reaction force to be deployed within the Union itself when situations such as that in Göteborg arise?
Question No 4 by (H-0676/01):
Subject: The G8 meeting and security at summit meetings and other conferences of equivalent importance A few days before the deplorable events which unfolded in Genoa during the G8 meeting, the 15 Foreign Ministers unanimously endorsed the decisions by the Interior Ministers on security at EU summit meetings and other conferences of equivalent importance.
Will the Council say: did the Italian authorities call for the setting-up of a team of police officers or intelligence service officials to act as liaison officers who could be seconded from the Member States from which groups of troublemakers originate (Article 1(b)) and for all the legal technical means to be deployed to achieve a more structured exchange of information concerning troublemakers on the basis of files held in the various Member States? (Article 2(d)).
If so, which governments of the 15 Member States have responded?
Question No 6 by (H-0687/01):
Subject: Future of EU Council summits following the events in Göteborg and Genoa Following the disturbances which marked the EU' s Göteborg Summit and the G8 summit in Genoa, and taking particular account of the moves to have EU summits held exclusively in Belgium in the future, what implications does the Council foresee for summit meetings of this kind? What conclusions should be drawn regarding the organisation of, and the scale of, the agendas for such meetings?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, these issues have a very close bearing on the debate we held this afternoon on the G8 summit in Genoa and all the events surrounding that meeting.
I would like to remind Members of the unanimous position taken by the Council and the representatives of Member State governments on the question of security at European Council meetings and at other events that are likely to have a similar impact.
The Council reiterated that one of the European Union' s objectives is to maintain and develop the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice.
In such an area, citizens must enjoy the right to freely express their opinions and to assemble in a peaceful manner.
They must do so, however, in conditions where there is not a threat to their own security or to that of other citizens or properties.
On 13 July this year, the Council and the representatives of the Member State governments therefore deplored the actions of those who abuse these democratic rights by initiating, planning and carrying out acts of violence to coincide with public demonstrations.
For the purpose of ensuring that these principles can also be applied in the context of important meetings, the Council and the representatives emphasised the need to establish a dialogue with non-governmental organisations, social partners and civil society, and also that we must build on and we shall build on the possibilities offered by existing legal instruments and bodies set up within the European Union.
Like Mr Vitorino before me, let me lay particular emphasis on the provisions of the Convention applying the Schengen Agreement and the joint action of 26 May 1997 on cooperation on law and order and security.
The idea is that the task force of European Union chiefs of police should make a significant contribution to the practical implementation of cooperation between the law enforcement authorities of the Member States.
Incidentally, this task force has absolutely nothing to do with what the author of one question described as a joint police unit in the context of an EU-led crisis-management action.
In reply to the two questions put, respectively, by Mr Krarup and Mr Korakas, during Question Time at Parliament' s last part session in July 2001, I had an opportunity, speaking on behalf of the Council, to detail the measures taken by the Swedish government during the Gothenburg Summit.
In the same way, by letter of 11 July 2001, the Italian government informed us, under the procedures in force, of the measures it had taken under the second sentence of Article 2(2) of the Convention applying the Schengen Agreement.
At the Council meeting of 16 July 2001, the ministers declared themselves in favour of closer international cooperation to safeguard the exercise of freedom of expression on the one hand and, on the other, to ensure that public demonstrations of this kind can and do take place in a peaceful manner.
Nonetheless, we must admit that responsibility for the maintenance of law and order on the territory of the EU Member States falls within the remit of their own national authorities.
The Council is not authorised to comment on a matter that does not fall within the area of competence conferred on it by the Treaties.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for such a detailed reply.
However, my specific question perhaps got lost in the detail, because the Council does not appear to be quite as unanimous as she would have us believe.
For example, the Greek government protested to the Italian government that dozens of Greek nationals were unable to enter Italy and were sent back on the same boat prior to the meeting in Genoa.
My question, which I would like the President-in-Office to answer, is this: were the plans to set up teams of policemen or intelligence service officers to operate as links between the Fifteen and were the plans to exchange information in files on people classified as troublemakers implemented before Genoa or not? Did the Fifteen cooperate in this regard?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I believe I said, although perhaps in rather diplomatic terms, that the Council cannot comment on the way in which a member country, a Member State, organises the maintenance of public order on its own territory, because it does not have the authority to do so.
Obviously that does not mean that a Member State cannot make known its position in regard to another Member State, which is, in effect, what has happened.
But that does not fall within the Council' s remit.
In regard to your second question, I will have to check this and obtain information before I can reply.
All I know is that in the fight against what is called 'hooliganism' at major sporting events, the police authorities have clearly begun to cooperate on exchanging information on individuals who have repeatedly been proven responsible for disturbances or worse at major sporting events.
That is something I know.
In answer to the question whether there was any cooperation of the kind to anticipate or prevent possible trouble during the meetings of European Union bodies: I do not think so, but I will have to check this and will do so.
The minister said that she needs to make inquiries before giving an answer.
Does that mean she will be giving me a written reply once she has this information?
The Council replies according to its true knowledge and understanding. You can ask the question again if you wish.
Mr Patakis, do you wish to ask your question again?
The President-in-Office has not replied to the question which I submitted and I should like to repeat it, although I would say that, following the police raid on offices of organisations in Liège and from the position taken by the Belgian Minister of the Interior in the European Parliament Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, it would appear that the Belgian Presidency does not have virtuous intentions towards the demonstrations planned in Laeken.
My question is: can the President-in-Office assure us that there will be no police violence and suppression such as we saw in Gothenburg and Genoa?
Once again, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have to draw a distinction between my replies as President-in-Office of the Council, which cannot go beyond the presidency' s remit - as you must realise - and the replies I might wish to give as a member of the Belgian government.
First of all, it is traditional, and not just traditional, I believe it is the duty of any member of government not to comment on on-going judicial investigations.
Secondly, when I described the presidency' s position on the G8 meeting this afternoon and discussed means of ensuring that both these meetings and the demonstrations outside proceeded peacefully, I stated and reiterated the Belgian government' s concern and firm resolve to reconcile the right to demonstrate with the maintenance of public order, as also to prevent the kind of violence we saw both in Gothenburg and in Italy.
We are doing all we can to achieve this.
I hope everyone will want to make their personal contribution and use all available means.
Mr President, I have listened to your comments with interest, but I would like to refer back to my question, Question No 6: What conclusions should now be drawn for European Council meetings in future, not only as regards policing but also in organisational and policy terms? In particular, I should like to know whether you are considering reducing the number of participants and the agenda, as has happened with the G8 summits.
If the European Council meetings are only to take place in Belgium in future, has the idea of its own designated location been considered? Are there any thoughts on this issue and if so, what are they?
First of all, the Prime Minister of my government has already indicated that he is reflecting on and will make proposals for a review of the way the G8 summit is organised.
Secondly, Prime Minister Verhofstadt has sent a letter to his colleagues in the 14 other governments asking them to reduce the size of the delegations that would be sent to or would participate in the Laeken Council.
Let me remind you that in the case of the Ghent European Council he opted for a very restricted meeting.
We fully intend to proceed along the same lines precisely because we are trying to learn as much as we can from what we ourselves witnessed in Gothenburg and in Genoa, i.e. at both meetings.
We have a degree of understanding for the panic which has gripped the representatives, for want of a better expression, of big business, including the current presidency, in the face of increasing reaction on the part of the workers in our countries to anti-grass roots policies and the new imperialist order.
I should like to point out to the President-in-Office that it was not the "bloc noir" that was attacked in Genoa, it was the peaceful demonstrators.
It is clear from the attack on the offices of Social Forum, which organised the demonstrations, that the target was not the agents provocateurs talking to the forces of suppression, but those organising the people' s fight against the prevailing policy of the G8 and the European Union.
The statement made by the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs to the European Parliament Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs gives us cause for concern, Madam President-in-Office.
The attack on the offices in Liège, which you already know about, gives us cause for concern and we fear that the reaction in Laeken will be even more savage.
We want you to promise that there will no such reaction to the workers' right of demonstration and expression in our countries.
We shall be turning out en masse.
We will be going to Laeken en masse to protest against the European Union' s policy.
Will you look after us as well as you did in Genoa?
Let me say first of all that I most emphatically reject the honourable - and I continue to say honourable - Member' s attacks on the Belgian Presidency and the Belgian government.
These attacks are totally unfounded and I would ask him to withdraw what he has just said because he is quite simply putting words into our mouth.
I have replied calmly throughout the day and we have discussed these questions at great length.
I can only repeat what I have already said.
Furthermore, I am taking careful note of your expressed resolve to demonstrate - peacefully, I hope - what you think of the workings of the Union' s institutions.
If it is peaceful, there will be no problem.
Let me also reassure everyone that there is no question of panic; we have to prepare as carefully as possible in order to avoid a repetition of what we saw but also because - need I remind you - my country has unfortunately witnessed tragedies that were sparked off or took place during major sporting events. They now date back more than 15 years and we want to ensure at all costs that they never happen again.
Let me also tell you that during the championship held last summer - Euro 2000 - we proved that we had learned the lessons of the tragedy to which I have just referred and we showed that we were certainly fully capable of organising events of the kind, which involve huge crowd movements.
There is no question of panic; it is a question of very careful preparation.
Question No 7 by (H-0601/01):
Subject: Shannon as EU headquarters for natural or environmental emergencies response At its meeting of 28-29 May 2001, the Council agreed to improve and coordinate EU civil protection intervention in the event of major natural, technological, radiological or environmental emergencies by setting up a common emergency communications system, common training and fast mobilisation of assessment/coordination teams and intervention teams.
Would the Council consider locating an operational headquarters for this civil protection plan in Shannon which, among its many relevant facilities, includes a major international airport which could be used for transporting resources and provisions for interventions in third countries and could handle the pooling of information on serums and vaccines to which the Council Decision also refers?
On 29 May 2001, the Council decided upon a common approach with regard to the draft decision to establish a Community mechanism to facilitate increased cooperation in aid intervention in the context of civil defence, subject to the treatment of the recommendation of the European Parliament of 14 June 2001 and provided that the Parliament withdraws a number of its reservations.
Since then the Council agencies have reached complete agreement on the draft, subject to the legal and linguistic amendment of the text and, as I have already said, the withdrawal of parliamentary reservations.
The text of the draft decision, doc.
10483/01, is, by the way, on the Council' s website.
That draft provides for the setting up of an observation and information centre that can collate requests for aid and centralise the aid offered and that will be linked with contact points specified by the Member States.
That centre can alert evaluation and/or coordination as well as intervention teams, which have been specified beforehand and hence assigned the necessary personnel in advance.
The draft also provides for training programmes, the pooling of information on serums and vaccines and the promotion of the use of new technologies.
Contrary to what the honourable Member believes, there are no plans for collecting the aid material in one place, since that will be delivered directly by the Member States.
The implementation of this mechanism will be entrusted to the Commission, supported by a committee.
It is therefore up to the Commission to decide where the observation and information centre and the other services necessary for the implementation of the mechanism will be located.
This question will therefore have to be put to the Committee at the appropriate time.
As the author is not present, Question No 8 lapses.
Question No 9 by (H-0605/01):
Subject: Handling business failure As part of the Commission' s programme for Enterprise and Entrepreneurship a seminar was organised by the Commission on 'Daring to risk going bust' and handling business failure.
It was also a response to the requirements of the Charter for Small Enterprises which was welcomed by the Feira European Council.
What are the Council' s views on the impact of legislation on business failure, the need for support measures for entrepreneurs facing a risk of business failure and allowing for a fresh start after business failure, which were the key topics for the parallel workshops?
.
(NL) I would remind the honourable Member that at its meeting in Santa Maria da Feira on 19 and 20 June, the European Council emphasised that small businesses were unmistakably the backbone of the European economy.
They are an important source of employment and a breeding ground for new business concepts.
To support the recommendations it had made, the Council highlighted a number of points, including the idea that a well-considered initiative involves a risk, or a measure of failure, which must be seen mainly as an opportunity to learn.
In general the Council has taken a positive position with regard to the simplification of the regulatory framework for industry.
The seminar to which the honourable Member refers was organised jointly by the Minister for Economic Affairs and the European Commission on 10 and 11 May 2001.
The Council has not taken any position on the results of the seminar and I would therefore request the honourable Member to turn directly to the organisers for information.
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office for her answer, if you could call it that.
The specific point that I raised in my question, which I thought would be self-evident, was that because of sudden downturns in the economy in America and other parts of the world, there is increasing pressure being put on small and medium-sized enterprises in a very strict and rigorously competitive market.
Therefore, I was somewhat heartened by the daring-to-risk-going-bust attitude of the conference because that would give us experience to know the main reasons why small and medium-size enterprises fail, whilst at the same time recognising that they are the biggest engine of growth within the overall European Union economy, creating something like 82% of employment and representing 74% of all manufacturing.
Hence my question to the President-in-Office about the Council' s position: what actions can be taken to ensure the continuance of this very strong sector? In particular how can entrepreneurs learn from mistakes and failures, and if they fail once, be encouraged to continue and learn from those mistakes?
As the honourable Member has repeated the question which was addressed to us earlier, I can only repeat the answer I gave.
I am sorry.
The thinking is developing and this is shown by the conclusions to which I refer.
The seminar is a further initiative.
I expect that eventually you or some of your colleagues might invite the Commission to take a number of measures.
I know that the Council attaches great importance to small and medium-sized enterprises and recognises that these constitute the backbone of our individual economies and of our European economy in general.
Question No 10 by (H-0607/01):
Subject: Priorities in the fisheries sector during the Belgian Presidency Will the Council under the Belgian Presidency outline its priorities for the fisheries sector, taking into account the particular and unique requirements of peripheral countries such as Ireland, which has 11% of Community waters in its jurisdiction but only 4% of Community quotas?
The Belgian Presidency will endeavour to bring the debate within the Council on the Commission' s Green Paper on the reform of the common fisheries policy to a successful conclusion.
Other priorities are the extension of the multiannual guidance programmes and rebuilding the stocks at risk.
It was apparent even from the first questions that this is a far from easy task.
Special attention will be devoted to the issue of discards into the sea.
The specialists know what this is about; if you like and if you put the question, I will explain it to you.
As regards, and I quote, Ireland' s 'particular and unique requirements' , it is worth repeating that fishing quotas are distributed among the nations that practise fishing according to the principle of relative stability and that the size of a Member State' s fishing zone is not, in itself, a criterion for the distribution of these quotas.
However, Ireland does receive preferential treatment as regards financial support from the Community for carrying out control, inspection and monitoring measures.
I note that the President-in-Office has referred to the discussions which she hopes will come to a fruitful and successful conclusion.
I would add that I hope it will also be a fair conclusion.
In addition, I am pleased that she has referred to discards.
This has to be top priority because too many fish that are taken aboard vessels are discards - and then it is much too late.
I would ask the President-in-Office whether she would take into consideration the initiative taken by both Ireland and the UK in relation to technical conservation measures and see that some effort is made by all countries to try to ensure that the smaller fish are not taken on board.
You referred to the point that relative stability and special unique circumstances cannot be taken into consideration.
We are now 20 years on and if we continue with the same principle as we had in 1983 then small countries like Ireland will be worse off.
We have to be pragmatic about this.
The Council, the Council of Ministers, the presidency have to take into consideration that in Ireland the coastal regions have no alternative source of employment.
It is a peripheral area, an Objective 1 area.
Those regions must be taken into consideration.
I would ask the President-in-Office to keep an open mind.
Mr President, I can assure the honourable Member that - if I can say this - I will take on board the points he has made.
Mr President, as a supplementary, is the presidency concerned about the fact that there are so many power stations, particularly around the North Sea and in the north of Europe, where, when water is sucked in to cool the power station, vast numbers, literally billions, of tiny floating creatures that would turn into fish are destroyed.
Would the President-in-Office undertake to investigate this and try to conserve the stocks of fish, many of which are destroyed in their infancy?
I hope the honourable Member does not expect me to investigate this personally and physically.
Again, it is a consideration that we will take on board.
It was not exactly a direct question on fisheries policy, but I am sure the President-in-Office of the Council is kind enough to take very good note and that this problem will also be addressed in Council.
As the author is not present, Question No 11 lapses.
Question No 12 by (H-0611/01)
Subject: Using hydrogen energy in urban/rural transport Earlier this year the Commission announced its support for the launching of a demonstration project involving the use of hydrogen energy in buses in Iceland, a non EU Member State but a country which is paving the way for sustainable urban transport.
Given the EU' s welcome commitment to stand by the Kyoto Protocol and its continued support for sustainable development, will the Council ensure that the EU' s welcome support for this project, which is the first in a series of fuel bus demonstrations taking place in Europe in the years to come, will be given top priority as hydrogen energy is a true zero emission technology, and will it ensure that this demonstration project is extended to rural transport and not just urban transport projects?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 6 June 2001 the Council gave its political agreement to a common position on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision on the Sixth Environmental Action Programme.
The final version of this text has been officially adopted and will be forwarded to Parliament at the end of this month or the beginning of next month for second reading. It makes it clear that the Council will firmly support renewable energy sources.
As for the particular project to which the honourable Member referred, it is up to the Commission, in the framework of its competences, to organise pilot or demonstration projects and, if necessary, to put appropriate proposals before the Council.
I thank the President-in-Office for her positive response and for outlining the present position with regard to my question.
Alternative fuels have been a live agenda item in this Parliament for a number of years but we do not seem to be any closer to a practical outcome.
It is obvious that hydrogen energy represents an alternative to fossil fuels, but there are other possible alternatives, such as bio-energy, which is relevant to sustainable land use.
Can the President-in-Office give the House an update on research in these areas and how soon we can expect a positive breakthrough in the area of alternative fuels?
I have to confess to the honourable Member that for the life of me, I cannot answer your question.
The only thing I can do is to refer you to the Commission that has, within its remit, the obligation to follow this up very closely and monitor whatever is going on.
The Commission is much better placed to give you a full answer to your question.
Question No 13 by (H-0619/01):
Subject: European tax The Belgian Presidency has not made clear what it means by the possible introduction of a European tax.
What plans does the presidency have, and what legal basis does it have for its plans, for the introduction of a European tax as a source of EU own resources?
At the Ecofin Council of 10 July 2001, the Belgian Presidency put forward the idea of financing the European Union directly.
To be honest, I must add that the reactions to this were not all enthusiastic.
Having said that, in the presidency' s view, and looking to the future of the Union, we must first consider and then, in the longer term, provide for the possibility of directly financing part of the Community budget without, however, increasing the pressure of taxes in general.
The financing of the Union, both the indirect financing system we all know, and the possibility of direct financing, is one of the options we are examining with regard to the future of the Union.
Mr President, I would like to ask the President-in-Office whether she has noted that in a vote taken in July the European Parliament did not support the proposal regarding the enactment of a European tax.
The presidency has noted that, thank you.
I would remind you that, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, questions should be asked; this does not prevent statements sometimes being made.
It cannot be prevented.
But I would remind you what this Question Time is for.
Question No 14 by (H-0621/01):
Subject: Withdrawal of olive residue oil As a precautionary measure, all sales of olive residue oil have been stopped in Spain and it has been withdrawn from shops as a matter of urgency.
Does this oil comply with European rules on olive residue oil?
Has there been accidental contamination or is the problem a consequence of the normal manufacturing process? Was it the return of a shipment of oil exported to the Czech Republic which revealed the excessive level of benzopyrene?
What other shipments have been exported and to which countries?
Was the existence of this shipment known of in May of this year?
Will compensation be provided for the damage caused?
What will be done with the oil which has been withdrawn?
According to information given to the Commission and its competent services and also received by the Council, olive oil made from olive waste has been taken off the market in Spain after the Spanish government had activated the system for the rapid exchange of information in emergencies on 4 July 2001 on account of the fact that polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) had been found in this oil.
It is stated that the contamination arose during a normal manufacturing process, a process that also includes the refining of the oil.
During the burning process caused by the drying of the olive residue, benzopyrene is released.
At present Community legislation does not contain an upper limit for the PAC content in foodstuffs.
The Scientific Committee on Human Nutrition, which falls under the remit of the Commission, is, however, at present evaluating the impact of PACs on health, in order to determine the maximum admissible level of the intake of those substances via human food.
Since the competent services are still heavily involved in the research, the honourable Member will undoubtedly agree that the Council is not the appropriate body to deal with this question.
I would therefore request her to turn to the Commission for additional information.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I am grateful for your technically rigorous reply to this question, which I have also put to the Commission.
But does the Council realise that it has been the rashness and incompetence of the Minister that has led to the loss of more than ESP 14 000 million, with disastrous economic consequences?
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, when it is Ministers themselves who provoke the crisis through their improvisation and inefficiency, is it they who will have to meet the cost?
If the Spanish government has known about a toxic shipment since May, why did they keep it under wraps for a month and why did they only raise the alarm after a month? Why has it been communicated to the European Union so late and so badly?
Has there been coordination with the European Union?
Does the Council realise that, having raised the alarm in the management of this food crisis, this unpopular Peoples' Party Minister has caused real chaos?
Which countries had this been exported to?
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo is well aware that the presidency of the Council has to remain above the Member States and also above any political or ideological disputes.
She will therefore understand that for these reasons I cannot answer the questions she has just asked.
I would just like to make a general remark, in a personal capacity.
If the members of any government whatsoever do not react quickly enough to problems with food or other consumer products, they are taken to task.
If they act as soon as they believe there are sufficient grounds for doing something, they are accused of causing chaos and financial losses.
It is not easy to be a minister these days!
We understand that Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck is not now an MEP, but a Minister; it is therefore understandable that she should talk of Ministers' problems.
Mrs Ayuso González has the floor for a supplementary question.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I can share the concern of the Member who asked the question, but having said that, I would like to clarify that olive residue oil is a by-product of the olive, which is produced after obtaining the olive oil and, furthermore, from every 100 kilos of olives, 20 litres of olive oil and 1.6 litres of olive residue oil are obtained.
We are therefore talking about 8% of production and a product which is consumed very little.
As you rightly said, Madam President, the problem has arisen as a result of the method of extracting olive residue oil, and therefore traces of benzopyrene were found in the olive residue oil and, given the lack, as you also said, of a European regulation setting the limits, the Spanish Ministry of Health proceeded, applying the precautionary principle, to withdraw this oil from circulation.
Today the extraction techniques have been modified and oil can be obtained which is free of benzopyrene.
At the moment they are having the same problem in Italy, for the same reasons.
Therefore, I would like to ask the Council whether it is in any way going to promote the filling of this loophole in the law, so that there may be permissible limits in human food, because, as the saying goes, 'the poison is the dose, not the substance in itself' and that is the basic principle of toxicology.
I have two things to say in response to the comments and questions we have just heard.
To avoid any misunderstanding, let me begin by pointing out that the spokesman for Mr Byrne, the Commissioner responsible for health, stated that there was no question of Member States taking measures against virgin olive oil from Spain, because the problem does not even arise there; that oil is not contaminated by benzopyrene because it is manufactured by an entirely different process.
Secondly, as I pointed out, the Scientific Council attached to the Commission is currently carrying out studies to determine the maximum admissible rates of what are known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
So this study is under way and the Commission will no doubt make proposals to the Council, which will then consider those proposals.
Question No 15 by (H-0623/01):
Subject: Information of Greek citizens about the euro A mere few months before the official introduction of the euro, a survey carried out by Eurobarometer in Greece in late March and early April 2001 revealed that 47.8% of Greeks felt that they knew 'very little or little' about the euro, while 25.5% said that they knew nothing about the subject.
The lowest figures were among people aged over 55, 36% of whom know nothing about the new currency, and only 16% saying they were adequately informed.
It is also notable that 42% of Greeks on low incomes appear to be completely uninformed about the euro, while 4 out of 10 Greeks are unaware that Greece is a member of the euro zone.
What is the Council' s assessment of the results of this survey?
What are the corresponding figures for the other countries in the euro zone?
What conclusions can be drawn about the effectiveness of the information campaign on the new currency conducted by the Greek government and the other 11 governments? What are the negative effects ensuing from such apparently inadequate preparation for the acceptance of the euro in the public' s mind, and how are cohesion and monetary stability put at risk by the lack of practical information and organisational preparation, particularly in the case of small and medium-sized businesses?
This is a very broad question and I trust that the President-in-Office of the Council will be able to summarise.
Ladies and gentlemen, the euro group meets once a month at ministerial level to take stock of preparations for the changeover to the euro.
At the meeting held on 4 June, the ministers, the Presidents of the European Central Bank and the Commissioner responsible considered the preparations being made for the introduction of euro notes and coins on 1 January 2002.
They welcomed the encouraging progress made in this area, and particularly the fact that consumer awareness is increasing.
They also recalled their intention to step up information campaigns during the second half of the year to help smooth the currency changeover.
Against this background, the ministers reiterated their desire to ensure that the conversion of all prices, tariffs and charges coming under their governments' authority would not have any effect on prices or would have only a minimum impact on consumers.
The ministers called on retailers to implement their commitment to respect the good practice that they had included in the joint declaration of European consumer and business associations adopted on 2 April 2001, and to do everything in their power to guarantee the overall stability of their prices when converting to the euro and to give a clear signal of this commitment to their customers.
The ministers also noted that several Member States had stepped up their price monitoring and that the relevant agencies had been vigilant about price conversion issues.
The ministers considered that dual pricing throughout the entire dual circulation period was vital to allow consumers to check prices both in euros and in their national currency.
They also encouraged consumers to familiarise themselves more with prices labelled in euros and to continue to carefully compare competitors' prices, particularly between now and the end of the year and during the dual circulation period.
I thank the Minister for her general reply, but my question was specifically about Greece.
I wanted to say that the statistics in my question were compiled a long time before her answer and that things are changing for the better.
However, according to the latest EUROSTAT figures, there is a growing fear that a lot of people will use this opportunity to increase the prices of goods and services and that this will mainly hit the most vulnerable groups of consumers such as the elderly, the young, the poorly educated, immigrants and the mentally handicapped.
Especially as, in Greece at least, 1 euro is worth 340.75 drachmas, meaning that it is very hard to make the sort of quick calculation needed every hour of every day.
That is why I want to know if, even at the eleventh hour, the Council is giving any thought to the easiest solution all round, i.e. for each Member State to order and distribute cheap pocket calculators which convert each country' s currency into euros, so that even the most poorly informed or disabled citizen can immediately calculate what they are paying, what they are being paid and who is trying to rob them.
This is not a question, Mr Marinos.
We have listened very attentively to your statement on the problems which may arise in Greece, in your judgement; but there cannot be a reply.
Mr Marinos, if the President-in-Office of the Council wishes to reply to you in some way, I have no objection. Naturally she shall have the floor.
But I do not believe, as President, that there has been a supplementary question, but rather a statement by you.
Mr President, I asked if the Council intended to introduce this ready reckoner system.
It is a question and it does not apply to Greece, it applies to every country, not just Greece.
Consumers in every country will face the same problem.
I did not notice that question in your statement.
In any event, the President now has the floor if she believes, following that clarification, that she can reply to the question very briefly.
I do not recall having read that question in the text of Mr Marinos' s oral question.
All that I know is that those ministers that are members of Ecofin, and especially those that belong to the euro group, decided to launch a very intensive campaign which is to be stepped up with effect from now, because they decided that if they had started during the summer there was a risk of the impact being lost during that period so that it would have been necessary to start all over again.
A campaign is therefore to be launched.
I also believe that it will be a two-level campaign, that is an EU-level campaign that will be backed up by campaigns run by the Member States and the various national governments.
I am not sure if the pocket calculators are part of the campaign at euro group level.
They form part of a number of national campaigns, but perhaps you should try to do something along these lines in your own country if they have not been provided for.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you yourselves are familiar with the hundred franc note in Belgium, which is worth about 2 euro.
In Greece, there is the thousand drachma note, which is only worth 0.5 cents.
In other words, we are quite used to having a largely paper-based currency, so my question is this: do you think it is likely that we will ultimately have one or two euro notes as well, given that the five euro note is currently the smallest denomination? In the southern countries in particular, notes are far more popular than coins.
All these issues were debated at length in the relevant committees of this Parliament, in plenary and by the Council responsible for this.
The decisions have been taken, confirmed and confirmed again, and they will be implemented as agreed and in the form which this House has had an opportunity to consider and to give its opinion on.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, usually, when I get back to Bergamo from Brussels, I arrive late in the evening and I go and have a pizza.
In conversation, the pizza man, knowing that I was an MEP, said to me, 'Now that the euro is coming in, I' ll put the price in euro and round it up so that it is higher than the current price in Italian lire.'
Would it not have been better to issue a regulation which stipulated that, when changing over, there should not be any rises in the price of goods compared with the price over the last three months, for instance, before the euro came into force?
My reply to Mr Fatuzzo is that, as far as I am aware, that is the case.
And if certain persons in certain countries or certain regions do not respect these provisions, it is up to the appropriate price inspection and control agencies to take the necessary steps.
That is the situation in my country.
I presume that is the case, and it should be the case, in all the countries changing over to the euro on 1 January 2001.
I could of course be cheeky, Mr Fatuzzo, and ask what your reply to your pizza seller was!
I told him I would ask the President-in-Office of the Council, mentioning what he had told me, and that then I would give him the answer.
Mr Fatuzzo, you must wait until the President of Parliament gives you the floor.
Your statement has cheered us all up this evening.
Question No 16 by (H-0624/01):
Subject: Legislation on 'sects' and its impact on respect for religious freedom in Europe One of the Member States, France, has a much criticised law on religion in which the term 'sect' , as applied to smaller churches and religious groups, plays a key role.
By leaving broad scope for the courts' free interpretation and discretion, the law has proved to be a blunt instrument and created legal uncertainty.
The Catholic and Protestant Churches in France together with the European Commission of Human Rights have criticised the law as restricting very fundamental freedoms and rights such as religious freedom and freedom of association.
In the light of the Nice Charter of Fundamental Rights, what is the Council' s view of the French legislation, particularly in a situation where several applicant countries, the Czech Republic for example, are using this law as a model for drafting their own laws on religion? Are we not at risk of diminishing respect for the public' s choice of life philosophy and religious faith, with greater intolerance as a result, if an increasing number of Member States adopt legislation which outlaws or actively oversees some forms of church and religious groups, and should not the good work and idealism which are characteristic of those organisations be held up as examples rather than banned?
I would reply to Mr Sacrédeus that the Council is not really qualified in any way to express an opinion on the question he has posed.
I should, though, like to remind him of Declaration No 11 in the Final Document of Amsterdam, a declaration regarding the status of churches and non-confessional organisations.
That declaration reads as follows: "The European Union respects and does not detract from the status enjoyed by churches and religious associations in accordance with the national law of the Member States.
The European Union also respects the status of philosophical and non-confessional organisations."
There has been no question but rather a statement.
Question No 17 by (H-0626/01):
Subject: Torture of people on grounds of sexual orientation Instances of torture and abusive treatment of people who develop relations with those of the same sex have increased sharply and matters are made worse by the widespread tolerance of such violations and the reluctance of the victims to have their identities revealed.
The recent Amnesty International report describes the suffering of thousands of people who are tortured, abused, sexually assaulted and coerced into medical or psychiatric treatment.
The report includes documented cases from some 30 countries, while in more than 70 countries, relations between people of the same sex are considered a criminal offence.
What will the Council do to put an end to such occurrences in a democratic Europe which stresses the importance of respect for human diversity and sexual identity?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Article 6(1) of the Treaty on European Union says that the Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The second paragraph of the same article says the Union shall respect fundamental rights as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and, as they result from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States, as general principles of Community law.
In this respect, Article 3 of that European Convention says that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" , whilst Article 14 of the Convention stipulates that the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in the Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any grounds, and in particular on the grounds of sex.
Article 13 of the Treaty establishing the European Union says that within the limits of the powers conferred by it upon the Community, the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament, may take appropriate action to combat any discrimination, particularly discrimination based on sex or sexual orientation.
With a view to ensuring more vigorous and concerted action at national, regional and international level, in April of this year the European Union adopted guidelines for its policy towards third countries on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments or treatment, thus confirming the central role of this issue in its human rights policy.
These guidelines give the Union an instrument for intervening in cases involving torture and a means of stepping up its efforts to secure greater respect for international rules.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for her most satisfactory reply.
We all know that the European Union is very sensitive about respect for human rights and that this sensitivity is expressed in the Treaties and in the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, Madam President-in-Office, anyone who reads the recent Amnesty International report on the torture suffered by thousands of people throughout the world because of their sexual orientation will feel that what we are doing in the European Union is not enough.
The UN Commission on Human Rights recently took an initiative to encourage people to file charges if they are tortured or their human rights are violated because of their sexual identity.
Are you perhaps planning to take a similar initiative at European Union level?
We take note of your statement, which is not a question.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 18 and 19 will be taken together.
Question No 18 by (H-0628/01):
Subject: Access by the public to Council documents On 30 May this year the Council, having enacted the legislation to open its documents to the public, set itself a deadline of six months, until 3 December 2001, to complete its preparatory measures.
Now we have reached early September so we are halfway through the Council' s self-given six-month period.
Is the Council 'on schedule' with its preparations? If not, would it like any help from the Parliament, which has been open to the public for so many years already?
Question No 19 by (H-0630/01):
Subject: Increased openness The legislative act governing public access to EU documents was adopted in May 2001.
The new rules are to enter into force within six months.
Can the Council state what types of previously confidential or secret documents are now going to be accessible to members of the public under the new rules on openness?
.
(NL) As was said earlier with reference to oral question H-0545/01 of the honourable Member, Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and the Council of 30 May 2001 relating to public access to documents of the European Parliament will come into force as of 3 December of this year.
Until that date, requests from citizens for Council documents will be dealt with as previously on the basis of Decision 93/731/EC regarding public access to Council documents.
Each of the three institutions involved is at present taking measures to ensure that the new Regulation is actually applied from 3 December next.
According to Article 15 of the Regulation, they are required to set up an interinstitutional committee, which will investigate the best practice, deal with any disputes and discuss future developments relating to public access to documents.
As regards the Council, the competent services are at present holding discussions on the measures to be taken and on the timeframe for their introduction, in order to facilitate citizens' exercising of the rights that they have now been assigned more clearly on the basis of the new Regulation.
The necessary measures will be taken to be able to meet the deadline of 3 December.
As regards the various types of documents that may be consulted by the public, I can inform the honourable Member that at present, on the basis of Decision 93/731/EC of 20 December 1993 relating to public access to Council documents, all Council documents can be requested by the public.
Depending on their content and in particularly in the light of the exceptional regulations - that is, Article 4 of the Decision - a decision is taken as to whether or not they can be released to the applicant, after a full case-by-case investigation.
However, Article 1, paragraph 1 of Decision 93/731/EC, amended by Council Decision 2000/527/EC of 14 August last year, stipulated that if a request for access relates to a document marked highly secret, secret or confidential in the sense of the decision of the Secretary-General of the Council of 27 July 2000, that in addition refers to the security and defence affairs of the Union or of one or more of its Member States or to military or non-military crisis management, the applicant shall be informed that the document concerned does not fall within the scope of Decision 93/731/EC.
I would draw your attention to the fact that this provision was not included in the previously mentioned Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 that comes into effect on 3 December next.
However, Article 9 of the Regulation stipulates that requests for access to the sensitive documents described in it will be dealt with separately.
For example, people may only deal with such requests where they themselves are authorised to take cognisance of these documents.
Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 is based on the same general principle as the Decision of 1993, namely that every document request is definitely looked at separately.
Access can only be possibly denied in the light of the exceptional regulation provided for in Article 4.
In addition, the Council decided in its Decision of 9 April this year on the classification of certain categories of Council documents, to place a whole series of documents, especially documents that fall under legislative activities, directly in the public domain via the Internet.
In this, the Council anticipated the coming into force of the Regulation as regards Article 12, paragraph 3.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the President-in-Office on getting through so many answers in this Question Time.
You may have beaten the record.
I do not know what the record is, but you have been very good.
Secondly, I note your statement that this procedure will start on time on 3 December.
Everyone in Parliament and the public is delighted to hear that and thank you for your very full reply.
Can I just ask: is the next step to open up Council meetings to the public when you are legislating so we can see what you are doing? Then we would have real democracy in the Council.
Will you do that next?
I am afraid that in order to do that we first need an IGC so you will have to wait for some time.
But as you heard from my answer, there is a lot of progress and we will see.
I will not quote the former Prime Minister of Belgium when I had the temerity to formulate this suggestion in my own national parliament but I can tell you in private afterwards.
Things are progressing and going forward and now let us wait and hope.
I too wish to thank the Council of Ministers for its comprehensive answer, but I should nonetheless like the Council to be more specific.
Is it possible to provide some examples - practical examples - of documents which previously were secret but which will now be made public under the new rules? I am referring to certain types of document which you now hope it might be possible to make public.
It is only when it is known which types of document are really to be made public that there can be talk of genuine success and increased openness.
I see that I have failed in my attempt to convince you that some progress has indeed been made.
I suggest that early next year or during the course of December you again ask questions on this.
We will probably be able to give you a more detailed answer then than we can now because the new rulings are not yet applicable.
Progress has been made.
I have tried to convince you of this.
Mr President, I really must protest at the way in which you are directing this debate.
You have written off all our supplementary questions as statements and you have not allowed the President-in-Office to reply.
You did the same to Mr Marinos, to Mr Sacrédeus and to me.
It seems to me that specific questions were asked and you should at least have allowed the President-in-Office to reply.
If she had no reply to our questions, she could simply have told us she had no reply.
It is the first time I have seen the President intervene as you did earlier and comment on our questions and positions as you have done.
I thank you for your observation, I take good note of it; but the Rules of Procedure explicitly state that only supplementary questions may be asked, not statements.
In any event, I will not prevent the President-in-Office from replying as she believes appropriate, although no question has been asked.
She always has the opportunity.
But you and the interpretation of Mr Marinos' s intervention - at least the interpretation into various languages, because I have consulted it - did not include any question but rather a broad statement.
This presidency has violated neither the letter nor the spirit of Question Time, the aim of which is to ask specific questions and receive the most specific possible replies.
I invite you to read the Rules of Procedure relating to Question Time.
Although we are out of time, we are going to ask two questions to the President, so that you are aware: Questions Nos 20 and 21; the rest will be replied to in writing.
Question No 20 by (H-0635/01):
Subject: Elections in Kosovo What support is the Council giving for the holding of the first general elections in Kosovo, and what prospects for that region does it see?
The elections on 17 November will certainly be a key event for the future of Kosovo and will facilitate a greater level of direct participation by the population and by local political leaders in the operation of the provisional constitutional framework established by UNMIK.
Against this background, the Council considers it vital that these elections should take place in a proper manner in accordance with European norms and with the participation of the entire population, in particular the Serbian minority in Kosovo.
Nevertheless, the Council of the European Union is not playing any part in the direct preparations for these elections.
This organisational task has in fact been given to the OSCE, to the Council of Europe and to the third pillar of the United Nations Mission in Kosovo, better known by the abbreviation UNMIK.
However, all the Member States are making an important contribution to the budget established for this purpose via the OSCE and the Council of Europe and they are also involved in preparing for observers to be sent, once again under the aegis of the OSCE and the Council of Europe.
Mr President, firstly, I should like to ask whether the European Union is at least doing what it does everywhere else, namely working actively to fund the independent media, train politicians, support the democratic parties and promote institution building.
In essence, this is what we are doing everywhere, and I would find it incomprehensible if this were not the case in Kosovo.
Secondly, I should like to ask whether the Council plans to initiate direct contacts with the newly elected politicians in Kosovo after the forthcoming elections, so that the moderate forces which I believe will win are genuinely able to achieve success and there is no renewed upsurge in support for the radical forces later on?
As regards the organisation of the elections, I think I have given you all the facts and information available to me.
With regard to establishing a presence and maintaining frequent contacts with the authorities, leaders and personalities that play a role in Kosovo, you are well aware that that always has been and will remain the objective of the European Union.
On a personal note, I would like to say that it is perhaps advisable not to state a position before the elections which would make it all too clear who one wishes to emerge victorious in these elections.
In fact I believe that we have had several bitter disappointments in this region of Europe and that we need to have faith in the democratic process in Kosovo, whilst following events there very closely, including those after the elections, which we all hope will be conducted in a proper manner.
Mr President, I have my question written here and I shall send you a photocopy of the text and the translation so that you can see what I asked the Minister at a glance.
I assure you that I would not wish anyone to think that I am arguing with you.
I admire and respect you, especially when you are in the chair.
I have repeatedly attended sessions during which you have chaired question time and I have no complaints.
But may I add, just to prove that I did ask a question, that the Minister said that my supplementary question was not included in the text of my question.
So I should like, first, to say that I clearly asked a question and, secondly, to ask you, as President, if supplementary questions should be repeated by the person who asked the initial question or if they should supplement the first question in different words but - naturally - on the same subject? I should like you to clarify this point given that you are far more experienced in procedural matters than I.
You are absolutely right, Mr Marinos.
The supplementary question is not the same, as its name suggests. It is a supplementary question.
What has happened is that we did not realise it was a question from the interpretation, but you have asked it, we have all understood very well and we thank you for your cooperation and assessment.
Thank you very much.
Question No 21 by (H-0637/01):
Subject: Adoption of the regulation on designs and models When is the regulation on designs and models scheduled to be adopted?
There is unanimous agreement in the Council on virtually all aspects of the draft Regulation.
Only one Gordian knot remains to be cut, and the presidency is organising bilateral contacts with some delegations with this in mind.
On this basis, we hope that this last obstacle can soon be cleared.
You will understand that I am unable to give further information on the subject at this delicate stage.
Mr President, I shall speak in the form of a question, so that the presidency will not object, with good reason, as it always does.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, the truth is that I do not understand the reasons why you do not clarify this point which is still outstanding, because I do not actually understand what that point may be.
At the time, in the regulation on designs and models, when it came to the directive, certain points were controversial, for example the reparation clause, but once, with the very direct participation of the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council, a compromise was reached on that clause, which has been reflected in the Commission' s proposal and accepted as such by the European Parliament I do not understand what the controversial point can be.
Neither do I understand, as has been said, why there may be other controversial points which, at the time, delayed the approval of the Regulation on markings, such as those relating to language, procedure or the location of the office for the harmonisation of the internal market, because that was resolved with the Regulation on markings.
And now, as regards this proposed regulation on design, the procedure rules, the procedure languages and the competence of the office for harmonisation of the internal markets are issues which have already been resolved.
I therefore do not understand what that point is and, despite your invitation, I would be grateful if you could clarify it.
I can only repeat what I have just said.
It is not always necessary to understand or share the argument underpinning the reservations that a Member State may have on a particular point to realise that these reservations have nevertheless been expressed, that they have been maintained and that it is difficult to withdraw them.
The presidency will do what it can by the end of this year to have them lifted.
That is all I can say about the situation at this stage.
Thank you very much, Madam President-in-Office.
That reply ends this debate.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 22 to 36 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.13 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Statement by the President
Pursuant to Rule 74 of the Rules of Procedure, the presidency must make the following announcement:
The Council has delivered the following joint positions, which will appear in today' s Minutes, as well as the reasons for adopting them.
The period of three months available to Parliament to give its opinion will begin from tomorrow 6 September 2001.
Data protection in electronic communications (continuation)
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0270/2001, by Mr Cappato, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector [COM(2000) 385 - C5-0439/2000 - 2000/0189(COD)]
A5-0284/2001, by Mrs Cederschiöld, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the strategy for creating a safer information society by improving the security of information infrastructures and combating computer-related crime
Mr President, the Commission communication on the safe Information Society complements the preceding initiatives, in particular the global plan of action for electronic communications in Europe, and will require further interventions in a field that is constantly evolving.
The Cederschiöld report approves of this initiative and enhances it with appropriate legislative measures and suggestions for cooperation instruments to increase the effectiveness of the fight against cybercrime and to ensure a balance between demands for the prevention and punishment of crime and respect for civil liberties.
This balance, which is guaranteed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, must always guide the actions of the European Union, and for this reason, too, the broad and accurate Cederschiöld report deserves our full agreement.
The Commission' s draft directive also deserves great appreciation; it aims to update personal data protection in the electronic communications sector and not to leave things as they are, since harmonisation is necessary.
On the one hand, the Cappato report proposes useful additions to the directive which reinforce the limits placed on the invasion of privacy by public authorities, especially as regards forms of generalised electronic surveillance, which was discussed this morning.
In this it will certainly be supported, even though, unfortunately, our legislative powers do not exist in this area.
In other respects, however, the Cappato report reduces the protection of citizens' privacy offered by the draft directive, particularly where we have legislative competence.
The Commission proposes that European citizens' e-mail addresses and mobile telephone data could be included in public lists and given out on-line only if the interested parties had given their prior consent.
The Cappato report, on the other hand, proposes that e-mail addresses and mobile telephone data should be included on public lists and each interested party could ask to have them taken off.
An analogous difference, we have already heard, concerns the regulation of unsolicited communications for direct marketing purposes.
The European Commission proposes that messages should not be sent except to those who have given their own express consent, just as now happens with faxes.
The Cappato report proposes that the opt-out system could also be adopted.
If you consider the speed at which a list of e-mail addresses could be circulated on-line and come to the attention of an unlimited number of people interested in sending unsolicited messages, and if you consider the cost in time and money of eliminating these unwelcome messages and sending requests to the various senders to stop forwarding them, you will have an idea of the burden on citizens of adopting the opt-out system.
It is a prospect that runs the risk of discouraging and deterring people from using the net and e-commerce.
In an amusing article, an Italian journalist wrote: 'I thought I had bought a little telephone, but found myself with a tamagochi, that Japanese toy that needs looking after like a baby.
My phone company never leaves me alone; it sends me so many messages, like a teenager; it asks me if I want to take part in a competition, if I know about certain new discounts; it greets me when I go abroad, and then it welcomes me back.'
Just think when your mobile number and e-mail address are known not only by your own service provider but by all possible service providers in the world, who never confine themselves to selling goods but want their brand to please you, to seduce you and to belong to you.
If we want e-commerce to have a future, we cannot force consumers to spend their time cancelling unwanted messages or pursuing their senders to beg to be left in peace.
There is no reason not to ensure the same protection for e-mail as there is for faxes; the highest level of protection of people' s rights will also ensure the highest consumer loyalty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, freedom of expression and freedom of choice are a precious right for liberals, but not at any price.
The receipt of e-mail is considerably less free of strings for the receiver than the receipt of paper leaflets and brochures.
The costs may total EUR 10 billion annually for receivers, not to mention the cost in time.
We therefore need, just as with paper leaflets, "No thank you" stickers.
Personally, I would gladly opt for self-regulation by industry, but in practice it is clear that "opt-out" is not sustainable.
For this reason, the Liberal group will support the Commission' s proposal for "opt-in" .
Meanwhile there is a bill before the US congress for an "opt-in" that paves the way for sound agreements worldwide, which is necessary in an age of unlimited communication.
Unwanted post will not be limited to the Internet.
The mobile telephone sector will play an increasing role in the period ahead, so that companies and consumers will be saddled with high costs, while the infrastructure becomes very vulnerable.
My second remark concerns the storage of traffic data.
I refer to the ECHELON debate of this morning.
In my view it is an invasion of privacy if traffic data are stored for longer than necessary.
As a result consumers will never gain the necessary trust in e-commerce.
In conclusion, the rules within the Union should be harmonised.
After all, our telecom companies work in a pan-European way and therefore need uniform rules so that legal uncertainty is ruled out.
For this reason, subsidiarity in this field is not an option.
Mr President, the right of freedom of expression entitles companies to display their wares on the Internet.
But that does not mean that they can force people to read what is there.
I regularly receive unwanted advertising on my e-mail.
I have often had to struggle through English language forms in order to fill in at the very end that I wish to be removed from the mailing list.
Still, I am regularly unsuccessful.
An "opt-out" arrangement is bad for the consumer.
The latter is dependent on the goodwill of the company in actually deleting his or her name.
Deletion itself is time consuming and at the consumer' s expense.
It is often claimed that good companies only mail in a targeted way.
But first of all, in that case, supporters of the system are already assuming that there are a substantial number of bad companies that make a mess of things, and secondly, it may be well targeted from a marketing point of view if I receive information about baby clothes, but I do not want to download romper suits or nappies to my screen at my own expense.
Well targeted from a marketing point of view does not necessarily mean either welcome or limited.
If unsolicited advertising eventually really does take off, I foresee a situation where many people will turn away from the open Internet and e-mail.
In that case freedom of expression will have suffered a great setback.
Mr President, I should like to join in congratulating the rapporteurs on their work.
Obviously the whole area of new technologies is one that has presented us with many problems as well as boundless opportunities.
Unfortunately, however, as with most new opportunities, these have been hijacked to a huge extent by people of criminal intent who use them for illicit means.
Therefore the onus is on us to ensure that we can put in place proper controls and measures, not with regard to access, but ensuring that parents can make certain their children will not be endangered by these new technologies and also that there is cooperation amongst the law enforcement agencies across the Member States.
I welcome the fact that in the reports there is a role for Europol and Eurojust as well as between the Member States.
I also welcome the establishment of the forum on cybercrime.
This is an important area where we can bring all the actors together, including the manufacturers of equipment who can put in place certain things that can help us.
Finally, it is a forward looking plan when we look at cooperation with the United States of America and other countries throughout the world, to ensure that this new technology can be used for the benefit of all of mankind and not for those who want to avoid our legal structures.
Mr President, with regard to the procedure followed in the approval of my report, Mr Van Velzen has made reference to a possible violation of procedure.
I ask the presidency to clarify this point for tomorrow' s debate, because I do not want there to be this ambiguity.
If the procedure has been violated, the work in violation of the procedure should be cancelled; if the procedure has been respected, it has been respected.
I believe this is the least we owe to the House.
Personally, as rapporteur of the committee with competence in the matter, I have never been consulted by any of the other committees; had it been an 'enhanced Hughes procedure' - which it is not - I would have had to be consulted.
However it may be - I am not an expert on procedure - and I ask that a check be made as to whether the procedures were violated. Results in violation of the procedures should be cancelled.
Mr Cappato, the presidency takes note of what you have just said.
Mr President, I would like to focus my remarks this evening on Mrs Cederschiöld' s report.
That is why I am here, having shadowed it in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
I would like to commend Mrs Cederschiöld on the way that she has incorporated so many of the opinions of different committees into a very comprehensive report and also to congratulate the Commission on this initiative.
I feel this is a very worthwhile and challenging document.
One of the problems with the report is that it contains a huge amount of material and potential actions and priorities will therefore have to be set.
So this evening I should just like to address what I believe is a crucial problem that needs to be looked at in the short term: the whole question of how we encourage the development of electronic commerce to use these tools, to address the sort of business issues that some colleagues are already trying to frustrate, in my view, by moving prematurely to the sort of rigid opt-in arrangement that they are talking about.
The e-commerce market is at a very early stage and is still underdeveloped.
We do not want to choke it off by some of the things that we are talking about.
But we do need to address the security issues.
A very important report produced by the British business association, the CBI, last week clearly showed that both businesses and consumers are discouraged from moving into the electronic commerce market place because of concerns about security.
Businesses, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, are worried about the vulnerability of their enterprises to fraud and fraudulent transactions.
I suggest to you that one of the things that we must work on is to ensure that small and medium sized enterprises get the benefits of this revolution.
Consumers are worried about getting involved in transactions because they are worried about the security of their payments.
Those are the critical issues we have to tackle.
We have to combine that with a regime that allows SMEs to use e-commerce in a targeted and effective way.
So I will combine my remarks on both reports by saying that I believe we are taking the right course with Mrs Cederschiöld and the right course with Mr Cappato.
Mr President, the new information and communication technologies have a fundamental impact on the daily lives of our citizens and on the very economy of our societies.
It is, therefore, becoming crucial to ensure that there is rigorous protection against potential abuses or even criminal acts.
We talk of cybercrime, both in terms of fundamental rights and privacy and also in the context of services of general interest, bank transfers, investments, credit card fraud amongst others.
Mrs Cederschiöld is therefore right to call for a coherent European strategy which, on the one hand, ensures the freedom of the market and improves the security of information services and infrastructures and, on the other, fights against criminal activities that affect not only the interests of individual citizens but also public interest itself.
We are also discussing the report by Mr Cappato, whom I should like to congratulate on his work on the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector.
This is a report that warranted a lengthy debate and which seeks to find a balance between the protection of private life, the legal aspects and the interests of industry.
Apart from the issues concerning intervention by Member States when carrying out criminal investigations, the main issue concerns spamming.
I agree with the position put forward by Mr von Boetticher on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, but I must also add my own personal view: in terms of protecting the interests of consumers, I incline more towards the Commission' s proposal than to that tabled by Mr Cappato, more towards the opt-in solution than towards opting out.
The question is whether it is effective, especially if it is only adopted by the European Union.
This is an issue that concerns the Union' s relationship with its partners, something that has already been mentioned in this debate.
I am sure that none of us wishes to see an e-mail system becoming increasingly unusable because it is swamped and blocked up by countless messages of this type, unsolicited and often of dubious taste.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are talking about e-mails, spamming and a wide range of other subjects.
I think that we should distinguish between three main areas, i.e. from business to business, from business to customer and from customer to customer.
Then we should start thinking about principles.
I do not believe that a separate solution is necessarily required for each type of technical communication.
We are all familiar with the idea that you can attach a sticker to a mailbox.
We have all learned to use the telephone, mobiles, sms, and e-mail.
I think that the real challenge now is to think about how we want to use this technology and this range of information and advertising opportunities in future.
Of course, it is important to take values into account here.
I know people who say: I want to receive as much information as possible in a wide range of areas. I want to be able to decide for myself what I keep and what I throw away.
There are others who say: I only want to receive the information which I have requested myself.
We are also familiar with this concept with regard to debt payable to, and debt collectible by, the creditor.
I think we should discuss this point in detail as well.
As regards cyber war and cybercrime, we should focus on three main points. We should step up research and development in this area, especially in Ispra near Milan.
I think there is a great deal of work to be done in this area, especially as regards security in the Commission and the Parliament.
We should think about the type of education and training we can offer in this field, e.g. at colleges of higher education and through university departments.
I think that action is needed here.
We must also think about the type of security infrastructure which should be available in the hardware and software fields in future.
Finally, I should like to say that a separation of powers is also important.
The prosecution services, the courts and the operators must work together to ensure that these systems are not abused.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Cappato and also Mrs Thors, Mr Bakopoulos and Mrs Schröder of the various contributing committees of the European Parliament for this report.
I will start with the Cappato report.
I am pleased that Parliament is now debating this important directive which forms an essential element of the electronic communications regulatory reform package.
This will enable us to try and minimise the procedural delay which the data protection directive has incurred, as compared with the rest of the package.
I would also like to concentrate on two issues which have been discussed by so many.
First, opt-in for unsolicited commercial e-mails and the question of traffic data retention for law enforcement purposes.
It appears from the debate that the proposed opt-in for unsolicited commercial e-mails divides opinions in this House.
This is understandable, since this is a complex issue and arguments on both sides of the debate have some merit.
However, I am convinced that the Commission proposal for opt-in is best, for essentially two reasons.
First, the internal market needs a harmonised solution, a simple and clear rule throughout the EU.
It is particularly important in an economic sector which is so profoundly without frontiers as electronic commerce over the Internet is.
Mr van Velzen asked me a question about the applicability of subsidiarity in this field.
I want to be crystal clear.
It is legally impossible for opt-in countries to enforce their system with regard to mail coming from opt-out countries.
These two systems cannot exist because the opt-out regime will override any opt-in systems.
We can discuss subsidiarity but in practice it cannot work with the two systems.
The opt-out system, especially, will override the opt-in system.
The second reason is the cost issue which has been mentioned by many.
It is very difficult to justify that the recipients of unsolicited commercial e-mail will have to pay for messages which they do not want to receive.
Receiving paper advertising material in your traditional mail box is annoying, but at least you do not pay for it.
You do not pay for the printing, you do not pay for the transport.
E-mail marketing may well be the only form of marketing where the recipient carries most of the cost.
In addition, removing unsolicited e-mails from mail servers entails a substantial cost for Internet service providers.
For that reason, Internet service providers strongly favour opt-in solutions.
Finally, we must remember that the Internet is going mobile. This is starting now with SMS messages.
But this legislation will concern all e-mails which will go in future to mobile terminals.
That will be more disruptive than receiving such messages on your PC.
Imagine the mobile device in your pocket beeping all the time to announce the arrival of yet another commercial offer you cannot refuse and you want to keep your mobile phone on because you want to be connected with the people close to you.
Moreover, messages to mobile terminals may also entail an even bigger cost, if the subscriber is roaming like most of us gathered here tonight.
We are roaming practically all the time.
With the advent of the Mobile Internet, the costs and nuisance of unsolicited communications will therefore increase significantly.
Mrs Thors raised two questions.
Firstly the situation in the United States.
I had the privilege to participate in many discussions with the Members of the Senate and the US Congress in this field.
Today, there are about 60 proposals in Congress on that issue.
In general, it is agreed that the present opt-out system has a lot of problems, but the solutions vary.
There are some who go for opt-in solutions, there are others who present different schemes to make strict rules such as that there should be a penalty for a company that does not take your name away as soon as you ask.
I cannot say that there is one simple solution, there is criticism of the present opt-out practice.
There are powerful Members of Senate and the Congress who advocate opt-in solutions.
You will be able to contact these people especially when the Internet caucus of Congress visits Europe in the next few weeks.
As far as the applicability of an opt-in regime outside Europe is concerned, the GATT agreement allows its members to take measures to enforce their data protection legislation within their territory.
On this basis, the EU can require non-EU based companies to comply with its opt-in legislation.
Mr Coelho asked whether it is difficult to control.
In this kind of world it is very difficult to draft legislation which is 100% waterproof.
But I am sure that opt-out will be much more difficult to control than opt-in.
There is no harmonised system.
There are hundreds of thousands of databases, practices, private operations and if anybody is optimistic I invite you to try.
You could, for example, start by sending a letter to all those companies whose material you no longer wish to receive and then check how many will remove your name during the following days and how many respond to your request.
It is something anybody can try.
I have done it myself.
I am not optimistic.
The opt-in regime is one uniform legal solution.
We have difficulties there but I am sure that they are less than with the present opt-out regime.
For these reasons the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 19, 41 and 42.
However, knowing how difficult this issue is, and how divided opinions have been in this House, we should also look for compromise solutions and I want to be open and constructive on this issue.
We therefore welcome the constructive compromise amendments 53 and 62 which have been presented.
The Commission is willing to look for solutions along the lines of these amendments, but subject to some redrafting and streamlining within the existing legal framework.
The second important issue I would like to mention is general traffic retention for law enforcement purposes.
On this one, I have the impression that the Commission and the European Parliament are on the same line.
The existing telecommunications data protection directive states that traffic data must be erased when they are no longer needed for the provision of the service and for billing.
In addition, there is a clause referring to the reasons for which Member States may adopt specific legal measures in derogation of this principle in exceptional cases.
These reasons include, inter alia, national security, defence, and the investigation and prosecution of crimes.
We discussed these issues earlier today in this House.
Since the rights protected in this existing and proposed directive are based on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights - under the protection of privacy of home, family life and correspondence - any exception must remain within the rules established by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
As we discussed this morning during the Echelon debate, it is important that the rules for both citizens and for the State are very clear and precise regarding the rights and obligations in this sensitive area.
Therefore, the Commission can support Amendment No 4 which strengthens the recital text on this point.
However, the Commission is not in favour of copying the same text into Article 15, as proposed by Amendment 50, as it may overstep the legal basis of the directive.
In summary, out of the 62 amendments submitted to plenary, 35 can be fully supported by the Commission.
These are Amendments Nos 1 to 4, 7 to 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 21 to 29, 31 to 35, 37, 39, 45, 49, 51, 52, 56 and 57.
Another seven amendments which can be supported in part or in principle subject to certain drafting changes are 5, 46 to 48, 53, 60 and 62.
I mentioned two of these earlier.
But there are 20 amendments which the Commission cannot support: 6, 11, 13, 16, 19, 20, 30, 36, 38, 40 to 44, 50, 54, 55, 58 and 59.
As regards the Cederschiöld report, I would like to thank the honourable Members of the European Parliament for the constructive approach to the Commission communication on cybercrime and cybersecurity.
I would particularly like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Cederschiöld, and also Mrs McCarthy and Mrs Zorba, the draftspersons of the contributing committees.
The report identifies key issues for further consideration.
Many of the recommendations in the report are in line with the current view of the Commission on policy development to combat cybercrime and improve security.
There is one recommendation, however, of which I have to say that it is not acceptable to the Commission, that is Recommendation No 5 concerning the transfer of responsibilities for data protection within the Commission and to concentrating responsibility for certain other tasks in single units.
This is a matter of internal organisation of the Commission which should be left entirely to the discretion of the President of the Commission.
Concerning the other recommendations, in as far as they are not already parts of plans for policy development, the Commission will give them full consideration, and will see how far they can be incorporated in upcoming or new initiatives.
As you know, this communication was issued in January this year.
It has been sponsored jointly by Commissioner Vitorino and myself.
This has been the first comprehensive policy statement of the European Commission on the issue of cybercrime.
In March, the Commission organised a public hearing.
Over 400 people came to Brussels to attend this event, which shows the strong interest of the public in participating in this discussion.
Next the Commission will shortly issue a proposal for a framework decision on combating serious attacks against information systems.
This initiative addresses acts like hacking, denial-of-service attacks, and the spread of viruses.
In June, the Commission issued a communication on network and information security, which I presented this morning in this House in detail.
This communication deals with preventive organisational and technical measures, and is complementary to the framework decision, which deals with ex-post criminal investigations.
At the technical level, as part of the Information Society Technologies Programme, the Commission is promoting research and development to understand and reduce vulnerabilities and stimulate the dissemination of know-how.
IST projects focus in particular on the development of confidence-building technologies.
The first legislative initiative announced in the communication has already been issued: a proposal for a framework decision that includes measures to combat child pornography.
I fully share the strong opinions expressed on this issue in this House tonight.
The communication has announced a forum in which the relevant parties will have the opportunity to discuss various issues to find an appropriate balance between network security, law enforcement powers, privacy protection and economic priority.
An open debate is vital to achieve an effective, coherent and balanced policy approach and to assure confidence and trust among European citizens.
Confidence and trust of the users is directly related to the take-up of electronic commerce and to the success of the Information Society.
The report of the European Parliament is an important milestone in this policy debate.
Mr President, the Commissioner made clear why, in his opinion, an opt-in and an opt-out system cannot operate in parallel in this directive.
But I have to ask him another question.
It is of vital importance for my group to know why it is possible in the electronic commerce directive.
Perhaps the Commissioner can give us an answer to that.
The reason was that the electronic commerce directive excluded all issues relating to data protection.
That was the reason they were dealt with in a different context in the data protection directive and in this directive.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Implementation of competition rules
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0229/2001) by Mr Evans, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the implementation of rules on competition.
Mr President, of all the issues debated this week there is none that can have a greater impact on the economic wealth of Europe than the reform of competition policy.
Fair and open competition is the bedrock on which the single European market is built and on which the growth of European economies depends.
That is why we must maintain our determination to root out monopolists and those who engage in shady anti-competitive price fixing or market sharing deals.
These actions not only undermine the interests of commercial competitors, they rip off consumers and undermine the dynamic competitive economy on which our future economic interests rely.
But we must also recognise that Commissioner Monti' s weapons for tackling such abuses are sadly out of date.
The Commission' s White Paper on competition policy reform highlighted the difficulties.
The 40 year old procedure under Regulation 17 had become a bureaucratic paper-pushing exercise.
The Commission wants radical change, devolving the application of EU competition law to national authorities in order to refocus its efforts in rooting out cartels and the abuse of market power.
Parliament agreed with these objectives.
But we strongly spelt out our concern on important issues like the need for legal certainty.
We also pointed to the possible danger of the reform leading to inconsistent application or even the renationalisation of competition policy, thereby destroying the single market.
These were real concerns voiced by many Members of the House as well as significant sectors of the business community throughout Europe.
I recognised and shared those worries and some colleagues and representatives of European business still share them today.
Nevertheless I believe that Commissioner Monti has genuinely taken account of our concerns and the Commission' s proposal reflects this.
Above all I want to draw attention to Article 3 of the regulation, which unambiguously states that in cases affecting trade between Member States it is European competition law that takes precedence.
This is a core requirement of the single market and strongly supported by all sides in our committee debates.
For us, the preservation of Article 3 is an essential part of this reform.
We recognise that there may well be some Member States that will try to dilute its impact.
We consider that Article 3 is such a central element of the reform that we will wish to be consulted again if the Council obliges the Commission to make any significant change to this article.
We have proposed a number of amendments in order to improve the operation of this radical reform.
We found, for instance, little support outside the Bundeskartellamt for the new registration scheme under Article 4, which we consider to be time-wasting and valueless.
We want it scrapped.
We have proposed a range of amendments to improve legal certainty for business, including the widening of Article 10 - changes which have received widespread business support.
We have urged proper safeguards on Commission powers in relation to the application of structural remedies.
We have suggested that penalties imposed under EU law by national authorities should be those provided for in EU law.
We have also proposed changes in the transitional arrangements and in undertaking a timely review.
We have also wrestled with the issue of the appropriate treatment of communications from in-house legal advisers.
I am deeply indebted to my colleague, Mr Rovsing, for the attention that he has given to this issue.
There are different rules in operation in different parts of the European Union.
We have tried to ensure that the professional status of in-house lawyers is acknowledged, whilst not impeding the Commission in the thorough investigation of possible infringements.
In the committee vote I indicated that this situation could possibly be resolved by a Commission declaration clarifying the treatment of such evidence in the application of Commission penalties.
Mr Rovsing and I now understand that Commissioner Monti may have it in mind to make some such declaration, in which event our group will no longer consider it appropriate to retain Amendment No 10.
This debate has also highlighted other important but wider issues of competition policy reform.
We welcome the dynamism which Commissioner Monti has brought to his brief.
"Supermario" , as he has been labelled in the media, has taken the lead and not only in pressing for radical reform in Europe.
He has been at the centre of moves towards the worldwide coordination of competition policy and enforcement.
We are sure that in an increasingly global economy such radical reform will be necessary.
But we also believe in checks and balances and we want the Commission' s actions to be fully reviewable by the Court of Justice.
Our committee thanks Commissioner Monti for his commitment to real and meaningful dialogue.
But we reiterate our objective of Parliament moving towards full codecision in respect of these matters.
The interest of my parliamentary colleagues in competition policy issues is not just some academic exercise for commercial lawyers.
In an increasingly global world we recognise that effective competition is the essential motor for the growth of European economies and the welfare of the people we have been sent here to represent depends on fair and open competition in order to drive that growth forward.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am in a similar position to Mr von Boetticher in the previous debate.
I do not want to go into details on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
We think that Mr Evans has produced a good, well-rounded report, and congratulate him on doing so.
The amendments proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and adopted by the committee responsible are intended to enhance the rapporteur' s report.
Let me give you an example. The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has called for the new text to state that decisions must be made public, not 'may be published' , as the old text might imply, although confidential information is obviously excluded.
However, I would like to draw attention to one point which the rapporteur has also just mentioned, and highlight it to the Commissioner and the qualified minority of expert colleagues who are still assembled here.
I am referring to Amendment No 10 proposed by the committee responsible.
Many Member States provide for confidentiality, i.e. legal privilege, between client and counsel.
This is part of established legal reality in the majority of Member States.
Whenever an individual wants to bare his soul completely, he needs a confidant; this may be a doctor, a solicitor or, in a religious situation, a priest.
Amendment No 10 safeguards this traditional relationship between legal counsel and client and extends it to in-house lawyers as well.
The Commissioner may assure us that disclosures from the documents held by such legal counsel will not result in stiffer sentences.
However, it is not very helpful, in my view, to set an upper limit on sentencing and say: Even your legal counsel told you not to do this.
Since you chose to do it anyway, your sentence will be increased.
This is sensible, but I would point out that such a declaration would not be sufficient, for the disclosures to legal counsel would, of course, almost certainly constitute significant evidence of guilt.
This violates professional independence and the principle of confidentiality between client and counsel.
In my view, we have to decide one way or the other.
"A bit pregnant" cannot exist here.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by thanking the rapporteur once again for presenting his very good report in response to the Commission' s proposals, as well as the amendments put forward by the committee.
Thank you very much.
We all know that the competition rules go back to 1957, that Regulation 17 dates back to 1962, and that virtually all the framework conditions have changed since then.
On the one hand, we are confronted with globalisation; on the other hand, the European Union, originally a Community of six, will expand to a Community of 25 in future, and I personally think it is a good thing that the centralised system which reserved the right of application of Articles 81 and 82 exclusively to the Commission is now being restructured as a decentralised system.
However, this must not lead to the renationalisation of competition policy.
In reality, this is prevented by the fact that European law takes precedence over national law, and I anticipate that the current proposal will create fair competition and equal competition conditions.
It will also ensure legal certainty for all enterprises and the uniform application of competition policy, and will simplify procedures in line with the one-stop-shop principle.
It will coordinate the activities of the national - in my view, independent - competition authorities and enable the national authorities and courts to cooperate closely with the Commission. It will establish a clear division of responsibilities between the national authorities and courts in the application of European competition and cartel law, and ensure that the Commission continues to be the guardian of the treaties and thus has more time to devote to real problems, i.e. controlling mergers and cartels.
Many congratulations on having the courage to take these initiatives.
I wish we could see more of this in other areas too.
Mr President, since another member of my Group has given up his speaking time, I believe that I have accumulated additional time.
In any event, I will not use it up.
Mr President, Mr Evans - whom I congratulate on his report - was absolutely right when he said that this is a very important issue, although it is also true that questions relating to the reform procedure in the field of competition do not inspire interest amongst the citizens, despite their importance for the economic world.
However, personally, I must confess that, for me, to participate in the reform of the rules on the procedure in the field of competition gives me particular personal satisfaction.
Because to participate, although in a very modest way, in the process of repealing Regulation 17 of 1962, against which I have fought a long-standing battle and on which I have written repeatedly in a very critical manner, is, I must confess, hugely gratifying.
But at the burial of this regulation, and may it be well buried, which I have always seen as wretched, perhaps at this time, with due respect for the dead, we should a pay slightly fairer tribute by recognising what has been good about it historically.
Regulation 17 made some sense at the time it was approved, that is, in 1962, when the application of Community competition law was being born, which could justify a centralisation of the powers of the Commission, in a Community of seven countries with less than 200 million inhabitants.
But the problem with Regulation 17 was not its creation or the rules it established at the time of its creation.
The problem has been its maintenance for almost forty years, during which conditions had changed radically.
Anybody who had contact with the Commission' s procedures in the field of competition was aware of the dissatisfaction caused by its application.
Finally - and fortunately - the Commission has opted to yield to the evidence and promote the derogation of this Regulation, replacing it with a more up-to-date regulation, in line with the views of the White Paper on the modernisation of the Community rules in the field of competition.
In the report produced on the White Paper, this Parliament had the opportunity to express its favourable opinion, although with some fine-tuning in certain cases.
This fine-tuning was perhaps related to the reticence of certain members of certain countries which had had a decisive influence on the creation of their national system and a fundamental influence on the Regulation of the procedure.
Of course, I did not feel this reticence.
I believe that the new approaches in the field of Community competition law not only constitute an enormous effort to modernise that Community law but also an effort in the right direction.
Today we are being presented with a legislative text which, to a large extent, responds to what had been anticipated in the White Paper.
And it also, to a certain extent, takes up some of the observations made at the time by this Parliament.
It is the case that in some respects the proposed regulation has surprised us with extremes which had not been laid out in the White Paper.
I am referring specifically to the provision of Article 7 on the possibility of adopting structural measures as a result of a decision on a case of prohibited conduct.
This consists, no more and no less, of adopting measures such as the splitting up of companies, particularly of those which have abused their dominant position.
As you know, these measures are normal in United States law.
Hence the Microsoft case and the famous case of the seven sisters, the splitting up of the Rockefeller oil company, possibilities which are enormously innovative within European law.
I personally support this measure unreservedly; and the fine-tuning which has been introduced by means of amendments in this Parliament are simply a demonstration of a desire that this power be used prudently, as I am sure the Commission is going to do.
Perhaps it is the case that in other respects the Commission' s proposal is not fully in line with what was approved at the time by the European Parliament.
Specifically, at the time this Parliament favoured a genuine procedural regulation which would regulate the logical principles of any judicial regulation, even if it was simply by incorporating the customs which the Directorate-General for Competition had introduced over almost forty years.
In this regard, the Commission' s proposal has been more timid than in other respects, but, in any event, if the amendments contained in the Evans report are adopted, or those still maintained by this parliamentary Group, this shortcoming may be corrected.
There are other points on which perhaps our satisfaction is not complete.
It is true that there is no single standard in the field of the guarantees of process or rights to defence.
But those of us who come from a country where the same principles are applied to administrative penalty procedures, with a constitutional guarantee, as to the criminal procedure, and the same rights are granted to physical persons as to legal persons, would have liked this standard, this level of guarantees, to have been raised in accordance with the amendments approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs, which have not been incorporated into the text.
However, at the end of the day, in my country we say that 'the best is the enemy of the good' and there is absolutely no doubt that this is a good regulation which we are supporting.
You had indeed accumulated Mrs Randzio-Plath' s time, a total of six minutes, which you have received.
Mr President, first of all, I want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Evans, very much for what has been sound and constructive cooperation that has led to a good report.
It has been a great pleasure to cooperate with you.
The continuation of sound competition policy is the main aim of the review being undertaken by legislation in the area of competition.
In Denmark this very summer, we have seen the importance of effective competition policy.
In that connection, I should like to commend and thank you, Commissioner Monti, for your active contribution regarding the great SAS/Maersk aviation issue which has enlivened our summer recess and which involved the discovery of an illegal cartel and the imposition of a large fine.
Without your and the Commission' s efforts, such progress would never have been made on this issue and consumers would never have received help.
I am therefore satisfied with Article 3 of the Commission' s proposal, which clearly states that it is the Community' s and not the Member States' competition law that is applied when it comes to transnational issues of competition.
For the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, it is vital that there be no renationalisation of the EU' s competition policy.
It is, of course, no secret that there are many of us who are concerned that the Commission' s proposal might lead to renationalisation and thus to an undermining of the internal market, something which would hit small and medium-sized companies hardest and be to the disadvantage of consumers.
You must therefore promise us, Commissioner, to keep a very careful eye on the national competition authorities, and I can assure you that I shall keep an eye on you and make sure you live up to our expectations, something which you have, of course, done so far.
I should therefore also like to strike a blow for the Commission' s competition authority being given more resources so that we do not run the risk of competition policy being watered down and taken over by the Member States.
If, as is rumoured, the Council rejects Article 3, I would strongly urge you, Mr Monti, to withdraw your entire proposal and start afresh.
Without Article 3, the proposal is unacceptable to the ELDR Group.
The Council' s hesitation concerning Article 3 makes it abundantly clear how crucial it is for Parliament to be given the right of codecision making on competition policy.
This is something that Parliament has demanded for many years now and, with the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, the time must now be ripe for action.
Mr President, like those fellow Members who have spoken before me, I approve the principle of competition policy reform proposed by the Commission.
I welcome decentralisation.
The present centralised method, which means that there is a backlog of cases, is inevitably somewhat arbitrary.
It cannot guarantee legal certainty.
However, I believe that reform will inevitably lead to an extremely interesting raising of the stakes as regards the clarification and development of the rules.
And it is on that point that I differ somewhat.
Article 3 is clearly vital.
It establishes the principle that Community law overrides national law in cases where practices are likely to affect trade between Member States.
But this principle is not acceptable without some clarification.
For example, in the case of services of general interest or other services that are essential for the Member States and the regions, I am convinced that there is a need for derogating provisions.
At the very least, the Commission should, as proposed by the Economic and Social Committee, present an interpretative communication on this subject.
Article 10 is another important article.
It rightly provides that the Commission can make observations to the Member States for reasons of Community public interest.
Some clarification is essential here too.
Jonathan Evans highlights the example of major investments.
Services of general interest also need to be mentioned in this particular respect.
Two final remarks.
The rapporteur is right to stress that it is contradictory to replace prior notification by a register.
I think that we should do away with the register.
He is right to call for convergence in national law.
That is the heart of the problem.
It supposes that other countries' cultures are respected and that a certain balance is achieved between competition, social and environmental standards, including standards for general interest services.
So take a look at the Langen report and other reports.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Italian Radicals will vote for the report by Mr Evans, who has done an excellent job.
I believe that the measures we are discussing represent a serious attempt to face up to an unavoidable problem - the risk that the Commission will end up overwhelmed by notifications - and I think it was both right and courageous to choose to base this reform on decentralisation to national authorities and courts.
The alternative would have been to create a mammoth, over-bureaucratised structure in its directorate general, all the more so, of course, with the prospect of enlargement.
Of course, only experience will tell us if we are heading into an incomprehensible mosaic or a situation that guarantees legal certainty and, I might say, unity of law within the single European market.
I believe, however, that the attempt should be sustained, just as I believe there will be a very warm welcome for the abolition of mandatory notification and authorisation and the introduction of the exception rule, which seems to me a rather more liberal principle, especially in a sector - that of regulating authorities and competition - which is always running the risk of being a different, new instrument for state interference in market dynamics.
This is certainly not the case of the Commission, but a number of authorities - I am thinking of certain central banks, for instance, which in fact preserve anti-trust powers over the credit market - run this risk in my opinion, and sometimes go even further.
In conclusion, I believe, however, that strengthening the sanctioning and investigative powers of the Commission, which are in fact contained in the provision, Commissioner, requires suitable procedural and legal guarantees - this point is raised in Mr Evans' s justification - especially in a situation like Europe' s, in which the Commission accumulates the functions of both the investigator, one might say, and the judge, since we are not in a system in which the judge is a third party.
Of course, there are appeals, decisions can be appealed against, but I believe that in this, in the guarantees for the parties involved in the proceedings, the greatest guarantees must be assured.
Mr President, yesterday I was in this House addressing the issue of the European Aviation Safety Agency when I noted that the means by which it was being achieved was through the gradual integration of the national systems.
Naturally, as you would expect from me as a leader of a party that puts national sovereignty above the integrationalist tendencies of the EU, I strongly object to this process of gradual integration.
Today, under the different heading of reform of competition policy I find that I am confronted with exactly the same thing - yet another attempt by the Commission to achieve the gradual integration of national systems.
But what makes this attempt particularly sinister is that it is being sold under the beguiling and wholly misleading claim that the reform is - I quote from the session' s news briefing - "to free hard-pressed Commission staff in the Competition Policy Department from routine matters to enable them to concentrate on major cases of non-competitive behaviour" .
Although giving Commission officials an easier life might be one effect of this proposal, the way this is being done is to give national competition authorities limited powers to enforce the competition rules hitherto the monopoly of the Commission.
But these authorities are neither independent, as it is claimed, nor free to act.
They are being granted licenses to act for the Commission in accordance with Community rules, under the supervision of the Commission and responsible to it.
The Commission wants the competition authorities to form a network at the centre of which is the Commission.
In other words, the Commission wants civil servants in the different Member States, paid salaries by the Member States, in government buildings paid for by the Member States, using facilities provided by and paid for by Member State governments, to work not for the Member States which finance them, but for the Commission implementing Community law.
Amazingly - and it is a reflection of how superficial is the view and understanding of so many commentators - this is seen and presented as subsidiarity and decentralisation.
It is anything but decentralisation.
It is the opposite, absorbing the civil servants of many countries into one vast centralised nexus.
That is what the network is: everyone working for the one central authority - the Commission.
As for subsidiarity, this is not a matter of Member States being able to make their own decisions and run their own affairs at local level.
This is the Commission running Member States' affairs, using the resources and the facilities of those Member States as if they were its own.
That state of affairs, it seems, also applies to the courts which will hear the cases in Member States.
Although they may nominally be the courts of the Member States and their running costs are paid for by the Member States, they are - as the draftsman so clearly reminded us - courts of Community law underlying the whole Community judicial system.
In other words, not only are Member States' civil servants being absorbed into the maw of the Community, but the courts are too.
All this is being done in the name of efficiency.
It should be remembered that the most efficient form of government is the centralised dictatorship.
The least efficient is the democracy.
In important ways, therefore, efficiency is the enemy of democracy.
I fear that in the supposed interests of efficiency we are surrendering something much more valuable - the very democracy at the heart of all our nations - to the centralised technocracy which is the Commission.
This is not so much integration as assimilation.
It will all end in tears.
Mr President, there is a general agreement that we clearly need some reform in some competition rules, and especially in their practical implementation.
Regulation 1017 has been applied with only little modification since the 1960s.
It is therefore understandable that the continued application of this regulation in its current form is no longer consistent with effective supervision of competition.
We have to serve our consumers and our companies better with up-to-date rules of application.
In my view, in a period of 30 years of implementation, EC competition law has reached a level where decentralising is not only possible, but almost necessary.
We are all aware of the workload of the DG for competition and we understand that we have to do something to reduce it, or drastically increase the resources in Brussels.
At the same time, we hear our voters reminding us how we should respect the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and that we should avoid centralising all decision making to Brussels bureaucrats.
In that question, I totally disagree with Mr Titford.
With the reform at hand we are able to achieve many of our objectives.
Ending the current system of prior notification should benefit business and make more resources available to the Commission to concentrate on more serious infringements.
Ex ante notification should not be replaced with a burdensome registration system.
However, the shift to the new regime will not be an easy task.
It is of the utmost importance to ensure that competition issues within the EU are treated similarly in all Member States.
There are many detailed situations where legal certainty might be a danger.
Personally I, and many of my colleagues from smaller Member States, are worried about the definitions of dominant position in the market.
Companies from Member States - especially from the smaller Member States - should have equal possibilities to grow in the single market and to achieve a strategic position to compete with the global rivals.
The Commission decision to say no to the Volvo/Scania merger was an example of the situation where the relevant market definition was maybe too narrow.
The Commission should not declare that the market is national or regional if there is clear evidence that is not the case.
Mr President, I can tell you that it is a long time since the Danish people have heard so much about the EU as they have in the last few weeks, and that is something for which we can thank Commissioner Monti His work opposing cartels has been front page news for a couple of weeks.
It has been thoroughly debated on television and radio, and it has led to debates within the population and in the Danish parliament. That is something for which I would thank the Commissioner, and I have observed that there has been support in all quarters for what the Commissioner has done.
We can therefore say that competition law has been accorded an important place in the Danish consciousness. That is something for which I would thank you.
In connection with Amendment No 10, there have been discussions between the Commissioner and his employees and, especially, between myself and my own employees.
We have observed the need for the Commission to be given access to all papers if the Commission is effectively to be able to make use of its powers and go after those cartels which do not comply with the laws.
I agree that that is necessary, but company managements and boards need their experts to be able to give them proper, independent advice without those experts having to fear that, if something subsequently goes wrong because either board or management acts against their advice, this will entail an increased penalty.
I have understood from Commissioner Monti and his colleagues that this is a view he shares and, as Mr Evans has said, the Group of the European People' s Party will therefore vote against Amendment No 10 if the Commissioner submits such an opinion.
I would thank the Commissioner for his sound cooperation and for the fine work which he can be relied upon to carry out and which is of enormous importance, especially for small countries.
Mr President, I am glad that, in the report drawn up by Mr Evans, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs emphasises the importance of reform as a means of ensuring effective implementation of the rules on competition in an enlarged Community.
I would like to thank Mr Evans personally for his consideration for the Commission, his commitment in dealing with this issue and the high quality of his report.
Next I would like to thank the European Parliament as a whole and all those who have spoken this evening for the support and encouragement Parliament has given the Commission during the debates on the White Paper and ever since.
I must say our proposal for a regulation has greatly benefited from the comments, criticism and encouragement emanating from the committees and from this House.
The central purpose of the reform is to create a more effective system of implementation, to the benefit of consumers, businesses and the European economy in general.
Abolishing the current system of notification and authorisation and the exclusive power of the Commission under Article 81(3) means the Commission and the national competition authorities will be able to concentrate their efforts on combating the worst infringements.
The establishment of a network of authorities for the protection of competition will allow us to coordinate our efforts and use our respective resources to best effect.
The essential premise for the success of such cooperation is for all the competition authorities to apply the Community rules more widely, otherwise the planned network would just be an empty framework.
This is essential if we want to create uniform competitive conditions for common market businesses and prevent renationalisation of Community competition policy.
I keenly appreciate, therefore, the fact that Mr Evans fully and firmly supports the Commission' s proposal contained in Article 3, aimed at making Community competition law the only set of rules to be applied in cases where trade between Member States might be prejudiced.
This proposal has very wide implications and is meeting with resistance on the part of various Member States within the Council' s working group.
However, I remain convinced of the solid logical foundation of the proposal and I can assure you that the Commission is determined to establish uniform conditions for agreements that might prejudice trade between Member States.
Mr President, I would now like to touch on some of the specific issues that have emerged, starting with professional secrecy.
Effective implementation of the rules on competition is closely linked to the capacity of the Commission to obtain evidence on infringements.
Our powers are closely linked to documentary evidence.
We base a great deal of our work on on-site inspections, looking for documents which demonstrate the existence of cartels.
Any change likely to reduce the effectiveness of our inspections would therefore have grave consequences on the possibility of implementing the rules on competition and on their effectiveness.
That makes me extremely worried about the amendment to extend duty of secrecy to in-house lawyers.
I want to avoid any misunderstanding on one point, however: the Commission is perfectly aware of the positive role that in-house lawyers can play by counselling companies about observing the rules on competition.
That role will assume greater importance under the new system, where companies will have to carry out more systematic self-assessment of their agreements in particular to establish compliance with the exemption conditions laid down by Article 81(3).
However, the question of duty of secrecy for in-house lawyers essentially arises in the context of inspections attempting to establish the existence of serious restrictions which fail to comply with the provisions of Article 81(3).
In this context, the reform proposed by the Commission does not change the current situation at all.
We have to recognise that, unlike external lawyers, in-house lawyers are employees of the company and take their orders from it.
They are in a position of occupational dependence and may face a conflict of interest between loyalty towards their employers and respect for ethical standards.
Furthermore, internal communications between a company lawyer and his employer are so numerous and indistinguishable from purely company advice - which differs from legal advice - that duty of secrecy for in-house lawyers could create conditions ripe for concealing documentary evidence.
If the communications between in-house lawyers and other employees became confidential, the Commission' s powers to apply the standards would be seriously compromised.
On this specific problem I have taken note of the information Mr Evans and Mr Rovsing gave just now, designed to promote a compromise solution.
For my part, I can assure you that if Amendment No 10 is rejected, the Commission will cease to regard evidence contained in such documents as an aggravating circumstance in determining financial sanctions.
In that eventuality, I can give an assurance to propose the following form of words to the Commission: 'in determining what financial sanction to impose on a company in future cases, the Commission will not regard as an aggravating circumstance, under the guidelines for calculating fines imposed in implementation of Article 15(2) of Regulation 17 and Article 65(5) of the ECSC Treaty, the existence of texts demonstrating that the company' s in-house lawyers have alerted the directors to the unlawfulness of conduct covered by the Commission' s decision' .
I hope that this assurance can represent common ground between the Commission and those seeking to extend the duty of secrecy to in-house lawyers.
The Evans report rightly stresses the importance of legal certainty for companies.
The rules and their scope must be sufficiently predictable.
A wider application of Community competition rules by the relevant authorities in the context of a network of close cooperation will, in itself, represent a great step forward in ensuring predictability as compared with the present situation, in which sixteen competition authorities apply different rules.
The Commission recognises that under certain circumstances there may be a legitimate requirement for clarification in relation to an individual case, and that the guidelines, guiding principles and existing case law do not always provide answers.
However, it is essential to avoid any rules that might lead to the reintroduction of the notification system.
The amendment proposed to Article 10 raises concerns in this respect.
By way of supplement and clarification, it states that the Commission can decide that there is no violation of Articles 81 and 82, in particular whenever the agreements involve financial risk or considerable investment of capital.
This amendment would only be acceptable if the Commission was not in practice compelled to decide that there was no violation in all cases involving substantial investment.
The Commission believes the best way to ensure predictability in individual cases is to introduce a new instrument: the adoption of opinions.
The Commission has already undertaken to introduce such a system, whereby it can issue reasoned written opinions in cases where there are gaps in the existing rules and decision-making procedures.
The level of investment will also be one of the relevant criteria in deciding whether to issue an opinion or not.
My impression is that the proposed system for formulating opinions would be favourably received by the business world.
On harmonisation of the procedures and sanctions, the Commission' s proposal is based on the traditional approach, which leaves the Member States able to determine the procedures and sanctions for implementing Community law.
I agree with the Evans report that it is desirable to have common procedures and sanctions but, like Rome, the Community was not built in a day.
Our approach is to introduce a substantial framework first, leaving the possible introduction of common procedures and sanctions to a later stage.
Once experience of operating the system has been acquired, it will be easier to identify the areas that give rise to practical problems and draw up rules to deal with them effectively.
The last point I want to mention, Mr President, relates to the national courts.
I am persuaded that they will be fully capable of applying Community competition rules in their entirety, because they already play a fundamental role in implementing Community law.
Nor should we forget that, to guarantee consistent implementation of the rules, the proposal provides, in particular, for the Commission, together with the national competition authorities, to be entitled to comment as amicus curiae on proceedings pending before the courts.
The proposed powers will allow the Commission to protect the public interest in the effective and consistent implementation of the rules, by drawing the attention of the courts to important points relating to their interpretation and implementation.
As regards the independence of the courts, of course they will not be bound by the comments of the amicus curiae and they will, in any case, be free to submit preliminary questions to the Court of Justice.
We are aware of the fact that the proposed reform may mean the courts have to acquire new powers.
The implementation of the competition rules can indeed be a complex matter.
I therefore agree entirely with Mr Evans that the question of training judges requires careful consideration.
The Commission can contribute in substance, providing material and human resources.
We are also looking at the possibility of cooperating with the national authorities in this matter and providing finance from existing training programmes.
I conclude, Mr President, by expressing sincere and heartfelt thanks to the European Parliament for travelling a common road with us through this very complicated terrain, which is, however, as various speakers this evening have sought to highlight, of such vital interest to the economy and indeed to our individual citizens whom you represent.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Medium-term financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0269/2001), by Mr Andria, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the establishment of a facility providing medium-term financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report I am presenting to you arises from Council Regulation 1969/88, which established a facility providing medium-term financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments.
Article 119 of the Treaty provides that where a Member State is in difficulties or is seriously threatened with difficulties as regards its balance of payments, the Council shall grant 'mutual assistance' so that the functioning of the common market is not jeopardised.
That mechanism can be activated by the Council following an initiative from the Member State which is in difficulty or following an initiative from the Commission.
At least in its intended form, the mechanism should be distinguished above all by rapidity of intervention and, in response to the loan received, by the adoption of all appropriate economic measures for re-establishing a sustainable balance of payments position.
Since it came into force - on 25 June 1988 - the facility has not been activated much.
It has only been used twice, in 1991 for the grant of a EUR 2.2 billion loan, of which only one billion was released, and in 1993 for the sum of EUR 8 billion, of which only the first tranches were released.
It immediately seems clear that many European facilities offered to the Member States are not fully taken up; the failure on the part of some Member States to make use of the Structural Funds also comes to mind.
Perhaps there ought to be superior delivery of information to encourage the members to make better use of the opportunities available.
Coming back to the report, I should mention that, as a result of the conclusions adopted by the Economic and Financial Committee on 13 October 1997 and pursuant to Article 12 of the regulation in force, the Commission submitted a report to the Council and Parliament advocating retention of the facility.
That position can be ascribed to the fact that, while only countries with derogations can use the facility, with enlargement the eventuality could arise repeatedly.
To be on the safe side, it was decided to reduce the ceiling from EUR 16 billion to EUR 12 billion - Amendment No 2, Recital 8; the Council shall adopt the decisions after consulting the European Parliament - Amendment No 3, Article 9; and shall examine whether the facility is adequate every two years, not three - Amendment No 4, Article 11.
Subsequent amendment, including altering the ceiling, is therefore still possible.
We also support the Committee on Budget' s amendment - Amendment 1, Recital 6a (new) - on the establishment of a mechanism to protect the Community budget from any potential risks of default and corresponding call on the guarantee.
We actually think that possibility is rather remote.
With enlargement the new countries joining have made significant efforts to put their accounts and balances of payments in order.
The Community budget is protected as regards loans granted to third countries by the Guarantee Fund Mechanism.
An analogous system could be considered, though with a smaller financial commitment, in the case of finance for countries with derogations.
In conclusion: first, the loans are directly guaranteed 100 percent from the Community budget; second, the risk of default, which can never be ruled out, is covered by an adequate protection mechanism; third, the instrument is likely to be better and more widely used at the stage of European enlargement; fourth and last, the management of the loans is entrusted to the ECB, replacing the Commission which was previously responsible for this.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Party of European Socialists supports the current Commission proposal because it seeks to simplify and modernise the sole mechanism of financial support for the balances of payments of the European Union' s Member States which are not part of the eurozone.
The fact that only three countries, Great Britain, Sweden and Denmark, should benefit from this mechanism, in addition to the fact that this instrument has only been used twice since its entry into force in June 1988, justify a reduction in the overall sums earmarked for loans from EUR 16 to 12 billion.
Other proposals also warrant our support, such as the possibility of the Commission undertaking swap operations, the recognition of the role of the Economic and Financial Committee and the need to make the support mechanism compatible with the possible opening, in the very short term, of a line of credit by the European Central Bank.
Three problems have become clear, however, and I should like to hear Commissioner Solbes Mira' s position on them.
Firstly, with the proposal to apply this mechanism to the countries included in enlargement, will it really not be possible to have imbalances appearing in the balances of payments of future Member States, given the substantial structural reforms that must be implemented in order to make accession possible? Mechanisms must, therefore, be planned forthwith to address these situations.
Secondly, must and can this mechanism apply to candidate countries as early as the pre-accession period? Lastly, what advantage do we gain by having the Commission and not the European Central Bank supervising these loans?
I wish to thank the Commissioner for the answers he may give us and I congratulate Mr Andria on this report.
Mr President, many thanks to Mr Andria for his report on the amendment of the Regulation on the facility providing medium-term financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments.
In your interventions you have raised a series of doubts and questions which I would like to clarify.
The first fundamental doubt is: can this facility be extended to the candidate countries? You know, and your report clearly expresses this, that this exact model cannot be extended to the candidate countries.
This system applies to Member States.
Another question is whether we can apply this facility to the candidate countries once they have signed the accession agreements and before they have been ratified, in other words, at the point that it becomes necessary to make more progress on the processes of structural adaptation of their economies.
Does this mean though that the candidate countries do not have any support system to resolve any possible difficulties in this area?
Absolutely not. We are still applying the macrofinancial aid system which can be applied to the candidate countries, just as it is applied to any third country.
We believe that that is the thinking behind the model and we believe that if we modify the system, trying to give special treatment to the candidate countries at the point of negotiation, not only would we introduce uncertainty in terms of which countries we apply it to, but we would also introduce doubts into the financial markets if the process of liberalising capital movements generates risks which would lead us inevitably to implementing a mechanism for compensating them.
The Commission therefore believes that it is much more logical to maintain the system as it is at the moment, with the guarantee that, without any doubt, if any candidate countries have problems, the macrofinancial aid system will be applied to them.
We believe that any other model would create more confusion and more problems, rather than helping to resolve the difficulties.
The second point that you have raised is the problem of the degree to which the new model implemented may negatively affect the Community budget.
I believe that there is no difficulty here.
You well know that we have a different model of guarantees, whether we refer to macrofinancial aid to third countries, or whether we do so in relation to long-term aid within the Community framework.
It is true that we grant macrofinancial aid to certain third countries with difficulties.
It is also true that we do so in cooperation with other international financial institutions and by applying programmes that have been agreed by them.
Experience suggests that non-payment difficulties do not generally arise.
There is a risk, albeit a slight one, but it cannot be ignored.
That is why the guarantee fund was implemented, allowing us to confront these difficulties in the event of non-payments.
And that system must be maintained.
An equivalent guarantee fund must be implemented for long-term aid to Member States of the Union.
In our opinion, that situation is not reasonable either now or in the future.
When we talk about long-term aid or loans to the Member States of the European Union, we are clearly talking about countries with solid financial structures, bound by Community obligations and therefore not posing any risk in terms of non-payments.
Will the candidate countries pose more risks than the current Member States at the point that they become members of the European Union? In my opinion, no.
Compliance with the obligations resulting from enlargement is going to mean, amongst other things, cooperation in the monitoring systems which allow us not only to help them to modify and improve their financial systems, but also to have all the necessary guarantees so that their situation may be similar to that of the current Member States.
We therefore do not believe that it is necessary to modify the system in this regard.
We believe that when the system is applied to them, the candidate countries will already be members of the European Union and therefore no special guarantee system will be necessary.
If they have to receive macrofinancial aid while they are candidate countries, the same model applied to macrofinancial aid would be applied to them.
The third problem you have raised is: who should grant this type of aid, the Bank or the Commission? This is subject to a technical debate.
It has not been resolved. I do not believe this is the greatest problem, however; each model has its advantages and its disadvantages, in terms of coherence and speed, and I hope that a solution will be found in the Council.
However, for the Commission this is not the greatest problem.
The last point you have raised is: to what extent can the European Parliament be involved in the granting of this medium-term aid for balances of payments? The mechanism which has currently been implemented is based on a fundamental idea: urgency.
When we talk about a situation of balance of payments difficulties, we are talking about decisions which have to be taken very quickly and, secondly, with sufficient technical support to allow the financial markets to positively assess the decision adopted.
With regard to urgency, according to the current model, the decision is adopted by the Council on the proposal of the Commission, subject to a report from the Economic and Financial Committee.
We believe that this model allows us to respond to the urgency and also allows us to receive the necessary technical support so that loans or aid may be positively assessed by the market.
Should the European Parliament participate in this model? In my opinion, it is no accident that the Treaty does not include the European Parliament as an institution to be consulted previously.
I believe that this is due to precisely that idea of urgency.
But this must in no way mean that the European Parliament does not have the right to receive all the information and know what decisions are taken and why.
In my opinion, we could improve the system by giving information to the European Parliament as soon as these decisions are taken, so that they may have detailed knowledge of them, know why they have been adopted and know all their content.
Of course, the possibility of reviewing the regulation in the future, in two or three years, is not a great problem for us and clearly, in the event of a review of the Regulation, the European Parliament must continue to play the role it has played until now.
I would like to thank all of you for your participation on this issue, which is sometimes rather dry, but which I believe is also fundamental to everyone.
We must study the mechanisms which, as you have said, will provide us with a safety valve in the event that difficulties may arise in any Member State in the future, as a result of enlargement, difficulties which will have to be resolved efficiently, making full use of the procedures laid down in our Treaty.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0271/2001) by Mrs Ries, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank all those Members who took part in the debates on my report in committee, and in particular the shadow rapporteurs of the various political groups, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, Mr Bowe, Mrs Schörling and Mr Sjöstedt.
We have before us the proposal for a directive amending for the 24th time the 1976 dangerous substances directive, which proposes restrictions on the marketing and use of pentabromodiphenyl ether.
What exactly is at issue here? Pentabromodiphenyl ether is a flame retardant, 95% of which is used in the manufacture of flexible polyurethane foam for furniture and in particular upholstery.
It is found, for example, in car head-rests and in the protective foam used for packing items of electrical and electronic equipment.
Starting with pentaBDE and its harmful effect on our environment and on our health, the picture is very clear indeed.
A preliminary study carried out in 1998 by the Swedish authorities indicates a high concentration of this substance in breast milk.
Two opinions of the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment from February and June 2000 highlight the damage that could be caused by pentaBDE in relation to discharging this substance into the environment and its being a persistent and bioaccumulative substance.
There is therefore a risk to the environment and to human health.
There is a unanimity of opinions on this.
It was therefore totally logical for the Commission to propose in January of this year a total ban on the marketing and use of pentaBDE.
And I would say that it was also logical for our Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy to vote to confirm this ban.
A second substance, octabromodiphenyl ether, is also directly affected by the directive in view of the percentage of pentaBDE residues that it contains when it is sold.
OctaBDE is used mainly here as a flame retardant in furniture made of plastic and in office equipment.
In this case, the Commission preferred to accept the final conclusions of the risk assessment study still being carried out for this substance.
It therefore restricted itself to limiting the percentage of pentaBDE residues authorised in octaBDE to 5%.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy does not share this view.
In fact it seems to us to be totally contradictory to ban pentaBDE while permitting the presence of what we regard as significant quantities of pentaBDE in other chemical products, in other substances.
Furthermore, I would say that the initial results of the current risk assessment, of which I am aware, are negative and tend to prove the harmful effect of this product not only on the environment but also on public health. These two areas have been assessed by British and French experts respectively, and I have consulted those experts in detail.
In view of these different factors, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has tabled an amendment which would extend the marketing ban to octabromodiphenyl ether also, thus strictly applying the precautionary principle.
I think I do not need to remind you that the precautionary principle does not mean waiting until there is absolute proof, which in this case would mean waiting for the final result of the risk assessment, when there is sufficiently serious and tangible evidence to demonstrate that a substance could have harmful effects on public health and on the environment.
That is exactly the case with octaBDE.
Third and last, and things always seem to go in threes, there is decabromodiphenyl ether, another flame retardant in the same family, which in practice accounts for 80% of this family of brominated substances and has a great many applications, not just in electrical and electronic equipment but also and above all in insulating and building products and in textiles.
DecaBDE is the only one of these three substances not to be mentioned at all in the Commission document.
Yet I regard it as being difficult, nay, impossible, and I will come back to this point in a few moments, to exclude decaBDE, which is why in Amendment No 4 in my report I call for a method for the evaluation of risks by family of chemical products, and no longer on an individual substance by substance basis.
In order to ensure coherence, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has extended the scope of this directive to cover all the polybromodiphenyl ethers.
This is totally in line with this House' s recent vote on the electrical and electronic equipment directive.
While waiting for precise information to emerge from the risk assessment in relation to decaBDE which is also currently in progress, Amendment No 16, which I have tabled in conjunction with the PPE Group and the Socialist Group, essentially proposes a ban on decaBDE with effect from 1 January 2006, unless the risk assessment in some way exonerates this substance and concludes that decaBDE does not pose any problems.
So this is a sort of reversibility clause.
While I am on the subject of amendments, I would like to mention that I oppose Amendment No 9, which aims to change the title of the proposal so as to extend the immediate ban to the marketing of decaBDE.
I do not really have any fundamental philosophical objection to Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 14, but I prefer the Commission' s original text.
With regard to the other amendment tabled by the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, I believe that my report already takes account of the criticisms contained in Amendment No 11 regarding the extremely cumbersome nature of the risk assessment and control procedures for existing substances.
I mentioned that just now.
To conclude, the Council Working Party on Dangerous Substances, which will be meeting in a week' s time, will determine the broad guidelines to be adopted by the Internal Market Council on 27 September. I hope that they will make it possible to narrow the gap between the positions of Parliament and the Commission.
I also hope, indeed I think, that it will be quite possible at second reading to finalise the adoption of this proposal for a directive amending the dangerous substances directive for the 24th time.
Mr President, may I first of all compliment Mrs Ries on her excellent and sound report?
We are talking today about the limitations of introducing on the market and using certain hazardous substances and preparations, especially flame retardant agents such as pentabromodiphenyl ether.
Risk assessments have shown, as Mrs Ries has just said, that the use of pentabromodiphenyl ether carries risks for the environment and public health, because this bromide-based, flame retardant agent is used in the production of furniture and upholstery.
So for this reason, in the interests of public health and the environment, the marketing and use of pentaBDE and all articles containing pentaBDE must be prohibited.
As alternative flame retardants are available, fire and environmental risks will not increase as a result of this ban.
Besides penta, two other bromide-based flame retardants are available on the market, namely decaBDE and octaBDE.
Octa is mainly used in plastic office equipment and in components of household appliances.
In dealing with the directive on the limitation of the use of certain hazardous substances in electric and electronic equipment, this House has already come out in favour of a gradual ban on all PDBEs in specific uses by January 2006.
The possible risks of octa and decaBDE are being evaluated at present and the results of this study will be submitted to the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment by the end of this year.
With regard to decaBDE, on which there are as yet no negative conclusions, the ban must, in the view of the PPE-DE Group, be revocable, hence dependent on the results of the risk assessment which will be available before the end of the year.
For octaBDE, however, I share the opinion of Mrs Ries that the use of this substance must be banned forthwith, even though the assessment of the risks is not yet concluded.
The first known results of the risk assessments for octaBDE, which are at present being carried out in the United Kingdom as regards the impact of the environment and in France as regards the consequences for public health, show that with this substance there are clear risks for human health and the environment.
The precautionary principle, therefore, prescribes that we do not wait to impose a ban on this substance until the final results of the investigation are known.
Mr President, in the interests of health, the protection of European citizens, the protection of the environment and the maintenance of the internal market, on the basis of results so far known of the risk assessments of bromide-based flame retardants and on the basis of the principle of prevention, there should be a ban on penta- and octaBDE and also on decaBDE if the risk assessment expected before the end of the year shows that decaBDE gives cause for concern.
Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for the report which has been a difficult one in terms of reaching a balance between the interests of what is clearly the very important - and very immediate - issue of fire safety and the more difficult, but more long-term problem of future harm to public health and the environment.
The substances which are the subject of this report have clear and demonstrated beneficial properties as flame retardants in materials and products such as foam-filled furniture.
However, they also have important negative properties.
They are toxic.
They are bioaccumulative in animals and in the general environment and they have even been found, as has been said already, in human breast milk.
Action on these substances in the opinion of many Members of this Parliament has been long delayed due to the slow progress of the risk assessments undertaken under the existing substance regulations of 1993.
The final results and publications of the risk assessments of certain of these substances are still awaited.
I hope the Commission notes that.
The general conclusions are clear.
These substances which have a potential for harm to the environment must be strictly controlled.
One cannot ignore however their very real and positive benefits in terms of reducing substantially the annual human death toll due to accidental fires.
Accordingly, I would welcome the report.
I give my support to the amendments to that report which enable the continued use of the most stable isomer, that is decaBDE, until such time as this substance has a complete risk assessment and its real uses and risks are assessed and we have some conclusions on it.
I commend the report to the House.
Mr President, I am really pleased that the rapporteur, Mrs Ries, and the discussion in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy have tightened up the Commission' s proposal concerning brominated flame retardants.
We are of course aware that pentaBDEs, octaBDEs and also decaBDEs are resistant, toxic and also bioaccumulative, since highly brominated flame retardants have been found high up in the food chain.
It is within the field of Swedish environmental research that it has been established that decaBDEs too are bioaccumulative.
The whole group must therefore be banned.
The precautionary principle requires that we act now and not wait for the results of the current risk assessment, as proposed in the case of decaBDEs in Amendment 16, for decaBDEs account for 80 per cent of the use of brominated flame retardants.
If we were to wait for a ban in 2006, this would mean tons of high-risk chemicals being released into the environment, something which would clearly contravene the precautionary principle.
I therefore applaud the amendment by the Group of the Greens, designed to place an immediate ban on the entire group of brominated flame retardants right now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to add my own congratulations to those addressed to the rapporteur.
Everyone has already said that this is a very difficult matter since various interests backed by large lobbies are involved, but also fire safety and the long-term protection and future of the environment.
It will probably be a very technical debate.
Pentabromodiphenyl ether.
What' s in a name?
This concerns bromide-based flame retardants, but also a socially very relevant theme.
The previous speakers have clearly shown the problems this creates for the environment and public health.
OctaBDE and decaBDE are, as a result of a Regulation on risk analysis, which is now seven years old, the first to have been placed on the first list of priority substances for risk analysis.
The evaluations have not yet been concluded.
Since those substances are known to be dangerous for the environment, waiting for the conclusions of that slow risk analysis would unnecessarily delay better protection of human beings and the environment.
Although I should have preferred to see an immediate ban on bromide-based flame retardants - as my fellow MEPs are aware - I completely support the compromise, since it is also acceptable.
It provides for an immediate ban on penta- and octaBDE and the banning in 2006 of decaBDE, unless - and this is important - it is proved to be harmless.
It also immediately indicates that in this matter we are balanced between policy based on risk analysis and the new chemical policy that we are dealing with at present and that is designed to facilitate faster analyses, but also above all that responsibility for this no longer lies with the Commission and the Member States but with the manufacturers.
This matter shows yet again that the current chemical policy with a substance-by-substance analysis takes years and that as a result the authorities are in a very weak position for protecting human beings and the environment.
Therefore, in the strongest possible terms, we are calling for an urgent revision of the policy, as we are at present doing with the White Paper on Chemical Policy.
Firstly, I would like to express my thanks to Members for their interest in this proposal and especially to Mrs Ries, the rapporteur, for her constructive work.
PentaBDE is a flame retardant used in the production of polyurethane foam for furniture and upholstery.
It poses a risk to the environment, is bioaccumulating and has been found in human breast milk.
In response to the findings of a risk assessment under the regulation on the evaluation and control of existing substances, the Commission proposed, in January of this year, a directive banning the marketing and use of pentaBDE.
The Commission' s proposed directive covers all uses of pentaBDE, and articles containing pentaBDE.
It is an application of the precautionary principle, given concern about the presence of pentaBDE in breast milk from unidentified sources.
The costs and benefits of the proposed ban have been carefully analysed.
Suitable alternatives, both in technical and economic terms, are available.
I would stress that the proposal will not result in greater risks from fires or greater risks to the environment.
I believe it is a proportionate measure.
The proposed directive provides not only for the protection of the environment, of consumers' and workers' health but would also preserve the Internal Market.
It would introduce harmonised rules in the Member States.
The Commission is unable to accept those amendments of the Parliament which would extend the scope of the proposed directive to include bans also on other substances i.e. octaBDE and decaBDE (Amendments No 1, second part of No 2, Nos 3, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15).
These other substances could be the subject of a subsequent proposal of the Commission when risk assessments have been completed and the availability of safe substitutes analysed.
The Commission is also unable to accept the amendments that would introduce bans on octaBDE and decaBDE taking effect from 1 January 2006 if the risk assessments do not conclude that the substances cause no reasons for concern (Amendments Nos 8 and 16).
Accordingly, these substances would be totally banned from 2006 if the assessments show concern or they would be left totally unregulated if the assessments show no concern.
The Commission favours a more nuanced approach which would mean that measures could take effect much earlier than 2006.
The completion of the risk assessments and analyses of availability of safe substitutes would allow the uses of concern to be identified and appropriate measures to be quickly taken.
If necessary, the precautionary principle could be applied to ban such uses.
As the assessments are expected to be completed in the autumn of 2001, the chosen measures could be effective well before 2006.
Nor is the Commission able to accept the amendment on procedures for risk assessment under Regulation 793/93 (Amendment No 4).
This amendment goes beyond the present proposal to restrict the marketing and use of pentaBDE.
The Commission can accept in principle to delete the derogation on pentaBDE in concentrations of less than 5% in technical grade octaBDE from the ban (first part of Amendment No 2 and Amendment No 5 of the Environment Committee) as new information from producers indicates that octaBDE can be produced without pentaBDE.
To summarise our position, the Commission can accept Amendment No 5.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1 to 4 and 6 to 16.
However, the Commission can, in principle, support the first part of Amendment No 2.
We wish to carry on the dialogue with Parliament and I am convinced we can reach a constructive solution.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Quality and safety standards for human blood and blood components
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0272/2001) by Mr Nisticò, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the quality and safety standards for the collection, testing, processing, storage and distribution of human blood and blood components.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all my sincere thanks to the chairman, Caroline Jackson, for giving this report preferential passage.
Equally sincere thanks go to all the shadow rapporteurs for the optimum cooperation there has been, and thanks, too, to the Commission officers, the representatives of the various associations and all those Members who have contributed to improving this important and sensitive directive with excellent amendments.
The directive fills a void which has existed in Europe up to now around standards of blood quality and safety.
The objective of this directive is primarily the protection of donors and patients, finally making it possible for all the Member States to have the same standards which ensure the maximum possible level of quality and safety of blood and blood components, not only for blood available in the countries of the European Union but also for blood imported from third countries.
The directive provides for continuous updating, at least annually, of laboratory tests to identify bacterial or viral pathogens and other infective agents, as well as upgrading to the most sophisticated technology for safer and more effective sterilisation of blood and blood components.
There are also recommendations to the Member States to strengthen scientific research in the sector.
The existence of a new European directive which provides for the same standards of quality in the individual Member States will facilitate the free movement of blood from one European Union country to another and remove uncalled-for restrictions on donors moving between countries.
High standards of quality and safety must apply during all stages in the transfusion chain, from donation to inspection by means of specific laboratory tests, collection, processing, storage, distribution and utilisation of whole human blood and its components.
The quality and effectiveness guarantees must therefore cover the suitability of blood donors, plasma and their components, the transfusion structures, the qualifications and training of medical, technical and nursing staff and the checking, inspection and control mechanisms, as well as a system for ensuring the traceability of blood from donor to recipient.
The European Parliament provides for the person responsible to have a qualification in medicine, preferably with a specialisation in haematology or transfusion medicine or related medical specialisation.
In order to gain a better understanding of the importance of monitoring each stage in the process, it is worth considering the unfortunate, terrible, adverse reactions which have occurred and which we hope will never occur again, for example AIDS, hepatitis B and C and other, sometimes fatal infections, like anaphylactic shock or endotoxic shock.
The Commission has accepted the rapporteur' s proposal to delete the annexes, as they cover extremely complex technical matters. They should be updated periodically by a simple and flexible mechanism.
Finally, the principle by which all donations should take place on a voluntary non-remunerated basis has been strengthened by numerous amendments from Parliament.
However in my opinion, Commissioner, the priority is to safeguard the needs and requirements of patients.
In fact, in view of the sadly limited number of donors still, and Europe' s lack of self-sufficiency in blood, if all forms of incentive for donors were immediately banned it would create enormous, even fatal, difficulties for patients.
The shortage of blood and plasma is a well-known problem in Europe.
That is why I hope the House will approve the amendment by the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party which upholds the principle of free and voluntary donation on the one hand, but allows a transitional phase for achieving that principle on the other.
An oral amendment by Mr Lisi states that by the end of December 2008 all donations must be voluntary and non-remunerated.
Individual Member States must encourage the achievement of that principle, but sufficiently gradually to avoid any possible catastrophic effects on the public.
As regards imported blood - Amendment No 43 - it should be specified that the criteria this amendment refers to relate to the quality and safety of the blood.
In conclusion, Mr President, the guarantee of high standards of quality, effectiveness and safety of blood provided for in the directive will mean greater peace of mind for European Union citizens about any treatment with blood, as well as greater confidence in the European institutions and the national authorities.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank the Commission for now having led the way by implementing the new provisions in the Treaty of Amsterdam establishing quality and safety standards for, among other things, human blood and blood components.
I should also, however, like to thank Mr Nisticò for the work he has put into the report.
I think it is a fine piece of work, and I am very pleased that, through the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, we are able to help improve the directive.
With the improvements proposed by the Committee, we can make for greater safety and ensure blood of a higher quality, from collection right up to distribution.
I also think that we shall have some crucial issues settled: firstly, that blood is not a commodity subject to the usual rules governing free trade.
I think that, with regard to self-sufficiency too, it is important for it to be said that, by means of these rules in the individual countries and in the EU as a whole, we can prioritise the issue of self-sufficiency.
Blood donated from a country' s own population is clearly the best solution, and I would therefore urge all countries to establish large pools of donors who see it as their task, both personally and as members of society, to give blood and plasma to help other people in their own societies.
Many countries have already established pools of donors.
It can be done in actual fact, and there is therefore no excuse for those countries which have still not established such pools.
It is just a question of getting them going.
If such a large corps of donors is obtained, so too is a larger quantity of blood and, thus, the opportunity of genuinely becoming self-sufficient in blood of the highest quality.
That also leads me to say a few words about the extent to which blood donation should be non-remunerated, which is of course the major issue here.
I believe that blood donation should be non-remunerated, as also recommended by the Council of Europe in its guidelines and by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
I think there are two reasons for specifying this.
The first reason is ethical.
In my view, a person' s blood, tissue and organs ought not to be commodities.
That is one reason.
The other reason is that non-remunerated donation provides blood which is safest and of the highest quality.
Countless investigations show that blood donated for no remuneration is of a higher quality than blood otherwise obtained, and I think we have to tell it like it is: a pool of donors based upon voluntary and non-remunerated blood donation is different from a pool based upon remunerated donation.
In that connection, I am delighted with the broad support given by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy to the Council of Europe' s definition of voluntary, non-remunerated blood donation.
There are sectors of industry which have lobbied powerfully against non-remunerated blood donation and, as usual, patients have been elbowed out of the way in the process.
I find that unsavoury, and I think that, in reality, industry is quite cynically helping to prevent the ideal situation for patients who have to be given blood, namely that blood and plasma are donated without remuneration and thus from an established and stable body of donors.
I think it provides food for thought that those countries in which there is non-remunerated donation by a large and stable body of donors are also, in actual fact, self-sufficient in blood and plasma.
However, I should like to add to what Mr Nisticò has said by pointing out that I am pleased with the oral amendment to Mr Nisticò' s Amendment No 75 and that, in my view, there is no one at all in this House who could dream of putting a patient in a situation in which he was unable to obtain blood or plasma.
Naturally, all patients must be able to obtain these, but I believe that we serve patients best by having non-remunerated blood donation and thus securing blood of the highest quality.
Mr President, first of all, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Nisticò, for his thorough and excellent report, and for his open-mindedness and willingness to cooperate with the shadow rapporteurs.
This directive is essential.
For the first time, it lays down in Community legislation quality and safety standards for blood products, whether they are intended for transfusions or as starting materials for medicinal products.
I should also say that it also provides for the free movement of donors and blood products within the Union.
I regard the proposal as being both ambitious and satisfactory overall.
I would like to add that the main improvements approved by the committee all seek the same thing: to strengthen checking, inspection and monitoring measures throughout the transfusion chain, in order to protect donors from human error and to protect recipients against the risks of being exposed to donated blood that may be contaminated.
Having said that, patients now face another threat: the shortage of plasma and plasma derivates in the Union.
That is why the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is opposed to the absolute and immediate obligation to make donation non-remunerated, that is to Amendments Nos 55 and 56, which, I would like to say in passing, also seem to run totally counter to the whole principle of subsidiarity.
I say that first of all because non-remunerated donation is in no way under threat.
We have never questioned the principle of voluntary donation or the essential social role played by voluntary donors.
So it is not the principle of non-remunerated donation that is being questioned, but compulsory non-remuneration.
I am also and above all opposed to these amendments because they totally disregard the concerns of patients.
We consulted in depth patients who are particularly concerned, and here I am using a euphemism, about the ever-increasing dependence on imports of American plasma in particular. This especially applies to haemophiliacs who remember that non-remuneration in no way protected them against viral contamination.
We do not want the better to be the enemy of the good here.
It is clear and it is vital that blood should not be a source of profit.
This is repeated in several places, in several recitals, in the compromise amendment which we have tabled together with the PPE Group.
This is an objective imposed on the Member States in accordance with the conditions and timing laid down in Amendment No 75, but making non-remuneration an absolute condition for donating blood would be a disaster for patients, and I mean patients and not industrialists, Mr Lund, because we have had in-depth discussions with haemophiliacs in particular.
What really counts here is that blood should be of the highest quality and the directive ensures this, but what is the use of ensuring quality and safety if the blood is not available?
Let me remind you that Europe has 7 million blood donors out of a population of 360 million.
In conclusion, Mr President, that is why I am calling on all the political groups to support this compromise amendment which ensures free access on the part of patients to blood and to medicinal products, both of which each day save thousands of lives.
Mr President, we have been waiting for a long time for a directive on blood quality, which is vital to ensure safety for donors and recipients at European level.
From this point of view, Mr Nisticò' s report, which has been enhanced by various amendments adopted almost unanimously in committee, is a step towards improved human health protection, in particular because it calls for better medical checks on donors and also increases the responsibility of doctors and establishments dealing with blood at all stages, from collection through to storage and including the point at which blood is converted into blood derivates.
As we have seen, there remains an important question on which there is no consensus between us: whether donation should be remunerated or not. We believe that the principle of non-remunerated blood donation is very important, a principle applied in many European countries without leading to shortages, and we cannot accept that this principle should be undermined, for two essential reasons.
Firstly, from an ethical point of view, we cannot advocate the idea of selling blood or any body part.
The human body is not a commodity.
Furthermore, we find it extremely shocking that companies should be able to profit from blood donated without remuneration.
Secondly, remunerating blood donation could be counter-productive in terms of quality.
Donors attracted by a financial inventive may want to conceal possible health problems, which could have dramatic consequences for their own health and the health of the recipients.
Recent information on the hundreds of thousands of Chinese now affected by AIDS because they have sold their plasma is a tragic illustration of this and we do not want the same situation to occur in Europe tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Nisticò has submitted an outstanding report whose content I fully support.
It is essential that this directive creates uniform standards for the safety and quality of blood and plasma in the Member States.
To this end, identical procedures for testing blood and plasma must be adopted which comply with the most recent techniques.
Trained personnel should ensure the highest safety standards for donors and recipients alike.
A transparent system of traceability and labelling will allow blood to be traced from donor to recipient and back.
This also helps to minimise the risk of infection.
Voluntary, non-remunerated donation is, and should remain, a basic principle.
Unlike Mr Lund, I believe that there is certainly no direct link between non-remunerated and remunerated donation and safety/quality.
The key issue is the selection of donors and testing by qualified personnel.
However, reimbursement for plasma donors must not be ruled out in the European Union in future.
Europe can only cover 50% of its plasma needs.
The shortfall is made up from plasma from the US, for which the donors have received payment.
The import of plasma from paid donors must not be prohibited by the new directive.
This would inevitably lead to supply shortages, which would also affect the manufacture of medicines from these products.
Plasma is required to produce vital medicines such as coagulation factor 8 and coagulation factor 7 for haemophiliacs, and immunoglobulins to prevent infection in patients with congenital immune deficiency.
A shortage would put many patients' health at risk.
I would ask you to bear this in mind when voting.
Mr President, the safety and quality of blood products have never been so important.
Every week we hear across the EU story after story about this issue.
I believe that every Member of the House wants to be reassured with the knowledge that there is a level of safety and quality of blood and blood products throughout the transfusion process in Member States.
For our citizens it means that in the unfortunate situation where, for instance, you have had an accident on holiday and you require a blood transfusion, you can guarantee the quality and safety being the same, whether it is on a Greek island or on a Scottish island.
As we all know, the main area of difference between Members has been on the issue of remunerated and non-remunerated blood products.
I believe that the preferred option should be that blood is given voluntarily.
As the European Blood Alliance outline, voluntary and non-remunerated donations of blood and blood components are considered to be a gift from healthy citizens to those in need.
But more importantly, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights prohibits the making of the human body and its parts a source of financial gain.
We as a parliament, and within the institutions, have consistently advocated voluntary, non-remunerated donations.
Evidence shows that the prevalence of viruses and diseases which may be transmitted through blood is higher in those donors who are remunerated than those who donate without receiving payment.
There is, however, one issue which I would like to highlight.
That is Amendment No 43.
In Scotland and the UK we have a specific issue with CJD.
Many haemophiliacs and those with immune disorders depend on blood products from the US, the reason being that in Scotland and the UK we no longer use plasma from UK donors to make blood products because of CJD and rely instead on imports of plasma from the US.
The oral amendment advocated by Mrs Korhola to Amendment No 43 is greatly welcomed.
I hope Members will support it tomorrow.
In conclusion, the safety, quality and standard of blood and blood products is an important issue which we have to get right.
Perhaps in the second reading the rapporteur could organise outside this Chamber an opportunity for Members to donate blood.
After all, as Members, we should lead by example.
Giving blood is a positive act of citizenship.
Mr President, a friend of mine lives with AIDS and so does his wife because he received contaminated blood in a transfusion and then unknowingly affected his wife.
I know the risks and dangers and the importance of quality and safety in our blood supplies.
That is why I welcome this proposal, particularly the work of my colleague Mr Nisticò.
But it would be a tragedy if it was spoiled by one amendment, an amendment which exacerbated the known shortages of rare blood groups and plasma.
It would be a tragedy in a very real sense because the WHO points out that there are 80 primary immune deficiency conditions in our world and it is estimated that some 50 000 to 90 000 people in our Europe suffer from those conditions.
Most are treatable, most people can lead fairly full lives but only if, every three weeks of their life for as long as they live, they have an infusion of immunoglobin which comes from human plasma and that keeps them alive.
Europe uses 7 million litres per annum, and 4 million litres come from compensated donors.
Of course we would all prefer all donations to be voluntary.
In the United Kingdom they are all voluntary but in the United Kingdom, as we have heard, there is no plasma coming from UK donors for blood products because of the theoretical risk of variant CJD being transmitted by blood.
Nor can we take any from other countries in Europe.
It does not matter about blood banks or plasma banks in Europe - we cannot take them from countries in the EU where there has been BSE or new variant CJD so we have to look elsewhere, and we and others rely largely on the United States' supplies.
The United Kingdom Department of Health has said there are no acceptable alternative sources.
Of course, such imports include remunerated donations and there is no evidence at all that they are any less safe than unremunerated ones.
Amendment No 43 would ban the import of such literally life-saving plasma and I urge the support of this House for the rapporteur' s compromise amendment.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive setting standards of quality and safety for the collection, testing, processing, storage and distribution of human blood and blood components has come at exactly the right time, given recent developments in the medical and public health sectors.
The primary objective in introducing new rules is to update the legislative framework, so that it covers areas not covered by Community legislation, by tightening the requirements for suitable blood donors, plasma and blood tests and creating a Community quality system for blood donation centres.
I should like to highlight two points where I have tried to improve the Commission text - and hence safety - for both the donors and the recipients of blood or blood components.
I refer to Amendment No 33, requiring the manager of the blood donation centre to have at least a medical degree, preferably specialising in haematology or some related discipline.
The second important point is that blood is in ever shorter supply.
In Greece, the demand has increased to the point at which about three in ten patients require blood and, despite the increase in the supply of blood from volunteers, more and more blood has to be imported.
The aim of Amendment No 75 is to ensure that the ban on blood donation incentives is not an absolute ban because it is wrong, for medical and scientific reasons, to be dogmatic on such an important health issue.
The fact that we want blood donors to be volunteers should not be expressed in absolute terms.
We must give the Member States and blood donation centres the facility to offer incentives to cover the collection, testing, storage and distribution of rare blood groups and their components as and where necessary.
I should like to congratulate Mr Nisticò on his really excellent work and to ask the House to vote in favour of Amendment No 75 which, while adhering to the principle of voluntary blood donation, really does give the Member States and blood donation centres the facility to meet any requirements and, medically and scientifically speaking, this is exactly how it should be.
Mr President, the dispute in connection with Mr Nisticò' s excellent report regarding the remuneration of blood donors is important in terms of its multidimensional, ethical and practical aspects, and a lot more serious than might be inferred from the debate.
I tabled an amendment regarding the non-remuneration of donor services together with my colleague, Mrs Grossetête, and the committee adopted it.
I appeal to my colleagues to maintain this position now also.
Various patient groups and authorities have appealed to us here in Parliament not to allow blood donation to become commercialised.
Firstly there is a safety risk.
Allowing remuneration will mean the donor profile will change and the overall risk increase: comparative studies show that the state of health of remunerated donors is poorer.
The importance of tests has been emphasised here, and that is good.
But with HIV tests, for example, there is a certain window period, as it is known, when the virus still does not show up.
There is also an ethical risk.
I want to stress that we also have a responsibility for how the rest of the world might imitate our practices.
If we permit the trade in what is part of the human body, i.e. blood, we have to remember that the less developed countries will follow Europe' s example.
This will not only lead to exploitation but increased risks.
We already know of a case in China where an absolute catastrophe related to blood quality occurred when blood donors were paid what were for them vast sums of money.
In Austria 200 schillings is a nominal amount for the donor, but in Eastern Europe it is a considerable income.
Is this what we really want for others and ourselves?
Thirdly, there is the risk of being guilty of inconsistency.
Many EU countries have signed the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine, which categorically prohibits the financial exploitation of the human body and its parts, including blood.
I do not dispute the need for plasma, and its shortage is very much a reality.
It is nevertheless intellectually dishonest to open up this whole area to market forces just because there is a shortage of plasma.
Amendment No 17, however, makes adequate guarantees regarding the possibility of reimbursing costs incurred in donating plasma including travel expenses, and of offering compensation for lost working time.
At the same time I would like to ask my colleagues to support the oral amendment I intend to propose for Amendment No 43.
It would allow exceptions to be made in cases where the plasma shortage really is an insurmountable problem.
Mr President, there are two principal issues here: one is an adequate supply and the second is a safe supply.
For the hundreds and thousands of haemophiliacs and all those patients with the whole range of immunodeficiency diseases, these are life threatening issues which they are faced with on a daily basis.
While I agree - and no one disagrees in this House - that we must foster a culture of voluntary donations as the norm, as the ethos, in all our Member States, I plead with this House not to specifically exclude paid donations.
Let us not exclude them for the rare blood groups and for the very scarce plasma and plasma products if they are needed to pay to ensure adequacy of supply.
It is not a question of 'if there is a shortage of supply' .
There is one already.
Today 40-50% of plasma products used each year by European patients come from plasma donors who are compensated for their time and inconvenience for this lengthy process.
These plasma products, particularly in the UK and Ireland, are largely imported from the US from paid donors.
The amendments to this directive, which were voted and passed by the Environment Committee, will have a major impact on public health.
They will prevent the remuneration of donors in any circumstances and preclude importation of plasma and plasma products from paid donors.
There is no longer any public health justification for imposing an absolute requirement for all donations to be non-remunerated.
This was the case in the seventies and eighties but it is no longer with our screening and sterilisation process.
Commissioner Byrne, I would like to put a question specifically to you and maybe you could answer it in your reply: do the amendments which were passed in the Environment Committee violate EU law, particularly various sections of Article 152? I draw your attention to Article 152(5) which prevents Community action from affecting national provisions on the donation of blood.
Do the amendments actually violate EU law? The doctors' organisations, the patients' organisations throughout Europe are pleading with us not to specifically exclude paid donations.
I congratulate Mr Nisticò on his excellent work and I commend Amendment No 75 which gets the balance right.
Yes, Mr President, I must put the record straight on one count.
I was approached by the Netherlands Haemophilia Patients' Association to hold on to the no-payment principle, and that means, therefore, that fellow MEPs who have argued otherwise, are certainly in favour of safety and are also acting on behalf of their patient groups.
Mr President, let me first say that I am very grateful for all the work on this important and ambitious directive.
Important, as it constitutes our first directive based on the new and strengthened provisions in Article 152 of the Treaty, and ambitious, as a crucial element in our overall health strategy.
Before I turn to the details of the directive on the table today, let me pay tribute to the successful and valuable work of the Council of Europe in the area of blood safety.
Our proposal for a directive builds on these achievements.
This new directive will cover blood and blood components not considered medicinal products in so far as it will ensure a comparable level of quality and safety throughout the blood transfusion chain in all Member States.
In addition, the directive lays down provisions at Community level for a quality system for blood establishments and for the training of blood establishment staff.
I am pleased to note that the amendments debated today in general are very supportive of the basic approach of the Commission to issues related to blood safety and the way these should be addressed at Community level. I appreciate the very valuable contribution of the European Parliament.
A greater part of the amendments constitutes improvements, clarifications, and useful additions to the text and I thank Mr Nisticò and all his colleagues for their contribution.
We can accept in full 29 amendments.
There are in addition a further 23 amendments which include valuable ideas that we can endorse, but which, as drafted, are not fully acceptable.
This is either because they contain specific points of substance which conflict with the approach of the directive, or because they raise legal or technical difficulties.
With so many amendments. it is not feasible for me to make specific comments on each of them.
I will therefore concentrate on four key areas, where there are several amendments which we cannot accept, and where I believe that some clarification of the Commission' s position will be helpful.
First, ethical questions.
We all agree that the principle of voluntary, non-remunerated blood donation is of a very high ethical value.
As Mrs Stihler said, the EU charter of human rights demands that no financial gain shall be made from parts of the human body as such.
Therefore I welcome, and will actively support, any contribution the Community can make to achieve comprehensive application of this principle.
But we have to carefully analyse all aspects of the issue.
I am determined to ensure that this new directive will not unwillingly contribute to shortages of life-saving therapies.
The supply of blood and blood derivatives, such as plasma-derived drugs, is a matter of life and death for many patients, as many of you have said.
Much of the plasma used for these drugs in Europe does not come from donations which can be considered 'voluntary, non-remunerated' in the strict sense of the words, and it is difficult to see how these donations could be replaced in the short term.
There is a clear danger that a ban on them might result in severe shortages of these products.
Consequently I consider it premature to effectively ban any donation which is not fully in line with the definition of 'voluntary, non-remunerated donation' provided for in Amendment No 17 and to this extent I agree with Mr Nisticò and with the contributions from Mrs Ries, Mrs Müller, Mr Bowis and Mrs Doyle.
I endorse their views and I accept what they said in relation to this issue.
In addition, I have doubts about the legal basis for a provision determining the way donations should be carried out, and this issue was also raised by Mrs Doyle.
Article 152 of the Treaty does not allow the Community to adopt measures which 'affect national provisions on donation' .
Whether an obligation to accept voluntary donation only can be justified in terms of increased safety seems questionable.
Particularly in the field of plasma-derived products, safety nowadays depends far more on sophisticated screening tests and inactivation steps.
Such a provision might therefore be challenged before the Court of Justice due to lack of an appropriate legal basis or on the grounds of subsidiarity.
For these reasons, I can only partly accept Amendments Nos 55 and 56.
As already indicated, I am prepared to discuss any solution that would make it clear that a comprehensive application of the principle of voluntary, non-remunerated donation is a central long-term aim of the Community.
Amendments Nos 1, 3, 7, 8, 12, 60 and 61 aim to introduce declarations or requirements of enhanced ethical standards in one way or another.
All of them are certainly worthwhile discussing and studying in detail, but from our point of view they are not really suitable for this directive, because they are either not directly linked with its objectives or do not have a legal basis in the Treaty.
Some of you said that remunerated donations have a greater risk from a safety point of view.
Many of you referred to studies.
All the advice I receive is that these are old studies.
All of the modern studies run to the contrary.
In view of the fact of what I said earlier in relation to other safety measures like screening tests and inactivation steps, these provide the degree of security that is necessary having regard to this particular debate.
It was also suggested that if we did have a shortage of supply, that this could be replaced by imports, but I have to point out that the imports will be from remunerated sources, so this undermines the very purpose that people wish to achieve.
Mrs Ries also mentioned that she had been contacted by haemophiliac associations and indeed some others made the same point.
I should say that my services and I have also been contacted by haemophiliac and other associations urging us not to go down the route of eliminating from the chain donations from remunerated supply.
I would urge Parliament to take this very much to heart when considering voting on this issue tomorrow and to follow the views that I am expressing on this.
I fully endorse and fully agree with the views of many of you who have already spoken on this issue.
The next issue I want to touch on is the scope of the directive.
The last part of Amendment No 13, together with Amendment No 72, aims to extend the scope of the directive to the collection and testing of blood and blood components as starting material for medicinal products.
The Commission can accept this in principle, but legal clarity has to be maintained as to the respective fields of application of this directive and Directive 89/381/EEC on blood and plasma derived products.
Therefore, it will be necessary to review the wording of both amendments in the light of the final compromise to be agreed with the Council.
Other amendments introduce the term 'blood derivatives' into the text of the directive; this cannot be accepted, because it might lead to confusion with 'medicinal products' .
Let me be clear: Everything made from blood and used in human therapy should fall under either this directive or the existing Directive 89/381/EEC.
If any doubts exist the Commission will reconsider the definitions used.
The third point relates to the technical standards.
The rapporteur has proposed to remove the technical annexes from the directive, and to adopt technical standards later by comitology.
I appreciate this approach and I am very grateful for the trust in the work of the Commission shown by this move.
Members of Parliament will know that this is an issue that I have spoken on before in Parliament and I am particularly pleased that this approach has been adopted on this occasion.
If the Council can accept this solution, my services will immediately start to draw up proposals for technical standards in order to ensure that they are adopted before the directive comes into force.
Let me also reassure you that my services will not try to reinvent the wheel when preparing the regular adaptation of the technical standards according to scientific and technical progress.
We will fully use the pioneering work of the Council of Europe.
To add to and further complicate these procedures would not be feasible in an area where quick decisions may have to be taken to protect public health.
For this reason, I can only partly accept Amendments Nos 68 and 71, and I cannot accept Amendment No 69.
Amendments Nos 39 and 41, which refer to another directive or ISO standards as reference for standards introduced under this directive, cannot be accepted.
When proposing updated standards, the Commission will take into account all relevant external and EU standards by default.
To mention some at the expense of others could cause legal problems in the application, or force the Community to apply standards established outside its legal framework.
We are also unable to accept Amendment No 22 introducing a definition of traceability, which in my view is not only too general but also not covered by the Treaty.
Amendment No 44, introducing a universal donor identification system, which is both costly and over ambitious and unnecessary, is not acceptable either.
Finally, the qualifications of blood establishment staff.
Amendment No 33 would restrict the qualifications of the 'responsible person' to that of a medical doctor.
This is too restrictive and cannot be accepted.
The 'responsible person' is, according to the proposal, charged with administrative and management tasks in relation to the application of the directive, and does not have medical responsibilities per se.
But again Member States are free to impose further demands as to the qualifications of the 'responsible person' .
In summary, for the reasons I have set out, 19 amendments are not acceptable.
These are Amendments Nos 1, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 19, 20, 22, 30, 33, 39, 41, 44, 47, 60, 61, 69 and 73.
52 amendments are acceptable in full or in part.
The following 23 amendments are acceptable in part: Amendment Nos 2, 5, 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 21, 27, 28, 32, 35, 43, 46, 55, 56, 62, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71 and 72.
The remaining 28 amendments can be accepted in full, including Amendment No 75, the so-called 'compromise amendment' .
Let me, finally, repeat my appreciation for all the constructive work done by the rapporteur and the committee and indeed all of you present.
Many of the amendments will improve the proposal.
And for those elements where difficulties remain, the Commission is ready and willing to assist in finding solutions quickly.
Indeed, the fact that the Commission can accept in whole or in part 52 of the 71 amendments shows our willingness to take on board Parliament' s substantial policy contributions and our confidence that together we will be able to bring forward this important objective and have it adopted as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I shall make this very brief.
The intention seems to be that this House should have a debate on blood at about midnight when the werewolves are out, but be that as it may, at precisely midnight, I heard Commissioner Byrne say - but it may have been an error of interpretation, which is why I should like to have it repeated - that he did not believe that blood from stable and voluntary pools of donors, familiar to us from a number of Member States, was safer and of a higher quality than that obtained from people who supplement their income by donating blood.
I am shocked that this is how the Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection views the situation, so I hope that he will deny having said these words.
It is absolutely certain that blood from a voluntary and stable body of donors who readily make their blood available to their fellow members of society is of a better quality than blood obtained from people wishing to supplement their income in this way.
I would ask you not to reopen the debate, because at the moment the most you can do is ask for clarification or ask the Commissioner a question.
You have the floor, Commissioner.
Mr President, I would be very sorry to shock Mr Lund and, if I can explain my thinking on this, perhaps it might relieve your concerns.
Rather than put it the way you put it, I would say that it does not necessarily follow that blood from a remunerated source is any less safe than blood from an unremunerated source and the studies that have been produced more recently on this issue tend to support that proposition.
Reference has been made to some studies that go in the other direction, but my advice is that those studies are old studies and the more modern view is in accordance with the view that I have just expressed.
Mr President, I would like to corroborate what Commissioner Byrne has just said, with great authority, gravity and professionalism.
Whether the donation is voluntary or not does not affect safety. Safety - and Mr Trakatellis, another man of science, has confirmed this - depends on the quality and sophistication of the tests.
Today we are concerned about prions because there are still no very advanced tests: there has only been one article published in Nature.
I hope that soon, through the flexible and rapid updating mechanism, those tests too can ensure safe blood, but certainly that does not depend on whether a donor is a volunteer or receives an incentive.
Thank you very much, Mr Nisticò.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12.13 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, as a democrat, I have to take on board decisions even if I do not like them.
Yesterday, however, in connection with my report, a decision was taken which points in two directions.
After we had already discussed the legal basis for this decision, and also raised appropriate objections to it, to which we received no response from the Commission, this House decided yesterday to agree to the Commission's legislative proposal and then passed a resolution rejecting the Commission's proposal.
This is recorded under item 11 of the Minutes.
I would now like to propose that the resolution passed by this Parliament yesterday be referred to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs for the purposes of clarification under Article 148(3). There are two specific reasons for this: Firstly, we need clarification as to which of the two resolutions in this instance is actually valid.
Secondly, we need, for the future too, clarification in the Rules of Procedure as to what is to happen in cases such as this.
For if, as appears to me, votes are being, as it were, immediately corrected by the authorities, I find that not exactly in order.
I believe that a correction should in principle be made if the Committee on Constitutional Affairs so decides.
I therefore base my objection on Article 148(3).
I request this House's Committee on Constitutional Affairs to clarify the situation and set down a ruling in the Rules of Procedure as to how we should proceed in future cases of this sort.
Mr Swoboda, I understand the reasons for your request.
I think the President will need to think it over very carefully and assess whether or not to give it positive follow-up.
I cannot give you an answer off the cuff.
I feel it would be discourteous to say no, but it would also be too hasty on my part to give an answer right away.
If your request is accepted the committee responsible should be the one for the Rules of Procedure, which is currently the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
(The Minutes were approved)
European Ombudsman/Code of administrative conduct
Mr President, this week we have been debating very many important issues: the enlargement of the Union, the future governance of the Union and anti-terrorism measures amongst others.
I do not want anybody to think that the issues addressed in the joint debate this morning are not themselves of the utmost importance.
The European Union is a great ideal.
The institutions are undoubtedly worthy and officials of the institutions seek to discharge their functions responsibly.
As the Ombudsman himself said this morning, unfortunately the institutions of Europe do not enjoy the highest reputation amongst our citizens.
It is critical, therefore, that every step is taken to ensure the quality of the administration of European affairs by the EU institutions.
In Parliament we have the Petitions Committee and the Officer of the Ombudsman to oversee allegations of maladministration.
I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of Herbert Bösch in his report on the Ombudsman, my colleague on the later report, Felipe Camisón on the work of the Petitions Committee and Mrs Almeida Garrett on her work on the Statute of the Ombudsman.
We need a new framework agreement so that the Member States also pay more serious attention to their obligations under the EU Treaties.
We should also place on record our appreciation to the Ombudsman and to his staff for the calm and efficient way in which they discharge their functions.
It cannot be easy to be the complaints department of Europe.
It requires special skills and Mr Söderman has shown us that he has those in abundance.
To turn to my own report proposing a code of good administrative behaviour, this has been a long time in the gestation and in the last Parliament there were reports from myself and from Mrs de Esteban proposing a code of good administrative behaviour.
I am grateful to rapporteurs from the Citizens' Rights Committee and the Legal Affairs Committee, in particular Mr Dehousse, who have pointed to a procedural route that could, and will I hope, enable us to get this code.
There are two central principles if the code is to be fully effective.
One, it must be based in law.
Good administration is a right, not a privilege and the code must be uniform for all the institutions.
Citizens need to know where they stand and precisely what their rights are in dealing with the institutions.
The right to good administration is enshrined in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
But without this code, the charter would just be a form of words.
This code is to put flesh on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It is a concept that is contained within similar laws in most of the Member States.
Spain, is just one example.
Its 1992 administrative law requires that citizens be treated with respect and cooperation by the authorities.
Germany and its unfair practice law dating from 1909 enforces good practice upon its officials.
The European Union must now follow suit with its own code of good administrative behaviour.
I appreciate that the Commission in particular, but also the other institutions, have adopted and are applying their own voluntary codes. They are good as far as they go, but they do not go far enough, and they have to be obligatory rather than voluntary.
There are, however, some differences between the proposed code as now drafted by the Ombudsman, which I hope that this House will support, and the codes currently in use.
I would refer just to one of them and that is the requirement that when an error has been made the official concerned has to apologise to the citizen who has suffered as a result.
A readiness to apologise never comes amiss, so I particularly support that particular clause in the draft.
In conclusion, British Members like me are often against written constitutions.
They are alien to our tradition.
They seem to us very often to concentrate on giving power to those in authority and ignoring the rights of the citizen.
But from the Magna Carta 1215 to our citizens' charter of the 1990s, we in Britain have welcomed codes that set out citizens' rights.
I hope that fellow Europeans will see this as a contribution to the good governance of Europe that even British Members can support.
Mr President, Commissioner, Ombudsman, recently, the Charter of Fundamental Rights acknowledged every European citizen' s right to good administration.
We feel that this is a fundamental objective of European integration and, as such, an area that unites us with everyone, in the sense that we are all on the same side, civil servants and politicians, taxpayers and administrators.
Since 1994, European citizens have had their own Ombudsman and know that they can rely on him and his actions, always competent and judicious, to protect their rights and to sensitively and ceaselessly endeavour to correct and improve the running of Community administration.
For this reason, the Ombudsman has always been able to count on the support of this Parliament.
In the course of recent years and through the presentation of annual reports, we have been able to see the increasingly visible affirmation of this still young institution and the increasingly consistent and productive results of its worthy activity.
The time has come today to present you with some amendments to its statute.
We are not of course, talking about a revolution.
Time has proved, and the practice employed by the Ombudsman is an example of this, that the powers and the competences granted him have always been used to fulfil the central objective of his activity, in his ceaseless quest to improve the sound administrative practices of the European Union.
What we are discussing today is simply the adaptation of the Statute' s provisions to the new legislative climate which has, fortunately, been making considerable progress towards the construction of a genuine Europe of the citizens, by improving the speed of a modern administration, which must be increasingly open and transparent.
By clarifying the Ombudsman' s powers of investigation, by giving him all the resources for accessing documents and for uncovering the truth, we can be sure of improving the administration' s operating conditions and of bringing the public closer to the various European institutions.
I wish to say one last word, Mr President, simply to mention the only area which has, on occasions, divided us, on which today an amendment to my report will be tabled which I cannot support.
It concerns the possibility for members of the institutions or more specifically, members of the Commission to also be heard by the Ombudsman.
I am convinced that the majority of this House will understand that given the hazy border that sometimes exists between political and administrative acts, Parliament claims for itself the monopoly on political control of the members of the Commission, as the prerogative of those who have been directly elected by the citizens of Europe and that it acknowledges that this power cannot be delegated.
It is in recognition of this common philosophy that this Parliament, and its rapporteur in particular, hope that the Commission, especially Commissioner Loyola de Palácio, will deliver a favourable opinion and that the Council will approve the amendments that I have tabled today.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate the Ombudsman on the extremely competent work he has done, and especially his work in defence of the rights of all the citizens of the Union.
A special thank you goes to Mrs Almeida Garrett, who has succeeded in putting her case with great ability, and has also been successful in conducting intelligent mediation.
Society advances and the law always follows its progress. Sometimes that progress is rapid and the law seems slow compared with practice.
That is why I think the Ombudsman is right to propose amending Article 3 of the statute, which dates from the 1990s.
However, together with other members of the Committee on Petitions, I felt that the request to amend Article 3 went too far, in particular as regards the obligation to testify, even for members of the Community institutions.
This is because there is a difficulty and confusion, including legal confusion, between control of the institutions' administrative practices and control of political acts of members of those institutions.
There was therefore a need to maintain greater balance, although there is no intention to slow down any investigation, for clarity and above all in defence of proximity and transparency, fundamental pillars contained in the Union' s Treaties.
I think the solution adopted of partial revision, to which the Ombudsman has also contributed with his final letter accepting the positions of the rapporteur, Mrs Almeida Garrett, and the Commissioner, is the best way forward, and in the future appropriate steps can be taken to carry out a more systematic and juridical revision of this statute, respecting Community legislation and continuing to act in accordance with that principle of proximity and transparency which governs - and should continue to govern - the relationship between European citizens and Community institutions.
Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating my fellow committee members, Mr Bösch and Mr Perry, and also Mrs Almeida Garrett, for their reports.
Also Mr Söderman for his continued unstinting defence of European citizenship.
The approach of these reports is based on the need to create a system of transparency and understanding, so that citizens of the European Union can be confident that when they have a legitimate complaint they have recourse to the Ombudsman or the Committee on Petitions, depending on the nature of their problem.
It is important that we clarify for the public the distinct functions of the two institutions and press for more publicity and a more effective information policy for both the Ombudsman's office and Parliament's petition process.
I fully support the view that is necessary to incorporate the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the treaties of the Union, so as to further enhance the rights of citizens of Europe.
To succeed as the most progressive combination of States, we must ensure that our institutions are fully democratic and accountable and that the individual and collective rights of all are guaranteed and defended.
I congratulate the Ombudsman in particular for succinctly identifying - perhaps one of the few to have done so at European level - the underlying reason for the failure of the Irish referendum and that is the gulf between rulers and ruled.
There is absolutely no doubt in my view that that is the case and it has given rise to all kinds of concerns.
The Bösch report quite rightly praises the cooperation between Parliament and the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman's office and the invaluable procedure of referring complaints to the Committee on Petitions where they fall outside his remit.
I welcome the Ombudsman's suggestion that there be a much closer working relationship between the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman's office with regard to the legal implications of some of the cases that come before us.
The Perry report is another piece of important work and, as the Ombudsman has said, it is appropriate that Mr Perry, the author of the report, is given a role in initiating the whole idea of a code of conduct at European level.
It is essential that a common code of conduct applies in all our institutions, so that citizens are not baffled or bamboozled by the response of our institutions to their problems and complaints.
Mr President, these three reports generally give a strong endorsement of the function of the office of Ombudsman and also of its current incumbent and my group warmly congratulates Mr Söderman on his work.
It is clear that the Ombudsman, reinforced by the Charter, plays an increasingly meaningful and forceful role in protecting the citizen from abuses of executive authority.
We have tabled one amendment to Article 3 of the Statute, which would bring Members of the Commission and Members of Parliament as well as members of the agencies of the Union, such as Europol, beneath the purview of the Ombudsman.
The Commission opposes this reform on the grounds that it implies political interference, but we believe that the Ombudsman is perfectly capable of distinguishing between maladministration and defective politics.
The right to inquire into the conduct of those supremely responsible for administration is an essential part of good governance and a necessary complement to, not a substitute for, the work of this Parliament in exercising democratic accountability in relation to the College.
In most, if not all, Member States national ministers are subject to inquiries by the national ombudsman and it would be a pity if European standards of good administration fell below the norms now established in our Member States.
In fact, in our view, they should be superior.
Mr President, the Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, said in this debate this morning that citizenship is perhaps less fashionable than the technocratic way of doing things, and in this he might be right.
However, I would like to say that the Committee on Petitions may even be the very committee in this Chamber that is able to find solutions to the gaping chasm that exists between the people and the decision-makers.
In my opinion these annual discussions are always among the highlights of the year and it is most agreeable to be able to participate in them.
Mr Bösch' s report on the annual report on the Ombudsman' s activities reiterates this call by Parliament for making the Charter of Fundamental Rights a binding component of the Treaties.
This deserves our enthusiastic support as this may just be one way - as Mr Bösch and the Committee state - to reinforce and broaden the scope of the right of petition instrument.
Some day it might evolve into a real citizens' initiative, found in the legislation of some Member States.
With regard to the Code of Good Administrative Behaviour, the subject of Mr Perry' s report, Parliament takes the view that what is needed is a law that is binding on all the institutions making it obligatory that administration should actually serve the people.
It is quite clear that the Commission should now be promoting this swiftly and determinedly.
Mr Duff has already referred to Teresa Almeida Garrett' s report on the Statute of the European Ombudsman, and I have to say his arguments convince me that it should be possible that members of the institutions can also if necessary be heard by the Ombudsman when it is a matter of administrative error.
In my opinion, Members of Parliament have nothing to fear from this as the Ombudsman' s competence is administrative and not political.
I hope Mr Duff' s amendment will be widely supported.
Applause
Mr President, what we are discussing here today is European citizenship and the rights of European citizens themselves.
As I see it, the rapporteur, Mr Perry, is strongly advocating a code of conduct which reflects the aims guiding those who drafted Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, namely the citizens' right to good administration.
Clearly, such a code calls for good administration by all those involved, institutions and officials alike. Furthermore, it should be implemented in the same way within all institutions.
The code must be as widely known, as transparent and as accessible as possible to the citizens and should help to make the European institutions more credible and bring them closer to the citizens.
Incidentally, I have to say that we still have a long way to go to achieve this. In addition, there must be no discrimination for reasons of sex, race, colour, ethnic origin, language or religion when implementing the code.
In this connection, Mr President, I think it is worth mentioning that, even in this institution, far more zeal than usual is displayed in asking one of our German colleagues for her card. It so happens that the lady is of Kurdish descent, with a dark complexion and black eyes and therefore does not look like the average Member.
If such behaviour goes on here, in this very House, imagine what can happen in the wider world. It is therefore essential for the code of conduct to be implemented with no discrimination whatsoever.
The bodies already implementing the code of good conduct proposed by the Ombudsman deserve to be congratulated. I should also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Ombudsman himself on his work.
Through the citizens' complaints the Ombudsman and the European Parliament' s Committee on Petitions on which I sit have become very aware of how much more still has to be done to make the European institutions more credible and bring them closer to the citizens. It is for us to work to promote such closeness and credibility.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to say something about the proposed modification of Article 3 of the Ombudsman' s Statute, in other words Mrs Garrett' s report.
We feel that giving access to all the classified documents from a Member State without the consent of that Member State, even if the documents could concern diplomatic or defence issues, is a very dangerous precedent, especially if this revision is in some way imposed on the Member States.
The perverse result of this measure, if it were adopted, would obviously be that the Member States would be encouraged to retain classified documents rather than passing them on to Community bodies, and this is why my group cannot support this proposal.
At present, with regard to the Bösch report, we do not entirely share Mr Bösch' s optimism on the analysis of the activity of the European Ombudsman.
It is true that the work done by Mr Söderman' s department seems quite remarkable given the modesty of their resources.
However, just over 1 700 complaints received in 2000, of which only 297 have been declared admissible, does not demonstrate good administration by the institutions of Europe, it shows above all a lack of information to citizens on their means of defence against some aspects of Brussels bureaucracy.
As for the tenor of the complaints lodged, which were mainly against the Commission, we feel they are symptomatic: refusal of information, lack of transparency, delayed payment, abuse of power, injustice and even discrimination are the main grievances.
It is on the basis of these grievances that I think we should continue our discussion.
Mr President, Mr Söderman, it is more than ten years since we proposed introducing a European Ombudsman.
We fought for a long time to obtain a proper statute so that the Ombudsman might have the opportunity to inspect everything.
That battle was lost but must now be joined again.
The statute should be revised so that the Ombudsman is entitled to see each and every document before he has to pronounce upon a matter.
The Ombudsman must, of course, respect privacy and reasonable demands for confidentiality, but he must have the opportunity to see everything.
If the Commission' s officials themselves can decide what they want to have inspected, then it is not of course the role of an Ombudsman we are talking about here, but a public relations function.
The European Parliament' s Committee on Budgetary Control has the same problem.
The Commission itself decides what it wishes to have inspected.
Even the Court of Auditors does not have the opportunity fully to inspect the Commission.
The President explained in the Committee that he too is not allowed to see every document.
This is where Mr Prodi ought to begin, instead of issuing further empty promises about more transparency and a closer relationship with the people.
The Ombudsman and the Court of Justice have done some good work in the interests of greater transparency.
Mr Söderman deserves a lot of praise, but the new regulation on transparency will not constitute great progress towards transparency. Instead, it is in danger of being an actual setback.
There is therefore a need now for active efforts on the parts of the Ombudsman, the Court of Auditors and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
A number of active members of the Committee on Budgetary Control have brought legal proceedings against the Commission, and these are something which the whole Parliament should support.
The Court of Auditors ought not to accept a single refusal to let it see a document.
If the event of such a refusal, Parliament should make it known that it is not giving discharge. And why - I would ask the Ombudsman - not appeal to the people and go before the Court of Justice in the event of what you consider to be an unjustified refusal to grant access to documents?
Mr President, I welcome all these reports but will concentrate this morning on the Bösch report, highlighting the very important work carried out by the Ombudsman which goes some way to respecting the idea of transparency and open governance.
This will hopefully show citizens that Europe's institutions do endeavour to act in the interests of its people and that cases of maladministration will always be punished.
Of course the Ombudsman's powers are limited, but I am happy that the report demonstrates that the Ombudsman does his utmost in most cases in the name of fair play.
The bulk of the Ombudsman's report consists of a thorough account of the complaints made to him about maladministration by the European institutions, the investigations his office has carried out and the action taken, including, of course, the results.
However many complaints addressed to the Ombudsman still concern actions by national authorities, for which the European Ombudsman is not competent, and many complaints prove not to merit any action.
The number of cases where the Ombudsman's intervention has proved successful for the complainant shows that the Ombudsman has developed efficient ways of ensuring that the European institutions comply with his recommendations.
The Ombudsman's special reports, based on his right to own-initiative inquiry, make an important contribution to the interpretation and development of Community law.
I particularly welcome the fact that, in connection with the drafting of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Ombudsman has strongly urged that the Charter recognise the citizen's right to an open, accountable and service-minded administration.
Community bodies have a duty to shape Community policies and law in a way which is beneficial and comprehensible to citizens.
The People' s Movement against the EU has, from the very beginning, worked to promote effective supervision of the EU' s institutions by the Ombudsman.
We have never had any illusions that this Nordic guarantee of legal certainty, which is of course what the Ombudsman is, would revolutionise the EU bureaucracies, but if only the Ombudsman could clear just a few negotiable paths in the EU jungle, we should view this as progress.
The Ombudsman does not have an easy time of it.
It requires a great deal of patience to put up with the EU systems' inertia.
The Ombudsman' s very moderate proposals for a Code of Good Administrative Behaviour for the individual institutions has of course been met with that mixture of verbal good will and practical passivity which, in practice, can block any progress, and the current restrictions upon the Ombudsman' s ability to obtain any of the relevant information on the matters with which he is dealing - we are concerned here with Article 3 of the statute - is downright scandalous.
The Ombudsman is patient, however.
The institutions shelve recommendations and enquiries, but that does not cause the Ombudsman to give up.
The mill turns slowly, but I believe it turns all the same.
A regulation concerning good administrative behaviour - and which is not ineffectual nonsense from the Commission, but the Ombudsman' s own proposal - is something that we shall be able to support.
Such a regulation will not revolutionise the various forms of administration. For that, fundamental changes to the administrative culture are required, and these will not come overnight.
However, the rules can help develop legal certainty and transparency. Accordingly, we are able to support the proposal to amend Article 3 which, in its present state, really means that the institutions can refuse to provide the Ombudsman with the information needed for him to be able to exercise any supervision at all.
I do not consider the proposal to be far-reaching enough, but limited progress is better than nothing.
I wish Mr Söderman every success.
Mr President, the joint debate of these three reports is an important debate.
We need to convince people that the work of the Ombudsman is not just important, it is crucial to the proper integration of the European Union.
Unfortunately, a great many of our fellow Members still do not know this.
Luckily, these duties are being carried out by the experienced Mr Söderman, with his usual degree of enthusiasm for the job.
I drafted the report on the application of Community law and saw the huge problems caused by the poor application of Community law at first hand.
This is not just a legal problem, it is also a social problem, because the society of European citizens malfunctions as a result, and it is a political problem, because it reflects how mature we are about the type of European legal order we want.
At the same time, I saw the huge role played by the Ombudsman in ensuring that this legal order operates smoothly in the Community.
I need only remind you that most infringements of Community law are only discovered as the result of the complaints system.
The second point I want to make in connection with the regulatory role of the Ombudsman is that the right of complaint and petition is tending to develop into a conciliation procedure for resolving differences amicably, which is the only way of settling differences flexibly and cheaply and freeing up the Court of the European Communities.
However, first of all we must do everything humanly possible to find a way of cutting down the time taken to complete the procedure.
I should like to close by pointing out that we need a generally applicable code of conduct on general principles and that individual organisations should only have their own code of conduct on matters which relate specifically to them.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Ombudsman for the splendid job he has done with a view to securing citizens' rights in the EU system.
The institution of the Ombudsman is very important, and it is important that we should all constantly keep an eye on it and ensure that it can thrive, in the light of the new developments too.
The Ombudsman himself stated that there is a gulf between the EU and its citizens.
We do a lot of talking about it, but in reality we bring about very few radical steps to change the situation.
One of the reasons why people cannot fathom the EU system is also, of course, the utterly hopeless way in which we have organised ourselves, with a physical presence in Luxembourg, Brussels and Strasbourg, and I think one might well ask whether it is particularly appropriate for the Ombudsman to be located here in Strasbourg, though this is, of course, also partly due to the Ombudsman' s own decision.
I do not think it is appropriate.
I think it means that the Ombudsman is very easily sidelined in relation to the EU' s other institutions which he has, of course, to inspect but then also to reform, and I am inclined to think that it might go some way towards creating further conflicts.
I would go on to specify a couple of specific areas.
The first is the White Paper.
The Ombudsman himself touched upon this.
I think this is a very good example of a situation in which, as Mr Prodi pointed out the other day, the fact that the Ombudsman does not associate with the Commission on a daily basis means that he is not mentioned at all in the White Paper, as it would otherwise have been only natural for him to have been.
The other thing I should like to say is that I think, in fact, that there are too few complaints.
I am well aware that the Ombudsman is pressed for time, but I cannot understand why there are not more complaints, considering the huge institutional apparatus with which we are concerned here.
The third very important point is that the Ombudsman has made an effort to obtain ombudsmen for the candidate countries.
It is, of course, extremely important that, when the new candidate countries come on board, we also make sure they understand the nature of good administrative behaviour, seeing that they do not of course, in reality, have any special experience of our way of administering matters.
Fourthly, I am very pleased that the Ombudsman has addressed the subject of the e-mail system and that he is doing some energetic work on this so that we obtain real complaints and not only junk complaints.
Mr President, I too welcome these reports and, with particular reference to Mrs Almeida Garrett's report, I welcome the proposals to extend the Ombudsman's right of access to all documents.
I particularly welcome the proposed change relating to the status of documents emanating from Member States.
In the Committee on Petitions and elsewhere, we are running into difficulties on this question: to whom does information belong? It is crucial that the Ombudsman should have the widest possible access and I agree with comments made by colleagues concerning the need for greater openness.
I only regret that we did not pursue this issue more fully in the Parliament's own debate on access to sensitive documents.
Mr Perry's report is also important, especially in its definition of an institution and the emphasis on the willingness to be helpful and to communicate.
Other civil services could well learn from this and I also welcome the extension of non-discrimination in his proposed Amendment No 11 to Article 5.
Mr President, this year too the Ombudsman' s annual report makes for inspiring reading.
I think it is on the right lines, and it is very gratifying to read that the Ombudsman has obtained the documents he asked for.
I hope this practice will rub off on the rest of the EU system, for that is the way it should be.
Only through openness do we ensure that it is possible to combat fraud and irregularities and that politicians have a better image in the eyes of the population.
We might well have had more use for the Ombudsman in relation to a case in Britain in which Lloyd's cheated thousands of people, an event which led to a long list of tragedies in the form of suicides and much else besides.
We see a lack of openness in the British government, the Council and the Commission, and it would be useful if the Ombudsman could give us further help on this issue.
I believe that the Committee on Petitions should have greater powers.
It is perhaps one of the most important committees, for it is here that the ordinary person within the EU system can come to raise matters.
It is therefore also incredibly important that there should be a powerful committee which can help him when he does just that.
I should like to say that when I heard my fellow MEP' s, Mr Krarup' s, speech, I was very surprised indeed.
Naturally, there were the snide remarks that are bound to come from an opponent but, knowing Mr Krarup as I do, what we have here is proof that he loves this system and really thinks it is fantastically good. It is just that he does not really want to say so.
I believe then that, somewhere along the line, even Mr Krarup will say that we need the EU.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteurs and Mr Söderman on their work.
It has made it possible for me to discuss with you issues of an institutional nature which are important to the efficient operation of the European Union. In particular, they are important to our relations with the citizens, and we do need to bring the Union' s institutions as close to the citizens as possible.
I should like to turn first to the Bösch report, the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman for the year 2000. Allow me to say once again how much the Commission appreciates the excellent work undertaken by the European Ombudsman' s office, and how grateful it is for it.
The Ombudsman himself, Mr Söderman, deserves particular recognition.
He is the driving force and is largely responsible for the results and beneficial effects achieved by this new institution of the European Ombudsman. It has to be said that the citizens of Europe are daily becoming more familiar with it.
The European Ombudsman' s work focuses on poor administration and the Commission is bound to improve its administration and the quality of services provided for the benefit of the citizens.
In this context, the Commission shares the concerns expressed by the rapporteur. In particular, it agrees with the need to receive the Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions as positively as possible, and provide them with every facility required.
One aspect of the Bösch report of particular concern to us is the follow-up to critical comments.
Last year, we, in the Commission, set up a new procedure for methodical review of the conclusions to be drawn from the cases dealt with by the Ombudsman.
As I see it, we have definitely improved as far as study, approval and consequently cooperation with the Ombudsman are concerned.
Allow me to refer to two examples to illustrate such follow-up. Firstly, further to the Ombudsman' s initiative, the Commission agreed to make the scripts of candidates in competitive examinations available to them as of 1 July 2000.
Ladies and gentlemen, these are not empty words but actual facts.
I venture to suggest that some of you should keep a closer eye on what is actually happening.
You have levelled some serious criticisms at the Commission. It is only fair to criticise the Commission when it acts inappropriately.
In my view however, constant criticism, targeting the Commission' s work just for the sake of it, is entirely unhelpful. It does not promote the Commission, the institutions as a whole or the idea of Europe amongst the citizens.
Criticism should be voiced when it is called for.
We shall work towards improvements across the board. Furthermore, we shall take all critical comments into account and study, analyse and assess them.
Another example I should like to refer to concerns the citizens' right to freedom of expression and lifting the age limit for staff recruitment.
The Commission is inclined, for example, to offer its political support here. However, these issues go beyond our competence and impact on other institutions too.
For instance, an interinstitutional agreement is required to amend the maximum age at which staff can be recruited. We do endorse and accept the view expressed and are prepared to discuss the matter with the other institutions.
Nonetheless, it remains to be seen whether the latter will endorse Mr Söderman' s approach. As I said, we totally support it.
I shall now move on to Mr Perry' s report on the code of good administrative conduct.
Mr Perry has highlighted how these codes of good conduct are crucially important in guaranteeing a high quality service to European citizens.
They constitute an important tool for us, as we strive to turn the right to good administration enshrined in the European Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights into an operational guide for the staff of the European institutions.
The Commission therefore warmly welcomed the study undertaken by the European Ombudsman into the existence of such codes. Furthermore, the Commission worked closely with Mr Söderman in drawing up the code of good administrative conduct.
The latter is now complete and contains a great many of his suggestions and contributions. It would not be fair to say that all his ideas have been included but most certainly have.
Once again, I should like to thank Mr Söderman for his unfailingly positive approach and for always making helpful suggestions.
We have taken full account of the provisions contained in the Ombudsman' s draft code amongst the various other codes adopted by European institutions and bodies.
Indeed, the Commission' s code approximates most closely to the model put forward by the Ombudsman. This is not only because of its content and legal nature, but also because it is binding on our officials.
I also wanted to urge you not to confuse issues, ladies and gentlemen.
The White Paper on good governance stands for much more than administrative reform.
Administrative reform is already under way and is Commissioner Kinnock' s responsibility. To date, this House has agreed with the Commission that much has already been achieved in that respect.
We must carry the administrative reform through.
We are quite determined to do so.
Mr Kinnock is working very hard to that end, but it is a different issue, quite separate from good governance.
As I said, the White Paper on good governance stands for much more than administrative reform. It aims to establish how best to gather, bring together and integrate the various links in the chain of responsibility within our complex society.
This is a problem not only for the European institutions but for all our countries, all advanced democracies. Society is becoming ever more complex, the technological means allowing information to flow more freely are increasingly widespread, and new possibilities are opening up.
In addition, the way in which citizens organise themselves is daily becoming more complex.
Hence the significance of the White Paper. It puts all this in the context of the interplay between the European institutions.
That amounts to far more than administrative reform.
Consequently, administrative reform should not be confused with the White Paper on good governance being drawn up by the Commission under President Prodi' s guidance.
I should like to make it very clear to Mr Perry that the Commission agrees with him and with Mr Söderman on how unfortunate it is that such a wide range of codes of varying legal status are currently in place. This does nothing for consistency or legal clarity.
It should however be borne in mind as Mr Perry suggests in his report, that it would be wise to consider the results of the codes of good conduct implemented or approved recently. In the Commission' s case, this was ten months ago.
As for the Council, it was just before the summer, in July. In our view therefore it is still too early to draw conclusions on the implementation of these codes of good conduct.
We shall start work on a report at the end of the current year. The report will refer in particular to the Commission' s own code of good conduct which will by then have been in place for a year.
As soon as sufficient information becomes available, the Commission will consider whether or not to prepare a legislative proposal for a horizontal regulation.
We need to have more information available so we do not at present have a position on the matter.
As for Mrs Almeida Garrett' s report, I have to say that from an institutional point of view it is undoubtedly the most sensitive.
I shall only refer to it briefly however, because pursuant to Article 195 of the Treaty the Commission is only competent to give an opinion, and the latter is not binding.
Nonetheless, I feel it is important to make our view known.
In the first place, Mrs Almeida Garrett deserves to be congratulated on her excellent work.
I have also had the opportunity to speak on the subject at the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and to emphasise how well the present statute has worked.
As I stated earlier, the Commission has followed up investigations launched by the Ombudsman.
The code of good conduct is but one example of this.
In general, the Commission provides a constructive response and complies with the timetable for supplying information to the Ombudsman. I am grateful to Mr Söderman for highlighting this.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs has tabled three amendments.
Regarding lifting the secrecy classification for access to files, I have already explained that the Commission has not resorted to this in any of the twenty requests for access submitted by the Ombudsman.
We could certainly succumb to the temptation of bringing the law into line with reality and go along with the position adopted by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. On the other hand, given that everything has worked well, we might also query whether it is really necessary to amend this point.
We should always err on the side of caution when dealing with delicate matters, given the Commission' s role and the nature of the issues it is dealing with at present. Indeed, the latter will become increasingly delicate and varied as the building of Europe proceeds.
We might also encounter problems with the governments of Member States of the Union.
The structure of the European Union, based as it is on three pillars, means that the function of the Commission and also that of Parliament itself varies depending on the pillar in question.
The Commission will therefore deal with these matters in greater detail in the opinion to be given and put to Parliament in the near future, once a final position on the text approved has been adopted.
Concerning the deletion of the principle according to which when officials give evidence they speak as representatives of their administration, the Commission does not wish to be dogmatic, but we do feel that it is important for officials not to speak simply as individuals. Rather, they should put forward the details and explanations pertaining to matters they are responsible for.
For the rest, they should comply with what is required of them under their statutes.
Further, I should like to emphasise that as a former Member of Parliament, let alone a Commissioner, I fully endorse the position of the rapporteur, Mrs Almeida Garrett, regarding the differences between political and administrative responsibilities and the European Parliament' s responsibility concerning political responsibilities, the responsibilities of Commissioners and indeed not only Commissioners but members of other institutions.
As regards access to documents emanating from the Member States it would be appropriate, as I said earlier, to be consistent with the new Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 on public access to documents.
The principle of obtaining prior consent from the Member State is provided for under Article 4 Paragraph 5 of the Regulation, and in the framework agreement with Parliament.
Declaration 35 annexed to the Final Act of the Treaty of Amsterdam serves a similar purpose.
In conclusion, Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs once again.
I must also say how very grateful I am to Mr Söderman for his work. It is most helpful to us because after all, criticism encourages us to improve and also offers solutions.
That has to be borne in mind. We have already made progress regarding the code of good conduct, infringement procedures, and officials' freedom, to name but a few examples.
I venture to suggest in this context that many things are open to criticism, because nothing is perfect. When, however, one fails to go deeper and criticism is unfounded, it runs the risk of losing its value or at the very least, proving less effective.
Thank you, Mr Söderman.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Petitions
The next item is the report (A5-0236/2001) by Mr Camisón Asensio on behalf of the Committee on Petitions on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year. [2001/2010(INI)].
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank and congratulate Mr Camisón on the both meticulous and prospective work that he has done in writing his report.
Thanks to him our colleagues can be aware of the expectations of the citizens of the Union and therefore of the task of the Committee on Petitions.
The situations in which petitioners find themselves are often Kafkaesque.
That is what comes out of reading some of the cases mentioned by Mr Camisón: whether they are problems of recognition of qualifications, discrimination, payment, or withdrawal of vehicle registration, the complexity is such and the obstacles so clear that citizens feel completely powerless.
The combined work of our Committee and the European Commission means that, by dealing with the problems, what is felt to be injustice can be corrected.
The Committee on Petitions can go further, however.
It can involve citizens in drawing up Community rules.
On 13 June, I had the honour of putting a report on silicone implants to the vote in Parliament.
This report is an example of the use, which is unfortunately all too rare, of paragraphs 1 and 4 of Article 175 of the Rules of Procedure, which says in particular that the committee responsible may decide to draw up reports on the petitions that it has declared to be admissible and, if necessary, to put motions for resolutions to the vote in Parliament.
This was the case for the report for which I was responsible.
It was following two petitions collecting more than 1000 signatures that this report was undertaken.
But it was only the second time since the Committee on Petitions was created that a resolution adopted by Parliament resulted from direct complaints from citizens of the European Union.
As advocated by Paragraph 18 of Mr Camisón' s report, in this case our Committee called on STOA to make a scientific analysis of the problems encountered by petitioners.
Increased use of Article 175, an idea that is defended by the rapporteur, should enable our Committee to make a direct link between citizens' problems and all the Members of the European Parliament.
In my view, this is a political recognition of truly listening to citizens and it is one of the paths for the future for the Committee on Petitions.
Mr President, the fact that over 10 000 petitions have been received by the Committee on Petitions since its inception clearly demonstrates the practical significance of the European Union for its citizens.
The work of the Committee on Petitions has often led to a successful conclusion for the citizen concerned and has in some cases resulted in changes to national law and practice in Member States.
The areas that present the greatest difficulties to individuals and groups of citizens continue to be social protection, healthcare, taxation and recognition of academic qualifications, particularly for citizens who work in states other than their own Member States, such as in border regions.
Environmental complaints are also made on major developments where it is felt that their impact on the environment and the livelihoods of people in the areas affected is being ignored by the developers and in some cases by the authorities concerned.
There have been many successes.
For instance, an Irish petitioner with a UK higher institute teaching qualification was refused the right to apply for a post in a state school.
The Commission took up this case on behalf of the petitioner and the Committee on Petitions and eventually won the case, having met strong resistance from the German authorities.
That is the kind of success that can be achieved by the Committee on Petitions and we need more resources if the Committee on Petitions is to do its work effectively.
Mr President, I should begin by saying how much I appreciate the work undertaken by the Committee on Petitions.
I am aware that it is not one of the most influential committees in the House, and that not everyone appreciates it fully. Nonetheless, the work of this Committee does represent one of the few channels allowing us to establish direct contact with the citizens and bring the institutions closer to them.
I entirely agree with Mr Camisón Asensio' s report.
I believe it reflects the concerns of those of us who are most closely involved with the Committee' s work. We shall therefore vote in favour of it.
I should however like to highlight some of the everyday practical problems we encounter...
(Interruption by Mr Marinos) I do apologise, Mr Marinos.
I was saying that we work well in the Committee on Petitions and that our work is very important.
I was hoping to highlight some of the everyday problems we encounter.
Firstly, we enjoy a good relationship with the European Commission. The European Commission and the Ombudsman work closely with the Committee on Petitions.
The opposite is true as far as the Council is concerned. We do not cooperate with it at all, yet the Council could have something to say on a good many petitions and we very much regret it is always absent.
That is our first problem.
The second problem I would like to mention concerns swift and decisive action on petitions.
I am very involved in the Committee on Petitions' work on environmental issues. That is quite logical, as I also sit on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
It is often the case with environmental problems that if it takes a long time for a response to be received, the decisions taken in a particular country prompting the petition have had an irreversible impact on the natural environment by then. The petitioners lose patience.
That therefore is another problem. Responses need to be swifter and more efficient.
I am well aware that Member States are conscious of the fact that delaying responses can facilitate their political decisions. That is sometimes the case.
It is not entirely the Commission' s fault.
The Member States take a long time to respond.
As I said earlier, the Committee on Petitions is very important to me. It is however lacking in human, legal - and here I am addressing our own institution of course - and technical resources, and it does need them.
One of Mr Camisón Asensio' s proposals seems to me to be entirely appropriate.
It would mean that in cases of lengthy delay in responding to the citizens, the President of Parliament would be requested to publicise the delay and its negative consequences for the petitioners. After all, the latter have enough to do familiarising themselves with Community legislation and assembling the documentation.
In conclusion, I do believe that work needs to be done to educate and inform citizens of their right to petition, because this is one of their rights.
I recall that in the previous legislature it was even proposed to do away with the Committee on Petitions and the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities. For myself, I wish both Committees a great future in this House as they do at least bring the citizens closer to our work.
Mr President, there is much to support in and little to add to the excellent report by Mr Camisón Asensio.
I merely wish to highlight the inexcusable fact that the Committee on Petitions is still being rudely ignored by the Council of Ministers, none of whom - not so much as a representative - has ever wanted to work with us.
Why would they?
European citizens generally take recourse to the Committee on Petitions precisely in order to complain about infringements or omissions by ministers and their services, when they are wronged or when their protest or complaint is ignored.
That is precisely why the Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman have become the refuge of those who believe that they have been wronged or who, as civic-minded citizens, are trying to do something about infringements, injustice or the destruction of the environment.
That is why the European Parliament needs to pay greater attention to the Committee on Petitions and to give it more scope for efficient intervention.
It is true that the Committee works closely with us but it often comes up against the indifference and filibustering of national services.
As a result, cases drag on interminably, to the disappointment of the European citizens seeking our support.
That is why the Camisón Asensio report quite rightly says that short, mandatory deadlines need to be introduced for dealing with petitions more quickly.
At the same time, we need a procedure for publicising complaints and the inertia or filibustering of the authorities against which the complaint has been made in the petitioner's country.
This will give citizens the only weapon which the guilty authorities fear: publicity which exposes them to the voters.
A proposal which, if adopted, would I think be hugely important: we need, subject to certain requirements, to introduce an injunctions procedure so that an immediate stop can be put to any incipient infringements of Community law which threaten to wreak irreparable damage on the natural environment or our cultural heritage.
Because the time-consuming procedure up to final judgment by the European Court is bereft of any material value if the damage has already been done and cannot be reversed.
Mr President, as this debate comes to an end I would like to thank all the rapporteurs - Mr Bösch, Mr Perry, Mrs Almeida Garrett, Mrs Sbarbati, Mr Camisón Asensio - and all the Members who are committed to the institution of petitions.
I also would like to thank the European Ombudsman who carries on the fight in defence of the citizens from his observation post.
We are working together, of course, and we too are working for the citizens of Europe, because they have a champion in this Parliament, the most authoritative institution in that respect.
Thanks to the European Commission' s particular sensitivity, as demonstrated by the preparation behind the officers' explanations of their reports in the Committee on Petitions, we have made great progress.
However, more and more European citizens are presenting petitions on personal, social and environmental problems. It is our duty give them increasingly relevant, detailed, and satisfying responses.
Their petitions illuminate the path the Union still has to travel to ensure peace of mind for our citizens.
Of course we do not want dull and amorphous standardisation in the European Union, rather we think above all that cultural differences should be harmonised by turning those differences into the true wealth of the institutions.
We have entered a season of reform, defence and strengthening of the institution of petitions and we believe that season of reform will give us the power to defend the citizens and, at the same time, make the European institutions better known to our ever-growing population.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of this debate is the same as for the previous one, namely relations between the European institutions and the citizens.
I should like to congratulate Mr Camisón Asensio on his report.
In it he emphasises how petitions allow the citizens to make their legitimate aspirations known and also draw attention to the inherent weaknesses of Community legislation. The Commission is interested in your work on both these counts, ladies and gentlemen.
As an outside observer, allow me to reiterate what I said earlier to Mrs González.
I believe that the Committee on Petitions in this House does serve to bring the citizens closer to the institutions in general. The same is true of similar committees in other Parliaments I am acquainted with, for instance in my own country' s parliament, with which I am most familiar.
They play a key part precisely in bringing the citizens closer to the institutions in general. They are also invaluable to the work of Members themselves, making them aware of issues a significant number of citizens feel are sensitive and worthy of concern.
This last year, not only have the Commission' s services cooperated with this Committee, but we Commissioners have also made it our business to cooperate actively with you, ladies and gentlemen. I would therefore like to thank Mr Gemelli for his remark.
It is certainly the case that Mr Kinnock, Mr Liikanen, Mrs Wallström and Mr Bolkestein have contributed to your work. They have come in person to discuss and explain issues.
They have tried to adduce reasons, possibilities or solutions to concerns expressed by the Committee on Petitions further to requests or complaints by citizens. This proves how much we in the Commission value your work, ladies and gentlemen.
In this connection I should like to reiterate what I said earlier. The Commission will respond in as open and constructive a manner as possible to your desire for strengthened cooperation.
I appreciate that the time it sometimes takes for us to respond to a query is a problem. Nonetheless, I am sure the House is aware that on most if not all occasions when problems were experienced they arose because the Commission was dependent on a Member State for information.
We have to deal with different administrations.
The only way we can obtain certain types of information from Member States is by exerting political pressure. There are no other means at our disposal.
The Commission brings pressure to bear in the same way as you do, ladies and gentlemen. We publicise the fact that the Member State in question has failed to respond to a query or is hindering a response by the Commission.
I can only promise that the Commission will continue to urge Member States to act on queries as quickly as possible, supplying the information requested. We will then be able to respond appropriately to the concerns raised by you.
In that sense we shall endeavour to continue cooperating fully with the House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Sugar and preparations intended for human consumption
The next item is the report (A5-0217/2001) by Mr Lannoye on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the simplification of certain directives on foodstuffs under the draft Council directives concerning the simplification of the vertical directives on foodstuffs: Proposals for Council directives relating to:
1. certain sugars intended for human consumption
(13003/1992 - C5-0346/1999 - 1996/0113(CNS));
2. honey
(8701/2000 - C5-0347/1999 - 1996/0114(CNS));
3. fruit juices and certain similar products intended for human consumption
(13760/1999) - C5-0348/1999 - 1996/0115(CNS));
4. certain partly or wholly dehydrated preserved milk for human consumption
(14002/1999 - C5-0349/1999 - 1999/0116(CNS));
5. fruit jams, jellies and marmalades and chestnut purée intended for human consumption
(7138/2000 - C5-0350/1999 - 1996/0118(CNS)) (Renewed consultation) [14003/1999 - C5-0346/1999 - 1996/0113(CNS)].
Mr President, we are being asked to discuss directives about breakfast at the end of the morning.
It is a little late, but I am still going to attempt it.
I would first of all like to point out that this is the second time that we have been consulted on this issue.
In the previous legislature, Parliament gave its opinion on the Commission' s proposals on the simplification of vertical directives on sugar, honey, fruit juices, milk and jams.
The Council took a great deal of time to finalise the case and finally made significant changes to the Commission' s initial proposals.
This is why we are being consulted again today.
I therefore remind you that the idea was to simplify the directives.
The point of view of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is certainly compatible with this objective, but it also consists of not abandoning quality requirements in the name of simplification, and above all not compromising on good consumer information.
All the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, a large proportion of which came from the rapporteur, have this aim.
I would like to point out that the consensus in the Council obviously limits our room for manoeuvre, as we are simply being consulted, that is to say that following our vote today, the Council will, at the end of the day, be completely free to decide.
Nevertheless, I think that the amendments succeed in improving the texts from the point of view that I just specified: quality of products and correct consumer information.
I am going to review the various directives in order to give the main elements of them.
First of all, on sugars, there is a small problem of definition.
The Council, quite rightly, has defined a sugar that is being increasingly used, fructose, but it failed to give a definition of what it calls brown sugar.
Parliament' s amendment therefore asks for a definition in the texts.
A deadline needs to be imposed, but the Commission needs to propose a definition.
That seems elementary.
The second case, that of honey.
This is a sensitive case insofar as honey is a high quality product, usually produced on a small scale, with which there have been many marketing problems in previous years, inasmuch as we often see mixtures of honeys and also honeys coming onto the European Union market whose quality is not guaranteed.
We therefore need to be vigilant on definitions and labelling.
The Commission proposes adding a new category of honey, filtered honey.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy proposes that we do not accept this proposal, as filtered honey is in fact a honey whose floral origin cannot be checked.
Most of the time it has lost the pollen that allows this to be checked, which prevents the product from being well defined and goes against a guarantee of quality for consumers.
We therefore propose that we do not accept this proposal.
With regard to harmful substances that may be found in honey for industry or baker' s honey, we think that it should be forbidden for them to be present in honey.
We are of course talking about lower quality honeys, which are used as raw materials in certain preparations in the agricultural and food industry, but there is no question of accepting the presence of harmful substances.
There is therefore an amendment from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy in this respect.
The third case, that of fruit juices.
I think that the majority of the amendments are aimed not at making major changes to the proposal from the Commission and the Council, but rather at clarifying the texts and preventing them from going off course.
I will explain: we do not feel that a non-exhaustive list of treatments and substances authorised for production, as it is envisaged, is satisfactory.
A positive list should be given.
We therefore ask the Commission to put forward, within a certain period, a positive list of filtration adjuvants, precipitation agents and absorption adjuvants.
A positive list means that substances that are not on the list are forbidden.
We think that this is clearer, in the end, and more positive for consumers.
An amendment also asks for fungicides not to be used to preserve fruits to be used to make juices, but for only preservation by chilling to be permitted.
With regard to the fourth case, that of milk, there are no proposals for modification.
We think that the text proposed to us is quite satisfactory.
For jams, I personally reintroduced an amendment that was not accepted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, but which I hold to.
It concerns not accepting the general use of a chemical flavouring in jams and marmalades, that is vanillin.
It does not strictly do anything apart from altering the taste.
Mr President, it is about five years ago that the Council consulted us on the proposal to simplify seven vertical directives on foodstuffs.
The aim of those proposals was to simplify the existing legislation, which contains far too much detail, or to replace it by directives containing only the essential requirements.
In that way, they would be easier to implement and better correspond to the horizontal directives.
This is a commendable effort which is in line with the expectations of both consumers and those who are involved in other ways.
We, the PPE-DE Group, are keen to lend our support in this connection.
We have established that the Directive on cocoa and chocolate products, which also originally formed part of this package and which had to undergo the lengthiest legislative procedure, namely that of co-decision, was the first one we managed to complete.
As for the five other directives of the package of seven, the five we are debating today, we will ultimately require more than five years to complete the simplification procedure.
We do wonder if we should not aspire to faster working methods and other decision-making methods, for we do not believe that that is what the public wants.
The PPE-DE Group would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
The delay is certainly not due to him, but due to the fact that the Council has fundamentally changed certain components, thus necessitating fresh advice from us.
On behalf of the PPE-DE Group, I can say that we are in agreement with the report as it emerged from the vote in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
That is the case for all components of the package, except for fruit juices.
On these, our view differs slightly from that in the report, but that was also apparent in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
I do not believe, therefore, that I need to go into any more detail here regarding the reasoning, motives and strands of thought behind that difference of view.
However, I do not want to conceal the fact - and I should like to devote the rest of my speaking time to this - that we in our group, further to these issues arising, have held a serious debate on the issue of whether it is really up to a Parliament to discuss such detailed measures with 626 Members.
This is creating problems for us.
Parliament is being slated for this from outside.
That does not mean that we underestimate the importance of food legislation.
We realise that the detail is important in this connection, but we do wonder whether, with the material being at such a high technical level, we really are the people best placed to take the decisions and whether we should inconvenience 626 MEPs with these kinds of far-reaching, technical measures.
The question we asked ourselves is: should we not move towards two kinds of derived legislation, one on which Parliament deliberates and another which, surely, should be entrusted to the executive? This discussion has certainly not reached its conclusion, but I should welcome a discussion which includes groups other than the PPE-DE Group.
Mr President, back in 1998 this Parliament approved the five directives under discussion today with amendments.
They have been referred back to us simply because there are some changes to the comitology procedure.
I note with satisfaction that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has no objections to the revised procedure.
It is, however, proposing new textual changes to the draft directive.
The purpose of the directives is to simplify rules governing composition and labelling.
We should therefore avoid complicating matters.
Political agreement has been reached on this issue after long and arduous negotiations and we should therefore avoid reopening the negotiations at all costs.
I agree with changes that add clarity to texts but do not change the substance.
One case in point is the inclusion of the definition of brown sugar.
This would be an added protection for consumers.
In relation to fruit juices, the proposed changes to the treatments and substances would be more appropriate within the horizontal legislation governing these treatments.
The suggestion to introduce three new product names for fruit juices is not in line with proposals currently under discussion on the Codex.
Furthermore, they will only serve to reopen the entire debate.
I do not believe that substantial changes, if adopted by this House, will achieve anything.
They will only serve to delay the procedure.
If that happens, it is the consumers who will be the losers in the end.
Mr President, talking about food is not very easy these days.
If we then turn to purely technical aspects such as those addressed by Mr Lannoye, the complications increase.
We find ourselves in agreement with his report, except for the point raised by Mr Thyssen.
However the point I want to make is not about the actual merit of the report, but rather about an evaluation that this Parliament needs to carry out over the next few months on the future legislative method.
We also found certain points in this report where we have either aggravated the situation or intervened in legislation already dealt with in the course of the last two months, and here I am thinking, for example, of problems relating to water.
Coordinated production of legislation can, I think, only be helpful to this institution.
Another aspect I want to bring up is the excessive regulation to which we subject our legislative process, which is not reflected in our Member States.
In the Member States a whole series of areas are dealt with through the method of circulars.
As regards the report we drew up last year with the Commission, we will have to think very carefully about those issues, because I do not think a consumer who is buying honey is immediately aware of whether it is honey produced in beehives or filtered honey, even if the label is clear.
As our task is to be impartial and we need to produce legislation that is comprehensible to European citizens, perhaps further thought is necessary over the next few months.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen: I would like to make use of the short time available to me to comment on Article 3 of the Directive on fruit juices.
Today, we are increasingly advocating information and clarification for consumers.
Responsible, adult consumers, getting information from product labels, are meant to decide for themselves what they buy.
Strict, clear, unambiguous regulations, the thinking behind which is clear to all, must be enacted.
Descriptions such as 'juice' , 'fruit juice' , 'nectar' , 'fruit juice from concentrate' or even 'contains fruit' make it difficult for consumers to assess a product's true quality or know how it was produced.
It was in 1975 that the Fruit Juice Directive first introduced consumers to the designation 'fruit juice' or reinforced it, and consumers have got used to it.
'Fruit juice' and 'fruit juice from concentrate' are in the final analysis one and the same product.
The designation 'fruit juice from concentrate' refers only to the manufacturing process and not to the ingredients, which must of course be the same.
The additional designation 'with concentrates' tends in my view to confuse.
Product designations must be clearly defined, simple and comprehensible.
We must prevent additional descriptions which are not absolutely necessary, as confusion is no protection for consumers.
In my view, the proposed Amendments Nos 18, 19 and 25 make the current legal position stricter in an unjustifiable way, particularly for the juice industry, and I believe they should be rejected.
Fruit to be sold fresh in markets, in other words for consumption, may be treated with fungicides.
Why, then, not fruit for juice production? In exactly the same way, the criteria of the EU Drinking Water Directive must suffice for the water which has to be used in the preparation of fruit juice.
I would ask you therefore, ladies and gentlemen, to vote objectively and purposefully to set a directive on course which will help the consumer and which manufacturers will be able to implement.
Mr President, I share some of Mrs Thyssens' reservations about what we are being asked to do here and the degree of expertise with which we do it.
Mr Lannoye knows he has my respect, but I have to say with some regret that I fear we are repeating some of the debating errors of the chocolate directive and the determination to rechristen some products.
Mr Lannoye's amendments have caused confusion in the name of purity when we come to the issue of honey.
I agree with him about fruit juice and I certainly salute his motives.
But there are a number of Member States which use filtered honey extensively to remove insect debris, grains of sand and pollen fragments.
I have heard no convincing argument that this damage of the product adds unwanted material and indeed there are other amendments before us today which call for the removal of organic and inorganic material from some honeys.
The Council had arrived at a sensible position on this and I have seen no evidence - and I have checked back with our own Food Standards Agency - that there are any legitimate concerns about content.
There are other ways of tracing the origins of honey, as well as the pollen content to which the rapporteur has referred.
Finally I would like to look at what a number of Member States call 'baker's honey' , which is to be redefined, if the rapporteur has his way, as 'industrial honey' .
There is no such thing.
I would like to think this was an unwitting translation error but this derogatory phraseology is probably not accidental.
By just putting a noun with an adjective you cannot always make sense.
If I were to describe Mr Lannoye, whom I hold in esteem as an 'industrial Belgian' , it would be a meaningless phrase.
We should use a real description understood throughout the Community, not an invented one.
This is not a product only fit to grease the wheels of industry.
It is a product that people know and have confidence in and it is safe for consumers.
Mr President, Commissioner, as time is short I shall only refer to the directive on fruit juice.
The Commission' s proposal is sound and does not require amendment.
In particular, I welcome the double definition of juice from concentrate and fruit juice. It helps to keep the consumer better informed.
Consequently I cannot support Amendment No 39, deleting the Commission' s text. I do support Amendment No 30 dealing with the subject in greater depth and referring back to Annex 1.
Further, I totally reject Amendments Nos 18, 19, 23 and 25.
The first of these concerns a ban on the use of fungicides in treatments after gathering.
It has to be borne in mind that fruit gathered in Europe is in principle destined for the fresh fruit trade. The decision on which fruit will be sold fresh and which will be processed is only taken following selection by quantity and size.
Directive 97/41/EC has already set a maximum limit for residue in the case of fresh fruit, based on detailed studies to ensure consumer safety.
I believe this Directive applies equally to juice, fresh fruit, juice produced in the home, or packaged juice.
Treatment after gathering is required to guarantee optimum storage, transport and distribution conditions. I should like to reiterate what I said earlier.
A substance may not be harmful in itself, it depends on the amount used. Regarding the quality of the water added to concentrates, Directive 98/93/EC refers to the quality of water for human consumption, including water used by the food industry.
Finally, Amendment No 23 calls for a list of authorised substances to be drawn up.
It does not make sense to specify additional substances over and above those referred to in Directives 89/109/EEC and 90/128/EEC on materials and objects liable to come into contact with foodstuffs. This would restrict the juice industry' s capacity to adjust quickly to technological developments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, food and consumer protection have become vexatious topics.
They also involve a great deal of uncertainty.
This report should achieve greater clarity, and Mr Lannoye has evidently put a great deal of effort into it.
I believe, however, that too much exactitude and too many details can also be dangerous, and with this in mind I can only support what was said by Mrs Thyssen: here, and also in our work generally, we should distinguish more and more between political statements and technical considerations.
We are also overstretched in many respects, not through our average IQ being so low, but simply because the specialised technical knowledge cannot be present, because simply too much is presupposed and we then also have difficulty at some point in deciding what is lobbying and what is meaningful activity.
I also believe that we should be careful when deciding on the details of labels, so that we do not, through the sheer compulsion to regulate - as for example with fruit juices, where, however, we have now reached a compromise - end up leading the consumer astray with duplicated explanations and elucidations.
If we carry on that way, even wines will soon have to carry their chemical composition on the label, and then the marketing of wine will no doubt be far less straightforward.
I am glad to be able to thank all those who have contributed to reaching compromises - in the field of fruit juices, on the subjects of fungicides, water adulteration and the juice and concentrate issue, as well as on aromas - and hope that, in the problematic area of honey, it is impossible to conceal the product's origin.
I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, when voting, to pay careful attention to this as well.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the directive on fruit juices, I would like to indicate our agreement with the Council' s proposal, which we think is going in the right direction, that is to say towards effective protection for consumers, who need to be provided with clear, easy to understand and objective information that will enable them to make a completely informed choice, both in terms of quality and in terms of food safety.
The higher production costs associated with the effort and the quality guarantee must, however, be clearly acknowledged in labelling.
There are currently, depending on whether they are free of concentrate or made from concentrate, two major categories of fruit juices, each of which correspond to the nature of specific products and a particular production process.
In terms of labelling, current practice does not enable consumers to clearly distinguish between these two categories.
In order to remove this source of confusion in the mind of consumers as to the actual nature of the product that they are buying, the Finnish Presidency has proposed introducing two simple, clear and objective definitions.
The term 'fruit juice' would be reserved for juices without concentrate, while, according to them, juices made from concentrate should be named for sale purposes in accordance with their characteristics.
Thus, consumers looking for a more authentic and more natural product will easily be able to find it on the shelf under the clear name 'fruit juice' , knowing that they are prepared to pay the price corresponding to the specific qualities associated with this product, while consumers inclined towards a more standardised and cheaper product will be able to turn with full knowledge of the facts towards a juice made from concentrate without any ambiguity about its nature and particular characteristics.
We, think, Mr President, that defining these two categories of juice, corresponding to two different names, represents real progress in consumer information, and that is why we support it.
Mr President, I too shall refer only to the directive on fruit juice, as time is short.
Along with previous speakers, we believe that the Council' s proposal represents definite progress because it establishes a clear distinction between fresh fruit juice and concentrated juice.
This is a welcome development as it provides consumers with full information on two products with different characteristics produced in very different ways.
We cannot therefore support any amendment aimed at blurring or doing away with the distinction established so clearly in the Council' s text.
Further, we cannot accept the amendments aimed at ending the use of fruit from the fresh market. This is what would result if we agreed to ban treatment after gathering.
The use of this fruit makes it possible to provide the consumer with a healthy product, manufactured to high standards of quality and food safety. It is also a way of utilising surplus agricultural production so that large quantities are not allowed to rot and pollute the environment.
Consequently, we shall support the Council' s proposal and vote in its favour.
In our view, the majority of the amendments tabled in committee do not serve to clarify or improve the situation. Instead, they cause further confusion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I first wish to thank the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and you in particular, Mr Lannoye, as rapporteur, for examining the drafts of the five so-called vertical directives communicated to you by the Council.
These directives relate to sugars intended for human consumption, to honey, to fruit juices and similar products intended for human consumption, to certain partly or wholly dehydrated preserved milk for human consumption and to fruit jams, jellies and marmalades and chestnut purée intended for human consumption.
The Commission welcomes the way that Parliament has kept to the guidelines given by the Council on comitology and has thereby agreed to replace the advisory committee procedure by the regulatory committee procedure.
As regards the amendments to the Council's five drafts, the Commission notes that Parliament had been heard as early as 1996 on the corresponding proposals by the Commission and had adopted positions on them in the sittings of 14 January 1998 and 4 May 1999.
Even though some of these amendments appear to me thoroughly sensible from the editorial or technical point of view, I regret however that I must point out that, as has been said, we are dealing here with Council drafts and not with original proposals by the Commission and that these amendments therefore apply to the Council drafts and not to the Commission's proposals.
I must therefore, unfortunately, observe that the Commission cannot accept the amendments proposed in the report.
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.49 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon.)
Mr President, I have no wish to hold up the vote but this morning I raised an objection to the session minutes under Rule 148(3).
Rule 148(3) requires a decision by Parliament.
No such decision has been taken.
I just wanted to know what happens to my objection now.
Secondly, I should like to point out that we decided yesterday to adopt the Commission proposal on which I reported.
We then adopted a legislative resolution rejecting the Commission proposal.
The services changed this in the Minutes to 'approves the Commission proposal' .
However, item 4 still contains a sentence which contradicts the first decision because it still says that the upper ceiling is to be maintained, which was something we rejected at the outset.
Because of this contradiction in the current draft minutes, I have asked that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs should be instructed to look into the matter with a view to making a general amendment to the Rules of Procedure clarifying what happens when this sort of contradiction arises.
I just wanted to point out that no decision has yet been taken on my objection to the minutes, as required under Article 148 (3).
I assume that the Minutes have not been approved on this point and will not therefore be approved until a later date.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Mr Swoboda is making a mistake and I would ask you to consider it carefully.
Parliament did indeed make a slightly contradictory decision yesterday, I repeat a slightly contradictory decision.
We adopted the Commission proposal on the transit system by a clear majority of 303 votes to 253.
The proposal says that the previous upper ceiling is to be abolished.
Parliament approved this by a clear majority.
In my view, item 4 has been included because of a faux pas by a number of colleagues.
However, there is still no material contradiction here because we also call on the Commission in item 4 to maintain an upper ceiling until the ecopoint system expires.
In other words, we clearly decided in the legislative act to adopt the Commission proposal.
If the Council agrees, and I hope that it does, then all will be well.
The second call in item 4 is a call for the Commission to reflect.
What the Commission does in this case, whether it proposes a new upper ceiling or no upper ceiling, is up to the Commission.
We did not, as you will see if you read the second clause, call for the old upper ceiling; we said the Commission might like to consider setting a new, reasonable upper ceiling.
However, this faux pas was carried by a majority.
All that means, however, is that the Commission has been asked to reflect and submit an opinion to Parliament once it has done so.
Parliament's clear position was, is, and remains - and in this respect there is nothing to correct, Mr Swoboda - that we approved the Commission's position yesterday by a large majority and I should like to confirm as much.
Mr Swoboda, Mr Jarzembowski, it is my understanding that the longer you talk, the more you seem to be seeing eye to eye.
We will have this carefully examined and you will be informed of the outcome in due course.
VOTE
I now give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Cappato.
You can now do one of two things.
You can in any event inform Parliament of whether you endorse the proposal, in which case we will proceed to vote on the legislative resolution. Alternatively, the proposal can also be referred back to committee.
Mr Cappato, please let us know what you decide to do.
Mr President, in view of the outcome of the vote and the high number of abstentions, I think it would be prudent, not for the rapporteur but for the House, to remit this report to committee.
(The matter was referred back to the committee responsible)
Report (A5-0271/2001) by Mrs Ries, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending for the 24th time Council Directive 76/769/EEC relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations (pentabromodiphenyl ether) [COM(2001) 12 - C5-0018/2001 - 2001/0018(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0272/2001) by Mr Nisticò, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive setting standards of quality and safety for the collection, testing, processing, storage, and distribution of human blood and blood components and amending Council Directive 89/381/EEC [COM(2000) 816 - C5-0034/2001 - 2000/0323(COD)]
Mr President, as rapporteur I would like to ask you and the House to accept my proposal to vote on Amendment No 75 before Amendments Nos 55 and 56.
This is to make the sequence of amendments logical, given that Amendment No 75 can replace Amendments Nos 55 and 56.
There will also be an oral amendment, which I support, to Amendment No 75, presented by Mr Lisi and Mr Santini, and an Amendment No 43, presented by Mr Tannock and Mrs Korhola, which I also support.
Mr President, the question Mr Nisticò is raising here about changing the voting order has been discussed, I believe, in the course of the last 10 days with Mr Nisticò, and we reached the conclusion evident from the voting list a long time ago.
I do not therefore understand at all why Mr Nisticò is raising the issue now.
Amendments Nos 55 and 56 should clearly be voted on before Amendment No 75, and there has been agreement about this for quite a long time.
However, it seems that Mr Nisticò still wants to try to raise doubts about the matter.
I do not understand why.
I can be quite clear about this, Mr Nisticò.
We must apply the Rules of Procedure in this instance, too, and the order of voting, which was re-examined by the services before you spoke, is the correct order, and that order is ultimately to be decided on by the President.
I believe that we are thus following the correct order.
Mr President, I was asking the House to decide - because the House is sovereign - whether I can change a sequence I regard as illogical.
I therefore insist on putting my proposal to the vote to see who is in favour and who is against.
Mr Nisticò, you said two things.
We will deal with the compromise amendment later.
You can present it later, and then the House can decide whether or not it accepts it.
The order of voting on amendments is ultimately a matter for the President to decide, however.
I call on my authority to maintain the order of voting, advised by the services.
That is the reasonable order.
Once again, we can vote on a possible oral amendment, should this prove appropriate, in a moment.
Mr President, Mr Nisticò said there was an oral amendment to Amendment No 43, which is one of the ones you are trying to take en bloc.
If the oral amendment pertains to Amendment No 43 which forms part of the bloc vote, then you can read it out, in which case we will deal with this matter now before we vote en bloc.
Is that right, Mr Nisticò?
Absolutely right.
Mr Tannock is presenting that amendment.
The oral amendment to Amendment No 43 can now be clarified.
Mr President, the oral amendment I proposed to Amendment No 43 by Mr Lund is to replace his second paragraph.
This is one that I have reached a compromise on with Mrs Korhola.
It states the following: "In the case of shortage of certain plasma products, and solely with regards to the importation into the EU from countries outside of the EU, the Member States may permit exemptions to the directive provided the quality and safety requirements laid down are met."
This is absolutely essential to safeguard the interests of European haemophiliacs who rely, occasionally, on imported Factor VIII plasma products which may contain some donated and some sold blood from the United States.
So this is absolutely essential, if we are not to put in jeopardy the lives of British and other haemophiliacs.
It has the support of myself and Mrs Korhola.
I understand Mr Lund will support it as well.
Following the vote on Amendments Nos 55 and 56. President.
As we are familiar with the procedure when oral amendments are tabled, I have to ask the House whether there are any objections.
Twelve Members or more can object to voting on this oral amendment.
I would ask if the amendment can be accepted.
I see more than twelve Members.
This oral amendment is therefore not put to the vote.
I suggest we address this in a practical manner and vote on Amendment No 43 in a moment.
We will now vote en bloc on all 60 committee amendments, except for Amendment No 43.
Mr von Boetticher, we will not be debating the content of the amendments during the voting.
That was not the agreement.
You know yourself that the House is very aware of the content of the amendments.
Mr Duff, you are not allowed to make any comments regarding the content.
We will not be holding a constitutional debate.
You can make a very brief comment, if you so wish, on a point of order, but not on the content.
Mr President, should I be unable to speak about the content, I would only say that the previous remark from the PPE side of the House is complete baloney.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is high time we voted.
Mr President, I did not want to interrupt the vote earlier but I should like to refer back to the Nisticò report.
Dr Tannock drew to our attention the question of concern about the supply of blood and plasma products for haemophiliacs if the source of supply is outside the Union.
I am not well-informed on the facts of the matter but my impression was that his intervention was based on verifiable facts rather than simply issues of political preference.
When we deal with legislation which intimately affects human health we must exercise great care and attention.
I ask you, Mr President, to ask the services to prepare a note on the facts of this matter so we can bring it to the attention of our colleagues in the groups.
I fear we may have voted in error.
Mr Cox, I shall naturally ask the services to examine everything very carefully.
That goes without saying, and certainly upon your express wishes.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Cappato Report (A5-0270)/2001)
Mr President, I close my eyes and what do I see?
I am in Venice, the most beautiful city in the world! There is the moon, there are the gondolas, we are on the Grand Canal, Italian cooking, spaghetti with sepia, Dom Pérignon French champagne and a blonde beauty who takes me back to my youth.
However, because of lack of secrecy on personal data and lack of protection of privacy, when I get home I find my suitcases outside the door: my wife found out!
That is why I have voted in favour, Mr President.
But was it a dream I was talking about or was it reality?
- (NL) Many people in the Netherlands have self-adhesive labels on their letter boxes against commercial printed matter.
It has increasingly become the norm that ignoring this sign is rude and even unlawful.
Such a regulation has meanwhile become known as an opt-out, whereby the recipients themselves must make it known that they do not wish to receive such mail.
An opt-in, which requires an instruction that one does wish to receive commercial mail, would be preferable still.
In the case of electronic communication, there is even more reason for having such an opt-in, for it would prevent consumers from being harassed by unwanted communications they receive and need to delete, and for which they also have to pay.
Moreover, the e-mail system is also being weighed down by this deluge of advertising and is thus becoming unusable for reliable communications.
The Commission is right to propose such an opt-in in Article 13.
I am rather shocked by the view of the rapporteur, who appears to choose an opt-out which will only free consumers from the inconvenience after they have expressly lodged their protests.
Furthermore, people have already had bad experiences with pledges from organisations which make their money through direct marketing.
The protection of privacy, which the Directive is right to have as its objective, is seriously threatened by Mr Cappato' s view.
Mr President, I would like to make explanations of vote on two reports combined: on the Cappato and Cederschiöld reports.
I voted against both these reports.
There is a great danger, first of all, in relation to the blanket retention of information on users.
It raises serious questions about civil liberties.
With cybercrime we have the situation where new forms of crime are being created.
The lack of attention to civil liberties, the lack of attention to people's basic right to privacy is being overlooked.
There is a great danger here that in future we will have a society where people are afraid to communicate and use modern technology because they know that their communications will be intercepted, listened to, and be in the hands of people who have no right to them.
Before we start looking at bringing in legislation in these areas we should first of all ensure that people's basic rights and civil liberties are protected.
Both are enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights and in the EU Treaties.
The emphasis here is to use scare-tactic arguments such as the issue of paedophilia, terrorism, drugs or arms trafficking.
These are issues which are very emotive.
People are very willing to allow legislation to be put in place and oppressive measures to be brought in because they are concerned about these issues.
The fact that I voted against does not mean to say that I am not concerned about these issues.
But first and foremost we must protect people's basic civil liberties as enshrined in international law.
We should not overlook that.
What kind of a society will we have if people's basic rights are overlooked in the combating of other crimes? There are a lot of similarities between the two.
We have to remember that.
Nisticò Report (A5-0272/2001)
.
(PT) There are controversial aspects to this report as there are, in fact, to the Commission' s own proposal.
As the rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market said, it would perhaps be preferable for the two directives, that is, the current proposal on the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector and the directive on universal service, to merge.
Furthermore, the Commission proposal to give employers the right to monitor their employees is a complicated and very sensitive issue.
Equally, the bulk sending of unsolicited e-mails (so-called spamming), is another cause for concern, for which a satisfactory solution should be found.
This is why we should devote our full attention to the position of DECO, which endorses the Commission proposal, which in turn seeks to make prior opt­in consent compulsory for unsolicited emails, since this appears to be the best guarantee for European consumers' choice as to whether they receive spam mail or not. This option thereby attempts to protect consumers from being bombarded with unsolicited electronic mails in the form of advertising, except when they have given their consent to receive such mail.
. I voted for 'Opt Out'.
The opposite, an 'Opt-In' regime for Europe, would be entirely ineffective.
If the EU legislates to try to restrict the sending of emails, whether for marketing, or fundraising, or political messages, the emails will still be sent to receivers within the EU - but from outside the EU.
Indeed, I am tempted by the thought of setting up a little business in somewhere sunny like a Carribean island from where I would spray unlimited emails into the EU from EU businesses in return for a nice fat fee.
This business could not exist in the EU.
The well-meaning EU, if it chooses 'Opt In', will do two harmful things : it will handicap EU-based businesses against their worldwide competitors, and it will transfer jobs outside the EU.
The road to hell, they say, is paved with good intentions.
'Spam' needs to be controlled - but it can only be controlled by global legislation and cooperation.
I choose to vote against the position adopted by my political group when it comes to the rules about sending out unsolicited advertisements to consumers via e-mail.
E-mail advertisements are, in general, an inconvenience for the consumer since it takes time, for example, to open and delete them.
They also contribute to the spread of viruses on the Internet.
What is more, it is the consumer who has to bear the costs of receiving and reading the advertisements.
In the light of this, I consider that only an opt-in solution can effectively protect consumers from unsolicited advertisements.
My position on this issue has influenced my vote in the final vote on this report.
Ries Report (A5-0271/2001)
Schörling (Verts/ALE), in writing.
(SV) High brominated flame retardants are to be found high up in the food chain.
This is being seen for the first time now that a Swedish environmental study has shown that high brominated flame retardants, which were considered to be less dangerous than low brominated flame retardants, are also bioaccumulative, having been found in peregrine falcon eggs in Sweden.
The study shows that the content of brominated flame retardants in eggs from wild peregrine falcons is 400 times higher than that in eggs from falcons kept in cages.
We know that low brominated flame retardants are bioaccumulative now that they have been found in birds, fish and mammals, but it was previously believed that high brominated flame retardants were not especially dangerous. High brominated flame retardants were thought to have larger molecules and thus to find it more difficult to penetrate the cell membranes of living organisms.
This has now proved not to be the case.
This is a major health and environmental problem because many users replaced the high brominated flame retardants in products with low brominated ones, and the use of low brominated flame retardants such as decaBDEs accounts for 80 per cent of all flame retardants.
The Group of the Greens therefore voted in favour of an immediate ban on the whole group of penta-, octa- and decaBDEs.
This is required by the precautionary principle, given the new discoveries that have been made.
A majority of Parliament chose to await the risk assessment that is at present under way in the case of decaBDEs.
This means that tons of dangerous high-risk chemicals continue to be released into the environment, something which in our view is contrary to the intentions of the precautionary principle.
Mr President, the Pensioners Party is totally in favour of regulating blood donation and the movement of blood.
Pensioners are very active in blood donor associations throughout Europe.
This excellent, spot-on, comprehensive report by my friend Mr Nisticò is therefore very welcome, and I have voted for it.
There is a saying in Italy, Mr President, that laughing makes for good blood, and we want the blood which is moving around the States to be good.
I therefore think it is a good thing that I sometimes go on with these explanations of vote to make people smile, because that makes for good blood and helps achieve the purpose of this directive.
The European Parliament has repeatedly turned its attention to the problem of testing blood for transfusions and blood donors and has passed a plethora of resolutions since 1993.
And there is still serious public concern as the result of criminal irresponsibility on the part of the relevant authorities in various countries of the European Union.
The aim of the Commission proposal to amend Directive 89/381/ÅEC is to improve both quality and safety in standards for the collection, testing, processing, storage and distribution of blood and its various components.
More importantly, Member States can impose even stricter standards and blood moved between the 15 is not governed by the rules of the internal market.
I shall be voting for the Nisticò report because it is in favour of strict standards, it is against the commercialisation of human blood and because, for reasons of greater safety, it calls for security of supply via networks of volunteers in order to reverse the dependence of the European Union on non-Community suppliers.
.
(FR) We voted in favour of this text as it was following the modifications proposed by the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
And we voted against all the amendments that could endanger or restrict the giving of blood on a voluntary and non profit-making basis.
We only regret that the report does not envisage a formal obligation for companies to grant their employees the necessary time in order to give blood and to remove the bureaucratic authorisation procedures that discourage those with good intentions.
We are opposed to the whole economic system that is driven by profit.
Profit made directly or indirectly from trade in human organs, cells or tissues, is one of the most despicable manifestations of this system, an expression of the fact that society has not come out of barbarism.
.
(FR) The European directive on quality and safety standards for the collection, testing, processing, storage and distribution of blood should be modified in order to increase protection of donors and recipients.
The safety of recipients should be further guaranteed, both through the traceability of the whole transfusion network and by guaranteeing highly qualified staff in all blood transfusion establishments in Europe.
Greater safety increases confidence in the supply system, which, as a result, encourages donors to give blood.
This directive, however, should also highlight principles.
Blood is not a commodity.
Moreover, the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights states that it is forbidden to use the human body for profit.
This is why we need to clearly affirm the principle that the service should be free.
By donating blood, citizens are making an act of solidarity.
This means, as the European socialists have maintained, that blood components should only be taken from voluntary donors.
I cannot but vote in favour of the report by Giuseppe Nisticò.
This is because for a long time all sorts of people from all walks of life have been warning of the need for Community standards to establish definite rules in this sensitive sector of the collection, processing, storage and distribution of blood and its derivatives. This is a sector where the extreme urgency of meeting great therapeutic needs must never be separated from considerations of control and prevention.
Mr Nisticò has set out the arguments extremely well, drawing on the strength of his professional expertise.
Those are the reasons, in short, that lead me to support the report in full and consequently to vote for it.
.
I, like many of my colleagues, have heard from blood donation organisations concerned by the possible modifications to existing legislation in this field.
Everyone agrees in deploring, quite rightly, the shortage of blood and plasma within the European Union while stressing the fact that under no circumstances should we relax our vigilance regarding the quality of these products, so much so that the European Union' s requirements are half covered by imports!
This directive, amended by Parliament, modifies, integrates and completes the legislation that currently governs quality and safety standards in Europe for the collection, testing, processing, storage and distribution of human blood and blood components.
It is about adopting stricter requirements regarding the admissibility of donors and practical screening of them, as well as putting in place a quality system at Community level in blood transfusion establishments.
This would all be completed by an equivalent testing and approval system in the Member States.
Finally, common standards would be defined for staff training and for the traceability of blood from donor to patient.
Of course, these measures will not prevent the Member States from maintaining or establishing stricter protection measures.
It is also desirable to reduce the European Union' s dependence on imports of blood or blood components from third countries.
In order to do that, information campaigns need to be aimed at potential donors.
But under no circumstances should we envisage a system of payment for these products.
The European Parliament report rightly stresses the importance of the voluntary nature of blood donation while accepting that the social contribution made by donors and the commendable nature of the donations that they make should be highlighted.
As a blood donor myself and a supporter of the cause of blood donation, I therefore voted in favour of this report.
I have been involved in the issue of blood donation for many years in the Italian Parliament, including setting up a parliamentary group belonging to AVIS, the principle Italian donor organisation.
Over the years the task has involved the passing of and subsequent amendments to what is known as the 'Law on blood' .
I formed the opinion then that increased European harmonisation of the sector' s rules is vital, not just because of European citizenship which compels us to take the same attitude in dealing with problems of human health in Europe, but also because common rules are indispensable when faced with serious illnesses - AIDS, BSE - and a worldwide market in blood which must also take account of scientific progress (artificial blood, human blood produced from stem cells)
Our amendments to the directive satisfy those, like me, who have always fought to strengthen public policy in favour of non-remunerated voluntary donation.
It might perhaps have been possible to do a little more, providing funds to promote initiatives in support of voluntary blood donation, but we are still taking a good step forward.
.
(PT) It is important to state once again, as this report does, that the human body or its parts cannot be traded as commodities, and this includes human blood, of course, irrespective of the state it is in.
Various donor organisations, including the Portuguese Association for the Protection of Blood Users and the International Federation of Blood Donors support this position, including the various positive aspects of the report which signify progress on providing incentives to volunteer blood in the various Member States of the European Union.
A high number of donors is crucial to enabling each Member State to be self-sufficient, although the principle of solidarity must also apply between Member States, whenever necessary and whenever possible.
As stated in the report, if we want donors to give blood for free, which should be the case, the blood supply system cannot be commercial.
The processing of blood at all stages must be a service carried out for the Member States' health services for the benefit of patients.
All proposals that improve on the current Directive 89/381 are also positive, specifically in the areas of the levels of quality and safety in the various phases of collection, processing, storage and distribution of blood.
.
(FR) I voted in favour of this report.
The initiatives advocated by this report will, I believe and hope, enable us to prevent the disasters that we have experienced, particularly in France with the case of contaminated blood.
We cannot keep this tragic outcome, which is so imprinted on our minds, out of our discussion.
It is therefore up to us, at European level, to establish high standards for blood quality and the safety of collection, to be exacting about storage conditions and traceability and to impose strict testing rules.
Blood is not like other commodities.
It is not a commercial commodity and nothing should make us depart from this idea.
I remain firmly opposed to any commercial use of human blood and I am in favour of the principal of voluntary and unpaid donation.
For ethical reasons, first of all: our Parliament, and in particular its Committee on genetics, makes many references to ethics.
Do ethics push us towards establishing payment for blood donation? Should the relationship between doctor and donor be based on trust or solely on a financial relationship?
With regard to ethics, we adopted a Charter of Fundamental Rights in which it is clearly stipulated that it is forbidden to use the human body as a source of profit.
Coherence must be a part of our political commitment.
Also, for scientific reasons: studies have shown that the safety of supply appears to be better guaranteed through the practice of unpaid donation, that the blood collected in this way is less likely to transmit infectious diseases.
In a directive whose aim is the quality and safety of blood, this scientific observation cannot be left out of our discussion.
Finally, for cultural reasons: in France - and the support of the various associations that have contacted me shows me this - we cannot accept the idea of payment for blood donation, precisely for the reasons that I have already given.
(Speech cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
Evans report (A5-0229/2001)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, Jonathan Evans, the rapporteur for this report amending the rules on competition, usually sits next to me in this beautiful Parliament.
He has convinced me of the virtue of his report, which I have voted for, but as a representative of pensioners and the Pensioners Party, Mr President, I have to say that it would be good to have the same rules for pensions throughout Europe if we want to have true competition between products made in Europe.
If the cost of employment, which includes the cost of pensions, is different - it is higher in Italy, lower in Germany, lower in Holland - then there is unfair competition.
We need to have the same pensions rules throughout Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I rejected the Evans report because I am not in favour of renationalising competition policy in Europe.
If the Commission gives up its monopoly on exemptions in the future, this will not reform competition law, it will merely change the system.
If the Commission then confines itself to supervising abuses within the context of this changed system, then that is something which, to my mind, is highly questionable.
If national courts in the European Union are allowed to return judgments under competition law in the future, we shall no longer, I think, be able to talk of a uniform competition policy in Europe, especially now that the European Union is preparing for enlargement.
What we need is a European Monopolies and Mergers Commission and I think that is what we should be working towards.
- (NL) The Evans report receives our support because the rapporteur has correctly indicated where the Commission proposal needs adjusting.
It is a step in the right direction.
For reasons of subsidiarity, I would certainly value a greater role for national competition authorities in the implementation of the competition rules.
However, it should not undermine the standard application of these.
That would not only lead to uncertainty for businesses, it would also lead to discrepancies in competitiveness between one Member State and another.
The national authorities need clear guidelines in order to rule out different interpretations.
It is too precarious at this stage to carve up responsibilities among different authorities.
The most appropriate authority could be the authority on whose territory the most important effects make themselves felt, but also the authority that has been monitoring the situation for a good while.
The rapporteur gets to the heart of the matter when he asks for the proposal to be further developed for the benefit of legal certainty.
Despite the demarcation of powers, the Commission is responsible for safeguarding standard application in the event of effects being felt from one State to another.
Set against the Commission' s authoritative powers, a strengthening of the rights of defence would be appropriate.
In this connection, the question arises as to whether the Commission could indicate how the companies' need for a prompt, EU-wide statement can be met.
The call for legal certainty is not only a matter of further development by the Commission.
The European Institute of Public Administration recently indicated that, in many cases, there is simply too little case law available to draw on.
It is therefore inherent in the current state of European competition law itself that major legal risks cannot be ruled out.
Before the proposed reform can take place, the Commission must lay a foundation in the form of guidelines, or legislation which safeguards legal certainty.
In this perspective, the concept of core tasks for the Commission and implementing tasks for the national authorities is worth further consideration.
Just and decentralised application will prove its worth, certainly following enlargement.
Andria Report (A5-0269/2001)
.
(PT) This report examines the proposal for a regulation tabled by the Commission on the implementation of Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty with a view to creating a genuine common competition policy which is more uniformly implemented, and which will enable problems to be more effectively detected by abolishing the notification system in force today and in increasing the basic powers of the Commission, but also by decentralising power over policy implementation to independent national authorities, which would work in conjunction with the Commission.
Lest any doubts remain that the Commission is seeking to renationalise policy, it has tabled Article 3 of the regulation, which guarantees the primacy of Community law over national law, in other words, the implementation by national authorities and courts of Community law.
As a matter of fact, throughout the Commission proposal runs the blatant desire to increase its powers, as Article 7 shows clearly, which the European Parliament report, nevertheless, seeks to limit.
What remains, however, is this haste on the part of the Commission to reformulate competition policy before enlargement, thereby increasing both its powers of intervention and supranationality.
Since Parliament' s report seeks to establish benchmarks and curb the ambitions of the Commission, we have abstained from voting on it.
Mr President, Mr Andria, who is a great friend of Mr Fatuzzo and the Pensioners Party, has convinced me I should vote for his important report, which makes it possible to lend money to Member States of the European Union which do not use the single currency, the euro, to restore their balances of payments to health if they are in difficulties.
That will be of interest in a very short time - I hope - to all the countries that have asked to join the European Union, the twelve states which are to become members of the Union and which I hope will become members as soon as possible, but it occurs to me to say this to Mr Andria: 'Mr Andria, we are correcting the balances of European countries, but why can you not succeed in finding a system that allows pensioners to correct their own balances of payments?'
- (NL) On Tuesday, an extensive debate was held on the possible accession of twelve new Member States.
The economies of most of those states are weak in comparison with those of the current Member States.
It is not to be expected that these new Member States will swiftly change over to the euro as their own legal currency.
In those states, the euro can at best acquire the position of a second currency, additional to the national currency and involved in an ever-fluctuating exchange rate battle.
In those countries, the euro will at best be the currency for the rich and foreigners and have a role similar to that of the American dollar in many countries.
The result of the enlargement will therefore be that the number of Member States which are eligible for financial support for their balance of payments will rise sharply.
I am therefore not in favour of the simultaneous cut in the maximum level of loans to be allocated, from EUR 16 billion to EUR 12 billion.
The Commission has still not made a concrete proposal for the way in which the new Member States can participate.
I do, however, agree that responsibility for the management of the loaning mechanism should be transferred from the European Central Bank to the European Commission.
A responsible body is needed which can operate at a political level, and the bank is not that body.
Lannoye Report (A5-0217/2001)
Mr President, after the approval of Mr Lannoye' s report, which I have voted for with pleasure, my breakfast will never by the same.
At last we - I - finally have a European breakfast, a real European breakfast, because the sugar will be more European, there will be European honey, there will be European fruit juice, there will be European milk and, finally, the jam will taste European.
We could never have a sweeter Europe without this directive, presented by Mr Lannoye and voted for by me? Thank you, Mr Lannoye, and thank you Europe!
Conference on climate change (RC B5-0539/2001)
Meijer (GUE/NGL), in writing.
(NL) The follow-up conference on climate change in Bonn produced two extremes.
On the one hand, those who say that the result obtained there was the best achievable under the present circumstances, are correct.
On the other hand, the result is worse than the worst-case scenario that was feared at the previous conference in The Hague in November 2000.
That conference was dominated by the fear that, for the sake of a worldwide agreement, concessions would be made to the US.
Among the EU Member States, the question was about the choice between two possibilities.
One was to stand firm in order to maintain the reductions agreed in Kyoto.
The other was to search for what might be just acceptable to the Americans, and to accept the required moderation as inevitable.
As an observer at this conference, I took the side of the steadfast German and French Green Environment Ministers in the debate at the plenary session on 29 November.
Since the refusal of the new American President to sign any agreement, the resistance against what was then feasible seems to have fallen by the wayside.
In order to keep Japan and Australia on board, more has now been paid than was demanded by America last year.
Bush is the winner.
In ten years' time, this inadequate agreement will be deemed a disgrace.
.
(FR) In the last few years, the news has highlighted food scandals and consumers are rightly demanding to be very well informed about the products that they buy.
The information given to consumers must be as clear as possible and as legible as possible, while avoiding increasing the number of categories.
Therefore, for fruit juices, the sales name should not lead to any confusion.
It is therefore essential to indicate to consumers the difference between a fresh fruit juice and a fruit juice made from concentrate.
These two different names will enable people buying them to choose a product with full knowledge of the facts.
In the same way, some fruit juices are produced by mixing fresh fruit juice and juice made from concentrate.
Just marking it as 'fresh fruit juice' would be deceiving consumers.
It is important that in this case labels should have an additional note indicating that the final product is also made from concentrate.
The name 'made with concentrate' or 'partially made with concentrate' should then feature directly under the name, in sufficiently large type to ensure that consumers are informed.
This measure also applies to nectars made from concentrate.
These decisions are aimed at informing consumers as clearly as possible, but also at not penalising producers.
The production processes for these two categories of products have technical, financial and organoleptic differences.
The production of fresh fruit juices requires high quality treatment of products, particularly during the pressing and pasteurisation phases, while the production of fruit juices from concentrate does not involve the same requirements.
Cederschiöld Report (A5-0284/2001)
. -(FR) Four years ago now, I spoke in this House on the vertical directive on honey, for which Mr Lannoye was also the rapporteur.
One of my main concerns in this case was, at the time, labelling.
I had tried to demonstrate that the label on a pot of honey should above all inform consumers about the origin and quality of that honey, in order to prevent honey imported from who knows where containing who knows what pollen from being confused with quality honey produced by our beekeepers.
Today, once again, we are talking about the quality of honey.
My aim is to draw your attention to the Commission' s proposal concerning the possibility of filtering the honey in order to remove the pollen from it, which I strongly condemn.
Pollen is the only indicator of the origin of honey.
Fortunately, the amendments proposed by our rapporteur prevent consumers from being misled, as they would no longer be able to know the origin of the honey and its exact composition if it were filtered to remove the pollen.
Without these amendments, there would therefore no longer be any guarantee of the quality of honey, and consumers would no longer be able to distinguish between quality honeys from their region as opposed to industrial honeys from abroad, which have been subjected to the filtering technique for a long time.
Moreover, honey could, according to the directive, contain 20% pollen 'A' and be 80% from 8 types of pollen.
On the label it would only say 'Honey from pollen A' as the English version of the directive propose, the term 'mainly' to describe the composition and the presence of pollens in honey.
This word 'mainly' indicates a majority, but not necessarily a majority of more than 50%.
(N.B. the German translation 'überwiegend' and the French 'essentiellement' reflect that majority of more than 50%).
It then becomes possible to mix different sorts of nectar, without more than 50% of a nectar being present.
One could imagine a honey with 20% nectar A and the remaining 80% being made up of 8 different varieties of nectar.
(Speech cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
After more than five years in the pipeline, we have finally voted today on the proposal for a Council directive relating to fruit jams, jellies, marmalades and sweetened chestnut purée.
I am delighted that the Parliament has left the Council's exemption on biscuits intact, which means that British favourites, such as the jammy dodger, will not fall within the scope of the directive.
The jammy dodger is a fine British institution and many in the UK had feared that the directive would result in the outlawing of this biscuit.
It is good to see that not all of Britain's traditions and institutions are under threat from Brussels.
I abstained on the joint resolution on the Bonn conference on climate change.
It presents a much too enthusiastic assessment of the agreement negotiated.
It is difficult to believe that this agreement 'gives new impetus' to Kyoto, constitutes an 'essential instrument' for a 'world strategy against global warming ' and represents 'an extremely positive message for all citizens who are concerned about globalisation' .
It should in fact sound the alarm bell: nine years after Rio, no real measures have been put in place and the ambitions displayed by the Member States have been strangely diluted.
The Bonn agreement includes positive points, such as the refusal to present nuclear energy as 'clean energy' .
But it marks a new climb down in the face of supporters of the 'let the market decide' approach, which can only concern and not reassure 'citizens who are concerned about globalisation' .
The joint resolution is still quite ambiguous on this essential issue.
Paragraph 9 'regrets' the space given in Bonn to 'coal wells' and 'flexible systems '.
But paragraph 6 proposes that the 2003 conference on the climate should have these 'systems' as a theme (the international system of exchange of emission rights) rather than the essential public policies that are required to fight against climate chaos.
The simple fact that an agreement was reached in Bonn with Japan, Australia, Canada and Russia should not hide how far the content of that agreement is from responding to the urgency of the challenges.
Mr President, I am sorry I am having to speak so often, but I have heard that anti-Fatuzzo amendments to the Rules of Procedure have been tabled, intended to restrict explanations of vote at each voting time to three, so I am forced to take the opportunities I still have left for explanations in these last few days.
Now, I have voted for this Cederschiöld report because one of the worst dangers threatening us is computer crime.
However, I wonder why we do not pay consultants, the computer criminals, to draw the poison from the secrets of computer crime so that we could better combat this ugly habit which too many people in Europe have.
Bösch Report (A5-0280/2001)
Mr President, I am entirely in favour of the activities of the European Ombudsman and what he has been doing over the past few years, as set out in this report.
The truth is that many European citizens do not know their rights, do not know what they can do on the basis of European directives and, above all, think that European directives and regulations are not European.
They are convinced they are Italian laws, and I do not think that is a good thing.
I therefore propose to the European Ombudsman to insist, and this Parliament to accept my request, that European directives and regulations are called 'European laws' when incorporated into national legislation.
Almeida Garrett Report (A5-0240/2001)
Perry Report (A5-0245/2001)
Dehousse (PSE), in writing.
(FR) Mr Perry' s report marks the happy and constructive end to 15 months of calm and continuous work by the European Parliament.
It was on 11 April 2000 that the European Ombudsman, Mr Jacob Söderman, charged Parliament with the innovative project of a code of good administrative conduct applying to all the institutions and bodies of the European Community.
It is this code that has been approved this morning.
In order to achieve this result, with the practically unanimous assent of the European Parliament, several obstacles have had to be overcome.
First of all, like most legislative assemblies, we had to prevent a conflict of responsibilities between our different committees as, depending on the approach, four of them could be declared to be responsible for the whole of the proposal.
We succeeded in overcoming this risk.
Next we needed to find a sound and undisputed legal basis for adopting the code.
This is what the Legal Committee applied itself to doing, beyond the traditional disputes and opposition between the groups, and the more discrete but no less acute disputes between nationalities.
I am delighted to have been able to contribute to it through an opinion that was very open to the expression of this large constructive majority.
Today the European Parliament wished to both strengthen and simplify the rights of European citizens with regard to the Community' s administrative actions.
It has managed to do so as the code adopted contains significant new elements, the importance of which we will gradually discover.
Simplification, however, is just as important as it prevents an endless breakdown of all citizens' rights, rights which would actually lose their importance if they differed in every case.
I am happy to have been able to contribute through my vote in favour to this significant advance for European citizenship.
Mr President, I had a dream about Mr Söderman!
Yes, it was actually him!
We were having dinner, but it was not Mr Söderman as he is today, it was a young Mr Söderman, very young.
We were friends and we were chatting and he said to me: 'My dream, Mr Fatuzzo, is one day, when I am grown up, to become the European Ombudsman, because I want to be able to check up on what the European institutions do and, if there is any bureaucrat who is out of order, I want to be able to find that out and take action so that all the citizens of Europe have the chance to benefit from European laws' .
Well, Mr President, at last the dream that Mr Söderman had in my dream has actually come true with the approval of this directive.
Camisón Asensio Report (A5-0236/2001)
.
(FR) Although the text talks about 'deepening of democracy' and mentions 'emphasis on administrative openness and transparency' and despite its very aim which is to give the Ombudsman greater access to official documents, its whole spirit is marked by a concern to preserve the 'professional secrecy' of the information to which the Ombudsman may have access.
Rather than making the institutions and their operation more transparent, the function of the Ombudsman only serves to conceal the fact they are in no way transparent for the overwhelming majority of the population.
As a result, we did not vote in favour of the report.
And although we did not vote against it either, this is solely because the official French authorities are rising up against slightly more flexible access - solely for the Ombudsman! - to 'classified documents' , in the name of the Europe of defence and are calling for the report to be rejected.
We reaffirm our opposition both to commercial and industrial secrecy and to the so-called State secrets, which are not so much aimed at protecting the State against a third country as at concealing the actions, including the most disgraceful actions, of the State institutions from their own populations.
In today' s vote, I gave my support to a crucial strengthening of the European Ombudsman' s position.
The proposal is aimed at amending Article 3 of the Ombudsman' s statute so that the Ombudsman also has access to classified documents within the EU.
It is also proposed that all officials of the EU should be instructed to give full evidence in accordance with the truth and that their duty of loyalty towards their employer should cease.
Officials are thus obliged to defend the truth and their fellow citizens rather than to protect their own institutions.
This is a crucial improvement in terms of transparency and democratic control in the EU.
Mr President, on page 8 of Mr Camisón Asensio' s report, he says: 'individual citizens are entitled to demand an effective and prompt response to any infringements of their rights or any omissions and delays in this respect' .
That is an excellent thing.
The Pensioners Party approves, and I personally have approved this report but I wonder when will we succeed in achieving what I have read in this report, and what is right, in Europe in terms of our fifteen Member States paying pensions? There are quite a few where pensions are paid late, even quite a few years late, sometimes decades.
We must also commit ourselves, as Europe, to take action to prevent these delays happening any longer.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.22 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Zimbabwe
We will start with the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B5-0549/2001) by Mr Belder, on behalf of the EDD Group, on the situation in Zimbabwe;
(B5-0554/2001) by the Members Mr Cox, Mr Mulder and Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Zimbabwe;
(B5-0571/2001) by the Members Mrs Lucas and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on Zimbabwe;
(B5-0581/2001) by Mr Andrews, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the worsening of the situation in Zimbabwe;
(B5-0582/2001) by the Members Mr Van Orden and others, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on the situation in Zimbabwe;
(B5-0583/2001) by the Members Mr Bertinotti and Mr Herman Schmid, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Zimbabwe;
(B5-0592/2001) by the Members Mrs Kinnock and Mr Van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Zimbabwe.
Mr President, perhaps there are others in this House who, like me, paid regular visits to Zimbabwe in the early 1980s and were able to discover at that time the kind of country it was.
It was a land full of hope, the civil war was over and people wanted to embark on a new future.
The oppositions between white and black would cease to exist.
If we look at what has come of these plans twenty years on, we see chaos, poverty, possibly famine in prospect, no press freedom and certainly no democracy.
Of course, Europe cannot stand idly by, just as it could not in the past.
I think, however, that Europe, in particular, must encourage Africa to condemn Mr Mugabe, because if we are not careful that situation may spread to other countries in the region.
What are our options according to my group? In the first place, we have to suspend aid.
Food aid will be a different matter.
If the reports are correct, Zimbabwe' s self-sufficiency may already be under serious threat, and this will certainly be the case in future.
If that happens, food aid will have to be given, but of course it must not be distributed via the government bodies, since we know what will happen to it in that case.
It must be distributed by independent organisations.
We should also like an investigation to be carried out into what kind of sanctions can be used against Mr Mugabe and his clan personally.
Can we take steps against possessions that they have in Europe, such as the freezing of bank accounts, etc?
Finally, I should like the Commission to investigate whether the rumour is true that people from Zimbabwe enabled to study at European schools and universities, are mainly selected from the circles of Mugabe and his henchmen.
Is that correct and does the Commission intend to do anything about it?
Mr President, after having plundered Zimbabwe during a century of colonial domination, after having exploited its working classes and despoiled its farmers of land, the United Kingdom has left a legacy of a situation in which the best land still belongs to a few thousand rich white farmers.
The major powers did not find fault with the dictatorial nature and the corruption of the regime in Zimbabwe until its dictator, Mr Mugabe, started, in order to preserve his power, to make a few demagogical gestures calling into question the privileges of the white farmers.
France, which is less associated with this category of privileged people, is meanwhile continuing to unscrupulously support the dictatorship.
The feigned indignation of all those who, here, are protesting against the violence of Mugabe' s regime, seems, in these circumstances, to be above all a hypocritical way of defending a handful of privileged people against the right to live of millions of farmers in that country.
Even though some occupations of land by groups of poor farmers are violent, that only represents a small fraction of the violence that was imposed on them in order to despoil them.
For our part, we express our protest against Mugabe' s regime, both against its dictatorial nature and its corruption, but also because that dictatorship continues to protect revolting social inequalities and the privileges of a limited section of society to which his clique and the rich white farmers belong.
We do not, however, associate ourselves with this joint resolution, of which we reject both the letter and the spirit.
It is up to the population of the country to settle its accounts with Mugabe and his dictatorship.
It is not up to those in collusion with the privileged minority and those who conducted or supported colonial violence to give morality lessons to that country.
We would also like to express our solidarity with the working population of Zimbabwe and our support for their right to take possession of all the land, without any repurchase or compensation.
Mr President, I must say to the last speaker that, as somebody British, I can confirm that my ancestors had absolutely nothing to do with the oppression or repression of the people of Zimbabwe.
I would like to make it clear that I and my family are in no way guilty of colluding with anything that took place in colonial days.
It is very important for us to recognise that this resolution is being debated here today at a very important time.
It is an opportunity for President Mugabe to make the decision once and for all to step back from the brink, as Mr Van Orden has clearly said.
In addition to the negotiations, which are taking place as we speak in Abuja between foreign ministers of the Commonwealth, there are a number of European Union initiatives including the intended visit to the southern African countries by the Belgian Foreign Minister, representing the Presidency and Mr Solana, the high representative.
There are a number of other things going on as well.
Very importantly, in about three weeks, the preparatory team will be going out to prepare for the European Union's involvement - hopefully - in the March presidential elections.
That makes it extremely important.
But if it turns out that all those initiatives fail and he still turns his back on the willingness of the international community to have dialogue with him, then it will be time to take stock of what is happening.
I would say to Mrs Maes in particular that one of the reasons the Council and the Commission have not wanted to take urgent action, as some in this Parliament would perhaps have wanted, is the danger that what Mugabe wants is an excuse to call a state of emergency in Zimbabwe so he can cancel the election, stop the democratic process and stifle the official opposition as well as any opposition from the press and media.
We need to understand the potential impact of anything that the European Union, or indeed the Commonwealth, does in order to tackle what is happening in Zimbabwe.
The defining moment will be on 8 October when the next General Affairs Council is due to take place.
If no progress has been made by this time, if the dialogue has failed, if we say this is a useless procedure, then at this point it is essential that we adopt so-called smart sanctions.
We should restrict visas to all Mugabe's associates and his government and identify those individuals with foreign bank accounts and freeze their assets.
Those are smart sanctions that will not hurt the poor people of Zimbabwe but would certainly hurt those Zimbabweans who very much like coming to London to shop in Harrods or visit their children who are in British public schools.
Those are the kind of important things that the European Union can do.
Similarly we will have to look at the possibility of the suspension of development aid because that is how the Cotonou Agreement would suggest that we should proceed.
At that time, we would have to express Parliament's view, as we say now, that insufficient progress has been made on land seizures, on political violence, on all of these things that others have raised.
Finally, I support the words of Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Opposition Party, who this morning on the BBC was very tough on Mugabe and I will quote what he said and finish with this: 'President Mugabe has clearly violated all the tenets of the Commonwealth and all other international organisations and should now be isolated from the international community.'
We should heed the words of the leader of the opposition in Zimbabwe.
Mr President, in one minute you can say very little but I concur with what Mr van Orden, Mrs Kinnock and many of the other speakers have said.
I was in what was then Rhodesia in the 1960s and there was a great deal of injustice in that country at that time.
We had such great hopes for President Mugabe.
We thought we had in him a liberal, serious, intelligent leader.
Unfortunately, as we see the developing chaos and threats of famine and the destruction of the economy, we can but mourn the fact that he did not fulfil the hopes we had of him.
I agree that the smart sanctions are the way to go, because already the ordinary people of Zimbabwe are suffering grievously, as they watch their country disintegrate into chaos.
I urge all colleagues to support this resolution.
Mr President, there are 4 500 farmers of British, Dutch, German and Greek origin who own 8.3 million hectares of land in Zimbabwe.
Nine white farmers and 360 black farm workers have been killed in the chaos over the last few months.
Thousands of black farmers have lost their jobs and their homes and the farms are unworkable.
Zimbabwe depends on the success of agriculture and the contribution of these farmers is vital to sustain its economy.
There is money available from the United Kingdom government under the Lancaster House Agreement and there is a willingness among the white farmers to give up 80% of their land to settle the black families.
Mugabe must accept such a solution.
In 1970, Tanzania nationalised sisal farms, businesses and real estate, killing its private sector.
The same happened in Uganda in 1972, when the Asians were expelled, and those two countries' economies have been bankrupt ever since.
I sympathise with the farmers and farm workers of Zimbabwe, as my family was a victim of similar confiscation and nationalisation.
My family has lived in Tanzania for 166 years, much longer than many white farmers in Zimbabwe.
We bought land from Deutsch-Ostafrika in 1876 and I still have a title deed.
We lost land and property through nationalisation without compensation and I know what that means.
I share the grief of the silent black majority in Zimbabwe, who continue to live in poverty.
The poorest in Zimbabwe do not want to shoot, kill, loot and burn crops.
They are hungry and unemployed.
They need food, education, health, employment and shelter.
It was the vision and quality like Nelson Mandela that at last set an example for Africa that reconciliation, cooperation, democracy and respect for all people, irrespective of their colour, is the only way to govern a developing country the only way to help the poorest to be free of poverty and disease.
President Mugabe must follow Mr Mandela and accept reconciliation and democracy, allow the white farmers to thrive and continue farming and accept that Zimbabwe belongs to the people of Zimbabwe and nobody has the right to deprive them of a decent life based on peace and democracy.
Mr President, the Council, Commission and Parliament are well aware of the situation in Zimbabwe.
No one can claim they knew nothing about it.
In taking a passive line, the Council of Ministers is guilty of aiding and abetting.
It is outrageous that, yet again, the Council's 'Africa' working party failed to pass a resolution at its meeting in Brussels yesterday.
Obviously the presidency is only paying lip service to Africa, despite advertising it as a priority.
Unfortunately, France is the ringleader of a group of Member States that obviously has a different agenda.
How else are we to explain the fact that, while everyone else is either stopping or drastically cutting back on funding, France is increasing it.
I call on the Member States of the European Union who want to take a more active line to step up their collaboration, even before the Treaty of Nice takes effect, and to remind France and the rest that they are surely backing the wrong horse in taking this de facto passive line.
I think, my dear Mrs Kinnock, that Mr Mugabe will have no need of our resolutions or demands if he decides to impose a state of emergency.
He will do so anyway because, even if the elections are held, he will lose.
As the Members who have just spoken have pointed out, Zimbabwe is clearly in the grip of a serious crisis, which could lead to economic collapse and political conflict in extreme social conditions, bordering on a humanitarian emergency.
Our analysis is the same as that which most of you have made: the sole objective of the Zimbabwean government is to stay in power, even if that means ending up destroying a country that not long ago was considered to be one of the soundest economies and democracies in Africa.
The Zimbabwean government, which could have reasonably avoided this crisis, is therefore clearly responsible for this dramatic descent into hell.
The European Union' s political objective, as many of you have pointed out, is that presidential elections should be held.
The Union' s main objective is presidential elections in 2002, in the best possible conditions to enable change, as we say in conventional language.
The Union' s position, if that is the objective, should therefore be to seek a balance between, on the one hand, indicating our disagreement with the current development of the situation and, on the other hand, preventing it from serving as a pretext for declaring martial law, which would have the effect of delaying the elections that we want to take place.
Therefore, observing the presidential elections in 2002 is, in our view, the absolute priority for the Union.
With regard to what was said in your speeches on the implementation of Article 8, that is political dialogue (Article 8 of Cotonou), we approve the pursuit of political dialogue, while stressing, like you, that no substantial progress has been made in this dialogue in recent months.
A small hope remains, which is the forthcoming visit by the presidency to the countries involved in the Congolese crisis, an event that could perhaps lead to this dialogue being revived.
As far as the following stage is concerned, which is the implementation of Article 96 of Cotonou, which we call consultation and adoption of appropriate measures, again in conventional language, the Council will look at this issue at the beginning of October with, of course, our participation, and we will decide then whether or not we will take this step.
With regard to the impact of this situation on development cooperation, we hope to be able to maintain the programmes that the Community funds in Zimbabwe, particularly in the health and education sectors, given the humanitarian and social nature of these programmes, in order not to penalise the population, which is already being heavily affected by the economic crisis.
All this is taking place, as you have all said, in an extremely worrying economic and social context.
In Zimbabwe this year we see that a cereal shortage has already occurred and that should be manageable if it was only a question of the cereal shortage and its consequences for the population.
However, the serious instability prevailing in the country, the economic crisis and the societal conflicts that are taking place there are an important factor in a situation of food insecurity that we think, in these conditions, is in danger of becoming worse.
It is therefore the interaction between the food situation, the agricultural shortages, in this case of cereals, the economic context and the political context, which contains the germs of a crisis that is probably even more serious than that which we are currently experiencing, and which we should do everything we can to avoid.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Foot-and-mouth disease
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B5-0548/2001) by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the EDD Group, on foot-and-mouth disease;
(B5-0553/2001) by Mr Martinez and others, on behalf of the TDI Group, on foot-and-mouth disease;
(B5-0555/2001) by Mr Mulder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on foot-and-mouth disease;
(B5-0563/2001) by Mr Goepel, Mr Sturdy and Mr Maat, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on foot-and-mouth disease;
(B5-0573/2001) by Mrs Lucas and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on foot-and-mouth disease;
(B5-0580/2001) by Mr Berlato and Mr Hyland, on behalf of the UEN Group, on foot-and-mouth disease;
(B5-0584/2001) by Mr Jové Peres and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on foot-and-mouth disease;
(B5-0593/2001) by Mr Garot and Mr Adam, on behalf of the PSE Group, on foot-and-mouth disease.
Mr President, the regions of Oene, Kootwijkerbroek, Mayenne, Cumbria and Northumberland have become notorious in Europe.
Regions where humans and animals have suffered from the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
However, the suffering was caused not only by the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, but also by the means of combating the disease imposed by EU regulations, namely the slaughter of all animals on infected farms and in a buffer zone around them.
An approach based solely on the preservation of distant export markets.
Odd, if we realise that the European Union actually imports meat from vaccinated cattle from Argentina.
Much of the suffering of the last few months would have been unnecessary if the Commission had been prepared to accept preventive vaccination.
In France and since June also in the Netherlands the crisis has been averted.
Unfortunately, that is not yet the case in the United Kingdom.
There the suffering of farmers and animals continues unabated.
The figures make our heads spin.
Since 9 a.m. this morning, there have been 2 005 new cases.
Twenty recent new cases in Northumberland that for three months had seen no new infections.
In the United Kingdom, four million animals have been destroyed in connection with foot-and-mouth disease and a further one-and-a-half million because of welfare problems related to the crisis.
Let me be clear about this. This is not a loss of production units.
This is the destruction of living creatures.
It surprises me that the British government is only now considering using vaccination.
The argument that they wish to retain the lucrative export markets no longer cuts any ice, now that winter is nearly upon us.
Under the present circumstances, the United Kingdom will have lost that market for a considerable time.
I sincerely hope that the British government will listen to Sir William Stewart of the British Association of Science who says that vaccination must play a part in combating foot-and-mouth disease and should have been used at a much earlier stage.
There is intensive contact with continental Europe through the many movements of people, animals, vehicles and lorries.
That makes the situation in the United Kingdom life-threatening for agriculture in Europe.
The present checks, including those at the Dutch border, are so minimal that they are asking for trouble.
I therefore call on the Council and the Commission to take adequate preventive steps to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease in continental Europe, so that humans and animals are spared unnecessary suffering. Finally, I appeal urgently to the Commission once again in the light of the unmanageable crisis in the United Kingdom to change the non-vaccination policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, in this outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, there are technical areas of shadow, political certainties and strategic questions.
First of all regarding the areas of shadow, how, far from the known endemic sources - Turkey, Asia and Thrace in Europe - how has foot-and-mouth disease, and its virus, managed to reach Great Britain, an island? Perhaps by swimming?
Why this dogmatic refusal of a vaccine that is nevertheless effective. In 1950, before the obligatory vaccination between 1961 and 1991, France had up to 300 000 sources of infection per year, which disappeared with the obligatory vaccination.
Why, in the same country, have we had the foot-and-mouth virus and the prion for mad cow disease?
So many questions that lead to political certainties, if not lessons.
In both cases, BSE and foot-and-mouth disease, the British authorities have reacted late and have been overwhelmed, because the ultra liberalism of the Thatcher years left only 220 vets compared with 8 000 in France.
Just as for a developing country, Australia, Canada and even the French army had to send vets to Great Britain.
A lack of vets and no epidemic monitoring, which is why the disease spread.
It was also ultra liberalism that led to abattoirs being closed and meant that, from Carlisle, Hadrian' s Wall and Northumberland, sheep are taken to the south and the virus is spread.
The virus is spread across Great Britain and, following the removal of borders, it is also spread across France.
Freedom of movement is freedom of contamination.
The third certainty, demonstrated in an investigation report from the French Parliament in June 2001: it was illegal purchases, at knock-down prices - less than 90 euros per sheep for the Muslim feast of Eid-el-Kabir - which led to the spread of the virus.
Along with these certainties, however, there are questions for the Commission; and it is good that it should be Mr Lamy, the strategist, who is here.
First of all, does the compensation system in Great Britain not end up becoming a bonus for contamination? The impression was given that the beneficial compensation meant that people perhaps had an interest in having contaminated animals.
All the more so given that, collectively, four million animals were slaughtered, the majority of which were sheep, means that the surpluses will be drained.
And finally, does New Zealand, the leading world exporter, not have an interest in seeing its potential market share in Europe increase as animals are slaughtered? And my God, if Anglo-Saxons were able to come to an understanding on the Echelon Treaty, they can exchange favours.
For me, Great Britain, excessive individual compensation, for you, New Zealand, the possibility of more exports.
The Cairns group would be happy.
Doha would be a success.
It would be good if Mr Lamy could clarify this for us.
Mr President, no crisis in Europe, and especially in the Netherlands, has had such an impact on public opinion as the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
The great question is, and I do not know whether the Commission can answer it: what is the Commission' s explanation for the continued outbreaks of foot-and-mouth in the United Kingdom?
In my view, it is not only a matter for the authorities in Great Britain itself.
After all, every European taxpayer contributes to the solution of the crisis. Has the Commission urged Britain for example to use ring vaccination?
I should have thought that the example in the Netherlands was very successful, and why could it not be repeated in other European countries?
Another question.
One of the reasons for the crisis is that meat was imported illegally into Europe. Controls on our outer borders were inadequate.
My question to the Commission is: what has been done since on the outer borders? What has changed from, let us say, some six months ago?
Why not implement a similar type of check as in the United States or in Australia, where there are strict controls on entry? I have not been able to find this anywhere in Europe.
A further question. I believe that the large-scale slaughter of animals will no longer be acceptable to public opinion in the long run.
The development of marker vaccines might be one of the solutions.
The Commission has already done something about this, but will it do a little more to ensure that these marker vaccines and also the accompanying testing methods are made available as quickly as possible, so that we no longer have to slaughter so many animals?
Finally I should like to know something about the costs.
The situation in Great Britain is special, since the whole question of rebate is taken into consideration, but how much does the Commission estimate that this has cost up to now?
Mr President, the British countryside is at the moment in total crisis.
I have a document here in front of me stating that the British government admits that it was unable to meet the required deadlines for the slaughter of infected animals.
It goes on to say that the control of the disease, as my colleague there has said, has failed because we are now having new outbreaks in the centre of Britain, in the centre of the region where we thought we were rid of it.
We have failed to control it and we have also failed to provide the necessary border controls.
Last Sunday I drove from my farm in North Yorkshire to Strasbourg.
I was never questioned about whether I was carrying any meat and there were no border controls at all to check my vehicle.
There were no disinfection points.
There was a simple carpet in the middle of the road and that was all.
I say to Mr Lamy, who is the really important man here today, that we have a situation where England is the dustbin of Europe.
We are importing food from these countries.
We must look at that.
Finally, will he consider the possibility of a public inquiry into the way this matter has been handled?
Mr President, I very much regret that this is the second time in six months that we are having to debate foot-and-mouth disease in this House.
The reason for our debate is, as the Joint Resolution says, that the measures taken by the UK government to control this disease have failed, that new outbreaks are appearing and that there is a very real risk of the disease spreading again to mainland Europe.
We need to ask ourselves why the UK government has failed and why in particular it consistently rejects the idea of ring vaccination in the face of mounting calls from those in rural communities who want to adopt it.
It is ever more clear that it is not small farmers' livelihoods, it is not even the tourist industry and the wider rural economy that the UK has as its priority, but simply our meat exports and the desire to regain FMD-free export status again as soon as possible.
Yet even this dismal economic justification for culling on such a scale does not stand up.
According to the National Farmers' Union the UK earns just GBP 630 million a year from meat and dairy exports.
Compare that with the estimated cost to the wider rural community of GBP 9 billion as a result of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
I welcome the call in this resolution for a full cost-benefit analysis between the various disease control approaches so that we can compare the losses that have been suffered under the culling approach to those that would have been incurred under a vaccination strategy.
I feel sure that the results will demonstrate that the UK government' s approach is not only inhumane, it is also uneconomical.
We are urging the Commission to revise the EU strategy on defending by all means FMD status and to recognise that the culling and destruction of healthy animals is both inhumane and ineffective.
Mr President, I represent the region in the north-east of England which was the scene of the original outbreak and has just recently been affected by further outbreaks.
I regret very much that we have been unable to agree a compromise text on this occasion.
The reason is simple.
Recital A accuses the UK government of failure to control the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
In truth, it is not an attack on the UK government but on all those who have battled very heroically against the disease since the end of February - the farmers themselves, the vets, the scientists, the civil servants, the police, the military, many different rural agencies which have all been involved.
In particular, the farmers in the Allendale Valley, the scene of the recent hotspot, believed that they had taken all the necessary measures to avoid the disease.
Failure to control implies that the outbreak should have already ended.
But the mover of the resolution did not explain when and by what means that might have been achieved.
No-one ever promised, or even surmised, that the outbreak would be over at this stage.
At its peak there were 40 to 50 cases a day.
Despite the recent outbreak in Allendale, the average is now two or three cases per day.
If this does not indicate a degree of control then we really have a very serious problem in front of us, something that none of us ever imagined.
It is important also to recall that from the very start the UK government has given full information to the other Member States and has followed the advice of the Standing Veterinary Committee.
In that respect, we can point to a considerable success for the mechanisms that we have operating within the European Union.
A word on vaccination.
I would suggest to Mr van Dam, the original speaker on this resolution, that perhaps he ought to apply for the job of chief scientist in the United Kingdom.
He certainly seems to bring to the debate on vaccination an authority and conviction which far exceeds that of the current holder of the office, Professor David King, who only this morning in a radio broadcast said we could not be certain that vaccination would have done any good.
In the Netherlands the animals were also slaughtered and there is quite a problem here in the suggestion that vaccination actually saves the animal's life.
That does not necessarily follow - but I do not know when the job becomes vacant!
Mr President, no one doubts the seriousness of the foot-and-mouth epidemic in the UK.
I believe it has been the worst epidemic of this disease that the world has seen.
Nobody can doubt the drastic measures that have had to be used to curtail it.
The two current hotspots show that this outbreak will be with us for many months.
We cannot, on the one hand, say that the containment is too drastic because of the slaughter policy and, on the other hand, that it is too slack because it has let the disease take hold.
We did not anticipate effectively the extraordinary scale of animal movements, particularly of sheep, in February 2000 and later.
The first of the three inquiries that have now been launched in the UK will need to look at that and perhaps also at the role of one form of CAP subsidy in encouraging some of these forms of animal movement.
We provided effective information for our Dutch, French and Irish neighbours and for them it worked.
We should study how their containment worked and why.
Vaccination, in my opinion, has to be one of the options that the inquiry can recommend if they so find.
Finally a word to Mr Sturdy, who called for a European public inquiry.
When we had one into BSE, he was not so enthusiastic.
But BSE was a new disease.
There was a real element of concealment in some of the factors that led to that disease and particularly in the European factor and the fact that we were still exporting infected meal to continental Europe for years after we banned it for ourselves.
That was a genuine European inquiry.
The epidemiology of this outbreak is not in doubt.
I believe that our friends should accept that the British have to get their own house in order and, if that means a public dimension to the inquiries, that case can be made in the UK.
It is not like what happened with BSE: we have done our duty by our neighbours.
We hope that they will now have the confidence in us to let us help ourselves and see all remedies properly examined so that this dreadful disease can be exterminated.
Mr President, neither BSE nor foot-and-mouth are British diseases; they are a European problem.
With millions of animals being slaughtered and farms being crippled or wiped out, this is hardly the time for party political argument.
I well remember how Labour let fly at the Conservative government during the BSE crisis and now there is the temptation for the Conservatives to let fly at the Labour government, but even if governments are guilty of omission, what you are doing here is not exactly constructive.
We have submitted a regulation on feeding meat and bonemeal in certain cases - we are talking animal waste here.
Had we had it at the time, there would have been no BSE problem.
The same applies to foot-and-mouth.
The Commission needs to change its strategy.
Holland may have ring vaccinated successfully, but it was only by going against the mood in the EU and the Commission.
I do not want you to help, I want you to do something so that we end up with a different strategy which we can then also secure through our trade policy.
We must move away from this insane strategy of 'foot-and-mouth free' or 'disease free' and discuss this with our trading partners.
We need a regulation on feeding or destroying leftovers.
What the Council has done now, that is, just banning, is no help at all.
This rubbish has to go somewhere and we cannot dump it in landfills because then the problem of improper processing will keep recurring.
To give a brief description of the current situation in the Union as a whole, no restrictions have been imposed in the Union as a result of foot-and-mouth disease, except in Great Britain, and that was on 25 June this year, thirty days after the slaughter and destruction of the last vaccinated animal in the Netherlands.
So in fourteen of the fifteen Member States of the Union, plus Northern Ireland, we have quite a favourable situation, which is the result of the implementation and effective application of measures to combat foot-and-mouth disease at Community level.
I shall now run the risk of offending Mrs Lucas by referring briefly to the international point of view, and from that point of view we sincerely hope that the measures which have been adopted by France, Ireland and the Netherlands will enable them to obtain the necessary status from the International Office of Epizootics, thus enabling third countries to lift the trade restrictions that are still in place.
However - and on this point I should like to reassure Mrs Lucas - since this is perhaps not the most important aspect, let us come back to the case of the United Kingdom, which is actually still giving cause for concern, since the two-thousandth case occurred on 3 September.
Although the situation in Great Britain has remained stable for almost three months, we are still worried about it because of the fact that cases are continuing to occur within or close to the areas that have been placed under restrictions.
Many Members have referred to the most recent cases, in the county of Northumberland, the place where the epidemic first appeared. These cases are worrying, because they were confirmed three months after the disease had disappeared there.
Radical measures were taken: infected herds were slaughtered, as were neighbouring herds and contact herds, and although the occurrence of this admittedly limited but nonetheless worrying number of cases was to be expected, after the disease peaked at the beginning of April, the period over which a small number of cases have continued to occur is excessively long, and the Community has asked the British authorities to step up their eradication measures.
Time is pressing, because things will become more difficult in autumn and winter, not only because of weather conditions, but also because it is customary for animals to be moved during that period.
The present development of the disease is clearly passing through a critical phase.
This is not the time to relax our controls.
As has already been said, and as several of you have emphasised, this is the time of year when we see herds being moved around and handled in various ways, and in our opinion it is therefore necessary to reduce animal movements to the absolute minimum.
The Commission has made this known to the people involved.
Staying with the United Kingdom, the complex structure of beef and dairy farming, the absence of any clinical signs in sheep, and the fact that the spread of the disease within a herd or flock is slow, are all factors which complicate the problems and which make it necessary for us to have recourse to laboratory testing, and the capacity available for such testing is now sufficient.
So what is the Commission' s opinion? We would not say that the situation is satisfactory, because in this specific case it is not, but the risk of the disease spreading to other Member States is now much less than it was in March and April, when the disease was at its peak, because all the restrictions that were imposed, in particular on the movement of animals and untreated products from Great Britain, are still in place.
We are carrying out regular on-the-spot inspections, the latest of which goes back to the end of August, in order to satisfy ourselves that the British authorities are taking adequate measures.
Other regions of Great Britain, in some cases quite large regions, have not been affected by the disease, and the Veterinary Committee must continue to consider the matter so that when the time comes, and circumstances make it possible, trade with those regions can be envisaged subject to stringent conditions.
On this point we shall be extremely careful, because the experience of Northumberland reminds us that the risk is still present, even in those areas where it seemed that the disease had been brought under control.
To come back for a moment to the question of third countries, if Mrs Lucas will allow me, a certain number of countries have continued to take discriminatory measures against European products, which go beyond the international standards currently in force, and we are working on this matter together with a certain number of our trading partners.
Many third countries have gradually lifted the somewhat extensive prohibitions that they had initially imposed.
Others, by contrast, such as the United States, Canada and even some of the countries which have applied for accession, have been slow to lift the restrictions, which they still maintain, wrongly, even today.
We shall continue to work on this question, taking as our basis the WTO Agreement on Health and Plant Health.
Speaking more generally, it should be emphasised, first of all, that this crisis has had major repercussions on the Community budget.
We decided to grant an overall budget of EUR 400 million to the four Member States affected this year, and the latest forecasts show that the Union' s anticipated financial contribution will be slightly more than EUR 1.5 billion.
We shall take the necessary measures from the point of view of budgetary procedure.
There is no doubt that this is an exceptional situation. We do not know how to predict the budget for epizootics on this scale, and we shall therefore have to make adjustments as we go along.
That is just one aspect of this issue.
A second aspect, of course, is the damage done to the image of our livestock farming industry, following the slaughter of almost four million animals.
A third aspect is the fact that the problem, as has already been mentioned, is also present outside the European Union, and we are seriously worried following the recent appearance of a case in Turkish Thrace.
Finally, we at the Commission hope that we shall be able to learn some lessons for future use, with regard to the handling of this sort of crisis, so that we can improve our current regulatory and legislative system, for example by making provision for a certain number of additional requirements for intra-Community trade in small ruminants, such as restricting the number of stopping points, which would probably be the first step.
We are also working on a proposal regarding the identification and registration of sheep and goats, and on another proposal regarding the importing of animal products by travellers.
We are also working towards adjusting our inspection procedures when this type of epizootic appears.
I believe that we now have sufficient experience, but we must not delude ourselves.
The reinforcement of our legislation and of our systems, however necessary it may be, will not, on its own, be enough to prevent the reappearance of such an epidemic.
We must also improve the operation of the veterinary services within Member States, and there is not doubt that we must also change our farming practices.
My last point is one that several Members have drawn attention to during our discussions, and that is the question of vaccination.
As far as the use of so-called 'ring' vaccination around infected holdings is concerned, I should like to remind those of you who have sought to implicate the Commission by asking why the Commission did not order compulsory vaccination as a matter of urgency, that in our present legal system, which whatever any one says is characterised by certain forms of subsidiarity, vaccination is the responsibility of the national authorities.
There is therefore a procedure which allows any Member State that wants to to use vaccination, and that is how it is done.
The system exists and it is at the disposal of the Member States, but it is not the Commission' s responsibility.
I believe that I have thus given a clear answer to the questions raised by Mr van Dam, Mr Martinez, Mr Mulder and Mrs Lucas.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Human rights
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for a resolution:
Islamic Republic of Mauritania - B5-0545/2001 by Mr Rod, Mrs Maes and Mrs Isler Béguin, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on Mauritania;
B5-0556/2001 by Mr Van den Bos, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the human rights situation in Mauritania;
B5-0565/2001 by Mr Khanbhai, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on human rights violations in Mauritania;
B5-0579/2001 by Mr Turchi, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the situation in Mauritania;
B5-0585/2001 by Mr Sjöstedt and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Mauritania;
B5-0594/2001 by Mrs Carlotti, Mrs Napoletano and Mr Van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Mauritania;
Togolese Republic
B5-0546/2001 by Mr Rod, Mrs Isler Béguin and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on Togo;
B5-0557/2001 by Mr Van den Bos, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the imprisonment of an opposition leader in Togo;
B5-0566/2001 by Mr Schwaiger and others, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on the imprisonment of an opposition leader in Togo;
B5-0578/2001 by Mr Turchi, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the situation in Togo;
B5-0586/2001 by Mrs Morgantini, Mr Sylla and Mr Cossutta, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the imprisonment of an opposition leader in Togo;
B5-0595/2001 by Mrs Carlotti and Mr Van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Togo;
Kingdom of Cambodia
B5-0558/2001 by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Cambodia and preparations for the local elections on 3 February 2002;
B5-0564/2001 by Mr Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on Cambodia;
B5-0572/2001 by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on Cambodia;
B5-0587/2001 by Mr Sjöstedt and Mrs Frahm, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on Cambodia;
B5-0596/2001 by Mr Lage, Mrs Carlotti and Mr Van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE Group, on preparations for the local elections in Cambodia;
Afghan refugees seeking asylum in Australia- B5-0559/2001 by Mrs Malmström and Mr Olle Schmidt, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation of 438 Afghan refugees on board a Norwegian cargo vessel off the Australian coast;
B5-0570/2001 by Mrs Boumediene-Thiery and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the asylum seekers on board the 'Tampa' in Australian waters;
B5-0577/2001 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the Afghan refugees seeking asylum in Australia;
B5-0588/2001 by Mrs Ainardi and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation of the Afghan refugees on board the 'Tampa' off the Australian coast;
B5-0597/2001 by Mr Van den Berg and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation of the 438 Afghan refugees on board a Norwegian cargo vessel off the coast of Australia;
B5-0601/2001 by Mr Tannock, Mr Van Orden and Mr Sacrédeus, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on the Afghan refugees off the coast of Australia;
Attack on a train in the Republic of Angola- B5-0544/2001 by Mrs Maes, Mrs Lucas and Mrs Isler Béguin, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on Angola;
B5-0560/2001 by Mrs Malmström, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the attack on a train in Angola;
B5-0567/2001 by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on the attack on a train by Unita in Angola;
B5-0576/2001 by Mr Ribeiro e Castro and Mr Queiró, on behalf of the UEN Group, on Angola;
B5-0589/2001 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the attack on a train in Angola;
B5-0598/2001 by Mr Lage and Mr Van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Angola.
Republic of Mauritania
Mr President, the abolition, in October 2000, of the main opposition party in Mauritania, the Union of Democratic Forces-New Era, and the arrest and subsequent sentencing, to five years' imprisonment after a summary judgment, of the leader of the Popular Front, Chbih Melainine, calls into question the fundamental principles of democracy laid down in the constitution of Mauritania.
What, then, is that constitution worth? There is no freedom of association for political parties.
The Green Party, which submitted its articles of association several months ago, has still not been recognised and has not even received an acknowledgement that its application has been received.
These anti-democratic manoeuvres are taking place on the eve of the legislative and local elections planned for October.
We have no guarantee regarding these elections, because there is no independent electoral commission.
In our opinion, the release of Chbih Melainine is a prerequisite for holding the elections in October, as is the reconstitution of all the opposition parties.
It is in order to allow all these political actors to participate that we are asking that the elections should be postponed.
In order to re-establish democracy and guarantee the organisation of free and fair elections in Mauritania, we are asking the Council and the Commission to enter into consultations with the government, in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement.
Mauritania is preparing thoroughly for the elections in October.
Political opponents of the regime are being neutralised.
People are being arbitrarily arrested, excessive force is being used against peaceful demonstrators and the press now serves only as the president' s lackey.
The judiciary is again entirely at the disposal of those with political power.
Their Honours recently sentenced the principal political opponents of the president in a show trial to no less than five years in prison.
The imprisoned politicians were kept incommunicado for a long period and then taken to prison 800 km from the capital, so that they can receive almost no visitors.
It appears that no one can do anything to stop this.
Independent human rights organisations can scarcely operate in the country.
While Western countries are obliged to apologise in Durban for the slave trade conducted by their distant ancestors, slavery is still common practice in Mauritania.
In the caste system, people become serfs at birth.
They receive no education; no income from forced labour and are not allowed to marry without the permission of their master.
According to an estimate by the American State Department a few years ago, there are still some 90 000 slaves in Mauritania.
As recently as 1983, this country was the last on earth to abolish slavery officially, but still does its utmost to keep the gruesome reality hidden from the outside world.
It is high time that the European Union opened the consultative procedure of Article 96 with Mauritania.
We cannot continue giving aid and maintaining intensive trade relations as if there were no problem.
We must prepare for pseudo-elections in a pseudo-democracy.
Mr President, Mauritania is a vast country and almost 90% of its land is desert.
Water is a scarce resource and its 2.2 million people are poor and live in rural areas.
It depends on its exports of iron ore and fishing - just two things.
I was invited in May of this year to lead a small delegation of MEPs and visit Mauritania, which I did.
I spent a week with parliamentarians, all the ministers, President Taya, civil society and NGOs.
We travelled up and down the country - a week is a long time to be in Mauritania.
Mrs Sudre and Mrs Langenhagen came with me.
I was impressed by what President Taya has done over the years in a country as poor as this.
I am astonished - and I want to embarrass him and his government, which I shall do at the ACP Conference when their delegates come - that there is now this sad case of locking up the opposition.
There is no reason for it, there is no need.
He is quite strong, he is quite popular.
He has done well.
He can do well without locking up his opposition.
As far as slavery is concerned, it is actually banned in Islam and Mauritania is a Muslim country.
There are Moors, there are blacks and various mixtures of these two.
I saw their lifestyle.
I did not see any slaves, though that is not to say they are not there.
What I shall certainly do is embarrass the government of Mauritania at the ACP Conference to make sure this practice does not continue and the opposition is allowed to operate freely so that there is accountability of the ministers.
It is better for the president of the country and the people of the country.
Mr President, the situation in Mauritania is actually getting worse and worse.
We are talking about a country that falls within the ACP framework in relation to the European Union and which, furthermore, hopes to move on from its current observer status to becoming a full member of the Barcelona process.
We are obliged to remind the Mauritanian authorities that it is impossible for the European Union to envisage, for example, that country acquiring full member status in the Barcelona process if democracy does not become a reality, if human rights continue to be violated and, what is more, if the date is maintained for the municipal and legislative elections which, as things stand at the moment, will take place this October without any type of guarantee.
There is clearly little chance of dissolved parties and imprisoned opposition leaders being able to participate when, furthermore, they have nowhere to express themselves because the press is either overseen by the government or simply does not exist.
I shudder to think about the situation of that one Member of Parliament who does not belong to the government party in an assembly of 79 seats, but I imagine that if any opposition Member were elected in these elections - which will not happen - he would probably soon be sent from Parliament to jail.
I therefore think that the European Union must implement the provisions of Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement.
Mauritania lowers the already low average level of democracy and human rights in the Maghreb.
However, it is clearly just one more case on a continent such as Africa, where human rights are constantly violated.
Mauritania is a country where the permanent dictator, not the dictator of the moment, President Mauya Uld Sid'Ahmed Taya, has just torn up all the rules which, with the mediation of the European Union, the opposition and the government had established for proper elections, elections furthermore which have been delayed indefinitely.
I believe that the Union must act decisively.
Togo
Mr President, two years ago, my first speech to this House condemned the situation in Togo.
Since then, although some good souls have assured us that everything is working out nicely, Togo is still living in a political wasteland and it has a long way to go before it escapes from it.
Democracy is still a fleeting ideal.
Civil rights and human rights are constantly flouted, and I believe that the passive attitude of the governments of European Union Member States does nothing to encourage things to change.
Parliament' s regular condemnations are merely rhetorical and ineffective.
Most recently, the sum paid by the Commission to organise new elections - CFA francs 4 billion - was dismissed as insufficient by the government, which took advantage of the opportunity to postpone, yet again, the long-awaited legislative elections.
In a complete violation of his previous undertakings, President Eyadema and his government are even thinking about amending the constitution so as to allow him stand for election again.
Finally, one of the opposition leaders, Mr Yawovi Agboyibo, was arrested and sentenced, a month ago, on trumped-up charges.
The truth of the matter is that he had denounced the terror tactics employed in areas where the opposition had a majority, tactics which took the form of rapes and other crimes, including the murder of opponents.
Mr Eyadema seems less than ever prepared to honour his obligations to his people and his obligations to the international community.
Here again, Parliament should firmly condemn his actions, demand that free elections be held on the planned dates, and ask the Council and the Commission to initiate consultations in accordance with Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement.
How do you stay in power for 34 years in Africa? Opposition parties are banned or it is made impossible for them to function.
Opponents who have or threaten to acquire support are put behind bars.
The press is completely manipulated and anyone openly criticising the president winds up in a cell if he is lucky and six feet under if he is less fortunate.
Mass demonstrations are mercilessly broken up.
The political class consists entirely of slavish servants of the president as a result of a system of rewards and punishments.
A ludicrous cult of personality is designed to give the Head of State a quasi-divine status.
The French President, Mr Chirac, has to be hoodwinked to such an extent that he condemns Amnesty International instead of the human rights violations in Togo.
The murdering of opponents of the regime goes unpunished.
This is still unfortunately the familiar pattern in many African countries and we do not really know how to deal with it.
Crude misuse of power hampers development and perpetuates poverty.
The European Union quite rightly suspended aid as long ago as 1993, but the situation has not improved. On the contrary, the opposition leader and human rights campaigner, Mr Agboyibo, was thrown into jail for six months, for allegedly insulting the Prime Minister.
In order to add force to his arguments his Excellency maintains a private army of 1 000 troops.
Togo is asking for financial support to hold parliamentary elections in October.
The question is whether or not we would then contribute to the organisation of a democratic farce, designed solely to give those in power a semblance of legitimacy. President Eyadema has announced that he will keep to the constitution and step down in 2003, but why should we believe someone who has lied for 34 years in order to stay in power?
Mr President, Zimbabwe, Mauritania, Togo, it looks very much as if the democratisation process in Africa is in reverse.
Some leaders are indeed proving exceptionally creative in eliminating their political opponents and getting round the democratic rules of the game.
One of them is General Eyadema from Togo.
At the last elections in 1998 he did not hesitate to have the counting of votes stopped and himself again proclaimed president.
A period of bloody repression followed, in which, according to Amnesty, hundreds of people were killed.
An international committee confirmed those findings, but at the present moment, no one has yet been called to account or punished.
On the contrary, the repression is simply continuing.
The latest victim is opposition leader, Mr Agboyibo.
Last month in a show trial, he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for spreading false information.
I have met Yawovi Agboyibo several times personally in his home base.
I have developed a very great admiration for the way in which, at the constant risk of his own life, he continues to campaign for human rights and the restoration of democracy in his country.
This must be stopped in some way.
Maintaining the suspension of aid is one thing, but I believe that we must ask ourselves whether a country like Togo still belongs at conferences of the ACS and the European Union.
However, the problem is that, just as in the case of Zimbabwe, certain European states follow their own agenda for the sake of commercial or other interests and, in so doing, run counter to the European strategy towards Togo.
It is not enough to establish fine principles in an agreement.
They must also be applied consistently and that also applies to a country like France.
Mr President, the resolution calls for the release of Yawovi Agboyibo, the opponent of the dictator, General Eyadema.
We support this resolution in that respect, but we wish to make it clear that those who approve the policies of the great Western powers are not in a position to be indignant now, because this dictatorship, which has oppressed the people of Togo since 1967, could not have persisted without the support of the great powers, and particularly of France.
One might therefore question the usefulness of a resolution adopted by Parliament, when the present dictator is then welcomed with as an honoured guest of our governments, and when he continues to receive subsidies that allow him to buy the arms that keep him in power.
Cambodia
Mr President, Commissioner, it is clear that the political situation in Kampuchea is calmer at this moment than it has ever been and it is equally clear that the country is still a long way from being a real democracy.
Much support is still required on the slow road to democracy, and the local elections will be an extremely important moment in that process.
The Kampuchean People' s Party, which controls the country, is an old-style Communist party, which means that it as a party is directly or indirectly involved in everything, in every sector, at every level in that country.
Consequently, it is not surprising that the local elections should be considered a threat and that they have been repeatedly postponed.
It is therefore essential that we continue to exert international pressure on the government to do everything possible to create a violence-free period before the elections and to reopen the procedure for voter registration.
Voter registration is in the hands of the village headmen, who are appointed by the central committee of the Kampuchean People' s Party, and nothing is simpler than to give poll cards to those in favour of the government and withhold them from those opposed to it.
Only last Monday, the leader of the opposition, the Member of Parliament, Sam Rainsy, had a meeting with the local representative of the European Commission, who in that conversation, was able to make the point that we have a very positive attitude to the National Election Committee.
I am far from being so enthusiastic.
We must watch that National Election Committee very closely, since it is at the crux of whether or not the elections are being conducted fairly.
The European Union has little cause to be proud of the way in which we observed the elections in Kampuchea last time, and we must do a lot better this time.
Mr President, Cambodia has been through a black period, a bloody period, a period in which nearly three million people were sacrificed to Marxist ideology.
During this period, there were two people who personified the hope for freedom, Son San, the important democrat, who often visited us here in Strasbourg and who has since died, and King Sihanouk, who is now an old, ill man.
That is why this country needs to be renewed from the roots upwards and young, democratic forces need to be supported.
This can only be done through the communes, it can only be done through democratic local elections from the roots upwards.
That is why it is so important for us to support and back the numerous candidates in the communes, for us to ensure that fair local elections are held, for us to monitor efficiently, for us to ward off, prevent and correct any jiggery-pokery during registration.
As for the Criminal Tribunal, we must state quite clearly that this is not a question of revenge, it is a question of law.
We must state quite clearly to future offenders that acts of violence, genocide and mass murder will be ruthlessly punished on the basis of the rule of law, irrespective of who is responsible.
That is why we need the International Tribunal to have a large Cambodian contingent, so that it is seen not as a foreign court but as a court of the Cambodian people.
Mr President, in our memories Kampuchea will always remain the country of the 'Killing Fields' .
The period of terror still casts a shadow over the country.
Even now, with elections in prospect, the democratic process turns out not to be proceeding completely smoothly.
On the contrary, restrictions have been imposed on the opposition.
There is increasing violence.
Voter registration has been halted, so that 30% of the electorate cannot even take part in the elections.
There is the lack of legal guarantees in the special tribunal, and so on.
Nevertheless, it remains a challenge for the European Union, or the democratic world, to do our utmost to keep watch and to help guide the country towards democracy.
It would surely be positive if at least one guarantee could be given.
Something concrete, namely that voter registration will be reopened, so that the hope of a democratic result is not completely dashed in advance.
Afghan refugees seeking asylum in Australia
Mr President, the crisis concerning the boat full of Afghan refugees off Australia again calls attention to the whole problem of Afghan refugees.
In the last 20 years, millions of people have fled Afghanistan and, according to the UN human rights organisation, approximately 6.2 million Afghans are classified as refugees.
Their first port of call when they leave the country is generally one of the refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran, where they live in appalling conditions.
Pakistan can no longer cope with the number of refugees and is sending them back to Afghanistan.
Outside the refugee camps, there are so-called travel agents waiting who send refugees with money on to other countries, and the cheapest fare to a Western country is now a journey to Australia, which costs approximately EUR 6 000.
This stream of refugees will not stop if we do not manage to receive the refugees properly near Afghanistan and that is what we as the European Union must put our money into.
This is the solution to the problem.
As long as people are living there in dreadful conditions, they will want to go on fleeing to Western countries.
Ladies and gentlemen, the fate of the Afghan refugees on their desperate quest for a chance of a new life provides a predominantly depressing story, were it not for the actions of the captain of the Norwegian ship Tampa.
Not only did he rescue the people from a sinking ship, but subsequently too he consistently took the side of the people.
It is thanks to such humanitarian help that we can retain a vague hope in a better future.
For this reason, our group feels that a legal obligation should be introduced to allow the stowaways ashore at the first port of call, in agreement with the 1957 Treaty on stowaways.
As a result of the clash between the various spheres of law, the refugees become the exhausted pawns in a game of passing the buck.
Consequently, it must be clearly stated that Australia' s actions in this matter have been far from praiseworthy.
Local political interests have taken precedence over the respecting of human rights.
Through its actions, Australia supports and finances the source of the problems with which the country is confronted.
Too little attention is paid to the cause.
The main responsibility for this drama lies with the Taliban regime, which is systematically destroying its own country and killing the spirit of its own population, so that migrations of people have become a necessary evil.
In this matter, we have an international political humanitarian responsibility.
We might have wished that Australia would use its political weight to condemn the regime in Afghanistan and to spur the international community on to constructive action.
Mr President, I think any of us can understand why people should flee Afghanistan.
Not only because of the repressive and fanatical nature of a regime which denies women and children education, work and even medical care, but also because of the deterioration of the economic situation which that fanatical regime is causing in the country.
We therefore perfectly understand the almost 500 people which tried to flee, at risk of their lives, and came up against a brick wall erected by a country such as Australia, a rich country which could have taken them in from the outset without any problem.
I believe that we should acknowledge the courage of the captain of the Norwegian freighter, Arne Rinnan, who, without thinking of the consequences and led only by humanitarian considerations, immediately picked up these people, who were in danger of drowning.
In contrast, we must strongly criticise a country which, like any of our countries, is obliged to take in a ship which was sailing in it waters with almost 500 people in a situation as precarious as that of these refugees.
Rules must be laid down to prevent this type of situation.
I know that it is not easy, that there are increasing numbers of refugees, that poverty is spreading and is the reason why many people are seeking a better life, but I believe that the attitude of Australia must not be imitated by any country towards any group of refugees who, under the protection of the United Nations Convention of 1951, are asking to be allowed to survive.
Mr President, we were negotiating the motion for a resolution on Afghan refugees when, at precisely that time, a Turkish ship approached Greek waters and threw 350 people into the sea. 215 of them have been picked up and more than a hundred are still being sought, and we do not know if they have drowned or if they have been able to survive.
In fact, a former European Commissioner and Member of this Parliament, the current Greek Minister for the Merchant Navy, Christos Papoutzis, has highlighted the irresponsibility of the Turkish government in allowing a situation such as this to come about.
As the Member who has just spoken has said, we are undergoing a universal process of globalisation.
The phenomenon of illegal immigration is not confined to one part of the world. The European Union, to be specific, is currently seeing the arrival of huge numbers of immigrants, and since Commissioner Lamy is here, and he has been so concerned with the problems of globalisation, I would like to say that I believe we are dealing with another aspect of the phenomenon of that globalisation.
Just as capital and goods are being moved about freely, it seems that people also want to move about freely.
As Mrs González Álvarez has said, this is not an issue which is easily resolved, but I believe we could do something from here on many levels.
On the most general level there would be a regulation of the international economy that includes population movements.
And on more specific levels it would mean action by the institutions of the European Union to try to regulate this illegal immigration.
This very week, this summer, on the island where I live, we have seen the bodies of illegal immigrants who have been flung from the boats on which they were arriving by Moroccan skippers who form genuine mafias.
The question should be put to the Commission of what measures the European Union is preparing for action within its own territory and what measures it is proposing on an international level.
I believe that we must act in our own territory, and in the area of neighbouring countries, such as Turkey and Morocco, which are sending us illegal immigrants, and on an international level, by establishing regulations of a general nature.
I do not believe that responsibility on the issue of the Afghan refugees should fall exclusively to Australia.
Responsibility also falls, for example, to the Indonesian government because it was from there that the original boat sailed, the crew was Indonesian, it all began in waters under Indonesian jurisdiction and it seems that nobody is remembering to state this type of responsibility at the moment.
I believe that international action is required in this case and I believe that this would be an excellent opportunity for the European Commission to implement an initiative, I repeat, not only in the closer area of our neighbours, but also on an international level, with a view to achieving the regulation of migratory flows and illegal immigration.
Mr President, in August the Norwegian freighter Tampa rescued 433 Afghans and four Indonesian crew members from a fishing vessel that had set sail from an Indonesian port.
The captain was given permission to proceed to the Indonesian port of Merak, after which he was put under duress by the passengers with threatened suicides and forced to sail towards Australian waters.
It is believed that many of these passengers set out from a refugee camp in Pakistan, paying about GBP 4 500 each to be taken illegally to Australia.
Apparently the going rate for Germany is GBP 7 000 and Britain, the destiny of choice, is GBP 10 000.
The Australian government was perfectly entitled to exercise its sovereign right under the law of the sea to secure its borders by refusing the ship access to Australian waters.
Nor do its obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention apply until an asylum seeker is actually present on its territory.
The convention itself, introduced before the age of cheap mass jet travel, was a response to the horrors of Nazism and designed to protect the principle of asylum.
However, as we are all aware, it is increasingly abused by economic migrants who pass through several safe but poor countries in order to reach rich countries to settle in, where it can lead to people-trafficking, prostitution and a black economy in jobs.
In Britain over 100 000 people claimed asylum last year and the great majority of these claims were unfounded.
But it remains profitable for criminal people-traffickers to ply their trade because appeals can be strung out for years and, even when unsuccessful, almost no-one is deported back to their country of origin.
Australia's problem is also our problem.
We need urgently to face up to the need to secure our borders and remove those who enter illegally.
There is widespread concern.
The EU should urgently develop new policies in this area.
We also need to exert severe pressure on those countries which refuse to take back their own nationals.
In fact we need to totally renegotiate the 1951 Geneva Convention and think again.
I salute Prime Minister Howard of Australia's robust and courageous stance over this issue.
Mr President, the European Parliament is calling upon the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to facilitate the activities of voluntary organisations when it comes to supplying food and urgent humanitarian aid to the Afghan people.
Why are thousands of people fleeing in droves from Afghanistan? What kind of regime is it that is governing the country?
The Christian aid organisation, Shelter Now International has just recently been excluded from Afghanistan and forced to discontinue its activities.
Eight of its employees - including four from an EU country, Germany, two from the United States and two from Australia - have this week been put on trial in Kabul for alleged Christian missionary activity.
The prosecutor is demanding the death penalty.
Sixteen Afghans are also being put on trial in accordance with the same Muslim law and threatened with the death penalty for having converted people from Islam to Christianity.
Mr Patten, Mr Michel and also Mr Solana are acting to protect these people.
Mr President, may I begin by saying that I cannot agree with anyone who suggests that the claims of most of the people who have been processed in the system in the United Kingdom are found to be fraudulent.
I would like to distance myself from statements like that.
It misrepresents the position of people in Britain who do not understand the kind of attitude that we heard here earlier this afternoon.
We are glad that after eight days of sitting under tarpaulins in the hot sun and inside containers, the Afghan refugees are now at least in reasonable conditions on board the ship on a long voyage to Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea.
It has been an extremely tragic incident and terrible to watch and to think of their suffering.
But more than anything it teaches us that the 50-year old asylum-seeking system instigated by the United Nations is not working any more.
It is creaking under the strain of the mass movement of 21 million migrants a year.
The desperation of the people on the Tampa is clear.
To suggest that people take this kind of action lightly is ridiculous.
They take terrible risks with their lives and the lives of their children in order to escape persecution or penury.
They cross the seas in inflatable boats, they cling to the underside of trains like the Eurostar and jumbo jets.
The suffering of the refugees on the Tampa should at least lead all the governments that we represent here to rethink the way that they implement the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees.
Finally, I would say that the first thing we have to try and do is to ensure that it is governments, rather than organised criminals, that determine where refugees finally end up.
Attack on a train in Angola
Mr President, the attack on a train, which caused the death of 260 civilians and injured more than 150 people on 10 August in Angola is unacceptable and deplorable, especially since, in the weeks that followed, several buses also came under fatal attack.
Once again, it was UNITA which struck the blow, thereby continuing to violate the peace agreement signed in Lusaka in 1994, which made provision, amongst other things, for the disarming of the militant rebels.
Unfortunately, these acts of terrorism are merely one further stage in the civil war that has been ravaging the country for more than 25 years.
Above all, however, these extremely violent acts against civilians only serve to postpone even further the prospect of organising the elections planned by the government for 2002-2003.
When he announced, on 23 August, his intention not to stand in the presidential elections, President dos Santos threw the ball back into the rebels' court.
He says that he is prepared to hold free and democratic elections, provided that the war comes to an end.
The pause in the fighting and the restoration of a peaceful climate are due, according to him, to Mr Savimbi and his militant movement.
Yet Mr Savimbi, the leader of UNITA, says that he wants to negotiate.
In reality, of course, sitting comfortably on his diamonds, he wants only one thing: all the power.
We are also responsible here, because who is it who supplies UNITA with arms? Who is it who participates in this diamond trafficking?
As for the government, it is not transparent either. The lack of transparency in the management of petroleum revenue leads us to conclude that public funds have been used to back up the regime.
The Angolagate scandal has revealed the role of Europeans in this affair.
The violence has to stop, and dialogue must be initiated as a matter of urgency.
Angolans must vote for and achieve peace.
The European Union can make its influence felt, and it has a role to play here.
It should be reminded of that fact, and we must vote in favour of this resolution in order to go forward.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, once again, in this Parliament, we are discussing Angola.
News comes through on a regular basis and is always sad.
The latest report describes an attack on three passenger vehicles in southern Kwanza last Sunday, in which dozens of people were killed. No one has yet claimed responsibility for this attack.
Previous to this, there had been the attack on the train we are condemning today, which caused the deaths of more than two hundred people and for which UNITA claimed responsibility.
Lives have been wasted and innocent blood has been spilled in a bout of violence that we can only condemn.
We condemn UNITA today with the same independence with which, in February, we condemned the MPLA and the Angolan government for persecuting journalists.
More important, however, than condemning those who stubbornly continue to wage war, and criticising both sides, which undoubtedly deserve our criticism for pursuing this path of confrontation, the most important and most useful thing may be to foster peace.
This Parliament can contribute to encouraging all those in Angola tired of war and wanting a better future.
Along with many other Members of this House, specifically Mr Ribeiro e Castro, I signed a proposal to award the Sakharov prize to Zacarias Kamuenho, Archbishop of Huambo and Chairman of the Episcopal Conference of Angola and São Tomé.
I urge all of you to use this gesture as a means to give courage to all those in Angola who wish to see peace prevail.
Mr President, the appalling terrorist attacks that Mr Savimbi' s UNITA has been carrying out in Angola, first in Caxito, then on a train, and then on cars, schools and hospitals, warrant our sternest condemnation, because they mainly affect the civilian population.
These are some of the most violent and reprehensible terrorist acts in living memory.
I therefore feel that the European Parliament too must express its repudiation of such acts in the most forceful terms, as the rest of the international community and, in particular, the other Community institutions have done by unequivocally condemning such barbarity.
All the same, and if any doubts could possibly remain, these acts have brutally shown the correct nature of the positions that have been successively adopted by the international community which, with a single voice, has called for and is implementing the isolation of UNITA and the imposition of sanctions on it.
That organisation had already given sufficient proof of being largely responsible for the tragic situation affecting Angola and its people, through its rejection of election results, obstructing the disarming of its forces and, more generally, through waging war and not respecting and even blocking the implementation of agreements that they themselves have signed.
Now, however, with such acts of vandalism, UNITA is revealing its true colours even more clearly and there is no longer room for any doubt, however small, as to the nature and the objectives of this organisation.
This is why there are even fewer grounds for holding equivocal positions, particularly where the European Parliament is concerned.
Any positions or initiatives, particularly when formulated by friends of UNITA such as Mr Ribeiro and Castro, which tend to condone, exonerate or divert attention from the huge responsibilities of UNITA in the tragic situation that Angola is experiencing are completely unacceptable. This applies also, and especially, to those that tend to place the legitimate government of Angola on an equal footing with this type of terrorist organisation.
As a matter of fact, it is now clearer than ever that any path to peace in Angola requires holding UNITA responsible, ensuring its political and diplomatic isolation, ending the diamond trade that sustains it and disarming it for good.
Having said this, I should just like to say a few words about the motion for a resolution that we shall be voting on next.
Its approval, despite the odd provision that is not worthy of adoption and is not essential, would be a positive development in that it would enable the European Parliament to adopt its traditional position of aligning itself with the international community and with the other Community institutions on this matter.
In particular, I would like to emphasise the correctness of the decision adopted by the resolution to call the acts that UNITA has recently been perpetrating 'terrorist' acts.
This is the right word to describe them and all concomitant conclusions should be drawn from that.
Mr President, I wish to respond to a personal remark which I consider to be unacceptable and, in this context, insulting.
I fully and vehemently repudiate this disgraceful insinuation, and furthermore the quite shameful and unbecoming statement from the benches of the Communist Party, which is more responsible than anyone for the war in Angola, that I am a friend of UNITA.
I wish to state quite categorically that I vehemently condemn the attacks on civilians but I understand the situation in Angola.
I do not do favours for the diamond dealers or the oilmen or for Angola' s corrupt administration, which is largely responsible for what is happening and for the suffering of the Angolan people.
Mr Miranda should be ashamed of what he says and what he does, particularly because he is chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and should be making a more responsible contribution to promoting a cease-fire and dialogue, which is what the Angolan people are asking us to do.
Mr President, allow me to take up the various points which have been mentioned during this debate, and to let you know the Commission' s position.
On the subject of Mauritania, first of all, we share the concerns that have been expressed regarding respect for human rights in Mauritania.
In recent years we have observed some progress.
This has now come to an end, and we are experiencing a period of sudden backward steps.
Like the Members who have spoken during the debate, we believe that the Union cannot remain silent in the face of the imprisonment of the leader of the opposition, Mr Chbih, in the conditions that we are aware of and in particular in the period leading up to the elections.
Therefore we, like you, believe that steps should be taken to ask for the release of Mr Chbih while the result of his appeal to the court of cassation is awaited, at the same time using this opportunity to remind the authorities of the principles to which the Union is committed with regard to the electoral process.
The release of Mr Chbih and the holding of the elections this coming October are our two priorities.
On the subject of Togo, again we share your concern, both about the imprisonment of a local journalist in May and about the imprisonment of the two leaders of the opposition parties, Mr Olympio in June, and Mr Agboyibo just recently.
All these names and all these facts have been mentioned, in particular by Mr Rod.
We should like to follow up our approach to the Togolese Minister for Foreign Affairs on 17 August, when once again we expressed our concerns to the Togolese government.
At the time, I believe that we got a clear message across, to the effect that, from the point of view of the Union, the political parties and the media must be able to continue their activities without restrictions.
So far, our approach has not had any effect.
We believe that the statement made in August by the Prime Minister, in which he mentioned the need to postpone the elections and proposed that the electoral code should be amended, which some Members have mentioned, is not good news and does not help to create a climate which is conducive to the conducting of transparent, free and democratic elections.
On this subject we have noted with satisfaction the statement made by President Eyadema, in which he said that on this point the Prime Minister' s proposals committed only the Prime Minister himself, whereas he, the President, intended to respect the constitution and abide by the undertakings given under the Lomé Convention.
We are continuing to monitor the political and economic situation and we shall maintain our position, to the effect that we can render assistance to the electoral process by helping the government to create the necessary conditions, notwithstanding the suspension of our cooperation with Togo which, as you know, was decided on under the provisions of the Lomé Convention, which corresponds to what would now be Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement.
From this point of view, Mr Rod, we are already past the Article 96 stage.
The Union has also responded positively to the invitation from the Togolese Minister for Foreign Affairs to participate in a mission to observe the elections.
If the United Nations decided to take on the task of coordinating such an observer mission, we would not have any objections.
However, the conditions for organising and implementing such an observer mission still have to be determined.
If it is decided to go ahead with such a mission, obviously Parliament' s participation in that mission would be welcome.
As for human rights in Cambodia, the Commission and the Member States have been officially invited by Cambodia to nominate and dispatch observers to monitor the local elections.
With this in mind, we have sent a fact-finding mission.
The conclusions and recommendations of that mission will be examined by the Council during September, so as to decide whether or not we should organise a Community observer mission to monitor the local elections.
We are also ready to assist in the smooth running of those elections by means of technical assistance projects.
On the question of electoral registration, Mrs Maes, the latest figures available to us indicate that the overall rate of registration is just over 80%, which is an improvement on the previous figures, though 100% registration has still not been achieved.
As for the question of how we should deal with the past, which some of you have mentioned, I would remind you that we support without reservation the efforts of the United Nations and of the government of the Kingdom of Cambodia to reach an agreement concerning the court responsible for the Khmer Rouge trials.
On the subject of the Afghan refugees seeking asylum in Australia, we, like Mrs Kinnock, are relieved that a solution has been found which will provide the help and protection needed by those people, men, women and children, who are fleeing from one of the most intolerant of all regimes.
If I have understood you correctly, your speeches were not intended to put any particular third country in the dock, but rather to consider whether, in the context of the present system of international governance, there are any remedies that would enable us to handle this type of situation better.
You are right, we cannot remain insensitive.
We all know that there are other ships carrying other fugitives from misery, often in the most appalling conditions, and that these ships arrive, some of them off the coasts of Europe.
This is not a question of 'the rest of the world' , from which we can remain detached, any more it is a question of looking at it purely in the light of the problems that it may give rise to elsewhere.
There is clearly a growing malaise in the international community with regard to forced migration, whether it is of economic, political or criminal origin, because this is how we must describe the organised networks trafficking in human beings.
Mr Medina Ortega, we share the desire which you and other Members have expressed for international instruments to be adopted which will be able to prevent and settle such cases, and also your desire at least to update and amend the 1951 Convention so that it can cope with the present situation, which is not the same as it was in the 1950s.
From this point of view, we support the efforts initiated by the High Commissioner for Refugees, which were announced on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of that Convention.
The High Commissioner for Refugees played an important role in dealing with the crisis involving the Tampa, and I believe that we should all encourage the Commissioner to put this type of problem on the agenda of the consultations which, following the Geneva Conference in December, should enable us to update our rules, because that is what they are, international rules.
We must also remember the importance of the protocols on trafficking in human beings which are annexed to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime of December 2000.
The Community is itself a party to those protocols which, when they come into force, after a certain number of ratifications, will improve the joint framework that we have at our disposal in order to combat such crime.
As far as the Union itself is concerned, and we really are concerned, as I have said, the Treaty of Amsterdam and the conclusions of the Tampere European Council provided the basis for a common policy on asylum and immigration.
I believe that the Union, by means of these instruments and various declarations, has repeated its commitment and that of its Member States to a humanitarian tradition which should take the form of the creation of a common asylum regime which provides appropriate protection to any person who needs it, and which guarantees the principle of not turning people away.
Of course, this will not work without preventive measures in the countries and regions of origin.
We took a step in the right direction here when the Council adopted a certain number of action plans prepared by the immigration and asylum group.
One of these plans is specifically targeted at Afghanistan and neighbouring regions.
If it proves to be ineffective, we shall have to look at it again, and we shall rely on Parliament to point us in that direction.
As far as trafficking in human beings is concerned, we need to strengthen the action taken by the Union, especially in cases where the victims are able to benefit from international protection.
Here too, the Commission takes the view that a more systematic and coherent approach is needed.
We shall shortly be taking action with a view to achieving this, by issuing a communication.
This is all turning into a timetable of action for the Union.
Work has started within the Council.
To be perfectly honest, we think that things are proceeding very slowly, but this is only to be expected given the sensitive nature of these issues from the point of view of Member States.
No doubt we shall need fresh impetus at an appropriately high political level, probably at the European Council in Laeken.
At any rate, that is what the Presidency seems to think.
It goes without saying that Parliament' s support in this matter will, we are sure, enable us to proceed in the right direction.
Finally, on the subject of the attack on a train in Angola, there is not much that I can add.
Much of what has been said we can all agree on anyway.
Like you, the Commission is very concerned about the continuation of this war, and deplores the fact that these confrontations are intensifying and that, yet again, several hundred civilians have been killed in various regions of the country over the last few weeks.
We are absolutely determined to support the efforts being taken, in accordance with the Union' s common position, to find a political solution to the conflict in Angola.
I did not get the impression, from your speeches, that you are seriously critical of that common position.
We are therefore working towards implementing it, by supporting any proposal which seeks to support the initiatives being made by the African Union - and there are some - or by African regional organisations such as the Southern Africa Development Community, with a view to developing the systems which have been set up on the initiative of African countries in order to prevent and resolve conflicts.
I would remind you that we are continuing our humanitarian aid to Angola, which is substantial, and that we are consequently ready to adjust the nature and the scale of that humanitarian aid.
Mr President, I was not present at the debate because I was attending the Conference of Presidents, but someone came to tell me that a member of my group, Mr Miranda, was literally the subject of verbal aggression on the part of another Member.
I regard such methods as inadmissible.
It was more than a personal accusation, and that is why, Mr President, I should like you to allow Mr Miranda to take the floor, and to ensure that his restatement is included in the minutes.
Mr Wurtz, you were not present.
First of all, it was Mr Miranda who attacked the other Member and I allowed the other Member to speak briefly in order to reply.
That is the end of the matter because if Mr Miranda says something else and Mr Ribeiro e Castro says something else, we may very well be here all day.
Both gentlemen had the chance to speak on the same subject and the final score is therefore 1 all!
Exactly, Mr President, this is a point of order.
I think that you must have not been paying attention, Mr President, when you said, just now, that I was the first to attack Mr Ribeiro e Castro.
This is not true.
In his own speech, which preceded mine, Mr Ribeiro e Castro referred to me in a completely unacceptable way and you said nothing about it, Mr President.
As you will remember, he said that I have manipulated public opinion, that I have manipulated the press, that I have sought to use this Parliament, and he referred specifically to the fact that I am Chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
What I said in my speech that gave Mr Ribeiro e Castro the pretext for answering in the way he did was simply that some friends of UNITA, specifically Mr Ribeiro e Castro, had gone ahead with certain initiatives.
Mr President, I did not mean any insult by this, because it is public knowledge and widely known that this party, to which Mr Ribeiro e Castro belongs, has clear, public and acknowledged links with UNITA.
This was the precise tenor of what I said and nothing more!
That is why what was said...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I should like to say on a point of order that the President took absolutely the right line because Mr Ribeiro e Castro did not stand up for UNITA; on the contrary, he signed a motion criticising it.
He criticised it in his speech and the President allowed him to respond to your personal attack.
To my mind, therefore, the President took absolutely the right line.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.30 p.m.
Anti-personnel mines
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0542/2001 by Mr Van Orden and Mr Van Hecke, on behalf of Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats;
B5-0561/2001 by Mr van den Berg and Mr Sakellariou, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists;
B5-0568/2001 by Mr Haarder et al, on behalf of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party;
B5-0575/2001 by Mrs Maes and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance;
B5-0590/2001 by Mr Segni, on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group;
. B5-0599/2001 by Mrs Bonino et al
on measures to promote an undertaking by non-governmental actors to ban anti-personnel mines.
The problem of landmines is not only a problem for States.
Long after peace has been concluded, and I hope that even in Angola that will one day be the case, there will still be fields that cannot be walked on, because they are full of mines and therefore put innocent people are at risk.
In 1997, a treaty was concluded banning landmines.
One hundred and forty-nine countries have already signed it.
Many countries have ratified it, but 52 have not and they include some of the largest nations.
One of the major problems is that not only regular armies lay the mines, but that terrorist and rebel movements also use them.
That is why it is necessary that they should be urged to stop using landmines.
It is difficult for an official body like ours to involve non-governmental players in the negotiations, but it is good that we as an official body should urge the countries not to stockpile landmines and that we should support the NGOs that are striving to get the terrorist organisations and rebel movements to forsake the use of landmines.
I refer in this context to the appeal of Geneva, which we have heard proposed here this week in our own Parliament.
Mr President, I think everyone is against anti-personnel mines.
On this point, I should like to express my astonishment that this motion for a resolution is addressed to actors other than states.
If the mines are produced and used, they are produced and used with the authorisation of states, and it would be up to those states to give an undertaking that mines will not be produced or used, and I do not even understand the title of such a resolution.
As far as I am concerned, the only interpretation is that Parliament is thus pledging its allegiance to the great powers and the nation states.
Mr President, I shall keep to the topic.
Landmines kill, every day and in many countries.
Landmines are a lethal threat daily in many dozens of countries.
In Kampuchea alone, over 35 000 people have been injured by landmines and those are the survivors.
Every day, mines are removed and every day new ones are laid.
The anti-landmine treaty of 1997 has been ratified by 19 countries and signed by 141.
Countries that have not yet signed include Russia, Yugoslavia, but also Finland, which uses mines to defend its border with Russia.
That is, of course, cheaper and helps bring down the defence budget.
We can understand that.
If Finland can use that argument, however, why not other countries too? I should therefore like to call on the Member States to force present and future members, as well as countries that receive financial aid from the European Union, to sign the treaty.
Mr President, I speak on behalf of my colleague Mr Van Orden, who is absent today but who for many years has been directly involved in the work of overcoming the scourge of anti-personnel landmines.
Most EU Member States no longer have anti-personnel landmines in the operational armouries of their armed forces.
These weapons have indeed been banned for the past four years.
It is only irresponsible armed forces such as those in former Yugoslavia and armed groups of non-state actors engaged in civil war and insurgency that continue to use these dreadful weapons.
By definition such groups are not party to the Ottawa Convention to ban landmines.
This resolution draws attention to the fact and seeks to find ways in which these groups can be influenced.
This requires very careful consideration as we must take great care that we do not imply any sort of recognition of the legitimacy of these groups or of their actions.
We do not wish to distract EU resources from the priority task of mine clearance and assistance to mine victims.
We wish to bring this matter to the attention of all the states party to the Ottawa Convention that will gather in Managua in Nicaragua later this month.
Mr President, the European Parliament' s position against anti-personnel mines and in favour of their total ban has already been clearly expressed in various resolutions.
The result of Ottawa is due to the work of certain specialised NGOs.
I believe that at the next meeting of the contracting parties to the Convention which will take place in Managua, the European Union should contribute to ensuring that the Convention is signed and ratified by more countries. There are 52 which have not signed it and many who are still to ratify it.
It should also contribute to ensuring that more resources are provided for the complete clearing of mines, since mines which are still buried are causing death and mutilation throughout the world, and the parties involved - State and non-State agents - should be forced to reach an agreement on a total ban of these mines.
Mr President, I will end by asking for recognition and support for the work of NGOs such as the initiative launched by the humanitarian organisation 'Geneva Appeal' and others, which are going to contribute to the disappearance of such a lethal and odious weapon as anti-personnel mines.
Mr President, what are we doing?
I think that is the question that is being asked and the question to which you are asking us to reply.
Well, first of all we have equipped ourselves with a framework of rules for the Union, and just before the summer recess we adopted two regulations against mines, so that we now have legal instruments on the basis of which we shall be able to take effective and coordinated action.
Then at the end of this month we shall be actively participating, together with the presidency, at the meeting in Nicaragua of signatory states to the Ottawa Convention, a meeting which we believe is extremely important, because we shall of course be discussing the challenges posed by the abolition of anti-personnel mines, sharing the practical experiences of those who have been involved in this action and, as most of you have asked us to do, putting pressure on those states which have not yet signed the Convention.
In our view, the objective remains the same and we are determined to achieve it, by obtaining a universal prohibition on the production, stockpiling, movement and use of anti-personnel landmines.
The achieving of this objective and the removal of the risk to which the millions of mines which still have to be removed from areas of conflict throughout the world expose not only human lives, but also economic activities, is chiefly the task of states and governments.
There is no doubt about that.
Unfortunately, it sometimes happens that non-government actors also use anti-personnel landmines in internal conflicts or conflicts between states, and they too bear a responsibility for the suffering and devastation caused to populations and societies by mines
Experience has shown, as you have pointed out, that we need to explore new ways of involving non-governmental agencies in these campaigns against landmines, and of making them subscribe to the objective of a complete ban on such devices.
From this point of view, the Geneva appeal is an initiative with laudable intentions, but we must make sure that any future initiatives of this kind take place in the context of the considerable efforts which have already been undertaken by the international community.
As Parliament knows, the international campaign to prohibit landmines has assumed the form of a worldwide movement which the European Union has supported since the beginning.
This international campaign, in conjunction with a certain number of governmental and non-governmental agreements, has drawn up standards and action programmes which will supplement the international regulations of which the Ottawa Convention is an example.
We would therefore like to see, alongside this international regulatory framework, initiatives being set up to strengthen the action that is being taken within states and civilian society, and we are ready to support them.
We must analyse this Geneva appeal in detail, and encourage those who have instigated it to coordinate their activities closely with the ICBL and with other major agreements, so as to ensure that all the forces that are mobilised towards this objective never run the risk, given the magnitude of what is at stake here, of becoming dispersed.
There is still a lot to be done to consolidate the ambitious demands and objectives that were defined by the Ottawa Convention.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.30 p.m.
Drought in Central America
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0547/2001 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats;
B5-0562/2001 by Mrs Díez González et al, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists;
B5-0569/2001 by Mr Sánchez García and Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the Group the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party;
B5-0574/2001 by Mr Mayol i Raynal et al, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance;
B5-0591/2001 by Mr Marset Campos et al, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left;
B5-0600/2001 by Mr Queiró and Mr Ribeiro e Castro, on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group
on the drought in Central America.
Mr President, I will not waste part of the one minute I am allowed to convince Members of the extremely grave consequences of the sequence of natural disasters which have taken place in Central America.
However, I will use part of my speaking time to say that this has had short-term consequences.
In brief: one and a half million people are suffering from hunger in the region, not to mention the long-term consequences for sustainable development and the climate.
So far the European institutions have reacted by trying to alleviate the short-term consequences: with emergency aid and with deliveries of food, which have gone some way to alleviating the hunger in the region.
So far we have been incapable of responding to the long-term needs or shortages.
This resolution asks the Commission firstly to take account of these needs when drawing up the 2002 budget.
Secondly, that it implement actions which will serve to accelerate and promote a sustainable development policy in the field of agricultural development, which will serve to prevent drought and the long-term consequences which I mentioned previously.
Thirdly, I refer to section 4, relating to a policy of cooperation with the region in the long term, which would help to meet the needs which I stressed before.
Mr President, the truth is that the region of Central America has been suffering for too long.
First there were the death squads and the extreme right governments.
Then, with democracy won thanks to the mediation of the European Union, there were corrupt governments; then there were the catastrophes of Hurricane Mitch, earthquakes and now this drought, which, as has been said, means hunger, misery and death for hundreds of thousands of people.
The European Union must behave with a solidarity which distinguishes it from others, not only by approving budgets for this circumstance, but, as has been said, also for the coming years, by approving important and essential budgets which will eliminate the causes and consequences of this drought.
I drafted the report on the reconstruction of Central America after Hurricane Mitch, and I have seen that the corruption in the area prevents aid from arriving directly.
We therefore recommend that the aid which we grant arrives in the most direct way possible by means of local councils and democratic NGOs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, every day we see horrifying images of new tragedies which desolate the world: people devastated, children dying from hunger and disease, refugees without refuge, immigrants wandering the world looking for an opportunity to live...
There are tragedies, however, which persist while nobody talks about them, which get worse and fester although they do not make the headlines.
One of those cases filed away in our selective first-world memory is the situation in Central America and the dramatic effects of the drought which has been devastating it for more than three months.
This is a tragedy which is unfolding in a region, as has been said, which is already weakened by constant natural disasters, quite apart from political disasters, and which has a social and economic structure lacking the least resources for resisting them.
El Salvador has declared a state of emergency and Guatemala just yesterday declared a state of public disaster, in a truly desperate attempt to combat hunger.
The drought has destroyed the majority of the crops in the region and hunger is now affecting millions of people, as previous speakers have said.
All of this in an area where an extremely high percentage of inhabitants live in poverty or extreme poverty.
The United Nations world food programme raised the alarm very recently, telling us that if the current situation continues, it will only be able to meet the needs of half of the affected citizens for barely three months.
I therefore draw your attention in particular to the recommendation contained in section 4 which, in relation to that in section 3, seeks to direct our decisions in the field of development aid towards the objective of combating the structural problems.
Only in that way, by investing in sustainable development in the most sensitive areas of the world, will we be able to prevent and alleviate as far as possible the effects of natural disasters, because we will have invested our aid and our resources in the structuring and strengthening of the population and we will have made them stronger so that they can endure the consequences of phenomena which not even we, in the first world, can prevent.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time for Europe to be able to give out fishing rods, to show people how to fish, rather than to hand out fish.
Mr President, I agree with what other Members have said.
In any event, we in the European Parliament delegation for relations with the countries of Central America were in El Salvador in July and were able to see the consequences of the earthquakes and of Hurricane Mitch.
In fact there is a very important European Union programme for the rehabilitation of institutes in that area; at the moment, however, the worst thing of all, which we were informed of in July, is what is happening as a result of the drought.
I believe that we must envisage two types of aid: immediate aid, to prevent starvation, and a more long-term aid, in order to work towards sustainable development; because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change believes that earthquakes, floods and droughts are going to become increasingly common, and in precisely the poorest parts of the world, which are least able to endure them.
Therefore, I believe that the European Union must use two approaches: immediate aid, which they requested of us when we were there in July, and more long-term aid, in order to prevent what is happening now from happening again.
We are also concerned about the distribution of aid.
It must be very well controlled by the services of the European Commission that are on the ground, so that it may reach the people genuinely affected.
Some complaints have been made about this.
The Commission is of course well aware of the situation described in this resolution.
The current drought in these countries is certainly the worst since the one caused by El Niño in 1997.
For the moment, however, we believe it is going too far to compare the situation with the one that followed Hurricane Mitch.
There is constant contact between the Commission and the representatives of the countries of Central America, and we believe, along with the representatives of those countries with whom we are working, that the situation is certainly extremely worrying, but that at this stage it is under control, and is unlikely to continue for very long because the rains will soon be returning to most of the areas affected by the drought.
Although the rains are due to return shortly, that should not prevent us from thinking about the real causes of these crises which, as you have all, I believe, pointed out, are due to cyclical factors but also, and above all, to structural factors, including the falling incomes from primary products, especially coffee, the probably inappropriate nature of agricultural policies, and increasingly difficult access for many rural families to production inputs, not to mention the poverty which is undoubtedly rife in all these countries.
With regard to monitoring, I should just like to say that the Commission and the Union now have a network of antennae which enables us to monitor the food situation in all the regions that are susceptible.
One of these antennae is located in Central America and will enable us to be alerted instantly so that we can intervene if necessary.
The heart of the problem, that is, the structural causes of the lack of food security in the region, is the real problem that we will have to face in the medium and long term, as some of you have pointed out.
One of the most important solutions, as we see it, is rural development, and this is already a priority in the Union' s action and cooperation in most of the countries concerned, and we would like to see it strengthened even more by the pooling of efforts, whether that means aid to local governments to enable them to concentrate their development policy in that area, something that we can actually do, or whether it means support for the projects of non-governmental organisations or local communities seeking to diversify production and crop distribution and to create family incomes of another kind, or whether it means coordination with other international donors, like Member States, or the Bretton Woods institutions, or, finally, whether it means putting in place programmes to reduce poverty in the countries concerned.
Like you, we are convinced that we shall have to cope with short-term emergencies, but that the problem is a deep-seated one and is one of the fundamental causes that will have to be tackled if we wish to avoid a repetition of the same problem.
Mr President, in the Spanish version of the resolution on the Afghan refugees off the coast of Australia there is an error, and I am pointing it out so that Parliament' s services may correct it.
In Recital E there is a line missing, since it says 'allow asylum seekers to request asylum once' and it should then say 'they have arrived in Australian territory' .
This text simply needs to be modified in accordance with the other versions - I have seen the English, the French and the German.
I point this out so that Parliament' s services may correct it.
Mr Medina Ortega, I trust you implicitly here because I know that you are extraordinarily well versed in the other languages.
I am sure this will be corrected.
I have already been assured from my right that this will be added in the Spanish version.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Mountain farming
The next item is the report (A5-0277/2001) by Mr Ebner, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on 25 years' application of Community legislation for hill and mountain farming.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the own-initiative report on 25 years' application of Community legislation for hill and mountain farming has arrived on the European Parliament's agenda in the run up to the International Year of Mountains in 2002.
Activities have therefore been planned over the coming year at international, national and local level to promote the sustainable development of mountain regions.
The main objectives of the International Year of Mountains are to create awareness and increase knowledge about mountain ecosystems and their dynamics and operation, to promote and maintain the cultural heritage of mountain communities and the maintenance and sustainable development of resources in mountain regions to safeguard the quality of life of the population now and in the future.
Finally, mountain regions account for about 30% of the land area and 20% of the utilised agricultural area in the European Union and 10% of the population of the EU live there.
I feel that the European Union should also use the coming International Year of Mountains as an opportunity to express the specific concerns of mountain regions and recognise mountain regions as indispensable habitats.
At the same time, the quality of life in mountain regions must be maintained and protected and the constant threat of exodus must be stopped.
This report is also, by definition, the European Parliament's position on the International Year of Mountains and should be seen by the Commission and the Council as our basic wish list.
Basically I call in this report, which was adopted almost unanimously by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, for a comprehensive EU strategy for mountain regions.
The report contains numerous new and, to my mind, practical proposals which I call on you to support during the coming vote.
The Commission is thus called on, first, to submit a communication this year setting out EU actions in connection with the International Year of Mountains.
I think this communication should contain a comprehensive concept for the regions in question with regard to the period after 2006 and with regard to enlargement.
This will, of necessity, include revising Directive 268/75 and subsequent amendments.
At the same time, I should like to clarify that the overall concept needed must take account of the principle of subsidiarity.
Despite what are often similar problems and difficulties, it is a fact that even mountain regions differ in their individual characteristics, meaning that there is no universal patent solution.
Common problems can be solved more efficiently by means of a cross-border approach.
My report therefore advocates an approach which takes equal account of the following areas: farming and forestry, transport, tourism, energy and water, regional planning, nature conservation and the maintenance of the common cultural heritage.
Now a few words on individual demands set out in the report.
Agriculture: basically it calls for the second pillar of agricultural policy, the development of rural areas, to be extended, taking appropriate account of the contribution made by farming to the environment and the countryside and the multifunctional character of agriculture.
We need to find common problem-solving strategies in the form of regional conventions, set and update criteria and data on mountain areas and fund practical, mountain-related projects under the sixth framework programme, extend the basic infrastructure needed and provide training and further training so that the population keeps abreast of events and strengthen transport networks in mountain regions, taking account of the principle of sustainability, in order to safeguard these regions as habitats and economic areas and nature areas.
This means, for example, that access roads to farms and alpine pastures must be guaranteed, while bigger roads must comply with criteria of strict eco-compatibility.
Finally, last but not least, mountain regions need special treatment in the run up to enlargement.
The forthcoming International Year of Mountains is an ideal time, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to discuss the specifics of tomorrow's proposal.
You, ladies and gentlemen, by voting in favour of my report, and more importantly you, Commissioner, and the Commission, by implementing the ideas contained in it can make a fundamental contribution to this development.
Mr President, the Ebner report is going to offer the Commission a very good model to follow when producing its communication for the International Year of Mountains 2002.
However, amongst its many and, I believe, very valuable, proposals, I would like to draw your attention to certain issues which, on this forthcoming celebration of the silver wedding of mountain farming, should receive very special, and in some cases new, attention.
I am referring, firstly, to the role which should be recognised for women in this new multifunctional mountain farming.
For them, a new approach is required today which is very different from their obsolete marginalisation within the traditional CAP.
This proposal appears in section 19 of the Ebner report, but if we want to do it well, Mr Fischler, coordinated approach is required.
Within the new agriculture of the mountain regions, women currently play many important roles, both in relation to agriculture and in relation to tourism, rural development, rural tourism, new technologies and in relation to craft-industry, commercial and economic policies.
I hope you understand, Commissioner, that their potential could be enormous.
Secondly, I would like to draw your attention to the proposal contained in section 22, which also relates to another of today' s pressing problems, that of migration policies.
It is proposed that mountain regions where population is decreasing could serve as reception areas for absorbing immigrants, given suitable socio-economic planning.
Thirdly, Commissioner, I believe that compensation measures should be taken to prevent mountain regions receiving less structural aid than they receive at the moment as a result of enlargement.
This must be prevented, because enlargement must not under any circumstances have a negative impact on these areas.
Lastly, I think that small and medium-sized farms should be promoted by means of a modulation of aid that stimulates employment.
Commissioner, I hope that if you really want to provide new impetus and a new strategy for mountain farming, you will take these proposals into account.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank Mr Ebner very much for the work he has done and also for accepting my amendments to the text.
The report speaks for itself: it is complete and exhaustive and also has the merit of setting mountain farming in a wider and more general context of mountain problems.
I think this approach is the right one for achieving a genuine European policy in 2002: International Year of Mountains.
You see, Commissioner, Agenda 2000 does mention mountain farming, but everything gets more complicated at the implementation stage, for instance when Italian regions give notification of intervention laws for mountain areas, for example on animal husbandry or indeed on natural disasters which have already occurred.
Well, your 'Agriculture' Directorate is turning into a worthy and legitimate control body.
It is beginning a long correspondence made up of requests for minute details.
It will take at least six months or even more for definite replies to come in, frequently stamped on the closing date, sometimes using the competition rules which always seem to deny the particular characteristics of mountain agriculture.
Sooner or later, especially in the Alpine areas of the Union - lucky Switzerland takes care of its mountains without this network of controls - this could lead to an anti-European backlash.
That is why we ask you, Commissioner, to publicise the principles of this report on agriculture and remember, not just occasionally, that the Union has signed the Agriculture Protocol of the Alpine Convention.
Mr President, Mr Ebner, well done!
A good report.
Like under a burning glass, mountain farming shows what happens when you try and master sustainable land management tailored to a particular location.
Your report also has a drawback, however.
It only focuses on this aspect.
It is interesting that the House, or rather those still in it - although they do, after all, represent the majorities - can reach a majority understanding on these numerous excellent proposals and warnings.
It is true of agriculture as a whole that we should have fostered sustainable management in general, but then there would have been no agreement here, so that this acts as an alibi and that is a pity.
However, that should not detract from the usefulness of this report and we shall, of course, vote in favour of it.
We should like, however, to widen this debate to agriculture as a whole in order to achieve sustainable land management tailored to each particular location.
Mr President, apart from what is now the standard generalised wish list in the report, the fact that the new regulation will operate within the framework of Agenda 2000 leaves no room for any hope that the present frightful situation will improve or that the survival of farmers, most of whom run small or medium-sized holdings, will be assured. As we know, the trend is towards greater liberalisation of agricultural production and the concentration of land and production in the hands of fewer and fewer people, with the result that mountain regions are sinking faster and faster into economic and social stagnation.
All that the proposal to offset the reduction in Community support for these regions by applying national and regional measures means in practice is that the European Union will completely abandon mountain regions and will attempt to shift even the miserable and ineffective support of the last 25 years on to its Member States.
This shift will have a massively adverse impact on countries such as Greece, which have a high proportion of mountain regions and a small budget, with the result that it will be impossible to support these regions from national funds.
In addition, this sort of proposal recommends nationalising the financing for policies formulated by the European Union, meaning that the poorest countries will be forced to apply anti-farming Community policy without any compensation or support measures and pay for it out of their own pockets.
Furthermore, the proposal to reject the removal of the milk quota system in mountain regions on the grounds of reduced competitiveness and high production costs is proof of the total lack of any social criteria and the annoying hypocrisy of the European Union's environmentally-friendly pronouncements, given that the same restrictive measures are being applied to mountain and industrial livestock farming, while we all know the differences between them as regards both the environment and public health.
What with grim neo-liberal criteria and the profit and competition argument, mountain regions are condemned to stagnation and abandonment.
It is for these reasons that we shall be voting against the report, because we believe that the specific measures proposed, operating within the more general framework of Agenda 2000 and the so-called competitiveness argument will not only reverse, they will speed up the economic stagnation and desertification of mountain regions, with huge economic, social and environmental consequences.
Commissioner, without waiting for 2002 and its International Year of Mountains, we twenty Members who are still here all agree that we should protect hill and mountain farming, which is said to represent 20% of our land.
I myself come from a region where there are mountains and where transhumance is practised, in our case with flocks of sheep.
It really is an ideal form of farming, especially for the European Commission.
You have the countryside, forests, biodiversity and the environment, you are preventing soil erosion and producing high-quality products, honey, meat and fruit, you have the tourist industry, and you put the accent on quality of life.
Above all, you are not practising productivism, you are not farming intensively, you are not annoying the United States in the world markets in wheat, oilseeds and animal proteins.
Basically, hill and mountain farming is multi-functionalism without the quantities.
It is the Austrian model that the 2006 reform of the CAP intends to generalise throughout Europe, including the lowland areas.
It conjures up a picture of rosy-cheeked milkmaids, accompanied, of course, by Commissioner Fischler, frolicking among haystacks, cow-bells, marmots and alpine pastures, and stroking rare-breed cows, while Mr Bush' s Texans have a monopoly in the meat market.
So let us say yes to hill and mountain farming, in the hills and mountains, but no to a European farming industry reduced by WTO negotiations to a series of theme parks with peasants dressed up by Mike Moore to look like Walt Disney characters, whose job would be to entertain Anglo-Saxon tourists and conserve the landscape.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Ebner for a very comprehensive and stimulating report.
We could return to the subject at a later stage in another way and produce some costings and a tighter, more comprehensive proposal as to how we will put the ideals expressed in this report into effect.
We have to consider too that we will have a conflict.
Firstly there is the size of the budget we have and enlargement, which will also lead to an increase in the mountainous area within the European Union, while at the same time we refuse to produce any resources to finance the very idealistic proposals in this report which most people in this House would subscribe to.
In parts of the European Union at this moment people drive two hours to work in their cars, two hours home and live in overcrowded circumstances.
All the utilities are over-utilised while in other areas we are closing down public services.
Roads are under-utilised, we are withdrawing police stations and closing down little churches and schools.
We in the European Union should not make the mistake the Americans made.
We should not abandon vast areas of our countries, where human activity will fade away.
These mountains will not be attractive if there are no villages, if there are no variable scenes of farms and livestock and people living there.
They will not provide the tourist amenities we need in the future.
If we allow this to happen, it will be like what we did in my country 50 years ago when we closed down our railways.
We will regret it in 40 or 50 years from now.
If we lose these areas as habitats for human beings and everything that goes with that then Europe will be so much the poorer and we will regret it.
We should fight within the European Union because individual States have failed.
I was in Scotland during the summer and I have seen the extent to which the Highlands have been denuded of their population.
Britain is much the poorer for that.
If we allow this to happen elsewhere we will have a Europe that will be much poorer.
We should return to this subject later and make firm proposals for the budgetary resources that we, as a Union, could use towards this end.
Mr President, the figures some Members have quoted amply demonstrate that the mountains are the minority of minorities in this House.
We represent only a little over 5% of the inhabitants of Europe, of European citizens, but, as documented in the annals of the European Parliament over fifty years of the European Union, this is only the third time that the word 'mountain' and a motion for a resolution about mountains have been heard in this Chamber.
The first time was in 1983. The rapporteur then was Mr Colleselli, from Cadore, in the North of Italy.
The second time, fifteen years later, I myself had the honour and the duty of bringing the problems of the mountains to this House, with my report on a new strategy for mountain regions, approved on 23 October 1998.
My report started from an overall view of the problems of mountain regions, in all their complexity, and concluded that mountain farming was and remains the key.
The Ebner report - and I congratulate the rapporteur on the specific detail he has been able to put into it - takes this aspect further and opens up another horizon.
I can state that he starts precisely from the conclusions of the previous report by indicating that the salvation of the mountains we are all calling for can start from the farming sector itself.
However, we are all aware, once again, that farming cannot do it alone.
That is why there are also proposals in Mr Ebner' s report which involve the whole mountain world: transport, infrastructure, tourism, the eco-system.
There is another factor we must protect and safeguard; the vital factor for the mountains, Commissioner, is and remains man.
The average age of farmers in Europe - as you know -is about 50. Some mountain farmers are over 60.
That is a dire statistic for the future of the mountains.
We must make mountain farming attractive again, give the farmers confidence, and give them resources.
Above all we must have the courage to recognise, Commissioner, that a specific type of farming called mountain farming exists. Let us do so with conviction so that the mountains themselves can continue to exist!
Thank you very much Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed
The vote will take place today, at 6.30 p.m.
Basic education in developing countries
The next item is the report (A5­0278/2001) by Mrs Kinnock, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on basic education in developing countries in the context of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children in September 2001 [2001/2030(INI)].
Mr President, as you suggested, this report is meant to focus on the real opportunity that the UN Special Conference on Children and Children's Rights which takes place later this month gives this Parliament to focus on a fundamental way in which we can tackle global poverty.
It is an opportunity for us not only to give a profile to this subject but also to call for action.
Let me set out what the targets are: free and compulsory education for all, halving adult illiteracy by 2015, eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary schools by 2005 and extending learning opportunities for adults and young people and improvements in the quality of education provided.
We are quite tired of hearing about development targets.
They are set and they are endless.
We know the 'whys' for all these development concerns.
What we from the Committee on Development and Cooperation are asking is 'how' we are going to deliver on these targets.
The subject is at the heart of the global strategy that we, in our committee, discuss on poverty.
The EU clearly has a key and central role to play here.
Clear commitments were made at Dakar in Senegal last year.
But neither from the EU nor anyone else really are we getting practical strategies.
I was a teacher myself for 30 years, mostly in primary education so I think I am quite justified in having a passion about looking at the reasons for this crisis.
One in six of the world's population are functionally illiterate.
One hundred and thirty million - one in five - of the total number of children are not in any kind of primary education.
One terrible statistic is that two-thirds of those are little girls.
Their learning situation is terrible.
Many of will have seen children trying to learn sitting under a tree with not even a blackboard to assist the teacher.
When we talk about information technology we are often talking about children who have never even held a pencil in their hand, never mind being likely to sit at the keyboard of a computer.
In these schools too the quality of their education is often affected by the fact that they are not taught in their own language.
There is a clear link between illiteracy and income poverty.
Average incomes in a country mirror very clearly the levels of access to education.
There is a clear link between child mortality rates and the level of parental education.
A 10% increase in girls' enrolment in primary school would bring a substantial improvement in infant and maternal mortality rates.
And yet we see aid from developed countries to basic education being slashed from budgets across the globe.
It is only 1% of the total.
Developing countries themselves take insufficient interest in the importance of education.
The sub-continent of India spends less than 1% of GDP on education.
As far as the EU is concerned, I hope the Commissioner will agree that this is not enough.
I hope you are not going to state in your presentation that all of this will be incorporated into existing procedures.
We need an answer from the Commissioner on how we intend to implement the goals.
I would like to hear how he intends to improve coordination of the national indicative programmes for Cotonou and about our involvement in the steering committee working on education in Africa.
I also know that there is a promise of a communication on basic education from the Commission during the Belgian Presidency.
I would like to know when we might expect to see that.
Let me just touch on one or two issues.
Priority for girls obviously, and I suspect that Mrs Junker will speak about that.
Last in, first out; that is what happens to girls.
Girls have a low status and therefore there is no priority for getting them into school.
I would like to see a lot more training in ministries in developing countries and concrete programmes to ensure that we get girls into school.
The impact of HIV is enormous.
There are millions of AIDS orphans in the developing world and in a country like Zambia there are more teachers infected annually with HIV than they are able to train to put in their schools.
These are clearly very critical issues for us to discuss.
Meeting the targets looks difficult.
Is there sufficient political commitment in current circumstances to ensure that we will get all the girls into school by 2005? The reality is, and I hope that people will admit this very clearly at the UN Conference the week after next, that as things are going all of these targets are unachievable.
Meeting the target of universal primary education looks extremely difficult.
I would like to know from the Commission how its work in trying to achieve these targets includes NGOs and civil society and all those people who are involved in the Global Education Campaign.
It is a very successful, active and dynamic campaign.
I would hope that the European Commission is very much engaged with them but I suspect that is not the case.
According to the Global Education Campaign, the targets on education would require USD 8 billion a year.
This is the equivalent of four days of global military spending and 9 minutes of international currency speculation.
Therefore it seems to me that if the commitment was there, we could deliver.
It is a price worth paying.
The current inequities that I have described are untenable and certainly indefensible.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is fair that I begin my speech on behalf of the PPE Group by congratulating Mrs Kinnock on her excellent report and on the passion with which she is defending it.
I believe that the proposals in this report, together with the resolution which we approved at the last part-session in July, represent the best contribution this Parliament could have made to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Children, because there is no question, unfortunately, that education is still the great unresolved issue within development cooperation, despite the formal declarations and the commitments given at the various international conferences which have addressed this issue.
The figures on the millions of children not attending school, which Mrs Kinnock pointed out, speak for themselves in this respect.
While it is a grave situation that so many children are being deprived of their fundamental right to education, it is even more grave that, as a result of the violation of this right, millions of people are immersed in poverty and under-development.
Because the key to prosperity and progress, especially in the context of the information and communication society which we live in today, lies in the level of education the people have access to.
The conviction that, by not dealing vigorously with the issue of education in the developing countries, we will not only fail to eradicate poverty, but that the gap between the rich and poor countries will increase, has certainly led us to place education at the centre of the global strategy for eradicating poverty.
In this respect, we have to recognise that the Dakar Conference on education for all represented a great step forward, but it is a step which will take us nowhere if action is not taken and if, in accordance with the decisions at Dakar, we do not quickly adopt a concrete world initiative directed towards creating strategies and mobilising the resources required to provide effective support for the efforts made on a national level - as one of the Dakar commitments states.
The European Union, as the main donor and insofar as it has made solidarity and the defence of human rights an essential dimension of its international action, has the responsibility to promote these strategies in close coordination with the other donors, including the Monetary Fund and the World Bank and with the participation of civil society and, with them, policies aimed at overcoming the obstacles which deny children access to a quality education.
And the European Union has the moral and political obligation to provide the financial resources necessary to achieve free education for all between now and 2015.
All of this can be done in accordance with the excellent proposals contained in the Kinnock report, which reflect both the practically unanimous feelings of the Committee on Development and the feelings of my group.
However, achieving this objective will also require us to urgently either cancel or restructure the debts of the developing countries in exchange for the funds made available as a result being directed to education programmes.
It will require making the developing countries themselves responsible and encouraging them, through persuasive measures if necessary, to fulfil the commitments given in Dakar and to give absolute priority to education.
Above all, it will require an increase in financial contributions and the allocation of at least 8% of official aid to development and to basic education, in line with the views of the people promoting the campaign for education for all.
Only through resources which match the challenge we have to face will it be possible to win the battle against illiteracy in the world.
I will end by saying that only in this way will it be possible for millions of children to exercise their fundamental right to education, an education which will allow them to open the doors to progress and one day become free men and women.
Mr President, the report by Mrs Kinnock is one of those which the Socialist Group has followed with the greatest interest and affection.
The text gives figures which are often so scandalous that they should provide little comfort for our consciences, because, at the end of the day, they demonstrate the incoherence of almost all of us who believe that the education of children is important for the success of any development process.
There are plenty of declarations recognising that child education in the under-developed world is one of the main conditions if those countries are to be able to begin to free themselves from the situation of justice and backwardness they are in.
Mrs Kinnock' s report mentions the numerous commitments made in this regard by the international community on different occasions.
The latest was the world conference on education, which took place in Dakar last year.
The report, however, is also a compendium and a condemnation of incoherences and irresponsibilities.
Incoherence and irresponsibility on the part of the developed countries which, despite their promises, have not only failed to increase their programmes in favour of education and care for children in the developing world, but in fact have reduced their efforts in that area.
And incoherence and irresponsibility on the part of the countries of the South which, apart from very few exceptions, are still neglecting the education of their youngest citizens in the face of other priorities such as military expenditure which, in the majority of cases, is still above what is invested in education.
The resolution which we are voting on should not remain, like so many others, as a worthless piece of paper.
This call for coherence and responsibility is a genuine demonstration that our Parliament should promote this issue as a European Union objective.
Furthermore, however, this report should serve as a reference for the action of the Union and many European States, members or candidates for accession, at the United Nations General Assembly which will take place in New York in a few days time.
Glenys Kinnock will be there and will speak out clearly, in the knowledge that we all support her and with the strength which the support deriving from our approving her proposals will give her.
Documents such as this are the best way to respond with specific proposals to a form of globalisation which, since it is mainly focused on the market, is creating inequalities, poverty and exclusion on a world scale and is therefore becoming repellent to many people throughout the world.
I will end by offering our thanks and congratulations to Mrs Kinnock on her work. It will be important to implement what is expressed here, but we must start by broadly distributing the report.
This will convince and guide many people and will increase the credibility of the European Parliament amongst the citizens of Europe.
It will also contribute to some people outside our territory recovering their confidence in us as well as their own sense of hope.
What does the practice of education in the developing countries teach us? Above all, that good primary education is still far from being granted the priority status that it deserves.
Good, free education is essential for development.
Nine hundred million people are still illiterate.
The Dakar objectives are in danger of not being achieved by a long chalk.
For this reason, new impetus is necessary at the highest political level, particularly from Europe, America and Japan.
There is an urgent need for a strategically developed initiative with a realistic timescale and more financial resources.
Indicative programmes must be drawn up for each country.
Up to now, the European Union has paid far too little attention to education.
The argument that other donors are already doing sufficient is simply and demonstrably untrue.
The cause for the shortfall in educational facilities lies not only with the donors.
Many developing countries themselves give it far too low a priority.
It is outrageous that in Africa twice as much money should be spent on military equipment as on education.
If India continues to spend less than 1% of its GDP on school facilities, of course, development will never come off the ground.
The report of Mrs Kinnock is excellent.
Certainly, special attention will have to be paid to girls, early school-leavers, and also former child soldiers.
The basic rights of children will only be respected if adults draw the right political lessons from failing educational practice.
Mr President, we have, of course, far too little time to discuss Mrs Kinnock' s excellent report properly.
I share her scepticism about the great conferences where people in expensive suits and large expense accounts meet to talk about priorities that they afterwards immediately forget, while the education budgets of the poorest countries are falling and the number of children condemned to illiteracy continues to rise.
I really have the impression that a number of countries are acting like some governments in the nineteenth century: keep them poor and keep them stupid, then they will be less trouble.
That is, in fact, the strategic reason I can identify behind the manifest neglect of primary education.
That primary education has also had far too low a priority in our own budgets for development cooperation.
Fortunately, fellow MEPs have already said much that is true.
I will therefore restrict myself to a few suggestions relating to that primary education in Mrs Kinnock' s report, which are particularly pertinent.
That education must be free.
Children must not be excluded because they cannot afford primary education; otherwise they are condemned to the street, condemned to exploitation through child labour, and so on.
On the contrary, we should actually give scholarships to children from poor families, so that they can go to school, to cover the miles, to pay for their uniforms, etc.
The teachers must also be paid, they must be trained and they must receive a wage that enables them to survive in a decent way, so that they do not have to leave the children to their own devices because they must urgently earn something extra to at least give their own families some food.
It is clear that national action plans will need to be put in place.
I expect much more from governments that are aware of the problem, but in that case we must also be prepared to support those governments and increase their administrative efficiency.
We are far too inclined to sit on the sidelines with our expensive specialists and our expensive NGOs, while we, in fact, give far too little support to the meagre educational facilities in those countries themselves.
That does not detract from the fact that I expect the EU to translate all those words into action.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place immediately.
VOTE
.
(FR) We support the author of the report in her demand that free, compulsory and high-quality education should be provided for all children up to the age of 15.
However, even in European countries where there are laws to that effect, the free aspect is largely a formality, since it does not include the equipment that children need for school, which penalises children from poorer families, not to mention the overloaded classes and under-equipped state of schools in working-class districts.
These troubles are even more keenly felt in developing countries, even where education is compulsory.
The report claims that solving the education crisis is one of the most effective strategies for breaking the poverty cycle.
This is turning reality upside-down.
Without breaking the poverty cycle, in other words without stopping the pillaging of poor countries and the impoverishment of their working populations, even the most well-intentioned speeches will remain speeches, and millions of children in poor countries will continue to be deprived of even a minimum education.
Our vote in favour of this report means that we agree with the intentions expressed but only subject to these conditions.
That concludes voting time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 6.55 p.m.)
Acts of terrorism in the United States
Ladies and gentlemen, I open this extraordinary meeting with the emotion and the sadness that this horrific event, the scale of which would have seemed inconceivable, inspires in us all.
The purpose of this meeting is first of all to demonstrate our solidarity with the American people, who have just been struck by a barbaric act of terrorism, to show our compassion for the victims, for the final toll will certainly be appalling, and to demonstrate our support for all those who are working tirelessly to save what further lives they can.
Yesterday, I expressed this solidarity to President Bush, on my own behalf and on behalf of the entire European Parliament and gave him my assurance that the people of Europe are standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the tragic ordeal the American nation is suffering.
When terrorism strikes in a Member State of the European Union we all feel concerned, and these appalling attacks inspire in me the same feeling of disgust and indignation.
Today, we share the pain of the American people.
It is the United States, that great democracy which did so much to help Europe protect its freedom that has just been attacked, but a blow has also been dealt to the sacrosanct values of life and democracy.
The date of 11 September 2001 will remain forever engraved on the memory of humanity.
This tragedy calls for a calm reaction on our part but also for the closest cooperation between all countries that reject terrorism so that the perpetrators of these abominable crimes and those who have supported them can be identified, pursued, arrested and tried and so that blind terrorism can, at last, be eradicated from the surface of the globe.
It also requires the international community to commit itself to finding a peaceful solution to the conflicts that nourish and sustain fanaticism.
Over and above statements, over and above the common response to terrorism that we hope and pray for, all players on the international stage must now shoulder their responsibilities.
From now on resolute action must be the order of the day and I know that the European Union will have to take decisions of vital importance.
I welcome the presence here today of Prime Minister Verhofstadt, Mr Michel, Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Mr Prodi, President of the Commission.
The European Union will have no credibility if it does not establish a common policy on combating terrorism.
The European Commission and the European Parliament have stated this clearly, particularly during our last part-session.
I hope that the Council will study these proposals without delay.
Since the Tampere European Council, some tentative progress has, admittedly, been made with regard to the European area of freedom, security and justice, but this falls considerably short of what is needed.
We must go further.
Although the European Union has made its presence felt on the international stage, in the Middle East, at Durban and even in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, yesterday' s events are proof, if proof were needed, of the imperative need to establish a Europe of defence and a genuinely common foreign and security policy as quickly as possible.
An extraordinary European Council meeting could provide a timely boost to all these elements for, as we know, history waits for no man.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us now observe a minute' s silence for all the victims.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
- (FR) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, just over 24 hours ago the United States was hit by an attack of unprecedented scale and ferocity.
At this very moment men, women and children of all ages, of all convictions and of all origins are struggling for their lives, while others are mourning the loss of loved ones and others still are suffering the anguish of waiting for reassuring news about the fate of those who are missing.
Madam President, our thoughts are with our American friends who have been assailed by this despicable and barbaric violence.
We would like to be able to express just how much we share their suffering.
Today, we feel that we are all Americans.
I say that, and let there be no mistake about this, because it is not just the United States and its population that has been targeted, but democracy itself.
Democracy and its values of liberty, tolerance and humanity, which are the exact opposite of blind and suicidal terrorism.
As human beings, as believers in democracy, and as Europeans, we cannot nor will we ever be able to accept this barbarity.
Madam President, the Union that we want to build has its origins precisely in the rejection of the hate, fanaticism and murderous madness that nearly led to the downfall of our continent. And in the face of these tragedies a comprehensive range of concrete and firm gestures is called for.
The various Member States have taken essential initiatives to come to the aid of the United States of America.
Madam President, on behalf of the Union, and following consultation with the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, and the leaders of all the Member States, I have conveyed our deepest sympathy to President Bush.
As a token of solidarity and sympathy, the Union has decided that on Friday, 14 September a day of mourning and solidarity with the American people will be observed.
The Heads of State and Government of the fifteen EU Member States will be issuing a joint political declaration in the morning.
At 12 noon, a three minutes' silence will be observed, during which all activity will be suspended.
(Loud applause) The candidate countries for accession to the European Union are also invited to join us in this act of solidarity.
With this expression of solidarity, in addition to the political decisions which we will be taking in the coming weeks, the people of the European Union wish to express their deep sympathy with the grief, and particularly the pain, which is affecting the American people today.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, an extraordinary meeting of the Commission took place this morning.
We observed a minute' s silence and then discussed the various political aspects of this appalling tragedy which fall within the direct remit of the Commission.
This afternoon, I stressed before the European Parliament and the General Affairs Council that Europe must demonstrate full solidarity with the American people and adopt a common European position on all aspects of these tragic events.
The Commission is appalled by these criminal, barbaric deeds and has already sent its condolences to the victims and their families and expressed its sympathy for the American people.
Our cooperation with the United States in the fight against terrorism is more essential than ever and must be pursued.
Over the next few days, the Commission will examine the other proposals made in order to be able to take increasingly effective action to fight terrorism.
We are fortunate in that the economic and social structure of our countries is strong and resilient.
Therefore, even in these sad circumstances, we can remain calm and confident, and we will not allow terrorism to divide us or to divide the world in its goals or in its endeavours to achieve them.
We must reflect at this time on the role of Europe.
This criminal action is an attack on all our common values and on freedom itself.
After this event, nothing will ever be the same.
We therefore need to show great solidarity and friendship towards the American people and their government, and the European institutions and governments will work closely with our US and other friends at this tragic time and in the future.
However, there is also a purely European dimension.
The tragic events we have witnessed highlight once again the need for a united, strong, resolute, unified Europe which protects freedom and safeguards peace in Europe and throughout the world, a Europe that acts united alongside countries which share our goals, that acts united to protect and promote the values of freedom and solidarity, the values which are the basis of the democracy preserved by Parliament.
I invite you, therefore, to reflect upon yesterday' s tragedy.
Our citizens will only be able ensure peace and stability for themselves and for their children if they are united in their actions and if they feel that they can count on Europe.
This is the path we must take to safeguard our people: we must follow it courageously, resolutely and responsibly.
(Loud applause)
- (FR) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like, first of all, on behalf of the Council, to express our immense horror, outrage and revulsion at the tragic events which hit the United States yesterday morning.
I wish here, on behalf of the European Union, on behalf not only of its leaders but also of all the citizens of Europe, to reiterate our most sincere sympathy for the victims and their families and for the American people and the government of the United States.
This abominable act, which has caused such pain to the American people, is of course also an attack on the universal values which Europe has always shared with America.
I would like, on behalf of the Council, to solemnly reaffirm here the unfailing solidarity of the peoples of Europe with the American people in defending these values.
We want the United States to be aware that Europe is by its side in combating the evil of terrorism, no matter what form it may take.
We cannot allow anonymous terror to undermine the values of the free and democratic world.
We will stand together in attacking the major threat represented by large-scale terrorism.
The battle against this scourge will be all the more effective to the extent that it is supported by preventive actions and a detailed political dialogue with the countries of those regions of the world where terrorism has its roots.
Yesterday' s terrorist attack on the territory of the United States is an unprecedented act of provocation and of particularly loathsome cruelty.
Acts of such barbarity, terror and cowardice cannot be tolerated.
The scale of this tragedy demands an appropriate response.
In conjunction with its allies, the European Union will examine all possible means of preventing such acts and of responding to them in an appropriate manner.
The European Union will step up its activity in the international bodies responsible for the fight against terrorism with a view to ensuring that the perpetrators, accomplices and sponsors of acts of terrorism are rendered powerless.
However, our determination should, under no circumstances, fail to go hand in hand with responsible prudence.
At this moment we do not know the identity of the perpetrators, sponsors and possible accomplices of these terrible attacks.
These are essential factors in being able to judge and react in a rational manner with a responsible and meaningful attitude.
We must avoid any type of impromptu action.
While awaiting a response to these questions, our governments have taken the necessary steps to protect their people.
The Council has been informed of security measures adopted as a matter of urgency by the Member States.
In order to maximise cooperation between us, the Council has asked the Justice, Home Affairs and Transport Councils to take whatever measures are necessary to maintain the highest level of security as quickly as possible, particularly in the area of air transport, together with all measures required to prevent other attacks.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council on 27 September and the informal Transport Council on 14 September will evaluate those measures already taken and any that may be necessary to complement them.
The Extraordinary Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers has condemned these acts of barbarity, which are an insult to our common values, in the strongest terms.
We have declared 14 September 2001 a day of mourning in the 15 Member States.
We have asked the presidency to maintain close contact with the United States so as to study with them how best to provide whatever help may be required.
At the request of several Member States, the Secretary General of NATO has informed the Council of the discussions in progress within that organisation.
I can now read to you the declaration by the European Union:
"The Council of the European Union, meeting in special session today, in the presence of the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, expressed its horror at yesterday' s terrorist attacks in the United States.
The Council stressed its complete solidarity with the government of the United States and the American people at this terrible time and extended its deepest sympathy to all the victims and their families.
We ask all Europeans to observe three minutes of silence on Friday, 14 September at 12 noon and we also declare 14 September 2001 a day of mourning.
These horrendous acts are an attack not only on the United States but against humanity itself and the values and freedoms we all share.
The life and work of our open and democratic societies will continue undeterred.
The Union utterly condemns the perpetrators and sponsors of these acts of barbarism.
The Union and its Member States will spare no efforts in helping identify, bring to justice and punish those responsible: there will be no safe haven for terrorists and their sponsors.
The Union will work closely with the United States and all partners to combat international terrorism.
All international organisations, particularly the United Nations, must be engaged and all relevant international instruments, including those concerned with the financing of terrorism, must be fully implemented.
The Community and its Member States have offered the United States all possible assistance with search and rescue operations.
Discussions are underway to establish what help would be most useful.
Recalling the strong and enduring ties which exist between the European Union and the United States, the Council has asked the presidency to stay in close contact with the government of the United States in order to convey this message of solidarity."
Following on from that, Madam President, these are the conclusions of the Council, so that you will be in receipt of all the relevant information:
"The Council expressed the profound solidarity of the European Union with the American people and approved a declaration condemning the terrorist attacks in the United States.
The Council was informed of the security measures taken by the Member States.
To ensure maximum cooperation between the latter, the Council asks its Justice and Home Affairs and Transport compositions to take all the necessary measures as soon as possible to maintain the highest level of security, particularly in the field of air transport, and any other measures needed to combat terrorism and prevent terrorist attacks.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on 27 and 28 September, or earlier if necessary, together with the informal Transport Council meeting on 14 and 15 September, will evaluate the measures which will already have been taken and those which should supplement them.
The Council reaffirms its determination to combat all forms of terrorism with all the resources at its disposal.
The Council also took note of the declaration by the Commission and the President of the ECOFIN Council.
The Council has requested the presidency, the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Commission submit, as soon as possible, a report on concrete measures that may be recommended to speed up the implementation and the strengthening of the operational instruments of both the Common Foreign and Security Policy and in the field of Justice and Home Affairs.
These measures will be aimed at increasing the capacity of the European Union to fight effectively, together with the United States and all our partners, international terrorism.
As for the Council, it intends to return to these measures regularly in order to ensure, in particular, that all the actions taken by the European Union are coordinated."
(Loud applause)
- (DE) Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my group' s sincere thanks to you, Madam President, for having convened this sitting, which gives us all an opportunity to express our deepest sympathy for and solidarity with those families that have suffered losses, with the President of the United States of America, with our colleagues in the US Congress and with everyone in the United States of America.
Yesterday' s horrendous attack in Washington and New York was not just an attack on the United States, but an attack on the entire civilised world, an attack against every one of us, including those in this Chamber.
It was an attack on our ideals of democracy, human rights and peace.
We are filled with grief and horror in the face of this disaster, a disaster which must never be repeated, and the forces of civilisation throughout the world must now work shoulder to shoulder with the United States to bring those responsible for this attack to account, and we must work closely together to prevent future terrorist attacks.
We must find a way to stop attacks of this kind being planned again, and this will also require a whole new dimension in European and international cooperation.
We must commit ourselves today to launching a fight against terrorism, so that the apocalyptic events in New York and Washington do not mean a global apocalypse tomorrow, and as a Parliament we can be proud of the fact that last week we adopted Mr Watson's anti-terrorism report by such a huge majority.
For a few hours yesterday I had the impression that the United States' ability to act had been compromised. The United States is a world power to which we owe a debt of gratitude for fighting against Nazism in the Second World War and thus guaranteeing a peaceful future for Europe and it is a world power which has firmly resisted totalitarian communism, which ultimately led to the collapse of the wall dividing Berlin, Germany and Europe.
On behalf of my group I would like to say that it is in our interest for America to retain its ability to act and to be strong, and for America to remain a good partner and friend to the European Union, and we should work together towards this goal in future.
(Loud applause)
We do not know who the perpetrators are.
There are certain assumptions, but I would counsel against surmising that these assumptions are true.
Above all, should these assumptions be confirmed, I would counsel us all against applying them to the Arab and Islamic world as a whole.
I have never forgotten an outstanding speech given by Anwar al Sadat, the assassinated President of Egypt, on 10 February 1981.
He said that Islam should never be judged by the misguided and irresponsible actions of people professing to be adherents of this great faith.
Islam is a religion based on tolerance, not fanaticism, a religion based on love, not hate, and it is a coherent religion based on order, not chaos.
We should beware of making generalisations, and we should make it clear that we not only wish to live in partnership with our American friends, but that we also want to live in partnership and, if possible, friendship with those Arab and Islamic countries that are committed to peace.
(Loud applause)
We should commit ourselves today to building an order in Europe and throughout the world in conjunction with all our neighbours - an order in which Europe is strong and united.
That is why, Mr President-in-Office, it gives such an impressive signal that both you and the President of the Commission are here today, a signal that we Europeans are united and strong, and that we wish to coexist in friendship and partnership with all our neighbours, on the basis of human rights, democracy, freedom, social well-being and, above all, peace.
That must be the message we send out today, the day after the dreadful events of 11 September 2001.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, our group shares the indignation and horror at the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
We wish to express our solidarity with the families of the American victims of these horrendous attacks.
We would also like to express our profound sadness to the families of the European victims and all those who have lost relatives, whatever their colour or continent of origin, because this diabolical attack was not only directed against the American people, but also against the Europeans and the other people who live together in the cosmopolitan world of New York, and we must remember that the World Trade Centre is just a few steps from the headquarters of the United Nations.
This is an attack on our common values, on democracy, on the very foundations of our civilisation.
As the late lamented Francisco Tomás y Valiente, President of the Spanish Constitutional Court, who was murdered by terrorists, wrote in an almost posthumous article: "Every time a person is killed, something dies within us" .
Exactly a week ago, this Parliament unanimously approved the resolution against terrorism.
Then it was a European problem for certain States.
Today we can see that the situation has changed qualitatively: terrorism has also been globalised as a result of a lethal combination of fanaticism, cowardice and high technology.
Our film archives are full of horror and disaster movies, with monsters attacking New York and other cities.
What happened yesterday reminds us that we do not need monsters: we humans are monsters when we lose our minds.
And as in Goya' s painting, 'the illusion of reason produces monsters' .
We Europeans must play a very significant role in the fight against globalised terrorism, in the fight for common values, for a more peaceful and just world.
We want to fight shoulder to shoulder with the Americans, with our colleagues in the United States Congress, and also with the rest of our allies, in a joint action to resolve the most ferocious conflicts on the planet with perseverance and decisiveness.
We welcome the fact that the Americans, led by their President, despite this cowardly aggression, have so far acted with cool heads, containing their rage, as yesterday Kofi Annan rightly asked them to do.
We would ask the leaders not to change that attitude, not to respond to terror with terror, that we may act jointly, above all in order to achieve something very important, because now is the time to strengthen our alliance with the United States and with all the people of the world who share our ideal of peace, justice and freedom.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, President-in-Office, President of the Commission, colleagues, this is an important place in which to celebrate this important moment.
We in this Parliament are the tribune of the peoples of the European Union and we have gathered here today to declare solemnly our outrage, our sympathy, our solidarity and our common bond in humanity and democracy with the people of the United States of America, and with the people of New York City and Washington D.C.
We witnessed yesterday a profoundly shocking event.
It is a new and low threshold in the tide of human affairs.
We witnessed an act of war - without a declaration of war - by persons, movements or states, as yet, not fully determined, but who acted with a grim and focused determination.
We must make sure that our response is common and not isolated, shared and not unilateral, aimed at our common enemy, which is terrorism, but not at wider forces such as Islam or the wider Arab world, should that be the source whence this monster may have sprung.
This modern apocalypse is America' s injury, but the wounds are universally shared among the community of democratic nations.
To the people of the United States of America, to its President, its Congressional and civic leaders, and its communities throughout the country, especially the peoples of New York and Washington, to the grieving families of the missing and the dead and to those who have survived the ordeal, we express our sympathy in this hour of hardship and devastation.
New York is a very special place. It is a multi-cultural microcosm of the whole world.
It is a special gateway between our old continent and the New World.
It was through Ellis Island that in earlier generations, before the spirit of democracy took the deep root it has right across our continent, that our huddled masses, our oppressed and our starving went to find freedom, democracy and opportunity.
It is no accident that when the French Republic gave the people of the United States a gift to celebrate 100 years of that great republic, that they called that statue 'Liberty': no accident either that her extended arms should carry a torch of freedom.
When someone touches that symbol, they touch us all deeply, because it is part of our common, human, democratic bond and inheritance.
I remember, as a schoolboy, seeing on television at home a visit by John Fitzgerald Kennedy to places I had never been in our divided continent.
I remember his visit to the great symbol of that gross division, Berlin, with its wall.
I remember as a boy I could understand, although I did not know about politics or international affairs, that when that man said, "I am a Berliner" , he said something deep and meaningful in terms of solidarity at that time.
Today, as the Prime Minister has remarked, we are all Americans, we are all New Yorkers, we are all Washingtonians.
We share the sense of shock and horror.
We share the bewildered outrage, we feel the vulnerability, for this is our common inheritance from yesterday's barbarous outrage.
We share common democratic values and interests and we stand together willing to fight against terrorism and promote those interests and values.
It is important that we as Europeans say to the Congressional leadership today: 'You do not stand alone.
You are not isolated.
We can make common cause in this matter, and we must do so.'
But, most of all, we stand today in our common bond of humanity as our American friends bravely search for their survivors and for their dead.
Language often fails us on these occasions.
My own colleagues have asked me to invite you, Madam President, in addition to this solemn moment, to open a book of condolence that we might also convey through that, at some appropriate time to the Congress, our interlocutor in US democracy, that in spite of the space which divides us across the Atlantic, we are resolutely united by the bonds of democracy and freedom and in the fight against terrorism.
Our message to them today, in this fight for democracy and against terrorism, is that our only choice is to stand united; for united we stand but divided we shall fall.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, none of us, in fact, have the words to express the feelings aroused by the terrorist attack of unprecedented barbarity with which the United States has just been hit.
The American people is going to have to live through a deeply traumatic experience which is likely to become still more intense as the scale of the disaster they have just experienced becomes more apparent.
In this unimaginable ordeal, they must be able to count upon our unqualified solidarity.
I would add that, if these faceless monsters targeted the United States yesterday, they will be able, tomorrow, to bring terror and death to any region of the world, including, of course, the European continent.
Madam President, my group therefore fully supports the declarations you have made and the steps you have taken on our behalf.
These dismaying attacks constitute a challenge to the whole of the human community, a challenge we are now going to have to learn to take up.
I say 'learn' because, if we all agree that the guilty parties must be found and punished, we are obliged to acknowledge that, where every other aspect of the matter is concerned, more questions than certainties arise out of the tragedy of 11 September 2001.
In my view, nothing would be more inappropriate, indeed more dangerous, than to react to this radically new phenomenon with well-worn notions whose limitations have just been cruelly demonstrated.
After an outrage of this kind, there may, in other words, be a great temptation to call fervently for violent retaliation which would, however, have immeasurable consequences.
What is more, you are right, Mr Poettering. It would do no service to the cause of peace to allow criminal fanatics to be confused with entire peoples, a number of whose representatives have, sometimes with much dignity and in a deep spirit of responsibility, indeed just expressed both their radical condemnation of the terrorists and their solidarity with the American people.
Finally, and in more general terms, no one must forget ever again that we are all part of the same world.
Even the strongest nation of all is not invulnerable.
The entire international community is sentenced to confronting together the great problems facing the planet - the oceans of frustration, the great divisions that are opening up and the negotiations that have broken down - and to cooperating as closely as possible in the search for long-term solutions.
That is undoubtedly the decisive contribution that Europe can make to the world in order to join in taking up the challenge to civilisation facing us.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, Prime Minister, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the initial thoughts which we have to express at this time are feelings of compassion towards the victims and of solidarity with the American people.
The terrorist attack of which they have been the victims is not only aimed at themselves.
It is directed at the very heart of democracy itself.
Democracies are fragile things, and we are well aware that they have difficulty confronting this type of action.
In the light of history and of experience, however, I remain convinced of the American people' s ability to come through this ordeal and, at this time, I believe it is important for this House to express its solidarity with them.
That being the case, I should like to thank you, Madam President, for having organised this meeting which my group, in common with others, had requested.
I am glad that it is taking place.
I hope that it will be followed by a debate enabling us to examine the problems posed by international terrorism in greater depth.
Having, on two occasions, had responsibility for leading the fight against terrorism in my own country, I should like to say that there is, to start with, one false notion that it is necessary to get away from: that there are good terrorists and bad terrorists. There are not; there are only terrorists, full stop.
(Loud applause)
In so far as it involves a minority trying to use force and violent action to impose its point of view on the greatest number of people, terrorism is never anything other than a manifestation of the fascism and totalitarianism which we have fought in the past and which we must continue to combat resolutely.
However, the fight against terrorism presupposes a state of permanent mobilisation, and it is probably because we have rather lost sight of this idea and this obvious fact that we are now confronted with the tragic situation we see in the United States.
I think that the United States has made the mistake of believing it is probably immune from this type of action.
We in Europe have, unfortunately, already experienced such acts: in Germany, Italy, France, Spain and many other countries.
We know that terrorism is a blind force that can strike anywhere and at any time.
We also know that political will is needed in order to combat terrorism.
This will must be affirmed.
Cooperation is also required.
If each State wishes to reserve for itself the information it has managed to obtain and if there is no real cooperation at all between the services concerned, then we will be heading for further disasters.
If, on the other hand, there is a new awareness on the part of our countries and at the level of international cooperation, if there is the will to pool all the information that may be to hand and if, also, a decision is made to create, in one form or another, a permanent body for cooperation, with the ability to analyse this information and propose the necessary measures, then we shall have the opportunity to oppose terrorism with some success.
I should like, for my part too, to concur with what has been said in this House, firstly by our excellent fellow Member, Mr Poettering, and then by Mrs Hautala and Mr Wurtz.
There would be nothing worse at the present time than to speak in such thoughtless terms as to create a sense of solidarity between terrorists and the Muslim world.
That would be the worst of mistakes and the most stupid thing of all to do.
That is why, of course, none of us can be satisfied with declarations that do not mean very much.
I personally think, however, that I - indeed, our Community as a whole - would consider it to be of great value if Muslim religious leaders at the highest level were themselves to condemn these attacks and in that way demonstrate that terrorists proclaiming a perverted faith cannot possibly be identified with, or thought to share any common ground with, the Muslim religion, which deserves the respect of each one of us.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, dear American friends, our sympathy is with the many families who are now missing their loved ones.
Our tears are shed today for those who have lost a son or a daughter, a mother, a father, or both.
Our prayers are with those who are still alive but remain in peril.
Our thoughts are with President Bush and the people he leads.
Our hope is that in the pain of these terrible atrocities, the reaction of the American people will be tempered with wisdom.
Even as we weep, we know that this is not a time for hatred and revenge.
This a moment of truth, a time for reflection for all of us.
We only have one world and we are all responsible for it and its people.
World peace is something of which we all dream, but we have learned through bitter experience that it was not enough simply to tear down the wall between East and West.
We have learned that it is not only the superpowers who can acquire the methods and means of mass destruction.
Small, faceless groups intent on destruction have it within their power to destroy our whole world.
The answer is not only improved intelligence and sophisticated security.
The way to world peace is to work for it by respecting human rights and the right to national self-determination for all.
We must fight torture, terrorism and every crime against humanity.
We must take sustainable development seriously.
We must help the poor, the oppressed and the powerless before they become desperate, suicidal terrorists.
Just as terror can never be justified, neither can oppression.
Oppression breeds people who are prepared to take all life before them in the passionate intensity of their hatred.
We must bridge the gap between the West and the rest of the world, instead of fighting each other.
In this way we may remove the raison d'etre of terrorism.
It is still too early to foresee all the lessons to be learned from Tuesday' s shocking event but it is not too early to know that Tuesday, 11 September 2001 marked a turning point in history.
Our world will never be the same again.
Our thoughts are with the victims of these horrendous attacks and those who grieve for them.
Let the memory of these terrible events always call to mind our duty to take better care of this world.
(Loud applause)
Ladies and gentlemen, today we have wished to hold a formal sitting.
We shall consider, together with the Group Chairmen, the possibility of organising a major fundamental debate at our part-session next week.
I should also like to say that I naturally take a very positive view of the suggestion made to me to establish a book of condolence addressed to our colleagues in the American Congress.
That book will be placed at the exit of the Chamber tomorrow morning at 10.00 a.m.
I should like to offer my most heartfelt thanks to Prime Minister Verhofstadt, to Minister Louis Michel, to Mr Romano Prodi, and to all of you, and declare this formal sitting closed.
(The sitting was closed at 6.10 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament, adjourned on Wednesday 12 September 2001.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sittings
The Minutes of the sittings of Thursday 6 and Wednesday 12 September 2001 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, although I know that we have more important things to do today, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, on 6 September, I raised objections to the Minutes of the previous day and also asked - with a view to having these issues in general clarified, and not just this particular instance - that the committee responsible for dealing with agenda questions be asked to look into the matter of a vote result being retrospectively altered.
Towards midday, I raised another objection and referred to my first one, but I have to date received no reply, and I do think that a Member is entitled to be given answers.
So I ask you firstly: do you think that a Member is entitled to be given answers when he raises objections? And secondly: when can I expect to receive one?
Yes, Mr Swoboda, of course.
I believe that Members are entitled to receive a reply to their comments and I can assure you that this matter will be sorted out.
Madam President, of course Mr Swoboda is entitled to receive an accurate reply.
I just want to ask your services to give it on the basis of the midday debate.
Not to be too blunt about it, I had the feeling that Mr Swoboda, on the day itself, tried to use an amendment of the Minutes to change the outcome of this House's vote.
For this reason, I ask that the midday debate should be taken as the basis of any answer your services give to Mr Swoboda, and please be so kind as to let me have a copy of it.
I am quite sure that your services understood perfectly well what this House had in mind!
Mr Jarzembowski, we shall look into the whole matter very carefully.
(The Minutes were approved)
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, Commander Massoud visited the European Parliament on 4 April 2001.
He was recently assassinated in a cowardly attack by his opponents, a few days before the terrible attacks on New York and Washington.
I had invited him because he embodied the hopes of the overwhelming majority of people in Afghanistan for a future of peace and freedom.
He had warned us against the Taliban regime' s tacit support for international terrorism and he did everything in his power to fight against those who misused Islam in order to flout the most basic human rights.
He sent a strong message to us to help him to establish peace as soon as possible.
I regret that the West did not heed this message and did not do more to help this brave man.
Many of you met him and were impressed by his intellect and his human qualities.
I would like to ask you to pay tribute to him by observing a minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Statement by the President
Welcome
Combating terrorism
I would like to welcome Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, Minister for European Affairs and President-in-Office of the Council.
I would also like to welcome Commissioner Vitorino.
The next item is the Council and Commission statements with a view to the informal and extraordinary meeting of the European Council on Friday 21 September, on the measures needed to tackle terrorism.
I shall now give the floor to Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Europe, its citizens and its institutions are still deeply shocked by the terrorist attack on the United States on Tuesday 11 September 2001.
The Presidency and the Council immediately condemned, in the strongest possible terms, the perpetrators, organisers and sponsors of these barbaric acts.
The strikes against the American nation are a direct attack on the values of democracy, tolerance, respect for human rights and the rule of law that are shared by America and Europe, and upon which our societies and others elsewhere in the world, are based.
At its emergency session on Wednesday 12 September, the Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers expressed its profound solidarity with the American people.
We clearly stated that no effort would be spared to identify, bring to justice and punish those responsible.
To achieve this aim, the European Union will have to use and strengthen a number of operational instruments of our Common Foreign and Security Policy and our Justice and Home Affairs policy.
Terrorism is an international problem and as such requires a global response.
Madam President, at the instigation of the General Affairs Council, the Council of Transport Ministers held a meeting on 14 September.
The Council reviewed the urgent measures taken by each Member State in order to guarantee the safety of air travel.
It also set up a special working group, comprising representatives of the Member States and of the European Commission, which is responsible for increasing cooperation and coordination among the Member States to ensure the uniform and effective application of security measures, including by legislative means.
A preliminary report on this subject is to be laid before the Council of Transport Ministers meeting scheduled for 15 October next.
Lastly, the Transport Ministers have decided to draw up common proposals on the subject of security measures.
On behalf of the Union, these proposals will then be put to the Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation on 25 September next.
The Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers will meet on 20 September.
It will assess the intelligence-sharing mechanism and the respective roles in this context of institutions such as Europol and Eurojust, as well as assessing the two proposals for framework decisions it received from the Commission.
The first proposal concerns the approximation of criminal law in the Member States with a view to developing a common definition of terrorist action and establishing a common system for punishing criminal acts.
The second proposal concerns the introduction of a European warrant of arrest.
The Council will consider instruments employed in the investigation of criminal acts and will ensure that a suitable balance is struck between the protection of privacy and the needs of the investigative authorities.
Finally, the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers will examine a number of measures aimed at strengthening transatlantic judicial cooperation in the areas of policing, intelligence and immigration.
(FR) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the fight against terrorism requires the use of all kinds of instruments to monitor financial flows, to identify suspects, to make air travel safer, to monitor arms trafficking as well as many other aspects.
The European Union is the best placed organisation to provide a global response to the fight against terrorism.
The fight against international terrorism will be a long, drawn-out battle.
As the Heads of State and Governments have stated, the European Union will have to assume an even greater role in managing regional tension and conflicts if it is to stamp out international terrorism.
The inclusion of fragile nations and regions in a peaceful world governed by the rule of law will be a powerful weapon in the battle against the scourge of terrorism.
The EU will be much more effective if it can further develop its Common, Foreign and Security Policy and can activate its Common European Security Policy at the earliest opportunity.
The Common, Foreign and Security Policy will have to be used preventatively, rather than as a means of reprisal.
If the battle against terrorism is to be truly effective, we will also need to strengthen our policies with regard to the countries and the regions of the world that appear to nurture terrorism.
We will have to enhance and deepen our political dialogue and use every possible means at our disposal to combat, stifle and finally eradicate international terrorism.
Ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is an emerging world power.
As such we have a greater number of responsibilities, which we must shoulder together.
The tragic events of 11 September 2001 will also prompt us to develop closer ties with the United States, which will go beyond the established mechanisms for cooperation.
The transatlantic dialogue will enable us to exchange information and share our respective assessments of the threat posed by terrorism, in all its guises.
The Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister, Louis Michel, will travel to Washington this evening for talks with the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, on transatlantic cooperation.
He will report back on his meeting to the extraordinary meeting of the European Council, which is scheduled for Friday 21 September.
This extraordinary meeting of the European Council was called to review all the political, diplomatic, economic, legal and financial resources that are at the Union' s disposal to combat terrorism.
The Council will also be an opportunity to reflect on the EU' s diplomatic role in stabilising regional conflicts.
In order to be effective, the fight against terrorism must be able to rely on the efforts of all the countries that share our values of freedom, tolerance and democracy.
For this reason, the Presidency has sought to ensure that third countries are fully involved in the actions taken by the European Union.
The candidate countries unanimously backed the declarations of the General Affairs Council and the declarations made by the Heads of State and Government.
Third countries have also been invited, via the foreign embassies of Member States, to confirm their commitment to the unrelenting fight against terrorism.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union can thus help to build a world of peace and legality for all nations.
(Applause)
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, last week we formally expressed our sympathies for all the victims of these attacks, who came from America, Europe and the whole of the world; we expressed our solidarity with the United States and, now, with pain but also with determination, we must respond to global terrorism, to this mixture of fanaticism and advanced technology which threatens our civilisation and our open, democratic and multicultural society.
We must send a very clear message to our fellow citizens: terrorism can injure, it can kill, but no democracy has ever been destroyed by terrorism and that is our greatest strength.
We must therefore work together: Parliament produced the Watson report, the Commission has speeded up its work and this week a Special Council has been called.
I must stress that yesterday and today the President-in-Office of the Council, the Belgian Minister for External Affairs, Mr Michel, the High Representative for the CFSP, Mr Solana, and the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Patten, have taken part in debates in Parliament on this issue.
I believe that we should welcome this willingness to participate, which increases transparency and communication.
We Socialists must respond on the basis of one fundamental notion: the global response must be based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368 of this year, which establishes that we must work together to bring the organisers, sponsors and perpetrators of the attacks and their accomplices to justice.
This is the basis of the worldwide coalition which we are building with the United States, with the candidate countries, with Russia and with all the states of the world which share our universal values.
I would add another point: the ratification of the International Criminal Court must be accelerated so that we may have a global instrument of justice in this very field.
We must also work firmly and with perseverance, acting within the framework of a multidimensional policy which relates to what we are doing in the United Nations.
This explains NATO' s decision to invoke Article 5.
We must state that poverty, injustice or conflict are not causes which can justify barbarism.
No conflict between East and West, between Islam and Christianity, between the traditional and the modern, can explain why killing innocent people can bring progress in the world.
I believe that the European Parliament, those of us sitting here from different peoples, of different beliefs, ideologies and religions, demonstrates that we Europeans have found a response to fanaticism and intolerance.
What can be done to create our policy?
A series of contributions have been made here.
The Commission has brought forward certain measures and there are others which the Commission and the Council could activate more quickly. For example, they could speed up the implementation of the conclusions of the Tampere Summit and the application of the Treaty of Amsterdam, they could speed up the ratification of the international conventions against terrorism - and this also falls within the competence of the Member States - and in particular the convention for the suppression of terrorist funding.
It must not be the case, as appears to be happening, that we are assisting in the funding of terrorist organisations through stock exchange speculation.
There must also be increasing cooperation between intelligence services and a strengthening of Europol.
Finally, Madam President - and this must be stressed - on the basis of the information given us by Mr Solana this morning, we must activate and pursue our policy of finding an opening, an opportunity, for peace in the Middle East, founded on the Mitchell report.
Confidence-building measures must not be viewed as recompense, but rather such measures must be an integral part of this process.
And we must do so jointly with the United States.
We must send them the message that they should not hide behind imaginary shields, that they should share with us in the responsibility to achieve a world which lives in peace, justice, freedom and security.
(Applause)
Madam President, last week's attacks on innocent civilians in New York and Washington shocked and outraged the civilised people across the world.
They show the difficulties faced by any state, especially a democracy, in defending its citizens against terrorists.
These atrocities and the subsequent search for those responsible also highlight the weaknesses of our defence of the civilian population and throw into sharp relief the painfully slow progress of EU cooperation in justice and home affairs, so boldly trumpeted in Amsterdam and in Tampere.
As the Americans seek the arrest of people on European soil who may be responsible, they must shake their heads in disbelief at the multitude of bilateral extradition agreements, which they will need to employ.
I welcome Commissioner Vitorino's statement.
The proposals he has put forward today take on board the key recommendations of the report we adopted on 5 September, to which Mr Poettering so kindly referred.
They deserve urgent consideration and swift action by Justice and Home Affairs Ministers at their meeting tomorrow.
If they are adopted by Council, they will represent a major step forward in forging a common EU anti-terrorism policy.
I challenge any minister who may resist these proposals in the secrecy of the Council chamber to explain publicly to citizens in their own country, or across Europe, why they are holding up effective common action in this field.
However welcome and important the Commission's proposals are, they are clearly insufficient.
They provide answers to the world as it was before last Tuesday.
They deal with terrorist crimes within the Union but do nothing to improve cooperation with countries outside the EU.
They fail to solve conflicts of competence between judicial authorities.
They leave cooperation and the vital matter of police affairs subject to a national veto, as Commissioner Vitorino said.
If the EU is serious about combating terrorism, we must gear up the operational instruments of common action.
We must enable Europol to cooperate effectively with third countries.
We must give an external dimension to Eurojust.
We must act decisively too, to combat money laundering in the conciliation currently under way and we must develop common policies for the collection and sharing of criminal intelligence, as Mrs Neyts pointed out.
Measures are needed too in foreign and security policy: greater cooperation in the UN, in the G8, in the Council of Europe, urging Member States to sign the UN Convention on the financing of terrorism; export controls on sensitive products and tighter association agreements with third countries.
But we must guard against a blurring of the second and the third pillars, which last week's Council declaration suggested, and guard too against upsetting the delicate balance between the needs of security and the civil liberties, which our citizens enjoy.
I ask whether now is not the time to consign to the rubble of history the clumsy, outdated second and third pillars of the EU cooperation and make their contents core competences of the European Union.
(Applause)
The fig leaf of national sovereignty serves only to hide the impotence of nation states.
Democracy faces supranational challenges and these require a supranational response.
Our policies will need public support, so our policymaking will need proper democratic oversight and control.
I believe that this House stands ready to play its part.
We must now call on our national leaders to show the courage and the vision which the moment demands.
(Applause)
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, my group and I believe, in the wake of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, that the need to see the European Union display its character and show how useful it can be in world affairs has never been so great.
The coming period - perhaps the next few days - will certainly provide it with the opportunity to display its determination and ability to face three challenges, in particular, which are posed by this tragic situation.
I believe that the first challenge will be for countries to decide to be willing partners of the United States.
At yesterday' s debate in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, one of my colleagues spoke of 'allied but not aligned countries' .
This does not mean, of course, that they lack the necessary and legitimate solidarity, particularly in the common fight to seek out, judge and punish those responsible for this act of barbarism or, more generally, to break up the terrorist networks.
On the other hand, this means that we must have the courage to make clear to our American counterparts what we are perfectly willing to do and what do not sanction under any circumstances.
Yesterday and this morning, Mr Solana quite rightly stressed that it is vital that our fight against terrorism is not perceived by those in the Arab and Muslim world as a war against their civilisation, or even as a crusade, to use one of the most alarming expressions of President Bush.
Yesterday, the High Representative for the CFSP already recommended, in the same spirit, that we should be careful, that we should seek to humiliate nobody, avoid any confusion and not create rifts, which would be a huge mistake.
I welcome these responsible words.
My group hopes that these words will be translated into an outright refusal by the European Union to allow itself to be drawn into wartime thinking, into a trap which would produce more bloodshed and more innocent victims.
The second challenge that we must face is directly related to what I have just said.
We must avoid creating a division, but also review and revive the Euro-Mediterranean relationship.
Now is not the time, in my view, to discuss free-trade zones with our partners of the South-Eastern Mediterranean. We should instead talk about development, political dialogue, how to bring our societies closer and about human dignity.
And one of the practical commitments to make in line with this strategic choice is primarily to take concerted action to resolve the Middle East conflict fairly.
I appreciate the efforts made by Mr Solana and all the European Union representatives in the region.
These efforts are bearing initial fruit but we can all see that this situation is extremely fragile.
This is therefore the time to make every endeavour to work not against but in partnership with the United States and other actors, particularly in the region.
I believe that the third challenge we face is that of working on a new approach to international security.
Does the tragedy of 11 September not illustrate the failure of the way in which the world has been managed since the fall of the Berlin wall? There are so many unresolved conflicts!
There are so many powerful but hidden forces at work!
There are so many destabilising forces!
Pursuing a unilateralist approach is not a response to this deep-rooted evil. We should combat it with genuine cooperation on a global scale which respects the spirit and letter of the United Nations Charter.
Taking military action or clamping down with law and order is not the way to respond. We need an ambitious and multi-faceted policy for crisis prevention.
Citizens everywhere - in Africa, in the Mediterranean, in Latin America, in Eastern Europe, in the United States itself and often in the Member States - expect to see a revision of world governance.
At the moment, Europe, in particular, is being called upon to do this.
This is an opportunity to be seized.
From this perspective, the coming days could be the moment of truth.
Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I believe that we have already had the opportunity to discuss the root of the problem in the past and that we will have further opportunities to do so in the future.
In this debate, therefore, I shall not discuss the general philosophy of the course of action to take.
I would simply like to reiterate a few points, which some of our leaders now seem to have forgotten.
We must realise that our first problem is identifying our enemy.
We must not have any illusions - there are Islamic fundamentalists that have decided to carry out attacks against Western democracies.
We must be aware of this.
You must also be aware that there are more or less dormant terrorist organisations in all of our countries and they could very easily become active overnight.
In this respect, I would like to add something to the extremely interesting comments and thoughts of Commissioner Vitorino, and that is I hope the European Union will cease to subsidise the States that harbour or assist terrorists.
I believe that this is a practical step that we ourselves could take and one that could be taken fairly swiftly.
My second point is that we very clearly cannot contemplate taking any action worthy of that name, unless there is also sincere political cooperation between States, first and foremost between Member States of the European Union.
I can remember a time, not so long ago, and I am not sure that this period is behind us, when the 'every man for himself' mentality still prevailed and we accepted the presence of some organisations on our own soil on the condition that no action would be taken, even if this meant action would be carried out in a neighbouring country.
I therefore feel that we must have true solidarity and it must be clearly expressed.
My third point is that I believe we must realise that, in order for action combating terrorism to be worthwhile, it must be preventive.
We must, therefore, enhance the work of the intelligence services.
I listened very carefully to everything that was said earlier about the need for Europol to be effective. I am fully in favour of enhancing Europol' s effectiveness, but this will not enable you to begin fighting against terrorism instantly.
We need genuine, immediate cooperation between the intelligence and security services, a sincere exchange of information and for States to be able to take the necessary measures, whatever some States might think - and, for the moment, it is the States who are responsible for security as part of their cooperation.
I shall not elaborate any further.
That is what I wanted to say this evening and I would stress one thing.
I have been listening to a philosophical debate on whether the action against the United States is an act of war or an act of terrorism. Given the magnitude of these acts, I believe that they are acts of war.
And if we do not realise that they may well only be the first of many, then we will pay an extremely high price for our blindness.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the tragic events of 11 September do not only implicate the criminal organisation that carried out these dramatic attacks to express its hatred of the West, but they also reveal that there is immense frustration towards US Middle East policy, which dates back as far as 1991.
The United States has already lost some of its prestige by attacking Iraq for poor strategic reasons, and by failing to secure a victory.
It is primarily the United States' systematic alignment with the State of Israel' s expansionist policy, and which the Americans had tried to compensate for by supporting extremist Islamic organisations, that has caused a sense of the most profound injustice to spread throughout the Arab countries.
This means that the policy of colonisation put in place after the Six Day War as well as the unjustified presence of American troops in the region are therefore condemned.
Unless the State of Israel gives up its racist policy and evacuates the settlements established on the West Bank of Jordan, the Arab world, in response to a legitimate appeal, will rise up and will destabilise the leaders of the Arab peninsula.
And why is such importance given to the State of Israel, which has excessive military capabilities and only exists because of the will of the United States?
It is out of the question for France and Europe to take part in a new crusade against the Arab world, whether this takes the form of military action, extraditions or European arrest warrants.
France is not a member of NATO and NATO is not concerned by Afghanistan.
On the contrary, France will find its strategic interests lie in resolutely supporting the Arab world in its fight against racism in the policy pursued by the State of Israel.
Mr President, it is terrible what happened in New York and Washington.
We share in the grief and suffering of America.
The full scale of what exactly has happened is only just hitting home.
Within the European Union, it will be necessary for us to develop an anti-terrorist policy in harmony with the United States.
We owe this to the victims and those left behind.
I would therefore like to congratulate Commissioner Vitorino on the speed with which proposals are now being submitted.
This fight is not a fight against Islam or its followers.
It is a fight against those who aim to reach their goals by terror, whatever so-called justification of their actions they try to put forward.
We must request unequivocally that all states and governments lend their unconditional support to this policy.
This fight is about the inviolability of human life as the highest value in our democracy.
I hope we can adopt this line in unison.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if we wish to make an effective contribution to the implementation of a global policy to fight international terrorism, as we say we do, the most effective way of doing this is surely to formally appeal to the Council to undertake an immediate examination of all the texts, particularly those which relate to the movement of people, from a security point of view rather than the perspective of the systematic abolition of checks.
However, this change of approach must apply to the forthcoming provisions and must also be evident through a systematic revision of the texts that have already been adopted, in the light of the need for the security and protection of our people, which is now a priority.
The Council must carry out this revision as soon as possible so that it can reform, and, if necessary, abolish all the provisions that may be used to establish and develop terrorist networks in our countries, whether they relate, for instance, to Community transit, border controls, family reunification or application for refugee status.
We cannot disregard the fact that people living on the fringes of the law are entering our countries and then also complain that terrorist networks are prospering on this breeding ground that we ourselves created.
We will have the opportunity tomorrow to align our actions with our words, since two reports are on the agenda, which contain recommendations that run counter to the requirement for security and for an anti-terrorism fight that we claim to want to prioritise.
We cannot possibly vote in favour of the Watson report, which has no explanatory statement, that dramatically widens the provisions on implementing the right to asylum, to the point where this essential right is changed beyond recognition and where the option to carry out checks is irresponsibly taken from Member States' authorities.
However, I would like to praise the courage of the first rapporteur, Mr Schmitt, who refused to have his name associated with such excesses.
In the same way, is this really the right time to adopt the Coelho report, the second paragraph of which calls on the United Kingdom and Ireland to abolish all their border controls as soon as possible? Is this request not somewhat mistimed?
Ladies and gentlemen, we have the chance to be responsible and efficient by appealing to the Council to review our legislation in its entirety, in the light of the need for security.
Failing that, we can go into tomorrow' s debate trying not to be overly schizophrenic.
Mr President, as has been pointed out previously, we European citizens have witnessed, in astonishment and live on TV, a crime against humanity, as the president of my group pointed out, and an attempt to destroy our freedom and democracy.
The first thing we must do is to share in the pain of the American people.
Please allow me to say that we Spaniards fully understand the suffering of the victims.
But in the immediate aftermath we must react determinedly in order to defend our freedom and to do justice to the victims, showing the terrorists and their accomplices that their objectives have failed.
As in other eras of our history, it is essential that we reaffirm our democratic values in order to destroy the totalitarian course which terrorism takes us along.
The European Parliament has demonstrated its unequivocal commitment to combating terrorism, and the Watson report is a clear example of this.
But, now in particular, we must continue to put our political weight and impetus behind the concrete initiatives presented to us by the European Commission.
The President of my Group has presented certain budgetary initiatives aimed at strengthening the role of Europol.
Let us hope that the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs - and I appeal to its Chairman - may, for its part, set an agenda allowing it to present to Parliament a proposal this year, which will allow the Belgian and Spanish Presidencies to finish their work in the coming months.
The European institutions have an inescapable responsibility to speed up procedures in order to provide the justice system with Community instruments which will make their work against terrorism and organised crime more effective.
The European Commission, and in particular Commissioner Vitorino, must be aware that it can count on the support of Parliament in order to guarantee concerted cooperation and action in tracking down these criminals, because this is the way to put an end to terror.
Mr President, as has been mentioned, on the 5th this Parliament approved the Watson report, with a series of measures which were essential to dealing with the issue of terrorism.
As has been mentioned here, a common definition of terrorism for all Member States, a European arrest warrant - which has been called for for some time - and the elimination of extradition seemed to us to be essential issues when Parliament asked for them on the 5th.
But in that same report Parliament also sent more than one political message to the other Community institutions: it asked for consideration of the fact that certain acts - and I quote - 'are orchestrated and carried out by groups organised at international level' and indicated that there were States behind these actions and that this must be confronted.
On 5 September, Mr President, this Parliament took the lead in asking the other institutions to adopt a firm attitude towards these issues.
We already had the commitment that Commissioner Vitorino would react positively.
On the 11th, Mr President, very soon afterwards, we realised that we had arrived late, dramatically late, and that the problem had exploded, not in the European Union, but in the United States, in an even more spectacular way - not dramatic, since it is always dramatic - than we have experienced here.
Mr Watson modestly tells us that what he asked for in his report is useful only within the European Union.
I do not agree.
I believe that, if we take this series of initiatives, we can make progress on an internal action which, as Mr Poettering said, would be a demonstration of our solidarity with the United States. If we, given the haste which is now required - and haste was already required - make more rapid progress in offering this example of how there can be an operational reaction on a supranational level in the fight against terrorism.
We will be sending the best indication of solidarity with the United States. We will be offering the best image, the best option for work in this supranational field against organised crime, as the United Nations recently requested in Palermo.
I hope that in the case of other measures, such as combating money laundering and so many others which are on the table in the Council, we will not wait until we have to act in haste, until there are other dramatic events, in order to implement them.
I believe that they are all essential to defending the world and, above all, freedom.
Mr President, when we visited Washington last week with this Parliament' s delegation, and stayed a few days longer than originally planned, not only myself but also our American colleagues became increasingly aware of a common interest.
I witnessed among the Americans, and certainly in their administration, more restraint than we generally give them credit for over here, or than we can infer from the sometimes unfortunately chosen words of the President.
Some of our American colleagues quite clearly said that the time for fine words is over.
I believe that they are right.
This is not only true of the relationship we have with them, but also of the action this Parliament intends to take.
If we want to talk about punishing terrorists, then we have, in fact, already missed the boat.
I hope that we can also talk about deterrence from time to time. This would involve cooperation among police forces, examining magistrates and intelligence services.
Commissioner, I hope that your proposals will be dealt with as soon as possible, as I am sure they will be.
Then it will become clear who in this House is for or against cooperation, who truly wants to make headway and who does not.
President-in-Office of the Council, I hope that at your meetings behind closed doors, it will also be clear to us who is for and against, who wants to carry on and who does not, so that we can draw our own conclusions and make our own judgments. We are still in shock at the moment and are still sharing in the grief of our American friends, but who will recall this debate in one or two years' time?
I hope that we will still be very much alert and that we will be able to remember what was said here today.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, solidarity with the victims of the atrocious attacks is the first emotion we expressed - and rightly so.
But I welcome the fact that the Council and the Commission set to work at full tilt to formulate proposals.
We now have globalisation of terrorism.
Everyone is vulnerable.
But we can also turn our vulnerable world into a safer world.
That is the challenge.
However, it requires multilateral cooperation in a global fight against terrorism.
This is the positive element that I am trying to glean from the fact that Article 5 of the NATO Treaty has been invoked: that it is seen as a sign of solidarity. I am not in favour of a blank cheque for any old military action which would claim more innocent victims and would create resentment and frustrations.
I would rather see an invitation to enter into consultation and dialogue across the oceans, even though there is the risk of it not being seen in that light.
We should be aware that our people are anxious, that many people fear that we will simply be dragged along by a war machine.
We should realise that we must explain what our intentions are.
We must make this vulnerable world safer by providing political solutions to endless conflicts such as that in the Middle East.
We must bring hope to large parts of the world that have to live in despair.
Without a fair world order, stability and peace remain a distant dream, and there will always be a breeding ground for terrorism.
We are delighted with the unanimous will that has been expressed over the past couple of days and that has been echoed by the Council and the Commission on this platform.
We now look forward to action, rather than words, for as regards providing Europe with the resources to achieve these goals, some of our Member States have in the past persisted in throwing up barriers.
How long have we been waiting for the cooperation necessary to turn Europol into an effective instrument? This was called for back at Amsterdam.
According to Mr Vitorino, the extradition of terrorists is the cornerstone of the fight against terrorism.
But it remains to be seen whether we can all agree.
The President-in-Office of the Council listed various instruments for the prevention of terrorism, but will we ever succeed in monitoring the flow of capital which feeds terrorism worldwide?
Will we ever want to, and be able to, exercise effective control over the arms trade? Or will the economic arguments prevail tomorrow once more over the arguments for security and prevention of terrorism?
For terrorism exists, fanaticism exists, injustice exists. There are many weapons which terrorists have not yet used but which are at their disposal thanks to our technological society.
Mr President, there is no cause, not even a just cause, which can justify the killing of innocent civilians.
Terror does not pave the way for justice: it is the shortest road to hell.
We condemn and deplore this appalling crime; we utterly condemn those who planned and perpetrated it.
Our empathy with the suffering victims, with the pain of their families and the pain of the entire American people at difficult times such as this is no less than the expression of our total commitment to preserving the unique nature of the human race.
These are not my words but some of the things Palestinian intellectuals, politicians and ministers such as Mr Yaser Abed Rabbo, Mrs Hanan Ashrawi and Mr Mahmoud Darwish have said.
They are powerful statements, and they give us hope for they come from people who live and suffer under the Israeli military occupation.
At times like these, we must all - people, States and institutions - act with the utmost responsibility and determination to remove terrorism from the face of the earth and put a stop to the globalisation of poverty, injustice and war for ever.
'Words must replace arms' as Mr Solana said.
Therefore, no words must be allowed to provoke hatred or promote the 'dead or alive' cowboy culture: as the women against war say, between killing and death there lies a third way, which is life.
No one must be exempt from training in love of peace and respect for the law, especially Heads of State.
Today, a glimmer of hope for the future has come from Palestine and Israel with the announcement of a truce. It is a faint chance, I know, but it is vital that we do not let it go.
The European Union has contributed to the possibility of dialogue being resumed.
The Union' s political role must grow and, if and as this role grows, the Union must uphold the law with increasing determination.
Just as we told Mr Arafat that he must be resolute in controlling terrorism, so we must make it quite clear to Mr Sharon that he cannot continue to get away with seizing Palestinian land, building settlements, killing and besieging Palestinians in villages or, as he did yesterday morning, destroying the Gaza port which is still under construction and funded by the countries of the European Union.
We must take tangible action, reassuring the Palestinians that they will have a safe State to live in and assuring Israel that nobody is questioning its existence, that it is its colonialist settlement policy, not its existence, which is in question.
Yesterday, in the Lebanon, I and an Italian delegation met President Lahoud. He stated quite clearly that he rejected terrorism, but he stressed emphatically that resolution of the Palestinian issue and development of political and economic cooperation with Europe and the Arab world are essential.
We must believe in our own ability to bring peace and respect for the law.
Madam President, in the fight against terrorism, everyone has to understand that there have to be rules in a democracy and that those who violate laws and destroy freedom and security have to be punished.
In April, Commander Massoud came to the European Parliament seeking support for his opposition to the fundamentalist Taliban regime.
We welcomed him as a friend, just as we empathised with the victims of the fundamentalist regime in Algeria and the other countries where citizens, politicians and journalists have been massacred, even including Spain.
Now, Commander Massoud is dead, killed by a suicide terrorist attack just a few hours before other terrorists caused the absurd, appalling, atrocious carnage in the United States.
Clearly, terrorists and fundamentalists had planned a precise sequence of events, the first step being the elimination of the most powerful opponent to the Taliban regime.
If we genuinely want to combat and eradicate terrorism and its bases, its economic power and its message of hatred of democracy and freedom, we must give our full support to the Northern Alliance now: what we denied Commander Massoud when he was alive we owe to him now he is dead. We owe it to the men and women who are fighting for freedom.
We owe it to all those who are combating terrorism and fundamentalism in the world.
We also call upon the European Union to think again about whether it needs to establish effective border controls, even suspending Schengen temporarily, and, in any case, as President Pasqua has already said, to stop giving aid to those countries which harbour, fund and protect terrorist and criminal organisations. We call for regulation of the use of the Internet, for rules to be established at last, for, as we know, the lack of rules governing the use of the Internet make it easy for terrorism to gain support and operate at international level.
We call for the headquarters of those organisations which claim to be fighting religious wars, advocate violence and tolerate their members perpetrating terrorism to be closed.
Lastly, Mr President, we call upon the European Union to have the courage to hold a Euro-Mediterranean Conference to discuss our commitment to peace, where we can work together and defeat those continuing to sow hatred and violence.
Mr President, I too feel that our response to large-scale attacks must not take the form of a crusade against Islam, but certain things need to be said.
I would point out, in any case, that one of the organisations with which Osama bin Laden is linked is called the 'International Front for Fighting Jews and Crusades' .
I would also point out that part of the influx of billions of dollars of funding dispensed every year to Muslim charities and aid organisations is ultimately used to finance fundamentalist terrorism.
In addition to this, the profits from banks, Islamic businesses and financial institutions, located in tax havens, which are now, at last, regulated and identified on the international market as well, help to support the international Jihad terrorist force.
Here in Europe, there are Islamic centres and mosques which have been providing hospitality, screens and even false passports for fundamentalists connected to terrorist groups for years and continue to do so today. There is documented evidence of this.
Such complicity is a fact and I certainly do not think we can take a few general statements disassociating their authors from Osamar bin Laden as evidence of the conversion to peace and respect for human rights of these wings of the international Jihad force present in Europe.
I support Mrs Garaud' s call to realism this morning at the Conference of Presidents, when she called for a responsible international policy ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, according to a Chinese proverb, when a wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at his finger.
The European Union would be well advised to give some thought as to the meaning of this proverb because it is very difficult to actually see the relation between today' s debate and the unprecedented attacks on the United States, which took place on 11 September 2001.
Was the United States saved because of its police force or federal intelligence system? It has one, of course.
The United States is the most powerful country in the world and this patently did not enable it to predict or prevent the events of Tuesday 11 September and we really cannot see what Europol can do in this matter, other than to strengthen the European Union, which once again is undoubtedly showing that its sole concern is its own power, that it has absolutely no interest whatsoever in the root causes of the problems and that it is only concerned by its return to a position of power.
If we - who claim to represent all the people of Europe - had to consider one subject, then it should be our failure to take responsibility and that we are responsible for leaving the United States alone to face the rest of the entire world, when our nations have over 1 000 years of diplomatic, historic and military experience...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, first of all I would like to emphasise the deep sympathy we feel for the victims of last week's attack.
Right now, before any military action takes place, we are already witnessing a massive humanitarian tragedy affecting many thousands of innocent people in Afghanistan.
The United States has announced that it will lift restrictions on intelligence agencies and give them a free hand to recruit criminals.
I quote Vice President Cheney: "To be able to penetrate these terrorist organisations, you need to have on the payroll some very unsavoury characters."
When President Bush declared war - and in fact this is a case of the rich versus the poor, which is the underlying struggle here - he said the war must be won with the tools of action.
The tools used should be the tools of justice, that is, not by suspending the rule of law or suppressing liberties, but on the contrary, by maintaining them.
Mr President, Madam Minister, Commissioner Vitorino, honourable Members of this House, if we fight the wrong war, we will lose.
Mr President, we will never forget the attacks against the United States, which we utterly condemn.
We share the grief of the civilian victims and their families and we share the values of our great ally - democracy and individual freedom.
Terrorism creates a state of mind.
It provokes outrage and reaction, so we must be united, we must be determined and we must be vigilant.
However, in addition to our united political reaction, we must adjust the European Union's diplomatic standpoint.
In the context of the current budget process, we must reassess the EU's vast aid programme, in particular, if states were involved in that terrorism in any way.
The EU is perceived as pro-Arab.
I regret this.
We should be pro-democracy.
War has been declared and we should unequivocally stand by our American allies.
My party and group are committed to giving our full support, in particular to the British Government, its partners in the European Union and to our NATO allies.
The scale and nature of the outrage we witnessed in the United States last week gives us a warning of what else the new millennium might bring, so we must look pragmatically at what we need to do together.
We should learn from each other as much as possible about how to deal with the security of our people and how best to reduce the tensions which lead to political violence and terrorism.
As far as possible, our electors should be allowed to get on with their lives, but we as politicians cannot rest while terrorism lives.
Mr President, I was in Washington last week leading the European Parliament delegation responsible for our relations with the United States Congress and we started our pre-Commission briefing at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, 11 September 2001, just after the first plane had hit one of the towers and just before the second.
Needless to say, our briefing did not go on for very long and we, like so many in the United States, were soon sitting in front of television sets, shocked and silent.
That was the mood in America in Tuesday.
By Wednesday, people were angry and frightened, understandably, and so were we.
Later there was much more thoughtfulness and a more considered response.
The many messages from the European Union, and indeed from the European Parliament, plus the many personal messages of support and solidarity, were very much appreciated.
We were able to fulfil part of our delegation duties, we met members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Congress and had some very useful, although very sad discussions with them.
The question they put to us was: How will Europe help us? Will Europe support us?
That was really most difficult. It would have been premature and inappropriate for a partial delegation to respond.
Of course, we did not know how we should respond.
I made a statement to Congress on behalf of the delegation which was lodged in the Congressional Records and I hope with your permission it can be lodged in our own Parliament records as well.
This statement stressed, apart, of course, from the natural sympathy that we wanted to express, that this had to be tackled by the United States of America and the European Union and many other countries in partnership.
It is becoming ever clearer that the response must be measured and proportionate, and the consequences for all must be anticipated and planned.
There is a clear need for major diplomatic and political initiatives to maintain cooperation with those countries nearest to any possible targets or military action and those at most risk from the consequences.
We may be facing terrible times ahead but it is essential that we have the courage as well as the compassion to consider carefully the alternatives.
I would like to express my thanks to the many here, including the President, who expressed their concerns for our safety and well-being and particularly to my fellow MEPs, including Mr Belder, Mrs Peijs, my two vice-chairman, the other MEPs, the Parliament staff, Council and Commission staff interpreters and particularly the Commission staff in Washington.
They were endlessly kind in what was a most difficult week.
Mr President, the attacks in America remind me most of the attack on the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo in June 1914, when a terrorist, who appeared from nowhere, struck at the heart of the Habsburg Empire, a superpower deemed invincible.
That fatal incident elicited an overreaction, which led to the First World War.
It is of the utmost importance to combat international terrorism.
It is equally important for this to be done collectively, forcefully and - I emphasise - with well-considered restraint.
The European Union itself must also set to work.
Commissioner, thank you, you are not the problem, neither is this Parliament.
I would address my former colleague, the Minister of the Belgian Presidency.
Tampere was two years ago.
I would urge the Belgian Presidency to abolish the right of veto in the Third Pillar. If not, we will remain bogged down and unable to tackle terrorism effectively.
Mr President, I was part of the delegation which visited Washington last week.
I saw the dismay, horror and despair caused by the attack, and I shared and felt this sorrow and despair.
I still feel strongly for the families of those still missing.
After listening to the debate here, I have put away the script for the speech I had prepared.
Instead, I would like to talk about something which has come to me while I have been listening to this discussion.
I am deeply concerned both about what has happened and about the reaction caused by the events in the US and in Europe.
I am convinced that, at the same time as we ourselves feel the horror of this event, there are millions upon millions of people out there in the world who have actually rejoiced in this act of terrorism.
I believe that many poor people in Asia, Africa and other parts of the world have rejoiced.
We have read about young people in Palestine celebrating this act of violence.
I do not believe they were alone in this, but that there are millions and millions of people out there in the world who have reacted in this way.
This fills me with incredible horror and fear, as it means that we are facing a world in which there are millions of potential terrorists and perpetrators of similar outrages.
We must begin to ask ourselves whether we are now witnessing a sort of social warfare.
Does this bear any relation to colonial uprisings? From my childhood, I remember the Mau Mau uprising, which was described as a terrorist insurrection.
We all remember the Vietnam War, for example.
Is it a social war which, in one way or another, lies behind recent events or which is being declared through them? In that case, ideas about mass bombings in the Middle East or about preposterous police checks on a huge scale are meaningless.
Our only chance, in that case, is a huge policy of transformation and redistribution, a policy which removes the desperation and despair in the world which feed and create terrorism. Otherwise, we shall never be safe, despite carpet-bombing and despite all the security services in the world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America and the free world have been taken by surprise by the absolutely barbaric wave of attacks that has destroyed the lives of thousands of men, women and children from more than 60 countries, murdered in appalling circumstances of horror and brutality.
Once again, therefore, our first words must be, like those of so many other speakers, words of solidarity and condolence, and we must turn our thoughts to all these lives cut short and to the suffering of their families.
Such attacks completely exceed all the bounds of the imaginable and confirm the fears that the fanaticism of terrorist groups will neither give way nor weaken in the face of any considerations of compassion, which makes us fear for the worst for the future if not enough is done to combat or eradicate such fanaticism.
The last thing we want to see is a new rift between East and West.
We can quite easily distinguish those who freely and peacefully practice the Islamic faith from those who, quite intolerably, take a medieval concept of holy war as the inspiration for attacking citizens, communities and states across the world who simply wish to live in peace.
We must, therefore, respond vigorously to those who are responsible for these appalling acts, which are genuine acts of war against the free world; not only to those who were directly involved in carrying out the acts but also to those who have given shelter to, protected, funded or encouraged these people.
In this context, the European Union has enormous responsibilities as a community that acts as a trustee of the universal values of life, freedom, peace and security.
Apart from stimulating relationships of trust, cooperation and cultural dialogue with all Islamic communities and citizens that share these universal values, in an attempt to involve them in an active commitment against terrorism and the threat that this represents, the European Union and its Member States must establish, between themselves and internationally, new and more effective forms of cooperation in the field of gathering and processing information by police forces, in harmonising judicial and legal systems and finally, in the field of common security and defence, which will help to guard against and allow the harsh punishment of anyone who encourages this new form of world threat or their agents.
We wish to express our expectation and, I would say, our hope, that today' s debate and the conclusions of next Friday' s European Council will be a decisive step forwards in the long and difficult fight against international terrorism. This is a fight that we must see, now and for as long as the threat lasts, as our utmost priority for European, Atlantic and world-wide security.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have listened to a great many sound proposals and seen that there is some convergence too.
However, I have to say that, as long as the European banks accept terrorists' deposits and increase their capital, we are not combating terrorism; as long as arms are sold to different countries (according to geopolitical interests) which accept the role of the askaris of one or other power in turn, we are not combating terrorism.
Madam President, I believe that, for as long as we talk about 'war' on a daily basis, peace will not be possible.
The whole world is afraid because of the vehement statements - and I understand the emotions and the political situation - of the American President, whose reasons of State we acknowledge and for whom we express all our support and sympathy.
However, we hope that the word 'war' will be targeted against very specific fringe members of the Arab world, for the Arab world as a whole does not deserve to be treated as criminal because of the criminal actions of a tiny, criminal minority of delinquents who are stateless because of their own intentional, senseless, barbaric lunacy.
Mr President, on behalf of my party, may I offer my deepest condolences to the people of the United States.
With our very special relationship and with hundreds of British still missing, we too share their desperate feeling of loss.
My first observation must be to my own Prime Minister, who of course was instrumental in the release of over 400 convicted terrorists.
We must fight terrorism in all its forms and we must say 'No' to any more appeasement.
I would also like to urge the Council and Commission not to use this opportunity to further the project of European integration.
The peoples of Europe will not forgive politicians putting their self-interest above the security of the people.
However dark and uncertain the future may be, we must stand firm behind the USA as that noble country did for us in our darkest hour.
Our commitment to the defeat of terrorism must be no less than theirs.
Mr President, this terrorist attack in the USA affects us all, unfortunately, and not only because there are probably hundreds of Europeans among its victims.
Thirty Austrians alone are missing to date.
Europeans should be seen unreservedly offering solidarity and cooperation in response to this terrorist attack, and the European partners should refrain from imposing conditions.
The EU Member States, Spain and France, have, without doubt, set a standard here, both sending politicians to the USA at a very early stage.
I wish to appeal to the Austrian political parties to lay their so-called neutrality completely aside, as there can be no neutrality between terrorists and innocent victims.
Just as important, in this international joint endeavour, as the working relationship of the democratic countries with each other will be their cooperation with moderate Arab States and with those with Moslem majority populations.
The most important foundation for a successful counterstrike this time will be effective international solidarity.
And as for those who offer us their pacifist fantasies and words of wisdom about military restraint, I should like to invite them to New York, so they can visit the school my children go to and talk to the children who have lost their fathers or mothers or, indeed, both parents in this attack.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, solidarity in speech must now give way to solidarity in action.
In Germany, the Christian Democratic parties - the CDU and CSU - feel, in any case, that we have obligations towards the Americans in our joint resistance to terrorism, too.
American action was decisive in the reconstruction of our country and the recovery of our unity.
So we must share with them the burden of combating terrorism.
Mr Vitorino's proposals are a first step on this road, and the right one.
They are not, however, short-term measures.
They will become effective in 2002 at the earliest.
Right and proper as they are, we can and must do more.
We can, for example, make Europol better equipped than it is at present.
Europol urgently needs an agreement with the USA, within the framework of laws currently in force, on the exchange of data in the fight against terrorism.
Such arrangements have previously foundered on our making our data protection provisions into the measure of all things.
Our protection of data has therefore been of more use to the terrorists than it has to their victims.
We must make it possible for Europol to become immediately operational.
We must at once put in place whatever joint action teams are available.
Wherever terrorists are being investigated, Europol must be on the spot and promoting the immediate exchange of data between the investigators and those working in Europol headquarters.
These opportunities already exist, and we must seize them.
It can be done within the framework of the laws in force and does not require us to wait for the incorporation of directives into national law.
Mr President, Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no excuse for any terrorist act.
Terrorism is, above all, contempt for life, contempt for the life of innocent citizens, sometimes even contempt for one' s own life.
If all citizens have a duty to stand in the way of terrorism, it is not sufficient merely to arrest and pass judgment on the perpetrators and organisers of terrorist acts.
More than anything, we need to improve the conditions which give rise to terrorism: poverty, underdevelopment and ignorance are fertile ground for all kinds of fundamentalism.
It is a paradox that any unforeseeable event can easily be explained after it has happened, but it is not sufficient just to explain the world, we have to change it.
The world economy is in bad shape.
After the attack on the United States, it risks getting even worse, particularly if there is prolonged military action.
Europe, in order to be able to help others, should tackle its own economic problems.
We should welcome the cut in interest rates, and it is also true that the ECB could have better prepared the markets.
These measures would have prevented many stock market crashes.
If there is no balanced growth in the long term, no stabilisation of public deficit, such a shock from the exterior that is unforeseen and unforeseeable should lead Europe to bring automatic stabilisers into play for all EU countries.
This is not economic laxity but good economic sense.
This good economic sense is demonstrated to us by our American friends.
They have just decided on a substantial aid package for their civil aviation.
Does this mean that Europe will now complain to the WTO about this distortion of competition? Or will she also establish a policy to support those economic sectors weakened by this terrible shock?
Luckily, we have the euro. Without the common currency there would have been turmoil on international money markets, pushing certain currencies such as the Deutschmark to the top and others seen as weaker to the bottom, with the breakdown of the internal market into the bargain.
There is not only Europe, however. There are poor countries that have a greater risk of suffering from any economic turnaround in a recession that is still a possibility.
Our main priority should be to aim for the true integration of all countries into world trade.
Globalisation, often discredited, only in fact affects a severely limited number of countries.
Four fifths of world trade takes place between thirty or so countries.
There will be no development without trade.
Any economy, in order to be able to export, should create endogenous growth, itself creating greater equity within a country.
In order to permit this endogenous development in poor countries, the problem of third world debt needs to be resolved as soon as possible.
It is only by eradicating poverty and ignorance that we will definitively defeat terrorism.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, international terrorism is threatening to multiply its actions and the brutality of the techniques it employs too - the atrocities in the United States were evidence of this, I am sad to say - while other serious threats such as chemical or nuclear weapons are still present.
Coherent, common European reactions of defence and response are vital, and the Council and Commission statements have set us off in the right direction.
However, there is still a complex issue to be resolved in international legal systems or, if you prefer, international law: the attitude to be taken by institutions such as the European Union or even the United Nations to States which tolerate and collaborate with terrorist groups.
There can be no allowances or half-measures such as have hitherto been conceded in these matters.
In any case, nothing will ever be the same and Friday' s extraordinary Summit will certainly be able to address this issue.
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe and the European Parliament are standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States at this dark time in human history, which is certainly the darkest moment since the end of the Second World War.
We are standing by the United States not least because the victims of the various attacks include a large number of Europeans, many of them Italians.
It was not just the symbols of the economic and collective freedom of the West that were the targets on 11 September: we have all been affected.
Europe must take the lead in the new political phase which has opened after the recent tragic events.
Starting with Parliament, our institutions must play a prominent role in the coming weeks and months.
Together with all the countries of the world, the Union will be summoned to the front line, and the decisions we are called upon to make will have to focus on certain major questions including, most importantly, identifying those responsible.
This is vital if the United States and the allies who decide to support it are to be able to react against terrorism in the way that they must, but the aim of the action taken must be to strike those responsible for the atrocities in New York and Washington.
If we are to win this war against terrorism, Commissioner, we need a thorough reinvigoration of the secret services sector.
In order to do this, in addition to enhancing Europol, which we advocate, it appears increasingly necessary to create a sort of supranational intelligence service.
This was discussed at the Summit between the Italian and British prime ministers, a project seeking to create an organisation which can expose and help combat terrorism in all its tentacular ramifications.
The strategy and international action taken must, of necessity, include all the Arab countries.
It must be clear that the battle currently being played out is not between the West and Islam: it is between the whole world and the lunacy of terrorism.
That is why we attach great importance to Russia and China' s declarations and see the positions of Yasser Arafat and the Israeli government in taking certain decisions which facilitate encouraging steps towards peace in the Middle East as positive.
A military and intelligence response must, in any case, be accompanied by an incisive Union policy in the areas where there is worst crisis: an action intended to extinguish the flames of desperation and intolerance.
The possibility of financial speculation initiated by terrorists on stock markets throughout the world and the crisis experienced by many airlines which will lead to thousands of job cuts demand a raft of measures from the international community to protect the economy as well.
Mr President, Europe and all its institutions are called to undergo a great test.
However, we are all convinced that people will decide en masse for what is right and the values of freedom, democracy and tolerance which we all now uphold will ultimately prevail; we are sure that the European Parliament, the institution which represents the people of Europe, will, from Friday onwards, certainly do its part.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the whole of the European Union stands together with the people of the United States in utterly and totally condemning those who carried out those terrible atrocities in the United States and in expressing our deepest sympathy to the families who lost their loved ones in these terrible atrocities.
The European Union and all democratic societies in the world should join together with the United States in seeking to bring to justice those guilty of those atrocities and in doing so, ensure that they target the actual terrorist organisations and their members, not the communities in which they live with the danger of innocent people suffering.
Generally, terrorism is found in areas of conflict resolution where unfortunately many of those involved believe in what they are doing.
The European Union can play a major role in solving conflict resolution in the different parts of the world by sending to those areas of conflict not an army but a philosophy of peace based on firm principles.
It is often forgotten, that the European Union is the best example in the history of the world of conflict resolution.
Who could have forecast 60 years ago where we all are now?
Who would have forecast all this in 1941, with the second world war raging and millions being slaughtered. If our parents and grandparents had said "Don't worry, your grandchildren will be sitting together in a parliament of a United Europe", nobody would have believed them.
But it has happened, and how and why it happened is crucial.
For that reason the European Union, rather than having an army, should set up a Commission department of peace and reconciliation with a Commissioner of peace and reconciliation to spread this philosophy.
Firstly, in all areas of conflict you have divided peoples.
Violence has no role to play in healing the divisions.
Dialogue is the first step.
Secondly there is the principle of respect for difference because all conflict is about difference, whether of religion, nationality or race.
Thirdly, you need to create institutions which respect those differences, and the fourth element is working together in the common interest.
Those are the principles at the heart of the European Union that solved the worst conflicts in the history of the world and are the principles that should be at the heart of conflict resolution in any area of conflict.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has up to this moment been more vulnerable in every respect than the USA, and will remain so for as long as cooperation between Member States in both the legal and operational aspects of counter-terrorism is not optimised.
Admittedly, we have Europol as an institution whose remit covers terrorism among other things, but Europol is powerless if not all Member States comply with the Convention, supply in due time comprehensive information for the analyses required and subsequently make aid available to their fellow Member States.
Europol is toothless if it has insufficient personnel at its disposal, and at present a mere 12 Europol staff are pursuing inquiries into terrorism in Europe.
Europol is also toothless if the technology it needs is not made available to it.
A package of measures is therefore urgently required, and quickly.
I therefore want the Member States to be exhorted to adhere strictly to the Europol Convention, in particular Article 4, and a mechanism to be introduced to compel the Member States to supply this information.
Secondly, we must provide a budget sufficient to equip a centre of operations with an appropriate number of analysts to engage in investigations into terrorism.
Counter-terrorism demands, thirdly, that we set up joint investigatory teams within the framework of collaboration between Europol analysts and representatives of the Member States.
We welcome the accelerated initiative of Mr Vitorino's two framework decisions as a new and urgently needed legal basis with which to effectively combat terrorism.
Europe, above all others, has demands made of it.
Europe is called, now, to be more than decisive in taking a stand in the face of terrorism and taking action to counter it.
Such is the demand of the moment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the attack of 11 September on the WTC and the Pentagon strikes at the very heart of our democracy.
The key aim of the new terrorism is to instil fear into us, to throw our world off balance and at the same time to exploit the helplessness of others in simple black-and-white terms.
In a nutshell, this is an attack on our world, the whole world, and on our international rule of law, and this is precisely what I should like to uphold.
Terrorism has become global and also employs, therefore, global, modern technology and international, criminal structures.
That is why it requires a worldwide response.
For example, a higher level of cooperation among our secret services and the infiltration of terrorist networks spring to mind.
We can no longer afford to work at cross purposes as separate states.
Instead, we must take joint action and in this new coalition of action, we must go beyond usual concepts.
International financial consortia and multinational businesses too must cooperate.
The production of drugs and oil in regions of conflict and the trade in 'blood diamonds' facilitate the financing of illegal activities, of conflict and of war, and are in turn closely linked with the terrorist networks.
We must discontinue the funding of, or cooperation in, the trade in raw materials, where this feeds conflicts and where it provides a breeding ground for terrorism.
In this way, we can immobilise the funding of terrorist networks extremely effectively.
This new war also requires a continued effort in the exchange of economic and criminal intelligence, even if this means that for reasons of security, some public services become more expensive or slow down.
Our desire to live in an open democracy that is accessible to everyone makes us vulnerable.
But our strength lies in cooperation.
This applies overall, irrespective of race, religion or nationality.
We can see through every terrorist attempt to divide the world into their world and ours, to antagonise groups or religions.
Terrorists are not nourished by religion or ideology.
Their hunger is called power.
Their weapons are fear and destruction.
They do not want peace in the Basque Country, Liberia or the Middle East. They simply want civilian victims.
That is why we are on the side of America and of every peace-loving individual who wishes to support this international order.
Mr President, the terrorist attacks of 11 September have meant that our debate on the need for Community action to combat terrorism is now extremely topical.
We are still overwhelmed by the horrendous pictures, the horrendous truth and their grave consequences now and, we imagine and fear, for the future.
Quite apart from the effect on the economy or on world political relations, however, thousands of people have died, thousands have lost their parents, children, spouses, friends and loved ones.
I would like to dedicate my first words to those people who are suffering, to the victims: they, the victims, must be present in our future deliberations and decisions.
Because we owe a debt to all of them.
We will have to act so that justice is done and in order to prevent, through action or omission, more innocent victims.
We know that something has to be done, that there has to be a response, a just, democratic, proportionate response, but a response nevertheless, because terrorists cannot be allowed to have, or believe they have, impunity and because we are obliged to assure the citizens that, living under the rule of law, we have the necessary instruments to defend their life, freedom and security.
I cannot and will not ignore the fact that I am Basque.
I would rather have not had this experience in this field, I would do anything not to have had it, but I have.
I know that international cooperation is the right approach, that the initiatives presented today by Commissioner Vitorino are the right approach: political cooperation, judicial cooperation, police cooperation.
Joint responsibility in dealing with terrorism is our main, most effective, political response.
Ladies and gentlemen, terrorism - as has already been said - has no borders, no homeland, no religion and no ideology.
It has a common objective and method.
They have never wanted peace.
They have always sought to destroy us, to destroy democracy.
I therefore say to them that what the Commission has decided today, what has been approved today, is historic.
Allow me to describe it as such.
The necessary step has been taken to move on from solidarity, which is necessary but insufficient, to common action by all.
Thank you very much, Mr Vitorino, and thank you to all of you for this decision.
Mr President, immensely rich élites, members and accomplices of which have enjoyed university training, are attacking our financial, economic and security institutions.
This horrific tragedy requires a response.
The citizen asks the government to take action.
In terms of external policy, the European Union is able to do this because we increasingly speak with one voice.
The value of our input in the eradication of breeding grounds for terror has increased by leaps and bounds, as will be seen, I hope, in the near future.
As regards internal policy, we still cannot manage to speak with one voice.
Basically, the 'every man for himself' mentality still prevails.
Fortunately, the Commission has realised that this is not acceptable.
Mr Vitorino, I would like to commend you on the fact that you, and the Commission, have realised that speaking with one voice on behalf of the European Union is absolutely necessary.
Within the space of one week, you produced a detailed plan with proposals which are both practical and also truly necessary.
This will be rewarded in the form of the citizen' s trust.
I hope that none of the Member States will dare to distance themselves from this critical plan, inviting the outrage of its own citizens in doing so.
Needless to say, justice is important in this context, for we are dealing with a crime here, with whatever fine motives it is presented.
This is also evident in Northern Ireland where agreements contain terms which are used incorrectly and which are an insult to anyone who takes their religion seriously.
We have reason to be pleased with the Watson report which provides an initial impulse to the Parliament' s endeavours and may be supplemented with propositions concerning the preparation of crimes which are committed elsewhere, that is, outside the European Union.
We trust that the Commissioner will not accept draft framework decisions which contain weak formulae such as we now see from time to time and which have absolutely no meaning whatsoever.
The real added value must lie in the fact that it becomes clear to the citizens that the European Union, as such, takes charge where guaranteeing internal security is concerned.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, we must also draw conclusions as regards civil aviation.
We need to take steps to prevent similar terrorist attacks again taking place in or from the air.
In the immediate future we need increased security for air travellers, preferably at international level.
Let us each, though, start with our airports at home.
We need stricter checks on luggage and hand luggage.
We need tighter checks on airport workers.
Above all, it will not be enough for controls at airports to be more stringent today and tomorrow if, in six months' time, they have been relaxed again in certain parts of Europe.
No, we need strict controls on a permanent basis.
Looking at specific cases, there is probably a need for armed flight attendants on certain routes, and we must consider the need to secure the cockpit against terrorist attacks, for we must prevent aircraft becoming the biggest weapons in the world.
Although the safety of passengers is our primary concern, our secondary concern is that, at present, the number of passengers carried by airlines is showing a massive decrease.
We must keep an eye on this situation.
Is the number of passengers falling as a consequence of the terrorist attacks, or because of market conditions or structural factors? As we read in today's newspapers, certain governments are demanding subsidies and yet more subsidies, but these cannot be the solution.
My group rejects subsidies for airlines.
We must give thought to how we can help them.
We can do this by coming to an agreement on code sharing and by permitting the restructuring of the companies, along with mergers and acquisitions.
This would be a more elegant solution, keeping them competitive, but we must not pay out subsidies indiscriminately
The situation can, of course, change.
If the USA supports its airlines to the tune of massive amounts, then we will have to see what effect that has on the transatlantic market.
Under such circumstances, we will not be able simply to leave our airlines on the outside looking in, but let us be clear-sighted about this. First of all, however, we need increased security for passengers.
Mr President, on Tuesday we awoke in astonishment to a manifestation of a new form of totalitarianism.
The Nazism of the past, the Stalinism of yesterday and the Islamic fundamentalism of today all had and have in common a most profound contempt for human beings, who they intend to subject to their plans for world domination.
On 11 September, it was not only the freedom but also the dignity of the human being that was attacked in New York and Washington.
Those who financed this monstrous attack deliberately sacrificed the lives of their own people with the sole objective of killing the largest number of innocent victims possible, in order to put terror firmly into their opponents' minds and to rekindle the flame of their supporters' fanaticism.
The resolve shown throughout the world proves that they did not succeed in their main objective, but the subsequent celebrations that took place in various locations show that the second objective could well have been achieved.
Faced with this menace, we will naturally be obliged to review our common defence policy, but we should also be working toward the implementation of a new world order that allows Europe, in particular, to be increasingly engaged in the resolution of regional conflicts which, in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, and in Africa, do nothing to stem the flow of blood around the world.
In order to combat fundamentalist terrorism, we should mainly focus our efforts on increased assistance to all supporters of moderate and tolerant Islam, whether they be in power or in opposition.
In Afghanistan, for example, we had no idea of how to respond to the urgent request from Commander Massoud to destroy the hornets' nest that had developed in his country.
We should support his partisans in the Northern Alliance, the sole representatives of the recognised government in Afghanistan, and help them in any way we can to overthrow the barbarous Taliban regime.
To combat fundamentalist terrorism we need to completely restructure our own defence mechanisms.
Europe does not have the means.
The American Congress and Senate have just allocated USD 40 billion to the President of the United States.
What amount of money, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, do you have today to demonstrate, other than through fine words, our desire to stand shoulder to shoulder with the American people in this fight that has been forced upon us?
Ladies and gentlemen, today everything has changed.
I hope that in the adoption of our 2002 draft budget at second reading we will know how to draw the right conclusions.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, I represent a country which has a unique and close historical relationship with the United States.
We very much appreciated the support we received from that country in eliminating violence on our own island.
What happened in New York and Washington is not new.
Attacks on economic, political and security targets resulting in major civilian casualties have been the hallmark of international terrorism.
They have been experienced in Ireland, Britain, Spain and other European countries: that is why we share and understand the pain of those who have suffered.
We in Ireland hope that this atrocity will precipitate a change in the way representatives of organisations responsible for similar atrocities in Ireland are treated as celebrities in parts of the United States.
Hopefully, it will also undermine their fund-raising capabilities, particularly when their paramilitary wing still retains the weapons of terrorism and mass destruction and fraternises with other terrorist leaders.
The major issue facing democratic leaders is how to respond to this latest atrocity.
When I listen to the language currently being used by President George W. Bush, I must say I am somewhat apprehensive.
To talk about catching 'dead or alive' may well be the language of cowboy movies, but it is not the language that should be used by a world leader at any time, and certainly not during times of crises.
The revulsion that followed last week's events, provides the impetus to unite everyone in support of democratic ideals in the fight against international terrorism.
Handled wrongly however, it could plunge the western world into a conflict with the Islamic world with catastrophic consequences for everyone.
Therefore the response must be well thought out and proportionate.
It must not result in unnecessary civilian casualties creating another generation of terrorists.
We have a unique opportunity to rid the world of the evil of terrorism and underpin democracy.
Future generations will not forgive us if we squander that opportunity.
Mr President, in the United Kingdom we have unity of purpose at this tragic time.
We are reassured by the solidarity with the United States expressed by political leaders right across Europe.
Previously, the enthusiasm of so many European politicians for European integration has been fuelled by anti-Americanism.
There must be no more of this.
Seldom has the need for Euro/Atlantic unity been more vital.
I trust that European Union leaders will make sure that there is no backsliding by any European governments when the going starts to get rough.
In previous crises, the resolve of some has quickly crumbled.
It would be singularly inappropriate to use this crisis to promote and accelerate the integrationist agenda of the Union, in particular the essentially separatist elements of European defence policy.
Our motive must be serious action against terrorism, not just seizing an opportunity to extend EU competencies.
On the internal front, I hope that the proposed European Union common definition of terrorist crime and associated legislation will be sufficiently robust to allow effective action at last to be taken against large numbers of terrorist front organisations throughout Europe.
I have to say, I doubt it.
The problem is that too many terrorists have their apologists and masquerade in other guises.
Ways need to be found to prevent terrorist support groups from carrying out what are still regarded as legal acts in our countries, such as recruiting, indoctrinating, broadcasting and fund-raising in order to sustain illegal acts elsewhere.
Specifically, it is time for the seven European Union countries which have not yet done so, including the Belgian Presidency, to ratify and implement the UN Convention for the suppression of terrorist financing, so that the black money networks which sustain terrorist organisations can be closed down.
Democratic society needs to protect itself and be able to deal with real dangers.
In recent years, it has been progressively disarmed.
Mr President, I firmly condemn terrorist acts.
Terrorism is abhorrent, whatever adjectives you use to describe it and whatever ideological label you attach to it. I too feel that we must establish very close cooperation with the United States and form an extensive world-wide alliance of all the countries that wish to be part of it to combat terrorism.
The world-wide anti-terrorism alliance must certainly address military issues to ensure safety, but it must also address all the possible forms of terrorism which exist, which range from financial to banking terrorism, and from economic, food contamination and environmental terrorism to electronic terrorism and terrorism in the form of computer hacking.
The debate between the European Parliament, the OSCE and the WEU, which met at the assembly of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, focused largely, on the one hand, on the need to speed up the process of democratising those countries and, on the other, on the upholding of human rights. These are the two fundamental pillars for eradicating poverty and underdevelopment through the rational use of economic resources.
Henceforth, the European Union must stipulate the upholding of human rights and the implementation of democracy as firm conditions in all its external relations.
This stipulation is fixed and unconditional because it guarantees the protection of the dignity of every citizen in the world.
The European Union must encourage respect for every religious faith and, at the same time, it must require all faiths to condemn and abhor terrorist acts, to make a clear distinction between civil society, which is free to practise any religion, and terrorism, which cannot claim to have any religious justification.
I support the idea of convening a Mediterranean Forum condemning terrorism, supporting the Middle East Peace Process and reinvigorating the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.
Finally, Europol and Eurojust must, together, become effective European tools, concentrating on enhancing the European corpus juris and thereby creating a basic legal reference framework which will serve as the basis for European civil, penal and administrative law.
Mr President, I share and express my sympathy for the United States and for the other victims of this terrible incident.
As a former Northern Ireland minister, I have been a terrorist target and I have faced the TV cameras surrounded by the wreckage of a terrorist incident.
I know, therefore, how important it is to get both the response right and also to protect the general public as far as is possible in a democracy.
Like my colleague, Mr Jarzembowski, I am chiefly concerned about aviation and the mostly ordinary people who rely on it.
As a member of the Committee on Transport, I have written to the chairman of that committee asking for early consideration of the implications for this important industry.
First of all, security at airports and on aircraft; secondly, the control of congested airspace in view of the likely increase in military activity, the dangers of hostile incursion into European civil airspace and, of course, as he said, about the continued viability of European airlines.
It is vital that we are consistent in our approach to public safety and to the collective peace of mind throughout the Union.
We must not overreact, exacerbating the understandable fears of the traveller and threatening their civil liberties, but we must get it right and we must do so immediately.
We must act alongside our friends and allies within the United States of America and in international organisations such as the ICAO.
To get it right will require work and effort and a commitment: As Mr Van Orden said, we want to make certain that we are saying and doing the same things in six months' time as we profess to do now.
In conclusion, the message is quite simple: Terrorism must not be allowed to win.
Any attack upon civilians is abominable, and the sabre rattling we are hearing in Washington - the President uses expressions such as 'crusade' - is therefore also abominable.
It is monstrous because we know that a military intervention will, in any case, destroy civil society and create the best possible breeding ground for further terrorism.
Our most important task is to remind our allies in the United States of the need for caution and considered action, for terrorism is not to be combated through military action.
With regard to the proposals tabled by the Commission, I would just say that these do not contain what is necessary to prevent terrorism, whose roots go much deeper.
What is proposed is neither necessary nor adequate to stamp out terrorism and does not even begin to pinpoint the fundamental causes, which is what is important.
Let us steer clear of these military metaphors and this talk of battles, crusades and waging war.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is grateful for your contributions to this debate.
I shall certainly convey to President Prodi and to my colleague Christopher Patten the questions for which they are directly responsible within the Commission.
For my part, I should simply like to emphasise three points. The first is to say that I fully share the idea that the strategy on terrorism should not be caught between the various pillars of the European Union.
There must be a global strategy that harnesses various instruments, such as conflict prevention policy, of course, the development of a political dialogue with the most problematic regions under the common foreign and security policy, of course, development aid policy, of course, but also, and let us be quite clear on this point, security policy and police and judicial cooperation policy.
We cannot ignore the deep-rooted causes of terrorism, but we cannot allow the slightest ambiguity to remain and we therefore state that no cause justifies the use of terrorism and violence that sacrifices innocent lives.
The best way of combating terrorism in the name of democratic values, therefore, consists of using the weapons of the law, cooperation between police forces and cooperation between the courts.
It is worth emphasising, however, that there are clearly some issues which we must look into, such as the funding of terrorism, the need to rigorously apply the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, the need to adopt effective mechanisms to combat money laundering and the tax havens that provide financial support for terrorist groups and the United Nations Convention on arms trafficking. In other words, we need to implement the Palermo Convention on organised crime.
These are many ways of proving, within the framework of the United Nations, that the people who died on 11 September did not die in vain.
In other words, that States have learned the lesson and that they are willing to give incontrovertible proof that they are improving cooperation in the fight against terrorism.
The second issue that I wish to address concerns aviation safety.
I am pleased to say that the Council of Ministers for Transport has decided that a working group will present an initial report on 15 October, not only on the most immediate safety measures that are being taken in airports and in aircraft but also on the need to conclude an agreement, especially with our American partners, on rapidly defining measures to improve the safety of air transport. I also wish to say that these issues will be discussed by representatives of the European Union at the General Assembly of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which opens on 25 September.
With regard to political decisions - for example, the two framework decisions that the Commission has just approved - it is quite clear that unanimity could prove to be a tricky obstacle to overcome in Council.
The Commission has already, on several occasions, expressed its sympathy with the idea that methods of decision-making under the third pillar should be streamlined and simplified.
However, over and above the issue of unanimity, the Commission' s political position on the fight against terrorism is clear: no State must block decisions. Nevertheless, no State can opt out of the fight against terrorism.
The effectiveness of the framework decisions also depends on their being implemented uniformly in all the States of the Union without exception, because we do not want a single haven for terrorist or criminal activities to exist within the European Union.
To this end, I hope that the appeals of this Parliament and of public opinion are sufficiently strong to enable us to reach the compromise formulas necessary to improve police and judicial cooperation, which are the legitimate methods for combating terrorism in a democracy.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Vitorino.
Future of cohesion policy
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the future of cohesion policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since 1988, regional policy has enjoyed undeniable success.
This success is not purely coincidental.
It is the fruit of a major policy decision that favours solidarity, a decision that has resulted, in budgetary terms, in the appropriation of more than a third of Community expenditure for economic and social cohesion.
During this 2000-2006 programming period, the Commission adopted, on 31 January, the second report on economic and social cohesion in accordance with Article 159, subparagraph 2, of the Treaty.
In addition to being a pertinent account of the studies carried out and the statistical information gathered in the field of enlargement, the report contains conclusions and recommendations that should encourage debate on the future of regional policy.
Economic and social cohesion is a real issue that we should be concerned with from now on, for we have to provide answers for the next programming period starting 1 January 2007, a time when enlargement to include new Member States will be a reality.
With regard to the statistical information in the second report on cohesion, one fact stands out in our minds: enlargement will bring a challenge twice as large as the one we are currently facing, for the figures indicate that regional disparities are set to double.
In relative terms, regions that are lagging behind in their development and those which are having problems with restructuring will be greater in number and this effect will be multiplied when we are 27 Member States.
In addition, due to a simple mechanical reality, a certain number of regions in the current European Union will no longer find themselves on the list of problem regions although their true economic situation has not really improved.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our attention needs to be focused on two crucial questions.
The first question is whether enlargement is conceivable without a powerful structure and cohesion policy.
The second question is how the policy on economic and social cohesion should in future continue to focus on regions that lag behind current Member States developmentally, and what are the objectives that need to be met. Both questions were extensively dealt with during the informal Regional Policy Council which was held recently in Namur on 13 July last.
With regard to the first question, everyone has accepted that enlargement will bring with it a substantial increase in needs in terms of social and economic cohesion.
That was also clearly underlined in the Commission' s second report on economic and social cohesion.
The figures in the report speak for themselves.
Following on enlargement, discrepancies will become more pronounced in two ways.
Firstly, the section of the population in regions with a Gross Domestic Product per capita that is less than 75% of the current EU average will double, and that means that the number of inhabitants that fall within the scope of present objective 1 of the Structural Funds will increase from 19% in the EU of Fifteen Members to 36% in an EU comprising twenty-seven Member States.
Secondly, discrepancies will increase in extent.
Today' s average Gross Domestic Product per capita in the underprivileged regions stands at 66% of the EU average.
If one adds to this the less developed regions of the candidate countries, the average Gross Domestic Product per capita drops back to less than half of the EU average, to only 77% to be precise.
On the basis of the above data, one can conclude that with enlargement, the cohesion problem doubles in terms of its original scope and its original extent.
Poverty and inequality are persistent problems and we realise that we will need to fight them for a long time yet to come.
Even if the candidate countries were to grow faster than the amalgamated countries have done in the past ten years, even then, the current level of the Gross Domestic Product per capita would imply a convergence process spanning at least two generations.
Even with the Irish rate of growth of the past ten years, it would take twenty years to reach 90% of the Gross Domestic Product per capita of the fifteen EU Member States.
It is from that perspective that today' s priorities and objectives of our regional policy must be viewed.
Even the management itself of the outlined package of measures is an important element, in the sense that we should not overlook the fact that at present, most candidate countries do not have appropriate structures in place to manage properly the regional policy in the way we in most cases propose.
Having said that, during the informal Council in Namur, we were given a clear signal that it is necessary to continue to support the current underprivileged regions in the European Union.
The present objectives pertaining to the underprivileged regions, both in the Member States and in the candidate countries, must be supported in a fair manner.
That will inevitably need to go hand in hand with an even more efficient deployment of Community resources.
There is therefore unanimity as regards the continuation of the present regional policy concerning those regions which continue to face structural difficulties.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the coherence of the actions to be taken, the Fifteen support a strengthening of this coherence at all levels, particularly between the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, with a more specific focus being given to interventions.
Furthermore, requests for additional assessments, particularly on the efficiency of the current system, have been drawn up by certain Member States before they are prepared to advance further in the determination of procedures and mechanisms that will govern the future of economic and social cohesion policy.
These procedures and mechanisms will be the subject of a global proposal from the Commission in 2004, in its third report on economic and social cohesion.
In any case, it is clear that projects and action supported by the economic and social cohesion policy are particularly important to European citizens.
This contributes to the process of bringing citizens closer to European institutions and policies.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission, by publishing the second report on economic and social cohesion, has paved the way for an important debate on the future of the European Union' s structural operations policy.
The Council, during the informal meeting on regional policy that took place in Namur, listened very carefully to the presentation made by Commissioner Barnier.
The Council then debated the issue in a calm atmosphere where everybody had the chance to speak and be heard.
The discussions focused on questions of substance, in a climate that was generally positive.
However, no definitive option has yet been decided on.
To do this, the questions asked in the second report need to be looked at in much greater detail.
The Commission will continue its analysis and will encourage debate by organising working parties for each issue.
The results of this will be used in the drafting of a third report, expected in 2004.
At this point, it will be sent back to the Council and Parliament, on the basis of the Commission' s proposals, to be used at an earlier stage in the development of the future framework of cohesion policy.
Mr President, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is with great pleasure that I can personally bring you up to date, as I am sure you were hoping I would, on the great debate we started on 31 January in this very place, when I came to present you with the second report on economic and social cohesion that the Commission had just approved.
On that occasion we, in addition to this presentation, started a debate that I said, and I am anxious to repeat on this very occasion, would be sincere, objective, without any issue being taboo, on one of the great Community policies at the very heart of the perception that we have of our European Union, for it relates to the policy of solidarity.
Since 31 January, the debate has been stoked by new contributions.
I am thinking in particular of the Cohesion Forum of 21 and 22 May, organised right here thanks to the European Parliament, in agreement with your President and with the support of my colleagues Anna Diamantopoulou and Franz Fischler.
At the same time, enlargement negotiations are progressing with all candidate countries.
Enlargement, as you know, is one of the main themes of this debate.
I would like to reiterate now that we must make a clear distinction between accession negotiations, which are based on the application of the acquis communautaire in new Member States, and the reform of structural policies for the period following 2006.
The debate that I am inviting you to participate in mainly focuses on the period after 2006.
We are, of course, not calling into question what current Member States receive from the Structural Funds from now until 2006.
Your Parliament, in requesting the Commission to give its opinion, wanted to take stock of this debate.
I would like to thank you, therefore, for this opportunity and thus quickly mention certain points.
Firstly, the forum we held on 21 and 22 May was an opportunity for genuine debate, paving the way for other such moments.
Since 31 January, the presentation of conclusions from the cohesion report has been, for both myself and my colleagues from the Directorate-General on Regional Policy, a priority.
You can be sure that I will fully participate in this debate, week after week, at ground level.
Last Friday in Helsinki, for example, I met the twenty Finnish regional Presidents. Tomorrow and the day after, in Oporto, I will attend an assembly of the conference of peripheral maritime regions, where we will discuss this future cohesion policy.
In this way, the debate should spread, should move away from the political centre in such a way that it provides firstly the Member States and then Brussels with a certain number of ideas, requests, proof and guidelines.
The 21 May forum was a very important moment for me and one that taught many lessons.
It brought together a number of ministers, several former prime ministers, current prime ministers, representatives from regions and towns, not only from the fifteen Member States but also from the candidate countries, and many very high-level contributions.
I would like to bring to light three aspects of these contributions and the discussion that Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck mentioned earlier, that I held in Namur with the fifteen ministers in charge of regional policy, on the invitation of the Belgian Presidency.
Firstly, the interest the future of this policy after 2006 arouses in all Member States and candidate countries, and the insistence of many on the truly political dimension of European solidarity.
This is not solely a question of money.
It is also the expression, as you very clearly stated, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, on behalf of the Presidency, of possibly the most concrete, the most precise and visible of the values upon which the European Union is founded.
The proof that our Union is not just a large free trade area or single market, but also a community of solidarity that should one day be a political force.
Secondly, I have had no negative feedback regarding the enlargement process.
There is concern, of course, but also a sense of the European Union' s historic obligation and interest in both new and old Member States in assisting in the long-lasting and balanced development of the whole European continent.
Thirdly, I have also measured the importance, in order for this debate to succeed, of not forgetting the needs of regions in States that are current members of the EU.
I would like once again to state my conviction: we are not of the opinion that by admitting very poor regions in Eastern Europe - Estonia, Slovenia, Poland, Bulgaria and others - into the European Union, that regions that are poor or that are experiencing difficulties in the north, the centre, the south, not to mention the outermost regions, will become rich as if by waving a magic wand.
After enlargement there will be problems and needs in the EU as it currently stands.
So, ladies and gentlemen, here we have what constitutes, when all is considered, strong encouragement for the maintenance of a cohesion policy that is suited to the new economic challenges and future geography of Europe.
My second point concerns procedures for the future.
As you know, the Commission has committed itself, following requests from the Council in June, to provide it with a regular report on the development of its work on future cohesion policy.
This information, which I must give to the Council, I must also, naturally, give to the European Parliament.
I will propose to the Commission that it adopt the first of these regular interim reports at the very beginning of next year, in January, as soon as we have new statistics available. These statistics will explain, update and clarify the information that is already available in the cohesion report.
I would like to point out that these new statistics, supplied by Eurostat, will involve, for example, the GDP per capita in 1999, and unemployment statistics for the year 2000.
Therefore, the more up-to-date these figures are, the more serious and objective the debate will be.
This interim report for the month of January will therefore contain an update of figures and analyses from the first part of the cohesion report devoted to the situation of regions, but it will also present the results of different studies that we have commissioned, as well as lessons learned from the great debates and seminars that have been organised.
I can give more details regarding the additional studies commissioned: we have commissioned a study of the situation of the islands, as well as a study on the macroeconomic impact of Structural Funds.
With regard to this macroeconomic study, I shall be very eager to provide you with information on the impact of these Structural Funds in terms of the direct impact of the use of these funds in net contributing countries.
I also plan to commission an additional study on the situation of mountainous regions or regions that have long-term natural handicaps.
In order to stimulate this debate, seminars will be organised during the first half of 2002 on each of the ten Community priorities that have been identified in the cohesion report, with the participation of experts from the Member States and regions who we shall invite in accordance with the various issues.
My third point involves, whilst still talking about the future, the basis of the debate.
On the subject of the basis of the debate, I would like to express, or state once more, three convictions.
My first conviction is that within the coming context of this EU enlargement, the Member States and regions will feel the need for more Community cohesion policy and not less.
I do not think that a form of unravelling or renationalisation of regional policy should be the way to respond to this requirement, to this need for cohesion in an enlarged EU where there will be - and the figures speak for themselves - more disparities than today.
But I am equally resolutely in favour, while reaffirming this need for cohesion and planning these new cohesion and regional policies, to find, with your help, a way to achieve more decentralisation, simplification, and less bureaucracy.
As far as we can, I will, using current European procedures, be anxious to search for and propose all means of moving further towards simplification and decentralisation.
My second conviction is financial in nature.
Even if the financial debate is, strictly speaking, premature today, I am not the only one to consider, as I already said here in a personal capacity, that a financial effort that would globally represent any less than 0.45 % of EU GDP would, in my view, call into question the credibility of the future cohesion policy.
I think therefore that I can state once more that, in my opinion, we cannot, without calling into question the credibility of this cohesion policy, fall below this threshold of 0.45 % which is a threshold universally accepted by the Heads of State and Government in Berlin.
My third conviction is that future cohesion policy should be fair and non-discriminatory.
It should, therefore, be directed towards all regions that have structural difficulties of whatever nature and deal with questions in a heterogeneous fashion, that is to say, regions that are very backward in terms of development, that happen to be mostly in candidate countries, as well as regions within the current Fifteen that have not truly succeeded in the process of true convergence and for which it would be a good idea, at an opportune moment, to find some means of fair treatment, so that they are not penalised by a purely statistical or mechanical effect linked to a threshold or to new methods applied within the framework of the enlarged EU, in order to deal with the problems of certain areas which have particular handicaps or certain worrying social issues such as equal opportunities or the situation of urban areas.
In conclusion, Mr President, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you that the report we shall put forward at the beginning of next year will take its inspiration from the results of the great debates held in the second half of this year.
This is just the first of the meetings I have proposed to hold with you.
There will be others before I present you with the third cohesion report in 2004.
It is in this frame of mind that I shall be entirely available today and in the forthcoming weeks to listen to your suggestions, your recommendations and your criticisms.
Mr President, I do not think anything impressively new can come out of this debate on regional policy quite simply, in my personal opinion, because the time is not right, it is not newsworthy, if you like.
In all events, given that many of the Members are interested in this particular subject and given that regional policy accounts yet again for 35% of the budget, this confirms, I think, just how important it is to the European Union and, in this sense, there is perhaps some point to the debate.
The second point I wish to make is that perhaps it would be a good idea at some point - and this is certainly the intention of the Committee on Regional Policy - to discuss the state of progress of projects and programmes under the Community Support Framework in individual countries, because I personally am not at all convinced that everything is going swimmingly in every country, not through any fault of the Commission's, but through the fault of certain Member States.
I do not wish to speak of dramatic delays but I am sure that certain countries are having problems.
As far as the future of cohesion policy is concerned, a debate was started following the second cohesion report by the European Commission and I think that certain conclusions are already obvious, that is, that far more regions will need to be covered, that in regions in the Member States which are already covered there will appear to be an artificial increase in GNP, which does not mean that they will automatically become rich, as the Commissioner has said, and that it goes without saying that more appropriations are needed but that it does not go without saying that it will be easy to find these appropriations.
As far as I can see, the conclusions are more or less obvious.
First, we must not leave things in the lap of the Gods, we must not take decisions at the eleventh hour, because we could bring the European Union to what may well be an explosive situation.
Secondly, we need to concentrate from 2006 onwards on those in real need.
Thirdly, we must not create shock waves in regions which stop being covered, because that will give rise to euro-scepticism in these regions.
Having said which, I have two unpleasant things to say, one of which is unpleasant for the poorer countries and the other of which is unpleasant for the richer countries.
For the poorer countries, I think that we need to find ways of making the most of appropriations by introducing suitable mechanisms, incentives and, if necessary, sanctions so that the money actually goes somewhere.
And for the richer countries, we need to rethink the overall logic of the Community budget so as to find a way of increasing appropriations, because there will be a huge increase in requirements and regional policy will, as the Commissioner has said, have no credibility whatsoever if we fall below a certain point.
Mr President, Commissioner, you will be aware that the Regional and Transport Committee has started its deliberations on social and economic cohesion via the second cohesion report and that this report launches the debate on how we face up to the challenges of regional funding and structural policy in an enlarged Europe.
However, whilst I am grateful for the Commissioner's statement today, my group is still disappointed with the Commission as it appears that it has not used its right of initiative and has not engaged itself fully on this topic.
It raises the question as to what the real proposals of the Commission are.
Commissioner Barnier referred to the meeting in May in which many Members participated, but again nothing concrete seems to have come out of that meeting.
On our side of the political divide, we recognised at an early stage how sensitive this issue could be and indeed our experience of Agenda 2000 was the catalyst that told us this.
But then Commissioner Wulf-Matthies facilitated a common position with Parliament and so we feel that the time is now right for us to start work with the Commission as it becomes more active, positive and decisive.
My group has discussed in detail the questions that you have posed.
The main points emanating from our discussion revolve around the principle of keeping the concept of social and economic cohesion and its most representative instrument, namely the Cohesion Fund.
But a thorough discussion is required on implementing the goals of the cohesion policy before we make any decisions on the future financing of structural aid.
At the moment, we are facing a number of great challenges and any discussion on the implementation of Cohesion Fund has to include other areas under the umbrella of sustainable development, such as employment and agriculture.
We must continue to ensure that the poorer regions that presently receive structural aid are not mistreated in the future and that Community initiatives, such INTERREG and URBAN, are retained.
We also question whether 1.27% of the Community GDP, as was decided on in Agenda 2000, is enough with regard to the new Cohesion Fund.
In launching this debate, it is our view that our discussions would have been more fruitful and more meaningful if the Commission had come forward with ideas of its own so that it could act as a facilitator of those discussions.
We know that it is an important issue.
At the moment, we are left with a series of questionnaires, but we can give the Commissioner a guarantee that our group will be fully involved in discussions in the coming months.
Mr President, the debate on the future of the cohesion policy is a very timely one.
I wish to thank the Commission for its willingness to share this debate with Parliament and, at the same time, for the visits undertaken to Member States. They are very necessary.
My concern is not just how regional policy can be made to work effectively both in the present Member States and in the countries that have applied for membership but also the continuation of structural policy in the present Member States in the next Structural Funds period.
Structural Funds policy is currently managed in too cumbersome a manner.
Now is a good time to consider, for example, how we might learn from the delay in the preparatory procedures for programmes for the next period.
How can we become more effective, achieve better results and reduce bureaucracy? In this connection I would also like to enquire what the Commission' s position is regarding what enlargement means for the overall funding of structural policy.
Is the Commission prepared to increase structural policy appropriations during the next Structural Funds period should the situation regarding European economic and social cohesion so demand?
At the same time I would also like to communicate to the Commission that a funding model for enlargement is not acceptable where those having to pay would be the poor regions of the existing EU countries, where there are still lasting problems owing to difficult natural conditions, long distances or sparse populations.
The EU must also show solidarity in the future so that new money with a new financial instrument can be found for the new challenges of structural policy, where those that pay would include those central regions that will be the first to benefit economically from enlargement.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, cohesion policy is indeed the greatest challenge facing the Community in the context of enlargement.
At the same time, cohesion policy will be the litmus test of whether stability can successfully be maintained in an EU of 27 Member States and, moreover, in all its parts.
The tendency has, however, prevailed in the Member States not to assess the success of cohesion policy in the less favoured areas, but rather to evaluate success in terms of how much they end up getting for themselves out of each negotiation.
Clearly, this must change from 2006 onwards!
Stability and the successful development of an enlarged Union will be guaranteed after 2006 only if common objective criteria rather than the protection of possession constitute the precondition for the allocation of funds.
This means that a new, common cohesion policy must be tested in its entirety against the old policy.
The second report on cohesion contains some good proposals, but it perpetuates many of the cohesion policy's errors and is no radical programme of reform.
I will say a bit more about the proposals.
I think it right and proper that all regions of the enlarged Union should be assessed on an equal basis provided there is no simultaneous impact on regions which are currently being supported.
So I wholeheartedly support the principle of phasing out.
Increased decentralisation and the promotion of partnership must, however, apply also to the acceding countries in the accession funds - and right now - so that their authorities get some practical experience of them.
Phasing-in the acceding countries into a decentralised structural policy as early as 2002 is also necessary in order to pool experience.
Even in half measures, an integrated regional policy is the only thing in which donors, too, can have confidence.
Quality must therefore come before quantity!
Mr President, Commissioner, the Cohesion Fund was created in order to prepare the structurally weak countries of the EU for economic and monetary union.
The cohesion countries have substantially caught up over the past few years and they all participate in EMU.
I would therefore observe that this objective of the Cohesion Fund has been attained.
Despite this, Agenda 2000 decided that the Cohesion Fund should continue.
Would it not have been consistent to let the Cohesion Fund expire, not abruptly perhaps but by its being phased out? The eastward enlargement means that the EU's present cohesion policy cannot be continued with any longer.
We all know that eastward enlargement will not be for free, and this must be said frankly.
Apart from that, I too believe that much is going wrong with our cohesion policy as regards efficiency, administrative costs and this policy's vulnerability to deception.
What the cohesion policy needs is a fundamental debate about its strengths and weaknesses, that is, about its possible reform.
I know that this is a difficult debate, being about our patrimony.
But it is also about a quite fundamental question: what, in the EU, does solidarity mean?
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I too will take up your suggestion that this issue should be discussed without taboos.
I do not believe that there is actually anybody in this House who is opposed to a cohesion policy.
The question we must ask ourselves is whether a cohesion policy would not be better conducted without a Cohesion Fund.
There are two problems, the first being that, if the accessions were to take place, then, logically, all the acceding States, being the poorest countries and States, would have to join the Cohesion Fund.
You cannot say that there is a regional policy for all, a Cohesion Fund for four countries and all the rest can fit in somewhere else!
No, so if the Cohesion Fund were to be maintained, it would have to apply to all the acceding countries.
It is my personal view, however, that cohesion policy can be carried on better through the medium of general regional and structural policy and without a Cohesion Fund, as the Cohesion Fund seems to me to suffer from the drawback that it turns its attention to States rather than to regions.
It is not the States that we want to support, however, but disadvantaged regions.
It is for this reason, Commissioner, that I believe this issue should again be considered very carefully.
I believe, secondly, that we too should, as you have always said, distinguish between substantial reforms and the question of how much money we want to end up spending on them.
We must, in my view, come to a quick decision about the substance, as the acceding States have a right to be told before 2002/2003 what the cohesion policy situation is going to be if they are Members by then.
Commissioner, I am not sure that I understood you right: I find your model good in itself.
You are saying that there are standard criteria for all regions - one or two, shall we say - then there is phasing out for the regions that used to be supported but no longer can be because of the new criteria or simply because there is no more money.
The question now arises: by what criteria should support actually be given in future? I myself would be prepared to talk in terms of one or two, or even three, criteria.
I have, though, the slight suspicion - which you hinted at earlier - that there will subsequently be ten.
So one takes a look to see what criterion fits the region.
Oh look, there are a few mountains, so this is a mountain region.
And this place has island status, so we shall call it an island region!
I think it better to take any old percentage - GDP plus, perhaps, the unemployment situation, for example.
If one takes that a step further and says that the balance of the sexes or the standard of education of men and women are to be counted as general criteria, then - if I may say so - things get a bit jumbled.
So please let us carry on our discussions, as you said you would.
We are on your side and look forward to continuing the debate with you.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I wish to express my support for those who have said that this debate must not be about the safeguarding of possession, but about aid for those who need it most.
I also want to say frankly that, in my considered opinion, nobody must close his eyes to the fact that enlargement is going to present us all with great challenges, those of a financial nature among them.
The Germans learned their lesson through reunification, when the citizens were told at first that it would involve no fiscal burdens for them.
This was demonstrably false.
Let there be no misunderstandings - of course we want enlargement.
But we must squarely face the consequences for structural policy.
We should not simply be told 'as you were' , and I do not believe that we will be.
If we are not to forfeit the trust of people in the affected regions, we must point this out clearly, honestly and at an early stage.
If there is not to be a rude awakening, we must explore the possibilities of full support for the candidate countries in building up their infrastructure and, at the same time, concern ourselves with continuing to bring the weakest regions of the Fifteen up to the average.
The success of this will depend on making certain changes which would have been required even without enlargement.
First, there is the fact that the cohesion countries can point to very variable results from the catching-up process, and it is evident that the greatest successes were achieved where the actors were on the spot and shared a commitment to maximising the efficiency of the support.
Moreover, project evaluation needs further improvement and efficient management needs greater rewards than in the past if the effectiveness of the means employed is to be assessed.
Last but not least, there is no getting away from the need for closer dovetailing with the other EU policies, in particular the common agricultural policy.
I believe that both targets can be reached through the decentralisation and simplification that Mr Barnier has mentioned.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would firstly like to say that I am in favour of the two reports, which provide us with a good analysis of the application of both the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds in 1999.
On the basis of the analysis contained in these two reports, I would like to refer to three points.
The first is obvious: the cohesion policy comes within European Union policy and a fundamental element of that cohesion policy is the funds which we are discussing here.
The regions which are at a lower level than the European Union average cannot do without these funds, with or without enlargement.
It is therefore inherent to the European Union' s cohesion policy that the least-developed regions of the Union receive funds and resources so that they can try to eliminate the current territorial imbalances.
As has been said, there is still a budgetary margin in the Union which can be used to meet these needs.
The second point is that these reports refer to 1999.
There are a series of criticisms about application, which should be taken into account.
Let us hope that in 2001, thanks to the action of the Commissioner and his team, the restrictions and shortcomings pointed out may be eliminated.
Thirdly, we must bear in mind that the series of statistics analysed and the studies done on the long-term application of the funds in the European Union, with very few exceptions, demonstrate that in the least-favoured regions the level of imbalance in relation to the European Union average has been reduced.
Therefore, since we are talking about the future application of these funds, this must be taken into account in the Union' s new policies in this field.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like all of you, I am very pleased that both the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner responsible for territorial policy have agreed firstly that it will be necessary in the future, with enlargement, to have a dual cohesion policy, although it is of a minority nature: the cohesion policy for the regions belonging to the fifteen current Members and the supplementary cohesion policy for the enlargement countries.
I also note that they agreed on an issue which seems to me essential and in no way hypocritical: there can be no political Europe without an economic Europe, there can be no political Europe without a cohesion policy.
That is also the case in the current States, and the European Union must assume these responsibilities in the future.
How can it be done?
How can it be achieved and with what instruments? We clearly have to improve the current application of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
We only have to look at the differences between Ireland and Spain, in terms of results over past years, or between Portugal and Italy or Greece, if you will allow me.
The application has been different, and as such Ireland has made extraordinary progress and Portugal has taken better advantage of the Structural Funds than many other States.
This has not been the case with Spain, Italy or Greece, where, while State income has come closer to the Community average, this has not been the case in their internal regions, which indicates that the Funds are being badly applied, possibly because the State has taken advantage of the funds intended for the regions or because the policy of additionality has not been applied in the State.
Mr Barnier, you have said, and you had said previously, that the Structural and Cohesion Funds cannot be below 0.46% of Community GDP.
I would remind you that this is the level they had in 1999 and that in 2006 it will be 0.31%.
If in 1999, in view of the result, we had not managed to eliminate differences between the regions of Europe by means of these Funds, we must therefore be much more ambitious than you are proposing, although you have done so in a very positive way.
Mr President, Commissioner, the question before us is what line our cohesion policy should follow in the new perspective that is opening up with enlargement.
There are two parts to the response: on the one hand, the principles on which cohesion policies are to be based from 2006 onwards must be established and, on the other hand, the priorities must be set.
In my opinion, there are two principles which must underpin cohesion policy: firstly, equal opportunities, and secondly, regionalisation.
Modern economic theory teaches us, with a wealth of detail and supported by considerable empirical evidence, that the success of local development policies is strictly linked to an increase in the power of individuals to take autonomous decisions and to the projects for implementing regional policies which are acceptable to those voters.
In the same way, talking about regionalisation is the same as defining economic policies at local level so that they respect and appreciate the different assets of each region, and so that the local government institutions, subject to monitoring by the electorate making them politically accountable, can take collective decisions backed by genuine democratic support.
The achievement of these goals certainly requires a different type of statistic on the state of the economies, at both local and national and Community level.
Data on per capita income are no longer sufficient to assess individuals' opportunities for access in the European regions; we need much more: we need indicators which measure the degree of access to resources, indicators which measure the level of economic freedoms, which measure the level of fundamental human rights, which measure, in short, the quality of life.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, the cohesion policy is an integral component of the European Union.
The European Union will not make progress in growing together if solidarity does not always play some part.
We all know that those who are stronger and richer must help those who are poorer or not yet as strong or in the process of catching up.
We are talking today about what was to be seen over the last few years and, of course, also about the conclusions we must draw from that for the years to come.
Today, I want to take a look at the current state of our cohesion policy, in other words: how are we spending the money we have allocated to this truly vital EU policy?
Right up to Agenda 2000, we used to have the stormiest debates about how much money was to be spent.
If, though, we now look at how implementation is actually proceeding, we cannot but have grave doubts as to whether this is being taken seriously enough.
The new aid period began last year, so, of course, things cannot move as fast at the outset as they can halfway down the track, but it must be pointed out all the same that implementation is proceeding at a wretched rate in the various fields.
There is simply no other way of putting it.
This has been a frequent topic in the Committee on Budgets, and even the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has taken it up and will continue to discuss it.
Looking at current discussions in the context of the Budget consultations - and here I must address my remarks to the Council - we see that the Council has allocated only 1% for next year's new liabilities, and that is then supposed to be converted into payments.
One per cent of all we are prepared to commit, that is supposed to be paid out!
We are producing a backlog, of the sort that we often used to have.
We are piling up funds rather than fast-tracking aid, and fast aid is good aid, because we want many countries and regions no longer to need aid when enlargement actually comes about.
If we really want to help them out of their plight, if we really want to make room for the new countries who want to join us, we must give aid fast and in concentrated form, in other words: there must be appropriate follow-up here.
I call upon the Commission - which has already submitted proposals on this - but also upon the Council, to follow up words with actions, for cohesion is only any good as and when it actually reaches people, and that needs to be as soon as possible!
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I will first address a word of thanks to you, Commissioner, for your lucid words and your declaration that, in the context of economic and social cohesion, both the new problems of the candidates for accession and the continuing problems of the present 15 Member States are being appropriately taken into account in various regions.
Secondly, a word of thanks also for emphasising again that there are no taboos in this discussion.
We are at the beginning of this discussion process and, in this discussion, we should explore in depth all the options for auditing the Structural Funds.
Holding 27 countries together economically and socially is a quite different matter from maintaining the cohesion of 15 of them.
The solid fact is that the accession of 12 new States will substantially increase the disparities in the EU.
On the one hand, the new Member States will have to be given priority, whilst on the other, the present beneficiary countries must not be denied a degree of continuity.
We are well aware that the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Fund can still only be temporary measures and cannot be made part of the patrimony.
However, regions must not lose their Objective 1 status after 2006 solely on the grounds that enlargement has brought an improvement in their relative position and without their having achieved sustainable development.
I see the cohesion policy as being credible only if the financial means are apportioned on the basis of objective criteria applicable to all, with the criteria of national and regional prosperity forming the bases.
The pending review of European regional policy must therefore throw up some solutions, and that is the whole point of the discussion process that is now beginning - to treat on an equal footing the situations both in the new Member States and in the Objective 1 regions of the present Member States.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, in view of what one Member said, I believe that this is a very appropriate time to discuss economic and social cohesion.
Let us hope that this notion transcends European borders and is applied to other regions.
This would probably be a solution to many conflicts.
While it is true that this is a good time for the debate, I must also recognise that, at least in my opinion, the responses from the Council and the Commission are unsatisfactory.
Firstly, I find it difficult to believe that we can talk about social and economic cohesion without making the least reference to the single market and all the policies of the European Union.
We are currently negotiating the Sixth Framework Programme, a programme which from the outset does not fulfil the cohesive conditions required of it by the Treaties.
Economic and social cohesion demands that we take it into account in all our policies.
Mr President, Mr Barnier asked this Parliament certain questions in this report.
When we asked the Council these same questions, it indicated that this was not the appropriate time to answer them, but Parliament has the right to ask the Commission and the Council these questions so that we might know their opinion, before producing our report.
I profoundly and fundamentally disagree with the Council' s attitude, and to a lesser extent with that of the Commissioner, because I believe that certain fundamental issues must be clarified immediately.
We are talking about how the 2006 project is going to affect various regions in the future.
If we do not do so we will constantly be talking in theory about this issue and we will never bring about the reform necessary for economic and social cohesion in Europe, because we will be looking askance at one another: some of us talking about how we have to remove the Cohesion Fund, others saying that certain regions have to leave it.
This confusion will prevent us from getting down to a thorough analysis of the issue.
Mr President, honourable Members, as we all know, the European Union considers that economic and social cohesion between the regions is quintessential to life and has quantified this objective by setting a minimum cohesion target of 75% of the average per capita income of the 15 Member States.
At the same time, and quite rightly too, our European Union has decided to integrate new Member States whose per capita income is demonstrably lower. Is it logical, is it ethical and, hence, is it acceptable in the final analysis for the second objective to be achieved at the expense of the first?
By which I mean that enlargement will reduce the new average per capita income considerably. The upside, of course, is that at least everyone realises that cohesion policy cannot continue with blinkers on as regards the 75% target and hence various scenarios have been proposed and are being debated, scenarios which may provide a way out but which are not a fair solution.
It therefore makes sense, it is obvious in my book, to retain the first objective even for the enlarged European Union. In other words, all Member States, old and new, must exceed 75% of the average per capita income of the present 15 Member States.
That would be consistent.
Naturally enlargement will need more money than it appears to have.
So those who need to should take a realistic view of the new situation, they should approach it with an open mind, they should take a long-term view of the cost-benefit ratio of a revised, ambitious regional policy and they should not disappoint regions which continue to require help from Europe, from the Europe of their dreams, the Europe they believe in.
We must realise, as did Demosthenes, one of the great figures of ancient Greece, when he said in ancient Greek, "... money, without it nothing we need to do can be done."
And if the decisions have already been taken, well decisions are made to be revised.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Marques and Mr Nogueira Román pointed out in their respective reports, the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds are of fundamental importance to the development of most EU regions, both in terms of infrastructures and from the point of view of social integration.
The fact remains that, despite the budgetary aid granted, European regions are far from being on an equal footing in terms of development. My colleague Mr Fruteau is especially concerned about the outermost regions.
You will therefore understand that this current context of enlargement makes me fear that the European Union has its attention exclusively focused towards the East, which would be disastrous for a good number of European regions that are current beneficiaries.
Please understand me: I am not trying to call into question the pertinence of enlargement, which, of course, means the consolidation of peace on our continent, which in these difficult times, is a noble and fragile objective.
On the contrary, I am thinking about the conditions in which it can succeed.
I am, in fact, one of those who think that the success of enlargement will be the result of the strengthening of cohesion.
But this cohesion has a price that should not be paid by the EU' s poorest countries.
In concrete terms, Commissioner, I hope that the eligibility criteria of Objectives 1 and 2 will be very carefully revised in order that the poverty of some does not lead to the end of hope and the impoverishment of others.
Enlargement is a great challenge.
It is one of solidarity.
It will not be surmounted unless it is understood and accepted.
Let us not forget this fact.
Mr President, the statements we have heard from the Council and from Commissioner Barnier and the speeches of all the Members have confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that cohesion policies are one of the fundamental pillars of the Union and that enlargement requires us not only to continue to pursue these policies but also to consolidate them.
However, I feel that the crucial issues are different and I will list some of them. Firstly, are the instruments we have used in recent years to regulate what are becoming increasingly marked imbalances still sufficiently up-to-date?
Can generic indicators such as the GDP or simplistic percentages such as 75% continue to be the only parameters for clarifying and classifying eligibility? Is a fictional blanket paradigm in which the same measures are adopted across the board for subjects and contexts which are only similar in terms of statistics, still viable?
Secondly, do the key principles of subsidiarity and additionality have the same meaning today as they had 20 years ago, when the European Union had a different institutional system? Is the idea, put forward in recent days by Mr Giuliano Amato, the former Italian Prime Minister, of far-reaching innovation leaving the European Commission power over major strategic investments and decentralising regional development actions really so unrealistic and impossible?
It is my genuine hope that the participants in the debate held over the forthcoming months will have the courage to address these issues as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, cohesion is a fundamental pillar of the European Union.
In fact, there can be no political cohesion in the European Union without economic and social cohesion, despite what some of the federalists may think.
On the other hand, however, there can be no economic and social cohesion without political cohesion, as hard as this may be for some nationalists to swallow.
Cohesion policy, which has played a key role in recent years, will have an even more crucial role to play in future, as a result of enlargement.
Cohesion policy is really a prerequisite for enlargement' s success.
This goes without saying.
Nevertheless, Mr President, there are certain paradoxes inherent in enlargement: by making the European Union poorer in terms of average per capita income, we will be making the countries that are currently the least favoured richer as if by some form of numerical magic.
This is a problem.
What my country, Portugal, and other cohesion countries cannot accept is, as a consequence of enlargement, being relegated to the margins of cohesion policy and becoming the victims of the statistical machinery that automatically places them over the critical threshold of 75%.
With this in mind, I feel that future cohesion policy must not stray from the following principles:
firstly: increasing the budgetary resources earmarked for cohesion; we cannot evade this issue, despite what Mr Walter has said;
secondly, guaranteeing that the interests of the current least favoured regions and countries are not touched and that a fair method will be found so that they continue to benefit from the level of support they receive today;
thirdly: a thorough reform of the common agricultural policy and greater protection of the rural world;
fourthly: the definition and implementation of a development strategy for Europe that relieves the congestion from current urban centres, which are dense and concentrated, to the benefit of the whole of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this debate has essentially been an exploratory and orientation debate concerned with future developments in structural and cohesion policy, as you expected.
I listened to it very carefully.
We will, of course, take good account of the observations you have made.
However, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on this occasion I am going to limit myself to just this brief reaction.
Mr President, like Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, I also listened very carefully to the observations made during the debate, which will be of no great surprise to you.
Personally, I myself had hoped, at this stage, at the very start of the debate, for a great deal of frankness, criticisms, as I said earlier, and suggestions.
All the same, if you would allow me, I would like to say that I was disappointed by the remarks made by Mr Simpson earlier.
I think they are particularly unfair.
In a different way, Mr Izquierdo Collado has also shown a degree of impatience.
With this in mind, I would ask each one of you, however, to be fair to the Commission.
Since Mr Simpson wanted us to hark back to the past, by citing the name of a woman for whom I have a great deal of respect and friendship, my predecessor Mrs Wulf-Matthis, I would like to remind you of the timetable of the previous debate on the Berlin agenda.
The forum that opened the debate for the Berlin agenda took place in 1996 for a 1999 European Council meeting opening the 2000-2006 agenda.
Three years beforehand!
If I had worked to the same timetable, it is not in January 2001 that I would have set the date for the start of the debate, it would be in two years time, in 2003.
You cannot seriously be telling me today that the Commission is not aggressive enough, that you are waiting for us to make proposals.
We are opening this debate two years early without taboos, without waiting for enlargement to have taken place.
Once more, therefore, I would ask you to be fair with the Commission, and, when the time is right, after I have listened to you, listened to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, the regions themselves and the Member States, you can count on me to show how bold I can be, how aggressive I can be if I have to, and to make tough proposals.
But do not ask me today to conclude a debate that has only just started, two years in advance in relation to normal procedures.
I have shown transparency.
I have shown openness with the European Parliament.
And I find it quite unfair that you have come here today to reproach me.
Having said this, I would like to say to President Hatzidakis, to Mrs Schroedter, to Mr Duin, to Mr Gasòliba i Böhm and to Mr Markov, who have, if I have understood them correctly, insisted more in their speeches on current management, that I agree with many of their remarks, to their calls for better take-up, the respect of commitments, the concern for true partnership in the regions.
And I am, with the Directorate-General team, extremely concerned to ensure that the words found in the regulations - partnership, good take-up, rigour, parity, as well as others -become reality.
In a few days time I shall appear, President Hatzidakis, before your Committee to tell you where we stand on 1994-1999 and on the subject of take-up that I hope is now finalised for the previous period, where there were still funds that were not used before 1994, and also to raise the alarm on the implementation of commitments and the first take-up of appropriations in the current period.
I will make a very clear and very objective point to the Committee on Regional Policy.
Mr Markov has once again raised the issue of border regions.
I recognise, Mr Markov, that the response we gave with Mr Verheugen is not entirely satisfactory in relation to the problems of border regions, but once more in this particular case, do not ask me today for more than I can give, for we work within a framework of which you are well aware, which you have approved, which is the Berlin framework.
I have my own financial framework, which I cannot deviate from.
I shall use all the margins of flexibility and manoeuvre possible, but I am, until 2006, obliged to work within the Berlin framework, and I cannot deviate from this.
Mr Pohjamo, and others, brought up the subject of the financing of enlargement.
Mr Pohjamo, I have to tell you that it is not for the Commission to make decisions on this matter.
It is for the Council, the Council of Heads of State and Government in 2006, based on the proposals we make, and whilst we are on this subject I would like to say, as I could have said later to Mr Nogueira Román, Mr Walter, Mr Mastorakis and Mr Pittella, who talked about the aims and values of the EU as set out in this cohesion policy, I would like to say to you, ladies and gentlemen, that in 2006 we will only make the right financial decisions if we first have a true and worthwhile political debate and if, naturally, within the framework of this debate and after this debate, the Commission, playing its proper role, puts forward proposals that are courageous and strong willed.
You can count on myself, Mrs Diamantopoulou and Mr Fischler to put forward the positions and proposals that will follow whilst adapting and reforming cohesion policy.
But allow me to tell you that in order to succeed with this challenge in 2004 or 2005, I need true political debate beforehand.
I need you to provide the proof right here, in your countries and in talking to people about the usefulness of this regional policy, the need for it, its effects.
If we do not provide this proof, then we should fear the ultimate financial decisions when they are made.
I would invite you, therefore, in your political groups, amongst yourselves, between countries and regions, to participate in this debate, to react to the initial course led by the Commission and to make proposals yourselves.
Mrs Raschhofer, you said we need to make reforms.
I do not know if we have understood each other, but the debate is taking place for that reason and I am hoping that it will pave the way for reforms.
In your speech, you used a word that I cannot ignore, because we must be very careful with the words we use.
You talked about fraud.
Personally, I am extremely strict.
I am also ruthless on this question of rigour in the management of Structural Funds.
There are probably errors.
There are probably delays.
There are often irregularities.
But I have not observed in the reports from the Court of Auditors and the Parliament' s own Committee on Budgets and Committee on Budgetary Control, that they have revealed many cases of fraud in relation to the management of Structural Funds.
As for errors, delays or irregularities, we will progressively reduce these by taking the attitude I have just pointed out.
Mr Jarzembowski has himself also started to participate in this debate, which I thank him for.
So that there is no misunderstanding, when I mentioned the territorial dimension of the future policy, you will also see, Mr Jarzembowski, that in the cohesion report, I pointed out the title 'Unity, solidarity, diversity for Europe, its people and its territory' This is perhaps an idea that we can incorporate into the new and future Objective II policy, if there is still an Objective II policy, as I hope there is, that rather than creating a bit of bureaucracy, a bit of zoning, we should decentralise this policy using several European priorities we shall choose together.
For each of these priorities, there could be a financial instrument in service, several financial instruments for the various major objectives that you have hoped and prayed for: assisting regions that have long-lasting natural handicaps, assisting urban policy, assisting cross-border cooperation.
These are a few examples of territorial objectives.
We can also find thematic goals such as the information society.
Mr Korakas, you also called for more confidence and regionalisation.
I agree.
I will make proposals in the new 2004 agenda for increased simplification and regionalisation, but, for me, the limit is to not permit the unravelling or the dismantling of this Cohesion policy which is one of the great and one of the strongest Community policies at the heart of European solidarity.
Mr Berend, like others, has made a criticism, which I accept or at least understand, on the current criteria for per capita GDP.
I am open to this type of criticism.
But I would like to say that up to this point the criterion seemed the most fair and the most objective to me.
It is accepted by all Member States.
We have reliable statistics from the instruments we have been supplied with.
And before this is changed, we should think hard so as to be as fair and as objective as we are with this criterion of per capita GDP.
Mrs Darras, let me make it clear that when the time is right, I will put forward a regional and cohesion policy that will involve all EU countries.
Naturally, we shall concentrate, as we have today, on the poorest regions and countries, for this is the true meaning of cohesion, created so that we can opt out of such a scheme when we are successful.
I am not at all of the opinion that I should create a policy that would ignore other regions that have fewer difficulties but have specific projects and problems all the same, sometimes areas where there is much poverty.
I will therefore, when the time is right, propose a policy that will involve, with different degrees of intensity depending on the level of development, all regions in Europe and all countries in Europe, while endeavouring - I am responding here to Mr. Lage - to treat all of these regions even-handedly, in particular so as to avoid, Mr Lage, the mechanical effect that I myself raised in the cohesion report and the statistical effect that could, if applied without due care and attention, penalise regions currently within the EU.
Mr President, I would like to make a short personal statement in relation to the Commissioner' s comment, which I think was inappropriate and particularly unworthy of a Commissioner who normally deals with Parliament and each of its Members in an excellent way.
Perhaps there has been a misunderstanding.
All I have done, Commissioner, is ask you the same question that you asked Parliament.
You cannot therefore tell me that I am being impatient.
In January, in the second report on cohesion, you asked Parliament which of the four criteria it thought we should adopt.
Parliament asks the same of the Council and the Commission.
Secondly, Commissioner, we have enlargement to deal with.
We are talking about another time and another era.
I would like you to know, therefore, that all my comments have been made in a constructive spirit, not only today, but for many years, while fighting for cohesion in this Parliament.
Mr President, it is intolerable that people should embark on another debate when the speaking time has expired and the Commissioner has spoken.
I would ask you to prevent this in future, otherwise I too would like to speak for another two minutes.
As it is, I can only say that the Commissioner has replied very well to all our questions and that we are very grateful to him.
The debate is closed.
Cohesion Fund (1999) - Structural Funds (1999)
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism:
A5-0248/2001 by Mr Marques, on the Commission' s annual report on the Cohesion Fund 1999 [COM(2000) 822 - C5-0109/2001 - 2001/2058(COS)];
A5-0247/2001 by Mr Nogueira Román, on the Commission' s 11th annual report on the Structural Funds (1999) [COM(2000) 698 - C5-0108/2001 - 2001/2057(COS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission report dealing with the activities of the Cohesion Fund in 1999 proves that, as in previous years, it is continuing to pursue the most immediate objectives for which it was created, which are to provide the so-called cohesion countries, Portugal, Spain, Greece and Ireland, with economic infrastructures in the areas of the environment and transport.
In these two areas, for example, the Cohesion Fund has been crucial to the creation of infrastructures that are essential to the development of my region.
Only in 1999, it funded the extension of Madeira' s airport and a major solid waste treatment plant.
We have further grounds to be satisfied with the activity of the Cohesion Fund in 1999.
The physical and the financial execution of the projects that have been supported, the distribution of appropriations between the environment and transport, compliance with Community environmental legislation and the distribution of appropriations by beneficiary countries have all continued to respect the Fund' s operational rules.
Furthermore, no situation involving fraud or duplication of funding between the Cohesion Fund and any other Community fund was uncovered.
Because everything ran to plan in 1999, because this is the last year of the 1993-1999 programming period and because the Commission report provides a broad overview of developments that have taken place during this period, I feel it is more important to focus my speech on the contribution of the Cohesion Fund to achieving economic and social cohesion, of which it is a fundamental instrument.
It should be pointed out, incidentally, that the principle of solidarity, a real pillar of the project of European integration, has seen better days, specifically as a result of the two duplications of financial resources granted to structural policies in 1986 and 1992, whose aim was to enable the cohesion countries to better cope with the pressures unleashed by the huge internal market and by Economic and Monetary Union.
In June 1999, however, when the Heads of State and Government had to decide at the Berlin Summit on the Structural Funds to be allocated for the 2000-2006 period under what came to be known as Agenda 2000, there were no further duplications.
There was even a visible decrease.
It was at that Summit that national self-interest supplanted the European interest of a more cohesive and balanced Europe, which had such tireless champions in Jacques Delors and Helmut Kohl.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, however, the proximity of enlargement and the need to correct the enormous regional imbalances we will see as a consequence make it imperative that we give new impetus to economic and social cohesion policy.
We are convinced that the Commission and, in particular, Commissioner Michel Barnier are equal to this challenge.
We must also consider the fact that giving new impetus to cohesion policy is necessary, not only to deal with the countries that are expected to join the European Union in the near future, but also, even following enlargement, to maintain the fight against the lack of cohesion that still exists in the current European Union of fifteen countries.
As a matter of fact, regional disparities within the current Europe of fifteen could even increase as a result of the pressures produced by the enlargement process, specifically in the relationships between countries on the periphery of the Union and those at its centre.
In other words, countries such as Portugal, for example, may become more peripheral and the current centre, which includes London, Paris and such places, may be increased even further because it will become the centre of a Europe that is economically integrated from the west almost to the eastern border. We must remember that excessive regional imbalances constitute an economic and political threat to the European Union.
They are an economic threat because, unless we are able to take full and more efficient advantage of the resources of the most depressed regions, the entire European Union will lose out. They are a political threat because the European Union cannot succeed if it is underpinned by stark territorial and social inequalities.
Europe must have cohesion or it will not work.
Not enabling Europe to work is the great risk that we would run if we went ahead with the totally unacceptable idea of renationalising cohesion policies.
We therefore feel that the creation of the Cohesion Fund by the Treaty of Maastricht has been fully justified.
This is, as a matter of fact, clearly demonstrated by the balance of the first operational period of the Cohesion Fund between 1993 and 1999.
The Cohesion Fund, we can now say, has been a major factor for real convergence, and has provided a strong incentive for the beneficiary countries to comply with the nominal convergence criteria laid down at Maastricht.
We must, therefore, oppose any attempt to abolish the Cohesion Fund.
We must also draw the lessons of this first period of operation to improve the effectiveness of the Cohesion Fund even further.
Mr President, Commissioner, the figures provided by the Commission in its 11th Annual Report on the Structural Funds - confirmed by the Second Report on economic and social cohesion - show that, despite the budgetary effort made in the 1994-1999 period, the considerable social and territorial inequalities that existed prior to 1994 still remain. The major initial regional differences have remained the same or have increased.
Proof of this is the fact that the average per capita income of the 10% of the population that lives in the most prosperous regions of the Union is still 2.6 times higher than that of the 10% of the population living in the least-developed regions. Territorial inequalities that existed within certain States that have Objective 1 regions, such as Italy, Spain and Greece are also still very much in evidence.
In contrast with this situation, we have seen a strengthening in recent years of the area between London, Paris and Hamburg. This is a huge central region, which accounts for only a seventh of Europe' s surface area, but for one-third of its population and which enjoys almost one-half of its total income, in a concentration of cities and employment that threatens the sustainable development of the European Union.
Unfortunately, nothing suggests that these trends are likely to change over the next few years.
The budgetary forecasts approved in Agenda 2000 for the present period are extremely restrictive, which means that, whereas in 1999 the percentage of the European Union' s GDP dedicated to cohesion policy reached 0.46%, in 2006 it will not exceed 0.31%, a return to 1994 levels.
These figures are extremely worrying.
Furthermore, one need only look at the experience of German reunification to understand that, if we do not do everything that we can to remedy the situation, the problem will get worse when the enlargement States join the Union.
Given these circumstances, we must be aware that when we talk about Structural Funds policy, we are not dealing with 'just another' EU problem.
On the contrary, we are talking about a fundamental issue, in that the direction of political Europe depends to a large extent on positive developments in cohesion policy both with regard to Objective 1 territories in the current EU that still need it and to the new Member States that will require budgetary funds that must not be additional or supplementary funds.
Unless this is precisely the decision we take, we will see the unacceptable paradox of the much-needed cohesion policy for the new States being paid for with money taken from the budget that is today earmarked for the least developed countries of the Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot allow the European Union to take a step backwards in territorial and social development policy.
Political Europe would not be what it is today without cohesion policy and it would be hypocritical and irresponsible to call for the one whilst refusing to provide the economic resources to make the other possible.
In this context, I think that we cannot delay taking a decision that will ensure an increase in the Union' s budget for the next programming period that is considerably higher than 1.27% of the Community GDP.
Mr President, the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities sees the European Commission's initiative to mainstream action to support equal opportunities between men and women as an important element in this report.
This initiative has a political and a symbolic side.
It highlights the fact that equality between the sexes is a necessary dimension of our endeavour to achieve economic development with social and regional cohesion.
However, our committee is disappointed that this presentation is regionally based and does not contain accurate data which allow us to assess both women's access to Structural Funds and the impact of Community initiatives on promoting equal opportunities.
Under the new regulation which applies to the 2000-2006 programming period, mainstreaming equal opportunities for women and men is a priority aim and the Member States are obliged to conduct an ex ante evaluation of their programmes from the point of view of gender equality using indicators and statistics.
We should take this opportunity to stress that indicators and statistics need to be broken down by gender, something which the European Parliament has called for repeatedly.
However, we should also stress that we are calling on the European Commission to ensure that the principle of gender equality is duly taken into account and that statistics are kept - not just during programming but throughout the whole monitoring and intervention procedure - on the increase in female employment, the provision of quality, viable new jobs and the creation of infrastructures which allow family and working life to be reconciled.
And, finally, we want to stress the importance of coordinated action between the European Commission and the Member States on informing regional agencies and all entitled beneficiaries of the possibilities of implementing equal opportunities through Structural Fund measures.
.
(ES) Mr President, Commissioner, 1999 was the last year of the first operating period of the Cohesion Fund, which was created by the Treaty of Maastricht.
It was a fully justified and important instrument, not only of economic and social cohesion, but also of support for the countries which had the greatest difficulties in fulfilling the stability and convergence programmes which lead to the introduction of the single currency.
That fund has been an important factor in terms of real convergence and a strong incentive for compliance with the Maastricht criteria.
Aid has been directed towards the creation of infrastructure, transport and environmental projects.
99% of the aid envisaged was granted, which is rather a shame, since 100% should have been achieved, although that was almost achieved at the end of the period being analysed, that is, in 1999.
The recent reform of the Structural Funds is adequate to significantly simplify the planning, implementation and funding of the interventions and the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has asked for the interventions to involve better assistance for national administrations.
We feel it will be very important in the future to consider a breakdown by gender, which would permit specific actions aimed at the promotion of women.
The financial contribution is lower than that contained in the proposal of the Commission and the European Parliament.
It is regrettable that this will hinder the achievement of the employment objectives, particularly in view of the fact that all the Member States and European institutions are committed to decisive action in favour of employment, agreed at the Lisbon Summit.
It is a positive thing to include amongst the objectives the achievement of equality between men and women in employment programmes, since it is one of the fields in which women clearly participate less than men.
It is therefore satisfactory that the Commission has decided, in accordance with Articles 2 and 141 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, in the future to integrate gender into all Community policies and actions with a view to adopting horizontal positive action measures.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of annual reports is to carry out analyses over a limited period and draw conclusions from them.
This 11th Annual Report on the Structural Funds relates to a year which is undoubtedly very important for the development of the European Union's cohesion policies.
My group supports the rapporteur on some of the proposed measures and options to improve the management of the Structural Funds, such as speeding up the implementation of approved measures, concentrating assistance in areas whose development is lagging behind or improving on-the-spot checks to combat what is still a very high level of fraud.
However, we also have some criticisms.
We should point out that we do not endorse some of the conclusions drawn by the rapporteur, such as the overly negative assessment of the Structural Fund results during the planning period and the failure to meet the regional policy objective of harmonising living conditions, which has supposedly only been achieved in part.
I would say to the rapporteur that he has adopted the wrong approach to European structural policy, whose task is solely to reduce disparities and which I believe has generally achieved this goal.
In fact, there will always be a discrepancy between living conditions in the rich and poor regions of the EU, and even within Member States.
We are daydreaming if we expect harmonisation from the structural policies.
We should not confuse achievable goals with a wish list here.
My second point of criticism is that despite all the significance of 1999, the 11th Report is an annual report and not a storehouse catalogue in which all the concerns and problems faced by the European Union in the past, present and future have to be rolled out yet again.
If reports are to achieve anything, they must focus on specific priorities, as we all know from our years of practical experience here in Parliament.
This is precisely what this report does not do.
As I said, the rapporteur's conclusions are not necessarily wrong, but much of what is included in the report really does not need to be there.
That is why we believe that some of the points raised in the report need to be amended by the plenary.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the reports we are discussing confirm some of my concerns regarding the execution of the Structural Funds for the 1993-1999 period but, alas, also regarding the new programming period which will end in 2006.
The most striking example is the vast sum of resources which were not spent during the 1993-1999 period and must be used before 31 December this year.
I feel that it is right and important to send out a clear warning two months or so before the expiry date.
We need enthusiastic commitment but, instead, there are regions and States who are irresponsibly disregarding the impending danger of wasting these funds.
Then there is the fact that it would be useful - so to speak - to learn from the errors and delays which occurred during the 1993-1999 period and avoid repeating them.
Mr Mastorakis has already quoted some Greek to you and I am going to quote some Latin: errare humanum est, perseverare autem diabolicum.
This is a well-known saying but many appear to have forgotten it.
The statistics for the year 2000, with which Commissioner Barnier is familiar, do nothing to allay our fears.
Despite the increasing endeavours of the Commissioner himself, the innovations contained in the reform of the Structural Funds are being incorporated slowly and laboriously.
Parliament must seize this opportunity too to reaffirm its right and responsibility to act.
Parliament, which is the body directly elected by the citizens, cannot remain silent if a fundamental instrument for the development of the Communities and their cohesion is not being properly implemented.
We must therefore work shoulder to shoulder - Commission, Parliament, Council and regional and local players - to bring about rapid acceleration and to finalise the payments to projects which enhance the competitiveness of regions, particularly those which are most disadvantaged and underdeveloped.
We must make it clear to everybody that the quality and size of the expenditure, the profitability of the various objectives and the results achieved by the different beneficiaries will be the crucial factors for defining the European Union' s future cohesion strategy.
Mr President, the first thing that the annual reports on cohesion policy for 1999 point out is that the results have been very poor.
During the eleven and seven years, respectively, which these Community Funds have been operating, the average per capita income in Spain, Greece and Portugal, which in 1988 stood at 68%, has risen to 79% of the European average in 1999.
In other words, it has increased by an average of one point per year.
At this rate, it would take 21 more years for the whole of the European Union to achieve an equal level.
I have serious doubts about the political will to eliminate the differences and the genuine solidarity of the governments of the Union.
And I say this because, as Mr Nogueira has pointed out, in 1999 the Funds of the cohesion policy for 92-99 represented 0.46% of GDP, while those from Agenda 2000 until 2006 will only represent 0.31%, that is to say, they will be reduced by 15 points.
Furthermore, there are some who do not intend to increase their contributions but nevertheless, through these reduced amounts, expect to show solidarity with the new Eastern States which will be part of the enlarged EU.
Mr President, if we are really committed to equal opportunities, solidarity and a genuine united Europe, we must stop being miserly and we must all give more money, especially the richest amongst us, for the benefit of the poorest.
Mr President, there is absolutely no doubt about the major role that has been played by the Cohesion Fund in the development of trans-European networks and in environmental operations in the four beneficiary States, and it is certainly very important for the convergence of the economies of the European Union.
The results achieved, however, are not the same across the board, and it is worth exploring the reasons for this.
In reality, strangely, there are bureaucratic problems and mechanisms which are still poorly defined, particularly as regards the time frames for the disbursement and use of the funds: this applies to the Cohesion Fund, of which all the appropriations for 1999 were not used, and it applies to the Structural Funds, which did not achieve the 100% expenditure target both because the majority of the resources were committed only just before the end of the programming period and because of the slow rate of disbursement of the appropriations available. These factors make the process much more burdensome for those implementing the programmes.
The delays certainly do not contribute to the overall improvement in socio-economic and employment conditions in the regions concerned.
In this sense, a crucial moment for both funds is the evaluation, not just an ex ante analysis but also, most importantly, an ex post evaluation, which is no use if it is not carried out within the correct time frame, the correct time frame being before the programming of the subsequent operations, which cannot be carried out rationally if the final evaluation of the previous programmes cannot be taken into account.
Moreover, the evaluation is necessary in order to verify that the principle of additionality is being respected according to the clear indications of the Court of Auditors, which should be observed.
Linked to this is the point that it would be beneficial if the Commission were to provide clearer, more comprehensive information of an essentially social and economic rather than accounting nature on the evaluation of projects, highlighting whether the aim of reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions has been achieved; the European Parliament needs to receive this information in due time, not - as has happened this time with regard to the Cohesion Fund - two years late, for that clearly makes it impossible to correct shortcomings and reprogramme operations in useful time.
And this is an operation that is becoming still more necessary in view of the now impending enlargement.
Finally, we must demand a more active role for Parliament in the evaluation of the effectiveness of the operations and the goals pursued.
Mr President, Commissioner, there is no doubt that over the years, the Cohesion Fund has helped to make less developed regions within the Union stronger.
However, it would be a mistake to think that we do not need to question the current level of the Cohesion Fund.
The impending accession of a number of new Member States alone would prompt this.
I welcome the fact that Mr Marques has outlined the goals, means and conditions of the Cohesion Fund.
The fund was set up to help Member States meet the convergence criteria with the EMU in mind.
There is no ambiguity in this respect.
The Structural Funds, on the other hand, are designed to help meet other goals.
The accession requires us to evaluate and revise the structural policy, including that of the Cohesion Fund, but in my opinion, not so many changes are required.
It is important, however, for the fund only to be used for the purpose it was intended.
If that is the case, the existing system has many successful years ahead, even following the accession.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteurs, I would briefly like to point out, in relation to the reports that we are currently debating, and as we have seen previously, that we are holding a great debate with an important future in terms of the construction of Europe and also the construction of an enlarged Europe.
We are dealing with Funds which were established at a particular moment when our objectives involved a policy of economic and social cohesion.
On the one hand, this policy has clearly been successful but, on the other, we also see that differences remain, as the reports demonstrate.
Does this mean that this policy has failed? I would say rather that it means that the policy is not only successful for the cohesion countries, for the poorest regions which are receiving significant aid, but also for other regions, in the wealthy countries, which do not receive the aid.
In the end there is widespread movement throughout Europe and, by means of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, those regions of the richer countries end up benefiting from the aid, because technologies are being bought, because investments are being made by those countries in which technological progress is being made.
That is perhaps the reason why the differences are being maintained, after the large amounts of aid and the great investments which have been carried out through the Cohesion Fund.
We are now facing the problems relating to enlargement. Does the Cohesion Fund need to be modified?
Will the poorer regions stop receiving it? Are the States which have so far been receiving aid going to stop doing so in favour of the new States?
I believe that this is currently the great challenge for the Commissioner and for Parliament. I believe that the aid must be maintained, that we have to be imaginative and must ensure that the Funds continue to reach all the regions.
Otherwise, the differences will increase.
We must make an effort to ensure that the enlargement countries also become economic motors which will allow this policy of economic and social cohesion to eventually lead to a much more just and free Europe.
We have seen recent examples of the results of poverty and fanaticism.
Mr President, Commissioner, we in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism have already told Mr Nogueira that we do not share his negative view - or at least his excessively critical view - of the application of economic and social cohesion.
I would even go as far as to say that that evaluation should be positive or even better, given how brilliant the results are.
We would like to make some very specific comments in relation to these two reports on the application of the Funds during the years in question.
It is the case that the information is good because, firstly, Parliament' s recommendations are complied with.
The balance between investments in railways and in road infrastructures, in terms of the environment, has moved into line with the parliamentary recommendation.
There is no report on fraud in the application of these Funds and another series of statistical criteria are correctly complied with.
But we are not the Court of Auditors.
What these reports lack is more of a qualitative character: we want to know what qualitative economic and political effect these investments are having; to what extent is the metabolism of these regions being changed; to what extent are the governments correctly applying the investments, directly towards productive investments, as the structural policy demands.
That is what is lacking in the reports on the application of the Cohesion Fund.
And this is true in all respects.
Next year we will have to examine the reports on the application of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund in 2000 and 2001.
The data will not be good, but I do not want to condemn it in advance because, if the Commission demonstrates that they have been well used in terms of programming, this will be a qualitative element which Parliament will have to take into account.
Mr President, Commissioner, this 11th Annual Report on the Structural Funds may be the last one on the 1994-1999 programme, but it has many lessons to teach us.
First of all, we agree with what the rapporteur, Mr Nogueira Román, says about the lack of a complete quantitative description or detailed explanations of these funds.
Europe must have a genuine return on the funding it grants in order, on the one hand, to monitor that the projects are effectively carried out and that public monies are being put to good use and, on the other hand, to optimise the new programmes.
Furthermore, the citizens of my region keep making the same criticisms: too complicated, too much red tape, too slow.
I think we do not give enough precedence to the small structural projects where simplicity and speed are of the essence if we want to respond to real needs on the ground.
I cannot help wondering about the contradiction between saying we want to give priority to employment, with reference in particular to the Lisbon European Council declarations, while at the same time paying so little attention to the small micro-enterprise and SME projects which, after all and as everyone knows, are the prime job creators.
It is vital that all of us, beginning with the Commission, try to work more closely with all our fellow-citizens.
In conclusion, I want to protest about a practice that I personally find unfair and unfounded.
What I mean is that the Commission could use a form of blackmail - and I am weighing my words here - by tying the funding to strict respect for the environmental obligations it lays down.
I entirely agree about the growing need to respect our environment, but I am equally against this kind of pseudo-ecological diktat.
I think that would be a real diversion of these funds which, let me remind you, are supposed to help finance job-creation and wealth-creation projects to combat the economic imbalances between the various European regions.
Since I know that economic cohesion remains unsatisfactory, let me end by asking what is really behind the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund policy: are these funds designed to be a means of applying pressure or are they designed to provide genuine economic assistance? It is a question worth asking.
Mr President, I thank both Mr Marques and Mr Nogueira Román for their fine reports, as I thank all the speakers for their comments.
With regard to Mr Marques' report, relating to 1999, it did indeed arrive rather late, in January 2001.
I can tell the rapporteur that this was due to the problems of reorganising our Directorate-General.
Let me now assure him that the report for the year 2000 has been finalised and that the Commission will most probably adopt it in early October.
Briefly, there are four lessons to be learned.
The first concerns total and complete financial implementation throughout the programming period.
It is true that not all the payment appropriations for 1999 were used in full; only 91.6% of available payment appropriations were implemented.
The reason why the appropriations were not all used is the large number of applications for payments reaching the Commission in December 1999.
But, on a more positive note, not a single case of fraud or double financing between the Cohesion Fund and any other Community source was detected in 1999.
I have kept Parliament informed at regular intervals of the progress in implementing the budget and will continue to do so.
Secondly, there is the question of balancing investment in transport and investment in the environment, which, like you, I consider important.
Thirdly, I understand and endorse your wish to see the Commission devote more resources to on-the-spot checks.
Here again, the reorganisation of our departments and in particular the decentralisation of those activities has caused some problems.
Our Directorate-General is now responsible for carrying out on-the-spot checks of Cohesion Fund measures but also of all the actions cofinanced under the Structural Funds.
Fourthly, Mr Marques, coordination between the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds has been given real impetus with the new regulations for the period 2000-2006 and, within the Directorate-General, with the integrated management of the various departments concerned with the Cohesion Fund and the other Structural Funds.
That is what I wanted to say, very briefly - following the President's advice - in response to the four points made in Mr Marques' report, for which I thank him.
Turning now to the report by Mr Nogueira Román, while thanking him too for his fine report, I would again like to make four comments.
Firstly, regarding the implementation of the funds in 1999, 99% of appropriations for the period 1994-1999 were committed and 75% were paid.
That is a figure that, I believe, is broadly satisfactory.
As you know, on-site payments can be made up to 31 December this year, in accordance with the regulations.
The payment appropriations will, I think, be implemented in full and for the last two years - this was a job that began before my arrival - I have been working with the Member States to ensure that they are taken up as fully as possible.
That is a concern that Mr Pittella also raised a moment ago.
The delays in the start-up of some programmes in 1994 and 1995 have, therefore, been overcome for most of the actions under the on-going programme.
A similar improvement in the rate of execution can be seen in the programme of Community initiatives, although here the delays were a little more serious.
It is true, as the rapporteur rightly pointed out, that many outstanding commitments still remained to be paid at the end of 1999.
Basically that was because of the accumulation of projects at the end of the programming period.
But let me point out that the situation quite clearly improved in 2000, since the commitments remaining to be paid at the end of 1999 were reduced by 47%.
In order to keep Parliament more fully informed on the subject, at the end of June 2001 the Commission drew up a full report on the unexpected commitments remaining to be paid for all categories of expenditure.
Secondly, the rapporteur welcomed the fact that the horizontal theme of 1999 was equality between women and men in the Structural Funds programmes.
With regard to the Structural Funds for the current period, I can confirm that gender equality has been one of the criteria for accepting plans received from Member States and you can count on Anna Diamantopoulou being very vigilant on this subject; the same applies to Mr Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou and Mrs Avilés Perea, as I noted a moment ago.
For the period 1994-1999, however, Member States did not have to provide information on the access of women to the Structural Funds.
That means that we have no detailed information on these matters for that programming period.
Thirdly, there is additionality, which the rapporteur sees as open to question, as I do at times.
On this point I can confirm that the Commission has carefully checked for compliance with this principle during the ex-ante review of new programmes for the period 2000-2006.
Regarding the previous period, the Commission will conclude its final check on additionality at the end of 2002.
I agree about the need for more stringent penalties in the event that a Member State does not respect the principle of additionality.
As honourable Members will know, no provision is made for such penalties under the fund rules for the period 2000-2006.
The legislator, chiefly the Council, was firmly opposed to the idea at the time the regulations were adopted.
We do, however, have some measures we can take in the event that additionality has not been verified and if necessary I shall take these measures in consultation with my colleagues.
On the subject of evaluation and monitoring, as you know the mid-term ex-ante or ex-post review was fully integrated into the programming for this new 2000-2006 period.
The Commission has just launched the ex-post evaluation for Objectives 1 and 2 for the 1994-1999 period, together with thematic evaluations of the information society, sustainable development and small and medium-sized enterprises.
These evaluations, like the mid-term reviews that will be carried out in 2003, will provide answers to any outstanding questions and I will, of course, inform the European Parliament of the results.
Fourthly, with regard to monitoring, the same vigilance will apply; but here the Commission now has a different role to play.
As you know, on-the-spot checks now fall within the remit of each Member State, which is obliged to report back to the Commission at regular intervals.
We for our part will and do verify that each Member State has set up a reliable system of on-the-spot checks.
Lastly, let me emphasise that the number of these checks also rose in 1999, reaching the figure of 120 compared with 100 in 1998.
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me repeat that the Commission is committed to the basic principles of the Structural Funds: concentration, additionality and partnership, and the best possible coordination with the Cohesion Fund.
In their reports, the rapporteurs urge us to be even more effective and vigilant.
Let me assure you that I am confident that we will be able to give you even greater satisfaction when we come to study the results and the evaluation for the year 2000.
That is the year when the new programming will start, together with some new rules.
I believe we will be able to present more positive results, in response to your demands and to the vigilance that you are showing.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Female genital mutilation
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0285/2001) by Mrs Valenciano Martínez-Orozco, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on female genital mutilation [2001/ 2035(INI)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, 130 million women worldwide have been the victims of genital mutilation.
Every year two million girls are subjected to this horrific practice.
Today the European Parliament must act as a spokesperson with regard to this situation which affects millions of women.
We have tried to work on the basis of consensus with all political groups in producing this report.
We have considered the opinions of experts of both sexes, the governments involved and non-governmental organisations.
Our aim is no less than to convince the communities which practice female genital mutilation of the need to eradicate it.
The custom of partially or totally removing the female sexual organs has it roots in a profoundly unjust notion of the role of women in a society which views them as inferior citizens, controlled by the people who make decisions, who are, in most cases, men.
For us, the defence of these traditions has a very clear limit.
The limit is the defence of human rights.
It is not possible, on behalf of any tradition, to accept that women should be seriously and irreversibly mutilated for the rest of their lives.
Information, education and increased awareness are, therefore, essential factors in relation to the disastrous consequences for women' s lives, even though most of them are not even aware of what these may be.
The truth of the matter is that they are going to suffer an irreversible amputation, but they do not even realise the real consequences of such an act.
We have produced a report which asks the Commission, the Council and the Member States to create an integral strategy, which does not only involve penalties, but which deals with the areas affected by this issue: public health, judicial, legal, political, etc.
We view female genital mutilation as a serious attack on human rights, and on the basis of this view we request something which is a logical consequence of it: that the right to asylum be granted to women who wish to flee from this situation, that we take them in so that they may escape from something which will be irreversible for the rest of their lives.
According to the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, persecution on the basis of sex must be cause for the granting of asylum rights.
No other persecution on the basis of sex is clearer than this one.
People can abandon their political ideas.
People can abandon their religious beliefs.
But it is impossible to abandon the sex you were born with.
Therefore, since we are dealing with a brutal violation of fundamental rights, it is also fundamental that we offer these individuals the opportunity of refugee status.
I believe that the directive currently being presented by the Commission, on the rules relating to the conditions to be fulfilled by residents of third countries requesting refugee status, moves in this direction, and it will be very important.
For us, this is a question of principle and we cannot abandon this demand.
The report also calls for the promotion of external aid to those African countries which have adopted legislative and administrative measures that prohibit and penalise this practice.
We also urge the European Commission to work closely with non-governmental organisations that make an enormous effort on the ground, very often with scant resources.
We also ask for recourse to the human rights clause in order to make combating genital mutilation a priority action in terms of relations with third countries, in particular with the countries which have close relations with the European Union within the framework of the Cotonou agreement.
Ladies and gentlemen, many women, thousands of African women, are waiting to hear what we have to say in this regard.
It is not solely a problem for African women.
It is a problem for all of us, women and men, because it is a problem of fundamental human rights.
These people are waiting and we must offer them an urgent response.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have a small correction to make: I am speaking on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and not the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I am particularly glad I was appointed draftsman of the opinion on this crucial question, which affects so many women in developing countries aside from those in the Fifteen.
I am glad because the Commission adopted my opinion unanimously.
People often look askance at unanimous decisions, suspecting a degree of inattention.
However, I think the Commission and the members of the Committee on Development and Cooperation voted advisedly in this case and were convinced by the various paragraphs that make up the opinion.
I would like to draw Members' attention to two other points, aside from the unanimous vote, given that this unanimity is rather inconsistent with the debate that is still on-going in some political groups.
The first is the right of asylum.
We supported Mrs Valenciano's suggestion to the Council, the Commission and the Member States in her report that the clauses on right of asylum should indeed include one recognising the immediate right of asylum in the Fifteen of women and girls at risk of being subjected to female genital mutilation.
That is most important.
Here the vote was unanimous.
I therefore hope that a large section of Parliament will also vote for this paragraph tomorrow.
My second point, Mr President, concerns money.
We asked for EUR 10 million to finance all the measures aimed at helping these countries escape from this trap.
I hope that Parliament will vote for it tomorrow and that the Committee on Budgets will follow suit, something the Committee on Development and Cooperation has not done so far.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Valenciano Martínez-Orozco for her work, which followed on a resolution supported by 316 Members.
This may be part of the reason why the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs adopted the report unanimously.
The most important element, which Mr Dell' Alba and Mrs Valenciano Martínez-Orozco referred to, recognising the right of asylum of women under threat from genital mutilation, is considered by our committee too to be one of the major, crucial points in this battle.
I would like to mention once again the two figures which have already been cited: there are 130 million victims in the world; 2 million children undergo genital mutilation every year.
In addition to the various education and information, humanitarian, social and health initiatives and initiatives supporting non-governmental organisations, in particular, our committee feels that it must single out one in particular: the appeal to the Member States to ensure that female genital mutilation is prosecuted through the rigorous application of existing provisions laying down the right to health and personal integrity as a fundamental right, and the rigorous application of the provisions of the penal code which ban any deliberate action violating this right.
We demand, that is, for there to be no possible recourse to the concept of exception or cultural diversity to justify relativism or the watering down of this fundamental right or of the related legal protection which is incumbent upon the State.
We therefore call upon the Commission, the Council and the Member States to endeavour to make our resolutions reality with all speed.
Thank you very much, Mr Turco.
We shall now suspend the sitting until 9.00 p.m. when we shall continue the debate.
I hope that you will gather your strength sufficiently to be back here at 9 on the dot.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Mr President, Commissioner, we are dealing with an own-initiative report by the Committee on Women' s Rights which examines a serious problem, the genital mutilation of a great number of women and girls.
This ancient practice violates the fundamental rights of the women and girls who fall victim to it and therefore constitutes an attack on the fundamental human rights recognised in the Treaties and in the Declarations of the United Nations.
The report proposes the extension of protection and prevention in all the countries where it is practised and also in the European Union, where we know it is still practised within immigrant communities, or by means of a visit to the country of origin where the genital mutilation is carried out, since this practice is well-established within the customs of many people in Africa and some in Asia.
Only prevention by means of information campaigns and clear explanation of the irreversible consequences of this practice will help to eradicate it.
These campaigns must be carried out by NGOs, but with the firm commitment of governments and the decisive support of leaders, religious leaders in particular; education campaigns in schools, directed at boys and girls, such as those being carried out with considerable success in Burkina Faso, as Mrs Campaore has told us today.
The prosecution of genital mutilation as a crime, both in the country where it is practised and when it is carried out in another country, that is, the extraterritoriality of the crime, will effectively help to eradicate it.
In serious cases, some countries envisage the right to asylum, as contemplated in the directive under the heading of the right to asylum for reasons of sexual discrimination.
We believe that to include here, in a general way, the right to asylum for alleged victims, that is to say, for millions of girls and teenagers, is inappropriate.
We cannot open doors we are then unable to close, and we in the European Union cannot receive all the alleged victims who want to leave their country for this reason.
The reality is that we cannot do it even if we would like to.
It is on this issue that the Group of the European Peoples' Party differs with this report, which may mean, in the event that it is approved, that we will abstain in the final vote.
This is regrettable, because the report has many positive elements, particularly the need for the commitment to include the fight against genital mutilations in all cooperation programmes and to provide them with adequate financial aid, and the demand that the governments of the states where they are practiced commit themselves effectively to their eradication.
We in the Group of the European Peoples' Party unreservedly condemn genital mutilation and we defend the full physical rights of all women, their full sexual rights and their right to decide on their future even though that decision may be at odds with their people' s traditional past.
We defend the rights of women as human beings, fully safeguarding their lives where ever they may be, and we are committed to continuing the work to eradicate this horrendous practice regardless of what may happen in relation to this report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and a few gentlemen, I would particularly like to thank the rapporteur Ms Valenciano for her outstanding report, which sends out a very clear message: genital mutilation is a human rights violation!
Various reasons are given to justify this human rights violation in the name of traditional culture or religion.
In reality, this is an instrument which is intended to perpetuate women's oppression.
Women who do not want to practise genital mutilation are excluded from society; as outcasts, they face unimaginable poverty and disgrace.
This grave assault on women, which irreparably damages their bodies, minds and health, has gone largely unnoticed.
It was only the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 which initiated a global debate and solidarity process and called for the international community to take joint action.
We also encounter genitally mutilated women in Europe, as well as many different perpetrators and accomplices.
Although FGM is punishable in many countries, the media and self-help organisations report that there are an estimated 5000 cases in Germany alone, and around four times as many cases involving girls being sent back to their countries of origin to be mutilated.
There are unscrupulous doctors and other individuals who earn between DM 1000 and 3000 per case.
The Socialist Group demands that at-risk women be granted asylum, perpetrators be punished, and that we proceed in accordance with the principle of extraterritoriality.
Let me make this very clear: for my group, this is an important point, and we completely fail to understand why some sections of the PPE-DE - or indeed, the group as a whole - intend to abstain on this asylum issue, have no intention of voting for the report, and are thus abandoning women to their fate.
The fight against ignorance and oppression must be fought at international level, and the Socialist International has therefore launched a worldwide campaign against violence against women.
Fifteen states have already banned FGM, including nine African countries.
More support must be given.
My government in Germany has already allocated DM 3.8 million for education work and projects.
The EU is helping with DAPHNE.
Yet this is just a drop in the ocean.
We must work together to fight for reproductive health and combat AIDS and genital mutilation.
Then we will have a chance of reaching women and giving them the help they need.
Mr President, I would first of all like to express my appreciation to Mrs Valenciano, who, in her excellent report, has tackled this sensitive issue in a clear and compelling manner.
The Liberal Group will therefore support the report.
The genital mutilation of women and girls is a terrible violation of fundamental human rights.
More than 130 million women have already fallen victim to this, and another two million are added every year.
Europe should therefore pull out all the stops to combat this phenomenon, wherever it appears.
I too understand that some Members are considering voting against this report on account of the sections on asylum and extraterritoriality.
However, I would like to reassure everyone: if we consider the present asylum practice, we see that in most of the fifteen Member States, genital mutilation is already a basis for asylum.
I believe that to be appropriate.
From that point of view, the report merely accommodates existing practices.
It is true that at present, the principle of extraterritoriality only applies to child-sex tourism, but it should also cover mutilated women or women who are at risk.
For this is the only way to prevent EU citizens, for example from Somalian extraction, from taking their daughters to Somalia during the summer holidays to have them mutilated.
If these people realise that upon their return to Europe, they are at risk of being prosecuted, we then give the parents a weapon with which to protect their daughters against the pressure of society.
Finally, I would like to direct a comment to those who do not want to deal with genital mutilation due to it constituting an expression of a certain culture or religion.
In all countries where genital mutilation is practised, local groups are running campaigns to abolish it.
It is therefore not a case of us imposing our Western standards.
No, it is precisely these women whom we need to support by showing our solidarity tomorrow during the vote.
The Koran too leaves no room for mutilation.
Despite this, it is mainly in Islamic countries that it is practised.
We must therefore call on the Imams to help eradicate this phenomenon.
This is crucial, since we cannot afford negative stereotyping of Islamic beliefs in the current sensitive climate.
Genital mutilation is not a religious phenomenon, it is a violation of a fundamental human right.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my entire group, I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Valenciano on this sterling report and the recommendations it contains, to which I subscribe 200%.
By far the majority of women who have undergone genital mutilation - reference is made to 130 million - live in Africa.
In at least 28 African countries located between the Equator and the Tropic of Cancer, female circumcision is practised systematically.
Outside Africa, it is practised in southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, on the Arab peninsula in Yemen, in Oman and in the United Arab Emirates.
Even in a country like Egypt, few tourists who visit the sphinx realise that 90% of the women are circumcised.
However, some of these women have fled to Europe in order to save their daughters from this treatment, or to have operations in order to ease the pains.
But if these women were to return to their native country, they would be ostracized.
On the other hand, a summer holiday in the country of origin can turn into a nightmare for migrant girls, when family members deem it necessary to uphold their tradition.
I have devoted years of my life to helping women who had fallen victim to the trafficking in human beings.
From my own experience, I know that circumcised women are often considered unclean and are therefore sold as prostitutes. In this way, they become victims twice over.
African girls, who work in brothels day in day out, who, genitally mutilated, are sold and re-sold, rely on their clients to pay off their debts.
I therefore urge the Member States and the Commission once again to recognise genital mutilation, or the threat thereof, as a gender-specific reason for granting asylum.
We should not hide behind a possible review of the Convention of Vienna.
I would ask those in this House who are still not convinced to watch the videos that are being made of these 'festive occasions' , as they are sometimes referred to in those countries. It is of fundamental importance that the silence around this taboo subject is broken.
That is why socio-cultural programmes in situ, as well as awareness campaigns involving the relevant migrants in Europe must be encouraged.
We cannot continue to accept this flagrant violation of human rights and of the dignity of the women and girls involved, under the guise of national customs and traditions.
I would like to take the opportunity of saying that, in view of the excellent quality of the next report by Mrs Smet, our group will not be taking the floor: that report equals perfection.
By way of conclusion, I would like to congratulate Mrs Valenciano once again on the work she has done.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am very pleased that this report has been presented.
Every one of us who has read 'Desert Flower' by Waris Dirie will always be shocked and appalled by this practice.
I am thinking today of the 130 million women and girls who have been subjected to female genital mutilation, and each year some two million more are affected.
I am also thinking of the many young girls who die horrifically as a result.
Let me say from the outset that I am strongly in favour of the EU and its Member States adopting a joint position to abolish these practices which are harmful to women's sexual and reproductive health.
Within the framework of a joint immigration and asylum policy, the Commission and the Council will have to take account of these aspects of female genital mutilation.
The same applies to refugee policy.
In this context, let me point out - and this is clear, in my view - that asylum will then be granted primarily when political protection is required for reasons of state.
Genital mutilation is a grey area, and it is usually carried out by private individuals.
This makes it even more difficult to combat the practice.
A great deal of persuasion, public information and educational work is required from all of us and a change of attitude is needed in society as a whole.
For me, genital mutilation is a human rights violation which I cannot accept under any circumstances or from anyone.
A public debate on this issue is needed to raise awareness both in the EU and in the developing countries and spare future generations of women this dreadful mutilation.
Above all, we must ensure - and this has been mentioned by previous speakers - that this practice is also outlawed in the Member States, for I know that there is a major grey area here.
I ask everyone to work together with a genuine will to stop this practice.
Mr President, two weeks ago a Swedish TV documentary attracted a great deal of attention when it showed how religious leaders, Christian and Muslim, in Sweden recommend Sunna circumcision, how Swedish citizens have their daughters circumcised in Kenya and Somalia during the summer holidays, how circumcisers are flown into Sweden to conduct circumcisions and how a Swedish doctor failed to report to the social services the fact that he had saved a girl from bleeding to death after her parents had had her circumcised.
For those of us combating female genital mutilation, it is precisely the support of the holy men for this torture which is most disheartening.
Religious leaders have a particular responsibility.
Their influence is enormous and their voices crucial to putting an end to circumcision.
I welcome the excellent report from Mrs Valenciano Martínez-Orozco with its demands for a holistic strategy for eliminating female genital mutilation within the EU through initiatives such as extensive publicity campaigns and laws against female genital mutilation in all Member States.
Of particular importance is the requirement for the introduction of specific national laws which also apply to circumcisions beyond national borders and which make it possible to punish citizens when they return home after travelling abroad to have their daughters circumcised.
In 1999, Sweden became the first and only country in the EU to have this type of extra-territorial legislation, which hopefully will now make it possible to bring to book those Swedes who put their daughters through 'summer holiday circumcision' abroad.
Another key point in the report, which many have already mentioned, is the requirement that escape from this torture should be taken at least as seriously as escape from political persecution.
The US and Canada have, on several occasions, already stopped the deportation of girls and young women who have sought asylum for fear of being circumcised.
Europe should not lag behind in this respect.
It is high time that we took strong measures to save the two million girls around the world who, each year, are at risk of genital mutilation.
We place our hope and our confidence in the Commissioner' s returning with practical proposals on which our ministers can then adopt a position.
Mr President, female genital mutilation is a terrible act of extreme violation which causes serious physical and mental damage and a lifetime of suffering.
The mortality rate among those who are subjected to this practice is high.
There is a need for really vigorous efforts to combat this abomination, this terrible act, wherever it occurs.
This is also a European problem, and it is important to ensure that knowledge, research and documentation on female genital mutilation is improved in Europe.
We need cooperation in order to find common strategies to ensure that this operation, which is not prescribed by any religion, can be abolished.
Several Members have highlighted the need to cooperate with religious leaders.
Those women already circumcised need care and rehabilitation, and we must therefore put our faith in more knowledgeable midwives, social workers and teachers.
Mrs Theorin referred to what we in Sweden call summer holiday circumcision, which is when girls are taken abroad to be circumcised.
In my country this is forbidden, and so it is only natural for the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party to support the proposals to introduce this ban everywhere.
This would provide a clear signal that female genital mutilation is illegal at home and illegal abroad and that such mutilation constitutes a violation of human rights.
Mr President, the use of genital mutilation is an extreme form of female repression which, in some countries, is as old as time itself.
It was the women of those countries themselves, of Egypt and of Somalia, who told us about their extreme suffering.
They denounced it and had to overcome a world of prejudice in the process, but they did it for the benefit of their sisters, who were often younger, or their daughters.
They are asking us to show the same courage.
A number of women have sent the European Parliament a petition in the same vein.
We are supported by women across the world.
Respect for the human being must be judged the same for men and women alike: women' s rights are human rights.
Allowing this mutilation to take place under medically acceptable conditions does not make the mutilation itself acceptable.
Neither is the fact that this cruel custom is one of the oldest traditions in some communities - I am deliberately avoiding the term 'religions' , for they have little to do with it - reason for us to tolerate it.
The sexual mutilation of girls must be considered a punishable offence in every country and every society, as demanded in various international agreements.
A positive development is that, in any event, an increasing number of countries have prohibited genital mutilation in women.
But in many cases, they are merely paying lip service to this ban, and we should therefore amend the Cotonou Agreement so that we can implement it in the same way as for human rights violations.
For the rest, I share the view of fellow MEPs.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mrs Valenciano Martínez-Orozco on her excellent and comprehensive report.
It is a fact that, for millions of women throughout the world, genital mutilation is an unavoidable, terrifying ordeal which they have to go through if they are to survive.
The absence of any alternative and a complete lack of information are one of the most serious problems for women who suffer this degrading mutilation, which is one of the worse forms of suppression, terrorism and exploitation of women, a criminal practice which violates their personal freedom, their physical integrity, their freedom of conscience and their right to health by causing serious physical injury and mental side effects, not to mention the impact on their sexual identity and ability to bear children.
One hundred and thirty million mutilated women in the world is a terrifying number.
Unfortunately, this horrible practice has also been introduced into the European Union.
According to a statement by the British Medical Association, three thousand women are mutilated in the United Kingdom every year and naturally the fundamentalists, even within the European Union, have no hesitation in applying mediaeval practices in order to subjugate women and control their sexuality.
Every human being is entitled to protection under the law when fundamental freedoms and rights are at risk, as is the case with mutilation.
However, European Union law seriously lacks any teeth, which is why we are calling for legislation to be applied which will make this horrible practice a crime.
And, of course, the European Union can exert a great deal of influence through the trade agreements under the Cotonou agreement which it concludes with countries in which such practices are rife and by introducing extraterritorial legislation.
Finally, I should like to call on the PPE-DE, for us to unite in demonstrating our solidarity with the thousands of women who have undergone this horrible procedure and for you to change your decision by tomorrow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, female genital mutilation inflicts endless pain and suffering on women and girls in at least 25 African countries, most of them ACP countries.
Women are the victims of violent and life-threatening cultural traditions which must be ended, for a tradition which violates individual rights - in this case women's rights - in a truly horrific way must not be allowed to continue in the twenty-first century.
Thankfully, the ACP countries in Africa are increasingly recognising this fact.
It is gratifying that Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Uganda, Senegal, Tanzania, Togo, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic and the Côte d' Ivoire have legislated against female genital mutilation.
Efforts are also being made - with the support of aid organisations and numerous NGOs - to stop this dreadful practice through public information campaigns and awareness-raising.
In this context, a resolution adopted by the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly at its last meeting in Libreville (Gabon), Ms Bonino, should be emphasised in positive terms.
Supported by the representatives of the ACP countries, the resolution called unanimously on the authorities to take the necessary steps to end this practice, adopting all appropriate legislative, administrative and judicial measures and launching cultural awareness and information campaigns.
The meeting thus branded the practice as a human rights violation.
This is a great improvement on the earlier taboos surrounding this issue, and we must pay tribute to it.
However, the battle to protect the physical and mental integrity of women in the ACP countries and elsewhere is still not won. Our solidarity and support are still needed.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Valenciano Martínez-Orozco and start by stressing the political importance and impact of this report, which will of course be even greater if it is supported by a large majority.
This report will give momentum both to the Commission's work and, more importantly, to the women's organisations in Europe and Africa trying to combat this barbaric practice.
This is a problem which, as several Members of Parliament have said, does not only exist in Africa.
According to data from the DAPHNE programme, there are about 700,000 women from these countries in Europe today.
It is difficult to quote an actual figure but we suspect that it is much higher than we can possibly imagine.
This is a difficult, thorny problem.
Obviously cultural traditions which go back centuries in certain areas of our planet form part of it.
But a cultural tradition cannot be used as an alibi for trampling all over human rights.
Obviously, as stated at the World Conference in Beijing, genital mutilation is a violation of human rights and, at a secondary level, it is discrimination, because it only applies to women and girls.
What can the European Union do? First, proposals and legislation.
There is some disagreement as to whether the present Treaty provides a legal basis for European legislation.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights adopted in Nice cannot as yet form a legal basis.
However, legislation is not always the only solution and there is a great deal which can be done in this area.
The question of asylum.
Several speakers raised this argument and the report is clear here.
May I say that, a few days ago, the Commission submitted a proposal for a directive to the Council on the adoption of minimum requirements for recognising the status of third country nationals or stateless persons or refugees in accordance with the Geneva Convention. After a great deal of discussion and effort, the text includes a clear reference stating that applications for protection for women will be recognised, especially where there is a probability of sexual violence or some other gender-related conduct.
I think, therefore, that it is worth examining this Commission proposal, which could provide a basis for an agreement which would be very important to all the groups in the European Parliament.
However, over and above the legislative framework, current European Union programmes can be used as a basis for supporting action and campaigns to recognise the problem, mobilise society and increase public awareness and, of course, to inform and educate hospital staff.
Medical and health workers in at least five countries in the European Union often come into contact with such cases and they must be specially trained and specially qualified to help these people.
The potential for educating and supporting immigrants.
Clearly, women need financial resources if they are to be financially independent and organise their own rebellion, and support for female immigrants in Europe is therefore paramount.
We can support them and integrate them into the labour market and fund information and public awareness campaigns through existing programmes which we have already debated in Parliament and we are waiting for proposals from non-governmental organisations on these issues.
As far as our relations with the third world are concerned, we have already made a serious effort to ensure that development aid is predicated on respect for human rights by governments, especially in this area, and to take account of governments' efforts to apply policies to educate, train, raise awareness and support women and families.
We already intend, in collaboration with the development sector and the Commissioner responsible, to increase financial support to countries intent on wiping out this practice.
I think we can draw satisfactory conclusions from the implementation of this programme in Ethiopia as to what we can achieve if the European Union works with governments through development aid.
Finally, we appreciate that non-governmental organisations can act as a catalyst both in the European Union and in Africa, which is why they are the Commission's main contacts, our main partners in this endeavour.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Equal pay for work of equal value
The next item is the report (A5-0275/2001) drawn up by Mrs Smet on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities on equal pay for work of equal value.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, despite all the judicial instruments at European level and in the Member States banning wage discrimination, there are still considerable and persistent wage differences between men and women.
The figures that are available to us from - indeed very interesting - European studies, show that there is a wage gap of 25 to 28% and in some countries as high as 30%.
For example, the wage gap is greater in the private sector than in the public sector, the industrial and agricultural sectors have greater wage differentials than the service sector, and the gap seems to be widest in those sectors where women are underrepresented.
It is not always easy to interpret these statistics correctly.
But it is generally accepted that the different career patterns of men and women account for about half of the wage gap - for example, women interrupt their careers more easily than men, with slower career progress as a result - the lower qualifications especially of older working women, the fact that working women are on average younger than working men - in other words, the objective, structural differences.
The other half of the wage gap, however, cannot be explained objectively and seems to suggest that there are hidden mechanisms of discrimination at play which lead to the undervaluing of female-dominated jobs and professions.
The key mechanism is the job evaluation system, by means of which different jobs are ranked according to importance, and according to that job ranking, are allocated their salary scales.
In most cases, this job evaluation is done by the social partners, whether or not based on a system set up by an advisory office.
Discrimination in job evaluation is evident from the fact that too low a value is placed on characteristics associated with traditionally feminine jobs, including social skills, women' s greater capacity to concentrate and greater dexterity.
As they are awarded lower scores, valued less, these jobs are thus given too low a place in task hierarchies and payrolls, which means that the wage level for women is lower.
At the same time, the characteristics associated with traditionally masculine jobs, for example technical insight, physically demanding work or financial responsibility, are correspondingly over-valued.
In general, workers do not know how their job is classified.
It is even open to question how much insight the social partners have into how jobs are classified within businesses.
Moreover, women are generally not involved in job evaluation since they are not the negotiators with the social partners.
The question then arises as to what Europe can do about this. Commissioner, I believe that first of all, the gathering of statistical data on wages of men and women, and on wage differentials, must drastically improve.
At present, the gathering of statistical data both at European level and in most Member States leaves something to be desired.
This should therefore be addressed first.
I know that the Commission has appointed a group of experts to set this in motion, but I would also urge them to look for an explanation of the wage differentials.
Secondly, the European Union would do well to delve deeper into the issue of discrimination in job evaluation.
For this purpose, an initiative could be launched, for example to supplement the Directive of 1975 which deals with equal pay, with an annexe in which a number of rules and criteria are laid down which guarantee a gender-neutral evaluation system.
The Member States need a guide.
So do the social partners.
In my opinion, Europe could provide the perfect solution.
Moreover, the social partners must be committed to ensuring transparency concerning the value scales used in the wage formation process.
How can people find out if their wage is or is not the product of discrimination if there is no transparency whatsoever in the way in which their wage is determined? The social partners should commit in the same way to involving more women in wage negotiations, particularly to removing discrimination and at long last making wage discrimination No 1 on their agenda, for that never happens.
In addition, the guidelines for employment must be tightened up with quantitative objectives, target dates and goals in mind.
They are not included, not even in the new guidelines, even though they are much better than the previous ones.
This must be followed much more closely.
I have never heard the Commission complain about the fact that the national action plans devote too little attention to this issue.
In summary, there is a need for a global policy strategy.
All these elements would form part of this and of the campaign which the Commission intends to launch and which could, in fact, be a useful tool in highlighting a number of these matters.
Commissioner, I would therefore urge you to make this item for once a priority for the benefit of women.
Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, I would like to congratulate Mrs Smet on her report and thank the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities for adopting so many of the conclusions produced by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Three things are clear: one, women's wages are on average lower than men's across all occupations; two, women are predominantly employed in areas where the work has traditionally been regarded as of less value; three, women comprise a significantly higher proportion of part-time workers than men.
The problem is therefore, clearly a deeply rooted one and cannot be solved without concerted action by all parties.
This must include the introduction of job evaluation schemes based on objective, gender-neutral criteria, so that the current undervaluing of women's skills is brought to an end.
However, we need also, as Mrs Smet has said, a much wider range of initiatives designed to tackle the structural disadvantages suffered by women on the labour market.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is appreciative of the extent to which the Commission is already addressing the issue through its proposals for the employment guidelines in 2002.
The emphasis on gender mainstreaming and the strengthening of guideline 17 are particularly welcome.
We also look forward to the proposals the Commission may have for a revision and updating of the 1975 equal pay directive.
In the meantime, we call on both the Member States and the social partners to involve themselves actively in developing measures of the kind urgently needed to eliminate the gender pay gap.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Mrs Smet on this own-initiative report, which was so necessary and which she has produced in a very professional way, because she has a profound knowledge of the problem and has done a lot of work on it.
But despite the fact that it is a very good report which attempts to study each of the points relating to inequality of pay between men and women, today we are facing a deep-seated problem to which we see no solution.
It is more difficult for women to find work than it is for men, they have more difficulties in terms of training and professional promotion and they have lower salaries than men.
But this does not only affect women who have been in the labour market for some time, but it also affects young women who are very well prepared, in many cases better prepared than men, who do brilliant work and who receive lower salaries than their male colleagues.
There is no justification for it whatsoever, there is no legislation which allows it in any of the countries of the European Union but, despite all this, it is a reality which we are facing and which we have no idea how to solve.
Social partners, both company organisations and unions, probably have a large role to play in resolving this problem.
I am sure that, if there were more women in the leadership of these organisations, the issue would probably have been dealt with a long time ago.
It is very regrettable that, while we are combating many other types of discrimination which are sometimes difficult to demonstrate, we have still not been able to resolve this one which is so obvious, which is reflected in the figures which appear on everybody' s payslips every month.
I believe that the fact that women' s work is undervalued, that their work has always been considered subordinate to men' s work, that it has always been thought that they are not capable of holding top positions, are prejudices which are still present in society' s mentality, which hinder equality, professional access and greater promotion for women.
I would ask the Commissioner, Mrs Diamantopoulou, to seek some initiative which will contribute to resolving this problem.
If in a Member State of the European Union somebody suffering discrimination presents a case and wins it, if they work in the public sector, their greatest problem will be confronting the dirty looks of their colleagues, but if they work in the private sector, sooner or later it will lead to them leaving their job.
This means that many women do not even use the legal resources available to them.
Mr President, this is a very important issue because this is discrimination which faces all women, not only in the EU, but across the world.
We therefore welcome this report as its findings are indeed serious.
It shows, as the rapporteur said, that there is a 20-25% difference between male and female earnings on average in the European Union and that in some Member States the situation is much worse.
This report is a very practical one, putting forward measures which actually suggest very concrete things which can be done to address this very difficult issue.
So we support the measures set out in the report and call for this action to be taken sooner rather than later, because this is discrimination that women have faced for a very long time.
We have hundreds of years of discrimination to address and we need to get on with doing that.
I certainly support all calls for this to become a priority for the EU and for the Commission.
I would particularly like to draw attention to the fact that there are three Member States mentioned in the report in which the situation is significantly worse, worse enough for them to be singled out in the report.
Those Member States therefore have a special responsibility to take action and to ensure that they get themselves up to the EU average as quickly as possible.
There are two other things in the report I would like to highlight.
First of all awareness campaigns: these are something that Member States could actually do without too much difficulty.
They will not address the actual issues in the workplace, but it is something which governments can do relatively easily.
The other thing which the report mentions, which I would like to draw attention to, is that governments themselves can provide a model, and I therefore call on Member State governments to look at their own employment policies and identify how they might become better employers themselves.
Mr President, I too should like to thank Mrs Smet for a quite outstanding report.
However, I cannot omit to say that I find it disgraceful that, in the year 2001, we are still discussing these problems, and we know into the bargain that enlargement is not going to make matters any better, to put it mildly.
The conclusion is that not only do women have lower paid jobs but, as a result, they do not get the plum management positions either, their having access to which is one of the prerequisites for our being able to change the situation.
If, however, I wanted to take the floor here this evening, it is because I want to draw your attention to a study which has just been published in Denmark and which shows that 'unequal pay' has its origins in childhood.
The study shows that girls receive far less pocket money than boys.
They are given far fewer consumer goods than boys and they earn less than boys, which means that boys begin saving up while they are still children. Inequality has thus already been established.
This applies to all age groups, except for the 16 to 18 group.
In all other age groups, girls are given less pocket money than boys.
It is parents themselves, indeed women themselves, who give their girls less pocket money than their boys.
It might also be added that boys have much better jobs and so earn more, too.
The situation is the same regarding consumer goods.
It turns out, of course, that boys have more TV sets, more PCs in their rooms etc.
Perhaps we should begin with ourselves.
Parents must give some thought to how they treat their children and prevent their being treated unequally from the cradle onwards.
I recommend obtaining this Danish report.
I thought it was very interesting.
I thank Mrs Smet for having taken the initiative to draft this report.
I would like to point to three difficulties but first of all I want to make one thing clear: when we refer to a 25% wage gap, this covers all occupations taken together.
In general the figure is 15% in the case of equal work.
The reason I want to remind you of these two figures and these two concepts is because it is most important to highlight the difficulties we find ourselves in today, as my colleagues have done.
The situation is extremely difficult and the solutions are not very visible or effective.
Let me draw attention to three points.
Firstly, in France, for example, women only occupy 10% of all jobs.
Of every 300 jobs, only 30 are filled by women.
Women therefore have access to 10% of all the jobs on offer.
So there certainly is a need for a change of approach.
Secondly, in this report we refer to atypical work. It is also known as part-time work.
Some countries think it is good for women.
Personally, I do not think so at all.
That is not the way to achieve equal pay and economic equality.
For there cannot be equal pay without economic equality.
Thirdly, we need equal representation in the social partners' decision-making bodies.
I would certainly be the first to fight for parity between men and women in the social partners' decision-making.
But there are many jobs where no social partners exist, that is, all service jobs. So what can we do there?
We have laid down a law on night work in France, which says that the social partners must address the matter.
But there are no social partners in the case of these jobs, which poses serious problems.
I would just like to ask the Commissioner for one thing in face of all these immense difficulties: that we lay emphasis on the question of equal pay at the second reading of the 1976 directive we are currently revising together with you and with the Council.
This issue does not seem to be welcome in the discussions with the Council.
I think it is quite essential if there is to be any point to this revision of the 1976 directive.
If we are once again to talk about equal pay, even if it is a principle that has already been introduced by the Treaty of Rome, it must be time for us to ask ourselves whether other strategies might not be necessary to abolish the wage gap between men and women when the EU' s overall efforts have proved a failure.
I believe that, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, we must in future transfer more of the responsibility to the individual Member States.
It is in individual workplaces that experience is gained.
To be quite specific, it must be up to the individual countries, via the two sides of industry, to incorporate the principle of equal pay into national collective agreements.
We must take account of the fact that there are differences between collective agreements and wage agreement systems in the Member States.
Instead of direct EU legislation in this area, the EU must provide guidelines and recommendations, and the principle must be incorporated, more than it has been so far, into national action plans for employment and non-discrimination.
In the years to come, the labour market will have a need for a larger workforce, and it is therefore important for us to expend more energy on creating better conditions for women.
All in all, I am able to support all the initiatives put forward in the Smet report.
Mr President, efforts to equalise pay for male and female workers for work of equal value have been made at European level since 1951.
In 1957, this was enshrined in the Treaty of Rome as a guiding principle and in 1975 in a directive.
Despite the legal ban on wage discrimination, there is, as has been said on several occasions today, still a wage gap in the EU at the moment.
That is unacceptable.
I appreciate that in some cases, it is difficult to establish an objective wage formation process or job evaluation procedure, but that does not take away from the need for more transparency and gender-neutrality.
The report rightly mentions value discrimination.
That is where the government could step in, but so could the social partners.
As stated before, they too play a significant role.
It is also important to involve women more in wage negotiations and in the decision-making process in general, and to recruit more women in decision-making bodies.
It is embarrassing that the statistics available at European level on male and female wage differentials are out of date and incomplete.
I therefore welcome the initiative to collect new data and I support the idea of carrying out further studies into the factors which affect salary scales, as well as the causes of unequal pay for work of equal value.
A wage difference of 15% remaining after taking into consideration aspects such as age, training and career level is, as already mentioned, not acceptable.
The topic we are discussing at the moment cannot be seen in isolation from other aspects related to women and the participation of women in work.
It is closely related to aspects such as access to work, chances of promotion, a combination of work and care, etc.
Equal pay for work of equal value can help break the vicious circle of lifelong inequality: lower pay leads to a smaller pension or to more work in order to obtain the same pension; more work often entails a greater need for child care, less time to develop other talents or abilities or to relax outside work, etc.
I am pleased that the Belgian Presidency prioritises this issue and hope that the Member States will take this appeal seriously this time.
I am also expecting the campaign on this topic in the year 2002 to provide a boost for it.
The report we are discussing is an initiative report.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Smet, on her work. It is mainly thanks to her commitment that this initiative report is now before us.
It outlines once more a number of aspects very clearly and offers specific directions for solutions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has played a decisive role in condemning and in attempting to resolve the problem of pay inequalities between men and women that exist in our fifteen countries.
Both the Treaties and now national laws uphold the principle of equal pay for men and women.
No country, however, complies with its own laws in this field.
The differences vary from country to country, but the outcome is the same.
When employment in a given sector is dominated by women, the outcome is lower pay.
It is the jobs mainly held by women that society accepts should be the least well paid.
Even in Scandinavian countries, where women have achieved equality, even in political life, it is proving difficult for them to enter decision-making positions in privately owned companies, where salaries are higher.
We therefore have a situation that is out of kilter, in that the laws impose equality but society continues to accept a model that fails to value work undertaken by women.
In order to ensure that real democracy is practised and that a new social model that accepts equality is created, we need to give men greater rights in the field of their private lives.
The laws that have been adopted and the proposals in this area are quite telling.
In Portugal, for example, the government recently presented Parliament with a proposal for a law making parental leave mandatory for a period of at least five days.
No European country currently has such a law. This type of leave is granted at the employer' s discretion and the aim of this law is to attempt to change people' s way of thinking.
The fact that society continues to accept men' s abdication of duties in their home lives constitutes a genuine form of unfair competition to which women are subjected in their professional lives.
If we want to change the situation of disadvantage that women continue to experience in the workplace, we need to change people's attitudes and the practices of the social partners.
And here, the European Union must continue to play a key role.
At the Lisbon Summit, Europe acknowledged that only by increasing the rate of employment for women will it be able to achieve, within ten years, the economic and social development that it wants to see.
Europe must now acknowledge that it needs not only more working women but also the jobs that women do.
To this end, the Commission proposed and the Council accepted equal pay as one of the priorities for 2001 in its programme for equality.
The European Trade Union Confederation has also decided to make this issue its priority for this year.
In drafting this own-initiative report, the European Parliament...
(The President cut the speaker off)
...
I only wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Smet and say that I agree with her proposals.
Mr President, the report's estimated 28% pay differential between men and women is particularly revolting because in many cases even men are not paid nearly enough to make a decent living in the twenty-first century.
But it is not enough simply to make this statement; if Parliament really wanted to put an end to this injustice it would take binding measures and force all employers without exception to respect the principle of equal treatment for men and women on pain of heavy penalties.
There are areas in which Parliament is able to adopt binding measures.
But judging by the woolly proposals in the report, there is no question of adopting coercive measures towards employers.
Under these circumstances, even if the European Parliament votes in favour this will be a complete waste of time.
It will be up to working women to impose equality themselves, joining forces with the workers to demand a living wage for all.
Mr President, Mrs Smet's report is the outcome of serious study as well as political experience and personal commitment, which is why it was enthusiastically adopted by a large majority in committee.
It deals with a general practice, which is common to all the social and economic systems of Europe, a harsh reality which will cancel out all legislative progress, be it at national or European level.
Women have difficulty not just in accessing work but in advancing their careers and levels of pay.
The last report on employment tell us that most of the Member States have given up trying to right this wrong and that this issue is missing from the social dialogue agenda in most countries.
We urge the Commission to call on the Member States to conduct a serious assessment, as the rapporteur suggests.
And to avoid repeating what has been said by my fellow Members, with whom I fully concur, I should like to suggest to you, Commissioner, that we take a global approach to this issue both in your policy and in that of the Member States.
The political practices which apply in numerous countries in the European Union in the area of women's employment, social protection and pensions marginalise them professionally, marginalise their ambitions, efforts, competitiveness and claims and hence their pay.
Our role, your role is a difficult one; we must convince public opinion and women themselves that all these issues are interlinked. We must convince them that their so-called vested rights run counter to their interests and to the quality and viability of and pay for their work.
Commissioner, please help the governments bear the political price which this endeavour and change usually imply.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Smet on this own-initiative report and on the thorough, comprehensive document before us.
The wage gap between men and women is a well-known phenomenon which is present in all the States of the Union, although in different proportions, and the issue has been on our agendas for a long time now. Previous speakers have mentioned the World Labour Organisation Convention of 1951, the provisions of the Treaty of Rome, the 1995 directive and the Treaty of Amsterdam.
A great deal has been done, including in terms of the measures to be taken.
The Commission has been presenting recommendations for over 10 years now, sometimes at Parliament' s request; I also remember the code of conduct prepared by the Commission which sought to raise awareness in the Member States and the two sides of industry in order to take practical action in this field.
Although the information is still not complete, analysis of the phenomenon allows us to understand the reasons for the existence of the differentials.
There are structural reasons, which have been recorded, such as age, training, seniority, and precarious and part-time work, in which mainly women are employed.
However, there is also genuine discrimination, direct discrimination - in some cases there is unequal pay for equal work - but, above all, value discrimination: women' s work is still considered to be of less value than men' s, even when they have the same qualifications and responsibilities.
Here is an example from my country: it was only in the mid-1980' s, after 15 years of campaigning, that a pay rise was at last obtained in the textile workers' pay agreement for the category of workers 'packing supervisor' , which exists in the textiles sector. This only happened, that is, when women lost their jobs during restructuring in this profession, which had been a typically female profession, and men began to be employed as well.
I feel that this is a tangible example of an issue which was only resolved in Italy in the mid-80s and which still remains unresolved today in a great many other situations.
The rapporteur has made numerous proposals and, in my opinion, we should follow her recommendations.
The Commissioner and the Commission are very open to such proposals and the employment guidelines for 2002 make this a priority too.
Mr President, I too want to begin by thanking Mrs Smet for the excellent job she has done and, in particular, for the high quality of her explanatory statement.
Looking at this report, we all have to acknowledge a sad fact today.
In spite of the many initiatives taken over the years and in spite of the positive action taken by the Commission, the pay gap between the women and men of the European Union remains.
Not only do women on average earn 28% less than men for a job of equal value, often their jobs are also more precarious and unpleasant, an issue that is not raised often enough.
More women than men are unemployed and more of them are long-term unemployed; finally, most of the time it is they who look after the children and sometimes other dependents too.
Of course we have to take action, and in several directions.
That is why I agree with the spirit and the proposals in this report: we need to set up a group of experts to improve the collection of statistical data; it is a good idea to launch a major Europe-wide campaign in 2002; and it would no doubt be useful to take that opportunity to publish a comparative report on the various Member States.
Similarly, as the rapporteur proposes, we must review the 1975 directive and do something about training, to ensure that women really have the right to lifelong training, encourage the social partners to increase the participation of women in collective bargaining and, finally, take measures to help reconcile working and family life.
To ensure, however, that this goes beyond statements of intent, all the political leaders of the Union really must get down to work and clearly state their resolve to do so.
Indeed, at a time when we are entering a new world and facing terrible challenges, those who govern us must realise that this situation is not just discriminatory and unjust, it is not just counterproductive; it is a daily contradiction of the values we believe in and the model of society that Europe must uphold.
Mr President, I too should like to make a point of congratulating Mrs Smet, whose report demonstrates her personal knowledge of and experience in this matter.
The pay differential is the clearest and plainest expression of inequality between the sexes.
We have heard data and analyses of the causes of the present inequality and I do not intend to repeat them.
I intend to talk about what is being done today in terms of policy and planning.
As you know, the fourth line of action in the strategy on employment, which relates to equal opportunities, has dealt with the issue of unequal pay since the strategy on employment was first implemented back in 1999.
Over the years, from 1999 onwards, the Commission has evaluated the policies of each Member State on the question of equal pay.
What we have found over the last three years is that several, not all of the Member States, have noticed the differential, have noticed the problem and have proposed policies and measures to combat it.
The Commission refers specifically to this issue every year in its joint report on the basis of the data at its disposal and makes suggestions to the Member States as regards their policies.
The question which arises here is what tools does the Commission have at hand to make this assessment.
And this, of course, is where we come up against the problem of indicators and statistics to which Mrs Smet referred.
We need new subjects and new statistical analyses of them so that we can formulate the problem in absolute terms.
The Commission is already working on this and I should like to give you one example.
We need a statistical analysis of the ratio between men and women as regards the hourly wage for paid employees working longer than 15 hours.
We need to analyse gross and net salaries in the public and private sectors and that means a breakdown by age, education, profession, economic activity, type of work and employment status.
Very few countries have statistics in the form which I have referred to.
And apart from the problem of the subject of the statistical analysis, we also have the problem of how to carry out statistical research.
In some Member States, there is a huge gap between the date on which data is collected and the date on which the final results are published.
And this does not just apply to the Member States, it also applies to some of the statistics published by the European Union itself.
So improving statistics, which are a very important tool for improving policies, is our number one priority.
You will see that this year's suggestions to several Member States refer specifically to the need to improve statistics systems.
The second basic point concerns the guidelines for 2002.
I appreciate that this is a very clear strategy which calls on the Member States to set specific targets to reduce the wage differential between men and women.
And, of course, our objective is to work with all the Member States and to exchange best practices so that some countries can imitate changes which are already under way.
The third point I wish to raise is that in the fifth programme, which is starting up now - the evaluation of the proposals submitted is being completed - the first priority when selecting proposals is the question of equal pay.
We have divided the priorities which need to be set by the programme into five individual areas so that we can study the question of equal pay and move on to the question highlighted by several lady Members, that is, the need for an integrated strategy.
A few days ago, on 13 September, the Belgian Presidency and the Commission held a major conference on the question of equal pay.
Mr President, honourable Members, may I say that our final decision on revising the existing directive will take account of the results of all these actions and the policy evaluation which I mentioned.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Harassment in the work place
The next item is the report (A5-0283/2001) drawn up by Mr Andersson on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on harassment at the workplace.
Mr President, the subject of this own-initiative report is certainly not a new problem, but a problem only recently highlighted.
According to the Dublin Foundation, harassment in the workplace is on quite an extensive scale.
Eight percent of EU citizens, or around twelve million people, have felt harassed in the workplace during the past twelve months.
What is this due to, and are there any connections to be made? Yes.
We know, for example, that insecurity of employment plays a role.
We also know that those who are harassed suffer more stress than others. We know that those with high-pressure jobs also suffer more.
The issue is one of security in working life and the organisation of work.
What are the consequences of harassment? Harassment naturally has consequences for the individual, who feels less well, is absent from work more often and is ill more often.
The whole team, including those who are not themselves being bullied, functions less well.
Bullying also has consequences for companies in the form of lower productivity, reduced profitability and poorer working conditions within the company
I have been asked why the EU should concern itself with these issues and what all this has to do with the Community. Well, harassment in the workplace is a problem common to all Member States, but it receives very different attention in different places.
In recent years, we have increasingly started to talk about more job opportunities and better workplaces, that is, about the quality of working life.
Quality in working life is about health and safety and the organisation of work, and so harassment in the workplace is a problem.
The EU has had legislation for a long time regarding health and safety at work.
What do we need to do? Firstly, we have to review the definition of harassment and, at the same time, try to obtain a common definition.
We have to obtain significantly better statistical data, and the Dublin Foundation and Eurostat have a future role to play in this connection.
We also have to work on the open coordination method.
Member States need to develop their legislation, regulations, etc. so that best practice prevails, and that means looking at each others' solutions.
The Lisbon Process also includes qualitative indicators.
Where does legislation come in?
Should we state in advance that legislation is not needed in this area, bordering as it does upon another area in which the EU already has legislation, namely that of health and safety? We currently have a major ongoing debate on health and safety in which it is assumed that it is not only the physical, but also the psycho-social, working environment which has an impact and which will be of ever greater significance for the new working life of the future.
Women in particular are affected by atypical jobs, insecure employment, etc.
The issue of legislation is highlighted in two points in the report, although it is not stated that we definitely should have legislation or how such legislation should be formulated.
In issuing its communications about a Community strategy concerning health and safety at work and the strengthening of the quality dimension in employment and social policy, as well as in publishing its Green Paper on Corporate Social Responsibility, the Commission is urged to take account of the problem of harassment in the workplace and to consider the need for legislation.
Of course, it is possible that the Commission will say that we do not need, and will not have, such legislation.
In that case, we shall have to conduct an analysis, but I find it pretty incomprehensible why the possibility of legislation should be ruled out in advance.
It is likely that the framework directive on health and safety at work also covers aspects of the psycho-social working environment, but we would like clarification on this point.
If we receive such clarification, there is no problem but, otherwise, the scope of the framework directive will have to be expanded to include the essential 'new' area.
In this context, it must also be considered whether there is a need for some kind of regulations or legislation regarding harassment in the workplace.
Let me take an example from my own country. We have framework legislation which states that the employer is responsible for dealing with harassment in the workplace when this occurs.
It does not state in detail how, in fact, it should be dealt with, but it is clear that the employer has a responsibility.
Paragraph 24 of the report urges the Commission to publish a Green Paper on the situation regarding harassment in the workplace and then to present an action programme.
This is probably the most important point in the whole report.
Mr President, first of all, allow me to congratulate the instigator of this report, Mr Andersson: he has tackled a new issue that is regulated in some measure in only a few Member States.
I welcome the fact that, as frequently happens, Europe leads the way in a number of cases.
Well done.
Why did the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities give its opinion specifically on this subject matter? It is, of course, a problem which affects men and women alike, but our committee considered that women often, far more often in fact, fall victim to this and other kinds of harassment, which very often lead to sexual harassment.
Our committee therefore had its role to fulfil and has issued its advice.
I think that we should all be aware of the fact that this is a new problem.
We can learn from the measures which many Member States have taken in terms of sexual violence, for coming up with a policy to tackle moral intimidation in the work place is not so easy or self-evident.
But there are a number of Member States that are attempting to do just that, and many Member States have experience of combating sexual violence.
What can we do? First of all, a preventive approach can be adopted, which means that companies must make it clear to their staff that they do not tolerate harassment at work.
That would introduce a preventive stance.
Secondly, an intermediary could be appointed who could mediate between two parties if a problem arises.
To reach a solution in a company via mediation is always preferable to one of the parties having to take matters to court.
I prefer this type of solution.
Thirdly, if a solution is difficult to find, the management could impose penalties.
Fourthly, the option of going to court must at any rate remain open.
The above appear to me to be practical solutions which we could put in place.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have been intending to discuss the problem of workplace harassment here in the European Parliament for some time.
The debate has been a long time coming, for the question which has always arisen is this: is this House the right forum for this debate?
Some members of my group reject the report because they believe that this is not a European issue.
The majority will follow my recommendation and vote for the report, because it is indeed a Europe-wide issue and problem.
Bullying exists in every country of the European Union, in all sectors, and even in the EU institutions themselves.
It is a difficult issue.
It is very embarrassing for many people, and a large number of cases go unreported because no one really wants to talk about it.
Victims feel ashamed, exploited and stressed.
Their distress often has a high cost, not only in terms of their own mental and physical health, but also economically: sick leave, medical and treatment expenses, a high staff turnover, lower productivity, a loss of quality and image for the company or institution, and therefore also a decline in the number of customers.
Bullying causes all these problems.
The dignity of every individual should not be upheld solely on paper and in the Basic Law, but also in our social relations.
A little more respect and fairness and a little less egotism would probably make our debate about harassment unnecessary.
European legislation is unsuitable as a means to address the causes of bullying and is likely to be ineffective.
I would therefore like to thank the rapporteur for his cooperation and for including my ideas in his report.
Measures to tackle bullying should focus primarily on the Member State and actively include the social partners.
It is in companies' own interests to ensure that these incidents do not occur within their organisations.
Due to the difficulties in arriving at a precise definition, the Commission will not find it easy to draft its proposed Green Paper.
However, there are a few models of good practice in tackling bullying here in the European Union, and I believe that everyone should learn from each other.
Tasks must be assigned effectively to the most appropriate levels; this will also increase the desire to take action and ensure that this difficult issue is taken seriously.
I want first of all on behalf of my group to thank the rapporteur for this report.
It is an important report because harassment is a far too prevalent problem in the workplace.
My group will be supporting the report as it stands in its entirety and will not be expecting or requesting any deletions of parts of paragraphs or phrases.
It is a sad fact that the Dublin Foundation has found that over 15 million people have reported violence, sexual harassment or bullying in the workplace.
It should not be allowed to continue because this kind of bullying and harassment can be fatal and has in many instances resulted in people either taking their own lives or, through misadventure in the workplace, in others taking their lives.
It seems to me therefore that it is something which the Commission and the Parliament should address.
Legislation is in place in Ireland, as part of the health and safety legislation, to ensure that large companies put in place codes of practice to deal with bullying.
However, it is not clear yet to what extent companies have implemented this legislation.
I came across a case recently where a young man starting in a job in a state company was bullied consistently by older men in the job, not by women, but by men, who simply did not want him in that job because they felt threatened by his presence.
They did not succeed in forcing him out of that job but it was extraordinary that this should occur in this day and age.
It is true that the trends emerging over the last ten years, as shown by the Dublin Foundation, have been on the rise.
It is clear also that this is largely due to insecurity in the workplace and changes in the nature of work.
Typical work is causing stresses and strains which are being reflected in this kind of activity, so I support the call by the rapporteur for a communication from the Commission by next year and a programme of action by the Commission by the end of next year.
Could I say before I sit down on an entirely different matter, but one related to the work of the Commission, that I would appeal to the Commissioner to ask our colleagues in the Commission to take steps to relax the rules and regulations governing state aid for the aviation industry, otherwise we are going to have to deal with tens of thousands of workers right across Europe who could well be unemployed in the not too distant future.
This is what I call harassment in the workplace.
I cannot speak without people smoking behind me and that gives me an asthma attack and that is harassment.
I congratulate Mr Andersson on his report.
It is important for action at both national and European level because, as we have heard, 12 million people are harassed or bullied in the workplace every year.
There are many forms of harassment and as I said, smoking in the workplace in no-smoking areas is a form of harassment.
It can also have devastating effects, both physically and pyschologically.
The level of stress caused by bullying and harassment in a workplace is tremendous.
Disabled people, women and in particular, ethnic minorities, suffer a great deal.
They can be doubly discriminated against and are harassed simply because they come from those disadvantaged, discriminated groups.
I am also glad that Mr Andersson referred to those on short-term contracts because again we have evidence that those too, are bullied.
But can I turn quickly to the reason for the split votes that the ELDR has asked for on paragraphs 8 and 13.
I believe that it is a role of the European Union to have common guidelines, best practice and benchmarking across the Member States, but I do not believe that we need more binding legislation: that is a role for the Member States and a question of subsidiarity.
So although I agree with much of Mr Andersson's report, I disagree with the fact that we should have binding legislation and that is why we have called for the split vote.
Mr President, my group would also like to congratulate Mr Andersson for his work on this excellent own-initiative report: it has been a very good evening for those.
As has already been said, we should not underestimate the effect that harassment in all its forms has on people's lives and health and the long-term mental and psychological problems we have heard about.
If we are looking at figures, then if we were to take this Parliament as an example, we would be looking at a group roughly the size of the Liberal Democrat group as the percentage of those suffering harassment.
Up to now, very little has really been done to address the problem of harassment generally, so this report is especially welcome as it allows an open debate on an issue that has all too often been ignored.
A French survey also reveals that 70% of harassment of victims are women and this applies at all points of the employment process, so not only do you get paid less, you get harassed as well, and chauvinist and sexist connotations, which are more often targeted at women than at men, can frequently turn into something more serious.
Therefore the Commission should give particular attention to ways of tackling this unacceptable situation for women in Europe.
Mr Andersson is right, employers must have the responsibility for preventing harassment in the workplace, not colluding with it, or practising it.
However the framework directive on health and safety at work does not clarify whether employers are responsible for the mental, psycho-social or social working environment, so I believe steps should be taken to revise the directive to include this definition.
Mr President, I would also like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for his work, although we do not have a definition of harassment, perhaps because harassment takes many forms and is difficult to define.
I would like to express my solidarity with, and sympathy for, Mrs Lynne, who has just told us of a new form of harassment.
By way of analysis, an acceptable definition seems to me to be that of the Irish working group for the prevention of harassment, which defines it as direct or indirect, inappropriate and repeated behaviour of a verbal, physical or other nature, directed by one or more persons against a third party or parties in the workplace and/or in the execution of their work, which may justifiably be considered to violate an individual' s right to dignity at work.
And, of course, an isolated incident of behaviour such as that described in the definition may constitute an affront to dignity at work, but an individual and isolated incident would not be considered harassment.
We can accept this definition or any other.
The fact is that up to 12 million people in the European Union claim to have been morally harassed over the last twelve months, women appear to be victims of harassment to a greater extent than men and certain sectors of activity seem to be particularly affected.
Harassment has repercussions for the economy of the company, leads to absenteeism, inefficiency and low productivity.
For society, harassment may lead to medical and psychological costs, sick leave, early retirement, etc.
Above all it affects the worker and presents risks which add to problems of physical violence and ergonomic issues.
Furthermore, there remains much to do in order to eliminate risks to health, both of a physical and chemical origin.
Above all, moral harassment, pestering - which is one possible name for it - seems to me incompatible with Article 1 of the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights: 'Human dignity is inviolable.
It must be respected and protected' .
Harassment therefore constitutes a risk to health but above all an attack on the person' s dignity.
I therefore welcome this initiative aimed at preventing harassment in the workplace and at preventing workers suffering the pain of helplessness.
Mr President, the question of harassment in the workplace relates directly to respect for fundamental personal rights, the right to dignity and the right to participate in economic and social life on equal terms.
In his initiative, Mr Andersson has revealed new aspects to us which need to be borne in mind when it comes to the material application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and to a more integrated approach to policy on employment standards.
Most importantly, we should welcome this initiative because it gives us an opportunity, with an issue which is played down and which is usually included in our interests as an afterthought, to see how important it is if we are to issue a successful series of policies, such as a policy against discrimination and exclusion, a policy for the disabled, a policy for unemployment and employment standards.
Only once all employees feel safe in the workplace from harassment from colleagues and superiors, once all employees, rather than being ridiculed for their disadvantages, feel comfortable in the work environment, then the groups - and there are a lot of them - which fall victim to harassment will choose to enter the labour market and the fruits of their labour will far exceed any weaknesses they may have.
If we bear in mind that, according to the statistics, the number of people which make up these vulnerable groups is over 8%, the political dimension is easy to see.
At the same time, there are numerous groups which fall victim to harassment, from women and the disabled to foreigners and people of a different faith.
This gives us an idea of the size of the problem.
We must use this report as a springboard to draw up a plan to combat all levels of harassment, which starts as simple sarcasm and disdain, coupled with intimidation, humiliation and undermining, and ends up in more violent acts, a plan which will be applied irrespective of whether it is top-down harassment of an employee by a superior, bottom-up harassment or horizontal harassment.
In addition to measures to ban harassment, the action plan must require employers to foster a climate of non-harassment between colleagues, accompanied by mutual encouragement between colleagues in the workplace.
And because no one is deliberately bad, it must be flanked by measures to abolish distrust and superstition towards the people which make up these groups.
Mr President, the report we are discussing today concerns 12 to 15 million people in Europe, that is, between 8% and 10% of European workers. There are three aspects to this modern evil.
There is an economic aspect, since according to the report of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions the deterioration in working conditions over the past 10 years is due to the faster working rate and to flexibility in all its forms.
There is a sociological aspect, symptomatic of the individualism that is increasingly threatening to take over our society.
There is a psychological aspect, which makes harassment particularly odious and can sometimes cause individuals to suffer a breakdown without leaving the slightest trace.
At present there is a serious legal vacuum at national level and a wide disparity at European level, which, however, is being counteracted by an increasingly solid body of case law.
That is why this report, which is well documented and rigorous, provides a highly encouraging response and sends out a strong signal to the working environment.
In paragraph 12, among the envisaged measures, it emphasises the need for more serious dialogue on this subject between all the social partners and the appointment of an independent external mediator, as also advocated in the amendment I tabled, which I regard as an important guarantee of real progress in this field.
But it is up to all the European institutions to continue to fight an evil that is now firmly entrenched, as they have been urged to do since the European Social Charter.
I therefore welcome the rapporteur's proposal to call on the Commission to publish a Green Paper and to present a Community action programme by next year.
On behalf of my group I also support the inclusion of these matters in the Green Paper discussions on corporate social responsibility.
We must all support this fight, at our own level, persuaded as we are that society as a whole will enjoy the benefits of balance within society and within individuals.
Mr President, around 12 million people in the EU are reported to have been subjected to bullying at work.
The real figure is far higher.
The victims suffer exclusion and harassment, rumours are spread about them, they are deliberately denied information and scapegoated.
Managers or staff - anyone can become a victim or a bully.
The impact of harassment is still completely underestimated, so very few effective instruments are available. Yet it is a serious workplace problem.
It causes aggression and stress, sickness, resignations, staff turnover - all of which cost the economy and the social systems several 100 million euro per year.
Together, the fifteen EU Member States must take stock of the situation.
Best practice approaches will help us all benefit from an exchange of experience and devise effective measures to combat the problem.
However, solutions must be tailored to the type of bullying involved, which can be gender-specific, age-specific or racist. Jan Andersson has submitted an outstanding report.
It was quite rightly adopted unanimously by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Almost all the proposed amendments from the PPE-DE have been integrated, such as consultation with Europe's social partners on developing joint anti-harassment strategies.
In practice, this will involve constructive conflict management, better internal communications, and the creation of support networks for victims.
We also propose appointing a confidential mediator at the workplace to whom employees can turn if they so wish.
Ms Diamantopoulou, we firmly expect the Commission to submit a Green Paper next year on the issue of bullying at work so that we can develop an action programme which will have a sustained impact.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Andersson on his excellent report. I quite agree that harassment is an extremely important issue, it is dangerous in the workplace and it has significant social and economic repercussions not just on the employee and the company but also on the economy as a whole in that it is one of the main reasons for falling productivity.
I should like to assure the House that the Commission is fully aware of the problem, which is why this issue is one of the important aspects of the Commission communication on standards released in June and one of the issues for which we are also examining the question of indicators.
Similarly, as regards current tools, I must remind you that the social partners need to provide protection and can play an important role here and remind you of Directive 89/391/ÅC which states that, when preventing danger in the workplace, account must also be taken of psychosomatic pressure which, of course, is not always easy to define.
I should like to inform you that an advisory committee of representatives of the Member States is already up and running and is examining the question of health and safety. It has set up a sub-committee especially to study the question of violence in the workplace.
This committee completed its work yesterday and we now have a general definition of violence in the workplace.
The proposal for an initiative and a Green Paper on this subject is not feasible now and I can tell you why immediately. As you know, the Commission has taken the initiative to overhaul its strategy on health and safety in the workplace.
And this report will play an important part; it will help bring about change and propose a new strategy on health and safety and for this reason I should like to make a point of thanking the rapporteur.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Air pollution
The next item is a joint debate on the following reports.
A5-0293/2001 drawn up by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on behalf of Parliament's Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on the limitation of emissions of certain pollutants into the air from large combustion plants, and
A5-0293/2001 drawn up by Mrs Riitta Myller on behalf of Parliament's Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on national emission ceilings for certain atmospheric pollutants.
Mr President, it is nearly three years since the Commission tabled a proposal for a directive amending the rules on the emission of pollutants from large combustion plants.
After those three years, we have this week finally reached completion of this - what I believe to be - very important dossier.
Nobody will blame me for saying that we have travelled an arduous road, a road that has also been peppered with painful experiences.
We have met with a great deal of opposition, not only on the part of a number of Member States, but also among some fellow MEPs.
There have been strong warnings and protests from interested parties, also from the electricity industry in some Member States.
Despite this, we managed to amend without any problem the original regulation in the form it was submitted and which, in my opinion - and that shared by a few fellow MEPs - was far too weak.
After all, the technical possibilities are not lacking, and in a large number of the EU Member States, those rules which we incorporated at first reading have long since been prescribed and form part of regular policy.
The original Commission proposal to amend the directive from 1998 was, according to the majority of this House, not a huge success.
Regulation was too weak and moreover, existing plants were excluded from the directive' s scope.
We as the European Parliament have collectively given real significance to the environmental policy, and I should once again like to extend a warm thanks to all the fellow MEPs who contributed to this.
We have demonstrated what it means if we really want to do something about this filthy air pollution, which is so harmful to people.
We as Parliament made great improvements to emission standards at first reading, and we also brought existing combustion plants within the scope of the directive.
Then came the Council' s collective standpoint. This was arrived at with the greatest difficulty, it has to be said.
Legislation was tightened up to some extent, but the European Parliament' s wish for existing combustion plants to be brought within the scope of the directive was accommodated.
But alas, each country stipulated its own exceptions, and had it been up to the Council of Ministers, we would have continued using old, outdated polluting plants ad infinitum.
In our opinion, the common position lacked all vision.
It had become a pick-and-mix with something for everyone.
If I compare this with the regulations which currently apply in Japan and the United States, we, who all want things to be done just so, would have cut a very poor figure with the Council' s emission regulations during the discussions on Kyoto.
There were calls that it was not necessary to prescribe regulations for combustion plants because this was to be addressed by Mrs Myller' s very fine report on emission ceilings, and that there was therefore no need to interfere as a European authority until those emission ceilings were in place, for everything was to be regulated on that basis, every Member State adopting them as a binding measure.
But things on that front too ultimately took a different turn.
If we were to meet the expectations of those in favour of liberalising the energy market, in other words, if we did not prescribe any regulations or if we agreed to exceptions in order to generate electricity using old, polluting power stations, we believe that the market mechanism would be disrupted, and those who neglect the environment would be rewarded with a head-start, because they would be able to charge lower energy prices with their old power stations.
Since the Council refused to accept Parliament' s amendments, we had to resort to conciliation, whereby the present report was combined with the report by Mrs Riitta Myller. I would like to thank her too.
She proved to be an excellent partner in those negotiations.
In fact, during the trilogue with the Swedish Presidency and the Commission in May and June of this year, considerable progress was made straight away where the emission reduction of SO2, sulphur dioxide and a number of major technical topics were concerned.
As for NOx and the nitrogen oxides, progress was only made with the greatest difficulty.
At the trilogue, agreement was reached provisionally on the Commission' s obligation to extend monitoring - for which we have Mr Hans Blokland to thank - to include emissions of heavy metals.
In addition, the Council met Parliament half-way and deleted certain exceptions, especially for certain plants which are fired with solid fuels and native brown coal.
Unfortunately, during the first meeting, we failed to reach genuine agreement on what strikes me as the most important point, namely NOx.
After first reading, we made huge progress when the Council agreed to allow old plants to be brought within the scope of the directive.
That was important because those old plants are often least efficient in terms of energy, and also emit a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gases.
By means of the compromise achieved by conciliation, the European Parliament managed to tighten the proposed limits for SO2 and NOx.
The Council agreed, straight away in fact, to a considerable reduction in SO2, especially for the medium-size and large combustion plants, for that is where it matters most.
With regard to NOx emissions, we as Parliament upheld the reduction of NOx limits for large combustion plants between 650 mg per cubic metre and 200 mg for those plants which run on solid fuels.
These limits, however, only apply from 2016 to new and existing plants.
That is, in fact, too late.
As I stated earlier, a number of Member States introduced these standards some three years ago.
We did not object to this for it marked a huge step forward, also in view of the fact that this is an important condition which we will soon be able to apply to the candidate countries.
Furthermore, we managed to reduce the exception which the Council wanted for peak-load power stations, with the result that the polluting emission can be curtailed in this respect too.
All in all, I am therefore of the opinion that conciliation produced a satisfactory agreement and that we went much further than we deemed possible at second reading.
I thank the Swedish Presidency.
I thank all my fellow MEPs, especially Mrs Myller.
I thank the Commission for its constructive support.
I would therefore recommend, also on behalf of the delegation, that this proposal be adopted.
Mr President, Commissioner, Parliament' s objective with respect to this directive was to achieve the strictest possible ceilings for air emissions responsible for acidification.
Acidification, ground-level ozone, and soil eutrophication are interconnected problems caused by emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, volatile organic compounds and ammonia.
It seems only reasonable to examine these problems together, as in that way we could succeed in reducing emissions in the most cost-effective way.
On this basis, the Commission in its proposal had calculated for each Member State the ceilings they should achieve by the year 2010.
In both the fifth environmental action programme and its acidification strategy, the Community - the European Union - laid down its objective to guarantee that people would be protected from all known air pollutants.
The Commission stated in its proposal that at this stage it was unable to set 'final targets' for critical loads and levels: to achieve a final, long-term objective it was necessary to proceed via some interim target values, which the Commission set for 2001.
Except with regard to ammonia, Parliament approved the Commission' s targets in its second reading, with the addition of a long-term objective.
In Parliament' s view, the interim target values should be achieved by 2010, and the final objective, whereby people would be protected throughout the EU from all known atmospheric pollutants, should be achieved by 2020.
By the time it had reached the conciliation stage all positions were clear, and the Council clearly gave us to understand that it was unable to alter the figures, which it had approved within the framework of a common position.
Neither was it prepared to approve the long-term objective on the grounds that the demand that critical levels and loads should not be exceeded in any area was not, in the opinion of the Council and the Commission too, technically feasible.
The Council' s common position on emission ceilings was a long way from the Commission' s figures relatively speaking, but, nevertheless, better than the 'Gothenburg' values that most of the Member States had sworn by.
Approval of the Council' s common position would have meant that we would have been raising our hands in favour of improving air quality and protecting the health of our citizens.
At the conciliation stage, after some considerable amount of arm wrestling, with the Commission busy producing compromises, the main principles of the directive were pulled in the direction of Parliament' s views.
During conciliation the Commission' s and Parliament' s stricter emission limits were approved as indicative values and the Council' s common position was recognised as binding on Member States.
Indicativeness means the Commission is obliged to reappraise the directive in its reports for 2004 and 2008, taking account of future scientific and technological developments and hence the possibility of achieving stricter emission limits.
With these investigations it must also be considered to what extent the long-term objectives can be achieved by 2020.
The result of conciliation was thus to give the Commission the tools to make the directive' s target levels stricter and require it to study reductions in emissions in the long-term also, the aim being that critical levels and loads are not exceeded and that people really are protected effectively from all atmospheric pollutants.
It was quite an achievement to have this long-term objective included in an Article of the directive, but it was perhaps the most important accomplishment during conciliation.
The emission sources causing acidification that are the hardest to deal with are emissions from aircraft and ships.
We have made progress in this area too, and the Commission is being asked to propose measures to deal with this problem.
I would also like to thank Ria Oomen-Ruijten for her excellent show of co-operation during conciliation.
It was really most significant that the directive on large combustion plants was dealt with so successfully, as it will be a key instrument in helping to carry through this directive on emissions ceilings.
I also want to thank the President of Parliament' s delegation, the Members, the representatives of the Commission and Sweden, as the country holding the presidency at the time, for their excellent show of co-operation.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate both the Parliament's rapporteurs on the hard work that they put in.
They produced a result which they can be proud of.
It was produced after an immense amount of work very late at night.
However, speaking as a British Member of the European Parliament there were enormous difficulties about these directives, particularly the Large Combustion Plants Directive.
I want to focus on the point that we laboured under the enormous difficulty that neither the Commission nor the Council really came clean about the impact of what they were proposing.
Nor did they give us an accurate assessment or help us assess the impact of what the European Parliament was proposing.
Mr Bowe and I, as British Members of the European Parliament, were faced with lobbies from Britain basically saying that if we adopted the Parliament's amendments, the British coal mines which are still in production would all have to close down.
We were therefore faced with the possibility of voting for amendments and voting for reports from our own committee which would have had a very serious economic impact in our own Member State.
When we went to the Council of Ministers meeting, we found that there were other Member States with exactly the same problems, Finland, for example, where the ministers and governments of those countries had never really contacted their Members of the European Parliament to explain the difficulties they thought they were going to have.
We also had the extraordinary situation, when we got to the codecision meeting, where four civil servants delivered speeches that really should have been made by ministers.
The point I want to make is this. We need two things: we need much greater honesty from Member States and the Commission about the actual impact in the Member States of what is being proposed and what is being discussed.
There should at least be some advice on that.
Secondly, when we go to the codecision meetings we must stop having meetings between fifteen MEPs, one minister, and fourteen civil servants.
That is ridiculous.
Many of the points made to us on the reports by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mrs Myller should have been made by ministers.
It is ministers we want to meet when we go to the codecision meetings.
Mr President, I will just simply say first as a British Member, that I would endorse what Mrs Jackson said.
Only the people in this room really know just how much work both the rapporteurs did to reach this final position and to get these two reports as proposals to this Parliament for a final vote.
We are your peers and we know how much hard work you did and we congratulate you both on that work.
It has been a very long time and this is one of the most difficult reports I have seen in twelve years in Parliament.
Finally though, despite all the difficulties and even the final conciliation, we have a workable and practical proposal.
It is not going to be easy.
It is going, in fact, to be extremely hard with regard to some of the requirements, but it strikes a satisfactory balance between the protection of the environment on the one hand and society's need for a reliable and secure source of power at an affordable price, which is something we cannot ignore.
Changes are going to have to take place to meet the requirements of this proposal.
The power industry will undoubtedly be required to replace some old plant, hopefully by some more modern sources of power generation.
There is going to be a substantial reduction in sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions which are the main causes of acid rain and ground-level ozone with a consequent improvement in the environmental conditions for human health.
One possible side effect may be that as the general efficiency of power plant operation improves, we will see an overall reduction in carbon dioxide in comparison to the energy generated.
That would be a helpful and useful side effect of this legislation.
It will not be easy to put all these measures into place.
There is a long time scale.
That is acceptable and understandable in these circumstances, so on behalf of the Socialist Group, I welcome these proposals and we will give them our support in the vote tomorrow.
Mr President, I would like to welcome both the directives and congratulate both rapporteurs as other Members have done.
I have particularly followed the debate on the limitation of emissions of large combustion plants.
These plants are one of the biggest emitters of air pollutants in Europe after transport emissions and therefore it is very important we have stringent legislation to control this.
The inclusion of existing plants is a major improvement on former legislation.
It means there will be a level playing field for all plants including the worst polluters and some plants in the applicant countries, which can generate electricity more cheaply because they have fewer controls and do not have to meet the same standards.
Again, as other Members have said, we can reassure people that because of the various derogations and allowances for lower standards, which were built into the final compromise text, current power stations such as Aberthaw in my own constituency are under no threat.
Aberthaw coal-fired power station has been the subject of considerable press and media attention due to perceived threats to its viability and its profitability from this directive.
In fact the opposite is true.
The directive will actually protect jobs in the Welsh coal and generating industries in the longer term.
This has been a very important debate, because it has shown that there is not a straight choice between cleaner air standards and employment, as some would have us believe.
Work to combat pollution can go hand-in-hand with protecting jobs and sustaining communities.
My group also supports the compromise which tightens the limit values for sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide and introduces generally stronger standards.
The group also supports the results of the conciliation on Mrs Myller's report on the National Emission Ceilings Directive and we will be voting in favour of that too.
Mr President, I will confine myself to air pollution caused by large combustion plants.
I am still of the opinion that the outcome of conciliation has been overtaken by the current technical potential to reduce polluting emissions.
Bizarre exemption provisions were left in the directive, as well as the permission for large old combustion plants to pollute for 2 000 hours per year, and the exceptions for Spain, Crete and Rhodes.
Existing plants will continue to pollute the air enormously by emitting sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
Particularly with regard to nitrogen oxides, the outcome of the conciliation is saddening, since at the moment, the standards in the United States already far outstrip those which will not come into force for a number of years in the European Union.
Moreover, we already notice that much biomass is being used as a supplement in coal-fired power plants.
For these, far less stringent emission standards apply compared to waste incineration plants.
I should have known that as a result of the liberalisation of the energy market, equal environmental conditions would be used to prevent distortion of competition.
In conclusion, the reason why I shall be voting in favour of this directive is not that it will effectively fight air pollution, but because, compared to the previous directive, this new directive is the lesser of two evils.
Mr President, my colleague, Ria Oomen-Ruijten, deserves praise for her work as rapporteur at all three stages of the reading of the directive on large combustion plants.
We have before us now a revised directive that can be expected to have an important impact on reducing emissions from large combustion plants, at the same time, however, taking account of the practical realities of life.
I am grateful for having been involved in tabling the amendments of compromise and that first the rapporteur and then Parliament adopted them.
These amendments are still visible in this directive even after conciliation and, among other things, make possible combined heat and power production, which is essential from the point of view of sustainable development.
At first there was a danger that the directive would have made CHP unprofitable.
That would clearly have meant a step backwards.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten' s report, like that of my colleague Mrs Myller, are examples of how the codecision procedure can also achieve a successful end result when the subject-matter is very difficult and demanding.
These two directives are obviously in this category.
National limits for emissions and emissions from large energy plants are matters in which Member States have traditionally looked after their own interests and tried to prevent the setting of targets that could jeopardise the competitiveness of Member States themselves or that of the EU as a whole.
The Commission had to take this into account when drafting its proposal.
Parliament too, for all its idealism, had to take account of political realities.
In spite of this, the result can be considered to be an ambitious one.
It will be important right away as far as air quality in Europe is concerned.
In addition, it indicates something important for the future: the EU is ready to work to achieve the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol within the framework of practical policy as well.
We still expect the Commission to make several important proposals this autumn to combat climatic change.
The two reports now to be decided on promise good results.
The EU institutions are capable of producing a balanced result, from which we can expect challenging results.
In the face of the facts of climatic change anything less is out of the question.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to express my sincere thanks to the two rapporteurs for their tenacity and commitment.
I have no doubt that these were essential qualities during the negotiations with the Council, especially in the discussions about large combustion plants.
This House was determined to ensure that old plants were included in this directive as well, and finally achieved this goal.
This is a key area in which we have been successful.
However, we have not been entirely successful.
We have had to accept a great many derogations, extensions and lower limit values, not because no other option was technically feasible - for otherwise we would frequently have been accused of trying to achieve the impossible.
In this instance, it is quite obvious that upgrading existing plants to meet the standards in modern installations presents no problems from a technical point of view.
Indeed, in many sectors, this is already a reality.
No, the resistance focussed solely on microeconomic factors relating to specific large combustion plants.
This is a short-sighted view.
We must think macroeconomically and take account of the public health costs of pollution and harmful emissions.
In this respect, I simply cannot understand the Council's negotiating position on this issue.
However, as the directive now includes old plants, I shall vote for the compromise as well.
Mr President, neither the time nor the mood feels right for starting any sort of squabble - either with the Committee Chairman or with other British Members of this Parliament - on who has most to lose from acidification or measures against acidification.
Instead, I will try to be rather more positive and thank the British Members for managing to get through this directive and for ensuring that tomorrow we shall be able to make a decision.
To put it rather dramatically, this decision means that my region can come back to life and that forestry, the fishing industry and biodiversity will be given a chance to repair the damage which has occurred over decades and perhaps even a whole century.
This is an excellent example of the benefit of practical and solid European cooperation.
Through this kind of cooperation, we can achieve a change in my region which we should not have been able to bring about ourselves, that is, a halt to acidification.
Even if we cannot eradicate acidification completely, we can halt it and try to repair some of the damage which it has caused.
I look forward to the review which is to be carried out, as I know that such measures are insufficient.
Acidification will continue, despite the decision we shall make tomorrow.
I wish to thank the Members and the Commission for the work we have carried out together.
Mr President, honourable Members, I am very pleased that these two important additions to Community legislation on air pollution are reaching the stage of final adoption.
I join with you in congratulating and thanking both rapporteurs, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mrs Myller, for their efforts, but I would also like to thank the President of Parliament's delegation, Mr Friedrich, for his role in bringing these negotiations to a successful conclusion - unfortunately he cannot be here this evening - and Mr Provan for stepping in at the last moment in what proved to be one of the finest evenings of the summer.
The proposals on national emission ceilings (NECs) and large combustion plants (LCPs) represent a major advance in Community legislation on air pollution.
As you know, the NEC proposal would help to establish an ongoing programme for tackling transboundary air pollution by requiring Members States to limit the emissions which cause most damage, not only to themselves but, as Mrs Hulthén said, to their neighbours.
The first stage sets legally binding emissions ceilings which Member States will have to meet by 2010.
It provides for a series of periodic reviews - in 2004, 2008 and 2012 - in order to reduce emissions ceilings more in the future: this review system has been strengthened a great deal in response to Parliament's concerns.
The first reviews will try to make up the shortfall by 2010 taking into account total emissions for the Community as a whole as set out in the Commission original proposal.
All reviews will look at how we can achieve our long-term goals of staying below critical environmental levels after 2010.
The year 2020 will then be taken as a benchmark.
In subsequent reviews, the Commission will report, in particular, on progress towards attaining our long-term goals and, with these aims in mind, will consider what further measures are necessary to achieve these goals, as the rapporteur has said, "preferably by 2020".
At the same time, with the large combustion plant proposal, new and tougher emissions standards will apply in the power generation sector, in particular for older power plants which are a major cause of acidification and ozone pollution.
The Commission's analysis of the common position on large combustion plants shows that both sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from this sector will fall substantially as a result of this legislation.
The compromise on the LCP proposal will provide medium-term flexibility to take account of differing circumstances in the Member States as well as substantial environmental benefits in the long term in an enlarged Community.
Parliament has achieved a great deal in this debate and should be very proud of its contribution.
The Commission is pleased with the outcome.
By approving this legislation, the Commission will be under an obligation to return in 2004 to review both directives and present its proposals for further progress.
We have already explained how we intend to prepare for this first review in the communication on clean air for Europe which we presented in May 2001, and work is already under way on this.
In conclusion, I invite Parliament to adopt the outcome of conciliation and to join us in moving forward.
I look forward to Parliament's support for CAFE.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday's session have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, my name is not on the list of those present at yesterday' s meeting, but I was present, as shown by the signatures to all my group' s meetings.
I would be grateful if you could have this oversight remedied.
Mr Santini, that will be corrected.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I sat here throughout the debate yesterday on the statements by the Commission and the Council in relation to the tragedy in the United States.
Not a single mention was made of the crisis being faced by the aviation industry in Europe as a result of this atrocity.
It is incumbent on this House to make clear to the Commission and the Council that aid needs to be provided to the European airline industry and to the aviation industry in general, so that we can maintain a European aviation industry, particularly our airlines.
Otherwise, we would be in a very serious situation, particularly if, as is proposed, the United States provides aid to their airlines.
It is of the utmost importance that the tens of thousands of jobs currently under threat in the aviation industry are saved.
Mr De Rossa, we have noted your comments.
The agenda for the next session will be set by the Conference of Presidents.
We will put forward your suggestion.
Decisions on freezing assets or evidence
The next item is the report (A5-0274/2991) by Mr Marinho, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative by the governments of the French Republic, the Kingdom of Sweden and the Kingdom of Belgium for the adoption by the Council of a Framework Decision on the execution in the European Union of orders freezing assets or evidence (5126/2001 - C5­0055/2001 - 2001/0803(CNS)).
Mr President, this report concerns the recognition by one Member State of orders made by a court in another Member State on the freezing of assets or evidence within its territory in order to ensure the integrity of the legal process up to the final judgment.
This framework decision, which is an initiative by the governments of France, Sweden and Belgium, is to enter into force by 31 December 2002 and will apply to all the Member States without any need for ratification, a very important point indeed. This is the general position regarding mechanisms for the recognition of criminal sentences which have existed up to now.
In short this is about ensuring that an order made in one Member State automatically guarantees that assets and evidence essential for the prosecution and punishment of a crime and which may be located in any part of the European Union are not lost, do not disappear or are not concealed from criminal investigation.
In the original version of the decision, this mutual recognition mechanism relates to cross-border crimes such as drug trafficking, fraud affecting the European Communities' financial interests, laundering of the proceeds of crime, counterfeiting of the euro, corruption and trafficking in human beings.
However, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs considered that this classification of offences, which is limited to types of crime relating in particular to the functioning of the single market, excludes other criminal offences and especially, and this is indeed topical, the type of crime we are most concerned with now, crime relating to terrorism.
I believe that the new version of Article 2, prepared with the invaluable help of Mrs Palácio Vallelersundi and approved by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, is far more appropriate and effective in the context of an area of freedom, security and justice.
It is a matter of strengthening the principle of mutual recognition which will be the basis for the prosecution of criminals and criminal organisations in the European Union.
I think that we are now perfectly aware of the vital importance of this, and I therefore call on this Chamber to adopt Amendment No 5 on Article 2 of the original proposal for a decision, and ask the Commission and the Council to take this on board.
This will bring the proposal for a decision before us in line with others which will soon follow in relation to the war on terrorism, as announced yesterday by Commissioner Vitorino.
Mr President, this decision, in as far as it goes, will make a small contribution to the creation of a European area of justice, but it is these small things, these small stones, that will build the foundations of a European area of justice capable of protecting our citizens.
In this way we can counter the judicial void that exists in Europe and thus fight against the inertia and bureaucracy of the institutions.
It is our job to prove to the public that Europe is also there to protect them, and that a European civil and criminal legal system is possible.
This is about promoting citizenship, of course, but it is also about fighting the anonymous and stateless crime which is so prevalent.
Not even the greatest pessimists would deny that these are steps in the right direction.
Isolationist sovereignty makes crime easier and helps criminals.
As from tomorrow, and I mean tomorrow, the date of the Extraordinary European Council, we will be speeding up the creation of a Europe of freedoms, that is to say the largest area of democracy, freedom and justice in the world.
Mr President, I endorse what the rapporteur, Mr Marinho, said.
The truly tragic events of last week emphasise the importance of the fight against terrorism and organised crime.
The coalition we are striving to build across the world to fight against terrorism is trying to find a cure to the problem, but there is also the issue of prevention in terms of security and diplomacy.
Other steps too are necessary if we are going to prevent those kinds of crimes from happening again.
The second directive on money laundering is already in conciliation and we are trying to get it through.
We have to recognise that at European Union level we need only one legal area.
It is illogical for people to apply for asylum between one Member State and another within the European Union.
It is illogical for us to have a situation where a warrant for arrest is not applicable across the whole of the European Union.
There was a case where someone fled to the United Kingdom from France and managed to stall his extradition back to France for the crime of terrorism.
He has actually faced the courts for a period of five years.
The series of reports we have before us this morning attempt to move things forward.
Mr Marinho's report is part of that initiative by the French, Swedish and Belgian governments and I congratulate him and them on this report.
A judicial decision in one Member State must have automatic application across the whole of the Union.
We must have the mutual recognition that Mr Marinho calls for.
Mr bin Laden has a London bank account.
One might hope that this report will make it easier for that account and similar accounts elsewhere in Europe to be frozen if that was proven necessary.
On behalf of the party of European Socialists, I support this report and the similar measures that will follow in the other reports this morning and in subsequent weeks and months.
The best memorial for those innocent people who died so tragically last week is to take action to prevent its repetition.
This is one small part of that process.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes the initiative by France, Sweden and Belgium on the mutual recognition of orders freezing assets or evidence.
This is in fact the first fundamental proposal to be made since the adoption by the Council and the Commission of the programme of measures to implement the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions in criminal matters.
I am also very grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Marinho.
His report is excellent and as he has stressed, mutual recognition will be a crucial step forward in judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
As you all know, traditional judicial cooperation is slow and bureaucratic, which runs totally counter to the interests of the public, and the current situation highlights the need for swift and effective judicial cooperation.
I also welcome the approach adopted by the rapporteur in his amendments, and in particular the implication that this initiative does not go far enough.
It only applies to a very limited list of offences already harmonised at EU level and does not cover certain traditional offences such as murder, armed robbery and rape.
Nor does it cover terrorist acts.
The rapporteur accordingly suggests that the provisions of the proposed decision should extend to any offence punishable by means of a custodial sentence or custodial security measure with a maximum duration of at least six months, and the Commission is totally in agreement with this.
Furthermore, the Commission is already advocating such an extension to the Council and negotiations are under way.
Parliament therefore has a good chance of making this initiative more ambitious, which would reflect the objectives of the Heads of State and Government, who established the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions in criminal matters at the Tampere European Council.
Mr President, it is in this spirit that I welcome the adoption of this positive and ambitious report.
Many thanks, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
External borders and Schengen
The next item is the report (A5-0233/2001) by Mr Coelho, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on crossing external borders and the development of Schengen cooperation (10846/1999 - C5­0042/2000) + (11329/3/1999 - C5­0043/2000) + (SCHAC 2533/1/2000 - C5­0729/2000) + (SEC(2000) 1439 - C5­0730/2000 - 2000/2015(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, cooperation under Schengen started in 1985 between five Member States.
The idea was to abolish internal borders so as to allow the free movement of persons and to adopt compensatory measures, including measures concerning police cooperation, the fight against drugs, extradition and the creation of the Schengen Information System.
All the Member States now belong to Schengen, although the United Kingdom and Ireland only partially participate.
In addition, two non-member countries also participate, namely Iceland and Norway, which belong to the Nordic Passport Union.
With the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Schengen acquis has been integrated into the treaties and there has been a communitarisation of certain third pillar issues, which have been transferred to the Community pillar. This applies, for example, to visas, asylum, immigration and judicial cooperation on civil matters.
In the process of preparing this report, I had to deal with a number of issues which I would like to see resolved as quickly as possible.
The first of these is extension to include the remaining Member States.
Whilst welcoming the extension of the Schengen area, the European Parliament regrets the fact that it has not been sufficiently well informed or even formally consulted on the changes that have taken place in this area.
We see the partial participation of the United Kingdom and Ireland, which we regard as a positive development, as being a provisional situation and a step towards full participation.
Secondly, there is a lack of transparency.
Everyone hoped that the integration of the Schengen acquis would lead to a considerable improvement in transparency.
However, the results have been disappointing.
To be precise, the acquis was published late and not in full, and, paradoxically, the European Parliament now receives less information on Schengen than it used to receive when Schengen was of a clearly intergovernmental nature.
Thirdly, there is the issue of the integration of the acquis in the treaties.
This could have facilitated significant progress, but it has had a chaotic and incoherent impact, partly due perhaps to the power of initiative conferred on the Member States.
On the other hand, due to the restrictive interpretation of the treaty provisions by the Council, Parliament has been unable, under the third pillar, to participate more fully in the legislative process.
Fourthly, there is what I might call the 'perversion of Schengen' .
Article 2(2) allows any Member State to unilaterally re-impose internal border controls for reasons of public order or national security.
This has already been put into practice by France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and most recently by Italy.
We are not opposed to what might be called 'safety valves' .
We are all aware, especially at present, that greater freedom has to be matched by greater security.
However, it has to be said that the absence of a legal framework making clear under what conditions and in what terms this article can be invoked makes this a real blank cheque.
Accordingly, bearing in mind the scoreboard, I urge the Commission to bring forward a formal proposal including legislative provisions relating to prior agreement by the Council, approval for a limited period, a requirement for proportionality, and conditions for extending the period.
My fifth point concerns Schengen cooperation and police cooperation.
Schengen cooperation is distinct from police cooperation, with the development of Europol being a separate matter.
However, these two sets of legislative provisions, which are considered in isolation and which lend greater weight to the issue of the confidentiality of documents, mean that the area of criminal matters and security has become even less transparent and more confusing for the public.
As part of the third pillar, parliamentary and judicial checks on increased cooperation between the Member States are still inadequate and need to be reinforced.
My sixth point is the extension of the Schengen area to the candidate countries.
This extension will significantly change the shape of Europe and the new Member States will become responsible for controlling the thousands of kilometres of new external borders of the European Union.
The process of checking compliance with Schengen has taken a considerable amount of time for the existing Member States.
I therefore believe that a two-phase approach is required: the first stage being the acceptance of the acquis upon joining the Union, and the second stage being full implementation of the acquis, with borders being lifted as soon as circumstances allow.
The seventh point is the Schengen Information System, the SIS.
The SIS is the biggest database in Europe and the first experiment in terms of a large-scale exchange of sensitive data at international level.
In practice, it is hoped that in the long term it will become a European information system.
The SIS cannot continue to be managed secretly on a purely intergovernmental basis. Instead it should be managed on a Community basis, with the task of managing it being entrusted to an independent agency over which this Parliament should have a control function; it should be financed from the EU budget and provision should be made for a Community information system, which by keeping the data separate, could contain data collected under various agreements.
Mr President, I would like to conclude by thanking all those fellow Members who have assisted with the preparation of this report, and in particular Mrs Van Lancker for her help with the various compromise amendments.
Mr President, the United Kingdom is largely outside the provisions of the Schengen acquis.
The policy of the British Conservatives towards Schengen is therefore rather like our policy towards the euro.
We wish our neighbours and allies well, but it is not our businesses to tell them how to run initiatives which we have no intention of joining ourselves.
Accordingly, as is becoming traditional on these occasions, my party will be abstaining.
There is another matter which is becoming traditional on these occasions.
No report on Schengen is complete without a ritual complaint about the failure of the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic to take part.
Thus, in Mr Coelho's otherwise admirable report, we have paragraph 2, which in a somewhat brusque tone calls on those two states to abolish their border controls.
This Parliament has repeatedly expressed the viewed, echoed by Commissioner Vitorino, that the UK opt-out is illegal under the terms of the Single European Act.
I believe that this is legally flawed, but that is not my point today.
My point rather, is that by persistently seeking to challenge a derogation which was clearly understood by all sides at the time, this Parliament is acting in bad faith.
It is worth recalling the circumstances in which the Schengen Accord was built into the treaties.
That decision, like all treaty changes, required unanimity.
Without the consent of the United Kingdom, Schengen would have had to continue to exist within a separate legal framework.
The British government took the view that if other states wished to go ahead on their own using the institutions and mechanisms of the European Communities then it was not Britain's place to hinder them.
Accordingly, it allowed the other states to push ahead within the treaties, but only subject to a clear guarantee that the UK's own border controls would not be affected.
That guarantee was written in black and white into the Amsterdam Treaty.
No sooner had Amsterdam come into force however, than the European Commission and Parliament began to question the opt-out.
Not for the first time, the UK had allowed other states to use the common procedures of the European treaties only for those states promptly to start clamouring for Britain's inclusion.
As with Schengen, so with the social chapter and so with economic and monetary union - in all three cases Britain consented to a new EU initiative on the clear understanding that it would not be affected, only for its derogation later to be disputed.
This surely is no way for the Union to proceed.
After all if opt-outs are no longer legally reliable, the only alternative is a rather more promiscuous use of the national veto and that I submit would be even more objectionable to the integrationist majority in this House than it is to me.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to congratulate Mr Coelho warmly on his sterling report and thank him in turn, on behalf of my group, for the sound cooperation.
What should really have been an annual debate on the implementation of the Schengen cooperation is today being afforded added topical value in the light of the Council of Ministers for Justice and for the Interior debating European measures to combat international terrorism.
Nobody will deny that Schengen could play a role in this.
I shudder at the thought that appeals such as those during yesterday' s sitting could be made by the Right, to put a definitive stop to the free movement of people and to put Big Brother-like mechanisms into place.
The Schengen discussion in my group has always sought to strike the necessary but difficult balance between the right to free movement of people, respect for the principles of the rule of law and human rights and the right to safety via police and judicial cooperation, and I should like to keep it that way.
However, despite the fact that Schengen has now been in existence for six years as a predecessor to the area of freedom, security and justice, we have to observe on the basis of Mr Coelho' s report that many aspects leave a great deal to be desired.
I should like to list three.
Firstly, although Schengen exists, we have to observe that there is still no effective police cooperation and no effective exchange of intelligence which could yield major results in the fight against organised crime. In fact, the annual report states that there is a marked improvement, but the question is whether the right areas are being prioritised.
To put it bluntly, is the Schengen intelligence system being put to actual use in the fight against international crime and terrorism, as defined in the UN Convention?
Does it not mainly serve as an intelligence system to combat unwanted migration? Please allow me to put this question to you again in today' s climate.
Secondly, Schengen does, however, appear to be used in the framework of demonstrations on the occasion of European and international summits.
No Democrat will object to the fact that trouble-makers who come to cause havoc are arrested.
But the way in which peaceful protesters are being arrested via internal border controls and the exchange of intelligence on the basis of the Schengen Information System is really a bridge too far for anyone who is in favour of freedom of expression.
Thirdly, police cooperation and the exchange of intelligence require proper monitoring by the legal systems and parliaments.
That is where Schengen really takes things too far.
It even goes so far that the Council has decided not to publish any more reports, since Schengen now supposedly forms part of the European acquis, as if Schengen ceases to exist as a result.
In any event, my group would like to see Schengen in fact replaced by transparent, democratically controlled European rules but, in anticipation of this, we want the European Parliament, in tandem with national parliaments, to monitor Schengen.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our objective is to develop the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice within which citizens' rights are respected and the free movement of persons is guaranteed.
However, for over 20 years now, association activists and many elected representatives have been advocating a citizens' Europe that demonstrates solidarity and is open not only to goods and capital but also and above all to persons.
For one brief moment, we had faith in the hope that was born in Schengen, a hope that was virtually suffocated at birth by intolerance, a failure of courage and a lack of calm political analysis.
If Schengen represents a considerable step forward for Europe because of the progress made in certain areas, including police and judicial cooperation, it has to be said now that this step forward is a halting and discriminatory one.
Although the Schengen Convention has come into force in its entirety in several Member States, there are still inequalities that affect persons who do not hold a European nationality or have the necessary papers, although certain persons or members of their family may have lived in Europe for very many years.
Some Member States do not grant the same rights to everyone resident in their country, even if they all accept the same responsibilities.
On top of this, we have an immigration and asylum policy that varies from one country to another, differing procedures and controls and repressive police practices leading to dramatic situations in human terms such as those we are now witnessing at Sangatte in the north of France.
At the very heart of Europe, in the Channel Tunnel, thousands of men, women and children are risking their lives every day in an attempt to enter the United Kingdom.
These people, while awaiting their journey, are concentrated in a reception centre in humanely unacceptable conditions supported only by humanitarian organisations without any power or means at their disposal, such as the Red Cross.
These practices bring back some bitter memories.
The political authorities still treat refugees and asylum-seekers with coldness, hypocrisy and intolerance.
This is unacceptable in the wake of the adoption of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
Just imagine that police officers have even dared to fire real bullets at asylum seekers!
In fact you do not have to imagine it, because other police forces in Europe have already done it.
These facts are continuing to discredit our parliaments in the eyes of thousands of members of the public who are calling for a halt to inequality, to injustice and to a Fortress Europe policy.
For these reasons, we will be voting against this report, which overlooks all these facts and fails to offer any alternative.
Instead, we should act together, as a matter of urgency, to find concrete and equitable solutions to all these dramatic situations, and in particular to the sufferings of the refugees at Sangatte, and to the cries of distress from all those who come to Europe seeking asylum and help.
The decision-making processes nowadays concerning the police, the military, criminal law, Schengen and border controls are reminiscent, if anything, of a kind of political bodysnatching.
Today' s report on crossing external borders and the development of Schengen cooperation and yesterday' s proposal from the Commission are really two sides of the same coin.
As a Danish professor of criminal law expressed it very clearly yesterday, the alarming thing is that 'the EU Commission and other institutions are merely using the attacks in the United States as an opportunity to promote far-reaching harmonisation, and harmonisation means that the national traditions of criminal law, criminal procedure and police investigation are eliminated in favour of arrangements adopted in more or less of a panic that make controls more stringent and damage civic rights' .
He also says: 'Politicians feel they must demonstrate their power to take action, but there is no point at all in harmonising criminal legislation in the EU.
That will not, in any case, reduce the number of terrorist acts by so much as one.'
That was the message.
Today' s report will quickly be overtaken by events which take place long after the report has seen the light of day.
The question underlying every political decision is that of whether we are thereby advancing our aims and, secondly, that of whether the means employed will compromise these aims. I am afraid that the answer to the first question is: 'No, we shall not achieve the declared aims' , and that all experience goes to show that the answer to the second question, of whether the means will compromise the ends, is unfortunately 'yes' .
The controls will be harmful, and anyone who cares to read the Supervisory Board' s report for 1998-99 and subsequent statements on the lack of supervision of the Schengen authorities will acknowledge that I am right.
Mr President, Commissioner, illegal immigration is a daily phenomenon at all of the European Union' s borders, affecting certain regions with particular intensity and with an enormous humanitarian, social and economic impact.
Please allow me to focus on those border regions of the Union which, like Andalusia, most vividly experience the arrival of dozens of people each day.
Andalusia, owing to its geographical proximity to the Maghreb, is enduring great migratory pressure without having the appropriate instruments for confronting it.
The Spanish administration has publicly acknowledged that the situation is unsustainable and, furthermore, bilateral relations with the Maghreb and the Kingdom of Morocco are difficult at the moment due to problems related to fishing, drug-trafficking and illegal immigration itself.
Some of us have been arguing for years that, within the framework of the Schengen Agreement, the special status of border regions such as Andalusia should be recognised and that these areas of the European Union should be provided with instruments which would allow them to deal with the arrival of these immigrants more effectively.
They should also be given the power to propose measures to the central government and to the European Union relating to work, residence and the necessary social integration of people who are forced to emigrate across the Straits of Gibraltar to reception regions such as Andalusia.
Mr President, first of all, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to congratulate Parliament and its rapporteur on their detailed work.
This report on crossing external borders and the development of Schengen cooperation touches on a subject at the very heart of the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice.
In fact Schengen is a rather special animal.
On the one hand it guarantees freedom of movement, which is a key part of the Treaty, and on the other hand it responds to the need to encompass this freedom within a solid and coherent policy of external border controls and other compensatory measures.
However, the integration of Schengen into the EU framework in practice marked the end of that agreement, although it lives on as a symbol.
Schengen was created as a kind of test laboratory for the implementation of the absolute obligation laid down in the Single European Act.
Schengen has subsequently been divided up and integrated into the framework of the Union, and the legislative provisions of the Community and of the Union are gradually replacing and developing the Schengen Convention and other decisions relating to it.
By way of example, the joint manual and joint consular instructions have become regulations, and new proposals under the third pillar complement or replace the equivalent provisions of the Schengen Convention, which have been assigned to this pillar.
Furthermore, in July the Commission submitted to the Council and Parliament a proposal bringing together in a single legal instrument the five categories of persons who can move freely within an uncontrolled area, thus following up the wish expressed by the European Parliament to bring together the various disparate provisions governing the movement of persons.
The Commission accordingly intends to bring forward a proposal relating to Article 2 of the Schengen Protocol, so as to better encompass the safeguard clause on the reintroduction of internal border controls.
This work has not been completed, but the objective is to 'Amsterdamise' Schengen in the near future.
Mr President, that is why I think it would be difficult to embark upon an exercise which would involve regular reports on Schengen, because these would end up being reports on the various instruments that have replaced or are in the process of replacing Schengen.
But I can commit the Commission to continuing to keep Parliament regularly informed of developments in this field, which for the sake of semantic convenience we will call Schengen.
Furthermore, Parliament is kept informed of overall legislative and practical activity by means of the scoreboard created following the Tampere Council, which is regularly updated.
The Commission considered that the conversion of the Schengen acquis should be based on priority needs depending on the development of the situation and political guidance from the Council and Parliament.
One of these priorities is of course the development of the Schengen Information System, and of course also, and this will be of great interest to you, issues relating to the candidate countries.
The rapporteur has taken these concerns on board and the Commission certainly shares them.
I would like to give you some information on the most recent developments concerning the Schengen Information System, SIS II.
As you know, the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 28 and 29 May did not reach unanimous agreement on intergovernmental finance.
It was therefore agreed to provide financing from the Community budget.
Furthermore, the Belgian Presidency and Sweden presented two initiatives, one on the first pillar and the other on the third pillar, with a view to giving the Commission, assisted by a committee, responsibility for developing SIS II between 2002 and 2006.
The key objective of these two proposals, which are currently being considered by the Council, is first of all to provide a legal basis for the financing of this stage of development.
Secondly, legislative proposals are to be presented on the various key aspects of SIS II, in particular the issue of management and functionality.
In the context of its responsibility for financing, the Commission will also present a communication covering the various aspects of SIS II, that is to say legal, technical and financial issues, but also the various preparatory stages needed, and also the general method to be adopted until SIS II is finally established.
Mr President, Mr Coelho, I wish to conclude by assuring you that your resolution will be taken into account by the Commission in assessing the efforts already made and those that remain to be made and in defining its priorities for action in the Schengen field.
Many thanks, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
Refugee status in Member States
The next item is the report (A5-0291/2001) by Mr Watson, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status.
Mr President, I have the honour to have my name attached to this report but most of the work has been done by my Christian Democrat colleague, Mr Ingo Schmitt, who took this report through committee.
Due to the result of the vote, he chose not to pursue it by introducing it in plenary and I am doing so on behalf of my committee.
The Commission has proposed a Council directive on minimum standards for procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status.
The Commission has come forward with proposals for a number of rules on the handling of asylum applications.
This is very much a first step towards the common asylum system which the Commission has proposed and which this House has on many occasions supported.
These rules cover reception and detention facilities, the content of refugee status and the application process.
They designate time limits for applications and appeals and they introduce specific rules for dealing with inadmissible cases.
It is my honour to present on behalf of the committee a number of amendments to these proposals.
We recognise that these amendments are not binding but we hope that they will be considered carefully and taken on board in policy formulation.
Our amendments seek to clarify and strengthen the position of asylum seekers.
We aim to ensure due respect for the Geneva Convention and its protocols and for the European Convention on Human Rights when dealing with applications for asylum.
We aim to secure for asylum seekers the right to remain on the territory of a Member State until their appeal has been decided.
We recommend special attention be paid to the cases of applications from women and children who have been particularly vulnerable to abuse and attack in the countries from which they flee.
We seek to improve access to legal assistance for those seeking asylum and to emphasise that asylum seekers should not be sent back to places where their lives might be in danger.
As a general rule, we reject or resist the practice of holding asylum seekers in detention centres.
I for one welcome the recent United Kingdom court ruling against the UK government's practice of locking asylum seekers in detention centres, however modern those centres may be.
We believe that asylum seekers who are often escaping persecution of the worst kind in their homelands have the right to be treated with dignity when they reach our shores.
We understand the pressures on Member States but we reject the creeping tendency we see towards a dilution of the rights of asylum seekers.
We believe that the determination of refugee status must remain a legal matter and not a matter of politics or one of political expediency.
The health of a society is judged not only by its practices but also by the direction in which its face is set and my committee believes that the Commission's policy is taking us in the right direction even if we seek greater clarity in the rights of some of those to whom it is directed.
It is not only a question of our legal and humanitarian obligations but also a question of economic and administrative common sense.
The more asylum seekers that a government rejects - perhaps in the hope of courting short-term popular support of the basest nature - the more appeals it will face, the more it will be tied down in lengthy processes which will hit the taxpayer in the pocket.
Our amendments seek to ensure not only administrative efficiency but also a humanitarian approach to the position of those on our planet who deserve our support and protection.
I hope the House will follow the line that has been put forward by the committee in this report.
Mr President, the Foreign Affairs Committee welcomes the changes made at the committee stage of this report, for as the common asylum and immigration policy of the EU develops, it is essential that its impact on the outside world and especially upon our close neighbours is fully taken into account.
These countries, many of them candidate states, are at the sharp end of the refugee problem.
Most of them have no experience of refugee and asylum policy.
They all lack the financial and human resources to deal competently with applications to stay.
The Foreign Affairs Committee also felt it was important to insert a reference to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as the obligation to respect all existing international law commitments.
Finally, we have also insisted that the EU's new procedures should aim to contribute to the improvement of international relations by being as clear, transparent and reasoned as possible, so that their interpretation by third countries and their citizens will be facilitated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, I believe that the Committee, which adopted this version of the report by a majority, is on the wrong track.
Let me explain briefly what I mean.
About a year ago, when the Commission submitted its working document, we attempted to reach a compromise on this very difficult and sensitive issue.
We agreed that we would distinguish between three specific groups: firstly, asylum seekers; secondly, persons who come to us on a temporary basis from crisis regions; and finally, people who wish to migrate to the Member States in order to make their lives here.
In particular, we all recognised that we could only regulate the last pillar, that is, immigration, sensibly by ensuring that the number - I am choosing my words carefully - of unfounded asylum applications can be reduced, at least that we can process them consistently.
We all know that no more than 10% or 15% of the applications submitted are genuinely well-founded and likely to be recognised under the Geneva Convention.
This is where the Committee and a majority of its members have made two errors, in my view: firstly, it has abandoned the consensus which we worked so hard to achieve and, secondly, it has done no service at all to genuine applicants who are politically persecuted, because it also treats everyone who enters Germany or another Member State without a well-founded claim in more or less the same way and thus undermines the standing of genuine applicants.
Expanding the rights of asylum to include new forms of (non-state) persecution, restricting the opportunities of Member States - at least those Member States which have to cope with large influxes - to make effective use of the 'safe country of origin' principle, but also the issue of how manifestly unfounded applications should be dealt with - indeed, the entire contents of this report - means that there is longer any way of taking effective action when large numbers of unfounded applications are made.
I appeal to you yet again! I know this is a difficult issue.
I also know this is a sensitive issue.
However, let us try to uphold the details of these common pillars which we discussed a year ago, and where there was plenty of scope to reach a consensus.
I hope that the German Social Democrats - who adopt an entirely different tone in their dealings with their Home Affairs Minister in Germany - might change their voting behaviour today.
I also hope that we will again find a way of achieving consensus which will enhance the status of those who have genuinely suffered political persecution and seek asylum in the Member States.
Mr President, may I thank Mr Watson on behalf of our committee for bringing this report to plenary.
I listened carefully to what Mr Watson and Mr Schmitt just said.
Mr Schmitt spoke a lot about unjustified applications and, of course, we need to look at all applications properly.
Mr Schmitt said, and I wholeheartedly agree with him, that Member States have to do more to address the root causes that are forcing people to migrate across Europe and across the world, but it is not easy to address the root causes in the countries from where many asylum seekers come.
The highest number of asylum seekers in Europe come from Afghanistan, Iran and Sri Lanka and at the moment, as we know only too well, it will not be easy to address quickly the situation in Afghanistan: we watch that situation with some terror.
Nearer to home, we are affected, at the moment by the lack of a common working asylum system for Europe and the separate issue of a common immigration policy, which will come later.
But we see on our television screens, certainly in Britain and France nightly, and colleagues in Spain have a similar problem, the way that the lack of a proper system manifests itself in tragedy.
Asylum seekers are desperate people escaping in many cases war, violence and torture.
Yes, Mr Schmitt, some of them are just escaping poverty, but we should not knock them for that.
We need to give them respect and make certain that they are treated fairly.
This report calls for high standards for reception of asylum seekers, to recognise that they are not criminals while their cases are being heard.
People escaping from the worst situations do not need to be detained in prisons, detention centres and I agree with Mr Watson on this.
Those escaping from war and torture do not need to be welcomed by barbed wire and armed guards.
They need to have their cases heard properly, they need a fair system and they need a system that puts the individual at the heart of the process.
This report goes some way towards that, but it is part of a much wider picture working towards a common European asylum system with a separate immigration system alongside it.
I hope that we can get this through as amended and continue the vast amount of work still to be done in this area.
Welcome
Refugee status in Member States (continuation)
Madam President, the objective of this important report is to produce an asylum system that is fair: fair on asylum seekers, but fair on taxpayers too.
This report is not about who you should accept as a refugee, and I remind Mr Schmitt of that, but about how you decide which claims are valid.
It is a great fallacy to assume that if you give asylum seekers less help in making their claims, they will somehow disappear and cost less time and money.
Governments in search of populist headlines about the number of applications rejected from so-called bogus asylum seekers should tell the truth.
The truth is that cutting corners early on in the procedure ends up costing a lot more in administration, court time, lawyers and the cost of food and shelter.
I fear that Mr Schmitt did not understand this truth and has somehow misled Members of his group.
I appeal therefore to those moderate Members of the Conservative/Christian Democrat Group to join the majority in this Parliament in strengthening the guarantees in the asylum procedure, because investment in high quality initial decisions including such matters as assistance with interpretation, legal advice, proper interviews and reasonable time limits, is a good bargain.
Then on the question of fair treatment I would like to stress in particular the use of the safe third country concept.
My group accepts the use of this concept as a guidance, but it must be one which is capable of being rebutted in an individual case.
It is perfectly fair that an asylum seeker from, say, Canada, will have a greater job convincing the authorities that asylum is justified, compared to someone coming for example from Iraq.
But it should be possible to make that case through individual assessment, not with a blanket dismissal of the claim.
Madam President, we have heard a great deal over the last few days about some of the values which we hold dear, especially those of democracy and freedom.
I would like to add: humanity, respect for human rights and equality before the law.
So, within that context, I welcome much of the report now presented by Mr Watson: That perspective however, also explains why my group will not be supporting amendments proposed by the PPE-DE Group which we rejected in committee and which we believe seek to restrict the rights of asylum seekers.
I particularly welcome some of the amendments proposed by the committee, which state that the right to refugee status should be recognised rather than granted: refugee status is a legal right, not the gift of a benevolent regime.
I also welcome the recognition that there are forms of persecution which are not included in the Geneva Convention.
We debated such an issue in this House only last night, that of female genital mutilation.
My group believes that we should be building on the Geneva Convention and that hopefully a common asylum policy will eventually do that.
We also welcome the fact that the gender dimension is now recognised in this report.
We also welcome the recognition of the need for the interviewing and assessment process for asylum applications to take place in the applicant's own language.
This is crucial as the outcome of such procedures can literally be a matter of life or death for the applicant.
How can we expect an individual who has suffered torture, humiliation or sexual degradation to express that in a language in which they can just get by.
My group, however, rejects the concept of a safe third country.
When we look at the huge variation between Members States of what they view as safe we can see the problems raised by this concept, especially taking new forms of persecution into account.
As Baroness Ludford has said, every application must be dealt with on its own merits.
We need the highest standards possible, and in that respect, this report has made substantial improvements.
Madam President, the pictures we have seen in recent days from Afghanistan are of course clear evidence that the problem does not go away but that the flow of refugees unfortunately continues as a direct result of the policy we are pursuing here in our part of the world.
I hear quite a few people talking about a common European asylum policy.
Indeed, that might well be a very sensible idea, but I want, for my part, to say that the prerequisite for my being able to support it is that it should be a sound policy.
The rapporteur originally tried to word this report in such a way that it restricted asylum seekers' rights and opportunities in our countries.
What the committee finally agreed upon was to require that we should end up with a policy which, if anything, amounted to the status quo.
I think it would be a good thing if the European Parliament could send out a clear signal now that, if there is to be a common asylum policy in the EU, it must in no circumstances be a policy that provides asylum seekers with poorer conditions than those under which they are at present living in the Member States.
I very much hope that the result of the vote we are to hold this afternoon will be to send out such a signal.
Madam President, Europe is running two risks.
One is that we are erecting a 'fortress Europe' where foreigners are no longer welcome and where we do not take the slightest notice of the rest of the world.
That is not what we want, nor is it in line with international obligations.
The EU Member States must look after refugees, and not only refugees at their own backdoor, but also refugees elsewhere.
Although the Commission' s proposal is not related to this, I still believe it is necessary to draw attention to the many refugees in camps.
They too deserve support and attention, often more than they are receiving now.
That is why the UNHCR must be given a huge financial boost.
No fortress Europe, therefore, but there is also another risk.
That is that Europe might be turning into a kind of playground to which almost everyone can gain easy access to enjoy the many benefits it has to offer.
That is not want we want either.
It places too heavy a burden on the facilities of the European states.
In this day and age, when evidently many find the money and the means to come to Europe and seek asylum, asylum procedures must be strict and straightforward. Otherwise, life in the refugee camps will be in even starker contrast to this ideal.
The Commission proposal is now a sober and realistic document which generally strikes the right balance between straightforward procedures and the rule of law.
However, the amendments tabled by this Parliament with regard to the Commission document often lack the necessary balance.
That is why I cannot support the majority of these.
Madam President, the proposal for a Council directive on procedures for granting refugee status, which, as defined in the Treaty, is supposed to be binding on the Member States as regards the outcome to be achieved, whilst leaving it to the national authorities to decide what procedures and means to employ, is in fact an extremely nit-picking document.
For example, it goes into inordinate length and detail on the definition of an unfounded application for asylum, in Article 28, of a safe third country, in Article 22 and in Annex I, and of a safe country of origin, in Annex II.
As if the Member States were babes in arms and as if their officials had never processed a single application for asylum in their lives.
But what is most extraordinary of all is that this proposal manages to be both nit-picking and lax at the same time.
Because there are not many provisions motivated by the concern to grant so-called high-level guarantees to asylum seekers that are not also - and we must not overlook this point - low-level guarantees for the citizens of Member States.
Let me quote just one example amongst many, Article 25, which stipulates that if the applicant's declarations are not proven but appear simply to be probable, he should be given the benefit of the doubt.
This may seem to be a generous gesture in principle and indeed it is, but in the context of the troubled times in which we find ourselves today it fails to take account of other interests at stake, and above all those of the European public.
That is why we believe that the text before us today should just be the first part of the final directive.
Following this first part, which is devoted to the protection of asylum-seekers, a second part needs to be written, which will be devoted to the protection of the European public, who at best will foot the bill for this policy and at worst will be the victims of it. I say that because we should not forget that at least three-quarters of applications for asylum submitted nowadays ultimately turn out to be unfounded.
And please do not tell us, Commissioner, that those texts will follow later.
They should be presented to us at the same time so that we can take an overall view.
Having said that, I can scarcely bring myself to mention the amendments proposed in the report from the relevant committee of the European Parliament.
I will come back to those in my explanation of vote.
Let me just say at this stage that they are so rash that in the end the rapporteur himself ended up resigning and having to be replaced in fairly disastrous circumstances.
All these texts, both the directive and the amendments, remind us, against the background of our recent debates on security, that it is extremely unhealthy in times like these to authorise 400 000 to 500 000 asylum-seekers a year to enter our territory, given that the majority will ultimately be turned down, but as they are not expelled, will remain on a semi-clandestine basis.
This floating, unchecked population is growing every year and adding to other sources of clandestine immigration.
We believe, Madam President, having seen the documents before us today, that the European institutions are still a long way from giving priority to the public' s safety.
Madam President, Commissioner, we are being asked to express our views on a subject which in itself involves a very broad spectrum of activities.
It is easy to talk about the right to asylum pure and simple, holding it up as a sacred principle, and it is all the more clearly sacred at this sensitive moment when the world is shaken by such dramatic events; solidarity and goodwill are the feelings that we all, in our bewilderment, feel we want to appeal to so that we can build new, better structures between people, worlds and cultures.
It is also clear, however, that, right now, we must not deviate from the objective of achieving tangible situations and establishing practical prospects that are closely linked to reality.
In the proposal for a directive, as Mr Schmitt has already mentioned, there are some - in our view - complex concepts that conflict with the direction we had embarked on in our work last year and open up certain political problems that, in our opinion, are quite serious. Is it right, for instance, to accept that a third country that is considered safe should always be so regardless of the tangible fact that links it to the asylum seeker?
Or that a manifestly unfounded application should, even so, always give rise to a complicated, expensive verification procedure? It goes without saying that certainty on this is in the clear interests both of those who have serious grounds for seeking protection and of the host country itself.
I do not want to go into the legal and philosophical concept of what constitutes being manifestly unfounded, but on matters which are now more sensitive than ever such as that addressed by the Watson report, we must show our determination to build without putting up obstacles, and to help without negative or even destructive effects on our social systems.
Therefore, when we look at the wording on the extension of the right to asylum, the fast-track procedure and the appeals procedure, I think that, on careful analysis, my doubts will be widely shared.
Madam President, I feel compelled to respond to the things that have been said in this House with regard to the position of the Group of the Party of European Socialists on this issue.
Mr Schmitt, there is absolute agreement in my group that the three different groups of people arriving in the Union should be dealt with differently.
So much so that we supported the Wiebenga report with regard to the first group that you mentioned, with a view to creating regulations on reception for temporary refugees, who come in massive numbers fleeing from conflict, which is something the European Peoples' Party did not do.
With regard to asylum and refuge, we agree that we should treat asylum seekers as a group of people seeking protection and who want to enter for humanitarian reasons on an equal basis with those seeking reunification with their families.
The problem is, Mr Schmitt, that my group cannot renounce, despite what you claim Mr Shily, the German Interior Minister, says, the idea that refugees are individuals and that each case must be treated individually in accordance with personal circumstances and not nationality, as well as the safe non-EU country they have reached, for example.
A non-EU country may be safe for one individual but not for another, but do not force me to give examples, since these are always odious.
We cannot relinquish this idea and furthermore, at a time when the European Union is going to produce the first harmonised legislation on refugees, we want to send a clear signal that we are in favour of this common legislation but not in order to reduce levels of protection and rights of asylum seekers, a field in which the European Union has been an historic example and has greatly assisted organisations such as the UNHCR and others.
With regard to the issue of asylum and immigration, there is no doubt that we agree that immigrants are not refugees.
But the problem is that we lack the courage to create clear immigration laws, which would allow the legal entry of people which our society and our labour market can absorb, without destroying the asylum system in the process, which has been the only open door for many years.
We are in absolute agreement on this.
This is our position and it seems very clear to me.
Madam President, I want to thank the committee and its chairman for a well-considered report.
The increasing flow of refugees in recent years shows the need for a common refugee policy both within the EU and globally.
The various Member States' more or less panicky reactions faced with people' s desire to find sanctuary and a new life in Europe have struck a very discordant note, given the humanitarian values the EU stands for.
There have been many tragedies on the EU' s borders, involving vessels that have gone down, desperate refugees who have hidden in containers and refugees who have tried to swim their way to Europe.
On many occasions, I have felt depressed by quite a few of the proposals from the Member States and the Commission whose main aim seems to have been to stop, impede, deport and expel.
Those who have spoken of an EU that is developing into a fortress Europe are, unfortunately, not completely mistaken.
Against this background, this proposal for a directive is along the right lines.
The rights of the individual are emphasised, and repressive measures do not dominate.
It is certainly true that common asylum rules are needed within the EU, but there also needs to be scope for individual Member States to make more generous assessments. The committee has guaranteed this scope.
The committee also strengthens the rights of the individual under the Geneva Convention in relation to the position of children, the ability to hold refugees in custody, greater knowledge on the part of those who have to deal with matters relating to refugees and reasonable periods within which applications are to be processed.
Quite simply, it is a question of increased legal certainty.
I am nonetheless a little uneasy about the Council' s future handling of these issues.
We must safeguard the absolute requirement under the Geneva Convention that every refugee shall have his case examined individually, just as Baroness Ludford said.
As I see it, there are no safe countries.
If, as Europeans, we are not completely to forfeit our good name, a different refugee policy based upon respect, openness and legal certainty is required.
It is not countries such as Nauru that can be expected to assume responsibility for people fleeing from barbaric regimes such as that in Afghanistan.
Empathy and humanitarianism are required even more now, a week after the tragedy in the United States.
Madam President, I wish to pay tribute to the clarity of the proposals contained in Mr Watson' s report on the granting of refugee status.
I feel that he has succeeded in reconciling various points of view.
I personally see this report as complementing both the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Geneva Convention.
As the Commission wanted, I believe that we finally have a good basis for discussion.
We all know that there was a very wide disparity between the various Member States' approaches to accepting refugees.
We also know that the steps involved were complex and difficult.
This report enables us to go somewhat further.
And it also enhances the aid and support that we can give to refugees.
I am also satisfied that our committee has taken into account the new forms that persecution can take. A few decades ago we were welcoming Chilean and Soviet refugees fleeing from dictatorships and persecution at the hands of their own governments.
Nowadays there are certainly forms of repression, which force us to change our mindset and to take into account practices such as the sexual and genital mutilation of women, and new forms of persecution associated with terrorist groups and fundamentalists, and I believe that we have certainly taken that into consideration.
I would even go further and say that it is time that we considered asylum on health grounds bearing in mind that a disaster like AIDS is ravaging a continent, and similarly we should consider accepting child soldiers when they are at the mercy of arms dealers.
I believe that it is also important for this report to be adequate in terms of the fight against discrimination.
I shall conclude by saying that in recent weeks, in view of the terrifying attacks committed on the United States last week, the fear of attacks against Afghan civilians has become a real one.
At present, there are 600 people in the camp at Sangatte who are firmly committed to opposing terrorism.
They are asking to be accepted here.
I think that if we were able to accept them, this would not only be a way of breaking the perceived link between terrorism and Islam, but that these people would also be solid allies in the fight against terrorism.
Mr Watson, let me take the liberty of suggesting that we could ascribe that phrase from Camus to you, when he said that his revolt was also the revolt of others.
Thank you for your report.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Council's proposal offers refugees an opportunity to acquire refugee status under the Geneva Convention in accordance with uniform criteria which will apply throughout the European Union.
This proposal guarantees rapid and reliable procedures for genuine refugees - who account for around 10% of all those who apply for asylum - and also ensures that unsuccessful applications will be rejected quickly.
This applies to around 90% of asylum seekers who apply for reasons other than genuine persecution. That is better than being forced to wait for years before being informed of a negative decision.
This proposal also puts an end to 'asylum shopping' .
However, we also need supplementary measures. These include the Dublin Convention, Eurodac, and rules on safe third countries and safe countries of origin.
The European People' s Party therefore supports the Council's proposal.
However, on behalf of the PPE-DE, I should like to make it clear that asylum law must not now be exploited for political purposes through all the amendments and proposals put forward here and used as a pretext for immigration on many different grounds.
This ignores the reality.
We must use these new European instruments for immigration, asylum or short-term help when refugees come from war-torn regions.
We must not adopt any unrealistic measures.
In future, it must be guaranteed that the right of asylum will be reserved for those who are politically persecuted and will not be extended to groups who some people might want to bring here for political reasons but who do not comply with the provisions of the Geneva Convention.
Our aim must be to guarantee reliable and prompt support for genuine refugees, as well as follow-up measures to assist them with integration. At the same time, we must make it clear to everyone else that there will be other new instruments governing economic immigration into the European Union.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, particularly in light of recent events, today's debate - which I believe we are conducting in a genuinely objective way - is a good example to other parliaments.
It is extremely necessary, but because it is necessary, it is also very difficult.
Sadly, we now have to begin yet again to dismantle prejudices against people seeking asylum.
These prejudices result from fears which are largely unjustified but which must nonetheless be taken seriously.
Now in particular, I think it is important that we no longer engage in lengthy speech-making but take action.
I believe that those people who, in the wake of the recent outrages, shouted for the military to intervene must admit that as politicians, we bear responsibility now more than ever and that we must prove that we are not responding in blind panic but are capable of acting responsibly to deal with the difficulties we face.
For this reason - and I say this to the Members on the Conservative benches - we are not acting as if we are in fundamental agreement with Mr Schmitt or Mr Pirker because we like them as individuals.
There are reasons why we are changing our voting behaviour and voting differently from our group on a number of amendments.
The background is as follows: although we are delighted that the Party of European Socialists in this House is doing everything possible to grant refugees more protection and rights, which we greatly welcome, we have a problem as German Social Democrats.
We cannot accept an agreement or decision if it does not conform with the German constitution.
At present, the German Basic Law does not permit us to accept around 17 of the proposed amendments.
For this reason, we have to adopt a different voting behaviour from our group on a number of these amendments.
This does not imply that we have different objectives.
Our objectives are the same.
However, we have to consider the credibility of our policies in Germany.
We cannot disappoint our citizens and accept a decision which is impossible to implement at home.
This is why we will be adopting a different voting behaviour today.
Madam President, Commissioner, in a situation in which the outrages in the USA have been used by some people as a pretext to incite antipathy towards asylum seekers, it is especially important for the European Union to devise minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status which are based on respect for human rights.
The Commission's proposal meets this requirement.
I particularly welcome two provisions proposed by the Commission.
Article 3(3) states that Member States may decide to apply the provisions of this Directive to procedures for deciding on applications for kinds of protection other than that emanating from the Geneva Convention for persons who are found not to be refugees.
This means that persons fleeing from fundamentalist violence - as in Algeria - or rape victims can be granted asylum.
The UNHCR has been calling for this provision for some time. Unfortunately, it has not yet been adopted in practice in my own country, for example.
Annex 1 sets forth the three criteria which must be met for a country to be defined as a safe third country.
If these criteria are applied in future, some of the deportations from EU countries will no longer be permitted.
I am pleased that the Commission's acceptable proposal has been improved by the Committee responsible and not watered down as the original rapporteur Mr Schmitt intended.
As it now stands, the Directive is an important step towards a more humane asylum policy in the European Union.
Madam President, this is the first in a series of directives that have to complete the first part of the timetable which aims to introduce, in the longer term, a common asylum procedure and a uniform status for people who are granted asylum.
That is the spirit, and also the letter, of the Tampere agreements and the Treaty of Amsterdam, although we should discuss the legal basis of the common asylum procedure and uniform status.
I would very briefly like to mention to the Commission certain reservations of a technical nature that arise as a result of the proposed directive we are analysing.
The first relates to the extension of the minimum rules for asylum procedures.
I believe that the proposal puts excessive stress on regulation and that a common asylum procedure is never intended to be a single procedure or the same procedure for all States.
I am afraid that the Commission may have gone beyond what was agreed at Tampere.
The second reservation relates to the Commission' s interest in regulating time limits, because I am wondering: is a long procedure a factor in the rejection of asylum seekers? That does not mean that we are in favour of a long procedure.
However, from a practical point of view, European countries with long waiting times - more than two or three years - have greater numbers of asylum seekers, and countries such as Spain, with much shorter waiting times, have far fewer.
Harmonisation of these waiting times is acceptable if it is due to a concern for the legal correctness of the procedure, but I fear that it may be inefficient and instil fear for both material and political reasons.
The third and final reservation is of a conceptual nature.
I believe that the difficulties in homogenising decisions stem more from the definition of a refugee than from the procedure for identifying one as such.
Concepts such as 'safe third country' , 'third party persecution' , 'persecution in the event of conflict' or 'state or non-state persecution' are examples of some of these problems.
Perhaps, as I said before, we should deal with the definition before the procedure.
Madam President, I would like to remind the House of the importance of the proposal we are debating today, for various reasons.
Firstly, I believe we should make it very clear that this is a very important first step towards a common European asylum system which, in the long term, will be valid throughout the Union.
Secondly, I believe that we must not now forget that what we are doing is no less than fulfilling one of the objectives agreed at the Tampere European Council, where respect for the right to asylum was reaffirmed in a completely unconditional way.
Thirdly, despite possible discrepancies between parliamentary groups on certain points of the proposal we debated, we must not forget that, in reality, we are providing all the European national systems with a structure that may operate efficiently in accordance with the Geneva Convention on the status of refugees.
I believe that the European Union, from this Parliament, cannot look the other way and fail to implement the instruments that Europe is developing at this moment.
We must remember the Charter of Fundamental Rights which this House recently approved and that, if it is to be borne in mind in this particular field, it must always be with a view to implementing that which was agreed in the Geneva Convention and never to reduce it.
For one reality we cannot forget is that, since the second half of 1996, the number of asylum seekers in the European Union has increased considerably, while the resolutions which recognise and grant that right have diminished alarmingly.
For all these reasons I believe that the amendments that we have adopted in committee and which we are presenting to Parliament today have substantially improved the Council' s proposal and have highlighted certain very interesting questions, especially with regard to the safeguards for asylum seekers, the principle of non-return and also certain essential minimum requirements throughout the process of taking decisions on the recognition of this status, which require that each case be studied individually.
These asylum requests cannot be resolved collectively.
Despite the Commission' s misgivings, I believe that we will have taken a great step forward with these amendments, if they are also adopted today in Parliament.
Madam President, I am sorry to have to begin by saying that this proposal is highly disappointing for several reasons, as is the debate that we have had so far, with rare exceptions. Some speakers have shown that they are not quite aware of the limits between humanitarianism and permissiveness or between necessary controls and unnecessary torture, but, above all, many have shown they do not understand that laws are not made of rubber - they are not as elastic as some would like, that is - but they have certain fixed points, certain cornerstones, beyond which one cannot go.
The reason why I think this document should be rejected is that it is not balanced.
It all too clearly favours the position of the asylum seeker, exaggerating the values I have just summarised, and places the Member States and competent bodies in a really difficult position to make a serious assessment of asylum seekers' applications.
Another reason is that this seems to be a purely theoretical text, clearly divorced from the reality on which it is necessarily and inevitably based: the everyday reality of countries - particularly (but not only) my own, Italy - that have to grapple with the problem of uncontrolled immigration on a daily basis.
Another reason for rejecting this type of formulation also derives from the lack of uniformity in the assessments made by Member States in their procedures for granting refugee status.
One can thus find cases of secondary migration; that is, refugees enter via the most permissive State and then transfer or move on internally to another, more restrictive State.
The proposal is not even clear on the distinction between the three different groups of asylum seekers either: those suffering political persecution as defined in the Geneva Convention, which has already been mentioned; refugees from war zones; and economic and occupational immigrants.
It is unacceptable that three categories of asylum seekers that are so different from each other should be dealt with under the same rules.
The Commission, furthermore, seems even to want to streamline the asylum acceptance procedure, extending it also to people whose cases do not come within the spirit of the Geneva Convention or the openings of the Tampere Council or even the updates on this issue to Title IV of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
What makes the Commission' s proposal and also the Parliamentary Committee' s draft legislation inadequate is that they do not correspond to reality.
An ordinary piece of legislation is proposed for a severe emergency situation.
Come and see what has been happening every day for the last ten years along the Italian coastline; come and see the conditions under which we are working to receive the people, not to put them in prison, and you will realise how inadequate these proposed guidelines are.
As I said at the beginning, here we must not confuse humanitarianism with strictness: the two things can go together.
If you think that 300-400 refugees arrive in Italy every day, 1000 yesterday alone, you will realise that certain precautions are necessary or even inevitable.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, there is no need for long laments of pity such as I heard just now.
There are no cases of inhuman treatment, nobody is held in temporary prisons; the refugees are received and fed, and then they are identified and classified to sort out the illegal immigrants among them, who are rejected, from the genuine ones, who are helped to stay, and also to try to identify underworld infiltrators.
There it is, then: strictness, yes; permissiveness, no.
That is why our group will support all of Mr Schmitt' s amendments that aim to restore the original text of the report, that which lays down fairer rules, especially for the Member States that find themselves in this difficult situation.
In short, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen: once they have got through the door into Italy, thanks to Schengen you will find all kinds, genuine ones and unwelcome ones, in your own countries.
I shall give the floor to Commissioner Reding to wind up the debate on Mr Watson' s report.
Commissioner, rather unusually, we have a little time at our disposal, so if you would like to take advantage of that, we will be pleased to hear what you have to say.
Thank you, Madam President.
I have to say that having been a Member of the European Parliament myself for ten years, it is little short of a miracle to hear you say that I have time to speak!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission very much welcomes the in-depth consideration that Parliament has given to this proposal.
I would like to tell Mr Watson how much we have appreciated his work.
Furthermore, the number and quality of the amendments are bound to add to the debate, and this comes at a crucial point in the process of creating a common policy on asylum.
I would first like to put this proposal in its proper overall context.
The Tampere European Council actually wanted to create a common European asylum system and it agreed on a two-phase approach to achieve this.
Firstly, the adoption of minimum common standards in the areas laid down in Article 63 of the Treaty, and then the development of a common procedure and uniform status for persons under international protection.
The achievement of the first phase was dependent on the Commission adopting a certain number of legislative initiatives, which did indeed take place with the adoption on 12 September of a proposal for a directive on determining the status and forms of subsidiary protection.
So this cycle is now complete.
Furthermore, in its communication of November 2000, on which this House, Madam President, will give its opinion on 2 October, the Commission proposed moving on to the second phase by means of a special methodology.
Its intention is to present this methodology in this communication and to draw lessons from the first year's work, and it will make proposals for new directions in the run-up to the Laeken European Council.
The proposal that we are discussing today is one of the most important and most sensitive aspects of this system.
It was prepared chiefly on the basis of information drawn from a wide-ranging consultation process based on a working document presented in March 1999.
The European Parliament had an opportunity to give its views in June 2000 and the Commission took on board many of the recommendations brought forward at that time.
Madam President, today' s resolution comes at a turning point in work in this area.
I say that because the Belgian Presidency, with the support of the Commission, intends to use the coming months to make significant progress on asylum matters.
This dossier, like immigration in general, should be one of the key aspects of the interim balance sheet of the implementation of the Tampere decisions and will therefore be prepared by the European Council by the end of this year.
Against this background, the Council of Ministers is due to hold an exploratory debate on 27 and 28 September and the outcome of that debate will determine how ambitious we are in our overall approach in this area.
We need to remember that our objective is to approximate national arrangements on procedures.
I would add that this work will also extend to the two other proposals, one on reception conditions for asylum-seekers and the other on the determination of the Member State responsible for examining an application for asylum.
What is more, these three texts are interlinked.
They need to be seen as a whole and I believe in fact that this House has always seen things in that light.
I would like to take the liberty of encouraging the European Parliament to give its opinion on these two other initiatives as quickly as possible.
With particular reference to procedures, there is no denying that there is a great disparity in a number of key areas.
And I do not believe that that should come as a surprise to us, because this initiative deals with a great many technically complex issues, which in itself is not so difficult, but they are also politically sensitive, which in the present political climate is a real problem.
Furthermore, the Council' s technical bodies have not yet completed the first reading, which means that the Member States' delegations have not yet had an opportunity to express their views on certain key provisions.
This is one of the reasons, Madam President, why it is difficult at this stage to comment in a definite way on this House' s amendments on appeal procedures, because we are still waiting for the Council to analyse and examine this issue.
Lastly, the discussions in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and the content of the excellent draft legislative resolution presented by Mr Watson confirm the feeling that there is at present a clear divergence - as you know and as was evident this morning - between the expectations of the European Parliament and the capacity of the Council to reach unanimous agreement.
So the Commission is to some extent between two stools, as it were, but it intends to take on board your opinion, and the guidelines that may emerge from the discussions at ministerial level, as a basis for preparing an amended proposal so as to facilitate a possible consensus.
In this context it seems vital to maintain the balance sought in the original proposal between, on the one hand, the desire to consolidate the rights of asylum-seekers, with due respect for international instruments, and in particular the Geneva Convention, and, on the other hand, the need for efficient and swift procedures and the need to achieve a degree of convergence so as to prevent 'asylum shopping' .
That is why, and I wish to repeat this and make it very clear to your rapporteur, the Commission has a great deal of sympathy for the general approach that emerges from the draft legislative resolution.
However, it will not be possible for the Commission to adopt some of the suggestions made in that resolution which would undermine the achievement of these dual aims, and which would ultimately undermine the adoption of a text which we all wholeheartedly wish to see.
For example, the distinction between the normal procedure and the accelerated procedure, which is actually practised, in theory at least, in the Member States is a cornerstone of this.
If we were to accept the amendments seeking to eliminate this, this would involve seriously compromising the chances of getting the proposal adopted.
On the other hand, Mr Watson, the Commission is certainly ready to take into account either the spirit or the letter of certain amendments that aim to improve the applicant' s protection without undermining the fundamental distinction, which I mentioned earlier.
By the same token, the Commission shares the concerns reflected in various amendments which seek to further improve the quality of decisions made, whilst enhancing the situation of applicants and aiming to improve the efficiency of the national authorities which implement the procedures.
Nevertheless, the legislative route is not necessarily the best way of achieving such an objective, which in many cases may be done by improving and approximating administrative practices.
It is more likely that these standards will be achieved by implementing other means of cooperation, such as the open cooperation method which the Commission will in coming weeks be proposing should be extended to asylum matters.
Furthermore, certain of the amendments would fit better into your resolutions on the communitarisation of the Dublin Convention and on the definition of refugees to which I drew your attention just now.
Other proposals will have to be taken into consideration.
The Commission is accordingly in favour of strengthening the connection between this directive and international or European human rights instruments.
In particular, compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union needs to be clearly stated and guaranteed.
Similarly, it is important to be aware of the effect of adopting a text of this kind in the context of enlargement, and of its impact as regards updating the international protection agenda.
I have in mind in particular the global consultation process launched by the United Nations High Commissioner' s Office for Refugees on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Convention.
Lastly, the Commission does of course agree with your desire to see a more systematic follow-up to the implementation of this directive.
A measure of this kind is indeed vital to support and speed up the changeover to the common procedure decided upon at Tampere as the ultimate objective for the European Union.
Madam President, to conclude, the Commission reiterates its appreciation of the quality of the draft legislative resolution before us today.
It agrees with the general spirit of this resolution, but must nevertheless clearly inform this House about the difficulties that exist.
We need to take account of the constraints on the preparation of our amended proposal, and, furthermore, we hope that the Laeken European Council will give the European Union the necessary impetus to finally put into practice the aspirations declared in 1999 at Tampere.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.55 a.m. until voting time and resumed at 11.00 a.m.)
Mr President, colleagues, I wanted to send you an e-mail about this, but unfortunately I cannot send e-mails at the moment.
I know that many of you have been experiencing particular difficulties with GroupWise.
Since the beginning of last week, other computer problems linked to the main computer system have been sorted out, but the GroupWise blockages have not yet been solved.
I am in constant contact with the LSU-MEP Help-Desk and hope to have more concrete information on the GroupWise situation later today.
The company responsible for the server has been brought in to help find the solution.
I also wanted to send another e-mail advising colleagues to be at the airport at least two hours before the departure of their flight. This is because of long delays as a result of increased security checks.
I am sorry to have to make a point of order again about smoking in the workplace.
As I was about to make a speech on harassment at work during last night's plenary session, the people in the booth behind me were smoking with the door open.
I had an asthma attack just before I was due to speak.
That is a case of harassment at the workplace.
You are absolutely right.
Quite apart from your personal health problems, it is a matter of courtesy.
Neither Members nor anyone else should smoke anywhere other than in the designated smoking areas.
VOTE
After adoption of the Commission proposal
Folias (PPE-DE), rapporteur.
(EL) Mr President, I understand that the Commission is to make a statement on my report and I should very much like to hear it.
Mr President, Mr Barnier was in contact yesterday with the Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control to explain to her the Commission' s position on this subject.
I can therefore assure you that while it will not accept the amendments proposed, the Commission will take the necessary steps to achieve the outcome sought by Parliament, and that when the amended regulation is adopted by the Council the Commission will make a statement in which it will confirm that the provisions for combating irregularities and fraud contained in the financing agreements signed between the Commission and recipient countries will be strengthened, and it will commit itself to improving the information given to Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, many thanks for your explanation.
We would not wish to delay the flow of assistance to the accession candidates, so with the agreement of my colleagues from the various groups, I wish to announce that under the conditions just described, we can proceed to a final vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0293/2001) by Mrs Ria Oomen-Ruijten on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text for a European Parliament and Council directive on the limitation of emissions of certain pollutants into the air from large combustion plants
[C5-0323/2001 - 1998-0225 (COD)]
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Welcome
Before we continue with the vote colleagues, it is my pleasure to inform you that Mrs Chantal Compaore, wife of the President of Burkina Faso and Goodwill Ambassador of the Organisation for the Unity of Africa against female genital mutilation, and Mrs Shamin Kahn, Deputy Minister for Social Affairs of Tanzania have now taken their seats in the official gallery.
I wish to extend to them a very warm welcome on behalf of this House.
(Loud applause)
VOTE (continuation)
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Report (A5-0274/2001) by Mr Luís Marinho on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the initiative by the Governments of the French Republic, the Kingdom of Sweden and the Kingdom of Belgium for the adoption by the Council of a Framework Decision on the execution in the European Union of orders freezing assets or evidence
[5126/2001 - C5-0055/2001 - 2001/0803 (CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0291/2001) by Mr Graham Watson on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a Council directive on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status
[COM (2000) 578 - C5-0705/2000 - 2000/0238 (CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0248/2001) by Mr Sérgio Marques on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on the Annual Report of the Cohesion Fund 1999
[COM (2000) 822 - C5-0109/2001 - 2001/2058 (COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0247/2001) by Mr Camilo Nogueira Román on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on the 11th Annual Report on the Structural Funds (1999) - Volume I - Annexes Volume II
[COM (2000) 698 - C5-0108/2001 - 2001/2057 (COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0285/2001) by Mrs María Elena Valenciano Martínez-Orozco on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities on female genital mutilation
[2001/2035(INI)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0275/2001) by Mrs Miet Smet on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities on equal pay for work of equal value
[2000/2312(INI)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0283/2001) by Mr Jan Andersson on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on harassment at the work place
[2001/2339(INI)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0233/2001) by Mr Carlos Coelho on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on crossing external borders and the development of Schengen cooperation
[(10846/1999 - C5-0042/2000) + (11329/3/1999 - C5-0043/2000) + (SCHAC 2533/1/2000 - C5-0729/2000) + (SEC(2000) 1439 - C5-0730/2000 - 2000/2015(COS))]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
President.
That concludes the vote.
Report Oomen-Ruijten (A5-0293/2001)
Mr President, do you know the difference between sulphur dioxide and sulphur trioxide? I am sure you do.
You know that sulphur dioxide is written SO2 whereas, in chemistry, sulphur trioxide is written with the formula SO3.
I am sure you know that.
I did not, and thanks to this directive I have had to brush up my chemistry, which I feel is a really good thing for me personally because, had I not become an MEP, I would not have had the chance to study chemical formulae again, which are so important in this directive laying down that SO2, that is sulphur dioxide, emissions will be restricted.
I have, of course, voted for it in the interests of the well-being of all pensioners.
Report Riitta Myller (A5-0292/2001)
This directive too, Mr President, deals with the emission of harmful chemical substances into the air we breathe.
I want to confirm that I voted for it, like many of us, not only because this will enable us in future centuries to have a less polluted atmosphere that is less damaging to our health, but also because I believe that, if everybody knows that we in Europe breathe healthier, cleaner, less polluted air, we shall have more tourists in Europe who, as well as coming to see the beauty of history and nature that we have throughout Europe - in Scotland, for instance, where you come from, or in Genoa and Liguria, where I come from - if there is cleaner air as well, will come in even greater numbers!
Reports Oomen-Ruijten and Myller (A5-0293 and 0292/2001)
We voted for both the Oomen-Ruijten report and the Myller report because both propose setting emission ceilings for certain atmospheric pollutants.
Although the proposals are limited, they do represent a slight improvement as compared with the present situation.
We nevertheless regret that because of capitalist interests and national self-interest, which are two sides of the same coin, the proposed texts delay application until 2010.
Whenever an attempt is made to control private interests, even by proposing measures in the public interest, it is always the latter that suffers in the process.
Report Marinho (A5-0274/2001)
Mr President, I voted for this regulation of the acceptance by each of the fifteen European Union Member States of the legislation of the other States, with mutual recognition of judgments and decisions, beginning in this directive with the seizing of assets and securing of evidence.
I am not in favour of this Europe, Mr President.
I should like a European criminal code, a European civil code, a European code of civil procedure and a European code of criminal procedure.
I believe that, at some point in the future, Europe will have to have the same laws in all countries.
We voted in favour of the Marinho report supporting the initiative by France, Sweden and Belgium for the adoption by the Council of a framework decision, which would greatly facilitate judicial cooperation in Europe. This would in fact involve accepting the automatic mutual recognition of judicial decisions freezing certain assets or evidence in the context of inquiries concerning certain defined offences.
This approach provides a useful means of stepping up cooperation while respecting the legal systems in the various Member States.
We would even be in favour of a more clear-cut approach.
Under the text proposed, the new mutual recognition procedure would apply to freezing orders in the context of very precise and specifically listed offences, that is to say drug trafficking, fraud affecting the European Communities' financial interests, laundering of the proceeds of crime, counterfeiting of the euro, corruption and trafficking in human beings.
However, other important offences are missing from this list.
These need to be curbed as a matter of urgency, as in the case of terrorism, which we have denounced once again over the last few days.
That is why the Members from the Movement for France support Amendment No 5, which provides for a broader definition of the offences targeted, that is all offences punishable by means of a custodial sentence or custodial security measure with a maximum duration of at least six months.
If there were a need to go beyond the freezing of assets or evidence, we should study in greater depth an improved right of safeguard system, which can be used effectively but also rapidly by the Member State receiving the application.
Report Watson (A5-0291/2001)
Mr President, on behalf of my 34 colleagues from the Social Democratic Party of Germany and also on my own behalf, I should like to make the following comments about the vote on the Watson report, which was formerly the Schmitt report. In the Federal Republic at present, the issue of immigration/asylum legislation and residence rights in Germany are the subject of a very broad debate.
The Federal government, the German Bundestag, the Länder, party commissions and cross-party commissions have been engaged in an intensive debate on issues which to some extent fall within the scope of the Watson report, and we are currently in the process of debating legislation within Parliament and between Parliament, the Federal government and the Bundesrat.
Against this background, the SPD representatives in this House have been presented with Commission proposals, the opinions of the rapporteur, Mr Schmitt - now Mr Watson - and proposals from the various groups which partly conform and partly conflict with the domestic policy issues facing Social Democrats in Germany.
On a number of points, we have therefore deviated from our group's voting behaviour or rejected the proposals.
Here, our apparent proximity to the PPE-DE Group exists solely on paper, for our substantive views are generally different from theirs.
However, we joined our group in supporting the Watson report in the final vote out of our sense of Social Democratic loyalty, although in terms of German constitutional law, we had major concerns on a number of issues which we believed it was important to voice.
I felt I should explain this background because when the vote was taken in this House, we had yet to reach a position in the domestic policy debate. As a result, some of what we have agreed here does not necessarily tie in with what we are debating at home.
You will excuse me, Mr President, I mean no lack of respect to Mr Watson, whom I like a lot, but I could not help thinking of Sherlock Holmes and his faithful ally, Dr Watson.
'Elementary, my dear Watson!' is what I feel I must say at this moment, meaning that it is obvious that one must intervene to stop uncontrolled and illegal immigration.
But unfortunately I have had to vote against this measure. Why?
Because the excellent amendments by my friend Mr Borghezio, who is sitting here beside me, were not passed. They were aimed at limiting immigration to stop the kind of thing that happened to me in Brussels: I had barely stuck my nose outside Parliament when some people who looked like immigrants snatched my MEP' s diary from me; I am still looking for it and I have not yet found it.
Mr President, the institution of political asylum is part of the most noble legal tradition of our peoples, but the Watson report, in my opinion, makes a serious mistake in extending its scope, in expanding it to embrace a number of cases that lie outside the historical nature of this important and noble institution of public law.
My amendments had a single purpose - and I thank Mr Fatuzzo for recalling it and pointing it out - which is to prevent the improper use of the institution of asylum and that of the political refugee: we are running the risk of encouraging illegal immigration which, as another Member of this Parliament has highlighted in the debates of these few days, also breeds terrorism.
It therefore seems rather serious that some political groups, who appear to be against illegal immigration, should have wanted to block my amendments with their votes.
.
(FR) - As might have been feared, Parliament has just approved the proposal for a directive brought in by the Commission on the granting of refugee status, the laxity of which I condemned in the course of the preceding debate.
Parliament has also, however, found the means to add amendments which worsen these defects still further and strengthen our opposition.
In particular, the original proposal envisaged, in principle, that an appeal against a ruling rejecting a request for asylum would have a suspensive effect, permitting the asylum-seeker to remain in the territory of the country in question while awaiting a final decision, but States would be able to claim an exception to this rule in certain instances, for example, where a request was rejected as manifestly unfounded.
The European Parliament, however, removed this exception by means of Amendment No 85.
The result of this is that, even where a request is manifestly unfounded, the applicant could then remain on our territory while awaiting a final ruling on his appeal.
This intention is confirmed by the adoption of Amendment No 5, which seeks to create a "right to remain on the territory of the country of asylum until the reaching of a final decision".
Furthermore, the adoption of Amendment No 96 prevents Member States from dodging this disaster because it prevents them from abolishing the option of appealing where a request for asylum has been turned down on the grounds of being manifestly unfounded.
All these amendments are extremely serious, because they aim to settle notoriously persistent asylum seekers down for months on end to await a definitive ruling, which is bound to be negative.
In the meantime, however, they will, of course, have disappeared and gone underground.
Those who voted for these provisions know full well what they are doing.
They want to promote massive immigration, as demonstrated by the rejection of Amendment No 126 which stated that a request for asylum is manifestly unfounded if it is made only "for economic reasons or with the sole object of escaping from a general situation of poverty or from an armed conflict".
The blow that this would deal to our countries could contribute to destabilising them even further.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Watson report.
We agree that the EU should establish minimum standards for procedures employed in the Member States for allocating and removing refugee status.
We are nonetheless alert to the fact that the directive is covered by Title IV of the Treaty Establishing the European Community and does not apply to Denmark, cf. the protocol on Denmark' s position.
.
(FR) - We voted for all the amendments which seek to extend protection and provide greater rights for refugees, and likewise for the report as amended.
However, we protest against the passage which insists on States' "prerogatives of immigration control and control of entry into their territory", thereby in fact restoring to them the right to impose restrictive measures.
.
The new proposals to harmonise asylum procedures across the EU are welcomed by the Green/EFA Group, as it constitutes an important step forward and is very much needed.
These proposals provide for basic norms in three key areas: the authority responsible for determining the receivability of the asylum applications, the independent institution to which the asylum seekers can resort to re-examine their application and the appeal procedure.
In particular we welcome the time limits introduced for the processing of applications which will ensure that the current backlog in many member states will be cleared and a fairer procedure brought into place.
However it must be remembered that the attempt to establish common norms regarding safe country, and the concept of safe country of origin, in general is restrictive and could be used and abused by member states.
I know that in Ireland, my own country, the government has bilateral agreements signed with Romania and Nigeria and is planning to sign more in the future.
These agreements are to speed up the procedure of deportation and fall far short of what should be done.
We feel a thorough examination of each asylum demand and a decision should be based on each individual case.
It is essential that these concepts should not be enshrined in the Directive as it would open the way for abuses of all kind, and I feel the same applies to speeding up asylum procedures which could also downgrade the quality of the procedure.
- (SV) We feel uneasy about the fact that the concepts 'safe countries of origin' and 'safe third countries' are on the way to being introduced at Community level.
Any State can potentially infringe human rights, and no country can therefore automatically be regarded as safe.
Asylum seekers must be entitled to have their cases examined on the same basis, irrespective of which country they come from.
The report makes it possible for the Member States themselves to choose whether or not they wish to make use of lists of safe countries.
There is nonetheless cause for concern about the development of the principle of safe countries at Community level.
It is extremely important that we together affirm the principles under the Geneva Convention whereby everyone is entitled to have his case examined individually.
.
(FR) Following the attacks on New York and Washington, there can be no consideration of any policy dealing with the movement of persons unless absolute priority is given to the implications for citizens' safety.
The implementation of asylum policy is no exception to this imperative.
Today even more than yesterday, the Watson report's proposals appear to be an example of what should not be done, because their ultimate effect would be to gravely and dangerously weaken the degree of security which the citizens of our countries must enjoy.
To multiply, indefinitely and to the point of absurdity, the guarantees of all sorts which the Watson report and the amendments adopted by Parliament propose to bestow on asylum-seekers whose requests have been adjudged to be manifestly unfounded, even though we know that three quarters of asylum requests fall into this category, may appear to be generous, but it opens the door to the gravest errors.
The concept of 'benefit of the doubt' is difficult to reconcile with the demands of security.
At a time when the most rigorous measures are being put in place, our Parliament is indulging in an extremely lax approach which can only lead to an increase in illegal immigration and, along with this, further infiltration by terrorist networks.
Why then do all the Watson report's proposals deal exclusively with asylum-seekers and none of them with the security of the citizens of European countries? Such an imbalance, which, I might add, is found in the proposal for a directive as much as in the Watson report, is not acceptable.
It is imperative that it be corrected so that both the legitimate rights of genuine asylum-seekers and the legitimate desire of our countries' citizens for security and protection may be taken into account.
Report Marques (A5-0248/2001)
Mr President, a few days ago I was having dinner in a beautiful Italian city with a beautiful Bulgarian blonde and, to my astonishment, at a certain moment, she asked me, "But why do you still give Cohesion Fund money to Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland? We candidate countries are very much afraid that the same will not be done with us even though we have a far, far lower gross domestic product than those countries.
Mr Fatuzzo, could you not say that a Cohesion Fund should be set up straight away for the candidate countries, who are greatly concerned that they will be falling farther and farther behind you?"
Could I have refused to accept that beautiful Bulgarian blonde' s request, Mr President? What would you have done?
I thought it only fair to be the spokesman for her request.
- (DA) We have voted against the report because we do not believe that it is sufficiently stringent in its criticism of the Cohesion Fund.
The introduction of the common currency in the beneficiary countries of Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Spain ought, as a minimum, to cause the Fund' s activities to be suspended until such time as the first Southern and Eastern European countries have been admitted to the EU.
Resources must be channelled to where there is most need for them - namely to the candidate countries.
What we miss, too, is a more thorough and critical analysis of the way in which the Cohesion Fund is fulfilling its objectives.
There is a disproportionate focus upon maintaining the scales applicable between one country and another and between the two prioritised policy areas, and there is too little importance attached to whether the money is in fact being allocated properly.
It is not enough merely to note positive socio-economic development in the beneficiary countries and in that way to conclude that the funds are being properly distributed.
.
(PT) I wish to congratulate Mr Marques on his excellent report.
It is a fine piece of work which highlights several key points.
I would like to stress the following aspects:
1.
Cohesion is a treaty objective which it is vital to implement
Economic and social cohesion, which is laid down in Article 2 of the Treaty establishing the European Community as one of the essential objectives of the Union, stipulates that the present disparities between the various regions should be reduced and possible imbalances should be prevented, with a view to promoting the harmonious development of the Community.
In reality, there is still a great deal to be done to achieve this objective.
2.
The Cohesion Fund fills a vital gap
Cohesion also has a fundamental role to play in progress towards economic and monetary union, which implies convergence between the economies of the Member States.
However, as the rapporteur rightly emphasises, the Maastricht Treaty did not provide for any support or cyclical adjustment measures within the framework of economic and monetary union, which means that the Structural Funds and in particular the Cohesion Fund are all the more important.
3.
The objective of cohesion will not end with enlargement
The rapporteur draws attention to the fact that the disparities between the present Member States could increase because of the impact and dynamics of enlargement.
It is important to prevent this from happening and to respond to the temptations offered by those who, armed with statistics, are preparing to do away with the cohesion effort between the present 15 Member States.
The objective of cohesion will not come to an end with enlargement; indeed it may and should be reinforced following enlargement.
This will make enlargement an enormous challenge for the solidarity of the Union, requiring careful and efficient preparation taking into account the Union as a whole and its specific characteristics.
.
(EL) The economic and social cohesion we hear so much about is no more than a deliberate attempt to mislead the people of Europe and impose policies on them which serve the interests of big business.
The relentless law of asymmetrical development operating within the capitalist system is not a figment of our imagination, it is a reality and the figures in the Commission's own reports confirm that there can be no talk of convergence; on the contrary, what we have is divergence between the Member States of the Community, between the rich and poor regions, even between regions within a Member State.
A typical example is Greece, where the GNP of regions such as Epirus, Mytilene or the Peloponnese has fallen rather than risen.
The per capita income in Hamburg is 440% higher than in Epirus, which is the poorest region in the ÅU.
In Greece and Portugal, 22% of the population are living below the poverty line.
Decisions by the ÅU are exacerbating social and economic differences, thereby giving the monopolies more and more options.
EMU and the Stability Pact deprive the Member States of the right to exercise monetary policy, impose budgetary discipline and reduce social expenditure and public-sector investments.
And people's earnings and the country's economy are being hit particularly hard by privatisation and, in more general terms, the structural changes being pushed forward in the form of liberalisation of the markets and reactionary decisions on the labour market.
The prevalence of atypical, short-term and temporary forms of employment, part-time employment and changes to the national insurance system, along with the concentration of capital, are exacerbating what is already an unacceptable situation.
Structural interventions funded from the Community purse are not designed to bring about real development in each region.
They disregard what is unique to and the comparative advantages of each region and are dictated by big business's demand for greater profitability and the need to serve the objectives of the Stability Pact.
As a result of this policy, considerable sums of money are being spent on showcase projects, on scrapping traditional productive sectors and on creating infrastructure works which serve private capital, helping to liberalise the markets and boost the unaccountability of the monopolies.
The workers are fighting these political choices and aims on the part of the ÅU and the adverse impact which they generate, an impact which is being paid for by the poorest sections of society, workers and pensioners, farmers with small or medium-sized holdings and small enterprises, especially in the processing and trade sectors.
.
(FR) We support the principles that underpin the creation of the Cohesion Fund.
Like the rapporteur, we do believe that the Maastricht Treaty "did not provide for any economic support and adjustment mechanism in the context of economic and monetary union" and that the Stability and Growth Pact has "effectively restricted government investment."
We share the idea that such funds may be of use in environmentally friendly land-use planning.
We also believe, however, that the thinking underlying these funds contradicts the neo-liberal thinking behind European integration.
It is all very well to "link island, landlocked and peripheral regions with the central regions", but it would be even better not to fragment Europe still further by the systematic privatisation of public services.
Seen in this light, the report does not go far enough in its critique and postulates that the financial criteria of the euro and of the Stability Pact can be reconciled with the demands of real regional development.
That is why we have abstained - so as not to give succour to such an illusion.
Report Nogueira Román /A5-0247/2001)
Mr President, this document too deals with the procedures for spending the funds that the European Union has available for improving the situation in which the less fortunate European citizens live.
On this point, as the Pensioners' Party representative, Mr President, I should like to point out to Parliament as a whole, which is listening to me so carefully, as you see - I am referring of course to the television monitors that are on in our offices - that the Pensioner' s Party is requesting a rise, a marked increase in the funds that the European Union should have at its disposal to implement its activities and policy.
What we receive is too little.
In my view, it is alms for Europe.
Europe should have much, much more for all the European citizens who need to see this Europe as important and close to them.
.
(EL) The asymmetrical capitalist development which characterises the economies of the ÅU can be seen in the changes which have taken place over the last decade, during which asymmetries between the Member States, between the rich and less developed regions and even within Member States of the ÅU has worsened.
Instead of convergence and cohesion, divergence is worsening, widening the gap between the rich and poor.
Even the report admits that the ÅU "still exhibits major regional asymmetries in economic and social development [and] regional asymmetries have actually increased within some Member States".
The golden triangle formed by Yorkshire, Franche-Comté and Hamburg accounts for almost half (47%) the income but only one-seventh of the surface area and one-third of the population of the ÅU, while 18% of the population of the EU is living below the poverty line.
As a result of 'labour mobility' strategies, which strengthen migration towards and the concentration of wealth in the rich central regions of the Union, flexible forms of employment and unbridled privatisation within this triangle, all policies, both national and Community, come second to the law of maximum profit.
Instead of creating jobs, we have mass redundancies and spiralling unemployment.
Even the report tells us that the ten poorest regions have an unemployment rate of 23%.
In the countries which are the main beneficiaries of Structural Funds, that is, Italy, Spain and Greece, there was a clear increase in unemployment between 1988 and 1998, especially in Greece, where the official unemployment rate of 6.7% in 1988 compares with 11.7% in 1998, an increase of about 75%.
These structural interventions are not designed to bring about real development in each region which takes account of its unique features; on the contrary, they come second to even bigger profits for big business.
Not only are funds for structural interventions both insufficient and limited, 30-40% of total funding received by the poorest Member States finds its way back to the richest Member States in the form of payment for know-how or capital equipment.
And this funding has been paid for by scrapping traditional productive sectors, changing crops, destroying agricultural produce and deserting areas.
The ones who suffer as a result are the poorest sections of society, while the ones who benefit are the monopoly behemoths and the various rodents which surround them, in that Community funds are the "pieces of silver" paid for integration into the ÅU; in a way they are a form of compensation to big business for doing away with much of the protectionism which it enjoys under a national market system.
- (FR) The report states that the Structural Funds, principally intended to promote regional development and the equality of men and women, still fall a long way short of what is needed.
Its insistent demand for "the implementation of an integrated policy to promote women's interests" is laudable and highlights an important area in which we have fallen behind.
We, too, consider that "the risk exists that economic and budgetary stability programmes could result in cutbacks in public investment, notably in transport infrastructure and R & D in the less-favoured regions" .
The report does not follow its analysis through to its conclusion, however, and does not adequately break free of such restraint.
On employment, for example, it invites the States to "continue with the employment policy process launched in Amsterdam" and makes the "national action plans for employment" its reference point.
The latter, however, merely translate into operational terms the dogma of the necessary flexibility of labour markets and are in practice contrary to the fight against precariousness to which the rapporteur refers elsewhere.
Since we are unwilling to lend our names to such a position, we have abstained.
.
(PT) The 11th Annual Report on the Structural Funds (1999) concludes the 1994-1999 programming period and thus saw the conclusion of the Delors II package of measures which made a key contribution to regional development, both as regards infrastructure and production and in terms of social integration.
Nevertheless, now that the 1994-1999 period has come to an end, the 11th Report bears witness to the fact that the cohesion situation remains unsatisfactory.
Despite the budgetary effort made with the Edinburgh package and the progress achieved, the European Union continues to be marked by enormous regional disparities in economic and social development, and there continues to be an asymmetry within the European Union between the peripheral regions - including the ultra-peripheral regions - and the centre.
Accordingly, the impact of the Structural Funds has not been sufficient to correct the disparities in production between the richest and least developed areas.
Against this background, I would like to express my support for Mr Nogueira Román's report, stressing by way of conclusion that remoteness and insularity, factors which are the hallmark of the ultra-peripheral regions, can be compensated for by developing activities financed by the Structural Funds with a view to increasing the competitiveness of the production chain, improving access to information and integrating these regions in the context of an enlarged European Union.
This should accordingly reinforce the current cohesion policy, which is more necessary than ever to meet the challenges of enlargement.
Report Valenciano Martínez-Orozco (A5-0285/2001)
The report by Mrs Martínez-Orozco is, Mr President - and I am sure you will agree with me - extremely important.
Measures must be taken so that women - not only women, but in this case women - have no fewer rights in society than men have.
In some places they have many more rights - in my home, for instance, women have more rights than men - but in the rest of the world, unfortunately, as in this case, women really have to face torture.
I therefore ask the European Union not to give a penny more in development aid to those countries that still practice female circumcision and to really implement a policy supporting respect for human rights in those states to which we do give our money.
- (FR) Although we do not support all the proposed measures, we have voted for this report.
Female genital mutilation is a barbarity to be eradicated not only because it is an act of violence with physical consequences, but also because of its purpose, which is to ensure that women' s position of inferiority is maintained.
Those who, when dealing with this subject, invoke tradition, custom, religion or any other such nonsense do no more than shroud in hypocrisy their failure to confront barbarism.
Those who dare to speak of the right to cultural differences demonstrate only their contempt both for women in general and for the peoples whose women are victims of this barbarity.
I wish to thank our rapporteur, Mrs Elena Valenciano Martinez-Orozco, and the committee as a whole for the high-quality work that they have presented to us and for the courageous social choices that they are leading us to make today.
Female genital mutilation endangers health and leads to serious and irreversible consequences such as serious and potentially fatal complications in sexual relations, pregnancy and childbirth, and so it strikes me as essential that we vote for this report today and thereby condemn all female genital mutilation, to whatever degree it is carried out.
This report is all the more deserving of a favourable vote because it calls on the Council, the Commission and the Member States, to define all female genital mutilation as a crime and to impose criminal sanctions on any of their residents who have engaged in this practice, even if the offence was committed outside the EU's borders.
This principle of the offence's extraterritoriality must be firmly upheld.
If any further proof of the need to vote for such a report were required, I shall give the following reason: the fact of being a victim of such practices, as well as that of being born a woman in a place where one runs the risk of undergoing genital mutilation must constitute valid and conclusive grounds for the right of asylum or of humanitarian protection to be granted. The Commission, the Council and the Member States must, within the framework of the immigration and asylum policy agreed in Title IV of the Amsterdam Treaty, adopt measures on granting residence permits to the victims of this practice and recognise the right to asylum of women and girls who risk being genitally mutilated.
For the sake of equality, liberty and dignity, to which every human being has a right, it appears to me - and should appear to us all - imperative that we protect women and vote unhesitatingly for this proposal.
This is a political responsibility that we must shoulder.
.
British Conservatives, of course, deplore the practice of female genital mutilation, wherever it occurs, and we are pleased to note that in some countries it is already against the law, but we do not feel that this report will assist in ending the procedure altogether.
For this reason, Conservatives have abstained, as we feel, from an international perspective, that more diplomatic pressure should be brought to bear against those countries in which the practice of female genital mutilation is still allowed, and that world-wide education and diplomatic initiatives would be the best means to employ in order to put an end to the procedure.
Certainly, in any event, we do not wish to see an extension of the Geneva Convention of 1951 in terms of the criteria it sets out on asylum, however worthy the cause may be.
- (SV) I have voted in favour of this very important report in defence of human dignity as something unique, inviolable and shared by all in equal measure.
It is a question of giving expression to the common basis of values that European cooperation must ultimately rest upon.
Female genital mutilation causes irreparable damage to health and can even lead to death.
Any form of female genital mutilation, of whatever degree, is nothing other than an act of violence which constitutes a violation of the woman' s or girl' s fundamental rights, particularly the right to personal integrity and physical and mental health and of her sexual and reproductive rights.
Such violation and mutilation of a human being can under no circumstances be justified by respect for a religion such as Islam or by invoking traditional cultural practices or initiation ceremonies.
Religious freedom and female genital mutilation have no connection with one another.
Female genital mutilation is an assault on the rights of women and children as enshrined in several international conventions and is prohibited in the criminal legislation of the Member States.
Moreover, it is in breach of the principles of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It is therefore time for any form of female genital mutilation now to be classified in the EU' s Member States as a specificcrime, irrespective of whether or not the woman concerned has given any form of consent, and for anybody who helps, encourages, advises or procures support for anybody to carry out genital mutilation to be punished.
Report Smet (A5-0275/2001)
Mr President, I cannot help saying something about the report by Mrs Smet, who has specified that when women work they get lower wages than men in average earnings. Why can I not help saying something?
Because I want to uphold in this Chamber the view that it is fair, precisely for this reason, that women in many European Union states draw their pensions five years before men do.
This happens in Italy, Greece, Germany, Spain and many other states, but not in all of them.
I think this is fair because it partly makes up for the lower wages women receive when they work.
I should therefore like this to happen in all fifteen states in the European Union.
- (DA) After 25 years of the Equal Pay Directive, there are still differences between women' s and men' s pay.
It is estimated that 15 per cent of this difference in pay is due to gender and not to other factors such as seniority, management responsibility and such like. The principle of equal pay for work of equal value has therefore still not made itself felt.
An extra effort must therefore be made to ensure that it is the job and the responsibilities, and not the individual' s gender, which decide how much he or she is paid.
We support the report, which we believe contains a number of sensible recommendations.
We wish to emphasise that, if unfair differences in pay are to be successfully stamped out, greater openness and transparency must be ensured in the way in which pay is determined.
We also want to emphasise that individual countries must make sure they have reasonable conditions for women' s participation in the labour market (child care facilities etc), if the goal of equal pay for work of equal value is to be achieved.
.
(PT) As you will know, although the principle of equal pay for work of equal value for women and men is laid down in the 1951 Convention No 100 of the ILO and the 1957 Treaty of Rome, as subsequently developed and improved by Community legislation, discrimination continues to take place, as the Smet report indicates, with an average wage gap in the EU of 28%.
Even taking into account the structural differences between men and women in the labour market, such as age, training, occupation and career pattern, women's pay is still 15% lower, on average, than that of men, which can only be explained by value discrimination mechanisms. This is unacceptable.
The issue of the wage discrimination which is practised against women in reality, and the underlying mechanisms, have been analysed in relative depth, although there are many shortcomings, in particular in statistical information for the European Union and the Member States.
However, as the rapporteur states, one thing is clear: this wage gap can only be reduced by means of a twin-track policy.
This involves on the one hand attempting to improve women's position in the labour market, and on the other hand eliminating discrimination during the pay negotiation process.
We therefore consider it important that this issue should be treated as a top priority, including the Commission's proposal to launch a Europe-wide campaign on equal pay in 2002.
But it is equally important that a proposal should be brought forward to revise and update the 1975 Equal Pay Directive.
.
(DE) We have been discussing equal pay for equal work and for work of equal value since my youth, and that is a long time ago.
The ILO's Equal Remuneration Convention has existed since 1951.
In the European Community the principle of 'equal pay for equal work' was laid down in Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome in 1958.
Yet as is always the case whenever it is a matter of justice for women in any walk of life, in implementing the principle of equal pay, the politicians are dragging their feet, as are the trade unions, unfortunately, which are still male-dominated organisations.
We have had the Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the application of the principle of equal pay for men and women since 1975.
We have action programmes and a Community framework strategy on gender equality.
We have countless resolutions and guidelines.
We have the Beijing Platform for Action adopted by the Fourth UN World Conference on Women in 1995.
And now we have this report which - in view of the fact that the average wage gap between men and women in the EU still stands at almost 30% - is by no means unnecessary, for on women's issues in particular, we know that constant dripping wears away stone.
In the 17 recitals and 19 paragraphs contained in this resolution, which I support, we have put forward a great many sound and useful proposals designed to eliminate this wage gap, which continues even after retirement and especially affects women with lower pension provision, thus resulting in lifelong discrimination.
It is clear that action is required from the social partners in particular. However, what is also required is courage from the women concerned and their representatives, especially the women's organisations.
In reality, we have sound legal bases on which to act against wage discrimination.
.
(EL) The harsh reality of the huge social problems which plague workers, both male and female, not only shows up every pronouncement about equality and prosperity for what it is in practice, and in the harshest possible manner, it also makes them look provocative and derisory.
The first and the main victims of this miserable market- and competitiveness-based policy are women.
Unemployment hits women.
Women are bountifully offered flexible forms of employment, with the result that they provide cheap labour, receive less money for the same job and face worse problems of job insecurity and unequal access to the labour market. It is still mainly women who fill the more menial, unskilled jobs and who rarely hold responsible, higher management jobs in economic, social and political life.
The severe blows raining down on social rights and social gains will become even more severe with the planned changes to the social security system, putting an even greater burden on women, who have to carry out many duties and fill two or even three roles.
There can be so such thing as equal opportunities for women within an exploitative society, an underemployed society with no equivalent social prospects and no state welfare.
We need to provide equal access for women, we need to strengthen and extend legislation to protect unhealthy professions and maternity and we need to introduce measures to safeguard all atypical forms of work.
Only the workers' struggle can overturn the anti-grass roots polices being promoted and improve women's lot.
Only the worker's struggle will really improve the position of women in society.
And we are by their side in this struggle.
Report Andersson (A5-0283/2001)
Mr President, some time ago I met my brother.
I have a brother called Edgardo Fatuzzo, who lives in Novara, but unfortunately we do not see each other very often.
When we last saw each other and he heard I was an MEP for the Pensioners' Party, elected to Brussels by pensioners, and that I am the national secretary of this party in Italy, he said to me, "As you are in politics, do you know that when we work and are over fifty they make it quite clear to us that they cannot wait for us to give up our jobs, and they make us feel we are a burden? This is because there are too many young people and they get lower wages; we, however, are slow to understand progress and earn more."
Well, I should like it to be considered harassment when older people are harassed for the sole reason that they have grown old in their jobs, a point which unfortunately is not mentioned in this document.
The report treats as being on the same level what it terms " 'vertical' harassment (of a subordinate by a superior, or vice versa), peer-group ( 'horizontal') harassment or harassment of a mixed type".
Whilst condemning harassment, the report overlooks the fact that relationships at these different levels are not equivalent.
The boss has a power over his employees that they do not have over him.
Those who are at the summit of the hierarchy established by the boss have the right to decide on the allocation of work to their subordinates or even on whether these are employed at all.
The new expression 'harassment at work' is founded on the old exploitative relationships.
Our abstention indicates that, whilst we agree with this condemnation, very limited though it is, we do not wish to give the support of our names to these untruths by omission.
.
(PT) We voted in favour of this report because we consider that it deals properly with the serious problem of bullying and sexual harassment at the workplace.
As indicated in the report, according to a survey of 21 500 workers in the European Union carried out by the Dublin Foundation, 8% state that over the last 12 months they have been subject to bullying at work, which if extrapolated to the total workforce means that over 12 million workers are probably victims of this kind of situation throughout the 15 Member States.
As the report warns us, although the true scale of this phenomenon is unknown, it is a serious problem in working life, and it is equally certain that the general increase in short-term contracts and insecurity of employment, especially among women, is creating conditions that encourage the practice of various forms of harassment.
We therefore support the measures proposed in the report for combating this phenomenon, including those for preventing it, those for increasing knowledge about it, exchanges of positive experience and the publication of a Green Paper by no later than March 2002, followed by an action programme of measures at Community level against bullying at work.
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(FR) Eight per cent of workers in the EU, that is to say 12 million people, claim to have been victims of psychological and sexual harassment at work.
This has devastating effects on the physical and mental health of those - most frequently women - who are subjected to it.
As the rapporteur has emphasised, these practices are due to "the growing number of short-term contracts and insecurity of employment."
Combating harassment at work, therefore, involves restoring to each worker security of status, acceptable working conditions and a decent wage.
All employees, however, need more rights within companies: the right to organised representation, the right to defend themselves and the right to social security benefits such as occupational health provision.
There is also a need for uniform legislation specific to this issue to be put in place and applied consistently across all the EU Member States.
At present, only France has legislated against harassment.
It is, moreover, equally important to clarify the employer's responsibility in this area.
This report is a step in the right direction and for that reason we have voted for it.
- (SV) We have abstained from voting on Mr Andersson' s report on harassment at the workplace.
We are basically well disposed towards the European Union.
European integration provides an opportunity to find solutions to cross-border problems, such as those concerning the environment, trade, movement across borders, human rights and conflict management.
We also believe in the principle of subsidiarity whereby decisions are to be taken as close as possible to those whom they affect.
That is why we are actively pursuing the issue of a constitution for the European Union in which the distribution of responsibilities is clear to everyone.
It must be perfectly clear to all citizens that the EU must only attend to those issues which it is best qualified to deal with, namely the cross-border issues.
Harassment at the workplace is, of course, a problem, and as much as possible must be done in various ways to do away with such harassment.
We do not, however, believe that measures to combat this problem are best taken at EU level.
For us, it is important for the EU to concentrate instead on areas in which it can really do some good.
This is not such an area.
Report Coelho (A5-0233/2001)
Mr President, in this document by Mr Coelho rules are laid down regarding the crossing of the external borders of the European Union.
We should remember, then, that in a very few years the borders will be extended: the borders of Europe will be moved much further east.
We therefore need right now, not in 2004, to bring in tighter regulations on access, on crossing the forthcoming borders, which are not the current ones, and to increase the possibilities of really, actually moving around within our fifteen Member States.
In conclusion: tougher restrictions on the external borders and greater access across the former borders, which are the internal borders of the fifteen and soon the twenty-three European Union Member States.
.
(EL) The report contains a plethora of data which reveal how the Schengen Convention has worked in practice in the 10 states which apply it in full and it goes a long way towards substantiating our opinion of it as an authoritarian, anti-democratic, collective agreement.
To be specific, it admits of omissions and oversights with respect to transparency and democratic control, violations even of the famous EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, a lack of transparency on the role of Europol, the absence of information for the European Parliament etc.
It is particularly revealing with regard to the Schengen Information System (that is, personal electronic records), in which 89% of personal information pertains to 'unwanted' persons.
Documents which should be destroyed are used to supplement police records, data is kept on "persons whose identity has been usurped with no attempt to inform the legitimate older of the identity" and "there is a lack of clear criteria for entering data on the system, in particular in relation to unwanted aliens".
As far as the free movement of people is concerned, the report criticises England and Ireland for maintaining controls on internal borders and France for checking persons arriving from the Netherlands, due to the legislation of the surrounding countries (and especially Holland) on narcotics, but says not a word about the imposition of controls and the ban on allowing EU citizens to enter France or Sweden in order to take part in demonstrations in Nice and Gothenburg.
However, Genoa provides the most representative picture of what Schengen means: on the one hand, the restriction on free movement with suffocatingly tight police controls and entry bans and, on the other, full - if not abusive - application of personal electronic records and police collaboration (Euro-police).
All this confirms that the Schengen Convention is a tool which is used to make it easier to carry out the job of pan-European suppression, make and monitor suspects and terrorise demonstrators.
The situation is becoming even worse following the witch hunt unleashed by the USA with the help and forbearance of the ÅU on the pretext of the tragic events of 11 September. The aim is to silence every voice which speaks out against or even doubts their anti-grass roots policy, supposedly in the name of fighting 'terrorism' .
Some of the proposals in the report are of a technocratic nature (more information for the European Parliament, Council approval for a binding legal framework to protect personal data, approval for the role of the Joint Supervisory Authority).
However, they are accompanied by a proposal to introduce a Community information system, that is, a single computer network for data from the Schengen, Europol and Customs Use conventions in order to make personal electronic records even more efficient, again in the name of freedom, security and justice!
For these reasons, the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece have voted against the report.
A matter of days after the terrible terrorist acts which struck New York and Washington, the Chairperson of Eurojust, Mrs Michèle Coninsx, who is also a senior Belgian judge, has just made some extraordinary statements in the 14 September issue of one of the major Paris daily papers.
To the question 'Is this amorphous collection of Islamicists firmly established in Europe?' Mrs Coninsx replied: "Europe can be a logistical fallback base for these terrorists.
The Schengen area, in fact, makes the borders relatively easy to cross ".
This timely assessment of the situation may be added to, unfortunately, numerous others made over recent years in various fields, whether drug trafficking, the theft of works of art, illegal immigration, organised crime... One is all the more surprised when one reads the triumphalist report on the Schengen system, which has been laid before us today.
For example, in the Council's introduction, we read: "thousands of travellers have crossed open borders unhindered, without security within the Schengen area suffering any visible detriment."
One wonders whether the person who drew up the Council's report was perhaps suffering from hallucinations.
For its part, the report of the European Parliament not only repeats the same errors, but adds to them an order directed at the United Kingdom and at Ireland, which are invited to participate fully in Schengen and thus to completely abolish border controls on persons.
This would, of course, be more practical for France, which would witness the dispersal of the tragic groups of illegal immigrants waiting in the north of the country to cross to Great Britain.
It would not, however, resolve the fundamental question: how did these illegals manage to cross Europe and reach Calais without being seen? Does the Schengen system not bear an overwhelming responsibility for this?
The day after the terrorist attacks on the United States, we called for the EU to revise all its policies in order to prioritise citizens' security.
We certainly heard some fine speeches against terrorism in this House yesterday, but today, we can clearly see the habitual drift starting again without any qualms at all.
The Schengen system, in the guise of a gradual abolition of controls at the internal borders of the EU countries concerned, reinforces controls at the borders of the Union itself and makes conditions of access stricter.
Whilst claiming to facilitate the movement of persons, Schengen makes it more difficult for all those who are not natives of the European Union.
Our vote against this report is an expression of our opposition to both the spirit and the letter of the Schengen Convention.
The enlargement of the European Union by the integration of certain Eastern European countries makes the Schengen Convention all the more shocking, as the Schengen borders put up additional barriers among national communities living in more than one country simultaneously.
Finally, even the slight advantages of the Convention, that is to say, the end of controls at the internal borders of the Schengen area, are random, being subject to the discretion of States which are able to re-establish such controls.
The Coelho report on the development of Schengen cooperation is unsatisfactory from our point of view for numerous reasons.
For us to propose today the reinforcement of the Schengen system, is to reinforce the exclusion of all those men and women, asylum-seekers and immigrants, who for economic and/or political reasons aspire to live as residents of the European Union.
This Fortress Europe is shown day by day to be unjust and inhumane by the treatment meted out to immigrants in refugee centres, detention centres and other closed institutions.
This Europe that Schengen has created is not democratic - as the rapporteur makes clear by putting the emphasis on the "major and serious shortcomings [which] have existed with regard to transparency and democratic control".
There is a need for another policy on the reception of immigrants particularly to regularise the position of those without personal documentation and to respect fundamental rights.
After all, what credibility is left to this area without borders which permits free movement of citizens, when States arrogate to themselves the right to close their borders to peaceful protesters, as at the Nice and Genoa Summits? Freedom of movement within Europe must be recognised as an inalienable right.
For these reasons, we are unable to vote for this Report.
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(FR) Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union defined as its objective "to maintain and develop the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice, in which the free movement of persons is assured"...
To put it another way, the Schengen accords are often summed up too readily as being about the free movement of European citizens, but this can only, according to these same accords, be taken as read when they are guaranteed freedom, security and justice.
The present, however, when crazed attacks have just struck the United States, brings us back to face some cruel realities: the notion of a Western sanctuary, sheltered from violence and in which nothing more would be needed than to grant rights without demanding duties, whilst maintaining a principled abstention from any coercive action, now lies smashed to smithereens.
Whilst I would not wish to suggest that our manifest solidarity with the victims and with the American people must necessarily impel us henceforth to join blindly in any crusade decided on in Washington, it is clear that a menace of the same kind is hovering over our European capitals.
I might well say, Mr Coelho, that your report strikes us as surreal against this backdrop, because, from our point of view, the re-establishment of border controls has never seemed so necessary as it does today.
(Speech cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure.)
That concludes the explanations of vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12.20 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament, adjourned on Thursday 20 September 2001.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, with your agreement, I would like to propose to give the floor to the Members who have requested to speak. This is an exceptional case - and I do mean exceptional - and is on account of the scale of the recent disasters.
Madam President, what you have just said demonstrates that we must now be especially careful about the public statements we make and it is significant that you have spoken about four disasters: two of which have taken place in or around parliaments - in Switzerland and in Kashmir.
I want to say this because I wish to express my solidarity and that of my group with the statements by the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Patten, the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Michel, the President of the French Republic, Mr Chirac, and in this case I regret that we have not heard him speak - since he always does so authoritatively, bravely and appropriately - in relation to the unfortunate public remarks of the President of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Italy, Mr Berlusconi, on the supposed superiority of Western civilisation over other civilisations.
I believe it is especially important now for the European Parliament to state strongly once again, that this is not a clash of civilisations, but, rather, that we have to defend values that are shared by all humanity.
I therefore believe it is important that we, in the European Parliament, clearly express and demonstrate an approach, which is not just the approach of my group, and in this case I would like to address Mr Poettering to say that I was the first to applaud when, at the special sitting we held on the attacks of 11 September, he expressly cited the speech of Anwar al-Sadat in this Parliament.
I believe that remarks such as those by Mr Berlusconi must be criticised by all of us and I hope, because it is not the first time, that they will not be repeated, since they damage the European cause throughout the world.
(Applause from the left)
Madam President, to continue on the same theme, in the wake of the events of 11 September, Parliament gained a very broad consensus on the need to quash any equation of Islam with terrorism, substantiating the unacceptable and dangerous theory that this is a clash of civilisations.
On the other hand, we recall Mr Solana' s words, spoken in the same spirit, who had advised - and I quote - that we must not create a rift, as this would be a huge mistake.
Mr Berlusconi' s astounding and deeply shameful words show how important it is to issue a very clear response.
First of all, we must strongly condemn the age-old rumour of the purported superiority of Western civilisation and Christianity.
Then, we must decide upon an initiative, along the lines of Article 7 of the Treaty of Nice, enabling the Council to determine that there is a clear risk of a serious breach by a Member State of the fundamental principles of the European Union and to address recommendations to that State.
I therefore suggest, Madam President, that the Conference of Presidents examines what significant political action we would be advised to take in this matter.
(Applause from the GUE/NGL Group)
Madam President, I would like to congratulate you on the speech you made the night the heads of government met in Brussels.
Parliament was represented, I was present, and I think you struck exactly the right note for Parliament.
Madam President, I think we have a huge responsibility after what has happened and our response needs to reflect the seriousness of these events.
And that, I think, applies not just to us but to the Heads of State who have applied to become members of the European Union.
That is why I should like, albeit reluctantly, to refer to the statements made by Mr Ecevit, who is trying to cash in on the terrorist incidents by levying accusations of terrorism against the Republic of Cyprus at a time when he, himself, is illegally occupying Northern Cyprus, as you quite rightly said during your visit to Athens.
Madam President, as a parliamentarian I feel myself to be represented by the President of this House above all others, and so it is to you that I wish to address a very specific query relating to what was said by Mr Barón Crespo.
The Italian Prime Minister's statement has been criticised by many, including - which may be surprising - by Mr Haider, who found it too xenophobic.
Madam President, you have always strongly advocated dialogue with Islam, and have also taken definite steps in the direction of such dialogue.
Your policy stands in contradiction to what Mr Berlusconi has said.
In view of the fact that you have had very forthright things to say in other situations - which I did not always find easy to defend back home, but I defended you because I have always valued your clear language - I think it important that you should find equally clear and unambiguous words in this connection.
It is this that I ask of you.
Perhaps these words have passed me by; perhaps I have not heard them or not read them.
I would ask you to make this Parliament's position in respect of these remarks quite clear.
This is a Parliament that has always promoted dialogue and has always engaged in it.
Our whole existence as a Parliament is bound up with the dialogue between religions and between cultures, and I believe that you, as President of this Parliament, should say so clearly and unambiguously on this occasion.
(Applause from the PSE Group)
Mr Swoboda, I must say that I am surprised to hear your comments, because I do feel that I have made my views well known since 11 September, whether in press releases, or with regard to Mrs Banotti' s speech or what Mr Berlusconi said.
Had you closely followed your President' s movements and official visits, you would be aware of my views.
I shall send you some press cuttings, which are extremely enlightening and will, I believe, bring you up-to-date.
I even believe that I may have been one of the first people - since you are giving me the opportunity to bring this up - to draw attention to the risk of an equation of Islam with terrorism.
This was a natural thing to do as President and I knew that I was repeating the views of the House by stating this, and I certainly made this very clear in my first statement.
Perhaps you also recall that I said this at the opening of the exceptional sitting that was held on the Wednesday, the day after the events.
I will, however, send you all the details.
Madam President, it is a matter of great surprise and regret to me that the Chairman of a major political group such as the Group of the Party of European Socialists should get caught up in the false, subversive controversy which originated in the Italian political debate and which it is absurd to think could be continued in this House. The issue has already been thoroughly addressed in Italy and it is certainly not evidence of a problem at European level but merely of a misunderstanding or, worse, the subversive interpretation of a phrase which could have been interpreted differently.
Moreover, the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Berlusconi, has provided ample explanation of what he meant by the statement, which he intended to be extremely positive.
The difference between the two civilisations is clear, and his intention was merely to highlight and emphasise that there is a great difference as regards genuine freedom, which exists in the West but not in the East, as regards equal opportunities for men and women, which are established in the West but denied in the East, and as regards all those differences in civilisation which - it cannot be denied - are there.
That was what Mr Berlusconi meant by his statement, but, of course, everyone has read and interpreted it in their own way.
Madam President, I would go so far as to say that it would be dangerous for this House to focus on a statement such as this now: at such a sensitive time as this, we need clarity, transparency and positive thinking - not a vitriolic debate - and, most importantly, we have to have the ability, which I do not see in the opposition, to extend a hand and interpret what people say in the positive sense intended rather than always placing a negative interpretation on things.
It is therefore our intention to oppose any initiative seeking to open an interim procedure in this House, as has been suggested.
Ladies and gentlemen, as I said, due to exceptional circumstances, I agreed to move the points of order because I thought that you would like the opportunity to speak about the awful disasters, which were, sadly, the subject of my statement.
Now that we no longer are speaking on points of order relating to the statement, we shall continue as usual, in other words, the remaining points of order shall be heard immediately after the agenda has been established.
A number of Members have just asked me about this and I believe that this is a perfectly legitimate request.
Agenda
Madam President, I believe that this Parliament is making a certain degree of progress in dealing with issues which concern our citizens and in which the European Union must have a political profile.
I believe that in the case of the Toulouse disaster the change to the agenda is perfectly justified.
I believe that the case of Afghanistan is highly topical for two reasons: the first is the humanitarian tragedy of the people of Afghanistan, who are the principal victims of the Taliban regime.
Every day there is more and more news about the desperate condition of millions of people. Almost a fifth of the population (more than five million people) have practically nothing to eat.
The European Union is contributing to the humanitarian effort, but I believe this is an issue on which we have to state our position.
Secondly, the political issue.
You yourself set an example, to a certain extent bypassing certain rules of protocol, international law and diplomacy, by bringing Commander Massoud here.
I believe that we are also currently committed to a political solution which will bring stability to Afghanistan, and it is notable that, when a person who could establish a degree of mediation in Afghanistan, the exiled ex-king in Rome, proposed the calling of a Grand Assembly, the Loya Jirga, which could bring the various tribes together, he did so together with American congressmen, but we were not involved, although the Community troika has visited more or less the whole region.
I believe that it makes sense for Parliament, with the current participation of the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Michel, and the Commissioner responsible, Vice-President Patten, to be able to hold a debate on such an important issue, which is not just one more urgent subject, but which is an absolutely fundamental issue in relation not only to the fight against terrorism, but also to the stabilisation of Central Asia and the fight to prevent a humanitarian tragedy.
These are the reasons why my group has proposed this change to the agenda.
Madam President, I have all due respect for Mr Barón Crespo' s proposal and solicitude.
However, this week, we have a well-prepared debate on terrorism, the root of which can be found in Afghanistan, among other countries, under the guise of Osama bin Laden.
I would be surprised if Parliament were now to hold a less well-prepared debate on the issue of Afghanistan, also at the risk of mixing up the two debates.
I feel strongly about holding a clear debate on terrorism.
As a final point, for the resolution, we for our part have also drafted texts which give due consideration to the humanitarian problems that have now arisen at the Afghan-Pakistani border, and we also comment on the budgetary implications of our aid.
I hope that this text will receive broad support.
In my opinion, it is much preferable to deal with the Afghanistan issue at a later date, should this appear necessary, when we can prepare for it properly, for we are now dealing with an extremely important and complex problem.
I would therefore ask if we could this week confine ourselves to the debate on terrorism, and only briefly touch upon the humanitarian dimension to which Mr Barón Crespo referred. We could then deal with the policy with regard to Afghanistan on a separate occasion, but not this week.
I shall now put to the vote the request by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Madam President, I would very much like to add to what has been said.
You win some, you lose some - that is normal.
But we need proper preparation in matters as serious as this.
Mr Barón Crespo, the right time for calm discussion of this would have been at the Conference of Presidents last Thursday, when you were absent - which is not an accusation, these things happen to us all.
It would be a good thing if this House were to have a joint ballot on such important issues.
I ask you to arrange things in the future so that we discuss such matters in the Conference of Presidents in the first instance.
(Applause from the PPE-DE Group)
Madam President, this is the second time that Mr Poettering, who has been absent from the Conference of Presidents more often than I have, has reproached me for not being there on Thursday.
I was in Budapest, I know, but it has to be said that Mr Poettering was the only Group Chairman present.
The others were replaced.
And the Socialist Group was duly and worthily represented.
There is therefore no place for this sort of argument.
Secondly, if this procedure exists at the moment it is because Parliament has sovereignty when it comes to deciding its agenda and in my speech I referred to information and events that have arisen since Thursday. Since I do not have the gift of prophecy that Mr Poettering appears to have, I cannot know on a Thursday what is going to happen on the following Sunday and therefore I think it makes sense that Parliament should reflect and vote when the time comes.
Madam President, in reference to Wednesday's agenda following the point made by Mr Barón Crespo, last Tuesday I and two other Members of this House had the honour of meeting with the former king of Afghanistan, Mohammed Zahir Shah.
At that meeting we discussed the possibility of his playing a role in some form of mediation in Afghanistan leading to the restoration of the democracy which he established in 1964, and which involved free media, free elections and the involvement of women in politics - a very far cry from the current state of affairs in Afghanistan.
He also asked us to extend his respects to you, Madam President, and to the House as a whole, and hoped that in due course he would be able to visit the European Parliament.
Yesterday I spoke to Mr Patten on this matter and hope there will be some development in this regard involving not only Parliament but the European Union as a whole.
On the agenda for Wednesday, it seems to me rather sad that, in spite of the special nature of this international situation, reflected by our solemn sitting the day after the events in America on 11 September and the succeeding week, the Council has made a number of proposals for legislation following the terrorist acts which many of us consider as tantamount to an act of war.
In this regard, the European Parliament will no doubt be involved in the normal procedures.
It would be helpful to have a longer debate on Wednesday and not take the Ghent Council with the question of terrorism.
Secondly, could you give us some indication of when the House will know the procedures to be followed with its committees for the examination, with proper scrutiny, of the proposals now being made by the Council?
Mr McMillan-Scott, we shall try to organise this as best we can.
As regards the former king of Afghanistan, I must also share some information with you. I actually met him on Tuesday 11 September when I was in Italy attending a meeting of 500 young people in Rome.
I made an appointment and, on behalf of the European Parliament, I went to meet the former king of Afghanistan.
I believe that everyone will see this as a step in the right direction.
We shall therefore try to organise everything properly and as you would wish.
Relating to Thursday:
I have three requests to add headings to the topical and urgent subjects of major importance and the item entitled 'Human Rights' .
Madam President, last week, those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party were agreed that there is only one urgent subject that ought to be dealt with in Parliament in this plenary sitting, and that is international terrorism and the need to build an international coalition to combat this.
Unfortunately, we were unable to get anywhere with that point of view last week in the Conference of Presidents, and that is something we regret.
We shall naturally participate in this vote.
I requested the floor in order simply to emphasise that those of us in the ELDR Group think we should have focused our energies on the one urgent subject which we are all thinking about and which will cast its shadow for many years to come.
(Applause from the ELDR Group)
Madam President, I do not wish to waste Parliament' s precious time on an issue which has already been addressed by Mr Santini and which has already been quite satisfactorily resolved in Italy.
I would just like to point out that, as always, where Mr Berlusconi is concerned, every event is prey to political exploitation.
This behaviour towards a Head of State is improper and inappropriate.
Madam President, I am one of those Members of this House whose cultural background is not exactly Christian.
There was a statement recently by a statesman, who should speak in a statesmanlike manner, but who, when speaking about Muslims and Christians, actually, in my opinion, dropped something of a clanger.
I deeply regret that we were unable to deliver a joint response, but had to have a discussion instead.
I greatly regret this, because we should be counteracting escalation.
A dialogue is urgently needed specifically between Muslims and Christians.
The Italian Prime Minister's spoken contribution added nothing, but was highly counter-productive.
For this reason, I greatly regret that we were unable to counter it with a common response.
Madam President, I would like to go back to Mr Berlusconi' s statements, not least because it is an issue which extends beyond Italian concern, as is indicated by the reactions of all the Heads of State and Government to these statements.
I have to say, Madam President, that we Italians - or at least the majority of the Italians sitting in this House - are particularly concerned by Mr Berlucsoni' s statements because these statements, in addition to being in blatant conflict with the conclusions of the Brussels European Council, subscribed to by Mr Berlusconi himself, moreover, reflect the attitude - which I hope has ceased to prevail - of part of the majority supporting the Italian government.
In matters such as these which, regrettably, can carry such weight as to tip the balance towards war or peace, exploitation for political ends is unacceptable; however, equally unacceptable are superficial expressions which, I am sad to say, appear to mask attitudes of intolerance which must be opposed.
Without wishing to exacerbate the issue, we cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that, after 11 September, a major government coalition party held public demonstrations with boards saying 'Immigrants = terrorists' , and that, in recent days, two mayors of cities in Northern Italy from the same party have ordered the closure of the premises used as mosques.
That, Madam President, is why we will feel more reassured if you too, as President of this Parliament, particularly following Mr Santini' s words, were to confirm a clear message of open dialogue, such as Parliament has already had occasion to send to the Muslim Arab communities and countries with which we intend to work to combat terrorism, together, openly and resolutely.
Madam President, Mr Berlusconi was certainly wrong to talk of superiority and a clash of civilisations. These are words which do nothing to promote dialogue.
Nevertheless, at this time when major alliances are being formed, I would like to send out from this House a personal message of great solidarity and support to the Afghan, Saudi, Iranian, Kuwaiti and Chechen women, to the women of all those countries who are currently fighting and will continue to fight in the coming years.
It is my genuine hope that the formation of this great alliance to combat terrorism will not mean that the issue of these women' s rights will be relegated to second place yet again.
Madam President, in my view, we could have, when dealing with the points of order, quite legitimately gone back to the absolutely scandalous words of Mr Berlusconi, who has designs on being the future president of the European Union.
My colleague and the Chairman of my group, Mr Barón Crespo, and my colleague Mr Swoboda were demanding that you condemn outright the words of Mr Berlusconi.
Every Member of this House is aware that we had a very broad consensus on avoiding the risks of an equation of Islam with terrorism and condemning anything that could be seen to be a war between civilisations.
But we expect you to condemn outright what Mr Berlusconi said. That is my point of order.
Madam President, Mr Poettering's highly credible words show that he represents only part of his group, for hardly had he come to the end of his speech than Mr Santini asserted the very opposite of what Mr Poettering had described as being the position of the Christian Democrat Members of this House.
It would, then, be consistent of Mr Poettering to call upon the Forza Italia members of his group to fall in with the group's position, for what Mr Fiori proceeded to say shows that what Mr Poettering expresses here is not the view of the Christian Democrat members, but only the opinion of some of them.
Madam President, I did not hear your radio and television statement myself, but many of those who were able to do so said that you had taken up an excellent position on behalf of the European Parliament in respect of Mr Berlusconi's remarks and have told me emphatically that Mrs Fontaine's position is exactly that which the European Parliament should take up.
Let me first congratulate you on it.
I would, though, also like to ask you to do the following: as your position is visibly the majority view of this House, you should again expressly communicate this position to Mr Berlusconi and, at the same time, ask him - in order to dispel any doubt - to make a statement in reply.
For if his cultural relativism were really nothing but a misunderstanding, your letter and an appropriate response from Mr Berlusconi would be decidedly helpful.
Mr Schulz, I shall certainly send Mr Berlusconi my press release of 11 September, as well as the statement that I made on 19 September following the meeting that I gave.
The Arab League ambassadors had wanted to meet me personally in order to outline their concerns to me and, at the end of this important meeting, which was both intense and worthwhile, I made a statement that could not be any clearer.
I shall also send my statement of 22 September, declaring that the European Council is firmly committed to the fight against terrorism, and in which I solemnly confirm the European Union' s commitment to protecting democratic and multicultural societies.
And lastly, I shall forward my speech that Mrs Banotti referred to, which I gave to the Heads of State at the exceptional meeting of the Heads of State and Government, and which is very clear.
I could also add the statements that I made on Greek television, as I was on an official visit to Greece at that time.
Madam President, I do not wish to reply to Mr Tajani, but only to make two observations.
I had not interrupted him, but had listened attentively and - which is exceptional for me - had permitted myself to laugh at the particularly clever things he said.
God forbid that that should be prohibited in this House!
Perhaps the situation in Italy has got so that one is no longer permitted to laugh at the government... I had not interrupted him, and must moreover say that it would not have been worth it to break into his disquisition.
Madam President, on a point of order.
Following the tragedies in New York and Washington, many other aspects of our lives have inevitably been changed for ever and I would like to ask the Commission to make a statement on the issue of state aids to airlines.
In a small peripheral country such as my own, the survival of a national airline is of vital importance to the economy and already in Ireland over 700 jobs are threatened at Aer Lingus.
I would ask the Commission to lift its ban on state aids to national, particularly small, airlines.
Certainly, Mrs Banotti, thank you for what you said and we shall pass on your request to the Commission.
Madam President, Mrs Banotti has already raised the matter of the effect of the acts of terrorism on airlines.
It is more than airlines: the European tourism industry is Europe's biggest industry, and the World Travel and Tourism Council estimates at the present time that two million jobs could be lost in Europe.
This is a very serious matter.
I hope the Commission and Council can address this and come forward with some proposals to try and alleviate the situation, because it could be quite drastic.
I have just returned from the United States where hotel accommodation is currently about 20% of capacity and aircraft are operating at between 25 and 33% of capacity.
There has been a huge reaction and I hope the Council and, in particular, the Commission can do something to help before matters get really serious in Europe.
Madam President, I have a point of order on the aviation industry in Europe, and in particular the national airline in Ireland which will be bankrupt within a matter of weeks unless the Commission relaxes its guidelines on state aid for the airline industries.
There is also a former state company in Ireland, now privately owned, which services and maintains airlines.
This company is also in serious difficulty.
As Mr Provan mentioned, the tourism industry is in further severe difficulty too after the crisis which followed the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
I appeal to you, Madam President, to use your good offices to impress upon the Commission the concern of this House about the impact of the atrocities of 11 September in Europe where thousands, if not millions, of jobs are at risk.
It is extremely important, if this House is to demonstrate its relevance to the lives of the citizens of Europe, that we should use our influence to save these jobs and to ensure that the Commission does not apply rigid, ideologically-based guidelines in the current situation.
Mr De Rossa, this is an extremely important issue and I shall of course forward this message to the Commission.
Mrs Wallström might also wish to give a brief response.
Madam President, of course this has already been discussed at a Commission meeting.
The Commission has been in contact with European and other airlines and there have been discussions about state aid or insurance and how these should be channelled.
I have to refer the matter to my colleague, Commissioner de Palacio, who will have all the details and can give you more information, but I assure you this has definitely been on our agenda and we are interested in finding a solution.
I will raise this issue with my colleagues in the Commission and I hope we can give you, as soon as possible, a complete answer to questions about the airlines and state aid, or help through other channels.
Thank you, Mrs Wallström.
I would also point out that the communication refers to the guidelines for trans-European transport networks and so this issue might also be dealt with tomorrow, when we are given the Commission communication.
Madam President, I am very glad that Mr De Rossa raised this subject.
Both of us represent the same constituency.
This would be quite a disaster for all the workers and indeed for Ireland.
I want to remind the Commissioner that Ireland is an island within the Community.
It is very difficult to operate without an airline such as the national airline, Aer Lingus.
The United States was very quick to take a decision to support the airlines in their country.
It seems to me that the Commission should take an early decision on the necessity to support airlines such as Aer Lingus and Sabena.
For Ireland it is an absolute necessity to have a guaranteed source of transport by air to other parts of the world.
I urge the Commissioner to take quick decisions on the issue.
Too many people's jobs and families' welfare are at risk unless something can be done in this respect.
I appreciate that it is not entirely within your remit to deal with the subject now, but I hope that there will be a positive statement forthcoming from the Commission this week at the latest.
Madam President, unfortunately most people have left at this stage but I want to draw the House's attention to the murder by loyalist paramilitaries last Friday of Martin O'Hagan, a journalist.
This is just one more example of the grave human rights situation in Northern Ireland.
Human rights lawyers have been assassinated as well by loyalist paramilitaries.
Only a few years ago, Rosemarie Nelson, the mother of a young family, was assassinated by loyalist paramilitaries because she was a human rights lawyer.
There is a serious matter.
We often debate resolutions in this House about human rights lawyers and journalists being assassinated in the exercise of their duty in other parts of the world.
Here is a situation within the European Union that has been going on for a long time.
The situation is extremely grave.
Journalists have the right to expose wrongdoings, human rights lawyers have the right enshrined in international law to represent people in courts.
Yet they are being prevented from doing so and in fact, those brave enough to do so have lost their lives.
It is a real tragedy.
Thank you, Mrs McKenna, for having added to what I said at the opening of the sitting.
Accident at AZF, Toulouse, and EU environmental policy
The next item is the Commission statement on the accident at the AZF factory in Toulouse and the rewriting of the European Union' s environmental protection policy.
I shall now give the floor to Mrs Wallström.
Madam President, the accident in Toulouse occurred shortly after 10 a.m. on 21 September at the establishment Grande Paroisse in Toulouse.
This fertiliser plant is owned by Atofina the chemical branch of the Total/Fina/Elf group.
Amongst other dangerous substances it held important quantities of liquefied ammonia and chlorine, combustibles, solid ammonium nitrate and fertilisers, as well as methanol.
The effects of what seems to have been a mass explosion of ammonium nitrate were felt far outside the establishment's boundaries.
According to the latest reports, 29 people were killed, 30 people are still in hospital in a serious condition and in total around 2400 people were injured.
The accident also affected two other chemical plants in the vicinity.
It rendered a large number of houses uninhabitable and affected the electricity distribution system.
Moreover, the psychological after-effects on the population that first believed it to be a terrorist attack are also important.
This accident is perhaps the worst of its kind in Europe since 1921, when an explosion at the BASF company in Germany claimed the lives of 561 citizens.
Last week a representative of the Total/Fina/Elf group met with the responsible services of my Directorate-General in order to provide detailed information on the accident.
Furthermore, the French Ministry of the Environment has provided information to the Commission.
However, the exact causes of the accident are still unknown and the three investigations under way by Atofina, the Ministry of the Environment and the Attorney-General might take a long time.
AZF was fully covered by the Seveso II directive, which aims at the prevention of major industrial accidents and the limitation of their consequences for man and the environment.
Its classical field of application are chemical plants and storage facilities.
The directive obliges the operator of these facilities to put in place a major accident prevention policy, a safety management system and internal emergency plans.
He/she has to prepare a safety report and send it to the public control authorities.
These authorities have the task of inspecting the site at regular intervals and also of ensuring that its external emergency plans are put in place and tested periodically.
Furthermore, the public living in the vicinity of the plant must be informed of the risks arising from the facility and the behaviour in case of an accident.
The directive came into force in 1999 and replaced the original Seveso directive from 1982 that was adopted following major industrial accidents in the 1970s.
This was the first piece of Community legislation in the field of industrial risk management.
It is no secret that Member States were late with their transposition of the Seveso II directive into national law.
No Member State adopted transposition legislation in time or notified the Commission hereof in time.
Therefore the Commission started infringement proceedings against all 15 Member States for non-communication or incomplete communication of transposition measures.
In the meantime this resulted in the Commission taking five Member States to the European Court of Justice: Belgium, Austria, Germany, Ireland and Portugal.
For France, the Commission decided on 18 July 2001 to apply to the Court for incomplete transposition.
However, I want to make it very clear today that the reasons for the Court appeal being launched against France can in no way be related directly to the Toulouse accident in terms of possible infringement of obligations under the Seveso II directive.
At the moment, despite rumours in the press, the Commission has no indication that there was either a deficiency on behalf of the operator managing the plant and complying with Seveso II or on behalf of the French control authorities responsible for inspecting the site.
According to information received from the French Minister for the Environment, risk analysis, including possible accident scenarios, had been carried out by the site operator but these did not include a mass explosion of ammonia nitrate.
The last updates were made in 2000 and 2001.
A safety management system was in place and the site was inspected about twice a year.
The last inspection took place in May 2001.
Internal and external emergency plans were in place.
A land use planning policy established by the prefect imposed restrictions on all new construction activities in the vicinity of the plant.
Let me now come to the follow-up.
Just over a week after the accident it is still too early to draw any conclusions.
The regulatory committee established under the Seveso II directive, chaired by the Commission and composed of representatives of all Member States is going to meet on 10-12 October to discuss, amongst other things, the accident and its follow-up.
What is the repercussion of the Toulouse accident on the foreseen amendment of the Seveso II directive? You might recall that after the Baia Mare accident, the cyanide spill in Romania in January 2000, I created a task force that presented its final report in December last year.
In parallel, after the disastrous fireworks explosion in May 2000 in Enschede in the Netherlands, my services organised two European expert seminars on pyrotechnic and explosive substances.
The expertise and the resulting recommendations went into a draft proposal for an amendment to the Seveso II directive, aiming at broadening the scope and covering establishments that were previously not covered.
The draft proposal has undergone a public consultation process involving all stakeholders and was foreseen for adoption by the Commission in September.
We should move forward with this amendment.
This does not mean we should not take due account of the Toulouse accident.
There is indeed one very important aspect that made the consequences of the accidents in Toulouse and Enschede even worse, that is, the proximity of the establishments to inhabited areas.
The new Article 12 on land use planning in the Seveso II directive aims in the long term at the separation of hazardous industrial establishments and inhabited areas or other locations frequented by the public.
Although the inclusion of such a provision in Community legislation for the very first time represents a major step forward, the Commission and Member States still have to gain experience with its implementation.
Moreover, this provision applies to the planning for new industrial sites, for new housing zones, and does not retroactively apply to existing situations, such as Toulouse, where increasing density of population has led residential areas to continually spread closer to an industrial site that has existed since the 1920s.
In order to assist Member States with the implementation of this provision, a guidance document on land use planning was published in 1999 and plans for a European seminar on land use planning to be hosted by France were already under way before the accident in Toulouse.
In the near future my services will increase cooperation with the Member States in order to develop an appropriate legislative and/or non-legislative follow-up to the accidents in the areas of land use planning, harmonisation of generic risk assessment methods and risk mapping.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on 21 September, Toulouse was struck by a terrible disaster which, as Mrs Wallström said, claimed many victims - 29 people died and more than 2 000 people were injured - and considerable damage was caused to housing, schools, hospitals and universities.
If I may, I would like to pay tribute to the victims and to express our sympathy and support to the injured, to their families and to all those affected by this disaster.
What helps most in a disaster like this is other people expressing their solidarity.
The people of Toulouse have been touched by the number and by the spontaneity of the messages that they have received from France and the European Union, from the Parliament and the Commission.
As Deputy Mayor of Toulouse, I would like to give my sincere thanks to all those who have sent these messages to us.
This disaster also compels us to consider a number of things. The first is the action the European Union can take to help these towns or regions affected by the catastrophe.
The European Union budget used to include a heading for emergency aid to deal with these disasters, but this was withdrawn.
I am today requesting that this instrument, which helped to put affected regions back on their feet, be re-introduced.
Toulouse is a prime example of a European city with its aircraft and space industries and, in the last few days, I have heard many people asking, when they hear of aid being granted by various sources: 'And what about Europe - what is Europe doing to help us?'
Since we constantly discuss bringing Europe closer to its people, one of the most obvious ways of doing this would be for Europe to help Europeans in their time of need.
Situations such as that which Toulouse has recently experienced require the use of human resources, such as the fire services, first-aid workers, doctors, hospital and voluntary staff.
Without going so far as to propose the utopia of a European civil protection force, I think that every effort should be made at European Union level, as Parliament recently requested, to enhance the coordination of civil protection expenditure.
We must improve how the system works.
For example, in the disaster in Toulouse, I would have been pleased to see the fire services and first-aid workers from other Member States supporting the remarkable work carried out by the Toulouse fire services.
These are distressing circumstances, admittedly, but this would have done much to help Europe' s cause.
We often talk of 'zero risk' .
The recent events, which have plunged the citizens of Toulouse and New York into mourning, show that this certainly cannot be achieved.
What we can do, however, is to reduce the probability of risk by taking careful action.
We must do this at a local level, at a national level, and we must ensure this is done at European level.
I therefore call on the European Commission to take into account the lessons of the disaster in Toulouse when revising the Seveso II directive.
Almost every day, many demonstrations take place in Toulouse, in which thousands of people take part, chanting 'Never again, never again!'
I would like everyone in this House to respond to them with 'Never again in Europe!'
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, before I begin talking about the substance of the matter, I would naturally like to express my solidarity with the victims and their families.
I believe that the House has today shown its solidarity, which, in my view, is also essential.
Secondly, my thoughts are also with those of my fellow Members who are more directly involved, due to their responsibilities in the region.
Nor should we forget to praise the efficiency of everyone who immediately rushed to the scene of the disaster to provide assistance, such as the fire services and hospital staff, and of everyone who played a part in organising the support network for the victims and their families.
We must also praise the extensive measures of solidarity announced by the Prime Minister during his visit last Friday to Toulouse, which will enable life to return to a normal footing - if that were at all possible - by re-housing those who have lost their homes and getting children back into school as quickly as possible.
There is also an inquiry underway into the causes of the explosion.
We must have confidence in the French authorities to carry out this inquiry carefully, with a desire for transparency and with a determination to succeed.
In addition to this, what can we do at European level?
In my view, we must all shoulder our responsibilities, at our own level.
You mentioned this, Commissioner, and I would like to thank you for your comments about France' s responsibility concerning its obligations under the Seveso directive.
What you said is important.
You also mentioned the debate that is underway on how to best reconcile land use planning, environmental risk, industrial risk and employment.
The work that you have carried out with the aim of revising the Seveso directive should take into account every aspect of this balance.
Many other Members, in addition to myself, will take part in this debate on additional measures which could be envisaged, including at a European level, particularly with regard to monitoring.
There is, nonetheless, a point that I would like to come back to, which is the issue of emergency aid.
Admittedly, we all know that this is a difficult debate, one that was opened during the re-negotiation of Agenda 2000.
But can we just sit back and watch the disasters that have struck France - namely, the sinking of the Erika, the storms of December 1999 and now the explosion in Toulouse - without demonstrating some European solidarity? We must find a way to do this, if not through the use of a heading on emergency aid, perhaps we could see whether there is some leeway within the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) so that, in addition to this strict set of zones that we have put in place, there may be room for a small solidarity package, so that Europe can also manage in difficult circumstances.
Secondly, I hope that the Commissioner will do everything she can at a European level and beyond to remind everyone of their responsibilities, in order to allow land planning policies to take into account, in their fiscal dimension as well, the difficult balance that we must achieve, and also so that the leaders of industry shoulder their responsibilities when compensating victims and repairing the damage.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I would like to join previous speakers in expressing my group' s solidarity with the families, the victims' relatives and the people of Toulouse as a whole.
Given the latest legal information we have at our disposal, and whilst awaiting completion of the inquiry that is currently underway, which will determine the causes of the disaster, what lessons, Mr President, can we draw from this fatal explosion?
First of all - and this is distressing, truly distressing - history is repeating itself.
It is 33 years since the Seveso disaster, not to mention the other disasters that have occurred, and two European directives seeking to provide the Member States with a harmonised policy in managing major industrial risks will not have been enough to avoid another human tragedy. This is a stark reality that illustrates the limits of a law, even where this is binding and transnational.
We should avoid responding to this industrial catastrophe with a Seveso III directive.
The Liberals consider it imperative, and the Commissioner reiterated this, that, first and foremost, all Member States strictly apply the provisions of the existing legislation, particularly the Seveso II directive, which dates back to December 1996.
And we still have a long way to go before this can be done, with infringement proceedings launched against six Member States, one of which is France.
You also stated, Mrs Wallström, that all Member States were behind in the transposition of the directive into national law.
So, did the manufacturer, the owner of the site, update the safety report at any point in the last five years, as specifically laid down in one of the articles under the Seveso II directive? It is worthwhile asking this question, since at a seminar held in France in 1999, the European Union network for the implementation and enforcement of environmental law (Impel) discussed the causes of a massive ammonia leak at the 'Grande Paroisse' factory, which is in the Seveso II category, and the finger of blame was pointed at design faults and equipment reliability.
We must conclude that the precautionary principle did not prevail in this case.
Must we reiterate that this risk assessment provides an essential basis for any strategy to prevent and avert all types of disaster? And now I come to the key point of this debate, which is, as Mrs Berès has already said, the monitoring of land use planning in areas surrounding these sites.
Employees of the factory are of course affected but everyone living nearby is also a victim of the massive chemical explosion.
The AZF factory was nothing more and nothing less than a time bomb situated less than five kilometres from the centre of Toulouse, a city with a population of 400 000.
This is not the only example of a city in Europe that has seen a population explosion.
If you draw two lines on a map of Europe, one from London to Milan and the other from Copenhagen to Barcelona, and 200 kilometre corridors along each side of the lines of this X, you will have 65% of Europe' s population and 80% of Europe' s manufacturing sites, including the dangerous ones, within this restricted area.
In France, there is a national debate on the issue of risks to the urban population.
Three hundred and sixty million citizens of Europe expect, here and now, to see a genuine land planning policy resulting from the unprecedented disaster that struck Toulouse.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank all the speakers who have taken part in this debate, as I believe that, despite our political differences, we know that we must pull together in the face of tragedy.
Mrs Wallström, the title of the statement that you made to us today obviously referred to the accident at the AZF factory, but it also referred to the rewriting of the European Union' s environmental protection policy because, in my view, this is what poses the challenge.
The accident that occurred at Seveso gave us the Seveso I directive.
This was insufficient.
The accident at Bopal was followed by the Seveso II directive.
I do not wish to see us simply come up with a third Seveso directive, a point that my fellow Member, Mrs Ries, made very well.
In my view, we must change the way we approach these problems as patching up after each successive tragedy can only achieve so much.
Obviously, I agree that we need to further strengthen what already exists, but we must also know when to change tack.
Since today we know that 'zero risk' is impossible - what has happened recently illustrates this, tragically - and so it is also impossible for people to live alongside a chemical time bomb.
We must therefore move away from risk management towards risk removal.
The removal of risk will not be an easy thing to achieve, let us make no bones about this.
We will not be able to do everything in one fell swoop.
Several things will need to be implemented.
First of all, we need resources.
European resources, resources from other Member States, which will be crucial and which must obviously supplement the resources that the manufacturers themselves will have to provide, because these large international firms are making a profit, because the land that they own, due to their proximity to built-up areas, is worth a great deal on the property market, and also because if they relocate, they will undergo restructuring and will make substantial operational savings.
We need resources, therefore, but we must also avoid causing social problems.
Over the past few days, the people who worked at the AZF factory have been burying their colleagues.
I do not wish to add unemployment to their list of problems - let us not add social crisis and social problems to the environmental and human tragedy.
We therefore must use all our resources to help these people to relocate if the site is sealed off, or help them with retraining if jobs are retained in Toulouse.
We must also be very careful with regard to relocation.
The European Union has always been very sensitive to the question of solidarity and I believe that the large corporations are quite prepared to relocate, but they can quite easily contemplate relocating to the developing world, where there is no environmental protection and no social protection.
In this respect as well, the European Union must make every effort to avoid this type of relocation.
Let us avoid sending our time bombs and dangers to other parts of the world.
Lastly, now might be a good time, when discussing relocations, to consider the purpose of the products that are manufactured in the companies concerned.
The factory that exploded produced fertilisers.
Is there still a need today for us to flush more nitrates into the groundwater of Europe' s soil? It may also be the time to question whether some production methods are not perhaps obsolete.
I am calling upon you, Mrs Wallström, and via you I call on the Commission as a whole, because it is Europe' s turn to speak.
Defining this general framework clearly falls within Europe' s remit.
Due to the scale, frequency and almost unavoidable nature of these accidents, I believe that a pact of confidence has been breached between the people of Europe and the regulatory framework that we are supposed to implement.
I think that we must restore this confidence as a matter of urgency.
We are, I believe, now awaiting specific and firm proposals from the Commission.
We should not be satisfied with purely cosmetic measures.
We need political measures.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, like other Members from the region, I was in Toulouse at the time of the explosion.
Since then, I have met with several employees, residents and friends who have been affected by this disaster.
I wish to point out that when we talk about suffering, trauma and shock, we are talking about men and women whose lives have been deeply wounded and their anger is in proportion to this shock.
I wish to pay tribute to the memory of the victims and also to the local authority workers, the emergency and medical teams, the Electricité de France employees and all the men and women who, with their skills and goodwill, gave their energies to serve the general interest.
It is also at times like this that we rediscover the importance of public services and their staff as a tool for serving the general interest.
Many political leaders have spoken of the absurdity of locating this type of chemical plant near to large urban centres.
It is worth making the point that wherever this type of industry is located, there are men and women working.
In a far-off desert or in the centre of Brussels, if the factory blows up, scores of workers will lose their lives.
The first question we should address is that of making these industries as safe as possible.
Admittedly, the debate on the location of sites has been opened, but this aspect cannot be considered unless there are major improvements in inspection and safety conditions.
The entire situation has changed.
It is my view that the Seveso directives need to be reviewed.
Let us use what we learn from this disaster to improve regulations on safety and on respecting the environment.
We must come up with new, much more restrictive regulations on the way these plants are run and, above all, on the resources available to inspection bodies.
By way of anecdote, a terrifying one, the inspection body responsible for the Midi-Pyrénées region has 17 inspectors to inspect over 2000 companies.
Amongst the first factors thrown up by the investigation, I know that the investigation is not over, but nevertheless, there are many indications that the company' s management took a rather irresponsible approach to risk management.
We must draw the obvious conclusions from that.
Following the disaster, we are discovering serious safety lapses in the chemical industry in other parts of the country.
This review process must be undertaken in tandem with a mission whose work is open to the whole of Europe and which has the task of carrying out an assessment of European safety.
Inspection bodies must publish their results.
The investigation in Toulouse must be transparent and must involve employees and local residents.
I therefore call on Parliament to state its support for an exceptional risk assessment procedure in Europe and to review the directives.
Toulouse is today a city in shock, in terms of the physical environment, psychologically and in terms of the direct and indirect consequences for employment and for businesses located near the site.
Toulouse needs financial and logistical aid.
The Union must demonstrate its capacity for solidarity at times of crisis.
Will this require exceptional emergency funds?
I am not sure, but the European Commission could, for example, contact the city, the département and the region to sound out their logistical needs.
In this situation, the mobilisation of European engineers and support teams could, in symbolic terms as well as being effective, demonstrate the commitment of the European Union.
'Never again!'
'Never again!' is what tens of thousands of Toulouse' s citizens are shouting and calling for.
'Never again!' was what the communities affected by the oil slick from the Erika shipwreck, demanded.
Once again, the approach of profit, job cuts and investment has led to a lapse in safety and has caused an ecological and human disaster.
In order to confront this, we need further public regulation, more rules on inspection and more resources.
We know that people are initially angry with the company' s bosses, but they will turn on us next and this fury will be unleashed on us, the political leaders. And they would be right to do so.
Our task is to produce rules that benefit the community, not to bow down to the dominance of private interests.
Mr President, as our fellow Member, Mrs De Veyrac, deputy Mayor of Toulouse, sadly stated, on 21 September 2001, the ammonium nitrate warehouse in the AZF chemical factory in Toulouse exploded, causing the death of 29 people and injuring 2 500.
A disaster of this scale requires the competent authorities to provide information on the exact causes of the explosion, out of respect for the victims, their families, and for all communities living near a site with a Seveso classification.
Was this an accident, a malicious act or a terrorist attack? Before accusing the chemical industry of failing to comply with the precautionary principle, let us consider the results found by the chemists and specialists in ammonium nitrate, which confirm that there is no basis for the theory of a gradual decomposition of the product that caused the explosion.
Ammonium nitrate is a stable product, and the investigators make the point that this type of product cannot explode unless it comes into contact with intense heat, as proven by the very serious precedents in Silesia in 1921, in Texas in 1947, in Brest, in France, in 1947.
Furthermore, the staff representatives at the AZF plant vigorously repudiate the description of a sink-factory.
Whatever the cause, it would be wise to produce a list of the most dangerous sites and to relocate them away from housing.
On the other hand, it is, of course, inconceivable to prohibit by law the establishment of high-risk chemical industrial plants.
These would be forced to locate abroad with foreseeable consequences for the economy and business confidence.
We would certainly have to amend European legislation which, although dating from 1982 and 1996, is not retroactive. We would have to increase the vigilance of inspection services and authorities over industrial sites with a Seveso classification, or even make access to dangerous sites more secure.
The approach to adopt will depend on the outcome of the investigation, which we hope will be completed with complete frankness.
Mr President, I would like to join other Members in expressing my condolences to the families involved in the tragedy that has taken place.
I also share some of the opinions of previous speakers.
I would like to insist on one point, however: I believe that the system based on prohibition, the Seveso system, is not sufficient.
The tragedies taking place recently are demonstrating that we are experiencing phenomena which can only be reduced, if not eliminated, by means of integrated treatment.
The issue today is town and country planning.
Europe has an old and antiquated system in which all towns wanted to have their industries and it seemed that quality of life was linked to everything being together.
A town with many shops, many industries and all within an accessible area.
Nevertheless, the scale, the risk and the dimension of our companies today demonstrate the serious problems that this entails.
We cannot continue to allow town and country planning to be completely subsidiary.
We must be capable of selecting basic elements in order to create a European area of security, in the way that is being done in other areas, such as food safety.
We must recognise the need for an area of security in the field of town and country planning.
And the countries must accept it.
And in the same way that any town and country planning accepts protected natural areas, measures of this type will also have to be accepted.
In this respect, I regret the fact that, in the version of the environmental action programme which we have received from the Council - the sixth - with regard to which we presented proposals on the urban environment and inhabited areas, certain aspects have been removed which our group considers important.
We believe that it is a matter of urgency to establish environmental strategies, to implement risk studies, also in industrial areas, to create specific industrial areas far from towns, to penalise those builders or local authorities who allow anything for the sake of construction, and of course establish risk indicators which are incorporated into a European policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like us, through our fellow Members from Toulouse who are with us today, starting with the President of the sitting, to express our condolences and our solidarity with all the victims of the tragedy in Toulouse.
I, like other speakers, would also like to pay special tribute to the marvellous chain of emergency aid workers, both professional and voluntary, that was put together in Toulouse and, in particular, to the enormous dignity shown by the people of Toulouse in these extremely difficult circumstances.
What happened there is unimaginable.
The death toll is indeed terrible, but is much lower than it might have been, given the unbelievable force of the explosion and the huge damage caused by this explosion in a heavily populated area.
I agree with Mr Onesta when he says that, since there is no such thing as zero risk, especially in industry, we must now take stock and change our approach. In other words, we must apply the precautionary principle in land use planning.
This means, whenever possible - and it will, unfortunately, only be possible in very limited cases - relocating businesses that are at risk, whilst protecting jobs. This is a concern that other speakers have also expressed.
It would be particularly unfair for workers in industry to face an added risk - a social risk, that of losing their job - in addition to risks at work.
The problem is also, and, perhaps, mainly, one of controlling urban development because, and we must be honest about this, in many cases, residential areas have merged with industrial areas.
Near to the site in Toulouse, there was a major shopping centre.
In my municipality, which has a factory just like the one in Toulouse, building permits are still being issued for communal housing, less than 800 metres from the site.
Mainly, Commissioner, I would say that the draft amendment to the Seveso II directive must take account of these problems of urban growth, not least by increasing the responsibilities of businesses but also of the elected authorities that issue building permits.
Lastly, I should like to echo the feeling of helplessness that I experience as a Member of the European Parliament every time that we have the misfortune to encounter this type of event.
The European Union does not do all it can when faced with disasters of this scale.
Every time we give the commitment to move closer to the citizens of Europe, we must remember that we are not there when they go through distressing or intensely emotional times.
I asked Commissioner Barnier this question after the storms in 1999, and it has come back to haunt us.
I know that the credit line has been discontinued, but since this is the case, let us at least imagine the Utopia, as Mrs de Veyrac said, of a Eurocorps for civil defence, which is happening for the army. In other words, a rapid action force could also quite easily exist in the field of civil defence.
For years we have been warning about risks of accident. For years we have been afraid that a disaster would happen and for years we have fought against the establishment of these plants in the Toulouse area.
And now, when the explosion occurs, we have the sudden shock that stunned us at a distance of twenty kilometres, the contradictory information, the toxic cloud, a prefect who is asking to have his house proofed for leaks, all the windows shattered, the reflex to go and pick one' s children up from school, the anguish of seeing cars upside down, windscreens shattered, bloodied drivers wearing masks, the joy of finding one' s daughters, terrified and sheltering in the only classrooms whose windows remain in tact, relieved to see us.
Going home, unable to telephone, no means of communication and finally hearing about friends who are in shock, injured or in hospital.
Then, after the anguish, the fear and after the suffering comes the time for anger.
More than 5 000 of us gathered on the streets of Toulouse on Tuesday and more than 30 000 on Saturday, all shouting 'Never again' .
The disaster in Toulouse is hugely revealing.
First of all, it shows the limitations of local democracy and, in particular, of land use planning policies.
Town councils have not used their land use plans to keep residential or commercial areas away from danger.
There is no safety programme in place.
There has been no consultation with local associations or with residents, despite the dangers.
Locally elected representatives are equally responsible for what has happened.
The disaster also lays bare the policy of industrialists who, for the sake of profit, make not only their employees run risks, but also the surrounding community.
Lastly, the disaster has shown up the loopholes in the Seveso directive and in the policies implemented by the European Union.
This disaster has shown the limitations of risk management policy.
An overhaul of European legislation is essential.
We can no longer put up with the existence of such huge risks.
We must have a risk prevention policy.
The legal liability of industry in the event of an accident must be better defined and increased.
Member States must transpose European Union directives, and also comply with existing directives on environmental protection.
The liability of policymakers must also be confirmed.
Inspections must be stepped up and the responsibility of inspectors, who must be trained to European standards, must also be laid down.
Chemical as well as nuclear bombs are located near to most European cities and yet no assessment of the risks has been made.
I do not want to play the role of Cassandra, but I would not wish anyone to experience what we in Toulouse went through on 21 September.
My thoughts go to the victims of the explosion, to the men and women who died working at the AZF factory in Toulouse and who join the ranks of all those who die every day in a work-related accident because their companies have given priority to profit over safety.
My thoughts also go to the men and women who died in the street or at home because the government and the town hall did not want to impose the necessary measures to ensure that the factory was not a bomb waiting to go off, a danger to everyone working there and to everyone who lived nearby.
Whatever the initial cause of the explosion, it is unacceptable that it should have turned into such a disaster, all because precautions were not taken.
To bring down costs, expenditure on maintenance and storage was reduced, jobs were cut and with complete disregard for safety, work was given to sub-contractors who employed under-trained temporary staff.
The TotalFinaElf Corporation, which already bears guilt for the Erika shipwreck, is fully responsible.
Putting the requirements of profit before those of safety is a crime. It is murder and the authorities that have allowed this to happen share the guilt for this event.
TotalFinaElf, which last year made the greatest profit ever seen by a French company, has the cynicism to toss FRF 20 million to the victims to cover damages that are estimated at FRF 8 billion at the very least.
Not to mention the pain of the victims' families, which cannot be compensated for.
The material damage must be paid for in full by the Elf Corporation and above all, this must never happen again, in Toulouse or anywhere else in France, or Europe. This will require very strict inspection measures for these types of companies, with the participation of the workers and under their supervision.
Mr President, the Erika, storms, Toulouse, I hope that we will not have to add Carling to the list, a chemical plant that is 50 km from here as the crow flies and near to my home in Lorraine. How many more deadly signs do we need, Commissioner, before we agree to discuss our society' s future?
Our society is adrift, like a wayward ship set to a faulty automatic pilot. Are we still going to accept as inevitable, in the name of employment and the all-powerful economy that communities should continue to live at risk, as they do in Toulouse and elsewhere?
Were these communities informed of the risks that they faced?
It would appear not. On the other hand, the communities that are aware of the risks, with ecologists at the top of the list, have been calling for drastic measures for years, such as improving factory safety and of course, the closure of the most dangerous ones.
Unfortunately, in Toulouse, the worst imaginable scenario occurred.
Of course, no chemical factory, no nuclear power plant, particularly following 11 September and the appalling terrorist attack on the United States will be out of bounds, the appalling now having become possible.
This must by no means prevent our countries, with the European Union leading the way, from being able to adopt the measures necessary to guarantee the citizens the highest level of safety in their workplace and in their everyday lives.
The Seveso I directive represented a huge step forwards.
Seveso II is an improvement on this but has yet to prove itself, since it has not yet been fully implemented.
The investigation will tell us whether, in Toulouse, its provisions were being implemented, but this looks unlikely.
Did those responsible not consider such a disaster to be highly improbable? What Europe needs today is more than just a Seveso III.
First of all, however, I hope that we do not give in to populism by giving the impression that with one wave of a wand, we could transfer these high-risk factories to another place, a more distant and safer place.
No high-risk factories should be relocated to developing countries, in the same way that it would be a mistake to consider transplanting these factories into the countryside.
Secondly, specific industrial sites must be defined, while - let us remember, Commissioner - large amounts of money and European funds have been provided to regenerate industrial wasteland and convert some of it into theme parks.
It would have been more appropriate to use these places to build factories with stricter regulations.
Thirdly, it is absolutely crucial that the Commission present, as rapidly as possible, its draft directive on environmental responsibility, which is the only solution that will force negligent or even unwilling factory owners to comply with restrictive regulations.
Lastly, we need to ask: what kind of society do we want to build?
If we carry on as we are, we will be authorising production of chemical molecules whose impact on health or potential risks when transported or manufactured we do not know.
This is our social model, which must be completely changed in order to guarantee future generations a life free from terrible accidents and danger.
Mr President, the Total/Fina/Elf group is already guilty of committing a crime against the environment through the shipwreck of the oil tanker Erika and has acted criminally, once again, with the explosion of the AZF factory in Toulouse: 29 people are dead, more than 2 500 injured and a whole community ravaged.
Like my fellow speakers, I fully share the pain of all men and women in Toulouse and most particularly, the pain of the victims' families.
It is our duty, however, to ensure that everything is done to clarify responsibilities.
First of all, the responsibilities of TotalFinaElf, who allowed the stored fertiliser to turn into a chemical bomb by cutting costs on production, inspections and safety.
TotalFinaElf must pay. It must compensate the victims and guarantee the salaries of its employees given that it has the cheek to announce aid for the community that totals one year' s salary for just one employee: its managing director.
Next, there is the responsibility of the public authorities, the local council which, for the sake of business taxes, allowed a chemical plant to exist in a working class residential area.
Also the government itself, which waited until 1999 to implement the Seveso II directive, which was voted for in 1996, and was a clearly inadequate directive.
Legislation must be strengthened and its implementation must be verified by independent inspectors from within the public service.
The safety of people and the environment is too serious a matter to be left to shareholders and speculators.
It is for communities, employees, unions and workers' associations to determine, through a public and democratic debate, which types of production are socially useful or are considered to be too dangerous.
This kind of choice cannot be left to the discretion of people who have proved to be unable to guarantee people' s safety.
It is the responsibility of a public system of management, under the control of the community at large and the employees.
Let us not allow the law of profit to pollute and murder again.
Indeed, Never again!
Mr President, firstly I have to remind you that we do not yet know the exact causes and the series of events.
It is estimated that it may be a year before we know all the details relating to the causes of this accident.
It is important to remember that first of all we have to look at exactly what happened and what caused this terrible accident in Toulouse.
Secondly, I would like to talk about responsibility, which, first and foremost, lies with the operators of hazardous facilities.
Legislation cannot solve all of these problems.
Responsibility here has to be clarified - and it lies with the operators of this plant.
One of the basic problems is the so-called urban sprawl - the problem of land use planning.
This plant was established in the 1920s.
As you know, the Seveso II directive concerns new facilities, as well as the rules on informing the public, etc.
You also know that this is an extremely sensitive issue with the Member States, and until now responsibility for land use planning has rested at national, regional and local level.
This is, then, a very sensitive issue and we are not yet empowered to take decisions on all relevant aspects.
So what can and must we do in a situation like this? We have to ensure that our legislation is updated and try to make provision for and anticipate the improvements required to our legislation in order to prevent these accidents from happening again, although we are aware that we will never be able to prevent all accidents.
Unfortunately, we will probably be faced with accidents again, but everything we can do we must do.
That is why, once we have established the causes of this accident, we will also enter into an open and transparent process of consultation and discussion with Member States and with all involved stakeholders in order to see what we can do to improve our existing directives and make them more effective in trying to prevent this type of accident.
We should also move ahead with what is already on the table - the amended Seveso II directive - because of previous accidents.
We should not delay in moving forward with the amended directive, but we should definitely be involved in following up this accident to ensure that we have done everything to our existing legislation to prevent it from reocurring in the future.
Mr Savary's idea to employ the precautionary principle in land use planning is an excellent starting point, and we will definitely follow up that particular proposal.
I should also like to inform you of what happens when an accident like this occurs in one of the Member States.
As you know, we have a Civil Protection Unit that is immediately activated to offer the Member State in question the help and assistance of the network of different experts in all Member States.
France did not ask for any such assistance from our Civil Protection Unit.
We have tried to bolster our civil protection activities in order to have, for example, joint training and a much more effective network of experts of every kind.
For example, I was in Brittany after the Erika oil spill, when France needed help with bird cleaning.
Cooperation in such a specific area in Europe to establish such a unit that can be activated immediately is possible.
In an accident like this, France was offered all possible expertise from other Member States.
If we use a strengthened Civil Protection Unit in the best possible way, it can play the so-called 'green-helmet' role as a force that can be put in place immediately to help and act when accidents like this happen.
So we will definitely follow this up in a careful and coordinated way, in cooperation with the Member States, in order to see what more is needed as regards prevention.
As you have all said, our thoughts are with the victims, rescue workers, relatives and people in the Toulouse area.
We will continue to offer our help and assistance.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Environmental noise
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0296/2001) by Mr de Roo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive relating to the Assessment and Management of Environmental Noise [6660/1/2001 - C5-0245/2001 - 2000/0194(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our citizens are increasingly affected by noise.
Ten years ago, the European Commission estimated that the lives of a quarter of our citizens were disrupted by it.
These days, the European Environmental Agency notes that thirty percent of Europeans suffer from noise pollution.
That is an increase of twenty percent over a ten-year period.
In my own country, the Netherlands, the number of people burdened by noise is as high as forty-three percent.
More than ten million citizens in Europe have sleeping disorders.
All citizens in Europe are entitled to the same protection against unhealthy noise levels.
Unfortunately, our Environment Ministers do not share our opinion.
Unfortunately, the Council has not backed the proposal of the huge majority of the European Parliament at first reading to establish four daughter directives. These daughter directives pertain to motorways, air traffic, railways and factories.
That is why the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy proposes four daughter directives yet again.
What the European Parliament wants is an all-round approach.
The intention is to reduce aircraft noise at European level and to prescribe the same noise standards around busy airports in order to protect our citizens.
To bring down the noise of lorries and cars at European level and prescribe the same noise standards along busy roads.
To curb the noise of trains at European level and prescribe the same noise standard along busy railway lines.
To decrease noise in factories and ensure that only a small proportion of this noise penetrates into the outside world.
The Council has adopted the same opinion as the Dutch Environment Minister, Mr Jan Pronk, namely that noise is only a localised problem.
Our Environment Ministers expose our citizens to increasing levels of noise.
With regard to noise generated by road traffic, aircraft and trains, the Environment Ministers propose only a weak declaration but no binding legislation.
There are now only a few European noise standards in place which relate to, for example, household appliances, lawnmowers and high-speed links.
We desperately need European noise standards pertaining to aircraft.
Far greater steps are possible technically speaking, and Europe must render these compulsory.
European standards for lorries and cars are either non-existent or far too weak.
The tyre directive is a case in point.
Low-noise tyres may be available on the European market, but they are not yet a compulsory requirement.
By means of low-noise asphalt, an enormous noise reduction of ten to thirteen decibels can be achieved.
These technical advances must be incorporated in European policy.
In addition to European standards for high-speed trains, we also need standards for ordinary passenger trains and for goods trains.
The Council did agree to harmonising the measurement and calculation of noise.
There are currently fifty-one different methods used in Europe.
These are reduced to two by means of the same directive: Lden and Lnight.
Unfortunately, the Council dropped a few stitches in the process.
The Environmental Committee has offered to pick those up.
Similarly, most members of the Environment Committee have dropped a few minor stitches.
That is why the Group of the Greens, in tandem with the Socialist Group, is tabling four extra amendments.
Somewhat less high noise levels should also be measured.
The European Commission shares that opinion, and I invite the Commissioner to confirm this in public.
The common position states that the goal of the action campaigns is to mitigate noise.
In plain English, this means noise screens and double-glazing.
But that is not enough.
The action campaigns must also aim to reduce noise.
The majority of the Environmental Committee have adopted the Council' s position that a Member State must be able to establish its own noise indicator Lden.
That means that measurements no longer need to be harmonised but that the extra protection of the night can be reduced by a factor of ten, namely from eight to six hours.
That is pandering to the lobby and has nothing to do with the cultural discrepancies that exist between our peoples.
Precisely that eight-hour period of sleep is essential to everyone.
That is why we have tabled another common amendment in this instance.
I call on all my fellow MEPs to give this matter some more thought, and not to allow themselves to be used by the lobbies on Wednesday but to give priority to the health protection of our citizens.
Mr President, environmental noise is a very old problem that for a long time, has not in fact been taken seriously.
But it is a problem which is affecting many European citizens on a daily basis.
Furthermore, the economic damage it incurs is enormous, running into the tens of billions of euros annually.
I therefore welcome the proposed directive with open arms and certainly also embrace the rapporteur' s suggestions to turn it into a framework directive.
There has been much debate about the directive in this House, and unfortunately I have recently doubted on occasion whether all those taking part in the debate had actually read the proposal properly.
Indeed, and I will repeat it once again, this is not about laying down the same noise standards in Europe.
It is true that Europe boasts great cultural diversity, which means that what is experienced as disturbing in one country is not necessarily considered to be troublesome in another Member State.
I do not want to go into that diversity, for that is not what today' s debate is about.
So what is it about? It is about measuring noise.
That should be done in a uniform way across the European Union.
For that purpose, a formula will need to be established on the basis of which maps can then be drafted.
The population will subsequently need to be informed of what would come under noise pollution.
On the basis of that information, which is measured everywhere in Europe in the same way on the basis of the same formulas, action campaigns can then be developed at local level.
I therefore repeat once again, and I would like to cite the European Commission in its explanatory statement, it is not the intention to establish limiting values which apply to the entire European Union.
What we will need to do, however, is to avoid situations we have at the moment, for example, in my own living environment.
For surely it is unacceptable that in one part of Europe, my region of Maastricht, an airport is not allowed to expand, while less than thirty kilometres down the road, in Belgium, based on more flexible requirements, a new airport is being opened without the slightest problem.
The population has everything to do with this.
In my opinion, 'shopping' distorts the market and should be prevented by the European airline companies.
Measuring methods are harmonised on the basis of a formula which takes into account - and that is something that needs to be explained to my fellow MEPs once again - the differences between 'day' and 'night' , the population density, but also the cultural diversity, which means that in Portugal or Spain, different 'day' and 'night' hours can be established.
The people in the south worry about the disturbance of the pace of life, but that is not a constant.
I should like to express a personal opinion on one other point.
All the other opinions I have expressed were on behalf of the group.
A great deal has been said about whether military airbases should or should not fall within the scope of the directive.
Although that aspect has meanwhile been removed from the directive, it has been revived by the rapporteur.
What I need to get off my chest - and I cannot explain it in any other way - is that I believe that military airbases should also be measured.
Especially in this day and age, everyone is of the opinion that military aviation should be given free rein.
I, too, am in favour of this, but that does not mean that they should not be subject to measurement.
That has nothing to do with offering slots.
Most proposals have been re-instated from the original Commission proposal.
That should in itself not be problematic.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group supports the line taken by the rapporteur, as indeed it did at first reading and also in the discussions and votes in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
The most contentious points, namely environmental noise around airports and also military airbases, are no longer on the table at this reading.
The Joint Statement lags behind the precise formulations of the Commission's proposal, but a long way behind Parliament's requirements for the European noise abatement policy.
For example, the Joint Statement has deleted all the fixed dates indicating the deadlines from which the noise maps have to be worked out and approved.
The same applies to the action plans.
My group therefore considers that all amendments which reintroduce these precise dates should be agreed and accepted as a matter of urgency.
Information is another point.
Amendment No 22 says that the Member States must ensure that the noise maps and action plans are posted on the Internet two months at the latest after being approved.
We think this is very important.
I believe that we can have general debates about how we bring Europe and its citizens closer together if we do not then shy away from very definite political proposals for putting information policy into action.
It is my view - one shared with both the speakers who preceded me - that the key question is whether any request by us for subsidiary directives will be successful.
I consider it to be progress in itself that there are harmonised methods of noise measurement and common noise indicators.
Such things can, though, be only the beginning.
What are we to say to people if we point out the problem but take no definite steps to solve it? I believe that a time limit is needed here.
We cannot wait indefinitely for the next steps in this field to be taken.
It is for this reason that my group has joined with the Greens in signing the request for such subsidiary directives to be presented within three years.
Mr President, it may well be that 100 years ago our cities resounded to the noise of iron wheels and iron hooves bouncing off cobbled stones.
I suspect that made a hell of a din.
Nonetheless the impression is that our society has become noisier with more machinery, hi-fis and stereos, planes, trains and, above all, motorways.
I am all in favour of cutting noise and making life more pleasant, peaceful and calm.
I support the Commission's proposals for common measurements so that we all know what we are looking at and what we are hearing across the European Union.
I support the idea of noise mapping and I support legislation under single market rules to introduce limits on noise from new equipment being introduced and sold throughout the European Union.
But I am opposed to the Union seeking noise limits on installations in any individual Member State.
I do so, as I have argued strongly in committee, on the grounds of subsidiarity, in the belief that decisions should be taken at the lowest practical level.
In almost every case in the Committee on the Environment, we deal with issues which should rightly be dealt with at European Union level, because they concern matters which affect more than one Member State - transboundary issues.
But today I arrived in Parliament, I opened my window in the office in the Tower and I could not hear Strasbourg airport, I could not even hear the railway.
All I could hear was someone shouting down in the courtyard.
I do not regard noise from airports as a transboundary issue and I am pleased that the committee rejected a number of the amendments which were tabled.
I will be urging my group to reject Amendment No 34 here because it still implies that noise limits should be introduced.
Mr de Roo commented on Amendment No 36 that the eight-hour sleep limit is essential for everyone.
That may be the case.
It may also be the case that a cup of cocoa and a bedtime story are essential for everyone but this is not something which should be done at EU level.
We should not be setting standards for these things.
What is fascinating about this debate, as it was in committee and here now, is that for the best possible reasons - the improvement of health and enhancing the environment - measures have been suggested to us which represent a sort of creeping centralisation which, at the end of the day, makes the European Union seem bossy and interfering to far too many of our constituents.
We should take this opportunity, and indeed every opportunity, to put into practice our belief that wherever possible we should be applying strictly the principles of subsidiarity and making sure that when we take measures on behalf of the environment at European Union level it is because they will genuinely make a difference to individuals and cannot be done by individual Member States.
Mr President, European policy that tackles environmental problems is justified since air and water pollution are issues which extend across our national borders.
Fortunately, that is quite a different story for noise pollution.
I am pleased that I, in the Netherlands, am not affected by the noise produced in Milan or Athens.
In other words, noise pollution is a local, or regional, problem.
The internal market justifies environmental policy at European level, in order to promote fair competition.
This means, therefore, that European requirements can be prescribed for the safety and environmental friendliness of products and processes.
Clear examples of products are emission requirements for cars, lorries and machinery, while waste incineration and energy generation typify processes.
In relation to fair competition, European noise standards can also be prescribed for products, such as cars, motorcycles, lorries, machinery, trains and aircraft.
This is not appropriate for processes since the effects do not transcend borders.
In other words, I am in favour of European standards for low-noise tyres but am opposed to the requirement that the cobblestones be removed from the streets in Brussels on account of European policy.
The Council has already taken things very far in the environmental noise directive.
Parliament' s amendments, however, go even further, and I cannot back most of these as a result.
In addition, I cannot see the additional benefit a European noise pollution map would afford.
The Member States can map out noise pollution themselves if they so wish.
Moreover, if such a map were to exist already, I would still be opposed to a European policy on environmental noise.
A separate problem is aircraft noise.
Last week, I attended the ICAO Conference in Montreal on behalf of the European Parliament.
Unfortunately, it appeared that outside European, there is little support for stricter noise standards for aircraft.
Stricter noise standards for airfields are also a moot point.
Nevertheless, I remain of the opinion that airfield authorities must be able to pursue a powerful policy of their own by refusing large noise-makers.
Noise pollution caused by aircraft is mainly a problem for people who live near the airports.
In principle, this problem should therefore be solved locally, that is to say by the competent airport authority.
In various airports, this is already the case in that flight bans are issued for the noisiest aircraft or for certain night flights.
The disadvantage in this respect is that the problem could be transferred elsewhere.
In addition, airports in border regions can cause extra problems.
The latter must be solved mutually by the relevant Member States.
In this matter, I should also add that we must not inflate the issue.
If I want to fly to Strasbourg, I do not drive to Rome first because, due to competitive advantages, the flights there are cheaper than from Amsterdam.
As for the aircraft themselves, the problem is not that major technically speaking.
Thanks to modern technology, it is possible to produce aircraft which produce six times less noise than aircraft built thirty years ago.
Since the life of aircraft is about thirty years, the effects of these technical improvements, however, are taking a long time to kick in.
The question is whether this long wait is desirable.
I do not think so.
If we really want to do something about aircraft noise, technical improvements must be carried out more quickly.
The extra cost this entails obviously falls to the traveller who must be fully aware of the actual cost of flying.
Noise policy is a very new thing in an industrialised society that moves ahead simply by means of a great deal of technology and a lot of noise, and, as for the question as to whether noise policy is a subsidiarity issue, one is in two minds when answering it.
Mr Davies and Mr Blokland, if I were from your countries of origin, I too would adduce the argument from subsidiarity, but, my dear Mr Blokland, I know only two airports in the Netherlands whose flight paths, however, are located above my constituency.
All this is relative, and so I believe that we here must talk about whether we can find an air corridor to serve as a model for the compilation of fundamental criteria, and I believe that our views on noise maps are by no means so divergent.
I advocate comparable rules of measurement within the European Union as a matter of principle, and I also believe it to be self-evident that the action plans we arrive at on the basis of these measurements must be drawn up by the member countries, which must also implement and supervise them.
I take a great interest in the question, at what actual point such a regulatory mechanism takes effect, and here the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has without any doubt gone too far.
One could get the idea from reading the Committee on the Environment's text that, in future, every country lane will have to have its own noise map.
The wording is doubtless much too vague, and what the Council proposes is quite simply boring.
If you are only to draw up such a noise map when the figure of six million cars per annum is reached, then I suggest you abandon the whole operation.
So, in my view, a good mean value would be a good solution.
As far as the measurement of noise from railway lines is concerned, it would have been good if we could have had another parameter for this, as noise from railways is perceived differently to that from motorways or airports.
Unfortunately, that idea foundered at the committee stage, something which I particularly regret.
I wish to contradict Mrs Ria Oomen, whom I otherwise greatly respect, by saying that I think it almost courageous to state the belief that politicians like us, who concern ourselves with the environment, can decide in an environmental directive whether military pilots fly or not.
Quite apart from the present situation, this Parliament does not have the right to regulate the times of practice flights by the French or the British.
I believe that military aviation should have no place in this directive and nor will it find its way into it.
In other respects, I believe this debate to have been basically necessary.
I wish we could take this document to the Conciliation Committee; then, Mr de Roo, we would get away from your rather exaggerated demands and arrive at realistic ones that would get us somewhere in the overall scheme of things.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Florenz, I think these directives require us to consider in principle whether we want further exemptions for many governmental bodies, as the individual citizen does not, of course, care whether the aircraft causing the noise are civilian or military.
This is not, then, about ruling on what measures in terms of military tactics should be under discussion, but only about arranging flights in the context of a noise indicator and an action plan in such a way that overall noise does not exceed the level tolerable by individuals.
I believe that we should steer our joint efforts towards finding out what people find acceptable or intolerable and decide on that basis what steps to take.
There is a need for more research on this.
It has, for example, not yet been ascertained whether an average noise level is dangerous, or individual very high levels.
We therefore need even more understanding of causes, effects and connections.
Hence, too, our demand that we should not immediately announce a framework directive to which we attach specified noise indicators and limit values. Rather, we should say that we want to obtain the land registers first and then, in three years' time, to adopt appropriate subsidiary directives with quality standards for noise policy.
Secondly - and in my view this is at least as important - we should also be carefully re-examining individual noise emission sources in order to find out how, at European level - and perhaps more quickly and more effectively than by means of local action plans - we might achieve a reduction in the noise from aircraft and motor vehicles caused, for example, by their tyres.
So we also need noise reduction at the emission sources.
Mr President, noise pollution is, of course, a reality.
Furthermore it is increasing in most countries of the European Union. It is aggressive not only to the hearing but also to the whole nervous system of citizens and in many cases it alters not only the personality, through reactions such as irritability and insomnia, but it also produces pain in the auditory system.
I come from a southern country and to tell you the truth I have very often thought: 'Who could silence that lawnmower next door!
Who could make the traffic on this street quieter!
Who could stop the music coming from that discotheque on the other side of the block from reaching my windows!'
And on all those occasions when a citizen such as me has said, 'Why is there nothing or nobody that can stop this noise?' , it should be possible for most cases to be regulated, either by the local council, the residents association or the regional authorities.
In other words, at a local level rather than a national level.
As numerous speakers have said, realistically speaking, it seems to me that there are practically no cases in which noise, at the level most citizens suffer it, should be dealt with in a cross-border fashion.
Airport noise has been mentioned, but it apparently affects 1.7% of the population of a country, while road traffic noise affects far more.
It seems to me that to concentrate on airport noise and not deal on a local level with road traffic, in particular, is a rather absurd form of discrimination against airports.
I am not going to go into that, however.
Above all, I wanted to make it clear once again that there is a difference between the various countries of the European Union in terms of noise and perceptions of it.
In this respect, Mediterranean countries are more noisy, we have a climate which allows us to be outdoors and, in this sense, eight o' clock in the evening is for us a time for socialising, to be out and to be professionally active.
We could never approve or support a directive which discriminates against other people' s cultures in this way.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to congratulate Mr Alexander de Roo on his tenacity in the fight against noise pollution.
Noise pollution is very disturbing and can form a threat to health.
Health is tied in with the environment and with the way in which we pollute the environment.
The Sixth Environmental Action Programme is right to devote much attention to this aspect.
This attention must lead to specific measures.
The guiding principle is to reduce noise to a level at which it does not threaten public health.
In this connection, the guidelines and opinions of the World Health Organisation should be taken into consideration.
Noise pollution is local and certainly does not transcend borders.
Solutions must be found by local, regional and national administrators.
We should be careful not to regulate too much at EU level.
Excessive ruling from Brussels is in most countries not appreciated - with good reason - but in few cases, European attention is certainly justified.
First of all, Europe must step in when the noise source exceeds limits, for example in the form of products.
There are already European rules in place for noise pollution, for example pertaining to the noise standards for lawnmowers.
Noise emission standards for certain products, such as cars, pleasure boats, lorries, trains, aircraft and industrial equipment are essential.
A second reason for European intervention is the making available of reliable and verifiable data.
The European Parliament pointed at the lack of data on various sources of noise a long time ago, and a common method must be found for measuring and assessing noise.
And this forms the very essence of the Commission' s proposal.
Thirdly, general principles must be formulated, such as: the polluter, or noise-maker, pays.
This kind of principle must be transposed in our legislation.
Citizens must - and that is, in fact, the most important point, in my opinion - have clear rights.
In the case of serious complaints about noise pollution, the right to investigation should exist and, if necessary, action should be taken.
Mr President, we all agree that noise pollution disturbs the everyday lives of the people of Europe.
I am however, rather surprised.
We are simply asking Europe to compensate for errors in land use planning that have been made in all of our Member States.
Why, then, should we appeal to Europe, since each Member State can decide for itself what it should do on its own territory?
We have already adopted measures on tyres and aircraft engines and we can do the same for road surfaces.
This is indeed a huge task, but why should we lay down regulations which, in reality, concern not only Member States but must also take account of differences between these countries and, above all, encourage local authorities to adopt the necessary measures in line with their local situation rather than us deciding for them? This is the principle of subsidiarity and I am particularly keen to see it implemented in this area.
Locally elected representatives are responsible for deciding on what needs to be done in each town, county or region.
These are decisions for locally elected representatives.
I am one of them and I know very well what is involved in drawing up a strategic noise map.
We are told about airports, for example.
There are international airports, and there are national airports and there are considerable differences between airports.
The impact of noise is, therefore, different. Why, then, should we impose standards that will not apply to all of them?
It should not be forgotten that airports are crucial to the areas in which they are located. Infrastructures for air transport are a crucial factor for industries, which often choose where to base themselves on the basis of communications links and airports.
Is it worth emphasising that an exception absolutely must be made for military airports? I agree with Mr Florenz.
The current situation clearly shows the importance of this provision.
I shall conclude by reminding you that the title of this directive is 'Assessment and Management of Noise' .
Management is, therefore, preceded by an assessment.
How can we attempt to set limits without a detailed and wide-ranging study, based on commonly established assessment criteria? We would need to have precise maps on noise and then ask every Member State to implement effective action plans.
It is also crucial that we involve the public in these exercises, although this can only be done with the agreement of each country and each local authority.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is no exaggeration to say that a significant proportion of the inhabitants of Europe are forced to live with levels of noise which have a serious impact on their health, which is why I think it is important for the Union to launch an integrated strategy to combat noise.
We are currently at second reading and we need to focus on the main issues, as set out by the rapporteur.
If specifications are to be introduced for noise, a matter that concerns the Member States and industry, the Union needs to make specific proposals on broad guidelines, technical assistance for research and exchanges of information, on how to raise the awareness of the various parties and on how the proposed measures are to be applied and controlled.
As far as noise indicators are concerned, I agree with the Council's position allowing the Member States to move the night period by up to two hours because the southern countries have a different climate from the northern countries and I think this arrangement is essential.
As far as the proposed timetable is concerned, I think the Commission's initial proposal is feasible and that the Member States should set the administrative process in motion as quickly as possible so that the proposed directive can be put into practice.
Finally, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his sterling work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, more and more Europeans are affected by environmental noise, but despite this, the European Union has been slow to implement a common policy in the field of noise.
I therefore agree with the ambitious options proposed by the rapporteur, Alexander de Roo, and I congratulate him on his work.
I supported his report in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and I support it again now.
I should like to highlight a few aspects in particular.
Firstly, I agree with the idea of transforming this directive into a binding framework directive to be followed by specific directives on noise caused by cars, motorcycles, trains and aircraft.
Secondly, I also agree with setting common noise limits in the areas surrounding all of the European Union' s civilian airports.
Not only because the noise caused by night-time air traffic is more responsible than any other for depriving the general public of sleep, but also because, as a result of the lack of common regulations in the European Union, we have seen terrible distortions of competition between airports and a lack of fairness towards the citizens of the various Member States.
Thirdly, I welcome the amendments proposed for the joint position on noise indicators.
With these amendments, the Member States can move up to two hours of the evening schedule to the daytime or night-time period, which will enable legislation on noise to be implemented without this affecting the habits and traditions of each country, especially, those of southern Europe.
This new legislation must be implemented as rapidly as possible, but in order to ensure that it is complied with, Member States need to invest very quickly in the technical and human resources that are essential to monitoring and supervising its implementation.
Unless this is done, we will have yet another law that is good, but ignored.
Mr President, I believe that sometimes the perception of the world changes so much that reality itself becomes serious, ridiculous and irrelevant.
I believe that this is happening in the case of noise.
In truth, noise and the activities which create noise - there is nothing more horrendous than a machine digging a hole in the street, and not allowing us to live - are mostly subsidiary. They come within the competence of local authorities, and it is therefore very difficult to get different towns to agree, for example, on closing times for bars, because they all want to compete.
However, despite this, I believe that this directive is guilty of wanting to homogenise all of us and I believe that is contrary to the idea of cultural diversity.
I often say that, in Mediterranean time, the day has 30 hours, while in the Northern countries it has 24.
But in our time the day has 30 hours because time is elastic: the grandmother goes to bed at 10 and the grandchild, on the same day, goes to bed at 5 in the morning and the following day everything works fine because time is miraculous, it is flexible, as flexible as society wants it to be.
It is therefore practically impossible to reduce all of this to mathematics.
I would even go as far as to say that it would reduce the European Union' s authority if the people thought that their own world was going to be subject to these directives.
Furthermore, I would remind you again that we are facing the serious problem of town and country planning.
There is no point in trying to pacify wild animals by playing music.
We must deal directly with the problem and that is town and country planning.
Also, I do not agree with some amendments, such as the one which deals with competition. What does competition have to do with noise at airports?
Do we compete in terms of geography?
Do we compete if we are great distances apart, if we have different climates, if we have different conditions? We could also say that we should all have the same number of hours of sun, but we do not.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, we must be prudent and culturally-aware, we must understand diversity and understand that people visit the South, amongst other things, because they have more fun and they can stay out very late at night on a terrace listening to music.
Mr President, this is the first directive that deals with ambient noise, as distinct from noise from a particular common source.
Indeed it is to be welcomed.
I also welcome the recent decision of the Committee on the Environment to restate that this draft directive should be strengthened into a framework directive out of which further, more detailed and specific legislation can follow, in other words, daughter directives.
A one-size-fits-all policy in relation to environmental noise and the different transport sectors, not to mention differing circumstances in Member States, is not satisfactory legislation.
I would like to mention another point.
I do not agree with the views of my colleague, Mr de Roo, in the specific amendments he has introduced on noise at airports and in the environs of airports in this piece of legislation.
That will be for another day as far as I am concerned.
I would like a response from the Commission in view of the opinion of the Advocate-General, delivered on 20 September last, on the preliminary ruling on the invalidity of Articles 2 and 3 of Regulation (EC) No 925/99 on restricting the use of aircraft at European airports in the interests of protection against noise.
This regulation was based, curiously and questionably, on design criteria rather than performance criteria.
I am referring to the controversial hushkits legislation, an example of how not to do something.
I would appreciate a Commission response.
Could the Commission indicate whether it will be proposing the repealing or amending of this regulation, because this is a most important issue.
We cannot pursue design criteria, as distinct from performance criteria, which favour one jet engine manufacturer over another.
That has got us into difficulties on this issue.
I would appreciate persistence in pursuing the issue of Mr de Roo's amendments.
In the light of what has happened with the hushkits legislation I would like a response from the Commission.
Mr President, I should like to make a couple of general points and a couple of specific points about this report.
Firstly, generally, I support the common position - it is a useful compromise - but I would not support going any further than that.
This is useful as a framework directive but I would not like to see lots of further directives springing from it.
We need to be very careful in applying the principles of subsidiarity, a view which is being widely expressed across the Chamber.
I am not sure that we would have any credibility whatsoever as a Parliament or as a European Union if we started to dictate to our citizens what hours they can or cannot sleep.
This is a matter that should be determined for them at a local level.
If an airport, for instance, is located in the centre of a city, then the limit values that should be acceptable there are completely different to those at an airport located out on a peninsula in a quiet rural area.
Why should not a particular community seek to set up an airport, for instance as a cargo hub, that can experience noise pollution in excess of what a large city should produce? This is a matter for local authorities and for national governments and should not be a matter for this Parliament and for Europe.
I should like to ask those people who wanted to include military aircraft and military airfields within the scope of this directive, whether they are really saying, as Europe is, at the moment, in a state of war, that our airforces cannot operate at night or with planes that are too noisy, that they cannot defend our freedoms against terrorist attacks if their aircraft are too noisy.
I suggest that if that proposal is being made seriously, it would be laughed out of court across Europe.
I am in favour of legislation laying down noise limits for specific projects, but we really are going far too far in many aspects of the amendments proposed in this directive.
Mr President, first of all I should say that we are not trying by any means to suggest that people across Europe should go to bed at a certain time or laugh in certain places only, or to harmonise any of the different customs and cultural traditions in Europe.
The proposed directive on the table today, following on from our 1996 Green Paper, aims to develop a new noise policy to tackle noise which affects people, and not only noise from individual sources.
This will be done by drawing up harmonised noise maps to assess the noise exposure situation across the Community; informing the public about noise exposure and its effects; requiring authorities in Member States to develop action plans to achieve the required noise levels; and providing the European institutions with information on environmental noise, in order to assess the situation and develop further action.
There are 51 different ways to measure noise, but could we not agree on the means of measuring it within the Community? That is the first step - actually drawing up these noise maps.
With regard to this last topic, I understand the concerns expressed by some Members who have tabled amendments making the case for proposals for daughter directives as of now to set new limit values for sources and environmental noise.
However, the success of the innovative noise policy we wish to develop relies notably on the quality of the data we will be able to gather.
At the moment, the lack of such information is obvious, notably due to the lack of harmonisation of the assessment of noise exposure within Europe.
The Commission believes that it would be premature at this stage to come up with proposals setting new limit values for noise.
We already have a raft of market access legislation which sets limit values for different kinds of road vehicles, for example.
It will be simpler and quicker to tighten the noise standards in existing legislation than to introduce new daughter directives.
We will consider what these standards need to be once we have the evidence from strategic noise maps and will, of course, report back to the Council and Parliament.
For these reasons, we cannot accept the amendments introducing daughter directives and limit values, but we are willing to propose further actions as soon as possible, which is why we wholeheartedly accept amendments strengthening the timetable.
The directive does not concern specific sources such as aircraft engines and hushkits.
The Commission has not yet had time to reflect on the ICAO decision last week, but we will of course come back as soon as we have had a chance to do so.
Moving on to the detail of the 36 amendments adopted by Parliament's Environment Committee, we are able to accept 28 of them, in full, in principle and/or in part.
We can accept Amendment No 1, which alters the title, to make the proposal a Community framework for the assessment and management of environmental noise.
However, as I said earlier, we believe that it would be premature to set new limit values, and thus we cannot support Amendments Nos 2, 3, 6 and 33.
As for the timetable for implementation of the proposed directive, we welcome Amendments Nos 10, 13, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23 and 25, which propose restoring the dates of the original Commission proposal, and in line with these amendments we can also accept in principle Amendments Nos 15 and 16, which seek to reinstate tighter deadlines, although we would have more reservations on the deletion of the two-phase approach for roads and railways.
In this respect, we cannot accept Amendment No 20.
Several amendments also help clarify the text, and, furthermore, we accept Amendments Nos 4, 7, 8, 14, 27, 28 and 29.
We can accept in principle Amendment No 5, which introduces four important principles, though we would not wish other principles to be excluded.
With regard to Amendment No 9, which seeks to reinstate the definition of human health, we support the first part of this amendment, while the reference to the World Health Organisation seems superfluous at this stage.
On the harmonisation of the common noise indicators, Lden and Lnight, Amendment No 11 makes the case for the compulsory use of these indicators for acoustical planning and noise zoning, while Amendment No 34 reintroduces the definition of an action plan being 'designed to reduce noise where a limit value in Lden or Lnight is exceeded'.
Within the Council an agreement was reached to use common indicators only for the purpose of strategic noise mapping, while the need for further harmonisation of indicators was postponed for consideration in the review proposed in Article 11.
Therefore, I am afraid we cannot support Amendments Nos 11 and 34.
However, since the directive now limits itself to strategic noise mapping, it is logical to support the principle of Amendment No 12.
Besides this, we also welcome Amendment No 36, which seeks to reduce the flexibility and the definition of the Lden noise indicator, thus making for more comparable results.
On public information, Amendment No 22 requires that the information to the public be published on the Internet within two months.
We welcome the principle of this amendment, but the dissemination of information to the public should not be limited to the Internet.
As for the review clause under Article 11 of the proposal, Amendment No 24 seeks to delete the reference to 'different climates and cultures'.
Owing to strong concerns expressed in the Council by Member States, we cannot support Amendment No 24.
In the annexes, we can support in part Amendment No 26, which seeks to make compulsory the provision of financial information on action plans.
Of the three types of financial information concerned, we would support the provision of budget information being made compulsory, while the others are more difficult to obtain.
Finally, we support Amendments Nos 30, 31, 32 and 35 to Annex VI, which partly restore the original provisions proposed by the Commission on the technical specification of strategic noise maps.
I thank the European Parliament and the rapporteur, Mr de Roo, for the detailed consideration given to this proposal and the helpful amendments which have been contributed.
They have undoubtedly strengthened the proposal and also improved its quality.
Mr President, I should merely like to clear up a misunderstanding.
An amendment to measure military noise has not been re-tabled, as was wrongly assumed by some MEPs.
That is therefore no longer a point of discussion.
We have taken note of this.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery
The next item is the report (A5-0287/2001) by Mr Lange, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 97/68/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to measures against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery [COM(2000) 840 - C5-0742/2000 - 2000/0336(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this very long title essentially covers machines with which we are all familiar, such as lawn mowers, chain saws, hedge trimmers, drills, all of which are mobile and to which environmental legislation has perhaps given too little attention in recent years.
We know, for example, that nowadays a four-stroke lawn mower emits exactly as much in an hour as a car in European category 4 travelling at 150 kilometres per hour.
Or we know that, on some days in June this year, 40% of carbon monoxide emissions originated from these mobile machines, 40% of the ozone precursors.
That is why we have to do something about this.
The proposed directive is all right in so far as it goes, but we made a number of critical observations in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
One point was that we wanted to move the timetable forward a bit, in much the same way as legislation in the United States takes place.
We wanted to see if the 'averaging and banking' model was perhaps after all unjustifiable in European terms, being something of a bureaucratic monster that would be hard to keep a check on in Europe and which, to that extent, would tell us little about whether we could achieve the reductions we were aiming for.
We tackled this issue very ambitiously in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
As the decision was made in July - in other words, quite some time ago - we were able to negotiate with the Council about this legislation.
I can now present a compromise package which the Council is prepared to accept by a large majority, if not unanimously.
It is my opinion that we should in this case go down this route and complete the legislation in its entirety in one reading.
On the one hand, that would help take the burden off the bureaucratic processes here in the European Parliament and in the Council, and on the other would also, of course, help the environment if the legislation could enter into force more quickly.
What is this compromise about? Firstly, we want to move the date of entry into force forward for certain categories.
It is about midway between what was decided by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and what was proposed by the Commission.
Secondly, we want to dispense with the 'averaging and banking' system because of the bureaucratic difficulties involved in it.
In order, however, that environmental legislation should not produce distortions in competition which are not justified in terms of environmental policy, we want to make exceptions possible for small manufacturers producing 25 000 units per annum, and we also want certain products, the SH2 and SH3 machines, to be subject to transitional rules for a period of five years, for example certain chain saws used high up in trees or certain two-stroke motors that drive drills.
That is contained in Amendment No 30, so that these machines can be granted extra time - something which, incidentally, corresponds to what industry too has suggested.
I cannot therefore go down the road of excluding certain machines from the directive altogether, but I will say: let us give these machines more time if this is justified on technical grounds.
I would again remind you how, when we were very ambitious in legislating for cars in categories 3 and 4, we ended up in the Conciliation Committee reaching a reasonable compromise which, of course, met with little approval from the industry at first but which in the final analysis is now appreciated by everybody, because it improves air quality in Europe.
I think that the compromise package that I am able to present to you today points in the same direction, the only difference being that it is on the table already and not only after a conciliation procedure.
In this respect, what lies before us on the table today is not a 'chain saw massacre' , which one newspaper called it but, rather, a durable compromise to improve air quality in Europe.
Mr President, a rhetorical question often rhetorically asked is: which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the case of new clean air technology, it is usually the case that government must first lay the legislative egg from which is hatched the technology to give us cleaner cars or lorries.
In the case of this report, however, the situation is reversed, because in the main the technology is available to clean up the small engines which, as Mr Lange says, can produce more pollution in one hour than a car travelling 150 km.
In many cases cost is the only reason for which we do not have cleaner engines already.
In fact, Honda can produce overhead valve four-stroke engines that easily meet these requirements.
However, there are some important exceptions to this general rule.
I am pleased that Mr Lange has withdrawn his suggestion that the small-producer exemption should be set at 10 000 units per year - which would not have covered any European manufacturers - and supported the Commission's position of 25 000, which covers 7 manufacturers.
However, we have some particular problems with this piece of legislation, and in particular with chainsaws and the like.
These are machines which have to be light because they are carried by people; they cannot be hot, to avoid burning the user; and they have to be multi-positional - in other words they have to work when upside down.
For those particular uses, two-stroke technology is the only viable option.
We remember seeing those Trabants and Wartburgs coming across East Berlin; these types of two-stroke engines are dirtier but, in the case of chainsaws, there is no alternative.
The solution put forward by the Commission is to use a system of averaging and banking, whereby dirty engines can be set off against clean engines and clean technology can be saved up for the next year and used to produce some dirty engines the following year.
I do not like this system.
In many ways it is dishonest, because people will be buying engines which they think meet the regulations, when in fact they are dirtier.
Only the big manufacturers who produce a wide range of engines can benefit from this.
This system should not be supported.
However, we need protection for these particular applications and that is why I have tabled my amendment - No 29 - giving a detailed list of exemptions: strimmers, chainsaws, brush cutters, machines for drilling holes in the ice and so on.
I am very disappointed that Mr Lange has not seen fit to support that amendment, because without the protection of this detailed list of exceptions, Mr Lange's amendment - No 30 - does not go far enough, relying only on some technical committee, some Commission assessment of the alternatives.
Mr Lange should think very carefully about my amendment, and then we would have a deal that both sides of this House could accept.
Mr President, this legislation has often been referred to as the lawnmowers directive.
The fact that MEPs are spending their time discussing lawnmowers will no doubt confirm the impression which too many of our constituents have about the value of our work.
If so, they should think again.
The blue smoke from generators, lawnmowers, pumps and so on tells its own story.
The cumulative effect contributes significantly to air pollution.
So, in contrast to the last debate where I argued strongly that we should emphasise the principle of subsidiarity, this is a matter which is clearly trans-boundary and for both environmental and single market reasons should be dealt with by this Parliament.
On the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy we all get used to industry representatives coming up to us and saying 'don't do that, the time-scale is too short, the technology is not available' .
So it has been a pleasure while this directive was passing through Parliament to be lobbied by one company - Honda, to which Mr Goodwill referred - which believes that the standards being proposed by the Commission do not go far enough.
I realise it has its own reasons for this position.
It has made the investment.
It can meet the standards and it wants a competitive advantage over those who have not done the same. But is that not what we want overall?
Is it not a good thing for manufacturers to be competing on the basis of setting the highest possible environmental standards?
I am sorry the committee has not accepted some of the amendments I tabled at an earlier stage.
I am sorry also that too many companies in my own country have failed to look to the future and want to continue producing dirty, polluting equipment instead of investing in the future and setting the highest standards so that they can compete properly across the world.
Here in Europe we should be aiming to set these higher standards subject to the available technology.
I agree with what Mr Goodwill said about chainsaws and the difficulty of reaching those standards insofar as that piece of equipment is concerned.
But I also want to resist, as Mr Lange said, the Commission's proposals for averaging and banking.
So far as I am concerned it allows manufacturers to continue to produce engines which do not meet the highest air quality standards and perhaps to even put new ones on the market.
After all, we are not saying that the changes have to be made now.
A transition period is built into the proposal to give time for re-equipment.
Amendment No 18 suggests that some financial support and incentives might be given to manufacturers.
I look forward to hearing the sound of my neighbour mowing her grass - and indeed my grass too, I hope - knowing that the air will be free from pollution and that the birds will not cough and splutter in the trees around my home.
Mr President, I wish to express my concern about the Environment Committee's amendment, listed as No 2, which seeks to remove what seemed to be the rather sensible averaging and banking option.
Now I note that the committee believes itself to be tackling pollution from leisure machinery which, it claims, accounts for a considerable proportion of the output of ozone precursors, especially on Saturday afternoons in the summer months.
Does the committee understand that a whole range of professional equipment is involved here? We have heard about chainsaws, but there are many other examples.
Chainsaws are vital for managing woodlands.
Manufacturers say that if this amendment goes through, they will no longer be able to manufacture these goods.
The net effect of this, according to the practitioners, would be an adverse effect on the environment, and so I urge the House to reject the amendment.
However, knowing how enthusiastically this House embraces all or any legislation, no matter how insane or restrictive, perhaps I will not be sorry if the amendment is actually accepted because, given the amount of damage it will do, it will at least show Parliament and the European Union to be the mad legislative machine that it really is.
Ordinary people have suspected this for many years.
Perhaps in this case you will prove it to them.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Expiry of ECSC Treaty
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0303/2001 by Mr Turchi, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on
I. the amended proposal for a Council decision on establishing the measures necessary for the implementation of the Protocol, annexed to the Treaty of Nice, on the financial consequences of the expiry of the ECSC Treaty and on the Research Fund for Coal and Steel
[COM(2000) 519 + COM(2001) 121 - C5-0165/2001 - 2001/0061(CNS)]
II. the amended proposal for a Council decision laying down multiannual financial guidelines for managing the assets of the 'ECSC in liquidation' and, on completion of the liquidation, the 'Assets of the Coal and Steel Research Fund'
[COM(2000) 520 + COM(2001) 121 - C5-0166/2001 - 2000/0363(CNS)]
III. the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the ECSC Consultative Committee, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the Expiry of the ECSC Treaty: Financial activities after 2002
[COM(2000) 518 - C5-0204/2001 - 2001/2095(COS)]
and
A5-0297/2001 by Linkohr, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the amended proposal for a Council decision laying down the multiannual technical guidelines for the research programme of the Coal and Steel Research Fund
[COM(2001) 121 - C5-0167/2001 - 2000/0364(CNS)]
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the framework proposal before us establishes the succession of the European Community to the ECSC.
According to the proposal, the net revenue deriving from the investments of the assets of the Coal and Steel Research Fund would constitute revenue in the EU budget.
This revenue would be earmarked for a specific purpose, namely for financing research projects in the sectors related to the coal and steel industry.
The Research Fund would be managed by the Commission.
Out of the amounts yielded by the Fund, 27.2% would be allocated to the coal sector and 72.8% to the steel sector.
This breakdown could be modified only by a unanimous decision by the Council.
Lastly, the proposal states that the administrative expenditure resulting from the liquidation, investment and management of the Research Fund will be covered by the general budget.
Ladies and gentlemen, in this brief summary I have not forgotten our role: quite simply, in its future form, what was the first European Treaty, the first stone set in place for the creation of a united Europe, completely abolishes our institution.
I am firmly opposed to the approach of the Commission, whose framework proposal provides for Parliament merely to be consulted on matters concerning the fund' s financial and technical guidelines.
Such a passive role is envisaged for us that it is completely contradictory to the present-day requirements of transparency and accountability, and Parliament would have even less power than it does in budgetary matters.
In my report, I made a number of demands to the Council: firstly, I asked for the codecision procedure to be applied; secondly, I requested the full budgetisation of the annual interests of the fund as preallocated revenue, through the creation of a specific budget line in the revenue and expenditure side of the budget following the principles of budgetary specificity and neutrality, in line with the provisions of the Interinstitutional Agreement and the Financial Regulation; thirdly, I requested that the related administrative costs, estimated at around EUR 8.4 million, should be included in this budget line, for otherwise they would have to be met from the general budget.
In addition, I included the possibility of revising the ratio of appropriations dedicated for coal and steel research respectively, as production will increase as a result of enlargement.
I have noticed that the resolution tabled before the House still contains a reference to the ECB, which I would ask you to disregard: this is an amendment which I have withdrawn and which has remained in the resolution due to a technical error.
With regard to the request for the codecision procedure to be applied, I would stress that the Commission' s legislative proposal is based on the Treaties and on the Nice Protocol, which states that the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission after consulting the European Parliament, is to adopt all the necessary provisions for the implementation of this Protocol.
In practice, Parliament is deprived of any power, despite the fact that the administrative expenditure of the Coal and Steel Fund would have to be met from the general budget.
This means that Parliament would have to approve this additional expenditure and give discharge to the Fund without having any influence at all over the implementation of its activities.
My request for the codecision procedure to be applied is not, therefore, a request for a different legal basis to be used, just for reference to be made to a different article.
Indeed, the Commission' s document refers to the Treaty establishing the European Community, without specifying any particular article, and to the Protocol annexed to the Treaty of Nice, Article 2 - under which the European Parliament has consultation powers only - a Treaty which, however, is not yet in force and which it is highly unlikely will become effective before July 2002.
Consequently, we are in a very fluid situation which has never occurred in the past and will never occur again, since the ECSC Treaty is the only Treaty to have an expiry date, and I would stress this.
Moreover, even if the Protocol annexed to the Treaty of Nice does come into force, it only refers to the procedure for approving the package as a whole and makes no mention of the multiannual decisions.
I therefore propose to request that the codecision procedure be applied, as laid down in Article 2.5.1 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in this I believe and hope I can count on the same support from this House that I received in the Committee on Budgets.
Then, with regard to the full budgetisation of interests and the possibility of the administrative costs being met from this budget line, Parliament gave its consent in 1998 for all the interests of the Fund to be used for research.
Ladies and gentlemen, as I said before, the situation which we have to address is highly unusual and will certainly never be repeated: we are dealing with the only Treaty to have an expiry date, the succession of the European Community to which depends largely on a Treaty which has not yet been ratified and may well not be ratified in time.
In my opinion, and in this I am supported by the coordinators of the political groups in the Committee on Budgets, if the line I have taken in the legislative amendments is endorsed by this House, before expressing the European Parliament' s opinion, we should enter into negotiations with the Council and the Commission, seeking to increase our institution' s role.
Therefore, when we have voted on the legislative amendments, I will ask the presidency to postpone the vote on the legislative resolution until the possibility of an agreement with the Commission and the Council increasing Parliament' s role can be verified.
I hope that you will agree with this line of approach.
Mr President, Mr Turchi deserves our agreement.
What the Council is offering us is a bit rich.
In Nice, fundamental democratic values were invoked, and in the same breath the ECSC Treaty is annulled and a research fund established, without the possibility of Parliament having any part in deciding the matter.
I must say, they really have a nerve!
Back to the matter in hand.
We are, in fact, funeral orators here, for we are burying a treaty which, almost fifty years ago, was the prelude to the European Union, but whose death is a remarkable one.
It is a death and a rebirth together, for other treaties arose from this one, and at the end of the day, the European Union is based on what it had in mind.
In this context, I would like to point out that Robert Schuman at the Paris Conference in 1950 - held on 9 May, which is of course our Europe Day - observed that this was the first stage of European federation.
He did not speak in terms of a coalition of nation states but of a European Federation, showing himself to be much more far-sighted than many of our statesmen and stateswomen and, indeed, than those among us who cannot yet bring themselves to utter the word 'federation'.
I am just pointing this out; I assume that it will be mentioned in the history books.
Secondly, this treaty is now to give birth to a research fund.
Mr Turchi has pointed out that the money is not simply being returned to the Member States, but is being invested in a fund which is in future to finance research into coal and steel.
This is sensible, but it does create problems.
One is that Parliament has no control over this fund.
I mentioned this contradiction at the outset.
A second is that it creates difficulties for the research framework programme.
What demarcation is there between the research framework programme, which we decide on democratically, and the Research Fund?
Thirdly, what is to happen to the acceding countries? Every one of them wanting to belong to the Research Fund must in fact make an initial contribution to it in order to take any part in it.
Even that creates more than one class of research in the European Union.
What I suggest - something which has been taken on board by the Research Committee - is that we should resolve this conflict, and, moreover, in a positive way by, in the course of the next few years, creating from this Research Fund a Research Foundation which would develop alongside the research framework programme.
Funds could be paid into it by Member States, but also from private sources - it is above all the private sources I am thinking of - in order to finance research projects other than into coal and steel.
In the meantime, we are fortunate in having many affluent people who do not know what to do with their money when they reach a certain age, and who make donations.
Trust funds come into being, and this Foundation can be built up by donations of this sort and so be able to concern itself with subject areas far more wide-ranging than coal and steel.
I hope that Parliament will agree to this recommendation.
The consequence would be that the Commission would reconsider and would perhaps present a report on how this could be translated into action.
We have some experience of this in Germany.
Parallel with State support for research, we have a research foundation which has functioned well ever since the 1920s and uses a minimum of bureaucracy in putting wind in the sails of German research.
It would be no bad idea to do that on a European scale.
Let me finally observe that proposals 1 to 5 in my report are founded on an error.
I recommend that we should not vote on them.
They are in any case covered by their inclusion in the Turchi report and in the amendments.
I therefore recommend that there should be no vote on them.
I might add that they were not voted on in committee either.
This really is a mistake.
Apart from that, I hope that this research fund really will give rise, in the next five to ten years, to a second support for research in the European Union.
We would thereby be making good this undemocratic error which is, in this day and age, really intolerable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the PPE-DE Group is going to vote in favour of the Turchi report on the two amended proposals for Council decisions and the communication from the Commission on the financial activities resulting from the expiry of the ECSC Treaty and those resulting from the creation of the Research Fund for Coal and Steel.
We also agree, like all the other coordinators of the political groups - we have already done so in the Committee on Budgets - with the strategy proposed by the rapporteur.
From a budgetary point of view, the report proposes certain innovations which, after discussion in our parliamentary committee, have been accepted by all the political groups in that committee.
In particular, the rapporteur accepted the suggestion to extend the list of advisory bodies by adding the European Central Bank, the European Investment Bank and other European institutions that are relevant and competent in this field.
Furthermore, the original conditions on the financial programme which should be presented to explain the activities of the Research Fund were also relaxed.
The original idea of producing annual financial plans seemed excessively restrictive.
Basically, however, the Turchi report requests parliamentary control of the Research Fund for Coal and Steel and that request is totally coherent with this Parliament' s role.
We would not be representative of European citizens if we accepted being left out of the control of research funds.
We in the Committee on Budgets do not question where the ECSC reserves should end up, and neither do we enter into whether or not those companies maintain differential treatment in relation to other strategic sectors.
We simply ask that co-decision be applied here, which the Council is repeatedly denying us.
If, as Mr Linkohr said, a European policy on coal and steel is going to continue to exist after the expiry of the ECSC Treaty and if that policy is going to be developed largely by means of this Research Fund, the European Parliament must naturally be involved in the processes of management and control of that fund.
We therefore ask that the income of the fund be included within the general budget of the Union.
More budgetary control, more parliamentary control, means more transparency and more responsibility.
We cannot understand why our institution should be left out of such an important area.
We are therefore voting in favour of the Turchi report and the whole strategy it proposes.
Mr President, I support the proposals in the Linkohr report.
The situation in which we are seeing the Commission and Council fail to give Parliament codecision in relation to this Fund and the technical guidelines which will be produced in relation to it is not acceptable and there should be a change of attitude in relation to that.
It is a great pity that we are moving away from the social policy aspects of these Funds, which provided some relief for companies and, in particular, the workers of companies who were being restructured.
ISPAT in Cork, Ireland, which was formerly a state company, was bought over some years ago by a private company and is now in liquidation.
The 400 workers there are in receipt of statutory redundancy - a few thousand pounds for literally a lifetime's work - and yet when government and trade unions sought support from the social policy aspects of this Fund they were refused.
It is quite extraordinary that we have this situation.
It is even more extraordinary because ISPAT was a plant which recycled scrapped steel: the objective of the new Research Fund is to improve environmental standards and the impact of the steel industry on the environment, and here was a company that was actually doing that.
It must be emphasised very strongly that, insofar as this Research Fund has any impact, it must be on safety at work.
In January this year there was an unfortunate case where a man lost his life in this steel factory.
The company had failed to invest in fire-fighter training and to provide for escape hatches and this man lost his life as a result of the company's negligence.
We need to ensure that health and safety regulations are strictly enforced.
Mr President, I would like to welcome and endorse my colleague, Mr Linkohr's report, particularly his comments on the involvement of Parliament and on the evolution of European Union democratic structures.
This Treaty, along with the Euratom Treaty, remained outside the treaties establishing the European Union and therefore outside democratic scrutiny and control.
This is totally unacceptable, particularly at a time when energy installations, both nuclear and non-nuclear, could be a focus of terror attacks.
Therefore health and safety should be our foremost concern.
As other colleagues have pointed out, the lack of parliamentary scrutiny has made the Commission's proposals unacceptable and the Greens cannot, therefore, agree to the Commission's proposal on the expenditure for the research fund.
For how could Parliament's Committee on Budgets discharge the budget without exercising its function to scrutinise the financial management and allocation of funds?
Finally, the expiry of the ECSC Treaty after 50 years reminds us that the Euratom Treaty, which has also existed outside the democratic scrutiny and control of this Parliament, is an anomaly as more and more Member States are moving away from nuclear energy and towards new forms of energy and that this anomaly, which happily will end with the Coal and Steel Community, still continues with the Euratom Treaty.
Mr. President, over the previous decade the European Coal and Steel Community has borrowed money from the markets and in turn has loaned funds for research activity in the coal and steel sector.
With the Coal and Steel Community now ceasing its operations, it was found during the winding-up proceedings that it still has a surplus of 1.1 billion euros.
Now, rules of the game are being created to govern how the yield on this money will be used for research activity in the coal and steel sector.
I regard the setting up of the Research Fund as a positive thing, while on the other hand the ending of funds for use in combating social ills is a bad thing.
According to the Commission proposal, the management of funds investment activities is being handled and research projects are being prepared by an army of about thirty officials, the maintenance of which will cost three and a half million euros; this gives the impression of an oversized bureaucracy, and therefore Parliament must take another look at the matter when it discusses the questions of releases of liability.
According to the revisions contained in Mr. Linkohr's report, a special European Research Foundation should be set up; the activity of the Coal and Steel Research Fund should be extended to other areas; and funding from the private sector should also be accepted.
Mr. Linkohr, this is a dubious proposal.
We already have the EU's Joint Research Centre and a framework programme for science and research.
I understand Mr. Linkohr's positive approach to research activity, but we must not create a new bureaucracy.
It is necessary to set up a Coal and Steel Research Fund, since the ECSC is winding up its operations.
It is justified that its funds be ploughed back to the sectors from which they were accrued, but the idea of a Research Foundation which would be funded by the money of the EU's taxpayers and of firms will increase the amount of inefficient bureaucracy.
It would be better for Parliament to demand the codecision procedure for the science and research sector, and to leave all aspects of implementation of the programmes to the Commission.
We do not question Mr. Linkohr's good will towards science and research.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a treaty expires, but the foundations remain, for the foundation, the ECSC Treaty, has long been part of the structure of the European Union.
We still, too, have the day of commemoration of 9 May 1950, that day when Robert Schumann presented the brilliant plan of Jean Monnet from the South of France and thereby laid the foundations of what we today call the European work for peace.
The ECSC Treaty has two successors: the subject of our speeches today and, as regards future coal mining, the aid issues with which we will deal later on.
I would like to make four brief remarks about the two reports before us.
First, the procedure proposed here is distinguished by pre-democratic conceptions.
This was tolerable in 1952, but it is of course no longer acceptable to let the Council alone decide when, in the meantime, the Union's citizens have elected us to be their fifth democratic Parliament.
We must be clear about that.
Second, it is right to use the annual revenue of EUR 45 million to support coal and steel research.
One could say in legal terms that it is an anticipated form of reinforced co-operation among a few.
It is of course just as right to consider how the committee recommends, on the basis of Mr Linkohr's presentation, to progressively make the fund into a foundation, because then the problem of new members will be easier to solve than if they had to have a share in the old members' contributions.
Third, the Commission has done the right thing in subordinating the Research Fund to fundamental rights, for the Charter of Fundamental Rights recapitulates the laws in force.
That means that everything that is to be organised at a European level must be measured against the yardstick of fundamental rights and is bound by them.
I find it objectionable that the Council, in its deliberations, struck out these three proposals by the Commission and wants to remove the text's reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
That constitutes an incredible legal scandal, which we must denounce, and for that reason I call it by its name.
So I come to my fourth point, and am particularly curious to know how you, Commissioner, will respond to it.
Your Commission originally rested on a different legal foundation.
You now refer to the protocol to the Treaty of Nice, and that is pretty breathtaking, as the Treaty of Nice is not expected to enter into force before 23 July 2002.
On that day, however, the ECSC Treaty ceases to have effect, and we can hardly allow a lawless state of affairs.
So I would very much like a reply from you as to how you intend to proceed and as to what you intend to propose, so that there will be no state of lawlessness from midnight on 23 July 2002, for then the gripping question would arise of to whom this money, which would then no longer have an owner in law, actually belonged.
Mr President, I agree with the many speakers who have criticised the lack of democracy in the continued administration of the funds.
As has been pointed out, the treaty expires on 23 July of next year.
This treaty formed the basis for the European Union as we know it today.
It launched the concept of the 'Common Market' and, with the introduction of the High Authority, a common assembly, a special Council of Ministers and a court, those institutions were established which now operate as the Commission, the European Parliament the Council and the Court of Justice.
I think it is worth mentioning this.
Where the political objectives are concerned, it has of course to be said that these have been fulfilled in many areas.
When we debated the future employment of the funds to be administered, it would have been desirable if a larger proportion of the budget could have gone on coal, and I am certain that the Commission will bear this in mind when the future arrangements for the Research Fund are discussed.
I think there is cause here today for expressing appreciation for the work done in those institutions, bodies and companies which, for 50 years, have been responsible for the ECSC' s activities and, specifically, for the contributions from the Commission and the advisory committee.
As has been said, more research will take place, and this research will be of benefit to the environment, industry and our electorate in the European Union.
First of all I thank Parliament's responsible committees and their rapporteurs.
These proposals are the final product of a long discussion process initiated by the Commission ten years ago.
The concept proposed by the Commission is to revert the ECSC assets to the remaining Communities upon expiry of the Treaty and to use the resources produced from these assets for the sole purpose of funding research in the sectors related to the steel and coal industry.
This concept has been discussed with industry, the social partners, the European Parliament and the Member States. Eventually all stakeholders endorsed it.
The Member States have been very closely associated in this discussion, which is completely justified since together they are the owners of the ECSC assets.
If there were no agreement on the Member States' side these assets would simply revert to them, in line with the principles of international law.
The European Council has provided us with detailed guidance on the subject, firstly at the Amsterdam European Summit in 1997 and more recently at the Nice intergovernmental conference last year.
On this latter occasion the Member States adopted a protocol attached to the Nice Treaty which details the arrangements regarding the expiry of this Treaty.
The Commission is bound to respect the decisions taken in Nice.
It is in this context that the Commission has to address your amendments.
You have requested that all three decisions should be adopted through the codecision procedure.
I regret to say that the Commission cannot accept this request.
In the case of the framework decision, the decisional procedure has already been agreed upon by the intergovernmental conference in Nice.
For the two decisions on the financial and research guidelines respectively, the Commission has followed the same line as for other, similar proposals in research policy or regarding our financial regulation.
For example, the specific programmes of the European Union Research and Development Framework Programme are submitted to Parliament for its opinion, as is the case for the Financial Regulation.
If the Commission departed from this line it would not be consistent.
On the other hand, I would like to stress that Parliament's involvement in the proposed arrangements is much stronger than it was under the ECSC Treaty.
As regards the budgetisation of the funds after the expiry of the Treaty, the Commission agrees that the resources and the expenditure will be incorporated into the general EC budget.
However, they will consist of earmarked revenue which, according to our Interinstitutional Agreement, is not covered by the financial perspectives.
Therefore we could not go along with the proposal to simply incorporate the resources and the expenditure into Chapter III, internal policies of the budget, and to delete any reference to earmarked revenue.
You also suggested that within two years, by 24 July 2004, the Commission should make proposals to enlarge the post-ECSC research fund into a European research foundation covering all research sectors over and above steel and coal.
Indeed, I am aware that such a foundation has been suggested to us on several occasions.
I have noticed that the corresponding amendment refers to the draft decision on the research guidelines only.
From a legal point of view the research guidelines lay down the technical provisions related to the implementation of the research activities, but they cannot cope with an issue of an institutional nature like this one.
More generally speaking, the proposal to set up a research foundation has already been made to the Commission on several occasions, in particular in the course of the discussion in the Council, but it was rejected.
The first reason is that the management of the ECSC funds after 23 July 2002 will involve three aspects: firstly, the management of the ECSC commitments existing on that day until their expiry - and in some cases they will continue for 20 years or more; secondly, the financial management of the ECSC assets; and thirdly, the management of the research fund financed from the resources produced from this financial management.
The three elements are therefore closely interlinked and it is not possible to isolate any one of them.
Furthermore it is clear that a majority of Member States oppose the implementation of the research fund through a foundation.
Finally, the very small amount involved in the proposed research fund would not justify the creation of a foundation.
Therefore the most sensible solution is that the Commission, which has managed all ECSC operations so far, should continue to manage them all.
Finally, I have taken note with particular interest of your request that environmental considerations should be given priority in the operations of this coal and steel research fund.
I am pleased to say that current research projects financed under the ECSC Treaty already put much emphasis on cleaner technologies, energy saving and the protection of the environment in both the coal and steel sectors.
I can assure you that we will continue to attach great importance to these considerations, as well as the issue of safety at work, in the research guidelines which we are now proposing.
To conclude, let me answer Mr Mombaur's question on the specific issue concerning the legal basis of the three-year Commission proposals.
As you know, they are based on a protocol annexed to the Nice Treaty and we will now have to reflect on how to deal with the uncertainty surrounding the entry into force of the Treaty.
The Commission's services are currently exploring this issue and considering alternative scenarios.
So the answer is that we will have to continue to look at that particular issue.
Thank you once again for the careful analysis of the Commission proposals, your contributions to this debate and for your attention.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.55 p.m.)
Decision on urgent procedure
White paper on reform of European governance
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the White Paper on Reform of European Governance.
Without further ado I will give the floor to the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, in the 51 years of its existence, since the beginning of the European unification process and since the Robert Schuman Declaration, the European Union can lay claim to a considerable success story.
In addition to establishing the common market, the single currency and the beginnings of a common foreign and security policy, we have also become an area of peace, justice and security, and in this we are a model for many regions of the world. But why is it that our citizens do not see the actions of the various institutions of the European Union in a proper light, as we might expect?
Why is it that they so often fail to evoke a positive response? The question that immediately comes to mind is of course why the European Union has such a poor external image and why it is so bad at initiating and implementing its policies.
These questions of course provide the basis for the Commission's White Paper of 25 July of this year, and we are delighted that the Commission President, Mr Prodi, is here to discuss this issue with us for the second time today and has just offered us cooperation within an interinstitutional working party.
I think this is an excellent suggestion that we should accept promptly and in a constructive spirit.
Another question is why our public image in the EU Member States is so patchy - I do not wish to say dismal - yet it cannot really be said that the European Union stumbles from one failure to the next.
I think that a key point here is what the Commission says at the beginning of the White Paper: it should go back to concentrating on its core activities.
The Commission should not allow itself to get tangled up in a mass of individual proposals and decisions so that in terms of overall policy strategy you cannot see the wood for the trees.
As I see it, there are a few more questions that we need to consider in some depth before we will find the appropriate answers.
We certainly recognise that the Commission - and I think that all the institutions need to do this - has subjected and is continuing to subject its actions to a critical review process, after which it can then adopt any changes necessary after discussion with us.
We also support the Commission's intention to focus on particular areas, but we have to say that the Commission should in that case undertake appropriate work with the press.
It should make it very clear to the public what European legislation consists of and how it has to be implemented.
There is also a second important issue here.
There is no point in the Commission setting up its own substructures in various fields, and I believe that it has in fact largely ceased to do this.
It should make use of existing public agencies at national, regional and local level to implement Community legislation.
There is no need for the Commission to arrange direct involvement in every local district and in every medium-sized town.
Although it is important to keep citizens informed, suitable forms of interaction should be used.
Framework legislation produced by the Commission should provide for implementation at regional and national level, and it seems to me that the Commission's first proposal in the 25 July White Paper blurs the distinction between the various levels too much. So what is needed?
Joint regulation?
Open coordination?
To what extent are European agencies needed? We need to address all these questions in our interinstitutional working party.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am very grateful for today's report.
We are moving ever closer and our views have more and more in common, but there is still a way to go, and there is one particular point on which I believe that we still differ.
Firstly, you have today clearly declared your faith in a form of parliamentary democracy that of course has important consequences for our work as a whole, and in particular for the role of 'civil society' .
That is another of those rather nebulous concepts rather like 'governance' , but 'governance' is used in contexts where there are no parliamentary democracies or cannot be, as in the case of 'global governance' .
In the case of civil society, and I think you were very clear about this, we need to stress that although it has a consultative role and a supporting function, it is the European Parliament and of course also national parliaments that are at the heart of democracy as we know it.
As you said yourself, they are an expression of the will of the people, and we must insist on that point.
The key point on which there are still differences between us is the issue of alternative forms of regulation.
We are not so presumptuous as to think that only Parliament can regulate and that only Parliament can create appropriate regulations, including detailed regulations.
However, the difficult thing is to decide on the framework, details, a political objective and technical implementation.
So I must insist that this Parliament is always consulted on this issue and that it is not the Commission that decides, but that there should be a joint decision, a kind of Interinstitutional Agreement between the Council, Parliament and the Commission.
This applies in particular to the issue of call back that we have also been discussing today.
Let me make this crystal clear: we need both things.
We need a Parliament call-back procedure in connection with alternative forms of regulation, and we need to reform comitology.
We have nothing against the reform of comitology proposed in the White Paper, but it is not enough.
It is necessary if the decision-making process at parliamentary level is to become more democratic, but it is by no means enough.
Mr President, I hope I have understood you correctly in understanding that you will not present anything to the Laeken European Council unless it has been discussed with this Parliament beforehand and the views of this House have been sought.
You said this in general terms, and I welcome that, and I can see from your nodding that that is indeed your intention.
That represents a great step forward compared with the last time, and I would like to thank you very much indeed for that.
By way of conclusion, I would like to make one more thing clear. This is not about Parliament getting involved in the Commission's executive powers.
However, we very much reject any attempts on the part of the Commission - and they have been made - to get involved in the legislative process and to arrogate legislative powers to itself.
This emerges from many sentences and passages in the White Paper, and we must reject this.
The Commission has executive powers, but legislative competence is a matter for the Parliament and the Council and we absolutely insist on that!
Madam President, Mr Prodi, almost everyone who has spoken has asked - as you yourself have also done - why the EU's image is not what we expect, and why people have ever less faith in it.
I am always surprised that this is commented on in a wounded tone as if we were misunderstood, as if all this were unfair, and even the answers on this subject have a very paternalistic ring about them.
They say that it is all about explaining things better to the public and presenting our policies to them more clearly.
Unlike Mr Swoboda, I do not think that we have really made any progress in this area.
The concept of good governance is very vague, and people do not really understand what you are promising them.
You are promising transparency, openness and consultation, but that is not what is at stake here, Mr Prodi.
The major misunderstanding - I might almost say a misunderstanding of historical proportions - is that this Commission does not have any conception of European democracy. It has no conception at all of democracy at supranational level.
All these paternalistic ideas that you have presented here miss the point that you do not have the courage - and have not had the courage for years - to highlight the democratic deficits of the European Union with sufficient clarity, and to recognise that the Commission must forego some power if such a thing as European democracy is to exist, and that you need to work alongside this Parliament on many key issues, for example on preparing a constitutional process and the main elements of that process.
No, genuinely tackling the dissatisfaction that exists would mean addressing the state of crisis which exists as regards legitimacy.
We govern people with regulations because we do not have the courage to say that we have been making laws for years now.
We call them regulations because the democratic legitimacy of these laws is very fragile, because the separation of powers has not been achieved, because the principle of openness of legislation has not been achieved, because the process of committing the administration to laws has not been achieved, and because instead there is disproportionate scope for discretion, which cannot be reconciled with democratic principles, because we have an irregular administration in many areas, such as the committee structure.
It is not regular, there are no staff regulations, there are no clear loyalties, and the processes for appointing staff in these areas are by no means transparent and are easy to manipulate.
Mr President, you cannot reconcile the idea of a good technocracy with a debate on democracy.
Just as there is no such thing as a good dictatorship, there is also no such thing as a good technocracy.
You will have to address the issue of a European democracy and the position of the Commission in this process.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, I am very pleased that we have another opportunity today to discuss the White Paper together, because European governance is indeed a pivotal theme and I would like to make it very clear that I believe that the whole future viability of the European Union depends to a large extent on this issue.
I am bound to agree with Mr Voggenhuber on this point: as far as I am concerned, the issue at the centre of the whole debate around governance is the question of democracy - strengthening democracy and above all strengthening the public's rights, especially under the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I say that because one thing is clear: the very best policy will achieve nothing if it does not impact on the public or if the present state of affairs continues, in which the public believes that what happens in Brussels is far removed from them and their day-to-day concerns.
I believe, Mr Prodi, that the public quite rightly expects two things: the first is transparency in decision making and the second is clarity as regards political responsibility for decisions.
I believe that this has to be the focal point from which our joint deliberations start, both for the Commission and of course also for the other institutions.
I would like to talk about transparency for a moment.
The White Paper talks about a cumbersome system of almost 700 consultative bodies supporting the Commission.
If I remember correctly, you yourself picked up this point in the White Paper on the reform of the Commission, and announced back in June that a list of these consultative bodies would be published.
In the White Paper before us, you promise that details of these bodies will be published by the end of the year.
I am very much in favour of that.
This is a question of transparency, and it could help to remove some of the prejudice against the work of the Commission and the other institutions.
However, publishing details of consultative bodies is one thing, and, as I see it, accepting political responsibility for decisions is quite another.
A second point in the White Paper that I would like to mention is the 'culture of consultation and dialogue' .
I certainly regard that as a very good proposal.
I think that the Commission on the one hand and the Council and Parliament on the other would be well advised to jointly consider how a new culture of consultation and dialogue can be achieved in terms of greater involvement for civil society.
I think it would be better if the Commission did not propose a code of conduct on minimum standards for consultation for itself, but rather if we could jointly consider whether there is not some scope for all three institutions to make a joint commitment under an Interinstitutional Agreement.
You spoke earlier about a dialogue of this kind, about the possibility of setting up a working party, and I am keen to accept that suggestion.
Madam President, President Prodi, I speak on behalf of the radical Members.
Mr Prodi, what impression do you think the citizens of Europe can have if, after the attacks on New York and Washington, they have seen Chirac, Blair, Fischer and all the European leaders marching off to Washington, and then the President-in-Office and President Prodi a good last, or nearly so - through no fault of their own, of course - and it even seems on Monday - and that is saying something - even Berlusconi may go?
All this in itself reveals a deep-seated problem for as long as we give that impression (and we either give it or not).
Therefore, in my opinion (and here I agree with Mr Voggenhuber), the Commission should stop talking so much and risking being misunderstood, especially in view of the Convention - which we hope will be a positive step and will give a boost to this Union. Instead, it should concentrate on crucial problems like representation abroad, which is its own role; it should reassume its role as the driving force behind European integration, something it is losing and may lose forever.
It should also be daring and make ambitious proposals, such as asking, for instance, what face Europe is showing to the outside world, since we cannot really have ten different faces on such international matters.
This, then, is my message to you, Mr Prodi: more concrete proposals, stronger proposals, particularly in view of the post-Laeken meeting.
Madam President, is not the real reason for this glossy brochure and this debate today the fact that the Treaty of Nice is dead? The Irish people saw to that, and you know that if you ask them again they will reject it a second time.
It is interesting to note that they were the only people who were asked whether or not they wanted the Treaty.
That is why we have European governance and why you are seeking to push through the institutional changes, choosing a different method.
The only way that you will achieve the participation in this European project that you want is through consent.
By that I do not mean the consent of a House like this, but of the ordinary voters in Europe.
Let us have more referendums in all Member States.
That is the only way to achieve democratic legitimacy.
The way to address the democratic deficit is to give people a chance to express their opinions.
Madam President, there is every reason for developing ideas around the subject of how Europe is to move forward, but there is also a need to know what it is that has to be developed.
Not everything has to be included, but just those things that cannot better be taken care of at national, local or individual levels, such as the internal market, the common currency, external and internal security, borders, customs and certain environmental issues.
So far, the proposals relating to democracy are not sufficiently concrete.
We therefore need cooperation across the institutions in order to move forward.
We must build upon a clear division of power in which political responsibility can be insisted upon.
The objectives need to be clarified and the initiatives adapted accordingly.
It is necessary to be able to hold people to account in a democratic system governed by law, and the prerequisite for this is a common basis of values with clear guidelines.
An effective European democracy requires discussions across linguistic and national borders, together with an education system and media adapted in the light of these.
The proposed multi-level democracy can contribute to legitimacy and greater confidence in the institutions, but it must not degenerate into a democracy characterised by bargaining or corporatism and which is so often marked by corruption.
Cooperation with civil society can make political measures better suited to their purpose, but the role of politicians must be clearly distinguished from civil society.
We now hope that the Commission will in future comply with the values in the proposal and, faced with each new initiative, ask four questions: Is the measure proportionate, that is to say appropriate to the problems that are to be solved? Is the solution in keeping with European democracy?
Is the proposal in line with the EU' s vision and basic principles?
Can people be held to account?
The more people are involved in European cooperation, the better. Do not imagine, however, that legitimacy in itself creates democracy.
Rather, it is democracy which creates legitimacy.
Madam President, Mr Swoboda has clearly formulated the stance of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and has presented a clear proposal to the Commission.
In my capacity of shadow rapporteur for the PSE Group for the White Paper on Reform of European Governance in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, I would now like to explain our position from my point of view.
We welcome your proposal for efficient governance by setting up autonomous agencies, the proposals facilitating co-regulations and self-regulations, the will to consult representatives from specific sectors and the proposal on citizens' and the civil society' s right to information, participation and consultation.
We object, however, to a deal between the interested sectors and the European Commission without any parliamentary control.
That is not our idea of democracy.
We want to decide beforehand, in tandem with the Commission and the Council, when detailed legislation is necessary, when framework legislation suffices and when we can sanction a form of co-regulation or self-regulation.
It goes without saying that in many cases, it will be useful to delegate technical details to the comitology procedure, provided they are technical details, and the political component has been extracted completely.
Furthermore, the call-back mechanism, to which the European Parliament can refer, should this prove necessary, must be regulated in advance.
It is possible that the deployment of the social actors in the case of self- and co-regulation is a much more efficient way of working.
Not only should we consult the sectors about the decision-making process.
In certain cases, even social non-profit organisations could also play a role in the implementation.
But if the sectors are allocated certain tasks, the monitoring role by the European Parliament must always remain clear, and the European Commission must carry its responsibility.
Clarity always remains condition No 1.
The dialogue with social actors must be concrete and yield results, and must not become a talk shop which thrives on repetition.
For what the citizen and the PSE Group want is result: democratic control and recognisable political priority by the European government.
At present, decision-making in the EU is too diffuse and too sluggish, which leads to alienation.
The PSE Group, also in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, is now offering to break this cycle.
That is possible and should be done before the Laeken Summit.
The Commission should then reach an agreement with the European Parliament which can be implemented by the end of the Spanish Presidency.
The ball is now back in the court of the Commission.
We count on you, Mr Prodi.
Madam President, President Prodi, at first sight the White Paper might seem tied down to its essentially technical content.
If, instead, we consider the reasons why it was drawn up - reasons that should have been given greater coverage in the text itself - we realise that it has a very solid and highly relevant political core.
In the G8 debate here in this House, I pointed out that, while globalisation is proceeding apace in all fields, it is hard for it to involve politics, which thus remains inadequate and slow compared with what is happening in other sectors.
This is undoubtedly one of the basic reasons for citizens' widespread mistrust of institutions at all levels, from local to European to worldwide.
Besides, what do the people of Seattle, Gothenburg or Genoa, leaving aside the more extreme positions, want of politics, if not to control globalisation? What answer are we in a position to give, today, apart from our own inadequacy?
The European Union project is, of course, still the only concrete example that can meet these demands, but it has not yet expressed its democratic potential to the full.
The White Paper is thus a valuable instrument, provided Parliament shows the same willingness to specify those substantial organisational reforms that will enable it to reconstruct and revive European democratic citizenship.
Madam President, I would like to move the debate on to ground which has not been much talked about and to the remarks Mr Prodi made in his introductory statement about the regional element.
I would like to do so particularly from the standpoint of my own constituency, Scotland, but not only from that point of view.
It is interesting to note, when you reflect on Scotland, that about 80% of the competences exercisable by the Scottish Parliament concern domains in which the European Union has a shared competence.
When we make laws here, the Scottish Parliament and government are bound by them and have to put them into effect; that is quite right and it is the same across other similar regions.
But sometimes it can produce ridiculous results, for example when environmental laws are too detailed to allow sensible local discretion in adapting common principles to local situations.
The water problems of the Island of Islay or the Glen of Strathspey are hardly comparable with those of the Rhine basin.
A one-size-fits-all approach to water law can have absurd results, for example in respect of the Scotch malt whisky industry, despite its established environmental friendliness over 200 years.
The White Paper says, as did Commissioner Prodi this morning, that the Commission will consult regional and local government early in the policy-formation process and will seek to legislate so that local knowledge is effectively deployed in the implementation process.
That is quite right and very welcome, though it was a pity he only devoted one sentence in his opening speech to it.
Many of us had expected that the White Paper would contain a far stronger statement, especially in relation to the so-called partner regions exercising their own constitutional powers of legislation.
Europe will fail to regain or retain the affections of the citizens of the Union - and that includes the people in Scotland and our counterparts in many similar lands such as Catalonia, Flanders, Wales, Galicia, the Basque country - unless the regional and local governments with whom people there finally identify are fully respected partners in the governance of Europe.
We are the same size and population as many of the existing Member States, the same as many of the adjoining States and we are bigger than quite a few of them.
It is often said that big, important regions of large countries do better in the Union than small Member States.
I doubt it and nothing in the White Paper has yet persuaded me that is true.
Mr President, I have three points.
Firstly, this paper is slightly more modest than its title suggests.
When you first titillated us with the prospect of presenting this White Paper over a year ago, we were all very excited at the idea of having some great constitutional blueprint.
In fact, you have very wisely produced a paper on good administration rather than a blueprint on governance or constitutional government as a whole, and that pragmatic and focused approach has much to commend it.
Secondly, I very much welcome your announcement today that you wish to establish an interinstitutional working party.
I have always felt it was a mistake to try to treat governance as if it were a piece of legislation which was first presented by the Commission and then batted between the institutions.
This is not normal legislation, but an intensely political debate that requires an intensely political and cooperative approach between the institutions.
My final point is one that you touch upon quite politely in the White Paper.
I will be less polite: we can do as much as we like at European level - in Strasbourg and Brussels - to improve administration and governance and make our decisions more comprehensible, legitimate and understandable.
However, as long as national political institutions and national political cultures remain frozen in the 19th-century mould and pretend that either the EU does not exist or is some far-off spaceship, we will never make great advances in this honourable enterprise of improving governance.
Governance can only be built brick by brick from the bottom, from the ground floor, from our nations and regions.
That is where we should all start.
Mr President, I think that Mrs Roth-Behrendt has expressed Parliament' s concerns in her main point.
Parliament does not think it is a bad idea for the Commission to set up all the consultative bodies it wants, that it should meet with all the non-governmental organisations it wishes, that it should consult everyone through the Internet, or that it should talk to all citizens on a personal level.
This seems like a good idea to us and we should probably do the same thing.
What worries us is the second part of the White Paper; or to be more precise, the proposals to improve Community regulations.
The Treaties of the European Union - as Mrs Roth-Behrendt pointed out - are based upon the principle of the division of powers.
Article 6 of the Treaty makes reference to national constitutional principles.
All national legislations are based upon the principle of the division of powers, by which legislative prerogatives are under the control of bodies elected by the people.
In the case of the European institutions there are two such bodies: the Parliament, directly elected, and the Council, comprised of Ministers responsible to their own national Parliaments.
The role of the Commission of the European Communities is to be the Community executive, and the role of Parliament is to support and strengthen the claims of the Commission to be an authentic Community executive.
However, if the Commission enters into the regulatory framework and endeavours to take on competences or powers that have been conferred or that should be conferred on the European Parliament by the Treaties, in these areas - as Mr Swoboda and Mrs Roth-Behrendt have stated - the Commission must remain in close contact with Parliament.
To be precise, Mr Prodi' s suggestion that the Commission could present the Laeken European Council with proposals on improving Community regulations, without waiting for Parliament to deliver its opinion, seems to me to be a dangerous thing.
I hope that the Commission, before putting forward any proposal to the Laeken European Council on improving Community regulations, enters into close contact with Parliament with the aim of listening to our point of view and in this way conveying to the Laeken European Council the Parliament' s concerns and interests in this matter.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, this debate on the Commission's White Paper on European Governance in some ways comes at a bad time, and in other ways at a good one.
It is a bad time because any debate on the internal structure of the European Union and the way it functions, and on the legitimacy of the European Union itself will at present be dwarfed by the need to protect Europe's citizens against international terror and violence, with more arcane subjects being overshadowed.
However, it is also a good time for the same reason, by which I mean that the European Union has an opportunity at this precise moment to respond to people's fundamental need for safety within the EU, and for legitimacy combined with an ability to act outside its own borders.
Transparent, open and accountable decision making can accordingly help to make Europe's citizens more aware and at the same time conscious of the added value Europe can bring.
Your White Paper is a contribution to that added value, Mr Prodi.
Against this background, I particularly welcome those proposals in the Commission's White Paper that aim for a systematic dialogue at regional and local level, at a more active role for the Committee of the Regions, and the proposal that from 2002 onwards there should be an annual report on the implementation of the Amsterdam Protocol on Subsidiarity and Proportionality.
Subsidiarity and the Community method are not after all mutually exclusive.
The division of tasks between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament must be clear, just as a balance between the Member States, the regions and the EU needs to be struck under their institutional triangle.
It is obvious that the European Parliament and the national parliaments should play a central role in the public debate on the future of Europe.
That is why I find it amazing that in its White Paper the Commission does not consider the idea of a convention as requested in the report by Mr Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo.
An open convention which works out the decision-making basis for the Council, with representatives from the Commission and from national parliaments and from the European Parliament, together with representatives of the Member States and the candidate countries and from the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee sitting as observers, is an appropriate and essential forum for bringing the Union closer to its citizens and achieving transparency, and it must supplement and support internal reforms.
Mr President, it is indeed a shame that Mr Farage is no longer with us.
He obviously has learned nothing about public policy if he thinks that we can run the whole of Europe on a series of referendums.
This discussion is probably one of the most important that we will have before enlargement.
It is neither as hallowed nor as sexy as an IGC, but until we get the actual delivery mechanisms of democracy and public policy right, the boring, tedious administrative detail, then we do democracy an injustice.
We have to reform our governmental processes.
There are many proposals in the White Paper that cause nobody any problems, but issues like co-regulation and the delivery of public policy by external agencies do cause problems.
We cannot afford not to address these issues.
Our institutional overload, as we all know, is quite dramatic in the Union and with enlargement it will get worse.
We need to ensure, however, that when we reform those processes - whether it be issues concerning co-regulation or external agencies - we see democratic control as the key factor, democratic control in a democratic framework.
This will not be a resource-free exercise.
It will also require significant person power to deliver it, at least in the early stages.
The Commission has to face this.
It will not be a cost-cutting exercise by any means.
Finally, if there is a criticism that has to be made of the Commission, and I am glad it has realised the importance of this criticism, it is that its White Paper did not address the role of Parliament.
Now I realise that the Commission might be sensitive about doing so, in case it brings the wrath of this House down on it.
That represented a fundamental failure in the early discussions between the Commission and Parliament.
So I am very pleased that this has now been rectified and we can move forward to produce the sort of governmental structure which we require.
Thank you very much, Mr Prodi.
If I may, I would like to add that with the Charter of Fundamental Rights we had very positive experience of involving civil society, but we did not have any Members in the Convention.
Mr President, there has probably been a translation problem.
I shall repeat the sentence which is the key to the latter part of my speech: we have never said - and I confirm this today - that civil society can play a decision-making role.
That is reserved for Parliament and the Council - our institutions.
We simply want consultation to take place more transparently, more clearly and more comprehensively.
Thank you very much, Mr Prodi!
I think that really does make things clearer.
A few Members were actually somewhat surprised, but I think that we all know what was meant now.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you now have the floor.
As you know, if the Commission President wishes to add anything else, we will of course be happy to agree to that.
Asylum and immigration
The next item is the joint debate on asylum and immigration policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure and a great honour for me, in my capacity as chairman of the Justice and Home Affairs Council, to report to you on the work which we are doing on asylum and immigration, but also to inform you of the initiatives planned by the presidency for the coming weeks.
The fact that I have been given the opportunity to speak on this particular day is all the more appropriate given that your Parliament is being called to vote on two reports, which are of a very high quality and which are particularly important for our future work in the Justice and Home Affairs Council: Mr Pirker's report on the Commission communication on a Community immigration policy and Mr Evans's report on the Commission communication on a common asylum procedure and a uniform status, valid throughout the Union, for persons granted asylum.
When I introduced the presidency' s programme to the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, I mentioned the fact that our presidency had made these two areas - asylum on the one hand and immigration on the other - a priority, and said that there were several reasons for our doing so.
First of all, I note, echoing my European colleagues, that the public have a genuine expectation here, a legitimate expectation, and it is our duty as politicians to respond to this urgently, of course, but also, I believe, to provide some reassurance.
This implies managing migratory flows effectively and it also means that we need to take measures to prevent the asylum procedure from being abused.
We have to recognise that there is widespread concern about the upward trend in the figures which we are seeing more or less everywhere in Europe.
Secondly, the evaluation of Tampere, which will be carried out at the end of our presidency, should allow us to identify the areas in which progress has been made in the field of justice and home affairs, but also to propose measures with a view to remedying any shortcomings revealed as soon as possible, and we have to admit that there are some.
To avoid the regrettable consequences of these shortcomings, we think that it is necessary to relaunch the political process at the Laeken Summit.
To do this we will need to resolve several issues which, though in the guise of technical difficulties, are in fact the subject of political dispute.
I must in addition thank Commissioner Vitorino who always puts forward very sensible proposals, but has also proven to be very open-minded in his concern to make progress and who is willing for his proposals to be challenged if this moves the issue forward at European level.
With these two points in mind, the Belgian Presidency wanted even now to create the necessary political impetus to provoke a substantial debate on issues such as establishing a common and balanced immigration policy and setting up a European asylum system.
In other words, we are working with our colleagues in this presidency to ensure that the Council of Ministers is once again able to play its role as architect of the European edifice and thus focus on settling a number of political disputes.
Its legislative work should lead to visible operational activity and cooperation on practical matters between the law enforcement agencies and the immigration authorities.
I have to tell you that for my part I am convinced that a common European approach, based on solidarity, is the only viable approach to these matters.
We should remember that for a long time many Member States believed that they could tackle this problem on their own.
They have to admit, however, that the results have not come up to expectations.
Let me take asylum first of all.
The right to asylum is, of course, a priority for all of our countries.
Europe' s dignity would not, I believe, allow otherwise.
We still wish to see the Geneva Convention applied in full and compliance with it reaffirmed.
It seems to me that in this respect our countries have nothing to be ashamed of.
The efforts which we are making to meet our international commitments cannot be challenged or called into question.
However, it is also apparent to all of us that large numbers of people are using this procedure as a way of entering the territory of our Member States for reasons other than those laid down in the Geneva Convention.
I therefore think that we ought to consider what action we might take in the light of these two observations.
In just a few months, the Commission has completed a significant task, producing the proposals for directives which we now need to examine and which concern: harmonising the conditions for the reception of applicants for asylum; harmonising the procedures for granting and withdrawing refugee status; revising the Dublin Convention; harmonising refugee status and, finally, subsidiary forms of protection.
Although we need to see all of these texts as part of an indissociable whole, there is good reason to be self-disciplined about the order in which we examine them.
Bearing in mind the timetable set by the Commission scoreboard and the Commission communication on asylum which provides for a two-stage approach, the presidency has decided to focus as a priority on the three following directives: harmonising the common minimum conditions for the reception of asylum-seekers; the Community instrument to succeed the Dublin Convention and harmonising procedures for granting and withdrawing refugee status.
The first two documents have had their first reading, which I might describe as encouraging and from which it was clear that Member States wish to make progress in this field as quickly as possible.
As far as harmonising procedures is concerned, I organised an exploratory debate at political level during the Justice and Home Affairs Council of 27 September, based on specific questions which required specific answers.
For example, the Member States had to give their views on how the directive should be structured, and in particular on the criteria to be used to distinguish between admissible applications and manifestly unfounded ones, the number of bodies involved in assessing these criteria, their nature, the appeals mechanism making it possible to refer the matter to them, and how precise to make the qualitative standards for the decisions and the authorities making those decisions.
It was proposed to ministers that the same working method be used to examine the directive on family reunification.
This exercise made it possible - although it is certainly difficult - to make some progress, particularly on defining the notion of the nuclear family.
It is clear that the diversity of the national systems in place in our Member States means that any moves to bring them into line with each other will indisputably and necessarily require significant efforts to be made on all sides.
None of the Member States can hope that the uniform system will correspond to what it has been familiar with at home.
Above and beyond these national differences, however, I did note with satisfaction that we are all working towards the same objective: establishing procedures which are fast and effective - this is very important - but which of course respect the rights of refugee applicants.
The presidency will, moreover, continue to make every effort, working in collaboration with the Commission, to meet this objective as soon as possible.
In addition, I welcome the recommendations made in Mr Evans' s report, which seek to flesh out the provisions in the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere conclusions with a view to implementing this common European asylum regime.
Our response to this issue has to be a joint one, based on solidarity.
Europe needs to toe the same political line where admitting refugees onto its territory is concerned and needs to act together to stamp out the underground activity which this provokes.
If we ascertain that procedures are being abused, we obviously need to find solutions to situations of human distress.
Europe needs to work along these lines to improve conflict prevention, and also, through its cooperation programmes, to establish better living conditions throughout the world.
Organising information campaigns in the countries of origin should make it possible to combat illegal immigration, but also to thwart the plans of criminal organisations which are at the origin of this modern form of slavery and which do not hesitate to have recourse to any means, in particular violence and terror, to achieve their ends.
Exploiting these flows of refugee applicants for criminal purposes is an additional concern for the whole of the European Union and it is our duty to respond to this by adopting emergency measures to act as a deterrent.
It was with this in mind that we raised the issue of trafficking in human beings during the open debate with the accession countries at the Council meeting of 28 September and decided on measures to take in this field by adopting operational conclusions.
This package of measures can and must range from measures to protect victims to police-related measures such as reinforcing checks at Europe' s current and future external borders, while safeguarding the possibility for those who are fleeing persecution to find asylum in our countries.
Finally I agree that we need to draw a clear distinction in the measures which we put in place between asylum-seekers looking for international protection and those who want to enter the European Union for other reasons, which are incidentally sometimes legitimate.
At a time of openness and mobility, this is certainly not about transforming Europe into a 'fortress' but about reflecting on how we can manage immigration in a transparent, realistic and balanced way.
I do not have any ready-made answers to these questions; instead we have elected to organise - in collaboration with the European Parliament and the Commission - a European Conference on Migration, which will be held on 16 and 17 October in Brussels. I should like, Mr President, to take advantage of the fact that this event will soon be upon us to thank you for the considerable support which this Parliament has given us in organising this meeting, which is, I believe, unprecedented, and which will bring together expert observers of these phenomena which are a real problem in today's society.
The Brussels hemicycle of the European Parliament is a prestigious venue and symbolises the fruitful collaboration between the European institutions, which, on an issue such as immigration, is quite obviously vital.
In addition, I hope that many Members of this Parliament will attend the conference, thus fostering a rich and productive debate.
This event, to which we will have the honour of welcoming ministers, senior officials from international institutions and politicians, will provide an opportunity to hold an in-depth political debate on migratory flows, the issues at stake and their consequences.
It will allow us to get a general idea of the way in which migratory flows should be addressed within a common European policy.
At the conference the floor will be open for contributions from all participants which should help us - and this is our political objective - to make some essential choices at the Laeken European Summit.
The idea is to reinject momentum into the search for a global approach towards migration.
Furthermore, we are all aware that these questions of principle conceal a certain tendency for people to exploit the phenomenon for economic and even political ends and we cannot ignore this.
Significant migratory flows head for Europe, either abusing the procedures which were designed for completely different purposes or, even, entering Europe completely illegally, which is of course just as reprehensible.
A large number of these illegal migrants also benefit from criminal help, both abroad and in our own countries.
Obviously these abuses of the system sustain those who try to exploit the migratory phenomena for economic purposes or to achieve political aims and we cannot remain indifferent to this.
I was pleased to see that the issues which will be debated during the conference are the same as those raised in Mr Pirker' s report on immigration. How can we manage migratory flows successfully?
How can we draw a clear distinction between asylum and immigration?
What impact would relaxing the conditions governing the entry of immigrants have on illegal immigration?
Do our Member States need a new wave of economic migration?
Is this need felt to the same extent across the Union?
What consequences does the fight against the shadow economy have for illegal immigration? What are the undesirable consequences of the migration of qualified labour and how can we counter them?
In which areas do we work together with the countries of origin?
What instruments can we put in place to establish a genuine policy of integration?
The presidency believes that this is not simply a question of resolving technical issues: everyone knows that these matters are highly charged, economically and politically, but also at a purely human level.
We need to take account of many phenomena, including underground ones, which makes establishing a common immigration policy particularly complex, especially from an economic point of view.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before drawing to a close, I should like to remind you of our desire to work in full institutional collaboration with you, the European Parliament, within the rules laid down in the treaties, in the hope that together we will be able to take further steps towards creating an area of freedom, security and justice which will benefit Europe and the people of Europe.
This is already the third time that I have had the pleasure of addressing you.
This is not an onerous task; it is an honour, and I am delighted to be able to work together with you.
(Applause)
. (NL) Mr President, when the report by Mr Evans was being written, we were still oblivious to the tragedy of 11 September.
In the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights and Defence Policy to this report, however, a number of recommendations were made which, precisely against the backdrop of 11 September, are very pertinent indeed.
This Parliament has often called for a common and unambiguous policy on evaluating whether or not countries are safe.
It is not acceptable that some Member States should declare countries safe, therefore refuse to receive refugees and asylum seekers, while other countries do.
The security services and embassies of our Member States should join forces in this respect.
Since 1992, there has been a structure in place, comprising CIREA and the High Level Working Group, but they do not operate well together.
And they certainly do not work well with the Member States.
We are therefore asking for an improved and transparent structure to be introduced in this field.
In addition, in a Union with open borders, discrepancies in admissions policy are untenable, and a joint foreign policy is also totally inappropriate if we fail to sing from the same hymn sheet.
In that sense, I would make an urgent appeal to the Commission to do something about this.
Afghanistan is, in fact, a good illustration of how things can work.
A second observation pertains to the aid to those countries that receive large groups of refugees.
We should provide far more aid to those countries, and especially the UNHCR.
In principle, it is better for people who flee to remain in the vicinity of their own country, so that they can return quickly.
But they do need support.
However, the UNHCR resources have been cut back drastically by the European Commission, and we believe that this situation should be improved promptly.
Moreover, we also believe that people should receive more education in the camps so that they do not fall victim to radicalism and crime.
Finally, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy would like to point at the need to be a lot more pro-active in terms of conflict prevention.
It would be of great benefit to us if we could close the ranks better in the EU in this respect.
In that way, conflict could be prevented.
The recommendations made by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy have been adopted unanimously in the committee.
It would be unfortunate, in my opinion, if Mr Evans' report would lead to diversity.
I would like to dare him to work closely with the other groups in order to reach unanimity.
We would then, at least, be able to support his report.
Mr President, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy welcomes the Commission' s communication on Community immigration policy and unanimously saw fit to recommend the inclusion of a set of measures based on five premises:
One, to take on Europe' s shared historic responsibility for this problem.
Two, to consider immigration as a positive and irreversible phenomenon.
Three, to consider the harmony that should exist between the free movement of capital and goods on the one hand, and the free movement of persons on the other.
Four, the application of the whole range of human rights in political, social, economic and cultural terms to all people, including, of course, immigrants.
Five, to take advantage of the opportunity for the European Union to play a positive role in eliminating international inequalities, strengthening the economic links of countries in which immigration originates.
From this, again briefly, the Committee drew five main conclusions:
One, to have an EU immigration policy based upon human rights and mutual benefit with countries from which migratory flows originate.
Two, to promote multiculturalism, respect and positive regard for the contribution immigrants bring to our society and economic development.
Three, to speed up the legalisation of all immigrants and in this way fight against the mafias involved in the illegal trafficking of people.
Four, to have a coordinated common European foreign policy that serves as an instrument for eliminating poverty in countries in which immigration originates.
Consequently, five, to increase the B7-667 budget line and its effectiveness with the aim of limiting illegal immigration and strengthening democracy and the rule of law, in addition to launching integrated development aid programmes.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
(ES) Mr President, I think the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission have given us two very good speeches.
The President-in-Office of the Council told us in all honesty that Council is at present rather confused about asylum and immigration policies.
Commissioner Vitorino, who has undertaken magnificent work in this field, told us that, in the area of immigration and asylum, Community institutions currently find themselves caught between two stools: that is to say between the first and the third pillars.
That is to say that immigration and asylum policies, at this moment in time, appear on the one hand in the Treaty establishing the European Community and yet there is no clear Community competence in the field of asylum and immigration.
Also, it is very strange that the Heads of State and Government in Tampere made grandiose statements about a European immigration policy, but we do not know if these will actually be converted into Community Law.
We, in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, have highlighted the inconsistencies between the declarations by the Heads of State and Government in Tampere and the commitments given in the Community Treaties.
I think that the Conference on immigration, which the President-in-Office of the Council informed us would take place within the next two weeks and at which I think there will be significant participation by Members of the European Parliament, will be an opportunity for the three Community institutions - Parliament, the Council and the Commission - to formulate, or to at least start to formulate, the need to give a Community legal basis to the problem of immigration, for, in this case, we have a genuine Community-wide problem.
With regard to immigration we cannot talk of subsidiarity.
The problem of immigration is, at this moment, common to all European countries, and Commissioner Vitorino, in carrying out the work on the Commission communication on a Community immigration policy, is moving in the right direction.
I think that the Commission' s strategy is suitable, but we need to strengthen it from the constitutional angle with the appropriate modification of the Community Treaties.
Mr President, as the Vienna Monitoring Centre showed last year, there is a need for a progressive policy and leadership in both areas under debate today.
I welcome the recognition that a restrictive approach to immigration has not worked and is counter-productive.
We have only to look at the increase in trafficking and the difficulty in recruiting skilled professionals to demonstrate this.
It is obvious that there is work available in the European Union for people from third countries.
In many of our countries they are crucial to agricultural production and many major companies employ third-country nationals in senior executive posts.
Yet there is still an attitude around that we are doing such people a favour by allowing them to enter the EU to support our economy and our social security system.
Let us be honest: we want them to help maintain our standard of living.
If we get it right, it should be a mutual benefit.
As part of that, we need to ensure equal treatment for third-country nationals, not least in the workplace.
The implementation of the Article 13 directives on anti-discrimination is also crucial.
Why work here, if you then face racism and xenophobia?
Business tells us that recruitment needs to be made easier and more flexible at all skill levels.
This calls into question work permits attached to a particular job and company.
Unfortunately, the lead committee did not take this on board.
Recruitment is also hampered by restrictions on family reunion, business tells us.
My political group has tabled amendments relating to that human factor.
The working rights of partners also need to be improved.
We have also to recognise the fact that some migrants will wish to stay and settle.
This is important in terms of continuity and stability for individuals, society and business.
A constant turnover is problematic on many levels and we have to remember that we are human beings, not cogs in an economic wheel.
Mr President, immigration over recent decades, which is measurable in millions, has taken place largely despite the arrangements put in place by the Member States.
In most cases, the hallmark of national policies on immigration is a lack of vision and creativity and a fear of domination by foreign influences.
However, there is now no disputing that immigration has taken place on a substantial scale and that immigration will and must take place in future.
The detailed reasons for this are to be found in the 28 pages of the Commission communication.
The Commission's shift to an active immigration policy is very much to be welcomed.
The Commission recognises that pressures to migrate will continue and that regulated immigration can be advantageous for the EU, for the immigrants themselves and for their countries of origin.
This change in policy does, however, also mean that decisions will have to be taken and that it is not sufficient merely to administer immigration by hiding behind general political guidelines, or, in the words of the rapporteur, on the basis of the cornerstones of immigration policy.
That would mean that we would never achieve a Community migration policy as laid down in the Tampere conclusions. Instead, immigration would remain a national responsibility for Member States, with all their shortcomings, with just a basic framework at Community level.
Overall, a long-term immigration policy can reduce the pressure from illegal immigration, from trafficking in human beings, from illegal employment and from the economic exploitation of migrants.
Third country nationals must be given the same rights as EU citizens, as the Commission assumes in its communication, and they should be able to contribute to the local economy through their work; only in this way will the sort of integration we want take place.
Mr President, Europe is experiencing tension between low population growth and a genuine demand for manpower in the labour market, on the one hand, and a population that is distrustful of immigration on the other.
Faced with this situation, political decision-makers can react in two ways: either by exploiting people' s fears to their own advantage, at least in the short term, or by attempting to manage the different aspects of immigration as best they can, bravely explaining the reasons for this phenomenon, the benefits it brings our societies, its more problematic aspects and the policies that are necessary.
We have seen some examples of this first approach right here this very morning.
In its two communications, the Commission has, fortunately, positioned itself firmly in the second camp, and we can only congratulate the Commissioner for this and show our approval.
It has also achieved this - I would like to stress - in accordance with the agreements and mandates reached at the European Council in Tampere.
Whilst I fully subscribe to everything my friend and colleague, Mr Evans, said about asylum, I would like to focus during the short speaking time available to me on the communication on immigration and the report.
Both define a clear path to be followed.
The communication discusses, and the report also focuses on, the external and internal causes of immigration, the need for codevelopment policies and a new partnership with the countries of origin, a common European legislative framework to organise entry in a fair, transparent and straightforward way, residency and integration, which to me means rights.
Only after this does it talk, once these standards have been established, of addressing the subject of illegal immigration, because we need legal channels to do this.
Lastly, the report speaks, and we shall be discussing this here in detail when we see the legislative proposals, of establishing new immigration policies in the twenty-first century for a new society and a new economy, that cannot simply be a rehash of guest worker policies from the industrial societies of the 1960s.
I hope that the Council will also align itself with those politicians who want to broach this subject clearly and courageously.
I really hope this will be the case and I say this in the full knowledge that, on the subject of immigration, we are speaking with both our minds and our hearts - I say this knowing that listening to me today are EU citizens, some by birth and others through choice, all invited by my colleague Mr Aparicio, and who have high expectations of this debate.
Parliament will try to prove equal to events, and, despite the fact that on occasions events make things difficult for us, we are going to try, and this is something that has never been done by the PPE-DE Group with regard to asylum, to give strong support to this Commission communication and we hope in exchange, Mr President, that the European Council at Laeken will be able to once again initiate a dynamic and robust policy that will allow us to tackle this much needed common immigration policy.
Mr President, my group strongly supports the report by Mr Evans and welcomes its call for a high-quality common asylum policy.
It is a curious feature of the construction of Europe that more opportunities for cross-border cooperation have been taken by commerce and criminals than by civil servants, and it is about time our national public administrations made a real effort to get out of their bunkers.
The situation at Sangatte, near Calais, has featured often on television screens in my home country in recent months.
The UK can reflect on why so many people wish to come to our country and especially to my city, London.
I like to think, at least in part, that this is a compliment to our free and diverse society, but we cannot just have an open door, and maybe the French authorities need to reflect on whether their system could be improved.
There must be an equal balance of effort and sharing of responsibility to prevent both forum shopping by asylum seekers and 'pass the parcel' by Member States.
We also need consistency.
It is illogical to be dismissive about people fleeing Iraq or Afghanistan, implying that they are undeserving scroungers, when by common agreement the regimes of those countries are deemed brutal and depressive, and even deserving of military attack.
Even if not everyone from such countries can be judged refugees under the strict Geneva Convention criteria, but only as escaping mere misery, there is no call to demonise them.
We must also be consistent about our attitude to women.
If we think, as we do, that women's human rights in Afghanistan are grossly denied, we must take account of that in deciding asylum claims.
Finally, we must not weaken or lower the standards of our asylum systems under the guise of fighting terrorism, as the British Home Secretary is threatening to do.
There are adequate powers to detain and deport if security is threatened.
Speedy decisions are those based on high-quality procedures and efficiency such as that offered by the functioning immigration service computers which the UK lacks - not on removing appeal rights for all applicants.
Mr President, when a Community competence in immigration and asylum was enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam it certainly raised hopes, chief among them that of seeing a policy on immigration and asylum founded on values associated with democratic freedoms and respect for human rights, especially fundamental rights.
In this respect, we welcome the two Commission communications, which examine these complex issues in great depth.
Thus, instead of ineffective, inappropriate immigration policies which make illegal immigration an inherent part of the system, they propose a flexible approach with provisions for managing flows and integrating third-country nationals.
It is regrettable that our rapporteur on immigration should have focused on exploiting the management of migratory flows for the economic and demographic ends of the countries in the Union, without showing concern for the human factor.
To implement these proposals on an intergovernmental basis, as Mr Pirker wishes, would not only be a step backwards compared with the Treaty of Amsterdam; it would also show contempt for the need to make immigration and asylum policy a Community instrument and above all it would be a refusal to recognise what is really happening on the ground, which can be seen every day at Sangatte and elsewhere.
Furthermore, we urgently need to correct the misconception that, 'immigration equals workers' .
The notion of a 'migrant worker' does not actually take account of what really happens when people immigrate with members of their family, including students or retired people.
Let us remember that the right to live as part of a family is a fundamental right which no country can deny.
There is therefore a strong case in favour of talking about 'residents' and - why not - 'European citizens' , assuming that they participate fully.
It is the Member States' duty to take the necessary measures to ensure that all European residents are fully integrated; they achieve this by making sure that everyone has the same rights, including political ones.
As far as illegal immigrants are concerned, the only solution that we know of is for the Member States to be responsible for legalising their situation so as to combat all forms of crime, including that committed by traffickers and unscrupulous employers.
Mr President, while stating that our Group is fully in agreement with the Evans report, I should, however, like to highlight two aspects. First, the procedure for examining refugee applications needs to be speeded up.
Member States should be aware that many of their problems, but especially many of the immigrant refugees' problems, would be overcome if these applications were dealt with quickly.
A great many refugees - a great many people who have every right to be recognised as such - wait for months or years without receiving aid, deprived of work, gradually sliding towards illegality and often sucked into areas of organised and other crime.
It is therefore necessary to shorten these excessively long time periods.
Secondly, it is important to understand and establish the fact that the notion of a 'safe country' is one that may be overturned by specific evidence of the treatment an individual receives in his or her country.
I mean that the notion of a safe country must be a relative assumption, because many refugees flee from a safe country because they are personally persecuted.
This notion must not, therefore, be an absolute notion, but the conditions to which the individual refugees have been subjected - in other words, the conditions that have led them to flee to another country - should be examined on a case-by-case basis, and they may lead to the above-mentioned notion of a safe third country being overturned.
Mr President, I should particularly like to thank Mr Pirker for the work he has done.
Now more than ever, as the rapporteur has stressed, it is essential to reformulate Community immigration policy: not just aseptic rules allowing or forbidding entry, but a broader and more responsible approach based above all on economic and demographic assessments and evaluations of social and cultural integration.
We therefore need to lay down a strategy for a sustainable immigration policy in which national and local institutions can play a major part in using objective criteria to identify occupational needs and the availability of jobs, accommodation, social services and training for all those who ask to come and live and work in our Member States.
Setting limits and strict rules means ensuring they get the best possible welcome and are fully integrated, with mutual respect and benefits for both European citizens and the immigrants. It means avoiding painful social conflict, and it also means being tough on illegal immigration, which all too often is associated with crime and exploitation.
Above all, Europe cannot confine itself to taking a passive role and attitude towards immigration as if it were just a traffic policeman directing traffic.
Europe must act with greater political awareness so that it can also interpret fully the strong motivations underlying these phenomena.
Very often, or almost always, people from third countries come to Europe out of desperation, poverty, hunger or marginalisation.
Their desperation is such that there are mothers who leave their own children and come to our countries in order to earn something for them.
For this very reason, and also because of its geographical situation, Europe cannot play a merely bureaucratic role, encouraging or limiting immigration.
Europe must choose to play a strong, responsible, political role, aware that behind the policy choices to be made regarding immigration there lies the possibility of also being a player in the serious international crisis we are going through.
We must be aware that it is only by making greater efforts through Third World development programmes and by preventing the so-called brain drain that we can implement the best peace policy of all, which is the fight against poverty and injustice.
In conclusion, Mr President, we must be aware that well regulated immigration can bring great benefits to the European Union, to the immigrants themselves and to their countries of origin.
But we must be wary of the demagogy of those who propose too permissive an immigration policy, a policy that would encourage Europe to open its borders indiscriminately, reduce controls and extend the right to asylum to an absurd degree, but then to selfishly close our eyes - as we have been doing for years - towards what is happening in the Middle East and the southern countries, as if it had nothing at all to do with us.
September 11 showed that what happens in those parts of the world affects us closely, and so we should really be convinced, with a little consistency...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, seeing as there is no rule guaranteeing to the inhabitants of one country the right to enter another if the second country is opposed to this, I would like to voice some considerations and one deep concern on the subject of immigration. This concern springs from having seen communities, and individuals belonging to communities of immigrants, celebrating after the tragic attacks in the United States, and from the knowledge that terrorist cells have been sheltered and supported by certain communities on ethnic and religious grounds.
At this point, with the greatest respect for the majority of immigrants who are respectable and honest, I feel that it would be appropriate, in future, to adopt more stringent criteria when assessing immigrants, based on the precautionary principle, in order to avoid even just the potential risks which some immigrants could introduce into our Europe.
With regard to Europe, in Italy, we are preparing a fairer, more severe, more appropriate law on immigration.
We need to prevent European legislation conflicting with our national laws because we do not want left-wing permissiveness, which was rejected by the Italian electorate, to penetrate our legislation via Brussels.
In Denmark, it has recently become public knowledge that Danish authorities have provided residence permits to outright war criminals, in particular the General responsible for the massacres of the Kurds under Saddam Hussein in 1988.
This is, of course, scandalous, as the Danish right wing also acknowledges, but ought not the right wing to be content with the fact that the Danish NATO government has obtained military and political benefits from giving shelter to a war criminal? Ought not Saddam' s General to have earned his fare home long ago?
Naturally, he has been debriefed by the CIA.
That goes without saying. Very discreetly, of course, just as more and more crucial aspects of political life take place in ever more hermetically sealed rooms.
This baroque situation reflects one of the ambivalent features of Mr Evans' s report, which is otherwise full of engaging features.
The report endorses and further develops the finest legal principles we know.
The Evans report centres upon persecuted human beings in a way that Mr Pirker' s, which is of course an expression of undisguised worker imperialism, does not.
This is appealing and necessary.
The problem is that these sound principles are part of political and legal contexts which will in practice reduce them to ideological window dressing.
The common asylum and immigration policy is being used first and foremost as an engine for homogenising countries' extremely different legal traditions by creating an area of freedom, security and justice that is the crucial link in the European superstate.
The loser in this disagreeable game is democracy, and the benefit for refugees is doubtful unless one is a general in Saddam Hussein' s army.
Mr President, the Commission communication on a Community immigration policy is extremely disappointing.
I am talking about the written communication, because both the oral statement which Commissioner Vitorino has just made and that given by the Council were very interesting and much more balanced than what we are accustomed to hearing in this House, and they give us hope that there will be a change in policy following the attacks of 11 September.
The written communication in any case is marked by a certain lack of a sense of what is really happening on the ground, the same shortcoming which is responsible for discussions in the Council on the proposals on family reunification being at a standstill today, a fate which may well be reserved in the future for the proposals on asylum which I have criticised, in particular during our last part-session.
The written communication focuses on legal immigration, but - apart from a few allusions - it minimises or forgets illegal immigration and the essential fact that today one in every two people emigrating to the industrialised world does so illegally.
Of course, I am aware that papers have already been tabled on illegal immigration, in particular on trafficking in human beings and on the liability of hauliers, but these are specific texts, tabled, moreover, for the most part by Member States by virtue of their right of initiative, which they still have for the time being.
These texts do not show any evidence of an overall grasp of the problem; they are not equal to the challenge.
The Commission has just announced that it is going to table further papers following the attacks of 11 September. So much the better.
In the meantime, however, if anyone wants to read a good document which clearly sets out the real problems associated with immigration and their possible solutions, they have to refer not to the Commission communication which is being examined today, but to the strategy paper on asylum and immigration, the amended version of which was tabled by the Austrian Presidency on 19 November 1998 - yes, I did say 1998.
I would invite listeners of good faith to compare the two texts; they will be staggered by the differences in approach.
For example, reading from the Austrian document: Generally speaking, it is no longer only issues related to asylum and the problems of temporary protection but also, and especially, general migration issues, the problems posed by the fight against illegal immigration networks and issues related to expulsion which are at the heart of the political debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I ought to read it to you in full, but time does not allow and this sentence on its own shows what the real priorities are.
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, notwithstanding the events of 11 September, the Commission communication on asylum basically remains not only appropriate but more necessary than ever.
The Evans report, for its part, is no less topical or relevant.
This is not the time to step back and it is, therefore, crucial to work towards a solution common to all the Member States with regard to the criteria for assessing requests and to cooperation between national administrative systems.
I can see that we will have to confront certain challenges in order to come up with effective regulations.
This effort must not only involve the European dimension, however, but also cooperation with third countries, specifically with the asylum seekers' countries of origin.
In order to avoid the 'Kafakaesque' situations often described in the European press, it is crucial that we adopt - and we are not asking for much - minimum standards that will ensure faster and simpler procedures for granting asylum so as to prevent the demoralisation and uncertainty that beset asylum seekers.
The creation of a space of freedom, security and justice will inevitably involve the need for the mutual recognition of judgments.
In order to reach this stage, however, we must first of all harmonise asylum procedures.
Mr President, this communication, for which Commissioner António Vitorino is responsible, is making a timely appearance on the agenda.
On the basis of the framework defined in Tampere, we are committed to create a common policy in the field of asylum, which I am sure will have the support of the Council and of Parliament.
Through a joint effort by the Community institutions and civil society we will achieve a platform of understanding, so that by 1 May 2004 the objective outlined by the European Council will be complied with.
Mr President, we have a historical responsibility to take this decision and there is no time for hesitation.
I wish you the best of luck, Commissioner.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Commissioner Vitorino on the immigration policy that the European Commission has presented to this Parliament.
The proposal to agree common admission conditions for migrants and to set up, in addition and alongside this, a policy instrument whereby Member States indicate target figures for work migration, receives the support of the ELDR Group.
My group would like to make a few observations with regard to the proposed system.
Firstly, we reject the policy of zero immigration, but we also reject the policy of completely open borders.
A responsible compromise must be struck.
Secondly, the immigration system must be flexible.
Quotas should not be forced upon the Member States from above.
Thirdly, we must take account of subsidiarity, that is to say regional and national differences with regard to the labour market.
Fourthly, a common immigration policy must also be accompanied by a common fight against illegal immigration.
Fifthly, we must strike the right balance between the need for work forces in industry on the one hand and the unemployed within the European Union on the other.
In summary, the ELDR Group calls for a balanced European immigration policy.
The Pirker report, for which I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, is on the same wavelength.
Mr President, these will be my last words in this House since I have now been appointed member of the Council of State in the Netherlands.
I would like to thank the fellow MEPs for their kind cooperation and wish them all every success.
The European Parliament is a very important institution, which I will always continue to support.
Mr Wiebenga, we wish you all the best, and I am sure that the State will be in good hands if you are a member of the Council of State!
Ladies and gentlemen, I must ask you to stick strictly to your speaking time, as we are dreadfully behind schedule!
Mr President, I should first like to pay tribute to Commissioner Vitorino, because I believe that it is thanks to his tireless work that today we are able to draw a clear distinction between asylum-seekers and immigration, and this is to be welcomed.
I would also thank the representative of the Belgian Presidency, who has just definitively abandoned the idea of a fortress Europe, which it is neither feasible nor desirable to achieve.
Finally, I should like to thank our colleague, Mr Evans, for his painstaking work.
I believe that it is by applying clear, fair and precise standards that we will not only ensure that refugees are protected but also fight to release them from the grasp of criminal organisations.
In my opinion, Mr Evans's painstaking work is in stark contrast to the partisan vision presented by Mr Pirker.
Mr Pirker poses some complex questions, but the answers are inadequate and even dangerous.
This internal report by Mr Pirker, comprising reflection, analysis and proposals, is one of the weakest which we have had to discuss in this Parliament.
Firstly, it contains a series of commonplaces.
After a time, it says, immigrants adopt the birth-rate pattern of the host country.
As I see it, this is a sign of integration and proof that attitudes change.
Instead of being delighted about this, however, Mr Pirker expresses concern about the fact that the destiny of women from the third world, female immigrants who have come from the South, is not confined to having children.
He also recommends a policy to recruit a set number of workers which, he says, is supported by the Member States as a way of reducing the labour shortage in certain sectors.
For him, immigrants are like Kleenex: you use them and when you no longer need them you throw them away.
This is a vision of the human being, more particularly black and African, or dark-skinned, human beings who come from the South, which I do not share.
Mr Pirker's report deplores family reunification.
Mr Pirker's report does, I believe, in many respects, stand in total contradiction to the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Treaties of Amsterdam and Nice.
Faced with an issue of this complexity, instead of saying that the tragedy in Dover opened our eyes to the possible consequences of immigration, we would have preferred him to consider taking measures against the hauliers who are the real proponents of modern slavery and against the slum landlords ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the dramatic events in New York have, it seems to me, made us free to discuss certain subjects which have, until now, been taboo.
Those who claimed to forbid any value judgments on civilisations are suddenly waging war on Islam.
Others, who rejected any criticism of immigration, are suddenly seeing a potential terrorist in every foreigner.
I can tell you straight away that this is not the position of the group of right-wing Europeans.
Immigration is a phenomenon on a scale such that it cannot be seen on the same level as acts of terrorism, on which immigrants do not in any case have a monopoly.
It is not the immigrants who are guilty, it is those who bring them here for economic reasons, and it may perhaps surprise you to learn that, on this point, I agree in part with what our colleague, Mr Sylla, has just said.
It is also those who let themselves sink into a policy of fait accompli, and Mr Pirker' s recitals - I am thinking of recitals M and N - alas give us an example of this, alongside making some positive points.
I note in particular, for example, that Paragraph 13 of the report, "takes the view that the various historical, economic and social features in the individual Member States make it impossible to lay down a uniform requirement in labour from third countries which would cover the entire territory of the Union and that, furthermore, the Union has no powers in law in this field."
So, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, why are conclusions not drawn from this Paragraph 13?
And why not restore sovereignty to the Member States in this regard and with it the legitimate right to protect our borders? After all, the dramatic events which we have witnessed have quite clearly shown that protecting borders was key to security, because this is what the government of the United States immediately did when it found itself in an emergency situation.
Finally, I will close by saying that immigration should not be seen as a solution to the falling population which we are seeing in Europe.
If the people of Europe abandon to others their duty to give life to new generations, they also abandon their right to live as free nations on the territory of their ancestors.
We do not accept this.
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, I would like to do something that I rarely do for reasons of time, and congratulate Mr Pirker on his well balanced report, although I believe that he is at present not in the Chamber.
Social integration of economic migrants in the Member States is, as he stressed, absolutely essential if we are to avoid social tensions.
And a greater degree of contact between immigrants and the indigenous population will perhaps also help us to recognise 'sleepers' and so help to fight terrorism.
I also believe that in view of all the measures proposed it is important to give the Member States the option of fine-tuning the entry and residence of third country nationals in accordance with the requirements of their own labour markets and demographic trends, because these questions in particular can only be dealt with at local level.
It will also be important to take into account the imminent enlargement of the EU when planning immigration policy.
The rapporteur took all this into consideration.
I wish his report every success, and we will certainly be supporting it.
Mr President, at a time when we have all, I hope, been scandalised by Mr Berlusconi' s statements, demonstrating as they do such suspicion and hatred of foreigners, I believe that now, more than ever, it is time to combat racism, and to combat it in all its most insidious forms.
The Commission' s communication on a Community immigration policy, and the vote on the Pirker report, give us an opportunity to do just that.
In that respect I welcome Mr Vitorino's statements.
We must not forget that for Europeans the Tampere Summit in October 1999, which sought fair treatment for nationals of third countries in comparison with citizens of the Union, was a very important event.
We must start from one important established fact, which we were reminded of just now: the myth of zero immigration can no longer be a realistic concept, and in any case demographic problems and labour shortages will have to make us change our ideas about immigration.
This is why, today, we must give our strong support to the Commission' s communication, because this future Community policy on immigration has a great many virtues, in particular that of combating all forms of criminal activity.
It has to be said that the rapporteur, Mr Pirker, has adopted a rather critical position regarding the Commission' s communication.
Unlike Mr Pirker, we socialists are convinced that our approach to this question must be a humane approach rather than an economic approach, because we are talking here about the fate of human beings, not about common merchandise.
We must also remember, and we can never remember it enough, that if people emigrate and suffer the pain of separation from their country and their loved ones, it is because they are obliged to do so. They are not simply doing it for pleasure.
The Commission' s position is fundamental inasmuch as it proposes a framework.
I shall end by saying, in addition, that in a European Union which is constantly becoming more integrated, and which now has the benefit of a Charter of Fundamental Rights, no Member State can now claim that its policy on admission is nobody' s business but its own.
I therefore reiterate my full and wholehearted support for the Commission' s proposal, at the same time taking a critical view of the content of Mr Pirker' s report.
As far as I am concerned, I defer the vote of the French socialist delegation on this report.
Mr President, I wish to discuss Paragraph 15 of Mr Pirker' s report which says, among other things, that immigrants are expected to respect the community of values - as set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights - and to show a willingness to integrate.
How is this to be interpreted?
A wave of Islamophobia is passing over Europe at present.
In several EU countries, Muslims have been persecuted.
The most rancorous debate I have been able to follow is taking place right now in Denmark.
Quite a few politicians have made astounding statements.
Mr Camre, a Member of this House, has said that all the countries of the Western world are being infiltrated by Muslims and that, while some of them are friendly enough with us, many of them are in favour of getting rid of us - in Danish, få os fjernet - that is to say, removing us. That is a prejudiced and irresponsible statement.
My concern, as I address this House, is that the wording of Paragraph 15 might be in danger of creating further scope for this type of inflammatory statement. Is Europe not in danger of losing its diversity?
Are we not in danger of tampering with freedom of religion and freedom of expression? Could not Paragraph 15 be understood as saying, 'Adapt, full stop.
Otherwise, gather your belongings together and go!' I wonder if Mr Camre might respond to this.
Mr President, I want to begin by fully endorsing both Mr Olle Schmid' s description of the political situation in Denmark and the request with which he concluded.
I also want to say that I think there are an incredibly large number of good things in the Commission' s proposals in this area.
It would of course be marvellous if we were to use our cooperation to strengthen the principles we talk so much about - democracy and human rights and, I might add, humanitarianism - instead of dragging each other down to the lowest common denominator.
I think there are quite a lot of good things in Mr Evans' s report. I intend to support it and shall call for a vote in favour of it.
I think, however, that there are still a lot of problems with Mr Pirker' s report. It was improved quite considerably by the committee' s reading of it.
It is also, of course, reasonable to hope that it will be further improved in the course of today when we vote on it.
However, a lot more is required before I shall support the report, which is based principally upon the EU' s wanting to show solidarity with itself.
Mr President, Mr Evans has put a great deal of thought into his report.
Quite rightly, he raises the issue of the safe-country concept being based on human rights considerations, not on diplomatic links.
He underlines the lack of common approach between the Member States with regard to the concept of safe countries.
This is no longer acceptable.
Mr Evans concludes that the concept of safe countries needs to be defined unequivocally.
Although I agree with his motivation, we must admit that this approach is not a safe one.
I recall that our colleague, Mr Pasqua, as France's French Minister of the Interior, once said that 'La démocratie s'arrête là où commence la raison d'Etat.'
Mr Evans: as long as la raison d'Etat exists, there is no safe country.
Mr President, I am aware that the subject before us is extremely sensitive, particularly at this moment in history.
We have been working - and I refer to this legislature, of course - over the past two years to establish positive relations between citizens and immigrants, to make equal opportunities possible and to create a form of social cohesion.
Now, everyone can see the need to revise certain parts of the agenda we have been working on and, in particular, to identify how the revision of these points can be converted into positive Community legislation allowing us to grow into the kind of Europe we all want.
I would now like to make three points.
Firstly, we need to focus more on defining framework legislation to promote actions at regional and local levels, always in agreement with the Member States, in situations where an initiative is certainly needed to make it easier to balance the three factors which have always been the basis for our analyses of the issue of immigration and asylum. These factors are migration flows, which must be regulated and continuously monitored, integration, and the fight against illegal immigration which is often, sadly, a source of the more major concerns of crime and the exploitation of human beings.
Secondly, we need a thorough debate at European level on the issues which we consider to be vital for our policies such as cooperation between police forces, judicial cooperation, common forms of control and common information systems.
We must make it quite clear what financial resources we should consider adequate and quantifiable in these areas.
Thirdly, we may well have disregarded or underestimated the importance of one of our tasks.
We must insist on the need for the major educational programmes which are the foundations of our culture, and of multiculturalism, in particular: there must be schooling and education starting with foreign children, especially, irrespective of their legal position.
These programmes are fundamental for the policies of integrating and building the societies we want.
In my opinion, we must establish a substantial educational and cultural programme, a major part of which promotes communication between cultures, for that would be the first step along a path which will certainly bring about the sort of integration we desire.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Commissioner Vitorino.
Commissioner, you have listened seriously to the demands made by many experts on migration and NGOs and have made it clear in two communications how policy on refugees and traditional migrants is to be handled.
With your communication on a common asylum procedure and a uniform status valid throughout the Union for persons granted asylum you have brought forward some excellent proposals for harmonising asylum policy.
Your proposals will now help us to find some concrete solutions.
The rapporteur, Mr Evans, has made a fine job of this.
I regard the additions he proposes as enhancing the current debate on concrete directives.
You have also succeeded, Commissioner, with your communication on a Community migration policy, in making it clear how important it is that future migration in the European Union should be jointly controlled and regulated throughout the Union.
However, we will probably have to carry on debating the wishes of the Nation States, which I take very seriously.
They want to arrange the fine tuning of migration themselves, although their strategies have already been a failure at national level for decades.
I trust that we will soon manage to persuade our colleagues at national level that there is no alternative to Union-wide control of migration.
Mr President, Commissioner, there is no doubt that after the tragic events of 11 September, asylum and immigration policy will be undergoing drastic changes.
In the light of this, it may have been more appropriate to postpone the discussion of these reports because they do not take into consideration recent international developments.
Particular attention should be devoted to the formulation of Paragraph 15 in the Pirker report.
The present document emphasises that the Member States are obliged to respect the rights and duties of third-country nationals.
In my opinion, this is a bridge too far.
Two-way integration is not feasible as long as there is no reciprocity and mutual recognition.
In other words, only if reciprocity and mutual recognition are secured in third countries can two-way integration take place.
The Pirker report has the merit of being frank. It presents immigration as a simple problem of merchandise linked to the needs of the capitalist system.
In effect, the report regards as positive the view that immigration should be envisaged from an economic viewpoint, as a function of the needs and capacities of Member States.
Article 23 could not be clearer.
Each Member State has the freedom to define the skills profile and number of workers required on the basis of the needs of its labour market.
In other words, the proposed Community policy on immigration is a quota policy.
By adopting such a position, Europe shows that it is still a long way from recognising the right to immigration.
What we have here is residence permits restricted by the requirements of the bosses and the fantasies of the demographers.
Even the issue of keeping families together is going to be subject to different rules for each group of immigrants, which is the exact opposite of freedom of movement, freedom to select one' s place of business, and the right to live with one' s family.
Massively overexploited, immigrants are the victims of liberal deregulation.
I shall end by saying that only the general regularisation of the position of illegal immigrants plus citizens' rights will enable us to combat effectively the modern slavery which we are being invited to support.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are fully aware that this debate addresses one of the most important and 'hottest' issues at European level: Common asylum and immigration policy.
This situation is the result of two separate factors: firstly, it has come about because the Treaty of Amsterdam granted new competences to the Community, opening up new possibilities for action on a European scale; and secondly, because there has been a considerable increase in migratory pressures from third countries, the devastating effects of which have been highlighted by certain recent tragic events, such as the massive influx of refugees from the Kosovo crisis and the tragedy at Dover.
It is therefore necessary, for both humanitarian and economic reasons, to define a global policy that is able to effectively manage these migratory flows, which currently constitute a legal vacuum, to which the European Union cannot fail to provide a response.
We must take account of the fact that three different types of people are involved in this problem: asylum seekers, temporarily displaced persons and economic migrants.
Although the symptoms are similar, it is important to distinguish the causes and find different answers.
Confusing the status of these people does not help to solve the problems we are facing, and actually makes them worse.
We also know that this external pressure adds to the internal pressure felt by States that are facing a decline in their own population, caused both by a slowdown of population growth and a reduction in the population of working age, with an increasing population of those over the age of 65. Concern is also growing about the sustainability of social security systems.
The answer cannot be to make vain attempts at preventing and halting immigration at Europe' s borders.
The answer lies, instead, in managing and freezing it at current levels.
Hence the need for a carefully thought out, clear and coherent common European policy for the management of migratory flows.
In order to prevent new problems emerging, we will have to consider the real labour needs of each Member State and the resources available for the reception and integration of these immigrants.
It must be understood that we incline more to the approach advocated by Mr Pirker.
I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate Commissioner Vitorino on his announcement today that, within a month, he will be presenting two initiatives on combating illegal immigration and on repatriation.
Lastly, I wish to emphasise that we need to adopt a prudent approach to a sensitive issue that requires intelligent answers.
It makes more sense, for example, for us to give priority to legalising immigrants who can be integrated into the labour market and who are already on Community territory than encouraging a new wave of immigration.
Mr President, at this stage, the European institutions and this Parliament in particular are fully aware that due to the complexity and importance of the subject we are dealing with today, a legislative programme is needed that will only be effective within the framework of a common and coordinated European approach.
There are many points of agreement between the Commission communication and the reports we are debating today.
We need to develop a more proactive policy which recognises that pressure from migration is set to continue and that properly planned immigration can bring benefits to Europe, to the migrants themselves and also to their countries of origin.
Our aim is to improve the management of migratory movements within the framework of close cooperation with countries of origin and of transit, strengthening the fight against illegal immigration and combating the criminal networks involved, guaranteeing, at the same time, the rights of victims.
What is required is a more open and flexible policy which, in addition to providing greater coordination of policies aimed at reducing migratory pressures and strengthening border controls, could have the benefit of achieving a reduction in illegal immigration that would be advantageous to those very people who truly need the protection that refuge and asylum affords.
We should maintain these levels of protection at all costs, as envisaged in the Geneva Convention, for this is also a sign of European identity that fills us all with a sense of pride.
I would encourage Commissioner Vitorino to continue his good work and to keep to the timetable that has been fixed, and the Council to be equal to the position adopted at Laeken, thereby fulfilling the commitments made at Tampere.
It is time to take practical decisions and not to make statements that are only balanced because of their ambiguity.
These are the hopes and needs of Europe' s citizens.
Mr President, we cannot talk about immigrants and immigration without distinguishing between the different types of immigrants. There are at least three different types of immigrants: political refugees, refugees from war zones and economic migrants.
Once this distinction has been made, it immediately becomes clear that a single asylum law cannot cover all three categories, as Mr Evans proposes.
Not only does this document fail to correspond to reality, it even goes so far as to demonise the Member States which demand the right to decide whether to recognise the right to asylum on a case-by-case basis, depending on the way the society of the country in question is structured and the adequacy of the reception facilities available, without incurring negative repercussions for anyone.
Instinctively, all of us have always been supportive of those who find themselves in the dreadful situation of being forced to leave their own country and apply for asylum in another, but the level of danger to which the rapporteur would have it conceded that all applicants are exposed in their countries of origin is not always acceptable. He is compelling governments and Member States - to put it in colloquial terms - not to make a fuss and to open their gates without delay, invoking the Geneva Convention as if it were a magic password, a skeleton key, rather than what it actually is, a series of guarantees that place those seeking and those granting asylum on an equal footing.
Mr Evans' proposal to establish a common minimum standard - as he calls it - actually invalidates this principle by making it too permissive.
The same may be said of the proposal to introduce a single procedure - as it is called - which, in practice, takes away from the host State any possibility of verifying the suitability of the applicant, who cannot be denied any right, mind you, and whose only obligation is to produce his credentials, as happens among respectable people.
The problem is that refugees and exiles often provide easy cover for decidedly undesirable guests such as drug dealers, traffickers in human beings and terrorists who pretend to be immigrants and then train as pilots and destroy skyscrapers and all the people working inside.
The caution and controls that the rapporteur is denying the States are the fundamental elements of basic, legitimate protection of the States and their citizens.
The Pirker report, which I do support, on a common immigration policy, is much more responsible, not least because it is more balanced, does not make concessions to cheap populism and respects safety measures.
Lastly, to those Members of the left who have attempted once again to bring up the usual controversy against Mr Berlusconi today, I would point out that they are at least a day late.
They should read the Arc-en-ciel; although they have missed the debate, they are still on time for the train of cheap populism and pointless political speculation.
Mr President, thank you for allowing me to take the floor after such a long and full debate.
I believe that there is no doubt at all that the two reports we have seen today prove that we need a common policy on migration and asylum.
I should like, in passing, to pay tribute to the Commissioner' s statement and to all the work that Parliament has carried out, which shows that we attach real importance to these issues, particularly in the current circumstances.
I believe that here today we have been able to make our different views clear, and perhaps we have also made clear the difference between asylum and economic migration.
I am not sure, however, that we have entirely avoided confused thinking.
On the subject of migratory flows and the right of asylum, we must make it clear, in the face of all opposition, that rights and obligations have to be shared, by both migrants and host Member States.
We must not have a situation in which certain people can take advantage of the loopholes in our harmonisation in order to create an underclass of Europeans by introducing second-class workers or deferred citizenship.
It seems to me to be important that the rights of workers, of whatever origin, should be asserted and given tangible expression in order to combat the trafficking in human beings, by which certain people exploit misery and distress.
As for our asylum policy, it will gain in terms of quality and justice if we can agree to recognise that it needs to be supplemented by other compulsory cooperation policies which enable everyone to live with dignity and self-respect in their own countries.
In all cases, asylum policy should reject arbitrary criteria linked to the current situation.
I should also like to ask, simply, that we should also give political rights to those whom we welcome for their work.
Mr President, I would ask Members to ponder one question: is it viable in today's world for all matters of asylum policy to be decided within the parameters of the Geneva Convention? The Geneva Convention drafted in 1951 was conceived as a temporary measure.
It was negotiated in a very different world - a world still haunted by the shameful failure of Western countries to offer sanctuary to the victims of European fascism.
It was designed first and foremost to ensure that refugees from communist tyranny would have access to safe havens.
But the world has moved on.
Mass air travel has facilitated unprecedented migratory flows.
The great majority of those seeking better lives in new countries are actuated by understandable - indeed laudable - economic motives.
But the terms of the 1951 Convention, and specifically the requirement to assess all claims individually, even if the applicant is manifestly coming from a safe country, encourage economic migrants to seek entry as refugees.
This clogs the system to the disbenefit of those genuinely fleeing from injustice and wrong.
I support, as Mr Pirker's report does, a degree of controlled primary immigration.
All countries can benefit from the energy and enterprise of people who are prepared to cross whole continents in search of a better future.
For such a policy to gain public consent it must be fair and transparent and it must be open to account.
It cannot be right for the judiciaries of our Members States, by applying a peculiar interpretation of the 1951 Convention, to operate an immigration policy beyond the control of elected politicians.
If we want to manage a sustainable policy of legal immigration and, at the same time, protect the rights of those most in need of sanctuary, we must take back control of our asylum laws from the judges.
Far from enlarging the scope of the Geneva Convention, as Mr Evans suggests, we should scrap this outmoded accord and replace it with something more suited to the modern world.
Mr President, today's debate on asylum and immigration is extremely topical, what with insecurity and fear about military operations in the Middle East giving rise to mass movements of desperate people.
Waves of refugees have already reached the European Union, their first port of call being Greece, which is the European Union's closest border with the Middle East.
Ladies and gentlemen, Greek islands are under pressure from an unprecedented influx of refugees and asylum seekers, mainly from Afghanistan.
Greece is having to shoulder a burden which is out of proportion to what it can cope with, which is why the European Union urgently needs to take its share of the responsibility, in this specific case by helping Greece to draw up an integrated joint plan to protect the right of asylum and ensure that the Geneva Convention is fully applied.
Obviously, the sacred right to asylum must not, under any circumstances, be undermined by the measures needed to combat international crime and terrorism.
In any event, mass movements of people will be dealt with under a fairer global policy to reduce inequalities and resolve differences using peaceful means.
Mr President, the increase in the number of asylum seekers over the last few years is causing grave problems for Member States, which are having serious difficulty in coping with the situation.
As Deputy Mayor of the city of Lyon, I see this problem every day.
In my city, the number of conventional asylum seekers has doubled in a little less than a year.
The two Commission communications that we are debating today are certainly an important step forward.
However, we must go further and put an end to the current situation, in which some Member States allow in refugees coming from certain countries whereas others do not.
We must ensure that the countries that receive refugees really do have the means to do so.
In recent times, however, those means have been reduced.
We can no longer receive asylum seekers with dignity.
In our cities we have families living under canvas.
This is absolutely unacceptable. Winter is approaching and we are heading for a catastrophe.
In order to make progress, however, I invite, above all, the governments of Member States and the Council to take the courageous decisions that are necessary.
Insisting on maintaining positions which are too national will end up becoming indecent and irresponsible when the lives of thousands of refugees are at stake and when certain districts in our major European cities are at risk of turning into ghettos.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be very brief, because I know that voting time is approaching.
First of all, I wish to thank you for all your contributions to this debate, including the critical contributions, and clarify two points of criticism I think are important.
First: with regard to the comment by Mr Nassauer, the Commission has not abandoned the principle of the safe third country.
It has not abandoned this principle at all and in fact we are working, in Council, on a definition of a safe third country and I am sure that, as Mr Nassauer said, Mr Schilly will continue to be as tough a negotiator on this matter as he always has been.
With regard to the second aspect, I should like to remind you that the Commission has given itself the task of reviewing its proposals in light of the international situation that has arisen following the terrorist attacks in the United States of America. The review is now underway.
We shall undertake this task with the utmost rigour and the results will be submitted to Parliament.
The Commission does not take a positive view, however, of the implication that there is a link between terrorism and immigration.
The Commission has put forward proposals that respect rights and seek to manage migratory flows. There are also proposals on combating illegal immigration.
Any attempt to portray the Commission as having no initiatives on fighting illegal immigration is unfair.
The proposal for a framework decision against trafficking in human beings adopted by the Council last week is a Commission proposal.
The communication on illegal immigration, the communication on repatriation policy and the communication on the joint policing of borders have been on the 'scoreboard' since May 2000 and are part of the Commission' s work programme that was submitted for debate in this Parliament this year. These are not the result of emergency measures arising from the terrorist attacks; they are an integral part of this Commission' s coherent and consistent immigration policy.
Lastly, I wish to thank Parliament for its support.
I hope that, with the clear ideas that have emerged from this debate, the Laeken European Council will be able to take a step forwards.
These measures provide added value at European level and I thank the European Parliament for its contribution.
(Applause)
Mr President, I feel I must request the floor because I find this situation intolerable and wish to protest at the great number of speeches from large political groups in this Chamber that have sought, this morning, to link terrorism with immigration, asylum seekers and, more than once and in a direct manner, immigration of Islamic origin.
This seems a very irresponsible attitude to me, a time-bomb threatening peaceful coexistence, and I would like to remind you all that many a terrorist with white skin has been born to the world from our own European continent.
Mrs Terrón i Cusí, I am afraid that was not a point of order.
I will not permit any further discussion of this.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTE
(Parliament adopted the Commission proposal)
Proposal for a Council regulation on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development amending Regulation (EC) No 3072/95 on the common organisation of the market in rice (COM(2001) 169 - C5-0207/2001 - 2001/0085(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the Commission proposal)
Recommendation without debate (A5-0289/2001) by Mr Harbour on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Council Decision on the position of the European Community on the draft Regulation of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe concerning the approval of an airbag module for a replacement airbag system, a replacement steering wheel equipped with an airbag module of an approved type and a replacement airbag system other than that installed in a steering wheel (10148/2000 - COM(2000) 25 - C5-0670/2000 - 2000/0029(AVC))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report without debate (A5-0294/2001) by Mrs Hulthén on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of the fourth amendment to the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer (COM(2001) 249 - C5-0251/2001 - 2001/0101(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0287/2001) by Mr Lange on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 97/68/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to measures against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery
(COM(2000) 840 - C5-0472/2000 - 2000/0336(COD))
Before the final vote:
Martínez Martínez (PSE).
(ES) Mr President, I was told they would be sending me a technician, but he must be coming from Brussels because still nobody has come to help sort out my problem.
I have been trying to vote from the beginning but the card and the device are still not working.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the reasons I expressed yesterday and considering the fact that you have adopted my legislative amendments, I call upon you to postpone the vote on the legislative resolutions until the possibility of an agreement with the Commission and the Council increasing Parliament' s role, pursuant to Rule 69 (2) of the Rules of Procedure, can be ascertained.
I therefore call upon you to vote on the motion which is not a legislative resolution, to make the political positions of this House on the matter quite clear.
We now come to a proposal, in accordance with Rule 69(2) of the Rules of Procedure, to adjourn the vote, and we shall now proceed to vote on it.
(Parliament adopted the proposal) President.
The matter is accordingly referred back for reconsideration to the committee responsible.
Before the final vote on the second proposal:
Mr President, I repeat what I said just now, that is, I call upon you not to vote on the legislative resolution but to vote on the following motion, which is not a legislative resolution.
We now come to a proposal, in accordance with Rule 69(2) of the Rules of Procedure, to adjourn the vote, and we shall now proceed to vote on it.
(Parliament adopted the proposal) President.
The matter is accordingly referred back for reconsideration to the committee responsible.
(Parliament adopted the motion for a resolution)
Report (A5-0297/2001) by Mr Linkohr on behalf of the Committee for Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the guidelines for the research programme of the Coal and Steel Research Fund on the amended Council motion for a resolution [COM(2001) 121 - C5-0167/2001 - 2000/0364(CNS)] on the adoption of the multiannual technical guidelines for the research programme of the Coal and Steel Research Fund.
Before the vote:
Mr President, in view of the Commission's response to the debate last night and, in particular, to my colleague Mr Mombaur's point on the expiry of the Coal and Steel Treaty, the protocol attached to the Treaty of Nice and the legal uncertainty now surrounding that, I would ask the rapporteur to comment on this point.
Would he be in favour of referring it to our own legal services as the Commission is apparently about to do?
Mr Linkohr, as rapporteur, has the floor.
Mr President, as rapporteur I cannot but agree with that.
Not being myself a lawyer either, I would be interested to know what the Commission's position would be in the event of Nice not being ratified before the Treaty expires, for then, or so my reasonable human understanding tells me, a legal vacuum results, and that is something we should have looked into.
In that respect I would like to support Mrs Ahern in what she has said.
Having already, however, been called to speak, I wanted to point out to you that Amendments Nos 1 to 5 are founded on a misunderstanding.
We did not vote on them at all in committee.
They may well be substantially included in the Turchi report - there is no need for anybody to worry about that - but I recommend that we should not vote on them today, and, insofar as I am entitled to demand such a thing, I demand that.
I would gladly submit that to this House's decision.
I shall call for a vote on Mr Linkohr's motion, but not on Amendments Nos 1 to 5.
(Parliament adopted the motion.) Before the final vote:
.
(FR) The two reports on the expiry of the ECSC Treaty state - and deplore the fact - that the Council is asking Parliament to give it discharge regarding activities which it has no means of controlling.
In other words, Parliament may vote for what it wants but it will be the Council who decides.
That is certainly one way of recognising that Parliament serves only to give the stamp of democracy to decisions which are not democratic.
These two reports also state that the so-called social aspect of the ECSC is to be abandoned, precisely when we are envisaging the accession of countries on which the European Union intends to impose the restructuring of their coal and steel sectors so as to make them profitable, profitable, that is, to possible Western investors.
In spite of this 'social aspect' of the ECSC, the restructuring of coal and steel in Western Europe has resulted in the dismissal of hundreds of thousands of workers, a disaster for many people.
Some regions, such as Lorraine, have taken years to recover from the companies that were closed down and the jobs that were lost.
We can imagine what it will be like for the workers of Poland, the Czech Republic or Hungary, who will not even have the chance of compensation or early retirement.
Rather than using the balance from the liquidation of the ECSC as a research fund, which will in one form or another profit the bosses, the sums released in this way should be used in their entirety to continue to pay the wages of the workers who will be thrown out onto the street as a result of future restructuring programmes.
We have therefore voted against these two reports.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.24 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Arms exports
The next item is the report (A5-0309/2001) by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Council's Second Annual Report according to Operative Provision 8 of the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports [13177/1/2000 - C5-0111/2001 - 2001/2050(COS)].
Mr President, 11 September showed us that the world we live in is very insecure.
We discovered that the world's security, stability and economy are much more fragile than we previously believed.
Wherever we look - whether at the fight against terrorism, the horrors of the Balkans, the nightmare of a small town in Switzerland, the virtual anarchy in parts of Africa - one common theme emerges everywhere: the huge number of weapons which are freely available.
That is one of the main causes of instability in the world, and we must act before the tidal wave of weaponry overwhelms us all.
The Code of Conduct on Arms Exports was a significant development in controlling this trade.
It is clear from the second annual report that there is rapidly growing cooperation between Member States, both in terms of implementing the code and of achieving greater mutual understanding of the interpretation of the code.
It is also clear that arms export policy in relation to security is becoming more closely aligned.
There is much greater transparency in arms controls policies.
Most EU States, except for Austria, Greece and Luxembourg, now produce their own annual reports, albeit with a huge variance in the quality of information provided.
It is worth noting that the NGOs' Safer World holds up the UK's annual report, first introduced by the then Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, as an example for other countries.
The code's influence goes beyond the EU: all the accession countries, the EEA, EFTA States, Canada and Turkey now subscribe to the code's principles.
Member States are also seeking to apply those principles in wider international fora.
It would be a mistake to underestimate the importance of what has been achieved or the considerable mindshift that is taking place among Member States in this field.
Nonetheless, there are areas where the code needs to be strengthened.
The principles of the code will be constantly undermined if action is not taken to control and license arms brokers.
It is beyond belief that in many countries you need a licence to own a shotgun but not to trade in weapons of any type.
Some arms brokers are legitimate businesses; many, however, are little more than merchants of death.
Action in this field must be an absolute priority.
Similarly, controlling the activities of EU armaments companies will inevitably be compromised by the uncontrolled licensing of production outside the EU.
We further need a more harmonised system of end-use data provision, certification and enforcement.
Controls of official exports are important, but the illegal trade in arms is our biggest problem.
I welcome the work of Member States towards a UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons, reminding Parliament that the definition includes things like shoulder-carried, anti-aircraft missiles.
I very much regret the attitude of the USA to that conference and the influence of its gun lobby.
We can only hope that recent events will cause the USA to reflect on the need for global partnerships to remove the causes of insecurity.
We must have a global crackdown on this illegal trade.
Greater transparency is the guardian of our security in this field.
Despite the rapid advances made, I would like to see all countries producing publicly available annual export reports in a commonly agreed format.
The Council's annual report ought to be more detailed, as I have set out in my report.
We would naturally encourage greater scrutiny of arms policies by Member State parliaments.
I was delighted that last year Member States agreed a Common List of Military Equipment to which the code applies.
We now need a common list of non-military security and police equipment, and I am happy to accept the amendments on that subject.
The list, however, has to be meaningful and provide the basis of effective action in this field and not be a statement of general intent.
We will not win the war on terrorism - which we are all talking about at the moment - unless we control arms, the tools of this deadly trade.
That is the challenge confronting us now and it is even more important today than it was this time last year when we debated the first annual report.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Titley on his very sound and constructive report.
His efforts, as well as useful contributions by other fellow MEPs, have enabled this Parliament to reach more or less consensus on an otherwise very sensitive issue: the control of the arms trade.
In light of the attacks in America, there is growing awareness of the fact that the vast distribution of arms worldwide leads to unstable countries which form the breeding ground for terrorism.
The Titley report rightly points out that the 1998 EU Code is a major step forward towards a more coherent and transparent European policy on arms exports.
At the same time, however, a number of shortcomings and flaws have been flagged, five of which I should like mention.
First of all, the annual reports of the Member States are not harmonised.
Some countries, including Great Britain and Ireland, give a detailed account of the permits issued and of the amount and value of exported arms.
Other countries, such as Austria and Greece, give no information whatsoever about the licences issued.
In that way, an efficient, effective assessment is, of course, difficult.
The annual report would, therefore, need to meet a number of standards.
Each permit issued should be accompanied by a detailed description of the material, the addressee and end user.
For permits refused, the reason for refusal should be explained in more detail.
Secondly, in my opinion, the monitoring procedures concerning the end user of the exported arms should be stepped up.
In Africa, Togo and Burkina Faso are officially the end users of arms supplied from Bulgaria, whilst in reality, these are passed on to Liberia and the rebels of Sierra Leone.
Embassies of EU Member States could play a more supervisory role in situ.
Penal measures should also be introduced for transit countries that violate arms embargos.
Thirdly, I am of the opinion that tighter controls should be in place for the production of military equipment under licence abroad by EU companies or in the framework of industrial joint venture agreements.
It is not acceptable for a certain country to be refused a licence for weapons and for arms manufacturers to be able to circumvent that ban by supplying arms components which are then assembled on site.
A fourth shortcoming is that there is no control whatsoever on private arms dealers, the number of which is rising all the time since the end of the cold war.
Of the five hundred million light arms in circulation worldwide, forty to sixty percent of these are illegal, according to the UN.
A final serious shortcoming of the EU Code of Conduct is that it is not legally binding.
At the moment, it is a no-strings-attached gentlemen' s agreement.
Sanctions cannot be imposed on those who breach the Code.
Finally, I should like to express the hope that the EU Code of Conduct will form the basis for a worldwide code on the export of arms.
It makes no sense whatsoever for Europe to be committed to controlling the arms trade, while China and Russia continue to export weapons to crisis areas without any restrictions.
In that sense, the UN Conference in July was a missed opportunity, and I believe that this topic must remain a permanent feature in the transatlantic dialogue.
Mr President, Mr Titley has lived up to his reputation and has produced an excellent report on the Code of Conduct concerning arms exports, on which we would like to congratulate him.
Needless to say, the report receives the full backing of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
That is why I should not so much like to confine myself to the technicalities of the report, but rather to a number of general observations.
On 11 September, the first reports rolled in about the horrific attacks in the United States during the vote of the Titley report in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
The European Union has reacted adequately and coherently.
All available means are being deployed right across the pillars.
One would wish for the same promptness of action in other areas too.
The EU can do anything if it puts its mind to it.
Where the arms export is concerned, we have to make do with a Code of Conduct which is considerably restricted by Article 296 of the EC Treaty which protects national security interests.
That is such a vague concept that Member States, if they so wish, can more or less do their own thing.
In fact, it has never been clear to me in what way national security interests can be different from those of the European Union.
The arms export agreements are also typified by a large degree of voluntariness, but also, for example, by inconsistent agreements on the end use of exported arms.
That is why an EU-wide and effective approach is lacking.
Not all relevant information is made available, which obstructs the transparency of the policy.
Annual reports are useful, but joint action is preferable, of course.
Mr Titley' s report mentions a few areas which require attention, such as the destabilising distribution of hand-held weapons.
That causes great chaos in some parts of the world.
The trade in these weapons also sustains phenomena such as child soldiers.
My group would like to turn this into a priority, also in cooperation with the candidate countries, the countries of the Stability Pact and countries such as Ukraine and Russia, for we know that many of the hand-held weapons which are in circulation in the world originate from those countries.
The EU must make every effort, together with those countries, to tackle the often criminal trade in weapons.
Here too we require a new international coalition.
In the light of 11 September, it is important to tighten the agreements on the export of so-called dual-use goods.
I am curious about the discussions which are undoubtedly already taking place behind the scenes.
The citizens would like to know how the export policy will be adopted to prevent the wrong expertise from falling into the wrong hands.
I would quote the reports on terrorism and the use of weapons of mass destruction in this connection.
Here too, better cooperation with Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States is necessary.
What will happen to the export of encryption software?
Will new arrangements be made in this connection? The least we can ask from the Council and the Commission is to indicate the role which can improve the organised arms export policy in the fight against terrorism.
As far as I am concerned, the debate on Article 296 can be re-opened.
Arms export must form an integral part of the new EU security policy.
Only then will it be truly effective.
Mr President, I welcome much of what is in the report, particularly the need for transparency, the issue dealing with the end use of weapons and the illegal trade in arms.
As Mr Titley mentioned, the control of small arms is important.
It is a major problem, as we have seen from the tragic events in Switzerland.
There needs to be a mechanism to control non-military security and police equipment.
But I do not support the idea of a European defence industry and we need to look at getting rid of the defence industry.
The recent tragic events in the United States have actually given a shot in the arm to the arms industries.
I will mention one in particular because it is relevant to Ireland, and that is Raytheon.
This company has seen a 40% jump in share prices as a result of the events of 11 September and thereafter.
We must look at the whole issue of arms production in the first place.
I mentioned Raytheon because it is ironic that, in spite of the peace process in Northern Ireland, Nobel peace prize winners stood on a platform welcoming into Derry Raytheon, one of the world's biggest arms manufacturing companies.
It is appalling to encourage manufacturers of weapons, or their components, into a place where people are killing each other every day with weapons so that these products can then be transported to other parts of the world to cause havoc and deprivation.
We do not want peace here and wars in other parts of the world.
We should look at ending the trade in weapons completely and the idea of government support for an industry that is responsible for death and destruction around the world is unacceptable.
As regards torture weapons, we have a situation where these weapons are being sent to certain parts of the world with an EU stamp on them.
This is completely unacceptable.
In my own country, Ireland, there has in recent times been an increase in the arms industry, mainly involving US-based arms manufacturing.
This manufacturing comprises mainly components, but irrespective of whether components or end-use weapons are concerned, we should not accept the production of weapons.
There are far more beneficial ways of creating employment for people in a given area than the production of something that is used to kill another human being.
Mr President, in principle our group agrees with the report by Mr Titley, who has done an excellent job in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
There are some aspects of the report that we do not agree with, such as that referring to the defence industry, but, generally speaking, this effort to achieve transparency and for the EU to play a crucial, I would say leading, role in the process of world disarmament and also in achieving peace is positive, and, for this reason, we think that it is a good report.
However, there are various aspects that could be improved, especially following the sad events of 11 September, since when North America has been promoting the indiscriminate sale of arms to all those it considers to be potential allies in the fight against terrorism.
We think that this is an appropriate moment to adopt clearly transparent behaviour that would avoid these double standards, and for this reason we, through our colleague Mr Brie, have tabled several amendments which seek specifically to prevent such problems - such as cases, for example, in which arms are indirectly sold to countries that contravene EU agreements through third countries, as is the case, for example, with Turkey, or Israel, bombing or attacking the Palestinians, or Pakistan. For this reason it would be a good idea to have more control over these sales.
We also think that it is important - as stated by Mr Titley in his speech - to include terrorism as an objective.
Lastly, we also think it imperative, in order to improve transparency, for the Commission itself to draw up a report that clarifies this series of measures so that the role of the EU can be much greater and more decisive in achieving a world at peace and without arms.
Mr President, those who declare that they are dedicated to fighting terrorism need to cleanse themselves of all hypocrisy and must condemn those who carry out the worst acts of bloodletting under the guise of freedom fighters.
In Dublin this weekend, Gerry Adams boasted that the IRA campaign of atrocities were the acts of freedom fighters and not the acts of terrorists.
No wonder The Wall Street Journal the other day carried an article with Adams and bin Laden linked together.
Actions, not words alone, can cleanse the hands of those nations in Europe which have both armed and furthered the aims of terrorists and have then refused to extradite those criminals for proper trial.
Mr President, until a few weeks ago, the distinction between conventional weaponry such as light and heavy arms, on the one hand and weapons of mass destruction on the other, in other words, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, seemed relatively clear.
Now the very concepts of what constitutes a weapon are in doubt, when a civilian aeroplane can become a missile when guided by a murderous ideal.
We may be tempted to adopt an attitude which is at once relativist, with regard to the means, and ultra-safe, with regard to actions.
I would say, however, that there is now a greater need than ever to prevent tendencies that are not firmly anchored in politics.
Particularly at a time when, as is becoming obvious, we need to speed up the construction of our common foreign and security policy, which must be given the appropriate resources and be supported by an effective shared commitment.
This policy must go ahead on the basis of cohesion, which also means trust between Member States, and of coherence between the ideas that are put forward and practical action.
We are today discussing an issue, arms exports, to which these principles must be applied, today more than ever before.
It would, of course, be better if there were no need to discuss weapons, but, unfortunately, the world we live in is not like that.
The European Union' s Code of Conduct on arms exports adopted in 1999 is a key instrument for harmonisation and control in this field.
With regard to the Council' s second annual report, on implementing this Code of Conduct, the rapporteur himself welcomes the greater transparency and the convergence between Member States arms exports policies and the adoption of common principles by third countries. He also, however, highlights the need to go further, putting an end to illegal sales and exercising greater control over arms dealers' fees and on the destination of arms.
I therefore support the thrust of this report, although once again, I wish to emphasise the need for coherence and cohesion in this field.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is naturally useful to have a report on arms trade.
That is also true of a European Code of Conduct.
But I hope that the tragic circumstances in which we find ourselves will also galvanise us into action, for example in order to render this Code of Conduct compulsory, as Mr Titley rightly pointed out in his report, and finally to also make progress in supervising the arms trade.
For although that is what we intend to do, if we have no control over the end-user certificate, it is impossible to check whether that arms trade is legal or not.
Similarly, the production under licence by EU countries in third countries is another one of such issues.
Ultimately, we will need to reach the stage where we have black lists of countries to which we do not under any circumstance supply weapons. This will need to be monitored and sanctions will need to be put in place.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Titley on his work and acknowledge his endeavours to include the point of view of civil society on arms exports.
I would, however, mention certain negative points: firstly, light weapons.
The UN Conference in July was a failure: in my opinion, the EU should commit itself resolutely once more to enforcing a reduction.
As regards transparency, I feel that this is still too superficial and that Parliamentary scrutiny should be obligatory for arms exports.
Then there is no reference to the OCCAT Agreement which actually protects industrial cooperation and is the basis for laws such as Italy' s which make it possible to export arms without infringing human rights rules.
Then there is an arms exports control policy which must be in line with European common foreign policy.
In short, I consider the Titley report to be important, but I feel - this is my point of view and is not a criticism of the Titley report - that the European Union should, in these tragic times, set itself the target of disarmament, not rearmament.
You will excuse me, Commissioner, for addressing you alone, but the Council benches are empty.
I would like to say that I find the Council report very interesting. This Code of Conduct is also of major importance and this debate is very dignified, although we should ask ourselves how much we are actually achieving.
We must have the courage to go deeper into certain complex issues which are still to be resolved.
The first of these issues, which has already been mentioned by all those who have spoken, is the need to make this code law, that is to convert it into a legally binding instrument, seeing as, nowadays, everything depends on the good will of the Member States of the European Union, which are even free to decide whether or not to submit an annual report, which not all the Member States have chosen to do.
Another complex issue which has yet to be resolved is that of a Community system of controlling the end use, the final recipient of the arms exported and the brokers who, in the arms trade, in arms trafficking - the word trafficking may be more appropriate, more to the point - are the real money-makers.
It is a matter of serious concern that all this is not happening, that we do not have such a control facility, bearing in mind, for example, that the Taliban will probably be fighting in Afghanistan with arms supplied by the West, including some of the countries of the European Union.
Lastly, the candidate countries.
What guarantees will we have that the candidate countries will be able to respect this Code of Conduct properly?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as regards these questions, there is only one risk, which is engendered by our hypocrisy in disregarding - as has been pointed out - the great difference between a gentleman' s agreement and a law.
I will therefore close by reiterating that, until the Code of Conduct becomes law, we will be at fault, and this report' s due reference to the values of democracy and the protection of human rights is likely to be reduced to a mere, ineffective appeal.
Mr President, one thing for sure is that the excessive profits reaped by multinationals, especially American multinationals, from manufacturing and selling arms far exceed the profits to be made from drug trafficking or crude oil.
Tensions, armed conflict and mutual genocide are being provoked and fomented in order to promote the production and consumption of all sorts of arms and munitions, thereby increasing sales and boosting profits.
And governments have no objection; in fact they are doing their utmost here, given that, as we all know, they cream off huge sums of money from manufacturers supplying arms.
Whatever Mr Titley's intentions as rapporteur, in today's general climate of militarisation and warmongering, with a new structure to NATO, with the militarisation of the European Union and, more importantly, with the shameless exploitation of the terrorist attack in the United States, codes like this, even if they do not pull the wool over the people's eyes, are no more than a hypocritical wish list.
We believe that strict controls are needed and that the manufacture of all types of equipment - and not just exports as the report suggests - should be denied, if not banned.
In the final analysis, however, this is a matter for the popular front, for the global and national peace movement which, as we have seen recently, is burgeoning - and thank God it is.
Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Titley for another excellent and characteristically intelligent report, which we have read with very great interest.
As his report and his speech have made clear, the issue of arms exports is tremendously complex and close collaboration is required by everyone in order to address its many different angles.
There were a number of good speeches in the debate, some of which referred to the relevance of the appalling events of 11 September and their aftermath.
I should like to respond to what Mr Paisley had to say.
As he is not in his place, maybe my remarks will be borne to him on angels' wings.
I agree with the definitional point he made.
It is an enormously important point for us to make.
Some of us from Spain or the United Kingdom have personal experience of this; some of us have friends who have been murdered by terrorists.
There is no such thing as a good terrorist.
There is no distinction between good and bad terrorism.
What is a terrorist? A terrorist is a man or woman or, alas, a deluded child who sets out in the morning to murder innocent men, women and children to make a political point - the propaganda of the deed.
That is not justified.
It is never justified.
There are never extenuating circumstances, any more than there are ever extenuating circumstances from extrajudicial killings by a State.
So I hope that when we start talking about definitions we will remember what terrorism really is.
We will have views about the political roots of terrorism.
We will have strong views about the importance of trying to find political solutions to some problems.
However, I hope we will not be morally confused about what constitutes a terrorist act.
During the debate on last year's report, I stated that the ultimate responsibility for arms exports belongs to national governments.
However, it is also clear that some aspects of the arms trade lie within the remit of the common foreign and security policy, with which the Commission is fully associated.
The Commission is making every effort to move forward with the implementation of those recommendations which lie within Community competence and we stand ready to collaborate with Member States where joint responsibilities are involved, for example when one is talking about dual-use goods.
As Parliament is already aware, the associated countries of central and eastern Europe, Cyprus, Turkey, Malta, and our EEA/EFTA partners have issued declarations through which they align themselves with the criteria and the principles contained in the European Union's Code of Conduct on Arms Exports.
The Union has continued to assist the candidates in their efforts to bring their legislation and administration fully into line with the provisions of the code.
Furthermore, the European Union continues to urge the world's main arms exporters to subscribe to the principles and criteria developed in our code.
We would react most favourably to the idea of drafting an international code of conduct on arms transactions, on the condition that it is based on the same principles as the European Union code.
The Commission strongly supports the honourable Member's call for the establishment of common rules for European Union control of the legal trade in small arms and light weapons, as well as effective European Union controls to combat and eradicate trafficking in these arms.
In this respect we welcome the agreement reached at the July 2001 UN Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons.
Although the final text falls well short of the Union's initial expectations, it marks an important step forward.
It represents a delicate and hard-fought compromise, which would not have been achievable only a couple of years ago.
If all parties involved were to adopt a more positive attitude, the agreement would become a more effective tool for addressing the concerns of all participants in the future.
For the first time the international community has set out some principles for national and international measures which might curb the illegal trade in small arms.
They aim to establish reliable controls on the production, export and transit of weapons; to apply reliable markings to them in order to trace their origin more successfully; to criminalise their unlicensed production and trade; to regulate the activities of brokers; and to destroy surplus stockpiles and all confiscated weapons.
A new conference will be held no later than 2006 - I suspect that recent events may bring that date forward - and in the intervening period, biennial meetings will consider the progress made on turning the objectives of the conclusions into tangible reality.
We will work hard with the Member States to ensure an active and ambitious follow-up.
The European Union's commitment to concrete action in the field of small arms is illustrated by a number of projects currently under way or under consideration in different parts of the world.
In Cambodia the European Union gives technical, administrative and financial support to the government and selected NGOs for actions aimed at promoting the collection, control and destruction of weapons.
We also support Operation Rachel, a joint South Africa-Mozambique project, to collect and destroy arms left over since the civil war.
We provide equipment to the Georgian and Ossetian police forces as part of a programme which consists of the voluntary handover and subsequent destruction of small arms in the region.
We also support the UN Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament and Development in Lima, which works to promote the control of small arms in Latin America and the Caribbean.
We are also considering further projects in the Balkans, Africa and South Pacific.
During the past few months Commission services have begun drafting EC legislation on a number of non-military items such as instruments of torture, to which the provisions of the code should, in our view, apply.
Work is now near completion, and the Commission intends to submit a proposal to the Council soon.
This marks a first step in tackling the issue.
Compilation of a more extended list, which might include items that also have civilian uses - instruments of internal repression such as riot-control equipment, for example - would require the commitment of significant additional resources.
If we are going to take on such a task - which involves establishing the eventual end use of the items and, perhaps, the identity of the end user - then we shall need more resources.
However we will, of course, pay careful attention to what Parliament has to say on that issue.
Progress in that field is conditional on the willingness of Member States and Parliament to make additional resources available for these purposes.
So I repeat our gratitude to the honourable Member, Mr Titley, for an important report.
I hope that year by year we can continue to respond constructively to what he has to say.
Anybody who looks at the violence around the world, the violence often associated with the breakdown of States, from Somalia to Sudan, to Sierra Leone, to Afghanistan; anybody who looks at the situation created by the breakdown of States knows how much the trade and small arms is responsible for continuing the violence and making the violence far more lethal.
So this report is an important one, and I hope we can respond to it over the coming months and years with appropriately constructive behaviour.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Political and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan
The next item is the Commission statement on the political and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan.
I shall ask Commissioner Patten to take the floor immediately.
Madam President, as Mr Patten stated, with four aircraft carriers heading towards the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, the very least that can be said of the situation in Afghanistan is that it is uncertain.
Even the President of Pakistan - a country where over the last few days there have been huge demonstrations of support for the Taliban regime - has unambiguously stated that the days of the regime are numbered.
The offer to open up the government of three Afghan provinces and the exodus of people fleeing the country to avoid being mobilised against potential intervention by the international alliance clearly suggest that this is true.
If, to this fact we add the decision made yesterday in Rome to create a Supreme Council of National Unity instructed to form a provisional government and name a Head of State, we can truly arrive at the conclusion that the situation in Afghanistan is changing from one day to the next.
So, Madam President, in this context, what attitude should the European Union adopt? Well, in my opinion, the European Union, faced with the crisis situation in this region, should present itself as an element of stability and moderation.
The EU should contribute to the establishment of a democratic government in Afghanistan.
The EU should encourage the full application in that country of respect for human rights and fundamental liberties, which the Taliban regime refuses to acknowledge, as proposed by the mission led by Commissioner Patten and the Troika.
At the same time, the European Union has to sign up to the international alliance referred to yesterday by the Secretary-General of the United Nations at their General Assembly.
Lastly, Madam President, the European Union should give its support to an enormous humanitarian task.
We should not forget that 25% of the 22 million Afghans will survive thanks exclusively to international aid.
However, Madam President, it is important that the European Union does not commit a series of errors.
Firstly, that of supporting governments that do not have sufficient popular support, as happened in the first Afghan crisis a decade ago.
Secondly, the European Union should not commit the error of carrying out indiscriminate actions and of not pursuing tangible objectives.
For we should not forget, Madam President, that our objective should not be to dominate a country that certainly holds a strategic position, but not to encourage the action of extremist elements that could cause the overthrow of regimes such as those in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan or Egypt that would make Bin Laden a martyr or a political military leader or, something that would be far more serious, a religious or spiritual leader.
I think that in conclusion, Madam President, we need to give our total support to Mr Patten' s proposal and behave with maximum diligence and efficiency to support the Commission' s proposals today.
Madam President, Afghanistan is a country with an average income per inhabitant of USD 800.
This statistic makes it the poorest country in Asia and the world' s fifth poorest country.
There are some five million people who rely on food programmes.
Millions of people live on the Iranian side of the border, millions of others live on the Pakistani side.
The borders are now closed, but it is expected that another million people will end up fleeing.
The hands of the WFP and UNHCR are tied, for they cannot work in that country.
There are a few other international NGOs which boast sound structures and can offer aid.
Over the past few years, the Commission has granted a great deal of aid via the ECHO programme.
I should like to hear Commissioner Nielson give us an extensive account on this in a moment.
We know that we are extremely limited in what we can do.
We, as Europe, must do more.
We cannot cross the borders.
We can use the structure in the country to some extent.
UNHCR and WFP are in the same boat.
I would actually like to echo Mr Lubbers, the High Commissioner of UNHCR who stated that 'in fact, we also need a new coalition which can cope, as it were, with the huge humanitarian tragedy which is unfolding before our eyes' .
I am consciously disassociating myself from tomorrow' s debate on security issues that is much broader still.
I should now like to home in on this particular region, however.
We will need to take action in Iran.
We, together with UNHCR, will also need to take action in Pakistan.
We will need to do this as Europe.
To date, each of our Member States has failed to earmark sufficient funding.
They are dallying and dithering.
The European Union has taken sound initiatives in that respect, for which I should like to praise Commissioner Nielson and the Commission, but now is the time to build this coalition.
For if we are not able to tackle this humanitarian issue jointly, we will be presented with the political bill in due course.
You are dividing the world into two.
You are on your own side but not on ours.
It is not 'them' or 'they' , but it is our joint responsibility to act in that region.
On behalf of the Socialist Group, I hope that the Commission, in close cooperation with all those involved, the international NGOs, UNHCR, WFP, in Iran, in Pakistan, with the political initiatives which Commissioner Patten indicated a moment ago, manages to send out that signal on time: a new coalition for humanitarian aid in the region.
Madam President, Commissioner Patten correctly said that we have no quarrel with Islam.
I say that we have a quarrel with those who abuse Islam and who turn the principles of Islam into weapons against the innocent.
In the same way, we have no quarrel with the Afghan people.
Our quarrel is with bin Laden who shelters in Afghanistan and with the Taliban, they seem to be almost one and the same, and we pity the situation of the Afghan people.
They are already one of the poorest nations upon Earth.
Two million Afghan refugees are sheltering in the Islamic Republic of Iran and they have been for some years now.
It is sad to see how little international help has been given to those refugees or to their hosts, the Iranian government.
These refugees fled acute starvation and utter brutality in Afghanistan to find a haven in Iran and there are huge numbers of new refugees now on the move.
The psychological terror that our new alliance has properly caused against terrorism in the region is causing the new flight of so many new millions of refugees.
We must ask ourselves, how we can save lives?
We have always supported NGOs.
We have perhaps given less interinstitutional support.
I plead here to the Commission to look closely at how best to involve our work with that of the United Nations, particularly UNHCR and the World Health Organization, for only the UN, can command the volumes of support that are needed in such a situation, in terms of food, clothing, shelter and the provision of basic needs.
I ask the Commission to assist the refugees who have already fled and are in situ elsewhere.
May I also include the 3.5 million Iraqi refugees in the region.
We must do all we can to help.
Madam President, with regard to the humanitarian dimension of this disaster, I fully concur with Mr Van den Berg.
However, I would like to add one more aspect, which is at the same time a question, a question to the Council, who are not here.
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner a question instead.
A special area of concern when granting aid is the protection of the aid workers.
It is extremely dangerous to grant the necessary aid.
Is the Commission aware of any European countries being prepared to provide those aid workers military back-up?
Next, I should like to turn my attention to the political relationship between the EU and Afghanistan.
What is that relationship not? Let us be clear about that too.
It does not aim to arm the Northern Alliance.
Neither does it aim to overthrow the Taliban by military force or play the role of Florence Nightingale, caring for the wounded and displaced once the American big brother has smashed everything to smithereens.
So what is - or what should be - the role of the European Union? Allow me to quote three examples.
Firstly, I believe it would be beneficial if the European Union, as in the past two, three weeks, were to exercise its moderating influence on the United States, so as to prevent any unnecessary civilian victims from being claimed when the Taliban are brought down.
This is an extremely important condition for any broad coalition in future.
Secondly, I strongly urge the United States and Europe not to make the same mistake as we did fifteen years ago, when we supported the mujahedin in the fight against the Russian presence in Afghanistan by filling the country with arms and then walking away.
That is not acceptable.
Mr Joschka Fischer, Germany' s Foreign Affairs Minister, put this across very articulately, in my opinion, when he said that we can no longer afford any black holes on the global map.
Next, I should like to move on to my most important point.
In my opinion, any aid, whether it be military, financial, political or economic, now and in future, to the Afghan opposition, whether it be royal or not, should be typified by at least one aspect, namely that this aid should be conditional.
It is not acceptable for Afghanistan to be lumbered with another regime which fails to observe democracy and human rights.
As far as I am concerned, the lesson we should draw from the cold war is, or should be, that not every enemy of our enemy is our friend.
It is friends, in particular, that need to be alerted in an open and critical manner to respecting democracy and human rights.
And that should therefore apply to any aid to any Afghan opposition.
Finally, if the Taliban are fought or overthrown in the name of fighting a strange regime which has been repressing human rights for the past five years, for example where women' s rights are concerned, then that is a fair motivation for this fight in my view, but we then also need to be consistent, and this must also apply to other countries in the region.
It is unacceptable for a country such as Saudi Arabia to escape our attention, because it now forms part of our coalition, for that country too violates human rights and operates an anti-democratic regime.
In my opinion, the real consequences of 11 September can only be drawn if we display the honesty to tackle that country and that region. Only then will we have a truly justifiable argument against the objection which is currently being heard in that region that our anxiety with regard to Afghanistan would be one of selective indignation.
Madam President, I am able, as it were, to take up where my esteemed fellow MEP, Mr Lagendijk left off.
Who is it we are cooperating with when we wish to strengthen democracy and combat totalitarian regimes, and what is it we are cooperating about? In the course of the next few days, we shall no doubt become much clearer about what is possible.
We still do not know, of course, how the United States will react.
We still do not know whether the United States will choose to use violent methods and first and foremost seek revenge, or whether we shall in actual fact be given the opportunity to engage in a radical fight against terrorism following the terrible events of 11 September.
With regard, however, to the issue of whom we are to cooperate with, I would urge us to focus upon the very special circumstance that what we have here is a population exposed to violent oppression and that we must be alert to the fact that half of this population is doubly oppressed.
I am talking about the female portion of the population.
I should like to emphasise that there are in actual fact women' s organisations which are still attempting, in Afghanistan too, to fight for women' s rights.
One of these organisations, RAWA, is trying to create the opportunity for both boys and girls to go to school, and we know of course that illiteracy is very high in Afghanistan - 96% in the case of women and 72% in the case of men - so that this is in itself a useful thing to fight for.
They are also attempting to put some documentation together and to do some fact-finding in Afghanistan so that those of us outside the situation have a chance of actually knowing what is going on.
When we find out, it is up to us to use that knowledge, and I should like to call upon us to do just that: to use the knowledge that there are courageous women, committed to democracy, and to cooperate with them in our attempt to eradicate the breeding grounds for terrorism in, for example, Afghanistan.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that the response to recent events must be broken down into several different parts, and I will not focus on internal security or military solutions, seeing as I clearly do not have the necessary 'intelligence' , nor will I concentrate on humanitarian responses, for I am sure that the European Union and the international community as a whole will be able to respond generously, effectively and competently, as they have always done in the past.
The problem is not one of humanitarian efficiency or effectiveness, which have been proven for a long time now, but rather of deciding what political response to make to the matter at hand.
I am happy to be able to say this here in this Chamber because Parliament and the European Commission have been the only, rare exceptions among the institutions to pay constant attention to the issue of Afghanistan: in recent years, Parliament has been able to present to the Member States and the Council of Ministers a whole range of political and other suggestions.
We can only lament the fact that we were never heeded and our suggestions never taken up or even considered.
We have been trying to draw attention to the indisputable problem of the tragic violation of human rights for years and, since 1997, the Commission and the European Parliament have also been reiterating that there is a problem of terrorism and drugs in Afghanistan, that is, a major geopolitical problem.
All we can do is lament the indifference shown by the major international institutions.
At the present moment, however, I feel that we have to make a choice: there are moments in history when one has to stop hesitating and take sides, and if we are to do so we must not side with religious fanaticism, dictatorships or some other form of nationalism, but with the liberal democracies - with all their failings and imperfections, admittedly - but also with all their power and their capacity to operate systems which are better equipped to protect human rights in the world.
My concern is the political response.
I fear that it would be a mistake to think that our only enemy is terrorism and, in particular, possibly just Osama Bin Laden.
The issue is much more complex than that: our current enemy is that explosive mixture of authoritarian regimes and dictatorships based on religious fanaticism.
We must make an effort and go deeper into the matter rather than simply believing that if we catch Osama Bin Laden - which would be right and proper and is a legitimate, necessary thing to do - then the problem will be resolved.
A 'holy alliance' to combat terrorism is being formed, made up of a collection of unlikely, not to say dubious allies: there are a number of regimes which are likely to join this alliance, each for its own reasons, each maybe drawing up a list of its own genuine or alleged terrorists with the aim of suppressing its own dissidents, who may well be non-terrorist, democratic individuals.
We must be careful not to put everything under the same umbrella indiscriminately.
I wonder whether it would not make more sense and be more useful to create a world organisation of democracy, of liberal democracy as we know it - and, once again, I do not deny any of its shortcomings - for I feel that this is the institution which we should envisage in the medium term.
Today, when we talk about women or violation or female genital mutilation, we have no organisation to turn to for help.
This is the great challenge before us: to create, export and promote democracy and freedom.
Madam President, the people in Afghanistan, as well as the entire civilised world, stand to benefit from a drastic end to the Taliban regime.
At home, the Taliban keep the country under a reign of mental terror and prefer continuing the civil war to relieving acute famines.
Viewed from outside, their prompt departure from the political stage deserves the highest commendation, because the Taliban export terrorism.
The handiwork of their guest Osama bin Laden is a case in point, as is the fact that they export narcotics on a large scale.
However, Afghan history and today' s political reality prove that the Taliban can only be driven out by internal opposition forces.
That is why we deem the present Afghanistan strategy of the American administration to provide financial and material aid to the broadest possible coalition against the Taliban around the king in exile, Zahir Shah, to be the most plausible foreign contribution to this political and military tour de force.
That is why I call on Europe to lend its unconditional support to this strategy.
We are also delighted by the fact that President Bush has earmarked USD 100 million by way of aid for the immense damage incurred to the Afghan refugees.
May this gesture of compassion with the suffering Afghan people be the first step towards a Marshall plan for this country that has been completely razed to the ground by sustained armed violence.
In that way, the international community can discharge itself from its share of the blame for the present situation in Afghanistan and raise a dam against Muslim terrorism and drugs.
Madam President, Commissioner, as I take the floor in this debate, I would be failing in my duty if I did not pay homage, as you have done Madam President, to the memory of Commander Ahmed Shah Masood.
A number of our Members had the opportunity to meet him here just six months ago, at your invitation, and we discovered that not only was he a man of war famous for his tactics and his exceptional charisma, but he could also be a statesman, and a man of peace and reconciliation, the peace and reconciliation for which his country has been waiting for more than thirty years.
My hope today is that this man, my friend, who said that he was prepared to give his life for the sake of the people of Afghanistan, will not have died for nothing.
Obviously I regret the fact that he was not listened to sooner when he asked for international aid to rid his country of the iron rule of the Taliban, and when he condemned the development of that totalitarian movement of Islamic fundamentalism flaunting its desire for world domination.
What Mr Patten has just told us about the political situation in Afghanistan confirms my analysis that Commander Masood' s plan for solving the crisis in Afghanistan could be well underway.
Now that Pakistan has been obliged to stop giving political and military support to the Taliban regime, that regime should collapse under the pressure of the whole of the Afghan people, as Commander Masood predicted.
I think that proof of this has been provided by the agreement that has just been signed in Rome between the opposition forces and the former King Mohammed Zahir Shah, whose prestige is still as great as ever in his home country.
I also see proof of this in the statements made by Mullah Omar himself, when he announced yesterday that he might possibly be overthrown, and finally in the news that has just reached us about the defection, with seven hundred of his militia men, of the Taliban governor of the Javan region on the border with Turkmenistan, which has brought the province of Badghis under opposition control.
Carried away by the idea of realpolitik, the international community, and with it, I am sorry to say, the European Union, had adopted an attitude towards the Taliban that was at the very least conciliatory, working on the principle that they exercised the real power and that they could not do so without the support of the whole of the Afghan people.
At the time I compared this attitude with the attitude that the Western governments thought they ought to adopt towards the Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge before their abominable barbarism became apparent.
Thanks to that same blind tolerance, we have allowed this hornets' nest of Islamic terror to develop on Afghan territory. Its evil deeds were denounced by Commander Masood, and it must now be destroyed, something which I hope will happen very soon.
However, for the sake of destroying a hornets' next it should not be necessary to burn down the whole house. On the contrary, it is essential that the Afghan people should be spared, and given all the assistance, of whatever kind, that they need in order to establish a stable regime based on national reconciliation.
I have the feeling - and Mr Patten has just reinforced it - that this is the direction in which the Union' s efforts are heading, and I welcome this, but I do not forget the disastrous humanitarian situation that prevails in the region as a whole.
I am thinking of the hundreds of thousands of refugees waiting at the border with Pakistan, and also of the people who for months now have been completely without supplies in the northern provinces.
I know that the Russians have set up an airlift for emergency humanitarian aid, operating from the airport at Dushanbe in Tajikistan.
I would not like to see the European Union conspicuous by its absence in this undertaking, in which its assistance is also desirable.
What these people want is, of course, food, but in addition they want medicines, blankets and shelters, and above all they want us to demonstrate our solidarity.
In Bosnia, at the height of the crisis, Europe, acting within the Atlantic Alliance, was able to set up a scheme for parachuting supplies into the most isolated enclaves, those that were at greatest risk.
This is what the people of Panshir are now expecting.
Have we, and have you, Commissioner Nielson, the will and the means to provide it?
Madam President, I am very much in agreement with the majority of what has been said on this matter and I shall, therefore, not repeat what other speakers have said.
I do think, however, that all of it should be taken into account, given that the whole world is waiting to see the European Union' s reaction.
It seems to me that, given the condemnation of the situation in Afghanistan that this Parliament has already issued, and given the danger of the reduction in civil liberties, we have to remain united, as Commissioner Patten has said, and present a united front against terrorism.
I am also worried, however, by something else that has already been said: the tragic situation that has arisen since these attacks.
On the one hand there is the Afghan population, which is facing a serious crisis, as was very clearly stated by the Joint Committee of the FAO and the World Food Programme (WFP) that recently visited Afghanistan, and which has said that, at this moment in time, the country is suffering widespread starvation due to a serious crisis in agricultural production, that could cause the death of a huge number of people.
To this we must add the continuing danger to the farming population posed by the antipersonnel mines scattered throughout the country and the situation of the thousands of refugees in bordering countries - not only in Pakistan and Iran, but also in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan I would like to point out - that have to be dealt with.
However, what also worries me - and it is on this that I would like to focus, Madam President - is the situation of the populations in all the other developing countries, particularly the African countries, who will suffer the worst economic consequences of this crisis.
According to information from the World Bank, the terror attacks condemn ten million more people to poverty, as a result of economic slowdown and, particularly, from the loss of income due to decreased exports, a reduction in tourism, falling prices, etc.
It is true, Madam President, that the European Union and this Parliament now have to form a strong coalition against terrorism.
But we should also consider - and this would send a signal to the whole world - an international coalition against the poverty, misery and despair of millions of citizens across the world who very often seek protection from the very fanatics who organise these acts of terrorism.
I would, therefore, ask that, alongside this coalition against terrorism, we also send a signal, chiefly to the peoples of Africa and Asia, stating our desire to build a coalition against misery, poverty and despair.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Chairman of the delegation of the European Parliament for relations with Central Asia, I should expressly like to draw your attention to what is happening in countries such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
These countries have been, and will be, the first to be affected by the refugee problem as a result of what is now happening in Afghanistan and in that part of the world.
There is, therefore, an unqualified need for European consultation on the provision of emergency aid, something which Mr Morillon was quite right to point out.
Central Asia is a vulnerable and very fragile region.
It is a vulnerable region economically speaking, in terms of respect for human rights and in terms of the fabric of the civil society and democratic institutions.
It is a region which, for years, has required our support in the fight against fundamentalism and the drugs trade.
That is why we need to ensure that we lend sufficient support to that region.
And what do we do? In the 2002 budget, we cut back the budgetary resources allocated to that region.
I therefore urge the MEPs of the Committee on Budgets, together with the entire plenary session, to rectify that budget and to give Central Asia what it is entitled to.
This is my urgent plea.
Madam President, we are facing a war against terrorism that all freedom-loving people must embrace.
As you know, I was born in a country that understands terrorism, with 65 000 dead - please remember that the LTT suicide bombers in Sri Lanka are not Muslims - but the world has so far turned a blind eye on twenty-three years of terrorism.
The tragedy of 11 September has finally focused the attention of those that love democracy and freedom on the cancer that hides within. The cancer of terrorism.
A cancer that is fed, not by religion, but by greed, hate, envy and ignorance.
In Afghanistan, the 1963 Constitution as promulgated by King Zahir Shah is an exemplary document.
I salute my colleague, Edward McMillan-Scott, for taking the initiative to lead a delegation to Rome to initiate a coalition between the King and the Northern Alliance, which I am happy to say has now been signed, as General Morillon has just mentioned.
I want to congratulate General Morillon on inviting Shah Masood here, so that in April we had a chance to meet him.
The 1963 Constitution states that liberty is a natural right of each human being - this right has no limitations except the liberty of others, but freedom of thought and expression is invaluable - that every Afghan has a right to print and publish ideas, that education is a right of every Afghan and shall be provided, free of charge, by the State, and that work is a right of every Afghan who has the capability to do it.
What a far cry this is from the tragedy existing in Afghanistan today, where women are beaten, denied education, kept at home as slaves and with one in eight dying in childbirth.
It is a State run by ignorance using the stick of religion, of which they know little, to cower and terrorise their own people.
The war against terrorism is a war to free the people of Afghanistan from the twenty-eight years of slavery.
I salute President Bush and the British Prime Minister for their determination - shoulder-to-shoulder with a Democratic Party and Ian Duncan Smith, the leader of the Conservative Party who was here in Parliament today - to defeat and eradicate international terrorism.
But this must not be a purely Anglo-Saxon affair.
If the EU and this House are to be anything at all, they must have an involvement in ensuring this most basic of human activities; the right to live without being terrorised, the freedom to live without the daily sudden threat of death.
We should not think that we in Europe are not targets.
We already know of plans to attack Genoa, Paris and elsewhere.
When will we learn that is our war too?
Madam President, Commissioner Patten, Commissioner Nielson, I would firstly like to pay tribute to the thousands of innocent victims in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, victims of an attack on our principles, on our democracy, on our system of freedoms, on our way of understanding peaceful coexistence, on our economy, an attack, at the end of the day, on tolerance between peoples and ideas.
The European response has for once been fast and immediate in the case of this Parliament.
The response of the Commission and the Council has also been quick, as Commissioner Patten has just reminded us with regard to the mission by the Troika.
This is a response that should be firm, forceful, proportionate and selective, in cooperation with the United Nations, and which requires political, military and police measures by the intelligence, diplomatic, legal and economic services which have, in one form or another, already been or are in the process of being adopted.
These must be measures that can be adopted and upheld in the short, medium and long term.
I have to remind you that the magnitude and gravity of events is such that the decisions taken here a few days ago that have still not been implemented have already been superseded by events.
I remember several opinions expressed here by various speakers on the occasion of the Watson report on the European Union search and arrest order just three weeks ago.
Mr Massoud, who came to visit us a short while ago, has been assassinated and so will not be able to see to fruition the objectives he spoke to us about here in Parliament.
As a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation I would call for the implementation of a major humanitarian aid programme that must be put in place immediately to help the millions of displaced persons and refugees in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries in the region.
The humanitarian disaster that is on the horizon could be of a greater scale than any that has taken place in the past as a result of human barbarity.
I shall conclude, Madam President, by stating that the fight against poverty in the world, that we have highlighted on numerous occasions, is now particularly relevant and that we should make it one of our top priorities if we want to solve this problem in the short, medium and long term.
Madam President, the terrible pictures from New York exactly three weeks ago today have entered our souls to stay.
The speedy declarations of solidarity by Europe and the NATO allies have not been forgotten.
Now that the USA has demonstrated that it is not engaging in cowboy politics, but is giving very serious consideration to every step in the fight against the terrorists, we must not leave it to later to convey our thanks and appreciation across the Atlantic.
But what is being done in comparison?
Take us in Germany as an example: we find fault with the USA and make so bold as to set up rules of conduct.
We are already distancing ourselves from the USA, and an objectionable anti-Americanism occasionally puts in an appearance.
As a German European, I am ashamed of this, bearing in mind also that around 100 Germans were murdered in New York on 11 September.
I can understand why the USA, despite the announcement today that this is an issue for the Alliance as a whole, does not want, if possible, to involve its 19 NATO partners in the military counter-attack against the terrorists and their accomplices, with the exception of Great Britain.
You cannot fight and win a campaign with doubters - and I say that as an officer in the Parachute Reservists.
This is evidence of Europe's incapacity, all the more so as the wrecked twin towers in New York have their counterparts all over the EU.
Afghanistan may well be a target for the USA's counter-attack.
The inhabitants of this country battered over decades are leaving their homeland in droves, eking out an existence in refugee camps in Pakistan.
These people deserve the complete solidarity of the EU and of our Parliament.
Aid from the EU should be unbureaucratic and be given swiftly, bearing in mind that winter is very hard over there.
If we do not help now, it is to be feared that the many young refugees there will be easy prey for one fundamentalist or another.
The European Parliament should consider the advisability of sending a delegation of members of this Parliament's Committee on Development and Cooperation to Pakistan as soon as possible.
Impressions gained directly from experience are always better than voluminous reports.
Madam President, Afghanistan must be the ultimate example of a tragic and failed State and yet, in spite of this, the will exists for it to remain a unitary State across the ethnic divide.
It has now suffered 28 years of communist dictatorship, followed by fanatic Islamic theocracy, turning it into a pariah State as the Taliban harbours terrorists and executes thousands.
There are over 2 million refugees outside the country and some 5 million internally displaced persons, many of whom may flee if hostilities break out between the US and its allies and Afghanistan itself.
The World Food Programme is hampered by difficult terrain, destroyed infrastructure and Taliban policies which prevent female participation, and which have led to the arbitrary arrest of aid workers on charges of religious proselytising and a ban on communications with the outside world, so essential to an international aid programme.
In spite of this, some 218 tonnes of food got through to Kabul last week to avert a crisis.
It is clear that the West must now think of what can be done post-Taliban to bring permanent stability to the country.
Last week, with two of my fellow MEPs, I was privileged to meet in Rome, the former King of Afghanistan, who has lived in the European Union for much of his life.
We were the first Western elected politicians to visit the royal household since the crisis.
He demonstrated a supreme sense of patriotism and duty to his estranged country, and went as far as to say that he would serve Afghanistan in any capacity his people chose through their assembled tribal council, or Loya Jirga, which he has been working on for the last two years.
He confirmed that he has now received key support from the opposition United Front/Northern Alliance forces and will facilitate an internal settlement appropriate to his country.
He is the only acceptable Afghan figure who can unite all the warring factions and demonstrated the ability, when he ruled his country between 1933 and 1973, to rule constitutionally with tolerance and moderation, even using the English model of sport as a way to unite the disparate ethnic groups.
It was clear to me that Zahir Shah, in spite of his advanced age, was both cogent and fit enough to do the job, after conducting a lengthy one-and-a-half-hour interview with myself and my colleagues.
He has also wisely distanced himself from the restoration of the monarchy as an issue, leaving this to his people to decide.
I urge this House to support the King's mission in this tricky area.
Madam President, I condemn without reservation terrorism and murder.
I agree with my colleagues that there is no reason for it and no-one has a right to carry out such acts.
Terrorists choose violence rather than the ballot box, inflicting death and pain on innocent civilians, justifying their actions by flying the banner of religion, race or political sovereignty.
Islam, like other great world religions, such as Judaism and Christianity, is a way of life for over one thousand million people in this world.
These millions of Muslims, from Indonesia to Nigeria, from Central Asia to the leafy suburbs of California, knew nothing about Osama bin Laden before 11 September.
For these millions and for Islam there is no place for terrorists like him or any others, whoever they are and wherever they come from.
These terrorists have no authority to act on behalf of any people, race or religion.
Therefore, we must fight terrorism and act against terrorists, not innocent civilians who pursue their lives peacefully and who should have the freedom to believe in a religion of their choice.
Human life is precious and the death of innocent civilians, wherever it occurs, is simply not acceptable.
Reason without passion is sterile, passion without reason is heat.
Let us be firm and decisive.
Let us target terrorism: let us remove the causes that conceive, feed and sustain terrorism.
Madam President, the situation was already bad and now it is worse.
I totally agree with what has been said this afternoon on the situation of the people in Afghanistan.
We put Afghanistan on the list of so-called forgotten crises when we fixed ECHO's programme and priorities for 2001.
We had a spending level of some EUR 23 million, which would have covered the continuation until New Year of the very last activity that we were funding there.
In fact we had 29 European NGOs delivering humanitarian aid inside Afghanistan.
They were all there on 11 September.
On 11 September I was on my way to a mission to Afghanistan and to Pakistan.
I was supposed to meet Dr Masood, the Taliban leadership and to go around the whole country seeing the work of these NGOs that we are funding.
I had to cancel the trip.
The morning after, we took the train back from London to Brussels but our luggage was already in the aeroplane for Islamabad.
Now, as I said, the situation is worse.
Winter is approaching.
Winter is such a dominating feature of reality there that even in normal years military fighting more or less stops simply because getting around is so difficult.
So humanitarian aid now faces a really scary challenge.
The international staff of the different aid agencies and NGOs have all been withdrawn from the country.
However, it is very encouraging to see that the local staff is continuing to distribute food - if the food has not been taken over by the Taliban - and is still running health clinics and providing education where it is possible.
Obtaining real, true information is extremely difficult, but we can see that they are trying to keep these activities going even in this situation.
Of course the threat of an outside attack has resulted in large movements of population.
This also has the effect that we cannot rely on people accessing the different storage centres for food as they used to, because they have fled into the countryside in their millions and lost the access to food they had in the cities.
So the internal situation is extremely bad and the people who make it to the border look even weaker than they did before.
Some six million Afghanis are considered to be totally dependent on food supplies from the outside.
If no planting is possible before the winter sets in - and this is most probable - we are in for a very serious threat within less than half a year, even if things work out well in terms of stability.
The very logistics of what is needed down the line, even on the basis of the best case scenario, pose a formidable challenge.
We have supported the different UN organisations very actively, and participated at the meeting of the Afghan support group in Berlin on 27 September.
The UN has launched a UN-donor alert in support of emergency assistance.
The alert calls for some USD 580 million from now until March next year to ensure that delivery of humanitarian assistance and the protection of what is estimated to be around 7.5 million Afghans.
USD 120 million is required immediately.
Funding of this appeal would, in fact, seem to be less of a problem than the overall question of accessibility to internally displaced people and refugees.
There are conflicting views in the discussion as to whether emphasis should be placed on keeping the additional migratory flows within Afghanistan or on encouraging Pakistan and Iran to open their borders, as the UNHCR intends to do.
My personal analysis of this is that we are only able to influence the choice of these people to a very small degree.
Things may happen and we will have to be very flexible in order to be able to do what we need to do as things develop.
We have never had to draw up a contingency plan with so few given elements and so many unknowns.
The need to keep food aid going was central to the discussion at this Afghan group meeting.
Everybody agreed on the urgency, but concurred that the prospects for actually delivering such aid were quite poor.
Most participants argued that food-aid distribution without the presence of expatriates could expose Afghan partners to undue risk.
My earlier reference to Afghan local staff continuing to do what they did before the expatriates had to leave relates to deliveries of existing food and other stocks.
It is a far more difficult and demanding task to manage the convoys of new supplies coming in, given the internal situation that exists today.
Things are different in the north-eastern part controlled by the Northern Alliance and in the rest of the country.
But from the humanitarian point of view it is quite evident that our activities must be targeted at the whole country.
That is how it must be.
We are using three financial tools to fund the aid to the Afghan population.
First - and this is to set the record straight - over the past ten years we have provided humanitarian aid of more than EUR 400 million to internally displaced persons in Afghanistan and refugees in neighbouring countries: ECHO funds, drought mitigation and response activities like food aid, agricultural rehabilitation, water and sanitation rehabilitation, assistance to internally displaced persons and to refugees in Pakistan, as well as prevention of displacements and support for returnees.
So this is more than just food aid.
ECHO and the organisations working with our money have managed to build up a portfolio of meaningful activities that they have been able to continue.
I add that one unfortunate international case is not representative of the situation of the 29 organisations that the Commission is funding.
It is a difficult situation but it is important to note that the organisations we are funding cannot be accused of the same kind of activity.
They were able to work with expatriates until 11 September and to build up a portfolio of activity, which I was very much looking forward to coming to see.
I pay tribute also to my predecessor in this job for laying the seeds of this kind of good cooperation with the European humanitarian NGOs.
We have, this year, committed EUR 23 million to ECHO, channelled through NGOs and different UN agencies.
As I said, this would have covered a continuation of this level of activity until the end of the year.
Then this terrible act of terrorism took place.
We reacted immediately with an additional EUR 4 million.
This is committed for action through the World Food Programme, UNHCR, and the International Red Cross.
Now our response has to go beyond this.
We will approach the budgetary authority in order to get the green light for accessing and using funds from the emergency budget reserve, as in earlier years when ECHO's normal budget did not cover the needs that arose because of terrible events.
We announced EUR 25 million a week ago in the Commission.
It will form part of this operation and be directed at the immediate situation of the refugees.
We will be asking for more money.
But this is covered by the normal procedure for accessing additional money.
The second line of support is EC aid to uprooted people.
Here we fund activities creating environments conducive to a sustainable resettlement of returnees and activities aimed at persuading people to remain in their villages.
This budget line will commit funds from October for a budget of EUR 19 million in Afghanistan, EUR 3 million in Pakistan and EUR 2 million in Iran.
Funds are channelled through Afghan NGOs and UN agencies.
The third line is EC food aid and food security.
Since the beginning of this year this line has committed 30 000 tonnes of food aid to the World Food Programme and 7 000 tonnes to NGOs.
A further EUR 7 million is now being requested by the Commission for the WFP Afghan programme.
Let me address some of the questions that have been asked.
Mrs Nicholson mentioned that we should do more through UNHCR and WHO to broaden the broad basis and improve the organisation of this assistance.
In relation also to Mr Van den Berg's remarks, from a commercial management point of view, if you will, the operation in Afghanistan is a good case of cooperation between the UN organisations and those very professional and relatively big and specialised NGOs which, for some years now, have formed part of the operation.
What we need now are operational plans for concrete action.
We hear in the media now about a convoy getting through the Khyber Pass and going north.
This is a 'pilot scheme' , so to speak, which may also progress towards Kabul and on, to try to see what is possible.
But there is no overall plan in place; this was a response to the UNHCR proposals in the discussion with donors for better planning so as to know what to do and not be burdened down with red tape, as Mr Knolle called it.
This is not the problem.
I would go as far as to say that in general this is not the problem with our work in the humanitarian aid area.
Please keep in mind that the totality of ECHO's budget is used every year and this year we are coming to you asking for more because of this situation.
The red tape here is minimal.
Protection was mentioned.
Here we are in a terrible dilemma.
We cannot push those voluntary organisations that work with our money into doing something that goes beyond what they want to do.
On the other hand, we have a problem as a funder, for example if they want to do something very daring that may get them into trouble and we just do what we can on the issue of security, no questions asked.
Chechnya is a case in point; the Russians are still denying our NGOs access to radios, and this is a real problem for the safety of the people there.
This is a balancing act and the responsibility that we have as the funder of the activity goes far into the issue of security.
Again, working with the UN is partly an answer to this, but working to deliver humanitarian aid now to the Taliban-controlled part of Afghanistan under some sort of armed protection is not an option.
There has to be a very open humanitarian mode of operation where suspicion about how one moves around in their country is not a factor.
But this is extremely difficult.
I agree with what Mrs Frahm and Mrs Bonino said about the situation of women.
This is the most extreme version of a denial and violation of human rights apparent to us.
It is part of the conflict that they are in the midst of, and one would hope that sanity emerges after what we are about to go through now.
Mr Belder mentioned the export of drugs.
It should in all objectivity be noted that the Taliban has made an incredible effort to reduce the production of opium and this may be one of the best cases globally that we have seen where they have done what the international community would like to see done.
It reflects a totally different agenda, but has in fact taken place, and so I believed I should mention it.
As regards Mr Morillon's reference to the deceased leader of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Masood, we have no better answer than the one very well presented by Commissioner Patten as our view of the need for a comprehensive sort of basis for shaping the future of Afghanistan.
This is the line to take.
Mr Morillon also asked me if I had the determination and the means to do what must be done.
We are relying on the international aid organisations to do what needs to be done on the ground.
We have not been hesitant in mobilising funds and are actively participating in the region with the people representing ECHO who are permanently stationed there.
We are participating in the debate on how to organise things and to understand the situation as much as possible.
In response to Mr Staes, consideration for the countries in the Central Asian region bordering Afghanistan to the north will be part of the package I mentioned and we are discussing resources in addition to the EUR 25 million that we have publicly mentioned.
In respect of the dialogue with the budgetary authority, we are not releasing figures other than this EUR 25 million, but this will be an element in that package which we will be coming back to quite soon.
Thank you for your patience.
This is an extremely demanding situation.
I see this as something that demonstrates to us that, looking back on the history of our own experiment in Europe, we got organised to do what needed to be done in Europe after the Second World War and we did it.
The problem we are discussing here today and the challenges it involves tell us that Europe now needs to get organised and find a way of achieving what the world needs to achieve.
Thank you.
The debate is closed.
Guidelines for the trans-European transport network
The next item is the Commission communication on Guidelines for the trans-European transport network.
I now give the floor to Mrs Loyola de Palacio, on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in its meeting today, the College of Commissioners adopted a proposed review of the trans-European transport networks, as well as the review of the Financial Regulation, which allows for a doubling of the Community funding in these projects, up to a level of 20% of those projects.
The trans-European transport network has been the backbone of our internal market since it was introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht and, thanks to the guidelines which we jointly adopted in 1996, the European Union has a structure of networks of European interest which allows the interconnection of our regions and aids the mobility of people and goods.
These trans-European networks are Europe' s first attempt since Roman times to treat its infrastructures in a truly global and integrated fashion.
The review we are proposing today attempts to update the development of this system and add new priority projects which respond to the problems of the challenges which our common transport policy has raised in recent years.
The liberalisation of transport systems and the increase in demand for mobility have caused an imbalance between the different modes of transport and have contributed to the creation of bottlenecks in certain areas of our infrastructures.
Both the Gothenburg Summit and the Transport White Paper adopted on 12 September have identified these failings and have demanded that the Commission implement urgent measures to overcome them.
In today' s proposal, the Commission recommends including amongst the priority projects, as well as the so-called Essen projects, eight new rail, combined transport, inland waterways and intelligent transport - specifically the GALILEO project - networks and withdrawing three of the initial projects which have now been completed.
The new projects would be: first, a rail crossing for the Pyrenees which would overcome the natural obstacle which separates the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of the continent.
Second, the high speed train, East-west combined transport, from Paris to Vienna, which will later be extended to Budapest and will complete our network by opening the door to enlargement.
Third, the navigability of the Danube between Straubing and Vilshofen, which will connect the North Sea to the Black Sea, thereby improving the interconnection between the Danube and the Rhine.
Fourth, the GALILEO satellite positioning system, which has been recognised as a priority by successive European Councils and by this House.
Fifth, the road connection between Germany and Denmark via Fehmarn according to the Oresund model, which will improve interconnection between the Nordic countries and the rest of the continent.
Sixth, the high speed rail interoperability of the Iberian network, by adapting it to the track gauge of the rest of the European continent, which will ease sky and land congestion.
Seventh, the extension of the Brenner project from Munich to Verona, as far as Naples, adding the Bologna-Milan line.
Eighth, the extension of the high speed train south as far as Nîmes, which provides a connection between the north and south of Europe.
The necessary global investment for these projects, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, will amount to more than EUR 66 000 million which must clearly be financed essentially through national, regional, private, public and also, where necessary, Community funds.
Geographically, they involve the whole of our territory and they will have a decisive impact on the competitiveness of our economy.
This review also includes in the trans-European networks certain minor technical modifications of existing projects which were left outstanding after the conciliation of the package of guidelines in 1996.
In the Transport White Paper, we committed ourselves to this review, which is the most urgent priority, being followed in 2004 by another which will include in more detail the projects of the new countries of the Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, it would be premature to do so now since, despite the preparatory work, which has made good progress, there is a lack of important information which we will only be able to obtain during the final phase of enlargement.
This Parliament will therefore examine the next review and this is a political commitment which I reconfirm to this House.
Mr President, I am very pleased to fulfil through this work the mandates of the Council and the new requirements of our common transport policy.
Now that the White Paper and the review of the trans-European networks have been presented, I trust and hope, within the framework of codecision, that this Parliament will make its contributions, the added value of which is evident.
Ladies and gentlemen, I know that, while this has been approved today by the Commission, there are currently other topical realities, specifically the consequences for the airline industry of the events of 11 September, which you will possibly be concerned about.
Of course, I will answer any question which you may ask me on this subject.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, thank you for giving us this interim report now.
We are dissatisfied with the Member States, which have practically left you in the lurch over the last eighteen months.
The interim report on trans-European transport networks has been overdue since 1999.
We thank you for presenting it now.
So, to our first question: in your report, you make it clear that you want to add new elements, but that you also want to insist on existing projects which the Member States are still working on - such as the Brenner Tunnel - now at last being finished.
I would therefore ask you how we are together to ensure, even with a possible change to the financial arrangements, that older projects as important as the Brenner Tunnel, but also new ones such as the Franco-Spanish link across the Pyrenees, or the fixed Femarn Belt link between Denmark and Germany actually get built?
Madam Vice-President, you have already alluded to my second question: when are you going to expound to us in committee or in this House what your policy will be on combating new competition in the form of subsidised air travel?
Alternatively, the question arises of how the airlines can be helped after the tragic events of 11 September.
Mr President, I think we can agree wholeheartedly with the Commissioner's main remarks.
I can endorse what Mr Jarzembowski said. I would, however, like to ask the Commissioner, whether she is able to concur with our view that we can learn from our experiences to date with the Trans-European Networks.
One insight we have gained, for example, is that when the Heads of State and Government decide upon a list, it is not necessarily better than a list of priorities drawn up by Parliament.
Might we perhaps put this experience to use? In any case, I find the Commissioner's approach in the White Paper, concentrating on rail and waterways, very much worthy of support.
The issue there is whether or not we should check all the financing instruments, not only the money we have for the TEN, with that in mind.
For if it is only in the TEN that priority is given to rail and waterways, then the other funds - for example the Cohesion Fund and others - will have to be looked at and checked with a view to their perhaps taking these new priorities into account as well for the sake of consistency.
Those are my two questions.
Commissioner, a moment ago, you listed a number of projects which will be followed up, for example the high-speed link from Paris-Vienna-Budapest eastwards, and making the Danube navigable.
I wonder whether the latter actually falls within the scope of such a thing as establishing trans-European networks.
I can understand why its repair would come under its scope, in a manner of speaking, for there is already a link there at the moment.
That was my first question.
Secondly, it has become increasingly clear to me that with regard to links within the candidate countries, requests are mainly made for north-south links, and not only for east-west links from Europe and beyond.
My question is therefore whether there are currently any plans to set up more north-south links in the present candidate countries?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your questions.
Firstly, I will reply to Mr Jarzembowski.
It seems to me extremely urgent that we present to Parliament and the Council a new system of charging for infrastructures and, in particular, a modification of the current 'Euro-disc' directive with regard to the funding of road infrastructures.
In this proposed new funding of infrastructures we will undoubtedly consider, amongst other things, that infrastructures should meet not only the costs of their own maintenance or construction, but also the so-called external costs, in accordance with the Costa report which was approved by this Parliament.
We are talking about costs such as congestion, accidents and certain environmental costs, which are clearly definable and quantifiable.
Furthermore, in this proposal we will introduce the possibility that in certain cases - I insist, not as a habitual system, but in certain exceptional cases such as the Brenner tunnel or certain large projects which involve very costly work with a significant environmental impact that must be reduced as far as possible - the so-called Swiss model may be applied in the European Union as well, that is to say that tolls, or part of a toll from an existing infrastructure be used to create a fund to finance the construction of an alternative rail infrastructure.
This is a fundamental issue.
It is by means of these formulae that we hope the most important projects for the structuring of the whole of European territory may be carried out.
Secondly, you are going to analyse the projects that appear here in the codecision procedure.
I wish to say that the fact the project appears in the trans-European networks allows the European Union to promote the idea that States - who in the end have to make the great investments - or regions should also plan their large-scale works not on the basis of national interest, but in the interest of trans-European interconnection and hence with a cross-border vision.
This is why I said that, since Roman times, the trans-European networks initiative is really the first rational proposal of this type.
It will be made possible by providing co-funding, up to a current maximum of 10%.
If the proposals being made here are approved this may go up to 20% for certain particularly important and costly projects, because appearing on these trans-European networks eases access to funding by the European Bank.
Lastly, I will say to Mr Bouwman that, in this new proposal, we incorporate not only the North-south routes, which are the ones that have essentially been included in the other trans-European networks, because they were the most necessary, but also the East-west routes, above all the basic Paris-Stuttgart-Vienna route, which will eventually provide a link with Budapest; we also incorporate the Danube and its best communication with the Rhine, creating a south-east-northeast route which crosses the whole of the Union.
There is no doubt that the 2004 review, when the new countries of the Union will also be integrated, will stress this East-west component even more, without forgetting the North-south, which must always be maintained, in any event.
Exactly, Madam Vice-President, we must not lose sight of the North or of the South. Sometimes, in Spain, we say that we should not lose sight of the North, that is to say we should not lose our way, but, on the other hand, we should neither lose sight of the South.
So that there are no doubts, I will now tell you the order in which you will take the floor.
The first group of three will comprise Mr Ripoll, Mr Izquierdo and Mrs Langenhagen; the second, Mr Varela, Mr Savary and Mr Rübig.
And following the reply of the Vice-President, we shall pass on to another item.
Mr Ripoll therefore has the floor.
Madam Vice-President, I would like to thank you for being here and ask you two very brief and specific questions.
Firstly, could you confirm that the whole of the Spanish high-speed network is included in the trans-European networks? And secondly, if the answer is yes, what are the scope and consequences of its incorporation for European infrastructure and from a Spanish point of view?
Mr President, Commissioner, the merit of providing information quickly is to achieve an effect of surprise when giving good news.
And I must congratulate you on the news you have brought us today, which was directly related to my first budgetary question, which I now have to adapt.
However, I would like to stress the importance I attach to moving from 10% to 20% in the projects.
My question is, 'how have you done it?' . Because this action is of interest to us in terms of future actions and requests by this Parliament.
So where did you get that 10% from? Can the same be expected for other modes of transport?
Secondly, the environmental impact.
When you appeared before us in 1999, at your hearing as a candidate for Commissioner, you said that you would pay very close attention to the environmental impact.
Do you intend to maintain this level of attention in relation to these projects and not be mechanically subject to the will of the States, which normally incorporate truly harmful environmental effects into some of these areas?
Thirdly, we have still not been able to digest the projects which you have just mentioned to us, but I would like to ask you a question with no ill intention, but simply so that we may know your initial opinion: do you think that your proposal tackles the problems of the peripheral regions and is therefore of a cohesive nature?
Mr President, I believe that the terrible experiences in America are causing the European satellite navigation system, GALILEO to be looked at from a new political and economic angle.
The Member States have in the past supported this good initiative of theirs only with reluctance.
Do you believe that there is now a new readiness on the part of the Member States to implement GALILEO without delay?
Mr President, the whole of the European gauge high speed network of the Iberian Peninsula is, in fact, included in the networks.
There is going to be an enormous effort to integrate the Iberian Peninsula with the European rail network and this will bring about such interoperability, thereby making rail transport - for both people and goods - a genuine alternative to other types of transport.
Secondly, what I have just said will clearly serve to integrate the Iberian Peninsula more with the rest of the European Union, just as the Rhine-Rhone project or the Paris-Stuttgart-Linz-Vienna, and, later, Budapest, rail project will serve to integrate the East with the rest of the current European Union.
The same can be said of the link between the Scandinavian Peninsula and the European continent by means of the new alternative connection to the Oresund Bridge, to the Oresund connection, which is also approved in the new plans.
Therefore, Mr Izquierdo Collado, it does serve to integrate the peripheral areas with the centre and, in this respect, it is cohesive.
As for the aforementioned 10% and 20% thresholds, these are financing possibilities.
It does not mean that 10% or 20% will be granted.
There are times when 5% is granted and is the maximum limit.
Second issue.
We will have to see whether the Council and Parliament support it.
Third issue.
It works for all modes of transport, because these trans-European networks do not only include the elements I have indicated.
Generically, there is the interconnection between ports and their adjacent land area, that is, rail interconnections, land interconnections, the intermodal interconnection not only of the sea ports but also of river ports, the modal interconnections between rail and airport, for interconnection with the air sector, and the interconnection between rail and road, essentially in the freight sector.
In other words, there is another series of generic elements that I have not expanded upon, which are also included in these networks.
In particular, we have to solve the problem of bottlenecks.
In the case of bottlenecks, with much less action in terms of budget, we can achieve multiplier effects.
Ten per cent of the road network and 20% of the rail network is affected by habitual bottlenecks.
This does not mean that 20% of the rail network is a bottleneck.
But there are problem points within this rail network that eventually effect 20% of the European rail network.
Of course, we will try to ensure that funding is at the maximum level in these cases.
In relation to environmental impact, I maintain what has been said before.
We have prepared all of this in common agreement with the department of Mrs Wallström and with the Commission' s Directorate-General for the Environment and we have agreed that we will continue to work jointly on its implementation and promotion.
Mrs Langenhagen, we are going to hold a debate in relation to GALILEO.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are aware of my personal interest in this project, which I believe to be crucial in terms of European Union strategy.
In my personal opinion - although it is shared by the Services and by the Commission as a whole - what happened on 11 September gives us all the more reason to move ahead with this project.
Clearly, not all of the applications that increasingly depend on the American global positioning system can rely on a single system.
We need a second system that will complement and strengthen the current system, which is the American one.
It is not a question of competing with the Americans. It is a question of participating, together with the Americans, in order to make the whole system more secure.
In any event, you know that Council will have to give its definitive opinion on these issues at its last meeting in December and I hope that on that occasion we will finally clear up any ambiguities and doubts once and for all and we will move ahead with a project which is essential to the future of the European Union.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner and congratulate her on having appeared so quickly before this House to give us this important information today.
Although she gave a general reply earlier in relation to Spain, I would like, if you will permit me, to ask about a specific aspect which has a lot to do with peripheral regions, or rather the most peripheral of the peripheral regions - the Galician Finisterre.
I would like to ask you whether these new guidelines approved by the Commission, in relation to Spain and the high speed railway, include connections with the Autonomous Community of Galicia and, if so, whether you can explain how.
Thank you, Commissioner, for this new information on the trans-European networks.
I should like to mention one issue, and at the same time take the opportunity to say that I welcome the fact that it has been included, and that is the crossing of the Pyrenees.
It is an issue that has received much less media attention than the Alps, but it is probably a more critical one.
Even now, the number of heavyweight vehicles which cross the Pyrenees every day between the Iberian peninsula and France is greater than the number crossing the Alps.
We shall therefore be faced with the development of a very critical situation, because infrastructures on the Atlantic side are lagging behind.
As for the actual crossing, or central railway tunnel, I believe that this is a very good thing, but we must not forget that this tunnel will certainly not be constructed in the short term, since the Lyon-Turin tunnel and the Brenner tunnel have to be built first.
I would like to make a personal plea - and I would like to hear your opinions on the subject - for emergency structures at either end of the Pyrenees, particular between the Basque Country and the Atlantic coast.
It seems to me that it is there, first of all, because that is where the people and the activities are, that we shall free the bottleneck in the road and rail routes leading to the Iberian peninsula.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, thank you for your initiative.
The citizens want enlargement to build visible bridges.
The Slovak government seeks a bridge in the form of the joining of Vienna and Bratislava airports into a mega-airport with a 'Transrapid' rail line to improve transport links.
This could well be the first stage of the Paris-Vienna route you have mentioned.
I believe it would be a very important initiative to take it onward as far as Budapest.
We also have, however, the shipping junction on the Danube, and in the long run this would become a triple junction.
Do you think this programme could also facilitate the financing of junctions of this sort?
Mr President, many thanks to Mr Varela.
If we are talking about the Galician stretches of the high speed network, yes, they are included, as are the interconnections with Portugal, insofar as, I insist, it involves adapting and modifying these constructions in accordance with the European gauge, whether they be new lines or adaptations of existing lines, and I should like to make this clear.
Furthermore, there is another series of projects which affect that part of Europe, such as issues relating to ports and other issues that I will not go into now.
Mr Savary, I fully share your concern about the Pyrenees.
When, as the person responsible for transport in the European Union, I look at a map to see what is happening, I see a barrier, a wall, with a pass on the right of the map, on the far eastern side, and another on the left, in the west, and in between there is nothing.
There is no railway.
It now seems that there is going to be a pass at Canfranc but, for the moment, there are just those two passes.
The Commission believes that, between now and 2010, we must provide a pass for a further 100 million tonnes between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of the European continent.
We must now begin to discuss, prepare and work on a rail project that will create a great Pyrenean pass, not at the western or eastern extremes, but at the most central part; that will go further than the contribution of the possible creation of the Canfranc pass; that will create a truly significant rail route for goods.
We are talking about high figures.
As you say, undoubtedly both the Spanish and the French governments will have to consider alternatives, because for that great central Pyrenean pass we are talking in terms of around 2015 to 2020, that is, in 15-20 years time, and this type of project has to be planned that far in advance and they have to be dealt with and initiated within that timescale.
Apart from that, in any event, one of the Essen projects is still under way, which included the Basque 'Y' , which also involves a European gauge link via that entrance to the Iberian Peninsula.
I would like to say to Mr Rübig that the Vienna-Bratislava motorway is included in the projects (I have not mentioned it because it is a lesser issue), which includes the stretch of that motorway within Austrian territory.
A rail interconnection is not envisaged at the moment, but I would like to say that all of these aspects will clearly have to be looked at with care for the 2004 review, when enlargement has taken place, at least its first stage, if there are to be more stages.
Thank you very much, Madam Vice-President.
That concludes this item on the agenda.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Questions to the Commission (B5-0333/2001).
We are not going to have an hour and a half. We are going to have an hour and a quarter at the most.
I would therefore ask Members to cooperate so that we can get through as many questions as possible.
Mr Vitorino represents the Commission.
Part I
Question No 27 by (H-0700/01):
Subject: Illegal immigration into the European Union through Morocco What measures will the Commission propose in order to regulate illegal immigration through Morocco, with a view to preventing any recurrence of the kind of tragic events which occurred this summer in Community waters?
I am grateful for your explanations, but I wanted to stress the urgency of the issue.
Specifically, this summer thirty or forty people, that we know of, have drowned as a result of the operation of these illegal immigration networks.
It is calculated that last year four or five thousand people drowned trying to cross the stretch which separates Morocco from Spain.
I would therefore like to repeat the question, Commissioner, of whether there is any possibility that, without waiting for the result of the Barcelona process and the broader renegotiations on association, we can reach a very practical agreement in terms of policing and control so that the Moroccan authorities may prevent these deaths, which are reaching frightening proportions.
Mr President, I fully agree with Mr Medina' s belief that we are facing a human tragedy, that we cannot expect an ideal solution and that we will have to discover the solution as we progress.
In order to progress, however, the two sides must agree on the mechanisms to be applied.
This is something which is yet to reach a point which I consider acceptable.
We therefore have great hopes that at the Association Council next week progress can be made on the identification of specific cooperation mechanisms, including police cooperation on border control.
In any event, I would like to stress that in 2001 a very substantial proportion of the budgetary line which I mentioned has been dedicated to actions for cooperation with Morocco, increasing that country' s administrative capacity in the management of illegal immigration, which is not just a human problem: it is a political problem, especially for Spain.
But it is also a problem for Morocco, because Morocco is today a transit country in which there are many sub-Saharan illegal immigrants, with very harmful social consequences for Morocco.
I believe that after next week we will have better cooperation perspectives, which I hope will be the result of the meeting of the Association Council.
Question No 28 by (H-0730/01):
Subject: Release of Mr Albin Kurti and other Kosovars still being held hostage by the Belgrade authorities Of some 2000 Kosovars who were kidnapped and held hostage by the military and paramilitary forces belonging to the regime then in place in Belgrade in the days leading up to the international police operation in Kosovo more than 28 months ago, 229 are still being held in Serb prisons.
One hundred of them are being held for common law offences, while the remaining 129, including the student leader Arbin Kurti, are being held for their convictions or for 'political' offences.
In February 2001 the Serb and Yugoslav parliaments passed an amnesty law allowing the release of 30 000 Serbs and some 400 Kosovars.
At the end of April 2001, 143 prisoners were released from Jakova prison.
The Serb judicial authorities had stated that the cases of the remaining Kosovar prisoners would be the subject of a rapid judicial review followed by release.
Despite these commitments given by the Belgrade authorities, however, and despite the Council and Commission's repeated promises to intervene forcefully in order to put an end to this intolerable situation, the matter has still not been resolved.
Has the Commission decided no longer to consider it a priority to resolve this issue? If not, what initiatives will it take in order finally to bring about the immediate release of Arbin Kurti and the 129 Kosovar hostages and the transfer of the 100 Kosovar prisoners still being held in Serbia for common law offences to the UNMNIK, which is the only competent body in this connection?
The European Commission remains concerned by this issue and I can assure the honourable Member that we are taking every available opportunity to exert appropriate pressure on those in a position to take decisions on this issue.
As the honourable Member recognises, considerable progress has already been made and we welcome this.
The remaining prisoners' cases are being reviewed and where convictions cannot be supported by evidence the prisoners are released.
Where there are grounds for conviction, appeals are being launched.
The ICRC monitors the condition of individual prisoners and maintains contact with their families.
As regards the transfers of prisoners from detention in Serbia to the United Nations' Mission's facilities in Kosovo, this matter is being discussed by the appropriate authorities.
Simultaneous reform of the judiciary with the help and advice of international organisations, such as the Council of Europe and the OSCE, which are now both present in Belgrade, is under way.
The rule of law and respect for minority rights are key conditions applying to relations with and assistance for the Former Republic of Yugoslavia and its neighbours.
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you.
Having said that, however, I should point out a certain number of things.
On numerous occasions, your colleagues at the Commission have talked about priority with regard to the transferring of the Kosovar hostages from Serbia to Kosovo.
They did so when the criminal Milosevic was still in power.
That was almost a year ago, and there has been a change of regime in Belgrade, so it is even more incomprehensible that these problems have still not been solved.
You talk about grounds for conviction, you talk about appeal procedures, but it has been established and confirmed, by this Parliament itself, that the Belgrade authorities were not competent, that only UNMIK was competent to deal with these cases, that the transfer had therefore already been accomplished, in law, and it was simply a matter of implementing it, and that has been the case for the past two years, Commissioner.
Well, that is quite a long time for us, but I think it is an extremely long time for those who are still incarcerated in the gaols of Belgrade.
In the case of Mr Arbin Kurti in particular, who was a student leader, I really do not understand what objections or other factors can still be preventing his transfer.
.
(FR) On specific cases, I would say that direct responsibility for monitoring trials lies with the ICRC.
The Commission raises the question from a general political viewpoint, and I can assure the honourable Member that when speaking to the authorities of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia we have always urged the need for decisions to be taken as quickly as possible.
I must emphasise that there are some cases in which crimes have been committed.
In those cases, it is up to the law to decide what should be the fate of the accused, to charge them and to launch appeals so that justice will prevail in the end.
As far as political relations are concerned, I can assure the honourable Member that we have never ceased to urge a rapid resolution of all the situations that are being assessed, and I must point out that some progress has been made, but of course, any period of time is too long when one has been charged with an offence, especially when the charge is unjust, and the Commission, for its part, will continue to urge as rapid a solution as possible in those situations which are still being assessed.
Question 29 by (H-0737/01):
Subject: Trials in Kabul The trial began in early September before an Islamic court in Kabul, Afghanistan, of four citizens of a Member State of the Union, Germany, together with two US and two Australian citizens, all of whom are aid workers with Shelter Now International.
In accordance with the Islamic law of the country, the prosecutor is demanding the death penalty for conducting Christian missionary activities.
At the same time, 16 Afghan citizens have been charged with converting from Islam to the Christian faith, for which the prosecutor is also demanding the death penalty in accordance with the Islamic law of Afghanistan.
What representations has the European Union made to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to secure respect for the legal rights of all the accused and their protection in the context of the European Union's endeavours to promote religious freedom as an integral part of human rights, as enshrined in the UN Charter, the Council of Europe Convention and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the German government has specifically requested that the European Union should neither adopt positions nor take action in relation to the eight humanitarian aid organisation workers, specifically from the 'Shelter Now International' non-governmental organisation, who are currently on trial in Kabul, in Afghanistan, accused of attempting to convert Afghan Muslims to the Christian religion.
The governments of the three countries whose nationals are involved in this situation, Germany, Australia and the United States of America, have decided to act jointly at this stage and have stated that they would prefer to find solutions to this problem on a strictly bilateral level.
The honourable Member will be aware that the trial of these eight people is under way.
Given the current situation and climate, the Commission does not consider it to be appropriate, or even helpful, to make any further comment on this situation, since the decision must fall to the governments of the nationals involved. I can assure you, however, that both the Commission and all of the European Union' s Member States will, of course, continue to follow developments carefully and closely.
Mr President, I do not think that the honourable Member can doubt my position or that of the Commission on the death penalty or on freedom of religion.
If he had the opportunity to hear what I said, for example, in the debates on the European Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights, he will find the answer there, not only in rhetoric, but also in clear and unequivocal laws.
I admit that we do not have any specific information on the situation of the sixteen Afghans to whom he refers. Apparently, however, these sixteen Afghans will be committed to trial at a later date, in other words, not at the same time that the eight citizens of Germany, the United States and Australia are to be tried.
We support, of course, the statement by the troika, the 'Afghan Support Group' , a joint contact group, currently chaired by Germany which has issued an unequivocal statement of support for these non-governmental organisation workers, whether they be citizens of the States I have mentioned or Afghans caught up in this situation.
Thank you very much for your presence and participation in this Question Time, Mr Vitorino.
We will move on to the second part.
We have twenty minutes per Commissioner, not a minute more.
A very good afternoon, Mr Bolkestein.
Part II
Questions to Commissioner Bolkestein
Question No 30 by (H-0707/01):
Subject: Community trade mark courts When is action going to be taken against Member States which have not set up courts and tribunals to deal with matters relating to the Community trade mark?
Mr President, since the honourable Member, Mr Berenguer Fuster, raised a similar question last December, the Commission has addressed a letter of formal notice to Spain, France, Luxembourg, Italy and Greece in which it recalled the need to fulfil obligations regarding the designation of Community Trade mark courts.
The Greek authorities have informed the Commission that the relevant regulation, which designates the courts of justice for Community Trade marks, was approved in September.
France has stated that a decree on this matter will be approved before 31 October 2001.
The Commission services are currently checking this information.
As regards the three remaining Member States, Spain, Luxembourg and Italy, the Commission does not yet have any information proving that these Member States have adopted the necessary provisions.
The Commission is, therefore, considering launching infringement proceedings for failure to comply with Community law according to Article 226 of the EC Treaty.
Thank you for your information, Commissioner.
I am obviously referring to the case of Spain, since I clearly do not have sufficient knowledge of the cases of Italy and Luxembourg.
On 13 December 2000 the Commissioner responded to me in saying that, in the case where there was no satisfactory response, the Commission would open an infringement procedure in accordance with Article 226 of the Treaty.
Today you have told us that the Commission has no news of these three countries including Spain which, to make matters worse, is the location of the headquarters of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market, having begun any procedure to create what they committed themselves to, and that they have been non-compliant since November 1996.
If this is the case, if it was already taking place a year ago, if there has been no satisfactory response for almost a year, why is the Commission waiting to begin the infringement procedure?
I can well imagine the impatience, or shall I say irritation, of Mr Berenguer Fuster with the fact that the government of his country has not yet taken the desired steps in order to set up this court.
Indeed, it is true that this is an infringement.
May I point out that the Commission does not hesitate to pursue infringement proceedings, but only, as the Latin expression goes, as an ultimum remedium; in other words, only when all the avenues and possibilities of settling matters in an amicable way have been exhausted does the Commission take that step.
I take Mr Berenguer Fuster's point that his own patience, like that of the Commission, is close to being exhausted.
We shall indeed do what he proposes, and what the Commission is also intending to do.
Let us make a last effort to convince the Spanish government - particularly in view of the upcoming presidency, when it would not do if the Commission were to open such proceedings - to do so now before the Commission takes that ultimate step.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions No 31 and 32 will be taken together.
Question No 31 by (H-0728/01):
Subject: Letter of notification concerning implementation of Directive 89/48/EEC in Greece In reply to my question E-1336/01 on the recognition of diplomas under Directive 89/48/EEC in Greece, the Commissioner responsible, Mr Bolkestein, stated, among other things that 'A Commission decision on the matter is expected in the coming months, and in any case in autumn, following some supplementary details that may need to be checked with the Greek authorities.'
In fact, the press reported on 9 August 2001 that the Commission had sent a letter of notification to Greece which identified a problem with the Presidential Decree transposing Directive 89/48/EEC into Greek law.
What are the legal arguments on which the Commission bases its view that the failure to recognise diplomas awarded by educational establishments of another Member State under 'franchise' agreements in Greece is contrary to the Community Directive, and on which points is the Presidential Decree transposing Directive 89/48/EEC in Greece inconsistent with that Directive? Has the Greek government answered the points set out in the letter of notification or are there any indications as to what its legal arguments might be?
Question No 32 by (H-0750/01):
Subject: Implementation of Directive 89/48/EEC in Greece The Court of Justice of the European Communities has ruled against Greece for its failure to implement Community Directive 89/48/EEC on a general system for the recognition of higher-education diplomas awarded on completion of professional education and training of at least three years' duration.
Will the Commission say whether Greece has complied with the judgment of the Court and, if not, what steps it intends to take to bring Greek law into line with Community legislation?
I should like to make a point of thanking the Commissioner for what was a very detailed reply, including from the technical point of view.
All that remains to be seen is what the government's response will be to the Commission's move.
As the Commissioner knows, I have raised this matter on numerous occasions, I should just like to inform him that the Minister of Education's public response is that I am asking the wrong questions of the wrong Commissioner and obtaining the wrong replies.
So now I am waiting to see what the Greek government's response will be.
However, my question to the Commissioner is this: why confine ourselves solely to the psychology profession and, more to the point, to psychologists who have graduated from French universities when numerous complaints have been lodged with the Commission by other disciplines and by students studying in other faculties and graduating from foreign universities, even though they have taken part of their course in Greece?
I can assure Mr Alavanos that the Commission has looked at this whole issue in the broadest possible sense and has not confined itself to the matter of psychologists.
The basic issue is the question of whether a degree awarded by another Member State, following a course of studies which takes place physically in Greece, is or is not assimilated to a similar degree issued in Greece itself following studies at a Greek university.
So it is the equivalence between a purely Greek degree and a degree awarded by a university of another Member State, but where the study has been undertaken at a Greek establishment.
That assimilation, that equality is the purpose of Directive 89/48, to which I have referred at various times this afternoon.
The Commission is taking that into consideration and has asked Greece to explain why that directive has not been transposed and applied accordingly.
The directive does not confine itself to psychologists and, to that extent, I can assure Mr Alavanos that his fears are unfounded.
Commissioner, as I am sure you are aware, the question at issue is not a question which just concerns a few citizens in Greece, it concerns thousands of graduates from European universities whom the Greek State sends abroad to study, because we have what to me is a crazy educational system, and then refuses to recognise their qualifications.
This question in fact concerns several thousand young people who are denied a career because of the mindset of the Greek State.
This being the case, I should like to say that I welcome your finding that the Court's judgment is not being applied properly and, because the Greek public is listening to what we have to say, to ask you: if the Greek government continues to take this view, what are the legal implications? What will the Commission's next move be?
Just so that our citizens know where they stand.
I am very conscious of the fact that the number of young people involved is large.
I must confess I have not counted them, but if Mr Hatzidakis says that thousands of young people are affected, then I am certain he is right.
That underlines the importance of this issue.
Whether the educational system is absurd is a qualification I must leave for Mr Hatzidakis.
I am sure he has political friends in his country who can raise this matter in the national parliament of Greece.
But we are in the European Parliament.
It is quite right that Mr Hatzidakis draws our attention to this untoward state of affairs and I thank him for his contribution to our debate.
As regards the legal instruments, as I said earlier in my reply to Mr Alavanos, the Commission will use all the legal instruments at its disposal.
The Commission has no particular desire to take Member States to court but if European law is not respected then it has no alternative.
Therefore I say to both Mr Hatzidakis and Mr Alavanos that, if the Greek government does not apply the rules correctly, as should be the case, the Commission will, in a well-considered and very deliberate manner, make use of the instruments it has and start legal proceedings.
Question No 33 by (H-0738/01):
Subject: Illegal car taxation in Finland In 1998 the Commission asked Finland to amend its system of car and motorcycle taxation.
Commission officials have admitted that Finland has in fact failed to remove the discrimination to any significant degree.
Most recently, in September 2001, Parliament' s Committee on Petitions received a petition signed by me and 17 000 of my compatriots, demanding an overhaul of the illegal tax regime.
Finland has been an EU Member since 1995; when will the Commission take action to force it to toe the line and start implementing single market rules as interpreted by the European Court of Justice?
Will the Commission take independent legal action, because waiting for new rulings by the Court of Justice will hardly bring any additional clarity especially after the recent ruling on Portugal (C-393/98)?
The tax on removal vehicles also hinders people' s freedom to move within the Community.
Will the Commission see to it that this illegality is remedied in the near future?
Questions to Commissioner Verheugen
Mr President, my answer is as follows.
The Commission is currently considering initiating a procedure against Finland under Article 226 of the Treaty, which will supplement the one initiated in 1998.
This case will be dealt with at a Commission meeting in the near future.
The new procedure is also likely to cover problems in implementing Directive 83/183, which deals with the tax exemptions granted when people move house.
At the same time, Commission staff have written to all Member States, drawing their attention to the judgment by the Court of Justice to which Mr Vatanen' s question refers, namely the Gomez-Valente Judgment of 22 February 2001, and the Commission shares the honourable Member' s opinion that the judgment in question will have implications outside the context of the dispute in question, and will open up the way to second-hand vehicles being treated in a manner which is more in line with the requirements of the European internal market.
However, the Commission wishes to point out that the procedure intended to ensure that the above-mentioned judgment is complied with must remain independent of any other procedure which it has initiated or is intending to initiate.
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your efforts.
I feel reassured to hear your answer and I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Commission officials for their work.
Commission officials have admitted that Finland is blatantly violating Community and single-market rules.
The Finns are desperately waiting for those EU rights that they are entitled to and which they were promised.
Mr Commissioner, I hope you do not find this too heavy, but their hopes are lying on your shoulders.
We know we can count on you.
First of all I should like to thank Mr Vatanen for his very kind remarks.
I feel the weight of all those motorists in Finland on my shoulders - a very heavy load indeed.
One complicating factor is that this is an area which has not yet been harmonised in the European Union.
The Commission's legal basis for its actions is Article 90 of the Treaty on the one hand, which prohibits tax discrimination, and on the other hand two directives adopted in 1983.
Article 90 gives the Court of Justice the opportunity for abundant jurisprudence.
Since interpretations of the judgments of the Court are not always unanimous, it is time to create a synthesis of all the various interpretations in order to determine clearly our future action.
That need for a synthesis is one of the reasons that led me to include in the Commission's working programme for this year a communication on motor vehicle taxation.
It is my intention that this communication, which I hope will appear around the end of this year or the beginning of next year, will cover all the problems in connection with vehicle taxation and vehicle pricing, so that we can take a broader approach to them and settle the problem in Finland to which Mr Vatanen has referred.
I hope that will be to his satisfaction.
Thank you very much for your great cooperation with Parliament, Mr Bolkestein.
Question No 34 by Mrs Anne E.M. Van Lancker (H-0765/01) will not be replied to since it is included in the agenda of this part-session.
Question No 35 by (H-0695/01):
Subject: Law on the use of minority languages in Slovakia From an official position paper of the Foreign Ministry of the Slovak Republic, sent to us by the Slovak ambassador in Brussels, we understand that the law of 1999 on the use of minority languages in Slovakia gives minorities certain rights.
When 20% or more of the inhabitants of a village speak another language, they can receive official communications in their own language.
We have personal experience of how this law operates in practice.
In villages where more than 20% of the population is made up Slovaks, the inhabitants can receive all official communications in Slovakian.
The law thus appears to work satisfactorily.
However, when it transpires that in the same village 75% of the population is Hungarian and they can obtain official documents concerning births, marriages and deaths only in Slovakian and the mayor of the village may not speak Hungarian during public or official functions, then we must have serious doubts about the implementation of a language law which appears satisfactory on paper.
In connection with Slovakia's accession to the EU, is the Commission investigating whether the law is being implemented, how this is being done and what progress is being made?
Mr President, the Commission is paying very careful attention to the use of minority languages in Slovakia.
It takes the view that Slovakia has made considerable progress in developing a positive policy on minorities and in drawing up the necessary legislation whilst putting in place and supporting the relevant institutions.
The enacting of the law on the use of minority languages for official business was, in this regard, an important step.
It brought domestic law into line with current international standards and complied with the specific recommendations of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Council of Europe and the Commission.
A further important step was the ratification of the European Charter on regional or minority languages.
It should be noted in particular that Slovakia desires to concede the greatest possible freedom to the Hungarian minority in accordance with the flexibility that the Charter makes possible.
The Commission nevertheless observes that considerable efforts are still required for the practical enforcement of all the existing legislation.
In some areas, minorities do not avail themselves of the rights guaranteed them by the law on the use of minority languages for official business, above all, it seems, through ignorance of them.
This seems to be the case above all in communities with a large proportion of Roma among the population.
The Commission will continue in future to urge Slovakia to continue its efforts to implement the provisions of its laws, improve policy in this area and make the necessary budget funds available.
The observations which you, Mrs Maes, have made in person come as no surprise to me.
They prove only that the difficulties with implementation, which I have described, continue to prevail.
We will be discussing this topic further in the next progress report on Slovakia, which is due to appear in November.
I think you are right, some sections of the population will not be fully aware of the existence of new legal provisions.
But we must still ask ourselves whether there is always the necessary goodwill present in order to allow citizens to translate the legal provisions into practice.
From that point of view, it would probably be useful if we did not only draw the attention to the very sensitive nature of the subject matter in the reports but also in the contacts with the Slovak authorities.
In our opinion, a verdict on the minority policy cannot be a verdict on what has been set down on paper.
It should also concern rights and facts.
I cannot but agree, Mrs Maes, with what you have said, and can confirm that we address this issue in all our contacts with the Slovak government.
I have, myself, done so repeatedly in conversations with the head of the Slovak government and with the Slovak parliament and press and also on public occasions in Slovakia.
The message we are communicating in Slovakia is that we see the way the numerically stronger Slovaks interact with their minorities as an indicator of how strongly democracy and the rule of law have developed in that country.
Question No 36 by , which has been taken over by Mr Miller (H-0714/01):
Subject: Ignalina nuclear power station, Lithuania What is the Commission's current position with regard to the closure of reactor two of the Ignalina nuclear power station in Lithuania?
Mr President, Mr Miller, the Commission's view on this issue is at one with that of the Council and - in so far as I can judge - with that of the European Parliament.
The Lithuanian Parliament adopted a national energy strategy in 1999.
As part of this, it has decided that Block 1 of the Ignalina nuclear power plant is to be decommissioned by 2005 and that the final decision on the decommissioning date for Block 2 will be taken in 2004 in the context of the national energy strategy review.
The Commission stated at the time that it understood that Block 2 had to be shut down by 2009.
This is a matter of logic: if 2005 is the latest date for Block 1 to be shut down, it follows from the envisaged lifetime of the two nuclear power installation units that 2009 is the latest date for the decommissioning of Block 2.
As regards Block 1, the Commission took it into account that Lithuania had commenced extensive preparations for decommissioning and shutting down.
I am working on the assumption that the decommissioning is actually to take place before 2005.
As far as Block 2 is concerned, the Commission has stated - as I have already said - that the decommissioning is to take place by 2009 at the latest.
Over and above that, the Commission and the Member States believe that the timetable for the decision on decommissioning should be compatible with the timetable for Lithuania's accession to the European Union.
I spoke about this in depth only a few days ago with the new Lithuanian government in Vilna - it was actually the main topic of conversation in Vilnius - and I got the impression that the Lithuanian parliament and government had well understood the message that they now have to think about how the timetable for the decisions about Ignalina Block 2 has to be revised with a view to their own timetable for joining the European Union.
Let me take this opportunity to point out that it is precisely with regard to Ignalina that the Commission views compromises as impossible.
Ignalina is a nuclear power plant of the same type as Chernobyl, one that experts are generally convinced is not retrofittable and cannot be brought up to acceptable safety standards.
It is our firm conviction that this Chernobyl-type nuclear power plant is a source of real danger to human beings, and we will therefore be unable to withdraw our demand.
I thank the Commissioner for his answer.
I especially liked what he said about there being no room for compromises.
Is the EU position absolutely fixed, with no likelihood of it being altered in the near future?
I should also like to raise the point about international funding for decommissioning.
Is that to come from the Commission's own budget? What happens if there is insufficient money for that decommissioning?
Mr Miller, I can answer your first question with a definite 'no' , which seems to be what you desire.
The European Union's stance on this issue will not change.
The situation as regards the second question is as follows: an international fund for the decommissioning of Block 1 of the plant was created. The fund is managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and, to date, EUR 220 million have been made available for it.
These EUR 220 million I mentioned were the result of an international conference of donors which I convened jointly with the Lithuanian Prime Minister last year in Vilnius.
I must however add - and this clouds the picture a little - that EUR 165 million of this sum comes from our own budget, so that the amount that the international community was prepared to raise in addition looks modest in comparison.
Nonetheless, the funds available suffice to start on the shutting-down process as planned and to finance all the tasks connected with it.
I must draw it to your attention that the shutdown of such a nuclear power plant is a project lasting decades and the financial obligations resulting from it for us will last for the same period of time.
The situation with regard to the plant's Block II is rather more complicated because the Lithuanian parliament has not to date fixed a definite date for it to be shut down.
During the discussions I have mentioned, I have however informed the Lithuanian government that the Commission is of course prepared to provide the necessary help in this aspect too, and is moreover willing to organise international aid.
A country like Lithuania can quite clearly not manage the huge task of shutting down a power plant like this one by its own resources alone.
It would, by the way, also be quite unfair to demand that of them, for it was not Lithuania that wanted the plant.
On the contrary, the Lithuanians even resisted it at the time.
It was the former Soviet Union that built this plant on the spot where it stands today, and certainly not in order to provide Lithuania with electricity, but, in the main - we believe - for military purposes.
It is, then, part of the legacy of the former Soviet Union, burdening a poor country like Lithuania.
It is in our interest that this legacy should disappear.
Mr President, does the Commission intend to issue a common safety standard for nuclear power plants which will be binding on the EU's Member States and applicant States, or, alternatively, to start drafting lists of power plants in the area of the Union on the 'name and shame' principle?
Mrs Korhola, you will be aware that the Commission is not competent in matters of nuclear safety.
There are no EU norms for the safety of reactors, which I myself greatly regret, but it has not to date been possible to change this situation.
The Council has worked intensively on this issue, precisely because the Commission has no competence in reactor safety issues.
The Council's working party on nuclear issues has applied itself to the safety situation in Eastern European nuclear power plants and presented a report just before the summer recess, which is no doubt available to Parliament.
I recommend that you study this report, which does not of course state that we have laid down European norms, but from which it is clear that the European Union, as regards the safety of Eastern European nuclear power installations, makes demands that it believes to be justified.
A list of nuclear power stations, such as you have proposed, resulted from investigations carried out much earlier, at the beginning of the nineties to be precise.
These installations, which in the view of the European Union are not capable of a retrofit - that is, they cannot be made safe - are situated in Lithuania, Slovakia and Bulgaria.
We have, as you know, made it a condition for the commencement of accession negotiations that the issue of the shutting-down of these nuclear power stations should be finalised.
Question No 37 by (H-0743/01):
Subject: Alleged statement According to media reports in June and July 2001, EU Commissioner Verheugen is alleged to have stated privately that if former Czech Prime Minister and current Chairman of the Czech Chamber of Deputies, Mr Vaclav Klaus, became premier again, the Czech Republic' s EU entry chances would be harmed.
Does the Commission stand by or does it repudiate this alleged statement and does it not consider that such statements are inappropriate and do little to build confidence between the EU and the applicant countries at a time when understanding and support is needed during the integration process?
Questions to Commissioner De Palacio
Mr Crowley, the event to which you refer is of purely domestic political significance in the Czech Republic; it is an expression of an internal political dispute between government and opposition.
In such instances, the Commission can do no other than refrain from taking up any position, because it strictly refuses to be drawn into internal political disputes, whether in Member States or in acceding countries.
Mr President, first of all the Commissioner is being very facetious with his answers.
The quote is directly from him.
It is not an internal matter, it is something that he got involved in when he admittedly, privately, that if Mr Vaclav Klaus became premier again, the Czech Republic's EU entry chances would be harmed.
The Czech Prime Minister said on a radio interview shortly afterwards, and I quote directly from what he said, 'I again repeat those words were not uttered publicly, nevertheless they have not been embargoed.'
Commissioner, do you deny that you made such a statement? Also, on matters exclusively for the Czech people - electing their leader, what stance they should take with regard to negotiations with their accession to the European Union, and particularly at a time when confidence building is required both within the EU and within the accession countries - do you think it is right that you as an official and a Member of the College of Commissioners should be interfering with the democratic wishes of the Czech people, or indeed the people of any country?
We would all like to see certain outcomes from elections because of our own political beliefs, but some of us have to temper our language and our thoughts because of the positions we hold.
Therefore I would ask you, once again, to specifically either deny or admit that you made the statement and also to explain why you interfered in such a way?
Mr Crowley, I had always believed that a gentleman would not wish to know what two other gentlemen had discussed privately.
If you want to change that, then that's up to you.
I will neither confirm nor deny anything in this matter.
Stony silence is the only way the Commission can avoid being involved in internal political disputes.
I will, however, quite gladly say something about the actual substance of your question.
The president of the Czech parliament and I have for many years been able to talk intimately and in confidence with one another.
The most recent, and, I might add, entirely private, in-depth conversation took place only a few days ago.
The president of the Czech parliament did not mention in this conversation the event that you have taken as the basis for your question.
But it means much to me that Mr Klaus, in the many, many conversations we have had, has always made it clear that he, himself, and his political friends desire and support the Czech Republic's accession to the European Union.
That he occasionally expresses other views, views differing from those shared by the majority in Europe, is well known, but he is quite entitled to do so, and we, as democrats, must accept that.
My final point must be that it goes without saying that the European Union has the right to tell candidate countries what it accepts and what it does not; to point out that certain criteria are required to be met for accession negotiations to begin and to be concluded, and that the most important of them is the political criterion according to which a country must guarantee that it is a democracy under the rule of law, respecting human rights, protecting minorities and sharing the values and objectives of the European Union.
It has come about that a country seeking membership has been told, on the basis of this assessment: 'We cannot start negotiating with you about accession, because you do not meet these political requirements.'
The question you have asked, whether political intervention of this sort occurs, must therefore be answered very clearly in the affirmative.
It is precisely what the Copenhagen criteria require.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mr Crowley has the floor for a brief point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order.
The Commissioner did not answer my question, because he said he would not reveal what took place between two gentlemen.
He went on afterwards to reveal what took place between two gentlemen - himself and Mr Klaus.
Therefore he has failed to honour and respect this House by giving a direct answer to a direct question.
It is a disgrace.
Question No 43 by (H-0710/01):
Subject: Alpine Convention - the environmentally sensitive Pan-Alpine region In its sections on the environment and transport, the Alpine Convention provides a definition of the environmentally sensitive Pan-Alpine region.
In the Commission's estimation, does that definition - and the transport policy objectives thereby pursued - also form part of EU transport policy for this environmentally sensitive region?
Mr President, the Commission is aware of the importance of a suitable definition of the concept of sensitive areas, especially in the case of the environmental integration of transport flows in the Alpine region.
At the moment, there is a series of definitions of sensitive areas created, in particular, by the United Nations and the Alpine Convention, and also by the Community legislation on the protection of the environment.
The Commission believes that sensitive mountain areas, especially the Alpine region, as they are normally classified, are clearly priority areas in terms of the application of Community measures intended to reduce the environmental effects of transport and remove the link between increases in transport flows and economic growth.
Therefore, the White Paper on the European transport policy with a view to 2010, approved on 12 September, pays particular attention to the sensitive areas, especially the mountain regions, within the framework of the policy on charging and funding for infrastructures and the policy on the trans-European transport network.
The approach largely conforms to the guidelines expressed in the Alpine Convention and its Protocol on transport.
Commissioner, I wish to put a short supplementary question.
I was not entirely satisfied with the reply.
Above all, I am concerned about what we are doing now.
Are we to wait for technological innovations, for example the fuel cell, to at least partially solve some of the problems we have with traffic across the Alps or should we not now use the truth about the cost as an instrument to force heavy traffic, in the Alps at least, off some of the roads and onto the railways?
Mr President, in accordance with what was said in the White Paper on transport policy for the coming years, the Commission hopes, possibly within a year, and perhaps even before next summer, to present to Parliament and the Council of Ministers a new system of charging, specifically a modification of the 'Euro-disc' Directive, which will deal with just this type of issue, in accordance with the Costa report approved by this House a few months ago.
It will include, in the charges, concepts such as external costs, including certain perfectly quantifiable environmental costs.
Also cross-subsidisation, that is to say that part of the toll currently charged for existing infrastructures may be used to create a fund to finance alternative infrastructures, especially in the region of the Alps, in projects such as the Brenner tunnel or the Lyon-Turin connection.
As the authors are not present, Question Nos 44, 45 and 46 lapse.
Question No 47 by (H-0746/01):
Subject: Mont Blanc tunnel and operational guarantees The Mont Blanc tunnel is due to reopen within the next few months.
In the light of the disaster which led to its closure, what technical guarantees has the Commission obtained as regards the 'new' tunnel's compliance with the relevant European legislation, in terms of environmental standards and sustainable transport?
How does the Commission view the new Italian-French management arrangements for the tunnel?
Mr President, the Commission does not have the power to give the green light to the reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel. This matter does not come within our competence.
The task of assessing whether the safety level is sufficient falls to the operators and the national authorities, in accordance with their competences in France.
On that basis, it is for them to decide whether all the safety conditions are met.
According to the information available to the Commission, tests should be carried out in October to check that the security elements are operating correctly, such as the ventilation system or the electronic control centre, and the degree of training of the staff in charge of operation and emergency services.
In this respect, one of the main measures to be implemented relates to the distance between vehicles when using the tunnel.
Furthermore, this measure will contribute to restricting the circulation of lorries via that route.
With regard to organisational aspects, an important element is the creation by the two original companies, the French ATMB and the Italian SITMB, of a single company to take charge of managing the tunnel.
With regard to sustainable mobility and the great number of operators who are impatiently awaiting the reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel, given the serious disruption caused by its closure and the saturation of the routes which have been used as diversions, it should be pointed out that, in the short term, the reopening of the tunnel is going to be very positive from the point of view of sustainable mobility, the environment and safety.
I insist, however, that the safety measures must be in place as a prior condition for its reopening.
In the longer term, the absolute priority is to maintain control of the flow of land transport in the Alpine region, without hindering freedom of movement and economic development and, specifically, access from the Italian Peninsula to the rest of Europe will be based on the elements which I mentioned a moment ago, that is, by providing the Alps with major rail crossings which will carry a large proportion of the rail transport burden.
Commissioner, I reiterate that European legislation does exist on this matter and it must be respected, that the specifications of the new tunnel are practically the same as those of the previous tunnel, that 97% of the community of Chamonix have declared that they are against the reopening of the tunnel - which will inevitably damage all the private businesses, polluting all the typical, customary economic activities of these communities now and in future - and that the Italian government is preparing to reduce the night-time toll, thus increasing the pollution.
What guarantees does the European legislation protecting the environment offer these communities?
Mr President, with regard to safety standards, I refer back to what I just said.
According to the information available to me, the conditions for ensuring the control and safety of the tunnel have improved and tests are being done, and when all the requirements are met and the reliability of the instruments and systems is verified, the tunnel will be opened.
This is what I can tell you in relation to safety regulations.
I must insist, however, that Italy and France are the competent administrations.
And no doubt within Italy and France, in accordance with their internal institutional organisation, there are probably certain other regional or local administrations which also have a role to play.
Having said that, I would like to say to the Member that the Community' s fundamental freedoms are the freedom of movement of goods and of persons.
We must guarantee the interconnection between Italy and the rest of the European continent; which clearly means a better distribution of traffic between the Alpine crossings and between the various modes of transport.
At this moment, thanks to the agreement with Switzerland, there are other types of possible access for North-south traffic and for traffic between Italy and the rest of the continent.
The Mont Blanc tunnel is one of the elements, but it is not the only one, and the traffic which has been diverted from the Mont Blanc tunnel is undoubtedly causing an overload in other areas - and I could mention other tunnels which you know even better than me.
In any event, the important thing is to carry out the work on the Lyon-Turin route and the Brenner tunnel, which are key and definitive elements, but which are going to take some time.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I understand your arguments in favour of crossing the Alps.
However, I should like to tell you that at the present time, as I am sure you are aware, the public debate on the opening of the Mont-Blanc tunnel is in full swing, and the citizens of Europe, French and Italian, are appealing to us precisely in order to plead for a different cause, for a real sustainable transport system, which is not transport by road.
Do you really think - and I am asking because you have presented road transport to us as being a sustainable form of transport - do you really think, on the basis of the studies that have been carried out, that the opening of this Mont-Blanc tunnel will be strictly in line, first of all, with requirements, and secondly, with the obligations that we have entered into, in particular with regard to Kyoto?
Very briefly, ladies and gentlemen, I understand that the people most directly affected address themselves to you, but I can talk about other people who are asking just the opposite; that the Mont Blanc tunnel be opened as soon as possible.
As on so many other occasions, there are sometimes contradictory interests.
With regard to the issue of safety, I will insist on what I said before.
It is not the Commission which has to make the assessment.
We have neither the competence nor the capacity to carry out that type of task.
Thirdly, sustainable mobility. That is the objective of the White Paper I have presented and which the Commission approved on 12 September.
However, that objective will clearly not be achieved through a statement of will and an approval by the Commission, but it must be approved by this House and by the Council of Ministers and then put into practice.
It will be efforts of all types over a number of years which will allow us to make progress.
But we must consider that transport sometimes resolves problems created by other types of decisions.
Decisions which relate to urban policy, to development policy, to forms of production, to a series of policies on territorial balance and other things, where transport simply offers facilities at a certain moment, resolves problems and makes its contribution.
In many cases the origins go beyond transport policy.
Question No 48 by (H-0747/01):
Subject: Mont Blanc tunnel and 'piggyback traffic' The Mont Blanc tunnel is due to reopen within the next few months.
In the meantime, road traffic is causing local communities to incur extremely high public health, economic and environmental costs, especially in the mountains, where pollution levels are three to six times as high as in other environments.
What specific measures are being taken to obtain an accurate assessment of the road transport costs, including social, economic and environmental costs? What steps have been taken to introduce a special tax (as has happened in Switzerland and Austria) aimed at protecting against and making good the social and environmental damage caused and making rail transport, which has considerable potential for further development, competitive in economic terms?
Mr President, in the Commission' s deliberations on the Alpine regions, stress is always placed on the high environmental cost of transport in those regions.
Considerable work has been done by means of a series of Commission studies and the Fourth and Fifth Framework Research Programmes, which have examined transport expenses in the Alpine regions and other regions, including the project relating to the information systems on Alpine transport and the European strategic multimodal model and the Alp-net project which is currently under way.
The problem was also dealt with in the reports of the high-level group, which Parliament approved by means of its resolution, contained in the Costa report on charging for the use of infrastructures, which I referred to earlier.
The new Commission White Paper on common policy not only offers current estimates of the costs of road transport, but also treats as a priority the resolution of the transport problems in the Alpine regions by means of a wide range of measures which I referred to earlier.
In that context, we are studying the possibility of creating a system for testing charging in sensitive mountain regions such as the Alps as soon as possible.
Those initiatives should not only have a possible effect on the current volume of traffic, but above all promote the use of less polluting vehicles and thereby contribute to reducing the negative effects of traffic, both on human health and on the flora and fauna of the regions in question and also allow for cross-subsidisation, which I also referred to a moment ago.
Mr President, as I have said repeatedly, we believe that the modal rebalancing of transport in Europe is a key element not only for the quality of life of our citizens, for the protection of the environment, but also for economic development because, without that modal rebalancing, we will face a situation of gridlock of our road networks and our transport routes.
Thank you very much, Commissioner. I imagine that the Member' s question has been answered.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 49 to 82 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
Mr Staes has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I have here in front of me a magazine, or at least a newspaper article, which reads as follows : 'I do not approve of the Anti-Slavery Conference in Durban.
It promotes the feeling of victimisation in people who already have the sense that they are victims.
I do not feel happy about the entire Conference in Durban, irrespective of the way in which the Middle East was presented there.
The fact that someone like Castro was cheered, is proof that this was an anti-Western meeting' .
These are not my words but the words of a Member of the European Commission.
In a moment, we will be listening to a statement by the European Commission and by the Council on Durban.
I would invite the Commission to tell us whether it backs the statements by Mr Bolkestein in the Volkskrant in the Netherlands or not, as the case may be.
We appreciate the Members' imagination in introducing their issues into the debate, but we are really obliged to follow the agenda.
Conclusions of the UN Conference on Racism
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the conclusions of the United Nations Conference on racism.
Mr Michel, President-in-Office of the Council, has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to let you have an initial account of the results achieved at the Third United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, a conference which was held in Durban from 31 August to 7 September.
The Durban Conference can be described as a success on several counts, despite the difficult political context in which the negotiations took place, and despite the fact that this conference had been described as a failure before it even began.
Firstly, in terms of practical results, this is the first United Nations conference devoted to the task of combating racism which has ended with the adoption, by consensus, of a policy declaration and a programme of action.
The Durban Conference was, above all, an opportunity to reinforce this essential task of combating racist tendencies, tendencies towards the discrimination and intolerance that constitute a feature of everyday life for millions of human beings, who are all too often the silent victims of outrages against their dignity.
Even if in the adopted texts, which form the very essence of what we are talking about, little progress was made, the theoretical contemplation of the fight against racism clearly shows a strong, political will to banish racism.
A call is also made for taking an impressive number of specific measures which aim to fight this scourge globally.
As such, the lion' s share of the 220 articles of the action programme consist of preventive, educational and protective measures which aim to eradicate racism at all levels, as well as strategies which endeavour to attain out-and-out equality of all people worldwide.
By way of example, I will list a few measures which should strengthen the national and regional institutions in their fight against racism, and which must encourage them to step up their mutual cooperation.
Other measures aim to educate people to respect human rights, change their mentality and to grant non-discriminating access to education.
Still other measures place the role of the political parties in the foreground, allowing them to develop internal codes of conduct which will prohibit their members from making public speeches which incite racism.
In addition, there are also measures which must help in the fight against racism in the workplace.
The action programme also contains a number of statutory, judicial, regulatory and administrative measures which must prevent racism and must offer protection against this plague.
The time was too short to bring all negotiations to a good end.
That is why it was impossible to complete the discussions on certain important points, such as the caste system or race discrimination in combination with the death penalty.
However, the European Union did manage to have important themes included in all definitive texts. These themes include the gender issue, better child protection and the fight against the trafficking in human beings, especially women and children.
Here too, I would like to emphasise the difficulties arising from the use of the concept of 'race' .
Today, it is a fact that each theory which supports the existence of different human races is scientifically flawed.
The European Union would like the use of language to follow this trend.
(NL) The EU is of the opinion that the use of terms which acknowledge the existence of different races needs to be avoided.
It is not our intention here to deny the diversity of the human race, but we do want to emphasise its unity, and, as such, fight the present forms of racism which are often based on these kinds of claims.
But due to strong opposition from certain States, we have been unable to make much progress in this field.
The European Union insisted on explaining its fundamental viewpoint on this matter in a last speech, which will also be included in the Conference' s report.
As far as the strategies are concerned, the States are urged to draft a policy and action plan to fight racism, and to implement the Durban action programme.
They are also urged to continue to cooperate in a statutory international framework, especially with the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights which is responsible for the follow-up of the implementation of the texts that were adopted in Durban.
(FR) I think I can also safely say that the political scope of the compromise achieved on the causes and origins of racism is another important successful result of the Durban Conference.
Like you, I have read some of the comments.
I certainly do not want to start a controversial debate on this subject, but I will say, on the subject of the forgiveness and excuses which those who negotiated at Durban seem to have been accused of - I was there and I know I had quite a struggle to obtain this text - that of course people of our generation, like those of the previous generation, are not and were not involved in what was all too often misguided colonisation, or in slavery, but I would ask those people the following question. How can we be satisfied with such a banal, factual observation as that, at the same time refusing, by default, to give justice to those people who, even today, still bear the badly healed scars of colonisation and slavery?
I should like to reply to what I have been reading in the press by saying that we are not engaged, here, in sanctimoniously and naively cultivating a sentiment of injustice.
On the contrary, we have to recognise, on behalf of our forebears, that the evil deeds that were committed were morally debatable, if not downright reprehensible. We must also tell the victims, past and present, that we know that our history has not always been glorious and that by admitting as much, obviously on behalf of others, we are showing our intention of recognising their right to extenuating circumstances and, having said that, we must propose a true partnership, based on mutual respect, and far removed from the humiliating paternalism and miserly gestures of a self-satisfied and satiated lady of the manor.
I should therefore like, for a moment, to come back to the result.
I believe that the result obtained at Durban opens up positive prospects for the continuation of the dialogue between North and South.
The European Union has recognised and condemned the immense suffering caused by past and present forms of slavery and trafficking, wherever they took or take place, as well as the most blameworthy aspects of colonialism.
It has recognised that slavery and trafficking were crimes against humanity and should always have been crimes against humanity.
Durban was therefore an opportunity to look our common past in the face. Some people saw that as an act of regret, others as an act of remorse, and still others as an act of excuse.
The important thing, it seems to me, is, above all else, the willingness to close the darkest chapters of our common history so as to be able to construct a new relationship, based on mutual respect, solidarity and partnership.
An appeal has been launched so that more funds can be authorised for initiatives taken by developing countries, in particular the new African initiative.
There is another element which I would not like to pass over in silence.
In the final analysis, Durban was a success because, throughout this difficult negotiating process, the Member States of the European Union remained united.
Intensive coordination was implemented with the support of the Council Secretariat and the Associated States were kept constantly informed.
It was this close cooperation which enabled the Presidency, duly mandated by its European partners, to negotiate delicate compromises with the representatives of the geographical groups concerned, and with the President and Secretary-General of the Conference, Mrs Zuma and Mrs Robinson respectively.
Regular coordination with the Western Group has also borne fruit.
The European Union and its external and common security policy have emerged strengthened from the Durban Conference.
Durban was the proof that the European Union is capable of speaking with a single voice on the difficult question - but one that is vital to the future of humanity - of the fight against racism and for respect for human dignity.
The European Union asserted itself as an incorruptible negotiating partner and mediator.
It presented an image of unity and consistency, and it supported the use of firmness, depending on the circumstances.
As a result, its credibility was reinforced, as was its position at international level.
The proof of this lies in the extreme flexibility and spirit of openness that the European Union showed in the discussions on the Middle East.
The burden of those negotiations really did rest mainly on the European Union following the departure of the United States and Israel.
The re-launching of the Middle East peace process is one of the European Union' s priorities.
However, it believed that the Durban Conference, based as it was on the fight against racism, was not the appropriate forum for dealing with that question Since, however, the Arab and Moslem countries were insistent that the issue should be discussed at Durban, the European Union agreed to take an active role in formulating a draft consensus which was presented by the South African Presidency.
In that draft, the European Union was able to retain the principles which it believed to be essential, namely a balanced text with a strong call for negotiations to be resumed and for violence to be brought to an end, while at the same time expressing concern about the increase in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in the world.
A reference to the Holocaust was retained, whereas the equation 'Zionism equals racism' disappeared, as these were among the conditions and prerequisites.
That was what was achieved at Durban.
We must now look to the future and put into practice those commitments to which we universally subscribed in South Africa.
I must emphasise that everyone should be informed of the positive coverage of this conference.
Each of us, and Member States in particular, must now redouble our efforts so as to ensure that we make the most of the exemplary success achieved by the European Union at the Durban Conference.
I believe, therefore, that we can be reasonably satisfied with the outcome.
I would simply like to say that you get an even better idea of how successful the conference was if you imagine for a moment what it would have represented, in terms of a message or a negative signal, if Durban had not been a success.
I believe that in the context that we are experiencing now, that would certainly not have helped.
I think, therefore, that we did our duty, we did exactly what we ought to have done, it seems to me, in extremely difficult conditions.
I am very pleased to have succeeded, on behalf of the European Union, with the support of the Commission, with the support of the Council, and with the support of the fifteen Member States, but also - which is very important - with the support of the thirteen candidate countries, to have succeeded, in fact, in saving this conference.
If we had not succeeded in saving this conference, I believe it would have had relatively damaging consequences in the longer term.
Mr President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the Durban Conference represents a major step forward in the endeavour to bring about global understanding, global political agreement on questions of racial discrimination, racism, xenophobia and intolerance.
I must start by congratulating the Belgian Presidency and because, after all, they do all have names, by offering my special congratulations to the deputy prime minister, Mr Michel, who took centre stage at the Conference and managed to maintain internal cohesion between the Member States throughout and, at the same time, to shoulder the main burden of negotiations at global level.
I should like to thank the European Parliament and the mission for their extremely important contribution to the Conference and for the important part which they played throughout the negotiations and to say that the Commission is satisfied with its contribution and its efforts to support the presidency.
I should like to explain to Parliament and to apologise for being unable to appear in person one and three days before the Conference but health problems at home made it impossible for me to travel.
The Conference was exciting and difficult, with a heavy workload.
The early departure of the United States left the European Union in the position of main speaker and basically left it to shoulder the main burden of the negotiations.
I think that the European Union's profile at this Conference was upgraded to a global profile, given that it managed, in a totally hostile environment, to bring important negotiations to a conclusion while maintaining cohesion between the Member States and maintaining excellent relations and cooperation with the candidate countries.
Of course, we see this Conference as a success, especially if you compare it with previous attempts in 1978 and 1983.
A global message was sent out and specific, globally agreed proposals were tabled.
One comment which could be made is that, throughout consultations over the eight days of the Conference, the wrong agenda prevailed.
The main aim of the Conference was to find a modern definition for racism and to decide on measures to combat it at worldwide level and that would have been a huge success by helping us to deal with the problems of racism today.
These two issues were way down, if not off the bottom of the agenda.
On the contrary, the issues which dominated were the Middle East and past wrongdoings.
Of course, we cannot forget the past.
We need a thorough knowledge of the past if we are to learn from it and avoid repeating it.
However, when it poisons relations, cooperation, agreement and future progress, then it really is an enormous obstacle.
A hostile climate prevailed at the Conference, both at government level and at the level of non-government organisations.
And it must be said, texts appeared couched in terms of hatred which do absolutely nothing to foster reconciliation, build bridges between nations or build a bridge between the future and the past and should be avoided at all costs, especially at international conferences attended by every country in the world.
I should like to refer briefly to the question of non-governmental organisations.
The European Commission has consistently supported the participation of non-governmental organisations at the Conference.
We value their help in formulating and applying policy.
A large sum of money, EUR 3.7 million to be precise, has been earmarked to support the United Nations and, more specifically, the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in order to help fund the participation of non-governmental organisations, especially from countries which cannot meet their expenses.
We have to admit that there is some scepticism as to what their participation achieved and, I think, there was some disappointment about the final communiqué, the final declaration by the forum of non-governmental organisations which Mary Robinson refused to present because it contained inflammatory remarks.
Of course, it is important not to put all our eggs in one basket.
I have to say that the main, important non-governmental organisations working on racism, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and many other non-governmental organisations failed to agree and publicly fell out in an exchange of inflammatory and awkward remarks.
Because, unfortunately, the forum was overpowered by very specific and special issues.
I already understand that certain Member States are re-examining how funding is provided and, of course, the Commission intends to undertake a similar re-examination.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, despite the fact that numerous countries, for reasons best known to themselves, were unable to make an in-depth and positive contribution to the Durban Conference, we have to say that an agreement was reached which lays the foundations for further cooperation at global level.
It sends out a clear message, as the Minister explained, about combating racism at worldwide level and, of course, every country made a commitment to national action plans, national action plans on legislation, the bases of political parties, education, employment and social and cultural life.
However, we must not rest on our laurels.
Recent events after 11 September have shown how easily and often how thoughtlessly racism and xenophobia can be revived.
If we learned anything from Durban, it was that we must avoid stigmatising groups, nationalities, societies or religious minorities.
We cannot ascribe collective crimes to collective people, but we can condemn specific political or other leaders responsible for political mistakes.
The Commission will continue to put its efforts into combating racism by cooperating with the Member States and by keeping its eye on a very ambitious agenda; that means all Member States implementing and incorporating the package against discrimination decided last year by 2003, it means implementing the special programme against discrimination, which is already under way, and it means mobilising and guaranteeing the efficient involvement in this issue of the Racism and Xenophobia Monitoring Centre in Vienna.
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, there are many people who actually wondered about the usefulness of the Durban Conference.
Yet the international community must exist, and it must come together to discuss the issues, even if such discussions sometimes reveal contradictory interests, and I do not believe that walking out is necessarily a solution.
At least the Durban Conference had the advantage of bringing together the international community on an issue which is undeniably a subject of common concern to all countries, because racism is a scourge of worldwide proportions, and no country is free from racism or discrimination in one form or another.
This conference therefore provided an opportunity to take stock, to make a diagnosis, and what would be the point of such a diagnosis, if there were no treatment?
What could we expect from the Durban Conference? I do not yet know, Mr Michel, whether it will constitute a success in the long term.
What we do know is how it failed, in other words the fact that there was no final declaration, no confirmation of a worldwide willingness to combat racism and to find adequate means of doing so.
The objective of the Durban Conference was to compile a whole series of worldwide instruments, to draw up a road map, to work out new strategies for combating racism, and action programmes - which you, Minister, have described - which states can exploit, subject to the subsidiarity which is the key to the issue of combating racism and discrimination.
What lessons can we learn from this? It seems to me that we have been able to avoid falling into three traps.
The first, which you have already mentioned, is the issue of the Middle East.
Any reasonable person knows that the problems of the Middle East would never have been solved at Durban.
Attempts were made to turn this into a major issue, but I think that this trap was, fortunately, avoided.
The second trap is the issue of reparations.
Some people would have liked reparations to be the main subject of the debate.
This was sheer perverseness, if not perversion, because it meant that there was a risk that development aid would be reduced to a form of reparations.
As Mr Michel has quite rightly emphasised, we are all aware of the burden of history borne by certain parties.
We must work towards solidarity between human beings rather than perpetual culpability, which in financial terms would have to come to an end one day, because any reparations expressed in terms of money would, of course, be finally paid off sooner or later.
Finally, the third trap that was avoided was the victim list.
Some people wanted a list to be drawn up.
In our case that would have included the Roma, Sintis and Dalits.
If one draws up a list of victims, of course, there is a risk that the next thing that will be drawn up is a hierarchy of victims, and some may be regarded as being more victims than others, which seems to me to be completely unproductive as far as racism and discrimination are concerned.
In effect, therefore, the declaration is acceptable and I would like to thank Mr Michel, officially, for the essential role that he played as mediator, intercessor and - if I can risk a neologism - explainer. As you have emphasised so well, Mr Michel, Europe was able to make its full influence felt - and I do not believe that it did so only after the departure of the United States - because you showed great personal commitment, and because Europe consisted not only of fifteen countries, but of thirteen others as well.
In other words a large part of the human race was giving its mind to this subject.
As the Commissioner has said, some of the NGOs made themselves look ridiculous.
This raises the issue of how representative they actually are.
Fortunately, essential partners such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch disassociated themselves from the final declaration, but perhaps it will be necessary to sort out the assistance that we are able to give to the NGOs, many of which, over there, have lost all sense of responsibility to say the least.
We are very mindful, Minister, of the practical side.
The European Union is perhaps not at the bottom of the league table when it comes to combating racism and discrimination, but there is still a great deal to be done.
Let us therefore exploit those 225 articles to find means of action that we can put into practice.
Finally, and I should like to end on this point, I would simply draw attention to the inadequacy of our Parliament' s representation.
This point will feature in the joint resolution.
Briefly, the European Union is represented by the President-in-Office of the Council. The European Community is represented, as an observer, by both the Commission and Parliament.
That is undoubtedly something to think about if we want the European Parliament to play a better role at international conferences, a role other than that of joint observer together with the Commission.
Anyway, this point raises the issue of the renegotiation of the Institutional Agreement of 5 July 2000.
You will find this proposal again in the joint resolution which will very shortly be put to the vote in this House.
Mr President, at the heart of my political group's approach to the Durban conference is a renewed determination to tackle racism and to discover what was positive about this conference.
I say renewed because racism in its many forms has reared its head again, with the tragic events in New York and Washington.
We have now a danger that a renewed wave of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism will come if we do not tackle racism and its root causes.
That illustrated the tragedy of this conference, because I felt I attended two conferences.
One was a historic conference where delegations, like our own European Union delegation, were determined to register that racism is a major human rights issue.
We were determined to define for the first time racism in its many international forms, whether caste, a contemporary slavery, or whether discrimination against minorities within our own European Union and indeed the candidate countries.
We were determined to do something about racism, to show that with Article 13 we in the European Union had something to say to the rest of the world about how we were approaching our own problems.
Yet there was a second conference that I attended, full of confusion, of individual national agendas, a determination not to define racism in different countries because of an embarrassment as to what racism represented in those countries.
The confusion arose over the much misunderstood issue of reparations, and indeed the very destructive issue of Zionism and the problems in the Middle East, overshadowed our conference.
We have to be determined that the first conference, with the ideals we as a delegation defined for it, are renewed in this House today.
That requires a united front.
It requires us not to just say that Durban was chaotic, therefore we will leave it that way for history.
Instead, we as a European Union united, the Commission, the Belgian Presidency - which did an excellent job - those who attended the conference and all of us within this House who want to tackle racism must unite to go back to the original agenda.
That original agenda is one which may embarrass some individual countries, but the action programme is now there.
It is there for us to exploit and it is there for us to do something about.
The issue is not whether this is a failure or not, it is about whether we can now make it a success by renewed determination within this House to get back to the action programme and make progress.
I agree with the President-in-Office and the Commissioner that the conference can be described as a qualified success.
It did get a bad press - in some respects deservedly - but those who say an international conference on racism was not worth holding are wrong.
For the first time in 25 years of trying, international standards were set on the human rights of those vulnerable to racial discrimination.
That is something to celebrate.
We have a basis on which to build in order to tackle one of the great threats to freedom, justice and security in the world, including Europe.
Admittedly, however, the conference did start badly.
Firstly, there was the NGO forum.
Although many of the forum sessions were very worthwhile and indeed inspiring, the NGO voice was hijacked by the proponents of reparations for slavery and those pursuing the line that Zionism is racism.
These themes also dominated or sought to hijack the intergovernmental conference.
There was gross anti-Semitic abuse with, for example, cartoons circulating that could have figured in Julius Streicher's publications from the 1930s.
The document produced by the NGO forum was so bad that the Secretary-General, Mary Robinson, was unable to recommend it to the governments.
Some NGOs, including Amnesty International, had to disassociate themselves from it.
This was a great shame, because so many people had travelled to Durban with the serious intent to tell the world of real daily suffering.
I particularly remember a woman talking about the problems of internal migrants in China.
There were also individuals from many groups who suffer individual persecution such as Roma and Dalits, sometimes known as untouchables.
Admittedly there was a degree of cynical hypocrisy shown by some states in hiding behind the demonisation of Israel and America, including some African countries with appalling records of ethnic discrimination or human rights violations, and Arab countries unwilling to come clean about their own role in the slave trade.
This lack of honesty detracted from the conference.
Opinions can differ about whether the US and Israel did the right thing in staying away.
One can say that the position of Israel, at least, was impossible.
But certainly the absence of the US pushed the European Union into the front line.
One can ask if the EU was fully prepared for that.
But, admirably led by Mr Michel, as has been said, it rose to the challenge.
I have to give Mr Michel particular credit, even if he is my Liberal political colleague.
He came for two days and stayed for a week.
He displayed great personal commitment to ensure that the European Union spoke with one voice and a determination - even if sometimes a grim determination - to reach agreement.
That success was realised.
On the Middle East the language agreed was, on the whole, balanced.
I also believe personally that the language on slavery struck the right tone in speaking of it now as being a crime against humanity.
Clearly reparations were not the right means of redress to talk about.
The irony of the situation would be that African Americans would seek to claim, not Africans, who were not subject to slave trading.
Finally, one of my disappointments at Durban was that with the spotlight on international diplomacy rather than domestic records, the European Union struggled to find the space to highlight its own growing and increasingly solid record in tackling racism.
It is a pity that the EU as such is not represented in the UN system, so that the Commission and Parliament are only observers, although the President-in-Office did a very good job.
Clearly it was a pity that the Commissioner was prevented from attending for family reasons.
We have to find a way of strengthening the ability of all the European institutions to carry on taking a leading role in international human rights and anti-discrimination work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, participation in the World Conference in Durban was important, as a solemn proclamation of the renewal of an alliance against discrimination and the rejection of respect for human rights, and above all as an opportunity for reconciliation, the only way to reconstruct the future and future peace.
As the Minister has already said, the objective of this conference was obvious, its scope was complex, and it was necessary in order to construct the future.
At the same time, the NGO forum was held.
Although the final declaration appears to be excessive, it merely reveals, not a split, but a great deal of diversity among the NGOs.
Noticeable, in fact, is the absence of the worldwide NGOs, and the virtual absence of the NGOs involved in immigration in Europe.
The only NGOs featured in the declaration are the antiracist NGOs and the solidarity NGOs.
On the other hand, the dynamism of the international NGOs is also noticeable, in the way they challenge power, assert principles, or, then again, consolidate a power already in place, hence in some cases their lobbying activities and their nickname of VGOs (Voluntary Government Organisations).
Yet within this diversity there is a certain amount of logic, the logic of powerful people. On the one hand there is the logic emanating from the rich, developed countries, the former colonisers, and then there is the logic of the poor countries, the ones who were formerly colonised, where power remains to this day hardly what one could call democratic, yet all too often still enjoys the North' s approval.
Words have meaning.
We have to find the right words to provide a solution.
The essential question is that of defining the terminology: slavery, colonialism, racism, genocide, apartheid or military occupation.
All these words tell of daily crises, the consequences, moreover, of discrimination.
We find that the final text talks of remorse and regrets, but refuses to give any excuses, and still less to envisage the prospect of reparations, or to reaffirm people' s right to live in peace and equality, without having to have recourse to international law.
Finally, it is perhaps regrettable that the final declaration is a minimalist declaration which seeks to satisfy everyone by preserving a certain amount of equilibrium.
This declaration not only calls into question the credibility and effectiveness of major international meetings, but also raises the question of direct democracy, because in effect it raises the issue of how representative the limits of participative democracy really are.
I should like to make one final reference to this so-called hijacking of the conference. Who was hijacking whom?
Why?
For what purpose? Remember that the United States did not want to take part in this meeting, and that they often threatened to withdraw.
The NGOs' declaration, however hard it might have been, was a good pretext for avoiding any issues with a bearing on the major interests which it was not thought desirable to offend, as well as the issue of reparations.
Several countries, including European countries, were secretly relieved to see the conference focus on the Middle East question, which allowed them to dodge the issue of excuses and to put off dealing with the colonial debt.
Do not forget that the rich countries of the North built their prosperity on the negro slave trade and on colonial conquest, and they are not all willing to recognise this fully or to make reparation for their past crimes.
Moreover, these issues of discrimination against women, children, homosexuals and migrants, and the continued existence of modern slavery, still affect a number of countries which pursue a policy of repression and refuse to allow themselves to be put in the dock.
Those powers are still, all too often, supported, and they too prefer to focus on an issue such as that of the Middle East, where they can make a good impression, rather than be called to account for the human rights situation in their own countries.
Finally, the essential objective of this conference was achieved, but we must now hope that there will be real follow-up action enabling projects, guidelines and action programmes to be set up and put into practice, with a view to preventing and abolishing those situations in which discrimination occurs, thereby ensuring that our fine words are finally translated into reality.
Commissioner, Mr President, the final declaration and action programme adopted in Durban was only possible due to the constructive and essential role played by the European Union. It was also due to the Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Louis Michel' s diplomacy and ability to draw together many points of view, not to mention his natural gift for reconciling the views of all sides.
I sincerely believe that the European Union fulfilled its role perfectly, and we can only welcome the work that has been done.
I deplore the fact, however, despite Mrs De Palacio' s apologies, which I accept, that the European Commission was not present.
I think that at least one commissioner could have represented you at Durban.
I also regret the fact that few industrialised countries were represented, and I believe that many countries interpreted this as a lack of interest in the conference.
Had they been there, it might have prevented the American and Israeli delegations from leaving.
This is even more of a shame because racist violence and support for the populist and xenophobic vote have increased in Europe over recent years; the Freedom Party (FPÖ) led by Jörg Haider in Austria is only one illustration of this.
Other political forces masquerading as NGOs have rushed into the void that has been left.
Since, although the overwhelming majority of NGOs played a decisive role in preparing for the conference, and made several proposals formulating demands, I still do not agree with Mrs Boumediene-Thiery who tries to play down what happened.
This is because a small number of NGOs have been busy trying to equate Zionism with racism, and, even worse, have distributed texts and writings, examples of which I have shown to Mr Michel, in which they patently extolled the merits of the Holocaust.
And this is something that Parliament cannot play down.
These NGOs, or so-called NGOs, these pseudo-NGOs, were not at Durban to defend the Palestinians, they were not there to defend the anti-racists, they were not even there in favour of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
In my view, it is a positive sign that the final declaration acknowledges the right of Palestinians to their own land and that, at the same time, we reject any equation of Zionists with racists, in the same way as in Durban.
I must therefore ask, as you did, Commissioner, that we know exactly who these NGOs are, what their purpose is and how they are funded before we hold another conference.
The over-representation of some delegations leads me to question how they are funded.
But this conference provided, above all, an opportunity to weigh up the importance of some demands.
And in relation to this, I strongly challenge what my fellow Members, Mr Cornillet and Baroness Ludford said.
I think that acknowledging slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity was one of the key aims of the conference, and this is a good thing, and we are merely doing justice by acknowledging that 350 years of deprivation, raids, deportations and humiliations are crimes against humanity.
This is the least we could have done at this conference.
And I hope that all countries and former colonial powers follow the example of France acknowledge slavery and the slave trade, or are made to acknowledge it by their national parliaments, as a crime against humanity.
Personally speaking, I am still dubious about financial reparations, as Mr Michel said, I believe. Especially when we know that there are powerful lobbies of American lawyers hiding behind the African Americans' legitimate demand.
On the contrary, there is in fact a consensus that the continent that suffered most from slavery and colonisation, should be helped with the cancellation of its debt, and by urgently and proactively pursuing policies to combat AIDS and illiteracy.
We owe at least this to the African continent.
In addition, we have - and Mr Michel pointed this out - valuable counterparts in Africa, who are committed, through the New African Initiative, to good governance.
This is, therefore, the time to seize their demand to respond with practical measures and start talking.
Lastly, I regret that there was no mention of the death penalty in the United States, and part of the reason the United States delegation left was because it did not want to talk about racism in its own country.
I regret that discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation was not discussed.
I regret that the concept of castes was not discussed, and I regret that the statement has no binding character.
The European Union' s task is, first of all, to carefully monitor the use of new technologies, such as the Internet, which can be used to incite racial hatred; to speed up the implementation of Article 13; to explain the annihilation of the American Indians, slavery, colonialism and the Holocaust in our textbooks and history books, and also the Sabra and Chatila massacres.
I believe that racism and anti-Semitism have one aspect in common with terrorism.
On the one hand, there are those who carry out the act itself and, on the other hand, there are those who supply them with the ideological weapons.
We must also combat the group made up of the Vlaams Blok, the National Front, the FPÖ and other parties, which supply ideological weapons to those carrying out the act itself and who themselves end up attacking the physical integrity of individuals.
We have a responsibility to do this as well.
Mr President, the resolution of the World Conference against Racism held in Durban is not exactly what many would have hoped for.
I regret the withdrawal of the American delegation.
This certainly did not do it a particular service in view of its own record on racism in its own country.
This compromise resolution makes it very clear that much more needs to be done, especially in relation to our understanding of other cultures and religions.
Islam, I have said many times, has in many ways been demonised, mostly by people who know nothing about it.
Durban was not a failure, nor was it indeed a great success; but it re-emphasised the imperative to make racism a crime, something I have called for many times in this House.
It helped refocus governments' attention on issues of racism, which is based largely on ignorance and a fear of the unknown.
European governments have a responsibility to show leadership in the area of racism and xenophobia and politicians and civic leaders are failing to address the issue of racism in their own communities.
They are showing cowardice and a lack of courage in dealing with this particular issue.
We have a long way to go in the European Union, but at least we have made a reasonable beginning in Durban.
Those who participated in Durban deserve great credit.
The resolution refers to action against Islamophobia, which I support without reservation.
I want to state yet again, here in this House, that I am a friend of Islam.
Muslims around the world have unreservedly condemned these terrorist attacks.
We must all ensure that under no circumstances is there any sort of backlash whatsoever against the Muslim communities within our Union.
These terrorists acts were not carried out in the name of Islam.
They were plainly brutal terrorist acts of a premeditated and determined nature.
Just let me remind the House that no religion - or political movement for that matter - is without its fundamentalists.
Mr President, I too would like, first of all, to congratulate Mr Michel, the President-in-Office of the Council, for I feel that the tenacity and determination with which it was attempted to avoid the shameful outcome towards which the Conference was headed are, above all, due to him.
I feel that the United States and Israeli delegations did well to withdraw from the work of the Conference, just as I feel that you did well, President-in-Office of the Council, to stay on to achieve a result, for, in actual fact, the two things are not incompatible.
The choice made by Israel and the United States served to show the world public what was in danger of happening, that a group of countries, mostly non-democratic with total contempt for their own people, was attempting to exploit the Conference in order to take sides in international politics.
This is why I support most of what has been asserted by my fellow Members, namely that, in present times, the most dangerous and widespread form of racism in the Member States of the European Union and elsewhere is the conviction that democracy and the rule of law are institutions which are only beneficial for Europe, the West and the United States, and not for some of the other communities in our world, and that they must not be exported and strictly respected in other countries as well.
The image of dictatorships which oppress their own people, their own race and their own flesh and blood, of dictators and their representatives who have the gall to preach antiracist sermons at the United Nations, is an effective illustration of the obstacles facing the international community.
None of this can be tolerated, and I feel that the decision taken by the United States and Israeli delegations and the determination of Mr Michel, in particular, and the Council as a whole as well, have served to make this very clear.
I would like to end by associating myself with those who are calling for a detailed inquiry at this juncture into where, within the non-governmental organisations, responsibility for what happened lies - clearly, as always, we must avoid putting everything under the same umbrella - for there is no doubt that responsibility does lie somewhere and it must be ascertained where, not least in view of the generosity displayed by the European Union and the European Commission towards non-governmental organisations.
Mr President, the World Conference against Racism, in conjunction with the United Nations-sponsored International Decade of the World's Indigenous People, has been a unique opportunity to consider the challenges and dangers faced by these peoples and all Stateless nations.
Unfortunately, I cannot agree with the optimistic view expounded by Mr Michel, though I recognise willingly the very important role played by him.
I was in Durban on that special occasion, and so I can give evidence to this House of a very insidious threat to indigenous peoples running through the provisional agenda of the Durban Summit, paragraph 27 of which states: "The use of the term 'indigenous people' in the World Conference against Racism... cannot be construed as having any implications as to rights under international law".
Through that paragraph the United Nations Summit tried to exclude all these peoples from the right to self-determination recognised by the United Nations itself and international covenants.
In response to such inadmissible discrimination and intolerance, the NGO forum in Durban denounced very strongly the new expression of neo-colonialists that will, in the long run, provoke the decimation of the cultures and civilisations of these vulnerable peoples.
This insidious action was prepared at the Conference against Racism with a view to the future.
It looks to the future, not to the past.
As the NGO final declaration clearly suggests, structural racism in the past, current manifestations of neo-colonialism and the denial of the fundamental right to self-determination lie at the root of indigenous suffering.
Mr President, seldom has a UN Conference been so well-intended and so badly understood as Durban.
In my view, this is partly due to poor preparation.
Diplomats and officials should have made more of an effort to reach consensus before the Conference.
That would have saved the world community a great deal of money, time and embarrassing moments.
Particularly unfortunate was the fact that a number of delegations ran off, for however well-founded their reasons may have been, those who run away are always in the wrong.
Against this background, it was all the more surprising that, despite the obstinacy of Louis Michel, for that is how we have all come to know him in Belgium, and now also in the rest of the world, a sound final declaration was obtained after all.
This final declaration contains a number of important provisions which, if applied, could drastically change the lives of hundreds of thousands, even millions of people.
Governments are encouraged to allow minorities to speak their own language, acknowledge their own culture and profess their own religion, to stand up to police services who display racist behaviour and are also encouraged to adjust their legal systems so that they do not discriminate against certain groups.
Roma and gypsy children must be given the same education as other children.
In the field of migration policy, race discrimination must be banished.
I also welcome the sound and balanced provisions on the Middle East, which emphasise the right to an independent State for the Palestinians as well as Israel' s safety.
And finally, two centuries after the events, Europe has apologised for the slave trade.
After all, we should not forget that at least ten million Africans were transported to America in what is known as forced migration on the largest-scale in the history of mankind.
Millions more lost their lives during the slave hunt or one of the infamous cargo ships.
The statements Commissioner Bolkestein made in a Dutch newspaper last weekend are therefore completely misplaced.
'I am not satisfied with the excuses of the UN Conference in Durban.' He said: 'I myself have never had a slave, so why should I apologise?'
That kind of statement bears witness to a Western arrogance which overlooks the fact that American prosperity is partly built on the labour of slaves, and European prosperity is partly built on the raw materials from former colonies.
Can this serve as an excuse for governments in developing countries to shirk their responsibility and shift all the blame to the past? No, certainly not.
But rather than giving other people lessons in civilisation, we should have the intellectual integrity to describe this chapter in our history as it was: A crime against humanity.
The United Nations Conference on Racism is of particular relevance in these turbulent times, when there is bloodthirsty talk and behaviour in the name of a confrontation between civilisations.
We are witnessing armed conflicts which originate in and are sustained by racial or ethnic conflicts and we are astonished to hear statements whose content and origin are unacceptable, on the superiority of certain civilisations over others.
I would therefore like to congratulate the President-in-Office of the Council of Ministers, Mr Louis Michel, in particular, on his efforts which led to the final success of the Durban Conference, in which I participated on behalf of this Parliament.
His actions clearly demonstrated the European Union' s firm position in relation to racism and xenophobic attitudes.
Without ignoring the social, political and economic problems which lead to racial discrimination in Europe, I would like to focus on one aspect - the development perspective - which has been somewhat forgotten in the stagnation of recent events and also during the Conference, in relation to the Middle East conflict and the seriousness of the events taking place there, and to the recognition of the suffering caused by Europe' s history and the perversity of slavery and slave trading, the practice of which we today see as a crime against humanity.
The majority of ethnic conflicts which involve thousands of victims and regrettable human situations take place in developing countries, mainly in Africa.
I therefore believe that the success of this Conference will depend on whether we are today capable of realising everything that was contained in its final declaration.
In this resolution, we ask the Commission for financial support for the administrations of the developing countries for the implementation of national action plans to eliminate all kinds of discrimination, as was agreed at Durban.
Forums and observatories must be created, observatories in Africa, provincial observatories, regional observatories.
We also ask for support for the United Nations so that it can carry out the monitoring of the results of Durban, so that the fight against racism may remain on the international agenda until it is eradicated.
I believe that we must continue working so that the contents of the declaration may be implemented.
Of course, the United States should not have abandoned the Conference, but it was not the first time that they have abandoned it, since they had abandoned it on other occasions; this was therefore not important.
The important thing is that we in the European Parliament are able to clearly repeat our message with one voice, to journalists, to the media, against racism and in favour of equality and integration.
The President, acting President-in-Office of the Council, and the Commissioner will have to excuse me, for one minute of speaking time leaves one very little time to say much at all.
But great efforts do not necessarily lead to great results.
A lack of effort, however, can lead to disaster.
That is why I should like to congratulate the President-in-Office of the Council for his efforts in Durban.
Sometimes, it seems as if our Commissioners are looking at a different Conference from the one Mr Bolkestein is talking about, when he states that such a conference promotes a sense of victimisation in people who already have the feeling of being victims.
That is regrettable, of course.
Mrs Diamantopoulou, you state that there was actually a hostile atmosphere at that Conference.
It is all the more important then that we are very aware of the fact that we always carry a level of latent racism and latent hostility around with us, and that we are very careful that people keep track of their sense of identity - and I know what I am talking about, for that is a very important theme in our groups.
From the moment that identity leads to a sense of more worth than, and underestimation, of others, and that that sense is instilled in an entire group and transferred across to other groups, ethnic and racist tension ensues, which can lead to major conflicts.
It is unfortunate, but we cannot say that that is not true for Europe.
This is borne out by the success of racist parties in some of our countries, the conflicts in the Balkans, or the tension in the candidate countries.
We must employ a great deal of patience and determination to make a difference.
Durban may be a start.
It was certainly not the end, for the bulk of the work will need to be done in our own communities.
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, the World Conference on Racism in Durban was overshadowed from the outset by a political strategy of discrimination.
Arab States attempted to impute racism to Israel, with the intention of making the Arab world out to be victims of Israeli racism, which was then to be condemned by the conference.
This was a perfidious strategy.
They attempted to make use of this important conference for their own purposes.
Like the conference as a whole, any attempt to seriously get to grips with this strategy was sunk by the terrible events on 11 September.
We now have a situation in which the entire Arab world is in danger of itself being pilloried in a racist way.
All people of Arab origin or from an Islamic cultural background are in danger of having the deeds of a small terrorist group laid at their door.
There are, unfortunately, already examples of how this can happen openly and violently.
It can also, however, happen surreptitiously through concealed mistrust.
Either way, it is a creeping venom seeping into our open society and becoming a burden on it.
This would represent a victory for the terrorists. So let us not allow it to happen!
Let us not follow the bad example that cast a pall over the Durban Conference.
We Members of Europe's Parliament, above all people, must be wary of rashly pigeonholing people by nationality and religion.
Let us be an example.
Let us continue to be open and tolerant.
But the terrorists must be in no doubt: they will be pursued with rigour, with no regard to race and religion.
We here can do something against racism.
Let us act accordingly and give an example.
That will be worth more than all the conferences in the world, something that will be demonstrated when we take this debate to its post-Durban conclusion.
Mr President, the European Union bears a particular responsibility in the fight against racism and racial discrimination.
The action plan adopted on 8 September in Durban is an important message and a contribution to creating awareness in the fight against racism and xenophobia.
The conference's eventual agreement on a joint declaration is to be welcomed.
Although many, but not all, NGO's and also many States strenuously attempted to convert the Conference into a unilateral forum of condemnation of Israel and to make the issue of slavery and colonialism an opportunity for demanding compensation payments, it can be counted a success that the Final Document did not take up extreme positions of this sort and that it came into being at all.
With hindsight, however, we must ask ourselves whether the European Union's generous support for the NGOs, which I consider justified in principle and which amounted to EUR 3.7 million, always found its way to the right destinations, all the more so as agitprop arguments to the effect that, for example, Zionism is equivalent to racism, are very much part of the political vocabulary of many States, Syria being one example.
The biggest terrorist attack to date against the civilised world took place three days after the Durban Conference.
None other than President Mubarak of Egypt has pointed out that human rights issues are often misused by terrorist organisations in order to build up their international networks.
Mark well, though, that human rights and the fight against racial discrimination and xenophobia are indivisible and of global significance.
Nobody is immune, as demonstrated by the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans and the most recent tragic events in Northern Ireland.
The Durban Action Plan is an important document for every State, but also for the European Union as a whole, which bears great responsibility in this respect, above all in the framework of the United Nations.
I wish the EU's role were more visible there as well.
Mr President, the debate on the outcome of the UN Conference on Racism is particularly topical following the tragic events on 11 September.
Unfortunately, the global coalition against terrorism appears to exist alongside a xenophobic revival, as Mrs Diamantopoulou said earlier, and a tendency to demonise whole groups of people, mainly Muslims and Arabs.
According to the international press, the majority of the public in Holland, 62% to be precise, in a country with a long tradition of democracy, considers that the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington will seriously impede the social integration of Muslims in Holland.
At the same time, there is support in Germany for reviewing the legislative framework governing religious organisations.
A few days ago in Britain, a nineteen-year-old Muslim girl and a taxi driver were the victims of an unprovoked attack.
During this morning' s debate on asylum and immigration, several members in the House expressed anti-Islamic views.
These developments are most worrying.
Europe' s experiences from the horrendous wars of the twentieth century highlight the danger to peace and democracy and to human dignity of racism, xenophobia and nationalism.
In the light of recent events, the European Union and the Member States need to strengthen their legal mechanisms for fighting racism and to take initiatives at global level to reduce the gap between countries and to ostracise violence as a means of resolving differences.
Fighting terrorism and dispensing justice should never call our democratic achievements and respect for fundamental freedoms and human rights into question.
Finally, I should like to thank the President-in-Office, Mr Michel, and the European delegation as a whole for helping to make the UN Conference in Durban a success.
Mr President, racism is one matter on which there exists a great cultural unanimity: that it is wrong.
Nobody wants to be accused of racism; it is one of those strong and highly-charged words which can easily be used not only to struggle against injustice but also to attack and to brand people.
The shadow declaration which preceded the NGO Conference on Racism, in which Israel was accused of racism - without any simultaneous condemnation of anti-semitism - created a distorted starting point for the UN conference.
We Members of the European Parliament, too, have seen with our own eyes how anti-semitism appears in the form of naked racism in Palestinian textbooks.
The tone of debate was unfair to Israel when account is taken of its past and the obvious desire of hostile States to deny Israel's very right to exist.
I certainly do not deny the problems of the Palestinians; these need to be rectified.
But no solution will be generated by obfuscating facts in one way or the other.
It is tragicomic that, while condemning discrimination, one is guilty of that very thing oneself.
This unfairness unfortunately harmed the credibility of the NGOs and damaged the prestige of the Conference on Racism.
As a friend of the civic society and of NGOs I particularly regret this: by its lack of consideration, this body has weakened its own credibility and future operating prospects.
I very much appreciate the way in which the most respected human rights organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch immediately dissociated themselves from the text of the NGO conference.
Similarly, I wish to thank the representative of the presiding State, Belgium, whose intervention on behalf of the EU justifiably stressed that the conflict in the Middle East is a political one and should not be treated in a conference on racism at all.
What, then, should have been discussed?
What did all this political talk crowd out? According to Amnesty International, many critical matters such as the treatment of refugees, human trafficking, persecution based on the caste system, and the rights of gypsies threatened to remain unnoticed.
And, unfortunately, this is what happened.
The Indian untouchables, for example, made strong efforts to bring up their own plight in the NGO forum on racism.
Discrimination against untouchables is, according to them, a hidden form of apartheid.
Mr President, the Durban Conference provided an important opportunity to condemn the phenomenon of racism and xenophobia, sending out a clear and powerful message, the need for and importance of which remain highly relevant today.
The twentieth century bore witness to the most horrendous crimes committed in the name of racist doctrines which, we should bear in mind, took place in Europe, whose civilisation was the birthplace of the great declarations on rights.
The Durban Conference, however, was much more than an exercise in the duty of remembrance.
Durban reminded us that the modern world has proved itself incapable of eradicating racism and xenophobia from its societies and these, even in Europe, continue to create victims and underlie violent conflicts.
Unfortunately, some people have succumbed to the Manichean philosophy, lacking in any historical rigour, that gives Europe a disproportionate and over-simplified responsibility for all the evils and oppression associated with racism, such as the use of slavery.
Europe does not reject its history, neither the enlightened times nor its darker moments, but nor must it allow it to be crassly manipulated.
Europe must not allow its history to become a mere settling of accounts, with the past being placed in the dock in order to exonerate the present time and conceal modern responsibilities for the persistence of the abject and anachronistic phenomenon of slavery and, more generally, of the systematic violation of fundamental rights.
Judging history with the eyes of the present is a pernicious exercise in populism that simplifies the complex and, consequently, offends the truth.
Manicheism seeks to segregate fanaticism and use the whole gamut of crusades that interpret history as an endless struggle between Good and Evil.
A fanatic, by definition, has no interlocutors, only enemies.
History is not merely the balancing of criminal offences and civil compensation laid down in current legislation.
We reject this pointless exercise.
The European Union' s political responsibility for affirming the universal values inherent to human dignity is both domestic and international because it is inherent to the most intimate raison d' être of our common project.
Our collective European responsibility is expressed in the unreserved confirmation of our place in the front line of combat, by the universal affirmation of human rights and rights protecting against racism and xenophobia and in the determination to pursue and extend its constructive role on the international stage, by liberating humanity from all discrimination based on hatred, prejudice and ignorance.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would nonetheless like to briefly respond to the speakers with some considerations, and perhaps with some more detailed information.
First of all, I agree to an extent, as Mr Van Hecke said, I agree to an extent with him in believing we must ensure that we prepare very thoroughly for a conference of this kind.
I think that, essentially, we have, to a certain degree, paid a heavy price for the fact that a number of shortfalls were perceived in the preparations for this conference.
I believe, to use a term that you are familiar with, that there were still far too many 'leftovers' at Durban, which obviously made the task at hand much more complicated.
I therefore think that this preparation is obviously extremely important.
My second comment in relation to this type of conference: I am not sure whether to want to draw up a document that provides a comprehensive list of every situation would not be a mistake, and whether or not, at the end of the day, this would adversely affect the substance of the final document.
By this I mean that, if we had a more concise text, with a specific number of principles that can be generally applied, I feel that we would probably be able to produce a stronger text.
And we can even question whether or not the European Union could perhaps at some point contemplate doing this, in other words, glean from the Durban Conference a basic framework, which would facilitate the roll-out of the Durban achievements in each Member State.
I have heard many people ask the question, 'So, that was Durban - what comes next?' Ladies and gentlemen, I must tell you that what happens next depends in the main on the Member States.
I believe that it was Mrs Boumediene-Thiery who said that if a State wants to apologise, present or express remorse or regret, at the end of the day, it is up to that State to know how far it can go.
Secondly, I think that each State can very easily put the finishing touches to or devise its own specific action programme to combat racism, based on what was done at Durban, drawing its inspiration from these principles and from what was agreed at Durban.
I also listened earlier to the Commissioner very clearly saying that the Commission was also planning to take some very specific measures.
I think that the Commission has already been working on this matter for some time.
I therefore feel that there will be a follow-up, that there will be another conference after Durban if that is what we want.
In fact, this comes down to the usual question of political will.
Naturally, I would also like to take advantage of this opportunity to thank all the speakers who have expressed their appreciation of my work, which is much too generous.
I believe that I had the support of some extremely competent people from the Commission, Council, and of course from my own delegation.
I was also able to count on all those representing the various European countries.
I feel that it was logical to do the work that we did.
I think that it was perfectly natural.
I would like to perhaps respond to a number of comments about what is lacking in the documents.
Yes, they naturally lack a number of points.
For example, why is there no mention at all of the caste system in the documents adopted at Durban?
This is a particularly important subject for the European Union, I am aware of this, and what is more, I share this concern.
As you know, the European Union is concerned about situations involving discrimination throughout the world; therefore it was natural that we also express this concern.
We closely followed developments regarding this problem and we supported a paragraph put forward by Switzerland, discussing this problem. The text makes references to discrimination based on ancestry and occupation, which clearly describes types of discrimination, the helpless victims of which live in several countries around the world.
Unfortunately, despite all the efforts of the European Union and other countries, particularly South America, it was not possible to reach an agreement with India on this paragraph.
Since this conference was based on consensus, as you know, the text was therefore withdrawn, and this is something I regret.
However, we must also remain realistic and realise that we cannot achieve everything.
One speaker quite rightly mentioned the problem of the death penalty. This is a subject that is of particular personal concern to me.
As you know, the abolition of the death penalty is one of the European Union' s priorities.
I believe that we are right to reiterate this, and we are endeavouring to use every possible opportunity we are given at international level to push forward the debate on this issue.
This was the case at the Durban conference.
The European Union supported a paragraph of the action programme referring to racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty.
The United States strongly opposed this paragraph during the preparatory process, however, and several countries, particularly those in Asia, also rejected it and, without consensus, it was not possible to retain this text either.
I am obviously giving these examples in order to convince you that your concerns were relayed and were expressed in Durban, but unfortunately we could not achieve everything.
I would like to briefly mention the behaviour of the NGOs throughout the conference.
As stressed in the documents adopted at Durban, civil society, and NGOs therefore, have an important role to play in the fight against racism.
That is why the NGO forum organised prior to the Intergovernmental Conference was particularly important for the European Union.
In my view, this is also the reason why the European Commission funded most of those taking part in the forum.
Unfortunately, although the forum provoked some interesting debates, I, myself, took part in a debate that I found extremely interesting, the forum followed a process that was, at times, dubious and, at others, totally undemocratic.
Extremist organisations seem to have monopolised the discussion, which forced Member States to disregard the conclusions of the forum.
Some NGOs, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and FIDH, also disassociated themselves from the forum' s outcome.
Moreover, we must admit that the aggressive approach and disgraceful verbal abuse from some NGOs raises the question as to why the European Union and its Member States as well - my own country included - give their unconditional support to these organisations.
I think that we must also discuss with the NGOs such issues as their accountability, their representativeness and the confines of their responsibilities.
As I have already said, I enjoyed a very good relationship with most of the NGOs, and I also acknowledge that they have a specific role to play.
Earlier, I heard Mrs Boumediene-Thiery use a rather subversive term - which is a great credit to you, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery - but we could have a fundamental difference of opinions.
Personally speaking, as a democratically elected politician, I am not willing to give up my prerogative to assume political responsibility on behalf of the people.
I have been elected, the people can therefore reject me, which is what I call responsibility, and I must also be accountable to the people - these are, essentially, my two duties.
I am not therefore willing to let this prerogative be taken away from me because, when this system of political responsibility ceases to exist, we would no longer have a democracy, in other words.
And that is something that I cannot accept.
I did want to bring up one particular subject - which Mr Sylla mentioned, I believe - that of discrimination on the basis of sexual preference, which is one of many forms of discrimination.
The European Union was in favour of highlighting the many forms of discrimination that affect some classes of people.
This concept is certainly present in the texts.
However, when it came to defining potential sources of these many forms of discrimination, it was not possible to include concepts that the European Union considers to be important, such as discrimination based on sexual orientation.
This idea was firmly opposed by some countries, as you suspected.
The only aspects that everyone found acceptable were the sources of discrimination listed in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, in other words, race, colour, sex, language, religion, political belief or any other belief, national or social origin, wealth, birth or any other situation.
What are we doing in terms of following up this conference? I shall conclude by reiterating my earlier point that it would be the task of each Member State to follow up the Durban Conference, but it has already been decided that the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights will primarily be responsible for providing this follow-up.
Several measures must be implemented, particularly the creation of an anti-discrimination unit within the Office of the High Commissioner and the appointment of five highly-regarded independent experts, who will be responsible for monitoring the implementation of the provisions contained in the action programme and the political declaration.
These experts will be appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General.
Naturally, I wanted to provide you with this clarification, first of all because I was also keen to congratulate those speakers who made such relevant comments, and I wanted to tell them that their strong convictions have served as a significant driving force and support enabling us to defend the points of view that we expressed on your behalf in Durban.
In accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received six motions for resolutions to end the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.20 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Vehicles designed to carry more than eight passengers
The next item is the report (A5-0312/2001) by Mr Miller, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive relating to special provisions for vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver' s seat, and amending Directives 70/156/EEC and 97/27/EC (C5-0278/2001 - 1997/0176(COD)).
Madam President, I welcome everybody here again tonight.
I see a good number of familiar faces.
I wish to pay tribute to my shadow rapporteur, Mr Harbour, who again is attending a late-night sitting with me.
We probably spend more nights together than we do with our respective wives.
I should also like to pay tribute to a number of people who have worked on this report, not just within the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market but also within the Commission and the Council.
It was not a difficult conciliation but it was successful and I was very pleased at the outcome.
I should also like to give the thanks of probably about a third of the population of the European Union to Parliament, for I am anticipating that the vote tomorrow will go the right way.
There are something like 35 million registered disabled people within the European Union; we have 120 million elderly people.
The two groups are obviously not mutually exclusive, but they make up about a third of the population of the European Union.
The outcome of tomorrow's vote will very largely decide what their quality of life in the future will be.
For years now people with disabilities have not been able to get around the towns and cities of the European Union as they should; they have been trapped for too long in their own houses.
If this directive is adopted tomorrow, it will open up that door.
It will be one small step towards freeing a lot of people who, as I said earlier, have been trapped.
I would like to convey their thanks to Parliament.
I realise that some of my colleagues on the right of this House have had difficulties with this directive, mainly because of its technical nature.
I fully understand and appreciate that.
However, I would ask them at this late stage to consider what we are doing, because if this directive is adopted tomorrow, it is something that everybody in Parliament could be proud of, because we would be improving the lives of the citizens of the European Union.
For once we would be making a difference.
Too often we stand up in this Chamber and talk about various great plans, schemes and motions, etc. and they do not impact on people's lives.
Here is a small thing that does impact on the lives of the European citizen and it is something we should all be proud of.
I understand my colleagues on the right will be abstaining tomorrow.
That is unfortunate but it is, at least, an improvement on voting against in the second reading.
I would ask them, however, to look at this again and cast their votes in favour, because all along I have tried to leave out the technicalities and have concentrated purely on the policy and philosophy of getting people with disabilities mobile again.
That is an aim and objective I think we would all agree with.
In that respect, I have really not much more to say, because this has been discussed at length.
The Commissioner is well aware of the contents of the report and probably could recite them as well as I could.
Finally, I should like to thank very much all those who have helped draft this report and who tomorrow will help to adopt it.
Madam President, once again it is a genuine pleasure to be working with my friend Mr Miller.
I want to pay tribute to him for his persistence in working through this, and particularly for the masterly way in which he handled the conciliation process.
This is the first time I have been involved in a trialogue, so I have been able to study the process at work.
Indeed, as he says, we have reached a very satisfactory outcome.
I fully supported the final compromise and, indeed, the benefits that it will deliver.
It is important that we finally, after five long years, bring this to a close.
In a moment I shall refer to some of the issues involved.
However, it is important to add that, in delivering the sort of benefits that Mr Miller was talking about, we need to reflect the fact that a lot of other improvements to the infrastructure associated with public transport will also be needed. The buses are only part of it.
That is something that we have not been able to tackle but that other committees will wish to look at.
What about the principles? He quite rightly said - I tipped him off beforehand - that we will be abstaining on this.
It will go through tomorrow.
We certainly do not wish to obstruct it or vote against the conciliation procedure, but we feel, on this side of the House, that the principles that led us to vote against this last time - and my colleague, Mr Rübig, who will speak later, is a veteran of the previous process - are entirely consistent.
So we will not be obstructing it.
It will go on its way with our qualified support.
Mr Miller has played the role of the man riding the last dinosaur, if I may put it that way.
Commissioner Liikanen told us at second reading in the debate that he does not envisage bringing a regulation of this complexity before Parliament again.
That is absolutely the right approach.
I want to take the opportunity to say to the House tonight that I, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, have made a proposal to other committees and to the Commission on ways in which Parliament can exercise its political role in scrutinising and putting forward ideas for motor vehicle regulation.
We have suggested that the Commission should bring to us on an annual basis a comprehensive report on its plans for future motor vehicle regulation, specifying where it is going to use the Economic Commission for Europe proposals and, indeed, covering some of the voluntary regulation process that we have talked about.
That will allow this Parliament, through all its various committees, to take a serious look at the political content of regulation and not ever again become immersed for five years in this sort of complex, technical regulation - a process that we finally sign off this evening.
Mr President, one of the objectives of the directive is to improve access to public transport for persons of reduced mobility.
The European Parliament and the Council seriously disagreed on this point.
The European Parliament' s insistence on provisions to facilitate access for persons of reduced mobility, especially wheelchair users, was vindicated, as was the rapporteur, Mr Miller.
The agreement reached in the Conciliation Committee, which is in line with the position taken by the European Parliament, proves yet again how important issues such as the quality of life can only be promoted through courageous policies which are free from technocrats' reservations and financial considerations.
The proposed directive introduces a broader definition of the term 'persons of reduced mobility' , stipulating that it includes all people who experience some difficulty when using public transport, especially the elderly and the disabled.
Reduced mobility does not necessary depend on some form of medical complaint.
This is an important innovation which could be used as the starting point for similar adjustments to give substance to policy on the quality of life.
To be specific, disability may take different forms, including not just physical mobility but also intellectual and sensory impairment.
Therefore, it also includes people who merely have limb impairments, are of small stature, pregnant women etc.
It also states that all sloping areas in vehicles must have a non-slip surface.
It is also worth pointing out that it does not limit itself to vehicle specifications; in order to ensure passengers can board safely, it also makes provision for easier access through local infrastructure planning.
This should guarantee safe, pavement-level boarding by all persons of reduced mobility.
I would like to believe that the spirit of agreement achieved here will prevail over other similar endeavours.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the debate about this directive is above all a dispute about principles, about whether we, in the European Union of the future, want the principle of harmonisation, that of mutual recognition or the 'third version' - where do we need the one and where the other?
We have achieved only a small partial success with this directive on the EC procedure for approving vehicle types because, of course, national procedures for type approval still apply concurrently with, and in addition to, the directive which is now being laid down.
What we want matters here, and I would like to express my thanks to Mr Miller for working so hard to ensure that what we want prevails.
This is, of course, not true of national procedures for type approval, which prevail at present and will continue to prevail in future.
The success is a very modest one, and we will therefore be abstaining tomorrow, because it does not go far enough for us, because we would actually have liked a general regulation for all buses.
I must also say that the Commission's proposal was a very, very good one in terms of content and from the points of view of engineering and technology, but must be rejected absolutely on the grounds of logic.
At first reading, we had 160 pages of detailed Commission proposals on the table, Members worked out another 110 amendments to them, and I think this House and, at the end of the day, Europe as a whole, is overburdened with this sort of detail.
The state of affairs we will be deciding on tomorrow is such that we have now even fixed the curvature of the rear panel of a bus at a normative maximum of 150 mm.
Even compared with the European standard cucumber, that is a sensational success!
Madam President, I wish to congratulate Parliament and, in particular, its Conciliation Committee and the rapporteur, Mr Miller, on their success in reaching an agreement with the Council on this very important directive.
I should like to stress that, with this directive, the European Community will be setting the pace and enabling the industry to compete under common rules to produce safe and more accessible buses and coaches for the benefit of all European public transport users.
This directive makes significant progress in three areas, namely the internal market, the transport policy and the social policy of the Community.
The access provisions for buses and coaches as regards boarding by persons with reduced mobility will ensure that a larger proportion of our citizens use public transport.
I should like to reply to the question by Mr Harbour.
I received the letter based on his proposal from the chairman of the committee, Mr Westendorp y Cabeza, and I have sent him a detailed reply, which supports this initiative.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon on Wednesday.
GALILEO
The next item is the report (A5-0288/2001) by Mrs Langenhagen, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission communication to the European Parliament and the Council on GALILEO (COM(2000) 750 - C5-0110/2001 - 2001/2059(COS)).
Madam President, Commissioner, we are latecomers; time is running away from us and, above all, from the GALILEO project.
The longer the European Union hesitates in getting the European satellite navigation system underway, the more both industry and the people will react to it with apathy.
The ultimate danger is that GALILEO will one day be buried.
My anxieties increase when I recall some of the statements made to me over the years when I worked on the European satellite navigation project.
The position Parliament has taken with regard to the Commission's communication does not, admittedly, possess any legislative character, but points in an important direction.
I hope that it will be by a large majority that Parliament will adopt my report tomorrow and thus support the position that Europe urgently needs a satellite navigation system of its own, not least in view of the special situation in which Europe and the rest of the world find themselves since 11 September.
The Council also holds this fundamental view, as again confirmed by the final conclusions from Stockholm.
How, though, may we clear away the doubts that surface again and again, even in the amendments before us? The fundamental issue is now as it was before: why do we need a European satellite navigation system of our own, when the Americans have already supplied a working model in the form of GPS?
Let me quote some of the main arguments.
The first is that the American system is conceived on military lines, with resultant disadvantages as regards continuity of availability, precision, and also legal certainty.
What concerns us here is reliability, which must be guaranteed even in a crisis.
It must be clear to all of us that Europe's sovereignty and security would be gravely imperilled if the navigation systems were to be taken out of European control.
We quite evidently need our own civilian system which, however, must be available to all - and I emphasise all - potential users.
I regret therefore that I am unable to support the amendments newly reintroduced by the GUE/NGL Group, which demand a purely civilian use.
Secondly: we are pressing for free competition not only within the EU, but also worldwide.
It can, then, be only a cause for amazement if we readily accept a monopoly from a foreign State and expose our users to the risk of provision being less than optimal.
We must commit ourselves to the best interests of our citizens and users.
Thirdly: if the European Union were to do without its own system, it would fall back massively in the high technology sector.
That can surely not be the intention. On the contrary, we want to see Europe at the top, and for that we need GALILEO.
Fourthly: GALILEO creates employment in Europe.
The jobs created are for the highly qualified and in a sector with a future, namely high technology.
The building-up of the infrastructure and the many potential applications could create up to 100 000 jobs in the next few years and result in high earnings in the market.
Why, then, is GALILEO vital for Europe? In my report, I have described at length the advantages and positive aspects for the various fields of application.
These advantages become all the more convincing if we succeed in involving other countries in the project.
For example, China expressed interest only recently, at the Brussels Summit.
Europe is capable of developing its own system.
We are not going to keep GALILEO, like a confection, for our own enjoyment, but will offer it to those of our partners who are willing to have it, and we will let those partners share in the great benefits.
As we want to offer the best service possible, we set great store on compatibility with other systems from the outset.
Industry is showing an interest, as demonstrated by the EUR 200 million pledged to the Commission as a statement of intent, but we must not make excessive demands on Europe's industry.
The wheels of industry will not start rolling without a clear and definite political signal, a green light given by us.
The preparatory work done by the Commission and the European Space Agency deserves high praise.
Now, though, I await expectantly the Commission's financial and administrative framework, as called for in the report.
This framework will be a further building block and a weight-bearing pillar for developing our own satellite navigation system.
GALILEO is a Community project - incidentally, the first in this field, which makes it a vision for the future!
Let us now, then, get to grips with it, instead of putting it off forever and a day, for GALILEO will revolutionise transport and mobility, just as the Internet has done.
Success stories - of which we in Europe can already claim a few - require careful thought, courage and decisiveness.
Let us make good use of this historic moment when we vote tomorrow!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets on the Commission communication on GALILEO, I will confine myself in this speech to the financial side of the project.
At the current stage, GALILEO does not comply with the statement on financial programming, which was adopted by the three institutions on 20 July 2000. According to this statement, 'the budgetary authority must have accurate information about the financial consequences of each new proposal presented by the Commission, in order to be able to assess the impact of the proposal on the ceilings of the financial perspective (...)' .
Furthermore, at a meeting of EU transport ministers in April 2001, it became clear that the Union had major problems finding the extra EUR 1.5 billion required from private sources for the deployment phase (2006-2007) of GALILEO.
On the other hand, the Commission states that when it issued a call for an expression of interest in order to establish the conditions needed in order to set up a public-private partnership, several European industrial consortia responded to this, without reference to any further problems.
I would like to make it clear that I support the Commission' s approach in principle.
Nevertheless, I would warn that GALILEO may have a much bigger impact on the general budget than initially expected.
I consider that the budgetary authority should have a clear picture of GALILEO' s source of funding before it can commit appropriations to the project.
The identification of the sources and amounts of private funding should be concurrent with the identification of public funding. Financing needs should be met by 2002.
Then, Parliament should demand prior consultation of the budgetary authority in the event that the expenditure to be financed from the general budget is to be revised.
This would ensure that no restrictions are placed on other activities financed under heading 3 if GALILEO does not attract the investments foreseen by the Commission.
However, following my approach, in a situation of crisis, the European Union would have the possibility to use the satellite navigation services provided by GALILEO without having to rely on other (primarily military) satellite systems operated by the United States and Russia such as GPS and GLONASS, although it would still be compatible with them.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we would like to give our opinion on the GALILEO programme, taking into account the decisions made, namely by the Stockholm European Council on 23 March 2001.
At this Council meeting, great emphasis was placed on the need to launch this satellite navigation programme immediately.
Our Committee acknowledges the benefits of such a programme, the main feature of which is that it is European as well as civilian in nature, and is therefore independent of systems developed by the military, such as the American GPS and Russian GLONASS systems, and that is reliable and has greater precision than these two existing systems.
We are proposing, however, that the following points be implemented during the development and validation phase from 2001 to 2005, the deployment phase from 2006 to 2007, and the operation phase, which begins in 2008, essentially under the aegis of the European Space Agency and the Commission.
First of all, we must accurately monitor the funding, initially estimated to be in the region of EUR three billion, as well as the partners chosen, particularly private industries, and their involvement. We must also carry out an in-depth analysis of the cost-effectiveness and the implications for the economy and employment.
We are demanding the greatest level of transparency in this matter and to receive regular information from Parliament.
Secondly, we stress the fact that the structures established during the development of the programme should be used solely for civilian purposes, and we point out that it is vital, in this case, to develop the use of space for purposes related to the general interest and public service.
Thirdly, the GALILEO programme must not be applied in such a way that will jeopardise the right to or the protection of privacy and it must not under any circumstances be used for the surveillance of citizens.
It must, in particular, be developed in order to protect and safeguard the environment, to protect the lives of citizens and natural resources, and ensure early detection and even prevention of natural or man-made disasters.
It must also contribute to progress in European research, when drawing up the future Sixth Framework Programme.
Lastly, we are proposing - and this is important - to set up an advisory ethics committee, whose task would be to ensure respect for the aforementioned requirements and which would assist the Commission and the European Space Agency in their decision-making duties.
I want to emphasise - and I call on Mrs De Palacio to give us her point of view - the fact that it will be civilian organisations that set up the system.
Of course, we cannot say that, 'we will not vote in favour of GALILEO if it is used by the military in the future' , because, when we set up transport and communication systems, for instance, anyone can use them.
What matters is that Europe is independent and that it is not dependent on the USSR or the US.
We believe that these various provisions are realistic conditions, which must accompany and justify GALILEO, and we would also hope to hear Mrs De Palacio' s point of view on setting up the ethics committee.
Madam President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, competition stimulates business, as the example of the motor industry over the last 100 years has shown.
The fact that there were at least three major production centres, the USA, Europe and Asia, was extremely good for business all round.
Airbus is another good example of what can be achieved by exposure to international competition, if we are not simply content for other people to make a good product that we can buy or even use free of charge like the GPS.
It will be no different with what we are discussing today - the GALILEO satellite navigation system.
Of course it is no bad thing that GPS exists.
Of course it is no bad thing, it may even be a good thing, that in many cases it is available to users free of charge.
But that there is, to all intents and purposes, only an American system is not good at all.
The Russian GLONASS is probably not entirely in the same category.
We Europeans have no real rights of access.
The examples there have been in the past have shown that we are suddenly bereft of navigation in one case or another.
Almost more important and quite central from my point of view as a university teacher is that we have no real involvement in technological innovation if we are not engaged in development ourselves, if we do not carry out research ourselves and if we do not ourselves take research to the applications stage so that it can also go into industrial production.
We need both, we need access and we need technological development.
We cannot talk about a society of knowledge and learning without taking the next logical step.
Above all, too, we also need the many potential applications in transport.
I believe that requires no further explanation.
Admittedly there are also problems when it comes to GALILEO.
The problems of finance have still not really been resolved.
Industry is still biding its time, waiting for public funding, while the public authorities in turn plead Maastricht criteria, empty pockets and the like.
Hopefully there will sooner or later be a genuine public and private partnership in this matter.
A last word on the tricky subject of double use or only civilian use.
I cannot understand the naivety of many of the tabled amendments.
There is not only good in the world.
The events of 11 September were a cruel demonstration of that.
Finally a word of thanks and appreciation to the two ladies who have made such a big contribution to this evening' s report, the rapporteur Brigitte Langenhagen and the Transport Commissioner Loyola de Palacio. Neither of them lost their bearings in dealing with this topic.
Madam President, first of all, I would like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen on her excellent work, which also received a notably favourable vote in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
I hope that the same will happen tomorrow when the House votes on the report, since this is a particularly important, even historic text for the European Union.
The European Union is a major power.
Europe is a major player in the aviation and space industries, but the European Union does not have aviation and space power, since it has never had a policy in this area until now and, as Mrs Langenhagen said, GALILEO is a historic beginning for us, our first Community programme.
The GALILEO programme is all the more important because it guarantees that the high technology and the activity of our industries will be maintained in the future, since 150 000 jobs will be created.
GALILEO represents the political independence of the European Union, since, as you are aware, we had no frequency access during the Kosovo war due to the American GPS system, and as things stand at the moment, we cannot count on the American system being completely reliable in the coming years.
I therefore believe that it is crucial that we consider the success of GALILEO as vital in ensuring the EU' s credibility over the next few years in an area where competition in the aviation and space industries is increasingly marked, particularly when faced with new competition, for instance from China or Japan.
We are also concerned about how this operation is funded, about the delays in its implementation and that it has been postponed on numerous occasions.
Let us be clear about one thing - in the space industry, as in all the other transport industries, nothing can be achieved without State funding and without a boost from the government, whether this is direct State funding or so-called co-funding, along the lines of the American model, where the military sector funds the civilian.
We must be aware of this situation.
With regard to infrastructure, it is very difficult to find private sector investment, therefore we must be prepared, the Commission is not only responsible for this, Member States are responsible as well.
The Council must certainly be made aware of this.
This is why the Group of the Party of European Socialists did not want to increase the number of obstacles.
We shall not vote in favour of the amendments tabled by the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left or the amendment by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party on the funding method, whereby the GALILEO programme must be halted if private sector investment is not sufficient. This is because we believe GALILEO is a crucial programme for the future of the European Union and for the future of European space policy.
Madam President, first of all, I should like to say a word of thanks to Mrs Langenhagen for the huge amount of work she has carried out on this topic.
It has been a long haul, with obstacles and unruliness along the way, and the end is certainly not yet in sight.
However, we are taking an important decision tomorrow, which will bring us one step closer to our goal.
International developments underline the importance of having a system of our own, but at the same time, of establishing sound international cooperation, so that interoperability of the system can be achieved.
I should like to mention three other points which the ELDR Group considers important.
First of all, the management structure.
To the ELDR Group, it is important that the management is transparent, and we are already glad of a major step forward by the Council, namely the proposal to set up a single administrative structure in agreement with Article 171 of the Treaty.
The second point I should like to raise is the financial concern.
We are still not entirely convinced that that is going in the right direction.
We accept that at the beginning, public money must be invested, but industry must contribute too.
There must be a balance.
There is still no binding agreement with the private sector and there is still uncertainty in that area.
That is why we have tabled an amendment for which I should ask your support, so that the European Union does not become a safety net.
And given the high cost, we expect a contribution towards the cost of the use.
Improved geographical access and reliability must be factors in favour of which industry must choose and in which they must display willingness to invest.
That is exactly what makes the system first-rate.
Madam President, Commissioner, a great deal of work has been done.
A report has been drawn up.
That too took up a lot of time.
However, a whole host of arguments are being put forward, with which - let there be no mistake - I entirely disagree.
The wrong arguments are being used in order to sell a project.
Let me start with the technology.
Some people claim that superior technology is being used here.
That is absolutely not the case.
GPS is a similar system.
Our system is slightly better because it uses ground stations.
As a result, it is slightly more reliable and communication is possible.
But the subsequent generations of GPS II - did you think the Americans were mad? - and GPS III are just as capable.
No problem whatsoever.
If we consider the levels concerned, the first level is an open access system, which is free.
It is similar to GPS with matching criteria: same height, same accuracy in terms of horizontality, etc.
The subsequent systems CAS I and CAS II are commercial and intended for the government, while the latter system is also used for military purposes.
To quote another point on which people appear to be misinformed: it is also possible for CAS II to be switched off at regional level if it is used for military purposes.
You may not have been aware of this, but that is the case.
All in all: GALILEO is not more accurate, and it cannot be switched off.
In summary, all those technological features which have been listed, also for transport, are also very much part of the current system.
Where military use is concerned, we are agreed that we do not want this in any event.
I will not enter into the detail of the arguments, but at this moment in time, in the light of 11 September, I do not find it necessary to highlight the need of such a system once again.
It is somewhat inappropriate, in my opinion.
It is clear that the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has agreed to the wording for civil use, and the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has not.
It will be interesting to see what tomorrow brings when the amendments are tabled.
As for the funding, the Council has launched an enquiry.
It appears that there are actually no business partners.
One and a half billion must be coughed up.
Two hundred million is being freed up indirectly and it is suggested that that funding is now available.
The problem in this connection is that it is the same people who have freed up tens of billions for UMTS.
When I listen to Mrs Langenhagen' s opening words, I have a feeling that GALILEO will be laid to rest in the not too distant future.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mrs Langenhagen, the GALILEO project is technologically interesting and already has a lot of potential applications.
Up until now we have had the similar Russian and American systems, but these were designed and developed and are also operated from a military perspective.
The American system does in fact hold the real danger that in times when the USA is using it for military purposes the Europeans and all civilian users will be switched off, as actually happened during the Gulf war!
The GALILEO project is now being presented as a civilian project that will make the European Union independent from the USA in an important field of technology.
In my group, too, opinions on the GALILEO project differ widely.
But we are united on one point: we want it to be used for purely civilian purposes.
We have tabled amendments that are designed to ensure its exclusively civilian use.
Mr Rack, I am neither naïve nor do I believe there are only good people in the world.
But if we do not do this, we will have the same problem as with the American system, namely that when it is being used by the military it will be switched off for civilians.
You are not solving the problem you are claiming to want to solve.
Secondly, I also have concerns about finance.
A total of EUR 1 730 000 000 of European taxpayers' money is to be spent on development, validation and construction.
Industry wants to join in the construction phase, contributing EUR 1.5 billion, but so far only EUR 200 million have been committed. That is 13%.
From a business point of view, no company could afford to develop something with such a poor equity position.
I think it an impertinence that you want to pay for this out of public funds!
Thirdly, there is another aspect to this GALILEO project.
The Americans allow the GPS to be used free of charge.
You want future users to pay for the European system.
Where do you think that will land you with your much-vaunted competition? Competition works like this: if I am being asked to pay for something that I can get free somewhere else, I am not going to pay, and you won' t get any users.
Then you will have thrown all that taxpayers' money away! Mrs Langenhagen, you described this so beautifully as a confection, and Mr Savary used the word historic!
This historic confection will cost a total of EUR 3.2 billion.
I think that is much too expensive for the present time and at this stage!
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the development of a European satellite radio navigation programme raises various questions that warrant our consideration.
This is a project of global scale, that uses cutting-edge technology and involves vast amounts of public and private financial resources.
The strategic importance of political decisions which must be taken for the project to a large extent explain the hesitation that the Council has shown, despite the commitment and enthusiasm that both the Commission and the European Parliament have demonstrated in their statements and in the documents they have drafted.
In fact, the problem is not insignificant.
First of all, because a project of this scale requires close international cooperation.
This cooperation is fundamental, not only because of the future installation in various parts of the world of control centres and communication equipment to support the around thirty satellites that will also have to be sent into space, but also because the success of a project of this nature clearly depends on its interoperability with other, existing systems: the North American GPS and, to a lesser extent, the Russian GLONASS.
It therefore makes no sense to base the argument and the need for a system such as GALILEO on a vague feeling of suspicion in Europe and amongst Europeans towards the United States due to the situation of near total monopoly that that country currently enjoys.
And which could cause it unilaterally and for no plausible reason, in other words irresponsibly, to stop data transmission via satellite, or to introduce unacceptable levels of signal degradation affecting the accuracy of this data for civilian users.
The GPS system and the radio navigation by satellite that this allows have been used successfully by the whole world, particularly in Europe.
It should be added that reception of GPS signals has been completely free to users and any member of the public can access the necessary sectors at an affordable price.
The reasons that the European Union must use in its definition 'Development, installation and use' of a system of this type are, of course, quite different.
They chiefly concern the boost that GALILEO would give to the European high-tech industry and providers of related services, thereby introducing an element of healthy economic competition in this sector of activity, which is crucial to its development.
This system would also provide enormous assistance to the development of European technological potential and to improving the associated academic and applied research.
We must also emphasise the invaluable contribution that a project of this scale would make to the creation of new jobs - more than one hundred thousand - and we are talking about highly qualified posts.
And, lastly, the installation and use of the system would enable the development of a public or private partnership of enormous strategic value to support sectors as important as transport (maritime, air or terrestrial), air traffic management, search and rescue, meteorology, mobile telephony and so many others.
It is for all of these reasons, which I have briefly summarised, that we give our support to the GALILEO project, in the hope of thereby contributing to the construction of a genuine Europe of the future.
Madam President, Mrs Langenhagen predicts a rosy future for the GALILEO satellite system.
This is understandable, based on her line of thinking.
However, I, coming from a critical stance, can see major drawbacks to this project.
The calculated costs of this project are more than considerable, especially now that the contribution of the private sector is not clearly marked and secured at all.
Despite the fact that, according to the Commission, only 150 km of high-speed link can be built for the funding initially required, any amount is too high if it does not yield clear advantages.
In this case, the advantages should mainly be in the field of reliability and price.
As things stand at the moment, it is very likely that GALILEO will become a facsimile of the existing system, at least in terms of functionalities.
Despite the civil line of approach, the system will also boast a military component in time.
I have no doubts about that.
This brings to an end the advantage which GALILEO would have compared to existing systems, namely to be independent from military use and more reliable as a result.
What remains is a situation in which we obtain the same services at higher costs.
However, the most important aspect to us is that the system could play an unwelcome role in the relations between the European Union and the United States of America.
Especially in a military context, it has appeared more than once that the European Union produces little without the United States.
Not only does stirring up trouble in the relationship with the United States not make any sense, it is also very dangerous.
That is why I am in favour of accepting the existing offer and not deluding potential users with illusions.
For it is very much the question whether the use of satellite signals will be better and more efficient than it is at present.
Mr President, have you noticed that, not just the Commissioner, but the president and the rapporteur are also women, a coincidence which I think augurs well for the future of GALILEO, even if he was a man.
So, having congratulated the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen, I should like to make a point of repeating the view that, at every stage in the design, implementation or application of the system, the political decisions will need to be discussed and taken at European Union level and at that level only, although the role of the candidate countries will, of course, also need to be determined.
It is equally obvious that international collaboration with the United States and Russia is essential, not just in order to reduce the huge costs but also because the question of frequencies can be regulated so as to guarantee reliability by ensuring that enough frequencies are available for GALILEO to provide a broad range of services.
Of course, we need more information on the organisation, administration and funding of the implementing agency, with integrated, realistic proposals, mainly as regards private investment.
At least, from the information available to date, there appears to be no particular drive to attract private investment, given that we have not yet clarified if the system will provide services in return for a fee, which it will need to do if there is to be private investment, or free of charge, so that it can compete with GPS, which provides its services free of charge.
Finally, is there any chance of Member States being called upon to pay large sums of money from their national budgets so that the initial appropriations are not lost? I think the Commission should give a prompt response here.
Similarly, we must push ahead and resolve outstanding issues, by which I mean technical issues, such as incorporating EGNOS and the corresponding financial analysis and lawyers, both at Community and national level so that we can make any deliberate interference in or distortion of the system a crime and set up an authority to decide when to impose sanctions.
We trust that, one way or the other, GALILEO will progress more quickly now.
Madam President, Commissioner, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen, for her work on the report.
I am taking the floor today because I feel we need technical systems that offer environmental benefits.
Technical progress is ever more rapid.
Personal computers and mobile telephones have drastically altered our working lives and our everyday life.
We have also seen how technology is changing all the time and creating new aids and how companies are forever developing new products to be used within different areas of society.
A European satellite navigation system can, in fact, mean major opportunities for developing the transport sector, especially when it comes to combined transport, dovetailing different types of transport.
For aviation and shipping, too, as well as for transport by road and rail, the new technology can be used to make transport more efficient and environmentally friendly.
I do agree with the rapporteur that GALILEO will enable Europe to be involved in developing a new technology-based industry and to be in the vanguard of this.
There is a space industry in various parts of Europe today, for example in northernmost Sweden, and I think it important that we should use existing infrastructure to keep down the future costs of this project.
Major technical breakthroughs have more often than not taken place following development using research supported by the public sector, often with a view to the research' s being used for military purposes.
The money and resources needed for developing completely new technologies often do not exist in private companies.
This particularly applies to the GALILEO project which is based upon joint financing by the EU countries but to which the private sector too has to contribute.
What is unique about GALILEO, unlike the GPS system, is that it is being developed for civil rather than military purposes.
I consider this to be an absolute prerequisite for the European Parliament' s supporting the project.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank you once again for the European Parliament' s constant and determined majority support for the GALILEO satellite navigation programme.
The resolution contained in Mrs Langenhagen' s excellent report is testimony to this and I thank her for her work.
Please allow me to make some comments on the motion for a resolution based on the Commission' s communication of November 2000.
At the end of June, the Commission sent to Parliament and the Council the proposed regulation on the statute of the GALILEO joint undertaking.
I would like to insist on the importance of this proposal which is intended to establish a single management structure for the programme at the beginning of 2002.
Given that the timetable is so tight, it is essential that Parliament can issue its opinion on this proposal before the end of the year.
In accordance with the conclusions of the Transport Council of last April, we have implemented a study of the services which GALILEO may offer, the income it may generate and the methods for collecting it.
This study must be finished in the coming weeks so that the Transport Council in December may take the decisions necessary for the programme to move ahead.
Of course we will send the results of this study to this House and I hope that those of you who have expressed more reservations about the programme will find that it provides better explanation and greater confidence and that we will therefore have greater support - I know that it is supported by the majority of this House, but also that some of you have expressed significant reticence, if not opposition.
As the motion for a resolution clearly states, international cooperation is essential to the GALILEO programme.
Its objective is to guarantee the interoperability of GALILEO with the existing radio-navigation systems, such as the American GPS or those in preparation, such as the Russian GLONASS.
In this respect - and some of you have wondered whether or not it is necessary - I would like to say that the idea is that they are compatible and that they benefit each other mutually.
Ladies and gentlemen, after what happened last month, the need for a second system which reinforces the existing system and which provides greater security and is, when the time comes, not only a complement, but also an alternative in the event of possible unwanted situations - when we are seeing a huge increase in the applications which affect all the areas of our lives relating to GALILEO - is absolutely essential, not only for Europe, but for the whole world, including the users in the United States.
It is also important that we have the support of third countries so that we might have the necessary frequencies, principally within the framework of world radio communications conferences - the next one being in 2003.
As you know, the allocation of frequencies is due to be consolidated in 2003.
When this happens, it should aid participation in the development of the GALILEO programme.
With regard to the data issued by GALILEO, the international and Community instruments intended for its protection will clearly be applied.
As Mrs Langenhagen' s report stresses, we believe - and this is one of its special features compared to the GPS system - that GALILEO must supply a public signal, that is, a robust and precise signal which cannot be interrupted as a result of military issues, as happens in the case of GPS, and sensitive applications, whether they be public - customs, judicial investigation and so on - or private - such as banking transmissions.
Finally, allow me to sum up the next stages of the programme.
At the end of the year, after receiving Parliament' s opinion, the Council must adopt the statutes of the GALILEO joint undertaking and decide how the programme must continue to be developed by the said joint undertaking in close cooperation with the European Space Agency.
As some of you have said, the green light must be given to the GALILEO project once and for all.
The development phase, which should last from 2002 until the end of 2005, should allow the launch of the first satellites with a view to testing the system in reality and allow the receivers sector to bring those receivers into line.
As you can see, there is still much to do.
Your support is absolutely essential and, in any event, we will keep this House fully informed of all the steps we take in relation to this project.
Thank you, Mrs De Palacio.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon on Wednesday.
Energy efficiency labelling for office equipment
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0298/2001), by Mrs McNally, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on a Community Energy Efficiency Labelling Programme for Office and Communication Technology Equipment (6760/1/2001 - C5-0246/2001 - 2000/0033(COD)).
Madam President, I am very pleased to present my recommendation for second reading on the Energy Star agreement.
As you will know, in a rather complex procedure, Parliament has already been consulted on the agreement itself.
This is now the codecision procedure on the regulation which implements that agreement.
I wish to thank the Commission, the Council and my colleagues, in particular the shadow rapporteurs, for their help in steering through this rather complex procedure.
I would like to thank in particular the Swedish Presidency, which went out of its way to be helpful.
The Council common position takes on board most of the points made by Parliament at first reading.
We shall have an earlier review than was expected; we shall have an update on new technological advances in this area of energy efficiency; we shall have a report to Parliament.
Furthermore, the United States' authorities are absolutely clear that Parliament is involved in discussions on the Energy Star programme from the Commission's point of view.
This has been done through a side letter added to the agreement, at Parliament's request, which meets our wishes for them to know how we operate in the European Union.
This clearly is not the only measure which is to be taken in the area of energy efficiency.
I understand there is an update to the common position because of the new Eco-Label award scheme.
I am prepared, as rapporteur, to accept that slight modification which has been made necessary.
Even though I am pleased that it looks as though this agreement is coming into force, I do not want to exaggerate its importance.
It is a useful tool, but it is a relatively modest proposal; it is a voluntary scheme based on a United States model.
I know many colleagues agree with me that in future we should work as a European Union and have European Community schemes rather than attempting to latch on to schemes developed elsewhere, in the United States for example.
Nevertheless, although it is relatively modest, it is welcome.
Computer equipment is sold worldwide and the educative, awareness-raising aspects of seeing the Energy Star logo on computers is worthwhile.
We know that one of the tasks in increasing energy efficiency is to improve public awareness.
It is a small part of what is needed.
Everyone in this Chamber knows that energy efficiency is the most important component of energy policy.
It is the fifth fuel - coal, gas, renewables, nuclear - the fifth fuel, with a 30% potential, is energy efficiency.
If someone from another planet saw us acting as if we had known that, they would think we were stupid.
We are not stupid, we are intelligent and that is why intelligent energy - a phrase with which I hope everyone is becoming familiar - and certainly Mr Wijkman, Mr Turmes, Mrs Van der Laan and I are doing our best to make it a very familiar phrase - and energy-intelligent Europe depends on energy efficiency.
We look to the Commissioner to bring in a package of measures well beyond Energy Star.
They are demand-side management and two important directives: one on household appliances and one on office equipment - not made in the USA.
I hope that during this autumn, under the Belgian Presidency, we will see both of those draft directives adopted.
We have been very cooperative on the Energy Star programme.
There is only one amendment, which could be withdrawn.
If the Commissioner is able to give us tonight an appropriate assurance and accept the spirit of that amendment, which asks her to take further action on the withdrawal of inefficient equipment, it is quite possible that we can approve the common position unamended.
Madam President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs McNally, on behalf of my group for undertaking this technically difficult task and for the tough way she negotiated with the Council, because Parliament' s rights were at stake.
She was in a way having to negotiate a precedent and she showed great commitment and was very successful on Parliament' s behalf.
I would also like to thank the Vice-President of the Commission, who over all has worked very energetically for a European contribution to solving our energy problems.
I think we are all agreed that the more efficient use of energy is a very important contribution to solving our energy problems.
Modern technology offers us ways of saving energy and using it more efficiently.
If we do that correctly, it is actually to everyone' s advantage.
The costs of such technical innovations are small enough to be written off within months or a few years at the most, which means it is to the consumer' s overall advantage and it also gives industry an opportunity to bring its innovations on to the market.
Here we are looking at one way, namely the Label.
It is an important step because it gives us influence over world standards since the Energy Star is used not only in the USA and in Europe, but in other countries besides.
When I took on the task of being my group's shadow rapporteur, I asked firms in my constituency that are concerned with the subject, those that sell or make computers, for example, what they thought about it.
They said the Label alone would probably not achieve much because, when consumers buy computers and similar goods, unfortunately they do not pay attention to energy consumption so much as to various other criteria.
So we should perhaps talk about finding other ways of promoting energy-efficient equipment and gradually removing the big energy wasters from the market.
The amendment in front of us says, after all, that one such way forward might be a voluntary agreement with industry. We should only think about legislation if that fails to work.
I believe that to be very, very important because, as the rapporteur has said, we are debating here about an agreement with the USA and about a Label, but the solution to the problem does not lie in this Label alone.
I am therefore asking the Commissioner to make very clear in her speech that the Commission is thinking of going further and also to say when we can expect other proposals.
I don' t believe any of us would gain from having to engage in a lengthy conciliation procedure because of an amendment being tabled.
If we achieve a good outcome this evening, we can avoid the conciliation procedure.
Otherwise conciliation would be necessary and I am sure we all want to avoid that.
Madam President, on 11 September the world changed, at any rate the world as we knew it.
Suddenly a regulation that has occupied us here in this House for quite some time has become a small pebble in the mosaic of this changed world.
We know that 11% of electricity consumption - between 10 and 15% in other countries - in private households and public sectors - if we add those as well - contributes to power stations being operated completely unnecessarily because there would be other ways of doing it in standby mode.
On a European scale that means between six and ten large power stations, and they could be nuclear power stations.
When at this very moment the first bombers could already be flying towards Afghanistan and people are wondering what form a possible counterattack might take, we can see that such a mundane thing as this regulation could bring us greater security here in Europe, greater security, too - if we think of the consequences of 11 September - in relation to the probable rise in the price of oil.
From this point of view I therefore very much welcome the work that Eryl McNally has done.
The second aspect that should now again be given particular consideration is that we could provide a stimulus to the economy to which the Commission pays particular attention in the amendment to which the previous speaker has already referred - by finding a way not only to label good equipment but also to remove bad equipment from the market as quickly as possible.
Madam President, I should like to start by congratulating Mrs McNally for her persistence in keeping this report on Parliament's agenda and bringing it to fruition.
I welcome the approach adopted in this proposal for a voluntary code.
That is a more pragmatic approach towards achieving improvements.
Unlike Mrs McNally I see no harm in adopting measures that are in place in the United States.
It is one of our aims in Europe to achieve common standards in the internal market.
In that regard, why should we not seek to extend those common standards to our major trading partner across the Atlantic? Just because it was invented in the United States does not mean it is all bad.
It is very important that we should assist people making choices about purchasing equipment in knowing what the energy efficiency is.
In my own experience, labelling materially affects one's decision.
It certainly affected my decision this summer when I was buying a fridge and a freezer for my home.
The old ones were getting very noisy and very expensive.
It may be that my motive was also concern to stop using so much electricity supplied by a company owned by a French utility, but that is another issue.
I should like to close by supporting the comments about the amendment, namely, that we all look to the Commission to give us an assurance on the issue of the further voluntary code.
This is a healthy and sensible approach.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs McNally, for her work in relation to this Regulation.
I am aware that she has worked intensively with Parliament and the Council in order to reach the position we are in today.
I also hope that we manage to reach an agreement on the text which is acceptable to all of us.
I am sure that none of us want to go to conciliation if we can solve the problem in a more appropriate way, given that our positions are very similar.
This proposal is integrated into the Commission' s action plan to improve the energy efficiency of the European Union.
Office communication equipment represents a high proportion of the electrical consumption of the tertiary sector and we all agree that the use of efficient and ecological office equipment can contribute to the sustainable development strategy decided at the European Council in Gothenburg.
The proposed programme for coordination of labelling, the Energy Star programme, will lead to significant reductions in electricity consumption and CO2 emissions, and is therefore very viable.
As Mrs McNally has very rightly said - and I would like to stress that I am in full agreement with her - energy efficiency is key.
The key thing is to use energy well. That is where we have the greatest margins and we stated this in the Green Paper on the European Union' s energy supply.
After a long period of negotiation, in December 2000 the agreement was finally signed with the United States on coordination of programmes for energy efficiency labelling on office equipment.
Now we need this Regulation so that we can appropriately implement what was signed with the United States.
This programme has already been a success in the United States and has led to considerable participation by manufacturers, the large majority of which have introduced energy-saving devices into their products. It has also increased consumer awareness of wastage resulting from office equipment in standby mode.
On the basis of the positive experience on the other side of the Atlantic, the Commission is convinced that the Energy Star labelling programme will naturally lead to the gradual elimination of inefficient equipment on the Community market.
We perfectly understand the European Parliament' s concerns in relation to the effectiveness of the proposed Regulation on this specific point.
These concerns are reflected in the amendment which Mrs McNally is still maintaining.
There is no doubt that in other circumstances I would say that I agree with her. However, on this occasion I would ask Parliament to reject it or, even better, that Mrs McNally withdraw it.
Because, although I agree with its content, I do not believe that this is the right instrument in which to include this type of measure.
The Energy Star programme is not exactly the right place to include this incitement to renovation, modernisation and withdrawal of least efficient equipment.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to tell the House that we are preparing a framework directive on minimum efficiency requirements in the office communication equipment sector, amongst others, a directive which I hope will be presented to this House and the Council during next year.
I have taken this opportunity to explain the Commission' s position and I hope that Mrs McNally can withdraw her amendment and that we can therefore approve this report on the Energy Star programme today without having to go to the conciliation procedure.
Thank you, Mrs De Palacio.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon on Wednesday.
Innovation in a knowledge-driven economy
The next item is the report (A5-0234/2001) by Mr Rübig, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on Innovation in a knowledge-driven economy (COM(2000) 567 - C5-0740/2000 - 2000/2336(COS)).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, why is innovation so important for the European Union? We can all see that we are having slight problems with the economy at the moment.
If we want the economic situation to improve again, we must take initiatives to get employment rising again, take initiatives to get unemployment to fall, and take initiatives to ensure our continuing prosperity in the future.
I believe we also need to be able to assess that objectively.
That is why we should use benchmarking.
I am very grateful to the Commissioner for putting the innovation scoreboard very much to the fore here, too, because it enables us to see very clearly how the various countries are performing.
And, of course, the method of best practice: to see where among our neighbours of the Fifteen in Europe they are working better than in our own countries.
That is how it always was for me at school: you can learn from your better classmates.
And we shouldn' t just stick to Europe, but we should also be looking in particular at the countries that aspire to join us, to see what they are already doing better than we do.
There is an enormous amount of knowledge, a great deal of capacity for innovation, in the technical departments of our universities, as there is of course also in America, Japan, India and many other countries, from which we could benefit.
Innovation must not take place only in the economy, but also in the social, cultural and above all the political fields.
We would very much like to see publicly sponsored research corrected to make it in future even more geared to the market or, it would perhaps be better to say, to the citizen.
Where in future will we find services or products that the citizen would like, that he needs? Such market research will be very important for us in future if we are to see where our innovation policy needs to be focused.
Innovation also means repeatedly taking risks, however.
We therefore need to ensure that the necessary venture capital is available.
It is especially when times are getting hard that funding runs short.
We all know that Basle II will perhaps bring a further restriction here, too, especially for smaller firms.
Nevertheless - and I would like to correct the text here - we have 18 million SMEs in Europe with fewer than 250 workers.
We need to pay particular attention to them, since after all they generate 80% of the tax yield and employ two thirds of the workforce.
Innovation must start in the small units.
We need subjective innovation; that means combining familiar techniques and technologies, extending them, rethinking where they can be used and where they can be improved.
One of the central points is of course life-long on-going and vocational training.
Continuing training schemes are becoming increasingly important, and we should therefore also concentrate on the best ways of passing on knowledge.
By e-learning - to use the general term - but much more, I believe, by e-entertainment.
Learning should be fun, learning should be interesting, learning should make you curious, but learning should also be an adventure.
We ought in future to provide an experience primarily with a European content, putting our European values, our European knowledge at centre stage on the Internet and in our education and learning programmes as well as being ready to engage in international competition.
We also need new systems in schools, however.
We need new methods of quality management for teachers and pupils.
ISO 9000 is already taken for granted in firms.
It seems to me that these new procedural techniques could also be used to make appreciable progress in schools.
But enterprises also need easier access to funding.
We need people to start new businesses and the mentality to start new businesses, and we need to make it easier for businesses to pass from one generation to the next.
Tax concessions need to be offered and venture capital made available, because the life cycle of a business goes: founded, handed over and finally closed.
We need to give thought to all three phases in future.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate Mr Rübig for approaching his report with such an open mind and, of course, to agree that innovation concerns entrepreneurship and employment.
However, we need it not just to serve the economy, the knowledge-driven economy in today's society, we also need it to serve the knowledge-driven and cultural society.
Because innovation is not just an economic and business factor, it is also an educational and cultural factor.
More to the point, it is the result of mutual and complex actions and reactions between education, research, the administration and the public.
Innovative procedures presuppose a dynamic social model which is receptive to change.
In fact, innovation does not depend solely or exclusively on technological factors, it also depends on organisational factors.
A propitious environment is the main requirement, so that new initiatives, new discoveries and scientific applications can be developed, which is why we need social components working together, we need close cooperation between businesses and scientific institutions, as well as schools and universities, and we also need the help of the media if an innovative culture is to mature in our society as a whole.
Innovation must be the property of every member of society.
That is how our society will work in new directions, opening up new paths.
Europe needs an approach to innovation which will directly serve society as a whole.
However, we know that there are quite a few negative structural factors which prevent us from progressing as far as we should.
We are quite a way behind and I think that this is a bitter but honest admission, which is why we need the measures proposed in the report, together with suitable educational systems that nurture innovation.
Innovation is a process of analysis and synthesis and young people - mainly students - need therefore to play a part.
We must take care to ensure that we do not just inflict talk and chalk on young people and that they take an active part in the innovative process during their studies and both inside and outside school.
We must cultivate this approach at all levels of education.
It is important to have cross-disciplinary syllabuses in tertiary education.
We must bring the exact and the theoretical sciences close together, however difficult that may seem.
We must also understand that we need better penetration of university research institutes and of scientific libraries via the Internet.
I should like to highlight this sector in particular, because we are still a long way from having the really efficient network of libraries in Europe that is an absolute must.
Finally, we should take steps to provide better protection for intellectual property because this is what can invigorate and foster the incentive for our scientists to innovate.
That is why it is also extremely important for us to promote the application of European patent law.
In Lisbon and Stockholm, it was decided that Europe should become the world' s most dynamic and competitive knowledge-driven economy.
Of the seventeen million companies in Europe, no fewer than 99 percent form part of the medium-sized and small business sector.
That accounts for more than 70 percent of employment, 50 percent of investment and 60 percent of the Union' s wealth.
As such, the medium-sized and small businesses are the most important economic factor in the European economy.
The competitiveness of these businesses very much relies on their innovative capacity.
At the moment, Parliament is working hard on the Sixth Framework Programme, in which the participation of SMEs must be guaranteed at the same - or, ideally, a higher - level.
I have therefore proposed to increase the budget available to SMEs to 15 percent from the current 10 percent.
But that participation of SMEs must, in the view of the Liberal Group, take place within themed programmes.
Indeed, in that way, it is guaranteed that large and small companies will join forces, for small companies do not have the expertise and manpower to go it alone.
It is not acceptable for most of the limited research budget that is available to be spent on the flanking policy in the Member States, for that is not a European task.
It is more important to simplify the participation of medium-sized and small businesses in the Sixth Framework Programme.
That is why the 'rules of participation' must be simplified and standardised so that research applications submitted by all Directorates-General for the Sixth Framework Programme as a whole can be dealt with more efficiently and more quickly.
I should like to conclude by giving you some food for thought: Europe is good at converting euros into research, but often fails in converting research into euros, and that must change in future.
Madam President, the Commission and the rapporteur are preparing for a more innovative Europe.
This report calls for the networks to be strengthened at European level.
This dissemination of gathered knowledge should not lead to less competition, which is another aspect of innovation, for what are the areas in which cooperation actually reinforces the ability to innovate?
Tax benefits are in any case not a very good incentive.
They fragment the market and can lead to a shift in activities to the cheapest region.
Market-oriented attraction is preferable.
The rapporteur also underlines the importance of education.
This is an area in which only the Member States have authority.
In this connection, it is not the international orientation or the mobility of education and research itself, but the results, that deserve recognition.
National initiatives promoting the innovative environment and acknowledging achievements will have to increase competitiveness.
The aspects that make European regions into an attractive environment in terms of innovation are the knowledge available, the labour market and other local factors.
A government should therefore have a vision of regional profiles it would like in future.
However, regional specialisms can be adversely affected either by tax measures or by uniform measures which are said to result in a loss of quality for Europe as a whole.
The Commission proposal is typified - more so than the report - by a realistic approach from the bottom upwards.
If necessary, a joint approach could play an additional role to promote networks.
In that way, the Union can back the measures which increase the Member States' ability to innovate, both individually and jointly.
Madam President, Commissioner, my colleagues, knowledge and know-how are the basis of economic competitiveness and of the well-being of society as a whole.
The ambitious objectives of Lisbon also threaten to remain so much rhetoric, and will perish like worldly honour, if the success of the European Union in global competition is not based on a high level of education and research.
There are several aspects relating to a comprehensive innovation policy, which many colleagues have already emphasised in their interventions.
As European legislators, we should pay particular attention to simplifying legislation and administration.
I subscribe to the view of Mr Rübig and of other colleagues, that simplification is a necessity.
Enterprise and development activity is excessively restricted by bureaucratic impediments, and small and medium-sized enterprises in particular suffer from this.
Besides some form of labour reform, we also need a complete administrative reform, which has already got off to a good start with the White Paper on administrative models.
As you, yourself, said a couple of days ago, our esteemed competitors the United States and Japan are further along the road of promoting and developing innovations than the EU; one of the reasons for this is that in those countries enterprise and risk-taking are rewarded to a significantly greater degree than in Europe.
We must create conditions which encourage self-starting and independent initiative.
Enterprise can be promoted early among schoolchildren and students.
All we need to do is to create the prerequisite conditions in our education systems, for example, in the form of a special business model which young businesses can then adopt.
I also regard the development of human capital as important. It is a significant factor in innovation.
A genuine information society must be within the reach of all citizens, and so raising the level of know-how of the entire population is important.
The copyright of innovations must also be better protected; this has already been mentioned in other interventions.
Even before this, in the course of my work I have stressed the importance of adopting a Community Patent which will cover the entire area of the European Union.
The Community Patent would offer complete Union-wide protection for new patents, at the same time significantly reducing the administrative costs of firms.
And last but not least: we need a revolution in thinking which would free us from orthodox thinking and modes of action.
We must create conditions which make it possible to produce a whole raft of new ideas, out of which we may perhaps develop that one breakthrough innovation.
New technology is not the key to a good future; we need non-conventional thinking in all fields, in firms as well as in public administration.
Madam President, the role played by innovation in achieving the ambitious objectives set by the European Union in Lisbon has been mentioned by the rapporteur, whom I congratulate on his detailed report, and by previous speakers.
However, the importance of innovation to our economic and social development needs to be appreciated more both by the Member States and by the European Commission itself.
Delays in implementing innovative measures under the Structural Funds and the cancellation of resources are sad proof of the fact that innovation often gets no further than the drawing board.
So we need a decisive and coordinated policy which ensures that innovation penetrates our entire economic and social fabric and that our citizens' creative powers are give free rein.
That is why I should like to highlight the fact that this policy needs to be driven by the principle of equal opportunities.
For a start, I do not believe that innovation is the duty or preserve of the young, I believe it should affect all ages with lifelong learning and the other methods mentioned by previous speakers.
I would like to point out that we need to encourage women in their individual and collective efforts, such as setting up companies, and we need to encourage women's non-governmental organisations to take an innovative approach to social activities which have a positive impact on social cohesion and job creation.
Equal opportunities should also apply geographically, given the huge discrepancies between the regions of the European Union when it comes to innovation.
Both the European Union and the Member States should pay special attention to disadvantaged regions, which are usually the mountain and island areas of the Union.
With the lack of innovation in Europe compared with the United States and Japan, we need to get moving and mobilise our forces.
This means that the spirit of innovation must also drive the European Union's innovation management policy.
Special units, such as the unit set up to manage innovative measures under Article 6 of the European Social Fund, are a step in the right direction, they just need to be adequately staffed to make them effective.
The European Commission must also focus on disseminating the results of best practices, which is why pioneering methods need to be found, with much better penetration and efficiency than those available under past policies and both the Member States of the European Union and candidate countries must work with the European Union and take appropriate steps to disseminate best practices and adopt all the new models which account for the performance of the best countries.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Rübig, for an excellent report and the House for a debate displaying quality and commitment.
It is widely recognised that policies that foster innovation are an underlying determinant of economic growth.
I am particularly happy to present to you today the very latest findings of the EU' s innovation policy performance, namely the 2001 Innovation Scoreboard, which was compiled as a follow-up to the report last year.
The 2001 European Innovation Scoreboard gives us a starting point for the Union' s strategy to enhance its overall competitiveness, by providing a common measure of a country's performance using 17 indicators.
I would also like to say that I share the rapporteur' s opinion in underlining the importance of education and training, something that has been noted by other speakers.
One indicator called for in the report was added to the scoreboard to cover lifelong learning.
EU performance in terms of growth and the standard of living relative to the US and Japan highlights the key challenges that the EU faces in enhancing its competitiveness.
In the past twenty-five years, and apart from temporary cyclical fluctuations, the EU has not kept pace with the US in improving its standard of living.
The gap is now wider than it was a quarter of a century ago.
At the aggregate level, the gap in living standards can be attributed to two factors: two-thirds to the employment rate, which is lower, and one-third to productivity.
I will focus on the productivity gap.
Until the mid-1990s, the productivity gap between the EU and the US narrowed steadily.
In the second half of the 1990s, however, the rapid acceleration of productivity growth in the US again began to widen the gap.
Until the early 1990s, capital-intensive industries spearheaded productivity growth.
This changed in the mid-1990s, when research and innovation became the key determinants.
The industries that achieved the greatest productivity gains during the late 1990s were predominantly research-intensive.
The overall strategy for boosting competitiveness requires us to better combine Union and Member State efforts to develop more effective policies to foster and support innovation.
National innovation policies should be reinforced, developed, and take a more consistent approach across the EU.
This is why we need a regular benchmarking exercise to measure and compare the performance of EU countries, identify key areas of weakness and strength, and enable ourselves to design and fine-tune innovation policies accordingly.
Taking the EU as a whole, we still lag behind the US and Japan on most indicators.
We trail significantly in terms of private-sector investment in research and development.
Rapid increases in business research and development in Japan and the US since 1994 have widened the gap with Europe alarmingly.
US expenditure in this area is now 74% higher than in Europe.
Europe' s high-tech patenting activity is also too weak: US businesses apply for more high-technology patents in Europe than do European businesses.
Japanese patenting in Europe is almost as strong as US patenting.
This patenting imbalance is an area that requires urgent attention.
At individual Member State level, the picture is different.
I must say that, as regards many indicators, the best-performing EU countries are also world leaders, sometimes doing substantially better than the US and Japan.
I will give you some examples: the UK, Ireland and France, for example, are world-leading suppliers of science and engineering graduates; the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark are ahead in home Internet access; Finland, the Netherlands and Sweden lead in public research and development; and Sweden is well ahead in business research and development expenditure.
However, differences in innovation performance between Member States are still significant.
Countries such as Denmark and Finland, whose performance was already strong, continue to lead the field when measured by the innovation index, that is to say in terms of trends, not scoreboards alone.
Greece and Spain are rapidly catching up with the EU average, while starting from a relatively low base.
But change is important and positive.
The four largest EU economies (France, Germany, the UK and Italy) are improving, but at rates below the EU average.
A number of lessons can be drawn from these results.
The Union should: first, invest in education and training, as has been said here a few times; second, improve its performance in the high-tech sectors and promote entrepreneurship; third, help to step up business research and development by encouraging Member States to introduce or increase the necessary incentives; and finally, promote the use of technologies in all sectors of the economy, including public administrations.
I am pleased to see that several of these aspects are well covered by Mr Rübig' s report.
I believe this report will help to generate a consensus on the way forward.
This is necessary, as shown by the findings of the Innovation Scoreboard.
The report expresses Europe' s wish to reduce the Union' s innovation deficit and achieve the goal set at Lisbon and, hence, does a great deal to help improve the EU' s overall competitiveness.
I hope that there will be an opportunity to come back to these issues in the Commission' s 2001 Competitiveness Report, which will be presented in a few weeks' time.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Exhaustion of trade mark rights
The next item is the report (A5-0311/2001) by Mr Mayer, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the problem of the exhaustion of trade mark rights (SEC(1999)2033 - C5-0354/2000 - 2000/2187(COS)).
Madam President, I would like briefly to outline the underlying issues and the main points of my report.
The central statement is that the Commission is called upon to produce a detailed study of the possible implications of the transition to the principle of international exhaustion by 31 December 2002.
The Nera study presented by the Commission in 1999 fails to deal with this matter adequately.
A trade mark right has its effects only in the territory for which it was granted.
Community exhaustion applies to the Community mark and national marks when the holder of the right has put his product into circulation in the Community for the first time.
If the holder of the trade mark right puts his product into circulation outside the Community, the legal effects of the marks are not exhausted in the Community.
He can therefore prevent parallel importers from importing the product into the Community.
Because of the current Community-wide exhaustion regime he can therefore quote two different prices: a lower one for countries outside the Community and a higher one for the Community itself.
This split pricing policy, however, is not what the trade mark right is about.
The main purpose of the mark is to make the product distinguishable and familiar and to indicate a certain product quality.
We could also speak about the advertising effect.
The division of markets to the disadvantage of consumers in the Community cannot be the objective of granting a Community trade mark.
Neither is there anything in competition law to argue against parallel imports.
So why should it be possible to use trade mark rights to prevent them? There is something wrong there.
We must do something to get back to more competition and lower prices for branded goods.
The same conclusion was reached in a study by the Swedish competition authority, as, too, did a discussion paper by the Irish competition authority.
A hearing before a Select Committee of the British House of Commons was also presented predominantly with arguments in favour of international exhaustion.
There is now an important new factor: the increasing amount of trade on the Internet.
The present exhaustion regime could hamper the development of e-commerce.
It is not in fact certain whether Internet sales with the subsequent dispatch of branded goods are permissible under trade mark law.
But legal certainty and consumer protection are essential conditions for the development of trade over the Internet.
Then there are the following points. There are a) trade marks that are not really matched to any particular product.
For example, you order 'a Siemens' .
'A Siemens' can be a lamp, a washing machine or a nuclear power station.
There are b) also trade marks that designate group products, for example Adidas shoes, whether they are sandals or high heels.
There are c) trade marks that require absolute identity, in medicine for example.
It cannot be even one milligram different from what the mark designates.
All these points are reason enough to call on the Commission to undertake its own comprehensive study.
Such a study must also draw comparisons with the world' s major trading nations and study and make a precise analysis of the implications for the EU labour market.
Madam President, first of all, I would like to congratulate Mr Mayer who, in spite of some extremely polarised positions, listened and put forward an alternative in the form of a proposal for further consideration, which met with everyone' s approval.
This position is all the more important and necessary since the report refers to the crucial problems related to globalisation and European integration.
In addition to the direct interests of consumers and manufacturers, the economic position of the European Union in world trade is at stake.
Some may be in favour of a total liberalisation of trade, whereas others, myself included, believe that the system of Community exhaustion responds to the need to develop the integration of the single market, a favourable way of supporting Europe in the face of global competition.
Apart from the concept of integration, the crux of this report is to support innovation, and God knows how much we have spoken about this in the previous report, to support innovation and creativity within the Community.
Trade marks are the most important and most efficient way of protecting intellectual property.
Trade marks provide the consumer with a guarantee of a product' s authenticity and quality, and they ensure pre-sales, shape investment and, consequently, creation.
A change in the system could lead to a drop in investment in research and development of European products and the impact on jobs could be significant.
The current system also provides the best means of protection against counterfeiting, as the channels used by parallel importers are often those used to transport pirate products.
In the studies that are currently available, and I stress the 'currently' , we found no relevant information enabling us to justify a change to the system, which could be detrimental to innovation.
I hope that the further consideration proposed by Mr Mayer will confirm this opinion.
Madam President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Mayer on the report he is presenting today.
I am perfectly aware that it is not the report he would have liked to approve and, although it is little consolation, I would like to say that I also would have preferred the report finally approved by Parliament to have been the one Mr Mayer initially drew up.
Despite the powerful interests concerned with preventing the world trade in trade mark products, the unusual report by a consulting company which states that consumers would not benefit immediately from the acquisition of goods at lower prices and the lukewarm position of the Commission which does not seem interested in seeking a solution to a problem which has a very negative effect on European consumers, the rapporteur, Mr Mayer, has been able to produce a report urging persistence in the quest for formulae which prevent manufacturers of trade mark products from maintaining excessively high prices on European markets.
When, in July 1998, the Court of Justice issued the Silhouette judgment, it caused great commotion in countries which recognised the principle of international exhaustion of the trade mark.
Either by law, as in Sweden for example, or by jurisprudence, as in my country, Spain.
Legally, the judgment is unassailable from the moment that it states that Article 7 of the Trade Mark Directive, by establishing the principle of Community exhaustion, indirectly establishes the prohibition of international exhaustion.
But this is a legalistic interpretation which does not prevent the recognition, as the judgment does, of the harmful effects for consumers of the fact that owners of trade marks can prevent the import of their own products if they originate from third countries.
The arguments used by those people who defend the prohibition of the international exhaustion of trade marks - combating counterfeiting, maintaining the prestigious image of goods, diversion of income from the manufacturer to the importer - are at odds with a reality which is demonstrated in the documents produced by the rapporteur.
When parallel imports from third countries are allowed, the prices of trade mark products drop.
The information provided on price increases in Germany, when the reform of German law prevented international exhaustion, is conclusive.
And although my experience is of little scientific value, I must point out that I have been able to note how, in the United States, a product which in Spain costs me EUR 10, costs me just EUR 1.5.
For all these reasons and despite the reservations involved in finding a consensus in favour of a more ambitious resolution, it is important that the Commission takes the initiative in favour of consumers and brings forward proposals to strengthen the world market, removing barriers to trade, which are not just customs barriers, but which often consist of anti-competitive practices by companies whose aim is to defend their own profits.
Madam President, Commissioner, I must say that I have not, unfortunately, read either the book No Logo or the special edition of The Economist entitled Pro Logo in The Economist.
Clearly, however, we have embarked upon a very interesting discussion of trade marks and their significance in terms of dividing up world markets.
Those of us who want to see a form of globalisation that is of benefit to all parties look forward to an international exhaustion of trade mark rights in accordance with the original Mayer report.
The same applies if one is in favour of an effective competition policy, as mentioned by the rapporteur, for European exhaustion as it is at present enables markets to be divided up, providing benefits to manufacturers but not to consumers.
Different studies can produce different results.
The Commission takes a relatively negative view of international exhaustion in its study. On the other hand, we also have the experience referred to by the previous speaker whereby there are quite a few countries in which goods became more expensive after Community exhaustion had been introduced, for example Germany, Sweden and Great Britain.
I am also sorry that this matter could not have been taken further during the Swedish Presidency which, I know, accorded it a high priority.
I therefore hope that we shall now, in fact, produce a report on this subject. I also hope that the Commissioner can tell us what opportunities there are for addressing the issue in the context of the WTO in which a new round of talks is about to start.
I also think it is important not to confuse this issue with that of pirate manufacturing, which is a completely different matter.
There are new ways of checking the authenticity of goods by means of genuine and detailed identification, facilitating a completely new form of supervision.
I therefore hope that the Commission is able to support the endeavours representing the main approach taken by Parliament today, as well as by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
Madam President, at this hour brevity is a duty and not a virtue.
Although I was not a member of the committee which produced this report, I want to speak because my colleague, Mrs McCarthy, who was a member, is detained by the grave events now under discussion at our party conference in Brighton.
I am speaking as someone concerned with consumer affairs.
Like Mrs Thors, I was for a time the Chair of the Consumer Protection Intergroup.
Parliament's Rules do not allow us to express these opinions in the way we once did.
The substantial majority which Mr Mayer rallied in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market was, of course, for a response which, as my colleague has said, was less than he would have wished.
It is also less than I would have wished and it should be less than this Parliament would have wished.
The principal recommendation here is for a further study of the consequences of a transition to the use of the principle of international exhaustion.
Fine, but how long is that going to take when a parallel importer can be prevented from giving the consumer a quality product at a price which benefits them both? This is not like counterfeit products, as another speaker tried to suggest.
It is not competitive selling at a loss to weaken rival products, nor is it driving down the quality of those products.
It is a straightforward blockage of trade, which will not diminish the so-called grey markets but will make them more confused and complex.
We need this to be a study which tells us of the shady side of what proclaims itself to be a respectable trade.
I do not really expect more from the Commissioner tonight than I have heard from him privately.
However, the matter cannot rest here.
The Silhouette case was not the last word on all this and nor, as he would acknowledge, is Mr Mayer's report.
Nevertheless I salute him.
Madam President, this is an important subject and has been discussed at various places and at various times.
It is important that the exhaustion regime for Trade marks which the Community applies provides for a proper balance between the interest of consumer prices and protection of Trade mark rights.
It has been stated by those who advocate a change to the Community-wide exhaustion regime, that a unilateral change to international exhaustion of Trade mark rights would have a significant impact on consumer prices.
The Commission is not convinced that this would be the case.
According to the Nera study carried out by a consultancy firm based in London which was submitted to the Commission in February 1999, prices under international exhaustion would probably not be very different from those that are currently in force.
Mr Berenguer Fuster and the rapporteur have referred to alleged price increases in Germany of films, perfume and cameras.
As soon as this became known, the sectors concerned supplied statistics to the Commission to show that prices have not increased as was claimed, but have remained the same or in some cases even decreased.
The purported evidence concerning Germany is not what it seems to be and, in fact, supports the case that the Commission has put forward and not the case in favour of international exhaustion.
There has also been a price study carried out by the Swedish and the UK governments.
It is very interesting to note, and significant for this debate, that of the items where comparisons between the European Union and the United States were possible, the cheapest market was often within the European Union.
For some products, the United States was even the most expensive market.
Moreover, there were considerable price differences between Member States.
In general, prices in Germany and France were lower than in the UK and in Sweden.
Those differences exist within the European Union where there is regional exhaustion for Trade mark rights and not international exhaustion.
In other words, for all Member States of the European Union the same exhaustion regime applies yet there is a 40% price difference in electronic goods between Sweden and Germany.
This certainly goes to show that the internal market is not performing as it should be, but it also shows that the differences in prices have nothing to do with whether the exhaustion regime is regional or international.
The price differences within the European Union usually exceed the price differences between EU Member States and the United States.
In other words, the arguments in favour of the thesis that international exhaustion would lead to a decrease in prices is very tenuous.
In fact the Commission does not believe that evidence at all.
Furthermore, I should like to add that the price element is only one aspect of the exhaustion issue.
It is also very important to consider the legitimate interest of Trade mark holders in their home markets.
For many companies the Trade mark is their most valuable asset and that is not something we should take lightly.
Trade marks are also of value to consumers because they represent a sign of quality.
The Commission decided in May 2000 that there is no reason, at least for the time being, to propose any change to the current regime.
The Commission considers that there is now a proper balance between the interests at stake and that the current Community-wide exhaustion regime is an appropriate way to protect the legitimate rights of Trade mark holders.
The Commission has taken due note, obviously, of Mr Mayer's report and of the long and difficult discussions in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Many arguments have been put forward for and against a change of regime.
The Commission recognised all those arguments from previous discussions in other fora.
All the aspects mentioned have been thoroughly studied and analysed by the Commission services and in my view no new elements have been put forward which would require further examination or which would give the Commission reason to reconsider its decision.
Having said this, the Commission intends to monitor the question of exhaustion closely and will certainly take any action necessary should new and important reasons emerge to consider abandoning the current exhaustion regime.
In the meantime, the Commission is, of course, willing to share with Parliament our experiences concerning cases of possible abuse of Trade mark rights but in order to make the report more useful and balanced the Commission intends to take all relevant elements into consideration.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon on Wednesday.
(The sitting was closed at 11.20 p.m.)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have here before me a newspaper interview, from which I should like to read you an extract.
It reads 'I do not agree with the Anti-Slavery Conference in Durban.
It promotes a sense of victimisation in people who already feel like victims.'
It goes on to say: 'I am not happy with the whole Conference in Durban, quite apart from the way in which the Middle East was discussed and the fact that someone like Castro was applauded.
These are indicators that this was an anti-western meeting' .
These are not my words, but those of a European Commissioner, namely Mr Bolkestein.
Last night in my group, our group chairman told me that Mr Nielson, on account of unfortunate statements he made concerning anti-American imperialism, will have to justify himself before the Conference of Presidents.
Would it not be fair, therefore, if you, in your capacity as President of the Conference of Presidents, were also to invite Mr Bolkestein, giving him the opportunity to explain before the Conference of Presidents these very unfortunate, extremely dangerous statements at a time when we, as the Western world, must join forces with the Islamic world to combat terrorism.
Mr Staes, I can confirm that Mr Nielson will be attending the Conference of Presidents and we shall consider your suggestion.
Madam President, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Finnish language programmes have been removed from Parliament' s television network.
We wondered why that was, but got no explanation for it.
There are therefore no programmes being broadcast from Finland, while some Member States can get three or even four channels.
Could I request the President to ask those concerned to correct the situation, as it is odd, particularly during these times of crisis, that one Member State' s programme signal should have been removed from the television network without any explanation.
Mr Paasilinna, due to absolutely exceptional circumstances, Mrs Banotti has unfortunately not yet arrived.
We shall, of course, inform her of your dissatisfaction and she will immediately find out what can be done.
Announcement by the President
The Court of First Instance has recently rejected the appeals lodged by Members of the European Parliament, the National Front and the Bonino List against Parliament' s decision of 14 September 1999 not to recognise the existence of the Technical Group of Independent Members.
In accordance with the provision of the order, the cases concerned were joined for the purposes of judgment and the appeals were rejected.
In each case, the applicants will bear their own costs and the costs of Parliament, including those incurred in the summary proceedings in case 222/99.
The judgment was delivered in open session in Luxembourg on 2 October 2001.
As a result, the suspensive order handed down by the President of the Court of First Instance on 25 November 1999 at the end of the summary proceedings lapsed when the judgment was delivered, in other words, on 2 October 2001, pursuant to Article 107(3) of the Court' s Rule of Procedure.
Therefore, Parliament' s decision of 14 September 1999 not to recognise the existence of the Technical Group of Independent Members is once again fully effective.
I shall of course give the floor to Mr Dell' Alba.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the eighteen MEPs belonging to the Technical Group of Independent Members have taken note of the judgment of the Court of First Instance on 2 October.
They point out that this judgment is somehow the inverse image of the order handed down by the President of the same court, who, on 25 November 1999, ruled that Parliament was obliged to recognise the legitimate existence of our group.
It stands to reason that we shall be appealing against yesterday' s decision and that, obviously, we ask for an interim order to suspend the effects of the judgment.
In this respect, Madam President, in order to avoid any misunderstandings, I ask you, before making further provisions to consult the Legal Services as to the effects of the suspension, which is what we shall ask the Court to do, as is within our rights.
Having said that, I would like to draw the attention of my fellow Members to two important aspects of yesterday' s judgment.
The first aspect is that our appeal is fully admissible and, therefore, MEPs are fully entitled to question the justice of actions of the European Parliament, such as these.
This was not what Parliament wished, as it had requested that the Court declare that this appeal should not be admitted.
The second aspect is that, on several occasions, the Court recognises that disparities do exist in the treatment of the Members of the European Parliament.
The Court mentions this in Paragraphs 201 and 57 of yesterday' s judgment.
I am not going to quote these paragraphs and I will simply say that the Court declared that Parliament must remedy these disparities, as part of its duties to manage internal affairs.
Mr Corbett, since your draft report on the reform of Articles 29 and 30, which aims to rectify these disparities has been held in abeyance for a year, we shall continue our fight, we shall be vigilant and we shall do everything within our power to ensure that we continue this fight to eliminate these disparities and that it does not cease as a result of yesterday' s judgment.
Madam President, I am delighted at the victory of Parliament at the Court of First Instance.
It confirms that we were right in the decision that we took.
Mr Dell'Alba, though, is also right to draw attention to the fact that we must ensure that there are no disparities or discriminations in our Rules.
That was the objective of the report of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs which we held in abeyance pending the judgment of the Court.
Perhaps now is the time for this report to come before the full House, but if there is to be an appeal and if - although I would personally doubt this - the full Court of Justice were to suspend the effects of the decision of the Court of First Instance until they themselves rule, that would put us in a difficult position with the report from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
Personally I doubt that the full Court of Justice would give such an ordinance giving a suspensive effect, in which case we can proceed immediately to look at the disparity that some people may feel exists in our Rules.
My report would, I am sure, go some way to reassuring people.
Mr Corbett, what I can say to you and Mr Dell' Alba is that, of course, if there is to be an appeal, I shall examine very closely, in conjunction with Parliament' s Legal Service, whether this appeal will have a suspensive effect.
We shall look into this matter extremely carefully.
Madam President, the judgment is very clear, but in a society governed by the rule of law there must, of course, be the right of appeal and the judgment must have no effects until such time as the highest court has reached its conclusion.
The judgment is also very clear when it comes to the duties of Parliament.
Among the grounds of the judgment, number 157 expressly states that it is Parliament' s duty, within the framework of its relevant internal procedures, to investigate whether the disparities in treatment of the two categories of Members arising from the aforesaid internal procedures are all necessary and, therefore, objectively justified.
This is, to speak plainly, a broad hint to us to examine our Rules of Procedure to see whether they are discriminatory.
I think that all MEPs and political units such as the Italian Radical Party must have completely equal opportunities. They must naturally have the same political rights as the political groups, apart from a number of rights quite specific to the latter.
However, the rules need to be examined critically to ensure that political units have the same opportunities to work in Parliament. I would therefore call upon you to request the legal services to go through the judgment carefully and see how we are to improve the Rules of Procedure in order to ensure complete equality.
I would also call for the judgment to be brought up at the first meeting of the Conference of Presidents to be held directly after such an investigation of the judgment has been carried out. In that context, we shall be able to debate a package of arrangements for independent MEPs and smaller political units which are not large enough to form a group and, in that way, be able to secure the fair treatment of MEPs.
Madam President, I must take this opportunity to inform you that a party of schoolchildren invited by me for this week - tomorrow to be precise - has cancelled the visit.
I also heard, however, that mine was not the only group affected, but that around half the invited groups had cancelled their visits this week.
The children in question, or their parents, fear that security measures in this House are inadequate and that the children would be in danger if they visited Parliament.
Let me request you, then, to supply the public with extensive information about the adequacy of the security arrangements.
Should this not be possible, consideration should be given to a general suspension of visits.
I myself have also another concern: I would welcome it if those visitors' quotas that cannot be made use of because visits have been cancelled, could be set aside for future dates rather than be lost, so that these groups that, for understandable reasons, are not visiting Parliament now, may make up for it at a later date.
The Bureau members will be meeting this evening and I shall inform them of your proposal.
Madam President, as regards the formation of Parliamentary Groups, our group expressed itself quite unambiguously at the time this Parliament was constituted.
We are grateful for this confirmation of our understanding of the law.
Further to certain remarks by Members, I would again like to make it clear that our Rules of Procedure, decided on by this Parliament, make a clear distinction between Members belonging to a group and pooling their rights in it, and those who do not belong to a group.
Members without a group should quite clearly not be discriminated against, but that does not mean that they, as individual Members, enjoy complete equality of treatment with the groups.
Rule 30 of our Rules of Procedure expressly states that Members not belonging to a group have the use of a Secretariat with all other details being decided on by the Presidents.
That is now the legal position as handed down by the Court of First Instance, and we should proceed in accordance with it in the coming months.
Extraordinary European Council of 21 September 2001 in Brussels - Preparatory work for the European Council in Ghent
The next item is the Council and Commission statements, firstly, on the Extraordinary European Council held in Brussels on 21 September 2001, and secondly, on the preparatory work for the European Council in Ghent.
I would like to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Michel, and I shall now give him the floor.
I would like to thank Mr Michel.
I shall now give the floor to Mr Michel Barnier, who is speaking on behalf of the Commission.
Madam President, Minister Michel, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission and its President, Roman Prodi, who is currently in Brussels attending the European Union meeting with Russia, I would like to make a statement on the recent Extraordinary European Council held in Brussels and the opportunities arising from the preparatory work of the Ghent European Council.
Before I speak about the three subjects that Minister Michel also mentioned, which will be on the agenda of the Ghent Council, I would like to briefly talk about the Extraordinary European Council held on 24 September, in the wake of the tragic attacks on New York City and Washington.
As you know, this Council was, first of all, an opportunity to unanimously express our shared sadness and solidarity with the American people.
However, looking beyond these events, whilst we too experience this sadness and solidarity, I want to reassert our belief, and that of the Commission as a whole, that the fight against terrorism is not and cannot be a clash of civilisations.
On the contrary, it is this fight that brings together all the nations of the world, as equal partners, against the forces that set out to destroy them, without regard for human life, without any respect for the values that people share and that transcend borders and cultures.
And it is the concept of humanity on which the European Union bases its action.
This is how our collective, global fight will achieve its goal.
At the Extraordinary Council, the European Union outlined the main points of a common response to the threat of terrorism, a threat that is unfortunately not unfamiliar to some of our Member States and which the Heads of State and Government now wish to combat together, using every possible means.
At the informal meeting at Ghent, the Commission will report back on developments in the economic situation, and more generally, on the various measures that were put forward on 21 September by the European Council.
The Laeken European Council will provide an opportunity to give a more detailed operational report.
In the coming months, the European Union must demonstrate that it is able to organise, take action, react swiftly and, of course, respect the fundamental freedoms, because this situation forces us, once again, to reconcile freedom and security.
The most urgent measures, on which my colleague Mr Vitorino is working, include the introduction of a European arrest warrant to replace current extradition procedures and the adoption of a common definition of terrorism.
I would point out that the Extraordinary European Council hoped to implement all the measures decided by the European Council at its meeting in Tampere in October 1999.
With the same determination, the Commission yesterday referred to you, Madam President, a draft Community regulation enabling us to freeze the assets of individuals or bodies that may have links with terrorism.
The Laeken European Council will therefore be a good opportunity to assess very carefully the progress made on creating the area of freedom, security and justice laid down at Tampere.
In the meantime, the European Parliament and the Council will be able to make initial progress due to several measures.
In October, the Commission will present the biannual performance indicators, which enable us to monitor the follow-up of the Tampere Council.
Ladies and gentlemen, let there be no mistake: whether it be regarding these matters and the other measures announced in Brussels on 21 September, the funding of terrorism, which I have just mentioned, the situation of air transport or the aid that we must give to the Afghan refugees, the European Union has a duty to achieve results, first and foremost to the Afghan refugees, who are expecting some progress to be made.
I would like to reaffirm my belief that the most effective means of bridging what we call the democratic deficit is most certainly to respond to citizens' expectations and to follow up our words with actions.
I shall now move on, if I may, to discuss the forthcoming informal Ghent Council and to the first of the subjects on the agenda, which relates to the major challenge of the euro and the introduction of euro banknotes and coins.
In less than three months, the euro will be here.
It is crucial to constantly reiterate, to everyone we speak to, the reasons why the majority of Member States of the European Union took the decision to share the same currency.
The euro is a political and economic undertaking; for almost three years, we have kept inflation under control and have had sustained growth because of economic and monetary union.
The euro will provide the European Union with better protection against external economic forces and against international financial crises.
Now is also the time to reiterate this.
This is an achievement, and we can all weigh up the extent of our achievement.
By using the euro on a daily basis, people, private individuals and businesses will benefit from the greatest transparency in prices, easier transactions and better investment opportunities.
They will gain a better understanding of what an internal market can offer, one that is made up of almost 400 million citizens and consumers, 300 million of which will use the single currency.
From 1 January 2002, the euro will, undoubtedly, make Europe more tangible, more visible than ever, and I believe that the circulation of the euro notes and coins will show in a very specific manner that the people of Europe are managing to achieve their common goals.
The euro will therefore become a symbol of stability, peace and shared identity.
Yet, when faced with such challenges, we must also hope and ensure that the changeover to the euro notes and coins is as straightforward as possible for 300 million people in 12 countries, when so many new methods of payments are introduced, along with 15 billion notes and 50 billion coins.
In other words, we must ensure that we meet this unprecedented logistical and strategic challenge.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has shown that it is playing an active and willing role to prepare for the introduction of the euro, and that it is concerned that consumers and businesses, from the largest to the smallest, receive the information they need.
With the support of the European Union, Member States have put in place national plans for the changeover to the euro.
Next week, my colleague, Pedro Solbes, will present a communication on the introduction of notes and coins, so that, in Ghent, the Heads of State and Government can put the finishing touches to the preparatory work that is underway.
The European Union, working together, must ensure that this information is circulated as far and wide as possible in order to respond to the concerns that exist, and which are having a noticeable effect on price stability, and to force us to collectively resolve any technical issues in an accurate and practical manner.
The second subject which Mr Michel raised, and which the Heads of State and Government will bring up in Ghent, is preparations for enlargement.
The Heads of State and Government will discuss enlargement because it is important to keep up the strongest possible political momentum for this project, whatever technical difficulties we encounter in relation to any particular aspect.
In any case, politically we are already living in an enlarged Union.
This has been made even clearer from our intensive contacts with the candidate countries since 11 September.
In Nice, last December, the Intergovernmental Conference defined the minimum parameters that will enable the Union institutions and bodies to take in new Member States.
Moreover, the European Council approved the strategy we had proposed for bringing the accession negotiations to a successful conclusion.
These decisions unequivocally confirmed that enlargement is an irreversible process.
We now have to implement, on a day-to-day basis, the road map the European Council adopted at Nice, based on the principle of differentiating between candidate states.
We have to evaluate the progress made at each accession conference separately, which will in fact also enable those candidate states that are currently less advanced to catch up.
In Ghent, the Commission will report on the progress made with the road map, presenting a kind of mid-term review of enlargement strategy, that will allow the Heads of State and Government to determine what kind of approach or impetus is needed for the further negotiations.
In mid-November, the Commission will publish the regular reports in which it evaluates the progress of the candidate states towards accession.
Let me say a last word on this subject.
We know that enlargement is a difficult project, but we also want it to be a very ambitious one.
It will succeed only if it enjoys the support of the people of all the countries concerned, by which of course I mean the candidate countries and their citizens, but also the citizens of the present EU Member States.
At the instigation of Mr Günther Verheugen, and in liaison with the European Parliament, the Commission has proposed measures for informing the citizens of the present and future Member States and explaining the issues involved, the chances and the opportunities, without, however, concealing the problems or risks of enlargement.
To that end we want to mobilise the Commission delegations in the candidate countries and our representatives in the Member States.
But everyone must play their part, the institutions and the European elected representatives, as also the national authorities and, more broadly, all the opinion-formers in Europe.
Madam President, let me raise a last point, which will be debated in Ghent, prior to Laeken, and concerns the future of the Union.
The Heads of State and Government will have to extend and confirm the positions defined at the recent foreign ministers' meeting in Genval.
Obviously this is the same subject the foreign ministers will or may debate in Luxembourg on 8 October.
In Genval, the Commission reported on the situation and called for a new approach in the preparations for the future institutional reforms, taking account of the limitations of the methods applied in the past, for Amsterdam and Nice.
For a long time, in fact, the European Parliament and the Commission had shared the interest shown by several Member States in a method inspired by the convention that prepared for the Charter of Fundamental Rights and brought it to a successful conclusion.
The Commission obviously hopes the next General Affairs Council will formally mark the support of all the Member States for this formula.
Let me just point out here that at a very early stage the Commission highlighted the importance, in view of preparing the future institutional reforms, of involving the various sources of democratic legitimacy that coexist in Europe and of preparing for these reforms as openly and transparently as possible.
That is why we would also like to see special attention devoted to establishing a structural link between the activities of the convention and the future Intergovernmental Conference.
Another link we would like to see is between the activities of the convention and the more general debate that will continue to be held and in which a growing number of associations, interest groups and citizens is already taking part.
This forum on the future of the Union, for which more and more people are perceiving the need, should encourage an exchange of views that very closely reflects the concerns of civil society.
I believe the convention must listen carefully to these discussions.
As to the procedures for organising this future convention, several questions still need to be resolved before the Laeken European Council.
Let me note here the very thorough work done by your Parliament's Committee on Constitutional Affairs, especially in the report by Mr Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo.
This report very carefully and skilfully analyses all the questions at issue.
It also discusses something I consider most important, namely how to consolidate and deepen the Union's policies.
Like the rapporteurs, I too would conclude by emphasising the need to maintain the link between the institutional architecture and the European projects.
It would be rather paradoxical to try to strengthen Europe's institutional structure, to strengthen the Community model, while at the same time weakening the major, or some of the major Community policies or allowing them to 'unravel' .
The four main themes identified in Nice must be tackled.
I listened very carefully to Mr Michel's very coherent and, I think, ambitious words on how to consolidate the achievements of 50 years of European integration.
That could mean that when the environment itself changes we have to make changes to the course of European integration, although without losing sight of its points of reference or its raison d'être.
We will have to keep to a simple and effective decision-making system, but also strong common policies.
For the European Union cannot confine itself to producing legislative rules.
Through political union, through economic and monetary union, and also through certain major common policies such as the one for which I am responsible, cohesion, European integration must lead towards solidarity between peoples and nations, the stability of the continent, the balanced development of its entire territory and its regions.
It is these principles and these common objectives that we must reaffirm at this moment in time when it appears so necessary for Europe to stand united beside our closest allies.
When the Heads of State and Government meet in Ghent, they will certainly discuss the future Laeken declaration.
So I would like to conclude by emphasising that the Commission attaches great importance to this Laeken declaration, which should in a sense set the tone and determine the spirit in which, as Mr Michel just said, we need to approach all the institutional questions, so as to ensure that our institutions are in a position to achieve our common goals.
Moreover, ladies and gentlemen, since we have some time at our disposal before the year 2004, rather more than usual for a change, which is rare, no doubt we can and, I believe, we must spend some of that time reflecting together on what we want to do together, checking that we really do agree among ourselves on what we must and can do together and, of course, integrating this fundamental political reflection process into today's new and grave international context, which emphasises and underpins the necessity, the value and the relevance of the European project.
(Applause)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Socialist Group endorses the conclusions reached at the Extraordinary European Council at Brussels. The Council came at just the right time politically, and resulted in a sea change in the Union' s collective conscience.
I should like to recall that this change was initiated by the Watson Report in early September.
Unfortunately, it was not until after the attacks on Washington and New York that the Council woke up to the situation and began to press ahead, and we do welcome the change in approach.
I should like to emphasise that in our view it is very important for this action to be included in the framework of United Nations' Resolution 1368 (2001), as stated in the Council' s conclusions.
Kofi Annan' s proposal to establish a global convention against terrorism is also important. It is already under discussion in the United States and will receive the European Union' s full support.
Global responses to the globalisation of terrorism are called for.
However, in addition to this universal approach, there is a need to express solidarity with the United States.
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty was therefore invoked yesterday.
A clear definition at all levels of the nature of the fight against terrorism is also needed. This fight will not curtail freedoms, it is a fight to defend the intrinsic freedom of every individual, namely the right to life and the right not to be subjected to indiscriminate violence.
In this connection, Madam President, I believe the activities of the Justice and Home Affairs Council must be supported, as it works to consolidate both Europol and Eurojust. Common instruments must be developed, not only at European level but also within our respective countries.
In this connection I feel it should be pointed out that Parliament can come under pressure from lobbying groups.
This is already happening.
The lobbying groups are very adept at exerting pressure or influence on the Commission and the Council. Please take note of this, Mr President, and pass it on to Mr Verhofstadt as President-in-Office of the Council.
I believe we should respect the activities of others. I have in mind, in particular, the criticism of our activities in connection with the directive on money laundering.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I should also like to express my group' s disquiet concerning the legislation passed by the Italian Senate yesterday. It is entirely contradictory to your aims, and will hinder judicial cooperation and the fight against terrorism because its provisions make cooperation at judicial level quite impossible.
(Applause from the left and protests from the right) Madam President, I must appeal to my colleague Mr Poettering ...
Surely, Madam President, this is a civilised House and those who resort to barracking have no place in it.
I am addressing my colleague Mr Poettering too. He is very concerned about the statements made by certain Commissioners.
My group would like all Commissioners to explain themselves before this House.
Mr Poettering ought to confer with his political friends, especially with the Prime Minister of Italy, to ensure that no statements are made to undermine the European Union's action here and in the wider world.
In addition, Madam President, I should like to comment on the Ghent Council. The measures taken so far concerning the euro are good, and it is an important issue.
However, we need to strengthen our economic capacity so we can respond to the world crisis. It is for the Council to do so, because it is essential for us to define an anticyclical policy and put it in place.
Further, with regard to enlargement, and here I am addressing all the political groups in this House, we must make a commitment on the basis of what you achieve at Ghent, and of the Commission' s progress report. This has to come back to Parliament.
I should like to highlight one point.
There is a lot of talk of progress along the road, and about the road map. However, we need to check whether the road and the road map will eventually lead to the same destination and whether it will be possible to comply with Parliament' s request that the countries involved should participate in the 2004 elections.
In conclusion, Mr President, I should like to make three comments on the Convention. Firstly, I understand that the Convention has already been adopted.
Secondly, the Convention is to be established on the basis of its composition when preparing the Charter.
Thirdly, when you refer to options, are you not speaking of coherent proposals by the Convention? The Convention is not a research body, nor is it a seminar.
The Convention is required to present proposals. The latter sometimes involve two options, but they are never options to be accepted or rejected.
We do not wish to be involved in that kind of game.
(Applause from the left)
Commissioner, the European Union is facing several major challenges, which it will have to meet as quickly as possible if it wants to mount an effective, coherent and long-term campaign against terrorism, with particular reference to breaking up the terrorist networks.
Several colleagues have already discussed the first challenge, namely to avoid a clash of civilisations with the Islamic world.
In that context, let me take advantage of Mr Michel's presence and congratulate him on his diplomatic activity over the past weeks, which, I believe, is bound to produce positive results in terms of establishing a very broad coalition against terrorism and its supporters.
Creating a very broad coalition means, of course, securing the participation of as many countries as possible, but without losing sight of the fact that our enemies' enemies are not always our friends and realising that no state that forms part of this coalition is exempt from its duties in regard to democracy, the protection of human rights and respect for minorities.
I am thinking in particular of Russia and China, which are of course important players but also cause us serious concern in this respect.
The second challenge, and it is certainly not insignificant, is to strengthen police and judicial cooperation without compromising individual rights and freedoms.
In fact here, in the European Union, the parliamentary control is totally inadequate.
I therefore think, and I believe we agree fairly unanimously, that it is important to include judicial and police cooperation in the first pillar.
That would certainly be one answer.
Furthermore, at international level, we urgently need to set up the International Criminal Court, a process that has been underway for several years but is now marking time. Let me point out that we vitally need this kind of court to try crimes against humanity, such as those committed in New York and Washington.
We will have to mount a large-scale diplomatic action to persuade as many states as possible to support this project, in particular the United States, which is after all a vital player.
The third challenge is the problem of depriving the terrorist networks of their means of action, both financial and technical.
We have already raised the subject of financing; we have a draft directive on money laundering that is currently making little progress and I think an effort needs to be made in the dialogue between the Council and Parliament to ensure that this directive is adopted quickly.
Moreover, we must realise that this is a first step; it does not go far enough but it is a determining step. In the long term, I am convinced we will be forced to take large-scale action to outlaw and abolish offshore banking and tax havens.
Money laundering is obviously an important weapon in the hands of international terrorist groups and international terrorist networks.
I was struck by some information, which has not been denied, to the effect that even before the New York and Washington attacks it appears that shares in some companies - and I am thinking in particular of the two American airline companies and several insurance companies that were affected by the attack - were jettisoned just before the attacks.
This could be regarded as insider dealing and I think that at the very least we need an international inquiry to check this information.
Finally, let me turn to the technical level, technical being, of course, a euphemism for arms. Clearly the European Union will have to intensify its fight against illegal and uncontrolled exports of light arms and keep a close eye on the fundamental problem of the proliferation of chemical and bacteriological weapons.
I believe that we cannot avoid the need to take a longer-term look at the vulnerability of some of our technological tools to acts of terrorism.
I am thinking, for example, of energy, of the risks posed by nuclear power stations, the majority of which are highly vulnerable to the types of action committed in the United States.
Mr President, EU leaders met in Ghent on 21 September to evaluate how the Union should react to the horrific terrorist attacks in America.
I welcome the solidarity which all EU leaders showed with the American government and the American people in their time of mourning and grief.
I also very much welcome the concrete plan of action that EU leaders are now going to implement in an effort to tackle international terrorism head-on.
But let me be clear about one point.
As a result of the terrorist attacks on 11 September it is now clear to us all that people are willing to engage in well-organised suicide missions to further their own political goals.
That means, in the simplest terms, that we are going to have to implement wide-ranging measures if we are going to be in a position to defeat the scourge of international terrorism.
In line with the conclusions of the Tampere Summit, EU leaders are committed to introducing a European arrest warrant, designed to supplant the current system of extradition in Europe.
Easing extradition, while protecting civil rights, is an important weapon in the fight against terrorism, and in particular within the Union, where free movement of persons exists.
The United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism is also going to be ratified in all Member States of the European Union.
Our finance ministers are going to bring forward proposals outlining a timetable for the implementation of the draft directive on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering.
The financial task force run by the OECD will be broadened to cover the issue of combating money laundering.
There is agreement to implement the framework directive permitting the freezing of criminal assets within the Union.
There has also been agreement on paying closer attention to the draft directive on insider dealing so as to guarantee that all activities linked to terrorism come under the auspices of the directive.
Intelligence agencies within the Member States of the Union, together with Europol, must work together more closely in terms of exchanging intelligence information if the terror networks operating in Europe are to be broken.
Finally, fanatical terrorism is difficult to defeat, but we must be prepared to be determined and vigorous in the counter-terrorism measures that we introduce.
We must all work together.
A united front, spearheaded by the Union and the United States, will be the only means of enabling us to defeat these cold-blooded and ruthless murderers.
Mr President, the summit is now to discuss the composition of the Convention that is to draft the EU' s constitution.
A majority of MEPs want to see the European Parliament' s representation doubled from 16 to 30.
The argument is made in terms of equality with the national parliaments which each had two Members in the Charter Convention, making a total of 30.
The name of my political group refers to a 'Europe of Democracies' in order to emphasise that we want democracy in the individual countries and democratic control of the EU.
Democracies can govern the EU jointly, but there is no European people, as such, to have given the European Parliament a mandate to negotiate a new constitution for the EU.
My group and the intergroup SOS Democracy instead proposes that we let each individual national parliament present proposals for the next treaty and then let representatives of the national parliaments prepare the draft treaty that is to replace the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Commission, Parliament and the governments could be observers in such an assembly.
We would, at the same time, call upon the prime ministers to pledge that the next treaty will be subject to referendums in all the Member States.
A treaty adopted in a referendum could bear the insignia 'more democracy' rather than 'more Union' .
We should like to create a slimmer EU with greater freedom for the Member States: an open and democratic EU that is close to the people and is governed by electorates and elected representatives in the Member States; a more flexible Europe, open to the candidate countries and to all other European nations.
'A democratic EU' sounds all well and good, but it can only come about when there is a European public.
A living democracy requires a common language, culture, media, treasury of songs and sense of internal interdependence: in short, a European people.
A 'Europe of democracies' is the art of the possible.
The EU should be put on a slimming course and the focus shifted to cross-border matters which we cannot control as individual nations.
In that way, there would be no loss of democracy but a benefit in terms of shared influence, and the people of Europe would vote in favour of the next treaty.
Would they do so today, Mr President-in-Office of the Council? Dare you allow the Belgians to vote on the Treaty of Nice?
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, Mr Barnier, ladies and gentlemen, first a word on the defence aspect.
Much has been said about air safety and security, many measures have been taken at European level.
Curiously, though, there is not a word about our secret services; in fact, if there are a number of organisations that did not work, at any rate in the 15 Member States, they certainly include our secret services.
Today we see them digging away and finding out all sorts of things.
Perhaps it would have been better if they had discovered some of them beforehand.
They cost us dear.
Nobody is quite sure what they do; sometimes we wonder whether they do anything.
No doubt that too could be a subject worth considering at European level and subjecting to parliamentary control, for they can present a risk: so long as we leave them total freedom of action, they will sometimes take inappropriate action.
Turning to the offensive aspect, yesterday the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Michel, provided the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy with a great deal of information.
He strongly emphasised the value of dialogue.
However, I think that unless this dialogue is accompanied by a political project, it may risk merely reinforcing certain positions.
We are currently endeavouring to forge an anti-terrorist coalition.
There are, in my view, two main risks.
Mr Poettering highlighted one of them: the measures to combat terrorism risk - and it is more than a risk, since they have already produced some very adverse results - provoking and encouraging state terrorism.
Mr Poettering specifically stated - and I thank him because authorised voices in his country, like that of Mr Schröder, seemed to agree with Mr Putin, who has still not provided us with a shred of evidence that the Chechens were responsible for the Moscow attacks, a point Mr Lannoye also emphasised - that it can be tempting to use this great anti-terrorist battle to settle a few scores at home, in Tibet for the Chinese, in Chechnya for the Russians, etc.
That is an aspect we must bear in mind.
The other issue is the Arab world.
There has been much criticism of certain statements that were made.
I believe we all agree that this is not a clash of civilisation between Islam and Christianity but, obviously, a clash of civilisation between democracy and non-democracy and that we have to take the offensive in that conflict.
We must help all those people in the Arab countries, in the Muslim countries, who are fighting, often at the price of their freedom, at the price of torture, and often at the price of death; and this Parliament, our European Union, is certainly not doing enough in that respect.
Examples such as Morocco and Jordan show that the Arab countries can move towards democracy.
Other countries that might have gone the same way have in fact done the opposite, such as Tunisia: in fact, it would not take much to change the course in that country, which has a ruling class, a cultured class, an education system, and which recognises the rights of women, the equal rights of men and women.
In that respect our policy is aiding and abetting Mr Ben Ali in consolidating a regime that is moving further away from the rule of law every day and is becoming enclosed in a vicious circle of state gangsterism.
An offensive policy means supporting the people of Tunisia who are working for the rule of law, for freedom.
Mr President, the MPF delegation members approve both the 'solidarity and cooperation with the United States' and the 'European policy' headings of the action plan against terrorism adopted by the extraordinary European Council of 21 September.
However, we feel the practical value of introducing a European arrest warrant and a common definition of terrorism have been rather overestimated.
Similarly, it may seem a good idea in theory to give Europol new powers, but this organisation is not doing very well as it is and first we would have to call for an independent and objective audit of the way it operates.
But these are all secondary issues.
Overall, we approve the Council's conclusions.
In particular, we welcome the establishment of Eurojust, which is to develop forms of judicial and police cooperation and create synergy between the existing systems instead of trying to demolish them.
Like the Council, we also call for the speedy ratification of all existing international conventions, like the convention on the financing of terrorism, whose implementation has been seriously delayed.
However, in spite of all that, Mr President, we are still not happy.
That brings me to my main point.
Although the Council adopted long lists of actions to be undertaken, they remain one-off measures and the European Union is still not really prepared to examine its own conscience.
It would be difficult to deny that the inquiry into the 11 September attacks is currently concentrating on Europe and that it shows that, for years now, the terrorists have been centring their preparations in Europe, which they have used as their base.
All this is not pure chance.
The day after the attacks, a French newspaper interviewed the current president of Eurojust, Mrs Coninsx, asking her the following question, and I quote from the article: 'is the loose Islamist conglomeration strongly established in Europe?'
Mrs Coninsx, head of Eurojust, replied: 'Europe may act as a logistical fallback for these terrorists.
It is, indeed, fairly easy to cross frontiers because of the Schengen area' .
Everyone knows that.
It is true for the terrorists, but it is also true for fissile materials, it is true for stolen works of art, it is true for illegal immigrants, etc.
In fact it was only yesterday and in this very place that I accused the Commission of all too often concealing the problems of illegal immigration.
Europol informs us that 500 000 illegal immigrants enter EU territory every year, a figure that I actually think is an underestimate.
At any rate, it means that millions of foreigners live on our soil permanently and illegally.
So let me ask you: if countries let in millions of foreigners without discovering them and allow them to live there illegally, can they be regarded as in control of their territory? Obviously you will all say 'no' .
It is now up to the Council, and the Council alone, to issue strong instructions in order to restore some balance.
The President of the Council has rightly said that the fight against terrorism will be global and sustained.
We have to draw all the necessary conclusions from that, discard outdated points of view, give priority to security, review all the old strategies that are no longer appropriate and begin by admitting that controls do not prejudice freedom of movement; while they harm criminals they protect citizens' freedoms.
The Council must, therefore, call immediately for a list of all the documents that need reviewing from a security point of view and, in particular, that disastrous Article 62(1) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which promises a total absence of any kind of control of individuals at the internal frontiers five years after its entry into force.
We need a general review plan, of which the Council must be directly in charge.
That means we need to review Article 67 of the Treaty of Amsterdam...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Since the attacks of 11 September, the world has been on tenterhooks.
People are shocked.
They feel for the victims and those left behind, and their own sense of security has reached an all-time low.
People expect their governments to guarantee their safety.
They realise that this is not wholly possible but they are asking for efficient and conclusive action, and rightly so.
Anyone who is responsible for security these days has a complex task to fulfil.
The need for true, European integration and international coordination has been brought into focus more than ever, both in words and deeds.
Mr President, I very much hope that you will be able to carry out your action plan of 21 September effectively, and that the Belgian Presidency will be able to take specific decisions in this connection.
We have all asserted that the attacks were not so much directed at innocent victims as at the symbols of freedom, democracy and human rights, including the right to life.
Nobody will deny that the European Parliament too is a symbol of these values.
Of course, we do not want to proclaim ourselves as targets, nor do we want to spread panic, but many MEPs are worried, as already stated by group chairman, Mr Poettering.
In Strasbourg, the entrances and the immediate surroundings of this building are under police surveillance.
In Brussels, however, we are even denied the illusion of security.
If, moreover, we infer from the words of the Belgian Minister for the Interior here that he sees no indication of a need for tighter security, then we have a real reason to worry.
For terrorists do not give warnings, something which a Minister for the Interior should realise.
That is why, Mr President-in-Office of the Council and Minister for Foreign Affairs, I would like to ask you to persuade your Minister for the Interior and the police in Belgium to think again.
Not only in the interests of the safety of the MEPs of the 15 Member States, but also in the interests of their colleagues, their visitors, the safety of the city, which is the capital of Europe, and in the interest of the values for which we all stand.
Mr President, 11 September will go down in history.
It will create a new framework for our daily lives and our political work.
The subtitles on CNN have read 'America at war' for a long time now.
Europe has been there.
Europe has been at war.
Europe has experience of being a theatre of war.
The United States has helped us in the past, and we in turn must therefore, of course, help the United States now.
However, Europe also knows that wars are not won with weapons alone.
Conflicts cannot be prevented with weapons.
Wars cannot be won with weapons alone and, above all, peace cannot be built with the aid of weapons alone.
It may be the case that weapons are necessary, but we must be clear that other things are also required.
I should like to highlight two things that are necessary to the European agenda.
The first is the urgent proposal we are debating at present.
It is regrettable that it is only now that we are debating such a proposal.
I wish to endorse what other speakers have said.
I should like to emphasise that there is, of course, a reason why we are only discussing the proposal now.
Far too many people have too many financial interests in this matter.
There are too many people who do not wish to reveal what is in their hidden accounts. That is why it has been impossible for Europe to do anything before now, and it may well also prove quite difficult now.
The second thing I want to say is that, if we do not gather grassroots support for further European cooperation, we shall lack the communal spirit needed to stand firm against terrorists.
Mr President, yesterday, Mr Nielson stood here and reported on the situation in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan was on the list of forgotten countries before 11 September.
Now, however, the situation has become all but catastrophic.
The World Bank has produced a report showing that between 20000 and 40 000 children per day will die of hunger because of the economic recession caused by the events of 11 September.
In the EU' s Member States, we have received a report to the effect that foreigners and refugees are being persecuted.
This is shown by the Monitoring Centre on Racism in its report.
We are, of course, all appalled at what happened on 11 September, but what these events showed us first and foremost was, of course, that the world has shrunk and that no one is safe.
The American missile shield would not have helped in this situation.
Nor did all the American military hardware help, either.
Now, we are moving on to talk about the need to strengthen democracy and dialogue.
However, the anti-terrorism package we have debated - not the one concerning the economy, but the other - reeks of distrust.
The ambition to strengthen the police and intelligence services completely overshadows the fight to strengthen human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
We will not accept increased powers, either for Europol or the intelligence services, until we have got them under democratic control. Combating terrorism must not overshadow freedoms of expression and assembly.
I should like to ask whether there is anyone who believes that our world will become safer when we prohibit certain organisations.
Terrorism, killing, robbery and the destruction of property are to be forbidden, Well, they are already forbidden.
Those responsible must be caught, and they must be punished.
I do not wish to defend anti-democratic organisations, but the question is whether our world will become safer if these organisations go underground and are made illegal.
There are limits to the number of problems that can be solved by legislation alone, and I think that the first package is evidence of more haste, less speed.
Our task must be to remove the basis for terrorism.
I therefore think that the Troika initiative was a step in the right direction and one that favoured dialogue and the creation of a broad alliance to combat terrorism.
However, there are problems in the alliance.
When China demands, as a condition of its being a part of the alliance, that we close our eyes to what is happening in Tibet; when Russia demands that we close our eyes to events in Chechnya; when Turkey demands that we close our eyes to the fate of the Kurds; and when Israel demands that we close our eyes to the situation of the Palestinians, then we do not have a safe world.
There must be security for all, including oppressed people and also the 20 000 to 40 000 children who will die of hunger next year.
Mr President, the writing on Commander Massoud' s tombstone reads: "Here lies a man who was like an angel: let him guide you.
His name is Massoud" .
We must follow him and defend those who are fighting terrorism, trying to restore their people' s freedom, democracy and human rights.
Yet we did not help Commander Massoud when he came to Strasbourg in April to condemn the crimes of the Taliban.
Let us at least help the Afghan people and the civilised world to overcome terrorists and fundamentalists.
However, our statements of condemnation must be followed by practical action: words alone are not enough.
Therefore, we wonder why it is that the terrorists' bank accounts are only being frozen now, if the governments and intelligence were already aware of these accounts before. Why have the Internet sites which continue to promote terrorist initiatives and maintain links with subversive cells throughout the world, recruiting new terrorists all the while, not yet been condemned and closed?
We call for the Community funding and financing programmes aiding those governments which are not joining the alliance to combat terrorism and, in any case, continue to harbour terrorists on their territory, to be frozen immediately.
Mr President, the possible establishment of a Convention is taking up most of the attention in the debate on the future of the European Union.
This morning, I would like to draw your attention to another point, namely the timeframe for the preparation of the next IGC.
It is understandable that this Parliament does not want an IGC in 2004, for that is the year when elections will be held and the Commission steps down.
However, would 2003, as Parliament suggested, be a good alternative?
In the Netherlands, we have a saying 'haastige spoed is zelden goed' (more haste, less speed).
When one considers the weighty subjects on the agenda, it very much confirms that more time should be taken to reflect.
Moreover, the topics of the IGC are sufficiently interesting to be the subject of the election battle.
In addition, it is also necessary to give the applicant states a vote in this important debate.
In short, 2003 is far too early and 2004 is far too hectic.
Could the Council not decide to hold the IGC in 2005?
Mr President, the attacks in New York and in Washington also claimed many of our own citizens.
That means, therefore, that there is more than simply a display of solidarity on our part.
We are united in our fate.
It is therefore logical that Article 5 of the NATO Treaty has been invoked, which means that we are involved in NATO responses every step of the way.
We carry full responsibility, and we must therefore be aware of the reactions that are heading our way.
All the terrorists wanted to attain was chaos and unreasoning revenge.
The response to that must be measured and specifically targeted at the people and organisations responsible.
The security instruments must be comprehensively reinforced.
That is why I agree that Europol and Eurojust should clearly be given more scope and be integrated into a constitutional state structure.
The European arrest warrant, the common definition of terrorism and organised crime, more flexible extradition: these are all vital instruments.
Member State Ministers who tire themselves out producing objections will undoubtedly be considered 'useful idiots' - to use a term from the cold war era.
What more is needed to enable us to safeguard our common internal security, whereby the sovereignty of Member States is used to benefit the citizens in a way that does not conflict with their interests?
Every Member State should realise that if they offer sanctuary to criminals who seek the necessary peace and quiet to plan their crimes, they themselves can become targets.
The improvement of international relations also strengthens international security.
That is why we need to make good use of the structures in place, such as the Mediterranean dialogue and the United Nations.
Contact with certain sections of the Afghan population is necessary, particularly in the interests of providing relief to those in need.
The resolution which came about under the competent guidance of Mr Collins receives our full support.
We would only like to adopt one single amendment from the old, socialist resolution, and replace Article 26 on Gibraltar with our own wording.
Apart from that, we give our wholehearted approval to the joint outcome.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Council of 21 September initiated the forthcoming review of our fundamental concepts.
Since 9 November 1989 Europe has known that the cold war is over; but since 11 September 2001 the world has known that this cold war is over and it is now time to form global alliances against terrorism.
Today the right to speak will go to those who can demonstrate their full solidarity with the United States and commit themselves unreservedly to this fight against terrorism.
But that also means forbidding any sideslipping within our own ranks, for neither obscurantism nor fanaticism are permissible weapons in the fight against terrorism.
We will also have to inquire into the root causes.
The European Union knows that not all acts of terrorism are the consequence of poverty, but frustration and humiliation do feed terrorism.
We must, therefore, review our development policy again.
We must cancel the developing countries' debt.
We must resume our work on light arms trafficking.
We must urge everybody to play their part in the multilateral structures.
Within our institutions, we must give ourselves the means to prevent all forms of conflict, for they are also a source of tension.
I do not believe this is the moment to drop one of Parliament's initiatives, namely the prevention centre, which we are now told may be under threat.
The European Council showed that it was able to draw the consequences of the fight that lies ahead.
To mention only a few issues, let us turn first to the question of the financing of terrorism.
Yes, the Union put itself in a position where it could fight the Talibans' money and freeze their assets, thanks to the regulation of 4 July 2001.
Some European countries, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, have already frozen these assets.
Yesterday the Commission proposed a new initiative.
Perhaps the Commissioner could tell us on what basis the Commission envisages the revision of that annex.
It is an important question because this is the first time Parliament has been consulted on measures of this kind.
Then there is the fight against money laundering, the fight against tax havens; we will have to give new impetus to all these tasks on which the European Union has embarked.
These upheavals have come at a moment when the European Union is entering the final stage of its transition to the euro, when it is engaged in vital projects: enlargement, but also the definition of a genuine common foreign and security policy, the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
These projects will be given a strong boost, circumstances will sweep away any hesitation, force us to be resolute.
But if we are to be able to seize this opportunity for Europe, Ghent will have to live up to our high expectations. I can tell the Council representative that while we welcome the adoption of a convention, Parliament will not support a system of options.
On the other hand, Parliament will certainly support the Council when it comes to broadening the agenda of that convention, to asking useful questions, for instance whether we need to maintain the pillar structure. What kind of presidency will the Union have?
Mr President, it is only natural that the issue of the fight against terrorism should be given a certain amount of attention in Ghent.
The European Union has acted with impressive unity and decisiveness.
We can look forward to a long-term battle on several fronts, including the political and the legal fronts, with a sensitive balance regarding respect for legal rights.
In terms of the long view politically and economically, we may also be able to establish a better legal system with a stronger UN.
It is gratifying that the US has realised the importance of the UN and is paying its debts to that organisation.
Perhaps the EU can also get the US to ratify the protocol on the International Criminal Court.
Of course, we must also work in the long term to achieve peace and democracy throughout the Middle East.
In Ghent, enlargement will also be discussed.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party believes it is vital that each country be assessed on its own merits and that the principle of differentiation be genuinely upheld.
That is a message I should like to send to the presidency.
Finally, when it comes to the Convention, I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for the concrete explanations.
However, there is still a certain amount of concern in this area.
The Convention is not a debating club for talking in rather general terms about various alternatives regarding the future of Europe.
The Convention is not an alibi for the Council, but a serious and democratic partner in this discussion.
Regardless of its composition - I hope that the candidate countries will be given a strong role to play in this context - the Convention will contain a large number of hard-working parliamentarians who need to know that the work that is put in is taken very seriously.
Mr President, war is not the answer.
Our message of suffering for the victims should not turn into a war cry.
These were the main signals sent out by the thousands of American demonstrators who took to the streets of Washington last Saturday.
On our side of the Atlantic, tens of thousands of demonstrators in Athens, Rome, Berlin, Paris, Amsterdam, Prague, Barcelona, Stockholm, Istanbul and elsewhere raised their voices in protest against the warmongering plans of the American and European imperialists.
What has happened is that those who systematically engage in state terrorism, those who made the Bin Ladens and the KLA what they are, those who turned whole nations into terrorists have found a golden opportunity, following the hideous terrorist attack in the USA, to settle their accounts with anyone and everyone who opposes their world dominion.
At the same time, in the countries of the European Union and the United States, suppressive policing measures have been stepped up in order to gag anyone who stands up against or questions their anti-grass roots policy.
The President of the United States said that the war against 'terrorism' will last a long time.
The resistance of peace-loving grass-roots forces will be equally long-lasting.
We are certain that the justice of peace will prevail against the barbarism of imperialist war.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although I fully support the conclusions of the extraordinary European Summit in Brussels, I can only condemn the amount of time it is taking Europe to make a practical response to terrorism top priority.
It took thousands of deaths for us to be able to come to an agreement on establishing the European search and arrest warrant; it took thousands of innocent victims for us to be able to agree on defining a common strategy to combat terrorism.
Only now is the Union being called upon to participate more actively in the prevention and stabilisation of regional conflicts.
Where was Europe - we wonder - when the Mediterranean sea was seen as the border between two opposing worlds, between Islamic fundamentalism and religious tolerance? Will the Union please realise, at last, that we can only define a European security and defence policy if we take the Mediterranean as our starting point.
I live on the farthest edge of European territory in the Mediterranean, just a few metres away from the most advanced NATO base - the Sigonella base - and a few minutes away from the Middle East by 'plane.
I know how willing the moderate Arab and Muslim world is to cooperate; I met the mayor of Jerusalem and the mayor of Gaza last year.
Well then, I am convinced that it is now up to Europe genuinely to start to turn what have hitherto just been good intentions into practical action.
There are quite a few worrying messages from the Brussels Summit.
First of all, it is glaringly obvious that the summit reflects a shockingly small degree of self-knowledge, which also characterises the United States' s government.
There is no understanding of the fact that there is a political background to the horrific massacres on 11 September.
In keeping with this small degree of self-knowledge, at odds with the insights of international conflict researchers, alliances for combating terrorism are being entered into with the world' s most effective State-authorised terrorists.
Russian genocide in Chechnya is being legitimised, and alliances entered into with oligarchies in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Chechnya, not to mention Saudi Arabia.
Any intervention is legitimised in this way and, at the same time, attempts at international conflict resolution under the UN system, including the international administration of justice, are being set aside.
Moreover, the adoption of new police measures is tailored to the same pattern and based on the same low level of self-knowledge.
It is the end that justifies the means.
In this case, the means will deprive us of the very democracies we are supposed to be defending.
I believe it will subsequently be possible to say, 'The operation was a success, but the patient died.'
Mr President, Commissioner, representatives of the Council, I hope that the terrorist atrocity on 11 September had the same effect on the Council, that is to say the Interior and Justice Ministers, as it did on the Heads of State and Government, namely that of shaking them awake and bringing it home to them that national resentments and animosities have no place in the fight against terrorism.
I see these resolutions overall in a positive light.
We must, though, be able to expect a rapid start to be made on putting them into effect.
I also expect the Union at last to embrace the possibilities already open to it; that the Member States will at last comply with their obligations and supply the necessary information to Europol in The Hague; and that the counter-terrorist Conventions will at last be brought into force.
I also look forward to Europol being supplied with the personnel and technology it needs to its at last being put in a position to carry out an investigation into the state of terrorist networks in Europe and to a joint investigation team soon being set up.
What I look for from the Summit is that new projects will be called into being, such as intensive cooperation between Europol and the United States security services and the networking of police databases, ranging from Europol to Schengen via Olaf, so that these might be used against terrorism; that Eurojust should become the reality to which Mr Poettering has just referred, working closely with Europol; and that Europol should be developed in the direction of the first pillar, with authority to conduct investigations; and that the intergovernmental level should be abandoned in favour of the European in closely circumscribed areas of organised crime.
In other words, to take this cooperation in security policy as an example, Europe has a great opportunity to bring the added value of the European Union home to its citizens.
Let us make use of this opportunity without delay!
Mr President, the tragic events of 11 September have shown, once again, how wide the gap is between the Europe that is and the Europe that ought to be.
The shock we felt at the inconceivable level of violence reached by terrorism must now give way to a practical endeavour to provide Europe with the political and institutional tools it needs to play a role combating terrorism and working towards peace and justice in the world.
We therefore welcome the decisions of the extraordinary European Council of 21 September in the field of judicial cooperation and home affairs and on combating money laundering.
Against this tragic backdrop, the decision of the Italian government and the majority supporting it to make changes to the judicial cooperation treaty with Switzerland appears even more serious and irresponsible, changes to its own code of criminal procedure which are in direct conflict with the commitments made at the extraordinary Council and the Justice and Home Affairs Council.
This law would mean that evidence gathered abroad could not be used in court proceedings and that, since this measure applies retrospectively, it would jeopardise hundreds of trials which are currently in progress, nullifying evidence already established.
It is this kind of decision which made the Public Prosecutor of Geneva say that this law is a disaster for international justice and that, in twelve years of judicial cooperation with countries throughout the world, he has never, ever seen rules like this adopted.
Since I feel that this is not the right place to express an opinion, I call upon the Commission, the Council and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs to ascertain whether this measure is in line with the decisions of the extraordinary Summit.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, stated before the United Nations General Assembly, the terrorist attack of 11 September was an attack on the very ideal of free, inclusive, civilised society and on its practice of openness and tolerance.
The attack will be unsuccessful only if we are able to enhance these characteristics rather than weaken them.
Our initial response, our initial reaction must be to switch off the psychological 'emergency' mode and get a grip on our agenda.
Therefore, I welcome the commitment to be made at Ghent to proceed with the debates on the euro, enlargement and the political integration of Europe at Laeken and through the Convention.
It is in this sense that the fight against terrorism must be seen as part of a series of structural operations.
In the area of air safety, for example, we must proceed on two levels: on the one hand, there is an urgent need for a revision of the Regulation establishing the European Air Safety Authority, extending its responsibilities to include accident prevention and - if we can call it that - terrorism prevention; on the other, we need incisive action from the International Civil Aviation Organisation to ensure that the rules we are seeking to adopt for Europe become rules which are binding upon the whole world.
Europe must be capable of taking the initiative in this and many other minor areas to express all that potential for peace and democracy which is its strength and must become the strength of the whole world.
Mr President, it was as if Europe was drowsing.
Its one dream seemed to be comfort and peace.
Suddenly the shock of the brutal terrorist attacks in New York profoundly shook its confidence and its hedonism.
Europe suddenly felt vulnerable and unprepared.
After all, its hard-won fundamental freedoms were being threatened by mysterious terrorist networks, which nonetheless appeared to be dominated by Islamist religious proselytism.
This violent and anti-modernist proselytism is anti-Western by definition.
However, this does not authorise cultural cretinism and historic ignorance leading to an abusive fusion between Islam and the aberrant, irrational and sectarian assertions of the perpetrators of the attacks.
It was not only the United States, the target of these sinister attacks, which was put to the test.
Europe was also put to the test and the European Union has to do some deep soul-searching.
In the immediate aftermath, still in shock, the European Union proved equal to the occasion at the Brussels Summit.
It was fast, clear and precise in its emergency responses. But, now what?
Europe cannot in future act in such a spontaneous, opportunistic and superficial way.
Europe cannot be a plaything of destiny, a destiny plotted by others.
What has been established in Ghent and Laeken is that Europe should completely rethink its project and its role in light of the new world order and adopt a clear guideline for the troubled times ahead. Without becoming unduly pessimistic about the human condition, Europe must be less ingenuous in the face of the dangers that will arise in the future.
Europe must unite more strongly on the economic level, the political level, the military level and in its internal security. That is obvious.
But how is it to do so?
What are its priorities beyond fighting relentlessly against terrorism? What are the new aims of the European project?
Will enlargement continue to take place on the same terms?
Will it not be necessary, from now on, to speed up the accession of, for example, Turkey to the European Union? Will it not be the most elementary common sense to give absolute priority to the strategy for the Mediterranean and provide new impetus to partnerships with the Muslim countries?
Mr President, the attacks on New York and Washington were a new form of terrorism on a new scale, amounting to an act of war.
The intention of the coalition, led by the United States, to eradicate terrorism deserves the support of the European democracies in particular.
We welcome the measures taken by the European Council since the attacks and we are playing our part in putting them swiftly into effect.
However, let us also be vigilant in ensuring that the European Union does not, in its haste, take steps which exceed the current needs.
In some cases, these measures should be renewable and temporary.
Last week in Rome I and my colleagues had a series of meetings in connection with the reaction to terrorism.
We met the exiled Afghan King, Mohammed Zahir Shah, who ruled for 40 years until 1973 and who in 1964 introduced free elections and a free media and brought women into politics.
We affirm our support for the central role he is willing to play in the return to democracy of his country.
We urge the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission to take up immediate contacts with the king.
We also had meetings with Italian ministers and were able to express our thanks for the additional deployment of troops in the Balkans, allowing British special forces to be deployed in another theatre.
We also discussed at the Vatican the values shared by all faiths, including Islam, concerning the integrity of human beings, their rights and the universal belief in the peaceful resolution of disputes, whether in the context of democracy or other systems.
We held meetings with the World Food Programme and were told that the international community should start to plan now for a reconstruction agency similar to the one the European Union set up for Kosovo.
Even before the current crisis, drought, a failing economy and war had turned Afghanistan into one of the most difficult places to live on earth, with as many as 22% of children in some districts dead before they had reached five years of age and an average life expectancy of 40.
The actions about to begin are designed not simply to eradicate terrorism, but also to eradicate an evil regime.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, that we support the anti-terrorist measures announced by the presidency, both these measures and any others needed, goes without saying.
We stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the global coalition against terrorism, although we have little advice to offer about the technical, policing or military measures which will need to be applied.
What we can do, however, is to speak with perhaps greater authority about the political preconditions to success.
No campaign of this sort and no war, at least no war in which democracies have taken part, has ever been able to create the necessary alliance of nations - because that is the alliance which counts, not the alliance of governments - without offering a vision of a better world at the end of the campaign.
Politically, we need to point out yet again that we support all the democratic regimes and, more to the point, that we reject any tyrannical regimes which may promise to help fight specific terrorist organisations but which, in the long term, work with secret services which collaborate with them like terrorist recruiting offices.
Socially, we need to recognise that environmental catastrophes, epidemics, poverty and misery threaten the security of the world and need to be dealt with as threats which are every bit as serious as terrorism.
We need to state that, in a globalised society, our wealth and our military power do not offer the man in the street any security.
The only realistic solution is to find ways of taking the tension out of social and ethnic fights, of reconciling all men of good faith, irrespective of nationality, religion, social position or ideology, in fact everyone who is determined to put an end to the scourges which inflict mankind and which, even if they do not result in terrorism, prepare the ground for terrorism and we need to remove this ground if we are to guarantee the security of our citizens.
Mr President, a great Italian writer, Oriana Fallaci, breaking years of voluntary silence, has written a major article seeking to stir the consciences of many Europeans involved in the fight against terrorism and to promote the values of freedom, democracy and tolerance throughout the world.
At a time when fresh threats are being made to American targets in Italy, it is the European Union' s duty to take the lead in defending these values, which apply to all citizens.
That is why, while I support the decisions taken by the Council at Brussels, I feel that it is vital that, as we implement the inevitable specific military initiatives, we must step up political and economic initiatives as well.
In any case, I cannot remain silent regarding a controversial point raised in this Chamber: Mrs Napoletano' s call for the Italian Parliament to be monitored by the Council is irrelevant and devoid of any legal basis.
I would remind Mrs Napoletano and Mr Barón Crespo that the Italian Parliament is sovereign, like all the parliaments in consolidated democracies.
The statements of the Chairman of the Group of the Party of European Socialists are, as far as we are concerned, extremely serious and unacceptable, for they amount to interference in the internal affairs of a Member State of the European Union.
And before making pronouncements on legislative affairs such as international letters rogatory, with which he is clearly unfamiliar, I would suggest that he read Article 3 of the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, signed right here in Strasbourg, where he will find answers to his unfounded concerns: I would advise Mrs Napoletano, who also is clearly unfamiliar with this provision, to read it as well.
It would, in any case, be appropriate for the Chairman of a Parliamentary Group, and also for those holding positions of responsibility in the European institutions - I refer to the absent Mr Michel - not to make statements either of approval or condemnation in this Chamber on the internal affairs of a Member State.
Rather, we would like to hear what action the Belgian government intends to adopt, at last, to ensure the safety of the thousands of people who work within the European Parliament in Brussels, especially the staff based permanently on that site.
Declarations of intent must be followed by practical action.
Mr President, the conclusion and the action plan of the extraordinary Council offer a solid basis for a focused, measured, coordinated response to the attacks of 11 September.
The following are examples of the proposals which receive my full support: developing international judicial instruments, freezing the funding of terrorist networks and exchanging intelligence in conjunction with the US by setting up an anti-terrorist unit within Europol.
We are also pleased that the Council, the Commission and Parliament have spoken with one voice over the past three weeks, embarrassing slips by Commissioner Bolkestein and Prime Minister Berlusconi apart.
This suggests that European cooperation, both internally and externally, is growing up fast.
The weapon of new terrorism is fear and disruption, and hunger for power.
An effective line of attack protecting the international rule of law must spring from a worldwide coalition against terrorism under the aegis of the UN and on the basis of UN resolutions.
Provided that that coalition is based on international rule of law principles and not, as was the case in the past with the Taliban, by financing future enemies, for that is misguided Realpolitik.
I support a worldwide dignified response, irrespective of race, nationality or religion, proportional across the legal, political, diplomatic, financial, military and economic fields, whereby an appeal is made for extreme caution with regard to innocent lives.
Furthermore, we should not lose sight of the long-term perspective, particularly now.
Let there be no doubt about this: the direct causes of terrorism do not lie in creed or poverty.
In the climate of globalisation, there are certainly links between economic development, contrasting poverty and trade.
For example, the World Bank expects that, as a result of the terrorist attacks, economic growth in the developing countries will drop from 5% to 2%.
The expected effects are enormous, with ten million additional people under the poverty line and between twenty to forty thousand more children under the age of five who will die.
If we fail to formulate adequate responses in the face of this harsh reality, we in Europe will be applying double standards.
Investing in worldwide security means taking safety measures, but it also calls for international solidarity, which is a basis for international cooperation and, along with this, a basis for the worldwide coalition against terrorism.
Mr President, I wish to concentrate my remarks on the issue of terrorism.
I welcome the fact that we are building a worldwide alliance against terrorism, but I would argue very strongly that we also need to build a worldwide alliance against poverty, exploitation and oppression.
The battle against terrorism is above all a battle of values and a battle of ideas.
We will not defeat terrorism, whether it be national terrorism, whether it be driven by fundamentalism of any kind, unless we do battle with the ideas that underpin that terror.
We have to recall again that no country has ever been defeated by terrorism and I am certainly confident that the terrorism which we now face on an international scale does not have that capacity unless we allow it by failing to grapple with the ideas underlying it.
This is not an argument for business as usual.
It is an argument for avoiding the trap set for us by terrorism.
We have to be careful also not to fall into the trap of seeing Muslims as an enemy.
The statements by our European leaders and President Prodi are very much welcome in this regard.
I condemn utterly the statements by Prime Minister Berlusconi.
It is a disgrace that a country of the European Union is led by a man who can present these ideas in this day and age, particularly when the country is Italy, which in my view has always led in terms of modern ideas.
I would add my voice to others' condemnations.
The question is how do we respond? The very best response, apart from the obvious security measures that we have to take, is to defend our ideas of freedom, of democracy, of justice and of ending exploitation.
This European Union has a key role to play on the European stage in leading that battle and not falling into line behind those who only see security as an answer to this appalling problem.
Mr President, so much has now been said and written about the tragedy, the crime of 11 September.
I will, therefore, confine myself to three issues: terrorism, Europe and the world.
Yes, we must resolutely declare war on all forms of terrorism, from wherever it comes, the IRA, ETA, the assassins of Claude Erignac, Prefect of Corsica, Osama Bin Laden and his clique and all the others, but without making the stupid and suicidal mistake of lumping them all together.
Our capacity to take in terrorists is now beyond the limit; it is probable that the insane attacks of 11 September were prepared in Europe.
So, let us spring to action and pool our resources, our activities, our objectives in the field of intelligence, justice, security and defence and let us be implacable towards the terrorists, their networks, their support structures, their dirty money.
Yes, the Commissioner was quite right to refer to the obligation to get results!
Solidarity with our friends, our American allies, does not imply mindless alignment.
With its tried and tested experience of the world, Europe can and must play a specific role here.
Others place hope in us, await us, call on us, alas, too often without response.
Let us not disappoint them any longer.
In the Middle East, a constant source of tension, the issue has to be resolved by the establishment of two sovereign states - Israel and Palestine - with absolute security guarantees for both.
Even the Americans are, for the first time, considering this obvious arrangement.
It is up to us to initiate the process of opening the doors.
Let us finally realise that the post-Yalta organisation of the world needs to be rethought to take account of the incredible developments since the last war: the emergence of nuclear powers, whether official or not, the fall of the Berlin wall, more than a billion Muslims around the world desperately seeking recognition and respect, new giants like India, limitless technological developments in every field, developments that are accessible only to the few, the ever-widening gap between rich and poor.
Let us finally take account of these positive or disturbing trends and organise a world in which each individual is recognised, respected rather than despised, involved rather than ignored.
There is a burning need to fulfil that obligation.
Mr President, following the attacks on 11 September, it is incumbent upon us to come up with a response appropriate to this tremendous challenge, to ensure justice is done and to prevent further attacks.
Europe' s response must amount to more than the solidarity called for earlier in the House. It must be an active response, defending specific values.
I am not referring, as Mr Berlusconi might, to Western values or to Christian civilisation. I have in mind genuine democratic values.
These must be defended wherever the freedom to do so exists.
Where it does not, they must be established and nurtured. Success can only be guaranteed through long-term support by the governments committed to this fight.
In the face of the serious threat to humanity terrorism represents, we are called upon to take action and to get it right.
We must abide by the rules when taking action against those who have no rules. We have to get it right, but getting it right cannot in this context mean taking spectacular action.
Getting it right has to mean identifying those responsible and dealing with the key figures.
It involves destroying their networks and preventing them from organising new ones. All this takes time, and calls for cooperation between judges and police at international level, together with mutual political trust between governments.
It will be a long and difficult process but believe me, it is the only way to defend democracy from fanaticism and barbarism.
A genuine common foreign security and defence policy for the European Union is called for.
The Union also needs a common approach to legal and home affairs. The European search and arrest warrant will be an essential element of this but by no means the only one.
Clearly, this joint European action requires us to set ourselves high standards.
No European leader should jeopardise the joint response, as Mr Berlusconi' s government has just done. The legislation it has recently endorsed is diametrically opposed to the approach adopted by this House.
It is also in opposition to the 21 September Council resolution we all applauded here today.
I should like to put some questions to the Council and the Commission.
What action will the Council take to ensure that it speaks with one voice, as Mr Michel was saying this morning? Also, how does it intend to deal with that thorn in its flesh, namely the Berlusconi doctrine?
Mr President, in light of the seriousness of the terrorist attack of 11 September, there are several important questions to be discussed and clarified, relating to our intention to resolutely fight terrorism.
The first question is the need to find effective means to combat terrorism, which do not necessarily entail legislative reform on matters of security.
It is worth recalling clearly that it is not effective, and never has been in democracy, to curtail freedoms in order to fight the enemies of democracy itself.
Indeed, we think the problem lies elsewhere.
It is not only the lack of legislation at national or European level, or the lack of coordinated policing at international level.
The problem has much to do both with hesitancy and weakness in the fight against terrorism, which manifest themselves in laxity towards activities of a terrorist nature, in the hope that terrorist acts would always be carried out in the country next door, or in the slow deterioration of methods of defence and security, police forces, information services and armed forces.
European governments which thought that wars had ended once and for all and which often cut the financial resources available for defence and safety cannot, of course, talk loudly about terrorism.
The second question concerns political awareness of the times in which we live.
If we denounce what happened in New York and Washington merely as a criminal act, we will from the start be limiting the scope, the meaning and the effectiveness of the fight against terrorism.
What happened is in reality an act of war, no doubt of a war different to previous wars but, unfortunately, all wars are different to previous wars. They are usually more deadly, affecting more civilians and not hesitating to use any means to massacre.
They are increasingly total wars.
To classify what happened as an act of war is not a mere question of semantics.
It has had major implications, starting with the right of the nation or nations affected to respond with military actions, if necessary, in relation to the country or countries shown to be responsible for supporting or carrying out terrorist acts.
At present this is a basic condition for effectively fighting terrorism, which cannot attain the magnitude of the attack of 11 September without the support of one or more States.
Unfortunately, there has been little discussion on this subject, but it is necessary to know the position of the Council, Parliament and the Commission concerning the need for military intervention against States which perpetrate or support terrorist acts.
I have to tell you that the situation in Afghanistan, especially for the Afghan refugees, is tragic.
If we close our eyes and think of the impact this situation will have on millions of people, we, as the European Union, should really take action.
I believe it is of the utmost importance for the Council too - and I am addressing Mrs Neyts at this point - together with Parliament, to consider the question as to what we can do to make more resources available.
Mr President, if our humanitarian aid efforts do not run smoothly, we will create a new breeding ground for the Bin Ladens of this world.
It is therefore crucial to get it right.
I would like to denounce the statements made by Commissioner Bolkestein.
It is now the umpteenth time that he has acted beyond his remit.
He makes statements and gives an analysis in the Volkskrant of 29 September in which he says that the Arab world is indignant and feels weak vis-à-vis the West, partly as a result of the Gulf War.
But they are quite welcome to supply oil, he says.
Mr President, this analysis is not shared by Mr Patten.
Mr Bolkestein goes on to say that the EU' s asylum policy is not coming off the ground.
In my opinion, that is a direct attack on Mr Vitorino' s policy.
I would like to ask Mr Barnier to consult the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, on the matter of Mr Bolkestein adhering to his remit, being the internal market.
We cannot end up in a situation where the Commission as a whole would ultimately be harmed because it is judged on statements by Mr Bolkestein.
That is inopportune under these circumstances.
I think it is useful and necessary for the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, and Mr Bolkestein to hold a discussion, with a view to the latter concentrating on his own task.
Mr President, Commissioner, President-in-Office of the Council, I fully share the sentiments of Mr Van Velzen concerning Mr Bolkestein.
As far as the debate on terrorism is concerned, I share the views of Messrs Van den Berg, De Rossa and others who have recommended a broader approach.
But since I was absent during the last debate, I would like to come back to it.
Following on from the debate on terrorism, I would like to add that we in Europe too must prevent grounds for frustration from developing or continuing to exist.
This is also relevant to enlargement.
Commissioner, it is vital for the political criteria of democracy, human rights and rights of minorities to be just as much respected as the quantitative aspects of enlargement.
With enlargement will come a number of small countries such as the Czech Republic, Slovakia and the Baltic States.
We therefore wonder what, in future, the place and rights of the constitutional regions will be, some of which see themselves as nations equivalent to others that have their own state.
They must be given their place.
Not only Flanders, but also Scotland, Wales, the Basque Country, Galicia and others spring to mind.
I am thinking of all those constitutional regions which might feel obliged to apply for Member State status, simply because Member States are the only States acknowledged within Europe.
In other words, if we fail in a future debate to give regions and nations a place in Europe, we in fact further separatism.
That is not what I want.
I would like regions to be able to help build a federal Europe, a federal Europe that is often curbed by the Member States themselves.
I would therefore urge you to include a paragraph on regions.
Mr President, at the close of this debate let me thank all the speakers, although I will not be able to reply to each one individually in the few minutes that remain.
Let me say, on behalf of the Commission, that I was touched by the support several of you gave to the work we are doing during these difficult and serious times, side by side with the Council and the European Parliament.
Turning to the most important issue, which almost all speakers addressed, the fight against terrorism, let me remind you of the spirit in which we are undertaking it.
We, and in particular my colleague and friend Mr Vitorino, take account in our activities of the important work done by Parliament, and in particular the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs under its chairman Mr Watson.
In fact we were working with that committee this morning on the final text submitted to you on freezing the assets of organisations linked to terrorism.
At this point, I can confirm that the Commission, like the Council, is prepared to take on board any suggestions or proposals from Parliament where at all possible.
To echo Mr Poettering's concern, let me repeat what I said in my statement this morning about the fight against terrorism.
That fight certainly involves all the states; in no case can it be reduced to some kind of conflict between the different civilisations of the world.
As Mrs Béres and Mr Salafranca said, we must build a global alliance and wage a global fight against terrorism.
Let me also point out - in response to a number of speakers, Mr Lannoye, Mr Michel and Mr Di Lello - that we are most concerned during our activities with steering the best possible course between the need for freedom and the need for security.
Perhaps, as Mr Michel advised, it would be a good idea to carry out regular, careful evaluations to ensure that we remain on course.
I listened carefully to the recommendations of several Members, in particular Mr Collins, who called for determined and vigorous measures; I also noted the encouragement offered by Mr Berthu, calling on us to continue to work towards an objective that has clearly emerged since Amsterdam and since Tampere: a common judicial area, with the necessary cooperation between Member States and between all the services - and let me say to Mr Dupuis that I certainly mean all the services - and the necessary harmonisation or communitarisation in some areas.
Nor am I forgetting, just as you must not forget, that in Amsterdam and Tampere we also looked at ways of tackling illegal immigration.
Finally, on terrorism, as part of our collective action, we, the Commission, the Council and Parliament, must implement our common foreign policy by establishing a political dialogue, by preventing and stabilising all the regional conflicts, by giving marked support to development.
A number of you discussed this in relation to long-term action.
I am thinking here of Mr McMillan-Scott and Mr van Velzen.
And then, of course, in the shorter term, there are the support and cooperation measures to help the refugees.
Overall, looking at this serious challenge of fighting terrorism, let me emphasise what Mr Klaus Hänsch and, in a sense, Mr Nassauer said a moment ago.
We are facing a moment of truth and it is likely that the European Union will emerge stronger from this crisis in terms of the values and rationale of the European project.
As I said myself, it is also likely that we will have to step up the pace and find additional reasons for taking this European project further.
Ladies and gentlemen, even if it is difficult to explain this to you at this time of the day and with all this hubbub, I believe there is a link between, on the one hand, the political lessons we have to learn from this crisis and from the tragedy of New York and Washington, which tell us to speed up, to intensify, to prove once again the value of European integration and, on the other hand, that broad debate that began after Nice and is due to conclude in 2002.
There is a link with the activities the convention will have to undertake.
Speaking of that convention...
Ladies and gentlemen, it is appalling that Commissioner Barnier should be forced to end the debate on terrorism under these conditions.
It is a matter of responsible behaviour and manners. I therefore invite you all to take your seats and listen quietly.
I am sorry to be so harsh but this behaviour is truly unacceptable.
I apologise once again, Commissioner, for the conditions under which you were forced to speak.
It is a question of irresponsible behaviour as well as poor administration.
Mr President, my card has disappeared.
I put it here on my seat and when I came back it was gone.
Someone has taken my card, meaning that I cannot vote.
Mr Patakis, you will have to go and get another voting card.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37 (2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Mr President, for the whole week we have been unable to hear the original sound out of this system.
The acoustics in this Chamber are very, very poor.
This is not a new thing, though.
To add to that, we have been getting a terrible noise out of the loudspeaker today, which interferes with everything.
Because of the noise from the loudspeaker, we cannot hear anything.
Somebody must do something about this sound system.
I am sure your comment has been heard by all those who need to take action to resolve the issue as well as me.
I hope that they will do so without delay so that there will be no need for further speeches on the matter tomorrow.
Announcement by the President
The House has been requested to approve an extension of the deadline for the appointment of the members of the Court of Auditors.
The Council submitted the names of the candidates it has proposed for appointment as members of the Court of Auditors in two letters dated 22 and 28 June 2001 respectively.
These letters were received on the 27 and 28 June 2001 respectively, that is, just before the summer recess. For practical reasons, and to enable both the candidates and the members of the committee responsible to prepare the necessary hearings, the hearings were planned for 11 September and 8/10 October 2001.
Rule 35(3) provides that the vote in plenary is held within two months of receipt of the nomination, unless Parliament, at the request of the committee responsible, a political group or at least 32 Members, decides otherwise.
In view of the fact that the debate and vote in plenary are planned for the October II part-session, that is, after the two-month deadline laid down in Rule 35, the committee responsible has submitted a request that the House be asked to approve an extension of this deadline.
Are there any objections?
Then it is decided to postpone the deadline.
We shall now proceed to the votes.
VOTE
Mr President, this first vote on our order paper today relates to the request from the Commission for urgent procedure on the measure you have outlined.
In exceptional circumstances, following the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the Committee on Citizens' Freedom and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs met this morning and approved, without report, the proposal submitted to us.
I understand that we will also receive, following this morning's Coreper meeting, a request from the Council for urgency, to add to that from the Commission.
It is the recommendation of the committee, which I have the honour to chair, that we accept that amendment.
If that is approved by the House, I hope you will confirm that would give the political groups until 6 p.m. this evening to submit amendments to this proposed measure.
Are there any objections?
Mr President, I was present at the committee' s meeting this morning, and I would therefore like to add to what the Chairman, Mr Watson, has said.
There was substantial concern regarding precisely the request for urgency - there were even three votes cast against the motion and three abstentions - because we are being asked to approve an urgent procedure not on the mechanism for identifying money launderers but on a list.
It is with regard to this fact that we expressed our opposition.
(Parliament adopted the request for urgent procedure)
Mr President, I too should like to protest in the strongest terms against the uproar during Commissioner Barnier's speech and to say that I share Mrs Grossetête's indignation.
However, this is not the first time this has happened and I should like to propose a practical solution to the problem, because otherwise there is nothing left for us to do but apologise to the Commissioners.
I think there should be quarter of an hour's break between the end of the debate and the vote.
Mr Marinos, what you are saying has already been said by Mrs Grossetête.
There is no need to repeat it.
If you have a precise, practical suggestion, you should write a letter to the President and it will be considered by the President and the Bureau.
You cannot bring the matter before the House for we are currently here to vote, not to open a debate on the way the plenary is organised.
Thank you for your contribution, however. Please would you send your proposal to the President.
Simplified procedure - Initiative of the Kingdom of Sweden with a view to the adoption by the Council of a draft Decision amending the Decision of 29 April 1999 extending Europol's mandate to deal with forgery of money and means of payment [10528/2001 - C5-0360/2001 - 2001/0822(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the initiative)
Simplified procedure - Initiative of the Kingdom of Sweden with a view to the adoption of a Council Framework Decision amending Framework Decision 2000/383/JHA on increasing protection by criminal penalties and other sanctions against counterfeiting in connection with the introduction of the euro [10527/2001 - C5-0361/2001 - 2001/0823(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the initiative)
Report (A5-0312/2001) by Mr Miller, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive relating to special provisions for vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver' s seat, and amending Directives 70/156/EEC and 97/27/EC [C5-0278/2001 - 1997/0176(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the joint text)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0296/2001), by Mr De Roo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive relating to the assessment and management of environmental noise [6660/1/2001 - C5-0245/2001 - 2000/0194(COD)]
(The President declared the common position approved)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0298/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on a Community Energy Efficiency Labelling Programme for Office and Communication Technology Equipment [6760/1/2001 - C5-0246/2001 - 2000/0033(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs McNally)
In any case, Mrs McNally, I should have asked for the Commission' s opinion on the amendments tabled.
I therefore now give the floor to Commissioner Barnier.
If on top of all that the microphone does not work, this will be a day to be remembered.
I would indeed like to reply at once to Mrs McNally, so as to help the House make up their mind, and to confirm what Mrs Loyola De Palacio said.
We understand your motives in tabling this amendment No 1; however, we cannot support it and we do indeed want to avoid the conciliation procedure being invoked.
But as Mrs De Palacio said, the Commission departments are currently preparing a proposal to withdraw energy-inefficient products from the market. And let me make it clear that this proposal will be submitted to you without delay, which means during the first six months of 2002.
(The President declared the common position approved)
Motion for a joint resolution on the accident at the AZF factory in Toulouse and the revision of the Union' s policy on environmental protection
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0304/2001) by Mr Robert J.E Evans, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Commission communication entitled 'Towards a common asylum procedure and a uniform status, valid throughout the Union, for persons granted asylum'
[COM(2000) 755 - C5-0101/2001 - 2001/2048(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0305/2001) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on a Community immigration policy [COM(2000) 757 - C5-0100/2001 - 2001/2047(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0309/2001) by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Council's Second Annual Report according to Operative Provision 8 of the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports [13177/1/2000 - C5-0111/2001 - 2001/2050(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0288/2001) by Mrs Langenhagen, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission communication to the European Parliament and the Council on GALILEO [COM(2000) 750 - C5-0110/2001 - 2001/2059(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0234/2001) by Mr Rübig, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Foreign Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on Innovation in a knowledge-driven economy [COM(2000) 567 - C5-0740/2000 - 2000/2336(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0311/2001) by Mr Mayer Hans-Peter, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the problem of the exhaustion of trade mark rights [SEC(1999)2033 - C5-0354/2000 - 2000/2187(COS)]
Mr President, last night at the close of the debate and on the basis of the supporting studies, Commissioner Bolkestein clearly contradicted those who say that prices rose after the introduction of the Community exhaustion system.
On the contrary, in some cases they fell.
Those who pretend they are defending the consumer are in fact protecting the parallel import circuits that pose a threat to quality, innovation and jobs by promoting counterfeits.
Hence the three amendments I tabled.
They seem to worry the rapporteur.
In fact the PPE-DE Group has called for a roll-call vote on all our amendments to check how its members are voting and the undertakings given by certain coordinators.
I fear that once again pressure and bargaining will carry the day and that a bad decision will be taken.
Mr Bernié, you requested the floor to tell me whether you are withdrawing the amendments.
This is not the place for political reasoning or an explanation of vote. Please would you tell me whether you withdraw the amendments or not.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the process of drafting European law should concentrate on fundamental issues rather than pointlessly wasting time and energy on details.
This was written by Mr Prodi in a guest column in the 'Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung' on 27 July this year. I indeed hear this gospel, but I have no faith!
The Miller report is evidence to the contrary, defining things that are self-explanatory.
It tells us, for example, what a floor is, what is meant by 'behind' and 'in front' and informs us that provision must be made for passages through which two coaxial cylinders must be able to pass.
The whole thing is actually absurd, but - and here I refer back to the quotation from Romano Prodi - Europe's citizens will rightly ask themselves whether we have nothing more important to occupy us.
It was therefore with extreme annoyance that I took part in this brief vote on the Miller report.
In many spheres, the imagination of regulators is positively inexhaustible.
Yet there is a lack of real political will where really explosive legal issues are concerned.
It will not be in that way that we will bring Europe and its citizens closer together.
The freedom of movement on which this European Union is founded is daily denied to our continent's 37 million disabled citizens.
There is no more important question in the campaign for comprehensive human rights for disabled people than the pursuit of accessible public transport.
The directive finally agreed today, is a historic step forward in that campaign.
It shows that the cost of access for industry is affordable, if only designed-for-all principles are included at the beginning.
It shows that European regulation really can make a difference in enforcing rights for disabled people.
Above all, it shows that eleven years of tireless campaigning by the disability movement, by Buses for All in my own country the UK, was absolutely worthwhile, necessary and ultimately victorious.
Congratulations to all of you.
I am proud that the European Parliament has helped deliver your demands.
de Roo report (A5-0296/2001)
Mr President, the report by our Green colleague, Alex de Roo, will no doubt mark a milestone in the European Union's environmental legislation.
Until now, we had an almost total legislative silence about the environmental damage caused by noise.
Our parliaments lent a deaf ear, although this in no way reflected the real-life experience of the citizens of the Union.
More than a quarter of them, one hundred million, believe they are the victims of noise and the economic repercussions of this noise in the environment oscillates at between EUR 10 and 40 billion.
So we can only welcome the pioneering measures set out in this report.
We do indeed need to introduce noise mapping. It is as necessary and salutary as the mapping of dangerous sites, which we now realise, all too late, is a vital measure.
This information is useful only if it is given to the public quite transparently.
It is meaningful only if it is constantly updated in terms of geography and choice of indicators.
Lastly, identifying these noise nuisances will only be useful and effective if it is accompanied by penal and coercive measures against the noise-makers, be they civil, public or military.
Over and above these practical imperatives, we can really only combat euro-noise today if we do so at European Community level.
We therefore continue to call for common European standards.
Noise respects no frontiers; noise penetrates every wall, resounds through every space.
We therefore urged all our parliamentary colleagues to support this report and we welcome the outcome.
Noise pollution reaches us in diffuse, sporadic and intangible ways; often it even forms part of our daily environment.
Noise is not as black as oil, or as acrid as chemical waste; yet it is just as harmful, in condensed form.
I hope therefore that the demands set out in this report will not be regarded simply as sound and fury but that the European Union will manage to make them resound for a long time.
- (FR) We voted for all the amendments calling for limits to noise pollution caused by road, rail or air transport or for imposing binding and uniform noise ceilings throughout the European Union.
At the same time, we reject the arguments about competitiveness put forward by transport firms.
The crucial factors must be safety and limiting noise levels, not competitiveness.
We also voted for the amendments fixing shorter deadlines for implementing these measures.
What is the point of deciding to take measures in the interest of society if the implementing date is put off to a more or less indeterminate future time, to enable special interests to find a way round them?
- (FR) We know what an impact noise emissions can have on the daily life and the health of our fellow-citizens.
But Europe must not come along and act as a kind of noise extinguisher to make up for mistakes in land use planning.
I am not calling the general objective into question; but if our action is to be effective, it must be pragmatic, like the action we took on air quality.
It is not up to Europe to introduce unilateral standards and impose them on everybody throughout its territory with no regard for specific local conditions.
Europe is already intervening in relation to tyres, aircraft engines, road surfaces...
It is important for the measures to take account of these territorial disparities.
Europe must do more to make the Member States aware of their responsibilities here, it must urge the local authorities to take the necessary measures on the basis of the local situation, rather than deciding on their behalf.
In this case I subscribe to the principle of subsidiarity.
Let us take airports as an example: it would be ineffective to set uniform noise limits for all airports.
Conditions vary widely from one airport to another.
Each airport is unique (runway configuration, distribution of traffic and so forth).
The impact of aircraft noise differs from one airport to another and it would make more sense to take measures to reduce noise emissions at national, regional and local levels.
Moreover, it seems quite incredible to find no distinction drawn between international and regional airports!
Nor should we forget that airports are important to the area concerned.
Air transport infrastructure is a vital factor in industries' choice of where to locate their plant, and therefore vital in terms of jobs too.
Let me also remind you that the title of the directive is 'Noise evaluation and management'.
So evaluation comes before management.
How can one think of fixing limit values without first carrying out a precise, horizontal study, based on agreed, common evaluation criteria? Furthermore, the first stage would be to set up a system for evaluating noise levels in the different Member States and to draw exact noise maps region by region.
Only when this information is available should Member States be encouraged to formulate an effective action plan, working together with all the local authorities and elected representatives.
.
(NL) In densely populated urban areas, the traffic noise and the noise around airports, in particular, is a disaster.
People' s night rest is increasingly being threatened by continuous noise.
Unfortunately, the Council and the Commission' s standpoint still harks back to the first half of the twentieth century, a time when cities, traffic and the economy were on a much smaller scale and growth was still welcome.
That is apparent from, among other things, the fresh attempts to protect the position of airline companies.
Instead of tackling overcapacity by imposing a tax on fuel, thus removing the competitive edge compared with more environmentally-friendly modes of transport, there is now a renewed attempt to reduce the tax burden for the sake of continued growth in air traffic and airports.
Mr De Roo is right - also at second reading - to adhere to previous choices made by Parliament with regard to the restriction of night-time pollution, short terms, clear definitions of noise pollution, and daughter directives on noise emissions of lorries, buses, motorcycles, trains and aircraft.
It is now only the need for a majority of 314 votes to break the opposition that threatens to lead to a long-term stalemate.
- (FR) I wanted to explain just why I voted for this report as amended.
Firstly, I believe it adopts a balanced position and takes account of the well-being and health of the citizens who are, indeed, being more and more exposed to noise pollution.
With regard to the substance, I agree with the Commission's idea of harmonising the noise indicators and the methods of evaluating ambient noise.
Next, thanks to these common indicators and evaluation methods, it will indeed be possible to compile information on noise exposure, in the form of 'noise maps' without, at least for the moment, fixing noise limit values for the entire European Union.
Moreover, I wanted to continue excluding military airports from the scope of the framework directive.
I am glad no amendment calling for their inclusion was tabled at second reading.
I am also satisfied with the deadline for incorporating the directive into national law (30 June 2003) and for proposing the daughter directives that will ensue (namely three years after the entry into force of the framework directive).
However, let me emphasise that the subsidiarity principle must be respected fully and that Member States must have some margin for manoeuvre, based on common indicators and methods, so that they can take account of special factors (different geographical situations, for example) especially in relation to airports.
Joint resolution on the accident in Toulouse
- (FR) While expressing our indignation at the accident at the AZF factory in Toulouse and its terrible consequences, as also our solidarity with the victims and their families, we have not associated ourselves with the joint resolution, to show that we do not condone the hypocrisy of discussing this disaster without implicating the TotalFinaElf trust, the owner of that plant.
This trust puts profit first, that is, the profits of its shareholders, to the detriment of safety. It did not take all the necessary measures to avoid an accident happening or, at any rate, to prevent it having such tragic consequences for the factory workers and the local population.
Furthermore, we refuse to join in the congratulations addressed to the French authorities.
These authorities, from the town council to the government, were not able or not willing to take steps to check the AZF factory in Toulouse properly, as is also true of the many other high-risk sites, and to force the TotalFinaElf trust and its ilk to take the essential precautions.
As for providing 'appropriate aid...to the populations affected', even after the accident, that assistance did not match the scale of the damage.
The sum of one and a half billion released by the government will cover only a quarter of the damage caused.
How long will those who have lost their homes and are living in precarious conditions have to wait to be housed?
However, quite apart from the fact that this aid is inadequate, the taxpayer was supposed to pay it.
Why should the taxpayers have to use their money to pay for the damage for which TotalFinaElf is to blame? That company should pay for this in full, including of course the total wages of the workers forced out of work, both at AZF and its subcontractors and in all the local firms that had to shut down.
.
(EL) The catastrophe in Toulouse, a tragic accident indeed, should give us an incentive to overhaul the Community directive on highly dangerous installations and ensure that it is applied more strictly.
We all know that numerous Member States of the EU have not applied the revised 'Seveso' directive, even though they should have been doing so since 1999.
Even worse, a number of countries are clearly not even applying the original 'Seveso' directive properly.
I am delighted that our joint resolution calls on the Commission to publish a table, within the next three months, of all the industrial plants in the EU which are highly dangerous and are located in residential areas and which, were an accident to happen, could cause damage on a scale similar to that caused by the accident in Toulouse.
One such plant, Petrola Hellas plc, is located a stone's throw from the densely populated areas of Elefsina, Aspropyrgo and Mandra and has already applied for planning permission to extend over a 130 hectare plot of land located in the buffer zone between the current Petrola plant and the Pyrkal munitions factory.
I should also like to point out that, according to witnesses working in the factory in question, the factory operator has not provided the public with the safety report or the emergency plans setting out action to be taken in the event of an accident, as required under the Seveso directive.
Other factories in the area are guilty of similar practices (no plans, failure to inform local authorities and the public).
The usual procedure is to send a very basic file to the ministry and ignore the rest of the provisions of the Seveso directive.
Just how interested and concerned the Greek authorities are in preventing major disasters and limiting their impact is obvious from the environment Commissioner's reply to my question on the matter.
The Commissioner replied that he had written to the Greek authorities on 7 June 2000 asking for information on the extension to the Petrola plant but that the Greek authorities had not yet replied to the letter in question.
- (FR) Following Monday's statement by Mrs Christine de Veyrac, Deputy Mayor of Toulouse, I want to express the sympathy and solidarity of the entire French delegation of the PPE-DE Group towards our compatriots struck by disaster at the AZF factory in Toulouse, and, in particular, towards the victims and their families.
Let me also pay tribute to all those who responded with such extraordinary courage and provided help, medical care and assistance to all the many victims.
Information to date suggests that this was an accident, although it is too early to be entirely sure.
If that is indeed the case, we will have to check whether all the necessary safety measures and precautions were taken, given that this factory was classified as presenting a major industrial risk.
The real question is to find out whether the provisions of the 1982 and 1986 Seveso directives, which provide for all the necessary procedures and all the danger scenarios, are being observed on such sites in the European Union and to check whether the risk reports are updated on a regular basis.
We also need to check whether the plans are operational and tested, whether the national administrations have the means of inspecting all these installations and whether the no-construction zones are being respected.
Above all, we must learn from this tragedy that has struck the inhabitants of Toulouse, to ensure that in future the people of the European Union are protected once and for all from such terrible explosions.
Evans Robert J.E. report (A5-0304/2001)
I voted in favour of this report, but I am disappointed that some of the most important aspects were rejected.
It seems that Parliament does not accept the common definition of a refugee, based on the full inclusive definition, which would cover gender-related persecution, include both state and non-state persecution and take account of the applicant's fear of further persecution.
I cannot see how people can justify voting against such principles.
In relation to the issue of a safe country of origin I do not think there is such a thing as a safe country anywhere.
For certain people in certain sections of society, there is a danger in any country.
In Ireland we have signed a bilateral agreement with Romania and Nigeria and we are planning to sign more such agreements in the future so that we can speed up the procedure of deportation.
This really falls short of what we are required to do under international law.
Individuals are not being treated as individuals, they are being treated as groups coming from the country concerned.
The idea of a safe country, the idea that governments can actually claim that certain countries are safe, is quite incredible.
We have to remember that there is no such thing as a safe country for certain people.
- (FR) We voted against the Evans report, which echoes the main Commission position on the common asylum procedure. Like the Commission, the rapporteur believes this procedure should be refocused towards giving greater right of asylum to applicants who want 'to find safety'.
We already established, at the last part-session, what practical consequences this policy would have, when we considered the Commission's proposal on minimum standards for the procedure for granting refugee status.
It quite simply overlooks the fact that today the right of asylum is being distorted and manipulated to such an extent that it has become a if not the prime source of illegal immigration.
How many applications are unfounded?
Probably nine out of ten. The Commission forgets these figures, just as it minimises the total number of applications, which it puts at 200 000 for the entire EU in 2000, while according to the figures we have it was as much as 375 000, counting only 10 out of the 15 EU countries!
This underestimate is made deliberately.
It allows the problem to be minimised.
In fact it is immense.
The member countries must not accept the Commission's proposals, for they would constrain them to observe a common procedure that would start out flexible, only to become increasingly rigid, as is clearly stated on page 8 of the communication.
That procedure would end up by granting unlimited rights of asylum and, in addition, broaden the concept of 'refugee' set out in the 1951 convention by extending it to other forms of temporary protection.
All this is totally ill-timed.
The Commission would do better to present us with proposals for establishing a policy on the return of applicants whose claim has been rejected.
It would also do better to present us with proposals aimed at giving priority to assisting refugees in their region of origin.
- (FR) First of all I want to thank both Mr Robert Evans, our rapporteur in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and the committee as a whole for the quality of the work they have done and for the courageous social choices they have asked us to make today.
In my view, voting for this report means, above all, endorsing the ambitious approach set out by the Tampere European Council, namely not just the statement that 'in the longer term, Community rules should lead to a common asylum procedure and a uniform status for those granted asylum valid throughout the Union', but also the commitment of that same Tampere European Council to the 'full and inclusive' interpretation of the Geneva Convention.
In other words, to vote for this report means to support the idea that a common asylum policy must adhere to high standards for the protection of the refugees, include a common definition of the concept of 'refugee' and give a full and inclusive interpretation of the Geneva Convention, taking account of persecution both by state and by non-state agents, as well as the asylum seekers' fear of future persecution.
I therefore believe it is important to draw your attention to the fact that the common, 'full and inclusive' interpretation of the Geneva Convention must include the possibility of granting asylum in cases where the persecution is not carried out by the state.
The Member States take many different views on this particular point.
In other words, the further development of the common policy calls for further harmonisation of procedures throughout the Union.
We must, however, note that while it is important to encourage this kind of single procedure, this must not restrict the possibilities for the individual to obtain refugee status under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
In my view, voting for this report also means emphasising the fact that the use of concepts such as 'safe third countries', 'safe country of origin', 'accelerated procedures' and 'procedures for manifestly unfounded applications' must only be used where justified and include legally binding guarantees.
(Explanation of vote cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
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(EL) The two reports, one on the procedure for granting asylum to refugees and the other on ÅU immigration policy are in fact both an attempt to deal with the same problem.
The problem of the influx into the Member States of the ÅU of people who have lost everything, of people who are in danger in their own country, either because they are being politically persecuted or for reasons of economic survival.
Reports and other EU documents on the matter always contain a paragraph referring to the need to combat the causes of asylum-seeking and immigration.
Of course, what they fail to mention is the criminal responsibility of imperialism, which has exploited the natural and human resources of third world countries for centuries and which has no hesitation in setting up and bringing down what are usually authoritarian governments in order to serve its economic interests.
The furious struggle of the imperialist forces to overturn Socialism, the war which they ignited in the Balkans and the recent tragic example of the war planned against their own Taliban and Bin Laden resulted and will continue to result in millions of unfortunate people hanging about in the countries of the ÅU and elsewhere, looking for a place in the sun.
Consequently, we should have no delusions about the fact that, as long as imperialism prevails, asylum-seeking and immigration will live and rule.
So the question is, how can we manage the problem better?
In this respect, the Evans report on granting asylum contains a number of positive points and proposals.
However, it is still a wish list.
For example, it quite rightly points out that the concept of 'safe' countries of origin or 'safe' third countries is very fluid and the danger here is that people will be deported to countries in which they are at risk, that is, they will literally be sent into the lion's den.
A typical example is Turkey, a candidate country, which the ÅU considers has made steady progress in the field of human rights.
In reality, as we all know, people are imprisoned in Turkey for their ideas, hunger strikers and other people fighting for democracy are murdered, parties which represent millions of Kurds or opponents of the regime (such as the Communist party) are banned, trade unionists are arrested and so on.
And yet there are countries in the ÅU, including Greece, which deport opponents of the regime to this 'safe' country.
As far as the conditions of survival of refugees are concerned, a typical example is Greece, where thousands of Kurds live in shanty towns in Lavrio and Afghans and other refugees sleep in cardboard boxes on the beaches in Athens, deprived of even the basic necessities.
Likewise, the report quite rightly highlights the huge delay in processing asylum applications and the fact that the Member States are unwilling to grant asylum.
In Greece, for example, an average of 5% a year are approved and only this year did this rise to 7%.
We shall vote in favour of the Evans report because it proposes improvements to the current system of protection for refugees.
However, we feel that only solidarity and a united fight by both refugees and workers in the Member States of the ÅU in a bid to claim dignified living conditions for everyone and, more to the point, wipe out the reasons for refugees and poverty will provide a definitive solution to the problem.
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(NL) Huge discrepancies between the rich and poor in the world encourage migration, which only solves the problem for a small number of people and not for humanity as a whole.
It is often the best educated and the most privileged who manage to enter Europe, often at the expense of useful roles they could be playing in their countries of origin.
Such individual solutions, however, are necessary to those whose only chance of survival is to flee from war and suppression.
It is not acceptable to send people to their deaths by establishing quota and to refuse access to others.
Neither is it justifiable to send people back before the problem in their country of origin has been solved.
Moreover, some refugees will want to stay on because their children and grandchildren have meanwhile been raised in the new country of residence.
Some EU Member States admit many more refugees than others.
It is remarkable that both those in favour of restricting and those in favour of extending the permits have for years been calling for a more centralised and standardised European policy.
I can only agree with this if it means that the EU Member States will be more generous in applying minimum standards than those agreed in the Geneva Convention.
It is easier to organise and supervise the protection of refugees on a small scale than by a remote bureaucracy.
- (FR) According to Article 1 of the Geneva Convention, refugee status applies to anyone who rightly fears being persecuted on the grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a certain social group or political opinions, is outside the country of his or her nationality and cannot, or because of that fear will not, seek the protection of that country.
It is time that the Member States of the European Union applied that Convention in full.
Yet France, in its hypocrisy, refuses to grant that status to Algerian refugees.
In the same way Europe refused, at the height of the war in Kosovo, to give refugee status to Serbian deserters or to the Kosovars who were being persecuted.
How many Bosnians are still mouldering in refugee camps in Turkey because the Union has refused to take them in? How many Afghan refugees are flocking to Sangatte in the hope of getting to England because they know they have no chance in the Schengen area?
However, despite these reservations, because the text proposes minimum standards for receiving asylum seekers (a minimum level of assistance, such as the provision of full legal aid, at public expense, to each applicant, or justification, by the authority or by the court, of any rejection of a refugee' s application, as well as specific aid for vulnerable persons), we shall be voting in favour.
Pirker report (A5-0305/2001)
I voted against this report.
It sends out the wrong signals.
It suggests that Europe will take in the people it wants, the people it needs; in other words, human beings are being classified as commodities that certain Member States will want.
This goes against all the international principles of basic human rights.
It suggests that people who have a certain trade or a certain profession can come in, but other people who may desperately need to get in are not allowed in.
This whole policy is completely restrictive.
In relation to the idea that we all have to share the burden of quotas, that immigrants are a burden, that we must all spread this burden, that immigrants are not people at all, that they are basically problems, this report sends out completely the wrong signals.
It establishes the concept of a fortress Europe whose door will be open to a privileged few.
Mr President, I share some, if not all, of Mrs McKenna's reservations on the Pirker report.
However, I voted in favour of this report on a common immigration policy, but with an extremely heavy heart.
I did so because although the report as amended is, as we would say in English, all over the place - some points do not correspond with others and there are contradictions left, right and centre - there are a few (and I am sure Mrs McKenna will look at them) but significant positive aspects to the report.
For example, it recognises the right of third-country nationals legally resident in the European Union to free movement in Europe.
Equally, it gives the right to vote in local elections.
However, there are negative aspects.
I doubt whether all the people who voted for paragraph 35 could have read it, because it restricts the right of residence, accommodation and education.
That is inherently racist and we should oppose it.
However, to have rejected the report would have placed in jeopardy the positive points; hence my support, although with the reservations I have expressed clearly here.
Mr President, the Pirker report is extremely important because it includes certain declarations of principle which we consider to be fundamental and to clarify the issue: firstly, the principle that immigrants are expected to respect the Community of values, as enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and to have a genuine desire to be integrated into the society of the Member States.
Today, let us grasp the full extent of the now tragic dimensions of the danger represented by different 'values' which are opposed to the values common to our societies and to our traditions, which have been introduced and disseminated, so to speak, by illegal immigration linked to Islamic fundamentalism within our societies.
Among these values, I would like to focus on those relating to family relationships, family rights, and I would like to take this opportunity to tell you about the tragedy of two Italians - mother and daughter - who were forced to take refuge at the Italian embassy in Algiers and approached Parliament, asking us to protect their fundamental rights, violated precisely by those people who adhere to the opposing principles of Islamic law.
Furthermore, another principle: the recognition that every State has the right ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
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(EL) New rules for the waves of immigrants heading for the European Union, calculating the needs of the countries of entry and procedures for integrating third country nationals into society in the European Union are, without doubt, moves in the right direction.
However, the Commission communication on an 'immigration policy' contains omissions and additional objectives need to be promoted. To be specific, we need:
to clarify the difference between the terms 'working immigrant' and 'economic immigrant' and avoid the risk of creating new forms of discrimination based on the narrow interests of the job market in Europe;
to accept family reunification in general and not as a special characteristic of certain categories of immigrants;
to extend mobility within the ÅU for immigrants with a legal resident's permit;
to combat human trafficking gangs;
a strategy to facilitate the return of specialised immigrants in order to strengthen productive capacity in their country of origin;
to abolish discrimination between immigrants on the basis of sex, age, sexual orientation or disability;
to create a European network for immigration as an observatory and census mechanism.
This being the case, I voted against the report.
The Pirker report on Community immigration policy has just been made worse by the adoption of Amendment No 17 which claims voting rights for foreign nationals in local elections.
In any case, despite Mr Pirker' s laudable efforts, this report is ambiguous in the way it is worded in general, because it does not dare to say clearly that the Commission' s approach, in its communication on immigration, is wrong.
First of all, to a large extent it hides the phenomenon of illegal immigration, and it proposes only partial or distant solutions.
In particular, the approach involving co-development with the countries of origin will no doubt be of value in the long term, but it does not mean that we do not need to strengthen our border controls now.
Moreover, the Commission is more or less opening the floodgates to legal immigration.
It says that European policy should be based on the fact that migratory pressure will continue (page 14), and from this it draws the conclusion that legislation should be designed so as to facilitate, rather than hinder, the admission of economic migrants (page 19).
We, however, do not draw that conclusion at all.
On the contrary, we believe that a quota policy should be adopted, with quota levels determined by each Member State on its own behalf, and in our opinion those quotas should be filled, as a matter of priority, by nationals of countries in Eastern Europe, who will soon be members of the Union.
On the subject of the integration of immigrants, the Commission invites us to recognise that integration is a two-way process requiring adaptation by both the immigrants and the society that receives them (page 21).
This is not our opinion either.
The strangers who come knocking at our door more often than not come from countries which have completely failed to let their population live decently, or even to feed it.
It is obviously in the immigrants' interest to adjust to our way of life and our values.
To take the opposite view would be to do them a great disservice, and it would also, in return, do a great disservice to the countries of Europe.
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(PT) The report comments on a Commission communication on immigration, adopted in November 2000, which considers the issue from a mainly economic perspective, linked to job prospects, which may create the conditions for establishing immigration quotas in the European Union.
It appears that the European Union is only interested in using labour from third countries to meet the needs and shortages of European capitalism, indifferent to the obstacles this may create to those countries' own development by depriving them of vital human resources.
It is, therefore, crucial that we find a new perspective on cooperation and development policy, particularly with third countries, in order to contribute towards greater support for their development and provide their populations with decent standards of living, something which the report, unfortunately, does not touch upon.
With regard to immigrants, it is important to guarantee and respect all their rights.
Hence the proposals we submitted on upholding the legalisation of all immigrants, our insistence on the need for recognition of civil and political rights, namely the right to vote in local and European elections and the guarantee of equal treatment in terms of economic, cultural and social rights.
- (FR) I voted in favour of Mr Pirker' s report and I would like to draw attention to the quality of the work carried out by our rapporteur.
I am glad that Parliament is finally taking a decision on such an important subject.
For almost twenty years, immigration as a subject of public debate has been treated only emotionally or unrealistically.
How could it have been otherwise, when the subject has virtually become a major stake in the internal policy of every Member State of the European Community? It also has to be admitted that, in the eyes of the public, the policies being followed are, on the one hand, inefficient when it comes to combating illegal immigration and, on the other, unjust in the case of proper immigration which is legal and useful to the development of our society.
It has now become vital to make a clear distinction, both in law and in practice, between proper immigration and improper immigration, and finally to define criteria and then stick to them.
While several international and European organisations all emphasise the risk of shortages of qualified workers in Europe, we must learn to adapt, like certain Anglo-Saxon countries, and open up European society to the immigrants that it so badly needs in several sectors, including informatics and new technologies.
To conclude, real courage consists in campaigning for deep-seated change in the world economic order.
Justice and ethics would then count for much more than they do in the moralising extremism of those who would like to demand total freedom to live and work in Europe, like those who would like to turn our European Community into a mere sanctuary.
- (FR) In the light of the recent dramatic events of 11 September 2001 in the United States of America, the fight against illegal immigration into Europe should, more than ever, be our chief concern.
It is time to stop letting all these illegal immigrants in and put an end to the free movement of traffickers and terrorists within the Union.
We must show some instinct for survival.
Terrorist cells have recently been identified in various Member States of the Union, in particular in France and Belgium, among illegal immigrants.
Since the opening up of borders and the Schengen Agreements, some immigrant communities have systematically organised themselves into networks of religious and ethnic infiltration, and as a result they are a fertile breeding ground for terrorism, and also for delinquency, trafficking and violent crimes of all kinds.
Yet what, in the face of all this, is Brussels' policy?
It closes its eyes and ignores the evil.
At the very best it feebly condemns the constant increase in international crime.
So what are its solutions?
Encourage immigration, legalise illegal immigrants, give identity papers to all those who have entered our territory illegally, create and allow the creation of no-go areas where the law does not apply, such as the Sangatte Centre in France.
Broadly speaking, that is what is being preached by the report that we are voting on.
It tells us that we must populate Europe because Europe has a population deficit. Europe needs manpower, so in order to meet that need we must have a global and voluntary immigration policy.
The National Front Députés have for years been constantly denouncing this irresponsible and suicidal policy coming from Brussels.
The fight against illegal immigration must clearly be based on the principle of zero tolerance.
Illegal immigrants must be sent back to their country of origin.
Our borders must be re-established, because proof has finally been given to all signatory parties to the Schengen Agreements that those borders are an essential element in the security of our countries.
Therefore, before committing ourselves to a Community immigration policy, let us start by establishing a Community security policy.
We are critical of parts of the report.
In our opinion, there is too great an emphasis placed on what should be done to limit immigration, instead of highlighting the positive and necessary aspects of increased immigration, including the immigration of labour.
In several cases, we should like to go further with regard to becoming more receptive to increased labour migration.
We are particularly critical of Paragraph 15, which states that 'immigrants are expected to respect the community of values - as set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights - and to show a willingness to integrate into society in the Member States' .
We do not currently require the citizens of Europe to respect the community of values referred to in the report.
The question is how this paragraph will actually be interpreted.
A wave of anti-Muslim sentiment is currently sweeping across Europe.
In Sweden and in several other Member States, Muslims have been harassed.
Politicians in individual Member States have, in our opinion, made some astonishing statements.
Our concern is that the wording of Paragraph 15 is in danger of providing further scope for intolerance and xenophobia.
There is a risk that the diversity of Europe could be lost.
- (FR) The debates that have just taken place in the present session on the Pirker report, and indeed on the Evans report, represent a double departure from the debates previously held within the European Parliament on the same subjects.
The first of these departures is the new tone of firmness and rigour demonstrated both by the presidency and even by the Commission.
The events of 11 September have something to do with that.
The ideology of 'fewer and fewer controls' has given way to the realisation that terrorism feeds on our laxity.
It is not by chance that the Europe of the Fifteen, the European Union, has emerged from the inquiry into the killings of 11 September as being the privileged location for the organisation, preparation and mounting of the terrorist attacks in the United States.
It is necessary now for the good intentions just expressed by the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commission to be translated into action and sustained in the long term.
It is, in fact, high time that the fight against illegal immigration and the fight against the abuse of the asylum procedure should no longer be mere formulae to be bandied about, but should become policies to be implemented with determination.
The second departure is more distressing.
This is the obvious discrepancy that has appeared between the new tone of the Council and the Commission, which is a positive signal of awareness, and the persistence of an ideological attitude among most of the Members who have spoken, which continues to confuse control with violation of freedoms, and which wants to increase the number of guarantees to the benefit of those who are abusing our reception and asylum procedures, to the detriment of the security and protection of our citizens and the interests of those who, because they really are being persecuted, ought to find asylum here.
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to clarify the reasons why my group voted in favour of the Pirker report.
In our view it is of the utmost importance that the Commission' s communication be favourably received.
The Laeken Council has the political duty of revitalising the process launched by the Tampere European Council.
As evidenced by the data supplied by EUROSTAT, the citizens believe that the European Union must adopt a common immigration policy.
Amongst other provisions, our group has included the right of long-term residents to vote in local elections. We have also contrived to build in clearly defined responsibilities for the European Union.
For all these reasons, and also to express our strong support for the Commission, we have voted in favour, even though our views differ markedly from some of those expressed by the rapporteur.
We trust the communication will be favourably received at the Laeken Council.
We regret that some right-wing Members have referred to terrorism and immigration in the same breath during the debate. This gives rise to mistrust of immigrants and Muslim refugees.
Evans report (A5-0304/2001) and Pirker report (A5-0305/2001)
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mr Evans' s and Mr Pirker' s reports.
We agree that, in the longer term, the EU should develop a common asylum procedure and a uniform status for persons granted asylum.
Moreover, the EU' s immigration policy should be adapted to developments in the world.
We are nonetheless alert to the fact that the communications relate to an area covered by Title IV of the Treaty Establishing the European Community and do not apply to Denmark, cf. the protocol on Denmark' s position.
- (FR) We voted in favour of the Evans report because it contains a certain amount of progress as regards the position of refugees and because it ought to go without saying that on this subject all the countries of the Union should apply the same procedure.
However, this joint situation should be in line with the country that is most favourable to refugees, which is far from being the case.
Moreover, the wording leaves several loopholes for those Member States who like the rules to be applied more restrictively, which limits the actual scope of measures which are a step in the right direction.
On the other hand, we voted against the Pirker report on immigration, which justifies a policy of immigration quotas based solely on the interests of the bosses in the countries concerned.
This report tries to provide a legal basis for the activities of traffickers in modern slaves, allowing them to seek the workers that they need in poor countries, and giving them the right to turn people away as soon as there is no longer a demand for them.
Titley report (A5-0309/2001)
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(EL) The terrorist attack on the USA gives us an incentive to look at the problem of arms exports in a new light.
Having said which, the Titley report, despite containing a number of positive, albeit general, pointers, does not I think, come anywhere near to responding to the demands of the times.
It is unacceptable for the European Union to base its code of conduct in arms exports on the criterion of the 'needs of the European defence industry' , because this negates any substantive measures which might be mentioned.
The European Union should move to get the USA, Russia, China and all the other major arms exporters to adopt binding rules of conduct and their unwillingness should not be a reason for the European Union to relax or otherwise fail to act properly.
At the same time, we need an observatory at European level, we need records and transparency on arms exports so that we can put an immediate end to the scandalous practice of selling arms to forces of crime and destabilisation which have no hesitation in using terrorism to turn their arms against the European Union and its citizens.
This is why I feel that the motion falls short and I did not vote for it.
- (DA) The idea of regulating politically the production and export of arms has our complete backing, but we reject Mr Titley' s report with the following justification.
The report does not reflect the fundamental conflict between the interests of the arms industry and an ideal and peaceful world order.
To introduce a report on codes of conduct on arms exports by, in paragraph 1 d), proclaiming that the EU' s policy on arms exports should 'meet the needs and challenges of the European defence industry' is self-contradictory.
In the same way, we are opposed to the goal of making arms exports policy into a tool for developing a common defence policy, as intimated in paragraph 1 e).
We acknowledge that positive changes have been made and also support a number of the individual wordings.
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The Verts/ALE Group welcomes the fact that the report by Mr Titley on an EU code of conduct on arms exports is a major improvement on his previous reports on this issue.
We can fully support the vast majority of this report and we welcome many of its recommendations.
However we regret that many of our members felt they had to abstain from the final vote because the amendment to delete section 1 (d) "... Reiterates its belief that European policy in arms export must: (d) meet the needs and challenges of the European defence industry" was not adopted.
Had this section been removed we could have supported the final report.
But to leave this objective in the report completely contradicts what we believe to be an ethical policy on arms.
We feel that an ethical code of conduct on arms exports should not be dictated by the needs of the European defence industry.
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(NL) The sale of instruments which facilitate the killing of people can be very lucrative.
Since the terrorist attacks of 11 September in America, the profit expectations of the arms industry have risen.
The only possible justification for producing weapons is in self-defence against external enemies who aim to take over, suppress us or wipe us out.
The production of arms as an economic activity, to make profit by means of exporting to regions where people want to buy those weapons, means that money is considered more important than human life.
Against the wishes of Parliament, last year, the Council pressed ahead with lifting the arms embargo against Indonesia, despite the violence in East Timor, the Moluccas, Aceh and West Papua.
Mr Titley' s proposal contains only a non-legislative reference, but includes a number of improvements on the current situation, such as the legal enforcement of the Code of Conduct for arms exports, and its application to candidate countries.
He is right to request that permission from the Member States be required by European companies to transfer licences for the production of military equipment outside of European territory.
I support him in his aims of a worldwide agreement, annual reports on the application of the Code of Conduct and a refusal to allow the supply of weapons to countries that do not provide information to the UN conventional weapons register.
Langenhagen report (A5-0288/2001)
- (FR) The GALILEO Programme is being presented to us as enabling progress to be made in various fields (the management of land, air and sea transport, road traffic, the organisation of life-saving at sea) thanks to radio-navigation by satellite.
We are told that GALILEO testifies to a desire to ensure the independence of Europe from the United States which, with its Global Positioning System (GPS), has launched a similar programme.
In fact, what it really does is provide an enormous market for European businesses, in other words a new source of profits for their owners and shareholders.
For it is they who will be the primary beneficiaries of GALILEO - indeed they already are - whether in the telecommunications sector, the transport sector or the space sector, since GALILEO involves the launching of a network of thirty satellites.
Public funding amounting to almost EUR 2 billion has already been budgeted for and to some extent released by the European Union and the European Space Agency.
As for private investors, they are reluctant to pay a single penny.
Yet the European Union is not planning to call for their financial involvement until the final phase of the project, after it has been launched and guaranteed by public money.
According to the reporter, however, the private investors who have been promised responsibility for managing GALILEO and therefore 'possible revenue flows from GALILEO services' , are unwilling to take any 'economic risk' . They are waiting for a 'positive signal from the political side' of Europe.
In other words they are waiting to be told that the political side will take on responsibility for all the costs, leaving the investors with nothing to do but collect the profits.
Though the European authorities are revelling in the supposed virtues of private initiative, the capitalists, for their part, want paying with more than words.
They want guaranteed profits, without any risk, and they know that they can count on both European and national authorities to give them what they want.
We have therefore voted against this report.
- (FR) I am pleased to be able to express my opinion of the GALILEO project at a time when the events of 11 September are forcing us to review our capacity to handle crises.
Remember that the GALILEO project is intended to deploy a set of satellites orbiting about 20 000 km above the Earth.
All those satellites would be linked to a network of control stations on the ground.
Cover would thus be worldwide, making it possible to improve considerably the management of air, sea and road traffic and to support search and rescue operations.
This technology already exists in the USA (the GPS system) and in Russia (the GLONASS system).
It is currently financed and controlled by the military authorities in those two countries.
The quality and continuity of its use for civilian purposes are dependent on those authorities who may, at any time, discontinue or downgrade the signal.
In Europe, on the other hand, the GALILEO programme will be managed and controlled by civilians.
It is proposed that the system should be developed in four stages, namely a definition phase in 2000, a development and validation phase up to 2005, a deployment phase up to 2007 and an operational phase after that.
Ideally then, the GALILEO system should be operational from 2008 onwards, thereby responding to the wishes expressed at the European Council in Stockholm and to the European Union' s urgent needs in this field.
This, at any rate, is what emerges from the report by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
On the question of financing, it seems to me to be important to clear up the question of how this will be organised before coming to a final decision.
I also deplore the fact that some Member States are reluctant to lend their support to this project.
I therefore invite the Commission to take the necessary steps to break down this reluctance.
It will then have the task of defining a general financing structure, and that will have to be done between now and 15 November 2001 if we want to be reasonably sure of meeting the 2008 deadline.
The European Parliament will have to be consulted on the Commission' s draft.
Once this draft has been approved, it should be possible to encourage the involvement of European industry in the financing of the later stages in the medium and long term.
- (FR) First of all I should like to thank both our rapporteur from the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, Mrs Brigitte Langenhagen, and also the whole of that Committee, for the high-quality work that they have submitted to us and also for the fact that they have strongly emphasised both the advantages and the difficulties that could result from the implementation of the GALILEO satellite navigation programme.
Let us remember, briefly, that the GALILEO satellite navigation programme is an ambitious project which provides for the deployment of an arrangement of satellites in orbit at a distance of about 20 000 km from the Earth, linked to a network of ground control stations.
This definition shows us how important it is to vote in favour of this report, as I shall be doing. The implementation of the GALILEO project will enable us to have world coverage which can be used not only for controlling air, sea and road traffic but also for supporting search and rescue operations.
However, although it is necessary, for the above-mentioned reasons, to vote in favour of the report, thereby allowing the EU to develop a system which the European Council in Stockholm considered was important enough to be launched 'without delay' , we should do so while bearing in mind those areas - highlighted in the report - which may prove to be problematical in future.
It is, in fact, extremely important that we should remain vigilant regarding the possibility of such a system being used for military purposes. It is possible that the system might be misused, and it is up to us to be aware of this and to ensure that such a thing cannot happen.
In addition, it should be noted that the immediate funding of such a project will not be without its problems. Member States, or at least some of them, are reluctant to lend their financial support to the implementation of GALILEO, and private investors do not seem to be particularly enthusiastic about the idea of participating in such a project either.
In other words, before coming to a final decision, the budgetary authorities of the European Union need to have an accurate understanding of the financing involved, which means that the Commission will have to prepare proposals for the management structures for the GALILEO project.
(Speech shortened under Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
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(PT) Our vote expresses the conviction that it is worthwhile having a European project that functions properly and is independent of military and defence activities, including that of third countries, which is not the case at present, given Europe' s dependence in this context on the United States of America.
It is crucial, however, that the implementation of the project respects citizens' rights, freedoms and guarantees, namely their privacy.
Its creation may be an advantage for the mobile telecommunications services, which can use it for localisation applications requested by users if the financial cost does not render such use prohibitive.
It is also necessary to take the cost of financing it into account, especially the share that may be demanded of countries that do not participate directly in its creation, in order not to hinder its implementation in the various Member States.
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(NL) GALILEO will not come into being until American competition has cornered the European market, which will be too late.
Such a navigation system by satellite might have become part of a strategy to make Europe less reliant on the US.
There are plenty of reasons for this.
America is threatening us with increased global warming, again with an anti-missile shield dating from the 'Star Wars' period, with meat containing hormones, noisy aircraft, the ECHELON tapping system, a monopoly of patents and with a dollar which, as international currency, has for decades passed on the deficits of the American balance of payments to the outside world.
At the moment, it is even threatening to drag us into a war against the third world.
Restricted access of American products manufactured under poor working and environmental conditions to the European market might force America to pay more attention to labour, the environment, public health, animal torture, human rights and peace.
Only in a confrontation of that kind could we possibly have a need for GALILEO.
As long as such a confrontation is not forthcoming, the GALILEO project remains a contribution of the European taxpayer to industry in the field of electronics and space travel, and that industry is largely subject to military interests.
It would be preferable to spend the money for GALILEO on environmental care and useful collective facilities.
Rübig report (A5-0234/2001)
- (FR) Deploring the fact that the European Union is lagging behind the United States and Japan, the report proposes a series of measures claiming to encourage 'innovation promotion and progress in research' .
All the proposed measures are centred on the idea that it is the task of the public authorities to finance the research, directly or indirectly, but that it is private interests who will profit from it.
This ranges from subsidies to what the report calls 'innovative enterprises' to measures to encourage 'synergy between businesses and universities' , which means that as far as research is concerned the latter will be subordinate to the former.
In its explanatory statement, the report not only preaches the promotion of 'entrepreneurship at the educational level' but also says that 'obstacles to mobility arising from social security systems should be removed' .
The title of the report is 'Innovation in a knowledge-driven economy' .
It would be more accurate to talk about the subordination of knowledge, research and public money to the interests of the bosses in a profit-driven economy.
Since we are opposed to both the spirit and the letter of this report, we have voted against it.
- (FR) The reception given to this Commission Communication on 'Innovation in a knowledge-driven economy' has been largely positive.
It sets out the European scoreboard for innovation, drawn up on the basis of statistics available at European level.
An analysis shows that despite the efforts made by Member States to promote innovation, Europe' s performance is still trailing behind that of its main competitors.
Yet innovation was one of the strategic priorities identified by the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000.
Consequently, the Commission makes several recommendations to Member States with a view to improving their policies on encouraging innovative enterprises and support for innovation throughout the whole of the economic and social fabric.
The Member States are invited to improve their policies on encouraging innovative enterprises, removing obstacles to initiatives and innovators, encouraging private investment in research and innovation, and improving the rules governing the use of the results obtained by publicly funded research.
Naturally I support these proposals.
I believe that the projects that are covered by this philosophy will be able to obtain funds as part of the Sixth FRDP.
The rapporteur has identified three key sectors in which Community intervention and Member States' commitment are necessary. These are the creation of entrepreneurship at the educational level, the promotion of the training of workers, and the promotion of innovation among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
He also emphasises the need to take into consideration the needs of the SMEs, since they represent 60 million undertakings and 60% of jobs in the European Union.
Innovation cannot exist without the SMEs.
I agree with him there, of course, but I have to admit that we have been hearing the same speeches for years, all about the essential role of the SMEs in the European economy and the need to remove the many obstacles to their development.
Alas, little progress has been achieved.
I took this into account when I drafted my report on the Sixth FRDP, and as far as possible I tried to guarantee the SMEs access to European research and development funding.
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Madam President, I warmly welcome my colleague Paul Rubig's report which promotes research and innovation and backs a Commission initiative to promote innovation.
Time and again the EU has been criticised for failing to keep abreast of technological innovation and is sorely lagging behind its American counterparts in this field.
The EU should do more to exploit its potential to innovate in this field and this was recognised, as the report outlines, in the Lisbon, so-called, dot.com Summit.
European Member States need to collude and pool their separate specialisms and create a system of 'benchmarking'.
To supplement these measures the report rightly calls for more high quality education.
This will do much to boost the EU's Lisbon Strategy.
Lastly, these innovations cannot progress unless there is a loosening of bureaucratic regulations.
If we decrease the amount of red tape which currently hinders European innovation, then we will go some way in becoming more able to compete with America.
This will promote more start-ups and new ventures.
Mayer report (A5-0311/2001)
- (FR) Yesterday evening, at the end of the debate, and quoting various studies in support of his argument, Commissioner Balkestein clearly contradicted those who claim that prices have risen since the introduction of the Community exhaustion system.
On the contrary, he maintained, prices have even fallen in some cases.
Those who claim to defend consumers are in fact protecting parallel import circuits which threaten quality, innovation and employment and encourage counterfeiting.
Hence the three amendments which I tabled, and which seem to be worrying the rapporteur.
In effect, the PPE-DE called for a roll-call vote on all our amendments so as to ensure, right to the end, the control of its members and the commitment of certain coordinators.
I am afraid that, yet again, pressure and bargaining will carry the day and that a bad decision will be taken.
In order to avoid any useless multiplication of the costs represented by these requests for roll-call votes, we withdraw our first two amendments and retain only Amendment No 3, which we believe is enough to demonstrate the sad reality of the situation.
That the international exhaustion of rights conferred by trade marks has been an energetically discussed topic in recent months, is shown by this report, which has dragged on for months and has been thoroughly revised, as is clear from a comparison with the first draft report.
The exhaustion of trade mark rights affects all branded products.
As President of the Wine Intergroup, I would like to concentrate on the consequences for this sector.
The international exhaustion of trade mark rights will be of no advantage to the consumer in the European Union as regards food and drink, as is confirmed by the study produced by National Economic Research Associates (NERA) at the Commission's request.
European consumers could indeed be put at a disadvantage in the longer term by our industries' losing the opportunity to develop new products and to offer the consumer new services.
Should yields decrease decisively through parallel imports from third countries, there will also be a decline in motivation to invest in new markets.
In the event of the international trade mark rights becoming exhausted, complex distribution networks will come into being and it will become more difficult to put a stop to trade mark piracy.
There is no doubt that disadvantages will result for the consumer and for the manufacturer of branded goods, for example with regard to consumer health protection.
I am therefore speaking out against the international exhaustion of trade mark rights.
However, in view of events since the report was drafted, I will not be voting against it.
Joint resolution on racism (RC B5-0605/2001)
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The UK Conservatives voted against this motion for resolution since it repeats the errors of the Durban conference.
We cannot support the undue emphasis on the Middle East, and are not convinced that it might not have been better had the conference failed to reach a conclusion.
In many respects, the Durban conference belongs to an age that came to an end on 11 September.
There are three reasons underlying any racist behaviour: firstly, ignorance about the other person, which may lead to fear and thus rejection; secondly, the bad faith and arrogance of those who want to feel superior, maybe subconsciously prompted by an inferiority complex; and thirdly, the political, economic or religious ambition of those who want to acquire as much power as they can by dominating other people.
Therefore, while it is clear that large-scale, incisive cultural measures need to be taken to teach all people respect for others and acceptance, it is equally clear that civil society must use every tool available to it to fight those political, cultural, economic and religious systems which breed and are based on racism.
Respect for diversities must include, however, constant, enlightened action on the part of civil society so that the objective of respect for human rights and dignity is achieved throughout the world.
Therefore, the behaviour of those civilised Western - and other - cultures which are fighting against religious or ritualistic practices, for example, which physically or psychologically damage a person, cannot be considered to be racist.
In being subjected to these practices, women continue to be treated not as human beings entitled to exercise all rights but as objects subject to customs which prevent or limit their participation in society and politics.
The entire history of mankind has, I am sad to say, been marked by collective and individual racist behaviour.
In condemning the racism of the past, the political world must avoid falling into the trap of fresh racist behaviour now.
Indeed, we cannot disregard the fact that there is a form of political racism currently in existence: the racism indulged in by those who condemn the ideas of others merely because they are the expression of a different political hue.
That is why we call upon Parliament, the Commission and the Council to take much more effective action both within and outside the Community than they have done thus far, to promote a culture of mutual respect among people and governments, which, if it is to be genuine, must not tolerate attitudes, ideas or behaviour which fail to respect human dignity, whether they are based on religious, cultural, economic or political ideals.
For these reasons, I voted for the resolution.
- (FR) The MPF Members abstained from the vote on the resolution on the Durban Conference as a sign of their very strong disapproval of the highly ambiguous conduct observed in this House by European Union representatives.
In fact, here we have a conference convened under the aegis of the United Nations allowing itself to be overrun and exploited by a grouping of Islamist NGOs, with the active or benevolent complicity of a significant number of states, mainly in the Arab-Muslim world, some of which are usually described as 'moderates', a conference that goes so far as to suggest an untenable equation of Zionism with racism, while our representatives go on sitting there as though nothing had happened.
In face of the attitude of the United States and Israel, whose departure from the conference was a sign that the threshold of the unacceptable had been crossed, the European Union, by remaining, and however much it denies this today, ran the risk of appearing to support these shameful equations and intolerable excesses that the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut summarised as follows: 'In Durban, anti-racism has taken over anti-Semitism and the denial of humanity'.
The Europeans should have left for the sake of their honour and dignity, which would have sent out a strong and salutary signal to the UN and its General Secretariat and encouraged them to take a firm stance in face of the attempt by Islamism to impose its ideological influence, and genuinely to represent the interests and values of the international community.
Any show of complaisance towards the kind of equations proposed in Durban can indeed be interpreted as a sign of weakness on our part and of encouragement towards those who have set themselves the objective of destroying our values.
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I voted against the resolution in relation to the World Conference against Racism in Durban to make it clear that this conference has done the gravest possible disservice to the promotion of good race relations.
The conference was hijacked by those whose sole objective was to attack the state of Israel and to ignore the fact that it is the one nation in the Middle East based on democracy.
Israel was singled out by countries and organisations which have an appalling record on human rights.
Even worse the language and the tone of the attacks had more in common with 'Der Stürmer' in the Germany of Adolf Hitler.
And yet despite this no condemnation of the United Nations or the conference for allowing this to happen.
The United States made it clear that it would take no part in these proceedings.
The European Union should have taken a similar view.
That it failed to do so was a sad reflection on its failure to learn the lessons of history.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.39 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to say what a pleasure it is for the presidency to welcome the delegation from the Moroccan Parliament to this House. This delegation is led by Mr Brahim Rachidi, who is visiting us for the ninth time.
In welcoming Mr Rachidi and the members of his delegation, I would like to highlight the importance we attach to such meetings. They provide an opportunity for both Parliaments to reaffirm their common commitment to the fundamental principles of democracy.
As you are aware ladies and gentlemen, Morocco has joined with us in condemning the recent criminal attacks on the United States. In addition, Morocco has expressed its solidarity with the United States and all freedom-loving countries in no uncertain terms.
Morocco has also made its commitment to the global fight against terrorism quite clear.
Along with its southern Mediterranean neighbours, the European Union is intent on playing its part in the building of a stable, strong and democratic region within the framework of the Barcelona process. This process is essential to the future of Europe and of its nearest and dearest neighbours.
We are facing difficult times.
I should like to emphasise, Mr Vice-President of the Moroccan Parliament, that we shall maintain our commitment to these common values throughout. We shall also maintain our strong opposition to any attempt to identify terrorism with the Arab-Muslim world.
In this connection, we have committed ourselves to act resolutely and nip in the bud any consequences for nationalism, racism or xenophobia.
Mr Vice-President, it is my earnest hope that the conversations you are to have with the members of the Delegation for relations with the countries of the Maghreb and with other colleagues will serve to strengthen existing links between European Union countries and the Kingdom of Morocco. I hope too that these contacts will help us to continue making progress in our common quest for peace and prosperity for all countries bordering the Mediterranean.
(Applause)
Growth and Stability Pact - Informal ECOFIN of 22/23 September in Liege
The next item is statements by the Council and the Commission on the Growth and Stability Pact, and also on the informal meeting of ECOFIN ministers in Liege on 22 and 23 September.
I shall give the floor first to Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, who will speak on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I wish to say that we believe the Stability and Growth Pact is an essential pillar of economic stability in the euro area and in the Union more widely, and should be respected in letter and spirit.
We do not recognise the view, apparently emanating from the Socialist Group, that the SGP currently incorporates unnecessarily restrictive fiscal rules.
For the 11 countries whose budgets are in a sustainable position - those which, in other words, can face a normal recession with a fall in tax revenue and continue to respect the 3% limit on budget deficits - there is no need to raise taxes or cut public spending and the automatic stabilisers can and should be allowed to play.
Moreover, for many of these countries, this is the first slowdown since the first oil shock in 1973 in which the automatic stabilisers have been able to work fully.
Previously, financial market worries have been a serious constraint on governments.
So monetary union, the Stability and Growth Pact and fiscal consolidation have given back to Member States a useful policy lever which has been out of the policy box for too long.
For the four euro-area Member States whose budgets are not yet fully compatible with the Stability and Growth Pact - France, Germany, Italy and Portugal - it is wholly reasonable that they should continue the process of putting their underlying budget positions right.
This means allowing some effects of the slowdown on the deficit, but certainly not all.
In our joint motion with the PPE-DE Group we urge the proper respect of the SGP.
We point out that it would be particularly useful in a year like this one - in which many stability programmes were drafted in expectation of 3% growth, but the out-turn is likely to be less than 2%, as the Commission has said - if there were a commonly agreed measure between the ECB, Ecofin and the Commission of the underlying budget balance, stripping out the impact of the slowdown on taxes and cyclically determined spending and, perhaps, interest rates as well.
Such an underlying budget balance would allow better between-years monitoring of the fiscal position, underpinning the discipline of the Stability and Growth Pact and reassuring the financial markets that the fiscal stance is not being eased, even if the nominal deficits are inevitably somewhat larger.
Similarly, such an underlying budget balance would discourage finance ministers from fiscal easing in upturns, merely on account of cyclically buoyant revenue.
I urge us to respect the Stability and Growth Pact and add to its ability to check finance ministers' discipline.
Mr President, Madam President, Commissioner, much has already been said about the issue of the Growth and Stability Pact.
I think that the main difference between the two joint motions for resolution submitted to the House is the fact that the motion for resolution signed both by my group and the Socialist Group lays greater stress on the possibility of implementing a contracyclical policy. This policy would promote growth, while keeping within the limits of the Growth and Stability Pact.
If I understand the declaration made by the presidency correctly, it seems that the presidency supports this idea that the Growth and Stability Pact should allow the European Union to implement a contracyclical policy to promote growth.
That said, we must not be under any illusions.
There is relatively little room for manoeuvre within the terms of the monetary and budgetary policies. I would now like to comment on one aspect of the debate.
This has not yet been mentioned but I, at least, am concerned about it. As you know Commissioner, Madam President, practically all Member States have engaged in a structural reduction of government revenue (as a percentage of GDP) through fiscal reductions.
This is being done within the context of fiscal harmony between Member States, especially through corporation tax, and within the context of weak growth. This type of policy entails the risk of downward pressure towards a structural reduction of public spending.
This could lead to insufficient spending, given the solidarity mechanism we endorse. Alternatively, it could lead to inequitable public spending.
This is why it is important to debate the development of other tax bases. It seems that the presidency has alluded to and taken heed of this possibility.
In this regard, the Tobin tax may also contribute to widening the range of tax bases. However, Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to find out from you about the progress of work within the Prima Renault group, and about the state of discussion on the issue of corporation tax.
I believe that it is urgent for the fifteen Member States to find a way out of the impasse they have got themselves into. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is no longer informed on how this work is progressing.
When we do hear rumours on this subject, all we hear is that no progress has been made. When growth is slowing down, I believe that, as a matter of urgency, the European Union should pull itself together and coordinate work on the development of corporation tax.
Secondly, I would like to comment on the problems of terrorism and money laundering.
The principal elements concerned are the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) and the issue of the directive on money laundering.
Experts in this field judge progress made so far on international cooperation on this area to be limited and not very effective. Signatory countries are not obliged to implement the series of recommendations the FATF has produced.
In October 1996, European magistrates signed the Geneva Appeal, which called for certain international conventions to be ratified, and for banking secrecy to be lifted when proceedings have to be started.
One of these magistrates has recently repeated this appeal, calling for an international conference to consider these matters. The conference would define the rules on economic transparency, including lifting banking secrecy and abolishing tax havens.
It would also increase judicial cooperation between states and set up a system of sanctions to be imposed on countries that failed to comply with these provisions. I urge the President and the Commission to see that the Belgian Presidency acts upon these requests magistrates are making.
Indeed, the head of FATF has reiterated these same demands, as I have read in the press this morning. Work on these issues should proceed more quickly and FATF recommendations should be made binding.
This would be a very useful role for the European Union to play, both in its capacity as the Chair and a key member of the FATF.
I believe that we will be able to turn words into actions.
I also believe that, as regards the fiscal package, which includes binding provisions to regulate tax havens and low-tax areas (some of which can be found within the European Union), we can combine the fight against financial crime and the European tax on savings programme. I believe that we must seize this political opportunity to step up work on these issues.
Unfortunately, the informal meeting of ECOFIN had to announce, yet again, that no progress had been made in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the dogmatism and apathy dominating the economic policy of the European Union are causing great concern.
Unemployment is rising once again, there is a threat of recession and the conditions for lasting growth are not in place. However, so far, the Council, the Commission and the European Central Bank have come up with platitudes and have convinced themselves that everything is fine.
The euro does provide protection against currency speculation but it offers no protection whatsoever from financial crises. We are involved in financial globalisation up to our necks.
The main cause of the current apathy is the fundamentalist approach of those opposed to state intervention.
Those who subscribe to this view try desperately to promote fiscal competition, as Pierre Jonckheer reminded us. They reduce public spending but welcome turgidity on the stock exchange and its requirements to produce financial returns.
This results in a lack of public and private investment.
Another reason for this apathy is that social-democratic visions for Europe are somewhat lacking.
I think it is time we recognise this.
You advocate strengthening coordination between national policies.
I am in favour of this, but we must recognise that basically this has come to be equated with the Growth and Stability Pact. I am sure you will confirm this.
The debate must not remain polarised between the 'fundamentalists' and those who want to make the Growth and Stability Pact more flexible.
We advocate an action plan to get us out of this rut.
Firstly, as elected representatives at a European and national level, we must come to a consensus and call for a revival of the European economies. We must send a message along these lines to a meeting of the European Council in Ghent and to the Commission.
In order to achieve economic revival, we must favour public spending and credit as opposed to tax cuts. Funds to promote investment should also be established.
Secondly, we believe that we must carry out an in-depth revision of the Growth and Stability Pact. This Pact has remained unchanged since 1992, although the global situation is now very different and the euro has appeared.
I appreciate the idea of starting to make it more flexible, as mentioned by Mrs Neyts. However, we want something more than this.
We want reform.
Two principles should guide us in this. Public or mixed economy choices should balance market forces.
Must I point out that President Bush used Keynesian policies to revive the American economy, after President Clinton refused to cut taxes to increase his popularity? Furthermore, the criteria of state intervention should allow for decision-making at national level and for solidarity.
Restricting public deficit to a maximum of 3% in no way succeeded in preventing the exacerbation of differences.
Consequently, the new Growth and Stability Pact would be based on common criteria for effectiveness, relating both to taxation and public spending.
Taxation should combat the volatility of the financial markets and government stocks by taxing financial products and revenues.
Spending should create the necessary conditions for lasting growth, employment, security and solidarity.
We also want the Pact to include taxation and budgetary tools appropriate to the European Union. Fortunately, the Belgian Presidency has suggested this.
Thirdly, the Laeken declaration must include a commitment to establishing Community powers in relation to macro-economic policy.
Madam President, I welcome the opportunity to make a few, but important, points on the Stability and Growth Pact.
There is a role for economic policy coordination, but it must be applied in a sensible and balanced manner in all Member States.
There are, however, serious policy differences between what the Commission is now proposing and what was agreed at the Ecofin Council in Helsinki in 1999, when it was agreed that Member States 'determine their budgetary policies in consistency with the Treaty' , but that this commitment leaves room for domestic policy choices.
This week the Commission published a welcome White Paper on European governance, the thrust of which reflects the need for EU institutions to listen, rather than dictate.
There is a clear signal coming from EU citizens that while they continue to support the thrust of EU integration, they want it to happen in a manner which reflects the independence and the integrity of each Member State and its citizens.
There are those in this House, and indeed within the administration, who are blindly rushing towards the creation of a federalist Europe.
They are in my mind doing a disservice to the vision of Europe's founding fathers and will, I predict, be stopped in their tracks by citizen reaction.
Events in the real world can rarely be dealt with by means of a predetermined, prescriptive set of rules.
Over-regulation stifles initiative and, therefore, progress and prosperity.
Mr President, yet again the European Union is not keeping pace with the situation in Europe, as it wishes to keep European economies within the shackles of the Growth and Stability Pact. We all know that the criteria of this Pact are now completely obsolete.
The Growth and Stability Pact is dead, Mr Von Wogau; it did not die in New York. It was killed off by the European Central Bank.
The Bank' s policies were always out of line with reality. Its forecasting errors are now legendary, and it has an irrational fear of inflation.
We are all aware of the results. We have to contend with the highest interest rates in the world, a consistently weak euro and the threat of recession.
The outcome of pursuing monetary policy in the manner of a frightened old man is clear. Sooner or later, governments will be forced towards budgetary expansion.
It would be ridiculous now to blame them for doing this. Many members of the committee have made this abundantly clear in all our conversations (if you can call them that) with Mr Duisenberg.
Once again, the European Union is unworthy of the powers it has assumed from legitimate governments. It has proved this by failing to order (this is a euphemism) the European Central Bank to make available to the countries of the euro area the resources entrusted to it by Member States.
As far as we know, the ECB does not own Europe' s currency and should not act like Scrooge.
I would also like to point out in passing that it is unacceptable for the ECB to decide whether or not to issue euro notes and coins before 1 January.
I have to say that I really cannot understand why some governments do not wish to take the initiative and bring the date of distribution forward.
Yet again the European Union cannot keep pace with its ambitions and assertions. It has failed to take up a position at the forefront of the drive to promote economic growth and employment.
This is the only battle that matters to the people of Europe.
Lastly, Commissioner, Madam President, let me add that the hypocrisy surrounding the issue of the Tobin tax added nothing to the intellectual standing of the European Union. For once, the European Union had the opportunity to show that it intended to have an effect on world affairs, to become more than what it actually is, simply one more piece of the jigsaw of liberal globalisation.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the Italian Radicals supported the resolution of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party because they consider it of vital importance that Parliament confirms the validity of the Stability and Growth Pact and its principles.
I feel that rigorous budgetary and monetary policies are not incompatible with growth, provided that we have the courage to act in the areas of structural reform, privatisation, liberalisation of the markets - particularly the labour market - and public spending, and provided that we have the courage to resolve the complex issue of pensions expenditure, which is an excessive burden on the budgets of many European countries and, because of the way these systems are organised, creates situations which are extremely unfair towards the young generations of workers.
I am quite aware that the European countries - I refer to my own country, Italy, in particular, but also to others such as Germany - rested on their laurels during the economic boom, putting off reforms which were necessary in order to consolidate public finances and make businesses competitive and giving way to pressure from trade unions and employers' associations demanding more State aid.
Thus, they failed to prepare the European economies for the inevitable subsequent slowdown, which will be particularly severe in the wake of the events of 11 September.
Mr President, in my opinion, the fiscal burden in Europe is still too high: although it has fallen somewhat, it is true, the figures show that the fiscal burden in Europe is still significantly higher than it was in the early nineties, for example.
Derogating from the constraints of the Stability and Growth Pact now and resorting to deficit spending means storing up fresh tax increases for the coming years which, in my opinion, the European economy, the European workers and the European unemployed can on no account afford.
There is one danger which must be highlighted - Mr Goebbels mentioned the confusion following the events of 11 September - and that is that Europe will use the current economic crisis and the crisis in the United States as an excuse to go back to expansionist, deficit spending policies such as those experienced by Europe and its citizens in previous decades.
This is not the right response to the situation.
The argument that the United States is also reacting with an expansionist policy and that it is going to spend an additional 1% of its GDP disregards the fact that the United States is supported by healthy, buoyant public finances and therefore has the capacity to do so reasonably effectively.
The same would not be true if we were to implement similar policies in Europe or to support State airlines which have drained public resources and hampered the liberalisation of the European markets.
I would like to stress one last point relating to the fight against terrorism and its funding.
Something which is now increasingly being emphasised by expert analysts - recently even by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics, Gary Becker - is the fact that the multinational terrorist organisations are financed by drug trafficking, particularly where Afghanistan and Pakistan are concerned.
We must also explore the possibility of cutting off this channel of terrorist funding at source through drugs policies not based on prohibition.
Mr President, the debate taking place today on the supposed choice between the Growth and Stability Pact and budgetary expansion seems somewhat bizarre. In fact, we do not have a choice between these two alternatives.
On the one hand, the Growth and Stability Pact is too rigid an instrument, despite offering some opportunities for derogation, because it does not make proper provision for the time-lags between the economic cycles of the various Member States.
We have consistently pointed this out.
However, the Council has just suggested that it might eventually be possible to make adjustments according to the economic climate, and using a bit of skill and the excuse of the attacks, we can therefore expect the Pact to be more flexible.
On the other hand, budgetary expansion in countries that have suffered the biggest slowdown, like France and Germany, has had three main effects.
Firstly, these countries already have significant budgetary deficits. This limits their margin for manoeuvre and has already acted as a stimulus.
As is the case with drugs, a greater stimulus is needed to achieve the maximum effect.
However, eventually the dose will have to be reduced.
The second effect of this expansion is that the excessive undervaluing of the euro has led to an increase in exports. This is due to the fact that the euro is an artificial currency.
This has been unfair on our partners but has boosted internal growth. However, I am not sure that this might not have contributed, to a very small degree, to the slowdown in the United States over recent months.
The third effect of budgetary expansion is the dispersal of cash people have been hoarding, prior to the introduction of euro notes and coins on 1 January next year. No one ever mentions this, but it is nevertheless happening.
This laundered money has been reinvested in the economy in very significant amounts. The figures for France total FRF 50 billion this year.
This is already causing revival.
Further budgetary expansion would have no purpose. It would only lead to the eventual introduction of new taxes which would make the situation even more difficult in future.
The real question we should be asking ourselves is: given the three linked elements necessary for economic revival I have mentioned, why are we not experiencing an economic boom? Apart from the unexpected effects of the attacks in America, which have yet to be firmly established, I think there are two reasons for this.
The first reason is that the economies of Europe are overburdened with many different taxes and rigid regulations. The policies of the Socialist French government, especially the absurdity of the 35-hour working week, made these problems particularly acute in France.
The second reason relates to the perverse effect of the euro. I have said this before, but I will mention it again.
The euro may to some extent prevent some fluctuation in internal exchange rates, as supporters of the currency take great pleasure in explaining time and again.
However, on the other hand, it imposes a single monetary policy on countries which find themselves in very different situations.
This 'one-size-fits-all' policy, to quote one economist, is not suited to the present situation of France and Germany. It is having a recessionary effect in these countries.
It seems clear that the recessionary effect of standardisation today rather outweighs the benefits of eliminating internal exchange rates.
If we consider the situation as a whole, the euro is not protecting us from recession but rather encouraging it.
Should we put up with greater budgetary deficits to compensate for the euro? That would be truly paradoxical!
In any case, Mr President, given the direction Europe has taken, we will have to endure several more years of problems and tension before governments recognise this essential truth: all countries fare better if each can benefit from an economic policy suited to its individual requirements.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, the present political situation in the world, and the war against terrorism that has begun, have a host of features that are creating long-term uncertainty for the EU economy.
That is why economic policies to create confidence will perhaps have an unparalleled impact on the behaviour of consumers and investors, and, hence, on how long the period of slower growth will last.
There are also certain positive signs, from the point of view of restraint and the stability of currency values. The price of crude oil is falling rather than rising and the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have, since 11 September, been taking prompt action and acting in accord with one another.
Now, after the Federal Reserve' s drop in interest rates yesterday, all eyes are on the ECB.
It is no good waiting.
May the approach to the solution remain in the hands of the independent ECB, but the future of the policy on interest rates in Europe must also be made clear quickly.
Firm commitment on the part of every country to the Stability and Growth Pact will create just the sort of confidence the pact itself seeks and the economy now needs.
Budgetary discipline must not be allowed to slacken in the EU countries on any pretext, not even on account of any possible expenditure to increase internal and external security.
Equivalent savings will have to be found: we cannot rely on some hoped-for continued growth of income.
Switching to the euro will mean slightly increased costs for all points in the production chain.
There is no denying that.
However, they will be one-off increases and will only raise prices slightly.
They should not be used for scaremongering and thereby increase inflationary pressures.
The best long-term policy for stability and growth now is to adhere closely to the decisions of the Lisbon Summit and make the European Union the world' s most competitive area, removing internal barriers to competition and giving encouragement to innovation and research and development.
The commencement of a new round of WTO talks is now vital for international cooperation in matters of the economy to steadily gain strength.
Mr President, representative of the Council, Commissioner, in my view, our economic policy is a combination of success and failure.
The success, of course, is the euro, the failure is the actual economy, where there are two, interconnected problems.
The low rate of growth and the high rate of unemployment.
The reason for both is the same and lies in the low rate of investment in capital equipment during the last decade of the last century, accompanied by the collapse of public investment.
Some people maintain that this collapse is a virtual collapse because it is due to a simple change of name, in that the private sector is investing where the public sector used to invest. But how are we to believe this when overall investments have fallen so low?
Did public investment have to be throttled in order to support the euro?
Did unemployment have to reach its present rate, albeit not as high as just two years ago, although it will no doubt rise again, Commissioner, in order to support the euro? I do not think so, but although no one admits it, this was the official policy up to the European Council in Lisbon.
That was where the line was taken to adopt the new economy which is supposed to find a modern solution to Europe's economic problem and bring back full employment on the new basis of more advanced technology, the most advanced technology in the world.
Nice words, nice ambitions, nice vision.
Unfortunately it failed because this was when the bubble burst on the American stock exchange, especially in the new technology and telecommunications sector, which was supposed to lead us into a new era and which is now threatening to drag us into one of the biggest slumps of the twentieth century.
It seems to me that these events have drawn a line under the Lisbon vision and that we need to go back to the drawing board.
There is no way someone can have a full plan to present to you, not when all our study institutes deny the need for us to change our economic policy.
But some things seem to be self-explanatory.
The European economy needs investment, the private sector is not investing enough because we insist on preventing the public sector from supplementing its investments - is that how we are going to revive the private sector's interest? By refusing to make use of the possibilities offered by the Treaty and exempt investments from the definition of deficit in the Stability Pact?
I heard Mr Della Vedova refer in trepidation to 'deficit spending' . Things may have got out of hand in the era of 'deficit spending' but, let us not forget that, in that era, the rate of growth was 5% and unemployment never exceeded 1 to 1.5%, while our current economic policy, based as it is on a high degree of liberalisation of the markets, is a long way from being such a success.
America came close in the last five years of the last century in a climate of excessive speculation and look where that has got us now.
Also, I should like to ask you, Commissioner, as you did me the honour of allowing me to ask you in private: what is the scientific criterion for refuting your position that will make you tell us that our position has been refuted and that we need to change economic policy? As I am sure you know, without refutability there can be no scientific standpoint.
We keep getting caught in a huge tautology and I am afraid that this is precisely the economic policy which you support.
Mr President, so as to appease the Commissioner and the other honourable Members, may I state for the record that I am not a fan of deficits, of increasing public debt or of inflation.
However, that is not the issue.
Are we forecasting a slump, yes or no? Some say, wait and see what happens.
But if it does happen, then it will be too late.
Others say, wait and the problem will resolve itself.
Some take cold comfort in the belief that our economy will rally once the economy rallies in the United States and totally ignore the fact that, with globalisation, if that happens, others will benefit from the recovery.
All the wrangling, as a number of honourable members have already said, is about avoiding the notion of public intervention in the economy.
I fail to understand why.
What is the point in being dogmatic, when you have specific problems and, more to the point, the problem of a slump in front of you? Some of us can imagine various scenarios which marry public intervention with economic stability, that is, increased earnings, without creating the alarming fiscal competition which some people are projecting?
The problem is, we need public expenditure, we have the potential to generate public earnings which do not affect the productive structure or development of the economy or its competitiveness.
Surely you do not mean to tell me that you would have a problem if someone somewhere did something about annuities or the international speculators throwing hot money around on the stock exchange, or even about the excessive wealth and the frantic consumption of our inflated upper middle classes.
We have no scientific answer.
We are dogmatic.
No to the public sector and no to a Europe which, if it did all this - because only Europe can do all this - would be a federalist Europe.
Well, I have never heard such dogmatism in my life!
Mr President, the tragic events in America have sent severe economic shock waves through the world.
No country will remain immune to the economic impact of the horrendous terrorist attacks in America.
Those attacks were so severe that it will be some time before the extent of the economic fallout is fully known.
We are already seeing the first economic ramifications of 11 September, a day that will be etched on the memory of us all for evermore.
Job losses are mounting in the airline industry.
The jobs shed at many European airlines will never be filled again.
These job losses in turn affect nearly every aspect of an economy.
Consumer and investor confidence is waning, the value of global and stock markets is down too.
The one encouraging sign is that the euro currency is surviving strongly.
We can now all see the importance of the single European currency and the fact that there are 12 currencies participating within the single European currency regime is lending stability to the European economy.
There could be nothing worse than having 15 independent floating currencies operating within the European Union at the moment.
This would be a recipe for international speculators to come in and play one currency off against another.
We all recall the devaluations which took place in 1992, when the international currency speculators played havoc with the European stock markets.
Thankfully they are not in a position to do so again now, because we have a stable currency operating in Europe and surviving the recent economic shocks.
The terrorist attacks will not affect the timetable for the introduction of euro notes and coins, which will proceed as planned.
It is also clear that the European Central Bank and the various national euro changeover boards have done an excellent job in marketing the new euro economy.
While I have no doubt that there will be some teething problems, we shall overcome them and by the end of the changeover period the citizens of Europe will be fully cognizant of the value of the new euro notes and coins.
Mr President, the resolution by the ELDR Group and the PPE-DE Group has received my backing.
I have always been in favour of strict compliance with the criteria of the Stability Pact.
In this time of uncertainty, extra alertness is called for.
Various Member States are entering the danger zone.
A major advantage of budgetary discipline is manifesting itself: room for automatic stabilisers.
I would like to note in this connection that increasing expenditure is no solution.
What will prove decisive is the quality of the Stability Pact in combination with the necessary reforms in the economy as a whole.
The resolution mentions that the distribution of authority between the Member States and the Union leads to negative action at Member State level.
The reverse is also true.
The Union' s monetary decisions can adversely affect a Member State, for example, in the form of high inflation due to an unwelcome drop in interest rates.
I welcome the attention that this area of tension is receiving.
Thanks to the EMU' s favourable effect, the European economy can become more stable.
Time will tell whether this is proportionate to the loss of custom-made solutions for the Member States.
Budgetary discipline will be crucial in obtaining this stability.
- (ES) Mr President, by this stage in the debate it seems to me that three things must already be clear to us.
Firstly, we know that the European industrial sector is currently experiencing a graver crisis than the one it went through as a result of the 1998 financial crisis.
Secondly, we know that the crisis currently afflicting the world economy is far more serious than the one it underwent in 1993, after the Gulf War. This is because for the first time since 1929, the three largest economies are affected, namely the economies of the United States, Europe and Japan.
Thirdly, except for Mr Abitbol we all know that nowadays the European economy is far better prepared to cope with such a crisis.
As stated earlier, we now have a single currency to protect us from exchange rate crises.
We also have a policy to protect us from exorbitant price rises.
In addition, we have a Stability Pact to safeguard us against the munificence of public administrations.
We do not know for certain but we suspect that this crisis is not demand led, like the post-war crisis. Nor is it a supply driven crisis like the one following the Yom Kippur war.
Rather, it is a crisis of confidence. As such, what distinguishes our motion for a resolution from the one put forward by the left is not that they wish to grow while we do not.
Obviously, we all want to grow.
Nevertheless, some recipes will move us forward whilst others will put us into reverse.
We believe that our recipes will move us forward.
Allow me to explain the reasons why I think as I do. If this is a crisis of confidence, it would be a fundamental error to relax monetary policy and allow price rises.
That would hole consumer confidence below the water line. Secondly, because revising the Stability Pact would amount to indicating that we wish to pass this burden on to future generations, and that is certainly not a confidence booster.
Thirdly, if we relax the budgetary policy enshrined in the Stability Pact we shall prevent interest rates from being lowered, as the Americans are doing.
A vessel is not assessed according to whether there is a storm around or not, but according to how it weathers a storm.
In my view, it is now clear that we should change the way we navigate.
The European Central Bank may be driven to reduce interest rates, but it must bear in mind that its ultimate aim is to maintain the dogma of price stability to maintain consumer confidence.
It is likely that some governments who have done their homework will be able to allow the automatic stabilisers to operate. They will not need to compensate for fiscal reduction by increasing taxes or reducing expenditure.
Unfortunately, governments who have failed to do their homework and behaved like prodigal sons will not find themselves in such a fortunate position.
Thirdly, as the Commissioner has said, though previous speakers failed to mention it, it is time for Europe to move ahead and take a determined step forward to get the Lisbon process under way. This process aims to create a modern, innovative and competitive society.
Regarding the Tobin tax, the Commissioner was far more convincing in the interview he granted the Vanguardia Digital, when he said it was a useless tool, than in his speech today. Today the Commissioner stated it was one more potential tool.
Previously the Commissioner stated it was not possible.
Now it begins to appear probable.
I endorse what he said to the newspaper but not what he said in the House.
Mr President, all possible measures must be taken to ensure that Europe can provide a real answer to the consequences of the horrendous terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, and a part of that, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, has in fact already been done, namely a joint response from the EU finance ministers.
I think this symbolises Europe's ability to close ranks when the chips are really down.
I believe that this policy should also be pursued further in relation to aid policy.
However, it should also give us the flexibility we need, so as to demonstrate that Europe does not want the economic downturn to be further exacerbated.
We do in fact have a Stability and Growth Pact that gives us many possibilities, because on the one hand we wish Europe to be a Community of stability, and on the other hand we also want to promote growth and employment.
It is no accident that when applying the convergence criteria, exceptional circumstances have sometimes been applied and approved which allow the definition of an excessive deficit to be deviated from.
I do not mean by that to speak in favour of a 'Community of instability' .
Just the opposite in fact, I wish to call on the Belgian Presidency and the Commission to contribute to further coordination in this area, by taking advantage of the fact that stability programmes can be updated.
I would like to see updated stability programmes for the euro countries which make it clear that the data has significantly changed.
What is needed in this context, as you quite rightly said yourself, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, is for us to avoid procyclical policies in Europe, in both the expansionist and restrictive senses.
However, we can only do that if we can compare cyclically neutral budget data with structural deficits in updated budget figures.
I think that it would be helpful if the excitement that this debate has generated in this House led to further progress being made both in economic policy and in stability policy.
I say that because the European Union needs both monetary stability and employment and social stability.
Firstly, I would like to thank you for giving me the floor.
Unfortunately, I cannot remain in the House for very long as I have a meeting at 4.30 p.m. with your contact group to debate the development of the Members' Statute. I regard this as an important subject and this is an important meeting.
I requested it myself. I will be back here in the House at 5.30 p.m. to respond to the many questions you wish to put to me.
I would therefore like to thank you very much for listening to what I have to say now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that you all appreciated the importance attached to every word of my speech, and the significance of every adjective I used when I spoke on behalf of the Presidency of the Council and the Council itself.
Please excuse me if I do not now try to interpret my previous speech further. I was speaking on behalf of the whole of the Council.
Consequently, I think I explained clearly how our thinking is developing. I also defined the limits ECOFIN and the ministers themselves have already set.
I then described the nature of the ongoing debate. Those of you, you are all here, will certainly wish to have experts available to monitor the development of this debate closely.
Of course, the conclusions of this debate are considerably more important.
I believe that we are, at last, more or less in agreement with the objectives we wish to achieve, even if there is less agreement on the best means of achieving them.
I am sure that this debate will continue.
However, I would like to make two brief observations of my own. Mr Berthu, a longstanding colleague of mine, said that everything was so much better when each country had full control of its financial and economic instruments.
However, I must disagree with you on this point, Mr Berthu.
I have been around long enough to know that the reality was very different, and it was at that time too. Europe has experienced very serious financial and economic crises, and has found it extremely difficult to overcome them.
This is my first point.
I would now like to move on to my second point.
I shall not quickly forget the time in the 1970s when people sang the praises of the deficit spending policy. This was a time of economic slowdown in my country, and those in positions of responsibility praised the policy of deficit spending to high heaven.
It took us fifteen years to recover from the effects of this policy. I do not wish this policy to be implemented in the European Union.
However, everything I have heard here goes quite in the opposite direction. I am sure that you will make it your business to monitor this situation very closely and will be extremely vigilant.
Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you for informing the House of the reason for your absence, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck.
Be assured that we wish you every success with such a sensitive matter.
Mr President, we are living at a time when it is becoming clearer that the Stability Pact functions as an obstacle to development and to economic and social cohesion: by considering monetary and nominal convergence as a priority, by making restrictive budgets mandatory, it prevents those countries with major difficulties from being able to engage in a policy of investment, particularly public investment, in a period such as the present one of slowdown in economic activity and the threat of international recession.
In various countries and from different sources warnings are being issued regarding the need to amend the Stability Pact and the priority being given to the monetarist policies of neo-liberalism.
This situation is being felt both in the more developed countries and in those where situations of the greatest inequality prevail and/or where threats of social tension are emerging.
In a country like Portugal, which has the lowest salaries, pensions and reforms in the European Union and the highest rates of premature school-leaving, accidents at work and poverty, the application of rigid timetables and deadlines and major restrictions on public spending and investment is unacceptable, because this will impede the country' s development and obstruct the way to economic and social cohesion.
The need for the immediate suspension of the Stability Pact is, therefore, very topical.
In a European Union that claims to be concerned with social problems, committed to the creation of jobs and the fight against social exclusion and poverty, maintaining monetary stability at any cost cannot continue to be considered as a priority, when we know that the consequences will be more unemployment, more salary restrictions and more poverty.
It is not a question of merely calling for some flexibility in the criteria of the Stability Pact and the implementation of the growth and stability programmes, which each country has had to present.
It is essential to engage in an in-depth revision of the objectives, criteria and foundations of the Stability Pact, starting from the premise that the budgets of the Member States must reflect the needs of each people and each country and not the interests of the financial groups that the European Central Bank is seeking to convey.
Mr President, Commissioner Solbes, we need more Europe, and the Stability Pact is a tool for building Europe.
It is a complex and anomalous tool, not found in textbooks and universities; in fact, it replaces a true economic and budget balance policy on a federal scale.
But in order to be effective, such a tool must be credible and based on definite rules and obligations that are respected by all.
Changing the rules during the difficult process of convergence, less than one hundred days before the birth of the euro proper, would therefore be a serious mistake.
The Stability Pact must not, therefore, be relaxed or have its deadlines or targets changed; any such approach would be merely short-sighted opportunism and disastrous for the building of Europe.
The Stability Pact should, rather, be strengthened, improved and made more efficient; targets that only refer to budget balances are no longer enough.
Budget balances are a necessary but not sufficient objective, because there will be a growing need to aim at quality in public spending and the medium to long-term sustainability of public finances in the individual euro countries; in this connection, it is sufficient to think of the pension deficit.
Commissioner, even a Stability Pact interpreted in the most responsible, far-sighted manner possible would do nothing for the credibility of our currency if there were not a massive acceleration in the process of completing economic union at the same time, with greater genuine convergence, greater social cohesion, greater development, greater liberalisation, and a greater market for services and energy.
Though we need therefore to comply with and value the Stability and Growth Pact, as much attention should also be devoted to the subject of the Lisbon agenda.
Unfortunately, the Stockholm European Council was a step backwards in this respect.
Commissioner, Minister, for the sake of the euro and our Europe, let us avoid similar steps backwards in future.
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe is not technically in recession, but it is clearly experiencing a situation of slower growth, and we cannot yet predict all the economic, political and social consequences that this will have.
Within this framework, many people are questioning the validity of the restrictive and fundamentalist way in which the Growth and Stability Pact has been interpreted and the consequences that this interpretation may have on the very process of development and cohesion in Europe.
The Stability Pact is a global commitment, which combines the realism of a specific macro-economic scenario with a healthy concern for the consolidation of public finances.
The Pact should be interpreted in its entirety and, obviously, if one of the terms of the equation is altered, the other term must be adjusted and made flexible.
I do not want to get into an argument with the followers of the school of single thought, who have, unfortunately, come to play a leading role on the European economic policy scene.
But I cannot refrain from stating that any true defence of the Growth and Stability Pact requires, first and foremost, an understanding of it.
Now, understanding it means that it is correct to agree, in an unfavourable international situation, to accommodate the unavoidable loss of income and the consequent increase in the public deficit, provided it does not exceed 3%, as Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck rightly stated.
This cannot and must not be confused with any laxity or inefficiency by the revenue authorities, much less with relinquishing in the medium term a policy of adjustment supported by budgetary procedures and a serious and ongoing effort to control public spending and improve administrative efficiency at every level.
Controlling and streamlining public spending are worthy objectives.
We are not, therefore, talking about a revision or cancellation of the Stability Pact.
Consolidating spending does not mean irrationally demanding a linear reduction of deficits.
It does mean considering that in the medium term budgetary balances from one year should be balanced with those of the next.
Mr President, stability and growth are objectives of economic activity that everyone wants, whichever party or group in the European Parliament they belong to.
However, when it comes to defining these concepts and in particular when it comes to how we should achieve these objectives, then there are considerable differences between us.
A purely fiscal interpretation will not help us to solve the present problems, which are reflected in falling economic growth and consistently high unemployment.
The market economy as an economic concept is fine, but it is unacceptable as a social policy tool.
Or to put it another way, the market can and should regulate the economy, but not society.
We see the priority as being not a supply-oriented economic policy, but a demand-oriented one.
We do not believe that liberalisation is a panacea.
We need not only commercial competition, but also a linkage with economic and social criteria, in order to achieve the highest possible level of social security, sustainability and justice.
Balancing budgets is fine, but not at any price.
In contrast to the President-in-Office, I wish to call for an anticyclical economic policy.
In times of recession, increasing public expenditure on investment in new capacity and in education and training are essential.
We have the euro area, but we do not have a European economic, fiscal and social policy.
That cannot work.
It is not just a matter of achieving price stability alone, which is the ECB's remit, we also need to achieve socio-economic stability.
A more flexible approach to the existing convergence criteria will not solve the problem, it will just shift the burden to those who meet the criteria.
We need a new version that takes into account additional parameters such as the employment rate, the value-added ratio and the investment ratio, because these indicators reflect economic strength and development.
Mr President, Commissioner, the dark clouds of recession are looming in the west, in part due to the piercing of the asset bubble of the US stock market, but further exacerbated by the tragic events of 11 September.
The US Federal Reserve has now dropped the federal funds rate to 2.5% - a 39-year low.
This is the ninth rate cut this year.
The ECB may respond shortly, but almost two years since the euro's launch, there is as yet little enthusiasm for its future role as the major international reserve currency.
This is in part the result of exchange-rate weakness and, in part, because the notes and coins are not yet in circulation, so it cannot yet be heralded as an unqualified success.
It remains to be seen if the one-size-fits-all model of interest rates will work in all the countries of the Union, in particular countries like Ireland.
These concerns and the added concerns about constitutional implications and loss of sovereignty leave my country, the UK, happy to remain outside for the time being.
Although clearly we all wish the project well, it has frankly confounded many pessimists including our former Prime Minister John Major.
Some years ago, the Commission in its McDougal report concluded that central tax-raising powers of at least 7% of GDP would be needed to allow counter-cyclical spending and transfer payments to make a single-currency zone function properly.
This would, of course, have been anathema to Member States, so they decided instead on strict spending, borrowing and inflation limits in Dublin in 1996 as an alternative.
Recently, there have been calls to make these Stability and Growth Pact ceilings more flexible.
This is unwise in my opinion, as I believe firmly that a prudent approach to public finance and borrowing is a good thing.
Furthermore, the British economy is linked to and becoming more convergent with the euro zone, so we all have an incentive to stick to the guidelines and we must not allow the US crisis to be an excuse for new, big government tax-and-spend policies.
The Stability Pact includes mechanisms designed to operate in recession and Article 2.1 on the excessive deficit procedure could be used in exceptional circumstances to justify higher military or security spending.
But Member States should concentrate on structural reforms, particularly in their labour markets, as the way ahead.
Otherwise, we would only have high inflation and massive increases in the mountain of national debt.
Mr President, by a diabolical coincidence, it is aeroplanes that illustrate what sort of a world we are living in today.
There was the tragedy in New York and there were the events yesterday in another dimension, at another level, in the airports around Switzerland.
It may have been Swissair but it could equally easily have been Sabena or Olympic Airways or another airline.
You could say that we are dogmatic in the European Union about refusing to see what is going on around us.
That is our right.
But I think that to be dogmatic to the point where you refuse to see what even Mr Bush's government with its ultra-conservative economic philosophy and Mr O'Nill in the United States can see is taking things too far.
To refuse to see the 15 billion given to the airlines, to refuse to see that, for both political and economic reasons, international movements of funds need to be controlled somewhere along the line if we are to have both economic and political stability, to refuse to see that governments need to stop being petty and to take things in hand.
In this sense, I think that to abide dogmatically by a Stability Pact decided under different circumstances ten years ago is a big mistake.
Mr President, in the spring, the Council took a clear stance in favour of the Stability and Growth Pact.
Around the summer recess, a few finance ministers considered it necessary to express as their own personal opinion the fact that more scope was required in the Pact as a result of a declining economy.
This was apparently not an official government view because the requirements were not repeated on the platforms eminently placed to deal with this, including the ECOFIN Council. Quite the reverse, in fact.
On those occasions, warm words were spoken about the Pact.
Despite these fine words, President Duisenberg considered the talk of relaxing the rules very worrying.
Commissioner Solbes Mira even addressed Italy, France, Germany and Portugal in a stern manner and urged them to translate the agreements into action.
And he is right.
It is not acceptable for governments repeatedly to adopt a high tone and demand reductions in the interest rate from the Central Bank when they have failed to do their own homework.
If all Member States, when economic growth allowed for this, had taken the required structural measures, the Central Bank would now be able to be more flexible in its interest policy.
After all, there is a direct link between the budgetary policy and the interest policy in the policy mix.
Various MEPs have spoken about 11 September and Mr Herzog even went so far as to claim that the euro does not protect us against financial crises.
I think he is very much mistaken.
After 11 September, the Central Bank took action in an admirable manner and has most definitely shielded us from a financial cash crisis.
Some time ago, Ireland was severely punished when it gave another stimulus to an almost overheated economy, contributing further to high inflation.
As far as I am concerned, Ireland might serve as an example, but we should also be courageous, and level criticism at large countries. We should especially target those countries that fully deserve the criticism.
And let us be aware of the fact that the financial markets are closely monitoring the way in which the Member States are currently handling their government budgets in a declining economy.
The current situation is a test of how sound the euro construction really is.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have had a very in-depth discussion of this subject today.
I have gradually been sensing that this debate has made it clearer and clearer how justified the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats was in taking the initiative to table this motion, and how important that was.
There are 89 days to go until the euro notes and coins come into circulation, and on top of that challenge we are living in very uncertain times.
At the same time there have been reactions in some governments around making the Stability and Growth Pact an issue. We have already heard the names of certain people in some governments who have not done their homework properly when it comes to the Stability and Growth Pact.
For that reason it is particularly important in these uncertain times and with 89 days to go before the euro comes in, to convey a sense of clarity and calm to the markets and also to consumers.
Europe's Stability and Growth Pact will not be shaken.
That is why it is necessary to counter the idea that weakening the Stability and Growth Pact is a way of acting to prevent a recession.
It is simply not true that inflation can create jobs.
And it is not true that the Stability and Growth Pact did not allow enough leeway for hard times.
The Member States that have the greatest leeway are the ones that have done most of their homework.
So I can only urge you not to play with fire.
It is irresponsible to add to uncertainty at a time when things are already uncertain, and the Stability Pact is a requirement for the stability of the euro.
Mr President, the object of the Stability and Growth Pact is to achieve lasting stability in the financial markets, which have remained a national responsibility since the beginning of the single currency.
This means that the Stability Pact is a necessary counterpart in financial policy terms to the policy of monetary union and it is a financial policy substitute for political union, which did not come into being at the same time as monetary union.
The objective of the pact is to ensure that there is sufficient leeway in budgets when times are good and to make provision for bad times.
Some Member States, including Germany, have failed to do this recently.
However, no sooner have the first difficulties appeared than people have started talking about how the criteria are interpreted.
The usual criticism is that although the pact promotes stability, it also acts as a fiscal straitjacket and thus exacerbates weakness in monetary growth.
This criticism fails to take account of the facts.
The commitment made is to balance budgets in the medium term and to limit deficits, and it cannot therefore be thrown up in the air as soon as growth subsides.
That is why a clear signal is needed from ECOFIN, especially after the discussions that have taken place.
With just three months to go before the euro comes into circulation, as Mr Karas mentioned, we need a sign of stability.
The problem is that we have failed to achieve the Lisbon objective of becoming the region with the strongest growth in the world.
But we can only achieve that objective if the Member States do their homework.
They cannot blame this on the European Central Bank.
I would also like to take issue with Mr Tannock for suggesting that the ECB has not met its objectives during this period of crisis.
The ECB in particular has reacted very well since 11 September, and the euro has held up.
However, the fact that we were already discussing the Stability and Growth Pact before 11 September meant that we were playing with fire, as Mr Karas put it, and causing uncertainty.
If we had not done that we would be able to debate the future of the euro in a far calmer way now.
Mr President, with only a few days before the introduction of the euro, I believe we should most of all avoid the risk of confirming a contradiction between convergence and stability policies on the one hand and, on the other, policies aiming at sustaining the processes of growth and lasting development, in accordance with the objectives of the Lisbon Summit.
Bearing in mind the implementation of planned and existing automatic stabilisers, I think the objectives set in the Stability and Growth Pact should not be presented or seen as obstacles to growth or the need to respond - politically too - to the consequences of a downturn in the economic climate like the one we are now going through.
Furthermore, I believe it would be just as wrong to present compliance with the Stability Pact objectives as being a sufficient or, worse still, the only possible reaction to a context with a clear risk of recession.
I believe that in such circumstances there is once again a need especially to speed up progress towards two goals.
The first is to specify and perfect tools of analysis and control, to ensure that public finances are used consistently and concomitantly in support of selective investment programmes that are strictly targeted and as such useful in an absolute sense - and even more necessary when compensating for the economic downturn.
The second goal, confirming the positive nature of the Stability and Growth Pact, is to adapt and consolidate it so it remains in operation beyond the time when it should have reached its objectives, thus improving the conditions and strengthening the tools for an effective Community economic policy.
Mr President, rather than talk about the Stability and Growth Pact I want to comment on another subject which was raised at the informal ECOFIN and with which this debate deals, and that is the Member States' ministers' call for Parliament's agreement on the Money Laundering directive.
I would like to echo that call for both colleagues across the European Parliament and governments across Europe to reach an agreement on this directive as soon as possible.
This has been made all the more crucial by the tragic events of 11 September.
Terror that day struck at the heart of the global financial system.
The terrorists were clearly prepared to use all the mechanisms and tools that the global financial system gave them in planning that attack.
Let us turn those tools against them.
Many bankers and finance workers died in that attack.
Let us enlist the help of those bankers and finance workers in responding to it and preventing a repetition thereof, because this is a concrete step that we can take in the war against terrorism.
No-one is going to ask us to go and die on an Afghan hillside, though others will be asked to pay that price.
But we too can - and should - make a contribution, because the bankers, brokers, cleaners, IT technicians, investment advisers, lawyers and caterers who spill off our trains into city centres in Frankfurt, Paris, London and Brussels are just the same as those 5000 or 6000 people who turned up for work in New York one day and will never ever come home.
The time has come to stop quibbling about lawyer confidentiality.
I call on this Parliament to agree to a directive which will help starve the terrorists of funds.
I call on it to agree to the freezing of assets of terrorist organisations, because someone, somewhere, is banking bin Laden's money.
We can help starve him of funds, which is as important a task as the military operation which we know will soon follow.
Mr President, Commissioner Solbes, ladies and gentlemen, at a time of particular international tension, I believe I can state that the Stability and Growth Pact is like a guarantee of our will to uphold all the restructuring plans and growth programmes that underlie the building of an economically strong, cohesive and genuinely competitive Europe.
Any idea of waiving or relaxing established plans would undermine the future development of the whole of Europe.
There is now an aspect that should also be given due consideration: the massaging of budget balance data so as not to reveal any anomalies that may still persist in certain public accounts.
Unfortunately, in this respect, we in Italy have had to face a sad legacy from the centre-left.
This is not the right attitude, certainly worse than that of failing to bring the economy into line with the required parameters. While the former case involves fraudulence, the latter is, it is hoped, just a momentary, temporary difficulty.
Such massaging of data should be clamped down on with no half measures and penalties can be imposed where appropriate.
In the context of the Pact and the general awareness that it should be observed, it cannot be ignored that certain areas or even entire regions - southern Italy, southern Spain, southern and part of northern France, and eastern Germany - are certainly behind the rest.
While the Member State as a whole must observe the pacts it has signed, it is also true that special relief measures for these areas - I refer to differential taxation, the use of unused Structural Funds for tax credits, new types of aid after 2006 for countries excluded from Objective 1 - should not only not be considered censurable but should be seen as desirable by all.
Mr President, I should like to thank all those who took part in the debate for their comments and contributions.
I shall start by pointing out that our economic situation is different from that of the United States.
The European Union' s point of departure is quite other from the United States' : our balances are not the same either, what has taken place in the United States has not taken place in Europe and, furthermore, our institutional framework is not the same.
In my view it would be unrealistic and undesirable to try to apply the American model to Europe.
It has emerged from the debate that some of you feel our main concern is to prevent public sector involvement.
That is not at all the case.
We have never conceived of this issue in terms of a public sector versus private sector debate.
There is scope for more public investment. There can be more public involvement, always of course within the rules laid down in the system we have created for ourselves to ensure more effective operation of the balance between monetary and fiscal policy.
The ECOFIN decision on airlines and insurance cover as a result of the political risks involved is a good example of the swift effect of public action.
The debate then moved on to focus on the Growth and Stability Pact.
Some of you are of the opinion that those of us in favour of the pact are adopting a fundamentalist position, others find it dogmatic. Some of you have even mooted the possibility of doing away with the pact altogether.
I would be inclined to side with the presidency and with those of you who have referred to something I consider crucial.
The Growth and Stability Pact is intended to serve as an instrument to facilitate anticyclical action by the public finances.
That was its original aim and remains its essential nature.
Hence there is no question of dogmatism or fundamentalism.
We could discuss whether our past experience, gained from implementing the pact during periods of growth, has led us to the conclusion that it is only applicable to that end.
True, in times of growth we were not particularly dogmatic as far as exhausting the possibilities of the pact with regard to reducing the public deficit in certain Member States. We may well be regretting that just now.
Returning to the logic enshrined in the pact, the pact does allow anticyclical actions.
There is no doubt that the pact' s flexibility is due to two fundamental elements.
The first concerns exceptional circumstances and it is not relevant to analyse these now, as exceptional circumstances are only invoked in times of deep recession or when growth has fallen below certain levels. The second element concerns the normal implementation of the pact through the operation of the automatic stabilisers.
In the specific case of the automatic stabilisers, the element of flexibility is contained in the pact itself. I can state quite clearly that in no way are we amending any position.
Rather, the nature of the pact provides accordingly.
In the code of conduct adopted by ECOFIN last July it was already stated that one of the fundamental elements of the Growth and Stability Pact is the medium-term objective for the fiscal position. It is made quite clear that assessment of the objective for the various countries should take explicit account of the cyclical position and its implications for the budget.
Clearly, as some of you have pointed out, this element will therefore have to be taken into account when adjusting Member States' stability programmes.
On occasion, the Commission has insisted that the cyclically adjusted deficit position should be included in information on the stability programmes. You are well aware, ladies and gentlemen, that we are experiencing technical difficulties.
The latter relate not only to the concept but also to the method of calculating this structurally adjusted position.
Obviously, rather than making us more flexible, this will allow us to apply the pact to a reality different from that which prevailed when the various stability programmes were defined.
It further implies as I said in my first speech, that in the Commission' s interpretation nominal objectives must not be considered set in stone.
The nominal objectives are linked to certain assumptions on growth.
Consequently, as I stated, there are no problems, there is flexibility and no dogmatism. Rather, we have moved on to a different stage as far as implementation of the Growth and Stability Pact is concerned.
Would an approach involving greater spending resolve the problems?
I do not believe it would. Our position is that given the European experience in recent years, involving a rather procyclical approach to this type of decision, and having observed the difficulty experienced in regaining balance, it is not a wise option.
As I said in my opening speech, we therefore remain of the opinion that the best choice is to opt for more Europe. Some of you have argued along the same lines.
More Europe means Lisbon.
In the context of Lisbon, more Europe means increasing our potential growth.
More Europe means more efficient systems.
More Europe also means taking greater account of the impact of the crisis on the international markets. It also means taking into account factors as significant as international commercial negotiations on development aid, and all those related factors which will doubtless allow us to improve the context.
In conclusion, more Europe can also mean progress on issues linked to fiscal competence which some of you have referred to, ladies and gentlemen. There is no doubt about that.
More Europe will certainly mean progress in the fight against money laundering. All this is undoubtedly essential if we are to cope successfully with the tasks we have set ourselves.
A debate such as today' s warranted a much longer reply. Unfortunately however, we are running out of time.
Nonetheless, I was anxious to comment quickly on these ideas to make the Commission' s position on this final item quite clear.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I have received seven motions for resolution, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Television without frontiers
The next item is the report (A5-0286/2001) by Mrs Hieronymi, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the third report of the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee, on the application of Directive 89/552/CEE 'Television without frontiers' (COM(2001)9 - C5-0190/2001 - 2001/2086(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the objective of the Television without frontiers directive is to establish an EU legal framework to promote the free circulation of audio-visual broadcasting services and to guarantee certain particularly important interests, such as pluralism, cultural diversity, and the protection of consumers and minors.
We have before us today the Commission's report on the application of the directive for the period 1997 to 2000.
The key points to emerge from this report are as follows.
The main objectives of the directive have been achieved, but a thoroughgoing revision of the directive is needed.
The five main points of the report, very briefly, are these: firstly, the directive has been implemented in 12 Member States, with three yet to follow suit.
Secondly, the television sector experienced an overall phase of continuous growth between 1997 and 2000.
This applies both to the number of television channels and also to the total turnover of radio and television broadcasters and to the advertising turnover of both state-owned and private broadcasters.
Nevertheless, the report indicates that when it comes to trade in television programmes, Europe has a deficit with the United States of some USD 2.9 billion, while the overall deficit of the audio-visual sector is some USD 6.6 billion.
Thirdly, the 50% quota for European works was clearly exceeded, except in Portugal, falling in a range between 53% and 81%.
Fourthly, although the provisions on the protection of minors were complied with overall, there needs to be better coordination in future.
Fifthly, four countries have so far made use of the new provisions under Article 3a about broadcasting events of particular importance to the community, and four others are planning to take advantage of those provisions, particularly for sporting events.
The committee noted shortcomings in the report with regard to implementation in the candidate countries and in the analysis of trends in media concentration.
The digital era is now on the way, and the integration of television, PCs and the Internet requires a fundamental revision of the TWF directive so as to create a European legal framework for broadcasting audio-visual material with various degrees of regulation.
The cornerstones of this should be as follows: first, the rules on advertising should be reviewed and made more flexible; second, the quota arrangements should be reviewed to see if they can continue to be a suitable instrument for promoting European works; third, we must guarantee open and compatible standards for various systems covering rights of access; fourth, there is a need for stronger and more effective self-regulation, particularly as regards the protection of minors; fifth, the trends in vertical and horizontal integration of the media should be analysed, and sixth, a review of the arrangements under Article 3a and how they are to be dealt within future is required.
I can therefore give my full support to Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4 which have been tabled here.
The preparations for this review process should take into account the exceptional impact of television and new technology on democracy and society, particularly in the digital era.
The process of gauging public opinion therefore needs to be carried out openly, in a way that takes account of both experts in the audio-visual sector and the views of the public.
So I very much welcome the fact that the Commission has provided for a broad communication process, and we hope, Commissioner, that in view of the speed with which digital technology is developing you will bring forward your proposed review as soon as possible.
However, I would like to make an appeal to everyone: we must take advantage of the opportunities for dialogue over the next 18 months to demonstrate that the European Parliament cares about what matters to the public, especially when cultural issues are involved.
Mr President, I declare an interest as a director of a television documentary company, in which I am now not very active; but I retain my concern for the quality of our broadcasting and television.
I welcome Mrs Hieronymi's report and salute her for it.
It goes to the heart of the cultural diversity that we prize in Europe.
We defend public service obligations - however the service concerned may be financed - and the principles of universal access, which constantly come back in all of our debates now about technology.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has taken heed of the imbalance in the European audio-visual market place, and I hope the Commissioner will be able speak on this.
Since 1999 the revenues of European television companies have grown by an average of 46.3%.
In that time, public-service broadcasting hardly grew at all and creative television production in the five major producing countries of the European Union was sluggish or, in some cases, falling.
At the same time, US programme sales to Europe - programmes which, as we know, are reaping their tertiary reward, having already cleared their primary and secondary rewards in the US market directly and by satellite and cable - grew massively.
That is not a healthy situation.
The protection of the diverse market in Europe remains crucial.
The imperatives of the technology should be linked to what consumers need, as well as what the production empires want to sell.
Article 3a, referred to earlier by the rapporteur, shows what can be done to keep the widest audience for special events.
I too support Mrs Junker's amendments and others on the same point.
It was a major change for the better and it showed that we can intervene here and in the European Union.
We need to return to the issue of media concentration and how that relates to the public good, not just in terms of diversity but also in terms of raw political power.
Finally, we ought to be able to say to the applicant countries: do as we do and not merely as we say.
That means having rules that are observed, for them as well as for us.
Mr President, this directive, which was devised in 1989, bears the highly suggestive title 'Television without frontiers' , but one could not really have imagined that it would also be without time limits.
This area, which was subject to innovative legislation thirteen years ago, has clearly changed radically and to an amazing extent.
The same even applies to the update we passed in 1997: everything has been left behind by the driving force of new technologies and also fashion.
We are thus increasingly sure that the review of this directive, until now expected for 2002, will be brought forward to the beginning of next year, without waiting for too many months to go by.
The last five years have, in fact seen a veritable revolution in the television sector; the old TV has now become a supporting actor, a technical tool in the service of digital innovation, the webcasting invasion, the Internet and interactive relationships between user and broadcaster.
A global, up-to-date review is also needed because of all the other problems that directly or indirectly surround the world of television, such as the increase in turnover of the networks, the steady and increasingly disturbing invasion by advertising, the explosion of private broadcasters, and the growing social and moral implications of certain programming.
The scope of the directive needs to be broadened to embrace not only the subjects mentioned above but also others that are already included but are insufficiently developed, such as the problems of intellectual property, respect for children as often unsupervised users, the cultural levels of programmes - taking into account not only the interests and requirements of those who make them but especially the feelings of those at whom these products are targeted - and lastly the confrontation with American productions, a subject on which there was quite a harsh confrontation in 1997 but which remained to a great extent unresolved.
Lastly, on this subject, I also hope we can again discuss the so-called 'right to information' , a right which, because of equal opportunities, should clearly concern not only the citizens of the European Union but also all those living outside who receive programmes produced inside the EU.
It is not enough just to guarantee the great sporting events, as we did in 1997, since man does not live on football alone - if you will forgive the pun.
We must distribute constantly updated information, based on culture and constantly updated, not only to those who live within the European Union but especially to those less favoured by geographical location or social and economic status.
Everybody' s 'right to a satellite dish' is not enough: you need the money to get one.
Imagine what can come into houses through a dish in the remotest parts of the world.
The most precious aid is that reserved for the production of programmes designed to report, safeguard and make proposals, in the sense of safeguarding regional and local cultures.
Finally, let me renew an invitation to the Member States.
The rapporteur, whom I congratulate, and whose amendments and positions I support, reminded us that only twelve Member States have so far implemented the directive.
Well, Commissioner, let us take this opportunity to give the Member States this message again: believe in this directive, because it will become increasingly urgent, current and important, and if you believe us you must first of all implement it!
Mr President, we agree that revision of the Television without frontiers directive is urgently needed.
Firstly, it is needed because the context in which the televisual market operates, as it has been described, is so different from what it was when the directive was last revised that it does not seem feasible to retain the latter for a further two or three years.
As an estimate, we could say that at most, the directive only covers some 50% of the problems currently experienced in the sector.
Secondly, revision is required because we need to come up with solutions which were not provided at the time.
Television remains the main source of information and entertainment for most Europeans. In my view, apart from the issue of the low quality of content, it is beset by three main problems.
Too much advertising is broadcast, with no thought for its suitability or the ages and timings involved. Only rarely are European films broadcast, which is an affront to European culture.
The business of digitalising programmes so they can be shown on subscription channels has taken off.
Doubtless these problems already existed in 1996, but the situation is now critical. This suggests that although the directive has been successful as far as the free circulation of television services within the Community is concerned, it has failed in other important areas.
The Commission' s communication does not allow us to assess the efforts Member States made to redress the situation in the three years under scrutiny.
Suffice it to say that three Member States did not even transpose the directive into their legislation.
Most probably, the results for the remaining Member States were not identical, but the Commission has not made such a comparative study available.
There is little detail on the situation in the candidate countries. This should feature prominently in the new directive.
For all these reasons, Mrs Hieronymi has refrained from launching an in-depth debate in her report. I believe she was wise to do so.
This debate should take place when the directive is revised, and she has requested such a revision.
A number of guidelines to inform the process have been laid down. I should like to refer to just a few of these, namely the urgent need to introduce new services based on new technologies, the need to stimulate and accelerate the transition to digital technology and the coordination of the new directive with the revision of the directive on electronic commerce.
The Socialist Group will therefore vote in favour of the report and endorse two amendments tabled by Mrs Junker. Regarding these amendments, I would like to highlight the need for Community legislation to ensure that events or shows of great interest to the citizens should be protected from digitalisation so that they can be made available to all social classes free of charge.
Mr President, Commissioner, while I would like, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, to thank the rapporteur for this report, I would also like to echo the previous speaker in drawing attention to the future.
The Commission' s report states that the next report on the directive must also address issues which are important to the consumer, such as operational compatibility, conditional access and how the transition to digital broadcast technology will take place, but the world may already have moved on by the time the next report is drawn up.
I would like to remind everyone that, when debating the 'telecom package' , Parliament approved by a large majority the fact that we should demand an open, common standard for TV transmitters and receivers, the only one so far approved in Europe and known as the MHP standard.
This standard would guarantee a situation in which all consumers knew what applied and one in which they had the confidence to acquire the necessary equipment. It would also guarantee that vertically divided markets did not arise.
A large majority of Parliament backed this view.
But what has happened since then? The Commission does not support this decision, and the Council has entirely ignored the issue, which I believe is of immense importance if we are to achieve what is known as Digital Update and promote digital technology in all TV markets.
I therefore hope that the Commission in its entirety can start to support the demands which have been made by Parliament and which we in the ELDR Group would like to clarify a little.
The rapporteur has already pointed out this requirement, but I would like to repeat it in order to make it clear to all the services of the Commission.
Some have said that 'Television without Frontiers' is a loaded title for the directive.
There is also a special set of problems in this context.
In many cases we see that the directive has not functioned in the intended manner with regard to opinion-formers or individual consumers who wish to view TV from another country.
The Commission has found that the way in which copyright is handled prevents it from doing so.
I hope that this issue too will be debated in greater depth in the future.
Mr President, there are many who believe that this report does not go far enough in analysing the potential problems facing us as we embark on the revision of the Television without frontiers directive, expected in 2002 as we are all aware.
However, it raises some very important issues and it is important to start that dialogue now.
My personal concern is the role of public service broadcasters in this important agenda.
It is important to recognise that today's public service broadcasting needs to adapt to the changes.
Today's radio and TV sector is a competitive one and the market forces which largely govern it cannot be ignored.
Public service broadcasters have a crucial role to play in the digital world.
Public service broadcasters make programmes of high quality in indigenous languages reflecting indigenous cultures.
They also have a crucial role to play in encouraging people to use and understand the new digital media.
I agree with the Commissioner's statement in a recent communication that broadcasting and culture should remain within the WTO's services category and that this arrangement should be respected.
Having established that, we then need to be absolutely certain that there is sufficient scope for national and EU legislation to protect public services and cultural entities.
Robust and determined early regulatory action will be needed to create the open environment we all seek, and one which is in the real interests of all citizens and economies of Europe.
Europe has to compete in the digital world where consumers and citizens can wander freely and where competition delivers diversity and choice.
With its complementary mix then of private and public service broadcasters, the European audiovisual model guarantees pluralism of information, cultural diversity and access for all to information, education, entertainment and the arts.
I will be voting in favour of the report and look forward very much to the forthcoming debates as we look to the future.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on the work she has done and also the Commission on such an appropriate initiative.
Nevertheless, I would like to highlight three aspects which seem to me very important.
The first is the importance of the audiovisual sector in promoting sport.
We must not forget that sport contributes to forging an identity and bringing people together, as well as uniting sportspeople and spectators by offering the latter the opportunity to identify with their nation.
Furthermore, sport is one of the fields of activity which most affects and touches on the citizens of the European Union regardless of their age or social origin, and therefore sport cannot and must not be discriminatory and all the citizens of the European Union must be able to see sporting events.
They must not be a privilege for the few, since these events are of great importance to our society.
The second issue is the need to control advertising slots, and I therefore fully support the rapporteur when she backs the Commission' s strategy of carrying out a study on the repercussions of television advertising and TV shopping techniques on minors.
And the third issue I would like to highlight is my total support for the rapporteur' s request that the Member States strengthen dialogue and cooperation on all issues relating to the protection of minors and young people.
We cannot aspire to a world without violence when our future adults spend the day watching increasingly violent animated cartoons, films and news items.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 2000 there were 152 households in the European Union with television sets able to receive over 580 different channels.
That implies a growth of around 180% in just four years.
These figures alone should be enough to illustrate that the conventional television market, which only covers a small part of the overall audio-visual sector, is a major growth sector.
The Commission report shows that the Television without frontiers directive, which was originally highly controversial in my own country in particular, has proved its worth.
It provides sensible conditions for international broadcasting.
In the period covered by the report, 50 channels were already aiming chiefly at markets outside their local area.
The TWF directive closed various regional legal gaps and created binding standards for areas including advertising and the protection of minors, thus creating a level playing field in terms of equal opportunities and competitiveness.
I welcome the way the Hieronymi report sets all this out.
However, it also makes it clear that we need to embark as quickly as possible on a new review of the TWF directive, if we are to keep pace with the fast-moving developments in the audio-visual sector in a time of increasing digitalisation.
That applies not only to the provision of all kinds of multimedia services, it also involves an appropriate approach to the trend in concentration of the media, which is also progressing at a pace that is hard to follow.
The other side of the coin is the need to ensure freedom of information, diversity of opinion and pluralism, and to establish an essential multimedia foundation to promote European cultural diversity.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Ruth Hieronymi on her excellent work on this issue.
Her achievement has been demonstrated by the wide consensus she has obtained on this important but extremely sensitive subject.
I agree with the general philosophy of her report and with the proposals it contains.
As regards the method used, I think it is regrettable that the results obtained were not evaluated in relation to the set objectives.
This would have produced a better picture of the real cultural and economic implications of this directive for each of the Member States and candidate countries.
On the other hand, I support the wish of the rapporteur and the Commission to propose a revision of the directive, and to do this in parallel with the revision of other directives, after initiating three in-depth studies.
Only an overall approach will lead in the medium term to the development of a coherent and forceful policy. Please note I am talking about an approach.
This is something that the directive does not at present provide.
The audiovisual sector has undergone profound changes. New services have necessitated new technologies and have also led to an increase in the number of broadcasters.
As a result, the sector has been completely transformed. Consequently, if we want to ensure the continuity of our audiovisual sector, we must now widen the scope of the directive.
I have a number of concerns on this matter.
There continues to be an imbalance between European cinema production and imports from the United States. European films rarely reach a European Union audience outside the country where they are produced.
Six per cent of European films are shown outside their country of origin.
Of the total volume of programs, 74% are fictional works imported from America and only 14% are European in origin.
As well as simply exporting programmes, major industry players are promoting the export of American thematic television channels to Europe.
These are sold both to digital grouping operators and cable satellite channels. In addition, Europe lags considerably behind the United States in the development of the digital sector.
These are the difficult issues confronting us.
This is why I believe that the only possible response is global and proactive action by the European Union. Over and above the economic and financial issues, which are clearly very important, is the key issue of our cultures, identities and the values we hold dear.
We agree with you.
I see that you are very well informed by a Spanish compatriot of mine.
Mrs Reding has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, to begin with, I would like to thank Mrs Hieronymi very much for her excellent report, and for her commitment to television and cinema.
This commitment demonstrates that Parliament understands the importance of the Television without frontiers directive and its implementation.
I would like to remind honourable Members that Mrs Hieronymi' s report does not deal with the development of television in general, nor is it about cinema. It deals with the Commission' s report on the implementation of the Television without frontiers directive between 1997 and 2000.
I completely agree with those Members who deplore the state of European cinema, and are critical of both the quality of films and the industry' s economic role. I would like to remind them that last week the Commission published its report on cinema.
Mr President, I am sure Parliament will have the opportunity to begin a wide-ranging debate on the development of cinema in Europe.
I wish it well. However, the issues relating to television are slightly different.
I would like to draw your attention to the promotion of the distribution and production of television programs (as outlined in Articles 4 and 5 of the directive). It can be seen that the weighted average of European programmes broadcast by the major channels is between 53 and 81%, with the exception of one country.
It should also be noted that the majority of Member States have introduced more rigorous legislation than that provided for by the directive.
Fortunately, the situation is far better for television than for cinema.
Therefore, Mr President, I propose that we discuss the subject of cinema seriously for once in this House.
It is very important that we hold this debate.
Several Members have spoken of the need to revise the directive.
This process is already under way.
It began this year with a wide-ranging consultation with the industry.
The process will continue next year.
I am sure you know that we have begun three studies on different aspects of the directive on the Audiovisual sector. We have ensured that these studies are undertaken by experts who are independent.
They are therefore impartial studies, benefiting from the input of the industry and providing an objective assessment of the situation on the ground. The consultants involved have organised workshops bringing together people from the industry, from government and politicians.
Members of Parliament were also invited to these workshops. Plans are afoot for further workshops.
Surveys of the views of interested parties will, of course, be followed by assessment and drafting work.
The findings will be brought together in a series of reports which our consultants should make available to us at the end of this year or January next year. The Commission will then begin its own consultation process with the publication of a working document, to which everyone will be invited to respond before the summer of 2002.
Mr President, Parliament will therefore have plenty of opportunity to reconsider the avenues explored in Mrs Hieronymi' s report.
Most importantly, Members will also be able to examine possible future directions. On the basis of the work undertaken, and depending on the results obtained, this will lead to an institutional debate on the directive and, if necessary, on the Commission' s proposals for a new directive, between now and the end of 2002.
I would like to point out that I agree with Members on the need to reform the directive. It is clear that the process in which we are engaged is extremely complex.
The views of Parliament will be taken into account at each stage of the process. Mrs Hieronymi' s report devotes much attention to the revision process, while also illustrating the complexity and importance of the debate.
Mr President, if I may, I would like to examine two parts of the report presented to Parliament. I wish to comment on Recital H and Article 1 e).
According to Recital H, the directive is now obsolete and applies only to generalist, free-to-air television, for which purpose it was originally created. This is an inaccurate assessment of the situation.
The directive has a much wider scope.
It applies to broadcasting in general, including subscription and thematic broadcasters, and also to digital and analogue broadcasting.
The comments made in Recital H are therefore mistaken. They constitute a serious error as the directive does not apply to the Internet as the Internet did not exist when the directive was drafted.
Appropriate provisions should therefore be included in the revised directive. At present, it is risky to say that the directive is obsolete for the simple reason that this could play into the hands of Member States that have not yet implemented the directive.
Your rapporteur underlined this point: why implement an obsolete directive? This would result in no action being taken and no further pressure could be applied.
The final outcome would be the opposite of the wishes of Parliament. This may also pose problems for candidate countries.
They are currently experiencing considerable difficulties in transposing the acquis into their own legislation. I shall say more about them later.
Are we going to force them to implement an acquis that Parliament considers to be obsolete? In the interests of this matter, Mr President, it is therefore extremely important to amend this part of the text.
We must also ensure that we do not give a negative impression to Member States implementing the directive, or to the candidate countries transposing the acquis. Rather, we must remind them that the directive continues to provide legal certainty to European audiovisual operators.
Some Members have already, quite rightly, highlighted this point.
Point 1) e) of the report deplores the fact that the Commission has provided insufficient information on the efforts made by the candidate countries to implement the acquis relating to the audiovisual sector, and has not stressed the need for them to increase their efforts.
I would like to remind you that the report drafted according to Article 26 of the directive deals solely with the implementation of this directive by the Member States of the European Union.
It does not deal with the adoption of the acquis by the candidate countries.
It therefore follows that there are no details on the adoption of the acquis, or of recommendations for these countries.
That said, I have some good news on this subject as the overall situation regarding the adoption of the acquis has improved since the end of 2000.
All candidate countries, except for Romania, Hungary and Turkey, have provisionally closed Chapter 20 relating to the audiovisual sector. This clearly shows that the national legislation of the great majority of the countries concerned complies with the acquis.
Mr President, I would like to thank Parliament for always having supported me very strongly in my efforts to try to make progress to benefit our cultural industries, and also our cultural diversity.
I can but say to Parliament that our work has only just begun. Revising the Television without frontiers directive will be a considerable and highly complex task in which I will continue to need the resolute support of Parliament.
On the basis of past experience, I feel you will not fail me.
Thank you very much, Mrs Reding.
We are also grateful for this impetus you are giving to the revision of directives.
I am sure that the Commission and the European Parliament will work together to bring us up to date.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Questions to the Council (B5-0333/2001).
The Council will be represented by Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, President-in-Office of the Council.
Question No 1 by (H-0689/01):
Subject: The 'Republika Srpska' What policy is the Council Presidency pursuing towards the so-called 'Republika Srpska' in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with particular regard to cooperation with the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague and to the return of expellees?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council has repeatedly and consistently stressed the great importance the European Union attaches to compliance by the countries participating in the stabilisation and association process with the international obligations relating to the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia and to establishing a lasting settlement on the issue of refugees and displaced persons.
This forms part of the European Union conditions of the stabilisation and association process. The countries of the Former Yugoslavia subscribed to these conditions at the Zagreb Summit.
On 11 June the Council approved a report assessing the progress achieved by the countries of the region in relation to these conditions for European integration. The report also contained specific proposals detailing how the countries can continue working towards this aim.
On that occasion, the Council concluded that Bosnia-Herzegovina had not cooperated sufficiently with the International Criminal Court for the Former Yugoslavia, especially as regards Republika Srpska.
None of those indicted for war crimes had been arrested by the authorities of Republika Srpska.
The Council therefore ordered Bosnia-Herzegovina to take further measures to ensure that it complies in full with the Dayton-Paris agreement and collaborates fully with the International Court.
On that same occasion, the European Union expressed its view that the process of the return of refugees and displaced people throughout the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina should be speeded up. It was also stated that measures to create the proper conditions to enable people to return should be strengthened.
The European Union also expressed its hope to see the governments of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Republika Srpska implement all the recommendations that have been made.
The Council will ensure these matters are monitored.
This monitoring process will also allow the European Union periodically to assess compliance with the criteria established as part of the stabilisation and association process. This will enable us to assess the level of the relations established, and to decide if the level of technical and economic assistance can still be justified.
We could certainly use this tool to apply pressure on the governments of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Republika Srpska, should it prove necessary to do so.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I have two short additional questions. First, I would like to know if Council has asked the Republica Srpska how many expellees and refugees have now returned to the Republica Srpska.
Are any figures available on this? Secondly, I would like to ask if cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has had any repercussions on the finances of the Republica Srpska.
As regards your first question, I am unable to answer this at present but we shall check and see if more accurate figures are available.
I believe I have already given the beginning of an answer to your second question, in that the Council has clearly indicated that, if the situation does not improve, it may consider revising the funds placed at the disposal of the authorities, both in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the Republika Srpska.
Question No 2 by (H-0690/01):
Subject: European regions, subsidiarity and reform of the treaties Under the weight of so many treaties (the first being Rome and the latest Nice), Europe can no longer be regarded (as far as either individuals or the public as a whole are concerned) as something 'international' ; it is now something 'internal' , not just in economic or market terms but from all points of view.
The Flemings and the Walloons cannot look upon us Basques (nor the Catalans upon the Finns, the Scots or the Welsh) as foreigners.
We are all citizens and peoples who belong to Europe.
Does the Council therefore support the idea put forward some time ago in Belgium by Mr Dreze concerning the setting up within Europe of Euro-entities, that is, non-state political bodies which would be granted EU legal personality so that they could establish and maintain direct relations with the Committee of the Regions, the Commission, the Court of Justice, etc., and conclude valid agreements with other public authorities anywhere in the EU, as an extension of European law? Does the Council not think that this issue should be specifically pursued as an initiative relating to the future of the Union, to be considered under the procedure for debating the reform of the treaties which is to be established at the Laeken European Council?
On behalf of the Council, I would remind you that the Union, in accordance with Article 6(3) of the Treaty on European Union, respects the national identity of the Member States, while Article 48 of the same Treaty stipulates that the Intergovernmental Conference has the task of establishing by mutual agreement the amendments to be included in the Treaties.
During Question Time in July, I was given the opportunity to reply to a number of questions - I believe there were ten in all - about the possible added value which an active and institutionalised participation of so-called sub-state groups would give to the debates at Union level.
I then said that the Council, without denying the incontrovertible political impact of the Committee of the Regions, was at the time unable to give a detailed response to questions concerning the role of the regional units in the Union' s structures.
The Council obviously knows the different viewpoints and is carefully following the developments around topics directly related to the balance of power within the European structures, starting with the concept of subsidiarity itself.
At this stage, on behalf of the Council, all I can do is look to the very near future, that is to say to the forthcoming meeting in Laeken, where the European Council intends to adopt a declaration which will form the basis for creating conditions to guarantee the Union' s future.
And at that meeting, I have no doubt that the tone will be set for the way in which the preparation of the IGC 2004 will have to be structured and how participation will need to be extended.
Moreover, I would like to refer you to the very thorough explanation and reply which Minister Michel gave this morning on behalf of the Council, and in which he has already given a few quite specific indications in this connection.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, in the Councils of Ministers, decisions are often adopted which affect the exclusive legislative competences of historic nations such as the Basque Country, Catalonia or Scotland, of regions such as Flanders or Wallonia, of federal states such as Bavaria, Baden-Baden, Rhineland, etc.
Do you not believe that, in the event of a conflict of competences resulting from decisions adopted in the Council without the presence or acquiescence of the historic nations, regions or federal states affected, the latter constitutional entities should be empowered to present their case to the European Court of Justice, since that Court has the power under the Treaty to hear and pass judgment on these conflicts?
Do you not believe that the European Council at Laeken should include these issues in the future debate on the Union and the distribution of competences between the Union, the Member States and the other institutional bodies?
Mr President, Mr Ortuondo Larrea, although this is an issue about which I am extremely passionate, I do not feel that it would be advisable for us to resume the debate which took place in this House last July.
I did, I believe, at that point in time answer in a comprehensive manner, partly on behalf of the Council where possible, and partly in my own name.
Allow me therefore to refer you to the Minutes of that sitting in which you will find all the replies to the questions you have just asked.
Question No 3 by (H-0691/01):
Subject: Working languages in the European Patent Office On Thursday, 31 May 2001, the Council published a common position on the Community patent.
With regard to the language regime used at the European Patent Office, the text simply notes that translation costs must be limited.
It is a fundamental principle of the European Union that everybody should be able to address the institutions in any of the eleven official languages.
Does the Council agree that it must be possible for an application for a patent to be submitted to the European Patent Office in any of the eleven official languages of the EU? If so, how does the Council guarantee that individuals and businesses may submit applications for a patent in any of the eleven official languages?
If not, how can the Council justify a position which is so at odds with the official line?
Does the Council support the Greek government' s plan to lodge a complaint against the language regime used by the Community Trade Mark Office in Alicante?
It is correct that on 31 May 2001, the Council adopted a common position on the Community patent with the aim of furthering future discussions on this subject.
With regard to the language regime used at the European Patent Office, the common position posits that it must be based on a number of principles which apply universally, including the principle of non-discrimination.
In order to curb the cost of translation, further consideration must be given to the various suggestions made in this connection, including technical translation aids, without ruling out other options a priori.
Having regard to these guidelines, the Council recently started discussing the provisions presented in the Commission proposal for a regulation on the Community patent, as well as the other solutions which have been provided for consideration by various Member States.
In any case, the honourable Member will understand that the Council is not prepared at this time to adopt a clearer position concerning this motion for a resolution, including the linguistic aspects involved, as long as the European Parliament, consulted in accordance with Article 308 of the Treaty, has not issued a recommendation on the matter.
The Council would remind the honourable MEP that the language regime of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market is established by the Regulation on the Community Trade Mark. This regulation was adopted unanimously by the Council following the agreement reached at the Conference of government representatives at the level of Heads of State and Government on 29 October 1993.
Moreover, with regard to the steps taken by the Greek government in case T-120/99, the Council is taking note of the judgment pronounced in this case by the Court of First Instance. This judgment rejects the appeal, as well as the arguments, of the requesting party against the language regime of that office.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as we have come to expect of you, you are being extremely polite to the European Parliament.
It is very considerate of you to refer to Article 308.
We all know that Article 308 concerns a unanimous decision taken by the Council following a recommendation from Parliament.
So that is why you are waiting before adopting a clear stance.
I can understand that, but despite this, we must all realise that there appears to be only a few Member States, including Portugal, Spain, Greece, Finland and Italy, which are strongly opposed to the exclusive use of French, English and German.
All the other Member States, including my own country, unfortunately, agree to the very limited application of this language regime.
I would now like to ask you whether it would not be preferable to guarantee that the key elements of such a patent, namely the conclusions, which hardly take up two to three pages, are at least made available in all the languages.
That would considerably enhance the legal certainty of the citizens and business people in the European Union.
There would then be no need to translate twenty or thirty pages, rather only the conclusions.
I believe that we would thus bring Europe a little closer to the citizen.
Some time ago, I was given the opportunity to look into this matter more deeply.
The suggestion by Mr Staes is one of the suggestions which are currently being tabled.
President-in-Office, European industry is losing its competitive edge in regard to reaching the targets that you and the Council set for it at Lisbon by the extreme cost and time delays involved in obtaining patents in Europe.
I believe the Belgian presidency undertook to make a special effort to have the Community patent installed and implemented during its presidency.
I would be interested to know what progress is being made and whether you really are resolving the language issue in the European Patent Office.
Efforts are under way.
The Council Presidency has decided to consult each government individually and confidentially in what is called in French la procédure du confessional, in order to see whether it is possible to proceed, and with the firm desire to reach an agreement by the end of the year if at all possible.
Of course this matter does not rest with us alone.
There has to be agreement across the board, and we are working on this.
I should just like to underline Mr Staes's point on the importance of the language regime, while not ignoring the importance of the point my colleague, Mr Purvis, has made about the need for speed.
Nevertheless, the whole business of taking research on to the development stage is important.
If we are to have good research in all the universities and all the areas of the Community, it is really important for people to be able to work in their own language, even though, of course, most scientists work in English much of the time.
We take note of your statement, which is not a question.
Mr MacCormick, did you want to add anything?
My question was implicit: does the Minister agree?
Yes!
We say in Castilian 'lo bueno, si breve, dos veces bueno' [the good, if brief, is twice as good].
That is clearly the case here.
As the author is not present, Question No 4 lapses.
Question No 5 by , which has been taken over by Mr Bautista Ojeda (H-0696/01):
Subject: European Maritime Safety Agency Has the Spanish government submitted a proposal for the siting of the European Maritime Safety Agency? Has the government suggested that the Agency be sited in Galicia, in view of Galicia's strategic location as far as Atlantic traffic is concerned and its importance as a maritime centre?
The Commission' s proposal concerning the establishment of a European Maritime Safety Agency, presented at the end of last year within the context of the 'Erika II' package, is still under consideration by the Council authorities, and the question of where this future agency is to be based remains unanswered.
To date, the Council has not received an official proposal from the Spanish government concerning the agency' s headquarters.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you have not commented because clearly, as you said, the Spanish State has still not made any formal proposal.
I would like to refer to an objective fact: Spain has always had a great maritime vocation and enjoys a privileged situation in terms of both Atlantic and Mediterranean maritime traffic, and I believe that some of those Spanish coastal territories meet all the appropriate conditions for being the location for the headquarters of this European agency.
Thank you very much, Mr Bautista Ojeda.
I would remind Members that this is Question Time and not a time to make statements or advocate certain proposals.
So in the future please try to ask questions.
At least give the impression of asking a question.
Mrs Korhola has the floor for a supplementary question.
Mr President, I would like to ask the representative of the Council what the general timetable is for deciding to establish planned agencies such as the Maritime Safety Agency and, in particular, the Food Safety Agency, and is the intention to take the decision on all of them in one go or separately for each agency?
As I have pointed out, this question is still under discussion.
As you know, this question relates to decisions concerning several agencies.
On this extremely sensitive issue, as you can well imagine, we aim to reach agreement on all the unanswered questions by the end of the year, and I hope that we are successful in achieving this aim.
Question No 6 by (H-0699/01):
Subject: Illegal immigration into the European Union through Morocco What action is the Council planning to take in order to control illegal immigration into the European Union through Morocco, with a view to preventing any recurrence of the tragic events which have occurred this summer, involving the loss of human life in Community waters?
Illegal immigration into the European Union via Morocco is permanently on the Council' s agenda.
For that reason, the Council set up a High-Level Group in December 1998 to deal with asylum and migration issues. This group is responsible for drawing up action plans for a number of countries of origin of asylum seekers and/or illegal immigrants.
With a view to drafting these action plans, the group has pursued a cross-pillar approach which takes account of a number of aspects related to foreign policy, economic development and the management of migration flows.
One of the countries that has been earmarked for such an action plan is Morocco.
In October 1999, the Council adopted an action plan which provides for measures that pertain, inter alia, to the fight against illegal immigration.
The European Council of Tampere subsequently approved the action plans and expressed the wish that the measures it contains be carried out in the framework of a partnership with the countries involved.
At the initial session of the Moroccan-European Union Association Committee in Rabat in February 2001, it was agreed to set up a working party on social issues and migration.
This working party, established by decision of the Association Council of 4 April 2001, met for the first time in July and has indeed set up an informal group for migration between the European Union and Morocco.
At that meeting, three topics were flagged as priority topics for cooperation in the field of immigration.
The first topic was socio-economic cooperation and, in particular, assistance for micro- enterprises and for small and medium-sized companies.
Secondly, there was the topic of guidance concerning legal migration to the European Union and the fight against illegal immigration networks, including transit-migration from countries south of the Sahara.
For each of those topics from the High-Level Group' s action plan, a dossier will be drawn up concerning the projects to be carried out jointly.
Each dossier will contain a description of the project, an indicative description of the resources to be deployed, the budget line which will be required and a timeframe for the implementation of the project.
Each dossier will be communicated through diplomatic channels to the other party, which may then add its own proposals.
The Association Council which meets on 9 October will exchange ideas on migration and will add renewed momentum to the cooperation efforts in that field.
In the light of the particularly tragic events which have unfolded in recent weeks in Morocco and the EU countries, this is a weighty matter indeed.
Finally, Morocco will, in the person of its Minister for Justice, Mr Azziman, also be taking part in the Ministerial Conference on migration, which will take place on 16 and 17 October at the European Parliament in Brussels, an event which I will be attending as well.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I thank you for your detailed reply, but I would like to ask a couple of supplementary questions because I put this question before the tragic events of 11 September. The Council is aware of the current security problems on our continent.
So I would firstly like to ask whether the Council is aware that we have an open border across which the European Union' s security cannot be guaranteed?
And in this regard, whether the Council is aware that every day hundreds, and every month thousands, of people are losing their lives as a result of maintaining this deceptively open border, because many of those who try to cross it die in the process? That is to say, what can the Council do to prevent this human tragedy from continuing and to guarantee the security of the citizens of the European Union?
Mr President, I can only say to Mr Medina Ortega that we are of course aware of all the aspects, both on a human scale and in terms of security, which contribute to the gravity of the situation.
As I mentioned just now, I myself was only recently in Morocco, in Tangier, where I really saw the extent of the problem caused by illegal immigration across the strait, which in certain places really earns its name as it is barely 12 or 14 kilometres wide at its narrowest point.
Of course, we are aware of this problem and this is why all these initiatives have been implemented.
I also know from the contacts I made whilst on my trip to Morocco, which was not on behalf of the European Union but in my role as Belgian Minister, that the Moroccan authorities are also acutely aware of this problem.
They too do not watch with a light heart as members of the population embark on such perilous missions.
What does, however, occasionally upset the Moroccan authorities, and this I can understand, is that we sometimes tend to establish a little too easily a link between people from Morocco and security risks.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, in 1998 this House adopted my proposal for a common European border police.
However, by the beginning of this year neither the old Italian government nor the German government had adopted this.
I would like to ask you if the Council has made any further progress with this issue of a common European border police or if anything is planned in this area under the Belgian Presidency.
What I can tell Mr Posselt is that the question of border security concerns us intensely and that this is actually one of the priority areas on which our presidency is to take action, certainly in view of the fact that enlargement of the European Union will mean a corresponding extension of these borders.
This is therefore an extremely significant goal to which we attach a great deal of importance and progress towards which we are monitoring extremely closely.
The same sort of illegal immigration is taking place on a huge scale via Turkey to the Aegean and the Greek islands. First, do these plans for Morocco include Turkey?
Secondly, has the Council taken any action vis-à-vis Turkey, which has been granted candidate status and therefore has an additional obligation towards the European Union to guard its borders properly? Hordes of illegal immigrants can hardly pass by unnoticed.
What has the Council done about this?
I can only repeat what I have just said.
This is an issue of very great concern to us, the more so because my country is one of the preferred countries of destination for illegal migration.
We are fully aware of the problem in all its aspects and we are working very hard on it and addressing all third parties on the subject.
Question No 7 by (H-0705/01):
Subject: Illegal conferral of Greek citizenship and a large number of violations of Community law established by a formal administrative inquiry A formal administrative inquiry held in the Greek Embassy in Moscow has uncovered not only a number of breaches of discipline, but also evidence that offences were committed with the purpose of illegally granting Greek citizenship.
In view of both the large number of 'repatriations' (some 150 000 processed by the Moscow Embassy) and the fact that significant information was concealed by officials of this Embassy, a further judicial inquiry is now being sought to shed light on this matter.
It should be pointed out that all these violations have taken place despite Greece's full participation in the Schengen acquis.
Given that in the elections in the Year 2000 votes were cast by persons who were not entitled to do so, which creates a serious political problem, will the Council say:
What is its position on the illegal naturalisations in question and the large number of illegal 'repatriations' on the basis of the Schengen acquis?
Will it bear these findings in mind, given that, according to the answer to my Written Question E-1438/01, the Greek government has not so far provided any information about the number of illegal naturalisations and 'repatriations' for 1999 and 2000? What measures does it intend to take to prevail upon the Greek government to provide these figures and to put an end to the practices in question, to ensure transparency and to annul all the illegal naturalisations?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the questions raised by Mr Trakatellis concern the naturalisation of citizens in a Member State of the European Union and the repatriation of these citizens.
Mention is made of suspicions surrounding practices which are currently the subject of an inquiry that the public prosecutor has been asked to carry out.
Lastly, the question conjures up a presumed link between these practices and the Schengen Agreements.
I must point out that the Council is not qualified to comment on the circumstances in which Member States may or may not grant citizenship.
In fact, naturalisation policy falls within the competence of the Member States.
Therefore, in the case in question, the application of these provisions falls within the competence of the Greek government, which Mr Trakatellis should address directly for the answers to the questions he has raised.
Finally, the Council feels that, for details of immigration and statistics concerning the number of naturalisations, Mr Trakatellis could usefully refer to the reply given to him in July by the Commission in response to question E-1438/01 concerning the years prior to that mentioned here and ask the Commission to provide him with the figures for 1999 and 2000 as soon as these are available.
Thank you for your reply.
I shall take your advice as regards the figures for 1999 and 2000 which, I should point out, the Commission was unable to give me even yesterday because it did not yet have them, even though it is 2001 and the Member States naturally have a duty under the Schengen Agreement.
I should like to ask you specifically: if and insofar as a Member State naturalises a person or persons, can that person, once they have obtained a passport or an identity card from the Member State, live anywhere in the European Union?
If it later emerges that they should not have been naturalised, is the Member State which naturalised them obliged to pass this information on to the other Member States so that the person who has no right to live in the European Union can be located? And if it has this duty towards Europol and the other Member States, my question is this: has the Greek government provided this information?
We have proof that there are people who have obtained Greek nationality but were not entitled to do so.
I can only repeat what I have just said.
The granting of nationality is an exclusive competence of the Member States.
That does not answer my question.
I do not dispute the fact that nationality is granted by the Member States, my question is: what happens when it should not have been granted and the person is living in another Member State?
How will that person later be located? What practical method do we have for locating him or her?
Again, as the granting of nationality falls within the competence of the Member States, it is up to the judiciary of the Member State concerned to decide whether the obtaining of nationality by illegal means, if proven, warrants any given action.
That is a matter for the Member State.
It is not for the Council or the European Union to decide what should happen.
If one holds a passport, one can use it.
I am sorry I missed that one.
I understand quite a lot of Spanish but not everything.
Sometimes I think I am fortunate not to understand everything.
I thank the honourable Member for his question, but as the quoted statements were not made by Prime Minister Verhofstadt in his capacity as President-in-Office of the Council, it is difficult for me to comment on them on behalf of the Council, which I represent here today.
Mr President, Minister, when Sweden held the presidency, the custom was that if the Minister did not answer the question asked him or her in this session the possibility of providing a written reply also existed.
I remember Sweden' s European Minister very often replying in writing to questions on which he or she, as President-in-Office of the Council, did not want to take a stand.
I would therefore ask Belgium' s representative if she could continue the policy adopted by Sweden in this matter and reply to me in writing, in her capacity as Belgian Minister, stating the answer to this question, and also which country Belgium considers to be the most federalist state in Europe; the totally unfounded claim has been put forward that this country would be Finland.
This claim was made by the Belgian Prime Minister, at a press conference during the Belgian presidential term, to be exact.
I can only repeat what I said.
The statement was made by Mr Verhofstadt in his capacity as Prime Minister of Belgium, not as President-in-Office of the Council.
Therefore I cannot, on behalf of the Council, comment on those statements.
Question No 9 by (H-0717/01):
Subject: Cooperation agreement with Iran and legislative reforms in respect of women With reference to the political dialogue between the European Union and Iran and to the most recent meeting (in September) of the Troika in Tehran, will such cooperation and dialogue lead to any improvement in the legal situation of Iranian women? What progress is expected to be made?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the main aim of the European Union's policy towards Iran is to encourage internal reforms in that country.
The issue of human rights is an important point in the political dialogue with Iran.
Any future trade and cooperation agreement with this country must also include human rights clauses.
During the recent round of political dialogue which took place in Tehran on 3 September, the European Union raised the topic of human rights along with the issues of judicial reforms and democratic rights, including freedom of expression and the press, the death penalty and recent cases involving the stoning of women.
As regards the situation of Iranian women, improvement not only of their legal status but also of the concrete reality of their situation is a specific aim of the dialogue.
The European Union noted with interest the efforts of the Iranian government and Parliament to introduce new legislation geared towards women and girls.
I am referring, for example, to the draft law designed to raise the legal age of marriage for girls to 15 and to the draft law giving women the right to unconditional divorce.
Unfortunately, the Council can, to date, only regret that these efforts have still not come to anything due to opposition from other Iranian bodies, most notably the Council of Guardians.
At the last session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, the European Union took the initiative of tabling a resolution on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Swedish Presidency submitted a draft resolution on behalf of the European Union at this session.
This resolution was adopted on 20 April this year.
The Commission on Human Rights, according to the terms of this resolution, welcomes the improvement seen in the area of women' s education and health and their participation in democratic life in the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as the efforts made to improve the situation of women and girls, particularly by means of laws designed to raise the legal age of marriage and lift the ban barring unmarried women from studying abroad. However, the Commission is also gravely concerned by the fact that these drafts have yet to be enacted in law.
Enactment would be a way of putting an end to the systematic discrimination against women and girls in legislation and in practice and a way of removing the obstacles preventing women and girls from exercising their fundamental rights fully and equally.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, thank you very much for your reply, which I believe offers hope in an area in which there are serious difficulties.
I would like to ask the Council whether it would be in favour of carrying out monitoring, even of agreeing a timetable on the progress made in relation to the situation of women in terms of laws, because the Council is aware, like us, that if these improvements are not introduced into laws, they will not be consolidated.
I therefore believe that the Council is working very seriously and in agreement with the European Parliament in this area, but does the Council not believe that at some point it would be good to agree a timetable for introducing this progress and these improvements into laws since that is the only way to consolidate them?
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I would like to reply by saying that you have of course made an interesting suggestion.
I believe that the main thing as regards the development of the situation is that the political dialogue now seems to be well under way and, moreover, in a serious fashion, and I believe that we must all, each at our own level, endeavour to keep this dialogue going, to broaden it and, above all, to continue and maintain it in order to encourage those among the authorities who are working for progress to continue to make headway in this direction.
Question No 10 by (H-0719/01):
Subject: Repatriating Mobotu funds While welcoming the Belgian law allowing individuals to seek the arrest of suspected war criminals visiting Belgium, would the President-in-Office of the Council indicate who had been tried for the crimes committed in the former Congo and will he indicate what measures have been taken to repatriate funds lodged in Belgian and other banks in the name of the former 'President' Mobotu of Zaire and the steps that have been taken in order to confiscate former family assets in Brussels?
The response is as follows : the question that was put by the honourable MEP falls outside of the Council' s competence.
The Belgian Presidency has probably been the best presidency I have witnessed in the 18 years I have been a Member of this House.
It is making an impact with the citizens.
My question does not just refer to the Mobotu funds that are spread throughout Europe and lying dormant in banks or are perhaps being used by undesirable types.
It also deals with the law in Belgium which apparently allows the arrest of people suspected of war crimes.
There was the recent case of the Israeli Prime Minister being threatened with legal action.
My question also relates to the historical responsibility of the European Union, including the presidency, for colonialism and for the atrocities committed in various states.
For instance, would the President-in-Office tell me who so far has been charged with complicity in the murder of President Lumumba and the installation of the psychopath Mobotu, which resulted in great pain for the former colony of the Congo?
I would like to tell the honourable Member that, when I told him his questions concerned matters not within the competence of the Council, I was referring to his questions as a whole.
Questions concerning the Belgian government should be addressed to the latter.
I am here to represent the Presidency of the Council of the entire European Union, as you very well know.
(Protests from Mr Andrews)
The reply of the President-in-Office is clear.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you have the floor if you wish.
That is rather a personal point.
I am not afraid to answer but this morning Minister Michel was here.
He spoke at length about the way the Durban Conference went.
If you had questions about your and my and other people's colonial past, then that was the moment to ask them, to make your remarks and to formulate your criticisms.
Question No 11 by (H-0720/01):
Subject: Freedom of movement for EU citizens and legality of the Italian government's actions In the wake of the discussions on the incidents which took place before and after the G8 Summit in Genoa, some questions remain as to how the Council characterises and assesses the Italian government's actions from a strictly legal point of view. The Italian government suspended the Schengen Agreement.
Does the Council believe that this suspension was sufficiently justified and complied with the provisions of the Schengen Agreement itself? If the Schengen Agreement has been suspended, what legal regime applies, in the Council's view, with regard to travel by citizens of EU Member States to another Member State which has suspended application of the Schengen Agreement?
Do the provisions of the EU Treaty concerning freedom of movement also cease to apply? In other words, does the Italian government have the right to ban hundreds of Greek citizens who travelled to Italy (in order to demonstrate in Genoa) from disembarking from their ship at the port of Ancona without even checking their passports and without any explanation?
Question No 12 by (H-0724/01):
Subject: Registration in the SIS Large-scale demonstrations and major clashes between certain groups of demonstrators and the police occurred in connection with the European Council meeting in Gothenburg and the G8 meeting in Genoa.
In both Gothenburg and Genoa, the police used excessive force and abusive tactics, including assaults on and the arbitrary arrest and improper treatment of non-violent demonstrators.
Most of those arrested during the two demonstrations have since not been charged with any offence.
Can the Council guarantee that demonstrators who were arrested and identified, but are not suspected of any criminal offence, will not be registered in the SIS?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the questions raised by Messrs Papayannakis and Sjöstedt concern, on the one hand, the conditions surrounding the reinstatement of internal border controls in a Member State which applies the Schengen acquis and, on the other hand, the conditions for the entry of an alert in the 'Schengen Information System' in relation to the events at the G8 meeting in Genoa.
As regards the first point, this situation does not in fact correspond to what the two Members have referred to in their question as, and I quote, "an abolition of the validity of the Schengen Convention" .
The reinstatement of border controls is a measure which is explicitly laid down in Article 2 item 2 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement.
And this article, along with the method of applying this article adopted in 1995 by the governments of those Member States applying the Schengen acquis, is part of the Schengen acquis, incorporated into European Union law.
The Italian authorities felt that public order or national security required that national border checks appropriate to the situation be carried out at internal borders for the duration of the G8 Summit in Genoa, more specifically from 14 to 21 July 2001.
This was admittedly an exceptional measure, but a measure that other Member States have used in the past during political or sporting events or during events which could have involved a threat to public order.
Turning now to the second point, I refer the two Members to the answer that we gave on the same subject at the June 2001 part-session, namely that the Council is not qualified to answer the question as to whether an alert was issued in the 'Schengen Information System' for certain individuals involved in these events.
Entry of an alert in the SIS actually falls within the competence of the Member States.
Let me point out that, according to Article 94 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, and I quote: 'The Schengen Information System shall contain only the categories of data which are supplied by each of the Contracting Parties, as required for the purposes laid down in Articles 95 to 100.
The Contracting Party issuing an alert shall determine whether the case is important enough to warrant entry of the alert in the Schengen Information System.
Furthermore, Article 104 stipulates that, and I quote: 'Alerts shall be governed by the national law of the Contracting Party issuing the alert unless more stringent conditions are laid down in this Convention' .
Finally, may I remind Mr Sjöstedt that the Schengen acquis was published in Official Gazette L 239 on 22 September 2000.
Mr President, I would like to speak in French, if I may, so that I can make myself understood more easily.
Thank you for your answer, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, and for the information that you gave.
I knew the details regarding the Schengen Agreement but it is useful to have confirmation of them.
My first point, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, is that I am not talking about abolition.
Your translation services have made a mistake - I am talking about suspension.
This is a different concept altogether and this is the correct word.
I sincerely apologise for writing in Greek.
My second point, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, is that you spoke of the reinstatement of checks.
In the case that I mention in my question, however, involving the 150 young people from Greece who were banned before they even left their ship in the port of Ancona, they did not undergo any checks at all.
That is why I put to you the following question - when the Schengen Agreement is suspended, which legal status is applicable? I would guess that it is the status laid down generally by the treaty, in other words, free movement with passport control.
The passports of the Greek citizens were not checked, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck.
This, forgive me for saying so, is totally illegal, it is deplorable and what is more, this is a matter for the European courts.
And, in my view, it is a matter for you, the Council or the Commission.
Once again, Mr Papayannakis, I can only repeat what I said.
I apologise if there has been a mistake in translation.
You have rectified the situation.
As for your other points, I have taken note of the comments that you made and I shall pass these on.
I think it is incredibly serious that the Council of Ministers is unable to answer the question of whether people who are neither suspected of a crime nor have committed a crime are registered in the EU data system, SIS.
The issue is that of whether the SIS can fulfil the most fundamental requirements of the rule of law.
I nonetheless interpret the Council' s reply as indicating that it is possible for a Member State, unsupervised, to choose to place a person on the SIS register without the person in question being suspected of, or convicted of, a crime, but with him or her having simply taken part in a demonstration and been identified by the police.
This is entirely unacceptable in such cases and in breach of normal legal practice.
Perhaps you can confirm that if a state registers someone who has not committed a crime, then that person will remain on the SIS register, and it will be possible to obtain information about the fact when the person concerned passes external border controls and when an internal Schengen check is carried out.
The only thing I can confirm is that it is the responsibility of the Member States to enter personal data into the Schengen Information System.
Under the Convention they are obliged to see to it that the importance of the situation justifies any such input into the system.
This is, then, the responsibility of the Member States.
This is a genuine point of order, Mr President.
In her answer, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck stated that she has taken my question into account and that she will pass it on.
Does that mean that I will, at a later date, at some point receive a reply?
What I said was that we shall look into your questions in greater detail beforehand, and if it appears that they refer to matters that fall within the Council' s remit, we will be able to give you an answer.
If it appears, however, that one or more Member States are solely responsible for the issue as a whole, I shall be unable to give you an answer on behalf of the Council.
Thank you very much, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
The President-in-Office has replied and, depending on what happens, Mr Papayannakis will have the appropriate mechanisms to address the Council.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions No 13 and 14 will be taken together.
Question No 13 by (H-0721/01):
Subject: Priorities for the UN General Assembly Special Session on Children On 5 July 2001, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the European Union's positions in the UNGA Special Session on Children, which is being held at the end of September.
In its resolution, Parliament called on the Council to report to it on EU efforts and priorities for the Special Session and on EU actions during the Special Session.
Where is that report? In what way has the Council taken account of Parliament's call for support for the view that the family is the fundamental unit of society and that the theme of the Session 'A World Fit for Children' has to be at the same time 'A World Fit for Families'?
Question No 14 by (H-0722/01):
Subject: EU position on the UN World Summit for Children As it was voted on 5 July 2001, the resolution on the EU position for the UNGASS for Children states that 'the Family is the fundamental unit of society and holds the primary responsibility for the protection, upbringing and development of children'. Can the Council inform us why the EU delegation at the UN promotes the term, 'the Family in its various forms' as the fundamental unit of society, and who agreed this re-interpretation since the July vote?
Also, in the light of the fact that the term 'reproductive health services' has been publicly defined at the UN as including abortion, can the Council explain why the EU delegation at the UN supports 'universally accessible health care and services, including sexual and reproductive health' and how this can be reconciled with the Council's answer of 14 March 2001 in which it states that 'on the specific issue of abortion, the Council recalls that national abortion legislation does not fall under Community competence'.
First of all, I would remind you that the European Union as such has no official status with, nor is it accredited to the United Nations.
Article 19 of the Treaty on European Union stipulates that Member States shall coordinate their action in international organisations and at international conferences and that they shall uphold the EU' s common positions.
The EU' s common positions, also on matters which concern the questions put by the honourable Members, are coordinated and agreed upon in the framework of the common foreign and security policy and require unanimity from all EU Member States.
As soon as an EU position has been adopted by the Member States, it is included in the negotiating process with other members of the United Nations community.
Since it is the international community' s wish to reach consensus on the draft documents for the United Nations Special Assembly on children, the respective positions and wordings pertaining to the draft documents are the subject of constant negotiation and adaptation with a view to reaching agreement on the draft action plan which might receive full UN backing.
In addition, reference is once again made to Article 152(5) of the Treaty which stipulates that "Community action in the field of public health shall fully respect the responsibilities of the Member States for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care."
With regard to the concepts 'family' and 'reproductive health care' , the Member States have drawn on the language that was agreed upon during several previous UN world conferences, namely those of Cairo, Beijing and Copenhagen.
The Special Session on Children has, as a result of the terrorist attacks in the United States, been put on the back-burner.
The presidency will report to the European Parliament on the European Union' s efforts and priorities within the context of regular information on the development of the common foreign and security policy, as enshrined in Article 21 of the Treaty.
However, I can inform you now that the European Union, during preparations of this special session, has expressed the resolve to do everything in its power to bring about a world which really pays attention to children.
Our actions in this field must be based on the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
It remains the reference instrument par excellence.
The countries that have ratified the Convention - and I am referring to the International Convention on the Rights of the Child - must implement it in full, and those countries that have not yet ratified it, should do so as a matter of urgency.
The document that will be approved by the special General Assembly must be geared towards action and must pursue the following objectives.
First of all, we must invest in our children.
Forgive me for using an economic term.
A great deal of attention and care must be devoted to sound upbringing, one that is worthy of children, to their health, their well-being and their development, and resources must be set aside for that purpose.
In addition, children must be protected.
They must be protected from the effects of conflicts, abuse, violence and all forms of discrimination, exploitation, conscription into the armed forces, as well as from anti-personnel mines, epidemics and HIV/AIDS, in particular.
These are all scourges which affect them particularly cruelly.
Finally, children must also be heard, and they must be able to take part in the decisions that affect them.
Children must indeed be considered key figures in the mapping out of the course of their own development.
That is a very philosophical question, Mr Sacrédeus. I am not going to interpret what you have said, but that is the impression I have as President.
We must ask specific questions, but I accept your question and the President-in-Office will answer it.
If you wish to add anything, you have the floor.
That is your own assessment, Mr President.
You are Vice-President for me and all the other Members too.
I asked specific questions about the concept of family.
The last time I asked a question too, you also chose to believe that I was presenting philosophical questions and comments.
I asked the Belgian Presidency specific questions.
I request that you, as a competent Vice-President, show respect for all Members, including Swedish Christian Democrats.
I am assuming that this will be the last time you offend a Member in this way.
Philosophy and ethics are important issues even for you.
Mr Sacrédeus, I have enormous respect for all Members.
I have accepted your question.
But as legal administrator for this Question Time, sometimes I can and must express the opinion that they are very general.
Your question is in order and I have not criticised it at all.
I have said that it seems very general, but the President-in-Office will reply to it.
There is no problem.
Please be assured that the Christian Democrats warrant my absolute respect.
Mr President, if I may, I shall answer all three at the same time.
Two other Members also wanted to speak.
I can answer all three together, or do I have to answer each question individually?
We usually reply question by question.
Furthermore, for Mr Sacrédeus' s benefit, it is better that you reply to him directly.
Unless the interpreters have omitted some of what I said, which would surprise me, I think that I have given a general answer.
My personal views on the family are of no relevance at all to the debate that we are having.
I have the greatest respect for the family, but that has no relevance to the debate underway here.
The question is what is the position of Member States, since it is the Member States who must unanimously adopt and define their position regarding the work of the United Nations General Assembly on Children.
I have given you some information on this issue.
I stated that Member States are using the same terminology as that used at the United Nations global conferences, in other words at the conferences in Cairo, Peking and Copenhagen.
This is a political indication of the way in which Member States are working to define a unanimous position concerning the United Nations conference on Children.
I thank the President-in-Office for her answer.
It took a great deal of time to establish how Parliament's position would be presented at the UN Special Session.
A general meeting was held where candidate countries and, indeed, the Commissioner were present.
He made the very concrete statement that the child cannot be dealt with in isolation but in the context of the family and community.
We took a general vote and there was an overwhelming desire to make a special reference to the child in the context of the family.
We then debated a proposed position for Parliament, which was voted on in this Chamber.
It is our responsibility therefore to ensure that the wishes, not just of Parliament but also of the candidate countries who had travelled here and of the Member State representatives who came, concerning the position on the family are accurately presented, otherwise our time has been wasted.
As the UN definition of reproductive health services is so much in conflict with our position as stated in the Treaties - in particular with the protocol of my country - does the Council intend to challenge this publicly stated definition or to change the definition of reproductive health services within the institutions of the EU?
Whatever our personal feelings on this or other subjects, we need to work within the existing legal frameworks.
I started my answer by reminding you that the European Union as such is not a member of the United Nations and enjoys no special status in its relations with the United Nations.
I reminded you further that the Member States have undertaken to coordinate their positions in the international organisations of which they are members or the international fora in which they act or participate.
This is the legal framework in which such conferences are prepared.
Thus the European Parliament resolution is certainly of interest to the different Member States, but cannot possibly - with all due respect - be considered binding on them.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you gave the issue of public health a special mention.
I would be interested to know how you see the division of responsibilities between the United Nations and the World Health Organisation. What are your priorities here?
I apologise for not being able to speak German well enough to be able to give you an answer in German, especially using specialised vocabulary, but I do understand it.
The questions regarding the structure of the various international - even world-wide - institutions are all very interesting, but will lead us nowhere.
Moreover, the Council, as it stands, has no position on this subject that I could communicate to you on its behalf.
I can express my personal views, which may be of interest to you, but they will not make the slightest difference because they do not convey the position of the Council.
My personal view is that it is high time for all the international institutions, wherever they are based, to cooperate more closely and to coordinate their respective policies more effectively than they have done so far.
I am not going to make any judgment. I am simply going to ask you, when you have time, to reread Annex II (point A: Guidelines) in relation to the procedure for Question Time laid down in Rule 43.
Simply that: we should all read it when we have time.
As the author is not present, Question No 15 lapses.
Question No 16 by (H-0727/01):
Subject: Further judgments of the European Court of Human Rights against Turkey in the case of Leyla Zana and three other Members of Parliament Ruling on 17 July 2001 in cases 29900/96 - 29903/96, the European Court of Human Rights fined Turkey 110 000 dollars for continuing to detain the Sacharov prize-winner Leyla Zana and three other Members of Parliament in Turkish prisons.
In view of the fact that Turkey systematically ignores the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, can the Council provide evidence that Turkey intends to comply with the above judgments of the Court? Can the Council provide a list of ECHR judgments which Turkey continues to ignore?
What measures does it intend to take?
The Council would like to point out to the honourable Member that the judgments quoted by him have been passed by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
In other words, the Court established by the Council of Europe and not by the Court of Justice of the European Communities in Luxembourg.
At the moment, the European Union has no specific reason to believe that Turkey will not be falling in with the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights in this instance.
On a wider scale, neither does the European Union have a list of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights with which Turkey is said to have failed to conform.
The Council of the European Union would remind you that it has no authority whatsoever to implement the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.
However, on behalf of the Council, I would like to emphasise that the Union, particularly within the framework of the strengthened dialogue with Turkey, seizes every opportunity to stress the obligation resting on that country to observe all international agreements it has entered into; particularly in the field of human rights, obviously including the decisions by the European Court of Human Rights.
Within the framework of the partnership for the accession of Turkey, the European Union has stipulated that Turkey must respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and guarantee that it will ensure that these are also translated into practice.
The Council will follow Turkey' s progress from close range once the Commission has submitted its report on this matter.
I can therefore only reiterate that the Council does not have a list of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights which are said to have been ignored by Turkey.
I understand how tired the representative of the Council must be, she has been here since this morning, she has intervened on numerous issues, and I can only ascribe her disdain for the European Court of Human Rights to that.
Why else would a representative of the Council of Ministers of the European Union say that we have no knowledge of the rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, especially here in Strasbourg?
It is a disgrace, an absolute disgrace!
Besides, the European Parliament, in its recent resolutions on Turkey, has called on Turkey, among other things, to respect the rulings and to obey the rulings of the European Court.
But that is by the by.
My question concerns Leyla Zanna.
A Sacharov prizewinner, one of us.
You are a member of the Belgian Parliament.
She is a member of the Turkish national assembly.
She is a woman, she is your age and she is in prison.
Can we just ignore this issue in a candidate country, is this our response?
Perhaps simultaneous interpretation problems are to blame here.
I did not say that we do not have the list of European Court rulings; I said that we do not have a list of the rulings which Turkey may have failed to observe.
That is what I said, and it is different.
I was in the former Chamber when the prize was awarded to Mrs Zana and as a Member of this Parliament I associated myself with many of the positions taken by this Parliament in respect of Turkey.
You are well aware that the Council's position on Turkey is very clear.
We have made that position clear to Turkey repeatedly and will continue to do so.
The Minister has pointed out that this is a court of the Council of Europe, not a court of the European Union.
However, we are all well aware of the relations between the European Parliament and the supreme court of the Council of Europe.
Secondly, she said, and she repeated, that she does not have a list of the Court rulings which Turkey may have failed to observe.
Apart from the rulings on Leyla Zana and the other three Members of Parliament in prison, there is the famous ruling on Titina Loizidou, the Greek Cypriot still waiting for Turkey to pay the compensation awarded to her in a ruling by the supreme court, which Turkey has provocatively said it has no intention of observing.
I repeat I am surprised because the Minister has served as a Member of the European Parliament and as a member of her national parliament and she should at least have thought about it and if she did not have a list, she had all the time in the world to ask for one rather than coming here today, if I may say so, without having done her homework.
I sometimes wonder whether the tone adopted by some of the Members has anything to do with my sex, age or something else.
I have been very clear in my answers.
There is a distinction between the Court of Human Rights and our own Court of Justice in Luxembourg, as you very well know.
We hold Turkey to its responsibility of respecting all the international obligations that country has undertaken and among them, of course, is the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.
This is one of the permanent elements of the political dialogue we are having with Turkey.
We are doing our homework.
It might not always produce the results that you would like to see or produce them as quickly as you would like, but we are doing our homework.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, on behalf of Parliament, I thank you for your dedication this evening and all the answers you have given us.
We like some of your answers more than others, but we are grateful for your dedication.
As the time allotted to questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 17 to 23, 25 and 26 will be replied to in writing.
Question No 24 by Mr Van Lancker is not admissible since it refers to an item included on the agenda for the present part-session.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Strengthening economic policy coordination within the euro area - Contribution of public finances to growth and employment
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0307/2001 by Mrs Berès on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the Commission communication on strengthening economic policy coordination within the euro area;
A5-0306/2001 by Mrs Peijs on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the Commission communication to the Council and Parliament on the contribution of public finances to growth and employment: improving quality and sustainability (COM(2000) 846 - C5-0172/2001 - 2001/2082(COS)).
Mr President, before I give my comments as rapporteur, I would like to make an objection and ask you to refer it to the Conference of Presidents.
In my view, it is absurd to have this debate now, when we had the debate on the Stability Pact this afternoon, and in the meantime, the Conference of Presidents thought it would be worthwhile to find time for a debate on television without frontiers.
This does not help to make our work more coherent.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are about to debate has come at a crucial moment.
On 21 September 2001, the European Council acknowledged the importance of the subjects we discuss and assisted us by requesting, for the first time, that the Commission prepare a recommendation on the economic situation of the euro area following the events of 11 September.
Some people might believe that it has been easier to organise economic policy coordination during a period of growth.
This was not intentional, even though there have been many fortunate coincidences, such as tax cuts in various Member States, which we can now welcome.
Today, however, we are faced with genuine external shocks, even though the consequences of the slowdown in the United States were already challenging us on the basis of our growth, economic policy coordination is becoming even more difficult, and even more necessary, because, at the other end of the spectrum, European policy now amounts to monetary policy and also because Mr Duisenberg, in the wake of the events of 11 September, made a commitment with his US counterpart to coordinate economic areas.
As the changeover to euro notes and coins draws near, we must make economic and monetary union manage on its own two feet.
This is what we invited the Commission to do with its communication, which we welcome.
A great deal has already been done and there is still a great deal to do.
Member States must conduct their policy in a responsible and autonomous manner.
Coordination, however, must help to make this policy as consistent as possible and mutually beneficial.
This is what the changeover to the euro represents.
The report that I am commending to Parliament echoes the Commission communication and indicates a number of options, which we believe are essential.
First of all, this coordination depends on the Eurogroup and its president, who, we must be able to believe, speaks on behalf of the whole group.
Next, the Commission must have an essential role but it cannot approach this as if it were one of its, say, conventional areas of competence.
In some ways, this role is more political, in which the Commission must display its ability to make innovative proposals, to develop medium-term prospects.
And the European Parliament must be the public forum for debate on economic policy coordination.
In order to achieve this, three courses of action are needed.
First of all, we need indicators, harmonised statistics and barometers for the euro area.
An economic policy for the euro area is impossible unless we have good instruments to navigate by.
I am also aware that some Member States are having a debate on the cost-effectiveness of the indicators.
We are clearly in favour of spending a small amount of money so that the indicators can be more effective.
In our view, the second crucial point is the exchange of information, on which Eurogroup members have made a start.
We believe it is essential to go further, to take advantage of everything that could enable peer evaluation, with the option of asking the Commission to carry out an assessment of the impact of measures proposed by a Member State as part of its budgetary, fiscal or structural policy.
Lastly, Mr President, we must improve the quality and the coherence of all aspects of the debate.
Economic policy coordination in the national parliaments must be integrated.
This means integrating the broad economic policy guidelines into the debate on national budgets.
It also means that a national debate must be based on the stability programmes. This also means that before we discuss the broad economic policy guidelines in the European Parliament, we want to hear the views of our colleagues in the national parliaments.
I shall conclude, Mr President, by saying that this also means we hope to see the President of the Eurogroup come before the relevant parliamentary committee as often as is necessary.
Mr President, the Commission Communication on public finances is now, some time after its publication, particularly topical.
The economy is slowing down, partly of its own accord, partly through laxity on the part of major Member States, and on top of this there are the after-effects of the tragic events of 11 September.
These things have again, for the first time in a while, put pressure on the public finances of the Member States.
History has taught us that considerable public expenditure can lead to major inefficiency, to too high a claim on the capital market and to excessive taxation, and very rarely to higher employment.
All these aspects can seriously hinder the healthy development of the private sector and consequently hamper growth in employment grounded in supply and demand.
Almost ten years ago, the European Heads of State and Government acknowledged this development, and agreed in Maastricht to work on a sustainable budgetary position.
If Member States join together in a large monetary zone, albeit with coordination of economic policy, but without real political union, they must adhere to their agreements.
Thanks to instruments made available to the ECB, the latter can influence the stability of prices and, along with this, the living conditions of people in the Euro area.
Further to a discussion in the Preparatory Committee, I would once again like to underline that price stability, along with controlled inflation, contributes to a sustained purchasing power at the bottom of the wage structure and to an incentive to return to work.
Price stability prevents the purchasing power of those of pensionable age from being eroded.
It also ensures that wage increases within the labour market actually translate into more financial scope for families in Europe, and do not merely enable people to keep up with price increases, as is the case in my own country.
Some countries give tax cuts with one hand and take them back, in the form of VAT hikes and higher local taxes, with the other.
This instils in the public a sense of distrust in politics.
And the instruction to the Central Bank to monitor prices is the most effective social measure I can remember for a good few years.
In addition to the Central Bank' s pursuit of stability, the Member States' investment and budgetary policy is critical to the living and working conditions of Europeans and to confidence in the single currency.
According to President Duisenberg, the watering down of the budgetary objectives is of huge concern.
You yourself, Commissioner, called key countries including Germany, France, Italy and Portugal to account and reminded them of their duties.
And in those same countries, the idea of extending the Stability Pact is being mooted.
Let one thing be clear, however: the financial markets are closely watching the Member States in terms of how they are dealing with their budgets in a declining economy.
The countries which did nothing when it was economically possible, are now, of course, struggling the most to observe the Stability Pact.
Needless to say, it is unrealistic to expect that they will now increase taxes or curb spending, but I consider an increase in spending to be an irresponsible burden in the face of an uncertain future.
Our generation must pay for its own bills, rather than pass them on to the next.
The current situation is a test of how sound the euro system actually is, and it is patently clear to the financial market that the public budgets are the weak link in the entire euro cycle.
Governments must not be allowed to think that the euro belongs to all of us but that their budgets are purely a national matter.
Furthermore, nobody has managed to explain to me what the use is of a Stability Pact which only applies to buoyant times.
It is precisely in an economy that is slowing down that it is important to translate agreements into practice.
The European Commission devotes an important proportion of its communication to future demographic developments.
It is a crucial component, because an ageing population will have a great impact on future budgetary positions.
And an ageing population is another reason to look after the Stability Pact.
It will also mean that we will be obliged to work much more on lifelong learning in order to sustain our own professional profile. What is more, people will probably need to work well beyond the age of fifty-seven and a half, as is now mostly the case, for example in the Netherlands.
In my report, I am asking for an individual path to be sketched for every Member State, so that the political tendency to indulge in short-term thinking will not prejudice the just pension and care expectations of people.
Mr President, in my report, it is certainly not my intention to create the impression that public investments should not be allowed, but in the Stability Pact, 60% of the GDP has already been earmarked to meet the needs for public investments.
That offers ample scope for in-depth investment in education, R&D and healthcare.
Finally, I would like to note that I am pleased that constructive consultation with the Group of the Party of European Socialists was possible in order to come to an acceptable compromise.
Tomorrow, I will ask you whether it is possible to table an oral compromise amendment during the vote.
Mr President, given that this is a joint debate, I will point out that my mandate is restricted to the report by Mrs Peijs.
Mr President, it is customary for draftspeople of the opinion to congratulate the rapporteur of the committee responsible, to express their agreement and satisfaction, and to try to highlight their contributions and/or to at least expand on a few points.
Unfortunately, I will not be able to continue that practice today.
On behalf of the Committee on Budgets, which I have the honour of representing institutionally, I must express the profound disappointment of my committee at the treatment by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of our amendments, and please do not interpret this as in any way a personal opinion.
The Committee on Budgets adopted its opinion unanimously while I was absent through illness.
I was not even there at the final moment to defend my proposals and the opinion was therefore adopted without interference.
There was not a single vote against and there was therefore no distinction of a party political nature.
This is in no way a party political issue for us.
The majority of members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, however, has rejected our amendments en masse. Unless I am mistaken, not a single one of our amendments has warranted the approval of that majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
And we in the Committee on Budgets have the feeling, Mr President, that constructive and purely institutional contributions have been thoroughly spurned and scorned.
To be frank, we can find no explanation for this systematic negative vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is true that the Commission document which is the basis of our discussion focused, shall we say, on national budgets.
But when the Committee on Budgets added the Community dimension, the Commission, in particular the Commissioner present, thanked us for it and expressed its appreciation of this widening of the perspective of the Communication.
Well, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has refused to open its eyes to this additional dimension.
Why?
Why does the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs deny that the European Union' s meagre budget, 1.07% of Community GDP, has been applied just as rigorously as that of the Member States? By rejecting Amendment No 7, this is what they have done.
It is also difficult for we budgeteers in this House to understand why, two days from the first reading of the 2001 budget, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs denies, by rejecting Amendments Nos 5 and 6, the multiplier effect of Community expenditure and the fact that it frequently acts as an example for national, regional and local authorities.
If that is the economic thinking of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the coherent thing for it to do would be to withdraw all the amendments it has presented to the draft budget.
That would be the most logical thing for it to do.
Ladies and gentlemen, 90 days from the physical introduction of the euro, any inkling of fiscal policy in relation to the Community budget is being sidestepped.
From the point of view of the Committee on Budgets, the obvious thing to do would be to gradually strengthen the European budget and go beyond mere - necessary, but mere - coordination of the economic policies of the Member States.
Some day, just as we now have a 'Mr' CFSP, we are convinced that we will need a 'Mrs' Euro, perhaps Mrs Peijs herself, and a greater European budget, in exchange for a reduction of national budgets.
And in the Committee on Budgets we wonder how the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs thinks economic cycles, symmetrical and asymmetrical shocks, should be confronted, each one as it comes or all of them in a coordinated and cooperative fashion, to a certain extent using the Community budget to this end.
We in the Committee on Budgets, which I would remind you approved the opinion unanimously, have the impression that for the majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs ideological prejudices carried more weight than the objective assessment of the economic options available.
Please allow me to remind you, as a teacher of public economy, Milton Freedman, said, that we are all Post-Keynesians.
He forgot about that majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of this Parliament.
The motion for a resolution is only Post-Keynesian in a chronological sense, but the basis of its thinking is pre-Keynesian.
It takes up elements of the monetarism of the 80s and 90s without taking account of its background.
When the Maastricht Treaty was signed, perhaps all politicians, and certainly the economists, knew that we should get rid of the systematic deficit, that we needed a policy of financial rationalisation, but we also knew, since the 60s, that budgetary balance is only advisable in certain circumstances and conditions and that, in general, strict budgetary balance tends to be procyclic, that is to say that it tends to aggravate the cyclic tendency of the economy.
Kennedy' s advisers, if I may go back that far, illustrated, by means of the so-called budget surplus of full employment, how a balanced budget, even in certain cases of deficit, can create recession.
I would therefore ask you, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my committee, to take a more open perspective, as contained in our amendments, and to include them tomorrow in the text of the resolution.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Berès, Mrs Peijs, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say a few words about each of the reports, and also something about the previous speaker's comments of course.
No matter what political group he or she might belong to, I would never insinuate that a fellow Member had let himself or herself be guided by anything but objective policy considerations in reaching a decision or deciding how to vote.
The majorities that prevail may vary, but since I have been following its activities, the hallmark of the work of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has been a very objective atmosphere and one very much geared to the Community's economic and monetary policy, so that the suggestion that has been made here is one that I cannot agree with and would like to refute.
Nevertheless, I agree with you of course that within the euro area and also as regards our common foreign and security policy we need to speak with one voice, both internally and externally.
However, and this point concerns both reports, competition is becoming an increasingly global matter.
The euro will come into circulation in 89 days, and it is already the second most important currency in the world.
The euro coins and notes will make the importance of this single European currency on the world market very clear.
This is a very important aspect, and we must at all times be very disciplined about keeping Europe's presence on the world financial stage in mind.
Global competition does of course require that in addition to the single market and economic and monetary union the necessary coordination needs to take place within the euro area and within the European Union as a whole.
What does this mean? On the one hand it means coordination so that a strong internal market is created in the euro area and Europe becomes more competitive.
On the other hand, you need to understand that it also involves maintaining freedom as the basis of competition within the framework agreed between the Member States.
We are, of course, not all convinced that coordination in itself is a panacea, because we also need to consider where coordination starts. What mechanisms does coordination involve, and what are the limits of coordination?
Does coordination inhibit the functioning of the market or support it? This is undisputedly a debate that we need to hold, as decisions cannot simply be taken under the heading of coordination.
That is why we are in favour of more debates on European issues in national parliaments, in favour of coordination by the Statistical Office of the European Communities and enhanced links with national statistical bodies, and in favour of mutual exchange of information as a means of achieving joint tasks.
However, we naturally oppose increased bureaucracy, the setting up of new bodies and higher expenditure on bureaucracy masquerading as coordination.
We need more efficiency and professionalism in the structures that already exist in order to improve what we do jointly.
That does not mean reducing freedom of action and freedom of decision making in the Member States.
And we also oppose the information that has leaked out about tax collection or the use of tax income, because we believe that there is no legal basis for that either.
I have simply highlighted two issues that we need to debate further.
We will be voting for the report, but not all the details about what is meant and what mechanisms are necessary have been clarified.
I would like to say one more thing to Mrs Berès: it is important that you have tackled the issue of the link between public finances and reducing inflation, and thus touched on the subject of assessing the financial markets.
We need to give public finances a clean bill of health again, so that we increase the investment capital at our disposal, and I therefore call on everyone mentioned in the report to do their homework properly and not just take cosmetic measures!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Karas, I cannot resist commenting on your speech.
In all instances where we already have sensible coordination of our economic policies in the European Union, we have chalked up enormous successes.
Government budgets over the last year have for the first time in decades shown a surplus, and that still holds good, Mrs Peijs, if we exclude exceptional income from the sale of mobile telephone licences.
I do not think that we should play this down in today's debate.
The success stories in the current year will not be so great.
That is because growth in the European Union has slowed down, but that is no reason to start harping on about inflation.
Nor is it any reason to start panicking.
No one can calm down our friends in the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats.
No one - not in this House anyway - wants to print money.
No one wants to print money as a way of solving finance policy problems.
We only want to print money to provide the public with our new currency, the euro, on time, but nobody here is talking about an inadequate budgetary policy.
However, you know that too.
That is not what is at stake here!
Essentially, it is about something quite different.
You know very well that, in the past, these budget consolidation successes that I have been talking about were not achieved by increasing income but by cutting expenditure.
Those expenditure cuts led to a positive result, but also had negative affects.
In many areas, public infrastructure is in a state of decay.
In many places social networks are under great pressure and our investment patterns both in the private sector and in the public sector have led to key strategic deficiencies in comparison with our competitors on the world scene.
We now find ourselves in a situation in which government receipts will decline for cyclical reasons. So the vital question is this: what should we do in that situation?
Are you really seriously envisaging further global cuts in public sector income and expenditure?
Do you really want to freeze budgets so that we fail to make the investment necessary for our future? Do you want the European Union to enter a further procyclical phase which will prevent us from benefiting from long-term growth overall?
I cannot imagine that that is what you want.
Mr von Wogau asked me at lunchtime today what the Socialists really want. I can give him an answer: we want to stop these scare tactics!
We want to put an end to talk that recovery in Europe is always just short-term, because if the central banks or governments are running scared, we will lose long-term opportunities.
We have tabled amendments that we think are sensible.
If you can agree to compromise with us, then we can find a common path.
And if that is not possible, we will go our separate ways!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin my intervention by agreeing with Mrs Berès' s complaint, because it really makes no sense to have held a debate, which is otherwise very interesting, on the Growth and Stability Pact and on the conclusions of the ECOFIN in Liège, to have debated 'television without frontiers' in the middle and now to hold what I believe to be a logical continuation of the first debate, the reports by Mrs Berès and Mrs Peijs, to whom I would like to say, on behalf of the Liberal Group, that they have our support and favourable vote.
I feel compelled to relate this afternoon' s debate to the subjects of these reports, above all by referring to the current economic situation.
It is clear that over the first few months of this year, the slow-down of the American economy has had more influence than was initially expected, and that the terrible terrorist attacks on New York and Washington have further worsened these prospects through needs for economic intervention which are truly new, urgent and no doubt justified.
The strain of the situation, however, should not lead us to justify greater public intervention or, as the President-in-Office of the Council has said very correctly, to abandon or lose sight of the need to continue with the structural reforms which the European economy still needs if it is really going to be competitive on an international level.
I trust that confidence will be recovered in the economic field as soon as possible and that the current special situation will be overcome, and we will shortly find that we have the same requirements that we had three months ago, that is, to consolidate the European economy, to make it more competitive in accordance with the Lisbon criteria, to strengthen coordination and, as we have often said to Commissioner Solbes, to have a genuine economic and monetary approach and policy, as the existence of the euro and monetary union demands.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is my basic point, although there are other detailed matters which are sufficiently well-expressed in the respective reports by Mrs Berès and Mrs Peijs.
Mr President, I want to deal particularly with the issue of public expenditure, quality and employment.
The explanatory statement of Mrs Peijs' report is very interesting because it explains the background.
We have to beware of chasing the American economic model.
One of the things that has made many people within the European Union hostile to the euro is that they have seen its introduction as linked to cuts in public expenditure.
We have seen, with the American economic model, the prioritising of the private and the cutting of the public.
The result has been a tremendous disparity between rich and poor and high levels of child poverty - unlike in countries which invest in social expenditure and reduce the wealth gap.
We know that child poverty is linked to poorer educational attainment, poorer job prospects and so on.
We have also seen in that economy a reduction of job security and longer working hours, with the introduction of a flexible contract culture.
In the UK, contracting out at lower cost quite often means compensatory tax measures at the lower end of pay, a public subsidy to poor wages from poor employers.
The American model also represents an unsustainable pattern of consumption, which will have an economic impact in the longer term.
My group believes that Mrs Peijs' report does not look sufficiently at the quality of the contribution of public finances.
So we cannot support the report in its current form.
Hence the amendments we have tabled.
I know that it is very difficult to measure the benefits of public expenditure in the same way we look at the balance sheet of a private health care company for example.
Public expenditure is an investment in social cohesion and we are gradually coming to recognise the costs of not investing in that.
Indeed, a priority for the European Union now is combating social exclusion.
We count as an economic success private spending to compensate for the lack of public expenditure.
Every burglar alarm bought, for example, is because we feel we are not safe.
We agree that we need to reduce the cost of employing people and to focus on lifting taxation costs for the poorer paid, many of whom are women.
But we also need to reduce working hours as part of increasing employment opportunities.
It is clear to us that a knowledge-based society which tackles social exclusion - we have to remember that Lisbon also said that - needs greater investment.
And where will that come from if there is no significant public expenditure? Employers increasingly want ready-trained employees as part of the flexible contract culture.
We consider that public investments can have a very positive value and can help to shift the direction of our economy, as we recognise our ecological responsibilities.
Mr President, the Peijs report states that, over 20 years, government expenditure has increased from 35% to 50% of the GNP.
What has caused this increase in government expenditure? Is it because public services have been improved, the number of hospitals has increased, additional hospital staff have been hired, public transport and national education have been developed, sufficient social housing has been built?
No, it certainly is not! Over the past 20 years, many governments have, on the contrary, privatised services that used to be public.
All these governments have pursued money-saving policies with regard to essential public services, have got rid of railway lines, local post offices or hospitals, which are not considered to be profitable.
The reason that government expenditure has increased is because of the extravagant sums of money given to employers on a multitude of pretexts, ranging from direct subsidies for reducing taxes and social contributions to giving all types of support - all government authorities seem to excel at making these up.
Mrs Peijs cynically proposes making this policy worse by further reducing employers' social burdens and increasing VAT.
The poorest people are being made to pay in order to give money to the richest - if this is not brutal and direct class politics then it is hard to imagine what else it can be.
I shall of course be voting against this report.
Mr President, at the outset I would like to congratulate both rapporteurs on the presentation of their reports.
In recent months the global economic climate has been the cause of some concern.
We in Europe are certainly not immune to economic downturns in the United States.
The tragic events that took place in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on 11 September have undoubtedly further shaken economic confidence.
In Ireland, as in all Member States, we remain committed to maintaining current budgetary levels.
The reaffirmation of this commitment at Liège will allow the EU to better address cyclical fluctuations.
I welcome also the statement by the Commissioner that governments will be able to use automatic stabilisers in the context of a slow-down in growth.
Indeed, in Ireland, we continue to run a budget surplus which affords us some room for manoeuvre.
The Irish stability programme is central to the budgetary process in Ireland.
It is discussed in Daíl Éireann and is a key component of our annual budget.
The primary objective of the Irish budget and stability programme is the continuation of sustainable economic growth, supported by moderate inflation and competitive wage developments, reflecting our national agreement with the social partners known as the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
As the House knows, the Ecofin Council this year, on a proposal from Commissioner Solbes, issued a recommendation to Ireland stating that she did not comply with last year's EU broad economic guidelines on fiscal policy.
The Irish government contends that its budgetary policy seeks to achieve economic stability by securing the continuation of social partnership and also by taking action to reduce price inflation, including indirect tax reductions.
We must look to the future.
Our immediate concern is the successful launch of the euro on 1 January.
But the single currency is not an end in itself.
It is conceived to facilitate a true single market for goods and services.
The grand project requires a high level of cooperation and coordination.
National governments must retain the prerogative to formulate a budget which best addresses the particular and specific economic situation of their country at that time.
Mr President, as usual, I am in full agreement with Mrs Peijs.
That is why I shall mainly confine myself to the report by Mrs Berès.
The European Monetary Union is accompanied by a certain level of coordination in the field of budgets.
However, coordination which goes beyond what is necessary for the EMU deserves to be questioned.
Further coordination can only be justified through sound reasoning, but this is lacking in both the Commission communication and in the Berès report.
There are, however, situations which require coordination.
The Commission mentions resistance to shocks as an example.
A recent illustration is the granting of subsidies to airline companies following the attack in the United States.
This is an excellent example of decisive action on the part of the Council of Ministers.
Coordination which goes beyond what is required will even prove counterproductive.
Labour participation, company policy, taxes - these are all matters which should fall within the remit of the Member States.
In substance, they give little reason for more coordination at European level.
Coordination of economic policy should not be used as a red herring.
After all, it is evident that times of economic adversity make it more difficult for the Member States to adhere to the EMU' s underlying principle: the Stability Pact.
The much-needed structural reforms should help meet the budgetary criteria.
Member States cannot afford to postpone using this instrument in order to obtain more permanent and responsible growth.
This growth is vital in order to secure the Stability Pact.
The need for reform is therefore all the more pressing.
It is, therefore, with good reason that the report does not nominate many concrete matters for coordination.
It is always useful to exchange information on economic policy decisions. More important, however, is the quality of the decisions per se.
The report does not comment on the motives for closer cooperation.
This does nothing to help the case for coordination.
With the EMU, the European economies should not lose their own economic policies, tailored to their specific dynamics and character.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first to thank my friend, Karla Peijs, for her excellent report, in which she aptly describes the vital importance structural reform measures have for the prosperity of our societies.
Rarely does one see such excellent reports.
I wish to focus on two matters.
The public finances of a State in the euro area are no longer the private affairs of that State.
Any budgetary imbalances in an individual State, particularly a large one, may have an impact on the stability of the entire euro area.
For this reason, recent attempts to water down measures to reform state economies are worrying.
Many governments in recent years have relaxed their budgetary efforts, relying mainly on cyclical receipts, such as the proceeds from mobile telecommunications system auctions.
The consolidation process is still far from being complete, however.
The future objective is for a 'close to balance' or 'in surplus' budgetary position.
Member States must honour the commitments of the stability and convergence programmes unconditionally.
It will take perseverance and determination to balance public finances.
It will make us susceptible to populist criticisms of thinking of the economy like an accountant or balancing the economy one-sidedly.
Nevertheless, this is what we have to focus on.
Politicians have to take a few blows after all, but our economy will not be able to take a left hook.
Secondly, the rise in public expenditure in the last few decades has caused the governments of several of the Member States to increase taxation and social welfare contributions, which were already at an unendurably high level in Europe.
Simultaneously, the potential for economic growth has been weakening throughout this period.
That Last Mohican of orthodox communism, my colleague Mrs Bordes, could also stop talking about class war in this, the third millennium, and admit that the contribution of each and every European to the economy is important.
For that reason, work must be financially motivating and the benefits of different social welfare schemes at such a level that they safeguard the basic necessities of a normal, decent life, but provide an incentive for becoming active in all situations.
Only in this way can we achieve the ambitious aims of Lisbon.
Mr President, the challenges of globalisation make it clear to us just how important coordination of economic policies is for Europe, and also the integration of financial, employment and social policies, because little Europe is demonstrating to the world that it is possible to make progress in a region if regional cooperation does not just mean intergovernmental cooperation and is not just a free trade area.
I believe that the combination of the single market on the one hand and certain possibilities for giving political direction on the other is what makes the European Union what it is.
I therefore very much welcome the Commission communication and Mrs Berès's report, as they make it very clear that we need to make further progress with the coordination process.
We all know that the challenges and demands on us are now even greater than ever.
ECOFIN has quite rightly made sure that more integrated approaches are now being adopted, especially in the field of capital movements.
It is certainly important that we should not just act in unison and improve the quality of coordination, but that we should also agree on guidelines.
Fortunately, the Lisbon process, which was taken further in Stockholm, has given us both quantitative and qualitative objectives.
Of course these still need to be extended and refined, but it enables us to demonstrate to the public that the coordination process can lead to positive outcomes.
If you could not say that, who would be interested in checking if all the Member States have actually met the requirements to which they have committed themselves?
One aspect of the commitments that they have entered into is the consolidation of their budgets.
Mr Bullmann was quite right to point out the progress made in this area.
It is certainly true that there is still more to be done in reducing debt in some Member States, but we should not forget that the Stability and Growth Pact exists as an instrument to prevent us ever exceeding a deficit of 3% of GNP.
That is at the heart of the convergence criteria and this deficit is intended to help us to achieve a favourable monetary policy that promotes development.
I believe that coordination can be enhanced still further, and that all those policies which can mutually or reciprocally support each other should be brought into this coordination process.
I also think that it is a particularly good thing that the European Parliament can call on the national parliaments to take part in the coordination process and I really wish to emphasise that point.
We, as a committee, have attempted to constantly highlight this cooperation with national parliaments.
Mr President, I would like to make one final comment. We should not see the coordination of policies as an end in itself.
We, in Europe, have missed out on growth because over the last few decades coordination has been lacking.
We lost out because we did not adopt a coordinated approach to the UMTS auction.
We could have achieved a totally different outcome.
Nor did we react jointly when the OPEC countries raised oil prices.
There is no doubt that we could have achieved a more favourable starting point for economic development if we had acted in a more coordinated way.
Mr President, Commissioner, in recent decades the per capita GDP in Europe has been reduced in comparison with that of America, increasing the gap or distance between our prosperity and development and that of the United States, while our levels of employment are also worsening.
The conclusion is drawn from this that the Americans do not hinder the activities of private companies through taxation as much as Europeans do and, in accordance with low levels of public expenditure, they have not, like us, promoted action plans, introduced bureaucratic systems or tried to guide their economic operators, who have therefore been able to dedicate themselves purely to working and generating wealth.
It seems to me that this analysis does not take account of the very important fact that, over the last 30 years, levels of public investment in the European Union have been reduced to 2% of our GDP in 2000, while in the United States they have maintained a sustainable level and represent 3% of their GDP.
If we add to this the fact that our per capita GDP stands at 65% of American GDP, it turns out that their average investment per citizen each year is 2.3 times greater than ours, and this is a more than notable difference which explains the differing developments of our respective economies.
I believe that the short-term solution for Europe is not to reduce taxes, but rather, while achieving balanced budgets and no deficit, we must adjust our current public expenditure and increase public investment in viable projects, modernising our infrastructures, supporting technological research and development, involving research institutes and universities in private initiative and promoting training and knowledge in our society.
What is completely unacceptable is the policy of the Spanish central government of Mr Aznar, which covers up its real budgetary deficit by financing it with revenue, with the monthly contributions of workers integrated into the state social security system, which compromises even further the uncertain future of pensions, and the workers who are currently contributing do not know whether they will receive those pensions on retirement.
This is unacceptable and must be condemned.
Mr President, two weeks ago, I was in the Netherlands on 'Prince' s Day' , the opening of the new parliamentary year, when the government budget is presented.
Not only because of the events in the US did I sit that day with mixed feelings, but also with a feeling of: what is this all about?
With the ever growing internationalisation of the economy, certainly in a country like the Netherlands, it is noticeable that at national level, there is, in fact, little room for economic manoeuvre.
It is, of course, possible to place accents, and I welcome the Dutch government' s proposal to step up investment in the public sector.
However, the scope remaining to make a real difference is relatively limited and is determined at entirely different levels. One feels far closer to this in Brussels.
On the other hand, I felt completely at home as regards the way in which such a budget is prepared in the Netherlands.
It is based on sound analyses and prognoses issued by what we still term the Central Planning Bureau, and broad, medium-term recommendations by the Socio-Economic Council in which independent experts, social partners and the Dutch Bank work in harmony.
In this way, a government can make plans which receive broad support and which can be effective.
The paradox of the phase which we are at with European cooperation, is that, although the political control of the socio-economic policy has been moved onto a European plane, the instruments and procedures for this are still located at national level.
Neither the European political structure, nor the European actors are prepared for this.
Unfortunately, for I am convinced that Europe is in need of such sound and broad socio-economic coordination.
I am therefore pleased with Mrs Berès' report.
She makes proposals for improved coordination within the euro countries, for greater involvement of national policy-makers and parliaments and for better harmonisation among the various actors at European level.
I would particularly like to underline the role of the macro-economic dialogue which must be afforded a far higher profile, also in the preparation of the broad economic guidelines.
A broader debate thereafter, also involving national parliaments, is important.
This concludes my comments on the Berès report.
I would once again invite Mrs Peijs to deal with the amendments which we tabled so as to reach a compromise after all.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I fully support the report by Mrs Berès on the Commission communication on the prospects for monetary union.
I think, however, that after the tragic events of 11 September the proposed measures and experiments should be implemented much sooner if we want the monetary union to fully perform the role that awaits it in fighting terrorism, maintaining economic growth and the competitiveness of Europe, and affirming a policy of peace and international cooperation that will isolate terrorism in developing countries.
I refer first of all to the need to face the slow-down in economic growth by means of coordination of our economic and social policies, countering the economic cycle. This can be achieved through enhanced cooperation measures between Eurogroup members, resulting in a real government by agreement of the monetary union, able to question decisions by the European Central Bank with an authority at least as great as that shown a few weeks ago by the United States Federal Reserve.
I also refer to the urgent need within the monetary union above all to achieve the greatest transparency and a reciprocal information system on movements of capital, overcoming the restrictions of bank secrecy so as to be able, Mr Karas, to strike at the transfer of resources linked to terrorist funding, the laundering of dirty money from organised crime, and the offence of tax evasion.
I shall close, Mr President, by also mentioning an international cooperation policy which will allow long-term contracts for supplying Europe with raw materials to be drawn up also in euro.
Mr President, I would like to thank the two rapporteurs very much.
There is no doubt that what has been said this evening is going to help us in our subsequent work.
I will begin by commenting on the Bères report and I would like to express my satisfaction with Parliament' s motion for a resolution which supports the strengthening of economic policy coordination within the euro area.
We must not forget that economic policy coordination is an obligation laid down in the Treaty.
The Treaty makes it very clear that our model is based on a single monetary policy and on national, but coordinated, economic policies.
This is a key element of our model.
It is true that coordination is still going through a learning phase.
It is also true that we have increasingly greater interdependence - especially in the euro area but also in the Union in general - and this requires that the content, the systems and the instruments we use are constantly being reviewed.
That is why I must especially welcome the report which Parliament has produced and salute Mrs Bères and all of those members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs who have participated in her magnificent work.
I believe that this work, in many respects, goes further than the Commission' s proposal, particularly with regard to one fundamental aspect, the increase in national participation in economic policy coordination.
I would like to highlight two essential elements of the report - and I will comment on the various interventions in relation to them.
The first is the need to strengthen coordination, the second the need to increase the democratic debate and national participation.
With regard to the content of the coordination, I think it is worth expanding on certain points.
The report supports the Commission' s proposals on the production of periodic reports on the economy of the euro area.
Today I can tell you that our idea - we have continued to work on this issue - is that we must have detailed economic analyses but also relevant proposals on economic policy.
We must go further than specific analysis.
In her speech, Mrs Bères raised the need to improve statistics and the assessment of policies.
It is true that we have made progress with the statistical plans for the Union' s monetary area, however, we must go further.
It is partly a problem of bringing national statistics into line with new realities, it is partly a problem of money, but, in some cases, it is neither of these problems, but rather the problem of acquiring the data necessary for a good definition of economic policy more quickly.
This perhaps means that in the future we will have to consider the need for our own statistical information which is not an aggregate of national statistics.
This would certainly be a key element if we are to be able to act within a time frame similar to that available to other economic authorities.
She makes a reference in her report which I believe to be fundamental in relation to trying to achieve a common vision of the impact of economic cycles on public finances.
We have held part of this debate today - I will comment later when I talk about the report by Mrs Peijs - but we believe it is essential for the ECOFIN Council to produce a methodology as soon as possible, allowing us to examine the concept of structural deficit by means of the same criteria.
And we are working on this, which seems to us essential, precisely to allow these automatic stabilisers to come into play depending on the extent to which the budgetary situation of each of the Member States allow it, but applying the same criteria in all cases.
A further point relating to the first element I mentioned, the content of coordination, is that of prior information.
This is a point which always gives rise to a degree of debate and discussion.
When we talk about prior information, we are talking about two different things.
We are talking firstly about the other partners of the Eurogroup knowing the broad guidelines for those essential elements of a national economic policy which may eventually have an affect on the rest.
Let us take one case: the tax reduction measures adopted last year as a result of the oil crisis.
There is no doubt that if we had acted as we have acted this year on the issue of insurance cover for airlines, we would have achieved a better result and a better approach from the point of view of the Union' s position.
The same can be said of the UMTSs.
If we had debated, before taking the decision, how to deal with the possibilities and difficulties which one or other option with regard to licences for third-generation mobiles could pose, there is no doubt that we could have prevented some of the subsequent problems.
We are not saying that we should all do the same. We are saying that we can hold discussions together in order to try to decide on a framework, which includes the different national decisions and allows us to take a more coherent position.
I said that there is a second aspect to prior information and that is that ministers should take Community elements into consideration when defining their national policy.
And I relate this reference to the one made by Mrs Bères in relation to increasing national participation in the broad guidelines for economic policy.
Until now, it has more or less been considered that we had two processes which did not necessarily converge.
On the one hand, reaching an agreement on the broad guidelines for economic policy in Brussels, in Luxembourg; on the other, defining our national economic and budgetary policies.
And each process took a different route.
It was also believed that compliance with the Stability Pact was sufficient to satisfy the coherence and consistency of the system which we have implemented for economic policy coordination.
It is becoming increasingly clear to us that the two instruments we have, the Stability Pact and the broad guidelines for economic policy, are key elements.
And the broad guidelines for economic policy, if they are actually approved by the ministers as a real commitment to be applied in each of the Member States, must reflect the budgetary policy which each minister wants and must present to their national Parliament.
I believe that this would help us enormously in terms of a better interrelationship between the decisions adopted at Community level and the decisions adopted by national Parliaments.
In this respect, the Commission believes that this idea of the debate is essential and we will fully support it.
However - and this is a point which I also wanted to comment on - it is true that we should not overly complicate the procedures.
Therefore, we are more cautious about certain ideas considered on the issue of macroeconomic dialogue.
It is absolutely clear that we have to improve its efficiency on the level of political dialogue, but we believe that we also have to maintain its character of frank and confidential exchange and, in this respect, it is essential to maintain this informal framework for debate and not formalise its process too much by complicating it and making the whole process of debate relating to this point less productive.
I would therefore like to end my comments on this first report by pointing out that the services of the Commission are currently looking into the implementation of some of the proposals included in the resolution, I have taken note of a series of suggestions that have been made this evening and we are naturally going to pay particular attention to them when producing our final proposal.
In relation to the report by Mrs Peijs, I would firstly also like to thank her for her suggestions and comments, but I would like to focus on just three or four points that I think are important.
Firstly, I fully agree with the idea that, in the context of the introduction of the euro, the credibility of a healthy public finance policy which is compatible with the euro is essential.
It is true that, in our view, public finances - we have said this clearly this evening - must be adequate for both crisis situations and for good economic situations.
In your report you refer to automatic stabilisers - and I do not believe that there is any great divergence between us on the analysis of this point.
We believe, like you, that they must play a fundamental role, both at times of growth and at times of slow-down of the economy.
We are grateful for your reference to tax reductions.
The Commission has been arguing that all tax reductions must respond to certain criteria, which are contained in your report, and which we believe are essential to maintaining the idea of quality of public finances.
No doubt if we were to debate tax reductions now, elements such as the promotion of consumption would be of more importance than would have been the case a few months ago, given that that is one of the issues we are concerned about.
But the idea of tax reductions can certainly be included in practice, in all cases, in the criteria contained in the document and which you support.
Finally, a comment on the sustainability of public finances in the long term.
There have been other comments on the labour market, on how we must move ahead, on coherence in relation to work, pensions, etc.
In my opinion, all these elements will be dealt with within a broader vision of the labour market, while the finance ministers must pay particular attention to public finances and, in this respect, to the difficulties which may arise in the funding of social security given the global budgetary deficits of all public administrations.
The idea we are working with at the moment - and on the basis of your report, as you know, progress has already been made on some points - is not that reference be made by means of a short paragraph on the stability programmes, but that the stability programmes annually take up the necessary data to carry out an adequate evaluation of the evolution of public finances in relation to problems of ageing.
Nevertheless, in our view, the idea of including this information in the stability programmes is not because we believe they are problems which must be resolved through annual decisions - they need more long-term decisions - but because we felt it was appropriate to introduce new processes for approaching, analysing and monitoring the evolution of public finances.
Our idea is that, every four or five years, in each country, a more in-depth analysis should be carried out - it may be a supplement to the documents from the stability programme - on long-term public finances with the obvious fundamental problem of the ageing of the population and from which, nevertheless, when updating the annual programmes we only take the most necessary basic information.
I would like to end by thanking you all once again for your cooperation and the useful ideas you have offered us, which we will take into account as far as possible.
Mr President, I owe Mrs Van den Burg an explanation with regard to the amendments.
I did not bring the amendment numbers, so I will have to quote from memory, but Mr Bullmann will undoubtedly correct me if he thinks I am quoting the incorrect numbers.
Mrs Van den Burg, in order to reach a workable compromise, we will agree on Amendment Nos 4 and 5. Amendment No 7 will be based on the text by Mr Bullmann to which a sentence will be added.
That is the oral amendment I was referring to. We will also agree on the second part of Amendment No 9 which starts with 'calls on the Member States' , Amendment No 10 by way of supplement and Amendment No 12.
I believe that is the complete list.
I would now like to respond to Mr Colom i Naval.
He has probably been waiting for this all evening.
Mr Colom i Naval, I would like to make this quite clear: content was not the issue.
The reason why we were unable to talk about this before we voted on the amendments is that I was firstly in the United States with the delegation - you will have noticed my absence in the committee at the time - and then I was in Rome with my group.
It was a slightly hectic month.
It was not a matter of content.
The fact is that the European Commission took the Member States as its point of departure in its communication.
I did the same in my report.
If, in your report, you were to write about the effects of the European budgetary policy on employment, then I would gladly vote in favour of all your amendments, but they did not feature in the framework of my report.
I apologise for the fact that we did not have an opportunity to talk about this.
That was a personal statement and was helpfully reconciliatory.
I would like to thank you too, Commissioner Solbes.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Competition policy (2000)
The next item is the report (A5-0299/2001) by Mr Agag Longo on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the Commission's XXXth Report on competition policy 2000 (SEC(2001) 694 - C5-0312/2001 - 2001/2130(COS)).
Mr President, I am honoured to have been asked by my colleague, Mr Agag Longo, to present his excellent and detailed report to Parliament on the Commission's XXXth report on competition policy.
The report draws together several important areas of competition policy.
The rapporteur restates Parliament's strong support for Commissioner Monti in spelling out that effective competition is not only an important engine of economic growth but also works to the advantage of consumers, through greater variety, better quality and lower prices for both goods and services.
We congratulate the Commissioner on the success of European competition policy, but we recognise that such success can only be maintained by constant and rigorous monitoring.
Our rapporteur has highlighted further measures to which Parliament will be giving its attention in the coming months.
The future of car distribution is one area where we eagerly await the Commission's proposals.
I believe that our initial evaluations suggest that consumers are missing out under the current exemption, with unjustifiable price variations between Member States.
We also await the consultation on Merger Regulation No 4064/89.
We welcome Commissioner Monti's positive approach to consultation with our committee, but we repeat our call for major constitutional change which gives Parliament real codecision power with the Commission.
Commissioner Monti has played the central role in fostering a global approach to competition policy and enforcement issues.
Our committee supports efforts to build an international competition system in the framework of the WTO, whilst recognising that Europe's credibility in this area will depend on efficient and effective cooperation between the EU's own national competition authorities.
We are also looking to the outcome of negotiations between the Commission and the Council on the Commission's proposals for reform of the enforcement regime under Articles 81 and 82 which we approved last month.
Mr Agag Longo draws attention in his report to other important elements of Parliament's position on the reform, our strong support for Article 3 and our real concern over issues of legal certainty, as well as separation of powers.
I know that Commissioner Monti is aware of this, but we have consistently argued that the Commission must guard against the danger that the reform may lead to inconsistent application or even to a renationalisation of competition policy, thereby destroying the single market.
In continuing to raise these issues we reflect the concerns of many in the business community in Europe.
Our committee has also underlined other competition concerns.
We look to further market liberalisation, but we want effective enforcement of already agreed policy areas in the gas and the electricity sectors.
The Commissioner is aware of the complaints which have been made about some acquisitions by companies which do not appear to operate in a liberalised home market and we look to the Commission to investigate whether state-aid rules have been breached in such cases.
Mr Agag Longo also urges further progress on liberalisation in areas such as energy, transport and the postal services.
We welcome the progress which the Commissioner has made on state aid control.
We also support his work in ensuring that candidate countries for membership fully understand the requirements of EU competition policy, particularly the application and relevance of such rules in terms of market distortion.
Our committee will shortly respond in fuller detail to the Commission's ninth state aid survey, but this report also touches on this area.
We applaud progress on implementation of a public register of state aid and a scoreboard as important tools for promoting transparency and democratic control, even if I embarrass Commissioner Monti by saying that his practical demonstration of the scoreboard to our committee was frustrated by technical problems.
We view such widespread public access to information as essential.
In the same light we welcome the continuing commitment to hold competition day seminars under each Council presidency, although we are keen to see wider public knowledge of, and participation in, such events.
Finally, on an entirely personal note, I would like to express my concern that the Commission has made particularly slow progress over complaints concerning the Spanish government's treatment of Gibraltar citizens in relation to telecoms matters.
These complaints have been outstanding with the Commission for over five years, whilst the Commission has itself recently initiated a state aids investigation of Gibraltar's investment schemes, ordering it to cease forthwith until the Commission investigation is concluded.
I am bound to say that this hardly seems to me to be an even-handed approach and I hope Commissioner Monti will agree to look into this.
Otherwise I commend Mr Agag Longo's excellent report to the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in recent times, especially since the Stockholm European Council, the European Union has reached a turning point in competition policy.
That can be seen in the increasing conservation of structures.
The Agag Longo report rightly mentions this.
Following the successful liberalisations of the 1990s, postal services, electricity and gas are now trying to escape the annoyance of competition again.
First liberalisation, then regulation again, and the heading for this scenario is self-preservation.
The agenda for the Heads of State and Government in Laeken expressly provides for a discussion of the tension between competition and the preservation of existing interests.
We are all anxious to see whether competition can win through there.
If we ask about the difference between our modern, open society and another society marked by classes and castes, the answer is clear: in our open society competition has become the order, the principle on which our culture is based.
General acceptance of the principle of competition is therefore a tremendous cultural achievement.
But the state has never submitted itself to this principle.
It has always sheltered its education system, its banks, its railway, its airlines, its postal service, its telephone networks and its housing associations from the cold wind of competition.
Many sectors of the economy, too, claim that competition cannot work for them or that exposure to competition could be detrimental to the objectives they pursue..
There are plenty of examples.
Coal is valued because supplies are secure.
The market is said to be harmful to the health service because patients would be unable to assess the services provided.
In agriculture, the market is said to be inappropriate because farmers allegedly produce even more if prices are lower.
The postal service cannot be set free to compete - not completely, at any rate - because it has social functions to fulfil.
So we could go on.
But all these paltry excuses have one thing in common: they all recognise competition in principle, but simply claim that the principle is not applicable in their most particular case.
The situation in Europe has without a doubt become more difficult again for competition policy.
That is why it is important - and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is calling for this - that EU competition policy should now finally be extended to energy, transport and pharmaceuticals.
Let us therefore continue together to plan, campaign and argue for freedom.
Mr President, I must say firstly that I am truly perplexed.
I am perplexed by the fact that a British Member, though talking in place of a Spanish Member, has raised an issue that in no way relates to the rules on competition, that in no way relates to the reports on competition, but which relates to the unacceptable existence of the only territory in the European Union still to be decolonised.
It seems to me that to use the speaking time of a Spanish Member to raise these issues is, to say the very least, a discourtesy.
Anyway, leaving that aside, I believe that the discussion of the annual report on competition policy is a good opportunity to consider a debate on the progress and guidelines relating to this important European policy.
If we are to be self-critical, I would like to ask you whether we are really holding this debate or whether we are simply restricting ourselves to voting on a resolution which, if we are going to be honest, is more a cause for pity than for glory.
Please do not interpret this as a criticism of the Commissioner, Mr Monti, since I am more than happy to acknowledge his work in the area of competition and he has always been prepared to hold any necessary debates with this Parliament and has always been in favour of informing us promptly of the positions of his department.
Neither do I have any intention of criticising the rapporteur, who has produced a report of high quality and has also done so with flexibility and tolerance, accepting the positions of various political groups.
I therefore believe that my comments relate more to the behaviour of this Parliament and, fundamentally, to the vestiges of an era when its was simply a consultative assembly and did not have the co-legislative role which it has now.
We therefore have a tendency to issue documents, this document on the annual report on competition, and then go back to considering other issues on which we have already contributed as legislators, although unfortunately competition rules are excluded from the codecision procedure.
Furthermore, there is not always coherence between what we say at one moment and what we say at another.
Returning to the report, I would like to congratulate Mr Agag once again on its content, most of which we agree with, and to make a comment.
Once the Commission has taken its decision, I believe that there is no need for, and we should remove, the section relating to the prohibition of public companies investing capital in companies from the liberalised sectors - think of the conflict between Electricité de France and Hidrocantábrico - which Mr Agag introduces in his desire to stick up for and assist certain positions of the Spanish government.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the rapporteur - who is now represented by Mr Evans - for a really sound report.
I should like to express my gratitude for the cooperation I have received from Mr Longo in preparing the report.
I should also like to thank Commissioner Monti for his strong commitment to competition policy in the EU.
I should also like to take the opportunity to emphasise that the fight for free competition is a fight that must be engaged in ceaselessly.
There are at present quite a few good examples of free competition' s being threatened as soon as the opportunity arises for disrupting it.
The first, very telling example is the proposal tabled by the Commission to introduce an interim subsidy arrangement for certain types of shipbuilding.
The background to the proposal is that we in Europe believe we are exposed to unfair competition from South Korea.
Obviously, many interested parties try to exploit the situation in order to introduce a much higher level of subsidy than is justified by the realities of the situation.
Where this matter is concerned, I therefore wish to call upon the European Parliament and my fellow MEPs here in the House to stand by the Council' s resolution from last year to abolish all direct subsidies for shipbuilding.
The next example of an attempt to exploit the situation is provided by the aviation industry which is experiencing a lot of turbulence in these very days and weeks.
This has led many to campaign for the introduction of subsidies.
I should like to remind you that the problems experienced by a number of carriers are not primarily due to the tragic events of 11 September, but rather to the fact that the airline companies are now facing the harsh realities earlier than expected.
The whole sector has for a long time been in need of radical restructuring and, as politicians, we must ensure that the present frenzied and tumultuous situation is not used to introduce a mass of subsidies that are to be paid for by ourselves as taxpayers and that are designed to bail out a host of unprofitable companies and routes for which, as consumers, we shall have to pay the excess price over and above what we have paid in tax.
To conclude, I should like to return to a couple of specific points in the report.
I think it important that we should hold the Commission to its assurance that the new competition rules do not mean a renationalisation of competition policy.
It is also important that the Commission should continue to produce its annual report on State subsidies, even though it has now introduced the scoreboard for which I myself, for example, have for a long time been pressing and which I am very pleased about.
It is also my hope that the Commission will be attentive to the desire for a start to be made as soon as possible on looking into the rules for the repayment of unlawfully allocated State subsidies - an area which leaves a lot to be desired.
Finally, I hope that the Commission will follow up the request to look more closely into the possibility of improving the legal position of companies hit by losses and of involving third parties more extensively whenever the Commission deals with practical matters.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Agag Longo, and to Mr Evans for his speech.
I admire the quality of Mr Agag Longo' s report and appreciate the many constructive observations that have been made.
It does not escape me that the report also contains critical notes, and I assure you that, although it is impossible in this House to take a definite stand on all the observations made in the report, I can guarantee that all of them will be very carefully examined.
I am also grateful to the other speakers in this sitting - Messrs Konrad and Berenguer Fuster and Ms Riis-Jørgensen - for their political and, I must add, their cultural support for the European Union' s competition policy.
The thirtieth annual report summarises the developments that have occurred during 2000. A quick glance is enough to realise that the competition sector has continued to show intense activity, with a total of 1206 new files, 564 cases of State aid, 345 mergers and acquisitions and 297 cases of monopolies.
Work in the legislative field has focused on reform of our basic rules and regulations.
This activity has led to approval of new regulations on block exemptions in horizontal agreement issues.
New guidelines on vertical restraints have been adopted, in addition to the new 1999 block exemption regulation.
You will know that these new formulations give greater weight to economic guidance.
The fact that the number of cases of monopolies has fallen may be due to these new rules on vertical restraints, which have substantially reduced the obligation to notify this kind of agreement, and this gives the offices more room to concentrate on the more serious and difficult cases.
Considerable progress has been made towards a reform of the competition rules, to which Parliament gave decisive support a month ago, adopting Mr Evans' s report by such a large majority.
On the issue of mergers, a communication on corrective provisions has been adopted, as has a simplified procedure for certain straightforward types of operation, so that now about 40 per cent of merger cases can be dealt with in this way.
On the issue of controlling State aid, the Commission has introduced, for the first time, three groups of exemption regulations: on the application of the de minimis rule, on aid to small and medium-sized enterprises, and on aid for training.
I accept Ms Riis-Jørgensen' s point about recovering illegal State aid, because I too believe it to be very important for overall credibility.
As regards aid levels, the general trend that they are falling is confirmed, although this does not alter the fact that they remain very high.
Allow me, Mr President, to highlight the fact that, in relation to State aid and contrary to what paragraph 2 of your motion for a resolution would suggest, the Commission has effectively already instigated proceedings against State aid in the form of tax facilities and, on 11 July, the number of them had risen to 15.
We are also intensifying our efforts to recover the sums wrongly paid out in the form of State aid.
Let me now point out three aspects to which we are devoting special attention, not only in the last annual report but also in our everyday operations.
The first and most important is the impact of competition policy on consumers.
I know that Parliament shares our opinion that the consumer should be the final beneficiary of competition policy.
It is certainly necessary to make consumers more aware of the benefits of competition policy and to inform citizens about our activity and the effects it has for them.
As you will have noticed, the report gives examples of certain decisions, showing the benefits resulting from them for consumers.
A good example is the decision against OPEL Nederland to defend the right of consumers to buy a car without hindrance in a Member State in which prices are lower; other, more recent examples are an analogous decision against Volkswagen and the setting-up of an enquiry into mobile telecommunications prices charged by roaming operators.
On the subject of cars, I accept what Mr Evans said: the Commission is working hard to draw up a proposal for the period subsequent to 30 September 2002, when the regulation for block exemption from the motor vehicle distribution agreement comes to an end.
I intend to present a new draft regulation by the end of the year, and I am sure you will be glad to express your opinion on it, given the extreme interest Parliament has so far shown in this subject.
With regard to consumer information, may I remind you of the initiative of the European Competition Days, which grew out of discussions in this Parliament.
After Lisbon, Paris and Stockholm, the next will be held under the Belgian Presidency in Antwerp on 11 October, and will focus on competition in the pharmaceutical sector.
A second priority we are working on - one which several people have mentioned this evening - concerns State aid, not only to make control stricter but also to make this subject more transparent through initiatives like the public register and the scoreboard, which is, in fact, readily available on the Internet.
The third priority area of work concerns globalisation: how competition policy, by seeking greater coordination among the various parts of the world, can make its contribution to the governance of globalisation.
In this respect - apart, of course, from the highly intense relationships within the European Union with the national competition authorities - outside the European Union we have set up close bilateral working relationships and begun most welcome and far-reaching cooperation in particular with the competition authorities of the United States, and last week we held an intense session of work in Washington, at which we planned further development of such bilateral cooperation.
I think, however, that the bilateral dimension is not enough, and we are proceeding, with all the weight of conviction that the European Union has in this area, to develop two forms of multilateral cooperation.
One is the proposal to introduce some basic, binding competition standards within the World Trade Organisation.
The other is the recent initiative to launch a global competition forum to provide a venue for world-level discussions among competition authorities.
Among our short-term priorities is the work now under way of modernising the competition rules, which we have been carrying out with even greater conviction - if that is possible - ever since Parliament gave us that vote by such a decisive majority.
Within the year we intend to conclude the revision of the de minimis communication, which, by specifying which agreements between companies are not forbidden under Article 81, Paragraph 1, will reduce the burden on companies, especially smaller ones, of conforming to the rules.
Having already mentioned the exemption regulation on cars, I should also like to refer to the policy against cartels, which is a basic pillar of any competition authority. By the end of this year we shall have further developed and updated the policy of indulgence, based on non-prosecution or reduced fines for those who collaborate in disclosing cartels.
This is yet another area of convergence between the American and European approaches.
In the matter of controlling mergers, the Commission' s priority for 2001 will be to continue to re-examine the mergers regulation.
In this respect, during the year I intend to draw up a formal consultation document on this subject.
As for the way new cases are dealt with, our work is focusing particularly on the recently liberalised markets, which were mentioned particularly by Messrs Konrad, Evans and others, such as energy, air transport, telecommunications and postal services, in an attempt to prevent the former monopoly holders from abusing the positions of strength that they traditionally enjoyed.
I thank you all once again for the expressions of support and encouragement you have given to the Commission in matters of competition: you know how important it is for the Commission and for me personally to have the support of Parliament in our everyday work, and how seriously we take your critical comments, which we value highly.
Thank you very much, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
E-commerce and financial services
Mr President, financial services should be the big winner from e-commerce, because the sector does not have the problems of physical delivery, unlike booksellers or grocery supermarkets.
A financial service, whether a savings vehicle like a pension or a mutual fund or just a simple bank account, is by its nature ethereal and intangible.
Many transactions in banking and stockbrokerage are already taking place online.
UNICE, the EU employers' organisation, estimates that nearly one-fifth of banking transactions in Europe are now executed through the Internet, direct dial, mobile phone, or digital television, nearly double the proportion in the US.
In the Nordic countries of the Union, the overall proportion is more than a third.
However, the vast majority of those transactions happen within an EU Member State.
Cross-border e-commerce in financial services is in its infancy and it has not chased prices down to the level of the cheapest Member State.
Indeed, the most recent survey suggests that bank charges vary more widely around the average than they did in the mid-80s at the beginning of the single market programme.
There is a lot still to do.
The e-commerce directive past last year was designed to encourage cross-border trade by enshrining the country-of-origin principle.
This is one of the essential market-opening principles of the internal market.
If harmonising rules is too difficult, at least recognise the right of any company to do business anywhere in the Union once authorised by one Member State.
The key judgment was that consumers would benefit more from increased competition than they might lose from the greater difficulty of seeking legal redress from a far-flung and delinquent supplier.
That is simply because the country-of-origin principle ensures the maximum amount of extra competition and extra competition is ultimately the consumer's best friend.
True, the e-commerce directive allows exceptions still subject to national regulation of incoming services, notably insurance in unit trusts.
In general, most of the liberally-minded market-opening fraternity were pleased to get it on the statute book.
As its full implications have sunk in, some Member States have been quietly attempting to restrict the scope of its application and backpedal on its implications.
This is the real significance of the Commission's White Paper on e-commerce and financial services.
It is designed to clear up the bits left out of the e-commerce directive and the report we are debating tonight is designed to support the Commission's resolve to open up the single market; if necessary, by insisting on the provisions of the e-commerce directive despite the reservations of some Member States.
We must maintain the liberal thrust of the e-commerce directive.
That means also setting a clear timetable to include both insurance and advertising of unit trusts in the general country-of-origin approach.
Insurance services, for example, are particularly suited to e-commerce provision.
It also means basing any guidance from the Commission to Member States about consumer protection on real documented problems, not on imagined ones.
Of course, there are real difficulties.
The Commission needs to look at these difficulties carefully and attempt to set out a clear road map to allow e-commerce and financial services to flourish.
Consumers are concerned about security, particularly with cross-border transactions.
Soft law provisions, alternative dispute procedures, should be made effective so that they can deal with the vast majority of problematic cases and we have asked for a regular report on that.
Some convergence of national rules on consumer contracts is clearly desirable, though this should not be used as an excuse to delay the single market.
Some standard features of terrestrial banking, like applying the money-laundering provisions by looking your depositor in the eye to ask where her or his money came from, require fresh thought in an e-depositing world.
It is also the case that financial services transactions are rarely entirely online without any offline elements, so we need to work as far as possible to ensure coherence.
The prize for getting this framework right is very great.
E-commerce and the euro can make a reality of cross-border financial services, not just for business but also for savers and the extra competition will, as it always does, bring long-lasting and real benefits.
So, I urge the House to stick to the line that we have set in the past in asking for opening up of this market.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Huhne, I, too, would like to add my congratulations to those of the previous speaker, Mr Harbour.
This is an excellent report and it was a pleasure to work with you.
I can already say that tomorrow we shall be fully supporting the line taken by this report.
There are at present two developments running in parallel that are very important for this field.
The Internet is growing in importance.
Trade over the Internet is growing more and more.
And on the other hand we are in the process of completing the internal market for financial services in Europe.
Our target is the year 2005.
Financial services in particular, because they are not material, are pre-eminently suitable to be offered internationally on the Internet.
I believe we will in the foreseeable future have a situation where customers buy insurance or banking services over the Internet not from a local bank but across the border in a neighbouring country and that the Internet is an excellent way of making comparisons in this field.
It is also important, however, that we win consumers over for this kind of commerce.
It is consumer protection that I am addressing here; competition has already been discussed.
But consumers will make e-commerce in financial services a success only if they have confidence in it, if the contractual or non-contractual provisions are in place to safeguard their rights and to give them appropriate help if they have complaints in cross-border business.
I support the Commission' s initiative here of setting up extra-judicial arbitration procedures such as FIN-NET.
Only if consumers are convinced that any problems they have in future will be sorted out will they make use of the net in future.
The third thing was mentioned by the previous speaker: technical systems.
Many people are still afraid and have misgivings about using the Internet.
I still have myself.
I am not going to put my credit card number on the Internet just like that.
There are still reservations and inhibitions about that sort of thing.
Online and offline commerce are moving closer and closer together and we therefore need to harmonise the legal provisions here, too.
I can only back what the previous speaker has said, that we must abide firmly by the country-of-origin principle, that the Commission must stand firm.
Parliament will also be making its position known tomorrow.
In smaller areas, too, however, like the abolition of national marketing and competition rules that stand in the way of the development of the Internet - fortunately, this was included in the report - we need to move forwards in order not to hinder development.
I would like to say in conclusion that e-commerce in this area will take a turn for the better, even if we may have gained a different impression from the stock markets in the last few months, but it will take off, it will continue to develop positively.
We need to make Europe fit for global competition, ensuring that in Europe, too, financial services can be offered in this way.
I therefore believe that this report shows the way and is a good step forwards, as is the Commission's support for it.
Mr President, I too congratulate the rapporteur on the report which he will present to us tomorrow.
We know he has worked extremely hard on this report and very closely with others in this Chamber to ensure its success.
Clearly the changing industry of financial services lends itself very well to the new technologies which have emerged and continue to emerge across the world.
The ability of consumers, confusing as it can be, to pick such technologies, to choose a variety of financial services within the individual Member States, has been with us now for some little time.
But the choice of financial products across borders inside Europe is even more recent an affair.
This means that services, rather than physical products - and the rights of consumers to have confidence in the performance of those services - is as vital here as it is for manufactured products.
The marketing and advertising of services, the claims and boasts of providers, must be checked against the need to allay the fears of risk to consumers, to safeguard their purchases and exchanges by electronic means.
This is why my group has so high a regard for the element of consumer safety.
The country-of-origin principle is simply the best agreed way of approaching the process of harmonising the standards for attaining an EU-wide application of the guidance for those standards which are to be expected in those nations.
At the same time Brussels, too, is clearly more than just an element for consideration by the Commission in this process.
The amendments before the House allow for the flexibility required to pursue the exciting new medium of technology, as does the text.
In particular I would like to recognise Mr Herzog's concerns, where he rightly points out in his amendments that we need to keep pace with technological change in order to reduce the possibility of criminality, of fraud and of money laundering.
My group believes that so long as consumer interests can be asserted and maintained as an essential element of the provisions of this report, then it is obviously going to be willing to withdraw any amendments that might suggest derogations or deletions to the country- of-origin principle.
The liberation of e-commerce is the element of any dynamic European economy of the future; the counterbalance that has to be struck and which has to be fully realised is the effects it has on those who would use it as consumers.
I commend this report to the House.
Mr President, the country-of-origin principle should meet the challenge of offering financial services electronically.
I have one comment to make.
First of all the scope for national policy.
The country-of-origin principle respects national legislation.
In addition, it is possible for Member States to deviate from the country-of-origin principle, but only on the basis of well-defined reasons.
That is why, in the report, the rapporteur might have provided more extensive reasoning with regard to the effect the principle has on national policy.
This would probably have prevented a number of unfortunate, socialist amendments from being tabled.
Furthermore, the report is based on the assumption that more competition can only benefit the consumer.
He should know the rules with which the supplier complies. Otherwise, confidence in e-trade will not grow.
That is why the rapporteur might have been more specific in explaining consumer protection at European level.
If bottlenecks occur, it can become difficult to allow for exceptions because not all Member States will agree that there is a need for these to be made.
It is therefore useful to continue to monitor closely whether e-trade will be satisfactory to suppliers and consumers alike.
Mr President, I, too, would like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur very warmly on his report.
My colleague Mr Skinner has already indicated that our group will be able to withdraw most of our amendments if we can get clarification on one point that is very important for us and which is also concerned with consumer protection - and the rapporteur has already indicated a willingness to accommodate.
I am also willing to accept that members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, who have a responsibility for financial services in particular, naturally have a slightly different focus than so many members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
As a lawyer specialising in European law I do still often consult the EU Treaties.
Perhaps we should no longer do that so often.
Because when I turn to Article 50, which is about services that have not been harmonised, I read something about a market location principle, not a country-of-origin principle.
We are all aware that these provisions are creating a lot of problems today.
That is why Mr Harbour, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, has introduced the proposal to amend the Treaty.
If we are lucky, we will be able to do that by 2006 at the earliest.
But until then we shall have to come up with something to cope with this problem.
I think we have found the e-commerce directive to be very well balanced in its conception.
I was myself shadow rapporteur for my group at the time and I hold fast to the belief that by combining harmonisation, country-of-origin principle and a few exceptions, we have found a very well balanced solution that we should probably try to use in other areas, too.
I am not a believer in magic formulas or cure-alls.
We are now at last getting the Council' s Common Position on the distance marketing of financial services.
We shall all have to put our thinking caps on to find a sensible solution for dealing with the problems that the Member States have also seen.
I think we will make it easier for ourselves if we go for pragmatic legislation rather than fight over principles and stay high and dry.
The Commission takes heart from the broad support for the Commission's objectives in the field of e-commerce and financial services - support evidenced by the report of your Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.
I welcome that report as being most balanced and constructive.
I draw strength from Parliament's clear commitment to the country-of-origin approach which, if I am not mistaken, has been supported by all who spoke on this subject this evening.
In particular I welcome the report's rejection of any attempt to roll-back the e-commerce directive in the area of financial services.
That is a position very much shared by the Commission and strongly defended during the negotiations on the distance marketing directive which, as Members may or may not know, resulted in a political agreement at last Thursday's Internal Market Council.
We will follow that line in future proposals and negotiations.
I should like to pick up on a few key points made in the report.
They are points which were also raised by various Members in the debate.
On the need for a road map setting out what needs to be done and when, in May the Commission published a financial services policy group report to the Ecofin Council.
That contains just such a road map and hopefully brings greater clarity about the way forward.
Amongst other things that road map sets out the concrete steps that must now be taken to enable the country-of-origin approach to apply across the board to cover those financial services currently derogated and to be applied to other traditional distance training modes.
In broad terms, that would involve further convergence in national consumer protection rules, in particular by updating EU legislation which predates the e-commerce directive.
On the Commission's guidance, where it is our aim to add transparency to situations under which Article 3(4) might be invoked, I should like to inform Parliament that this exercise was launched in July.
We are now in the process of receiving the first replies from Member States.
I should like to assure Parliament that it is not the Commission's intention for the guidance to represent a de facto additional derogation to the country-of-origin approach and that the guidance will be reviewed to take account of progress and further harmonisation of consumer protection rules, with the aim that it should become redundant by the 2005 Lisbon deadline for an integrated European market in financial services.
In respect of this point I would particularly like to say to Mr Radwan that earlier this year the Commission helped to put in place a network for the handling of cross-border complaints in financial services which ought to serve to raise still further the level of confidence of consumers who venture onto the Internet.
I hope that is to the liking of Mr Radwan.
May I further welcome Parliament's call for a single payments area in which it would be easy and cheap to transfer money across borders.
I should like to recall that in July the Commission adopted a proposal for a regulation to align the costs of cross-border payments with those made at national level.
I can also inform Parliament that with a view to making payments more secure, the Commission in February adopted a communication on the prevention of fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment, which set out a three-year action plan.
This point was also raised by Mr Harbour and I should like to add that the Commission is looking into the possibility of refunds.
I will inform Mr Harbour later of the progress in this respect.
Finally, I take note of Parliament's interesting suggestions that the Commission should seek to negotiate mutual recognition agreements with third countries, at least with those third countries that provide similar levels of prudential supervision and investor protection.
The Commission finds that a very valuable suggestion and we should like to consider it further.
In conclusion, I very much welcome the draft report as its stands.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Huhne, for his strong support for the country-of-origin principle.
Indeed all speakers this evening have echoed this strong support.
I nonetheless express concern about a number of the amendments which were recently tabled by some honourable Members.
Several of the amendments, unfortunately, are not acceptable to the Commission.
They would shift the balance of this report unfavourably and undermine the strong support which Parliament has shown for the Commission's e-commerce strategy in the past.
That support was so manifest and so vital at the time of the adoption of the electronic commerce directive last year, when Members voted unanimously in favour of the directive and the underlying country-of-origin approach.
That is precisely the approach which the Commission, with the support of Parliament, would like to continue.
Thank you very much, Mr Bolkestein.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Internal market strategy for services
Mr President, I would like to begin by taking the opportunity to reassure Commissioner Bolkestein.
We have already said in the two interventions on the Huhne Report that most of our amendments have already been withdrawn.
Both of us have emphasised that here.
So far as I know, there are two amendments remaining. The Commission can easily live with that and I hope the rapporteur can, too.
A vote will be taken on the amendments tomorrow.
Now to my own report, however.
We know from experience in this House that the agenda is very often changed.
We are often glad about that to a greater or lesser extent.
This time there is a real point to it - my report was deferred so that the debate on the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan could be held yesterday.
That is certainly more important than the further refinements we want to make to the internal market.
It also allows us to hold a kind of joint debate today.
The field of financial services, services generally and also Mr Radwan' s report, which will be debated next, go together very well.
I am sure we all agree that services generally as well as financial services and information services deserve our special attention.
They are rightly described as the key area of the European economy today.
Two thirds of Europe' s workforce are already employed in the service sector.
Above all, the dynamism and innovation that make this sector so important will enable us to achieve the objective set in Lisbon.
If my report has given rise to some differences of opinion, they are never about the objective, only about what we consider to be the most appropriate means of achieving that objective.
I am sure we can support the Commission' s approach of identifying all the barriers in a first phase, listing all the obstacles encountered by service providers, and then in a second phase proposing suitable remedies.
But we have no time to lose.
We now have the remedy of treaty infringement proceedings.
In many cases, better information from authorities, professional bodies and similar institutions about the law as it currently stands could perhaps help to remove some unjustified obstacles.
In all but one of the urgent legislative measures listed by the Commission - I have to admit it is the reform of public contracting - Parliament has not been responsible for any undue delay on any other points.
The call for certain legislative measures to be speeded up should therefore be addressed primarily to the Council.
I have already mentioned that we have now at last received the common position on the distance marketing of financial services.
Discussions in the Council took a very long time.
I hope we can make up some of the lost ground in Parliament and make rapid progress.
Something else that has already been before the Council for a very long time is the two directives on the situation of third country citizens when it comes to providing services - employees on the one hand and self-employed on the other, where the introduction of a service provision card could make a major contribution to achieving freedom in the provision of services.
I am also sorry that the Commission itself no longer lists these measures as priority measures in this communication today.
Essentially, our differences of opinion are over which legal instruments will be suitable.
We should not rule any instrument out.
We will need further harmonisation.
I am sure we will be able to implement the country-of-origin principle on the basis of harmonised, coordinated, largely approximated laws in our Member States.
Article 50 of the EC Treaty will probably also continue to be used in a number of remaining areas.
I do, of course have a problem when harmonisation is automatically described as over-regulation and when the country-of-origin principle is to be used as a magic bullet, the cure all to solve every problem at a stroke.
Unfortunately, things are not like that.
We have to go this laborious way of finding the appropriate instrument for every problem that arises.
I would again like to point out that even in the e-commerce directive - important as the role of the country-of-origin principle is there, and I fully support the content of that directive - the regulating principle is not the only one to apply.
The amendments that have been tabled for tomorrow follow two principles: preserving freedom of choice of legal instruments, not confining ourselves to one instrument, and not making any sector-specific changes.
That is also in line with the Commission' s wishes, since it deliberately wanted to present a document applicable to all sectors.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Berger very much for her clear statement of support for this proposal this evening.
Those of you who have looked at the report will know that she withdrew her original explanatory statement.
I was delighted to hear this evening that she had confirmed her full support.
This report, with the support of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and my colleague, Mr Beysen, and with Mrs Berger's assistance also, now strikes the right balance by giving the Commission a clear indication of the support of our committee and others for this important initiative.
I am delighted that Mrs Berger is going with the flow of that for many of us felt that her initial report really did not do full justice to what we regard as an imaginative proposal, a wide-ranging proposal, and one that is of crucial economic importance to the future of the European Union.
We must not ignore the continual structural change in the world economies, in particular in developed economies like the European Union.
We are seeing services and manufacturing business starting to converge.
We are seeing more integration of traditional service providers, with their manufacturing arms looking to focus on customers in a very different way.
Therefore, opening up the single market for services is going to be of great importance.
One thing I particularly welcome from the Commission's analysis - something it has indicated in the report that it will now do more work on - is that it highlights the importance of a highly competitive service infrastructure in the overall competitiveness of European industry.
So many businesses depend on high-quality, effective, low-cost, efficient services to deliver their businesses.
Indeed the whole of the electronic commerce area, which we talked about in financial services earlier on, is facilitating and opening up these sorts of markets.
Therefore, this communication is extremely welcome.
We look forward, in the Legal Affairs Committee as well as in the Industry Committee, to working with the Commission and to moving forward with the necessary legal framework and the other actions that will be necessary to achieve it.
I want to reinforce what Mrs Grönfeldt Bergman said about the role of the small- and medium-sized enterprises in this sector.
Again we are seeing the combination of increasing importance of services combined with electronic commerce and the electronic means of delivering those services.
That is an area, particularly crucial in the business-to-business sector, where small- and medium-sized enterprises have a crucial role to play in the European economy.
Again, these provisions will help.
I refer back to the country-of-origin principle.
I share Mrs Berger's view that by a happy coincidence we have a set of reports tonight with a common thread running through them.
I do not regard the country-of-origin principle as a magic bullet to achieve market integration at a single stroke.
Clearly there is a lot of work to be done.
Yet, by operating the country-of-origin principle vigorously and consistently we will actually achieve competition and higher standards for consumers more quickly than by any other means.
Consumers are going to be well-informed and intelligent enough to know where the best standards of consumer protection are.
They are going to demand them from other countries.
This is not a question of harmonising down.
It is an effective means of making the market operate in the interests of consumers, which is exactly what Commissioner Monti told us in addressing the competition report earlier on.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the attainment of a real internal market for services will afford the small and medium-sized enterprises added incentive for innovation - as was already underlined in the debate, in fact. It will also improve the competitiveness of European industry and will provide more benefits to the consumers who will be offered a whole series of high-quality competitive services.
I am therefore of the opinion that it is of crucial importance for the internal market strategy to build on the strength of the e-commerce directive and the principle of mutual recognition.
Mutual recognition forms the keystone of the European Union and the European internal market, in particular.
Mutual recognition is only possible if the consumer enjoys equivalent protection right across the Union. This means that harmonisation is only required if this equivalent protection does not exist.
Furthermore, a business based in the Union is guaranteed completely free cross-border trade in services.
I therefore believe that the report, as it has now been approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, after inserting, inter alia, a number of amendments which I myself tabled, reflects and supports the Commission' s balanced approach.
Finally, I am delighted to find out that the Commission adopted a regulation on sales stimulation yesterday.
This shows that the Commission is really serious about further developing the internal market.
In the current economic climate, we cannot afford to lose momentum in the direction of a real internal market.
Mr President, firstly the Commission would like to emphasise the economic and political importance of its communication on a new internal market strategy for services, which I hope, will henceforth enjoy the European Parliament's full support.
A functioning internal market in services, far from being a reality, remains an objective to be achieved.
It is an objective which ought to be considered a priority if we really want the European economy to become the most competitive in the world by the end of this decade - the ambition we set ourselves in March 2000 in Lisbon.
Just to quote a single fact, services account for two-thirds of the European economy and, therefore, any progress we make on that front will greatly benefit the citizens of this continent.
Achieving that goal is rendered all the important by the growing dynamic of the information society, with all its potential for cross-border trade, and by the imminent introduction of the euro, which will increase the transparency of costs and encourage businesses and consumers to look beyond national boundaries for the provision of services.
Unfortunately, at present there are still too many legal and administrative obstacles preventing our businesses and consumers from considering the whole of the European Community as their true domestic market.
That means that we are failing to realise the enormous potential for growth and establish a framework in which millions of new jobs can be created.
At no other time in our recent history has it been more important to encourage entrepreneurship, innovation and opportunity.
Just as the 1992 campaign enabled us to focus on - and to a large extent achieve - an internal market in goods, it is now crucial for us to concentrate on dismantling the barriers to trade and services.
This new strategy seeks, above all to enable two groups - namely small and medium-sized enterprises and consumers - to reap the full benefits of the internal market.
In many instances, small and medium-sized enterprises - which Mr Harbour and Mr Beysen have mentioned also evening - will not have the means to establish themselves in all or several Member States.
If they try to do so, they will be faced with the need to expand their infrastructure and with extra financial and administrative burdens.
Therefore, they must be allowed to offer their services freely throughout the Community from their establishment.
As far as consumers are concerned, this strategy is designed above all for them.
We shall not have succeeded until European consumers have greater access to and a wider choice of, safe and reliable services at more competitive prices, and that means there must be more competition between service providers.
The strategy is the first attempt to apply, at Community level, a horizontal approach to trade and services since the General Programme for the removal of barriers to services of 1962 was introduced almost forty years ago.
It calls for the cooperation and support of national authorities, the participation of all interested parties and the active engagement of the Community institutions.
The report by Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has highlighted many of the difficult issues preventing an effective internal market in services from functioning.
I am delighted that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market shares the Commission's philosophy and supports its ambitious approach.
I also hope to be able to count on the full support of the European Parliament in implementing both the first and second phases of the strategy.
The first phase is now being carried out.
This means that existing restrictions to the freedom to provide services and the freedom of establishment are being identified and evaluated.
In the second phase, legal and operational instruments for the elimination of barriers will be put in place and our approach will be based on harmonisation, assuring a high level of consumer protection combined with the principles of country of origin and mutual recognition enshrined in the Treaty.
Accordingly, the Commission would not welcome the newly tabled amendments.
Those amendments appear to run counter to the principles of mutual recognition and country of origin and, in the Commission's view, would undermine the positive and well-balanced approach of the report, for which the Commission is duly grateful.
I should like to thank Mrs Berger on behalf of the Commission for having drafted that report.
The Commission feels that the newly tabled amendments would significantly weaken the support of the European Parliament for the proposed internal market approach.
In conclusion, I refer to the earlier discussion between Mrs Berger, Mr Harbour and Mr Beysen on the various merits and demerits of harmonisation, mutual recognition and the country of origin. Large-scale harmonisation may waste time, prove unnecessarily bureaucratic and divert political goodwill and attention away from the key issues that Member States should agree on.
It may also contravene the subsidiarity principle in the Treaty.
On the other hand, it must be admitted that harmonisation may be necessary where there is a need to establish a high level of protection, notably for consumers.
Mutual recognition, on the other hand, can be made to work more satisfactorily if it is implemented through secondary Community legislation which clearly identifies the areas in which mutual recognition must be accepted.
Both principles have their merits and demerits, but by and large I am inclined to agree with Mr Harbour's view that the quickest way of achieving an adequate level of protection for the consumer is to adopt the country-of-origin principle.
In conclusion, may I thank Mr Beysen for his kind remarks on the sales promotion directive adopted by the Commission this week.
Lastly may I apologise to Mrs Berger for having omitted previously to thank her on the Commission's behalf for having withdrawn almost all of the amendments tabled on the previous matter.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Pre-contractual information on home loans
Mr President, Commissioner, we have now reached the last item on the agenda and I hope that the crush of Members will not now be too much.
What is this report about? It is about the question of precontractual information on home loans.
We are in the process of creating an EU internal market by 2005, and one of the objectives is that in future cross-border home loans should be offered and taken up by customers.
An agreement in the matter has been reached at European level between consumer associations and banking associations.
We need that to be put into effect relatively quickly.
It would be gratifying if that were to happen in less than twelve months.
I would like at this point to expressly highlight the positive role played by the Commission, which managed to bring the two sides together repeatedly and in the end achieve a result in this difficult moderation process.
This may become the first positive example of self-regulation in the European Union.
But there are still things that need to be done.
First, we must look at the moderation process itself.
It took about four years and according to some participants was not always very transparent.
We call on the Commission to report to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs about the experience gained from this moderation process and the conclusions to be drawn for future self-regulation processes. As I have already said, it may be a positive example.
But if it proves not to be a positive example of self-regulation, the Commission really will have to put forward its own proposal for a directive.
A few points are still outstanding here.
Firstly, of course, we need a commitment not only from the banking associations, but we need a Europe-wide commitment from the banks themselves.
The extent to which the banks will participate is an open question here.
Secondly, the register that is published must of course also be posted on the Internet.
We also need similar forms throughout Europe.
It is already foreseeable that some Member States that were very keen on producing a standard form, especially at the outset, will want to go their own way and may take a different route in future.
At all events, comparability must be preserved here, in the interests of the customer.
We ought to try to extend this agreement to the candidate countries.
We should also extend the mediation body you have just mentioned, Commissioner, to this field.
We should not retain the internal mediation body proposed in the agreements, but follow the Commission' s initiative here.
We also need comparability of data.
The effective annual interest rate in particular is highly important for the consumer.
The figure at the end is not the only important thing, but the basis on which it is calculated, too.
The effective annual interest rate is still calculated in different ways in Europe. We should work towards getting a uniform method of calculation.
I would very much welcome it if this did not have to come from the Commission, but if the banks themselves could manage to agree on a method within a very short space of time.
We should then also apply all this to services offered over the Internet.
We have, after all, just had the Huhne report, which also said we wanted to press forward with this.
We should have this information there in future, too.
And finally, as the Huhne report recommends, future legislation should be harmonised with the legal terms used in this code.
In conclusion I would like to stress that I very much welcome this voluntary code of conduct.
It now requires critical appraisal and monitoring.
We hope the Commission will before long present the Committee with a report on how successful the code has been and whether we can continue along that road or whether we must introduce legislation.
Mr President, I express my sincere appreciation of Mr Radwan' s motion for a resolution regarding pre-contractual information for home loans.
There is no doubt that work to reorganise and tidy up this rather confused sector has now begun. Unfortunately, some debatable if not downright censurable behaviour has been seen on the part of European lenders.
The importance of the work that has been done lies essentially in the fact that for the first time a collection of indications and regulations is not the result of self-regulation, as has often happened in the past.
I refer to the inter-bank agreements on conditions, in which the banks dictated the rules more so as not to have to face fierce competition within the sector rather than to set up transparent contractual schemes to supply to the end-customers, but by means of an agreement, even though a voluntary one, between banks and consumers' associations.
Also important is the choice of transparency and publicity laid down in Articles 21, 22, 23 and 24 of the Code itself, and especially Article 25, which states that an offer made over the Internet should be made in accordance with the European scheme and in compliance with all the provisions and indications that are laid down.
In conclusion, I should like to point out that this code will require further additions and corrections.
The practical stage will be to give the necessary indications.
I am just troubled by the fact that the committee did not accept an amendment I tabled to set a limit - the total amount - on the loan to be registered.
My reason for this amendment was the fact that in some Member States the credit institutions triple the loan figure registered compared with the amount actually lent, which is doubly harmful to the consumer: first, there is a question of image, in that, to an inexperienced person the debt might appear to be three times as large as it really is; and secondly, a matter of costs, particularly notarial costs, which are calculated on the registered amount of the loan.
I hope that in future this aspect can be reconsidered.
Mr President, I want to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and thank him for his cooperation.
Completing the internal market for financial services and affording consumers a high level of protection is a Community priority.
Signing a home loan agreement is often the most important and the biggest financial obligation a consumer takes on in his working life.
We must therefore welcome the fact that a voluntary agreement has been reached at European level between banking and consumer associations on the duty to provide precontractual information.
That the code of conduct and the register of home loan providers to be kept by the Commission will also be made available on the Internet is also a positive move.
In this connection, in order to improve the comparability of consumer information, a precise definition of a common effective annual interest rate for home loans should be included in the European Standardised Information Sheet; it should be calculated in the same way throughout the Community and be consistent with the consumer protection directive.
The information sheet should be designed to include all the data needed to check how the loan is calculated.
This means, in particular, the manner in which advance and deferred interest is calculated.
That is one of the most important consumer policy concerns in this sector.
It is also desirable for Parliament to be included in talks about voluntary agreements in future so that absolute transparency can be guaranteed in drawing up the code of conduct.
I hope that this example of a voluntary agreement between market participants and consumer associations will prove successful so that it can be extended to other areas of financial services.
This will be a major contribution to the swift creation of the internal market in financial services.
But since the consumer side has relatively few resources available, concrete measures must be taken if the voluntary agreement is not kept.
Otherwise, the instrument of the voluntary agreement - a very good instrument in itself - might prove to be inexpedient because in the end the agreement is only kept by those who cause no problems anyway.
That alone would not be enough and would be of no benefit.
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that the Commission is in a very comfortable position because it agrees entirely with the content of the resolution adopted almost unanimously on 28 August of this year by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The voluntary code of conduct which underpins the Commission's recommendation is the very first example of an agreement reached between banking and consumer associations on the standardisation of information which must be made available to consumers before a contract is concluded.
Its existence proves, as has rightly been pointed out in the resolution, that market participants are best placed to negotiate proper solutions and to ensure an appropriate balance of interests between contractual parties.
But however well placed they might be, market participants need a neutral and indefatigable broker to accompany, and sometimes remotivate them, during the long and difficult negotiations of this code.
Tribute has been paid by the rapporteur to the Commission's role and the Commission is duly appreciative and grateful to the rapporteur for that acknowledgement.
As agreed between and called for by all parties, the broker, that is, the Commission, will now transform itself into a notary and, if need be, into a referee.
As a notary, the Commission will, in line with the resolution, keep a register of home-loan lenders who adhere to the code.
That register will be kept up-to-date and made available online.
I say this in particular to Mr Radwan who wanted this code to be on the Internet and it will be.
It will be made available online on the Commission's website and appropriate transparency will therefore be ensured.
During the negotiation phase the lack of appropriate transparency was deplored in the report.
It is a point well taken by the Commission, but at least when the register is on the net then that transparency will be restored.
That is with the Commission as a notary.
As a referee the Commission will monitor compliance with its recommendation and assess its effectiveness.
The Commission made it clear in its recommendation that it will consider presenting binding legislation should the terms of its recommendation not be fully complied with.
Parliament will, as is rightly called for in the resolution, be closely informed - that also is a point that was raised tonight - about our monitoring and compliance-assessment work.
I am convinced that the code and our related recommendation will play a very significant role in the completion of the internal market for financial services to which Parliament regularly reiterates its support.
I am also hopeful, like the rapporteur, that this pioneer initiative, once again the first of its kind, will not be a one-off experience.
Its success will, however, depend on the commitment of all parties - and I am pleased to inform this Parliament that the number of companies having notified their adherence to the code is now already significant, although not entirely satisfactory in some Member States.
I can assure Parliament that the Commission will work hard in order to ensure adherence of the entire sector.
In conclusion, Mr Ettl has put forward certain wishes.
The Commission takes note of those wishes but would like to point out that this affair is restricted to precontractual information and therefore information on interest rates and so on is beyond the scope of this instrument.
So the Commission takes note of what Mr Ettl has just said but it does not see its way to complying with those wishes.
Thank you very much, Mr Bolkestein, for your dedication to Parliament this evening.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.)
Mr President, I would like to make a personal statement pursuant to Rule 122, which allows the speaker three minutes.
I shall not abuse the Rule.
Yesterday, an Italian news agency reported a letter sent to President Fontaine by Mr Tajani regarding the speeches made during the debate of the Extraordinary Council of 21 September by Mr Barón Crespo and myself.
First of all, I would ask you to check and find out whether the President received this letter.
In addition, I gather from the agency - because I have not read the letter - that our President is being asked to do something improper, which is to take an initiative in defence of the Italian Parliament.
I do not know with what prerogative the President of the European Parliament could do so.
I also assume that the Presidents of the Italian Parliament should be perfectly able to defend their own institutions.
I should like to make it clear, then, that neither Mr Barón Crespo nor I made any attack on that Parliament.
We did, however, point out what seemed to be extremely inconsistent behaviour on the part of the Italian Government, for, at Brussels, it did not submit any reservation when signing the action plan against terrorism at the close of the Extraordinary Council, nor did it raise any objection of the kind in the Justice and Home Affairs Council, and yet Italy is promoting a law which makes judicial cooperation much more difficult. The latter fact has been noted by prominent jurists, the international press and also, today, by the American judge, Mr Calabresi, head of the Court of Appeal in New York, who says that Italy is setting out in the opposite direction to that taken by the United States and the whole international community.
In any case, we freely expressed an opinion.
In the debate, Mr Tajani did the same, refuting these arguments with arguments of his own.
At this point, I frankly cannot see what our President should do other than uphold the prerogative of this Parliament, which, pursuant to Rule 2, guarantees the independence of the parliamentary mandate, and as neither I nor Mr Barón Crespo have violated any rule of behaviour laid down in the Rules of Procedure, I think Mrs Fontaine should do nothing.
It also seems odd to me that Mr Tajani should complain about alleged interference and then ask the President to do the same.
Having said that, I should like you, Mr President, to inform Mrs Fontaine that, before the end of this part-session, we would like to know if and how she intends to respond to Mr Tajani' s letter.
I shall, of course, inform the President of your request.
I am sure Mrs Fontaine will respond as soon as possible.
Mr President, a further personal statement.
I do not believe Mrs Fontaine needs lessons in parliamentary law to know what to do.
I refer to the letter that I sent to the President yesterday.
The agencies are not the source of the information, but rather the text of the letter that I sent to Mrs Fontaine to ask her if she thought it appropriate to intervene following certain statements made in this House by the President of the Socialist Group, Mr Barón Crespo and other members of the same Group. I do not think I mentioned Mrs Napoletano in the letter, but I do not mind contesting some of her statements.
The problem is not one of interference of the European Parliament in the Italian Parliament; it is that yesterday and the day before, that is since the beginning of this part-session, we have heard statements repeated in this House that interfere with the Italian Parliament.
Indeed, when someone asks repeatedly to check whether the laws that are passed are in accordance with the decisions of the Council of Ministers, and nobody questions the assessment of that Council, I repeat and continue to repeat, and I said so yesterday to Mrs Napoletano and the Socialist Group, who had spoken on an issue that concerns Italy' s internal affairs - the Italian Parliament, thank God, is still sovereign and must not be subjected to guardianship - that, in connection with the rules on international letters rogatory, the issue in question is about a verification of a law ratifying the agreement between Italy and Switzerland, and the basic law is that which implements Article 3 of the European Convention on Legal Assistance signed in Strasbourg by all the European countries and which has been in force in Italy since 1961.
Article 3 lays down the obligation of the country that receives a letter rogatory asking for legal assistance to send the petitioning country the originals of the documents having evidential value or, failing that, a copy with a certificate of authenticity.
This is not a matter of failing to combat terrorism: we have always been, as a political grouping and as the national government, the expression of this political movement with its Prime Minister strongly committed to fighting terrorism.
I would not like it to be said, wrongly, in this House, that the law being adopted implementing Article 3 of the European Convention on Legal Assistance, which has all too often been violated by magistrates in Italy, is actually a law favouring terrorism, because it is not.
Hence my request for Mrs Fontaine' s intervention, if she thinks fit.
The matter is now closed.
General product safety
The next item is the report (A5-0313/2001) by Mrs González Álvarez, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on general product safety [3644/2001 - C5-0298/2001 - 2000/0073(COD)].
Mr President, I do not think I will take up the whole five minutes.
This is a third reading and it is a conciliation procedure that we have been following for a long time.
I would like to welcome the dialogue that has existed between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament, which has been very helpful.
Naturally, the result of a conciliation is never entirely good for all parties.
It is usually fairly good, but with a few drawbacks.
I believe that of the first amendments presented by the European Parliament at first reading, the other two institutions have accepted some important amendments.
For example, taking into account in product safety not only the producers' liability but also that of the distributors; clear information on the possible risks in the languages of the different States of the Union; faster exchange of information; greater cooperation between Member States to prevent dangerous products from reaching the market; and also, the withdrawal of products which are considered dangerous, even if they are already being marketed.
Furthermore, although not in the form that our colleagues from the United Kingdom wanted, an amendment aimed at including the special nature of several charities in the United Kingdom was accepted.
I believe that a major part of the European Parliament' s proposals were included.
However, not all of them were included, and at second reading we presented only seven amendments which intended to include what had not been accepted by the other institutions.
These amendments referred to something very important for us: the inclusion of the services in a proposal on which the Commission is working, the results of which it is committed to producing in 2003.
I believe this is a very important proposal for us, because safety of services should rank on the same level as the directive we are reviewing today.
We also need to take account of the precautionary principle; this means that when there is a well-founded suspicion that a product is not safe, we should apply this principle of precaution which people talk so much about and which is seldom applied in reality.
And the possibility that there is an external certificate which supplements the official certification.
There is also an agreement on comitology which in this case is not what Parliament wanted either, but there is a proposal of continued and regular information to the European Parliament and the Council.
Some matters which caused us concern in the final proposal were also clearly accepted.
I would just like to emphasise a matter proposed by the Commission itself at the beginning, which is the ban on exports to Third World countries of products which are not considered safe in Europe.
This proposal was not accepted by Parliament by a few votes, and is naturally not included in the final document.
I have to say, as rapporteur, that this is perhaps what concerns me most.
I believe that we run a real risk that, as we are seeing daily, unscrupulous people export to Third World countries products that are not safe.
This is an issue that is of enormous concern to me.
We have the verbal undertaking of the European Commission that there will be very strict controls to ensure that this does not occur, but it would have been safer for it to be included in the proposal and for there to be no risk of exporting products which we Europeans consider dangerous to Third World countries.
Therefore, Mr President, despite the rapporteur' s great regret that the express ban on the export of unsafe products to the Third World has not been included in the directive, I believe, as I said in the beginning, that it is not the best proposal for the Council and the Commission, perhaps it is not the best one for Parliament either, but it is the result of a conciliation procedure in which a very fruitful dialogue has indeed taken place between all the institutions and with which I am very satisfied.
Mr President, for those of us who have sat through the discussions in this conciliation, Mr Ebner's comments have come as a welcome and positive contribution to our deliberations.
For those of us who have to explain back home how this Parliament influences legislation, the timetable and content of the general product safety directive could be something of a model.
Progress here has been relatively swift; the Commission proposal submitted 15 months ago has now gone through every stage, with all of the three parts which make up the triangle of forces involved now having made their own distinctive contributions.
Secondly, as regards Parliament, there is the rapporteur.
Mrs González Álvarez has taken a consistent, thorough and dedicated line throughout the passage of this legislation through Parliament.
She has known when to hold firm and when to make concessions.
Those of us who have felt that occasionally we did not prevail when we should, owe it to her that the door is open for further and better changes after these initial steps.
Twenty-one of our thirty amendments have been accepted by the Council.
I am particularly grateful, in respect of the UK, for the clarified exemption for charity shops and street markets from the obligation to provide information on origin, which would have been beyond them.
This was not a Community-wide problem, but in countries like the Irish Republic and Britain it mattered very greatly, and much good has been done by the clarification provided.
We have the clear recognition now of the precautionary principle itself.
There was an uncommon delay before the other institutions were prepared even to write this into the preambles, but they have done so and it is now one of the markers which will guide us as we look at how product safety legislation develops.
We were not as successful as I would have wanted on withdrawal and recall, and we shall return to that and other matters later.
It is important that we should be required to consider the safety of services and to examine proposals to this end in reasonably quick time.
In this we were simply holding the Commission to a principle which it supported in theory, but must now deliver in practice by 2003.
At the same time, we shall have to look hard at the failure to ban the export of unsafe products to the rest of the world, as the rapporteur has said, and the nature of the safety indications which imported products have to carry.
One has only to look at the CE mark to see the imperfections there.
This was one step forward, but an important one.
I congratulate the rapporteur.
She has certainly earned our quality mark in these debates.
Mr President, I would like to express my support and that of my Group for the report from the Conciliation Committee.
I also congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, who has done an excellent job.
The report before us makes for a significant improvement on current legislation governing the safety of products.
Of the points agreed, I particularly welcome the fact that stronger action can now be taken at Community level under the rapid alert system where there is a serious risk to consumers, so that dangerous products can be taken off the market.
It is important that we have adequate and independent certification to comply with the relevant product safety criteria and clear labelling for consumers.
The fact that the Commission will be reporting regularly to Parliament is significant, as is the reference to the precautionary principle and the duty of the relevant authorities in Member States to interpret this in relation to all products.
My Group believes that all consumers, both within and outside the European Union, should be treated equally.
As the rapporteur has stressed several times during discussions on this directive, safety should be assured for all consumers.
I am also glad that agreement has been reached on antique and charity shops and car boot sales, as by their nature they cannot provide information about second-hand goods but do provide a very valuable service.
Overall, we need a good balance between ensuring that products put on the market are safe and seeing to it that the measures proposed to that end can be implemented in practice.
This report partially achieves that and the consumer organisations which have welcomed earlier drafts of this directive will welcome this one, too.
Our top priority is to ensure that consumers are protected and that they have the right to know which products are dangerous and what is being done about them.
This report makes significant improvements to existing legislation and hopefully will have the support of Parliament.
Mr President, strong competition, increasing concentration and globalisation are now key features of manufacturing industry around the world.
This creates great advantages, but also disadvantages, for the consumer.
Although there are numerous institutions in the EU Member States which are responsible for quality assurance and consumer product regulation, product recall is unfortunately becoming far more common.
The purpose of this report is to enforce the precautionary principle in respect of any product placed on the market, and identify suitable approaches.
I myself am a producer of consumer goods and so I would particularly like to thank the rapporteur for her proposed solutions, for the task is to protect producers as well as consumers.
One option is to harmonise the regulations governing the authorities responsible for product safety.
The network of information which will be required in this context will be broad.
It is therefore appropriate to expand the existing directive first of all and revise it after a thorough appraisal of the situation.
The market cannot be regulated.
This is why preventive safety and health measures are especially important.
The report contains numerous references to the fact that in the Member States, operators' and producers' rights take precedence over the rights of consumers.
The purpose of the report is to change this situation. I fully support this objective.
Due to the wide range of products available and the resulting risks to consumer safety and health, a new legislative approach is required.
The report makes no secret of this fact.
It also makes it clear that an export ban must be adopted for dangerous products.
This issue has yet to be considered in detail, and in my view, the proposed period until 2003 is not too long for this process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the spirit in which Members have spoken in this House today, and also on previous occasions, over months and even longer, in addressing this issue. It is surely one of the issues which European and, I might say, world public opinion cares about most, as well as being one of the most important for Europe' s identity.
There are arguments on which Europe has intervened effectively but which do not receive the general support of public opinion and the citizens.
There are other, more specific and sector-based topics, on the other hand, which have received approval.
This, however, is a general topic which has received the general support of the citizens.
On reading the documentation relating to this procedure as a whole, on how it developed and how it is concluded today, I find a vagueness in many chapters and recitals, as well as in many expressions that are or will be binding on this subject.
It is a vagueness that is quite common in acts of the European Parliament, the Commission or the Council, but which, in this case, could perhaps have been more fully corrected.
My concern is not the delay in reaching the position that is emerging today in the report, but rather that more specific detail should be given regarding interventions, the form these take, controls and the procedures by which they are enforced, and the flexibility and dignity of the controls - in other words they should not be humiliating for the producer or the consumer.
I think that, in this sense, we could have been more specific and, at the same time, more respectful of the rights of producers and distributors, but always, of course, in the consumer' s interest.
For instance, I find that expressions such as 'dangerous' and 'serious risk' are insufficient; they could certainly be used in a standard or a regulation - at national or other levels - but, as these arguments are so delicate and liable to affect the daily lives of consumers and thus of society and the community, we could, perhaps, have been more explicit.
As for the future, bearing in mind what I have said regarding controls, I think that the three-yearly report required of the Commission should be drawn up at shorter intervals, without waiting three years, so as to prevent situations from arising over the three years that need to be remedied with specific provisions.
That is why I believe that this point may warrant further consideration.
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to reiterate the Commission's endorsement of the outcome of the Conciliation Committee.
This directive recasts an existing directive of 1992, which has now been updated, reinforced and completed.
The overall aim of this directive is to impose a general obligation to market only safe products and to ensure both a consistent and a high level of protection of consumer health and safety throughout the EC and the proper functioning of the internal market.
Improvements in consumer health and safety represent one of the political priorities announced by this Commission.
The directive before you today is framed within the actions intended to achieve this objective.
Before us lies now the important task to ensure that the new provisions have full effect in practice.
Finally, let me again express my appreciation for your support and confidence in ensuring the rapid adoption of this important directive.
I hope it will be seen in coming years as a keystone of our efforts to ensure the safety of the European citizens.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Poverty reduction (combating the major transmissible diseases)
Mr President, a family in a mud hut in rural Africa without access to clean water, electricity, hospital or community centre is simply devastated when it discovers that a member of the family is suffering from any one of the three diseases HIV/AIDS, TB or malaria.
The patient has no access to a clinic nearby that can test, diagnose and treat him and, even if there is one, he cannot afford the treatment.
The patient's family is in crisis, not only because of illness but also because it has to find the money for treatment that will include the cost of transport and additional nutritional requirements.
This is the reality!
Therefore, my objective was to produce a report with recommendations that would support a programme of action that is possible to fund, practical to implement, and most beneficial to those who are the poor victims of such infections.
Such a report requires wide consultation with colleagues from all political groups, the European Commission, the pharmaceutical industry, UN agencies, NGOs and civil society, so that a consensus based on facts can be achieved and appropriate action taken to target the problem, making most efficient use of limited resources.
I had that wide consultation, and I want to thank all colleagues who were so helpful, in particular Dr Fransen and her team and Commissioner Nielson's department. Dr Fransen has worked in Africa herself, so she was a mine of information.
I also want to thank all colleagues from all political parties, especially in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, related committees and, of course, the secretariats, who were extremely helpful.
The report promotes the following: a global fund financed by G8, the EU, oil-rich nations and others to finance access to and supply of medication and treatment; a global strategy to implement a programme of action to treat and prevent communicable diseases; tiered pricing of medicines from the pharmaceutical industry to ensure wide access to treatment; support for health infrastructure to scan, diagnose, treat and monitor patients, as supply of medicines in itself is inadequate; use of incentives - both financial and legislative - to enhance research and development to produce new medicines and vaccines by both industry and the public sector; the European Commission to work closely with the governments of developing countries, UN agencies, NGOs and civil society to implement the programme.
It promotes appropriate future legislation to give more flexibility in the implementation of TRIPS to encourage transfer of technology for local manufacture of essential medicines wherever this is viable.
There are four paragraphs in the report which require minor changes because of errors or difficulty in implementation.
My intention in paragraph 14 was to ensure that if we are to find the lowest prices for medicines for poor countries and for the patients in these countries, we must ensure that the developing countries do not impose import duty and taxes on imports of essential medicines.
Developed countries - the EU and the USA - do not impose export taxes when they export medicines from their countries.
So there is a mistake in paragraph 14.
I want to make an oral amendment, which I hope colleagues will accept.
It should read: "Calls on developing countries to abolish tariffs and taxes on imports of essential drugs and equipment in order to make health care more affordable;".
This paragraph really refers to import taxes in developing countries.
I also want to make an oral amendment to paragraph 9 to replace "10%" with the word "appropriate", because you cannot dictate to the European Commission and the Committee on Budgets what exact percentage of money should be spent - there are budget lines, which are already agreed in other committees and in other reports.
So "appropriate" is the word, rather than "10%".
In paragraph 20, I would like to propose an oral amendment, which I hope Members of this House will support, to delete the second part which begins "in which a doubling of the budget ....".
Again, the same problem applies: you cannot in a report like this put a fixed percentage when other committees have agreed budget lines and the Commission has budget appropriations fixed by the Council of Ministers for doing the job it is doing.
These are minor changes.
Finally, I wish to clarify the issue of the patent life of medicines, as some colleagues have expressed concern.
A new drug costs about USD 500 m to research, test and bring to market.
Unless this sum is recoverable, nobody will invest in research and the development of drugs for diseases of the poor.
No government can finance such investment so we must encourage the pharmaceutical industry to continue to finance research.
Their patent is in any case irrelevant after seven or ten years as new drugs are developed and doctors will change a treatment regime, thereby precipitating the fall in price of that medicine still under patent.
The real trick - and this is what I have been trying to do in this report - is to secure tiered pricing for all medication - new and old - so that the poor patients benefit whilst the industry continues to pay for research and development.
My Amendment No 1 addresses this problem and I have inserted the word "review" to replace the word "reduce", in order to cooperate with colleagues concerned about this issue.
So I am not throwing it out of the window, I am asking us to review it in WTO.
If there is justification for amending it, so be it.
I hope that this House will give me full support for this report, which I did not try to make political.
It concerns something that we must do for the poor so that we can tell the world, especially the poor, that the European Union is concerned about their problems and will take the lead in fighting disease and poverty throughout the world.
Mr President, five million people die each year of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries.
One of the reasons for this is that medicines are for the most part too expensive for the people of those countries.
And medicines are often unavailable altogether.
Of the more than 1 450 new medicines which have come onto the market in the last twenty years, only thirteen are intended for tropical diseases.
There is a severe lack of effective medicines in developing countries.
They are either non-existent or too expensive.
It would appear that investment in treatment of tropical diseases is not profitable enough for pharmaceutical companies.
A more tragic example of the failure of the market is hard to imagine.
These sad facts give the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy cause to propose drastic measures.
Firstly, we propose a system of differentiated pricing.
Medications should be made available free of charge or at affordable prices.
For this, it will be necessary to prevent re-importation, and the industry' s cooperation will be essential in this.
Secondly, there is the matter of patents. Rapporteur Khanbhai mentioned the great importance of these.
Nevertheless, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy proposes to shorten the period of patent protection for essential medicines in developing countries.
This is important, since in 2005 and 2006, the TRIPS Agreement is to be implemented in developing countries.
By then, there will be major problems in combating AIDS and also tuberculosis.
If the system of differentiated pricing works, this measure will not be necessary.
But should it not succeed completely, it would be an important weapon in the battle against disease in developing countries.
A third point which is also of extreme importance to the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy is an extensive European research programme.
This is necessary to tailor pharmaceutical research more to existing needs.
Therefore more research into, and investment in, treatment of tropical diseases, but also investment in remedies which can be used in developing countries. Remedies which, for example, do not require refrigerated storage.
Cooperation with the developing countries is essential, and a substantial increase in the budget to go along with this.
I thank the rapporteur for his cooperation and for his willingness to listen to other committees.
Mr President, the Commission' s initiative from last year to play a leading role in efforts to halt the spread of HIV, malaria and TB came not a day too soon - on the contrary.
The international community should long before have taken the HIV epidemic more seriously and generally gone to much more effort, through research and preventive measures, to reduce the spread of malaria in particular.
Lack of funds, especially in the area of research, has long been acute.
Of course, we welcome initiatives of the type which Bill Gates carried out, but this type of preventive work cannot, and must not, depend on the efforts of single individuals.
It must primarily be a task for public bodies.
The resolution under discussion today constitutes Parliament' s rather late response to the Commission' s initiative of last year.
The resolution should be seen in the context of the work we are currently carrying out with regard to the budget for next year, in which we propose, at least on a preliminary basis, considerable increases compared with the proposals of the Commission and the Council.
We believe there is a need for more capacity within the Commission in order for it to be able to play a leading role in this area.
There is also a need for more money for operational initiatives.
The situation with regard to the diseases we are discussing here today is critical.
More resources are needed, but there is also a need for new and innovative forms of partnership - especially between the public and private sectors.
We must ensure that incentives are created for increased research.
Partnership between the public and private sectors is vital, as too of course is partnership with non-governmental organisations.
I hope the Commission, and especially Mr Nielson, will see this resolution, as well as our efforts in other contexts to increase budget resources, as a strong incentive and support for the Commission with a view to the latter' s playing the leading role in the fight against HIV, malaria and TB, a fight which I believe we all feel is so important.
Mr President, what happened on 11 September does not reduce the need for development aid. On the contrary.
There is reason for calling upon all the EU countries to live up to their pledges in Gothenburg to increase their aid to the promised 0.7%.
The EU is most certainly the world' s largest donor region, but that does not say as much about our own efforts as about the deficiencies of others.
Even if we are not at present supposed to be criticising the United States but instead continuing to support them, it has to be said that the United States' role in this context has not been particularly distinguished, to put it mildly.
There is both their deficient contribution to the UN and the insufficient development aid they have provided.
The issue of their contribution to the UN has now been sorted out, so we can hope that the issue of development aid will also be sorted out.
Prevention is, of course, better than cure, and development aid is an effort at prevention.
It is sad that it is so easy to get expenditure on military systems authorised and that it is so difficult to get expenditure on the preventative work of development aid authorised.
We must be clear that, in our contemporary world with its TV channels, the very poorest people also know that there are very large inequalities in the world.
In reality, it is amazing that they do not react more strongly than they in fact do.
There is no doubt that the refugee ship we heard about this summer is only the first small portent of what is to come.
Following this introduction, I wish to turn to the rapporteur' s report and thank him for all the work he has put into this matter.
Crisis conditions, to put it mildly, prevail in a long list of developing countries.
A huge effort is therefore necessary when it comes to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
Anyone who has been in any doubt as to whether this can simply be left to private companies can no longer, after the debate that has been conducted in recent years, be in any doubt that an effort is required, partly from the donor countries.
We cannot leave this to the free market.
It has actually been rather humiliating to discuss this matter, but that is why it is all the more gratifying that the EU has now done something in this area and, for example, totally untied the funds, which means that developing countries can buy wherever it is best and cheapest to do so.
We must not only concentrate on medicine. We must, of course, also concentrate on restructuring.
It is incredibly important that we should ensure that people are helped to help themselves and that we should see to it that systems are devised for which developing countries themselves can take responsibility and which they can, above all, manage, including when we are not there to support them.
Both medicines and infrastructure are required in this matter, and I would urge us to continue to make a major effort to help developing countries to help themselves.
Mr President, given the millions of deaths in developing countries, the European Commission' s proposal for an action programme against communicable diseases in developing countries is a strong initiative that contributes to affirming the right to health on the international stage.
If the European Union wishes to play a distinguished role in this fight and to make its action have a real impact, public health must become a priority for its cooperation in developing countries, and therefore be actually reflected in its budget.
This is why we are opposed on this point to the rapporteur' s oral amendments.
This is a shame, because we have done a great deal of preparatory work with Mr Khanbhai, in order to strengthen his initial resolution, and the votes of the Committee on Development and Cooperation enabled us to achieve a broad consensus.
At the same time, the media coverage of the actions brought by the pharmaceutical industry and the United States against South Africa and Brazil, which produce or import generic anti-AIDS drugs, lifted the veil on the economic stakes and pushed the European Union to specifically commit itself to the side of those poor populations needing access to treatment.
Although it makes sense to tackle the fight against tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS in a single programme, we do, however, need to distinguish between the specific problems posed by these three diseases.
In the case of tuberculosis, although there is a vaccine for the prevention of this disease, its effectiveness is highly disputed and there is an ever-increasing amount of resistance to treatment.
There is no vaccine for malaria and although drugs to treat the disease are inexpensive, they are decreasingly effective due to increased incidences of resistance.
There is no vaccine for AIDS nor any treatment that is accessible to the people from the South, as the pharmaceutical laboratories that own the patents keep the prices at an exorbitant level.
Moreover, we regret that diseases such as filariasis, trypanosomiasis, sleeping sickness, the Ebola virus or various forms of diarrhoea are not the subject of the Commission' s communication as they are causing an ever-increasing number of deaths.
Effective and coherent action against these diseases should therefore offer different solutions depending on the case, but also combine measures on several levels.
First of all, prevention involves education and information campaigns, particularly aimed at at-risk groups, such as women and young people, conducted on the ground by influential local figures.
For the prevention of AIDS, therefore, promoting the use of condoms is a public health duty.
The best form of prevention remains the guarantee of good housing and working conditions, nutrition and health.
Development policy as a whole and all Community policies should therefore contribute to the key objective of improving public health.
In the same way, we need a more general discussion about the environment.
For example, by increasing the amount of stagnant water surfaces, damming policy has caused the number of parasite diseases to rocket.
Secondly, it is essential that we improve or even create health structures and train the staff required for the detection, diagnosis, treatment and monitoring of these diseases.
The European Community development aid programme, specifically within the framework of the EDF, should be focused on health services, which have been neglected for too long due to budgetary restrictions imposed by structural adjustment.
The local health NGOs should be able to receive funds in order to carry out their day-to-day work of prevention and of supporting patients.
They should be involved in drawing up aid programmes in this field and be incorporated into public health action.
Thirdly, everyone should have access to treatment.
This means that medication should be sold at cost price to people in developing countries.
Another solution would be for these countries to have licences that authorise them to produce generic drugs.
In fact, the only way to free the people of the South from the grip of the multinational firms on price fixing for drugs in the long term is to establish a regional or local pharmaceutical industry.
The TRIP agreements should be interpreted in the same fashion, and should reaffirm the right of developing countries to use compulsory licences in the event of a health emergency.
Pharmaceutical firms need to be made to respect human rights.
In fact, following the media pressure over recent months, some of them are taking a greater interest and have promised to reduce their prices.
These measures are isolated, however, limited to a few products for a few countries and will take time.
Moreover, they are still rejecting the principle of compulsory licences.
This rejection of compulsory licences forces us to question the duration of the protection of patents.
We could also ask ourselves whether a reduction in the duration of patents is not, after all, an excellent stimulant for research.
Fourthly, we need to give new impetus to research, and this is a fundamental point.
We need to find new preventive and curative treatments that are more effective, and more importantly better adapted to local populations.
For this purpose, an international research centre on Southern diseases, financed by public and private funds, would enable us to completely free research from the purely mercenary interests of certain manufacturers.
Finally, and this is what I believe to be the most important point in this debate, is the fact that we know that the very people in the South who are dying from these diseases are urgently waiting for our help, and have been for a long time.
I think that we should broadly develop all of these structures.
All these concerns have been largely incorporated into Mr Khanbhai' s report.
This is why we call on you to vote in favour of the report, and we hope that all of these speeches will for once not go unheeded, because the people of the South need us.
Mr President, as Mr Khanbhai' s report indicates very clearly, five million people die each year basically from these three contagious diseases and ten thousand people die each day in Africa.
This seems to me to be a silent genocide that is hardly mentioned in the international press.
It seems to me that some of the proposals in the report are very good, in the sense that these deaths will not be eradicated unless basic health services are available in each one of those countries and unless, as other Members have said, there is access to the treatments, to the medicines which can put an end to these illnesses.
At present, they are not available.
Therefore, the proposal for a Commission plan and also the proposal that we contribute to an international fund to fight against these diseases seems right to us.
However, I believe that we have to look into the deeper causes.
The rapporteur rightly indicates in paragraph 13 of the resolution the fact that demanding structural changes of these countries sometimes prevents them from using sufficient public funds for the health services.
It is an infernal vicious circle, because unless there are sufficient resources for these basic health services, for improving the people' s quality of life, for them to have access to housing, food and work, it will be difficult to eradicate these diseases.
It is a vicious circle that causes a very large part of the population of the Third World countries to be in this situation.
I believe, Mr President, that prevention, better quality of life for these people, access to medicines and access to a basic health service, as the report proposes, are essential elements for a solution.
The rapporteur also points out very clearly that it is necessary to increase development aid.
It is already more than twenty years since the United Nations proposed that 0.7% of the GDP should be allocated to development.
Today, only a few Nordic countries in Europe attain that 0.7%.
The majority of European countries do not reach 0.7%.
Some, like mine, do not give 0.25%. It is deplorable, because this development aid is vital precisely for these populations to be able to access basic health services.
I would like to end, Mr President, by recalling the multiplier effect that the participation of women may have in each of these programmes.
As a member of the delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and Mexico, I was involved in projects financed by the European Union and I could see how the participation of native women in that zone had a multiplier effect, because women can help their daughters and their fellow women to learn.
Therefore, the participation of women in these plans to eradicate these diseases is fundamental.
Mr President, it is now already a year since I took part in the round-table conference on 29 September, in which everyone agreed that no time was to be wasted in obtaining practical results in the fight against transmissible diseases. Since then, however, nothing much has happened.
The Commission has acknowledged the right of poor countries to issue compulsory licences, but what does the Commission intend to do to bring about the necessary transfer of technology so that poor countries themselves can produce medicine? Why have we not yet seen initiatives to enable African technicians in African factories to produce medicines to combat tuberculosis, malaria and HIV?
Economically speaking, this is possible. We are not talking in terms of huge investments to start up local production.
The necessary transfer of technology might, in addition, be envisaged in terms of allowing those employed in the medical sector in the EU to spend a couple of years in developing countries, working on such technology transfer programmes.
It is crucial to improve the skills of doctors, scientists, nurses and technicians in the poorest countries.
They must be involved in research and development, not by inviting them to European conferences - where they are likely to receive subsistence allowances - but by providing the institutions in which they work with equipment, training and communication facilities so that well-educated people living and working under incredibly difficult conditions are motivated to remain in their own countries.
Five malaria vaccines have now been developed - an extremely important step, given the fact that malaria is the disease that kills most people.
And what is the EU doing? True, we have plans to set up a European platform to test the vaccine, even if there is already a fully developed African platform.
Does it not make sense for the vaccine to be tested by Africans in Africa, or are Africans only good enough to act as subjects of experiments by European scientists?
Let us forget all about setting up this European Clinical Trials Platform and instead support the pan-African network, AMVTN, which is just about to be converted into a fund.
It would save a huge amount of time and thus save millions of human lives, and it would save money.
It would also show that we recognise other people' s right to take charge of their own destinies, and it would provide them with the necessary transfer of technology.
It would be a fantastic first step on the way to taking action.
We have heard enough fine, but empty, words.
I should like, then, to thank Mr Khanbhai.
Mr President, despite global growth over recent decades, progress remains inadequate and unequally distributed.
Poverty, injustice and appalling conditions, from both a social and a health point of view, are still the bitter reality for many developing countries.
Thirty per cent of the world' s population live in conditions of extreme poverty, a situation exacerbated by continuous population growth and the inadequacy - or, rather, the decline - of policies for development aid, assistance and cooperation.
Europe is a relative exception, but not to the extent of correcting a worldwide downward trend.
New challenges in the developing world, such as urbanisation, environmental degradation and pollution, local warfare and the scourge of AIDS, together with the previously unthinkable resurgence of malaria and TB, threaten to drive us back.
In general, I am suspicious of statistics, which all differ, anyway, between the various Directorates-General of the Commission, as we have seen, and not uncommonly seem subservient to ideological prejudices.
There is no doubt, however, that the explosive growth of the richest countries has left the poorest countries even farther behind.
Among the indicators of poverty, that of women' s poverty stands out: the majority of poor people, the poorest of the poor, are women, just as most illiterate people are women and women continue to work more and to earn and count for less.
It would be difficult to deny or underestimate the importance of the link that still persists between poverty, disease, illiteracy and population growth, a link which has its most obvious proof in the scale of women' s poverty, the suffering of women and gender inequalities.
On the other hand, the reports of both the Commission and Parliament seem to me to be evasive, not to say reticent, on the subject of population.
The reports concentrate on the fight against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, going at length into sophisticated technical analyses and proposals for reforms, which may serve to improve our measures for combating poverty - especially on the question of drugs and health services - but do not propose any measures to improve the effectiveness of policies on population control, healthy and sustainable fertility, or free and informed maternity, as if this subject had disappeared from our view.
Yet this is still the crucial issue.
Let us consider the facts: in purely numerical terms, never have so many people been torn by poverty as this year.
Yet, because of the continuing population growth, today there are more poor people in the world than all those that have ever lived throughout history.
Since the end of the last century, the world population has grown fourfold, from one and a half billion to six billion.
The greatest growth has been in Asia: India, China, Indochina and, in particular, Indonesia.
The population trend in the rich countries is, conversely, now stationary, but the balance achieved depends on a longer life expectancy, which makes up for the slump in the birth rate.
Africa, in turn, has seen a population explosion, mainly due to the fall in infant mortality.
This trend seems today to be more contained, not because population policies have been successful but because of epidemics, especially, as has been said, of AIDS, TB and malaria.
Africa challenges us and moves us, but Africa is not the whole world and is itself diverse in its various parts. It certainly has more need than any other region of a population policy more concerned with the condition of women.
Throughout the rest of the world, not only in the rich countries, population growth has slowed down somewhat over recent decades, but if you look more closely you will see both that the birth rate has fallen and that life expectancy has increased, and that means a population that is continuing to grow and which, in most situations, is ageing, as well as cases of overpopulation in certain regional and local areas.
In conclusion, if we want to be more effective in fighting poverty, we cannot avoid or ignore the matter of population control. It is true that it is linked to economic and cultural growth, but we are not without suitable tools and appropriate experience in the field of prevention and contraception.
History teaches us that there has never been so much growth and so much poverty.
Experience shows that it is no use trying to dry out a flooded room without turning off the taps.
Mr President, Mr Khanbhai has produced a balanced report, whose proposals we gladly lend our support to.
The report draws specific attention to the triangle of poverty, health and education, no part of which can be ignored without action in the other two areas coming to nothing.
Poverty has sometimes been compared to war: it takes prisoners and it kills.
The only difference is that death from poverty is slow and the victim him/herself is branded as the culprit.
I therefore also want to remind our Member States of the 0.7% target, to give some credibility to our calls for altruism in the pharmaceutical industry.
I would particularly support the establishment of a global infectious disease fund and the introduction of compulsory licences to improve the availability of medicines.
Both will take great initiative on the part of the EU and their successful implementation will require the goodwill of key global movers and shakers as well as institutions.
In any action taken, however, it has to be borne in mind that, without viable basic health care, no other developments are possible.
Good basic health in itself also prevents more dangerous infections, and it makes it easier to identify infections early on and stop them if basic health care has been provided for.
We must not forget the importance of people' s attitudes: if there is not even any functional basic health care in place, apathy grows and then people cannot in all fairness be asked to take seriously infection risks that might develop into fatal illnesses in the years to come.
No matter how fearful the prospects of communicable disease are, making us feel a spontaneous need to take specific action as a consequence, it should never be done at the expense of basic health care.
It can, therefore, be said with some justification that EU aid with regard to basic health care has been totally inadequate for a long time now.
For that reason, doubling the EU' s financial aid resources for basic health care can be considered to be the most essential matter from the point of view of all the other objectives.
We should bear in mind the Copenhagen Social Summit pledge to attain universal and equitable access to primary health care.
Mr President, it is unacceptable that millions of people continue to die unnecessarily from AIDS, malaria and TB.
We have here a global problem of the highest order.
Our own citizens who are HIV positive are able to access long-term treatment with effective medication.
For patients in developing countries, the medicines are too expensive and the medical infrastructure to provide care for them is lacking.
Also, if a patient is not disciplined in taking his medicines regularly and in the correct dosage, they lose their effect.
The pharmaceutical industry only lowered its prices under the heavy pressure of global public opinion, and those prices are still far too high.
A further lowering of prices must be realised through industrial and government cooperation.
Only a very broadly established, very expensive and dogged international campaign can effectively tackle this large-scale problem.
Mr Khanbhai' s excellent report provides a clear overview of all the important aspects of the transmittable disease.
We join him in welcoming the European Union' s campaign programme.
It is well thought out and deserves to be carried out with the greatest urgency.
May I ask the Commissioner whether he has sufficient personnel resources available for this?
I advocate a very substantial provision in the budget over the coming years for the AIDS fund, without detriment to present provision for poverty relief.
Does the Commissioner consider this feasible and can he also tell us the situation regarding the setting up of the fund?
It is also a requirement that the twenty-year patent protection term specified in the TRIPS Agreement be considerably reduced for essential medicines.
The pharmaceutical industry must, of course, be able to continue investing in research into vaccines and cheap medicines, but must gain its profits in the rich countries and not in the epidemic-ridden Third World.
Results will not be achieved without large-scale information campaigns.
Sexual behaviour and attitudes towards women, in particular, will have to change dramatically.
Women' s right of self-determination is fundamentally at issue here.
A great responsibility also rests with the developing countries themselves, not only with the governments and the NGOs, but especially with the religious leaders who can wield moral authority.
If they refuse to cooperate, they will be partly responsible for the misery.
Only a collective effort can end the situation whereby millions of our fellow humans die, countless children are orphaned and economies are ruined needlessly.
Members of the Lutte Ouvrière party will vote in favour of this report, despite its shortcomings, due to the realistic account it gives of the catastrophic situation in poor countries and the few limited, yet positive, measures that it proposes.
It is appalling when we take account of the fact that three communicable diseases are killing five million people per year in poor countries and ten thousand people per day in Africa alone and that, moreover, the number of victims is increasing.
This is very true in the case of AIDS, where there is no known cure, whereas there are cures available for tuberculosis and malaria.
Despite this, malaria, which a few years ago appeared to be on course for total eradication has, as the report highlights, become the main cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa, whilst tuberculosis, for which there are simple and effective treatments, continues to be the disease most widespread throughout the world.
The cause of this situation is simple.
Drug manufacturing is monopolised by large pharmaceutical corporations, whose prime concern is not public health, but profit.
The recent ignominious action brought by certain pharmaceutical corporations against South Africa is characteristic of this intolerable situation, even though public opinion did, to a certain extent, cause these corporations to back off.
The report' s proposal that aims for the European Union to recognise on the international level the right of developing countries to produce and sell generic drugs within their countries, without costs resulting from intellectual property rights, is the least we can do.
Another example of this would be to impose specifications on the pharmaceutical corporations obliging them to produce drugs for these diseases, which the report says are neglected by the industry because they are not profitable enough.
The report limits itself to mentioning a reduction in prices.
Millions of people in poor countries will only be able to have access to minimum treatment if certain drugs, particularly malaria drugs, are free of charge.
The report tries to reconcile the protection of patents with access to healthcare in developing countries; we reaffirm that industrial patents, and more specifically those patents involving the pharmaceutical industry, should be completely abolished.
They do nothing to protect the intellectual property of the inventor, they only serve to guarantee the corporations a monopoly position and therefore the enormous profits that they earn to the detriment of public health and life itself.
The heading of the report says that the fight against infectious diseases contributes to poverty reduction.
In fact, most of these diseases are diseases related to poverty, even to malnutrition.
Only an improvement in people' s standard of living would be effective in eradicating most of them.
Having said this, however, for the benefit of the advocates of the market economy and capitalism, the simple fact that it is organically incapable of providing the most basic treatment and daily food for a considerable proportion of humanity in the twenty-first century, even though it has scientific and material possibilities like never before, irreparably condemns it.
President, in many European countries, at any rate in the Netherlands, there have been drastic changes in healthcare in recent years.
More differentiation, more individual care, increased personal choice and especially improved efficiency have been the most important aims.
Often these changes give rise to criticism, especially where the general availability of healthcare is concerned.
To many of us, it is unacceptable on principle that a higher place on the waiting list should be for sale.
This would mean that a person' s health would be governed by his income. And we do not want that.
It is all the more remarkable that the above situation is simply the harsh reality throughout the world.
Indeed, the Commission proposals under discussion today demonstrate that the availability of adequate medicines to the poorest, despite repeated promises, still leaves much to be desired.
There is much less indignation in the West concerning this.
In a world of increasing globalisation, however, we cannot shirk our international responsibility.
Our own healthcare problems are dwarfed by those of the majority of the world' s population.
I therefore support the measures proposed.
We will have to operate on two levels to combat these diseases.
In the first place, by participating on a micro level in healthcare improvement projects.
As far as I am concerned, these projects could be funded and executed via bilateral channels.
The European Union could play an important role with larger infra-structural projects which involve NGOs from several Member States.
In the second place, by creating on a macro level the necessary conditions to facilitate those projects on a micro level. Policy direction is an important instrument here.
I particularly welcome, therefore, the paragraphs on the TRIPS and the WTO in the European Parliament' s resolution. Especially since they provide the European Union with an important task.
I only need to see a concrete reference to the forthcoming meetings in Qatar.
I hope that the Commissioner responsible will nevertheless carry out our recommendations at that conference.
Mr President, in 1979, Willy Brandt presented his famous "North-South Report, a programme for survival", in which he warned of the risk that in the year 2000 a large part of the population would continue to live in poverty.
Shortly after that pronouncement some frightening statistics were published; every 24 hours, 35 000 human beings died of hunger in the world.
In two years, hunger caused more deaths than the two world wars put together.
The year 2000 arrived and the situation has only got worse.
According to the World Health Organisation, extreme poverty - misery - is the chief cause of suffering in the world and is also the one which each year claims the greatest number of human lives and yet we are still talking about poverty and how we are going to remedy it.
A few months ago, before the summer, at our Brussels headquarters, the United Nations together with the EU organised the Third Conference on the Least-developed Countries dedicated in particular to analysing the causes, consequences and solutions of poverty.
We also set an ambitious target: to reduce poverty by half by the year 2005.
Some studies lead to the conclusion, Mr President, that by what we are doing, with the plans and projects we intend to carry out and above all, with the resources we allocate and those which are intended to be allocated, that objective cannot be met.
Our concern now is to combat the international terrorism fostered by some notorious fanatics.
True, that is the problem of the moment but, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the root of the problem.
The problem is poverty throughout a large part of the world.
Until we solve the problem of poverty, especially the extreme poverty - misery - in which hundreds of millions, around 1 500 million human beings, and I am using cautious figures, live, we will continue to be exposed to situations such as those we are experiencing now.
Between 13 and 19 September some of us were visiting some of the poorest regions of the planet, in the south of the African continent.
Mozambique today has 19 million inhabitants but within 9 years only 13 million will still be alive; the remaining 6 will have died of Aids.
Today Mr Khanbhai in his report proposes a series of measures to combat Aids, malaria and tuberculosis in the context of reducing poverty.
During a visit to a field hospital way out in the middle of the African savannah, my colleagues and I witnessed how victims of a cholera epidemic are dying - believe me, right now - in a Dante-esque spectacle such as occurred in Europe in the Middle Ages.
This is also happening at other hospitals which are not in the middle of nowhere.
In Mocuba, there is a provincial hospital where women give birth next to patients with Aids, tuberculosis, leprosy, meningitis, and infectious diarrhoeas of all kinds.
For all these diseases which today can be cured and eradicated, there are drugs.
It is a problem of resources, and above all, it is a problem of political will.
Mr Khanbhai, I congratulate you and thank you for the important contribution you have made in your report.
But, Mr Bashir, you know your native Africa better than I do.
Let us make no mistake, the problems of poverty in the world are today of such magnitude that these measures, with the present resources, are like a drop in the ocean.
Some day we will realise this.
Either we fight against poverty with all our energy and all our resources until we conquer it, or poverty with its many faces - now taking the form of terrorism - will conquer us.
Mr President, others have established the need for action.
I should just like to add one fact: in the UK and Europe drugs cocktails have decreased AIDS deaths by 75%, in sub-Saharan Africa, where two-thirds of all people infected with HIV live, only one person in a thousand receives drug treatment.
Education is crucial to prevent people being infected with HIV in the first place, but access to drugs really does make a difference.
The drug companies are our partners.
But it is crucial that they act with integrity.
I will never forget the representative for SmithKline Beecham sitting in our EU/ACP Joint Assembly in Brussels, banging the table and saying that they had lowered the prices of essential medicines.
And then later in the year Mr Nielson was told they were going to lower them all over again.
Which is the lowest price - the one they told us in the spring, or the one they told us in the autumn?
I went to Gabon and South Africa and met doctors who are desperate to use those drugs, who have read the Internet press releases saying that the prices have been brought down; yet when they ring up they cannot actually acquire the drugs to treat those patients.
I have asked SmithKline Beecham what is the genuine, long-term cost of production of these drugs.
They will not say.
I have asked them how long they will commit themselves to these lower prices.
They will not commit themselves.
I have asked them why, if they are seeking a partnership with developing country governments, they face legal action, not just in South Africa but in India, Brazil and elsewhere.
They just will not answer.
We send a clear message to the drugs companies in this resolution: prices are too high and legislative action, including compulsory licensing in cases of national emergency, is needed to deal with it.
Finally, to Mr Khanbhai, it is no good claiming that you are seeking consensus, including NGOs for example, and then putting forward your Amendment No 1, opposing a reduction in patent protection.
Name one NGO which supports that position.
I will always remember that SmithKline Beecham's key anti-retroviral drug was not brought onto the market because of privately-funded research.
It was publicly-funded research.
They used a dormant patent to acquire that protection for their own commercial gain.
Let us have some clear speaking in this debate.
(Applause from the left)
Mr President, 7000 people died in the wake of terrorist atrocities in New York and Washington and the global response was one of shock and horror, followed by a flurry of diplomatic activity and detailed planning for an adequate response.
In Africa, 10 000 people die every day from AIDS, malaria or tuberculosis.
Why is there not a similar response? Regrettably, the harsh truth is that the developed world does not place the same value on human life in Africa.
It is a terrible indictment on all of us who live in the world's richest countries that this scale of human tragedy continues to occur into the 21st century.
Several years ago malaria seemed close to being eliminated, today it is the most common cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa.
Tuberculosis is the most prevalent disease in the world, and 35 million people are infected with AIDS, with half of all new HIV infections occurring in the 15-24 year-old age group.
I acknowledge that the EU Commission contributed EUR 4.2 billion for health assistance during the 1990s.
However, as the rapporteur pointed out, although EUR 700 million were allocated for health in 1998, the amount for 1996-1998 was only 4% of the total EU development budget.
This indicates how low down it has been on the list of our political priorities.
I hope this will now change with the publication of the new policy framework by the Commission and its proposed programme of action for the years 2001-2006.
Its three-prong strategy of better deployment of existing resources, increasing the affordability to people in poorer countries of key drugs, and support for more research is indeed welcome.
However, the proposals need to be developed further and underpinned by a greater financial commitment, indicative of a greater political priority.
The best means of achieving this is by taking on board the excellent proposals put forward by the rapporteur, Mr Khanbhai.
His call for the EU to devote 10% of our development aid to tackling this problem, his emphasis on preventative action with the 15-24 year-old age group in relation to AIDS, and his proposal for a global fund for infectious diseases and the establishment of an EU research agency should be the cornerstone of any new EU policy in this area.
Mr President, on a point of order, when the Commissioner quotes the WHO Essential Medicines' List he knows that includes not just essential medicines, but the affordability of those medicines.
Therefore, the very medicines we are discussing are excluded from the list in question.
Mr Howitt, you can communicate it in writing, thank you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at noon.
Madam President, I believe you have been told about the discussion which took place in the House this morning at the opening of the sitting.
It is not my intention to reopen the discussion, because I am sure that Vice-President Imbeni will have mentioned the matter to you.
We are looking forward to your answer, after voting time, if you prefer, because I imagine all the Members wish to vote.
Mrs Napoletano, I was indeed told about your speech at the beginning of the plenary sitting this morning.
However, you referred to a letter that Mr Tajani had sent to me.
I have not yet been able to read the translation of his letter, which I received towards the end of the morning, as the letter had to be translated and that was difficult to do overnight.
Of course, I will only be able to take a position when I have had the opportunity to read the letter that Mr Tajani sent to me.
I therefore give him the same answer: I am sorry.
It deals with a very delicate problem, that of the possible limitations on the freedom of expression of heads of State, Commissioners and Members of Parliament, which is a very serious problem.
Be assured that I am going to give it all the attention that the problem deserves.
VOTE
Madam President, I would like to declare an interest in the subject of this report.
Before the vote on recital H
Madam President, I request that the rapporteur and all the Members accept the following oral amendment with a view to replacing the original text of recital H with the following:
Whereas an urgent review of the "Television without frontiers" Directive is necessary.
It is more precise, more accurate and has the same meaning.
I request your acceptance.
Are there any objections to the inclusion of the oral amendment tabled by Mr Aparicio?
Are there any other colleagues who wish to say this? If so, I invite them to do so now.
Mr President, I was somewhat surprised that, prior to voting on the Council' s Regulation on the combating of international terrorism and the freezing of funds of terrorist organisations, we did not allow all the parties one minute' s speaking time to outline their standpoint.
Indeed, it was agreed earlier with all the political parties that we would discuss this prior to voting in view of the urgency with which the material was presented and since we had no time for a debate. It is a very important matter.
I therefore regret that we did not get that opportunity.
For the rest, I will submit the substance of our contribution in writing.
But what concerns us is that we think it very important, where this proposal is concerned, that a judicial review should take place.
We are delighted with this proposal from the Committee.
We are pleased that it is based on Article 308 of the Treaty.
This means that there is a role for the Court of Justice and this means that there is a role for the European Parliament.
We are very disappointed in the Council' s rejection yesterday of this legal basis.
The Council has not understood the urgency of this proposal and has also failed to understand the need to base it on Article 308.
By wishing to base it on various articles of the Third Pillar, the Council of course wants to exclude both the Court of Justice and the European Parliament.
It is a serious matter that should most certainly have been discussed in Parliament.
Mrs Buitenweg, I would like to answer you with regard to the way votes are conducted in this House.
I did of course scrupulously apply the Rules of Procedure.
I have to say that I was expecting every group to ask me for this minute of speaking time.
It was not my job to grant it by virtue of an agreement made in the corridors.
In fact, what should have happened and what I was expecting was for a number of Members, 32 to be precise, in order to comply with the Rules of Procedure, to request a debate, which in any case was not possible because we had voted on the topical and urgent debate and at that point the groups asked me for a minute each.
Mr Wurtz was the only one to make this request.
I was the most surprised of all, Mrs Buitenweg.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
To those colleagues who are asking for the floor for an oral explanation of vote on the procedures without report, I remind you that oral explanations of vote cannot be made for procedures without report.
I am sorry, that is the rule.
Does that come from the Rules of Procedure, Madam President?
Yes, it is in Rule 137:
"When a Commission proposal or report is on the agenda of Parliament pursuant to Rules 62, paragraph 5, or 114, Members may submit written explanations of vote pursuant to Rule 1."
International terrorism (C5-0455/2001)
President, I have supported the request for specific measures against terrorism in particular because the right of judicial challenge to the European Court of Justice is enshrined in the legal base.
This has been clarified by the adoption of the amendments put forward by the Green Group in order to protect human rights.
Civil liberties, the infringement of which some are fearful of, should be protected as all procedures are subject to challenge at the European Court of Justice.
We cannot be neutral against terror.
Europe should support the US in finding and suppressing the terrorists but we should also have a long-term plan to deal with conflict resolution and to put in infrastructural support in places like Afghanistan where humanitarian aid is needed but is only a stopgap to a fully functioning society.
For years the European Parliament has called for the support of the civilian population in Afghanistan which has been the subject of terrorism from the Taliban.
Women in particular have suffered.
There have been increasing numbers of attacks on women throughout the region and in Kashmir by Islamic extremists who have thrown acid in their faces injuring them horribly in order to make them wear the burka, a full face covering.
While reaffirming our complete opposition both to terrorist methods and to the reactionary objectives pursued by those responsible for these acts, we refuse to associate ourselves will all of the proposals from the Council of the European Union.
The political leaders of the big imperial powers, both American and European, are trying to channel the legitimate emotions caused by the attacks in New York to serve a policy aimed solely at ensuring their domination over the world, and not at preserving the interests and the safety of the people.
We reject any initiative, even a partial one, aimed towards military operations, which would inevitably make victims of the people, who have nothing to do with terrorism.
Individual terrorism does not justify State terrorism or make it acceptable.
We protest against the measures restricting individual freedoms that this climate of war is bringing about.
As for the fight against the funding of terrorist groups, if the governments really want to conduct it they should immediately abolish banking secrecy and business secrecy.
The prevarications and measures in this area which are as limited as they are ineffective only prove that we prefer to put up with terrorist money and money from organised crime than to ensure total transparency, which could unveil multiple trafficking and ignominies in the capitalist system itself and the considerable wastage that it costs society.
First of all, I must admit that this explanation of vote is difficult.
Like everybody else we are appalled by the attacks that took place on 11 September.
It is frustrating to decide not to use additional means to fight those who committed them.
We are, however, convinced that it is a choice governed by reason, and not by an instinctive reaction, which is legitimate but dangerous, motivated by anger and pain.
Apart from the fact that we refuse to set a precedent on urgent procedures, which could then dramatically increase, we have questions regarding the list proposed in the annex, which reveals genuine and fundamental problems.
Of course, we are in total agreement with the principle of implementing specific measures against people and goods linked to terrorism, in order to fight it more effectively.
There are too many areas of doubt in this well-known list:
How can we support it when we do not even know how it was put together?
On what criteria were these people selected?
We know that there is no definition of terrorism in international law, and that it is therefore impossible to set out objective criteria for what constitutes belonging to a terrorist movement.
All that is needed is to observe how easily some people call any behaviour that goes against prevailing thought 'terrorism' , such as is the case with the anti-globalisation activists or those who are against NGOs, in order to be worried about possible confusions.
Moreover, what about certain general legal principles such as:
Presumption of innocence? Benefit of the doubt?
And who has the burden of proof?
(Speech cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
We wish to once again affirm our complete and unequivocal condemnation of the terrorist acts witnessed in the United States of America, and the need to provide a response based on joint action and international cooperation within the UN that fully respects its Charter.
We must, however, state our strong disagreement with the method that the Commission has sought to impose in presenting its "draft regulation on specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating international terrorism" .
As part of the fight against terrorism, we feel it is necessary to adopt measures for combating organised crime, which specifically involve attacking money-laundering and the various forms of trafficking and abolishing tax havens.
We feel it is unacceptable, however, that a list of organisations and individuals, possibly supplied by the government and intelligence services of the United States - a country which not so long ago opposed any monitoring of tax havens - should be submitted for the approval of the European Parliament, when no supporting evidence has been provided.
Furthermore, it is our view that the necessary fight against terrorism must not be used as a pretext for influencing essential aspects of sovereignty of the Member States of the European Union.
It cannot be repeated often enough that we support the fight against international terrorism and we approve of taking initiatives to freeze funds if it can be shown that they belong to, or come from, individuals or organisations that carry out acts of terrorism. We recognise the need to react quickly but believe, at the same time, that thorough reflection is important.
The proposal for a regulation is an expression of the fact that the EU is in a position to take action, but not to reflect.
If we are not voting against Parliament' s approval of the initiative, it is for the following reasons.
First of all, we do not believe that Parliament should be consulted on this issue, on which it has no influence.
We think it is completely unacceptable that Parliament should take a view on a regulation proposed by the Commission on the basis of the paper before us, which has been presented in a hurry and which Coreper criticises for lack of cohesion and consistency.
We believe that the procedure whereby Parliament is asked to approve the hasty adoption of the Council proposal is being used by the Council to legitimise a regulation on which thorough work has not been done.
The list attached to the proposal in Annex 1 is of organisations and individuals suspected of being directly or indirectly involved in acts of terrorism.
In our view, the fact that a list prepared in the United States has been approved without hesitation is a matter for criticism.
The proposal contains no guidelines as to how, or in accordance with which criteria, individuals or organisations are to be added to, or crossed off, the list, and it has not been specified which authorities are authorised to draw up the list and according to what principles.
We would criticise the fact that the proposal invalidates fundamental principles of a society governed by law, principles that protect those who have been accused against unfair and unlawful treatment.
It is a fact beneath contempt that the traditional, threefold division of power into legislative, judicial and executive authorities has been invalidated so that the EU can comply with the United States' desire for rapid intervention.
At the same time, it must be emphasised that no infringement of these principles can justify acts of terrorism.
.
(SV) Naturally, I agree without reservation with the total condemnation of terrorism which constitutes the stated motive for this regulation.
However, both the decision process and content of the regulation constitute an insult to that very democracy and rule of law whose protection is claimed to be the aim of the proposal.
The European Parliament has been forced into rushed action without any reports, debate or access to the text of the legislation in many languages, including Swedish.
No positive reason has been given to explain why normal forms of democratic decision-making have to be bypassed.
As it is the Member States which in the final analysis will implement the proposed freezing of suspected terrorists' financial assets and as this must in any case be carried out through measures within each Member State, there is nothing to suggest that an EU regulation is required or that it will speed up the implementation of necessary measures.
At the same time, the regulation is a legal rush job and a mockery of all the grand statements to the effect that the fight against terrorism should not be perceived as a war against Islam or the Arab world.
The regulation contains no definition of terrorism, terrorists or terror organisations whatsoever.
Instead of the legislating body operating in the normal legal way by formulating a general definition of the crime and leaving it to the judicial system to trace, arrest, prosecute and judge those whose actions correspond to the definition of the crime confirmed by law, the legislating body, i.e. the Commission as proposer, the Council as decision-maker and the European Parliament as the body considering the proposal, has pre-empted the application of the law and circumvented the need for a definition of the crime by instead directly announcing 27 'guilty' organisations and people.
The origin of this list cannot be traced to any legal procedure whatsoever, but comes from the CIA.
The list contains a number of names with no more specific information - names which probably belong to several people.
In addition, all the names on the list are easily identifiable as Arabic/Muslim.
The result has been a diversion which is not needed in order for necessary measures to be taken in EU countries against terrorists' financial assets, which breaches fundamental legal principles and which must also be perceived as a one-sided political attack on the Muslim/Arab world.
Through its decision to adopt a number of amendments, the European Parliament has pointed to possible ways of partly, but far from entirely, reducing the deficiencies to which attention has been called.
I believe it would have been more just of the European Parliament in this situation to have shown its dissatisfaction unambiguously by recommending the complete rejection of the Commission' s proposal. In this way, the Commission would have been able to return with a new proposal which would have genuinely increased the chances of fighting terrorism, would have been based on legal principles and would have ruled out any suspicion that the proposal is one-sidedly directed against the Arabic/Muslim world.
Against this background, I, like a number of my colleagues in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, voted against the proposal in the final vote.
We have voted against this draft regulation because we do not think that appalling terrorist acts such as those on the World Trade Center can be opposed by violating fundamental freedoms.
This draft regulation quite simply asks us to trust the CIA in cutting off the means of subsistence from the 27 groups described, rightly or wrongly, as terrorists by the very agency which, more importantly, is behind some of them.
We did not wait for Mr Bush to denounce tax havens, but under no circumstances will we give his secret services a blank cheque.
The list, put forward with no explanation and which, we are warned, will be extended, no doubt in line with the interests of the USA and its allies, is only an alibi list when compared with the battle as a whole, against both tax havens and the perpetrators of death who profit from them.
As we definitely do not have the same definition of terrorism as Mr Bush, and as the list of the guilty remains open, we propose that the company TotalFinaElf should be added to it as the 28th organisation, as it is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths around the world and is directly linked to terrorist activities, particularly in Africa.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the European Parliament' s amendment to the Council proposal for a regulation on specific arrangements placing restrictions upon certain persons and groups with a view to combating international terrorism.
We agree that the EU must combat international terrorism in all areas.
Nonetheless, we have general reservations about the proposal and, for example, reject the list of 27 terrorist organisations.
These organisations all appear to be Muslim, which may be construed as discrimination when there are also non-Muslim terrorist organisations.
These organisations ought, in the nature of the matter, to be included in the list, which cannot therefore be regarded as complete.
Moreover, we have reservations as to whether such a list can in practice be used at all.
I abstained on the final vote because although I agree with the principle behind this regulation, I cannot agree to the inclusion of Annex 1.
This regulation speaks about International Terrorism generally and does not specifically refer to the events of September 11.
Therefore it seems totally wrong for this Annex to be included which only refers to individuals and organisations who appear to be solely from the Islamic Community.
I am also concerned that the evidence against the people and organisations listed in the Annex has not been seen by European Parliamentarians and therefore we have not been able to decide for ourselves whether those listed are guilty of terrorism or not.
The European Parliament has been asked to act urgently and decisively to freeze funds that could be used for terrorists.
We have risen to this challenge, and in doing so have made essential amendments to protect liberties of innocent people.
I am personally proud of the amendment that demands action to give details that make persons named in the annex actually identifiable.
It would be absurd to go forward with a list of names that could refer ambiguously to thousands of people in the Islamic world, rolling innocent people in with sinister ones.
The Council of Ministers has called for speed and decisiveness.
We have responded and underlined the need for judicial safeguards fully compatible with decisive and immediate action.
We are effectively challenging the Council to keep faith with us and not delay matters by devising a new version without judicial safeguards.
We voted against this draft regulation for a number of reasons.
We strongly believe that granting such powers without proper debate and without a parliamentary report on the matter is legally questionable.
The fact that the protection of civil liberties is not addressed in the regulation is appalling, and the invoking of Article 308 sets a dangerous precedent for rushing through emergency legislation without any open and transparent debate.
It is also questionable whether the European Commission had the right to invoke this article in such circumstances and it could be in breach of some national constitutions.
The European Parliament was asked to vote on a list of 27 organisations without any explanation as to the basis under which they were chosen, who or what they are, and without any mention of safeguards if one of these organisations or persons was wrongfully accused.
We do not believe that the European Parliament has the right to act as judge and jury on such matters and most especially when the facts are not clearly explained in a transparent and open manner.
We of course welcome any new measures to combat terrorism; however, such measures must be properly thought out and properly debated in a transparent and democratic manner, not, as happened this week, in a atmosphere of panic.
Any new measures must enshrine human rights, protect civil liberties and recognise the assumption of innocence, if they are to be truly effective.
.
(NL) It is an old custom to isolate political opponents by labelling them terrorists.
When ex-terrorists became the leaders of South Africa, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and a very large number of former colonies, they suddenly became reasonable and respectable people in the eyes of many, and their former opponents were blamed - rightly so - for causing the violence.
By nipping in the bud every prospect of peaceful means towards a better life, they had driven the opposition to desperation.
That is why we must always draw a sharp distinction between opposition, in particular, campaigns resulting in socio-economic and administration changes, and irrational violence, which is only aimed at bringing about fear and destruction.
The American list of 27 suspected organisations with an Islamic background raises in some cases the suspicion that the support of governments in the battle against international terrorism is being bought by labelling their internal opponents terrorists as well.
We are, then, committing the same error as in making abortion, euthanasia and trading in soft drugs by inhabitants of Member States indictable offences where these are permitted by the legal administrations of other Member States.
In the justified battle against real terrorism, not everything now being proposed is fair and appropriate - not by a long chalk.
I do not agree with this ill-considered approach.
I believe that it is sensible to freeze the bank accounts of organisations or individuals who perpetrate or support acts of terrorism such as those which took place on 11 September 2001.
What has been submitted here, however, is a list of individuals and organisations who are merely assumed to have been involved in some way in the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
However, it is possible to proceed against them, even without a judicial process or final proof.
Such a measure would be comparable with being remanded in custody, when suspects have not yet been found guilty in a court of law.
If no evidence of guilt is found, prisoners on remand are released and paid compensation.
No such provision is envisaged here.
Moreover, the clause contained in Article 2(2) enables other unpopular persons and organisations to be included on this legally dubious list.
Given that the Justice and Home Affairs Council has already talked about urban violence in connection with terrorism, I fear that this will make it possible to freeze the bank accounts of individuals or organisations who demonstrate against the EU's policies at European Councils, for example.
Had I voted in favour of this resolution, I would have given my support to a questionable and arbitrary act.
I therefore voted against the resolution despite my sharp condemnation of terrorism.
The members of the MPF group in this House have voted in favour of the Council regulation that makes provision for, following the Extraordinary European Council meeting in Brussels on 21 September, a number of measures to fight terrorism.
It is not the case that we think these measures in themselves constitute a total, satisfactory and coherent response to the formidable threat we face.
We simply think that it is a first step in the right direction and that we now need to tackle, without delay or taboos, the task of generally reviewing our legislation so that the intention expressed by the Presidency of the Council to conduct a policy against terrorism that is both 'global' and 'sustainable' does not remain some kind of mantra, but is something that can be translated into reality.
In this respect, some of the proposals made here yesterday by Minister Michel concern us, because they reflect the persistence among some of our leaders, despite the events of 11 September, of the same 'old way of thinking' , to use Mr Gorbachev' s expression, of the same ideological vein which for years has inspired, at European level, lax and demagogical measures with regard to the movement of people, which have led to us giving up control of our territory and have made the European Union an epicentre for Islamic terrorism.
When Mr Michel asserts that the wide-ranging legislative review advocated by our fellow member Mr Berthu that aims to make the safety of our people a priority 'leads straight towards a liberticidal society' , he is adding to this confusion that is the root of all of our shortcomings.
Is it not as a result of seeing every removal of controls as a step towards freedom that we have paved the way for terrorists such as those who went on to attack the United States? The fact that any serious measure of control, particularly if it is a national measure, is still seen as a liberticidal proposal, says a great deal about how far there is to go before the old libertarian ideology is abandoned and before the debate can rise to the challenges we are having to face as a result of current events.
(Speech cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure).
Extraordinary European Council (RC B5-0666/2001)
Calling an Extraordinary European Council meeting was undoubtedly the right move following the terrorist attack in the United States.
Naturally the European Union is being cautious in its response, so far at least, but there a number of sensitive points which merit special attention:
a) the reference to Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, without specifying the country from which the attack has emanated, creates a particularly dangerous climate of war and reckoning;
b) police measures to combat terrorism must be limited by respect for citizens' freedoms;
c) a policy needs to be defined towards "friendly" countries such as Saudi Arabia, which have helped by funding the spread of fundamentalism;
d) resolving the Palestinian question, especially the problem of Jerusalem, will release huge numbers of Muslims from under the spell and control of Islam;
e) fundamental intervention in the global problem of poverty will free whole societies in Asia and Africa from the despair which feeds terrorism;
f) the European Union must avoid Mr Berlusconi's divisiveness and Mr Blair's sermonising and take a calm and friendly approach towards Islam.
We wish, once again, to state our total condemnation of the terrorist acts witnessed in the United States and, once again, pay respect to the suffering and the struggle of the victims' families and of the American people and call for the fight against terrorism not to contribute to creating more victims.
The fight against international terrorism will only be totally effective if it is carried out under the auspices of the United Nations and this is why we specifically reject the use of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, which runs the risk of dragging the European Union and the international community into a spiral of violence with incalculable consequences.
It is also our view that the fight against terrorism, which is, of course, necessary, must not be used as a pretext to undermine individuals' fundamental rights, freedoms and protection under the law, or affect essential aspects of the sovereignty of the European Union' s Member States, including militarisation.
What we do feel is important is that, in parallel with the fight against international terrorism, we pursue the fight against money laundering, including the abolition of tax havens.
Our vote, therefore, reflects our profound disagreement with some of the joint resolution' s main aspects, voted for by a majority in plenary, although we support most of the remaining points.
I voted against the resolution for several reasons.
I believe that bringing to justice those responsible for the terrorist attacks in the United States should not mean suffering and terror for other innocent people.
It is vital that any action taken in response to these atrocities does not trigger more attacks like it or even worse.
The international community has a duty to seek to understand what may have led to these terrible crimes.
It must try to understand because to refuse to do so will contribute to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.
I believe that the United States, and the coalition of countries that has been formed, must be sensitive to global security as a whole.
If the US responds with attacks on Afghanistan it too will be killing innocent people and two wrongs never make a right.
I strongly feel that we, as politicians in the democratic world, have a great responsibility to uphold the principles of non-violence and to ensure that such unjustifiable violence does not escalate.
.
(NL) The fact that people should kill themselves and many others in the terrible manner of 11 September in New York and Washington is a sign of hate and desperation.
You can only combat terrorism by helping to remove the breeding ground for violence, not by causing yet more outrage.
The way in which Israel seeks out and liquidates violent Palestinian opponents only appears to evoke more sympathy for violent resistance.
There is now the threat of that very mistake being repeated on a global scale.
When it comes to matters of climate, armament and racism, the US President sought isolation.
The formation of a coalition of the rich and powerful, led by him, against the poor and rebellious will be counter-productive in the long run.
I side with the only American politician who had the courage to vote against the warmongering, following in the footsteps of those few German socialist dissenters at the beginning of the First World War.
The money we are about to waste on war would be better spent on prevention.
Within Europe, this would involve making ourselves as secure as possible against attacks, something which would be possible if we did not privatise airport security and air traffic safety and if we paid closer attention to safety standards for very tall buildings.
Outside of Europe, it would involve helping to solve the problems of poverty, neglect and injustice.
British Conservatives strongly support measures which are specifically designed to combat terrorism in all its forms.
In this spirit therefore, we have supported the motion for a resolution and the counter-terrorist legislative measures being adopted by Council.
However, we do not support the proposition that 'combating international terrorism implies a distinct strengthening of the relevant EU competencies', or that the EU should have responsibility for negotiating agreements on judicial and police cooperation with the US, which are properly a national responsibility, given the very different constitutional, judicial and operational traditions of key Member States such as the United Kingdom.
We see no connection between the need for a resolute response to the recent terrorist attacks and the call for intensification of efforts to operationalise the European Security and Defence Policy.
On the contrary, recent events underline the need for stronger transatlantic ties, and an enhancement of NATO, rather than the potentially divisive pursuit of some autonomous EU military capability.
In addition, we wish to ensure that any new counter-terrorist legislation is also used to bear down on those terrorist organisations, such as the IRA in all its forms, and ETA, that have been conducting terrorist campaigns from and within EU Member States over the past several decades.
Stability and Growth Pact (RC B5-0602/2001)
The collapse of liberal dogmas is becoming increasingly apparent.
The 'stability pact' and the anti-democratic powers that the European Central Bank has been given operate in an extremely restrictive fashion, at a time when radical change in the direction of European integration is becoming particularly pressing.
The demonstrations by trades unions and other organisations that arose as a result of the meeting of the Ecofin Council in Liège and debates at the European Citizens' Congress have highlighted the urgency of the social and democratic demands made by movements that are opposed to the prospect of globalisation in line with the current capitalist globalisation.
The Ecofin Council, however, once again demonstrated its inability to communicate.
It did not make any proposal in proportion to what is at stake.
Its debates continue to be characterised by a total lack of transparency and responsibility, as illustrated by the fate of the Tobin tax.
Ministers went back on their public commitments in referring the matter to the Commission, which we know is hostile to such a decision, no matter how elementary it may seem.
In the same vein, the burning question of tax havens was only voluntarily broached from the specific angle of the fight against terrorism.
The governments of the Union are not yet ready to change direction.
This is the fundamental issue hidden behind the joint resolutions put forward for the vote.
And this is the reason why we will vote against them.
Japan is now experiencing a recession.
The United States are not far behind, Europe is seeing considerably less growth and a recession is not completely out of the question.
In order to prevent a global recession, it makes perfect sense to boost economic activity by means of coordinated action with Japan and the United States, through increasing public expenditure up to a limit of 3% of the public deficit of each EU Member State, on the condition that:
the purpose of increasing expenditure is to improve public investment and to encourage private investment; and
at the same time, efforts are redoubled to implement structural reforms that stimulate employment, investment and competitiveness.
The Stability and Growth Programme must, therefore, be made more flexible, in addition to the flexibility resulting from 'automatic stabilisation' , and this is why I abstained on the motion for a resolution tabled by the PPE-DE Group.
Hieronymi Report (A5-0286/2001)
The adoption of the "Television without Frontiers" directive was a milestone in Community legislation.
Yet, here we are, over ten years on, and the editorial changes needed to protect viewers and European cultural productions have still not been made.
Below are the three most important points:
a) viewers need to be protected from the flood of advertisements by strengthening the binding arrangements in the directive and controlling and punishing televisions stations which infringe them;
b) minors need general protection at Community level from advertising and from programmes which desensitise them to violence and anti-social behaviour; and
c) stricter, specific measures are needed to promote European productions and make it easier for producers in small countries to break into the wider European market.
, Färm, Hedkvist Petersen, Hulthén, Hans Karlsson, Theorin (PSE), in writing.
(SV) We Swedish Social Democrats believe that it is vital that minors be protected from television advertising aimed at children , as this group is particularly susceptible and may have difficulty differentiating advertising from other programming.
In Sweden, TV advertising aimed at children under 12 is totally forbidden under the Swedish Radio and Television Act.
According to Directive 97/36/EC, advertising must be clearly identifiable as such.
Children under a certain age cannot appreciate the difference between advertising aimed at children and normal children' s programmes.
Slightly older children can appreciate the differences but not understand the purpose of the advertising. (Research report by Gunilla Jarlbro of Gothenburg University).
We therefore believe that this must not be promoted, which is why we are voting against this part (paragraph 1 aa) of the report.
First and foremost, I must thank both our rapporteur in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, Mrs Hieronymi and the whole of the Committee for the high-quality work they put before us and their interesting reaction to the third report from the Commission to the Council, the EP and the ESC on the application of Directive 89/522/EEC "Television without frontiers" , whose main objective is to put a legal framework in place to promote the free movement of audiovisual broadcasting services within the single market and to guarantee certain general interests such as the promotion of cultural diversity and the protection of consumers and of minors.
Many reasons can be given to justify my vote in favour of this report; I shall simply mention them.
Taking into account that 98% of homes have a television, the report firstly and quite rightly points out that the social impact of television is becoming increasingly significant, especially for children.
Meanwhile, regarding the protection of minors, the report asks the Member States to step up their dialogue, to define common solutions without threatening their independence in terms of national restrictions for the protection of minors.
This can be put in another way by saying that the audiovisual sector plays an essential role in democracy and informing the people, and is therefore emerging as a reflection of the level of freedom of expression and plurality of ideas that can be expressed and understood.
Moreover, the report also highlights the extent to which the audiovisual sector is a leading sector both in the economy and for employment in the European Union: in 1997, the audiovisual sector employed more than a million people in Europe and its revenue should increase by 70% between now and 2005.
(Speech cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
Berès Report (A5-0307/2001)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on 1 January 2002, economic and monetary union will be completed.
For each Member State, there will be a continued and binding obligation and need to consolidate public budgets on a sustained basis.
This is set out not only in the Commission report but also by the rapporteur herself.
I fully support this objective.
I therefore welcome the report's proposal that the current requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact be expanded with new and individual objectives for each country.
Consolidating the public budget is the main priority for every government in order to create the required scope for action.
As a representative of Austria, I know what I am talking about.
Despite all the difficulties and a mountain of debt, the new government is working to ensure that the ambitious goal of achieving a zero deficit remains in place.
Färm, Hedkvist Petersen, Hans Karlsson (PSE), in writing.
(SV) We Swedish Social Democrats have abstained from voting in the vote on paragraph 2 and recital B.
Paragraph 2:
It is good that the Eurogroup is developing its cooperation on monetary issues.
However, to transfer all cooperation on economic policy to the Eurogroup would be wrong.
We do not, therefore, support a possible amendment to the Treaty in order to strengthen the Eurogroup' s powers in the economic area, in any case not until we have more concrete proposals.
Against the background of EU enlargement, it is particularly important that Member States outside the Eurogroup have the opportunity to take part in economic cooperation.
Recital B:
We do not wish to give our support to progressively binding legislation in the economic area, at least not until we know more about the specific implications.
The report makes the indisputable observation that "Economic Europe is not yet a reality".
The reasons for this are no mystery.
Each national State is, more than anything else, concerned with protecting the interests of its own capitalist class and favours national policy most suited to that objective.
The ruling classes have no need, however, for the European institutions to harmonise their policies, apart from settling national rivalries, in order to improve the profitability of their capital to the detriment of the working classes.
In terms of freezing salaries, widespread lack of job security, mass redundancies, savings on public services and attacks against social protection, capitalist Europe has no need for institutional harmonisation in order to be united.
The Bérès report considers that "sound public finance" is the prime condition for "strengthening economic policy coordination within the euro area". However, it does not say how that financial balance should be reached.
Who should pay? Capitalist companies or consumers through VAT?
Who should benefit more from budgetary spending? Public services or private employers?
Without tax gifts to capitalist companies, budgets could be used more for public services without being in deficit as a result.
This is clearly not the line taken in the report.
Under these circumstances there was no question of us supporting it with our vote.
The Berès report is interesting because it acknowledges the failure of a social liberalism that thought it could combine acceptance of the Treaty of Amsterdam with genuine social policies in Europe.
The report advocates the coordination of economic policies, but realises that the institutions that could perform this do not exist.
The ECB is obsessed with one single issue, Parliament is powerless, and the Eurogroup is semi-clandestine.
The report simply begs it to please keep Parliament informed.
The report does however contain a large amount of truth, as throughout there is concern about the institutional void and regressive policies that risk being implemented under the influence of neo-liberal dogma.
But instead of saying out loud what is being discussed increasingly widely, that it would be reasonable not to apply the Stability Pact, the report is content to advocate coordination of 'their respective stability programmes' .
This quite pitiful desire to limit damage cannot make us forget that the shackles were put in place with the active support of liberal socialists, particularly in Italy and France.
This is why we did not lend our support to vague and ill-conceived orders that, more than anything, serve to make us forget that we have in fact made a huge mistake.
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(EL) A single currency requires a single economic policy.
This, basically, is the conclusion drawn by both the Commission report and the rapporteur's report.
Member States are being further restricted in the exercise of economic policy to a framework of decisions taken in advance and national parliaments are required to do no more than observe or, even worse, execute decisions taken by the ÅU.
This is an attempt to undermine the workers' facility to react, as they are doing more and more decisively, to the choices made by big business.
The EC report welcomes the EU's anti-grass roots policy and includes proposals whose sole function is as an alibi for the rampantly neo-liberal economic and social policy of the ÅU and the tragic impact which it has on the lower classes, such as prior agreement on the allocation of fortuitous or exceptional tax revenue - just to make sure nothing is spent on the social security sector.
Integrating the "issue of the ageing population" into national budgets is another move in the same direction.
While the report posits that unemployment still affects 14 million Europeans and that the economic and social situation has not improved, it remains faithful to the policy of structural change and unemployment sharing.
The involvement of the national parliaments in the form of an annual evaluation of the application of the broad economic policy guidelines decided in the European Council and the debate on the stability programmes approved by the Commission and the Council, are no more than a semblance of democracy, the aim of which is to entrap national representations in Community procedures, especially when it is proposed to strengthen the role of the Commission and impose sanctions on Member States which fail to apply the economic policy imposed by Brussels.
It is an attempt to make national institutions accessories to a process which, on the pretext of coordinating economic policies within the broad economic policy guidelines, is further subjugating wage measures and social policy measures in general to the suffocatingly restrictive criteria for cohesion and of the Stability Pact.
The Member States are expressly called on to "coordinate their actions and refrain from adopting tax, budgetary or wage policies".
The break-up of the guaranteed national insurance system, in conjunction with wage cuts and the fact that working hours and costs are arranged to suit employers, are demonstrably increasing poverty and social exclusion among the working classes and reducing the quality and extent of services offered.
Obviously, the more measures passed to restrict income and workers' rights, the greater the pressure for more structural measures, and the more the signs of slump in the economy increase, the stricter austerity policy becomes.
Peijs report (A5-0306/2001)
I voted in favour of the excellent report presented to us by Mrs Peijs for the following reasons.
As we all know, the last 30 years have seen an excessive increase in public spending in Europe, which has forced Member States to raise taxes to an unsustainable level.
It is, therefore, crucial that we reduce the tax burden, by implementing the reforms necessary to achieve this, so as to improve incentives for employment and for business activity.
The attempt that is being made to define a sustainable method of tax relief is, therefore, to be applauded.
I hope that the Commission will continue in its efforts to guide national governments' approach to tax relief, specifically by establishing a 'code of conduct' .
With regard to the issue of trying to ensure that the largest possible proportion of the active population has access to the labour market, it is essential that we abolish the social, fiscal and administrative obstacles preventing women and older people from returning to work and/or from remaining in work.
This is particularly important because features of demographic change have been - as the United Nations' report for 2000 quite rightly points out - a slowdown in the growth of the population of active age and the increase in the population over 65 years old, which raises the enormous concern of maintaining the social security system or even of trying to prevent potential economic hardship arising as a result of having an insufficiently large workforce for our labour markets.
It is equally important that we give priority to the access of young people to the labour market as well as to lifelong learning, which will require an increase in public and private spending in the fields of education, research and development, along with, of course, the respective structural reforms, so that the effective transition to a knowledge-based society can go ahead.
This report demonstrates little concern for the social and economic situation of certain Member States and dwells on the need to pursue budgetary consolidation and compliance with the Stability Pact.
This is a very short-sighted position, which is why we propose it be removed.
What is really required is the immediate suspension of the Stability Pact and a thorough review of its objectives, criteria and bases.
We also disagree with the idea that public investment is not a solution to the crisis or that it is generally poorly managed and led, which is why we have tabled a proposal for an amendment that highlights the importance of public investment for economic growth and employment.
A degree of commitment to solving social problems, job creation and combating social exclusion and poverty require no longer attaching priority to maintaining monetary stability at all costs, when we know that the consequences of this will be further unemployment, wage caps and more poverty.
Deplorably, the various amendments we tabled on a thorough rewording of the report have not been adopted.
The Peijs report is a true neo-liberal anthem that portrays public finances and social protection as the root of all evil.
For example, the report contrasts inevitably "ill-managed" public investment with the private sector, which is, naturally, efficient.
Its main function is to once again affirm the neo-liberal dogma codified in the "Stability Pact" signed in Amsterdam in 1997, and to condemn the adjustments suggested at the Gothenburg summit on automatic stabilisers.
Now that the economic climate is changing due to a persistent wage moderation policy, the report affirms the right to inflict a fresh recession on Europe.
It advocates blindly applying a policy that everyone will notice goes against the announced objectives for growth and employment.
When the economy slows down, the Stability Pact contributes to the chaos by slowing business down, because in reality it aims to achieve an unemployment level that will bring salaries back down and increase profits.
We must vote against this report, as applying it would pose a genuine danger to the workers of Europe.
.
(NL) Fluctuations, with their peaks and troughs, are characteristic of a market economy.
At times of economic stagnation of growth or when consumption levels fall, there is no sense in talking people into unrealistic optimism.
This would be a form of deceit and would lead to recklessness in consumption and risk-bearing investment.
It would be better to expand existing governmental provisions or to introduce new ones.
This was the method successfully used in America under Roosevelt during the `30s crisis, and with which western Europe was successfully rebuilt after 1945.
For that matter, it was also the method by which authoritarian states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were able to build economies which were much stronger than outsiders had predicted.
In all those cases, whether we agreed with them or not, the result was an unexpected number of satisfied people.
Instead of learning from that, we now see a reversion to the primitive standpoints of the 19th and early 20th centuries preceding these successes.
Tax reductions, in favour of high incomes and big business, are now considered to be positive, while government spending is considered to be very negative.
The report by Mrs Peijs fits in with this now predominant trend.
As I expect poverty and instability as a result, I am not in favour.
Longo report (A5-0299/2001)
Prominent in this report is a whole set of demands for speeding up the process of liberalisation in various sectors.
It even criticises the Stockholm European Council for not having fixed a timetable for the definitive liberalisation of the gas and electricity markets, which is unacceptable.
We also reject its call for Member States to move ahead rapidly and in a uniform way on opening up the energy, transport and postal services markets.
It therefore comes as no surprise that it attacks the public monopolies, specifically in the field of electricity, that it calls for the local call market to be opened up or that it considers that the privatisation and liberalisation of public services will lead to lower prices and higher quality.
.
(EL) The real world today is a world in which huge monopolies abuse dominant market position, where gigantic companies merge, consolidate or are taken over on a daily basis and where monopoly groups acquire terrifying power, invariably accompanied by thousands of redundancies, which have a huge impact on employment, and the monopolisation of wealth-creating resources, markets and consumers.
There were 345 new mergers in 2000, to quote the report, thanks to increasingly flexible legislation which fosters the creation of large monopolies which acquire dominant market positions.
However, this is of no concern to the ÅU.
What does concern it is setting a timetable for the definitive liberalisation of the natural gas and electricity markets, speeding up the rate at which the energy, transport and postal services markets are liberalised and safeguarding universal access to services of general interest, in order to improve the competitiveness of the economy.
It is also concerned with abolishing state aid.
However, the desperate attempt to abolish state aid is really an attempt to increase the profits of the already strong players and to consolidate their market position by excluding new competitors and applying the law of the jungle, the law of might is right and the supremacy of monopoly interests.
State intervention does not, of course, touch the heart of the capitalist system and it often strengthens companies and businesses on a selective basis.
However, without state intervention, even with the tiny, balancing role which it can play, the gulf will widen constantly to the detriment of less developed areas and sectors and the poorest sections of society, given that structural measures and denationalisation are carried out not for their benefit but to strengthen the profitability of big business.
That is why the constant pressure for measures such as the proposed register of state aid and the subsidy scoreboard is intolerable.
All the choices made by big business illustrate how worried it is about the possible renationalisation of competition policy (i.e. control by the Member States, not the Commission of the European Union), which is why the report proposes an international competition system in the framework of the WTO.
The competition policy applied has resulted in large branches of European industry dismissing workers and losing important shares of the global market and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The disgraceful concentration of power, in strategically important sectors, has put the economy of entire countries in the hands of speculative multinational groups, with everything that implies for the workers.
The loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs has caused unemployment to spiral.
The workers are facing the biggest attack yet on their employment and social rights, they are watching their standard of living being eroded, poverty spread and the public sector and productive base in most countries in the Union being restructured and dissolved in the name of rampant and catastrophic competition, in the name of an absolute market economy and in order to promote the monopoly aspirations of big business.
That is why protests against globalisation and the prevalence of the uncontrolled rules of the market economy are growing day by day.
We consider that the competition policy applied is responsible for all this and we intend to express our complete opposition to it by voting against the report.
Huhne report (A5-0301/2001)
In spring last year, together with the Council, we adopted the Electronic Commerce Directive which is due to come into force on 17 January 2002.
The pillar of this Directive is the country of origin approach.
When the report before us was discussed in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for the first time, I was surprised to find that some members of the relevant Committee wanted to call this country of origin approach into question again for online financial services.
Yet this is quite absurd.
If the European Parliament and the Lisbon European Council have set a deadline of 2005 for establishing an integrated market in financial services, we cannot afford to adopt incoherent legislation or keep re-examining decisions which have already been taken, unless we have very good reason to do so.
This applies not only to some Members of this House but also to the Council, whose vote last Thursday on the Directive on Distance Marketing of Financial Services I greatly regret.
We opted for the country of origin approach - so we should now apply it in a targeted and coherent fashion.
I would also like to join the rapporteur in congratulating the Commission on its initiative in establishing the European Extrajudicial Network (EEJ-NET) and the Financial Services Complaints Network (FIN-NET).
Simple, cost-effective, non-judicial procedures for cross-border redress can only enhance consumer confidence in the development of cross-border financial services.
Naturally, consumers must be made aware of the existence of these networks, and I therefore also support the proposal that all websites providing online financial services should advertise these networks.
Berger report (A5-0310/2001)
The services sector is of fundamental importance to the future development of the European Union' s economy and already accounts for the largest share of its GDP and more than two-thirds of employment.
It therefore deserves our full attention to ensuring improvements in its quality and to maintaining employment. The main concerns of the Commission, however, as stated in its communication, focus on establishing an internal market for services, studying the obstacles to the free movement of services across national borders, proposing their removal, and working towards speeding up the liberalisation of postal services, the distance selling of financial services, acquisition proposals and value added tax on digital products.
The rapporteur, as well as agreeing with the Commission proposal, highlights the need to speed up and complete the process of liberalisation in sectors such as postal services, electricity and energy, which we are bound to reject, since, in general, this is designed to demote the State to a role of merely regulating the activities of public services, establishing supposedly independent regulatory bodies, which are directly or indirectly controlled by economic and financial groups.
By and large, the results of liberalisation are redundancies, increased prices for public service provision, a reduction in the quantity and quality of service provision and the rejection of the right of universal access to public services.
Khanbai report (A5-0263/2001)
The Khanbhai report makes an extraordinary analysis of one of the most serious challenges facing the world today; the fight against the main communicable diseases in the context of poverty reduction.
Communicable diseases kill around 10 000 people every day in Africa, with 35 million people throughout the world contaminated with Aids.
HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis are, therefore, a terrible threat to the social and economic development of the poorest communities, and as Mr Khanbhai argues, require a rapid, effective and wide-ranging response, in which the EU must take the lead.
These diseases cause not only human suffering and an extremely high number of deaths, which are in themselves justification enough for such a response, but also cause a drastic reduction in life expectancy and in the labour force, with all the social and economic consequences that this entails They seriously disable large working populations, retard social and economic development and destabilise communities that are already weakened.
I therefore agree with the rapporteur when he states the urgent need to create an Infectious Disease Fund, which is crucial to providing medical treatment for those affected, to identifying carriers, to prevention and research and to the development of new medicines and vaccines.
.
(NL) In questions to the European Commission, I have already on a number of occasions strongly recommended measures to ensure that medicines to combat prevalent fatal diseases are available to inhabitants of the Third World.
Remedies against tropical diseases are often available to foreign tourists from rich countries, but not to the large majority of the local population.
Existing medicines, which have worked effectively for many years, are even being withdrawn from the market.
The reason for this is the lack of spending power in those countries to buy these medicines.
If we see medicines as mere commodities, protected by patent rights which ensure that the cost of earlier development expenditure is forever passed on, there will be no medicines available to poor countries and certainly not to their poorest inhabitants.
Such medicines often cost more than the annual income of people living there.
The proposals by Mr Khanbhai for international recognition by the EU of the right of developing countries to produce generic treatments for epidemic diseases without having to pay the costs of intellectual property rights, as well as the stimulation of production of treatments for diseases caused by poverty and the periodical review of the TRIPs agreement are essential to reach a solution.
The report makes a number of good points.
However, they pale before the sheer extent of the misery and shame suffered by millions of people throughout the world, especially in undeveloped countries, where they are still living in poverty, deprived of even basic access to health, and dying from infectious diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS and so on.
It is even more of a disgrace when there is the certain prospect - based on official studies and research - that the situation will get worse.
The acceptance that health is a "global public good", as the report rightly points out, cannot be reconciled with the fact that a large proportion of the world's population is deprived of access to education, housing, employment, food, safe drinking water, conditions of hygiene and health services.
More than 5 million people a year die from infectious diseases, mainly in underdeveloped countries, while a handful of multinational pharmaceutical monopolies continue to patent, profit from and speculate with drugs, even going so far as to withdraw drugs which, although they save lives, fall short of profit targets.
It is not right to channel any additional resources for developing research to the private sector in the form of incentives rather than to public research centres.
It is insulting and hypocritical to state that the "global public good" of health is being hit particularly hard in underdeveloped countries, while at the same time imposing structural changes on these countries by reducing expenditure on the public service sector, especially the health and education sectors.
It is unacceptable to rely on the "charity" of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for action to safeguard this "global good" and to trust in "better cooperation" and "partnership" between the public sector, NGOs and the private sector.
Health is a fundamental and inalienable human right, it is the most important factor of social justice and human dignity and it cannot be ruled by market regulations and the laws of profit.
It is of prime and capital importance to use public-sector means to fight disease and secure the right to health.
However, a radical approach to the problem involves hitting at the root of poverty, at what sustains and exacerbates it.
The report hardly even touches on this sort of solution to the problem, making do with regurgitating constantly repeated "analgesic" announcements and proposals.
Overturning the social policy system and policies which apply the established imperialist and monopoly interests which generate and spread poverty and misery, which have no hesitation in crushing and sacrificing entire populations and nations to their cause, is the only solution to the problem.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Support for a framework agreement in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
The first item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0617/2001 by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
B5-0626/2001 by Mrs Pack and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0634/2001 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group;
B5-0643/2001 by Mr Swoboda and Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0653/2001 by Mrs Morgantini, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
B5-0660/2001 by Mr Lagendijk and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group,
on support for a framework agreement in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Mr President, I think that two messages must be sent to Macedonia today.
The first should be to the government of Macedonia.
Much gratitude should be conveyed, as well as admiration expressed, for the courage demonstrated by the Macedonian government in proposing amendments to the constitution and giving the Albanian minority the place required by a modern democracy.
It has been difficult, and the European Union must express its heartfelt gratitude to the Macedonian government for what it has done.
The second message I think we should convey to Macedonia should be addressed to the NLA, or what is known as the liberation movement.
It will be appreciated that this originally emerged under Milosevic - I shall not go through the whole story - but now there is only one thing to say to the NLA and to its remnants in northern Macedonia, and that is: the struggle is over now; all weapons must be handed in now; there is now no reason at all for the NLA to continue with the activities of which it has been guilty - and I use the word 'guilty' advisedly, for the NLA is of course a very mixed organisation, certain aspects of which do not bear too close examination.
Now, the Albanian population has been accorded its full civic rights.
That is the way to solve problems involving minorities.
I myself come from a border area between Denmark and Germany, in which we solved all the problems 45 years ago by according both minorities, north and south of the border, full rights in a modern democracy.
That is what Macedonia has now also chosen to do.
It is the right way, and both parties deserve our thanks.
Mr President, although our views on the NLA might differ slightly, I endorse Mr Haarder's comments that the task now is to preserve peace.
Peace is still a precarious commodity in Macedonia, perhaps because faith in a shared solution, a shared state and a shared society is not yet fully established.
This is not surprising, for something like this takes longer than sitting at a negotiating table and engaging in negotiations.
However, if we look at the Framework Agreement, I think it is very important that renouncing violence is the first priority.
This is a democracy; it does not need violence to bring about change.
In a democracy, it must be possible to talk about change, conduct negotiations and then bring forth legislation to achieve change.
The second point is the country's integrity.
We do not need new borders or new states painstakingly drawn along some sort of ethnic lines, but which can never be drawn precisely.
We only need to look at the capital Skopje to see how impossible this is.
I have never understood why both sides - even if only briefly - have actually talked about the option of dividing the country.
Thirdly, this is a multiethnic state.
Many countries are multicultural, but this is a multiethnic state with a significant Albanian minority which cannot treated in the same way as a five or six percent minority.
Its status must be enhanced.
Its status has been enhanced, and we think it is right that these minority rights are being expanded beyond the usual extent.
I believe that overall, a good compromise has been found.
We will be in Skopje in the next few days.
We will stress the need for the remaining necessary measures to be put in place.
For our point of view, this continual prevarication and threat that there will be no agreement and coordination after all, or that there may be recourse to violence once more, are incomprehensible and unacceptable.
I hope that just as we are able to discuss Macedonia with a greater sense of satisfaction today, this prevarication will give way to a genuine feeling of satisfaction and acceptance within the next month or so.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the weapons have been collected, so it is claimed.
The NLA has been dissolved, so it claims.
We all know that there are still a great many weapons in Macedonia, and the issue of a criminal association is still on the agenda.
It includes those who want it.
I still assume that most Albanians want it.
I also assume that most Macedonians want it.
However, the problem in many Slav Macedonian heads has not yet been resolved - otherwise, we would never have had the problem in the first place.
In recent years, nothing was done to enable the Albanian minority - a substantial 28 percent of the population - to participate genuinely as citizens on an equal footing.
If this issue had been addressed seven or eight years ago, instead of just two years ago, and if progressive measures had been taken to make all citizens equal, the rebels would not have had such an easy ride, in my view.
It is a pity - also for the Macedonian people - that it now looks as if there is only a response when criminal elements appear to be overrunning the country.
It is a pity, but it is the fault of all the political parties on the ground.
Ultimately, we have now achieved what this House has always asked for.
As Mr Swoboda has said, I would also like to remind you that we do not want a divided country.
Macedonia is a state.
It should continue to be a state, and it should not be divided along ethnic or national lines.
Anyone who considers this option puts the entire region at risk.
That is something which is extremely dangerous.
I very much hope that this new Parliament will also now try to implement the laws as quickly as possible.
The problem is that we are now hearing that what they have already voted for is being called into question again, and that sessions of parliament are constantly being postponed.
Obviously, there are reasons for this.
In Tetovo, for example, repeated attacks are being carried out on the Macedonian police.
We must ask ourselves why this is happening.
We must therefore be very diplomatic but firm with all our colleagues in Macedonia and ask them to make genuine efforts to progress with the Ohrid Agreement.
We must not allow any recourse to this dreadful idea of holding a referendum in order to put off these constitutional changes indefinitely.
That must not happen.
Hannes Swoboda, Joost Lagendijk and I will try to bring influence to bear on our Macedonian colleagues over the next two days.
I also think it is very important for an amnesty to be granted in whichever way is appropriate under the laws of the country, but this should not apply to crimes to be investigated in The Hague.
I think we should make a fine distinction here.
Naturally, I very much hope that the parliament will now put in place the laws necessary to strengthen local autonomy and give the minorities - which, after all, are majorities in some regions of the country - the opportunity to take genuine responsibility for their fellow citizens.
I think that if they pursue this course, as Johannes has said, we will have peaceful situations by the end of this year.
Mr President, we support the motion for a resolution, but we find it all very optimistic and hard to believe.
Did the August agreement really ensure that the multi-ethnic society and the single rule of law were in fact maintained? We say and we hope that it did.
But the only evidence we have at the moment is that weapons are being collected and the National Liberation Army has been disbanded.
However, we do know that determining in advance how many weapons would be handed in was hardly conducive to being taken seriously.
How were the numbers calculated? Just as we also know that it is the easiest thing in the world for a resistance movement to say that it is disbanding and then to regroup without further ado.
That is why we share the incredulity, the degree of difficulty which the Slav Macedonians appear to be having in making further progress.
We hope they will make progress.
We want to remain optimistic, but the only serious argument for being optimistic and supporting the line taken in the motion would be, first, a stable political line, not double and triple messages coming out of the European Union and ÍÁÔÏ, as has happened in the past, with catastrophic results at political level; secondly, real, generous financial assistance - and soon - and, thirdly, to give European prospects to all the Balkan states at long last, and to this particular country as quickly as possible, so that there is a way out of the crisis, hope and prospects.
Mrs Pack has, I think, rightly pointed out that there are still many problems in front of us.
But all in all, the peace process in Macedonia may still be considered a small miracle.
I fully agree with the words of Mr Haarder in congratulating the Macedonian government and pointing to the courage that government has shown.
Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, a Gordian knot has been cut.
The minority rights of the Albanians are guaranteed, the operation 'Essential Harvest' has succeeded, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Macedonia remains secure.
The multi-ethnic society is indeed being given another lease of life and dialogue is central to the parties.
We must continue to pay attention to this region, to the whole of the Balkan region.
The Afghan crisis, the war on terrorism, must not distract our attention from this part of the world.
We must invest in the stability of the Balkans.
We must invest in the stability of Macedonia.
We must ensure that sufficient support for the execution of the Stabilisation and Association Agreement is being granted.
We must provide good guidance for refugees returning home.
We must see to the re-building of that country.
And I wish here to underline the words of Mrs Pack.
The political history of my own country has demonstrated that only forgiveness, only reconciliation can guarantee real peace in a country.
And so amnesty for the revolutionaries is indeed important.
This does not mean the revolutionaries who may possibly be accused before the Court of Justice in The Hague.
It concerns the others, for whom a regulation is required.
I hope that our fellow MEPs who are departing tomorrow for Skopje will be able sufficiently to alert our counterparts over there to this problem.
I also fully support extension of the mandate of the European Agency for Reconstruction in that region.
Macedonia should be brought under the scope of that regulation, and I also hope that we as Members of the European Parliament will be paying enough attention to the work of the European Agency for Reconstruction, so that we may be sure that the European taxpayer' s money is well spent in an efficient and timely manner in that region.
Mr President, we want to start by pointing out that clashes in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are continuing even now, despite the fact that the rebels are supposed to have handed in their weapons and disbanded.
As far as handing in weapons is concerned, the NATO "emergency harvest" operation involving 4,500 men only recouped 3,300 weapons, i.e. not even one gun per NATO soldier, while NATO sources are quoting a figure of tens of thousands of weapons.
Thousands of refugees are still unable to return home and the de facto division of the country continues.
At the political level, the Slav Macedonian parties are under tremendous pressure to make constitutional changes, changes opposed by the majority of the people.
The European Union representative, Mr Solana, is already in Skopje, together with the Commissioner for External Relations, Mr Patten, trying to speed up the process for the so-called "political dimension" of the agreement.
To put it simply, this means that they are exerting pressure to get the fine points of the amendments to the constitution, such as a general amnesty for the rebels, voted through and, more importantly, to avoid a referendum at all costs.
The future of the country appears to the intermediaries to be too important a matter to be left in the hands of its citizens.
The ÍÁÔÏ and European Union operation has not resolved any fundamental problems.
The only thing that foreign intervention has done is to bring the rebels into contact with government officials.
Apart from the NATO corps of 200 soldiers which is now stationed in the country, intolerable pressure is also being exerted by the so-called donor meeting.
We again reiterate our fear that, unless various forms of foreign intervention stop, not only will the communities in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia be unable to ever reach an agreement, they will face a new Kosovo.
Mr President, if the Macedonian Parliament accepts the constitutional changes forced by rebellion and foreign intervention, this means that the large Albanian majority in the north-west regain their rights.
Within the former Federal Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia, the Albanian language was the language of administration and education.
This right was suspended following the independence of Macedonia.
The situation is comparable with the language rights of the Hungarian minority on the southern edge of the equally new state of Slovakia.
National minorities which become a majority often appear to have no understanding for the other language groups within the territory of their state.
In 50 years' time, the roles will be reversed as Albanians come to form the largest group in Macedonia.
Only through an agreement based on equality can two peoples find a way to live peacefully as good neighbours.
In that respect, much can be learned from the government structures of multi-lingual federal states such as Belgium, Switzerland and Spain.
From that perspective I can now, in contrast to 3 May, consent to support for Macedonia.
Mr President, the Commission fully shares Parliament's view that the Framework Agreement of 13 August is crucial to peace and stability in FYROM and that the Macedonian Parliament should be urged to adopt the measures recommended under the agreement.
Commissioner Patten and EU High Representative Solana are in Skopje today to underline the importance of, and convey the urgent need for, constitutional changes and a revised law on local self-government, as foreseen under the agreement.
We face truly formidable challenges over the next few weeks and months in FYROM.
The EU is fully behind the Framework Agreement and is committed to providing financial assistance, including assistance for emergency aid and for measures in support of the agreement.
We have provided over EUR 10 m in humanitarian assistance through ECHO since the crisis began; EUR 54.5 m under CARDS in 2001, which includes a recent top-up of EUR 12 m for housing reconstruction, local infrastructure and support for host families; EUR 12.8 m under the Rapid Reaction Mechanism to repair and reconstruct houses, to repair electricity and to support confidence-building measures, such as mine clearance, election monitoring and police training; and EUR 50 m in macro-financial assistance still to be disbursed from a previous macro-financial package, which is being combined with an additional grant of EUR18 m to help FYROM cope with the specific needs arising from the crisis.
This assistance is, of course, conditional on an IMF agreement with the Macedonian Government.
The Commission and the World Bank are ready to organise a donor meeting on 15 October, provided that the Macedonian Parliament adopts the necessary constitutional changes set out in the Framework Agreement.
It is not an overstatement to say that the effective delivery of EU assistance could be critical to the success of the Framework Agreement and, therefore, to peace.
Our paramount concern is to ensure that we act quickly and flexibly.
We have therefore decided to propose an extension of the European Agency for Reconstruction, which has an excellent track record in delivering assistance throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The agency has people on the ground and direct experience in the region, notably in the sort of emergency reconstruction that we will need to deliver in FYROM this autumn, as well as in longer-term assistance of the type it is now overseeing, for example in Serbia.
We therefore urge Parliament to give positive consideration to our proposal to extend the mandate of the agency.
Beyond the Framework Agreement, we are determined to pursue a strategy of closer integration of FYROM into the European mainstream, simply, first of all, by implementing the new Stabilisation and Association Agreement signed in April.
A lot has to be done in this area and FYROM must demonstrate that it can live up to international standards by respecting minority rights and show that its democratic structures are stable enough for it to pursue its path towards European integration - in simple terms, to become a member of the European family.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6.30 p.m.
Human rights
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
United Nations World Day
B5-0616/2001 by Mr Lannoye and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group;
B5-0619/2001 by Mr Van den Bos, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
B5-0627/2001 by Mrs Hermange, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0635/2001 by Mr Ribeiro e Castro, on behalf of the UEN Group;
B5-0644/2001 by Mr Hughes and others, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0654/2001 by Mrs Figueiredo and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group,
on the United Nations World Day to overcome extreme poverty.
Vietnam - B5-0620/2001 by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
B5-0623/2001 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the TDI Group;
B5-0628/2001 by Mr Nassauer and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0636/2001 by Mr Segni, on behalf of the UEN Group;
B5-0646/2001 by Mr Van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0658/2001 by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group,
on violations of human rights in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Uzbekistan- B5-0621/2001 by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
B5-0629/2001 by Mr Bowis and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0637/2001 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group;
B5-0647/2001 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0662/2001 by Mr Staes, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group,
on the health situation in the Republic of Uzbekistan.
East Timor- B5-0625/2001 by Mrs Figueiredo and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
B5-0631/2001 by Mr Costa Neves and Mr Coelho, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0640/2001 by Mr Queiró and Mr Ribeiro e Castro, on behalf of the UEN Group;
B5-0648/2001 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0652/2001 by Mrs Figueiredo and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group,
on East Timor.
Colombia- B5-0632/2001 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and others, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
B5-0642/2001 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group;
B5-0645/2001 by Mr Medina Ortega and others, on behalf of the PSE Group;
B5-0655/2001 by Mr Marset Campos and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
B5-0659/2001 by Mr Lipietz and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group,
on the situation in Columbia.
United Nations World Day to overcome extreme poverty
Mr President, would dedicating a resolution from this House on extreme poverty on this occasion be giving in to opportunism? I would like to remind you that on 17 October 1987 Father Wrezinski, with 100 000 people, talked about the life of the poorest families and people in our whole society and since that day, the World Day to overcome extreme poverty reminds us each year that it is our duty to unite in respecting human rights when they are violated.
If we adopt this resolution today, we are paying tribute not only to the commitment of the families and people who face extreme poverty themselves, but also to the commitment of all the associations and citizens who stand beside them.
Also, throughout the European Union, especially since the Lisbon summit, the public, national and European authorities are constantly highlighting the fight against exclusion and particularly the need for an integration policy.
It is in this spirit that today, on behalf of my group, I am presenting this resolution, which asks the Member States to develop real strategies aimed at equal access for all to fundamental rights such as education, housing and healthcare as well as culture and sustainable employment.
It is also in this spirit that we are asking the European authorities and, as far as we are concerned, our Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, in cooperation with the Commission, to make an assessment of the policies conducted in the field every 17 October and thirdly, we ask, for the future of course, that a stone be laid in the square in front of the European Parliament in Brussels in honour of the victims of poverty like those laid in the squares at the Trocadero in Paris, the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, in Berlin, Rome and at the UN.
It is a simple but nevertheless important tribute that we want to pay today by putting forward this resolution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before I start my speech proper, I wish to take this opportunity to draw the attention of the Secretariat and the Bureau to the fact that, at least in the Portuguese version, paragraphs 2 and 11 of the Resolution are practically identical, probably as the result of a mistake in the drafting of the text.
Perhaps it would be possible, following the vote, to merge the two texts, because they are practically the same.
The purpose of celebrating this day is to discuss the serious nature of social problems as striking as extreme poverty, which affects more than one billion people across the world, who are forced to live on less than one dollar per day.
We do so in the footsteps of the person who proclaimed this day in 1987 and following the decision of the United Nations in 1992, which enshrined it throughout the world.
We must, of course, look at the programmes that we ourselves have put together to attack poverty and social exclusion.
Here I would draw your attention to the resolutions of the Lisbon, Nice and Göteborg European Councils and to the work, on which consensus has already been obtained between Council and Parliament, on the programme of cooperation in the fight against social exclusion.
I wish, once again, to pay tribute to the work of our fellow Member, Ilda de Figueiredo.
Specifically, however, we must have an idea of the problems and of our strategy.
We are facing very old problems that concern world development and we must think about the scandal that is war and corruption in so many countries that subject their citizens to the most abject poverty.
Some things have been done in our countries to combat disease, need and profound social inequalities; there are new challenges that we are aware of, specifically in the context of the information society, but there are also new problems, affecting what we in Portugal call the 'new poor' .
This is a problem that greatly affects pensioners and the elderly and I am sorry that the compromise motion did not go further than it did.
I think that there is a certain prejudice here against talking about the word 'family' , but we must be aware that the weakening of the family unit makes us all more vulnerable. It makes individuals lonelier, which is largely responsible for the contradiction we see today, which is that our societies are richer and, yet, we feel increasingly insecure.
This is highly relevant to this problem, which we must look at seriously and with our eyes wide open.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, poverty in the world is a violation of human rights and an intolerable breach of human dignity.
It affects hundreds of thousands of men, women and children.
This poverty has increased in the last six years.
In the European Union there are 65 million people living on less than 60% of the national average income, to say nothing of the differences within the Member States.
It is thanks to social transfers and social assistance systems that the poverty level has remained at 18% in the Union.
But with the slowdown in economic growth, we are in danger of exclusion and poverty being aggravated again.
An analysis of the proposals from the associations and the work of the Intergroup on the European fourth world clearly indicate that the fight against poverty and exclusion should become a vital element of sustainable development.
The objectives set should be pursued and integrated into all policies, with more resources.
I regret that the financial provision for anti-poverty programmes is still inadequate.
The Laeken European Council should adopt political measures on income, employment, housing, health, education, training and culture.
Parliament should also have objectives guaranteeing the right to quality housing for all, against the constant withdrawal of employment and services and re-establishing citizenship and equal rights.
This is also why, on the occasion of the World Day against poverty, which will take place on 17 October, the European Parliament, in cooperation with the associations concerned, should also promote initiatives to raise awareness and to mobilise people to eliminate poverty and destitution.
I hope that this day will enable us to make a further commitment to implementing programmes against poverty, by developing economic and social policies that really deal with the underlying causes of that poverty.
Violations of human rights in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam
Mr President, the prospect of economic reform in Vietnam has certainly improved over the past few years.
However, there is still no progress as far as political reform is concerned.
There is a constant flow of reports about the arrest, detention and ill-treatment of dissidents in Vietnam.
Defenders of democracy, critics of the communist regime, religious communities and former refugees who want to invest in Vietnam are still at great risk.
International human rights organisations are still not getting a hearing from the Vietnamese government.
They are also banned from monitoring developments and carrying out inspections in the country.
The central government is doing its level best to block any form of communication between the dissidents and the rest of the world.
International donors must challenge human rights violations and must call for political reform in Vietnam in addition to economic reform.
I am very much in favour of strengthening the economic ties between the European Union and Vietnam.
However, as one of the country's biggest donors, the European Union must take a firmer stance and do more to ensure that human rights are respected there.
I would also strongly advocate an independent investigation into the well-being of Mr Binh Vinh Trinh and other investors in Vietnam.
Having made a fortune abroad by working extremely hard after fleeing from Vietnam, as many people did a few decades ago, Mr Trinh started investing in his native country again.
However, he was arrested under the pretext of illegal investment, and brainwashed in solitary confinement, all of his possessions were seized and his investments were confiscated.
This acts as a deterrent and naturally has an extremely negative impact on the decisions of other investors.
There must be proper legal protection of foreign investments and investors in Vietnam and the corruption there must be brought to an end.
This is an essential precondition for future economic and political development in Vietnam and her links to the world economy.
In addition, Vietnam must protect, safeguard and guarantee human rights.
There has been absolutely no progress in Mr Trinh's case over the past few months.
He is still on the run and none of his or his family's unlawfully seized possessions have ever been returned to him.
As soon as he sets foot in Vietnam, he will be put straight back into prison.
I call on the government of Vietnam to make a gesture by respecting the rights of Mr Trinh and other investors and those of other political dissidents.
Mr President, twelve years ago, a Czech human rights activist in Prague wanted to appeal to a Western head of government for help in the face of his impending imprisonment.
This Western head of government did not receive him.
A few months later, the human rights activist became President of Czechoslovakia.
His name was Václav Havel.
From then on, the Western head of government had a great deal of difficulty in getting an audience with the Czech President, who refused to receive him because he wanted to make it clear that this failure to respond to human rights violations and the flouting of human dignity was unacceptable.
European Union states are pursuing a similar policy today with regard to Vietnam.
It is a policy of autosuggestion.
It is claimed that Vietnam is pursuing a reform course.
It is also claimed that Vietnam no longer has such a repressive regime as before.
Yet the reality sends out a very different message.
Persecution of human rights activists has increased.
Injustice and the suppression of press freedom have increased, as has the suppression of religious freedom.
If we look at the reality of the situation, we must recognise that this regime cannot be set on a reform course without massive external pressure.
Economic and geostrategic interests, too, cannot be sustained in the long term unless there is a stronger emphasis on the rule of law throughout South-East Asia, but especially in Vietnam.
That is why it is in the European Union's interests to abandon its policies of autosuggestion at last and speak out about human rights violations in Vietnam.
The European Parliament adopted this approach with regard to Central and Eastern Europe before 1989.
It was fairly isolated at the time, but events proved that it was right.
The European Parliament is pursuing the same course today on Vietnam, and I appeal to the Commission, and especially, of course, to the Council and Member States to adopt a more pro-active human rights policy with regard to Vietnam and genuinely send out a clear signal, for in this region of the world, we are dependent on this important country, with its great culture, returning to a more democratic course based on the rule of law.
Only then can it be a real partner - also in the economic field - in the long term.
Mr President, Vietnam has once again flouted its international commitments and its own Constitution.
The conviction, following a botched trial, on 26 September, of 14 members of the mountain ethnic groups for having peacefully demonstrated in favour of freedom of religion and the establishment of an autonomous area in their province is a fresh illustration of this acknowledged contempt for human rights.
They went to join the dozens of prisoners of conscience who are rotting in jail in atrocious conditions, while international human rights observers are unable to get into the country to do their job.
The failure to respect individual freedoms should not be tolerated in a country that claims to be democratic and which we have ourselves supported in its fight for independence.
The use of the death penalty - more than one hundred sentences passed in 2000 - is also unacceptable.
Vietnam, which is an economic and trade partner of Europe, and which has also ratified the international convention on civil and political rights, must respect its international commitments and stop persecuting ethnic minorities.
Political liberalisation must go hand in hand with economic liberalisation. Without that, the country cannot be considered by the European Parliament as a democratic State.
Mr President, today I must join with the authors of the joint resolution in standing against the failure to respect human rights in Vietnam.
The European Parliament has spoken out many times on this matter, the last time only three months ago, to condemn the violation of the freedom to practice religion.
The country, which is still run by a Communist party, still represses, on a daily basis, any group or individual considered to be a threat by those in power.
My fellow Members have already said that the freedom of the press, freedom of opinion, religion and association, rights of ownership and the right to vote are flouted.
What is also serious is that no international organisation or independent observer is authorised to come and monitor the human rights situation in the country.
Let us recall that in April, Vietnam celebrated the 25th anniversary of its reunification.
The Vietnamese government, which has signed many international conventions on human rights, had an excellent opportunity on that occasion to reaffirm the commitments it had given in that respect.
Vietnam is demanding a place on the international stage and has potentially everything in its favour to become a prosperous country.
Reality, unfortunately, shows the situation to be quite different.
The Vietnamese people live in poverty, their society is in decline and the country is still under-developed.
By signing a partnership and cooperation agreement with the European Union in 1995, Vietnam gave a formal commitment to respect human rights and promote democracy.
The joint EC/Vietnam Committee that met in September in Hanoi reconsidered all the aspects of relations with the European Union, including the joint agreement on democracy, good governance, human rights and the rule of law.
I call on Parliament today to give its full support to the European Commission in implementing its partnership strategy in the region.
We must all encourage the process of reform in Vietnam.
Respect for fundamental freedoms, freedom of expression and freedom of conscience should constitute the basis of sound and constructive cooperation with that country.
Health situation in the Republic of Uzbekistan
Mr President, Uzbekistan, the land of Bukhara and Samarkand is now in our thoughts as the border country of Afghanistan with Taliban-linked extremists operating in its territory.
We acknowledge that there are human rights problems in that country to be tackled, but we welcome its partnership in the fight against terrorism.
Yet not many of us are aware of the other crisis in Uzbekistan.
Reporters report on the problem and potential problem of refugees in the area.
They do not report on the 13 million people affected by one of the worst droughts in history in the area, that started in the spring of last year.
They do not report that six million children under 14 are affected.
They do not report that drinking water and irrigation water is in desperately short supply, that most of the crops in the affected areas have failed, that poor-quality drinking water and sanitation problems have resulted in one of the highest levels of ill health in the region.
They do not report that only 54% of the people in urban areas in Uzbekistan have access to sewage networks, or that only 3% in rural areas have such access.
As a result, parasitic infection is rife and the third cause of infant deaths is diarrhoeal disease.
Malnutrition and poverty have reached crisis point.
We need urgent action to supply essential drugs and equipment, to strengthen water-quality control, to support and monitor nutrition programmes, to train health workers and conduct health education programmes.
We also need to help the country change from its heavy use of agrochemicals, its diversion of rivers and its poor drainage system.
I commend this motion to the House.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to fully endorse Mr Swoboda's words.
I am the chairman of the European Parliament delegation for relations with Uzbekistan.
Please allow me to give a personal account today.
Last June I spent an entire week travelling around Uzbekistan with a European Parliament delegation.
We visited the Karakalpakstan region, the region where they are struggling with the serious problems of the Aral Sea.
The situation there is disastrous.
Commissioner, could I have your attention for a moment?
We met the people there.
We met the relief workers.
They expressed their thanks to our delegation, they spoke to us and they gave us messages, but they also told us: We have seen so very many delegations come and go.
When will something finally be done about the water problem in our region? When will the European Community, when will the whole international community help us to actually do something together with the other countries in this region?
The situation there is disastrous, including in the area of public health.
Mr Wiebenga and I visited the local hospital in Nukus where patients with TB are treated.
The situation there is degrading.
The sewers in the basement are broken. They are absolutely overflowing with human excrement.
There are mosquitoes flying around.
The stench there is unbearable.
Patients have to keep the flies and mosquitoes off their bodies, with the result that patients who should really be staying for three months leave. They go home.
They infect members of their families. They infect other people around them.
I believe that as an international community we must take our responsibility seriously.
I therefore hope that the Commissioner will be able to promise us some concrete measures soon.
Otherwise the text of the resolution that is before us receives my unqualified support.
East Timor
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, East Timor is the first new State to emerge freely and democratically onto the international stage at the start of the new millennium.
The European Parliament must take pleasure in this result.
The issue of East Timor has been on our international agenda for a number of years.
We have given voice to those who have fought to return dignity to the Timorese people and to have their right to decide on their own destiny recognised and we have condemned the violation of human rights by Indonesian troops and by militias sponsored by them.
I must emphasise the work undertaken by so many Members of this House.
In particular, I wish to refer to Carlos Costa Neves, who has chaired the inter-group 'For East Timor' and who has taken part in each of the European Parliament' s missions to that country.
We may have helped the people of East Timor to regain freedom and democracy, but we also have a responsibility for helping them to consolidate their gains.
East Timor needs help from the international community: political, technical and financial help.
Without this assistance, it will not be possible to rebuild what was destroyed, assemble a new administration and ensure the necessary development.
This is why we call on the international community: to provide more support and assistance.
Our compromise resolution, therefore, calls for an extension of the United Nations mandate, for the return of the refugees who wish to return to their countries and for the fight against the impunity of those who have committed crimes and who have violated fundamental rights.
Lastly, I must say that I am glad to see a considerable degree of consensus and multiparty support for the candidature of Xanana Gusmão for the Presidency of East Timor.
This Sakharov prize-winner could be a reference point for unity and could make a fundamental contribution to consolidating the new democratic institutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, normally at this stage in the proceedings, we discuss accidents, disasters, calamities and all manner of things that cause us deep sadness and pain.
As Mr Coelho has already said, East Timor used to be one such case.
Today, however, is a joyous occasion.
What we have seen and heard today is the success of the process in Timor.
At this moment, I should also like to tell this House of the gratitude of the Portuguese and, of course, of the Timorese people, for the increasing solidarity that their cause has enjoyed in the European Parliament and which has spread throughout the world.
Mr Coelho has already mentioned the various resolutions and the high point, which was the award of the Sakharov prize to Xanana Gusmão, the distinguished leader of the Timorese resistance, who will be, by broad national consensus, the next President of the country.
This should serve as an example to us of how, with tenacity and patience, we can achieve positive results and help good causes.
Three years ago, anyone in this House who said that this would really be happening today would definitely have been called crazy.
Three years ago, we could not have imagined the referendum of August 1999 and the overwhelming consensus of the Timorese people.
It would have been impossible to imagine that the tragic crisis following the referendum would be overcome and that, on 30 August this year, we would have the first elections of a new, free and independent State.
We must continue to help East Timor.
We made a major contribution to winning the independence for which they were fighting, in defence of their identity. We must keep this sense of responsibility alive and remain vigilant to the potential dangers in a geo-political context that remains highly uncertain.
Mr President, Colombia - one of South America's oldest democracies and a country which, unusually for this continent, has not been prone to military dictatorship - is tragically a victim of 37 years of civil war and terrorist activity, which have destroyed infrastructure, killed 40 000 people and corrupted its civil and military authorities through guerrilla involvement with the drugs trade.
It seems from the events of 11 September in New York that democracies are particularly vulnerable to terrorism, which has no respect for the ballot box as a way to achieve change in societies.
Now - and in spite of Colombian President Pastrana's concession three years ago of a large demilitarised zone the size of Switzerland, where 17 000 of its guerrillas roam at will - the FARC, instead of pursuing a legitimate, peacefully negotiated settlement, continues its policy of kidnapping and murdering civilians.
Last Sunday it killed the much-loved former culture minister, Consuelo Araujo Noguera, and on Tuesday Congressman Octavio Sarmiento.
I am sure that this House will join me in sending a message of condolence to their grieving families.
Pastrana's policy of granting concessions to the FARC, labelled a terrorist organisation by the USA, has remarkable parallels with the policy of Britain's Tony Blair of granting early release to IRA killers without a prior insistence on the arms decommissioning to which they had already agreed.
Curiously, three IRA suspects are currently under arrest in Colombia for advising the FARC on how to conduct murderous campaigns, on which, as we know, the IRA is an expert.
I do not have a clear answer to President Pastrana's dilemma, as only 18% of Colombians in a recent poll supported suspending peace talks, scrapping the demilitarised zone and resuming full-blown civil war.
Only the Colombian Government can decide what is best for the future of its country and what price it is prepared to pay to achieve peace.
Nevertheless, I am sure that, as well as supporting this resolution, this House will join me in praying for the long-suffering people of Colombia and in hoping sincerely that the FARC and the guerrillas will see the folly of their evil ways and that the Colombian Government will achieve a policy of reconciliation without compromising justice or freedom.
Mr President, it would appear from the last speech that the Government of the United Kingdom is responsible for the violence in Colombia.
I would like to state that up to now, in the documentation I have seen, I have not found any involvement by the Government of the United Kingdom in the violence in Colombia.
The fact is that in Colombia people are being killed - the revolutionaries (the FARC) kill them, the paramilitary organisations linked to the Government kill them - and to make any kind of pronouncement right now as to the guilty parties in Colombia seems premature to me.
At present there is a situation of violence and those responsible for that violence are in fact the Europeans, because we Europeans left in Colombia, as in many other countries, a trail of injustice, of social differences, which persist to this day.
The European Union has been concerned with Colombia for a long time.
Unfortunately, we have not been able to influence events in a very positive way.
But we have at least succeeded in increasing the country' s economic activity to the point where, today, 40% of Colombian exports are destined for the countries of the European Union.
I believe that in the European Union we are faced with a somewhat desperate task, because the years are passing and the violence continues.
The violence also affects us closely.
For example, in Madrid, forty Colombians have been assassinated in the last six months by Colombian drug trafficking organisations, by hired assassins who come specially from Colombia to kill their fellow citizens.
If the events of 11 September have demonstrated anything it is that violence in the world has no limits, that in a globalised world violence affects us all and that therefore, any action we take in a faraway country such as Colombia ultimately benefits our own citizens as well.
We have to protect our citizens and the citizens of the whole world in lands as remote as Colombia.
I know that the Commission and the Council are restricted in terms of achieving such results.
If the Colombian Government, if a large number of people dedicated to achieving the pacification of the country in the country itself (writers, intellectuals, etc.) have failed to achieve those results, it is unlikely that we will be able to achieve them, but I believe - I am availing myself of the presence of the Commissioner, who deals with a very sensitive area concerning this issue, to say this - that we should continue our efforts.
Rather as in the myth of Sisyphus, we should continue rolling the stone from the bottom of the mountain to the top, despite all events to the contrary.
I am convinced that both the Commission and the Council will agree with Parliament on continuing to help the Colombian Government and the political leaders of good faith of that country to find a solution to put an end to the escalation of violence, which seems to be plunging Colombia, that magnificent and stupendous Latin American country, ever more into the abyss.
I therefore hope that, between the three institutions, the Council, the Commission and Parliament, we may help in some measure in the pacification of Colombia.
Mr President, "Chronicle of a Death Foretold" was the title of a novel by García Márquez, that has now become a sad reality in the birthplace of the winner of the Nobel Prize for literature.
The eight bullets that assassinated Yolanda Cerón, head of social care in Tumaco, were also foretold and once and for all destroyed the already precarious working conditions of human rights activists on the ground.
For a year the paramilitaries have reigned in the town of Nariño.
The government lets them do as they will and the list of the dead gets longer.
Just before killing Yolanda, the paramilitaries publicly executed thirteen peasants in Teima.
On Sunday morning, the former Culture Minister, who had previously been kidnapped, Consuelo Araujo Noguera, was murdered during a chase between the army and the guerrillas.
Then, the day before yesterday, the paramilitaries assassinated Octavio Sarmiento, a Member of the National Congress.
We know that anyone who defends human rights in Colombia is a target for the paramilitaries.
A clean-up campaign was even announced in August.
The government had already withdrawn the legal basis for the existence of the paramilitaries in 1989, but has never done anything to seriously dismantle them.
On the contrary, the law on defence and national security, ratified by President Pastrana in August, made the situation even worse.
The law, which is a real blank cheque for all sorts of violations of human rights, extends the army' s powers and freedom to act in a frightening way and reduces the power of the public prosecutor.
The close links between the army and its illegal right arm, the paramilitaries, is well known and the "Human Rights Watch" report, published today, only serves to underline this.
The European Union needs to question the bases of its cooperation with Colombia.
We are still waiting for the first six-monthly report on the progress of human rights in Colombia promised one year ago.
If the European Union takes defending human rights seriously, it should explain its criteria and mechanisms for evaluation and effective protection to us.
If it takes the peace process seriously, it should encourage the pursuit of dialogue between the government and the guerrillas, categorically exclude the paramilitaries from the negotiations and support the report from the committee of experts, published on 28 September.
Finally, if it takes its own commitment to legal reform seriously, the first thing the European Union must do is to support the widespread calls for the law on defence and national security to be repealed.
Mr President, I will respond to each of the five issues.
The UN World Day to overcome extreme poverty is a welcome opportunity to highlight the continuing unacceptable levels of poverty and social exclusion across the world and to stress the need to intensify efforts for their eradication.
Being able to lead a life free from poverty and social exclusion is a fundamental human right.
While the challenge of combating poverty and social exclusion is particularly acute in developing countries, it also remains an issue of major concern within the European Union.
The most recent available evidence shows that 18%, or over 60 million of our population in the EU, are at risk of falling into the category of being among the relative poor.
This is a very high figure.
At the European Councils of Lisbon, Nice and Stockholm, Member States made a commitment to promote sustainable economic growth and quality employment which will reduce the risk of poverty and social exclusion as well as strengthening social cohesion in the Union between 2001 and 2010.
The intention is to reaffirm and further enhance the importance of the European social model and to ensure that social policy has an equal status alongside economic and employment policies and that all three reinforce each other.
To underpin their commitment, the Council developed common objectives in the fight against poverty and social exclusion.
It also agreed that these objectives be taken forward by Member States from 2001 onwards in the context of two-year national action plans against poverty and social exclusion.
Furthermore, the Council established a new open method of coordination which encourages Member States to work together to improve the impact on social inclusion of policies in fields such as social protection, employment, health, housing and education.
The national action plans and the development of comparable indicators provide the framework for promoting exchange of good practice and mutual learning at Community level.
This will be supported from 2002 by a five-year Community action programme on social inclusion which was finalised following a successful conciliation session involving Parliament, the Council and the Commission on 18 September.
All Member States submitted their national action plans against poverty and social exclusion during June this year.
The Commission has been analysing these reports and expects to adopt a draft joint inclusion report on 10 October.
This will be the first time that there has been such an EU-level analysis documenting and comparing the situation on poverty and social exclusion across all Member States.
It is intended that the joint report will be adopted at the Employment and Social Policy Council at the beginning of December so that it can be tabled and reviewed at the Laeken European Council.
Parallel to the work on the national action plans against poverty and social exclusion, work has been going on to develop a list of common indicators in the field of social inclusion. This will also be presented to and adopted at the Laeken European Council.
On the basis of these developments, the Laeken European Council is expected to define the priorities and approaches that will guide efforts and cooperation at Community level.
The issues and concerns raised in the debate on these resolutions are thus well reflected in the initiatives that are being taken.
However, a key challenge for the future will be to ensure that all Community decisions, in economic and employment as well as social, policies, are assessed for their impact on social cohesion.
While a lot is now happening, there is no room for complacency.
Days like the United Nations World Day for the eradication of poverty provide an important opportunity to remind us of the urgency of the challenge we face if we are to build a more inclusive and peaceful world free from the scandal of poverty and social exclusion.
Looking at the global aspect of this challenge, the first and most important point of criticism is the pathetic level of official development assistance, which is now 0.24%, far from the 0.7% that was promised.
This is where everyone will be looking on that World Day and we must come up with a European answer to that problem.
Another issue we will be facing is financing for development in March next year.
Ôhe policy of the European Union towards Vietnam, as to all other countries, is to encourage and support continued progress on human rights and democratisation, and to raise concerns both publicly and in private where abuses or any deterioration in the situation are observed.
We have to draw attention, however, to the tendency of the Vietnamese administration to want to control the pace of change and to maintain "social cohesion" during transition to a market economy.
Of course, I do not need to remind you that the European Union is opposed to capital punishment.
In the case of Vietnam, the number of offences where the death penalty can be applied was reduced last year.
Juvenile offenders, pregnant women and nursing mothers were also excluded.
We welcome this progress, but we want to see the abolition of the death penalty altogether.
Our principal concern remains that of freedom of opinion.
The original "offence" of Professor Nguyen Dinh Huy in 1992 was to be a co-founder of the "Movement to Unite the People and Build Democracy" a movement supported by Vietnamese exiles in North America.
Before that, he had been an active anti-Communist.
The detention and interrogation of 15 people last month reported by Human Rights Watch was apparently linked to a request to the government to set up an independent "National Association to Fight Corruption" .
The common thread in all these cases is that, despite some real progress, Vietnam remains a country little accustomed to public dissent.
The situation of the Montagnards in the central provinces arose from a complex set of unresolved old problems, but was certainly exacerbated by the lack of effective channels of communication between the local people and the central government.
What is needed in Vietnam is continued progress in the country' s reform programme, so that the administration learns to deal with a wider range of views and to appreciate the value of accommodating dissent in the system of government.
When Mr Patten was in Hanoi last July he took the opportunity to raise some of these concerns with the Vietnamese Foreign Minister.
Next month, we will be holding in Hanoi a meeting of the EC-Vietnam Joint Commission, at which all aspects of our relations will be reviewed, including our shared commitment to respect for human rights.
We shall continue to raise particular issues of concern and individual cases and to encourage continued progress on human rights in Vietnam.
On the situation in Uzbekistan, the Commission shares the European Parliament' s concern about the present situation in Central Asia.
It is clear that the drought is causing damage in the Aral Sea area and particularly in Western Uzbekistan.
For example the Amu Darya, where the major problems lie, is reported to have 70% of the normal water level in its upper reaches and just 40-45% in the lower stretches.
In addition to natural causes, some structural reasons can explain the present situation such as poor maintenance of water-irrigation systems, inadequate water management at regional level between the newly independent states, and agricultural practices which are water demanding such as rice and cotton.
Lack of sustainability would be the short version of what this is all about.
The July 2001 UN assessment mission to Western Uzbekistan has attributed the absence of water to fundamental structural problems (such as irrigation and crop policies).
So what is needed are ways to improve water management and agricultural practice.
These activities are of a developmental nature.
The response so far here is not falling within ECHO's mandate as such.
We are, however, looking at this region from a humanitarian aid point of view, where we see a real risk of a negative fall-out from the situation in Afghanistan.
In fact, ECHO will include a strengthening of the ability to do something relating to this part of the world in a package soon.
The absence of democracy, transparency and accountability, corruption at all levels and misuse of the flow of assistance provided by the international community are all part of the problem.
Since the independence of these countries, no real effort for maintaining the water system has been made.
In addition, national rivalries between the countries in the region have blocked cooperation and also international efforts have been made more difficult.
We have been active in Central Asia in trying to develop long-term projects linked with the structural causes of the drought.
A Tacis programme has been developed to fight against the consequences of the drying of the Aral Sea.
The Commission thinks that only long-term reform by the Uzbekistan Government itself can solve the current problem.
Emphasis should be put on: the creation of alternative forms of employment in the drought-affected areas to improve the irrigation systems in use in these affected areas and, in general, improve water conservation; the introduction of more drought-resistant and less water-hungry crops through further research into new crops, pilot schemes, model farms and whatever is necessary to farm in a sustainable manner in this environment.
Definitely a more effective allocation of water throughout the region is needed.
We hope that Tacis can develop activities to address these issues, in particular at regional level, but the challenge is huge relating to our actual means.
Let me turn to East Timor.
The democratic elections on 30 August were a cornerstone in the transition towards independence.
The Commission was pleased to see how peacefully the electoral process took place.
The outcome - with no two-thirds majority for a single party - will require the Constitutional Assembly to work together and to seek a consensus.
This will hopefully stabilise the political landscape even further.
I think we can be justly proud of the contribution made by the European Union election observer team, and I am happy to congratulate Mr Kreissl-Dörfler on his leadership of the team of 24 Observers.
We will certainly look into the possibility of sending another observer team to the presidential elections in 2002.
In general, I am very pleased with the cooperation with the Parliament and Parliament can be pleased with itself because of its ability to deliver high-quality electoral observation.
The next steps in the formal process will be the adoption of a constitution, hopefully before Christmas this year, followed by the election of a head of state by popular vote, probably around May 2002.
Then will come the withdrawal of UNTAET and the declaration of independence.
This process seems to be well on track.
At the same time, the evolution of the political process appears to be equally well under way.
The highly commendable performance of UNTAET, the recent nomination of an interim cabinet and the further "timorisation" of management functions in the administration have all contributed to this process.
East Timor' s regional anchorage will add an additional foundation.
East Timor is at an historical juncture.
The emergency phase is over.
We now have the chance to get the ambitious independence process right.
The international community has to consider now the long-term development issues.
The Canberra Donors' Meeting last June outlined the current, clearly unsustainable, economic situation and signalled the need for further international assistance.
There is a narrow tax base, a lack of skilled entrepreneurs, and rural poverty leading to demographic pressure on the urban areas.
But there is a realistic perspective for substantial oil revenues coming on stream around 2005-2006.
This could change the picture dramatically.
The national budget could double and could hopefully ensure financial cover for basic state functions, as well as some stimulus for the economy.
We need to support the effort of the East Timorese to manage these oil activities better than what we have seen in many other developing countries.
Statistics will tell us that it should not be very difficult to do it much better, which may not even be good enough, but definitely it is an opportunity.
I would say that so far, so good.
It would be wonderful to have best practice demonstrated in this field.
Lack of transparency in this area is case-by-case across the world the real reason for a lot of trouble.
Against this politico-economic background, and as one of the major donors for East Timor, the Commission has identified its future role accordingly.
We anticipate the need to support one of the poorest countries on Earth until oil revenues provide a more stable economic basis.
We will seek to create a development relationship based on a partnership philosophy.
This means taking a realistic view of all the requirements.
We are currently drafting a Country Strategy Paper, outlining the sectors.
Most likely rural development and public administration will be where we concentrate our activities, suggesting appropriate financial targets for 2002-2006 within these sectors.
This is how we will try to do it: focussing both on poverty alleviation and capacity building.
As was said in the debate, East Timor will also be able to benefit from the 'Everything But Arms'Initiative, helping it to develop its foreign trade.
Finally, I turn to Colombia.
The Commission shares the deep concern expressed by Parliament concerning the deterioration of the situation in Colombia, in particular, the continuation of human rights violations.
The Commission is seriously concerned with the situation of the Peace Process in Colombia after the recent events that have taken place and it is waiting for the evaluation of this process announced by President Pastrana.
The Commission intends to maintain its support to the Colombian people through ECHO.
EUR 10 m are being spent this year.
In addition, the Commission has approved under its human rights budget, four new NGO projects worth over EUR 3 m.
As announced by myself in Brussels on 30 April at the third meeting of the Support Group for the Colombian Peace Process, the Commission is currently finalising its proposal for a programme of a "Peace Laboratory" in the Magdalena Medio region in Colombia.
This programme envisages the support of actions and movements already being implemented by civil society at local and regional level.
The Commission sincerely hopes that conditions on the ground will allow an early implementation of this programme.
The Commission will continue encouraging the Colombian Government and all other relevant political forces to remain strongly committed to the peace process in Colombia, especially during this time of unrest.
As Mr Medina Ortega said, this reminds us very much of the labours of Sisyphus.
It is true that it is hard to see progress, but there is no doubt that any relaxation or any type of giving up would definitely make things worse.
This is our simple analysis and this is why we continue.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 6.30 p.m.
Southern Caucasia
The next item is the joint debate and then the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0618/2001 by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on developments in relations between the European Union and the Southern Caucasus;
B5-0624/2001 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the TDI Group, on developments in relations between European Union and the Southern Caucasus;
B5-0630/2001 by Mrs Schleicher and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the Group PPE-DE, on developments in relations between European Union and the Southern Caucasus;
B5-638/2001 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the Southern Caucasus;
B5-0649/2001 by Mr Linkohr and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on developments in relations between the European Union and the Southern Caucasus;
B5-0661/2001 by Mr Gahrton and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on developments in relations between the European Union and the Southern Caucasus.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour and also a little impertinent to speak before the Chairperson of my delegation, Mrs Schleicher, whom I would have preferred to follow.
However I thank Mrs Schleicher, Mr Posselt and my other colleagues who have contributed to raising, and now, debating a subject that is forgotten, that of the Southern Caucasus.
I dare to hope that following the tragedy in New York and Washington, some of us have been made more aware of the importance of this area of the world, of the importance of a region that is in fact the doorway to central Asia, now a hostage of the Russian Federation, as is, to a large extent, not only the Southern Caucasus but also the Northern Caucasus, which is in an even more tragic situation, whether Commissioner Nielson likes it or not.
The Northern Caucasus, as we all know, is experiencing the tragedy of Chechnya, a tragedy that is continuing and that sees opposition from the European Union.
The resolution before you contains a number of very specific proposals.
Most importantly, the Commission and the Council have been asked to draw up an overall strategy for this region of the world, a strategy that could reverse the current constant tendency towards the deterioration of the situation.
The reason that living conditions in Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan are so difficult, particularly Armenia and Georgia, is the constant, daily work of the Russian Federation, which the European Union is not acting against in any specific way.
This is so true that even an apparently harmless issue such as the opening of delegations in Bakou and Armenia has not yet been resolved by the Commission.
The problem has been raised on numerous occasions by this House, by Mrs Schleicher as Chairperson of the delegation with those countries.
During our meetings in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, we have been asked to speak many times.
We have done so and we still have not had an answer.
This is a case that has been open not only for a few months, but for a few years.
Either the European Union must understand that this region is strategically important, particularly for its energy supply, and start to discuss and propose a policy, or in a few months' or a few years' time we will witness the birth of the new Balkans, a little further away from us and therefore perhaps a little less uncomfortable than the Balkans of the 1990s.
I think, nevertheless, that it is up to the European Union to give a response.
These countries are part of Europe, they are already members of the Council of Europe, they feel European and in their heart of hearts - they do not dare to ask openly because the Commission and the Council have made it understood that it would not be very appropriate - their ruling classes want to belong to the European Union.
We need to respond with action, with investment, we need to re-establish confidence, we need to take our entrepreneurs, investors and companies there.
It is quite a small market but, and I repeat this especially for the benefit of the Commission, it is the gateway to central Asia, a strategic region which, as we have seen over the last few weeks, is particularly unstable.
I therefore think that the European Union urgently needs to strongly intervene in this region.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, due to the tragic events of recent months, foreign and security policy is currently at the top of the public's agenda.
In the light of the events in the Middle East and America, it is easy to forget that the situation in the Caucasus is just as explosive.
The problems faced by Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan - including the relations between these three states - still give cause for concern.
Political instability repeatedly threatens the still incomplete independence process.
As a result, violent conflict within these countries is often the focus of public attention.
Yet the history of Europe - especially the history of the European Union - shows that despite the differences and conflicts of interest between states, it is possible to form alliances and thus transcend borders.
Where war once dominated the scenario, we now have peaceful and democratic co-existence.
It is based on the establishment of democratic structures and an emphasis on commonalities, which helped the Western European states to overcome their differences.
In the light of the global coalition against terrorism in all its forms which has emerged since the dreadful attacks on the USA on 11 September 2001, there is thus a need to support the states of the Southern Caucasus in their efforts to combat terror and violence which, sadly, are still a feature of daily life in these countries and threaten many people's lives every day.
The region's democratic structures are still quite new and fragile.
The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that disunity is incited from outside, and the neighbouring states in this region could try to impede or halt the democratisation process for their own interests.
For these reasons, one of the European Union's key tasks must be to give more support to the democratisation process in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Democracy is the only basis for lasting internal stability which in future will also transcend borders.
However, the European Union and the present Belgian Presidency should focus solely on providing assistance and support; under no circumstances should they intervene in these countries' internal affairs.
In specific terms, this means promoting these states' cooperation and cohesion, also as regards the possibility of a free trade area which must be set up without external influence.
The initial elements of trilateral cooperation are already in place; however, they must be expanded and supported in order to counter existing external influences successfully.
If these countries' shared rich cultural heritage is integrated into this process, I am confident that in the medium and long term, important results and successes can be achieved.
As Chairman of the European Parliament's Southern Caucasus delegation, I regard the EU Ministerial Troika's visit under the Swedish Presidency last February as the basis for necessary initiatives.
The joint motion for a resolution tabled by seven parliamentary groups signals the broad agreement between Members of the European Parliament on this issue.
I hope that the Commission, too, will make our concern its own.
Mr President, I think it would be useful if we concerned ourselves with the Caucasus, possibly with permanent observers and little rhetoric.
This historical moment is pushing us towards regional cooperation even in destabilised areas and towards perhaps unforeseen alliances in the interests of greater stability.
If I wished to make a point about the resolution, it would be this: the three countries - Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia - perhaps should not always be treated like Siamese triplets: their recent histories differ, their problems differ and their efforts to build a genuinely democratic system differ.
It would be unfair if any of the three had to wait until the others caught up in the democratisation process.
In this context it would, of course, also be necessary to analyse what the West and the major countries have done in such regions and to analyse, for instance, whether the ethnic revolts in Georgia are local or led from outside, and if so by whom.
I would then like to know why we hear so little about the Minsk Group, founded to seek a compromise between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Is it still meeting? Even that is not clear.
The European Union should develop a political role that is more obviously adventurous and daring in the region, as the document states - this is the main message - beyond the conference of the three Southern Caucasus states and the European Union.
Given the situation, however, a discrete presence of Russia and America might be considered somewhat useful for a proper balance.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, how far is the European Union going to let the situation in the countries in the Southern Caucasus deteriorate before it finally decides to fully commit itself to the region, in keeping with local and regional expectations? Europe needs to provide enough funds to support its policies, and that is far from being the case for the Caucasian regions.
A few months ago in this House, members of the delegation for relations with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia urged the European Union to become involved and to commit to a firm and determined policy for the region, where geo-strategic interests are at stake that are both significant and varied.
We cannot continue to say one thing and mean another.
Our commitments need to be followed by specific actions.
Implementing a Commission delegation in each of the countries would send out a strong political signal.
It would be irresponsible to make these countries, who are struggling to affirm their identity, complete their transition process and establish a real democracy, believe that they can count on the political support of the European Union when the reality is that nothing is actually taking place and secretly it is only the oil and gas in the Caspian sea that are of interest.
That would be unacceptable.
Although the Swedish presidency took an initial step by visiting the countries concerned, what has actually been achieved?
And has the report by Mr Gahrton, not been put back to a later date in the schedule?
Moreover, as my fellow Members have said, this is a matter of urgency: does the OSCE not describe the situation as a state of no war? Let us not forget the powder keg of the impassioned claims on Nagorno Karabakh and the desire for independence of some regions of Georgia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
Yes, Mr President, yes Commissioner, the European Union has an essential role to play in this region.
It should take the initiative of a Europe/Caucasus conference with the various States in order to establish, through a non-violent solution to the conflicts, lasting peace and sustainable development.
Mr President, we pointed out years ago that the Caucasus and Central Asia threatened to become the Balkans of the future.
Hardly anyone has shown any interest in this region; among the heads of government, only the Pope seems to have shown any concern, and what the Pope is among the heads of state, Ursula Schleicher is here in the European Parliament. She has shown exemplary commitment to this often forgotten region.
My fear is that the events of 11 September will be misused in order to create new spheres of influence, with entire nations and ethnic problems being forgotten or sacrificed to energy supply interests.
After President Putin's speech in the Reichstag, many people have forgotten that he was the person who reignited the war in Chechnya, and that as the head of the secret service under Mr Yeltsin, he incited and manipulated the conflicts in Migrelia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
This is why these European regions are entitled to our solidarity, and we must ensure that we have a presence there.
I therefore appeal to you, Commissioner, to put President Putin's words to the test. If he is genuinely interested in improving the situation, tell him you are going to Chechnya, that you want to test the water for more openness and a greater presence for the European Union.
As regards the three states of the Southern Caucasus, we need Commission delegations at last, not only in Georgia but also in the other two states. This is a region which affects Europe's vital interests, not only in strategic and energy supply terms, but also as regards human rights and our cultural links with this region.
The EU has strengthened its ties with the region since the entry into force of the partnership and cooperation agreements with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia in 1999.
Since the EU Ministerial Troika's visit to the Southern Caucasus last February the EU has been looking for further ways to support efforts to prevent or resolve conflicts, as well as contributing to rehabilitation.
A Political Directors Troika visit followed in September.
The EU is also stepping up its dialogue with the relevant interlocutors, including Russia, Turkey and Iran.
It is true that what could be called "frozen conflicts" are a serious impediment to the development of the region.
The EU is keen to see further and rapid progress made by the OSCE Minsk Group for Nagorno-Karabakh, the OSCE Joint Control Commission for South Ossetia and the UN Group of Friends of the Secretary-General for Abkhazia.
The Commission has participated in the Joint Control Commission for South Ossetia since April 2001 and provides funds for rehabilitation projects.
External actors such as Russia, Iran and Turkey play a key role in the region.
Any effort to stabilise the Caucasus will have to take their interests into account.
In particular, the role of Russia is paramount.
The EU has raised the issue of developments in the Caucasus in its political dialogue with Russia, supporting all efforts to defuse tensions and resolve conflicts.
In particular, we have encouraged Turkey to explore any opportunity for normalising its relations with Armenia.
Mr Dupuis mentioned the issue of our delegations.
I agree that this is a problem but, unfortunately, not one which the Commission can do anything about.
We are a victim of the decisions made in this House on this matter.
It was not the Commission that wanted to limit the number of our delegations to 120.
Our view is that it is normal for the EU to have delegations everywhere.
We are told to open a delegation in one place or another, and at the same time we are asked to stick to that limit.
This is an impossible job.
Please make up your minds and help the Commission to expand the coverage of delegations.
That is my response to the comment made by Mr Dupuis.
Concerning the impact of the work of the support group, we had our last meeting in Russia on 2 August.
I am sorry to inform you that no progress was made there, and so the outlook is not very encouraging.
Turning to Mr Posselt's comment on the risk to this region of negative fallout from the events of 11 September and thereafter, this is something we will include in the analysis.
We will try to release more money for ECHO this year from the emergency reserve.
We are including this region because we fear and predict that humanitarian aid requirements will increase as a foreseeable, indirect consequence of the said events.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.30 p.m.
Political situation in Myanmar (Burma)
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0622/2001 by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Myanmar/Burma;
B5-0639/2001 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the political situation in Burma;
B5-0650/2001 by Mrs Kinnock and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Myanmar/Burma;
B5-0656/2001 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Burma;
B5-0657/2001 by Mrs McKenna and Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the situation in Myanmar/Burma;
B5-0664/2001 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Van Orden, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on the political situation in Myanmar/Burma.
Mr President, Commissioner, for ten years, a whole world of citizens, politicians and journalists have taken an active interest in, and been horrified by, the fate of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Despite the enormous support she enjoys among the Burmese people and the crushing victory she and her party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), won in 1990, she has not been able to take on her leadership role formally.
On various occasions, she has been kept isolated, and now she has been under house arrest for a whole year.
The Nobel Peace Prize and our own Sacharov Prize have drawn attention to her and to her courageous struggle, but they appear not to have swayed the Burmese junta.
The general human rights situation in Burma is alarming.
Representatives of political parties are kept in isolation, thousands of people are in jail for political reasons, dissidents are persecuted and religious and ethnic minorities harassed.
Forced labour and torture are commonplace.
According to Amnesty, there are around 2 000 political prisoners, including journalists and several elected parliamentarians.
The EU Troika and UN observers now confirm that there are some signs of change.
Several prisoners have been released, attitudes towards the NLD have softened and several party offices have been allowed to open.
From a situation in which there was a total refusal to engage in dialogue, discussions have now taken place, and a process of reconciliation may be underway.
It would be very welcome in a country which, for so many years, has been governed by one of the world' s toughest military juntas.
It may be the case that a window of opportunity has now been opened.
In anticipation of further signs and surer indications that the junta really would like to enter into dialogue and accept the demands of the NLD, the EU should not however relinquish its common policy.
When the Council meets at the end of this month to discuss Burma, it is important to keep the sanctions in place for the time being and to keep the pressure up so that the dialogue continues, genuine steps towards democracy are taken, human rights are respected and, especially, Aung San Suu Kyi is released and allowed to take her place as the elected leader of the Burmese people.
Mr President, the situation in Burma is disastrous.
Hundreds of thousands of people are living, without any real humanitarian aid, packed into refugee camps in Thailand, China and Bangladesh.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced into labour or displaced against their will.
The political system is corrupt and repressive.
The democratic opposition has been suppressed since it was elected on 27 May 1990, and more than 2000 people are in prison.
Amnesty International condemns the institutionalised torture that takes place in these countries.
All these human rights violations are crimes against humanity that need to be stopped and denounced in order to be definitively condemned.
Who finances this regime besides the revenue obtained from the illegal sale of drugs? Well, there is TotalFinaElf, also present in Angola, Congo, Chad and Cameroon, and additionally found to be connected with the sinking of the Erika and in the accident in Toulouse.
I think that this company, and this regime, should be boycotted.
More than ever we need to support Burma' s democrats.
The European Union should affirm that Aung San Suu Kyi is the only real chance for Burma and must take every possible measure as quickly as is possible to move this military dictatorship towards democratic transition.
Mr President, I believe that this is the sixth resolution on the situation in Burma that we have introduced along with fellow MEPs.
It is now more than 10 years since Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi won the election there by a large margin.
The country was subsequently taken over by a military dictatorship.
It is also more than 10 years since the elected parliament was dissolved and many of the members of parliament were murdered, went missing or fled.
Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi was imprisoned and then placed under house arrest.
Her house arrest continues to this day.
The repression continued even after she had won the Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful resistance and was subsequently awarded the Sakharov Prize by our Parliament.
This same repression was also unleashed on the population, and in particular on a number of minority groups, with unprecedented viciousness.
Many people fled, with the result that there are many refugees in neighbouring countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh and India.
However, there now seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel.
A number of political prisoners have been released and talks have been going on between the junta and Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi.
Nobody knows what the outcome will be, however, and on that point I would like to warn the European Commission against making any premature concessions to the Burmese military government until it is clear that they are genuinely willing to release all political prisoners. Or that they are genuinely willing to stop repressing minority groups.
Or that they will genuinely allow refugees to return.
Or that they intend to restore democracy or allow Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi to take her place as president of Burma.
In December, it will have been 10 years since Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize.
If there are still no positive developments by then, the European Union will have to step up its measures and put a freeze on investments, for example, just as the United States has done.
We call on the Commission and Council to exert more pressure so that democracy can finally be restored in Burma and Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi can take her rightful place.
Mr President, anyone who knows this paradise in South-East Asia as I do, having visited it several times in the last fifteen years, is bound to be appalled by the chronic supply shortages, the catastrophic infrastructural situation and the brutality of this highly repressive regime.
Yet political systems like the regime in Burma/Myanmar only survive if there are enough states and private companies prepared to keep them alive through economic links.
If we want to change the political system, we must also exert appropriate economic pressure.
The double standards involved in calling for democracy while engaging in intensive trade with this country really should stop.
However, this means that pressure must be brought to bear on those who single-mindedly continue to cultivate their economic links with the military regime with utter disregard for the need for democratisation.
Mr President, like the honourable Members of Parliament the Commission welcomes what could be called the positive developments that have occurred in Burma/Myanmar, in particular the on-going talks between Aung San Suu Kyi and the ruling SPDC, the release of a growing number of political prisoners and the reopening of 20 party offices of the National League for Democracy.
This said, it has to be acknowledged that the improvement in the political climate in the last year is clearly only the beginning of a process which now should be further deepened.
Thus, we still need to see a clear move towards a process of constructive dialogue and achieving respect for internationally accepted standards of human rights.
We have no guarantee of irreversibility in this respect, so we have to be cautious and we have carefully noted the advice given by Members in this debate.
We should encourage the government to continue this progress by fully responding to the concerns of the international community, as articulated by the United Nations Special Envoy, Mr Razali.
At this stage, it is very important to strike a careful balance between recognising the progress achieved so far and maintaining a firm pressure for continued efforts, which can pave the way for democratic reforms.
I am convinced that Members share the Commission's hope that the on-going talks will lead to concrete results, which could enable the European Union to consider positive measures to support the process.
As regards the situation of the ethnic minorities, the Commission shares the concerns voiced by Members and remains convinced that a lasting political solution in Burma/Myanmar must be based on agreement between the SPDC, the democratically elected "opposition" and representatives of ethnic minorities.
All EC humanitarian aid to Burma/Myanmar is provided through NGOs or international agencies.
The Commission is currently exploring the possibilities of increasing humanitarian aid to Burma in full compliance with the terms of the EU's Common Position on Burma/Myanmar.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 6.30 p.m.
Patenting of human genes
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0633/2001 by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and others, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on the human gene register BRCA1 and BRCA2 (breast cancer);
B5-0641/2001 by Mr Ribeiro e Castro, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the human gene register BRCA1 and BRCA2 (breast cancer);
B5-0651/2001 by Mr Gebhardt and Mr Paciotti, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the human gene register;
B5-0663/2001 by Mr Lannoye and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the human gene register;
Mr President, I regret that I must remain seated.
On 30 March last year, Parliament declared that people and their genes or cells in a natural environment cannot be patented.
However, if a patent is granted to Myriad Genetics, this will create a monopoly situation for one particular company.
This means that there is a danger that certain genetic tests and some of the DNA diagnostic tests in Europe will be commercialised.
Three applications for patents on sequences and applications of a breast cancer gene have now been accepted by the European Patent Office.
Applications from Myriad for patents on the BRCA2 gene are still being processed.
If these patents are awarded, this US company will have a monopoly on the BRCA gene and consequently on the DNA test.
This means that abnormalities in patients from families with a history of breast cancer and ovarian cancer will only be able to be detected with this American test.
If Myriad is going to use a similar system in Europe to the one it uses in the United States, the samples from all future laboratory tests will have to be sent to the United States, which will also be very expensive if the analyses have to be done there.
This means that there is a danger that a monopoly may be created, which will put the quality of European diagnostics at risk.
It also means that the availability of data for analysis purposes and the development of new diagnostic applications in our own molecular and testing laboratories will be limited, which will push up the cost of breast cancer screening and therefore of health insurance.
Not only Parliament but also everyone in society who is involved in this has registered objections in this regard.
We therefore ask for this monopoly position, which is in nobody's interest, to be opposed and the patent application to be rejected.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it will not only horrify a great many women to see that a US company, through the patenting process, has effectively acquired ownership of 'breast cancer genes'.
The fact that in the race for money and profit, a great many people's health is put at risk is enough to make anyone's blood run cold.
Yet this is exactly what threatens to occur following the award of patents on the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes.
As a worst-case scenario, many patients may face delays in the early detection of breast cancer as a result of these patent awards.
Yet with this type of cancer in particular, early detection is crucial to increase the chances of recovery.
Furthermore, the virtual monopoly on test methods pushes costs so high that early detection of breast cancer is no longer available to many women.
Nor should we ignore the extent to which the BRCA patents are impeding research in Europe.
One of the leading cancer research institutes - the Institut Curie in Paris - has highlighted this situation and provided impressive and conclusive proof.
It is very welcome that this prestigious research institute has taken action and, with the support of the French Ministry of Health, is initiating an opposition procedure to the patent award. This House will certainly not be making a mistake if it supports this position.
A welcome step would be to call upon the responsible agencies to lodge immediate appeals against the award of the BRCA patents with the European Patent Office in Munich.
It is also important that we should appeal to the institutions and governments of the EU Member States to lodge similar appeals as a matter of urgency.
We owe this to the women affected.
This is the least we can do for them at this point.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, next Tuesday, in response to an application by the Netherlands which is supported by Italy and Norway, the ECJ will decide on the Patent Directive's compatibility with the Treaty.
Today, the European Parliament, through its vote, will decide between the reality and the Directive.
The BRCA patents in particular make it clear that the price of medicines is being increased unnecessarily and that monopolies are being created which impede effective diagnosis and therapy and block research into new and useful drugs.
The time has come for the Commission - and I call upon the Commissioner present to make a statement on this issue - to put an end to the conflicts surrounding the interpretation of this Directive, either by amending the Directive or adopting guidelines.
In my view, the Commission should not bury its head in the sand and say, well, we know that many Member States have problems with this Directive because they do not know how to apply it; we know that the European Patent Office interprets it in a particular way.
I therefore urge you to make a statement on this issue.
The human body must not be degraded to biological material.
Human genes or living organisms or elements thereof must not be subject to patent law.
A discovery must not be recast as an invention.
We must prevent monopolies on human genes impeding research into new and useful drugs.
We cannot stand and watch the early detection of breast cancer falling by the wayside simply because patent rights are to be created for something which is not an invention but, at the very most, a discovery.
Action is required not only by the European Parliament - we have, I believe, made it quite clear with this resolution that we are not prepared to stand and watch - but also by the Commission and the Member States.
Mr President, I shall not speak about the subject but on the institutional issues.
This House has already rejected the option of - or, at least, it has refrained from - lodging an appeal with the European Patent Office.
That is only right and proper.
The European Parliament is a legislative body, and as a legislative body, it cannot intervene in current proceedings.
That is simply not possible!
This is one of the fundamental principles of a democracy under the rule of law.
The legislator passes a law - in this case, the Directive - which will be confirmed next week by the European Court of Justice.
Then it will be down to the authorities to apply the Directive and award a patent or not, and the courts will have to decide whether this award or refusal of a patent is lawful.
That is the due process, and no other process exists in a democracy under the rule of law.
That is why the legislator - in this case, the European Parliament - cannot intervene in current proceedings.
The European Parliament has about as much responsibility for this issue as the Commission, or the Green Party congress or a general meeting of Greenpeace.
It is not for the Commission, or this House, or the Greens, or Greenpeace to decide how a Directive should be applied; that is the task of the relevant authorities.
They - and the courts - decide on this issue, nobody else!
And that is how it should be.
Other than that, Ms Breyer, almost everything you said was factually incorrect.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is against the patenting of human genes as such, something we also stated in 1998 when Parliament adopted the Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
However, we believe that the directive does not allow patents for genes as such, if they do not contain an invention, and we supported the directive when it was adopted.
We believe that the fact that, in a debate on topical and urgent subjects, we are now discussing a resolution on certain patents constitutes an abuse.
We have therefore not signed the common resolution.
Although we have a Temporary Committee on Human Genetics, where the question of patents constitutes one of the most important issues, the issue of patents is being brought up here so that a general position might be adopted on the matter, and I would like to repeat that this is very wrong.
We really believe that this is an abuse.
There have been no formal opportunities to raise objections, but we believe that Parliament' s rules should be changed.
The fact that just a few people are to discuss the issue quickly here is therefore very wrong.
We also believe that the draft resolution is not entirely correct.
The patent applications which exist, and I have a summary of them here, expressly state that they apply to methods and not to genes as such.
You are attempting to give the impression that the European Patent Office is now about to approve patents on human genes, and this is not the case.
However, there is one point on which we can agree with those who drew up the proposal, and that is that in certain respects the patents are two 'broad' .
This means that we should review issues such as compulsory licences with an eye to research and public health.
Unfortunately, this is not something that can be dealt with at Community level, but is the responsibility of the Member States.
I hope that we can discuss the issue of licences in peace and quiet in the Committee on Human Genetics.
We shall not be able to support the resolution.
Mr President, while Mrs Thors was speaking the Commissioner was interrupted by two different people, so he was not paying attention to what she asked and what she said.
It was vitally important to me, as someone trying to learn from this debate, to ascertain the facts of the situation.
I was very interested in what Mr Rothley and Mrs Thors said as to whether we should even be discussing this issue in this Chamber.
But Mr Nielson was otherwise distracted.
I would hope that he gives us a proper response when his turn comes to speak.
Thank you very much, Mr Purvis. The issue of whether or not Mr Nielson was distracted is something we will be able to decide on at the end of the debate.
Mr President, the previous speaker made a comment.
I think that Mr Rothley attacked me personally.
I would like to make it clear once again that the European Patent Office does not have a court.
It has a Board of Appeal.
That is a significant difference.
I say this so that our colleague is properly informed.
It is quite clear that the patent refers to genes - indeed, to mutated genes - and to the analysis procedure, for the sake of accuracy.
I would recommend that any Members of this House who are interested should visit the website of the Institut Curie in France - the prestigious research institute which has initiated an opposition procedure - as this describes the situation in detail.
It is indeed a fact that only an invention may be patented, not a discovery.
On Ms Thors' objection regarding the urgency: the deadline set for instituting proceedings against the first patent expires on Tuesday.
This means that we cannot wait for the Fiori report, which will not be discussed until the October II part-session.
What Mr Rothley says is also incorrect. We are indeed a legislative body, but his own Minister of Justice in Germany, Ms Däubler-Gmelin, once applied this procedure.
Even the Federal Government once appealed against a patent which had been awarded by the Patent Office in 1999.
Mr President, I will not go into the content again; I would just like to correct a statement which was made in error.
I spoke for the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and what I said applies to our group.
I just wanted to clarify that point.
The problem raised by the patents granted by the European Patent Office to Myriad Genetics does not appear to derive from the field of ethics.
These patents highlight a technical question deriving from the field of patent law. The situation is thus completely different from that raised by the famous "Edinburgh patent".
The problem resides more in the extent of the protection to be granted to these patents.
This question is highly complex since, as it applies to gene sequences, it undoubtedly involves a situation relating to competition and innovation, and in no way fundamental principles relating to the dignity or integrity of human beings.
It should be noted that this patent is of undoubted interest for the scientific community.
It should make it possible to improve the early detection of breast cancer in women.
The Commission considers there are no imperative reasons why the Commission should raise any objections, as the contested patent does not infringe essential ethical rules and concerns the field of application which can be granted to a patent relating to a DNA sequence.
Nevertheless, the Commission will study the question of the field of protection for inventions relating to gene sequences in depth and will communicate its observations to the Council and Parliament in the reports provided for by Directive 98/44.
I am utterly amazed that the Commission is not responding.
Number one.
Secondly, I would ask the Commission whether it is in fact willing to do anything before 10 October.
When I say a gene, I mean a gene sequence.
According to the patent directive, a gene sequence cannot be patented.
Mr President, I vigorously endorse what Ms Oomen-Ruijten has said.
Commissioner, you cannot take an infinite amount of time over this.
I too expect that the Commission will state its position on this issue by 9 October.
You said that there are no objections of an ethical nature, but that you will study the question of the field of protection for inventions.
However, you have not answered the question put to you by myself, Mr Blokland, and others on whether Article 5.1 now applies in this context or whether Article 5.2 should take priority.
I believe that many Members of this House expect the Commission to clarify this serious and very important issue.
Thank you very much, Mrs Breyer.
I would ask you to exercise a little discipline, because otherwise we will never finish this debate and we still have the voting time at 6.30 p.m. and two further reports to get through.
Mr President, naturally, I am referring to the procedure.
I would like to thank the Commission for the explanation.
I fully endorse its position.
Please be assured that the Commission has the support of a large majority of Members of this House.
Mr President, this is a very serious matter.
I call upon the Commission to study very carefully whether these patents which have been awarded genuinely comply with the Patent Directive, and not to act as if this House had no role in this area and were not entitled to adopt decisions.
I hope that you will take serious steps to comply with the decisions which are about to be adopted by this House.
I will put your objections to my colleagues.
I also want to point out that what I have said reflects the way the Commission services, and the Commission as such, analyse this issue.
I will repeat what I just said: "the Commission considers there are no imperative reasons why it should raise any objections, as the contested patent does not infringe essential ethical rules and concerns the field of application which can be granted to a patent relating to a DNA sequence".
Obviously there is, and may continue to be, disagreement.
This is the reality in an area like this, and ten years of discussions leading up to the 1998 directive may not be enough to create a real, workable agreement.
However, this is the legislation we have as our basis for action.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 6.00 p.m.
Community guarantee for EIB loans to former Yugoslavia
The next item is the report (A5-0300/2001) by Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council decision amending Decision 2000/24/EC so as to extend the Community guarantee granted to the European Investment Bank to cover loans for projects in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [COM(2001) 356 - C5-0335/2001 - 2001/0143(CNS)].
I would like to express my appreciation to Parliament for the timely preparation of its opinion on this proposal.
This proposal is an integral element of the European Union's support to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
It aims to assist the country's political and economic reform programme.
I am glad to note that the rapporteur fully agrees with this view.
The proposal enables the EIB to finance, under Community guarantee, basic investments in the transport and energy sectors, investments much needed to rehabilitate infrastructure damaged by the recent conflicts and by lack of maintenance in the past decade.
The proposed increase of the lending mandate and the CEEC envelope by EUR 350 m is in line with the foreseen amount of EIB lending to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The final amount of loans to the country will depend on its absorption potential and on the availability of suitable projects, and could exceed EUR 350 m.
I say this in response to the rapporteur's warning about the risk of the overuse of funds.
The possibility of hitting or moving the ceiling is there, but it very much depends on the emergence of suitable projects.
I can confirm that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has agreed to assume responsibility for its share of the outstanding financial obligations of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
We have been informed that an agreement between the EIB and the FRY to that effect was approved by the Yugoslavian Parliament last week.
With the entry into force of that decision - foreseen at the end of this week - I am glad to say that a remaining obstacle to the proposal will be removed.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 6.30 p.m.
Association of overseas countries and territories with the EC
The next item is the report (A5-0276/2001) by Mr Fruteau, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council decision on the association of the overseas countries and territories with the European Community ( 'Overseas' ) ( [COM(2000) 732 - C5-0070/2001 - 2001/2033(COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when I was elected to the European Parliament, it was with a clear mandate, not only to represent Réunion, the island where I come from, or even the outermost regions, but also to try to make the voice of all of the French overseas territories heard.
This is why I am glad that Parliament charged me with being its spokesperson on the statute of association between the overseas countries and territories, the OCTs, and the European Union.
I would also like to commend the spirit of openness that prevailed when this report was being drawn up.
Allow me first to venture a historical and political look at the relations that some Member States have had with their former colonies, relations that have been marked, in my opinion, by the bond of exclusivity and by supervision, which are pillars of the colonial pact.
We should now break with the past and with the feeling of guilt that goes with it, in order to define a true responsible and equal partnership between the overseas countries and territories, the attached Member States and the European Union.
This is the path that we should resolutely take, in order for this new decision of association to be the real qualitative leap expected by all of the overseas countries and territories.
This challenge is, however, made difficult by the lack of homogeneity among the OCTs and by the structural handicaps that are physically curbing their development: about twenty countries linked with four Member States - The United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and France -, mostly small and island countries, with the notable exception of Greenland, very remote from the European continent, characterised by an extreme economic and social diversity (the richest are within the Community average, while the poorest are really under-developed), and also by diversity of status in terms of the relations that the overseas countries and territories have forged during their history with their mainland, relations characterised by considerable independence for some and major State supervision for others.
It has to be said that the Commission' s proposal, as it has been put forward, only partly responds to this challenge and to the legitimate aspirations of these territories found in all four corners of the globe.
There are still acute questions in terms of the institutional, economic, financial and commercial problems.
First of all from an institutional point of view, I would like to welcome the establishment of a forum to facilitate partnership between the OCTs, the Member States and the Commission, although it is regrettable that decision making is not more in the hands of the leaders of the overseas countries and territories.
Next, from an economic and financial point of view, the Commission has indeed retained a differentiated strategy, taking into account the extreme diversity among the overseas countries and territories, but I deplore the fact that the amount of aid is essentially fixed based on GNP per inhabitant.
I think it would have been more appropriate to add demographic and social criteria to this, which are a fairer reflection of the vulnerability of these territories.
I will take this opportunity to call again for the creation of a specific development fund for the overseas countries and territories, separate from the European development fund, which I am convinced would be more in keeping with the spirit and the letter of the association.
Finally, from a commercial point of view, I must stress here that the share of overseas countries and territories in trade with the Community is very low, which makes it difficult to understand the Commission' s defensive position.
It is true that it is essential that in certain cases, such as that of sugar, it should be extremely vigilant in order to prevent the original rules, which are necessary for the development of all of the overseas countries and territories, from being abused, with the effect of destabilising some European markets, particularly in outermost regions.
However, not only out of a concern for coherence, at a time when the Union is completely opening up its markets to the least advanced countries, but also in view of the common history of the OCTs and the European Union, we do not understand why it is refusing them what it is granting to the least advanced countries.
Community solidarity cannot be two-speed.
It is thus high time that we showed effectively that the overseas countries and territories are not the poor relations of our development policy.
In other words, it is high time that we proved tangibly to these people that they are right in believing in the European Union.
This is why, to finish, I wish to reiterate the desire that I state several times in my report, that the tenth anniversary of the statute of association should be an opportunity for reaffirming the strong political will towards these territories, that have for too long been left to be blown by the wind, across all the oceans of the world, in order to firmly and resolutely undertake the path of partnership and responsibility, in other words the path of development for all.
Mr President, I would firstly like to state that I am speaking on behalf of my Mr Fernández Martín, who is not able to attend.
I would like to make clear that among the wide range of regional associations or groups of countries with which the European Union maintains relations, the group of overseas countries and territories, the PTOMs to use the French term, is certainly the most heterogeneous of all.
In actual fact, they are grouped together more for what they are not than for what they are.
Hence the special merit offered, in my opinion, by the proposed Council Decision and the report which Mr Fruteau has produced in relation to it.
Generally speaking, I agree with the rapporteur' s proposals, although I would certainly express some of them somewhat differently.
However, I would like to announce that my group will vote in favour of them.
The rapporteur proposes a series of measures which attempt to strengthen the association system which has linked the PTOMs to the Union since 1991, by stating that on this tenth anniversary of the said agreement, the Union should be more ambitious with regard to the most distant territories of the continent.
I must point out that the PTOMs as a whole, and each one of them in particular, do not form part of the territory of the Union.
Their inhabitants have European citizenship (French, British, Dutch or Danish, as the case may be) but the territories in which they live do not form part of the European Union itself - in the case of Greenland, for example, its citizens voted in a referendum to leave what we then called the European Communities; in the case of New Caledonia, in accordance with a plan drawn up with the French authorities, they have also begun a procedure which will lead them, in a few years' time, to join the group of ACP countries.
And I could cite in this way further examples of specific cases, almost as many as there are PTOM countries and territories.
This heterogeneity is evident in many other respects and the most noteworthy of these is their sparse and irregularly distributed population.
As the rapporteur rightly stresses, the population of the twenty overseas territories hardly exceeds one million inhabitants and three of them, the Dutch Antilles, French Polynesia and New Caledonia, have more than 150 000 inhabitants each, so these three territories alone account for almost half of the total population.
Therefore, when almost three years ago we discussed the report produced at the time by our colleague Blaise Aldo, we wanted to place special emphasis on the development of the PTOMs' trade relations with the ACP countries close to them and in some cases, such as that of the Caribbean, with equally close outermost regions.
However, INTERREG did not meet the expectations raised as a basis for developing these trading relations.
Perhaps this could be attempted again now with INTERREG III, and I agree with the rapporteur that the development of the PTOMs should be promoted through a specific fund to simplify the procedures for linking it to the EDF or to Cotonou - although I know that the Commission has its own opinion in this respect.
In conclusion, I request an oral amendment which I hope can be accepted.
In the first paragraph of the explanatory statement the rapporteur expressly mentions the seven outermost regions of the European Union, stating that they opted for full integration into the respective Member States, former colonial powers.
That is not correct.
The Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands did not have any colonial status at any time in their history, which is why they should be expressly excluded from this statement by the rapporteur, and I hope that the House and the rapporteur himself can accept this request.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to express my great satisfaction at being able to speak for the first time in this House on the issue of the Overseas Countries and Territories.
These twenty territories benefit from a particular association arrangement with the European Union, which, when described in simple terms, is less favourable than the status reserved for the outermost regions, which are integral parts of the Union, but more advantageous than the agreements made with third countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
As a French overseas member of this Parliament my attention is naturally drawn to the fate of the French territories and administrative authorities concerned, which are, and I am pleased to list them here, New Caledonia, French Polynesia, the French Southern and Antarctic Territories, Wallis and Futuna, Mayotte and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon.
In his excellent report, Mr Fruteau welcomes the progress in relations between the European Union and the OCTs from an institutional, economic and financial point of view, even though there remain many questions on the Commission' s proposals having to respond to the objectives included in declaration 36 with regard to the OCTs annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
With regard to trade relations, the rapporteur emphasises the low level of trade with the Union.
In 1998, imports from OCTs amounted to 0.21 % of Community imports, with exports to OCTs amounting to 0.43 % of Community exports as a whole.
A liberalisation of trade with OCTs could fulfil the objectives we have set ourselves.
We should be particularly careful, however, that this liberalisation does not result in some kind of diversion from our current objectives.
For several years, imports have been increasing from a particular OCT (which happens to be Aruba but this is not the time to hold it up as an example), which runs counter to the spirit of this association agreement with the European Union.
These products exported to the Union do not come from the OCT, but are imported there from ACP countries for minor processing such as the whitening of rice, sifting, packaging or mixing.
These simple operations only require very low levels of investment, and are therefore in no way a development factor as the Court of Justice in Luxembourg highlighted in its ruling on the "Emesa sugar" case in 1998, as the only interest is providing easy added value for international operators.
The increase in this type of inefficiency is all the more intolerable given that it goes against the interests of the other OCTs, the outermost regions and the ACP countries.
In this context, without questioning the objectives proposed by the rapporteur, which I willingly support, it is essential that we establish strict original rules to prevent these breaches , which are detrimental to the economies of all overseas territories.
In this respect, the measures for prohibiting cumulation of origin for certain products, increasing the list of inadequate processes or the systematic implementation of safeguard clauses in no way provide a suitable response to this problem.
I wish to begin by saying that I totally support Mrs Sudre's remarks.
The Commission is always asked to ensure that there is coherence in what we do and we have a strong case of lack of coherence when we look at the trade practices that are at the heart of this debate.
We have had good reason to do what we have done and I definitely hope that some constructive conclusion that ends this traffic will be part of the final solution for the whole matter.
Let me also congratulate the Committee on Development and Cooperation and the rapporteur for a clear and generally balanced analysis of this whole matter, although I need to make some remarks.
The Commission proposal is based on the widest consultation of the parties concerned ever made in this field.
Thus, it is not surprising that some of the indications we have received as part of this wide consultation process point in different, even conflicting, directions.
Inevitably, some delicate compromises have had to be struck, for example in the trade sector.
However, we have kept to the objective of giving an adequate and ambitious response to the expectations of the OCTs and to the challenges facing them.
The motion before you today gives a positive assessment of several innovations we have proposed, such as the reinforced partnership procedure, the simplified financial regulations and the new role of civil society.
In my view, other points also deserve to be mentioned, for example the extension of many budget lines, Community programmes and provisions on trade in services to the OCTs.
There is a tendency to neglect the importance, the scope and the opportunities for the OCTs to be able to access as users Community programmes in general.
This is new and should be highlighted.
I have remarks to make concerning two chapters of the proposal - financial aid and trade.
As to the European Development Fund, it is correct that, in respect of the past, financial aid will no longer be given to three OCTs - Aruba, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands - because their GNP is now near or even higher than in the Community.
It is important that all Members of Parliament are made aware of this.
We have to get out of the habit of having OCT issues being discussed only in the few Member States that have a direct part in the discussion.
In the past, it has looked a little too much like a self-service shop.
We are talking about Community matters and they should be discussed at that level.
For all the other OCTs, in the future funds will be granted following more objective, transparent and coherent criteria.
Income, GNP, has to be one of them, along with population, as we want to ensure that the taxpayers' money is spent where it is most needed, and this means in the fight against poverty.
This is the cornerstone of the EU development policy, and I want to stick to this - also in respect of the clear support for this development policy in this House.
Transitional provisions have been proposed.
Substantial funds are reserved for social and environmental projects in medium income OCTs.
Secondly, money has to go where it is best used.
This is why we have proposed to keep a reserve not only to cover emergency aid and the kinds of activities that cannot be programmed in advance, but also to grant additional transfers to those territories which use their initial amounts more efficiently.
A real part of the story is that quite an impressive amount of money has not been well utilised.
So this performance criterion is a necessary component and the reason we want to keep a reserve to solve this problem.
The Commission is looking into absorption problems but I have the impression that more efforts should be made by the OCTs themselves to use funds efficiently.
I regret - but I have to tell you - that certain Member States do not seem to share these priorities.
Again this is a matter for the Community.
We have to get out of the self-service syndrome.
The reduction in Regional Funds is justified by the limited use made of them in the past.
Should this situation change, I would be very pleased to reconsider this point.
The Commission also wants to send a strong message to those OCTs defined as tax havens in the OECD analysis.
Unless and until they redress their practices, their allocations will and should be cut back.
Again let me remind Parliament of the strong emphasis placed on the need for coherence.
Parliament's views on this matter have been made very clear to us.
We happen to agree with them but we cannot say one thing in one document and then not apply it in an area like this.
I share the view that different ways of financing OCT aid than the EDF could be considered.
However, in practice this would only be possible when new budget guidelines are agreed in a few years' time.
For the same reason, given the existing budgetary rules, the EDF is currently the only real possibility for financing partnership meetings and evaluation studies.
But let me repeat that opening access to active involvement in Community programmes is an interesting additional way for the OCTs to benefit from our relationship.
Let me turn to trade.
For too many years now this has been a bone of contention between some OCTs and the Community. Unfortunately, excessive expectations in this field have been generated despite our advice.
When the Community has been forced to take corrective measures those expectations have inevitably been disappointed.
But part of the problem and the cases that have dominated this discussion were also the product of deliberate engineering of ways in which to use or misuse the existing system.
We should not fool ourselves on this issue.
So let me be very clear here.
The Commission has always supported a liberal trade attitude toward our preferential partners, in particular developing countries.
The recent initiative on "Everything But Arms" is just one latest example.
The OCTs will continue to enjoy the most favourable trade arrangement granted by the Community.
This is the current position and so it will remain.
However, a line has to be drawn between supporting economic activities and tolerating purely speculative operations which have no development effects and, in addition, cost huge sums to the Community, be it the Community budget, consumers or productive sectors.
In other cases, real abuses have been identified and stopped by our anti-fraud departments.
It is only reasonable that when preparing new legislation we seek to eliminate the risk of this happening again.
Once more, such misuse has not served in any way the best interests of OCT citizens and governments.
Let me stress that the OCT association certainly includes the principle of preferential access to our market, but not an unconditional one.
This is not only the view of the Commission, as the Council and the Court of Justice have consistently endorsed it.
Coherence with the other Treaty policies and with the rule of the law must also be maintained.
It is in the urgent interest of the OCTs that a favourable business climate is re-established as soon as possible.
This has to be our main objective when formulating our proposals on trade.
Finally, let me express the hope that very soon we can reach the end of this long phase of transition and uncertainty concerning the future regime.
The Commission will, to this end, be available as a catalyst where needed to achieve a rapid conclusion in the Council to end the long saga of this renewal of the OCT regime.
I definitely hope that Parliament is giving a helping hand by this work of the rapporteur.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 6.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 6.05 p.m. and resumed at 6.30 p.m.)
Mr President, we have heard on the news that a Russian commercial airliner has crashed into the Black Sea.
It is not clear whether it was an explosion or whether the aeroplane was accidentally shot down by the Ukrainian army.
I think that before the start of this vote - regardless of what caused this tragic accident - we should briefly remember those who have lost their lives in this tragedy.
If you would be so kind, ladies and gentlemen, we will now observe a minute' s silence for the victims.
(Parliament observed a minute' s silence while remaining standing)
VOTE
Mr President, I simply wanted to inform you that we will abstain on paragraphs 5 and 6, as my group believes that since we are anticipating a legislative proposal within a matter of days, we should not make any statements prematurely.
Please understand that we will thus abstain on paragraphs 5 and 6.
Report (A5-0300/2001) by Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council decision amending Decision 2000/24/EC so as to extend the Community guarantee granted to the European Investment Bank to cover loans for projects in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (COM(2001) 356 - C5-0335/2001 - 2001/0143(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0276/2001) by Mr Fruteau, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council decision on the association of the overseas countries and territories with the European Community ("Overseas") (COM(2000) 732 - C5-0070/2001 - 2001/2033(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 6.45 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 4 October 2001.
Announcement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, as you will recall, on 8 October, 104 passengers and four employees of Linate airport were killed in a tragic accident involving a small private aircraft and an SAS aeroplane, which was due to fly from Milan to Copenhagen.
Immediately after the disaster, I sent a message expressing my condolences to the President of the Italian Council and to the Danish Prime Minister.
Since I was on an official visit to Denmark the day after the accident occurred, I also gave the same message in person to the various authorities that I met during my visit.
I would, however, like to publicly demonstrate, once again, our solidarity and deep sympathy for the families of the victims.
Agenda
Madam President, I am rapporteur for the subject of Macedonia which is on tomorrow' s agenda.
However, the Commission has just informed us that this subject should be withdrawn.
As rapporteur, and also on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I propose that, in accordance with Article 144 of the Rules of Procedure, we delete this subject from tomorrow' s agenda.
The reason for this is that we have obtained information to the effect that the Commission wishes firstly to contribute more money by way of aid to Macedonia and secondly to extend the period of aid.
I therefore propose that we withdraw the subject from this part-session and instead address it in the November part-session.
We therefore refer the subject back to the Committee on Budgets and to the committees which are to issue opinions on this subject, that is to say the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Of course, Mr Färm, I can confirm these details.
The Commission is currently preparing a revised proposal in order to take into account the additional requirements for financial resources requested by the International Monetary Fund.
Are there any objections to the proposal that Mr Färm has just made, who also supports the Commission proposal?
(Parliament gave its assent)
President.
Pursuant to Rule 114, 37 Members have opposed the application of the procedure without report to the proposal for a Council decision on admitting the European Community to the Codex Alimentarius Committee, currently scheduled to be taken at voting time on Tuesday at 12 noon.
This proposal for a decision is therefore referred back to the committee responsible for reconsideration.
The order of business is thus established.
Madam President, there is an urgent matter missing from the agenda to which I would briefly like to draw the attention of the Presidency and the Members.
The German foundation 'Memory, Responsibility and Future' , established by the German government and national enterprises, has taken the surprising, disturbing decision not to count Italian prisoners of war or even a large percentage of Italian civilian forced labourers among the former forced labourers in Germany, providing compensation only for civilians who were interned in actual concentration camps.
This exclusion is unjustified from a legal point of view and would hinder the deep reconciliation between the European peoples who were divided by the tragic experiences of the Second World War.
I feel that action needs to be taken to prevent this great discrimination in the German compensation against Italian prisoners of war and Italian civilian forced labourers.
Thank you, Mr Borghezio.
We shall of course take note of what you have said.
Madam President, this morning, when I got up, I found that I had lost my voice.
I have lost my voice and so I do not know whether I will be able to deliver my usual explanations of vote tomorrow.
That aside, I am here beside my friend, Mr Borghezio, not because I have changed group but because I support his proposal regarding the failure to provide compensation for Italian former prisoners of war and Italian civilian forced labourers.
These are all people who are over 75 years of age, and therefore pensioners, who have been left by the Italian government without a pension.
Therefore, the damages suffered by these Italian citizens, who, like many of us, have suffered the outrages of war, are even greater because, in addition to not receiving this compensation, they are pensioners who do not receive a pension.
Mrs Doyle, I shall give your request my full consideration.
Madam President, as president of STOA, may I point out that the study to which the honourable Mr Doyle refers has not yet been officially adopted by STOA's plenary.
It is on the agenda for the next meeting here in Strasbourg.
As you know, this study examined numerous aspects and independent experts were also asked for their opinion, because we want to ensure that the study is reliable and that STOA is reliable.
Once STOA's plenary has reached a decision, we shall pass it on so that we can take what I imagine will be the right decision on such an important matter.
Madam President, in the absence of our chairman, as vice-chairman of the Committee on Petitions I would point out that our committee requested the report from STOA on the possible toxic effects of Sellafield in the Irish Sea and Cap de la Hague in the English Channel.
The Petitions Committee is as anxious as anybody that this report should be published as soon as possible.
It is important that the report, when adopted by STOA, is seen to be absolutely objective and scientifically independent.
That is why it has been subjected to independent assessment.
When we have considered that assessment I believe all Members of this House would want the report to be published.
But that should not be done whilst doubts remain - and unfortunately there are doubts - about the objectivity of the report as currently presented to the STOA panel.
Madam President, I was astonished to read in the press the outcome of the negotiations by the Conference of Presidents to decide the winner of the Sakharov Prize.
What I am asking myself is where and when will MEPs be given an opportunity to begin to understand how the presidents, or the majority of presidents, or whoever, came to a decision which patently contradicts the MEPs who voted in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
I find this scandalous to say the least, and I believe that there is a genuine problem with the way things work in our Parliament, which is that, in actual fact, we serve no purpose.
We spend hours having debates and casting votes in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and then afterwards, Mr Poettering calls Mr Barón Crespo or Mr Barón Crespo calls Mr Poettering and what we think counts for nothing.
I would simply like to say that we are Members who were elected with the same votes as Mr Poettering and Mr Barón Crespo, and that I cannot accept that it is they who call the shots in the European Parliament, therefore I want us to discuss, in plenary, the way that decisions are taken, just as the Sakharov Prize was discussed last week.
(Applause from the Greens/ALE Group)
Madam President, I spoke to Mr Wurtz on the telephone and to Mrs Hautala and Mr Lannoye in person.
First of all, I do not consider the fact that Members of this Parliament should talk to one another as a crime and secondly, the Conference of Presidents has respected the proposal tabled by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy.
The proof of this is that the prize was awarded to the joint Israeli-Palestinian proposal and to the proposal from the bishop of Angola by a very large majority. Furthermore, on your own initiative, Madam President, a special mention will be given to Mrs Sedrine, the Tunisian journalist.
I would ask my fellow Members, especially Mr Cohn-Bendit, to be a bit more careful about what they say because, apart from the fact that the decision of the Committee on Foreign Affairs has been respected, the last thing we need at such a sensitive political moment is to create a religious war between a Christian, a Muslim and a Jew.
This is completely unacceptable.
Mr Wurtz, I think that, given the applause that I have just heard, I am certainly able to do this.
I have one comment to make, Mr Barón Crespo: when the prize is given to two people - one a Muslim, the other Jewish - this means that a war of religions does not exist.
If you are brave, you are not obliged to add that we need a Catholic as well, as there is still no war of religions.
You say, therefore, that the decision was not to award the prize to two Muslims, but to a Jew and a Muslim.
That is all you need to say and that is why I maintain that a lack of courage and historical insight are what led to the proposal by the Committee on Foreign Affairs being watered down.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago, another five workers lost their lives as the result of an explosion on the tanker which they were repairing in Salamina.
This is the umpteenth time that workers in my country have paid with their blood for the lack of rudimentary safety measures as the result of the unaccountability of shipowners and the privatisation of control services, which issue certificates based on the shipowners' interests rather than on respect for the workers' lives.
The Greek government is also to blame for failing to take any action whatsoever, despite the large number of accidents.
I should like to use this tribune to express our condolences to the victims' families and to roundly condemn the unaccountability of their employers and the policy of the Greek government.
Be it in Toulouse or Salamina, the working classes are being sacrificed for the sake of a competitive economy and more and more profit.
Madam President, I do not know if you remember, but, a couple of months ago, I severely criticised the fact that we Danes were being treated unfairly.
We did not have the opportunity to watch Danish television.
I asked you and Mrs Banotti to look into the matter, and I should like to say that Mrs Banotti has again shown that she is good at these matters.
The Danes among us have now got Danish television again.
We are over the moon and, as Mrs Banotti can see, I am celebrating the fact in my national colours - a red jacket and a splendid white shirt from the Håndværker Bank in Næstved.
So you can see that we are really happy to have got Danish television.
Madam President, I was not aware that this was going to arise and I apologise therefore to Mrs Villiers for not being able to talk to her about it earlier.
She is quite right to say that agreement has been reached with the Council and it is now up to Parliament to have the third reading.
We pressed extremely hard - and you, Madam President, were involved in this - to try and get to a position where we could be flexible and act very rapidly as a parliament.
Unfortunately, we have to await the documentation that comes from the Council in all 11 languages of the Community before we actually have Council's position formally adopted so that we can come to a conclusion with a third reading.
It is therefore, unfortunately, a matter of timing, due to the scheduling of documents and translation etc. that we do not have that flexibility.
I did press very hard indeed but unfortunately it was not achievable.
Madam President, my group would also have liked to see the money laundering directive approved sooner.
We would, indeed, have liked to have seen it wrapped up before the summer holidays.
But it was Mrs Villiers' own group which held out against an obligation on lawyers to report suspicious transactions and therefore held up the final resolution of this matter for six months after our plenary vote in April.
I am glad to say that the results of conciliation do not reflect that refusal and lawyers will have to contact the authorities when they have reason to believe their clients may be seeking advice in order to engage in money laundering.
I am glad that is the final result.
I deeply regret that it took so long.
I am afraid it is Mrs Villiers's own group - indeed her own delegation within that group - which contributed to that lengthened and regrettable delay.
Thank you.
We shall look into this, as you have asked.
Madam President, I should like to raise an issue which I raised at the previous part-session, that is, the predicament of national airlines in Europe which are currently facing effective annihilation.
It is reckoned that approximately EUR 2.5 billion will be lost by the European aviation industry between now and the end of the year, and that some 20 000 jobs will be lost.
The Commission response to this, however, has been stony-faced and ideological.
It has sought to use the crisis arising from the atrocities of 11 September to shake out the industry to ensure that companies that may or may not have survived in the normal course of economic operations are forced to close down.
I would appeal to the Commission to use some political sagacity in its approach to this situation.
If the European project does not have the support of the people of Europe it will not succeed, and the Commission is failing to recognise this.
Every single job lost in the European aviation industry as a result of the Commission's decision, will create an ever-widening pool of resentment towards Europe, not towards national governments which may be pursuing their own agendas.
The Commission must urgently review its approach to the aviation industry.
Madam President, this is the second session that we are holding in October.
As you will recall, at our first October session, we made a last minute change to the agenda in order to debate and vote on the dreadful accident that occurred at the AZF factory in Toulouse.
Yet, two days ago, this very factory released several tonnes of ammonia into the Garonne river, which flows through the city of Toulouse.
I am therefore asking you, Madam President, to ensure that the resolution we adopted is followed up by the Commission, to prevent it becoming lost in a mass of administrative red tape.
I believe that the impunity and the arrogance of the polluters must be met with the determination of our Parliament.
I shall gladly do so, Mr Onesta.
Mrs Hautala, I have just received some information regarding Mrs McKenna, and I shall of course see what we can do to help her.
Madam President, I would like to thank you for mentioning at the start of the sitting the tragedy which took place at Milan Linate airport, which claimed 118 lives.
Investigations are currently being carried out into who is responsible.
Of course, it became clear very early on that, while, regrettably, human error is always possible, it was made possible in this case largely by the severe lack of security in that airport, which we all believed to be safe.
From the human point of view, I feel that it is becoming imperative that these errors are not repeated and that such a tragic incident should compel all those responsible to undertake solemnly to ensure that such tragedies are avoided in the future.
As regards responsibility, I feel that we, as the European Union, should call upon the Commission and the Council to be more rigorous in enforcing the imperative need for airport security, to ensure that such tragedies are avoided in future.
Mrs Ghilardotti, I believe that what you have said somewhat pre-empts the debate that will take place in a few moments, following the points of order.
Madam President, unfortunately the fears which I expressed the very day after the terrorist attack in the USA have come true and the death of the thousands of innocent American victims is being used as an excuse for a barbaric attack on Afghanistan, giving rise to new hordes of innocent victims and causing tremendous damage.
Today, 15 days after the attacks started, it is clear - witness the announcements by the US administration - that the aim is not to stamp out terrorism, it is - or at least one of the aims is - to control central Asia and its huge natural resources and highly important geo-strategic position.
My fear, especially after Mrs Gandhi, that this attack will be used to further strengthen capitalist mechanisms and curtail our workers' and our nations' democratic freedoms and rights, has also come true.
The EU, led by the three, has aligned with the USA in what is a disastrous policy for our nations and our planet.
I believe that the European Parliament, as a democratically elected house, has a duty, if it wants to serve the peaceful, democratic visions and wishes of our people, to oppose these developments, to push for the EU to disassociate itself from them, to stop the war and to revert to resolving differences by peaceful means.
However, in the final analysis, it is up to the people.
Madam President, we are a small delegation of MEPs who have just come back from the Clinique Sainte Barbe here in Strasbourg, to which a former Chechen minister, Mr Ibragimov, had been admitted after having been on hunger strike for 27 days.
We went there to talk with Mr Ibragimov and to alert the world to the fact that this hunger strike took place here in Strasbourg.
Mr Ibragimov naturally drew attention to the fact that he wanted international organisations and politicians to try to convince President Putin to put an end to the war in Chechnya and to adhere to the agreements entered into between Chechnya and Russia, and I should like to convey this message of his.
Mr Ibragimov has begun to eat again.
He is still very weak, but human rights campaigners have encouraged him to abandon his hunger strike.
He will begin it again later, together with other human rights campaigners, if there is still no progress on Chechnya in the future.
However, I think it was important to visit him.
My point is that we must not forget that human rights are being violated.
Now that we are combating terrorism, we must not forget human rights, and I should like to call upon you to tell Mr Ibragimov that you are willing to meet him - if that is possible - during the next part-session in Strasbourg.
Consequences of recent events for the safety of air transport and industrial installations including nuclear power plants
The next item is the Commission statement on the consequences of recent events for the safety of air transport and industrial installations, including nuclear power plants.
I shall now give the floor to Commissioner Vitorino.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the previous plenary session of the European Parliament, a debate was held on the steps to take in the fight against terrorism in the wake of the attacks of 11 September.
On behalf of my colleague, Mrs De Palacio, I would today like to discuss the consequences of these events for the safety of air transport, and also the implications that such events could have for some industrial installations, particularly nuclear power plants.
I shall therefore begin with the issue of air transport safety.
As I am sure you know, the European Council of 21 September 2001 requested that measures be taken in order to strengthen air transport security.
The Commission showed a dynamic approach and immediately reacted by formulating an appropriate Community response to the attacks carried out in the United States of America.
Without further delay - following a request made by the European Council - the Commission proposed that Member States put in place a 'dual review' mutual inspection system.
This reciprocal monitoring system will enable experts of one Member State to be sent to inspect security measures in airports of another Member State.
We must point out, however, that Member States are reluctant to give inspectors this task.
So far, only two Member States have submitted to the Commission proposals on the representatives that they wish to appoint.
On 10 October, the Commission proposed a draft regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council to approximate air transport security and safety standards within the European Union, and also to give the Commission the power of execution and inspection in order to ensure that the standards are being applied.
This text specifically mentions access control to sensitive areas of airports and aircraft, control of passengers and their hand luggage, control and monitoring of hold luggage, control of cargo and mail and, lastly, the training of ground staff.
Mrs De Palacio presented this proposal to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism the same day that it was adopted, and we hope that Parliament will be able to examine it as a matter of urgency in order to enable an agreement to be reached at the Council in December, with the hope that the co-decision procedure can take place at first reading.
In addition, an ad-hoc multidisciplinary group, made up of experts in air safety and combating terrorism, was set up immediately.
Unfortunately, the work of the group of experts has been inconclusive and the preliminary report submitted to the Transport Council on 16 October merely stresses, firstly, that much remains to be done in order to ensure that safety measures are being applied effectively in all airports and, secondly, identifies the need for new measures to prevent the dangerous behaviour of some individuals in aircraft, such as banning access to cockpits or enhancing cooperation between civil monitoring of air traffic and the use of military air defence methods.
We are convinced that we must make headway on the proposals that we have submitted to you. Not only because of a lack of specific recommendations from the above mentioned group, but also because international bodies appear to be having difficulties in reacting swiftly.
Therefore, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, which held its assembly meeting in September, has limited itself to the single principle of organising a conference, the date of which has not yet been arranged.
We hope that, at the European Union' s initiative, the ICAO will take on the responsibility of ensuring the adoption of the recommendations that it received with a view to strengthening international safety standards that apply to airports and air transport.
Nevertheless, given the situation, the United States naturally decided to move forward themselves on this issue.
The Commission believes that we must enhance cooperation so that preventative measures are implemented in a coordinated manner on both sides of the Atlantic.
In this spirit, we organised a meeting with our American counterparts, which is to be held on 6 and 7 November 2001, to set up a working group that brings together the American authorities and the Commission with a view to coordinating efforts so that the highest possible level of security is ensured, whilst avoiding a situation where airline companies are subjected to excessive measures.
I shall now move on to the possible consequences of terrorist activities, such as those committed on 11 September 2001, had they been carried out on an industrial or power installation.
The nuclear industry is one of the sectors of industry that has the most stringent security and safety standards, particularly because of the requirements of non-proliferation and radiation protection.
We should also mention, however, that other installations, that are less well protected, may be vulnerable, and a fatal accident of considerable proportions could happen at one of these plants, whether they belong to the chemical industry, which was the case at Bhopal, Seveso and recently at Toulouse - or at other power installations, such as natural gas infrastructures, which are not without risks.
Some of us still recall the time when hydroelectric dams burst.
Since 11 September, Member States' authorities have strengthened existing protective systems and physical protection measures that were already in force for at-risk installations and more specifically for nuclear installations.
These physical protection measures are particularly for access control to the installations and include a ban on flying over the installations.
As far as the design of existing installations is concerned, it must be noted that the risks are taken into consideration, either wholly or according to the probability of an accident taking place.
Therefore, the risk of a primary cooling system bursting, to which terrorists could have access, is taken wholly into account and a security system is put in place to avoid this risk.
Comparative assessments are carried out on other risks.
This is what happens for seismic risks, which are taken into consideration in a number of ways, according to the geographical location of the installation itself.
In this respect, the Commission would like to reiterate that the design and construction of electro-nuclear power stations fall within the sole competence of Member States.
In addition to conventional nuclear installations, however, we must also take into account the risks related to transporting nuclear materials.
In reality, the transportation of highly radioactive materials is only a very small part of activities involving nuclear materials and is carried out in accordance with the most stringent provisions of international and national regulations.
As a general rule, to use nuclear materials for the purposes of terrorism, perpetrators require, beyond simply holding the nuclear materials, the technical capability to store, process and launch the materials, which would be very difficult to achieve without alerting the authorities.
Everything has been implemented at Community level, by applying Chapter VII of the Euratom Treaty, which requires a strict registration of nuclear materials in order to prevent them being used for non-peaceful purposes.
Nonetheless, the events in New York show that we must assess the vulnerability of nuclear installations.
The Commission services are carrying out an evaluation, in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, particularly in terms of security at nuclear installations.
Our assessment should show how worthwhile it would be to publish the recommendations and to supplement existing legislation at Community and/or international level.
In particular, we must assess the conventions established under the International Atomic Energy Agency, such as the convention on physical protection, which mainly covers the transportation of nuclear materials.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you for your attention.
We on this side whole-heartedly support the response of the United States, the European Union and its Member States and other countries to the attacks of 11 September 2001 and the development of a comprehensive multilateral strategy against terrorism.
In recognising the determination of the European Union and its Member States to safeguard its citizens from acts of terrorism, we stress the need to reassure the public by striking the right balance between vigilance and enabling everyday life to continue.
We consider that each Member State must carry out a complete reassessment of its approach to the security of infrastructure and installations, particularly the most risk-sensitive such as nuclear installations.
We recognise there is genuine public concern about these issues but would like to emphasise the need to keep these matters in perspective.
I would like to emphasise that the safety of nuclear plants and other such industrial installations is primarily a national competence and responsibility.
In that context we look, for example, to the United Kingdom government to take all necessary short-term protective measures as well as to face up to the necessary longer-term decisions with regard to the disposal of radioactive waste.
Clearly, the events of 11 September 2001 in the United States call for a reassessment of the risk of attack on installations that we have previously regarded as secure and I welcome the statement from the Commissioner.
I only regret that it was not possible for Commissioner Loyola de Palacio to be able to speak to us - it had been our wish to hold this debate at the next part-session.
President, the basic premise of terrorism is that the unexpected, the unconsidered, the unbelievable will terrify the population into accepting political claims, whether they are rational or not.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your statement.
I welcome the cooperation you have outlined and the special attention which will be given to nuclear installations.
I hope that Member States will cooperate with the Commission in this work.
Our reaction must be to do all that we can to prevent the sort of widespread slaughter, injury and chaos we saw in the United States.
Air travel, nuclear power stations, chemical works and oil depots, are all obvious targets for terrorists.
They are designed, built and protected accordingly at very considerable cost to the public.
The French government now protects the reprocessing centre at La Hague with fighter planes and missiles.
No doubt the United Kingdom does likewise in Sellafield.
We cannot inhabit the weird minds of terrorists, but we can pay the high cost of protection.
We can work together and we can be very careful when we consider building, or indeed retaining, a potential target.
Things will not be the same after 11 September, as many others have said.
No one had conceived of using a fully loaded, large passenger plane as a weapon.
We have to factor that into our calculations.
Please keep reporting to Parliament.
We want the citizens of Europe to know that everything possible has been done to keep them safe.
Madam President, Commissioner, we have reached a serious point, a very serious point.
The worst-case scenario of terrorist air attacks on nuclear power stations, long condemned by the Greens and anti-nuclear citizens, is becoming, through force of circumstance, a valid hypothesis. The fact that France has called on its armed forces in an attempt to protect its reactors is evidence that air attacks on nuclear plants are plausible.
The French authorities, which have always dismissed the possibility of terrorist attacks, are now forced to admit that their nuclear temples are indeed vulnerable.
And will the ground-to-air missiles deployed around the re-processing plant in The Hague be effective against a suicide attack?
The German authorities and the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna recognise that even the sturdiest nuclear power station would not survive a crash. Throughout Europe and elsewhere in the world, the danger is certainly present, and it is made all the more acute because of the overwhelming number of nuclear reactors.
We cannot currently guarantee the safety of our citizens. They are concerned and quite rightly so.
Has the Commission taken these disaster scenarios seriously?
How will it ensure the safety of our citizens?
And does the Commission intend to launch a study into the safety of nuclear power stations, as Germany has? Lastly, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I regret the fact that my fellow Members from other groups did not deem it necessary to follow this debate with a resolution.
Madam President, Commissioner, the question regarding the safety of Europe' s skies is being considered in terms of immediate and urgent measures.
It is also being considered in terms of longer-term measures regarding security standards in aircraft and at boarding.
We have duly noted the Commission statements, particularly on the various measures taken regarding checks on passengers, on hand luggage, as well as on flights from third countries. In my view, these are wise comments.
We must also accelerate the completion of security programmes relating to checks on hold luggage and ensure that our decisions have been implemented.
I shall not go back over what was said earlier regarding the scandalous situation involving the AZF factory, only a few weeks after we held debates in this Chamber.
As far as safety on aircraft and at boarding are concerned, the events of 11 September show that two measures must be taken in aircraft design: cockpits must be sealed off and video monitors must be installed to enable the pilot to see anyone nearing the cockpit.
Secondly, there is the issue of transponders.
Transponders transmit the aircraft' s code and position to the air traffic control tower.
Transponders must be secure and it must no longer be possible to disconnect them during flights, as was the case during the attacks on the United States.
I would also like to draw Parliament' s attention to the issue of aid to the European airline industry.
To be honest, I think that it is extremely tactless, even provocative, for the Commission to open the debate on concentration within the airline industry at this point in time.
In addition to the economic battering that companies are taking, to confirm that Europe only has enough room for four or five airlines amounts to inviting mergers, restructuring and therefore redundancy plans.
On the other hand, several sources are predicting a 15 to 30% decrease in air traffic and the European Association of Air Carriers states that overall traffic levels will have decreased by more than 7% by 2002, incurring losses estimated to be over three billion euro.
In my view, the regulations on state aid to airlines must be extended in order to take into full consideration all the consequences of 11 September.
Lastly, I would like to say one final word to point out that these public funds are intended to help companies to continue to be viable.
I believe, therefore, that it is our duty to ensure that they are used and to avoid any redundancies in the sector.
Mr President, the goalposts have now changed, given the sheer level of inhumanity shown by terrorists pursuing their so-called political objectives.
Terrorists are now willing to engage in suicide missions.
This simply means that the international community must now fully re-evaluate how best it can put in place security measures to defeat these acts of blatant and premeditated terrorism.
From an Irish perspective, we are deeply concerned about the safety and security arrangements at the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria.
At a time when one would expect a scaling-down of nuclear enterprises in Britain, the British government has announced that the MOX nuclear facility can go ahead at Sellafield.
Instead of closing the Sellafield nuclear plant on safety, environmental and economic grounds, the British governments has agreed to the expansion of operations there.
This is not only a problem for the Irish people: it is also a problem for the British people and for the wider European Union.
For instance, how do the British people like the idea of trains carrying nuclear materials continuing to run through London and other cities in Britain? While the American government has halted the movement of potentially dangerous nuclear materials, BNFL is insisting that it will run its nuclear trains from reactors to its controversial Sellafield reprocessing plant.
In this growing atmosphere of international terrorism, surely it is grossly irresponsible to continue this transportation.
Equally, the transportation of nuclear materials via the Irish Sea sends shivers down the spine of many people living in Ireland.
As a representative of the East coast of Ireland, I have always resented the Irish Sea being used as a rubbish tip for the activities of British Nuclear Fuels.
The decision of the British government to expand the operations of the Sellafield nuclear plant is a contentious one by any stretch of the imagination.
The timing of this decision, however, is a highly cynical one, considering that it was made as a smokescreen at the same time as war was declared on terrorism.
This is a clear case of the British government using the war on terrorism to distract attention from awkward and contentious decisions.
In this climate this is simply not good enough.
The safety and security at the Sellafield plant is as much a matter of concern for the European Union as it is for the Irish and British governments.
The British government should make the honourable decision to close this nuclear white elephant once and for all.
But over the next few weeks the Commission should and must carry out a full and independent evaluation of all the environmental public health risks of all operations of BNFL at the Sellafield nuclear plant.
The people of Ireland are fed up with pious assurances from BNFL and the British government about safety standards at Sellafield.
We were all horrified recently when BNFL had to bring back nuclear materials from Japan, because it had falsified documents.
After this incident alone, how can any reasonable person believe for one moment anything that is written in a press release by BNFL?
I can assure all Members of this House that we in Ireland will vigorously pursue every political, legal and diplomatic option open to us to force the British government to close the Sellafield nuclear plant.
This Sellafield nuclear plant has achieved nothing, except to heap environmental misery on us all.
Mr President, Commissioner, the crisis in air transport unfolding before our very eyes following the terrorist attack on 11 September is, of course, exacerbated by factors such as structural problems in airline companies, the absence, so far, at least, of a single European airspace, which we hope will soon become a reality, and public concern about the safety of air transport.
We need to act as quickly as possible.
When we attended the ICAO assembly in Montreal recently with the European Parliament delegation, we clearly stated the European position that international measures should be taken at ministerial level by the end of the year.
And, of course, if, our hopes notwithstanding, there are delays, I think that the European Union should proceed unilaterally in order to establish a climate of safety in air transport.
As you all know, the Commission recently proposed an initial package of measures, referred to as ECAC document 30.
The parliamentary Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has promised to examine it as quickly as possible so that these measures can be turned into Community law by the end of the year, which is also in keeping with the Council's wishes.
For the same reason, the other three legislative proposals relating to safety will also be examined as quickly as possible.
There is also another package of measures relating to safety in the cockpit, video cameras, ground/air communications etc., that is, the measures to which the Commissioner referred.
As far as this matter is concerned, my point is that we are worried about the delay and about how the Member States' experts have worked up to now.
We trust that they will take the hint and improve their working methods from now on.
We are witnessing serious economic losses not just in air transport but in trade, tourism and other sectors of the economy.
We would be failing in our duty if we did not do our utmost to deal with this crisis.
Mr President, there is no doubt that nuclear power installations are not wholly safe from terrorist attacks.
No reactor could withstand the impact of a Boeing 747.
It would simply be wrong to assert anything else.
What is true of nuclear installations, though, is also true of other technological systems.
Mr Vitorino rightly pointed out that even a dam can be destroyed, and the Second World War shows that the consequences can be devastating.
An attack on a gasometer, such as can be found in the heart of our towns, could be positively appalling.
I might mention that some pressurised gasometers already operate at a lower pressure for safety reasons.
If methane were to escape from a high-pressure holder - a heavy machine-gun would suffice to bring that about - and spread over the town, then once it mixed to a certain degree with the surrounding air, the town would simply burn to the ground.
Accidents of this sort have occurred in the past; thank God we have managed to avoid them in the past ten years.
The same applies to the water supply.
It is relatively straightforward to poison water.
We can all imagine how immense the consequences of that would be.
Now, I accept that many in our countries are opposed to nuclear energy, and that, in some countries, they may well be in the majority.
Although it is not an opinion that I share, it is one that I respect.
This argument, based on the risk of terrorist attacks, could lead us to get rid of the gas industry or stop drinking water, and I find that absurd.
My conclusion simply follows the line taken by the Commission.
I admit it is not likely to make very good press copy, but it does have the advantage of being sensible.
We should identify the dangerous sites and improve the protection of targets.
Perhaps we should also take other security measures, but these must be implemented without delay.
Studies are something we do not need.
Mr President, please allow me a final word. We should not give the impression of total security.
That can be had only at the price of total surveillance, which cannot be reconciled with a free state under the rule of law.
Mr President, Commissioner Vitorino, I should like to make a few observations.
Our group has already talked about the consequences of recent events for nuclear power plants and mentioned, inter alia, a package of measures which is already being discussed in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
We endorse the quest for common security regulations, such as those formulated in document 30 of the E.C.A.C. What we are mainly concerned with here, in addition to issues of supervision, is adopting a special approach to vulnerable areas.
We, of course, are of the opinion that such a debate must in any case be genuine, certainly when it comes to protecting privacy.
I should like to bring one aspect to your attention, for we are concerned here with an extension of the threat to include not only additional targets but also additional modes of transport.
I would like to draw your attention to the use of other means of transport - something which we have already noted - such as tankers containing chemicals, and ask the Commissioner for his thoughts on the matter.
In shipping too, it is relatively simple to force a ship in a port such as Rotterdam to take a different course and to direct it towards very explosive installations.
In other words, not only aviation but also other means of transport should be discussed.
Mr President, installations at risk, such as nuclear power plants, flood-control dams, ports, oil depots, extremely tall buildings and research centres for biological warfare and for genetic manipulation will never lose their appeal for terrorists.
That is why we must ensure that the number of installations which can threaten the life of human communities and of our environment is reduced to a minimum.
Instead of subsidising airline companies with tax money, enabling them to continue pulling off stunts involving low prices, it would be preferable to completely close vulnerable regions to air traffic.
Moreover, vulnerable airports near cities or with insufficient security provisions in place, as in the recent case of Linate near Milan - an airport that should have been closed down years ago - should not have a future.
The unbalanced pursuit of economic growth, freedom for airline companies and the rolling back of government has, in connection with the sad events of 11 September, led to too little attention being paid, on the one hand, to the risk of industrial buildings collapsing and, on the other hand, to government supervision of access to airports by people with malicious intentions.
It is not the first time that I am bringing these two matters to the attention of the Commission.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 11 September will go down as a crucial date in the history of the modern era in general and for the aviation sector in particular, for which we can talk about a before and an after.
I wish, first of all, to express my solidarity with the victims of these cowardly and barbaric attacks and with the government of the United States and also to unreservedly, roundly and unambiguously condemn terrorism.
Improving the security of transport users and transported goods was and must continue to be one of the Union' s priorities for action in coming years.
I am delighted that this is the view adopted in the White Paper on transport policy presented by the Commission only a few months ago.
We must not forget that a safe journey is the most important right of any passenger.
The ongoing safety and competitiveness of this sector require the rapid adoption of the latest Commission proposals on air safety and the 'single sky' package.
We must also take account of other measures that were already on the table, such as the JAR-OPS Regulation, the draft directive on occurrence reporting in civil aviation and the proposal on the professional competence of cabin crew.
All of these texts, Commissioner, must be approved as soon as possible.
To conclude, I would say that the disastrous action taken on the air transport sector in recent weeks has shown the extent to which the European Union has a pivotal role in responding to the need for regulation at both Community and world-wide level.
Only a European vision will enable us to confront new challenges such as international terrorism, for which international intergovernmental forums can no longer provide a sufficiently rapid or effective response.
Parliament has a duty to support the Commission on these proposals to restore the public confidence and safety that have been lost.
It is at times like this that we must make Europe' s presence felt.
Lastly, I also wish to address the Council, which must now find the ability and the courage to support and take decisions that ensure that civil aviation will continue to be safe, reliable and sustainable from every point of view.
I wish to deal briefly with two issues: one I have already addressed, that is the state of the airline industry in Europe.
I welcome the fact that the Commissioner has announced that the European Union is going to meet with the US authorities to discuss unfair competition, but that is a grossly inadequate response to the current crisis in the aviation industry.
I would like some clarity about what precisely the Commission is doing.
There is a report in Irish newspapers today that the Commission is insisting that the rescue and aid package the Irish government will provide for Aer Lingus must be privately funded.
Now, that is a gross distortion of the treaties which are neutral as regards where aid or money should come from to assist the aviation industry.
I want clarity on this.
Is that what the Commission is demanding or is the Irish government playing its own privatisation game under cover of the present crisis?
The second point I wish to make is in relation to the nuclear and chemical industries in Europe.
The report which is coming before STOA this week makes for worrying reading.
It will hopefully be made public very soon, but the reality is that Sellafield and Cap de la Hague were a risk even before 11 September 2001; the chemical plants in our midst were a risk even before Toulouse.
It seems to me that we need commitments from the Commission that we are going to have an independent European inspectorate.
Madam President, after the 11 September atrocity we are in a new situation.
Acts of malice and not just accidents are the focus of our concern.
No-fly zones should be established immediately around the two reprocessing plants in the EU: Sellafield and Cap de la Hague.
Power plants generally are a ticking time-bomb in our midst.
The only logical response is to close them all down and end this terrible threat.
The French government has already moved to strengthen anti-terrorist precautions at Cap de la Hague. These include ground-to-air missiles.
The German government has concluded that nuclear reactors could not withstand a collision with a targeted passenger jet.
It has undertaken an emergency risk assessment.
Government ministers oppose anti-aircraft defences and have made it clear that plants that lie in the flight paths of large airports can be shut down if they are rated as serious risk.
The US government has halted the transport of nuclear materials, and the EU government should also immediately halt the transport of nuclear materials, including MOX fuels.
I do not believe that the response we have had so far from the Commission is at all adequate.
The IAEA has confirmed that 75% of the notifications of incidents involving nuclear material in the last year were illegal activities.
Nuclear materials are currently clearly not secure and not safe.
Neither Sellafield nor la Hague was designed to withstand the impact of a commercial jet.
They contain tens of thousands of tonnes of spent nuclear fuel and over 100 tonnes of separated plutonium between them.
A new report, which is both timely and in terms of content deeply worrying, has been prepared for the European Parliament.
I understand it will be circulated tomorrow by the STOA committee.
I expect it to be circulated.
I wonder why it has not already been circulated to Members, as I believe it has already been circulated to the industry?
The report states that an act of malice - and this was presented to us before September - could initiate a sequence of events that release radioactive material in the liquid high-level waste tanks, in Sellafield in particular, with effects much greater and more devastating than Chernobyl.
This is very serious.
I need an adequate response from the Commission, and so far we have not had it.
Mr President, I made my point about the STOA report when we were discussing the order of business.
Successive Irish governments have voiced their concern about the operation of the Sellafield plant, formerly known as Windscale, and in particular the innumerable security breaches by the BNFL and the arrogance of the British authorities towards the legitimate concerns of a sovereign and friendly neighbour.
The commissioning of the MOX plant when the eyes of the international media were firmly focused elsewhere in the wake of the tragedy of September 11, 2001 is but the latest example, and is particularly serious, given the heightened concerns now of terrorist attacks.
Could the Commission confirm that the same security standards that are now deemed necessary in Cap de la Hague - that is protection with fighter planes and ground-to-air missiles and a no-fly zone - are in place in Sellafield? Does the Commission agree that there is an urgent need for common security standards for all nuclear installations, not just in the EU-15, but in accession countries as well?
Could the Commission also comment on the lack of effectiveness of the present inspectorate in this regard?
Mr President, I am very grateful to the Commission for using today's statement to take up a theme that currently causes a great deal of concern to the people of Europe.
I also welcome the way the Commission deals explicitly with all the areas at especial risk, and, in particular, its inclusion of industrial plant and nuclear power stations, which was demanded on Austria's initiative in Parliament's resolution on the events of 11 September.
We know that precautions were taken at several nuclear power stations in Europe to enable them to survive the impact of smaller aircraft at least.
Does the Commission have an overview showing which nuclear power stations did not do this, and what is planned at a European level to reinforce protection measures overall, at least at these stations but also at all others?
We know that no nuclear power station is completely safe, and that some are not technically up to date in other respects of relevance to safety.
It would be all the more surprising if there really were a letter from Commissioner Verheugen, confirming that the Temelin plant is completely safe.
As such a statement would contradict everything international experts have found out about Temelin, I cannot believe that this statement about its safety was actually made by Mr Verheugen.
I therefore ask the Commission to show this document, addressed to the Czech and Austrian governments, to Parliament.
We have been very committed to this issue, and I think Parliament deserves, even if the Commission takes an opposing view....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, much as I love Senator Doyle and her Irish friends, she is quite wrong about Sellafield in my constituency.
I told her so, and the Irish government so when I was the Northern Ireland Minister responsible for Energy and I reiterate that view now.
I applaud the British government's decision on the MOX plant, a long overdue decision which is going to ensure the economic and employment future of my constituents.
So my message on that is to keep your hands off Sellafield.
Briefly, about aviation.
I congratulate Commissioner Palacio on the actions that she has already taken but there are three things we need to emphasise: firstly we must protect the aircraft on the ground; once someone is on the aircraft they can do more damage.
Secondly we must renew and reinvigorate security screening at airports and thirdly we must assist with the costs of security and war-risk insurance.
We must restore public confidence in aviation and the sooner the better.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, personally speaking, I believe that I can welcome the fact that the approach adopted by the Commission with regard to both air safety and security and the safety of industrial and nuclear installations has received wide support from Members here.
To sum up, I will add that we have drawn up an intervention programme, which strictly observes competences - not simply Community competences, but Member States' competences as well.
That is why I can assure you that, as regards matters for which the Commission has direct responsibility under the Treaties, we have taken all the necessary measures to deal with the new situation created by the terrorist attacks on the United States.
We shall continue to put pressure on the Member States so that they also shoulder their responsibilities and adopt the necessary measures that are part of their competences.
This applies to the examples given regarding the security of the Sellafield and Cap de La Hague re-processing plants.
I would like to stress that this is part of national competences and that it is the national authorities that inform us that the necessary measures have been taken.
The Commission recognises the need to begin an assessment of nuclear security and the security of transporting nuclear materials.
I mentioned this in my presentation and I hope that the assessment that the Commission is currently preparing will soon be completed.
As far as air safety and security are concerned, I am pleased that several Members of Parliament have welcomed our legislative initiative with open arms and I hope that the regulation that we have proposed can be examined by Parliament as a matter of urgency.
I would also like to stress that we must improve how we follow up on measures taken at national level, just as the ad hoc group is doing, which is responsible for assessing specific administrative measures that need to be taken to improve air security.
Mr President, I would like to make a final comment.
I referred to the conditions relating to competition and to the strategy implemented by the Commission to avoid distorting competition within the context of the Euro-American dialogue on security.
This was the context in which I dealt with the issue of competition.
We believe that the solutions we are seeking must be international and must take into consideration the need to avoid imposing measures that are excessive and which may distort competition globally.
This was the background to what I said.
I did not mention other measures concerning competition policy related to the effects of the terrorist attacks on the commercial strategy of airlines.
I did not deal with specific questions, such as those that some Members of Parliament wanted to bring up during the debate.
All I can do is refer Members to the conclusions of the meeting that my colleague, Mrs Loyola De Palacio, held with the representatives of the airline companies' association.
I have taken careful note of the fact that some of you thought that the Commission proposals were insufficient or too ideological.
I have taken careful note of your comments.
I shall pass them on to Mrs De Palacio, but I repeat that, for the time being, this is the official position of the Commission.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Mr Fitzsimons has the floor on a point of order.
It is not the first time I have heard Commissioners come into this House and say they have no obligations in relation to nuclear power plants and that this is a matter for the Member States.
But clearly the European Commission should and must carry out an independent evaluation of all the environmental and public health risks, not just for Ireland and for all the UK but for all the people of Europe.
This has been side-stepped down the years but it is high time that the Commission bites the bullet.
For this type of question, you can contact the Commissioner directly.
I just want to agree with what my colleague Mr Fitzsimons says.
I have a report here by Parliament, from the STOA committee.
Mrs Ahern, I will say the same to you that I said to Mr Fitzsimons: this is not a point of order.
European judicial area/SIS II
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports by Mr von Boetticher, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs:
A5-0339/2001 on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing a general framework for Community activities to facilitate the implementation of a European judicial area in civil matters
[COM(2001) 221 - C5-0254/2001 - 2001/0109(CNS)];
A5-0333/2001 on the initiative of the Kingdom of Belgium and of the Kingdom of Sweden with a view to the adoption:
1. of a Council Regulation on the development of the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II)
[9844/2001 - C5-0315/2001 - 2001/0818(CNS)]
2. of a Council Decision on the development of the second generation Schengen Information System (SIS II)
[9845/2001 - C5-0316/2001 - 2001/0819(CNS)].
Thank you, Mr von Boetticher.
We are aware of this problem of meetings being scheduled to take place at the same time, especially with the aforementioned Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to congratulate Mr von Boetticher on his work on the two reports that he has just presented to us.
I should like to focus on the second report that deals with the Schengen system, which has come before Parliament not for reasons of clear political will, but because the Council has not been able to achieve unanimity on maintaining the system of intergovernmental funding, whilst a source of Community funding is also necessary.
These are the peculiarities of our work in the European institutions: many things happen for strange reasons and as a result of stopgap solutions.
I should like to say that this proposal to develop a new generation Schengen Information System, SIS II, can only be accepted as the first, preparatory, stage in the system' s development.
Community funding will not solve the problems that divide us in our analyses of the functioning of the SIS.
It is crucial, as I argued here last September, when I presented my report on Schengen, that in addition to Community funding, the Schengen Information System cannot continue to be managed in secret and on a purely intergovernmental basis. It must instead be managed at European Union level by a separate agency.
At the same time, a single Community information system must be set up consisting of a computer network system that contains data received under the three conventions, Schengen, Europol and Customs, bearing in mind the need to keep the data held under these conventions separate.
This is the only way in which we will be able to guarantee an adequate level of protection for personal data, which is fair and identical for all citizens, complying with the level of protection stipulated by the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Lastly, we know that the SIS is reaching saturation point with eighteen States participating, which means that it will not be able to survive beyond the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union, which also means that we must rapidly adapt the system.
I hope that the five years we have ahead of us will be long enough to present a proposal that is balanced and which meets the demands of the European Parliament.
Mr President, the initiative by Belgium and Sweden on the development of a second generation SIS system is underpinned by two legal bases: the decision laid down in the Treaty on European Union and the regulation laid down in the EC Treaty. This initiative addresses the objectives of the system, which serves both judicial and police cooperation in criminal matters under the third pillar and the fields of visas, asylum and immigration and others concerning the free movement of people under the first pillar.
These initiatives are the real premises of the preliminary work that must be undertaken in order to create the new SIS II system.
They have come into being, as has already been stated, as a result of the rejection of intergovernmental funding by some Member States and are based on the Commission' s willingness to take the risk and the political responsibility for going ahead with the development of this new information system in the years to come.
The SIS, which, as we know, has only been a Community instrument since 1999, has matured very quickly.
Although it was designed for twelve Member States, it now serves thirteen plus Iceland and Norway and we now have the United Kingdom and Ireland knocking on the door.
As we know, in the current historical circumstances, it provides a vital European source of information on citizens of third countries and assets that have disappeared or been stolen, given the immensity of the task of controlling our external borders or movement within any part of Community territory.
With the imminence of the new round of enlargement and given the challenges of adapting the new technologies and the new requirements, of which we are all aware, it is crucial that we develop the current system by providing Community funding for its modernisation.
The requirement for its development towards the so-called second generation SIS is, today, crucial to detecting threats arising from the situation of third-country nationals, in order to provisionally arrest criminals who qualify for extradition, to help to locate people who have disappeared or been kidnapped, to monitor dangerous individuals and to retrieve stolen goods and assets.
I am delighted to have the support of Mr von Boetticher, who has done an excellent job.
I also believe that tomorrow' s final vote on this report will produce a text on which it will be much easier for Parliament to agree on an opinion.
Mr President, only budgetary funding can give coherence to the new Community nature of the Schengen acquis, of which the current and future information systems are a part.
Furthermore, the new requirements for online and in tempo judicial information and cooperation should be able to guarantee the security of Europe' s citizens.
I therefore feel, Mr President, that we must not get bogged down in the minutiae of accounting procedures or of the law.
The important thing is that the SIS moves ahead, to the benefit of the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate the rapporteur for this.
The rapporteur has produced two excellent reports.
He makes a first-class contribution to the work of the committee which I have the honour to chair.
I would like to talk very briefly about the first of these reports to do with the freedom of movement of people.
It is essential that we have a European legal space and that we pursue its development with judicial cooperation in civil matters.
The rapporteur quite rightly identifies the problems here and recognises that just as the single market required a massive benchmarking exercise, a massive exercise in approximation and mutual recognition, so too will the development of a European legal space require this.
In the second report the rapporteur looks at the problems that have emerged with the Schengen Information System and the opportunity to move forward to the second version of it, which clearly will be needed with enlargement.
We have here, in Strasbourg, with the central Schengen computer system, the most comprehensive databank in Europe. It must be financed from our budget.
Sadly, the Belgian and Swedish initiatives, which propose a regulation for the First Pillar and a decision for the Third Pillar, show how ridiculous it is still to be operating with these two pillars.
In particular, Article 96, which is the article governing the data on those refused entry, must be in the First Pillar.
It contains the personal details of 1.3 million people and will contain substantially more with enlargement of the Union.
In conclusion I would draw the House's attention to the report from Justice last year that found significant defects in data protection, poor quality of data and obstacles placed in the way of individuals seeking to correct mistakes.
We must take account of this.
Mr President, instead of talking here today about the approval of a new generation of the Schengen Information System SIS II, we ought much rather to be discussing the disastrous consequences of the information system we already have.
I find it scandalous that the overwhelming majority of the persons listed in the SIS have not been charged with any criminal offence.
Only 11 000 people have their names stored in these computers because of an arrest warrant for the purpose of deporting them, but there are 780 000 listed as barred from entering any of the EU's Member States.
Article 99 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement states that the SIS can also be used to - as it is termed - obtain information in order to repel a significant danger originating from a specified person, or other significant dangers.
This provision means that the names of quite blameless citizens are to be found in the SIS computers.
This data was, for example, used in issuing demonstrators with unjustified bans on entry when the summit was held in Genoa.
As long as this continues, we cannot give any support to the further development of this Schengen Information System.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mr von Boetticher for his work and also the Members who spoke after him.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for what has been gained through Parliament' s work, although we do feel that an essential element, democratic control, is missing.
Once again, we are being forced to agree to providing Community funding, as Mr Marinho said, in order to be able to have a say as well.
However, we feel that the European Council is continuing to do an appalling job, which, moreover, consists both of greatly increasing the number of databanks, and of greatly increasing the amount of data.
We know that, in addition to SIS, there are the - albeit revised - Europol and Eurodac databanks etc., and the latest addition will be the databank containing the index of criminal records used by Eurojust.
Hitherto, SIS has been a huge collection of information and notes on people and objects: it contains data entered by each Member State according to different laws and criteria which has been accessible to users at different levels of responsibility.
Among the errors which may have already been made, consider the case of the US citizen arrested in Belgium because he had lost his passport whom SIS recorded as a passport thief.
Reference has been made to the events in Genoa: thousands of people had been recorded in SIS after the incidents in Gothenburg, but this was of no benefit to the Italian police.
Basically, our view is that there will not only be more States entering data in this bank but also, essentially, more data.
Lastly, we do not believe that total control is compatible with the rule of law, as has been maintained.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what is the Schengen Information System meant to achieve? It aims to improve police cooperation in criminal law matters, to harmonise immigration and visa policy and to monitor the free movement of persons.
This monitoring, though, is targeted not least at migrants, who find it impossible or virtually impossible to travel to the EU legally, and the great majority of whom are fleeing situations that the EU may well not have created on its own but has substantially helped to bring about.
As many people have already mentioned today, the system is directed against those of the EU's citizens who incur its displeasure by wanting, for example, at a summit meeting, to express their disapproval of an EU policy which is characterised by lockouts and the capitalisation of essential areas of life.
It is becoming clear what this update of the Schengen Information System amounts to.
On the one hand, it is about the efficient use of the surveillance which technology and geography make possible.
At the same time, the EU wants the mere existence of these possibilities to mean that use is actually made of them.
Even the apparently technical changes in these proposals are also about improving the existing surveillance structure, and so this improvement needs to be financed.
And here I must disagree with Mr Turco and say that, in my judgment, nothing whatever in this project would be changed even by democratic control.
Seeing this from the Left, I believe this proposal cannot be supported.
Basic freedoms perform quite different functions in capitalism.
From a quite pragmatic point of view, though, they do guarantee the citizen a minimum of protection from the State.
It so happens, in the present situation, that most restrictions on basic rights....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, as we all know, the current Schengen Information System has been in operation since 1995 but did not become a Community resource until 1999 when the Schengen acquis was adopted by the European Union in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Its Community identity, therefore, implies that any proposal to replace it must be bound by the same legal considerations governing how it was set up and operates and that any extension to its purpose must be subject to full democratic scrutiny by the relevant bodies, as previous speakers have stated.
The current climate, with the need for additional measures to safeguard our citizens and the inability of the current information system to meet that need, should not provide fertile ground for arbitrary derogations from and extensions to its powers.
The proposed legal framework needs to clarify certain crucial issues.
If natural persons are to be protected against personal data processing, the joint supervisory body set up in the Schengen Agreement needs to be involved.
This authority has been commissioned to draft an annual report on how the current system functions, including a systematic review and analysis of the new data which the new system will create.
At the same time, the European Parliament needs to step up efforts to ensure that the new system functions are monitored efficiently by calling for regular progress reports.
The point here is that, as far as the continuing application of the Schengen Agreement is concerned, the Council has only updated the European Parliament once, meaning that Parliament is unaware of issues which impinge directly on the free and unimpeded movement of citizens or how the Union's borders are controlled.
Finally, we also need to mention the need to adopt a Community information system consisting of a single electronic network in order to facilitate transparent data storage, management and evaluation.
Mr President, since it started operating in 1995, the Schengen Information System has been used and is used, together with Europol, as a tool to facilitate repression at European level, to manufacture and monitor suspects, to combat resistance movements and disobedience policies and to devastate immigrants arriving in Europe looking for a place in the sun.
It has been used with particular enthusiasm every time grass roots resistance movements have been organised against the interests chosen by the European Union, in Nice, in Gothenburg and in Genoa.
A month ago, the European Parliament requested a progress report in which the rapporteur revealed the arbitrary nature and unreliability of the personal data recorded.
A few days later, the European Union rushed to make this information available to the American services to help them stifle any voice of resistance anywhere in the world and spread a new imperialist war on the pretext of fighting terrorism.
And, as if that were not enough, the recent extraordinary European Council of the European Union of the 15 gave the Americans unaccountable access to all European sources and files.
The Schengen system, be it the first generation or the second generation which we are debating today, is a constituent element in the mechanism of repression, which is why the grass roots movement is fighting to abolish it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin with the first report by Mr von Boetticher on judicial cooperation in civil matters.
Since the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, we have, in fact, had a particularly ambitious agenda in the field of civil judicial cooperation.
By way of example, I would say that over the last two years, five regulations in this field have already been adopted by the Council, and two other proposals are under discussion.
Two new legislative proposals are currently being prepared by the Commission.
The aim of this proposal is to contribute to the establishment of a European judicial area in civil matters.
The intention is not to propose a new action programme, but to contribute to the successful implementation of the existing action plans in this field, in particular, the Tampere conclusions.
This is why the support we suggest in these proposals is aimed not only at co-funding projects carried out by public and non-public institutions and organisations in the Member States, but also at funding Commission actions, such as actions aimed at ensuring the correct application of Community law in the civil field, which I am convinced will be of benefit to citizens.
I am very pleased to note that Mr von Boetticher has received our proposal with approval, and I would like to congratulate him on his excellent report.
With regard to the amendments proposed, the Commission accepts four out of the six of them.
I am talking about the amendments on the two new recitals proposed by the Committee on Budgets, the new recital proposed by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and the amendments on the introduction of a definition of the term 'legal practitioner' .
With regard to the amendment on the specific objectives of the framework programme, I prefer to preserve the Commission' s initial proposal, because it very closely pursues the objectives set in the conclusions of the Tampere European Council.
With regard to Amendment No 5, I well understand the rapporteur' s argument, but I believe that setting a strict threshold in relation to non-governmental organisations is also a way to promote the existence of genuine European organisations in this field.
And I believe that the threshold we are proposing will remain practical, even in the context of the enlargement of the European Union.
Furthermore, several non-governmental organisations in this field already play a significant role, including in a very significant number of the candidate countries.
Mr President, in relation to the second report on the Schengen Information System, I believe that this is a key element in the operation of the area without frontiers.
The need for a second-generation SIS was recognised some years ago.
This need is due, above all, to the limitations of the current SIS system.
The system only allows for the integration of 18 countries.
This is why the enlargement of the Union requires the development of a second-generation SIS that will permit the full integration of new Member States.
Without the SIS II we will not have the conditions appropriate for the lifting of internal border controls in the countries which are currently candidates for accession to the European Union.
The two initiatives you are debating today confirm that the European Parliament and the Commission will henceforth have an increased role in relation to the development of the SIS II, both in this initial phase in the field of funding, and in the definition of the future architecture of the system and its specific operation.
These two initiatives are in line with the conclusions of the Justice and Home Affairs Council at the end of May that favoured funding the development of SIS II by means of the Community budget from 2002.
In accordance with the two initiatives aimed at creating a committee to assist the Commission in the development of the SIS II, the European Parliament will be kept systematically informed of work in progress, by means of the institutional mechanisms for informing Parliament within the framework of commitology.
I must stress that, at the request of the Commission, a sum has been included in the 2001 draft budget for preparatory action in relation to the development of the SIS II.
Given that this is for preparatory action, and in accordance with the rules on the execution of the budget, the Commission really does not require a legal basis for these preliminary expenses, but it is nevertheless aware that it cannot develop the SIS II without calling on the experience of Member States in relation to the current SIS and its operation.
This experience is absolutely essential and the implementation of commitology offers a well-established structural solution with a view to assisting the Commission in its new responsibilities relating to the development of the SIS II.
If the principle of creating a committee to assist the Commission is acceptable, however, we would like to express our preference for a system of commitology based on the creation of an advisory committee and a management committee.
The Commission is pleased with the amendments proposed by Mr von Boetticher in this regard, and I hope that they will be approved in plenary session.
The Commission is also prepared to accept the European Parliament' s amendment on the delivery of a six-monthly report prepared by the Commission on the work on the development of the SIS II, not only to the Council but also to the European Parliament.
This is not only important with regard to the principle of transparency, but also with regard to the role the European Parliament will have to play within the framework of the legislative measures necessary for the development of the SIS II, which require that the European Parliament is kept fully informed of all work in this area.
Because, in fact, the two initiatives we are discussing today relate, above all, to the technical work involved in the implementation of the SIS II.
This implementation also requires the adoption, when the time comes, of legislative measures based on the appropriate bases in the Treaties, which the European Parliament will be consulted on.
These legislative measures will have to define all the essential elements of the SIS II, in particular, the purposes of the system, the categories of information to be included, the protection of information, control by a common control authority, the management of the future operational SIS II and the issue raised by Mr Coelho of whether or not to create an agency.
The points I have just highlighted will be the subject of a later debate, when the time comes, on the basis of the results of the feasibility study to be launched by the Commission at the beginning of 2002.
The reason that the Commission cannot support the amendments on these points today is not that we disagree with their content, but simply that to me it seems premature to deal with them within the framework of the two initiatives which are aimed solely at the funding of the development of the SIS II.
We will have the opportunity to discuss these issues again and to make decisions, when the time comes, on the basis of legislative proposals.
Please allow me to conclude with the following positive statement: the development of the SIS II is a task which will concern us in the years to come and which must be achieved within a reasonable timescale that will allow the new Member States to be integrated into it and to thereby create the conditions for them to participate in our common area without frontiers.
The adoption of your opinion today, within the three months which have followed the delivery of the two initiatives, demonstrates the will and capacity of the European Parliament, of its Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and its rapporteur, to contribute to the creation of the SIS II as soon as possible. This gives me great pleasure.
Public participation in drawing up environmental plans and programmes
The next item is the debate on the following report (A5-0321/2001) by Mrs Korhola, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on providing for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programmes relating to the environment and amending Council Directives 85/337/EEC and 96/61/EC (COM(2000) 839 - C5-0027/2001 - 2000/0331(COD)).
Mr President, we are currently debating a directive which concerns participation by the public in decisions which affect the environment.
It is the second pillar in the legislative work whose purpose is to ratify, within the Community, the Aarhus Convention which was concluded in 1998.
I wish to express my thanks for the fact that my draft report has received copious and unanimous support in many of the points which I have put forward.
The report has, however, also stirred up some political passions.
It must be possible to find a balance between, on the one hand, guaranteeing broad opportunities for participation by citizens, and, on the other hand, avoiding deliberate and vexatious delaying tactics.
This task is not easy, especially as the structure of the Commission's basic proposal is very complicated.
The vote taken the week before last in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy led to an unfortunate and illogical conclusion, which must now be rectified in plenary session so that we can correct a situation which is embarrassing from the point of view of the Parliament's reputation.
At the moment, the report version approved in Committee contains some mutually contradictory ingredients.
I personally feel that not enough time was available to discuss and to understand the basic starting point which I put forward, and its practical consequences.
I stated that information gathering and public hearing concern the entire public at large, but I limited the legal safeguards following the decision to a more restricted public, in other words those whose rights are infringed by the decision.
It was only in this point that I failed to receive the support which I had hoped for from the major groups.
I wished to open the consultation stage to the public at large, since there is a very peculiar logic in a situation whereby an authority ends up determining in advance which part of the public a matter concerns.
How could the authority know who will be affected by it, and in what way, before the public has been heard on the issue? And if this is already known, then hearing the public is a pointless exercise.
Such restriction is odd from the point of view of public participation, and also squanders the time and energy of the authority itself.
Since colleagues have feared that my approach means that anyone may take an authority to court, I wish to stress that just the opposite is the case.
It is precisely the Commission's version which - in setting demanding obligations for the authority - would achieve this result.
In my proposal, the right of appeal is restricted solely to those whose rights are infringed by a decision, so that appeal is not used with deliberately vexatious intent.
The opportunity to express an opinion will not automatically imply the right of appeal.
In the Commission's proposal, the public's right of participation was restricted at all stages to that public which the matter concerns.
I continue to hold that the Commission's proposal is misguided in this respect; its practical consequences will create needless difficulties in the work of the authorities.
Authorities will face uncommon difficulties in establishing whom a matter concerns; this includes all civic organisations, which according to the Commission's proposal are always interested parties.
Failure or negligence at this stage will always form grounds for taking the matter to court.
Without a doubt, in the form proposed by the Commission these provisions are indeed open to abuse - and this abuse can also take the form of slowing down projects.
My proposal was unusual in that it would have simultaneously benefited citizens who genuinely wish to participate, and also the authorities dealing with the matter and those players whose project was in question.
Perhaps the matter may still be rectified when the Member States have to ponder the practical application of the matter in more detail.
The explanation which I have given here is, in my opinion, important from the point of view of all parties who have anything to do with the directive.
Fortunately many other matters which are important from the point of view of the Aarhus convention have been received positively.
I have, first and foremost, wished to streamline practice by standardising the regulations concerning processing with regard to the various directives.
In this way, it will be easier for citizens to know how to proceed, and the obligation of authorities to advise citizens will be more straightforward.
In the Commission's proposal the modes of procedure vary slightly, and as a result it is difficult to know what one should do in any particular case.
In addition, I have incorporated into the report some objectives which are pursuant to the Aarhus convention, which the Commission had either omitted from its proposal or simply forgotten.
In this way the report complies better with the spirit and objectives of the convention.
In particular, this applies to Item 5 of Article 6, and Article 8, of the Aarhus Convention.
I would also like to thank the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Petitions for their opinions, which gave encouragement and support to my work in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Also, cooperation with the Commission and (in particular) the Council has been constructive, and bodes well for the second stage of processing of the report.
Mr President, we would like to thank Mrs Korhola for her work on this complex document.
In the Committee on Petitions we have a large number of petitions which relate to the particular directives concerned in this important report.
It is very clear to us that the public want to be involved, they want to be informed and they want information in good time about particular proposals.
We often hear complaints from the public about the lack of information, that it comes late, it is incomplete, it is difficult to understand.
We have often found through those petitions that there are a number of Member States that have very poorly applied the directives which are mentioned here and we have seen court cases resulting from that.
Our committee was extremely clear.
We want the widest possible definition of "public".
We have found in the issues raised with us that it is not just environmental NGOs, or people living in an area that is directly affected.
We have come across small businesses, fishermen and others who have felt that particular schemes affect them and therefore they are interested parties.
We also thought it was important that the area of policy should be looked at as well, because one of the questions we often get is "what is the context of a particular development going ahead?", particularly where that is linked at times to European Union policy, such as CAP spending and spending on the Structural Funds.
We also find that people want access to resources in order to be able to understand the information they are given.
Sometimes we find complaints come to our committee effectively to have those environmental impact assessments assessed, because those organisations lack the resources to fully participate within the planning process and it is vital that we look at that, certainly at Member State level.
Mr President, full, effective participation by the public in the decision-making process in environmental matters is necessary and we support it.
It allows the citizens to express opinions and fears that may have a bearing on the decisions to be taken and allows those responsible for taking the decisions to take them into account.
This, in turn, increases accountability in the decision-making process and makes it more transparent, and helps to raise public awareness of environmental matters.
As has already been said, the importance of providing greater incentives for public participation has already been recognised at international level, with the Aarhus Convention.
The directive upon which we are going to vote tomorrow seeks to bring Community law into line with the provisions of this Convention and to smooth the way for its ratification by the Community.
The citizens will be able to participate fully right from the initial stages of the decision-making process, especially as regards the development of plans and programmes, the environmental impact assessment process and the prevention and overall reduction of pollution.
In this regard, I welcome the introduction by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy of fresh provisions, which refer clearly to the dissemination of information through the Internet as well.
A crucial element is that only the public concerned, citizens or groups, including NGOs, are entitled to express comments and opinions or even to appeal before a judicial body.
While I welcome other amendments made to the text by the rapporteur, I cannot support her proposal to extend this right to the participation of all citizens, without restriction.
A wider, less clear definition of citizens could lead to ambiguous interpretations and inappropriately hamper a project' s implementation.
However, I support the definitions included in the Commission' s proposal, which clearly define the concept of the public concerned, which alone is entitled to express comments and opinions to the competent authority before a decision is taken within the areas covered by the directive and, where appropriate, to appeal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as far back as a few months ago, we debated an absolutely excellent report by Mrs Korhola concerning access by the general public to environmental information.
This time, we are debating public participation in drawing up environmental plans and programmes.
What these reports have in common is that the Commission' s proposals are based on what is known as the Aarhus Convention. According to Article 8 of this Convention, every country must endeavour to promote a situation in which, at a time when it is still possible to influence the decisions, the general public is given an effective opportunity to participate in the public authorities' work on such rules.
According to Article 9 of the same Convention - and this is something I want to emphasise - each country undertakes, within the framework of its own national legislation, to give the public concerned the opportunity, through the courts, to have the validity of the authorities' decisions tested.
For me as a liberal, it is obvious that the decisions made and the proposals drafted by the public authorities must, as far as possible, be made accessible to anyone interested and affected.
Anything else would be unthinkable in a democracy.
May I congratulate the rapporteur on this important report - a crucial element of which is the definition of participation, ensuring that people can influence plans and programmes at different stages of the process and receive proper feedback so that they know that the issues they have raised have been dealt with seriously.
It is essential that consultation is not restricted in a way that in practice would make it meaningless - in other words, that authorities themselves could define the people who would be affected and they would be the only ones consulted.
I have a case in Swansea in my own constituency where a local authority is building an incinerator on the border of two counties and has consulted its own constituents, but not the people of the other county who live closer to it and who will be more affected and are now protesting vigorously against the plans.
This legislation could prevent that kind of situation arising.
Just as important it gives the public access to a review procedure, and so I ask for support for the amendments of my group which seek to strengthen the report in line with the Aarhus Convention.
Mr President, to advocate transparency and public participation in drawing up environmental plans and programmes is a laudable objective, which we fully agree with.
However, the report gives rise to some fundamental problems. First of all, the possible overlapping of texts prescribing public participation and, in particular, the directives on environmental impact studies and on the prevention or reduction of pollution.
Secondly, the ratification of the Aarhus Convention. This convention has been signed by the Community and by all the Member States, but has only been ratified by Italy or Denmark: it is therefore not in force.
This report must not be an opportunity for the Union to replace, by means of a directive, the desire of the Member States to be bound by an international convention.
Furthermore, to add environmental policies to the plans and programmes seems to me premature at this stage, given that the Aarhus Convention is yet to be ratified.
There is also the concept of 'public affected' , which we are in favour of so as not to widen the scope of the text in an unrestricted fashion.
Nevertheless, the two concepts of 'public' and 'public affected' should be able to coexist, and it should be for the Member States to decide on the most appropriate level of consultation.
In the case of cross-border projects, for example, it would be sensible to broaden the consultation to the public as a whole.
We will support Amendments Nos 30, 31 and 32.
Finally, like the Commission, we believe that we should lay down the minimum conditions required in order to guarantee effective participation by the public and leave it to the Member States to regulate the practical details in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
(PPE-DE). (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the complaints most frequently voiced by the public concerns the very limited role they are given to play in representative democracy.
Our citizens complain that they are given the right to vote every now and then, but that they do not enjoy full rights of participation in the day-to-day activities of the institutions for which they vote: at European level, at national level, and at regional and local level.
It is precisely in the area of the environment that the dissatisfaction of communities has been most keenly felt. When they disagree, often rightly so, with a particular project, their only option is to express their anger on the streets or in the courts.
This indignation increases exponentially when many of these projects with unacceptable environmental impacts are funded under the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
It is, therefore very important that, as a follow-up to the Aarhus Convention, the Commission has produced legislation on public access to environmental information, on public participation in certain plans, programmes and policies and on public access to justice.
Greater public participation not only gives greater legitimacy to the decisions taken by our institutions; it can also improve their quality.
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur for the work she has done on this proposal for a directive on public participation in drafting environmental plans and programmes, especially for having sought, by means of various amendments, to extend citizens' rights and to eliminate some ambiguities.
There is nevertheless one subject on which I disagree with Mrs Korhola. Public consultation will only be feasible if the definition of 'the public' is not too vague.
I therefore prefer the Commission' s approach, which defines the public affected by a given project as the target of consultation and not the rapporteur' s choice of a broader and, therefore, vaguer definition of the public.
Mr President, I share the European Commission' s opinion that actual public participation in environmental decision-making is beneficial.
After all, the public is given the opportunity of expressing its opinion, along with any concerns it may have.
The decision-makers are given the chance to take these into account when taking decisions.
In short, public participation will contribute to the transparency of the decision-making process and the acceptance of the outcome, namely the plans and programmes.
However, broadening participation to include policy-making, as proposed by the rapporteur, is taking matters a step too far, since policy-making is not specific enough for public participation.
Also, 'policy-making' is not a category that falls within the scope of the present 'environmental impact assessment' directive.
The objective of the present directive is to render basic procedures concerning public participation consistent in all Member States and to ensure that they are carried out in the same way within the Community.
However, it is also a minimum obligation.
It will thus become apparent upon implementation that discrepancies between the Member States exist after all.
Mr President, as many speakers have already said, the intentions behind this report are extremely commendable, particularly the aim of making it possible for the citizens to have a say in the process of establishing environmental rules.
This point was discussed during the March plenary and it was already clear then that attitudes towards the methodologies and towards the influence of this participation too vary from North to South, so to speak.
Indeed, the northern countries have a different attitude towards this type of involvement, towards the idea of this type of participation from the countries of central and southern Europe.
The rapporteur, clearly inspired by the way things work in her country, which is possibly democratically more developed, more advanced than others - proposes participation that is too peremptory, too authoritarian, participation that could ultimately slow down, if not block or paralyse certain decision-making processes, upon which there will never be total convergence between the direct democratic base and what is known as the authority, that is the administration appointed to deal with these issues.
There you are: this authority must also take into clear consideration all the demands and comments of those who have to build, sell and create tourist, sporting and cultural concerns - in short, daily activities - in the environment.
Considering that this second debate contains points and issues which involve legality and access to levels of justice, including in the event of appeals, the roles and responsibilities must be quite clearly, fairly and unambiguously defined in terms of who the actors should be and how much influence they should have.
The Aarhus Convention has been cited: that is all very well - we support it - but it must not be taken as Gospel.
It too must allow for a healthy subsidiarity, for customs, for habits, and for the level of directly democratic involvement possible in the various countries.
In any case, I congratulate the rapporteur, who has put in an enormous amount of work, but I feel that there should be some adaptation, as I said at the beginning, to the different attitudes.
Mr President, may I begin by saying that this proposal deals with the second pillar of this convention involving public participation in environmental decision-taking.
In addition to this proposal on access to environmental information, there are other pieces of Community legislation which already incorporate the principle of the Aarhus Convention.
The Commission will ensure that the Aarhus elements are built into all future proposals.
Public participation has to become a fully integrated part of environmental decision-taking.
To reach that objective, our proposals have to be easy to put into practice, so that they may be smoothly implemented in the different administrative systems of the Member States.
The question whether participation in decision-taking should aim at the public at large or the "public concerned" is a key point, and it has been addressed by a number of Members who have just spoken.
In accordance with the Aarhus Convention, the Commission proposes to ensure that the public at large is fully informed about planned developments which might affect them, whilst giving the right to participate in the decision-taking process to those having an interest in or likely to be affected by the developments, that is, the "public concerned."
Some of the proposed amendments, and indeed what has been said by some Members just now, seems to imply that by using the definition, "the public concerned", both the convention and the Commission are deliberately restricting the rights of citizens, but may I be permitted to point out that is certainly not the case.
It is not correct.
This proposal is aimed at extending the rights of citizens.
There is no question of restricting those rights.
By defining the "public concerned", we are focusing the attention of the competent authorities on the need to take account of those citizens most directly affected.
The definition will confirm both the right to express a view and the right to be heard.
The definition of "public concerned" is sufficiently detailed to ensure that there is no doubt who should be involved.
Therefore members of the public could argue that they had been unjustifiably excluded.
That would be difficult with a more general definition of the public.
The inclusion of NGOs within the definition of the "public concerned" will ensure that a more general public view may be taken into account.
On a more practical level, the definition of "public concerned" has been used without major problems in existing legislation - for example the environmental impact assessment directive - for a number years.
There have been no problems raised as a result of people having been excluded by the use of the definition - at least no major problems.
In short, this approach will give those affected by new developments the right to influence decisions which will not just affect their environment but which may also affect their economic and social conditions.
For those reasons, the Commission, regrettably, cannot support the amendments seeking to replace the concept of the "public concerned".
Amendment No 26 seeks to extend considerably the scope of Article 1, so as to cover plans and programmes not only in the environmental field but also in other sectors.
The Commission's view is that this would make the scope of the proposal less well-defined and also that the measures proposed would lead to legal confusion.
There would in effect be a duplication of measures in different pieces of legislation each seeking to do the same thing, but in an inconsistent manner.
In particular, for plans and programmes in other sectors that may have significant environmental effects, Directive 2001/42 on strategic environmental assessment already incorporates measures of particular relevance.
The directive provides for environmental assessment of relevant plans and programmes in many integration sectors and envisages public participation fully in line with the Aarhus requirements.
Amendments Nos 6 and 12 aim to give effect to a best endeavour clause under the Aarhus Convention and are formulated in a non-binding way.
Amendment No 9 introduces public participation concerning policies in its heading, but the text does not contain operational provisions in this respect.
In formulating the proposal, the Commission's objective has been to incorporate the binding provisions of the Aarhus Convention.
The Commission's view is that there would be no added value in taking up its soft-law provisions.
Not only the Community but all Member States have signed the Aarhus Convention and so already have to take into account the soft-law provisions.
The Commission, regrettably, cannot accept Amendments Nos 7 and 11 which provide for access to justice concerning public participation in plans and programmes.
The Aarhus Convention does not explicitly require this, neither does the directive on strategic environmental assessment of plans and programmes provide for access to justice.
The Commission is however considering possible further legislative proposals in relation to the third Aarhus pillar on access to justice.
In conclusion, may I now confirm the Commission's position on the amendments.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 15, 18, 25, 28 and 29.
In addition, Amendments Nos 9, 13, 14, 23 and 27 can be accepted in part and Amendments Nos 4, 5, 10 and 17 in principle.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 16, 20, 21 and 22.
By way of conclusion, I should like to emphasise that it is in our common interest, which is the interest of the European citizen after all, to have this proposal enter into force swiftly.
Only once the frameworks are established can public participation in decision-making become a fully integrated administrative practice.
The English interpretation was not able to follow my speech and thus all the other languages based on that interpretation were incomplete.
I regret this.
It has happened many times so I urge you to see that the quality of interpretation is improved as soon as possible.
Thank you, Mrs Korhola, we have taken note.
We know that our relay interpreting system causes problems now and again.
We have taken very good note and this should not happen again.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS)
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0324/2001) by Mr Schmidt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive amending:
I. Directive 85/611/EEC on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to undertakings for collective investments in transferable securities (UCITS) with a view to regulating management companies and simplified prospectuses [7551/1/2001 - C5-0296/2001 - 1998/0243(COD)]
II. Directive 85/611/EEC on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to undertakings for collective investments in transferable securities (UCITS) [7550/1/2001 - C5-0295/2001 - 1998/0242(COD)]
Mr President, let this be the end of twelve years' debate of the 'UCITS Directive' !
In February of last year, we had the first reading.
One and a half years' later, in July, the common position was finally adopted, and now it is our turn.
As you know, the first proposal concerns the UCITS itself and what investments it may engage in.
The second updates and extends the rules relating to the actual management of the funds.
Both proposals were broadly supported by Parliament at first reading.
A total of 37 amendments were adopted for the two proposals.
Of these, 30 have been accepted in full or in part by the Council.
As for UCITS-1, the Council wholly or partially approved 20 of Parliament' s 24 amendments.
Moreover, it has made a number of changes of its own.
The most important concerns OTC derivatives, the use of which the Commission opposed from the start.
However, Parliament considered that OTC derivatives could be employed more broadly, but according to stringent criteria.
The Council adopted the same policy.
In several cases, the Council adopted a still more prudent approach than Parliament on the issue of OTC derivatives and considered that investments in these had to fulfil more stringent qualitative criteria.
Where comitology is concerned, the common position does include comitology provisions in the field of financial services.
I nonetheless want to stress that there is no obvious link to the subsequent proposals made by the group chaired by Mr Lamfalussy.
The 1985 directive created the so-called UCITS Contact Committee which was set up to advise the Commission.
The extension of the Contact Committee' s powers to include new powers was foreseen in the original proposal.
Parliament accepts parts of the proposal, but not the part concerning the adjustment of limit values, as adopted by the Council.
In the same way, both the Commission and the Council accepted Parliament' s request to limit the scope of the delegation to the Committee.
In my view, Parliament has thus agreed to the use of comitology and, moreover, successfully amended the scope of its powers.
I do not therefore see any reason to re-open this issue at this juncture.
There is nonetheless an amendment from Mr Goebbels, Mr Jonckheer and Mr Herzog.
Should it be adopted, I am afraid that we should be facing conciliation and not knowing where it might end.
The Lamfalussy agreement is in danger of being delayed and the UCITS directive of being halted in its tracks.
That is something that no one can want to see happen.
I hope that Mr Goebbels is able to share my view.
Turning to UCITS-2, the Council has, for the most part, accepted the concerns expressed by Parliament at first reading.
Ten out of Parliament' s 13 amendments have been incorporated in part or in full.
The most contentious issue was that of the capital requirement for management companies.
The compromise finally reached by the Council is, broadly speaking, in line with Parliament' s stance.
Given how complicated these two directives are and how quickly the market is developing, the committee proposes a review of the rules within the next three years.
There are two reasons for this. First of all, the compromise reached in Council is a very fragile one, and it would not serve anybody' s interests to open the Pandora' s box of detailed, technical or politically sensitive amendments.
A conciliation would delay this review, for which there is already a need, and it might also stop the legislation from ever seeing the light of day.
Secondly, the two common positions strike a good balance between investor protection and investment freedom.
As I say, the majority of those changes we proposed last time have been introduced.
There are nonetheless certain unresolved issues.
In my opinion, these are better tackled in a wider context.
The committee was kind enough to follow my recommendations.
There is therefore only one amendment to UCITS-1, setting out some guidelines for a future review process.
A 'grandfather' clause is also proposed, whereby existing funds should not have to comply with the new legislation for a transitional period.
There is also an amendment to UCITS-2, seeking to align the review period for the capital requirement with the general review.
Following the committee' s reading, I have been in contact with the Council, as recently as a few hours ago, and also with the Commission.
Together with Mr Goebbels, I am therefore tabling a new amendment to reduce the transitional period.
In this way, it will be possible to introduce the UCITS directive into the Member States by 2005, that is to say the year in which the financial action plan is to be implemented.
The purpose of this is to avoid conciliation.
The work on renewing the regulations governing UCITS has been going on for as long as twelve years and is a clear example of why decision-making within this area needs to be reformed.
If Europe is to have a chance of competing with, for example, the American economy, it will have to be possible for changes of a more technical nature to take place significantly more simply and quickly.
There is now a good balance between a well-functioning market and reasonably secure protection for consumers.
Parliament has been proactive and shown an ability to act quickly and to compromise when it really counts.
May we continue along that route!
Well thought-out, prompt and effective legislation - that is what Europe needs.
I want to end by thanking everyone involved: the Commissioner, his efficient and friendly colleagues and my fellow MEPs who have all really shown willing during this difficult period.
I hope that, tomorrow, we can thus draw a line under twelve years' work for the benefit of Europe' s consumers and investors.
Mr President, to tie in with the rapporteur' s closing words, I wish to thank everyone who has taken part and especially the Commission staff for their help.
The issue of concern to us, however technical it is, is of extraordinary political and social importance because it is widely known that undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (UCITS), including pension funds, are currently the preferred form of saving for the majority of European citizens.
The first problem we came up against was that there were two directives: one called a 'product' directive, which allowed these bodies to invest in products from which they were hitherto denied access, and another, which proposed substantially increasing capital requirements.
Both the Commission and Parliament were tempted to immediately adopt the so-called 'product' directive and delay the adoption of the so-called 'management' directive.
This Parliament warned that it was dangerous to allow these undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities - which, I repeat monopolise the market in public savings - to move into deeper waters without any guarantee that their ships were prepared for what would be a more daring day' s sailing than they had hitherto embarked on.
As the rapporteur indicated, the purpose of the first discussion - and I am limiting myself here to the product directive - was to decide what they could invest in.
He referred to non-standardised derivatives, index funds, the cascade effect, etc., which are technical issues that I will not go into now.
What I do want to say is that, in my group' s opinion, a balance has been achieved between giving greater opportunities to management bodies and, therefore, greater opportunities to investors and the protection, the caution, that must be present in any discussion of such delicate matters.
Parliament wanted to send a message to the Commission.
As on previous occasions, Parliament wants to be flexible on the adoption of the directives of the financial services action plan.
We want this directive to be adopted rapidly and we do not, therefore, want to have to go to conciliation.
We have therefore, limited our amendments to one - which I personally am not in favour of, although I will be voting for it - which consists of creating a 'grandfather' clause, in other words, creating a transitional period so that currently existing bodies have additional time in which to raise their capital.
Mention has been made of another amendment by Mr Goebbels, which he is going to withdraw, but I think it is extraordinarily intelligent and is the second message that Parliament is sending to the Commission.
The first, I repeat, is not tabling amendments that cannot be accepted by the Council and the Commission.
The second, even though we are not involved in a Lamfalussy procedure, is to warn that we will always have to be flexible. We will always show willingness to be flexible on the legislative procedure, but we are not prepared to concede the codecision powers that Parliament has taken such a long time to gain.
Mr President, I will try to make up for the time which Mr García-Margallo has used.
I would simply like, on behalf of my group, to express our support for the proposals of Mr Olle Schmidt, and I congratulate him on his arduous work as rapporteur for the European Parliament.
We support the two amendments he has tabled.
I have personally, along with some other fellow Members, tabled another amendment.
We are, in all likelihood, going to withdraw that agreement, depending on the replies which Commissioner Bolkestein is soon to give us.
We believe - and there are many of us; I believe I can speak for Mr García-Margallo and others - that the balance between the Council and the European Parliament as co-legislators was upset at Stockholm.
The Commission must re-establish that balance.
We await concrete proposals from the Commissioner.
I just wish to say on behalf of the Liberal Group that I very much hope Mr Goebbels and his colleagues will withdraw their amendment.
We do not believe that the amendment insisting on call-back is appropriate to this particular piece of legislation, which my colleague Olle Schmidt has described as being very carefully balanced after the common position of the Council.
Nor is it appropriate in the context of the ongoing discussions over Lamfalussy.
Indeed, I would go as far to say that by insisting on call-back, which was not a phrase which appeared in Parliament's second resolution on this subject after the Stockholm Council, we risk calling into question our bona fides in the lengthy negotiations which some of us have undertaken with Mr Bolkestein.
I very much hope, therefore, that the people who have put forward this amendment will withdraw it, and that discussions will take place in an appropriate place.
We should not try to call into question this piece of legislation.
I believe it should be put through as is.
I too very much hope that Mr Goebbels is going to withdraw Amendment No 4.
You want call-back, Mr Goebbels, I want call-back and so does Mr Bolkestein.
The fact remains that it is not feasible to have a legal call-back within the terms of the Treaty.
Therefore, it is up to us to find a political agreement and a form of words which will do until 2004 when we can review this whole issue.
Indeed I believe the Commission is committed to such a review.
It is vitally important that we come to this agreement.
On Mr Schmidt's report, it is excellent to see the modernisation of the framework for UCITS by the inclusion of derivatives and OTC derivatives.
Parliament is leading the way on this, and Mr Schmidt has played a particularly successful role in updating the directives in this way and very much led the way on the derivatives issue.
I am sorry to see the capital requirements in the form that they are.
I believe that UCITS managers should be subject to capital requirements, but I do not believe those contained in the directive are sufficiently risk-sensitive.
I do not believe that they are consistent with the general framework that we hope to implement.
I do not think that assessing capital according to risk under management actually reflects the risk undertaken.
I am also concerned that this formulation of the directive will produce an uneven market opening, leaving the market closed in one Member State and open in the other 14.
But I have been persuaded by the rapporteur and our esteemed shadow rapporteur not to table amendments on these defects because we are very keen to get these two directives on the statute book to modernise the framework for a unit trust and UCITS in the European Union.
I commend the directive to the House.
Mr President, I refer to the common position on Directive 1998/242 and the capital requirements that it will impose on investment management firms.
In Scotland, there is a long tradition of investment management going back to the opening of the American west in the 19th century.
These investment managers were usually law firms, private partnerships, which managed the assets of their clients very successfully.
To this day, there are investment firms of this type, private partnerships, sole proprietorships and other structures with limited capital.
The interests of clients are fully safeguarded as their assets are held by independent and fully capitalised and regulated depositories.
It is largely irrelevant to set capital requirements on the investment management firms themselves.
I am relieved that the Council has reduced slightly the capital requirements set by this Parliament at first reading and has set a top limit of EUR 10 million.
But this is still substantial for private partnerships and sole proprietorships.
Incidentally, the largest and most successful firms in America and in the world - Fidelity is a good example - are exactly of this type.
The requirements of this type will be a hurdle for new enterprising entrants into an industry which requires a regular injection of new blood.
At the very least, it should provide for this capital to be available by means of guarantees from banks or by insurance policies to cover professional and operational risk.
But the common position, for some not very apparent reason, restricts such cover to only 50% of the requirement. Why?
The common position provides for the Commission to report on this matter within five years of entry into force of the directive.
I should like to put on record now the request that such a report should specifically consider whether any capital requirement at all is necessary for investment management companies, and certainly that it should be greatly reduced.
Mr President, while, in many areas, the European legislation which we produce here is often openly criticised - quite rightly - we should recognise that the 1985 directive on undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities was, for once, a masterpiece.
The success it has had in the investment fund sector and with the clients of these funds bears witness to this.
It has also become an example for legislation on a world scale.
Since it entered into force in 1989, not only have the assets of the UCITSs increased dramatically, but also cross-border trade has developed very strongly.
It has therefore achieved the objectives it was intended for.
However, if, after ten years, this directive needs a 'facelift' in order to adapt to the evolution of the markets, to the increasingly sophisticated financial products available, I remain concerned about the fate of the older funds, which do not meet the new demands.
That is why I had advocated a clause for these funds, a so-called 'grandfather' clause, which would be unrestricted.
Also in this field there are acquired rights, which it would be unfair to modify in a backdated fashion.
If there is no such clause, there will be a significant risk of market insecurity, which would have disastrous effects on the performance of the funds, prejudicing not only the industry but also the investors.
And above all, the weaker consumers, who do not keep so up-to-date with financial matters and who therefore react more slowly to them, will be the most affected.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has finally expressed its preference for a clause which is restricted in time.
This is the lesser evil, even if this clause may have negative effects, in terms of competition, for the older UCITSs, all of which will probably not be able to adapt to the new provisions of the directive in the best operational and financial conditions.
Mr President, I therefore hope that the House will vote in favour of this restricted clause.
Please allow me to point out that I am also opposed to the amendment by Mr Goebbels, which would have the effect of delaying, indeed sacrificing, the modified directive, which we are able to live with, despite its shortcomings - but it would appear to be a lost cause from the outset.
Mr Goebbels would do well, I believe, to withdraw his amendment.
He can put it in cold storage until there is a better occasion to table it once again.
I should like to begin by saying that the Commission would firstly like to thank very much the rapporteur, Mr Schmidt.
On behalf of my staff - about whom Mr Schmidt had some extremely kind words to say - I thank the rapporteur, and the Members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for their extremely constructive approach on these important files.
The common positions are crucial elements for delivering the FSAP - the financial services action plan - on time, in other words, by the year 2003 for an integrated European Union for securities markets and 2005 overall.
These proposals, taken as a whole, represent a highly delicate and complex compromise which the Commission fully supports, as does European industry.
That is an important fact to bear in mind.
Given the capitalisation of the UCITS market - nearly EUR 4 trillion - the expected benefits to be had are large.
Firstly, the proposals will widen the set of financial instruments eligible to be used in UCITS portfolios while enhancing risk management requirements.
Thus they will provide greater financial diversity while keeping the original concept, namely risk diversification with the highest standards of investor protection.
Secondly, the management companies which generally run these savings schemes will enjoy a European passport and will be allowed to provide additional services to customers who request, for example, individual management of their assets.
But they will have to comply with a comprehensive set of requirements and rules.
Thirdly, investor information will be strongly improved by detailed disclosure of risk profiles, along with a fully harmonised, simplified prospectus to play the role of a single, investor-friendly pan-European marketing tool.
Now I come to the amendments tabled.
I should like to stress that the provisions contained in the first three amendments, namely the twin review clauses and the grandfathering clause, pose some difficulties for us - not because of the substance, but with the timetables proposed in each case.
We would much prefer a single deadline for both, that is, 2005 - the date of the conclusion of the financial services action plan, which we think would be more logical.
However, in a spirit of compromise and because we must now lay this matter to rest after twelve years of discussion, and in recognition of the efforts this Parliament has undertaken, also considering the last amendment of the rapporteur with would shorten the grandfathering period foreseen in Amendment No 1, the Commission will, in the end, support Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3.
I now turn to Amendment No 4, which would introduce a so-called "call-back" clause regarding the UCITS Contact Committee.
I should like to be clear that this is not acceptable to the Commission.
We believe that it would not be acceptable for the Council either.
It is not acceptable to the Commission because firstly, the clause which has been tabled is not compatible with Article 202 of the Treaty, as Mr Goebbels knows full well.
It is also in contradiction with existing comitology rules.
Of that, Mr Goebbels is also aware.
(Interruption from Mr Goebbels) Not before 2004, Mr Goebbels, as I have explained on behalf of the Commission many, many times.
The second reason why this amendment is not acceptable to the Commission is that the UCITS Contact Committee's mandate was discussed by Parliament at first reading.
Parliament then gave its full support to the mandate of the UCITS Contact Committee.
Indeed, the first common position fully incorporated what this Parliament wanted.
So I suggest that Mr Goebbels does not back-track on what Parliament has previously agreed.
The third reason why that amendment is unacceptable to the Commission is that accepting it would lead to an institutional dispute in conciliation and seriously put at risk the adoption of both directives.
That is the last thing the Commission and - I assume - this Parliament would want.
So let us agree on Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3.
In particular, I would address the following words to Mr Purvis, who referred to the United States' system, which is different from the European system.
Depositing is fundamental for the European system.
We are going to consider updating, following the Ecofin Council of December that the European form of UCITS need capital because they cannot assume debts in order to provide themselves with working capital.
That is possible in the United States.
Therefore the need to provide such undertakings in the United States with capital is less than in Europe.
Once again, the European undertakings cannot use debts for their working capital and therefore must provide themselves with capital.
I believe the vote will be taken tomorrow and I hope we can now agree to Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 and to the proposals as such.
This would allow us to move ahead constructively for the sake of European investors, European industry and the European economy.
I hope that after twelve years of discussions these proposals can now find their way to the statute book.
Thank you, Commissioner Bolkestein.
The debate is closed
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
International monetary system
The next item on the agenda is the report (A5-0302/2001) by Mr Goebbels on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the international monetary system.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, according to the International Monetary Fund, the world experienced 120 monetary crises between 1975 and 2000.
A monetary crisis is defined as the depreciation of a currency by more than 25% in one year.
It was always the real economy that paid the price for this financial instability.
Less growth, less employment and more misery accompany financial crises.
We should therefore view the need for financial stability as being in the public good.
Public authorities are called upon to prevent, or otherwise to manage as best they can, any crisis.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has commissioned me to produce this own-initiative report.
I have experienced some difficulties with the rules laid down by the Bureau of our Parliament.
My report was too long, as if it was possible to deal with the complexity of international monetary relations in five pages.
The Meltzer report, in the American Congress, was some one hundred pages long.
The Meltzer committee, made up of congressmen, scientists, bankers and trade unionists inspired a lively international debate.
My humble report, and the motion for a resolution, will certainly not inspire a similar debate.
In order to carry more weight, our Parliament should have followed a procedure similar to that of the American Congress, that is, by means of a collective report, with detailed proposals.
The motion for a resolution is restricted to certain essential issues.
My report hinges on the notions of transparency and accountability, regulation and solidarity.
In 2000, the private sector transferred about twenty times more resources to the developing countries than the World Bank and the other multilateral banks.
Open financial markets will lead to significant increases in efficiency for world exchanges so long as they are provided with a better framework.
The international financial institutions must become truly universal.
The monetary fund must become more democratic.
The super majority of 95% must be abolished for all important decisions.
It gives a right of veto to the United States and to the Union, if it is also able to unite within the International Monetary Fund.
A regular rise in quotas and the issuing of special drawing rights is needed, in accordance with the growth of the world economy.
Common rules and standards should be applied on an international level.
We need a legal and judicial framework allowing for the rapid resolution of insolvency crises.
The private sector should be involved in the management of crises, in particular by means of the general application of collective action clauses.
This involvement should extend to the freezing of debt service payments. This will allow a reduction in moral uncertainties and in the cost of restructuring programmes.
Better prevention of crises requires increased supervision of off-balance sheet operations.
In particular, we must toughen the prudential requirements imposed on banks when they serve to offset hedge funds.
Europe must become more active in international bodies.
In this respect, the ECB must be more involved.
The European system of central banks must be designed as a body for coordinating the Union' s supervision and control authorities.
One of the conclusions of my report is that the Tobin tax will not work. In fact it would have terrible economic consequences.
Why penalise transactions between strong currencies, which make up more than 95% of international currency transactions, on the basis of a desire to prevent speculation against the currencies of developing countries. The Chilean encaja would achieve better results.
Nevertheless, I welcome the decision of the ECOFIN Council to invite the Commission to prepare a report on this issue which I hope will make the decision much more objective.
My report puts great stress on the need to settle the problem of third-world debt as soon as possible.
This debt should be partly cancelled and partly rescheduled, so as to allow the developing countries to repay the amounts up to a limit of 5% of their annual exports.
The London Agreement of 1953 laid down such provisions in favour of Germany. This was the basis of the German post-war economic miracle.
This could also be the basis for a new economic partnership between all nations, the beginning of a true globalisation.
Settling the problem of third-world debt would allow the internal development of these countries and would cement the victory against poverty and ignorance and therefore against intolerance and terrorism.
Mr President, one could, with reference to Mr Goebbels' report, say that it was worth it in the end.
It is an own-initiative report dating back as far as 1999, when it was prompted by the crises in Asia, Russia and Brazil.
In the meantime, there has been a succession of further small crises, and we have got on with our work.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, our group wholeheartedly agreed with the basic line taken by the rapporteur, not least because you, Mr Goebbels, took up a clear position on the Tobin tax.
The international monetary system is undergoing transformation, as is clear from your report.
We want to bring proposals into this process of transformation, but we can also see that the euro has firmly established itself since 1999 and has fully proved itself as an anchor giving stability to the global economy.
That in itself is an important contribution by Europe to stabilising the international monetary system.
Mr Goebbels has done a sound job of work, something I want to emphasise here today.
For that reason, we are in substantial agreement with his proposals: the improved supervision of banking, surveillance of international financial activities, greater powers for international bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank to really get to grips with crisis situations.
As you have just said, the IMF must become more democratic.
Above all else, it must fit into the overall scheme of things so that it does not become the bogeyman of crisis management.
Of course, the states must work together in this, for financial means alone will not overcome crises.
We agree with closer collaboration at international level between national supervisory and regulatory authorities, a stronger coordinating role for the European Central Bank, something that has still not been resolved, and which we would remind you is overdue - the establishment of an observatory for systemic risks at the Bank for International Cooperation, and continued efforts at reform of the international monetary system.
We share Mr Goebbels' view - contested in their proposals by our Green colleagues - that the Tobin tax does not belong in this report.
Looking through the proposals, I noted that the Group of the Party of European Socialists also, according to Amendment No 10, wants this to be checked up on, even though it does refer to an ECOFIN Council resolution.
On that point we take a completely different view.
We agree with your basic approach and we will be asking for a separate vote on this subject.
Introducing such a tax, whose technical problems cannot in any case be resolved, would imperil the transfer of capital and thus also put at risk the advantages of global division of labour, investment and employment.
That is why we are opposed to it, but will vote for your report without a Tobin tax, and against it with one.
Mr President, thank you for your willingness to allow us this pleasure late in the evening.
On behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
We support this report because it gives the right solutions to the issues of the new financial architecture which must be created, of reform as a whole and of crisis management - solutions which also deal practically with the needs of regions hit by crises, the requirements of international financial markets and the very important need of all societies for stability in financial markets.
I would like to emphasise again that I believe stability in financial markets to be a public good to which all citizens are entitled.
Taking a look at the situation we are in, I cannot resist making an observation.
International financial activity on the currency markets has, in fact, decreased to around USD 1 200 billion a day, and that is due to the creation of the monetary union, which is of course one of the levers of the flows of capital that are quantitatively scarcely manageable.
At the same time, though, we must note that during the course of the nineties we were dealing with a twenty-five-fold turnover increase in derivative trading such as swaps, options and so on.
We know that, now, not even 3% of the transactions have to do with the real market in goods and services.
I believe it to be important that we should look at the flow of capital under the influence of globalisation in terms both, on the one hand, of the yield accruing to institutional investors and of the economic and social situation, and on the other, from the point of view of the capital-importing countries.
In this connection, we have to bear in mind that 75% of the capital invested flows into only twelve states, and that only 1% of the capital invested flows to black Africa.
The rapporteur is right to demand that we now move to a consolidation, and that can only be done if we write off debt more comprehensively than we have done before.
Functioning globalised financial markets are no doubt advantageous.
Presupposing stable development, they contribute to growth and employment.
Despite that, there are still economic and social deficits and a lack of regulation and supervision.
The report points that out.
Concern about speculative commitments to the detriment of the real economy and the excessive volatility of the market brought about by an enormous increase in transaction volume for certain financial products are factors which make a reform of the international financial architecture more necessary than ever.
We have lived through 120 currency crises, and they cannot be abolished.
We have not yet succeeded in developing a working system of early warning indicators, in making information transparent and in drawing up a code of conduct that works for everyone, and we have not yet solved the problem of moral hazard.
So I consider it very important that this report's demands should influence the EU's negotiations, and the EU, too, must speak with one voice at the international level.
It is not just about us having a monetary zone, but we must also speak with one voice internationally on financial market policy and on issues of the world's financial architecture.
The introduction of the euro is a contribution to financial stability, and our financial system is better protected against external shocks, but we must move on, for the monetary union is only one contribution to stability in Europe and the world.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report.
We, in the Liberal Group, welcome the thrust of the report, because it grapples with the real issues and it avoids the sort of populist solutions which, I am afraid, are on offer in many of the amendments before this House.
I am particularly thinking of the Tobin tax.
It is, of course, the case that nobody, particularly liberals in favour of free inquiry, could object to the Commission's study on this subject.
But I frankly believe that this is a false promise which really offers very little practical benefit to the countries that we are all, I hope, trying to help.
Instead, the report quite correctly identifies as a potential model, the Chilean deposit system, which introduces an incentive for investors to invest long-term in an emerging market rather than going for short term paper because that involves a longer-term investment for depositors.
That is the right way to go, and therefore I very much congratulate the rapporteur and hope that we will not support the amendments to an excellent report.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I would like to thank Mr Goebbels for all the energy and intellect he has invested in his report.
We regret that the motion for a resolution presented to us does not in the end meet the expectations of the explanatory statement which he had drawn up, and that is why we have thought it appropriate to introduce certain amendments aimed at reinforcing the political message of the report.
The first category of amendments relates to the 'organisational' aspect of the International Monetary Fund, which we believe to be currently in an unacceptable situation.
That is why we are taking up an idea put forward by Jacques Delors, in this case that of an economic and social security council within the United Nations.
We would like the Commission and the Council to express their views on this issue at the Council to be held next spring in Barcelona.
Furthermore, we believe that the decision-making procedures and the composition of the governing body of the International Monetary Fund should be substantially reviewed.
The second great area on which we would like to express our view is the need to combat terrorism, which has an extremely important financial dimension.
This is why we feel there is an additional reason to make the recommendations of the FATF binding and to increase its mandate, as also requested by the European Council in Ghent.
I believe that this would supplement the report.
Finally, with regard to capital flows - in particular exchange operations - I will say no more, personally, about the Tobin tax, but I will nevertheless continue to demand an in-depth debate on taxes which could discourage speculative assaults on the currencies of a number of countries.
In this respect, I believe there are some interesting proposals that deserve to be supported.
Mr President, despite the flashy title of this report - 'How the international monetary system can be made to work better' - these insipid formulae are certainly not going to prevent future crises.
The only purpose of this report is to justify an economic system which is irrational, anarchic and socially unjust.
You, the defenders of capitalism, are totally incapable of regulating this economy which is based on the quest for profit and competition.
Because it cannot be regulated.
The only imaginable regulation is that which the most powerful impose on others, but they do so to their own benefit.
The desire to democratise the IMF, which is controlled by the United States, is also ridiculous.
The rapporteur recognises that the risk of financial instability is inherent to the operation of the economy.
This is undoubtedly the case for your capitalist economy, but the seizure of social wealth and the means of production by a limited number of financial and industrial groups, their rivalry and their speculation, will come to an end.
For future generations, the immense wastage and patent stupidity of your economy will serve as a demonstration that, in relation to the control of its collective life, humanity had not yet moved beyond barbarism.
Mr President, the rapporteur deserves support in his endeavours to achieve greater financial stability.
He is right to call for tighter supervision, although that does not rule out a crisis.
Interestingly, the strategy of the International Monetary Fund has shifted towards more focused support.
This role of catalyst in stages of growth can preclude negative effects of the policy, such as an increase in the burden of debt for up-and-coming countries.
The rapporteur' s request to coordinate a number of matters at European level is understandable.
If these do not follow naturally on from global policies, Europe' s own policy would undermine the strength of the system as a whole.
Finally, I cannot see a role for the European Central Bank in global crisis prevention.
Only a few months ago, the ECB was asked to absorb the slow-down in growth, although there was no reason to reduce interest rates within Europe.
Striking a compromise between European policy and global requirements does not seem to be benefiting international stability.
Mr President, the large number of monetary crises and the negative consequences they have for the global economy as a whole require joint action.
There are many who believe that the introduction of a tax on global financial transactions could prevent future financial crises.
Personally, I am glad that this opinion is not held by many in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I do not believe that introduction of the Tobin tax could prevent financial crises.
Let capital make its way to where it is of the greatest use, in other words, let it be invested in new markets, developing countries and so on.
By that means, growth can be produced.
If we now make the transfer of capital expensive and limit and regulate it, the effect would only be counter-productive.
Introducing it would also make sense only if it could be done internationally and without loopholes.
This seems impossible, so that this tax will result only in additional burdens, bureaucracy and so forth, without the actual objective - the limitation of financial crises - being able to be achieved.
Mr President, I was astonished to read the briefing by Parliament' s Information Office, which presented the Goebbels report as follows: 'In a resolution on the operation of the International Monetary System, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is critical of the introduction of a Tobin tax on financial speculations' .
This appears to be the headline which is supposed to attract the press, and this still appears to be the subject around which the debates here revolve.
In my opinion, this does not at all do justice to the balanced and excellent report by Mr Goebbels.
To start with, the resolution does not in any way speak in favour of, or against, the Tobin tax.
The extensive explanatory statement does contain a few observations, but what is more important is that it also contains many other alternatives in order to achieve the two objectives pursued by those in favour of the Tobin tax.
Capital movements and foreign exchange markets must be founded more on actual economic reality and must be directed towards long-term investments and financial stability by taking a number of measures, but also by adopting a more flexible stance with regard to developing countries.
Their debts should be cancelled and they must be granted an appropriate way of refinancing in order to be given a new lease of life.
Actually, one could say that, in fact, this report fits in perfectly with the Tobin tax action points.
It would be unfortunate if the report were seen as an opposing force, for I believe that it complements the Tobin tax well.
In an amendment tabled by my group, a proposal has been formulated in an entirely neutral way that was also formulated in the ECOFIN Council.
This amendment warmly welcomes the proposal by the ECOFIN Council to carry out such a study and further analysis.
That seems to be far more fruitful than another instance of polarisation concerning the method: yes or no to the Tobin tax.
In this way, those in favour of the Tobin tax can again endorse the objectives which are now actually on the agenda, and those against can be pleased about the fact that research can be carried out in a neutral way and that the objectives, namely, better management of capital movements and more opportunities for developing countries, can be achieved.
Mr President, first of all, I wish to congratulate Mr Goebbels on his report.
This is an interesting report that goes into considerable depth in an attempt to explore the various issues it raises and its resolution is informed and balanced.
In our opinion, the report makes a constructive contribution to a debate of fundamental political importance and, furthermore, is very timely.
The debate on how to create a better-working international monetary and financial system lies at the heart of our task of responding to globalisation.
Private capital flows - and the report also takes this view - are the main source of growth, prosperity and productivity.
If our objective is to ensure that countries, both developed and developing, are able to take full advantage of the benefits of globalisation, the best option that I can picture is for financial markets and their operations to merge.
Broad-based, deep-rooted and fluid financial markets will make funding investment easier, which will, in turn, enable economic operators to spread their risks more effectively.
This situation will prove beneficial for those operations that would otherwise be too risky for international investors, which will be of benefit not only to developing countries, but also to small and medium-sized businesses in our own countries.
The economic benefits generated by the globalisation of finance are the result of the links between markets and operators having become stronger.
Because of the nature of these links, the upsets passed on within a modern economy as a consequence of this process of globalisation are more rapid, for the very reason that borders that existed twenty years ago have disappeared.
It is true that amongst the risks we will have to face, there will be financial markets with excessively volatile exchange rates and share prices.
A 'contagious' effect can occur between one country and others and it is possible that capital flows will fluctuate.
Within the Economic and Monetary Union we have stimulated stability and growth by means of macroeconomic policies and structural reforms, which are fundamental factors for strengthening our economy and for preventing - or rather, fighting against - these financial upsets.
Economic and Monetary Union, therefore, contributes to improving the stability of the international situation in our region.
It is also true, however, that various alternatives have been put forward across the world.
I agree with the thesis of Mr Goebbels' s report.
There are no panaceas that will help us confront the challenge of consolidating the global financial system.
The report makes this point very clear and I hope that its resolution will be read not only by those for whom this document is officially intended and who have a professional interest in these matters. I hope that it is also read by the people who are - legitimately - concerned at the direction in which the process of international economic and financial integration is heading.
The problems and challenges inherent in the integration of financial markets must be addressed in a broader context, which is what Mr Goebbels has sought to achieve in his report and what we in the Commission are seeking to achieve in the study that the Liège Ecofin meeting asked us to produce on how we can respond to the challenges of globalisation, which we are intending to present next February.
What has been happening in recent years?
I would say that since the crises in Asia, we have made substantial progress.
Efforts have been made to improve macroeconomic conditions, economies are today more resistant to external shocks and the number of countries choosing to abide by internationally agreed codes and standards in order to make their economies more transparent is continually increasing.
The G7 ministers and the Monetary Fund have made progress in a few key areas, such as, for example, the international financial institutions, which clearly act with greater transparency these days. There is also the International Monetary Fund itself, which has increased its capacity and is fine-tuning its instruments so that they will enable it to analyse, assess and oversee the stability of the financial system more efficiently.
I would also say that coordination between the various national supervisory authorities has improved substantially.
Of course, we cannot rest on our laurels as a result of these improvements.
Much still remains to be done and, in its report, Parliament shows the correct way forward.
The Commission is quite happy to accept your view that we must ensure full participation by the private sector in solving and managing financial crises.
Not only in order to ensure that responsibilities in times of crisis are shared in an equitable way, but also that the private sector is appropriately and systematically involved, which is crucial to effective crisis prevention, thereby preventing dangerous and, ultimately, unsustainable, risk situations from arising.
I do, therefore, take note of the call for the Commission to consider the viability of introducing clauses for collective action on financial instruments such as securities.
You all know as well as I do that the Member States do not fully agree with this position but it is a point of view that the Commission takes seriously, as we do all references to the fight against the funding of terrorism.
The 11 September attacks have brought to the fore the abuses of the financial system by terrorists and the Commission has already adopted certain measures in this field.
You have also made an effective contribution by finalising the codecision procedure on the second directive on money laundering.
Nevertheless, we must keep making progress in this area.
We are now in the early days of a process which will be long and we must continue working in this direction over the coming months.
It is important that we make rapid progress on each of the proposals that provide valuable instruments for combating the funding of terrorism.
I wish to make a brief comment on one point that is still a source of some frustration to us, and that is the external representation of the European Union.
The explanatory statement of the motion for a resolution refers to Europe' s conspicuous absence from the debate on a new financial architecture.
You criticise the fact that the isolated initiatives of some Member States do not form a European policy. The Commission can only agree with this analysis.
So how do we respond? What can we do?
How can we improve the situation? I would say that it is not simply a matter of improving coordination and of speaking with one voice.
Economic and Monetary Union has undoubtedly transformed the blueprint of worldwide financial and monetary relations, but the way in which we continue to address these issues in the main organisations and forums, including the Monetary Fund and the G7, is still based, to a large extent, on a purely national concept.
I can, therefore, only agree on the need to make progress.
I think we will find it very difficult to formulate a meaningful policy in this area unless we clearly state our European positions as such at world level.
This will require a more appropriate and clearly defined external representation of our interests.
I am aware, however, that it will be very difficult to make progress in this direction unless we first make progress on the substance.
Focusing the battle solely on our representation abroad is not as important as defining our own positions and producing coordinated policies on external matters.
These two steps must be made in the same direction and at the same time.
And on these points, Parliament can be sure that the Commission will continue to make progress.
Mr President, colleagues will have read in some of this morning's newspapers about the refusal of the Republic of France to recognise the extraterritorial status of the European Parliament.
Apparently, the French government has refused to issue a visa to the President of the Republic of China to allow him to come to Parliament for a meeting.
This is a denial of our status as a supranational Parliament, and I hope that you will be protesting to the French government about the fact that Mr Chen has not been allowed a visa. . .
- . . . and insisting that we, in the European Union, should be recognising a country which has existed as a flourishing parliamentary democracy for some 14 years and the status it must have in a world in which democracies must work together.
(Applause)
I have taken note of what you have said.
The President will, of course, be duly informed.
Decision on urgent procedure
Mr President, I recommend that urgent procedure be applied to this document because it would also make it easier for China to take part in the forthcoming meeting in Doha.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Proposal for a Council decision establishing the Community position within the Ministerial Conference set up by the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation on the accession of the separate customs territory of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu) to the World Trade Organisation
[COM(2001) 518 - C5-0488/01 - 2001/0216(CNS)]
Mr President, the same argument in favour of urgent procedure applies in this case as applied to the previous matter, namely, that Taiwan too should be able to take part in the meeting in Doha.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Community incentive measures in the field of employment
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0319/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council decision on Community incentive measures in the field of employment [8432/1/2001 - C5-0294/2001 - 2000/0195(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Jensen).
Madam Commissioner, the EU' s employment policy is one of open cooperation in which the Member States set common goals, exchange experiences and evaluate each other' s results and employment policies.
It is an open process in which the individual country itself chooses which funds it will use in order to achieve the common goals. We, in Parliament, should also like to see the process become more open by involving and engaging the general public more.
The report we are debating today is about the implementation of Article 129 of the Treaty of Amsterdam concerning employment policy incentives.
It is about appropriations to the work on employment policy over the next five years and about money for analyses, statistics, conferences and reports etc.
Employment policy is to be evaluated in 2003.
It will be the first open coordination to be evaluated, and the money for employment policy is also to be used for this evaluation.
At Parliament' s first reading, we adopted 17 amendments to the Commission' s proposal, covering the following themes.
We should like to see the social partners and local and regional authorities more involved in the process, and we should like to see greater focus placed upon the ways in which information and employment policy affects a broader public.
We should like to see more focus on the equal treatment of women in employment policy; we should like to receive some further proposals concerning Parliament' s involvement; and we should like to look at the connection with other Community activities.
Last but not least, we should like to see pilot projects to increase information about employment policy at local and regional levels and help develop relevant strategies.
As a result, Parliament proposed an increase in the budget.
The Council thereupon accepted a number of Parliament' s amendments, including those aimed at involving the local and regional levels and at involving the social partners more.
Some of the proposals concerning greater focus on equality have also been accepted, but the Council did not want to accept some very central proposals from Parliament.
Against that background, there was a great deal of support in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for Parliament' s re-tabling those proposals from the first reading that the Council did not accept.
A majority of Parliament has campaigned for a long time for local and regional efforts to be incorporated into employment policy, and we have pointed out that the exchange of experiences and methods with those operating at local level and working in a voluntary capacity could be financed via Article 129.
That is because it is clearly characteristic of unemployment in the EU to be focused in regions and local areas and in pockets of poverty where there are islands of unemployment. Local efforts are central when it comes to getting people into work.
That is why it makes good sense to talk about local action plans and about the exchange of experiences and information from this work.
I am quite convinced that greater focus on local efforts will make all of us much wiser about the new avenues that might be explored in employment policy.
We have supported local employment initiatives by means of preparatory action, for which there has been a budget line called B5-503, and it is Parliament' s desire that this initiative should be followed up and continued via pilot projects under Article 129.
Perhaps the expression 'projects' is misleading, for we want, of course, to see a development of the methodical work carried out, that is to say analyses and studies and the development of statistics and methods.
We do not wish, under Article 129, to finance projects with the project-oriented and experimental character of projects financed under Article 6 of the Social Fund.
There is therefore no question of our wanting to duplicate things that are already happening under the aegis of the Social Fund.
On the contrary. There are many of us who are happy about the open coordination method of employment policy, for it enables the Member States to improve their results in employment policy, learn from each other' s experiences and actually compete to obtain better results.
There will not, however, be very much of that healthy competition as long as employment policy and the 'Luxembourg process' are as unfamiliar to people as they are at present.
In many countries' national parliaments, there is no debate on national employment plans. Nor are there any other activities that might make the process and the results better known and create more grassroots support.
Is political coordination based on analyses and statistics debated by the same politicians, officials and experts at conferences around the EU really binding enough? No, let us obtain a much greater awareness of results and objectives, so that governments encounter much greater commitment and a desire for everyone to achieve the results obtained in those countries which have most success in employment policy.
Mr President, I, too, should like to thank Mrs Jensen for a brilliant report.
It is a good day today, for today' s vote should show that we are now all endorsing the fact that employment policy is not just something made behind desks at meetings of the Council of Ministers, but is something that must be rolled out among the people.
Information must be provided about it, and the local authorities that are to help set these things in motion must also be involved.
That is what we are voting on today.
There are many good things in Mrs Jensen' s report.
I would emphasise what we have agreed concerning the local dimension of employment policy.
Gradually, we have got the Commission and the Council to realise that local and regional authorities, the social partners and non-profit organisations are important in the context of employment initiatives.
Practical work aimed at getting people into employment is done locally.
That is why room must be made for local players.
However, support for local initiatives is required, for example, in the form of better information about what the common European employment policy is and what the objectives are.
That is why it is important for us to put incentive measures in place and for us to appropriate some money to enable us to learn from each other' s methods and experiences.
That, moreover, is what we are trying to do here today.
That is why it is also disappointing that it has been difficult to get the Commission to agree to increasing the budget so that we might appropriate this money, and that is why we, in the Group of the Party of European Socialists, have naturally endorsed the need to increase the amount to EUR 55 million, and not EUR 50 million.
I hope that we obtain broad support today and that the Commission and the Council are alert to the signal from Parliament today.
Mr Pronk, after the Commissioner' s speech, we will see whether your pessimism is justified.
Mr President, we support Mrs Jensen's report because it is based on concepts and policies which we fully endorse.
To start with, we need to make sure the citizens of the Union know what the European Employment Strategy is.
That is the only way they can perceive our common objectives and add their ideas to the Luxembourg process and it is the only way to ensure the relevant national, regional and local authorities benefit from the best practices which have proven to be efficient in other areas of the Union, such as those which the honourable Mr Pérez Álvarez has just mentioned.
Mrs Jensen's other proposal concerns the role of local society in both planning and implementing employment policies.
We must make ensure that all the Member States understand that it is crucial for the social partners and civil society to be involved if this effort to increase employment is to be effective.
And the Member States must change their structures and implement measures to create institutions and resources which will allow local employment pacts to be applied. On the other hand, the European Union also needs to back these structures with its policies, advice and resources.
We already have experience of numerous countries, including Greece, in which local employment pacts have failed to work.
In some cases, they were policies applied by the central administration to encourage a few additional measures in areas with problems; they did not mobilise local society and they did not have the required results.
I am sure other areas in the Union have had similar bad experiences, which is why we believe that the measures proposed by the honourable Member and other policies in this sector of the European Union should be coordinated and dealt with at European and national level in order to give new impetus to employment planning and implementation at local level.
Mr President, I will try, as you request, to transform Mr Pronk's pessimism to optimism!
This programme gives effect to Article 129 of the Treaty which provides that incentive measures may be adopted in order to encourage cooperation between Member States and support their action in the field of employment.
Here I very much agree with what Mrs Thorning-Schmidt has already said: it is not a matter of employment or a matter of Council meetings, it is a matter of real cooperation between the Member States.
The programme underpins the European Employment Strategy and provides for activities to ensure its continuing effectiveness.
It is important that it is going to be adopted in the near future and I am hopeful that outstanding concerns expressed in the 14 amendments submitted can be resolved satisfactorily.
In its amended proposal the Commission, after the first reading, accepted in full or in part 12 of the 17 amendments tabled by Parliament.
The common position which you have been considering, while significantly different in format and presentation from the amended proposal, contains resonances of the ten amendments.
In relation to the amendments which are now under consideration, the Commission can accept nine of them in full or in part.
Those are Amendments Nos 1-8 and 14.
I should like to specify exactly what I accept.
Amendments Nos 1-3 I accept in full.
In Amendment No 4, I very much welcome the reference to special attention to groups subject to multiple discrimination in their access to the labour market and I share your concerns that we should be able to understand, monitor and analyse developments in mainstreaming by establishing indicators.
I do not consider it appropriate, however, to enter into details on specific studies to be carried out and cannot accept this part of the amendment.
On Amendment No 5, I am very pleased with the emphasis you introduce with regard to the importance of promoting public knowledge of the European Employment Strategy and further encouraging individuals and organisations at all levels to contribute to enhancing its impact and effectiveness.
This programme should and will assist in the realisation of those objectives.
However, assigning funding for the 'projects' in this context is not appropriate, and I have to reject that part of Amendment No 5.
Our diverging views on Amendment No 5 may lie more in the wording used than in any disagreement on its intent.
Local projects involving local actors are funded through Article 6 and the European Social Fund regulation, as well as through another budget line - B5-503. The latter is available exclusively for the funding of local development projects.
The analysis, research and evaluation work which it incorporates will include measures, informed by the outcomes of the projects delivered under other budget lines, to assess how knowledge of the European Employment Strategy, and local level involvement in its delivery, might be further improved.
I hope that this approach will meet your concerns.
With regard to Amendment No 8, I again fully subscribe to the principle of consistency and accept this part but I cannot agree to specify each linked programme.
Amendments Nos 6 and 7 are taken on board in spirit by the inclusion of Amendment No 1, and Amendment No 14, I can fully support.
Unfortunately, I am not in a position to accept Amendments Nos 9-13.
I will briefly explain why: Amendments Nos 9 and 10 concern the committee.
While I am grateful for your support for the Commission's role and the re-institution of an advisory committee, this is a lost fight with the Council.
Looking at the legal framework and recent precedents, a mixed committee is a fair compromise.
We could look at the mandate in future discussions to see if this could be adopted to meet your concerns as part of a global compromise.
On the annual plans in Amendment No 11, this is an internal Commission question which has no place in a Parliament and Council decision.
Amendment No 12 also has to be rejected on institutional grounds and more specifically with reference to the framework agreement on interinstitutional relationships.
Finally, regarding Amendment No 13, we maintain the EUR 55 million initially proposed.
We have made a thorough analysis and this is an adequate figure for the activities envisaged.
To sum up, the Commission can accept in full or in spirit Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 14; it can accept in part Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 8; it rejects Amendments Nos 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
It is clear that some issues have to be resolved; some of them are more sensitive than others.
I have, however, taken the most positive approach possible to the amendments which you have tabled.
Accordingly, I am hopeful that, with your cooperation and that of the Council, we can soon identify a compromise which is acceptable to all.
I once again reiterate the urgency of this matter and the Commission's resolve to help find workable compromises.
Thank you Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Informing and consulting employees
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0325/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on a common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Community
[9919/1/2001 - C5-0388/2001 - 1998/0315(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Ghilardotti).
Mr President, the information, consultation and participation of employees assumed primary importance in the European debate as far back as 1974, when the first social action programme was adopted by the Council.
Since then, the issue has featured in many of our debates in this Chamber and the Commission has launched a large number of initiatives, which have met with resistance.
Almost all the Member States have a legislative or contractual legal framework in place intended to guarantee the information and consultation of employees.
This directive proposes the introduction of minimum information and consultation standards which would be implemented throughout Union territory: after the European Company Statute, the European Works Council Directive and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the directive before us today completes the existing Community and national frameworks, thus contributing to the ultimate purpose of the law in question which is to ensure that adequate preparations are made for the change, that restructuring takes place under acceptable conditions and that due importance is given to the employment objective in the current situation.
The Commission presented its proposal - a sound proposal - in November 1998, and the European Parliament concluded its first reading in April 1999, adopting a series of amendments to improve it.
Only in June 2001 did the Council adopt a common position.
In general terms, the common position reflects the position adopted by the Commission following Parliament' s first reading but, if we compare the first reading of the European Parliament with the common position, we see that thirty or so of the amendments made by Parliament were not actually accepted.
As rapporteur, I called upon the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs not to repropose all the amendments adopted at first reading but concentrate on the most important points in order to improve the common position.
My colleagues - whom I would like to thank for their cooperation - put forward 15 amendments to my proposal, almost all of which serve to reinforce it.
After an in-depth debate, we came up with the text on which the House is to vote today.
There are 16 amendments and they concern: the procedures for consulting employees, and these are in line with the common position but more specific in identifying problems; the definition of economic and financial information; the exact definition of 'social partners' , in order to avoid ambiguities; the protection of employees' representatives, which needs to be better defined in terms of protection against disadvantage with regard to career, wage and training; suspension of decisions which could result in substantial negative consequences for employees, so that the taking of a final decision can be deferred for a suitable period at the request of employees' representatives in order to allow time for further negotiation and for a solution acceptable to all parties to be found.
Transitional periods: this is an extremely sensitive point.
We do not feel that specific transitional periods are necessary. Precisely because this directive introduces minimum standard rights, it must be enforced for all European employees simultaneously.
The question of penalties is the most sensitive point. It has provoked a deluge of lobbies from all sides of the House.
We have decided not to include our initial suggestion of a European penalty with legal effect in our proposal, but we have reinforced the common position, stipulating that it should be the Member States that, whilst respecting the principle of subsidiarity, introduce more stringent penalties for serious violations which impact upon employees.
This is an interpretation of the common position, which states that the Member States must lay down effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties.
It is my genuine hope that this House will confirm the wide majority reached in committee and will lose no time in providing the Union and the Member States with this major legislative instrument during the Belgian Presidency.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mrs Ghilardotti has already indicated how difficult it has been to present this issue for second reading.
My group' s first priority, therefore, is to bring this issue to an end at long last and to have it published in the Official Journal.
We thus hope that agreement with the Council will be reached in the near future.
This is also evident from the stance adopted by our group, as Mrs Ghilardotti stated.
We dropped a huge number of amendments from first reading and concentrated in the committee on a number of compromise texts, on which it must be possible to reach agreement, in our view.
For example, we deleted the precious point on Tendenzschutz, which we would have liked to have seen scrapped.
Neither will we be backing the Group of the Greens and the GUE/NGL Group on this matter in the framework of reaching a compromise.
However, we hope that the PPE-DE will continue to support the compromise proposals we reached in committee.
The differences of opinion with the Council mainly revolve around two key points: the provisions on sanctions and the unnecessarily long transitional periods.
I should like to note that these are not points which we have added but, rather, points which the Council has added to the Commission position.
Parliament is not asking for points to be added.
In this case, it is the Council which is departing from the Commission proposal.
I will briefly comment on those two points.
With regard to the sanction provisions, Mr Menrad has also already communicated their importance in order for the directive to be taken really seriously.
In this connection, I would like to refer to the experience in my own country.
In the Netherlands, this kind of sanction exists in legislation pertaining to works councils.
Precisely those provisions have an extremely preventative effect.
It is not often that legal steps are required, but the very fact that it is possible to take these steps means that very intense consultations are often held.
With regard to closures and transfers which need to take place, a very broad support structure is created and sound consultations are held.
That is very important for industrial relations, in my opinion.
The second point concerns transitional periods.
I already stated last week, at a meeting which Mr Bushill-Matthews had organised with an English association of people who, in fact, propagate the idea of employee participation, that it strikes me as bizarre that they call for a much longer transitional period.
If one considers - as they did - that information and consultation are very important, not only to employees but also to employers and to the company' s performance, then one must ensure that this measure is introduced very promptly.
One should not ask for longer transitional periods, for that gives British industry entirely the wrong signal.
I would therefore ask you to reconsider this and to support these conventional transitional periods, as proposed by the Commission, after all.
Come what may, based on the experience which we have gathered in the Netherlands with an act that has been in force for more than 50 years, it appears that industrial relations have improved as a result.
Mr President, I, too, wish to thank Mrs Ghilardotti for the sound and skilful work she has done on this report. I also wish, in particular, to thank her for her understanding of the minority views that may be adopted by a Danish MEP in this situation, for we have a special system of consultation and cooperation in the labour market which creates problems for us from time to time.
We all agree, of course, that information and consultation and a good social dialogue are important.
It has become a part of modern management to attach importance to these things, to involve employees and to talk about learning organisations, so enabling companies to develop better.
I believe it is important that, when we talk about these matters, we do not only view information and consultation as part and parcel of restructuring and the reduction of the labour force, but as also being a part of day-to-day work in which it takes a long time to build up mutual confidence and that reciprocal dialogue that can be of value both to employees and companies in a crisis situation and which may also perhaps play a part in preventing crises from breaking out within companies.
We have had a long period in which it was difficult getting everyone to understand the need for revising this directive, and revision has been blocked by a majority of the Council.
Denmark has been a part of that blocking majority, not because we are nervous about having rules on information and consultation - we have in actual fact had stringent rules on these matters from as far back as 1960 - but because we are afraid that common rules might create problems for the system we think works well in practice.
It would, of course, be an irony of fate if common rules were to be destructive in an area in which matters are operating well.
Flexibility is a key word when it comes to drawing up the common rules, but there must not of course be so much flexibility that the required information and consultation does not occur in those places in which these things have not been emphasised.
I must say, therefore, that, on the whole, my group is able to support Mrs Ghilardotti' s proposals.
We have some problems where the sanctions are concerned, and I must say that the Council' s solution is an extremely fine balance that it is very difficult not to upset.
There is therefore a single point in regard to which we cannot completely endorse the strict rules indicated in Mrs Ghilardotti' s report but in regard to which we prefer to endorse the Council' s solution.
On the other hand, I want to say, on the subject of interim arrangements, that it is a question of putting these in place.
Let us now get these matters implemented and not just continue to talk about them.
Information and consultation are not a punishment for business. On the contrary, they are things that promote good business and competitiveness.
Mr President, my group supports the recommendation for second reading, which, moreover, received the very broad approval of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
In addition, we would like the Council to follow suit and thus put a definitive end to the three long years that have passed since the Commission, perceiving the breakdown in social dialogue, made very timely use of its right of initiative.
This is three years too many, which have been punctuated by social catastrophes, with rapid liquidation of businesses and loss of jobs due to bankruptcy and genuine distortions in Community social law on information and consultation of workers.
While we must not expect miracles from this directive, because it will only apply, at best, to businesses with more than 50 employees and will not single-handedly resolve the fundamental problem, namely that competition law is dominant, this directive may represent a significant step towards harmonising the rights of European Union employees, subject, of course, to it not being stripped of its content and reduced to the smallest common denominator.
This is why it is so important that the Council take into consideration the recommendations proposed by Mrs Ghilardotti, particularly Amendment Nos 2 and 12 on sanctions for disregard of the directive.
Although the Council is opposed to European sanctions, the least it can do, in my view, is to accept this compromise position.
We also support amendments which clarify and widen the scope of the information that must be provided to employees' representatives, and the amendment proposing the latter may request a decision' s application be suspended, pending the outcome of new negotiations, where this decision has serious effects on jobs.
If our citizens are to find this directive credible, it will have to be applied simultaneously throughout the European Union.
That is why our group asks the Council to support the position submitted to us, and make it impossible for some Member States to evade having to enforce the application of the directive for several more years.
Our group proposes to supplement the draft recommendation by adopting amendments that rule out the possibility of withholding information that the company considers sensitive to its business from employees' representatives, because we are convinced that there are no grounds, that it even constitutes discrimination to introduce an element of suspicion with regard to employees who, by definition, have no less company spirit than the management or shareholders.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, despite the fact that it has welcomed some of the positions adopted by the European Parliament, I find it deplorable that the Council persists in maintaining a proposal for a directive that fails to meet the expectations of workers in the European Union.
When you see the behaviour of the directors of many companies, especially the multinationals, who decide to restructure, relocate or even partially or totally close down their businesses, making hundreds or thousands of workers unemployed simply to cut costs and/or increase profits, it is all the more intolerable that the Council should not have accepted proposals that we have adopted in this House. Examples of these are:
the reference to the planning stage in the definition of consultation, its extension to cover economic and financial developments in the company and the obligation to seek agreement on all issues subject to the information and consultation of workers.
extending consultation in particularly serious cases; extending the concept of a serious breach of the obligations to inform and consult; the implementation of the directive on public administration.
the abolition of the employer' s right to retain particularly sensitive information and the obligation for Member States to promote social dialogue within SMEs.
These are our reasons for supporting Mrs Ghilardotti' s proposals, which once again take up the positions adopted at first reading, with particular emphasis on the amendments that seek to step up sanctions and specific legal proceedings in cases where the directive is breached, on suspending decisions at the request of workers' representatives when their implementation has serious consequences for workers, with a view to eliminating or minimising these harmful consequences, on eliminating the transitional periods for the directive' s implementation in Member States that do not have a system of worker consultation and on reducing the period of transposition into national law to two years as well as its implementation in the public sector.
These are positive proposals which, as I said, we support.
I can only regret the fact, however, that the rapporteur has dropped her two proposals on eliminating the option the Council wishes to give employers to, in certain cases, neither inform nor consult their workers, although the rapporteur' s proposals envisage sanctions against employers that fail to act promptly.
The Council' s position, however, opens up loopholes that could prove dangerous for workers and it is, therefore, important to eliminate this possibility.
This is the basic justification for the two amendments that we have tabled in conjunction with the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
We hope that a majority in Parliament votes in favour of these and that the Council takes account of the positions that have been put forward here in one of the most sensitive areas of the protection of workers' rights.
Mr President, the subject addressed so well by Mrs Ghilardotti' s report is, as we all know, not a new one, but on past occasions when it was discussed it has never been set out so clearly.
I refer, in particular, to the legislation on European works councils, which has not been transposed by all the Member States and, where it has been transposed, has not been incorporated into their legislation but is regulated by means of agreements between the social partners which are often then disregarded by one of the partners, as has been shown by recent events which, moreover, have been debated in this very House.
Yet Parliament, which has, in the past, been attentive to the issue of employment and openly involved in establishing and guaranteeing the dignity and even the quality of work, and which, moreover, has not hesitated to propose sanctions for the cases I have mentioned which even involved requirements governing the use of European funds for maintaining employment levels, has shown varying degrees of indecision in the debate on this report.
The different attitudes are certainly understandable, given the sensitive nature of some issues such as the enforcement of sanctions, for sanctions do have to be enforced if one wants a requirement to be respected, or the confidentiality granting exemption from the consultation procedure to be removed, even though it is no longer observed, or a transitional period to be granted for the transposal of the directive which is, moreover, unnecessary, given the time frame for its implementation.
The fact is that, both in terms of the continuous implementation of Community law, the continuing hope of ever-increasing cohesion and, lastly, the forthcoming practical introduction of a European Company which would provide greater protection of employees as regards participation than other forms of legal entity, the issue had to be closed, with the identification of major, related questions ranging from the contents of the information to the termination clause, from the time frame for initiating the procedure to the parties involved and to the sectors where it is to be applied, and all this in respect, on the one hand, for the fair trade requirement, which, also in this case, would be guaranteed by the different behaviour of the Member States, and, on the other hand, for the reasoning of the open coordination method, which has, at last, started to be applied practically in social policy.
Clearly, the issue in question lends itself to being addressed within the context of the principle of subsidiarity, even though that concept still remains to be clearly defined today, despite the fact that it is one of the founding principles of the Union itself.
However, it must be said that the definition and application of the principle does not and cannot serve the single purpose of calling for competence for certain subjects to be given to the Member States alone, for there is also a conflicting, appropriate need to provide the Union, in the face of great national differences and oversights, with a basic definition of these subjects wherever they have any significant implications for the Community as a whole.
Mr President, allow me to begin by stating that I think it very important that minimum standards be set for informing and consulting employees, but that it is just as important that it be done in a way that does not disrupt existing national arrangements that are operating well.
It has unfortunately proved that not all Member States have been in a position to draft national guidelines for informing and consulting employees.
That would otherwise have been the best solution when it comes to companies in the individual countries, for it is, of course, there, that the real problems arise.
Political unity has now been achieved in the Council concerning the revised proposal from the Swedish Presidency and the graduated transitional arrangement, as proposed by the Commission. In Denmark, we have no direct laws about informing and consulting employees.
That does not, however, mean that employees are not consulted and informed in Denmark.
This is specifically regulated via cooperation agreements between the social partners in accordance with the Danish tradition of greater freedom between the social partners. Only when it is strictly necessary does the government get involved.
The Danish government has therefore stated in the Council that it assumes that the current cooperation agreements in the Danish labour market comply with the directive' s requirements.
The Danish government will also issue a statement in the Council to the effect that implementation of the directive will not affect existing agreements in this area in Denmark and that these will be fully respected when implementation takes place, but that it will of course be necessary to enact legislation for those companies not covered by the existing cooperation agreements.
I should like to ask the Commission whether it is of the same view as the Danish government.
In other words, is the Commission able to ensure that the social partners themselves are given the freedom to enter into, and maintain, the existing agreements and procedures about informing and consulting employees, just as Denmark was given a similar assurance in connection with the compromise reached by the Council in July? I should also like to thank Mrs Ghilardotti for having agreed that sanctions must be established nationally.
It is very important that the Member States themselves should devise appropriate sanctions, that this is done by means of agreements between the social partners and that we take account of the Member States' different systems.
If Parliament had maintained its hard line, the proposal could have been rejected by the Council, and that would have been a major defeat for the unions which, for years, have been campaigning for the right of employees to be informed and consulted.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, the view that it is, in general, appropriate and also necessary to ensure an adequate flow of information between a company and all its stakeholders, especially the employees involved in the life of the company, is, I believe, widely held, including by myself.
However, I am not in favour of imposing on the States, the individual Member States, solutions which involve employees in management decisions, on the basis, in some cases, of joint management models which are foreign to the legal and economic traditions of many European countries, as has just been said.
I therefore feel that, in line with both the Commission' s initial proposal and the Council' s common position, the directive before us needs to leave the Member States sufficient room for manoeuvre to identify the best way of adhering to the principle of the need to keep employees informed.
However, many of the amendments adopted by the Commission and included in the common position which we are about to put to the vote conflict with this, particularly Amendments Nos 2 and 12, which seek to grant employees' representatives a sort of de facto - and I repeat, de facto - right of veto on decisions taken by companies.
I therefore call upon Parliament not to adopt the amendments and to stay with the Council' s common position.
I would like to make one last point: Article 3 (2) lays down specific provisions applying to political associations, trade associations and religious organisations etc.
Does this mean that political parties, trade unions and churches can carry out restructuring without informing their employees, while normal companies are obliged to do so? This is my question.
Mr President, we are dealing with a long history and a relatively complex directive.
Fortunately, the Council' s common position is very useful and provides a sound basis for our further debate.
In fact, a number of people, including a large number of socialist ministers, are of the opinion that we should not have anything other than the common position.
I am not certain whether they truly believe this or whether they think that they will then be able to put the whole thing behind them.
In any event, that is the state of play.
Although the stance adopted by our group has been expressed very eloquently by Mr Winfried Menrad, he very much takes the common position into account, as well as the amendments adopted at first reading, a number of which - I have to say - we were unable to support.
We voted against a number of amendments, but as they are not included in the present package, that is not such a big issue.
There is now a sound compromise proposal before us by Parliament, also accommodating the Council.
We make no bones about the fact that our group is struggling with a number of amendments.
There are also a number of amendments which some delegations in our group find it difficult to come to terms with.
But on the whole, I believe we can congratulate the rapporteur warmly on her work.
I also believe that if we have voted on this matter by lunchtime today, we will have made a significant contribution to informing and consulting employees in Europe.
We must not forget that an incredible number of problems have arisen.
Over the years, we have discussed many resolutions dealing with the lack of consultation.
If this is now rectified properly, we will have made huge progress, in my opinion.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her work on this report.
I am one of the Members who has spoken in this House previously regretting the fact that we did not have the kind of legislation that we are discussing today.
I know that myself, along with several other colleagues, have been in the very unfortunate position of representing constituents who have suffered the very worst examples of the lack of consultation and the lack of information.
Workers who have learned of job losses in the press and media when there has been speculation and uncertainty in the workplace.
I only have to mention what happened with Corus in Wales earlier this year for you to see why I attach such importance to this particular piece of legislation.
I am therefore particularly pleased to have the opportunity to welcome this proposal which will change things.
It will mean that employees will be involved in discussions when there really is still an opportunity to influence the debate and the outcome, not when the decision is more or less a fait accompli.
Employees would have to be given all the relevant facts.
While certain measures are needed to protect a company's commercial interests, my group believes that these are adequately covered.
The ability to impose sanctions is one of the most important aspects of this report, including the suspension of decisions which lead to job losses if the consultation guidelines have not been followed.
Voluntary agreements are not enough.
We often hear about good examples of voluntary agreements.
I applaud those companies that follow good practice, but many do not.
We have seen that time and time again especially in Wales and Britain where we have had no legislation on information and consultation to date.
I am very pleased that there has at last been progress on this crucial matter.
I believe, as others have said, that we cannot wait too long for this to come into effect which is why I support the shorter transition period.
This proposal, of course, would not prevent job losses, but it would allow enough time to ensure that plans for rescaling and retraining of workforces could be well advanced before closures or redundancies take place.
This is an issue of the effectiveness of companies and businesses. It should be a part of the everyday work of companies and businesses.
It is also about dignity in the workplace.
Employees are an integral part of the partnership with management and must be kept informed on decisions which affect not only their lives, but those of their families and whole communities.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Ghilardotti' s report on the directive on information and consultation of workers is very topical indeed.
Many Member States of the European Union have, unfortunately, been faced with a wave of mergers, restructurings and numerous redundancies, such as at Danone, Marks and Spencer and Moulinex, to name but a few.
Until now, the directive has not enabled employees to take any effective action and to have a real bearing on their future, and that of the business.
In many other cases, the directive has not been applied.
That is why I support the proposals made in the report by Mrs Ghilardotti, because the directive strengthens provisions and provides the means to apply these provisions.
The Council included Parliament' s amendments in its common position; the reference to the most favourable provisions for employees, the obligation to respect minimum requirements, and the non-regression clause.
Although this is a step forward, we must go further, as proposed in Mrs Ghilardotti' s report.
Some important amendments have again been proposed, which improve the report.
For example, employees shall be consulted and informed at the planning stage, before decisions are taken.
For example, if the decision has an adverse effect on employees, such as collective redundancies or closure, the final decision must be postponed so that consultations can continue with a view to avoiding or mitigating the consequences.
This directive will enable us to begin to encourage an approach to economic and social issues, which includes improving working conditions and economic efficiency.
This efficiency requires the involvement of employees, naturally.
That is why we are proposing two amendments, which rule out the possibility of withholding information where there is a risk or prejudice to the business.
To demand discretion is one thing. To enable the company' s management, once again, to take unilateral decisions on the nature of the information is quite another.
Obviously, we must be determined to ensure this directive is observed, and I hope that, this time, the Council will heed Parliament' s will.
Mr President, the company is clearly an example of plurality.
According to Max Weber, a company is an organisation that, in controlling goods and services, aims to produce goods and services for a particular market.
It is also clear that those who lend their services to a company cannot always relate to their employer directly or on a personal level, above all when the number of employees in that company exceeds a certain level.
There therefore needs to be the implementation of some kind of permanent and flexible mechanism which would facilitate this relationship, functioning in a way that is simple yet effective and which can deal with the multitude of issues that arise in a company every day.
The everyday life of a company, in this day and age, takes place within a global world - globalisation is the key word - a globalisation which does not exclusively affect large or very large companies, but also those of a small or medium size, because they are also having to function within this environment.
So, what exactly is the problem? Well, we need to regulate rights to information and consultation with true content within the specific framework in which we operate, that is to say that it is not a simple case of paying lip service to these declarations, but neither do we want to go too far, depriving the management of its powers.
I think that this is what Mrs Ghilardotti set out to achieve in her arduous and efficient work: I think that she was seeking this point of equilibrium, and, yes, it is difficult - I would say practically impossible - for some delegations, such as the Spanish, to vote for the content of Amendment No 12, and for the rest, we have to underline the work she has undertaken and congratulate her on her effort.
Evidently, a company' s own capacity to adapt, more necessary today than ever before, is going to be strengthened if we are able to convey its needs, concerns and prospects to all its workers.
More than just an exhaustive regulation, we are talking about an advanced communication culture within the company.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as we are all well aware, I believe that we are about to take a decisive step along the path to adopting a general framework on the information and consultation rights of workers.
We can only welcome this and we must congratulate Mrs Ghilardotti, the rapporteur, who has spared no effort in ensuring that today we have reached a position that we are defending.
It has been almost three years since the draft directive was published, and during this time, we in this House have had to condemn many situations. There have been site closures, redundancies and relocations, without any prior information being given by the companies to the employees concerned.
Of course, this directive is far from ideal - it does not provide a ban on redundancies - but it illustrates the determination to make up for these shortcomings, firstly, in national legislation, but also to correct the occasionally fragmented aspects of Community law that we have already passed, which it also supplements.
These three years of debate have resulted in a text that is now balanced and realistic.
This report is not intransigent, nor is it extremist, and I believe that we should mention the efforts on the part of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the various groups, in negotiating with the Council, to iron out specific differences of opinion.
The European Parliament and the Council are co-legislators and we do not have to blindly support any directive, Mr Pronk. We have to support positions, namely those of Parliament.
I have three points to make; the first relates to confidentiality of specific information.
We have returned to the common position of the Council to acknowledge that there actually are objective situations and contradictions with stock market law, for example, which must be considered and that this confidentiality, in some well-defined cases, can be upheld.
My second point relates to sanctions. There is no law without sanctions, and I believe that what is laid down - I am about to finish, Mr President - where there has been a serious breach is an absolute minimum.
As for transition periods, well, fundamental social rights must simply be applied.
Yet, we can no longer defer the enforcement of these rights.
(Applause from the Left)
Mr President, Commissioner, informing and consulting employees is a basic right.
It is inherent in our European social model and distinguishes us from other social models.
I should first of all like to thank the rapporteur for the sound work and also the Council which, in any case, managed to pull the debate back on track in Nice.
This was timely and also necessary.
If we examine such a framework directive and compare it with the take-over directive which was discussed in this House recently, and subsequently rejected, we can see that this did not fit into a framework directive.
The statute of the European company does fit in, which means that a framework directive is needed for that.
That framework directive is also needed - as has been indicated by various people - if we consider what happened to Renault-Vilvoorde, Michelin, Chorus and other companies.
For example, in the case of Chorus, there is a pronounced difference in the level of information and consultation provided in the Netherlands, for example, compared to England.
Consequently, this directive relies wholly on the quality of information and consultation.
In my opinion, these should be assessed in the fullness of time, but this is a first step.
It is absolutely vital to tackle it this way.
One of the things I am struggling with is the exemption from this directive when a company is said to be at risk.
We have positive experiences in countries where works councils exist, and that applies to the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.
Problems do not arise.
There is already a duty of confidentiality, and I should like to urge you to adopt the amendment which we tabled in this connection.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating my colleague, Mrs Ghilardotti, as well as the Council and the Commission for having finally secured progress on this dossier.
As with the Regulation on the Statute for a European Company a few weeks ago, and the annex on participation, we have been making more progress in the last few months than we had for years.
I think that this gives us an excellent opportunity to send a clear signal to the public that, at European level, we have a concept of the company that encompasses all those that work within it, which, it must also be said, is not only a democratic right of workers, but, also, these principles of information and consultation set the right path for companies to become more efficient, more effective, non-authoritarian and participatory.
In these times of globalisation, lifelong learning and the incorporation of workers into the dynamics of a company are crucial.
We hope, Commissioner, representatives of the Council, that, as Mrs Ghilardotti stated very clearly in her amendments, that this is a genuine regulation.
This will require two obvious and fundamental elements: firstly, that the participation of workers should take place before decisions are made, for if this is not the case, they will carry on finding things out through the papers and they will really be under the impression that the work that has been carried out here in Parliament, in Council and in the Commission is a joke.
They have to be involved before decisions are made, because the press is there for everyone else.
Secondly, their participation must also be a legal requirement.
The exact difference between the regulation and the recommendation is that, when the regulation is violated, there can be a sanction.
If there is no sanction, what we do remains purely symbolic and has no legal foundation.
Representatives of the Council, we are at second reading.
I would like to finish by saying that I hope that on this occasion we do not experience what has taken place on so many others, that you forget that Parliament has legislative faculties on a par with your own.
I hope, therefore, that you will take good notice of Mrs Ghilardotti' s report, which is not only for her own good, but for the good of millions of citizens and workers in Europe.
Like my colleagues in the UK Conservative Delegation, I have consistently supported the principle and the practice of employee information and consultation.
In my previous job as managing director of a large UK food manufacturing company, I was very proud to lead the first such company in the whole of the West Midlands Region to achievement of the coveted Investors People Award.
As has already been mentioned, earlier this month I hosted a lunch debate in Brussels with the Involvement and Participation Association for my fellow members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs to share with them UK best practice and the benefits of flexibility, because that is the issue.
The common position as it stands is fine, which is why I personally did not put forward any amendments to that, but the committee amendments propose yet another one-size fits-all straitjacket which would be highly damaging to managers' ability to manage and in particular to their ability to manage rapid change.
If companies are held back from taking the key decisions necessary perhaps for the very survival of those businesses, their problems will get worse, which means that more employees could suffer.
The UK government has asked all UK MEPs from all political parties to vote down all these amendments and to support the common position.
Conservative MEPs will do exactly that, so I now call upon UK Labour MEPs to reverse the position they all took in committee when they supported these amendments and to vote with us in the interests of employment and in the interests of the nation.
Mr President, first I would like to apologise: in my introduction I did not mention Mrs Jensen, and I would really like to congratulate her on an excellent job.
As far as Mrs Ghilardotti is concerned, we all know what a difficult job she had and she has.
She had to strike a balance between completely different political, national, social and economic views, and I would like to congratulate her and to thank all the Members of Parliament who have participated in the debate and supported the Commission's proposal through this process.
This is an important proposal and, once adopted, it will add an indispensable element to workers' rights.
Recent events, with mass lay-offs across Europe, have only underlined the urgent need for different kinds of instruments and this proposal - this directive - information and consultation is a very important instrument.
Once adopted, the directive will ensure better anticipation of crises and will contribute to developing a positive attitude towards change by both management and workers.
Let me tell you that I fully understand all your requests.
Most, if not all, of the issues they raise were the subject of intense debate within all the institutions.
The text before us strikes a delicate balance between different points of view and divergent interests on the sensitive issues at stake.
While I understand your desire to improve the text, it would be unwise, in my view, to depart now from that balance and jeopardise the actual adoption of the proposal.
I refer in particular to Amendments Nos 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18 and 19.
Therefore, the Commission is not prepared to accept those amendments.
However, a number of the proposed amendments are acceptable, in full or in part, to the Commission, as they will improve the text.
These are Amendments Nos 3, 6, 8, 13 and 14.
The Commission will, therefore, actively support these amendments and will do its utmost to facilitate consensus on them between Parliament and the Council.
Allow me, before moving to the two most important issues - sanctions and transitional periods - to respond to Mrs Sandbæk, as far as the Danish model is concerned.
I would like to underline the fact that the current text strikes a balance between the necessary protection of workers and the autonomy of the social partners, as contracting partners.
They can freely conclude agreements which are not fully in line with the provisions of Article 4, but they have to take into account the principles which are established in Article 1 and in national law.
Now, we know that the most difficult and controversial issues are the two which I have already referred to: sanctions and transitional periods.
With regard to the first of these issues, Amendment No 2 and especially Amendment No 12 propose reinforced sanctions, including judicial suspension procedures in cases of serious breach of information and consultation obligations.
This amendment, while reinforcing the common position, offers a compromise with the Commission's original proposal.
It is, therefore, undeniable that Parliament is making a step in the direction of the Council, in a serious search for a final compromise.
I would like to thank you for your support of the Commission's stance on this very important element of the directive.
Nevertheless, taking into account the sensitivity of the issue in the Council, the best basis for a final compromise on this issue would be to limit the request to the first sentence of the proposed amendment.
Under these circumstances, the Commission can accept Amendment No 2 and the first paragraph of Amendment No 12.
We can accept Amendment No 2 with a minor change.
Finally Amendment No 15 which seeks to delete Article 10 - on transitional periods - is equally a major issue.
In the past, the Commission has always opposed this kind of provision which tends to grant different treatment to different Member States.
This time, we can see some justification in it.
Some Member States will clearly have to introduce major changes to their industrial relations systems.
Therefore, the Commission is of the opinion that Article 10 of the common position constitutes a fair compromise and it cannot accept this amendment.
To sum up, the Commission can accept in full or in spirit Amendments Nos 3 and 8; it can accept in part Amendments Nos 2, 6, 12, 13 and 14.
It rejects Amendments Nos 1, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 18 and 19.
I know that you fully appreciate the challenges ahead of us: we need to do everything possible to find an acceptable compromise between the co-legislators.
I think that our big challenge is to strike the balance between what we think is desirable and what is achievable or possible.
Thank you, Commissioner Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Employment guidelines for 2002/Joint employment report 2001
The next item on the agenda is the report (A5-0360/2001) by Mrs Weiler on behalf of the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs on:
1. the proposal for a Council decision (COM(2001) 511 - C5-0498/2001 - 2001/0208(CNS)) on the guidelines for employment policy measures by the Member States in 2002
and
2. the Commission communication (COM(2001) 438 - C5-0423/2001 - 2001/2168(COS)) on the draft Joint Employment Report 2001.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is, in our view, the Member States which have the primary task of creating the appropriate framework for more employment.
It goes without saying that the European Union can contribute towards it.
I believe, though, that dialogue between the ministers of the various Member States is particularly important here.
On looking into the matter more closely, we note that we have in some countries of the European Union almost full employment, but in others unemployment - and, in particular, youth unemployment - on a frightening scale.
I believe it to be a matter of extraordinary importance that the States should learn from one another and avoid making the mistakes already made by others.
We can see that the countries that perform best have created jobs on the basis of a solid financial policy and have got to grips with the necessary structural reforms earlier than others.
We must also ask ourselves the question: who, then, actually creates jobs? It is not the state, it is often not the major enterprises, which indeed tend rather to retrench.
It is, far more, the small and medium-sized enterprises that create the most jobs.
If we want to be successful, the establishment of new enterprises is especially important.
It is a matter of creating the appropriate framework for them.
We must make it our concern that the European Union is not the institution that contributes to life being even more difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises or to making it difficult to set up new ones.
The European Union's activity must focus more on creating the conditions that will give these enterprises a better chance.
Mr President, equality is a prerequisite for economic growth.
Twenty-five million fewer women than men participate in the European labour market.
That is a huge unexploited resource which needs to be made use of if Lisbon' s employment objectives are to be achieved and if economic growth is to be guaranteed.
At the same time, the birth rate is falling dramatically.
Demographic experts predict that Europe' s labour force will consist of considerably fewer people in the future, when more women will therefore have to be in gainful employment and, at the same time, give birth to more children.
How are we to balance the equation?
A basic prerequisite is an equality perspective in all four pillars of the employment policy guidelines, and I am therefore very pleased that Mrs Weiler has been so attentive to the proposals tabled by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
The most important thing is perhaps to ensure that European women and men can combine professional life with having a family and children. The Member States must make child care available and offer parental leave.
The women of Europe must not be forced to choose between professional life and having a family. The Commission' s focus on better jobs is very encouraging, for better jobs and better working conditions for women are among the prerequisites for having more women in paid employment.
Precarious and low-paid jobs which require little in the way of qualifications and in which women are over-represented at present are hardly going to attract women.
Quality, which is the recurring theme in the guidelines for the year 2000, must also apply to work done by women.
Overcoming gender discrimination at work and in the social insurance systems is a huge challenge.
Discrimination against women in the labour market is not only unproductive, it also ruins the opportunities for individual women, for women as a group and for society as a whole.
Quite simply, growth and human development require us to put an end to gender discrimination.
Equality is an investment.
Mr President, when the experiment of the Luxembourg procedure was set in motion in 1997 and guidelines for Member States' employment policies adopted, it was in the conviction that a favourable climate of economic growth might not alone be sufficient to ensure automatic positive results in employment.
Today, we are confirming this strategy, these undertakings and guidelines in an economic climate which we all know to be much less favourable, or, rather, full of risks, and we are therefore doing so, first and foremost, by duly recognising the need, already established at the Lisbon Summit, to bring the economic policy guidelines adopted at Community level and by the Member States into line with employment policy recommendations and guidelines.
This does not diminish the specific role of the Luxembourg procedure and the economic policy guidelines in the context of what has been defined a coordination process, an open coordination process.
We are aware that these alone are not enough; however, they are, or can be, decisive for maximising the effects or reducing the risks for employment, which are also linked to the economic trend.
All this must be subject to certain conditions, focused on in both the Commission' s proposals, which we judged to be positive, and Parliament' s position.
I will mention them very briefly: we feel that this is a process which warrants careful attention, controls and monitoring.
It is not enough just to state the objectives which are then included under the principle of subsidiarity in national employment plans.
There must also be consistency in terms of effectiveness and implementation: that is why we call for the adoption of auditable, reliable common indicators at Member State as well as Community level, in order to achieve national objectives without whose achievement it would subsequently be difficult to reach our common European and Community objectives.
There must be consistency with budgetary policies at Member State level and at local and regional levels as well; there must be quality employment objectives seeking to combine flexibility, social dialogue, protection, rights and safety, but which also extend beyond that context to include lifelong training, integration policies and employment with a view to increasing the productivity of less elderly workers.
Lastly, and most importantly, there must be equal opportunities policies and active employment policies.
If these conditions are met, the contribution of the Luxembourg procedure will not be the only factor but it will certainly be decisive.
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mrs Weiler on her report and to thank the Commission for its sustained commitment to the European employment strategy.
No one will now deny that the European employment policy, since it first started in 1997, has led to a certain level of convergence stress in the Member States and has brought with it increasing unanimity as to what an active labour market policy in Europe could be.
That is apparent from the continued refinement of the employment guidelines, although I would add that this is rather unilaterally evident from the first pillar, namely employability, and that the results in the field of adaptability of undertakings still leave something to be desired.
Yet, the moment of truth is now upon us, in my opinion.
In this economic slow-down, Member States must prove that the Lisbon objectives, being sustainable growth, full employment and quality of jobs, were not simply prescribed for periods of boom, but must also remain applicable now.
That means that the Member States will need to lend a hand, for at the same time, I have noticed that a number of cracks are starting to show in the employment strategy.
First of all, I have noticed that people have cold feet about laying down specific, let alone European, objectives and benchmarks.
For example, I think it is great that the Council has recognised that equal opportunities for men and women is a question of social justice as well as economic efficiency.
However, I should also like to see the Council go the extra mile by formulating clear, quantitative and specific objectives in terms of reducing the wage gap and setting up a number of child care centres.
Commissioner, I hope that you will be monitoring this closely.
Secondly, with regard to the mix of policy measures, the method of open coordination is an interesting policy instrument in areas where Europe previously had nothing to say, and I very much applaud the fact that the Belgian Presidency has included the aspect of quality of employment.
Commissioner, it seems obvious to me, however, that collective agreements as well as social legislation will be needed in different areas where the social dialogue has failed.
That is why it is of the utmost importance for my group, for example, to know whether the European Commission will, after the failure of social consultation, produce a draft directive on temporary employment.
Indeed, temporary employment can create new opportunities.
However, for temporary employment to be quality employment which offers social rights, trade union rights, right to training and, at the same time, guarantees for permanent staff in the firms making use of their services, a European directive must be compiled which offers a number of warranties, warranties which have, inter alia, been presented in the joint declaration recently concluded by Euro-CIETT and UNI-EUROPA and that include, for example, equal treatment at temporary employment agencies and at firms making use of their services.
Commissioner, following on from this debate, I should like to know when you will be presenting this draft directive to Parliament and in what way these essential basic conditions will be met.
Mr President, I, too, wish to congratulate Mrs Weiler on her report.
I very much agree with her remark about the significance of training and the importance of making a special effort on behalf of older people in the labour market.
I do not agree that we, in the EU, should have a directive granting any rights, but I well understand that many in this House want to see special emphasis and importance given to actually ensuring a right to training.
However, this is something which the individual countries must take care of.
The employment guidelines provide, of course, both some political priorities and some political objectives, and they also provide a framework for deciding which funds are to be used in order to achieve the objectives.
The funds are allocated to four pillars.
The unemployed must be made better qualified to obtain jobs. They must be given more incentives to get into employment.
That is the first pillar. Secondly, entrepreneurship must be promoted so that we see more companies and jobs created, partly through the removal of constricting regulations and bureaucratic arrangements.
Thirdly, adaptability and flexibility must be promoted so that companies become more competitive. And fourthly, more opportunities must be provided for combining working life and family life so that there is a real opportunity for women to achieve equality in the labour market, leading to an improvement in the employment situation where women are concerned.
Many points have been registered under the four pillars, and I believe we are coming to a point at which it is worth considering whether we are pinning too much on this process, for the more objectives we add to the process, the more we are also in danger of watering down the cooperation and perhaps losing sight of the real goals, namely those of creating more jobs and getting the unemployed into work.
That being said, I am very pleased that, this time, we have obtained an innovation in the guidelines for the year 2000, whereby local and regional efforts are to be involved and local and regional employment strategies developed. I also believe this underlines the fact that the Commission will need resources for carrying out analyses and studies within this area.
Several days ago, a leading French newspaper ran a headline story on the efforts bring made to combat rising unemployment and it described the wave of near-panic sweeping through the announcements of poor unemployment figures.
At times like these, when a recession may be looming, we find it even more regrettable that employment is not the main priority of the economic and monetary guidelines.
I would like to reiterate that the Group of the Greens believes that employment policy cannot only have the function of monitoring or softening the peaks and troughs of the globalised economy by creating safety nets, by helping those who are out of work to find their way back into the job market.
This is all the Luxembourg process has achieved, it is also, evidently, all that the guidelines proposed by the Commission for 2002 are likely to achieve, and is also all that the Weiler report, which is part of this approach, can achieve.
Whilst expressing regret that the Member States did little in response to their invitation to set objectives for unemployment levels, the Commission and the Council have quite rightly placed the emphasis on verifying the qualitative impact of the policies implemented.
In order to clarify this approach, we are proposing two amendments. The first proposes to draw up comparable statistics on the various types of employment, in other words, including underemployment, partial unemployment, and to assess the consequences of so-called employment incentive measures in terms of enhanced social inclusion or exclusion.
Our second amendment proposes to strengthen the action of employment monitoring services in order to prevent flexible short-term contracts being abused.
We must, as a matter of urgency, curb the development of poverty, lack of job security, and unpleasant working conditions.
We still need to introduce a policy to create businesses and jobs.
Instead of despairing over poor growth forecasts as if these were gloomy weather reports, we should try to shape this policy in accordance with our objectives on social and territorial cohesion, and decide on, for example, the necessary large-scale investments, including public investment, draw up a European job creation policy, and not simply a work placement policy.
Mr President, I, too, want to thank Mrs Weiler for a good report.
The Commission reports on which this debate is based presuppose that there are to be no major changes this year, because a large-scale evaluation of the first five-year period is to be carried out in the course of next year.
We do not, therefore, wish to start making changes at the present stage.
Naturally, this state of affairs has also had a marked influence upon the current report, which concerns what we have discussed in previous years.
I think that the rapporteur has added some important aspects: quality at work, training, professional education, life long learning, equality etc.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs submitted a number of proposals for the report, of which a number were adopted and introduced into the report.
These amendments worry me because some of them place such heavy emphasis upon price stability policy, budget restriction policy and such like.
They worry me because we are heading for an economy which is no longer as strong.
The Luxembourg procedure has been very focused upon improving the supply of labour, but this presupposes that there are job opportunities and that current economic policy is creating job opportunities and countering the trend towards economic recession.
I therefore believe that, in the current situation, the amendments in question militate against a European employment strategy.
I should also like to say a few words about the future.
A number of evaluations are now under way.
I have been in contact with people working on a number of the ongoing research projects, and I believe that one of the things that will be emphasised is the fact that the Member States are failing to implement the policy properly.
There is relatively broad agreement between those pursuing labour market policy in the Member States but, in spite of that, no such policy is being implemented in the Member States themselves.
The labour market administrations really do not have much to do with the procedure itself.
They are pursuing their own policy.
The parliaments have no influence at all, but it is nonetheless they who must fund the national efforts we are demanding.
It is therefore incredibly important that more attention be paid to the parliaments in particular, but also to the entire political process in the Member States, if the result is to be effective.
I believe that this will be the major task in the forthcoming evaluation.
It is not enough simply to emphasise indicators and such like.
The bodies that supply the finance and then administer the measures must also play an active role in the process.
Mr President, I am pleased to have the opportunity to address Mrs Weiler's report.
She has identified unemployment as one of the most serious economic and social problems faced by the European Union.
This was true prior to 11 September.
It has now become an even more stark reality in the aftermath and against the background of continuing economic uncertainty which results from war.
One in 12 EU citizens is unemployed today.
This is an intolerable situation and one which is of great concern to all of us.
Indeed, unemployment rates are much higher in some Member States.
Solving the problem of unemployment requires active labour market measures.
Labour markets do not always function efficiently, and Member States must be prepared to take up their responsibilities when the need arises.
The Luxembourg process of employment guidelines is intended to give the Member States a powerful stimulus in shaping their employment policies.
In the short time available to me I want to focus on recent events, but firstly I want to say that a number of key European industries are facing unprecedented difficulties.
Every effort must be made to secure the maximum number of jobs.
Hardest hit at the moment is the airline industry but we must not forget the tourist industry which has already suffered greatly this year from foot-and-mouth disease.
In the case of the Irish national airline, Aer Lingus, 40% of their business and 60% of their profits are generated on trans-Atlantic routes.
Ireland's location as an island state in the north-west periphery of the Union creates a particular set of circumstances to which I would urge the Commission to give full consideration.
The collapse of Aer Lingus simply cannot be permitted.
The economic and social consequences would be unparalleled in any other Member State in the Union, and the knock-on effects to related industries would be enormous.
The fact that we are an island state without any linkage to the rest of Europe means that we require this.
The Commission must look at this sympathetically and favourably.
Mr President, I do not wish to make any profession of political faith in the many detailed proposals to be found in the report and in the Commission' s proposal for a Council decision.
By far the majority of these are to be welcomed and are politically correct, and many are in response to urgent needs, especially the conclusions of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, which Mrs Theorin has reported on.
However, I have some general remarks on employment policy and the EU' s labour market policy which have, of course, been an overriding theme of a number of reports and proposals here this afternoon.
First of all, I have a remark to make about the reality as it is perceived.
There is, of course, a very big gap between the reports of various kinds and the social reality.
Armchair manifestos are largely absurd descriptions of social reality and will be completely unrecognisable to Europe' s enormous army of unemployed and socially excluded.
A similar remove from reality is reflected in quite a few places in this report.
We see this, for example, in recital F, which emphatically opposes the attitude that 'labour market considerations are subordinated to economic policy' .
The Treaty' s convergence requirements and such like may, upon examination, perhaps be seen as wishful thinking, but the only problem is that the Treaty is out of step with reality.
The other remark I have to make is that employment policy and labour market policy, in general, consist, in large measure, of just such political confessions of faith.
On the one hand, this means that we are operating in an area where what is decided is not legally binding, and this, of course, gives free rein to a lot of fine words and good intentions.
On the other hand, we are, to a large extent, in areas for which the Treaty provides no legal bases for proper legal regulation. What, however, there is, at present, no legal base for, there may in future be a legal base for.
I am thinking, for example, of the reference to harmonisation of social arrangements, of tax policy etc.
However, I would remind you that, in Denmark, we have a saying about all good intentions, to the effect that 'the way to hell is paved with good intentions' .
Mr President, we all stand for a higher level of employment, indeed for full employment. But how?
There are considerable differences in how we answer the question as to how we want to achieve this objective.
Many advocate, to the exclusion of all else, additional measures for employees, but that alone cannot reach the goal.
We must indeed implement measures to benefit both employers and employees - or transpose such measures, as the case may be.
This means, though, that we, together, have to be consistent in ensuring that there is a durable improvement in the economic conditions for our small and medium-sized businesses.
Two-thirds of all European workers are employed in them.
Their productive capacity must be improved, and that by means of easier access to additional finance on more favourable terms and a distinct reduction in the tax burden.
Mr President, unemployment is the most serious problem facing our European national economies.
Young people, women, older people and people with disabilities have a particularly hard time of it.
There is a lack of access to training, vocational and continuing education, retraining and, of course, work itself.
Society's weaker members must, though, be strengthened in a spirit of solidarity.
Mrs Weiler is right to draw attention to the 1997 Luxembourg Summit.
The Member States have been showing their true colours since the guidelines on employment policy appeared.
Progress has been made in lifelong learning, in the application of practices which have proved their worth, in the involvement of both sides of industry and in action plans for local and regional employment.
Above all, though, incentives for active jobseeking and for investment in research and development, the reduction of the tax burden on work and structural reforms are all still lacking.
In this report, I do not find long-term strategies, but rather feverish measures for dealing with periods of slack growth.
Not everything can be blamed on the tragic events of 11 September.
Predictions of growth must be substantially adjusted, for example Germany's from 3% in January to 0.75% this week.
Chancellor Schröder will not reach his goal of reducing the number of unemployed to 3.5 million in the election year, since the figure is expected to shoot up to 3.8 million.
His famous steady hand is trembling.
An additional EUR 2.5 billion will be required for unemployment benefit and for the Federal Institute for Employment.
If Germany, the engine of growth, falters, the whole of the European Union will be affected.
It is high time that there were financial concessions for SMEs.
Taxes must not be raised still further, especially at a low point in the economic cycle.
Tax reforms must be brought forward and the Member States must become more active in the fight against the black economy and tax evasion.
I urge both sides of industry to make employment contracts more flexible and further modernise the organisation of work.
In doing this, I am counting on the expertise and commitment of responsible managers and employees.
Mr President, I should also like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for an excellent report.
When we look back at the very short period during which we have worked on employment policy within the EU, we have to note that it has been relatively successful.
The level of employment has increased and unemployment has gone down, and that is indeed progress.
Now that the economy is in decline, the moment of truth has, however, arrived, and I believe that the need for a coordinated employment policy is even greater than before.
Even though the situation is encouraging now, we still see shortcomings, such as women' s low share of the labour market.
It is not just that women' s share of that market is much lower than men' s. Rather, women are over-represented when it comes to atypical and precarious jobs in the labour market, even in countries which have a very high proportion of women in gainful employment.
As has been observed in recent years, there are also problems when it comes to the older workforce.
It is really a pity that such a small proportion of the population between the ages of 55 and 65 are in work.
In this area, a range of measures relating to the working environment, skill development etc. is needed if we are going to be able to increase these figures.
There are also very large regional differences and, for groups such as immigrants and the disabled, levels of employment are still very low.
I welcome the discussion about quality at work and about not only creating more job opportunities but also increasing the quality of those jobs.
In this area, a long list of measures is, however, required. That applies, of course, to the working environment, and especially to the new problems arising in the working environment in connection with people being stressed, excluded, burned out and such like.
It also applies, however, to the issue of life long learning. I believe that this is perhaps the most central issue if we are to be able to obtain economic growth and create more employment opportunities in the future, and that is why I am supporting this universal right.
I genuinely want to see a framework agreement at European level in which the social partners agree to this right. I do not know whether that is possible.
Otherwise, the Commission will have to act. However, it would be the best solution.
This right to skill development must then be adapted at national level within different sectors.
Finally, a view of the open coordination method.
The open coordination method exists parallel to legislation in the areas of employment law and the working environment.
The open coordination method is good, but is lacking in the areas of democratic control and transparency.
We must free the European Parliament to exercise influence on this process.
The open coordination method has grown in importance over the course of a long period of time. It has operated relatively well, but there is a lack of democratic control.
Mr President, I join with Mrs Weiler in many of her assessments and conclusions, and also consider much of what has been presented by the Commission to represent definite progress.
Mrs Weiler, I would like to express my congratulations to you on this work, but also wish to point out three major problems that I find in the real world, which is not quite as rosy as it is depicted in some of the Commission's assessments or, indeed, in this report.
First among them is the strategy of full employment by 2010 on the basis of a 3% growth rate.
I found that illusory from the very start.
The problem with it, though, is that other ways of combating unemployment have been disregarded.
It is lamentable that even Social Democrats stay aloof if you advocate the reduction of working hours.
Scant regard is paid to elements of a third economic sector for social, ecological and cultural services or indeed to the greening of society.
The second problematic aspect - one to which Mr Andersson has just referred - is the split development of employment policy.
There are, of course, some positive trends.
Full employment in engineering and in technical and managerial occupations has increased.
Modernisation really does have winners.
The other side of the coin is, though, a clear increase in part-time employment, especially of women, among whom it has now reached 45.7%. in the EU.
The third problem is this: you have addressed the issue of the quality of work but, in my opinion, the social content of work is largely disregarded.
The law on employment contracts is 'made more flexible' but in reality it is relaxed.
We see the promotion of the low-wage sector.
The right of the long-term unemployed to choose their work is being limited.
It is precisely because these things are naturally long-term phenomena that we are, I believe, obliged to act with sensitivity in taking precautions, so that no new social division arises.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Weiler, on the quality of her report.
This House has been an enthusiastic supporter of the quantitative objectives laid down at the Lisbon and Stockholm European Councils with regard to the overall rate of employment, the rate of female employment and the rate of employment amongst the elderly.
Unemployment, as has already been said, is one of the most serious economic and social problems the European Union faces and, currently, one in twelve citizens is unemployed, with the worst-affected groups being women, young people, the elderly, the disabled and members of ethnic minorities.
The 2002 guidelines for employment must be accompanied in all aspects by qualitative objectives, hence the importance of adopting special measures for incentives and action in the field of economic and social cohesion for the least-developed regions which lack the appropriate structures.
One pillar of the employment strategy, the entrepreneurial spirit, calls for priority to be given to the creation and growth of SMEs, which have enormous potential for job creation, as we can see from the most recent data from Eurostat, which shows that micro-enterprises with between one and nine workers made the greatest increase in terms of job creation in the European Union.
The report quite rightly highlights reducing bureaucratic and tax obligations as a means of stimulating the creation and growth of companies.
Nevertheless, we must reiterate that active support must be provided for the creation of infrastructures to support research and development, vocational training and lifelong learning so as to ensure the quality and continuity of employment.
We all know that the European Union will only become a knowledge-based economy if all Member States make investment in human resources their absolute priority.
While the European Parliament deliberates on a report on employment policy, a report that sings the praises of competition, and claims that the social market economy has proved its worth, this same market economy has recently claimed a further 4 000 victims, 4 000 Moulinex workers who now find themselves jobless.
I am citing the example of Moulinex, because the decision has just been taken.
I could, however, cite dozens of other businesses scattered throughout Europe, from Philips to Siemens, as well as several airlines.
This is a tragedy for many thousands of employees, and a disaster for the regions that are affected.
I would like to express my solidarity with the workers of these companies and my indignation at the attitude of their bosses, who have become wealthy on the back of the workers.
The latter are made to pay for their bosses' economic blunders, and they are now jobless, have no wages coming in, sometimes after they have been in employment for many years.
These workers have reaped no benefits whatsoever from their companies' periods of prosperity, and in no way are they responsible for their difficulties.
Both governments and the European institutions are helping to prolong this despicable situation, where workers are suffering to enable company owners to safeguard their assets.
The money needed to finance jobs must be deducted from the wealth accumulated by shareholders, past and present, and from the resources held by banks.
Without this political will, these great promises on employment policy are nothing more than idle talk.
So, I warn you, workers will not let themselves be pushed around forever; the greed of their bosses and the policies that favour their employers will eventually cause social upheaval.
This is what will require a genuine employment policy, as it is this alone that will force those who have made their fortune on the back of others to shoulder their responsibilities.
Mr President, further to the present evaluation of the employment process, I should like to draw the attention of the Commission, and of Parliament too, of course, to two points.
First of all, there is the method of coordination itself.
It has become a popular method in the social sector with regard to a number of themes which fall within national competence but which create common problems across all European countries.
It is therefore possible to put forward common goals.
However, Commissioner, the success of the method, given the fact that it is not a binding mechanism, relies on the moral and political pressure that can be exerted.
Media attention plays an essential role in this.
The employment process based on the open coordination method has now been running for some five years, and a dramatic decline has been noticed in the level of attention given to this.
Media attention has waned and, as a result of this, there has been less pressure on national governments to take serious account of the objectives and of the annual criticism levelled by the Council and Commission at their national action plans.
The open coordination method is only successful insofar as convergence stress continues to exist, and efforts will need to be made in order to sustain its existence.
The question therefore arises as to how the pressure can be kept up. In my opinion, this should be one of the crucial points in the evaluation.
The second point is best practices.
The different reports include best practices for national Member States.
The question is: to what extent is a policy being adopted to actually learn something from those best practices? How many Member States have visited projects in other Member States?
How many best practices have been discussed in the different Member States? It is one of the methods, even if the pressure subsides, to keep the employment policy going.
I would therefore ask for both these points to be looked at in the evaluation.
Thank you, Commissioner Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 tomorrow.
Exposure of workers to risks arising from physical agents
The next item on the agenda is the recommendation for Second Reading (A5-0320/2001) by Mrs Thorning-Schmidt on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Common Position of the Council [7914/1/2001 - C5-0293/2001 - 1992/0449(COD)] with reference to the adoption of the Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on minimum requirements to protect the health and safety of workers from physical hazards (vibrations) (16th individual directive under Article 16 (1) of Directive 89/391/EEC).
Mr President, the Council of Ministers has presented a common position on mechanical vibrations.
There are a great many good things in the common position.
The best is that agreement on a compromise has been successfully reached in the Council.
This means that there is now broad recognition of the fact that vibrations constitute a health risk, when it comes both to hand/arm vibrations and whole-body vibrations.
It is also good that all three institutions appear to be in agreement as to a method of limiting these vibrations.
The key to this method is the parallel introduction of action values and limit values that should never be exceeded.
In the Committee reading, we talked a lot about the limit values.
That is really rather a pity, however, for it is in actual fact the action values that are the most important for, when the action values are exceeded, the employer is obliged to do something and to take preventative action to change the way in which the work is organised.
It is precisely this method which offers flexibility and emphasises prevention rather than injunctions.
Moreover, I find it very annoying that it is precisely this flexibility and the emphasis on prevention that have not been recognised at all by the opponents of the proposal here in Parliament.
That is a great pity, in view of the fact that they themselves often talk about flexibility and prevention rather than injunctions.
However, there are, unfortunately, also less happy facets of this proposal by the Council of Ministers.
The Commission' s original proposal has been weakened in a number of ways, and it has therefore been necessary to table some amendments.
I will go through a couple of them.
Amendment No 1 is a reminder that we still do not have the directives concerning the remaining physical agents.
We know that the Noise Directive is on the way, but we are now waiting impatiently for the latter, and it would be appropriate if, by accepting our amendments, the Commission were, today, to tell us that they are as committed as we are to putting these directives in place.
We have been waiting for many years.
Amendment No 2 is crucial.
As I say, it is good that the Council could agree to set a limit value, but when you consider how high it really is, you can also understand how agreement could have been successfully reached.
The proposed 1.15 m/s2 constitutes a significant weakening of the original proposal.
The report therefore proposes a limit value of 0.8 m/s2.
We know from the internationally recognised ISO standards that it can be said with certainty that there are health risks with exposure of more than 0.8 m/s2.
It therefore makes more sense to set a limit value in which the protection of employees will, in actual fact, be something real.
There is no question of any tightening-up.
All that is proposed is a return to the level proposed by the Commission itself at first reading, and there is no new knowledge to justify choosing another limit value.
Some MEPs have repeated again and again that there is not one single proof of the connection between whole-body vibrations and injury.
That is simply not the case, however.
There is a quite clear connection between strong vibrations and injury.
That is something that science is agreed about.
It is true that we cannot put clear figures upon the number of people who will be injured in the case of a specific limit value.
However, that is how it will always be when it is a question of people and their working environment.
In such cases, the precautionary principle must be applied, and this is also something actually laid down in the Treaty.
Amendment No 5 proposes shorter transitional periods than those proposed in the common position.
Clearly, these could be applied in practice out in the real world.
With the common position, however, we should arrive at transitional periods of up to 12 years, and it makes almost no sense to legislate for such long periods.
Finally, on behalf of my own Group of the Party of European Socialists and of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I have tabled an amendment that makes it possible to exempt agriculture and forestry from the limit values for whole-body vibrations.
We have arrived at a compromise whereby agriculture and forestry, like aviation and shipping, are given the opportunity to be exempt from these limit values for whole-body vibrations.
We have done this because we remained doubtful as to whether agriculture could, in fact, comply with these conditions.
Allow me to emphasise two things in this connection.
First of all, I think that the farming industry' s impact assessments have been very exaggerated and therefore not to be taken seriously.
It has been maintained that farmers would only be able to work for two hours a day.
That, I think, is wrong.
I believe in actual fact that, in preparing the assessments, it has been forgotten that the directive only applies to employees and not to people who are self-employed.
The second thing it is important to state is that this compromise proposal does not mean that we are giving up combating harmful vibrations within agriculture.
It simply means choosing another method, and it is worth emphasising that the action values must go on being maintained.
I hope that the Commission and the Council will respond positively to our proposal.
I also hope that we shall obtain wide support for the proposals here in the House.
The text before us is balanced and reasonable and fulfils the main purpose of this directive, namely to ensure flexibility in the workplace at the same time as ensuring that employees are guaranteed the necessary protection against harmful vibrations in the workplace.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive which is before us for its second reading, falls within the scope of measures that aim to improve the safety and health of workers. As you know, this is an objective that Parliament quite rightly considers very important.
We must, however, find a fair balance between, on the one hand, the need to protect the health and safety of workers and, on the other hand, the need to prevent this directive from placing excessive burdens on companies and particularly on small- and medium-sized enterprises.
If we adopt overly restrictive exposure limit values, it could, in practice, and technically speaking, turn out to be extremely difficult to abide by them; it could actually harm the interests of workers, either because this could lead to their working time being limited to two hours per day, or because if the limit values are not applied, the protection they do have could be significantly reduced.
Since this report only concerns the issue of vibrations, we must also take into account the delicate and hard-won agreement between the various national requirements, and we must not impose further excessive restrictions on the sectors and industries concerned.
And in this respect, I would like to say that our Committee was not able to complete its work due to an incredibly busy timetable.
We were unable to interview all the relevant people involved before the deadline, and this is something I regret.
For these reasons, our group believes that the amendments adopted in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs are a relatively acceptable compromise between the requirement for the protection of workers and on the competitiveness of European industry.
Nevertheless, our group considers that it is essential to include the derogation option for the agricultural and forestry sectors, since the current arrangements for servicing and replacing machinery in these sectors would not enable exposure limit values to be effectively applied.
On a personal note, and particularly with regard to the work that we did last week, I would lastly like to thank Mrs Thorning-Schmidt for her cooperation.
Mrs Diamantopoulou, I hope that this spirit of openness, as part of our conciliation work with the Council, will enable us to agree on a halfway point so that the directive can be adopted within a reasonable timeframe.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Thorning-Schmidt, for the tremendous grasp she has demonstrated of this highly technical subject both in committee and in plenary.
My father and his brothers and, in fact, all the male members of my family worked in the coalmines in the northeast of England and most of them have received compensation for both industrial white finger, which is caused by hand-arm vibration, and industrial deafness.
This proposal concerning physical agents is a very real proposal to me.
Vibration has been a major problem in the past.
But it still is, and that is demonstrated by the very strenuous lobbying on all Members of this House from various sectors of industry in relation to this proposal.
I would like to echo what the rapporteur has said about the other elements of the original physical agents' directive.
Noise, the original directive of 1986, was due to be reviewed in 1991.
Here we are, ten years later, and no revision to the existing legislation on noise has been made.
On optical radiation, industrial lasers were in their infancy when the original proposal was brought forward.
They are now in widespread use and we need to update or introduce law at European level on that subject in regard to fields and waves.
We are increasingly bombarded by fields and waves of all types and all intensities in our homes and workplaces.
That is set to increase radically as a result of developments such as the new bluetooth standard.
All of those outstanding elements are becoming increasingly urgent, and I hope the Commission will continue its good work to break the impasse that has so far existed inside the Council.
The rapporteur has introduced a number of important amendments in her report, but probably among the most important is Amendment No 2 concerning whole-body vibration.
Amendment No 2 represents a compromise, it lies between the Commission's original proposal and the common position, and I hope it will receive the support of the House.
We have received strenuous lobbying, particularly on whole-body vibration.
There is general consensus on the need to act on hand-arm vibration, but industrial lobbyists have worked hard to convince Members that there is no link between whole-body vibration and injury.
I know for a fact that the Commission has at least 17 box-files of evidence showing causality between exposure to whole-body vibration and injury.
The difficulty is in untangling what proportion of the injury is due directly to whole-body vibration and what proportion is due to other factors such as poor ergonomics or bad posture.
There is a causal link and there is a need to act.
I hope we will see support for the rapporteur on that issue.
The rapporteur has also mentioned a compromise to exclude agriculture.
It proved necessary to introduce such a compromise; the exclusion would be for five years if it does come to pass.
I would have preferred that it did not occur, but it had to happen to secure political consensus here for today's vote.
If it is agreed, the Commission must not do its usual trick of waiting the full five years before assessing the scientific evidence and bringing forward a proposal.
The preparatory work needs to be done to move quickly once that five years has expired.
What, then, we are aiming for and will continue to seek to achieve in conciliation, beyond the debate and vote today, is a balance between action levels and limit values which it will be possible for industry to accept and implement but will at the same time drive forward improved engineering to eliminate vibration from new equipment and improve the way in which ergonomic considerations are taken into account.
I hope the report will be supported today.
I am going to deal specifically with whole-body vibration.
As has already been said, there is evidence that whitefinger can be caused by hand-arm vibration, but I do not believe that there is sufficient evidence that whole body vibration causes tremendous health risks for workers.
There is a slight health risk, but even the ISO standards say that there is no quantitative health risk, and so without further scientific evidence, I think it would be crazy for us to put more burdens on industry.
I am glad that the rapporteur has eventually agreed that we need a compromise on agriculture, so I urge you all to vote for Amendment No 11.
This would exclude agriculture and forestry for five years and then it would come back to Parliament after further research and scientific evidence has been provided.
If we do not vote for the compromise in Amendment No 11, I believe that the harvest across the whole of the EU will not be able to take place.
If we do not vote for it, tractor drivers, for instance, will be able to drive their tractor for between 2 to 4 hours in any 8 hour period and that is if we get the 0.8 m/s2 that the rapporteur is suggesting.
Even if agriculture and forestry is taken back, we need to go back to the common position of 1.15 m/s2 instead of the 0.8 that the rapporteur is proposing, because if we do not go back to that, other parts of the industry such as engineering, mining, construction will have tremendous problems, so I urge you to make sure that you do not vote to put more restrictions on industry when we do not have a quantitative health risk demonstrated.
I hereby beg you not to vote for the rapporteur's position on this and to go back to the common position and vote for Amendment No 11 and against Amendments Nos 2, 4, 12 and 9.
Mr President, in my opinion, the rapporteur has done sterling work.
I have been active in an advisory role vis-à-vis works councils, trade unions and industry concerning conditions at work, among other things.
I have observed that, for some fifteen years, we in the Netherlands - but that also applies to other Member States in terms of best practices - have been working with the ISO Standard 2631, as recommended and followed by Mrs Thorning-Schmidt.
Only at the end did we decide to adopt the amendment by Mrs Hermange.
I actually agree that we should not simply consider the views of industry.
There are also other angles to be considered.
For example, the trade unions have stated that this is not simply a matter of exposure from a health perspective, but also a matter of symptoms of fatigue, for example.
Consequently, the standard should, from the point of view of safety - or, rather, the lack of this - actually be stricter than is now the case.
I have not yet heard this aspect mentioned here, and it should actually help us find a happy medium.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mrs Thorning-Schmidt on her excellent work and, having said this, I would like to remind you that Article 31(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that every worker has the right to working conditions which respect his or her health, safety and dignity.
This is a wide-ranging declaration, within the chapter on solidarity, which includes not only the measures taken against obvious risks, such as the risk of falling or risks faced when dealing with abrasive materials, but also those preventative measures used against risks that could go undetected by the majority of those who are not experts in this field.
These are the risks that those who work in mines, in construction and in the field of transport have to face on a daily basis, which, according to those who study them, affect up to 24% of European workers.
These risks originate from two different types of vibration: Hand-arm vibration, which is the cause of whitefinger, impaired feeling and grip, amongst other problems, or Whole-body vibration, which is the cause of back problems, lumbar pains and slipped discs.
It is worth remembering, Commissioner, that these measures should not be limited to including only physical causes, such as vibrations, but should also take account of electromagnetic fields, noise and waves and optical radiation, for example, and also bear in mind the transitional period needed to make the required adjustments arising from the adoption of these measures.
I am convinced that all employers and workers have a common goal, which is the improvement of their workspace and environment, so that the place in which they work is suitable.
A transitional period will be needed so that equipment can be replaced and procedures can be improved and adapted. Differences relating to technological development and type of activity, such as agriculture, will have to be taken into account, with a conviction that 'no-risk' does not exist and that the quest for safety is the responsibility of all those involved: workers, be they self-employed or employed, employers or local, regional or national administrations.
Mr President, in my two years in this Parliament I have never received such a barrage of letters of complaint as I have about this report.
I am talking particularly about whole-body vibration aspects, rather than hand and arm vibration.
These comments are not just from employers, large and small, in farming, quarrying, mining, engineering and construction businesses - to name but a few - who are rightly concerned about the very viability of their entire industries under these proposals.
They are also from ordinary employees concerned about their jobs if the rapporteur's amendments go through.
Recently published and well-respected scientific work from Germany, Italy and the UK, as well as the rapporteur's own country of Denmark, shows no direct quantifiable link between whole-body vibration and back pain.
I note that Mr Hughes maintains otherwise; not for the first time his own government disagrees with him.
The above comments from constituents have two things in common: their anger that Socialist MEPs should be proposing such amendments in the first place, and their sheer disbelief that such MEPs could be so out of touch with reality.
Let me be clear.
The above comments are nothing to do with health and safety, issues which all of us recognise as important.
They are everything to do with the rapporteur jumping to conclusions that are not supported by specific scientific evidence.
The UK government is strongly opposed to the rapporteur's proposed amendments which, it maintains, would damage industry and agriculture for no benefit.
UK Conservative MEPs agree, and we urge the UK Labour MEPs, who supported this report so resolutely in committee, now to support the common position, and meanwhile to support our compromise, tabled jointly by a number of political groups.
I urge you all to join us in voting for sound science and sound sense.
Mr President, this is really one of the worst pieces of legislation I have seen in this Parliament.
The benefits it offers are vague and speculative - they are unproven and unquantified, but the costs are real, immediate and massive.
Credible estimates suggest that the costs of implementation in the UK alone could range between EUR 15 and 30 billion.
The effects will reach into a wide-range of industries - not only agriculture, but road haulage, construction and many other areas.
I have been contacted by an exceptionally wide-range of business organisations and they are universally opposed to the measure and especially to those amendments which would make it even more repressive.
Those organisations include: the Confederation of British Industry, the National Farmers' Union, the Road Haulage Association, the Quarrying Association, the Coal Industry and JCB, the heavy equipment manufacturer.
It appears that the limit set by the directive would restrict a truck driver to six hours work, a tractor driver to two or three hours and a brush cutter to 15 minutes.
This will do huge damage to European economies.
It will cost jobs.
It has been pointed out that the average jogger exceeds the limit by a factor of 7 or 8, while even walking down a road could break the rules.
I suspect that I was over the limit on Monday on the bus from Basle Airport to Strasbourg!
The directive also places huge new costs and administrative burdens on industry in terms of measuring vibration levels and recording exposure.
There is a crying need, Mr President, for proper regulatory impact assessments to be applied to European legislative proposals.
If that had been done in this case, it would never have got this far.
Any possible benefits are far outweighed by the costs.
It appears that we cannot reject the whole proposal, but I appeal to colleagues to support amendments which would soften it and to reject amendments which would make it even more disastrous than it already is.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission I would like to congratulate Mrs Thorning-Schmidt for her excellent report particularly because it is such a difficult technical issue: It is not only that is a difficult dossier, but it has been before the Council since 1994 and only now are things on the move.
I consider that this legislation on vibrations will be a fundamental step to achieving better protection of the health and safety of workers exposed to risks arising from physical agents, but of course, we have to take into account the economic impact, the impact in the enterprises - the small, medium and large.
That is why we propose a step-by-step approach.
We cannot forget that a considerable number of workers suffer from the effects of their exposure to vibrations, notably neurological, vascular and musculo-skeletal disorders.
This is a particularly serious problem which is costly for business and society and which, more importantly, causes suffering for the people directly involved as well as for their families, and when we discuss costs, we must calculate the cost that enterprises have because of the health problems of their workers.
On your amendments, the Commission has worked very hard to maintain a high level of protection while, at the same time, ensuring that a compromise could be reached.
Although we consider that lower values more in line with the amended proposal would be more appropriate, we have accepted the Council's common position with a view to achieving a global compromise.
The common position increases the exposure limit values and exposure action values for the whole-body vibrations and introduces new provisions on transitional periods for existing work equipment in general and for equipment used in the agricultural and forestry sectors in particular.
For reasons of consistency, the Commission cannot therefore accept Amendment No 2, which decreases the exposure values for whole-body vibrations in the common position, nor the part of Amendment No 5 which reduces the length of the transitional periods.
However, the last part of Amendment No 5 would be acceptable if slightly redrafted.
Similarly, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 8 and 12 because they merely restate the principles of the employer's responsibility already contained in the Framework Directive without additional added value, nor Amendments Nos 9 and 13 since they either remove the possibility for Member States to grant derogations on whole-body vibrations in case of seasonal work or simply allow for the averaging of exposures which is already considered by the ISO standards to which the directive refers.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 11 for both technical and political reasons.
Although the Commission agrees with the principles behind the changes proposed by Amendment No 1, we can only agree with the first part but we cannot accept the second part which foresees the commitment of both the European Parliament and the Council to continue with the adoption of other parts of the original physical agents proposal.
This is not a question of political disagreement.
This part of the recital contravenes the rule that the recitals 'shall not contain normative provisions or political exhortations'.
I accept Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 7.
These amendments clearly improve and clarify the text.
I regret that I have to reject Amendment No 6 as it stands.
Nevertheless, I could accept the idea of justifications to be provided by Member States on any transitional periods or derogations granted by them.
This should however be integrated in Article 14 (1).
Finally, let me remind you that the step-by-step approach we have used, starting with vibrations, implies that we should now push ahead with the remaining three physical agents included in the Commission's original proposal: noise, electromagnetic fields and optical radiation.
To conclude, the Commission can accept in full Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 7.
It can accept in part Amendments Nos 1, 5 and 6 and it rejects Amendments Nos 2, 8, 9, 11, 12 and 13.
Thank you, Commissioner Diamantopoulou.
Ladies and gentlemen, to judge by what I am hearing now, I think we will soon be needing a new Directive on noise in the Chamber during a debate!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon today.
I was at the Bureau meeting last night and I am not aware that the Bureau actually took any final decisions.
They took a decision to write a letter to Mr Prodi and therefore there are still ongoing discussions on this matter.
The point made by you and by Mrs Morgan will be raised again in the Bureau.
I can assure you that it will be given proper consideration.
Mr President, can we take that as an assurance that no letter will be sent until the Bureau has met again on Thursday, because that is what I think the House would like to hear?
I cannot tell you the status of the letter.
I imagine that it has already been sent, so I cannot say that it will not be sent.
But the matter will be given full discussion when the Bureau meets again tomorrow.
This report has been scheduled for today since the agenda was drawn up.
We get a great deal of complaints from the press who say that we do not vote quickly enough after we have had a debate.
Therefore a balance has to be struck.
VOTE
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal) - Draft Council decision on the protection of the euro against counterfeiting (10616/2001 - C5-0362/2001 - 2001/0804(CNS)) (Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs)
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)- Proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2262/84 laying down special measures in respect of olive oil (COM(2001) 455 - C5-0437/2001 - 2001/0181(CNS)) (Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development)
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Reports without debate:
Report (A5-0317/2001) by Caroline Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision laying down a Community Action Programme promoting non-governmental organisations primarily active in the field of environmental protection (COM(2001) 337 - C5-0281/2001 - 2001/0139(COD))
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution)
- Report (A5-0346/2001) by Diemut Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the appointment of nine Members of the Court of Auditors
((C5-0282/2001 - 2001/0808(CNS)
C5-0283/2001 - 2001/0809(CNS)
C5-0284/2001 - 2001/0810(CNS)
C5-0285/2001 - 2001/0811(CNS)
C5-0286/2001 - 2001/0813(CNS)
C5-0287/2001 - 2001/0814(CNS)
C5-0288/2001 - 2001/0815(CNS)
C5-0290/2001 - 2001/0812(CNS)
C5-0291/2001 - 2001/0816(CNS))
Theato (PPE-DE), rapporteur.
(DE) Mr President, I would like to make a few short remarks on the procedure.
In accordance with Article 247 of the Treaty, the Council has on this occasion, after consulting Parliament, to appoint nine members of the Court of Auditors.
Four of the appointments are re-appointments by France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria.
The members concerned are to be reappointed for a term of six years.
Three Members are new appointments by Germany, Greece and the United Kingdom.
Two are to take over for the remaining four years of the term from their predecessors, who have left office early.
Denmark and Sweden are the countries in question here. Article 247(6) of the Treaty makes this possible.
In accordance with rule 35 of the Rules of Procedure, the Committee on Budgetary Control, being the competent committee, was entrusted by the President of Parliament with the examination of the nominees to the Court of Auditors.
On 10 September and 8/9 October, these examinations took place in public session.
This was followed by a brief in-camera discussion and then candidates were voted on individually by secret ballot.
Candidates were, of course, examined as individuals.
The result of the examination and the secret ballot that then took place was that we had voted in favour of all nominated members and also recommend them to this House.
Mr President, I see from Rule 114 of the Rules of Procedure that procedure without debate applies when the committee responsible has not tabled any amendments or when all the amendments for deliberation have been adopted with no more than three Members voting against them.
This report has now come to us without debate, although the Committee took a vote on the Swedish candidate, Mr Tobisson, when more than three Members voted against him because he has no experience as an auditor whatsoever.
For this reason, I would like to hear your interpretation as to whether it is right that this matter can be voted on without debate, without the possibility of openly putting forward these points of view, as more than three Members have voted against a nominee.
I insist this matter be referred to Parliament' s plenary for debate there.
Of course every Member is allowed to vote as they so wish.
You correctly state Rule 114.
The committee has requested that this be put to Parliament.
We are now in a position where the Conference of Presidents approved this being put on the agenda of Parliament at the request of the committee.
Therefore the vote will go ahead.
(In successive votes Parliament adopted the nine resolutions)
Report (A5-0318/2001) by Didier Rod, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a Council recommendation on the prudent use of antimicrobial agents in human medicine (COM(2001) 333 - C5-0411/2001 - 2001/2164(COS))
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, resistance to antimicrobial agents now causes hundreds of thousands of deaths the world over.
Diseases that we thought were under control, such as tuberculosis or the plague, are re-appearing and are posing a serious threat to human health, particularly in developing countries.
We acknowledged, by voting in favour of the Khanbhai report, that resistance to anti-malarial agents was one of the causes of malaria-related deaths.
But we now know that one of the true causes of the current situation in Europe is the incorrect use of antibiotics and over-consumption, not only in the field of human medicine but also in animal feed.
Reports on GMOs also indicate this...
I am sorry to interrupt you, as rapporteur, but it is not correct for a rapporteur to start making a speech before we take a vote.
If you have something pertinent to say about the vote, we will listen to you.
But if it is not to do with voting procedure I suggest to you that, as rapporteur, you have already had your opportunity of speaking to the substance of the debate.
That concludes the vote.
Report Theato (A5-0346/2001):
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of appointing nine new members of the Court of Auditors.
All nine candidates are well qualified to become excellent members of the Court of Auditors.
We would nonetheless remind the Member States that, in appointing candidates, they must take Article 247, Paragraph 2 of the Treaty seriously: 'The Members of the Court of Auditors shall be chosen from among persons who belong or have belonged in their respective countries to external audit bodies or who are especially qualified for this office.'
The Court of Auditors plays a very important role in relation to supervising the Community' s funds.
It is therefore very important that there should be enduring respect for its Members.
We have voted on these nine re-appointed and newly appointed members of the Court of Auditors with mixed feelings.
The EP' s role in this instance is marginal, since the Council is the designated institution.
We endorse this distribution of tasks in accordance with the Treaty.
However, the quality of the candidates should be paramount in the EP' s verdict.
We were bitterly disappointed in this respect, both in terms of some of the Member States and in terms of the majority of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
A few candidates are, in our opinion, clearly not up to the task and, in one instance, do not even meet the Treaty requirements.
A Member State that puts forward a candidate simply on the basis of a long political career, without the relevant candidate having qualifications in the area of accounts, should hang its head in shame.
But also in other areas, the level of candidates was very diverse.
For such a post with high accountability and a huge significance for community funds, only heavyweights in the financial-political arena should be put forward.
Since this has not happened in a few cases, we have given some the benefit of the doubt, but we were unable to give the weakest candidates our vote.
Report Rod (A5-0318/2001):
We shall not discuss the medical arguments put forward in favour of restricting the use of antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents.
However, the report mentions the need to save money on health care costs.
Although this need could, generally, be justified, we nonetheless reject any argument for this.
We know only too well that, when it comes to making savings on medical spending, it is always the health care of the working classes, and particularly the poorest sectors of society, that suffers.
The result of these 'careful recommendations' , which governments usually use as a pretext to take restrictive measures, does nothing to affect the excessive use of medicine by the rich, whilst the poor are deprived of even the most basic levels of care.
We therefore abstained from voting on this report.
Report Schmidt (A5-0324/2001):
Mr President, I have made so many speeches that I have lost my voice.
Maybe I have delivered too many explanations of vote!
I voted for the directive on undertakings for collective investments in transferable securities because one way that pensioners get rich - I am not being serious here - is through reaping the benefit of fruitful savings.
In this way, if their savings bear fruit, as the directive proposes, pensioners will be able to follow the example of the great single-handed circumnavigator, Mr Francis Chichester - the father of our beloved fellow Member, Mr Giles Chichester - who celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday while sailing single-handedly round the world.
Report Jensen (A5-0319/2001):
Mr President, the Pensioners' Party voted for the Jensen report.
I would nevertheless like to tell Commissioner Diamantopoulou, who works so hard to help workers and to increase the number of jobs throughout Europe, that, as representative of the Pensioners' Party, I believe that, if we are to have more jobs, we must reduce the cost of labour: we must, therefore, reduce the cost of pension services and contributions while still increasing the size of pensions.
We want less contributions and larger pensions, and that can only be achieved by careful, sound administration of contributors' money.
.
(PT) We have supported this report since its first reading in February 2001.
Its relevance warrants our support once again and this is why we have voted in favour of it.
Developing, programming, monitoring and assessing the European employment strategy with the involvement of the social partners and local and regional authorities are important and essential objectives for fully and effectively achieving the strategic ambitions defined at the Lisbon European Council.
More and better jobs mean greater economic and social cohesion.
It is, therefore, crucial that cooperation between Member States is improved with regard to exchanging experiences and information and identifying best practices in addition to the involvement of the social partners and local and regional authorities, not forgetting the implementation of an active and transparent public information policy that takes account of the public' s requirements for transparency.
One particularly praiseworthy aspect of this report is the attention it pays to the promotion of equal opportunities for men and women in the employment and labour markets.
Undertaking studies on the provision of childminding structures and of home assistance and care services is an essential instrument for assessing shortcomings in this field, initially and then putting into practice, in a later stage, an action plan designed to enable people to reconcile their professional lives with their family lives.
With regard to the budget and annual appropriations, we agree with the rapporteur' s position and fully support it.
Report Ghilardotti (A5-0325/2001):
Mr President, I voted for the Ghilardotti report.
Keeping employees informed is a very good thing, Mr President, but I tried substituting the word 'pensioners' for the word 'employees.
The result is a wonderful report: the European Union calls for pensioners to be kept better informed; the European Union wants improved consultation of pensioners.
The pensioners would be happy to know that there is a report addressing the issue of more information and consultation for pensioners, for it is still the case today that some European pensioners do not even know how large their pension will be the day before they start to draw it, they do not know at what age they will be able to retire and they find the documents presented to them totally incomprehensible.
I therefore hope that I will soon be able to vote in favour of consulting and informing pensioners as well as employees.
.
This particular proposal can be traced over 20 years and today we should be reaping the benefit of the conclusion of intense negotiations and compromises, not only here in Parliament, but also in the Council and amongst the social partners.
The Common position offers the most appropriate means of ensuring that we can achieve the objective of guaranteeing that employees have real access to information and consultation, and also offers them an opportunity to have an input into the continuing operation of the enterprise.
Unfortunately, the amendments proposed by the rapporteur and approved by the Committee of Employment and Social Affairs goes totally against the spirit of co-operation achieved up to now.
In particular, the issue of sanctions to be imposed at an EU level flies totally in the face of subsidiarity and competences of national governments.
All that has been gained is that this issue ends up in conciliation and brings us no nearer to achieving the real goal of securing information and consultation for the employees of the European Union over the running of their companies.
.
Generally, I welcome the outcome of this vote, although I wish more Members had been willing to support the amendments dealing with sanctions against companies that fail to implement the directive's requirements.
However, there is no doubt that the measures agreed by Parliament will make an important difference for many workers throughout the EU.
Hopefully, thanks to the tighter definitions of the information required and the proposal for a delay for full consultation in the light of proposed large-scale redundancies and other potentially harmful changes, we shall avoid the situation where we see workers appealing to this Parliament to protect their rights and interests.
I also welcome Parliament's insistence on the rapid implementation of this directive for all Member States, whatever the current state of employee representation.
I trust that Council will now follow Parliament's lead.
.
I wholeheartedly support this report by Mrs Jensen.
The call to increase the EU's fund for job creation comes at a time when the EU is attempting to coordinate its employment strategies by the so-called open method of coordination.
This fund could do much to bolster these efforts and consolidate the work under way since the Lisbon dot.com Summit.
Moreover, the report also recognises the valid and worthwhile role that local and regional authorities can play in the process of job creation.
It is only when we work with such authorities, who have vital in-depth knowledge of regional employment needs and peculiarities at their disposal, that we shall be able to reap the potential benefits outlined in this report.
Report Thorning-Schmidt (A5-0320/2001):
Mr President, the pensioners who sent me, Mr Carlo Fatuzzo, here include a large number of people who have become ill as a consequence of exposure to mechanical vibrations throughout their working lives.
I therefore voted for Mrs Thorning-Schmidt' s report, although I know she would prefer me not to speak any more in this Chamber and has tabled an anti-Fatuzzo amendment which, I am glad to say, was rejected by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I therefore call for working hours to be limited in places where there are vibrations which are unavoidable because of the nature of the activity to be performed but which are more frequent than the maximum permitted limits.
According to Mrs Thorning-Schmidt, 24% of workers in Europe are exposed to mechanical vibrations.
These are mainly those working in the mining, building, manufacturing, forestry and transport industries.
Hand-arm vibrations cause serious and virtually systematic problems, such as the 'white finger' phenomenon in woodcutters and forestry workers; carpal tunnel syndrome, poor circulation and loss of feeling.
Whole body vibrations cause lumbar pain, slipped discs, as well as premature degeneration of the spinal column.
However, despite the fact that these problems are known to be harmful to workers' health, it has taken almost ten years for a European directive to be drafted!
The reason why this has taken so long is because the management in these sectors and equipment manufacturers are taking a stand, and they do not want restrictive standards, which would mean the equipment used would have to be replaced immediately in the light of technological developments.
Furthermore, businesses do not always use approved equipment.
And where they do, they do not necessarily inspect it on a regular basis, so the vibrations increase.
Above all, however, the conditions under which people are obliged to work are considerably aggravating factors.
The equipment concerned is often used by workers who are paid for their output, in terrible conditions of intensive work.
We must oblige businesses to pay for regular breaks throughout the day.
It is scandalous that workers continue to risk their health in order to earn a living.
Report Korhola (A5-0321/2001):
When the environment is respected as it is in Mrs Korhola' s directive, Mr President, we are all extremely happy.
Indeed, I have just returned from a visit of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy to Slovakia, where we saw the progress made by this country in environmental matters, and I have to say that we were all happy campers, Mr President.
Just think, one evening, as I was about to get into the lift to go to the second floor, I saw Mr Bushill-Matthews and the usually impassive Mr Blokland rush into the lift, both extremely happy too, shouting in unison: 'Mr Fatuzzo, we cannot leave you alone with Mrs Malliori' , who, as we all know, is extremely attractive like all Greek women.
Even Mr De Roo, who places great store by silence, heard these utterances!
'Public participation' in 'plans relating to the environment' is something we are obviously in favour of.
However, this report is another of those indecisive documents, where the proclaimed good intentions do not hide the ineffective measures proposed.
If we consider current events in France alone, the Mont Blanc tunnel has been reopened despite the views of the people living nearby; the protests of those living in the Rhône valley against the noise pollution caused by lorries using the motorway, or even against the route of the TGV railway line, have been disregarded, we can see how little importance the authorities attach to public opinion when it is voiced.
Apart from that, what control can the public now have over preventing a disaster, such as that of the sinking of the Erika, from polluting hundreds of kilometres of coastline?
What control can the public even have over preventing a disaster, which, unfortunately, is not only ecological, such as that of the explosion at the AZF factory, from happening again?
In reality, since the public does not have the right and the means to control the activity of businesses such as TotalFinaElf, nor does it have the possibility of banning any economic policy that is detrimental to society and to its own workers, 'public participation' comes across as a hollow expression.
We abstained from the vote.
Although this proposal for a directive makes some welcome amendments to certain aspects of Community legislation, it represents a reductive and inadequate view of the implementation of the Aarhus Convention, which has already been ratified by all of the European Union' s Member States.
Nevertheless, its contribution to the implementation of the Aarhus Convention in the Member States is very small, as is the implementation of the Convention in procedures and decisions at Community level.
The proposals contained in the Korhola report do, by and large, improve the document, although they do not sufficiently resolve all the shortcomings of the proposal for a Directive, which is why we have also voted in favour of other proposals that extend the report' s proposal, thereby helping to ensure that an opportunity is not wasted in the complex process of implementing the Aarhus Convention.
What has also become clear during this debate is that the importance of this Convention' s content and its ratification by all the Member States justify an extension of the debate, a broader and more inclusive discussion and a more appropriate and committed response from the Commission, and not the minimalist vision contained in the proposal it has submitted to the European Parliament.
.
This proposal intends to ensure that opportunities are given for public participation at an early and decisive stage of environmental decision making. This includes public participation and the drawing up of certain plans and programmes, greater participation in the procedure concerning the implementation of environmental impact assessment statements as well as in the putting in place of integrated pollution prevention and control measures.
Annex 1 of the Directive lists the instruments in relation to which the public for the first time are be given the opportunity to participate in the drawing up of plans and programmes.
Such provisions are to be inserted in the directives on waste, the protection of waters against nitrate pollution as well as being included in the hazardous waste, copper packaging, air quality and landfill of waste directives.
The main thrust of this directive is to ensure that information must be made available to the public within a reasonable timeframe.
The public must be given the opportunity to express comments and opinions before decisions are made.
It is important that the citizens of Europe are involved in decisions that are taken at a European Union level.
The European Union and national governments support the principle of subsidiarity which guarantees that decision-making incorporates a local input at every opportunity.
We are also all aware of the environmental proofing of EU regulations and directives which is now constantly taking place.
I support progress.
I support economic development.
We must ensure that there is a balance between the protection of our environment and economic progress at all times.
This directive which is before us is a balanced piece of legislation which I am sure will be supported by all Members of the House.
. I welcome this initiative and was very happy to support many of the amendments and the report itself in the final vote.
I deeply regret Parliament's unwillingness to really open up access to such decisions to the widest possible number of people.
The willingness of the largest groups to maintain the restrictions to the 'concerned public' , which will be defined by the Member States, is a surefire way to continue to leave certain people deeply dissatisfied and feeling sidelined.
At least we managed to support the rapporteur's proposals to have some definition as to what the 'concerned public' might be.
We have also managed to argue that the relevant authorities should make some response to show that the concerns of the concerned have been heard.
However, a frequent complaint is that objections were raised but nothing happened.
Parliament has given itself little room to manoeuvre in future negotiations with Council, so I hope we shall at least maintain the limited progress made today.
.
I wholeheartedly support this report by Mrs Korhola.
In an era where many citizens, from all sections of society, feel disenfranchised and marginalised, the call for public participation in respect of the drawing up of certain plans and programmes relating to the environment is certainly needed.
This proposal, the first of its kind, could see everyday citizens involved in and having say about issues ranging from air quality to the protection of water.
The report makes concrete and practical recommendations as to how public participation in this domain can be realised; for example, information must be made available within a reasonable time-frame.
In addition, citizens would be entitled to submit their comments either orally or in writing.
The report addresses many of the tricky issues that have faced decision-makers since the demonstrations at Seattle, Stockholm and Genoa: it could lead to greater transparency and accountability since citizens could act as both a check on decision-makers' complete autonomy and they could be more informed of the decisions which are being taken in their name.
Effective public participation in the drawing-up of plans and programmes for the environment is of the greatest importance and, therefore, all means of disseminating information to the public are essential, particularly the Internet.
There are other areas directly linked to the environment, in which the public must also participate, such as the Structural Funds, the Cohesion Fund and the common agricultural policy. The Commission must, therefore, review its decision to consider general policy options to be non-binding and ensure that its proposals meet the requirements laid down in the Aarhus Convention on effective public participation.
It has become necessary to broaden the definition of 'public' as much as possible.
Inequality in access to adequate means of assessment for small and local voluntary groups compared with the resources of large corporations or public authorities is an important issue and must be taken into consideration.
Report von Boetticher (A5-0339/2001):
Mr President, while I was in the aeroplane on the way to Slovakia, I closed my eyes for a second, as frequently happens, resulting in interesting dreams which I have related in many explanations of vote. This time, I saw my daughter, Cristina - who, as we all know, has been striving to finish her degree in law for six years - graduating at last.
She had specialised in Community law and received a prize of EUR 1 000 for developing Community law, which is also what the von Boetticher report seeks to do.
I therefore voted for the report.
But Mr President, which was the dream: the fact that my daughter Cristina had graduated in law or the fact that we had, at last, succeeded in establishing the European lawyer, with a EUR 2 000 prize, which is what should happen in Europe?
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of this report because we agree that the EU should develop cooperation in the area of civil law for the benefit of EU citizens.
We are nonetheless alert to the fact that the regulation does not apply to Denmark, cf. the protocol on Denmark' s position with respect to the Treaty on European Union.
Report von Boetticher (A5-0333/2001):
Mr President, I voted for the second von Boetticher report.
How could I have voted against a report whose objective is to make it possible to move within the European Union more quickly and rapidly, providing for effective identity checks on the undesirables in our Union? With regard to this report, during my visits to the Eastern European countries - Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary - lots of pensioners came up to me and said: "Mr Fatuzzo, we are pleased that the European Union is doing its best to make it possible for us to move freely within the Union but, even today, we are always being asked to show our documents, we are subjected to checks every few minutes and we have to prepare a large number of documents in order to be able to move from one part of the Union to another.
Please bear in mind that we are waiting anxiously for the day when we will genuinely be able to move freely."
We voted against this report because this report does nothing other than apply the Schengen accords, something we do not wish to approve, either directly or indirectly.
Whilst claiming to facilitate the freedom of movement of individuals within the European Union, the Schengen accords actually put up barriers along the path to achieving this freedom of movement, at least for those who are from countries outside the European Union.
We are in favour of total freedom of movement of individuals, whether or not they are from the European Union.
In fact, the European treaties guarantee the freedom of movement of capital, regardless of its origin, to the extent that they allow profits from arms trafficking, drug trafficking, even terrorism, to be laundered on European territory as long as the sacrosanct banking secrecy and business secrecy are protected.
Our vote expresses our opposition to a Europe built for capital, and not for individuals.
Report Goebbels (A5-0302/2001):
Mr Goebbels' report stresses the importance of the international monetary system for those who use money to attempt to boost their economy.
I voted for the report but I was unsure about one thing: I remembered that Neapolitan shoeshine, that penniless Neapolitan boy who, when he met a wealthy old industrialist in Ischia, was told: "When I was your age, I used to clean shoes instead of sitting here sunbathing.
Then I bought a taxi, then a public transport firm and then an airline, and then I became the owner of a satellite network."
"And what are you doing now?" asked the boy.
"Now I am sitting here, sunbathing in the sun of Italy and Ischia.
"And I," replied the boy, "what am I doing?!"
The Goebbels report on how to avoid international monetary crises is, on the whole, accurate, reliable and reasonable.
We are simply surprised that the report does not mention the euro once and that it does not reiterate the (very serious) argument that has been put forward before, whereby the euro, which is soon to become a major international currency, would control the dollar by forcing the US monetary authorities to abandon their policy of 'benign neglect' .
It is true that the dissident analysts believed, on the other hand, that a dollar/euro bipolar (or tripolar, if you count the yen) international monetary system risked being more unstable than the previous unipolar (or bipolar) system.
At any rate, this was an interesting debate, which should have fallen completely within the scope of the Goebbels report, having the added advantage of experience on its side, since the euro has been in circulation for almost three years, on the international currency markets at least.
Yet, the rapporteur carefully avoids this question.
Why is this so? Simply because the theory of the euro having a stabilising effect, like that of the euro having a destabilising effect, was based on the same hypothesis, namely that the euro was to quickly become the second international currency, next to, if not equal to, the dollar.
This is far from being the case.
Not only is the euro not a major currency, but its value has depreciated, it is permanently on the verge of a crisis of confidence, and its international role is not progressing.
And, on top of that, we are heading towards unavoidable problems between the Member States!
If the European Union had not obeyed those with dogmatic views, if we had gradually developed the ECU whilst respecting the national currencies, the process would have been safer and more straightforward.
To sum up, the experience of the last three years confirms what we always believed: a wrong move in European monetary unification will actually make life much easier for the dollar.
In spite of the recent attacks, the good health of the latter also seems to be further evidence of this.
We understand why the rapporteur does not wish to dwell on the subject.
Following Mr Goebbels' excellent report, a motion has been tabled in the European Parliament that is too narrowly framed from the outset.
Moreover, the Commission' s representative expressed a position on its behalf, that is, firstly, false and, secondly, unacceptable, as it does not mention all the abuses now being committed other than terrorism, such as the international financing of the drugs trade and corruption.
Finally, a majority in Parliament, either inattentive or complacent, rejected many constructive amendments, including the creation of an Economic and Social Security Council, the need for better representation of all continents in global financial institutions, and the need to restrict financial transactions with Member States and off-shore centres which do not abide by even minimal international regulations.
Parliament has even refused to declare that 'financial speculation is one of the major causes of international financial instability' .
When democratic parliamentary institutions refuse to acknowledge the evidence, they cease to serve the common good.
The reason that I abstained was in order to highlight this, as I did not wish to counter the few positive effects that can still be found in the resolution after the report has foundered.
As the report points out, between 1975 and 2000, the world has gone through some 120 monetary crises, which the IMF defines as depreciation of a currency by more than 25% in the course of a year.
Regrettably, however, even in the knowledge that every such crisis involves enormous costs for the countries involved, as happened in the Asian crisis in the summer of 1998, the report offers no basic measures that could prevent the emergence of new crises with any degree of effectiveness.
Data from the Bank for International Settlements shows an enormous increase in international financial activity, which practically doubled in the 1990s, with trading on stock exchanges appearing increasingly disconnected from the real economy. This, combined with an increase in the speed of circulation in the financial sphere has heightened instability, thereby helping to increase the gap between richer countries and developing countries.
Despite the report' s considerations and criticisms, specifically regarding the lack of democratic accountability of the IMF and its use by the USA and the G7, does not offer much by way of an alternative.
On the contrary, it suggests from the outset that it is unrealistic to expect the creation, in the foreseeable future, of a United Nations organisation that would exercise full universal powers of regulation and supervision, when this is precisely the path that should be promoted and pursued in order to achieve fair and democratic international relations that provide solidarity and are concerned about development and the fight against poverty.
Although it is to be welcomed that the rapporteur acknowledges that starting from scratch on growth and on combating poverty will require cancelling the debts of the poorest countries, it is disappointing that he does not put forward any other practical proposals, such as a Tobin-type tax or abolishing tax havens and that the majority in this House has rejected every move in that direction.
The Goebbels report sets itself the ambitious goal of how to make the international monetary system work better.
But for whose benefit? We are entitled to ask this question, when the rapporteur believes that 'the IMF is the only institution concerned about the smooth operation of the world economy' .
The victims of its structural adjustment programmes will be delighted to hear this, and will not be particularly convinced by the request to the IMF to henceforth allow for 'social aspects' .
It is also significant that the report chooses to disregard any tax on speculative movements (Tobin style tax) and the need to abolish tax havens.
However, I did not vote against the report, in order to support two specific requests, which we see as fundamental.
We are in favour of eliminating third world debt and we therefore support cancelling the debt of the poorest countries and introducing a standstill procedure for the others.
In this spirit, this procedure should not produce a restructuring plan, but should enable us to cancel an illegitimate debt.
In spite of all these reservations, these proposals are heading in the right direction and I do not wish to stand in their way.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.12 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
2002 budget
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, guided by the 'guidelines for the 2002 budgetary process' , approved on 3 April, Parliament has attached particular importance to improving the efficiency of the European institutions, with particular emphasis, in this field, on the Commission reform that is currently underway and on the quality of the budget' s implementation.
In this context, we must once again state our continuing political support for the reform of the Commission and mechanisms are being put in place to effectively monitor it, in an attempt to avoid both the delays that we have seen and those concerning staff regulations, in which we want to see the position opportunely adopted in the European Parliament resolution respected. These are the mechanisms of the long-awaited reform, which must be implemented by all the European institutions: an increase in the size of the external delegations, and also better coordination between the legislative and budgetary procedures, amongst others.
These are well-known objectives and we shall continue to work to achieve them.
At the same time, and with a view to improving the monitoring of the budget' s implementation, we expect the Commission to produce a definition of clear objectives for implementation and a timetable for this, and we will see how the timetable is being respected in the course of the year by means of sources of information that are now being made available.
It is not possible to effectively assess the implementation of a budget if we do not have both clearly defined objectives and the means of finding out whether these objectives are being met.
It is also widely known that the European Parliament attaches clear priority to producing a more detailed study of the budget' s implementation.
We feel it is important to be able to forecast the budget for the following year.
Indeed, the budget is, by definition, a forecast.
Equally important, however, as establishing the forecast for the following year is being able to see how this forecast is being put into practice and, in cases where this is not being done, to know the reasons why.
This will also contribute to making good delays in payments that have already been identified and to being able to pay out new commitments more rapidly.
We want to eliminate outstanding payments as far as possible and also to ensure that new payments outstanding, or new RAL, to use the commonly accepted term in this field, do not occur.
Increased operational spending will also be promoted, with corresponding reductions in administrative spending.
This is also related, as you all know, to a set of horizontal amendments, in other words, amendments that cover the whole budget proposed by the Committee on Budgets, and which are designed to provide an real reduction in the RAL, greater speed in making payments and also increased operational spending rather than administrative spending.
Along the same lines, we state once again our intention to only decide on the basis of the most complete information and, consequently, we hope to have the following information supplied by the Commission soon: on the one hand, and most importantly, the study examining the impact of the various measures that have already been adopted in the field of agriculture under the reforms laid down in Agenda 2000, as well as their budgetary consequences and also those of the BSE and foot-and-mouth crises, in addition to the prospects for changes to the agricultural budget.
The European Parliament cannot be a budgetary authority in name only.
In order to reach a decision on a given budget line and, even more, on a given category of the budget, we need full and up-to-date information.
It is clear that, at the moment, with regard to the last reform of the common agricultural policy and the impact of the foot-and-mouth and BSE crises, we need more information.
This is why we have been asking for information since at least March of this year, so that we can make an informed decision, both on the 2002 budget and on the Letter of Amendment.
As important as our concern to have information, we hope that new measures will be identified, which will provide a response to the situation arising from the terrorist attacks of 11 September, specifically concerning Europol and Eurojust in the fields of justice and home affairs. We would also like to see measures in the field of external action, on increasing humanitarian aid and a diversification of development cooperation, without, of course, undermining previously given commitments.
I think that we all accept that the situation arising from 11 September has changed many aspects of world policy and therefore, since the budget acts as a mirror for this policy and reflects this policy, there are bound to be budgetary consequences for the new situation.
The consequences of this new situation are being felt in 2001 and will be in 2002 and in the future.
We see these consequences chiefly affecting refugees, and the tragic problem they create, but they also affect concerted action in terms of the European Union' s external policy.
We do not want to be systematically faced with faits accomplis.
We can now, therefore, certainly forecast changes in these situations and these new situations must be reflected in the budget. The budget must accommodate them although they must not endanger other commitments already given by the European Union.
We have the greatest respect for the 1999 provisions on the financial perspective but we also have great respect for social and political dynamics and where political dynamics are concerned, we cannot fail to draw the necessary conclusions.
We have also stated on various occasions that we will not accept new needs and new challenges being met to the detriment of longer-standing needs which are still as topical as they ever were.
We also have great expectations of the report to be drafted by the Secretaries-General of the institutions on the multiannual study of administrative spending on preparations for enlargement.
We even feel that, as a natural consequence of this work at a technical level, it could then be followed up at political level, with cooperation between the two branches of the budgetary authority.
At this level, therefore, we will be able to draw political conclusions from information that we obtain technically, which is already being done.
Continuing with a different type of issue, but which is also pending, in the case of the Commission' s proposal, we are waiting for the drafting, in the very near future, of the proposal to mobilise the flexibility instrument that will ensure the means necessary for the conversion of the fishing fleets that were dependent on the old Fisheries Agreement with Morocco.
This flexibility instrument is a mechanism provided for in the Institutional Agreement. It has been used year after year and we are waiting to see the corresponding proposal for the year 2002.
In terms of sectoral objectives, I should like to highlight a few to which we attach particular importance, such as that of improving the European Union' s competitiveness, to which the priority of more and better employment has been linked. It is not sufficient for declarations to be made at European Councils and summits.
What we need is for these declarations then to be put into practice. More and better employment also means more and better support, more and better support mechanisms for small and medium-sized businesses, progress on the e-learning initiative, which we would very much like to see have a corresponding legal basis and also the consolidation of common policies in the field of asylum and immigration.
It is also worth making special mention here of the intention to support the competitiveness of Member States' border regions in the context of the forthcoming enlargement, as well as extending the benefits of the Leader programme to cover the future Member States.
All of these aspects are considered, in our guidelines, in the proposals for amendments that we have tabled on the budgetary proposals, and in the comments that we have included on the budgetary proposals.
Of course, we shall also continue to fight to improve the level of payments.
I know that this is something that the Member States often attempt to avoid, but the fact is that, if we want to see more effective European institutions, if, furthermore, we want their actions to have greater credibility, and if we want to see their results being more successful, we must have the necessary means to make payments.
I would also remind you that under the terms of the Interinstitutional Agreement, in terms of the financial perspective, in 2002, the level of payments should stand at 1.08% of the gross domestic product of Member States and the Council' s proposals fall considerably short of this figure.
I shall conclude by expressing my complete willingness, in the period between this first reading of the budget for 2002 and the vote on it in December, to work together with the Council and the Commission in a systematic process to reach the most appropriate allocation of available resources and to find the appropriate responses to the challenges we are currently facing.
Hopefully, after the vote that will be held this coming Thursday, the European Parliament' s proposals will lie clearly on the table.
We would also like to see that our priorities are considered in all the discussions that take place between now and December and that they take account of what I have just said, which is that the position of the European Parliament and that of the Council must both be respected, so that, ultimately, it will be possible to use the best from each proposal.
What we cannot, of course, accept now is something that we have never accepted in the past: a dialogue of the deaf, in which some people state their wishes and other people accept what some people say they wanted.
In this specific case, and to ensure that real negotiation takes place, there must be respect for the positions of all parties involved, attention must be paid to everyone' s priorities and that a close look is really given to everyone' s priorities.
Only by adopting this approach will the discharge of the budgetary process be worthwhile. Only through this approach will we ultimately have any guarantee of success and only in this way can we have any hope that the budget will receive a favourable vote in December and be approved.
We do have strongly-held positions but we are also willing to negotiate and what we want is an in-depth examination of the proposals of all sides so that the final outcome is a balanced one.
Thank you, Mr Costa Neves.
As Mr Costa Neves has finished his speech early, leaving us with a few seconds left over from the time he was allocated, I would like to take the opportunity to tell you something that will be of interest to you all: each second we spend debating here in Parliament costs us EUR 9.73.
I am telling you this so that you will understand that the reason I am so inflexible when it comes to the allocation of speaking time is this cost.
Mrs Buitenweg has the floor.
Mr President, you have once again pushed the boat out with this long conclusion, but perhaps I can once again try to finish my speech in less than ten minutes, and then the balance will be redressed after all.
This week, we are hoping to take a big step towards establishing the 2002 budget.
I, as rapporteur, have worked towards this for the past couple of months, and I have received a great deal of support from the MEPs of the other groups, Mrs Gill, Mr Ferber, Mr Virrankoski and the other MEPs, as well as from the rapporteur for the general budget, Mr Costa Neves. I expressly want to thank them all here for their pleasant and also very fruitful cooperation.
The trilogues involving the Council have also proved useful, and let me therefore count our blessings for once.
From this year onwards, the Council budget contains a special chapter dealing with the common foreign and security policy.
Since the Council now covers operational costs in its budget - which, unfortunately, do not fall within the remit of the Commission - such as for military planning capacity, it is necessary for democratic control to be possible.
It is also important to gain a clear insight into the administrative structures which are being set up, so as to avoid overlapping with Parliament offices.
That is not possible in a general Council budget if it is not clear how much is being spent on what and if Parliament does not give its opinion on those administrative expenses in general.
We are therefore pleased with a separate chapter since, in this way, Parliament can try to gain some control.
Now that we have chosen this path, I hope that the Council will approve a number of rational and very logical requests by this Parliament at second reading too.
For example, there is the issue of long and wild nights at the European Councils.
In the midst of all this wheeling and dealing, do Heads of Government still consider the financial implications? I wonder about that.
During the meetings of the European Councils, the Dutch government is always equipped with a special calculator which closely monitors the implications for the Dutch contribution.
But who is accountable for the impact on the European budget?
A pertinent example of this is the Nice Summit.
In order to facilitate an agreement on vote weighting in the Council, compensating seats in the European Parliament were distributed lavishly.
Who will pay for this?
The Treaty of Amsterdam stipulated a maximum of 700 seats; we are now sentenced to 732 seats and the buildings are not designed to cope with this number.
In the short term, the number of MEPs could run well into the 800s, and I had better not hear a squeak from the Council when it is presented with the bill for this.
An example of a totally different nature is the Balkans.
Whilst, in front of running cameras, billions were given for reconstruction with one hand, the Council took away development aid with the other.
In order to avoid any repeats, it would be wise to add a financial picture to the political conclusions at important summits.
How much is it all going to cost us and does it involve new money? It would be a sign of honesty if this were presented along with political conclusions.
For example, the situation in heading 5 has changed dramatically since the Berlin Agreement because, in those days, no consideration was given to, for example, developments in the second pillar, the common foreign and security policy, the third pillar, Eurojust, Europol, or expenses for the European data protection supervisor.
I welcome these developments, but I would equally welcome an explanation as to where the funding is coming from and at what expense that funding will be granted.
A second subject on which I should like to ask the Council to adopt a positive stance, quite apart from the annual budget discussion, is our request to consider how we want to give the taxpayer more value for money.
During that trilogue too, Parliament talked in that context about setting up a political working party, which will enable us jointly to examine how we can give more value for money for, each year, we discuss the nuts and bolts and minor changes to the budget, but the institutions, once they are up and running, are not subject to thorough reviews as far as their objectives and working methods are concerned.
Despite this, we should have the courage to move away from the way things have developed and question, once again, whether all the institutions, for example, all the agencies, should continue to exist in that way.
We are making a start this year at micro level by asking all the institutions to draw up a list of negative priorities.
After all, we should not only add items to the European budget, we should also learn to scrap some of them.
Interinstitutional cooperation is another area where huge savings could be made.
In this respect, I should like to make a concrete proposal.
Since the Treaty of Nice, it has been mooted that the Council would need a new meeting place for its half-yearly summits.
But the impact on the taxpayer and on the quality of life in the Leopold Quarter if yet another huge building were to be erected would be enormous.
Let us therefore examine together whether some of the Council meetings could take place here in the parliamentary House, in Brussels or in Strasbourg.
Look around you, as you already are doing. It is a beautiful building, and you will understand that we would not mind if cooperation were to develop in such a way that Parliament were to meet in Brussels only, and we would be delighted to make this environment available to you.
Until such time, and until the seat issue has been solved in another way, we really are stuck with two buildings that need to be altered to cope with a larger number of MEPs.
The Bureau has drawn up a three-year plan which serves as an indicative framework for expenses related to enlargement.
The other institutions, too, are working hard to ensure that the effects of enlargement are ironed out, and we cannot wait for these adjustments until 2004.
It is not an option for us to be in the middle of activities, still, when the first new Members join.
This means, therefore, that more funding is required prior to the accession of the candidate countries.
The Committee on Budgets has noted that, by means of rigid budget management, it is possible, in the coming year, to remain within the self-imposed maximum of 20% in the category of administrative expenditure, although we have always said that enlargement and buildings do not fall within this maximum.
As for the subsequent years, however, I am not convinced that this will work again.
Even if the other institutions implement their plans in preparation for enlargement, and even if Parliament faces higher costs because, by that stage, preparations will have got well and truly under way, in my opinion it will then be difficult to remain within the established ceiling.
Berlin in itself does not, therefore, merit unconditional praise.
However, the intention to enlarge by spending tax money in an efficient, effective and desirable manner does merit such praise. Let it therefore be the guiding principle in the budgetary procedures which follow.
You will have gathered by now that I am greatly irritated by the Council' s stance, and despite this, I shall try to mention a few other elements from my report.
I shall, first of all, focus on what it does not say.
The report does not contain any judgment by Parliament of the basis on which expenses must be paid as soon as a new statute for Members has been approved, and that is something which I very much regret.
Precisely because Parliament wishes to retain the power to decide on its own arrangements and does not therefore want expenses to form part of a package involving the Council, it is important for us to indicate at this stage what we want.
I should particularly like to ask the PSE and PPE-DE Groups to endorse the position which was initially included in my report, namely that, once the statute enters into force, only expenses actually incurred will be reimbursed.
I would like to mention something which is in the report.
I am delighted that the institutions reacted in a quietly positive manner to the request by the Committee on Budgets to take part in EMAS, the EU' s Eco-Management and Audit Scheme.
I should like to warmly congratulate the European Commission on the fact that it has already committed itself to this, and I hope that it will set an example for others, including the European Parliament itself.
There is still room for improvement on many levels, including in our House, for example with regard to differentiated waste processing and the use of environmentally-friendly materials, saving electricity and setting up a mobility plan for staff and Members alike.
Parliament has a model role to fulfil, and this also applies to realising sound environmental objectives. I would be grateful if we were to make a start on that next year.
Mr President, the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community was signed in 1952, and was to run for fifty years.
It comes to an end next summer and there is no intention to extend it.
We are therefore to debate the last ECSC budget, now, with expenditure to cover the period up until 23 July of next year.
Thereafter its assets, estimated to be worth EUR 1.1 billion, are to be transferred to the EU' s general budget, to be invested safely and profitably.
Earnings from the assets are to be used for funding research in the coal and steel industries.
It has been estimated that around EUR 45 million in earnings per annum will be available for these purposes.
The ECSC has not attracted payments for many years.
Its expenditure has mainly been financed out of a reserve intended for funding under the operating budget.
The largest item of expenditure in the last six months of the ECSC' s existence will, according to a proposal by the Commission, be in respect of social aid.
Of that, most is intended to be spent on special adjustment aid in countries where production in the coal and steel industries has been wound down.
In many countries the industry has social problems associated with it, and, consequently, the Committee on Budgets has decided to propose that EUR 16 million more than the Commission originally recommended should be paid in adjustment aid to Great Britain, Ireland and Belgium with regard to the special problems associated with their steel industries.
When the ECSC ceases to exist, social aid for employees in the coal and steel industries will end.
The Commission has not promised to distribute special aid out of the EU' s general budget for social purposes in these industries.
When the ECSC ceases to exist, the social dimension it represents will not continue in another form.
The ECSC' s resources have been used to finance important research.
Although earnings from the ECSC research fund will be channelled exclusively into research after it ceases to exist, there will be less money available than there is now.
For example, early next year EUR 72 million will still be channelled into research.
That is a considerable sum compared with the EUR 45 million that represents the earnings from the ECSC' s net assets that will be used for research.
Consequently, we could say that the fact that the European Coal and Steel Community is coming to an end makes for a negative situation from the point of view of social action and research.
The Commission is charging quite a sum in compensation for earnings from ECSC funds under the guise of managing the investment of the ECSC assets and allocating money for research: EUR 3.5 million a year.
That will pay the salaries of more than 30 officials employed to manage the ECSC' s remaining functions.
The activities involved are so limited in scope that the officials seem to form just one group, which will not suffer from the ECSC' s cessation of operations the way the workers and researchers in the coal and steel industries will.
The Treaty' s cessation will have surprisingly little effect on the lives of the officials who have been attending to the ECSC' s banking business and are managing its effects.
This brings to light the inefficiency of the new organisation of the Commission' s functions.
There is a problem I wish to draw attention to, although it is not strictly relevant to this report.
The legal basis for the Coal and Steel Community Research Fund was established by the Treaty of Nice.
If the Treaty of Nice is not in force next July, there will be no legal basis for any subsequent management of the estate.
The Commission must adopt a position on this swiftly.
Finally, there is good reason to say a few positive words in memory of everything the ECSC has achieved, not least the fact that the European Coal and Steel Community has probably been one of the institutions that had an impact on building peace and international co-operation in Europe after the Second World War.
While it was in operation its Member States did not wage war on each other.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in a few days' time, you will be voting at first reading on the amendments to the draft budget as it was drafted by the Council in July.
I already had the honour of making an explanatory statement concerning this draft budget at the part-session in September.
I will therefore not enter into any detail today.
Instead, I should briefly like to outline the aspects which will undoubtedly be on the agenda in the framework of our dialogue.
I hope that this dialogue will be fruitful, so that we can reach an agreement which is satisfactory to everyone, but particularly to the European citizens, of course.
I should like to reiterate quite emphatically that the presidency would like to reach an agreement on the 2002 budget as early as November at second reading of the Council.
A few days after your first reading, the overall structure will be in place and the different positions will be known.
In November, we should consequently be able to put the finishing touches to the activities which will culminate in a sound budget for 2002.
In this connection, it seems useful to me to remind ourselves briefly of the guidelines which the Council used when it compiled the draft budget, in respect of which you will be proposing amendments in the next couple of days.
This draft budget is able to fund all policy components and priorities of the European Union, without imposing too great a burden on the Member States that work towards achieving stricter control of government finances.
At the same time, however, notably under the ceilings of heading 3 of the financial perspectives and of heading 4, it creates some leeway for coping with new priorities.
For that purpose, the Council has made sure that the different actions of the European Union are funded appropriately within the available financial means under the ceilings of the financial perspectives, in connection with which no changes have been made to the funds allocated to programmes on which a decision was made in the codecision procedure, whilst the extent of the commitment appropriations has been determined on the basis of implementation options.
In addition, the Council has paid particular attention to the development of payment appropriations by curbing and controlling their growth compared to 2001. In this context, particular consideration was given to the implementation options and the expected rate of payments in connection with commitments outstanding and national budgetary requirements.
After these general considerations, I should like to broach a few subjects which will be on the agenda in the next couple of weeks and these concern, of course, agricultural expenditure.
As you know, the Council did not adopt the Commission' s proposal at first reading and has asked the Commission for a detailed analysis of the requirements.
During the conciliation meeting of 20 July, Parliament sided with the Council, and I have every faith that, once we have discussed the letter of amendment which the Commission will be sending us shortly, we will reach an agreement through which we will be able to cushion the effects of the different crises.
I think that I can already say that, at the moment, it is becoming increasingly clear that, in this connection, a solution is certainly in the offing.
As far as the other agricultural expenses are concerned, when the Council' s draft budget provided for an increase in the appropriations, although they were still slightly below those which the Commission had initially put forward in its preliminary draft, consideration was given to the effects which the decisions by the European Council of Berlin would have on the reorganisation of the common agricultural policy.
When we analyse the final appropriations to be included in the 2002 budget, we must obviously take account of the most recent data in the letter of amendment concerning agricultural expenditure.
I should now like to turn to a second point which, according to the Interinstitutional Agreement, is also pertinent, in the framework of the letter of amendment which the Commission will be sending us shortly, namely the financial implications of the delay in the fisheries agreement with Morocco, together with the funding and restructuring of the fishing fleet in question.
In July, the Council followed the Commission' s preliminary draft of the budget as far as the international fisheries agreement was concerned, and the Council asked the Commission only to use these appropriations for other fisheries agreements.
It is unfortunate that this position by the Council in July did not lead to an agreement.
With regard to the structural measures, heading 2 of the financial perspectives, the Council insisted on including this entire heading in the budget in the form of commitment appropriations in accordance with the conclusions of the European Council of Berlin of March 1999.
In this connection, I should like to point out that the Council, at the time of compiling its draft budget, did not have a full overview of the situation, and that it stated that it would review the situation in the light of the letter of amendment in the autumn, which is prescribed according to the Interinstitutional Agreement.
The Council will do this as soon as it has received the letter.
I would remind you that the appropriations for international fisheries agreements, in accordance with the Interinstitutional Agreement, fall within compulsory expenditure, whether they are indicated in the budget line or in the reserve.
As for the letter of amendment, to which some of our discussions in the coming weeks will relate, I should like to note that the Council expects a balance estimate for the 2001 budget year to be included.
This request is an illustration of the principle of good management, which means that the budget burden for the individual European taxpayers will, where possible, not become any heavier.
I know how much importance the European Parliament attaches to the expenditure under heading 3 of the financial perspectives. That is why the Council has ensured that its draft budget sufficiently covers the priorities of the EU' s internal policy, notably the honouring of commitments concerning the funding of multi-annual programmes, in respect of which both our institutions have taken a decision.
I would also point out that, at first reading, the Council increased appropriations in its draft budget in order to launch Eurojust and the SISII system for Schengen.
The Commission had proposed the budget lines for this in its preliminary draft.
In the current climate, these objectives are more topical than when we compiled the draft budget back in July.
In this way, the Council has created a margin of EUR 110 billion which is wider than the margin in the Commission' s preliminary draft budget.
This margin should be sufficient to cover priorities, some of which, including e-learning and immigration, will undoubtedly be mentioned by your rapporteur or, in any event, will be suggested at our forthcoming dialogue.
I would now like to turn my attention to the funding of the EU' s external measures, as included in heading 4 of the financial perspectives.
The Council has largely followed the Commission' s preliminary draft budget.
The Council has also made an effort to allocate resources to the different priorities in the field of external measures.
For example, the Council has created a margin of EUR 100 million under the ceiling of heading 4 of the financial perspectives, which should enable us to shore up the priorities in this sector.
With regard to this heading 4 of the financial perspectives, I should nevertheless like to point out one particular aspect pertaining to the appropriations for the common foreign and security policy.
I very much regret the fact that, during the conciliation meeting of 20 July involving the European Parliament and the Council, an agreement was still not reached with regard to the level of appropriations to be included.
That is why the Council has adopted the amounts in its draft budget which the Commission proposed in its preliminary draft.
I have to confess that I do not fully grasp why requests for a reduction in these amounts were made.
You will agree with me that these amounts, which are already lower than in 2001, are very modest as they are and are really the bare minimum to ensure that Europe can play a prominent role on the world stage.
The wish to reduce these amounts at such a crucial time as in the current international crisis could particularly harm the EU' s credibility.
I do not believe that that is what is intended.
I should now like to move on to the administrative expenditure of the institutions.
When the Council compiled the draft budget, it was motivated by the wish to meet the needs of the institutions as much as possible, taking into account their specific characteristics.
In the draft budget, there is a surplus left over to the tune of EUR 53 million under the ceiling of heading 5 of the financial perspectives, which allows new needs in the field of administrative expenditure, notably for the budget of the European data protection supervisor, to be accommodated.
In this connection, the Council recently sent you its letter of amendment No 1 for 2002.
Despite this, I am of the opinion that each of the institutions represented here are acutely aware of the pressure which the ceilings of heading 5 are under.
A first step in this connection was the agreement that was reached during the conciliation meeting of 20 July involving the European Parliament and the Council concerning a request to the Secretaries-General of the institutions to compile a report for the benefit of the budgetary authority by the time the Budgetary Council is held in November. This report should comprise a multi-annual analysis of heading 5, as well as proposals concerning necessary economy measures to prevent the maximum allocated to this heading being exceeded, also in the framework of enlargement.
In the light of this report, the follow-up action that needs to be taken should subsequently be determined.
I should already like to underline that a number of suggestions made a moment ago in connection with the report are certainly worth looking at further.
I should also like to mention another aspect concerning administrative expenditure, notably the Commission' s staffing requests.
The Council continues to support the reforms on which the Commission is working, and agreed at first reading to the creation of 78 new offices requested by the external delegations in the framework of decentralisation.
With regard to the other 239 offices, the Council failed to adopt a position on 20 July because, on the one hand, it requires more clarity concerning the decision on the regulation for the definitive termination of service by Commission officials and, on the other hand, it nurses the hope that your discussions on this matter will yield a solution which can accommodate our respective wishes.
I should like to finish this list of the different points which will be occupying our minds for the next couple of weeks by returning to a question with which you are all too familiar, namely the extent of payment appropriations.
First of all, I am delighted that the European Parliament and the Commission share the Council' s concern as to the commitments outstanding (in our Community jargon also known as the 'RAL' ).
The progress report of 30 June 2001, requested by the Commission in the framework of the previous budgetary procedure, is certainly useful in this connection.
However, I should like to point out that the vast increase in payment appropriations is not a cure-all for RAL absorption.
This is evident from the extent of the balances over the past budget years which were repaid to the Member States.
On the one hand, there will still be commitments outstanding as a logical extension of the split appropriations, while, on the other hand, the improved follow-up of the commitment appropriations, notably by an opt-out policy, is also an effective means of absorbing potentially abnormal RALs.
As to the extent of payment appropriations in the draft budget, the Council has expressed a preference for limited and controlled growth.
Indeed, the Council is striving to include payment appropriations which correspond to the actual implementation options.
In this way, we prevent the individual European taxpayers from being faced with too heavy a burden.
I have given you a brief outline of the points which will undoubtedly be the topic of discussion over the next couple of weeks.
The seriousness with which the Commission and the two arms of the budgetary authority are treating the start of this new budgetary procedure is obvious to me, and a source of real pleasure to me.
It is my wish for the budgetary discussions, after you have cast your votes in a couple of days, to be continued in the same spirit and, if possible, for agreement to be reached as early as November about a budget of the European Communities for the 2002 budget year which will provide us with the resources to meet the priorities and challenges which the European Union will be facing shortly.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the general rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets, Mr Costa Neves, for his efforts to reconcile the different interests in this House.
Mr President, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy would like to remind you that we are at the first reading stage, which, although this seems obvious at first sight, makes it clear that many of the balances and agreements we must achieve will be of a general nature and will have repercussions upon the final appropriations under this heading.
In this context, I would like to give a vote of confidence to the general rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets, as long as he, of course, takes on board to the greatest extent possible the priorities set out by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which are balanced, given that they seek an equitable distribution between different geographical areas, and aim to respond to the European Union' s various commitments on the international stage.
The Commissioner referred to the finely balanced measures we have had to take in the last few years: Commissioner, we cannot continue in such an unmethodical fashion, we cannot continue to finance new priorities with the same resources.
I understand that this is not an exercise in revising financial perspectives, but we cannot continually take on new priorities to the detriment of the commitments that the European Union has already made.
We will have to look for formulae that are more imaginative and more creative in this area.
Mr President, the Committee on Foreign Affairs has given its opinion: we want to strengthen the Commission' s administrative reform policy, particularly with regard to the decentralised management of external aid.
With regard to the proposals made by Commissioner Patten, the Committee on Foreign Affairs has expressed its strong support on this matter.
In conclusion, the Committee on Foreign Affairs gives its support and vote of confidence to the general rapporteur from the Committee on Budgets, Mr Costa Neves, we affectionately urge him to pay very close attention to the objectives that the Committee on Foreign Affairs has set out in its opinion for this 2002 budget.
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On behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I would also like to offer my congratulations to Mr Costa Neves for guiding us so far and for the very good job that he has done.
I have been asked by my committee to raise a number of points, the main one being the amendment that we are retabling on the Court of Auditors.
As the House will know, the Court of Auditors asked for a number of new staff.
The Council recommended that only five new staff be granted and various positions have been taken on the additional staff requested and the money for them.
The Committee on Budgetary Control decided quite wisely, in my view, that we should take an apolitical stance on this.
We should ask the Court of Auditors to assess the performance of financial control systems in the applicant countries; improve the Court of Auditors' cooperation with the national audit institutions - which is a requirement of the Treaty of Nice - and establish more detailed specific DAS assessments - again, a requirement of the Treaty of Nice.
We would therefore be fairly apolitical and once those issues had been clarified, we would ask for the money to be released for the other posts.
However, in the Committee on Budgets a completely different amendment was tabled.
It is much more political, and we are very worried about the independence of the Court of Auditors in relation to the requirements set down by the Committee on Budgets, so I do hope that will be considered.
I have also been asked to say a word about implementation.
We have looked at the implementation figures and we will continue to look at them in the future and use them for future amendments to the budget.
You have our full backing on everything you have done in getting better information on implementation for us so far.
We have also looked at tabling amendments.
We have an amendment coming through asking for money to be tied up and asking the Commission to tell us whether an evaluation unit has been set up in DG V.
Finally, we are very concerned about the future of the A-30 lines, or rather how they are going to be spent.
Those are the points that the Committee on Budgetary Control would like to raise.
Mr President, on behalf of my Committee, I would like to emphasise one point, namely the PRINCE programme.
We see it as very important that the information campaign on the euro should be carried on for another half-year, for we find an information deficit here despite great campaigning efforts.
It is particularly marked among small and medium-sized enterprises, and this programme is intended to make good this deficit.
As permanent rapporteur for the agencies, I can say at the present time that the most acute problems have been resolved with the help not only of our colleagues in the Committee on Budgets, but also that of the general rapporteur.
We decided, on the basis of the facts, to consider the agencies individually.
I would therefore like to take this opportunity to say a few things for future reference.
The agencies carry on growing, as they have done for years.
Everyone who works in one seems to have a vested interest in the agencies' expansion.
To give an example, between 1995 and 2001, the personnel complement of the agencies increased by 366%.
We are creating another 99 posts this year alone.
I get the impression that many of the European agencies maintain to some degree a separate existence.
In the Budget procedure, we always have to deal with one demand - they say they need more money.
The consequences of this development are clear to see.
The agencies take up all the scope for other programmes, and at some point the Community ends up having to pay the pension costs as well.
We must make changes here.
No longer must the Budget be adapted to the programmes decided on by the Management Board, but the programmes must fit the resources provided by the Budget.
We need a working audit of the agencies, involving all the actors concerned on a permanent basis. In other words, Parliament's specialised committees must likewise carry out an evaluation.
We urgently need to examine the question of whether the services provided by the agencies are actually needed and then put to good use.
The Budgetary Control Committee, the Court of Auditors and all the other actors must be involved in helping us get a grip on the whole thing.
Over the coming weeks, I will be attempting to create a structure for this purpose, one which can be put to use in the next Budget procedure.
Mr President, I am going to combine my time as rapporteur for the Committee on Industry and spokesperson for the Socialists on the other institutions.
Firstly, I congratulate both the rapporteurs for successfully completing the mammoth budgetary task, and also the chairman of the committee, Mr Wynn, for getting through the votes in record time.
Speaking on behalf of the Committee on Industry, I am disappointed with the outcomes in this budget because many of the priorities which we highlighted have been totally ignored.
Let me single out three issues.
The e-Europe initiative, launched with much fanfare at Lisbon, highlighted how it would increase the competitiveness of European industry; increase employment opportunities; and acknowledge that a knowledge society is indisputably a fundamental prerequisite for future economic prosperity.
The extension of e-Europe to the applicant countries was again much heralded at Stockholm, but we are proposing not to extend this programme.
I would like to remind everybody that the Council and Parliament confirmed e-Europe as a priority.
By not supporting it we are undermining one of Europe's priority programmes and this will be to the detriment of the applicant countries.
We need to ensure, as the rapporteur stated, that rhetoric is matched by action, that the EU citizen is not left to ponder.
We have all these programmes; they are acclaimed; and then they seem to dissipate into thin air!
This applies equally to my second point on Save.
This has been a parliamentary priority for a number of years.
Here we have a proposal to decrease the funding for the coming year.
An environmentally-friendly European energy policy is at the top of most people's agendas and it is important that Europe leads the way in our Kyoto obligations.
Therefore, to reduce programmes that promote sustainable energy consumption and impact on climate protection is extremely short-sighted.
The third area in which the Committee on Industry will be retabling amendments is the decommissioning of weapons of mass destruction, and waste management.
These are key to promoting a safer world.
This is even more critical in the light of the recent atrocities of 11 September and to ensure that states have a proper strategy for dismantling chemical weapons so that there are no opportunities for these weapons to fall into the wrong hands.
I would urge the rapporteur to rethink and support these amendments.
Moving on to the other institutions, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Buitenweg, for the open and inclusive approach she adopted in arriving at the budget for the other institutions.
This year, as she said, Heading 5 was under tremendous pressure for a number of reasons, including the preparation for the forthcoming enlargement.
My group's efforts have been to continue to improve effectiveness, efficiency and transparency.
As far as Parliament is concerned, these are not just hollow words, but words of substance.
We have demonstrated our commitment to improving efficiency by staying under Parliament's 20% self-imposed ceiling, whilst absorbing the costs of preparations for enlargement of some EUR 18 million.
However, this will be extremely difficult in the coming years.
I would urge the Council to address this, so that the costs associated with the proposed enlargement are dealt with before we commence the budgetary procedure next year.
Furthermore, I welcome the three-year enlargement plan that the Bureau has approved.
At this stage, it is fairly sketchy and perhaps conservative - with a small 'c' - and not very radical.
This is a shame because enlargement offers a real opportunity to make Parliament more dynamic in its operation.
Some of the ideas outlined in this plan need to be developed further and we need to have a broader view of how things are done.
Yesterday we heard in plenary that Parliament was unable to look at the money laundering proposals, which were agreed by the Council, for another three weeks because of the need for translation into 11 languages.
This is extremely frustrating for everybody concerned, but what will this mean when we have 10 more languages? We must address this issue because it causes us fundamental problems in terms of the image of Parliament.
It creates negative perceptions in the minds of European citizens, in that the European Parliament is seen as undynamic and unresponsive.
Whilst we are on the subject of radical thinking, I would like to make some suggestions to the Council to improve their own efficiency.
The under-utilisation of Parliament's buildings, for instance.
We have buildings in Brussels which are almost empty for one week every month, and a building in Strasbourg which is hardly used and remains empty for three weeks a month.
As the Council is consistently pointing out waste, here is an offer it cannot refuse.
It could share and make full use of our buildings by holding its meetings in our buildings.
I hope that will also benefit transparency in the way it works.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Mr President, we on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy this year can generally welcome the progress that has been made so far in formulating the budget for next year.
Looking back historically, we are doing a better job every year and this is certainly due partly to the work done by the rapporteurs.
Things are going along much more smoothly than they were, despite the fact that we are considerably squeezed for money because of external demands upon our budget.
Nevertheless, I am pleased to see that the Committee on Budgets has supported the view of Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy in restoring some of the budget lines which we are particularly concerned with, at least to the level of the PDB.
Also, it is worth mentioning that we look with approval upon the work that was done in terms of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets with regard to the tobacco subsidies.
They urge the Council to take a good look at this.
We urge the Commission to take a good look at this.
We know something must be done.
I am pleased that the Committee on Budgets acknowledges this.
Its proposals for a gradual reduction over a period of time of that subsidy make sense, and it is time the Council and the Commission started talking about this issue.
One particular success is on the issue of the budget line associated with the approval of orphan drugs by the medicines agency.
I am very pleased the Committee on Budgets has accepted our point of view and I hope the Commission does as well.
This has been a very successful budget line since created last year together with the SAB procedure.
We were concerned about what the Council wanted to do in terms of the massive cut it demanded in that line, which was completely unjustified.
We are pleased about the restoration to an appropriate level of that budget line and we hope the Commission will also defend that point of view to the Council.
This is a budget line which does genuinely good work for the people of Europe and brings real and genuine benefits and it must be protected.
Finally, I would say that we have some concerns about the way in which the agencies have been handled.
I can fully understand why money must go into the reserve and I can fully understand why there is increasing concern about the way the agencies operate, but we need to give them the appropriate resources to do their job and that particularly applies in the case of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Agriculture Committee wishes to address the Council and express its fundamental opposition to the cuts across the board that the Council is always making.
We see this, in political terms, as a rather unimaginative way of handling Budget guidelines.
We are working on the assumption that the letter of amendment will be the right basis on which to adjust individual areas in preparation for second reading.
Apart from that, we hold to our demand for agricultural expenditure to be made more flexible in future by enabling the transfer of funds from the mandatory to the discretionary division.
We know how complicated that is and how many changes have to be made, but we will carry on demanding this whenever budgets are laid before us, until our demands have been met.
The Commission's proposal on the introduction of a reserve meets with our explicit support.
That is needed.
We are sure that we do not have to explain why it is necessary.
We also assume that the Commission will act responsibly if it becomes necessary to make use of it.
Our colleagues on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy have just spoken about tobacco.
We too on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development have had to return to the tobacco issue.
We are most dissatisfied with the inadequate use being made of money from the Tobacco Research Fund.
On the Agriculture Committee, we, too, are fed up with forever flogging a dead horse where this subject is concerned.
We have, on the one hand, the demand for preventative health education, and, on the other, the need to promote tobacco growing.
We must, though, face reality.
For as long as we have farmers who grow tobacco - and they are not the richest - and have no alternative crop to offer them, we cannot help them.
This sector therefore needs possible alternatives not only to be examined, but also offered.
Most of all, I would like to say something more about SAPARD: we are glad that the appropriations have been increased, but, like the Commissioner, we are critical of the way the Council has cut by EUR 100 million the amount of funds SAPARD is authorised to pay out.
This is not on! It is absolutely not on!
Please, Commissioner, let there be no fear of a new implementation along the lines of LEADER.
Take your courage in both hands!
Let me take this opportunity to thank the general rapporteur for working so well with me and my colleagues on the Agriculture Committee.
Mr President, to begin with, I should like to extend warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves, for offering such close and constructive cooperation.
That does not mean that he was able to agree on all counts as far as the fisheries budget is concerned, but he listened carefully to everything we had to say and created, in any event, a basis for further collaboration, which we found useful.
The huge problems in the fisheries sector and the partial failure of the common fisheries policy have left their mark on the fisheries budget.
Clearly, the multi-annual orientation programme and the unilateral closure of areas have not proved successful.
Failure to conclude a new fisheries agreement with Morocco has led to an explosive situation along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts, an area which is already facing major social problems in connection with illegal immigration.
It is for that reason that the Committee on Fisheries has asked for nearly EUR 200 million in order to be able to tackle these problems.
The rapporteur suggests including a token entry first and challenging the Council to meet the pledges made in Nice.
The Committee on Fisheries endorses this view.
However, the Committee on Fisheries is disappointed by the fact that the budget proposal for more money for quota control, which was desperately needed, has been watered down by a liberal amendment in the Committee on Budgets, while the original amendment did receive wide support from all groups in the Committee on Fisheries with this proposal.
In the capacity as shadow rapporteur of the PPE-DE Group for the agricultural budget, I note that, of the original request for EUR 1 billion extra for food safety and animal disease control, eventually 580 million was left over, but what we say is: better some of a pudding than none of a pie.
In actual fact, we also regret to some extent the Commission' s failure to adhere to the original request for EUR 1 billion extra.
Fortunately, the PPE-DE position, that more money must be earmarked for animal disease control, has met with approval.
In general, we are of the opinion that, in order to restore consumer confidence, it is vital to bring the European markets, including those for beef, back to normal.
As a final point, I have to say that I am delighted with the fact that, with regard to foreign policy, the PPE-DE Group will be tabling an amendment for more attention for Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tadjikistan, and I should also like to recommend this amendment warmly for further discussions.
Mr President, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on behalf of whom I am speaking, put forward ten or so amendments to the draft budget with regard to the four Community initiatives (URBAN, INTERREG, EQUAL and LEADER), for safety and sustainability in transport and tourism.
Despite the current circumstances following the tragic events of 11 September, tourism will soon be the largest service industry in the European Union.
The World Tourism Organisation anticipates a doubling in the number of tourist arrivals up to a figure of approximately 720 million per year by the year 2020.
The 9 million people who already work in the tourism industry will be joined by a further 2 to 3.5 million between now and 2010, to reach 12.5 million people employed.
The Committee on Budgets, however, rejected our proposals.
Fortunately, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has once again been able to put forward an amendment to this House so that, at European level, resources are assigned to stimulate the promotion, monitoring and evaluation of a tourism policy that is both ecological and socially sustainable.
I trust that the majority of my fellow Members here will have the sensitivity necessary to support this reaffirmed proposal with their vote.
Mr President, the budget of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport contains three important new features:
Firstly, a separate appropriation of EUR 12.6 million is being proposed for the implementation of the elearning initiative.
It is justified because IT studies have a key place in the EU' s strategy.
A considerable increase in the appropriation for IT teaching would also be wise, as if it is to be financed merely from the Socrates, YOUTH and Culture 2000 programmes this might put the implementation of the fundamental aims of these programmes in jeopardy.
We have to remember that information technology is a tool, not an absolute value.
The second new feature is connected with sport, which still does not have a legal basis in the Union.
Sport is mentioned, however, in the Treaty of Amsterdam, and the conclusions of the Nice Summit stressed its social importance.
The Committee on Budgets has approved a proposal for a EUR 5 million appropriation for sports club work to prevent exclusion amongst youth.
The third new matter in our Committee' s budget is the EUR 1 million appropriation for establishing a centre for monitoring cultural co-operation.
In my opinion, the co-ordination of cultural co-operation could be practised in association with the Council of Europe, which has much experience in the field.
Chapter A-30 again caused problems.
I am very disappointed with the work of the Committee on Budgets in item A-3042, which concerns the funding of European cultural organisations.
We in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport had done a lot of work in connection with this point.
We took the Commission' s report on the funding of organisations into account as well as the recommendations of the Committee on Budgets' working party.
We, above all, tried to assess how money might be used in the best possible way from the point of view of European culture.
I cannot accept that the Committee on Budgets has interfered with a proposal that required the expertise of a special committee the way it has.
I warmly support the proposal contained in the report drafted by Mr Costa Neves for a legal basis and proper rules to apply to A-30.
Parliament cannot act as if it were in a 'grab as grab can' type of wrestling contest, in which the most unscrupulous party of all is the victor.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Vande Lanotte, I would like to draw your attention to the three amendments tabled by Parliament' s Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
The aim of these amendments is to enhance the information given to citizens and to stimulate the debate on issues relating to the future of the European Union, pursuant to Declaration 23 of the Treaty of Nice.
The aim of Amendment No 223 is to restore the commitment appropriations granted to the Prince-Programme, as proposed by the Commission in its preliminary draft budget.
The increase in these appropriations has, in fact, been reduced by the Council.
We feel it is inconceivable not to support strong investment to provide more information for the public on the euro, enlargement, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and, of course, on measures in the area of justice and home affairs.
All these subjects are extremely topical.
I would also like to reiterate that we are already involved in a period of reflection and consultation on the future of the European Union.
We also believe that it would be counter-productive to enter, as suggested by the Committee on Budgets, a part of these appropriations into a reserve.
We know that using the appropriations entered in the reserve is a much more complicated procedure, and we see no reason why the Commission' s room for manoeuvre should be hampered in this area.
I would add that, in any case, monitoring is undertaken by Parliament by means of its presence within the inter-institutional working party on general and specific information.
Lastly, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has also expressed its support for maintaining, and even increasing the financial support given to the European Movement.
We know that this Movement' s actions are effective, and it would be surprising if the European Union withdraws its support for the European Movement at a time when we need, more than ever, to encourage dialogue with the citizens.
Furthermore, all Member States should support European Union day, which is organised for 9 May, as this would greatly contribute to developing the rapport with the public that is severely lacking.
Mr President, since the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, both the powers of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities and, in particular, European Union policies that promote equality of the sexes, in which particular emphasis is given to the Community programme for equal opportunities as a fundamentally important instrument in the struggle for equality, have been strengthened, as have the Daphne programme against domestic violence, and the Equal programme to encourage the incorporation of women into the labour market and compliance with the employment objectives of the Lisbon Summit, to name but a few.
Social exclusion is another concern of the Committee on Women' s Rights, given that we are unfortunately witnessing the phenomenon of the 'feminisation of poverty' .
In order to achieve these priority objectives, we have put forward a series of amendments to the budget, which have been well received, and I would like to give special thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves, for his support in obtaining a majority in the Committee on Budgets.
A small proportion has been rejected, because it was already included in other budget lines: information actions in the common agricultural policy; methods to combat exclusion; the information society; the fight against poverty and the illnesses that arise as a result of it: malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS; care in the field of health and welfare; consolidation of democracy and human rights, etc.
Aid for women' s organisations that work for the promotion of women in the European Union should also be pointed out, not only the women' s lobby, but also other organisations that monitor the respect for pluralism in our society.
We cannot affirm that one sole organisation represents all of Europe' s women.
This action is therefore intended to promote justice and recognition for many other European organisations that have been working towards the equality of the sexes for a long time now, which also have a right to receive financial aid from the European Union.
The Committee on Women' s Rights is therefore very pleased that the rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets has accepted its proposals.
Mr President, I apologise to the rapporteurs that I was not able to be here at the beginning of the debate, but I would wager a euro that nobody has yet touched on the subject that I will raise on behalf of the Committee on Petitions.
Deep in the Buitenweg report is Amendment No 2022 on Budget Line 250 and this makes a new proposal to allow in certain circumstances, individual expenses to be paid to particular petitioners if they feel it appropriate to come to Parliament to put their case.
I want to thank the rapporteur for accepting this report and the committee for passing it.
Parliaments, you know, have various responsibilities.
They decide who is to be the government, of course, that is not a responsibility of this Parliament.
They decide budgets, but you know, we have only partial budgetary powers.
We have no powers over taxation, we have no powers over 50% of the expenditure more or less devoted to agriculture.
Parliaments decide legislation: that is a power we have to share with the Council of Ministers and we have no powers of legislative initiative.
But parliaments also have a responsibility to protect the rights of the individual citizens in dealing with the bureaucracy and that is a responsibility that we discharge in this Parliament through the work of the Committee on Petitions and the work of the Ombudsman.
I would say to Parliament this afternoon that the money spent on petitions and the EUR 3 million that we make available to the Office of the Ombudsman is money that is extremely well spent.
It works out at less than EUR 0.1 per person per annum, so it cannot be said to be a great deal of money, but it is money that is being spent on real European democracy and we want to ensure that we keep that up and that we see that we do more in future years.
Mr President, I shall concentrate in particular upon the remarks on the ECSC' s operating budget, in which context I shall talk about the report issued by Mr Seppänen on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
We are pleased about the role played by the ECSC as a pioneer in the European integration process and about the way in which the ECSC has made a positive contribution to peace in Europe.
We note that the ECSC was financed by means of revenue of a fiscal nature which facilitated the development of economic and social intervention measures associated with sectoral industrial policies. At present, the coal and steel sector employs 357 000 workers and, as we enlarge the EU by means of the candidate countries, enlargement will mean that coal production in the EU will be doubled and that steel production will be increased by a third.
We can note with pride that, thanks to the ECSC, something was constructed and further developed that led to the European Union as we know it today.
The Committee has approved the Commission' s draft operating budget of EUR 151.8 million in 2002, and it is of course on 23 July 2002 that the ECSC Treaty expires.
We might have wished that, when it came to both operations and research, there had been a little more money for future energy needs relating to clean coal technologies, and we call upon the Commission to take account of this in the other programmes.
Mr President, I would like to put a question to you.
I do not understand why, when I am the official draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, when I prepared the amendments tabled by my Committee, when I arranged the vote on these in my Committee, when I defended them, rather vigorously at times, in the Committee on Budgets - where, in most cases, I also managed to obtain the approval of my fellow Members - why, therefore, my name is not on the list of draftsmen due to speak.
I, therefore, ask permission to take the floor now, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms.
Mr Deprez, your name does not appear on the official list of Members allowed to present committee opinions and I am, therefore, unable to give you the floor at this time.
I shall therefore request permission to take the floor now, Mr President.
Mr Deprez, the list of speakers is produced from the official requests presented by the various committees on behalf of which one can speak.
Since your name is not on the official list and as I see no reason for this to be changed, I shall give you the floor later, when you do have the right to make a speech.
Mr President, firstly my sincere thanks and congratulations go to Mr Costa Neves, Mrs Buitenweg and Mr Seppänen for their excellent work.
At the same time I wish to thank Terence Wynn, as chairman of the Committee on Budgets, who has proved a competent leader in the work of the current year.
The job of general rapporteur is a tough and demanding one, but Mr Costa Neves has managed well and my group supports his policy on the Commission' s budget.
The budget' s general lines include cancelling the cut in agricultural expenditure, attending to arrears in payments, and the Commission' s reform.
The strengthening of the policy on the northern dimension in the budget' s explanatory statement may also be regarded as a positive move.
The handling of the budget is based very much on last year' s financial statements, which showed a surplus of EUR 11 billion.
Expenditure was EUR 8.5 billion less than anticipated and EUR 6.5 billion of the Structural Funds remained unspent.
For that reason, we now have to pay special attention to improving administration and not producing such large estimates for expenditure.
Otherwise, the bottom will fall out of budget policy altogether.
One particular focus in the budget is the reduction in payment arrears. At present they stand at more than EUR 60 billion.
My group supports this goal.
It also supports the reform of the Commission, which is one of Parliament' s most urgent priorities.
It will increase efficiency and the importance of personal responsibility.
It is being proposed that a part of the appropriations should be placed in a reserve, so that the Commission may quickly propose a reform of its staff regulations and clarify its ideas on the early retirement scheme.
Heading 4 is difficult.
The Commission and the Council are proposing EUR 125 million for the Moroccan fishing agreement, although this agreement is not forthcoming.
This is clearly a matter of a concealed reserve which, indeed, contravenes the Financial Regulation.
It must be dissolved.
As a counterweight, it is being proposed that a flexible instrument should be used to modernise the Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleets.
This could be partly acceptable.
On the other hand, our group cannot accept the cut of EUR 84 million in the CARDS Programme.
We, as liberals, like participating in joint agreements to carry through the budget in Parliament, but we cannot be party to this idea.
The CARDS Programme has been an undisputed priority with Parliament, and, for that reason, we are hoping for similar cuts in the budget for other programmes where payment appropriations have not been used to the extent they might have been in any case.
Of the small programmes, the most considerable is the A-30 appropriations, which are earmarked as assistance to organisations.
These appropriations take up a totally unreasonable amount of Parliament' s time in relation to their importance.
For that reason, the whole system should be clarified.
In addition, the way the organisations are selected is very rarely based on objective criteria.
We particularly support Mrs Buitenweg' s recommendations concerning discipline in Parliament' s budget, as mentioned in her report.
They remain beneath the ceiling we, ourselves, set, that is to say 20% of all administrative costs, even though it includes the costs relating to enlargement.
The question of eastward enlargement itself is one that must be dealt with in such a way that Parliament' s work is not made any harder and that in the future we may congregate in our own united assembly.
Mr President, I, too, would like again to express my thanks to the rapporteurs, and also to the Chairman of the Committee.
If you consider the conflicts that arose from attempts to pass budgets in the past few years, it seems as if greater calm prevails this year, as if the conflicts were not so evident to the public eye.
But it must be recorded that, this year too, the Council is not actually facing up to its responsibilities.
As a component part of the budgetary authority, it has the task of supporting a Budget with real commitment and in a politically explicable way.
Whilst Parliament worked very carefully for a balanced budget, in long debates, discussions and negotiations with most of the interested parties, weighing needs against the duty to budget prudently in the taxpayers' interests, the Council again merely cut lump sums without any underlying political thought.
At any rate, its political thinking is not clear to us, and the question arises of whether it ever engaged in any.
Problems are needlessly exacerbated by the way the Council acts, for, this year too, the Budget is below the margin, far under 1.27% of Gross Social Product, despite special tasks, preparations for enlargement and many other problems.
This year, the Council has cut payments by 10% across the board, something made all the more incomprehensible by the delay in implementing programmes in many areas.
Parliament is now reinstating these figures.
We cannot, on the one hand, build up expectations in areas such as the Structural Fund or overseas aid, but then live up to them only with great hesitation.
This undermines trust in the institutions of the EU.
So the Council must bear its share of responsibility for this if its action is to be approved.
This action is particularly problematic in Category IV, foreign policy.
Whilst the Foreign Ministers and Heads of Government make great speeches about the Common Foreign Policy, the Finance Ministers narrow-mindedly cut the supply of funds, without considering the prestige lost by the EU institutions.
It is far from clear why the instrument of a flexible reserve is not fully available to us this year.
We still have major problems in the Balkans, new tasks await us in Afghanistan and in its neighbouring states and more new tasks await us in the Middle East.
We need a response from the Council too on the way that the EU is losing its capacity for flexible reaction.
The Council must explain how the EU is to continue to be flexible and capable of political action.
We, as a group, are more critical of the A30 lines procedure.
The great number of individual motions - including those from Parliament - has led the two major groups to attempt a solution by dealing with them en bloc.
Our committee would then no longer be able to do any fine-tuning in this area, and we would thus be inadequately performing our monitoring function.
Now Mr Wynn has clearly mentioned that changes are to be made to the Budget process next year.
I hope we will be able to work together to produce an intelligently thought-out procedure which will also enable Parliament to perform its function of monitoring the A30 lines.
We must not lay ourselves open to the accusation that we are engaging in economics for the benefit of special interest groups.
This really is not what we should be doing in the Budget.
No, I do believe there must be a certain amount of self-criticism.
I am perfectly aware of the fact that there is a great deal of pressure on the time available to us, but every individual item in this field in particular must be politically justifiable even to people outside this Parliament.
I would like to sum up and end my speech by referring back to what previous speakers have said and, again, challenging Parliament to push ahead with its own reforms.
Our demands to the Council and the Commission for reform will only be credible if we strive credibly for reform ourselves.
Yesterday evening's decisions from the Chair did not, I believe, take sufficient account of that.
Mr President, a very strict budget policy has been adopted in the drafting of next year's budget.
As the GNP for the EU Member States has grown faster than the increase in payment appropriations, the amount the EU budget represents in the figure for combined GNP has shrunk to 1.03%.
That indicates that next year' s draft budget will not exhibit any special areas of focus.
The permitted ceiling in the EU budget is 1.27% of the combined GNP for the Member States.
There will consequently be room in the budget for areas of special focus, but the Council and the Commission do not seem to have the political will or the ability to prepare any such areas. Examples of them might be employment or healthy food.
The EU political élite no longer even debates the matter of the prevention of unemployment, let alone try to combat it with appropriate policy.
Our group has traditionally stressed the importance of preventing unemployment.
In most cases unemployment is not the fault of the unemployed person him or herself: that person is at the mercy of the economic situation as it happens to be at any one time.
We must have a policy against unemployment.
The political élite and EU officials certainly look after their own interests.
We are to have an early retirement scheme that will generously reward those who no longer, even through retraining, can be made into functional tyres to go on EU wheels.
If there are hundreds of officials no longer needed, that shows just what a bad state EU staff policy is in.
The Commission' s ability to implement Parliament' s political decisions is nothing less than wretched.
The gap between the budget that has been decided and the budget implemented by the Commission is always much too wide.
There are no delays in payment when it comes to issues that are important to the Commission, whereas there often are in issues important to the Parliament.
The EU budget is a political document, as it channels money to the EU élite bodies, and now also to the European political parties and for EU propaganda.
That is not the way to make a citizen' s Europe.
If an illegal war was waged in the bombing of Yugoslavia, assistance for the country' s reconstruction should not be the object of cuts. Let us hope that the CARDS vote does not take the large groups by surprise.
Mr President, we note that, for the first time, the Commission' s preliminary draft budget exceeds the symbolic EUR 100 billion mark and is firmly dominated by crisis spending on agriculture and external commitments.
In this first reading, our group supports many of the choices made by the rapporteur, such as the horizontal amendments, in principle, and particularly when this involves a systematic reduction of the RAL and the desire to prevent further RAL from building up.
As for agriculture, almost all of the appropriations for this sector have been restored, and this can only reassure our farmers, who are greatly in need of these funds.
The package of EUR 180 million approved by the Committee on Budgets in favour of other agricultural interventions also helps, even if we must condemn the obvious lack of appropriations for the emergency fund for veterinary complaints, for the distribution of agricultural products to the less wealthy sectors of the Community and for the setting up of young farmers.
With regard to cross-border regions, it is worthwhile reiterating that these regions already benefit from extensive financial support, and we might well consider whether, in view of their diversity, a unique instrument could be the appropriate response.
As far as internal policies are concerned, the interests of small- and medium-sized businesses are safeguarded, and Parliament can welcome the increase in appropriations that aim to combat violence against women and children, such as paedophilia and misuse of the Internet.
In our view, however, the reduction made by the Council concerning advertising for the euro, and which was increased by Parliament, is sufficient.
This advertising, for which the citizens of our countries pay a high price, seems to be nothing more than propaganda.
Furthermore, the French delegation of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group is opposed to the appropriations included on a multitude of headings in Chapter A 30, which do nothing more than to encourage federalist presuppositions and these alone, whereas other tendencies are not recognised, in spite of the choice of the electorate.
With regard to Europol, and this thinking also applies to Eurojust, all our energies must of course be channelled into the fight against terrorism in all its guises, as reiterated by our Chairman, Charles Pasqua, who has relentlessly pursued this fight.
However, the necessary strengthening of solidarities and police and judicial cooperation between our nations would only serve as a pretext for the rampant communitarisation of policies and actions that fall fully within the remit of national sovereignty.
Furthermore, Europol is funded by national contributions, and, in our view, has no place in this budget.
As far as external actions are concerned, whilst our group appreciates that the appropriations in favour of the MEDA 2002 programme have been doubled, we condemn the drastic reductions in appropriations for the fishing agreement with Morocco.
You cannot achieve good policies from figures alone and this decision by the Committee on Budgets is the worst message that we could send our counterparts in Morocco, particularly during this difficult time when there is an international crisis.
Lastly, Mr President, although we are able to welcome the method used by the rapporteur, we must admit that the excessive level of payment appropriations put forward by the Committee on Budgets will certainly not help to control public spending, as this would represent an additional cost of some FFR 27 billion, even for France alone.
Mr President, Commissioner, the budget must be the perfect instrument for choosing the EU' s political priorities.
And those choices, I should like to underline once more, must serve the interests of all European citizens.
The on-going debate on the final form to be taken by the Union indicates that there are many different opinions on the subject.
I am alarmed by the fact that this diversity of opinions is not reflected in many European projects.
The fact that a unilateral propaganda megaphone is resounding from Brussels across the Union, and at the citizen' s expense, concerns me greatly.
Those concerns were recently intensified when the Committee on Budgets rejected an amendment tabled by our Conservative English MEPs to inject impartiality into the Commission' s information policy.
There is more.
The Commission, as well as the majority in this Parliament, want to press on.
Driven by the intense desire to bring about political Union as soon as possible, the European Commission has submitted a proposal for making contributions to European political parties from community funding.
This is highly peculiar, for those European parties hardly exist.
The citizens are not familiar with them, yet we are expected to sponsor them. Once again, the EU' s political diversity is being overlooked.
In this way, only mainstream European parties qualify for European subsidy, while the national political parties - which are closer to the citizen - do not.
Time and again, polls illustrate that the citizens in the Member States are not keen on interference from Brussels.
Promoting European political parties will only further alienate the citizen from European politics.
This is why we warmly recommend our amendment which proposes scrapping these contributions.
The Commission' s and Parliament' s urge to stress the distinctive features of the European political parties does not end at the Union' s borders.
I should like to quote one example by way of illustration.
More than EUR 180 million is pledged annually to the Palestinian Authority. If the schools paid from that budget use inflammatory school books full of racist and anti-Semitic language, the Commission washes its hands of the matter.
Why does the Commission continue to ignore this evil and keep running away from its political responsibility?
I have to say that the Union is punching above its weight.
The Union should confine itself to those areas of policy where European action has an obvious added value.
The fundamental choice which I, apart from all the positive things, miss in this budget, is that of prioritising the EU' s core tasks and leaving the other tasks where they belong: with the Member States.
Mr President, this Budget has again committed substantial sums of money to the planned enlargement.
We must not, though, in doing this, forget the 23 frontier regions which will be particularly - even adversely - affected by the accession of these countries.
Being a Member for one of these regions, Carinthia, I am disappointed.
I am sorry that the Commission, the Council, and also the Committee on Budgets are not giving these regions adequate support by allocating sufficient budget resources.
To cut resources for these regions is to play a dangerous game with popular feeling.
If the population of these regions suffers overwhelming disadvantages, as is to be feared, the possibility cannot be excluded that they will vote against enlargement and thereby jeopardise the whole undertaking.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if, today, we are discussing at first reading stage the Community budget for the coming year, we are of course talking about politics coated with figures.
A lot of the European Parliament's initiatives can be seen in that way.
We want to exert pressure on the Council - those who have spoken before me have pointed out how urgently that is needed - but also on the Commission, because many points have not yet been given the consideration they deserve.
I will push on with the subject on which Mr Ilgenfritz has just finished speaking, that is to say, the frontier regions.
It is just not the case that we have cut something, rather we are of course waiting, Commissioner for a rather feeble communication to be followed up by the presentation of something more from the Commission for the frontier regions, as the Commission has a monopoly on initiative.
You were perfectly well able to propose legal foundations for other things in quick order. When it comes to the frontier regions, though, you cover yourself with modesty.
But it will not do for you to tell us that you observe Parliament's intentions with great interest.
The Commission is being called on to produce an initiative.
That is your duty - it is an honourable one - and you cannot evade responsibility for it.
So I hope that we will succeed, here in this Parliament on Thursday, in adopting the inclusion of EUR 10.8 million in the reserve for the PRINCE programme.
I think this will motivate the Commission to present a corresponding proposal on the frontier regions.
The same goes for the issue of the 317 new posts that the Commission has asked for.
I think it high time to synchronise the Budget procedure and the Commission's legislative process.
We cannot have the situation where we briefly discuss the annual reports on the legislation in preparation if the Budget has, in principle, already been passed.
Here, too, it is a matter of ensuring synchronisation of these two activities.
So it is right to keep these posts, and the resources for them, in reserve.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the same is true of the common foreign and security policy.
It is enough to make me weep when I hear your disquisitions on how we would be making savings here in an important area.
Please bear in mind that we have an interest in dealing with these things as part of the Community Budget, where, to a large degree, they rightly belong.
Correspondingly, of course, cuts must be made in the relevant Budget line.
The Council cannot get itself a savings tin for this and thus develop activities independently of the Commission and Parliament.
There are papers to this effect in the Council.
You may be sure that Parliament will not let that go through.
The same goes for Europol and Eurojust.
I do not propose to go into further detail about this.
I wish to extend heart-felt thanks to the rapporteurs, in particular to Carlos Costa Neves and of course Mrs Buitenweg as well, for making our work together so pleasant.
We got a bit further with the Parliamentary budget in terms of truth and clarity.
It makes little sense to put funds in reserve for the purposes of a law, and then end up spending it on buildings.
It is therefore more right and proper to put it straight in the Budget line for buildings where it will be used at year-end anyway.
We will, though, have to ensure - and this is a lesson from this year's Budget procedure - that all proposals for our Parliamentary budget are presented by the Bureau as early as May.
A procedure such as today's, with many important decisions being taken only in September and immediately before the discussions in the Committee on Budgets, is something we cannot accept.
I still have grave concerns about the state of health of our colleagues in the various institutions.
We had requested a report on sickness absence for this year.
Working in certain institutions is indeed very dangerous, as a lot of people in them are off sick.
We will have to get to grips with this and take steps to improve the health of our colleagues in the institutions in question.
In conclusion, I really would like to ask - and Terry Wynn has already mentioned this to great effect - that we should now make progress in November on the issue of cooperation, so that, in December, we can adopt a proper and orderly Budget for 2002.
Mr President, I too should like to start by thanking the rapporteurs, particularly Mr Costa Neves.
It is, in my experience, the first time that the rapporteur has not tampered with the financial perspectives.
I welcome this, especially since we have ended up with a budget surplus of some EUR 11 billion.
I should like to make some observations concerning the different headings.
I will start with the first heading. I am in favour of the reserve for foot-and-mouth disease.
I do not know what other disasters could be heading in our direction, but I believe that the end is not yet in sight.
I repeat once again, but I have said it so often: in my opinion, the Commission should not stop thinking about possible alternative ways of funding the fight against crises of this type.
We can look into insurance systems.
We can put all kinds of restrictions in place, but I do not think that we can rely on the fact that, in the years to come, there will be an annual surplus of one to two billion in the agricultural budget.
I should particularly like to recommend the amendments on further foot and mouth research, tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Council of Ministers.
Can we develop marker vaccines, or new testing methods? Can we examine whether a vaccinated animal is still infectious?
With regard to heading 2, I endorse the gist of the rapporteur' s policy designed to achieve an improved expenditure and commitment policy.
I am thus in favour of the amendments which he has tabled in this connection, with only one exception: the increase in payment appropriations is rather extreme in my opinion.
Along with the Commission, I fail to see how this can be spent in a reasonable manner.
Consequently, I will in this connection vote differently from the way in which many of you will probably vote.
Concerning the proposals to use the flexibility instrument in order to restructure the fishing fleet in Spain and Portugal, I am anxiously awaiting the Commission' s proposals.
On a final note, I think we ought to bolster Eastern Europe.
The SAPARD payment periods must be extended to 2003.
The fact that the payment bodies have not yet been approved should not put those countries at a disadvantage.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in my capacity as Chairman of the EP delegation for relations with Central Asia, I shall confine myself to a few comments concerning those budget lines.
What are they about? In the first instance, they are about aid to the partner countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Central Asia is an unstable region and has, since the outbreak of the war in Afghanistan, really been at the epicentre of world politics.
We all know that military action on its own will not bring a sustainable solution in the region and that we will need to invest in democratic institutions, in a civil society, in socio-economic and ecological reforms, in the fight against drugs and poverty and in sound education.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that is the key aim of our efforts in Central Asia.
Hence our call to increase that budget line by 5% for commitment appropriations and by 20% for payment appropriations.
Secondly, I should like to ask you to give your attention to the aid for victims of radiation, particularly in the Semipalatinsk region in Kazakhstan.
In that region, the Soviet army carried out 607 nuclear arms tests between 1949 and 1999, the bulk of which were above-ground.
The Soviets obliged the population to come out of their houses and watch the huge nuclear mushroom.
The effects are catastrophic: the incidence of cancer is five times higher than the national average, birth defects are three times more common than the national average, many young men are impotent and twelve-year old girls suffer from breast cancer.
Psychological disorders and suicide are very common, and the average life expectancy is around 52.
That is the reason why, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we would like to increase the payment appropriations in budget line B7-524 from EUR 45 million to 60 million.
Mr Vande Lanotte, you are visiting our House and attending the sitting. You said you have come to listen, rather than make any comments, and I can understand that.
However, I should nevertheless like to draw your devoted and kind attention to these two important amendments and maybe, upon completion of this 2002 budgetary procedure, we could visit Semipalatinsk together to witness the disastrous effects of the nuclear insanity and to see how European money could be spent in a effective and useful manner.
I would be much obliged.
Mr President, the proposals for 2002 confirm the trend of recent years to reduce the relative value of the Community budget, as can be clearly seen from the fact that the proposed amount is the lowest in the last decade; only 1.03% of GDP.
Because of the restrictive guidelines of the Stability Pact and also because of the problems resulting from a major economic slowdown, the Council is continuing to suggest cuts, which creates real problems for the budget' s implementation.
This year' s procedure once again betrays true budgetary chaos, with new needs arising and the number of priorities increasing and appropriations becoming smaller and smaller, leading to cutbacks that can only be overridden by revising the Financial Perspective, which is what we have always advocated.
Hence, by subscribing to the Council' s way of thinking, the European Parliament is doing no more than vainly attempting to disguise these needs, which are undeniable.
This also clearly highlights the absence of clear priorities and a coherent strategy for guaranteeing the proper funding of Community policies in various fields, specifically those of cooperation, agriculture and employment.
This is a concern that increases yet further with the creation of considerable reserves which, in the current context, can only give rise to greater doubts.
With regard to category four, the only chapter of the budget that continues to show a consistent reduction in sums, the lack of appropriations is striking, particularly if we take account of the needs of and the commitments given to the Balkans, to Palestine, to Afghanistan, on the World Health Fund or for the conversion of the fleets operating in Moroccan waters.
The rapporteur' s idea, which is not new, seeks to cut spending, particularly on the Balkans, in order to be able to increase the remaining aid for cooperation and to force the Council to negotiate.
Let us hope that this does not lead to further cuts in cooperation such as those we saw last year.
We shall see in December what happens.
These are some of the reasons why we do not support this budget.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur as well as the rapporteur for the other institutions.
I think that they have both done an excellent job.
They presented a proposal to the House that is, on the whole, acceptable and which, in any case, the radical Members will support.
I would also like to highlight the participation of the President-in-Office of the Council in the overall debate, to thank him for taking part and who demonstrates a willingness for dialogue.
I hope that his participation will bear fruit at second reading and even that, looking beyond the budget, it will have a positive effect on other very important budgetary issues, particularly the financial regulation.
I would simply like to make two comments on the rapporteur' s overall strategy.
The first comment concerns the RAL.
I fully support the strategy used to attempt to reduce their levels, which are becoming rather unmanageable, and to send a clear message to the Commission for its help in trying to do this.
I ask myself, and I ask the rapporteur, the following question: how do you know it is right to apply this strategy to a very specific situation, that of Afghanistan?
The RAL are obviously related to the issue of providing aid to refugees, of providing humanitarian aid.
I therefore wonder whether or not this could be the time, perhaps - and I put this to the rapporteur, although I understand that it may be difficult at this late stage - to put money - and, in doing so, send out a political message - in the reserve for Afghan refugees.
Of course, this should be part of an overall strategy, which is perfectly justified, but I wonder whether or not, for this specific message, we could possibly change the strategy, in any case, at second reading.
My second comment concerns the reform of the Commission.
I strongly deny what James Elles said.
Furthermore, I believe that yesterday' s Bureau meeting and the Conference of Presidents unanimously supported the proposals from the parliamentary group responsible for this dossier.
I reiterate that this group suggested - or indicated in any case - to the Commission, and in particular to the Vice-President charged with reform, that the path that the Commission recommended was not the correct path and was not the path that Parliament advised.
Furthermore, given the misunderstandings regarding the number of non-assigned posts, I even question whether the previous system, with one commissioner responsible for both budget and staff, was not the best approach, insofar as the overall picture can be seen.
I therefore reiterate that Parliament supports the proposal that runs counter to the proposal outlined by the Vice-President, Mr Kinnock.
Mr President, on behalf of my group and on my own behalf, I would like to thank the general rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves, and the other two rapporteurs, Mrs Buitenweg and Mr Seppänen.
From a budgetary point of view, by 2002, the rhythm of implementation of appropriations must have reached cruising speed: there is no overlapping with the previous programming period and there can be no delay in the implementation of programmes.
It is a year in which the forecasts contained in the financial perspectives can be fully achieved.
In order for the two powers responsible for implementation (the Commission and the Member States) to achieve this fully, the rapporteur offers us a strategy for reducing the backlog; in order to support his strategy, he uses the performance targets identified by the Commission at the request of an initiative presented by the European Peoples' Party for the 2001 Budget.
It is important that this House accepts the Costa Neves strategy in the field of payment appropriations.
Without decisive action by the European Parliament, it is going to be difficult to achieve an interinstitutional political commitment on improving the quality of expenditure, which has always been our priority.
We also support the strategy of the general rapporteur in relation to the new demands, the Commission' s letter of amendment, where it refers to the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument in order to finance the new structural needs, the restructuring of the Spanish and Portuguese fleets which fished in Moroccan waters, which is awaiting the proposed funding the Commission has promised but has still not presented.
The rapporteur has also presented both pro memoria in the budget lines for that restructuring, and also in relation to a programme for increasing the competitiveness of the border regions with a view to the enlargement of the Union.
Let us hope that between the first and second readings, the Commission will clarify the situation of this programme and the possible funding proposals.
Furthermore, we have the insoluble problem of the lack of financial resources in Category 4 for external action.
This problem threatens to tarnish budgetary procedure after budgetary procedure.
The Union takes on more and more external commitments, often without consulting this House.
Later, unilateral cuts are decided on in the traditional external action lines under the pretext of deficient implementation, responsibility for which is always attributed to external factors and never to the functioning of the Commission or the Member States themselves.
Parliament must therefore, year after year, become embroiled in a pointless fight to remove the cuts which both the Commission, in its preliminary draft, and the Council, in its first reading, carry out.
This prejudices the role which must be played by such important committees as Foreign Affairs, Development and the Committee on Budgets itself.
A very good example this year is the EUR 125 million for the never-signed fishing agreement with Morocco.
It has never been explained why the Commission included these appropriations in the reserve, but the true consequence is that the rapporteur has had to employ (and the political groups support him) a strategy of cuts in order to achieve the mobilisation of these fishing appropriations which were never used.
Honest interinstitutional cooperation must be based on recognition of the budgetary prerogatives of each of the institutions.
To wait for the November conciliation to resolve fundamental issues weakens the role of the parliamentary negotiation and the role of the tripartite dialogues for the whole year.
We in the European Peoples' Party consider essential to the good operation of the budgetary procedure, amongst other things, the harmonisation of legislative and budgetary procedures, the genuine participation of the European Parliament in the creation of the rules of the game, that is, the Financial Regulation, prior knowledge of the Commission' s working programme, more active involvement by Parliament in the budgetary element of the Commission reform, etc.
All these aspirations are contained in our amendments, which we will put to the vote on Thursday, and which we hope will receive majority support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like many others, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves.
The cooperation has been really good.
As 'shadow rapporteur' for the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I have also encountered a very constructive attitude, and that is something for which I am grateful.
By this time, almost all practical proposals from Parliament have been dealt with, and I must therefore concentrate on a number of more theoretical points of view.
The budget is the ultimate expression of democracy and social development.
It is through the budget that we decide that our public institution needs to use tax revenue in order in some way to influence society, and it is the EU' s budget that is relevant when it comes to transnational European issues.
It is always difficult to strike a balance between, on the one hand, the desire to do important things and, on the other, the need to respect budget discipline and to ensure that taxpayers genuinely get value for money.
In the EU, this balancing act is unusually complicated due to the fact that it has to be carried out both by two budget authorities in tandem and by each authority in its own right.
In the case of the Council, it even has to be performed within each and every one of the fifteen governments.
Unfortunately, the problem is often that, with one voice - for example that of the agricultural and foreign ministers - the Council pledges a whole lot of money to, for example, agriculture and the fight against BSE and foot and mouth, to the transformation of poor regions, to fishing fleets, to the Balkans and to Afghan refugees etc, while, with its other voice - that of the finance ministers - it says no to increased expenditure.
The problem is not made any easier by the fact that those who promise aid do not so often ensure that the Commission, which is to implement all these measures, has the resources needed to turn the promises into a reality.
There are often considerable commitments made, but the level of implementation is low and the funding insufficient.
In spite of this criticism, I believe that, for the most part, taxpayers get value for money.
I am an MEP for Sweden, the EU' s most Eurosceptic country and, at the same time, the country in which the individual taxpayer contributes most money to the EU.
This situation means that it is not always so easy to persuade people to believe that the money is in actual fact used well.
The myth of the EU as a hopeless colossus is so strong that I am scarcely believed at home when I say that, even for Sweden, the net cost of the EU amounts to only 1 per cent of the State budget, that the budget is not increasing in real terms and that it is implemented in such a way that the Swedish exchequer gets back a large part of its contribution each year.
Indeed, a tenth of the whole budget is in practice paid back to the Member States.
I believe, as I say, that we get value for money, but there are still a lot of shortcomings.
We need to do quite a lot in the future in order to convince people that the funds are being properly used.
First of all, I believe that we must simplify the budget procedure itself and ensure that it is made more transparent.
The new budget regulation and activity-based budgeting should contribute to this.
Secondly, we must speed up internal reform.
We have certainly now placed a number of services in the reserve, but the aim of this is not to slow down, but to force the pace of, reform.
I am also convinced that, as Commissioner Schreyer pointed out in his speech, we are going to have to make the budget more flexible and increase our ability to respond to new events.
In order to achieve this, I also believe that a new spirit of cooperation is needed between the two branches of the budgetary authority.
Most obvious, perhaps, are the deficiencies in category 4, that of external expenditure, to which the Council has added new expenditure year after year on, for example, aid to Kosovo and Serbia, new fisheries agreements etc.
This year, we have had far-reaching discussions on assistance to refugees, the Global Health Fund and other efforts to combat AIDS etc.
In both 2000 and 2001, we solved this problem by means of the flexibility instrument, which gave us a further EUR 200 million per year.
The problem this year is that the programmes for Kosovo and Serbia which necessarily gave rise to this flexibility instrument must still be implemented at a high level but without our being able this year to use the flexibility instrument' s EUR 200 million.
In spite of this, the Council will prevent us from using those funds that are not needed for the fisheries agreements, and that is something I do not understand.
Why are we not allowed to use them when we, in actual fact, have major costs for the programmes to which we have agreed? This does not hold water.
With this policy, the Council is forcing us to do something I should preferably have liked us to avoid, namely to say no to a proportion of the major expenditure on the Balkans, even if we are obviously using this to protect the most sensitive areas, that is to say Serbia and Kosovo.
Let us conduct an open dialogue in this area, characterised by trust.
We understand the Council' s priorities when it comes to the Balkans, AIDS etc, but then we should also ask for a certain amount of understanding for the fact that we cannot prioritise away all the issues closest to our hearts.
We want to rescue aid to the Balkans.
Let us get around the negotiating table.
Mr President, the 2002 EU Budget, amounting to EUR 51 billion, appears at first sight to be balanced and straightforward.
The increase of 5% over the outgoings of the Budget year 2001 corresponds to the Berlin agricultural guidelines.
That is not only good but also inevitable, as no other policy is as thoroughly submitted to Community methods as agricultural policy.
I note with particular concern, however, that this great chunk of agricultural expenditure is increasingly the object of covetous desires on the part of not a few politicians who see it as a sort of disposable object which can be moved around at will.
If this intention is to be countered, the Financial Perspective will have to be qualified by the Commission, any kind of speculation eliminated and the across-the-board cuts that are always being sought in the agricultural budget not in fact implemented.
The appearance of foot-and-mouth disease eleven months ago has meant a very unbalanced situation in animal husbandry, especially as regards food safety, animal protection and the internal market.
Distorted competition in markets leads to the loss of jobs and income.
Pricing is becoming chaotic and nobody can explain why.
So I wish to advocate a temporary increase in the financial allocation to the market organisation for animal husbandry.
I urge that the so-called interim balance sheet of Agenda 2000 should not be put off simply to do a favour for a particular country.
I urge moreover that the reserve should be kept until an explanation is given of the contradiction by which we were talking about EUR 1 billion last year and only EUR 400 million now.
Mr President, at the first reading of the 2002 budget, we would like to express our reservations about a number of amendments tabled by the European Parliament and which put increasing pressure on spending in order to meet, as explained in the motion for a resolution - and I quote 'the legitimate expectations of citizens, regions and governments of the European Union' .
Go on, blame the citizens!
In the few minutes' speaking time that I have, I will give one example; that of the B3-500 budget line, to which the European Parliament would like to allocate EUR 7 million in order to fund the so-called European political parties.
This appropriation is without legal basis and has no moral justification.
Of course, the citizens have never given their opinion on this, but if we asked them if they want to pay more taxes to fund political parties in Brussels, they would obviously say no.
On the other hand, the MEPs would say yes, as this is of great interest to them.
These European political parties are inter-party organisations that have no militant base to speak of. Their funding - provided thus far by the parliamentary groups of this House out of their administrative appropriations - has been the subject of a recent report published by the Court of Auditors.
Because of this, the so-called European parties are seeking other sources of funding.
And since the citizens do not seem to want to pay of their own accord, we are going to make them pay by means of tax and social security deductions, so that they have no choice.
For reasons that I have already explained during our debate on the Schleicher report on 17 May 2001, and in my explanation of vote given on the same day, the B3-500 budget line has no legal basis, no more than the draft regulation on the status and funding of European political parties. The Council has still not reached agreement on this regulation.
Admittedly, the Treaty of Nice provides the possibility of a legal basis by adding a second sub-paragraph to Article 191 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, but there is no need to remind you - especially in the wake of the negative outcome of the Irish referendum - that there is still a long way to go before this Treaty can be ratified.
Lastly, the draft regulation without legal basis and currently being examined by the Council aims to put in place an underhand funding system that runs counter to freedoms.
To cap everything, the chairs of the five European parties have recently written to Council and to the Commission to demand that the funding from Europe is increased to EUR 15 million instead of EUR 7 million.
Such is inflation!
We believe that the political parties in Europe must be freely financed by citizens and by the national political parties, who are themselves funded according to national regulations in line with their respective legal system and constitution.
That is why, Mr President, the MEPs of the Mouvement pour la France group, along with the Members of the SOS Démocratie group, will vote against the B3-500 budget line.
Mr President, I will start by focusing primarily on the Seppänen report.
This is a comprehensive report which addresses all the problems of the final stage of the ECSC' s life, but it also takes into account the problems of the future, if it is true - which it is - that, although the ECSC is dying, the coal and steel industry must continue to develop in Europe.
The sum set aside for the ten remaining months of the ECSC budget is sufficient, and the increased appropriations for research are in line with the forecasts for after the Treaty' s expiry.
Parliament wants to play a leading part in our endeavours to give a reassuring response to the 357 000 workers who are employed in the sector and to provide a secure future in terms of the growth and restructuring of the sector.
I would now like to focus, in the last part of my speech, on the Union' s general budget.
As the members of my group have already said, starting with the coordinator, Mr Ralf Walter, our opinion of the work carried out by Mr Costa Neves and Mrs Buitenweg is positive.
There are many elements which deserve a mention here: the undertaking to improve the quality and speed of expenditure, and here I refer to the Structural Funds, which require an extraordinary measure from the European institutions to motivate, coordinate and carry out prospective and retrospective assessments so that European federalism does not fail this major test; the attention given to the issue of border regions, mentioned by Commissioner Schreyer - I, too, agree with Mr Böge when he says that it is right to clarify the concept of a border region - not least in relation to the enlargement process: regions which must not be the only ones to benefit, Commissioner, and I would stress this point, for the pilot project approved last year does not and must not, as it progresses, just concern the border regions.
We have got off to a good start: the negotiations will take place and I feel that, ultimately, we will achieve a sound budget, but when I think of this great asset which is Europe, an asset which is ours and ours alone, a supranational political entity which others look to for guidance, as they will have to in the face of fresh challenges, I wonder whether we really ought not to review the financial mechanisms of the European budget if we want to consolidate a great supranational institution which is the envy of all and which needs more resources and a role that is more clearly defined.
Mr President, the 2002 budget for the European Union mirrors its anti-grass roots and arbitrary policy.
It is a budget for managing interests which presents no central objectives for resolving the problems being created by the recession, not even as a propaganda exercise.
The draft budget makes no serious or fundamental attempt whatsoever to redistribute income to the less developed areas or to the working classes hit by unemployment, underemployment and poverty.
The austerity imposed on the Member States and the European Union as a whole means that even the budget lines available in the past have been cut back.
Agricultural spending is being constantly eroded, with tragic consequences for farmers, in a bid to make national budgets pay for the anti-farming policy decided in Brussels.
On the contrary, following the terrorist attack on 11 September, the European Union is being called on to fund intergovernmental cooperation in the so-called area of justice, that is, to keep files on and prosecute citizens who go beyond the bounds of resistance and reaction tolerated by the system.
Finally, the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece will vote against the budget because, instead of resolving the current problems, it will create new problems for workers, farmers and small enterprises, instead of contributing towards peace in the world, it promotes war and an imperialist hegemony, instead of protecting individual and collective democratic, political workers' rights, it suppresses them.
Mr President, allow me to begin by thanking Mr Costa Neves for his very good work on next year' s budget.
It is with satisfaction that I at least observe that, for the first time in quite a few years, there has been no serious talk about revising the budget ceiling.
That is, for me, the sign of a rapporteur who, in a real sense, chooses to respect and apply the budget as a ceiling of expenditure and not as a target for expenditure.
That is something I think bodes well for forthcoming negotiations.
In spite of this, there is nonetheless good cause for warning against an unduly expansive budget, especially when it comes to categories 3 and 4.
The limited margin in both these categories is cause for concern, especially when, in the wake of the terrorist attacks on 11 September, we see an approaching need for measures of humanitarian aid for Afghanistan, as well as a need for measures in the area of justice and home affairs.
The European Union is already expensive for taxpayers.
I believe it to be obvious that we must ensure that it does not become still more expensive.
I see it as self-evident that, at this stage, Parliament should create room for negotiation in relation to the Council.
There is, however, reason for calling for a general tightening-up, on the parts of both the Council and Parliament, before the second reading so that, from a purely budgetary point of view, they are able to handle the situation that has arisen in the wake of the terrorist attacks in the United States.
Finally, just a few brief words about Mrs Buitenweg' s report.
The rapporteur has made progress in the preparatory work before enlargement in 2004.
That is good, and there is cause to thank her for this.
I must however note that a very great deal remains to be done in order to prepare and adapt the administration before an enlargement that will soon be only two years ahead of us.
Mr President, at this stage in the litany of speakers, I feel I should focus on and scrutinise a couple of items in the budget.
I will firstly mention an issue which I had not included in my notes: the Council is pleased that Parliament shares its concern about the backlogs, the RALs.
If I had not lived through 17 European budgets, I would be amazed.
In fact, it is the governments who have the greatest responsibility for the creation of RALs and the Council could make a more useful contribution to the reduction of the RALs by renouncing the systematic underbudgeting of payment appropriations, which do most damage to the pockets of the Finance Ministers.
What really concerns me most in this budget, however, is that, in real terms, in euros, aid to third countries has decreased since 1999.
If one thing became clear after 11 September it was precisely that it is going to be necessary to maintain and develop humanitarian aid and our contribution to development aid.
And this is in no way guaranteed by the Community budget, despite the efforts of the rapporteur, and I salute those efforts.
The financial perspectives are clearly not sufficient and we have a TV-addicted Council of Ministers, that is to say that their external priorities are led by the latest TV headlines.
We have Kosovo: we have to help Kosovo.
We have Serbia: we have to help Serbia.
We have Afghanistan: we have to help Afghanistan.
And the next headline will become the priority.
And what price do we pay? The price of having to make cuts in previous policies.
We still have problems in the Balkans.
We still have a serious problem in Africa.
We still have problems of underdevelopment in Latin America and Asia.
But we have to make cuts.
The other question I wanted to raise, which is related to the last point, is whether there are first- and second-class European Councils. Why is Berlin more important than Nice, in terms of expenditure?
Why?
In Berlin, financial perspectives were set which had to be agreed with Parliament, but in Nice, the same European Council, composed of almost the same people, said that we had to create a special programme for the restructuring of the fleet that fished in Morocco. Why is that not budgeted for?
Why has the Council, with a Commission proposal valued at EUR 197 million, not budgeted for it? It should have done so.
And I regret that Parliament has not fulfilled its obligation, because what we have to do on first reading is budget in the way we want.
The Council will then come in at the negotiation at second reading.
I regret that we have not been able to do this, but I trust that we will be able to resolve it between now and December.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to reiterate that I am speaking on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, and not on behalf of my political group, and that, consequently, I would like to know exactly what has happened and why I was not included on the list of draftsmen.
I apologise if I have made a mistake, but if not, I would like to receive an official explanation.
Having made my point, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank the Members of the Committee on Budgets and particularly the general rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves, for the attention he has given to the requests and concerns of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights.
We asked a great deal, Mr President, and we received a great deal in return, and this is something I welcome.
We only made legitimate requests.
We asked for an increase in the funding granted to the European Refugee Fund, and this was given.
We asked for an increase in the resources for measures to combat violence towards women, children and teenagers, and this was given.
We asked for an increase in the resources to combat child pornography on the Internet, and this was granted.
We asked for no less than six new budget lines, and these were given.
We have a new European Migration Monitoring Observatory to enable the European Union to anticipate the arrival of waves of migrants and to be better prepared for these.
We have a specific research and evaluation programme on respect for fundamental rights of the European Union, so that the Charter of Fundamental Rights becomes an operational reality and not just a reality in words alone.
We have a new budget line that should enable Eurojust to become operational.
We have funding for the Schengen line with a view to adapting the Schengen Information System to the realities of enlargement, and, lastly, we anticipated - and this, Mr President, is an urgent request to the President-in-Office of the Council - we anticipated, given the current situation, exceptional appropriations for use by Europol in the fight against terrorism.
We are well aware of the limits of Europol' s actions, we also know that it is founded on conventions, and thus we could experience legal difficulties in using these appropriations.
However, we would like to address a formal appeal to the Council not to allow these appropriations to escheat, to create the legal basis, which will enable Europol to become fully operational and will allow Eurojust to develop to its full potential.
Thank you very much, Mr Deprez.
You did not appear on the list on behalf of the committee.
We will try to give you an answer when we can.
Mr President, I am going to follow Mr Colom i Naval' s advice by speaking on the problem of reform, for which I am the permanent rapporteur.
This problem is quite fundamental, because we have to reiterate on a regular basis that the European Parliament is firmly in favour of administrative reform of the institutions.
The polemics that are currently raging between those with differing views should be less important than the fundamental problems, and the fundamental problem is to make the Union' s action clearer and more effective in meeting the public' s expectations, so that citizens start to trust the European Union again.
You know that, in this budget, we noted several delays in implementing this reform, particularly as regards the Commission' s response - which we have yet to receive - on the rewriting of the financial regulation, and also with regard to setting up base management.
The report's fundamental concern is with the reform of the status and organisation of a career in European civil service.
We had to take a precautionary measure and put funds into the reserve for creating the new positions that were requested.
This is nothing more than a precautionary measure, and I would like to reiterate that, for the time being, this is only at the first reading stage as we asked the Commission to provide clarification on the implementation of the single Statute, so that we could have very precise and realistic answers, particularly on the problem of early retirement schemes for civil servants and temporary staff, but also on the problems caused by absenteeism and vacancies.
We believe that the Commission will be able to provide us with the answers to all these issues, but, nevertheless, I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that hypothetical positions will not help this reform to move forward.
We have 15 countries and seven institutions, but we have only one European Union, for which only one statute is needed.
We must not take refuge behind the reports published last year, because the linearity is no longer what it was.
We therefore want a clear budgetary framework in order to adopt a position, and I shall repeat the request made by all the Committees of Parliament to the Council: the Council must start talking and give us answers on a regular basis so that all our procedures - and reform, in particular - progress within a framework that is efficient in terms of budget.
This reform is vital: it must not just look good on paper, but should also be realistic and applicable over time.
Nothing will stop when we reach 2004.
Everything must continue.
The reform process must provide renewed motivation and must modernise the way we work, but it must retain a European civil service that has one objective: to implement the political plans of the European Union that restore citizens' confidence.
Mr President, Mrs Schreyer, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market devoted a great deal of attention to market integration in connection with the eastward enlargement.
The effects that will be manifested by this integration must also be taken into account when planning the Budget.
We see, looking at the Four Freedoms, that there will be no difficulties in some areas, but problems with adaptation in others.
There will be no great changes to the movement of goods, because substantial liberalisation has occurred, nor in freedom of establishment, because the person or business is subject to the laws of the state in which they establish themselves.
We will, though, have problems with integration as regards the free movement of labour and the freedom to provide services, for the precise reason that there has been to date no competition in these areas, and these markets are only regionally oriented unless they choose to be otherwise.
The frontier regions will therefore come under particular pressure when the freedoms in question are introduced. Specific aid measures are therefore needed.
The recommendations of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market make it clear that it advocates endowing the frontier regions programme that you, Commissioner, mentioned, with additional resources.
We are grateful to the Committee on Budgets and especially to the rapporteur for their accepting these suggestions and, in part, adding to them.
One point in particular is of importance to me: the instruments proposed by the Commission are not sufficient to strengthen competitiveness in the frontier regions, as they promote only cooperation between East and West rather than the specific situation of the frontier regions themselves.
A specific programme is therefore needed, and so we request the Commission to present a legal foundation for it; I take their statements to mean that they are prepared to do this.
Mr President, to begin with, I should like to protest against the fact that the offices did not actually consider our opinion as such, for the reason that it mainly consists of amendments.
They apparently considered our opinion as individual amendments tabled by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I hope that this kind of procedure will run more transparently in future.
With regard to the budget, thanks partly to a tremendous effort by our rapporteur, this has become a budget of consolidation.
There are, of course, always disagreements about all kinds of sections of the budget, but we have been through worse.
I also have to say that there are clearly fewer disagreements at the level of our committee, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Also, the Council has made far fewer attempts at scrapping sections than has previously been the case, so, as far as that is concerned, my congratulations to the Council.
In my view, the problems that remain are at the level of open coordination.
The Council is still tempted to say that that should be financed from the coffers of Parliament.
However, Parliament must rubber-stamp this budget, yet it is not allowed to let its voice be heard fully on that score.
We will need to hold extensive discussions on this matter once again in the years to come.
We have a number of differences of opinion on this, and I hope that those can be settled in the next couple of years.
There is another problem concerning EQUAL, one of the components of the Social Fund.
Once again, the Council has made some serious cutbacks in that area too.
Despite this, I hope that it is possible to restore the Commission' s preliminary draft in this respect.
That seems extremely important to me.
I gather that the Commission has thought very carefully about how precisely that proposal should be structured.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, every year, in the context of public health provision, we consider tobacco subsidies, which are, basically, nothing other than direct income support for the interested parties.
It can be done another way.
So, as every year, we urge progressive reduction of tobacco subsidies and their replacement by increased aid for rural development with a view to alternative forms of income, which could benefit workers upstream and downstream in the regions.
The same thing happens every year, yet so far nothing has changed.
But we must always hope.
As regards the NGOs, we are always advocating support for them.
We want to know, though, what is done with the money that is granted to them, which is only right and proper.
We therefore demand that information on them be made accessible to the public on a regular basis.
Only then will we have a chance to check whether our financial support for them is justified.
Believe me, we already find it extraordinarily difficult to get any kind of overview on what organisations we are supporting.
Equally opaque, though, is the Commission's decision to stop funding the environmental organisation 'Globe' .
This is quite unjustifiable and so seems positively wilful.
It must be added that the funds accorded 'Globe' in the current budget year were not paid out.
Yet even NGOs need to be able to plan ahead with certainty in order, for example, to be able to carry on paying their office staff.
The Commission's action in this regard is anti-social.
Where there is political will, Commissioner, one can find a way, or another budget line for the future.
As regards the agencies, it does indeed appear as if some agencies had already developed active lives of their own a long time ago.
They simply exist.
So we finance them; more money every year, irrespective of output.
That seems to be all that matters.
This cannot go on, for this money is needed elsewhere.
Our task is to ensure that the organisations we support work efficiently.
Efficiency and effectiveness are not achieved merely by blindly piling-up resources, but by regular observation and monitoring, on the basis of which any necessary adjustments can be made.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I have the honour to speak for the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
I would like to start by thanking my colleagues in the Committee on Budgets for the fact that nearly all the amendments produced by this committee were adopted.
We have reinstated the substance of the budget estimates for regional and transport policy that you, Commissioner, proposed.
I really must appeal to the Council not to be such a two-faced split personality.
It is not tolerable for a great hullaballoo to have been made at the Göteborg Summit about our desire for a sustainable transport policy, only for the Council to cut resources in the area of sustainable mobility.
This sort of ambiguity cannot go on, and we hope that the Council will admit that.
If you want to have a rational, environmentally responsible transport policy, you cannot cut funds that are allocated for that purpose.
My main point, though, is to do with tourism, something which did not, unfortunately, meet with favour in the Committee on Budgets.
I would, though, just ask you to think again about it.
We proposed estimates for funds to promote tourism in Europe.
You all know about the debate over many years about the 'Philoxenia' programme to attract tourist from overseas, with its slogan 'tourists to Europe' .
This topic has taken on a whole new dimension since 11 September.
Not only are the airlines getting 20%-30% fewer customers, but so are hotels in Brussels, Berlin and in all European cities. The same is true of restaurants, souvenir shops and boutiques.
We are seeing a massive slump in tourism, specifically from the USA and Canada.
This situation is leading to major difficulties in the economy and putting jobs at risk.
I put it to the Council and the Commission that, if we are to discuss the consequences of 11 September next month, we should re-examine the question of what we are to do to promote tourism in Europe.
Mr President, at the very outset, I wish to thank Mr Costa Neves for being so understanding, as he has worked on the questions we are discussing with really great care and interest.
I am deputy chairman of the delegation to Slovakia, and we were in Slovakia last week.
Our programme included, among other things, a visit to the 'green frontier', the Ukrainian border near Kosice, where we saw that a very large number of refugees, especially from Afghanistan, were crossing the border, probably not with a peaceful purpose; it is estimated that 10% - 30% could have other activities in mind - of a terrorist or military nature, for example.
So I wish to ask the Commission and the Council, as a matter of urgency, to do everything possible to secure our borders, in particular, by immediately using the pre-accession support framework to make available the necessary apparatus on the borders that candidate States share with States not in the EU.
We are talking here about basic equipment such as night vision devices and motor vehicles, so that these frontiers can be better watched with immediate effect.
Secondly, the Committee concerned itself intensively with problems in connection with the support provided by the PHARE programmes and with the Toth case.
The Committee decided, from both a Slovakian and a European standpoint, not to put funds in reserve.
In Slovakia, the inevitable conclusions were reached.
The deputy prime minister with responsibility for this has resigned, which represents the political outcome.
The director dealing with the case has also resigned - a replacement has been appointed - and, in addition, the Slovak parliament has just passed a new law on financial monitoring and internal auditing.
So we will, I am sure, be able to take these funds out of the reserve by Second Reading.
Mr President, I just want to raise two points this evening at the same time as praising the rapporteur for the very sensible and courteous manner in which he has run the budget in advance of next year.
My first point is addressed to the Commissioner and concerns B-1 items where the Commission pays an enormous amount of money for subsidies for growing rice, bananas and the distillation of wine.
These are items I would have thought we were by now starting to reduce the payments for.
I would ask her to look at them.
I tabled many amendments amounting to hundreds of millions of euros.
I hope that rather than compulsory expenditure like that, being left to grow year by year, it should be looked at very closely.
Perhaps I could ask her to do that in advance of future budgets.
The other matter is a perennial matter which comes up each year: the European women's lobby and finance for women's organisations generally.
We tabled an amendment, and so did Mrs Avilés Perea of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, to say that the money that is voted for lobby organisations for women following the Beijing conference should not all go, as it has for many years, to the European Women's lobby.
I know many of my colleagues in the Chamber receive all sorts of letters and e-mails from around Europe saying it all must go to this one organisation.
This is wrong, we need to encourage new organisations in this very important field.
It is right and proper that the amendment that was put forward by the United Kingdom delegation was in fact passed.
This made it clear, in the remarks column, that one organisation, any single organisation within that spending line should not get more than 65%.
I trust that the approved amendment will be held to when the budget comes out.
I thank the Commissioner for her consideration.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Costa Neves for his efforts on behalf of all of us in this procedure and to say that it is a very technical and difficult task he took on: he has discharged it with great skill and shown much patience and kindness to all of us who wanted our ideas taken into consideration.
I have not known a Commissioner who has followed the proceedings so closely or who has spent so much time with the Committee on Budgets as the present Commissioner.
Of course, in many ways this is a highly technical exercise and, unlike national budgets, it does not have much effect on the course of economic development in the European Union.
It is too small for that, even in the area of Structural Funds, for even the most generous beneficiaries receive a very small percentage of GNP.
Ireland, at the best, was getting 2%, Portugal and the poorer areas of Spain are getting between 1% and 2% of GNP.
It is not a very generous outlay of money, but if we can use it in order to guide their economic policies in the direction that we think is best, then the money can be usefully spent.
There is one idea and one hope that I have always entertained.
I believe I said some years ago that compared to national parliaments we were like children playing shop.
The amount of resources at our disposal is so small and there is so little we can do with them, but there is one area that I would like to see developed.
I do not want to see an expansion of public spending at European level.
But in the area of economic cooperation and development, if we could only pool at European level the resources which the countries of the European Union and the European Union itself devote to international cooperation and development cooperation, we could convert individual national efforts into a common European effort without increasing the sum of taxation.
This is essential if we are to develop a common foreign and security policy.
I believe we could have a much greater impact on the development of the poorer countries and redirect our foreign policy in a way that we could help the poor, help to establish peace and give us real influence in the world.
If there is one area in which we should demand subsidiarity from the national states to the European Union, it is here.
Mr President, as in previous years, this debate is characterised by two elements which we could describe as endemic.
One relates to the general amounts and the other to the deficiencies in the rules on budgetary management.
Our differences on each of the spending categories are clear and I am not going to go into the detail.
Commissioner, representatives of the Council, we need the budget to be an effective and credible tool which works for employment, for research, for support for small businesses and for the construction of a genuine area of justice and security.
Parliament has shown flexibility and austerity in this procedure and it is therefore in a position to ask the Council not to be politically autocratic and to show unequivocal signs that it is prepared to negotiate.
I trust that you will take advantage of the flexibility demonstrated by our rapporteur, Carlos Costa, whose work - as well as the efforts of the other two rapporteurs, Mrs Buitenweg and Mr Seppänen - deserves to be congratulated.
With regard to the resources intended for external Union action, we demand that this Parliament' s undeniable political objectives are guaranteed, and these include providing resources for areas which are essential to world balance, such as the Mediterranean and Latin America.
In this procedure, the Commission proposes using the flexibility instrument to finance the restructuring of the Community fleets which fished in the area of the defunct fisheries agreement with Morocco.
This decision is fair, technically correct and necessary.
It deals with a very serious problem which affects employment and a key activity of many regions, and which arises in a context of crisis.
We must remember that we are about to implement a new common fisheries policy which has been dogged by intolerable discrimination for decades when compared to other economic activities, from the point of view of internal market rules.
As for budgetary management, this Parliament has repeatedly condemned the Commission' s inability to put an end to the problem of the so-called anomalous RAL.
In this respect, we have produced a good strategy, which our rapporteur has mentioned, which is closely related to the reform of the Commission.
We must bear in mind that in the last three financial years very high payments were not used.
We must therefore find rules which work, methods which allow faster implementation and rules which shorten the cycle of projects.
As the last speaker, I hope that the Commission and the Council obey the evangelical maxim when it comes to paying attention and that the last are put first, not only in the Kingdom of Heaven, but also here in Parliament.
Thank you very much, Mr Walter, for such a constructive point of order.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10.00 a.m.
EIB: Community guarantee against lending losses
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(FI) Mr President, the European Union has an easy way of helping other countries: the European Investment Bank receives guarantees for loans it grants to other countries.
The recipients of loans benefit from the EU guarantees in the form of interest rates that are lower than market rates.
This is also the case here as we are debating a loan guarantee in respect of loans granted by the EIB to Russia for environmental investments.
The maximum amount of credit is envisaged as 100 million euros.
The bank is imposing the criteria according to which the loans are to be granted.
If Russia fails to propose projects that fulfil the bank' s criteria the loans will not have to be granted.
This is a new, positive initiative that will put new life into the notion of the EU' s northern dimension, which has become rather anaemic.
The loans will be used to try to improve the state of the environment throughout the Baltic region and, eventually, therefore, the Member States of the EU also.
Parliament has not called into question the matter of loans to Russia.
The proposal has the broadest possible political support.
Problems have nonetheless been caused by the way in which the Council and the Commission are taking the matter further.
In the summer, the Commission submitted a proposal to Parliament that the loan guarantees should be issued in the same way as other EIB loans guaranteed by the EU, and that the guarantee in question should be 65%.
That is still the only proposal that the Commission has submitted to Parliament.
The Council, however, decided later to take exceptional action and insisted on adopting a full 100% guarantee in respect of the loan to Russia, rather than one of 65%.
Russia has therefore been treated differently from other recipients of EU loan guarantees.
The Commission endorsed the Council' s proposal, but it has not submitted a new proposal on the matter to Parliament.
Consequently, we, in Parliament, are debating the Commission' s original proposal for a 65% loan guarantee.
Parliament demanded a new round of consultations as a result of the revised proposal.
After all manner of talks with representatives of the Council and the Commission we have received a letter from the Council that may, with a little goodwill on our part, be interpreted as a rehearing of the Parliament.
The Commission also has indicated in writing that it has approved the 100% guarantee.
As this is a deviation from the general rule, the Committee on Budgets would have liked to have an entirely new proposal from the Commission.
The Commission said it could not submit one in time.
In this case 'in time' means it would be most beneficial to all parties if a decision could be taken on the issue this year.
There is a ceiling for EU loan guarantees, which is formed by a special Guarantee Fund.
Funds are gradually transferred to it from the Guarantee Reserves as guarantee commitments are made.
This year the ceiling is 208 million euros.
The guarantees in respect of the loans to Russia fit into this year' s envelope even though the 100% guarantee takes a larger part of it than a 65% guarantee would.
A decision is needed this year, as there are so many commitments for next year that there will be no room then at all in the Guarantee Fund for new guarantees - not for loans for environmental investments in Russia either, which is the case here.
It would take consensus on the part of all the EU institutions to raise the ceiling for guarantees and it is not always a simple matter to achieve that.
If, therefore, we want to ensure that the EIB loans will be used for Russia' s Baltic Sea basin environment, it is best to take the decision this year.
The Committee on Budgets has been ready for it, even though the action of the Council and the Commission cannot be deemed to be completely appropriate.
Thus, the committee is working on the principle that there should be no precedent set here and that similar matters should not be dealt with in this way in the future.
Parliament insists that account also be taken of the priorities it has set.
As the permanent rapporteur on loans and guarantees in the Committee on Budgets, I would like once more to draw attention to the fact that next year there will be no margin whatsoever in the Guarantee Funds for new and unexpected aid actions.
The Commission must take action accordingly.
Mr President, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy warmly supports the Council' s decision to grant a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under a lending action for environmental projects in the Baltic Sea basin of Russia.
We feel considerable unease faced with the environmental situation in that area, which is in immediate proximity to the European Union.
We believe that environmental investment in that area is required urgently and, in certain cases, even as an emergency measure. We note that the European Investment Bank has already begun negotiations concerning participation in projects for dealing with waste water from St Petersburg and Kaliningrad.
It is important that the problems in these areas should be solved as soon as possible.
There is also reason for pointing out that environmental investment in this area can be more effective than many other investments within the Community and that major positive effects on health and the environment can be achieved for people in the European Union.
We, in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, can therefore warmly support the proposal tabled.
Mr President, I should like to thank the draftsman and express my support for Mr Seppänen' s report.
In certain parts of the immediate surroundings of the European Union, the environmental problems are genuinely alarming, especially when it comes to the water in the Baltic.
EU countries are naturally affected just as much by these problems as large parts of Russia, Poland, Kaliningrad etc.
To obtain clear water in the Baltic, it is crucial for us to cooperate across borders.
I, myself, live in an administrative district on the Baltic, Norrköping, where one of the greatest problems we have when it comes to water quality is that we still receive so much untreated waste from the candidate countries and from Russia.
This is a very big problem for the EU Member States too.
We know, for example, that untreated waste water from 3-4 million people in the St Petersburg region is still being released and that the situation around Kaliningrad is much the same.
Such conditions affect us all.
In order to develop this region and to get to grips with the major problems, especially at a specifically environmental level, we have created the Northern Dimension, covering a very large area from Iceland in the west to Russia in the east.
Restoring the balance in the Baltic is a measure to which exceptional priority should be given.
The matter is urgent, and that is why I am pleased that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has also expressed its wishes.
For myself, coming as I do from the Committee on Budgets, it is also a question of presenting the financial aspects of this proposal. From the Committee on Budgets, we should like to sound a warning note in this House.
The guarantee reserve that exists to cover possible credit losses is seriously stretched, both this year and next year.
The scope for this loan to Russia is really created simply through our not successfully implementing other commitments.
We have had to postpone other promised projects. Otherwise, we should not have managed to grant this loan within the framework that had been set.
If we are neither to renege on our promises in the future nor to give up our new ambitions, the Council and the Commission will therefore have to review the guarantee reserve ceiling relatively soon.
The situation is slightly reminiscent of the discussion we had in the budget debate earlier about the fact that the Council is happy to issue promises but then does not arrange satisfactory financing.
I should therefore like to ask Mr Solbes Mira what the Commission' s plans are when it comes to tabling proposals concerning the future of the guarantee reserve.
I assume the Commissioner agrees that there is a lot of pressure upon the ceiling for this reserve.
Commissioner, Mr Arvidsson, I can agree with everything that you, Mr Arvidsson, said about the importance and environmental significance of this decision.
We also know that the decision we are now discussing probably concerns the most important individual position to emerge from the meeting of the European Council in Stockholm.
I would again point out that it is the north coast of the Bay of Finland that has to receive all the waste from St Petersburg, something which leads to a particularly high degree of algal bloom.
I therefore wish to declare that I have a major interest in this issue and that the waste water from 3.5 million people has a very profound effect upon the environment and archipelago in my native Finland.
We have set a ceiling of EUR 100 million.
These funds are to be used for selected projects which have clear environmental objectives and are also of considerable interest to the EU.
I believe that this is one of the critical points, if account is taken of what emerged from the discussion yesterday at the meeting of the Northern Dimension in Finland.
One Russian minister said that there is criticism of the selection criteria and wants international funding organisations to play a larger part in the project planning.
At the same time, we know that the budget of the North West Sewage Treatment Works has significantly exceeded Finland' s and the Nordic Investment Bank' s estimates.
I believe we must give a one hundred per cent guarantee.
I do not believe that EUR 100 million will solve the problem.
We know that the Russian Federation does not give guarantees and that the guarantees of the city of St Petersburg are completely used up.
I, therefore, appeal to my fellow MEPs to show solidarity on this issue.
Give a one hundred per cent guarantee for this project.
It would be in our interests, and we should be gradually paving the way for greater environmental awareness in St Petersburg, something to which we must always be attentive.
The situation is significantly more complicated than Mrs Wallström imagines.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Parliament for its willingness to adopt a report on this special instrument within the Union' s Northern Dimension.
This will provide a Community guarantee for EIB loans, to a value of EUR 100 million, for the purposes of environmental projects in Russia, as you have pointed out.
As you know, this decision was adopted in a very specific way.
This is the first time that financial operations in Russia have been accepted and the operation is not only of interest to Russia but also to the bordering Union countries.
The Commission had proposed the 65% guarantee normally considered for this type of operation laid down in the general mandate of the European Investment Bank.
However, we know that the Council, for a series of reasons relating to the unique nature of this operation and the need for greater transparency, suggested that in this case a special Community guarantee of 100% was required.
The urgency of the use of resources this year has led the Commission to accept this 100%.
I do not exactly know the procedural problems which have led to the information reaching Parliament excessively late, but, according to my information, the Council informed Parliament on 20 September of the amendments under consideration, on 12 October the Belgian Presidency explained the changes in greater detail and, on the same day, the Commission sent the Committee on Budgets information on the reasons why we were accepting the Council' s amendments.
With the unanimous decision of the Council and with the Commission' s acceptance, there was no need for the Commission to present a new proposal.
We believe that it is urgent to approve this decision during 2001 for the same reasons you have raised.
A delay until 2002 would clearly hinder funding given the narrow margin for manoeuvre we have for next year.
However, this decision is not going to affect any other type of operation.
In his report, Mr Seppänen made references to other fundings: the Turkish case is the most obvious, coming from the 2000 contributions.
Actions in 2000 and 2001 have already been financed and problems of this nature do not arise.
However, another longer-term problem does arise: how are we going to handle the funding capacity of the European Investment Bank within our lending mechanism? Mr Färm also asked what we intended to do as a Commission.
I wanted to tell you firstly that the Commission is grateful to Parliament for raising this problem of the limited capacity for indebtedness that we have within the mechanism of the Guarantee Fund.
The Commission has already raised this problem in the Council and also here in Parliament on various occasions, and we believe that, if there are new initiatives in the context of 2002, current problems will become more serious and it will be essential to take certain decisions.
The Commission is currently weighing up various options and we intend to approve an initiative relatively soon by means of a Communication which we will send to the Council and to Parliament.
I cannot respond to Mr Färm by indicating which option we are considering at the moment but I can point out that in the past we proposed a reduction in the level of coverage from 65% to 60%.
This could be one of the instruments, like any other which may be necessary, for creating a greater margin for manoeuvre in future actions.
This is what I can tell you at the moment and I would like to thank you for your cooperation in the debate on this report.
Thank you very much, Mr Solbes.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
EBRD: Community contribution to Chernobyl Shelter Fund
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the PSE Group in support of the Virrankoski report, which gives Parliament the go-ahead to grant a further contribution - as the rapporteur himself explained - to complete the Chernobyl Shelter.
I endorse Mr Virrankoski' s reasons for his choice and, in particular, I endorse the European Union' s decision to contribute practically to creating safe conditions in the wake of the 1986 disaster.
The European Union has been the largest donor by far, not just as regards Chernobyl but also with regard to safety and preventing the nuclear contamination of the Newly Independent States.
We were right to do this: none of us can forget the 1986 disaster and nobody is yet fully aware of the devastating effects it has caused and, I regret to say, may still cause.
As Mr Virrankoski pointed out, the tomb of Chernobyl still contains 200 tonnes of uranium and a tonne of plutonium, which represent a permanent danger which might - and I stress, might - also be a prime target for traffickers.
However, this was and is still a transparent, legitimate choice in legal terms: indeed, the new Tacis regulation states that the contribution to the initiatives supported by the European Union, such as the initiative on the closure of Chernobyl, will be one of the nuclear safety priorities.
In conclusion, this was and is, above all, something which the European Union has a duty towards the new generations to do.
Mr President, I wish to address two points - first the political dimension and, secondly, the issue of cost-effectiveness and control by Parliament.
As far as the political dimension is concerned, the Chernobyl disaster showed us that the use of nuclear energy involves risks beyond our control.
No national budget can cope with such a calamity.
At present, then, discussion is limited to the securing of the casing, which is urgently needed.
This is only a fraction of the money needed to deal with the disaster as a whole.
Neither the contamination of the soil and of the water underground, nor the harm done to the health of the population are capable of being dealt with within the Ukrainian budget, and it is in a situation like this that, for reasons beyond my understanding, aid from the EU runs out.
This means that these problems will remain unresolved for generations to come.
It might be added that no Western state budget - even that of a rich Western state - could cope with such a catastrophe without international aid.
This report therefore meets with the unreserved support of us Greens and regionalists.
We do not believe, though, that this will be the last contribution towards overcoming the after-effects of Chernobyl, which will be a financial burden on East and West for generations.
This report therefore invites the question: would it not be a practical preventive measure to at last bring in a European strategy for abandoning nuclear energy? The question also arises of whether the nuclear industry itself ought to be compelled to contribute to a fund to help deal with the disaster, for it, now as then, derives profit from East European nuclear energy.
My second point is that it seems to us that the solution for implementation is not the European Development Bank, which guarantees neither control by Parliament nor affordable solutions, for Ukrainian firms are not considered when it comes to applying the resources.
We therefore urge the Commission to avail itself of all sources of information, and not only the Development Bank, in order to supply Parliament with comprehensive and up to date information.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Virrankoski, and also Mr Pittella and Mrs Schroedter for their comments.
Given the threat to the environment throughout Europe posed by the current state of Chernobyl, it is clearly extremely important that the shelter project, or protection system, continues to be corrected, is completed and fulfils its objectives between now and 2007, as was the intention with the initial project of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
To this end, the contribution of the European Union is essential.
You have said, quite rightly, that the scale of the disaster makes funding by a single country impossible.
According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the promised contribution now amounts to approximately USD 720 million, and therefore, also according to the Bank' s assessments, the intended timetable and costs can be met, even though certain secondary activities may be delayed.
Furthermore, certain important steps have already been taken, such as the most urgent stabilisation work, which, undoubtedly, were a great concern.
The Commission is monitoring the application of the implementation programme for shelter and is attending the meetings of the assemblies of contributors.
We have already presented a second situation report, in accordance with Council Decision 98/381/EC, and also in accordance with the guidelines contained in the report by Mr Gordon Adams on the first contribution.
In this respect, I would like to reassure Mrs Schroedter and point out that we will keep her informed.
We will keep Parliament informed.
It is true that the EBRD is not subject to Parliament' s control, but the Commission will keep Parliament informed of all activities which are being carried out by means of Union funds.
With regard to the proposals of the Committee on Budgets, the Commission believes both proposals to be acceptable, and that they enrich the Commission' s proposal.
I would, therefore, like to thank you for your contributions and for the work you have done on this issue, which is essential in preventing the risks that could have arisen in addition to the already serious effects we have suffered as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, that Mr Virrankoski has expressed so well in his initial presentation.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your contribution, Commissioner.
We hope that you can re-gather your strength and be back with us at 11 p.m.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.20 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
ESF (2000 - 2006)
The next item is the report (A5-0328/2001) by Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Communication from the Commission on the implementation of innovative measures under Article 6 of the European Social Fund Regulation for the programming period 2000-2006 (COM(2000) 894 - C5-0341/2001 - 2001/2141(COS)).
rapporteur.
(EL) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the concept of innovation is increasingly present in our objectives and policies at European and national level.
However, we have a unique opportunity, within the framework of the Commission communication on innovative measures under Article 6 of the European Social Fund, to approach innovation in the strategy for employment, rather than solely within the bounds of the application of new technologies.
In fact, innovative measures under Article 6 of the European Social Fund can play a vital role in increasing employment and enhancing regional and social cohesion, the sine qua non to our strategic objectives, and we must not just make use of them, we must also take action to make up for lost time and lost resources, because the guidelines for innovative measures were only finally adopted a full year after the adoption of the structural fund regulations, which made delays in implementation unavoidable.
And, apart from limited funding, resources totalling EUR 104 million have been cut from innovative measures and technical assistance in order to cover old liabilities from the previous programming period.
Similarly, despite the swingeing cuts in these resources, the Commission failed to commit some EUR 31 million during the 2000 financial year and allowed these appropriations to be cancelled instead of transferring them to the following financial year.
Today, we wish to express our satisfaction at the fact that the European Commission has responded to the call by the European Parliament for a new plan on the content of innovation, how it is to be managed, how the measures implemented are to be evaluated and the strategy for disseminating the results.
However, we also wish to express our concern as to the efficiency of this proposal, which is vaguely worded and riddled with weaknesses.
We understand, Commissioner, that innovation is a multidimensional, composite concept and, as such, hard to define and confine to specific sectors or lines of action.
At the same time, we find that there has been no fundamental evaluation of previous innovative actions, which could have provided a basis for future planning.
We also find that social partners and social agencies are lacking in experience and face difficulties in their attempt to approach this concept and design innovative measures.
That is why we propose that the European Commission should adopt fixed criteria to be taken into account in fixing support priorities for and selecting projects and to state them clearly in calls for proposals.
These criteria are: the direct relevance of projects when it comes to increasing employment, really innovative features as regards the planning and implementation of the measure, the quality and viability of the measure and the potential for the circulation and dissemination of the results within the framework of the European Social Fund.
The European Commission is also vague on the question of complementarity.
Complementarity in European policy is extremely important to the sound management of resources and their multiplier effect.
The importance of complementarity is clear from this morning's debate.
However, I believe, Commissioner, that complementarity should under no circumstances mean that innovative measures will lose their specific and distinctive character, nor should it mean the deletion of budget lines referring to related but separate sectors of activities.
The description of thematic fields is also vague, especially when it comes to the social partners.
The social partners have an important role to play.
We all support it but they themselves are ignorant of it.
They themselves are ignorant both of the potential which European policy affords them and of the extent of their responsibility for creating a real European job market and increasing employment at local level.
We need to help them, perhaps with some clearer guidelines and examples.
It would be more helpful as regards the substance of innovative measures if, when defining the thematic fields for 2002 and subsequent years, the European Commission consulted the European Parliament and the Committee on the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee before announcing the thematic sectors.
We particularly welcome your reference, Commissioner, to equal opportunities and believe that this principle should distinguish not just how men and women are treated but also access to the policy on innovative measures by regions which lack innovation and face particular structural problems, such as mountain and island regions.
If we believe that a quantum leap beyond our standard policies is needed in this sector of activity by the European Social Fund, then this also needs to be expressed in the policy for evaluating and disseminating results.
We believe that the European Commission should design pioneering methods which are more penetrating and efficient than those applied to date.
Setting up a special unit to manage innovative measures is a good move and we hope that it will be suitably staffed by officials who can help it carry out its duties.
Of course, your efforts alone will not suffice and the Member States must not be left out of this process.
The dissemination of information and technical assistance for interested parties need to be promoted through specially staffed units operating in an optimum manner at regional level.
Mr President, Commissioner, this report on the implementation of innovative measures laid down in the European Social Fund, which has been so well produced by the rapporteur, Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, considers innovative measures and pilot projects on a European level relating to labour markets, professional employment and training, study, exchange of experience and also Community dialogue, which is an extremely important instrument for the creation of jobs and social cohesion.
The priority objective of the European Union, as laid down at the Lisbon Summit, is to turn the European Union into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic development, with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion.
This objective, which we all wish to achieve, demands innovative measures to integrate groups with special difficulties into the labour market.
Notable in this respect is the need to maintain the objective of equal opportunities, since the presence of women in the labour market is still insufficient.
The partnership between the different actors in the economy, as well as the choice of issues to be tackled, will help to achieve the proposed objective.
Thank you very much.
Mr President, this Commission communication is for the most part disappointing, especially because it lacks a clear, concise description of the substance of the intended innovation.
Precisely this defect can prove detrimental to the effectiveness of the Regulation.
From the point of view of subsidiarity, these innovative actions are to be called into question.
What is the specific added value which these actions should yield? In this respect, the communication is bogged down in vague descriptions.
There is thus a major risk of the Commission backing useful actions which would also be implemented without ESF subsidy because national or local authorities have already recognised their usefulness.
The fact that there is still no assessment report on the innovative actions in the previous programming period (1994-1999) should ring alarm bells with the budgetary authority.
Furthermore, the Commission has planned considerable economy measures for the period 2000-2006.
Can the Commissioner indicate the reason for these measures? And can the Commissioner also explain why the assessment report is still pending, and when it will be submitted to us?
I share the critical tone of the report.
A weak area in the report is the pursuit of a European labour market.
This is still pie in the sky, given the language barriers, cultural differences and the different national systems for taxes, social security and pensions.
Europe' s most important trait is its diversity, and that is why Europe cannot be compared to the United States of America.
Experiences with ESF subsidies in the Netherlands indicate that it has been unclear on more than one occasion as to what can and cannot be subsidised.
According to the Dutch Court of Auditors, this is partly due to the loose and opaque wording of EU legislation.
Even if a conflict of interest is unlikely in connection with support for innovative actions, I still wonder if the present communication has been tested sufficiently for the risk of exploitation and improper use.
I should like to congratulate Mrs Kratsa on her report on innovative measures under Article 6 and to agree, both with Mrs Kratsa and the other speakers, that there are two basic issues in which we share an interest.
The first is optimising the application of Article 6 and the second is having the best, most efficient relations between the European Parliament and the Commission.
As far as the application of Article 6 is concerned, the unit which deals solely with Article 6 was created, staffed and started operating in December 2000.
This means that we were able to focus on implementing it and we have made satisfactory progress.
The first stage of the programme has already been announced with the call for proposals on the subject of adapting to the new economy within the framework of social dialogue.
This was announced in February 2001.
A second call for proposals on the subject of local strategies for employment and innovation is also ready and is due to be published at the end of October.
The first call was a complete success.
A large number of transnational plans was received in which social partners, trades unions and employers, as well as local authorities and companies played a very important part.
The evaluation of these plans was strengthened at the European Parliament's request and now we do not just evaluate each plan individually, we also evaluate the measures as a whole so that we can assess their complementarity.
I must say that particular account was taken in the calls for proposals of the 4 points on which Parliament also focused.
As far as working with Parliament is concerned, I can tell you that we are about to officially submit the first report on the implementation of the previous Article 6 period which is now ready - a copy has already been sent to Mrs Kratsa through official channels - and the communication makes provision for an annual report from the European Social Fund to the European Parliament on the application of Article 6.
The first of these reports is being drafted and should be submitted to you within the next few months.
Of course, there are other ways of working together and exchanging more views.
I think that Article 6 and its implementation could be a special item for the joint parliamentary and Commission committee on the European Social Fund, but there are other fora in which views can be exchanged.
One of these is due to take place on 18 December and everyone in charge of the social dialogue plans selected will be invited. Naturally we hope Parliament will also attend.
Thank you very much, Mrs Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Equal treatment for men and women in employment
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0358/2001), by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on a Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on amending Council Directive 76/207/EEC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and working conditions (9848/1/2001 - C5-0387/2001 - 2000/0142(COD)).
Mr President, in this second reading I would like to present a legal report that is broad in scale.
Its purpose is to bring up to date the European Union' s most important directive regarding equality at work, which was originally enacted in 1976.
Society has changed a great deal in a quarter of a century, so the Committee has worked hard to bring all the issues being raised in modern times to this report.
I would like to thank my colleagues and the other political groups for the intensive, fruitful co-operation we have had prior to this second reading also.
Firstly, for the first time, the Commission has proposed binding action for the Member States to adopt in order to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
Up till now there have just been recommendations and there have been very different practices among the various Member States.
Now the European Parliament is repeating its demand, which the Council has not approved, that the Member States should oblige employers to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace.
The Committee has found that a certain system that may be very useful in preventing and remedying damage resulting from sexual harassment is that each workplace should have a confidential counsellor people can turn to in such cases.
Another important issue is that the directive seeks to strengthen rights associated with maternity, adoption and parenthood in general and to protect mothers in particular - but also fathers - from the sort of discrimination shown to young parents.
Every day we hear examples of how employers still ask young women whether they intend to have children in the next few years, and this is how a very large number of people seeking employment might become the victims of serious discrimination.
This has already been illegal in the past but this discrimination must still be absolutely prevented.
The European Parliament is proposing that this directive will serve to bring this about once and for all.
This also covers the issue whereby a person must have the right to return to the same job, or at least a similar one, and with the same terms and conditions of employment, after a period of maternity leave, for example.
As rapporteur, I have tabled an amendment in which I also want to emphasise that the unfavourable treatment of fathers must be declared to be discrimination forbidden under this directive.
It is absolutely vital that Parliament tomorrow adopts the amendments tabled by the rapporteur and some groups, in which both fathers and mothers are protected and which refer, for example, to exercising the right to parental leave, so that discrimination cannot take place. We all understand how important co-ordinating work and family life is for young families and our children too.
It is excellent to see that recently the Commission has also realised that day care is an important matter and that it will be possible in this way to raise the employment rate for women to that for men in order to increase the number of employees.
That obviously does not happen unless there is a good system of day care.
This directive does not lay down legal provision for new rights, but seeks to protect those who want to exercise their rights - both fathers and mothers - from discrimination at work.
Parliament is proposing that the plans for equality in the workplace be adopted.
This is a very strategic proposal, as equality must be actively and systematically promoted at grassroots level, in other words, where people work.
It has been a joy to see that employers' organisations have also actually approved this idea.
I hope that we will get wide support for this proposal.
I would like to thank the Commission for its very constructive attitude.
I believe that, united, we will see a decision taken on this directive soon.
If the Council does not approve all Parliament' s proposals legislative conciliation may be begun very swiftly.
Mr President, there is a German proverb that says good things are worth waiting for.
However, I remain to be convinced, especially now that I have heard what the rapporteur had to say, that everything will turn out for the best in tomorrow's vote on the recommendation for a second reading on the directive amending the important 1976 directive.
I honestly have to say that the progressive Council common position came as a pleasant surprise after the botched first reading in this House, which my group had very little to do with.
I could even have lived with the text proposed by the Council.
We could have avoided the risks of having too many new amendments at this stage and wasting valuable time on laborious negotiations on resolutions.
But that was not to be, since the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities once again failed to recognise the truism that the better is the enemy of the good.
Because of our persistence, Mrs Ghilardotti and I, the spokespersons of the two major groups in this House, which are needed to muster 314 votes, have succeeded in persuading the rapporteur not to table yet more superfluous amendments which really give women out there very little except semantic self-opionatedness and confused ideology.
We now have before us a number of new amendments from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, to which the rapporteur belongs.
This directive is one of the EU's most important pieces of legislation.
It needs to be clear and legally tenable.
Above all, it should not be overloaded with excessive verbiage that really has no place in a legal text which will have to be interpreted by the judges of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Those judges to whom I have read the newly tabled definitions of harassment and sexual harassment in the workplace are totally horrified.
In particular, I wish to emphasise that the Council has recognised men's right to paternity leave.
We really had to use our powers of persuasion to convince the rapporteur not to include in the text the idea that not only any discrimination against women but also against men in connection with pregnancy or maternity should be regarded as discrimination in the context of this directive.
However, we ultimately succeeded in making it clear that men can still not become pregnant and accordingly cannot give birth!
At the last moment, the rapporteur - who tabled an amendment contrary to the agreement we had reached - wanted to reinsert a provision to the effect that discrimination against men and women in the context of reconciling family and career duties counts as discrimination for the purposes of the directive.
This would have no benefit at all, apart from encouraging litigation, and especially litigation advocated by people who exploit woolly provisions of this kind.
Many of us still have problems with legal actions taken by associations and the requirement for employers to produce complicated annual reports and statistics.
Then I would like to mention equal pay.
There is a directive dating from 1975 on equal pay for equal work or work of equal value.
That directive is certainly in need of improvement, but in its own context and not this one.
We are calling on the Member States to take measures to ensure that employers promote equal pay for equal work in a planned and systematic way.
That is mistaken for a number of reasons.
First of all, there is the autonomy of the two sides of industry - the employers and the unions.
In this context, any demand that employers should promote equal pay for equal work would fall short of the provisions of the 1975 equal pay directive.
There is a French proverb that says 'Superflue, chose très nécessaire' .
However, that does not apply to legislative texts.
I hope that in the interests of equal treatment of men and women we will concentrate on the essentials and eliminate anything superfluous when we vote tomorrow.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, for her willingness to take into account the considerations and the work of all the political groups.
The report she is tabling today and upon which we are to vote tomorrow shows that Parliament has focused on the most important points, which will improve the common position, in order to achieve the adoption of the amendments to the directive with all speed.
Although the common position recognised Parliament' s position at first reading on a precise definition of direct and indirect discrimination - which we welcome - we feel that it is necessary - and this is an important amendment - to provide precise definitions of harassment, sexual harassment and the procedures for combating it, including preventive measures.
We also feel that it is important to keep our amendment reducing the derogations provided for by the Commission and the Council in respect of the implementation of the directive, and that it is necessary to reinforce protection of maternity and paternity rights, including in cases of adoption, providing effective safeguards against discrimination against parents using the rights they are entitled to.
There is one point which I am sure will be discussed in conciliation, for the Commission too expressed reservations regarding this point in its amended position, and it is the provision for positive measures laying down specific advantages.
We felt that it was important to include them because that consolidates the provisions of the Treaty.
Another important point which we feel should still be included is the laying down of effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions, leaving it to the Member States to identify procedures, an issue which we have also addressed in other debates in this very Chamber and which we endorsed with the vote on the report on information and consultation.
Moreover, it is necessary to make clear, as we have done, the concept of protection for victims, the extension of this protection to trade union representatives and the need for the bodies created to apply the principle of equality to be provided with adequate resources so that they can lend appropriate legal and other assistance to the victims of gender discrimination.
We must also clarify the provision made for collective action to be brought in the event of breaches of the directive and the requirement for employees to draw up equal opportunities plans.
The Socialist Group will vote for all the amendments adopted in committee.
Regrettably, however, I have to tell the rapporteur that we do not support the two amendments she tabled together with the Liberals and the GUE, not so much as regards the content as because we feel they do not achieve anything substantial in legislative terms and, on the contrary, inappropriately go against the compromise reached, which I hope will be confirmed tomorrow with a very wide majority in this House to give us more power in conciliation.
Mr President, the rapporteur has made every effort to reach consensus.
She therefore deserves all credit for the emphatic result that is now before us.
Many necessary improvements have been made to the measures against sexual intimidation and in connection with adoption leave and a woman' s right to return to her old job after maternity leave.
If the Commission and the Council are serious about the equal treatment of men and women, they would do well to adopt all these amendments.
I was astonished to find out from my Christian-Democratic counterparts that pregnancy is a purely female issue.
On the contrary: it is of the utmost importance for men to be given the opportunity to be more involved in the new life that they have helped create.
The joint amendment that is before us does not create new rights.
We simply do not want men who wish to make use of their existing national rights, for example, to three -days' leave, to be prevented from doing so.
In the view of the liberal group, unlike that of the two major groups, it consequently seems hardly too much to ask for men and women to be able to make use of existing rights to combine work and care tasks without experiencing discrimination.
We do live, after all, in the twenty-first century.
Needless to say, the green-liberal-GUE amendment on mainstreaming is also an important addition.
I therefore hope that the others will also support us in this and that we indeed face a more equal future backed by a broad majority.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the original Commission proposal, with the exception of a few positive measures, has to be described as extremely weak, to put it mildly.
It contains a number of major failings.
There were hardly any innovative ideas in it, except for how to tackle sexual violence, something which, for a directive which is already 25 years old, is telling.
However, it is, of course, positive that sexual intimidation is recognised as a form of discrimination, particularly against women, but recognition is as far as it goes.
There is no regulation providing for a possible preventative policy, and the protection of witnesses is not regulated properly either.
In addition, there is no coherent regulation of sanctions in the event of this form of discrimination taking place.
It can be likened to driving through a set of red traffic lights.
You are allowed to drive, no one is stopping you from doing so, and no measures are taken.
Moreover, the penalty is extremely lenient.
In order to protect women better after pregnancy, in those countries where this is regulated, fathers should be given the same protection as mothers, so that work and family life can be combined.
Hence, also the green amendment to establish one regulation for both mothers and fathers so that fathers can look after their children more but are also protected in the same way.
There is a clear majority in this House in favour of regulating a number of more specific matters.
Most of these matters, however, belong in other and separate directives, such as the pregnancy directive and equal pay for equal work.
In recent years, the Commission has proved unable to draft a number of amendments to directives which are more tailored to the current needs of women.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance therefore urges the Commission once again to table amendments of this kind to existing directives, possibly in the form of a codification of the male and female equality acquis.
We are meanwhile awaiting the Commission proposal on male and female equality outside the employment process with bated breath.
Finally, I should like to express the hope that the Belgian Presidency, given its own progressive legislation in this respect, succeeds in convincing the Member States of the importance of approving the directive by 2 January and that it can approve this directive under the Presidency of Mrs Onkelinkx.
Mr President, Mrs Diamantopoulou, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to thank Mrs Hautala for her unstinting effort, prior to the summer and also today, in wanting to give the Commission' s proposal some structure, whilst reiterating the need for specific directives, such as equal pay, protection during pregnancy and motherhood, and now the recognition of types of harassment, and that of the reconciliation of family and working life.
Thank you, Mrs Hautala, for having done so much work, which was not easy.
I would now like to explain why the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and I support the amendment by Mrs Hautala.
The Commission is certainly willing to recognise the right of fathers to look after their children.
We have the recommendation on the protection of workers who look after their children.
Why stop, though, when things are going so well? We now need, and this is the purpose of our amendment, to acknowledge that inequality, or discrimination in other words, can exist, with regard to fathers, when they want to look after their children.
Why did the Committee on Women' s Rights not go this far? Personally, I do not understand this and I would hope that we are a little more reasonable in the future.
What will happen if we are? Not only more quibbling, as Mrs Lulling believes, but, quite simply, better recognition of what is needed - not only by women, but by men as well - in order to be able to have both a family and a career.
If we do not do both, we are not living in the twenty-first century, as Mrs van der Laan said.
That is why I believe that this amendment simply provides the possibility of extending the right of fathers, something that we also hope for and want to acknowledge.
That is why I think it is important to support this amendment.
In addition, I would now like to highlight several points that are new in these proposals for amendments.
On the one hand, the introduction of adoption is very important, this is something new, which we must weigh up.
Next, I must say that my group supports the need to set out some positive measures.
We must not be satisfied with dealing with this at arm's length, we must clearly define these measures and this is what has been done, as a solid legal instrument will be the result.
I feel that we must also support the possibility of associations and organisations commencing proceedings.
In doing this, we recognise that there will not just be individuals faced with a law or faced with proceedings, but also bodies which can support these individuals.
This may be the reason that, whilst it is worthwhile, and whilst we can welcome the protection of workers' representatives who support complainants against discrimination, on the other hand, we have done away with the protection of possible witnesses, or of individuals who witness the harassment or discrimination that some individuals experience, and I think this is a real pity.
I personally deplore this, even though we did not table an amendment on this for tomorrow.
Mr President, Mrs Diamantopoulou, ladies and gentlemen, these are the points that I wanted to make, on behalf of my group.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur for her work.
Parliament has stressed on many occasions that equal opportunities for men and women must be more than just a principle.
Equal opportunities is a concept, a definition which must be translated into a genuine effort by the institutions to ensure, first and foremost, genuine equal treatment of men and women as regards access to work and professional training.
What is more, working women must also be able to choose whether to take the opportunity to have a family and bring up children without this jeopardising their professional careers through no fault of their own.
Indeed, society must be re-educated to see motherhood not just as a woman' s right but also as an opportunity for society as a whole, considering, not least, that one of the causes of the falling birth rate is precisely the fact that many women are discouraged from having children by the rigid mechanisms of the employment world.
For precisely this reason, we need not just to ensure that a woman has the right to resume her job when maternity leave comes to an end but, in order to genuinely protect working mothers, we need to be able to provide them with more flexible legislation on parental leave, allowing fathers to benefit from paternity leave too so that they can attend to the child during its first few months of life.
In conclusion, Mr President, the European Union should increasingly promote all such instruments - social, legal and economic - which can provide strong, practical - as opposed to theoretical - support for women, especially working women, and thus provide strong support for families.
Mrs Lulling, I would like to thank you for livening up this evening' s sitting.
These sittings can sometimes be rather monotonous, but I would like to remind you of our Rules of Procedure.
You must, in principle, wait until the end of the debates if you wish to make a personal statement, and you have limited speaking time.
You spoke for more than two minutes.
I think, however, that your fellow Members now have a much clearer understanding of your position.
We shall now take the speakers who wish to make a personal statement, beginning with Mrs Avilés Perea.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing with the second reading of a directive which is important for the application of the principle of equal treatment for men and women, in terms of access to employment, training, professional promotion and working conditions.
This directive has led to many hours of work, meetings and agreements between the different groups in order to achieve a text that is acceptable to the majority of the House, as well as the Council and the Commission.
It has not been easy, but foremost has been the desire for a legal text which is a good instrument for providing women with equal access to the labour market under equal conditions and for allowing them to reconcile family and professional lives, which still causes women enormous problems, especially young women.
Article 1(2), which guarantees that women retain their job after maternity leave, is of the greatest importance.
Not because it is an innovation, since it is included in most national legislations, but because, despite this, retaining jobs and continuing professional promotion after maternity are still creating enormous problems for women.
These problems principally affect women, but the directive lays down that, when a father has paternity leave, he can have the same guarantees as women, although this leave is after the specific leave for childbirth, which is exclusive to women.
Also included are positive measures which promote the presence of the least-represented sex in a specific working sector, in order to allow greater equality between men and women.
It is also important to stress that the directive deals with a work problem which unfortunately affects women more than men: sexual harassment, which will not only be prosecuted and punished, but prevention measures will also be adopted in companies.
Although we are aware that small companies may have problems complying with this directive, we believe that it is an important achievement for equality between men and women.
I hope that in the end it will help women and not create additional problems for them.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Hautala very sincerely for the enormous amount of work that we have achieved together here.
This proposal became necessary because appeals had been made to the European Court of Justice in over 40 cases.
The most prominent cases, which we in the European Parliament have also been very much involved in, a point I would like to reiterate, were the Kalanke and Marshall cases.
These cases have important ramifications not only in Germany, but have also led to a degree of legal uncertainty throughout the Union.
The anti-discrimination provisions of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam and Articles 141 and 3 give us a clear legal basis for amending this directive now so as to improve the position of women.
Many of the extensive amendments at first reading are reflected in the common position.
That is our first achievement.
Direct and indirect discrimination, sexual harassment in the workplace, positive action - these are now all covered by the common position.
Nevertheless, we are now going a step further.
We want to protect not only mothers but also fathers, something that, as is reflected here, originally met with some resistance in this House.
But that is what we expect.
I think that we now need to find some clearer wording.
In the course of various extended working sessions, we have managed to achieve a broad consensus in this Parliament on 15 compromise proposals.
I accordingly wish to recommend that my group should stick to this compromise.
Our objective remains that of rapidly improving the position of both men and women who are committed to their family, and working towards reconciling professional and family commitments.
We want to create a clear legal framework.
That is why if it proves necessary we want to initiate the conciliation procedure as quickly as possible.
We hope that the compromise before us here will hold up and that the Commission and the Council will accordingly also display a willingness to agree, for the benefit of women.
The report by Mrs Hautala tackles the subject of equality between men and women as regards access to employment.
As far as access to the floor is concerned, this equality has not been respected this evening.
Rest assured, this is something that I regret, as we had 16 female speakers to just one male speaker. We shall therefore listen even more closely to what he says over the next two minutes.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Hautala for a good piece of work.
If it had only depended upon herself, the result could certainly have been still better, but we have to be able to live with compromises, and these are important steps that are now being taken to move closer to equality in Europe.
The right to equal conditions at the workplace is a fundamental right and should go without saying.
That is unfortunately not the case.
The issue is one of human dignity and of avoiding harassment, something with which everyone ought to agree.
In spite of this, we know that many women in Europe are at present exposed to sexual harassment on a daily basis.
A genuine change in attitude is needed, but also clear and vigorous legislation if we are to create equal opportunities in working life.
The present values also lead to large discrepancies in salaries between men and women.
I nonetheless think it is important to say that equal opportunities for men and women are not in actual fact only a women' s issue.
It is an issue that affects us all, irrespective of our gender.
Rights are needed which make it possible for both mothers and fathers to combine professional and family life.
Maternity and paternity leave must obviously be brought into line with each other.
My own experience teaches that equality must begin in the home. I sometimes think that the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities does not do enough to include us men in its view of equality.
I think that that is a pity and is in danger of delaying more resolute work for equality within the European Union.
I should like to conclude by saying that I feel dissatisfied with Amendment 7.
I do not think that the wording goes far enough.
Every mother and father must be entitled to return to her or his own work after parental leave.
I emphasise his or her own work.
The wording, work of equal value is not enough, for there is then a risk of employers less conscious of their responsibilities exploiting this opportunity to create worse conditions for parental leave.
Unfortunately, there are many such examples in my own country, too.
I should therefore have liked to have seen clearer wording.
Allow me an additional ten seconds - given that Mrs Lulling was given an extra two minutes - and allow me to say to the latter that my marriage would never have survived if my wife and I had not shared the parental leave equally.
In view of the fact that Mrs Lulling spoke so clearly, all of us in this House understand that Amendment 17 will of course be supported by Mrs Lulling, and for that I am very grateful.
Thank you.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank Mrs Hautala but say at the same time that the best is often the enemy of the good.
The two amendments that were tabled subsequently by Mrs Hautala have caused a great deal of difficulty, for a large majority of people who are already unhappy about this directive have found in these amendments a reason to vote against a whole host of things.
And in the knowledge that 314 votes must be attained, you should have acted more wisely.
Approval of the present compromise is far more important than submission of your two additional amendments.
I should like to make this clear to you: it was a poor strategy.
For my second point, I should like to address the Commission.
Back in 1993, I drafted a Royal Decree in which I made it compulsory for businesses to draw up an annual report about equal opportunities for men and women in their businesses.
That Royal Decree goes beyond what is stated in the present text, since the latter merely encourages them, whereas my piece of legislation was binding.
Commissioner, I have to say, if you want this to yield results, there will need to be consultation with the social partners - much more so than is now the case - and there will need to be agreement with them to apply the provisions of the laws and the directives.
For our big problem is not the legislator.
He will faithfully transpose what is in the European directives, sometimes too late, but it is done, anyway.
Our big problem is the application in the field, and that is in the hands of the social partners.
Equal pay and the equal treatment, and whatever else, of women is never a priority for trade unions and employers.
In my opinion, the Commission and the Member States would do well to emphasise this.
Mr President, imagine if men in Europe earned 25 per cent less than women.
Imagine if one in two men were subject to sexual harassment.
Imagine if European men were over-represented in precarious, low-skilled part-time jobs and were given their notice when they told their employers that they intended to have children.
Imagine if the proportion of men in Europe' s national parliaments were only 20 per cent.
The mind boggles.
However, it is women, and not men, who are discriminated against in this way.
'A new way of thinking is required in order to solve the problems created by the old way of thinking,' as Albert Einstein once said.
I want to congratulate Mrs Hautala who has worked to find a new way of solving the problems entailed in the EU' s out-of-date Directive on Equal Treatment.
The proposal on which we are to vote tomorrow lays the foundation for clear and effective legislation in the Member States to protect women and men from gender discrimination at work.
Countries must take active measures to promote equality in practice.
What is perhaps most important is Mrs Hautala' s demand that public and private employers in Europe must, in a planned and systematic way, prevent gender discrimination, harassment and unequal treatment.
It is no longer enough to react after the employee has complained.
Employers are encouraged to draw up annual equality plans with statistics concerning differences in salaries and the proportion of women and men at different levels and with proposed measures to combat this state of affairs.
Employers should be responsible for ensuring that their employees are not harassed and that they have equal wages for equal work and the opportunity to pursue careers and, especially, to combine work and family life.
I assume that the Council is prepared to approve our proposals.
Only then shall we have an instrument for removing the extensive discrimination against women in working life.
Mr President, the amendment to the 1976 directive is a very important move and illustrates the Commission's sensitivity on the question of equal treatment for men and women.
For its part, the Committee on Women's Rights, thanks to the sterling efforts of our rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, and other honourable Members, has helped to produce an improved text today which attracts a broader consensus.
That is why we expect it to be warmly supported by both the Commission and the Council.
The new directive certainly responds to the change in the situation which has taken place over the last twenty-five years as regards women's employment and vocational training and replaces an outdated legislative framework which has done what it can to combat discrimination against women, serious infringements of the principle of equality, higher unemployment rates, the exclusion of women from numerous professions and the general division of the job market along gender lines.
I should like to inform the House that the Greek Parliament recently voted almost unanimously to replace a similar article in the Constitution allowing derogations from the principle of sexual equality on the labour market.
The Hautala report suggests a new, better, framework and introduces new types of measures, such as measures to prevent and combat sexual harassment in the workplace, efficient protection for workers from unequal treatment related to pregnancy and maternity, judicial protection, positive measures to apply equality in practice, as other Members have pointed out, and sanctions to punish infringements of the directive.
However, I feel that the directive could be clearer in defining purely objective selection criteria for all jobs and should not leave loopholes for gender-based exceptions and exclusions.
Mr President, this directive is tremendously important to the future of Europe because it regulates matters which concern the whole of society - men and women alike - and is a way of achieving fundamental strategic objectives of the European Union, as laid down in the EC Treaty, Articles 2 and 3, and the European Social Agenda.
It absolutely must update this directive if it is to be an efficient means of achieving these objectives.
The reform of the directive has been a dogged and, at times, difficult procedure, as happens when we try to adopt a correct, binding and efficient text.
Both the rapporteur and all the political groups showed willing, although it was difficult to strike a balance between the ambitious objectives set by the European Union for women's employment and the quality of jobs, the already high acquis communautaire on equal treatment for men and women and the exceptional, high-level performance by certain Member States which have gone beyond the proposals for the directive (Mrs Karamanou and Mrs Smet referred to experiences in Greece and Belgium) and the real need to maintain flexibility and the status of female employment during a downswing in the economy and on the labour market, help speed up cooperation with the Council and the European Commission and avoid overburdening the text with important women's issues such as equal pay, which are dealt with elsewhere, and achieve the consensus and majority needed.
In my personal experience, this procedure has given all of us, European institutions, national governments, social partners and social agencies, a more responsible attitude to women's problems and to the importance of female employment to our development objectives.
I think that this mature attitude will also find expression in tomorrow's vote.
The views of my political group have been stated and I share them.
Personally, I support Amendment No 17 on the recognition of paternity as a factor in the strategy to promote new working conditions, as a factor in the balanced participation of men and women in family and professional life and as acknowledgement of the social values of family life and support for women in their multiple and simultaneous roles.
Mr President, Commissioner, this evening, we are discussing the equal treatment of men and women with regard to access to employment, occupational training and chances of promotion, and with regard to working conditions.
In actual fact, it is astonishing that we should still be discussing this topic, because we have been discussing it for so long, and virtually everyone is convinced, both men and women, that such equal treatment is fair and does not and should not have to be justified.
However, we are not yet that far advanced, unfortunately.
To this day, women are being treated as inferior and discriminated against, also in working situations.
The combination of work and care still poses problems in many cases.
That is why I am pleased with this report.
I am also pleased that we were able to find a compromise text concerning a number of important points.
I therefore hope that the voting tomorrow will be positive so that it can truly represent a step forward in the process of equal treatment.
The report encourages States and organisations involved to take measures in favour of equal treatment and to combat sexual intimidation.
Better legal protection is given and, for example, opportunities are given to return to work following pregnancy or in connection with adoption.
In addition, we will gain a better insight into the actual situation concerning participation of men and women and we shall have access to better, updated statistics.
That is why I should like to extend warm thanks to the Commission for the initiative.
I should also like to thank the rapporteur warmly for all her efforts to persuade us to sing from the same song sheet, but a special thanks goes to all those who have worked hard on this broadly-based text.
I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, and I would like to thank all the Members of the committee for their efforts and excellent contributions in this difficult and complex area.
I am aware of your concerns to improve the text of the common position on which there was unanimous agreement in the Council on 11 June 2001.
As you know from the first reading, the Commission accepted in spirit the majority of your amendments - 49 amendments of a total of 70 - and consequently drew up an amended proposal which reflected this position.
In general it should be stressed that the common position considerably enhances the text of the initial proposal and responds to the desire to update the text of Directive 76/207.
We must now focus on the most essential issues of the directive and make a concerted effort to find possible solutions to improve even further the common position.
As you know, the Council only reached an agreement after long discussions on issues such as the precise wording of the definitions and the article on maternity and paternity leave, on which it was very difficult to reach agreement in the Council.
The compromise therefore is extremely delicate.
On the other hand I feel that the Council could make further compromises in areas such as equality plans, the role of bodies for the promotion of equality and the introduction of preventive measures to combat sexual harassment.
In this context the Commission can accept the following amendments.
On Amendments Nos 1 and 5, on preventive measures against sexual harassment the Commission can accept in part the idea of introducing measures for preventing sexual harassment by reformulating the text.
Instead of obliging employers to introduce preventive measures, it would be preferable to encourage employers to do so.
On Amendment No 8, on positive measures, the Commission can accept this amendment in part if a definition is contained in the recitals instead of the article of the directive.
On Amendment No 9, on provisions in contracts and agreements, the Commission accepts that annulment should be obligatory but rejects the removal of the possibility for amendment of the contract.
Here there is the need for flexibility.
On Amendment No 13, on the role of the independent budgets, the Commission can accept this amendment in part by reformulating the proposed text.
The text of the common position could be improved by strengthening the role of bodies for the promotion of equal treatment and by adding to their tasks the monitoring and follow-up of Community legislation in the field of equal treatment.
The Commission can also accept a reformulation of Article 6(3), by expressly mentioning that designated bodies acting on behalf of victims have an interest in ensuring that the provisions of the directive are complied with.
On Amendment No 14, on equality plans and the company level, the Commission can accept this idea in part, but with a new formulation for Article 8(b).
On Amendment No 15, on reporting on positive action measures, the Commission will propose an alternative text so as to report on positive measures only every three years.
On Amendment No 16 on gender mainstreaming, the Commission accepts this amendment partially and in spirit, but only to the extent that it respects the wording of the Treaty.
Now I should like to turn to those amendments which cannot be accepted by the Commission.
Amendment No 4, rewording the common position's definition of sexual harassment, in order to take into account Parliament's definition of sexual harassment.
Amendments Nos 7 and 17 reformulating the text of the common position on maternity and paternity leave by reintroducing inter alia the idea of maternity and paternity leave where children are adopted.
The common position was hotly debated in the Council on this issue and a delicate compromise was reached.
It is unlikely therefore that any further change would be accepted.
Here I would just like to remind you that there is, of course, the paternity leave directive - the first to be adopted following an agreement between the social partners.
The Commission did not accept Amendment No 11 on group action in cases of discrimination - especially without the consent of the victim of discrimination.
On Amendments Nos 2, 3, 6, 10 and 12, the Commission considers that the content of these amendments is already covered by the common position.
To sum up, the Commission can accept in part or in spirit Amendments Nos 1, 5, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15 and 16.
It rejects Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12 and 17.
Thank you very much, Mrs Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
6th, 7th and 8th EDF discharge for 1999
The next item is the second report (A5-0337/2001) by Mrs Rühle, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the discharge in respect of the financial management of the sixth, seventh and eighth European Development Funds for the 1999 financial year.
I shall now give the floor to Mrs Rühle, who has five minutes' speaking time.
Mr President, I am today proposing that the Commission should be given discharge in respect of the financial management of the sixth, seventh and eighth European Development Funds for the 1999 financial year.
Unfortunately, we had to postpone the discharge in the spring, because I as rapporteur had received insufficient information from the Commission.
This information is now available and I would like to specifically thank the Commission for its cooperation.
I can recommend discharge today without any reservations.
Nevertheless, I hope and indeed expect that the fruitful cooperation which we have had with the Commission since the spring will continue when it comes to future reporting relating to the Development Fund, because such cooperation is needed to jointly solve problems in this area.
However, my report is still a very critical one.
It refers to 1999, and 1999 was the first budget year for which the new Commission was fully responsible.
However, full responsibility does not mean that the Commission can be blamed for the mistakes of the past.
We all know that reforms take time and we can see that the necessary measures have been initiated.
Despite that, I would like to briefly reiterate my criticism.
It is implementation that is at stake here. For example, there was a gap between commitments at EUR 2.69 billion and payments actually made in 1999 at EUR 1.27 billion.
Unfortunately, the same also applies to the implementation of the debt relief initiative for the poorest countries in the world.
I am, of course, aware that this reflects the general crisis in development aid, and that this situation is not unique to the Development Fund or to the Commission's work, and that all the Member States, together with the Commission and the Parliament, need to consider new approaches to development policy.
The problem is a failure of political will to provide aid on a generous scale, combined with a lack of instruments to effectively implement the available funds.
That is the problem in a nutshell.
In view of the lateness of the hour, I do not want to go into great detail, but I would like to emphasise that the Commission's approach to solving this problem is a step in the right direction.
It involves strengthening local delegations, providing them with better equipment and preparation, in short, making local delegations more competent.
However, I would also like to make an appeal to Parliament in this context.
In the Committee on Budgets, we had protracted debates on the need for higher staffing levels, particularly for delegations, and the Committee on Budgets put pressure on the Committee on Budgetary Control to make these posts available and not to play spurious political games with a view to making the Commission deliver reforms before we approve staff changes.
This is absurd of course, because these posts in local delegations are needed above all else so that reforms can be made in the first place.
The further efforts at reform described in the Commission's internal audit report are also important and need to be discussed in detail between the Commission and the Parliament.
I would like though to briefly mention a couple of expectations following on from the report of the Court of Auditors. I hope that in future these will be the hallmark of the discharge process and of cooperation between the Parliament and Commission.
One important point is that we need an ongoing assessment of progress in implementing measures to reform public administration in the ACP States.
We need to monitor progress achieved in the key sectors of health and education, using meaningful indicators such as the increase in the number of teachers or doctors, thus providing more qualitative checks instead of quantitative checks.
This would also mean the discharge process in the Parliament itself having to change.
In order words, we would have to shift our examination towards quality control and refrain from making a great hue and cry about points of detail.
We would also have to carry out an annual audit of accounting and sound management of resources on the basis of samples and, lastly, apply clearly defined sanctions - such as the reduction or suspension of payments - in cases where the agreed reform measures are not complied with.
If we implement these measures together, then I believe that we will be jointly taking an important step towards enhancing the structure of development aid, and that we will be better placed to convince the EU's taxpayers and to secure approval for the necessary expenditure.
I say this because the situation prevailing since 11 September has demonstrated how important development aid is.
It will be a pivotal factor.
Furthermore, the EU has now become the world's largest provider of development aid.
That is why we urgently need this joint reform.
draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation. (ES) Mr President, the difficult circumstances which have accompanied the management of the 1999 budget, of which we are all well aware, have especially affected funds for external relations and, even more, aid to third countries, including the European Development Fund.
For the Socialist Group, the good management of the European Development Fund is not only essential for reasons of correct and transparent accounting, but because this fund and all Community aid resources are essential if we are to contribute to reducing poverty, which is one of our priorities.
We are therefore closely monitoring the Commission' s action in this area.
The eventful journey of this report through the competent committees, leading to its approval, is a testimony to this interest.
Last year we made our 1998 discharge conditional upon the orientation of Community spending towards reducing poverty and we improved the structure of the budget in this respect, in order to reduce the risks of dispersal of aid funds.
This year we have delayed, on one occasion, the discharge, while awaiting a series of reports from the Court of Auditors.
We are now in a position to approve it, now that the Commission has adopted a series of measures to improve the effectiveness of aid, in particular the creation of Europe Aid, but at the same time certain data leads to some reservations: in 1999 the level of payments from the EDF was disappointing when compared to the level of commitment appropriations and payments achieved in previous years, as Mrs Rühle has said.
Initiatives such as the reduction of the debt of the least-developed countries are not being complied with in accordance with the commitments the Commission has made.
Contracts funded by the EDF essentially benefit companies in the Member States, to the detriment of local companies and organisations.
The Commission is not yet sufficiently directing its aid towards reducing poverty.
We want simplification of procedures, integration of the cycle of cooperation, transparency in management, assessment in such important sectors as health and education.
We will monitor compliance with the recommendations of the resolution we are debating today.
The Commission knows that it has the support of the Socialist Group in its efforts to improve the management of the EDF and the Socialist Group trusts that we will see these improvements during the coming financial years, so that we are able to discharge the budget with fewer problems and conditions than has been the case so far.
Thank you very much.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Rühle's report on the discharge for the European Development Funds presents an honest picture of the contradictions in our development policy.
On the one hand, there are complaints that we are not willing enough to make generous development aid available, and, on the other hand, it is undeniable that the money actually made available is often only disbursed very slowly.
There must be something wrong with a system under which at the end of 1999 resources of almost EUR 10 billion had been promised and made available without any specific deadlines, but had not been taken up.
The Commission will, of course, say that since then there have been signs of improvement here and there.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that we need to fundamentally review our approach.
The aid we offer through the Development Funds is reaching its limits, because it is geared towards supporting states that in some cases only exist on paper.
There is often a lack of an even semi-functioning public administration, there is a lack of democratic control of those in power, and many countries are in a state of open civil war or on the verge of it.
In a civil war situation, we first need to concentrate aid on conflict resolution and on humanitarian aid.
In other cases, we should concentrate our efforts to a greater extent than before on establishing properly functioning public administrations, which are a prerequisite for meaningfully applying aid from the EU or other donors in the international community.
Such administrations are also a prerequisite for ensuring that countries use their own tax revenue responsibly and in the interests of their citizens.
Our aid must therefore always be linked to reform programmes for public administration.
If these reforms make progress, aid is given, but if they do not progress or if there are setbacks we should not be afraid to turn off the tap.
I know that is a difficult thing to do, but it is precisely in such circumstances that the Commission needs to stand firm and adhere to its principles.
Finally, I would like to say one more thing about this discharge procedure. The discharge had to be postponed because the Commission did not initially provide the necessary information.
Furthermore, there was again the problem that certain confidential information was only forwarded to the committee chair and to the rapporteur.
As I have often said before, and I shall say it again now, this leads to two classes of Member of the European Parliament - those with and those without access to information.
The committee made it patently clear in its report that this situation should not be allowed to recur, and that the provisions of our Rules of Procedure in respect of the discharge procedure should be fully implemented in future.
In other words, all Members of this House should have access to all confidential information.
Mr President, the Commission is now to be granted discharge for 1999, but Parliament has, in actual fact, achieved a lot by postponing the discharge first time around.
The Commission has been pressed to take initiatives it would not otherwise have wished to take.
I think the rapporteur has delivered a splendid piece of work, but I also think the Commission deserves to be warmly congratulated when it makes progress - as, I believe, it has in fact done.
I would therefore recommend, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, that we grant discharge for the development fund. At the same time, I want to assure the Commission that all the outstanding problems will be followed up in the discharge for the year 2000.
The Commission has carried out a major investigation of the counterpart funds and of the roles and responsibilities of the delegations.
An investigation has been carried out into whether the delegations have complied with their responsibilities, and it would appear that they have done so, for disciplinary enquiries are not to be carried out.
I can, of course, ask Mr Nielson if the Commission will confirm that disciplinary enquiries will not be carried out on the basis of its investigations.
I can also - perhaps rather teasingly - ask if the Commission will confirm this report, which will not be sent to Parliament.
The internal audit service has done good work from the start with its investigations of the counterpart funds.
It is a good report which is critical about the way in which the system operates.
The counterpart funds amount to direct budgetary support, and neither the Commission nor the delegations in the beneficiary countries have any direct control over the money.
The report emphasises that direct budgetary support is risky, irrespective of what is done.
Mr Nielson has said that that form of subsidy should nonetheless be maintained.
How, though, does he think that control over the funds can be improved? The Commission must also be praised for sending this report to Parliament immediately.
It shows it has learned something from this whole course of events.
Discharge was postponed primarily because there were problems with the supply of information. Reports were sent to the wrong people, were seriously delayed or never arrived.
I think, however, that it is a good result we have achieved, and I therefore recommend discharge for the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to pay Mrs Rühle a compliment.
It is clear that her instincts were good when she postponed the discharge for the European Development Funds back in spring.
We in the Committee for Budgetary Control had at that point not received any substantial information at all on follow-up measures in connection with cases of fraud discovered in 1999.
However, we now very definitely know what we could only assume at that point, and that is that both the Commission and the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, have had to lower their sights.
For example, fraud in the health sector in the Ivory Coast was discovered in 1998/1999.
Medical equipment including disposable syringes and baby scales had for years been claimed at many times their actual value.
The loss was estimated at around EUR 27.4 million.
When this case came to light, the, at that time, newly appointed Commission said that this money would of course have to be repaid.
We now know that this money has not been returned to the European Development Fund.
According to the Commission the reason for this is that it was legally impossible to demand the money back!
I do not want to go into any further detail here, but this demonstrates how difficult it is to take corrective action once money has been transferred.
Furthermore, in the ACP States, OLAF does not have the same powers of control as it has in the EU Member States, not to mention the fact that it purely and simply does not have the staff to run a comprehensive anti-fraud operation out of Brussels.
It is therefore vital for us to exert pressure to ensure that there is a general improvement in the way public money is looked after in the recipient countries.
Countries that cannot protect their own tax revenue against fraud, corruption and waste are unlikely to be able to provide effective protection for EU funds.
However, for the Commission this also means that it should step up its presence in the recipient countries - and on this point I am in agreement with the rapporteur - but not only by increasing the number of officials in the delegations, but, also, by giving those local delegations more authority.
It should not, after all, be possible to circumvent local delegations in practice by coming to special arrangements direct with Brussels.
Once again, my heartfelt congratulations on your report, Mrs Rühle. We are very happy to vote for it.
Mr President, the closure and the reduction of the status and the staff of twenty-odd delegations in ACP countries, recently decided by the Commission, deals a harsh blow to the commitments to development given in the Cotonou Agreements.
If there is one lesson that we have learnt about monitoring the Community' s external action for development, it is that the key to its success is the existence of a strong, responsible, independent and credible presence in the recipient countries.
The arguments of budgetary neutrality used by the Commission are fallacious, because opening a delegation in countries such as Saudi Arabia cannot be compared with the overall costs of maintaining a European presence in those countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
Furthermore this is not only a question of looking at the cost of a delegation, but of looking at the very real damage done to the effectiveness of public spending as a result of not monitoring such spending.
The European Union cannot do without an autonomous and meaningful policy for the less developed world and replace it with a form of regionalisation undertaken in agreement with some of the former colonial powers.
I hope that the Commission rethinks this course of action and treats the ACP countries and the management of the EDF with the importance that they deserve.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent and very serious work on this discharge exercise covering EDF 1999 which was the year in which this Commission took office.
This means that I feel especially responsible for the last four months of that year.
Mr Blak mentioned that Parliament has gained much by having this discharge delayed.
I think this is true, but it should be noted that the Commission feels equally pleased with the outcome.
This is like a good love story - it is always worth waiting for.
But it was wrong that the delay had to do specifically with information being held back in contradiction to the agreement between the Commission and Parliament.
The main reason for the delay was that the report from the internal auditor service was not finished and could not be finished because we, on both sides, found it necessary and a good idea to broaden its scope in order to get a serious and deep study of how to handle this method of development cooperation.
So we have solved problems that went beyond what is normally dealt with in the discharge process and this is what we can congratulate each other on tonight.
One remark to Mr Bösch concerning the Ivory Coast - we did get full recovery even though they had a military coup!
We grilled them.
We stuck to what I told Parliament: that we wanted to maintain a position of zero tolerance, and the new military dictators in the Ivory Coast accepted their obligations within the deadline.
We have not, in my time as Commissioner, experienced any case so far where we did not manage to get full recovery when the audit results indicated the need for that.
Our cooperation through the EDF has kept growing, while the support of other major donors for developing countries and especially for the least-developed countries has been declining.
The Funds constitute an increasingly important source of finance for these countries and so, of course, we owe it to them, and to our European taxpayers, to use these resources as effectively as possible.
By the same token, the Commission should be concerned to verify that the beneficiary countries are doing all they can to improve their own capacity for effective budgetary and financial management.
This has been a major theme of this discharge exercise, and it has succeeded in focusing attention on an important area of development cooperation.
The question of sound financial management of budgetary support is, I think, better understood, as a result of the work carried out by the Court of Auditors and the Commission' s internal audit service, in cooperation with the various Commission services responsible.
I do not see any need to amend the Cotonou Agreement to reflect this.
I am confident that there is a clear consensus between the Commission, the Court of Auditors and Parliament on the right way ahead, and in particular on the importance of budgetary support.
This is a key tool to enhance stability and economic governance.
By doing this in cooperation with other main donors and in a manner that emphasises the responsibility of the recipient government, we are playing a very important role.
I am deeply grateful to Parliament that this perspective has been understood for this budget period.
We need to continue to do this.
No other donor is able and willing to meet this challenge as we are.
Of course, we cannot turn a blind eye to the cases of corruption or of negligence in the management of public funds, and I can reassure you that we will continue this policy of zero tolerance towards fraud and corruption.
But we have to be aware, as you must, that the strengthening of financial control systems in these countries is a long-term process.
It has to be tackled with realism.
We have to make an assessment of the risks involved in each action that we consider for EDF finance, and go into action with a clear understanding of those risks.
It has to be based on a common approach with other donors.
An isolated approach by the Commission would be unrealistic.
It must rely on the development of internal accountability.
Cooperation with other donors in this field is better than ever.
We all need improvement, and this is definitely being pursued in good cooperation.
This covers the discharge for 1999, and the performance for 2000 is in several ways somewhat more encouraging.
One of the main objectives of the reform of the management of the Community' s external assistance programmes is, of course, drastically to reduce the gap between commitments and payments.
The Commission has been implementing measures since May of last year to tackle this problem.
For instance, we pressed ahead with the closure, wherever possible, of old and dormant commitments, and we proposed also the introduction of a so-called 'sunset clause' to limit the time during which funds allocated to an action can be used for contracts.
We, therefore, have reason to hope that the situation will gradually improve.
In relation to the slow rate of payments, the figures already available indicate that payments in 2000 increased from EUR 1.27 billion to EUR 1.55 billion.
We still have incredible inertia in the pipeline, in the way in which these figures move.
We have been increasing the total volume of what we do in this area and this is something that will gradually occur as a result of more and more activity year by year.
This is, of course, the challenge we are facing.
I have said, on several occasions, that the lack of comprehensive data about our operations is a real embarrassment.
We have made some progress towards more effective management information systems.
I know that Parliament, and particularly the Development Committee, is anxious to see us make progress in this area, and we are doing our best.
Nevertheless, there is still much to do and we are very conscious of the need to press on with reforming the management of our programmes.
In particular, we are concerned that the process of deconcentration, or delegating to delegations as I prefer to call it, should move ahead smoothly.
The Commission has been asking for additional staff, but the numbers required have been assessed on a very conservative basis and we need every single post.
I therefore hope that Parliament in its decisions on the budget for 2002 will support us in this effort.
It was encouraging to listen to Mr Casaca in this respect.
I thank you for your enthusiastic support and hope you can deliver.
We are determined that the deconcentration exercise should not end by simply exporting from Brussels to the delegations the problems caused by inadequate staffing.
This is serious.
Concern is expressed in the resolution about the percentage of EDF contracts going to companies from the ACP countries, and it requires the Commission to increase this from some 25% to 40% in five years.
The ACP countries win a much higher percentage of contracts under the EDF than from almost any other major donor.
This should not be forgotten.
ACP companies already benefit from a substantial preference margin in cases where offers are technically equivalent.
If it is to operate a transparent and fair tendering system, the Commission cannot envisage any kind of fixed quotas which would discriminate against European companies, and which would be contrary to WTO rules.
Nevertheless, we share the political intention of Parliament to maximise the benefits of our aid for local economies, particularly where there is a technically competent and well-structured private sector.
I would point to the new investment facility, part of the Cotonou Agreement, EUR 2.2 billion, which is architectured in order to stimulate the emergence of this activity in our partner countries.
This is a way in which they may improve their position in exactly this respect.
We have already identified this as an area where we should push forward.
I am anxious to reassure Parliament that the Commission is strengthening its monitoring procedures on the follow-up of audit.
This is an important part of the reform of the Commission' s financial management and control.
We also plan improvements to the presentation of the accounts, in response to the comments from the Court of Auditors.
We are ready to enter into a direct dialogue to find out how this is best done.
I will say a few words on the points in the resolution which refer to the transmission of confidential documents.
The respect of confidentiality and the application of correct transmission procedures remain crucial.
The 1999 discharge procedure showed that the framework agreement provides an effective and satisfactory framework for cooperation between the Commission and Parliament.
What we are discussing tonight has been following that set of rules.
I want to make that perfectly clear.
The 1999 discharge procedure was the first to which this framework agreement was applied.
The Commission sought to apply the agreement fully and loyally throughout that procedure.
In the Commission's view the framework agreement has proved to be an effective mechanism, one benefit being that it allows Parliament to receive confidential and similar information.
The understanding of the importance of development aid seems to be growing as we understand more and more about globalisation.
And in the light of recent events we have come to better understand the reality and urgency of interdependency in this world.
We cannot act alone.
The challenge of reducing poverty is one in which the whole international community is involved and we share with others the framework for providing aid and for assessing the results.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Mr President, I was rather surprised to hear the Commissioner state that we have recovered the money from the Ivory Coast.
I would be very grateful to the Commissioner if, within or without the framework agreement, he could inform me - in writing if necessary - where all this has been recorded, so that we can understand this.
Ladies and gentlemen, I can see that Mr Nielson is in agreement.
You will without doubt receive all these details as soon as possible.
Classification of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS)
The next item is the report (A5-0335/2001) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of a common classification of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) (COM(2001) 83 - C5-0065/2001 - 2001/0046(COD)).
Mr President, the Committee on Regional Policy is pleased with the initiative to lay down the classification of territorial units for statistics in a Regulation, thereby providing it with a legal basis.
Until now, because there has been no such legal basis, changes and updatings have been carried out by means of gentlemen's agreements between Member States and Eurostat.
I believe that statistics are neither neutral nor politically innocent.
I therefore believe that this proposed regulation is of great political importance, not only because it will be applied when determining which regions will receive Structural Funds, but also because it provides a certain vision of Europe, of its territorial reality, of its regional and provincial organisation and hence of its disparities and imbalances.
The proposal divides the territory of the States into statistical units organised hierarchically into three levels, and proposes criteria for the definition of these regions in the candidate countries, criteria which demand that they continue to be defined on the basis of territorial organisation and within the current demographic borders.
The Committee on Regional Policy shares the objectives which the Commission expresses in its proposed Regulation, but nevertheless considers that the classification obtained is not entirely suited to those objectives, which means that it is perceived by some citizens as an artificial division of European territory.
In fact, in the annex, the Commission restricts itself to presenting the existing administrative territorial units in each Member State, mixing them with others which do not have the same institutional character, which means that there is a clear lack of homogeneity.
The Committee on Regional Policy believes that the proposal should include a European approach which is capable of overcoming the framework of borders between States.
In this respect, NUTS level 1 should take account of large territorial units which transcend these borders, which are intended to serve as a basis for the future planning of European territory.
Ladies and gentlemen, NUTS level 1 has clear shortcomings.
Only the regions of Germany and Belgium are considered units, while in other Member States, such as Spain, France or Italy, NUTS 1 level corresponds to enormous conglomerates or regions which are totally artificial and almost always arbitrary.
At the other extreme, the proposal names the Finnish Island of Aland as a NUTS 1 unit, despite the fact that its 25 000 inhabitants are way below the minimum of 3 million required for that demographic bracket.
I still believe that the Commission' s proposal should have been more daring, more coherent and, perhaps, if you will allow me, more European.
There are even more disparities in level 3, where a single Member State, Germany, has more units than eight Member States put together: France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland and Luxembourg.
In relation to the surface area of the territorial units, the imbalance is also evident, since in the proposal the prevailing criterion is population rather than geographical size.
The Committee on Regional Policy urges the Commission and the Member States to work towards the creation of NUTS level 4 and even NUTS level 5, which would represent local bodies.
The Committee on Regional Policy is presenting Parliament with eleven amendments to this proposal.
I must point out that this report was approved in committee by 43 votes in favour and one abstention.
As rapporteur, I support these amendments and reject the other amendments presented in Parliament, which were rejected in committee.
I believe that the report approved by the Committee on Regional Policy should be accepted by Council and the Commission.
Its acceptance could prevent a second reading and a conciliation procedure and would allow the Regulation to enter into force on 1 January 2002.
If that is the case, we should be pleased that we have produced a legal text providing the basis for determining the territorial units necessary for gathering statistical information in this great Europe of the future.
Let us not fall into the trap of statistics being the art of indicating that two people have eaten well, when, in fact, one of them has eaten two chickens and the other has eaten none.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur.
On the basis of a Commission proposal with the best of intentions and leading us in the right direction, I believe that the rapporteur presented the committee with a good draft report and that the result achieved by that committee, as the rapporteur pointed out, is highly satisfactory.
It would be a good thing if the Commission and, subsequently, the Council could take up the proposals of this Parliament' s Committee on Regional Policy.
Europe is constructed on the basis of agreements and consensus.
We are dealing here with an example of what, in many cases, this way of operating has consisted of: gentlemen' s agreements.
But from now on many of these agreements must be reflected in the Treaties, with a relevant legal basis.
This is an extremely important issue, as the rapporteur has pointed out very effectively.
We are dealing with European territorial construction.
For this we need clear, homogenous and geographic criteria.
These criteria must be based on politico-administrative criteria - forgive my repetition.
We must not create fictitious units which, in the end, only lead to a lack of confidence in European construction on the part of the different States, the different regions and the citizens.
I am therefore pleased with the proposal from the committee.
I would lastly like to point out an amendment which rather reflects what we are talking about: the amendment by Mrs Cerdeira on the division of the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, which are politico-administrative units, each with its own status.
In this specific case I would like to point out how Mr Hernández Mollar, from my group, also fought for this recognition for a long time, and I believe that tomorrow, when the report presented by the Committee on Regional Policy is approved, we will have achieved a satisfactory result.
This is an example and a reflection of what we want in terms of the division and structuring of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the classification of territorial units for statistics is not a formality, as might appear at first sight, it is not a technical debate about statistical terms, it is a material question because adopting any classification has direct repercussions on how the development of each territorial unit is supported.
With the forthcoming enlargement, or to be more precise, enlargements, given that candidate countries will integrate in groups, we need to move towards objective criteria for classifying territorial units, so that new members know the rules of play.
The simplest way would be to adopt fully unified criteria for each classification level and for all the Member States.
However, the many and varied specific characteristics of the countries in the Union make this idea unfeasible and impracticable.
So we must agree with the rapporteur and endorse her satisfaction with the Commission initiative which, with the proposed regulation, creates the legal basis for classifying territorial units for statistics.
We should also congratulate the rapporteur who, with her sense of moderation and what I would call female perspicacity, has proposed and accepted feasible improvements to the Commission opinion in order to achieve a better approach to the basic objective, which cannot be but to formulate truly comparable territorial units, in every sense of the word, so that we can establish a universal European statistics system.
Given past injustices, the reasonable doubts of European citizens should not be brushed aside with replies along the lines of "this area is supported, even though it is better off than yours because it is a NUTS II territorial unit, whereas yours isn't".
Rationalisation at all operational levels in the Union should be our basic and fixed aspiration.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, for this excellent report.
She has raised important questions and also taken the proposals of others into account.
Our group supports the Commission' s proposal and, furthermore, the rapporteur' s view regarding the creation of a proper legal basis for verifying nomenclature.
The issue is also a timely one, as the applicant countries are receiving guidelines for verifying territorial classification in their own countries.
With the present NUTS classification system one problem is that classifications by country have shaped themselves according to each country' s own needs and traditions.
One cause for criticism is the fact that the land area of regions has not been used as a basis for statistics.
Units vary in size and, for example, a low population density or gradual depopulation are overlooked.
The aims of the regulation regarding clear rules, comparability and impartiality deserve support.
It is also important to determine rules for dealing with amendments and to ensure that the NUTS classification does not change too often.
We would ask you to support our group' s amendment, whereby islands and the outermost regions are added to the Subparagraph of Article 3 (4) in order to avoid unnecessary reclassification.
Our group stresses the importance of also having flexibility in classification so that administrative factors and, for example, geographical, social and economic circumstances will be taken into consideration as appropriate.
Our group supports the rapporteur' s opinion that the Commission should investigate the inclusion of a new level NUTS 4 in the regulation.
The goal relating to the comparative classification of territories will be difficult to achieve, and will take time.
It is essential, however, that we establish a fair classification, which will help to allocate the right actions to the right areas.
Mr President, it is a great pity that Mr Barnier is not here himself, because the NUTS classification is not just a purely technical or statistical question, it is one of the most important political issues for our future cohesion policy.
It is about whom will receive European funding in future, how much they will receive, and about who decides how it will be spent.
These are pivotal issues for the future of the European Union and of the cohesion policy, and that is why this subject, which we are now discussing at the midnight hour, is more important than has been evident hitherto.
The Commission has always adhered purely to statistical criteria for the classification of territorial units and has not taken such political issues into account.
So there was ultimately always a tendency to distribute resources from the structural funds using a scattergun approach, rather than concentrating these resources in any efficient way on the regions in greatest need.
Looking at the candidate countries, the Objective 1 areas have been extended to include high-income regions and centres such as Warsaw and Riga, and these regions receive just as much by way of funding as the poorest regions of the enlarged European Union, Latgale and Masuria.
I am sure that cannot be right.
This runs counter to a credible cohesion policy and I regard it as being totally absurd!
That is why I would like to ask whether the same agency that grants the authority aid funding should also be the control agency. As I see it, the proposal before us does not adopt a bottom-up approach.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I regard the proposal for a regulation on the establishment of a common classification of Territorial Units for Statistics, NUTS, as being sensible and clear in terms of both statistics and administration.
However, we must ensure that any amendment to the classification also requires the prior approval of the Member States.
We must also ensure that the definition of employment market regions under the 'shared-task' mechanism can also deviate from NUTS level III in future.
The two-year period provided for between an amendment to NUTS being accepted and coming into force should either be significantly reduced or else totally dropped, as Commission financial support for the Member States can depend on the regional structure.
Otherwise, I am completely satisfied with the Commission proposal, and would in fact be happier without the rapporteur's amendments that were adopted by a majority of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
Although I said 'by a majority' , they were in fact adopted unanimously with one abstention, and that abstention was mine.
I voted against certain amendments in committee.
This was because the report repeatedly referred to the adoption of additional criteria for the definition of regions as an objective.
I regard that as a problem, as taking account of, say, economic, geographical and social criteria in the case of non-administrative units will lead to a blurring of these clear criteria.
I believe that a key criterion for the definition of regions should be the number of people living in a region, as in the final analysis they are affected by any decisions regarding the NUTS classification.
When the rapporteur says in one recital that there should be at least three hierarchical levels, the use of that little phrase 'at least' implies that further levels ought to be created for classifying territorial units.
However, it needs to be borne in mind that the introduction of new statistics for the areas affected would involve a significant additional administrative burden, something that I believe should if anything be limited.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Miguélez and everyone who has spoken in this debate.
I would like to start by clarifying two points that seem essential to me.
It is up to you to interpret whether statistical classification can have a political impact or not; but I can assure you that that is not the objective of this document, nor was it the Commission' s intention.
The document is based on a Eurostat proposal which intends to achieve the most equitable treatment possible for all the countries and regions of the European Union.
Nor does this document in any way prejudice regional policy: we do not know who will be objective 1, who will be objective 2 or whether the current regional policy system will be the same in the future. We are talking about statistics here; and we are talking about making the statistics better and as equitable as possible for all the countries of the Union.
What is our intention? Our intention is that a practice we have been applying up until now should become a rule.
And we want to do this because it seems essential to us to give a legal character to something which so far has been a consensus between the Member States and the Commission.
But it also seems essential to us as a means of establishing principles for enlargement and in order to continue applying the same criteria that have been applied up to this point.
Until now, the NUTS had no legal basis, now they are acquiring it: this is the objective of the present regulation.
What criteria have we used for the definition of the NUTS?
Our document is essentially based on three principles.
The first is that the NUTS are legislative regions; we have therefore tried to define their territory in accordance with existing legislative political definitions: a good definition, recognised by the Member States, of units which in many cases already have governmental structures and comparable statistics, which makes them sufficiently reliable.
The second principle is that we propose three hierarchical levels of NUTS.
In your amendments you have gone further and asked for at least three levels.
With our current room for manoeuvre, from the point of view of producing statistics, to work with more than three levels would create financial problems for Eurostat.
This is one reason, but, furthermore, we believe that three levels will provide us with sufficient and valid information.
The third principle is to try to make the regional statistics comparable.
This is why the size of the NUTS has to be as homogenous as possible.
But we are also aware that there are historic realities and legal situations in each of the countries which mean that this principle cannot be applied in an automatic or mechanical way, and that specific situations have to be taken into account.
There is a consensus between Member States that these principles we have been using until now should also form the ideas behind the new regulation, as I have already mentioned, not only for application in our countries as they stand, but also in the countries which are going to join us in the coming years.
That is why the regulation responds to a series of objectives which you have been able to debate in depth and for which you have made some corrections.
We are heading towards having NUTS that are classified in accordance with the current regional systems, because we believe that this is the most effective instrument we have today for the collection, calculation and diffusion of regional statistics.
Furthermore, in the regulation we set criteria for defining regions in such a way that the candidate countries will have guidelines for regional classification within their own territory.
This objective is essential at this time.
I would also like to stress the need for statistics to be as comparable and as impartial as possible.
These statistics must not be produced and used for political ends, whatever they may be.
It would be very difficult to establish political interests which undoubtedly would lead us to clear contradictions.
This issue is essential for the Union' s regional policy, but, as I said before, statistical classification must not prejudice the nature of the Union' s future regional policy.
We intend to create clear rules for future modifications to the classification of NUTS because this will prevent future disputes, which have arisen in the past.
Modifications are inevitable.
We cannot speak of absolutely permanent situations, but NUTS must not be modified too often and of course we must have a system which is based on certain rules and certain pre-established principles.
We therefore believe it to be appropriate that modifications would not take place within a time period of three years, or else we will be faced with monitoring problems.
The regulation, as it is drawn up, allows us to move forward and improve on what we have at the moment.
You have contributed 11 amendments which, in our opinion, help to clarify and improve the regulation.
The Commission can therefore accept the 11 amendments presented by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
I would like to end by stressing that the NUTS Regulation will be an important instrument for achieving comparable and impartial regional statistics in the European Union, on which we will be able to base the regional policy which we will decide on, politically, at the appropriate time.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.09 p.m.)
Mr Cashman, I am even more pleased to hear this good news because I was on an official visit to Ireland last week, and, naturally, we were all waiting for this announcement.
Thank you for your comments.
Madam President, as you were informed earlier this week, I was in Scotland protesting against the Trident nuclear submarine base there and I was arrested.
What is the situation concerning our immunity in other Member States? I understood that we could not be arrested in such circumstances.
I have nothing against the Scottish Police.
They were extremely courteous.
They were aware of the concept of peaceful demonstration.
Maybe they should train the police in places like Genoa and show them how to react to peaceful protests.
What is the situation regarding our immunity? I was not breaking the peace, but trying to keep the peace by helping to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
Secondly, in relation to my immunity: Does that not count when I am in another country?
Mrs McKenna, I had, of course, been informed of the situation that you were in and I am pleased to see that you are back with us.
We shall thoroughly examine the issue regarding protocol.
I shall of course take the appropriate steps to ensure that Members are properly protected, if this is necessary.
Madam President, after that intervention inspired by naked self-interest, may I come back to more important matters of the day.
I would like to support my colleague, Mr Cashman, and in particular point out that this Parliament has been a very active supporter of the peace and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland.
It has been a long, and at times faltering, road to achieving peace and no one knows that better than our own Nobel Peace Prizewinner, John Hume.
I grew up in Northern Ireland in the shadow of violence, terrorism and intimidation.
We are now witnessing another milestone in the return to peace for future generations.
May I ask you therefore to write on behalf of the European Parliament to all those involved and congratulate them on this major initiative?
I would also hope that the Belgium presidency would do the same on behalf of the Council for the 15 Member States.
Mrs McCarthy, I shall certainly do what you ask.
I can tell you that all those I met were more than aware of the European Parliament' s long-standing contribution to the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Madam President, I do not wish to delay proceedings, but just to follow up on the point, which has been made on a number of occasions, about parliamentary immunity.
I could be wrong, but my understanding is that the purpose of parliamentary immunity for Members of Parliament acting in the Parliament - not outside the Parliament - is to allow you to represent the people who elected you.
It is not so that you can necessarily represent your own views in whatever manner you choose.
In other words, when you are outside this House, you are just the same as anyone else.
You are on your own.
Mr Beazley, questions of immunity are always very delicate, as you know, and Mr Duff has been appointed to draft a report on the issue.
I suggest that he also take account of all the very interesting points that you have both brought up, so that the document written on this is as comprehensive as possible.
I would like to thank Mr Duff for doing this.
Madam President, as an Italian, I would like to thank Mrs McKenna for urging the Italian police to follow the example of the Scottish police.
I would also like to express my sorrow at her unfortunate experience and my appreciation of her commitment to social concerns.
I would like to thank her on behalf of the Italian police, which, however, I feel is no worse than any other police force in Europe.
In all probability, the Scottish police were polite and courteous because, if one police force should imitate another, it may be that protesters should imitate other protesters too. What I mean is the Scottish police were polite and courteous because the protesters who were with Mrs McKenna did not follow the example of the protesters in Genoa.
Thank you, Mr Santini.
European Council meeting (Ghent, 19 October 2001)
The next item is the European Council report and the Commission statement on the meeting of 19 October 2001 in Ghent.
Madam President, Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by saying that the Commission welcomes with great satisfaction some good news, at last, which has come in recent days, namely that the Irish Republican Army has started to decommission its arms in accordance with the Good Friday agreement.
The Commission will follow the consolidation of the reconciliation process in Northern Ireland closely, not least through our Peace programme.
Following the attacks on 11 September against the United States - our longstanding allies - the European Union has publicly committed itself to doing all it can to help bring the perpetrators, organisers and sponsors of these acts to justice, and to holding accountable those hiding, supporting or harbouring them.
We thus pledged our complete solidarity with the government and people of the United States.
Over the days that followed, I was very pleased to see this declaration of solidarity translated into swift, concerted action at European level.
Mr Patten, the Belgian foreign minister, Mr Michel, and Mr Solana went first to Washington and then on to Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria to help build a global alliance against terrorism.
European authorities began rapidly stepping up intelligence and police cooperation, both within the EU and with third countries, especially the US.
On the basis of emergency legislation agreed at Community level, the European Union froze over EUR 100 million of assets of people suspected of terrorism.
It drew up uniform, Union-wide standards to improve security for air travellers.
It tabled proposals for a common definition of terrorism, for a system of EU-wide penalties for terrorist offences and for a European arrest warrant.
These proposals were firmly supported by the European Council at its extraordinary meeting on 21 September.
On that occasion, the Council called upon each European Union country to 'contribute according to its means' to the new global campaign against terrorism, and this is, indeed, what has been happening, with some countries mobilising or offering troops and others providing intelligence or making available air bases.
Despite the importance and success of this joint action, the fact is that media attention has largely been focused on what individual countries have been doing.
This has somewhat obscured and tainted the ongoing debate on the specific role Europe as a whole should be playing on the international stage.
That is precisely the issue I want to focus on today.
From the very start of my term of office, one of my Commission' s objectives has been to consolidate Europe' s influence in the world.
This has become even more urgent in the light of the new world situation.
If the European Union is to be a leading actor on the world stage, it must speak with a single, clear, dynamic voice and it must support its words with unified action.
The Union has made progress in this direction, it cannot be denied.
You only have to compare, for example, the disparate attitudes of our Member States to the Gulf War, a decade ago, with our recent united stance on the situation in the FYROM and our present coherent response to terrorism.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Belgian Presidency for the excellent work it has done to promote this process and for the courageous and intelligent way in which it has maintained support for the Union' s common, shared goals.
However, we are still a very long way from achieving the genuinely common foreign and security policy we so badly need.
I am therefore very glad that, in the Union' s declaration of 14 September, we publicly committed ourselves to developing our common foreign and security policy and to ensuring that the Union really can speak out clearly and with one voice.
A common policy is not, of course, the same thing as a single policy uniformly adopted by every Member State.
No, a common policy pools the different strengths of the individual countries, enabling them to pursue shared goals using shared instruments.
Has Europe been 'absent' , as some people allege? My answer is 'No' although we need to make a certain distinction here.
Europe is taking very specific, effective action in those fields where integration is a possibility or a practical reality.
This is not at all surprising, since the Community method has, for the last fifty years, ensured that Europe can act effectively, rapidly and visibly in all the fields in which this is possible.
It is in areas where Europe is less integrated, where the Community method is virtually or wholly absent, that the European Union seriously lacks effectiveness.
This hard fact should make us even more resolute in our preparations for the major future political developments in the Union.
A common policy ensures that the different national policies are co-ordinated within a Community framework according to the Community method so that they serve the interests of the Union as a whole.
In the field of the common foreign and security policy we have not yet reached that point because the necessary consensus has not yet been achieved. We are in a transition period, so to speak.
However, that must be our objective. We must lose no time in establishing a policy that builds on our experience of Community action and makes full use of the tools available to us.
Our first priority must be to be united in our action.
In my view, individual action taken by only a few countries is in the interests neither of the Union as a whole nor of its individual Member States, be they large or small.
At Ghent, I noted that no Member State wants to move in that direction, but the Commission will remain vigilant, on behalf of us all.
Secondly, we need specific institutional mechanisms for taking policy decisions.
That is the kind of common foreign and security policy we must develop, building on the progress we have already made, and we need to develop it fast if we are to make any useful impact on the world now emerging after the tragedy of September 11.
I am pleased to note that Parliament's Committee on Constitutional Affairs has discussed at length and with great care the implications of the common foreign and security policy for the functioning of the institutions and, in particular, of the Council.
I welcome the proposals put forward in the Poos report and I commend Mr Poos for his achievements in addressing these so very delicate and sensitive issues.
I call upon this House to endorse them fully today and upon the Council to undertake to implement them as soon as possible.
The Commission is ready to play its full part in this necessary process.
The statements issued on 14 September have important implications for the Union' s foreign policy priorities.
In the short to medium term, we must focus even more on our dialogue with the Arab and Islamic worlds, on the Middle East peace process, for the Middle East is at the centre of the current world events, and on exploiting the full potential of the Barcelona process - and this is where our task lies.
The time has come to make new moves in our Mediterranean policy.
The results we have achieved so far have not been altogether satisfactory, though this has not always - or rather has often not - been our fault.
We must now take full advantage of all the opportunities open to us to ensure genuine progress.
The Euro-Mediterranean region must aim at genuine economic integration and at setting up institutional mechanisms for taking common decisions.
We are also widely expected to play a new role in the Middle East.
We must take practical, joint action to respond to this challenge which, although tough, is within our capabilities.
Further afield, we need to review our policies on trade and co-operation with Pakistan, India and Iran as well as with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
Tangible progress has been made with regard to Pakistan in recent days.
I also believe we should be ready to respond to the renewed signs of interest in joint action on shared goals - such as the fight against AIDS - coming from countries like Libya.
This is a completely new development.
Once again, Europe is in an excellent position to respond to these political signals and to help such countries join our alliance.
We also need to work energetically to develop a consistent, active policy in relations between the Union and all its neighbours. Partnerships with specific goals, institutions and resources, particularly in our relations with Russia and the Ukraine.
Partnerships that will ensure lasting stability in our continent. This time of change is also the right time to boost these policies.
Lastly, world wide, we have to build fresh confidence, and one key way we can do so in the immediate future is to successfully launch a new round of world trade talks.
At the same time, we must work harder to offer the world' s poorest regions a genuine chance of sustainable development.
I have said it before, and I will say it again: we must guide the process of globalisation so that it works for the good of all, poor as well as rich.
We Europeans must be proud of the policies we have been pursuing as we prepare for enlargement, for they are the only democratic globalisation policies thus far developed in the world, and I would stress that: the European Union project is the only democratic globalisation process in existence.
We therefore have to tackle, energetically, boldly and imaginatively, the global issues that breed resentment and discontent such as poverty, widening gaps in income and the now intolerable economic and social imbalances.
These are the things that sow frustration and tension in relations between the developing world and the West.
The anti-terrorism alliance must advance hand in hand with a development alliance, with the Union leading by example.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Extraordinary European Council Meeting of 21 September asked the Commission to analyse the economic impact of the terrorist attacks.
We did so immediately, and the Commission presented its report to the Ghent European Council.
The European economy was clearly slowing down even before 11 September.
The immediate consequence of the terrorist attacks was a further loss of consumer confidence and a widespread sense of uncertainty.
However, there are several positive factors to bear in mind, factors that enable us to face the current shock much more calmly than in similar circumstances in the past.
Firstly, the fundamental aspects of our economy.
The European economy, unlike that of the United States, is free of trade imbalances and Europeans still have a very strong tendency to save.
Moreover, unlike in previous crises, the Union has been largely protected from possible shockwaves of devaluations and counter-devaluations of currencies by the existence of a solid, reliable single currency, the euro.
Just think what would have happened if we had not had the euro!
The events of recent weeks should make us even more proud of the quantum leap forward that the euro has allowed us to take.
Secondly, our programme.
We are undertaking structural reforms, following a strategy carefully defined at Lisbon.
The reforms are far from complete, but the present crisis should strengthen our political resolve to see them through.
I therefore call upon this House and the Council to stop hesitating and to speed up the approval of all the decisions taken at and after Lisbon to make the European economy more efficient.
Only if we meet the Lisbon objectives and targets will we be able to minimise the extent and duration of unemployment and maximise growth potential in the medium and long term.
Thirdly, our instruments.
We have achieved significant control of taxes that will still give us some room for manoeuvre during the slowdown.
However, the problem of coordinating our economic policies arises at this stage in all its severity, and it arises because, in this sector too, we continue to have difficulty in applying the Community method.
On the basis of this, I conveyed to the European Council two messages. Firstly, the information currently available shows that our economy is genuinely resilient.
If not an optimistic message, this at least gives no cause for concern. Secondly, however, we need to continue to monitor economic trends closely, not only in the Union and the euro zone but also worldwide.
If the situation changes we must be ready to act using the instruments available to us.
Once again, let me stress the importance of co-ordinated action.
With the current degree of integration, all action must be properly co-ordinated at Eurozone and European Union level.
In the present uncertain situation, we must show that we are acting in a co-ordinated manner and that we have the will to use all the available instruments.
Madam President, Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, this is a time for the greatest possible unity, determination and resolution.
We must ensure that lasting hope comes out of the evil of 11 September.
Our peoples' reactions to the recent events show that Europe needs to be more, not less present.
If Europe is to fully live up to its pledge of solidarity - solidarity with the United States but also the safeguarding of global solidarity - the Member States of the European Union must genuinely act as one Community.
The Commission will continue to work tirelessly to achieve this.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, following the European Council in Ghent, my group feels both hope and concern.
Hope, because in Northern Ireland arms are being entombed in concrete, and concern, because we are facing a long fight against global terrorism, which we must pursue with conviction, perseverance and courage.
This fight is not limited to what appears in the television pictures, whether they be from Al Jazeera or from CNN.
We must deal with the response measures authorised by the United Nations, but we must also make a significant effort in the humanitarian field and in terms of reconstruction and stabilisation, both in Afghanistan and in many other parts of the world.
The European Union can play an important role in this context.
With regard to what the President-in-Office of the Council said about the Ghent meeting, I would like to point out that in Helsinki the European Council decided to create a rapid intervention force which is still not operational.
The prior meeting of certain Member States was inappropriate.
I also believe - and I address this to both the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission - that we must show unity at all times and it is highly significant that, after a European Council, the President of the Commission should appear shoulder to shoulder with the President-in-Office of the Council to announce the decisions adopted.
With regard to the relationship between the European Council and the specific Councils, I would point out that the European Parliament is making an effort to speed up the negotiation of the measures you have proposed, but this is not being treated in a corresponding fashion by the Justice and Home Affairs Council.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would recommend that, before the meeting of the European Council in Laeken, you read in detail the report by my group colleague, Mr Poos, who is the person with the most historical experience of the Council.
It may help you to present interesting proposals.
With regard to our relations with the Islamic countries and the Arab world, we believe that the forum we are going to relaunch at the beginning of November may be positive.
My political family is also trying to re-establish links and the new tour of the Middle East which you have announced is very important, with an active approach by the Union to the resolution of this absolutely key conflict.
As for the economy, please allow me to make a brief point: inflation is decreasing, there are margins, but the European Union' s policy must be active and anti-cyclic, and we still have a Central Bank which takes decisions and a Council which makes recommendations.
The Union needs economic leadership.
And since you have said that you are going to the University of Ghent for a debate on globalisation, I would also ask you to take the European Parliament' s report on the reform of the international financial system.
With regard to the Tobin tax, your political friends have voted against what was proposed in ECOFIN and what my group presented as an amendment.
As for the future of Europe, I would like to point out that the Convention is not a war of opposing positions, but must be a joint effort.
We are making progress and you are gradually retracting, and that is not good.
I am grateful that the Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the rapporteurs have been convened.
On behalf of my group, I can tell you that we have two concerns: one, that there should be balanced representation between European parliamentarians and those of the Member States, both in the Convention and in the Presidency; secondly, that the Convention should make a difference and not just be a talking shop or a debating club, and should make coherent proposals.
Lastly, the proposals should lead to a decision by the Intergovernmental Conference before the 2004 elections in order to honour our commitments in the field of enlargement.
And in relation to enlargement, I must say, Mr President-in-Office of the Council - and here there have also been some interpretation problems - that the final exam will be taken at the end of 2002.
I am pleased that you were in Poland yesterday.
I was there on Saturday and I would like to say that I am surprised that the conservatives of the Union are beginning to say that Poland is becoming a problem because a party of the Left has won.
Poland was a much bigger problem before, because it did not have a solvent government and I believe that, although there always has to be a degree of political competition, we must support Poland, which now has a strong government with a clear desire to take part in the future of Europe.
Madam President, I should like to begin - as other colleagues have done today - with a reference to the milestone event in Northern Ireland.
The verified decommissioning of IRA weapons has been a necessary and required act for a considerable period of time.
It was long overdue, but now that it has happened, it is hugely welcome.
Particularly since 11 September it has been increasingly inevitable that such an act should take place.
I hope it represents a new dawn, a rebirth, a renaissance for the peace process in Northern Ireland and that all the political actors will now seize this moment to ground and root the peace in the institutions of that agreement.
I add my voice to those who have asked all the institutions today, in the clearest terms, to welcome what has happened on behalf of the European Union.
I want to say to Prime Minister Verhofstadt, with regard to the Ghent Council, that my group totally supports the clearest and most unequivocal assurances you have given of total solidarity with the United States.
That is an important act of solidarity, and an important point of departure.
I reiterate, for my group, that we totally support this.
If I do not dwell on this, it is simply because there are one or two questions I should like to raise with you, Mr President-in-Office.
In particular, we have had rather a long debate about the potential humanitarian crisis.
Clearly for areas within control of the Taliban, we cannot blame the world community for Taliban unwillingness to engage with the United Nations, NGOs and others.
But I would like to know what specific initiatives we, as the European Union, with our commitment of resources in this area, are now taking to urge Pakistan to open more space for refugees.
I appreciate the enormous difficulties.
I appreciate they already have two million or more Afghanis within their territory, but can we not, with our financial and organisational capacity, reassure those authorities that if the borders are opened to cope with this crisis they will not be left alone or have to pick up the tab on their own?
I should like to turn to the question of the role of the Council of Ministers in following up on the action plan to fight terrorism.
In particular, I note the strategic leadership which you offered through the Council at the extraordinary meeting on 21 September.
There you made a clear plea to the institutions to seize that moment and act.
Here I congratulate the Commission for taking the European Council at its word and bringing forward with extraordinary speed a comprehensive measure to freeze the assets of terrorist organisations.
I can tell you in this Parliament that within 24 hours of receiving that, and with the proviso that we should review it in the lifetime of this Parliament, we too seized the moment.
That had no precedent ever in European law making.
It was with some regret then that one noticed that, if there was a delay, it was among your 'line managers' from the European Council down to the Council of Ministers.
I have a number of questions: What is the Council doing on the freezing of assets? But I have an important question around it.
Can you explain to me, Prime Minister, what does this mean about the quality of governance in the European Union? After all, the Council is there to give a strategic lead.
You gave it, the Commission followed; this House followed.
The question is: Why did the Council of Ministers not follow with the same alacrity?
I would like to pose one other question in relation to the Convention.
The Prime Minister has explained to us that the candidate states will participate. I very much welcome that.
I ask the Prime Minister to clarify, in the light of the agreement at Helsinki, that all candidate countries will be treated on an equal basis.
Does that invitation extend to Turkey? It is important that Turkey should be included, based on the principles clarified at Helsinki.
I know it is not a negotiating state, but Helsinki established a clear principle of equality of treatment for candidate states.
To summarise: What will we do with Pakistan and humanitarian aid? What does the example of the freezing of assets tell us about the rather dysfunctional quality of governance?
Will Turkey be a participant in the process?
Finally, I am glad to see that the President of the Commission and the President-in-Office, today at least, are sharing a platform in the European Parliament.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Prodi, we know that when all European Councils draw to a close, they either give us grounds for satisfaction or grounds for disappointment.
One of the grounds for satisfaction is always the number of well-intentioned declarations, and one of the grounds for disappointment is usually the way these are implemented.
I shall restrict my comments to the chapter on the follow-up to the 11 September attacks and the fight against terrorism and I would like to give my views on this on behalf of my group.
We welcome the statement that humanitarian aid for Afghanistan and neighbouring countries is an absolute priority, but unfortunately, we do not welcome the specific actions taken.
If we want to take specific action and provide vital and essential food aid to the civilian population at risk, we must respond to the appeals by numerous key figures and NGOs and suspend the bombings.
We have had enough indications and warnings, spelling out that a humanitarian catastrophe is imminent, as winter in Afghanistan is approaching, which is usually extremely harsh.
We now know that the civilian population is paying a high price for the war, and the Council, in declaring its staunchest support for the military operations, is turning a blind eye to this situation.
The pre-summit meeting between the Heads of State and Government in Ghent, other than the fact that, to my mind, it is a failure compared to the real summit, demonstrated that the Heads of State and Government give military cooperation with the United States priority over a concerted political approach at European Union level. It also relegates the humanitarian, diplomatic and all other types of initiatives to the background.
With regard to the commitment to fight against terrorism and to protect the population against these acts of terrorism, it goes without saying that the commitment made by the Council is to be welcomed, but an unambiguous definition of terrorism is clearly needed as far as legislative initiatives are concerned in order to avoid any confusion and the criminalisation of any anti-establishment behaviour or activities, which are, however, political in nature and legitimate nonetheless.
Our group has a number of concerns regarding the declaration in which the European Union states that it is willing to undertake reciprocal initiatives with the United States, particularly to facilitate judicial assistance and extradition.
Regarding extradition, we are aware that the death penalty is still in force in the United States and therefore this poses a huge problem for the European Union.
Regarding judicial assistance, we are concerned about ensuring that civil liberties are protected and that personal data protection is not diminished as a result of this cooperation with the United States.
One of the important chapters concerns the protection of the population, and we welcome the joint efforts made with regard to non-proliferation and export controls on weapons and chemical, bacteriological and nuclear substances capable of being used for terrorist purposes.
Therefore, intensifying our joint efforts is a very positive move, but we may wonder why the important question of industrial activities has not been mentioned at all, particularly with regard to nuclear power stations and re-processing plants, where large quantities of radioactive and fissile substances are stored, which could cause an ecological and social catastrophe in the event of an aircraft crash, intentional or otherwise.
The Council statement does not contain a single reference to this issue, and I think that this is a serious oversight.
To sum up, Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Prodi, I think that it is true to say that we are particularly disappointed by the outcome of this Summit.
I do not wish to have to relive this disappointment at the Laeken Summit, and I am pleased to note that Mr Verhofstadt is determined to give the European Union a new role and to open up genuine dialogue on a topic that has been slightly overworked in recent weeks, in other words, globalisation.
I am pleased that he has changed the vocabulary he was using to refer to this matter, since he has rejected the term 'anti-globalisation,' which was essentially inappropriate.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President Prodi, the four weeks that passed between the Extraordinary European Council of 21 September and the Ghent Summit of 19 October were filled with events of strategic importance.
In what ways did the Fifteen analyse these events?
In the meantime, the targeted response, for which the Member States had already declared their support the month before, has escalated into real war, causing wide-spread devastation, civilian casualties and distraught people heading for the borders.
On numerous occasions, targets have been missed, with refugee centres, hospitals, residential areas and even Northern Alliance positions being mistakenly attacked.
The ultimate goal of these operations, which are being stepped up, is becoming increasingly blurred as each day goes by and their vague strategy is startling.
There are growing protests...there is mounting criticism...the feeling of unease is spreading, including amongst fervent supporters and key allies of a consistent fight against terrorism.
What is our objective?
Do we sincerely believe that this is the way to win the necessary fight to close down these criminal networks and deprive them of their fertile breeding ground? How does the European Council view this development, that is worrying to say the least, particularly in the wake of the announcement that American soldiers will soon be deployed on Afghan territory, and even more so because both Ramadan and winter are almost upon us?
Well, the European Council - and I quote - 'confirms its staunchest support for the military operations [...] and [...] notes that these targeted actions are in accordance with the conclusions of the Extraordinary European Council meeting on 21 September 2001.'
In some ways, therefore, there is nothing new in this statement...I am saddened and concerned by this attitude, as it almost puts Europe out of the running altogether, at a time when much is expected of Europe, of a political Europe, not of a military Europe, and of a Europe which, admittedly, has expressed solidarity with the United States in tracking down these terrorist networks, but failed, however, to provide unconditional support for the unilateral choices made by those in Washington.
In the weeks before the tragic events of 11 September, the European Union had, in fact, begun to play a role on the international stage, in the Middle East, in Macedonia, at the Durban conference on racism, and the EU knew how to make a mark on events.
This was also true on the day after the attacks, when Europe supported the most realistic and responsible movement within the Bush Administration, helping to do away with the worrying concept of a crusade in order to set up a global coalition on an unprecedented scale.
Unfortunately, since military operations got underway, the European Union has been acting as if it were paralysed.
The new global situation means proper intervention by Europe is more pressing than ever on some crucial issues that are at the heart of the current world crisis, and most importantly, on the Middle East question.
Mr Verhofstadt briefly touched upon this point and Mr Prodi came back to the issue: the European Council statement rightly reiterates that the UN resolutions must be respected in order to find a lasting solution to this conflict; the US leaders themselves now seem to agree that Mr Sharon' s policy is feeding the spiral of violence and is a fundamental barrier to peace.
Now then is the time for straight talking before things once again spiral out of control and thus give another chance to those who fish in troubled waters.
No one is better placed than Europe to give fresh hope to the forces of peace in the region.
I believe that this should now be our overriding ambition.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, President Prodi, firstly, I would like to express my very sincere thanks for the comments that have been made by colleagues here this morning and by you, Madam President and President Prodi on the good news from Ireland on the decommissioning of arms.
I very much want to put on record once again the important part Parliament and the Commission played in helping the peace process at a time when this help was very much needed.
We have had a dramatic breakthrough in the last 24 hours, but let nobody here take it for granted that the road to peace - a just and lasting peace - is going to be easy.
Of course, the great majority of people on the island of Ireland are genuinely in search of this just and lasting peace, but, regrettably, a small minority will do their best to try and derail the process.
We must all be on the watch for that.
I very much welcome the fact that the European Union leaders unequivocally stated their full support for the action that has been taken in the fight against terrorism in all its aspects and reaffirmed their solidarity with the American government.
They have agreed that the fight against terrorism must continue within a United Nations framework.
I believe that the United Nations has a very important and leading role to play in this regard.
Present and future actions in the fight against international terrorism should and must emanate from the membership of the United Nations.
We are all concerned that civilian populations must be shielded from the attacks which are taking place in Afghanistan at this time and, in a war situation, there is nothing more sickening than one hearing commentators refer to civilian deaths as 'collateral damage'.
We are dealing with lives here and human lives must always be protected.
Humanitarian aid for the Afghan people must be a priority and such aid must cover the needs of the Afghan population and Afghan refugees, EU governments are fully committed to ensuring that such aid reaches these people in need.
We want to ensure that this is done.
Winter is due to start very shortly in Afghanistan, and these winters are exceptionally cold and difficult.
I believe that the international community, including the European Union and the United Nations, must estimate the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people over the next few months and ensure that all the necessary humanitarian aid is delivered.
We must also, remember that the war against terrorism is being fought on many different fronts.
Within the Union, there must be formal adoption of the EU directive on money laundering.
We must be able to confiscate the financial proceeds of terrorism so as to help cut off the money supply which is the financial oxygen for its evil operations.
We can confiscate the financial proceeds of drug barons in Europe and we must be able to extend these powers of confiscation to other financial proceeds of crime.
There must be a speedy ratification by the Union's Member States of the United Nations Convention for the suppressing of the financing of terrorism.
EU governments at Ghent supported the implementation of a common European arrest warrant, and our EU Justice Ministers are due to meet on 7 December 2001 to put in place the final terms governing the operation of this warrant.
It is very important, in my view, that there is a clear definition of terrorist acts, as a national cannot and should not be extradited from one country in Europe to another unless the specified crime is a crime in his or her host Member State.
Finally, we live in challenging and uncertain times and the political situation in the Middle East is very volatile.
The present instability and violence cannot and must not continue indefinitely.
I believe that the Israeli troops must withdraw from the territories of the Palestinian Authority.
I would appeal to the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to do everything possible to negotiate a settlement based on the recommendations of the Mitchell report.
Madam President, Prime Minister and President of the Commission, at the Ghent Summit we saw the trinity, or 'dictorium' , of the big three countries make an appearance.
The preliminary meeting between Great Britain, France and Germany suggests a model that is as far from the federalists' vision, or illusion, of a democratic federal State as it is from the Eurosceptics' more realistic desire for a Europe of democracies.
Cooperation between the big three is engaged in on an intergovernmental basis, behind closed doors and without democratic control.
In this way, the big three decide what the others are to think.
For the small countries, intergovernmental cooperation between the big countries may come across as supranational dictates.
The summits are also conducted behind closed doors and without democratic control.
European integration is now modelled on the way in which private holding companies operate.
A minority of the largest shareholders is able to make decisions on behalf of the majority.
Cooperation can thus be intergovernmental and supranational at one and the same time and combine the defects of these arrangements with the maximum lack of openness, democracy and proximity to the people.
The summits must be transformed into well-prepared meetings in which small and large countries and all parliaments have an equal part to play in the preparations.
Summits must be opened up to elected representatives so that representatives of the national parliaments are able to exercise democratic control by being present there.
Summits should also be opened up to the press whenever prime ministers discuss legislation and other issues which, in our Member States, are dealt with openly.
Mr Verhofstadt is still a young prime minister from a country that has traditionally opposed the big countries' dictatorial way of thinking.
Have nothing to do with this, Prime Minister!
Invite elected representatives to the next summit in Laeken.
Do not make a decision to begin a constitutional process without its first having been discussed with the electorate in our countries.
Let the next treaty be formulated through the input of grassroots contributions instead of its coming like a thief in the night to limit our democracy.
Make sure, too, that the 49% of the electorate that voted against Maastricht in France and the majority of the electorate who recently voted 'no' in Ireland and Denmark can feel they are properly represented in the forthcoming convention.
Promise, above all, that the next treaty will be subject to referendums in all the countries. In that way, you will be obliged to design a treaty that can be adopted, that is to say, a treaty characterised by openness, democracy and proximity to the people.
President of the Commission, I am speaking on behalf of the European radical Members of the Bonino List. We welcome the European government' s support of the United States institutions, although we hope that they will manage to continue to resist the anti-American, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist instincts which are so powerful within the political groupings in Europe.
However, we would criticise the delays in presenting a humanitarian aid plan and its lack of practical content in the face of a potential humanitarian disaster. On a more general note, it is not right to focus on the difficult nature of the European Union' s political role without addressing the issue of the democratic nature of the institutions themselves.
We have talked about how important it is for the Fifteen to act in unity and with all speed and to assume a common position.
In our opinion, unity between the Fifteen is valuable when it is achieved through public - and therefore accountable, democratic - debate.
It is of much less value when it is reached in closed meetings held in secret meeting rooms which are inaccessible to democratic scrutiny.
An example of this is cooperation in justice and home affairs.
We are all in favour of the European area of justice and police cooperation, but these are extremely sensitive areas which involve fundamental rights and freedoms and the 15 penal codes of our Member States.
It is unacceptable for any democratic debate to be dispensed with, either in the national parliaments or the European Parliament, on issues relating to rights guaranteed by constitutions, in the name of the need for rapid action.
That is the real obstacle: the real obstacle is the democratic nature of the European Union!
We would make this clear, in particular, to Mr Schröder and Mr Chirac, who publicly lamented the lack of rapid action.
Be careful: fundamental rights and freedoms are involved!
The democratic nature of the institutions of the European Union is at stake.
Madam President, as someone who was born and bred in Ghent, I should first of all like to express my satisfaction at the peaceful process of the demonstrations during the European Council in Ghent.
What went wrong in Gothenburg and Genoa did not in Ghent.
That is undoubtedly linked to the changes since 11 September, but also to the sound preparation, the sensible approach by the police and certainly also to the open dialogue that has led to a different atmosphere.
As Mr Verhofstadt has already underlined, the original intention of this informal summit was to prepare for the Laeken Declaration.
The Fifteen defined the parameters and the timeframe for the convention.
As the European Parliament, we should be able to recognise that this was a true tour de force.
Six months ago, this would have been absolutely unthinkable.
Another positive development is the fact that the Union has taken a unanimous and firm stand in the fight against terrorism, has emphatically confirmed its solidarity with the US, but at the same time, has highlighted its own political role.
Strictly speaking, Ghent has thus fulfilled the expectations. But the way in which European unanimity was brought about has once again exposed the cracks in the European edifice.
Ghent has also painfully accentuated the fact that Nice' s two areas of tension, namely that between the large and small countries, and that between the intergovernmental and community approach, is still heavily mortgaging the European Union' s future.
This applies first and foremost to the CFSP.
The French President is right, strictly speaking, when he states that the European Union is not authorised to deal with military matters.
However, the question is whether we are prepared at all to change this.
The three largest Member States should realise that they cannot continue to be only half-committed to the cause.
This ambiguity cannot remain concealed behind fine sounding final declarations in which attempts are made to keep up appearances of European unanimity.
Let us hope that 11 September and the need to reform the institutions prior to enlargement will encourage Member State governments to look beyond their own national policies and return to the roots of the European Union, namely to promote peace and security in Europe and in the world by intense cooperation between the Fifteen, rather than just three, Member States.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to congratulate the Belgian Presidency, as I think that the excellent way in which the Ghent European Council fulfilled its duties and its responsibilities is a positive and hopeful sign that our institutions are working well.
I believe that this European Council was worthwhile, and was acting perfectly within its powers, in other words, in the role of providing guidance.
I would like to make three points in relation to this.
The first point concerns the issues that are called JHA in our jargon.
These issues involve a great deal of intense and difficult work, and the Ministers for Home Affairs and Ministers for Justice of each of our Member States will not be able to make progress on these, unless they have before them bold proposals such as those that Commissioner Vitorino made, and unless they are constantly reminded of the political direction favoured by the European Council.
These are difficult subjects, which require will and political determination in order to make progress.
Thank you, Mr President, for giving these conclusions.
As for the economic situation, I think that the European Council worked hard to point out where the room for discussion between the economic and monetary authorities must be.
If we really want to put in place a policy to support growth, and this is, without doubt, necessary for the European Union, we need everyone to shoulder their responsibilities, to fully utilise the room for manoeuvre in the Stability and Growth Pact and in the monetary policy, to mobilise the European Investment Bank, so that we finally get across the idea that this is a major undertaking, even if it means going back to square one.
This is also the direction that you described, in relation to the launch of the WTO negotiations.
We must not, however, forget our responsibilities, the contribution we can make, for example, to a subject as important as that of cancelling the debts of developing countries.
The third area on which you gave some guidelines, and I would like to thank you for doing so, is that of cross-border payments.
Mr President, I would like to draw your attention to the delicate issue of cheques.
At a time when we are changing over to the euro, we know that these cheques are used primarily by vulnerable sectors of society.
So, let us stop creating obstacles and let things take their course, as, for once, we are not in a great rush.
Lastly, Mr President, you stated that you hope the question of Europe' s position on the world stage will be discussed openly at Laeken.
And Mr Prodi, you asked if Europe was absent from the world stage.
No, Europe is not absent!
Europe did everything it could do and everything it should have done.
The only difficulty is that Europe is not always heard that is the problem.
At Durban, we made ourselves heard, but when it comes to having a real influence on the political, diplomatic and military situation, we still lack the support from the European Union.
We are expecting a great deal from the Convention in this respect.
Mr President, when the two planes crashed into the World Trade Center they demolished more than the twin towers.
We also saw the destruction of the European Union's three pillars contrived at the Treaty of Maastricht and our response today requires a fully integrated approach involving trade, finance and security.
The Ghent European Council showed that the Union enjoys both the capacity, and the will, to provide an increased sense of European security, solid in support of American self-defence, and sharing in the campaign to combat terrorism.
This is a European Union increasingly active in its civilian role and far more present in the Middle East peace process.
For us to succeed, we need to put aside our petty squabbles and the interinstitutional rivalries.
The Commission and Council should reflect the impressive cross-party consensus that we have created in Parliament.
In that context I would like strongly to congratulate the Belgian presidency on brokering such a successful deal on the setting up of the convention.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President of this House, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office was right to express with some pride that, fortunately, after Gothenburg and Genoa, Ghent was a different G.
We were able to catch our breath in peace for a while.
In fact, Ghent was a ghost town.
When I protested there along with the so-called anti-globalists, Ghent had been totally stripped of its character of a bustling city.
Nevertheless, I am pleased with your statement about the dialogue with the world of the anti-globalists, which is an incorrect way of saying that a growing number of people are concerned about the direction that the world is taking.
We want to move away from the privatisations and liberalisations which are plunging large parts of the world into de facto exclusion.
What action will the Belgian Presidency be taking in order to reform the WTO, for example? We are looking forward to your efforts, for the introduction of the Tobin tax is a promise which I may have heard in Belgium, but of which I have seen little evidence on the international forum.
However, the spectacle involving the European institutions was not a pretty sight, and I am very disappointed about this.
The Council was overshadowed by the triumvirate of the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
Is that what other countries can expect from a Council? The Big Three running the show - is that the kind of Europe we want?
The Commission is failing to get a grip on events and the frustration in that respect is culminating in a row about speaking times and the threat of an empty seat in Laeken.
Does the President of the Commission fear that Laeken will be a failure? The European Parliament is still feeling marginalised, and I am uncertain as to whether a convention can have any real effect in this.
Many people have witnessed the start of the war in Afghanistan, but we do not know where it will take us or how it will end.
We are facing an economic crisis.
We cannot afford failure at Laeken.
Europe simply has to succeed, and the three large institutions must cooperate with that goal in mind.
Mr President, I must say that the Ghent Summit was very revealing, both in terms of the process and of the content.
It was revealing in the sense that it, to a fault, confirms the objections on grounds of principle which we Eurosceptics and opponents of the EU have been entertaining.
The very procedure is, of course, based upon its being the big countries that decide.
A secret summit is held in which an agenda is set, effectively preventing the small countries from independently making known their opinions of the political decisions, and that naturally applies first and foremost to the decisions made in the light of the events of 11 September.
Unconditional support is declared, a total acceptance of the United States' s arrangements.
In that way, the objections and reservations that are undoubtedly entertained among the small countries and that find expression in growing opposition to the American strategy are successfully stifled.
The summit' s reference to resolution 1368 is absurd.
As if it legitimised anything!
We are concerned here with a war of aggression contrary to international law.
That is something to which the United States' s allies should be alerting people.
The resolution does not legitimise any intervention or any armed attack upon a foreign state.
As for the crucial issue here, namely the interventions and follow-up provisions where policing and the law are concerned, we are being faced with a demand to implement the most far-reaching infringements of legal rights we have seen in the history of the EU, and they are to take place almost overnight without any preparation.
I would thank the architects of the summit. It has been an eye-opener.
Mr President, we approve the approach of the informal Ghent Council, which reaffirmed its solidarity with the United States, and confirmed and strengthened the implementation of an action plan containing 79 measures to combat terrorism.
On this issue, I can only reiterate what I said on 3 October 2001 in this Chamber, when I called on the Council to give priority, from now on, to security, to review the former strategies that have become inappropriate, to recognise that the controls do not restrict freedom of movement, that they restrict criminals and protect the freedom of our citizens.
At the time, I called for a review of the disastrous Article 62(1) of the Treaty establishing the European Community, introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which demands the systematic abolition of controls on third country nationals, when crossing the internal borders of the European Union.
In response, Mr Michel told me that my ideas - and I quote 'would lead straight to a society which restricts freedoms' .
In my view, this unjustified accusation - which I naturally refute - illustrates the reservations and the obstacles we can encounter in our fight against terrorism.
Fortunately, the Council appears to have overcome these obstacles, at least partly, since in the road map published by the last Justice and Home Affairs Council, there is a discreet proposal for the Council to study 'arrangements for coordinated recourse [...] to Article 2(2)' of the Schengen Convention.
So, ladies and gentlemen, what is Article 2(2) of the Schengen Convention? It is, as you may have guessed, the safeguard clause that my friends and I defended so staunchly, which will be so useful in the future and which enables internal border controls to be re-introduced.
Mentalities are now changing, so all is not lost.
Obviously, we must differentiate between withdrawing freedoms and controls, particularly at borders, which, within the framework of our democratic values, seek to preserve our freedoms.
This distinction is essential.
I hope, and I want to believe, Mr President, that the Council understands this.
Mr President, we evidently need major disasters to illustrate how much a too fragmented Europe is still failing in its ability to shoulder responsibility.
The coalition against terrorism will not function properly if the central player, the United States, is surrounded by only fifteen satellites.
Unfortunately, the European Union has in certain ways still not outgrown the satellite stage.
That particularly applies to the second and third pillars, which are precisely pertinent when we consider international terrorism.
Wherever matters are regulated well at community level (the first pillar), things are much better.
In other words: Europe is good at paying, but not good at making decisions.
That was evident in Bosnia and is now again evident in the fight against international terrorism.
The Union is often not very visible, and I am also delighted that Mr Verhofstadt has explained how seriously he has taken the irregularities that have taken place on this score in Ghent.
That is why we are happy to encourage the Council to give Europe a clear profile in terms of foreign and security policy as soon as possible.
Moreover, the willingness to make the necessary Community changes in terms of justice and internal affairs is also leaving something to be desired.
I am pleased to hear from the President-in-Office of the Council that there is wide agreement among the Heads of Government about the fact that measures must be taken.
Reprehensible, however, are the improper objections which are being lodged by some Ministers for Justice, for example, the Minister in the Netherlands, about Europe' s interference in major issues at national political level, such as, in respect of, the policy of tolerance with regard to drugs, the policy on euthanasia and such like.
That is not at issue at all.
Mr Vitorino, too, has made it abundantly clear that he is closely monitoring subsidiarity on this score.
If the aim of the Ministers is to protect their own official or ministerial scope, then the public will not be served by that.
I would therefore like to warmly congratulate the Council with its statement that our policy to the outside world, also in the framework of globalisation, must be ensconced in ethical, social and ecological standards and must take account of Third World interests.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I should like to make a few observations on three external points, starting with the Middle East.
We have experienced the murder of Israel' s Minister for Tourism as a new low.
Subsequently, Israel invaded the autonomous Palestinian regions, which was, of course, an unacceptable violation.
We are all justified in asking for immediate withdrawal.
At the same time, the spokesmen for Mr Sharon, on the one hand, and the Palestinian Authority, on the other, mete out relentless and draining rhetoric of black and white thinking.
The others are 100% responsible, they are to blame for everything.
The representative of Mr Sharon has almost stated that the tanks which enter the Palestinian regions are a kind of peace dove.
Conversely, Hanan Ashrawi lays all the blame with Israel.
Neither of them leave room for concern or take any steps towards bringing the conflict to an end.
It appears that, for the time being, there is no chance of returning to the Oslo Agreements or the Mitchell report which is before us.
Needless to say, the neighbouring states play their part too.
Countries such as Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Saudi-Arabia are all very important players who have often used the Palestinian issue to their advantage to keep enemies out, but not to do anything of any consequence at home.
There is now scope for Europe, the Commission and the Council, in tandem with the US, to take a very unusual new step and simply to combine our economic and diplomatic power, and our UN responsibility and military power and to say: we are tabling a firm, fresh peace proposal.
For we as the world community, in the light of 11 September, can no longer afford to be dragged down in this continual downward spiral.
As we are well placed in Europe, we can also use intense diplomacy to persuade the countries in the Middle East to take part in the peace accord.
We have money.
We have trade.
We have the UN.
We have resources in that region.
We can be of real significance there.
In this respect, my suggestion would be to adopt a reasonably hard-handed approach towards both parties, for we need to table such a proposal now.
That is my first plea.
My second plea concerns Afghanistan.
The Socialist Group gives the UN resolution, which is very clear, its 100% backing.
The aim of the resolution is to trace both the perpetrators and the sponsors, as well as the countries harbouring them, and to bring them to justice, but also to ensure that we come out alive.
The EU has no military presence in Afghanistan.
That falls within the remit of other bodies: the UN and NATO.
However, we are the body that has the diplomatic power to unite the surrounding countries in that region that play a key role, namely India, Pakistan and Iran, so that they, together with us and the US, give the different parties in Afghanistan plenty of room.
Afghanistan' s key problem is that we will not reach a solution with the Northern Alliance, nor with anyone else.
History has taught us that.
What we need is a conference, wherever that may be in the region, involving the different forces - and I particularly refer to the social forces, such as the women' s organisations - which, together, will shape a new broad government, in exile and only as a first step, if necessary.
However, we must take that political direction.
It is the only way to get rid of the Taliban.
It is the only way to catch Bin Laden.
Prime Minister, your presidency, which was already reasonably complex, is certainly being tested by the attacks in the United States.
Do not, therefore, take any notice of people who say that a meeting of three of your colleagues immediately before the summit was a put-down.
Such a meeting is, of course, never pleasant for a presidency, but it proves at the same time how desperately we need a European framework within which external security, conflict prevention, our diplomacy, but also our internal security, legal and police cooperation can be regulated.
That is important for small Member States such as ours.
However, it is apparently difficult for everyone to understand that if one considers the Union after 11 September, it is, in fact, only small EU Member States that have taken any individual action.
You did not get sidetracked in Ghent.
I would ask you to ensure that this convention - the mere fact that we now have an agreement on this is already quite an achievement for the presidency - is given the appropriate assignments in Laeken.
I should like to say this about Afghanistan: humanitarian aid is only possible if the Taliban regime is removed from power and unfortunately, we need war for this.
And finally, thousands of people were able to protest in Ghent without any incidents.
It has not always been like that. In my opinion, we should draw attention to this for a change.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President Prodi, the decision of the Council at Ghent to give immediate humanitarian aid totalling EUR 320 million is unusually welcome.
The same applies to European solidarity in the campaign against international terrorism.
The next thing to do is to achieve a speedy halt to the fighting, above all to protect the population of Afghanistan.
The world is still in shock from the attacks on New York and Washington.
Two things strike me as being of particular importance, quite independently of the steps taken to date.
The first is the complete explanation of the background to these crimes and the publication of the results. Without these, there is the risk that the attacks will give rise to legends which could poison many people's minds.
This would represent an enduring victory for terrorism.
What strikes me, secondly, is that the future reconstruction of Afghanistan presupposes, importantly, knowledge of the events in that country over the past twenty-five years.
As we know relatively little about this period, I propose that this Parliament should set up a group to look into the region and comprehensively document the past three decades in that country.
We could perhaps thereby take the first step towards a peaceful solution and a forward-looking outlook for Afghanistan.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the results of the Ghent Council are without a doubt positive and encouraging, not least - although not exclusively - in terms of the fight against terrorism.
The Convention' s decision is extremely important and mention must be made of the Belgian Presidency' s firm undertaking to achieve these results.
However, in a world political and economic climate which is changing rapidly in the wake of the tragedy of 11 September, and in the face of the new demands from democratic States - primarily for terrorism to be combated, of course, but also for an area of peace and respect for human rights to be created in Asia and the Middle East and, moreover, for economic growth and employment to be boosted - we would like to make quite clear the need for a better coordinated European Union initiative which can speed up the institutional reforms, which are still far from completion, and thus empower the European Union to enter the field as a world political entity, an initiative which is able, that is, to speak with a single voice in Washington and Islamabad alike, as President Prodi advocated.
To give some concrete examples rather than limiting myself to describing vague needs, we would point out the urgency, in particular, for an incisive, coordinated action from the Commission and the High Representative laying the foundations for an - economic and social as well as political - agreement which will lead to the creation of a reunified, coherent, manageable State of Palestine while fully safeguarding the security of the State of Israel, together with an explicit international guarantee, as Mr Van den Berg said just now.
Secondly, we would point out the urgent need for a Commission and Eurogroup initiative to reach long-term agreements with the oil-producing countries in the Middle East in order to secure the continuity of oil supplies and the stability of oil prices in Europe with a guarantee in euro.
This would be a huge political boost to consolidation of peace in that area.
Thirdly, we feel there should be a Commission and Eurogroup initiative to create the conditions for revitalising economic growth and employment in the Union, both by promoting forms of open coordination in the research and development and training sectors, thus setting the Lisbon project in motion, and by transparently inviting the Central Bank to join this effort, using the room for manoeuvre for monetary policy rightly recommended at Ghent, and further reducing interest rates.
After that, Mr President, everyone will be able to assume their responsibilities transparently, in full respect for the independence of the Central Bank.
Mr President, there are two messages coming from this House today.
Firstly, the rather modest compromise resolution drafted by an all-party group which, if I were a member of the forces serving currently in Afghanistan - and I think particularly of the British forces - would give me very scant comfort.
The other message comes from the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Verhofstadt, and deals with a rather more robust approach to the current operations in that area and also his more forward thinking approach towards the future of Afghanistan.
Of course this House must have compromise resolutions and must, so far as possible, be united.
Europe must not act at the level of the lowest common denominator but accept that in politics, as in war, there must be room for leadership.
Today, our resolution does not reflect the sort of leadership which is available for the people of Afghanistan through their exiled king.
Our resolution does not reflect the fact that in Peshawar today there is an enormous meeting taking place of those seeking - including the moderate Taliban - the restoration of democracy in that country.
I believe - as do many of my colleagues - that the king, whom I had the pleasure of meeting on 21 September and whom Mr Solana met only last weekend, does have a role in the future of Afghanistan.
He introduced democracy to that country in 1964: free elections, a free media, universities, hospitals; he introduced women into politics.
It is that hope of the restoration of democracy in Afghanistan and the ending of international terrorism which must be the focus of our attention.
Mr President, I would firstly like to welcome the information from the President-in-Office of the Council on the progress made in relation to measures for combating terrorism and the arrest warrant.
Mr President, justice is a key word on the European and international stages following 11 September.
The creation of a European area of justice is the best contribution the Union could offer at this time.
We are not talking about a European criminal code; that is not what we want.
Neither are we talking about establishing emergency laws.
We are talking about something more fundamental: mutual trust between Member States and between their legitimate judicial systems.
Mr Cappato, I sincerely believe that the proposals which the Commissioner, Mr Vitorino, produced calmly and at the request of this House, and which are of the high quality we normally expect from the Commissioner, deserve our support and must be approved by the Justice and Home Affairs Council.
In no way will they violate the freedom and rights of the citizens.
On the contrary, they protect them, making justice more efficient and putting judicial cooperation in the hands of judges, and not of governments, within the European Union.
I am grateful for the information on the elimination of double incrimination, because - as the Chairman of my group, Mr Barón, said - this House feels that the effort we make to keep up with circumstances is not always reflected in the Council.
We would also be grateful for more precise information on the debates in the Justice and Home Affairs Council and for broader involvement by Parliament.
In this respect, given the speeding up of certain procedures, I wonder, Mr President, if this is not the moment to move cooperation in the criminal field to the first pillar.
I am slightly more sceptical about what has been said about progress on immigration and asylum in the Union.
I believe that not even the greatest will in the world would allow a positive assessment of this issue at Laeken.
There is just one proposal approved by the Council which may be of use today.
Why do we not implement the measures laid down in that one measure adopted in the Directive on the temporary protection of displaced persons? It seems to me that the situation of the borders of Afghanistan and support for the refugees and the neighbouring countries, issues which the European Union has to deal with, provide us with a perfect opportunity to test this directive, to test the solidarity between the Member States in the European Refugee Fund and to implement what is laid down in it.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, there is no doubt that Europe must play an increasingly influential role in securing world peace.
Little has been achieved thus far and more needs to be done, and here I endorse what President Prodi said regarding the common foreign and security policy.
In the fight against terrorism, a great deal has already been done.
Europe has decided to take action but the political support and military support too from many of the States of the Union - Italy announced yesterday the amount of troops and resources it is making available for anti-terrorist actions - will not alone suffice: the crisis in the Middle East needs to be defused.
It may be that what has been termed the Marshall Plan for Palestine has not received enough attention - although it was certainly discussed at the Council. The population of Palestine has a per capita income of USD 800 per year, whereas the per capita income of the Israeli people is USD 18 000 per year.
There is therefore a substantial difference and I feel that capital and enterprise investments are a way of ensuring lasting peace.
The economic growth of the Palestinian people, who must have a State, will certainly contribute to calming a volatile situation.
We will never win the war against terrorism if we do not first resolve the Middle East question.
I feel that the course embarked upon by the Commission and the Council is the right one.
We are also concerned - as President Prodi himself said - by the economic crisis.
I regret to say that the United States has had to invest USD 150 billion to revitalise the economy.
Europe appears to be concerned but is not doing enough, in our opinion, to support the economy and enterprise: this is not a question of State aid, it is a question of enabling many firms to stay in business, of preventing redundancies, particularly in the airlines sector.
In the case of Alitalia, there is talk of around 5000 redundancies but all the airlines have been affected.
From this point of view, if we are to safeguard employment and make it possible for a large number of firms to stay in business and grow, I feel that Europe, the Council and the Commission must increase their efforts even more.
Mr President, I very much welcome the Belgian Presidency's use of the summit as an opportunity to put euro notes and coins at the top of the agenda. Monetary union is, after all, not only for large businesses but also for every citizen.
I very much hope that this will be taken as a positive signal.
I would like to underline again that the position taken by the Heads of State and Government with regard to the Commission's proposal on charges for trans-frontier money transfers is surely a step in the right direction.
We, the European Parliament, will, no doubt, also take this step in the next plenary session.
The current situation as regards employment and the economy, that is, the state of the labour market, as well as consumer confidence, should surely be seen in a very critical light.
I welcome the Commission's report to the Council on the appraisal of the economic consequences of the terrible events of 11 September.
It is, I believe, important that we agree on a Community-wide approach.
Not everywhere is there evidence of one.
I believe that, in this situation, we must, now as in the past, stick with structural reforms and the advances they have achieved, particularly in the financial markets but also in the markets for goods and services and that we at the same time must not only underline the need for sound finances in the European Union and adherence to the Stability and Growth Pact, but should also make use of the flexibility for which this Pact provides, for we need more investments in the European Union.
Now as before, the Lisbon way is the right one, relying as it does on growth that is supported by investment and creates jobs and, above all, on mutual support in economic, employment and social policy.
Only when all the macro-economic actors have played their parts can our policy in the European Union be successful.
In these times of crisis we must hold fast to this, and the European Investment Bank, too, must be strengthened even more than previously in its task of helping public investments towards breakthroughs in the area of infrastructure.
By this I mean trans-frontier infrastructure measures in the EU itself, but also such as will connect our European Union with the states of Central and Eastern Europe.
Mr President, the fight against terrorism is clearly the current major concern of the European citizens and it therefore also has to be the main priority of our political action.
Mr President, I am talking about terrorism in all its forms, because there is no legal or moral basis for distinguishing between forms of terrorism, just as there is no such thing as a good murder or a bad murder.
In this respect, the action plan against terrorism, which the Belgian Presidency and the Commission are promoting vigorously, includes measures which we had argued for before 11 September.
In fact we must remember that the proposals in this area presented by the Commission are not the result of improvisation, but they conform to a mandate received at the European Council in Tampere, whose implementation had suffered considerable delay, which was condemned by the European Parliament on several occasions.
We are still awaiting the final approval of the Regulation on the freezing of assets, incorporating, it is true, as the European Parliament argued for, a list of European terrorist organisations, taking into account the financial operative support and propaganda framework of the terrorists.
I therefore believe that we must welcome the Council' s commitment to approve a package of measures at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 6 and 7 December.
I am sure that the European Parliament will rise to the occasion and approve its consultative opinion before that.
Mr President, I will end by saying that none of these instruments being provided to the judicial administration of the Member States imply the least restriction of the civil liberties of European citizens, but quite the opposite: they provide additional means for protecting the freedom which those who use terrorism to try to impose their ideas take away from the individual.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the impression which our citizens have gleaned from the European Council of Ghent is rather chaotic: a closed down city, three major countries making prior arrangements, an angry Belgian President, disparate final declarations by Heads of Government and, to finish off, an angry Commission President.
At a time when unity of action is vital, Europe is divided.
I should like to make three observations.
The United Kingdom, Germany and France have lent their full support to the United States.
In fact, the UK is even granting active military support.
I welcome this.
Other EU countries that are also members of NATO are providing more passive support.
The EU countries that are not NATO members lend political support via diplomatic channels.
These are three different kinds of support without any clear interrelation for the citizen.
And then the EU President asked for an evaluation.
So you, in fact, put a seed of doubt into our minds as to whether that support would last.
Against this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that the United States is seeking support from countries outside the European Union, including Canada, Australia and the Pacific Association.
I would call for more coordination in Europe' s support for the actions against terrorism in the coming months, so that the image of division will soon be one of the past.
Secondly, I should like to comment on cooperation in the field of internal security. Commissioner Vitorino has tabled the proposals extremely promptly, and these include one about a European regulation against money laundering, one concerning arrest warrants and one harmonising penalties.
In fact, those proposals had already partly been tabled.
Last week, the Council of Ministers for Internal Affairs failed to reach agreement. That was also the case for the European Council in Ghent.
Why did the Heads of Government fail to make those executive decisions? Surely it is hardly justifiable vis-à-vis the citizens for the EU to be undecided about anti-terrorism measures at home.
Then there is the convention, which receives my support, because the Council has adopted the wish of the European Parliament and my group for a convention with a broad parliamentary basis.
We are less happy about the proposal to ask the convention to supply options.
That is the type of question you might ask a consultancy bureau, but not a parliamentary body.
Let the convention determine its own working method and submit its own proposals.
That worked for the Charter and, in my opinion, will work again now.
Mr President, the European Council confirmed and reinforced Europe' s decision to stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States to combat terrorism and ensure internal security, and also its commitment to avoiding a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan.
After 11 September, the political geography of the world has changed radically. However, the Shanghai Summit will be more important than the restricted summit at Ghent.
What is the European Union' s role? Is a single foreign and security policy possible?
Will we be able to reinvigorate the Mediterranean initiative and work for peace in the Middle East? In reality, good intentions are often contradicted by the behaviour of certain governments, who delay integration and endeavour to take away the political influence of a Convention which should be developing the method and objectives.
This is what we expect from Laeken and from an Intergovernmental Conference which needs to reform the Union before the European elections.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank the various interlocutors and groups for their observations.
I think that, except for two or three speeches, a predominantly positive evaluation has been made of the outcome of Ghent.
Such a positive evaluation from the various groups encourages us, of course, to continue our hard work in the coming weeks, for we have another important summit coming up, namely the Summit of Laeken.
I would also like to respond, as follows, to a few oblique remarks that have been made about the cooperation between myself and Mr Romano Prodi: our cooperation is excellent.
In fact, we have just decided to come to the next press conference on a tandem, so as to rule out any further misunderstandings.
Since we both are accomplished cyclists, this will undoubtedly be appreciated by Parliament.
I should in any event like to react to three points. First of all, a few times, the question has been asked: so where exactly is the Union' s foreign policy now?
I think that Mr Romano Prodi has already entered into more detail on this and has, actually, made very valid points. Last time we had an international crisis, the Gulf War, Europe had fifteen different opinions on the stance the Union should adopt.
Each Member State had its own opinion on the matter.
In today' s international crisis, we have, for the first time, displayed a united front on two occasions, on 21 September and last Friday in Ghent, in a matter which is, actually, very complex.
Firstly, to what does the stance of the fifteen Member States regarding the attacks in Washington and New York bear witness? A joint vision and a joint approach.
Secondly, what is the stance now after 7 October? After all, things changed on 7 October, since the reaction from the United States and the international coalition.
Again, we have a joint stance.
It is important in my view to underline this, for there was a time in the European Union when this was different.
Mr Romano Prodi reminded us that each time there was an international conflict, there was not one stance, but fifteen stances within the Council.
Now this no longer holds true.
However much I am of the personal view - which I share with many of you - that we should take things further still, for example that, certainly in the field of European defence, we should have made much more progress by now, I still believe that we should underline this positive development.
At long last, little by little, piece by piece, a common foreign policy of the European Union is forming, something which, say fifteen years ago, was almost unthinkable.
From that point of view, I believe, in fact, that Mr Van den Berg is more than right in emphasising the role we are to play now.
For our role is different from that of the United States.
The EU' s role is mainly one of political, logistical support, and diplomatic action to be undertaken.
He is right in highlighting the importance of the mandate which we have received from the Council with regard to the Middle East.
We, that is, Mr Romano Prodi, Mr Javier Solana and myself, are considering a date when we could undertake this important mission.
Possibly the third week of November.
For I believe that it is up to the European Union, especially the European Union, to take an initiative in this respect.
However, we must be realistic and not foster any illusions.
We cannot solve matters with just one visit - there have been many already - but perhaps by gaining momentum in one particular area, this could ultimately lead to an initiative.
The second point I would like to make relates to what several Members have said and particularly concerns Mr Poettering' s comments. Mr Poettering said that the Presidency was doing a good job.
He mentions the work on the single European arrest and extradition warrant by the ministers of the specialised Councils, amongst others.
But when will this come about? It is obvious.
This very specific task was given to the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers and they must finalise the practical details before 6 and 7 December 2001.
Mr Poettering, I have already said - not today, not on 19 October but on 21 September - on behalf of the European Council, that the specialised ministers were given the task of finalising the details.
The only thing that I have done, with the help of the Commission and all the Member States of the European Union and the European Council, is to go further at the Ghent Council and to obtain approval of the principle of abolishing the double criminality system.
(NL) At the most recent Council, we at least managed to reach agreement on this, for that is the most important point.
It is easy to proclaim that a European mandate must be obtained, also for extradition.
The most important point had not yet been reached, namely an agreement on the principle of the abolition of dual criminality, not only for terrorist acts but also for other serious crimes.
We must indeed challenge a reductionist attempt to render the provision only applicable to terrorist acts.
That was not the conclusion reached in Tampere.
The Tampere conclusions were in favour of broadening the scope, in other words for other, serious crimes to fall within its scope.
I am therefore personally optimistic with regard to 6 and 7 December. I am addressing Mr Poettering and also Mr Cox, in particular.
But have no fear, if the Ministers for Internal Affairs and Justice fail to come up with the goods, then I will be taking the dossier to the European Council of Laeken on 15 December where the Heads of State and Government will decide.
However, I am convinced that the Ministers for Justice will not let things get so far that ultimately, the Heads of Government will have to solve a technical problem which is predominantly concerned with modality.
Finally, I also should like to briefly comment on the third point, namely the Union' s future.
I believe that we are all agreed that 11 September has shown that a more integrated, more progressive Union is needed, a Union with greater ability to act, which has better instruments at its disposal, and which - certainly as far as the foreign and defence policy is concerned - has greater powers.
To pave the way for this is exactly the intention of the Laeken Declaration.
Therefore, I can already give very concrete answers to the generally positive evaluation based on that convention.
The convention is a fact.
Yes, Mr Poettering, the presidency is a limited presidency in line with the request of all groups, comprising five people including the president of the convention.
Yes, the Member States and MEPs are proportionately represented, although exact numbers will need to be discussed in due course.
Yes, civil society is involved, not by setting up a new body but by creating a network around the convention whereby groups in society can refer to the convention and whereby, conversely, the convention can also seek advice from European affairs study centres, trade unions, any other organisations which exist in our society, as well as civil society.
A flexible network around the convention therefore seems preferable to the organisation of a special forum.
Finally, I should like to respond to the most fundamental question which has been repeatedly raised here.
Indeed, it is related to that text.
If that text originates from that convention, how will the Council then relate to it?
Will it be considered a report that can be dismissed and need not be taken into consideration? A discussion has therefore arisen as to the question of whether that is now a consensus text or a text providing options.
The answer is very simple. That will, at any rate, be my reply in a few weeks' time when we are all meeting in Laeken.
If everyone is agreed, then we will have a consensus text. In other words, it will then be quite clear that this is an important - if not the most important - contribution to the Intergovernmental Conference.
If no consensus is reached at the convention, then I obviously believe that options should be given, not in a neutral manner, but in such a way that the majority and minority options are clearly indicated, as well as the individual option of one member of the convention, if applicable.
It was also my intention to talk this over with the chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Napolitano, and the two draftsmen of opinion on the future of Europe.
I cannot see the sense of unleashing a holy war among ourselves as to the exact significance of that text.
If consensus is reached, then we have a consensus text.
If we cannot have a consensus text because we failed to reach consensus, options must be indicated, but not in a neutral manner, not in a way as if we were supplying a list without any significance. Instead, we should highlight the majority and minority options, in other words, the wishes and trends which originated at the convention and which have been brought forward.
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make a few comments on this debate, which has revealed great unity, not just between Council and Commission but also between these institutions and Parliament.
I would just like to focus on a few issues which appear to have remained unresolved.
Firstly, the issue has been raised, starting with Chairman Poettering, of the amount of aid granted to refugees.
I would like to say that the immediate appropriation has been decided of EUR 315 million, but the problem is not now, at this time, I regret to say, financial, but the enormous practical difficulties of getting the aid to the people concerned.
We are working through the NGOs and many other organisations.
I would stress that, as things stand now, sufficient funds have been transferred in practical terms. When further funds are needed, then we will come back here to request them and discuss the matter together: the present problem is the difficulty of implementing these operations.
I will now turn to another debate, taken up by a number of speakers, including Mr Tajani and several others, who linked this major phenomenon of the world being divided into two parts to peace in Palestine.
This is an issue of fundamental importance, in which regard I would point out to Mr Tajani and the other speakers that what has been termed the 'reconstruction plan for Palestine' is something which is very much on our minds: I have discussed it many times with Mr Peres and we are well aware that we should concentrate on taking action in certain sectors such as water, energy, infrastructure and revitalising industry.
This is our duty and the Palestinian and Israeli citizens know that the Commission is focusing its efforts in that direction.
As soon as the political conditions allow, we will be here, requesting the necessary resources.
However, I believe that the knowledge that we are taking practical action and are all ready to work together is in itself conducive to peace.
Then, Prime Minister Verhofstadt spoke about the decisions adopted in the field of justice and the fight against financial crime.
I agree with what he said, but we must be careful.
We have adopted decisions here: if we do not implement them we will lose all credibility.
Therefore, the ministers responsible must speed up the implementation of these decisions or else they will be taken again at the summit.
A further point related to the Convention.
A general agreement has been adopted on the board, the executive structure and so forth.
I would, however, like to focus on one point, touched upon by Prime Minister Verhofstadt, which is the duration of the Convention.
Parliament and the Commission have guided and supported the Convention' s creation: they must support its work and they must support its conclusion, and so the work must reach its conclusion before the start of the electoral campaign for the European elections.
This is a genuine deadline, not a theoretical one.
Many speakers have brought up the issue of the Community method in this debate.
Well then, on this matter I would simply like to borrow a vivid picture painted by Mr Duff.
He said: "When the two planes crashed into the World Trade Centre they demolished more than the twin towers. We also saw the destruction of the European Union's three pillars contrived at the Treaty of Maastricht."
This is, in my opinion, a correct, responsible, practical observation.
Mr Duff has fully understood the political meaning of the Commission' s efforts to achieve unified Union action by applying the Community method, which is the only effective way of ensuring success.
A further point, mentioned by all the speakers, is the issue of the institutional reforms.
The Commission and Parliament are working on the practical aspects of this matter: we have argued and helped each other, and I think we are making progress - painstaking progress - in our joint work.
We have not yet finished but we are working, so to speak, on the bricks and mortar, on the concrete facts.
At this point, although I do not wish to interfere with the internal organisation of the Council, I would point out that our reform will not be sufficiently effective if it is not accompanied by a reform of the Council' s working procedures.
(Applause)
My intention in saying this is not to interfere in other people' s business but to stress the need for effectiveness.
We need to bring all our work out into the open and achieve more transparency, accountability and democracy in our governance.
The Commission has already addressed this point in its White Paper and we and Parliament expect to debate it with the Council.
With regard to the economy, everyone has stressed the difficulty of implementing the Lisbon decisions.
However, this is an area in which there has been a vast difference between the general decisions taken and the implementation of the decisions in subsequent individual Councils, with regard to liberalisation and market reform, speeding up innovation, and projects ranging from the creation of the single air space to the establishing of the Community patent, areas in which we are still extremely behind schedule.
Our economy will only become dynamic if we rectify these shortcomings.
Lastly - and, in this respect, more great progress has been made - we have undertaken to support the introduction of the euro with the indispensable backup measures such as the single market in cross-border bank transfers.
We have committed ourselves to this and it is an absolutely crucial point.
Finally, one last point on the subject of the Convention.
I will go back to Mrs Maij-Weggen' s comment on the actual definition of the Convention: we cannot consider it to be a consultative body, as some have described it.
It cannot be a body which just gives advice and is then disbanded and no longer involved.
We are making the Convention as transparent as possible but also giving it as much democratic authority as possible, and we therefore expect it to produce major, incisive results.
I would add, moreover, that the presence of the Convention is a breath of fresh air amongst the closed doors of secretive diplomacy.
The air of democracy is nourished by the oxygen of transparency and accountability, and the Commission therefore fully supports the commencement of the Convention' s work so that dialogue will, at last, be opened between the institutions and between the institutions and the European citizens.
(Applause)
Thank you, President Prodi.
As you heard, during the last part of your speech there was a buzz of voices which made it difficult for all the Members who were listening attentively to your speech to hear properly.
I apologise for this.
Steps must be taken to avoid such disturbance once and for all.
As you and my fellow Members can see, all those who were not paying attention to your speech are continuing to chat in the corridors and will only sit down when the next President opens voting time.
I have received six motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
Mr President, the confusion in the House before voting time is in danger of becoming a moral issue.
It is a political issue and is the result of the way our work is organised, with the debates taking place separately from the votes.
Parliament is becoming a voting parlour, and this is the inevitable consequence.
If we want to avoid this confusion, then we must allow a 15-minute pause between the debate and the votes. That way there will be less people attending the debates and we will be able to become a voting parlour pure and simple and increasingly less a Parliament!
Thank you for your comment.
We shall now proceed to the votes.
We will certainly take note of this.
VOTE
Mr President, I believe Mrs Gröner has made a mistake.
We have not deviated from the compromise. On the contrary, we are sticking to what we agreed.
We are not, though, voting in favour of the amendments that have been tabled after the compromise and with which we do not agree.
We have not deviated from the compromise at all, quite the opposite!
(The President declared the amended common position approved)
Report (A5-0335/2001) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of a common classification of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) [COM(2001) 83 - C5-0065/2001 - 2001/0046(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Voting time will now be suspended and resumed after the formal sitting on the occasion of the visit of his Holiness the XIVth Dalai-Lama.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.30 p.m.)
Mr President, I should like to mention that the Greens and the Liberals have kindly invited everyone to their joint meeting this afternoon to meet His Holiness, the Dalaï Lama, at 3 p.m. in Room 100 in WIC - that means everybody who was not included in the invitation of the PSE and the PPE-DE.
Welcome
I would like to welcome the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, Mr Simeon Saxe-Coburg, who has taken a seat in the visitors' gallery. He is visiting the European institutions.
Prime Minister, on behalf of President Fontaine, welcome to the European Parliament. I hope that the accession of your country, which we hope will happen as soon as possible, will lead to the consolidation of the democratic process which has been set in motion and enable the Bulgarian people to take its rightful place in the Community of the peoples of the European Union.
(Applause)
VOTE (continuation)
The pursuit of the second wave of the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s was strongly focused on enabling women to get on in paid jobs.
On average, women were not as highly trained as men, and even if they were, due to male domination, they often got the jobs with the lowest status and the lowest income.
Moreover, many women were financially dependent on their husbands.
Highly trained women were right to claim access to jobs from which, in those days, they were almost automatically excluded.
For women who were less highly trained, the situation was often different.
Cleaning offices or stacking shelves in supermarkets are not demanding jobs, and, in many cases, not to be preferred to the role of housewife.
That group of women experienced it, in many cases, as liberating if the income of their husbands obviated the need for them to work.
Most women now have a paid job, while men do not work fewer hours to look after and raise the children.
Feminism has become the employers' accidental instrument to solve staff shortages and to limit government spending.
Certainly under those circumstances, it is even more important to actively fight any form of discrimination and intimidation at work.
Miguélez Ramos report (A5-0335/2001)
Mr President, it was with great pleasure that I read Mr Ramos' rather technical document, which also has great political meaning for me.
As you are aware, I have been a regional councillor of the Lombardy region for five years.
My daughter, Elisabetta, has been a regional councillor of the Liguria region for five years and is currently a regional councillor of the Lombardy region, for the Pensioners' Party of course.
I say this with pleasure in order to stress my personal hope - in addition to what is, I believe, the hope of all of us - that the regions in Europe will gain increasingly in political and decision-making importance and that they will be allowed to participate more fully in the production of the European directives and regulations which concern them.
.
(EL) The debate on territorial units for statistics (NUTS) is not a technical debate about statistics because regional statistics and the classification of regions on the basis of NUTS provide a constant line of reference for analysing social and economic developments in the regions and determining which areas are eligible for structural support.
One of the most serious problems is that completely different political and economic units are used as a basis for collating and processing statistics.
This is no accident and arouses even greater suspicion in conjunction with the fact, as the report quite rightly points out, that the Commission exercises 'a great deal of flexibility' when applying the criteria for classifying an area in NUTS É, ÉÉ, or ÉÉÉ, using them as it pleases, depending on the 'needs' of the case.
For example, a NUTS III type administrative division is used to allocate funds to Objective 2, thereby subsidising half the population of the Union and drastically reducing the funds available for the less developed areas for which they are supposedly intended.
Between 1994 and 1999 (Delors II package) 51% of the population of the ÅU received support, of which only 25% corresponded to Objective 1, which funds NUTS II type regions.
Lastly, of this 25%, only 16.4% related to Objective 2.
In other words, because a small administrative division was used (NUTS ÉÉÉ), the rich countries received considerable support, thereby blatantly distorting regional policy in practice.
Finally, it is again the rich countries which benefit, gobbling up a large slice of what are already miserly and insufficient appropriations from the Structural Funds.
Some countries benefit even more because the NUTS III type administrative divisions are very small compared with other countries.
For example, this sort of administrative division (prefecture) has a surface area of 2,950 square metres in Greece, 3,162 square metres in Portugal and a mere 758 square metres in Germany.
All this illustrates, yet again, the malfunctions, inequalities, irregularities and hypocrisy of ÅU regional policy, in that a large chunk of the appropriations distributed in structural aid is 'recycled' and finds its way back to the more developed Member States, thereby seriously curtailing the potential for any national development policy, which is forced to remain within the confines of the poorly tailored Community 'straitjacket' .
As a result, not only do we fail to achieve the much-vaunted objective of convergence between the poorest and richest regions but, as the figures confirm - and Greece is a prime example - there is increasing divergence, not just between Member States in the north and the south, but between regions within Member States themselves.
The only thing achieved with any degree of satisfaction is that people have been paid to turn a blind eye and mechanisms have been created to promote the interests of the large monopolies, which have benefited most from Community programmes.
Despite the fact that the rapporteur's report fails to 'bring matters to a head' , it does at least touch on several serious problems and we shall support it.
Weiler report (A5-0360/2001)
.
(PT) The study contained in the 2001 Joint Employment Report, produced on the basis of national reports, demonstrates how little attention most Member States pay to employment guidelines.
In fact, only seven have paid any attention to the general objectives laid down at the Lisbon Council and reaffirmed at the Stockholm Council, and only three have referred to the specific objectives on the rate of employment for women.
As stated in the opinion of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, to which we contributed proposals, that were approved, antagonism clearly exists between the objectives for employment rates that have been laid down by the Council and the minimal importance that the majority of the Member States attach to integrating sensitivity to gender issues in their employment policies. This failure to integrate such sensitivity in Member State policies can be seen in the lack of national objectives for reducing the various disparities between the genders in the labour market, whether these be a lack in adequate childcare services, or the limited initiatives for reducing wage disparities between the sexes, for example.
The Weiler report is not sufficiently critical of the current employment situation in the European Union, although it does acknowledge some negative aspects of practices in these areas of employment, specifically where it focuses on the need to establish national targets and on meeting them.
It does not, however, provide a critical analysis of the guidelines proposed by the Commission nor does it offer any clear alternatives for issues that we need to commit to, specifically the need to give priority to employment policies or not to continue the current trend of subordinating these policies to monetarist ones, thereby finally burying the neoliberal approach that prevails in the European Union, having rejected the proposals that we tabled on this matter.
.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party supports the thrust of the Weiler report on the employment guidelines for 2002.
It also has a lot of sympathy for the amendments submitted by Mr Bushill-Matthews but feels that the Weiler report is not the appropriate report for such amendments.
.
(EL) Without doubt the economic crisis is worsening, having already been exacerbated by the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.
This recession, which appears to have set in for the duration, at least according to most analysts, cannot be resolved, yet again, at the expense of the workers, by making mass redundancies and eroding their rights.
Overall employment has basically bottomed out and unemployment is staying put, even if it is not increasing as, for example, in my country.
At the same time, more mass redundancies are on the cards in important sectors of the economy, such as transport, tourism etc.
Employment policies have become an exercise in apportioning unemployment, even more so in the guidelines for 2002.
It is no accident that the countries 'patted on the back' here by the EU are the countries which first proceeded to overhaul the labour market, especially by extending part-time and other forms of flexible employment.
The European Parliament report supports the guidelines, which revert to the familiar subjects of structural reform and more flexible employment contracts, the purpose of which is to create a huge army of employable people with no rights or claims, whose productivity and competitiveness are tailored to the speculative demands of big business and its interests.
Geographical mobility of the workers serves no purpose except to strengthen the concentration of human resources and wealth in the rich areas of the ÅU, which get richer by absorbing the best manpower and scientists.
The sole purpose of the second pillar of the guidelines on entrepreneurship is to make the unemployed self-employed, thereby artificially reducing unemployment and rejecting the responsibilities of social solidarity.
As for subsidised job schemes, not only have they been completely ineffectual in combating unemployment, the money has generally gone straight into the employers' pockets and workers have been replaced by the subsidised unemployed, resulting in constant infringements of collective agreements.
Continuing privatisation, mergers, adjustment to EMU, increased imports and more intense capitalist competition, thousands of small and medium-sized farms wiped out and the closure of small and medium-sized enterprises have created conditions for spiralling unemployment.
The policy which the ÅU persists in applying, despite an average rate of growth of 3.3% in 2000, does not appear to be reducing the unemployment or the poverty which is the bane of the lives of 22% of the population of the ÅU.
The workers want a different policy, a policy predicated on people and their needs, with full, secure social rights for all workers, a better standard of living and real social development and prosperity.
We are mainly well disposed towards Mrs Weiler' s report.
We particularly appreciate the emphasis she places upon the quality of work.
We are nonetheless critical of quite a few of the amendments by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs which make sweeping ideological statements about the market economy and the way it is run.
We believe that an economic policy is thus being recommended that militates against the European employment strategy, especially during periods when the economy and demand for labour are not expanding.
Because these amendments have been adopted by the House, we chose to abstain in the final vote.
.
I wholeheartedly support this report by Ms Weiler which welcomes the 2002 employment guidelines.
Whilst the report recognises that full employment can be achieved through further structural reforms of the labour market, it also calls for increased investment in training, especially for job seekers.
The quantitative, as well as qualitative, returns that the EU would reap as a result of its commitment to training are unquestionable.
Training and education are essential ways in which EU Member States can jointly boost the EU's employment rate.
Time and again in Member States, investment in education and training has proved to be successful and when coordinated at a pan-European level, this would be amplified.
It is important that these commitments are realised and that they do not simply turn into hot air.
Finally, the recommendation that both sides of industry should agree on changes in working practices could pave the way for enhanced industrial relations and create a situation whereby the specialist knowledge of each party is fully utilised.
Seppänen report (A5-0350/2001)
Madam President, you, like me, love the sea and have often visited my city, Genoa, which I have admired for 20 years from the top of the Righi hills.
I see the sea and reflect deeply.
The sea unites, the sea belongs to everyone, the sea has no borders.
It is therefore right that the European Union should concern itself with all seas, particularly those which bathe the shores of some of our States, and that it should provide financial aid, not least, as in this case, to States beyond its borders such as Russia, for environmental projects to make these seas cleaner, more navigable and more beautiful.
Mr President, Mr Fatuzzo' s explanations of vote are so poetic that I would like to ask you, as a member of the Bureau, whether the Presidency has any intention of publishing these speeches in a book, considering their value and the sentiments pervading them which surpass all the other speeches in the House and endow them with a poetic value that Parliament must not fail to appreciate.
I will inform the Bureau of your suggestion, Mr Dell' Alba.
Virrankoski report (A5-0345/2001)
Mr Dell' Alba, in a minute you will see that not all Mr Fatuzzo' s speeches are poetic.
This one concerns nuclear power stations.
Clearly, through this funding we are protecting the Chernobyl power station - and I voted for the motion - but we must think carefully: should we really close the Bohunice power station in Slovakia - which I visited with the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy last week - and on which thousands of billions have been spent to increase safety, and make its closure a non-negotiable condition for Slovakia' s accession to the European Union? Should we not think more carefully about this?
The manufacturing companies that used to buy energy from Chernobyl, and by means of which it was possible to sustain such a colossal complex of nuclear reactors, are, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, largely non-existent.
The population of the Ukraine is so impoverished that it lacks the purchasing power to be able to buy any substantial amount of electricity as a consumer.
Neither is there any internal funding available to finance new, cleaner and safe methods of generating electricity, and, given the long half-life of radio-active material, we will need to be very patient before what is left of the demolished stations is removed.
Everything that is being done now, unfortunately, is impossible without outside aid.
The measures to provide Chernobyl with a new protective casing by 2005, are too little and too late.
The first casing - erected shortly after the disaster in 1986 - still conceals a dangerous seat of fire, and nuclear energy remains a source of future risks.
In the debate on 2 May regarding 15 years of Chernobyl, I already indicated that other types of nuclear power plants are also unsafe and that they, upon closure, leave a legacy impossible to solve.
Despite all these shortcomings, I support this finance proposal, for doing nothing is not a solution at all.
Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou report (A5-0328/2001)
Mr President, I voted for Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou' s report.
It concerns the Social Fund, which, as we know, is a fund dedicated to workers and to improving and enhancing the chances of the unemployed of finding work.
In particular, this document regulates the definition of innovative measures, that is the new initiatives in this sector.
I would like to take the opportunity afforded by this last explanation of vote to wish you 'Bon appétit' , of course, and to apologise for the drain on the European Parliament' s finances, for I have been informed that every minute of my speeches costs the institution ITL 1,2 million.
If the services were willing to pay half of it to please Mr Fatuzzo, I could save on the other half and not make any more speeches.
Joking apart, I would like to end this explanation of vote by calling for the innovative measures of the Social Fund to be encouraged and accepted, even if they are proposed to the Union by the candidate countries.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Council reform
The next item is the report (A5-0308/2001) by Mr Poos, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the reform of the Council [2001/2020(INI)].
Mr President, it is a true honour for me to be able to present to you this report on Council reform in the presence of Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, representing the Council and Mr Barnier, representing the Commission.
This own-initiative report does not concern the Council alone.
It also concerns the European Parliament and Commission in equal measure, as they have the same interest in ensuring that the three institutions work well, and are efficient and coherent.
In an enlarged Union, it is imperative that the Community institutions improve their ability to make decisions and increase their reaction time.
I do not believe that it constitutes any insider dealing to state that today the Council is the most badly organised institution.
This is a serious problem, since this institution, which has both executive and legislative competences, is still, in spite of the changes made to the Treaty, the European Union' s main centre of power.
The Council has already lost much of its effectiveness.
In my report, you will find a long list of dysfunctions.
The Council itself had carried out some preparatory work three or four years ago and I used this and other work as a basis.
Since then, however, nothing has been done, although some other preparatory work was carried out by former - and very key - figures on the international stage, and I shall mention, in particular, the Notre Europe working group led by Jacques Delors.
One of the dysfunctions that I must emphasise particularly is institutional digression, which has primarily been at the expense of Community procedures, along with the Commission.
The rise in power of the European Council, combined with the weakness of the General Affairs Council, has re-established the intergovernmental method of preparing decisions.
The aides, or 'sherpas' , used by the Heads of State, have reintroduced a method that is reminiscent of nineteenth century secret diplomacy.
Mini-summit meetings, like the one held at Ghent, have brought back the tendency to place control in the hands of a chosen few, a dream that some have never given up on since the Fouchet plan of the 1960s.
In order to correct this digression, I recommend nothing more and nothing less than going back to the Treaty.
We should ask the European Council to stop tackling detailed issues and to stop acting like an enormous vacuum cleaner that tries to deal with all the important decisions.
You should not bite off more than you can chew.
What is even worse is that the European Council now causes the institutional system to come to a standstill.
No one dares to make a decision anymore.
Everything is now referred back to those at the top.
The European Council should restrict itself to giving general guidelines on European policy, as laid down in the Treaty.
We must re-evaluate the General Affairs Council, enabling it to resolve conflicts between the specialised Councils and ensuring that decisions are coherent.
To this end, it is essential to have a single channel for preparations, and the same single channel for preparations could also be used by the European Council.
We must demand that the ministers in the General Affairs Council do not deal with European affairs at a brief monthly meeting, where an in-depth discussion of the items on the agenda is not possible due to the limited number of ministers attending and the unacceptable practical conditions.
The proposal for a resolution suggests a number of practical solutions, which can all be implemented immediately without having to amend the Treaty.
Before I finish, I would like to draw the attention of Members to the proposals on improving collaboration with the European Parliament.
They concern the presence of Council ministers at our important debates as well as speeding up the legislative procedure from the first-reading stage.
With regard to transparency, I hope that the European Parliament and the Council will support the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which proposes that Council discussions be made public when it is working on legislation.
This obviously requires considerable reorganisation of the agenda and discipline in the conduct of meetings.
If the Council did not meet behind closed doors when carrying out its duties as co-legislator, citizens might also perceive it as a second legislative chamber, which is, in fact, a task that the Council already fulfils today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, I would also like to say that, with regard to the dysfunctions in the Council, the Commission widely supports the analysis presented in this excellent report.
Personally, I am not surprised by the quality of this analysis, given the experience and expertise that Mr Poos has gained over many long years and which he is now putting to use at the European Parliament.
I would like to say that, having begun by voicing our overall appreciation of the report, the Commission also supports the reforms that you put forward for the Council.
Transforming the Council into a structured and efficient body is in the interests of the whole European Union.
Your report takes up many of the suggestions and comments that we at the Commission have expressed in the past, and particularly in our recently published White Paper on European Governance.
These options for reform are all the more interesting since they can be made - as you have said - without altering the current Treaty.
With reference to the Council, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would obviously like to say that, from my point of view, each of our institutions is autonomous and has primary responsibility for its own reforms.
We know very well, however, that each of the institutions is concerned with how they all function. It is in this spirit and within these boundaries that I would like to give you the European Commission' s impression of the other institution, in other words, the Council of Ministers.
Admittedly, within the framework of the debate on the future of the European Union, we must carry out an in-depth examination of the institutional set-up, the role of each institution and the amendments that need to be made to the Treaty so that our Union has a genuine institutional framework that is both more democratic and more effective.
That is why I think, Mr Poos, that your report is an extremely important element, which will spark off the wide-ranging debate about to open on the institutional framework of the EU, its effectiveness and its democratic legitimacy.
Nonetheless, the debate on the most fundamental reforms in the run-up to 2004 cannot be an excuse for refusing to immediately adopt the reforms that the Council can already implement in the existing Treaty. Furthermore, one of the objectives set out in the White Paper is to ensure the Council functions as efficiently as possible.
Apart from the different views that might be expressed on one point of detail or another, there is some convergence on the analysis of the dysfunctions that we have found - and of the reforms that need to be carried out.
This convergence is evident in the report that you are presenting, Mr Poos, in the White Paper and also - as Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck stated - in the Trumpf-Piris report, which was drawn up by the General Secretariat of the Council itself. The operational conclusions of this report were widely approved at Helsinki by the European Council and were also widely implemented in the Council' s internal rules of procedure.
It falls within the remit and it is the duty of each institution - I would like to reiterate this - to continually examine whether that institution is working efficiently.
The Commission wanted to do this by adopting the White Paper and proposing the administrative reform drawn up by my colleague, Neil Kinnock.
I believe that the Council will have to do this one day, as will the European Parliament, and the Commission will do all it can to support these two institutions in this undertaking.
In this respect, I would like to reiterate that the Gothenburg European Council has already asked the Secretary-General of the Council to submit detailed proposals on this issue for the meeting at Laeken.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to emphasise - without going into the details of each proposal in your report, Mr Poos, that all we need is political will to successfully complete this assessment and improvement work.
Obviously, this must be shown by the Member States governments as well as by the institutions themselves.
There are at least two points that deserve particular attention. On the one hand, the concept of the legislative Council and, on the other, the role of the General Affairs Council.
We are well aware, ladies and gentlemen, that the Poos report defines the three functions of the Council, which are to legislate, to take decisions regarding government and to coordinate policies.
Consequently it is very clear - and the Commission supports this - that the Council must be organised differently so that it operates within the framework of one or another of these three functions.
Therefore, the legislative Council should basically work in complete transparency, with open debates and public votes.
Admittedly, the number of sectoral Councils may be too high, but it is primarily the lack of coordination between these sectoral Councils, which means that, unlike the European Parliament, in which the Assembly takes the final decision, the Council arm of the legislator has much more difficulty in coordinating its various decisions.
This situation calls for particular consideration of how determined we are - as you mentioned in the report - to encourage consensus between Parliament and the Council from the first-reading stage within the codecision procedure.
Mr Poos, although the Commission fully supports the determination to bring about swift agreements, we must ensure that they do not have a negative effect on the coherence of texts that the Commission proposes.
Under the Treaties, the Commission has the exclusive right of initiative and the responsibility of protecting the common interest.
The Commission therefore hopes that the determination of Parliament and the Council to bring about consensus at first reading ensures that the Commission will be fully involved in all aspects regarding substance and procedure, in order to guarantee this coherence in the texts adopted.
I would like to reiterate that the Commission has been given the exclusive competence to hand down a judgment to protect the common interest at this stage of the codecision procedure.
You are also quite right, Mr Poos, when you point out in the report that the crux of the debate is, essentially, how the General Affairs Council functions.
It is extremely difficult, in just one monthly meeting, to take decisions on all the issues relating to EU external policy, including those on security policy, on maintaining the single institutional framework of the European Union and all the horizontal and institutional issues, such as, for example, the recent regulation on access to documents or the coordination of the EU response to the tragic events of 11 September, as well as coordinating sectoral policies.
The Commission is fairly well placed to judge the degree of variation in the subjects dealt with by the General Affairs Council, as there are times when we require several Commissioners to represent us at the same session.
We therefore support your view, Mr Poos: the various formations in the Council need a central body responsible for coordination and, at the moment, it is very difficult for the General Affairs Council to do this.
We must therefore avoid a situation where the General Affairs Council becomes some sort of Foreign Affairs Council, because there is no other formation in charge of coordination.
Furthermore, is it necessary to create a new General Affairs Council, made up of ministers who fulfil a coordinating role within their governments and who wield the necessary political authority, as you suggest? This would, in any case, enable the European Council to be freed from arbitration and from policy coordination, so that it can fully devote itself to its real job of providing political impetus and defining guidelines for the European Union.
However, creating this sort of Council raises a whole raft of political, even constitutional, issues, as you yourself admit, in some Member States, particularly in those that have a coalition government.
To sum up, Mr President, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to thank Mr Poos once again for the extensive, excellent and very thorough piece of work that he has done and for the useful proposals contained in the report.
Quite frankly, I do not believe that it is the Commission' s role to respond to one or another detailed comment regarding the way the Council functions because, as I have said, each of our institutions, quite naturally, functions autonomously.
This, however, does not prevent us from performing a global assessment where there are no taboo subjects, to repeat the phrase that Mr Verhofstadt used this morning, when he stated that there were no taboo subjects where the wide-ranging debate and the Laeken Declaration are concerned.
The issue of how to improve collaborative work, particularly in the field of legislation, is not a taboo subject either.
The Commission would like to say that it is also in its interests to work with an efficient Council and that the two messages contained in this own-initiative report, in other words, that we must guarantee coherent action as well as a certain level of political representation in the Council' s decision-making, have certainly been heard, Mr Poos.
Thank you.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have asked to speak in this debate firstly in order to express my personal gratitude and that of my group to Mr Poos for his wonderful report.
It really is a piece of work carried out with knowledge of the subject, not only because he is a veteran of the Council, but because I witnessed perfectly, ten years ago when we were preparing the Treaty of Maastricht, how Mr Poos, then a member of the Council with the government of Mr Santer, along with Mr Santer, showed the same attitude of openness, cooperation and solidarity towards Parliament which he is now proposing in his report.
The result was the Treaty of Maastricht, which gave us codecision.
I believe that we must salute his coherent and serious political track record.
With regard to codecision, we are not just dealing with a reform of the Council as such, but we are an interested party in the matter.
Codecision has allowed us to develop a shared culture in which the Council, for the first time, has been opening up to Parliament.
We must consolidate this.
There is a very important step proposed by the Poos report, which is that the Council, in legislative session, should act publicly.
If there is an insufficient number of Ministers, they could apply the rule applied by Parliament: that votes should be nominal, and if members are not present, they should not be paid allowances.
These are therefore measures which can be applied straight away and which do not have to await the reform.
From this point of view, I believe that Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, whose path has taken the opposite course, having moved on from Parliament to the Council, can introduce a degree of freshness into the work of the Council.
I hope she can cooperate with us.
A final observation, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen: we are on the eve of the Convention; we have fought for it in Parliament and we believe that we also have to cooperate positively in the process of reforming our institutions, which are interdependent on each other, in a way which means that we cannot reform one without taking account of the others.
In conclusion, I believe that we have to teach by example.
We are awaiting the Council meeting on the 30 October, from which we want a unanimous position from the Council with regard to the Belgian proposal on taxation, in order to bring about the statute of Members once and for all; we also believe that the package of anti-terrorist measures is a great opportunity to demonstrate to our co-citizens that we are united. And lastly, the President-in-Office of the Council will allow me to point out that we would like her, with a view to Laeken, between the White Paper on Governance and the Mandelkern report, which is with the Council, to present us with a coherent proposal which is not based on a reduction of Parliament' s legislative powers.
That would also help the reform.
Mr President, just as the Commission and we in Parliament change our methods of working, the former through its White Paper, the Council too must of course change its own methods of working, both in the light of enlargement and because, as many people point out, its present methods do not work so well at present.
Mr Poos has much long-standing experience of how the Council operates.
I hope that the Council will take his views on board.
I assume that this issue will come up at the convention and that, as Mr Verhofstadt said this morning, there will be no taboos.
Precisely what shape is to be taken by the Council' s work is not of course something we Liberals have any reason for taking a view on, because it is not our task to regulate these matters.
There are nonetheless certain issues in which we think we can become involved.
Transparency is one such issue.
For us, transparency in the EU' s work is important when it comes to all the institutions.
It is a key to winning back people' s confidence in the European project.
At present, the Council meets behind closed doors and legislates for millions upon millions of Europeans.
That is not acceptable.
Everyone talks about this, and everyone criticises it.
Very minor reforms take place, but these are not enough.
The legislation must be a matter for public debate.
A separate department must be formed within the Council in which the ministers meet entirely openly and in public in order to legislate.
There must, moreover, be proper Minutes issued afterwards.
The members of this legislative Council must of course be politicians, not officials, with clear mandates from their respective governments.
Another issue which worries us rather, and which Mr Poos also addressed, is that of all the overhyped 'mini-summits' which assume an enormous amount of importance.
A great many decisions are made during these meetings of rather doubtful status.
We hope that less emphasis will be placed on these meetings and that they will instead be transformed into working meetings.
There is an increased tendency in the Council - not so much in the country that at present holds the Presidency, but in many others, especially Sweden - towards intergovernmental activity and a desire to strengthen the Council at Parliament' s and the Commission' s expense.
We view this development with great concern, because more intergovernmental activity and more decisions behind closed doors scarcely lead to a more democratic EU.
Mr President, during a meeting last Saturday, I happened to hear a new colleague of an important minister describing, with the frankness of a newcomer, his first experience of a Council of Ministers. He said that it was a sort of Barnum Circus, where everyone talks but hardly anyone listens or actually seeks agreement.
We support the rapporteur and the majority of his proposals, and so I would like to use the time available to me to send two messages from our group to the Council, in particular.
The first is that, even if the Council were to approve Parliament' s proposals tomorrow morning, we would not be able to resolve the fundamental democratic imbalance and we would not be able to stop the intergovernmental drift.
The only way to genuinely improve the democracy and efficiency of the Union is by strengthening the Commission and Parliament and removing the Council' s right of veto.
The second message is a call to reflect on what Commissioner Barnier has said, namely that despite the positive elements and the endeavours of the Belgian Presidency, it would currently be impossible to reform the Council without a grass roots debate among its members on the very nature of the Council.
I am sure that ideas vary among the Union' s Member States on the Council' s future, and I therefore call strongly upon the Presidency to assume responsibility for organising this debate on the future and to ensure that practical steps are taken which open up the way for rapid progress along the path outlined by Mr Poos, pending more comprehensive reforms.
Mr President, Mr Poos and the Commission' s gargantuan endeavours could be likened to those of an eagle which is eager but unable to take flight towards the future heights of the new European ambitions.
However, we must see this report as a positive contribution to the preparations for the future structure of the Union, a Union which must of necessity be an autonomous, independent political entity, secure in its cultural and social traditions, which can serve as an effective response to the confusion brought by a hegemony such as that we are currently witnessing.
The Union must assume a new role. In a situation in which alliances are being disbanded and reformed on a global scale, Europe comes across as weak, appointing dubious triumvirates to represent it on the world stage when it needs to be united and firmly autonomous in presenting and maintaining a line of peace and social justice to eradicate the threat of terrorism.
The reforms proposed by the Poos report are necessary and achievable, and we support them.
These are small but important steps, worthy of due consideration by the Council and Parliament. They will also contribute greatly to resolving the democratic deficit, endowing the Council with a new institutional role and a closer relationship with Parliament.
This fundamental political and external security action and its mandated representative can only be effective if decisions are taken in a context of joint responsibility between all the countries rather than with some of them being excluded.
The Council has to understand this. We are not just complaining for the sake of it: this is a democratic requirement for the well-structured, transparent running of the Union and will benefit the Union as a whole.
Mr President, I would like to say that I believe that both Parliament and the Commission are most fortunate in having somebody of the calibre of Mr Poos to give us this very fine report which is long overdue.
I very much welcome Mr Poos' report and very much hope that when it receives overwhelming support from Parliament, as I believe it will, the Belgian Presidency will convey the importance of the report to the Council of Ministers.
We hope also that the Belgian Presidency will lead the drive, as it were, to rock the consciences of the members of the General Affairs Council as to what their role and function must and should be.
Regrettably, the General Affairs Council has very much receded into the background in terms of its effectiveness.
The Council has been undermined by the expansion of specialised Councils and by the European Council itself and this is very regrettable.
The General Affairs Council, as Mr Poos says, must remain a powerful political body and it must not be allowed to become a super Coreper.
If it does, nobody will have an overall view of what is happening; where we should go and how we are to prepare for the future.
The work of the Council must be more consistent, and greater coordination is needed in the administration of the Council.
I feel the Council should confine itself to defining the general political guidelines of the Union and should not intervene in the questions of specific detail.
It is very much in the interests of better decision-making within the Union to have an effective Council which is transparent and exercises all the duties conferred upon it by the Treaty.
Also, Ministers who attend the General Affairs Council meetings must have all the powers required to carry out their tasks.
We are all too familiar with Ministers appearing at General Affairs Council meetings, taking the television cameras on the way in with their one or two one-liners and then going on their way.
The Belgian Presidency-in-Office shakes her head in disbelief.
Madame, I know, I was there!
I saw it for myself on more than one occasion and things have not improved since I left.
In actual fact, they have got much worse, and that is something that must be aired.
We want the General Affairs Council to do its business.
We would like the Presidency for the time being to do its business and we also want the Commission to do its business.
We respect, and must respect, the three institutions and the role that they have to play.
This Parliament cannot afford to sit back and be silent if we see the role of any one of the institutions, be it Parliament or the Commission or, indeed the Council, being sidelined for any particular reason by any small group of Member States for any political reasons they may have at any time.
Mr President, who knows the Ministers Mr Van Dale, Mr Conde de Saro and Mr Christoffersen?
These three gentlemen will, over the next 14 months, be responsible for the adoption of the majority of laws in the EU.
The permanent representatives of the countries which hold, or are to hold, the presidency - Belgium, Spain and Denmark - are clever diplomats who live in the shadows.
They meet every week in Brussels and negotiate the larger part of our laws.
Seventy per cent of these are prepared by their subordinates and aides.
Fifteen per cent of them they deal with themselves.
Another 15% are placed on the ministers' desks, and the permanent representatives brief or deputise for the ministers during the formal adoption.
The meetings take place behind sealed doors so that no one can see how far we are from that democracy in which we are united in believing in the fifteen Member States.
It does happen that a matter is discussed in public and finds echoes in the national parliaments. Indeed, it may directly entail a brief or negotiating mandate for the minister.
However, that is the exception. As a rule, we as voters and elected representatives have forfeited the larger part of our democracy, which is administered by 15 permanent representatives and their officials.
The solution to this democratic deficit or embezzlement, for we know, of course, who have absconded with the power, is simple: to read our constitutions and return legislative power to the elected representatives.
Let us recreate the core of democracy whereby the electorate can go to the polls and new majorities can be obtained and new laws adopted.
That core does not exist in today' s EU.
Mr President, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, ladies and gentlemen, we could actually say that we have had a stroke of luck.
The day after one of the worst spectacles that the European Union and, in particular, its Council of Ministers has ever provided to the citizens of Europe, the excellent report by Mr Poos, the former chairman of the Council of Ministers, appears, which not only shows us the way forward - it gives an outline that should be displayed on all the churches or public buildings in the European Union, just like the theses used to be posted on the Wittemburg church.
We have witnessed a European Council, where the dispersal of the institutions, the dispersal of the Council, split up into asides, factions and the most diverse formations, had a detrimental effect on the work of the Belgian Presidency, which did nothing to cause this of course. Now we are reiterating the great principles and calmly and dispassionately saying how Europe should be run, and where it is failing, because we are not applying the wise recommendations and thoughts of Mr Poos, which are also enhanced by his years of experience, of someone who has an insider' s view of the Council of Ministers, and of the European Council full stop.
I therefore think that the vote on this report is a great moment for Parliament.
Unfortunately, Europe in practice does not provide any inspiration at all, which is one of the main reasons why the work of the EU, the image of the EU and the weight of the EU are insufficient.
Therefore, if this text can be an element that the Belgian Presidency, in the run-up to the Laeken Summit and the Laeken Declaration, may largely take into consideration by saying 'ladies and gentlemen, this is the way forward, this is the Community method and this is how things should be run, so that at least we are trying to put our house in order' , then this text will be worthwhile, and I hope it will receive Parliament' s unanimous approval tomorrow.
In any case, the radical Members will support it unreservedly.
We think that this is the way forward, that this is how we get there, that we must see European integration and not European destruction, which is, unfortunately, what the Council all too often gives us the impression is being allowed to happen. It is not really the Council itself, but its members, its actors, who certainly demonstrated at Ghent, as they did at Nice, that they are very capable of breaking up the institutions, and that they are actively working towards this goal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Poos and point out that all the institutions of the European Union will have to re-orientate themselves and find better ways of working in view of the challenges being presented to them, the enlargement of the European Union and the changes which will come about simply because of the number of people involved.
The Commission has for some time been pressing on with this sort of internal reform process.
The European Parliament is occupied in creating the same sort of conditions by means of the Corbett report, which is currently in progress, provided we can achieve these without amendments to the Treaties becoming necessary.
I believe this should be done by both these institutions and also by the Council, which will have the greatest problems simply by reason of the increase in the number of its members.
For when I consider that in future, when there are 27 members at a meeting of the European Council, it will take an hour and a half simply to deal with the precedence of delegations and then that the statements made by every delegation will make even lunch difficult - and of course we cannot go without lunch - then it clearly does not go without saying that we will be able to work effectively.
This has nothing to do with the effectiveness of a Council Presidency, but exclusively with the structures.
That is why it is extraordinarily important that we really do tackle many of Mr Poos' proposals in this area, which can be realised by simple amendments to the Rules of Procedure and without Treaty amendments.
I believe we have to do this for two reasons, namely to increase efficiency and for the sake of greater transparency.
Efficiency can only be increased by the burden of the General Council no longer having to be borne by one pair of hands and in the context of one organisation.
Meeting up constitutes Item A, we do a bit of foreign policy, then all 27 of us meet the President of Kazakhstan, then move on to Item B, which is legislation, and all this with seamless transitions from one item to the next, so that half the participants are always in a press conference.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I may be exaggerating a bit, but I fear that the reality is rather like that in some areas.
It would in fact be necessary, for this reason, to move over to an Executive Council concentrating on foreign policy in particular.
We really should be in a position to formulate a coherent foreign policy in the Council, provided that it is an intergovernmental organisation, and must make it clear that one effect of transparency will be a Legislative Council whose votes will be publicly taken and publicly explained.
We will only win people' s acceptance of Europe if they know who took what decision and for what reason.
That is a fundamental issue when it comes to gaining our citizens' acceptance, and only in this way can we, by means of the codecision procedure, bring about the public interaction of Parliament and the Council, so that the citizen and the media have the chance to reach a fair judgment and hold to account those who are responsible, or believed to be responsible, for wrong decisions.
I believe it to be urgently necessary that the work should be made parliamentary in this way and that this should be the means by which it is also made political.
We are engaged in the work of legislation, which in many fields is regulated by officials who share in the decisions.
I find it hard to reconcile this with our democratic conceptions and so I would like to ask you to take the initiative on this point in Laeken, because we can achieve a great deal without amending the Treaty and should also be preparing ourselves in this way for enlargement of the European Union.
Mr President, the Poos report is audacious, cautious and realistic.
Audacious because it immediately proposes a set of amendments to improve the workings of the Council.
Cautious because it acknowledges the viability of the amendments without needing to modify the Treaties.
And realistic because it recognises that it is also becoming politically necessary to make considerable improvements to the workings of both the Commission and Parliament.
The report' s proposals even consider the idea that improving the institutional workings of the Union will require major adjustments to the balance of established power which, without endangering the workings of these bodies, guarantee the full participation of all Member States.
I would say, as a matter of fact, that this is the fundamental issue.
The broad objectives for the European Union in economic, social and security terms and for its external representation will only be achieved in the short term if Europe as a whole, through its various public opinions, and the fifteen Member States, through their representatives in the various bodies, attach priority and urgency to improving political cohesion on the basis of fully egalitarian participation.
Passivity, a lack of clear definition, division and disputes between countries, which prevent changes from taking place, help maintain the status quo, prove right those who see the European Union as nothing more than a group of merchants whose primary concern is to divide up the limited financial resources it has available in a way that is not always fair or equitable.
Strengthening the institutions, improving their workings and efficiency, drafting and producing Community policies for security and for our external representation is absolutely essential, but this must be carried out by all fifteen Member States without exceptions and without cabinets.
For this reason, the report warrants our support and our admiration.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are debating today is an intelligent and creditable attempt by Mr Poos to reform the Council without changing the Treaties.
I congratulate the rapporteur on his efforts although I cannot share his optimism.
I do not believe that this mini-reform can solve the problems of the Council nor do I see the political will to carry it out, unfortunately.
I hope that I am wrong and Mr Poos is right.
Mr President, the golden age of the General Affairs Council has passed and it seems unrealistic to believe that the European Council is prepared to reinstate the powers which it has taken away from it.
European policies are not external policies but internal policies of the Member States and the important decisions must not be reserved for the Foreign Affairs Ministers.
They already have enough to do with the common foreign and security policy.
The institutional triangle is still essential to the good functioning of the Union, provided that each of its elements continues to adapt to the new requirements.
In the case of the Council, we are facing a quagmire whose deficiencies can only be remedied: a) by recognising the decisive role of the European Council; b) by giving the General Affairs Council the task of effectively preparing its decisions so that they are not relegated to national bureaucracies; and c) by organising all the specialised Councils into an efficiently-structured system.
This efficiency will not be achieved without abandoning the now obsolete system of a rotating six-monthly Presidency, replacing it with a longer-lasting Presidency.
Effective political action cannot change its priorities every six months.
My group raised this issue in the debate of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, although, out of respect for the focus of the report, we do not insist on this point.
The Poos report has the merit of proposing to the Council some minimal reforms, which are likely to lead to a process of self-reform which is becoming increasingly essential.
I would be pleased if it achieved that objective at least.
We would all gain from this, even those of us who believe that Council reforms can only be achieved by the Convention because they need to be far more in-depth.
Mr President, every single pronouncement by the European Parliament expresses our faith in democracy, transparency and efficiency.
And quite rightly so. However, it is not enough.
These general principles only acquire substance and translate into practice if they permeate the organisational structure of the entire European Union.
Which is precisely why we should welcome Jacques Poos' motion for a resolution.
It is one of the most important texts to pass through the European Parliament.
The rapporteur demonstrates that a great deal can be done in the area of both democracy and efficiency without revising the Treaties, merely by applying them more accurately.
Taking the report as my starting point, I should at least like to highlight the following: first, the way in which the Council is organised is so complicated, with its 27 sectoral formations which have a fragmentary effect on its work.
It addresses individual trees, but rarely the wood as a whole.
The General Affairs Council should meet more frequently, but with the ministers present, not just in Brussels but, if possible, at the meetings too.
If the Council is to work, national administrations and governments need to adapt to the European institutional attitude and modus operandi.
As for relations between the Council and the European Parliament, there is good cause to increase the numbers of days' presence, although personal appearances in Parliament by the President-in-Office of the Council and transparency do not necessarily mean that the Council has to be reformed.
Finally, I note that the Europe issue has increased the volume of work and deserves greater attention.
The members of the Council need to make a reasonable division between their national and European duties if they are to make a more effective contribution.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, in turn, should like to congratulate Jacques Poos on the excellent report which he has presented to the House and to thank him for the highly democratic manner in which he dealt with the proposals and observations of the other members of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, observations intended to improve the report.
I should like to comment on three points in the report which I consider extremely important.
The first is item 9, which refers to the Council's two areas of work, namely the legislative and the executive.
I think that Mr Poos is quite right to say that a distinction must be made between the legislative Council, that is, it must be clear when the Council is acting in a legislative capacity and when it is acting in an executive capacity.
This is extremely important and, I think, needs to be borne in mind.
The second point concerns collaboration between the Council and the European Parliament.
It would be unfair to the Council not to say that certain steps have been taken, but that does not mean that more are not needed.
I should like to comment on two paragraphs in Mr Poos' proposals which I think are very important.
The first is paragraph 18, which refers to the role and the relations which the High Representative for the CFSP should have with Parliament.
I should like to ask the Council to bring Mr Solana to order.
The High Representative needs to learn that his relations with Parliament come within a certain framework and are governed by certain rules which he would do well to understand.
The second paragraph is Paragraph 19.
I was delighted at the excellent example set by the Belgian presidency this morning, when the President-in-Office of the Council reported to the European Parliament in person, and I should like to congratulate Mr Verhofstadt for this morning.
The third point, which I think is very important, is the huge issue of transparency.
It is an issue which concerns all the institutional bodies of the European Union.
It has been raised by other Members, such as Mrs Malmström, who has done an excellent job on the issue of transparency, as, of course, has Mrs Maij-Weggen, but what I want to say to the Council is that European citizens are not just interested in what the Council decides; they are far more interested in why it decides what it does.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Council functions poorly, which is also bad news for all the other EU institutions.
It is bad for Parliament and it is bad for the Commission.
The lack of transparency and efficiency, which have often been referred to here, also affect our work and give us a bad image in the eyes of the EU's citizens.
That is why reform of the Council is urgently necessary, as must be emphasised again and again.
Mr Poos has produced useful and valuable suggestions as to how such a reform might now be possible without the need for a new European Treaty.
I share the view that people have a right to know who votes and which way when it comes to laws and regulations that affect their daily lives.
The Legislative Council urgently needs this public character.
I do not believe that the number of Councils on various sectors is the problem.
The problem is the deficient coordination within the Council and also within the governments of the Member States.
Changes must be made here.
I believe we must follow up this idea of sending a permanent minister to Brussels who would take over the coordination of government policy at national level.
On Monday, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs added further items to the agenda, for example, the issue of the Council Presidency when there are at least twenty-five Member States, or also how the European Council is to be defined. What is that?
An organ, a super-board, or is it part of the Council? This reform is urgently needed, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, and we hope that you can do something even before Laeken, and that, in Laeken, the Council will again be on the agenda with a view to the future Treaty on the Union.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank Mr Poos for this report on the much-needed Council reforms.
We sometimes say in connection with the Pope that there is no need to be married to be able to talk about marriage.
However, in the case of Mr Poos, we can say that he has every right to talk about the Council as he has formed part of it for a very long time.
How badly the Council functions at crucial moments was evident at the Ghent Summit where three Prime Ministers had made prior arrangements outside of the Council, where the President of the Council made essential statements on the evaluation of the attacks on Afghanistan which were subsequently not backed by the Council, where various Prime Ministers made various statements following the European Summit, where decisions were taken on a payment issue of banks in relation to the euro, but where no decisions were made on crucial anti-terrorist measures proposed by the Commission and Parliament and where, to cap it all, an embarrassing dispute arose between the President of the Council and the President of the Commission.
That is how the Council comes across to the public.
And that negative image dominates the entire decision-making process and the way the Union is viewed throughout the Union.
How can the Council be reformed in such a way as to ensure that the Union functions better and to improve the Council' s image with the citizen? How can the Council be reformed in such a way as to ensure that the Union' s entire institutional structure is more democratic and open?
In my opinion, a few factors are of crucial significance in this.
First of all, the Council must confine itself to its original brief, namely to express the view of the Member State governments, under the supervision of the national parliaments and the European Parliament.
Secondly, the Council must coordinate its tasks more effectively, thus ensuring that the General Affairs Council and the joint committees speak with one voice.
In my view, the number of joint committees could be cut down even further.
Thirdly, the General Affairs Council should function far more forcefully on the basis of solid positions of national members of government for European affairs, preferably in the capacity of Minister.
Belgium set a good example in this connection.
Fourthly, where legislation and the budget are concerned, all Council meetings should be public, which means that both discussions and decision-making should take place in public and reports that are compiled on these should also be made public.
Fifthly, in the case of legislation, including the budget, only ministers should be granted a right to vote, which means that it is not acceptable for them to be replaced by, for example, the permanent representative or by officials.
In my opinion, the Council should function entirely in line with its actual task as a Federal Council, much like its German model, so that it becomes crystal clear to the citizens what its role is in the democratic process of the Union.
I truly hope that the report by Mr Poos will play a key role in the forthcoming IGC and above all, I hope that the Council will take to heart what has been expressed here in Parliament in the way of criticism, but also the odd word of praise.
Mr President, people have a right to know how their representatives in government have acted and voted in the Council.
It is entirely unacceptable in a democracy for laws to be made behind closed and bolted doors on behalf of 380 million people and without there being any public scrutiny.
The most important position adopted in the European Parliament' s report on Council reform is therefore to be found in Paragraph 26, concerning the need for openness and stating the European Parliament' s request that, when the Council acts as legislator, both the deliberations and the votes should be in the public domain, as well as Parliament' s particular request that, at the beginning and end of all legislative procedures, public debates be held in accordance with Rule 8 of the Council' s Rules of Procedure and that Rule 9(1) of the Council' s Rules of Procedure be implemented.
It also states that the results of votes and the explanations of vote referring to legislative texts must be published.
Through this future openness, the European Union will be democratised.
It will lead to greater pressure being exercised by electorates and to greater supervision of the Council by national parliaments.
It is about time!
In turn, that will lead to growing demands for a concentration of the EU' s tasks and the need to limit the EU' s powers of decision-making.
In other words, the report we are adopting today will have long-term consequences.
I believe that we are thus coming significantly nearer the objective formulated by former Commission President Jacques Santer in 1995: Do fewer things, but do them better.
Thank you very much, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Preparations for the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on preparations for the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation.
Commissioner, Mr President, honourable MEPs, in two weeks' time, the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation will get underway in Doha, Qatar.
The European Union is making every effort to ensure that, on that occasion, a new trade round will commence on the basis of a broad and balanced agenda.
In this connection, the conclusions reached by the General Affairs Council on 26 October 1999 will remain a point of reference.
The General Affairs Council of 8 October has underlined the importance of a new trade round.
Next week' s General Affairs Council will once again examine the state of affairs.
It is indeed important for a strong and united Union to leave for Doha.
You all know, of course, that it is the Commission that negotiates in matters of trade on behalf of the European Union - as is the case here - and that Commissioner Lamy, who will be taking the floor after me, plays an absolutely crucial and, in any case, very valued role in this.
For your information, I should like to add that the topic of the preparation of the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation has also been discussed during the Social Affairs Council, the Agriculture Council, and, if I am not mistaken, this will also be done at the Environment Council, with a view to harmonising the positions, or at least, to being informed of the different sensitive issues.
A new round of broad-based negotiations must enable progress to be made in the further liberation and regulation of world trade, which is vital for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, the Conference will be taking place against a backdrop of a slowing down world economy, a situation which has been exacerbated by the tragic events of 11 September which are having a negative impact on economic growth in both the industrial and developing countries.
An agreement on the start of a new round will thus give the world economy a powerful and positive signal.
Even during the most recent informal Council in Ghent, the EU Heads of State and Government and the President of the Commission urged, and I quote: "to work actively towards launching of the WTO negotiations.
The current economic uncertainty means that trade liberalisation founded on a rules-based multilateral system and associated with a real development dimension is more important than ever, economically and politically" - end of quote.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a new round of trade negotiations is also extremely important for the developing countries.
The round must enable us to improve the integration of developing countries, and especially the least developed countries, into the multilateral trade system, particularly by providing better market access, through measures that facilitate the implementation of agreements that have already been reached, and also through measures that seek to make more operational the special and differential treatment given to these countries.
Thirdly, a new round will aim to strengthen the WTO rules-based system, by clarifying and explaining existing provisions, particularly with regard to trade and the environment, and by extending the WTO' s scope to new areas such as investment, competition and trade facilitation, so that the WTO adjusts to the needs that have come about due to changes in the global economy and so that it responds to the concerns arising from globalisation.
The European Union will also attempt to promote multilateral governance by ensuring increased coherence and improved cooperation of the WTO with other international organisations, particularly with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), in order to help to improve the way that globalisation is controlled.
(NL) I should like to underline that consequently, the European Union not only seeks to further liberalise world trade, it also seeks to further regulate world trade.
In fact, that reflects public opinion in the Member States perfectly.
Non-trade issues, further progress in terms of transparency of the World Trade Organisation mechanism, the preservation of the European model of government services and the special statute of those services are some of the interests which the European Union protects.
Together with the developing countries, a serious effort has been made over the past three years on the issue surrounding implementation.
That has made it possible to identify the relevant themes.
In some cases, these concern the application of the agreements, or a slight adjustment or interpretation of the text to be specified.
In other cases, these concern points which could well result in a formal change to the existing agreements.
All this slows down the process.
It is a process in which the European Union takes an active part, and is fully aware that this forms a key component for many countries.
I should like to point out that, alongside this effort involving the developing countries, an effort must also be made involving the so-called 'rich countries' which were originally, up until the beginning of this year, absolutely unconvinced - some more than others - of the fact that there is a real problem of implementation with regard to the developing countries.
(FR) Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for over a year, the European Union has played a central role in another important matter, namely trying to find a solution to enable the world' s poorest people to have proper and effective access to medicines.
The European Commission action plan in this area was approved by the General Affairs Council last May.
The European Union is working hard so that a clear statement on access to medicines and on the TRIPS agreement can be adopted at the Fourth Ministerial Conference at Doha.
Today, the WTO consultations are focusing on the draft Ministerial Declaration and on the draft decision on implementation-related issues.
Two documents, which were tabled on 26 September by Stuart Harbison, the Chairman of the WTO General Council.
Many of the WTO members consider these documents to be a good basis for our work, and they will be amended in line with the negotiations that have taken place since they were published.
As far as the European Union is concerned, the draft Ministerial Declaration will take into account a whole raft of subjects that we consider to be crucial.
The document still, however, falls short of expectations in several areas.
Commissioner Pascal Lamy will no doubt comment on this issue in his speech, and the Commission will continue to strive to ensure that the Ministerial Declaration responds to the European Union' s concerns and interests.
We are taking an active part in the negotiations on the agenda of the new round with an open and flexible approach, and we are also particularly concerned about assisting developing countries whilst protecting the legitimate aims and objectives of the European Union.
While the various components that will feature in the new round and the implementation-related issues form a whole, the final assessment by the Union will be based on both the overall balance and on the balance within the various subjects that will be discussed.
(NL) Mr President, Commissioner, by way of conclusion, I should like to say that the purport of the forthcoming Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation is to further adjust the regulating effect of world trade, and that this conference offers us a chance to give the world economy a considerable boost by commencing a new trade round.
Finally, I should like to underline the positive political and economic significance of such a round.
It aims to reinforce international solidarity, curb inequality and to enhance the stability of the world and the world economy.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank the European Parliament for having organised this debate on the progress of preparations for the forthcoming Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation. There are two weeks to go before the conference opens and some lively discussions are now going on in Geneva and elsewhere on the negotiating programme that will be launched.
I would now like to say that, as negotiator for the European Union, it is very important to me that the European Parliament actively participates in this debate.
As you know, we fought together, at the previous Intergovernmental Conference - at which the Treaty of Nice, as we call it, was draw up - in order to enhance Parliament' s competences in the area of trade policy.
As you also know, the Member States did not adopt our proposals.
In these circumstances, the Commission is doing everything in its power, within the framework imposed on us by the Treaty, to inform the European Parliament and to involve it in the Union' s trade policy.
You also know that we are in favour of creating a consultative parliamentary body at the WTO, to enhance the role of Members in the multilateral trading system.
I am convinced that, if we want the support of public opinion, if we want to improve the WTO' s legitimacy, then enhancing the role of Members in the WTO' s work is not only possible, but also, and above all, it is necessary.
So, what is in the negotiating programme proposed by the European Union? On several occasions over the last two years, since Seattle, we have had the opportunity to come together to discuss the progress of preparations for the forthcoming Ministerial Conference.
The exchanges of views that we have had here or in committee have given us food for thought as to which strategy should be applied.
The considerations and concerns that you have voiced during these meetings are very similar to those of the Commission.
Like us, you want a negotiating programme on the liberalisation of trade and investment, to meet the needs of our exporters and those of developing countries.
But, like us, you also want an agenda that focuses on the drafting of new rules, the clarification of current rules and the linking-up of World Trade Organisation rules and those of other international bodies in the areas of society, the environment, health or food safety.
It is these rules that will provide greater market efficiency, better social development and sufficient environmental protection.
We believe that the key to sustainable development of the planet as a whole hinges on our ability to combine the opening-up of the markets with the application of multilateral rules.
This is why there are three subjects on the agenda supported by the European Union since the Seattle meeting. These are market access, regulation and the integration of developing countries; the unity of these three subjects is guaranteed by what is called the single undertaking.
Lastly, we want to hold intense negotiations and come to swift conclusions.
Some may be surprised that the tragic events of 11 September have changed neither course nor our schedule.
I would like to briefly explain this.
Even before 11 September, we believed that an approach based on the principle of well-ordered liberalisation was required.
This has become even more necessary since the terrorist attacks took place.
The process of opening up markets, regulating trade, integrating developing countries and the concern to ensure environmental and social sustainability - we need these more now than ever before.
These are issues of stability and security, both in relations between countries and between generations.
Dialogue, negotiation and peaceful resolution to commercial conflicts have made international trade a laboratory for international governance, where each partner participates in decision-making.
Faced with the instability caused by the attacks, we must further strengthen the importance of the multilateral dimension, which we believe to be the best way to give today' s de facto globalisation a legal status.
Of course, the WTO is only one of the pillars making up a multilateral system, which must meet the challenges of globalisation.
A round of World Trade Organisation negotiations is therefore necessary, of course, but it is in no way sufficient.
We must also strengthen the other institutions of governance, the environment, social development, development funding and policy support agencies.
Let us now consider the prospects for the Ministerial Conference, which will take place in two weeks' time.
Generally speaking, I think that we are in a better position than we were at this stage before the Seattle conference.
The preparatory work is being carried out in a spirit of positive cooperation.
The belief that the multilateral system must now, more than ever, be an essential part of growth and prosperity is widely shared.
And I think we must also point out that the open, constructive spirit and the efforts made by many partners - such as ourselves, the United States, and an increasing number of developing countries - have already helped to partly reconcile the differing views that prevented Seattle from being a success.
This came across very clearly at the last informal select meeting of WTO trade ministers, which was held in Singapore on 13 and 14 October and which I attended.
I feel that this was also correctly reflected at the meeting of APEC trade ministers (Pacific-rim countries) that took place last week.
I think that we have now reached a point where we can envisage an ambitious, balanced round that meets the primary objectives of the European Union.
Of course, we have not yet achieved this goal.
We are now entering the final and crucial stage, in the run-up to Doha.
As you know, a draft Ministerial Declaration, which will constitute the framework of negotiations for the new round, was published on 26 September 2001.
All the members of the WTO considered this document to be a sound basis for moving forward.
Of course, no one was fully satisfied, which, if you are familiar with the culture at the WTO, is more or less a good sign prior to negotiations.
Obviously, not everything in this document is acceptable, not even for us, and I shall outline to you the main areas of difficulty, which require further work.
The first difficulty concerns trade and the environment, areas that give us particular cause for concern due to the lack of ambitious proposals.
Clearly, we hope to make the framework for negotiation much more substantial.
Progress is being made in some areas, but we must admit that most of our partners in developing countries are still hesitant, to say the least, about the idea of accepting negotiations on this subject.
We shall do everything we can in the following days to improve this situation.
I also made it clear to my colleagues, in Singapore, that a framework on this issue was not only a political necessity for the European Union, but should also be of interest to all the members of the World Trade Organisation and of the multilateral system as a whole.
I think that the message concerning the political importance that this question holds for us has got through.
We still need to draw operational consequences from this.
The second difficulty, after environment, is agriculture, which is still a very sensitive subject.
The draft declaration before us seems to pre-empt the outcome of the negotiations in several respects, since it aims, in particular, to phase out subsidy categories, which goes further than the framework that Franz Fischler and myself received...
Mr Lamy, I must ask you to interrupt your speech.
As you will all, of course, understand, this is an exercise in evacuating the Parliament building.
We shall adjourn the sitting and leave the Chamber immediately.
I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to follow the instructions given by Parliament' s security staff calmly and orderly, and to leave by the emergency exits.
This sitting is now adjourned, and will resume as soon as the bells indicate that work can be resumed as normal.
(The sitting was interrupted at 16.35 due to a fire drill and resumed at 17.10)
Mr President, I shall carry on with what I was saying before this brief interruption, which is that the draft statement for the Doha Conference, currently on the table, raises a number of issues with regard to the environment and agriculture, and now I shall talk about the social aspect. We are not completely satisfied with some aspects of the statement either, specifically with the way it deals with the social domain.
We feel that it is treated too sparingly and should be extended to more appropriately reflect the importance of this issue for our societies and our own ambition, for such is the mandate I was given, to establish an international and multi-institutional dialogue on this subject.
With regard to investment and competition, we are unhappy with one of the options put forward, which is to limit ourselves to working programmes.
In our opinion, working programmes cannot replace negotiations, even if it does make sense that there should be a connection between a working programme and a negotiation, provided, of course, that this is agreed in advance.
The issue of the relationship between health and intellectual property, which the President-in-Office of the Council mentioned, is also problematic.
As you know, we are very committed to this matter and we are working actively on reconciling the more extreme positions so that a substantial political statement can be agreed on in Doha, reconciling the flexibility of the agreement on intellectual property with, on the one hand, the need of developing countries for access to essential medicines and, on the other, the concern to ensure that innovation through research can take place.
These are our concerns and other delegations will obviously have their own concerns about the ministerial statement.
For a number of developing countries, the implementation of existing WTO agreements, or in many cases, their adaptation, is of the utmost importance and we must, we feel, be willing to respond openly and creatively to these concerns.
Some of the least advanced countries have a real problem of lack of capacity and resources and a solution must be found to this problem in the future work of the World Trade Organisation.
Despite the concerns that I have highlighted, most of the WTO member countries seem increasingly willing to show the necessary flexibility and openness to sufficiently conduct ambitious negotiations in Doha in terms of substance, and I am beginning to think that we might be able to see our four priorities met there: trade liberalisation, further regulation, the inclusion of development at the top of the multilateral agenda and the integration of our objectives for sustainable development into the WTO.
All of these aspects are designed to ensure that we give greater consideration to our fellow citizens' concerns.
On behalf of the Commission, I hope that the resolution you will be voting on tomorrow will provide clear and powerful support for these European Union objectives.
With a vote in favour, you will be strengthening our negotiating hand and sending a political signal to our trading partners and to the general public, that the European Union will not simply be taking a 'business as usual' approach to these negotiations.
To conclude, I should also like to take this opportunity to welcome, on behalf of the Commission, the Members of this Parliament who will be joining our delegation to Doha, and the positive and cooperative approach between us that I would say we developed in Seattle.
This is, in any event, the result of the questionnaire that I sent to you at the time, to which most members of the delegation replied, and I count on your active support to promote what is, in my view, our common agenda.
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner Lamy, it is my pleasure to be able to state on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats that the major Parliamentary Groups have found it very easy to reach agreement on the joint statement which we will decide on tomorrow following this discussion.
This shows that on certain major questions a general view predominates over party lines.
We have not seen much of Commissioner Pascal Lamy over the past few months, and for once I can say that we are glad about this.
He had energetically and skilfully shuttled all over the world trying to create a basis for a new WTO negotiation round; on which a decision needs to be taken in Doha in mid-November.
In the midst of all this, however, Commissioner Lamy has found time to do a good and adequate job of briefing the Parliamentary delegation that is leaving for Doha.
We must thank him for this also; of course I was not to know that his message is so explosive that a fire drill would have to be arranged during it.
My group fully supports the negotiation line that the Council had already decided for the Seattle conference.
The new negotiation round to develop the liberalisation of world trade and rules of the game must treat matters on a broad basis so that we can strengthen sustainable economic growth; reinforce, develop and renew a trading system based on global rules; and ensure that its benefits are shared out equitably.
We are also happy with the idea that the meeting will be held in Qatar.
Now, if ever, it must be shown that we cannot be intimidated by terrorism; instead, we shall continue - on the 'business as usual' principle - with our policies of international cooperation for the sake of freer and fairer trade.
This must also work towards a better environment, social development, the reduction of poverty, and human rights.
There are some who would like to eliminate free trade, abolish the WTO and return to bilaterally regulated trade.
This road, ladies and gentlemen, would be a road to protectionism, and then on to trade wars and also, subsequently, to possible armed conflicts.
It would be a road which would make all enemies of freedom, democracy, the State under the rule of law, social development and human rights nod with satisfaction.
I would like to thank all my colleagues who have worked so hard in order to bring about a Parliamentary meeting in connection with the Doha meeting.
I would like to mention by name my colleagues Erika Mann and Konrad Schwaiger.
We have heard today that there is still uncertainty about the mission from the United States Congress.
We must indeed hope that at least as strong a delegation arrives from the United States Congress as from here; without them we will be a bit one-sided.
I believe that during the next few years we can develop Parliamentary monitoring of world trade; this is important in order to open up to citizens the work of an organisation such as the WTO and, through this, to seeking approval of the activity falling within its sphere.
Mr President, it appears that Doha has sounded the alarm bells here in this House.
Over the past two years, the WTO has been under fire on many occasions, with good reason.
Some of the critics claim that there is so much wrong with the WTO that we should not start a new trade round until the problems surrounding, for example, fair access to the world market for developing countries, the lack of democracy and decision-making within the WTO and the imbalance between trade and non-trade issues have been resolved.
We, the Social-Democrats, however, have reached the opposite conclusion.
These problems must be solved as an absolute priority, and it is precisely by starting a new trade round that this can be achieved most effectively.
Only then will reform be truly possible.
The PSE Group gives its unqualified support to a new trade round with a broad-based agenda aimed at economic and political reform.
It is quite simple: we know that trade stimulates growth, attracts investment and creates employment, both within and outside Europe.
The world economy is now poised between recession and recovery.
The recession as a result of the terrorist attacks on 11 September gives the perpetrators ultimate triumph.
Who stands to suffer most from these attacks? The world' s poorest of the poor.
The World Bank expects that the terrorist attacks will cut economic growth in the developing countries from 5 to 2.5%.
The expected growth and effects are approximately another ten million people under the poverty line and an added 20 000 to 40 000 children under five who will die.
That is a disaster.
A new trade round is necessary in order to restore confidence in the world economy to some extent and to open the way to renewed sustainable growth.
We also know, however, that trade on its own is not enough.
Without an adequate regulating mechanism, we run too great a risk of the trade benefits being distributed very unevenly indeed and of the environment and social standards coming off worst.
That is why in the negotiations with other groups on the resolution, we, as the PSE Group, insisted that the Fourth Ministerial Conference' s first priority should be to tackle worldwide poverty, reforms, democracy and the relationship between trade and non-trade issues.
Why? Think of the impact of the WTO rules on matters such as the environment, safe food, workers' rights or the freedom of governments to regulate public services without running the risk of being taken to court by profit-seeking multinationals.
To the Social-Democrats, the fundamental objective of institutions such as the WTO is to bring worldwide processes such as globalisation under political control, enabling us to steer these processes in accordance with democratic, political choices.
It is therefore our greatest challenge, together with many developing countries, together with many reform-minded and sound NGOs, in the face of opposition from the neo-Liberals, but also from a number of our fellow MEPs here in Parliament and that section of the anti-globalists who oppose a new round, to start this new round nevertheless.
The Fourth Ministerial Conference is a key moment in the debate on globalisation, including the socio-economic security aspects of this debate.
If the programme for the forthcoming three-yearly trade round compiled at the Ministerial Conference does not provide a solid basis for progress in the field of democracy, the fight against poverty, environmental protection, growth in developing countries and the protection of public services, then we, as Social-Democrats, fear the worst for the course of the current debate on globalisation, and eventually the very concept of globalisation itself.
This is the message of the resolution which, we hope, will be adopted tomorrow.
We support a new trade round.
We are in favour of free trade which is fair and supports the citizens throughout the world.
Finally, a word about the acid test in all of this. We hope that those cheap medicines which the President talked about in plain terms will also prove to be a true test, for without it we cannot imagine that this new round could be successful.
We wish Mr Pascal Lamy every success, for he is doing fantastically well so far.
He has a great relationship with our Parliament, for which we are very grateful to him.
Mr President, firstly I should like to extend our congratulations to both the Council and the Commission for what seems to be a much improved preparation for this meeting, compared to the methodological confusion that seemed to reign prior to Seattle.
We hope it will bear fruit in a couple of weeks' time.
As a group we are also very keen that we should learn the lessons from Seattle and not use the launch of the round, or the text for the launch of the round, to somehow foreshadow or preclude the conclusion of the round.
That is obviously a lesson well-learnt and we applaud the attempts to keep the document which will be discussed in Doha as crisp and brief as possible.
I am not entirely sure whether the principles of brevity and crispness have been fully respected in our own resolution, but this is certainly something we hope you will follow in Doha.
There are two issues of absolutely fundamental importance to us as a Liberal group.
Firstly, trade and the environment: for us issues such as the interaction between trade and multilateral environmental agreements, eco-labelling, the incorporation of the precautionary principle are not add-ons or luxuries, they are absolutely fundamental to the future credibility of the WTO and, arguably, of globalisation as a political process itself.
We feel strongly, therefore, that without those kinds of provisions in the next round of negotiations, it will simply become politically unsellable and unsustainable within Europe.
Secondly on agriculture, our own views are that paragraphs 23 to 25, whilst just above adequate, are a little convoluted and mealy-mouthed on agriculture.
We prefer the emphasis in paragraph 6 because it draws attention to the fundamental fact, highlighted recently by a study from the Centre for Economic Policy Research, that the greatest instrument to alleviate poverty is the further liberalisation of agriculture.
That is a fundamental principle for us which we hope will be fully respected in the next round.
Our group has not signed the compromise resolution with the larger groups for a number of reasons, but the most important one is this: We believe that fundamental reform of the World Trade Organisation's processes and rules must be a precondition for any new round of trade talks.
Reform is not something that can be simply addressed as one issue among many in a new multilateral trade round where it risks being traded off against other interests and demands.
In our view, the WTO faces such a crisis of legitimacy in public opinion that reform must come before any further negotiations, and that is the position we have put forward in our joint resolution with the GUE Group.
Now that is not a tactic for putting off indefinitely the start of a new round.
In our view, nothing has slowed down the WTO more than the debacle in Seattle which was caused in no small part by the chaotic and exclusive structures, rules and procedures of the WTO.
So, for those who believe in multilateral trade rules, as we do, serious reform is not an option but a necessity.
The lessons of the failed Seattle Ministerial were that the WTO must become a fully democratic and transparent organisation which genuinely supports sustainable development and which effectively responds to the needs of developing countries. They need to be far bigger players in the WTO.
Their marginalisation needs to end and they need to be listened to.
In recent weeks, many poorer countries have made it clear that for them addressing concerns about the implementation of Uruguay Round commitments should be a precondition for a new round.
Just two days ago, a communication from the G77 reiterated that position.
Our group agrees with developing countries when they oppose new issues on the agenda on the grounds that expanding that agenda would over stretch the capacity of many developing countries which are already struggling to participate effectively in the WTO process.
It would distract attention from the unfinished development business and increase the risk that developing countries will end up accepting disadvantageous trade-offs.
The possible opt-outs that are on offer are not a realistic or effective way of dealing with these concerns, since developing countries still do not have the capacity now to affect the negotiations of an agreement which they may be later under pressure to sign.
Pressing ahead with a new trade round in the face of major opposition from the majority of developing countries is not helpful.
Simply calling it a development round without genuinely addressing the demands of developing countries is a sleight of hand that fails to address their real concerns.
Finally, our group agrees that strong international rules are needed to manage trade.
We agree very much that internationalism is important, but the current international trade rules favour narrow business interests and not the poor and the environment.
Changing those rules is the priority for Doha, not launching a new round.
Mr President, after 11 September, we have every reason to redouble our commitment to multilateralism.
Persisting with the Doha meeting and making it a success are, therefore, of considerable political importance.
Of course, we cannot at this stage hope for the sea change that is required, but adapting, improving and consolidating the WTO system would at least be a good start.
As supporters of the multilateral approach, we must fulfil this commitment.
The criminals who destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center know the value of symbols.
Making trade the focus of coexistence with other countries is a deeply reductive approach and directing world trade centrally is unacceptable.
Multilateralism must be neither asymmetrical nor imperialist.
Doha will not be Seattle, however.
Civil movements have helped to make their leaders think, the southern countries are, with the welcome support of the Commission, playing an increasingly important role and the time when Carla Hills wanted to use a crowbar to open up other countries' markets to her own will will soon be a thing of the past.
Doha is not a sign of a new wave of liberalisations, but nor is it an agenda for development.
It will be something vague between the two.
An agenda will be negotiated there whose objectives will remain general.
There has been no prior negotiation of the outcome, fortunately, and we approve of the principle of the Union' s mandate: to set a broad agenda, but more than just balancing liberalisation by means of rules, there is no getting away from the fact that we must try to resolve the contradictions between society' s choices and trade rules.
The social issue is symbolic.
The main front on which we need to fight is finance, and a Union which allows tax havens to flourish within its borders must put its own house in order.
Nobody can claim, though, that trade has nothing to do with fundamental rights.
The WTO may not be the place to produce social conventions, but it certainly does have a responsibility to ensure coherence.
The implementation of the Marrakech agreements and the incorporated agenda on agriculture and services will be at the centre of the forthcoming round.
The legitimacy of the trade interests of the South must be recognised but the problem will lie in preventing negotiations boiling down to a process of tough haggling over their interests and our own.
The concerns of northern societies as of those of the South must lead to a change in trade rules and to break their monopoly that favours one group.
With this in mind, we must accept that we will have to open the door to the renegotiation of certain rules, in particular, those concerning intellectual property.
Lastly, although the democratisation of the WTO will certainly not be on the agenda, it is nevertheless clear that this round will not succeed if it is nothing more than a diplomatic battle between countries, even if the European Union is happy to play the honest mediator.
Civil society must be involved; we must consult our citizens and take account of their criticism and their demands.
This is the only way to ensure that democracy will penetrate the WTO.
Mr President, Commissioner, on the eve of this new meeting of the World Trade Organisation, which I prefer to call the Trading the World Organisation, you have used the correct term: legitimacy.
The failure of Seattle, which I predicted, several weeks beforehand and in writing - forgive me if I gloat - was entirely due, in my opinion, to this twofold lack of legitimacy.
Firstly, because the WTO itself has no legitimacy and, whatever people may think, is not up to the task that it has set itself.
I am talking more precisely, however, about the absence of legitimacy of the European Union and I must say that this is not meant as personal criticism or criticism of the quality of the very idea of having a single negotiator, even if it does have a mandate, to replace all of our old nations, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Holland, Italy, which have, since the early middle ages, expanded on the mould of this international trade, which is now global.
No one can picture you, whatever your qualities, which everyone recognises, promoting both the interests of all of these countries and maintaining the diplomatic channels that the history of our ancient nations could allow us to fulfil, either with Latin America for Spain, Africa for France, etc.
There is, as always, a huge pretentiousness or even vanity, on the part of the European Union, in seeking to replace, in one fell swoop, a thousand years of history and in claiming to be able to fulfil this role.
The second stumbling block, of course, is the hypocrisy of the World Trade Organisation, which is approaching these negotiations like a wolf approaches a lamb.
Since the financial world effectively took control of the economy twenty years ago, international trade is now mainly an excuse to continually, ceaselessly and forever and beyond expand the sphere of financial speculation to the point that these negotiations are beginning to look like a big raffle held for the benefit of those organising the raffle.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, international trade is in crisis: according to the forecasts of the Istituto affari internationali, 2001 will see growth of 2% compared to the 13% in 2000.
I feel it is right to raise the issues of WTO reforms, legitimacy and transparency of decisions so that we do not lose sight of the WTO' s primary, unique mission which is to extend international trade.
This is why Doha must not fail: it must not fail because it has to ensure the sustained expansion of international trade over the next few years.
The responsibility of the success or failure of Doha lies with Europe and the other more advanced countries.
In general, I feel that we must take note of certain considerations and questions.
Firstly, in my opinion, we must stop following the line of reciprocity at all costs. Removing the barriers to trade - even unilaterally - is not an act of surrender.
It is a farsighted measure, particularly in economic terms. I commend Commissioner Lamy for taking this approach with the Everything but Arms initiative, although we will have to explain to the European citizens that, under that initiative, which was well-received and rightly so, banana duties will fall definitively in 2009, that is in 10 years time - a geologically important period in many respects - and we will also have to tell them why.
A further problem we must avoid is overloading Doha with an oversized agenda. I would stress that Doha has a specific mission.
We must not overload Doha and the WTO by attempting to use them to put right a number of issues which we feel need to be rectified in the world today.
Certain positions expressed on the environment, health and employment standards do nothing to defend us against accusations that the advanced countries and Europe are actually using the extension of the agenda for protectionist ends.
The developing countries are in a strong position and are not so very far from the truth when they say that all these so very politically correct issues actually serve to slow down the opening up of our markets to goods which have to come, first and foremost, from the least developed countries.
With regard to agriculture, I feel that we must bring to an end this game of hide-and-seek, this game of role plays between Europe and the United States in which, while we are waiting for someone to make the first move and start to reduce agricultural protection, we are all maintaining duty levels and levels of agricultural subsidies which are incompatible with the liberalisation of trade in the agricultural sector, when, as has been pointed out, this is one of the sectors which could most be most beneficial to the developing countries.
In Europe, we grant a subsidy of a dollar a day per bovine animal - and these animals are not high quality, they are our own mad cows - when there are one billion, three hundred thousand human beings who have to live on less than one dollar a day.
There you have it: if we genuinely want the WTO and Doha to be successful, these are the issues we must address. We must be bold and, I would stress, abandon the principle of 'reciprocity at all costs' .
Unilateral measures opening up international trade benefit, first and foremost, those who have the courage to implement them.
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy deserves our gratitude for referring to the much-needed institutional reinforcement of the role of the European Parliament in European trade policy.
I wish to ask you Madam President-in-Office of the Council, whether you can support this position when you are assembling your papers for the forthcoming Inter-Governmental Conference and, firstly, for the Convention for which we are all striving? It is there that the breakthrough should at last occur, so that the European Parliament can draw even in institutional terms with the American Senate and House of Representatives.
In the next few years, the WTO will, through the imminent accession of China and Taiwan - both of which have long been important trading partners of Europe - and the eventual accession of Russia, gain a global dimension, giving it an even greater worldwide representative role and presenting it with new challenges.
To achieve this, it will have to adapt its structures and change the way it works.
With Qatar, there is the additional factor that we must make a start and genuinely involve all the developing countries, not only the representatives of the least developed, in the negotiations.
The technical aid which the EU and the other industrialised countries are called upon to provide is crucial for these countries' future real involvement in the decision-making process.
The WTO must, however, also increase its efficiency despite these changes and become more transparent and more readily understood by the world's citizens.
How will the WTO harmonise its new, strengthened universality with the need to become even more efficient and make markets more open? Our resolution attempts to reconcile these two requirements, although surely incompletely as yet.
We Europeans must contribute our environmental legislation, our regulations on food safety, our multifunctional agriculture and our social security legislation as expressions of a tangible European reality.
Now, some weeks after 11 September, it is particularly important, partly as a response to terrorism, that we, the EU and, particularly, the European Parliament, continue without distraction on our way towards greater openness and democracy in the WTO and resolutely set about the necessary reforms.
We need to promote fair and freer world trade rather than seal ourselves off by means of protectionism and fall back upon national markets.
We must also strive to realise soon the central proposition of the European Parliament - the establishment of an effective parliamentary assembly for the WTO, to be the world's mouthpiece in trading matters.
We therefore need representatives of the American Congress in Doha as well.
We are relying on the parliaments of the industrialised states, of the emergent countries and of all the developing countries.
May we ask, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, if you, at the end of your presidency of the Council, could give your support to this proposal, which we must implement as soon as possible?
We support Commissioner Lamy's efforts at using our cooperative structures to involve Africa in particular - Africa, that continent which is largely forgotten by world trade - more intensively in dialogue on the subject of a parliamentary assembly.
Our seminar on 12 April was the first example of a successful conference on trade, democracy and development to involve our friends from Africa alongside the representatives of the industrialised countries in America, Europe and Asia.
Technical support from the Commission and our parliamentary budget played an important part in this.
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy, Minister Neyts-Uyttebroeck, ladies and gentlemen, the tragic events of 11 September have led to a re-emergence of two concepts which seemed to have been forgotten: multilateralism and solidarity.
Firstly, political practice is developing in such a way that we can only confront global threats in a global fashion: all united.
Furthermore, we also know that poverty and underdevelopment are significant causes of insecurity.
A Japanese thinker, Daisako Ikeda, said that the new concept of security, which focuses on the security of States, must be defined differently, focusing on the well-being of peoples.
Only by extending freedom, human rights and development can we recover our security.
At the same time, these events have speeded up the decline in confidence in our security and the economy, areas which were already showing signs of weakness.
It is therefore now important that we send clear signs of revitalisation and attention to the concerns of our citizens and, above all, to the concerns of the countries which need it most, that is, the developing countries.
It must therefore be an absolute priority to launch this new round of multilateral negotiations in Qatar on the date set, not yet to negotiate, but at least to set the agenda in the direction we wish to take.
We want to move towards a result which provides a balance between opening up trade and subjecting that trade to rules, internal democratic, and external democratic, rules, which respect fundamental social standards, the environment and the security of our consumers.
We also want a balance between an increase in exchanges and special attention to the concerns of our citizens, as well as the concerns and needs of the developing countries, who must be allowed to share fully in the benefits of international trade.
In summary, therefore, the mandate which the Council has given to the Commission, in our opinion, corresponds to these balances and deserves our full support.
I would like to thank Commissioner Lamy for the sensitivity he has always shown towards the European Parliament and his constant cooperation.
In return, Parliament and the parliamentary delegation which will accompany him to Qatar will offer him all their support.
Mr President, in Doha the EU must show its hand.
On which side does the EU really stand in the global North-South conflict? Things are looking quite bad.
In spite of the stream of protests from, for example, India and Malaysia, the least developed countries, the G77 group, China and a host of environmental and solidarity movements, the EU intends, together with the United States, to try to play its trump card by making the WTO' s free trade doctrine apply not only to traditional trade but to practically the whole of economic life.
According to what Commissioner Lamy said in a statement earlier today, the EU' s main objective is to open the markets of the developing countries to EU companies.
When it comes to TRIPS and GATS, too, it is obvious that the EU is on a collision course with the developing countries.
In this global struggle, which is more crucial than the fight against terrorism, a number of 'progressive' people have believed that the EU could constitute a tool actually to combat neo-liberal globalisation.
If the EU does not change its tactics, there is everything to indicate, however, that, when it comes to the crunch, the WTO meeting in Doha will be proof that all the fine declarations of solidarity are being abandoned.
It is then that a 'policy of naked interest' appears, that is to say, a policy that places the EU alongside the United States and against the majority of the world' s poorer countries.
Mr President, obviously the diverse manifestations of democratic resistance to the dangers of an uncontrolled expansion of the WTO's powers have given pause for thought.
It seems, however, that well-intentioned appeals are not going to prevent it from going down this path.
It is simply the case that trade in goods and money transactions are governed by the law of the market. The market is, by its very nature, immoral.
Those who want to maintain their hold on the market have to make a profit or else they go under.
The WTO has obviously set itself the goal of cutting the market off from the demands of society at large and even from parliaments.
The opinions now on the table at least show an awareness of the problem.
It is right to take small steps. However, far more ambitious steps must follow.
We cannot wash the coat of the bear which the WTO has become without getting the animal itself wet.
Our aim must be to work towards a new global economic order which distributes the wealth of this earth differently, justly and fairly, overcomes poverty, establishes and guarantees broad-based democratic cooperation giving parliaments a voice, and makes independent economic development possible for all countries.
The European Parliament should do everything within its power to challenge the Council and the Commission to do this.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I would firstly like to thank you for the efforts you have made and the strategy you have employed in preparing for the Doha Summit, to promote fairer and more balanced sustainable development on a world scale, which contributes to respect for fundamental social rights and the protection of the environment, the benefits of which also reach the least-developed countries.
Kofi Annan recently said that the Doha Summit must be the development summit.
If this is to be the case, it is essential that the developing countries can be fully integrated into the structures of the WTO and they must be given easier access to world trade.
That is why I want to insist on the importance of the technical measures for developing countries, because it is these measures which will allow these countries to take full advantage of the commercial opportunities offered by the liberalisation of the markets.
Repealing or renegotiating the agreements already adopted is not the solution.
On the contrary, in Doha the European Union must remind all the member countries of the WTO that it is necessary to respect the commitments made in the existing agreements, just as the European Union has respected its commitments.
I am thinking specifically of the textile industry, which has strictly respected its commitment to open up its market, increasing quotas and progressively increasing the application of the GATT rules in the sector, which is something that not all countries have done, including the most developed countries.
It is true that trade, even if it is multilateral, will not in itself resolve the inequalities of our planet, but it may reduce them by reconciling the interests and concerns of all the parties involved, especially those of the weakest.
The European Union has proven experience in this task and we hope that after Doha, by following the line we have taken until now, Commissioner, we can finally succeed in it.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, like others, I wear a badge which symbolises trade with justice.
Open trade - yes, but only with rules.
Our national and European interests, yes of course, but also the interests of the developing world - your approach, Commissioner, and ours.
I am going to concentrate on two frankly difficult areas - TRIPS and the environmental aspects of trade which you have already mentioned.
Firstly, TRIPS: what we now have in the agreement is not clear enough or good enough.
Intellectual property rights are important in world trade, but we thought that the 25.5 million HIV positive people in sub-Saharan Africa could have access to cheap drugs under TRIPS.
Let us ensure that this is made more explicit after Doha.
Ironically, the United States, the world's most fierce defender of intellectual property rights is now faced with the dilemma of needing huge supplies of antibiotics to combat anthrax.
Attitudes may change with new circumstances - in any case, they have to.
Secondly, environmental standards.
The EU faces charges of protectionism.
Commissioner, you know that this is not the case, that we are ready to help developing countries in any way necessary as we are helping applicant countries, that we have science on our side and that we will not abandon our hard-won progress - why should we? Multilateral environment agreements cannot be discarded in the name of free trade and the precautionary principle must be explicitly included in WTO rules.
This is a deal-breaker for us.
We in the EU know more than any other part of the world how untrammelled free trade can be controlled through multilateral rule-making to the benefit of our citizens.
Our achievements in the EU are relevant elsewhere, and we should defend them - your task Commissioner.
I know you will be tough on our behalf.
I hope you will be tough too on core labour standards.
Seattle did not work - Doha can if it is fair and if there is a balance of trade and justice.
Good luck Commissioner.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with your permission I will just say a few additional words, which perhaps have more to do with practicalities and less to do with the substance.
Firstly, I should like to compliment Commissioner Lamy most particularly on the superb cooperation which we are enjoying and - I think that I speak for everyone - on the excellent manner in which he is representing the European Union in the run-up to this forthcoming trade round.
His task will certainly be a difficult one.
The right balance needs to be struck between, on the one hand, representing European interests and, on the other, ensuring that the other countries, our negotiating partners, and in particular the developing countries, are brought on board.
Personally, I believe that this round will, more than any other, be able to send out a message to the world that it is possible to reconcile trade and politics.
I trust, Commissioner Lamy, that you are in a position to achieve this, working together with your colleague Bob Zoelleck, but also with the many other negotiating partners that you have.
It will not be an easy task.
However, everything bodes well.
I am grateful to you for consistently encouraging Parliament to play a more significant role in trade policy.
Regrettably the Council has not taken the same step.
Like you, I hope that we will be able to achieve more in this respect in the future.
Incidentally, I should also like to thank all those colleagues in this House who have always supported this policy.
I should, moreover, like to remind you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that you also have a task to carry out in Doha, namely organising the meeting with all of the trade ministers.
We have a good tradition of arranging for the European Parliament's delegation to meet the ministers attending the trade round.
I would earnestly request that you organise this meeting again this time and also ensure that we have a debate and that it is not just an occasion for a chat or seen as a bit of an afterthought, as the Council is wont to do, but that it really is an occasion for serious dialogue.
In addition, I should also like to inform you very briefly - my colleague, Konrad Schwaiger, mentioned this - that the parliaments will also have a joint meeting in Doha.
The invitation will be extended jointly by the President of this House and the President of the IPU.
I hope that we will make progress there.
Here, too, we need your support, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
We have always had this support from the Commission.
Thank you once again for cooperating with us.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I should like to extend a warm thanks to all those who have taken the floor in this debate, for the good wishes they have conveyed to Commissioner Lamy and hopefully the Council presidency too, and I hope that we indeed manage to organise a balanced trade round with a broad-based agenda.
My only comment in this respect is that I very much appreciate the fact that you have valued our respective efforts to improve the atmosphere prior to the start of such a round, and that you, as it were, assisted us in those efforts.
This is a tremendous boost a fortnight prior to the start of this Fourth Ministerial Conference.
If you allow me, Mr President, I should like to respond briefly to the specific questions that have been raised, notably those by Mr Schwaiger and Mrs Mann about the role of parliaments and Members of Parliament.
Mr Schwaiger, I can only respond on behalf of my government with regard to our position concerning an amendment to Article 133 of the Treaty.
I can only say to him that it was not the Belgian government that has precluded an amendment to the article.
We will continue to strive towards a broadening of the Commission' s negotiation authority under that article, and towards greater parliamentary involvement.
Secondly, I can say to Mr Schwaiger and Mrs Mann that I am delighted with the initiative for a parliamentary meeting in Doha; that appears to me to be extremely important.
I will therefore be very happy to lend my support to this effort, and I hope that it will be possible to inject a little more stability into the meeting, because I believe it to be absolutely of fundamental importance for Members of Parliament - for in addition to MEPs, the meeting will, of course, also be attended by a number of national MPs - to learn to listen to each other.
Maybe it will then be a little easier for us, members of the government, to convince our national parliaments of the accuracy of some of our claims when they hear those expressed by their colleagues from other countries, and particularly from developing countries.
I welcome this development with open arms.
It is significant in itself.
It will also contribute towards more transparency in the activities of the World Trade Organisation.
This does bring me to one minor remark made by Mrs Lucas who believes that the World Trade Organisation should be reformed first, before negotiations can commence.
I should like to say to her that I cannot see how any changes could be made to the way the organisation works without a negotiation round.
I should like to draw her attention to the fact that the very careful preparation of the Doha conference in itself bears witness to an entirely different approach from before. Finally, I should like to remind her that the World Trade Organisation is, in fact, a very young organisation which is very much open to improvement, and we will happily take part in this exercise.
I gladly promise Mrs Mann, I will be organising a meeting with the Members of Parliament in Doha.
Mrs Mann, you know very well that you and Mr Westendorp, as well as a few other MEPs, have had the opportunity to exchange ideas with us immediately prior to the start of the informal External Trade Council, so we will naturally carry on with this tradition.
Mr President, I too wish to thank the speakers who have stated their support for the Commission' s position - including the President-in-Office of the Council - and also to thank those who have wished the negotiators good luck.
Custom dictates that I should answer those who expressed more critical views and who, in tomorrow' s vote will not be adopting the position that the majority groups have stated they will.
I shall do so briefly, replying first to Caroline Lucas - speaking on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance - the reasoning in whose speech I consider to contain a slight contradiction.
On the one hand, Mrs Lucas, your group is in favour of tougher rules governing trade - specifically from the point of view of considering the environment - and yet, on the other, it is not in favour of negotiations taking place.
You must have some solution for changing international rules that does not involve negotiating.
Please tell me about it, because I have no such solution.
To Mr Herzog, whose group I understand intends to adopt a similar position, I would like to say that I particularly liked your expression 'tough haggling' .
There will indeed be some of that.
It is true that the WTO sometimes seems a little bit like a grocer' s shop but we must also remember that the more progress globalisation makes, the more trade develops and, occasionally, the more our values are at stake.
In these cases, I think that toughness becomes a duty, whatever resentment this may engender.
Mr Abitbol spoke on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group.
You lament the fact, Mr Abitbol, that the Union has a single negotiator.
I would remind you that this issue was decided for the future of the European Union 44 years ago.
You choose to see in this the vanity of our founding fathers.
Fifty years on, all I can see is their foresight.
Lastly, Mr Abitbol, on the point you made, as on other critical points that were made, I would simply remind you that although the Commission negotiates on behalf of the Union, it does so under the control of those who gave it its mandate, which are the Council of Ministers and Parliament.
Both will be attending the meeting: the Council, representing the States and Parliament' s delegation, with which you are familiar.
In all honesty, I really cannot envisage a more effective method of ensuring that the negotiator' s political responsibility is maintained throughout.
It is up to the Presidency-in-Office of the Council to oversee this process of giving account but, ultimately, I shall return with a position that I have negotiated and it will be up to the Council and Parliament to state their position with regard to the Treaties.
This is how our democracy works.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
International trade
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0331/2001) by Mr Désir, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on democracy and opening up international trade (2001/2093(INI)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the transition from the GATT era to that of the WTO changed the dimension as well as the nature of the multilateral trading system.
With the advent of the WTO, trade rules were extended to a large number of new areas, including services, intellectual property, investment and rules on non-tariff barriers, that frequently affect non-trade issues.
These rules have a binding force, which is backed by a dispute settlement system with the capacity to impose sanctions.
Finally, enlargement, which begun under GATT, has resulted in an unprecedented diversity among its members with regard to international trade.
The rules of the multilateral trading system now apply not only to the countries that account for most of world trade or only to the one-fifth of world production that is traded across borders.
They also apply to goods and services that will never be traded internationally.
All countries are concerned and their internal rules affected, whatever their share of international trade.
In recent years, trade agreements have also had a growing impact on other international rules in areas such as the environment, health and social rights.
Thus, WTO agreements or decisions have threatened the precautionary principle, environmental protection and access to medicines.
The cause of this is partly the ambiguity of some agreements, such as the agreement on intellectual property, in the case of medicines, but with regard to public services, the scope of Article 1 of the General Agreement on Services is also to blame.
To this, we can add another reason for the undermining of the multilateral trade system: the democratic legitimacy of the WTO, an intergovernmental organisation, in principle, relies firstly on the equal participation of all members, on the fact that they have an equal say in the organisation.
Most of the developing countries, however, feel marginalised by its operation and cut off from the decision making process.
At least 24 developing countries that are members of the WTO have no permanent representation in Geneva, and numerous others have only very small delegations that do not allow them to follow all of the proceedings that concern them.
Many developing countries lack the necessary competences.
In such situations, form and content are real issues for developing countries because the rules and agreements more often reflect the interests of the trading powers that have negotiated them between themselves, sometimes in 'green rooms' or in informal meetings, which are far too secretive - than the interests of all members, particularly of the poorest countries.
Consequently, since the Uruguay Round, many developing countries have stated that they were not aware, when they signed, of all the legal, administrative and financial consequences of agreements such as the TRIPS agreement on intellectual property, which were drawn up without their involvement.
Generally, where the developing countries are concerned, six years on from the creation of the WTO, the picture before us reveals a limited opening up of markets in the north, considerable difficulties in implementing agreements and persistent marginalisation from the workings of the WTO.
This feeling is more acute still for the least developed countries (LDCs), which, twenty years ago, accounted for 0.6% of international trade. Today the figure stands at only 0.4%.
The WTO, therefore, continues to be dominated by the large trading powers, and it is they that benefit overwhelmingly from its policies.
And, two years after Seattle, the multilateral trade system is still undergoing a threefold crisis of democratic legitimacy, as a consequence of the uneven distribution of the benefits of world trade, of the marginalisation of many of its members, as a result of the impact of some WTO rules on other basic principles, even at international level, and lastly due to a lack of transparency and the limited involvement of parliaments and civil society in the work of the WTO.
Although the WTO has started to acknowledge the need for reform, this recognition has yet to be translated into the necessary changes.
As you know, Commissioner, our committee, therefore, adopted, by a large majority - 48 votes to 5, with 1 abstention - a report which is noteworthy above all for its set of practical proposals, grouped into four main chapters.
First of all, the equal and effective participation of all members is a key factor in any new direction for the multilateral trading system.
This will require an increase in the provision of technical assistance.
The Commission has already undertaken a number of actions and we urge it to persevere in this direction.
We propose going further, however.
The Commission should propose the creation, for example, on the basis of a contribution proportional to each member' s share of international trade, of a fund or an increase in the WTO' s budget, which would enable all member countries to have a representation in Geneva.
We propose supporting regional representations, which is already being done, specifically for the ACP countries, but we feel that we need to go further; we need to establish internal transparency; until all members have a representation, we must allow non-resident countries to have rapid access to records of meetings and draft agreements; we must establish clear rules on so-called 'informal' consultations to allow all countries that wish to take part to do so, by publishing agendas in advance and by ensuring that reports of prior decisions, which are sometimes prepared, are provided to the competent bodies in good time.
We also propose that the dispute settlement system be reformed, because there are still inequalities linked to the market share of the various member countries, to ensure that the small countries, those that account for a small proportion of international trade, can, in certain circumstances, seek financial compensation.
Secondly, there is the issue of opening the WTO up to society and external transparency.
We feel that much remains to be done in this area before we reach the level of other organisations, within which observer status has been given to non-governmental organisations.
We feel that the dispute settlement procedure itself could, given the judicial nature of the procedures, be held in public, as is the case in court proceedings.
Thirdly, there is the issue of parliamentary control, which was mentioned in the previous debate, at both national and European level and also by means of a consultative parliamentary assembly within the WTO.
Where the European Union is concerned, we propose that Article 133 of the EC Treaty be reformed, that the 133 committee be opened up to Parliament's representatives, and that the European Parliament' s assent be required for all trade agreements.
Fourthly, there is the balance between international standards and establishing new relationships between the WTO and other international organisations.
We propose that all other multilateral organisations, such as the International Labour Organisation, the World Health Organisation, etc., be given observer status within the WTO and that their opinion be systematically sought by the dispute settlement body when there is a risk of conflict between trade rules and other rules.
In our view, the European Union should propose a de facto hierarchy of standards at international level, with which all countries must comply. In other words, it should recognise that business law or trade law cannot supplant the principles of environmental protection, public health and respect for the social rights of workers.
It must fall to the ILO, and the ILO alone, to decide whether or not it is appropriate to adopt retaliatory measures and to impose trade sanctions on countries, and not the World Trade Organisation.
I feel, however, that the WTO must give a commitment to respect any decisions that the ILO may take on such matters.
To conclude briefly, Mr President, I would say that trade policy, which is one of the oldest of the EU' s policies and its oldest external common policy concerns, of course, economic interests, but it also says a great deal - or, in any event, the European Union says a great deal - by means of this trade policy, about its vision of the world and of north-south relations in particular. It also reveals a belief in a division between that which is the domain of the market and that which societies must do in the name of principles, such as, solidarity.
This policy must reflect the Union's fundamental values and objectives.
For this reason, the EU' s priorities must be the establishment of fair and equitable trade, a democratic multilateral system, and a reformed WTO.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, Commissioner Lamy, ladies and gentlemen, we need more and not, as has been called for several times, less, international cooperation.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, we need the basic conditions to be legally certain and foreseeable.
The aim has to be to use world trade to create more wealth for our people.
In so doing, however, we must not overlook the fact that Europe has 18 million small enterprises, which, at the end of the day, employ two-thirds of the workforce.
This means that salaries are mainly being paid by small and medium-sized companies.
Sixty per cent of GDP and, important for us politicians, 80% of taxes come from small companies.
That is why where the WTO is concerned, we should not only consider involving and integrating the ILO in this process and reflect on how we might better structure it, but should also and especially bring the social dialogue and the social partners to the fore.
The Everything But Arms initiative should not contain the clause 'Everything But Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises' , but instead 'Everything For Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises' .
The economy is at the centre of this discussion, and this is something that we should not forget in the whole WTO debate.
Very briefly on TRIPS: here we should consider, in particular, having compulsory licences and, above all, development aid; we should consider having calls for tender and also giving countries medicines of the necessary quality.
As regards the dispute settlement mechanism, I should like to recall that many companies and individual firms are damaged by WTO rulings, for example because of carousel trade retaliation.
Here I should like to ask: how do these companies obtain redress? How do they come to be damaged by an international agreement which is not actually in accordance with the law of the country concerned?
Finally, we need to introduce more transparency into these areas and ensure that decisions are made closer to the people.
That is why I welcome the fact that President Neyts will support the European Parliament and parliaments throughout the world in their efforts to bring more transparency and also in the end, I hope, more wealth into this world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur, Harlem Désir, on his very good, clear and extensive report.
Commissioner, if the decision-making process in the WTO is not made more transparent and democratic then, in the long term, the people of the WTO Member States will not stand for it, because we cannot have nation states increasingly referring crucial issues to the competent supranational organisation, while parliaments and, therefore, also society at large remain prevented from exercising their democratic right to monitor and participate in its work.
Events in the Dispute Settlement Body must also be seen in this light. The Dispute Settlement Body needs to be thoroughly overhauled.
It needs to be transparent and changes also need to be made to its composition.
In the same way, it is necessary for us, finally, to give the developing countries the tools which will actually allow them to participate in the negotiations on an equal footing and then to assess the decisions which need to be made as they see fit.
There is, of course, a difference between a delegation arriving with 150 experts and a developing country having great difficulty sending its ambassador to the places concerned.
I should like to point this out once more here.
Otherwise, Harlem Désir has already said everything that needed to be said.
Mr President, I would also like to join in the congratulations to Mr Désir, the rapporteur.
This report strikes us as an excellent piece of forward-thinking, a blueprint for the WTO of tomorrow.
It comprehensively rejects those who claim that the WTO is beyond redemption; that it cannot be reformed; that it is inherently biased against the poor or the dispossessed; and that it is just an agent for the rule of the jungle, rather than the rule of law.
It also rejects the contrary view: the idea that free trade should prevail at all costs; that the WTO should be an agent for the dismantling of outstanding trade barriers, and should do so to the exclusion of all other political and public policy considerations.
Instead, it represents almost a synthesis of those two views, because it shows how and when and why the WTO should, and must, be reformed.
It shows how the WTO must become more transparent and legitimate.
I should add that all the emphasis that we, as Europeans, place on the need for increased legitimacy and transparency in the WTO will come to nothing if we do not reform the way in which we conduct our own trade policy in the European Union.
I was delighted to hear the presidency today say that it has supported in the past, and will support in the future, Parliament's demands for more transparent and legitimate trade policy-making in the European Council and the European Union.
The report also - and this is perhaps its greatest contribution to the debate - shows the way in which the WTO has to be placed increasingly in a context of other public policy priorities and other multilateral organisations and agreements.
It cannot rely on a role as primus inter pares on the international scene.
Instead it should learn to interact with other priorities and other multilateral agreements.
Our role is, therefore, to flank the WTO with other supporting agreements in other fields, notably the environmental field.
Mr President, international trade is fundamental in our system and, in the opinion of those who advocate a different type of globalisation, including myself, international trade must be based on fair, equitable trading bringing development and wealth to the greatest number of people possible.
Regrettably, the trade negotiations held under the auspices of GATT and the WTO did not serve to create fair international rules: quite the opposite, they left entire communities with no defence against the greed of multinationals.
It therefore follows that these institutions are suffering an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy in respect of vast sections of communities, and are in vital need of thorough reform.
The Désir report addresses clearly the limitations and dysfunctional areas of international trade, of unequal participation, and the lack of transparency and democracy and the ensuing consequences, and proposes reforms to remedy these shortcomings.
We support the report and will vote for the motion, but we feel that this must only be the start of a process of change.
The Commission and the Council must refuse to be influenced by pressure from the rest of the world.
Mr President, justice must be done, but more importantly justice must be seen to be done: the WTO is a very powerful international organisation, dealing with rules and law, and it must be seen to act justly.
Accountability and transparency are therefore exceptionally important.
Global trade requires global rules and development requires understanding of some of the problems of the developing countries.
If we are discussing transparency and accountability within the WTO process, transparency for its own sake and accountability for its own sake are just not enough.
The fundamental purpose of both is to create integrity in the system so that those who have promised to do things, and here I mean the developed countries, are forced to do them because of international public opinion.
There are many things that the developed countries promised in the Uruguay round which have not been delivered.
Conversely, those in the developing world who now have systems of corruption and bad practice will also be brought to book through the process of accountability and transparency.
In this regard, I would like to support Mr Désir in saying that he has produced an excellent report which I want to support.
It is vital to understand the permanent position of the rule of law.
Equality before the law and confidence in it is an absolute necessity for developing countries.
Without it all the well-meaning words and the great aid-giving we indulge in will come to nothing.
Justice must be done and must be seen to be done.
Mr President, international trade is of central importance if conditions for growth and development are to be created throughout our world.
The rules governing this trade determine whether growth and development are to benefit the whole of humanity or are to be confined to the industrialised world.
Mr Désir' s report is an excellent instrument for bringing about something more akin to global justice in world trade.
The developing countries must be put on the same footing as the industrialised countries when it comes to participating in the joint work of the WTO.
For me, as a Social Democrat, global justice is an end in itself.
The acts of terrorism in the United States also point to the need to limit the basis for hatred and fanaticism.
Less injustice will increase the safety of us all.
The voluntary organisations must be given scope to express their opinions when world trade is discussed.
Democracy can be deepened through the setting up of a parliamentary assembly within the WTO.
Social dumping must be prevented and employees' rights must be provided for.
Fundamental human rights must be respected, the fight against environmental devastation intensified and child labour prohibited.
We must stop dumping our food surplus in the developing countries and, instead, give farmers in those countries a chance to increase their production and their opportunities to provide for themselves.
In that way, we can make our contribution to a more just and more secure world.
Mr President, the new WTO round perfectly illustrates our criticism of the way in which this body is organised.
This is supposedly a development round, but the European ministers for cooperation and development are not taking part in the forthcoming meeting.
Furthermore, the Committee on Development and Cooperation has not been able to deliver an opinion on the Désir report.
Fortunately, the report asks pertinent questions, and it has our support.
This is supposed to be a development round, but the 49 LDCs are opposed to it and rightly so.
Liberalisation, which is supposed to lead to development, growth and prosperity, has only made their situation worse.
The WTO perpetuates the imbalance in world trade and the establishment of rules that are unfavourable to the developing countries.
Furthermore, it has ended the preferential system instituted by the Lomé Convention.
Similarly, the Cotonou Agreement urges the ACP countries to abide by the GATS or the agreement on Trips but the UNDP, itself, states that the liberalisation of services will only benefit multinational companies.
The GATS is basically the IMA by the back door.
It is a tool for dismantling democracy.
Mr Lamy, if negotiations must take place, then they must focus on a root and branch reform of the WTO.
It is the development of the least advanced countries that must benefit rather than the development of multinational companies' profits.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to thank Harlem Désir for the quality of this report, which, of course, I fully support.
The point that you made just now, Commissioner, on developments within the WTO to my mind shows all the more the need for such a report.
I shall use two points to try to illustrate this.
The Commission must keep a close eye on the issues of agriculture and intellectual property, so that the current shifts we are seeing within the WTO do not continue indefinitely.
The dice have been and remain loaded against the weakest, either the poorest countries or the most endangered social categories in our own countries, because the WTO is a body that is neither transparent nor democratic.
Let us take the example of the Marrakech Agreements on agriculture.
They guarantee neither self-sufficiency with regard to food supply nor the right to protect biodiversity for the southern countries. They prevent the specific nature of small-scale farming in Europe from being taken into consideration, with all its quality, social and environmental aspects.
There is a danger that, in the near future, they may ban small farmers from sowing the seeds that they have themselves produced.
The Commission must exert pressure to change this, to have an in-depth review of the Trips agreement drawn up so that it is fully compatible with the Rio convention on biodiversity and the Cartagena protocol on biosecurity, as the African group within the WTO is calling for.
This will enable us to preserve the biological heritage of the developing countries and the traditional skills in the south as well as the north.
Furthermore, the patenting of living organisms must be prohibited, because these are the heritage of all humanity and cannot and must not be hijacked by private interests that want to turn life into a commodity.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will convey this message.
Mr President, Mr Désir' s own-initiative report makes a number of recommendations that are quite close to the spirit in which we are approaching the WTO ministerial conference in Doha.
You would like to see the developing countries integrated into world trade, which is an objective that we share.
You emphasise the importance of the WTO addressing the public' s concerns, over and above the traditional issues of access to the markets or of customs tariffs. We also share this objective and feel, as you do, that rapid economic change and the effects of globalisation must be managed.
The fact is that progress has already been made on many of your suggestions, specifically with regard to follow-ups with technical assistance or councils for developing countries in WTO negotiations.
The European Union, for example, is responsible for establishing the ACP countries' Centre in Geneva, which will enable these countries to better coordinate their position and consequently exert greater influence within the WTO.
It is the European Union that insisted on streamlining meetings in Geneva and on making the participation of members who do not have a representation in the WTO easier.
I am giving these two examples, to which one could add the efforts made to encourage the accession of a number of countries - and in Doha, an LDC, the island of Vanuatu, will sit side by side with China and Taiwan, for example - not to suggest that the situation is perfect or that nothing remains to be done, but in order to ensure that the debate on the proposals for reform is held on the basis of a full and up-to-date knowledge of the current situation.
On this subject, I should like to make a small correction to a point of fact that appears in your explanatory statement, Mr Désir, concerning hormone-treated beef.
Contrary to what you state, the European Union has not been condemned for banning hormones in cattle breeding.
The WTO has explicitly recognised the right in this affair of each member to set its own level of protection.
The Union was condemned because, at the time, it did not supply the necessary scientific evidence to justify such a ban.
I have a few other different interpretations, or rather differences of opinion, concerning some of your comments or suggestions.
You mention the crisis of democratic legitimacy, which other speakers have taken up.
I disagree with the content of this criticism.
Admittedly, the system could be improved: it must be made more open and the developing countries must be more fully integrated.
The challenge of reconciling our 'civil society' agenda with our 'development' agenda is indeed formidable and your report, furthermore, attests to some of these difficulties, in that, for some subjects, you propose both external transparency and fundamental social standards.
We know very well that, where these two matters are concerned, our sensitivity to the positions of the developing countries forces us to severely limit our ambitions: consequently, our own position is not entirely free from contradiction, as your report highlights.
Nevertheless, calling the current situation a serious crisis of democratic legitimacy strikes me as somewhat excessive.
As far as I am aware, the Marrakech Agreement was not only adopted by the Member State governments, but was also ratified both by the national parliaments and by your House. In other words, the Marrakech Agreement has been ratified by the European Parliament.
With regard to your statement that decision making within the WTO is the sole preserve of the richer nations, I would say that, although this may once have been true, it is increasingly less the case in an organisation of more than 140 members and, in which, small discussion groups are inevitable in its day-to-day work.
We are trying to ensure that these meetings include both rich and poor countries and that they guarantee a representative mix both in terms of geography and in terms of stages of development.
It may be the case that these informal groups make it easier to reach consensus, but they never, as we all know, take decisions.
Many preparatory meetings of this type have taken place over these last few weeks, for example, the ministerial mini-meeting in Mexico at the end of August, the Europe-Asia meeting in Hanoi in mid-September, the Europe-Africa meeting in Nairobi in mid-October and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting at the weekend.
I would also add that, in terms of the method of preparation, the lesson of Seattle has been learned and that the participating delegations are larger and better informed about the issues you have raised.
With regard to dispute settlement, an issue you have also addressed, I would make three comments.
First of all, let us not forget that the main objective of the mechanism for settling disputes is the effective and disciplined implementation of commitments that have been freely negotiated and accepted.
This is what a member of the WTO hopes to obtain when it resorts to the dispute settlement procedure.
Like you, we are also opposed to immediate implementation and to trade sanctions.
There must be more room for trade compensation.
Personally speaking, I have greater reservations about your suggestion to replace sanctions with fines.
My fear is that financial penalties would not resolve the imbalance between rich and poor countries, and might, to some extent, even allow the rich countries to buy off their breaches of obligations.
With regard to the transparency of the panels, we are also in favour of opening up the hearings of the appeals body to the public.
Let us remember, however, just between ourselves, that the developing countries have very firmly held positions on this point, which we do not share.
Where the relationship with other rules of international law is concerned, we must ensure greater coherence and prevent conflict between trade and non-trade rules.
This must apply to the very substance of the commitments in question.
As to the issue of revising the agreement on intellectual property, which you consider to be necessary, I do not think that a thorough revision would be appropriate.
If we take the examples of access to medicines or of the patenting of living organisms, the agreement provides sufficient latitude to establish an intellectual property system that responds to the concerns expressed by developing countries.
It is the task of the members of the WTO to interpret and clarify this flexibility, and we feel that it is better to do so by means of discussion or negotiation than to leave this task to panels.
This is the basis of our position in Geneva, which I mentioned in the previous debate.
Mrs Auroi, the issue of compatibility between the agreement on intellectual property and the convention on biodiversity is one of the points that we wish to see clarified in these negotiations.
With regard to the incentive measures to ensure compliance with basic standards in the field of employment law, we agree with your wish, Mr Désir, to highlight the importance of strengthening the ILO and this is why your suggestion to create a multilateral agreement within the WTO does not fill us with any great enthusiasm.
As for the incentive measures to ensure compliance with basic social standards, I would say that we must not undermine the influence of the International Labour Organisation.
This is not a weak institution that the WTO must provide with a dynamism that it would not otherwise have.
We must instead work on improving the ILO' s profile.
Lastly, with regard to creating a parliamentary forum within the WTO, a proposal that, as I stated in the previous debate, we have always supported, I shall conclude briefly by saying that we shall make use of the guidelines that Parliament has laid down for this set of work, to which we can now add your report, Mr Désir.
I would say that, as this afternoon's debate has shown, the Commission' s political line, approved and implemented by the Council, is also coherent with the position of this House.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Common foreign and security policy (CFSP)
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0332/2001) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the progress achieved in the implementation of the common foreign and security policy (C5-0194/2001 - 2001/2007(INI)).
I would point out that, after the rapporteur, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, President-in-Office of the Council, and Commissioner Patten will speak, and they will then have to leave as a result of urgent air transport issues.
This change to the agenda is due to the evacuation of Parliament, which is of course neither the responsibility of the President-in-Office of the Council nor of the Commissioner.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, in recent weeks we have frequently said it, and in the light of this annual report we should emphasise it once more: since 11 September we have not actually learnt anything new.
It has become clear to us, however, and we have become more conscious of the fact that we need a new definition of security, that the old concepts of security policy actually no longer work and that, for this reason, a particular combination of external and internal security needs to be formed.
It is no longer the case, you see, that a potential enemy can be unambiguously recognised behind a border; now the enemy also has the ability to be in our midst.
Here, I believe, a coordinated approach needs to be agreed.
Admittedly, we also know that this threat can no longer be fought by individual states because the challenge is international and runs across borders.
That is why we also need to find cross-border solutions.
Each individual European state only has a chance of guaranteeing the long-term peace and security of its own people if we pool our resources, in terms of military forces, in the field of prevention and in the field of civil crisis management, but also in terms of ensuring cooperation between our security bodies and intelligence services.
For this reason, I believe, we have actually made considerable progress in the last two years in view of the decisions made since the Treaties of Amsterdam and Nice and, in particular, those made at Cologne and subsequent summits.
On this basis, I think that we should press on with developing a European security and defence policy once the necessary conditions for doing so are in place.
In our opinion, we have to recognise that it will be necessary to make certain structural changes to achieve this.
This is because we believe that it will only work if, firstly, the Member States realise that only the joint institutions can act and that bilateral initiatives also weaken the individuals concerned, even if they think that it makes them appear particularly powerful in the media.
The second point is that the structures in the different institutions will also have to dovetail to avoid there being any duplication of work.
It does not, in my opinion, make any sense for there to be committees on civil crisis management in both the Commission and the Council, with the High Representative.
That is why I wish, on behalf of the European Parliament, to repeat our position that in the long term the duties of the Commissioner for External Relations and those of the High Representative should be merged within the Commission.
That should happen in order to ensure that there really is a uniform approach and so as to have uniform structures.
This has nothing to do with the merits of those specifically involved at the moment; it is a question of structure.
On this basis we must also, of course, make sure that this person has special relations with the Council so as to give their work the appropriate legitimacy at that level.
I also think, however, that we can make it clear that added value really is being generated.
I should like to give just a few examples here. I believe, for example, that the large anti-terrorism coalition would not have been formed in this way had it not been for the particular European influence exerted by the troika's travelling to the Middle East, which yielded significant results.
I do not believe that the large anti-terrorism coalition will be able to exist in the long term if the European Union does not foster stability in the Mediterranean area through the Barcelona process.
For this reason, I also believe that the European Union has the task of addressing the root causes which sow the emotional seeds of terrorism, whether it be in the Middle East, in the relations between Pakistan and India, or in other parts of the world where we should make a particular effort to make our contribution to securing peace.
In this process we have to recognise that our relations with the United States take the form of a partnership and that, regardless of all our efforts to develop our own security and defence policy, NATO is still necessary because it alone is able to guarantee the collective security.
If we wish to play a role in politics as a whole, however, we must also actively work to further develop our relations with Russia, build new bridges and provide those countries which at present cannot, should not or do not wish to be members of the European Union with a new framework and a new form of European economic area.
Nevertheless, I should also like to say that all of this will only work if we are also prepared to make the money available in our national budgets to make it possible to really keep our pledge to provide 60 000 people for the Rapid Reaction Force.
We will not be successful in terms of prevention and civil crisis management and we will not continue to play a key role in foreign policy, but will just be passive observers, including in our relations with Russia and the United States of America, if we do not plausibly demonstrate that we have our own military capability.
It is often the case that prevention only works if it is possible to show the country in which you want to intervene to establish peace that you also have military options.
It is often sufficient to possess a military capability - this is shown throughout history - to prevent military resources from even having to be deployed.
That is why realising our vision of having a 60 000-strong Rapid Reaction Force, transport capabilities and our own satellite system by 2003 is decisive for the credibility of the future European foreign and security policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Brok on his excellent rapport, in which he not only asks pertinent questions, but also, and from the outset, provides some valuable answers.
Incidentally, the report is most timely, because, with regard to all issues concerning foreign policy as a whole, in other words, the Union' s policy towards the rest of the world, security policy in all its aspects and defence policy, the European Parliament is clearly in a state of change.
I was present in this House for the discussion of the Treaty of Amsterdam, when we stated our disappointment at the little progress made on common security and defence policy.
Looking at the point we have reached today, we see that we have come a long way and especially that we have progressed very quickly.
The events of recent months and weeks have shown, whatever may have been said about them this morning, that the European Union is becoming, and is being perceived to be, an increasingly important player on the world stage.
This gives us both greater visibility and, of course, imposes greater responsibilities on us.
I am sure I am not the only person here to have been confronted over the last few weeks with the question: 'but where are the European Union' s troops?' asked by people who have completely forgotten that we are not involved and are far from being involved.
This means quite simply that we are increasingly perceived to be a player on the global stage and that we must have all the institutional, financial and other means available if we are to successfully achieve all of these responsibilities.
This result could clearly only have been achieved as a result of the energy and dynamism both of the High Representative for Security and Cooperation and of Commissioner Patten, who, in a spirit of perfect cooperation, both manage to represent us superbly on all world stages, in all crisis hot-spots on our own continent and in much more far-flung parts of the world.
We, the Member States of the European Union, are also increasingly managing - and the Belgian presidency has played a part in this - to speak with one voice in international bodies and I am thinking in particular of the United Nations, which currently play an extremely important role.
We therefore wish to see ourselves become a major political player on the international stage.
This will enable us to better shoulder our responsibilities so that we can contribute to peace and stability across the world.
This policy is progressing at the pace we had envisaged.
I am sure you know that this is an open process, in which the Fifteen want to involve the candidate countries and the allied non-Member States of the European Union.
Negotiations currently taking place with NATO are due to establish the methods of cooperation between ourselves and the Alliance, in order to ensure access to NATO' s resources and capacities and in order to avoid efforts being pointlessly duplicated.
As you know, these negotiations are not straightforward and you also know why they are so complex.
Ultimately, however, you also know - and I repeat what the presidency has already stated on previous occasions - that we have no intention of allowing this process of establishing the means to guarantee our being operational becoming hostage to events within NATO.
We shall lead the way and we shall continue to work to achieve the objectives I have mentioned.
I fully agree that conflict prevention and crisis management are amongst the foremost priorities of our action, and, as Mr Brok has said, these priorities must lead us to be committed at every stage.
We shall maintain this commitment on a long-term basis in various crisis situations, whether it be in the Balkans, the Middle East or in Africa.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis which has its origins in the terrible attacks on 11 September in the United States has shown that the European Union is capable of reacting in a rapid and coherent manner.
Our reaction bore witness to horizontal coordination and has, in fact, transcended the pillar division.
I believe that that too is, and will be, an important element in the further development of our common policy.
I should like to point out that the European Council has rarely been so outspoken over the past few weeks as it was in that context.
We have decided to adopt a voluntaristic policy vis-à-vis the Arab-Muslim world and we are united with many to give out the same message, namely that the crisis that has broken out and the fight against international terrorism can in no way be considered a war between civilisations.
This morning, we were reminded of the importance of resuming the peace process in the Middle East.
You know that the presidency will be making a visit to that region shortly in the hope of giving out that message and of receiving backing for this.
As I have already stated, our campaign in the Middle East is still based on the implementation of the roadmap, as can be found in the recommendation of the Mitchell committee.
(FR) With regard to the Western Balkans, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is committed to the systematic implementation of the conclusions of the Zagreb Summit.
Cooperation with the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia is one factor allowing progress to be made on negotiating stabilisation and association agreements with every country that participated in this summit, of which the transfer of Mr Milosevic to The Hague was the most striking symbol, although not the only one.
We welcome the progress made by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia since its return to democracy a little more than a year ago.
With regard to Kosovo, we are focussing our action on the preparations for the general elections of 17 November, and we are delighted to see that more than 170 000 Serbs have enrolled on the electoral registers, which provides hope that the result may be a balanced one.
The situation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is unfortunately not so straightforward and, here also, it has taken all the efforts of our representative, Mr Solana, of Commissioner Patten, and many others, to prevent the crisis that took place there from unfolding into a true civil war.
As you know, the situation remains extremely delicate and Mrs Pack even drew my attention to the matter when I reported on the General Affairs Council decisions of 8 October.
We are all aware of this and we are monitoring the situation, as you and many others are, extremely closely.
I should nevertheless like to emphasise that events in Macedonia have shown that close cooperation between NATO and ourselves is possible and that we are able to play a role in the prevention and management of crises.
(NL) Another region in crisis where the European Union is pursuing an active control and prevention policy is Africa.
The troika will shortly be making a few visits to that region, too, in order to keep the two peace processes that are running there, and are sometimes faltering, I have to say, namely the Lusaka peace process for Congo and the Arusha peace process for Burundi, on track and to ensure that they can herald the end of the military action and hence peace.
For without peace, the reconstruction of Africa is not possible.
Could I finally draw your attention to the meeting of the European-African Ministerial Conference of 11 October? It was a great success from the point of view that a political dialogue was entered into, whereby, needless to say, due consideration was given to the development of democracy and human rights.
Lastly, with regard to our strategic partnerships, I should like to emphasise that our relations with Russia have also been given a new boost at all levels.
Little by little, we are seeing the establishment, not so much of mechanisms but of forms of contact and dialogue, which enable us to envisage genuine cooperation and a genuine strategic partnership.
This development can only contribute to the stability not only of our own continent, but also to stability throughout the world.
I must, however, state quite clearly on this subject, that this rapprochement between the European Union and Russia, in no way means that we will be any the less vigilant over the situation in Chechnya.
We are continuing to discuss the matter and to insist on the need to find a political solution.
Lastly, I should like to mention the Fourth EU-China Summit, which also enabled us to strengthen political dialogue but, once again, this political dialogue includes the issue of human rights.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have limited speaking time and the fire drill did not, of course, help and for this I apologise. Out of all that has been said, however, I should like to take up, in conclusion, the three following aspects: a strong Europe, a Europe that is able to project its influence onto the international stage is, above all, a Europe in which internal cohesion supports external action; secondly, it is a Europe in which the synergies between Presidency, Member States, Commission and High Representatives are exploited to the full and, lastly, it is a Europe in which action, whether it be in the field of justice, defence, cooperation or anything else, matches the rhetoric.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Brok, ladies and gentlemen, thank you.
I am sorry for the reasons to which you alluded, President.
The fire drill has meant that this important debate is in a sense an inadvertent victim of the importance of enhancing our parliamentary security.
I will unfortunately have to leave shortly because the minister and I have to get to Bucharest by dawn - a challenging journey at this time of evening from Strasbourg!
We have to be there for the opening of the Stability Pact conference tomorrow, which, and it is not entirely irrelevant to what the honourable Member says in his report, at least indicates a measure of success over the last couple of years for the evolving common, foreign and security policy.
I would like to congratulate the honourable Member, on what is a very comprehensive and valuable report.
As he said in his own remarks, the evolution of a common foreign and security policy is shown to be even more timely by the appalling events of the autumn of 2001.
The honourable Member's report gives a very accurate overview of what has been achieved so far.
I particularly welcome his proposals for a strong parliamentary dimension in the common foreign and security policy.
It is very important that we put down deeper democratic roots for the common foreign and security policy and that should involve not only this distinguished Parliament but also national parliaments.
I have made a point of trying to appear in front of the select committees in national parliaments on bilateral visits to the Member States.
If anybody challenges the progress that we have made in developing a CFSP they should compare what happened during this crisis with what happened in the run-up to the Gulf War at the beginning of the 1990s or how we coped with the Balkans in the early to mid-1990s.
We cannot yet, as pop singers would perhaps suggest, 'strut our stuff'.
But we have some reason for being modestly proud of the achievements that have been made so far.
I fully agree with the report's analysis of the prerequisites of successful CFSP action.
We have to bring together the resources and instruments of all the EU players: the Community, the Council and the Member States.
I doubt whether history will regard the present institutional structures as ideal.
I do not put it any more strongly than that, but the High Representative and I have worked as hard as we could make these structures work as effectively as is possible.
What will happen in the future is for other people greater than me to determine.
I do not want to go through all my agreement with the honourable Member on individual regional and geographical areas, not least because Bucharest calls.
But I want to stress one or two points he made.
I could, for example, have gone into a detailed paragraph or two agreeing on Russia and the Ukraine, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, on the Balkans in general and on the importance of getting back to Mitchell in the Middle East.
The two points I should like to mention briefly are these: firstly, we rightly talk about the importance of trying to ensure that the international campaign against terrorism is not seen as a conflict between the West - Europe and North America - and the world of Islam.
It is absolutely right that we have to make it clear this is not a clash of civilisations.
But we have a real opportunity and responsibility in the European Union to use the mechanisms of the Barcelona process, to use the mechanisms of the Euro-Med partnership in order to strengthen the relationship between Europe and the Islamic world.
We have a real chance and a real responsibility to do this.
I hope we will seize it.
I also hope we will look very hard at our relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council in this regard.
The other point that I want to pick up from Mr Brok's remarks and from the report is simply this: in my judgment, we have to try to ensure that we can make use of this crisis to open doors and windows which have otherwise been shut.
That affects, for example, our future relationship with Pakistan.
It also, in my judgment, very clearly touches on our relationship with Iran.
I have no doubt at all that the Iranians are serious in wanting to establish a better, more profound relationship between themselves and the European Union.
I have no doubt at all that they are serious about wanting to negotiate a trade and cooperation agreement with us.
They know perfectly well that any arrangements with us will involve a dialogue on human rights and related matters.
But I believe they are serious interlocutors and that it is incumbent upon us to respond as positively as possible to the overtures they have made.
On Afghanistan I will only say that I look forward - I hope sooner, rather than later - to the time when I will have to come back to Parliament and the Council and point out the financial consequences for all of us of the political promises and pledges we have made about the future of Afghanistan.
There will be an important moment when we have to put our money and our diplomatic efforts where our convictions have been and should remain.
Finally, I would like to say once again how important it is to mobilise all our institutions, all our competences, as effectively as possible in pursuit of a common foreign and security policy.
Sometimes it is possible to underestimate the contribution which the Commission can make and wants to make in the CFSP field.
There is a great deal that we can do in order to make sure that the CFSP develops effectively as a way of reflecting Europe's growing clout in the international political arena.
The rapporteur has been well ahead of his time in pressing us to do more in this field.
I hope that we will live up to his expectations in the months and years ahead.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Brok on his report on the progress achieved in the implementation of the common foreign and security policy, a report whose objective is not only to sing the praises of this policy, but also to point out its inadequacies and deficiencies.
It goes without saying that the European Community, making a virtue out of necessity, has, thanks to the determination of the Commission, the Presidency-in-Office of the Council and the High Representative, seen its visibility increased since the attacks on 11 September.
This morning, during the debate on the European Council in Ghent, the President-in-Office of the Council fairly diplomatically said that an awkward situation had arisen as a result of the tripartite meeting that had taken place outside the summit.
To a certain extent, Mr President, it is logical that in times of crisis each person tries to save their own skin, but, in my opinion, it is important not to give way to the temptation to act unilaterally, or, to be more precise, on this particular occasion, trilaterally.
Europe is strong when united, but when fragmented is weak.
For this reason it is important that Europe should be able to speak with one single voice.
And the European Union, in the aftermath of the situation that has arisen as a result of the September 11 terrorist attacks, has to rethink its common foreign and security policy, including within it the fight against terrorism, speeding up the achievement of its objectives and making the common strategies mechanism more efficient.
Today, unilateralism, including that of the most prosperous and powerful countries, as we have already witnessed, is nothing but a pipe dream.
In the globalised world we are living in today, politics, diplomacy, security and defence are interrelated concepts that have to respond to the new threats we are having to face.
Security becomes a universal idea that cannot be split up, far removed from the traditional concepts of state and status quo.
In turn, defence is constantly changing its boundaries in a world in which the perception of these is ever more blurred: nowadays, we cannot only consider the territorial defence of one State faced with a possible attack by another, but rather, as has been correctly said, we have armies that lack clear enemies and enemies that lack armies.
In this world of globalisation, not only economic, but where terror, politics, diplomacy, trade, aid to development, security and defence are all interrelated concepts, it will depend on us to be capable of understanding and accepting that dangers and conflicts affect us all in the same measure and the response to these will also have to be the same for all those concerned.
But we will have to start - and I am convinced of this - by creating a true common EU foreign and security policy with a common conscience that is efficient, coherent and visible, as Mr Brok' s report recommends.
Mr President, Mr Brok's report, which, as usual, is very carefully drafted, has come just at the right time, a time when we need some pointers for where the common foreign and security policy is heading.
For us, 'common' means above all, and I am saying this deliberately now, that we must not have, or even give the impression of having, a board of directors issuing instructions and determining policy.
'Common' also means, and here I would support my colleague, Mr Brok, that the High Representative's duties need to be combined with those of the relevant Commissioner.
'Common' also means ensuring that we have a European Union Rapid Reaction Force as soon as possible.
The policy has to be European to the extent that it clearly defines European objectives, and this means that we show solidarity with the United States of America but also insist that this solidarity is not a one-way street.
If I have to read at a time like this that the United States of America is still rejecting the International Criminal Court and that Congress is even debating whether or not those who cooperate with the Criminal Court should be penalised, then this is not what I understand by developing a policy based on solidarity between the European Union and the United States.
Solidarity with the United States must therefore also mean our drawing the United States' attention to those areas where it is necessary to pursue a common policy in the world community.
My third and final point is that if we form alliances, in particular this alliance against terrorism, an alliance which we must and should form, we will more often find ourselves facing a contradiction or conflict between our strategic concerns on the one hand and our human rights concerns on the other.
We should be under no illusion about this.
Anyone who wishes to enter into an alliance, and I do, with the Soviet Union, with Russia, with China and with the Islamic States, will repeatedly encounter this contradiction.
We should simply realise that we also need to make it absolutely clear to the public that this contradiction exists.
We need to work towards both objectives.
We should never abandon our aim of securing respect for human rights in the medium and long term when we have to form a strategic alliance, because if you support the shahs of today you will get the Ayatollah Khomeinis of tomorrow.
This can happen if we do not remain vigilant and at the same time put the issue of human rights at the centre of our foreign policy.
Mr President, our group recognises the efforts made by Mr Brok in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, which has been a positive effort to reconcile the various contributions.
However, we do not agree with the fundamental aspects of his report and, for this reason, we cannot support it with our vote.
As an example, I will now briefly mention three of these aspects.
Firstly, 11 September was an opportune moment for the European Union to demonstrate that it could play a positive, peaceful and reflective role with the United States, in order to find, in the International Criminal Tribunal and through International Law, a solution to the conflict.
What appeared to be taking place in this direction has now been frustrated by the emergence of the Schröder - Blair - Chirac triumvirate which has missed this opportunity.
Secondly, the report gives great importance to NATO, when we think that NATO works against the interests of the European Union.
Lastly, it is very important that the European Union should play a role in the Middle East and in the Western Sahara, and we are also wasting this opportunity.
Thank you very much.
Mr President, entirely in line with the current international situation, the rapporteur, my fellow MEP Mr Brok, is of the opinion that the fight against international terrorism should become one of the European foreign and security policy' s core tasks.
This task allocation allows me to draw the Council' s and Commission' s attention to the security situation in the Western Balkans and the Indonesian Archipelago.
Further to a recently published scientific analysis of the question whether Bosnia might function as European base for Osama bin Laden' s terrorist network, I should like to find out from the Council and Commission whether they have any concrete indications that Bin Laden followers are indeed active in the Western section of the Balkans and if so, how the EU and its Member States, obviously in close cooperation with the US, intend to stand up to this dangerous destabilisation of that region.
Furthermore, the Brok report calls for a continuation of the political dialogue with Indonesia.
I expect the Council and Commission to constantly monitor the security situation on the Moluccas where Bin Laden followers are also conducting a jihad against indigenous Christians.
Finally, I happily vote in favour of the amendment by Mr Gahler which states that the NATO and its extension on our continent are still vital as a guarantee for security across Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I know I am repeating what others have already said when I say that the tragic attacks of 11 September have changed the course of this century' s history for ever, but I feel that I can never stress enough how true this is, that the international Community is now faced with a crisis that is as great as it is unprecedented and unfamiliar, with rules and trends that not even the most experienced of political analysts is able to predict.
However, at a time such as this, it is important for the European Union to show itself to be as, and more, united than before and as, and more, capable than before of reacting with one voice.
At a time such as this, when all our worst fears are unexpectedly realised, we realise the importance of this Europe that we are integrating, the importance of being united and having coordinating structures able to operate in real time, of being able to think and act all together and in respect for all the positions.
It is certainly true that we still have a long way to go: the common foreign and security policy is not yet operative and there are still complex issues to be ironed out in its operating mechanism, particularly in the area of national sovereignties, but we now need, more than ever before, to speed up our work.
I therefore cannot fail to congratulate the rapporteur, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, Mr Brok, on his report and on the priorities he has set for the forthcoming year in this area, particularly with regard to what - as we have been witnessing in recent months - will be the real challenge of the new millennium: preventing conflicts, finding a non-military solution to the crisis and, most importantly, combating terrorism.
You see, the greater the possibility of seeing Europe united in terms of foreign policy, of making our foreign policy practical reality, the more successful Europe' s internal politics will be.
Quite frankly, the acceleration of the euro, acceleration on the economic side of things, has not been matched by acceleration on the political front.
Well then, there must be acceleration in political matters, and the foreign policy is crucial if that is to happen, particularly at this time.
If we do this, we will achieve a stronger, more resilient Europe and a stronger euro, and we will certainly be able to take a better approach to enlargement and, moreover, to compete on equal terms with the dollar and NAFTA - Canada, the United States and Mexico - the Agreement as it stands, a market which already exists and already presents important political points of reference.
We must act and we must be fully confident in what we are doing: the foreign policy will become vital in the short-term future, especially for the new generations.
Mr President, Commissioner, if you would be good enough to take an interest in the debate, ladies and gentlemen, in our efforts to construct a common foreign and security policy we must not lose sight of the fact that, in the future, as in the present and the past, the European Union will certainly face the risk of its forces becoming involved in armed action.
Let us not be under any illusion: if this were to happen, it would never be in a 'clean' war.
No one is in a better position than a soldier to know that a war will always be 'dirty' and that, despite advances in technology, mankind will never be able to kill off all evil people just by pressing a button if only because it will find it impossible to tell the good from the bad with any degree of certainty.
War will always be dirty and will always be an evil, but it could be 'the lesser of two evils' , if it is only embarked upon in the aim of achieving a political objective that cannot be achieved through any other means. To quote Clausewitz, 'War is only the continuation of politics by other means.'
It must, therefore, be ended as soon as its political objective is achieved and must not be embarked upon if there is no chance of achieving this objective.
What is the objective of the war we have just embarked upon in Afghanistan? Everyone can see that it is to enable the Afghan people to rid themselves of a regime that has proved its barbarity.
This seems today to be not only desirable, but also possible.
We are sensitive to the suffering that this war is inflicting on the population and hope, therefore, that this objective is achieved as quickly as possible.
We must therefore understand that a halt to hostilities, even a temporary one, would only strengthen the position of the Taliban.
Let us show ourselves to be capable, having learned from the unfortunate experience of the Gulf war, of seeing it through to the end, in other words, to the establishment in Kabul of a regime that is acceptable to all Afghans.
Let us show that we are capable of ensuring that country' s gradual return to peace and stability.
To this end, many of us hope that the European Union will give its support to the negotiations currently taking place under the auspices of the United Nations, between the former king, Zaher Shah and the opposition' s representative. I would have liked to hear the personal opinion of Commissioner Patten on this matter.
I realise that he is not present to be able to give an answer, and so I ask you, Mr Lamy, whether you would be good enough to give us your personal reaction to this idea. Thank you.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Brok on his comprehensive report, and I agree with him that we have made enormous progress in terms of foreign and security policy.
Almost every time I open a newspaper, I see the names Patten and Solana in connection with some new trouble spot in the world.
He is right to say that we have responded to the current crisis with a coherence and unity that we would not have thought possible only four or five years ago.
He is right to say that the coalition against terror would not have been possible without the progress we have made within the EU to bring about that unity and coherence.
Clearly a lot still needs to be done, and we have to take advantage of the current crisis to perhaps change the emphasis in our work.
We spend something like 60% of what the Americans spend on defence, but we spend 400% of what the Americans spend on what might be called 'soft intervention' - humanitarian aid and assistance.
We need to try to change that emphasis.
The Americans need to learn from this crisis that security is not just a matter of power projection.
You can have all the weapons in the world, but you will be unable to defend yourself against a few people armed with box cutters.
We need to have a multinational approach to the global problems.
For our part we have to realise that we must have greater military capability in order to back up our actions.
That is why the capability process currently under way is so important.
We must put some teeth into our common foreign and security policy.
That is why I am disappointed with the news that Italy is likely to pull out of the project for A400M aircraft.
We need strategic lift.
It is often ironic that the countries that most engage in rhetoric about European cooperation are those that often fail to produce the action.
One final observation is that at the moment we are seeing a warming of relations with Iran and Syria.
I should like to remind colleagues that there are a number of Israeli soldiers and civilians held hostage by forces sympathetic to, or controlled by, Iran and Syria.
These people are missing in action and I would hope the Commission and the Council would use this opportunity to get those hostages restored to their families.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I should like to join with other speakers in commending the excellent work of the rapporteur, my colleague Mr Brok.
Any analysis of the evolution of the CFSP would regrettably have to conclude that the Maastricht Treaty sacrificed political integration to ensure economic integration and, as a consequence, undermine the EU's potential to be a major foreign policy player on the world stage.
Nowhere was this more apparent than during the Bosnian crisis when there was significant disunity among Member States.
Our mediation efforts were dogged by bad luck.
It is also true to say we were ineffective peace-makers.
We finished up as the United States' junior partner instead of an equal one.
It seemed for a while that we had learned from this grim experience and there was a determined effort in the Treaty of Amsterdam to ensure more coherence in our common foreign and security policy approach.
Although the end-result of the Treaty negotiations represented a step forward, they did not go far enough.
However, I suppose we must be thankful that considerable progress was made at the Cologne, Faro and Helsinki Summits.
Whatever institutional and other changes take place, there will never be real progress unless and until all Member States act and speak as one.
The current situation in the wake of 11 September underlines this point.
The EU had an opportunity to be an equal partner with the United States in responding to this crisis.
Regrettably, the solo run by British Prime Minister Tony Blair has seriously undermined the EU's influence and our foreign policy strategy.
This problem was further compounded by the decision of the UK, Germany and France to hold a mini-summit prior to the Ghent Council.
If actions like this continue, either on the part of an individual Member State or a group of them, the EU's common foreign and security policy will be in tatters, despite the best efforts of Commissioner Patten and Mr Solana.
Mr President, allow me to start by echoing the congratulations by my fellow MEPs for the excellent report that Mr Brok has presented again this year.
However, I have to add that I am very interested to find out how the report would fare next year, for just when the common foreign and security policy is being further detailed, it is meeting with enormous new challenges.
The events of 11 September and subsequent events greatly impact on that policy.
They will put it to the test.
It is too early to gain a complete overview of the new security framework and the new threat.
However, we would like to ask the Council and Commission to produce an initial evaluation as soon as possible.
This evaluation should also touch upon the question to what extent the pillar structure forms an obstruction to effective action in the new situation.
External policy has become internal policy, and vice versa.
The European Union is not sufficiently prepared for this at this time.
Conflict prevention and crisis management have taken on a different aspect.
Our approach is often still too regional and too geographic.
Horizontal issues must now be thrown into the spotlight.
Increasing use must be made of regional policy in an integrated manner to tackle terrorism and international organised crime which are interrelated in many ways.
The guiding principle in this should be to help each other.
Take countries such as Ukraine.
They form part of the problem which we are now facing because the lack of transparency in countries such as those, forms the ideal breeding ground for all kinds of crimes, to put it mildly.
We have too little control over this because we have not sufficiently developed this kind of cooperation.
Maybe we have focused our attention too much on the Balkans.
That region, too, is a source of security problems, but anyone who studies the 'map of evil' will realise that the new secondary routes of drugs, arms, illegal immigrants, etc. traverse the Slav Commonwealth.
I am pleased that rapporteur Brok insists on a more effective implementation of EU strategies. There is more cause for this than ever before.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to echo the congratulations expressed by previous speakers and address just two points in Mr Brok's report.
My first point concerns conflict prevention.
The case of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia provides us with an example of unsuccessful conflict prevention.
If all of the Members of the Council had worked as intensively as Members of this Parliament have for years to put pressure on all Macedonian governments finally to put an end to the discrimination of the Albanian citizens of that country, then we would not be facing the difficulties and problems which we are now.
If this issue had played a part in the Stabilisation and Association Agreement then the Members of the Council would also have seen it as a precondition and the terrorists from Kosovo would not have had any support for their campaign in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The Macedonians would not now be under pressure of time to change their constitution almost because of the success of the terrorist campaign, because they would have already done so.
So much for our failure to prevent conflict in this country!
A second matter which is very important to me was addressed by Mr Brok.
I think that the Stability Pact should finally mark the end of the conferences and quick start packages.
The Stability Pact should be closely linked to the work of the Agency for Reconstruction and should perhaps be extended to the Agency for Reconstruction and Development in this region.
For this reason, the Stability Pact should be incorporated in the Commission's remit; this is where all of the work has to be done in any case.
We would then be able to avoid resources being wasted because of friction, we would be able to achieve synergies and we would be able to make progress on establishing real stability in the region.
In this way, we would, for example, be able to foster significant and large-scale cooperation in the energy sector.
We would be able to make progress on the free trade area in the region, on constructing transport infrastructure and on combating trafficking in human beings and other commodities.
Many Commission officials will in any case very soon be unemployed because the enlargement negotiations in the Commission are as good as closed in some areas.
Let us give these people something to work on.
Let us hand over responsibility for the Stability Pact to those who can manage it and take it away from those who have in any case already begun to abandon it.
Let us give the Stability Pact to the Commission and, perhaps, to one other wise man, Martti Ahtisaari, in addition, so that it really is a success for the entire region and for the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report under consideration states that the struggle against terrorism must become a central plank in the EU's foreign and security policy.
What should this policy be? September 11 revealed with one bang the prevailing error of the old security policy.
A missile shield gives no defence against terrorism - I said this the night before at the meeting of our committee - nor can justice be created with weapons; at times, perhaps, it may be possible to put a stop to the perpetration of injustice.
But we are so vulnerable that we are dependent on one another.
The benefit of each depends on that of all others.
I propose that a new fundamental policy line of dependency be created for the Union, both at the United Nations and at the WTO (concerning which we were speaking) and also within the Union.
Internal and external security policy must be connected; the difference between them, after all, has disappeared.
In this policy of dependency, we will use, in the first instance, social workers instead of soldiers; nurses instead of bombs; and teachers instead of missiles.
The more people and nations receive justice, the less terrorism will be generated; this is something which we all know.
I therefore ask the Commission to shape a clear fundamental policy line of dependency for all fields.
We must get away from armed security, this hangover from the cold war.
Who could sleep peacefully with bombs under the bed?
Mr President, there has only been one victim of this afternoon' s emergency drill and that is the answer to the question Mr Morillon asked the Commission, to which the Commission must, of course, reply!
I shall, therefore, try to play the role of nurse, by answering, at least in part, Mr Morillon' s question, which concerns the role of the King in a future Afghan government.
The Northern Alliance, as its name suggests, is composed of various ethnic groups from Northern Afghanistan.
It clearly does not represent the Pashtuns, who account for half of the Afghan population and it goes without saying, therefore, that a government formed or dominated by the Northern Alliance would not meet the criterion of being representative, any more than the Taliban government does, not to mention neighbouring Pakistan' s position on the Northern Alliance, with which we are all familiar.
We feel that the objective is, therefore, to bring together, in a government, sufficiently representative groups, with the support of Afghanistan' s neighbours.
The King' s role, if he is to have one, must, in my opinion, be considered with this objective in mind.
This, Mr Morillon, is basically all I can say on the subject.
I admit that it does not provide a completely adequate answer to your question and I shall ensure that you are given a more precise answer tomorrow.
Commissioner, I asked you whether you might consider my idea, which is that the Stability Pact should be linked to the Agency for reconstruction and development and, in particular, to the work of the Commission, which, very soon, will have enough staff to be able to undertake the work.
I am sorry; I thought this was a suggestion and not a question.
I am not going to comment on this point.
You are probably aware that there are various ideas about the way in which the Growth and Stability Pact should be managed.
This is part of a network of institutions set up a few years ago, probably in conditions where concern for total coherence did not prevail.
We can probably do better in the future.
I agree with you, Mrs Pack, that the European Agency for Reconstruction in Kosovo has done a good job and I think that everyone would recognise that.
The links between the Stability Pact, the Agency and the action undertaken by my colleague, Mr Patten will probably, at the right time, be open to suggestion.
It remains to be seen whether these suggestions will emanate from the Council or from the Commission.
On this point, I reserve the position of the Commission.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.45 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Turkey
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports:
(A5-0343/2001) by Alain Lamassoure, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the 2000 Regular Report from the Commission on Turkey' s progress towards accession (COM(2000) 713 - C5-0613/2000 - 2000/2014(COS));
(A5-0338/2001) by Alain Lamassoure, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation on pre-accession financial assistance for Turkey (COM(2001)230 - C5-0219/2001 - 2001/0097(CNS)).
Mr President, since the last resolution adopted last November on the basis of the report by Philippe Morillon, which I welcome, Turkey has been through a year of great contrasts: it was a black year in terms of the economy, a tense year politically, and a year of progress, though unequal progress, in terms of the pre-accession process.
On the one hand, we should welcome the real advances.
Given the very serious financial crisis in Turkey since the beginning of the year, the government has had to play by ear.
At the instigation of Mr Dervis, a radical stabilisation and recovery plan was signed by the three coalition government partners.
It came into operation in the spring, under relatively satisfactory conditions, which have made it possible to undertake basic reforms, which had been put off for too long, and, more generally, to establish a healthier relationship between politics and the economy.
In the short term, however, one of its unavoidable effects has been a severe drop in GDP, of 8% this year, which may have serious social consequences.
The worsening of world economic conditions, both before and after 11 September, can, unfortunately, only make efforts to recover more difficult.
During 2001, Turkey has been genuinely committed to a process of bringing itself closer to European democratic standards.
We should welcome the fact that, at a particularly difficult economic time, a large part of government and parliamentary activity has been devoted to basic reforms linked to this European process.
In March, the government presented its national programme for the adoption of the acquis.
It is true that this first list of reforms is still vague as to the timetable for implementation and the exact scope of the proposed measures.
However, since September, the Grand National Assembly has begun to consider several dozen - around 34 - constitutional amendments, the first half of which were adopted at the beginning of October.
The results still lag behind current democratic standards: the death penalty has not been totally abolished, the non-Turkish languages are no longer banned, but are not fully recognised, the National Security Council remains, but civilians play a more significant part within it.
Above all, most regrettably, the principle of the supremacy of international law - and thus, possibly, in the near future, of European law - over national law has been expressly ruled out.
Undeniable progress has nonetheless been made, which the European Commission and the Council of Europe have welcomed as such.
Furthermore, on 8 October, the government tabled a second legislative package of rights and freedoms, which relate to the penal code and penal procedure and the laws on anti-terrorism, the press, political parties, associations and demonstrations.
The third advance outside parliament was that this summer saw the beginnings of a public debate on the taboo subject of the role of the military in political life.
Finally, I would also like to highlight President Sezer' s courage in denouncing corruption, an endemic disease of Turkish society, and in using his legislative veto against texts which represented a step backwards for democracy.
Because there are also delays and even retreats.
In the political sphere, the year was marked by dramatic events in Turkish prisons.
I will leave it to Mr Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who chaired the parliamentary committee which visited Turkish prisons, to express our views on this subject in a moment.
The draft reform of the audiovisual legislation was rightly criticised by the president of the republic, since it did not comply with the principle of the independence of the audiovisual sector in relation to the political powers.
The dissolution of the main opposition party (the Virtue Party) demonstrated that the political system has not stabilised and that changes in the law regarding the status of political parties are required as a matter of urgency.
In general, a gulf persists between good intentions and reality in the human rights field, where progress is too slow: the torture and degrading treatment of detainees continues to be widespread, freedom of expression is still unusually restricted and several thousand people currently in prison for offences would, under our laws, be considered prisoners of conscience.
The main groups working to defend human rights remain subject to what amounts to legal harassment.
In the South-East, the end of armed terrorism by the PKK has not yet been turned to account in embarking on an overall policy towards the south-east provinces and Kurdish identity, and, likewise, the unambiguous European Court of Human Rights judgment has not been used as an opportunity to set free Leyla Zana and the other former parliamentarians from the Democratic People' s Party (HADEP) who are still in prison.
Finally, since the consideration of the Poos report by Parliament, we have seen Mr Denktash' s surprising refusal to restart the negotiations proposed by Commissioner Verheugen, which I welcome, and the UN Secretary-General on the status of Cyprus.
And we note that Turkey continues to block the draft agreement between the European Union and NATO, a draft which is all the more urgent given current international tension.
In this area, as in others, the impression remains that the signs of openness which are, on occasion, expressed by governmental authorities, may be challenged by military powers, which still have an unusual influence on Turkish politics.
Since our resolution of 15 November 2000, which is cited in our current motion for a resolution, our Turkish partners have been aware of the importance our Parliament attaches to the official recognition of the Armenian genocide.
We hope that the processes of dialogue, such as those which bring together former diplomats and academics from Armenia and Turkey, will lead to a common understanding based on scientifically-recognised historical facts.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the coming year will be crucial in testing the real desire of Turkish political leaders and Turkish society as a whole to move closer to the European Union.
Over the coming weeks it will be possible to gauge the exact scope of the constitutional and legislative reforms regarding the rule of law.
Coming months will be vital in judging efforts to modernise the economy.
Finally, on the crucial issue of the status of Cyprus, after 27 years of political deadlock, the moment of truth extends from now until autumn 2002. The end of negotiations on Cyprus' s accession to the EU are set for that date, and this will make it necessary, finally, for both parties to adopt a clear position.
Our judgment will be based on the facts.
Turkey wishes to have its own models for society and democracy. This is a perfectly legitimate objective.
The European Union does not impose one single model.
On the contrary, its special achievement lies in bringing about the coexistence and collaboration of peoples who have had very different histories, for a long time mutually hostile, and who, on occasion, have very different ideas on fundamental subjects such as the organisation of society, changing moral values, relations between religion and politics, the status of minority communities or races and the application of the subsidiarity principle.
But there are two needs which we all acknowledge.
First of all, that there are universal values which make it necessary that fundamental human and democratic rights are guaranteed in the same way everywhere; secondly, that the models conceived in previous centuries must be adjusted to the needs of this one.
European integration is a way of helping one another to comply with these requirements and to preserve our special qualities in an exciting and dangerous world.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, I should like to comment on the issues which relate to women's rights in Turkey, to which the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy has paid too little attention.
Allow me, therefore, to point out that very little progress has been made with women's rights in Turkey, rights which we, the Committee, consider to be a sine qua non to the integration of Turkey into the European Union, because women's rights are human rights.
I understand that the Turkish National Assembly started a debate today on the reform of the Civil Code, numerous articles of which infringe the United Nations convention on abolishing all forms of discrimination against women, despite Turkey's having ratified the convention.
I trust parliament will pass this bill, as adopted by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs in June.
However, the crucial question which arises is whether the law will also apply to existing families because, unfortunately, the Justice Committee submitted an amendment exempting existing families at the last minute.
It is quite unacceptable to introduce changes to the Civil Code that only apply to future generations and I know that women's organisations in Turkey have expressed their total opposition to this.
The national programme for integration into the European Union talks of revising the constitution so as to guarantee sexual equality; however, there are no plans, whatsoever, to adopt positive measures which, as the women's organisations have pointed out, would allow all the laws which institutionalise discrimination against women to be amended.
As far as women's right to work is concerned, I should like to highlight both the high rate of unemployment among women - 39.6% and even higher in agricultural areas - and the limited number of women who benefit from national insurance.
I should like to call on Turkey to abolish all forms of discrimination against women and I should, of course, like to call on Europe to provide the economic and technical assistance needed to put this into practice.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mr Lamassoure for his report, in which he also points out that, as a Member of NATO, Turkey is a very significant partner particularly at this time.
Despite all of the criticism which we have rightly voiced in the past and still do today, in respect of the constitution and human rights, we have to say that, compared with most of its neighbours, Turkey is a country which is exceptionally pro-western, democratic and respectful of human rights.
Everything is relative and must be seen in its context.
We also have to recognise that progress has been made in a number of areas and that, despite the severe economic problems which Turkey is currently experiencing, it is still attempting, by amending its constitution and changing the composition of its security committee, to ensure that the civilian political forces are given more powers to act in more areas.
We will have to check to see whether all of this is sufficient.
Commissioner, you will have to help us to respect the Copenhagen Criteria. The Copenhagen Criteria explicitly state that we need to see developments on the political aspects for accession negotiations even to be justified.
We will have to assess this on a case-by-case basis.
If further negotiations get underway we will also have to answer the question of whether Turkey is in a position to meet the conditions of the European internal market.
At this stage, I should like to mention just two points, which will provide a tangible touchstone as the European Union embarks on this very complex development against the background of a very dangerous situation for security policy.
Personally, I cannot understand why Turkey refuses to seek a compromise under the European security and defence policy over the issue of the conditions under which it will be involved and what kind of cooperation there will be with NATO.
For me this is a test case.
We should not allow there to be any blackmail on this issue.
I believe that there has to be a willingness to accept a compromise which was negotiated in Budapest and blocked by the military.
Surely we should now be in a position to find our way back to these criteria and agree on them.
The second point concerns what should be done about Cyprus. Is Turkey prepared to seek a constructive solution in Cyprus?
If a solution is not possible, how will it react when the European Union enlarges? I believe that these are two very tangible issues on the basis of which Turkey's credibility can be judged.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mr Lamassoure on his report.
It is a very good report.
Some people think that it is too soft.
I do not believe that it is too soft; it simply uses a language which leaves the way open for a dialogue with Turkey and we want to enter into this dialogue.
There are a number of hard points, however, which we need to discuss with Turkey, and certainly there is still a need to discuss the issue of human rights, in particular.
It has been mentioned that people are in prison who should not be, first and foremost Leyla Zana.
Turkey could and should, particularly in the light of rulings made by the European courts, ensure that they are released without delay.
On the issue of Kurdish rights too, much remains to be done.
It is obvious that the language, which, thanks to constitutional amendments, can now be used, should also be employed in the official media as soon as possible.
The state of emergency could then be lifted relatively quickly in the provinces in which it is still in force.
The constitutional amendments which Turkey has made are positive steps.
We definitely wish to take note of them.
However, now it is a question, firstly, of removing the constraints still connected to them, for example the death penalty, and, of course, of ensuring that the constitutional amendments are also implemented.
A major task for Turkey is to do this in the very near future.
On the subject of time, I should like to come back to an idea which I put forward when I had the honour of drawing up a report for this Parliament comprising a road map or timetable, and that is why tomorrow we will also be proposing that Turkey, itself, should table a timetable next year showing how it intends to meet the political Copenhagen criterion.
Satisfaction of this political criterion is the precondition for our also being able to negotiate with Turkey.
After all, this is the aim of the whole exercise, of which this report is also a part.
I should also, however, like to address two points, which continue to be crucial for relations between the European Union and Turkey.
The first point is Turkey's assistance in shaping an active and efficient external security policy.
We know that at the end of the day this also presupposes that we are able to use NATO resources and this is still a stumbling block for Turkey.
Turkey needs to know that this is damaging its prospects.
The final problem is Cyprus.
Here, too, I should like to say quite clearly that it is important to resolve the Cyprus problem, firstly, for the Turkish population of Cyprus and secondly, and undoubtedly, for the Greek population of Cyprus, the whole of Europe and Turkey itself.
Turkey simply has not realised this.
I would stress something which I have said repeatedly in the past: Turkey's path to the European Union is via Cyprus.
Its assistance with resolving the Cyprus issue is not a precondition for our accepting Cyprus into the European Union, but it would be a basis on which we could enter into serious discussions about Turkey's membership of the European Union.
Mr President, the Liberal Group welcomes Mr Lamassoure's report, which we find balanced and thoroughly informed.
It will be closely studied in Turkey, where the reformers will find much to encourage them in their efforts to bring Turkey forward on the track of modernisation, liberalisation, full respect for fundamental rights and social and economic progress.
So far the majorities in the Grand National Assembly for reform are great, but could I urge our colleagues inside the Turkish parliament to respond to this report in a truly parliamentary fashion? Why not pass a resolution calling for their government fully to respect the rulings of all the international courts, including the European Court of Human Rights here in Strasbourg?
Why not pass a resolution supporting the setting up of the Rapid Reaction Force and why not pass a resolution to bring pressure to bear upon Mr Denktash to work towards the integration of Turkish Cypriots into the European Union? Such reciprocity between our two parliaments would demonstrate, in a dramatic way, that Turkey is truly advancing upon its European journey.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I thank the interpreters for being here in greater numbers than us to translate this very important debate which is being held at such a late hour. Yes, Mr Pasqua, you will have the right to speak.
That will be very interesting. It is not late.
It is the morning for you. As you know, in any event our political leanings vary from morning till night.
So there is no problem.
I would like to say, not to repeat what we have said amongst ourselves since Mr Lamassoure began his report, that it is actually not only a well-packaged report, but also one which rightly says things clearly, being wise and measured.
It is also based on a high degree of consensus, since Mr Lamassoure has really tried to bring together all the opinions in this House.
One thing is clear: Turkey is trying to make reforms, Turkey is making efforts, but, nevertheless, things are moving very, very slowly.
And things are moving very slowly not out of wickedness but because of the fact that democratic culture, the culture of openness, is not a culture which, in a still very authoritarian society, has been imposed on the behaviour of all parties; on the behaviour of governors, on the behaviour of certain political forces or on the behaviour of the military.
Our role as the European Union is not, therefore, simply to give lessons, but, rather, to accompany Turkey on the journey towards democracy, in other words, to have positions to defend.
And that is why I will make a comment, and I would ask all those who still wish to tell Turkey that there was a genocide seventy-five years ago - which is true - in what way does that help the debate in Turkey today? I do not think that that helps it.
So, what we have in today' s resolution, in this report, is the possibility of holding a genuine, heated dialogue with Turkish society, with the Turkish government, on our notion of democracy, on the notion of freedoms, on our notion of the enlargement of Europe, and, therefore, of the place that Cyprus can and must hold within Europe, and the place which Turkey can and should hold in this process.
I think we should be clear, however.
This evolution will perhaps be more discouraging at some times than at others.
The European Parliament, the societies of the Member States of the European Union, will not show indefinite patience if the situation does not appear to be improving.
I would therefore like to end by appealing to the Turkish parliamentarians up there in the gallery, and say to them that if they really want the Turkey which they love and govern today to join the European Union, they must be aware that the efforts which our notion of democracy requires of Turkey are efforts which go beyond what is being undertaken at the moment by the Turkish Grand Assembly.
They are efforts which go beyond what seems acceptable to the Turkish military.
If they do not go further, our future will perhaps not be a common one, which would be a shame.
Mr President, I think it important that we send two clear messages today.
The first must be that we want Turkey as a member of the EU and as a member of the European family.
It will be good for Turkey, but it will also be good for ourselves.
The second message must be that Turkey is faced with a number of tasks, including that of being honest about its history and its genocide of one and a half million Armenians, half a million Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syrians and several hundred thousand Greeks.
In addition, there are the tasks - not only on paper but also in practice and in the real world - of improving the conditions in Turkish prisons, ceasing to keep prisoners in solitary confinement, guaranteeing the rights of minorities and ensuring democratic progress not only for minorities but, I would emphasise, for the whole of the Turkish people.
There are the tasks of completely abolishing the death penalty and of getting the political process under way that is necessary if political life in the Turkish state is to be democratised.
I have read my fellow MEP' s, Mr Lamassoure' s, report very carefully.
I have to say that he is very diplomatic.
I think the report is excellent, but I also think it needs to be more precise on a number of points, and a number of amendments have, therefore, also been tabled, not only by my group but also by other groups, and I believe that most of them must be supported. There is a single exception.
I do not think that the EU should interfere in the matter of where Turkey has embassies. However, I also think that the report is sound, and I shall recommend voting in favour of it, but also, of course, in favour of the amendments tabled by, for example, my group.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have listened carefully to Mr Lamassoure and the Members who have just spoken.
I will surprise nobody by reminding you of the position of the French delegation of my group.
I have tried in vain to understand why the majority of this House have an absolute desire for Turkey to join the European Union.
For a start, most of the territory of Turkey is not in Europe.
You have decided to urge her to join us.
In reality, this decision has but one justification, which Mr Brok has just confirmed, and that is that Turkey belongs to NATO, and that it is therefore desirable for there to be a certain resemblance between the European Union, as some people imagine it, and NATO.
I have just listened to what Mr Lamassoure said, and what he said in his report, which was full of reservations, of observations which should lead us to ask questions, and while I believe that we should be careful about trying to promote or impose our institutional system or our value system, which is too often our tendency, there are naturally things which are not acceptable.
And it is true that while we are perfectly aware of the difficulties faced by Turkey as a result of the presence of Islamic fundamentalist elements on their territory, which are a danger, which require certain measures to be taken, at the same time we must accept that, in terms of democratic principles, the journey they have to make is still, to say the least, very long.
And besides, many of you have said so before me.
But I will add something else.
What I do not understand, even though a certain number of countries have, unanimously in some cases, such as France, condemned the genocide suffered by the Armenians, is why the current Turkish government and Turkish people, who are not responsible for the past, but who are responsible for a collective history, are determined not to accept responsibility for that genocide.
Other countries which have been responsible for genocides have been better able to accept their responsibilities.
I think it is justifiable, here and now, to ask them to do the same.
In any event, as long as it has not been recognised, as far as we are concerned, we will remain firmly opposed to Turkey' s entry into the European Union.
Mr President, earlier this month, a leading Dutch newspaper sported the following front-page headline: 'As terrorists we can go about our own business in Europe' .
Could this be an arresting and, therefore, not very truthful headline?
Not really, for the enlightening interview with an anonymous member of the extreme-left terrorist movement, Dev Sol, was in total agreement with this disconcerting title.
The outspoken Turkish terrorist left the reader in no doubt as to the fact that his organisation makes full use of the EU' s territory as their base of operation for their murderous actions against the Turkish state and as a willing reservoir of funds, as and when required.
'For in Europe, anything is possible' , the man simply declared.
And should Europe be serious about fighting terrorism, then action will also be taken here, he threatened.
Mr Lamassoure hardly touches upon this highly topical and acute problem in his report.
Despite this, it has been Turkey' s criticism of the EU Member States for years.
The rapporteur' s appreciation, expressed in Paragraph 29, of the Turkish contribution to the fight against international terrorism counts for very little in this.
About terrorism in Turkey, the Lamassoure report concludes in recital G "that Turkey has largely overcome the difficulties posed by various forms of terrorism in the past" .
I should like to find out from the Council and the Commission whether they share this, in my view, far too rash, conclusion.
Official Turkish sources produce very different noises. These are voices which, following the satanic terrorist attacks on the US, have gained a great deal of support.
They express the feelings of authorities that are deeply hurt.
For years, they could not even count on European solidarity in their bloody fight against Turkish terrorist organisations.
Quite the reverse, in fact. EU Member States offered, and still offer, the activists of those movements shelter.
And while the Ankara authorities condemn the West' s specific policy of tolerance, this time round, Turkey is allowed to take part in the international coalition against terrorism.
After the memorable date of Tuesday, 11 September, Turkey considers that the time has come for the European Union and its Member States finally to issue effective anti-terrorist measures.
In specific terms, this translates into meeting Turkish requests to extradite Turkish terrorists instead of offering them asylum or a residence permit.
The European Union and its Member States should, at long last, recognise the permanent internal and external threat to the Republic of Turkey.
The double standards applied by the Europeans should, at least from the Turkish angle, come to a definite end.
The EU' s emphasis on human rights in Turkey coinciding with the fact that it turns a blind eye to the fight against international terrorism is unacceptable.
At least, this is the Turkish point of view.
Is this harsh criticism levelled by Turkey at Europe justified? It is a fact that various violent groupings of Turkish origin maintain organisational structures in EU Member States.
Certainly after 11 September, it is more difficult for Brussels and the capitals of the EU countries to ignore this in silence.
How do the Council and the Commission intend to cooperate with Turkey, a country which has, after all, formally acquired candidate country status, in future in the fight against international terrorism? Indeed, there is no shortage of legal and political pitfalls.
The far from gentle criticism levelled at the Lamassoure report speaks for itself.
Despite this, the progress of Turkey' s accession to the European Union will also depend on Europe' s reaction to Turkey' s 'open flank' , also known as the country' s Achilles' heel for terrorist attacks.
Mr President, I would not like to miss this opportunity to join the other Members, with knowledge of the subject, in complimenting Mr Alain Lamassoure on the quality of his report.
I say 'with knowledge of the subject' because I know how passionate the debates on this subject have been over the last two years or more.
I would like to expand on just two points of the report, which have already been mentioned by Mr Brok and others.
The first relates to the geostrategic importance of Turkey, which has certainly increased as a result of the events which have just taken place and by the European Union' s realisation of the need to enter into a coalition to combat Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.
To this end, I would like to say to our Turkish colleagues who are in the gallery, how in vain it would be, to fear that European defence might develop in competition, in parallel, and therefore redundantly, with defence based on the Atlantic Alliance.
European defence is based on the Atlantic Alliance and it will continue in that direction, quite simply because Europe would not have the means to do otherwise.
My second comment concerns Cyprus.
It has been said that the resolution of the Cypriot problem is one of the conditions, in my view a prior condition, of any possible decision on the entry of Turkey into the Union.
I do not believe that the Turkish populations in Cyprus are really in danger today and I believe it would be a very important gesture for Turkey to accept, as a first step, during the current negotiations, a reduction in the number of its armed forces in Cyprus, or even better, their evacuation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly, I should, of course, also like to congratulate my colleague, Mr Lamassoure, on his success in drafting a good report.
I am saying this, above all, because in Turkey, I often come across people making a certain assertion: those in Turkey who repeatedly accuse the European Parliament of being hostile to Turkey will now have to admit yet again that this assertion is not true.
Like the report of my colleague, Mr Swoboda, this report, too, is an objective opinion on the situation in Turkey.
As the rapporteur states, the flurry of legislative activity in the Turkish Parliament to reform the constitution really is laudable.
Given the current constraints in Turkey, our Turkish colleagues, some of whom are also here today amongst us, have really been very successful.
Now, however, they are asked to continue the work which they have begun.
The Ministries for Home Affairs and Justice in the Turkish Republic play an important role in this area.
The long-awaited implementation of the reform is urgently necessary, particularly now after 11 September, but also in spite of 11 September.
It is easy to ascertain through the Turkish media that people are still being tortured in some police stations.
There are still strange cases of people committing suicide while in police custody.
For as long as this kind of thing continues to happen in Turkey, and, for as long as Turkey is not prepared to meet the Copenhagen Criteria, there will obviously be no date for the start of accession negotiations and Turkey will remain the only country, out of 13 countries with candidate status, not to have started negotiating.
I hope that this last report will motivate those responsible in Turkey to move forward and, not only to talk about reforms, but also to really implement them.
Mr President, this very good report shows Turkey is making progress towards Europe, but more is needed.
For instance, 19 people are being prosecuted for insulting state officials because they attended a conference at which victims who had suffered torture in the form of rape in custody spoke out against their tormenters.
It is not only women to whom this happens.
It is clearly outrageous that the state should condemn the victims, rather than their aggressors.
I call on the Turkish authorities to drop these shameful prosecutions.
Secondly, I want to urge the Turkish government to take an initiative towards a political settlement with the Kurds.
The PKK have observed the cease-fire for over two years.
Its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, is appealing to the European Court of Human Rights against the unfairness of his trial.
It is time to launch peace negotiations.
Finally, now is not the time to eject 80 000 Kurds, breach environmental standards and human rights, in order to construct the Ilisu dam.
It must not be built and EU governments, such as the UK government, must not grant export credit.
Mr President, what efforts has the Turkish government made since the Helsinki Summit to guarantee human and fundamental rights, to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issue and to abolish the death penalty? The latest amendment to the Turkish constitution does not go far enough.
The death penalty has only been partially abolished and the Kurdish language has not been recognised.
Is this a genuine reform? I would answer, no.
Turkey must not be given any special treatment in the enlargement process.
I think that we run the risk of giving in to Turkey's wishes if we adopt the Lamassoure report as it stands.
The report is guarded on a number of issues so that we leave Turkey room for manoeuvre.
We must insist that a political solution be found to the Kurdish issue and that human and fundamental rights be guaranteed.
The time is right for sweeping reforms.
In my conversations with people on my trips to Turkey they have repeatedly expressed a wish for peace, brotherliness and freedom.
I, too, carry this message in my heart and will also do all I can in the future so that one day this wish will come true.
Mr President, I, too, should like to take my turn in congratulating the rapporteur Mr Lamassoure on his recent effort to draft as objective and balanced a report as possible on Turkey's progress towards accession to the European Union, a task rendered all the more difficult by the particular nature of this country's problems in various sectors of special interest to Parliament, such as its record on human and minority rights, its democratic principles, its international conduct, its refusal to admit to tragic historic events and so on.
Having said which, I think that, thanks to certain amendments approved by the rapporteur and despite certain other amendments dictated by the policy of expediency, the final report which has taken shape is generally acceptable, even to the official Turkish side. And, of course, we all know what that means, we just have to make allowances for the usual abusive response by the Turkish foreign secretary towards the honourable Mr Poos and his report, which is seen as negative towards Turkey.
So all that remains is to ascertain the extent to which Turkey will basically respond to the good will and to the spirit which dominates the report, by which I mean the spirit of constructive criticism of numerous Turkish shortcomings, the deliberately indirect reference to the continuing Turkish military occupation of Cyprus, which is unacceptable in a civilised society, the fact that previous Turkish crimes, such as the genocide of the Armenians, have been passed over in silence, contrasting with praise for any minor progress made by Turkey or any circumstantial compliance by Turkey with its contractual obligations, such as Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Time will tell if Turkey recognises and appreciates these well-meant messages, although I fear that experience to date does not give us cause to be optimistic that we shall soon have a clear response from Turkey to the effect that it really is prepared to prove itself worthy of its candidate status and of integration into the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Lamassoure report maintains that Turkey has a right to become a member of the European Union.
That is its basic message.
I, for my part, believe that membership is not just Turkey's right, it is vital to the country.
Historically speaking, Turkey has made an admirable effort to move towards Europe.
An effort which started not today but a long time ago.
Turkey's efforts to modernise started at the end of the nineteenth century.
We Greeks, as Turkey's neighbours and 'historic adversaries' , if I may put it thus, know this better than anyone else.
We know from our own experience how difficult it is move forward from a tradition of eastern despotism towards a modern society.
Turkey has a particularly long tradition in this respect because it was at the top of the pyramid of despotism in our region.
Turkey suffered the historical accident of basically coming out unscathed - not unscathed as such, because it suffered a great deal - but it was not defeated in either the First or the Second World War.
Sometimes it is better to lose than to win a war.
We must not forget that France and Germany, the mainstays of the European Union, were both defeated, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the Second World War and I think that they learned that armed force and confrontation are not the way to survive in today's world.
The disaster on the 11 September has taught us, I think, that today's world needs reconciliation in order to survive, by which I do not of course mean reconciliation with the terrorists, I mean reconciling tensions between us, precisely in order to isolate terrorists and establish a safe and fair world.
Turkey is a third world European country which needs to learn the same lesson as France and Germany, that is, that if we want to move on, we have to stop waging the wars of the 1920s or the wars of the 1940s in the present day.
I think that Turkey has built up an internal mechanism and a system of external relations which is dominated by the idea of authority and it uses this to tyrannise its people - witness the terrible story of prisoners' suicides and much else besides.
Of course, the move which Turkey has to make is a difficult one.
But it is trying to make it and we must help it and our reception of it in the European Union must be commensurate with its efforts to move towards us.
Mr President, the report acknowledges certain obvious truths.
That is a fact.
However, at the same time it makes findings which have no bearing on reality.
It sees progress where there is none, it extols the famous 'national programme' and a number of individual reforms which, basically, do no more than pull the wool over the eyes of the world in order to conceal the continuing and, from certain sides, the worsening situation for the working classes.
We warned that the decision taken in Helsinki would help not to democratise but to embolden the regime.
The army is still the determining factor in political life.
The grass-roots movement is being dealt with in the crudest fashion.
Arrests, over 10 000 political prisoners, torture chambers, murders, inhumane conditions in prisons, which are extolled in the report, are on the agenda.
The hunger strikers have been fighting to the death now for 370 days and dozens have already died.
The death penalty has only been abolished for criminal prisoners, not for people fighting for democracy and freedom.
The report calls these fighters extremists and the Turkish state calls them terrorists, while the Kurds are deprived of fundamental rights, the occupying forces remain in Cyprus after their barbaric invasion 27 years ago and the report says not a word.
However, the key point of the report is Paragraph 29, which extols Turkey's contribution to the fight against terrorism, clearly dismissing the Kurdish fighters, and its peace-brokering efforts in the Balkans, obviously meaning its open support for the KLA criminals, and it incites it to facilitate the application of the ÍÁÔÏ treaty.
Allow me to finish by saying that my brotherly love towards and solidarity with the Turkish people prevent me from voting in favour of this report.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I think I was right to take my headphones off relatively early on. It spared me somewhat.
Mr Lamassoure has submitted an excellent report, as numerous Members have said.
I should like to qualify the report as a fair report, because I think that Turkey, like every other candidate, is entitled to a fair report, meaning that we duly address all the shortcomings, but we also acknowledge any progress made.
I should like to call on our Turkish counterparts and the Turkish people to take note of the report as a whole and not just selectively, just as we are making an effort to take note of all the developments in Turkey.
Finally, I take the view that a Turkey that has made a start on fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria is preferable to a Turkey which has not made a start on fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria.
It is a Turkey that is motivating the forces trying to overcome the unacceptable shortcomings still remaining within the country in relation to the political criteria.
It is not in a position to expect political discounts.
We do, of course, realise that we rightly wish that all Muslim countries in the world were structured like Turkey and that we would then have fewer problems, especially in the light of 11 September.
But this discount does not mean turning a blind eye when it comes to the candidate countries.
On the other hand, however, Turkey is also entitled not to have any additional conditions imposed.
For example, I think that Mr Lamassoure has chosen exactly the right wording for the point on Armenia.
Having expressly referred to the genocide last year, we note this year that things are clearly moving in the right direction.
We realise that people are getting together to talk about the past.
My own country found this a very worthwhile exercise and I think that this is an approach which we should support in this specific case, so that good neighbourly relations can develop in the future between Turkey and Armenia.
Mr President, I, too, agree that not-insignificant progress has been made, and not just in terms of the Copenhagen criteria - a rather cold, aristocratic expression which conjures up an image of this Europe that always wants to be seen as a model of democracy.
I am thinking, rather, of the extremely tangible progress made in the field of honesty: the courage and honesty of a President who is able to condemn the corruption present in his own country.
However, we would be wronging Turkey if we did not make things absolutely clear to her - being clear, not hypocritical - and being clear means telling her that a great deal remains to be done in terms of democratic civilisation and behaviour, and that means reforms.
In this sense, the ability to implement political and social reforms benefiting the Kurdish minority is a highly effective parameter.
It is true and important that the Turkish Constitution intends to remove some of the restrictions placed on the use of the Kurdish language but, Mr President, I am appalled by this idea of partial removal of restrictions: the idea of partial removal of restrictions applied to a fundamental right such as the use of one' s own language is a quite horrific contradiction in terms.
I am also appalled by the fact that only a cultural right is being recognised to a minority that does not enjoy even the most basic political and social rights.
Mr President, we expect Turkey to show signs of cooperation, and a sign in precisely this area - addressing this long-standing dispute with the Kurdish people with courage and tolerance, in a tolerant, civilised manner - would be very well received by the entire European Parliament.
Mr President, I would also like to pay tribute to Mr Lamassoure's excellent work as rapporteur.
Although I have been a constant critic of Turkey's human rights record and its treatment of the Kurds, I also strongly support the decision of the 1999 Helsinki European Council to recognise Turkey as an candidate country.
I do not agree with those who believe the boundaries of Europe should be narrow and exclusively Christian.
I want to see a pluralistic Europe.
I have always believed that Turkey could be a very important bridge-head between the current Members of the EU and the Islamic world.
This would facilitate greater understanding and mutual respect. It is especially important in the changed world that exists after 11 September.
However, Turkey still has a long way to go.
In last year's annual assessment report the Commission concluded that, although a wide-ranging debate on political reforms had begun and Turkey had signed several international human rights instruments over the past year, the situation on the ground had hardly improved.
Let us hope that the publication of next month's annual report will show significant improvement.
In this context, I welcome the recent decision by the Turkish parliament to adopt a constitutional reform package to bring Turkey further in line with the acquis communautaire.
At the launch of the EU-Turkish Foundation of 17 October, Commissioner Verheugen said that these reforms are a significant step towards better protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Turkey.
It is clear that continued support for a closer EU-Turkey relationship, including eventual accession, is the best way to accelerate political reform and progress in human rights.
However, the timetable for possible accession lies in Turkish hands alone.
Negotiations can only begin when Turkey fulfils the Copenhagen criteria.
It must strive harder to fulfil its obligations in that regard.
Mr President, I think that this debate, once again, underlines the fact that we all share the same premise: that it is imperative that we, in the European Union, should have increasingly close relations with Turkey, until the opportunity arises, when the time is right, that it should become a Member State in its own right.
But it also underlines another point of view that we should make very clear to the Turkish authorities: that in order for this to take place, Turkey must become a full democracy.
I agree with what Mr Lamassoure has said in his report. The Turks have made advances.
It is also true, however, that this constitutional reform contains three elements that impair its credibility. First of all, it ceases to class as crimes actions that are still crimes because they fulfil the conditions as such.
Secondly, the constitution is being reformed, but other laws remain in force, such as the Penal Code, the anti-terrorism law and the audiovisual law, which continue to uphold the existence of certain crimes of expression, of opinion, of public demonstration and association. Thirdly, and most importantly, the constitutional reform is not being put into practice.
Arbitrary detentions and violations of human rights continue to take place.
We all receive, as I do myself, constant complaints, of which, today, there have been many, that are continually causing problems for the defenders of human rights and their organisations, not to mention, of course, the situation of the Kurdish people.
Yes, the Kurdish people.
It is not enough to lift the restriction of using a language if this is upheld in law and there is no recognition of the existence of a Community as a people in their own right.
This is the case with the Kurds.
This is even more the case, Mr President, where a Sakharov Prize winner, Mrs Leyla Zana, remains in gaol, and we must continue to strongly demand that she be freed.
Mr President, I would like to call on history to remind us that, while it serves its purpose on occasions to demonstrate a point, it can also let us down.
I would particularly like to remind Mr Pasqua that he should recall where the Presocrats originate from, that Ionic art was born in Turkey, and that the truly Christian French Kings did not hesitate to call upon the Ottoman Empire to fight against the Pope and other European States in the Sixteenth Century.
However, if we continue to look into history, we will also see both good things and bad things about Turkey.
Turkey, in the strategic position it occupies, is the only truly secular state, and Europe has been founded upon this great battle to achieve secular states.
On this level, then, yes, Turkey is a totally European State.
Its efforts to eliminate religious interference, whilst having truly fundamentalist communities within its borders, is something to be admired, and which could be a factor for future stability in the region.
On the other hand, under the Ottoman Empire, the Greek monasteries, the Sufis and the Sephardis all survived.
This was because, at their respective moments in history, the authorities did not attempt to destroy them.
Today, it is also a strong state fighting for the education of its people.
On this subject I would like to remind Mrs Uca, with a heavy heart, that 30% of women in Turkey do not go to school, nor are allowed to do so, so in this way they miss out on an education.
To conclude, I would like to say that there are also bad points.
The major black cloud over the Ottoman tradition is its perception of the unlimited rights of the conqueror over the conquered.
This gives rise to the great problem of prisons and exterminations: the loss of rights of the conquered, the weaker party, rape, exterminations, silence and death.
I think that it is in this area that we should offer our help, for Turkey is a stabilising factor in this region: it is establishing agreements with Syria and is an important element in the creation of a peaceful border with Europe.
We have to contribute to the strengthening of this strategy and its improvement, with European ideas used in governance.
Mr President, here is another chance for Turkey to exploit its strategic position and use its proverbial military capabilities: let us hope that, this time, its attachment to the West will be more effectively translated into vital internal reforms.
Mr Lamassoure has painted an objective, clear picture of the country but, despite some positive elements, he does not hide his concern that Turkey might regress to a state which is worse than the current situation.
It is positive that the Turkish government has presented a programme of conditions for joining Europe and it is positive that it is working on the Constitution, but it is negative that neither the 'road map' nor the timetable for the reforms has been clearly defined.
The European Union is not asking every country to follow the same procedure, but there are certain values, certain individual and democratic rights which must be respected - and Europe does know how to be patient - in Turkey and in its prisons too.
One final point: the question of the Armenian genocide is, strangely, becoming increasingly important with the passing of time.
Today, humanity no longer tolerates lies or inaccurate accounts when it comes to the horrific events of history.
It is not necessary to say, for example, how much the descriptions of the blood baths of the two world wars by former enemy historians helped to soothe feelings and cool emotions, and this example should be followed as soon as possible by Turks and Armenians, with a view to starting to normalise relations between the two neighbouring countries.
Lastly, I am sure that Armenia would be quite willing to erect a monument in front of one of the European institutions commemorating its sacrifice and entrusting it to history.
This would also make it possible for us, too, to produce documents on Turkey without worrying about how to address the question of Armenia.
It is necessary to remember the past in order to do better in the future.
Mr President, being one of the last to speak, I am in a strange situation in which basically everything has already been said, but not by everybody.
Nonetheless, I should like to comment on two points which I think are particularly important.
First, however, I should like to thank our rapporteur.
This is a superb report, couched in very moderate terms.
We can live with it quite nicely and, more to the point, it is a report which is conducive to consensus.
We must bear in mind that this is a progress report.
I think there will be a great many more progress reports to come on the question of Turkey's pre-accession to the European Union.
Now to the points on which I should like to comment.
First, the question of the death penalty which has not, I think, been adequately evaluated in the House this evening.
The general political reforms which Turkey recently introduced are very promising and we fully acknowledge them.
However, we all know, and Turkey should also know, which is why we must say so loud and clear, that they represent enormous progress within Turkey itself.
Naturally, from our point of view, they are just a beginning.
I must say, we always get a bit carried away when it comes to Turkey.
But, perhaps, the means are basically the end at the moment, especially when we consider human rights.
But, to come back to the death penalty. We obviously feel that it must be abolished completely.
There can be no partial abolition of the death penalty from a democratic point of view.
There can only be complete abolition.
That this is difficult in Turkey at the moment for domestic political reasons is patently obvious.
The second point which I think is important is the fight against corruption within Turkey.
Because as long as sleaze runs public and social life in Turkey, the people will have no faith in politicians and as long as they have no faith in politicians, they will put more faith in the military.
But it is out of the question in a democratic community for the military, in the form of the national security council, always to have the last word, de facto, on parliament's resolutions.
I think that a great deal of work is still needed on this within Turkey.
And that can only mean fighting corruption and ensuring that the people have faith in politicians.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Lamassoure for his sterling work. I wish to put the following question to the Commissioner with responsibility for enlargement, Mr Verheugen.
Is it possible for Turkey to become a member of the European Union in view of the continued Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus, continued Turkish migration from Anatolia to Northern Cyprus and the documented destruction in that part of the island of the historic heritage in the form of monasteries, churches and cultural buildings? If, in the future, it is possible for a country, such as Turkey, to continue to occupy a part of another future EU country, namely Cyprus, and yet remain a Member State, what will have happened to that democracy and spirit of reconciliation that forms the very soul of European cooperation and the very values that underlie it?
In that case, what will have become of our credibility in working for peace?
I also think that it is necessary for Turkey, in the same ambitious way as Germany, to deal with the dark and sombre chapters of its twentieth century history.
It is not acceptable for Turkey to go on denying the Armenian genocide of one and a half million Christians.
It is not acceptable for it to deny that Christian Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syrians were also exposed to a genocide in which hundreds of thousands of people were murdered following a fatwa concerning holy war on the Christians, issued in 1914 by the top Muslim leader.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Loading and unloading of bulk carriers
The next item is the report (A5-0326/2001) by Rijk van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive establishing harmonised requirements and procedures for the safe loading and unloading of bulk carriers (7193/1/2001 - C5-0292/2001 - 2000/0121(COD)).
Mr President, our group supports the work carried out, thus far, by Mr Van Dam and the Council, together.
We feel that this recommendation is a major step forwards, particularly in the field of maritime safety, especially since the statistics of past years are extremely alarming: in the last 10 years, between 1990 and 1999, we recorded the sinking of 146 bulk carriers and the deaths of 780 crew members, all of which occurred during the loading or unloading of these carriers.
The Commission' s directive harmonises, at last, a field of legislation which has allowed too many, too dangerous exceptions in the past.
We are going to harmonise the loading and unloading procedures, the safety standards inside and outside terminals and the levels of responsibility on board vessels and ashore.
I welcome the fact that all this has served to improve quality, first and foremost; we feel that quality must be an essential, basic condition if safety standards are to be satisfactory.
I welcome the fact that a balance was found quickly between Parliament and the Council' s positions, a balance which, moreover, respects the spirit of the amendments proposed and adopted by Parliament as well.
At last, as of today, we are on the way to more stringent legislation, to a code of procedure which has the merit of courageously placing safety above all other concerns, including economic and financial concerns.
That is why we are totally satisfied with the final version of this report.
Mr President, I wish to thank rapporteur van Dam for the successful preparation of the report.
Increasing marine safety requires ongoing work.
Increasing the safety of loading and unloading of bulk carriers is an important aspect of work for the improvement of safety in the shipping sector.
As is the case in many matters concerning marine safety, these rules are also agreed at the International Maritime Organisation on a voluntary basis.
Since the regulations are currently being applied only intermittently, it is good that they are being incorporated into Community legislation.
Improving the loading and unloading of bulk carriers and the efficient performance of ports will also further the development of important intermodal transportations.
Along with a further tightening of the rules, care must be taken that the decisions made are realistic and feasible.
The biggest shortcoming in the position of the Council is that, as the rapporteur states, information need not be given on all damage caused to the structure and fittings of a vessel.
In addition, I wish to call attention to the fact that decisions to increase marine safety, which are made only within the Union, are not sufficient.
Questions of safety and liability must, as far as possible, be dealt with on a worldwide basis.
The matter needs to be given a rapid passage, even though the common position of the Council has not included all the proposals of the Parliament's first reading.
Our group supports approval of the common position as it stands.
Mr President, the Commission is delighted by the report which has been drawn up by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, in relation to this proposed directive establishing harmonised requirements and procedures for the safe loading and unloading of bulk carriers.
I wish, in particular, to thank Mr van Dam for his report and for the help he has given the Commission in its efforts to increase the safety of bulk carriers.
This directive will transpose into Community legislation the code of the International Maritime Organisation, which is currently in force in relation to the safe loading and unloading of ships, as well as certain parts of the convention for the safety of life at sea.
This code, which is, in fact, a recommendation, was established by the IMO in 1997, but, so far, it has not been widely applied.
As soon as its application becomes obligatory in all the Union' s ports, this code will be much more widely used and will, therefore, contribute to the safety of all bulk carriers visiting the Union.
As the rapporteur has indicated, this directive is aimed at combating the phenomenon of the disappearance of bulk carriers, that is, the sinking of these ships, which suddenly break up in open sea and sink in a few minutes, thereby causing the loss of considerable human life.
As Mr Fava has said, these statistics are unfortunately quite clear: over the last ten years, these wrecks have caused the loss of 134 ships with 743 victims, and there is a consistent tendency in terms of the average age and the total annual dead weight of the ships which have disappeared.
It was, therefore, necessary to deal with this issue of the safety of bulk carriers, and it is known that bad loading and unloading methods are considered to be one of the main causes of these tragic accidents.
As the rapporteur has said, the directive is designed to ensure that the handling of cargo in our ports respects strict rules, so as to prevent damage to ships during loading or unloading of heavy bulk cargo.
Before and during loading and unloading, the crew on board and the dock personnel must be in contact and in agreement, and, furthermore, a plan must be agreed in advance in relation to the way the loading and unloading will be carried out.
Heavy equipment which is often used in these operations must be handled with caution, and, in the event of a disagreement between the two parties, the dock personnel and the crew on board, the competent authority must be able to intervene to suspend the operations in order to prevent possible damage to the structure of the bulk carriers.
The Commission is therefore very pleased that Parliament intends to accept the common position of the Council without amendments, because, if it is adopted rapidly, this directive will be able to enter into force very soon.
This also shows that, on sensitive maritime issues, the European Parliament and the Council are able to rapidly reach a decision with the greatest degree of cohesion, and the Commission hopes that the cohesion demonstrated in this case will also be demonstrated in relation to the other great issues which are currently on the agenda.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Reporting formalities for ships
The next item is the report (A5-0327/2001) by Ari Vatanen, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on reporting formalities for ships arriving in and departing from Community ports (COM(2001) 46 - C5-0051/2001 - 2001/0026(COD)).
Mr President, Commissioner, and those ladies and gentlemen who are still awake, the economic integration of Europe is an objective which many, even among those who oppose political integration, can swallow without indigestion.
The promotion of local shipping also enjoys broad favour, since preservation of the environment and a significant reduction of congestion on our roads are essential.
The Commission's proposal for a common form for ports is a sensible step (even though on this occasion it does not arouse political passions) towards the simplification of port formalities.
It must be said that the forms in use at present vary greatly between Member States.
The proposed directive would mean that the International Maritime Organisation's FAL forms would always be approved in our ports.
For once we are getting a proposal from the Commission which does not increase bureaucracy in any way.
It would be nice if this could happen more often.
This stems from the fact that the Member States are by no means obliged to demand any forms; whereas, if a Member State regards it as necessary to obtain information covered by the proposed directive, it must always accept the FAL forms.
I support the Commission's proposal, and take the view that we should welcome it with open arms.
I have made a few technical adjustments which are in line with the Council of Ministers' preliminary position.
I believe that we can now, exceptionally, get by with a single reading.
I also thank the members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, who succeeded in keeping the political animal which lurks in all of us under control, and did not churn out revisions of their own.
Putting our own stamp on everything must not lead to the objectives themselves being obscured and timetables being interfered with.
This time we neatly avoided this pitfall.
The general adoption of the IMO's FAL documents will promote the efficient functioning of the common market, and it definitely represents a welcome improvement.
I do not, however, wish to overestimate its importance, since what is involved here is merely a very small part of a larger whole.
We will not bring dynamism to ports merely by standardising forms; we need to introduce competition to ports as well.
The significance of my report does, in fact, largely hinge on the question of whether we will have the courage also to approve the Commission's proposal for deregulating port services.
I hope that Parliament will continue the project of building Europe by dismantling monopolies.
And, in this context, I look symbolically and appealingly in the direction of my highly esteemed colleague Mr Jarzembowski.
Finally, I wish to give thanks once again for the cooperation of the Commission and of the Council.
Europe needs constructive action and less politically-motivated confrontation.
I trust that we will be able to improve the status of shipping by the action now proposed.
Ladies and gentlemen, the rudder is set.
Let us steer Europe in the direction of competitive ports!
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists supports both this Commission proposal and the report by Mr Vatanen, who, having already demonstrated his adventures as a driver on roads throughout the world, now amazes us with his knowledge of a subject as difficult as maritime transport and the certificates that have to be completed when ships arrive at, or depart from, our ports.
Very gradually, people like ourselves, here, today, in this House, Mr Vatanen, myself, and all of you, are building a common Europe.
We are now eighteen, it is true, years behind with regard to 1 January 1983, which already seems like such a long time ago, when the Community institutions and the then ten Member States approved the Single European Act.
The standardisation of reporting formalities will, without a doubt, contribute to an improvement in maritime transport between ports situated in Member States, encouraging the promotion of short sea shipping.
By encouraging the transportation of goods by sea we will free up, to a certain extent, the amount of heavy traffic on our already saturated roads.
We can only regret that this proposal, as noted by Mr Vatanen in his explanatory statement, does not cover dangerous goods.
We ask the Commission not to limit this standardisation of reporting formalities to the Community.
The Community should press for this type of information to be common to the whole international community, promoting the International Maritime Organisation's Convention on the Facilitation of Maritime Traffic.
We would also invite those Member States who have not done so, to ratify this Convention, although the Commission proposal does not oblige them to do so.
I would like to finish by congratulating Mr Vatanen on his excellent work.
Mr President, I, too, would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Vatanen, for his excellent preparatory work, which aims to ensure the rapid passage of this important business.
An efficiently functioning internal market requires smooth working and more standardised practices than previously in the transportation sector.
However, the reporting obligations of ships arriving in ports and leaving them vary greatly from one Member State to another.
Most Member States have already signed the IMO's Convention on the facilitation of maritime traffic.
The proposal for a directive, now under discussion, is a good example of practices which are already internationally recognised as being good ones.
In my opinion, besides the safety of shipping, it is important to facilitate practical procedures.
By clear, uniform yet flexible procedures, shipping will be made a more attractive alternative mode of transport.
There may be a particularly positive impact on local shipping.
Improving the effectiveness of port practices will also facilitate the development of important intermodal transportation systems.
Since several forms are in use, attention needs to be given, in the future, to how electronic communications can be better utilised.
A positive aspect of this proposal is that the directive is intended to pass into law within a rapid timetable.
The rapporteur has made good revisions to the proposal for a directive.
Our group supports the approval of the report and its rapid passage through the legislative process.
Mr President, once again, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Vatanen on this very good report, and to thank the other speakers in the debate, and also welcome the fact that all the institutions have studied this proposal within a very short timescale, and that it will be possible to reach an agreement in due course on this subject as we did on the previous one.
This demonstrates the importance which we all now attach to short sea shipping.
For several years, the Community has been implementing a complete strategy aimed at making short sea shipping a viable and realistic alternative to purely road transport.
This strategy has, furthermore, been reinforced in the White Paper on European transport policy until 2010.
One of the elements of this strategy is to remove the obstacles preventing the development of short sea shipping.
Our recent exercise in recording these obstacles showed that the complexity of the administrative documentary procedures was considered to be one of the main bottlenecks.
Mr Vatanen was kind enough to say that the Commission was dealing with the paperwork, for once.
I give credit for this U-turn to him.
The Commission has therefore presented a proposal aimed at simplifying certain documentary procedures.
We have chosen to deal with the routine procedures which ships have to go through each time they enter or leave a port.
The procedures currently in force are not in themselves unreasonable, but the methods for conforming to them are so different from one Member State to another that they often lead to confusion amongst shipowners and operators.
Moreover, the International Maritime Organisation has produced a number of standardised forms in order to harmonise these procedures, and we therefore believed that standardisation was necessary, so that ships may know what information they need to present to the authorities and the way in which they must do so, whichever port they are visiting.
Given that there are already internationally recognised standardised forms, we have opted for the simple solution of using them.
This will probably lead to the worldwide application of the IMO forms.
This proposal, therefore, simplifies the necessary complex documentary procedures in the field of maritime transport.
It does not impose new obligations on shipowners.
Instead it allows them to carry out certain obligatory declarations in a harmonised and simplified fashion.
Since these declarations will be identical regardless of the flag or sector of activity, there is no reason to exclude any of them from the scope of our proposal, which therefore applies to both short sea shipping and ocean navigation, and which will not distinguish between flags.
Thank you, once again, to Mr Vatanen.
Thanks to the amendments which he has presented in his report, we believe we will be able to reach an agreement with the Council with a view to adopting this proposal at first reading.
This is good news and we are grateful for it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Accession to the WTO
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports:
(A5-0366/2001) by Per Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision establishing the Community position within the Ministerial Conference set up by the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation on the accession of the People's Republic of China to the World Trade Organisation (COM (2001) 517 - C5-0487/2001 - 2001/0218(CNS));
(A5-0367/2001) by Per Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision establishing the Community position within the Ministerial Conference set up by the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation on the accession of the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu (Chinese Taipei) to the World Trade Organisation (COM(2001) 518 - C5-0488/2001 - 2001/0216(CNS)).
Mr President, the accession of the People' s Republic of China to the WTO is, without doubt, one of the major ventures and experiments of our time.
The People' s Republic of China, which is still a country formally governed by a Communist party, is now to be a part of what might be called the stronghold of the free market economy, the WTO.
If the Commission is to be believed, that is a huge victory from the EU' s point of view.
It is said that this is a one-way market opening process.
It is thought that, for the EU, China' s accession to the WTO will signal an enormous gain in enforceable rights, with no significant change in the EU' s own commitments towards China.
It is really quite a one-way process that is described in the Commission' s proposal.
China must adapt. The EU does not need to do very much.
Certain China-specific quantitative restrictions are to be phased out. However, these are of relatively little importance.
If the Commission' s description in Paragraph 13 is to be believed, accession to the WTO will be good for China' s economy.
I have a number of doubts on that score.
Clearly, the Commission has to look after the EU' s interests, but the issue is whether, in the era of globalisation, we might not have passed the point at which trade policy could be judged as if it were a football match, in which winning is everything and there is complete indifference to how things are for the other side.
I therefore think it is quite remarkable that, in its proposal, the Commission does not say so much as a word to hint that accession might nonetheless lead to problems for the other party, namely the People' s Republic of China.
I must briefly relate a number of facts to indicate that there may be certain problems for this large, but, nonetheless, still underdeveloped, country.
Criticisms are being made in China.
When, in connection with my official visit as chairman of the European Parliament' s China delegation, I recently visited China, I was able, on the fringes of this visit, to meet authors of books which are very highly critical of China' s accession to the WTO.
Both books are published by legal publishing houses and, obviously, in Chinese.
One of the books is known in English translation as Collision: Globalisation and China' s Reality Choice.
The author, who is an economist at Beijing Aeronautic University, maintains that China will lose to a system that is dominated by transnational companies.
His sympathies are with the lower social classes, he says, and he believes that Chinese companies will be swallowed by transnational giants. This will hit those groups of people in China which have little in the way of wealth.
His main argument is that China is not ready for accession to the WTO.
The Chinese economy is not strong enough, and it will be the poorest classes that will have to pay a heavy price in the form of unemployment and social insecurity.
This book attracted a certain amount of attention in China when it was published last year.
A relevant article was published in the journal belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Trade, and the book received many positive reviews.
The second book is known in English as China in the Shadow of Globalisation and constitutes a warning to the effect that accession to the WTO might cause China to split into five parts.
That is one of the things that the Chinese leaders fear most.
The fact that the chaos which might result from accession to the WTO could lead to the division of the country touches a sensitive point in China' s understanding of itself.
In spite of the fact that China is not a democracy and, to put it mildly, does not allow complete freedom of expression, and despite the fact that the Chinese government is in favour of accession to the WTO, a book of this type was nonetheless allowed to be published.
That means that there is uneasiness, considerable uneasiness, in Chinese society.
This uneasiness is, in all likelihood, about the possible consequences within the governing party, too.
You only have to log on to the Internet.
There are many web sites: China Online, South China Morning Post and such like.
There is a lot of information about what different commentators, including those outside China, believe might happen because of accession to the WTO.
China Online reported, for example, in August of this year, that approximately 18 per cent of the total number of employees within the State sector are estimated to be surplus to requirements.
It is said that they will be still more surplus to requirements following accession to the WTO.
Unemployment in city areas is already estimated at over 15 per cent.
This report from China Online also maintains that unemployment will increase further in connection with accession to the WTO.
The prospects for new jobs are very limited because those who are made redundant are often older, unqualified workers.
According to China Online, an estimated 30% of the agricultural labour force is surplus to requirements, meaning that 120 million farmers will have to look for jobs in the cities.
Agriculture was one of the most important areas raised by China in the negotiations.
China received certain concessions.
Many commentators still believe, however, that accession will lead to enormous changes in the countryside and have enormous consequences when China is opened up to imports of food and agricultural products from, for example, the United States.
China has nine hundred million people employed within agriculture.
The Chinese government itself, which does not exactly exaggerate the difficulties, estimates that, because of cheaper grain imports, 9.7 million farmers will lose their jobs within seven years of Beijing joining the WTO.
I could go on at length quoting and referring to different sources indicating the difficulties for China, but I think these examples suffice.
The point of the quotations is that I, again, wanted to emphasise how odd I think it is that the Commission should be presenting the Council and Parliament with a document in which there is not a single word to suggest that accession to the WTO might lead to difficulties in the world' s most heavily populated country.
That is an odd information policy, in my opinion.
China' s accession to the WTO may, of course, lead to problems for ourselves, too, if stability in China is seriously undermined.
What conclusions do I draw, then? I do not draw the conclusion that we must say 'no' .
Even if China is not a democracy in our sense of the word, I think it would be unreasonable for us to try to assume the responsibilities of the Chinese government and say that, what the Chinese government has judged to be correct might, in actual fact, be wrong.
Nonetheless, I believe that we should be aware of the fact that we are embarking upon an incredibly risky game.
It places great demands upon European companies to be responsible and not misuse the opportunities they are given when they now go into China with the freedom granted to them by the latter' s membership of the WTO.
In spite of this serious criticism and these serious misgivings, I naturally recommend that we vote in favour of China' s membership.
I only have a small amount of speaking time left to devote to Taiwan.
That was intentional, because Taiwan is in a quite different situation.
Taiwan is a developed modern democracy, a developed modern market economy and industrial state and the world' s tenth largest trading power.
I cannot see any real problems with Taiwan' s accession to the WTO.
We are concerned there, with an entirely different set of problems with which no comparison can be drawn.
Taiwan will be accorded a local collective agreement with China and become a member the day after China has become a member.
I have no comment other than that we naturally ought to vote in favour of Taiwan' s membership.
Mr President, our group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left supports the two proposals presented without question, both for the People' s Republic of China and for the customs territory of Taipei, and agrees with all the arguments and pertinent issues put forward by Mr Gahrton, who has a profound knowledge of this issue.
For this reason, we think it is of fundamental importance that the European Union should take an extremely responsible attitude when facing this momentous challenge for the world.
The People' s Republic of China' s accession to the World Trade Organisation will have repercussions in China itself, as we have already seen.
They have now had many years to prepare for and take control of the possible consequences.
There will also be significant repercussions for the European Union: I am aware, for example, of what could happen to us with regard to agriculture.
There will also be repercussions for the functioning of the World Trade Organisation, which is going to be completely restructured, although it must be said that this is already a matter of some urgency.
For this reason, although we are aware of the whole range of problems, dangers and possibilities that this accession brings, our group supports these two proposals without reservation.
Mr President, Commissioner, what a pity that such an important issue is again being debated at such a late hour and, needless to say, before almost empty benches, because the repercussions of the accession of the People's Republic of China to the WTO are of global significance in every sense of the word and therefore deserve even more attention.
The history of the creation of the World Trade Organisation can be traced back a long way, to a time when the Second World War had left a trail of destruction in its wake and there was a great deal of uncertainty as to what shape peace would take in the future.
The key elements for a peaceful world, and this was as clear then as it is now, are freedom, security and stability, democracy and human rights.
We have used these basic principles to lay the ghosts of the past in Western Europe and finally bring about an era of peace of which, in my view, we can be proud.
But we have to defend this peace anew every day, a painful lesson each and every one of us now has to learn.
Today we are on the threshold of major enlargement of the European Union.
In a few years, we shall live in a Europe which can be an area of stability and freedom.
But how shall we achieve this?
We shall achieve it through integration. Integration means inclusion, unification, political, as well as economic, completion.
I do not think anyone disputes the fact that this is an absolutely winning recipe for peaceful development and that this does not just apply to Europe.
Other parts of the world have not been blessed with peace in the last 50 years.
The Cold War was synonymous with conflict and discord for numerous regions in the world.
We must bear this in mind if we are to understand the significance, today, of an organisation, such as, the WTO.
Here, too, the watchword is integration.
The more countries commit themselves to the peaceful principles of trade, the more stable and peaceful the world can become.
For these reasons, I expressly welcome the accession of the People's Republic of China to the WTO.
For the same reason, I also welcome the accession of Taiwan to the World Trade Organisation.
We want to integrate, not leave part of the world standing on the doorstep.
The EU has clearly formulated the important objectives in its strategy on Asia.
Political dialogue with the People's Republic of China should be stepped up, the transition to an open society should be supported and China should be further integrated into the global economy.
This last objective is now within reach.
Only with China, both the People's Republic and Taiwan, will the WTO become a real world trade organisation.
I can assure you that we shall not lose sight of the other objectives and I would also stress that this includes dialogue about human rights.
The numerous negative aspects of China's accession to the WTO, which you choose to identify in your explanatory statement, Mr Gahrton, cannot be supported by us in the PPE-DE Group in their present one-sided and, in my view, somewhat disproportionate wording.
I think the advantages to all sides of these accessions outweigh the disadvantages.
The award of the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing became as acute a topic of discussion as the accession to the WTO is now.
But I am positive that we are on the right path, the path of integration, not segregation, the path of inclusion, not isolation, the path, I trust, towards a more peaceful world, which we need, today, more than ever.
We are still in shock from the horror of 11 September.
And that is another reason to stand together.
Mr President, my thanks to the Commissioner for the work which he has carried out.
Of course we welcome China and Taiwan, because I think we should be pleased, as the previous speaker said, that China and Taiwan are joining.
A whole host of reforms is being initiated, as the Commission has rightly pointed out.
For the rest, China will take up a key position within the WTO and this will also bring about considerable changes for the West.
I am fairly certain that this will present the Commission with further challenges.
For the rest, we are supporting the accession of China with considerable funds and I think we should do more here.
For the first time, Parliament has been consulted. This is a result of excellent collaboration with the Commission and, of course, with the Council.
But I have one thing to say to Mr Gahrton: it is true that accession to the WTO is not without its opponents in China.
But I think that to overemphasise this in the report without, at the same time, trusting in the fact that China is more than capable of evaluating whether or not it is in a position to cope with accession is to underestimate China's capabilities considerably.
I rather think that the doomsday scenario which you have conjured up in your report is highly exaggerated.
I would like to see you evaluate matters in a somewhat fairer and more balanced manner in the future.
Mr President, after fifteen years of negotiations, we are now in the final stage of China and Taiwan' s accession to the WTO.
The Commission submitted the accession conditions to you for your opinion.
I would like to thank the House, in particular, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and the rapporteur, Mr Gahrton, for your willingness to treat this subject as a priority.
If you accept the recommendation of your rapporteur, the Union will be in a position to give the green light to China' s accession at the next Ministerial Conference of the WTO, which, as you know, will take place in Doha on 9-13 November.
The documents you have been issued with, will have informed you of all the technical elements of the negotiation.
I will not return to them today, but I would like to share with you some thoughts of a more political nature, at the same time giving my reaction to Mr Gahrton' s document and speech; they both warrant it.
I would, firstly, like to stress the special nature of negotiations for accession to the WTO and try to correct the impression - created by your report, Mr Gahrton - that it is something which we have handled in an excessively unilateral fashion.
An accession to the WTO is not negotiated within a traditional multilateral framework, where concessions are made on the basis of the principle of reciprocity.
On the contrary, in an accession negotiation, at least to the WTO (I say that prudently, since this seat was occupied by Günter Verheugen less than an hour ago), a country puts itself forward as a candidate to join a club whose members have already negotiated commitments amongst themselves.
The candidate country must therefore pay for entry into that club by offering commitments in terms of access to markets which reflect what the members have already accepted amongst themselves.
On several occasions your report points out, and with a degree of reproach which has not escaped me, the positive tone taken by the Commission to describe the results we have achieved after fifteen years of negotiations.
Even if, contrary to what the report says, the Commission' s report is not jubilant, I nevertheless believe that we can be satisfied with these results as a job well done.
Our task was primarily to defend the interests of the Union in these negotiations, and that is what we have done.
It is also the case, however, that this agreement is not some kind of unilateral victory for the Union, which is something, if I have understood correctly, that you rather reproach us for.
If there has been any victory, I am tempted to say that it is a multilateral one, since it is the multilateral system as a whole which has been strengthened as a result.
We cannot claim that the WTO has a global vocation if it excludes a country which represents more than 20% of the world' s population.
The issue was not, therefore, whether China should join the WTO, but rather when.
Well, after fifteen long years of negotiations, the different parties involved, China and its trading partners, have reached the conclusion that that time has arrived.
One of the Union' s main objectives was that these negotiations should lead to a strengthening of the multilateral system.
It was therefore necessary for China to accept what we could describe as the multilateral acquis, and I will not make any controversial parallel here either, in other words, the advances made within the framework of GATT and then the WTO over the last half a century.
We have ensured that the level of Chinese commitments offers this guarantee.
But this accession to the WTO is also a victory for China, since we believe it to be an essential condition if she is to continue her exceptional economic development.
Chinese external trade has increased by an average of 15% per year over the last twenty years.
It is, therefore, literally an explosion.
And accession to the WTO ensures China a stable framework for her commercial policy by guaranteeing the outlets which are crucial to her.
Her status as a member will also allow her to defend her commercial interests by participating fully in the round of negotiations.
At the end of the day it is clear that accession to the WTO is only one element, perhaps an essential one, but, nevertheless, only one element in the reform process launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1978 and continued by his successors.
More than an end in itself, accession is a consequence of these past reforms and a springboard for new reforms to come.
The justification for these reforms does not lie in accession to the WTO, and I feel that it would probably be presumptuous to try to distinguish between, what would result from accession itself, and, what is connected to the reform process taking place in China.
This close connection between the timetable for internal reforms and accession to the WTO has been recognised by China' s trading partners, the Union, in particular, by means of the acceptance of transitional periods for the implementation of certain obligations.
In fact, our objective was more the eventual result rather than the speed with which that result comes about.
Mr Gahrton, you referred to two works which stress the dangers which may arise in China as a result of accession to the WTO in terms of regional tensions or social problems.
I do not believe that these problems are being underestimated by the Chinese authorities, whose fundamental political objective seems to me, to be to guarantee the stability and integrity of their country.
From the conversations I have had with them, I understand that China sees accession to the WTO as an essential element in the continuation of these twenty years of reforms, and, therefore, a continuation of this growth which has allowed internal tensions to be kept under control, here or there.
China' s per capita GDP has multiplied by four over these twenty years.
This is therefore a classic, if specific, case of the relationship between commerce and development.
We all know, and I have often said to you, that commercial liberalisation is a good thing, as long as it is accompanied by the means to translate growth into sustainable development, that is to say, internal social and environmental policies, without which the beneficial effects of commercial liberalisation are not enjoyed.
From this point or view, we believe that China' s accession promotes that type of better internal policy.
I believe that this accession will strengthen the rule of law in China.
The fundamental principles of transparency, non-discrimination, efficient administration and independent judicial control, which are included in the acquis of the WTO, will contribute, we believe, to the positive evolution of China' s economic, legal and social systems.
In any event, for our part, we have been concerned, throughout the process of negotiations, to propose progressive measures which will prevent any particular section of the Chinese economy from being exposed to foreign competition overnight.
In conclusion, I would like to insist on the fact that the result of these negotiations is balanced.
It is true that we have defended European interests, and our document to Council and Parliament reflects that strategy.
No, we have not ignored the consequences for China and for the WTO.
Yes, accession will have a positive impact in terms of the quest for economic development in China, and therefore on the quest for internal reforms.
In any event, it is the Chinese themselves who have chosen to integrate themselves into the international economy, and so much the better.
At the same time we can only rejoice at the fact that, for the first time, Taiwan is becoming a full member of an international organisation, in a way which reflects its economic development and its status as an industrialised country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will end by saying to the House that these two results are due to the wisdom of my predecessor, Sir Leon Brittan, who had made these two accessions one of the priorities of the Union' s commercial policy.
All I have done is finish the work which he had largely and judiciously started.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.15 p.m.)
Address by His Holiness the XIVth Dalai-Lama
It is a great honour to speak and share some of my thoughts and feelings with you.
As my prepared statement is in Tibetan, I want to read in Tibetan to show respect for my own unique, separate language.
So I will speak Tibetan.
(Loud applause) Recently, in Calcutta, at a function, at the beginning, as usual, I spoke in Tibetan and then in my broken English.
The next day a local newspaper reported very favourably on my remarks but said that the Dalai Lama spoke at the beginning in Chinese.
So I hope you will realise that this is not Chinese, but the Tibetan language.
(Laughter and applause)
(The speaker continued in Tibetan, what follows is a translation)Madam President, ladies and gentlemen.
It is a great honour for me to address the European Parliament.
I believe the European Union is an inspiring example for a cooperative and peaceful co-existence among different nations and peoples and deeply inspiring for people like myself who strongly believe in the need for better understanding, closer cooperation, and greater respect among the various nations of the world.
I thank you for this kind invitation.
I consider it as an encouraging gesture of genuine sympathy and concern for the tragic fate of the Tibetan people.
I speak to you today as a simple Buddhist monk, educated and trained in our ancient traditional way.
I am not an expert in political science.
However, my life-long study and practice of Buddhism and my responsibility and involvement in the non-violent freedom struggle of the Tibetan people have given me some experiences and thoughts that I would like to share with you.
It is evident that the human community has reached a critical juncture in its history.
Today' s world requires us to accept the oneness of humanity.
In the past, communities could afford to think of one another as fundamentally separate.
But today, as we learn from the recent tragic events in the United States, whatever happens in one region eventually affects many other areas.
The world is becoming increasingly interdependent.
Within the context of this new interdependence, self-interest clearly lies in considering the interest of others.
Without the cultivation and promotion of a sense of universal responsibility our very future is in danger.
I strongly believe that we must consciously develop a greater sense of universal responsibility.
We must learn to work not just for our own individual self, family or nation, but for the benefit of all mankind.
Universal responsibility is the best foundation both for our personal happiness and for world peace, the equitable use of our natural resources, and, through a concern for future generations, the proper care for the environment.
Many of the world´s problems and conflicts arise because we have lost sight of the basic humanity that binds us all together as a human family.
We tend to forget that despite the diversity of race, religion, culture, language, ideology and so forth, people are equal in their basic desire for peace and happiness: we all want happiness and do not want suffering.
We strive to fulfil these desires as best we can.
However, as much as we praise diversity in theory, unfortunately often we fail to respect it in practice.
In fact, our inability to embrace diversity becomes a major source of conflict among peoples.
A particularly sad fact of human history is that conflicts have arisen in the name of religion.
Even today, individuals are killed, their communities destroyed and societies destabilised as a result of misuse of religion and encouragement of bigotry and hatred.
According to my personal experience the best way to overcome obstructions to inter-religious harmony and to bring about understanding is through dialogue with members of other faith traditions.
This I see occurring in a number of different ways.
In my own case, for example, my meetings with the late Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk, in the late 60s, were deeply inspiring.
They helped me develop a profound admiration for the teachings of Christianity.
I also feel that meetings amongst different religious leaders and joining together to pray from a common platform are extremely powerful, as was the case in 1986 during the gathering at Assisi in Italy.
The recent United Nations Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders held last year was also a laudable step.
However, there is a need for more of these initiatives on a regular basis.
On my part, to show my respect for other religious traditions I went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem - a site holy to three of the world' s great religions.
I have paid visits to various Hindu, Islamic, Christian, Jain and Sikh shrines both in India and abroad.
During the past three decades I have met with many religious leaders of different traditions and have discussed harmony and inter-religious understanding.
When exchanges like these occur, followers of one tradition will find that, just as in the case of their own, the teachings of other faiths are a source of both spiritual inspiration and as well as ethical guidance to their followers.
It will also become clear that irrespective of doctrinal and other differences, all the major world religions help to transform individuals to become good human beings.
All emphasise love, compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, humility, self-discipline and so on.
We must therefore embrace the concept of plurality in the field of religion, too.
In the context of our newly emerging global community all forms of violence, including war, are totally inappropriate means of settling disputes.
Violence and war have always been part of human history, and in ancient times there were winners and losers.
However, there would be no winners at all if another global conflict were to occur today.
We must, therefore, have the courage and vision to call for a world without nuclear weapons and national armies in the long run.
(Loud applause)Especially, in the light of the terrible attacks in the United States the international community must make a sincere attempt to use the horrible and shocking experience to develop a sense of global responsibility, where a culture of dialogue and non-violence is used in resolving differences.
Dialogue is the only sensible and intelligent way of resolving differences and clashes of interests, whether between individuals or nations.
The promotion of a culture of dialogue and non-violence for the future of mankind is a compelling task of the international community.
It is not enough for governments to endorse the principle of non-violence without any appropriate action to support and promote it.
If non-violence is to prevail, non-violent movements must be made effective and successful.
Some consider the 20th century a century of war and bloodshed.
I believe the challenge before us is to make the new century one of dialogue and non-violence.
Furthermore, in dealing with conflicts too often we lack proper judgment and courage.
We fail to pay adequate attention to situations of potential conflict when they are at an early stage of development.
Once all the circumstances have progressed to a state where emotions of the people or communities involved in disputes have become fully charged, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to prevent a dangerous situation from exploding.
We see this tragic situation repeated time and again.
So we must learn to detect early signs of conflict and have the courage to address the problem before it reaches its boiling point.
I remain convinced that most human conflicts can be solved through genuine dialogue conducted with a spirit of openness and reconciliation.
I have therefore consistently sought a resolution of the issue of Tibet through non-violence and dialogue.
Right from the beginning of the invasion of Tibet, I tried to work with the Chinese authorities to arrive at a mutually acceptable, peaceful co-existence.
Even when the so-called Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet was forced upon us I tried to work with the Chinese authorities.
After all, by that agreement the Chinese government recognised the distinctiveness and the autonomy of Tibet and pledged not to impose their system on Tibet against our wishes.
However, in breach of this agreement, the Chinese authorities forced upon Tibetans their rigid and alien ideology and showed scant respect for the unique culture, religion and way of life of the Tibetan people.
In desperation the Tibetan people rose up against the Chinese.
In the end in 1959 I had to escape from Tibet so that I could continue to serve the people of Tibet.
During the past more than four decades since my escape, Tibet has been under the harsh control of the government of the People´s Republic of China.
The immense destruction and human suffering inflicted on the people of Tibet are today well known and I do not wish to dwell on these sad and painful events.
The late Panchen Lama' s 70,000-character petition to the Chinese government serves as a telling historical document on China' s draconian policies and actions in Tibet.
Tibet today continues to be an occupied country, oppressed by force and scarred by suffering.
Despite some development and economic progress, Tibet continues to face fundamental problems of survival.
Serious violations of human rights are widespread throughout Tibet and are often the result of policies of racial and cultural discrimination.
Yet they are only the symptoms and consequences of a deeper problem.
The Chinese authorities view Tibet' s distinct culture and religion as the source of threat of separation.
Hence as a result of deliberate policies an entire people with its unique culture and identity are facing the threat of extinction.
I have led the Tibetan freedom struggle on a path of non-violence and have consistently sought a mutually agreeable solution of the Tibetan issue through negotiations in a spirit of reconciliation and compromise with China.
With this spirit in 1988 here in Strasbourg at this Parliament I presented a formal proposal for negotiations, which we hoped would serve as a basis for resolving the issue of Tibet.
I had chosen consciously the European Parliament as a venue to present my thoughts for a framework for negotiations in order to underline the point that a genuine union can only come about voluntarily when there are satisfactory benefits to all the parties concerned.
The European Union is a clear and inspiring example of this.
On the other hand, even one country or community can break into two or more entities when there is a lack of trust and benefit, and when force is used as the principal means of rule.
My proposal which later became known as the 'Middle Way Approach' or the 'Strasbourg Proposal' envisages that Tibet enjoy genuine autonomy within the framework of the People' s Republic of China.
However, not the autonomy on paper imposed on us 50 years ago in the 17-Point Agreement, but a true self-governing, genuinely autonomous Tibet, with Tibetans fully responsible for their own domestic affairs, including the education of their children, religious matters, cultural affairs, the care of their delicate and precious environment, and the local economy.
Beijing would continue to be responsible for the conduct of foreign and defence affairs.
This solution would greatly enhance the international image of China and contribute to her stability and unity -- the two topmost priorities of Beijing -- while at the same time the Tibetans would be ensured of the basic rights and freedoms to preserve their own civilisation and to protect the delicate environment of the Tibetan plateau.
Since then our relation with the Chinese government has taken many twists and turns.
Unfortunately, I must sadly inform you that a lack of political will on the part of the Chinese leadership to address the issue of Tibet in a serious manner has failed to produce any progress.
My initiatives and overtures over the years to engage the Chinese leadership in a dialogue remain unreciprocated.
Last September, I communicated through the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi our wish to send a delegation to Beijing to deliver a detailed memorandum outlining my thinking on the issue of Tibet and to explain and discuss the points raised in the memorandum.
I conveyed that through face-to-face meetings we would succeed in clarifying misunderstandings and overcoming distrust.
I expressed the strong belief that once this is achieved then a mutually acceptable solution of the problem can be found without much difficulty.
But the Chinese government is refusing to accept my delegation till today.
It is obvious that Beijing' s attitude has hardened significantly compared to the eighties when six Tibetan delegations from exile were accepted.
Whatever explanations Beijing may give concerning communications between the Chinese government and myself I must state here clearly that the Chinese government is refusing to talk to the representatives I have designated for the task.
The failure of the Chinese leadership to respond positively to my Middle Way Approach reaffirms the Tibetan people' s suspicion that the Chinese government has no interest whatsoever in any kind of peaceful co-existence.
Many Tibetans believe that China is bent on complete forceful assimilation and absorption of Tibet into China.
They call for the independence of Tibet and criticise my 'Middle Way Approach' .
Others are advocating a referendum in Tibet.
They argue if conditions inside Tibet are as the Chinese authorities portray it to be and if the Tibetans are truly happy, then there should be no difficulty holding a plebiscite in Tibet.
I have also always maintained that ultimately the Tibetan people must be able to decide about the future of Tibet as Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, stated in the Indian Parliament on December 7. 1950: "...the last voice in regard to Tibet should be the voice of the people of Tibet and nobody else."
While I firmly reject the use of violence as a means in our freedom struggle we certainly have the right to explore all other political options available to us.
I am a staunch believer in freedom and democracy and have therefore been encouraging the Tibetans in exile to follow the democratic process.
Today, the Tibetan refugees may be among the few communities in exile that have established all the three pillars of democracy: legislature, judiciary and executive.
This year we have taken another big stride in the process of democratisation by having the chairman of the Tibetan Cabinet elected by popular vote.
The elected chairman of the Cabinet and the elected parliament will shoulder the responsibility of running the Tibetan affairs as the legitimate representatives of the people.
However, I consider it my moral obligation to the six million Tibetans to continue taking up the Tibetan issue with the Chinese leadership and to act as the free spokesman of the Tibetan people until a solution is reached.
In the absence of any positive response from the Chinese government to my overtures over the years, I am left with no alternative but to appeal to the members of the international community.
It is clear now that only increased, concerted and consistent international efforts will persuade Beijing to change its policy on Tibet.
Although the immediate reactions from the Chinese side will be most probably negative, nevertheless, I strongly believe that expressions of international concern and support are essential for creating an environment conducive for the peaceful resolution of the Tibetan problem.
On my part, I remain committed to the process of dialogue.
It is my firm belief that dialogue and a willingness to look with honesty and clarity at the reality of Tibet can lead us to a mutually beneficial solution that will contribute to the stability and unity of the People' s Republic of China and secure the right for the Tibetan people to live in freedom, peace and dignity.
Brothers and sisters of the European Parliament, I consider myself as the free spokesman for my captive countrymen and women.
It is my duty to speak on their behalf.
I speak not with a feeling of anger or hatred towards those who are responsible for the immense suffering of our people and the destruction of our land, homes, temples, monasteries and culture.
They too are human beings who struggle to find happiness, and deserve our compassion.
I speak to inform you of the sad situation in my country today and of the aspirations of my people, because in our struggle for freedom, truth is the only weapon we possess.
Today, our people, our distinct rich cultural heritage and our national identity are facing the threat of extinction.
We need your support to survive as a people and as a culture.
When one looks at the situation inside Tibet it seems almost hopeless in the face of increasing repression, continuing environmental destruction, and the ongoing systematic undermining of the culture and identity of Tibet.
Yet I believe that no matter how big and powerful China may be she is still part of the world.
The global trend today is towards more openness, freedom, democracy and respect for human rights.
Sooner or later China will have to follow the world trend and in the long run there is no way that China can escape from truth, justice and freedom.
The consistent and principled engagement of the European Parliament with China will accelerate this process of change that is already taken place in China.
Since the Tibetan issue is closely related with what is happening in China, I believe there is reason and ground for hope.
I would like to thank the European Parliament for the consistent display of concern and support for the non-violent Tibetan freedom struggle.
Your sympathy and support have always been a deep source of inspiration and encouragement to the Tibetan people both inside and outside Tibet.
The numerous resolutions of the European Parliament on the issue of Tibet helped greatly to highlight the plight of the Tibetan people and raise the awareness of the public and governments in Europe and around the world of the issue of Tibet.
I am especially encouraged by the European Parliament' s resolution calling for the appointment of an EU special representative for Tibet.
I strongly believe that the implementation of this resolution will enable the European Union not only to help promote a peaceful resolution of the Tibetan issue through negotiations in a more consistent, effective and creative way but also provide support for other legitimate needs of the Tibetan people, including ways and means to preserve our distinct identity.
This initiative will also send a strong signal to Beijing that the European Union is serious in encouraging and promoting a solution of the Tibetan problem.
I have no doubt that your continued expressions of concern and support for Tibet will in the long run impact positively and help create the conducive political environment for a constructive dialogue on the issue of Tibet.
I ask for your continued support in this critical time in our country' s history.
I thank you for providing me the opportunity to share my thoughts with you.
(The House rose and accorded the speaker a standing ovation)
As you can see, your Holiness, we are all very moved and I would like to thank you, on behalf of the European Parliament, for the great, noble message you have just addressed to us.
You have been kind enough to point out that the European Parliament has always supported your action and your people.
We have seen that you are well acquainted with the resolutions we have voted for in Parliament, always by a huge majority, if not practically unanimously, including as recently as last February.
It is true that we realise, as you have pointed out, that the Tibetan people are being deprived of their fundamental freedoms, threatened with the destruction of their monasteries, which forge their moral and spiritual souls, and are threatened by a policy of marginalising the Tibetan people.
You have reminded us of all these things, and you have told us very frankly that, unfortunately, the hand held out to the Chinese authorities has so far been ignored, and we have also noted, your Holiness, that you have never lost hope.
You have this concern, but at the same time the great hope that the day will come when China, on opening up to the rest of the world, will finally hear your appeal, and that is a wish which we passionately share, but we can only join you in your desire, your Holiness.
We have clearly heard the powerful appeal you have made to us.
You have told us that if the international community, in this case the European Community, can join you in your efforts, perhaps the result we all wish to see could be within reach.
I would simply like to assure you that you can count on the active support of our European Parliament, on the active support of our political groups, on the active support of the intergroup which, as you know, has been created precisely to further strengthen our friendship with the Tibetan people. You can count on our support, you can count on our indestructible loyalty so that, in the spirit of your proposals, Tibet can regain its freedom.
Thank you again, your Holiness, for your presence and your message.
(Loud applause) (The formal sitting was closed at 12.25 p.m.)
Madam President, I should like to put a point of order before Parliament today, at a time when we are about to vote on the most important act we are called upon to approve, that is, the budget.
Nine people died yesterday in the St Gotthard tunnel because of a road accident.
This places a greater onus on us when - under the heading of 'infrastructure' - we come to vote on the much-needed and now ever more pressing engineering works which must be Europe' s response to the problem of traffic across the Alpine passes.
Today we shall be debating the reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel, with all the economic and environmental problems that involves.
Let us also remind ourselves of this: the incident in the St Gotthard tunnel was caused to a great extent by the additional volumes traffic that the St Gotthard, Brenner and other Alpine passes have had to absorb as a result of the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel.
We must therefore vote with conviction for the infrastructure funding to speed up the procedure involved in rebuilding the Brenner rail tunnel and the Fréjus rail tunnel, and move road vehicles onto trains, with benefits for the safety of those who travel and also for the surrounding environment.
Let us remember that when we vote.
Of course, Mr Santini.
VOTE
Madam President, I am against this oral amendment.
(With more than twelve Members standing, the oral amendment was not considered) Following the vote
Madam President, there has just been some enthusiastic applause because this vote has ended.
I can understand why, as this is always a protracted event.
However, I would like to ask you to put one other amendment to the vote.
I should have said this at the beginning, but we were already proceeding with the voting.
It is about the Court of Auditors.
We have now voted on an amount of 1 million in the line to build an extension for the Court of Auditors.
As the Committee on Budgets, we would like to ask for another EUR 6 million to be entered in the reserve so that additional capital can be injected during the coming year.
This will ultimately produce considerable savings for the taxpayer and will also create extra scope in future budgets.
I would also like to ask you to put this last amendment to the vote, which entails entering a further EUR 6 million in the reserve in budget line 206.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Report (A5-0330/2001) by Mr Costa Neves, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2002 (C5-0300/2001 - 2000/2324(BUD)) and Letter of amendment No 1/2002 (12733/2001 - C5-0495/2001) to the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2002 (Section III - Commission)
Following the vote
I will do it in English.
It is about what I originally said about the conditions under which we will release the amounts or the items which we entered in the reserve in the last vote.
These are the conditions specified in Amendment No 73 of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
This is in accordance with what we discussed earlier, and this is the most straightforward way.
We must therefore amend the text in the way we have just voted.
It says:
"The money can be released after a favourable opinion from Parliaments' committee responsible for the relations with the Court of Auditors, once the Court has given updated information on its current staffing problems and on how additional staff would enable the Court to assess the performance of financial control systems in the candidate countries, improve its cooperation with the national audit institutions (requirement of Treaty of Nice) and establish more detailed specific DAS assessment."
(The President noted that there was no opposition to the oral amendment being considered)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I of course share the sentiments expressed by Mr Bourlanges.
However, we have to look into the question asked by Mr van Hulten, because, when it was raised by Mrs Morgan earlier on this week when Mr Provan was in the chair, he said he would examine whether it was possible to see what was going to happen.
Therefore, maybe you could respond to Mr van Hulten' s question and possibly discuss this matter with the Bureau, that will meet to clarify the situation.
Mr President, I am sorry Mrs Fontaine had to leave, so perhaps you would pass on my remarks to her.
As the House will know, I spent a great deal of time studying the reform process on behalf of the House last year and continued to follow it through the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
I understand exactly the points that Mrs Fontaine made but, I ask you, on behalf of all Members of this House, to keep us better informed of the process.
This was the point that I raised back in September when I asked the presidency to give us the same level of information about the progress of the reforms as we are receiving from the Commission.
Mr Kinnock has given us a comprehensive timetable about the progress of the reform discussions.
This House, these Members, have no information whatsoever from the Bureau about the reform process.
I ask you to be much more transparent and to give us a progress report on these reforms.
Mr President, on behalf of my colleagues in the Socialist and the Christian Democratic Group I would like to make an oral amendment to paragraph 9.
It should read as follows: "...welcomes the fact that the Commission came forward with the announced packet of the three climate change proposals".
The Commission came forward the day before yesterday with the three proposals, we have to correct that.
I also want to congratulate the Commission for doing this before the very important climate change conference in Marrakesh, COP 7.
(The President noted that there was no opposition to considering the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0326/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Council common position on the adoption of the directive of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing harmonised requirements and procedures for the safe loading and unloading of bulk carriers (7193/2/2001 - C5-0292/2001 - 2000/0121(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr van Dam)
(The President declared the common position approved)
Report (A5-0327/2001) by Mr Vatanen, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on reporting formalities for ships arriving in and departing from Community ports (COM(2001)46 - C5-0051/2001 - 2001/0026(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0338/2001) by Mr Lamassoure, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation on pre-accession financial assistance for Turkey (COM(2001)230-C5-0219/2001 - 2001/0097(CNS)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0343/2001) by Mr Lamassoure, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the 2000 Regular Report from the Commission on Turkey' s progress towards accession (COM (2000)713 - C5-0613/2000 - 2000/2014(COS)
On Amendment No 8
Mr President, by agreement with the rapporteur I would like to make an oral amendment.
I only have the English text with me now.
It should read: "Insists on the immediate abolition of the death penalty..." instead of "Reiterates its call for the immediate abolition of the death penalty..."
(The President noted that there was no opposition to considering the oral amendment) On paragraph 10
Mr President, for the sake of compromise here, too, we would like to propose the following, which is submitted with the rapporteur' s cooperation and agreement.
It should read: " Urges Turkey to propose in the coming year a precise timetable ...", in other words we would insert: "in the coming year".
(The President noted that there was no opposition to considering the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0366/2001) by Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision establishing the Community's position in the Ministerial Conference set up by the accord creating the World Trade Organisation, with regard to the accession of the People's Republic of China to the World Trade Organisation (COM(2001) 517 - C5-0487/2001 - 2001/0218(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0367/2001) by Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision establishing the Community's position in the Ministerial Conference set up by the accord creating the World Trade Organisation, with regard to the accession of the separate Customs territory of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu) to the World Trade Organisation (COM(2001) 518 - C5-0488/2001 - 2001/0216(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0695/2001), by Mr Wurtz, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the conclusions of the Ghent European Council of 19 October
Mr President, I want to make a point on the European Council in Ghent.
It is a suggestion from the ELDR Group, the Greens and the Socialists on paragraph 7, where we each have tabled an amendment, Amendments Nos 13, 9 and 5 respectively.
The suggestion is an oral amendment to merge all of them to add at the end of paragraph 7: "which adequately represents women, respects their human rights and ensures that Afghan women participate fully in building such a future".
The only problem, Mrs Ludford, is that we are at present dealing with a resolution by our Group.
We have not yet moved on to the joint motion for a resolution, so you are jumping ahead.
We must first ascertain whether or not there is a majority on the first resolution.
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on the results of the informal meeting of the European Council held at Ghent on 19 October 2001.
Mr President, I would like to ask for an explanation as to whether, when the amendments are merged, the word "commitment" should be kept in the text as set out in the Socialist amendment.
In other words, it would be "a commitment" to do this.
I think the implication is that this is the case, that the word "commitment" should also appear in the merged text.
Mr President, one of the reasons that I was motivated to suggest this oral amendment which brings the three together is that in the English text, the Socialist amendment does not read very well.
When it says we should include a "compromise in favour of Afghan women", that, in English, could be read as suggesting that we compromise the interests of Afghan women.
It is not a happy wording in English.
It means a settlement.
"Compromise" is not a good translation of "compromis".
That was one of the reasons why I ventured to suggest that we try to merge the three and therefore, in English, we get rid of the word "compromise", which is ambiguous.
Mr President, I would just like to make a correction of a linguistic nature.
The translation into English of the Spanish word 'compromiso' is 'commitment' and not 'compromise' .
(The President noted that there was no opposition to considering the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0308/2001) by Mr Poos, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on Council reform (2001/2020(INI))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0689/2001), by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, on the European Union's approach to the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation in Doha, Qatar
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)Joint motion for a resolution on the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0331/2001) by Mr Désir, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on openness and democracy in international trade ((2001/2093(INI))
On Amendment No 6
Mr President, I would like to point out that we, the Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats, tabled Amendment No 6 to recital A and that we want the words "supply constraints" in the fourth line of the English text to be replaced by the word "quotas" because that is the correct term.
(The President noted that there was no opposition to considering the oral amendment) On Amendment No 3
Mr President, I want to move an oral amendment, with the agreement of the rapporteur, to tidy up Amendment No 3 so that it now reads: "...calls for a commitment by the world leaders gathered at the WTO to coordinate measures to help developing countries tackle the impediments to growth...", etc.
Are any Members opposed to this oral amendment being considered?
Mr President, I accept this oral amendment proposed by Mr Deva.
If this oral amendment is adopted, my Group will support Amendment No 3.
(The President noted that there was no opposition to considering the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0332/2001) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the progress achieved in the implementation of the common foreign and security policy (PESC) (C5-0194/2001 - 2001/2007(INI))
On paragraph 7
Mr President, by agreement with the proposers I would like to ask that we keep "looks to the Member States" and add "and the Council" .
Is there any opposition to the addition of "and by the Council"? There seems not to be.
We will therefore include this oral suggestion.
(The President noted that there was no opposition to considering the oral amendment) On Amendment No 15
Mr President, I have been requested to put an oral amendment.
In the spirit of compromise and in order for this amendment to passed, I suggest that we add on the end of paragraph 37: "and to assist in the fight against terrorism".
(The President noted that there was no opposition to considering the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution) EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
General Budget for 2002
. (NL) During the vote on the 2002 draft budget, the delegation of the Dutch People' s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) in the ELDR group stated that it was against the increase in the category 2 payment appropriations.
The European Commission stated that these increases could not be absorbed by the corresponding budget lines, and furthermore that these increases would result in higher contributions for Member States.
The VVD delegation therefore does not regard this increase in payment appropriations as necessary.
Nevertheless, the delegation did vote in favour of the increase in the category 2 commitment appropriations because it is of the opinion that proper programming of the structural funds is needed.
We have generally voted against the Committee' s proposal to increase the agricultural expenditure in category 1.
We think it unreasonable that approximately half the EU' s total annual budget should go on subsidising the production and export of agricultural products.
Today' s common agricultural policy is not only expensive for the EU, it also contributes to higher consumer prices.
The agricultural sector is, moreover, well protected from competition from foreign imports.
This has a very distorting and destabilising effect on the world economy.
The EU' s common agricultural policy constitutes, above all, a problem for the developing countries, for agriculture is an area in which the developing countries are competitive in relation to the industrialised world' s producers.
The EU' s common agricultural policy presents major obstacles for the developing countries, partly due to the fact that the agriculture concerned is subsidised and protected against competition in the form of imports.
The fact that the EU also subsidises tobacco cultivation is particularly anomalous.
Subsidies for tobacco cultivation should be abolished as soon as possible.
The EU' s activity and budget should instead be directed at cross-border problems which the Member States themselves cannot solve.
The common agricultural policy shows a lack of solidarity with the developing countries and must be reformed immediately.
Costa Neves Report (A5-0330/2001)
Mr President, the radical Members have a certain reputation for efficiency which my explanation of vote will go some way towards dispelling, as we made a mistake, a serious mistake, in the Budget vote, in respect of Amendment No 75 on the contribution to the funding of European political parties.
Whilst being signatories to this amendment, which was intended to abolish the Budget line in question - because we not only believe that the idea of funding of European political parties is not at present justified, but there is no legal basis for it - we voted against the amendment which we had ourselves proposed.
My explanation is therefore intended to correct, as far as possible, the result of the vote.
We have already asked for the record to be adjusted.
There is a mistake in our list of votes, which we are keen to put right.
Otherwise, we judge the Costa Neves report in a positive light, but we were keen to emphasise this minor technical error with regard to Amendment No 75.
Thank you very much, Mr President.
Thank you, Mr Dell'Alba.
The House had been wondering.
Now it is completely enlightened.
Mr President, should I give up making explanations of vote just because I have lost my voice? With regard to the budget, I should like to say something about the section on the Commission.
I voted for it, but this will be the last time, because I want to get some light on how the Commission works.
On 1 January 2002 I shall set off on a long journey, like Odysseus when the Trojan War ended, through the maze of bureaucracy in the 13 523 offices of the Commission and its 33 728 staff.
It will be a long, hard and difficult journey: I shall meet Polyphemus, I shall meet Circe, the sorceress, and perhaps in the end I shall see Penelope looking like our President Prodi.
It will certainly be a shock, but I hope to be able to vote for it again next time.
Mr President, I voted for Mrs Buitenweg' s report on the budget, but I should like to stress very strongly and loudly here in Parliament, with so many members present on this occasion, that the Pensioners' Party - which I have the honour to represent in this House - believes that the European Parliament, which now legislates on fifty per cent of all national laws, which are adaptations to the directives that we approve here, should have greater funding and better organisation in order to function as befits a supranational Parliament, a Parliament with so many important duties.
- (FI) I, together with my group, supported the change over to a reimbursement system based on receipted costs with regard to reimbursement of travel expenses, secretarial costs and office costs.
My group interprets the wording used in the first amendment to mean that there is now no proper procedure at all.
At the same time, the amendment totally ignores the fact that the decision is now in the hands of the Council. Parliament has proposed the procedure intended by this amendment and is prepared to adopt it, but the Council has not been able to give the necessary approval.
On the basis of the above, my group feels that the amendment puts Parliament in a bad light, unduly and unfairly.
Budget debates are great moments for Parliament because they afford us an opportunity to make a comprehensive review of past and future policy.
Unfortunately time does not allow me to do so.
I would therefore like to confine myself to just one point, that is the situation in the border regions of the Member States adjoining the candidate countries.
It is beyond question that today' s border regions will benefit from European Union enlargement in the long term since there will be totally new opportunities for economic, cultural, social and administrative regional cooperation.
Nevertheless, in the short term there will be tremendous pressure as they adjust to specific problems arising out of the very different levels of development, especially in the social field.
I need only point out that the earnings gap between East and West is around 60%.
This raises questions that did not arise with earlier enlargements and which take on a new dimension.
The anticipated problems on the local labour and service markets will not be overcome without a great deal of effort.
Large numbers of daily commuters will put enormous pressure on an already tight labour market - in Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania alone unemployment rates in excess of 20% are quite common.
Cheap services with wage costs around 60% lower will be a tremendous challenge for SMEs and craft trades.
Local and regional governments and administrations believe that the Commission' s proposed programme of assistance to border regions fails to match the scale of the challenge.
I therefore welcome the inclusion of a special budget line for border regions. But I also call for additional Union funding to be made available as quickly as possible to reassure the border region citizens affected that their concerns and needs are not going unnoticed.
We need a basis in law, and the Commission must create it very quickly.
Seppänen Report (A5-0342/2001)
Mr President, you know - as, I believe, everybody does - that in the early years of my working life I was a seaman.
I am therefore particularly concerned about safety and the safeguarding of human life at sea, and not only at sea but also when freight is being unloaded from ships in port.
This document is attempting to do something to improve safety for the lives of the seamen who work in ports.
Ports are very important for Italy - especially the port of Genoa, where I was born, and the port of Livorno, where I was a short time ago. All ports are important, like the port of Marseille and those on the other coasts of Europe, which is the union of countries that has the largest number of seafaring people.
We must continue to do everything possible to safeguard human lives at sea, as we are doing in this document.
Vatanen Report (A5-0327/2001)
Mr President, I voted for the report by my friend Mr Vatanen, who will be disappointed at having been the rapporteur of a document that can do so little for transport; it does, however, do something for bureaucracy.
Well, I would like to tell him: we have not managed to get rid of bureaucracy - and not just in sea transport - but can we manage to get rid of bureaucracy at least in the payment of pensions and the granting of pensions? Mr President, there are pensioners who die because of bureaucracy, without having drawn their pensions.
Of course, they go to Heaven; they know when they get there.
These pensioners deserve to go to Heaven, as all pensioners do, but it would be better if their pensions arrived while they were still alive!
Lamassoure Report (A5-0338/2001)
Mr President, I voted for the report on aid to Turkey, but I want to say that the Pensioners' Party and I personally ask the European Union to be braver.
The 12 countries that have applied to join the European Union should all be admitted in 2004 without any further conditions, because this would be a courageous political act: they have been waiting for fifty years to feel really European.
Did the six countries that signed the Treaty of Rome, Mr President, have to include the Community acquis in their own statute books before signing? There was no Community directive, but even so a great Europe was formed through an important political act.
I tell you: we can let in all 12 countries in 2004, whatever their legislative situation may be.
.
I have voted against the Report on Turkey.
Turkey has not yet taken the necessary measures to fully restore the political rights of the Kurdish people, suppress torture and abolish the special security courts and prisons that drive prisoners to go on hunger strikes which have claimed more than 70 victims already.
Turkey has not even fixed a precise timetable for fulfilling the political criteria of Copenhagen.
We are giving up human rights for geopolitical and military reasons.
That is not admissible in a democratic Parliament.
. (NL) Some politicians are keen to bring Turkey into the European Union before that country has radically changed.
They are therefore prepared to turn a blind eye to a number of extremely negative consequences.
Admitting a country like this, which is an exceptional case, will have a fundamental impact on the existing standards for democratic freedom and human rights in the EU.
The rapporteur wanted to create the impression that in Turkey it was a question of minor deficiencies which could be resolved quickly and easily.
Fortunately, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy has adopted a more critical stance, but still not critical enough by far.
In fact, the announced reforms are heading in the right direction, but do not yet go very far at all.
The release of prisoners and the abolition of the death penalty apply to criminal prisoners but not yet to political opponents, whose rights they refuse to recognise.
The mass murder of Armenians is still denied or justified as a normal way of suppressing opposition, which they want to continue to be able to use in the future.
The displaced populations from 3 500 destroyed Kurdish villages in the south-east are not being allowed to return to the area.
Fear of what is called "separatism" results in a language, songs and writings being punishable.
This country is still a long way from being en route to the EU.
.
(FR) The issue of Turkey brings us back with a jolt to the question of what kind of Europe we want.
If the question is framed in terms of membership of a monolithic bloc, the Turkish question will be extremely difficult to resolve.
It will suffice to consider the example of our shared external frontier.
On the hypothesis that Europe will develop steadily towards variable geometry, nothing, then, prevents the involvement of Turkey in certain European policies in fields where there is a real commonality of interests.
If, on the contrary, we hold fast to a rigid conception of the European Union, the only outcome, in the long term, will be the reversal of the decision made at Helsinki and the resumption of an association process with Turkey of the same kind as those we are developing with the other Mediterranean States which geography and history have placed outside Europe.
I am, by the way, astonished to learn, from the Turkish Ambassador, that the rapporteur, Mr Lamassoure, was opposed to the amendments referring to the Armenian genocide, whilst the political group to which he belongs played an active part in having this crime recognised as such by the French National Assembly.
Could this be a case of 'doublespeak' ?
Lamassoure Report (A5-0343/2001)
.
(FR) We voted against the Lamassoure Report "on Turkey's progress towards accession" as we cannot see how the rapporteur manages to reconcile Turkey's inclusion and his conception of a federal Europe with strong supranational powers.
The rule of law must in fact relate to the identity of a people, and the practice of democracy falls under this heading.
To date we have still not found a European people.
What chance then of a Turco-European people?
In fact, the Lamassoure report's sole merit is that it brings into the cold light of day the contradictions of present-day Europe.
If it proves necessary to establish firm cooperative links with Turkey, this cannot under any circumstances come about through a supranational power enacting regulations uniformly applicable to all, but must result from dialogue between one nation and another, within the European variable-geometry structure.
Moreover, the Lamassoure Report finesses with the recognition of the Armenian genocide of 1917, doubtless aiming to appease Turkey.
We believe there is a need to be more frank and to ask Turkey to acknowledge that the genocide took place.
Obviously it is difficult, but it would not be the first country to regret a dark episode in its history.
Turkey would then have to act consistently with the objective of true peace-making by re-establishing diplomatic relations with Armenia.
.
(FR) There are questions that will not go away; nor will the historic wounds that remain open in the Armenian community throughout the world.
In its resolution in June 1987, the European Parliament asked Turkey to have the courage to look at its past with open eyes in order to be able to look towards the future.
Democracy is guaranteed by historical truth, which cannot be bought or sold and cannot suffer at the hands of special interests, be they financial or economic.
What is at issue today is not recognition of the Armenian genocide's reality, as this House has already had occasion to declare that in 1987.
In asking that the Lamassoure Report should make reference to the genocide, I was not seeking to revive ancestral hatreds or to blow on the embers of intolerance, but to echo the legitimate concerns expressed in Armenian communities.
The children of Armenia who were exiled to our countries at the beginning of the century expect today an act of justice.
They want a 'moral resting-place' for their ancestors.
Remembrance is an even more pressing duty at this time when the last witnesses to the exile, the last to escape the carnage, are themselves quietly dying away.
I am convinced that joining the EU implies adherence to the fundamental principles in accordance with which it was created; democracy, respect for human rights and for the rights of minorities.
Such a step invites each one of the candidate countries to take up the burden of its past in order to be able to make its peace with its own history.
I regret that this House has not followed me in doing this.
.
(FR) I abstained on this motion for a resolution.
I regret that the European Parliament has not felt able to show consistency in rejecting the amendments asking Turkey to continue dialogue on acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide.
In fact, last year, Parliament openly committed itself to calling upon the Turkish government to recognise this period of its history.
Today, under a cloak of expediency, this House has demonstrated its hypocrisy.
As regards Turkey's possible accession to the European Union, I would remind you that the real question of the frontiers of Europe is still an open one.
At a distance from the peoples involved, we carry on discussing the hypothetical accession of this country to the EU without putting the real question, which is to do with the identity and outline of Europe.
The Commission and Parliament would be better advised to explore ways by which Turkey can be associated with the EU rather than directly integrated into it.
), in writing.
(FR) This report on progress towards accession to the European Union is being presented in a very specific context.
Firstly, Turkey is weighed down by the burden of its foreign debt (over EUR 120 billion) and in consequence has to set aside almost 70% of its budget to service it.
The spiralling debt results in a programme of austerity and structural reform which has brought in its wake massive unemployment and broad cuts in social security expenditure.
As well as economic difficulties, there is a worsening political situation, especially for prisoners of conscience, a persistent denial of the rights of the Kurds, failure to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, and in more general terms a lack of regard for the democratic rights of Turkey' s population.
Despite the fact that the report takes account of the social repercussions of the prolonged economic and financial crisis, pleads in favour of rapid payment of EU financial aid to accompany reforms especially in the social sphere, especially as regards the establishment of the rule of law and the promotion of civil society and even though it considers the - admittedly increased - amount of aid granted to Turkey not yet to reflect the importance attached to Turkey's trade relations with the EU; and insists on the need for Turkey to equip itself with modern legislation on the right to strike and on collective negotiation, it is not for European governments or for the Turkish Government to determine the conditions for membership.
It is for the people of Turkey to decide and they must be consulted by means of a referendum.
It is for these reasons that we did not vote in favour of this report.
Gahrton Report (A5-0366/2001)
. (NL) Given the characteristics of the World Trade Organisation, I wonder how a large and poor country hopes to benefit from it.
I would advise China to stay out of it and to rather rely on self-support than participation in world trade.
But I also agree that China' s accession should not be refused if she asks for it herself.
The People's Republic of China was internationally isolated for many years and was not recognised by most countries.
Since it was ultimately recognised, the territory on the island of Taiwan that is controlled by the successors to the government driven out in 1949 is regarded as a non-recognised state, which is something we should now try to find a solution for.
On the one hand, there are economic and military ties, and on the other, some people act as if she does not exist.
It is just as contrived to automatically allocate Taiwan to China as it was to allocate China's territory to Taiwan in the past.
The two territories have grown far apart over the past 50 years or more, and there have always been ethnic differences anyway.
I reluctantly endorse the proposed structures, but they will not solve the real problems.
Ghent European Council (RC B5-0696/2001)
.
(EL) The leaders of the European Union found yet another opportunity at the interim summit in Ghent to side with American imperialism and support their audacious plans in central Asia, which involve bombing and murdering the Afghans.
They clearly stated that they intend to prepare a regime (obviously which meets with their approval) to succeed the Taliban and are willing to help "reconstruct" Afghanistan, thereby revealing their ulterior motive of ensuring that they are involved in sharing out the booty when the time comes.
In addition, they are planning close collaboration with the USA on a whole series of issues, including judicial assistance.
As regards the "enemy within", the summit is planning to speed up anti-democratic legislative arrangements on a common definition of terrorism and a common European arrest warrant at a speed which is revelatory of their intentions.
As for the Middle East, the summit confines itself to a few general pronouncements on a Palestine state and talks of stopping the violence, without making any reference to Israeli aggression.
This is a summit which, just like previous summits, is brimming with anti-grass roots measures and aggressive action against the people; a summit which should give the people of the Member States and of the entire world cause for concern and every reason to step up their fight; a summit which confirms the imperialist nature of the European Union yet again and should be a lesson to all those who proclaim that the ÅU can act as a counterweight to American aggression.
The joint motion contains nothing more than sickening praise for the summit's decisions and shows absolutely no sign of sensitivity to the consequences which these decision will have both within the EU and in the world as a whole, which is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against it.
.
(FR) The European Council in Ghent has just taken note of a Commission report on the preparation for the changeover to euro notes and coins, which presents forty "good practices" suggested to banks, governments and retailers in Member States "in order to make up for lost time".
This parenthetical remark by the Commission must surely pull us up short.
Why has time been wasted, although the date for the changeover of notes and coins has been set for a long time, and governments had all the time in the world to prepare themselves? The most probable explanation is this: the authorities seem to have thought that private citizens, being in any case caught in the trap, would be obliged to adapt themselves.
Under these circumstances, why should they tire themselves out? This attitude says much about the thinking behind an operation which was deceitfully presented as being entirely centred on the improved comfort of citizens.
In addition, when you look down the list of the "forty good practices ", you notice that they are minor low-level gimmicks - ranging from the early labelling of prices in euros to longer opening hours at bank counters - whose effect can only be marginal.
But major actions that could conceivably lessen citizens' difficulties, whether financial (reimbursing tradesmen and small businesses for their efforts at adaptation) or technical (stating both the euro value and the value in the national currency on notes and coins), have been firmly excluded.
It is true that dual-denomination notes or coins would have required thought at an earlier stage and for that there would have had to be a real concern to lighten the burden on private individuals.
Nothing, though, could be more foreign to the inventors of the single currency.
Perhaps - as, after all, clouds do have silver linings - citizens will see at the beginning of next year that in fact they had counted for little in the introduction of the single currency.
And then they might learn a few truths about the true nature of Brussels.
Although we welcome some aspects of the resolution that has been adopted today by the European Parliament, we must express our reservations and criticism of some very negative aspects, specifically its support for the war strategy that the USA is implementing in Afghanistan, which will not only fail to resolve any problems but will actually worsen the humanitarian crisis and incidences of racism and xenophobia.
We are also critical of the relentless political pressure to speed up the militarisation of the EU and the communitisation of aspects of 'justice and home affairs' , through the 'creation of a genuine European judicial area.'
What is particularly worrying is the fact that proposals have been tabled for creating a 'European search and arrest warrant' or the controversial and dangerous common definition of terrorist acts as well as measures that represent a serious attack on fundamental freedoms, guarantees and rights linked to the coordination and effectiveness of law enforcement in the framework of cooperation with the USA.
Nor can we fail to mention the symptomatic absence from the resolution of any critical reference to the Ghent Council decisions on confirming compliance with the 'Growth and Stability' pact, with maintaining the policy of wage moderation, or the reform of the labour markets, the processes of liberalising public services - of which the recent decision on postal services is one example - the reform of public services in social provision or the Council' s announcement of the launch of a new round of negotiations at the WTO.
These measures will have a serious effect on the interests of workers and of the communities in the various countries of the EU.
With regard to the creation of a 'preparatory convention' for the new IGC, we feel its prime objective is an attempt to limit or impose conditions on the sovereign decisions of governments and national parliaments.
This is why we have voted against this motion for a resolution.
.
(IT) The fundamentalist terrorist attacks have not only destroyed the 'twin towers' in New York but also seem to have played a major part in demystifying two other 'pillars' on the eastern shores of the Atlantic: the common defence policy and the European foreign policy.
The devastating success of this latest attack was helped by the theatrical contribution of certain European governments. Throwing aside years upon years of declarations of intention to define a European foreign policy and good proposals for military integration, they have raised their banners as 'national powers' without even having either any real power by themselves to address the world crisis or the credibility to ensure European security.
The three-sided mini-summit, held an hour before the informal Summit of the Fifteen, was a demonstration of the collapse that has also hit Europe.
The statements on fighting terrorism handed out for signing at the end of the informal Summit are worthless.
We have be accustomed to reading wonderful final declarations for decades now, but these contradict the facts and create genuine bafflement about this 'non-existent Europe' , which unites around statements and then vanishes immediately when it comes to operating and acting in unity to address the crises that threaten world peace.
Given these conditions, I believe the promotion of the European Union as a political entity is the principal task we need to address.
The Ghent 'triumvirate' , which did not even invite the High Representative for European foreign policy, did not have this objective, concerned as they were - and are - with fighting for their leadership or the next elections.
One of them spoke of 'a new leading role in foreign and defence policy for Germany' , forgetting to add - as has been the case for 56 years now, as an attentive leader writer pointed out - 'within Europe' .
Just an oversight as regards 'precedents' , or clear national political will? This 'triumvirate' would not deserve any critical mention if there were not another triumvirate looming up on the horizon, a really heavyweight one this time, formed by the USA, Russia and the People's Republic of China.
The Ghent triumvirate - 'an affront to Italy and Europe,' as Mr Prodi has said - with a Europe deprived of strength, will be a featherweight in the international ring and, what is more, will weaken the little bit of Europe that exists.
In its place there should, instead, be a new, strong Europe, proud to be so, and seen as essential in maintaining regional balances of power.
The forthcoming European Council in Laeken must cancel out the ambiguities and contradictions found in Ghent.
To achieve this goal, it must issue itself a momentous challenge: to turn words into deeds and initiate 'enhanced cooperation' in the sphere of a political Europe.
This will also benefit economic and financial stability, because it would also correct the anomaly of a European central bank without a European government behind it.
With the current situation in tatters, however, is such a challenge feasible? I cannot help thinking that the road of integration will lead to greater cohesion of the parties involved.
15 countries acting more cohesively in the area of security and defence - and therefore with a definite foreign policy - will, without doubt, be a much more effective force in the fight against international terrorism and in peacekeeping.
Having said that, and expressing a reservation about the 'convention' method for drawing up the institutional reform project, I vote for the resolution, in the hope that declarations will, at last, be followed up with deeds.
Twenty million Afghans are being hit hard by bombings being carried out for reasons over which they have had no influence.
The UN Commissioner for Human Rights has appealed for a necessary suspension of the bombing in order to get food out to the population before the winter.
Three years of drought have made the supply situation untenable.
I have therefore supported Amendments 2 and 3 in the vote on the resolution concerning the European Council' s informal meeting in Ghent.
A further prerequisite, however, is that the Taliban should allow supplies to reach those who need them.
We also appeal to Pakistan to allow the refugees to be afforded protection.
Poos Report (A5-0308/2001)
Mr President, I voted for the report but, both personally and on behalf of the Pensioners' Party and as a convinced Europeanist, I ask that the Council should have less powers and Parliament have more powers.
We know that the Council is elected by those elected by the citizens, but the European Parliament is elected directly by the citizens.
We are Europe!
Parliament should have the power to legislate, and the Council can have some little legislative duty that affects all the Member States, like defence and foreign policy, but not too much.
I therefore insist that everything possible should be done to give the European Parliament all the power it deserves, as against the Council, whose powers should instead be reduced, since it does not deserve them.
We note that you want to pension the Council off, which is fairly normal in view of your political career.
The reason why 'the role of High Representative for the CFSP and that of the Commissioner responsible for external relations should be merged and assigned to a Commission Vice-President' is that it will be difficult in the long term to maintain the double channels of command that apply to policy in the second pillar.
It is problematic - from the points of view both of clarity and of the budget - for the EU to maintain two external relations administrations for the purpose of implementing foreign policy.
That does not however mean that we in any way support supranationalism within the areas of the second pillar.
We do not therefore want the CFSP to be incorporated into the first, or Community, pillar.
The above position also applies to the relevant passage in paragraph 3 of the report on the progress made in implementing the Common Foreign and Security Policy (A5-332/2001 Rapporteur: Mr Brok).
.
(FR) The Poos Report sets out some interesting technical reforms to enable Councils to work better "in a permanent legislative framework" without amending the Treaties.
It is, though, surprising that we do not find there the most obvious reform to make the work of the General Affairs Council easier and reduce the overload on it which is the main problem today: its division into a General Coordination Council (dealing with the general organisation of work, and issues concerning the EU institutions) and a Foreign Affairs Council, which would obviously be of a purely inter-Governmental nature.
This simple and practical reform is not endorsed by the federalists, fearing as they do that it would draw the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy from the new Foreign Affairs Council, whereas they want to bring him into the bosom of the Community by installing him at the Commission, thereby giving it powers in terms of foreign policy.
Their proposal is not realistic.
More broadly speaking, the Poos Report does not seek to anticipate what the Europe of tomorrow will be like and to work out from that how the Council should evolve.
It will be a Europe with many and diverse Member States, so it will have to be a variable-geometry Europe.
For the same reason, it will be a Europe in which the Community method will often be seen as too rigid, and in which there will be a lot of room for the intergovernmental approach, hence a Europe in which the distinction between the "pillars" of the Treaty will have long-term validity.
It will, finally, be a Europe in which the present-day appropriation of power by Brussels will have come to an end - at least let us hope so - and in which national democracies will again make their voices heard.
These broad strokes lead us to design a future central position for the Council, one which should give it a greater initiatory role (although the task of drafting legislation will have to be better shared) and one of coordinating the pillars, the various circles, the national and European levels.
It would now be useful to begin discussing these ideas.
.
(FR) The fact that we have voted against Council reform does not imply that we prefer the way it works at present.
It is not the constitutional form of the Council that is important - although much could be said about its anti-democratic character - but its essence.
The basic reason for the Council's existence is to manage the collective affairs of the property-owning classes in the various European countries, so that their respective interests do not conflict and that a general consensus may be established.
The European Council, though, no more represents the interests of the majority of the EU's population than the various governments represent the real interests of their own peoples.
The apparently democratic way in which national governments are appointed after elections does not prevent them being at the service of their countries' big bosses.
All the more is this true of Europe's executive, which is not even obliged to seek election.
We do not guarantee the present or the eventually reformed functioning of the European institutions.
.
(PT) The Poos report on the reform of the Council is controversial and contradictory and, albeit rather timidly, further clears the way for European federalism.
On the one hand, it contains positive aspects on improving transparency, not to mention the concept of change in the institutions in an enlarged European Union, in its references to the workings of the Council and to greater participation by national and regional parliaments in EU policy.
On the other hand, it puts forward some highly controversial ideas, specifically transferring the responsibilities of the High Representative of the CFSP to the Commission, thereby reducing the powers of the Council and further communitising this important policy, which we must, of course, oppose.
At the same time, it puts forward working methods for the Council that could have a damaging effect on the role of national governments, moving towards greater federalism, which include: strengthening the General Affairs Council, so that its meetings are held regularly, weekly even, attended by ministers; and a distinction being made between the legislative and executive Council, which must operate openly, which would seem to be moving towards the creation of some kind of European Union Senate.
Therefore, in voting against this motion, we confirm our opposition to this path to federalism without undermining the report' s positive aspects.
.
(FR) Council reform? Public opinion throughout Europe plainly sees evidence that this is needed, as also evidence of the democratic deficit in European structures.
The absolute requirements of this reform should be the reinforcement of democracy and transparency, the involvement of citizens and control by them.
One should also beware of explaining, as the rapporteur does, that all the dysfunctions result from disregard of the Treaties or even from the loss of power by the Commission and the "General Affairs" Council.
Over and above structural improvements such as the strengthening of Parliament's role, control and monitoring of the Commission and the Council, greater power being given to citizens, whether directly or indirectly - by way of associations, trades unions, etc - there is the need today to discuss the direction of this European project which is dominated by free-market thinking, the very antithesis of democracy and of provision for social needs.
New institutions for another Europe - that is what should be the topic put forward for the peoples of Europe to discuss and vote on.
It is for this reason that we have not voted in favour of the Poos Report.
.
I was delighted to cast my vote in favour of the excellent report by Mr Poos.
As a representative of Scotland and a member of the European Free Alliance section of my Group, I particularly welcome paragraph 13 of the report, calling for the involvement of "national parliaments and, in federal or highly regionalised States, the regional authorities including participation in the Council itself according to Article 203 of the EC Treaty."
For Scotland and similar countries this will only be a start, but it will be an important one.
This Parliament is concerned about the democratic deficit.
To remedy this, let us seek to secure a greater role for devolved parliaments in making European law.
If parliamentarians at all levels in Europe are to be engaged effectively, there must be open and public legislative debate in the Council.
We must highlight the need for publicity and openness in the Council, as stipulated in paragraph 26 of the report.
The reforms urged in this report all go in the right direction.
. (NL) As former Luxembourg minister, Mr Poos knows how the Council works, and he has put this to good use.
He is right to raise the matter of meeting behind closed doors, which is inconsistent with the principles of democracy and openness.
He also proposes that joint committees only prepare resolutions instead of taking them themselves.
He also wants the strange new post of High Representative for the common foreign and security policy, which is developing into a European super-minister for Foreign Affairs and Defence, but which cannot be called to account politically in this area, to be integrated into the European Commission's portfolio for external relations.
Mr Poos limits himself to what is feasible within the existing treaties and the current power relations, because this would be able to be achieved quickly.
I support him in this.
However, even if these reforms are implemented, the Council remains an absurdity, a remnant from the early days of the three European Communities, which is backing out of national parliaments and the EP.
National ministers used to act as negotiators on the formation of an interest grouping and were also entitled to exercise their veto rights.
They no longer have this in their current function, in which they act as a senate which cannot be called to account and a government at the same time.
The national parliaments must take over their task.
The continued existence of the Council will have an adverse effect on parliamentary democracy.
World Trade Organisation (RC B5-0691/2001)
.
(FR) We have voted against the joint resolution submitted by the European People's Party and Socialist Groups on the forthcoming ministerial conference of the WTO in Qatar in November, as it seems to us that it is yet again trapping us by agreeing to the opening of new international trade negotiations without adequate clarification of what the ground rules are and what objectives are in view.
Commissioner Lamy's speech yesterday leads us to conclude that, even though he is striving to present a wide range of objectives for future negotiations (liberalisation, regulation, the involvement of developing countries, the taking into account of sustainable development), liberalisation is still indeed the primary objective.
Moreover, the WTO's reference documents, which are centred on too strictly commercial a view of trade, inherently tend towards the adoption of this objective.
Matters would be made worse still if the negotiating mandate included investment among the WTO's competencies, as this would risk the revival of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), of infamous memory.
We would, though, not wish to suggest that liberalisation is in itself bad, as a party of the Left thinks.
We do think, though, that there is now the need for a pause.
Time must be found to draw up a clear balance sheet on the Uruguay Round.
On that basis, negotiations must indeed be opened, but with this primary mandate: to consider how to guarantee to every society, to every national democracy, the right to choose how to live. Liberalisation will produce all its benefits only if we have first provided a definite answer to this question.
.
(EL) The demonstrations in Seattle, Prague and Genoa were an expression of the increasing anxiety at grass-roots level about the consequences of globalisation.
This massive popular reaction shows that even the regulations of the WTO are socially unacceptable.
The demonstrations, which were attended by demonstrators from around the world, were one of the deciding factors in bringing down the talks.
The WTO, the main objective of which is to fully liberalise trade, is basically promoting a process of neo-colonialism and is now one of the mainstays of the new world order.
The rules of the WTO serve to promote the interests of dominant multinational companies which already monopolise certain international markets and are therefore the stuff of nightmares for developing countries and workers as they watch their rights being eroded.
The large countries are promoting the interests of their multinationals, at the expense of the less developed countries, without so much as a word about the long-standing request of these countries to have their debts cancelled.
In the agricultural sector, rapid restructuring is being called for in order to concentrate the land in a few hands and forge another link in the chain controlled by the network of multinationals.
Furthermore, the liberalisation of trade and the abolition of duty and subsidies have hit agricultural production directly, reducing farmers' incomes, decimating farming and increasing unemployment.
Agricultural production in Greece - and elsewhere - is being sacrificed in order to protect and corner a larger share of the international market for processed products from central and northern Europe.
We believe that, rather than defending the interests of the people, the EU will again endeavour at the new round of talks to stake a bigger claim for the European monopolies, in competition with the other imperialist centres, i.e. the USA and Japan.
The rules which govern international economic relations and trade should serve the interests of the workers, leave their fundamental social rights untouched, help to develop less developed countries, respect the environment and respect the rights of all nations to exercise control and decide on their future themselves.
The WTO is, by its very nature, an imperialist structure interested in the maximum possible return on capital and more secure, flexible and unimpeded ways of moving capital, especially from trade and the stock exchange, impoverishing huge swathes of the world's population and contaminating and destroying more and more of the natural environment in the process.
Under this new world order, which uses every possible means to impose the law of the jungle and where might is right, people are beginning to understand that the only solution is resistance and counterattack.
The movement against globalisation and the WTO may be uncoordinated and disparate, but it is the first counterattack on the dictatorship of the monopolies and economies of interest.
It is sending out a message of resistance and counterattack to the millions of workers, unemployed, small and medium-sized farmers and other victims of the capitalist world order which the WTO is trying to impose.
The MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the motion because most of it sides with the major corporations planning to bring about unbridled liberalisation, plunder even more poor countries, wipe out farming and attack the achievements of the workers and the rights of the people throughout the world.
.
(FR) I regret that Commissioner Lamy was not more explicit yesterday about the discrepancies between the Council's negotiation mandate and the draft declaration by the Ministers at the Doha conference.
I thought I heard - the Commissioner was speaking sotto voce - that they particularly related to the new reduction in external protection and internal support for our agriculture which certain States had demanded.
I also regret that the joint resolution that Parliament has just voted on commits the sin of incoherence by remaining silent on Community preference, whilst rightly emphasising the right of WTO members to apply agricultural policies adapted to their needs and conditions and especially the right of EU Member States to defend a European model of agriculture founded on family holdings, safe and high-quality food, protection of the environment and a balance between town and country.
Food safety constitutes a strategic dimension, on which the tragic events of 11 September throw a new light.
It is not feasible that the European Union should depend long-term on imports - some 75% of its requirements - of a family of products as important, vital and strategic as oilseed proteins. How can the European Union condemn itself to zero growth in a crucial sector in which production worldwide is increasing by 5% per annum?
What would happen in the event of weather hazards in the Americas? It is therefore imperative that the fatal error of Blair House, the absurd and severe self-limitation agreed to in Marrakech be put right in the next round of negotiations.
The complete elimination of animal fats makes it all the more necessary to be able to support the development of Community-wide production of vegetable proteins: this objective must be a priority for the European negotiator.
We will be extremely watchful on this issue.
Désir Report (A5-0331/2001)
I have, of course, voted for this report, Mr President, on democracy in international trade, but I should like to do more.
As the representative of the pensioners that I have had the chance to meet over these two and a half years, I should also like to launch a new slogan here today: 'Pensioners of the world, unite!'
Pensioners are citizens who have more money than young people and would be able to influence the trade and economy of the whole world.
I therefore appeal to all pensioners and all elderly people throughout the world to unite in an organisation that can make its weight felt - a weight they are entitled to have because of their numbers - so they can influence international trade to make it more humane and friendlier to those in need, as we all hope.
.
(FR) We voted in favour of the report on "Openness and democracy in international trade" in order to assert our demand for a reform of the World Trade Organisation towards greater transparency and fairness (especially in regard to the settlement of differences) and also the strengthening of control by the peoples.
A double ambiguity, though, exists in this regard, both at European level and at the level of the WTO.
As regards the European Union, successive reforms of the Treaties have practically excluded the national parliaments from control and ratification of the common trade policy.
The Nice Treaty, which is currently in the process of being approved, effectively completes the work while excluding them from negotiations touching on services and intellectual property.
Neither de jure nor de facto does the European Parliament take over, and in any case, even if it did gain a real right of ratification, the end result would still be the overall enfeeblement of democratic control, because of the abolition of any direct power on the part of national democracies, which are closest to the peoples.
From this point of view, the European Parliament's proposal that a consultative parliamentary assembly should be created within the WTO looks like the beginning of work on another level of dispossession.
Such an assembly would in fact risk giving greater legitimacy to the disregard of the opinions of national democracies, and the putting in place thereby of "regulations" the effect of which would be to confine them even more.
There is then a need to assert most clearly that the objective of the consultative assembly is to improve information, but not under any circumstances to replace the national parliaments in any way.
For us, in fact, the first of these "regulations" to retain, is that each and every people, expressing itself directly or through its national parliament, has the right to choose what kind of society it wants to be and what laws shall apply within it.
.
(FR) The rapporteur cannot be naïve enough to think that the terrible inequalities in world trade are due to the fact that most member countries of the WTO "are marginalised because of non-inclusive working methods or because they are not, or not effectively, represented in Geneva" or even due "to practices inherited from the GATT" .
Economic relations between countries, and trade relations in particular, obey only one law - the law of the strongest - and certainly do not involve the type of "democracy" that the rapporteur would like to see.
The imperialist countries impose their law on third world countries and the United States impose their own, even on second-ranking imperialist powers.
Clearly, giving the poorest countries a few extra posts within the WTO or in any other international body is not going to change the balance of power.
The report' s real motives are to be found in the fact that international trade, whose laws resemble the law of the jungle, is giving rise to protest and demonstrations.
Although it does not have the power to change the substance of the matter, the European Parliament is invited to put a democratic spin on a type of relationship that is poles apart from a relationship of equality and democracy.
We have not, of course, given our support to this playacting and have voted against the report.
. (FR) On Tuesday, 11 September 2001, airliners full of passengers crashed into two symbols of American omnipotence, in this case the twin towers and the Pentagon.
America was wounded to the core, but an entire vision of civilisation was also attacked.
There is one lesson that we must learn from this appalling act inflicted on the United States, globalisation' s main player and beneficiary in a process which is becoming increasingly inegalitarian. The lesson is that the industrialised countries can no longer afford not to discuss North-South relations.
The outbursts seen in Seattle, Göteborg and Genoa bore the first symptoms of this global divide.
We must now ask searching questions, particularly about the bodies that regulate globalisation.
Mr Désir' s report is enlightening on this matter.
In Seattle, for example, the United States' delegation comprised around 150 people and those of Japan and the European Union around one hundred, whereas most of the developing countries had just one representative.
In such circumstances, it is difficult for the world' s poorest countries to ensure that the voice of their people is heard.
Although the legitimacy of the WTO cannot be questioned, its workings, its transparency and its effectiveness in terms of wealth distribution are debatable to say the least.
I would say that the rapporteur' s proposals intended to respond to this threefold challenge are a step in the right direction, and that is why I have voted in favour of his report.
Nevertheless, our action must not stop there: we must also take direct action on the debts of poor countries, show less arrogance towards our southern partners and more respect for them, and stop trying to impose our form of civilisation on them.
The fourth WTO ministerial conference, due to take place in Doha, in Qatar, in November, is in this sense an opportunity that we must grasp if we are to translate our fine-sounding words into practical action, like pillars supporting a fairer world, in which there is greater solidarity between nations.
. (NL) The existence of a World Trade Organisation could perhaps be useful if it were limited to helping individual states to set up trade contacts with other, remote states.
Unfortunately, the pretensions of the current WTO go much further than that.
It is trying to impose standards on Member States in which the protection of jobs, the environment and public services is subordinated to freedom of trade and the protection of big multinational companies.
The WTO has become a kind of alternative United Nations, but one in which it is not the power of the number of inhabitants but the power of money that counts.
As a result of the imposed globalisation, the gulf between rich countries who export expensive, high-tech products and poor countries who are dependent on exports of cheap raw materials from agriculture and mining is widening.
The profits from investments in these countries flow back to the richest countries.
This WTO is trying to maintain these abuses, and in doing so forms a threat to welfare, the environment and democracy.
Mr Désir is making a creditable attempt to promote openness and democracy in international trade.
I support him in this, but I fear that it will be insufficient without further changes.
Brok report (A5-0332/2001)
Mr President, while I was on the plane taking me from Bratislava to Prague and then on to Malpensa, on my way back from my visit to Slovakia, I was reading the Brok report to decide on how to vote when, as often happens to me, I fell asleep.
I had a dream.
Knowing that Mr Brok is so good at foreign policy, Mr President, I dreamt that he had become Foreign Minister in the Europe of the future.
I also dreamt that on the plane, as well as Mr Brok, there were some beautiful blonde hostesses from the Czech Republic.
I woke up, Mr President.
I am sure that the beautiful blondes will remain a dream, but will Mr Brok as Foreign Minister come true?
.
(EL) I have to admit that our rapporteur, the German Christian Democrat Elmar Brok, does not mince his words.
Both the motion for a resolution and the explanatory statement are exercises in militaristic, aggressive cynicism about the substance of the CFSP (common foreign and security policy) and the CSDP (common security and defence policy).
He considers that, especially from mid-2001 onwards, the common political will to act at the operational level has been visibly in evidence and cites "crisis management" in the Middle East and the FYROM as examples of successful autonomous intervention on the part of the European Union.
The report then includes a long-winded list of means and institutions currently available to the European Union to carry out its "God-given" job of "conflict prevention" and "crisis management" (crises which the EU will be sure to provoke) throughout the world: the rapid reaction force, the primary objective of which is to create a Euro-army by 2003, initially with 60,000 troops, measures for the rapid flow of resources, non-military - but armed - crisis management (by creating a corps of 5,000 police officers), the (new) Situation Centre and the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit (both of which come under Mr Solana's department) and so on.
Russia, the Ukraine, Moldavia, Africa, Latin America and so on are all seen as military partners outside our area.
The stated aim is to impose policies which serve imperialist interests, to get these countries to accept the rules of the capitalist market and - naturally - to respect human rights, or rather what the ÅU understands by human rights.
Furthermore, "global responsibility for peace, stability and sustainable development" is used to justify the need, highlighted in the report, for the EU to develop its strategic plans in Iran, China, Korea and Indonesia.
In other words, the Brok report cynically illustrates the imperialist nature of the ÅU which - necessity being the mother of invention - wants to promote its interests in glorious collaboration with the USA, using NATO resources.
The report is crystal clear on the division of roles between the two imperialist powers, viz. the USA and the ÅU, which will act in concert with the USA, where possible, or on its own if the USA is not willing or prepared to act.
This position marries perfectly with its wholehearted support for the USA in the new imperialist war in Afghanistan and Eurasia in general, fronted by the coalition against international terrorism which has come along, like manna from heaven now that the USSR and the Warsaw Pact have broken up, to give the imperialists an alibi, a modern day "red under the bed" to justify intense arming, curtailing the rights of our people, fortifying their system every which way and any type of intervention - military or otherwise - anywhere in the world.
Mr Brok's statement during his presentation to plenary captures the tone of the report perfectly. He said that, if we want to be convincing and reliable in our foreign policy, we need to demonstrate on a daily basis that we are prepared to use military means to enforce what is not accepted using other means.
Who today can dispute the Marxist tenet that war is in the nature of capitalism and, even more so, in the nature of imperialism?
That is why the people cannot afford to rest on their laurels.
The peace movement at national, European and global level against the warmongering imperialists is the only prospect of survival for mankind.
. (NL) The existence and maintenance of an army is always justified by the argument that it was necessary in order to defend the freedom of the country's own territory and to discourage potential occupying forces.
Because nobody likes to be occupied, the existence of such an army is accepted by a majority of people, albeit often with doubt or reluctance.
Action by armies outside their own borders, on the other hand, is always rightly regarded as a form of aggression and imperialism.
In recent years, there has been an offensive to justify the action of armies outside their own territory.
This happened in Iraq and in Kosovo, and it is now happening in Afghanistan.
When Mr Solana took up office, I heard him say that he knows of many places outside the territory of the EU where an army could be deployed.
Mr Brok wants a decision on the operational readiness of a European 'Rapid Reaction Force' to be reached soon.
I reject this part of his proposals, although I do share his views on the struggle against money laundering and against the international drugs trade, finding a humanitarian and political solution for Chechnya, strengthening the peace-building capacity of the United Nations and making aid for Macedonia dependent on the implementation of the agreed amendment to the constitution.
.
(FR) One cannot fail to be struck by the huge disparity between Mr Brok' s report and the new course taken by international relations since 11 September.
The rapporteur does, admittedly, mention that date but fails to draw any conclusions from it with regard to taking the CFSP in a new direction.
Instead, he clings to the reassuring dogmas of the old school of thought, organised around the concept of 'everything for the Community' : the High Representative of the CFSP must be communitised, decisions on joint action must be reached by a majority, and so forth.
The new international landscape that is emerging as a result of the ongoing fight against terrorism forces us to act on two levels: the national level, the sovereign prerogatives of which will prove crucial in this new type of war, and the world level, which is the only level appropriate for the large-scale cooperation that is necessary.
The European level is only an intermediate phase, all too often too limited to lay hold of the global circuits and networks of international terrorism.
In times of tension, decisive cooperation tends to take place directly between States.
This was the case with the significant military contribution that the United Kingdom made to the United States' action, the tripartite Ghent Summit, and the bilateral cooperation between France and Germany.
The CFSP will have to adapt rapidly to the new diplomatic climate.
The focus for the necessary coordination between the various pillars, as well as between the intergovernmental approach and the Community aspects, must be the Council, which is the only institution capable of playing a pivotal role.
The same requirement for effectiveness must lead to the creation of a specific 'Foreign Affairs' Council, separate from the Council. This is a point that Commissioner Barnier made in his speech.
Unless these changes are made, the CFSP is in danger of being rapidly marginalised and relegated to role of merely issuing declarations.
.
British Conservatives strongly support European cooperation in foreign policy and the use of EU civil instruments in conflict prevention, where shared interests exist.
However, they insist that national governments must retain absolute sovereignty over foreign and defence policy.
We do not, therefore, support movement towards establishment of an EU diplomatic service or the "communitarisation" of foreign policy; the extension of Europol competence into operational areas; or measures that will lead to the development of a European Army.
We believe that NATO should be the international organisation of first resort, not just for collective defence, but for all relevant crisis management tasks requiring the use of military assets.
COM in sheepmeat and goatmeat
The next item is the report (A5-0340/2001) by Mr Adam, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the proposal for a Council regulation on the common organisation of the market in sheepmeat and goatmeat [COM(2001) 247 - C5-0214/2001 - 2001/0103(CNS)].
Mr President, my report on behalf of the Committee on Budgets is brief, because the Committee on Budgets was asked to give its opinion on the proposal by the Commission.
We were broadly supportive.
First of all, it streamlines the policy, making it simpler and much more defensible within the GATT negotiations, thereby providing longer-term security for farmers engaged in sheep and goat farming.
We proposed an amendment in relation to individual tagging.
We did not propose in that way to enter into the area of food safety, or indeed the business of the Committee on Agriculture.
We simply wanted to ensure that premiums were paid on sheep and goats that actually existed and that we had a means of ensuring that the animals could be counted and accounted for.
Since I am responsible to the Committee on Budgetary Control for animal products, I felt it my duty to insert that amendment.
Speaking for myself, I can say that the Committee on Budgets has its responsibilities.
This is largely a neutral proposal by the Commission, but the Committee on Agriculture has its responsibilities to farmers.
I support the position it has taken in this respect.
I support the Doyle amendment which was passed by the Committee on Agriculture.
As regards costs, the Committee on Budgets added approximately EUR 400 million in horizontal cuts that the Council deducted from the budget so we added EUR 400 million this morning.
We added another EUR 400 million in relation to animal health measures.
The budget this year is 2% more in real terms than we started with last year, and in real terms it is more than 5%, when you consider the outturn.
It is my opinion, and the opinion of EPP members in the Committee on Budgets, that there are sufficient funds to meet the request of the Committee on Agriculture: if the Doyle position is accepted by this Parliament and by the Council there are sufficient resources to finance the policy.
It will be a shift of money from the rich areas to the poor areas, from the bigger farmers to the smaller farmers.
It is a social and regional measure that we could do with.
Mr President, I reiterate what my colleague, Mr McCartin, has just said.
He is speaking on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
There is money there to support the proposals that were passed by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, for a EUR 30 fixed rate premium and a EUR 9 supplement premium.
There is money there.
I appeal to colleagues to support the views of the Agriculture Committee.
I fear tonight's vote - on a Thursday night - may be unrepresentative of the large majority decision at the Agriculture Committee on this particular issue.
The Community average income of sheep and goat producers is generally amongst the lowest of all sectors, especially in northern Europe where lambs are reared in meat production systems.
I quote the words of the Commission: "Unlike beef and other commodities, the Community is deficient in sheepmeat and, under the present regimes, there is a major exodus from sheep production, especially in northern Europe.
The beef regime unwittingly also supports this exodus from sheep production as ewes are counted for extensification payment under this regime but are not paid for, thereby encouraging farmers who have the option to decrease their sheep and increase their cattle on a holding to draw down more extensification payments."
The most cost-effective solution from a common agricultural policy point of view is to ensure that the sheep and goat regimes, together with the impact of the beef regime, encourage as much land as possible to be kept in Europe in sheep production.
It is at least four times as expensive to support a livestock unit of beef, compared to that of sheepmeat.
While beef producers need all the support they are getting, given their present difficulties, it is not in their interest either to have competition generated between dry stock sectors by imbalance in the respective regimes.
The main proposal for a fixed, single annual premium I fully support, at EUR 30.
I fully support it, in place of the unfair, uncertain and - from a WTO perspective - unacceptable present deficiency payment system.
We support the flexibility amendments to send a message to the Commission that there is room for different treatment in some Member States in relation to this regime, providing that it does not come from the flat rate payment.
We cannot support the identification and traceability amendments because this is a matter for DG V, not because we do not support the principle but because it is for another DG, and for that reason solely.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like, first of all, to welcome the work of Mr Adam, our rapporteur, and to congratulate him on his desire to give some hope to sheep and goat farmers, who are, by and large, at the lower end of the scale of agricultural earnings.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has used its vote, as you quite rightly pointed out, to confirm the principle of a basic deficiency payment, of a rural premium and of a supplementary flexibility premium based on the criteria of produce quality, the environment or financial management.
It is also the case that the levels set by our committee will have to be readjusted in plenary if Parliament hopes to influence Council and, therefore, maintain credibility.
The Commission recommended a maximum of EUR 28 per head but the Committee on Agriculture raised the amount to EUR 44, which far exceeds the expectations of rearers and could, furthermore, prove difficult to reconcile with the room for manoeuvre provided by the budget.
On behalf of my group, I have, therefore, retabled two of the rapporteur' s amendments designed respectively to reset the basic premium at EUR 25 per head and the premium for milk herds - ewes or she-goats - at EUR 20.
In the 'meat' sector, the maximum aid per head would therefore, be EUR 39, which would ensure equal treatment in terms of public premiums per hectare for sheep breeders and milk-cow breeders.
I would say that this is a totally logical approach, because these two types of production often exist side by side in the same regions and areas and even within the same holdings.
In terms of the markets, we now have two situations at variance with one another: a surplus of beef and veal and a deficit of sheepmeat.
If per-hectare premiums are set at an equivalent level, this could restore the balance of production, with the choices made by producers being influenced by market conditions.
Furthermore, I recommend maintaining a difference between the basic premium for the 'meat' sector and the premium for the milk sector because to do otherwise would leave the sheep and goat milk sectors with no future, which nobody wants to see.
This is why I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that this evening you will support these amendments, which I think are both realistic and responsible.
Mr President, on behalf of the liberal group, I can say that we broadly support the Commission's proposals.
We find the new system better than the old system, which was more or less a system of deficiency payments.
We also find the amounts specified by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development excessive.
We will therefore support Mr Garot's and Mr Adam's amendments, which are slightly more modest but which do in fact provide a good negotiating position in respect of the Council.
My group has submitted new amendments which relate to the identification of the animals.
We consider it to be of the utmost importance that when money is being distributed - animal premiums and suchlike - the control system is spick and span and there is very little wrong with it.
The Commission should therefore introduce a new identification system as soon as possible.
Finally, and I am saying this on behalf of the group, I have tabled amendments stating that dikes and salt marshes in Europe will also be regarded as least favoured areas.
I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on his very hard work on this difficult report.
Farming has taken a blow over the past year in the United Kingdom, and sheep farming, of course, is no exception.
Given the fact that 80% of my own nation - Wales - is designated by the EU as less favoured and that sheep farming is the only available method of farming in many part of Wales, this report has far-reaching implications for Wales and its hill and upland farmers, as indeed it has for their European counterparts.
I therefore welcome additional financial support for farmers situated in less-favoured areas such as Wales and I urge fellow MEPs to support additional payments for these areas.
Now although this premium will not solve overnight the immediate crisis, we need to get the proposal through as quickly as possible to ensure that the sheep annual premium payments will be in place by January 2002.
The original proposal was disappointing, and a lot of hard work has been put in to get the best deal possible for farmers in this regard.
Of course, I want to see farmers get the fairest and highest possible premium.
However, we have to work within the budget, and this is why I fully support Mr Adam's proposal of EUR 25 and am confident that the Council will consider this proposal as a very viable option given the constraints.
Pitching the figure higher than this would lose money to other sectors including rural development.
I will be voting against Amendment No 21, as I believe the wording to be too vague, and I would like to see a clause stating that any money put back into the national reserve from a region or country within a Member State should be ring-fenced to ensure the benefit of this fund is maintained for that particular area - that is a very important point.
We must protect our sheep-farming industry because to lose more farmers from the industry would have a catastrophic effect on the make-up of rural communities where small family farms play such a vital role.
Seldom have I seen a greater degree of unanimity on the need for reform of the sheep and goat sector.
The rapporteur, the Commission, Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and farming organisations are all at one on the need for reform.
It is now down to this Parliament and the Council to give meaningful effect to this consensus.
There is, however, one important bridge to be crossed if this desired objective is to be achieved.
Unless we succeed in reaching a fair consensus on the level of financial support for sheep farming, this attempt at reform will fail and the decline of sheep production will lead to a significant imbalance in the European meat sector, thereby putting greater pressure on the beef sector as farmers switch from one enterprise to another.
So, it makes good economic sense to get the balance right now.
There will not be another bite at this cherry.
We talk a lot about the sustainability of European agriculture.
To me it means maintaining a reasonable balance between all sectors, including the profitability of each.
I do not have to remind the House of the relevance of sheep farming in areas not suited to other agricultural enterprises and the importance, from a rural development perspective, of sustaining farm families in those areas.
I do, however, wish to acknowledge the positive aspects of the Commission proposals, including the findings of the Evaluation Committee report, the simplification of procedures and the introduction of a single premium.
Here, however, I differ with the Commission on its method of calculation, based on averaging.
This does not fairly reflect the difficulties experienced by the sector over a longer period.
During the debate, I tabled a number of amendments.
My proposal for a flat rate premium of EUR 32 was not supported; it was based on a fair and thorough evaluation by agricultural economists of the level of support necessary to restore equity to the sector.
On behalf of my Group, I then supported proposals for EUR 30 - a figure which I believe is the very minimum necessary to close the gap and help restore profitability to the sector.
I ask the House not to deviate from this figure, which can be accommodated within the existing guidelines, and also to support amendments on compensation for extensification, the rural world premium and funding for market developments.
Like all Members of this House, I am conscious of the budgetary implications of reform.
I caution against reform of sheepmeat at the expense of other sectors, particularly beef.
Those who take pleasure in pointing out that agriculture takes up almost 50% of the budget should keep in mind that this general support is as much a subsidy to consumers as it is support for the farming community - the people who are expected to guarantee food supply and quality and at the same time maintain the rural environment.
Those who believe that agriculture is oversubsidised should take note of the continuing decline in the number of farm families and ask themselves why this is happening.
We should note, in my view, with alarm the reluctance of young people to take up farming and ponder the consequences for food security and employment in the agricultural food sector.
In evaluating the relevance of agriculture to the European and world economy, you cannot apply the same economic criteria as we apply to other sectors.
Mr President, I apologise for my absence.
The report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is an improvement on the Commission proposals but, for all that, it does not make any significant changes in the sheep and goat farming sector.
For example, we agree that it is good idea to increase premiums and special aid, which have not risen since 1993 and have since been eroded by inflation.
We also agree that it is a good idea to make the conditions for payment of supplementary aid more flexible.
However, we do not agree that it is a good idea to maintain the difference between mixed meat and milk production subsidies, which the report justifies on the grounds that mixed production unit holders generate additional income from milk production.
This is not comparing like with like because meat production units, which are mainly located in northern countries, are large operations which afford a satisfactory income and profit to their owners, while mixed production units, which are mainly located in the Mediterranean countries, are family-run holdings in the most barren areas which do not afford their owners a viable income, with the result that they are declining year on year and these areas are being abandoned.
The headage payments in Greece for each holding have not risen since 1989-1991.
The report accepts the philosophy of quotas and even tries to add to it with management quotas, despite the fact that the European Union's self-sufficiency in sheep- and goatmeat is around 80%, sheep and goat farms are to be found in the poorest areas of the European Union, where no alternative form of farming is generally possible, and sheep and goat farmers are the poorest social group in the European Union.
If we really wanted to provide income support for these regions and for sheep and goat farmers, we would abolish quotas, increase subsidies and provide other additional incentives.
This sort of policy would help to reverse the rate of abandonment of mountain and mainly barren areas and, at the same time, make the European Union self-sufficient in sheep- and goatmeat.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis besetting livestock farming in Europe is of an unprecedented scale.
If it is not checked it will have terrible consequences for our economies, our societies and for life in our territories.
In the beef and veal sector, despite the mollifying proposals that Commissioner Fischler has put to us - he would have us believe that the crisis is now behind us - we are still in a slump.
In my own country, for example, producers can no longer find takers for their animals even at tragically low prices, which no longer cover production costs.
Despair is gaining ground.
Every day, livestock breeders are being forced out of business in the most tragic way.
Waiting patiently for our remaining producers to go out of business would be a suicidal policy.
I repeat, there is a considerable deficit in the European Union' s sheepmeat sector and looking at the average age of livestock breeders, which is increasing, it is not hard to predict that this deficit will increase in coming years.
Sheep-farmers' incomes are amongst the lowest in agriculture, as the Commission itself acknowledges.
In the current economic climate, we also see many producers in desperate situations and who are forced to stop farming because their income is insufficient.
Apart from the human and social tragedy that this represents, it is also an ecological tragedy because sheep breeding and goat breeding are often the last defence against desertification in regions where farming is difficult.
This is why your Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development felt that it was crucial to make some slight improvements to the Commission' s proposal for a regulation, in order to simplify, to be able to forecast and to increase aid to a sector that is suffering harshly, whose economic, social and ecological impact is so important and which gives cattle farmers the opportunity to convert, if it is increased sufficiently.
The very coherent proposals that have been presented attempt to bring the system of aid for the sheepmeat sector into line with aid for milk-cows, whilst complying with budgetary constraints, because the COM in the sheepmeat sector is relatively cheap due to the number of customers for each producer.
These proposals also comply with our international commitments, since the proposed reform aims to separate aid and an income insurance system, which could act as a safety net.
The sheepmeat sector today needs to be stabilised and supported, otherwise it will disappear from many regions.
It requires a reform which is both generous and responsible, and this is what Parliament' s Committee on Agriculture has proposed.
I hope that the House will support us and that the Council will listen.
Mr President, the Commission proposal to create a single annual premium is to be welcomed because it will simplify farmer' s incomes and provide stability.
Nevertheless, it contains various loopholes and shortcomings.
The first is the unsatisfactory level of the proposed premium of EUR 21, which continues to reflect the discrimination against the small ruminants sector in favour of large ruminants.
The proposal of EUR 30 that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development approved will, therefore, resolve this discrimination.
Nevertheless, if this proposal does not have the support of the majority of this House, I will, of course, support any other level that contributes to this objective.
The second shortcoming lies in the continuing discrimination between sheep bred for meat on the one hand and ewes and she-goats on the other, with the latter receiving only 80% of the premium given to meat sheep.
The proposals approved by the Committee on Agriculture will also remedy this unfairness, by making all premiums the same.
The third shortcoming concerns the non-inclusion of flexibility mechanisms that would enable the Member States to make adjustments to national and regional situations.
In this sense, the Committee on Agriculture' s amendments, which are intended to create an additional premium in certain situations, will be of enormous benefit to the implementation of the COM and will make the scheme more realistic and more feasible.
As the Commission itself acknowledges in the explanatory statement, sheep and goat breeders have the lowest incomes of all meat producers with the additional disadvantage that 80% of the animals eligible for premiums are located in parts of the European Union that are both remote and poor.
For this reason, and also because there is a deficit in this sector, which can only meet 80% of domestic consumption, it is becoming very important to make the changes I have just outlined and to increase the supplementary premium for Objective 1 regions.
I therefore hope, that the House approves the Commission proposal and that when the Ministers for Agriculture meet in Council, they do their job properly, and accept the positions of this House.
Lastly, I wish to pay tribute to Mr Adam, who has been an excellent rapporteur, who has put in a great deal of hard work and whom I thank for his generous support.
Mr President, in addition to congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Adam, on his magnificent report, I would like to tell the Commission that some of the terminology in their proposal needs to be amended in order to take account of gender differences.
That is to say, that it constantly forgets that there are female producers and stockbreeders.
I would ask the Commissioner to make these terminological amendments to this proposal and, Commissioner, you can also do this for all of your other proposals, and please inform your staff that this must be done.
Behind this seemingly formal request is my firm determination that, from now on, we recognise female farmers for the important role they play.
Secondly, Commissioner, your proposal contains a renationalisation, which is the cause of a great deal of suspicion, because, to a certain extent, it sets a precedent in this field.
To avoid these suspicions escalating into protests, you should compensate for this shortcoming in your proposal by increasing premiums.
We ask for this unanimously; I hope that Parliament' s proposals will not fall on deaf ears.
Lastly, I have to say that we all recognise that this 'safety net' initiative to compensate the fall in income suffered by farmers and producers of both sexes in times of crisis is a great success.
Mr President, Commissioner, I also wish to thank the rapporteur on his work for a new organisation of the market.
There are two basic factors here supporting all those speeches which express the desire to raise the status and underline the importance of these professions.
The first one is that this is especially important for the regions - absolutely vital for large regions. The other is that we can produce a lot more - as we have heard here - because there is underproduction in this area.
For that reason, all attempts to help and revive these products and this production trend, and highlight their importance, is work done for the common good - the cheapest and most economical of regional policies - and this is an area where agricultural sector has quite obvious shortcomings.
Here, if anywhere, a certain sort of Robin Hood policy will be especially good and useful.
I hope that when it comes to the vote, those of the opinion that we should start to move these matters forward, through greater investment, will win.
Mr President, the Commission proposal dwells on the strategy of separating production aid and prices with the argument that this will simplify the current Organisation of the Market.
The problem is that the level of the per head premium is clearly low, given that the basic price base has not increased since 1993.
Furthermore, although the current system does need to be simplified, we must also take account, as the rapporteur stated, of the fact that sheep and goat breeding is of particular importance to the Community' s least-favoured areas, in which they are concentrated. The prime objective of any reform of this COM must, therefore, be to improve the income of sheep and goat farmers.
Furthermore, we must consider the fact that, in recent years, the relative position of sheep and goat farmers has seen a decline.
We therefore welcome the per head aid increases to EUR 30 and the additional aid of EUR 9 for the least-favoured regions, because this is a sector whose production is concentrated in poor areas, in which the viability of farms is more precarious, despite the fact that they play a major role in preserving the rural fabric of these regions and, in certain cases, are even the only economically possible activity.
Also to be welcomed is the removal of the distinction between sheep bred to produce milk and those bred for their meat and that the same increase is to be applied to goats.
I am also happy to support the new aid of EUR 5, given the difficulties that this sector is experiencing, although we must bear in mind the danger of renationalisation that the creation of national packages entails.
I hope, therefore, that the House - and especially the Commission - will respond positively to this report and that some of the main demands of sheep and goat farmers will be met.
Mr President, there is unanimity in the House about the importance of this reform, about how simplification is a good thing and how vitally important the sheep industry is.
In all those things Mr Adam has done a good job.
But I have to take issue with him in one contentious area which is: what is to be the level of support for sheep farmers?
I am deeply disappointed that the socialists, the liberals and the nationalists are telling the House that they all intend to vote to cut the recommendation of the Committee on Agriculture by EUR 5 at least in relation to each animal.
They put that forward on the basis of the budget, but in the part of the UK that I represent, Wales - just like Mr Wyn who is sadly no longer in his place - we have seen a huge amount of stock slaughtered because of the foot-and-mouth epidemic.
We see a crippled industry.
We see a situation in which there is no confidence at all in the farming industry today and, as has rightly been said, if you look to an area like Wales, it is no good talking about diversification.
It is no good talking about putting money into Community schemes and improving public transport in rural areas.
We must ensure greater financial support for sheep farmers who have no economic alternative.
Today there are sheep farmers in my constituency who are raising questions about whether they should even restock after foot-and-mouth.
I say to Mr Adam this his government is not helping them by indicating that the compensation scheme that was previously in place is one that they do not intend to continue with, whilst, at the same time, not saying what they intend to put in its place.
That adds to the existing desperation in the countryside.
So, yet again, we hear warm words about the industry, but farmers want deeds, and this means supporting the recommendation made by the agricultural industry for the maximum amount of support for our hard-pressed sheep farmers.
Mr President, the Commission proposal is satisfactory because it clearly attempts to simplify matters by replacing the variable premium with a single premium, meaning that the sector will now know in advance the amount it is to receive and will no longer have to suffer from the uncertainty it has had to endure up until now.
We naturally support the idea that the premium should guarantee an income that is acceptable to the producer and my personal opinion is that this income should be the same for producers of both heavy and light lambs, as approved in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The market in sheep' s milk is not regulated in the same way as the market in cow' s milk and income from milk is balanced by a lower level of income from meat production, especially in Mediterranean countries where mixed farms that produce wool, milk and meat slaughter these animals at lower weights, once again, largely in accordance with eating habits.
With regard to the supplementary premium that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development proposed and approved, I have to say that the Commission should be very vigilant that this supplementary premium should in no case be used to reduce the linear premium, the headage premium or the premium for rural development.
The Commission should understand that Parliament' s Committee wants to see an increase in the premium, comprised of three parts: a headage premium, a premium for rural development and a supplementary premium, in order to be able to help States implement the principle of flexibility.
However, I would strongly urge that this introduction is not, at the end of the day, used to achieve a reduction in the headage premium or in the premium for rural development.
Finally, I would like to say, and the Commissioner is well aware of this, that this sector makes an important contribution to land-use planning and to all the environmental services that we say we are going to defend in this new future common agricultural policy.
However, I think that that truly guaranteeing an income in both this COM and this sector that could pay for the non-food services that this type of livestock farming provides throughout the Community would send an important political signal.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly, I would like to congratulate the Commission on the proposal it has put forward, mainly because it will simplify the COM and will give security and stability to the sector, and also the rapporteur, because he has been able to reconcile the various political sensitivities in this House, sparing no effort to achieve this.
I would ask the Commission to listen to the political message from this Parliament, which is asking for an increase in the premium. This premium is much needed, because it has remained unaltered since 1994; in fact, it has stagnated.
This is the reason why this is one of the sectors that receives the least aid and is the most discriminated against within the COM at the present time.
I think that the proposal from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is reasonable.
However, we will not give our support to amendments put forward a posteriori, because we think that some, such as those put forward by Mr Mulder, should be dealt with in another context, although, it must be said, we are not against what he is saying. Others run counter to what has already been discussed and on which consensus has been reached in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and would, consequently, blur the political message of this Parliament.
I would ask the Commission, in its debate with Council, to make the necessary effort to give the sector what it needs.
Given that it has already made such an effort when putting forward the proposal, by simplifying the premiums, on the subject of the single premium, and on the possibilities of the Member States managing these premiums, it should make a reasonable budgetary effort - which the Committee on Budgets is not against - so that the objective the sector considers necessary can be achieved.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to expressly welcome the Commission' s proposal for reforming the market organisation for sheep and goat meat.
The previous speakers have already given all the reasons why we so much welcome this proposal.
I would also like to thank our rapporteur most sincerely for his work.
I believe the revision of the premiums is one of the most important points.
The introduction of a fixed rate premium is a major step forward.
But I would like to stress that the figure proposed by the Commission is much too small.
This premium must also be an incentive for sheep and goat farmers and that means EUR 30 and no less.
The premium must also be the same for farmers regardless of whether they produce ewes or milking ewes. A distinction between the two cannot really be justified.
I also believe that the EUR 9 supplementary premium for ewes and she-goats is particularly justified under the more difficult conditions in the less-favoured areas.
Beef and veal and sheep meat prices generally follow the same trends, which means there is no justification for treating the two sectors differently as regards the premium.
On the contrary, there is a deficit in sheep meat in Austria and in many other countries of Europe.
If we fail to create reasonable conditions and security for this sector, we shall drive sheep and goat farmers into other areas, such as beef and veal, or they will go out of production altogether.
Such a policy would be ill-advised.
Finally, I would like to say that sheep and goat farming should not be supported only in areas that have no alternative, but also in those where sheep and goat farming is traditional.
I therefore hope, Mr President, that the Commission and Council will follow these sensible proposals from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr President, first of all I would like to welcome the proposal.
It is perhaps long overdue, but certainly welcome.
I also take this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report on this very important subject.
Sheep production is important especially in hill areas, not only because of the environment there and the role it plays in keeping the social fabric of society together, but because it has proven through the centuries to be one of the most important aspects of production in the agricultural sector.
In the United Kingdom because of foot-and-mouth, sheep farmers have suffered greatly.
I recognise that in Northern Ireland we have had a distinct advantage over our colleagues in the mainland UK, including the prices we have been receiving recently.
Our producers have been very lucky.
Over recent years, farmers have been getting less for their sheep than they were 15 years ago and they are receiving less support.
Is it any wonder that young farmers and sheep farmers are actually leaving the industry?
We have to ask ourselves how best we can support them.
I want to make it very clear: I will support the EUR 30 in the amendment in the vote in this House this afternoon.
I hope all of you will be here to vote in favour of this amendment because we must give the political leadership this requires.
For far too long, the sheep sector has been the poor relation.
It has been the poor relation with respect to the milk, beef, tobacco and wine sectors.
It has been the poor relation because it has been deemed to lack a strong voice in Europe.
I would like to congratulate the Commission in coming forward with this proposal because it will be fairer than the present system.
Yes, there will be some budgetary problems but we can get over them.
I ask this House for its support.
Mr President, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by sincerely thanking you, Mr Adam, for producing the report and the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their contributions to the discussions in committee and also for today' s debate.
I am also very grateful because it is important that we press ahead with this proposal quickly and take a vote on it soon so that it can then hopefully be adopted by the Council as quickly as possible and this reformed market organisation for sheep and goat meat can come into force on 1 January next year and the premiums can then also be paid under this new regime next year.
As many of you have also emphasised, the most important point of the proposed reform is the replacement of the variable deficiency payments by a fixed-rate form of aid.
That has a number of important advantages.
This new aid is stable.
It can also be calculated in advance.
This means that farmers can also plan with certainty.
Above all, it is also a lot less bureaucratic because none of the expensive market intelligence on which the deficiency payments are currently based and all the complex calculations involved will any longer be necessary.
Moreover, it is also of course much, much easier for sheep and goat farmers to understand.
It allows producers to respond correctly to the needs of the respective markets because the support is not affected by changing prices.
The Commission proposal also guarantees budget stability and in particular is also more consistent with WTO objectives over all.
I believe there is broad agreement about these principles, as the debate has shown.
Let me turn briefly to the most important amendments.
Some are concerned with improving the text and are extremely welcome.
I would, for example, be very pleased to accept Amendment No 11 because a more precise definition of the terms "producer" and "holding" will help to make the regulation much easier to understand.
I can also support Amendment No 16, which proposes that premiums be paid not later than 31 March instead of 30 June.
That will mean that producers will get their premiums even earlier.
I also welcome the proposal to change the definition of producer in less-favoured areas, but I think the term could be simplified even more here.
The wording of the amendment therefore needs to be made even more precise in this respect.
On the other hand, I do not think it is necessary, as proposed in Amendment No 44, to specify the supplementary premium for dykes and salt marshes.
They ought to be covered by the rule for less-favoured areas.
So I do not really think this amendment is necessary.
I also consider Amendments Nos 1, 6, 9, 22, 36 and 37 superfluous or pointless in the context of the regulation.
Other amendments are concerned with the need for a degree of flexibility that would enable Member States to provide additional support for the sector or, more especially, to manage the various Member States' individual quotas better and more actively.
The questions that were raised in the discussions in this connection are concerned with a number of aspects and possibilities, ranging from extensification and environmental concerns to the development of quality products, improvement of marketing structures and the creation of producer groups.
I would like to say to you in this connection that while I cannot accept the proposed amendments directly, I do understand very clearly the message they are intended to convey.
I would therefore like to pursue further the concern that lies behind them in order to find solutions that will take better account of the different requirements of the sector in the individual Member States.
But they must be simple solutions.
I do not think we should be creating a new bureaucracy.
The same also applies for Amendments Nos 25 to 30 concerning the national financial frameworks, which should also be placed in the context of the proposals for greater flexibility.
We must ensure that these framework provisions are also practicable and consistent with the objectives stated in the amendments in question.
Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 15 are in fact the ones with the greatest direct effects.
They are concerned with the question, discussed here, of increasing the premium to EUR 30 for all producers and increasing the supplementary premium for producers in less-favoured regions to EUR 9.
If these proposals were accepted, expenditure would rise to EUR 2.7 billion.
Even the more moderate amendments, as you termed them, Nos 45 and 46, would still entail additional expenditure amounting to EUR 385 million.
We based our proposal on the financial framework agreed in Berlin, and I regret that I cannot therefore go along with your suggestions, especially in view of the fact that at virtually every summit the Heads of Government stress the importance and immutability of that financial framework.
I must also reject the suggestion that producers of sheep' s milk and goat' s milk be paid the same aid as farmers who only produce meat.
On the other hand, I was interested to note Amendments Nos 31 and 35 proposing additional premiums in the event of a price crisis.
But the draft regulation does already provide for a kind of safety net to come into effect if falls in prices disrupt the market.
I cannot therefore agree to those amendments.
The proposal in Amendment No 20 that the first 15 sheep livestock units should be disregarded for calculating the stocking density for the beef and veal arrangements refers to a problem that actually belongs not in the context of this regulation but in the context of the market organisation for cattle, and I must therefore reject this proposal in this connection.
But I would willingly agree to return to this point in the Midterm Review when we shall be discussing the question of the beef and veal arrangements and how they work.
Amendments Nos 5, 7 and 33 are concerned with imports from third countries.
Unfortunately, these amendments run counter to our international obligations and cannot therefore be accepted for that reason.
Traceability is another important aspect.
Amendment No 8 proposes that the report on the environmental effects of sheep and goat farming to be prepared by 31 December 2005 should also look into this question.
I understand that and fully share your concerns, but I believe that this problem really needs to be solved sooner and that we cannot wait until 31 December 2005.
The first step towards better origin safeguards requires the creation of a reliable marking and registration system.
Since such a proposal requires a different basis in law, the proposed amendments are simply outside the scope of this regulation because under this regulation the relevant legal basis would be lacking.
But I do think that part of Amendment No 42, which links the granting of premiums to compliance with the marking and registration rules, seems a sensible approach.
I shall at any rate put such a proposal before the Council.
Amendment No 19 is concerned with allowing Member States to show greater flexibility when setting application periods.
This question will be settled in the implementing provisions.
A Council decision is not therefore required here; it falls within the competence of the Commission.
To avoid cases of fraud, however, an efficient marking and registration system ought to be operative for that reason, too.
Finally, I would like to thank you again for the report and the amendments.
In some areas there is a consensus, in some I shall pass your concerns on to the Council even though I cannot formally accept the amendments in their present form, and unfortunately there are also amendments which I am unable to accept because I do not have the authority to approve the funding.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Reopening of Mont Blanc Tunnel
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot begin a debate on this subject without remembering the ten latest victims claimed by the St Gotthard tunnel, and Mr Fischler was quite right to pay tribute to them, but we must also remember that, this very morning, yet another incident took place in the Petit St Bernard tunnel.
It seems almost to be an unfortunate coincidence, placing a greater onus on us, now that we are preparing to debate the proposal and the timeliness of whether or not to reopen the Mont Blanc tunnel.
As I shall say later, I have no doubts on the matter, but there are many considerations I must air before I make this statement.
First of all, the St Gotthard accident is directly connected with the one in the Mont Blanc tunnel, where, as everyone will remember, 39 people lost their lives on 24 March 1999, but there is an even more direct link than just the similarity between the two accidents, which it is only right to recall.
It is a link of cause and effect: it seems clear to everybody that the mass of traffic that the Mont Blanc has not been able to cater for during the two and a half years or so since it closed has inevitably shifted to other Alpine passes, starting with the St Gotthard itself, which in turn is now closed, and then the Brenner and the Tarvisio and the whole Alpine arc, which, in short, has absorbed the surplus traffic that used to go through the Mont Blanc tunnel before it was closed.
It is clear, therefore, that the cause of the accident can be quite easily identified and predicted, given the situation. Alongside the negative effect of the accidents, however, there is, of course, another negative effect, which is the impact on the environment.
Heavy vehicles, especially those crossing an Alpine pass, certainly have an environmental cost that nobody would want to pay.
Quite rightly, therefore, people have started discussing the subject of the Mont Blanc tunnel, particularly in the last couple of days, and proposals have been made to try to prevent the tunnel from reopening and thus protect the land around it.
I must say that I totally disagree with this proposal, although I understand the legitimate aspirations of those living in a particular area to protect their environment.
This proposal, however, not only contravenes the Treaty - in that it would violate a fundamental principle, that of the free movement of goods, persons and so on - but I would say it is also an ethical violation. By closing the Mont Blanc tunnel or keeping it closed, one is in fact just shifting an ecological problem from one part of the Alps to another; we would just be shifting the problem from the Mont Blanc region to the Fréjus region, to Switzerland, and to the Brenner and Tarvisio routes, as I said before, which does not seem right to me.
I ask those who advocate this solution: what kind of proposal is this? What has become of the spirit of Alpine solidarity?
What has become of the feeling of belonging to the Community, to the European Union? On the other hand, as the Commissioner has also reminded us, the opening of the Mont Blanc tunnel will certainly be accompanied by special safety arrangements.
It goes without saying that, in addition to the environmental damage, there is also the economic damage that we have a duty to consider here: during the two and a half years that it has been closed, it has been calculated that Italy alone has lost EUR 1 500 million, and the Val d' Aosta region will have seen its own regional gross domestic product fall by 10 %.
France, too, has probably had losses comparable to these: perhaps Mrs Grossetête will tell us, as I know she is to speak afterwards and she lives in that part of the world.
We must not be ashamed to talk about the economic aspect as well, since the Mont Blanc tunnel, like all passes through the Alps, responds to demands which are not solely economic but may be expressed in economic terms, and which need to be met to enable the various nations, citizens and groups operating in the fields of industry, trade and tourism to carry on their activities.
All this serves not only the countries on either side of the border but also and especially more distant countries - I am thinking of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany - whose traffic inevitably has to cross the Alps, which are today almost closed off and practically impassable.
It is also clear that the Italian and the French authorities have, at last, found a common language in which to propose solutionsand have invested almost EUR 300 million, the burden being shared equally by the two countries, to ensure safety.
It is said that once this tunnel has been restored - which I hope will be very soon - it will be the safest in the world, with features that I will not repeat now because they have already been mentioned by the Commissioner himself.
Now we need to take one further step: to speed up the bureaucratic and technical process to complete the Munich-Verona link, which means the Brenner tunnel, and the Lyon-Turin link, which means the Fréjus tunnel.
These are priority projects.
I shall end, Mr President, by reminding the House that there is a new proposal that might help: the Aosta-Martigny rail link, which starts in Milan, is not one of the European priorities but could be included if France and Italy take the matter up.
By the way, I shall close with some news: tomorrow the Italian Minister, Mr Lunardi, and his French counterpart, Mr Gayssot, will be meeting to agree on a date to reopen the Mont Blanc tunnel, which I hope will be very, very soon.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the opening of the Mont Blanc Tunnel is a European event, a happy European event, just as the accident in the St. Gotthard Tunnel is a tragic, sad European event.
Transport knows no borders.
It makes no difference whether you are a member of the European Union or not.
We need transport that connects the regions of Europe, but we also need transport that respects the environment.
I believe the Commission' s approach is correct in seeing the question of tunnel safety in the overall context not only of transport policy but also of environmental policy.
The Commissioner mentioned, for example, the transport protocol to the Alpine Convention.
I just wonder - the Council is not here - where the ministers are who signed it because it is high time the governments took action here.
Secondly, the Commissioner spoke of a shift from road to rail, where that is possible and worthwhile.
Here, too, a number of European governments - the Austrian government among them - have been slow in putting that into effect.
The plans are good.
But the financial resources must also be made available if the measures in question are to be taken.
I also know that in many countries the railways have the capacity to carry more freight than they do at present.
The White Paper that was mentioned and which the Vice-President of the Commission has presented, is a very positive and important step in the restructuring of transport policy.
Our Group strongly supports it and I hope that the announced presentation of the amendment to the Euro-toll disc directive and the infrastructure costs directive will not be delayed, and that we shall be able to discuss the Euro-toll disc revision very soon.
Finally, there has been a lot of talk recently of a fast-track procedure.
We have talked about it a great deal and very often, and this is a subject where we really could introduce a fast-track.
I am sure it is right that it is not only a question of overriding transport policy but also of the level of safety.
We welcome the Commission' s intention of prescribing safety standards here because if the tunnels we travel in are unsafe we are all affected.
A number of things have been mentioned.
I would like to add that the question of working hours is particularly important for lorry drivers, as is the matter of controls, because it does not matter how good the rules are that we adopt if these things are not enforced.
This, too, is a matter for the individual countries to act on.
My Group and I are quite clear in our own minds that this is not about pitting one country against another.
France, Italy, Germany, Austria and all the other countries of the EU have a right to the free movement of goods. But the people who live in the Alpine regions also have a right to a healthy environment.
Some people may laugh or smile at the fact that the UN has designated next year the year of mountains.
However, it really is high time special attention were paid to the environmental situation, in the Alps and the Pyrenees in particular.
Now, Mr President and Mr Commissioner, I must ask to be excused.
I am going to be rude and leave the room now because I am going to Romania on Parliament' s behalf.
But we nevertheless endorse these principles of a really environmentally-friendly transport policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted this debate is happening at last.
As the Member for the Val d' Aosta, I have been calling for a moment' s reflection in this House for many months, because I believe these issues should be resolved through institutional channels, this is the true alternative to futile protests.
It is sad that this should happen on the day after the accident in the St Gotthard tunnel, which used to be referred to as one of the safest of tunnels, and, what is more, in Switzerland, which is the only European country - not yet part of the European Union - that has truly embarked on a policy of transferring freight from road to rail.
Mont Blanc has always been a symbol: it has been the symbol of mountaineering and also the symbol of road transport, with this tunnel built in the 1960s, which for many years was the most important tunnel in the Alps.
Nobody could ever have imagined that we would see such intense growth in road transport, and I must say that 24 March 1999 was, for those who saw it, like me, a tragic day: the sight inside the tunnel was truly appalling.
I believe that all these events should serve to make it clear that extreme positions on both sides are useless. The extremist approach adopted by those who say 'stop the HGVs' is unrealistic.
It offloads HGVs onto someone else and proposes a utopian world without transport and without mobility; naturally, however, we must also say no to those who call for 'unlimited transport for all: the economy needs it.'
I believe this is an unsustainable position for mountain peoples like those in the Val d' Aosta, whom I represent, just as a pretence at a setting a limit would also be unsustainable.
In fact, we are asking for a daily ceiling on HGV numbers - a genuinely effective serious limit.
On the eve of this meeting, Società Autostrade, the motorway operator, told us that, according to the tunnel calculations, traffic will be 30 per cent lower than before the tragedy.
I do not know if this will suffice, but I must say that the right approach is in the White Paper, the Alpine Convention transport protocol and the Swiss model. Under the swiss model, it was decided to agree to HGVs if they pay a tax and to invest the revenue, together with other capital, in rail tunnels.
We want rail tunnels: we want the Turin-Lyon tunnel; we also want the Aosta-Martigny tunnel, this rail project that may acquire vital, decisive importance.
In the meantime, however, we want real, serious limits for the sake of safety and the environment.
Mr President, Commissioner, the St Gotthard disaster, which has caused many victims, incontrovertibly belies the arguments that prevailed in Mr Gayssot' s decision to reopen the Mont-Blanc tunnel.
We cannot limit ourselves to lamenting the victims.
We must finally take action to definitively stop this flood of disasters and we have good reasons for demanding this in Parliament.
From the environmental point of view, reopening the Mont-Blanc tunnel goes against the commitments given by the European Union and its Member States on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
What is the point of our voting in favour of sustainable transport and switching from road to rail if, at the first opportunity to show determination to reverse the 'everything by road' trend, this option is removed?
In the two years of work on the tunnel, rail freight transport has not increased. It has remained static at 10.5 million tonnes per year, whereas additional rail capacity does exist and the 13.5 million tonnes that transit every year through the Mont-Blanc tunnel could have been absorbed by rail if capacity had been doubled for transit through Mont-Cenis, through the link that runs south of Lake Geneva and through the Dijon-Valorme link.
It is incomprehensible that this rail solution should have been ignored, since it represents a transit capacity of up to 20 million tonnes per year via trans-Alpine routes.
I should like the Commissioner to take note of this point, because I am giving him very practical proposals.
It seems, however, that he is not interested.
I would, therefore, like to say to him that we completely disagree with his analysis of the safety of the Mont-Blanc tunnel.
This is another reason why we do not accept that it should be reopened.
The EUR 200 million' s worth of work that has been undertaken, without an impact assessment or a public inquiry, does not meet the highest safety requirements.
The tunnel is still a narrow (seven metres wide) single-direction tube that has no tarmac-covered and, therefore, fire-resistant surface, central escape hatch or parallel evacuation tunnel.
The old ventilation duct will be used for evacuation.
Safety must be of primary importance for all forms of transport and not only, as you stated, for air transport.
The Commission must, therefore, reject the reopening of the Mont-Blanc tunnel and accept the proposals that the Commissioner has ignored, but which are perfectly appropriate alternative proposals, which seek to use the railways for transit through the Alps.
Mr President, this debate comes just a few hours after another terrible tragedy in the St Gotthard tunnel, with ten people known to have died and eighty missing, according to the latest news.
This tunnel has the same specification as the tunnel rebuilt under Mont Blanc: substantially the same technical specification as regards safety, with the same carriageway width of about seven metres, or even worse, in that the Mont Blanc tunnel has no parallel service tunnel.
Having heard the Commissioner, I have come to the following conclusion: more disasters will have to happen in order finally to persuade the European Commission to give up its policy of White Papers, which no longer apply, and the associated illusion that technology can solve any problem, and make it realise that a 40-tonne lorry in a seven-metre-wide tunnel is a lethal weapon.
Commissioner, we must ask the governments involved to delay the reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel so that we can seriously reconsider what kinds of vehicles should be allowed to use it.
We must say no to large HGVs; we should place a strict limit on the number of HGVs that can go through each day and we should ban dangerous loads.
This is the only way we can prevent further disasters.
Mr President, the events of yesterday morning have, unfortunately, plunged us once again into the Mont-Blanc tunnel disaster and this debate that we are having today has become more topical than ever.
I totally agree with Mr Santini when he says that closing a link such as a tunnel beneath the Alps causes real economic problems, and I fully understand this, but nor do I feel that we can call for it to be reopened unless all safety guarantees are met.
Furthermore, even today we still do not know the real causes of the accidents that take place in these tunnels, any more than we know what guarantees we may be given that they will not happen again.
I am sorry first of all that the Council is not present to hear this debate, even though the Commissioner made it quite clear that this concerns a principle of subsidiarity.
I am sorry that the Council is not here to say what it intends to do within the framework of a land-use planning policy.
We are never given answers to our questions on the real trans-European networks, be they railways or roads.
Incidentally, Mr President, Commissioner, I should like us to jointly put pressure on the Council to give us answers.
We cannot keep on asking the same questions, when terrible accidents unfortunately occur, which are still unanswered two or three years later.
I would, therefore, say that it is now crucial that we question the Council and that we should have a real land-use planning policy that takes account of the railways and which plans the trans-European road networks so that such disasters cannot happen again.
Mr President, allow me to add my condolences to those expressed to the families of the victims and the citizens of Switzerland in general for yesterday' s terrible accident in the St Gotthard tunnel.
Road tunnel accidents have been on the increase in recent months, and this makes it particularly urgent for safety measures not to be delayed any further with White Papers and vague proposals.
The reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel, already well behind the schedule agreed on by the Italian and French Governments in January 2001, must take place within the framework of a number of conditions to ensure traffic safety and reduce environmental problems to a minimum.
In concrete terms, it is a matter of putting into operation traffic control mechanisms inside the tunnel, so that, with the application of new technologies and the constant presence of surveillance personnel, any accident will be picked up straight away.
Traffic must also be regulated to prevent too many heavy goods vehicles being in the tunnel at the same time; such vehicles could be allowed through in only one direction at a time, for instance, and there could be tighter speed limits and other similar measures.
A definitive list should be drawn up of goods banned from being transported through the tunnel, and, in this respect, let us remember that the St Gotthard incident would not have been so serious if one of the HGVs had not been carrying material as flammable as tyres.
We should also adopt any other provisions that will help distribute commercial vehicle journeys evenly among the all-too-few road tunnels linking Italy to Europe.
We will only find a solution to the many problems posed by road tunnels if, of course, there is a definite shift of freight from road to rail, and it is in this direction that the Union should be directing its efforts.
Such a shift, however, is a process that takes time, and so it seems rather unrealistic for those people, who are without doubt moved by the best environmentalist intentions - which we all share - to call today for the total closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel to commercial traffic.
It should be noted that in Italy, at least, those same people are also protesting at the building of a new, faster high-speed railway line between Turin and Lyon, designed precisely to help distribute goods transport more evenly, which just shows how contradictory or even absurd such positions, held by certain Italian political groups, can be.
While, therefore, we share the environmental concern to protect the alpine environment of the Val d' Aosta, we must not fail to take into account the economic interests - including jobs - that the tunnel implies, particularly for the valley itself and also for Italy as a whole.
These legitimate interests are in fact reflected in surveys carried out in the valley, according to which the great majority of the citizens want the tunnel to reopen.
What we ask is for the tunnel to be reopened with the safety measures mentioned above implemented, and, at the same time, for there to be a decisive international initiative to develop a new rail infrastructure, including, in particular, the new Turin-Lyon line, improved commercial traffic handling on the Turin-Bardonecchia-Amberieu line, and the widening of the Col di Tenda tunnel and the Aosta-Martigny tunnel.
We call on the Italy-France intergovernmental commission, set up under the January 2001 declaration, to report to the European Parliament on all this as soon as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, so despite the proven risks, despite the hostility of the communities of the valleys, it has been decided to reopen the Mont Blanc tunnel to heavy goods vehicles, deliberately sacrificing the alternative of rail transport.
The Maurienne valley, the Fréjus tunnel, the valleys of Briançon, the Mont Genèvre pass and the Chamonix valley deserve a better fate than being merely HGV fodder', as the Savoy League put it.
Alas, it seems that the road transport lobbies come before the health of the inhabitants, the safety of travellers or respect for sites of outstanding beauty.
What have the countries concerned done since March 1999 to replace road with rail? Not a thing.
Between the first half of 2000 and the first half of 2001, rail freight between Italy and France fell by 8% and combined transport by 10%.
In face of such lack of foresight, I can only support the request from the Savoy League for an independent international agency - which could be the Commission - to draw up a report on the Alpine passes between France and Italy and for, in the meantime, the Alpine tunnels to be reserved for tourist traffic and regional and inter-valley traffic, with strict limits on size and tonnage.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in 1999 we had the Mont Blanc tunnel disaster.
Yesterday, we had another tragedy, in the St Gotthard tunnel. This chapter of disasters is certainly not coincidental, it is the human price we pay for basing our goods transport system on HGV transport and pursuing the maximum profit, which creates terrible risks.
Since the Mont Blanc tunnel was closed, the Maurienne valley has had to absorb the weight of all the traffic and is suffocating as a result.
The St Gotthard tragedy will lead to even more re-routed traffic for the valley to absorb.
Even in normal times there are not enough crossing points.
So we need to tackle the problem of transit transport. We have to look for global solutions.
In this context, reopening the Mont Blanc tunnel would mean ensuring that the correct distances between vehicles are observed, that road traffic is regulated, that partial traffic bans are observed, that ceilings on lorry numbers are imposed and observed, that the limits laid down for lorry-drivers' working hours are observed and that safety rules are continuously monitored.
Finally, it would mean undertaking to develop 'piggybacking' and making immediate use of the existing transverse lines, which are under-used.
We urgently need to review the entire policy of goods transport in Europe.
The Union must finance adequate investment to that end.
I think that in sensitive areas we should give up road goods transport, which means that, as of now, we have to mobilise the necessary resources for speeding up the development of piggybacking.
The European Union must now show the political courage to make new and bold choices.
Thank you.
Mr President, the recent tragic accidents have again made us all aware that we have a lot of catching up to do in road transport in particular, especially when it comes to developing infrastructures for intermodal transport systems. I do not want to prolong the debate unnecessarily, but I would like to ask a very open question.
Which way will the traffic go if the Mont Blanc Tunnel, the St Gotthard Tunnel and the St Bernard Tunnel are closed? I am very much afraid - and that fear is shared by the population of Austria and the population all along the Alps - that the traffic will then go over the Brenner Pass and that we will have major problems in that highly sensitive region of the Alps, problems that will affect not only North and South Tyrol but also Trentino.
I therefore implore you to be really forward looking in tackling this issue because it is not only a matter of road safety but of the environment in which many people live.
Mr President, I was told I had three minutes' speaking time but no matter.
I would like to say briefly, now that another accident has occurred in the St Gotthard tunnel, that I think there is a difference between learning lessons from that accident and exploiting its emotional charge for political ends.
If we use the deaths in the St Gotthard tunnel, which, of course, we all deplore, as a pretext for saying that we must not reopen the Mont Blanc tunnel, then we should also close the Fréjus tunnel, the Arlberg tunnel and the Brenner Pass. In fact, we should close every Alpine tunnel that presents the same accident risks.
Clearly, that would totally paralyse southern Europe because, quite simply, we no longer have a choice today.
As everybody here knows, the railways are not ready either institutionally, technically or economically to take over from the roads.
Therefore, it seems to me that we have to take two kinds of measures, short term and long term.
In the short term, we must make the tunnels safer and take urgent measures, whether in Mont Blanc, where this has now been done, or in other tunnels, to regulate the traffic, ensure that no hazardous materials are carried through, strengthen the security, safety and intervention systems and speed up the adoption of a European directive on tunnel safety.
This is much talked about but it has not yet materialised, so we must put it on the agenda very soon.
That aside, like everyone else here I believe that, in the long term, we should quite simply be able to ban, once and for all, heavy goods vehicles in tunnels because they are, in fact, the most dangerous vehicles, but that assumes that alternatives exist, and the Commission has, indeed, presented them in its White Paper. There are other projects too that need to be speeded up, including, in the case of the Alps, the two rail tunnels, the one between Lyon and Turin and the Brenner tunnel; there are similar projects in the Pyrenees, where the traffic situation is even more serious, although this is never mentioned.
I believe we must also assume our responsibility here and speak out.
For my part, I feel we are still far from doing so.
The Commission has produced an excellent White Paper; it is very good at laying down requirements, but it has not as yet paid out enough to enable us to make the transition to rail in the very short term. We therefore need to allocate far, far greater resources to improving rail capacity.
Let me finish by saying that public opinion is now concerning itself with transport policy - which is a good thing - and as a result, it is no longer a matter just for the specialists, for the large State bodies.
It means we will all be judged by whether we can implement rapid solutions, not just the politicians but also the railwaymen and the hauliers.
Let me conclude by saying that I also hope we will not confine ourselves to imposing constraints while rejecting all the solutions. In regard to north-south transport, I think we should also look again at adapting the Rhine-Rhone canal to heavy goods transport.
We cannot say that we have to put a stop to road transport while, at the same time, rejecting transport by river and inland waterway which would relieve much of the pressure on the roads.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking you for your contributions to this debate; they were all very constructive and sought to find a solution to this very grave problem.
On the quite specific question of signing the Alpine Convention, the Commission will endeavour to get the Council to sign during the course of the Belgian Presidency.
On the other hand, the primary concern is naturally for safety.
I do not think it will work if we now quite simply push all safety matters up to the European level.
Everyone must see to it in the areas for which he or she is responsible.
The national authorities must do that just as much as we have to fulfil our own responsibilities, but we cannot take over the responsibilities of the national authorities.
So the fact is that the question of reopening and the question of safety standards must be settled primarily by the French and Italian authorities.
There is a procedure for that.
That procedure has been completed and we have the result.
If those authorities come to the conclusion that reopening is justified, then that is what must happen.
On the other hand, we must also be clear at European level that we can only act within the framework of our own competencies.
The fact is, too, that the very White Paper that my colleague Mrs de Palacio has presented, is intended first of all to clarify those competencies and secondly also to see that traffic becomes even safer and also that the environmental effects of traffic are kept in check so that there is no further damage to the particularly sensitive areas of the European Union.
Regarding the question of the Euro-toll disc regulation, as I said, we shall be submitting a draft for it in 2002.
In this connection we shall also be considering whether it is necessary to create some kind of transitional arrangement for the transit agreement with the Republic of Austria.
Essentially, this depends on how quickly our Member States and the European Parliament can agree on the contents of the White Paper.
It will not be possible to actually implement these things until we are in a position to create a new, improved infrastructure costs directive and adopt the other parts of the White Paper.
We therefore have the answer to the question.
The Commission has no way - no legal way in particular - of preventing the opening of the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
But I am very much in favour of an appropriately intensive debate on the new White Paper so that definite decisions can be taken as soon as possible.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the end of the Commission statement on the reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel earlier than expected.
The following report, by Mr Lannoye, is set for debate at 4.00 p.m., and this time cannot be changed.
This being the case, we have no choice but to suspend the sitting and resume at the previously fixed time.
(The sitting was suspended at 3.46 p.m. and resumed at 4.00 p.m.)
Fisheries and poverty reduction
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0334/2001) by Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Commission communication on fisheries and poverty reduction [COM(2000) 724 - C5-0071/2001 - 2001/2032(COS)].
Mr President, this communication from the Commission deals with a key issue for the developing countries: how can the fisheries policy conducted by these countries help reduce poverty?
I will now present the resolution adopted by the Committee on Development and Cooperation under a special procedure - the Hughes procedure - which means the Committee on Fisheries was closely involved in drawing up the report. Let me also point out that the resolution fully endorses the opinion delivered by the Committee on Fisheries.
In the report and the resolution, we start from two key premises. Firstly, in the developing countries, the respective contribution of the coastal communities to food security and employment make this sector a major factor of sustainable development and poverty reduction in these regions.
Secondly, and unfortunately on a less positive note, we find a constant depletion of fish resources in these developing countries' fishing zones.
In the context of fisheries relations between the European Union and the developing countries, the Committee on Development believes that we need to encourage observance of the principles of the FAO's Code of Conduct for Responsible Fishing.
Let me remind you of the main points of this code: application of the precautionary principle in resource management, giving priority to the needs of coastal communities in the developing countries and, in particular, those engaged in small-scale fishing, active participation by those directly concerned, namely the local communities, and, finally, cooperation at sub-regional, regional and global level in promoting the conservation and management of resources.
To that end, the Committee on Development proposes a range of strategic measures focused on the need to ensure coherence between the European Union's sectoral policies and its development policy.
I am thinking, of course, mainly of fisheries policy but also of regional policy.
The first proposal set out in the resolution is that EU development policy must pay greater attention to the developing countries' fishing industry by drawing up country-specific cooperation strategy documents resulting from the political dialogue between the European Union and the country concerned.
The second is that account must be taken of the need to improve the living conditions of coastal communities in the context of the various priority intervention areas defined within this cooperation strategy.
Thirdly, we must apply specific mechanisms to reinforce the organisations representing the small-scale fishing industry, and in particular in the area of processing fisheries products.
I am thinking here of women's organisations, which are extremely important in the developing countries and have relatively few operating resources.
Fourthly, in the context of the fisheries agreements, abiding by the precautionary principle means carrying out prior scientific assessments of available resources; if there are any doubts, this precautionary principle must indeed be applied, meaning we must take the lowest hypothesis as the basis.
Fifthly, it is important for the European Union to support surveillance and monitoring programmes in the developing countries' exclusive economic zones.
We are all aware that some of these countries do not have the necessary technical means to do so.
That is why it is important for the European Union to make its contribution, so as to avoid over-fishing and the poaching activities of certain vessels.
In that spirit we must also help these countries combat flags of convenience and other vessels which fish illegally in their exclusive economic zones.
Finally, our resolution calls on the Council to amend FIFG, so as to put a stop to grants of subsidies to Community ship-owners for transfers to flags of convenience.
I have not gone into every aspect, but I am sure my colleague, Mr Varela, in the Committee on Fisheries, will be happy to present the particular points his committee has proposed.
.
(ES) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Fisheries has unanimously approved the report for which I was rapporteur and that today is included in the Lannoye report.
I requested the Hughes procedure, because the matter has a profound effect on both fisheries and development cooperation.
I sincerely believe that we in the Committee on Fisheries have significantly improved the original draft of the Lannoye report.
We have contributed to focusing and balancing the hitherto exclusive point of view of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and particularly the opinions of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, that were held on this matter.
International fisheries agreements are not harmful to fishing, to the European Union, or to third countries, as is sometimes claimed.
On the contrary, they are beneficial to all.
We should try to ensure that this mutual benefit is enjoyed by all those concerned, and this cannot be achieved only by means of the CFP.
The development cooperation policy should become more involved, with more economic, financial and technical measures, as requested by our report and as shown in the information given in the explanatory statement.
International fisheries agreements are trade agreements as the Council of the European Union acknowledged, even though they are dedicating more and more of their own funds to cooperation, yet they are of fundamental importance to cover the deficit in the supply of fish in the European Union and for jobs in Europe' s Objective 1 regions that we must also treat as a priority.
Employment and economic and social cohesion in Europe are fundamental political principles of our Union.
Are we keen to preserve the resources of third countries? Of course.
Is anyone more conservation-minded than the European Union? Would other foreign fishing powers, in Asia, for example, which would take our place if we left them to it, have more respect for these resources?
Of course not.
I think that the criticisms voiced in the Lannoye report on the agreements with Mauritania and Senegal are completely unfounded.
I also disagree with the regional approach that is proposed, because international fisheries agreements apply to exclusive economic zones that are come under the sovereignty of third countries, and each State is sovereign and has different political and economic interests.
Multilateral cooperation in international waters would be another matter altogether.
I think, Mr President, that our Parliament has taken a positive step forwards.
We would still ask the Commission to coordinate its cooperation and fishing competences.
Parliament has set an example by coordinating our two committees and I think that this is right way to defend European interests, combining principles that we all advocate, such as the conservation of mankind' s natural resources and the eradication of poverty in the Third World, which requires development cooperation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as we all know, reconciling various Community policies is a task that is necessary, but not always easy.
To put it simply, when we are involved in the fight against world poverty, our work is not only important: it is crucial.
Fish are a universally scarce resource.
For the coastal communities of the poorest countries that live exclusively from fishing, it is a precious resource on which their very survival depends.
We are, therefore, very pleased with the Commission statement on fisheries and poverty reduction and endorse Mr Lannoye' s report, both of which provide an intelligent definition of principles and suggest options that will enable us to reconcile supply for the Community market with the catching, processing and marketing of fish from the countries with which we have fisheries agreements.
There is a wise Chinese proverb, which teaches that acting responsibly involves 'not giving a man a fish but teaching him how to fish' . This proverb is also applicable here, but with some changes because the fish we catch in other waters belong, first of all, to other countries.
Promoting scientific research into resources and the equal sharing of this knowledge with developing countries, aid for the organisation of local communities that depend on fishing, improving and promoting mechanisms for regional cooperation and support for fighting against flags of convenience and illegal fishing are, therefore, only some of the measures that show that the course of action now being proposed is the right one for us to take together.
Mr President, on many occasions I, like many other of my fellow members, have lamented the lack of coordination between different Community policies and between the various Directorates-General of the Commission.
I could even say the same for the Parliamentary Committees in this House.
There would be no contradictions between the common fisheries policy (CFP) and the development cooperation policy if Community instruments - the budget, to be precise - were more transparent.
The European Union funds cooperation in fisheries with these countries in two different ways: international fisheries agreements and projects funded by the European Development Fund.
An increasingly large proportion of financial compensation from the agreements is for this purpose - with regard to Madagascar, for example, it is 62% - which is not, of course, the ideal situation, given that the CFP is being asked to fund actions or compensations that have nothing to do with its real objectives.
Those who say that the Community does not help the fisheries sector of developing countries are wrong.
In response to a question I asked recently, Commissioner Nielson informed me that the Community had undertaken, with funding of EUR 421 million from the European Development Fund, 334 programmes, projects or actions to support the fisheries sector in these countries.
I would remind you that the largest current fisheries agreement, the agreement with Mauritania, involves around EUR 80 million per year.
I think that nothing could be of more use to the progress of developing countries than mutual trade with the European Union.
Fisheries agreements allow them to obtain financial resources in return for giving the Community fleet fishing rights on various perishable resources whose capture, processing and marketing, require specialist companies and methods that these countries do not have themselves.
In the same way that it would be absurd for us to oppose these countries' exporting their agricultural products to Europe, it would be appalling if we were to deny them the opportunity of selling their surplus fish supplies at international prices.
This ill-informed approach to development cooperation would lead us to prevent developing countries from exporting their mining products to us, or to ask European energy companies to abandon these countries so that local companies can carry out operations, or to not pay Gabon or Nigeria the international price for a barrel of oil.
Lastly, it is worth pointing out that the fishing grounds where the Community fleet operate are in international waters that do not belong to any one country, but are in Exclusive Economic Zones, according to the International Law of the Sea Treaty, that obliges all countries to leave the surplus resources from these zones that they cannot exploit themselves for other countries to use.
This should take place within the framework of the sustainable management of resources, which is what the CFP is designed to achieve.
The fishing carried out by the Community fleet that operates in these waters is compatible with the local small-scale fleet, which maintains the monopoly within a 12-mile zone.
An interesting project for all those involved would be to help those countries to better manage this zone where spawning takes place and where the highest concentration of young fish is to be found.
I congratulate Mr Lannoye on his excellent report and I ask everyone here to continue working on this cooperative approach.
Mr President, poor, small fishermen are missing out because there are too many big rich fishermen.
The European Union is suffering from severe excess capacity in the fishing industry, and is solving this problem by shifting some of the production to developing countries.
Instead of modernising the fisheries sector, more than EUR 1 billion of government money is being spent on doing so every year.
Naturally, the governments of poor countries are delighted to receive large sums of money for allowing large-scale fishing in their waters.
However, it is better to facilitate the development of the indigenous fishing industry in economically weak countries than it is to let local fishermen bob about in their boats while the enormous proceeds from the catches are credited to the accounts of big European ship-owners.
The precise consequences for fish stocks and the environment are unfortunately still unknown.
However, it is certain that small, local operations will not be able to compete without subsidies or state support, and will thus continue to suffer a marginal existence.
The Spanish and Portuguese fleets in particular will have to be curtailed in the foreseeable future.
Furthermore, there must be much stricter supervision of the way in which the developing countries spend their compensation payments.
This spending must fit in with the policy of targeted poverty reduction.
Local fisheries must also be involved in the spending to a much greater extent.
The European fisheries policy must be brought much more closely in line with European development policy.
The European Union must systematically provide technical assistance for transferring knowledge about fisheries resources to developing countries.
Most importantly, the poor countries must gain the know-how, the capacity and the investment they need in order to be able to fish in their own waters in a responsible way.
In the longer term we must move away from these fishing agreements, which maintain redundant European fishermen but which cause developing countries to miss out.
Mr President, a debate on fishing and poverty is not simple.
And, since the rapporteur belongs to the Group of the Greens, Mr Lannoye' s efforts towards synthesis are all the more creditable.
Poverty is the world' s main problem today and it unfortunately will continue to be so for many years.
For some of the poorest countries in the world, fishing is one of their main resources; in fact, for many of them, it is their only economic resource.
Mozambique receives 75% of its total income from the export of crustaceans, and this is a perfect example of a model of sustainable development.
The rapporteur, Mr Lannoye, should be credited with proposing a realistic text, which retains a laudable dose of utopianism.
I must say that the Commission' s proposal is coherent with the objective of responding to European interests, while making it compatible with a frame of reference for the development of countries for which fishing is an essential resource in their fight against poverty.
I have mentioned the case of Mozambique, but it would be unfair not to say that there are other very positive aspects to this African country' s efforts to move forward, and there are other African countries which are acting well in relation to fishing, such as Namibia, to give but one example.
It seems pertinent to insist on the need for the Union to be especially careful in complying with the code of conduct for responsible fishing, to which we are committed as members of the FAO.
We must wait for the authorities of the developing countries to make the same effort.
It is true that certain practices - as Mr Lannoye has mentioned - in certain specific cases of Community operators are unacceptable, but it is also the case that, sometimes, these practices would not be possible without the cooperation of the local operators involved.
This problem is serious and complex and I therefore repeat that the efforts of the Commission and the rapporteur are creditable in that they offer us a balanced approach to it.
Mr President, at a meeting a few days ago of Portuguese and Spanish Socialists in Santiago de Compostela, we said that European Union policies must always be judged in terms of the added value they contribute in the field of social cohesion.
We thereby insisted that our Union must be, amongst other things but, for us, essentially, a great framework for intra-European solidarity.
Naturally, this approach also goes for the actions of the united Europe in its relations with other countries, in particular the developing countries.
So the policies of the European Union relating to these countries must also be judged in terms of the added value they contribute in relation to social cohesion, in other words, in terms of their contribution to progress towards a more balanced world with fewer inequalities.
Therefore, while agreeing with the excellent and - in my opinion - not utopian report by Mr Lannoye, and speaking for the Parliament' s Committee on Development and Cooperation, we Socialists believe that we must take this criterion into account in assessing our fisheries policies and the agreements with third countries which make up these policies.
I will not say that these agreements must be seen fundamentally as instruments of our development cooperation policy.
We understand that there are other legitimate objectives, including the defence of the interests of the fisheries sectors in the Member States of the Union.
But we would say that this fisheries policy must not contradict what we do in the field of cooperation and, above all, it must not contradict, either in the immediate, medium or long terms, the priority strategic objective we have set in the field of development cooperation, that is, the eradication of poverty in the countries of the South.
In summary, we aspire to a fisheries policy which is coherent with what we are doing in relation to development cooperation.
A fisheries policy which, at least as a collateral effect, contributes to the eradication of poverty in the countries with which we sign agreements so that we may fish in their waters.
As well as respecting our partners and their rights as owners of those waters, we must learn the necessary lessons from our experience, which led us to exhaust the fish stocks off our coasts.
It would be intolerable to repeat the same mistake in the fishing grounds of people for whom fishing may provide resources which are important for their own future.
This respect and coherence with our goal of sustainable development for all must prevent egotistical and conceited actions by us, and by others who, equally irresponsible, through fishing activity in the third world, brought to reality the Spanish saying which says that we 'brought these people bread for today and hunger for tomorrow' .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, fishing is an activity that mankind has practised throughout history, but it has never been a great source of wealth, as demonstrated by the fact that the Neolithic revolution was achieved through agriculture and not through fishing.
Although the European Union' s fishermen currently enjoy a degree of protection and guarantees that offer them an acceptable standard of living, albeit lower than that of many other workers, the same cannot be said, unfortunately, of the fishermen and fishing communities to be found throughout the developing countries.
For these reasons, the Commission communication should be welcomed, praised and supported, since it contains a clearly humanist approach that is enlarged upon in Mr Lannoye' s report. This acknowledges that fishing is an essential activity for many developing countries, but is threatened with extinction because resources are scarce and pressure on the various species is increasing.
The fisheries agreements that the European Union concludes with third countries are essential to the survival of activities and cultures that are an integral part of the history and identity of many European countries.
Nevertheless, these agreements cannot ignore and fail to respond to their impact on the vulnerable economies of the world' s poorer countries and regions.
We therefore need to reconcile the legitimate interests of Community fishermen and consumers with the interests of poor communities in developing countries and with the preservation of fish stocks that are often devastated by an irrational method of fishing, that is also carried out under flags of convenience.
In conclusion, the golden rule in this field must be to integrate the external requirements of the common fisheries policy into the overall policy of support for development already embarked on by the European Union.
Lastly, I should like to express my support for the excellent work by Mr Lannoye, which shares, as I have already said, the Commission' s inspiration and contains extremely constructive and fair proposals to which we must give our support.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place this afternoon at 6.30 p.m.
Community fisheries (1997-2001)
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0316/2001) by Mrs Attwooll, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a
1.
Council decision amending Council Decision 97/413/EC concerning the objectives and detailed rules for restructuring the Community fisheries sector for the period from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2001 with a view to achieving a balance on a sustainable basis between resources and their exploitation (COM(2001) 322 - C5-0308/2001 - 2001/0128(CNS));
2.
Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2792/1999 laying down the detailed rules and arrangements regarding Community structural assistance in the fisheries sector (COM(2001) 322 - C5-0309/2001 - 2001/0129(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, the Committee on Fisheries accepts that in extending the rules concerning restructuring and structural assistance in the fisheries sector for one year, changes need to be made in the pilot reduction rates in order to maintain current levels.
It welcomes the tightening up of provisions concerning the transfer of fishing vessels to third countries.
Amendment No 6 to Article 1(3) asked the Commission to produce a list specifying which transfers are permissible and which are not.
We hope it will be acceptable to them.
The committee also welcomes the possibility of financial assistance being made available where any Community legislation imposes technical restrictions, but feels that Parliament should be kept informed of such cases - that is Amendment No 10.
From this point, the Committee on Fisheries has difficulties with the Commission proposal in that it goes beyond an extension of the rules to making three substantive changes to them.
These are: removing the possibility of an increase in capacity on safety grounds; allowing financial assistance for fleet modernisation and renewal only where objectives have been met purely by reduction in capacity; and allowing such financial assistance to any segment of the fleet only where every segment of the fleet has met its objectives.
In voting the report, the Committee on Fisheries rejected each of these three changes.
The motivation was mixed, relating both to the desirability of the changes themselves and the desirability of making them in the course of a one-year extension of the programme.
For example, both the Committee on Fisheries and the Committee on Legal Affairs took the view that requiring every segment of the fleet to have reached its objectives before any segment could benefit from financial assistance ran counter to the principles of natural justice.
Similarly, the proposal that financial assistance could be given only where objectives had been met purely by a reduction in capacity seemed unfair to those fleets where capacity and activity reductions had been combined. There are also doubts about making such a change in circumstances where there is increasing agreement that a variety of measures are needed to reduce fishing effort.
Amendments Nos 4, 7, 8 and 9 are intended to maintain the status quo in relation to both these requests.
The most difficult point has concerned the removal of the possibility of capacity increases on safety grounds.
The Committee on Fisheries is highly committed to fishing safety.
There is serious concern that shipowners simply will not make safety improvements unless they are given additional capacity for this.
It was also argued that abuses of the provision should be prevented by proper controls and that such a change, if to be made at all, would be more properly done in the reform of the CFP as a whole.
It is largely on the capacity issue that I part company with a number of my fellow committee members.
Of course, we must find ways of ensuring that vessels are safe, but we can no longer afford to take risks with conservation either.
The perilous state of cod stocks in the North Sea is but one example.
Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 5, approved by the Committee on Fisheries, reject the changes on the capacity rules altogether.
Amendments Nos 11 and 12, submitted by the ELDR Group, however, accept the Commission's approach in principle, but seek to allow capacity increases on safety grounds by way of exception for existing vessels under 12 metres.
The justification for this exception is that taking away the possibility of financial assistance is likely to bear hardest on the sector and put safety improvements more seriously at risk in circumstances where they are likely to have only minor effects on capacity.
I know that many of my colleagues - for reasons that I respect - will wish to take a different view, but I urge everyone in deciding how to vote on this report to bear in mind just how imperative the need for conservation has become.
Mr President, it is a pleasure to speak on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, substantially in support of what my colleague, Mrs Attwooll, from the Committee on Fisheries, has said.
The Committee on Legal Affairs looks at this issue through legal spectacles, as you would expect.
From our point of view, it is not just important that the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy be achieved, though that is indeed important.
We have to remember that the means through which the Community does this are means of the law, and therefore the principles of the law have to be respected in what is done.
The Committee on Legal Affairs thought that the Commission's proposals fell down on two important legal principles, at two important points.
The first was the principle of proportionality, and in effect Mrs Attwooll has already spoken about that this afternoon.
In recital 3 the Commission said: "Measures to improve safety should not lead to an increase in fishing effort and such measures should therefore be applied within the existing capacity objectives for the fleet".
That is to say that improvements in safety can be ignored just if the capacity objectives are not being sustained, regardless of effort.
But the aim we all have is to prevent over-fishing, and it is effort that catches fish, not capacity.
Therefore proportionality requires deletion of that.
Secondly, in relation to the effective provisions about vicarious penalties.
To require all segments of a national fleet to have achieved the annual objectives, as the Commission suggests, before any public aid for fleet modernisation or renewal can be granted, would be unlawful.
It is contrary to the most rudimentary principles of natural justice.
It would permit one fisheries segment to be penalised for things done, or left undone, in another.
It could result in fishermen being penalised for the acts or omissions of their government and would thus constitute vicarious punishment.
As a Scottish Member, I insist that these issues matter vitally to all parts of the Scottish fleet.
Those who meet their targets for reduction of capacity should not be punished for those who do not and should not carry the can for failures by the UK Government or the Scottish Government.
Mr President, first of all, I commend my colleague, Mrs Attwooll for the work she has done in this report.
Although we are only dealing with an extension of MAGP IV for one year, the Commission proposals seek to reduce over-fishing and achieve the 40% reduction in effort across the EU fleet which they have been consistently pointing out is absolutely essential, if we are to have any hope of a sustainable industry in the future.
I know that some controversy has arisen - and Mrs Attwooll mentioned this - over the question of aid for measures to improve safety in navigation; working conditions; and hygiene on board fishing vessels.
It goes without saying that all of us wish to see our fishermen working in the safest, cleanest and most secure conditions.
But there is no doubt that such aid has been abused in the past to increase fishing effort, leading to further over-exploitation of dwindling fish stocks.
It seems to me pointless that we try to achieve a reduction in over-fishing as a core policy objective on the one hand, while continuing to facilitate cheating at the taxpayer's expense on the other.
The whole point of the MAGP is to reduce fishing effort and bring it into better balance with the existing fish stocks.
Only this week the need for continued for vigilance in this area was again highlighted with the publication of the ICES report on the prospects for catches in 2002.
They point out that a number of fish stocks remain in a state of great jeopardy, particularly cod, although they also point out that there have been slight improvements in haddock and whiting stocks in the North Sea.
In that respect I was horrified to read that Danish fisheries inspectors last month boarded a Danish industrial fishing boat and discovered 114 tonnes of juvenile cod in a 543 tonne total catch that was supposed to be composed entirely of sand eels.
Pulverising valuable young haddock into fishmeal to feed to salmon in the fish farming sector is complete madness.
It is a crime against everything we are trying to achieve.
I hope that when we come to vote on this report later today, we bear in mind that the whole point of MAGP philosophy is to reduce over-exploitation and nothing we do in applying public aid to the EU fleet should undermine that principle.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Attwooll for the magnificent work she has done on this report which is going to be so useful to us.
Adjusting the Community fleet to the resources available is a fundamental objective of the CFP.
Furthermore, it is a common sense requirement if we want our fishing to be a viable economic activity and our fishing sector to be a viable economic sector.
We therefore welcome the extension of the current MAGP IV until 31 December 2002.
As I have said, the Socialist Group supports Mrs Attwooll' s report, which was approved by consensus in the Committee on Fisheries, and we thank her for the compromise achieved in our committee, together with the Members presenting amendments, a compromise which the Council is still far from reaching.
Parliament is sending a good signal by anticipating an agreement which the Council can accept.
The Commission' s proposal is not restricted to extending the current MAGP by one year, but it also intends to introduce, as has been said, criteria relating to safety, which should be debated in the context of a new MAGP.
I regret that the Commission has not made any reference to the question of safety in the White Paper on the reform of the CFP.
I would like to point out that, as this House approved (on debating and approving my report on fishing accidents), Council Directive 89/391/EEC of 12 June 1989 on the application of measures to promote the improvement of health and safety of workers in the workplace is also fully applicable to vessels of less than 12 metres.
We ask for preventive measures, with a view to preventing accidents, both in relation to the design of vessels and life-saving equipment and to the introduction of rules of management of resources with consequences for human safety, the size and power of vessels.
Lastly, I would like to point out to Commissioner Fischler that if there is one thing we were unanimous on during the hearing organised by the European Commission to present the Green Paper, it was precisely the fact that Community aid for the modernisation of the fleet should remain in force.
Let me begin by saying that the Greens support the proposal of the Commission for both the FIFG and the MAGP.
We also agree with the rapporteur's amendments seeking to restrict the derogation for safety to vessels less than 12 metres in length and we would like to thank her for retabling these important amendments.
However, we are entirely opposed to the proposal as it has now emerged from the committee.
The amendments are removing the most progressive elements that the Commission is proposing.
After all, both the MAGP and the FIFG are already so full of loopholes that you actually sail The Atlantic Dawn through.
The proposal would simply close a couple of these more blatant loopholes.
Glancing through a scientific report on the status of fish stocks makes for very depressing reading these days.
It does not matter whether it is ICES, or the STECF or any of the regional bodies such as NAFO.
Everywhere you look fish stocks are over-exploited and far too often severely depleted.
The EU has had to take emergency measures for three cod stocks and northern hake and it is clear that other stocks will soon be added to the list.
There is pretty much universal agreement that this deplorable situation is due to the excess capacity of the world's fishing fleets.
The Commission is always reminding us of this, but the Member States and certain segments of the fishing industry are clearly in denial.
The Community has agreed to several international instruments which seek to control fishing capacity and/or fishing effort.
For instance, the FAO Code of Conduct provides that states should take measures to prevent or eliminate excess fishing capacity and should ensure that levels of fishing effort are in line with sustainable use of fisheries resources.
But whenever the Commission tries to put these obligations into effect, they are shot down by Parliament and the Council.
Some have argued that it is not reasonable to try and change a programme in the last year or that certain aspects of the proposal are contrary to the idea of natural justice.
The FIFG is due to continue until 2006 and so there are several years in which these reforms could bring some sort of positive effect.
Surely it is far from natural justice to refuse to take action now and to continue as if the future is bright, only to have more and more stocks decrease and to impose even further temporary or permanent closures.
I would ask the Members of this House to consider the case of the northern cod stock off Newfoundland which provided 200 000 tonnes of fish every year for five centuries.
In 1992, the Canadian Government had to close the fisheries even for subsistence fishing and there is still little if any sign of improvement in the stock.
Is that the kind of future we want for our own coastal communities? The time has come for us to take a long-term rather than just a 6-months to 12-months view.
We really have to deal with this issue and I would like to support what the Commission is proposing.
Mr President, Commissioner, the decision to extend the expiry date of the MAGP-IV until the end of next year, so as to include the results of the negotiations on the reform of the common fisheries policy, must not be used to undermine the interests of the countries that have so far met and even exceeded the reductions laid down in the MAGP, such as Portugal, whilst there are other Member States have not only failed to meet any of their targets but have even increased their fishing capacities.
Equally, it is incorrect - as the rapporteur and various other Members have stated - to attempt to table amendments on the expiry date of the MAGP-IV that would have a detrimental effect on maritime safety, on the quality of life and safety of crews, on the value and quality of catches and on health and hygiene conditions.
The Commissioner must, therefore, review the position he expresses in the proposals submitted to the European Parliament and accept most of the positions put forward by Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries.
Mr President, Commissioner, if policy instruments are not working well, you adapt them, and if the adaptations do not produce a result, you abolish them.
With this principle in mind, I was unpleasantly surprised by the Commission proposal before us.
I well understand that the Commission does not want to introduce a new structure policy which may be obsolete within a year as a result of the fisheries policy reforms.
However, I cannot shake off the impression that the Commission still does not realise that they are missing the boat with the current multiannual guidance programmes.
To try to control fisheries with two very different instruments - the TACs and the quota on the one hand and the fleet structure policy on the other - will result in serious problems, particularly if the policy instruments serve different objectives, which is the case.
TACs and quotas are the determining factor in managing fish stocks.
Sustainable fishing can, nonetheless, only be achieved if there is room for an efficient fleet within the parameters set by the allowable catches.
The fleet structure policy must support this.
Unfortunately this is not happening.
Under the MAGP, all kinds of subsidies are offered which are maintaining excess fleet capacity and therefore distorting competition.
What is more, a number of Member States have introduced incentives which are further distorting competition.
The common fisheries policy needs a clear objective, and the system of TACs and quotas must be the determining factor for this.
This must also include a properly functioning control system with strict punitive measures.
At the moment, the Commission is, nonetheless, holding onto its MAGP, with some changes which I can only describe as unfortunate.
Under the guise of reinforcing the suitability of the MAGP, the Commission is ignoring the most elementary sense of justice in one of these amendments.
By withholding government support, it is punishing one fishing segment for the excess capacity in another.
Justice is further undermined by the Commission making a distinction based on the capacity reductions in the fleets.
The fleet in my country regulates capacity by reducing activity (the "days at sea restrictions" ).
Unlike other countries, the Netherlands is now excluded from European support for modernisation and renewal.
In order to reverse these unfortunate changes, we will give our wholehearted support to the rapporteur's amendments.
Mr President, under the pretext of extending MAGP IV for a further year so that it will coincide with the expected reform of the CFP, the Commission's intention was further to tighten up this instrument, which has become as disastrous for our small-scale fishing industry as it is ineffective in terms of regulating fishing.
Thanks to the efforts of Mrs Attwooll and the Committee on Fisheries, I hope we have avoided the most unfair and dangerous aspects of this tougher line; more generally, however, the very principle of MAGPs needs to be questioned now.
The professionals have never accepted this bureaucratic, brutal system, which is totally alien to the traditions and culture of the maritime world.
Experience also shows that this instrument is crude, unfair, redundant and costly.
Its negative effects are well-known and, coupled with the blocking of aid for new construction, it bolsters the second-hand market and dissuades young people from going into jobs connected with fishing.
Within the framework of the debate in progress on reforming the CFP, we must therefore give absolute priority to the system of TACs and quotas.
That has to be the instrument used to keep catches in line with resources.
The new CFP must be based on the quota mechanism, which we need to fine-tune by putting it on a multiannual basis, making it more transparent and more scientific, relating it more closely to the fishing zones, closely involving the professionals and monitoring it effectively and fairly.
Mr President, Commissioner, let us forget MAGPs and perfect the quota system; then we will be doing a good job.
Mr President, Commissioner, we did not need the Green Paper on the future of the common fisheries policy to tell us about the serious problems facing fisheries in Europe.
The Green Paper has merely made clear once again how serious they are.
Our Committee is earnestly discussing the various approaches to solving the problems.
We know we shall not be able to make all the difficulties simply disappear by waving a magic wand.
If somebody really wants to pull the wool over our eyes about it, we must call it what it is, namely eyewash.
The common fisheries policy as it has existed up until now has not succeeded in preventing the crises affecting a number of fish stocks or in reducing overcapacities in fleets.
Whether we will all survive economically depends on the Union' s future ability to shape a fisheries policy in the new century.
The Commission is now proposing extending the current multi-annual guidance programme for one year.
In the light of the ongoing debate on reform, I think we also need such measures for the sake of continuity.
We cannot of course solve the problems in this short space of time, but perhaps we can alleviate them a little.
The crucial thing is that the programme should be properly carried out.
We need data, but some Member States fail to provide that data or their data is incomplete.
We therefore need a system of penalties to ensure the data is supplied at all, and we need comparable criteria and categories.
Every shipowner wants to increase efficiency.
But we must not shift the premises.
We want better safety at sea.
That is a central part of the European Parliament' s demands.
But at the same time we should be careful to avoid negative effects on safety, even dressed up as increased efficiency.
The proposed change to structural measures also misses the target at the present time.
Making the achievement of objectives in all segments of the fleet a precondition for public subsidies is counterproductive because it penalises everyone for the failings of a few.
Our policy will only find acceptance among fishermen if the conditions are fair.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, extending the multi-annual guidance programmes by one year to keep them in force pending the decision on future fleet policy after 2002 is sensible and I think it has everyone' s support in principle.
The MAGP' s objectives are correct, but their implementation by the Member States still leaves much to be desired.
The Commission' s reports in the past have shown us that over and over again.
We have repeatedly criticised the failings in implementation and it is clear that the future fleet policy will have to remedy the situation.
That is why the Commission wants to make changes to the MAGP and FIFG provisions as well as extending them by a year.
I am opposed to some of those changes because I think these matters would be better resolved in the landmark decision about fleet policy.
In my opinion there is no point in making extensive changes in the last year of MAGP IV' s validity, especially when they could have negative repercussions for safety on board fishing vessels.
But if Member States are to continue to be able to apply for increases in capacity for measures designed to improve on-board safety and fishery product hygiene and these are to be paid for out of FIFG resources, something really must be done to ensure that those measures do not result in increased fishing.
This condition is absolutely essential.
We cannot have a situation where investments in on-board safety are prevented because the conditions for the application of the measures are not complied with or because many Member States are sometimes unable to ensure that they are or fail to do so.
We ought to be using the debate about common fisheries policy reform to find solutions to the dilemma between on-board safety and careful management of stocks that has again been made clear by this report.
No way must the one be at the expense of the other.
Mr President, I should like to add my thanks to the rapporteur, a fellow Scot, for her work on this document, and likewise to my SNP colleague, Mr MacCormick, for leading the Committee on Legal Affairs' consideration of this report which I support.
The size of our fishing fleet in the European Union is one of the greatest problems that we are faced with when considering CFP reform, but the real measure of activity should be effort as opposed to fleet size.
In order to secure what we all want, sustainable fisheries, then surely fishing effort must be made to correspond to available resources.
I agree with the need to extend MAGP4, but I have some concerns, in three areas in particular.
Firstly, it is intolerable that safety has been taken out of the equation.
The provisions that currently exist to increase objectives on grounds of safety should be maintained.
We should be looking for tighter control and management to ensure that these provisions are not used to circumvent the rules.
Safety must remain a priority and I hope the Commission will recognise this and also make up for its failure to include adequate provisions on safety in the Green Paper.
Secondly, while there must be penalties for non-implementation of MAGP targets, surely they must be targeted at the guilty parties.
It must be wrong to penalise one segment directly for the acts or omissions of another.
It is also necessary to make sure that those Member States which claim to have met their MAGP targets are not simply transferring their vessels to other flags.
Thirdly, the proposals which limit financial assistance from FIFG to segments where reduction of fishing effort is obtained through capacity reductions only seems to me unjust and would discriminate against fishermen whose Member States choose to reduce effort through schemes such as days at sea.
One reason why these targets are not met is that some Member State governments have not been prepared to match funding for restructuring.
The Commission must look at ways of ensuring that restructuring funds can be distributed in an equitable fashion throughout the EU fishing industry.
There is a need for more standardised and more rigorous assessment procedures right across the EU.
Only if we have fixed, clear and comparable criteria for the measurement of vessels, including engine power and tonnage, can there be confidence in the targets that are set by MAGPs.
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mrs Attwooll for her cooperation leading to a compromise which, in my opinion, very much improves the Commission' s two proposals, which were originally untimely and doomed not to be complied with.
It is hard to accept that, six months before the end of a programme to restructure the fleet, the sector can be told, without scientific or technical justifications, that fishing capacity cannot be reduced by means of restructuring efforts and that the only solution is pure scrapping, all because the Commission made a small calculation error four years ago.
And that, furthermore, while they are at it, they take the opportunity to turn the bases of MAGP IV and key elements of the FIFG Regulation on their heads, which is completely unacceptable, and I believe there is general agreement on this here.
If we add to this the fact that the greatest burden of the new requirements, as has been said, rests on the elimination of the facilities intended to improve the safety of ships, it begs the question of whether the Commission ever thinks about the fisheries sector when it starts coming up with brilliant ideas at the last minute.
I therefore ask that you vote in favour of the amendments of the Committee on Fisheries because I still cannot understand, and the sector understands even less, what is the point in reserving safety measures just for vessels of less than 12 metres, when it is precisely the largest ships which have more crew and work furthest from the coast and therefore face considerably more risk and, in the event of emergency, have most difficulties getting back to port. And all of this with winter just around the corner and in waters which, like European Atlantic waters, are not exactly a mill pond.
It is fair to recognise that the Commission tried, from the outset, to coincide the end of the MAGP IV with the reform of the CFP in 2002.
But, since 1997, it knew that it was not going to manage it and on that basis the Commission should have started work on an MAGP V which would have eliminated the errors committed so far and, meanwhile, simply extend the MAGP IV.
And extension, Commissioner, cannot in any way be used to change the rules of the game which we have had up to now.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Attwooll, for the spirit of consensus she has created in our committee in order to arrive at compromise amendments, particularly with Mrs Fraga Estevez and to substantially improve, as has been said, the Commission' s proposal on a key issue, which we all recognise, in the current common fisheries policy and in the policy that we are creating for the coming years.
European fleet policy is a sensitive and complicated issue - this is something we all agree upon.
However, if each State defends its own interests and only complies when it is in its own interest, we clearly get nowhere.
Therefore, the Commission must rise to the challenge, through an effective policy accepted by everyone, of designing a fleet that is really suited to our fishing needs.
A safe, effective and competitive fleet.
Mrs Attwooll' s report, like the report by Mr Busk, is currently of fundamental importance.
We want it to draw attention, on the one hand, to the fact that the increase in onboard safety measures has nothing to do with increasing fishing capacity or power, and on the other, to the need not to introduce substantial last-minute changes to programmes which have been in operation for five years, because an annual extension is one thing, but to change fundamental conditions in the general philosophy of the MAGPs now, at the last minute, is quite another.
I therefore hope that the House supports this message which the Committee on Fisheries wants to send this afternoon, and that the Commission will, of course, take it into account.
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.30 p.m.
EEC/Senegal fisheries agreement
Mr President, Commissioner, this proposal for a Council regulation concerns the prolongation of the fisheries protocol which has been in force between the EU and Senegal for the period of 1 May 1997 to 30 April 2001.
The prolongation concerns two periods.
The first period is from 1 May 2001 until 31 July and the second from 1 August 2001 to 31 December.
After several rounds of negotiations starting in Brussels in January 2001 no agreement was reached between the EU and Senegal on the renewal of the current protocol.
Last June, Senegal suspended negotiations until October in order to gain time to analyse the fisheries issues and their effects.
Breaking off the negotiations did not have the same negative impact as it had at the end of 1996 when all fisheries were suspended.
This time there has been no suspension and good sense has prevailed on both sides.
According to estimates by Senegal's research institute, which was carried out in 1996, the available resources at that time would permit catches of some 465 000 tonnes.
However, recent scientific analysis has shown that, in spite of the satisfactory utilisation rates in this segment, coastal demersal resources have plummeted and have forced the small-scale and industrial fleet to fish in neighbouring countries.
Of course, sustainable fishing is one of the leading principles of the common fisheries policy.
Signals about the critical state of some fish stocks must be taken into account by both parties when negotiations are resumed.
Until the date of resumption of negotiations, the Senegalese Government is carrying out a new study to determine the country's present fisheries potential.
Since the question of durable management was one of the breaking points at the negotiations, the Senegalese Government will make use of the results of this study later this year in negotiating with the EU.
The fisheries possibilities and the financial contribution from the Community have remained unchanged.
The compensation to be paid by the Community for the eight months of this year will be calculated on a pro rata basis, meaning that the compensation for the period 1 May until the end of the year will be two-thirds of the yearly sum of EUR 12 million.
That payment has to be made by the end of the year.
I believe, as does the Committee on Fisheries, that it is important for Community fishermen that this agreement be renewed after 31 December of this year when the current prolongation expires.
The renewal of the protocol is now more important than ever in terms of fishing opportunities, after the failure to reach agreement with Morocco.
I am not trying to compare the opportunities in Senegal with Morocco, but the fact is that there are other opportunities there.
We cannot compare them because the protocol with Morocco would have involved EUR 500 million over a four-year period.
When, therefore, we consider the recently signed agreement with Mauritania, costing EUR 430 million over five years, the Senegal agreement is very modest in financial terms.
In the light of all these considerations, I can recommend this report to the House.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Gallagher for the speed with which he has worked on his report in order to allow the approval of these two extensions which, as he has pointed out, allow the continuation of fishing activity until the signing of a new protocol with Senegal.
We must also recognise the sensitivity shown by the rapporteur in not presenting amendments so as not to interfere with the result of the negotiations currently under way, although he indicates that the results of those negotiations will have to be analysed in line with the considerations expressed in his report.
I almost entirely agree with the considerations, but I would like to expand on the rapporteur' s reference to the lack of utilisation of the agreement by pelagic trawlers.
The rapporteur refers to the fact that, in the Northern agreements, criticism has been made of the existence of 'paper fish' or 'paper quotas' and that also, in this case, payments should only be made in exchange for real fish.
I would like to point out that these situations are in no way comparable.
In this case, fishing opportunities really exist and, being a Southern agreement, any interested Member State could chose to make use of them, just as in other categories of this same agreement entry has been granted to fleets that are not traditionally present in the area, such as those from Italy or Greece.
If these opportunities are not taken advantage of, it will be because certain States have not been interested, but I doubt that with the non-existence or non-continuation of the agreement with Morocco, these opportunities will not be utilised in the future.
In the Northern agreements, however, no Member State can fish.
It is prohibited, even if a State is interested; and you all know that certain fleets are interested in being able to fish within these quotas which are already paid for.
And we must also remember that, in this particular case, we are not talking about 'paper fish' because, as I have already stated, the fish really exist, unlike the cases of certain Northern agreements, where the state of resources is so poor that real fishing opportunities are not available, and which, by the way, are much more expensive than the agreement with Senegal.
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists is pleased that the Commission and the Senegalese Government have reached an agreement to extend the previous fisheries agreement with Senegal for eight months.
We are grateful to the Government of Senegal for their willingness to allow our fleet to continue fishing until the parties have reached a new agreement.
Fortunately, this time, the fleet has not been docked as it was five years ago.
In the interim, the Commission and the Senegalese Government have reached a new fisheries agreement, which will be the subject of another debate.
The catches the Community fleet can benefit from are the surplus resources which the local fleet cannot fish.
Fishing relations between Senegal and the European Union are wholly satisfactory to both parties.
We must not forget that fish products account for 30% of Senegal' s exports and these exports are mainly sent to Europe.
Furthermore, many of the landings of the Community fleet take place in Senegalese ports.
It would be wonderful if, in terms of what we are discussing here today (the coherence between the common fisheries policy and development cooperation policy we all want to see), the Commission could help the Senegalese authorities, and other developing countries, to manage their fisheries resources better, especially - as we have already said - in areas where there are young and spawning fish, which are in such need of it.
I therefore congratulate Mr Gallagher on his wonderful and, above all, rapid report, as well as his excellent work.
Mr President, thank you, first of all, to Mr Gallagher for a very fine piece of work on the report.
On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I should like to begin by adding a few remarks on the financing of the fisheries agreements concluded by the EU with third countries.
We have proposed that fishermen should make a greater contribution to the financing of these agreements.
It would be of benefit to themselves, but it would also, at the same time, be in line with current developments in the direction of a structure more in keeping with a market economy.
It is gratifying that the Commission has begun to prepare evaluation reports on the previous protocol.
The evaluation of existing agreements is an extremely valuable tool for improving the fisheries agreements. These must, of course, be to the advantage of European fishermen, who do in fact benefit from them, but also be to the advantage of local fishermen in the countries concerned with which the agreements have been made.
The agreement should relate to the surplus resources that cannot be caught by local fishermen.
Sustainability must be ensured.
That is the EU' s responsibility.
The fisheries agreements are exceedingly important to certain regions of Europe in which, in addition to jobs in the sector itself, there is a range of additional businesses dependent upon fisheries.
We should focus more upon the degree to which third countries make use of subsidies for the development of local fisheries and ensure that the development aid we provide is used in the best way possible and, especially, to benefit local fishermen.
These agreements are important to the Community, especially in the light of the fact that the fisheries agreement with Morocco was not renewed.
Mr President, I would like to join in congratulating our rapporteur, Mr Gallagher, on the sensitivity and speed with which he has produced his report.
I would also like to take advantage of the presence of the Commissioner to congratulate the Commission on the fact that, in the interim, we have been able to extend this agreement until the end of the year, which has allowed European fleets to continue fishing.
I would like to take this opportunity to say to Mr Fischler that I am naturally concerned about the repercussions of this agreement for the fleets which, after the failure of the negotiations with Morocco, are in a truly delicate situation.
All of this has its place within the framework of the debate we have held today on development cooperation and respect for the resources of third countries, certainly, but also in the knowledge that there are fishing opportunities which have not yet been utilised.
The agreement that has been reached with Mauritania - on which we must also congratulate the Commission, and on which our rapporteur, Mr Gallagher is also working hard - has broken the curse that was stopping us from signing agreements and, therefore, the agreement with Senegal must come to fruition.
I know that the Commission is working seriously and has meetings arranged for 20 and 23 November.
I urge it to work as quickly as possible and I also urge this Parliament to deal with it with the urgency it deserves, because it is of great importance in terms of the situation of the European fishing fleet.
First of all, I would like to thank you, Mr Gallagher, for your report on the extension of the fisheries agreement under discussion until the end of the year.
I am glad that you agree with the Commission' s proposal.
This will enable the Community' s fishermen to continue their activity in this region while - as the Senegalese side wanted - a further study of the fisheries sector is prepared.
The extension of the existing protocol also enables us to pursue negotiations for the multi-annual protocol without undue pressure of time and to bring them to a conclusion.
As you know, this agreement is a very important agreement for us.
At EUR 12 million a year, the amount of money involved is considerable, and in purely mathematical terms it means EUR 8 million for the eight months extension.
Apart from the considerable amount of money, the advantages for Senegal are not least that the agreement secures a major part of the raw materials required by the Senegalese fishing industry because EC vessels have to land part of their catches in Senegalese ports.
The Commission is unable to accept the present amendment because it is, as you know, a fundamental component of the Community' s external fisheries policy that the costs of fishing rights should be met partly out of the Community budget and partly by the ship owners.
That is included in all the negotiating guidelines for fisheries agreements.
The financial compensation payable is specified in the agreements themselves.
This is paid by the EU, while the ship owners have to pay the licence fees.
May I conclude by saying that the next round of negotiations for a new agreement or a new protocol is due to take place on 20 to 23 November.
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.30 p.m.
EEC/Madagascar fisheries agreement
Mr President, I am speaking in order to present, and ask your support for, a new Fisheries protocol, this time with Madagascar - as you have said - with whom we have had relations since 1986.
From the point of view of what has come to be called cost/benefit, it is an excellent protocol which clearly demonstrates the viability of this type of agreement for the European Union.
In this case, the Community fleet, industry and market are ensured a stable supply of a raw material, tuna, of which we have a considerable deficit, by means of our own fleet, which means that many Community jobs will be retained, not only in the extractive sector, but also in the activities dependent on it.
Furthermore, the protocol once again demonstrates that, in the Southern agreements, a high proportion of the fishing opportunities are utilised, in this case reaching 91% for tuna seiners.
It is just as viable for Madagascar, which in addition to the EUR 308 000 in annual financial compensation, will receive a further EUR 517 000 for development aid actions, mainly aimed at improving the fishing control of the area and the training of its fishermen.
Furthermore, the number of Malagasy seamen which must be employed rises from 6 in the protocol currently in force to 40 in the protocol under discussion.
This is therefore a genuinely significant quantitative leap.
Community fishing activity in itself does not interfere with small-scale fleets, since our fleet does not have access to the twelve mile zone.
Meanwhile, the presence of the European Union in itself makes a significant contribution to the control and guarantee of greater sustainability of the resource.
We must not forget that the fleet carries with it all the control regulations of Community policy, which is a very important element in terms of ascertaining the details of catches and the state of the resource in the region, to a degree which cannot be matched by all the other diverse foreign fleets that fish in those same Malagasy waters.
Following this brief summary of the content of the protocol, and reminding you that, as a Southern agreement, the shipowners contribute to its funding, I would like to focus on two issues.
I would like to draw your attention firstly to the fact that with this agreement, as in Southern agreements in general, there remains the possibility of granting licences to those interested Member States that would not have access to the fishing opportunities on the basis of relative stability, as demonstrated by the presence of Italy and Portugal.
It is therefore time to ask the Commission once and for all to implement the views of the 1997 Council of Fisheries Ministers, which clearly request that fishing opportunities which remain unused may be used by interested Member State fleets in all agreements of the European Union.
Secondly, I do not believe it necessary to point out that we are all committed to the development of third countries, as clearly demonstrated by the Lannoye report, which preceded the debate on fisheries.
The fisheries sector has been one of the first to cooperate in this development, since its presence in the waters of third countries has been the catalyst for many of the first industrial centres in their coastal regions, if not the definitive element in terms of many nations now having taken on the genuine vocation of a fishing State.
But, having said that, I believe things are reaching the point where clarification is necessary from several points of view.
To begin with, we must not forget, as the aforementioned Council of Fisheries Ministers also made clear, that fisheries agreements are essentially of a commercial nature.
However, they are increasingly becoming a complement to Community development aid policy.
In the case of this agreement, the proportion intended for development cooperation actions is now rising to 62.6% of the total cost of the agreement to the Community budget.
This situation raises many questions.
Firstly, there is no reason why fisheries budgets should be financing the development policy budgets and, from the point of view of budgetary transparency, this state of affairs should be clarified as soon as possible.
Secondly, this situation should also be clarified in order to silence those voices which complain about the high budgetary cost of the fisheries agreements, when in reality, as we have seen, considerably more than half of that budget is pure development policy.
Mr President, the fisheries agreements the EU has signed with third countries have always formed a decisive part of its common fisheries policy.
I want to pay tribute to the excellent work carried out by Mrs Fraga Estéves, the rapporteur. As a Member from Réunion, I am naturally interested in the conclusion of this seventh fisheries agreement between the EU and Madagascar, given its implications for fishing in the Indian Ocean and, obviously, off Réunion too.
Let me start by pointing out that there is an enormous paradox between the restrictions imposed by the establishment of a European common fisheries policy and the precautionary principle the European Union advocates.
In fact, at the same time that the Commission was refusing to countenance any increase in the rate of public aid for longliners in Réunion on the grounds that this resource could be at risk in this part of the Indian Ocean, it was also saying that this same resource was abundant enough to allow for an increase in catches under its fisheries agreements with third countries.
For those of us who come from Réunion, this is rather difficult to understand, as, moreover, I explained, in Réunion, to some of our MEPs in the Committee on Fisheries, pointing out that the fishing resources of this sector are young, specific and over-abundant, with the result that the catch quota criteria imposed by the common fisheries policy are inappropriate.
The rapporteur refers to the increased fishing opportunities given under the agreement between the EU and Madagascar, which will make it easier for fishermen from Réunion to acquire additional fishing rights in Malagasy territorial waters.
We would be allowing them to increase their catch quota, which, at present, accounts for only 0.12% of the total EU catch in this zone.
The fisheries agreements are the EU's main instrument for contributing to the development of the fishing industry in third countries.
A large part of the total financial contribution is allocated to this under the agreement with Madagascar.
Since it is quite familiar with the real situation in Madagascar, Réunion is prepared to offer its experience and to take part in co-development projects, based, in particular, on the creation of joint enterprises with Madagascar and the development of aquaculture.
In fact, some projects of this kind have already been conducted and simply need reinforcing.
Finally, I do hope the European Union will adopt a strict policy with regard to poaching in the Indian Ocean.
Madagascar has recently signed bilateral agreements with Japan, Taiwan and Korea, the terms of which are not always entirely clear.
I therefore feel it is crucial for the European Union to keep a very close watch specifically over the implementation of the special surveillance and monitoring measures aimed at restricting poaching activities in this zone and thus to ensure that the signing of the fisheries agreement with Madagascar is genuinely and indisputably valid.
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists supports this proposed regulation on the renewal of the fisheries agreement with Madagascar.
We also support the excellent report by Mrs Fraga Estevez , and we ask the Council to incorporate the amendments approved by the Committee on Fisheries.
On many occasions we have complained, always justifiably, about the lack of coherence of the Commission and the Council, which sometimes verges on the arbitrary, in relation to the negotiation and signing of fisheries agreements.
It is the sector itself which suffers from this lack of direction, and it does not feel that it is supported by the Commission.
The Commission sometimes gives the impression that it wants to forget the conclusions of the Luxembourg Council of October 1997 on the policy of fisheries agreements with third countries, which explicitly recognised the socio-economic advantages of those agreements for the Community, both in terms of the supply of raw materials and employment, and which are - and will continue to be - an essential element of the common fisheries policy.
I share the concern mentioned by the rapporteur in her report relating to the fact that more than 62% of the cost of the agreement corresponds to development cooperation actions and has nothing to do with financial compensation for the agreed catches.
We are in favour of development cooperation and budgetary transparency.
These actions must therefore be financed by the European Development Fund which, to date, has financed the development of the fishing sectors of the developing countries to the not inconsiderable tune of EUR 421 million.
This agreement, like all fisheries agreements with third countries, is aimed at a specific form of fishing - in this case, tuna - clearly outside the 6-12 mile zone, and includes absolutely limited and measured annual fishing opportunities for an also limited and measured number of ships - 80.
The shipowners pay an amount per tonne - EUR 25 - which, as the rapporteur has pointed out, is something that only happens in the Southern agreements.
The shipowners are obliged, furthermore, to employ a significant number of Malagasy seamen, which is rising from 6 to 40, as has also been pointed out.
I congratulate Mrs Fraga Estevez once again on her excellent report which clearly demonstrates that, of the fisheries agreements signed by the developing countries with third countries, it is those which they sign with the European Union which achieve and guarantee a greater degree of transparency and control of fishing activities in those areas.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank Mrs Fraga Estevez for a splendid piece of work in connection with the report.
Just as I said earlier in connection with Mr Gallagher' s report, those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party are concerned that, in line with developments, we allow the self-funding sector, that is to say the ship owners and fishermen, to pay a larger contribution towards those agreements from which they of course benefit most.
The fisheries agreement with Madagascar is valuable not only for the Community but also for Madagascar.
The high degree to which the Community' s fishing opportunities are exploited is impressive and worth emphasising.
I should like to support Mrs Fraga Estevez in saying that, in the funding of the fisheries agreements, a sharp and clear distinction should be made between the portion used to fund fishing opportunities and the portion used to fund development measures which, in the EU' s budget, should appear as development aid.
The agreements are exceedingly important to those regions of Europe in which fishing is the most important activity, and we are concerned here not merely with the work of the fishermen but also with associated businesses on land.
It is the EU' s responsibility to ensure that, when we conclude agreements, it is surplus resources with which we are concerned.
Matters must be arranged in such a way that local fishermen are provided with development opportunities, and that means that the EU must secure the concept of sustainability.
This agreement, like the one with Senegal, is important to the Community, partly of course in the light of the fact that the fisheries agreement with Morocco was not renewed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Fraga Estevez, I thank you for your report on the new protocol under the fisheries agreement with Madagascar, by which we can safeguard the operation of our tuna fleet in these waters up to and including May 2004.
I am also pleased that you are able to adopt the draft.
The new Protocol refers exclusively to tuna and offers fishing opportunities for 80 vessels.
The financial contribution totals EUR 825 000.
I would like to emphasise that over 60% of this amount is allocated to specific measures and thus benefits the local fisheries sector.
These resources benefit, above all, monitoring and supervision, but also research and non-industrial fishing.
Also, this is the first time this Parliament has dealt with an agreement with an ACP state, providing for the satellite-based surveillance of all Community ships operating within the scope of this Agreement.
As regards Amendments Nos 1 and 3, I draw your attention to the interinstitutional agreements in force and most especially to the 5 July 2000 Framework Agreement between Parliament and the Commission.
In the context of this Agreement, we are complying with the demands of these amendments, which are therefore not necessary.
I cannot support Amendment No 2, as negotiations on a protocol to a fisheries agreement do not require their own new mandate.
What I have already said about Senegal applies correspondingly to Amendment No 4.
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.30 p.m.
The self-discipline of the speakers who, in contrast to their usual practice, have not wholly exhausted their speaking time, means that we have now closed the debate earlier than originally planned.
Commissioners, too, Mr Fischler, usually require more time than you, with your characteristically Austrian succinctness, have done today.
I ask for your understanding that we must now suspend the sitting.
We cannot bring the vote forward, as it is fixed in the agenda for 6.30 p.m..
I shall suspend the sitting until 6.30 p.m. and request you to reassemble punctually.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.51 p.m. and resumed at 6.30 p.m.)
VOTE
Mr President, I did not want to draw your attention to this point before the vote, so I waited until after the vote.
I note that more than 80% of our fellow MEPs evidently had a good reason for not participating in the vote this afternoon.
So I ask myself whether I actually have a good reason for being here to vote at 6.30 pm this Thursday evening with so few Members present - about one hundred.
I am starting to wonder whether this is indeed wise.
Should we not join the vast majority of our colleagues who evidently had a good reason for not being here during the vote? In other words, Mr President, I would like to ask you whether you will discuss with the presidency of the Parliament whether there would be any possibility of either considerably increasing the number of Members present at 6.30 pm on a Thursday evening or finding another solution for this Thursday evening that does not entail a vote.
.
The British Labour MEPs have voted in favour of a sheep premium of EUR 25, an increase of 20% on the figure proposed by the Commission.
Our objective was to pass on to sheep (and goat) farmers an increase in the annual premium but to keep within the expenditure limits set out in Agenda 2000 and keep us on track for CAP reform.
The incomes of sheep farmers have not kept pace with other types of farming.
This decision will help to correct the imbalance.
Because the payment will be annual and known in advance, it will help farmers in their business planning.
We particularly emphasise the importance we place on increased marketing support to encourage consumption and we look to the Commission to act with urgency.
- (FR) It seems to us that the Adams report on the proposed reform in the sheepmeat and goatmeat production sector does not take account of the basic problems facing small-scale farmers, who have the lowest incomes in Europe.
We would be happy to present the point of view of the Confédération paysanne, the French farm workers' confederation, which is protesting at the fact that the income of French sheep farmers is 45% lower than the average farm income and believes that 'at European level, the COM (common organisation of the market) in sheepmeat has not fulfilled its role, which was to guarantee the producers an income,' and that the proposed reform 'shows no signs of any political ambition to give new impetus to the sheepmeat sector.'
Allocating flat-rate aid per head of sheep and goats instead of the present system of compensatory payments is harmful to small-scale stockbreeders and in no way improves their incomes.
That is why we abstained in the vote on this report.
We are critical of Mr Adam' s report on the common organisation of the market in sheep meat and goat meat.
In our view, the amendments tabled generally represent an antiquated agricultural policy which does not correspond to the conditions and needs of modern, global society.
Against that background and with an eye to the impending general review of the EU' s agricultural policy, we have chosen to vote against the report in its entirety.
Lannoye Report (A5-0334/2001)
.
(PT) The European Union must use its development cooperation policy to strengthen the objectives designed for cooperation with developing countries in the fisheries sector by means of more programmes, technical resources and budgets under the various frameworks for priority action. This will enable us to help the economic and social development of these countries, specifically in the fields of rural development, transport, health, education and the fight against poverty.
The European Union must promote scientific research into resources and could support the implementation of an effective programme for monitoring the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of developing countries.
That concludes the vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare this session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 6.47 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 25 October 2001.
Announcement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, since our last session, Spain has once again, unfortunately, been cruelly struck by terrorism.
On 7 November, José María Lidón Corbi, a judge and professor of law in the Basque region, was murdered in a cowardly attack whilst leaving his home in Getxo.
The previous day in Madrid, terrorists set off a car bomb, in which a hundred or so people were injured.
On my own behalf, and on that of the European Parliament, I immediately sent my deepest condolences to the victim' s family and our best wishes for a speedy recovery to everyone who was injured in this attack.
Yet again, ETA terrorists have shown that they deny the right to life, that they reject the very principle of the rule of law.
By attacking a judge this time, the terrorists are demonstrating this once more.
Yesterday, Algeria was struck by catastrophic weather conditions, which so far have claimed 538 lives and left 316 injured.
I immediately expressed our deep sorrow to the Algerian people for the disaster that has struck Algiers, and our total solidarity for the human tragedy that the country is suffering.
I also asked President Bouteflika to pass on a message on our behalf to express our deepest sympathy to the victims' families and loved-ones.
I hope very much that the European Union will play an active part in supplying emergency aid, which must be sent as soon as possible.
Yesterday, three journalists were killed in an ambush by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Johanne Sutton, Pierre Billaud and Volker Handloik died whilst carrying out their profession, which was also their passion.
It was because of their courage that each of us was able to keep abreast of the events in Afghanistan.
I would like to pay homage to them and to express our deepest sympathy for their families and colleagues.
This afternoon, less than an hour ago, an American aircraft crashed not far from JFK airport in the Queens area of New York.
There were more than 260 passengers and crew members on board.
For the time being, we do not know the exact number of casualties or the precise circumstances surrounding this tragedy.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to ask you to observe a minute' s silence to pay homage to all the victims.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of Thursday 25 October have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, immediately following the vote on the 2002 Budget I asked how exactly Budget line B3-306 had been voted on.
My group's co-ordinator and I wrote you a letter asking for the vote to be re-scrutinised.
We have as yet received no reply.
I therefore wish to lodge an objection to the Minutes on this point in order to get the matter properly clarified.
The background to this is that we had voted on a reserve - the amounts involved and the explanations of them.
It was intended that we would vote on them together, with a separate vote only on one short passage in the explanations.
Then, though, there were suddenly separate votes on the amounts and the explanations.
That was not how it had been intended.
I therefore ask that this be looked into, and wish to put on record my reservations about the Minutes.
Mr Ferber, we shall take note of this.
If I am not mistaken, during voting time on Thursday 25 October, my vote by roll call on the second part of Amendment No 559 on the budget, and more specifically on premiums for tobacco, has been incorrectly recorded.
I voted against the second part, against the commentary, and I am shown in the register as having voted in favour.
I sent you a note and I received confirmation from Parliament' s services that this will be corrected.
As far as I know, this has not yet been done.
I hope that this will be corrected, but I wanted to mention this to the House as well.
Certainly, Mr Korakas. Thank you.
(The Minutes of the previous sitting were approved)
Order of business
The next item is the final draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
Sittings of 12 to 15 November in Strasbourg Regarding Tuesday
Madam President, my report on passenger transport by rail, road and inland waterway has been placed on Tuesday' s agenda under item No 16.
In recent months, different groups have continuously called for either bringing the discussion forward or postponing it.
Last week, I was informed that three of the groups, PSE, PPE-DE and the Verts/ALE, were in favour of postponing the discussion.
I then agreed to this on the assumption that the other groups needed more time for a fully-fledged discussion.
When on Thursday evening, much to my surprise, I heard that the Conference of Presidents had decided to go ahead with the discussion after all, I informed all Members that I was still prepared to postpone the debate.
It since transpired on Thursday afternoon that the PPE-DE Group had not been in favour of postponement and that it is no longer an issue for the PSE Group either.
Furthermore, the agendas of the two remaining plenary part-sessions of this year are already full.
Now that I have found this out, I am withdrawing my offer which I made in writing and circulated and I assume that the debate will go ahead tomorrow.
Of course!
Regarding Wednesday President.
I have received a request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party to postpone Mr Fiori' s report until the Brussels session of 28 and 29 November.
Is there a Member who wishes to move this request?
Madam President, Parliament must be an open forum whose business people are able to follow.
That is something Parliament will not be if we debate the Fiori report this week, because it is only today that it has become available in ten languages.
I do not know what the situation is regarding the eleventh language, Danish.
According to our original timetable, to which the Conference of Presidents had agreed, it was to be debated during the November II part-session.
Nor do we think there is any reason for debating it before the Caudron report.
I would therefore ask, on behalf of the Liberal Group, that we move it to the November II part-session.
I believe it is only right that you should check up on how the groups vote.
On this point, as on many others, the groups are extremely divided. The main thing, however, is that the world outside should be able to follow what is happening.
We MEPs should also be able to form views on the extremely difficult issues discussed in this report.
Mrs Thors, I can give you an explanation which may not have been brought to Members' attention. The Conference of Presidents decided to put the debate on the Fiori report on the agenda at the same time as the debate on Mr Caudron' s report.
With regard to the vote, it was decided that if there was insufficient time, Mr Fiori' s report could be put to the vote at the second November session in Brussels.
I am simply giving you this information so that you are aware.
If the report is kept on the agenda, I will see whether or not we have sufficient time to take the vote.
We have just heard the speaker who moved the request.
Is there a Member who wishes to speak in favour of the request?
Madam President, I would like to speak in favour of this request because, although, admittedly, only a small majority in the Conference of Presidents decided on Thursday to submit these two reports to a joint debate, it is certainly not straightforward for Parliament to allow the administrative services to take a decision that is political in nature.
In other words, this is a difficult requirement to meet.
We must not rush the vote on the Fiori report nor must we rush the debate.
However, if we set a deadline for tabling amendments for 9 p.m. on Tuesday and expect the administrative services to work like Trojans so that the Rules of Procedure are observed and Members have the documents 24 hours before the vote, we would be racing against time and this would not do credit to the Fiori report or to Parliament.
That is why we must support - and this is something that I support, along with my fellow Members from the radical group - the joint proposal to postpone the debate, so that we do not have to deal with this in a hurry.
So, we have heard the speaker who moved the request, one speaker in favour and one speaker against the request.
Mr Barón Crespo, do you wish to take the floor again?
Madam President, I would like to point out that I have the right to speak, for my esteemed fellow Member Mr Poettering did not only talk about the Fiori report: he spoke about the whole of Wednesday' s agenda, and as proposer, I feel that I have the right to speak, because it was my group that put forward the proposal to once again include in the agenda for Wednesday morning the oral questions that were initially put to the Council on a subject that is so important, especially if we consider the free time that we - according to what we are led to believe - have available.
I would like to take the opportunity, Madam President, to protest strongly and ask that you, yourself, do the same before the Council, for the representative of the Council, in the Conference of Presidents, gave a piece of information which I understand to be inaccurate, if not completely untrue, in relation to Council meetings.
Justice and Home Affairs Council is going to meet, as expected, on Friday, yet the representative of the Council at the Conference of Presidents said that the meeting would be taking place on 7 December.
This information is misleading, particularly at a time when Parliament is making a substantial effort to proceed with the emergency procedure on anti-terrorist legislation, and I think it was a serious mistake, because it has led to confusion that has had a negative effect on everyone concerned.
Firstly, in relation to this apparently empty Wednesday morning agenda, according to Mr Poettering.
Secondly, Madam President, I think it is a major political mistake to subordinate a legislative report such as the Caudron report to a question that will have ethical repercussions for all - not only for one particular political group - for we need to be working on that which is relevant to us all: the draft legislation.
Furthermore, as anticipated, we can remain perfectly calm and still have the time needed to deal with matters as serious as those set out in the Fiori report without necessarily having to resort to the emergency procedure.
We therefore agree that the matter should be debated in the November II part-session, as had initially been planned.
Mr Barón Crespo, everything is, in fact, perfectly in order, since there were two speakers to move this request.
Therefore, we were permitted to hear two speakers who are in favour and, in order to be fair, I shall now give the floor to Mr Lannoye, who I believe is going to speak against.
Madam President, unlike Mr Barón Crespo, I think that the debate on the Fiori report depends on the Caudron report. I shall explain why.
We set up a temporary committee to deal with the subject of human genetics. Why did we do this?
Because there are considerable ethical problems and I believe that everyone is aware of what they are. In my view, we cannot express a sound opinion on research programmes lasting several years, whose ethical aspects are fundamental, and then suddenly vote on the Fiori report which could lose a significant amount of its political impact.
I therefore believe that, in order to make the work of Parliament more coherent, it would be better to take the vote on the Fiori report at the same time as the Caudron report.
That said, I also agree that if the physical conditions are not appropriate, it is better to postpone the vote than to proceed under the wrong circumstances.
I think that we must respect Members.
I shall therefore put to the vote the request by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party to postpone the Fiori report.
(Parliament gave its assent)
I have received a request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists to bring forward to this week the debate on criminal sanctions and Community law, which is currently scheduled for Wednesday 28 November.
Justice and Home Affairs. Madam President, on behalf of the committee I have the honour to chair, I would ask that this topic be reinserted on this week's agenda, since, contrary to the advice given to the Conference of Presidents last week, the Justice and Home Affairs Council will be discussing it at its meeting this Friday.
This evening the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs will adopt a text, drafted in cooperation with the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which we believe is a strong basis for a Parliament resolution on this matter.
If it is not possible to have a debate in plenary with the Council, we request authorisation to submit this text to the plenary in the form of a draft recommendation for a vote on Thursday, pursuant to Article 39 of the Treaty and Rule 94 of our Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, after listening to the explanation given by Mr Watson, whom I would like to wish a long presidency of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, for he does this job so well, my group withdraws its proposal and adopts the one tabled by Mr Watson.
Are there any objections to Mr Watson' s proposal?
(Parliament gave its assent)
Regarding Thursday
President.
I suggest that, in view of the busy voting schedule at midday, the start of voting time be brought forward by half an hour, in other words, that we begin voting at 11.30 a.m.
Even without the vote on the report by Mr Fiori, I think that this is necessary.
With regard to the topical and urgent subjects of major importance, I have received a request from the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left to add a fourth sub-item entitled 'Floods in Algeria' .
I suggest that we add this item to item three, 'Effects of hurricane Michelle in Nicaragua and Cuba' , and we call this item 'Natural disasters' .
Madam President, if it is at all possible, I would like to add an oral amendment: 'on the effects of hurricane Michelle on Nicaragua, Cuba and Honduras' , which is where it has caused the most damage.
Of course.
I do not think that there will be any objections to this and we can therefore proceed in this way.
(Parliament gave its assent) The order of business is thus established.
Speeches on points of order
Madam President, according to the British press today six Algerian nationals were arrested over the weekend by the French security services.
They are allegedly associated with the terrorist group al-Qa'ida and with the five people arrested last year found in possession of maps which marked out the Parliament buildings in Strasbourg and the Cathedral.
Given the proximity both in place and time to our current part-session, what information does the President have on their hostile intentions towards Parliament? Given the current climate of suspicion, with another crash in New York of an airliner this evening, what additional security measures will be taken to protect us?
I, for instance, was allowed into Parliament this evening without even showing my security pass. What measures can be taken to protect us, given this danger?
Mr Tannock, as you can imagine, I carried out a very thorough investigation into the report you mentioned.
I was told that the plans the terrorists had in their possession related only to Strasbourg cathedral and the Christmas market.
But, of course, this information gives us reason to be even more careful, and I shall now give the floor to Mr Balfe, who will give you more details on what has been done to step up security.
Madam President, I have no more information than you on this series of arrests.
No-one has informed me about it but I am sure that will happen in the course of the evening and I will then tell Mr Tannock.
I should like to point out, though, that whilst we welcome the new security on the periphery, this building has to operate in the interests of Members.
I hope that the Bureau will reconsider the question of security and try to fine-tune it somewhat, because far too many Members are having their visitors and other groups seriously inconvenienced by the way the rules are being applied.
They can be applied a little more subtly.
I hope we can do that.
As regards Mr Tannock's question, I will find out what I can and inform him and the House.
In any case, I believe Mr Tannock welcomes the security measures that the Bureau thought it was necessary to take.
I can inform you that many Members submitted this question.
We cannot be too careful at the moment, which is, admittedly, an extremely testing time.
Madam President, I would like to briefly draw attention to the case of one of our colleagues in Israel, Mr Bichara, whose parliamentary immunity has recently been waived by the Knesset, a step that was taken because Mr Bichara expressed his political views in public.
I think that this step goes completely against the concept of parliamentary immunity, as this is never used by a country to punish MPs for expressing political views.
I believe that Mr Bichara has an extremely important role to play in relations between the Israeli and Palestinian people and in bringing about a fair solution to this conflict. I also think that it is important that you bring up this matter with the Israeli authorities and express Parliament' s concern at this step which infringes freedoms and breaches the treaty signed by Israel and the European Union.
We shall look into this matter very carefully.
Thank you, Madam President, for your words of solidarity for Algeria at the beginning of the sitting.
It is said that you find out who your true friends are in times of need and I believe, in fact, that now is the time to show our alliance with the Algerian people by providing substantial emergency aid of various kinds to help them contend with the extensive damage caused by the torrential rain that has struck Algiers and northern Algeria.
A natural disaster of this kind is always a huge blow for any population, particularly the most deprived, but, in this case, Algeria is also a country that has already suffered so much due to Islamic terrorism, economic and political crises, which continue to dash everyone' s hopes.
My group is, therefore, calling on the European Union to make the necessary resources available to help those affected by the disaster and, secondly, we believe that we must draw lessons, and not only in conjunction with the authorities and Parliament, but also with the relevant representatives of civil society in Algeria, from this tragedy and define priorities for our future cooperation.
If I may, Madam President, I would like to briefly give some information about another subject, since the request to add this item to the topical and urgent debate was rejected, that of the case of Leïla Zana.
The Bureau of my group recently held a meeting in Ankara.
We requested the opportunity to meet the Sakharov Prize winner, of course, but we were refused outright, and what we find particularly disappointing, especially since this concerns the Sakharov Prize, is that we were unable, at a time when we are combating terrorism, to meet Leïla Zana.
I think that it was only fair that my fellow Members are given this information and I also hope that the Commission is aware of this information since the Commission is currently drafting a progress report on relations between Turkey and the European Union.
Madam President, while Mr Dupuis was held in Laos last week, a large number of your colleagues, including myself, were detained in Brussels airport for eight hours, from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m., because the government of Belgium would not ensure the free movement of European citizens around Europe, including that of MEPs.
We could not get out of Brussels at all; we had to go back, and in the end departed from Charleroi the next day.
It took me 23 hours to get home.
Could you make representations to the Belgian Government, and to other governments, for that matter, to the effect that all European citizens, not just MEPs, should be entitled to free movement in Europe and that unjustified and illegal blockades of airports should be dealt with by the authorities in the proper manner?
Of course, Mr Purvis, I will certainly do this.
Madam President, I would like to inform you that in July this year, in accordance with Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union, I tabled a question to the Council of Ministers with regard to the Sahara referendum and also to some statements made by Mr Solana, the European Union' s representative for Foreign Policy.
A few weeks ago some EU Member States in the United Nations debated the common EU position on the Sahara.
Curiously, France distanced herself from the Belgian presidency' s proposal and demanded that the line be adopted as set out in the response that the Council of the European Union gave me personally on 10 October.
To date, I have received no such response.
There was even talk of a diplomatic incident, of a crisis between Spain and France, and between Spain and Morocco.
I would like to say two things for the record: firstly, it has never been my intention to create a diplomatic incident between Spain and France, nor between Spain and Morocco.
And secondly, I would like to express my concern at the lack of transparency shown by the Council to this Parliament, for I have had no official answer to my question.
Madam President, I rise to draw your attention to a report broadcast by the BBC last week, about child trafficking between European Union countries and West Africa.
This was a most disturbing report and I will send it to your services.
On behalf of colleagues in this House who I know are very concerned about these issues, I ask that you raise this subject with the Commission and the Member States and ask whether action can be taken across the European Union to stamp out this appalling abuse of young people from a very deprived part of the world.
Madam President, I should like once again to condemn the barbaric bombings which have been killing civilians and even destroying hospitals for days, or rather weeks now.
Bombings which, unfortunately, have the support of our countries' governments.
Statements by the US leadership that the objective of the attack is not Bin Laden but to break up Al-Qaeda, even though no one knows where it is, and that it is now the turn of other countries are particularly worrying and reveal the real purpose of the USA, proving that the attack on 11 September is merely being used as a pretext for pushing ahead with previous plans to gain control of this extremely important area and use up stocks of weapons.
On the other hand, grass-root reaction is increasing both here and in the USA, with the people calling for this barbaric attack to stop at once and for our countries and governments to call off their plan to send troops to Afghanistan.
The MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece support these movements, heart and soul, and trust that they will become even stronger and put a stop to the crime which is being committed.
Mr President, I would like to intervene to say that the television system here still does not receive images or sound from Finland.
Since the beginning of September, we have intervened in this matter on four separate occasions: first orally, then by e-mail, following which all the Finnish Members signed and dispatched a letter to the Quaestors on 2 October; finally, I raised the matter once again during the first session in October.
None of these requests has obtained any response whatsoever.
We may as well be talking to Siberia.
Finland is, technologically, at the top of the league; and we are ashamed of such behaviour.
I am asking you to intervene promptly in this matter, since so much is going on in the world that this sole Member State which is left outside the information loop needs to be included without delay.
I must say that I, myself, am very surprised.
I certainly recall what the Finnish Members said on this subject and I thought that the problem had been resolved long ago.
In any case, you can rely on me to remind the Quaestors of this, although I cannot see any of the Quaestors in the Chamber at the moment, because I believe that this is a very important issue and that we really must ensure that this is working as soon as possible.
Madam President, as has already been mentioned, this week is certainly not a normal plenary part-session.
For two months, this thing we call war has been in progress, a terrible war against terrorism. This very morning, Italy' s military involvement and its support for the United States have taken on a practical form, for indeed, today, Italian troops are leaving to go and help the United States and all the European Union troops which are actively, practically engaged in the war against this barbaric civilisation.
Well then, in the light of this development, to which we must certainly not become used or accustomed, the debate on the agenda, a Commission communication scheduled for Wednesday, seems decidedly inadequate.
Madam President, I expected something more!
I do not know what is happening to the Members, but when I go home I am surrounded by European citizens, my fellow citizens, all asking me the same thing: "What is your view of these events down at the European Parliament? What can you say to reassure us and allay our concerns?"
Well then, I am frankly disappointed by the presence, with all due respect to her, of the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister, Mrs Durant, whose remit is transport, not war, and though she will, I am sure, have a dramatic speech from the Presidency to read out to us.
I feel that it is almost an affront to Parliament that the Belgian Prime Minister is not going to be here at this important time. Moreover, I would ask you, Madam President, to see whether it would be possible for Mr Solana to be present here too, for he is our foreign policy representative and it is his duty, or rather his obligation, to provide us with clear, practical, specific information.
We cannot be content with just another declaration of good intentions or the assumption of a political position.
We are at war, but some people appear not yet to have understood the full implications of that fact or the importance of the present time.
To give practical effect to this speech, then, I call upon Mr Solana to come to Parliament and tell us clearly what is happening in Afghanistan so that we know not just the details of the military operations but also the extent of our combined endeavours in the field of humanitarian aid to help the communities affected.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we were extremely worried to hear that the government of the United Kingdom is pushing through an emergency bill allowing terrorist suspects to be held indefinitely.
We also hear that it intends to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, which bans detention without trial.
This development, coupled with the recent anti-terrorist law passed by the US Congress, which also grants extensive detention rights, and plans for the European Union (arrest warrant, definition of terrorism, reinforced police collaboration) is a highly dangerous development.
Unfortunately, it confirms our reading that the appalling attack on 11 September is being used by the imperialist powers not just to settle international accounts but also to defeat the enemy within, by eroding individual and collective rights.
However, it is encouraging that the American Civil Liberties Union and numerous American, British and other human rights organisations have condemned this action outright.
In fact, only grass-roots reaction, only a united grass-roots movement can bring about the repeal of such laws and prevent them from spreading throughout the continent of Europe.
Madam President, on a point of order.
It would be a pity if no Member from the United Kingdom were to stand up and say to Mr Alyssandrakis that we are also deeply concerned at this proposal and we hope it will not go through unchallenged.
Madam President, since you have announced that the votes will start at 11.30 a.m. on Thursday, could you tell me what will happen to my report on the European Year of People with Disabilities? It would be very wrong if a report dealing with disabled people's rights were put back to Thursday afternoon when most of the Members are not here and most of the Members will not be here to vote.
We are very remiss about disabled people's rights in this Parliament in terms of access.
It would demonstrate a great lack of awareness of the problems that disabled people face if we do not give them some degree of respect by scheduling this debate at a time when Members will be present to debate and vote on this important issue.
Mrs Lynne, of course I understand what you are saying, but in any case, and you are well aware of this, it is not because we are bringing voting time forward by half an hour that your report cannot be dealt with in the morning.
If you look at the agenda, which I have before me now, you will see that before your report, we are due to have a statement by the Council and the Commission on the economic and employment situation, and deal with the Figueiredo report and the Bouwman report.
It is obvious that, with all these items on the agenda, we would not, in any case, have been able to finish dealing with your report between 10 a.m. and 12 noon.
I am extremely sorry about this, but I think that you are quite right to highlight the problem.
Public access to Parliament documents
The next item is the report (A5-0349/2001) by Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the adaptation of the European Parliament' s Rules of Procedure to the Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council regarding public access to documents of the European Parliament, Council and Commission (2001/2135(REG)).
.
(NL) Madam President, this week marks the provisional end of the discussion on the 'public access to Parliament documents' Regulation.
Technically, this Regulation is entitled 'access to documents' , but it ended up with a different name in the vernacular.
In May, after months of negotiations with the Council and Commission, we were able to bring the Regulation to a successful end.
This was an important moment for me personally, because I have fought for more transparency in the European Union for years.
According to the Resolution, each of the institutions, namely the Commission, the Council and Parliament, must ensure that the Regulation has been incorporated in the institutions' own rules of procedure, work instructions and meeting procedures by 3 December.
For our Parliament, this meant that we needed to check out our Rules of Procedure to establish whether more improvements were needed.
We often feel that the Commission and the Council fail to come up to the mark in this area, but we have noted that there is room for improvement in one or two areas in our Rules of Procedures too.
When I use the word 'we' , I would like to make it clear that I also want to include my fellow rapporteur, Mr Cashman, with whom I have worked closely.
The assessment was made in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, but also in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
That is logical because both committees had worked together before.
I thank Mr Cashman very much for the constructive manner in which we have always managed to enter into consultation.
So what are the proposed changes to our Rules of Procedure for which we are asking your backing? First of all, what matters is the right of all citizens in the European Union, in other words, including those of third countries, to access EP documents.
That right may have been in place for European citizens, but this was not the case for citizens from third countries registered in the EU.
On that score, therefore, we need to broaden the scope.
Moreover, this corresponds to the 'Freedom of Information Act' of the United States.
We are therefore not doing anything out of the ordinary.
Secondly, the definition of documents which are eligible for access must, according to the Regulation, be widened compared to the current Rules of Procedure.
It should include all parliamentary documents, including the preparatory documents, such as working documents by rapporteurs or by parliamentary delegations.
There is no need to include MEPs' personal correspondence or the groups' internal documents, because these are not official parliamentary documents.
The European Court of Justice has made statements to this effect, which we should, and want to, observe, of course.
The third requirement in the Regulation for which our Rules of Procedure do not provide, is the requirement to register all public documents and to include all documents by name and number in this registration.
Furthermore, this registration must be available and accessible on the Internet.
That will require the necessary efforts to be made and that is why the institutions have until June to achieve this.
We must wish our team and the deputy Secretary-General all the best for this task, for it is quite a job to organise the whole system.
We will have a look in June to see whether everything has turned out well.
A fourth requirement for which our present Parliament does not provide, is access to the Minutes of the Parliament' s Bureau.
That cannot be such a big problem because these Minutes become public after a certain time anyway.
The only difference is that our Rules of Procedure did not make it compulsory before, and now this obligation has to be stipulated in the Rules of Procedure.
In fact, my advice would be to publish those Minutes even earlier than is now the case.
After all, our entire Parliament knows what is being discussed the afternoon after the meeting anyway.
Fifthly, we still maintain the system of closed meetings in our Parliament when delicate matters are discussed.
Our proposal is to leave those meetings in camera, but to verify the Minutes against Articles 4 and 9 of the Regulation.
Anything which does not fall within this must be made public via the Minutes.
I hope that this could persuade the committees not to have the meetings declared closed unnecessarily.
The final point concerns the conciliation between the Commission, the Council and Parliament in the event of disputes.
Parliament must be involved in the conciliation, and it appears to us to be the best solution if a Vice-President of the European Parliament were to be appointed especially for this purpose.
We would also like to see this laid down in the Rules of Procedure so that it is clear who is responsible.
This concludes the most important changes to our Rules of Procedure.
At the final vote, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs backed these amendments by a large majority.
There are not that many and I therefore believe that we can bring this to a good conclusion here as well.
Four additional amendments have been tabled, including one by my group and three by the Greens.
I do not have much of a problem with that of my group, but we should take another good look at those by the Greens, for it makes no sense to go beyond what is stipulated in the Regulation.
As we should have dealt with this when we were discussing the Regulation, I am tempted to say no to these amendments.
On a final note, this Regulation and change to our Rules of Procedure are very important because they grant our citizens more access to internal documents of our Parliament and of the entire European Union, which improves transparency.
Public confidence, which is very much needed, will also increase as a result.
I welcome this and that is why I hope that we can approve these Rules of Procedure on Tuesday.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Maij-Weggen for her comments.
I have heartily enjoyed the way we have worked together on this and I am pleased to say that the work in her report represents our joint work.
I also accept what she has said on the amendments.
Before I speak further, I should like the services to rule whether Amendment No 17 from the Green Group is admissible, because it seeks to rewrite the regulation.
It calls on Parliament to adopt criteria for the definition of sensitive information and documents.
Now the definition of sensitive documents is contained in the regulation, Article 9, reference to Article 4(1)(a).
I should again like to thank Mrs Maij-Weggen for her consistent approach to transparency and openness.
It is absolutely right that we adopt changes to our Rules of Procedure so that we not only conform to the regulation on access to documents but can also begin to be held accountable by the citizens whom we purport to represent.
Therefore, now that Commissioner Barnier is here, it is important for me to refer to some of my concerns about the entry into force of this regulation on 3 December 2001.
When the regulation enters into force, the citizen's right of access to institution documents will no longer be a discretionary concession but a fundamental right, rooted in Article 255.
As no other legal basis on access to documents is provided in the Treaty, the regulation on Article 255 will be the framework for all other secondary legislation and for the internal rules of the institutions, which should be in conformity with it.
The Commission, therefore, has the responsibility to present formal proposals to repeal or amend secondary legislation which is not coherent with the principles and limits defined in Article 18(3) of the regulation.
This is extremely important if we are to bring this regulation into force.
Similarly, on the wider definition of institutions and the bodies and agencies, the Commission is mandated by Recital 8 and by the joint statement to review the rules of agencies and, where necessary to propose amendments as soon as possible.
On the matter of the Interinstitutional Committee - and all of these points are relevant if we are ourselves adopting changes to the Rules of Procedure - the Council presidency has said that it believes the Interinstitutional Committee should operate at secretary-general level.
This differs from the opinion of President Prodi and of Parliament.
Though I hesitate to say this, it is nonsense to suggest that secretaries-general should sit in this Interinstitutional Committee.
The whole point of political presence is political accountability.
Finally, Mrs Maij-Weggen has done an excellent job on this and now is the time for the Commission to ensure that the Treaty is respected and that the regulations flowing therefrom are brought before Parliament.
Mr President, the report we are debating this afternoon in Parliament is important, because it relates to something we have always defended in this House: the principle of transparency, which means citizens' right to access documents and also the principles of openness and proximity to these very citizens.
For this reason, we are debating Article 255 of the Treaty as reformulated in Amsterdam, and also an important article of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 42.
After the agreement reached by the Council and Parliament, we need to incorporate the principles promoted by the aforementioned Articles of the Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights respectively into the Rules of Procedure of this House.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Maij-Weggen most sincerely on her excellent work; her report, in addition to the amendments she tabled, was adopted in committee with 25 votes in favour to one against.
I would also like to congratulate Mr Cashman.
I think that a good relationship was maintained between all those involved, and I also believe that all of the proposals tabled by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs have been taken into consideration by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
Therefore, Mr President, in the vote that is going to take place tomorrow we shall be transposing a political principle of fundamental importance and incorporating it into our Rules of Procedure.
In doing so, we will be including a fundamental principle in the interests of the aforementioned transparency and openness into the set of rules that regulates our relations.
Mr President, my group is going to support an amendment it has itself tabled, not by pure chance, but because it is a good amendment.
Furthermore, we will support Mrs Maij-Weggen' s proposals.
I trust that the result of the vote will be sufficient, that is to say, more than 314 votes, for these proposals to be incorporated into the Rules of Procedure of this House.
On behalf of the European People' s Party, I would like to once again congratulate the two rapporteurs for the great work they have done.
Mr President, what is transparency? Transparency is guaranteed, or so one might and should argue, when as many of the European institutions' documents as possible are made accessible to all citizens of the EU with an interest in them and also when meetings of the Council are guaranteed to be open to the public.
It is to this banal sentence that we can reduce the foundation document of the European Transparency Initiative, called into being by a very wide range of parliamentarians and people in public life across Europe and only now beginning to become effective on the basis of Regulation 1049/2001 and the adjustments which we in this Parliament are now making to it.
There are still different conceptions of what we want transparency to be like.
I, myself, want the European transparency formula to be an American-Swedish hybrid, with unlimited access to almost everything, with not even a registry, and with a real possibility of watching over and permanently examining what we do in Parliament, and especially what is done in the Council, where the really important decisions are taken.
This Parliament does not yet, unfortunately, have the majority required for this.
It can be argued that the European public, in all its diversity, is far from ready.
There is also room for the argument that, if an Italian or Austrian citizen writes to one of the EU institutions, and his letter is promptly recorded in a public registry, he would certainly not have reckoned with that and might react differently from a Swede, who would treat it as a matter of course.
I think we must, in any case, carry on along this road, especially now that events around the world make the definition of European values an issue.
Transparency is definitely one of them.
What we now have in front of us is a step in this direction.
Mention has already been made of the deliberations in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
I would like the Greens to come up with a substantially clearer explanation of Amendment No 15 than has been produced to date.
I would personally have no problem whatever with the production of necessary documents in the context of budgetary control, or indeed with what is demanded at the end.
But if it only scores an own goal, it would be better to leave it out.
Mr Cashman has already said all that needs to be said about Amendment No 17.
Amendment No 14 meets with our group's undivided approval.
It represents an improvement.
Even the deletion of the restriction to 'permanent' committees in the first part of Amendment No 15 is only to be welcomed.
We must all be aware that there can be no democracy without transparency.
We still have plenty of work to do before that is achieved.
Mr President, as has been pointed out, this report is, of course, a consequence of the quite arduous work done on the report on Article 255 of the EC Treaty, which concerns public access to documents and on which we voted on 3 May.
Thanks to the extremely strong alliance for transparency which existed, and still exists, in Parliament and in which Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cashman have played a significant role, we finally succeeded in getting the Council and the Commission to endorse a proposal reflecting this House' s desire for as much transparency as possible.
The legislation we adopted is deficient and unclear in certain respects but constitutes a first and very important step forwards in the fight for greater transparency in the EU' s work on behalf of its citizens.
We also decided to review the regulations by January 2004 at the latest.
In the same way as we did then, we must now take the lead in the work aimed at taking a further step forward.
Transparency and public control are the bases for a democratic form of government and a prerequisite for people' s being able to follow, and participate in, public decision-making.
The opportunity to access EU documents creates greater confidence and legitimacy, two things in short supply in the EU at the present time, unfortunately.
When we adjust our regulations, let us not therefore make them too complicated.
Let us interpret Article 255 as generously as possible and the concept of a 'document' as broadly as possible.
There are exemptions in the legislation, in Article 4, but let us not leave the way open for new interpretations of secrecy or of classification of documents as top secret, and let us not construct unnecessary bureaucracies, either.
It is important for people to be able to obtain documents to which they are entitled as soon as possible, as well as for documents to be available on the Internet.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party tabled amendments along these lines in the committee, but they were not adopted.
I hope that they will nonetheless be adopted in practice.
My group supports this report because, for us, transparency and public control are efficient and democratic, not bureaucratic and unnecessary.
Through progressive and extensive regulations in Parliament governing transparency, we can show that it is we who are there for the people, and not the other way around.
Mr President, it is customary to thank rapporteurs but we genuinely want to pay tribute to Mrs Maij-Weggen for the work she has done on this.
I would like to echo what Mrs Malmström has just said about the urgency of transparency and openness, especially in Parliament and I would like to endorse Mr Cashman's remark that this must be taken as a political responsibility.
We, as elected politicians, are responsible to our electorate for ensuring that all proceedings are as open as possible.
With that in mind, I should like briefly to mention the amendments in the name of our Group.
I hope Mrs Maij-Weggen will accept the first one, extending the rules to cover all committees.
I only have limited experience of being a vice-chairman of the recent Echelon committee, but I see no reason why special committees and committees of inquiry should not be bound.
The further extension later in the amendment that broads out the range of documents from Members which count as parliamentary documents is helpful as well.
I hope that will be accepted.
On the question of political responsibility, it seems to us that for some questions the Conference of Presidents would be a better organ to decide matters than the Bureau, in the sense that in the Conference of Presidents people are representing their political party, whereas in the Bureau people are supposed to speak for the Parliament as a whole, rather than putting forward a political case.
Our third amendment suggests that we need a parliamentary definition of sensitive documents.
Mr Cashman has challenged the validity of this.
We think that within our rules, there is room for an expanded definition in relation to parliamentary documents.
We will check that and withdraw the amendment if, on reflection, we think we have gone too far.
Finally, we should like a split vote in relation to the adoption of security rules for the EP to leave out the words 'on the basis of a proposal from the Bureau' which would again push the responsibility back on to the Conference of Presidents.
However we very much appreciate the spirit in which Mrs Maij-Weggen has put this forward and we are grateful for her willingness to look carefully at our amendments.
Parliaments must be transparent.
It is very sad that the more we open our glass-houses, the less people seem to look into them.
The media need to help in this as well.
If this Parliament is to be transparent it must be reported, as well as open.
Mr President, Mrs Maij-Weggen' s report on public access to Parliament documents is an advance we cannot but support.
The problem is everything that is not included.
The main problem is that the Commission and the Council do not supply Parliament with documents from the phase during which legislation is prepared, and that is, of course, the phase in which people have an interest in participating so as to influence the content of the legislation.
Our rapporteurs and committee chairmen can often get hold of the relevant papers.
Members of the executive can, more often than not, obtain what they need from their political friends in the Commission or the Council' s delegations, but such documents are not, and will not be, available to all MEPs or to the public.
Nor does the report make any change to the disgraceful framework agreement which the majority of Parliament has entered into with the Commission and which divides MEPs into first and second class Members according to whether or not they have access to confidential information.
It might be relevant to distinguish between rapporteurs and ordinary MEPs, but the distinction is not made according to who has need of the confidential information.
It is all right to impose tough sanctions on MEPs who breach confidentiality, but it is contrary to the principle of equality, and thus unlawful, to regard committee chairmen as especially eligible, while a rapporteur with the same need does not have access in the same way.
Moreover, it is completely insane and contrary to every parliamentary tradition that Parliament' s Committee on Budgetary Control, the ombudsman and the EU' s own Court of Auditors are never in a position to check all the documents concerning the Commission' s discharge of its office.
This, too, is something which Mrs Maij-Weggen' s otherwise quite excellent report does nothing about.
Nor are those of us who are to approve the enlargement agreements able to obtain the screening reports, even if they do not, in fact, contain anything other than an analysis of the gap between existing EU legislation and the candidate countries' arrangements for transposing the EU regulations into their own legislation.
This situation will scarcely be changed when the regulation regarding public access to documents comes into force.
We are still in the dark ages when it comes to transparency, but even a small step in the right direction must be endorsed, so it will be the green button I press tomorrow in order to encourage Mrs Hanja Maij-Weggen to continue working for greater openness in the EU.
Mr President, Commissioner Barnier, Mrs Maij-Weggen, Mr Cashman, ladies and gentlemen, if, today, the window of the European Parliament is opened a little wider, as Mr MacCormick has put it, then Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cashman will have played a great part in it.
Thank you for your commitment and congratulations on the success you have achieved in making us more open.
I certainly do not see myself as groping in the dark, as Mr Bonde put it, but I do think we are on the road towards the light.
Tomorrow's resolution will also be our invitation to the citizens of the European Union to put our openness to good use, to look in on us, to, if you want to put it that way, take a look at the cards we hold, even to see behind the scenes.
Openness makes little sense, of course, if nobody is interested in the work we do.
We do not wish to complain about the lack of interest on the part of our citizens and voters, but we would like to seriously urge them to avail themselves of this new openness on the part of the European Parliament, as today's technology makes things conceivable which a few years ago would not have been possible.
With the click of a mouse, they can see the original texts we discuss in this House.
Even if press reports on Europe are sometimes incomplete, the interested citizen can nonetheless look straight in on us with the help of the Internet.
That is an opportunity, and because of it we strongly support this report.
I would have liked to say something to the representative of the Council of Ministers.
Unfortunately, he is not here, but there was not going to be much to say about transparency.
Mr. President, I also wish to congratulate Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cashman on this second success.
They already deserve our congratulations on their work on the original legislation, Council and Parliament Regulation 1049/2001, where their work was crucial in securing that positive result.
Now they are coming back to translate that into our Rules of Procedure to ensure that our work is transparent.
It is arguable that the European Union is in some ways already more transparent than some of our Member States.
It certainly does not reach the highest standards set by some of our Member States, but we are moving in the right direction, although of course it is still not perfect.
However we will review it in a few years in the light of experience.
Looking at the package of amendments to our Rules of Procedure tabled by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, I can say on behalf of my group that we will support the thrust of what the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has put forward.
We shall listen to the arguments that are being put forward in this debate and then review our position again, but our group is leaning towards accepting Amendment No 14 from the PPE-DE Group, the first half of Amendment No 15 from the Verts/ALE Group, and possibly Amendment No 16 from the Verts/ALE Group.
We are opposed to the second half of Amendment No 15 from the Verts/ALE Group, which is entirely unworkable and would raise a number of practical problems if it were adopted.
As Mr Cashman explained, we question whether Amendment No 17 from the Verts/ALE Group it is admissible, and I welcome the fact that Mr MacCormick was doubtful about that.
I gather it may well be withdrawn and I would welcome that.
That is the position of our group, subject to the arguments we are listening to now.
However, whatever happens to those particular amendments, I am quite confident that there will be a successful outcome in the vote tomorrow.
Mr President, I add my congratulations to Mrs Maij-Weggen for an excellent report.
It is quite clear that Parliament must get its own house in order after the agreements we have had vis-à-vis the Commission.
Access is important but too much lip service is paid to access.
I thought that at the beginning Mr Corbett was being rather congratulatory.
I agree with him that we are moving in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go.
I want to bring to Parliament's attention the specific problem that the Committee on Petitions is still experiencing with access to documentation.
I know the problem here is largely the Commission, but it impacts on Parliament.
A number of European citizens have petitioned this Parliament about problems with Lloyds of London.
A very detailed questionnaire was sent to the British Government.
Only Members of the Petitions Committee have been allowed to see that questionnaire; no other Members of Parliament.
Even Members of the Petitions Committee, behind closed doors, are not allowed to have any legal advisers, or political advisers, and are not allowed to take copies.
Nobody in Parliament has been allowed to see the reply from the British Government.
Mr Bolkestein said that he cannot reveal this information because it could be subject to legal action by the Commission against the British Government.
The British Government reply was that they would not let us see it because they regard it as an informal communication at the request of the Petitions Committee by the Commission.
Twenty-one detailed questions to the British Government and the British Government says that it is an informal communication!
We want some clarity here, so that we know precisely what we do and do not have access to.
At present, Members, committees and Parliament itself cannot do their jobs properly because of excessive secrecy.
I would certainly urge that a representative - the chairman of the Petitions Committee - should be on the Interinstitutional Committee so that citizens know that the Members of this Parliament who look after their interests ensure that this secrecy does not go any deeper than it does at present.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for allowing me to speak briefly on behalf of the Commission, about the work that we have done, and I am referring not only to myself and the Commission, but also to Parliament and the Presidency, to bring about the regulation of 30 May. This is also an important time for you, because Parliament' s adoption of the report by Mrs Maij-Weggen means that as of 3 December, you will be able to apply the regulation on public access to documents.
The Commission believes that this regulation represents a very significant step forwards in achieving greater transparency and accountability on the part of the institutions towards Europe' s citizens.
The efforts made by Parliament to ensure that the regulation was adopted within the time limits imposed by the Treaty, a point that I also highlighted during a previous speech, clearly indicates the importance that your institution also attaches to transparency in general, and to the public' s right of access to documents, in particular.
You will, therefore, allow me to acknowledge and draw attention to the effort made, and to express my gratitude to the Chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, Mr Watson, but also to you, Mrs Maij-Weggen, and to Mr Cashman, who has done a great deal of work with you, Mrs Maij-Weggen, on these issues.
I would also like to tell you that the Commission is finalising a draft decision on the implementation of the regulation of 30 May.
This decision will be adopted during November by the Commission, which will annex it to its own internal Rules of Procedure.
The Commission will also be in a position, therefore, to implement this regulation within the required time limits, and this will guarantee that the public can fully exercise its right to access these documents.
In these circumstances, it is natural for the Commission to pay particular attention to the approach that the European Parliament used to amend its Rules of Procedure.
This approach will be a very useful source of inspiration for the Commission' s own internal rules, as I think it is important that the institutions follow a similar approach in applying these important rules.
The way they are applied must, of course, respect the spirit of the Rules of Procedure.
This is the main thrust of the message that the Commission wishes to give to you today, whilst we, of course, fully respect your autonomy in how you choose to amend your own rules.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to make a very brief comment about a point that Mrs Maij-Weggen raised in her report, which concerns the framework agreement between our two institutions, and reiterated the different nature of the two acts - firstly, the regulation of 30 May 2001 and secondly, the framework agreement that I have just mentioned.
As far as the Commission is concerned, we believe that there is no obvious incompatibility between these two documents, since Annex III of the framework agreement regulates the forwarding of confidential documents to Parliament which cannot, in any case, be forwarded to the public, due to the exceptions laid down by the regulation of 30 May.
What happens in practice should naturally reflect this legal interpretation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would, however, like to confirm the Commission' s very clear intention to faithfully apply all the provisions contained in this framework agreement.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Membership of interparliamentary delegations and joint parliamentary committees
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0346/2000) by Mr Carnero González, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs on the amendment of the Rules of Procedure as regards the setting-up of interparliamentary delegations and joint parliamentary committees.
Mr President, until this current parliamentary term, the standing committees, the interparliamentary delegations and the delegations of the joint parliamentary committees of this House were set up using a uniform procedure: Plenary, at the proposal of the Conference of Presidents, appointed Members, and these, at the inaugural meeting, elected the bureau for each of these bodies.
The reform of the rules introduced as a result of the decision made by this House in plenary at the end of the last parliamentary term changed this situation with regard to the interparliamentary delegations and the delegations in joint parliamentary committees.
From that point on, both were elected and set up in a different way from the standing committees: their bureaux were approved by this House, at the proposal of the Conference of Presidents, which appointed the remainder of its Members.
Proceeding in this fashion, at the start of this fifth parliamentary term, it was noticed that there was a contradiction in Rule 170.
This Rule stated that the delegations of joint parliamentary committees would be set up in the same way as the standing committees, and, at the same time, it was stated that this would be carried out in accordance with Rule 168, that had already been amended in the way I previously mentioned.
This gave rise to a contradiction, no doubt caused by an error in this House, which had adopted an oral amendment by simple majority without having removed the reference to the former procedures from the text of the Rules of Procedure.
In order to resolve this contradiction, the Conference of Presidents asked the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to look into the matter.
The report we are debating today is the result of the work carried out by this committee.
It approved this report exactly one year ago, almost unanimously.
I would point out that, for one year, this text has been 'sleeping the sleep of the just' .
The reasons for this escape me.
In any case it is clear that, during this time, the chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Napolitano, and several coordinators, insisted that it should be included on the agenda of this plenary sitting.
I have the report right here.
The most important thing is that during this period there was time to be able to reflect upon the following: in the first instance, we have to remove the current contradiction in the Rules of Procedure; this is absolutely crucial if we want to prevent the same doubts we had in July 1999 arising next January.
At the same time, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs proposed in its report to return to a uniform procedure with regard to the standing committees, the interparliamentary delegations and the delegations of joint parliamentary committees.
It seems that this time used in 'sleeping the sleep of the just' with regard to this report has been of use for the parliamentary groups to consider that, although it is absolutely necessary to amend the Rules of Procedure to remove this contradiction in Rule 170, doubts still remain about the need to once again standardise the constitutional procedures of the three bodies in this Parliament that I mentioned at the start of my speech.
I am clear on several points: when dealing with a reform of the Rules of Procedure, two principles should be given priority; firstly, consensus and secondly, efficiency.
And, whilst we are talking about consensus, it is clear that your rapporteur understands the opinion of the political groups and, therefore, considers that tomorrow we should proceed to remove this contradiction in Rule 170 and leave the procedure for the setting up of interparliamentary delegations and the delegations of joint parliamentary committees as it stands at present.
The second issue is efficiency.
In January we will, once again, have to deal with a new process for setting up these bodies. This should take place quickly, so that they can continue to function as well as they have up until now.
Whilst we are on this subject, I would also like to congratulate, personally, and on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, these interparliamentary delegations and the delegations of joint parliamentary committees.
I would like, if you will allow me, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and its representatives, to insist on a third principle, coherence, which is also always of fundamental importance.
Lastly, Mr President, I would like to remind you of that old proverb which says: 'a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush' .
Let us resolve this contradiction, which is the most important thing for us to do today.
Mr President, Mr Carnero, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, am glad that the history of this legal contradiction will, it is to be hoped, come to its end for the time being when we adopt Mr Carnero's report tomorrow.
Thank you very much, Mr Carnero, for the good work you have done, and, also, for finding your way through this apparently very technical material and bringing out the political dimension to the decision we are to take.
In political terms, of course, it is a matter of some significance whether the chairpersons of the joint parliamentary committees and of the interparliamentary delegations are appointed en bloc by this, albeit rather thinned-out, House or whether every single candidate in every single joint parliamentary committee or every single interparliamentary delegation has to be elected or appointed as an individual.
It is, of course, clear that the Rules of Procedure have to provide for a process ensuring political balance in the composition of the delegations and the joint parliamentary committees.
It is likewise clear that the results of that process also have to be implemented and that this, too, can be safeguarded by the Rules of Procedure.
It is also evident, on the other hand, that these important decisions about personnel cannot be completely removed from the plenary.
We must, then, be clear in our own minds that the joint committees and interparliamentary delegations perform duties of a distinctly sensitive nature with respect to our partner countries, and also that the appointment of certain persons to chair these committees can become a political issue, may be seen as discourteous or even taken to be provocative.
It must therefore be possible for this plenary to retain control over who is actually appointed to the offices in question.
We cannot, then, have the situation in which Parliament gives, as it were, carte blanche for the appointment to specific positions, only for the individual groups, or even national delegations within them, to decide at the end of the day who is to be appointed.
Parliament must hold on to its supremacy in this respect.
I believe this also means that it must be ensured that, when we reassemble in January, we at least know the names of the people involved before proceeding to the ballot.
This was not in fact the case at the start of this Parliamentary term.
In the medium term, though, I think we must consider handing over the responsibility to the joint committees and delegations.
That is where the Members sit who know the relationships with the partner countries and their sensitive aspects.
In the long term too, they should also bear responsibility for deciding who should preside over them.
Mr President, this proposed set of amendments to our Rules of Procedure that has been so ably drafted by our rapporteur is intended to resolve a contradiction.
In one sense it is a very simple matter: we either resolve it one way or we resolve it the other way.
In the view of myself and many in my group, it is not absolutely crucial whether it be resolved this way or that.
There are arguments in favour of either solution.
Some of these arguments have been put with great clarity in this short debate.
But resolved it must be, one way or the other.
As is so often the case when things are relatively simple, everybody has an opinion and these opinions do not entirely coincide.
Some people have a preference for the solution that has been put forward by the committee.
Others prefer the solution that has been tabled in an amendment signed by several political groups.
The vote tomorrow will determine which way we go.
Either way, it is crucial that we settle this tomorrow.
It needs to be sorted out before the constituent sitting in January.
I concur with our rapporteur that it is somewhat of a scandal that this report has been sat on for over a year since it was adopted in the committee and is only coming now, almost at the last minute, to plenary to be settled.
It should have been settled a long time ago.
I congratulate the rapporteur on his patience.
I am glad he was still able to remember the crucial arguments underpinning his report a whole year after he steered it through the committee.
Thank you, Mr Corbett.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Europol - joint investigation teams
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0370/2001 by Mr Turco, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on
1. the initiative of the Kingdom of Belgium and the Kingdom of Sweden with a view to adopting a Council Decision extending Europol's mandate to deal with the serious forms of international crime listed in the Annex to the Europol Convention
and
2. the initiative of the Kingdom of Sweden with a view to the adoption of a Council Act amending the Council Act of 12 March 1999 adopting the rules governing the transmission of personal data by Europol to third States and third bodies
A5- 0369/2001, by Mr Kirkhope, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Initiative of the Kingdom of Belgium, the French Republic, the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom for the adoption by the Council of a draft Framework Decision on joint investigation teams.
Mr President, Commissioner, despite the importance of the initiatives before us, the European Parliament is, on this matter, only being consulted. That means that, as often happens in these cases, the decision we take with our vote will not be taken into any account by the Council.
In spite of this, or rather, especially because of this, I want to focus on the need for urgent reform of Europol, in order to allow democratic and judicial control.
Parliament has been calling for this for at least five years, since the presentation of the Nassauer report in 1996.
The Nassauer report sent a strong political signal to the Council.
It called upon the Member States not to ratify the Europol Convention until it had been placed under the control of the Court of Justice, that is, until the Court of Justice had been given the necessary decision-making authority over its interpretation and proper implementation.
Mr Nassauer' s report was exemplary in its handling of the problems encountered by Europol and the Convention, which remain the same today.
Resolution of these problems does not depend on the political groups, the rapporteur or Mr Nassauer: the judicial and democratic control of Europol is an institutional matter.
The refusal to bind up this wound inflicted on European democracy, if we can talk about the system regulating the Union' s institutions today in these terms, implies that it would be impossible to make any tangible progress in creating an area which is genuinely an area of security, of justice and of freedom but which we feel must be first and foremost an area of democracy.
Since the setting-up of Europol, the European Parliament has pointed out the need to supervise it.
The plan to increase Europol' s powers to deal with the critical situation with regard to terrorism, the scandal involving a Europol senior official and the reluctance of the national police forces to transmit their data to Europol, as well as the creation of Parlopol - a group of national and European Members of Parliament upholding the importance of increasing democratic control over Europol and its decisions within the area of justice, freedom and security - have already led the Council to reflect at least on the need to introduce some reforms.
Most importantly, the Council requested that the Commission draw up a communication on the democratic control of Europol by the end of the year.
We know the opinion of Commissioner Vitorino, who has stated many times that he considers it appropriate to set up a committee composed of members of the national and European parliaments, but we hope to hear now that the timetable for this reform will be speeded up.
We feel that, in a democratic framework, Europol should be subject to financial, budgetary and judicial control as well as democratic control.
Financial and budgetary control are currently impossible in that Europol is funded by the national States and not by the Community budget; thus Parliament and the Commission have no power of budgetary or financial control and cannot therefore either criticise or direct the activities of that body.
Judicial control has also been denied.
Indeed, the Court of Justice has been denied full powers of judicial control.
We should also note that Europol officials benefit from immunity that is so wide-ranging that it is like a guarantee of impunity, protecting them with regard to the judicial control which can be exercised at national level.
Then there is the problem of the gradual increase in the mandate and powers of Europol.
Although Europol initially dealt with drug-related crime, the act under consideration widens the powers of Europol to what is, in essence, all types of crime.
To enable the European Parliament to express its concerns and requests to the Council and the Commission at a time when they are preparing to take decisions enlarging Europol' s powers and jurisdiction, we feel that, in addition to the amendments on the two Acts proposed by Belgium and Sweden, other amendments are necessary to resolve this issue.
In our opinion, the amendments tabled may perform the function of clarifying and improving the initiatives under consideration and send the Council and the Member States a clear political message criticising the current situation and proposing several fundamental guidelines for reform.
Lastly, the combination of the factors I have mentioned and the lack of codecision powers conferred on the European Parliament with regard to justice and home affairs must prompt all those who hold dear the principles of democracy and freedom to reject the two initiatives under consideration, for I feel this would make the Council and the Member States more aware of the urgent need to reform Europol.
rapporteur.
Mr President, as you would expect, I will concentrate on my own report, which deals with the establishment of joint investigation teams.
I am very proud to be the rapporteur in an extremely innovative area, which has taken on great importance following the appalling events of 11 September.
It is perhaps all the more important because we are trying to implement Article 13 of the EU Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters which, although it was signed in May 2000, looks unlikely to be ratified for some time, making it vital that we have a legal framework in place as quickly as possible so that we can take these matters forward.
Joint investigation teams will allow two or more countries to join together for the purposes of investigating terrorism, human trafficking, drug trafficking and indeed other serious organised crime.
This is an important venture which we must all support.
A joint investigation team will take the talent and ability from different Member States and join them together for a purpose which is clearly defined and with a clear termination date, but in a way which will allow that expertise to work effectively and sharply in dealing with criminality and with bringing criminals to book.
It will be a flexible instrument and one which we have been in need of for some time.
There have been concerns expressed, although not followed up in amendments, about the extent of participation in such teams.
For instance, there have been references to the national criminal intelligence services of Member States.
As a minister responsible in the United Kingdom for setting up our own national criminal intelligence service a few years ago, I am very confident that the make-up of these organisations in Member States is already well addressed.
By giving those setting up the teams the discretion to determine their composition and to express objections when necessary, it seems to me that this point has been tackled very effectively.
Although all the States concerned are signatories to our Human Rights Convention, I have nevertheless asked in this report that we draw particular attention to the need to protect and preserve human rights in the conduct of these teams.
Terrorism is uppermost in our minds at present.
But trafficking in human beings is something else we should be deeply concerned about and something which these teams could perhaps help with.
Only recently it has been revealed in the United Kingdom that there are hundreds, even thousands, of young children who have been sold into the slave trade from other parts of the world and are now in Europe suffering the most appalling treatment.
There has been a case of this nature in the UK, and there has also been a recent case in Italy.
The operation of joint investigation teams, say between Italy and ourselves, or with the participation of the French expertise in this area, would help to bring this sort of appalling offence to an end.
So the report does not concern just terrorism but these other matters too.
Indeed it may also be possible to make a significant impact on a whole complex of issues currently of topical interest comprising fraud, money laundering and economic crime of that kind, if the talents and abilities of specific small teams able to operate in different countries can be brought to bear under the control of a single operation.
There is one further point.
I have made quite clear in my report that it is important that all these operations should be under the clear parliamentary control of the European Parliament.
Within the annual debate on the area of freedom, security and justice, this particular debate should go forward as well.
We should be sure that we consider these operations carefully.
Finally, a lot of sensitive information may emerge as a result of this process.
If something akin to a select committee were perhaps to be established to receive such confidential information, that could also help to boost confidence in the operation of these teams, which are a very important and significant development in crime prevention in the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it was in 1999, at Tampere, that, for the first time in the history of European integration, the Heads of State and Government of the 15 Member States of the Union put justice-related issues at the top of their political agenda and gave the commitment that an area of freedom, security and justice would be established within a maximum of five years.
One of the Union' s major objectives is, therefore, to enable its citizens to live in this area of freedom, security and justice, which must be an area in which freedom goes hand in hand with a high level of security, and it is in this framework that the creation and operation of joint investigation teams are being planned.
The call for the rapid creation of joint investigation teams was made at Tampere as the first stage in the fight against trafficking in human beings and drugs and against terrorism.
In the wake of the appalling events of 11 September, this initiative has come to the fore as part of a framework of measures to be adopted in the fight against terrorism and seeks to secure the adoption of a framework decision that will provide a legal framework to enable us to set up joint investigation teams made up of members of the police and judges who are specially trained in the fight against terrorism and of representatives of the Provisional Judicial Cooperation (Pro-Eurojust) unit and Europol, in order to coordinate investigations undertaken in this field.
I share the rapporteur, Mr Kirkhope' s, enthusiasm for this initiative and I congratulate him on the work he has carried out, which seeks to speed up the entry into force of the provisions of the Convention, still not ratified to date, that are considered to be most urgent by the Member States.
I must draw your attention, however, to the need for this Convention to be ratified quickly so as to prevent the risk of any potential fragmentation of this legal mechanism.
Furthermore, we must also welcome the extension of Europol' s sphere of action to all serious forms of international crime, which are listed in the annex to the Convention, for this will help to make cooperation under the Europol Convention more effective.
Priority areas for action must, nevertheless, be identified according to trends in crime in the Union.
You will all agree that, now more than ever, we must devote particular attention to terrorism.
Mr President, never has there been more need for a stronger Europe to address the issues of citizens' security and freedom, to implement that area of freedom, security and justice that the Treaty of Amsterdam promised us and the Tampere European Council planned to create.
The momentum to implement the necessary measures has repeatedly faltered in the face of often short-sighted resistance on the part of the governments.
It took the tragedy of 11 September to, at last, shake up a large number of our leaders and substantial impetus has been lent to the adoption of certain necessary measures.
I fervently hope that it will not take more tragedies to set the Tampere process in motion, not least because the laws made under the emotional pressure of inhuman tragedies are not always wise ones. In these cases, we are sometimes in danger of disregarding the need to safeguard peoples' fundamental rights.
I am glad to say that the three reports before us do not fall into this trap and I particularly welcome the contributions of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, which tabled amendments improving the proposal.
Mr Kirkhope' s report calls upon us to support the proposal of four Member States to adopt a framework decision on joint investigation teams, already provided for by the Tampere European Council and the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters between the Member States of the European Union, endorsed by Parliament a year ago when it adopted the Di Pietro report.
Therefore, Mr Kirkhope' s report deserves the widest consensus, not least because it contains amendments improving the proposal with regard to respect for fundamental rights, parliamentary scrutiny and extending the use of joint investigation teams to combat organised crime as well as terrorism and trafficking in drugs and human beings.
Mr Turco' s reports, as adopted by the Committee on Citizen' s Freedoms, going against the rapporteur' s recommendation, move that we should adopt the two proposals on Europol with appropriate amendments.
The first stipulates that Europol' s mandate may be extended to all serious forms of organised crime already listed in the Annex to the Convention in accordance with the priorities established by the Council upon the proposal of Europol' s management board.
The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms' amendment on the subject moves that this decision should be a qualified majority decision adopted by the Council after it has consulted the European Parliament and obtained the opinion of Eurojust, a body which is particularly experienced in this field.
I am sad to see that, although the Members of the European People' s Party voted for the motion in committee, they have now changed their minds and feel that Eurojust' s opinion should not now be taken into consideration. The opinion is certainly not binding but it is certainly very useful, and it would be absurd not to make use of it.
We therefore support the first Turco report, as tabled in committee.
The second Turco report on the transmission of personal data from Europol to third States also warrants full consensus.
I would say that, irrespective of the rapporteur' s opinion which we have heard today, these proposals should be adopted en masse.
However, I fully agree with what the rapporteur has said, which is also stressed in the amendments adopted in committee. They firmly reiterate the opinion, often expressed by Parliament, that it is becoming increasingly necessary to communitise the instruments of judicial cooperation and to consolidate the judicial and democratic control of these instruments, which are, in fact, quite vital.
Ladies and gentlemen, our group backs the report by Mr Kirkhope and certainly the words he has spoken this evening.
I believe that the joint investigation teams are a positive step in the fight against all kinds of organised crime.
First of all, in connection with the Turco report, which specifically deals with the two aspects of Europol' s scope, extending the mandate appears to be a rather pointless exercise if Europol is unable to carry out the mandate properly.
After all, Europol' s usefulness has so far proved very limited in practice.
Moreover, Europol does indeed work with police and court information but is not involved in any way in the internal security service in practice.
This creates an imbalance and repressive action after the events without sufficient preventive action.
Secondly, with regard to the databases, the call for a decentralised system is justified on account of manageability.
It would therefore be a big step forward if every Member State were to develop such a database.
These initiatives are therefore to be welcomed, but the same cracks seem to be appearing again. On the one hand, we are relying too heavily on the benevolence, or lack thereof, of the Member States, while on the other hand, there appears to be an evident lack of confidence in democracy, notably parliamentary supervision of this highly important area of policy.
If we are truly concerned about the protection of civil rights and the maintenance of democracy, we must, without delay, build an adequate system based on criminal law that can meet the challenges we are now facing, and invest in a powerful preventive policy.
Internal security services, in particular, have an important role to play here.
The cooperation between the internal security services and the judicial services, in other words, between preventive and repressive action, must be better coordinated as a matter of urgency, with the emphasis placed firmly on the prevention of serious crimes.
Mr President, the European Union, in close collaboration with the United States, has used the terrorist attack on 11 September as a reason to speed up the witch hunt on anyone who stands up to their imperialist plans and preferences.
And Europe, which is being given wider and wider powers, powers which go beyond national laws and constitutional protection for its citizens, is being called on to play the lead role here.
The information collated in the Member States, the well-known files, are now common currency; joint files are being kept on potential suspects, that is, every one of us, and the distribution list for these files is getting longer and longer.
Joint investigation teams basically have carte blanche, in that they are set up by however many Member States want to, for however long they want, with the involvement of any services they want and for whatever purpose they think fit.
This is an orchestrated attack on grass-roots movements.
They want to extinguish the personal and collective rights and democratic freedoms that workers have fought for.
Unfortunately, not only do the reports make no attempt to put a halt to this anti-grass roots and anti-democratic development; on the contrary, they incorporate it in an overall reform of the means available for judicial and police assistance.
Mr President, it has never been so appropriate as now, in the wake of the events of 11 September, to establish joint investigation teams to improve cooperation between all the national investigation teams, particularly with a view to enhancing and speeding up that necessary exchange of fresh information between all the information services of the Member States of the European Union.
Clearly, this is a police cooperation tool that will be of truly strategic importance in preventing crime. It is a vital, useful tool which will help to tackle the critical terrorist situation in Europe in the wake of the severe international crisis caused by the attack on the twin towers.
We have all had the opportunity, although, sadly, only since the New York and Washington carnage, to reconstruct the series of preparations for terrorist attacks made on our own European territory over the years by people and organisations linked to Osama Bin Laden: the many, apparently unimportant signs actually linked by a single thread and whose connection, sadly, we did not realise until it was too late, until after 11 September, when thousands of innocent people had already died.
Clearly, closer judicial and police cooperation involving more joint investigations might well have made us more effective in preventing terrorist crimes.
However, it is worth noting that, in addition to helping us respond to the critical terrorist situation, joint investigation teams would also play a useful general role in helping to fight the many phenomena linked to large-scale organised crime at international level such as the illegal trafficking of arms and drugs and the trafficking and exploitation of human beings.
Mr President, I would like to end by thanking Mr Kirkhope and pointing out that the fight against crime, both terrorism-related and general, has, for years now, been the subject of the most insistent requests from European citizens, who are demanding increasing efforts from the national and European institutions fully guaranteeing the fundamental, inalienable right to safety, that precious thing which is under increasing threat.
Therefore, I look forward to the greatest possible endeavours from the European Union too, making use, not least, of the tool of the joint investigation teams, precisely to restore the necessary confidence of the European citizens.
Mr President, it appears that the Council may have arrived. If I am not mistaken, someone from the Council has arrived.
Is that so?
Are you from the Council? We don' t know!
I would ask you not to address the Commission or the Council in a direct or personal fashion.
Any comment of this nature that you wish to make should be made through the Presidency.
Thank you, Mr Cappato.
Mr President, I was, in fact, addressing you in order to ask you whether we have, in effect, been honoured by the arrival of the Council.
I just wanted to point out that the Council was not present at this debate and has arrived only now. I just wanted everyone to realise, to be aware of the consideration given to Parliament' s decisions and debates, the translation into 11 languages, the amendments translated into 11 languages, the speeches translated into 11 languages, which serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
We are discussing the extension of the European police coordination mandate to include the most serious crimes; indeed we are aware that the coordination of information is, in itself, an implementing power, and that the distinction between coordination powers and implementing powers is very, very fine, hazy and difficult to define; we are therefore plumbing the depths of Member States' police and police cooperation policies. The implications for our countries and our codes of criminal procedure are huge, for, as we know, procedures vary greatly between the 15 Member States in terms of the relationship between the police and the law and the government.
Well then, all this is taking place without Parliament being given any say whatsoever in the legislative process, the process by which laws are formed, and I would stress, none whatsoever, without any input from democratically elected assemblies.
We know that President Prodi is in favour, yes, of course we do, but we also know that we are sacrificing with a single blow any balance of powers to the urgent, critical need for effectiveness in the fight against crime.
The Council official blithely arrives here at the very end of the debate.
Our speeches and decisions, the votes we take will serve no purpose at all, for Presidency itself has decreed that this and other debates are to be held at the same time as the meeting of the committee responsible, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, which is voting now, at this very moment.
Therefore, the two Non-attached Members and the other three or four Members who are in the Chamber are missing the vote on terrorism and the European arrest warrant because of this decision which, I feel, ties in with the Council' s decision not to be present during this debate and is typical of the way the European Union legislates.
Mr President, the extension of Europol' s mandate is not some new issue that has arisen after 11 September.
It is, however, self-evident that, right now, there is a particularly great need for such an extension.
Naturally, we need to exchange information with third countries' police forces in order to help them combat crime, a fact that was emphasised by an as good as unanimous Parliament when we voted on the report on combating computer-related crime.
There are those who are anxious about Europol' s being given unduly large resources.
They might like to reflect upon the consequences of Europol' s having 388 employees to cover a population larger than the United States' s, while the FBI has 27 000 employees.
There is no comparison at all between the resources involved, nor between the activities concerned.
Europol is not operational.
When information is transferred, it is incredibly important that we should continue to protect data and, as far as possible, to maintain personal privacy.
The human rights we have laid down both in the European Convention and in the European Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights are a characteristically European feature of which we should be proud and which we should also be sure to maintain.
We must nonetheless beware of creating a Big Brother society.
Just as Mr Turco emphasised, it is therefore important that Parliament be there to exercise its democratic control.
It is quite unreasonable that these issues should be excluded from the structures of the EU and that issues which are so very important to people should be discussed in a largely empty Chamber.
The fact that crime statistics are being gathered is naturally welcome.
There is something not quite right about the fact that the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon gathers a large quantity of statistics concerning drug addiction, while we have little in the way of statistics when it comes to the fight against crime.
Europol naturally has an important role to fulfil in this area.
When it comes to the issue of whether or not Eurojust should be mentioned in this context, it has emerged that many people interpret the wording in terms of a desire to upset the balance of power between the executive and the judiciary.
It should not, of course, be interpreted in that way.
I do not, however, want any misunderstandings to arise concerning this matter.
To avoid misunderstandings, it would therefore be better to change the Eurojust wording.
Finally, I want to thank Mr Turco for having dealt with the Swedish and Belgian initiative so well.
Mr President, the two government initiatives on Europol that we are examining today, the first on the definition of areas of action, the second on the rules on the transmission of personal data, provide the European Parliament with the opportunity to raise a genuine question, which is how to organise democratic control over Europol.
This is a very important question, since police and judicial cooperation and, in particular, the management of analysis files that are kept by Europol, are very closely related to civil liberties.
Today, since Europol is an intergovernmental body, it is controlled by the national parliaments; first and foremost, by the governments at the Council of Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs or their representatives on Europol' s management board, and lastly by a supervisory body made up of leading, independent figures.
The relevant parliamentary committee is proposing to completely change this system, even though it has only been in operation since 1999, and would like to entrust control of Europol solely to Community procedures, in other words, to the European Parliament.
We do not think this proposal is suitable.
We do not consider the European Parliament to be the appropriate institution to undertake the democratic monitoring of sovereign police operations in the Member States, which are carried out by the national services and have implications for the very territory of the Member States.
It would be better to keep an open mind while Europol is just beginning to carry out its work and to give the national parliaments the chance to organise and refine their control.
They are also aware of this need.
For example, in September, the French Parliament imposed a ban on its parliament debating the draft agreements between Europol and Eastern European countries. It then lifted this ban when it had sufficient guarantees as to the security of the transmission of personal data.
We believe that this is a very positive approach.
It is evidence that there is effective control by the national parliaments.
In order to exercise this control further, the French Senate has also set up an internal specialised working group responsible for investigating issues of police and judicial cooperation.
This is the example we should be following, Mr President, and we should even, without doubt, go further by improving horizontal coordination of the control carried out by the national parliaments.
They should work together in setting up an interparliamentary assembly to monitor Europol and police and judicial cooperation.
Better still, the Intergovernmental Conference, which is due to meet in 2004 and which, in fact, must deal with the role of national parliaments within the European structure, should propose to develop this type of interparliamentary cooperation and turn this into a new pillar of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission considers these three initiatives to be particularly important, especially now, at a time when cooperation not only between Member States but also between the European Union and third countries and international organisations is crucial if we want to combat organised crime and, in particular, terrorism, effectively.
The initiatives we are discussing today are intended to speed up the timetable, to bring forward the time when the Member States will have a Community legal basis for establishing joint investigation teams which, if necessary, could include representatives of third countries or of international organisations, to extend Europol' s mandate to enable it to deal with a wider range of criminal activities, and also to enable Europol to transmit personal data to third countries and to other organisations effectively. This will undoubtedly be an important factor in ensuring that cooperation with these third countries and with these international organisations is reliable and functions effectively.
The Commission welcomes the fact that the European Parliament supports the draft framework decision on joint investigation teams that Belgium, Spain, France and the United Kingdom have proposed.
We hope that the time saved by allowing Member States to put together such teams will enhance the effectiveness of the fight against transnational crime.
The Commission also welcomes the fact that Parliament has given a positive response to the proposal to extend Europol' s mandate and to allow the transmission of personal data to third countries and other organisations.
These two initiatives will help to make Europol an organisation which is more effective in the fight against organised crime, a matter which is of increasing concern to the public of the Member States of the European Union.
Mr Turco' s report raises the issue of the democratic control of Europol with regard to the initiatives in question.
In June this year, I had the opportunity to discuss this issue at the interparliamentary conference organised by the Dutch government in The Hague, which was attended by representatives of practically all national parliaments of the Member States and which Mr Turco also attended.
In light of the discussion that took place on that occasion with the representatives of the national parliaments, the Commission, as provided for in its working programme for this year, is now finalising its communication on the democratic control of Europol, in which it will put forward a number of ideas designed to improve this process.
As you will be aware, this democratic control cannot and must not exclude the irreplaceable role of the national parliaments, specifically with regard to control of their national Europol antennas.
Indeed, it must not only enable interparliamentary cooperation with national parliaments, but also provide the added value that comes from Parliament' s commitment to democratic control so as to ensure that, in this way, through close cooperation between the European Parliament and the national parliaments, we are able to develop an overall picture of how Europol is actually working without losing any elements of the detailed work produced by national parliaments on their own actions to exercise control over Europol.
At the same time, I acknowledge the importance of coordination between Europol and Eurojust and of the role Eurojust should play in relation to the judicial supervision of Europol.
I do feel, however, that it would be preferable to wait for the Council' s decision, which will determine the final form Eurojust is to take, before we move ahead with solutions on coordination between police and courts at European level.
With regard to extending Europol's mandate, the Commission takes note of and shares the concerns expressed in the report about the decision-making structure under the Union's third pillar.
This is indeed slow because priorities tend to change from one presidency to the next, and the role of Parliament itself is limited.
We therefore welcome the fact that the European Parliament has emphasised the need for the situations of organised crime in each Member State to be reflected when priorities are established in the fight against organised crime at European level.
Hence the importance of Member States providing Europol with sufficient, timely information so that it can produce an annual report on the situation of organised crime in the European Union of the required standard.
With regard to the amendments proposed in Parliament' s report, the Commission might propose that the public version of this annual report be annexed to the report that Europol also submits annually to the European Parliament.
Lastly, with regard to the initiative on the transmission of personal data, the Commission broadly supports the amendments Parliament has proposed.
It shares the opinion that the safeguards for data protection provided today under Article 7 of the 1999 Council Act on data transmitted to third countries and to international organisations, also apply to the transmission of data arising from this Swedish initiative.
Since, in this case, the Swedish initiative only changes Article 5(5) of the aforementioned 1999 Council Act, Article 7, which is the article relevant to this matter, will still apply in full.
Hence my doubts as to whether there is a genuine need for the proposed amendment to Article 7 of the Council Act.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote on this item will take place tomorrow at noon.
Extradition between Member States (1995 and 1996 Conventions - Schengen Acquis)
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0371/2001) by Mr Marinho, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on an Initiative of the Kingdom of Sweden with a view to the adoption of a Council Decision determining which provisions of the 1995 Convention on simplified extradition procedure between the Member States of the European Union and of the 1996 Convention relating to extradition between the Member States of the European Union constitute developments of the Schengen acquis in accordance with the Agreement concerning the Republic of Iceland's and the Kingdom of Norway's association with the implementation, application and development of the Schengen acquis.
Mr President, Commissioner, curiously, two European States that have never been members of the European Union, Norway and Iceland, were the first to establish, on a regional basis, an area for the free movement of persons.
Towards the end of 1957, through the Nordic Passport Union, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway and Iceland, five European States, opened their borders to people while another six sketched out a common market, giving priority to the movement of goods in a Customs Union.
The two groups of States chose to take quite different routes: the first establishing EFTA, and the second aiming for a Europe that would be united in more than just economic terms.
Fortunately, the project embodied by the Six, which are today Fifteen and will soon be almost double that, although the more ambitious and complex of the two, has proved to be more than just a facilitator of free trade or of border crossing.
It has proved to be attractive to many of the founders of the Nordic institutions and, for that very reason, our report attempts to make sense of the contradictions and the chance events of history, by integrating Norway and Iceland into the Schengen area and, most importantly, in the case of the Swedish initiative, into the European Union' s area of freedom, security and justice.
Thus, this Swedish initiative extends the Union' s area of free movement beyond the official geographical borders of Europe, with the corresponding consequences for the legal and judicial sphere, making Norway and Iceland countries in which the common rules on extradition contained in the Schengen acquis will apply.
Who could have imagined, 45 years ago, that this would be possible?
Underpinning this historical development, or rather, this need, which implies new requirements and commitments, and thereby changes Europe and requires it to make progress, is the certainty that the Tampere programme, which involves moving from the intergovernmental method to the Community method, will lead to the communitisation of judicial cooperation, because this is what the governments of the Fifteen wanted, because the work of the Commission and of Commissioner Vitorino must not be betrayed by ongoing hesitancy on the grounds of sovereignty and, most importantly, because the situation today requires Europe to have a legal and criminal protection system that serves as the primary instrument for combating international and cross-border crime.
The real difference, which should make us proud to be Europeans, does not lie in our military arsenal but in the quality of the new European laws that we in this House are helping, or will help to construct. These laws will have the power to reconcile deterrence and respect for freedoms without attacking the philosophical and cultural differences that shape the criminal law of any Member State.
The European arrest warrant, based on the principle of mutual recognition of national court sentences, is, in the form proposed by Commissioner Vitorino, an example we should follow when considering the other aspects of Tampere, particularly the harmonisation of criminal law.
For all of these reasons, I hope that this Swedish initiative, which we welcome as timely and necessary, rapidly becomes obsolete, having been superseded by effective Community law, specifically on the arrest warrant, eliminating the two Union conventions, which were, admittedly, well-intentioned, but of limited effect.
The idea is that these will be replaced by the mutual recognition of court sentences and the simple transfer of persons guilty of committing crimes, a step, Commissioner, which will create a single European area for extradition.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will first thank the rapporteur, who has analysed this very technical report with great expertise and proposed a range of editorial amendments that we can all support.
We, likewise, welcome and support the Swedish initiative, which is before us now, to further develop the Schengen acquis.
Some parts of it have, however, already been overtaken by reality, as the breakneck speed of developments in European internal affairs and justice policy since the terrorist attacks on 11 September might well have made this report and this submission largely obsolete, at least as regards extradition policy.
Thus, the Council of Ministers of Internal Affairs and of Justice, on 20 September, had already set in motion a simpler procedure for handing over criminals and for the mutual recognition of court judgments.
We welcome the fact that there is broad European agreement on criminal law and criminal procedure as well.
This will lead to better combating of crime on our continent and promote the Community legal area.
This being so, I could save myself further great speeches on the Swedish initiative, as Mr Marinho has already made the main points.
I would, though, like to enlarge on one point, namely that the provisions of the 1995 EU Agreement on simplified extradition procedures and the 1996 EU Agreement on extradition between Member States are, according to this proposal, to be extended to Iceland and Norway as a further development of the Schengen acquis.
So far, so good.
Yet, out of Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg and England, none have, to date, ratified one of these agreements.
This is especially scandalous in view of the candidate states having undertaken to accept the Schengen acquis.
The Member States must at last become aware of their need to set an example, specifically as regards the transposition and ratification of EU acts.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Marinho on his excellent work on this report and say that we are all aware of how sensitive and how incontrovertibly important issues such as asylum policy, measures to combat crime, the improvement of external border controls and the fight against terrorism are for the Member States.
Nevertheless, I would say that we also all understand now that common problems require common solutions, that to resolve them effectively and coherently, apart from the national dimension, the necessary European dimension must also be in place.
The main objectives of police and judicial cooperation on criminal matters in the European Union are the fight against transnational organised crime and the approximation of legal and statutory provisions.
Nevertheless, in the field of judicial cooperation, Schengen has concentrated its efforts on ensuring that requests for extradition are rapidly dealt with by means of the Schengen Information System (SIS).
The Swedish initiative that we are considering today does not contain, as Mr Marinho has already stated, major substantive provisions, specifically in the field of extradition, and seeks mainly to clarify the relationship between the various positions on extradition at European Union level and involve Iceland and Norway in the implementation of these provisions.
It is crucial that we make the area of justice and security in Europe a reality.
The events of 11 September clearly demonstrate the need to conduct the fight against terrorism not only by military means, but also with judicial instruments.
It is also worth pointing out that the European Union' s strategy for the beginning of the new millennium, the prevention and control of organised crime, already envisaged the possibility of a single legal area for extradition being created at European level.
The events of 11 September only reinforced the urgency and the need for such a decision.
This is why the Justice and Home Affairs Council took the decision, on 20 September, as part of its objective of combating terrorism, to replace the extradition process within the Union with a simple process of handing over the perpetrators of such crimes, which will render obsolete all laws on extradition currently in force, as has already been stated, and will involve the removal and replacement of the two conventions on extradition through the mutual recognition of court sentences and through simply handing over the perpetrator of the crime, thereby creating the single European area for extradition, the need for which we also wish to highlight.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission' s job has been greatly simplified in this debate, because it needs only to fully agree with the speech by Mr Marinho, whom I should like to congratulate on his excellent report.
I simply wish to add that, in the view of the Commission, this initiative by Sweden is important and useful because it clarifies that the laws on extradition contained in the 1995 and 1996 conventions can be integrated into the Schengen acquis, an idea that has important consequences, particularly in light of the decisions that Mr Coelho has just mentioned and which were adopted by the Council of Justice and Home Affairs on 20 September.
Completely replacing the rules on extradition within the European Union with the mechanism of the European search and arrest warrant will have an effect on the Schengen acquis and must also be reflected in the workings of the Schengen Convention.
Furthermore, for this very reason, because our aim is to replace the 1995 and 1996 conventions, the issue must also be raised of extending the European search and arrest warrant to cover Norway and Iceland once the mandate is adopted by the Council, which I hope will happen on 6 and 7 December.
This debate is, therefore, not pointless; it is one step forwards, one step on the path that we hope will lead to approval by the Council of Justice and Home Affairs of the European search and arrest warrant, in order to consolidate the area of freedom, security and justice in the field of protecting fundamental rights and of combating transnational organised crime, especially terrorism.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Electronic communications (processing of personal data and protection of privacy)
Here we are again, Mr President, and the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs is still voting on terrorism. Never mind.
Second attempt: privacy in the electronic communications sector.
I seem to remember that, last time, this House failed in its attempt to adopt a majority position because the two proposals made on the issue of unsolicited commercial e-mails - the proposal for compulsory European opt-in and the proposal allowing Member States the freedom to choose whether to opt in or opt out - as well as a joint proposal presented to the Members, too late in my view, cancelled each other out.
The three proposals, therefore, cancelled each other out.
Now, however, I feel that Parliament is, at last, ready to take a decision on this point, since the position of the Parliamentary Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights leaving the Member States the freedom to choose and the position of the Commission, compulsory European opt-in, have both been tempered, so to speak, and have become more reconciled in that the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights has taken into consideration the concerns relating to voice mail, in particular, and, on the other hand, the position advocating the introduction opting in, making an initial binding choice, at European level has taken into consideration the need to communicate with existing clients of a particular company or business.
I hope that the Members and the groups, in particular, will be able to decide between these two alternatives without getting confused at the last minute. Parliament will have the opportunity to choose between these two alternatives.
In my opinion, and I would like to make this quite clear, there is not enough information or evidence showing that the countries operating the opt-in system are better equipped to fight spamming.
Internet spamming is illegal in any case, because it is already illegal to collect addresses without authorisation, it is already illegal to use them without authorisation, it is already illegal to send messages without clearly specifying the sender and it is already illegal to send messages without making it possible for the recipients to delete their details easily from the lists.
On the other hand, making opting in compulsory is not without risks either, in terms, for example, of freedom of communication.
It is no accident that the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights has been cautious on this matter.
There are, in fact, groups of non-governmental organisations which have expressed their concern at the possibility, for example, of Internet campaigns being used to raise funds.
I feel that this debate, this legislation, has now already been made obsolete by technology and practical facts. It appears that consumers now already have the facility to choose, themselves, individually, between an opt-in or opt-out system, without having to contact the sender of the message before deleting their details from the lists but simply placing the address of the sender in question on a black list so that they no longer have to receive messages from that sender.
However, in view of the fact that six years have passed since the adoption of the General Data Protection Directive and many of the Member States have still not ratified it, that four years have passed since the adoption of the directive to be amended by this proposal for a directive and that many of the Member States have not even applied the ' 97 directive, it is reasonable to predict, given these time frames, that this legislation will also take who knows, maybe three, four or five years to enter into force.
If, in three, four or five years' time, consumers and users really feel the need to be protected against unsolicited commercial e-mails, the market and technology will make the systems already available today even more simple.
It would be a shame, however, if, after displaying this great, understandable concern about the nuisance caused by unsolicited commercial e-mails, we prepared, on the other hand, to give national police authorities full access to our personal data whenever they want it.
This is not purely a problem of this directive: it is a more general political problem. I realise this.
I fear that this is the direction in which we are heading and that the citizens' greatest privacy concerns are not caused by the prospect of receiving a few more or less unsolicited commercial e-mails.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have already voted once on this report.
Now, at second reading stage, all we have to do is find a solution to the opt-in/opt-out problem.
I will therefore be speaking only about that.
Looking at the various proposals currently before Parliament reveals, in my opinion, that they are different kinds of opt-out proposals.
Only the Commission's document would mean a real opting-in.
This means, then, that only the Commission's proposal would guarantee that citizens would themselves be able to say that they wanted 'spamming' , that is to say, to receive electronic advertising, or that they wanted to have the option of consistently refusing it.
All other options, that is, the various proposed opt-outs, do not, in my judgment, guarantee this.
So I cannot be greatly satisfied with what is offered here as a compromise, and I believe that, to live up to the title of this proposal, a text with some bearing on data protection would have to be passed, in which case you have no option but to take the Commission's line, support this proposal, and reject the other proposals that have been submitted to Parliament.
Nevertheless, I am in fundamental agreement with much of this report and find many of the points addressed in it sensible.
But that was voted on at the last session.
Now, it is just about the opting out and opting in.
I think that, if we are talking in terms of data protection, we have to support the Commission's proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow we will be voting on the Cappato report for the second time.
Our positions have moved closer, without, however, becoming identical.
So the rapporteur has taken misgivings on the left of this House into account, in that the consumer's consent will in future be required for the sending of SMS advertising.
The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has accepted by a substantial majority the so-called soft opt-out compromise supported by the rapporteur.
This proposal alone defends the interests of consumers without doing away with European jobs on a massive scale.
Why?
If Parliament were to generally prohibit business-to-customer advertising from the outset, as Mrs Paciotti's proposal would have it, businesses would simply send their advertising material into the European Union from the USA or other third States.
The European consumer would have gained nothing, absolutely nothing, and the only effect would be to weaken the European e-business market.
We therefore want to let those states that at present have an opt-out system retain it, keep an eye on developments and come to a new decision after two years.
At the same time, the Cappato proposal takes three steps to protect the consumer.
First, the consumer can put his name on what is termed a 'Robinson list' , so that advertising material may not generally be sent to him.
Secondly, the consumer can, simply and without charge, indicate his wish not to receive e-mail advertising from specific companies.
Thirdly, e-mail advertising will be easily recognisable as such in the inbox and will be able to be deleted simply and without cost.
This last option is already available from providers such as AOL - I am sure Mr van Velzen is about to point that out - but this does not put AOL in a monopolistic position.
Such an assertion is complete nonsense, as anyone can already download from the Internet a spam recognition program of this sort, no matter what Internet Service Provider he has a contract with for everything else.
By the way, AOL was itself opposed to such a regulation.
So I would ask you to support Mr Cappato's proposed compromise by a significant majority.
Mr President, the return of this file to committee has certainly made the positions clearer, but I feel it has not improved the result: it fact it has, to some extent, had quite the opposite effect.
Indeed, last time it voted, the European Parliament had the wisdom to accept the Commission' s proposal at least on the point relating to electronic directories, thereby ensuring that each of us is free to choose whether to be included in a public directory.
Thus, the decision, which I consider to be a mistake and damaging not just in terms of freedom but of the very development of electronic commerce as well, to allow the sending of unwanted messages while leaving recipients the option to complain and request not to be sent any more, appeared to be less harmful too.
By refusing the proposal for opting into public directories for everybody, without even making an exception for mobile phones, we are all placing ourselves at the mercy of all kinds of annoying petitioners and solicitors.
We do not even have the protection that once existed in the days when there were only fixed telephones and printed directories.
In those days, we could protect ourselves effectively by becoming ex-directory or changing our telephone numbers. Nowadays, when every public directory ends up on the Internet, we have no way of protecting ourselves.
We can ask for our phone number or e-mail address to be deleted but it is no use!
By now, it is in the hands of users and parties who cannot be traced.
Therefore, deciding to amend Article 12 of the directive would really appear not to benefit us in terms of freedom and, quite frankly, I fail to understand how we can give freedom of advertising precedence over individual freedoms.
As far as unsolicited messages, as mentioned in Article 13 of the directive, are concerned, giving the Member States the choice takes away the usefulness of the directive itself in view of the need for harmonisation.
Quite frankly, I cannot believe that all this will benefit electronic commerce.
In fact, I feel that, as well as people such as our rapporteur, who is expert at using electronic tools, there are also still many, many citizens like myself who have little aptitude for such tools and are therefore concerned.
To be honest, I can promise you that I will not be sending requests to any businesses and I will not open any messages for fear that what currently happens to me will continue, even though I am protected in my country, namely that my provider, no less, which has of necessity to know my address, constantly sends me unwanted communications and so, alas, does an airline which I once made the mistake of emailing.
I therefore feel that, until I am protected - I am speaking on my own behalf but there are also many other people, older people like myself or people who have less expertise than many young people - I will do without electronic commerce, because it is not something in which I have confidence.
The idea of being in a directory which is accessible throughout the entire Internet, of receiving messages and then requesting that they be deleted, of having to open them first, of having to try and understand these tools, does not inspire me with confidence.
It may be that as electronic commerce develops, it will provide greater protection, but it does need to develop first.
We must start by allowing electronic commerce to develop, but in order to do so we need to have confidence in it, and this proposal does not inspire that confidence.
Mr President, it is not often that I completely agree with my colleague in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, Mr von Boetticher, but this time I agree with him that we need a national choice regime to allow opt-out on e-mails and I am speaking against the socialist amendments.
There is one great myth that has gripped the Left and that is that spam is the same as unsolicited e-mail.
I am afraid to say, Commissioner, that the Commission is at the root of this confusion.
In your original proposal you said that spam equals unsolicited e-mails.
It is not true.
I am afraid the spammers who are already breaking the law are going to carry on breaking the law.
Mrs Paciotti, you will continue to get spam!
I support the opt-out on two grounds.
The first is that opt-in will unjustifiably harm both business and charities.
Big American firms can afford TV advertising, press, billboard and so on.
We are going to damage small- and medium-sized European firms for whom commercial e-mail provides a legitimate way into e-commerce.
It is going to put them at a disadvantage.
It is going to put charities at a disadvantage and studies show that people do not mind receiving them.
They will not opt out even if they could.
But of course it is human nature not to opt in to get them.
There is also a misunderstanding about the civil liberties implications.
Under opt-out, it is very easy to show that you have opted out and reputable senders have no interest in ignoring your request because they will just irritate you.
Opt-in is superficially pro-consumer, but you would have to prove that you never opted in, which is actually more difficult.
Finally, under an opt-in regime, people might opt to receive mailings from organisations that could be embarrassing for them, such as gay organisations when they did not wish to come out, or they could be open to malicious abuse.
If they opted in to get mailings from subversive political movements they could find themselves attracting unwarranted surveillance from the police, for instance.
The Left has got it wrong and for once Mr von Boetticher is right.
Mr President, although in my view, national legislation is preferable to European legislation in most cases, this is different in this report.
In the case of direct marketing by e-mail, this is clearly a matter with cross-border implications.
I do not call for a complete ban on direct marketing by e-mail, but it is of the utmost importance for consumers to be given the choice beforehand whether they want to deal with this kind of direct marketing and for them to grant their approval or not, as the case may be.
After all, that saves them a great deal of time, money and bother.
Rapporteur Cappato suggests leaving the choice of opting in or out to the Member States.
However, that would produce an incoherent European policy.
A Member State that has chosen in favour of opting in will experience many difficulties in countering unwanted e-mails, if Member States that have chosen in favour of opting out do permit them.
If European policy is divided and fragmented, the chances of establishing international agreements concerning unwanted e-mails are as good as non-existent.
The problem is that businesses can easily side-step European rules from countries outside the European Union.
This should not stop us from drafting legislation at European level.
It is preferable to look for practical solutions to these problems and to work on international agreements.
In that way, you and I will not be faced with e-mails from businesses which we do not need at all.
Mr President, allow me to say straight away that although I represent a minority position, I am very proud of it.
I have the 'Automatiseringsgids' of a famous Dutch newspaper, in front of me.
On behalf of all my fellow MEPs who want to learn from technology neutrality, it might be useful to read out a few quotes from it.
NTT DoCoMo earmarks USD 8.2 million to control unsolicited e-mails on mobile phones.
The e-mail addresses of NTT DoCoMo mobile phones are based on the phones' telephone numbers.
That enables all kinds of advertising agencies and dating agencies to advertise their services by sending messages to randomly generated numbers.
The article also states that in Japan, the receiver of the text message contributes towards the cost of sending it.
This might be food for thought for all those people who claim that the proposal of Amendment No 35 by Mr Cappato is technology-neutral.
It clearly is not, for as soon as one is faced with UMTS, the difference between e-mail and SMS fades into the background, with all the consequences that this entails.
That is why it is much preferable to talk about electronic communications, as is done in Amendment No 44.
That is, in fact, the final step which rapporteur Cappato should have taken in order to put an excellent proposal before us.
Let us be very aware that citizens are not all computer-illiterate.
Despite this, they are saddled with most problems.
If we were to adopt the proposal of Amendment No 35 by Mr Cappato to change e-mail services of this kind, the entire computer system would need to be changed. Indeed, we would then need to change over from the POP 3 system, which nearly everyone in Europe has, to the e-map system which is offered by only one American provider.
However, if that were the case, the Commissioner would immediately receive a complaint about the lack of competition in Europe.
That is another reason why I believe it should not be done.
I therefore propose approving the Cappato report but also improving on it further by voting in favour of Amendment No 44 instead of Amendment No 35.
Mr President, unusually for me I can stand here and say that virtually everything has been said.
I agree with Mr von Boetticher and Mr Cappato and especially with Baroness Ludford.
We are all members of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs; we have adopted a position and we have not rushed into it just because we have been bullied and lobbied on the Internet and via the fax machines that are in all our offices.
We have to be very careful about legislating on the hoof.
I have to say to the Commission that what it is proposing is wrong and hurried.
In 2003 we will have a very good opportunity, in the e-commerce directive, to gather the information and the wisdom obtained from those Member States which have chosen either to opt in or to opt out.
We must only propose and adopt legislation on the basis of good counsel and good experience.
We must never underestimate the civil liberties implications to which Baroness Ludford has rightly alerted this House.
At this time, when we perhaps are being a little over-assertive with some of the legislation we are bringing forward, I do not want anyone to have to confirm why they have opted to receive, for instance, Ammunition Weekly or why they have chosen to get some information from Amnesty International.
The Internet has freed people from dictatorships and oppressors, and yet here we are introducing a kind of censorship by the back door.
It is wrong and ill-informed.
The Commissioner may shake his head and smile, but does he want to have to explain to a government agency or some other agency why he has chosen to opt in? That is not freedom: that is being answerable for using a service that is intended to free you.
On the issue of the right of privacy: we all have the right of privacy, but that right cannot be imposed on individuals.
Individuals choose the right of privacy and then legislation backs it up.
On the matter of unsolicited commercial e-mail: not all UCE is spam.
Here again the Commission has played right into the hands of those who want to drive jobs out of the EU and who pretend that, just because the EU is imposing a ban on sending UCEs within its territory, such a ban will be respected by people in Japan, the Philippines, the USA or anywhere else.
Finally, on spamming, I myself have been spammed.
My name has been put on various lists and the spam comes in.
That has been done by individuals who have opted me in to the lists held by the spammers.
I have a very good option: I have a filter, I have a delete button.
We must encourage people to use the technology and stop being their nannies.
Please support the Cappato report, as amended.
Mr President, tonight British Members from three different political parties and other colleagues are going to be in agreement, which is a rare occurrence.
I am not a member of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, but I particularly want to commend Mr Cappato and colleagues here tonight for their courageous stand in amending the Commission's original proposal.
I was sorry that we did not uphold all of Mr Cappato's report last time.
This compromise has all the hallmarks of a compromise.
In other words it is not terribly satisfactory but at least it is better than the original proposal from the Commission, and the amendment by the Socialist Group which I hope will not be supported tomorrow.
We have to consider this essentially a transitional piece of work.
I think everyone here tonight is working on legislation in the electronic age.
I have worked on the e-commerce directive, the copyright directive and we are working on the electronic communications bills.
What is quite clear is the immense pace and change of technology and the reconstruction of markets that is going on all the time.
As a number of colleagues have said tonight, the world of electronic communications is offering immense benefits to the citizens, whether it is in their own personal access to charities or political parties or in the marketplace.
What some colleagues want to do, is to shut that down.
Clearly we cannot do that because it operates on a global level.
That is where the spam is coming from.
So we have promised something to our citizens we cannot deliver.
Clearly we have to work towards a global solution that will be driven by technology.
We want a global format that will allow people to tag their e-mail messages by sender and by subject.
We can have the technology to give people complete control.
If we adopt this proposal and pass this amendment, we will be walking away from the opportunity to create the right environment so that people can really benefit from the immense power of the new communications world.
The Commission has already expressed its position on the amendments that were adopted on 6 September.
I am tempted to go back to that debate, but I want to be brief and concentrate on the essential question about unsolicited e-mail.
I would just like to point out that the Commission cannot support Amendments Nos 16, 25 and 34 that were rejected by Parliament on 6 September and are now resubmitted to the vote.
The Commission can support the new Amendment No 43 on itemised bills.
I will now focus on what has turned out to be the single most important topic in the debate on the proposed directive, namely unsolicited e-mail.
This House has been discussing the question of opting in or opting out for several years now and the result of the vote on 6 September showed how difficult it still is to find a compromise solution that is acceptable to a broad majority.
However we cannot hesitate for much longer, we need to decide.
We have not hurried this decision.
There has been huge public international debate with industry, with scientists, with lawyers.
I have myself participated in intensive debates in the United States and in Europe on this issue.
I strongly disagree that asking a person whether they wish to opt in before you can bill them is a restriction on civil liberties.
That is completely illogical.
We can disagree on the details, but if people are asked to pay, they should have a choice beforehand, not afterwards.
We should no longer be thinking mainly about messages arriving at a PC on our desk.
We should be thinking about the future.
Technology is changing rapidly.
The wireless Internet will be different from the Internet available only on desktops.
The positive point about the proposal made by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms in Amendment No 33 is that it recognises that unsolicited commercial messages to mobile phones are a real problem which can only be addressed by a harmonised opt-in approach.
I fully agree.
However, the flaw in that proposal is that it is based on the assumption that a mobile terminal can only receive SMS messages.
Unfortunately that is no longer true.
You can already receive e-mail messages on mobile devices which are connected to the Internet.
If you want to test that I can give you good examples.
And with convergence it is very clear that SMS will certainly merge with other electronic messaging systems.
The sender cannot know whether a message will be received on a mobile or fixed terminal because of the convergence.
That is a technological fact.
Banning unsolicited commercial SMS messages while allowing unsolicited electronic messages based on other technologies is therefore not a workable solution.
Another problem I have with Amendment No 35 is the technologically biased approach in paragraph 4.
This paragraph apparently tries to address the problem of cost for users but the solution proposed is not a good one.
European ISPs tell us that the technology of viewing the subject line before downloading a message is not compatible with the majority of systems used in Europe today.
It would require substantial investment; it would be costly for the industry to introduce this feature and this does not seem justified when it is only a halfway solution.
In short, apart from not being compatible with the single market, Amendment No 35 does not meet the need for technology-neutral and future-proof legislation.
Amendment No 44, on the other hand represents a technology-neutral compromise solution and has the merit of being a fully harmonised EU approach to unsolicited commercial e-mail.
In paragraph 2 of this amendment a rather substantial exemption from the opt-in principle is made for e-mail addresses obtained within existing customer relationships.
Here an opt-out approach would continue to be allowed, although this will mean an important concession as compared with the original Commission proposal.
The exception can be justified because in the context of an existing customer relationship, companies have a lot to lose and are more likely to use marketing instruments with consideration.
We should look at the future challenges.
It is interesting to see what is happening in Japan today, where the wireless Internet has already taken off successfully.
Nevertheless, the operator is facing a serious problem.
It estimates that 85% of the 950 million messages sent daily to mobile devices are unsolicited commercial messages to mobile numbers chosen at random.
This is causing a huge problem for network capacity, especially since most of these messages are addressed incorrectly and cannot be delivered.
Moreover, it greatly annoys users who have to work their way through great quantities of unwanted commercial messages.
The cost of purging the system of junk mail is estimated to be more than USD 8.2 million.
So if we want to create a positive environment for the development of electronic commerce and third generation mobile services, now is the time to make sure that the uptake of wireless Internet services is not hampered by huge amounts of junk mail which the consumer is paying for against his will.
Valuable capacity within networks and in battery-dependent mobile terminals must be available for communications, messages and services that users really want to receive.
Amendment No 44 is most likely to achieve that purpose.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
European films
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0351/2001) by Mr Vander Taelen, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on achieving better circulation of European films in the internal market and the candidate countries.
Mr President, I rise to speak in place of Ruth Hieronymi, who actually should have been speaking, but is unfortunately unwell.
I am very glad to be able to do so, and congratulate the rapporteur.
It is not that often that we have somebody speaking here who is as knowledgeable about his subject as is Mr Vander Taelen, who is a film-maker himself.
So, well done, my dear Mr Vander Taelen.
I think your report really does provide much needed impetus.
As you said, the market share of European films in the cinemas of the European Union is at an historic low point of only 22.5%.
The dominance of the American film industry is also reflected in the grossly excessive trade deficit of EUR 6.8 billion.
The situation in the acceding countries is even more dramatic.
There is another problem, apart from the clear dominance of films from the USA, which we must not draw a veil over.
We often talk in this House of our desire to promote European films, but many are thinking only of their own national film industry and not of their neighbour's, whose films, European films, are not seen in neighbouring regions often enough.
The Commission and the Council as well, must, as a matter of urgency, at last produce a plan to make the European film industry competitive.
This is also a sector in which there is money to be made, as the Americans show us.
Perhaps the powers-that-be will eventually wake up and do more here.
The central deficits are in the distribution and marketing of our films and, of course, the industry is chronically undercapitalised.
I am therefore very glad that we, Parliament, Commission and Council together, have, in the Media-Plus programme above all, got to grips with the twin areas of marketing and distribution and are endeavouring to give help.
I am, of course, also glad that, at the Commissioner's suggestion, the European Investment Bank is also willing to do something about this by making risk capital available for the realisation of audiovisual projects.
I believe, then, that we have given a lot of things a push in this area, but can do still more.
I also find it a good thing that we are achieving tax breaks at the level of the Member States, and that we can do something to enable filmmakers from one country to get resources and help from another.
That, then, is possible.
I think this could also be used in the framework of the i2i initiative to promote investment in the infrastructure of independent cinemas, as we propose in this report.
I believe that the extension of cinemas in economically weaker regions in the framework of the European Structural Fund can be helpful.
There is a lot more that I could say.
I am not entirely in agreement with item 7, in which the call is made for television broadcasters to be obliged to reserve a certain proportion of transmission time for foreign films.
That, of course, meets with great resistance from the broadcasters.
We will discuss that when examining the 'Television without Frontiers' directive and will perhaps find a way through.
Again, congratulations!
Mr President, I have to admit that I envy Mr Vander Taelen; not only does his report contain very meaningful conclusions, thanks to his remarkable knowledge of the film industry, but he also has tremendous vision and has tabled very specific proposals as to what we should do, what policy we should apply in connection with European films.
I think that this is an exemplary report in which the economy and culture are perceived in a highly coherent manner, to the benefit of both.
The committee naturally agreed that European films are an educational and cultural vehicle and have a huge impact on the social and aesthetic values of the European public.
I see it as a noble industry which has nourished generations of cinema goers and to which we have no hesitation in entrusting our children so that they can learn about the past and acquire a penetrating and analytical perception of the society in which we live and intuition about what will happen in the future.
We love European films; we each of us in our own countries love the national films which have marked out our lives, but we all agree that American films are stealing the show.
Consequently, we need to bring about a reversal, to ensure that European films take the place they deserve, and this will only happen if we implement a series of measures, as proposed in the report, all of which, I think, are essential if we really want European films to live up to our expectations in the next decade.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to thank Mr Vander Taelen for his sterling report.
I fully subscribe to his view that it is sheer madness to think that we produce excellent films in Europe, while only 22% of those end up in cinemas, not to mention the percentage of non-national films that are being shown in the Member States, despite the fact that for people of all ages, film is the ideal medium to get to know each other' s culture.
Why is it that European film attracts such a small audience, while the cinema-viewing public is on the increase? It seems appropriate to me to commission the European Audiovisual Observatory to carry out an in-depth study into the motives of the film public and its film choices.
Based on this, it would then be possible to use a programme such as Media Plus to support the distribution of the European film in a more focused and effective manner.
In addition, the other media play an important role in the promotion of European film, of course.
Radio and television may devote attention to it, but television in particular could do so in a more structured way by means of a fixed amount, or quota, in other words, of transmission time.
An alternative example might be specific European channels which specialise in one particular field, for example, a pan-European children' s channel which broadcasts high-quality European children' s programmes and children' s films.
Unfortunately, I am not of the same mind as Mr Vander Taelen when he states that it should be compulsory for TV channels to invest a proportion of their turnover in the film industry.
As a Liberal, and also on behalf of my group, that is excessive intervention from the powers that be.
As has been stated before, it seems to me that the European Investment Bank has a role to play in this.
One of the areas in which investments must be made is e-cinema.
Among other things, it will enable producers to make different language versions of their films in a more straight-forward manner, which will certainly benefit children' s films, for example.
After all, although we insist on a sound command of languages here in this House, the supply of adapted language versions would be another excellent way for the citizens of a Member State to get to know the culture of their European fellow citizens.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say that the report by Mr Vander Taelen has come just when it is needed.
It reminds me of when we arrived in Parliament two and a half years ago.
I realised that, in the space of two and a half years, by the autumn of 2001, we have gained the commitment of the European Investment Bank, the balance proposed by the Commission for state aid, the recognition of state aid, and now the report by Mr Vander Taelen is telling us that we must circulate films.
That is what I mean when I say it has come just when it is needed.
It has come just at the right moment to give great support to the audiovisual industry and to the cinema tradition, which we must highlight and which I see as a new development.
I would like us to get to grips with this, because we speak a great deal about cultural diversity, but tell me, please, what is cultural diversity if you do not circulate works?
If cultural diversity means to strengthen each specific characteristic within another specific characteristic, we will not gain anything in terms of diversity, in the way that we want to here in Europe.
It is therefore essential and necessary to circulate films.
In order to illustrate how important this is, I would first of all like to thank Mr Vander Taelen, and also to express my regret that one of his amendments, and not everyone agrees on this, since it was not reviewed by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, that one of his amendments, proposing that coercive measures be used to ensure the circulation of films, was not adopted.
We therefore reached an agreement on undertaking a feasibility study into this circulation. That is all very well, it sounds good.
I regret that we did not choose a better way.
And I would like to stress two other aspects of this report.
Firstly, in today' s Europe, we like to say that we have European works.
That is wonderful.
We have criteria to define European works, in terms of production, but we now know that it is film heritage which will also define and which defines European works.
I therefore welcome the fact that the rapporteur has highlighted the issue of building up our heritage.
We know that the Commission hopes to give us a European Cinematic Heritage Foundation.
We also know that the Council of Europe recently stressed the importance of building up our heritage.
We know very well that this cannot merely be achieved by conserving European films, but, as several of my fellow Members have already said, this comes from providing education on the diversity of European works and on what European works represent for future generations.
I therefore attach great importance to the issue of heritage.
To sum up, I would like to stress one important point, that of new technologies.
New technologies are instruments for the circulation of many things, such as information, knowledge, and cinema.
New technologies have their own linguistic facilities which could be of valuable help in circulating European films.
I shall therefore stress the opportunities that this report could provide in this area.
I have emphasised this issue in my report on the Sixth Framework Programme that we will be voting on in a few days.
However, I believe that new technologies, research into new technologies and digitalisation are all important.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur on his excellent work.
This document gives a clear picture of the difficulties European cinema has been striving painfully to overcome for many years now.
I would like to focus briefly on two of the many points contained in the motion for a resolution which caught my attention.
Firstly, I fully support the call for the funds made available to the film-making industry to be increased.
In effect, considering that the cinema has become an important part of our cultural heritage - cinemas have been more popular than bookshops for many years now in Europe - and given the high potential for employment in this sector, there is no doubt that greater Community financial aid would facilitate its development.
And this is precisely one of the problematic areas.
Without incentives and investment, there is no growth or impetus, and there is no quality either.
Europe has been overrun with film productions which are foreign to our cultural identity and often of dubious quality for too long now.
That is not to question the existence of the opportunity or rather the need for cinema to encourage awareness of diversities, of course, but I do feel that Europe needs to protect and encourage its own film heritage.
If, in addition, we consider the competition which came from television during the 1970s, it is not hard to see why hundreds, thousands of cinemas have been closed for so long.
Secondly, I fully support item 18, which refers explicitly to the restoration and protection of the European film heritage.
We do indeed need to encourage public institutions, local authorities and cultural associations to search for old and short films and to restore film material, thus ensuring that they are preserved and are available to the public.
There are very few film libraries in Europe which are worthy of that name and genuinely properly equipped and efficient.
They often suffer from miserly public contributions from the governments of the Member States.
Well then, the European Union cannot remain insensitive to this additional urgent need if we genuinely want to preserve the past heritage and guarantee the future of cinema.
Mr President, I, too, would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report.
He sums up very clearly to what an extent the success of a product, film in this instance, is dependent on the promotion of sales through marketing and advertising.
When American production companies set aside 30% of their budgets for marketing, it is not to be wondered at that European products lose in direct competition for customers, when they themselves use only 3 to 6% of their budgets for this purpose.
It follows that European film producers must do more to market their products.
We, as taxpayers, are also entitled to demand that they do so.
One could envisage state support for follow-up projects being made dependent on the filmmakers' efforts at reaching their public.
More subsidies cannot be the solution on their own.
Too much money was spent in the past on films that never reached their public.
Austria spends over EUR 30 million per annum on promoting films.
Taking the number of cinema-goers into account, every ticket to see a film is subsidised to the tune of EUR 1 000.
State promotion of film cannot have this as its objective.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, would like to start by thanking not only the rapporteur for this initiative, as all of you have done, but also the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, which has backed his initiative so strongly.
As you may know, the latest Europacinema conference began here in Strasbourg last weekend, and it is continuing through today and tomorrow.
The final panel discussion will be taking place in our rooms tomorrow.
There have been many discussions and many problems to resolve, such as: What is the problem, why is there no internal European market? In discussing many specific problems, whether to do with nation-states or the subsidy issue, we came up against the same point over and over again, that the distribution system does not work.
We have a European internal market, but it is not accepted that this product, film, can really circulate.
It is at this hurdle that we fall.
Now as always, there is a national logic to film promotion, which also applies to a film's success: if it was not a box-office success at home, it will not be an international one either.
I have to agree with Mr Sichrovsky that an increase in subsidies would not help, but an increased subsidy from the country we both come from would help the market a bit.
It would be wrong to demand that producers should take greater risks.
There are no independent producers.
First, we must promote this market economically, we must engage in business development, so that this market can emerge at all.
Here, too, one of the demands the Culture Committee makes over and over again in many contexts would seem to be appropriate here.
We must endeavour to make business development, whether it originates from large or small enterprises, tax-deductible.
We will support this report not only for reasons of ideology, but also out of wholehearted conviction.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Mr Vander Taelen for the excellent work he has done and for his constructive approach to this report.
Today, we find ourselves faced with a terrible paradox.
Europe produces more films than the United States, and these are often of a very high quality, but the market share of European films has never been this low before, it stands at 22%, whereas films from the United States take 73.7% of the European market.
Furthermore, European films secure only 26% of their box office takings from sources outside the country where they were produced.
These are just some observations.
This is a good report because it does not limit itself to providing an analysis of how things stand.
It tackles the very reasons why the European film industry is weak, namely, its capacity for development and distribution.
In order to render the European film industry more competitive, the rapporteur makes very specific proposals which, in my view, are excellent.
Of course, and I agree with him, we must urgently adopt an ambitious multiannual plan to improve the competitiveness of the European film industry and to strengthen the transnational distribution structures for European films.
We must develop research into digital film distribution and projection techniques; we must promote the creation of a European Heritage Foundation and perform a feasibility study of 'interconnecting' support funds of Member States so as to increase the sources of financing.
Of course, when revising the 'Television Without Frontiers' Directive, we must ensure that we include a requirement for television broadcasters to invest a certain amount in the European film industry, and the obligation to promote and broadcast European films.
This should also be an opportunity for Member States, which do not yet benefit from them, to consider the appropriate fiscal incentives.
I therefore hope that the Commission, as well as the Council, understand the challenges we are faced with, and that they take appropriate action.
Today, we are debating something that is not only a major challenge in terms of the economy, but also something that is an integral part of the European Union, in other words, culture, creation and identity.
That is why this is so urgent.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, would like the House to know how pleased I am that the Committee which I have the honour of chairing has unanimously, and rightly so, adopted the detailed, comprehensive report of the rapporteur, Mr Vander Taelen.
Without going back over aspects which have already been debated, I would point out here that the rapporteur has provided comprehensive proof, as I said before, that both a cultural problem and an organisational problem exist.
The problems are related.
I feel that the measure tabled by the committee and the decision the House makes tomorrow are so important as to warrant due reflection from the Commissioner and, indeed, a number of proposals and initiatives as well.
As we have said before and will continue to say, there needs to be a substantial cultural element in the integration of Europe, and films play a major, fundamental role in both informing people about cultural diversities and providing authenticity, allowing the message of cinema to be disseminated in all the States.
There is a need for more than just organisation.
That is important and, in my opinion, the report certainly raises basic issues which will lead us to greater organisation and investment than in the past.
What Mrs Sanders-ten Holte said just now is important.
If European film production increases, the number of distribution channels will have to increase too.
That is why the problems are related, and it is therefore our task, our responsibility, the responsibility of Parliament, especially, and of the Commission, in particular, and the Council, to achieve this.
There is nothing we can do to change the current structure of the industry.
When we debate television without frontiers, then we will be able to establish rights and clear guidelines; we will be able to require television companies to distribute, promote and commission European films, but it is imperative that, in cultural terms, we realise that we must make it quite clear that all the European countries must be able to benefit from films.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my colleague, Viviane Reding, was unable to join us for this debate because she is in Brussels at the Council meeting of sports ministers, but she asked me to pass on her thanks to Mr Vander Taelen for his excellent report.
This initiative shows that the European Parliament is fully aware of the strategic importance, both economic and cultural, of the European film industry, but also of what hampers the circulation of films and other audiovisual works in the internal market and candidate countries, as several Members have pointed out.
The European Commission, which fully supports the report' s objectives, welcomes its adoption.
The Commission is also pleased that our two institutions share the same viewpoint regarding the need to pursue an ambitious European policy in order to make the European audiovisual industry more competitive.
Several recent initiatives by the Commission in this area are proof of this common approach.
As you are more than aware, the recent Commission communication on certain legal aspects related to cinematographic and other audiovisual works that my colleague, Viviane Reding, presented to the Council on 5 November, tackles the issues of the circulation of E-cinema, the tax regime applied to the industry, the protection of European audiovisual heritage, the classification of works and other problems affecting the circulation of films and other audiovisual works.
The implementation of the measures set out in this communication, combined with the application of the MEDIA Plus programme (2001-2005) and the joint initiative undertaken by the Commission and the European Investment Bank, i2i Audiovisual, should help to significantly improve the situation of European films.
If I may, Mr President, I would like to come back to some points of the motion for a resolution which has been submitted to you.
With regard to the measures that are currently being undertaken, the second point of the motion for a resolution calls on the Commission to pursue a consistent Community policy on the film industry, particularly as regards the application of its competition policy.
The above-mentioned communication provides the film industry with increased legal certainty by specifying, as part of a constructive and positive approach, the criteria used by the Commission when assessing national support schemes for the film sector under the Treaty' s rules on State funding.
To date, all the national schemes reviewed on this basis have been accepted by the Commission.
Item 5 of the motion for a resolution calls on the Commission, in implementing MEDIA Plus, to draw attention to the Europa Cinemas network of cinemas, and item 6 calls on the Commission to support the 'Shooting Stars' initiative of the organisation European Film Promotion.
These projects are undeniably of value and have received Community support for several years as part of the MEDIA programme.
However, it is important to point out that the actions under the MEDIA programme are subject to calls for proposals and to the principle of fair competition and project selection according to a transparent procedure.
Item 7 of the motion for a resolution calls on the Commission, when revising the directive, to investigate the desirability and feasibility of imposing new quotas on broadcasters.
The Commission has already launched, pursuant to Article 25(a) of the directive, an independent study to assess the impact of measures for promoting the production and distribution of European television programmes.
This study will also assess, more specifically, the effectiveness of quotas laid down under the directive, compared to other support measures.
Furthermore, at the beginning of 2002, the Commission will undertake a public consultation on this subject.
It will urge all the parties concerned to submit written comments.
The results of the various studies and of the public consultation will provide a significant contribution to the communication on the review of the directive and any proposals for amendments, which the Commission plans to submit to the Council and to the European Parliament towards the end of 2002.
Item 33 of the motion for a resolution calls on the Commission to consider introducing specific European regulations in order to stimulate the development of the film industry in the candidate countries.
This central concern is taken into account as part of the external action of the European audiovisual policy under the heading of enlargement.
Candidate countries are therefore obliged to respect the 'acquis communautaire' where the audiovisual sector is concerned.
As you know, this mainly concerns the 'Television Without Frontiers' Directive.
In addition, they will be able to take part in the MEDIA programme as soon as they have reached a high degree of compatibility with the 'acquis communautaire' .
Furthermore, nine candidate countries were asked to take part in the MEDIA Plus programme.
The aim is for these countries to participate from the beginning of 2002.
Item 26 of the motion for a resolution calls on the Commission to perform a feasibility study of the possibility of 'interconnecting' the existing automatic support funds of the Member States and regions.
It must be reiterated that an assessment was already carried out in 1998 in Birmingham, by the 'Club des Producteurs Européens' .
The working group associated with the Commission came to the following conclusion: the proposed mechanism would, in practice, exclude many Member States who have no automatic support system for production.
As a result, the automatic support funds of the smaller countries would be drained by the more commercially successful countries, in other words, the main producing countries.
Item 27 of the motion for a resolution calls on the Committee to perform a feasibility study of the possibility of setting up a European Promotion Fund.
Council Decision No 2000/821/EC establishing the MEDIA Plus programme already, in its 'Promotion' section, lays down support for promotional activities in favour of European creation, in other words, approximately 8% of the budget.
Lastly, the Commission welcomes the amendment, which was tabled in plenary by the rapporteur, to set up an implementing agency.
The Commission will inform the rapporteur and Parliament about its proposal on this issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, these are the Commission' s comments on the report by Mr Vander Taelen, who I would again like to thank.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Protection of animals during transport
Mr President, I should also like to welcome Commissioner Byrne, who could play a significant role in this field.
A great deal needs to be said about the implementation of Directive 95/29/EC and animal transport.
The lack of adequate supervision, carriers who are slapdash at times and abuse during the export of animals for slaughter outside the EU give rise to much commotion.
In addition, the unlimited transport of animals for slaughter by the EU has made a compelling contribution to the spread of animal diseases, including foot-and-mouth and swine fever.
It is striking that the effects of this are more or less entirely shouldered by the animal farmers.
Abuse during transport and the spreading of animal diseases directly impact on the image, and often the income, of animal farmers, while they are not to blame for these causes.
Consequently, anyone who wants to adopt a pro-active stance in the fight against animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth and swine fever, anyone who is concerned about the difficult position European animal farmers are already in, or anyone who cares about animal welfare, will not put up with a culture of tolerance and chaotic rules for animal transport.
The fact that Parliament has decided to present an initiative proposal to tighten these directives now sends a strong political signal to the Council and the Commission.
After all, next month, the Council will be holding a conference on the European vaccination policy, and in this report, an initial proposal is made for effective prevention of infectious diseases.
Additionally, the Commission will soon table proposals to tighten the rules for animal transport.
This report also reflects Parliament' s great displeasure at the implementation of existing legislation by the Member States and the Commission' s lack of opportunity to notify Member States.
This report mainly aims to identify the key conditions which sound legislation on animal transport must meet.
First of all, there is supervision.
The supervision of animal transport in the European Union must be tailored to European needs by taking the following measures. First of all, 15 EU inspectors should be appointed with the task of submitting annual reports to the Council, the Commission, but also the European Parliament, as well as the parliaments of the Member States.
Secondly, adequate regulations must be put in place for sanctions, both financial and in terms of licences.
The third point concerns the introduction of an adequate European licensing scheme for carriers of animals.
I should like to make the following observations with regard to transport times. We propose to limit the duration of the transport of animals for slaughter and productive livestock to four hours, or 250 km, with a possible extension to eight hours, provided that the carrier is licensed and the animals can lie down and have a supply of fresh water.
As for animals intended for breeding and sporting purposes, we suggest a transport duration of two 24-hour legs by specialist carriers, provided that the animals have a supply of fresh water and feed.
With regard to possible exceptions, I should like to draw your attention to two problems.
The Commission may grant exemption for areas with few or no slaughterhouses by increasing the said distances and durations by up to 50%.
For small islands, but also for Ireland, and I wish to make a point of highlighting Ireland, transport by ship is subject to a separate arrangement.
Furthermore, the said regions are disproportionately hit by tightened European legislation on food safety, and I would therefore suggest earmarking structural funds for those regions to invest in small, semi-mobile slaughterhouses.
The export refunds for the export of live animals for slaughter should be stopped as soon as possible, but that is only possible if an international discussion is held about the transport of animals for slaughter and by adding this item to the agenda.
With regard to the amendments, I should like to comment as follows. Together with the Liberal Group and the Socialist Group, I have tabled three amendments to enhance the report' s practical implementability.
These concern Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 6, which deal, among other things, with temperature, but also a number of other practical points.
I should like to express thanks to Mr Heinz Kindermann and Mr Neil Busk for their very constructive cooperation.
As far as I am concerned, the report could also have been referred to as the Maat-Busk-Kindermann report.
I assume that the Liberal Group will withdraw Amendment No 3 as it is identical to the joint amendment tabled by the PPE-DE, the PSE and the ELDR.
The policy of tolerance and the feel-good factor surrounding the transport of animals must be brought to a halt.
In the EU, literally millions of animals have been killed and destroyed in the last four years as a result of an explosive spreading of animal diseases including foot-and-mouth and swine fever.
Abuse during animal transport and the shocking images of this are an indictment of European culture of which caring about animals and the countryside form an essential part.
The sad truth is that in every single case, it is the animal farmer who ends up footing the bill at a time when meat prices are unacceptably low and consumer prices remain at an all-time high.
Commission and Council, it is time for action, time to choose in favour of the quality of our animals and our countryside.
Mr President, on behalf of the Environment Committee, I welcome Mr Maat's excellent report.
It does not go as far as the Environment Committee would have wished, particularly in relation to the duration of travel - the Environment Committee would have preferred four hours - however, if eight hours is complied with, it will be a really welcome advance in animal welfare.
This is the first realistic report on animal welfare, Mr Maat has done an excellent job and I congratulate him.
My group supports this report.
Although the report does not go far enough in relation to the eight hours, paragraph 1 is extremely important.
The maximum journey time of eight hours for slaughter and for further fattening should be welcomed because animals were being transported long distances over long periods in completely unacceptable conditions.
Another important paragraph is paragraph 20, which calls for an end to the payment of export refunds on the export of live animals to third countries for slaughter.
This is long overdue.
The vast majority of European taxpayers are against the idea of their taxes being used to fund something that they fundamentally disagree with.
The onus is on the Commission to ensure that Member States comply with the rules.
The Commission must take very strong action against any Member States which do not comply.
They must be taken to court and fined.
In relation to the reduced need for long transport, it is extremely important to promote local abattoirs and also the trade in meat.
It makes much more economic sense to have a trade in meat than a trade in live animals, because jobs are then created within the EU.
The same applies to Ireland: it could make a lot more exporting meat than live animals.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, would like to start by expressing my thanks to Mr Maat.
I think he has approached this subject in a very realistic way, many years of discussions on animal transport mean that, in my view, an emotional approach is no more use to us.
Nobody, when talking about animal transport, means the kitten in the hand luggage on an aircraft, and nobody mentions the little dog on a lead on the Intercity train and certainly not the racehorse in its specialised horsebox on the motorway.
No, in the Maat report we are discussing the well-being of animals on their way to be slaughtered.
Now, I have been in this House for a very long time, and so it is to the Commissioner that I am speaking when I say this: On paper, or so it seems to me, we have produced variations on this theme for years, and we have been constantly demanding more.
All the same, we are still repeatedly shocked by the often intolerable situations revealed in individual cases by the checks, which are far too few and far between.
Better transport conditions are wanted not only, indeed, by campaigners against cruelty to animals, but also by producers and consumers.
In reports and amendments, we demand expert staff, purpose-built vehicles with adequate space for the animals to lie down in, ventilation, supplies of food and water and, for animals for slaughter, journey times limited to a maximum of eight hours.
The proposal to end the payment of export refunds for live animals is one which I find quite crucial and also particularly deserving of support.
There are objections to this, amounting in the final analysis to this being an interference with the market.
Even Jewish ritual slaughter is brought into the argument.
I could smile a little at that, for even that is now possible in the EU.
It would be better to transport the meat afterwards.
Commissioner, I find that a person's weak spot is very often his or her wallet or purse.
More inspection, more controls, high penalties and loss of the licence where offences are found to have been committed, these would bring about more effective improvements for us all.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report of the Committee on the Transport of Animals, which is under discussion this evening, has borne out what is repeatedly seen on television: the brutal way that animals are treated, the disregard of limits on journey times, the overloading of vehicles and many other breaches of current regulations on the transport of animals, none of which has been an infrequent occurrence.
This situation is no longer tolerable, and the European public is right to demand speedy measures to remedy it.
I must, though, say quite clearly that European regulations on the transport of animals, when correctly enforced, already guarantee a high degree of protection to animals.
As the Committee highlights in its report, the fundamental problem is that the regulations currently in force are applied only very inadequately in most of the Member States.
Quite apart from the difficulty of transposing the directive into national law, this is attributable above all to Member States' defective control procedures and the far too weak sanctions imposed when breaches are discovered.
Criticism arising out of these problems should therefore be directed mainly at the Member States.
In my opinion, the Community control policy needs a thorough re-think here, as comparable problems exist in other areas of veterinary control.
I would like, though, to enlarge on two further points.
The abolition of export refunds for animals for slaughter, contained in this resolution, was decided on by Parliament in the course of the 2002 Budget procedure and has long been demanded by Social Democrats.
In the past, Parliament has already given financially preferential treatment to meat as opposed to livestock for slaughter in paying export refunds, in order to remove the economic incentive from the export of live animals.
At present, then, only about one-half in export refund is paid for livestock in comparison with meat.
Even that, though, is not yet enough, and export refunds for animals for slaughter should be reduced to zero.
The other point I would like to make is that the proposal for a resolution calls for a maximum transport time of 8 hours for animals intended for slaughter, and that, too, is an old demand from the Social Democrats.
There is to be no general maximum journey time, and prime consideration was given to the situation of remote regions and islands.
Here, too, there will be limited exceptions to the rules on maximum journey time, which we greatly welcome.
In conclusion, I would like, on behalf of the Social Democrat Group, to thank Mr Maat for the constructive work we have done together, and I believe it will continue in future.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I want to begin by thanking Mr Maat for his excellent cooperation in connection with this report.
Partly in conjunction with Mr Kindermann, we have prepared quite a few amendments, and this has, in my view, turned out to be an excellent report.
I should also like to thank the Commission which, without hiding anything, has clearly described how the Member States have implemented or, more to the point, failed at all to implement, the many decisions taken in 1991 and 1995.
It is really frightening to see how European ministers sit and take joint decisions about something as important as animal welfare and the transport of animals under satisfactory conditions.
They then travel home and totally forget what they have been involved in deciding, that is to say they do not transpose any of these decisions into national legislation.
We could have well done without the huge number of hideous television pictures we have seen of animals suffering in a wide range of appalling situations.
Lorries have been opened, to reveal dead animals inside, with other animals trampling upon them.
That situation is simply unacceptable, and it must be brought to an end now.
It is therefore time to put a stop to our traditional practices of many years in the EU whereby animals are transported from north to south and from east to west.
There is no good reason for doing this.
Animals suffer as a result, and the call must now go out for animals to be slaughtered at the nearest abattoir.
Obviously, we are also obliged to transport animals for breeding purposes from areas which excel in producing such animals to areas which have a need for new animals of this kind.
I therefore look forward to the Commission' s now tabling proposals for common regulations governing the transport of animals, and I repeat: these must not be minimum regulations, but common regulations governing the transport of animals.
Mr President, I welcome this report and would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work.
However, I would first of all like to highlight my concern that the current debate has consistently failed to acknowledge the failure of many Member States to implement existing Community legislation in this area.
The latest Commission report, together with numerous mission reports, has highlighted that there is a serious disregard of animal welfare in some countries.
The Commission must show a much greater willingness to initiate infringement proceedings against Member States which fail to enforce this directive properly.
With respect to journey times, I hope the Commission will follow the recommendations of their scientific advisory committees and propose workable limits that allow businesses to function effectively, whilst maintaining a high standard of animal welfare.
I will be supporting the 8-hour or 500-kilometre limit, and strongly support the view that the climate conditions of each Member State should also be taken into consideration.
However, in areas where these journey times are unrealistic, a temporary dispensation to the maximum 8-hour travelling time should be granted where there are no slaughterhouses within a radius of 500 kilometres.
I am thinking particularly, in the UK, of the islands of Western Scotland, and of other parts of the European Union that are affected adversely in that regard.
Although putting a limit on journey times is an important step forward, the treatment of animals en route, vehicle ventilation, overcrowding, and the definition of space and temperature requirements during transport etc. are equally important issues.
The recent foot-and-mouth crisis provided evidence enough that the unnecessary long-distance transport of animals was a factor in the quick spread of that disease.
I look forward to the Commission's policy plan scheduled for 1 January 2003 aimed at the regionalisation of meat production chains, so as to limit the long-distance transport of live animals in future.
Mr President, the report on the protection of animals during transport has evoked great public interest.
Various associations, but above all individual citizens, have watched attentively to see what steps, if any, Parliament will take to prohibit intolerable conditions in the transport of animals.
The report's concern is with the use of legislation to prevent animals in transit from being endangered or brought to a cruel demise.
Nothing, though, must be left to chance, but there must rather be firm negotiations when the report is elaborated.
Among the European rural model's special features, the expectations of society are a decisive element.
The BSE crisis and the consequences of the destruction of animals due to the foot-and-mouth epidemic have put a definite question mark against what had so far been achieved.
An estimated 250 million farm animals a year are transported across the EU.
The people involved have for years vigorously disputed how necessary or pointless this is.
This basic regulation itself contains numerous practical and legal provisions on the transport of animals.
It is clear that national authorities do not act in the same way everywhere, which shows how weak the animal protection clause really is.
There is a lack of seriousness, transparency and honesty in this area.
If, for example, hares living wild in Poland are caught with nets and transported into the EU in containers that are torment to them, just so that people can shoot them for sport as a leisure pursuit, that has nothing to do with sport and even less with the protection of animals.
I would be happy if the Commissioner were able to say that it does not.
At this particular stage of negotiations on the enlargement of Europe, this incident bodes ill for well-regulated agronomy as the basis for protecting Europe's environment and species.
The report before us opts, in this sense, for cooperation rather than confrontation between agriculture and animal protection.
Mr President, animal transport has been put in a bad light by the many infringements which carriers have committed.
These infringements are an indication that, in addition to transport rules, additional attention must be devoted to supervising compliance with these rules.
In the past year, we have had to face yet another disastrous outcome of animal transport, namely the spread of animal diseases.
One now notorious incident of the transport of calves across different Member States cost the lives of 265 000 animals.
One of the conclusions we are drawing from the foot-and-mouth crisis is that agriculture must focus on the regionalisation of production and that the transport of live animals must come to an end.
With this in mind, I give my wholehearted support to the report by Mr Maat.
However, it is beyond me why in his amendments, he wishes to scrap the maximum and minimum temperature requirements inside the means of transport on the strength of the futile argument that everything is fine as long as the truck has mechanical ventilation.
Animal protection groupings will certainly find it difficult to accept this argument.
My amendments have the same objective as those by Mr Maat, except that mine still include the temperature requirements.
I support the call to end the payment of export refunds in respect of live animals for slaughter.
The evasion of European transport and slaughter rules by having animals slaughtered outside the Union under conditions which would be banned in Europe does injustice to the European farmers.
The Commission would like to encourage farmers to produce quality products.
Animal welfare forms an essential part of this quality which extends from farm to fork.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is a report on a Commission report on the implementation of the directive concerning the protection of animals during transport.
Commissioner, once more in this Parliament we are giving in to the temptation to tell the Commission exactly what it should be presenting us with, in great detail, in the next proposals for a directive they submit to us, to the extent that we are practically doing their job for them.
The rapporteur, Mr Maat, has done a great piece of work.
I trust that the Commission and the Council will take this into account.
Animals must be transported in conditions that are reasonably good; legislation should dictate standards to ensure that this is the case, and the authorities should verify compliance with these standards.
Having said this, I would like to share two thoughts with you: firstly, that conditions should be the same for both long- and short-distance transportation.
We should not demonise the long-distance transportation of animals, because that would lead to distorted competition in the internal market.
And secondly, transportation conditions should also be the same for all animals that are transported, in cases where animals are being taken to the abattoir as in cases where animals are transported to be reared close to, or far away from, their place of birth, or in order to take part in a competition.
These issues are not raised in the report, and I, Commissioner, would personally like to see them included in the next Commission proposals.
On the other hand, I would like to applaud and thank the rapporteur, who put forward an amendment on behalf of my group to delete the references made to temperatures, for it makes no sense to talk about temperatures without also referring to the corresponding relative humidity.
Additionally, from Lapland to the Canary Islands, Europe is a very large continent with a very diverse climate, population density and socio-economic conditions.
Finally, I would like to draw your attention to the importance of transportation in the propagation of epizootic diseases.
This is never related to the length of the journey, but we should be absolutely rigid with regard to standards and compliance with them.
For example, the classical swine fever we had in Spain in 1997 was caused by piglets travelling from Holland.
This can and should be avoided.
Mr President, Mr Maat' s report is excellent and summarises the legitimate and powerful criticism that has to be directed, in the first place, against the Council of Ministers and the Member States.
It is disgraceful that those of us in a civilised and cultivated part of the world, calling itself Europe, should treat animals in the way we do.
Moreover, no one can convince me that it is economically necessary.
Presumably, it is economic madness.
I want first of all to deal with Paragraph 14.
Anyone who drives when drunk loses his driving licence immediately.
How can a driver arrive with a load including dead animals and yet retain both his driving licence and his licence to transport animals? That is absurd!
Paragraph 20 is about ending the payment of export refunds in respect of live animals.
That is a first small step able, in actual fact, to be taken by the EU.
Mr President, Mr Maat's report is an important tool for thinking globally and acting more locally in agricultural and environmental policy.
Your report, Mr Maat, deserves our full support, as it does not make any compromises to the detriment of animal welfare and again emphatically brings to the light of day deficiencies which have long been well known.
There are particular expectations of the report since the vote in plenary which cut the budget for the export refund regulation.
The agreement with which this met naturally gives grounds for hope that the Maat report will be adopted as a whole, especially as it has made past misdemeanours in animal transport policy particularly apparent.
There are a number of points I would like to make, but time is too short.
Let me perhaps just say in conclusion that checks and supervision must be improved, and the amounts levied in fines must be harmonised and raised to a level that will act as a deterrent for transport businesses.
The same should apply to sanctions imposed on Member States.
We are all acquainted with the problems, the European public is right to be sharply critical of the European institutions and of the fifteen governments.
This report is to be highly valued also from the point of view of enlargement.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Council and of the Commission, it is high time that action were taken.
Mr President, it is probably indisputable that Europe-wide public opinion is demanding an immediate end to the animal cruelty associated with the transportation of live animals.
The EU has the means to reduce these problems, but lacks the political will to do so.
There exist directives whose purpose is to improve the conditions of animals during the time of transportation.
There is, however, no control over the implementation of these.
Mr Maat's report recognises this situation; it states that the directives issued on transportation are being violated.
It sees problems which arise from the different driving and resting times which apply to the drivers and to the animals being transported.
It pays particular attention to the export of live animals to countries outside the EU, which, of course, always involves the longest journey.
It reminds us that such transportations are a cause of the explosive spread of infectious animal diseases.
The most radical demand is that the Commission is being required to end payments of export aid with regard to animals being transported for slaughter, as from the start of next year.
The Commission must respond to these requirements (which will form the opinion of Parliament) in such a way that the ethical/moral demands of the civilised world regarding respect for life will, in the EU, also be met in the case of animals destined for slaughter.
Mr President, Ireland is committed to working with all Member States and international bodies to achieve higher standards in animal welfare.
Due to our peripheral location and our island status, as Mr Maat has recognised - for which I thank him - we have no realistic alternative to exporting our live cattle by boat, and we need to find export markets for nine out of the ten animals produced on our farms.
While I fully support the general principle of slaughtering animals as close as possible to the point of production, the reality is that many of the export markets available to us demand live animals rather than the processed products and for the foreseeable future the proper functioning of our market will require a balance between the dead meat and the live meat trade.
Regulation 615/98 links all payments of export refunds to compliance with strict animal welfare standards during transport, including full clinical examination of every animal.
We must police and enforce this fully.
The live export incident involving Germany and the Lebanon this summer resulted from the inexperience of the German authorities, as they are infrequent exporters of live animals and had no prior veterinary agreement with the Lebanese.
Hard cases make bad law.
I do not agree with the German agricultural minister's view that export refunds on live cattle can now no longer be justified.
If Europe does not fulfil the requirements of third countries, they will get their supplies from far further afield, with little or no controls and regulation from an animal welfare point of view since there are still no internationally agreed standards on transport.
We have to have the highest possible standards not just in the interest of the animals but also of the producers, who will get a far better price for healthy unstressed animals.
It is true that we must continue to review our standards of protection of animals during transport and each Member State must be willing to police and enforce the law.
However, with over a million tonnes of surplus beef in the EU, export refunds will be required for some time to come and I will not be supporting any proposal to remove them.
Mr President, Commissioner, it goes without saying that cruelty to animals must be stopped.
This already forms the specific ethical basis of European agricultural production.
The Commission must have adequate powers to intervene in the activities of Member States; penalties must be sufficiently severe; and executive measures to correct these matters definitely need to be intensified.
I would like to thank Mr Maat, the rapporteur, for taking the exceptions into consideration.
There exist such things as sparsely populated areas, islands, and long distances, and these areas too must be able to function; in this report they have been taken into consideration in a balanced and even-handed way.
Animal welfare forms part of a greater whole.
The regionalisation of production chains has been the topic of the day and a theme for the future, and it is against this specific background that the aid for transportation of animals for slaughter must be ended.
This will further regionalisation, and the implementation and development of regional chains.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again, we are handling the subject of 'Protection of animals during transport' .
This is a long-running issue, and I unreservedly support the report Mr Maat has presented.
We all know that there are already several directives on this in the European Union, and legislation to transpose it in the Member States.
We are all in favour of comprehensive animal protection and opposed to methods of transport which inflict needless suffering, particularly on animals destined for slaughter.
Were all these positive laws to be transposed and followed up everywhere, this debate would not be necessary.
That is, however, not the case.
Pictures of unacceptable transport conditions provide repeated evidence of this.
We should, though, not lose sight of the fact that there are a few good things to report on this area.
There are some examples of the transportation of animals which already meet the requirements of animal protection.
The idea of slaughter in the immediate vicinity of the place of origin is also widely being put into practice.
Slaughter as close to the farm as possible is something I greatly support.
Modern methods of preservation make the export of meat even to distant areas thoroughly feasible.
We are right to demand feeding and watering breaks during the transportation of animals.
We will also have to give future consideration to how to minimise stress to the animals when being unloaded or reloaded before and after these breaks.
We could certainly aim to have the vehicles transporting animals to slaughter equipped in such a way that the animals could remain on board the vehicle during short breaks and be provided for there.
Transport, space, the way in which the vehicles are driven, ventilated and heated, loading and unloading procedures have, if they are made suitable, the greatest effect on improving the protection of animals.
This report makes its contribution to that and I ask for it to be supported across this House.
Mr President, during animal transport, animals are merely considered commodities and not living creatures with an intrinsic value.
The Member States should hang their heads in shame for the fact that the supervision of compliance with legislation is so deficient.
I therefore welcome the proposals to step up the supervisory procedures considerably and to tighten the sanctions.
Furthermore, a general time and distance limit should be imposed and far stricter requirements should be prescribed for all trucks.
Improved facilities should not be an alibi for extending driving times under the guise that it is acceptable for transport in 'business class' to take longer.
The use of 'business class' is quite ludicrous considering the sixth-rate treatment animals still receive before they are killed.
Live animals should only have to endure very short spells of transport.
Eight hours is indeed an improvement, but four hours should, in fact, be the absolute maximum.
We must move towards regionalisation of the production chain with small, clean slaughterhouses.
The recent foot-and-mouth crisis has illustrated once again that the stopping and collection places entail irresponsible animal-health risks, and these must therefore be abolished.
Reforms need to be carried out promptly with a view to enlargement.
Across Europe, animals should no longer simply be viewed as objects which are financially lucrative instead of as part of creation.
Mr Maat, many thanks for the sound report.
Mr President, it is a rare occurrence but, this time, I am forced to speak on behalf of my nation.
In fact, the entire Italian beef industry is extremely concerned by the proposal, and not just because of the maximum limits it imposes on travelling time.
Of even more concern to us is the fact that the proposal stipulates that animals for further fattening, which is a completely natural stage of the livestock rearing process, should be subject to the more restrictive measures laid down for animals for slaughter instead of the less restrictive measures laid down for breeding animals, even though the further fattening stage is a natural continuation of the livestock rearing process lasting a few months.
We fully understand the report' s objective, which is to replace the transportation of live animals with that of dead meat as far as possible.
However, our situation is quite out of the ordinary, involving 120 thousand farms and a flourishing processing industry with business activities ranging from slaughter to packing, which would be greatly compromised by such a measure.
Here are some statistics, Mr President, Commissioner: France has a cattle stock of over 20 million head and an annual slaughter rate of 5 million head; Italy has a cattle stock of 7 million head and an annual slaughter rate of 4.5 million head.
Clearly, this consolidated production cycle, which is vital for the economy of our country' s livestock sector, would be completely disrupted by the introduction of a maximum journey time or distance limit. Moreover, there are no scientific grounds for such a limit and it would serve purely exploitative purposes and have consequences which, as I said, would be extremely difficult for the sector as a whole to bear.
It can be seen from this that the sole motive behind any proposal to place an absolute limit on travelling time is actually other countries' desire to strip Italy of a substantial part of its slaughter trade and to take the place of our producers in supplying beef and veal to the Italian market.
This is not the kind of Europe we want!
Mr President, I am pleased to outline to you the Commission's position on Mr Maat' s excellent report.
The subject matter of this report is animal welfare and animal transport in particular.
We all know that this is a very sensitive issue.
I made clear when I presented the original Commission proposal that the views of the Council and Parliament would help shape the proposals which I intend to present early next year.
The report under discussion here today shares most of the objectives of the Commission.
However, there is one key building block missing in the construction of the Commission' s final proposals and that is the opinion of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, which is expected shortly.
This opinion will provide the Commission with the necessary scientific advice on key issues such as travelling times and loading densities.
On such issues, our actions must be guided by good scientific advice on animal transport conditions.
Let me nonetheless indicate some general impressions on some of the key issues raised in your report.
First of all on travelling time, I was very glad to note that some of the more extreme suggestions, such as a four-hour limit on animal transport, have not been supported in Mr Maat' s report.
The consistent advice to the Commission is that the stress and risk to animals in transport arises primarily from three factors: travelling time, loading and unloading of animals and the conditions in which they are transported - ventilation, humidity, density and so on.
The Commission has already presented proposals for improvements in these areas or will be presenting them shortly.
However there is too much emphasis in some quarters on travelling time.
I consider that a reduction to four hours is simplistic and takes no account of the wider interests involved.
We cannot ignore the interests of the farmers and the meat and livestock industry.
Such a reduction would be viewed as an attack on their livelihoods rather than a genuine contribution to animal welfare.
If we wish to retain their support for improved animal welfare then we must also respect their interests.
I wish to work with them rather than against them and hope that you share this view.
I would now like to turn to the issue of resources.
Your report calls for the number of inspectors in the Food and Veterinary Office engaged on animal welfare to be increased to fourteen, compared with the current figure of four.
The reality is that such an increase could only be achieved at the expense of other priorities, including BSE, foot-and-mouth disease, meat hygiene, residue levels and food safety generally, where the Commission is already over-stretched.
I have consistently refused to make promises on which I cannot deliver.
It would be dishonest to do so, both to this House and to the European public.
You stress the lack of enforcement of the current legislation in Member States.
I fully agree.
Member States must make the effort and provide the resources to ensure better implementation.
It is a point which I have made repeatedly to the Member States in the Agriculture Council.
Judging from the correspondence I receive from Members of Parliament, the best way to achieve better enforcement is through legal proceedings against the Member States.
However it should be pointed out that sometimes it is more effective to work with Member States than against them, so proceedings should be the last resort.
They are, after all, responsible for the on-the-ground implementation of Community legislation.
But let me be clear: where efforts to find solutions through dialogue do not succeed, the Commission will initiate infringement proceedings against the Member States concerned.
In fact, proceedings are under way against several Member States and are under consideration for several more.
Finally, in this respect, I would call on the House to assist the Commission' s efforts in encouraging Member States to take animal welfare more seriously.
In particular I would call on Members to remind your political colleagues in your own Member States of the need to put more efforts and resources into ensuring that the Community provisions on animal welfare are complied with.
Mr Maat, ladies and gentlemen, I will be returning to you shortly with the Commission' s formal proposals.
This will provide you with the opportunity to shape the hard legislation on animal welfare.
I can assure you that Mr Maat' s report will be a major influence on this legislation.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 9.40 p.m.)
Decision on urgent procedure
The next item is the vote on requests for urgent procedure pursuant to Rule 112.
Proposal for a Council regulation aiming to promote the conversion of vessels and fishermen that were, up to 1999, dependent on the fishing agreement with Maroc [COM(2001) 384 - C5-0407/2001 - 2001/0163 (CNS)]
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last night the Committee on Fisheries approved the report by our colleague, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on the restructuring of the Community fisheries sector affected by the non-renewal of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
I would like to say to the House that this report is restricted to regulating the technical aspects relating to the social measures aimed at the many people affected; it is a very sensitive issue from a social, and therefore political, point of view, in the Member States affected by this restructuring.
Therefore, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am in a position to ask the House to vote in favour of this request for an urgent procedure presented by the Council, so that this proposal can be debated in Council by the Fisheries Ministers at their meeting called for the 27 November.
Mr President, the Committee on Budgets is sympathetic to the needs of our friends in the Committee on Fisheries.
However, a conciliation meeting will be taking place on 21 November and it is not yet agreed between the different institutions how the agreement will be finalised, or indeed in what category it will be finalised.
In the light of a decision by the Budgets Council last week, there is a great deal of confusion on our side as to how we are going to deal with this.
I would ask that we do not treat this as urgent and that it be held over until after the conciliation meeting of 21 November.
Mr President, I wish to support Mr Wynn.
I am glad to see that the Committee on Budgets is taking a responsible approach to this issue because the idea of pushing it through as urgent procedure without debate is unacceptable.
We have to be very careful about how we use European taxpayers' money and we need to look to the future.
A number of years ago in this Parliament it was already being said that Morocco would not agree to another agreement with the EU.
We knew that then and we should have prepared for it.
This situation is not unique, it is going to happen again.
At the moment we are discussing a major agreement with Mauritania.
The day will come when Mauritania will say to the EU that it no longer wants such an agreement.
What are we going to do then? We really need to address this issue, firstly, in relation to how we arrange our common fisheries policy and, secondly, in relation to how we use public money.
The way this has been rushed through is unacceptable.
This is not a matter for urgent procedure because we have known for many years that this problem was coming.
We need to be extremely careful about how we use European taxpayers' money.
I understand the problems the fishing community has, but we need to be more responsible.
Mr President, I would simply like to say that the Committee on Budgets has taken no decision in this field.
There are plenty of Members, particularly from my group, in the Committee on Budgets who believe that the urgent procedure is perfectly appropriate.
We understand the reasons that the Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries has been able to give.
We believe that, in this case, a legal basis is necessary and, in any event, from the budgetary point of view, if it is necessary to amend that basis as a result of the negotiation with the Council on the 21 November, it could be done without any problem.
I therefore do not believe that this Parliament' s position would be damaged by accepting the urgent procedure today and voting on the Miguélez Ramos report, which, furthermore, relates much more to the technical issues in the Commission' s proposal with regard to the restructuring of the fleet than to actual budgetary motivations, which will be the subject of another report.
Mr President, I oppose urgency on a matter of principle, not on a matter of substance.
I am sure we all support a global health fund and President Prodi guaranteed EUR 120 million at the G8 meeting in July.
However, I and many others are extremely disappointed that the Commission has taken until November to come forward with any effective suggestions and now it is asking for urgency, effectively denying the Council and Parliament any time to debate or amend this proposal.
It looks as if we are just going to hand over a cheque and that will be the end of it.
The Commission is also suggesting the funding should be found by taking EUR 60 million from a fishing agreement and EUR 60 million from the EDF.
In its resolution in this House on 25 October this House emphasised that contributions should be new and additional funding, and this is not so.
At the moment it looks as if it is a one-off payment.
I would like to hear the Commission guarantee that a legal base will be found for the sustainable funding of the global health fund after 2000 and submitted as quickly as possible.
I would like an assurance that it will be new money and that Parliament and the Council will be kept fully informed and involved, so that we play a legislative part in this process.
We, as parliamentarians, cannot be treated in this way.
This financing issue is indeed directly linked with the subject we were discussing just now.
EUR 50 million will be made available from appropriations that were previously earmarked for fishing agreements.
It is quite evident that this is additional money that was not available beforehand for other external actions.
A further EUR 10 million will be made available from two budget lines with which there have also been implementation difficulties up to now, that is to say the budget lines for Latin America and for Asia.
The money will be implemented here in a concrete way, and there are promising signs that the extra EUR 60 million can be provided from the EDF.
I believe that it really would be a good sign if the European Union could make an early decision on implementing these financial appropriations.
As you know, the donors to the global health fund have promised over USD 1.8 billion, but so far those are just promises.
The European Union would be the first to make a concrete decision on financing.
I therefore ask you to vote for this request for urgent procedure.
We need a legal basis for making a transfer to the global health fund.
This House will naturally be kept informed at all stages.
We will, of course, come back to this several times during the overall budget process.
But if the legal basis could be rapidly decided upon now, and it would be a good legal basis that would enable us to make the transfer, then we would not need to explore any other avenues, because the budget situation would be very clear.
So I ask you to vote for the request for urgent procedure.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I would like to say that we are against recourse to the urgent procedure, for fundamental and for procedural reasons.
The facts are as follows: the Commission has proposed a contribution of EUR 60 million to the Global Fund to fight AIDS/HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
We are not against this proposal, but we do not believe that this can be a single contribution, made just once, if this objective is to be fulfilled.
We are arguing for a solid and sustained contribution, not just for one year.
This is why we do not agree with the urgent procedure; we intend to present amendments, which is our right in accordance with the codecision procedure applicable in this field.
The Commission, in asking for the urgent procedure, is doing so in a way which is unacceptable to Parliament, since it deprives us of this essential and irrevocable right.
The Commission announced its contribution to this fund in July; it told us about it some months ago and it announced it publicly in Genoa more than three months ago; and now it wants Parliament to express its opinion on this important issue in just one week.
Mr President, as rapporteur, allow me to explain. We are talking, then, about three matters, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, as discussed by the Committee on Budgets.
We support the Commission' s request for urgent procedure.
This is a matter of exceptional urgency, since many great needs have arisen, especially in Macedonia.
We are also concerned with extending the aid to Bosnia, Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
We nevertheless need a little more time.
To begin with, a proper discussion is needed in the Committee on Budgets.
It is a question of transfers for this year and of budget issues for next year.
We need a little time in which to obtain the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and we need to have a discussion on the whole budget for the Balkans for 2002 in connection with the conciliation prior to the second reading of the budget next week.
We therefore propose voting to apply urgent procedure but also for deciding at the same time to deal with these three matters during the November II part-session in Brussels.
We should, then, be able to have a joint debate on the issues relating to the Balkans, at the same time as dealing with the Lagendijk report on the European Agency for Reconstruction.
Our proposal is therefore in favour of urgent procedure but also of debating the matter during the November II part-session in Brussels.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure) President.
That concludes the vote.
Presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report - 2000
The next item is the presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report for the year 2000.
Mr President, I would also like to pass on my best regards to Mr Karlsson, thank him for his presentation and all the work he has done over the past few years.
I hope he will pass on our thanks to his other colleagues who are also leaving.
We must remember that this report is the first report which assesses the first full year of the Prodi Commission - a Commission which, let us remind ourselves, was appointed with the specific remit of radical overhaul and reform of the European Union.
The question we will be asking in our discharge procedure this year is: "Is the Commission delivering on that promise?".
Let us be clear. If it is not, then the credibility of both the Prodi Commission and of this Parliament is on the line.
It is much too early to assess the success or failure of the Prodi Commission and of Commission reform.
The only question we can ask at this point is whether we are headed in the right direction.
Mr Karlsson, I noted your words last night.
There are a number of hopeful signs in this report.
So, where the Commission has specific responsibility, we do seem to be seeing some positive developments.
As you say, the strategy on BSE is basically sound.
The work of the Agency charged with the reconstruction of Kosovo was efficient and economical.
The reform programme is heading in the right direction.
You have approved the recasting of the financial regulation and the Commission's proposals on financial incentives for top grade officials, although I note that you have some concerns about the Commission's accounting mechanisms.
Perhaps Mrs Schreyer could comment on that.
We are not going to let the Commission off the hook.
There is a large area where the Commission has joint responsibility with the Member States, particularly in the agricultural sector and the structural funds.
The primary responsibility must lie with the Member States. They are responsible for 85% of the budget.
Here we see some serious structural weaknesses.
In the structural funds, we see problems in the application of regulations at every level.
The CAP accounts for over 40% of the budget and where Member States are responsible there is no improvement.
Heads of stock continue be overstated.
We know that Belgium, Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands have not signed the Convention on the Protection of Financial Interests.
We are disappointed, Mr Karlsson, that you did not mention them by name in the report.
Again the Court has failed to give a statement of assurance to the Commission.
As I said last night, this is a complicated and ever-changing procedure and I do not believe the Commission will ever get a statement of assurance.
So the main message, as far as I can see, is that the Commission should keep going.
It is on the right track.
Member States must stop hiding behind the Commission and assume their proper responsibility of protecting EU taxpayers' money.
I too should like to express my appreciation for all the Members of the Court of Auditors who are departing.
It is noticeable again that this year, as the Court of Auditors has already expressed in rather vague terms, there is no Statement of Assurance.
The question arises as to how long this situation can continue like this.
2001 is the first year for which the current Commission shoulders all responsibility.
In my opinion, there should come a day when a positive Statement of Assurance can be made.
I should like to suggest that the Commission sets the year 2000 as a target date.
For each year, an action plan should be drafted in which the Commission outlines its objectives.
We must ensure that the necessary arrangements are then in place for certain Directorates-General, with a margin of error of, say, less than 1%.
As far as the Member States are concerned, we all know that that is where the money is spent.
In my view, the system we are currently using for the agricultural funds is workable: if a Member State spends certain amounts inappropriately, the Commission will need to introduce capping.
I should like to see the Commission make proposals for extending this system to include other sectors of the budget, notably the Structural Funds.
Honourable Members of the Court of Auditors, Mr Karlsson, Mrs Schreyer, on behalf of my group, I should naturally like to echo the words of thanks which my fellow MEPs have already expressed.
I have started to wade through this tome.
I have to admit that this 24th Annual Report seems superior and that more names are included than before.
In other words, this Annual Report is simply a better read, it has to be said.
It also becomes clear that you are sending out a message, namely an urgent request for simplifying legislation.
Indeed, if legislation were simplified, fewer mistakes would be made, fewer irregularities would occur and this would probably result in less fraud.
When I read what was happening with the own resources and when I saw the results of the database, which gives an overview of all cases of fraud and irregularities established since 1996, amounting to EUR 1.5 billion, I appreciated the significance of what we are doing. On the basis of the Court of Auditors report, the OLAF reports, the work carried out by the rapporteurs and also our own studies, we will need to explain to the European taxpayers how their money is being spent.
I am delighted with the fact that the Annual Report devotes much attention to the role of the Member States.
Indeed, they do not sufficiently inspect the Community programmes which they manage in conjunction with the Commission.
Neither do they fight fraud satisfactorily when they collect their revenue.
The VAT carrousels are a prime example of this.
Finally, as Mrs Morgan has already stated, the Member States fail to implement legislation adequately.
In this connection, I should once again like to haul my own country over the coals.
In the Blak report, Belgium was attacked for not yet having ratified the 1995 agreement.
I have exchanged correspondence in this respect with the President of the Belgian Parliament, and four months ago, I was promised that this agreement would be ratified during the Belgian Presidency.
That has not been done to date.
That is an outright scandal, and I am grateful to the Court of Auditors for once again giving us the necessary ammunition today to ensure that the Belgian government and the Belgian Parliament carry out their tasks at long last.
It is a disgrace which we must continue to denounce in public.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although money is not everything, the way money is handled shows if a policy is successful or not.
Those were the words of a former President of the Court of Auditors, Bernhard Friedmann, and if we take those words as a yardstick for this year's report, then we really have to ask just how successful the Union's policies are in practice.
The report before us summarises what we already know from many other reports: there is still a need for reform in financial management and the way funds are implemented.
There are dramatic shortcomings in many areas, which suggests that financial errors are endemic.
The Commission's tendency to blame irregularities and deficits the Court discovers chiefly on the Member States is unacceptable.
Of course the Member States cannot shake off their own responsibilities, if there are irregularities or fraud in the Member States, the Commission must act accordingly.
The recovery rate, that is the reimbursement of funds that have been lost, is not satisfactory.
It is not acceptable if Member States underperform in the fight against fraud because of lax controls and are then slow to get funds reimbursed as well.
Politically speaking, the Commission has final responsibility for the EU budget and it is accordingly also responsible for efficient implementation of funds and checks.
One of the things mentioned in the Commission's responses on last year's report is that new systems are being introduced which primarily aim to make it easier to check the efficiency of VAT collection in the individual Member States.
Given that significant shortcomings have also been identified in this area, we also have to ask how effective these control mechanisms are.
I would like to thank the Court of Auditors for its successful investigative work and I call on the Commission to take further structural reform actions so that mismanagement and financial errors become a thing of the past.
Mr President, what can I say in two minutes?
Well, first of all and very simply, I shall say goodbye and thank you to President Karlsson.
I shall say goodbye, now that you are leaving us, after giving many years of loyal service, and thank you for the excellent cooperation that you developed with this House and for the quality of this report, which now seems like an impressive aircraft carrier, surrounded by a squadron of special reports.
I shall make three brief comments, as I have very little time.
First of all, I believe that you are right to emphasise that the major problem with the 2000 budget is the massive under-implementation of a number of funds.
Admittedly, Mrs Schreyer is right to say that there are sometimes good reasons for this under-implementation, but generally the budgetary authority feels a sense of frustration and is aware that there are problems related to this under-implementation.
I shall give four examples. The first is the overly complex regulations, the difficulties in managing the project cycle, the poor interaction in execution and control between the Commission and the Member States, and, lastly, the often pernickety control which has the effect of taking away responsibility.
These are the areas we will be focusing on in the discharge.
I have one comment to make on the DAS.
I am pleased to see that the Court of Auditors is keeping a good distance and we must do the same thing with the error rate.
The overall error rate is merely the scientifically dubious aggregation of spot checks, which, whilst interesting, are random.
I do not want everything to hinge on the error rate, which will determine everything.
The Court of Auditors is reassessing this issue.
Parliament must monitor and support this.
My third and final comment relates to the management of surpluses.
In my view, it is a shame that surpluses are systematically reimbursed to Member States.
In fact, economically speaking, this management strategy has a pro-cyclical effect, which is absurd.
We support growth when it is strong, and then, since there is a lack of money, we penalise growth when it is weak.
We should consider other forms of multi-annual regulation from a statutory point of view.
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to focus, in this debate, on the Court of Auditors' special report on export refunds.
This is yet another important contribution to our understanding of the vital need to promote a thorough reform of the CAP in areas such as the funding of exports of agricultural products.
Until today, I had never read, in one publication, such a devastating set of facts on the misuse of public funds by the European institutions, some of which are worth highlighting.
EUR 80 million from the Community budget were used to fund supplies to Iraq, in breach of the embargo imposed by the United Nations.
Little or none of this money has to date been recovered.
According to statements made by the Russian customs authorities themselves in August 2000, almost 80% of Community subsidies for exports to that country, currently being examined by OLAF, have proved to be fraudulent.
It should be remembered that Russia is the main destination for subsidised European exports.
The Community has set up free import agreements with candidate countries, but is still subsidising the export of dairy products to these countries.
As a result, we have the classic roundabout scenario already seen in Estonia, in which the Community subsidised butter exports, which were then imported free from customs duties.
The number of supposedly pure-bred cattle whose export the Community has already funded would be enough to give some importer countries, with Mediterranean or desert climates, huge reserves of pure-bred European cattle.
The system of control and monitoring bodies, designed to ensure the veracity of export statements has proved to be a complete fiasco.
The Commission assured us, even in the context of the last budgetary discharge and on the Fléchard procedure, that exports to Russia in particular, were now being properly monitored.
This report by the Court of Auditors categorically disproves the Commission' s words.
Mr President, this is the first time that we have received a report that pertains to a period for which the Prodi Commission is entirely responsible.
Can we draw clear conclusions from it? No, not really.
That is why my group hopes that the discharge procedure will eventually give us the answer to the following questions: which countries cause most problems, which areas of policy are most problematic and what can be done about this, where does the Commission carry out its tasks and where does it fail to do so, but also where have improvements been made and where has that not been the case?
We can already detect some improvement.
That is partly thanks to the commitment by this European Parliament, but also the Court of Auditors, for which we are very grateful.
However, this is still not enough.
Moreover, it is still not possible to issue a general Statement of Assurance, and the budget surplus is currently at an all-time high.
Progress has thus been made in small ways, but that is not enough to really gain the confidence of the people in Europe.
In the final analysis, that is what we all need to work towards.
Mr President, when I read the Never-Ending Story to my grandchild, Niklas, I think of the Court of Auditors' annual report.
There are an incredible number of problems which crop up again and again, year after year. Lamentable control systems in the Member States, lost income from VAT, bureaucratic and complicated export refund arrangements, farmers who overstate how much land they have, misappropriation of structural funds, fraud involving research funds in the form of over-payment, and long-winded and bureaucratic procedures concerning the EU' s external aid.
It is the same old story every single year.
However, it is now the Member States that are the biggest culprits.
It cannot be said often enough.
The agricultural and structural funds are what cause us problems.
There is a very tough approach this year to the management of the structural funds.
I proposed last year in my discharge report that the Commission should impose fines upon those Member States which offend again and again, and I am extremely pleased that Mrs Schreyer and the Commission have promised to look constructively at this possibility.
Denmark is also mentioned a couple of times in the annual report, and that is a couple of times too many.
There are problems with farmers' overstating how much land they have, and pathetic control systems at quite a few custom houses.
The Danish practice of collecting users' fees for the issue of export refunds has also been found to be illegal.
It is thanks to the Court of Auditors that the Commission has finally realised what is unlawful about this practice.
I am also pleased that we are working on the problems caused through the pile of work involving guarantee payments in Denmark, which are a disaster.
In this area, too, the Commission has been a good and effective partner.
I would also say to Mr Karlsson that I should never in my life have believed that a Dane would end up missing a Swede.
That is, however, the case and, since I, myself, am also leaving Parliament after this parliamentary term, we must set up a club for former Scandinavian MEPs in which we can rhapsodise about the old days.
I think that the children' s book, 'Karlsson-on-the-Roof' was written with you in mind.
Thank you for your fruitful cooperation over seven years.
Mr President, I have a couple of observations to make. First, we need to recognise that, once again, the Court of Auditors has been unable to give a positive statement of assurance in respect of Commission expenditure.
I want to resist our gradually starting to regard the abnormal as being the norm.
We can perhaps do that in this case, but certainly not outside this area.
If this statement of assurance is procedurally weak, then I expect the Court of Auditors to make a statement to that effect.
Otherwise we must note that there is a weakness in Commission expenditure that needs to be criticised politically speaking.
My second point is that I am very grateful to you, Commissioner, for having highlighted the link between today's debate on progress reports in connection with enlargement and the report of the Court of Auditors.
The Court of Auditors has told us that in respect of the new pre-accession instruments there was actually a zero expenditure policy in 2000.
That means that in practice - and the Commission is talking about the first candidate countries acceding in 2004 - we have already wasted 20% of the time available in the financial area.
And that means of course that we will have to work even harder in the coming years in order to implement the pre-accession instruments properly.
My third point is a comment about OLAF.
I was surprised, Mr Karlsson, that your report more or less suggested that by adding a reserve for setting up OLAF, Parliament had affected the independence of that body.
We felt obliged to do this when the Commission - as you know - simply transferred all UCLAF's staff to OLAF, and apparently thought the job was done. And all the more so when we discovered from the OLAF Monitoring Committee for which you have such high regard that OLAF's independence genuinely was at risk.
Now that we have been able to deal with the Commission, and I would specifically like to thank Mrs Schreyer for that, we have a new problem.
This is an area where I believe the Commission should step in, Mrs Schreyer.
The new Berlusconi government is now blocking one of the central posts in the new OLAF.
I would be grateful if we could all pull together on this one.
Mr President, the report of the Court of Auditors is always rather like the starting pistol for the discharge procedure, which we then hope to conclude in the April of the following year, although we do not always succeed.
Now that we have been working off the inherited liabilities for several years, something that has consistently attracted media attention, it now seems to me that we are tackling more systemic problems where it is not so much spectacular individual cases that are at stake, but rather whether systems are flawed in some way.
I would like to address once again three points that arose most often in the debate.
The first one is the high level of unimplemented appropriations.
In the course of the discharge procedure, we will have to ask ourselves whether this is attributable to the caution officials exercise before they will sign something off and spend money, or whether it is to do with overcomplicated rules.
For example, given the many complaints I hear from my constituents and others about all the red tape you have to cope with in dealing with Brussels if you want to get support for something, I fear that I know the answer already.
Although I am willing to accept it if this is clearly refuted, this is still an issue we need to sort out.
The second point is the statement of assurance, which has just been mentioned, and Mr Bösch has pointed out the dilemma we face. We need to ask ourselves if there are more reliable instruments or if we are treating this statement of assurance in the same way that the Council does year after year, that is as a kind of weather report that is not binding in any way.
My final point is this: we need to establish whether the Member States' handling of EU money has got worse or whether it is just being scrutinised more carefully now.
If the latter is the case, that would represent some progress and the Commission could be given some credit for that.
But it is the Commission's job to step up pressure on the Member States, and we will be glad to help out.
Before giving the floor back to Mr Karlsson I should like to say to him on behalf of Parliament that we appreciate the fruitful cooperation we have had over the years of his presidency.
We wish you all the very best for the future.
Mr Blak has probably paid you the ultimate compliment by talking about a Dane missing a Swede.
That is like a Scot saying we want England to win at football.
That was a real compliment.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Mr President, on behalf of my outgoing colleagues and myself I would like to assure you that I have never regretted my resignation as much as at this moment.
I wish I could resign every time we met in order to listen to this lovely music.
So thank you very much for all the nice words.
Not least, when I go home to Sweden I shall tell them of these kind words from Denmark.
Thank you, Mr. Blak.
I realise there is a heavy agenda, but I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words.
I shall start with what Mr Kuhne has just said.
It seems that a number of issues have been put behind us and there is a feeling - which I also had yesterday in a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control - that we are now able to address some major issues for the future.
The first is one which underlies the budget surplus problem.
It is not so much the revenue I am thinking of, as the under-utilisation and the under-implementation of funds, which, in turn, has a lot to do with our problems in achieving good management and fighting fraud - namely the over-complexity of Union funds and administration and regulations.
I have had a long discussion on that with the discharge rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, and I feel confident that this problem will be addressed now.
My personal advice to Parliament is to do everything in its power, together with other institutions, to simplify things.
On all the major issues, such as the pre-accession funds, structural funds and export refunds and on the market regulations in agriculture, we have built a mountain of complexity which, if I may for once step into the realm of political judgment, raises the major question of the European citizens' confidence in this Union.
I would say that if I had to choose one of the tasks that Mr Kuhne mentioned as being the most important, it would be: simplify, for heaven's sake!
I wish you every success in that.
I think that this Parliament, together with the Court of Auditors and the other institutions, will in the future manage to increase confidence among European citizens in our great project, which, of course, is the primary goal for all of our institutions.
With that, I thank you once again, on behalf of myself and my colleagues, for your kind words and for this most stimulating and interesting exchange of views.
That concludes this item.
Money laundering
The next item is the report (A5-380/2001) by Klaus-Heiner Lehne, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 91/308/EEC of 10 June 1991 on prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering (PE-CONS 3654/2001 - C5-0496/2001 - 1999/0152(COD)).
Mr President, I represent a minority.
The new Recital 16 says that there is an obligation to report suspicions "if the legal counsellor is taking part in money laundering activities, the legal advice is provided for money laundering purposes, or the lawyer knows that the client is seeking legal advice for money laundering purposes". That is going too far.
That is why I am voting against this.
It would destroy the integrity of advice.
It also has a second implication which has not up to now been the case under our existing legislation: in all three cases the legal counsellor or lawyer would be committing a criminal offence.
He would therefore also have to denounce himself.
That is totally unheard of anywhere in the world.
I am fairly sure that even in the Stone Age there was no law saying that. For some inexplicable reason, the Commission has felt moved for the first time ever in law to adopt a legal provision whereby one must denounce oneself.
I certainly cannot vote for that.
Lessing comes to mind, who said that if enlightenment is only a small light glimmering in the darkness, there is at least still some hope in the world.
You have made the same mistake as with the OLAF legislation, which in the end has even penetrated into Members' offices.
You will be stopped there.
This could not stand up to constitutional scrutiny.
When we were debating the OLAF legislation, I said that the European Union as a whole had had a rush of regulatory blood to the head.
We seem to have a similar phenomenon again here.
I also regard it as a matter for great regret that the legal profession has shown so little backbone on this issue.
Mr President, one of the biggest gaps in the anti-money laundering regime has been that it only applied to financial institutions.
As successive international reports have made clear, lawyers and other professionals become vulnerable to exploitation as unwitting accomplices in the washing of dirty money from criminals and terrorists as banks tighten up, which, I am glad to say, they are at last having to do.
I regard the outcome of the conciliation on this directive as satisfactory if it is interpreted in a common sense way.
That means that lawyers, accountants and tax advisers must, outside a strict definition of legal privilege, report transactions that are suspicious, in other words, that they have reason to believe their client is involved in money laundering.
This is the only feasible interpretation.
There has been a huge amount of hype on this directive aimed at protecting lawyers' vested interests and not, I am afraid to say, individual rights.
This has delayed the finalisation of the directive for an unnecessary six months.
Parliament has not exactly covered itself with glory.
I hope all Member States will declare that they have no intention of invoking the option to exempt lawyers from the ban on tipping off clients that the authorities have been alerted.
We need to make sure that our legal and financial systems are not exploited, rather than concentrating on the position of the lawyers themselves and their own self-interest.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur on succeeding in achieving a sensible joint proposal on the more important points of this report in codecision.
However, the Radical Members of the Bonino List will not be able to vote for this report because it has two shortcomings: the first concerns the joint text itself which gives the Member States' the right to use information obtained through proceedings combating money laundering for other types of investigations as well.
This point introduces the danger that, in actual fact, the investigating authorities might use investigations into money laundering to obtain special powers as a way to get round the rules, so to speak, a way to get round the normal protection rights governing information obtained during proceedings on other issues.
The second point on which we have reservations is more general: it is the recommendation that the fight against money laundering should be seen as the priority.
In our opinion, if we are to win the battle, if we are to strike at the profits of criminal organisations, our most urgent priority should be to legalise drugs.
This text was adopted on the wave of events following the attacks of 11 September.
We must not forget that Afghanistan, which we are currently attacking with military force, is responsible for 80% of the world' s opium production.
Well then, maybe a policy of legalising drugs would be a more effective way of reducing the power of the drug barons than pursuing their capital throughout the world.
Mr President, the thorny problem in the text before us is, of course, the balance between the legally recognised obligation of professional secrecy, on the one hand, and, on the other, the duty to pass information which assists the fight against money laundering to the appropriate authorities.
The money-laundering directive imposes a string of obligations on credit and financial institutions, with the result that money launderers have simply switched to other sectors, hence the need to extend the scope of the directive to other professions.
Whilst we of course welcome more stringent measures, they should not lead to a watering down of the obligation of professional secrecy for various professions, and above all for lawyers, notaries and tax consultants.
Mr Rothley is right in saying that the text before us is chipping away at the principle of nemo tenetur se ipsum accusare, no one is bound to incriminate himself.
However, that is the very compromise that we think is workable, and we believe that the need to balance professional secrecy on the one hand and the need to bring criminals to book on the other has been solved in an acceptable way, and we shall therefore be voting in favour of this.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate and thank the rapporteur.
Because of your commitment, we have been able to see off the attack the Council and Commission were making on the fundamental rights and rights to defence of Europe's citizens.
It is not acceptable for defence counsel, solicitors, tax consultants and notaries simply to be turned into part of the public prosecution service.
It is also evident that the battle to maintain rights to defence is not over yet.
The directive still has to be transposed into national legislation, and we must continue to argue that it should not be subject to an excessively narrow interpretation at national level, thus restricting citizens' fundamental rights and rights to defence.
However, I can also assure you that I will be making representations to the appropriate Austrian authorities to make sure that precisely this does not happen.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I welcome very much the agreement which has been reached by Parliament and the Council.
Delegations in the conciliation procedure on the proposal for a second money laundering directive have given their support to this compromise proposal, and the Commission is duly appreciative.
I should like in particular to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, and also vice-president Provan for co-chairing the conciliation meeting, for their determined efforts to reach an agreement which, as I have said, is very much welcomed by the Commission.
The Commission proposal to update and extend the 1991 anti-money-laundering directive - which Parliament called for as early as 1995, as was mentioned quite rightly this morning - has raised difficult and sensitive issues of which the Commission is fully aware.
Not least, the involvement of the professions in the anti-money-laundering defences has attracted the attention of many people interested in this subject and, in particular, Members of this Parliament.
The Commission believes that the joint text agreed in the conciliation procedure constitutes a good compromise, taking account of the legitimate concerns of both Parliament and the Council.
The fight against money laundering is an essential aspect of the fight against serious and organised crime.
Since the tragic events of 11 September, it has also become an integral part of the fight against the financing of terrorism.
The proposal before us now, to strengthen the European Union's anti-money-laundering defences, has aroused great interest in the world outside the European Union, not least in the so-called financial action task force which is in the process of updating its 40 recommendations.
So to sum up, I commend the joint text to Parliament and I look forward to the earliest possible adoption and implementation of this important new directive.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Approximation of civil and commercial law
The next item is the report (A5-384/2001) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the approximation of the civil and commercial law of the Member States [COM(2001) 398 - C5-0471/2001 - 2001/2187(COS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this too is a very important report. What is it about?
It is about the fact that although the internal market in Europe is becoming ever more integrated, there are also various deficits, as we all know.
The Commission, the Parliament and the Council have been trying for many years to achieve joint legislation, particularly in the field of consumer protection.
In the communication on contract law which the Commission has brought forward, and which is also referred to in this report, the Commission covered in detail the position on the common body of law which already exists in the European Union, and also referred to all the directives already in existence in this field.
However, if you take a closer look at these directives, you will see that they are not always necessarily consistent.
It is quite conceivable for there to be a contract entered into between a purchaser and a vendor in which the purchaser may have to sign three different cancellation statements with different cancellation deadlines, because totally different deadlines are found in different directives, such as the distance-selling directive and other directives.
It is pretty obvious that this does little for consumer protection and is sheer nonsense.
That is why it is necessary for this common body of law to be consolidated and summarised to achieve a common result.
There are many reasons why this situation has come about.
It can be explained, in part, simply by the fact that within the European institutions totally different directorates-general, committees and Councils were responsible for individual aspects, and of course they always looked at things from their own isolated point of view, which then led to quite different end results.
So up to now there has not been an integrated approach, an integrated view of the approximation of civil rights.
I think it is a very good thing that following the decisions taken at the Tampere Council, the Commission now intends, just like this House, to adopt an integrated approach in future.
This is a matter of urgent necessity, as the volume of cross-border trade is on the increase in Europe.
There are two key factors which explain this. The first is, of course, the introduction of the euro next year.
A second factor is the impact of modern technology, and I only have to mention electronic commerce.
If, in the future, you order goods or other commodities via electronic commerce, you will have no idea, or, at least, you frequently will not have, of where the company you are dealing with is based.
This is leading to an inevitable growth in cross-border trade.
That is why I believe that it is also necessary for us to develop more common definitions of offences and a broader common body of Community law.
The present electronic commerce directive, which we in this House supported, is not therefore, as we already know, an ideal solution.
As the country of origin principle applies here, whereas in the case of consumer rights law the country of destination principle applies, this can lead in practice to situations such as a district court judge in Cologne having to apply Irish law in parallel with German law.
I would not mind betting that this will lead to considerable problems when only trifling amounts are at stake and with bread-and-butter legal cases.
This demonstrates that we need to develop a broader common body of law in future.
My report now envisages, with the support of many expert groups who have been calling for this for a long time, that the Commission should continue its work by means of an action plan covering several years.
At the end of that process, and this is my belief at least, the result should be a common body of law within the European Union, for cross-border transactions at least, which is as extensive as possible.
With regard to transparency, I believe that this is necessary, not only for consumers, but also for businesspeople, and this also applies to legal certainty, legal practicality and the application of the law.
I therefore wish to ask the House to give its approval to the proposal emanating from the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on this report regarding the approximation of the civil and commercial law of the Member States.
This is, as it were, the starting pistol for the Commission's work.
I know that the Council is currently considering this matter in parallel with ourselves, and that it is intended to deal with this subject at the Laeken Summit.
I believe that everyone in Europe has recognised that this issue is of a very high priority, and that progress needs to be made with this work.
In order to exert a little bit of pressure, I think that we should approve this action plan.
Mr President, this is a rather peculiar cooperation procedure between Parliament and the Commission, at an initial phase of the Commission' s work.
The communication presented to us by the Commission referred to a limited aspect of the harmonisation of private law, specifically contract law, and the report presented by Mr Lehne deals which a much wider scope, because it refers to the harmonisation of private law in general.
We, in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, considered that contract law was probably too narrow a scope and that it would not be sufficient to produce harmonisation of private law in general, which is necessary, as Mr Lehne pointed out, above all within the framework of the introduction of the euro and of the generalisation of European contracts.
The Commission' s communication is very broad, given the aspects it deals with and the questions it poses.
We, in Parliament, clearly cannot work intensely and on time, as we would have liked, but we can make some observations.
I will focus on one: the possibility that, in relation to harmonisation, more reference should be made to the regulation and less to the directive.
Because we are seeing that every time a Community directive is adopted, it gives rise to fifteen different national legislations, which leads us to think that we are possibly not achieving the objective of harmonisation, but quite the opposite, because the Community directive paradoxically leads to discrepancies in the development of each national legislation.
I know that this is a difficult issue, because there is still legislative zeal of a national nature, but it is one of the possibilities for development by means of Community legislation, instead of merely indirect harmonisation via a directive.
I must stop here through lack of time, but not without congratulating the Commission on its initiative and the rapporteur on his report.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate our rapporteur on taking this important issue forward and also to congratulate the Commission on a very good consultation document on contract law.
We have made a good start in what is a very politically sensitive area.
Although we might see the practical arguments for moving forward because of the advent of the euro and because of e-commerce, we have to ensure that our citizens are also comfortable with this.
Every time we talk about approximation of core civil law subjects, I see scare stories in the English press that English common law is about to be replaced by the Code Napoléon, complete with a small picture of Napoleon.
Last week English contract law was supposed to be under threat.
However misguided some of this comment might be, we have to respect the concerns and deal with them.
The process outlined in this report will allow us to do so.
The Commission has made some very pragmatic suggestions about contract law, which I hope the Council will act on.
It was, after all, the Council that brought forward this idea of convergence in the Tampere agenda.
We must insist that the area of freedom and justice referred to there is as much about civil law as about criminal law.
The Tampere conclusions foresaw convergence in civil law. Convergence is a long process, not an abrupt event.
It is not about imposing a European civil code. It is about channelling and guiding developments in Community law to give us a more coherent and less piecemeal approach, ultimately allowing more knowledge of the law and greater access to justice across Europe's internal market.
In considering these matters, we would do much better to concentrate on what draws us together in Europe's common legal heritage.
All our legal traditions owe something to the early modern fusion of feudal, Roman and canon law called ius commune.
We now have the chance to guide and structure the modern reconvergence of our legal systems.
We should welcome that opportunity.
Mr President, there was a time when Europeans travelled all over the universities of Europe and studied what was still a common law based on the Roman law.
Indeed, in my own country, Scotland, that lasted until the 17th century, during which 6000 members of the Faculty of Advocates of Scotland at various times studied in the universities of Utrecht and Leiden.
That kind of interaction of lawyers is one of the things which contributed most to our civilisation and from which our legal civilisation has grown.
So this is a very good project and the time-tabling suggested by Mr Lehne and the Commission is feasible and worthwhile.
Nevertheless, as Mrs Wallis has said, legal traditions are valued objects.
People concern themselves greatly about the coherence and integrity of a legal order.
Therefore it must be with great sensitivity that we move forward in bringing back together again legal systems and legal traditions through the kinds of common definition that Mr Lehne is suggesting.
With that in mind, I have one doubt and it involves a difference with what Mr Medina Ortega has just said.
Clause 14 of the report suggests that a regulation is really the best way to take this forward.
The difficulty relates to subsidiarity.
If these things are to be done well, common definitions will have to be sensitively adapted and grafted into what are very deep and organic legal traditions.
You cannot do that by thrusting a regulation down the throats of the legal community.
We in the United Kingdom have two legal systems, rather distinct, and it is going to be absolutely vital for this development that both are adequately and properly represented in further discussions, as they have been on bodies like the Lando Commission in the past.
Mr President, I would first like to strike a critical note, because although the rapporteur explained the need for haste to the committee and I also understand that, I believe that there should not be fast-track procedures of this kind, because they can lead to botch-ups.
However, I would like to specifically exclude the rapporteur's report from that comment.
I am totally in agreement with the content of the report, because approximation of Community law as it applies to SMEs is also absolutely necessary if we are to increase legal certainty for cross-border contracts, especially in view of the forthcoming enlargement of the Union.
It would be irresponsible to create free trade areas without making provision for the necessary instruments to keep commercial trade on track.
However, it is my belief, and this is something that Mr MacCormick just touched upon, that the mature traditions underpinning the legal systems of the Member States impose certain limitations on the approximation of civil and commercial law, and that a failure to respect those traditions would inevitably lead to the opposite of what we are trying to achieve.
However, I believe that these problems have been adequately addressed and that it is also possible to achieve this objective, which we will therefore be supporting.
Mr President, by and large I agree with the rapporteur, and in the limited time I have available I can only mention one or two rather unrelated points.
What we need to start with at EU level is coherent and homogeneous legislation.
That is very often not the case, because terms are used which have a different meaning in other legal texts.
Scarcely any academic research has been done into this aspect of Community law.
So the first thing we should do is to ensure coherence and homogeneity in our own legal texts, and I would urge you to set up an expert committee to do this.
That is one point.
The other point that I would like to address is how this relates to international civil law.
It seems to me that Mr Lehne has rather neglected this aspect in his report.
International civil law can make an important contribution to overcoming the difficulties involved in cross-border legal disputes, and as a rule, and I am choosing my words very carefully now, international civil law is certainly not inferior to Community law, certainly as far as legal culture and the quality of legal texts are concerned.
So if, as in the case of the directive on electronic commerce, you take issue with international civil law, the situation becomes very difficult indeed.
We therefore need to examine once more to what extent we can retain international civil law.
My final point concerns national regulations.
I think this is an area where we should not overreach ourselves.
That will be very difficult.
I believe that it would be best for us to have convincing law making in the European Union.
Mr President, I welcome this opportunity to congratulate Parliament and especially the Committee on Legal Affairs and its rapporteur, Mr Lehne, on its timely report on the approximation of the civil and commercial laws of the Member States.
Given the forthcoming European Council in December in Laeken, for which this report will be of relevance, I am particularly pleased that the European Parliament is discussing this report here today.
The European Council will therefore have at its disposal not only the Commission's communication and the Council's report, but also the report by the European Parliament, which handles this important issue in the necessary depth.
The Commission also very much welcomes the report as Parliament's response to the Commission's consultation process, launched by the communication on European contract law.
It is absolutely essential that the Commission should get as much feedback and input as possible from the other EC institutions so that it can establish its future approach in the area of contract law.
One fundamental question confronts the Commission, as well as Parliament and the Council as the two branches of the European legislature.
Should we continue with the existing piecemeal approach of harmonising European contract law in a very sector-specific way, as has been done for the past 20 years, or should we adopt a new approach? It is obvious that if the existing approach corresponds to the needs of the European Union then we should continue it.
If, however, there are problems despite, or possibly even because of, the existing approach, then we should be brave enough to change it.
It was in order to get a reply to this fundamental question that the Commission adopted its communication on European contract law.
The choice of our future approach is highly important for the smooth functioning of the internal market and the participation of consumers, small- and medium-sized enterprises and all other economic operators, as well as for the uniform application of Community law.
We have already received a large number of constructive comments and reactions which confirm that the Commission's initiative is of great interest to all stakeholders.
Of course not all the reactions point in the same direction, but this is inevitable with such a complex subject where so many issues are raised and different options need to be considered.
The reactions will be examined in depth by the Commission.
Obviously the Commission will attach great importance to Parliament's response to our communication which, once you have adopted it, will be very carefully analysed.
The Commission will decide what suggestions it will make in the light of the reports from Parliament and the Council, the possible reaction from the European Council and the responses to our consultation process.
I understand that the Council may ask the Commission to report to the Community institutions and the public on the consultation process, together with any observations and recommendations if necessary in the form of a Green or White Paper, not later than 31 December 2002.
The European Parliament's proposal for an action plan is particularly relevant in this context.
The Commission has taken due note of the ambitious deadlines for specific steps to be taken.
In conclusion, I would like to express the Commission's thanks for the careful analysis that has gone into this report.
If there are problems for the internal market and the uniform application of Community law which need to be tackled, it is obvious that whatever line we take this will be a longer term project of considerable importance.
So, this is certainly not the last time that we will debate questions of European contract law in this House.
I submitted the Commission communication to the college, together with my colleagues Mr Vitorino, Mr Bolkestein and Mr Liikanen.
At the last Council meeting on the internal market and consumer affairs, I emphasised my strong personal interest in this matter, not only because I am convinced of its value but also because of my own professional background as a practising barrister and as international commercial arbitrator.
For those who have expressed concern about the survival of the common law system: that is the system that I have worked in myself for 27 years and I have some attachment to it.
Perhaps with that background it will be able to make sure that these issues and sensitivities are taken fully into account.
This is an ambitious project but it is a feasible project.
When I worked on contracts where arbitration was needed or on dispute had to be resolved, the "applicable law" was - lex mercatoria. What is that?
Those who have to enter into contracts with a term like that will feel perfectly comfortable with something a bit more rigid and rigorous, which is what all of us in this House are aiming at.
My colleagues and I are therefore looking forward to constructive dialogue with Parliament and the other EC institutions in the future.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Byrne.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Arbitrary arrests and the political situation in Laos
The next item is the Commission statement on arbitrary arrests and the political situation in Laos.
Mr President, I am honoured to make this declaration on behalf of the Commission on the arrests in Laos PDR.
The Commission welcomes the release of the five members of the Transnational Radical Party who had been arrested on 26 October in Vientiane, Laos PDR, after staging a peaceful demonstration.
We are particularly happy to see Mr Dupuis back.
Their release followed 14 days of detention, during which the Commission and EU Member States made frequent contacts with the Laotian authorities to ensure a rapid resolution of the situation.
At a public trial on 9 November, the detainees were found guilty of violating Laotian law.
They were given suspended sentences before being released and expelled from the country.
In relation to this incident, the Commission notes that the human rights situation in Laos PDR, including the case of the Laotian students who organised a demonstration for freedom and democracy in Laos PDR in October 1999, continues to give cause for concern.
The Commission, together with the diplomatic missions of the EU Member States, is following the human rights situation in the country closely and participating in all EU démarches to the government of Laos PDR on these issues. Included in these issues are deficiencies in the rule of law.
There are still a number of flaws in the administration of justice, notably cases of arbitrary arrest, lengthy pre-trial detention and lack of guarantees of due process.
Many of these problems are exacerbated by the poor training of people working in the judicial system and the Commission has therefore offered assistance to the government of Laos PDR, both in reforming the system and in developing its human resources.
Mr President, we are now feeling relieved as our fellow Member, Olivier Dupuis, is fortunately back with us.
We should, however, revisit the problems that we were discussing last week so that we are somewhat less hesitant, should we have the misfortune to be in this situation again in the future.
First of all, we were facing some serious human rights issues.
Can a country detain individuals, without any form of trial, particularly foreign nationals who publicly campaign for democracy and human rights and condemn the breaches committed by the host country? Even if Laotian law permitted this type of ban on demonstrations, it goes without saying that the immediate arrest of peaceful demonstrators was completely disproportionate.
Furthermore, it is natural for the European Union to be vigilant about whether or not a country like Laos observes the clause on human rights enshrined in the cooperation agreement that it signed.
Secondly, we were facing an institutional challenge that directly concerned the European Parliament, since one of the detainees was an MEP.
Of course, Mr Dupuis never asked for preferential treatment.
The European Parliament cannot, however, remain indifferent to how one of its members is treated.
The credibility and the honour of our institution, and even that of the European Union as a whole, depend on this.
This must be clear to everyone so that if we ever have the misfortune to be in this situation again, everyone has a role: the Commission, the Council, the High Representative, the Member States, Parliament, particularly the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy will react quickly and know exactly what to do and how to do it.
In fact, everyone did take the appropriate action, and we should welcome this.
We now need to do everything we can in order to encourage Laos to move forward, which is the purpose of the resolution that we shall be voting on this week.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to welcome the Prince Regent and the members of the Laotian royal family, the leaders and those in charge of the Laotian human rights organisations, my friends, Massimo Lensi and Bruno Mellano, who were my companions-in-arms during the demonstration and over the following days in Laos.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would once again like to thank you and President Fontaine, and all of you who supported the purpose of our action, which was and still is to free the five student leaders who were arrested in 1999 and about whom we still have no news today.
I think that the issue that we raised is, of course, much wider, it concerns democracy, and the globalisation of democracy.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Laos launched a process to bring about democratic change that, during the first five years, took the form of a number of openings in the economic sector.
Since 1995, however, we have witnessed an extremely serious drift, a transformation of the Communist regime into an utterly 'clepto-Communist' regime, or rather into a hybrid of clepto-Communism and narco-Communism.
This is extremely serious.
The people of Laos face this every day, and they are dying in their thousands at the hands of this regime.
Tens of thousands of Laotians, starting with the royal family of Laos, have quite simply been murdered in dribs and drabs.
The European Union, and also the Member States, must therefore understand the tragic nature of the situation in Laos.
We should first of all understand that the Stalinists and the drug traffickers who are running this country are preventing the democrats, both inside and outside Laos, and also those in favour of reform within the regime, from promoting reforms.
Instead of continuing to support politically correct projects, such as the promotion of women, the promotion of rural development, the protection of the environment, which, albeit worthwhile, do not tackle the root of the problem, the European Union should specifically attack the root of the problem which is democratic change, penal code reform, constitutional reform and guarantees of fundamental rights.
And I do not believe that the Commission and the Member States are doing what they should be doing in this area.
We must therefore change our policy, re-focus on law and on the promotion of law, and this is what we are attempting to do with the text of this resolution.
Mr President, I welcome the release of Mr Dupuis and our other four Radical friends from prison, but, at the same time, I am extremely concerned for the other five political detainees who are still being detained under arbitrary arrest.
We are concerned for their fate but what concerns us most is the fact that there has been no news of them at all for two years.
I am appalled by the unnecessary delay with which this institution reacted to the violence suffered by Mr Dupuis and the other Radical activists.
Lastly, Mr President, I would like to express my concern at a complex case of hypocrisy which Parliament and the European institutions have failed to address: on the one hand, they regularly, emotionally, bring up the issue of human rights, for the protection of human rights is a symbol of our political prowess and pride, yet, on the other, they are reluctant to apply the clause providing for the suspension of economic and commercial relations with those countries which systematically violate these rights, and not just in the case of Laos.
We should not be asking Parliament to teach the world democracy: rather, we should be demanding the greatest possible consistency from our institutions.
Thank you very much, Mr Fava.
I have received a motion for resolution pursuant to Rule 37 (2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Services of general interest in Europe
The next item is the report (A5-0361/2001) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication 'Services of General Interest in Europe' [COM(2000) 580 - C5-0399/2001 - 2001/2157(COS)].
Mr President, general interest services are services of both an economic and non-economic nature which are geared towards the public interest and in whose provision both the public at large and the state have a special interest.
In the various Member States of the European Union, this includes supplying the public with services in the fields of energy, water, waste disposal, transport, telecommunications, post, media, finance and insurance, a basic social, educational and training system, social services, external and internal security, a judiciary and a system of registration.
You will see from this broad span of services how wide-ranging this subject is.
Why are we concerned with this area? Because some Member States, and, in particular, Germany, have questioned the power of the Commission to take decisions under Article 86 of the EC Treaty, and have also challenged the enactment of secondary Community law such as the transparency directive.
I believe that there is no justification for the fears of the Länder and municipalities that competition law will greatly undermine their powers and destroy the existing network of mature, tried and tested general interest structures.
Today we wish Parliament to adopt an opinion on the decisions to be taken by the Heads of State and Government in Laeken, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues very sincerely for their cooperation on this issue.
We have been trying for over a year, by means of hearings and a great many debates, to identify a common line.
The Commission's behaviour on this issue has been objective and I think I can say successful.
I would therefore like to thank the Commission, which I see is still represented here.
The Commission has comprehensively described the Community law framework.
It has presented the principles of neutrality, freedom of definition and proportionality, which we support, and in response to the question of how more legal certainty is to be achieved, it has proposed the use of exempting regulations and case-by-case decisions.
This is one of the questions that have to be resolved.
Whereas a good many Members favour an amendment to Article 16, we have agreed to propose a framework directive on the basis of Article 95, the internal market article, which will allow all unresolved issues to be settled, and using the codecision procedure, this is not to be a Council regulation or a Commission instrument, but a directive under the codecision procedure, so that we will be able to fully participate in decision making on these marginal issues under competition law.
There were two pivotal points in the debate: to what extent can we maintain structures that have developed along traditional lines or need to be opened up with regard to free markets and competition? Secondly, to what extent is it permissible for the state to subsidise general interest services?
And if so, is there a difference between public and private companies?
What general interest services come under EU law? Activities not included are all those of a non-economic nature and those that are purely national.
What does this cover?
EU competition law assumes that companies are involved and in this case we have the controls on state aid under Articles 87 to 89. The internal market rules refer to economic activities, and in particular the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services.
In addition, there are activities relating to sovereignty which the state has effectively reserved to itself, and there are institutions which do not fall into this category, which are neither companies nor state institutions, the "independent charitable associations" or not-for-profit organisations which the Commission refers to in its observations on Article 30, as do we.
The EU's competition rules and the internal market rules are not applicable to purely internal national matters.
This is particularly relevant to general interest services at regional and local level.
If they are applicable, then there are exemption arrangements, such as the de minimis rule, such as aids for culture and such as the exempting regulations for small and medium-sized enterprises and other bodies.
For this reason, the Commission has given us a head start by means of this framework, and one with which we basically agree, in cases where we want to establish legal certainty on issues that we have openly debated and in cases where we want to declare the free market, competition in the market, to be a fundamental principle.
I would like to ask honourable Members to actively support the compromise that we worked out in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to heartily congratulate Mr Langen and will limit myself to just one aspect of a special public provision situation, that is, the cultural dimension in the audio-visual field, in other words public television and radio.
I was in favour of the introduction of private-sector television from the very outset, as I still am, whilst being convinced, in the final analysis, that we must work on the assumption that a public-service broadcasting remit is necessary.
Two particular aspects must be highlighted here: on the one hand the obligation to provide a service to all, that is, overall popular provision under appropriate conditions, and on the other the obligation to reflect the pluralistic nature of our society.
The dual broadcasting system has proved itself.
There would be no sense in constantly requiring the public broadcasters to justify every single programme.
A balanced programme needs leeway.
What is also certain is that we cannot allow taxes and licence fees to finance the creation of a public-service copy of the private-sector service providers.
The public media need leeway, but also clarification of their role and standards for fulfilling it.
It is in this respect that the communication from the Commission is particularly to be welcomed.
It also needs to be made clear, however, that, in the case of services with social welfare in mind, the type of transmission - be it terrestrial or videostreaming - cannot be crucial.
What matters are the objectives to be safeguarded, our democratic foundational principles, pluralism and free access to culture and to technological progress.
We must of course guarantee the protection of the users, especially of the young.
In terms of competition law, the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, must restrict itself to watching out for misuse.
It must continue to respect and defend the competence of Member States as regards the content of programmes.
Regulatory authority must then remain with the Member States, and it is therefore incumbent on them too to determine financial and organisational structures.
I welcome the fact the Commission and the Council are endeavouring to come to an arrangement with the Member States about this.
Mr President, Mr Philippe Herzog, who is the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee, is currently in Qatar as a member of the Parliamentary WTO Delegation and has, therefore, asked me to present the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on his behalf.
This was adopted by the Committee almost unanimously, with only one member casting a blank vote. The draftsman does not share the Commission' s view that compliance with the rules governing competition and the internal market is fully compatible with safeguarding the supply of services of general interest.
The problem arising is how to safeguard the supply of such services.
The draftsman proposes the creation of a European joint responsibility framework to cover services of general interest.
He considers that more open and more democratic regulation is a necessity, also in the conditions that will prevail following the potential enlargement of the EU.
The draftsman wishes to make the tasks clearer and at the same time to strengthen the communities' and states' freedom of choice regarding the selection of a model for safeguarding these services and the type of administration to be set up for this purpose.
While the current market philosophy and rules of competition encourage privatisation, the EU should retain the principle of diversity, or in other words, there should be a number of options to choose from.
On the basis of these arguments the committee has adopted an opinion according to which the gradual process of freeing service industries must be implemented in parallel with retaining general services.
The principle according to which it is up to the Member States, within their own territories, to retain their cultural habits and political views has also been adopted.
The Member States should have the right to ensure that services of general interest are also provided to the less advantaged of their citizens.
In paying particular attention to the problems presented by the financing and its safeguarding, the committee in its opinion shares the draftsman' s concern about the necessity to safeguard general services.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Langen, ladies and gentlemen, in a changing world in which global competition is growing and, indeed, becoming ever tougher, public services are among the essential cornerstones of the European social model.
Citizens, and indeed enterprises, of today, work on the assumption that a broad spectrum of such services will be generally available, with high quality and at affordable prices.
By 'services of general interest' is understood activities engaged in for the general good and therefore linked by the authorities with specific social welfare obligations and benefits.
Such services make a significant contribution to improving citizens' quality of life and thus play a significant part in maintaining the social, human and geographical cohesion of the European Union.
The subsidiarity principle clarifies responsibilities at regional and national level.
The meaning of 'social welfare interest' is laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It has therefore been important for me as President of the Austrian Welfare Service to clarify my position with respect to the major social institutions and health organisations, with the Red Cross, Caritas, the Welfare Service, the sports clubs, the fire brigades, the parishes and towns.
It was also important for me to observe that the specifically rural areas are involved, that the candidate countries through which the EU is to be enlarged are involved and that the significance of 'non profit organisations' in the service of the public is clearly expressed.
Today's report contributes to greater humanity in everyday life.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I think it is useful for Parliament to issue an opinion today on the report by Mr Langen, since the report is rather topical.
I think it is useful for us to issue an opinion prior to the Laeken European Council, as we are expecting this Council to give a great impetus to the redrafting of the notorious framework directive, the principle of which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is proposing that you adopt.
Furthermore, as regards the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, day after day I see judgments being passed, which show just how far ahead case law is on this issue, in comparison to our legislation.
In a judgment dated 25 October 2001, this case law again justified certain restrictions on competition where these are necessary for carrying out the task in question in order to achieve economic and social balance.
So, when you consider the timeliness of this framework directive, you must also consider the organisation of services of general interest.
And, from that point of view, this would mean knowing which authority is responsible for services of general interest.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, we are calling for all levels of the European Union to be involved, whether at European or local level, both in defining the scope of services of general interest as well as in the ways that they are organised.
Our concern relates to consistency between the general approach towards services of general interest and the sectoral approach.
This is because there is no point defining the framework if there is a lack of cohesion between one sector and another.
Our group will therefore oppose a number of paragraphs which fall within a sectoral approach that we will not support.
I would lastly like to touch on the issue of funding.
The Commission recently proposed a new text which deals with an exemption regime in the sector of services of general interest.
We shall support this proposal which we believe must be supplemented by an approach that enables cross-funding, without which adjustments are not possible, and that threatens, over the long term, the functioning of general interest services.
Mr President, it is, of course, vital to assess the phenomenon of services of general interest and the implications thereof for the European citizen.
In our view, the basic objective in this connection should be to step up competition in favour of the citizen and to determine the pre-conditions on that basis.
The concept of services of general interest should be a matter to be decided upon by the Member States, and subsidiarity should be a keyword in this connection.
It is essential to accomplish the internal market in the way it was agreed in Lisbon.
That is why, in the interest of the citizen, swift progress should be made with the ongoing liberalisation of postal services, transport, electricity and gas - and water as well, as far as I am concerned.
Current liberalisation has contributed greatly to the competitiveness of European businesses and has also benefited the European citizen.
Citizens should have a choice, particularly in the case of products which are so important in everyday life.
Citizens must be regarded as consumers rather than objects.
That is why services of general interest must be provided in a competitive manner everywhere.
It is important for a sufficient number of market operators to enter the market, and that is why the same conditions of access must apply to public and private businesses alike.
The citizen also benefits from clarity in the field of prices, bills and supplies.
In addition, high quality must be delivered.
This should, of course, go hand in hand with the correct and prompt handling of complaints.
Efficiency, for example with a view to an improved guarantee of supply, should also be on the agenda.
Furthermore, the market for other products, such as water, must be opened up so that the citizen can reap the benefits there too.
With regard to the drafting of a framework directive, I would prefer to await the Commission position in Laeken.
At the moment, we are actually opposed to a framework directive.
We must carefully consider whether such a directive is in fact necessary, and we should only draft legislation if it is required.
We should not make it more opaque than it already is.
On a final note, I should like to thank the rapporteur, including for the consultation he has entered into with all of us.
In all honesty, I thought his original proposal was the best and the Commission has since then made every effort to tone things down.
Our voting behaviour will therefore be able to hit quite a critical note in that respect.
Mr President, Commissioner, with regard to the decisions taken in recent years by the Council and the European Parliament on the opening up to competition of hitherto protected sectors, in other words, monopolies, it has become clear that we must have solid legal bases in order to guarantee and develop services of general interest that are economically accessible to everyone and which therefore give substance to the status of citizens of the European Union.
In our view, the current economic situation and the numerous job losses that have been announced in recent weeks, coupled with the fact that, even during a period of strong growth, we have had an average unemployment rate of 8% in recent years, highlight the absolute need to develop services of general interest.
This is why our group fully supports the voluntarist guidelines drawn up, in the main, by the European Confederation of Trade Unions and by the European Liaison Committee on services of general interest.
Article 16 of the Treaty of Amsterdam was a major step forward for Europe.
It is now deemed to be insufficient, and that is why we are supporting the draft framework directive and the amendments tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
We expect the Laeken European Council, part of which will be dedicated to the European Union' s objectives, to clearly set forth this objective on services of general interest and the framework directive as well as a timetable.
What is at stake is of crucial importance.
As in the case of procedures for public procurement contracts, which the Zappala report tackled, and as in the case of a particular sector such as public transport, which the Meijer report dealt with, we are required to adopt a framework for the policy on European competition, to develop a policy on regulated competition, to enable national, regional or local public authorities, in line with the principle of subsidiarity, to determine the missions of general interest services, the management contract that is to be fulfilled by the operators and the funding of these missions.
This is the purpose of Amendment Nos 52 and 55 that we have tabled.
We also think that we must insist on carrying out a much more in-depth evaluation on the liberalisation of sectors, taking into consideration the interests of consumers and workers and the compatibility of market guidelines with the objectives of sustainable development - I am thinking of the water sector, for example - and not only from a technical point of view, but equally through dialogue with all the actors involved.
This is the purpose of Amendment Nos 44 and 46.
The fact that it was necessary to present the various amendments to the House once again obviously indicates that what I have just said about objectives, and above all, about the resources to be implemented, has not received unanimous support.
Once again, in this field as in others, it is greater European integration that we need, whilst respecting the Community method and guaranteeing that public figures at all levels take the proper action to ensure the provision of general interest services.
Mr President, faced with the process of liberalisation and deregulation currently underway in the European Union, moves for proposals to be put forward and action to be taken in the field of public services have built up.
The contribution of these has led to the fact that Article 16 of the Treaty of Amsterdam recognises the essential role of services of general interest in ensuring social and territorial cohesion.
The Commission' s proposals, however, contain the usual double language. On the one hand, there is reference to the interests of citizens, and therefore to the need for services of general interest, whilst on the other, several of the Commission' s directives accentuate liberalisation and deregulation of public services.
The Langen report supports the spirit of the Commission' s communication of September 2000 on services of general interest in Europe.
The Commission acknowledges that competition cannot meet all the requirements of citizens and that Member States have good reason to set up and implement services of general interest.
At the same time, however, the Commission states that the progress of liberalisation is positive and relies on the content of the Lisbon meeting of the Council of Ministers to step up this process.
The report has been improved by the debate and the amendments.
It has made a real effort to adopt a balanced position between liberalisation and public services, it also stresses that services of general interest must ensure equal access, security of supply and continuity.
It also proposes to assess the actual impact of liberalisation before embarking on any new phases, as my group suggested on many occasions.
However, we still have a long way to go before we meet the required demands for services of general interest that are worthy of the name.
The Langen report claims to relentlessly pursue liberalisation in sectors such as transport, electricity and gas and the postal services.
Furthermore, it believes that it is necessary to privatise the water industry.
I think that services of general interest, as their name suggests, must be subject to the rights and obligations that the general interest demands. In other words, this means providing transparency, continuity and equality.
We need a new European model of services of general interest that meets citizens' aspirations, and we must stop approaching this issue solely from the point of view of competition, as advocated in the report.
That is why I do not think it is wise, and I think it could even be dangerous, to envisage a framework directive where we stick to this approach.
Yes, I believe that we need safeguards.
I am in favour of a framework directive on services of general interest on the condition that it maintains the social benefits that these provide in terms of employment, security and sustainable regional development.
This directive should also ensure the respect of service obligations in terms of quality, equality, access for all users, and also by maintaining reserved areas allowing price offsetting on a geographical basis and on social grounds.
I also think that all levels of the European Union must be involved.
Our position will be related to whether or not a number of amendments are accepted.
Mr President, this report on services of general interest in Europe deals with a field of tension between two significant blocs.
It is about the issue of a unitary competitive order in Europe, and about the self-government of communities or, in other words, about subsidiarity.
The focus of all this must always be the citizen, the consumer, and what services he receives, under what conditions and, above all, of what quality.
There are two points I find important in the communication from the Commission.
It always speaks of an economic activity, with 'an economic activity' being very hard to define exactly.
If we in this House discuss what an economic activity is, the thinking of a very large number of Members is shaped by their national origin.
Is an economic activity to be affirmed when an enterprise works in a particular line of business for profit?
Let me mention only ambulance services.
The second is the issue of checking for misuse.
The question here is not whether the Commission can check on this, but in what detail it should, so that over-restrictive requirements do not result in a definition of general interest by the back door.
What is important is that we should be given communal responsibility and that we use it to choose one or other type of competition by means of public tender.
I would like, finally, to re-emphasise one thing that is mentioned in the report, but not in the communication from the Commission, namely the market in water.
For us in Germany and Austria, water is an extraordinarily important area.
I believe that as a matter of urgency we should reject the opening of the market in water, brought about by means of a decision on an individual case in the European Union - and the Commission has already requested an assessment on the subject.
We reject this decisively.
Examination of the sector-specific situation is in any case needed first.
I can therefore only warn the Commission not to take these steps.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the consequences of the internal market is that many things that were regulated in a quite specific way in the Member States are now subject to new and different rules.
Services of general interest are now an outstanding example of this, an example made more problematic by the additional factor that the objectives of services of general interest are similar in the Member States.
The instruments, however, sometimes differ significantly as a consequence not only of different cultural developments, but also of the Member States' differing administrative structures.
The drawing-up of shared rules is not exactly made easier by this.
The Member States must, however, continue in future to be able to decide what services they will categorise as being of general interest.
On the other hand, the rules must be as similar as possible in a common internal market.
Competition law, as laid down in the Treaty, provides on its own insufficient legal certainty when it comes to framing them.
On the other hand, the objective should not be to empty European competition law of its meaning.
It must therefore be interpreted in a binding way for the purposes of services of public interest.
We accordingly call for a framework directive to determine the Community principles on which services of general interest are to be founded.
This directive should lay down rules for the Member States.
Above all, though, it should provide legal security for those who provide services of general interest.
Thirdly, it should limit the space available for the Commission to exercise its discretion.
Its executive monopoly should not be infringed, but as far as its decisions in individual cases and its block exemption regulations are concerned, I would like to see it laid down what, for example, are 'economic activities' and what are not. What falls at this arbitrary threshold?
When is intra-Community trade affected? Above all, the many sectoral directives and regulations on which we are working at present must give direction to the legislative work in various sectors done by those of us in the European Parliament...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the report is called 'Services of General Interest' in order to improve ways of handing over public services to private interests, and it calls for us to pursue liberalisation with unflinching determination.
Contrary to the misleading assertions made in the report, privatisation brings about poorer services and social discrimination that affects those on the lowest incomes. Activities are reduced or withdrawn in order to avoid making private profit, and these are still just as essential to the population.
And there can be no other approach.
The private companies that benefit from the erosion of public services are motivated by making maximum profits for their shareholders and not by the need to satisfy the general interest as best they can.
The policy to hand over public services to private interests is a policy pursued by the European institutions and the national governments, and represents a major social step backwards.
Education, health, public transport, postal services, telecommunications, water and energy supply, and refuse collection must remain public services which must not generate profits...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the EU is trusting in liberalisation to ensure that services of general interest are sufficiently available.
If that means increased and fairer competition in postal services, transport, water supply, social services and so on, this can only be agreed to.
If, though, simple considerations of cost mean that the quality of service drops, with ever fewer service providers being available and ever fewer people being employed, this proposal merits political resistance.
State monopolies must not be replaced by private monopolies.
Mr Langen, the rapporteur, has taken on board my suggestion that tasks of general interest should be acknowledged to be common European values.
They contribute to the European social model and to the sustainable development of the EU's regions.
The aim is to guarantee high standards of quality and safety, range of provision and continuity in a healthy price/service ratio.
As before, the Member States' offers for tender will independently determine which yardstick to apply as regards environmental friendliness, availability and social standards.
It is for the good of all citizens if these services are unambiguously defined in the context of a European law on the placing of contracts.
Exceptions from the internal market's competition and market regulations should include local, social and charitable services which do not work with their eye on profit and are committed to meeting the needs of the weak and those on the margins of society.
Citizens and service users are to be comprehensively involved in the Member States' and the Commission's efforts to make this agreement reality.
New regulations on services of general interest in the EU will only be accepted if transparency and involvement are ensured.
As a member not only of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs but also of that on Employment and Social Affairs, I recommend that this House approve this report, which is excellent because it is balanced.
Mr President, I am concerned about a number of aspects in the Langen report.
Initially we have to address this question of services of general interest from the point of view of the rights of citizens, for the rights of consumers are a subset of those rights.
Citizenship confers rights which entitle one to various essential needs such as water, which is essential to human life.
Water cannot be treated within the European Union simply as a commodity to be bought and sold.
Europe is committed to the idea of a distinct social model based on solidarity.
It is therefore essential that we have a legal framework, a regulatory framework, within which the Commission and Member States can address the question of competition as it affects social services, public services, and services of general interest.
It is part of a democratic agenda for the European Union to ensure that we are accountable, that the services we provide are accountable, and that we have a Europe which is developed as a socially inclusive Europe.
The economy has to be an instrument to serve the people, not simply to serve the market.
Rights of the consumer being defined on the basis of purchasing power is not an adequate way to develop a cohesive social Europe.
It is a Europe where politics is denigrated because it is simply based on people's capacity to buy or not to buy.
Mr President, it is a particular pleasure to welcome the Langen report and the excellent work of the rapporteur in presenting a measured and forward-looking approach to the future provision of a category of services essential to our economy and to the wellbeing of all European citizens.
The Commission has played its part by presenting two communications on this subject and most recently a report to the Laeken European Council.
Essentially we are all inspired by the same will to ensure that every citizen in Europe has access to high-quality services of general interest.
The European Union has direct responsibilities with regard to those sectors for which internal market legislation has been introduced, essentially for network industries.
In each case, specific provisions have been devoted to public service obligations.
All this legislation has been adopted under codecision and is continuing to evolve.
The package of proposals on energy adopted by the Commission this spring comprises greatly strengthened elements relating to public service obligations.
Member States have a duty to specify and implement those obligations.
Elsewhere, in sectors not covered by specific Community legislation, Member States and their constituted authorities have the main role to play, for instance in the organisation and provision of local and social services.
Here the Commission limits itself to ensuring compatibility with competition and internal market rules in general.
Those rules, as emphasised by the Langen report, are quite flexible.
In particular they provide for adequate financing of services of general interests.
The Commission has repeatedly been requested to provide greater legal security with regard to the general competition and internal market rules applicable to services of general interest.
By explaining and developing its approach, it has attempted to put the fears expressed by operators and others involved to rest.
The Commission proposes to continue to use examples, guidelines and communications, together with proposals for regulations on exemptions, to provide further clarification, as called for in the Langen report.
In its report to Laeken, the Commission has undertaken to establish a Community framework for state aid granted for services of general economic interest.
That framework could, in particular, specify the conditions for the authorisation of state aid schemes by the Commission, thus alleviating the notification obligation for individual aid.
This may lead to the adoption of a regulation exempting certain categories of aid from the obligation of prior notification.
On the issue of a proposed framework directive, the Commission is not opposed in principle and has already agreed to assess the value and feasibility of such an instrument.
Our doubts concern mainly the articulation between such a directive and legislation at sectoral level.
In the light of the European Parliament's resolution, the Commission will look at the subject again.
Another major issue concerns evaluation.
I repeat that the Commission has every interest in rigorous, complete and honest evaluation of the results of Community legislation.
That is good practice; it is also good governance and it should not be neglected, either at Member State or at European level.
We propose to improve on existing sectoral evaluations and we have agreed to present an annual horizontal report in the context of the Cardiff process.
The Commission welcomes the European Parliament's proposal to organise a debate in the existing forums in order to ensure a pluralist assessment and the debate ought to take place before the preparation of the Cardiff report in order to take full account of its results and recommendations.
In conclusion, I stress that services of general interest are an area of ongoing concern which will require new initiatives in future and further development of Community legislation.
The Commission looks forward to involving the European Parliament as a partner in this process.
Thank you Commissioner Bolkestein.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Vote
Thank you Mr Caveri.
We will, of course, take your comment, which would appear well-founded, into consideration.
I have to table a minor oral amendment at this stage, because I have noticed that there has been some misunderstanding as to the true intent of this text.
Certain Members of this House suspected me of wanting to weigh down Europe' s bureaucracy, while, in fact, I wish to achieve the opposite.
To clarify this, I will read out the text of the second part in English: "and for the same purpose, to foresee the creation of a specific European executive agency (agency with lower case) for cinema and audiovisual matters" .
The rest is therefore omitted.
I simply mean by this that the efficiency of the existing organisation in Europe is enhanced, and certainly not encumbered.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0347/2001) by Mrs Maat, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the Commission report on the experience acquired by Member States since the implementation of Council Directive 95/29/EC amending Directive 91/628/EEC concerning the protection of animals during transport [COM(2000) 809 - C5-0189/2001 - 2001/2085(COS)]
Mr President, I would like to point out two mistakes that need to be corrected in the French language version.
In Paragraph 10 of the French version, it says 'Treaty infringement procedures against Member States' , which is a misinterpretation.
What is meant is 'Treaty infringement proceedings against Member States' .
In Paragraph 16 of the French version, it says 'calls on the Commission to examine ways of promoting small-scale, local culling' .
Mr President, in order to avoid more serious culling, I propose - this sounds like a film called 'Petits meurtres entre amis' - I propose therefore that we put 'small, local abattoirs' .
Thank you for your suggestions, Mrs Auroi. I am sure our services will welcome them.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0361/2001) Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication 'Services of General Interest in Europe' [COM(2000) 580 - C5-0399/2001 - 2001/2157(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I would like to refer again to the vote, in which, alas, we lost the chance to vote on item 62.
I have again consulted the documents: item 62 is an addition to item 58, and we should in fact have voted on it by roll call.
Both my points of order were, unfortunately, ignored by your two assistants.
What is at issue here is that we make it simply and convincingly clear that the opening-up of competition in the water market cannot be achieved by means of general competition law.
I therefore want to reiterate this.
I stated in my opening statements that we reject this, and I ask that this be noted in the Minutes and that, if possible, Members' requests to speak should not be ignored in future.
I was not told about your request, Mr Radwan.
Mr President, you can ask your two comrades-in-arms.
The official sitting your left looked in my direction but did not inform you.
I cannot do anything about it either.
Mr Radwan, in my opinion, our colleagues do an extremely important job and do it with great care, but I can see that you are not interested in anything I might have to say.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Schmid, Gerhard report (A5-0362/2001)
The risk of manufacturing and circulating false euro notes and coins is a serious threat overshadowing the launch of the single currency, which will be present for several years following the physical changeover to notes and coins taking place on 1 January 2002.
During this critical period, the confidence of our citizens is a vital factor.
It appears, however, that the danger was under-estimated, and then it was too late to deal with it.
The Commission only published its main communication on the subject on 22 July 1998, and it was in 1999 and 2000 that the first, but still incomplete, provisions were adopted on extending Europol' s mandate and the criminal penalties against counterfeiting of the euro.
The draft decision that we are examining today adds to these measures by establishing a Community training and assistance programme by the key players involved in combating counterfeiting.
Although there have been no major objections to the text itself, we can only stress, however, that it has arrived too late and that it contains some ambiguities, which arise from the design faults in the single currency.
First of all, the text before us constantly wavers between providing 'training' , and 'assistance' , and does not dare to state too clearly that, 48 days before the physical changeover to using coins and notes, cooperation in this vital area has still not been finalised.
Secondly, one of the objectives of the training and assistance programme is to protect the euro outside the euro zone, which is not actually an area of the Community competence.
From this particular perspective, we can see how shaky the single currency system is, one that is shared between Community competences and other competences that remain national, and both sides are poor at organising coordination.
But how could things be any different, as at Maastricht, the aim was to seduce the electorate into believing that the single currency was possible without having an absolute super State?
Lehne report (A5-0380/2001)
Mr President, I speak on behalf of the my group on the Lehne report.
Since the Tampere summit EU governments have been working more closely with each other on justice and home affairs and since 11 September this has become even more apparent.
Since we live in an internal market it is only right and proper that there should be some cooperation and coordination between the Member States.
International crime involves very sophisticated structures, but such operations centre on funding of criminal activities.
That is why it is important that we enact this legislation, to ensure money laundering does not take place within the EU financial systems.
We must ensure that international criminals cannot use existing financial structures in Europe, or indeed elsewhere, to launder their unlawful gains.
The implementation of this directive on prevention of the use of financial systems for the purpose of money laundering is an important element in the battle against international crime.
I have always believed that EU legislation in this area should be broadened to include offences other than drug offences.
This is exactly what has been achieved here through the agreement between the EU governments and the European Parliament.
The directive extends the prohibition of money laundering to organised crime as well as drug offences.
Member States will remain free to extend their national anti-money laundering legislation to other forms of criminal activity.
As a result of the conciliation agreement, lawyers' professional secrecy will be safeguarded unless the lawyer knows that the legal advice sought is for money laundering purposes.
In a wider context there is agreement at European level to implement the framework directive on permitting the freezing of criminal assets within the EU.
The protocol relating to the convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters will also help EU governments when criminal proceedings take place in different Member States.
I support closer cooperation and coordination on justice within the EU, although I would caution governments to look very carefully at any conditions attached to future initiatives.
There must be proper procedures to safeguard civil liberties and rights and to maintain the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
Mr President, I voted for the Lehne report on combating money laundering.
The French term used for money laundering is 'blanchiment des capitaux' , which literally means 'bleaching or washing capital' , that is, making something white which was not white before, cleaning something which is dirty, making an ugly thing beautiful. Well then, I thought: why can we too not manage to be as clever as criminals, who do succeed in making ugly things beautiful?
Why can we not manage to make ugly things beautiful too? I refer, Mr President, not to myself, who some people might consider ugly, but to the pension laws throughout Europe.
Will we manage to make those ugly laws - and there are a great many of them - beautiful?
The European Parliament and the Council have therefore reached agreement on a conciliation package that has the value of appearing to do something against money laundering related to drugs offences, whilst doing nothing at all.
Who can tell the difference between the proceeds from organised crime and those from normal economic transactions? Especially because the banking system itself does not want to make this distinction, as it believes that it is not the job of the banks to determine where the proceeds come from, only what the proceeds make.
And it is public knowledge that laundering of the proceeds from crime is not only carried out in tax havens; laundering also, and more importantly, goes on in the largest banks in the financial world.
If adopted, this resolution will certainly not prevent the proceeds from organised crime from passing through the financial system and from being invested in so-called normal activities, which are, in many cases, just as criminal as mafia money, if considered from a humane point of view.
It is absolutely scandalous to create one' s wealth out of drug money. It is equally scandalous to make a fortune from manufacturing and trafficking weapons.
And it is even more scandalous to allow pharmaceutical corporations and their shareholders to become rich from having a monopoly on trademarks of some medicines, when this monopoly increases the price of some essential medicines by ten times or more, condemning to death all those who do not have the means to pay these prices.
This is all legal however.
The European institutions may have the power to decide what constitutes a legal or illegal way to use the proceeds.
They do not have the power to 'exonerate' the proceeds.
The directive on the fight against money laundering is a step in the right direction and is a response, at least in part, to the aspirations of the citizens' movements and to the proposals made by the judges who are the most involved in this issue.
The events of 11 September should, in fact, give us more reason to intensify the fight against money laundering.
The Lehne report does the opposite, however.
It welcomes a new paragraph, which is drafted in an absurd manner, since it states that 'Member States are not forced to impose the obligations, stipulated in the directive, on the professions concerned (members of the legal professions, independent or otherwise)' .
The sacrosanct professional secrecy is preserved, unless the legal advisor is himself involved in financial misdealing.
It is not enough for him to have 'specific reasons for believing' that 'his client wishes to obtain legal advice for the purpose of money laundering' .
It is only if the lawyer 'knows' that this is the situation that professional secrecy can be lifted.
These delicate points clash horribly with recent, brutal decisions made by this very Parliament, which follows the example of the CIA and does not hesitate in wanting to make any individual demonstrating against financial crimes into a criminal.
In spite of these shortcomings, we did not vote against the Lehne report.
Maij-Weggen report (A5-0349/2001)
Mr President, I voted for this regulation on public access to European Parliament documents as well.
I have to say that, last Sunday, a pensioner from Bergamo, Mrs Erminia Santinelli, a young, active lady of 60, said to me: 'What good regulations you adopt at the European Parliament!
That might mean, then, that I will at last be able to see the documents as well!'
'What documents?' I asked her.
'The documents showing the way my pension is calculated,' she replied, 'for I still cannot understand how that figure was reached.
At last I will find out how my pension has been calculated, from the documents given to me to read.'
'Next time round' I told her.
'For the moment, we must be satisfied with reading the documents of the European Parliament.'
Mrs Maij-Weggen' s report on public access to Parliament documents is an advance we cannot but support.
We have, then, all voted in favour of 'the lesser evil' whereby a small advance towards more openness is better than nothing.
The problem is everything that is not included.
The main problem is that the Commission and the Council do not supply Parliament with documents from the phase during which legislation is prepared. That is unfortunate in as much as it is this phase in which people have an interest in participating so as to be able to influence the content of the legislation.
A second problem is the division of MEPs into first and second class Members according to whether or not they have access to confidential information.
Moreover, it is completely insane and contrary to every parliamentary tradition that Parliament' s Committee on Budgetary Control, the ombudsman and the EU' s own Court of Auditors are never in a position to check all the documents concerning the Commission' s discharge of its office.
We voted against the report on 'Public access to Parliament' s documents' because this is a misleading title and the report aims not so much to widen the possibilities of access as to regulate them and, in doing so, grants the European Parliament the right to restrict public access.
On the one hand, we hypocritically acknowledge the right of the public to have access to documents, and, on the other, we admit that some of these documents are 'confidential' .
In actual fact, there is no reason why any document of the European Parliament or any other European institution, should be kept from the public.
We are in favour of the complete publication of all documents, all agreements, all treaties, as well as the details of all the speeches that are currently hidden, all the dealings that are kept secret, all the lobbying activities that have led Parliament, the Council or the European Commission to take a decision or to issue a directive.
. (NL) In days gone by, the interest of the state was protected from the citizen by secrecy.
These days, the impression is created that all government information is public in a democracy.
Despite this, there are quite a few exceptions on the basis of military or economic interests, and the extent of public access differs from Member State to Member State in the EU.
There are now two completely opposing views with regard to future public access to information in preparations for Community decision-making.
The first opinion, expressed by the rapporteurs Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cashman, is that we have made great progress this year which will lead to optimal public access by 2002, with which everyone should be happy.
The second opinion, formulated by Messrs Martin and Bonde, and included in the amendments tabled by the Greens, is that the EP has, in fact, created unnecessary, self-imposed restrictions by striking deals with the Commission and the Council and that we have sadly not yet seen a majority in favour of total public access in this Parliament.
People may view the proposal as a step forward, but the most striking thing about it is what it is not saying.
Some of the documents of the Council and the Commission are still hidden from the public and Parliament.
I support the amendments which aim to further enhance public access.
Carnero González report (A5-0346/2001)
Mr President, I voted for the Carnero González report as well.
It would appear right that the same procedure applied when electing the members of permanent committees should be followed when electing the members of joint interparliamentary committees.
In any case, seeing as we are discussing how joint interparliamentary committees are elected, Mr President, I would stress the importance to the European Parliament of the joint committees including members of the parliaments of the candidate countries or including members of the countries with which we have close relations.
I call upon the European Parliament to confer increasing power upon these committees, for in that way we will see the fruit of the existence of the European Union and the European Parliament.
Cappato report (A-0374/2001)
Mr President, when, on 4 November, at the end of an important meeting I had held, in which I talked at length about Mr Cappato' s report - as you can see, Mr Cappato, like all the Members, is here in the Chamber to hear why I voted for his document, but I know that he usually watches me on the monitor in his office - I displayed his photograph, many young pensioners, instead of coming to ask for my autograph, which is what usually happens in large, important meetings held by important politicians, asked me to introduce them to Mr Cappato.
'We want to meet him!
He is a very good looking, extremely clever young man, and we congratulate him on this report!
Does this mean, then, that, at last, no one will know how old we are? This is the sort of privacy we want!'
'Of course,' I told them.
This document will mean that no one will know how old a lady is.
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The British Labour Members of the Socialist Group have voted in favour of national choice as to whether Member States will "opt-in" or "opt-out" on the reception of unsolicited commercial e-mails (UCEs).
This was the compromise reached in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
The revision of the e-commerce directive in 2003 will offer an opportunity to bring forward measures based on the experience of Member States which have opted in or opted out.
It is essential that any new measures in the area of e-commerce are based on direct experience of all those involved within the industry including consumers.
In the area of retention of traffic data, we believe that at second reading further amendments need to be considered.
We are all agreed that a certain level of protection of private life and of personal data is one of the foundations of a functioning democracy.
Modern means of communication and a recklessly expanding information society make this more important today than ever.
A wrongly-conceived protection of personal data can, however, have unwanted side-effects.
The Commission's text thus envisages a ban on advertising e-mails previously not expressly allowed by the consumer.
This so-called 'opt-in' principle flatly contradicts the principle, found elsewhere in the directive on e-commerce, that advertising is permitted unless the consumer has explicitly expressed a desire not to receive it.
This 'opt-out' of course costs nothing and requires no effort other than a simple click of the mouse, which is often sufficient for you to delete yourself from a database you do not want to be in.
Moreover, the e-commerce directive provides for several transparency conditions, so that, for example, advertising e-mails are recognisable as such by their titles and the recipient knows the sender before he even opens them.
An uninteresting e-mail can thus be deleted in seconds by the click of a mouse without the consumer having to waste further time, money or energy.
The unrestricted sending of advertising e-mails is, moreover, a boon particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises, which cannot afford to make use of expensive advertising campaigns on television or in other media.
Cutting them off from this opportunity to introduce themselves to a wide public at reasonable cost would quite clearly mean giving an even greater competitive advantage to the big national and multinational enterprises.
These considerations mean that I will be voting in favour of the text adopted in Committee on 'unwanted information'.
As in the vote on this report on 6 September 2001, I now choose to oppose the position adopted by my political group when it comes to the rules for sending unsolicited advertising material out to consumers via e-mail.
Generally speaking, e-mail advertisements involve inconvenience for the consumer, partly because it takes time to open and delete advertising communications.
Moreover, it is the consumer who has to bear the costs of receiving and reading the advertisements The division proposed in the report between, on the one hand, e-mail advertisements and, on the other hand, advertisements via text messaging, fax and automatic calling I also consider to be artificial.
Whichever of these methods is used, it causes just as much inconvenience for the consumer, and an opt-in solution is consequently to be preferred to all other methods since it constitutes the most effective protection against unsolicited advertisements.
In view of how important it is for this report to be adopted by Parliament as soon as possible, the compromise that is on the table must, however, be viewed as an acceptable, if ultimately less desirable, alternative.
In the final vote, I therefore choose to support the report, irrespective of what transpires with regard to the aforesaid issue.
Turco report (A5-0370/2001)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Turco' s document because I am in favour of all situations in which there is cooperation and agreement between all the States of the European Union.
I talked about Mr Turco' s document during my meeting on Sunday 4 November as well.
At the end, a lot of pensioners came up to me and asked: 'Does this mean, then, that we might have a European bobby on the beat at last? We welcome any improvement in police activities coming from the European Parliament because here, in our State, we only have policemen who impose fines or come and arrest us.
It would be so nice to have friendly policemen!'
'This has not happened yet,' I replied, 'but I am sure that Mr Turco will take us another step closer in his next report and we might manage to achieve this too' .
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have, today, voted in favour of this report.
We agree that the EU and Europol should combat international crime and are therefore satisfied with the report as a whole.
We are nonetheless alert to the fact that certain amendments call upon legal cooperation and police cooperation to fall within the Community' s competence and that this is incompatible with Denmark' s reservation, cf. the protocol concerning Denmark' s position.
We do not support these amendments.
.
(PT) On the pretext of fighting terrorism and the dangers inherent in deteriorating security, what we are seeing is the development and establishment of a huge, complex mechanism designed to limit freedoms, which could lead to the creation of a 'fortress Europe' in which this and other initiatives will be used as the reference point for the processing of personal data.
In the case of Portugal, for example, the fact that Europol considers the territory of Portugal to be the main point of entry into Europe, combined with the extension of its mandate to fight terrorism and organised crime, would turn our country into an area in which this body would feel particularly free to persecute and monitor people, unconstrained by the national police, the Minister for Home Affairs or by any real democratic control over its actions by the Portuguese Parliament.
These projects are intended to ensure cooperation between police forces, the information services and data filing systems, without any democratic control, under a restrictive and xenophobic immigration policy that infringes individual freedoms.
As a matter of fact, if there is no democratic control over the Schengen Information System now, what would be the case with regard to the transmission of information to third countries and bodies, largely sponsored by Europol and the American agencies, on the pretext of fighting terrorism?
Europol' s mandate must not take precedence over national policies or the control of Ministers for Home Affairs.
Its activities with regard to each country must be listed in internal security reports.
Europol must be subject, in all cases, to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and account for itself, in detailed reports, to the European Parliament.
Any extension of Europol' s powers must, of course, be subject to prior debate by the European Parliament and by the national parliaments of the Member States.
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I strongly support this excellent report by Maurizio Turco which calls for the extension of Europol's mandate and the addition of other non-binding arrangements.
If Europol's mandate is extended to cover serious forms of international crime, such as kidnapping, illegal immigrant smuggling and racism, this body will become an institution with real biting power and one which can be seen as working in the interests and for the safety of European citizens.
Moreover, the Swedish proposal to allow the onward transmission by third countries of personal data received from Europol is particularly important.
It is well known that crime in the twenty-first century is borderless, and as such the EU should not and cannot operate Europol in a vacuum.
This is why it is essential that Europol works in conjunction with third party states since only then will its full effectiveness be realised.
Kirkhope report (A-0369/2001)
Mr President, I voted for the Council' s framework decision on joint investigation teams. Forgive me, Mr President, for giving rein to my imagination, but while we were discussing European joint investigation teams, I imagined investigation teams which included women, dressed in the same uniform, a common uniform for policewomen.
I then wondered when we will vote on the type of uniform these women from the joint investigation teams are going to wear and who will model them so that we can give our opinions? And who will chair the panel which will have to watch the fashion show of policewomen' s uniforms?
Might it be you, Mr President?
Or Mrs Theorin, who is chairperson of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities. Anyway, joking aside, what I am trying to say is that I am in favour of joint investigation teams, of European policemen and women.
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I strongly support this excellent report by Timothy Kirkhope which calls for a framework decision on setting up joint investigation teams.
This decision opens the way for the full implementation of the EU convention which calls for mutual assistance in criminal matters.
Police cooperation at EU level is a relatively new and innovative idea.
Without cooperation in these kinds of matters, individual Member States cannot hope to solve and combat the new kinds of crime that presently face all Member State police forces.
In addition, the report calls for joint investigation teams which should be available not only to combat drugs trafficking and human beings, but also to ward off organised crime.
Once joint investigations really take off and Member States come to fully realise their effectiveness, their remit could and should widen to include these kinds of issues.
Finally, as the report indicates, there is a real and valid role for the European Parliament in matters pertaining to joint police initiatives.
The call for some kind of review mechanism, whereby the Council accounts for and reports to the European Parliament on the effectiveness of joint initiatives, will make this process more open and transparent and therefore more legitimate.
Marinho report (A-0371/2001)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, I voted for the Marinho report because it provides for the mutual recognition of court sentences and decisions on the implementation of the Schengen acquis.
However, as a representative of the Pensioners' Party, I am not in favour of the mutual recognition of decisions.
This is not something which furthers European integration: we need common rules in both civil and criminal law.
If we do not achieve this but are content just to implement mutual recognition of decisions, we will be taking a step backwards in the practical integration of Europe.
We will only have a Europe which is genuinely fully functional when we move on from the mutual recognition of decisions to common rules which are the same throughout the European Union. Then there will be no need to recognise the decisions of other States because the decisions of each Member State will be the decisions of all the States.
Vander Taelen report (A5-0351/2001)
Mr President, as representative of the Pensioners' Party, whose members include a large number of pensioners and elderly people who, having a lot of free time, watch the films and other products of world film-making either directly in cinemas or sitting comfortably at home in front of the television - a huge number of films are broadcast on television - I support Mr Vander Taelen' s document, which, like the Commission, calls for more support for European film-making.
I would stress, Mr President, the importance, as this document points out, of deciding to promote the circulation of European films, not just in Europe as it is today but also in the Europe of the future, in the enlarged Europe which includes the candidate countries.
If we really want to create a greater European culture than the one we have today, which, I regret to say, leaves something to be desired, it is vital that we dedicate even more funds to the circulation of European films within Europe.
The author of this report condemns the fact that the European film industry has been gradually stifled by the major Hollywood productions.
We did not vote against this report as we support some of its proposals.
However, we did not approve of the report either, because the root of the problem is that, as in many other industries, in art and literature for example, the film industry is, in the current economic hierarchy, simply a marketable product and that the film industry, as all other industries, has to obey the law of profitability.
Contrary to what the text claims to be nationalist feelings, the problem is not that of the domination of American cinema, but that of the domination of the major corporations, over the cinema market in the United States - where independent film-makers have just as much difficulty in holding out against the production of large companies as European film-makers - and over the global market.
The author of the report, a supporter, surely, of the market economy, is sensitive, however, to the irrational and harmful effect of the law of profitability in the film industry.
But the law of profitability is not more rational where consumer products, such as food, clothing, medicines or even jobs are concerned - it is, undoubtedly, more harmful still.
The Vander Taelen report announces the European Parliament's intention to promote the European film industry and reinforce it against the strength in the market of its American competition.
This concern also meets with the approval of the Group of Socialist MEPs, who have therefore voted in favour of the report, although they have substantial reservations about the statements made under item 8.
This is an attempt, detached from the debate just beginning on revision of the 'television without frontiers' directive, to force the amendment of one point in a particular direction, one highly dubious from the point of view of content and law.
Cultural, and therefore broadcasting, sovereignty belongs to the Member States alone.
Item 8 would in practice mean massive interference in the programming autonomy of both public-service and private-sector broadcasters.
It would, over and above that, offend against the authority of national public-service broadcasting organisations enshrined in the Protocol to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The success, or lack of it, of European audio-visual productions is not determined by extending protectionist measures, but by the marketability and competitiveness of such productions.
There is no doubt that a structural weakness is revealed by the fact that it is exceptional for European audio-visual works to cross the borders of their country of origin.
Consideration should therefore be given to systems of incentives for the distribution of non-national European films.
The restrictions described in Item 8 are, however, the wrong way to go about it.
The European film industry has problems distributing its films on the scale that we should perhaps wish.
The proposals put forward by the report do not however solve these problems.
They are based on the erroneous belief that increased State and EU aid can make an industry competitive. They also show a lack of respect for free choice on the part of the consumer.
There is also a desire to impose a further item of expenditure on the European Investment Bank, parallel to the Bank' s main responsibilities.
If TV companies were to be forced to adjust their programming in the interests of European cinema, this would constitute an infringement of their freedom.
It might also be asked whether it is reasonable for European schools to be required to support the film industry through their teaching.
For these reasons, I have chosen to vote against the report.
Maat report (A5-0347/2001)
Mr President, I would like to say that it was with conviction that I voted for this report, for I hope that it will enable us to respond adequately to the demands of the people, the producers and all the consumers too.
I feel that we have erred in the past in that we have failed to implement and monitor the existing directive adequately.
In my opinion, the transportation of animals is a major issue and that it is something which almost all of us feel to be important.
It is no longer just an economic issue; it has taken on an ethical dimension.
Therefore, I welcome the increase both in regionalisation and controls, and I hope that, in the future, the contributions for the export of live animals will be abolished.
Mr President, how could I not vote for this document protecting animals, which, although certainly destined for a cruel fate, should at least be treated as beings that deserve our respect and our protection in matters of transportation, as Mr Ebner has just said. However, I would ask you, Mr President, when we are going to do something for the dogs in Bucharest.
While we are on the subject of animals, Mr President, I cannot fail to take this opportunity to tell you about the stray dogs in the city of Bucharest. They have no owners and should be caught and sterilised, but, instead, they are the victims of indiscriminate hunting by the people of the city, who receive a reward for every dog they kill and whose body they take to the mayor as proof.
As I see it, the real villain is the mayor of Bucharest, not the poor dogs killed in the city. I hope that we will soon do something to improve this situation as well.
Mr Fatuzzo, don' t forget to tell us what the mayor of Bucharest says when he reads your explanation of vote.
. (NL) Animals are not products.
They are living creatures whose well-being we must aim to protect.
Given the many cases of abuse during the long-haul transport of animals for slaughter, this transport should be abolished.
We have not got there yet, although the Commission measures are heading in the right direction, with the restriction on distance of 500 km and a maximum duration of 8 hours.
This will also help reduce the risk of spreading animal diseases.
That is why we have approved the report.
To date, the Commission has actually promoted this long-haul transport with its subsidy policy.
Similarly, the policy that has led to the disappearance of small slaughterhouses, including in remote areas, has had pernicious effects.
This policy should therefore be reviewed as a matter of urgency.
A great deal will depend on the policy of the Member States that have so far been very negligent, among other things by inadequately monitoring compliance with the animal welfare directives.
. (NL) Over the years, transport by road has become increasingly cheap, relatively speaking.
That is why all kinds of goods are continuously being hauled back and forth to places where the raw materials or labour are cheap, or where the expected profits are the highest.
It is even worse if living creatures are involved.
For example, discarded work horses from Eastern Europe are transported en masse to Western Europe to be slaughtered there.
During this transport, they incur fractures, they do not get any water or feed, and animal diseases are quickly spread across Europe.
Since a political majority wishes to protect the interests of the traders and carriers involved, various petitions organised over the years have failed to improve the situation.
Nearly a year ago, the European Commission responded to me that the solution is to improve the ventilation of animal trucks.
I fear that this non-legislative advice based on experience gathered from applying existing directives will not really solve the problem either.
However, the proposals by Mr Maat to limit transport for slaughter or fattening to eight hours or 500 km, to increase the penalties for infringements, to re-open the smaller, regional slaughterhouses that were closed down by EU legislation, and to abolish export subsidies for live animals for slaughter constitute a necessary step forward.
The deficiencies of current agricultural policy are evident.
The existing system only serves to promote the transport of animals.
This trade is, at least in part, truly absurd.
For example, Spain imports sheep for slaughter from the United Kingdom, while at the same time exporting sheep to be slaughtered in Greece.
We must aim to abolish the promotion of the transport of live animals.
It is indefensible in the long term that EU funds are used for this purpose.
The only possibility of putting an end to the long-distance transport of livestock lies in the regionalisation of agriculture policy.
The watchword must be: production in the market, for the market.
This would also make it possible to effectively counteract the spread of diseases.
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I strongly support this excellent report by Mr Maat which reviews the 1995 directive designed to ensure protection for animals enduring long journeys.
The report is balanced and fair in that it recognises the possible negative role initially played by EU legislation: this called for the closure of many small slaughterhouses in the first place and made animal transportation more necessary and prevalent.
It also exposes the present lamentable situation whereby the provisions of the 1995 directive are often flouted and where some Member States fail to implement existing legislation.
The call for increased protection of animals during transit is both necessary and worthwhile; as the report indicates, this should be legally enforceable whereby those countries who fail to comply with the rules will be charged a fine.
This would act as a real and concrete disincentive for flouting the law.
In addition to the call for increased and harder legislation in this domain, practical measures are suggested, such as promoting the opening of small-scale abattoirs.
Lastly, this report calls for these tougher measures to be also applicable to third party countries.
This is both a positive and substantive move since EU Member States import livestock from outside the EU's borders and it would be counter-productive to have these enhanced rules operating exclusively in the EU without any regard for the unfair practices that operate outside its borders.
Langen report (A5-0361/2001)
The Commission' s communication of 20 September 2000 on services of general interest in Europe reviews its position in order to take into account recent developments in the case law of the Court of Justice, and also the will of Heads of State, expressed at various European Councils (at Amsterdam and Nice in particular) to show greater respect for the specific nature of the missions of public service.
This new communication, however, pushes us into a difficult position.
Apparently brimming with good intentions, the Commission is proposing to define the limits of public services and competition rules, to grant derogations for State aid to activities of general economic benefit, to put in place systems to evaluate the performance of public services and so on. In fact, the Commission is behaving as if the articles of the treaty on competition were universally applicable, and as if it was up to the Commission to say, out of kindness, the extent to which they will be applied.
The Commission is giving itself the role of arbitrator.
The treaty, however, does not give it any right to do this.
Although the Treaty of Rome only mentioned public services in passing, this is because those who drafted the treaty thought it went without saying that public services did not fall under European competences.
Even Article 16 of the TEC, introduced under the Treaty of Amsterdam, does not amend this position.
We must, however, be very attentive to the Commission' s attempts to wield imperialist powers.
We believe, in particular, that the memorandum issued by France on 27 July 2001, despite being full of good intentions, falls into this trap, by proposing to draft a framework directive to set objectives for services of general economic interest and also the freedoms and obligations of Member States with regard to these.
This is another example of a European text that can be interpreted in many different ways and is subject to European arbitration.
In reality, all we need is a new article in the treaty to confirm the evidence, in other words, the sovereign right of Member States to define and organise their public services independently, whether these are general services or services of economic interest.
We were unable to support a report that places us in the position of observer.
Too many amendments, which could give a sign that a change is underway in tendency and approach, as we expressed in Amendment No 59, were not adopted today.
To leave public services to the mercy of the rules of competition is to seriously threaten the regional development and the social cohesion of our States.
This represents a step backwards for users and is being taken with disregard for the principle of subsidiarity, which is, in fact, emphasised in all our texts.
This new move is a lost opportunity for the European Parliament to show that it is listening to its citizens.
As far as we are concerned, we will continue to fight so that the Laeken European Council becomes the opportunity to take a step forward for the good of citizens.
At the Lisbon European Council in March 2000, European governments decided to 'increase the pace of liberalisation in sectors such as gas, electricity, postal services and transport' .
The Commission and the European Parliament, by means of the Langen report, are supporting this process of 'selling off' the methods we use to meet our citizens' basic social needs, and are thus strengthening the domination of markets over our societies.
We all know, however, that in sectors that have already been liberalised, the expected gains in productivity have not been met; that the erosion of public services has caused standards of quality of service and of safety to fall; that, for employees, the 'gradual and controlled' opening up to market forces has led to staff cuts and greater job insecurity, and has caused inequalities in regional development.
Is this the European model of society that the European Union desires?
We believe that we must urgently block the liberalisation process and re-appropriate public services by freeing them from the markets.
Regarding the liberalisation of services of general interest, we are opposed to coordinating public services at European level, and even creating public Euro-services within the framework of common policies of general interest, through state-owned businesses, involving users and employees, over the long term, and making use of the most advanced techniques.
We reject the Langen report for this specific reason.
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The ELDR Group voted against in the final vote on the Langen report, because its members are not convinced that a framework directive on services of general interest (SGI) is a good idea.
At least we want to wait for the Commission's reflections on the desirability and feasibility of a framework directive on SGIs before we insist on such a proposal.
Another reason for our vote against is the ambiguous wordings on the need to stick to the Lisbon agenda.
We found that the text was too watered down (for example in the votes pertaining to par. 33).
Liberals also find that the report, through amendments both in committee and in plenary, had become too long, inconsistent and incoherent and that it therefore, unfortunately, no longer presented any added value to the debate on SGIs.
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(EL) Services of general interest, the purpose of which should be to provide the best possible services to the entire public, are being handed over to private, profit-making companies which trade in social commodities purely on a maximum profit basis within the so-called free market economy.
This is the objective of the ÅU, to step up the liberalisation which it started in the transport, electricity, natural gas, postal and water sectors.
The only justification for this anti-grass roots approach is the contention that it will improve the competitiveness of the economy.
It completely overlooks the quality of these services and the fact that, once they have been liberalised, one section of the population will be denied access to these services because it will be unable to afford the prices charged by the companies which agree to manage them.
The basic aim of liberalisation is to hand these services over to the private sector for speculative purposes.
This will have adverse repercussions on the workers, in the form of the increased prices for the services provided and, more importantly, the waves of redundancies and flexible types of employment which always replace traditional forms of employment in the wake of privatisation.
Our experience of market liberalisation and privatisation in Europe and other countries has shown us that the quality of services falls, prices rise and jobs are cut back drastically, as the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs admits in its opinion.
In Greece, for example, the price per unit for local and long distance calls has risen over tenfold and profits have risen a hundredfold since Greek Telecom and mobile telephony were privatised.
And instead of the flourishing of the arts anticipated from the privatisation of radio and television, broadcasting companies are dumbing down and distorting culture, disorientating and misleading the public.
Public utilities are not only economically important to each country; they are also strategically important from the point of view of the security and independence of each country, especially in times of economic or other crisis.
We oppose all forms of privatisation and contend that privatised companies should be returned to the public sector and improved and modernised so that they can provide cheap, high quality services, serve the working classes and act as a driving force behind the grass-roots economy.
That is why we shall be voting against the report.
Passenger transport by rail, road and inland waterway
The next item on the agenda is the Report (A5-0364/2001) by Mr Meijer on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council [COM(2000) 7 - C5-0326/2000 - 2000/0212(COD)] on action by Member States concerning public service requirements and the award of public service contracts in passenger transport by rail, road and inland waterway.
Mr President, many private companies have withdrawn from public transport since it became permanently loss-making as a result of the large-scale distribution of the car.
Public transport is necessary for access, the environment and for reducing the pressure on public space and cannot survive without extensive government funding.
Like education and welfare provisions, public transport is more a core task of the government than it is part of the market.
Unfortunately, this Regulation has been preceded for some years now by a rumour in a number of Member States that the EU is committed to privatisation and competition.
When I was appointed rapporteur a year ago, I was put under pressure to have the report ready for first reading in the first half of 2001 during the Swedish Presidency of the Council.
Had I succumbed to that pressure, it would have been impossible to have more than one hundred investigative interviews with organisations, including national associations of municipalities, trade unions and different types of transport companies.
I gleaned very opposing interests and views from these conversations.
Public transport is regulated very differently in each Member State and in each of its regions.
Much community funding has gone into buying up old private companies that failed to offer adequate public transport, particularly in densely populated urban areas and for rail connections.
This is in contrast to many small bus companies operating a few bus services in thinly populated areas that have now been bought by large, fast-growing bus companies operating in different States.
If the European Commission is of the opinion that the award of contracts for transport areas to such companies should not be based on nepotism or judicial verdicts but rather, on objective standards and openness, then this Parliament shares this point of view, and so does the rapporteur.
In this way, the Commission helps those areas where the municipal or regional governments would like to contract out their public transport apply useful rules so as to be able to choose between a few large companies, such Arriva, Vivendi or Deutsche Bahn.
Unfortunately, the Commission proposal applies the same obligation to contract out to areas which, based on practical experience, prefer the sustainable existence of one of the country' s own public companies or the continuation of a long-term contract with a small, private company.
Precisely this restriction of freedom of choice makes the Commission proposal extremely controversial.
It particularly affects countries such as Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany and Austria.
But also in the Netherlands, which led the way in privatisation and liberalisation, the disadvantages of a disorganised rail company and of delayed growth in public transport in densely populated areas are now emerging.
The rule that applies to every government is that it is appreciated by the people if it helps solve problems and maligned if it creates unnecessary problems.
European legislation can be useful if it makes a vital contribution to solving our joint and cross-border problems.
Far-reaching, centralistic intervention in municipal and regional policy certainly forms no part of this.
No one will be satisfied if such intervention soon appears to result in fewer public services, higher consumer prices, worse working conditions, fewer new tram lines, the termination of free urban transport, the supremacy of a monopoly and the erosion of democratic participation.
The compulsory introduction of competition in this case does not mean the emergence of an ordinary market; instead it means promoting a battle for securing government subsidies for permanently loss-making businesses that want to take over government tasks.
According to many experts, the introduction of an obligation to tender for passenger transport by rail, road and inland waterways goes beyond the powers of the European Union.
On account of this obligation, the importance of providing public services and the well being of the user are being subordinated to attempts to cut down on labour costs.
If this proposal for a regulation were to be accepted unamended, it would spell doom for small companies, including virtually all public companies.
Although the municipal tram company or the local bus company can also take part in the tender, these companies will go under as soon as they lose the tender at some point in the future.
Only large, cash-rich companies with many diverse transport areas can survive such a system in a sustainable manner.
It is exactly this crucial aspect of the tender obligation pertaining to all public transport that attracts criticism.
On 10 October, it appeared that the majority of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism had accepted the gist of what I had proposed or what Mr Piecyk and others had developed by way of alternatives on the back of my proposal.
Tram, underground and short bus services remain outside the obligation, while employment and the environment are better protected.
If the plenary follows the same line of thinking, we could save ourselves a great deal of upheaval and bother.
Mr President, it is with particular pleasure that I contribute to the debate on a very important report dealing with the opening of the market to competition in key parts of our public sector.
The Committee on Legal Affairs considered that the key elements of the proposals were sound, but differed in its opinion on a number of key issues.
Firstly, some of the amendments proposed gave exemptions to what are known as integrated transport systems, yet we all know that transport, and particularly integrated transport, is a matter of organisation and not ownership.
This would merely be protectionism by the back door.
Secondly, there was concern that some of the proposals would allow for predatory bidding by exempted sectors for those parts of the transport industry which, in the case of my own country for example, are already liberalised.
Thirdly, the de minimis provisions failed to meet realistic levels to allow competition to take place in the open market.
Finally, there was concern that the level of public subsidy taken into account in drawing up contracts would not allow the continuation of socially needed routes nor provide adequate recognition of contribution towards fares, for example for the less fortunate, such as the elderly or disabled.
The report which finally emerged goes some way to addressing these issues.
However, I fear that some of the amendments included in the final report would also introduce extraneous non-commercial considerations into what should be a completely open and transparent competitive system within the EU.
For example, the issues already mentioned relating to environment and social policy are not in themselves relevant to the contract tendering process but should be dealt with under separate legislation.
That is why I draw your attention to these matters and why this report should be seen as merely the first step towards the liberalisation of the market in this sector and not as an end in itself.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
(FR) Mr President, I can say that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which has been asked for its opinion, widely supported the proposals put forward by the European Commission.
In a series of amendments which were passed on to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, the Commission was careful to extend the length of contracts, for which operators apply in response to calls for tender.
The Commission also tabled a number of amendments to increase the content of management contracts set out in the Commission regulation, particularly under the social chapter.
Lastly, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs supports the idea that we must ensure that the objectives of sustainable transport are taken into consideration in the management contracts and this is duly taken into account by the competent authorities, particularly with regard to the integration and interoperability between bus transport, which is precisely the subject of our debate, and other types of transport.
Nonetheless, the Committee regrets that this proposal for a regulation was presented before a discussion could be held. With regard to rail issues, the second railway package and also services of general interest, which we discussed this morning, it would clearly have been more logical to first adopt a framework directive on services of general interest before having to discuss the same services of general interest on a sector-by-sector, directive-by-directive basis.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Meijer, I would like to say in advance that I actually want to say a word of thanks to you, as I know with what commitment you have sought to introduce this subject and how many discussions you have had in order to produce some sort of proposal.
I must, though, say on this point that I cannot go along with broad areas of your proposal.
There is, in principle, nothing new about what we are discussing today.
When, in the summer of 2000, the regulation at last emerged from the Commission, reached Parliament, and then the first discussions were held with trade unions and the representatives of local transport bodies and voluntary organisations, everything was clear: There was to be controlled competition.
This had been the aim for years, and now we only had to deal with the questions of how long future contracts should run for and when the regulation was to enter into force, in other words, when would the first tenders actually be invited and the first contracts awarded?
There was the additional question of what exceptions there should be to the obligation to put contracts out to tender.
All that had its part to play, as did the recurrently raised issue of social dumping, that is, the danger that tenders would lead to the employment of especially cheap labour.
We came to a consensus.
We wanted controlled competition without privatisation.
The two are always confused with one another.
Privatisation is not automatically connected with it.
All that is involved is that local transport bodies no longer automatically come into the enjoyment of substantial subsidies from regional, national or local funds without having to compete for them, but contracts will now have to be put out to tender.
We all know that local transport bodies, who know this themselves, basically offer their product at too high a price.
The cause of this is to be found in the fact that it is in the public sector that trade unions have always been very successful in pay negotiations in recent decades.
It is a truism, to give just one example, that the personnel costs of private bus companies are some 35-40% lower than in the public sector.
Competition also opens up the possibility of us being in a position, in the future, to buy in transport services more cheaply, without a local authority being able to evade its responsibilities in the process.
It is not the case that they are being privatised.
There will continue to be a State office with responsibility for ensuring that public transport carries on.
I can see the opportunity of using the resources saved by buying-in transport at more favourable rates to buy in more transport in the future, thereby making short-distance transport more attractive and achieving all that was said at the outset, namely making transport so attractive, that more people will use it in the future.
Let me say that, following these lengthy preliminaries, I think there has almost been a catastrophe, because Mr Meijer was evidently unsure which way he should go, and proposed that, in future, the responsible bodies, whether the regional or local government, should be entitled to decide whether or not to invite tenders.
I forecast that if this right to choose, which is to be introduced into the bill by means of Amendment No 61 and Article 7a, becomes reality, there will be no competition, because pressure from the transport companies, trade unions, and associations will be so great as to be irresistible, and contracts will continue to be awarded automatically.
Though we can disagree about many details, I therefore beg you, ladies and gentlemen, to seriously reconsider your decision tomorrow and not to vote in favour of Amendment No 61, so that contracts will continue to have to be put out to tender, exceptions being made for rural areas where only small sums are involved, but let us march in the same direction.
Mr President, I wish, first of all, to thank the rapporteur, Mr Meijer, for preparing the report; he has done a great deal of work on this complicated issue.
The interests of passengers must be borne in mind in the development of public transport.
It must be made into such an attractive alternative that more and more people will be happy to opt for public transportation.
This is highlighted particularly in towns where it is necessary to find ways of solving environmental problems and the difficulties caused by traffic jams.
Signing agreements when organising public transport services is the correct procedure in cases where such agreements enjoy public subsidy.
With a combination of open and controlled competition it is possible to achieve a higher degree of efficacy and a better level of service.
Competition is also really needed in this industry.
There should be some room for flexibility in the application to enable Member States to retain any proven procedures that they have applied previously.
In my own home country such successful solutions include the fixed route transport licensing system and the town and district ticket systems.
This is corroborated by an amendment relating to Article 3, item c.
The aim of this is to prevent the formation of local and regional monopolies and to enable competition as far as possible.
Another objective is to safeguard public transport systems that function well in countries with sparse populations where distances are great.
Arguments relating to transport safety and to minimising the number of accidents are also in favour of the public transport option.
For these objectives to be achieved, legislative flexibility is called for.
It should be possible to opt for solutions that are best suited to various conditions and to each operating environment.
Such solutions should be practically oriented and they should be implemented in cooperation with local and regional operators.
Mr President, the main problem with the Commission's proposal is that local public transport is subordinated to the objective of 'free competition' alone.
Some in this House may well welcome this, but I consider it a fundamental error.
It is the objectives of transport policy that local public transport must primarily serve.
It is also a European issue, how can the local public transport service improve the mobility of all citizens, including those who, not being car-owners, have no alternative to it, schoolchildren, large families, pensioners, disabled people, people on limited incomes?
Ensuring sustainable basic mobility in accordance with town and country planning is therefore the prime objective for local public transport.
Specific local situations mean that this can be achieved in a wide variety of ways.
So, to this day, I cannot understand why the Commission chose to do this by means of a regulation without considering the possibilities afforded by a directive, as this is a typical case where the subsidiarity principle applies.
I also wonder how it is that the Commission is also choosing the form of the regulation, at the same time as bringing out the White Paper on European governance.
According to this White Paper, it wants to reinforce local autonomy, and here it is interfering.
Hence the question as to how such a regulation can make real the principle of reinforced local autonomy in European governance?
Let me finally return to the offering of contracts for tender.
Of course contracts must be put out to tender.
But the process must highlight firstly transport policy, secondly environmental policy and thirdly social policy, which should lead to optimised mobility for our electorate.
Mr President, my colleague Erik Meijer's report is of the greatest interest, as it touches on a core issue in services of general interest, that is, the guaranteeing of citizens' mobility within their immediate surroundings.
This fundamental citizens' right was formerly predominantly guaranteed by local public services and their agents.
As local public transport is mainly unprofitable, services are subsidised by the local authorities, which of course makes the local transport market interesting for private-sector service providers.
The public local transport market in Germany alone is valued at some DM 30 billion.
The creation of the internal market and the rise of international companies offering public transport services has led to a conflict between the previous practice of awarding transport concessions directly to local service providers on the one hand, and the international firms on the other.
The Commission has therefore proposed to give competitive rules the edge over public interest and to create a new and binding obligation to put contracts out to tender.
The rapporteur is, in my view quite right to question this procedure.
He would give local authorities the right to decide for themselves how contracts are to be awarded.
That is democracy; that is the subsidiarity principle.
There must be no interference by the European Union in the conditions applied at local and regional level.
I see this as a fundamental issue, as it is evidence of real subsidiarity.
I appeal to my fellow Members of this House, although I know that there is little point in doing so, to support this position.
We had many meetings and discussions with local, regional, national and international operating companies and interest groups, so of course highly detailed proposals were the result.
Now, you do not have to agree with all these suggestions, but the basic line taken by the Meijer report corresponds to the demands of local public transport as seen by local authorities and operators, does not, contrary to what you said, Mr Schmitt, exclude the possibility of introducing competition, and safeguards local and regional transport services accessible to all and which citizens can afford.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my serious concern regarding the first reading of this report that we are to debate today, even in spite of the remarkable work that Mr Meijer has done. We also support most of the amendments that he has tabled.
However, on the deceptive pretext of seeking to make financial compensation from Member States to service providers compatible with Community legislation and to award public service transport contracts that are already open to private service providers, the Commission is once again attempting to work well outside its area of competence.
By encroaching on the Member States' methods of public management, the Commission is making a direct attack on local authorities' freedom of management, and it must be said that, in doing so, it is denouncing the direct rule method of management used in France, which has proved its worth for many years.
This shows that the aim is not to achieve better service for the benefit of the user, but to actually create, using liberal dogma, the internal market.
In other sectors, such as telecommunications, energy and the postal services, it is freedom of choice that is at stake and, therefore, the very concept of public service.
In addition to the attack on the constitutional principle of freedom of administrative choice for local authorities, this is, more broadly speaking, an attack on the public sovereignty of Member States.
Freedom of choice in public services and in its method of management, freedom of choice in terms of provider, partial freedom in sub-contracting, freedom to set prices and freedom of compensation are freedoms of Member States and their local authorities that have been withdrawn.
Beyond the State, it is the citizen/user who will be slain on the altar of Community liberalism, because this proposal is a direct attack on local authority, which is the closest to the citizen and therefore is in the best position to manage the difficulties experienced by citizens on the ground.
They already have the least power, in the less affluent areas which are even at risk of having no services at all.
The social partners made no mistake, when they warned their MEPs at the vote in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
This illustrates perfectly the danger that everyone has spotted, and we are not dealing with subsidiarity that has been reintroduced here and there, or the odd possibility of derogating from the procedure that has been put in place, which should be enough to stop us seeing the truth.
The citizen will see through this.
To sum up, I have reason to doubt this European project that, faced with ignorance and, at times, the distrust of our citizens, responds in a technocratic and dogmatic fashion by trying to wrestle power from the States and from local authorities, which efficiently manage the daily lives of citizens.
We cannot accept these proposals and that is why we demand this report is rejected.
Mr President, I feel that it is perfectly legitimate for the European Union to equip itself with common rules whenever we introduce competition into local public services.
I feel that it is infinitely less legitimate to seek to withdraw a method of management and to introduce competition within the field of transport and to use case law to extend this to all the other fields in the future, through a regulation which is not transposed by the national parliaments.
I have several reasons for this view.
The first is that the private sector has not always performed better and I urge my fellow Members to come and see what is happening in France, in the water industry, which has been largely opened up to the private sector.
Cartels have sprung up, which are no longer controlled by the local authorities and which currently supply water at higher prices than the local authorities, which remain under direct management.
On the other hand, we must not consider direct management to be a better method, but simply that the two methods of management must co-exist.
Secondly, this goes against the principle of subsidiarity.
If subsidiarity means anything at all, then it most certainly means the freedom of administrative choice of local authoridies and the constitutional provisions of most Member States, under which decentralisation now gives freedom of choice to the mayors, regional leaders and heads of local authorities.
There is therefore a genuine political problem posed by this regulation.
I do not think anyone can deny this.
Lastly, we must also be very clear on this question. Whenever a mayor chooses direct management, he cannot turn to external markets.
Who knows of a school bus service, in a rural area, managed by the local authority, that has to rely upon external markets?
This is not a problem that exists in reality.
On the other hand, whenever public services are delegated or an exclusive choice is made by a business, which is, itself, competitive, this company can turn to the external markets.
That is why I believe that we must impose the principle of reciprocity.
In any case, however, we cannot give up direct rule as a method of management.
Mr President, to get legal clarity on tendering rules in the EU, unfortunately the committee voted to delete most of the specific exemptions in favour of one very wide one, Amendment No 61.
But it is open to legal and political challenge to simply cite democratic decision-making as a justification for exemption from EU legal rules for the internal market.
I therefore commend the specific amendments from the ELDR Group - Amendments Nos 110 to 112.
These would mean that authorities would be justified in not tendering metro and tram services if there were good reasons of cost, safety or risk of creating a permanent private monopoly rather than competition.
Any claim for exemption would have to be justified to the European Commission.
In addition, there are provisions for direct award of contracts in the absence of tenders or in emergencies.
I appeal in particular to the left of this House.
You take a big risk if you rely only on Amendments Nos 61 and 62.
They may not survive the course and as an insurance policy we need specific provisions to protect large complex metro systems like London's from being split up for tendering or risking becoming a private monopoly.
Mr President, European transport policy is not really a page of glory in the annals of the European Union.
Too little, too late, not really consistent, those are only some of the features criticised as being characteristic of European Union policy to date and justifications for criticising it.
The present Commission is investing a lot of commitment in attempting to counteract this.
The proposal for a regulation on local public transport belongs to the legislative package with which some past errors are, admittedly belatedly, to be repaired.
Some of the internal market philosophy is also to acquire significance in the transport sector.
Controlled competition, not total liberalisation and certainly not privatisation at any cost, was said to be on the way.
One unfortunately has to say 'was' as what the competent Parliamentary Committee has produced as a compromise signals a return to the old and unsatisfactory situation.
In order that there may be no misunderstanding between us, let me say that there is consensus on all the points concerned with the quality of the transport offered to the consumer, consensus also on demands for high standards of safety, social provision and environmental protection.
All that, though, can be, and is to be, required and put into effect by the conditions on the offering of contracts for tender.
So we do not need the continuation of monopolies and quasi-monopolies.
Finally, I will say something about subsidiarity.
It is no help to local autonomy to declare local public transport to be a res extra commertium, whose watchword is that everyone is to do what they like in the way they like.
It is, unfortunately, no help to the citizens either, for it is they who, at the end of the day, have to pay for all that twice over, as consumers and as taxpayers.
So, then, controlled competition and high standards for local public transport as well.
Mr President, I believe that public transport is incredibly important for Europeans in both towns and sparsely populated areas.
In this vote, I am therefore going to support the basic ideas behind the committee' s proposal, which I believe points in the direction of better public transport.
However, I oppose many of the simplistic statements made about tendering.
Our experience from Sweden shows that tendering can be very good.
Account can be taken of the environment and of social considerations, safety regulations can be established and a good relationship can be enjoyed with the social partners.
As a prerequisite, politicians must have responsibility for the tendering and establish these criteria openly.
That is possible, as is shown by experience from Sweden.
We should be able to get rid of many of the simplistic statements about tendering.
As I say, I am prepared to support the basic idea that regions and administrative districts should have freedom of choice.
I also believe that it will, in practice, emerge that tendering can be used because it saves money that can be used for other purposes within the framework of public expenditure.
Finally, I want to say that I do not believe that the rule of reciprocity referred to in the committee' s report should operate at European level.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have as yet been unable to find a simple solution to the problem of liberalising public transport.
That does not mean to say that we should not continue with the liberalisation process.
Quite the reverse, in fact.
Nevertheless, this liberalisation process should not be forced.
It must be carried out in stages.
In principle, I am against exceptions to freedom of services, but it is clear, of course, that a very limited list of exceptions should be possible, particularly for less sizeable contracts.
Finally, I should like to say that it should also be made clear that it certainly cannot be the intention to replace the government monopoly by a private monopoly.
I therefore think that a compromise solution must be found, particularly in the interest of the user.
Many thanks, Mr President.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, the likely reason for the Commission's proposal being such a centre of attention is that we are dealing here with employment, especially with mobility, and with issues of safety, environmental protection and economic development as well, and the opinions which are still being vigorously discussed today were also the basis for almost 500 proposed amendments.
I would like at this point to again make clear that, for us, it really is not about opening up local transport in such a way that it inevitably ends up in private hands.
Nor is it about local transport remaining in public hands unconditionally, and that is the subtle distinction that we want to make clear now.
National, regional and also local government are to be obliged to put local transport out to tender, a process to which conditions must be attached, conditions which we have clearly described in numerous proposed amendments.
For us, it is about safety. It is also about certain exceptions, small markets in rural areas, for example.
We, of course, view these exceptions with sympathy, as we do the special aspects associated with rail transport.
As has just been said, though, our misgiving cannot be dispelled that many are more interested in the service provider than in the service itself, for the word 'voter' was just used rather than 'citizen', something that we find symptomatic of the whole discussion we have been having.
We have brought in numerous amendments and can, I believe, say quite unambiguously that these amendments prevent social dumping and also guarantee social security, safety in general, and, I believe, can give local transport a better future.
One final observation, with which I know the Commission has difficulty. Protected markets make it impossible, in our view, for businesses profiting from them to take part in tendering processes in other markets without, at least, some problematic aspects being created.
As we see it, that is, and cannot be other than, unfair competition, which must be combated by all means available.
Mr President, public transport must be developed for environmental reasons and for reasons based on social equality, for example, and as has already been stated here earlier, it must be made attractive.
It is difficult to understand that competition is seen as the only way to achieve this goal.
Competition is a good servant but a poor master, and one should always consider separately in each individual case whether competition is the only way to increase cost-effectiveness and to improve services and make them more efficient.
Just like Mr Meijer who presented the report stated earlier, many municipalities, unfortunately, have already anticipated the EU' s forthcoming resolutions and allowed for competition in this field, and not always with very good consequences.
In addition, I am of the opinion that the proven methods that various Member States have used in the past in connection with public transport should be taken into consideration in this context: it must be possible to retain the licensing procedure that has been found to be so good and cost-effective in Finland.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by expressing my thanks to the Commission for showing that they have the courage to present, in the past year, a proposal for a regulation on the thorny topic of local public transport.
For we are not going to get away from the fact, as we see at this very moment in the case of an airline, that even in local public transport, profitability is making an entrance.
We cannot therefore have the situation in which - I am involved in local politics myself - year after year, questions about the losses sustained by local public transport are simply shrugged off without further ado and with the taxpayer being left to foot the bill, without the money actually being able to be invested in making local public transport more attractive.
We have to ask ourselves: why was local public transport created?
It was not created in order to employ as many bus drivers as possible; on the contrary, it was created so that attractive facilities can be offered in rural and more densely populated areas to ensure the mobility of all.
That is the task that is incumbent on local public transport.
I think that Mr Grosch's point that we need a level playing field in a European single market is decisive.
We cannot have the situation in which we introduce freedom of choice that makes it possible for certain districts, because they are under financial pressure or because they want to invest their taxpayers' money properly, to invite tenders, and then these are submitted by firms from protected monopolies.
It is therefore so important that this Amendment be voted down tomorrow, so that there may be a level playing field.
The Commission has laid down very tight deadlines for the duration of licences and for transitional regulations.
I think we, as a committee, reached a fair compromise between the various interested parties.
I would, in fact, like us to make a start on introducing time limits and licensing systems throughout Europe.
Commissioner, we will be able to talk about this at future stages, in order to make it even more competition-friendly.
However, let us take this first step together.
This is for the good of the people of Europe.
Mr President, as one of the previous speakers said, what we are all after is the best possible public transport at the lowest possible cost.
As another speaker said, we need appropriate solutions for each particular environment.
That is the main reason why the principle that local authorities can be free to decide how best to organise public transport within their own areas is such an important one.
I would like to make a few comments about running metro systems in large urban areas such as London, where there is a real danger that if we do not allow local authorities to make those decisions, the contracting out will lead to the creation of a monopoly and we will not be any further forward in what we are trying to achieve with this report.
The other thing that could happen in areas such as London and other large cities is that the system could be broken up, which could lead to quite severe chaos.
So I would urge you all to support Amendment No 61.
Mr President, I strongly support the principle that high quality and reasonably priced public transport should be available in all areas.
However, this report is particularly important to my constituency, Wales, due to issues relating to concessionary travel.
The Welsh National Assembly has introduced a scheme, which will come into force next spring, whereby local bus travel will be free for all pensioners in all areas of Wales.
The scheme would offer free bus passes and free travel on local buses and would theoretically enable pensioners to travel throughout Wales if they wanted to without paying a penny.
Whilst I appreciate the importance of ensuring that groups such as disabled people, schoolchildren and trainees are also eligible for reduced cost public transport, it would be ridiculous to undo the good work the National Assembly has done for pensioners in Wales by preventing pensioners enjoying concessionary travel under this regulation.
I am pleased that the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has already voted to abolish the ceiling on concessionary fares that was proposed by the Commission, thereby protecting these pensioners in Wales.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Meijer, for the work he has done; it has been complex and complicated work on a proposal which has given rise to many amendments and positions.
The good work by Mr Meijer, and by all of you, has led to an important debate in Parliament.
In many ways, this debate has helped to generate another broad public debate.
The analyses of this subject, both inside and outside the institutions, help the Commission to improve on its own ideas.
The debate has demonstrated the controversy surrounding these issues, although there have been times when feelings have obscured the real background to the proposal we are dealing with.
Firstly, at the moment there is legal uncertainty in this sector and our intention through this proposal, ladies and gentlemen - we must make this very clear - is to resolve a situation of legal uncertainty which may create serious problems in public transport.
The first intention of this initiative, as Mr Jarzembowski has said, is to promote public transport; we all agree that the European Union must promote high-quality public transport at the best possible price.
The Commission believes that many current contracts and agreements, which grant exclusive rights and financial compensation, may be questionable under the Treaty' s competition rules.
This is the risk we are dealing with and which this proposal is intended to resolve.
Secondly, while the problem of legal uncertainty is serious enough in itself, it is also clear that regulated competition in public transport must benefit both users and society in general.
The facts have demonstrated that systems open to competition controlled and regulated by the public sector have experienced a quicker increase in the number of passengers, during the 90s, than systems which have not been subject to any type of competitive pressure.
The reality is that we do not want private monopolies either.
You will understand that it would take hours to present the Commission' s position on each and every one of the 130 amendments which have been tabled on this subject.
I am therefore going to comment on the fundamental issues you have raised and, with regard to the specific amendment numbers, the services are at your disposal.
With regard to what we can accept, firstly we are in favour of the proposals intended to reinforce the quality criteria which the authorities must take into account on assessing transport needs and awarding contracts.
When the markets open up, the authorities must deal with all issues relating to employment, the environment and consumers, and possibly even more so if the services remain closed to competitive pressures.
We must therefore promote the opening up of the market in order to guarantee these levels and standards in terms of employment, the environment and consumers which we all want to see.
Secondly, the Commission can also accept a longer maximum duration for contracts.
The periods proposed in Amendments Nos 15 and 54 seem to us acceptable (8 years for buses and 15 years for railways).
Thirdly, with regard to the exceptions to the principle of competition, we can only accept those amendments which do not contradict our initial proposal, and not those which intend to further limit the scope of the regulation.
We can also accept those amendments which increase the de minimis thresholds applicable to direct awarding of contracts.
Having heard the debate, we accept that emergency situations may arise where it is impossible to organise competition on time and in a manner which allows the service to be maintained.
The amendments which deal with this issue are therefore acceptable in principle, although they may require some rewording.
We believe that they should be combined in a single emergency clause which also covers other similar circumstances.
The Commission could also accept those amendments which contribute to ensuring that the authorities responsible for compensation have greater flexibility with regard to the general rules laid down for all operators, such as those which establish maximum charges, and which, in some cases, must be applied as appropriate.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission can accept the idea of a transitional period which lasts eight years, as proposed in Amendment No 90.
However, instead of a 'big bang' on that date, we believe that the regulation should lay down a gradual opening up of the market by the authorities, with a first step after four years.
It is also acceptable that existing contracts, awarded in accordance with competition, may continue their natural course, provided that their duration is fixed (that is, that they are not indefinite contracts) and reasonable.
However, ladies and gentlemen, there are things which we cannot accept, because they would undermine the aim of the Commission' s proposal.
For example, we cannot support the exclusion of complete sectors from the scope of the regulation; we cannot accept Amendments Nos 23, 28 and 128, which would exclude all long-distance services.
It may be that Parliament is in favour of increasing competition in long-distance passenger rail transport, but I would prefer this issue to be dealt with under the second package of rail measures.
The draft report raises legal problems in certain cases.
Amendment No 24 would give priority to the regulation over the directives on public contracts.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission believes that this could lead to the European Union failing to comply with its commitments contained in the World Trade Organisation agreement on public contracts.
We cannot therefore accept this amendment either.
The second legal problem relates to reciprocity.
The permanent and structural reciprocity clauses are contrary to the non-discrimination requirements laid down in the Treaties.
We cannot therefore accept those amendments which simply propose structural reciprocity clauses.
However, we believe that, until certain exceptions are incorporated, it is necessary, in a transitional and exceptional fashion, to accept certain types of clause which limit access to a market.
It is important that transition towards controlled competition be accompanied by adequate safeguards, also in the field of social protection, an issue which some of you have mentioned.
We cannot therefore accept amendments which would leave the competent authorities without room for manoeuvre in this respect.
I have presented the Commission' s opinion on the majority of the most important issues dealt with in Mr Meijer' s report, but - I am sure you will have noticed - certain crucial issues still remain.
For example, the report includes a group of amendments (Amendments Nos 3, 12, 14, 61, 100, 126 and 129) which intend to safeguard the capacity of public operators to continue to exist without their ability to compete and provide services adequately and to the benefit of the citizens being questioned periodically, by means of public tenders.
In legal terms, there is no fundamental problem in relation to the principle that public authorities should decide to provide the transport service themselves.
The initiative states that.
The main legal problem arises when the public authority continues to deny all the other companies the opportunity to provide those services in the same area, in a situation of transparent and honest competition.
We are talking about a certain level of transport, not small-scale transport between two towns, which is excluded from the scope of this directive as a result of the de minimis stipulations, as is stated clearly.
We are talking about significant transport markets.
We cannot therefore accept those amendments as they are worded.
We do not believe that they benefit the citizens, because they go too far, isolating operators from market pressures to maintain and improve the situation.
However, we believe that the option of self-production laid down in those amendments could be maintained, with certain strict and clearly established conditions.
It is clear that this approach should be accompanied by provisions which guarantee that all operators preserve standards of quality and integration, and which ensure that the authorities remain capable of controlling competitions to the benefit of the users of the services.
The final part of Amendment No 112, which proposes the direct allocation of up to 10% of public services to a private sector operator, is also acceptable, provided that the authority cannot invoke this or other exceptions in simultaneous tendering for a single mode of transport.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, if Parliament votes for this report in its current form, I fear that the text, the spirit and the objective of the Commission' s proposal will be seriously affected.
In this respect, we would have to re-examine the real overall contribution of this modification to Community legislation.
The Commission still believes that we must modernise the current regulation (which has existed for several decades), that we must bring things up to date so that public transport may enjoy sufficient legal certainty to guarantee that it is of the highest quality, as competitive as possible, with the best prices and with the legal certainty which will allow public authorities to subsidise and economically support certain routes and certain requirements, such as those of pensioners and other groups, without having to argue this before the courts.
We need efficient public transport, at the service of the citizens, which contributes to rebalancing the transport systems and preventing a future situation of gridlock within the European transport system, which would damage our productive, economic and competitive capacity, job creation and above all the quality of life of our citizens.
Thank you, Commissioner De Palacio.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Market access to port services
The next item on the agenda is the report (A5-0354/2001) by Mr Jarzembowski on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision [COM(2001) 35 - C5-0078/2001 - 2001/0047(COD)] on market access to port services.
Mr President, the Commission proposal for a decision on market access to port services should be considered and appreciated as part of the comprehensive Commission communication on improved quality of services in ports.
This communication was to draw conclusions from the positions of Parliament and of the Council on the Commission's 1997 Green Paper.
When we consider the past weeks, we must observe that, whilst the European Parliament was in 1999 still able to agree by a large majority on a position on the Green Paper, the present Commission proposal, which is only intended to regulate market access to services in individual ports, has aroused a great deal of controversy in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, as attested by the result of the vote on the report - 26 in favour, 21 against and 11 abstentions.
So I hope that today's debate and tomorrow's vote will produce a clear position from this House, something in which I intend to play my part.
For if we cannot work out a clear position at first reading stage, the Council then has the last word.
We do not want to trust the Council to that extent, but rather we want to pull our own weight.
In Committee, the majority supported the Commission's desire to adopt only regulations on competition in individual ports and include in this all service providers.
The report is, though, ambiguous on one point, that is, on whether pilot services should fall within the scope of the decision.
On the one hand, Amendment No 14 in the Committee's report states that pilot services are not to be affected by the provisions, but the application to delete pilot services from the appendix to the opinion, which alone defines the opinion's scope, was not accepted.
That being the case, we, as Parliament, must give a clear lead tomorrow.
Among the other amendments in the Committee's report, I would like in particular to highlight the fundamental extension of the scope of the proposal to include port access, be it by sea routes or canals, likewise a more restrictive definition of self-handling and the abandonment of the requirement for at least two service providers per category of cargo handling, likewise the requirement we have incorporated into the opinion, that, when tenders are invited, the new service provider should compensate its predecessor for the investments.
A minority in the Committee tried to highlight, above all, the Commission's failure to comply with Parliament's 1999 demand for conditions for fair competition between ports in the EU, and produce a proposal for a regulation to create them.
The Commission has produced neither a transparency study nor guidelines for the monitoring of aid.
A minority in the Committee therefore proposed the adoption of new regulations on transparency in financial relations between ports and State offices and also on permissible State aid measures for ports, the intention being to provide legal protection for ports and also to prevent excessive aid provision.
For me personally, this is very much about our need to agree tomorrow on this transparency issue, for the issue of transparency and fair conditions for competition between ports is crucial to the ports' ability to function.
All of us have repeatedly emphasised that ports play a central role in European transport policy, with 70% of foreign trade and 30% of trade within the Community passing through them.
They are significant junctions, and they must work well.
I believe that nobody need fear transparency, which leads to fair conditions for competition.
That characteristic and criterion is, I believe, a good basis for a real increase in the efficiency of ports.
In that spirit, I hope we will have a good discussion this afternoon and that this House will vote wisely tomorrow.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, all of us who have participated in the work of the committee know that this has been a difficult and controversial debate which has even, at times, caused tension in Parliament.
I would like to make several things clear: firstly, this is a good proposed directive by the Commission.
I repeat: I believe that it is a good proposal, and this has been reflected in the vote in committee.
I believe that it is a positive regulation and is very important if the European Union is to have efficient maritime and port services.
We must not forget that 80% of the European Union' s trade is carried out by sea.
And this liberalisation proposed by the Commission will no doubt benefit short sea shipping.
Furthermore, there is clearly a need for Community regulation of these services in accordance with the liberalising approach established at the Lisbon Council and which has already been applied in other sectors of services.
The proposal we are dealing with today includes technical-nautical services (pilotage and mooring) and cargo-handling services.
There are no reasons, on the grounds of safety, training or anything else, to justify their exclusion from the scope of the directive.
We must clearly take account of the particular nature of ports and the fact that there are services whose provision begins or ends outside the physical area of the port.
Another essential element of the system proposed by the Commission is the concept of self-handling, which is already laid down in Directive 96/67/EC on access to the groundhandling market at Community airports.
I would like to briefly mention certain other elements of the port package.
We are talking about public funding of ports and the need for great transparency in the financial relations between public authorities and ports and State aid.
I agree with certain amendments which try to describe this aspect.
But with regard to State aid, it seems clear that this directive is not the right place to discuss this issue.
Lastly, I would like to thank the rapporteur, although we have disagreed on certain points, for the enormous amount of work he has done and the huge effort he has made to try to reconcile all the proposals.
Mr President, ports, particularly seaports, are normally cosmopolitan systems and they are junctions in the TENs for traffic by ship and sea, which is in principle the most environmentally-friendly mode of transport.
The openness of seaports, though, bears no relation whatever to the system by which they are financed.
Far from it; I think opacity, very often intentional, is the right word to use for it.
To put it in nautical language: when it comes to financing seaports, the bulkheads are closed.
The present financial structures could be described as hazy and must be changed.
I believe that tomorrow's vote must be about transparency in financial relationships and in State finance, for that is the first requirement for fair competition between seaports.
Granted, that is not exactly easy.
Ports are under private, State, joint State and private, and public control, but all of them are enterprises in competition with each other, and so we need fair conditions.
Aid is unobjectionable, but it must be aid for all.
The problem is, I think, that competition between ports has to be organised.
In principle, it occurs within ports or should do so, if all the Community regulations are brought into play.
Pilot services are another issue.
We see them as a public duty, serving safety at sea and the safety of man and nature, and the Member States have essentially reasonable regulations on them.
I believe it would be possible to extend them in view of the recurrent accidents off the German Baltic coast.
One sometimes gets the impression that, when it comes to navigation, many ships use the Shell atlas and nothing else.
So, safety at sea with pilot services must not fall victim to the alleged pressure on costs exerted by competition.
I extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteur.
I know that he has had a difficult job, but his shadow does not always have an easy time of it either.
To start with, I agree with the previous speaker' s last sentence.
I do not need to repeat that ports are important.
In my view, the Commission proposal helps us to enhance the efficiency of ports.
Like a few of my fellow MEPs, however, I have noticed one shortcoming: there are no proposals on state aid and transparency.
It would be best, and I have tabled an amendment to that effect, if these new proposals were to come from the Commission and not from the text which we as Parliament are now drafting.
Commissioner, I should like to ask you if you would be able to tell us more about possible plans in that direction during this debate.
In any event, I hope that my fellow MEPs will support this amendment and that we will therefore ask the Commission to submit new proposals concerning those two points.
For the rest, I back the Commission proposal.
We must increase competition at ports.
This must also include maritime access, not only for technical-nautical services, but also for the handling of cargo and passengers.
We should therefore not dispose of the handling of cargo.
I think that pilotage can also be retained in the directive.
As you rightly stated, it forms a significant link in the life of most ports.
However, if we prescribe a few requirements, impose a number of conditions in the social field, and give due consideration to economic aspects, the environment and public services, as is the case in the directive and in my amendment, we will have more guarantees than if we simply fall back on the Treaty.
For I believe that that is the choice: either we include a special rule for ports in a directive, or we fall back on the Treaty and simply apply to pilotage the general rules of the Treaty which provide for the free movement of services.
I think it would be preferable to adopt the Commission proposal in this respect.
In any case, I am of the opinion that we as Parliament need to cooperate with the Commission constructively, possibly allow for a conciliation procedure with the Council, and ensure that we reinforce the operation of ports and competition in and among ports in a constructive manner to encourage the vital aspect of transport by water as much as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Jarzembowski, thank you for all your work, but we have not reached our goal yet.
Particularly since the Green Paper actually asked for something else on behalf of Parliament and its handling than what we have now received, namely a consideration of the competition among ports instead of in ports.
Why? If we look at the various coastlines in Europe, and I can think of a few, there are two, maybe six, seven or eight major ports located within a few hundred kilometres of each other, where competition is mainly generated from that small distance between the ports.
Antwerp, Hamburg, Rotterdam, and so it goes on.
The same happens in the Mediterranean in the south.
However, this leads to distorted competition which does not really benefit us.
So that is the first problem.
It also leads to overcapacity and the funding of this overcapacity.
That too is a thorn in our side, and we should like to see common guidelines in this respect.
This, in turn, impacts on the environment, it results in an excessive use of space and generates all kinds of additional problems which we as Greens are also being faced with to a considerable extent.
In terms of competition among ports, we would therefore actually like to propose more transparency and that a reasonable amount of thought be given to state aid.
We would sooner call for coordination among ports, which we would like to add to the objectives of this study along with transparency, and not only the opening of competition in ports, which has been the subject of discussion thus far.
If we turn our attention to competition within ports, as is formulated here, we would particularly like to see the pilotage scrapped for safety and environmental reasons.
I believe that we can rely on majority backing for this.
We also believe it would be wise to delete the handling of cargo, since it does not in any way benefit competition.
Finally, following on from transparency, we call for autonomous research to be carried out. This research should be autonomous vis-à-vis, yet commissioned by, Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's proposal for a directive on market access to port services was not acceptable.
The removal of constrictions on free movement of services within the Community does not in fact mean only liberalisation and privatisation, but also European harmonisation with due regard being given to Member States' rights to provide public services in defence of the common interest.
It is noticeable that the rapporteur took account of data specific to ports and attempted to include in his report not only requirements for safety, environmental protection and social standards but also the economic needs of ports.
The vote in Committee is evidence of the fact that opinion was not divided on group lines but that there were differences of outlook specific to different countries.
Removal of pilot services, cargo handling and passenger services from the scope of the directive is something I can go along with, as is the retention of licences granted to previous service providers and the setting of minimum standards for new ones.
The Commission's draft has also undergone radical amendment with regard to financial settlement for investments made and the transparency of the financial relationship between ports and State authorities.
Briefly, Mr Jarzembowski's report changes the Commission's document in the right direction.
As, though, I thoroughly share the view of many of my fellow Members, namely that port services should generally be left to the Member States, I intend to abstain in the vote.
Mr President, this report has had a rather odd journey.
Whereas initially, it was a very logical report which, in my view, contained a reasonably correct interpretation of the facts, we now have before us an incoherent document which spawns many comments.
I shall confine myself to the key points.
Firstly, the alleged state aid of Member States for their ports forms the root of the problem.
If government funding for ports does not become transparent, other measures can hardly take effect.
Closer examination of this funding should therefore be given the highest priority, followed by a clear, financial framework which distinguishes legal from illegal support.
Secondly, the inclusion of cargo handling in the proposal prejudices the port authorities' sovereignty to pursue their own strategic policy.
It is reported to lead to the breach of existing, long-term contracts, which will have far-reaching financial implications for the relevant services.
Furthermore, the maintenance of existing contracts renders the present legislation superfluous.
When these contracts lapse, it is likely that economic insights will have changed yet again.
Thirdly, I am of the opinion that pilotage can also remain excluded from this legislation.
I would draw your attention to an amendment which aims to secure surety from governments to render the use of technical-nautical services, in particular, mandatory.
Without surety, considerable problems can arise in the smaller ports.
That cannot be the intention, if I have understood everyone correctly.
Let it be clear: without a number of essential changes, we will be unable to vote in favour of the present report.
Thank you.
Mr President, Mr Vice-President, first I think we should all congratulate Mr Jarzembowski on his excellent work, the time he spent on it and, of course, his patience, because this is an exceptionally tricky issue.
We should also congratulate Commissioner de Palacio on the substance of the proposal which she submitted to us and which is based on the liberalisation of port services, which she wishes to push on with.
Not as an end in itself, but as a means of bringing about better, cheaper services and improving the competitiveness of the European economy.
And, of course, when we speak of competitiveness and liberalisation and apply them to telecommunications, energy, the railways, we cannot leave out port services.
This too is another brick in the wall of the single market.
There can be no doubt that ports are a rule unto themselves, as is every sector.
Obviously we need to look at the question of aid and how it can be reconciled with the rules of transparency.
We need to look at the specific problem of pilotage, which several Members have already mentioned, and see how pilotage relates to safety.
Consequently, we need to look at a whole host of other issues.
But this should not lead us into ignoring the material facts and the material facts are that liberalising port services will have a beneficial effect on competitiveness and our objective of providing better, cheaper services to those who use them.
So the message which we need to send out from this debate is clear: a dual message of liberalisation and transparency.
Of course there are groups which will be affected by these proposals.
Of course there are interests which do not like these proposals.
But the greater good is the objective of competitiveness, and the growth and jobs which it creates.
And I believe that the philosophy behind the proposal before us serves precisely this objective.
Mr President, Commissioner, this is one of the rare occasions when politics must swallow its pride and take into account geographical requirements.
Chairman Hatzidakis is right: we must have the courage to say 'no' to those pressure groups which sometimes attempt to prevent the Commission and the institutions from tackling areas affecting them which Europe has never clearly addressed.
I therefore feel this proposal for a directive is appropriate in order to regulate and improve access to the port market and services.
The calls for safety, the protection of workers, quality of service and, of course, respect for the environment, are appropriate and vital.
I would like to make two points on this subject: we, like the Commission, believe that it is right and proper to include in the scope of this directive terminal cargo handling services, in particular, that is those services which represent over 90% of the volume of business of ports.
In addition, we feel that, if an exception is to be laid down to the application of this directive on grounds of safety or environmental protection, it would thus make no sense to limit it just to pilots and exclude the other technical-nautical services.
Lastly, we do not feel that this directive is the most appropriate instrument to address the issue of the public financing system.
There are too many discrepancies between the systems of the 15 countries of the European Union and some extremely grey areas continue to remain.
Consider - and we must be quite honest about this - how, in some of the major ports of northern Europe, there is proof of commitment to State financing in the fact that representatives of public authorities sit on the managing bodies of the individual ports.
This must be made clear in the name of the transparency rightly advocated by Mr Jarzembowski.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we all agree that this proposal is very significant for port services insofar as it affects one of the most important transport infrastructures of the European maritime regions and because of the process of liberalisation of access to the market in these services.
I would like to make several points:
Firstly, the philosophy of liberalisation must include making the process more flexible so that it does not lead to dangerous or inappropriate radicalism.
Secondly, we must take account of the geographical reality of the seaports in the various regions of the European Union.
Thirdly, the jobs of the port workers affected must be guaranteed, as well as their social protection.
And on transposing this directive in the various Member States, the principle of subsidiarity must be taken into account.
These are the reasons that have allowed me to support this directive with certain clarifications, and justify certain particular amendments, which are coherent amongst themselves, and which deal with the fact that certain regions of the Member States affected are of an insular or peripheral nature, where the port is paramount and, in many cases, quality services are already provided.
Despite everything, I thank the rapporteur, Mr Jarzembowski.
Mr President, the aim of the directive proposed by the Commission is indeed to open up all port services to competition.
In my opinion, these proposals will address the living and working conditions of port staff but I do not feel that they will improve them.
We are told that improvements are taking place, but, as is all too often the case, there has been no prior study of the effects of this liberalisation, in particular with regard to such important issues as safety, the environment and employment.
Those affected have not been consulted, in particular, trade unions (we can always call them 'lobbies' if you prefer), even though they know the safety needs of people and the environment, and have unrivalled knowledge.
Although the amendments made to Mr Jarzembowski' s report take into consideration certain problems that I have just raised, in my opinion they are far from adequate.
They do nothing to temper the line taken by the text as a whole.
Self-handling in the ports would therefore equate to allowing social dumping.
Given the current practices of commercial fleets, this measure will lead to inadequate safety levels and the deterioration of environmental safety, employment and working conditions.
I will support the amendments that seek to exclude dockers from the directive.
These staff carry out an important economic task under difficult conditions, while still ensuring safety.
Nautical services for piloting and mooring are universally recognised as services of general interest.
They should, in my opinion, be considered as partners in their own right, with a view to sustainable development.
Well then, the proposals of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, do take account of pilots but not of mooring service providers, which I personally regret.
I believe that the European Union should work towards harmonisation at the top end of working and employment conditions for employees in this sector, which is the only way to genuinely guarantee economic and social effectiveness while respecting the environment.
The proposals made to date will not, in my opinion, take us any further towards these essential objectives.
Mr President, in my constituency lie the ports of Felixstowe and Harwich, the largest privately owned port complex in Europe and a model of commercial success.
The owners tell me that this directive has been prepared without thorough consultation and that, if passed, it will be seriously damaging to the whole UK port industry.
They say that it would force many ports to restructure, yet would do nothing to improve efficiency in a cargo handling market characterised by competition between ports, not within ports.
Thus, if there are problems of restrictive practices in cargo handling and pilotage in some continental ports, they should be tackled by individual Member States.
As is so often the case, one size does not fit all.
I urge the Commission, even at this late stage, to rethink this damaging proposal.
Competition is one thing. Destruction of a successful industry is quite another.
I ask you to take this directive back and consult properly with those who are affected by it.
Mr President, it is a real pity that the Commission completely ignored Parliament's position on the 1997 Green Paper which stated: "No need for Community legislation on organisational structure and market access for port services".
That was our position then and I hope it is going to be our position tomorrow, but so far the Commissioner has failed to explain why she has ignored that.
Secondly, so far the Commission has ignored the question of why there has been no regulatory impact assessment on this proposal.
Whether you are for it or against it, it is extraordinary that such a proposal as this is not subject to the assessment that President Prodi assured the House would apply to all new Commission proposals.
Why is Mr Prodi not honouring commitments given to this House?
Thirdly and finally, why is this proposal so over-prescriptive?
Why is it going to burden a successful industry with more red tape, with no justification whatsoever? Why does it seek to regulate in minute detail every aspect of a port's operation?
Why, for example, does it call for cargo handling to be provided by at least two service providers for each type of cargo? How can that make any sense when you are trying to organise the arrangements at ports?
Bearing all that in mind and unwelcome as the proposal is, it is even more extraordinary that it does not address the issue of state aids or transparency of accounts. The whole package is unbalanced and unworkable.
I hope the House rejects it tomorrow.
Mr President, I come from Sweden where we have quite a high degree of exposure to competition and privatisation of various services.
The lesson to be drawn from our experience is that the crucial issue is not really market competition or privatisation, as such, but quality, greater efficiency and good, cleverly designed organisation.
These are aspects to which the Commission has given insufficient consideration in its proposal.
I want to express my thanks to Mr Jarzembowski who, as rapporteur, has come up with many criticisms of the Commission' s proposal.
I should like to make a number of important exceptions, and I shall point out a couple of these.
Quite a few speakers have referred to pilotage.
I believe that pilotage is quite clearly a service for the benefit of everyone.
Pilotage must not therefore be regarded in terms of the same economic criteria as ordinary production, but from a safety perspective.
Taking responsibility oneself can have very serious consequences when it comes to loading and unloading. That especially applies in view of the fact that flags of convenience are a common phenomenon.
I am in favour of transparency and public scrutiny where ports are concerned.
I am in favour of self-financed ports.
I want to see quality and efficiency brought about through ports' preparing their own development programmes instead of being subjected to extensive forms of control from Brussels.
Such programmes must be carried out in cooperation with staff and clients at the ports.
Mr President, over the next few years the present directive will determine the operation of our ports, which will play an ever more important role in trade traffic on account of ever increasing traffic flows among other things.
Unlike in the past, modern port users are uncommitted: they choose their port on the basis of price and quality.
There are important financial channels that run from authorities to port companies.
A need for more insight into the investment flows has arisen.
In addition, a level playing field is needed for all interested parties.
This situation could be improved by setting up a number of basic rules.
I should like to highlight a few aspects in this context.
First of all, there is the scope of the directive.
It does not simply cover the port itself, but mainly the port users.
Deleting cargo handling from the directive will not benefit the quality of the service which ports offer their customers.
Freight services, or cargo handling, should simply remain in the directive.
Secondly, ship services, also referred to as pilotage and towage services.
Amendments Nos 3, 14 and 51 aim to keep pilotage outside the scope of the directive, based on the outmoded notion that pilotage services are always public services.
I will not support these amendments.
In my country, pilotage services have not been a public service for a very long time, and that has worked out very well.
A directive which regulates market access to port services therefore covers both ship and port services.
Needless to say, we must move towards more transparency of the financial flows with regard to infrastructure, but I should like to leave the powers where they are, and will therefore vote in favour of Mr Sterckx' Amendment No 47 in which the Commission is still being requested to submit proposals in this field.
What matters is that ports facilitate reshipment and receiving companies.
Ports and their users deserve solid, well-thought-out legislation.
I regret that the way in which this directive has been dealt with in Parliament has created unnecessary tension between northern, southern and western Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, it was very difficult to assess this text as its focus has shifted slightly.
We were supposed to address the issue of competition in ports and we are now being presented with a text on competition between ports.
I do not know what will happen tomorrow, but I am sure there will be some confusion.
In passing, I regret that the mooring service providers' lot is not the same as the pilots' .
I do not see why we would maintain competition for mooring service providers while excluding pilots.
These professions are fairly similar.
With regard to competition between ports, I feel that transparency is a good thing, but I would warn you against going straight from that to decreeing competition between ports without closer analysis, for ports are first and foremost tools for regional development.
They do not have the same nautical qualities.
Moreover, if we were to increase competition, your entire sustainable mobility policy would fall through.
I actually think that, in years to come, we will have to help the southern ports and the ports on the Atlantic coast take over from the over concentrated mass of North Sea ports.
Otherwise, we will be going against both the Erika-Maritime Safety package and our desire to remove lorries from the major transit countries.
In my opinion, the Commission will actually have to present us with specific proposals on State aid to ports focusing on regional development rather than just competition between products.
Mr President, as other Members have already said, the full complexity and problematic nature of the work over which Mr Jarzembowski has presided, competently and doggedly, must be recognised, and we all hope that the final result will be positive in terms of providing the necessary safeguards for the different principles.
We support the Commission' s proposal, particularly insofar as some of the amendments tabled by Parliament have helped to make opening up the port services market a viable possibility, and, although this does not in itself appear to be the most remarkable result, it is positive in terms of revamping services and of introducing elements of competition, provided, as some of the amendments advocate, that certain social clauses remain untouched, that certain requirements relating to environmental safety, professional standards and continuity of authorisations continue to be met.
Parliament' s vote will make it possible to consolidate all this provided that, as far as the internal port services to be opened up to competition are concerned, there are no obscure exemption clauses which would render the scope of the directive meaningless.
That applies to cargo handling and terminal services, and we feel that, in due respect not least for the principle of subsidiarity, certain services in which safety and professionalism are of paramount importance, such as pilotage, could be revitalised.
Finally, subjects which do not fall within the scope of the directive must not be allowed to infiltrate it.
The Commission will certainly have the opportunity to present a proposal on public financing for ports, and we look forward to it, but we must not now make the mistake of anticipating the proposal and bringing forward its introduction without a legal basis, creating unacceptable areas of discrimination between the port systems of the Member States, which differ too widely in this respect.
Mr President, Mr Jarzembowski has undertaken a very difficult task, but he has carried out a major, carefully considered piece of work affecting crucial areas.
Ports are clearly a very important factor when we discuss fulfilment of the Kyoto commitments in as much as they can ease the pressure on land transport and make things easier in a wide range of other areas.
It is therefore essential from an environmental point of view to have some of the goods at present conveyed by land transported instead by sea.
If this is to happen successfully, ports must be efficient, and we must therefore see liberalisation within those areas proposed by the Commission: loading and unloading, passenger services and whatever else has been mentioned, presumably with some exemptions in special regions. Perhaps outlying districts, in particular, can ask to be accorded special consideration.
However, that too has, of course, been mentioned in the report.
I hope that, in the light of the many views presented in this House, we shall now be able to agree upon a proposal so that together we are able to support the Commission' s overall goal for the benefit of the whole of the EU.
Mr President, while the European economy is having a coughing fit we must decide whether to say a final good-bye to 'Eurosclerosis' and protectionism, whether to allow port monopolies to remain as they are or whether we should give free rein to the dynamics of economy.
Sabena is a warning example of the kind of inefficiency that centrally managed industrial policies can produce in the worst possible case.
Should we exclude cargo handling from the directive on ports, all that would be left of it would be an empty shell.
This is why Amendment 52 is dangerous.
Although I am in favour of the inclusion of all major ports, I can, nevertheless, give my support to Amendment 79 proposed by Mr Atkins.
This amendment would restrict the directive to covering public ports only.
My British colleagues could then accept the inclusion of cargo handling without any concern.
We must not forget that British exporters benefit from reasonably priced port services in continental Europe.
The numbers of port operators should not be restricted except for compelling reasons.
Should economic efficiency be accepted as a criterion for restricting the numbers, this would leave a great deal of room for speculation as to when operations are efficient and when they are not.
This is a reason why Amendments 6, 25 and 44 should not be seconded.
On the other hand, Amendment 50 on the definition of the port system is not acceptable because, according to the amendment, a port in Greece and a port in Germany, for example, could be construed as forming a single port.
I am sorry but this is an absurd idea.
As regards pilotage, we, the members of the committee, concluded that strict national rules should apply.
Therefore, safety aspects cannot be used as an excuse for a monopoly.
Is it our intention then to prevent the development of EU ports by diluting the directive that has been awaited for so long? Cargo handling and pilotage, based on national rules, should be included, absolutely.
Also, the port system should be defined in a concise manner.
My highly honourable colleague Jarzembowski' s ideas on this matter are, unfortunately, a long way away from the actual needs of port users.
We cannot change Europe into a giant Hamburg.
The committee has reached a good compromise and we should clearly stick to that.
'Eurosclerosis' hits the poor hardest.
Now we have a good opportunity to do a favour to European employment and sustainable development.
Let us pilot Europe towards competitive ports.
Mr President, as a former member of the Amsterdam City Council Port Committee and as a current inhabitant of Rotterdam, I know what is wrong with competition, expansion and labour relations in ports.
The ports along the coast between Hamburg and Le Havre, spanning Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France, largely service the same hinterland.
They have traditionally competed with each other with low tariffs and large public investments to secure the highest possible cargo levels for their quays.
This competition involves taxpayers' money, and there is unnecessary secrecy about the use of taxpayers' money.
An orderly and scheduled distribution of tasks among those ports saves public funding and better provides the port workers with sustainable employment without the unnecessary peaks and troughs.
That is why I support the remarkable agreement between a large contingent to the Left and rapporteur Jarzembowski, which reminds us of the position which this Parliament has adopted once before, namely the position that transparent competition among ports is far more useful than organising competition in the ports.
Competing pilotage and towage services are at the expense of safety, working conditions and job security.
That is why we need to avoid the wrong interventionist measures from the powers that be.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank Mr Jarzembowski for all the work he has done as rapporteur throughout this debate. It has clearly been difficult work, and we must all be aware of what is at stake here.
I would therefore ask Parliament as a whole to try to give the rapporteur the greatest support possible, with certain slight modifications to what Mr Jarzembowski proposes, since, for once, I do not agree with some of his suggestions.
I would like to remind you that 70% of trade with third countries depends on the efficiency of our ports.
It is clear that sea ports play an essential role in relation to the European Union' s trade.
But furthermore, if we want to deal with the future of transport within the European Union in a credible fashion, not trade between the European Union and third countries, where we will continue to depend largely on sea transport, but within the European Union, we must move on from words and declarations to actions, once and for all, and make short sea shipping a reality. This requires our ports to be as competitive, as efficient and as well-interconnected with adjacent territories as possible.
As you know, to this end, a few months ago, ports were incorporated into the trans-European networks for the first time, precisely so that they may be fully integrated into the Union' s internal transport system and thereby play a crucial role in making that system sustainable and competitive.
The Commission' s proposal is part of a package which deals with various issues of port policy: the transparency of flows of public funds destined for ports; criteria for what is State aid and what is not.
It deals with aspects relating to competition between ports.
The proposed directive which you must vote on deals with the issue of competition between service providers within ports, covering all the services that are normally provided to port users and are of commercial value.
In a moment I will mention something which several of you have referred to; competition between ports.
However, now we are going to talk about the proposed directive relating to competition within ports.
The proposal is based on two pillars: one relating to content and the other to procedures.
With regard to content, we propose bringing ourselves into line with the legislation passed by Parliament and the Council in similar areas, where rules have been established to open up the markets.
I am talking about telecommunications, gas, electricity, but especially, in the transport sector, ground services at airports.
Although the Treaty does not in principle allow restrictions to market access, the ports have their own specific characteristics such as possible space limitations and the fundamental importance of safety and environmental issues.
Our proposal guarantees a fair balance between these needs.
I am pleased to note that, in its vote, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism expressed its satisfaction with this approach.
We must allow self-handling in ports where operators consider that they can obtain better performance from their own personnel and equipment and we must guarantee that, as in the case of all the other sectors, the number of service providers can only be restricted for justifiable reasons, such as space limitations, or the safety of sea traffic in this case.
All competent service providers must have equal opportunities to operate in the ports of their choice.
This brings me to the second pillar of our proposal: procedures.
The procedural rules must be transparent, non-discriminatory, objective and proportionate.
This is not always the case at the moment.
I am convinced that what was possible for ground services at airports must also be possible for ports.
And I believe that, although it is going to create certain problems, as is always the case when there is a change to a situation that has remained the same for a long time, perhaps even for centuries, it is certain that this change will be of benefit to the whole system, to the economy and to the quality of life of the citizens of the European Union in general.
Of course, specific local characteristics must be taken into account, above all on issues relating to safety, the environment and social aspects.
Our proposal will therefore allow for a high level of flexibility on a national, regional and, above all, local level, so that ports can manage their own affairs in an open and balanced fashion.
Focussing now on the amendments, I would like to say that, having examined them in detail, the Commission can accept most of them.
Many amendments improve our proposal substantially with regard to the clarification of the definitions of port services and self-handling and they include compensation rules which are not only implicit, but also explicit, as is the case with Amendments Nos 18, 20, 32 and, in part, Amendment No 46, which we fully accept.
I would also like to mention Amendment No 15, which allows Member States to extend the scope of the directive to inland waterways close to ports.
Furthermore, we accept part of Amendments Nos 25 and 44 which limit, for reasons of maritime safety, the number of service providers rather than that of just providers of technical-nautical services.
It is a reasonable measure and it is in accordance with the Commission' s general interests in the field of maritime safety.
We also agree with the idea that the time period finally approved in relation to the maximum periods of authorisation should facilitate normal repayment and performance of investments, and we therefore accept an extension of the time limit and also, possibly, compensation where total repayment has not taken place, as certain other amendments suggest.
There are other amendments that, although they do not introduce changes, provide useful clarifications, particularly in relation to the continued application of the rules currently in force with regard to safety, the environment and social issues.
All of these amendments can be accepted, though with modifications to their wording.
However, there are issues that we cannot accept, for various different reasons, and you must understand this, ladies and gentlemen.
In the case of certain amendments to the recitals of the directive, they do not really correspond to the legislative text itself, for example: Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 12.
Neither can the Commission accept amendments that substantially change or reduce the scope of the directive.
Having reached this point, please allow me to point out two problems which have been at the centre of the debates in Parliament' s Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism: should ground services be included in the scope of the directive? The enormous majority of parties accept that this inclusion is necessary, and we could not accept any amendment, such as No 52, which leads to the exclusion of this sector.
If we want modern, high-quality ports, that which is possible and necessary for ground services in airports must also be possible and necessary in ports.
Furthermore, this position received majority support in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
The same is true with the amendments aimed at excluding self-handling and the right of service providers to employ the personnel of their choice, such as Amendments Nos 69, 70, 71, 72 and 73, which are also rejected.
The latter is already included in the legislation.
However, if you read our proposal correctly, you will see that service providers cannot employ so-called 'pirate workers' . It is not possible.
If these misunderstandings can be overcome by clarifying our text, the Commission is prepared to seek an appropriate wording.
Another problem is the issue of pilotage.
The question is once again whether pilotage can be included in the directive or not.
Many people believe that certain safety considerations make it difficult to include this particular sector, but there are ways to ensure safety which are different from those which are currently applied.
The same is true for other technical-nautical services, which is why the Commission cannot accept those amendments which exclude pilotage from the scope of the directive.
In this regard also, Parliament' s relevant committee supported our proposal.
Certain other amendments are also unacceptable for various reasons: specifically, economic considerations concerning the service provider should not be a criterion, as is mentioned in the second part of Amendment No 25.
Service providers must accept commercial risks and public authorities must not carry out economic assessments.
Having said this, our proposal leaves a door open: when exceptional circumstances arise relating to the volume of cargo, the number of service providers may be restricted.
Furthermore, without going into detail, we cannot accept various amendments for technical reasons and the list is available to you.
Lastly, I would like to refer to Amendment No 26.
Our proposal indicates that normally, and I repeat, normally, at least two service providers will have to be authorised for each category of cargo.
If we were to remove this article, we would have to apply the rule established in another paragraph, which would authorise the greatest possible number of service providers, a consequence which I do not believe was intended on presenting this amendment.
Certain amendments express the desire to put more stress on competition between ports than the Commission' s package on ports does.
Please allow me to deal with this issue by saying that I agree with the need to consider competition between ports as well, but I think that we need to find a more appropriate way of doing so.
For example, the increase in transparency: Amendments Nos 9 and 48.
The Commission accepts this principle and I am counting on your support so that we can jointly find the best way to apply this principle.
Another example is the State aid mentioned in Amendment No 49.
We all agree that this State aid should not exist, but we must first provide a clear definition of the dividing line between what is State aid and what is not.
The Treaty lays down that the Commission and only the Commission applies the Treaty' s rules in the field of State aid.
The current legislative process will focus on this issue and I hope that we can sit down together to find a viable solution, within the framework of the Treaty, which clarifies such a thorny issue.
And if it is necessary to go further - and I have the impression from what you have said, and I share many of your concerns, that this is the case - I must say that I am prepared to go further than the provisions of the current proposal in the fields of State aid to ports and competition between ports.
Lastly, a few words on Amendment No 79, which proposes excluding private ports, many of which do not apply access restrictions.
During the legislative process, we will have to study ways of suitably dealing with this issue.
Of course, this is only the beginning of the legislative process. During this long process, the Commission will be open to finding constructive solutions with the European Parliament which will allow us to be able to count upon the broadest possible support for this proposal, which is aimed at ensuring that a mature industry, an industry which has much to gain from the restructuring of the European transport industry, can meet the challenges before us and make a crucial contribution to our creating a sustainable transport system at the service of economic development, the creation of jobs, respect for the environment and the quality of life of our citizens.
Enlargement
The next item is the Commission communication on enlargement.
The President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, now has the floor.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, enlargement has been a top priority for this Commission from the very beginning of its mandate.
From the point of view of Europe' s powers and responsibilities, its potential and goals, enlargement is the real acid test. It is also Europe' s historic duty.
Enlargement - the unification of this continent - brings to a close a chapter in Europe' s history and lays the foundations for the future.
Through this process, the Union is preparing to shoulder responsibilities as a continent and we therefore need to take a closer look at our resources, policies and goals, at global level.
Our commitment and courage must match the commitment and courage which the candidate countries are showing as they prepare to join the Union.
Since the beginning of my mandate as President of the Commission, nothing has made a deeper impression on me than my trips to the candidate countries, my meetings with their citizens and the representatives of their governments, or my contact with their parliaments, bravely working day and night on the arduous task of bringing their societies safely through the transition consisting mainly of preparations for enlargement.
In recognition of their efforts, I would like to send them a message of thanks and good wishes from the European Parliament here in Strasbourg.
There you are: these are countries which, barely ten years ago, were literally cut off from the Europe in which we live. Since then, they have been restoring contact with our shared values.
Even before being formally admitted as new Member States, the candidate countries are starting to reap the benefits of their integration. In practice, they are already part of our area of stability and development, as is shown by the ever-increasing presence in the candidate countries of companies from the Member States.
We have already seen extraordinary progress along the road to accession.
The reports we are presenting to you today analyse as precisely as possible the countries' preparation efforts. Here, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Commissioner Verheugen and his colleagues for their huge, unprecedented efforts, in terms of both quality and quantity, in instigating and experimenting with a truly remarkable methodology, and if we should prove to have failed at any time, it is because we really were stepping out in the dark.
In short, our reports show that this historic moment really is possible and just around the corner, but only if we are able to keep up this sustained pace.
Without going into the details of the reports, which Commissioner Verheugen will be describing in a few moments, I can tell you that progress has been made in virtually all the chapters making up the accession process.
I think I can safely say that this remarkable progress has been greatly inspired by Nice, where, a year ago, we set out the practical stages and the 'roadmap' , as we termed it, for the final stage of this path to enlargement.
One year from now, we will evaluate, together with Parliament, the ability of each of the candidate countries to assume the rights and responsibilities which are part and parcel of its integration into the Union.
We realise that, when that time comes, we will have to have concluded, or, at least, very nearly concluded the negotiations with the countries which have met the criteria laid down.
Once the conditions set by Parliament and the European Council have been complied with, and once the necessary ratification procedures are complete, these countries will be in a position to join the European Union before the June 2004 elections and thus elect representatives to this House for the next Parliamentary term.
Therefore, next year will be decisive for the enlargement process and for the future of Europe.
Negotiations will be tackling sensitive issues like agriculture, the Structural Funds and the budget and, in these negotiations, we will show the same determination to find constructive answers that we have shown in the past.
From the beginning of the year onwards, the Commission will be putting forward proposals based on the current acquis and on the principles adopted at the Berlin European Council.
Much will depend on the continued efforts of the candidate countries to adopt and implement the acquis.
As the Commission stresses in its Regular Reports this year, the candidate countries will also need to develop the necessary administrative capacity to be able to apply the Union' s rules and policies properly.
However, sustained efforts on behalf of the candidate countries are only one side of the coin.
In order for enlargement to be a success, it will be important to strengthen the Community method and sustain the necessary cooperation between the Council, Parliament and the Commission.
2002 will be a year of intense reviewing and monitoring and I know I can count on Parliament to scrutinise this work closely.
I would also urge the Member States to continue to respect their existing commitments regarding enlargement, particularly those contained in Agenda 2000 and the Financial Perspective for up to 2006, as agreed by the Berlin European Council in 1999.
We cannot make further reforms a pre-condition for enlargement, although the responsibilities which we are taking on with enlargement must prompt us to begin preparing, with considerable momentum and political vision, the new institutional process due to be launched at the Laeken European Council.
Similarly, the current negotiations should not be linked to the issue of the Union' s finances after 2006, these are separate issues.
Any attempt to relate them would mean changing the rules and would inevitably ultimately disrupt our carefully balanced negotiation process.
The reports we are presenting to you also look at the implications of enlargement for the candidate countries' neighbours, that is other European countries, and for the Mediterranean.
The terrorist attacks of 11 September against the US have completely changed the international situation. It is now less stable, less predictable and more frightening.
Now, more than ever, the world needs a strong Europe which is sure of its values, which sows stability, predictability, security and prosperity around it, and which is, at last, a leading power on the international stage.
With enlargement, Europe' s position as the world' s leading economy and trading power, with an internal market of 500 million consumers, will be confirmed.
With this situation established, we will be in a position to extend the area of stability and prosperity which we so need beyond the Union and the candidate countries.
If we are to achieve this, we will need a new 'neighbourhood policy' , and this is one of this Commission' s strategic goals.
As I have long maintained, and as I confirmed yesterday at the College of Europe in Bruges, we need to move beyond and expand the range of instruments available to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the partnerships with Russia and Ukraine, and our stability efforts in the Balkans.
The fundamental intention is to extend liberalisation of trade, the technical standards and the laws governing our internal market to all our neighbours.
The form that the appropriate agreements should take - free-trade agreements or agreements modelled on the European Economic Area agreement - will have to be determined through negotiations, but the essential objective will be to consolidate mutual economic presence.
Our central aim is to build a partnership with our neighbours that is as close as possible and which can become an anchor for stability and security.
Basically, what we need to do is 'export' stability, and lay the foundations for balanced development in all areas bordering on the Union, drawing on the main strengths of European integration.
This will make integration of our closest neighbours, the countries of the Western Balkans, easier when the time comes.
In our efforts, we must not, of course, neglect the importance of the cultural dimension of our partnership.
This is why we are working on a new initiative to encourage dialogue and mutual understanding between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean.
I am grateful for Parliament' s past and present support and constructive attitude towards the enlargement process. I am counting on Parliament' s continued support during this sensitive, final phase of the negotiations.
The work of the Members of this House will be crucial, not just in terms of ratification as such, but also, more generally, in terms of encouraging support for enlargement among Europe' s citizens.
Opinion polls indicate that, in many parts of the Union, many citizens still need to be convinced of the overall benefits of enlargement.
The Commission will, of course, continue and intensify its information strategy, but it is Parliament and its Members that can make the greatest, most effective contribution to building up the necessary democratic support for enlargement.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the continuous involvement of this House in the enlargement process remains crucial, and not least in terms of the debate on Europe' s future, a debate to which the candidate countries and future Member States are expected to make a substantial contribution.
The report presented by the Commission today shows that the beginning of a new European era is just a few steps away.
Let us take these steps together and continue and intensify our cooperation in the months to come, and thus lay the foundations for a larger, stronger, completely democratic Union.
(Loud applause)
Thank you, Commissioner Verheugen.
I would remind the House that this debate consists of an exchange of short questions and answers.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, I have, of course, some questions, but a few statements are in order.
Let me say first, Mr President of the Commission, that we are glad to see you here.
We were, though, somewhat astonished to see your name appear on the monitor during our bureau meeting.
It took us by surprise, which may have been a mistake by our group.
We do, of course, make mistakes, but in general, according to what I hear around the place, it was not known that the President of the Commission was going to be here this afternoon.
We are glad that you are here, even though we would have liked prior notice.
A second point, to which I would also like an answer, is that I was told this morning while the Group Chairmen were holding press conferences, that Mr Verheugen had also held a press conference.
I would be very interested to know, Commissioner, whether it was on the subject to which you have just been speaking.
If you can shed some light on that, then so much the better.
Now for my questions. First, let me inform you that our group's leaders had a meeting in Hungary last week.
There was grave concern in Hungary that the enlargement could, for them, be delayed if in another country, namely Poland, developments were not proceeding as quickly as might be wished.
Of course, we all want Poland to be in the first round of enlargement, but a consequence of that must not be that, if a Member country is not yet ready, the others have to wait and we cannot keep to the 2004 deadline.
Each country must be assessed on its own merits if enlargement is to be able to take place at all.
I would be obliged if you could say something about this.
I then have a very specific question.
There was also disquiet in Hungary about the critical judgment passed on the 'status law' on Hungarians in other countries.
This law was adopted by 95% of the Hungarian Parliament, and a commission of the European Council, the so-called Venice Commission, explicitly stated that this law was acceptable.
One last question: How do you see the overcoming of the past with reference to some EU countries today? I am thinking of the Benes decrees and of the acquisition of land in Poland, for example.
Can you say something more about that?
Can we take as our starting point statements which, if these countries join the European Union, will make it possible for them to have a future with a clear record, which we of course very much want? We want the 2004 deadline to be adhered to, so that these peoples can take part in the next European elections.
Mr President, I would like to clarify the issue of Poland, at last, because the situation is incredible: in Poland they are saying that we favour the smaller States while the smaller States say we favour Poland.
Well then, we need to make it clear once and for all that good progress is being made, and by 'good progress' we mean good progress for Poland as well.
This country has made excellent progress, and so there is no need to put Poland in a different category from the others.
I feel, or rather I must express my utmost satisfaction at the fact that, looking back at the rate of progress, it is apparent that Poland has displayed remarkable energy and ability in this race, on this journey towards enlargement, towards accession.
I can therefore find no reason to differentiate between Poland and Hungary or between Hungary and Poland.
Sir, neither the President of the Commission nor I myself have held any press conference.
We abide fully by what we agreed.
It is for that reason that the press conference is to take place at 6 p.m., after Parliament has been informed.
I regularly talk to journalists, as you well know.
There was, though, no press conference, and that is an important distinction.
As far as the Hungarian law on status is concerned, we notified the Hungarian government of problems with this law from the point of view of the acquis communautaire even before the law was enacted.
These problems were then taken into legislative account, so that we have no problems with Community law.
My estimation of the Venice Commission differs from your own.
The Venice Commission ruled that whether the Hungarian Status Law is contrary to international law or not is dependent on the way it is implemented.
We have therefore had discussions for some time with the Hungarian government and with the governments of neighbouring countries in order to ensure that Hungary's neighbours are involved in finding a way of implementing it on which they can all agree.
The Hungarian government is thankfully endeavouring to bring this about, and the Romanian and Slovak governments are also ready to play their part.
The Benes decrees have not to date been the subject of negotiations, since property issues, as you well know, are not covered by Community law.
As regards the acquisition of land, I expect something to happen very quickly in the relevant negotiations with Poland.
During my visit to Warsaw last week, the Polish government announced that it would be taking a flexible approach to this issue.
Mr Verheugen, no press conference has been held but the press already has your text.
I think that is the cause of this confusion.
Madam President, I would like to put three short questions.
The first is to Mr Verheugen: You have announced that there will be additional resources or an additional programme for modernising and adapting administration.
I would be interested to know whether these are financial resources deducted from other programmes for these countries on an anticipatory basis. Perhaps you could define that a bit more exactly.
My second is this: Commissioner, the Court of Auditors' report that we discussed today criticises the Commission for the absence of definite criteria in its programmes to reinforce atomic power stations, that is, to increase the safety of their reactors.
Are you prepared to consider the possibility that the Commission is not drawing up any criteria, that is to say, any general criteria, but only criteria for checking reactor safety improvement measures, carried out with the support of Commission resources?
My third question, concerning Cyprus and Turkey, has already been briefly alluded to.
The Turkish Prime Minister has just made statements in what may be a new form, to the effect that, if it came to it, the northern part of Cyprus might be annexed.
Does the Commission have a clear, official and unambiguous answer to this?
Madam President, I will answer the honourable gentleman's questions as follows. Firstly, resources for the additional measures to improve implementation are being taken from the Phare budget, so additional resources are not being drawn on, nor are resources being transferred.
This is, rather, a change of priorities in Phare's programming, something of which, by the way, I informed Parliament some time ago.
We had also said that we were ready to adjust priorities in view of the fallout from 11 September, if it were a question of meeting stricter conditions in internal and legal policy, police cooperation and the securing of our external frontiers.
As you know, the Commission has no authority in matters of reactor safety.
I do not know what the Court of Auditors is referring to in this instance; it may be to the work of the Council working party on nuclear energy issues, which, however, is not a Commission office.
The Commission is in no way responsible and is not involved in any steps to improve nuclear safety in candidate countries.
All the Commission does is to negotiate the required decommissioning of the reactors, regarded by the Member States as incapable of being retrofitted, with the relevant countries such as Lithuania, Bulgaria and Slovakia and then go on to implement such decommissioning.
This has to a large degree been completed, as you know.
We still await a final closure date for Ignalina II in Lithuania and an offer of finance for this, still outstanding, is expected in the near future.
Apart from that, we in the Commission have nothing to do with the construction of further nuclear power stations in Central and Eastern European countries.
I must say quite frankly that this is the first time I have heard of this criticism by the Court of Auditors.
I would myself be very grateful, and I imagine the President would be too, if the Commission were to have responsibility for nuclear safety standards.
I must, though, tell you that the Member States, and you as an Austrian Member will know how watchful the Member States are in the Melk process in which the Commission is mediating between Austria and the Czech Republic, determinedly refuse to let the Commission create conditions that would lead to the rise of European Community law on reactor safety standards.
I am, though, quite happy to come back to this subject when I have been informed about this report by the Court of Auditors.
As regards the Turkish Prime Minister's statement, what Mr Ecevit has said is nothing new to me; I have heard it in many conversations with him and read it in articles by him for over a year.
Our response is quite clear.
If, first condition, no political reunification of Cyprus is achieved; if, second presupposition, the Member States decide, and Parliament agrees, that Cyprus should be admitted in any case; and if, thirdly, Turkey were then to react in that way - all hypothetical questions at present - if, though, that were to happen, it would result in probably the worst crisis ever in relations between Turkey and the European Union.
I do not at present see how we could quickly extricate ourselves from such a crisis.
Madam President, I should like to return to the question of what used to be called the Madrid criterion, the question of implementation capacity.
How will the institutions in general, in particular the Member States, judge, and by what criteria will they judge, whether the applicants have arrived at the happy state of having an implementation capacity? I share and salute the headline goal, but I wonder what is its measurable content?
The problem is that in Parliament we have not had the opportunity yet to read all these contrary reports which have been adopted.
But given the comments that the Commissioner has just made about Turkey, could he characterise - because we have not yet had the chance to study it - the political mood of the Turkey report? I hope it is a report which gives sufficient and due recognition to serious attempts at change.
There are serious deficiencies which remain, but engagement with Turkey in the light of the earlier comments is an even more profound necessity in the near future than it has been in the recent past.
I am obliged to the honourable Member.
The monitoring of progress in the capacity to implement is a standard procedure that we have developed over a considerable time.
We simply observe what legislation was taken over, and whether adequate material and human resources were available to make this legislation a reality.
It goes without saying that we also observe whether it actually works in practice.
This monitoring is going on constantly.
The information required for it comes to us from the most diverse sources, not only from our own, but also, for example, information is used which comes to us from Parliament.
We have a system that puts us in a position to say at any time to any given country how far we have got with their capacity to implement.
This procedure has been well established and has proved its worth.
As regards Turkey, I can tell the honourable gentleman that the current picture presents varied aspects.
There are positive things in it.
One is no doubt that the Accession Partnership is now working in all its aspects.
All its elements are present and are being kept to.
In this respect, relations between us and Turkey were never before as close as they are now.
Another positive element is no doubt the remarkable progress being made in constitutional reform and also in legislative matters, towards democratisation and respect for human rights.
This is surely still dependent on the extent to which these constitutional changes and legislation are actually experienced in the country's day-to-day reality.
There has been no progress in the economic sphere.
So much is well known. There has been remarkable progress in conforming to the acquis.
That is the good I have to report.
On the negative side, I have to say that, as already stated, the human rights situation is still unsatisfactory.
I must say that I had expected more from Turkey by way of cooperation in resolving the Cyprus issue.
We have already discussed this in another context.
I am also disappointed by Turkey's conduct as regards the issue of European security and defence policy.
I do not find it appropriate for a country desirous of being a member of the European Union to hinder the European Union from making progress with a significant aspect of integration.
This is, in my view, not the sort of behaviour that we should expect of a candidate country.
Commissioner, there are agreements between some of the candidate countries, such as the customs union agreement between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, rather than the Visegrad agreement, which could render the situation rather more complex should only one of the two countries join the Union, for example, if the Czech Republic were to join but not Slovakia or vice versa.
Now, as has rightly been said, all the countries have to respect all the necessary parameters and criteria.
Should this situation arise, what line should we take?
Secondly, with regard to countries such as Croatia, countries which are not yet candidates, that is, although they have made considerable progress towards applying for and achieving the status of candidate countries, what is the current situation?
Lastly, we have touched on the issue of Cyprus, with regard to which you said that were we to be faced with a reaction such as that threatened by the Turkish Prime Minister, there would be a very serious crisis.
My feeling is that, in this regard, we are proceeding almost without any safety net at all, for such a reaction would involve the annexing of part of the territory of the European Union.
It may be that we should safeguard ourselves against such an eventuality and allow ourselves a moment' s reflection before coming up against this situation, which I feel is so very sensitive.
Madam President, I would like to say, in response to the honourable gentleman's first question, that free trade agreements between candidate countries and third countries should of course cease before accession, but it goes without saying that they cannot continue to be valid after it.
Free trade agreements between two candidate countries would in fact create problems if these countries were then to accede at different times.
I must say, though, that the problem is a very limited one, as the countries you have mentioned are covered by the Europe Agreements, which already provide for quite wide-ranging liberalisation of trade in goods, and also of the traffic in services and other economic relations, so that a European solution can be found for this problem should it eventually arise.
I do not, though, think it likely that it will.
The question about Croatia is outside my remit; I would have to ask the President to say something about it.
I would add, speaking of Cyprus, that I clearly stated that you were putting hypothetical questions.
I do not as a rule like answering hypothetical questions, but you were entitled to an assessment of the situation.
I did also say, though, that the Commission has not changed the clear line it has taken, that we must do everything, yes everything, to achieve a political solution to the conflict before accession negotiations are completed.
I have repeatedly appealed to all parties and must again say clearly that it is in the particular interest of the Turkish Cypriot community that a political solution be found before the accessions take place, as nobody will profit as much as the Turkish Cypriot community from Cyprus' membership of the European Union.
For that reason, any policy that bars access to the European Union to the Turkish Cypriot community in Cyprus is a policy which directly, clearly and unambiguously works against the interests of the people there.
As you will remember, Mr Podestà, the very week after the political changeover and the establishment of a situation of recognised democracy in the country, I lost no time in going to Croatia to instigate relations of cooperation, which are currently progressing very well.
In recent weeks, we have had an official meeting with the Croatian Prime Minister and we have continued along that path: we are genuinely encouraging Croatia in all its efforts to establish a closer relationship with the European Union.
Clearly, the tragedy of war and its repercussions on the country' s economy are still very deeply felt and mean that things will take time, but we are actively doing everything we can to speed up the process.
Madam President, I have three questions.
I would first like to say that I find it a very good thing that the Commission is at last turning its mind to supporting the strengthening of administration.
But my question is whether it is also going to look at the need for administration to really involve the citizens, so that things that go without saying, here in the European Union, are also put into practice there?
My second question concerns the action plan and finance.
If you are allocating more resources from the Phare programme for the support of the institutions, does that then mean that resources are being removed from the other important area of social and economic cohesion, in other words that we are no longer supporting the halting of increasing social decay, which is a core problem in these countries, even though it is urgently necessary?
My last question concerns a point which the report does not mention at all. Does the Commission intend to encourage the Council to publish a European programme for the Roma people, something which is in my view urgently required?
In almost all countries at present, the Roma minority's human and democratic rights are being violated as much as they have been in the past. This can clearly not be resolved by these accession candidates on an individual basis; it is a European issue that must be dealt with by a European programme.
Madam, it goes without saying that the degree of citizen participation that is normative in the European Union is also required of the candidate countries, and is a component factor both in the monitoring they receive and in the support they are given.
Secondly, the resources about which Mr Swoboda has already asked are not taken from the country-specific programmes, but are multi-country programmes, which relate to all countries and which, if you want to put it that way, are kept in the central reserve.
No one country therefore receives one single euro less from the projects which have been discussed up to now.
The burden is not therefore borne by other projects.
On the subject of a European Roma project: this has not yet in fact been included in the Commission's proposals.
Discussion of the subject is already in progress in some of the candidate countries, which are saying that this is a European problem and must therefore be dealt with by a European Community programme.
As far as I am aware, this approach is not shared by most of the Member countries.
In any case, a specific European Roma programme would require significant material resources.
I have to answer your question by saying that the Commission has not as yet made such a proposal, but is concentrating on helping the candidate countries with the implementation of their national strategies to integrate the Roma.
Perhaps I should point out that we have very strict requirements on this point and demand of all the candidate countries with a Roma population that they present and implement a medium-term strategy towards the social integration of the Roma and the removal of social discrimination.
As you know, we are giving these programmes very substantial support by means of pre-accession instruments.
Madam President, Commissioner, you said that you had not held a press conference.
That appears to be the case, but can you confirm that you held a press briefing this morning, while the groups' press conferences were going on?
Secondly, should this question be answered in the affirmative, I would very much like to ask the President of the Commission whether he thinks that press briefings of this sort are conducive to cooperation between Parliament and the Commission, when we should be the first to be informed.
Madam President, I can tell the honourable gentleman that there was no briefing either; on the contrary, I have conversations with the press every day, background discussions with many different journalists.
Such a conversation took place today, but it was not a briefing.
It was a background discussion, which was not intended for publication.
I think you will agree that it is a fairly subtle distinction, Mr Verheugen.
Madam President, Mr Swoboda's question on reactor safety raised the question in my mind of whether the Commission can make it clear not only to its own bureaux, but also to the Member States and their governments, and certainly also to the European Parliament, that we cannot, in negotiations, demand more from the candidates for accession that we ourselves comply with as Member States of the European Union.
I believe that this is not quite clear to all areas of all our institutions.
Perhaps it should again be highlighted in the coming year.
The second question I would like to put is this. In your report, you are very optimistic that ten countries will have the chance to sign the Accession Treaty at the end of next year.
As you have expressed it, but I believe it needs to be expressed even more clearly: that is the assessment of today.
This means that, if countries fall behind next year because of poor performance on the political front, the list could well comprise fewer than ten, so that great individual efforts will be necessary and today's judgment will offer no security.
To this will, of course, be added the issues of implementation and of administrative capacity.
Your paper points out that work will be being done on implementation even after the Treaty is signed.
What certainty will there be, though, on the day the Treaty is signed, that administrative capacity will actually be in place when accession becomes effective?
Madam President, the honourable gentleman's first question can be answered only with great difficulty.
I sometimes feel that at one point or another we are demanding of the candidate countries something that the Member States are not doing themselves.
This, though, has to do with the criteria we have and our obligation to report very precisely on the extent to which they are complied with - or not, as the case may be.
Today, I said to the Commission, and on the same subject, that we must always imagine what progress reports would look like if the same criteria were applied to the Member States.
The Member States would never allow us to do any such thing, but so much of what we criticise in candidate countries or describe as incompatible with the Copenhagen criteria, could, perhaps, also be found in one Member State or another.
So, at this point, I recommend modesty to our Member States.
Nothing more can, of course, be demanded in the negotiations themselves than is required of the Member States.
The negotiations are very precisely attuned to the acquis and to nothing else.
They touch on nothing else.
The problem you have described can therefore only arise when considering the question of whether candidate countries comply with the indeed very vaguely formulated political or economic accession criteria.
My answer is that it may be that we are sometimes asking for more.
As regards the other question of the ten countries, the Commission said today in fact, that we must prepare for the accession of all those which have complied with the conditions and completed negotiations by the end of 2002.
This represents rejection of the idea of forming what might be termed political groups, and is, in the Commission's judgment, the correct interpretation of the Helsinki and Gothenburg Decisions.
It was stated in Helsinki that all countries that had been invited to negotiate should have a chance to conclude, which can only mean that it was considered that their accessions could be simultaneous with those of the countries which had been negotiating since Luxembourg, and Gothenburg envisaged the first accessions taking place before 2004.
It necessarily follows from this that we must prepare for the accession of up to ten countries, I will not say ten, but up to ten, because ten countries have set themselves the goal of completing negotiations by 2002.
Whether it will actually come to that, I do not know.
The Commission will produce its concluding opinion next year, and will do so in strict accordance with the principles and rules that it itself has proposed.
As I said here in Parliament during the most recent discussion on enlargement, it is a subject on which we cannot let ourselves make political decisions as it were in the worst or narrowest sense of the word, that is, saying on the basis of purely political considerations that one country is coming in and another is not.
Such a decision must much rather be founded on compliance with the criteria and on the outcome of the negotiations.
The Commission's proposal will be couched in those terms.
None of the ten countries that currently believe they will manage it can evade the possibility of us saying at the end of the day: this country is not ready.
Let me say it clearly: none of them.
Madam President, Commissioner, I have just been listening to what you have been saying about the enlargement of the EU.
I have heard a lot about the shortcomings of Turkey, about constitutional changes, the democratisation process and human rights. My question is, what is there in the accession partnership document about the rights of the Kurds?
What is the situation with regard to the rights of 25 million people who have not been mentioned in this discussion? I ask you, Commissioner, to tell us how the rights of the Kurds are affected and how you assess the political situation in Turkey as regards constitutional changes and the Kurdish question.
Madam, I regret to have to tell you that the accession partnership with Turkey was not the subject of today's discussions.
Today we in fact discussed and adopted twelve accession partnerships, but not the accession partnership with Turkey, and that because it entered into force only in the early part of this year, and updating it after only a few months would make no sense.
We will therefore be proposing the updating of the accession partnership with Turkey only next year and will produce the assessment you have asked for in that context.
Madam President, I actually have one question for Commissioner Verheugen.
Not so long ago, he announced, with our blessing, the launch of a large information campaign both within the European Union and in the candidate countries, highlighting the advantages of the EU' s enlargement.
How does he explain in that light and in the context of the activities carried out, that the support for enlargement, both in the EU and in the candidate countries, is declining despite this effort? What does the Commission intend to do about this?
Sir, for a start I cannot see that support for enlargement is decreasing either in candidate countries or in Member States.
The figures with which I am acquainted indicate the precise opposite.
Quite apart from that, public opinion on the subject is, if I may say so, extraordinarily fickle.
It evidently very much depends on who is asking, what is being asked, and when.
In this way, you can obtain quite different results in the same country at the same time.
I know all the surveys that are being done, and my analysis is that we must not work on the assumption that we are dealing with dwindling support.
Secondly, as regards communications strategy, the European Parliament, and you as a Member of it will be aware of this, has considered it right, for reasons it has made known to us, to make the funds available relatively late in the day, only, in fact, in the course of this year.
The truth is that all the measures could be put in motion only after the summer recess.
You cannot expect that I should be able to supply you with some sort of report on the results of a campaign that started only eight weeks ago.
I must make it clear that this is outside the Commission's remit.
The Commission made its proposal on the implementation of a communication strategy in April 2000, therefore only a few months after we took office.
That it took so long for this strategy to become reality in the European institutions is in this instance regrettable.
I do not believe, though, that it is too late, because only now that the results of negotiations are becoming evident is it right and necessary to fully apply this strategy.
This strategy is in no way about indoctrinating people or, as you have suggested, convincing them of advantages, but about giving them an objective basis on which to form their own opinions and judgments.
The Commission would indeed not be permitted to do more.
That concludes this item of the agenda.
I would like to thank Commissioner Verheugen and President Prodi.
Mr Titley, I quite understand that Members whose names have not been called feel somewhat frustrated.
Having said this, I would remind you that this was a question and answer session.
It is true that some Members far exceeded their allotted speaking time.
Should I have cut them off because of that? You are well aware that that is not my way of doing things.
I am sure you will also understand that I naturally had to give precedence to the rapporteurs, to those who have worked as rapporteurs on this subject.
I would also point out, for your information, that a number of rapporteurs were unfortunately unable to take the floor, including three from the European People' s Party: Mrs Carlsson, Mrs Stenzel and Mr Van Orden, not to mention Mr Haarder and Mr Beazley.
So you see, Mr Titley, how difficult this was to manage.
I think that Parliament should make a decision, but it should be aware that if the question and answer session overruns, and I would gladly have extended it by a good half-hour, as I think the subject deserved it, the time devoted to questions to the Commission may have to be reduced.
You can imagine the reaction of your fellow Members who, as you know, are extremely anxious that the time allocated to questions to the Commission be scrupulously observed.
You know that, when this is not the case, those Members call us to task and they are quite right to do so.
I have tried to act for the best.
If I was wrong, I apologise.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Following Mr Titley's observation, I would simply say that this is a most important question.
I am sure those who were not able to speak were very pleased to hear the Commissioner's comments.
I will submit my questions to him in writing.
I should like to point out that four of our colleagues here today asked three questions.
If the President, and indeed colleagues, would limit themselves to one question, by my mathematics nine further speakers might have been called.
We take note of these comments, which are inevitable, furthermore, given the lack of time.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Questions to the Commission (B5-0338/2001).
Part I
Question No 28 by (H-0857/01):
Subject: Afghanistan and drugs According to the latest annual report of the United Nations International Drug Control Programme, opium production in Afghanistan has fallen strikingly as a result of the Taliban's prohibition policy. From being the world's leading exporter, the country now accounts for only 10% of world trade in opium.
The events of 11 September have also contributed to the disruption of farming, including the cultivation of opium.
In the light of this situation and the desperate plight of the population, what practical initiatives can the Commission take, particularly through its participation in the UN anti-drug programme, to provide relief and aid to the communities affected, and to dissuade producers from reverting to opium growing or selling the stocks that they still have?
Mr President, the Commission shares the honourable Member' s desire to provide adequate support for the Afghan people, of whose difficult situation we are all well aware.
The significant assistance which the Community had been giving to the Afghan population has increased recently.
The Community finances actions in the following areas: emergency aid, aid to displaced persons, aid for food safety, human rights and landmines.
The assistance is implemented speedily through a wide network of non-governmental organisations.
In this way, we contribute to reducing the dependence on poppy cultivation of the people who receive this aid.
The food safety programme is of particular importance, since it provides seeds, tools and all the necessary elements for alternative crops.
Obviously, no donor has been able to offer assistance in the field of compliance with the law in order to combat drug trafficking in Afghanistan, owing to the government of that country.
However, the Commission has supported programmes in this sector, in countries which play an essential role in the heroin trafficking routes towards the European Union, such as the States of Central Asia: Iran, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, the Ukraine, Moldavia, Belarus, Bulgaria and Rumania.
It is still unknown whether, given the current changing situation, the significant reduction in poppy cultivation observed by the UNIDCP 2000/2001 will continue and, furthermore, according to the United Nations, the trafficking in refined heroin from Afghanistan does not appear to be diminishing.
According to the estimates of this United Nations body, the stocks accumulated before the crisis would keep the European market supplied for the next three to four years.
Thank you, Commissioner, for the information which you have given us.
However, I should like to ask if the immediate intention is for the European Commission programme to deal with this problem, on its own or through UN programmes, within the framework of the reconstruction of Afghanistan and assistance to neighbouring countries.
As you know, Commissioner, the European Commission is spending a great deal of money on public awareness campaigns and the European Drugs Monitoring Centre.
If we want to be sincere and efficient, we need to take more direct and effective action at the root of the evil, such as in Afghanistan.
I share the honourable Member' s concern but, as I have said, the reality is that the United Nations' Cooperation and Development Plan for Afghanistan has not been able to deal with ensuring compliance with the law, owing to the Taliban government which is still in Afghanistan.
I hope that, once things have changed in Afghanistan, as we all wish, and a government is in place which fulfils the minimum requirements in terms of respect for human rights, combating drug trafficking and other similar issues, we will be able to deal with issues such as the real application and the real effectiveness of this aid, which, I insist, currently has to be channelled through non-governmental organisations such as the UNHCR or the Red Cross, which are the usual channels of aid in these cases.
Because it is clear that the aid, which has been interrupted since 11 September for obvious reasons, is going to be renewed as soon as possible.
And I hope that on this occasion it is not restricted solely to funding and supported activity in the rural field, in the alternative crop sector, but that it also allows us to cooperate and maintain greater supervision of the real effectiveness of the authorities in their fight against this type of crop.
Question No 29 by (H-0849/01):
Subject: Threat to nuclear facilities in the aftermath of 11 September Will the Commission establish the appropriate institutional instruments to prepare, within six months, a thorough analysis of a range of options for reducing the threat posed by deliberately crashing aircraft and other acts of malice at nuclear facilities, including the prospective benefits of transferring spent fuel to dry storage facilities that are robust against acts of malice, and suspending reprocessing until stocks of liquid high-level radioactive waste have been vitrified or otherwise used as part of an immobilisation programme for surplus plutonium?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the physical and operative security of nuclear installations falls within national competence, provided that compliance with the provisions of the Euratom Treaty is guaranteed.
Each State of the Union is carrying out its own analysis of the situation in the light of the terrorist attacks of 11 September and, in this regard, they will adopt the necessary additional measures to increase the physical protection of nuclear installations and the materials which are used or stored in them.
We hope that all the existing options are analysed in detail.
For obvious security reasons, many of the details relating to these additional measures cannot be made public.
On the other hand, it is clear that the best way to reduce the threat posed to nuclear installations, or any other installation, by the possibility of terrorists deliberately crashing an aircraft into them, is to make it impossible, or extremely improbable, that they may hijack a large commercial aircraft in the first place.
In this regard, the Commission would like to remind you of the measures it proposed on 10 October for the adoption and application of common European Union rules in the field of civil aviation security, and which was first presented at the last Council of Transport Ministers.
These measures are intended to deal with this point.
Commissioner, I find that answer extraordinarily complacent.
We all know that nuclear power plants were not designed to withstand collisions with large aircraft, particularly jumbo jets.
You say that it is not that easy to hi-jack an airplane.
Only yesterday there was another terrible accident in New York.
I hope it was an accident and not an act of terror: at this point in time it is not entirely clear.
Let us all pray that it was merely an accident and not something that was designed to kill all the people on board.
I am sure we all sympathise with the families.
This is a very serious matter.
All I am asking is, will the Commission prepare an analysis? Surely you can say "yes" to that and not just pass it off as the responsibility of the Member States.
You have powers under Articles 34 and 35 of the Euratom Treaty.
According to a recent European Parliament study you are not exercising your powers under those articles.
Could you please comment on that aspect of my question. Have you looked at that study?
Have you looked at your powers, and can you at least prepare some kind of an analysis? I am not asking you to disclose the discussions you are having with the Member States.
Clearly, that may be inappropriate.
But can you not do something?
Mr President, the first thing the Commission must do is act within the limits of the Treaties.
I would like to say that nuclear power stations are not designed to endure the impact of a large commercial aircraft.
It is true that not all the nuclear power stations in the European Union are the same; those which have a second layer of protection and, specifically, the most recent ones built in Germany, perhaps have a greater capacity for resistance and better security in the face of this type of situation than others.
However, I would insist that security, in both its forms - security against terrorist attacks, external agents or sabotage and security against possible accidents - is a national responsibility.
Having said all this, the honourable Member is right and we are concerned about these issues, especially in view of enlargement and the achievement of security levels in the nuclear power stations in the countries which are going to join the European Union in the future.
We are studying how far we can go within the Euratom Treaty, in order to incorporate and seek equivalent levels of security within the nuclear installations in the current Member States, but, I would insist, within the margins laid down in the Treaties.
Like you, I believe it is necessary to guarantee the greatest possible level of security.
Finally, we must not only talk about nuclear power stations.
The great petro-chemical plants, the great chemical industries, the great dams, are other installations which are at considerable risk and unfortunately may cause significant disasters in the case of a certain type of attack or sabotage.
Various countries are working on this, not just those of the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, the safety of nuclear installations is a problem for the whole of Europe and primarily an environmental issue.
Safety is, in the final analysis, a European added value.
Could you consider encouraging the preparation of a Green Paper on the safety of reactors or nuclear installations, so that in future a relatively objective assessment of the subject may be guaranteed?
Mr President, according to the Euratom Treaty, security is the national competence of each Member State.
However, at the moment the WENRA, where all the regulators of the different Member States of the European Union meet, is working to find equivalent security standards which, in my opinion (which is shared by the services, although it is not an official position of the Commission, and I am therefore speaking personally), are necessary and beneficial for all: for the States which have chosen the non-nuclear option, but also for everyone else, since I believe, like you, that if there is an accident in a nuclear power station, the repercussions will transcend administrative borders and the problem is pan-European or even global.
We must therefore support the Vienna Commission, which depends on the United Nations.
These equivalent security standards should therefore be established, with a degree of obligation which is similar to that demanded in the Community, which would offer greater safeguards for the whole world.
Our analyses are based on the situation and, if it is necessary to propose a modification to the Treaty, we would have to consider doing so.
I have a supplementary question to Mrs Ahern's question.
Is the recent decision giving the go-ahead to the MOX plant at Sellafield not unacceptable? Is this not a violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea?
We have been raising the Sellafield issue here for many years. I would like to ask what your position is with regard to the UN conventions?
Do you believe in upholding them?
Do you consider that the authorities responsible for Sellafield have a duty to consult Ireland in this decision? Do you consider that even at this stage a full European-backed environmental impact assessment should be carried out?
Mr Fitzsimons, I feel obliged to tell you that you have taken it upon yourself to bring forward Question No 62.
I frankly do not believe that this obeys the Rules of Procedure.
We had said goodbye to the Vice-President for today.
Thank you for your attention.
Question No 30 by (H-0839/01):
Subject: Serious unwanted side effects following the consumption of energy drinks in the European Union In several Member States of the European Union (including Ireland and Sweden) a number of serious cases have been recorded in which the consumption of energy drinks such as Red Bull has led to unwanted side effects and, in a number of cases, proved fatal.
These drinks, when consumed in combination with alcohol or coffee or after vigorous physical exercise, cause complications chiefly manifested in the central nervous system.
Moreover, such beverages are freely available in places such as schools, gymnasiums and discotheques.
What steps will be taken following the deliberations of the 84th meeting of the Standing Committee on Food at which the Member State representatives expressed deep concern? Is it acceptable to treat as a normal beverage a product whose consumption is restricted in respect of so many sectors of the population (including children, pregnant women, mothers who are breast feeding, the elderly and those suffering from high blood pressure) and which is subject to general restrictions to the effect that it should not be mixed with alcohol or coffee or taken after intense physical exercise?
What procedures are followed for the approval of such products?
Does the Commission not consider that the above factors are sufficient to justify withdrawal of this product from the market as a precautionary measure until it has been proven that it is not harmful to health?
Part II
Energy drinks were discussed at the 84th meeting of the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs on 19 September 2001.
As noted, two Member States have reported deaths in their countries associated with the consumption of those products.
In neither case, however, was there any evidence that the consumption of energy drinks was the cause of death.
Both Member States have commissioned their own research, investigating the available data on the effect of these drinks on health.
Recently another Member State produced a list of incidents linked to the consumption of such products, but without any substantiating evidence.
None of the Member States concerned took any steps to restrict or prohibit energy drinks in their own territory.
The Standing Committee noted a need for further information on the potential effects on health of ingredients in the products and the Scientific Committee for Food is examining data submitted by a manufacturer of such products regarding the safety of one of the products in question.
According to information, further studies are nearing completion.
At the above mentioned meeting of the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs, the Commission repeated its request to Member States to submit information on the safety of products on their markets.
The Commission understands the concerns that have been expressed and it therefore intends to work with Member States to look at the issue in depth and identify the appropriate course of action to ensure a high level of protection for consumers.
So-called energy drinks are not covered by any specific legislation and are not subject to an approval procedure at Community level.
In the absence of Community legislation, Member States may apply national rules without prejudice, of course, to the provisions of the Treaty.
Overall, Member States should ensure that products placed on their markets are safe.
Thank you for your reply, Commissioner.
However, you must allow me to couple my thanks with my disappointment at the tenet of your reply.
Commissioner, as you know full well, we are talking about a public health issue here and I should like to remind you that, in cases such as these, we do not need proof, we just need an indication, especially when we are talking about the public health of young people, and it is young people who are consuming these energy drinks.
To give you a specific example, in Greece there have been five cases in which people presented symptoms which related directly to the three active ingredients in these drinks.
I should like to ask you to repeat, because this has happened in the past and Community legislation subsequently prohibited Greece from banning this substance, if these drinks could in fact be banned at national level, because the committee responsible in my country has objected to my initiative on the basis of the principles of internal trade.
It is the responsibility of Member States to initiate action if they have evidence of harm due to the consumption of a particular foodstuff.
The Commission can take temporary safeguard measures if it becomes aware of a serious risk from a product to the health and safety of consumers.
Once the Commission is informed of action by a Member State, then the need for action on a Community-wide basis can be assessed.
However, the Commission is not aware of action being initiated by any Member State.
In fact the two Member States that have reported deaths associated with consumption of energy drinks have stated that there is no evidence of the association and they have instigated their own investigations into the effect of such products on health.
The Commission has sought the cooperation of Member States in looking at this issue in depth and identifying the appropriate course of action.
I should like to thank Mrs Malliori for raising this issue and add to what she has said.
May I ask the Commissioner specifically about how these energy drinks are marketed in combination with alcoholic products.
For example, a growing trend, certainly in Scotland, has been the combination of the product Red Bull with vodka, which is exceedingly dangerous.
This is of great concern to me, since Scotland has one of the highest rates of under-age drinking, that is to say drinking by 15 year olds and under, in the European Union.
Could the Commissioner tell me whether the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs discussed the combination of energy drinks with alcoholic products and, if so, what research did it propose and what information did it think was needed?
I understand the concerns of the honourable Member.
I also have three children.
I know what is being consumed, mostly by young boys, so I understand her concern.
The Scientific Committee is also concerned.
It has noted that the possible interaction of the constituents of energy drinks has not been well studied, and considers that the possible interactions between caffeine, taurine and alcohol in humans may warrant investigation, particularly under conditions of exercise and consequent dehydration through sweating.
In the light of the advice from the Scientific Committee the Commission is holding discussions with Member States, with a view to ensuring that a draft Commission directive that includes specific labelling rules on caffeine in ready-to-eat foods is put into place.
Questions to Commissioner Reding
Question No 31 by (H-0772/01):
Subject: Ban on advertising directed at children In my question H-0663/01to the Council, I asked whether the Belgian Presidency intended to make the rules protecting children from television advertising more stringent and to support the position of the Swedish Presidency for a full ban.
The Council, however, replied that, in the absence of any proposal from the Commission, whether in the form of a specific proposal or of a point for inclusion in the revision of the 'Television without frontiers' directive scheduled for 2002, it was unable to consider the matter.
Will the Commission say what stage has been reached in its deliberations on this subject?
Mr President, as you are aware, the 'Television without frontiers' directive lays down the legal framework for television broadcasting in the European Union.
This directive contains provisions on the protection of minors, in particular Article 16, which lays down a number of rules with regard to advertising and minors.
The Commission undertook to carry out a study on the impact of television advertising and teleshopping on minors; this study was conducted by an independent advisor and has been published on the Commission website.
Moreover, the Commission will supplement its assessment of the chapter on advertising within the framework of its re-examination of the 2002 directive.
As Mr Papayannakis is doubtless aware, the consultation of professionals with regard to the revision of this directive began in 2001.
Their conclusions will be published at the beginning of 2002, after which the political discussion will commence.
We have also begun three studies, one of which will specifically examine the development of new advertising techniques.
If we intend to revise the directive, we should look to the future, and not restrict ourselves to analysing the past or the present.
Therefore, as you can see, Mr President, the Commission is approaching this issue with a completely open mind, taking extensive advice, and only after listening, analysing and discussing the issue with Parliament, of course, as well as others, will the Commission submit any proposals with a view to revising the directive.
My question was slightly more coercive, he said jokingly.
I asked you to tell me what your current thinking is in the Commission.
Whenever I ask the Council of Ministers, they tell me they are waiting to see what the Commission has to say.
Someone needs to tell us exactly what stage we have reached so that we can prepare our response to your future plans.
I would remind the Commissioner that the Swedish Presidency, and perhaps you can confirm this, was in favour of a complete ban on advertising directed at children.
This provoked me, if you like, into tabling a supplementary question and it is on this that I should like you to comment, as the Commissioner at the present stage.
Unfortunately, I cannot say any more for the moment about the state of progress.
I am currently organising consultations with professionals, which will come to an end this year.
I shall then consult the politicians, and at the end of this series of consultations I shall make specific proposals.
I refuse to put the cart before the horse by making proposals first and only then taking advice.
No. First of all, I want to take advice, listen, and then make proposals.
I can tell you my own personal opinion: I have made it quite clear that I do not think a total ban on certain types of advertising would be effective unless the experience of other countries, in particular, shows that such a ban is indispensable for the achievement of an objective of legitimate general interest.
I asked the Swedish Presidency very clearly not to attempt to adopt this approach, as I knew that, at this stage, I would have to say no.
I have said no, I am taking advice, listening. I know that the Swedish government, which, for its own reasons, has banned advertising on its territory, is moving in that direction.
I also know that the majority of Member States are not moving in that direction.
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether she shares with me a concern that, in Sweden, because television advertising aimed at children is not allowed, there is a noticeable lack of programmes being produced specifically for children in Sweden.
Can she assure me that, in the study which she talked about - and I am delighted that she said it was going to be an open-minded study - this aspect will be fully considered and that, as there will be an explosion of television channels and television choice in future, she will look thoroughly at the possible impact of advertising on the generation of funds to produce high-quality programmes for children?
Mr President, my work has always had a dual nature.
My first task concerns the application of the decisions made by the 'Television without frontiers' directive.
For example, Article 16 restricts advertising aimed at children, as minors must be protected.
Obviously, we cannot do just anything in programmes intended for children.
However, I would like Parliament to help me out a bit, for example with regard to this point.
Can we make just any old film for children? What sometimes shocks me just as much as certain adverts is the violence in films specifically intended for children.
We are analysing all that in order to find, together, the most effective way of making progress in this matter.
From the point of view of digital television, which will enable hundreds of programmes, including children' s programmes, to be broadcast, I would like us, in Europe, to have a high enough budget, sufficient investments to produce good children' s programmes.
This is my second task: ensuring that, in future, we have enough children' s films suitable for that age, films that are positive and are both educational and imaginative.
This question interests me very much and is quite appropriate in the middle of November, in the run-up to Christmas.
Many parents would be very supportive of Mr Papayannakis' question.
I would like to ask the Commissioner what comparisons have been made of the different advertising used in different countries at this time of year?
I would like to hear her opinion on the fact that, certainly in my own country, this advertising begins just after August, well before the immediate run-up to Christmas and can be very aggressive.
What kind of measures can you suggest be put in place to protect minors from this aggressive advertising?
It should be pointed out that the regulations applicable to television are completely different from those concerning the other media.
Television, therefore, is often subject to far more stringent regulations than those applicable to the other media, which are not always subject to specific rules concerning minors.
Thus, if you go into a supermarket with a child, for example, the child is swamped by unchannelled, uncontrolled advertising that is very different from televised advertising, which is actually regulated.
Many differences may be noted at Member State level as well, ranging from the age limits set, which differ significantly from one country to another, to the specific provisions governing certain sectors, such as financial activities and drinks advertising.
This proves that the approach adopted by the directive is the most appropriate as it provides a flexible framework within which the Member States have legislated according to their respective culture and traditions.
If Parliament considers that this framework should be changed, it will have the opportunity to say so loud and clear next year, as it will be given the opportunity to voice its opinion during the revision of the directive.
Whatever the case, if we amend the current measures, the amendments must be made within the limits of this directive.
Question No 32 by (H-0776/01):
Subject: World Anti-Doping Agency On 21 August 2001, the EU was represented by Commissioner Reding at the meeting held in Tallinn, to decide on the location of the headquarters of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
Does the Commission think that it might have been possible to avoid what happened in Tallinn? Was the choice of Montreal the result of the failure of the European candidates to present a united front?
In 1999 the Commission submitted its support plan to combat doping.
Why not transform this plan into a full-blown programme and provide it with the appropriate funding?
As the honourable Member will be aware, the World Anti-Doping Agency decided, on 21 August 2001, to establish its future headquarters in Montreal.
This is a perfectly worthy city, which also offers many advantages.
It must be said that, amongst the candidate cities, there were also perfectly worthy European cities that also offered numerous advantages for hosting the headquarters of this agency.
What happened was that the European countries did not show sufficient coordination and the fact that so many European cities were put forward certainly favoured the choice of Montreal.
I wish to make it quite clear that the Belgian presidency cannot be held responsible for this failure.
It did make considerable efforts to overcome the problems, unfortunately, however, without success.
Europe put forward several candidates, whereas other countries put forward only one, and it was this approach that won the day over the plethora of European candidates.
I must repeat the fact that this issue does not fall within the competence of the Community, but rather within that of the Member States.
We must now apply to the future the lessons we have learned from the Tallinn meeting.
The first lesson should be that of the European Union' s cohesion.
Furthermore, yesterday, the Fifteen' s Ministers for Sport met in Brussels for an informal Council, and cohesion was one of the main items discussed there.
The ministers agreed to join forces and adopt the same approach to combat the scourge that is doping, firstly at world level, in other words, to step up their action within the World Anti-Doping Agency and, secondly, at European level, where there are good grounds for putting a concerted anti-doping programme into action.
There are good grounds because Europe is the most advanced continent in the fight against doping, the greatest number of world-class sporting events takes place here and because Europe has the greatest number of competitions between clubs of different sporting disciplines.
Furthermore, we have the greatest number of accredited laboratories and we must continue to bring our knowledge to bear in the fight against doping at world level.
Yesterday, I informed the ministers that a Community plan is being drafted and they gave me the green light to put this into action.
I shall now begin consultations on the aspects to be included in this action plan and in 2002, we shall have the opportunity to discuss it properly.
I should also like to say that, in order to improve this European cohesion, which must apply not only to the fifteen governments, but must also exist between governments and sports federations, at the beginning of the Spanish presidency, a meeting will be held between the fifteen Ministers for Sports and the European sports federations to decide on the best approach to adopt in order to combat doping.
I would like to thank you, Commissioner, for your reply and your efforts with regard to the funding of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
In recent days, the sports press in our country has reported that there were problems with the funding from the European Commission.
I would like you to clarify whether these problems have been resolved after the meeting of Sports Ministers yesterday in Brussels and whether, if this is not the case, the Commission intends to channel this money towards other means of fighting doping or to stay with the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Mr President, the World Anti-Doping Agency is currently 100% funded, for the duration of a transitional period, by the International Olympic Committee and it has been decided that following this transitional period, 50% of the funds will be provided by the international sports federations and 50% by the governments of the various countries involved.
We have accepted this division.
It appears that of the part falling to national governments, 47.5% will be covered by the European Union.
This is a considerable proportion, but it is also proof of our sporting prowess on this continent.
Having said that, I am sure you are fully aware, Mrs Zabell, that we have interinstitutional rules governing payments made from the budget.
These interinstitutional rules force us to adhere to certain procedures, in order to ensure that taxpayers' money is used scrupulously.
The rules of the World Anti-Doping Agency do not currently match the very strict rules that apply in the European Union.
This is why Europe has asked the WADA to change its internal rules so that there is, first of all, a serious budget, a budget that is forecast over several years.
Secondly, there would need to be an internal rule ensuring that the other continents cannot impose a budget on the European Union but instead that we have a right of veto, and a right to examine proposals.
Thirdly, this 47.5% funding must also be matched by appropriate representation on the WADA' s board of management.
Once these three conditions are met, they will enable us to launch the process of the Council and the European Parliament taking a decision on funding the WADA.
For the moment, and until 3 December, when the World Anti-Doping Agency meets, the ball is in the Agency' s court.
Once the Agency has met the basic conditions enabling us to set the budgetary process in motion, however, the Commission will submit a proposal and the ball will then be in the court of the Member States and Parliament to implement this decision.
In the meantime, with regard to the year 2002 which is rapidly approaching, I would ask governments to shoulder their responsibilities.
They stated very clearly yesterday, in Brussels, that they are willing to do so.
It is therefore, up to the Council of Ministers to arrange these payments for 2002.
We are running a little late.
I would like to remind Members that the more supplementary questions there are, the fewer questions on the list will naturally be asked.
I would like you to bear this in mind.
Mrs Malliori has the floor for a supplementary question.
As you perhaps know, doping substances are traded on the free market so quickly that often, when one substance is detected and banned, a new one has already appeared. The reasons for this are purely bureaucratic, for the simple reason that there are not enough laboratories.
Does the Commission intend to help so that substances can be recognised and banned immediately, thereby reducing the time available for new substances to reach the free market?
The World Anti-doping Agency was created precisely to answer such questions.
This is the body that has the task of drawing up the list of substances that should be banned and the body which governments and sporting bodies must then deal with.
Another point is research.
The Commissioner responsible, Philippe Busquin, and I have decided to open up European research and to put it at the service of the fight against doping, because we know that the inventors of new chemical formulae are often steps ahead of us.
We will, therefore, be making Europe' s research capabilities available to this fight.
Although we are right at the end of Mrs Reding' s time, we are going to ask the following question by Mr Collins. It is a very important question, but I would request, if possible, that only Mr Collins should ask questions.
And, if there are supplementary questions, they should be very brief, since it is a very broad question and it could take a long time, which would prevent us from moving on to questions to other Commissioners.
Question No 33 by (H-0805/01):
Subject: European Year of Languages The European Year of Languages 2001 is now coming to an end.
The Commission has co-funded 185 projects aimed at promoting the European Year.
Does the Commission consider that the objectives for the European Year are being met, and will it make a statement on how it considers the European Union can further develop the learning of languages in the EU, including the 60 plus European languages which are not official languages of the EU, and what measures it considers need to be introduced to help to further promote interest in and learning of languages among young people in the Member States?
As the honourable Member is well aware, the linguistic issue is one that is close to my heart, since I am a Luxembourger.
It is, moreover, one of the reasons why I have been so committed to the European Year of Languages 2001.
Something I did not realise at the beginning, when I launched this plan, was that there would be such enthusiasm, in all our Member States, about the linguistic phenomenon.
All sorts of organisations have lobbied, local councils have discussed language education, in short, there has been huge enthusiasm in all our Member States and this enthusiasm has also made itself felt at government level.
Some governments have adopted measures to give language learning greater priority in their curricula with effect from the 2001-2002 school year.
I shall be attending the Education Council on 29 November, and on that occasion we will be discussing the best way to follow up the European Year of Languages, because it is not enough to have launched an action and for that action to have been received with great enthusiasm on the part of the public; this action also needs to be followed up.
Let me reassure you that I shall be pursuing this course of action most conscientiously.
In concert with the Ministers for Education, I shall be making the frameworks of the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes more open to language teaching than has been the case in the past, and then I shall be presenting a report on the very practical way we have been implementing on the ground, and that is not all, because the year is not yet over and many projects are still underway, the lessons we have learned from the public. In this sense, when I talk about lessons that we have learned from the public, I am thinking of the entire linguistic panoply that we have in Europe, not only the 11 official languages, but also the sixty-odd languages spoken by Europe' s citizens.
Mr President, in deference to you and following the very comprehensive and satisfactory reply given to me by Commissioner Reding, I waive my right to a supplementary question.
We are going to ask the two supplementary questions, but we must try to be very specific.
May I frame a question which I hope the Commission will feel free to answer simply yes or no.
Wittgenstein told us that to choose a language is to choose a form of life.
I think, therefore, that if we lose languages we lose forms of life. Does the Commissioner agree with me that it would be a tragedy for Europe if it loses languages such as Scots Gaelic, and Lowland Scots through neglect and that the lesser-used languages deserve greater encouragement than they get now?
Very good, I believe that Mr MacCormick has received the reply he wanted.
Many months ago, in the run up to the European Year of Languages, plenary unanimously adopted a report by Mr Graça Moura which proposed that ancient Greek and Latin, as the root languages of today's languages, should be taught in secondary schools throughout the European Union, so that contemporary languages could be taught properly and in greater depth.
I should like to ask, first, if you passed this recommendation on to the governments of the fifteen Member States and if you have any information as to whether or not this matter is being pursued.
Thank you very much, Mrs Reding.
We now come to questions to Mr Liikanen, and I would invite him to take his place.
We now have no choice but to strictly obey our time limits.
Questions to Mr Liikanen
As they deal with the same subject, Questions No 34, 35 and 36 will be taken together.
Question No 34 by (H-0786/01):
Subject: EU safety markings on instruments useable for torture I am concerned that EU Member States may be effectively allowing manufacturers of stun weapons (which are readily useable as instruments of torture) to use the European Commission CE 'safety' markings on their stun batons as a quality 'selling point'.
Can the Commission please indicate its position on the following points:
What is the process by which European CE standard marks are awarded and which Commissioner is responsible?
Can the Commission estimate how many stun weapon manufacturers are using the CE markings on their products?
Will the Commission take action to prevent stun weapon manufacturers using CE markings to promote the sales of their products?
Question No 35 by (H-0790/01):
Subject: Electric-shock devices The recent Amnesty International Report, Stopping the Torture Trade (2001), found that electric-shock devices have been used to torture or ill-treat people in prisons, detention centres and police stations in no less than 76 countries around the world.
The report also found that stun gun weapon manufacturers are advertising that these products have been 'awarded' the European CE standards mark.
I am concerned that EU Member States are effectively allowing stun gun weapon manufacturers to use the European Commission CE 'safety' markings on their stun batons as a quality 'selling point'.
Could the Commission clarify the process by which European CE standard marks are awarded, and explain to the European Parliament how many stun gun weapon manufacturers are using the CE marking on their products? Could the Commission also take action to prevent stun gun weapon manufacturers using CE markings to promote sales of their products?
Question No 36 by (H-0801/01).
Subject: CE markings The Commission is aware that manufacturers and distributors of electro-shock devices (or 'stun guns' ) have been using CE markings to promote sales of their products, sometimes claiming that such marks constitute a 'guarantee' or an indication of product quality.
What steps is the Commission taking to ensure that CE markings are not used as a promotional device, both in the EU Member States and in third countries?
In cases where a product is manufactured, distributed and sold by companies based in countries not in the EU, can the Commission say what authority may challenge the validity of the CE mark, and prevent a firm from claiming that the CE mark on its product is a guarantee or an indication of quality?
The Commission will no doubt have realised, from the shared language of these three questions, that they originate outside this House, and indeed Amnesty International has been pressing us on this point.
I need not underline the significance and weight that attaches to representations by Amnesty International.
I am very grateful indeed to the Commissioner for his assurance in response to the third part of the question about the steps that are being taken to try to bring this matter under reasonable control.
It is a kind of irony, is it not, that the original idea of the CE marking was to give assurances about safety.
Well, if I am at the wrong end of a safe piece of torture equipment, it is not a good place to be.
Can you give us any indication of a timetable for the progress you hope to make on this?
The inter-service consultation in the Commission is going on right now.
Different services are expressing their opinions, so it is at an advanced stage of internal preparation today.
Further to the comments of my colleague, Mr MacCormick, I too was very concerned.
That is why I tabled the question.
The Amnesty International Report, Stopping the Torture Trade (2001), found that electric-shock devices have been used to torture or ill-treat people in prisons, detention centres and police stations in no less than 76 countries around the world.
The report also found that stun-gun weapon manufacturers are advertising these products with the 'awarded' CE standard.
As Mr MacCormick has said, the CE mark was meant to be a sign of quality and safety, but in a torture weapon it is pretty perverse and sickening.
I welcome the Commissioner's proposal and would welcome further clarification of the timetable.
To push things a little bit forward: you have explained how the CE mark is awarded, but how are the recipients of the awards monitored and have any CE marks been withdrawn, to your knowledge?
I will make two comments.
Firstly, according to the Amnesty International report referred to, stun guns are not used for torture or ill treatment by either the police or prison guards within the EU.
It is in the export to third countries where problems may arise.
As far as the CE marking is concerned, if it is incorrectly affixed and the competent authorities of the Member States know this, they can intervene with the manufacturer or his representative within the EU.
So there are possibilities for national authorities to take action.
It is our responsibility to monitor it properly.
The third part of my question is slightly broader.
I ask by what authority can the validity of a CE mark be challenged?
The Commissioner has said in his first answer that it was not the Commission that would make a ruling and in his second supplementary he said that it would be the competent national authority.
Is there any system of mutual recognition of a ruling by one national authority, or would it be necessary to challenge the use of a CE mark on something like a stun gun separately in each of the 15 Member States? Is there not some overall body that can say this is valid?
It seems to be a very long-winded process if it has to be challenged 15 separate times.
The market surveillance authorities of Member States are responsible for this.
We do not have any European body to do this.
Questions can, of course, be raised and we can consider how the provision of information between the authorities could be improved and progress made.
However, we must remember that it is only the producers that are involved and that there may not necessarily be producers in all countries.
Question No 37 by (H-0800/01):
Subject: Proposed ban on hydrofluorocarbons Can the Commission confirm what steps it is taking with regard to the proposed ban on hydrofluorocarbons by the Danish government?
Denmark notified the Commission in March 2001 of a draft regulation intended to prohibit the import, sale and use of three greenhouse gases - HFC, PFC and SF6 - and products containing them as from 2006, except in the case of certain products and applications for which a different timetable was laid down.
This notification, pursuant to Directive 98/34/EC, allows the Commission and other Member States to carry out a prior examination of a measure which might create obstacles to the free movement of goods in the internal market.
Several Member States have reacted to the Danish proposal.
The Commission for its part has sent the Danish authorities a letter whose effect was to postpone the possibility of adopting the proposal until 6 September 2001.
Denmark must reply to the Commission and inform it of the action it intends to take on the proposal.
The position expressed by the Commission can be summarised as follows. Firstly, the Commission recognises the legitimacy of the objective of the Danish proposal.
The text is aimed at combating greenhouse warming and at contributing towards a 21% reduction of six industrial gases to which Denmark committed itself at the Environment Council in June 1998.
The European Union, for its part, undertook under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce by 8% the emissions of the six industrial gases in question produced by all its Member States.
In the light of information already provided by Denmark, however, the Commission considers that the proposal is disproportionate to the objective pursued and does not appear, therefore, to comply with the rules of the internal market.
The Commission notes that there are technical measures for monitoring these emissions and that those measures create fewer distortions of intra-Community trade than a total prohibition.
Moreover, the Commission is not convinced that safe alternative measures which are technically compatible with the systems currently used exist in all cases or will be in existence within deadlines laid down by the Danish proposal.
If Denmark does not respond to the Commission's request the latter, as the guardian of the Treaties, may, whilst the proposal has been adopted, initiate infringement proceedings under Article 226 of the EC Treaty.
First of all, I thank the Commissioner for a comprehensive and clear reply.
Clearly the Commission has taken action with regard to this issue.
It is of concern not only to myself but to a great deal of other people in the Union, particularly those in the airconditioning industry, who could see a potential change in their market happening far too rapidly for them to respond with technical measures on with any kind of appropriate economic steps.
I hope the Commission will continue to press the Danish authorities to be quite clear about their intentions.
I hope that the Commission will seek further contact with the Danish authorities over and above the letters they have already sent, to ensure that a reply is received quickly.
The amount of uncertainty at the moment with regard to the intentions of the Danish Government is creating ripples across the single market and raising doubts that are not conducive to the progressive restructuring of the air-conditioning market - and the other markets in which these gases are used - so that they can be phased out over an appropriate and sensible period of time.
I hope the Commission can assure us that action will be taken.
We will act accordingly and keep the European Parliament informed.
Question No 38 by (H-0821/01):
Subject: Swedish ban on cadmium in fertiliser At the end of this year the Swedish ban on cadmium in fertilisers will expire.
The EU derogation will then run out and new arrangements cannot be prepared in time.
On its accession in 1995, Sweden was entitled to retain stricter rules than those applying in the EU for various chemicals and dangerous substances for four years.
The derogation for the Swedish restrictions on cadmium in fertiliser was extended by three years.
This time is up at the end of this year, and no new arrangements will be ready.
The purpose of the derogation for a limited period was that the EU would, in the mean time, tighten up its rules on dangerous substances.
This has been done in some cases, but not in respect of cadmium in fertilisers.
Pending common rules the stopgap solution must be to extend the derogation, which applies to Finland and Austria as well as Sweden.
But not even that will be possible before the end of the year.
The Commission proposal has yet to be submitted, and it then has to be adopted by the Council and Parliament.
This will mean that there will be a period during which high cadmium content fertiliser could theoretically be sold in Sweden.
Does the Commission consider that Sweden may continue to apply its own rules during this interim period?
On 14 September 2001 the Commission proposed the regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to fertilisers in which the derogation permitting Austria, Finland and Sweden to maintain national limits on the level of cadmium in fertilisers is extended up to 31 December 2004.
This proposal is now in the hands of the Council and Parliament for the codecision procedure.
The issue of cadmium in fertilisers has been under study by the Commission for a number of years, originally with the aim of introducing appropriate harmonising legislation before the derogation expires on 31 December 2001.
However, due to the complexity of the scientific issues involved, and the delays in the risk assessments carried out by the Member States, it was not possible to propose the required legislation at an earlier stage.
For this reason, the Commission decided to extend the derogation on cadmium in fertilisers for a further three years and it did so by including the appropriate provisions in a proposal for a regulation recasting the existing fertiliser directives.
As the major part of the text of the proposed regulation is not new, it is hoped that this proposal will be adopted rapidly, possibly at first reading.
The Commission is doing everything possible to facilitate rapid adoption of the regulation.
But if it turns out that it is not possible to have the proposed regulation in place before the end of the year, the Member States concerned can ask for a derogation under Article 95(4) of the Treaty.
I would thank the Commission very much for its exhaustive and constructive answer.
I would also thank the Commission for its proposal to the effect that the derogation on cadmium in fertilisers should be extended.
This derogation is very important to Sweden and also to other countries.
I obtained the impression that the special derogation rule mentioned last in the answer means that we have a sort of guarantee against having to receive fertilisers containing cadmium for a possible interim period before the new extension comes into force.
Is this view correct?
I am very familiar with this issue because it was already important in 1993 in the negotiations on enlargement with Finland, Sweden and Austria.
If the Council and Parliament do not manage to adopt the proposed legislation in time, it is important for these three countries to request a derogation.
I believe that all the Member States are likely to be prepared to approve this quickly.
It is the Commission' s responsibility to check that EC legislation is implemented carefully.
We have already produced a proposal.
We do not intend to take measures to cover only a specific short period of difficulties.
I believe we can find a good way of dealing with this issue.
Thank you for all your replies, Mr Liikanen.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 39 and 40 will be replied to in writing.
We now come to the last series of replies which will come from Mr Vitorino, on behalf of the Commission.
Questions to Mr Vitorino
Question No 41 by (H-0782/01):
Subject: Landing of large numbers of illegal immigrants in the Canary Islands What measures does the Commission intend to put forward to guarantee the integrity of Community waters around the Canary Islands, given the recent reports that motherships are being used to land large numbers of illegal immigrants from Africa on the Canaries?
The events referred to by the honourable Member demonstrate how important it is for the European Union to develop policies on preventing and combating illegal immigration and in particular irregular arrivals by sea.
Such policies need to be developed in partnership with the countries of origin and transit, and should also contain initiatives concerning the internal policies of the European Union.
The Commission is in favour of addressing migration in a comprehensive manner which implies that European Union policies should not only address illegal migration but also include initiatives to serve the socio-economic interests of countries of origin and transit as well as legal migration.
As regards the initiatives that need to be developed in partnership with the Mediterranean partners, it should be mentioned that illegal migration is one of the subjects currently being discussed within the framework of the Barcelona Process.
Both sides agree that multilateral efforts are needed to address illegal immigration from North Africa to the European Union.
The need to develop such a policy was underlined during the Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs held in Brussels on 5-6 November this year.
This subject, including a number of concrete proposals on preventing and fighting illegal immigration, is also part of the draft regional programme on justice and home affairs.
Partners hope to adopt this programme during the next Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Ministers of Foreign Affairs to be held on 22-23 April 2002 in Spain.
Moreover, illegal immigration has been identified as one of the relevant themes for cooperation within the framework of the Association Agreement between the European Community and its Member States and Morocco.
During the Association Council of 9 October this year Morocco underlined its determination to fight illegal migration and the networks of traffickers and called on the European Union for support in its efforts.
The Moroccan authorities have presented concrete and ambitious proposals which aim to curb illegal migration, primarily by reinforcing the surveillance of Morocco's Atlantic and Mediterranean borders.
The Commission is currently studying these proposals and hopes to be in a position to respond to the proposals fairly soon.
The Commission has also decided to use the newly-created budget line, aimed at cooperation with third countries in the area of migration, to support financial projects to assist the Moroccan authorities responsible for border control and the fight against illegal immigration by providing training and technical assistance.
Thank you, Mr Vitorino, for the information you have given me.
The problem we have today is that every week approximately 100 illegal immigrants are reaching the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura.
The operation seems to consist of getting hold of a supply ship from somewhere and than putting the immigrants onto small boats which take them to the coast.
Some make it, others drown, and the process goes on and on.
The Commissioner' s response is that there is no Community action, but that it is hoped that the neighbouring countries will control immigration. But the fact is that this immigration is taking place.
My supplementary question is as follows: a couple of weeks ago, the Mayor of the city of Las Palmas bought 200 one-way air tickets for illegal immigrants who were there and they flew to Madrid.
The Mayor of Madrid, who is from the same party, was not very happy.
Does the Commissioner believe that, if this immigration continues in this way, this would be the way to proceed, i.e. that the Canarian local authorities should pay for one-way tickets for illegal immigrants, because there is no more space on the islands, or do you believe that there is another possible solution, which would not make this air link for immigrants between the Canaries and the European continent necessary?
Mr President, I believe there has been positive development since our last dialogue here in Parliament on this issue.
Firstly, the Barcelona process recognised the priority nature of the debate and dialogue on the joint strategy of the European Union and the Mediterranean countries for fighting illegal immigration, which is not an isolated issue, but which must be integrated into the overall negotiation of the socio-economic development of the Maghreb countries.
Secondly, in the bilateral relations between the European Union and Morocco, the Moroccan authorities have sent us very specific proposals to strengthen the control of the Atlantic and Mediterranean borders.
And I stress the Atlantic border because, as well as being an innovation in relations between the European Union and Morocco, it is particularly important for the specific situation of the Canary Islands.
These are two positive points in the dialogue between the European Union and the countries of this region, and specifically, Morocco.
The third point, which I believe is new, is that there is no European policy on returning illegal immigrants to countries of origin or transit.
Therefore, the Commission intends to present Council and the European Parliament with a communication in the coming weeks on illegal immigration, which includes the issue of creating common standards for the policy on returning illegal immigrants.
When we have this communication, the honourable Member will be able to see the Commission' s ideas and contributions to this debate on the creation of a European policy on returning illegal immigrants, which is currently the exclusive competence of national or regional governments, as in the case of the Government of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands.
Question No 42 by (H-0792/01):
Subject: Inclusion of religion on new EU identity cards The recent terrorist attacks in the USA have given rise to intense debate over whether more detailed information about an individual's characteristics and origin should be included on identity cards in the Member States of the Union.
The Greek press reports that this issue will be discussed early next December in Brussels at the meeting of the Ministers of Justice, Internal Affairs and Public Order of the 15 Member States of the EU.
In the light of recent events, what is the Commission's view of including religion on the new identity cards to be introduced in the EU, as mentioned in the above reports?
Mr President, The European Commission has not submitted any proposal that seeks to have an individual' s religion included on his or her identity card.
In no Member State is the religion of an identity card holder mentioned on the card.
Lastly, the Republic of Greece has removed any mention of religion on identity cards and its initiative has been approved by the Greek Council of State, which considered that even the optional mention of religion on identity cards contravenes Article 13 of the Greek Constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion.
The Commission' s position with regard to the indication of religion on national identity cards has not changed.
We would ask the honourable Member to refer in particular to the answer the Commission gave to the oral question H-0456/00 by Mr Alavanos.
Such a measure would not only breach an individual' s right to freedom of religion, but could also lead to discrimination, whether overt or covert, on the grounds of religion.
Thank you Commissioner for your reply, but you did not answer my question as to whether the Ministers of Justice, Internal Affairs and Public Order of the fifteen are due to discuss the matter in their forthcoming meeting in Brussels.
That was my question.
My second comment is this: I absolutely agree on the sensitivity issue and, anyway, it is the common view in the European Parliament that the argument of religious identity should not be used as a factor which might cause problems if it is included; but I should like to ask if the European Union agrees that schools in the Member States of the European Union should do the same as the madrasses in Islamic countries and teach the view, and we see this on a daily basis, that Muslims should kill Christians and Jews and that this is a part of their religion.
I should like to ask, given that it is prohibited to teach Fascist or Nazi ideas about the annihilation of the Jews, if we can accept, on the contrary, that they be taught by Muslim fundamentalists in the light of the specific circumstances which have arisen following the attack on 11 September.
First of all, I have attempted to answer your question by saying that the Commission has not submitted any proposal on the matter.
This type of issue could not, therefore, be discussed at a Justice and Home Affairs Council on the basis of a Commission proposal.
As far as I am aware, nowhere on the agenda is a discussion scheduled on the issue that you raised at the meeting of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs of the European Union.
With regard to what I believe is your second question, the content of education provided by schools in Arab countries, if I have understood correctly, I must, of course, tell you that the Union has no competence at all to interfere in the content of school curricula of third countries.
Furthermore, even in schools within the European Union, as you are well aware, Mr Marinos, this falls within the sphere of subsidiarity, which means that it is within the exclusive competence of each Member State government to define the content of school lessons, both in state schools and in private schools, within the European Union.
Question No 43 by (H-0794/01):
Subject: Application of fundamentalist laws within the European Union With regard to a number of violations of women' s rights within the European Union justified by fundamentalism, is the Commission in favour of taking appropriate measures to prevent the implementation of laws incompatible with human rights? Can the Commission accept that basic human rights are violated on the pretext of religious beliefs, cultural practices or customs?
What steps will it consider taking in the short and long term?
The breaches of women' s rights to which the honourable Member refers come in different forms and should be considered on an individual basis.
Nevertheless, the Commission notes that, in accordance with Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union, the Union is founded on the principles of freedom, democracy, and respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the Rule of Law, principles shared by all Member States.
As confirmed at the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, in 1995, the promotion and protection of women' s rights are an integral part of universal human rights.
In no circumstances can the Commission accept the abuse of an individual' s fundamental rights under the guise of religious beliefs, cultural practices or customs.
This position is laid down by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Articles 1, 4, 21, 23, 24) and by the other texts dealing with fundamental rights, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Articles 2 and 5 ) and the European Convention on Human Rights (Articles 2, 3 and 14).
Item 18 of the Vienna Declaration, adopted in June 1993 by the World Conference on Human Rights, lays down that all forms of violence towards women, including those resulting from cultural prejudice, must be eliminated.
Regardless of national protection of fundamental rights and of women' s rights in particular, it should be noted that the Community has been working on a policy to promote equality between the sexes since 1975.
Equal access to the labour market, to governing bodies and to social rights are equally important rights in this respect, as well as the right to protection from violence and sexual harassment.
There is a raft of Community legislative measures, directives, and even case law from the Court of Justice, underpinned by a specific legal basis, Article 141 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.
Incidentally, Article 3 of this Treaty imposes the obligation of integrating concerns about equality between the sexes into all Union policies.
Thank you very much for your reply, Commissioner. It shows that the Commission has understood the problem.
As a supplementary question, I would like to know whether, in accordance with your reply, you foresee, or support the idea, that women immigrants should be informed of their rights within the European Union.
Could women immigrants be provided with services to defend their rights? I would like to hear your opinion and whether you have any intentions in this respect.
I am very happy to reply.
I will begin by saying that all the initiatives presented by the Commission in the field of asylum and illegal immigration contain specific legal rules to deal with the very special situation of women immigrants or women seeking asylum or refuge in the countries of the European Union.
We have ensured that in the questioning relating to the granting of asylum there are specific conditions for dealing with the situation of women.
For example, women who have been victims of sexual abuse can ask for the official doing the questioning to be changed, so that it is a woman rather than a man, because that will perhaps make them more feel more comfortable when recounting the story their asylum application is based on.
The honourable Member has raised a very important issue: informing immigrants of their rights.
Unquestionably, one of the Commission' s concerns is that it should be possible to provide immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers with the fullest possible information about their rights.
I believe that if the honourable Member examines the Commission' s specific proposals to the Council and the European Parliament, both with regard to immigration and to asylum, she will see that the idea of information about rights is present.
It is the responsibility of the national authorities of the Member States, as well as the non-governmental organisations which we work with very closely in these areas, to provide complete and full information on the rights which immigrants seeking asylum in the European Union can benefit from.
As the time allotted to questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 44 to 84 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was adjourned at 7.40 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Security of energy supply
The next item on the agenda is the report by Mr Chichester (A5-0363/2001) on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Commission Green Paper 'Towards a European strategy for the security of energy supply' [COM(2000) 769 - C5-0145/2001 - 2001/2071(COS)].
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the Commission on the Green Paper.
It is an excellent analysis of our energy supply situation in Europe.
I thank all my colleagues for the way in which they have contributed to my report to bring it to this stage this evening.
There are three main points in the Green Paper.
Firstly, the European Union will become increasingly dependent on external energy sources, reaching 70% by 2003.
Secondly, the EU has very limited scope to influence energy supply conditions so that it is on the demand side that the EU can intervene, mostly through promoting energy saving in buildings and in the transport sector.
Thirdly, in present circumstances the EU is not in a position to respond to the challenge of climate change and to meet its commitments, notably under the Kyoto Protocol.
One thing above all else is staring us in the face: the massive dependence on oil and on imported oil in particular.
For commonsense reasons of security of supply and protection of the environment, urgent steps should be taken to address this disproportionate dependence.
We cannot alter the fact of where the oil comes from, but we can do a number of things on the demand side, particularly in the transport sector.
Being dependent on imports is not necessarily a bad thing or economically inefficient, provided that the sources are diverse, no one supplier is dominant and we can produce sufficient goods and services to pay for them.
The Commission is correct to focus on demand management measures as a first priority and it is to be hoped that the Member States will pursue this approach vigorously.
However I do not accept the view that little or nothing can be done on the supply side.
In four areas the EU and Member States can be masters of their own destiny and make a real difference, both to security of supply and to protection of the environment.
Renewable energy sources are by definition indigenous supplies and we are correct to seek to increase their share of final consumption and electricity generation.
However let us be realistic,.
Even if the ambitious targets for RES are met, they cannot be expected to replace any of the other energy sources completely or become the sole supplier of all our energy needs.
Nuclear energy is not popular in some quarters, but it supplies more electricity in Europe than any other energy source.
It provides large volume, base load power and produces hardly any greenhouse gas emissions.
It is a safe and secure European technology, operated under stringent standards of regulation.
To deliberately deny ourselves this major source of electricity seems perverse in the absence of an alternative source of supply that can provide an equivalent volume.
Coal is a source of energy in decline in Europe, because of cost and environmental concerns.
Yet it is an important indigenous resource which could be given a new lease of life with new technology to make it more efficient and less pollutant.
Furthermore, there is huge scope for gaining business in the rest of the world for European suppliers of equipment and systems, if the industry can seize the opportunity.
The fourth area is research work for future technologies and energy systems.
That is something Europe must do in order to safeguard future security of supply, employment and technology.
It seems obvious but needs repeating.
For all the above reasons, I also disagree with the view that the EU cannot meet its Kyoto commitments.
What is needed is realism on the nuclear issue, determined effort on clean coal technology, much encouragement of RES and coordinated demand management measures, as well as a sustained effort to inform public opinion about the necessity to stop wasting energy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to congratulate the Commissioner and the rapporteur because the Green Paper on the security of energy supply is a wonderful document which is accompanied by a great report.
This document represents the first great step in Europe' s energy strategy; it offers a global view of the situation and raises all the relevant issues in this sector without reservations or conditions.
It states that our main problem is our supply, characterised by great external dependence, which will increase over the coming decades.
We must not leave aside environmental issues, however, which are inseparable from energy use.
In this respect, the directive adopted on renewable energy sources and the proposal on the promotion of biofuels are going to lead to great progress in terms of the diversification of the supply of clean energy, but they are not the solution in either the short or medium terms.
We must not hinder any type of energy, above all if it does not produce CO2 emissions.
The solutions, as the Commission points out very well, involve the diversification of supply sources, especially clean sources - those which do not produce greenhouse gases.
We must insist on technological research into energy sources, energy saving and the liberalisation of the gas sectors, in order that we may create a genuine internal energy market.
Furthermore, it would be good if the Treaties could include a chapter on energy.
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Chichester, on the remarkable work he has achieved in analysing the issue and making a proposal and to say that I fully subscribe to his realistic and pragmatic approach, which maintains a crucial balance between the various sources of energy in implementing a European policy for energy supply.
This strategy is based on three complementary objectives, which I support: to reduce the European Union' s energy consumption by improving efficiency in certain sectors, particularly the construction and automobile industries; greater cooperation and investment for supplying countries, the diversification of energy resources with what I consider to be an essential objective: to reduce our dependency on oil.
I am also very pleased that this report explains how these objectives are to be achieved, namely by liberalising the energy sector, and I should like to reiterate the need not to give in to populist rhetoric, especially where renewable energies and nuclear energy are concerned.
We must remain realistic and understand that, without the contribution made by nuclear energy, the European Union will not be able to reach the objectives it has set for itself for reducing greenhouse gases.
Compliance with the Kyoto criteria must be one of the European Union' s priority objectives.
This is within our grasp if we demonstrate clear thinking in our choices and I also note that the options available in the field of taxation could prove to be powerful incentives, provided that they do not block the development of industry in the European Union.
Several amendments by the group of the Greens are counter-productive.
Instead of stimulating debate, they exclude from the outset various possibilities for energy choices and I feel they should be rejected so as to maintain the coherence of this report.
I hope that we shall do so, following the recommendations of our rapporteur.
Mr President, I like this report, and would like to congratulate the rapporteur on what he has said and, moreover, congratulate the Commission on its Green Paper, for, by it, the Commission is making us aware of our dependence on energy.
I can recall no debate in the past twenty years which has pointed out our dependence on imported energy in the way this Green Paper has.
Thank you again.
I would like to make two observations on nuclear energy.
Unlike many in my group, I take the view that it has a future.
I believe that we should also express that in a positive way.
Secondly, and this is perhaps even more important than the first point, I would like to observe that we have been given the task of developing a clean coal-fired power station.
I say this also with reference to our obligations as a result of Kyoto.
A clean coal-fired power station is not only of interest to Europe, but also to the world.
For let us not forget, as the Commission repeatedly emphasised, that in the next one or two generations, our dependence on fossil energy, at any rate worldwide, will be up to 80% and it is all the more important to master combustion technologies.
Mr President, I also wish to express my thanks to Mr Chichester, the rapporteur, for his significant work in preparing this matter.
As has already been stated here on previous occasions, the EU has only limited possibilities to interfere with the terms and conditions of energy supply.
Its chances of influencing the matter are restricted to the demand, and hence to the promotion of energy saving in the construction and transport industries.
The most important things, therefore, are to ensure the diversity of energy sources and an even distribution of suppliers of energy.
The availability of energy on a local level enhances the reliability of energy supplies, reduces dependence on imported energy and provides employment opportunities.
In particular, research into and the use of renewable energy sources must be promoted.
Responsibility for assuring the reliability of energy supplies is primarily a matter for national energy policies.
In order to enhance the reliability of supplies, it is also necessary to enter into agreements with other countries.
Also, energy projects that serve common European objectives are an excellent way of putting into specific terms the EU' s policies on the Northern Dimension.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my own position and that of the Greens have been discussed at length in other forums, and it is not possible, in two and a half minutes to present a detailed argument.
I shall, therefore, limit myself to asking the Commissioner a few questions.
First of all, it is important that this debate should be based on figures that are as precise as possible.
Even at an early stage of the debate, it was clear that the various scenarios available to the Commission are not really 'bottom up' scenarios, for energy efficiency, for renewables, or for cogeneration.
Furthermore, another problem is that, often, European scenarios do not correspond to the detailed scenarios drawn up by Member States.
In this context, I should like to know whether the Commission has begun working on this type of scenario with a view to the Barcelona Summit.
Secondly, energy efficiency is everyone' s birthright and everyone is insisting on this point.
What is the Commission' s view today, in concrete terms, on the important actions to be taken in the field of energy efficiency? Parliament has put forward a number of alternatives, both in its Energy Intelligent Europe initiative, and in the action plan.
Nevertheless, since October, I have not seen the Commission making a genuine, sustained effort on this matter.
Thirdly, and this is a fundamental point, at the beginning of your presentation of the Green Paper, you promised us a real democratic debate.
Today, however, I see that the national round tables have not been entirely transparent and that, at European level, we are still waiting for an open and transparent debate to be held, something that you announced at the beginning as being a key element.
This is why I am asking you today, Commissioner, when will the round tables take place in civil society, amongst experts at European level? We have been hearing about them for the last six months, and we have yet to see one take place.
I fail to see how the Commission can ensure that the Green Paper is followed up without organising these round tables.
Mr President, we are all aware that the European Union is highly dependent on external energy sources and has very limited scope to influence energy supply conditions.
That does not mean, however, that the European Union should not do more to promote the use of alternative energies and safer and cleaner energies.
It must also play a leading role in ensuring that all the conditions of the Kyoto Protocol are implemented.
The broader international community has not covered itself in glory in the efforts to ensure that the depletion of the ozone layer is stopped.
This report refers to the fact that nuclear energy in Europe will be playing a less significant role, following the decisions by five Member States to phase out the use of nuclear energy in the future.
It also states that no country in Europe is currently constructing new nuclear reactors.
It would be greatly appreciated in Ireland if you would inform the British Government and BNFL of this fact.
The British Government is currently planning the expansion, not a reduction, of nuclear activities at Sellafield.
The MOX facility at Sellafield means more nuclear reprocessing, not less, and nobody in the British Government and BNFL can deny this.
In Ireland we are sick and tired of BNFL breaching so-called high standards of regulation in their nuclear operations.
We cannot easily forget that BNFL falsified documents in relation to nuclear reprocessing contracts with the Japanese Government.
Where are the stringent standards of regulation, when you are dealing with a company that has falsified documents and has been shown time and time again to operate its affairs in this very slipshod manner?
I believe that BNFL is technically insolvent.
Its liabilities for cleaning up after the closure of nuclear plants and the disposal of nuclear waste will be up to GBP 34 billion, while it has GBP 235m worth of shareholders' funds on its balance sheet.
What is the economic justification for the continuation of the Sellafield nuclear plant, let alone the expansion of its nuclear operations in the future?
Are the British people fully aware of the extent of movements of nuclear materials by rail and sea in Britain? In Ireland we are very concerned about the security arrangements at Sellafield in the light of the terrorist attacks in America on 11 September.
What assurances can the British Government give the people of Ireland that maximum security operates in the region? We know the type of devastation that would occur if a twin towers type attack were to take place at Sellafield.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Green Paper on the security of energy supply is fundamentally to be welcomed.
It deals with an acute problem, one directly linked with the world political situation, which is more extensively unpredictable than ever.
Despite the very large number of good statements, I cannot share the rapporteur's view that nuclear energy is a practical alternative to energy imports.
The reasons are well known.
Only recently, a study was completed, commissioned by Parliament, which comes to the conclusion that the reprocessing plants at La Hague and Sellafield discharge as much radioactivity over seven years as was emitted in the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
The problem of the ultimate disposal of radioactive waste has not been resolved.
Nor does nuclear fusion offer a solution.
It therefore makes more sense to invest in safe and renewable energy sources than in nuclear fusion, which can achieve results in 100 years at best.
Mr President, if a good policy consists of producing complete and correct diagnoses and drawing up and implementing the corresponding solutions, there is no doubt that the Commissions' energy policy, promoted by Commissioner de Palacio, is an example of a good policy.
Within this good policy, the Green Paper provides a detailed and consistent analysis of the situation.
The Green Paper provides four fundamental messages: the message that there is excessive risk associated with dependence on external sources beyond a reasonable limit; the message that it will be impossible to comply with the Kyoto objectives if we remain bogged down in inertia and do not introduce corrective measures; the message that we have little room for manoeuvre in terms of supply policies and we must concentrate our efforts on demand policies; and the message that we need to provide our energy policy with a genuinely European dimension.
There is no doubt that this good policy goes further than diagnosis, because the Commission demonstrates that analysis and action can be simultaneous; and in Parliament at the moment we have the directive on the energy efficiency of buildings, the directive on transport, the directive on the liberalisation of the gas and electricity market and the regulation on cross-border exchanges of electricity.
For all these reasons, we must congratulate the Commissioner and I will not end without also expressly congratulating our rapporteur, Mr Chichester, on his well-considered report and his receptiveness to the work of his colleagues.
Mr President, honourable colleagues, I praise the part of the report where this gas pipeline link with Russia has been incorporated in the Northern Dimension.
Honourable Member of the Commission, I propose that the Commission take swift measures in order to get this northern gas to balance our energy situation.
A great deal of attention in this presentation has been given to lignite.
I should like to ask, therefore, why peat, although it renews itself by a millimetre every year, has been completely forgotten; but then, peat is a type of vegetation found in poorer areas, while lignite is found in wealthier ones!
Nevertheless, peat is an important fuel component in remote areas, and it is also a regional fuel.
Forty per cent of all energy is spent in buildings, to heat them, to provide water, air-conditioning and lighting for them.
Already, during the previous energy crisis, we in Finland had to make modifications to buildings and we have managed to achieve good results in severe conditions.
We must greatly enhance energy efficiency in buildings because that is where there really is a great deal of room for improvement.
We shall have to gradually get accustomed to twilight conditions, for example.
It is great to live in semi-darkness and not always in the sunshine, in artificial light.
Mr President, successive petrol crises and the political and social fragility of the main oil-producing countries demonstrate the importance for our economies of the concept of self-sufficiency in energy.
Unless we show a solid political will to implement this self-sufficiency, our future lies in the direction of energy dependency.
If we allow things to continue the way they are, in 25 years' time, the European Union' s dependency on external sources of energy will reach 70% rather than the 50% we have today.
This realisation is what underlies the Green Paper.
If we wish to remain masters of our destiny, we must give priority to action on two fronts.
We must, on the one hand, encourage energy savings wherever possible. On the other hand, we must make good use of our advantages, our skills and our resources.
With this in mind, and as the Green Paper and our rapporteur suggest, in a realistic rather than an ideological way, we should address the issue of developing nuclear energy.
This would require acknowledging that this form of energy cannot be faulted in terms of creating greenhouse gases but also that intensive research efforts are absolutely crucial if we are to make waste end products completely harmless, even if they only exist in low volumes.
Blaming reprocessing processes, as the WISE report, commissioned by the STOA and of highly dubious scientific merit, has done once again, will not help us find a solution.
Instead of allowing their technological lead to stagnate, the European countries should capitalise on it, particularly by focusing their research on improving reprocessing and recycling techniques.
The same research effort must be made in the field of biofuels, which have the merit of representing a major indigenous source of energy for us: these are non-polluting and offer promising outlets for our farming.
I am sorry that the Green Paper has not given this matter sufficient prominence.
Mr President, here we are, all worried about our dependence on imported fuels and energy, worried about the future of our economy and our jobs, and yet we have Mr Fitzsimons and Mr Kronberger bemoaning and belittling one of the main potential sources for meeting that problem, the nuclear energy solution. Not only does it meet our energy and economic requirements, but it also meets our environmental requirements under Kyoto.
I would say - and Mr Chichester's excellent report bears this out - that unless we diversify our sources of supply of energy, especially by promoting indigenous supplies of energy, we will be in trouble with our economy and our jobs in the future.
Nuclear energy must play a significant part in both those ambitions: diversification and indigenous supplies.
There are other areas as well.
Mr Chichester mentioned coal.
We must promote clean technologies in coal.
In my part of the world, in Scotland, we would like to see more emphasis on promoting the oil and gas industries and their potential for better recovery systems, for exploration in marginal areas, for developing marginal oil and gas fields, for replenishing the reserves, the reservoirs in the south part of the North Sea, with gas in the meantime to protect us for the long term, and particularly transmission systems.
That applies not only to oil and gas but also to electricity.
In all these areas there is great potential for research.
That ties us into what we will discuss tomorrow in the Caudron report on the Sixth Framework Programme.
In all these areas, diversification, indigenous supplies and research will help us to meet our objectives.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wished to speak in this evening' s debate for two reasons.
First of all, I too wish to reiterate the importance of energy for Europe at a time when it is predicted that we will be 70% dependent on external energy sources in 2030 with clearly very little room for manoeuvre.
Next I wish to stress that I entirely support the approach of Mr Chichester, who is proposing both a diversification of energy sources and the development of all current sources without exception.
These proposals do, of course, make calls for liberalisation that I would probably have rejected had they appeared in isolation.
They are presented today, however, in a very broad range of demands, some of which are extremely bold and that is why I am able to support the package put forward by Mr Chichester, whom I wish to compliment on his report.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to express much thanks to Mr Chichester.
Very rarely have I seen reports on energy of this calibre.
The Commission Green Paper was already first-rate, but with this supplement I believe we have many sound building blocks for the EU' s energy policy.
The greatest concern, of course, is, as Mr Chichester rightly points out, our energy dependence and the question 'what can be done about it?'
In my view, therefore, the well-balanced package in the Chichester report offers an excellent helping hand.
That means that one should not only consider natural oil and gas supplies, but also new forms of energy.
That one should consider renewable energy sources, but that one should not immediately rule out nuclear energy.
Certainly with regard to the way in which its use can be made safer.
That is certainly feasible, and a great deal needs to be done yet.
One cannot say that nuclear energy is no longer acceptable, for then one gets into the greatest difficulty in Europe.
Something must also be done about those aspects which give rise to questions, of course, and on that score too, a great deal can be done, partly by finding intelligent solutions.
It has been said time and again: if there is no energy chapter, then nothing can be done.
Well, if I read Paragraph 21, which merely sums up all elements of the EU policy that can be achieved at the moment, that is an enormous agenda.
On that score, our Commissioner has a great deal of work to do.
Energy and geopolitical developments are closely related, particularly if we consider the developments after 11 September.
I therefore hope that the energy charter will be ratified at the earliest opportunity and that we will further develop the Caspian Sea Basin, for in that way, we can also slightly reduce Europe' s dependence.
I should like to finish off by congratulating both the Commissioner and our rapporteur on their sterling work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Chichester, and congratulating him warmly on the quality of his work and his efforts to produce a truly remarkable report.
I am aware of the scale of this challenge, given both the size and complexity of the issue itself and the number and diversity of the parties affected by it, inside and outside Parliament.
When I speak of the security of energy supply, I am not just referring to the physical supply, but also to energy systems and services which are ecologically, socially and economically sustainable.
In this respect, the security of energy supplies is essential to our development and security in the broadest sense, and recent events have demonstrated this even more clearly.
In fact, the tragic events of 11 September have highlighted our dependency on imports and the security of our installations.
The risk factor has multiplied overnight: the risk of premeditated damage to installations and infrastructures, the risk of volatility on the oil markets (with its prejudicial effect on the world economy) and the risk of interruption to our supply, both internal and external.
All of this means that it is more important than ever to provide appropriate measures for responding in the event of emergency.
It is encouraging to note from the responses to the Green Paper - more than 150 formal responses from different organisations of all types - the interest in issues relating to the security of energy supply throughout Europe and beyond.
I am pleased that the Commission' s analysis has received general support and that there is a considerable degree of awareness of the risks and problems faced by Europe in terms of guaranteeing the security of the energy supply and the international nature of those risks and problems.
This is reflected in the excellent report you have before you.
Many respondents have accepted that it is no longer possible to view energy supply as being independent from economic and environmental objectives.
Furthermore, a series of points in the report confirm that the European Parliament has clearly understood that there is a close link between these three objectives and the balance between them must be maintained.
The responses also confirm that European public opinion shares the Commission' s desire to confront the problem of climate change.
I am pleased to see that the European Parliament not only shares this concern, but that it has many ideas on the instruments which may help us to achieve this objective.
We will carefully study these ideas when we prepare our response to the consultation on the Green Paper.
I am not going to refer to it at the moment, but I would like to state very clearly, ladies and gentlemen, that the issue has given rise to debates in numerous national Parliaments, in some of which either I or high level officials from the Commission have participated, and in various universities, companies and non-governmental organisations, thanks, amongst other things, to the use of the Internet, which is a vehicle for openness within society, which, although not yet concluded, gives us an idea of the importance of this issue in all social fields of the European Union.
I am especially pleased to highlight the insistence on energy efficiency.
Like you, I believe that there are huge areas for possible improvements.
Your ideas are clear, in relation to the supply, in the context of the general recognition that there should be diversification of energy sources and supply origins.
As the report accepts, no individual source is completely lacking in drawbacks: they all have a cost and they all seem necessary.
With regard to coal, we have no alternative but to maintain basically subsidised production, at least for a certain amount of time.
In any event, the Commission' s proposed regulation confirms the importance we attach to own-production, but, above all, the importance of developing clean coal technology, which will allow us to use the only ample reserve of fossil fuel that the European Union has and promote the possibility of improving and reducing emissions internationally.
In this way, furthermore, we will maintain cutting-edge technology which offers all sorts of possibilities for our industry.
With regard to renewable energy sources, their importance will depend on the speed with which we can overcome a whole series of technical, social and economic obstacles.
The renewable energies directive, in relation to electricity, offers a guide for the direction we should take.
I know that we have been criticised for not making sufficient progress with this directive, but we are still trying to achieve our objective of doubling the percentage of renewable energy sources by the end of this decade.
In this respect, ladies and gentlemen, I refer to the previous intervention by Mr Souchet, we approved a few days ago an important and ambitious proposal on biofuels, which I hope will be approved and supported both by the Council and by Parliament.
With regard to nuclear energy, I am very satisfied with the frank and constructive exchange of views which the presentation of the Green Paper has made possible.
Some Member States have announced a moratorium or the progressive dismantling of their capacity for nuclear generation.
But one Member State has clearly stated its intention to go ahead with nuclear energy and to build a new reactor.
In any event, the abandonment of nuclear energy by some Member States may make a significant hole in our energy capacity and speed up the use of forms of energy generation which emit more greenhouse gases and, therefore, create problems in terms of our Kyoto commitments.
Although I have total respect for the decisions taken by the Member States, naturally, I believe that in these circumstances it is very difficult to confront the problem of climate change if we maintain a diversified energy base.
I believe that it is advisable to keep all the options open while the research into the management and elimination of waste is intensified and that is essentially the greatest problem with nuclear energy, given the progress made in terms of the safety of nuclear plants.
The debate on the Green Paper is still open.
It is therefore premature to anticipate its final conclusions.
However, the Commission is continuing, and will continue, to make proposals in the quest for new perspectives on energy supply.
We are working with you and the Council on the internal market legislation relating to one of the pillars of our strategy, in terms of both gas and electricity.
We must continue looking into the tax framework and pricing and, specifically, the guarantee of a mechanism for setting energy prices which reflects all the quantifiable external social and environmental costs.
Also in this field, we will shortly present certain energy network interconnections which will further integrate the national markets and therefore strengthen the security of the whole market resulting from this integration.
Furthermore, I hope soon to present a proposal on the combined generation of heat and electricity, which will allow us to make progress in the battle for efficiency.
Somebody said earlier that we have done little.
But I would remind you, ladies and gentlemen, of a proposal on buildings, which is very important (buildings represent 40% of energy consumption, and there are margins for savings of almost 20%), the proposal we will present to improve the current regulation on combined generation of heat and electricity, and a general proposal, a framework proposal, which will provide measures for all types of electrodomestic or electrical equipment within buildings.
With regard to demand, the benefits of energy saving which have been raised are clear and, I insist, we have presented many serious, solid and important initiatives, and we are going to present those which I have just mentioned.
With regard to transport and its effect on demand, the Commission makes a very detailed analysis in the White Paper, of which I have mentioned some important aspects when I spoke about the proposal on biofuels which was approved last week.
The report also clearly recognises the international nature of the challenges relating to energy supply.
The increase in our dependency, not only on oil, but also on gas, makes it essential that we study the broader geopolitical repercussions of the current market situation.
The Commission intends to produce a report on this issue next year; of course, we would like to use the opportunities offered by the Sixth research and development framework programme and the successor to the energy framework programme as instruments for supporting our strategy.
Ladies and gentlemen, the security of the energy supply is an inextricable element of a balanced social and economic development.
The debate on the Green Paper has highlighted, as never before, the delicate interrelationship between energy needs, environmental objectives and balanced economic development.
Many of the ideas presented in this report may be important elements in guaranteeing the security of our energy supply.
As I have explained, some of them have already been implemented, but they are not yet a defined strategy.
Europe needs to establish a stable long-term framework to guarantee the security of energy supply, which can deal with changes in international economic and environmental circumstances, and which creates a firm basis for the future role of Europe on the international stage.
Bearing this in mind, I would like to use the European Council in Barcelona next spring as a launch pad for a European strategy on energy supply, and you can rest assured that, in drawing up this strategy, the ideas contained in this report will be taken into account.
I hope to have further opportunities to debate this idea with you.
I would like to congratulate Mr Chichester once again on his wonderful report and the work he has done.
I also congratulate and thank Mrs Ayuso for her opinion on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, and I thank everybody who has spoken on this report and this debate.
I promise that we will continue working on it when the conclusions closing the general debate on the Green Paper produced by the Commission are finally presented.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Mr Turmes, on a point of order.
I asked the Commissioner two very specific questions and I am rather disappointed that she has not managed to give me an answer.
One question concerned possible scenarios and the other concerned round tables.
Sir, that may well be the case, but that is not a point of order.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Chemicals strategy
The next item on the agenda is the report (A5-0356/2001) by Mrs Schörling on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the Commission White Paper on Strategy for a future Chemicals Policy [COM(2001) 88 - C5-0258/2001 - 2001/2118(COS)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report on the strategy for the future chemicals policy, which we are to discuss and adopt positions on in this debate, is extremely urgent and important because it will form the basis for a draft legislative text and for new framework legislation for the EU' s chemicals policy.
Gratifyingly enough, the European Council decided, at the Gothenburg Summit in June, that a new chemicals policy would have to be introduced by 2004 at the latest and that this time limit would have to be respected.
The Commission must therefore table its draft legislation in the course of 2002.
The debate on deficiencies in the current chemicals policy has been going on for quite some time.
Among the criticisms made is the fact that there has been a lack of information about the majority of the 100 000 existing chemicals, that the work has proceeded far too slowly and that the present policy has, in practice, failed to protect human health and the environment.
The Commission' s survey of the legislation on existing substances shows that human beings and the environment are potentially exposed to a large number of chemical substances whose dangerous characteristics are not known.
We know that the human body contains measurable quantities of 350 chemicals.
We also know that the quantity of brominated flame retardants in breast milk has been increasing each year.
Even if PCB and DDT are now surrounded by tough restrictions, it remains the case that high quantities of these chemicals are still found in the fatty tissue of human beings and animals throughout the world, even in the Polar regions where these chemicals have not been produced at all.
New chemicals are added to the list, for example PFOS or perfluorooctane sulfonate, which does not bind in fatty tissue but, rather, in blood protein.
These chemicals are found in a number of products, for example shampoo.
Through the regulation adopted by the Council in order to overcome the deficiencies, detailed risk assessments should be carried out and recommendations made as to measures, etc. which might be taken.
We now know that there are only 140 chemicals on the 'priority list' and that risk assessments have been completed in only eleven cases.
Even worse is the fact that not a single measure has been decided upon in order to reduce the risks, in spite of its having been shown that such measures are needed for the majority of these substances.
The Commission' s White Paper, produced by the Environment and Enterprise Directorates-General, is trying to create a high degree of health and environmental protection, at the same time as maintaining the competitiveness of the European chemicals industry.
This is done, for example, by saying that chemicals policy must stimulate technical innovation and the development of safer chemicals.
In common with the majority of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I believe that the strategy should be focused on the protection of the environment and of human health and that the point of departure for the Commission' s White Paper should be the debate in the Council and the growing unease about the fact that current chemicals policy cannot offer adequate protection of the environment and of human health.
Naturally, the economic and social aspects must be accorded a fair degree of importance as parts of a strategy for sustainable development.
If a majority of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy voted for a proposal that goes further than the Commission' s and shows how an effective, open and consumer-friendly control of chemicals should look in the future, that is completely in line with, and receives strong political support from, the European Council Summit in June when the conclusions drawn by the 15 Member States were significantly stricter and more far-reaching than the Commission' s proposal.
There is therefore an express political will to adopt the policy for a new chemicals strategy proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, above all when it comes to the scope of the REACH system.
As currently desired by the industry and the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, only CMR 1 and 2 and POPs are to be included which, in that case, cannot be said to be much in the way of a strategy for the future.
Even among industrial companies there is a desire to go further, for a competitive industry cannot be achieved through the unacceptable situation we have at present but only by producing safer chemicals and chemicals that protect human health and the environment.
I therefore believe that we should stick to the compromise achieved between the various political groups and to the proposal backed by the majority.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
(DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 11 October the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market adopted my opinion on the White Paper on Strategy for a future Chemicals Policy.
Harmonisation of chemicals policy across the EU is especially important, but the following three aspects are no less significant.
First, the practicability of the registration system.
The amount of data to be collected means we must keep a sense of proportion in order that the system is not congested from the start.
The principle of proportionality is also to be applied to the required definition of use, so that the manufacturer of a product must be able to restrict the definition to actually intended purposes.
Secondly, a clear definition of the substitution principle.
The definition of this principle varies from one Member State to another, if they have one at all.
If it is to be laid down in Community law, it will have to be formulated in a consistent and unambiguous way.
Thirdly, appropriate protection for test data.
Insufficient account is taken of the need to guard commercial confidentiality.
At the same time, the security data document should be under copyright in order to protect the applicant against misuse of the data obtained.
Mrs Schörling's report is to that extent unbalanced.
It takes too little account of the interests of medium-sized chemical businesses and of the industry as a whole, something that can lead to distortions in competition.
I therefore recommend adoption of the amendments resulting from the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, which contribute to a better balance of the interests of all interested parties.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
(DE) Mr President, the Commission's White Paper has the ambitious intention of comprehensively modernising EU law on materials and products.
It is fundamentally right to unite, in legal terms, old and new materials and combine them with standardised registration and evaluation procedures for all materials over one tonne per annum in a strict time concept by 2012.
This fundamental line taken by the White Paper strengthens sole responsibility for chemicals management in the industry and takes past experience with individual items of legislation as the basis for proposing a comprehensive reorientation.
Parliament's Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has adopted this report by a large majority.
The consequences of the White Paper's proposals for competitiveness, international trade, employment and medium-sized businesses had not previously been sufficiently examined, and further studies are still required.
In addition, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy expressed the view that legislation should be made to apply not to the attributes of materials but only to actual, scientifically verifiable risks.
Amounts are merely auxiliary quantities.
What is crucial is the amount of risk involved.
The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy therefore demands a two-stage screening process.
We expressly reject the following suggestions made by the rapporteur of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy: that sensitising substances be included in the approval procedure; that approval be granted only for a limited period; that the registration requirement should apply to all amounts under one tonne; that the public be given unrestricted access to all data; that there should be extensive prohibitions on materials; that extensive data and evaluations to be submitted by the industry should be subject to additional examination by peer review; and a number of other points.
A massive extension of the approval procedure would run quite counter to our common goal of reducing animal experiments.
The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy therefore takes a rational line, as demanded by both trades unions and employers in the European chemical industry.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission proposal on chemical policy. It is long overdue.
For too long we have seen a gradual increase in allergenic reactions and even worse human health effects and at the same time a series of undesirable effects on the general environment.
If we adopt this report, we will be taking a first step towards asking a very important question: whether the 30 000 chemicals in general use today and the 100 000 components that they are used to make are in any way responsible for the things we see happening to human health and the world around us.
There is no doubt that we will have to make a very wide-ranging examination of the chemicals in use today and those that we might want to introduce into our environment in the future.
We will have to start considering issues and areas that we have not previously considered.
Socio-economic issues will be particularly important.
The full effects of changing our chemicals policy and strategy will be wide-ranging across the whole of Europe.
However, one would hope that, by taking a serious step forward tonight and starting to formulate a new structure for chemicals policy, we will arrive at a policy which is truly sustainable in the long term; which brings genuine and positive benefits to society as a whole; ends any negative impacts upon human health in the environment and stands as a shining example to other parts of the world as to how they should progress in future.
So tonight we are taking a step not just towards a cleaner and better European environment and a stronger and more prosperous chemical industry in Europe but also towards a healthier and better future for the whole world.
Mr President, I hope the Commissioner has caught up on her sleep after another succesful climate change conference.
It all seemed very easy when the Commissioner first put the plan to us.
She said that we use tens of thousands of chemicals in Europe.
They are essential to our way of life but there is very little public information about them and the real fear is that some of them may be causing long-term damage to the environment and human health.
So we must get the information, we must carry out the tests and, while keeping the good and maintaining a strong European chemicals industry, we must identify the bad and weed them out.
But that was a few months ago.
In the meantime all of us have learnt a great deal from the lobbyists about the difficulties of putting the policy into practice, as is well illustrated by the difficulty of identifying even the number of chemicals we are talking about.
Sometimes we hear of 30 000, sometimes of 100 000 - quite a big difference.
At least the chemical industry says it is in favour and supports the Commission's objectives, but it warns that the proposals are impractical, will increase bureaucracy and will be immensely costly.
The testing regime, it says, will cause paralysis of the whole system, especially if we extend the requirements.
Millions of animals will be killed painfully and perhaps unnecessarily in order to meet the testing requirements.
All these concerns need to be taken into account.
When the draft directive comes before us, I will be listening very carefully to industry's complaints.
I recognise that in environmental matters we often hear industry crying wolf, but even so we must ensure that new requirements placed upon the companies are realistic and practical and that they enhance rather than damage a very important business.
This is only a White Paper.
In making recommendations, I support Mrs Schörling in asking the Commission to strengthen its environmental commitments, rather than relax them.
But in reality we will probably end up following the Council of Ministers in passing the buck back to the Commission, asking you to find a way around the obstacle course and giving an absolute guarantee that we will criticise you, whatever proposals you come up with.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report is a milestone for environmental and consumer protection, areas in which chemical policy to date has completely failed.
Hundreds of thousands of chemicals have been on the market for decades and we do not know in what quantities they are available and what risks they present.
It is as if the precautionary principle was trodden underfoot; these chemicals were, without controls, tested on us and on the environment.
Amounts totalling under 1 000 tonnes per annum are not even notifiable, regardless of the dangers involved.
We have, then, for decades been playing Russian roulette with our health and with the environment.
We must put an end to this frightening, indeed irresponsible, situation as soon as possible.
If the industry does not put the data on the table within a specified period of time, these chemicals will no longer be allowed to be put on the market.
I hope the majority in this House will not allow itself to be made the lackey of the chemical industry, for the aggressive advertising of the German chemical industry in accusatory mode has clearly shown it to be too helpless and incapable of presenting valid arguments at a political level.
Complaints about shop closures, raised even by Members of this House, are a positive joke in view of the way the chemical industry, while increasing production in real terms by 25% over the past ten years, brought about a reduction of 14% in its workforce - without a chemical policy along the lines proposed by the White Paper, and we know all too well that the chemical industry only has the chance to offer long-term employment if it offers for sale products that do not harm the environment.
Only then can the chemical industry's position be strengthened.
We will fight for the new chemical policy as the central point of European policy on the environment.
I believe this is about putting an end to decades of the 'ostrich with its head in the sand' policy and implementing a chemical policy which is effective and has a future, a policy which puts health interests and the precautionary principle in first place.
Mr President, the EU' s chemicals policy requires a thorough renovation and a single, new and comprehensive set of regulations.
Mrs Schörling' s report from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which we are now discussing, provides an excellent point of departure for a new chemicals policy.
With this report as a basis, the Commission should quickly be able to table proposals for a new directive.
The strength of the report is that it really puts the environment and public health first, and that must be our main task.
We also believe that industry has a lot to gain from strict regulations in as much as they encourage modern manufacturers, promote innovation and mean that old chemicals that have not been investigated are no longer promoted, as they are in fact at present.
The following points in the report are especially important to our group. Firstly, the proposal as to which chemicals are to be included under the requirements for registration, evaluation and authorisation should be made more comprehensive, as proposed.
Secondly, tough requirements should be made of chemicals, and of products containing chemicals, when these are imported.
Thirdly, everything must be done to minimise the number of animal experiments.
Fourthly, the substitution principle should be made a crucial component of chemicals policy.
Great importance should be attached to this so that safer alternatives will always be sought.
Fifthly, use of the most hazardous chemicals of all should be considerably restricted.
Our group is pleased with the committee' s proposals.
We nonetheless have some minor amendments we believe could further strengthen the report.
We wish to emphasise the demand that it should be those departments of the Commission with responsibility for environmental protection that should approve new chemicals.
It is also a question of further tightening up the requirements made of the most hazardous chemicals of all.
In the committee, the rapporteur chose a very sound and open method of working which gave all the political groups the opportunity to compromise at an early stage, and I think that that is something positive.
Mr President, it is high time the chemicals strategy were reviewed, for only 11 of the 140 substances on the priority list have been assessed to date.
However, we should take care, in our enthusiasm, not to bite off more than we can chew.
Of course, I too would welcome a complete overhaul, but in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, the Commission has already warned that if the chemical substances policy is overloaded, the ship will sink.
That seems to me reason enough to remove some of the cargo from the ship.
In concrete terms, I mean that the substances below one tonne should remain outside the scope of the new policy for the time being.
Furthermore, the ship is reeling from side to side, swaying from a stringent policy on the one hand to the wish to take generous account of social and economic effects on the other.
This half-heartedness can be avoided by prioritising the most harmful substances.
In that way, the benefits for the environment and public health will be the greatest, and the social and economic effects on industry will automatically be contained.
We therefore no longer need to pull the wool over the eyes of industry by positing that the new policy will improve innovation and businesses' competitive edge.
Finally, I am of the opinion that the generally recognised criteria for harmfulness, namely dosage and use, need to be maintained.
Mr President, the principles underlying the strategy for a future EU policy on chemical substances, namely to ensure a high level of protection for human health and the environment while ensuring the efficient functioning of the internal market and stimulating innovation and competitiveness in the chemical industry, receive my unqualified support.
However, I am struggling with the White Paper and also with Mrs Schörling' s report, because I believe that the White Paper is not effective on a number of scores.
Although Mrs Schörling has worked hard, she too is complicating matters.
Let me therefore give a few examples of a system which, in my view, could function.
I know that the Commissioner too has been informed by the Dutch government about where industry initially refused point blank to adopt the new system entitled SOMS. However, industry and the government are now very happy with this system.
Allow me to give you a few examples and in doing so, expose a few weaknesses in the White Paper.
First of all, the industry' s responsibility.
Lip service is being paid to this, for the White Paper is limited to risk assessment data and to providing information to downstream users.
Responsibility should really be placed with industry, and that means, therefore, that it must also be able to take risk-restricting measures off its own bat.
The entire system proposed by you, including heavy-handed interference from the powers that be, has proven that it does not work.
That is why a change is needed.
Secondly, the reach system should be modified.
In any case, a possibility for rapid screening must be introduced.
Rapid screening can also be done on the basis of a harmfulness profile, for the tonnage is not a determining factor.
My fellow MEPs and I have tried to include these provisions in amendments, and I hope that at least Amendments Nos 102 and 103 will be adopted accordingly.
Mr President, Europe needs a new strategy for dealing with the issues surrounding chemicals.
We are concerned here with the health of all of us, as well as with that of future generations.
The Commission' s White Paper is a good point of departure for continued work on the strategy.
Mrs Schörling' s report creates good conditions for bringing about necessary changes.
It is exceptionally important that Parliament adopt the report in such a form that it have the same thrust given to it by the rapporteur.
In the debate that took place while the report was coming to fruition, many objections expressed the fear that stricter regulations would put jobs and economic development at risk.
That is an anxiety which must, of course, be taken entirely seriously but, at the same time, it is necessary to raise one' s sights and look beyond jobs and the economy.
Economic growth and access to jobs can never be invoked to prevent necessary requirements concerning the use of chemicals, work on achieving sustainable development and a high level of protection of public health and of employees.
What is the use of jobs and a sound economy if we poison our countryside and destroy what is essential for future generations? We have only one earth and we must take care of it.
We often say that we have the earth on loan from our children.
If we are to be able to hand it over in good condition, it is high time that we modified our way of life.
It is in a number of capacities that, as human beings, we are affected by the ways in which chemicals are used.
We are affected as employees and as consumers, and we are affected by persistent and bioaccumulative substances which can give rise to hypersensitivity, hormone changes, cancer etc.
The regulations which now have to be devised must, in the first place, be aimed at protecting individual people and not, as now, companies' interest in making profits.
A society characterised by sustainable development also provides lasting employment, a sustainable living environment and people able to have faith in the future.
In that way, a better world can be created.
Mr President, Commissioner, there is no doubt that the European Union must, with the passing of time, equip itself with a new chemical policy. The one we have at present is unsatisfactory.
There had been advance indications that there would be a vast array of tests, but the overall test result is unsatisfactory.
The Commission's principled involvement is therefore to be welcomed even if we cannot support every aspect of its proposal.
There is, though, something of which I must warn you. You, too, Commissioner, are on my mind today in particular.
When you introduced yourself to us, you announced that the experience of your own country led you to want to establish a new policy on chemicals in Europe.
My impression is that today, like Goethe's Faust, you have conjured up something you cannot control.
What the rapporteur, Mrs Schörling, has presented is not a proposal about environmental policy.
It is a classic export of pollution, as many enterprises that are already being marginalised by the European Union will move themselves very quickly even nearer to its boundary and indeed also outside the EU in order to save themselves these unimaginable impositions.
This cannot be a modern environmental policy.
Rather, we must take this branch of industry with us in integrating high but feasible standards.
I believe that the aspects already mentioned - temporary approval, obligatory regulation under 1000 kilos, the principle of substitution and regulation of use as well - are an attempt at multiple protection, for every owner of a medium-sized business is being enslaved, because only industry can now meet the obligations which your proposal envisages.
I believe that this proposal should be sent back to the Commission, but certainly not to the rapporteur, whom I otherwise greatly respect and who, on this occasion, has thoroughly disappointed me.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the enormous amount of work she has done, but I do not congratulate her on the content of the report.
Mr Lange, I know we are talking about a White Paper, but this White Paper sketches a mere initial outline of our views, and when we in the PPE-DE express our opinions, we like our subsequent actions to be consistent with them.
It is no good saying one thing now and then doing the opposite when the time comes to legislate.
Let this be clear: this is a major sector of industry, the leading sector or one of the leading sectors in Europe.
This sector employs millions of people and includes tens of thousands of small businesses.
However, it is also a sector that is causing concern in society because there are 100 000 unknown chemicals being used, and it is therefore right that we should respond to this concern.
That is why we consider the Commission' s proposal and the White Paper to be a good starting point, in that it gives us a procedure, a goal and targets to achieve.
We welcome the industry' s willingness to bear the cost of this operation of sifting the good chemicals from the bad and providing information.
However, what we do not support is the unnecessary expansion, the complicated procedures of expansion, the extension to too vast a range of substances, the use of scientific grounds which are too vague as the basis for forming opinions, which is what the Schörling report advocates.
This, ladies and gentlemen, not only harms the chemical industry but also jeopardises the environmental objective we have set ourselves.
As the Romans used to say, 'The best is the enemy of the good' .
Let us steer clear of such at times populist, at times fundamentalist attitudes, for our shared, common objective of protecting health and the environment in a sustainable economy against precisely an excess of, so to speak, overexhaustive initiatives, is in jeopardy.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to welcome the White Paper.
In reality, we are aware of the effects upon the environment and public health of only a very small proportion of the hundred thousand chemicals that exist.
I think it is a serious problem for the EU' s environmental and public health policies that a combined strategy for chemicals policy was not implemented many years ago.
Now, however, it has arrived as something I very much welcome.
I should also like to thank Mrs Schörling for an outstanding report which tightens up the Commission' s proposal in some crucial ways, ways which, in my opinion, could well be adopted without changes.
That is not, however, going to happen.
The industry, and others, have also made their influence felt here in Parliament, and the result we shall adopt tomorrow will not be quite as good as it might have been.
I should like to point out some of the substantial improvements contributed by Parliament.
We are having a very great deal of emphasis placed upon the precautionary and substitution principles.
This constitutes a reversal of the burden of proof.
With what is also the Commission' s point of departure, we are now acquiring a stricter system - with, importantly in my view, some clear deadlines - for regulating, phasing out and authorising chemicals.
It is also important that we should have an extended list of hazardous substances that are to be phased out.
Finally, I should also like to highlight the issue of animal experiments.
I think that, in this area, a very important contribution has been made, including by the Liberals, to getting the issue of restricting animal experiments onto the agenda. That is something I am very pleased to be able to support, including in the vote tomorrow.
There are many substantial advances which ought to be included in the forthcoming legislation, and I shall therefore merely ask the Commissioner, finally, when the Commission' s proposal for joint legislation is to be tabled?
I understood it was to have been early next year, but it would be splendid if we could have a fairly clear date made known in this House today.
Mr President, I too appreciate the work of the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on a genuinely advanced strategy.
Parliament is thereby making a major contribution, applying the approach of sustainable development in all its inseparable dimensions, environmental, social and economic, to the chemical industry.
In this report, protecting the environment and safeguarding human health go hand in hand and it is intended to maintain the competitiveness of the chemical industry through incentives to support innovation and facilitate the gradual replacement of the most hazardous substances.
Other improvements can be included tomorrow if we adopt the amendments tabled by Mr Lange and other Members, benefiting smaller business, in particular.
This is a prevention strategy, then, and not just a strategy of acting in retrospect, when the damage has already been done, but it is also a strict, rigorous strategy.
That is why the reference to environmental responsibility must be accorded due importance. This is a principle which must also be recognised as important in those countries in which safeguarding health and safety in the workplace and protecting the environment are not always given due consideration.
I refer to the recent decision which failed to condemn the Porto Marghera petrochemical plant and let the directors of Montedison Enimont get off scot-free, even though they were responsible for the death of 157 workers and the disastrous pollution of the Venice lagoon and the surrounding land, a decision against which the Italian government should appeal.
Mr President, we need to be clear that chemicals can be good for you.
You only have to look around this chamber at the carpets, chairs, desks, paint, steel and glass to see how much we depend on them.
However they can also be bad for you.
Some insecticides, flame retardants and even hair sprays can be a danger and we need to be wary of them.
Chemicals can certainly present a risk if they are mishandled and they can need regulation.
Sometimes they need to be phased out or banned.
However, I fear this report goes too far too fast and so, in some respects, does the White Paper.
I know it is only the White Paper stage, but we need to look carefully at some of the potential costs, said to be some EUR 8bn to European industry.
A massive cost to animals has been referred to.
The BUAV estimates 2 123 animals per high production volume chemical test.
We are told that 12.8 million would be at risk if one were testing on 30 000 substances and the report goes up to 100 000.
Of course not all those would need animal tests, but a substantial number would.
One other example of how this report overreacts: paragraph 38 sweeps up all CMR category 3 substances and designates them of very high concern.
Just take one example from one industry, the raw materials for flexible foam.
The finished product is in no way a hazard and provides comfort and safety for consumers in products from furniture to car dashboards.
That is an industry employing 360 000 people, 96% of them in small- and medium-sized firms.
They could be at risk.
The aims of the White Paper are right: we want to improve knowledge about chemicals and we want a safer world.
We should prioritise areas for action.
That means rigorous management of risk, without damaging unnecessarily the many small- and medium-sized firms that make up the chemical industry which has its risks but also brings jobs, benefits and safety for our citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are apparently all in agreement, for I notice that even the PPE-DE believes that the current chemical policy is characterised by a lack of substance, too much bureaucracy, powerlessness to acquire knowledge about all substances and also the incapacity to take measures.
That is why support for the White Paper is so important, but even more so, support for the improvements which are being proposed in the Schörling report.
Pressure from the chemical industry has been enormous, particularly in the last few days.
Apparently, it does not lack the necessary financial resources to set up big campaigns and to portray a large majority of this Parliament as a bunch of eco-fundamentalists.
But I believe that the outcome of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy was balanced and that it therefore deserves every backing tomorrow.
I should like to mention a few essential points.
I am of the opinion that, in the long term, all substances will need to be registered, but that in the medium- and short-term, priorities will need to be set; the latter, however, not simply on the basis of production volumes. Smaller volumes too must also be granted sufficient attention, and the starting point should really be the intrinsic characteristics of a substance.
As Mr Bernd Lange stated a moment ago, the substitution principle is essential. If a less dangerous substance is available and tested, what logical reasons do we then have not to use it, other than perhaps financial considerations?
A second essential element is that we must be able to ban substances of high concern, such as persistent and bioaccumulative substances and endocrine disrupters, unless they are essential from a social point of view and no alternatives are available. We should then be able to authorise them under strict licensing.
Last but not least, maximum consumer information must be provided via clear labelling, but also via publicly accessible databases and information on the substances.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Pricing policies for enhancing the sustainability of water resources
The next item on the agenda is the Report (A5-0341/2001) by Mrs Flemming on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the Commission communication to the Council [COM(2000) 477 - C5-0634/2000 - 2000/2298(COS)], the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee on pricing policies for enhancing the sustainability of water resources.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate both the committee responsible and Mrs Flemming for the work they have done.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development welcomes the communication from the Commission.
A suitable pricing policy for irrigation water will play a fundamental role in encouraging more efficient and sustainable use of water in agriculture, its largest consumer, and will free up resources for other uses, thereby reducing environmental pressures.
The analysis of the pricing of irrigation water is complex, due to the wide range of agricultural uses in the European Union and also regional differences in the need and availability of water for agricultural usage.
Water is, essentially, the very backbone of the agricultural community in the Mediterranean regions.
Without water, nothing grows, apart from the controversial almond trees.
The pricing policy should be heterogeneous, taking into account the 'polluter pays' principle, as well as the social, environmental, economic, geographical and climatic variations in regions that no doubt will be the most affected by this pricing policy.
The financial, environmental and resource costs of irrigation farming require differential treatment if gradual-recovery objectives are to be achieved.
For this reason, the introduction of this policy should be progressive, transparent and must be adapted to local requirements.
In this way, information to irrigation farmers and the adaptation and optimisation of infrastructures and irrigation techniques should be applied in parallel so that farmers can accept this policy.
Ladies and gentlemen, in its current form the CAP does not help to achieve the objectives set out in the framework directive, which means we must seek coherence between these two policies in order to guarantee the protection of European agriculture' s functional model.
Today, in Europe, water is a factor for cohesion between countries.
The revision of Agenda 2000 on the development of agri-environmental measures should include the objectives of water policies.
This will require the revision of certain types of aid, the application of eco-conditionality and the recognition of the right to adequate compensation for more vulnerable farmers, such as those who work on family holdings, with the aim of promoting the sustainable use of water and an integrated rural development.
Mr President, the price of water is a factor that has an undeniable effect on its consumption. However, the subject should be broached with appropriate caution, so as not to give rise to counter-productive effects of an economic and environmental nature.
The great disparity in the application of criteria in this area should be taken into account, as well as the barriers that can exist in Member States, both of a legal nature and with regard to acquired rights and customs, that can be difficult to amend, particularly in the short term.
On this subject, it is interesting to note that there are certain crops that contribute to the survival of a habitat and fauna that, without these crops, would disappear.
There are also industries today that, after using a certain quantity of water, return it to its source in the same or even in a better state than before they used it.
In principle, it does not seem a good idea to place a burden on this type of activity.
If time permitted, I could continue to give examples of economic activities, both agricultural and industrial, that, far from posing a threat to our water resources, are clearly beneficial to the environment.
Lastly, Mr President, financial resources gained from water-pricing policies should be used to improve infrastructures, which would prevent water loss in transport, for example, and would ensure better and increased access to this resource.
Paying for the amount of water we consume is, indeed, a key element, but only one of the many measures that should lead to a more rational use of this vital resource in all Member States.
I believe, Mr President, that this important issue of water distribution can be relatively easily solved if we have the good will and solidarity of EU governments.
Mr President, water is the Number One food.
I therefore consider constant use of water and protection of water resources to be indispensable.
One means by which this may be achieved is, as required by the water framework directive, a price for water that covers costs, comprising the environmental costs and the cost of infrastructure and of treatment.
Incentives are necessary for water to be continuously used.
Careful use of water is encouraged by having a basic price for basic services and increasing prices for use over and above that.
The basic price must also take social aspects into account, for access to water must be possible for the less well off in society.
One important area in which there is a need for action is that of agriculture.
The reduction of water subsidies in agriculture and the careful use of water resources will only be achieved by promoting rural development and finding new sources of income for farmers.
Water polluters must also be called to account, which means that the 'polluter pays' principle applies.
Every water consumer in Europe should additionally receive a statement of how much water he has used and how the price he pays for his water is made up.
I see it as an important question, how much of a market we permit and whether private commitment conflicts with public and regionally-organised water supply and careful use of water.
I believe that cooperation between public and private undertakings using private know-how and capital is an option when it comes to making the best use of water resources from an ecological and economic point of view, without regional supply zones being given up.
So here I am not talking about deregulation and competition at any price, but about ensuring efficient and environmentally friendly water supply.
Mr President, Mrs Flemming's report builds on the existing water framework directive.
My group is happy to support it.
If water resources are to be used sustainably, the price of water to users must reflect both the costs of delivery and the costs of subsequent treatment.
But when we vote tomorrow, a great deal of attention will be focused on just one aspect of the report, the Spanish hydrological scheme to build 120 dams and transfer vast quantities of water from one river basin to another.
I am not sure that a report about general principles should single out any one Member State for criticism but, having listened over the past few weeks to both sides of the debate, my personal view is that this scheme seems to be the antithesis of the approach laid down in Mrs Flemming's report.
The Commissioner has made very clear in the past her personal opposition to the use of EU structural funds to support projects which are damaging to the environment.
So I hope she will watching closely when the Spanish Government comes to the Commission seeking billions of pounds in structural fund support for a project which seems to me to directly contravene the principles if not the letter of the water framework directive, one of the Commission's greatest achievements.
I expect the Commission to make it absolutely clear that environmental impact studies must be independent and must consider the entire scheme, not just individual proposals.
This Spanish scheme is set to become a test case of whether the Commission's commitments toward environmental sustainability are matched by a determination to stand up to pressure from vested interests and the governments of Member States.
I hope that the Commissioner will do her best to make sure that her colleagues pass that test.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mrs Fleming on her excellent report, which is better than the Lienemann report on the water framework directive.
The Flemming report deals with water prices and, as Chris Davids has already stated, particularly relates to one very controversial issue, Paragraph 28, in which concern is expressed about the plan by the Aznar government to tap a vast quantity of the northern Spanish river, the Ebro, and to transport this water 1 000 km to southern Spain to cater partly for the tourist industry and partly for agriculture.
This plan is detrimental to hundreds of nature reserves in Spain and will also adversely affect the natural habitat of the brown bear and Iberian wolf in the Pyrenees.
This gigantic plan will cost EUR 22 billion and Spain wants Europe to contribute EUR 7 billion.
Spain should learn that water is a precious commodity and that clean water comes at a price. That is why hotels and farmers use it sparingly.
This is standard practice in northern Europe.
It is also striking that the Portuguese government - Portugal is, after all, also on the Iberian Peninsula, does pursue a sound water price policy.
Under pressure from the Aznar government, a new Amendment No 6 has been tabled by Messrs Flemming, Cox and Davis, precisely to delete reference to this Spanish plan.
Does Pat Cox' application for presidency have anything to do with this by any chance?
How else can it be explained that the liberal group is now all of a sudden adopting a different position from that which it adopted in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Fellow Members, I urge you to vote against Amendment No 6 to the Flemming report and to vote for the original paragraph.
Mr President, as my fellow Members have stated, water is a limited natural resource that citizens have a fundamental right to access and use.
We cannot, therefore, support the amendments that talk of water as being a commodity or those which talk about the private management of water.
And we will be voting against these amendments.
However, I do believe that the rational use of water is an absolute necessity, as stated in Mrs Flemming' s report, and also a moral responsibility for Europeans with regard to those populations that have an enormous water deficit.
Article 9 of the framework directive which, as the Commissioner knows very well, required a great deal of time and discussion time to complete, provides for the recovery of costs.
The same directive, however, and the report by Mrs Flemming, as other speakers have mentioned, state that different regional, social and climatological situations should be taken into account, which leads on to the need to adopt water-saving measures in order to prevent leaks from water production and distribution systems, and to ensure the maximum re-usage of purified water, as well as the improvement of irrigation techniques.
In order to achieve this, the public, and those who work in the three sectors affected: domestic, agricultural and industrial, need to be informed.
The quality and purity of water must also be improved.
Commissioner, there is still a high level of nitrates in water and this should be addressed, as we have always said in the European Parliament.
I would like to finish, Mr President, by saying that it is hardly surprising that, in the context in which we are speaking, there should be clear opposition to the Spanish National Hydrological Plan, approved, it is true, by a majority in the Spanish Parliament, for it is based principally on the use of reservoirs and the transfer of water in rivers such as the Ebro that could have a disastrous effect on an ecosystem that is unique in Europe.
Furthermore, the planned reservoirs are located in Special Protection Areas.
For this reason, it must be said, Commissioner, that, without wishing to condemn my own country in particular, we must pay more attention to how European funds are used.
Mr President, water is not a commodity and the right to water remains a fundamental one.
On the other hand, the Member States must set a number of objectives for themselves to ensure the proper management of water.
In this context, a comparison between States could lead to the use of best practices.
States must, however, maintain control over pricing and regulation.
A community pricing system would create many problems.
How can we reconcile the interests of the countries of the north with those of the south? As for regulation, the local water committees, for example, the main consultative and administrative bodies in France, should not be undermined.
Similarly, it makes sense for water policy to take account of specific geographical and regional characteristics.
Water needs differ according to the type of agricultural production, soil quality and climate.
Like the Commission, the rapporteur questions the application of the 'polluter-pays' principle to the agricultural sector.
This pricing policy would lead to a substantial increase in price per cubic metre, an additional cost that would be added to the cost of animal welfare.
Changing crop-growing techniques would put farmers in a risky and insecure situation.
Regulating water in too dramatic a way would penalise farming, which has already made huge efforts towards making refunds.
Farming is in crisis and will have to stretch itself even further to comply with the rules of the WTO, which is now meeting in Doha.
Instead, preserving the multifunctional character of our farming, which contributes to land-use planning and to managing the environment, will enable us to achieve better water quality.
Legislating now would be a mistake.
Let us wait for the CAP reforms before we adopt a global approach to the issue of water, listening to and consulting all parties involved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the communication from the Commission shows that they are giving thought to how to put into practice the requirements of the water framework directive, and Mrs Flemming's report makes valuable additional suggestions.
Average household water consumption varies, per person per day, between 120 litres in Belgium and 213 litres in Italy.
Germany, with DM 7.72 per cubic metre for the supply of drinking water and for wastewater drainage, is, with Denmark, far and away at the top of the world league, but, as regards consumption, is third from the bottom.
Adequate high-quality water supply and appropriate drainage are part, of course, of services of general interest in the broadest sense, such as we have been discussing this morning.
We must not, though, make the mistake of lumping deregulation and privatisation together.
Privatisation can, in conjunction with other means, be perfectly adequate in achieving the objectives set by Article 9 of the water framework directive.
I would, though, at this point, like - in the context of the discussion on the subject-matter for the new Inter-Governmental Conference - to give a clear reminder of the topic of the demarcation of competencies.
We should not be making the sensitive area of water supply and drainage even more unstable while this issue has not been satisfactorily resolved.
The various aspects of water and the price paid for it are among the most politically sensitive issues in some Member States, not only the southern ones, but also for Ireland and Austria, for example.
I would wish to emphatically warn against mentioning or even attacking individual Member States.
This applies all the more in view of the attempt, for example in item 28 for obvious reasons of party politics, to realise demands at a European level which would not be feasible in terms of domestic policy.
Additionally in this case, the issues addressed are, then, only very marginally concerned, if at all, with the subject of the report.
We would be creating a precedent with unforeseeable consequences, and I urge the adoption of Amendments Nos 3 and 6, for otherwise we would have to vote against an otherwise very good report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of this report was to propose a text describing the effects of water pricing on consumption.
Some Members, however, found the temptation to include proposals on the prospects for privatisation in this sector too strong to resist.
To my mind, privatisation is often the first step towards liberalisation.
Some of us in this House support the idea that water must not become a commodity like any other and must instead be given special consideration and above all remain the property of everyone, in present and future generations.
Public authorities must remain in control of the distribution and treatment of water, even if we accept the idea of delegating services to private companies for set periods and under precisely defined conditions.
Above all, if we wish to involve Europe' s citizens in these issues and to ensure that our policy does not simply result in higher bills, let us work on informing and communicating with the public on this crucial matter.
We must win over as many people as possible to our concerns if we are to directly encourage individuals to reduce their water consumption.
Mr President, the report works on the basic assumption that the easily-accessible fresh water reserves have been largely opened up, that long-term water use and savings can be achieved by using economic leverage, and that this would promote the responsible use of water. This requirement can only be met on a world-wide basis.
I do not see implementation of the report's objectives on pricing as the high road that we should be taking.
Affordable prices are often saddled with negative associations.
The cost of clean water depends on the right investments, on technical skill and on better success than hitherto in allocating tasks in accordance with the 'polluter pays' principle.
The Member States are free to come to their own decisions.
It will be difficult to keep to the timetable.
Mr President, as has been said, this debate is directly related to the debate we held before the entry into force of the European Parliament and Council Directive establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy.
The report before us captures the spirit of the directive and applies it directly to the issue of the cost to be paid, by all users, although maybe not in equal amounts, for using water for economic purposes.
However, the report also, rightly, and here I congratulate the rapporteur, stipulates that access to water at a proportionate or reduced cost, according to need, is a human right.
Therefore, any pricing policy must be based, above all, on a realistic examination of the social and other conditions in which the commodity of water is to be used, but also on a user education campaign that raises awareness and particularly focuses on water saving measures.
In order to provide a service which best responds to the different situations, it would be appropriate to incorporate the principle of subsidiarity so that each State makes its own decisions and each region sets its own levels and parameters.
The general line taken by this report could be described as preventing wastage and assisting the less economically developed areas, and our thoughts therefore turn immediately to the matter of the agricultural world, which, as some of the Members have pointed out, must certainly not be too casually confused with the general issue.
The basic principle is, in fact, that all the users should, in any case, contribute to paying for the commodity of water but in different proportions.
However, priority scales also need to be established on the basis of first social and then economic requirements.
The most direct comparison is with the CAP, which is intended to encourage and propose development measures which, as well as being suitable for the area concerned, are also compatible with the level of water resources available. Where there is no water available at all, Mr President, I feel that this needs to be taken into account, especially in the pricing policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with the report' s assertion that water is not a commodity, but rather a heritage that must be protected, defended and treated as such, and that access to water is an inalienable human right.
As socialists, we do not share the idea that water is an economic commodity, which excludes its social and cultural character, and we think that the protection and defence of water should not be guided by the rules of the market economy.
With regard to the amendment on the Spanish National Hydrological Plan that, according to Mrs Flemming, we should withdraw, both my colleagues and myself, who presented it, are not going to withdraw it.
We think that it is reasonable, that it criticises an EU country' s hydrological plan that is unsustainable from the economic, social and environmental points of view, and that it clearly contradicts the European Union' s Sustainable Development Strategy.
For this reason, we are not going to withdraw the amendment.
We hope that other Members will vote for it and we trust that this will be the case.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I want to thank the European Parliament for the resolution on the Commission communication on pricing policies for enhancing the sustainability of water resources.
I want especially to thank Mrs Flemming who took on the task of rapporteur for this very sensitive issue.
The communication must be seen in conjunction with the launch of the new water policy in Europe - the water framework directive, adopted last year.
The aim of the communication is to establish guiding principles to support the implementation of the article on water pricing, that is to say Article 9 of the directive.
The European Parliament' s draft opinion covers all the relevant issues affecting water pricing, from the covering of environmental costs to transparency and consumer participation.
Moreover, emphasis is given to areas in which more research and analysis are required in order to ensure that future water pricing policy also embraces environmental, economic and social aspects.
Part of this analysis will naturally be carried out in conjunction with the drawing up of management plans for river basin areas in accordance with the water framework directive.
The views of the European Parliament will form the basis for future work at EU level aimed at implementing a more sustainable pricing policy.
In this connection, allow me also to say something about what is happening in connection with the common strategy agreed by the Member States and the Commission to facilitate the implementation of the water framework directive.
Working parties, including a working party on economic issues, have already been set up.
These working parties are to develop implementation guidelines.
The European Parliament will be kept informed about the future development of water pricing issues at EU level.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Packaging and packaging waste
The next item on the agenda is the Report (A5-0323/2001) by Mrs Corbey on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on implementation of Directive 94/62/EC [2000/2319(INI)] of 20 December 1994 of the European Parliament and the Council on packaging and packaging waste.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the waste mounting is still growing.
Packaging only plays a minor, albeit visible, role in the environmental problem and is a source of irritation to many people.
Packaging could be used as an example of a fresh approach to environmental problems.
We must make sustainable development viable.
We can adopt all the sound ideas from the sixth environmental action programme and apply these to the packaging policy.
Fortunately, we are not starting from scratch.
We have had a packaging directive since 1994, which we can use as a basis to work from.
The packaging directive has a dual purpose: to reduce the harmful environmental impact of packaging to a minimum and to guarantee the functioning of the internal market.
It is important for Parliament to consider how the directive operates in practice, for we must learn from experience.
Compliance with legislation is important, but the effectiveness of the legislation is at least as important.
In the field of compliance, there is good news and bad news.
The good news is that nearly all Member States have implemented the directive well.
Most objectives have been fulfilled, and Greece recently became the last Member State to inform the Commission of its measures and the results it had achieved.
The Member States all did it their own way: Germany by means of the green dot system, the Netherlands by means of the voluntary agreements, etc.
However, there is also bad news, and I should like to mention four points.
Firstly, the volume of packaging waste is still on the increase.
Prevention of excessive packaging was an express objective, although it is not further specified in the directive.
Only in four countries has the volume of packaging materials diminished.
We clearly need to be more ambitious in this respect.
Secondly, the proportion of plastic in waste is growing.
The directive prescribes a very modest target for plastic: at least 15% must be recycled.
But even this minimum target has only been achieved by four countries, namely Germany, Austria, Belgium and Sweden.
More than 50% of all products are wrapped in plastic.
As it is difficult to recycle plastic, something must be done about this.
Thirdly, reliable and comparable data is lacking.
The Member States all have their own way of collating data and it is unclear, for example, whether plastic waste that is exported is also included in the figures.
Political decisions must be based on sound data, and the directive must be adapted accordingly.
To finish off, I should like to mention one major point: it is, in fact, unclear what the environmental effect is of all the collection, sorting, recycling and re-use.
We think it is positive, and that is probably the case, but a sound assessment of environmental effects is required in order to continue to motivate consumers to separate their waste.
Furthermore, the effect on the internal market, this directive' s second pillar, is equally vague.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is clearly time for a change.
We need better reporting, better definitions and in addition to this, I would suggest a threefold approach.
First of all, we must devote more attention to recycling.
The targets must be raised considerably and we must encourage the use of recycled materials.
Special attention must be given to plastic.
To date, plastic has had no positive residual value.
In order to make the collecting and sorting of plastic profitable nevertheless, a levy is required, and I would ask the Commission once again to quickly present the revised proposal now.
Secondly, I would ask the Commission to promote re-use.
For that purpose, situations must be identified where re-use is useful from an environmental point of view.
That is connected with transport distances and the materials.
Thirdly, we must accord prevention a far more prominent role.
For that purpose, I suggest making the manufacturers responsible.
On the basis of a lifecycle analysis, manufacturers must demonstrate that they have chosen the best possible packaging for their product from an environmental point of view.
The question is, of course, how this can be measured.
The emission of CO2, the use of natural ancillary resources, harmful substances and residual waste must definitely form part of the equation.
By adopting this approach, environmental costs can be charged on as part of the product, and that is the direction in which we need to be heading.
We must define clearer environmental parameters within which the market can go about its business and manufacturers can make choices.
Manufacturer responsibility must be further detailed and the Commission must now take the stakeholders dialogue seriously.
The interested parties from each sector, not only from industry but also consumers and representatives of environmental organisations, must be invited.
This can lead to a refreshing approach which can be incorporated in clear guiding principles.
In addition to the three above-mentioned points, fellow MEPs have added a number of useful suggestions: clear responsibility not only for products but also for retailers; paying attention to the role of local councils and of consumers; and paying attention to planning and transport packaging.
I welcome these suggestions with open arms.
The long-overdue revision of the packaging directive is an opportunity to demonstrate that the internal market can be reconciled with the environment, and we must not let this opportunity slip.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by acknowledging the great work done by Mrs Corbey in drawing up this report.
It is clear that in this particular case we are dealing with a directive whose implementation has been very complicated in the majority of Member States, given that the fine-tuning of the mechanisms needed to meet the objectives of the directive is in itself a very complicated issue.
It is one thing to issue a piece of legislation, because everything holds up on paper, and a completely different thing to put it into practice.
I thank the rapporteur for the commitments we have been able to make and I regret that we could not agree on certain points, which are by no means trivial ones.
Firstly I would like to make it patently clear that this should have been a report on the implementation of the directive on packaging, but it has turned into a report that is trying to tell the Commission the direction it should be taking with regard to the revision of the directive in question.
It is a clear example of the temptation that we frequently give into in this Parliament, which is to forget that it is the Commission that holds the legislative initiative.
We in the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats propose the following: Firstly, that the objectives for the prevention and reduction of packaging waste should not be binding, nor should they be classified by material, in order that competitiveness is maintained between them.
For we should not forget that the legal basis of this directive is the environment and also the internal market.
We think, however, that these objectives should be linked to the quantity of the product that is packaged and put on the market.
Secondly: the responsibility for the prevention and removal of packaging and packaging waste must be shared between producers, packaging companies, retailers and consumers, and not only the producer, as the draft report proposes.
Thirdly: Life Cycle Analysis is a very useful method from an environmental point of view, that should be taken into account, but it cannot be proposed as the standard norm to ensure that the requirements of Annex II are being met.
These standard norms should be issued by the European Committee for Standardisation and this body, in turn, should continue working in this direction.
Fourthly, we are against introducing any other new standard apart from the so-called 'green dot' , already in use in most countries.
Lastly, we propose that the recitals alluding to the situation in specific Member States in 1998 with regard to compliance with the objectives of the directive be removed, for at this time the directive was in the process of being transposed, and the data, and I quote directly from recital B, "are not meaningful for the purpose of assessing the real degree to which the directive's objectives have been met" .
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mrs Corbey for addressing these issues and writing this own-initiative report.
We really need to discuss packaging.
I nonetheless think - and I say this following 30 years' experience of environmental issues and environmental debate - that, as usual, we have an incredible talent for running after problems and battening upon them.
To discuss packaging solely from the perspective of waste, as we are doing now and have always done, is completely wrong.
I address the Commissioner with responsibility for environmental issues directly and appeal to her to allow us to discuss the whole chain.
We have to discuss logistics, transport and the packaging that eventually becomes waste.
Above all, the amount of consumer packaging must and can be reduced.
You and I come from the same country, and we know that experiments led to a 30 per cent reduction in the quantity of material in consumer packaging over approximately three years.
It is possible.
I might perhaps be allowed to appeal for the forthcoming White Paper on Integrated Product Policy to address the whole of the logistical chain, something which did not feature in the Green Paper.
That would be a merciful answer to our prayers.
Mr President, my group very much supports the report by Mrs Corbey and the compromise amendments, which improve the text.
We also have some amendments of our own which we would urge Members of Parliament to support, particularly as the directive makes it more difficult for Member States with more progressive policies to go ahead in a more environmentally friendly way.
There should be nothing to prevent Member States from making progress.
I received a briefing from my own Department of the Environment in Ireland today, bemoaning the fact that it was going to be very difficult for Ireland. That is only because Ireland has done nothing about the waste problem or about packaging.
In two other amendments we look to the Commission to present a proposal which takes proper account of the role of packaging throughout the logistics chain.
It should also be putting forward proposals on prevention and reduction.
That is where the problem really lies.
We need to reduce and prevent the amount of packaging first of all, not look at what we are going to do with it afterwards, particularly the amount that goes into landfill.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Corbey, thank you for the work you have put in on this report.
I would very much like to start by asking you, Commissioner, why you have brought before Parliament a report on the implementation of the packaging directive when the revision of the Packaging Regulations is already before us. I would very much like to know if there is a strategy for this, whether you need more time for a new debate on strategy and whether you are in the process of moving over from a product policy to a materials policy.
As I now observe, that is a vain labour of love, as you are now applying yourself to other things.
You are right, Mrs Corbey, to say that packaging waste is increasing, and so it is entirely right and proper for us to concern ourselves with these Packaging Regulations and with those to be enacted in the future.
I simply think that we must first discuss what has actually been done by the Member States.
Were the old Packaging Regulations from the Nineties right, or did we make mistakes? Did we rightly see how things would turn out today?
Is there not a multitude of loopholes?
As you mentioned, databases are largely lacking. Has transposition into national law really taken place punctually and in the way we intend, and is the hierarchy envisaged by the Packaging Regulations actually as flexible as we need it to be in the future?
I do not believe so.
Yet we must, now that the Commission has imposed on us this report on implementation, concentrate on these important matters.
It is unfortunately not our present task to consider what quotas have to be set for landfill dumping, recycling, and so on.
Let me make clear that I regret that.
There are a lot of other points I would like to make. Having lost the first minutes, though, I shall admit defeat and carry on debating in the next round.
Can you please briefly repeat the question you have just put?
Commissioner, I would like to know why you are presenting us with a report on the implementation of the Packaging Regulations, because we all know well enough that the revised Packaging Regulations have already arrived.
My question is whether this is to do with a new strategy. Is it the case that you want in future to leave product policy behind and turn your attention to the torrents of refuse?
Mr President, these oversight reports by Parliament are very important because we need not only to examine new legislation but to look back to see what has happened to the legislation we have adopted.
Mrs Corbey is quite right to name names.
The Member States were supposed to bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with the packaging directive before 30 June 1996.
That did not happen.
Two things should flow from the findings Mrs Corbey has put before us.
Firstly, we must ask whether the original directive, as Mr Florenz has said, was defective or whether ministers were not honest with themselves about what they could achieve when they adopted it.
The answer is probably a combination of the two.
Secondly, we should ask why the Commission did not act more quickly than it has to investigate why the directive was struggling to gain universal compliance.
I regret that Mrs Corbey did not focus on these questions.
Individual countries have had very different experiences as each has put a recovery system in place.
My own evidence from the United Kingdom is that our system has been too bureaucratic.
One businessman in Cornwall complained to me that he had to employ a graduate specifically to keep a track of his firm's obligations under the directive.
What lessons are there from our experience which could underpin the revision of the directive, or at least a revision of the way that Member States are applying it?
The Commission is wrong if it proposes higher targets for recycling.
This is the easy way out, but the wrong way.
Such targets cannot take account of the considerable variations and circumstances between Member States, so we will end up with an even bigger range of results than we have now, creating trade barriers and distorting competition.
If we are to get EU environmental law that really makes a difference, we must, within much broader targets, allow Member States to adopt solutions best suited to their respective local environments and economies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, allow me to accord due recognition to Mrs Corbey as rapporteur.
I would thank her for her work on this own-initiative report including a resolution on implementation of Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste.
The report addresses relevant issues and will be of great importance when the Commission goes on to prepare the revision of the directive.
We have also noted that the European Parliament would like to carry out a more extensive review of the issues affecting packaging waste.
I think this is necessary, but things must be done in the right order.
We have now committed ourselves to tabling before long a proposal for revision of the existing proposal and for new targets.
This, moreover, is something we are going to do. I anticipate the Commission' s being able, before the end of the year, to take a decision on the promised revision of the Directive on Packaging and Packaging Waste.
After that, we must look to the longer term considerations addressed by Mrs Paulsen and Mrs Jackson.
We must therefore adopt several different approaches to this work.
The first revolves around an Integrated Product Policy.
I want to state in no uncertain terms that we have specifically emphasised life cycle analysis and this way of looking at the issues.
Certainly, further efforts are required and further proposals and ideas about how to proceed, but the life cycle analysis contains the whole mode of thinking and way of approaching this issue.
It is important that we continue to work with an Integrated Product Policy.
The second revolves around the thematic strategies we have promised under the Sixth Environmental Action Programme.
In the course of next year, there will be two such strategies which will be of great importance to our attitude towards these issues: recycling and use of resources.
In connection with these strategies, there will be the opportunity to review the whole of our policy in terms of looking at each individual waste stream.
Are we to continue to do this, and how are we to look at this issue in broad outline? It is important for us to take this major initiative, but we must do it in the right way and at the right time.
In my judgment, we must handle the problems via Integrated Product Policy and via the thematic strategies.
Before the end of the year, the promised revision of the specific targets for packaging and packaging waste will take place.
It is perfectly correct to point out that we need to review the whole of this issue in order to obtain a policy which will last for many years into the future and which will mean that we do not need to go chasing frantically after problems.
Insurance mediation
The next item on the agenda is the Report (A5-0359/2001) by Mr Berenguer Fuster on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive [COM(2000) 511 - C5-0484/2000 - 2000/0213(COD)] on insurance mediation.
Mr President, even at this unreasonably late hour, I am honoured to submit for your consideration the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on insurance mediation.
In my opinion it is a good proposal, on which the Commission should be congratulated.
Above all, it is a proposal that manages to find a balance between the various interests concerned.
In the area that it is intended to regulate, these interests include those of intermediaries, of insurance companies, and also, and this must not be forgotten, the interests of consumers, although these usually put less pressure on Members than the aforementioned interested parties.
All of these interests should be taken into account, and when I say that this proposal is a balanced one, I am referring to the fact that there is a balance between all of the various interests concerned.
Not to mention that the amendments tabled by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs must aim to uphold this balance that the Commission has scrupulously maintained.
There are also other interests which are, in my opinion, less worthy of consideration.
I am talking about sectors whose main aim is to uphold the status they currently enjoy in their respective countries, which will be impossible to sustain when we attempt to produce a harmonisation standard.
If the aim of each country, or of each sector in each country, is that the forthcoming directive should not in any way affect the status quo, the only possible solution will, therefore, be not to have a harmonisation standard, or if it is required in an area such as this, that there should be no internal market in the specific sector in question.
This aspiration can disguise an attempt for the harmonisation standard to respond exclusively to the current model in a specific country; or, put in more favourable terms, to suggest that Member States should not apply important parts of the directive.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you not think that these exceptions could render the harmonisation standard meaningless?
Do you not realise that taking this route will cause problems for the internal market? The proposal for a directive included certain exceptions, and it is true that the report enlarges on some of these, but I think that these exceptions are within the bounds of what is reasonable.
The idea that those who sell insurance on behalf of travel agencies or veterinary surgeons have to be registered intermediaries should be excluded, for this falls within what is reasonable.
Even now, I firmly believe that the further extension of exceptions could end up in nullifying the effect of the directive or, to put it differently, could end up by limiting, to a certain extent, the creation of an internal market in insurance mediation.
I still insist, and please forgive me for doing so in this way, that the resultant report includes several special features that certain countries have to ease the adoption of the directive.
For example, amendments relating to the tied agent that were designed to find a solution to ease the adaptation of legislation in those countries in which there is currently no regulation in this field.
There are, evidently, other formulas, and one of these was the one set out in the Commission proposal, and another that consists of my personal viewpoint stated in my original report.
However, neither the original formula nor my original proposal would be completely satisfactory to a good number of my fellow Members, who hold different positions, which is why compromise amendments had to be tabled that, I think, should resolve the problem reasonably clearly.
I would like you to be aware, ladies and gentlemen, that the result that is being submitted for your consideration is the outcome of a compromise between different points of view that, when seen as a whole, are acceptable.
It is only for this reason and out of respect for this compromise that the Group of the Party of European Socialists has decided not to table any more amendments, with the exception of three that are simply of a technical nature, that aim to correct inconsistencies in the text.
Clear proof of this fact is the refusal to table any amendments such as those tabled by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, that were subsequently defeated at committee stage and with which I personally agreed, because these are not only in line with the main points of my original proposal, but they also seek to provide better consumer protection, something with which I will always agree.
Mr President, I feel that, as Mr Berenguer Fuster said, the Commission proposal fills a large gap in the internal insurance market which has been created by the huge development in insurance and reinsurance transactions recently, particularly relating to the insurance of specific interests, and here I refer to the major industrial and commercial risks, while the market for private individuals and other smaller risks has been left rather to its own devices, resulting in a sort of free-for-all.
We know how sensitive insurance mediation is, and our directive concerns precisely the mediation aspect.
That is why we found the Commission' s proposal both balanced and interesting, although possibly a little overcomplicated, which is why we have endeavoured to streamline it with a series of amendments - I am, of course speaking on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, which has drafted its opinion - to make the sector which does not focus primarily on insurance rather more mobile and marketable.
There are, in fact, many entities, such as travel and tour agencies, whose main activity is not insurance but which do sell risk and life insurance as part of their business. Such transactions clearly lie outside and are not bound by the usual conventions of professionalism and honour, by the extremely stringent and far-reaching requirements, that is, which guarantee precisely that good faith and reliability and credibility that should be high priority in insurance.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are four points I would like to address.
The first is that the insurance business is based on trust.
Trust has a dual basis: trust in the product on the one hand, and on the other, trust in the other party's sales personnel and in their way of doing business.
It needs, then, to be said today that the absolute majority of all sales personnel and brokers do their work in a proper way; otherwise the insurance business would not be flourishing and justifying the trust placed in it by its customers.
Secondly, I would like to thank all those who have worked on this report.
Thirdly, many States' laws on insurance and banking already impose strict duties of consultation and information, which are binding also on brokers.
Insurers and credit institutions are subject to supervision and obligatory registration and to clear regulations on policy.
Quite independently of that, I share the directive's desire to guarantee the creation of a high professional standard for insurance brokers, to establish a single register for cross-frontier operations and to secure a high level of protection for insurance enterprises.
Over and above what has already been said, Mr Radwan and I have tabled three amendments - Nos 57, 58, and 59 - in which we intend, firstly, to have it left to the Member States to decide whether to exempt insurance brokers dealing in commercial risks from the requirements of the directive; secondly, to have the intermediary activity end with the conclusion of the contract, as is customary; and thirdly, to make a clearer distinction between those who work as insurance brokers as their main occupation and those for whom this activity is incidental to another.
Mr President, the PPE-DE Group broadly welcomes this long-overdue overhaul of the original 1977 directive as part of the single market in financial services, which utilises the financial passport or single licence concept.
This involves minimal harmonisation, the setting of professional standards and consumer safeguards as well as mutual recognition between Member States, to enable brokers to enjoy freedom of establishment throughout the Union with rules to ensure prudential care for the good conduct of their business.
I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Berenguer Fuster, on his largely cooperative cross-party approach in committee, appropriate to a technical report which provides quality assurance to the consumer.
It is worth noting that approximately 95% of European consumers use the services of insurance brokers and will be affected by this directive, along with 100 000 insurance practitioners in the Union.
The vast majority of areas of political difference were resolved in a series of compromise amendments, as well as those requirements due to the peculiar structure of the German industry.
I was delighted at the adoption of a large number of my own amendments, ranging from exemptions for the travel industry, to recognition of the role of the computer and the Internet and the future role of e-commerce for insurance, as well as safeguards for a three-yearly review of eligibility for registration, and protection for businesses located offshore outside the EU.
I hope this report will not increase the burden to intermediaries, in terms of cost or difficulty, or of conducting normal business practices, but will open up a competitive and transparent market throughout the 15 Union Member States, which ultimately, by providing volume and economy of scale, will provide real savings which will be handed down to the citizens of the Union.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Parliament for the efforts to complete its first reading of the proposal for a directive on insurance mediation.
I would like to thank in particular the rapporteur, Mr Berenguer, and also Mr Ferri, for the quality of their work which has resulted in the recommendation submitted to this plenary.
The proposal for a directive on insurance mediation, scheduled in the action plan for financial services, is a key text to achieve a true internal market in insurance, in particular as regards retail markets.
Insurance intermediaries play a fundamental role in the sale of insurance in the Community and their importance would increase with the emergence of more complex and sophisticated insurance products.
Although the internal market in insurance has been completed as regards insurance undertakings, especially concerning the prudential rules, insurance intermediaries continue to be confronted with several obstacles which prevent them from taking full advantage of the freedoms of the Treaty.
The proper functioning of the internal market is therefore hindered.
I am particularly pleased that Parliament agrees with the essential objectives of the Commission's proposals.
It seeks to ensure that insurance intermediaries possess a high level of professional competence and that an intermediary, duly registered in his home Member State, may conduct his activities throughout the internal market.
The proposal also aims to guarantee the protection of customers by setting appropriate information requirements.
I now turn to the amendments submitted to the plenary session.
The Commission can accept the following amendments: Nos 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 17, 28, 30, 37 and the second part of No 58.
It can also accept either partially or in their spirit the following amendments: 3, 7, 11, 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 32, 44 and 51.
Amendment Nos 15 and 16 may also be accepted in part.
The Commission is not, however, in a position to accept the other amendments tabled for the following reasons.
Amendment Nos 2, 10, 13, 14, 46, 47, 49, 52 and 57 aim to exclude from the scope of the proposal some activities such as those of travel agencies, veterinarians and persons acting on an occasional basis, and therefore these amendments cannot be accepted.
These exclusions would affect the sale of insurance products involving important risks and are therefore rejected.
The same reasons explain the non-acceptance of Amendment Nos 12 and 50.
The Commission considers that the term "insurance intermediary" is defined in an appropriate manner.
The scope of the directive is well balanced.
Amendment Nos 15 and 16 are therefore not necessary since the definition covers all intermediation activities, including those carried out by electronic means.
The same applies to Amendment Nos 19 and 25 which relate to sub-agents and also to Amendment Nos 20 and 58.
As regards the issue of "bancassurance", all forms of "bancassurance" activities should fall within the scope of the proposal.
It is an increasingly important way of distributing insurance.
Amendment Nos 18 and 22 propose a definition of "bancassurance" activities which only takes account of one of the possible forms that "bancassurance" may take.
They are therefore rejected.
There are amendments relating to registration and professional requirements of insurance intermediaries.
Amendment Nos 31 and 56 would imply less strict rules to cover professional negligence of insurance intermediaries.
They would jeopardise the objective of ensuring an appropriate level of professional liability cover for insurance intermediaries in the internal market.
Amendment No 33, 34 and 54 would affect the overall coherence of the proposal which is based on the principle of home country control.
Amendment No 35 and 36 concern complaint schemes and out-of-court redress mechanisms of the proposal.
Amendment No 35 is already implicit in the text of the proposal and is not necessary.
Amendment No 36 does not seem appropriate in the context of a directive since it contains a specific reference to a Commission recommendation which is not legally binding on the Member States.
Thirdly there are amendments referring to information requirements.
A key element of the Commission proposal is to ensure a high level of protection of consumers through the provision of appropriate information and advice.
Amendment Nos 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 55, 60 and 61 would compromise considerably this objective.
Finally, Amendment Nos 6, 45 and 48 which provide that non-registered persons excluded from the scope of the directive should comply with information requirements, would be extremely difficult for the Member States to implement in practice.
I am sorry to have talked so long about these amendments, but Parliament has a right to know what the Commission thinks.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
I have always had the childish ambition to have us finish at midnight.
Tonight we have missed it by only ten seconds.
(The sitting was closed at midnight.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
Mr President, I have two observations with regard to the Minutes.
The first is the least important: on the first point, with regard to the votes on request for urgent procedure, the first point voted on was on the fisheries agreement with Morocco. I was here and voted in favour, but this has not been recorded in the Minutes.
I was here, and I spoke immediately afterwards.
I would now like to refer to the second point.
With regard to the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, yesterday morning a deadline for tabling amendments was set for 10.00 a.m. this morning, in order that the debate may be held tonight, probably at the last minute.
The political groups were working yesterday in order to be able to table amendments, and today I see in the Minutes that the item has been added to the agenda of Wednesday 28 November and that the deadline for tabling amendments has been set for Thursday 22 November.
I would like to point out, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, that we cannot work upon the text submitted by the Commission, that we were working on yesterday.
There is only one version available in one language, and, in addition to this, in this language there are different versions of the same text with various discrepancies between them.
Lastly, to give just one example, and I shall finish on this note, Mr President, it states that the Commission is proposing a single contribution of 120 million, yet it does not state whether these are euros, dollars, condoms or DDT.
I think that the Commission should provide a text that is correct, tell us which of the texts is the final version, and make this available in all of the official languages.
We will make sure your vote is recorded.
Regarding the question of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, the documents are not ready, as you correctly say.
That was the reason why it was put back to 28 November.
That will also give the committee some more time to deliberate on the matter and make sure that the text is correct.
That was the basis for the reasoning and you are quite right to raise it.
Mr Harbour, your point is well made and well understood by the Bureau.
The House is sovereign at the end of the day.
I will certainly pass on your message in the strongest possible terms to the presidency, so that the matter can be resolved.
I am sure everybody is aware that there is an ongoing discussion within the Commission itself at the present time.
Until the overall situation is clarified Parliament cannot come to any firm conclusions itself.
I do not have the letter in front of me, but in it the President has pointed out that the Conference of Presidents and the Bureau were fairly unanimous in the point of view they have adopted.
Parliament is sovereign, as I have said, and the matter will be open for further discussion.
There is no doubt about that.
(The Minutes of the previous sitting were approved)
European Research Area (Multiannual Framework Programme 2002-2006)
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports:
(A5-0376/2001) by Gérard Caudron, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the multiannual framework programme 2002-2006 of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities aimed at contributing towards the creation of the European Research Area [COM(2001) 94 - C5-0087/2001 - 2001/0053(COD)];
(A5-0355/2001) by Gérard Caudron, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the multiannual framework programme 2002-2006 of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) for research and training activities aimed at contributing towards the creation of the European Research Area [COM(2001) 94 - C5-0171/2001 - 2001/0054(CNS)].
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the Caudron report, I should like to offer the rapporteur our Committee' s congratulations and thanks for the job he has done, which was not a simple one.
His report provides a balanced discussion of all the main arguments on which the European institutions should concentrate their attention as regards scientific research and the potential for technological and social development.
The Committee on Freedoms particularly stresses the need for the public promotion of research to be done with the greatest possible transparency and involvement of the citizens.
A European knowledge-based society, like the one the Union is proposing, requires not only huge-scale initiatives in literacy, including scientific literacy, for all the citizens but also an increasingly intense, active involvement of the citizens in decisions regarding the direction that investment in this field should take.
Non-specialist citizens, in other words, should not just enjoy or, as is often the case, suffer the results achieved by science, but should also join with the experts in deciding on the objectives that research should pursue.
We believe the validity of a European science policy should be measured especially on this criterion.
The Caudron report quite rightly addresses these aspects.
I believe the Caudron report also invokes the transparent and democratic nature of decisions on scientific research when, instead of invoking principles of natural law, which are, in fact, only held by certain authorities, it refers, in the case of the ethical problems of research, to charters of rights, the documents which have effectively been approved and sanctioned by our Institutions. This means, for instance, in the field of stem cell research, respecting the feelings of a large number of European citizens by ruling out the production of stem cells for research, but allowing research to be conducted on those supernumerary cells that would otherwise be destroyed.
On this and other matters I believe we should go with the Caudron report.
Mr President, the European Commission is proposing an appropriation of EUR 17 billion, fully recognising the importance of research and technological innovation in Europe.
Unfortunately, research projects today often do not achieve the hoped-for success which would allow them to compete at an international level, and the European Union does not hold enough attraction to lure back the top researchers who have chosen to work abroad.
The new scheme should bring in some changes: firstly, concentrate financial aid on a restricted, specific number of priority subjects for Europe; secondly, invite researchers to collaborate more closely; and thirdly, increase the mobility of researchers by creating a working environment in Europe that is attractive to them.
These priorities form the framework for the 42 amendments tabled by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, many of which have been incorporated, for which I thank the rapporteur and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which is competent in this matter.
These amendments concern employment, health and safety at work, access to work for the disabled, small and medium-sized enterprises and European Community research centres.
With regard to employment, we have seen an amendment adopted which seeks to extend research to the development of operating systems and computer hardware in Europe in order to increase employment and stop us from being so heavily dependent on the United States and Japan in this area.
This is a key sector for the new economy and would entail considerable risks for the sake of economic and employment growth.
Then we asked for action in the field of health and safety at work, in order to encourage access for the socially excluded and disadvantaged, such as people with disabilities.
Research support for small and medium-sized enterprises has also been accepted with very favourable terms, it has gone up from 15 to 30 %, and the same may be said of support for JRCs, which are to receive EUR 725 million.
In conclusion, Mr President, I must move in favour of approval, since science and research are there to serve the people, for that right to life that no one is entitled to jeopardise.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Caudron for his report. The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport welcomes it for a number of reasons.
It particularly welcomes the fact that the report deals with a number of matters which concern our committee. These include the technology and methods used to convert products and works into a digital format, the protection and development of our historic and cultural heritage.
We are also pleased that it deals with drug taking, as our committee is also responsible for youth and sports. Other areas of concern contained in the report include the history of Europe, distance learning and mobility for researchers.
I regret that digital cinema, the cinema of tomorrow, has disappeared from this list. It might have required specific research.
I hope that specific programmes will be able to make good this omission.
I would also like to say that I am delighted the life sciences have been recognised as a scientific subject and are not regarded simply as an instrument for other sciences.
The life sciences constitute a distinct discipline and the fact that the Sixth Framework Programme has recognised this is a great step forward.
Perhaps the first title of the seventh thematic area: 'Cultural and social research' was the most appropriate.
I am sorry it has been changed to 'Citizens, democracy, social and political institutions' .
I think the first title was better.
If we had used the title 'Cultural and social research' , it might have been easier to include research on women, and not just research carried out by women, as in the paragraph 'Science and society' .
Mr Caudron, I regret the fact that research 'on women' and the thinking included in your intermediary reports were not retained in its final version.
I would like to finish on this point.
I have been involved in drawing up reports which have gradually transformed the notion of centres of excellence. The latter became the stairway of excellence.
We, the members of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, were very concerned that research should not be confined to an elite. Rather, when it comes to building the European Research Area, research should be shared amongst younger researchers, a range of relevant institutions, and universities.
I note that there have been adjustments here too.
I am glad that the paragraph 'Science and society' has doubled. The matter of research 'by women' is at the heart of this paragraph.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities has an interest in this subject, but so does the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
Mr President, as draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, I submitted a series of amendments which principally endeavoured to enshrine the principle of gender mainstreaming in the Sixth Research Framework Programme, which is in any case the largest programme, for which we are voting approximately EUR 17 billion.
Concentration on other topics has meant, as Mrs Fraisse has already explained, that there has been less research into gender issues and less emphasis upon opening science and research to the full range of people with the right potential.
In 1999, 66% of the research workers in the State sector and 72% of those in higher education were men.
In only a few countries did the proportion of women exceed 40%, and that was in Ireland and Greece.
Only in Portuguese higher education, with 53%, was a balance achieved.
Women are particularly underrepresented, at 9%, in academic teaching posts in Germany.
The highest levels were in Finland with 36%.
It is therefore in the European interest and adds value if women are involved in research and teaching at every stage, from planning, via decision-making to project management, as well as in EU initiatives for prizes and competitions in all disciplines.
I had already demanded this in this House in connection with the McNally Report on women and science, and, in order to implement it, the Commission set up a Gender Unit, which now has some early successes to show.
Focused efforts have achieved a percentage of nearly 40% of women involved in the EU's research bodies and the same proportion receiving Marie Curie scholarships.
We must, then, build on the successes of the Fifth Research Framework Programme, one contribution to which might be the doubling of the budget in the 'Science and Society' subdivision, and here, too, there is a need for research into gender issues.
One final remark: In my language, the entire draft has to be revised in gender-neutral language, because we are setting the course for the future, above all for young women scientists.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to address the rapporteur and congratulate him on the outcome, but also on the excellent working relationship.
You have found an innovative method, for which we are very grateful.
Needless to say, that also applies to the shadow rapporteurs, Messrs McNally, Piétrasanta and Plooij-van Gorsel.
We worked well together.
I should also like to extend a word of thanks to my own fellow MEPs who have invested a huge amount of energy in this dossier.
This is truly a joint outcome, and I therefore hope that the Commission, as well as the Council, is prepared to take this outcome seriously.
Indeed, we have developed a structure by means of which, within the restricted margins available to us, everything has become clearer.
More emphasis has been placed on bio-sciences; a better link has been established between research on the human genome and related diseases; far more attention has been devoted to a coherent package of industrial policy, information society, nanotechnoloy, as well as aviation and aerospace.
Additionally, food safety has been accorded considerably more attention.
Furthermore, unlike the Commission, we have given transport a much higher place in our list of priorities, alongside more attention for energy.
Agriculture is also more involved.
In my view, the package is looking better now all in all.
The budget is also of major importance in my opinion.
We have expressly adhered to our pledge to the Council that we would not increase the budget.
We have slightly shifted the priorities.
We would therefore make an urgent appeal to the Council to accept our budget now and not to start bargaining, for we will then have a war on our hands.
Next, we should be emphatically aware that although the EU' s contribution to research in the Member States carried out by the national governments and industry is limited, it is still of fundamental importance.
If, specifically, the EU can play a complementary role, the added value will be significant.
Not for nothing did we include a fourth instrument to guarantee the smoothest possible transition between the Fifth and Sixth Framework Programme and to allow minor projects too to take place.
More than 15% has been set aside for small- and medium-sized enterprises, and that too is one of our priorities.
The decentralisation of the Sixth Framework Programme is important, but it is just as important not to weigh down the newly integrated projects, centres of excellence, with an enormous amount of red tape.
That is why I believe our amendments are excellent.
One final point: we have struggled greatly with the ethical principles.
Indeed, on the one hand, it is important to create a framework within which research is to take place, but on the other hand, it is important, by means of further research, to create space for solutions to be found for existing illnesses with a genetic hereditary factor.
Our greatest challenge was to strike that balance, and I hope that we have succeeded in this.
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur, Mr Caudron, and Commissioner Busquin, who have both helped us to work efficiently, as have the shadow rapporteurs.
The Sixth Framework Programme is the first implementation of the European Research Area, which itself is a consequence of the Lisbon Summit and its wish for us to have a successful knowledge-based economy, because of the strong correlation between research and development and economic success - inadequate in most EU countries outside Scandinavia, I should say.
We welcome the emphasis on looking for European added value, not scattering the limited funds over the whole range of research carried out.
So I am glad that we are now targeting cutting-edge research, particularly in areas like nano-technology, which will be very significant in the future.
There are, however, some gaps in the proposals which we wish to see filled.
They include, of course, health, other than strictly post-genomic research, non-nuclear energy and land and water transport.
I come to international activities, because the research framework programme must look outside the EU as well.
It is essential that there is both earmarked money for international cooperative research - we suggest EUR 400 million - and mainstreaming across all the research, particularly on HIV/AIDS malaria and tuberculosis.
We must involve the countries that suffer from those scourges in the research.
The sums allocated in the Commissioner's proposal for science and society were inadequate.
We propose to double the spending on science and society.
We do not think that having one specific programme with one management will lead to transparency and adequate monitoring.
I therefore hope that our suggestion will ensure that we are able to have both openness and good management of each individual part of the programmes.
Although we welcome networks of excellence and integrated projects, we must maintain more familiar mechanisms at the early stages.
We must at all costs avoid the creation of scientific cartels.
I am pleased with the new mission of the JRC.
I served on Mr Davignon's panel and it is certainly consistent with the panel's views.
As far as the Euratom section of the Sixth Framework Programme is concerned, I have very grave doubts as to whether the ITER project will be implemented and my personal view - this is not the view of the rapporteur - is that extra funding is not therefore needed.
It will be available in any case.
The framework programmes are one of the big success stories of the European Union.
Let us build on their past success.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Commissioner Busquin for the way these proposals were prepared, for listening to the views of others and for his excellent collaboration.
I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to Gérard Caudron. He listened attentively to all the political groups and to the shadow rapporteurs, and others.
We have worked very well together.
I believe that he did everything he could have done.
Although there have been differences of opinion on some conclusions, the work was completed to a high standard.
My thanks also go to my fellow shadow rapporteurs.
In my opinion, this report on the Sixth Framework Programme on European Research is the big report of the moment, despite its faults. It has European added value, it is innovative as the Commissioner wished, it has networks of excellence and integrated projects.
We have a lot to do. We have also made significant progress on matters concerning young people, grants and women and preventing brain drains.
We cannot ignore all the innovative proposals in the Sixth Framework programme.
There are three issues of great concern to the Greens. Firstly, the ethical questions.
We do not want the European Union to fund the modification of the human genetic inheritance and the creation of human embryos for therapeutic reasons.
We also want to see a ban on financing research using supernumerary human embryos and the stem cells of supernumerary embryos.
From what I have heard, I think all the political groups will reach a compromise on these points.
Secondly, we would like to see an assessment of the effects of new technologies, like electromagnetic radiation for example, on populations, on health and so on. Thirdly, we would like to achieve a fairer balance between research on renewable energies and research on nuclear energy.
I would like to reiterate the sentiments of Eryl MacNally. We do not want to see an increase in the nuclear energy or the ITER project budgets.
That is very long term.
We would however like research credits for renewable energy to be more on a par with those for nuclear energy.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I want to emphasise that I am not speaking on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
There are a good few of our members who have genuinely attended to this issue, who are on the way here to our debate today but who will not perhaps be in time for the vote.
I personally believe that we shall be adopting too many amendments.
If we examine research programmes and research issues, there is scarcely any research programme in the whole of Europe that is so driven by politicians.
That is in total contrast to, for example, the assessment made by Manuel Castells - yes, it is legitimate to call him a sociologist - together with the Finnish philosopher Pekka Himanen as to why Finland is successful as an information society.
In their perhaps otherwise rather vague book, they observe that our technology and innovation policy are successful because we have a complete and autonomous centre for technical development.
That is something which I think invites reflection.
In other contexts, it is usual to applaud Finnish innovation policy.
I think that a certain lesson can be drawn from this.
In addition, I want to emphasise an aspect of this proposal that particularly bothers me, namely that the social research proposed would certainly be allocated to the wrong place, under the Information Society DG.
Social research does not belong in that context.
I do not properly understand how this has happened.
We are also aware that interest in research issues has, to a very large extent, revolved around stem cell research.
Today, we can adopt a position on the Caudron proposal in peace and quiet.
I personally view the committee' s proposal as being well balanced.
The committee' s proposal also shows the modesty and respect that is required when we debate research issues.
I think that those who say that we should now concentrate first and foremost upon stem cells from adults are not showing the required modesty faced with this new area.
In the course of the work in the Temporary Committee on Human Genetics, I learned that we know extremely little.
We must adhere to the old principles and proceed further within the various frameworks.
Furthermore, I learned that the research projects for both forms of stem cells are dependent upon each other. It must therefore be possible for them to be given the same priority.
That, I believe, is extremely important if we are to be able to move ahead as a successful society.
I hope that these comments are not too alarming, but that they lead to reflection on the part of all who are interested in our researchers' really being able to carry out good research.
Mr President, the amount of EUR 17.5 billion of EU membership funds will be used in the next few years on scientific activities through the framework programme.
The size of this sum indicates how significant the matter in question now is.
Codecision procedure removes power from the Commission and brings it to Parliament.
In this matter it is particularly well-founded.
There are good grounds to support Mr Caudron' s model on programme coordination and administration as well as informing and listening to Parliament in decision-making at levels more detailed than that of the framework programme.
The primary research areas selected by the Commission are well-founded as are also Parliament' s complementary priorities, which are not all mere information technology and artificial intelligence.
The health of a human being depends on what he eats.
It is justified to use funds to research the whole of the food chain.
The new biotechnology involves the ethical foundations of all kinds of life, and therefore technology must also be complemented by results from human sciences.
Science must not be dependent on the ethics of big corporations, and that is why it must receive public funding.
When the health of the environment depends greatly on energy production, several adjustments made by Parliament endeavour to improve the research into new forms of energy.
It would be justified to direct more funds into the research of fusion energy than what the Commission is proposing.
There is need to build a new Tokamak for the joint use of all Member States and Switzerland, Canada, Japan and Russia.
When funding is cut, this important project is delayed, further delaying the opportunity to produce energy by fusion power, which even in the current circumstances is going to be postponed by as much as fifty years.
When the framework programme was drawn up, not enough attention was paid to the activities of the Joint Research Centre of the EU.
It will also use scientific resources.
During the coming five-year period its position within the research community of the EU and its Member States must be clarified; research resources must not be wasted.
Mr President, I should like to express concern at the Commission emphasis on large integration projects, which would impact badly on small community-based enterprises as promoted within the framework of rural development programmes and research in the agricultural and associated food sector.
It is now clearly established that the EU-assisted programmes, such as Leader, have the potential to create sustainable employment in rural areas where more centralised programmes would have failed.
I do not have the time to concentrate on the need for ongoing research in the food sector and the potential of new technology in improving product diversification, quality and consumer satisfaction.
How soon can we expect a clear and definitive view on the potential or otherwise of genetic research as applied to practical farming? Delays in this area are leading to confusion on the part of consumers and may well be depriving European agriculture of the tools necessary for sustainability, quality and competitiveness.
What have we learned from the recent scares such as foot-and-mouth and BSE? Will we know what to do to avoid a repetition of the demoralising experience of a foot-and-mouth epidemic out of control?
Finally, and not for the first time, I want to express my concern about research on human embryos.
This Parliament must exercise the most stringent controls in that area.
Mr President, the Caudron report is threatening to become problematic from a Christian-ethical point of view.
Controversial activities should not receive active support from the Union.
Moreover, the community of values which, after all, the EU aspires to achieve, will definitely be at risk.
Intervening in life created by God is non-negotiable.
That must be the basic principle.
In this light, the funding of research activities on surplus embryos with Community money cannot be justified in any way.
Citizens would then be forced to contribute towards research which is punishable in a Member State such as Germany and which a number of national parliaments have declared themselves openly against.
Neighbouring countries of a Member State which apply less stringent rules find themselves facing a related dilemma.
A shift of European research to the relevant Member State undermines the effectiveness of the rules.
A situation should not, however, arise in which ethical differences are exploited as a competitive factor.
That could also lead to a brain drain.
In this respect, the establishment of one European Research Area will function as a catalyst.
That is why I make a serious appeal to you to support my amendments.
They aim to prevent this.
Europe must commit to finding a solution to this pending cross-border issue.
Has the Commission looked into this?
Finally, within the research framework of cross-border problems, it is not funding but cooperation which deserves a central role.
The funding of research into surplus embryos only complicates this cooperation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I fundamentally welcome the Commission's proposal for the Sixth Research Framework Programme, above all the Europe-wide coordination and the emphasis laid on basic research.
Two points cause me concern.
The first is that, when it comes to the definition of fundamental ethical principles, the mind of this House is divided between, on the one hand, banning embryo stem cell research outright and, on the other, permitting it.
Where the boundary lies between a mere heap of cells and a human life is something we all no doubt have to decide for ourselves.
It is a choice with far-reaching implications, one to be made on the basis of conscience.
I would remind you, though, that research on embryo stem cells is prohibited in several Member States, including Austria.
To use EU funds to finance research in one Member State which would be banned in another is unacceptable.
The second thing that concerns me is that research funds totalling EUR 1.2 billion are being made available within the framework of the Euratom programme, over two-thirds of which go to nuclear research.
Safety issues play only a subordinate role.
I consider increased research into non-nuclear energy sources to be imperative.
I regret that there is no reference to it in this report.
- (EL) Mr President, the European Union's Sixth Framework Programme covers high-priority areas and areas of pioneering research from which we expect quantum leaps in science.
I should like to draw your attention to the pioneering area of research into the human genome.
This research is expected to have future applications in four areas of medicine: first, hereditary illnesses, secondly, the most common fatal illnesses, namely cancer, cardio-vascular and degenerative neural illnesses, thirdly, an understanding of the mechanics of various illnesses, which will lead to new, more efficient treatment and drugs and, fourthly, the prevention of disease.
New knowledge about human genetics will help us understand at which points genetic dynamics are vulnerable and open to environmental factors and pressure and the way in which we live, thereby allowing us to develop new strategies for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the illnesses which I have already mentioned.
Stem cell research may well have new applications in treating illnesses such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, leukaemia and many others.
However, the boundaries on research in these fields must be marked out if we are to avoid ethical problems.
This was the point of the amendment which I tabled together with Mr Nisticò and Mr Purvis.
This amendment will allow the pioneering research which I have described to progress while striking the balance needed in order to avoid ethical problems.
So we can look forward to the beneficial medical applications which this research promises.
I trust that the European Parliament will support the line being marked out and strike the right balance between progress and ethical considerations.
Mr President, I would like thank the rapporteur for his good method of preparation, in which he has been willing to take into account colleagues' views.
Several of us Members have been concerned about the possibilities of SMEs to participate in the framework programme, because the Commission' s original proposal does not make these opportunities concrete enough.
The Commission proposes so-called horizontal activities, in which it will be very difficult for small and medium-size enterprises to participate, at least at the initial stages.
Therefore it is necessary to make adjustments approved by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy to the direction that the already existing Craft programme arrangements will continue to take.
The same applies to preparation funds.
Enterprises have already become used to these measures, which have produced plenty of good results.
Why should a good arrangement be abolished? Amendment No 265 concerns this matter.
A share of 15% funding from enterprises has been proposed.
Also this fact must be made concrete in the actual guideline funding schedules, when decisions on them are made at a later stage.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his hard work and for the many additions to the Commission's proposals, particularly on health and disease and sustainable transport.
However, this was undermined in committee by what Mr Van Velzen has already referred to as the joint result.
The proposals on health and transport emerged very much weakened.
Our citizens will want to know why we want to spend more on space research than on sustainable transport.
It is not their priority.
On ethics in biotechnology, the proposals allow funding of research into the alteration of the germline of human beings.
This is unacceptable to mainstream science.
The Greens have tabled an amendment which is congruent with the position of most researchers in the field and this must be supported.
On stem cell research, the production of human embryos for research is unacceptable and it is very unacceptable to most of our citizens as well.
The Temporary Committee on Human Genetics has come to very useful conclusions here and its report should have been taken before this debate.
However, amendments have been tabled in line with its proposals and these must also be accepted by the House, otherwise we will be in deep conflict with our citizens.
As regards GMOs and plant genetics, the proposals that were adopted in committee would put genetically-modified foods on our table and will be forced on European consumers, quite contrary to what many want.
This is again a recipe for conflict and it was not in the Commission's proposals.
Regarding energy, equivalent funding for renewables and nuclear is required.
We have allocated over EUR 1 billion for nuclear funding and nowhere near the equivalent for renewable energy.
This again is completely unacceptable to our citizens.
If we are not to have a conflict between science and society, which the Commissioner has been very anxious to avoid, we will need to revise these priorities.
For example, proposals on fusion are out of date.
Both the US and Japan are pulling out of this research completely.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have before us a very important text, the substance of which will not only determine how the European Union applies research in practice, it will also set the tone for guidelines and practices in all the Member States, especially those like Greece which, to all intents and purposes, have no national research programme of their own.
One of the weak points identified in research in the European Union is its poor application and yet the European Commission's proposed overall budget does not respond to the need for a bold increase in funding and, unfortunately, the Committee on Industry, despite proposing research activities, has not increased the budget.
A second important point is orientation.
The draft before us leaves little room for free research which may not bring in results which can be directly applied in practice but which helps to increase our knowledge and acts as a basis for future applications.
This being so, we feel that the Committee on Industry's proposal to reduce expenditure on so-called priority 8 is not a move in the right direction.
This does not, of course, mean that we disagree with the seven thematic priorities proposed.
The third major issue is who is to benefit from funding.
The structure of the proposed programme is such that it benefits companies, both directly and indirectly, because the guidelines are tailored to their needs.
In our view, corporate research should be funded from company profits, not the public purse.
We are also afraid that small research teams will have trouble finding funding, although the Committee on Industry's amendments will help here.
One comment on the Euratom programme: whatever our reservations about the safety of nuclear fission, we need to be equally hopeful that the continuing debate will provide a long-term solution to the energy supply problem.
From this point of view, I welcome the fact that the Committee on Industry has recommended an increase in funding for the ITER reactor.
Finally, what worries me is that the so-called ethical issue has become much more important than it deserves and has even had a disorientating effect.
Public funding for research is no way to resolve this sort of problem.
It would be a serious oversight on my part if I failed to thank Commissioner Busquin and his staff and, of course, our rapporteur, Mr Caudron, and all the shadow rapporteurs on their tremendous work.
Mr President, Mr Caudron and Mrs McNally both mentioned the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria.
EUR 400 million have been set aside for this purpose, but the money appears in the budget under 'integration of European research' in Amendment No 339.
Could the Commission please tell me whether this means that the money can only be spent in Europe or whether it is possible to use this money to finance the pan-African malaria vaccine-testing network, which, unlike the EU, is ready to test the malaria vaccine now?
If the EUR 400 million can only be spent in Europe, can the Commission tell me whether mainstreaming will make it possible to fund the African network?
If not, I would urge Mr Van Velzen to reconsider accepting an oral amendment to Amendment No 339, which would place the EUR 400 million under international activities.
We are discussing a research programme which will end in 2006.
By then, if we do not finance the pan-African network, more than 400 million people may have died in sub-Saharan Africa and in other poor countries, and more than 50 years of development policy efforts are likely to be ruined by then.
This is extremely important, so even if Mr Van Velzen does not support this oral amendment, I hope that the plenary will.
Thank you, Mr President, and I should also like to thank the rapporteur.
The Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Development is of crucial importance for the Member States and for the Union as a whole. Research ought to be aimed at development.
This is how we must follow up the declarations made at the Lisbon European Council.
We were charged with turning the European Union into the most dynamic and successful economy in the world, whilst also aiming at full employment.
After all, what use would research be if we did not make that our common aim? In my view, the preparation and adoption of the Sixth Framework Programme for Research and Development provides the ideal opportunity to implement this conclusion of the Lisbon Summit and to give substance to the European Charter for small enterprises.
Enterprises play an important role in disseminating scientific innovation. I am therefore delighted that substantial resources, substantial compared to the immense requirements of other areas, have been devoted to growing businesses, especially small businesses and craft industries.
We must support and encourage research and innovation in SMEs, and also facilitate access to the best technologies, including those of the traditional sector too.
It will then be possible for the enterprises to respond to the challenge of full employment. I should, however, like to refer in particular to the biotechnology industry, to which we must pay special attention because it is involved with the science of living beings.
Regardless of the stage of its development, no human being, whether an embryo or an adult, should ever be used as material with which to treat another human being.
Funding research into embryo stem cells or supernumerary embryos would be contrary to the principle of human dignity. This principle is affirmed in several of the founding texts of the European Union and more recently, in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Furthermore, such research is now no longer required because encouraging results have been obtained through the use of adult stem cells to treat incurable diseases.
Mr President, in line with Lisbon and Stockholm Summit declarations and with the report of this Parliament on the future of the biotech industry, the life sciences are a top priority of the Sixth Framework Programme.
This priority is upheld in Mr Caudron's excellent report.
Parliament must continue to be consistent and add its support to the progress which our scientists and researchers can provide.
Yet as representatives of the people of Europe, we in this Parliament must also define the limits which will provide an appropriate ethical context for this progress.
Genetic research promises much in preventing and curing many of man's most dreaded hereditary diseases.
But genetic engineering for this purpose must not extend into eugenics.
Embryo research must not lead to the deliberate creation of embryos for research, though we may accept that early stage supernumerary embryos genuinely resulting from in-vitro fertilisation, from spontaneous miscarriages or from therapeutic abortions for the mother's health, and which are destined for destruction in any case, can legitimately and ethically be available for research in Member States where there is strict regulation and supervision.
The amendment submitted by Mr Trakatellis, Mr Nisticò and myself - No 333 - seeks to restrict and define more exactly than the existing text where these limits lie.
I commend it to the Parliament.
Mr President, I will start by saying something about money.
The EUR 17.5 billion are in my view insufficient, above all when you consider the ambitious goals that Europeans are always setting themselves.
It is certainly far too little when you consider the imminent enlargement of the European Union.
These funds are one day to be invested for 25 or even more Member States, and that is not enough.
That, though, is how things are these days.
I hope in any case that the Council will approve at least these EUR 17.5 billion, or else, and here I agree with Mr van Velzen, there will be trouble.
European research policy is very much seen in terms of participation in the research programmes.
I want to vigorously urge the Commission to do everything possible to make the submission of applications and their processing easier, so that the researchers can spend their time on real research rather than on filling in forms.
My third observation is on fusion.
We wrangle about this over and over again, and I respect the different opinions that are held on the subject.
The only thing I cannot accept is that this research will not bear fruit for a very long time.
We urge the young to start early on providing for old age, even though, from a young person's point of view, old age is a long, long way away.
We are talking here about the same sort of provision.
Whether a fusion power station is eventually built or not, is for those who come after us to decide.
We should, however, give them the option.
I have always considered it very important that the European Union should concern itself with highly sensitive questions that had formerly been beyond our scope, for example, new methods of detecting and removing landmines.
It is fortunate that we have had a programme of this sort within the European Union for a number of years, and it has achieved noteworthy successes.
My heartfelt plea is that this programme should be continued, ambitiously developed and coordinated, if possible, by a single office within the Commission.
I am thinking here of the Joint Research Centre, whose achievements to date deserve to be highlighted.
An attempt is similarly being made, incidentally, to involve European Union research in the elimination of weapons of mass destruction, be they nuclear, biological or chemical.
I would remind you that the Commission will be making a statement this afternoon about the banning of biological weapons, which has to do with the fight against terrorism.
In the former Soviet Union, today, there are still enormous stockpiles of biological and chemical agents that cannot be destroyed for lack of the necessary funds and often also of the necessary technology.
This is an opportunity for the European Union to do something for the security of Europe and of the world.
As far as bioethics is concerned, I urge support for the proposal by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which simply takes account of the different understandings of the law on this subject in the Member States, and we as European legislators cannot supplant the Member States on this point.
Such a respect for sovereignty is reflected in this proposal.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to endorse the congratulations and words of thanks to Mr Caudron.
Mr Busquin, the Sixth Framework Programme has the great ambition of establishing a European Research Area, and I truly hope that the small, yet excellent, research teams which we even have in the more peripheral regions will be able to play a role in this.
In European research, we must take a step forward both qualitatively and quantitatively speaking.
Female researchers must have a part to play in this and in the next few years, forge ahead to take up leading positions in the research programme.
Research which attempts to solve the mysteries of life remains important. That is not only applied research, but also fundamental research.
There is no doubt that bio-genetics will create new opportunities in future in the fight against incurable diseases, such as Alzheimer' s, Parkinson' s and some forms of cancer.
Within the parameters set out in the Caudron report, particularly in Amendment No 22, and under strict ethical supervision, including that of parliaments, we are of the view that it must be possible to finance stem cell research within the Member States' legal framework.
It is of the utmost importance for us to outline this ethical framework and for the European Parliament and the Member State parliaments to follow the developments in this field, for we must avoid at all cost that everything is allowed for some, as long as it is commercially viable, while nothing is allowed for others.
We must be led by our conscience to jointly outline this framework, even if we fail to see eye to eye on this matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the Italian radical members unreservedly support the Caudron report and congratulate the rapporteur on bringing such a difficult and significant task to a successful conclusion. The task is significant because it opens new horizons for European research.
This is sorely needed, because our research is stagnating, our continent and our Union are not at the cutting edge. By this, I mean scientific research and research in many other essential fields, not only scientific progress, but also employment, which are beneficial to the economy and to the progress of human kind.
From this perspective, we are particularly pleased with the position adopted by the Committee on Industry regarding research into human genetics. Tremendous progress has been made everywhere and more is being achieved every day.
Researchers and scientists are working away in laboratories. They are responsible individuals, not at all unbalanced, as many believe.
They hope very soon to make it possible for untold millions of human beings to escape a dreadful fate. These people would then be able to resume a normal life and regain their dignity as human beings.
Diseases such as Alzheimer' s, Parkinson' s, diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease constitute vast research areas still to be explored. I have in mind stem cell research in particular.
The Caudron report presents us with this new challenge, which is dealt with in depth.
Since Galileo, ever since time began in fact, scientific progress has always challenged the established order.
Indeed, given that it ushers in a new order, the one previously in place is bound to collapse.
Nonetheless, certain Members of this House have voiced their opposition to all this. They are trying to prevent what I believe is obvious progress.
In any case, even if Parliament rules against the report, progress will continue.
Clearly, millions and millions of human beings are at risk and threatened with death. There is, however, a strong chance that these new technologies could produce cures or improved treatments.
This is why I say yes to the Caudron report, yes to the hope that European research may rise to the challenge presented by the United States and other world economies. With this in mind, we should invest in European research capable of taking our values to even greater heights.
Our scientists must be allowed to work in the most promising domain possible, namely embryo stem cell research.
Frankly speaking, this is the issue which will very shortly highlight the rift between us. Ladies and gentlemen, the future is at stake here.
It cannot be held up because it is already upon us. Sooner or later it will overcome.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for the Sixth Research Framework Programme is an ethical minefield.
Amendment No 22, providing for Community funds for embryo research, is utterly unacceptable, being a flagrant offence against human dignity.
Embryos must not be degraded to the level of being research material.
Embryo research is banned in four Member States, including Germany.
We must not permit the use of Community funds to finance something that is punishable in these Member States.
Even research on embryo stem cells would offer an incentive to create even more surplus embryos, and we decisively reject it for that reason.
The proposal even offers support to germline therapy.
This would mean the European Parliament distancing itself, politically and scientifically, from the rest of the world, for nobody in the scientific community is demanding or promoting germline therapy, far from it, they are calling for it to be outlawed.
So I ask you to let us clear these ethical mines from the research framework programme and make the programme we adopt a responsible one.
Mr President, first of all I too should like to thank Commissioner Busquin and the rapporteur, Mr Caudron, for the excellent work that has been done with a view to the approval of this Sixth Research Framework Programme.
This document is, I believe, so excellent and innovative that it is almost a sin that the debate in Parliament should concentrate on ethics and the use of stem cells, important though that issue may be, while losing sight of all the novel, highly significant elements present in this Sixth Framework Programme.
I believe that identifying the eight priority thematic areas for research is an innovative, important and positive idea; there is, however, a danger that small and medium-sized European enterprises might be excluded from the identification of areas structurally more suited to large businesses.
Mr Caudron' s proposal of the instrument of the stairways of excellence seems to me to be a valid compromise, and I therefore agree with it, although I still ask the Commission and the Commissioner always to pay the greatest attention to the requirements of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The danger that European research funds might end up being monopolised by large companies, which, by definition, are those that perhaps need them least since they patently already have the capacity to propose and run research programmes, is still very real.
If, however, we wish to build that knowledge-based society that was sketched out in Lisbon, research must permeate our whole society and therefore impinge, first of all, on small and medium-sized European enterprises.
Lastly, to conclude, a remark on the Euratom programme: I agree with the appropriations proposed in the report; we need to give the green light to the ITER project, which must not, however, be confused with the nuclear power schemes we know today.
Here we are talking about research and the future of clean energy.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Commissioner Busquin for his extraordinary commitment and for the enthusiasm he has managed to raise in the European Parliament for the creation of a European Research Area.
I should also like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Caudron, as well as the shadow rapporteurs, Mr Van Velzen and Mrs McNally, for their contributions and the respect they have shown towards those individual Members who have sought to improve this framework programme with their amendments.
The text originally proposed by the Commission has been considerably supplemented and rejigged, now both specifying more clearly the research priorities in Europe in the various sectors and rejigging the initial financial architecture.
With regard to the biomedical sector, I must express my satisfaction with the EUR 500 million increase given to biomedicine, not just for genome and post-genome research but for all research aimed at adding to our understanding of the molecular mechanisms at the basis of diseases as well.
I should like once again to affirm a fundamental idea already expressed by Mr Trakatellis, which is that no research in Europe can be more important or deserve greater priority than that which concerns people' s health and their physical and mental suffering.
That is why I now ask Commissioner Busquin, on behalf of the whole scientific community and of a number of Nobel prize-winners, such as my friend Renato Dulbecco, Rita Levi Montalcini and John Vane, to maintain this increase in funding for biomedical research for the next five years.
Through scientific research we can at last, thanks to new technologies, combat terrible, hitherto incurable diseases such as cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer' s, Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, heart disease and so on, not least by using advanced technologies, as specified, for instance, in the Trakatellis, Purvis and Nisticò amendment, which embodies a good balance that should gain the consensus of the whole House.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to begin by thanking the Commissioner for his outstanding work.
Of course, I would also like to thank our rapporteur, Mr Caudron, for his two excellent reports.
I would like to express my appreciation of the positive and constructive cooperation within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy as well.
I too found this a very enjoyable experience, thanks, not least, to the sterling work carried out by our shadow rapporteur.
I would like to raise two issues.
Firstly, genetic research: genetic and biotechnology offer great opportunities in medicine and the environment, and it is certainly right to give massive support to these areas at European level.
However, as soon as human embryos become the subject of research, I believe that for ethical reasons, clear limits must be set.
Some Member States, including Germany, have banned the use of human embryos for research purposes, and this naturally includes associated activities such as the cloning of human life.
I think that our consideration and respect for other Member States make it incumbent on us to exclude activities which obviously raise serious issues of ethical responsibility from joint European research funding, and I therefore urge this House to vote for Mr Posselt's Amendment No 334 or Mr Liese's Amendment No 332.
The second issue which I would like to address briefly is fusion research.
I wish to voice my clear support for the funding of fusion research.
I believe that nuclear fusion can be developed as a future-proof technology.
It produces virtually no carbon dioxide emissions which impact on climate.
It also produces very little in the way of radioactive waste, and in particular, in contrast to nuclear fission, has no significant harmful effects over the long term.
In this respect, we Europeans should take the opportunity afforded in this area, in which we have a unique status worldwide - to continue appropriate research. We should not cut the budget but leave it, at least, at the level originally proposed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to begin, of course, by congratulating the rapporteur Mr Caudron.
I know from experience how much work is involved in bringing a framework programme to a conclusion, at least in draft form.
We will now formally adopt this programme today or tomorrow.
It is a time for great words, and great words are needed.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express my thanks for the cooperation with the Commission.
Paper does not blush, however. We will have a good programme, but the work is only just beginning.
What are we going to do with all these objectives set out on paper?
How will we achieve these goals? At the moment, this is written not so much in the stars as in the heads of the civil servants or, indeed, the Commissioner.
We therefore urgently need more precise details of this entire project.
We urgently need the specific programmes.
That is the first point.
We also urgently need further cooperation with the Commission if these specific programmes have to be amended by this House.
The second point is this: there is no sense in allocating EUR 17, 18, 16 billion - the figure has not yet been finally decided - if these funds are not used where they are most needed, that is, in the universities, in industry, and in the SMEs.
It is therefore vital to ensure that the rules governing participation in this framework programme are practicable, in line with the realities of the research world, and meet the needs of companies seeking to develop their innovations on the basis of this funding.
After all, we should not forget that research and innovation are not ends in themselves.
The purpose of research and innovation is to bring products to market and improve our competitiveness.
This can only be achieved if there are significant levels of participation, if the allocation instruments are transparent, and if everyone, from Finland to Sicily and Greece, knows what his or her position is.
The real work therefore starts here, not only for the Commission staff but also for us.
After the framework programme means before the next framework programme, but, above all, it means during implementation.
This House must therefore look very closely to determine how much continuity exists between the Fifth and Sixth Framework Programmes, how reliable the instruments used by the Commission are, and how this money is spent.
We will also carry out an ex post audit.
Thank you very much. I look forward to further years of cooperation.
Mr President, I am in favour of research.
We all want to find cures for illness and I am sure that in each of our families we have personally experienced the sadness of incurable disease.
Over the past year in the Temporary Committee on Human Genetics and Other New Technologies we discussed various ways of finding answers to these medical problems.
We voted last week to support the funding of uncontroversial stem-cell research using placenta, umbilical cord and adult stem cells.
We voted with cross-party support to ban funding of research resulting in the destruction of human embryos, any kind of cloning, the use of surplus embryos and germline intervention.
The majority, therefore, in the temporary committee, whose aim it was to draw up ethical guidelines for the European Union, rejects the research funding suggested in the Caudron report.
EU funding should not be promoted for controversial research, banned in four Member States, my own country included.
Respect for the dignity of the human person is a fundamental principle upheld in all European and international agreements.
I urge that we do not desert this principle.
Many citizens, myself included, believe that there is a more acceptable, ethical and moral way forward than the one which leads us to destroy one innocent human life in order to cure another.
I urge you to reject the funding suggested in the Caudron report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, research policy is one of the areas in which we clearly need more involvement by Europe.
Munich is one of the most modern locations for research in the European Union, and Franz Josef Strauss set a course 30 years ago which has ensured that there is still an aerospace industry today.
As a location for research, Munich has never suffered from the fact that research policy has always set clear ethical limits.
On the contrary, these clear ethical limits include banning research on embryo stem cells, the import of embryo stem cells and the creation of embryos for research purposes, for such techniques are nothing but cannibalism.
Even if human life is saved through the killing of other human life, I believe this is ethically unacceptable.
It is cannibalism.
I am delighted that in all its decisions since 1988, since the Ghergo report, the European Parliament has adhered to this position by a clear majority and that the German Bundestag's Study Commission adopted this line, also with a clear majority, on Monday evening, referring in this context to the Fiori report which we adopted last week by a substantial majority in our Committee on Human Genetics.
I think it would be most regrettable if this important, high-quality research framework programme were associated with any attempt to undermine the European Parliament's clear ethical line on embryo protection and the protection of human life.
I urge to you to vote for the Scallon/Posselt amendment, and if this is not adopted, to support the Liese/Fiori compromise amendment and reject all the other amendments on this issue.
The European Parliament's reputation is at stake: a reputation associated with its position, for more than 10 years, at the forefront of those who strive to protect human life.
Mr President, the sixth framework research programme is a serious and fundamental attempt by the European Union to achieve its strategic objectives, that is, to become the most competitive knowledge-economy based area in the world over the next ten years.
It will also help it to benefit from progress being made in other corners of the world, while helping it to contribute towards the development of mankind.
We all have to meet this challenge, at both European and national level.
This means bold funding for research in all sectors, coordinating research at European level, in contrast to the current fragmentary approach, and disseminating it throughout the economic and social fabric.
Our success in achieving our political and development objectives will depend directly on how we use the results of research for the benefit of the health and quality of life of our citizens, full employment and social cohesion.
I should like to focus on the need for research in the social sector.
Our development depends first and foremost on the viability of our social model.
The social agenda which we have adopted and are currently applying is the basis for this policy.
Economic and social change has led our economy and society into an impasse.
Ageing, widespread poverty and social exclusion, large numbers of accidents at work, the need to successfully integrate large groups of citizens such as the Roma, the need to integrate the disabled into the job market, the constant need to help women enter the job market, new risks to employees' health and our increasingly multicultural society in Europe are such that we need scientific research on which to base our policy over coming years.
This will encourage European countries with no tradition of social research, which are the very countries which face the worst development problems.
Finally, I should like to stress the need for public information and consultation on all our research objectives.
Research in all sectors, from biotechnology to social research, is carried out a long way from the ground, in closed laboratories or study firms.
Our citizens are unable to read the articles not just in scientific journals, but also in the broadsheets.
We need to make an effort to ensure that information is provided on a systematic basis.
Mr President, the report and the framework programme have been extensively modified since they were first presented to this Parliament.
Citizens should be aware of this extensive transformation, so that they can see the good cooperation between the institutions.
I think that this is due, to a large extent, to Mr Caudron' s flexibility and capacity to listen, and this is also true of rapporteurs from other political parties, such as Mr Van Velzen, who has been listening throughout and welcoming the amendments and various suggestions from all Members.
I have never worked in a committee where all requests have been treated in this way and incorporated.
I would like this spirit to be maintained throughout the implementation process, because it is clear that this is a European project that needs to continue growing and expanding.
I also have to say that this journey has been carried out on the basis of a policy that aims to reduce work, reduce the work of the committee and to create fewer projects, but larger ones, and Parliament has been able to break down this centrality with regard to large projects, large companies and various research programmes that are essentially covering work that on many occasions is quasi-public with regard to the large research centres or large industries, such as the aeronautical industry.
Parliament has been able to open this project up in more directions, extending its range of priorities to territories that, up until now, were not covered or that were not considered important.
There are various innovations which citizens should be aware of: one of these, the most important one in my opinion, is the introduction of a fourth instrument.
Introducing a fourth instrument means opening the door to smaller projects, facilitating the entry of SMEs and making the European Research Area a possibility, for Europe comprises many small States and Research Centres.
The average European team has no more than six people, whilst an American team consists of 24 people.
Europe needs protection measures and incentives that are suited to its dimensions.
Europe is still a collection of individual initiatives.
For this very reason, the escalier d' excellence seems to be very effectively set out in Amendment No 305.
We have also introduced important aspects of relevance to culture.
Cultural heritage belongs to the world of non-renewable resources.
When the tomb of a mediaeval King disappears, with its costumes and clothing, or when we lose track of a wrecked ship at the bottom of the sea, new technologies have to be used to recover these relics.
Architecture, engineering, the structure of buildings, are all in the realm of science.
We have supported the safeguarding of cultural heritage and we think that the European Union should also continue to do so.
Mr President, honourable Members, we have reached a critical point in the process of adopting our new framework programme on Research.
The European Parliament' s opinion at first reading does indeed constitute a milestone along our way.
I would like to add my voice to those who have congratulated Mr Caudron, the rapporteur. I should like to say to him in all sincerity that the quality of the report and the spirit with which he has imbued it, the energy and the work he has put in are all exemplary in the context of such a difficult task.
As Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl pointed out, it was a complex task but Mr Caudron brought it to a successful conclusion and I would particularly like to thank him for that.
I also wanted to emphasise that this work was the product of a joint effort and the shadow rapporteurs from other groups were involved in this.
I shall not name individuals but I am sure you are all aware of those who have made a constructive contribution to the task in hand over the last few months, as I mentioned earlier. I have in mind also, of course, the rapporteurs of the various committees and obviously, the ITER Committee as a whole, and its Secretariat.
They were also involved in the work.
I do believe that what we have before us is a high quality joint endeavour.
In this connection, you will be aware that a number of amendments have been tabled.
I shall not attempt to outline the Commission' s position on each individual one because I would need the floor for two hours. You will find the relevant information in an exhaustive table to be lodged with Parliament' s clerk immediately.
Generally speaking, I should like to emphasise that the Commission has widely supported the opinions of the ITER Committee. It is a statistical operation and could perhaps be queried.
In fact, however, out of the 334 amendments the Commission has accepted 248 as they stand, in part or in principle. That equates to three-quarters.
You will be able to study the explanations given for each amendment, and the reasons why others cannot be accepted. This can be because they are already there in the proposal.
It is important to be aware of that.
I would therefore simply like to present to you the Commission' s positions on major issues as defined in the context of the amendments adopted by the ITER.
I shall refer to the structure of the framework programme, its scientific and technological content, the instruments for its implementation, the overall budget and its distribution, and the ethical issue. In conclusion, I shall say a few words on the management of the programme, because, as we have emphasised, this is clearly the key issue.
As regards the structure of the framework programme as a whole, the Commission shares Parliament' s views as expressed in Amendment No 36 tabled originally by Mr van Velzen.
I am delighted that Parliament and the Commission are of a single mind concerning the concept of a single specific programme for all the main thematic areas. This should result in multidisciplinary coherence and a strategic vision of research in Europe.
The arrangement also allows for Parliament to closely monitor the implementation.
Each of the eight priorities will in fact have a separate budgetary line on which Parliament will be able to exercise its budgetary control.
With regard to the scientific and technological content, most of the amendments, namely Amendment Nos 30 to 294, relate to the scientific content.
We wish to signal our agreement with a series of suggestions by Parliament concerning priority numbers 2 'Information society technologies' , 3 'Nanotechnologies' , 4 'Aeronautics' , and 7 'Citizens in the European knowledge-based society' .
We have in mind for instance Mrs Schroeder' s amendments concerning respect for privacy in the field of information technologies, and also the Committee on Employment' s amendments on research to support the Lisbon objectives.
Most notably, the Commission agrees to reorganise the content of priorities 1 'Genomics and health' , 5 'Food safety' , and 6 'Sustainable development' , along the lines suggested by Parliament.
As regards priority 1, namely broadening the scope to include the study of the genomes of all living organisms and strengthening the elements of medical research, particularly regarding cancer, in two separate sections along the lines suggested by Mr van Velzen and particularly in the spirit of Mrs Gutiérrez-Cortines' and Mr Caudron' s amendments, we can accept all that is involved.
I should also like to respond to Mrs Sandbaek' s comments on poverty-related diseases and immunisation against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Clearly, provision has already been made for this, as Mrs McNally pointed out.
Such provision is within the framework of international policy, and the technological platform for AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis is exactly in line with the spirit of Mrs Sandbaek' s question.
That question had indeed already been dealt with.
As regards priority 5, the agricultural research aspects linked to food safety will be strengthened, in keeping with a number of the amendments suggested by the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Fisheries. Mr Pietrasanta' s and Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl' s amendments will also be taken into account in priority 5: Food safety
Priority 6 will be restructured as suggested by Mr Caudron, Mr Lange, Mr Hyland and Mr van Velzen.
There will be three distinct sections encompassing issues related to the environment, transport and energy.
Renewable energy will, of course, be included in the chapter on energy. A number of specific aspects of various forms of renewable energy will be emphasised.
The Committee on the Environment and the Committee on Transport also expressed themselves in favour of a change of this nature.
The sustainable development priority will therefore be subdivided into three sections dealing with these three aspects.
Before turning to more general points, I should add that the Commission also accepts or takes into consideration a number of amendments concerning both content and general policy.
By way of example I could refer to Mr Glante' s amendment on the involvement of the candidate countries, Mrs McNally' s amendment excluding research into weapons and Mr Linkohr' s amendment on research linked to security matters which could be dealt with under the title of research into emerging themes and in the framework of the Joint Research Centre.
We also have small and medium sized enterprises very much in mind. Mr Rovsing and Mr Carraro quite rightly reminded us of their role this morning.
Clearly, small and medium sized enterprises will have a specific role to play in the next framework programme.
As regards the instruments, the Commission broadly endorses the approach enshrined in Parliament' s amendments.
The basic thought is indeed to make it possible for the more classical instruments currently in place to be used alongside the new, more integrating instruments for a specific period. That was in fact what Mrs McNally proposed.
Hence the Commission' s suggestion in its proposal on the rules of involvement, to resort to specific targeted actions and coordination actions under the heading of the stairway of excellence envisaged by Mr Caudron, the rapporteur. The proposal will be in line with at least the spirit of this idea of a stairway of excellence.
Nonetheless, it is essential for the new instruments to remain the main priority tools for implementing this part of the framework programme. Only through their structuring effect will a genuine European Research Area become a reality.
Concerning the Budget, I should like to thank the Parliament for having gritted its teeth and demonstrated budgetary realism by remaining within the limits of the Commission' s proposal. In real terms this represents a 17% increase as against the overall budget for the previous framework programme.
I think I already mentioned how significant this is inasmuch as the figures proposed by the Commission were arrived at following a needs assessment and in the light of the financial perspective and the possibilities provided under heading 3 of the internal budget policies.
We believe that the Member States will adopt this same approach at Council as it is a logical, coherent and reasonable way forward.
As for Parliament' s proposal to increase the global envelope by EUR 100 million, that is not a substantial additional amount.
Nevertheless, we feel we should retain the decisions already taken, in order to avoid inter-institutional trading.
The Commission therefore wishes to retain the initial global position of EUR 17.5 billion in the interests of interinstitutional consistency.
We shall then have to consider how to deal with the fusion issue.
In connection with the latter, it would be wise to demonstrate flexibility when interpreting the principle of reserved use of EUR 200 million for ITER.
All activities relating to ITER are, in fact, concerned, not simply with the construction of the machine.
In this way it will be possible to maintain the potential for present and future research.
It would also be wise to interpret fusion in an even more positive manner. I have taken Mr Linkohr' s image on board with pleasure.
It is however the case that in the next twenty years very interesting research will be conducted also on materials and on how to effect magnetic confinement. This will be in addition to still more wide-ranging research, going beyond fusion and relevant to the development of new technologies in a whole range of other sectors.
This therefore is the type of presentation we are aiming at. Furthermore, it is in line with what was voted for at the ITER Committee.
I should now like to say in this connection, that jointly with the Member States, the Commission will set up a working group charged with setting targets in the less distant future, taking 2020 as a guide.
This is a long way off, but in a sense 2020 is also quite close. Such an initiative would bear considerable fruit too.
Indeed, a number of Member States broadly supportive of the 2020 end date for material essential to fusion put just such a proposal to Council.
As for distribution of the framework programme budget allocation, the Commission will support the general direction of the guidelines proposed by Parliament.
This follows almost inevitably from the Commission' s acceptance of the amendments to content.
Clearly, if we accept amendments to content in certain areas we must, of course, fund them.
When research extends to areas which were not anticipated at the outset, the budget must, of course, keep in step, otherwise it will fall to a critical level.
Nonetheless, the scope of the adjustments we envisage is less extensive than what Parliament proposed.
This is so as not to go beyond real needs insofar as they can be calculated, but also so as not to completely starve of resources the activities under the so-called eighth priority. Additional information is called for and we shall provide it.
Why not risk depriving these activities of resources?
The reason is that such activities are of considerable significance. In particular, they concern research relevant to the reform of the common agricultural policy.
This is one of the major aims of Community policy. It is important in itself and increasingly so in the context of enlargement.
Also involved are the implementation of policy on fisheries and the epidemiological aspects of public health, security and justice. These are all issues which cannot be dealt with appropriately under the heading of other priorities.
The latter are more specific and come under what could be described as more clearly targeted research programmes. This represents a field of action, an effort to support research and development areas related to community policies.
Adequate funding must be made available. I also have in mind Mr Verheugen' s call for support for all policies relating to enlargement, notably in the area of life sciences.
With regard to ethics, we did consider the amendment adopted by the ITER committee in the report drawn up by Mr Caudron. We are quite prepared however, to consider the amendments tabled at plenary.
This is indeed a sensitive issue.
The text the Commission proposes to insert into the decision specifically excludes from Community funding research aimed at creating human embryos purely for research purposes or in order to create stem cells. This is in addition to excluding research into human reproductive cloning, and research aimed at modifying the human genetic heritage.
As I understand them, these amendments are also intended to exclude the transfer of cell nuclei amongst other processes.
I refer to the amendments tabled by Mr Nisticò, Mr Trakatellis and Mr Purvis.
I trust I am not trying your patience. I should like to make two last points.
Firstly, coordination has not been given the importance it deserves.
Mrs Maes, I do believe that the coordination of national programmes is a key element in the construction of a genuine European Research Area, and I mean national and regional programmes.
You will be aware that we issued a communication on 'regions and research' , and EUR 400 million will be allocated to it.
This may be used to support coordination activities, particularly in a number of clearly identified areas to which several of Parliament' s amendments refer.
I can tell you for instance that childhood diseases and diabetes are now included under the framework of coordination of national policies.
I have in mind the amendment tabled by Mr Nisticò, Mr Fiori and Mr Bowis.
The same applies to seismic risk, with Mr Caudron' s and Mr Nisticò' s amendments, to fossil fuels and maybe also to ecosites and Mr Piétrasanta' s amendment. I am not however sure that the latter will be adopted.
Clearly, there is action with regard to coordination of national policies.
I shall now refer to management.
The management of framework programmes has come in for criticism and rightly so. The Court of Auditors is one of these critics.
In particular, it had criticised the complexity of management. We are therefore firmly committed to a single aim in this regard: to simplify management for the scientific community, and for small and medium sized enterprises.
Simplifying, however, also means limiting constraints and accepting a degree of flexibility out of regard for public money and the observations made by the Court of Auditors.
We shall therefore prepare the proposal.
We have taken the initiative with the new instruments.
In particular, the issue of rules of participation is very important and you will be called upon to determine them.
I should say to Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl that we are currently engaged in a debate on these rules with the players in the scientific community, enterprises and Parliament.
That is our next task.
In conclusion, I should like to thank Parliament.
I believe an important task has been concluded. As a result, it will now be possible for us to move towards the European Research Area that I am sure we are all aiming to create.
Thank you for your work and for your contribution.
(Applause)
Thank you for your speech, Commissioner Busquin.
I believe everybody here would like to thank you just as warmly for the very proper manner in which you have conducted your relations with our institution.
Mr President, since the Commissioner has now indicated that he will be adopting so many of Parliament' s amendments, I have one pertinent question for the Commissioner.
Does that also mean that you will now first be fine-tuning the specific programmes which you have drafted earlier before they can be discussed in Parliament?
Obviously, it follows that in the next few days specific programmes will be adjusted to bring them into line with any amendments adopted.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
EU/Latin America relations
The next item is the report (A5-0336/2001) by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on a global partnership and a common strategy for relations between the European Union and Latin America [2000/2249(INI)].
Mr President, on a point of order, I would like to bring to your attention, and I hope this will not take up part of my speaking time, that I have received no news relating to the absence of the Commissioner responsible, Mr Patten.
I was wondering whether the presidency had received any news of his absence and if it could provide any information.
I cannot see the Commissioner here, which is very strange because he always comes to debates on foreign policy when he can.
I would like to know whether the presidency or the Commission have any information that justifies, as will surely be the case, the absence of the Commissioner responsible, Mr Patten.
Mr Salafranca, from the point of view of the presidency I cannot answer your question.
The Commission is, however, present in the person of Commissioner Bolkenstein, who will, of course, speak on behalf of the Commission at the end of the debate.
I do not know whether Commissioner Bolkenstein intends to answer your question straight away.
Commissioner.
Mr President, my colleague, Mr Patten, is at present in New York attending the General Assembly of the United Nations.
I hope that Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra will take this as sufficient apology for his absence and that he will be happy with the answers I give him and other Members in the debate that follows.
I shall certainly do my best.
Thank you, Commissioner Bolkenstein.
I think Mr Salafranca, like the rest of us, has been given a clear and satisfactory answer.
Mr President, I would like to thank both yourself and also Mr Bolkestein for his kindness and his cooperation.
I naturally understand the reasons he has given for Mr Patten' s absence.
As you all know, the Heads of State and Government of the European Union, some time ago, in June 1999, decided to form a strategic global partnership between the European Union and Latin America.
More than two years have passed since that date and the truth of the matter is that we have to admit that no great progress has been made in reaching this objective set by the Heads of State and Government.
This, Mr President, is precisely the reason why the European Parliament has wanted not only to discuss, but also to adopt an own-initiative report in order to add fuel to the debate on the next summit, the second of the Heads of State and Government, which will take place next spring, and present a document that could offer a strategic vision with regard to these relations, in order that the European Union will not arrive at this summit empty handed, at least with regard to the responsibility of our institution.
I would like, in the first instance, to praise the spirit of cooperation that the political groups have shown me during the production of this report, which has been approved by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy by an overwhelming majority (48 votes for, 0 against and 2 abstentions).
I would also like to thank the committees who were asked to give their opinion for their cooperation.
In this report, Mr President, we are asking for something of fundamental importance: that is that, just as the European Union has a common strategy for relations with Russia, with the Balkans, with non-EU countries in the Mediterranean or with the Ukraine, it should also have a common strategy for relations with the countries of Latin America.
This strategy, Mr President, in my opinion, should involve three aspects: in the political sphere, a revision and updating of the biregional agenda; secondly, a renewal and updating of political dialogue at ministerial level; and thirdly, the constitution of a transatlantic, Euro-Latin American assembly, through the signing of a Euro-Latin American charter for peace and the implementation of a Euro-Latin American political and security partnership.
In the economic, financial and commercial field, Mr President, we think that the European Union should complete the agreements that are currently under negotiation with Mercosur and Chile.
These agreements need to be concluded in a balanced fashion and, naturally, as quickly as possible, depending on their own merits.
We think that there can be no distinction, at least from the European Union' s point of view, between first- or second-class countries or groups of countries.
For this reason, we are asking the Commission, in the medium term, to put forward some negotiation guidelines with the aim of reaching new agreements with the Andean Community and with the countries in Central America.
I am talking, Commissioner, about the short and medium term, given that in the short term we believe, here in the European Parliament, that the facilities granted by the Community Generalised System of Preferences have to be maintained.
In the same respect, Mr President, we are asking for the implementation of a global interregional association agreement that can give institutional support and total geographical coverage in relations with the subcontinent, in order, amongst other things, not to be second rate when compared with the developments that are being made in the United States.
We are also requesting the creation of an area of shared prosperity through the strengthening of regional markets between now and the year 2010.
I would like to add, Mr President, that it is a shame that there should only be one country in Latin America which, although we have diplomatic relations with it and apply the Community Generalised System of Preferences to it, is not linked to the European Union by means of an agreement.
I am, naturally, referring to Cuba.
For this reason I think that - in the spirit of the doctrine of the European Union in general and in the spirit previously adopted by this Parliament in the Newens report in particular, we should seek a formula which, within the framework of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, would allow us to progress in order to find an institutional formula in our relations with this country.
In the social and cultural field, Mr President, we are proposing an emphatic and ambitious development cooperation policy in the social, culture, education, emigration, internal affairs and justice fields, with a whole series of concrete initiatives, that I will not explain here right now for lack of time.
Mr President, I believe, and I think that my fellow Members believe the same, that the commitments made at the Rio Summit and the whole strategy formulated around the new commitment with Latin America should take shape as quickly as possible and give a strong impetus to relations with this region, although this should not be done to the detriment of economic sectors and the civil society.
The next summit of Heads of State and Government will have to result, in our opinion, in a palpable success, sending a clear message with regard to this new European commitment with Latin America.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra on his clear and comprehensive report.
It is indeed time for the European Union to revise its strategy on relations with Latin America.
There is still a great deal of room for improvement, especially in the field of economic cooperation, and for us Socialists, this also includes Cuba, a country with which we must finally commence negotiations on a framework agreement, without any preconditions.
Economic cooperation must include and take account of appropriate social and ecological minimum standards; after all, we do not want to worsen the social inequalities in Latin America but help to defuse them, for these countries are still marked by massive variations in social conditions.
There are wealthy industrialised enclaves surrounded by regions with crippling poverty.
We therefore also call, in the field of structural development, for measures to achieve sustainable economic development which promote SMEs in particular.
Above all, wherever it is necessary and appropriate, the groups concerned and civil society, especially indigenous ethnic groups, must be included from the planning stage onwards.
This applies especially to the Puebla Panama project.
The European Union should only participate in this project on the basis of clearly defined substantive agreements.
Technology and knowledge transfer, but also the opening of the European market to the partner countries' products, are further steps which must be taken quickly.
This House wants an equal economic partnership with the citizens of Latin America, not just with a handful of major corporations.
Mr President, the terrorist attacks of 11 September have finally brought it home to us that global crises have global consequences and that the European Union can no longer afford any eurocentrism.
This does not mean downgrading the importance of EU enlargement and the stabilisation of the Balkans; it simply means that the Rio process must not suffer the same fate as the Barcelona process or the policies on the Mediterranean.
It should not take a terrorist attack for us to give relations with these marginal areas of Europe or the Latin American region, a region which has strong historical and demographic links with Europe, the attention they deserve.
The European Parliament's own-initiative report by Mr Salafranca is therefore timely, coming as it does in advance of the Rio follow-up summit in Madrid in May next year.
We need to develop a strategy and give greater priority to our policies on Latin America at every level in order to combat poverty on this continent, consolidate democracy, tackle organised crime and drug trafficking, and, finally, to protect our economic interests.
The conclusion of the association agreement with Mexico has had a positive impact on the European business presence in that country, which has benefited both sides.
The association agreement with Chile will, we hope, be signed in Madrid in May.
Unfortunately, the negotiations with Mercosur are not progressing as smoothly. I hope that in this context, the Commission and the European Parliament will do their utmost to overcome the hurdles concerning Argentina and Brazil.
Free trade is not a one-way street, and more or less concealed protectionism should be a thing of the past.
We must also increase awareness of the Latin American region.
The establishment of a Centre for European and Latin American Studies would be a welcome step.
What Latin America needs, however, are not only association agreements but general strategies to promote an investment-friendly climate, and this can only be achieved if there is political stability and an end to capital flight.
Not every dollar earned should be transferred directly to Miami.
Mr President, the Salafranca report comes at an opportune moment.
The implementation of a global partnership and common strategy with Latin America, driven by Europe, is something that has always been worthwhile, but now more than ever, since 11 September, when international relations are clearly in a state of upheaval.
This strategy and partnership driven by Europe comes at a time when a partner, in a different region, is going through difficult times, of which we are all aware.
However, as Europeans, we should have clearly defined ideas.
The partner to which I am referring will get through its bad patch over time and will once again turn its attention to Latin America.
It has a right to do this, but Europe has values and interests that are not always the same as those of the United States.
We only have to mention the mere existence of Mercosur or Alca or, simply, the different positions we maintain with regard to areas such as the death penalty or the Permanent Court of International Justice.
With regard to the objectives of the common strategy that have been mentioned, it is laudable, of course, to aim for the implementation of a Euro-Latin American area of peace and stability, in addition to the signing of a peace charter, a task that in my opinion would be difficult to achieve, but not as difficult as reaching equivalent objectives, such as those sought by the Barcelona process for Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, whose execution has not so far made it possible to solve the Middle East conflict.
On the other hand, I applaud the intention of sharing prosperity through the creation of a free trade area by 2010, or thereabouts.
However, I would like to allude once more to the Barcelona process in order to warn that the process that we are hoping to achieve for Latin America should take account of inequalities, that is to say, the different economic weight of the partners, because this could lead to trade being free for all, in theory, but, in practice, being subjected to the most onerous of burdens, that is to say, true inequality that as we all know can be widespread throughout Latin America.
This could mean that our supposed free trade will become nothing more than a slogan.
So, if our intention is to create a partnership between members who are supposed to be equal, when it is obvious that they are not, it is important that we can resort to a fundamental instrument.
I am referring to a genuine development cooperation policy, which is the only thing that can minimise, although I fear this will not happen before 2010, the enormous socioeconomic differences that exist today between the European Union and Latin America and even between Latin American partners themselves.
Lastly, I would like to remind the ultra-liberals that not only is development aid compatible with free trade, but that it requires it, except when free trade is understood to be solely based upon cynical and even cruel inequalities.
On occasions, decent trade is not possible without efficient and transparent development cooperation providing the basis for a free, but fair, game.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can only express my hearty congratulations to Mr Salafranca on the thorough work he has done.
It is true that to give real substance to all that was decided in Rio de Janeiro by the first Summit between Heads of State and Government of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, the solemn declarations must be made concrete by transforming them into facts, strategies and opportunities that can give new life to the dialogue between the European Union and Latin America.
We should not be surprised, then, that the Salafranca report states firmly that the only way the European Union can establish a genuine, bi-regional strategic partnership is to launch a new joint strategy with force and determination, and that the best time to do so may be precisely at the Madrid Summit in May 2002.
It is right, therefore, to lay the foundations straight away and to find the simplest instruments that can be most readily understood by the citizens of both the European Union and South America.
The creation of a single EU-Latin American Transatlantic Assembly will be most welcome; it must have the broadest remit, including, particularly, the fight against poverty and social exclusion, and the fight against drugs and organised crime, and it must also focus greatly on the basic sector of education, culture and free trade which, as the previous speaker pointed out, must come about without generating inequalities.
The strategy, as the rapporteur suggests, could be one of a single bi-regional solidarity fund, clearly identified and thus more easily controlled.
But apart from the technical financial instruments, what is fundamental is that there should be clear political will, that we should take on a greater burden, that the Union can and must commit itself to implementing a strong development cooperation policy.
The historical, cultural and blood ties that link so many Europeans to Latin America mean that whenever one of us is in Latin America, Mr President, we feel at home.
These ties impose a moral as well as a political obligation on us to continue to uphold with renewed vigour the specific nature of Europe' s role, which is based on the strength of those values that have been at the root of our project for integration.
It is also for these reasons that, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, I confirm our full support for this report.
Mr President, the common strategy on Latin America is a strategy that may contain highly novel elements for Europe in this ever more complicated world.
This novelty will be seen in the way the relations between Europe and Latin America are to be organised around three themes: the first is the debate on the rules of the game in the process of globalisation and, particularly, the question of democracy and the reduction of poverty; the second is the question of regional political integration; and the third is the joint management of major environmental crises.
In this sense, although we in our group support the general approach taken by the Salafranca report, it contains a few elements which we believe still reflect a view that does not give enough attention precisely to the novelty of the issues we should be responding to.
In particular, my group strongly questions the emphasis placed on the commercial dimension of relations between Europe and Latin America, especially the need for them to be subject to the current rules of the World Trade Organisation, rules which are widely challenged not only in Latin America but in Europe too.
Secondly, we do not agree with the a priori positive assessment of the Puebla-Panama plan, which is a plan for large infrastructure works which will have considerable social and environmental impact.
Before the European Union joins the financial community in contributing to the success of this plan, as called for in the report, I think we should carefully assess this impact.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate and thank Mr Salafranca for his report, which is very comprehensive, well-written and apt, because it is only when the enlargement process has been completed on paper, that we realise that there are still two issues that have yet to be resolved: Euro-Mediterranean strategy and this matter of Latin America.
And it is precisely Latin America, with its growing organisational process, that offers more possibilities and at the same time has international repercussions that we should view positively.
The influence of the European Union on Latin America within the United Nations in terms of finding peaceful solutions for conflicts, is, my view, a cause for hope, when compared with the militarisation and aggressive use of force practised by the United States at this time.
I think that this issue is both important and appropriate, and Parliament is showing us that we are working in real time.
For this reason and without reservations, our group will be supporting Mr Salafranca' s report.
We do not agree upon certain, very specific, issues, but we will deal with these when the time is right.
We are thinking here of the inclusion of Cuba, which for us is of fundamental importance, and also the choice of a peaceful solution of the Colombian conflict, which is what the European Union wants to see.
Mr President, the countries of Latin America and the European Union have a cultural basis in common, which greatly facilitates the mutual relations between our peoples.
Despite, however, certain promising prospects opened up by the first EU-Latin America-Caribbean Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1999, along the lines of a strategic partnership on an economic, social and ecological level, the concrete results so far achieved have been far from satisfactory.
The reasons for this shortcoming are varied in origin and responsibility for it lies in different places.
For the part that lies with us, there seems at times to be a kind of European self-inhibition, perhaps due even to the geo-strategic primacy, and not only that, of the United States throughout the American continent.
As we know, the countries of Latin America are confronted with joining the American free trade area, which may happen from 2005 onwards (so we are nearly there!).
Now that there is a clear need to establish strong partnerships on the international scene, now more than ever, since the end of the Cold War, the European Union must not shirk any of its responsibilities or the challenges placed before it.
One of the most important is precisely that of being able to define coherent joint strategies and endow them with effective political content.
Thus the proposals presented in this own-initiative report by Mr Salafranca, whom we congratulate on his excellent work, deserve all our support.
Not only because they explain and list practically all the aspects that have to be taken into consideration in a joint strategy to intensify EU-Latin American relations, but they also deserve our support because they come at just the right time, prior to the preparations for the second Heads of State and Government Summit to be held next May.
Mr President, it seems to me that something is sorely missing from the report we have before us.
I refer of course to the Native Americans, and by that I mean the indigenous peoples of this subcontinent.
We tend to overlook them all too often, because they prick our conscience somewhat.
How can we discuss relations with that part of 'Latin' America and fail to refer to these people? Where it did not wipe them out, our so-called civilisation reduced most of them to poverty.
In its opinion, the Committee on Development and Cooperation has, quite rightly, highlighted this omission.
To take an example, item 50 of paragraph g of the report envisages a financial contribution by the Union to the Puebla Panama plan.
How can such an idea be entertained when the plan covers areas with a majority Native American population, in Chiapas and Guatemala, yet the American Indians have not been consulted?
I would be hard put to vote in favour of this report.
Mr President, the establishment of a common strategy between the European Union and Latin America, as decided in Rio de Janeiro in 1999, is a matter of justice that will finally give the appropriate dimension to interregional relationships that have historically been undervalued.
The Socialist Group in the Committee on Development and Cooperation agrees with the objectives set out in the resolution proposed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, for which I would like to congratulate Mr Salafranca.
In our opinion, we need to increase the content of the political agenda and deepen dialogue at all political and institutional levels, within the framework of a true partnership.
We think that the signing of association agreements with the Andean Community and Central America is necessary, with the aim of creating a Euro-Latin American free trade area.
We also consider, however, that we need to give priority to the resolution of development problems in many Latin American countries, where there are 200 million poor people.
We are particularly concerned about the Andean area, Central America and the Caribbean.
In the Andean area, instability, institutional violence, problems of drug trafficking and the management of migratory flows have to be dealt with from a global perspective, that integrates development cooperation, trade liberalisation, institutional transformation, human rights and the rights of indigenous peoples in particular.
The creation of a Euro-Latin American area of peace and stability has to be founded upon the principles of human rights, democracy and the fight against drug trafficking.
In Central America, aid to social development and the fight against poverty have to take precedence over any other initiative, such as the information society.
To do otherwise would be to put the cart before the horse.
I would also like to make a special reference to the Caribbean and, specifically, to Cuba, as have other Members this morning.
Cuba is not part of the Cotonu Agreement nor does it have an institutionalised relationship with the European Union.
We think that development potential in Cuba, where, for some time, European companies have been investing, and the situation of its people merit treatment from the European Union that goes much further than the indifference it has shown to this country until now.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Salafranca on his magnificent report and also Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for his opinion, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on this subject.
The Salafranca report is, generally speaking, very comprehensive and quite ambitious.
I am only going to make one point, relating to paragraph 60, referring to the need for the Commission and the Council to provide adequate funding; and I would like to relate it to the report presented to us yesterday by the President of the Court of Auditors on economic management in the year 2000.
In this report, in paragraph 5.5.8, something very serious is pointed out: that more than 25% of commitment appropriations allocated to Latin America in the year 2000 could not be used, because of administrative shortcomings.
It was not made very clear in the Court of Auditors report whether administrative shortcomings were restricted to those countries receiving Community aid or the Community' s administration itself.
In response to the Commission, a series of measures have been referred to which would prevent this taking place this year or next, and Mr Salafranca himself refers to another issue, which is the need for extra personnel in the Directorate-General for Latin America.
Some time ago the Director of this Directorate-General told me personally, and I am talking about more than ten years ago, that the Directorate did not need more money, but more staff.
I still have no idea whether this particular bottleneck has yet been resolved.
Finally, one of the proposals put forward by the Commission is to strengthen delegations' decentralisation functions.
I would also like to insist upon something Mr Salafranca has also stressed, which is that a very large country in Latin America with which we have a privileged relationship, Ecuador, still has no delegation, despite previous agreements and commitments made by this Parliament and the Commission itself.
Mr President, in the time available, as Mr Salafranca will understand, I would like to concentrate on paragraph 7 of the resolution on the urgent and overriding need to keep support for the peace process in Colombia as a priority within this strategy.
In particular I want to state two points.
First, that the pledge made by President Pastrana personally to this Parliament on the dismantling of paramilitary groups has not been, and is not being, honoured.
So say the UN special representative on human rights, the Mexican observer commission and the relations of ten fishermen killed in Santa Marta, and of the 18 people forced face down on to the ground and shot dead by paramilitaries in Buga within the last month alone.
This is a continued gross abuse of human rights and, as my own UK ambassador has said, in these troubled times the guerrillas and the paramilitaries are both terrorist groups and should be combated through all means as part of the current anti-terrorist programme.
We feel that particularly due to the killing of the British backpacker Jeremy Parks on 28 October.
The Belgian Presidency rightly included action against paramilitaries as one of its four priorities in Colombia, in August of this year.
Could the Commissioner please tell us in his reply what progress is being made as a result of the pressure that is being applied.
Secondly, we support Commissioner Patten's proposal for a peace laboratory at Magdalena Medio.
It is a major contribution towards the peace process, in contrast to the American military aid in Plan Colombia, which we have roundly condemned.
But this Magdalena Medio region has been subject to an incursion by those same guerrillas.
They are there, threatening campesinos that they must plant coca or they will die.
They are there running their own businesses, having their own taxes and they want to co-opt NGOs to ensure that our European money goes to them to undermine the peace process rather than to support it.
I call on the Commissioner now to show how he will introduce control and verification mechanisms so that our European money will achieve progress in the peace process, and not be abused by the paramilitaries to undermine our very aims.
Welcome
EU/Latin America relations (continuation)
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra for his excellent report.
I should like to express my recognition of the arduous task that he has undertaken, namely to synthesise the different aspects of our relations with Latin America.
This report looks forward in an ambitious effort to give more vitality and further impetus to our already intense relationship with Latin America.
The report takes a comprehensive approach to the objectives that should be pursued within the wider scope of our relations and the Commission completely shares this focus.
Political, economic and cooperation aspects cannot be dissociated from each other if we want our relationships to develop in a balanced way.
In this context, one of the major advances in recent years has been the establishment of a strategic bi-regional association, agreed upon at the first summit for Heads of State and Government of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean.
The report underlines the importance of the priorities decided upon at the summit and uses them as a springboard to propose specific objectives in the political, economic, social and cultural fields.
In the political field, we support and share the desire to enlarge our bi-regional political agenda and to update the ministerial political dialogue.
Political dialogue is the central instrument for structuring and giving content to the strategic association.
This strategic association builds on common values which include diversity, tolerance, humanism and solidarity; it should allow both regions to assert their common positions and converging interests on international and multilateral issues of great transcendence.
Many of these issues are addressed in the report and some of them, such as the prevention of conflicts and the fight against terrorism, have just taken on a new meaning.
In the economic, financial and commercial field, I cannot but share your wish that the negotiations in progress with Chile and the Mercosur conclude with success as soon as possible.
The entry into force of the agreement concluded with Mexico is already having a very positive impact on our commercial relations and on our investment.
But I believe that we should be careful about using the same schemes that we are applying to Mercosur, Chile and Mexico for other regions of Latin America.
We should always take into account the particular characteristics of each region, its level of economic development, the structure of its commerce and the level of regional integration which it has reached.
For this reason, we have undertaken a thorough study of our present and future commercial relations with Central America and the Andean Community.
On the basis of that study we shall be able to decide how to continue developing our economic and commercial relations with those regions.
Turning now to the cooperation issues dealt with in the report, I should start by mentioning the positive impact that the implementation of the external aid management reform will have.
The new programming and management mechanisms will increase the coherence, complementarity and efficiency of cooperation programmes.
I should also like to make it clear that the emphasis on social aspects - in particular health, education and the fight against poverty - is a priority for the Commission too.
We are currently promoting a forum for an exchange of ideas between the different actors in civil society on issues relative to social equity, so that its conclusions may be submitted to the Madrid Summit.
Social equity should be central to the dialogue between Heads of State and concrete initiatives in that field ought to come out of this summit.
I am grateful for the support given to Commission initiatives in the fields of education and culture. Before the end of the year, the Commission intends to adopt an ambitious scholarship programme so that postgraduate Latin American students can complete their studies in Europe.
I am equally grateful for the support of the rapporteur and this Parliament for the programme aimed at enhancing the participation of Latin America in the information society.
I hope I have made it clear that the Commission shares the majority of the objectives set out in the report and that we very much appreciate the quality and ambitious nature of the proposal it contains.
I nonetheless wonder whether it is necessary to adopt a common strategy to achieve those objectives.
We must bear in mind the dynamic nature of our relations.
That dynamism results to a large extent from the vast array of regional and sub-regional mechanisms available to us. These allow us to develop a flexible political dialogue which is easily adaptable to current circumstances and priorities.
The vitality of our relations is largely the result of our decision to move forward on the basis of a strategic association built upon a relationship between equals.
The priorities of that strategic association are defined by the Heads of State and Government of both regions.
I therefore believe that before launching any new initiatives we should ensure that the process we have just started continues to develop and builds progressively on the present dialogue and association relationship.
I should like to thank Parliament for this valuable contribution.
With reports such as this, Parliament continues to present a clear vision of what our relations should be with a region which is developing closer political and economic links with the European Union.
Finally, I am fully aware that some questions were addressed to Mr Patten.
I am sure he would like to provide written answers to the questions from Mr Medina Ortega in particular, but also to those from other speakers, and I assure Parliament that it will receive a full reply within the next few weeks.
Mr President, my sense of nobility obliges me to respond to the positive and constructive speech by Mr Bolkestein.
As rapporteur, I would say to him that I almost did not miss Mr Patten' s absence.
I would also like to express my thanks to all of my fellow Members.
For reasons of accuracy, I would like to refer to a point that has been made in this debate that the great omission from this report was the failure to mention indigenous peoples.
I would like to quote directly from paragraph 27, which "calls for the new common strategy to make education, health and culture its priorities and to provide for targeted measures in support of those Latin American countries which require them, with particular attention paid to ethnic minorities and indigenous groups".
Therefore, to say that there has been an omission, when we are asking that the maximum priority within the new common strategy be given to indigenous peoples, seems to me to be a clear contradiction, although, naturally, I respect the opinion of all my fellow Members.
Thank you, Mr Salafranca.
I am afraid the Member who made this observation is not present and was therefore unable to hear what you said, but he will certainly be informed.
Shipbuilding
The next item is the report (A5-0373/2001) by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on a temporary defensive mechanism for shipbuilding [COM(2001) 401 - C5-0393/2001 - 2001/0153(CNS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report on the proposal for a Council regulation concerning a temporary defensive mechanism for shipbuilding is extremely important, for shipbuilding is a strategically significant sector in the European Union.
I would like to take this opportunity to present the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which, regrettably, does not coincide with that of the rapporteur.
I wish to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, for her outstanding work, especially in view of the very short time available to her.
I would therefore like to thank her, even though she has difficulty in accepting the legality of this proposal.
Naturally, my Committee has examined this issue and concludes that the right legal basis has been selected and that the concerns regarding the proposal's legality are unfounded.
I therefore wish to comment briefly on the content of the proposal and the report.
It would be remiss of me, however, if I omitted to mention the constructive cooperation with the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
I think we have put forward a sound proposal.
I very much hope, too, that the Commission will adopt the amendments proposed by this House.
The conclusions of the Industry and Energy Council of 5 December 2000, in accordance with the 1998 Council decision, confirmed the ending of operating aid for shipbuilding from 1 January 2001.
However, it was pointed out at the time that if the negotiations with Korea failed, the Commission could adopt a different position after a review.
We must recognise that Korea has failed to honour the 2000 agreement in terms of price discipline and subsidies.
The Commission therefore had to examine whether, in the event of the failure of negotiations with Korea, which continues to violate current trade agreements by granting state subsidies, a temporary defensive mechanism should be proposed for European shipbuilding.
The proposal has now been submitted because the negotiations failed, and the proposed defensive mechanism must be evaluated.
From the Committee's point of view, the proposal is inadequate, as it is restricted solely to container ships and tankers for transporting petroleum products and chemicals (excluding stainless steel tankers).
The proposal allows operating aid of 6% and, in special cases, of up to 14%.
A dispute settlement procedure is also to be initiated before the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
These aid measures are to be applicable only until the conclusion of proceedings, that is, until 31 December 2002 at the latest.
We believe that the European Parliament should maintain its position that a dispute settlement procedure should be initiated.
However, this proposal on a temporary defensive mechanism is in need of improvement, since the three segments referred to only account for 20% of European shipbuilding.
Yet almost every segment in the European Union is affected by Korea's unfair competition practices.
In particular, those categories of ships which will also be the subject of the complaint to the WTO must be included.
Only then will our message to Korea be clear and convincing.
In this respect, Commissioner, I believe that your support for Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 is essential.
The duration envisaged is also inadequate, in our view.
We therefore propose that the defensive mechanism should be applicable at least for the duration of the current Regulation on aid to shipbuilding, Regulation 1540/98, which expires on 31 December 2003, or possibly until the conclusion of the WTO proceedings.
As the European Parliament, and as the European Union, we must not allow unfair trade practices to damage European business and put jobs at risk. Otherwise, these unfair practices will emerge in other sectors too, impeding growth and threatening jobs.
At the same time, however, we must strike a careful balance between justified defensive mechanisms and anti-market protectionism benefiting certain sectors through State aid, which impedes fair competition.
I believe that the Committee's proposal takes account of these concerns.
I would ask you to support the draft report, and I appeal to the Commission to state its willingness to adopt the amendments.
Mr President, I speak on behalf of the draftsman of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, Mr Valdivielso de Cué, not because he does not support the report, but because he cannot be here today.
The Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy supported the proposals put forward by Ms Randzio-Plath by a very substantial majority: 39 votes in favour to 9 votes against.
The intention is to send out a clear signal against South Korea's dumping policies, which in recent decades have driven European shipbuilding to the brink of collapse by maintaining subsidies and benefits for companies in receivership.
For a year now, we have pursued a policy which aimed to reach agreement with South Korea.
A protocol to this effect was drawn up on 5 June 2000.
South Korea did not honour it.
In December 2000, we agreed to appeal to the WTO panel.
South Korea did not respond.
For this reason, the Commission quite rightly decided in July that temporary assistance of up to 14% may be paid by the national authorities, not from the European purse, for a specific number of ships until the end of 2002.
This is the issue today.
In line with Ms Randzio-Plath's proposals, we want to extend the categories of ships to include ferries for trains, persons and road vehicles, as well as natural gas and petroleum gas tankers, and we want to extend the term until 2003; in other words, we are in favour of a two-year period.
We ask you to endorse this draft report and clearly reject the Liberals' motion which calls for the entire draft report to be dismissed.
South Korea has the solution in its hand.
None of us wants long-term subsidies.
However, this is our only opportunity to exert pressure on behalf of the European shipbuilding industry on this difficult issue.
The debate is now suspended and will be resumed this afternoon at about 4.45 p.m., after the debate on the international situation in which the Commission will take part.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Vote
The next item is the vote.
Procedure without debate:
Recommendation for second reading on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 70/220/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States on measures to be taken against air pollution by emissions from motor vehicles (11253/1/2001 - C5-0474/2001 - 2000/0211(COD)).
(The President declared the common position approved)
Report (A5-0364/2001) by Erik Meijer, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on action by Member States concerning public service requirements and the award of public service contracts in passenger transport by rail, road and inland waterway (COM(2000) 7 - C5-0326/2000 - 2000/0212(COD))
Mr President, I have an oral amendment to Amendment No 75.
After the vote on Amendment No 130: President.
Unfortunately Mr Fatuzzo, that means that Amendment No 75 falls.
Mr President, it is not 'unfortunately' , because what I wanted is contained in that amendment - it concerns pensioners.
(Laughter and applause)
We aim to please.
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution:
Mr President, I should like to ask you to postpone the vote on the legislative resolution further to yesterday' s communication by Commissioner de Palacio that she would not accept what is now being decided upon by a large majority in Parliament.
In my opinion, we should set aside some time to consult further with Mrs de Palacio on this matter, because if we do not, although she may present a draft regulation in a few months' time, the regulation will be in a form different from that which has now been accepted by Parliament.
That is why I propose postponing the vote on the legislative resolution.
Mr President, now that we have adopted Amendments Nos 48 and 49, I would like to ask the Liberal Group whether Amendment No 47 automatically lapses.
That is my question, as we have agreed that the Commission must put forward appropriate proposals.
I assume that Amendment No 47 now lapses.
I think it lapses but if the Liberal Group wants to support me I am very happy to receive their support.
(Laughter and applause)
- (NL) Mr President, unfortunately, the rapporteur is right.
I thought that my amendment was far superior, but I accept that, as his amendment has already been adopted, it makes no sense to vote on mine.
However, I would point out that the Commission has stated that his amendment is not accurate whereas mine is.
Amendment No 47 falls.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0359/2001) by Luis Berenguer Fuster, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on insurance mediation (COM(2000) 511 - C5-0484/2000 - 2000/0213(COD))
Before the vote:
Mr President, I should like to make a point about the PPE-DE recommended voting list.
There was a mistake in Amendment No 8 as a result of a mistake in the original draft, which has now been corrected.
So Amendment No 8 should be supported by the PPE-DE Group as a recommendation.
Similarly, Amendments Nos 57, 13, 46 and 47 have a mistake in the English language translation which renders it nonsensical.
The word 'by' should be replaced by 'to' in the relevant paragraph (c).
The rapporteur, Mr Berenguer Fuster, supports me on both counts.
We will ensure that the language versions are corrected and correspond to one another.
Mr President, Amendment No 55, rather than being an oral amendment, in fact adds text that must have been forgotten, since this text does not appear.
Therefore, the following words should be added to the end of the text of Amendment No 55: 'will have to give the name of these insurance companies' .
Are there any objections to that oral amendment?
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
Mr President, in my opinion, Amendment No 60 is not incompatible with Amendment No 41 and can be voted on as an addition.
I would like to hear the opinion of the proposing group.
Mr President, this proposed amendment works perfectly well as an addition, and can therefore be voted on as an addition.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
President.
Colleagues, we shall only vote now on the two Caudron reports.
The remaining items will be held over to the vote tomorrow.
Mr President, we are in the middle of taking a vote.
I merely wanted to point out how absurd these foreshortened sessions are, without a Friday.
It is never possible to deal satisfactorily with the agenda.
(Sustained applause)
We will ensure that all the terms used are gender-neutral.
Before the vote on Amendments Nos 322 and 333:
I am sorry.
I cannot agree because we are voting on additions.
Mr President, the principles included in the Caudron report are exactly identical to those in the amendments tabled by Messrs Liese, Nisticò, Fiori and Trakatellis, except that in those amendments, one more element has been added, namely the fact that we must also take account of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
That is the only point added, and I therefore hope that our socialist friends, as well as others, will vote in favour of this amendment.
Thank you for that clarification.
Do you agree, Mr Caudron?
Mr President, I agree with what Mr van Velzen has just said.
He is right about that minor addition.
We can therefore vote on it, and I vote in its favour.
Thank you.
The rest comes later, once we get to other parts of Amendments Nos 332 and 333.
All we are voting on is that section at the moment.
Mr Caudron, Mrs McNally is reading your mind.
Mr Caudron, you are possibly confusing two parts.
We are voting at the moment on part 3 - stem cells.
You have raised the issue of embryos at this point.
We are only voting on the stem cells aspect of this amendment at the moment - section 3 of the amendment.
No, Mr President, I am not mistaken. It is indeed in Paragraph 3, in the last part of Paragraph 3.
I am not referring to Paragraph 4.
To be absolutely clear, it is the words: 'to ensure the mother's health may be funded' .
Yes, Mr President, that is the part I did not wish to be voted on.
At least I am clear now.
Before the vote on amendment 330: Turmes (Verts/ALE).
Mr President, this amendment is about technology assessment.
In principle all the groups agree, but our amendment is a bit rigid on the financial implication.
It says: 'a minimum of 3%' .
So I propose an oral amendment which will read: 'activities in all thematic areas should be supported only if a certain percentage of the respective project is used for technological impact assessment' .
That is very clear.
Are there any objections to that oral amendment?
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment) Amendment No 33:
Mr President, could I perhaps invite the rapporteur to present his oral amendment to 335?
It was agreed with the rapporteur that the word 'and' would be replaced by 'or' .
That is an extremely minor oral amendment, and I know that the rapporteur is in agreement with this.
Do you mean 'fish or animal' , or is it 'new or improved' ?
Mr President, my reaction will indicate how much work I put into this report.
The draft oral amendment tabled relates to the second part of Amendment No 335, 'new or improved races' , and I feel it is indeed more appropriate to use 'or' rather than 'and' , because the human race could not really be subsumed under 'new and improved races' .
Alright, 'new or improved' .
Are there any objections to that oral amendment?
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment) Amendment No 320:
Mr President, as regards 320, I can go along with the proposed addition concerning quality as regards nutrition. I cannot however accept the deletions contained in this amendment.
If those who tabled the amendment agree, I can accept the addition to the text.
Do the Greens accept the oral amendment as an addition?
(The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0355/2001) by Gérard Caudron, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the multiannual framework programme 2002-2006 of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) for research and training activities aimed at contributing towards the creation of the European Research Area (COM(2001) 94 - C5-0171/2001 - 2001/0054(CNS)).
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
President.
That concludes the vote.
Report Meijer (A5-0364/2001):
Mr President, we have approved the new regulation on action by Member States in the liberalisation of public transport services by rail, road and inland waterway, in order that this may be consolidated as a new single European market.
And, with regard to this, our Parliamentary Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has tabled various amendments aimed at preserving aspects relating to the environment and sustainability in the transportation market, such as the rational use of energy and the fulfilment of standards on the control of emissions which contaminate the atmosphere, greenhouse gases, noise, etc, as well as giving priority to alternative forms of transport which make a better contribution to the much hoped-for reduction in traffic congestion.
We have argued for the need to defend the quality of transport services, whether these be run by public or private companies, and we have stated that social conditions with regard to the health and safety of employees in these companies should be closely linked to the quality of services offered.
We also think that liberalisation should not lead to an abandonment of the idea that passenger transportation is a social instrument and which supports the weakest groups in society, such as schoolchildren, trainees, pensioners and those living with some kind of disability, all of whom should continue to be protected through restrictions on ticket prices.
Ticket prices should be standardised in order to facilitate the integration and interoperability of different transportation methods, including cross-border transportation, where timetables and service networks also need to be coordinated.
Transport should be cheap and available throughout all regions, and should also guarantee a service to less populated and less prosperous areas at moderate prices.
Finally, it is not acceptable to liberalise urban, suburban and regional transportation whilst remaining, as some governments are, opposed to the liberalisation of state transportation, as for example the passenger railways.
Although it should be controlled, this market should be open to free competition throughout the EU.
Mr President, I express my personal satisfaction, as a Member and as the representative of the Pensioners' Party, for the approval of amendment 130 in this document, which regulates public service in transport by rail, road and inland waterway throughout Europe. Amendment 130 was tabled by the Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, whom I thank for tabling it, and voted on before the oral amendment, which, like the Greens' amendment, sought to extend the possibility of granting free travel on public transport to pensioners.
I therefore thank all the Members who voted for it, particularly the European Members of the Northern League - Mr Gobbo, Mr Borghezio, Mr Speroni - and of course above all the Members of the Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left who tabled the amendment that has been voted on, and also all those, notably including the socialists, who voted for it.
.
(FR) We consider this draft regulation to be a real threat to the urban public passenger transport service in that it abolishes the freedom to manage our territorial communities.
Calling this fundamental principle into question in many Member States, possibly even going as far as constitutional recognition, is detrimental to free choice and, more importantly, to the free organisation of local public services, thus affecting service itself.
However, we can only agree with the exclusion of long-distance rail services due to the exclusive rights without compensation that apply to them.
We also approve all the amendments aiming to preserve the social clause.
However, for reasons of safety and coherent management, which would be jeopardised by the division of the lines, we consider the inclusion of local rail services within the scope of the regulation to be unacceptable.
That is why we propose that this text, which is neither acceptable nor desirable for the continuity of the local public passenger transport service, be rejected.
.
(FR) For ages, governments all over Europe have been closing rail services to the benefit of private companies throughout the road transport sector, leading to the tragic accidents in the Mont Blanc and Saint-Gothard tunnels and the tremendous human and social cost of all, more 'normal' , accidents.
Today, the road networks are at saturation point, so some private investors are turning to rail in order to make new profits there, aided and abetted by both the European authorities and national governments.
Neither users nor the general population can expect to benefit from the privatisation of public services.
Nor will workers in the sector, who are denouncing and fighting privatisation and its devastating effects on employment and working conditions.
It is true that the rapporteur is concerned about the damage done by unbridled liberalisation and suggests the possibility of opposition by local communities. However, he is nonetheless among those who see privatisation as a fait accompli and the dismantling of public services as inevitable, and who are only trying to regulate the process somewhat.
As we are in favour of the development of public transport both on international routes and in regional and local networks, we do not want to support the dismantling of public services directly or indirectly, since this dismantling, even if it is regulated, is detrimental to users and to workers in the sector, and constitutes a severe social decline.
That is why we have not voted for this report, and we would say once more that public services everywhere must be designed and implemented to respond to the needs of the user, not to make money for private companies.
This report seeks to improve the Commission' s proposal, which, despite its name, effectively seeks to privatise passenger transport.
Although important proposals have been approved, and we voted for them, the fact is that the introduction of competition may jeopardise established rights for users, such as travel passes, and for staff, something that has not been sufficiently safeguarded in this report and will certainly be even less so in Commission and Council practice.
Thus, even greater obstacles to user mobility may be created, although certain proposals approved by Parliament along different lines are to be welcomed.
Furthermore, there is no proper guarantee of coordination between the various means of transport, and adequate answers are not given to those users located in less profitable areas: private companies may consider them unprofitable and then cancel services there.
Lastly, the vote against the legislative resolution is also justified on account of our fears regarding the implementation of the Commission' s position and the consequences for staff and users, which may jeopardise a quality, low-price service.
It should also be noted that, although the Commission is backing the privatisation of transport services, part of these services will continue to be supported by public money, which is unacceptable.
The proposal clearly states that its aim is to develop competition in the field of transport provision.
Contrary to what it states in several places, everything shows that within the framework of so-called 'regulated' competition, the results of opening up the market have not been positive, and nor has the efficiency of services improved.
Quite the opposite.
The overall process of liberalisation runs counter to improving the service for passengers, to improving working conditions, to respect for the environment, traffic safety and a regional planning policy that is not imposed by market restrictions.
We are stating our opposition to any liberalisation of transport, and our support for maintaining the status of transport as a public service, and for cooperation between public companies at European level.
We are against any State aid being allocated to private operators who are not, moreover, prepared to make the necessary investment in infrastructures.
What is more, we are in favour of the immediate re-nationalisation of all the private railway lines and networks in Europe and in favour of the re-nationalisation/municipalisation of urban and local transport.
The underlying problem is that it is impossible to compromise with market logic.
When it is applied, it is to the detriment of another logic, that of public service, which explains why we have voted against this report.
Report Jarzembowski (A5-0354/2001):
Mr President, open access to the port services market and equal opportunities in this field are not only appropriate but also a requirement of the Treaties on which the European Union is founded.
Regulation and control are needed in this particular field to ensure that no State provides financial assistance to its ports, since this is a serious threat to free competition between Community ports.
However, there are certain aspects which should not be exclusively regulated by the EU.
Member States and their constitutional bodies with competencies in this field should maintain their capacity to include their own specific standards for the invitation to tender for contracts for supply of port services and for the protection of workers affected.
Additionally, pilotage, mooring and the handling of cargo, including stowage and trans-shipment, since they are compulsory services, should not be included in the Community Directive liberalising port services, but their regulation should remain under the control of the Member States and their port authorities, for reasons of the safety of maritime traffic.
In an airport, there would be chaos if there were more than one company providing air traffic control.
In a port, there should only be one authority for pilotage and one for mooring, for the same reason.
As you know, Mr President, I was born in Genoa and lived in Genoa until I was 21.
I admired the port of Genoa every morning when I looked out over the city, since I lived in a very well-known district up high, from where I could enjoy precisely this beautiful view over the port of Genoa, which is nonetheless a very busy port, like so many in the European Union.
Well, in this document, which regulates the organisation of the port, port services and safety, I would like to have found greater commitment and greater financial involvement by the European Union so that all the ports in Europe without distinction, northern European ports and Mediterranean ports, could be financially supported just as our competitors in South Korea do with the shipyards in their country.
We, too, should help our ports and our shipping.
Opening up port services to competition, at least in the way proposed by the Commission, will have a number of serious, adverse repercussions:
a) on the quality of port services and the standards applied, because they will have to compete and will recruit unskilled staff;
b) on working conditions and the employment prospects of port workers, thereby jeopardising their health and safety, curtailing their vocational training and undermining their skills;
c) on the safety of transport by sea and the environment, due to the generally lower standard of services provided.
Although the Committee on Transport's motion represents an improvement, with the amendments adopted, it is still thinking along the same lines as the Commission and has even reduced the scope for public-sector controls, which is why I voted against it.
The generally-worded title of the Community directive before us conceals an important step towards the privatisation of ports, especially the services which they provide, such as pilotage, towing and docking ships, loading and unloading and storing goods and moving passengers.
The aim is not to improve the port services provided; it is to sell off yet another publicly owned sector to big business and hand a complete infrastructure over to the private monopolies so that they can make use of and profit from it.
The unavoidable consequences will be a reversal in labour relations and rights and a tragic drop in safety standards for workers, for passengers on board ships and in the services provided.
We want to stress from the outset that we are opposed and completely reject both the directive and the Jarzembowski report.
We refuse to be party to a line of thinking that accepts privatisation as inevitable and endeavours to rescue a few individual services.
On the contrary, we steadfastly support the argument for public port services and ports whose operations are integrated into an overall development plan which develops the potential of each country, supports the economy and employment and guarantees the safety of human life in port and at sea.
These are highly sensitive issues for Greece, with its large number of island complexes and its sovereignty in the Aegean, a sensitive area from the economic, social and national security standpoints.
We would also point out that multipurpose ports such as Piraeus, which support and serve the shipbuilding and repair industry, can only do their job efficiently if they remain in the public sector.
This endeavour is more than infuriating or provocative.
It is an attempt to intervene in the operational unit itself, that is, the port, and to prohibit it from doing what any enterprise does, that is, from operating as a single entity.
It breaks up and imposes internal competition between services provided by the same service provider.
At the same time, the directive talks about prerequisites for 'public services' but leaves them at the mercy of the private sector.
The Communist Party of Greece is fighting, alongside the workers, for uniform, 100% public-sector port services, so that they are able to operate, develop and connect with other sectors of the economy.
If we want properly operating ports, safety, coordination and development, we need to support a single, vertically-integrated service, with each activity helping and supporting the other.
Otherwise, the smooth and efficient operation of the sector will be at risk, any attempt at coordination will be doomed to failure and safety will be thrown to the winds because it will be subject to the laws of profit and competition and will have to rely upon the goodwill of the enterprises.
That is why we voted against the Jarzembowski report.
The draft report presented to us is unacceptable in its current form.
First, because it provides a confused response to the fundamental questions of competition between European ports and financial transparency in the allocation of grants to these ports.
But also, and in particular, because the indiscriminate liberalisation of all port services constitutes a dangerous threat to safety, the environment and employment.
To safety, because opening up to competition highly specialised services such as piloting, requiring specific skills adapted to each port, carries the potential risk of seriously jeopardising the safety conditions in which these professions are exercised.
To the environment, because liberalisation does not allow it to be taken into consideration sufficiently.
On these two points, the report and the directive contradict the 'maritime safety' and environmental risk reduction reinforcement policy launched by the European Union following the Erika disaster.
Lastly, such liberalisation poses a threat to employment, because opening up port services to competition, in particular those employing the most staff, such as freight handling, carries the risk of plunging the European ports into a dangerous downward spiral with regard to social benefits.
This tendency would be unsustainable in areas that are often vulnerable or in labour market areas that are already severely affected by industrial restructuring.
I cannot, therefore, approve all the provisions that would lead to port services being opened up to competition with no compensation or safeguards.
That is why I voted for all the amendments aiming to exclude port services such as piloting, mooring and freight handling from the scope of the liberalisation proposed by the directive.
As these amendments have not been adopted, I voted against the report.
. (FR) First of all, I would like to thank both our rapporteur for the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, Mr Georg Jarzembowski, and the Committee as a whole for the high quality of their work.
I have several reasons for voting against this report.
To me, voting against this report means first of all rejecting the liberalisation of intra-port services, that is to say going against the obligatory privatisation of handling and mooring services.
As piloting is the only intra-port service to have been recognised as an obligatory public service and as an activity requiring great care with regard to safety, it is the only intra-port service that will continue to be controlled by the Member States, and that will, therefore, be excluded from the scope of the directive.
I simply cannot comprehend, however, that mooring service providers, who provide an internationally recognised service of general interest by providing indispensable assistance both with regard to prevention in the field of environmental protection and in implementing the best possible level of safety, will from now on be subject to competition.
To me, voting against this report also means rejecting liberalisation between ports, that is to say, rejecting competition between ports, competition which can only have disastrous and harmful effects, with regard to both the quality of services rendered and the working conditions themselves.
Voting against this report therefore means arguing for increased cooperation between ports, recognising that ports are a full and complete factor in regional planning and that as such, they must not be subjected to competition that could lead to their eradication.
These, in short, are the two main reasons that have led me not to deliver a final vote in favour of this report.
.
(FR) This proposal to liberalise port services is of immediate concern to us due to its potential practical consequences.
We feel it is completely inappropriate to seek to open up all port services to competition regardless of their type, given that some of them, due to their specific obligations, are of a public service nature.
Apart from national differences regarding the very concept of public service as applied to port services, optimum safety must be ensured in all Member States. They alone can define and control this by means of public service tasks, professional qualifications, restrictions or the definition of their activities.
The economic logic in favour of users must never take priority over safety in the widest meaning of the word: personal, environmental or material.
Therefore, we consider that this proposal must exclude all services that are of a public service nature according to the standards of each Member State, be they piloting, mooring or other services.
This is not the case, so we are voting against this text.
.
(PT) Our vote reflects our position on a deeply controversial report, which has not been accepted by any sector of port services.
As we know, the Commission proposal seeks to open up major areas concerned with port safety to competition and does not guarantee workers' rights.
Although the report itself contains some positive references, it retains negative aspects that give some backing to the Commission' s position.
For countries like Portugal, this proposal could have highly detrimental effects on a sector that has already been affected by other, equally detrimental measures, and we have therefore voted against it.
. (FR) Having attacked public rail transport, Mr Jarzembowski, the rapporteur, is now attacking port services.
The logic behind this, which is still the same, is a direct result of the process of liberalising telecommunications, transport, energy and postal services.
This involves placing the organising bodies, infrastructures and professionals carrying out public service tasks, often in a public context, under the yoke of the market.
Three hundred European Union ports and all port services such as freight handling, piloting, towage, mooring, embarkation and disembarkation services would be affected by this directive.
However, a recent opinion poll confirmed by the success of the European dockers' strike of 6 November shows that these proposals meet with the mass rejection of port service workers.
The long amendment war that took place within the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism may have meant for now that competition will no longer be within ports but between them, but these results are not satisfactory.
Moreover, because we demand that public service obligations regarding safety, regularity, continuity, quality, price and harmonisation with the system that is most favourable in terms of social protection for port workers and respect for the environment, be fulfilled, we have rejected the Jarzembowski report.
.
The majority of British ports are well run and prosper because private operators have taken over from cash-strapped local authorities and are running the ports as successful businesses.
The proposed European Commission directive to increase competition in port services in the EU threatens to reverse this.
It would leave British ports vulnerable to takeovers similar to the takeover of various electricity firms by Electricité de France.
It would impose unnecessary bureaucracy on an already highly competitive and successful UK ports market.
It would threaten the independent, commercially based and subsidy free nature of British ports.
I would like to see private operators exempted from the scope of this directive.
.
(FR) Mooring services are a general interest service as recognised by the judgment of the Court of Luxembourg of 18 June 1998.
Within this context, the port authority may require mooring services to handle any safety problems with no obligation for remuneration.
Mooring services provide all ships with the same quality of service, due to an extremely extensive knowledge of the port in which the service is provided.
The permanent nature of the service, the professional qualifications of the workers, their knowledge of the specific local features and the essential role played by mooring services in port and maritime safety make this activity an essential determining factor in environmental protection.
The deterioration of the merchant fleet as a whole and the increasing over-use of frequently faulty boats and equipment show the extent of the essential role to be played by mooring service providers in years to come, due to their technical skills and wide knowledge of their place of work.
Mooring services, like piloting, must therefore be excluded from the European directive, and that is why the group of the Greens has voted in favour of Amendments No 66 and 67 of this report.
), in writing.
(NL) Mr President, the introduction of the port package has clearly given European port policy a new lease of life.
The report on market access to port services has caused a great stir in the European Parliament, not least because the European Commission proposal predominantly deals with competition within ports.
The wish from the EP, dating back to 1997, to reach a Regulation on competition among ports has been completely overlooked.
In this connection, a request has been made for clear rules on financial transparency and State aid in the port sector.
The Dutch People' s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) within the ELDR Group wants to guarantee more transparency for government funding and has asked the European Commission to present a proposal to this effect prior to the entry into force of the present directive. Otherwise, we would start to question the directive' s added value for European ports and their users.
Opinions in my group are divided as to which services should fall within the scope of the directive and which should not.
The VVD backs the rapporteur where he wants to limit the directive to the technical-nautical services.
However, in our view, pilotage services should be included in the directive.
Cargo handling services are by their very nature land-based and do not belong in this directive.
Furthermore, port authorities and users are required to make relatively sizeable investments in infrastructure and superstructure.
The tendering of the cargo handling aspect will mainly lead to red tape.
This administrative burden is not proportionate to the result and creates uncertainty within investing authorities.
It also creates an obstruction for urban planning authorities of the local councils, to which most ports in the Netherlands still belong.
The VVD is against including the cargo handling services in this directive.
.
(FR) I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his work on this highly sensitive dossier.
Unusually, the division here has not been political but national, and the compromise brokered is generally positive.
This directive was necessary because port services must be opened up to competition and European ports require European legislation on port services.
If competition is encouraged, it is essential that it be organised by an appropriate framework.
However, account must be taken of the specific nature of each activity.
I am thinking of piloting and mooring services in particular, since these, for safety reasons, must continue to be governed by the port authorities.
This method of management works very well in France and even if these activities are open to competition in other European countries, I am in favour of their current exclusion from the scope of the directive.
These are port services of general interest.
If these services are kept within the scope of the directive, the concept of port authority loses all meaning.
On the other hand, I approve of the liberalisation of freight handling, since this is a commercial service and opening it up to competition should be synonymous with increased employment.
Lastly, I have supported the provisions in favour of greater transparency in financial relations between ports and Member States.
In the name of legal certainty and fair competition between European ports, it must be possible to subject grants paid by national authorities to detailed inspections.
Report Berenguer Fuster (A5-0359/2001):
Mr President, I voted for the regulation of insurance mediation.
I take the opportunity to hope that the European Union will also soon regulate the mediation of public insurance.
'What is public insurance?' you will ask, Mr President.
Naturally it means social security and sickness benefit.
In this area too, citizens have the right to be properly informed about what the public sector offers them for their future lives as pensioners, and how much they must pay now, as workers, in order to have a pension tomorrow.
Moreover, the information service for workers and pensioners about their right to a pension should be regulated throughout Europe, to enhance it in every possible way.
Cross-border insurance mediation will increase consumers' options to choose between various insurance providers.
The directive proposal we have in front of us now allows insurance intermediaries to operate also in other Member States.
When making choices between various providers, EU citizens must nevertheless be confident that we, as European legislators, guarantee consumer protection by making sure that persons practising insurance mediation are highly qualified.
The report on the insurance mediation directive, which we in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs have been working on, is generally satisfactory.
We ensure that insurance intermediaries have the necessary professional competence, liability insurance or other equivalent insurance as well as adequate financial capacity.
Any insurance intermediary must also be a person of good repute, who has not been made bankrupt.
Simultaneously, however, we must ensure that EC regulations do not cause any unnecessary bureaucracy.
Our committee has made several amendments, which according to the opinion of expert advisors clearly make the directive more sensible and give Member States the option to make decisions in consideration of national circumstances.
We have achieved compromises, which the majority of Member States in the Council seem to be inclined to support.
It is important not to apply the directive to any persons whose principal professional activity is other than insurance mediation.
By this I mean in particular, travel agencies, who also offer their customers travel insurance as part of a travel package.
They make the customer' s life considerably easier and in Finland, for example, they are under the supervision of the authorities.
In connection with travel insurance accident insurance is also often sold, which include provision for compensations in the event of death.
It has been very beneficial to specify that these are not life insurances referred to in this directive.
It would also have been more beneficial not to apply the directive to intermediaries, who work under the responsibility of their insurance company, or for whose activities the company is responsible on the basis of international legislation and for whom the company also provides appropriate training.
As it unfortunately has been impossible to allow part-time agents, who act under the responsibility of their company, to be totally excluded from the directive, it nevertheless is good to relax the registration liability in the way our committee has proposed.
The relationship of Amendment Nos 14 to Amendment Nos 13 and 6 remains unclear, because Amendment No 14 allows for example travel and animal insurances to be totally excluded from the directive, while in other sections intermediaries providing those insurances are excluded from registration liability only.
If further amendments are still allowed, I would like to propose that Amendment Nos 18 and 22 be removed.
Insurance mediation by banks is no different from the rest of the mediation activity, and would not need regulation of its own.
Report Caudron (A5-0376/2001):
Mr President, what is this subsidiarity that is talked about so much in the European Union? Subsidiarity, you tell me, Mr President, means that one should act at a European level when that gives the greatest advantage and the greatest benefit to all the citizens of Europe.
So how should we carry out scientific research in Europe?
With fifteen different projects from fifteen different States, which tomorrow will be fifteen plus the twelve that are joining, which makes twenty-seven, or would it not be better to have a single research fund? Is it better to make a single decision on how to spend the money of all twenty-seven European Union Member States, the 15 current ones plus the 12 candidate countries, or to leave twenty-seven different chapters of the budget?
We should decide to have a single European research fund.
Mr President, I voted against the report, as some of the outcomes of the vote are incompatible with my own ethical and moral views.
Furthermore, I cannot understand why only marginal approaches exist for research in agriculture and forestry even though it is vital, for the future of agriculture and forestry, to set the necessary research priorities in this area in particular.
.
(FR) This report is completely in line with the policy of the European institutions, where it emphasises aid to employers under the pretext of research and where it aims to strengthen the link between research and private interests, even if it sometimes cloaks this link in ecological or regionalist attire, according to fashion.
Nor is this report free of concessions to certain obscurantist ideas, whether religious or otherwise.
As for the budget for the Sixth Framework Programme, this penalises, in financial terms, research units whose work has been judged not to be a priority as it has little potential for profitable use by the private sector in the short or medium term.
The only reason we have voted in favour of this report is that we do not want to prejudice certain research strands supported by the report, which are seeking to make scientific, medical or technological progress, and nor do we want to risk depriving researchers in the public sector of the funding they need.
We have also adopted all the amendments that could represent progress in relation to the current situation.
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(PT) Despite the efforts of the rapporteur and most of the members of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, there is no guarantee that there will be no discrimination against countries and regions whose business structure does not have the economic ability to take part in programmes aiming at the rapid transfer of knowledge in technological innovation, even though there may be scientific resources.
Thus the efforts to ensure cohesion enshrined in the Treaty will not be enough to combat the loss of competitiveness that this will entail.
The assumption behind the aims of the Lisbon strategy was full employment and exclusion, and not the opposite.
Without being able to share in knowledge and take part in programmes, the less favoured regions will be left a long way from economic and social convergence.
.
(FR) I voted in favour of this report.
I am a long-time supporter of research work at European level.
I am also pleased by Parliament' s stated desire to create and develop this interdisciplinary Community area.
In France, in particular, we are seeing a worrying drop in the number of researchers.
As a result of disappointing national policies, the most talented researchers often go abroad and only too rarely return.
The measure included in this report on the mobility of researchers and assistance with returning home will also, I hope, help to compensate for the shortcomings of some governments.
Stimulating research also means ensuring an independent training policy based on existing competences at European level.
Although the task of the legislator may be to provide a framework for research, there is a risk that this will be too restricted.
A Europe of discovery must also be fostered and work on biotechnologies, which represent the future, should be encouraged.
Similarly, the fundamental European research at the heart of the competitiveness of our industries and the substantial work undertaken by small and medium-sized enterprises and industries, whose input we know to be necessary to discovery and innovation, must also be supported.
Research also affects the everyday life of all Europeans and priority areas, such as food safety, the fight against the major serious diseases and improving public health, show the desire to associate research and wellbeing.
I am also pleased to note the support that is proposed for the development of research into childhood illnesses, a field in which national policies have often failed.
That is why I call on the Commission to publish proposals on paediatric medicines.
- (FR) As a member of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and of the Temporary Committee on Human Genetics ( 'Bioethics' ), I have attached particular importance to this report, in its two main aspects:
the conditions for support granted to research in Europe, and
the ethical framework within which the European Parliament plans to conduct it.
As the amendments show, the essence of the debate concerned the part relating to 'ethics' applied to biotechnologies.
Insofar as the majority of votes approved the instrumentalisation of humans by authorising the use of human embryos, in this case conceived within the context of the treatment of infertility by in vitro fertilisation, to the detriment of the promotion of human dignity and integrity, I consider that the ethical framework adopted by a majority at first reading gives a negative tone to the report as a whole, including the technical provisions.
In conclusion, despite good technical provisions, the supposedly 'ethical' provisions mar the report as a whole by failing to respect human life.
- (PT) Therapeutic cloning, which opens up new opportunities for the treatment of certain diseases, entails the destruction of embryos and, although it has been more researched (and is therefore more accessible) than other techniques, it is not the only one and is certainly not ideal.
It would therefore be a mistake if legislators were so eager to give the green light to this technique that they gave up their obligation to pass robust legislation that would last for many years, which, in a field that is evolving so rapidly, is even more necessary. They should send the message to scientists and industry that they should choose to develop other techniques, some of which are as yet poorly developed and very costly, such as the use of adult cells, but where there is still plenty of room for research.
We must not give up the fight to find techniques that have the advantages of human embryo work but without its ethical drawbacks.
Furthermore, the creation of embryos by transferring cell nuclei would facilitate cloning for reproductive purposes, which is generally considered to be aberrant.
Thus, at a legal level, I support the Europe-wide ban on the cloning of human embryos for both therapeutic and reproductive purposes.
There should, however, be two exceptions to this ban: supernumerary embryos and the 64 available cell lines.
Nevertheless, with regard to research funding, and especially in the context of the Sixth Framework Programme (the subject of the Caudron report), I believe priority should be given to the Community funding of research projects that provide for the use of adult stem cells for therapeutic purposes.
Various Dutch fellow MEPs have made statements in the media to the effect that the Liberal Group refuses to prescribe ethical limits for scientific research.
Our voting behaviour has proved that this is nonsense.
First of all, adopted Amendment No 41 has a liberal pedigree.
It demands that both during the implementation of the programme and for the results, the ethical basic principles, such as protection of human dignity, data and privacy are adhered to.
Additionally, with regard to stem cell research, the guidelines drawn up by the ESF ethical committee must be observed.
Furthermore, our group wanted to adopt Amendment No 22 of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which prevents funding being channelled into research activity aiming at human cloning for reproductive purposes, the creation of embryos for research purposes and eugenic modifications in the genetic heritage.
Unfortunately, the restrictive text of Amendment No 322 has been adopted in which therapeutic cloning has been ruled out.
We regret this, precisely because therapeutic cloning offers genuine opportunities for patients suffering from Alzheimer' s, Parkinson' s, AIDS or diabetes.
We have therefore abstained from the final vote.
Report Caudron (A5-0355/2001):
Mr President, I was very young, I must have been ten or eleven, when someone gave me a beautifully illustrated Walt Disney book.
Its title was 'Our friend the atom' , and it was illustrated in that marvellous way that Walt Disney used to illustrate his universally famous works, as we might call them.
I was fascinated by that science book, which was so well explained to a young person like me.
Since then I have been in favour of nuclear energy and so I have voted for this document, especially because it promotes study and research into the nuclear sector in Europe, which, in my view, we should increase further.
Mr President, I view the expiry of the Euratom Treaty as an opportunity for Europe to phase out nuclear energy.
Yet today's vote on the Euratom programme has endorsed follow-up funding for nuclear research.
This is set out in Amendment No 12, for example, which provides funding for research into the safety of existing reactors (with priority for reactors in the candidate countries), as well as reactors of the new generation.
In other words, it safeguards future nuclear power plants.
Yet research should be targeting non-nuclear energies, especially renewable energies, in order to make a contribution to the progressive phasing-out of nuclear energy in Europe.
This is why we rejected not only Amendment No 12 but also the entire Euratom programme in today's vote.
.
I warmly welcome this report by Gerard Caudron, which recommends changes in the allocation of spending to the Commission's proposal for the EUR 16 bn research budget.
It is high time that the programme's health research agenda was broadened to include more common diseases: most people have had contact, close or otherwise, with diseases such as cancer, degenerative diseases and cardiovascular diseases.
By allocating money to research these illnesses, the EU would be seen to be working for real causes that affect real people's lives.
The ethical, legal and social aspects of research issues are increasingly important, if not as important as actual research.
Therefore, by calling for the funding in these areas, the committee is showing an awareness of the importance of these modern-day issues.
The call to allocate money to the information society demonstrates a real commitment to substantiate the Union's stated ambitions laid out at the Lisbon so-called dot-com summit, to make the EU one of the most competitive and dynamic economies in the world.
There is no other option: if the EU wants to become a credible global player in the new economy and the information society, substantive amounts of money should be invested in this domain as soon as possible.
Finally, the allocation of money for research should always be informed by a consideration for the environment.
By funding research into renewable energies, this report shows itself to be balanced and environmentally sound.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.51 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Madam President, during this afternoon' s vote, there was unfortunately some confusion with regard to the Jarzembowski report.
The view adopted by my group was that if cargo handling was not included in the directive, we would vote against it.
We thought that that was the case, but that appeared not so.
Hence the confusion.
It was our group' s intention at the end, during the final vote, to vote in favour and not against, as we did, and I should like to have this minuted.
Mr Sterckx, we gladly note your group' s wishes.
International situation
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the international situation.
Mrs Durant, President-in-Office of the Council, now has the floor.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I shall confine my contribution to Afghanistan.
It is extremely difficult to question the military course of affairs because the situation is so extremely fluid.
I should nevertheless like to ask one question in this connection, namely with regard to an element which, in my view, will remain high-priority for the foreseeable future.
It concerns the idea of sending a UN peace-keeping force to Kabul to ensure that the situation there does not get out of hand.
Has the Council discussed in any way or at any time the fact that European countries, or the Union perhaps as a whole, would make a contribution to the UN peace-keeping force, or does the Council hold the view that it would be best if this UN peace-keeping force were to comprise representatives from Muslim countries only? In other words, is future involvement by the EU provided for in this UN peace-keeping force?
I should now like to turn to the humanitarian aspect. It is clear that there are still many needs and it is also evident that the invasion of large parts of Afghanistan by the Northern Alliance enhances the prospect of granting this aid.
Does the Commission know whether at the moment, or over the next few days, all aid which the Commission wishes to grant is being delivered promptly and adequately, or are there still obstacles? If so, what are they?
Finally, I should like to touch upon the political and diplomatic dimension. My group fears that the politicians will be trampled underfoot by the military.
The fact of the matter is that the military conquests have preceded the political ones.
My group is concerned that finding a political solution could be frustrated or perhaps even made impossible if the Northern Alliance continues to advance southwards.
I know that the European Union and the EU Member States, alongside UN representative Mr Brahimi, are involved in finding what you refer to as a stable government.
What is the EU' s specific involvement at the moment, and in the next few days, in finding this political solution which, in my view, takes priority over anything else? This might well be higher on the list of priorities than a military solution.
If no political solution is found, any military invasion could well be in vain.
I should like to finish off with a comment on London. I am not so much concerned about the fact that countries that make military contributions, and that want to discuss this, meet in London.
What does worry me is the fact that the agenda of London also featured the Middle East policy. I would ask you, among others, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, whether Middle East policy is drafted in London or in Brussels.
Mrs Durant, Commissioner Busquin, let us not disguise our pleasure at once again hearing the sound of music on the streets of the Afghan capital and a woman's voice broadcasting on Radio Kabul.
It does us all good to read the sense of liberation on the faces of the Afghans and the rout of some of the most obscurantist and cruel oppressors the world has seen.
Let us however, without further ado, take a good look at all the aspects of the situation today, to make sure that our hopes are not soon overshadowed by a new nightmare.
Firstly, the fighting is, alas, not yet at an end.
The Taliban have regrouped in southern Afghanistan and near the border with Pakistan, where they will go to any lengths to try to save, at whatever price, the remnants of their power and capacity to inflict harm.
It would be a disaster if they managed to gain support for their deadly cause from Pashtun groupings, who might feel rejected by the new leaders of Afghanistan.
As for the various rival factions that make up the Northern Alliance, we must beware of idealising them.
The way women are treated in some of the provinces under its control gives real cause for concern.
Furthermore, its past conduct, only five years ago, and the disturbing information we have received from Mazar-i-Sharif unfortunately suggest that there is a risk that sooner or later they will embark on a bloody settling of scores in the reconquered territories.
Experience shows that what were once effective aids to military action can turn into serious obstacles to a political solution.
From the outset, the political issue has been the determining factor.
Secondly, we must look at the distress of the Afghan people, exhausted by five years of terror, months of drought and misery, followed by five weeks of intensive bombing.
The UN estimates that seven and a half million people are at risk of famine in this devastated country.
In fact, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN Special Representative, has repeatedly called for a rapid end to the war for this very reason.
What the country does need, however, is emergency aid and development aid on a large scale.
For let us not forget that international opinion was mobilised specifically in order to neutralise the terrorist networks, to cut off the sources, mainly financial, that feed them and also to destroy the social and political breeding ground on which they thrive.
To date, we have certainly not achieved this just and ambitious aim and any failure to find a political solution to the Afghan problem would only take us further from attaining it.
This explains the role that an international player such as the European Union, and particularly the UN, must fulfil through its Member States, as well as within the framework of our relations with the American leaders and with the countries of the region. This will enable a political solution to be found that comes from all sectors of Afghan society and from Afghanis who, until now have been the chief victims of the Taliban, must now be among the agents of change.
It is high time this martyred population was offered stability, dignity and peace.
Madam President, last April, when we received Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud in this Chamber, he told us that the fall of the Taliban regime was inevitable given that the Pakistani government would find itself unable to provide it with any political and, in particular, military aid.
All that Massoud asked of the international community and the European Union was to exercise effective diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to stop it from interfering in any way in the domestic affairs of Afghanistan.
He was counting on his awareness of the Afghan people's exasperation with the Taliban when he predicted that it would rebel, including in the largely Pashtun southern territories.
He assured us that he had set up an Alliance network throughout the country that would guarantee the establishment of a broad-based government of national unity.
The speed of events over the past 48 hours has surprised only those of our learned experts who, without ever having been on the ground, professed that the anti-Taliban Alliance was made up only of a bunch of warlords who were just as barbaric as the Taliban themselves, and even more dangerous because inspired only by a hunger for power that would inevitably trigger new quarrels among themselves.
Echoing the anxiety shown in Islamabad, these same experts, totally certain they are right, are still spreading the word via the media that the Northern Alliance represents only a very small percentage of the opinion of the Afghan people, who are supposedly still attached to the peace that only the Taliban have managed to bring them.
The jubilant popular demonstrations in Kabul, the rebellion now underway in Kandahar itself, the signs of the return of thousands of refugees suffice to show that these prophets of doom were misled.
The Members of this Chamber who had the intelligence to listen to Massoud will certainly rejoice.
Yes, the situation remains politically fragile.
It is up to the international community, and within it the European Union, to help establish this united government, which the former king, Zahir Shah, is willing to support.
Yes, we must also give the Afghan people all the material aid it needs to recover from a disastrous humanitarian situation, in which, as Mr Wurtz said, we fear for the survival of 1.5 million Afghans who are at risk of famine and for the health of more than 6 million who are now at risk of serious malnutrition.
We hoped that the Council and the Commission would be prepared to give undertakings along these lines without delay.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner for confirming this.
Madam President, Afghanistan is currently going through a time of uncertainty that will prove crucial for the future.
The end of the Taliban dictatorship opens the door to a process of democratic reconstruction, which, however, is still far from a foregone conclusion.
We will probably see Islamist guerrilla warfare on the Algerian model, against which massive bombing is pointless and will have to be halted.
The European Union must adopt a strong and clear stance for, as Mrs Emma Bonino and Mr Francis Wurtz said, Afghan women must not be sacrificed in the process of political reconstruction.
The participation of women is the key to the lasting reconstruction of Afghanistan.
They will have to be present as from the first negotiations and will have to participate in a new government as from the first day.
That is the only solution that can guarantee the protection and respect for the rights of women and all human rights.
The European Union could not endorse a proposed government that did not take account of this crucial dimension.
The integration of women is also a first step towards democracy.
Unfortunately, this democracy cannot accommodate warlords who have proved guilty of repeated human rights abuses, a wide range of acts of violence and who, whatever side they are on, are more concerned with defending their ethnic group than with the future of their country.
We must put an end to the reign of impunity.
The Afghans must be represented by a mixed, democratic government that represents all the ethnic groups and respects human rights.
Madam President, recent events have demonstrated to the world that the military strategy being pursued by the American government in Afghanistan is working.
The removal of the Taliban from power in Afghanistan is a legitimate objective.
The Taliban is harbouring Osama bin Laden, an international terrorist who has committed heinous acts of terror, not only this year, but in recent years too.
Harbouring terrorists is a crime in itself.
The fall of key strategic cities in Afghanistan this week will certainly help in the process of eroding the power of the Taliban.
But much work remains to be done if the Taliban are to be defeated in the near future.
They are a military force to be reckoned with and they have extensive military experience.
I hope that the Taliban regime can be defeated and replaced by a broader alliance of political groupings in Afghanistan.
This is not going to be an easy task, but it must be vigorously pursued as a military option.
Under UN Resolution 1373 it is incumbent on us all to ensure that those involved in perpetrating such vile acts of terrorism in America last September are brought to justice.
We too must prevent further terrorist attacks, and this can only be achieved if the international community continues to work closely together.
One issue which clearly needs to be addressed in the context of the war in Afghanistan relates to the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people.
The international community, under the auspices of the United Nations and through the European Union, must bring forward a visible and viable strategy to guarantee that humanitarian supplies are delivered to the Afghan people.
A visible humanitarian strategy must be an absolute priority if the Afghan people are going to be able to live through a very cold winter.
There must be a safe and consistent delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need.
This can only be carried out with the involvement of the international community and key non-governmental organisations.
In time the United Nations and the European Union should be given positive roles as new political structures develop in Afghanistan.
We must all play our part in guaranteeing that international terrorism is defeated.
Clearly, a multi-faceted approach is needed if we are to guarantee that the roots of international terrorism are tackled head-on.
In conclusion, it is very important that we reiterate the message that the war against terrorism is not a battle against Islam.
There are millions of Muslims living within the Union who are fully integrated within our societies and who contribute positively to the development of the European Union.
The European Union as a political entity is a friend, and will always be a friend, to the Muslim people.
We must reaffirm this message at every opportunity.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it has been shown that the strategy pursued in Afghanistan by the coalition against terrorism is the right one.
It has also been shown that this is not merely a matter of hunting down terrorists, but also liberating a nation from a government which is far from popular among its own people.
This has been shown quite clearly, and I think we should say so in all frankness in order to make it clear in this way that we have nothing against an Islamic people; on the contrary, we want to work with it to build a future in freedom.
Of course, this also means, and this is borne out by Afghanistan's history, that we should work together with its own government and respect its decisions, and that it is not our task to involve ourselves in the details.
I think this is also extremely important if the task of creating a government of reconciliation in Afghanistan is to be mastered successfully.
Here, the European Union must take an active role with its conflict prevention and civilian crisis management capacities and help organise the reconstruction of the country on this basis, as long as this is what the parties involved want.
In more general terms, the events of recent weeks have shown that in the areas where the European Union functions effectively, it can make a significant contribution.
I do not believe that the coalition against terrorism would have operated as effectively in the Middle East without the European Union and the visits by its troika.
On the other hand, we must acknowledge that in the military field, where we are particularly weak, we have continued to rely heavily on bilateralism and directed solutions.
I think it is clear that in all areas of security and defence policy, we must move more resolutely towards a community approach. It must become clear that even the larger Member States, which think they still have a role to play, actually had no influence on all the strategies which have been enforced.
We must therefore accept that we will only have a role to play if we act jointly, if we achieve our common goal of establishing a 60 000-strong rapid deployment force by 2003, and if we underpin our conflict prevention and crisis management capacities credibly with this third component.
I also think that this must, to a substantial extent, be discussed in the light of Laeken and in the context of the post-Nice process.
Time and again, when we are active in the foreign policy field, we see the extent to which our inadequate structures prevent us from bringing our full weight to bear.
I am thinking in particular of the frequent organisational chaos in the Balkans and the competition not only between Solana and Patten but also between the parallel structures which were established and which, as experience has shown, work against and not with each other.
These structures must be rationalised, perhaps in the hands of the Commission with their own legitimation via the Council.
In my view, these are the lessons we have learned from the last two months, and we should call on the governments in our countries to respond appropriately.
I believe it is necessary, in the interests of the future viability of our nations, to cultivate this community method to a greater extent in future in the field of foreign and security policy too.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I hope you will forgive me if I go over my speaking time by half a minute.
Since Mr McMillan-Scott is not here, we could possibly steal half a minute of his time.
First of all, I should like to say that, unfortunately, the objective of the fight against international terrorism has not been achieved with the fall of Kabul nor will it be by a possible fall of Kandahar soon.
We must, of course, focus on many other criteria.
Of major importance are, naturally, the tracking down of terrorist cells in, inter alia, Europe, the freezing of financial sources of international terrorism and the whole discussion, also in our society, around the question as to what groups are, in fact, active in our society and how we can call a halt to their activities.
In my view, a large number of conditions must also be created in Afghanistan in order to be able to remove this kind of breeding ground for international terrorism.
A multi-ethnic government is logical, but we must also manage to find a special solution for Kabul, of course.
Peace must be established with the countries around Afghanistan to ensure that an area of stability and peace is created.
The refugees must be able to return home and a massive amount of money must be invested in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Finally, we must ensure that a government is put in place that respects human rights.
That is a total package.
The causes can be found indirectly in the Middle East.
Although that is not the case, that argument is being used by Bin Laden.
I therefore believe that the Middle East peace process needs an extra boost and I also wonder whether the time has come to do this now.
I would direct this question to the President-in-Office of the Council, if she happens to be listening.
I would especially ask you whether you, together with the Commission, could not ensure that a UN resolution on a Palestinian state could now be laid down at long last?
Has the time not come for pushing for breakthroughs on this score, as we did years ago with Israel? I also wonder whether an evaluation is not needed of the role of Saudi-Arabia in the funding of all possible institutions in western Europe which one would be right to question?
The position of Syria has already been mentioned.
As our President has already pointed out, I also believe it is useful and necessary to help the young Assad to play the far more positive role which we had all expected of him, but which, through all kinds of circumstances, he was unable to fulfil.
As, however, Syria plays a crucial role, a great deal more needs to be done there.
If we as the EU want to play a part, also in the peace process as a whole, we must be careful what action we undertake, for example, in connection with the arms sales or the supply of goods for dual use to Iran.
Israel is monitoring the proceedings with great concern, and I believe that these kinds of signals are of the utmost importance.
Finally, nearly everyone has already said it, and I am not about to repeat it, but it is unacceptable for the European Union to continue to send out a disintegrated picture.
We must show a united front and act at Community level in terms of external, peace and security policy.
If we still fail to get the message, how can we then expect to play a role on the world stage? I therefore make a dramatic appeal, also to the presidency, to make huge strides forward on this score.
Madam President, I am very glad we are holding this debate today, at a moment when the situation in Afghan is changing by the hour and, I hope, for the better.
I know that Europe has two obligations towards Afghanistan.
Together with the UN, we must press for a political settlement of the conflict, aimed, as Guy Verhofstadt said, at the establishment of a stable, legitimate and democratic government that is very broadly representative of all the ethnic groups and abides by the principles of human rights.
Yet I believe we also have a second duty towards Afghanistan, an urgent duty.
We know that the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is a tragedy.
It is the result of the combined effect of a war that has been devastating this country for 23 years and the drought that has plagued it for the past three years.
We know that seven million people were dependent on humanitarian aid even before the military operations began.
We also know that up to 100 000 children may die this winter unless adequate supplies reach them in the coming weeks.
That is why we call on Europe to take urgent, large-scale measures in face of this humanitarian tragedy.
In the framework of what we hope will become a process of permanent consultation between the European Union, the United States, Afghanistan's neighbouring states, the specialist UN agencies and the NGOs working in Afghanistan, we call, as you, Madam President, have also done on several occasions, for the creation of safe humanitarian corridors through which emergency food aid and shelter for the displaced Afghans can be brought in.
This is not only an urgent requirement; it is quite simply the duty of the peoples of the European Union, whom we represent here.
Madam President, I will reply or, at least, try to give some kind of reply to the comments made during this debate, which is all the more interesting because it is being held at a moment when we have very high hopes while at the same time having little idea of what the outcome will be.
Let me first take you back to the famous meeting in London that several of you mentioned and remind you that this meeting was certainly not arranged at the presidency's initiative.
The presidency is responsible for inviting and chairing the meetings of the Fifteen.
The Ghent meeting, by contrast, was convened for military reasons or, in other words, those who wished to meet in Ghent cited military reasons.
In regard to the London meeting, let me also point out that the presidency was invited to that meeting but as I said, the meeting was not held at its initiative.
Once he had been invited, Mr Verhofstadt, the President of the European Council, naturally contacted his various colleagues immediately to ascertain their individual positions.
He was strongly encouraged to go to London and at the COREPER meeting the following day, he immediately undertook to report back on everything that would be said in London and chose to be accompanied by Mr Solana, since he felt that these issues were indeed most important and related to security.
So these are a few facts about the context of this meeting in London. Allow me to repeat that the European Union obviously plays a diplomatic and political role but also a humanitarian one - and I am saying this not just by the way but as a definite statement.
I declared in my introductory statement, as Mr Busquin also declared on behalf of the Commission, that we attach great importance to humanitarian questions, not only at the level of words or financial resources, but also and above all at the level of deeds.
We are making sure that we take action here.
You may be certain that the presidency of the Council and the Commission are determined to make very concrete, specific and urgent progress in terms of responding to the situation and endeavouring to do so very visibly.
It is indeed important, over and above the action to be taken, for people to know and see that the European Union wants to play and will play a role in this respect.
I agree with Mr Poettering that Europe must speak with one voice.
I can assure you that the Presidency of the Council has done its utmost to ensure this, in particular at the London meeting. It was a meeting we did not convene but prior to which the presidency was asked to consult the other Member States and to attend together with Mr Solana.
That is what I have to say on London, Ghent and these matters.
In reply to Mr Lagendijk's question about, amongst other things, the United Nations force and the post-Taliban regime, the Council has not yet discussed the participation of the European Union as such in a United Nations force and has not, therefore, determined its position at this stage.
Therefore I cannot give it.
Conversely, regarding the stabilisation of the post-Taliban regime, I think that will necessarily require consultation with the countries of the region under the aegis of the United Nations and therefore of the Security Council.
Since we are discussing this post-Taliban regime, which we all hope will be stable, multi-ethnic and democratic, while also knowing that the road will be a difficult one, let me put particular emphasis on a question which I and the Presidency of the Council feel very strongly about, namely the gender question.
We must indeed aim at a representation and a government that are more democratic, stable, etc. But we must also take the gender question into consideration.
Neither I nor the Presidency of the Council would find it comprehensible if Afghan women, who were the first victims of the Taliban regime and who suffered a great many deprivations, especially of their rights, while taking on huge responsibilities, were excluded from the formation of this government and its future activities.
Lastly, I think nearly all the speakers pointed out that we very much need to adopt a more integrated European stance on common security.
We need to act as a community.
The Belgian Presidency is convinced of this and I really hope this question will be on the agenda of the Laeken Summit.
Recent events have made it abundantly clear that we have to move forward together, in a more harmonious manner and as a community.
These are the replies I wanted to make to this debate, which, I believe, has highlighted some extremely useful and important principles for the days, weeks and months ahead.
Madam President, I just wanted to make three clarifications.
As Mrs Durant pointed out, the question of humanitarian aid is of course paramount.
As many speakers have also shown, it is a priority at a time when winter is approaching and the people are in danger.
I can only confirm our resolve to release the funds that have been allocated.
Let me repeat that the amount for 2001 is EUR 100 million, channelled via the World Food Organisation and the non-governmental organisations.
This being said, if we agree about the creation of safety corridors, I think it is then up to us to ensure, via the ECHO instrument, that the aid is delivered as effectively as possible.
That, at least, is the Commission's resolve.
I can only confirm it.
Similarly, the Commission, in consultation with the international community and the Afghan people, including, of course, Afghan women, is assessing the reconstruction needs, as indeed it also did in Serbia, where that process was regarded as a model of speed and efficiency.
Finally, at diplomatic level, Mr Prodi and Mr Patten, in particular, are quite ready to respond to the requests the Presidency of the European Union will no doubt be making to them in the next few days.
Thank you, Mr Busquin.
The debate is closed.
Negotiations within the framework of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention following the recent anthrax attacks
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the negotiations within the framework of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention following the recent anthrax attacks.
Mrs Durant has the floor on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to speak about the negotiations on the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
The attacks of 11 September have only strengthened our conviction that multilateral instruments for disarmament and non-proliferation are more crucial than ever.
Everything possible must be done to prevent terrorist organisations and their members having access to more powerful means with which to carry out their criminal activities.
The fight against biological weapons must, in this context, be pursued at a more sustained pace, particularly given the threat of potential bioterrorist attacks.
The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention is a crucial instrument in this process.
The European Union and its Member States have committed themselves to ensuring that this convention is universally observed.
The European Union will be launching, with regard to the Fifth Review Conference on the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention that will take place in Geneva from 19 November to 7 December 2001, a new call to those States that have not yet signed up to the Convention banning biological and toxin weapons, to ratify this as soon as possible.
Strengthening this Convention is, furthermore, one of the Union' s priorities in the field of disarmament.
The Council, therefore, attaches the greatest importance to concluding the negotiations that have taken place in Geneva, within the ad hoc group, on a legally binding protocol establishing an effective system that will ensure compliance with the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
In its conclusions of 11 June 2001, the Council of the European Union once again confirmed its commitment to contribute to the drawing up of a protocol containing a raft of practical measures that it had defined in its common position of 17 May 1999, as essential to the implementation of an effective instrument.
In this regard, the Union regrets the fact that the special group has not managed to fulfil its mandate, which is to conclude these negotiations on a legally binding protocol before the opening of the Fifth Review Conference.
The Union has, in fact, expressed its disappointment at the United States' refusal to accept the synthesis text presented by the chairman of the special group.
The Council is, therefore, maintaining its position.
The threat biological weapons pose requires an appropriate multilateral response.
The Council will continue to emphasise the importance it attaches to the work that must lead to a legally binding instrument and, in particular, to maintaining the special group.
The Union has noted the statement by the United States, according to which that country supports all multilateral mechanisms currently in force for the control, non-proliferation and monitoring of arms exports and has also noted their alternative proposals, which the Union is still studying.
We have already discussed them with the United States and will continue to do so in the context of preparations for the Review Conference.
The Union reserves the right to also formulate its own proposals.
Lastly, the Union hopes that the gains made in the negotiations are preserved and that the Review Conference is able to take decisions that offer prospects for a rapid renewal of negotiations within the multilateral framework of the Convention, with the participation of all States involved.
Mr President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, I do not have a great deal to add to what Mrs Durant has just said.
I simply wish to confirm that the European Union has, for its part, always been strongly in favour of the compromise text, convinced that it is as important as the agreements on the non-proliferation of weapons, provided that these are accompanied by effective verification measures.
The Union is convinced that sending a negative signal on progress with international commitments on the non-proliferation of weapons would generally be damaging to world security.
As has been said, the compromise has not been accepted.
It is, therefore, unlikely that a resolution will be produced before 19 November, but regular contacts are being maintained between the United States and the European Union on this matter.
The United States take the view, furthermore, that the events of 11 September and those that have followed do not change their position on the verification protocol drawn up by the ad-hoc group.
On the other hand, for its part, the European Union maintains that this compromise text would have enabled a major breakthrough to be made at a particularly critical moment.
The Union also takes the view that the dynamic of discussions in the ad-hoc group must be preserved, even if the form and the procedure have to be adapted to circumstances.
The United States is in the process of drafting new proposals for protection measures against the risk of a biological attack, insisting on the need to defend itself against the risk of terrorism.
The European Union considers that some of the United States' proposals are to be welcomed.
Nevertheless, it also wishes to add others that are intended to improve the Convention and to encourage the development in the longer term of an instrument that is truly binding under law, but that is the very nub of the problem.
The Union will also be proposing a mechanism that will enable us to pursue regular dialogue on the Convention and will open this up to all parties concerned.
These measures will certainly be part of the discussions at the Fifth Review Conference.
In conclusion, and as has already been said, one thing is certain and that is that there will be no protocol verifying the biological weapons convention in the short term.
We are seeking to uphold the achievements of the ad-hoc working group.
Consultation is taking place on a regular basis with the United States and we are trying, on the basis of their proposals, to complement them with our own, so as to preserve the spirit of open and regular dialogue with all parties to the Convention. This, in our view, is the key to multilateralism.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is said that proverbs are the expression of the wisdom of nations and, according to a French proverb, every cloud has a silver lining.
The appalling disaster of the World Trade Center and the launch by a few madmen of a campaign of anthrax poisoning can at least be credited with waking up public opinion and, through public opinion, waking political leaders, making them more aware of the dangers of the development of an international form of terrorism that is bent on imposing its view of the world by all means possible.
In this regard, one only has to think of the recent sabre rattling by Osama Bin Laden. I hope, by the way, that this will be his last, because he will surely soon have to account to international justice for his crimes.
I hope, however, that following his imminent fall, the international community will pursue its action to control and ban biological and chemical weapons in order to eliminate the terrible threat that they pose.
This is the reasoning behind Parliament' s drafting of the motion for a resolution that will be submitted tomorrow for the approval of our fellow Members.
We are pleased to see the change in the attitude of the American government which, in July, withdrew from negotiations on concluding a protocol to implement the Convention, as you have just reminded us, Commissioner, and we hope that the new conference that is due to take place next week in Geneva, which you informed us about, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, will consequently take place under the best possible auspices.
We wish to thank you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as representative of the Council, for having assured us of the Council' s desire to coordinate the actions of the Member State governments in this area.
To this end, we call on the Commission to set up, under its own control, a specialist agency, that could rapidly intervene whenever breaches of the Convention are suspected.
Could you, Commissioner, give us your personal opinion on this matter?
Mr President, earlier this year we expressed our disappointment at the lack of support from the United States for the reinforcement of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
In the wake of the events of 11 September and the anthrax attacks on the United States, the issue of bio-terror has suddenly become very topical.
Biological weapons are threatening to become part of the asymmetrical warfare which typifies the fight against terrorism.
The Convention is, of course, directed at states, but the effective implementation also makes it more difficult for terrorists to obtain these weapons.
These weapons have been banned for a very long time, but are unfortunately still available.
That is why we call for binding international rules in order to monitor compliance with the Convention better.
Fortunately, the Americans are back at the negotiating table.
They have a problem which they are unable to solve on their own.
However, the proposals they have tabled contain too many loopholes.
The tighter and more transparent the controls, the better, and that must also be the EU' s focus of attention at the forthcoming review conference later this month.
The Convention must become an instrument in the search of manufacturers of biological weapons, but also for tracking down existing supplies.
Russia used to implement extensive programmes.
How were they wound up, and what happened with the expertise gathered? It is rumoured that scientists who worked on these programmes have offered their services elsewhere.
The anthrax attacks in the US compel us yet again to consider how we can stop the arms programmes in Iraq.
For this purpose, the UN must launch new initiatives.
Naturally, the Convention does not offer adequate protection against bio-terror, against the so-called non-governmental players.
This also requires more and better cooperation with the police and intelligence services, as well as better criminal investigation methods.
We need to offer our citizens better protection against possible attacks and the effects thereof.
Many countries take measures in order to protect themselves against anthrax or smallpox better.
The costs involved in those initiatives are enormous.
Poor countries do not have those funds and could for that reason become the principal victim of a possible smallpox epidemic as a result of bio-terror.
I would call on the EU and the EU Member States not only to consider the possible protection of its own citizens, but also to examine whether developing countries can be helped by setting up programmes to protect the people in the event of possible terrorist attacks involving biological weapons.
Mr President, my group, the Liberal Group, wants to make three points, largely in the form of questions.
First of all - and this point will appear in the compromise resolution which is not yet in print but it is certainly in our own resolution - my colleague, Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, points out that the United Nations is extremely slow, or has been in the past, to respond when there are reports of breaches of use of these weapons.
For example, when Saddam Hussein, in the early 90s, used these weapons in the marshes of Iraq, it took the United Nations three and a half weeks to get inspectors there, giving Saddam Hussein plenty of time to cover up the evidence of his crimes.
Would the Council kindly point out to the United Nations that we need a much quicker response than three and a half weeks if such incidents happen in future, as we fear may happen.
Secondly - and this appears in the Liberal Group's resolution and also in the compromise resolution - the anthrax problem in the United States has drawn all our attention to the need to react quickly and to analyse what is happening.
There is no European Union-wide agency looking at this although, in the USA, there is the Centre for Disease Control in Atlanta.
Would the Commission be willing to undertake to propose the creation of a European Union agency, under its control, which would coordinate the work of the relevant national agencies in our Member States in the field of communicable diseases? That would speed up our reaction and help us on a Union basis.
My third question is addressed to the Council.
I hope it is a hypothetical question.
If the investigations in the USA show that the anthrax outbreak came from Iraq and therefore American public opinion becomes overwhelmingly in favour of an attack on Iraq and - I imagine that George Bush would find it very hard to resist such overwhelming public opinion - what would be the Council's position? Would we encourage the EU to attack Iraq as well, or would we try to hold George Bush back?
Has the Council considered this?
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, may heaven preserve us from the weapons which serve and are designed to protect us.
After the attack of 11 September on Manhattan, the American people remained in the grip of fear following the anthrax attacks which, although they resulted only in a limited number of victims, have a massive psychological effect which reaches far beyond the United States.
The deadly product that was used points, in terms of its concentration and purity, in the direction of laboratories in the United States itself which are reported to be the only ones in the world that could make the product.
This clearly shows that the risks which our population faces as a result of the manufacture of chemical and biological weapons are insufficiently removed by current legislation.
A conference on this subject matter is to take place in Geneva shortly, and we would remind you that in July, notably, the United States withdrew from the negotiations about the Protocol that is before us.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on 14 June to back the approval of this Protocol.
However, we are convinced that an outright ban should apply to both the manufacture and the use of chemical and biological weapons by the international community, and that this ban should be legally binding.
Current supplies should be destroyed expertly, and I fear that the Protocol too could still be too weak to cope with this.
Mr President, we have had a treaty against biological weapons and weapons containing toxins for a very long time now.
It cannot be applied and its application cannot be monitored without a protocol setting out how this is to be done, something we have been trying to achieve for years.
We have not succeeded.
The United States sabotaged the protocol, do not ask me why.
I read papers by American analysts who say that they have not had time to complete various biological warfare programmes which are up and running.
Be that as it may, following the awful events in New York and the anthrax attacks in the United States, we need to get back to the concept of monitoring and applying this treaty as quickly as possible, come what may.
I was astounded to hear the Commissioner say that the position of the United States has not changed and that we are unlikely to have a protocol with provisions on monitoring and applying the treaty in the foreseeable future.
We obviously need to withdraw what we say in the joint motion before you, honourable Members, about welcoming the change in the position of the United States.
We have made a mistake.
We must change it tomorrow in an oral amendment.
Secondly, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you have not told us how you intend to exert greater pressure on the United States, given that the whole business is down to them.
Will discussion alone suffice, I wonder?
Thirdly, new factors have come into play, Mr President.
It has been proven that genetic engineering can be used for this sort of weapon of mass destruction by applying research into vaccines and other forms of treatment which are easily hijacked for military purposes.
I have tabled an amendment for tomorrow's vote.
I think that we should adopt it and that the European Union should include this issue in the debate.
Finally, if it turns out, ladies and gentlemen, as the FBI is saying, that the anthrax was made and supplied in the United States, are there any Members here who propose that someone, do not ask me who, should bomb the United States?
Mr President, since this is the first time I have spoken in this House, please allow me to greet the presidency, the Council and my fellow Members.
The possible use of military technology and biological and chemical weapons by subversive groups is no longer a remote risk but a real civil defence problem.
The loss of military secrets, experts and materials has now been verified and is the real basis that the strategy of terrorism can use to strike against the civil population, which is defenceless in the face of such new aggression.
To address this new scenario of warfare, in which the enemy is well concealed in the meshes of civil society, protected by the very rights of freedom he is fighting against and where the targets are no longer just the armed forces but the civil population, it is vital to know what threats may be hanging over the safety of the citizens.
In view of the fact that some nations have not signed up to the Geneva Convention on chemical and biological weapons, as we have heard, and have continued to develop these technologies of warfare, we appeal to the United States and the republics of the former Soviet Union, as well as all those states that have not taken part or signed up, to provide the international community with detailed information on the biological and chemical agents they know about which could, in some way, be traced or stolen by terrorist groups.
The aim of all this is to acquire useful data as soon as possible to prevent the creation, stockpiling and spread of such means of mass destruction, and, at the same time, to prepare the necessary information measures for the staff of civil and paramilitary institutions to equip them to deal effectively and rapidly with these new scenarios of disasters caused by people without any scruples at all.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, it is an historic tragedy that the country which has refused to adopt truly effective controls on the use of biological and toxic weapons was the first to fall victim to these brutal attacks.
Of course, this does not prevent us from expressing our deep sympathy with the American people and especially the families affected.
However, I believe that this sign of isolationism and unilateralism, which is still very strong in America, must be viewed by the European Union, and in particular by the Council, as an opportunity to lobby the US very hard, not only on this issue but also on the International Criminal Court, for effective international agreements and monitoring arrangements in the wake of these dreadful attacks.
It is grotesque that in recent days, Congress has debated a bill which vehemently opposes the establishment of the International Criminal Court - a Court which would deal with crimes like these, especially if they were supported and perpetrated by states.
The second important point - and I would like to address the Commission in particular here - is how we, in Europe, are equipped, as far as is humanly possible, to defend ourselves against such attacks or to reduce their impact to a minimum. As has already been mentioned, the USA has an agency in Atlanta, a disease control centre.
Does the Commission think this should be considered in Europe as well? Of course, I know that when there is a problem, there is a tendency to call for a new EU agency to be set up, which raises further problems of control and supervision.
However, in light of recent developments, I think that there are various arguments in favour of this type of agency.
In general terms, I think that the Commission must do more regarding security against this type of terrorist attack, whether it involves biological or nuclear weapons.
This is not a task which we can simply leave to the Member States.
Certain safety standards in these areas must be set out at European level in response to this type of terrorism.
I also believe that the Commission, together with the Council, must consider how we should deal with the installations, factories and laboratories which handle these hazardous products, especially genetically modified products, without encroaching unnecessarily on the privacy of employees while achieving a minimum of transparency, protection and prevention.
Those who work in this kind of installation must therefore be prepared to accept a certain measure of control.
Finally, I should like to ask the Commission once again what it intends to do to create this protection, not only in general terms but also as regards practical measures, in the coming years.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam Minister, nothing has been said in this debate which I cannot support.
Nonetheless, I would like to raise three points which, in my view, should be emphasised to a far greater extent.
Firstly, in the long term, we cannot expect other states to adopt security policies which are different from those we practise ourselves.
If we do not want proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in this area, for example, a clearer signal must be sent out by the European Union and its partners.
Secondly, there has obviously been a paradigm shift and a change in strategy in the USA on the verification issue compared with the 1980s.
In view of the urgency of these issues in the wake of 11 September, the European Union's diplomatic restraint, which I have often understood, is inappropriate, and I hope that the USA's unilateralism, which has just been mentioned, will be overcome on the basis of their own experience.
The third problem is the most crucial.
It is wrong to point to the USA alone.
This paradigm shift has obviously taken place here in Western Europe as well.
If I look at the model under discussion for the Biological Weapons Convention as well, namely the monitoring organisation for chemical weapons, there is currently a financial crisis in which EU Member States also play a role.
We have witnessed deterioration in the monitoring provisions since the Convention was first adopted.
Perhaps this is symptomatic, Madam Minister: in May this year, I asked the Council for its comments on these issues.
I have still not received a response, and I suspect that we, too, are approaching this issue with insufficient vigour.
Mr President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, I simply wish to answer the questions asked by Mr Morillon, Mr Swoboda and Mr Dunn on the issue of whether an Agency should or should not exist.
In the context of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, there was clearly never any question of discussing an Agency.
The Union' s position was to propose a mechanism for pursuing dialogue beyond the Review Conference in the form of either annual meetings of the signatories as is done for the Convention on Chemical Weapons, or of meetings of experts, in other words, continuing the former ad hoc group as was explained in the current state of discussions on this Convention.
Nevertheless, I should like to tell you that, at the Ghent Summit and, of course, at the request of the presidency of the European Union, the Commission has undertaken work on examining this issue in all its aspects and, therefore, on listing laboratories, in an attempt to see what type of response we can provide.
At the Commission meeting yesterday, a joint briefing sheet was issued by Mr Byrne, the Commissioner responsible for Health and Consumer protection, to Mr Liikanen and myself, to see how we can implement, at European Union level, in agreement, of course with the Member States, closer coordination in order to achieve our objectives, without necessarily creating an Agency.
This is, broadly speaking, the way things are heading.
In this regard, I would say that in the field of research itself, and, therefore, of the potential for knowledge in this area, we are planning a meeting dedicated to this issue, on 13 December, in Brussels, of all experts from the Member States.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I have received six motions for resolutions, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Shipbuilding (continuation)
The next item is the follow-up to the debate on the report (A5-0373/2001) by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation concerning a temporary defensive mechanism for shipbuilding [COM(2001)401 - C5-0393/2001 - 2001/0153(CNS)].
Mr President, after congratulating the rapporteur, I would like to begin by stressing that the ship-building industry throughout Europe is facing a serious crisis which could affect the very credibility of the European Union and perhaps endanger the continued existence of this sector in the Union, given the unfair competition on the part of South Korea.
Furthermore, it could represent an invitation or a stimulus to the Koreans to extend their unfair practices to other sectors of economic activity such as automobiles, electronics and steel.
Of course, this invitation may not only extend to Korea itself but also to other countries, principally in that region.
Transparency suggests a challenge: free competition in a free market.
But a free market means the same laws for all, and given that this does not exist at the moment, our transparency in a world and at a time when we do not have the other elements necessary for the existence of that free market, as well as naivety, may result in a clear risk of disaster and also a lack of solidarity from the European Union towards the Member States and the cities of those States.
This is the case with a city such as mine, Vigo, in the North East of Spain, where companies and families have made an enormous effort and a difficult sacrifice in order to be competitive.
Solidarity therefore demands measures in defence of a sector which is also strategic for Europe; measures which impose the extension of the scope of the defensive support mechanism to all categories of ship built by the Korean shipyards and which also impose an extension of the period the defensive mechanism is in force until 31 December 2003, which is also the period in force of Regulation (EC) 1540/98 or, alternatively, until the WTO procedure against Korea is concluded.
Mr President, our future, the future of our States and the citizens of Europe are at stake.
Twenty years on will be too late.
I believe that solidarity demands, and leads us to hope, that the Commission and the Council will act in the way I have mentioned.
These are the reasons given by the companies and workers in the sector in the parts of Europe where shipbuilding is important.
Mr President, those of you who know me will be aware that I do not usually speak in favour of public aid which distorts competition.
That does not mean that I do not recognise that some of this public aid makes sense and must continue if it contributes to the objectives laid down in the Treaty.
Despite this, and precisely because this is one of those cases, I would like to express my total support for the Commission' s proposal and the amendments presented by the competent committees, which propose a defensive and temporary mechanism in the ship-building sector in order to confront the unfair practices of South Korea.
In this section, there is no room for solutions such as that proposed by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, which, by taking an extremely orthodox position in opposition to public aid, would have disastrous consequences for the European shipbuilding sector.
There is absolutely no doubt that the Republic of Korea is practising dumping in the sector, and for this reason the European industry cannot compete.
It is true that the Commission has begun proceedings before the World Trade Organisation to combat this unfair competition, but it is also the case that, while this procedure is under way, the European ship-building industry could disappear, with significant repercussions for employment.
We must bear in mind that there are two elements to this aid which make it worthy of support: firstly, it is transitional, it will only be granted until the WTO resolves the dispute in question, and secondly, it is defensive, it is a response to aggressive unfair competition by the Republic of Korea, and for these reasons it is perfectly acceptable.
Furthermore, the amendments approved by the competent committee are acceptable, since they include certain types of ship which are also affected by these unfair practices on the part of Korea.
The rapporteur has been informed of the existence of a possible legal report by the services of the Council which opposes these measures proposed by the Commission.
While we do not know what these legal arguments are, we must be content with the legal reports of both the European Parliament and the Commission, which speak of the suitability of the aid as proposed by the Commission, which is neither substantially distorted nor modified by the proposals which have been approved in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Mr President, for years European shipyards have been condemning the dumping practised by South Korea in relation to the sales prices of the ships built there.
Finally, and after so many complaints about it, the Commission has presented an initiative, with the acquiescence of the Council, and has proposed certain provisional measures to us, which consist of a temporary defence mechanism, specifically designed to counteract Korea' s unfair practices, putting a complaint procedure before the World Trade Organisation.
Nevertheless, the Commission, in its proposed aid to ship building, only includes container ships and oil tankers.
We believe that it should also include special ships for the transportation of gases derived from oil and liquefied natural gas, as well as ferries, bulk carriers and roll-on roll-off car ferries, all of which are included in the complaints presented to the WTO.
It is time that Korea realised that the Union is determined to defend its shipbuilding industry in the face of unfair practices by any other country.
Mr President, this Commission proposal has arisen following the problems resulting from the liberalisation agreements it agreed to negotiate within the OECD while at the same time it limited State aid to the shipbuilding industry, promoted the concentration of shipyards and later removed operating aid.
Now that there are serious problems in the industry, which is of strategic importance to the European Union, particularly to ensure the security of supply on appropriate terms and to prevent excessive dependence on external sources, it has become necessary to support the European shipbuilding industry against unfair practices by Korea.
Although the Commission proposal is important for the moment, it is only temporary and partial, and in the end, is on the same level as Korean unfair practices.
In any event, it is important that the proposals that the rapporteur has made should at least be taken into account, including the extension of the expiry date of this 6% operating aid, in special cases up to a limit of 14%, and also the enlargement of its scope to other vessels.
We therefore back this report in order to prevent the short-term aggravation of the economic and social problems that already exist in this area.
Mr President, tomorrow never comes now that the European Commission has proposed to subsidise shipbuilding again.
It was made clear in the past that the subsidies for the shipbuilding industry would be discontinued in mid-2001.
The re-introduction of a temporary subsidy scheme goes against the agreements made and is unacceptable.
The granting of subsidies to the shipbuilding industry is both unnecessary and undesirable.
It is unnecessary because shipbuilding in Europe focuses on the construction of technologically advanced ships and not on the simple conveyer-belt production as is the case in low-wage countries.
It therefore offers not a single solution to the problems in the industry.
The granting of aid is undesirable because financially unhealthy companies remain in production thanks to subsidies, and efficient production is impossible as a result.
The industry does not benefit from non-generic support.
Structural solutions to the problems European shipbuilding is facing lie in healthy competition and structural reforms.
The Commission proposal, however, will undermine these prospects for a long time.
The internal market will be disrupted since the Member States will step in to implement the Regulation, and non-generic support will lead to unfair competition.
With this proposal, Europe places itself in an untenable position.
Lodging a complaint at the WTO is absurd if the Commission adheres to temporary support measures as suggested.
We therefore share the overwhelming concern expressed by the original rapporteur, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, with regard to this proposal.
In fact, I cannot imagine that the duty Commissioner Bolkestein would think any differently about this.
Mr President, colleagues, honourable Member of the Commission, the European Union and South Korea have been conducting so far fruitless negotiations in order to bring about sound competition into the world shipbuilding market.
The Commission has now approved a strategy, according to which the matter will be taken to the WTO dispute settlement procedure.
I support this decision and would like to thank all those Members of the Commission who actively contributed to this decision.
At the same time, however, the Commission issued a proposal to the effect that operating aid could be allowed to individual shipyards temporarily during the WTO procedure.
According to the Commission proposal for a regulation, any arrangements for subsidies would be exceptional and temporary measures and would concern a limited number of ship types only.
At first glance the Commission proposal may seem justified, but in reality it distorts competition both in the world market and even within the EU and lacks any valid legitimate reason.
The link between the subsidy mechanism and the WTO procedure is totally artificial.
These matters have no natural connection and therefore these questions should be dealt with separately.
All of us who are involved in politics understand this: this is politics, not a legal process.
If we want to lean on the WTO, we ourselves must act according to the rules set by the WTO.
By allocating subsidies, the EU itself is guilty of distorting actions of which it is now accusing Korea.
This will bring discredit on us and will weaken our negotiation position within the WTO.
I said that the Commission proposal distorts competition also inside the EU.
Even if only certain ship types would receive subsidies, the subsidised shipyards would always benefit from subsidy monies and would therefore have an advantage over other shipyards.
In particular this will impede the position of the high technology shipbuilding industry, which for very good reasons has responded to fiercening competition by concentrating especially on products representing more demanding technology.
Among others my home country Finland has from the very beginning, as agreed, reduced shipyard subsidies, and we have invested strongly in the building of cruise ships and other high technology vessels.
Consequently, through these actions Finnish shipyards have achieved world-wide competitiveness, which the Commission is now trying to take away from us.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish first of all to express my satisfaction at the way in which Mrs Riis-Jørgensen' s report has been very fruitfully amended in committee, which will enable us to establish a defensive mechanism for our shipbuilding industry.
We are all already aware of the difficulties that this sector has faced for years as a result of unfair competition from Korea.
We are also aware that Korea continues to set prices below cost, that the Korean authorities provide their shipyards with subsidies, both direct and indirect, that bankrupt shipyards are kept operational, that South Korea' s production capacity increased by 170% between 1988 and 1997, whereas, during the same period, European production fell by 30%.
And yet, during this time, European subsidies were ended.
All attempts to resolve the matter amicably have been in vain and a case therefore had to be lodged with the WTO.
I am pleased that this case has now been supplemented with a proposal for a defensive mechanism.
The WTO procedure will probably last three years.
It would be absurd to leave European shipbuilding unprotected for this time and the Commission has proposed a defence mechanism in the form of subsidies.
I support this measure but I would add that Korean competition also affects oil tankers.
One Korean company, with USD five billion' s worth of losses that have been absorbed by state banks, nevertheless won half of all industrial tonnage in 2000 - by dropping prices.
At a time when the consequences of the 11 September attacks have led to a pause in orders for cruise ships, a sector which does not need subsidies, orders for oil tankers are much needed, which is why we must include this sector in the defensive mechanism.
This is my contribution, ladies and gentlemen, to this very important debate on shipbuilding.
I too wish to see Parliament give massive support to the Commission' s proposal.
Mr President, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, for her tenacious and courageous fight for a free market economy.
The rapporteur knows something of which other colleagues in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Commission ought to be aware: State subsidies of any kind damage the economy, impair the operation of the market and harm consumers.
Subsidies make for inefficiency and increase costs.
What is depressing is that fellow MEPs now want to make a bad proposal still worse.
I come from Sweden. In the seventies, Sweden was the world' s second largest shipbuilding nation after Japan.
I had my first job in what was at that time one of Sweden' s largest shipyards.
We built the largest oil tanker in history.
When competition increased from countries such as Portugal, Japan and South Korea, the Swedish state invested a total of EUR 2 billion in an attempt to rescue the shipbuilding industry.
No industrial investment in Sweden has been so ill-starred, cost so much and resulted in so little.
The necessary restructuring of industry came to a halt, and no new jobs were created.
If we in the EU now want to show real solidarity with the shipyard workers and their families, the Commission' s and the committees' proposals must naturally be rejected.
That would be an investment for the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, I will get straight to the point.
Our group supports the Commission proposal with amendments.
Of course, we question the way in which we put up defensive mechanisms when there is talk of opaque, unclear and unfair competition.
The rapporteur has suggested that we should not take any generic measures, as is now the case, namely according to types of ships and possibly a broader concept thereof, but has favoured measures according to regions and shipbuilding yards instead.
Separate support must be granted within the agreements we have concluded in this connection.
The question then actually arises as to the way in which people who, let us say, want to uphold the liberal principles, need to act the moment damage is being done.
I will quote one example.
At present, the Commission has instituted proceedings against the Schelde-Damen construction, that is to say, Damen, has taken over the company Schelde for 1 Guilder.
Questions have been raised as to whether that is acceptable.
My question is whether, in the spirit of the directive which is now being proposed, it could be possible that the Commission, let us say in an oblique way, is now also turning a blind eye to constructions which are being used in this context and in the above example.
Mr President, during this debate, certain things have become clear and have enjoyed general consensus.
There is a general consensus that the crisis is affecting the European Union' s shipbuilding industry. There is a general consensus that this crisis is due, amongst other things, to unfair competition on the part of the Republic of South Korea, which, according to Mr Caudron, consists of three elements: prices which are lower than costs, aid to shipyards and the maintenance of bankrupt shipyards.
I have also stressed that the crisis is serious.
Over the last 10 years, Korea has increased its capacity by 180%, while we have reduced ours by 30%.
What have we done so far? So far, we have signed an agreement with South Korea which that country has not respected.
We have lodged a complaint which is yet to be dealt with.
And recently, a twin course of action has been decided upon: firstly, to take the case to the WTO and, secondly, to establish the defensive, selective and temporary mechanism which we are discussing.
It is as if Commissioner Bolkestein, faced with the non-compliances of Korea, had used the words of Cicero to Catiline: "Quousque tandem abutere Catilina patientia nostra [How long now, Catiline, will you abuse our patience]".
I would remind those Members, almost all from the North, who have spoken against this decision, of a military aphorism which says that 'the mission of the artillery is to bomb the infantry, preferably that of the enemy' . In this case, the weapons of the North are aiming at European positions, bringing to mind in many cases the situation of Japan or that of other industries.
What does the European Parliament want to do?
Support Mr Bolkestein whole-heartedly and ask him to be more generous. To be more generous in relation to the field of protection: that is to say, as Mr Ortuondo has stressed, that it also be extended to those vessels which suffer from unfair competition, those which transport gases, car ferries, etc. and that he be less stingy in terms of the date of application.
That he extend this temporary and defensive measure until 2003.
May God bless you if you do this, Mr Bolkestein.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commission for proposing a regulation for the shipbuilding industry which may be temporary and segmented but which somehow, once again, helps minimise the effects of protectionism, which exists in various trading blocs around the world and not just in Korea.
In Korea it is not even a question of protectionism: it is a massive violation of WTO rules.
We should like to believe that the complaint that has been made will have some effect and bring some discipline to this sector.
The Commission has revealed, however, that it knows the proposed mechanism is not enough, and that it is only one step, and a step with all the negative baggage that stopgap measures entail, once we get beyond the deficit and crises of the shipbuilding industry, some of which have already been mentioned here, so I shall not repeat them.
But while it is true that the Nordic countries support investment and alternative technology, and thus achieve added value and still manage to keep active in the market without great social upheaval, this is not equally true for other European Union regions, such as southern Europe, regions where this sector is the largest employer and supports employment in a number of services and subsidiary industries.
It is often the only activity that generates development in these regions, and so the disappearance of this activity would be a social tragedy for certain regions, particularly in my country, in Spain and in Greece.
But while we hope that the Commission will implement this regulation at least by 2003, we hope for a lot more for the future and a different attitude towards the sector.
Mr President, on 5 December 2000, the Council decided that the granting of State aid of up to 9 per cent to the shipbuilding industry should cease for all Member States at the end of the year 2000.
This was for two reasons: State aid had not proved to have had any major effect on the industry' s ability to survive, and there was a conviction on grounds of principle that State aid should be reduced as much as possible and preferably cease.
Parliament shared this view as recently as last year.
State aid to shipyards is, moreover, contrary to international trade agreements, a fact crystallised by the Commission' s attempt in the autumn of 1999 and the spring of 2000 to reach a negotiated solution with South Korea to the problem of their having violated current trade agreements by providing extensive State aid.
Now that that attempt has failed, the Commission is instead tabling a proposal for a so-called temporary defensive mechanism for the shipbuilding industry, involving aid of between 6 and 14 per cent.
According to the committee' s proposal, this is to continue right up until the end of 2003, at the same time as dispute settlement proceedings have been instituted before the WTO against South Korea as a result of the latter' s having violated current trade agreements.
The reintroduction of extensive State aid within the EU would scarcely increase the prospects of solving the dispute with South Korea.
It would make more sense to reject the Commission' s proposal and put every effort into the WTO proceedings against South Korea.
In conclusion, I should like to put the following question to Commissioner Bolkestein: how does he think this proposal stands in relation to the EU' s competition policy through which we are trying to minimise, and preferably remove, State aid to industries in order to create fair and healthy competition between companies?
Mr President, my colleague, Mr Monti, has asked me to pass on his regrets to Parliament for his absence and to respond on his behalf.
I should like, on Mr Monti's behalf, to thank Mrs Riis-Jørgensen for her hard work and considerable input into this report.
We are extremely grateful for the rapid handling of this file by Parliament.
I also wish to take this opportunity to explain to Parliament the Commission's position on this report.
Ideally, there would be no need for the Commission to present this proposal.
I stress that operating aid is a particularly distorting form of aid, because it provides no incentive to improve efficiency and delivers no benefit in terms of competitiveness of the yards by, for example, encouraging training or research development.
Nor, indeed, does it help the environment.
For those reasons and after many years of operating aid being granted to the shipbuilding industry, the Commission finally decided to prohibit it as from the end of last year.
However, to quote a well-known philosopher, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.
That being so, it is only right that the Community should take action against any unfair competitive practices, and it is within that context that the proposal for the temporary defensive mechanism should be seen.
This proposal is one part of a two-pronged strategy against Korean practices and is designed to support the Community's action against Korea in the WTO.
It is an exceptional measure, and is only taken in the light of a situation which led one representative rightly to quote Cicero saying: 'Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?'
It is, as I say, an exceptional measure, whose purpose is to put pressure on Korea to bring it to the negotiating table with the Community and to force it to bring an end to its unfair commercial practices.
As far as the Commission is concerned, it is not in any way the beginning of a new, possibly open ended regime of operating aid.
That emphatically is not the Commission's intention.
I note that the proposed amendments to the Commission's proposal relate to three main issues.
Firstly, there is the scope of the mechanism.
Secondly, there is the information to be made available to the Member States and also to third parties through Member States.
Thirdly and finally, there is the matter of its duration.
I should like to respond to these points in that order.
So, firstly, on the extension of the scope: the amendments proposed in the report would considerably widen the scope of the mechanism, which covers only those market segments that the Commission has identified, in its report on the trade barriers regulation, as having already been considerably injured by unfair Korean practices.
The proposal strikes a balance between a high maximum aid ceiling of 14% on the one hand and limited eligibility on the other hand.
It is therefore specifically designed to counter unfair Korean practices.
Any enlargement of the scope would risk changing the nature of the proposal.
I would like to draw Members' attention to Article 2(6) of the proposal, which provides that the Commission will keep under review the market segments eligible for aid in the light of evidence clearly proving that a specific market segment within the Community has been directly injured by unfair and opaque competitive conditions.
The Commission will, accordingly, monitor the situation and keep Parliament informed of any potential review under that provision.
The second point relates to information provided to Member States and third parties through Member States, that is, the removal of the name and address of the applicant shipyard and prospective purchaser.
That is the intention of the amendments put forward.
The information that has been specified in Article (2)(a) of the Commission's proposal is the minimum necessary to allow third parties to submit useful comments to the Commission and to ensure the effectiveness of the transparency procedure.
The purpose of that provision is to speed up the procedure.
The alternative option would be to open the formal investigation procedure in all cases where the Commission has doubts about the compatibility of aid.
That would entail the full publication of detailed information relating to the notification.
Thirdly, there is the extension of the expiry date until 31 December 2003.
It has been argued by some Members of Parliament that the expiry date of the mechanism is too early.
But by the end of 2002 we will have a good idea of how the WTO action is proceeding.
It would be a timely opportunity to take stock of the situation and to reassess whether special measures for shipbuilding are still considered necessary.
The Commission can, at that stage, propose an extension of the defensive mechanisms to the Council.
In addition to what I have just said on behalf of my colleague Mr Monti, I should like to reply more specifically to two or three questions that were put to the Commission just now.
Firstly, Mr Blokland claims that there is a need for structural changes and not for more aid to ailing industries.
I would agree with him that ideally subsidies should support structural change.
Let us hope that in this case that is true.
Various Members have raised the issue of compatibility with the WTO.
In the Commission's view the proposal on a temporary defensive mechanism is fully compatible with WTO law subsidies, provided they are not prohibitive, are not drawn to cause so-called adverse effects and are legitimate national policy instruments as far as the WTO is concerned.
Therefore the European Community has the right to grant aid to its shipbuilders.
In fact the EC has been granting such aid to its shipbuilding industry for many years, up to 31 December 2000.
Insofar as subsidies are not sanctions in the sense of the dispute settlement procedure, they are permitted policy measures.
Therefore the recourse to dispute settlement can in no way be seen as limiting the normal rights and obligations of Members under the WTO agreements.
Lastly, in reply to Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's question, as to whether the Commission would submit a new proposal for the reasons explained, the Commission does not see any reason to modify the proposal.
Therefore the Commission has no plans to put forward a new proposal.
The Commission is grateful for the support Parliament has so far shown for this proposal.
For the reasons that I have outlined, the proposed amendments are not acceptable to the Commission.
Nevertheless I very much hope that we can count on Parliament's continued support in this matter.
Mr President, I am glad Mr Bolkestein confirmed that he will not submit a new proposal.
But he also referred to the review clause in the proposal.
Can you assure me today, Mr Bolkestein, that you are not going to give in to France by permitting it to subsidise its shipyards in order to get agreement in the Council in December? Can you confirm that you will make no agreement with France before that meeting?
In reply to Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's question, I repeat that the Commission stands by the position I have outlined just now.
Any further negotiations are, as far as the Commission is concerned, not in order.
We will see what happens in the Industry Council at the beginning of December.
As far as the position of one Member State is concerned, the Commission has nothing further to add.
) Mr President, my speech concerns a matter of procedure.
My view is that from the point of view of the working of the Members of Parliament it is very unsatisfactory that reports are continuously moved to entirely different time slots on the agenda.
Mrs Peijs' s report was originally due to be considered at the afternoon session, then we were informed that it has been moved to the session starting at 9 p.m., after that a notification suddenly appeared here at 5.15 p.m. that in actual fact its processing is starting now.
This kind of tossing the ball back and forth is not acceptable with regard to getting the Members' time schedules organised.
Another matter I would like to draw attention to is the absence of the Council.
The Council question time is starting now.
Surely they would have been able to arrive half an hour earlier to discuss, for example, this matter which is very important to the shipbuilding industry.
The Council, however, is again conspicuous by being absent.
I deeply regret that this is happening.
I do understand your concern, Mrs Kauppi, but I must tell you that Council Question Time is also set on our agenda for a very precise time, which is 5.30 p.m.
Members who have tabled questions will, therefore, be joining us in a few minutes.
We must give them the floor.
Having said that, although our debates are programmed into the agenda, it is impossible to predict exactly how long they will last, give or take a few minutes or a quarter of an hour, not least because the Commissioners and the ministers sometimes take up much more speaking time than the sitting staff plan for.
This is why I would ask you to show some understanding and flexibility.
We have two or three minutes left before 5.30 p.m. and I therefore suspend the sitting until Council Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.27 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Questions to the Council (B5-0338/2001).
On behalf of the Council, Mrs Durant is with us as President-in-Office of the Council and we thank her for being here.
She is Vice Prime Minister and Minister for Mobility and Transport.
As the author, Mr Staes, is not present, Question No 1 lapses.
The fact that we have started on time today has probably surprised some Members who always bank on a delay, but not today.
The second question has been withdrawn.
Question No 3 by (H-0778/01):
Subject: Guidelines for the Cardiff Integration Process How does the Council intend to develop a common set of guidelines for the proper evaluation, follow-up and monitoring of the nine Council strategies, as well as the overall Cardiff Process, for environmental integration? Will these guidelines include recommendations for a more transparent process and wider stakeholder participation in the development and implementation of the strategies?
How will the Council ensure full involvement of the European Parliament in the Cardiff Process?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, the Council would like to reiterate that the Cardiff process has led six Council formations to present strategies to the European Council that seek to integrate the environment into their policies.
These strategies concerned the transport, energy, agriculture, industry, internal market and development cooperation sectors.
The General Affairs, ECOFIN and Fisheries Councils plan to present the three latest relevant strategies to the Barcelona European Council in the spring of 2002.
The nine integration strategies must be implemented in the form of sectoral measures, adopted by the majority, through co-decision with the European Parliament.
In addition to the Cardiff process, we must highlight the Lisbon process, which integrates the 1997 Luxembourg social process on employment with the 1999 Cologne macro-economic process, which was given a third dimension in Gothenburg, an environmental dimension, made up of the strategy for sustainable development, which also seeks to achieve integration of the environment into sectoral policies.
The European Union will present all this to the Global Summit on Sustainable Development which, as you know, will be held in Johannesburg in September 2002.
By creating this strategy on sustainable development, the European Council has given priority, in terms of the environment, to climate change, to ecologically viable methods of transport, to the responsible management of natural resources and, lastly, to the management of risks to public health.
Whilst continuing to function independently, the Cardiff process has been assessed and monitored since its launch in 1998, with results which are now integrated into the enlarged framework of the Lisbon process.
The implementation of the strategy on sustainable development must, as decided at Gothenburg, be based on four points.
The first point is an annual synthesis report by the Commission, which will now concern the three dimensions of the Lisbon process, including the strategy on sustainable development.
A report of the same kind will also have to be presented to the Barcelona European Council.
The second point is an evaluation and a political direction at the spring European Councils.
The third point concerns structural indicators on sustainable development which will be, on the basis of a Commission communication, endorsed by the Council before being submitted to the Laeken European Council.
The fourth and final point is a Commission communication on better regulation, which will mean that all the major proposals from this institution will be assessed beforehand for their effects on the strategy on sustainable development, including integration of the environmental dimension.
The Council is currently working to implement the conclusions of the European Council on the structures of work. These will be designed with particular consideration given to the principles of governance in terms of transparency, stakeholder participation, better methods for regulation and the re-focusing of Community policies.
Trying to put the principles of environmental sustainability into practice is no easy task.
The Council is actually inventing the wheel.
The impression that many of us have is that the discussions are taking place behind closed doors.
I wonder whether the presidency is trying to open the discussion up, increase the transparency of the process and perhaps involve other organisations such as NGOs in the development of strategies.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council in particular what is being done to press for the working groups to identify specific medium-term objectives, clear targets and programmes of action, so that we have something to get our teeth into and have a demonstrable means of measuring progress and achievement?
I share your concern regarding transparency and openness, so that we can have specific indicators and results.
I also share your concern to take into account the views, advice or specific results from other organisations, particularly NGOs.
I have taken careful note of your suggestion, of your request to increase transparency and the involvement of all those who are helping to draw up strategies on sustainable development in the field.
I do hope that in showing transparency, the Council will also be able to integrate the results that you mention in order to ensure that these indicators on sustainable development, which are being prepared and are due to be submitted to the Laeken European Council, can, as part of the process and in the run-up to Barcelona, be improved from the point of view of both transparency and their repercussions or in terms of taking into account the views of all those who are working specifically in the field in the area of sustainable development.
Mr President, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Cardiff process is essential for sustainable development.
The European Parliament, and especially its Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, has already carried out very good preliminary work here, and I think that in this House, transparency and, of course, dialogue can really be taken for granted.
We very often hold hearings here and make every effort to maximise dialogue with non-government organisations.
My question relates to this issue.
We have just concluded the WTO negotiations.
What opportunities do you see to coordinate the Cardiff process in consultation with the WTO organisations?
Mr President, your concern regarding both transparency and correspondence or coherence between, firstly, the outcome of the Doha Summit, the final details of which we are awaiting, and, secondly, the strategies on sustainable development, is extremely interesting.
Admittedly, as we saw at Doha, it is difficult, but interesting nonetheless, to integrate environmental policies into a much more multi-lateral context.
This is an important step forward, considering our starting point.
I think that this is a positive aspect and that, in the wake of the Doha Summit, we will now have to make the most of the achievements of Doha and use them within the framework of the measures that are to be implemented at European Union level, so as to ensure that sustainable development not only continues to be an honourable and bold ambition for everyone, but more importantly, translates itself, whilst observing the principle of transparency and following constructive dialogue, into specific measures in the field.
I therefore feel that the correspondence between the two parts, what was achieved within a wider forum and what was achieved or is in the process of being achieved at European Union level and, in particular, what must be achieved at the Laeken and Barcelona Councils, should be coherent and should be the milestones of a structural position, that is specific and conducive to the integration of sustainable development in all the policies implemented at Council and European Union level in general.
Question No 4 by (H-0781/01):
Subject: Landing of large numbers of illegal immigrants in the Canary Islands What measures does the Council intend to put forward to guarantee the integrity of Community waters around the Canary Islands, given the recent reports that motherships are being used to land large numbers of illegal immigrants from Africa on the Canaries?
Mr President, the Council has already responded, on several occasions, to the questions from Members of the European Parliament on illegal immigration by sea from the African continent.
In particular, I refer to the answers to oral questions H-2701, H-0330/01 and H-0699/01 on illegal immigration in the European Union, and to the answers to written questions E-0085/01 and E-1045/01, which also tackled these problems.
The Council has already taken several measures to combat illegal immigration.
The action plans that have been drawn up for the countries and regions producing illegal immigrants and/or asylum seekers, within the framework of the High Level Asylum and Immigration Group, is a good example of one such measure.
Another example is that of the rapid alert system that was developed within the Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on the Crossing of Frontiers and Immigration (Cirefi).
Measures to improve the effectiveness of checks by Member States at maritime borders were launched as part of cooperation under the Schengen Agreement.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force, these measures are now part of the Community acquis.
Of course, Member States are responsible for performing these checks, and the surveillance of and checks on territorial waters are therefore a matter of their competence.
The Council also stresses that the preparatory bodies are currently looking into introducing a good practice guide, the aim of which is to assist Member States in carrying out these checks.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, the Presidency of the Council will realise that I am not satisfied by references to mere written declarations.
The current situation in the Canary Islands amounts to a genuine invasion.
Approximately one hundred people are arriving every week and, furthermore, we are sending them to the rest of the Community.
A week ago, the Mayor of the city of Las Palmas in Gran Canaria sent two hundred immigrants to Madrid with one-way tickets.
If the European Union does not look after this border, I can assure you that we will have a real invasion, which is going to change all the parameters.
Perhaps my supplementary question should be, in relation to certain replies I received yesterday from Commissioner Vitorino on the Commission' s new proposals, whether the Council is considering those Commission proposals on the control of external borders, on immigration agreements with neighbouring countries and on the return of illegal immigrants in the EU to the countries of origin.
Mr President, I can understand that you feel the answer that I have given on behalf of the Council may be insufficient in terms of a situation that gives you cause for concern and which you feel is extremely important.
As I have just said, I can only refer to the competence of Member States regarding decisions taken at Community level.
It is up to Member States, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, to implement the necessary measures that were drawn up within the context of the Community.
Question No 5 by , which has been taken over by Mr Ortuondo Larrea (H-0783/01):
Subject: Reference to nationalism in the conclusions of the European Council meeting of 21 September 2001 Following the horrific terrorist attacks which took place on 11 September and their tragic consequences, people in the United States reacted strongly, with clear expressions of nationalism or patriotism based on the democratic and moral values which underpin North American society.
It was out of a similar form of democratic nationalism that most of the current Member States of the European Union were born in the face of despotic power.
The fact that certain European states acted in a violent and imperialistic manner and were thus the cause of the tragic wars which have marked Europe's history should in no way detract from the peaceful aspirations which characterise the democratic nationalism to be found in most European countries.
It is therefore surprising to note that, in the conclusions of the European Council meeting of 21 September 2001, which was held in response to the terrorist attacks against US citizens, the term 'nationalism' is once more used indiscriminately as being equivalent to racism and xenophobia. This is quite clearly offensive to all those Europeans who see themselves as peaceful, democratic and caring members of a nation and part of a national culture, as well as members of the European and world community.
Does the Council not agree that it is manifestly unfair to link nationalism with racism and xenophobia in such an indiscriminate manner?
The Council would reiterate that it is not up to the Council to comment on the conclusions of the European Council.
In this case, it is also beneficial to highlight that, in its conclusions of 21 September 2001, the European Council emphasises the need to combat any nationalist, racist or xenophobic drift.
I shall stress this - any nationalist drift, which is not the same thing as nationalism.
The term 'nationalism' does not actually appear in the text.
The only terms that appear are 'drifts, abuses, in nationalist, racist or xenophobic terms' .
And in this respect, I do not believe that the position taken by the Council does contradict the position that you expressed in your question.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, the European Council has been able to differentiate between Arab and Muslim religion and society, on the one hand, and fanatical Islamic terrorist groups on the other.
However, in its conclusions of 21 September, the European Council expresses the need, as you have said, to combat any nationalist tendency, as if to be nationalist were a crime in itself or an attack on human rights.
Does the Council not agree that to stress the need to combat peaceful nationalism, which defends the universal right to free self-determination, something which the United Nations approved, by exclusively democratic means, could be seen as a display of intolerance and fascism on the part of the governments of the European Union?
While it is true that there are radical nationalist groups, which support terrorism, there are also violent groups with unionist or environmentalist ideologies which also commit violent acts.
Does the Council therefore believe that we should combat British unionism or environmentalism, for example, in all its forms? Would it not be better to show prudence and democratic respect whenever we refer to nationalism, unionism, environmentalism or any other ideology?
I confirm what I just said.
There is no reference to nationalism being a non-democratic movement in itself.
There are references here to abuses and drifts, be they racist, xenophobic, exclusionist, but nationalism in itself is not referred to as something that generates these drifts.
On the other hand, nationalism can sometimes be used for much more extremist purposes which should be condemned outright.
This is also the case in the area of political action, where democratic political actions benefit democracy as a whole and the freedom of expression.
Each time there are drifts, however, they are dangerous and they must be stamped out.
I am grateful for the President-in-Office of the Council's last remarks.
I belong to a national movement in my own country, Scotland, which over the last 100 years has produced great constitutional change without a single drop of human blood being shed or a single act of violence occurring.
There are other places, as she knows, where similar constitutional changes have taken place and are continuing.
The Council and the President-in-Office of the Council are perhaps wilfully missing the point in Mr Nogueira Román's question.
It is a great mistake to say that there are some ends that tend to attract terrorism and therefore to attack those ends in themselves.
The truth is that a terrorist is someone who thinks that an end justifies any means.
It is absurd to believe that if the end is noble any means can be justified.
Those who believe that, make whatever end they seek ignoble.
I wish the Council would be less selective in its attitude to such questions.
I share your point of view and I would also like to reiterate that, given the debate we have just had on the international situation, in regard to nationalism, as I said, or in other areas, and I shall use the example of religion, which is particularly topical in terms of current events in Afghanistan, the Council clearly believes that religion forms part of one' s private life, is a matter of individual choice. I shall take Islam as an example.
Islam has nothing to do with the scandalous and abusive way that it has been treated by terrorists who use it in a way that borders on the disgraceful and to achieve vastly different goals. I can only repeat, in answer to your question, the Council' s belief is that, in Europe and throughout the world, we must also respect a democratic Islam, which, in fact, belongs to the sphere of one' s private life, or which is expressed in a legitimate way, but also to combat any form of religious expression which pursues any other scandalously repressive goal.
Just to clarify the comments by my honourable colleague, Mr MacCormick, it was, in fact, the 1997 election of a Labour government which delivered the historic Scottish parliament that was democratically elected in 1999.
If it had not been for that Labour government we would not have a Scottish parliament.
I would remind Members that this is exclusively a Question Time.
These clarifications can be made later outside the chamber.
Question No 6 by (H-0784/01):
Subject: Illegal immigration into Greece from Turkey - breach of accession partnership There has been an enormous upsurge in illegal immigration into Greece from Turkey, with thousands of clandestine immigrants reaching Greek shores aboard Turkish smugglers' boats.
The Turkish authorities make no attempt to prevent such immigration, which is in breach of the accession partnership, while the measures taken by the Greek authorities are inadequate to stem the constant flood of illegal immigrants on to Greek territory and, by extension, into the EU.
Bearing in mind the climate of insecurity created by uncontrolled immigration into the EU, which was intensified by the terrorist attacks in the USA, what is the Council's position on the flow of illegal immigrants from Turkey? What measures will the Council take in regard to Turkey as an applicant for EU accession, pursuant to the conditions laid down in the accession partnership concerning the prevention of illegal immigration and the strengthening of border management with a view to the adoption of the Schengen acquis, in order to prevent illegal immigrants entering Greece and to guarantee the security of the EU's borders?
In response to Mr Trakatellis' question, the Council has often expressed its concern regarding illegal immigration and also refers in this connection to the conclusions of the Tampere, Santa Maria de Feira and Nice European Councils, for example.
Regarding the measures that it has taken and is continuing to take in this area, the Council kindly asks you to refer to the answers that have already been given to numerous questions submitted by Members of the European Parliament on illegal immigration.
The Council reiterates that the Helsinki European Council decided to consider Turkey as a candidate country which aims to join the European Union on the basis of the same criteria as those that are applied to the other candidate countries.
The Helsinki European Council stated that, and I quote, 'with a view to intensifying the harmonisation of Turkey' s legislation and practice with the acquis, the Commission is invited to prepare a process of analytical examination of the acquis' .
In accordance with the conclusions of the Feira European Council, the Commission will report back to the Council on the progress made in preparing the analytical examination of the acquis with Turkey.
The Council formally adopted the accession partnership with Turkey on 8 March 2000.
Under this accession partnership, Turkey adopted a national programme for adopting the acquis, which sets out the framework for the policy to be pursued and the timetable of legislative work, as well as the budgetary and administrative requirements that are necessary in order for Turkey to adopt the Community acquis.
In line with the practice established for all candidate countries, the Commission will assess Turkey' s national programme for adopting the acquis in the 2001 regular report on the basis of the accession partnership.
The European Union will closely monitor the implementation of the various measures announced as part of this framework.
The national programme on the acquis contains various measures in the area of justice and home affairs.
The main objectives on which progress was made during 2001 include the strengthening of border checks, the harmonisation of legislation and practices concerning visas with the European Union acquis, and, lastly, the adoption of the acquis in the area of immigration in order to prevent illegal immigration.
The Council again stated its concern given the enormous influx of illegal immigrants from Turkey into Greece or transiting through Greece.
The European Union asked Turkey to implement appropriate measures as laid out in the European Union report of November 2000.
The EU is also keen to help Turkey financially in pursuing the implementation of the recommended approach, in line with the accession partnership.
In this respect, the Council noted with interest Turkey' s intention to waive, in the medium term, the geographical proviso formulated with regard to the 1951 Geneva Convention on the status of refugees.
The Council also engaged in active dialogue with countries that produce asylum seekers and/or illegal immigrants within the framework of the High Level Asylum and Immigration group.
As I said earlier in my reply to the question by another Member regarding the Canary Islands, this group, set up by the Council in December 1998, has the task of drawing up action plans for specific countries.
In order to draw up these action plans, the group adopted a global, trans-pillar approach, taking into account aspects relating to foreign policy, economic development and also the management of migratory flows.
One of the countries chosen for this action plan is Iraq, since it is a country that produces immigrants and which immigrants transit through.
Because of its geographical situation, Turkey is obviously an important country of transit.
As part of the action plan for Iraq, the Council has already launched a dialogue with Turkey in order to implement the European Union action plan concerning Iraq of 26 January 1998.
One of the measures under the action plan is to negotiate a transit agreement with Turkey.
I welcome the Council's lengthy reply but I still have two questions. As the Prime Minister of Greece, Mr Simitis, has said, we are working on an assumption of 260 000 illegal immigrants this year.
Tell me, if you can, how two hundred and sixty thousand illegal immigrants can possibly pass through Turkey unnoticed?
This being so, exactly what action has the Council taken with respect to Turkey, with its candidate status and partnership agreement, to make it improve its border patrols and prevent these huge numbers of illegal immigrants?
Secondly, and more importantly, what exactly does the Council have in mind?
Is it in a position to design a joined-up policy to ensure that this matter is resolved satisfactorily and that borders and illegal immigration are safely controlled? Of course, political asylum seekers are seeking political asylum, but there still has to be some form of control.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to confirm what I just said regarding the Council' s action to effectively implement the things that were decided on as part of the Turkish action plan. Furthermore, with regard to the more general question of migration, I acknowledge and the Council also freely acknowledges that, due to its geographical situation, Turkey is a country in a peculiar situation.
And now, we are all acquainted with the consequences of this situation that you have highlighted. I would like to point out that, under the Belgian Presidency, we have in fact organised, for the first time, a conference, held in Brussels some weeks ago, on the issue of migration.
This was a European Conference which was held as part of a necessary investigation into the issue of migratory movements. I think that this debate must run its course, and the Belgian Presidency wanted to launch this, independently of any decisions taken with regard to Turkey or Iraq, as part of the discussions that Europe is holding with both Turkey under the statute that was conferred upon it, and with non-European and non-candidate countries, to attempt to better manage the problems related to these migratory fluctuations.
The point I should like to make to the Minister is that there is a huge contradiction where Turkey is concerned.
On the one hand, it allows huge numbers of migrants to pass through it and, on the other, a stream of political refugees from Turkey itself or from other countries but who are open to prosecution in Turkey, such as Iraqi Kurds who might be prosecuted for their activities in Turkey, is turning up in Greece.
How can these two things be reconciled? By which I mean making Turkey stop, with the possible refoulement of immigrants entering the Community illegally via Greece, while at the same time protecting all those seeking political asylum, given that Turkey is a country which practises the death penalty and, as we saw in the Commission's progress report yesterday, a country in which democracy is sorely lacking?
The President-in-Office of the Council does not consider it appropriate to reply to the following question.
She probably considers it not to be a question but rather a declaration by the Member.
It is up to the President-in-Office of the Council.
Question No 7 by (H-0788/01):
Subject: Statements by Mr Berlusconi Recently, the Prime Minister of Italy, Mr Berlusconi, made statements which essentially put the mass demonstrations calling for a different kind of globalisation on a par with terrorism. He also proceeded to make a number of comparisons and judgments about Western and Islamic civilisation which betrayed an ignorance of history and which the President-in-Office of the Council, the Belgian Foreign Minister, Mr Michel, described as barbaric, absurd and untrue.
In view of the fact that Mr Berlusconi's statements are totally contrary to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, as signed and proclaimed by the Presidents of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission at the European Council meeting in Nice on 7 December 2000, can the Council state its official and collective position on this matter?
Mr President, it is, of course, not up to the Council to comment on the statements made by Mr Berlusconi.
The Council would like to reiterate the terms used by the European Council in its conclusions, at the outcome of the extraordinary meeting held in Brussels on 21 September.
The European Council, issuing an appeal to the international community to pursue, in all multilateral fora, dialogue and negotiation with a view to building, in Europe and elsewhere, a world of peace, law and tolerance, also emphasised the need to combat any racist and xenophobic drift and to reject any equation of terrorism with the Arab or Muslim world.
From this perspective, there is no doubt that the official and concerted position, which you have been hoping and praying for, was already taken by the Council at its sitting of 21 September.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, my question touched on two issues.
First, Mr Berlusconi's views, if I may call them such, on Arabs and Islam.
It seems to me from what you have read out that the Council begs to differ from, not to say condemns these views.
And that is good news.
But I asked you a second question, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
In his statements, Mr Berlusconi equated the huge demonstrations being held all over the world, in both Europe and America, by people who believe that globalisation could take a different form and a different direction, with terrorism.
In other words, he equated these demonstrations with terrorism.
What is the Council's view on this issue, which is an extremely important issue and one which will no doubt crop up again in the future?
Mr President, I would like to reiterate that it is not for the Council to comment on the statements made by Mr Berlusconi and others, not only on the aspects related to Islam or any other equation of terrorism with the Arab world, but also on issues related to globalisation.
I stand by the actions and the positions of the Council, which were adopted on 21 September and which I believe give a clear indication of the European Council' s point of view, regarding its determination to reject any equation of this sort.
It is not for the Council to comment or issue an opinion on the statements made by Mr Berlusconi either.
Question No 8 by (H-0791/01):
Subject: Inclusion of additional data on new EU identity cards The recent terrorist attacks in the USA have given rise to intense debate over whether more detailed information about an individual's characteristics and origin should be included on identity cards in the Member States of the Union.
The Greek press reports that this issue will be discussed early next December in Brussels at the meeting of the Ministers of Justice, Internal Affairs and Public Order of the 15 Member States of the EU.
Will the Council therefore say whether the deliberations which take place between those Ministers will also cover the following additional data to define more clearly the identity of European citizens and, in more general terms, EU residents: fingerprints, colour of eyes and hair, height, weight, blood group and subgroup, visible scars and other physical distinguishing features, hair growth, disabilities, nationality, place of birth, religion, family status, occupation, and academic qualifications.
I would request a specific answer for each of the above mentioned points. Will the deliberations also cover the possibility of adding further characteristics to existing passports in all the UN Member States and, if so, which characteristics?
I would like to thank you for asking this question, as it gives the Council the opportunity to clear up what is obviously a huge misunderstanding on the part of the Greek press.
At an extraordinary session on 20 September 2001, organised in response to the events of 11 September, the Justice, Home Affairs and Civil Protection Council held a wide debate on measures to be taken as part of the fight against international terrorism.
It is true that the Council discussed including bio data, but only on visas to be issued to third country nationals.
As a follow-up to this debate, the Commission recently asked the Council to submit a proposal for a regulation to enhance the security of this category of visas, by including a digital photograph on these, so that we can ensure that the passport holder really is the person to whom the document was issued.
The Council would very much appreciate Parliament' s issuing an opinion on this new proposal as soon as possible.
Lastly, you are almost certainly aware that identity cards of Member States' nationals are an area that falls within the exclusive remit of each of the Member States.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for her extremely clear reply to my question.
She has confirmed that the Council is discussing the inclusion of other information on passports or visas, such as a digital photograph, an extremely important element, and additional biometric data.
Could you perhaps be more specific, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as regards what additional information you are discussing. Will it include biometric information other than a fingerprint and will it also include the person's religion?
This issue is of particular interest to Greece.
I should also like to ask why you only plan to request information on the identity of third country nationals and not European Union nationals.
As far as I know, the European Union has its share of terrorists, for example in Spain and Greece.
Should we not be making it easier for European police forces to locate European terrorists?
I obviously wanted to be sure that the answer I gave was accurate.
In fact, this does not only concern visas and, with respect to the data provided, this only regards digital fingerprinting.
I can today reassure you on the issue of religion, for example.
I think that it is important for Parliament, as I suggested, to issue an opinion on this proposal as soon as possible so that we can then forge ahead.
But I can reassure you that we do not mean digital fingerprinting.
Question No 9 by (H-0795/01):
Subject: Age discrimination Does the Council propose to change its current policy of discriminating against job applicants aged 45 and over in the light of the European Ombudsman's current investigation into whether such age discrimination amounts to maladministration?
The Council does not consider that setting an age limit of 45 years for the recruitment of civil servants at the starting grade constitutes discrimination in itself, because the difference in treatment established by this limit, on the one hand, is in line with the Treaty on establishing the European Community as well as the civil servants' statute and, on the other, is based on objective reasons, particularly relating to the concept of a career, which is at the heart of Community work.
This consideration was twice brought to the attention of the European Ombudsman.
We must also emphasise that the age limit is raised systematically, and up to a maximum of six years, in order to take into account family commitments, such as bringing up children, military service or physical handicap.
The age limit is also raised in some other cases, in order to meet specific recruitment requirements due to the staff needs or the new requirements of an institution. This was the case, for example, for the recruitment of Nordic language translators and this also happened more recently for posts advertised for political and military staff.
The Council' s General Secretariat would not deprive itself of the experience of an older candidate if this experience was indispensable, but it must also ensure that younger staff are recruited to fulfil the permanent tasks of the institution, such as translation or administration.
Lastly, you drew attention to the fact that the process to undertake administrative reform and strengthen inter-institutional cooperation that is underway intends to establish an inter-institutional recruitment office.
The question regarding age limit has not been touched upon during the preparatory work carried out to establish this office.
The issue is also likely to be raised when reviewing the proposals on the reform of the statute, on which the Council, in its role of legislator, will be asked to comment.
Whilst we await the results of this work, which should enable common rules for all the institutions to be drawn up, it does not seem appropriate to change the current practice used by the Council' s General Secretariat in the recruitment of civil servants at the starting grade of a career. The practice appears to be in line with the rules of law and is also in the interests of the institution.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his reply.
I was alerted to this issue of age discrimination in the Council at our previous part-session when I was asked what I thought.
My immediate reaction was that, while on the one hand we are trying to encourage fairer treatment of older workers, yet, on the other hand, in one of our own EU institutions - and from what the minister said in more than one - we are discriminating against those aged 45 and over.
It is a sad state of affairs when those aged 45 are not considered for employment.
What talent, knowledge and experience is lost because of this!
I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council what measures are being taken to treat all job applications equally?
It was interesting to hear about the inter-institutional recruitment office.
What is the time-scale for its creation and what common rules will all institutions have?
I just wish to clarify something you said.
The base age has been raised by six years.
Does that mean it has been raised to 51 or has 39 been raised to 45?
Mr President, I just wanted to answer one of the specific supplementary questions that were asked.
The limit is effectively set at 45 years, and it is not possible to recruit anyone over 51 years of age.
Therefore this is a specific answer to one of the specific questions that I was asked as a result.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions No 10 and 11 will be taken together.
Question No 10 by (H-0796/01):
Subject: Specific measures to provide refuge and support for the Afghan population Given the current situation and the risk of a full blown humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan, what effective action and measures is the Council going to take to prevent hundreds of thousands of women and innocent people being made the victims of indiscriminate violence or of cold and hunger? Will the Council be opening humanitarian corridors and seeking political solutions?
Question No 11 by (H-0825/01):
Subject: Wave of Afghan refugees at the gates of Europe For a number of years, Turkey has been one of the main points of entry into Europe for economic migrants and political refugees.
Following the terrorist attack in the USA, Afghans seeking shelter from the brutal Taliban regime and, above all, from the war, now make up the bulk of refugees on the move.
Reliable sources report that tens of thousands of Afghan refugees are preparing to make the crossing from Turkey to Greece and Italy.
In the Council's view, what is the status of the Afghan refugees?
Are they entitled to political asylum?
Is a quota system being considered to accommodate them in European countries?
Is there any form of cooperation with the Turkish authorities?
What view does the Council take of the conditions in which they are 'housed' in Italy and Greece (immigrant reception centres, etc.)? What measures can the Council take in cooperation with the Greek and Italian authorities?
Mr President, as it has indicated in previous answers on the same subject, the Council fully shares your concerns regarding the humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan.
At its session on 8 and 9 October 2001, the Council reaffirmed that the European Union and its Member States are doing everything possible in order to avoid a humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and in the neighbouring countries, which must be organised in close collaboration with the HCR and other specialised agencies, the International Red Cross Committee, the United States, neighbouring countries and other partners from multinational organisations.
On this occasion, the Council reiterated that, faced with the humanitarian crisis, the Community and its Member States have already released EUR 316 million.
The Council warmly welcomed the first steps taken by the Commission to assist refugees and has invited the Commission to present further measures as soon as possible.
In this respect, I would like to stress that the reserve for urgent aid, which amounts to EUR 25 million, to be used for humanitarian aid to help the Afghan people, was already approved at a budgetary tripartite meeting on 15 October.
Furthermore, the Council restated the European Union' s determination to support, when required, a political process launched in Afghanistan, with the support of the United Nations, and to contribute to the reconstruction, modernisation, development and opening up of the country.
Current events confirm the need for us to work towards this.
The Council is in favour of opening humanitarian corridors but it stresses that this requires the cooperation of the forces in control of the situation on the ground.
In this context, the Council deeply regrets that the Taliban regime has, on several occasions, obstructed the delivery of humanitarian aid, harassed NGOs, destroyed humanitarian buildings, refused to cooperate with international institutions and, very recently, demanded that convoys, trying to deliver humanitarian aid to the needy Afghan people, pay road tolls.
Given the current situation in Afghanistan, it is obviously difficult to ensure that any measure can be totally efficient.
However, you will no doubt be aware that the European Union, whilst fully supportive of the efforts undertaken to eradicate terrorism in the wake of the attacks of 11 September, is taking an active part in the humanitarian operation designed to assist the displaced people in the region.
The position of the Council, when faced with such situations, has always been to work to keep displaced populations within the neighbouring regions, in order to facilitate their return, as soon as circumstances allow.
I would reiterate that, on 20 July 2001, the Council adopted a directive on the temporary protection, on the territory of Member States, of displaced persons in the event of a massive influx.
Since this directive will not be applied until December 2002, the Commission stated, at the Council meeting of 27 and 28 September, that it was willing to investigate how the rules specified under this directive could be applied, if necessary, before this date.
From this perspective, the Commission has recently requested Member States to provide, on a fortnightly basis to Eurostat, statistical data on asylum requests and illegal entries of Afghan citizens.
The Council does not have any information on the conditions in reception centres.
And, in relation to this, I would like to say that the Council bodies are currently examining a proposal for a directive to set minimum standards for conditions in reception centres for asylum seekers in the Member States.
Lastly, with regard to relations with Turkey, I reiterate that regular meetings take place between the Council bodies and Turkey, as part of the implementation of the action plan for Iraq drawn up by the High Level Asylum and Immigration Group, as I also explained in answer to a previous question.
The next meeting is most likely to take place towards the end of November.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, thank you very much for your reply.
The serious problem we have is that all that European Union aid, those many millions of euros, is being channelled by means of Pakistan.
Pakistan is the only country - together with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - which has been supporting the Taliban regime.
It is a mistake to give the key to, and the administration of, the humanitarian aid to Pakistan.
However, that is what is happening, and this political error is the reason why the aid is not reaching all the Afghan beneficiaries who should be receiving it.
Madam President, now that Kabul has been taken, could you please change this so that European Union humanitarian aid is not channelled via Pakistan, as has been the case up to now. Let us not give the key and the administration to Pakistan, but let us do it directly so that it reaches the people of Afghanistan.
I shall start by thanking the President-in-Office of the Council and the Belgian Presidency's entire team which, perhaps because it includes so many women, has given us some excellent replies.
What you said about the provisions of the directive on a mass influx of displaced persons being applied before it is applied in the Member States was most interesting.
Having said which, I should like to ask if, in cases such as that in Greece, where 700 people, mostly from Afghanistan and Iraqi Kurdistan, turned up in Zakynthos, Greece could apply the provisions of the directive, including making use of funds from the European Refugee Fund?
I would like to reiterate what I said in my first answer to the joint question regarding the early application of the directive.
This obviously applies to all Member States.
It is also from this perspective that we requested the statistical data to be provided to Eurostat on a regular basis, in order to be able to consider the early application of the directive due to the situation, which, at the time, could not be predicted.
As for the other points, as far as the delivery of humanitarian aid is concerned, this is basically a matter for the Commission and, since this is the case, it is difficult for the Council to take a position on this subject.
I shall take careful note of the comments regarding the aid deliveries.
Question No 12 by (H-0797/01):
Subject: Death sentence for 16 Afghans for converting to another religion In Afghanistan, a prosecutor has brought 16 Afghans before a court in Kabul demanding that they be sentenced to death.
They are being charged with conversion from Islam to Christianity, and the prosecutor is demanding the death penalty for all of them in accordance with the Taliban regime's Islamic laws.
In a trial taking place at the same time in Kabul, eight aid workers with Shelter Now International have been charged with carrying out Christian missionary work.
Here, too, the prosecution is calling for all of them to be sentenced to death in accordance with the country's Islamic laws.
Germany, the USA and Australia are making diplomatic efforts to protect the eight aid workers' interests and ensure legal certainty.
In a previous answer I received in the Chamber, the Commission stated that the three countries had said the European Union therefore does not need to become involved in the case.
However, there have been no international diplomatic efforts, on the part either of individual countries or of the European Union, to assist the 16 Afghans who have been charged.
Throughout the world, the European Union actively supports the abolition of the death penalty and religious freedom based on tolerance and respect for different beliefs.
How is this reflected in the Council's actions in the case of the 16 Afghans who have changed religion? What is the European Union doing, via the Council, to follow and monitor the trial of the 16 Afghans facing the death penalty in Kabul, and to influence its outcome, and what concrete steps have been taken to ensure that they enjoy legal certainty and protection and that their lives are spared?
The Council shares your concerns about the citizens of Afghanistan and foreign aid workers who are accused by the Taliban of religion conversion and preaching, and who are therefore facing the very serious threat of the death penalty.
The position of the Council with regard to the death penalty is well known.
The promotion and the respect of fundamental human rights, including the freedom of religion and belief, are an essential part of European Union policy on third countries and are, thus, included in the common position of the European Union on Afghanistan.
The main international legal instruments ensure that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.
This right covers the freedom to change religion or belief and the freedom to express, alone or collectively, in public or in private, one' s religion or belief.
The European Union has expressed its concerns regarding the human rights situation in Afghanistan on an international stage, particularly to the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, at which all EU Member States supported the draft resolution tabled by Italy on human rights violations in Afghanistan.
Given that the EU Member States do not recognise the Taliban government, it is extremely difficult to communicate with them and to gain access to territories under their control.
This was also the case before 11 September 2001.
The bilateral diplomatic efforts to protect foreign aid workers, which have been made by diplomats from Germany, the United States and Australia from Islamabad, have not yet had any tangible results.
Since military action began in Afghanistan on 7 October, it has become even more difficult, of course, to closely monitor the fate of the 16 Afghan citizens mentioned in the honourable Member' s question and to contribute to a political resolution of this matter.
Believe me, this is something I regret, but you will also understand that the situation is now even more difficult to assess than before.
I would thank the Belgian Presidency most sincerely for that answer.
It was characterised by commitment and a genuine desire to do its best for these people.
Kabul has fallen.
The Taliban regime is fleeing.
Afghanistan faces a new future.
In that scenario, I really want you in the Belgian Presidency to do everything you can to obtain information about these 16 Afghans who are threatened by the death penalty. Are they still there in Kabul?
Have they been taken to Kandahar?
Can we rescue them? What has happened to the eight aid workers from Shelter Now International?
I should be extremely glad if the Belgian Presidency were able to report here in Parliament that all 24 of these people had been found and were free and alive.
It is my wish that you in the Belgian Presidency should do everything you can.
There are new opportunities now that Kabul has been opened up. I would ask you if you believe you can obtain some information before the end of the year.
As the author is not present, Question No 13 lapses.
Question No 14 by (H-0806/01):
Subject: Priorities in the fisheries sector during the second half of the Belgian Presidency Will the Council, under the Belgian Presidency, outline its priorities for the fisheries sector during the second half of its term of office, taking into account the particular and unique requirements of peripheral countries such as Ireland which has 11% of Community waters in its jurisdiction but only 4% of Community quotas?
The Council refers you to the answer that it has already given to the same question asked at the September session of Question Time. The answer deals with the presidency' s intentions regarding the timetable of the Council debate on the Commission' s Green Paper, the extension of the multiannual guidance programmes and the rebuilding of those stocks at risk, as well as touching upon the issue of the redeployment of the fishing fleet and of fishermen who were dependent upon the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for her response, even though it was very short and curt.
Would the President-in-Office of the Council agree that fisheries are important to peripheral maritime areas throughout the Union where there is no alternative source of employment? Would she also accept that in my country, Ireland, the fishing industry has not benefited to any great extent from its membership of the European Union, because the most prolific fishing grounds within a reasonable limit of our coast are being plundered by greedy maritime states within the Union.
Would she, during her term of office between now and the end of the year, investigate what could be done for areas right around the Irish coast, including my own area in the west of Ireland, which once had prolific fishing grounds that have certainly not been plundered by our small inshore fleet? Would she also accept that regional development policies and fisheries policies should not be looked at in isolation, but in tandem?
The Council has given an answer to this question on several previous occasions. Of course, I understand the importance and relevance of this issue from Mr Gallagher' s point of view, but other than that, I stand by what I have said, and also reiterate that the Council had already stated its intentions regarding extensions, annual programmes, rebuilding stocks and the redeployment of fishing fleets and fishermen.
I can, therefore, only confirm the previous answers given by the Council to this question, whilst I clearly understand that this issue is a particular concern to Mr Gallagher.
Mr President, you did not give the Belgian Presidency the opportunity to reply to my follow-up question subsequent to my Question No 12.
Normally a follow-up question is answered, and a follow-up question to Question No 14 has just now been answered.
I thought it was rather impolite not to give the Belgian Presidency the opportunity to answer.
Mr Sacrédeus, Mrs Durant, the President-in-Office of the Council, has declined to reply to the question in some cases because she considered that she had already answered it, but I will communicate your request to Mrs Durant in any case.
It is up to Mrs Durant to consider whether it is a question or whether it has already been answered.
In any event, Mrs Durant, if you have any message for the Member, or any reply, you have the floor.
I would simply like to confirm, Mr President, that, as I said in my detailed answer to your question regarding these 16 individuals, I obviously hope, as does everyone in the House, that these people can be spared.
That goes without saying.
And that, as far as possible, during our bilateral contacts, given the difficulty of the current situation, even if, perhaps, it gives rise to something positive, since, in the last 24 hours, we have witnessed the liberation of Kabul, and possibly of Kandahar, and the retreat by the Taliban, I sincerely hope that everything can be done to identify these people and to save their lives. However, I cannot commit to taking specific and particular measures here and now.
In any case, bear in mind that everything that can be done will be done, but today, the situation on the ground in Afghanistan is extremely complicated.
In my question on a point of order, what specifically I pointed out was that, in my follow-up question, I had indicated that a whole new situation had arisen in Afghanistan and Kabul now that the Taliban regime had fled the capital.
The situation was different when this question was put to the Belgian Presidency a month ago and when the Belgian Presidency prepared its answer.
A new opening exists. I would therefore thank the Belgian Presidency for the follow-up answer it has given me, to the effect that it will take action on the new situation in Afghanistan.
Question No 15 by (H-0807/01):
Subject: Revision of the common position on Cuba On 11 July 2001 I asked the Council whether it intended to revise the EU's common position on its relations with Cuba.
On 5 September I received a detailed and satisfactory written answer. I also welcome the Belgian Presidency's initiative aimed at resuming the dialogue with Cuba, a country which has shown a strong interest in cooperating with Europe and counts the EU Member States as its main economic partners.
Now that the President-in-Office of the Council has visited Havana and conveyed his impressions to the Council, I should like to raise the matter once again. Does it not appear anachronistic and out-of-place that Cuba should be the only Latin American country with which the European Union has not signed any kind of cooperation agreement, largely owing to the EU's current 'common position' on Cuba?
Does or does not the Council consider that the time has come to revise and update that common position, which does not reflect the stance taken by each of the Member States towards Cuba, and the text of which appears obsolete, in addition to the fact that it has not had any effect in the direction which its supporters claimed to have expected? Is it correct that, in the current debate within the Council on the revision of the EU's common position on Cuba, there is one national government which is fundamentally opposed to any such revision, thus effectively blocking an updating which is in our view right, urgent and vital?
Once again, this honourable Assembly is inviting the presidency of the Council to discuss relations between Cuba and the European Union.
I therefore hope to seize this opportunity to reiterate several points, and perhaps to clear up some misunderstandings regarding these relations.
The European Union' s common position on Cuba remains the basis of the European Union' s policy on this country.
As laid down in the Treaty on European Union, common positions are an instrument of the EU' s common, foreign and security policy (see Article 12) and the decisions concerning the common foreign and security policy are taken unanimously (see Article 23).
At the ninth revision of the common position on Cuba on 25 June, the Council noted that the common position was still valid.
The EU' s objectives regarding Cuba are as before: to encourage a process of peaceful transition towards democratic pluralism and the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
In parallel with this, the Council has always shown its willingness to maintain an open and constructive dialogue on all the issues of common interest.
In June, the Council restated its intention to maintain this approach.
It also showed a favourable opinion on establishing an open, political dialogue and on finding a future framework agreement on cooperation based on the respect of democratic principles, the principles of human rights and the rule of law.
It is also in this spirit that an exploratory mission by the European Union' s troika, led by the deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Louis Michel, visited Havana on 23 and 24 August 2001.
Moreover, at the ninth revision of the common position, the Council urged the European Commission to step up its efforts to cooperate, particularly with civil and non-governmental organisations in Cuba, to enable greater numbers of EU players on the ground to contribute more effectively in achieving the objectives of the common position.
Furthermore, and as you yourself point out, the Member States of the European Union are Cuba' s main economic partners.
However, we must remember that it was the Cuban authorities who broke off dialogue between the European Union and Cuba, when they cancelled the EU' s troika mission at Director-General level, virtually the day before it was due to take place, on 27 and 28 April 2000. It was also the Cuban authorities that, in May 2000, withdrew their request to sign up to the Cotonou agreement.
In addition, and as the Council already noted at the ninth revision of the common position, there has so far been no firm indication that the Cuban government has had a change of policy and is moving towards achieving the objectives of the common position.
The next meeting between the Cuban Minister for Foreign Affairs and the EU troika has been scheduled, at Cuba' s request, to run in parallel with the 55th UN General Assembly which is currently underway, and, at this moment in time, I am as yet unable to give you any details of this second meeting.
Mr President, the Minister' s reply leads me to ask her whether she is aware that, a few weeks ago, a delegation from the European Parliament visited Cuba.
During that visit, our colleagues spoke to the Cuban authorities, to the church, to NGOs and to the eleven resident Ambassadors of the countries of the Union.
All of them, apart from one Ambassador, agreed that the common position is useless, because it does not contribute to the progress of the Cubans nor to the progress of relations between the European Union and Cuba.
Therefore, the Minister, President-in-Office of the Council, must know that that common position has been surpassed, it is obsolete and an anachronism. It is unjust and scandalous that Cuba is the only country in Latin America with which the European Union does not have any cooperation agreement, which puts it in a difficult position - in the disastrous situation it is in at the moment - in terms of helping with the reconstruction of what was destroyed by Hurricane Michelle.
Mr President, as I said to you in my answer, I do believe that the recent visit by the European Union troika and the meeting, which is currently being held in parallel to the United Nations General Assembly, will certainly be of use to the Council' s work in this area.
Nonetheless, I am committed to our will and our objectives which still aim to encourage a process of peaceful transition and above all to develop a dialogue, which is as frank, open and as constructive as it possibly can be, on all the issues of common interest.
I can only confirm therefore the benefits of these bilateral relations and hope that they are able to be of use to the future positions of the Council.
Thank you very much, Madam President-in-Office of the Council. Your reply was really very interesting.
I was a member of the delegation referred to by Miguel Ángel Martínez and I was able to witness the fact that NGOs, Ambassadors and even the so-called dissidents in Cuba consider the common position to be of little use.
I wanted to point out, Madam President, that if there are many Members here who feel the common position relating to Cuba is unjust, it is because, for example, we have a customs agreement with Turkey and we all know that Turkey does not comply with basic human rights.
In fact, the Kurdish Member of Parliament, Leyla Zana, who was awarded the Sakharov Prize, is in prison, and a European delegation has not been able to visit her over recent days.
We also have very special agreements with Morocco, another country which does not comply with human rights.
What we are saying is that the common position relating to Cuba demands that the latter make changes before we reach a cooperation agreement and that is what seems unfair to us, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
We therefore always insist that this review - which is going to be at the last minute - should take account of the opinions of all these people in Cuba, and we also note that two different yardsticks are being used.
Although it is not a question, Mrs Durant can make a comment if she considers it appropriate.
Question No 16 by (H-0810/01):
Subject: Reversing depopulation in rural areas Has the Council, under the Belgian Presidency of the EU and in consultation with the forthcoming Spanish Presidency, considered the need for an active EU policy aimed at reversing depopulation in rural areas in the Member States, including Ireland, will it make a statement on the issues to be considered, including financial aspects, pilot projects, studies and involvement of relevant NGOs, and will it call on the Commission to publish a Communication on policies aimed at reversing depopulation in rural areas?
First of all, I would like to reiterate that, as part of the European regional policy and particularly in the current 2000-2006 programming period, there is the possibility of supporting economic and social redevelopment in Objective 2 rural areas, which have a population of less than 100 inhabitants per kilometre.
The Council would also like to draw your attention to the fact that, following the Commission' s presentation of the second report on economic and social cohesion, representatives from the Member States, the Commission and the European Parliament met last June, at the initiative of the Swedish Presidency of the Council, in Lycksele, in the north of Sweden, in order to share their experiences and discuss the future of depopulated zones, including rural areas, a matter on which the presidency that Belgium assumed this quarter, continues to work.
The Council believes that the first thing we must do, at this stage, is to seek to use the full potential of the current regulations in order to combat depopulation and impoverishment of specific rural areas.
This task is primarily down to the Member States, which should respect the criteria defined at Community level.
Given that the Commission' s proposals for the future programming period are not expected until 2004, the Council believes that it is still too early to launch a new debate on the implementation of European Union policy for rural areas that are depopulated or becoming depopulated, which would extend beyond what is currently in force.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for her reply.
Does she agree that there is a need for greater coordination between national policies and those designed to achieve rural development objectives and that there should be more concentration on decentralisation and the creation of new employment opportunities in the regions?
What new action can now be taken to encourage and achieve this objective? Will the President-in-Office of the Council ensure that this matter is placed on the agenda for further consideration by the Spanish Presidency?
I can only confirm what I have just said, in other words, that I believe, and the Council also believes, that the full potential of the current regulations must be exploited.
Given that this concerns a Community framework in which specific actions must be taken by Member States, I am in favour of going further in using the current regulations, rather than prematurely engaging in another debate on the implementation of a policy for these areas.
I think that the existing framework can be better exploited, not only at Community level, but also, and more importantly, at a lower level, in other words at the level of Member States which must strive to implement policies within the context of criteria defined at Community level.
Question No 17 by (H-0814/01):
Subject: European citizenship, students and state benefits Has the Council considered the conclusions of the European Court of Justice handed down in its ruling of 20 September 2001 (following a case brought by a French student studying in Belgium who had been refused a minimum living allowance) which confirm that students living in a Member State other than their own are entitled to the same benefits as nationals of the host state and that the judgment was retroactive, and the immediate implications for all the Member States resulting from that judgment?
Judgment EC 184/99 that you mention, Mr Crowley, was only handed down on 20 September 2001.
The Council has not yet had an opportunity to study the full implications of the issue and, as is standard practice, the Council will respect the judgment of the Court and will, of course, draw conclusions from this.
In any case, it is up to the Member States to draw conclusions from the judgment.
This is a rather short answer, but this is simply because the judgment has only very recently been handed down.
I appreciate and understand the constraints which the President-in-Office of the Council has with this question.
However, on a number of occasions in this House I have raised the issue with regard to, in particular, Erasmus students who have been treated differently in different Member States.
One of the consequences of this judgment is that there will now be an obligation on all Member States to ensure that there is a common system available to give assistance to those students who are in Erasmus programmes or who are studying in full-time programmes in countries other than their own Member States.
Therefore I ask the President-in-Office of the Council to bring up this matter immediately at the next Council meeting, if possible so that there will be no more delays, so that opportunities will no longer be denied to many students who have not benefited up to now, or whose parents have had to pay for them to study abroad; and so that these anomalies and inequalities will be removed in future.
I can only take note of your formal and urgent request to bring up this issue and repeat that the Council will respect the judgment passed by the Court as soon as it has studied all the consequences and implications of this judgment.
I shall, however, take note of the fact that you would like the Council to bring up this matter.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council whether she can confirm my belief that European citizens are entitled to benefit from this decision, whether or not the Member States have put provisions in place to interpret the decision? Am I correct in thinking that from the date the decision is made citizens are entitled to benefit from it?
At this stage, and because the Court handed down this judgment so recently, I do wish to stand by what I said, but I certainly understand the way you would like to interpret this judgment.
I do hope that the Council will have time to study the implications of the judgment and to identify how far it is possible to confirm, invalidate or interpret the question you have asked.
I therefore hope that the Council will be given the time it needs to examine the implications, and therefore the consequences of the judgment that the Court handed down in September.
Mr President, on a point of order.
For information, I am referring to a previous Court decision which decided that, irrespective of whether a Member State had put implementing provisions in place arising from its decisions or the decisions of the Council or the Commission, citizens are entitled to benefit from those decisions.
I am simply asking the President-in-Office of the Council if she can confirm that the outcome of this particular court decision means that citizens will benefit, whatever those benefits may be, from the date of the decision and that no Member State is entitled to seek to restrict that.
As President for the sitting, I take note of your interpretation.
It has been communicated to the Council.
I shall take note of the points that you have put forward, but I stand by the answer that I have given.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions No 18 and 19 will be taken together.
Question No 18 by (H-0816/01):
Subject: Sellafield and the threat of terrorist attacks The European Council, meeting on 21 September 2001 in the wake of the terrible events in the United States, declared that terrorism is a real challenge to the world and to Europe.
It has moved to block the funding of terrorist organisations as a decisive aspect of meeting this challenge.
What contingency plans has the Council considered to respond to the threat of attack by terrorists on nuclear installations in the EU, and, in particular, on the Sellafield plant, taking into account the totally unacceptable decision of the British Environment Secretary to give the go-ahead on 3 October 2001 for the opening of the MOX (mixed oxide) plant at Sellafield, formal approval of which had been delayed because of the falsification of records by BNFL? Will it now use its good offices to urge the UK government to rescind its latest decision, will it call on the Commission to intervene in this matter, and does it accept that the only solution is the closure of the Sellafield plant?
Question No 19 by (H-0824/01):
Subject: Sellafield MOX Fuel Plant In the light of the UK government' s approval on 3 October 2001 of a new plutonium fuel facility at the Sellafield nuclear complex, will the Council state its position on this proposal, particularly with regard to the security aspects, given that there are worrying reports that such a facility will increase the global trade in plutonium, that such trade will increase the threat to global security, that transportation of 'weapons usable' material makes it vulnerable to terrorists and that the atrocity of 11 September raises the risk that Sellafield could be targeted by terrorists, with catastrophic results for the populations of the UK, Ireland and globally.
The £470m MOX Plant, built five years ago by the state-owned British Nuclear Fuels plc but not yet operational, has yet to establish that the economic benefits of such a plant outweigh the health and environmental detriments, as it is required to do under EU law.
At the extraordinary session of 21 September, the Council decided that the fight against terrorism will, now more than ever, be a strategic priority of the European Union.
It is clear from the many meetings that the various Council formations and the European Council have held and will hold on this issue under the Belgian Presidency that the Council attaches a great deal of importance to this fight.
From this point of view, we should also reiterate the European Union, in the conclusions of the General Affairs Council meetings of 8 and 9 October 2001, reaffirms its commitment to non-proliferation and disarmament.
More specifically, regarding the two questions that have been asked, the Council would like to draw attention to the fact that, overall, measures concerning the physical security of nuclear plants are an area of national competence.
Quite aside from the specific circumstances that you mention, the Euratom Treaty specified safeguards of nuclear materials used for civil use in the European Union, in other words, all the measures that enable us to verify that nuclear materials and equipment are not used for anything other than the peaceful purposes for which they are intended.
It is up to the Commission to ensure that these provisions and the ensuing Community regulations are implemented, particularly Regulation No 3227/76 concerning the application of the provisions on Euratom safeguards.
The Euratom Safeguards Office has the specific task of verifying, by deploying inspectors if necessary, that the operators of nuclear power plants respect the security control obligations enshrined in the treaty, as well as those stipulated in Regulation No 3227/76.
There are several legally binding instruments at international level, which the United Kingdom and the other Member States are party, such as the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material of 3 March 1980, several provisions of which cover, for example, the theft or other illicit means of obtaining nuclear materials, and which require other Member States that are contracting parties to cooperate and assist the party that is the victim of the crime.
More generally, the Treaty on European Union contains provisions on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters among Member States, notably in Article 29.
It is on this basis that the Council is currently examining a proposal for a Council framework decision on the fight against terrorism.
This proposal includes provisions drawing up - a list of terrorist offences in Article 3, a list of minimum sentences and penalties in Article 5, as well as provisions on extradition and prosecution in Article 11 and cooperation between Member States in Article 12.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for her lengthy reply, much of which I have heard before.
Is the President-in-Office of the Council aware that British Nuclear Fuels is technically insolvent?
Is she aware that its liabilities for cleaning up after the closure of nuclear plants and the disposal of nuclear waste run to GBP 34 billion, while it has GBP 235 million worth of shareholders' funds on its balance sheets? Would she also agree, under those circumstances, that there is not the slightest economic justification for the continuation of the Sellafield nuclear plant, let alone for seeking to expand its nuclear operations into the future, and that, indeed, the plant should be closed?
If the Commission would - as we have requested for years - have an independent nuclear inspectorate look into the Sellafield operation, they would have found this out some years ago. Perhaps they can find it out now.
I would like to draw the President-in-Office of the Council's attention to the fact that she has not addressed the second part of my question relating to the fact that British Nuclear Fuels has not yet established the economic benefits of the MOX fuel plant, which it is obliged to do before it can commission it under existing EU regulations.
I would also draw her attention to the report of Parliament's STOA Committee.
This is a research committee which has commissioned an extensive report on both the Sellafield plant and Cap La Hague plants, and it has raised fairly serious concerns about the emissions to air and water from both the Cap La Hague and the Sellafield plants.
It draws attention to the inadequacy of the Commission's capacity to carry out its functions under the Euratom Treaty, and it has also drawn attention to a German study which has indicated that both the Cap La Hague and Sellafield plants have something like ten times the permitted dispersal-to-air of radioactive pollution.
I would say in response that the work, the responsibilities that you expect in terms of control or arbitration are responsibilities that have been passed on to the Commission and I am not currently in a position to give you, on behalf of the Council, any details on these.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I have asked the President-in-Office of the Council if she would address the second part of my question, and she has not done so either in her first or second replies.
The President-in-Office of the Council may judge whether she has sufficiently replied to the question.
Mr President, the second point was in fact more of an observation that you made as part of your question.
However, with regard to this comment, I can only repeat that these details are more of a matter for the Commission than the Council, as far as, for example, conformity to Community legislation is concerned.
As the author is not present, Question No 20 lapses.
Question No 21 by (H-0820/01):
Subject: Dioxin rules threaten fish in the Baltic A Commission proposal on the limit values for dioxin in fish could be a death blow to the Swedish fishing industry.
According to the Swedish Fisheries Board, the proposal would probably result in a total ban on the sale of salmon and eels from the Baltic.
The sale of Baltic-caught herring and small Baltic herring for human consumption would also be at risk.
In the worst case two or three thousand fishermen could lose their jobs.
Sweden will be hardest hit as Finland and Denmark also have fishing grounds in the Atlantic.
It is important not to act in too much haste in this matter.
The Swedish view is that for the time being it would be better to provide dietary advice on how often fish may be eaten, combined with a vigorous campaign against the release of dioxins, than to set limit values.
That was regarded as satisfactory in public health terms as the quantities of toxin are extraordinarily low and fish is an important source of nutrition.
Could the Council adjust the Commission proposal to avoid the destruction of much of Sweden' s fishing industry?
The presidency of the Council is currently focusing all its efforts with a view to reaching a solution that gives a balanced compromise, which will enable us to guarantee the protection of public health, whilst avoiding creating the sort of economic disruption that you described.
The presidency is thus in close contact with the Commission and members of the Council, so that this solution can be approved by the Council by the end of November 2001, during which time the Council is due to issue an opinion given that the Commission' s proposals were submitted at the end of August 2001.
I would thank the Council of Ministers for its answer.
I think it is extremely positive that an attempt is being made to reach a compromise.
I intended to ask the Council of Ministers whether the compromise is based not upon absolute limit values but upon applying dietary recommendations in connection with the consumption of fish from the Baltic.
Is it a compromise along those lines that is being considered?
I also want to emphasise that the opportunity to eat herring from the Baltic, including the variety indigenous to the Baltic, is not only an economic issue but also an important cultural issue.
Prohibiting fish from the Baltic would be rather like prohibiting mussels and pommes frites in Belgium, something I imagine would be unthinkable.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I would say that this is a question of an almost cultural nature.
You may reply to it as you see fit, subject to the relevant consultations with the Council' s team.
At this stage, it is difficult for me to clarify the subject of these recommendations.
I can tell you, however, that if there were no chips in Belgium, this would, in my view, be a considerable national problem.
It would, however, be of secondary importance in relation to the question that is of concern to you, but it is difficult for me to respond to this question at the moment, as it will relate to both the nature of the recommendations which will be made and also to finding the best possible compromise from an economic or any other point of view.
As the author is not present, Question No 22 lapses.
Question No 23 by (H-0838/01):
Subject: Belgian Presidency and the Regulation on models and designs Has the Belgian Presidency succeeded in convincing the Member State whose attitude was preventing the Regulation on models and designs from being adopted?
In response to your question, the Council would like to inform you that it noted, at the 27 September meeting of the Internal Market, Consumer and Tourism Council that there are no longer any barriers in the way of adopting the proposal for a regulation on the Community designs or models.
The proposal is currently being finalised by the legal linguists and is scheduled to be formally adopted by the Council at the end of November, or at the beginning of December.
I would first of all like to congratulate the Belgian Presidency on having managed to convince the Belgian government to withdraw the linguistic objections which, according to what was said earlier, were hindering the approval of the Regulation on models and designs.
Furthermore, we are pleased that, again under the Belgian Presidency, this Regulation, which is so essential to the operation of the internal market, and also to the operation of the Office for the Harmonisation of the Internal Market in Alicante, can be approved immediately.
It is not a question and therefore, unless the President-in-Office of the Council wishes to make any comment, we can end this Question Time by stating, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, that since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 24 to 27 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was adjourned at 7.02 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Cross-border payments in euro
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0357/2001) by Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on cross-border payments in euros [COM(2001) 439 - C5-0379/2001 - 2001/0174(COD)]
Mr President, in 1990, the Commission issued a Green Paper on payments, and that marked the beginning of talks with banks about cross-border payments, among other things.
Initially, the banks expressed objections, with good reason, and we have worked for years to accommodate those objections.
We now have an international bank account number, the IBAN, we have a bank identifier code, the BIC, the reporting requirements to the Central Bank have been lifted when amounts up to EUR 12 500 are involved, and that coincides with the permitted maximum of the money-laundering directive.
There is a format to transfer payments fully automatically.
To my disappointment, this resulted only in ever more expensive transfers.
At the end of 2000, Mr Bolkestein and myself were in this plenary when the Commissioner promised on that occasion that he would take measures if nothing had changed in the first six months of this year.
In July, the Commission and Parliament established, each following their own extensive inquiries, that nothing had changed.
Quite the reverse, in fact: the situation had deteriorated.
The Commissioner kept his promise and presented his Regulation, and I realise that the banks have simply missed two opportunities.
In November 2000 and even in July of this year, there would have been enough time to set up a substantial self-regulation scheme, something which all parties would have preferred to this wrap over the knuckles.
The European Banking Association has made a manful attempt to set up a cheap payment structure, step one followed by step two, for which they also received praise by the European Central Bank in its 2000 annual report.
I would endorse this, but would at the same time express my astonishment about the fact that only a very small number of banks have joined the initiative.
Much to the delight of Parliament, the Council in Ghent expressed its approval of the Regulation, and we hope that this will impact positively on the Internal Market Council.
I will now turn my attention to the amendments. I am unable to support Amendment No 9 on self-regulation.
As I have already stated, although we welcome the idea of self-regulation, the proposal should have been backed by all banks.
It should be accompanied by monitoring, guarantees, sanctions, etc.
However, the liberal amendment creates confusion about the date of entry into force and in strict legal terms, something like that cannot be provided for in this Regulation.
The other new amendments are the result of the sound cooperation between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for this sound cooperation.
I now have high hopes for the Internal Market Council reaching agreement on 26 November, something which the Ghent Summit called for.
The changes I would propose with regard to the Commission position are as follows.
First of all, I have suggested changing the date of entry into effect from 1 January to 1 March, by which date all countries will have completed their transitional periods.
Moreover, at this rate, we will not make 1 January with the notification in the Official Journal practically speaking.
I would propose a few amendments, namely 10, 13 and 16 with regard to cheques.
I do not want cheques to fall within the principle of equal costs as referred to in Article 3, because an increasing number of banks would actually like to do away with the cross-border cheque.
Guarantees concerning cheques are very different in all countries.
The cheque does remain within the scope of the transparency section of the Regulation, which is stipulated in Article 4.
Another proposal for change concerns the obligation to communicate with the banking country by using the IBAN and BIC codes.
Some banks, such as the Postbank and Internet banks, have their own codes and should not, therefore, be forced to use the IBAN and BIC codes.
Finally, I should like to turn to Mrs Torres Marques' earlier amendment. Some Member States had difficulty coming to terms with yet another institution, and that was never our intention.
We have solved the matter with a consideration for redress procedures and an article about sanctions, something which we happen to attach great importance to.
I should like to thank Commissioner Bolkestein for his courage and for the fact that he kept his promise.
His offices were always available for consultation, and all this could well result in this Regulation ending its march through the institutions on a positive note.
Parliament is expected to provide broad support.
Mr President, we have certainly had a packed agenda today.
We have had research from Mr Caudron, we have voted on Mr Jarzembowski's report on port services and we have had shipbuilding courtesy of Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, but looking up at the people in the galleries I have to say that these may all have been important issues for the economy or for society, but in many cases it will have been nothing but gobbledegook to our listeners.
This issue is different.
Last summer in Austria I, myself, unintentionally parked illegally and felt dreadfully guilty.
However, my bad conscience about this parking offence was very quickly eclipsed by concern about how much it would cost me to transfer the 200 Austrian schillings for this parking ticket from Germany to Austria.
I therefore went straight to the Austrian authorities and paid in cash because I was afraid that the bank charges might be more than the actual fine.
This is an experience familiar to many people.
What is decisive, and this is something which we should also always bear in mind in this House, is how Europe measures up when people encounter it in their everyday lives, and in many of the areas on which we are working it proves to be far from perfect.
On 1 January we will get the euro.
There is a German word, 'begreifen', which means to understand, but which incorporates a notion of grasping or touching.
The public will be able to touch the euro and that is why confidence in the euro will grow from that moment on.
However, we must also make sure that all of the appropriate arrangements are in place so that the public are able to treat payments within Europe in the same way as payments within their own countries.
That is why this regulation is incredibly important, and I very much regret the fact that the idea of it has only just occurred to the Commission.
I drafted an opinion once before, nine months ago.
At that time I was still being told by the Commission that there were steep mountain tracks between the banks, and I said that if money could be made with mountain tracks it would be.
If money can be made with motorways then it will be.
We need motorways in the banking sector too.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should first like to thank Mrs Peijs for her persistence and consistency, which have certainly paid off here.
In 47 days the euro coins and notes will be available to everyone in the euro zone as a common currency, in my opinion, the greatest European Union project ever in terms of creating identity and fostering integration.
The euro zone will be a domestic market within the internal market.
We are all called upon to do all we can, not only in connection with cross-border payments, to bring down the barriers to the creation of this domestic financial market.
The difference in cost between national and cross-border transfers in the domestic market stands in contradiction to our objectives.
A Commission study has shown that although these charges have been steadily falling since 1993, even today, at some banks, people are still having to fork out up to EUR 24 to transfer EUR 100 to another country in the EU.
That is why this Commission proposal and the report are needed.
Nevertheless, I wish to say on behalf of my group that we would welcome a genuine system of bank self-regulation, a system which is sustainable, comprehensive and credible.
It is true that the proposals currently on the table are moving in the direction of a system of self-regulation of this kind, but we do not think that they go far enough.
That is also why this report is being tabled here.
Should a credible and sustainable system of self-regulation be forthcoming then we would be prepared to vote against the regulation at the next reading, which would allow the Commission not to implement its proposal for a regulation.
However, we are waiting on the banks.
The ball is in their court.
We must adopt this approach because none of the measures taken so far have been sufficient.
Mr President, I speak on behalf of Mrs Torres Marques, who for pressing reasons cannot be here, but I shall keep to her ideas and the meaning of her speech.
The European Parliament and especially its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has for years been insisting on the need for banks to set up payment systems in the euro zone that would allow citizens to use the euro as if it were a national currency.
Despite the existence of fixed exchange rates between the various currencies in the euro zone, cross-border payments are processed with the same charges as domestic payments. The citizens do not understand this: why are payments within the euro zone processed as if they were international payments?
Is there or is there not a euro payment zone? The banks have perfected their credit and debit card and electronic purse payment systems at a national level, they have perfected their international operations, and they have forgotten about the euro area.
Well, the euro zone is for us a region with a single currency which should have monetary rules in common that are easily understood by the citizens.
It is just as well that when a recent Commission study revealed that, far from having fallen, transfer charges in the euro zone had remained high, it showed the need for the draft regulation that we are now examining. The regulation seeks, from January 2002, to equalise the charges for cross-border credit and debit card transfers that each bank performs in its own domestic market.
The Commission proposes that the same should occur with bank transfers and cheques from January 2003 onwards.
The Party of European Socialists agrees with the rapporteur' s proposals, and therefore this draft regulation deserves our approval; we also hope that an agreement can be reached with the Council at first reading.
Implementation of the regulation must not, in any event, cause domestic charges to rise.
In fact, cross-border transfers only represent 1% of the total payments made by the banks, and they are electronic payments which entail an effective reduction in staff costs for the banking system.
Thus any use of this regulation to raise charges on domestic payments must be firmly rejected by the European institutions.
The citizens have, in fact, already condemned and rejected it.
Of the main amendments approved, we highlight the one concerning the penalties to be applied in the event of infringement of the regulation by any banking organisation, as well as an indication of the procedures to follow in other situations, so as to give some assurance to the citizens who use the euro.
I believe that, with the approval of this regulation, Parliament will be contributing to a smooth launch of the new currency for the citizens, giving the euro greater credibility and strength, and easing the indispensable cultural and economic transition.
We hope that, after the decision of the Ghent European Council, this legislation will be approved as quickly as possible.
This political decision will be good for the euro zone, but most of all it will be good for the European Union.
Mr President, sometimes in politics, we have to make a choice between something that is terrible and something that is unpleasant, and now is, in fact, one of those times.
A solution to the problem of cross-border payments is now really in sight, and that is surely something to be welcomed.
Partly thanks to the tenacity of this Parliament, an arrangement will be put in place, and I think that the name of our rapporteur will remain inextricably linked with this.
Her tenacity has largely resulted in the current proposal to do something about this problem.
Consumers and businesses must be able to rely on efficient, safe and cheap services in the field of cross-border payments in the internal market once the new currency has been introduced.
After all, this euro offers the opportunity of bringing Europe truly closer to the citizen, as was stated a moment ago, and of making Europe tangible.
That is why it must be possible to use this currency as European currency without obstructions or excessive costs.
Not one citizen will understand why the remittance of euros from one country to another involves such high costs.
The banks are responsible for this, for that is where the problem lies.
But, needless to say, it is not those banks, but we as politicians, who ultimately get the blame. After all, we have launched the euro, so we are saddled with the problem.
However, it is not just our problem, it is also the problem of the banks.
In the first place, that is why the conversion must be as smooth as possible and it is therefore a good idea to concentrate all our efforts on that event.
Banks must be able to give their full attention to the successful introduction of the euro notes and coins at the beginning of next year and after that, the euro zone can, in terms of payments, develop into one country with one market.
In my view, the new amendments tabled by our rapporteur are particularly fitting in this connection, and we will be supporting them.
What we do not like in the proposal is that it could, of course, lead to a situation in which even the internal payments, which are, or at least seem to be, now mostly free, will become more expensive for the consumer.
That too will do nothing to boost the euro' s popularity.
It is therefore important to avoid this situation.
Finally, why is it a choice between two evils?
We are not bankers and therefore do not know how bank charges should be calculated, nor do we want to know, in all honesty, for that is why we have bankers.
Self-regulation is therefore the big favourite as far as our group is concerned.
We have tabled an amendment in this connection.
Should this not be accepted, and the banks have so far not been sufficiently prepared to do something about this, then these measures will unfortunately be inevitable.
Mr President, the introduction of the euro has created great expectations with the citizens.
One of those expectations is that when they use the euro in the relevant Member States, they will pay the same price for using means of payment other than cash.
It is therefore unsatisfactory that shortly before the introduction of the euro, an adequate solution has still not been found to the problem of charges for cross-border payments.
In this matter, a large proportion of the blame must be apportioned to the banks and financial institutions.
Self-regulation in the sector appears not to be working.
That is why I have great admiration for the efforts by Commissioner Bolkestein and rapporteur Peijs, who tenaciously worked to find a solution.
There are sound arguments why banks should not charge anything at all for electronic cross-border payments.
Current technology enables these payment transactions to be carried out at low cost and the same technology can also be used for cross-border payments.
The use of different charges is not desirable and contravenes the concept of an internal payment market and a common currency.
For banks, electronic payment means a saving since less labour-intensive PIN payments are encouraged.
I therefore support the view of the European Commission and rapporteur Peijs, and hope that a prompt introduction of this measure will strengthen consumer confidence.
Mr President, on 26 October 2000, I explained to Parliament why the current level of bank charges on cross-border payments in Europe are due to technical obstacles which will disappear in time, or so we hope, but which are currently unavoidable.
Under these circumstances, the reason why some Members are portraying them as evil is because they are inexorably seeking to achieve a uniform internal market and because there has been a backlash from the pro-euro propaganda, which promised the impossible.
Having made these points, I shall leave it there.
The proposal for a regulation that is before us today belongs to the next stage.
Since the market is putting up some resistance, it is proposed that we use force to make it submit, by decreeing compulsory equality of bank charges on internal transactions, as on cross-border transactions.
We believe this text is untimely, not only because it denies the realities of the market, which will exact their revenge in one way or another in the future, but for four other reasons.
The first is that it undermines subsidiarity, because this issue should be a matter for Member States. The second is that it undermines the freedom of pricing, which we actually believed was carefully safeguarded by the Commission.
For the euro, however, which of our grand principles would we not allow to be sacrificed? The third is that it undermines the commitments repeatedly made to use regulation as sparingly as possible because, in being directly applied to the Member States, such regulation undermines the national parliaments' power of transposition, which is, in fact, perfectly legitimate.
The fourth and final reason is that this will lead to many rather veiled forms of unequal treatment of citizens, since the actual, but banned, costs of cross-border payments will have to be passed on to other banking products.
There, then, are many more reasons than are needed for rejecting this regulation.
Mr President, Parliament has for years demanded that the Commission take action so that consumers' bank charges in the euro area can be reduced.
The current situation, in which for a payment of EUR 100 you may have to pay as much as EUR 23 bank handling charges, cannot be tolerated.
Other colleagues, too, have referred to this matter.
Besides, at the beginning of next year the problem will only get bigger, when twelve euro area Member States move over to euro cash.
Developing the payment system and reducing the costs incurred both by banks and subsequently by consumers is therefore one of the top-priority items on the 'urgent' list of our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I am sure that the Commission will agree with this target we have, but the means to achieve it differ in part from Parliament' s original wishes.
Structural problems must not be solved by force.
Cross-border bank charges can permanently be reduced only, and indeed only, if we are able to create technical standards for automated handling of payments in the euro area.
The current high costs are caused by the fact that payments have to be processed manually.
This paper chase, as old as Adam, is costing both time and money.
However, since there is not sufficient consensus in the banking sector so that this kind of technical standard could have been produced, Parliament has in several reports on the matter emphasised the role of the European Central Bank in the development of a payment system.
In fact, Parliament did, towards the end of last year, demand that the ECP should assemble a working group of qualified experts in the field, who would be given the task to create a suitable standard.
The idea of Parliament was that the group would have carried out the work during this year and a proposal would have been made public before Christmas.
In this way, a new standard, binding upon all banks, would factually have existed before the euro zero hour at the turn of the year, after which the commercial banks could have implemented it at their required time schedules.
This kind of arrangement would naturally have also given a competitive edge to those financial institutions, which are able to make a transfer to the new system faster than others.
It is regrettable that this was not achieved.
Therefore, this time it is unavoidable that we have to read the Commission report, which in all respects truly is not in accordance with Parliament' s original wishes.
Mr President, I think that the Commission proposal has, in fact, come just at the right time, better late than never, and makes it clear that the currency union is not only being completed in the interests of the markets and business, but also in the interests of consumers.
I should like to recall that we have been working on this issue for over 10 years, as the rapporteur rightly said, and that we have always supported self-regulation and voluntary agreements, but that in this sector it has, in the end, always been necessary to adopt legislation, in order for example to bring about quicker, more reliable and above all cheaper transfers.
Here I am, of course, also thinking of the double charges which both those who made transfers and those who received them had to pay.
Happily, this is now in the past, but this experience in the European Parliament taught us precisely that it is necessary to enact legislation.
That is why I welcome both the tone and form of the regulation.
It does not dictate prices, but it does state quite clearly that domestic and cross-border credit transfers must be treated on the same footing because we are in an internal market.
This internal market requires a European payment system, and not just for large payments, like TARGET, but also for retail payments, for the transfer of small amounts.
Everyone is affected by this: mothers or fathers who have children studying or undergoing training abroad; those of us who order books or wish to pay for a journey or a hotel in another European country.
Those who have a holiday flat or even a holiday home are affected by this.
All of them suffer as a result of this situation, including migrant workers who receive their wages in one country and want to send them home to their families.
We need to think of them.
An average of EUR 24 to transfer EUR 100 is quite simply too much and unacceptable.
I strongly reject Mr Maaten's proposal.
We have tried everything; now we need to make decisions.
I must also say that I do not understand Mr Karas's plea.
Why should a proposal be forthcoming now, in the next two or three weeks, when it has been overdue for over 15 years?
I have to say also that the proposals to postpone all of this to 2005 are really unacceptable in my view.
The rapporteur's argument is as far as I am prepared to go, and I therefore think that we need to secure a broad majority in favour of this long-awaited project here in Parliament, because a European payment system would have been a reality long ago if the banks and building societies had wanted it.
Mr President, it is clear that the banks have been toying with this issue for years and have, at long last, thrown away this opportunity, making it necessary to introduce binding rules in a regulation.
It is not on for EUR 18 of bank charges to be debited for transfers of, say, EUR 100, and often this is done twice, once from the sender's account and once from the recipient's.
It is not on quite simply because the financial institutions have, for some considerable time, had the technical means to carry out transfers, honour cheques and make card payments quickly and at a reasonable cost.
We must be careful to ensure, however, and this has already been mentioned several times - that, as cross-border charges go down, domestic charges are not increased correspondingly.
Should this be the case then, in the future, domestic charges will also have to be laid down in a regulation. We should clarify this too.
One snag is the fact that there are moves to postpone the deadline by two months.
On this point, I am afraid that I cannot go along with the rapporteur.
The banks have always been able to raise interest rates and bank charges overnight.
In the space of a month and a half it will now also be possible for them to lower their charges to a standard level.
I hope that there is not a majority in favour of the amendments concerned.
Mr President, I thank the Commission for the brave proposal for a Regulation and congratulate Mrs Peijs for her long-term commitment to this matter, without which we probably would have been unable to convince the Commission and the Council of the need for this legislative initiative.
In fact, I also support all amendments which Mrs Peijs has tabled on behalf of our group.
Despite this, it is regrettable that some three years following the launch of the electronic euro and on the eve of 1 January 2002, we are still having to work on a piece of legislation of this kind.
It is beyond me why the banks, which otherwise find each other so promptly and efficiently in a cross-border context and are united in effective professional organisations, should be forced by law to organise themselves properly and to automate in order to be able to work more cost-effectively in the internal market, and no longer to discriminate.
The binding nature of the non-discrimination rule will raise a few eyebrows, but there is no alternative: leaving things as they are would be worse, for we would then accept what some small businesses and consumers fear, namely that the benefits of the euro will pass them by and that cross-border payments will continue to cost some EUR 20 each.
As we cannot afford to lose the confidence of the consumers or of small businesses, we have no choice.
There is one concern I have, and I should like to ask the Commissioner a question in that connection.
How can we prevent this Regulation from being seized by the banks as an excuse to increase the charges for domestic payments, and how does the Commission itself view this proposal? Is it being regarded as a big stick in order to get a last-minute gentlemen' s agreement out of the banks or, Commissioner, do you intend to continue to move towards a Regulation?
I hope that you as Commissioner remain resolute.
Mr President, as Mrs Peijs stated a moment ago, I was standing on the same spot in this House in October last year, talking about the same issue, namely the establishment of a common payment area.
The Commission had just published its fourth or fifth communication on that subject and in it, it was stipulated that the internal market and the single currency had to be accompanied by a common payment area.
This Parliament then levelled criticism at the Commission for being too passive.
I remember this well.
Mrs Peijs wondered when the Commission would spring into action.
Well, the Commission has listened carefully to Mrs Peijs and has acted accordingly, no one will be able to deny this now.
The Commission has submitted a draft Regulation which is based on a simple principle, namely that each payment in euro is to cost the same, irrespective of whether the payment is national or cross-border.
This is of the utmost importance to the citizens, as has been noted by many Members of this Parliament.
Today, the euro is a virtual currency, especially for the citizens, but on 1 January 2002, the currency will become tangible, for from that date onwards, 300 million Europeans will be using the same bank notes and coins.
Today, European citizens still accept that a cross-border payment costs more than a national one.
The reason is that different currencies are involved, but after 1 January, that will no longer be the case.
The citizens will then question the usefulness of the euro if cross-border payments are still as expensive as they are now.
In this connection, I should like to remind you that our latest study into the cost of cross-border payments has yielded baffling results.
It transpired that in the year 2001, a cross-border payment of EUR 100 costs no less than EUR 24 on average.
We carried out a similar study in 1993 and unfortunately, we had to establish that no progress at all had been made in eight years.
That is why the Commission has decided to introduce a Regulation as a tool.
The market itself has failed to come up with solutions to the posed problem, and with this interventionist measure, the legislator wants to force the economic operators to set up the infrastructure which the market requires.
As Mrs Peijs knows, I am a staunch Liberal, and I regret the fact that I had no choice but to propose such a binding document for the banks.
However, it is the only way to persuade the economic operators to take great pains over the new systems which are vital for the smooth running of the internal market.
It is therefore with satisfaction that I have noted that the first results are rolling in.
In one section of the bank sector, the plan is now being put forward to set up a new system for cross-border payments.
And that proves that the present proposal for a Regulation is also realistic.
After all, the saying 'where there is a will, there is a way' also applies to the bank sector.
What took me rather by surprise is the idea of the bank sector that since they, as banks, have committed to implementing the plan, we, as Commission, can withdraw our proposal for a Regulation.
Firstly, we should not overlook the fact that this plan can only count on a proportion of the bank sector.
Indeed, there are three European pressure groups for banking and only one of those has written to me to propose this plan.
That is an important fact.
After all, a payment system is a network, and a network develops at the rate of the slowest members that belong to it.
All it takes is for a few members of a network to refuse to develop any further, and that will throw a spanner in the works for the other members.
That is, in fact, one of the reasons why in the past ten years, no progress has been made whatsoever.
Secondly, the proposed plan is too late.
It was only announced in a press release two weeks prior to the discussion of the proposal in Parliament.
However, the Commission has been asking for this matter to be looked into for the past eleven years, but in all that time, too little progress has been made, and for those reasons, the Commission is unable to give a positive response to those MEPs who proposed to grant the bank sector a certain level of self-regulating authority.
The bank sector has had sufficient time, and it, at least a section of it, is now coming up with a proposal.
It is too little, too late, and that is why the Commission must resort to the proposals of a Regulation.
It is therefore illogical to demand withdrawal of the proposal just before the first benefits are becoming visible.
Accordingly, the idea to suspend the Regulation, as proposed in Amendment No 9 by Mr Maaten, seems unacceptable to me.
I repeat what I have said a moment ago: the proposals for self-regulation are too late.
Any call from the Commission to the banking world is being, or has been, backed by this Parliament, which is encouraging.
In this connection, I would praise many MEPs and particularly the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, who has worked tenaciously to achieve the goal, namely to reduce the cost of transfers.
In this respect, Mrs Peijs is the mouthpiece of the citizens and illustrates the great significance for industry, not least the small- and medium-size enterprises.
The Commission proposal specifically embodies what is referred to as the Europe of the citizens.
I should like to turn to yet another bone of contention, namely the date on which the present draft Regulation should enter into force.
Some MEPs have in this connection referred to the opinion of the European Central Bank which states that the ECB is in complete agreement with the objectives which we aim to achieve with our proposal, but that we, the Commission, are said to go too fast and are too demanding.
The bottom line in the ECB' s argument is that the banks need more time to set up the necessary infrastructure and logistical provisions.
That is why the European Central Bank proposes 1 January 2005 for the Regulation to come into force.
On the one hand, I do not dispute the fact that time will be needed to set up this infrastructure, but on the other hand, we should not make a mountain out of a molehill.
After all, for years, banks have claimed that cross-border payments only account for 1% of the total transfers.
Consequently, the entry into force of the Regulation in 2003 will not involve insurmountable additional costs, and if our expectations are fulfilled and if it transpires that the price reduction results in a greater use of this means of payment, then there will be even more reason to go full steam ahead with the activities.
The report by Mrs Peijs contains sixteen amendments, seven pertaining to the recitals and nine to the articles.
One single amendment is not acceptable, namely Amendment No 9 on the suspension of the Regulation which I mentioned a moment ago.
One amendment constitutes a legal problem, namely Amendment No 4 on the rise in costs for domestic payments.
It concerns a political statement which although I fully endorse it, does not fit in a legal document.
Moreover, in this connection, I should like to refer to the last speaker, Mrs Thijssen, who asked me whether it is possible for banks to compensate for the losses incurred with regard to international payments by national payments.
As has been rightly noted, this proposed Regulation is not a price measure: indeed, the charges for transfers are not specified, and that means that, in theory, the charges for national payments could increase.
However, an essential component of this Regulation is transparency.
Banks must notify their customers of the price structure for the different types of transfers and they must also inform their customers when those prices change.
That means that total transparency will apply in terms of what this is all going to cost, and the Commission assumes that, based on the normal rules of competition, the different costs for domestic payments will be kept under control and will therefore not increase.
Amendment No 6 stipulates that the Member States must assume their responsibilities with regard to the application of this Regulation.
The Commission can identify with the first part of the amendment.
The second part, however, comes across as somewhat mysterious, and the Commission is finding it difficult to pass judgment on it at this stage.
With Amendment No 10, the person who tabled this amendment hopes that the principle of non-discrimination will not apply to payment cheques.
As it happens, the Commission has never wanted to promote the use of cheques and therefore agrees with the amendment.
In addition, rapporteur Peijs would like the entry into force of the Regulation to be postponed until 1 March 2002.
That does not pose any problems for the Commission. We can thus accept that amendment.
The other seven amendments are acceptable in principle, although some will need to be edited.
This proposal will be discussed by the Internal Market Council in some ten days' time, on 26 November.
I am convinced that we will reach an agreement, not least because the European Council in Ghent has requested the Council to reach its findings promptly and has endorsed this proposal.
I know that the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, also has numerous contacts with the Council and I think she will share my feelings on this score.
I should like to thank Mrs Peijs for the excellent document she has drafted and for all her efforts since 1989 to reduce the costs of cross-border payments.
I hope that second reading will be nothing but a formality, in which case the text will be ready for publication in January.
Finally, I should like to ask Mrs Thyssen a second question.
She has also asked me whether the Commission is prepared to stand by its decision, and not to succumb to the pressure of the banks, and whether she considers this as a big stick.
No, Mr President, this is intended as a Regulation and the Commission is thus certainly planning to adhere to its original brief and to ensure that this Regulation enters into force in March next year and that cross-border payments will cost no more than national transfers.
Finally, allow me to thank Parliament as a whole for the sound cooperation.
It shows how progress can be made if both institutions, Parliament and the Commission, are on the same wavelength.
This proposal demonstrates the specific benefits of Europe to the citizen and enhances confidence in the European Union.
Mr President, I would not want Mr Bolkestein to return home thinking that there are extremely mysterious goings-on in this Parliament.
The first part of the amendment which the Commissioner mentioned remains unchanged, something which he, in fact, endorsed.
We, too, thought that the second part was set out in a rather peculiar way, all the more so since it was not Parliament' s intention to set up a new institute.
We have converted this part into a recital, which contains more or less the same question for redress procedures as the 1997 directive.
With this, I believe that all mysterious elements have been removed, and we will thus all be able to concentrate on the second reading.
Mr President, the Commission has taken note of what Mrs Peijs said a moment ago and will specify its position in due course.
Many thanks, Mr President.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0352/2001) by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 92/79/EEC, Directive 92/80/EEC and Directive 95/59/EC as regards the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco [COM(2001) 133 - C5-0139/2001 - 2001/0063(CNS)]
, rapporteur.
(EL) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am really sorry but, as far as this draft directive is concerned, I am unable to help reconcile the two institutional bodies.
I am sorry, but I must recommend that the Commission proposal be rejected.
As you know, cigarettes are not a tax-free commodity.
They are already subject to excise and value added tax and in Europe these taxes are extremely high, accounting for 70% to 80% of their price.
The Commission has proposed a fixed minimum tax of EUR 70, in addition to the system of proportional taxation which already applies.
The argument is that, instead of converging, taxation diverges from one country to another in the Union.
That is the first mistake.
It is not true that there are tax divergences; there is no particular convergence, but that is not the same as divergence.
There is greater convergence on cigarettes than there is with numerous other items, as confirmed in the independent study by the Directorate-General of Research of the European Parliament, which naturally was not written solely to back me up.
Why does the Commission feel that taxes should converge? Because they are one reason why prices differ, which is one reason why smuggling and tax fraud are on the rise.
Of course, these need to be stamped out and Parliament has repeatedly proposed measures which, unfortunately, have not been taken up, in order to stamp out cigarette smuggling.
But if price differences are to be wiped out, the difference in price itself needs to be wiped out.
The Commission has admitted that we do not know if tax convergence will bring about price convergence.
It is certain there will be no convergence because the industry is a monopoly industry and can therefore engage in strategic price setting.
These prices are not the result of market forces, they are competitive weapons used by the monopolies and we are living in cloud cuckoo land if we expect them to level out.
Similarly, the Commission proposal makes no provision whatsoever to harmonise value added tax, which fluctuates from one Member State to another by as much as 100%.
How can taxation be harmonised unless value added tax on cigarettes is harmonised at the same time?
Indeed smuggling - if it is smuggling to buy cheap cigarettes in one country of the Union in which the tax on them has been paid and sell them in another country in the Union in which they are more expensive, which in my view it is not, it is the normal working of the single market, but insofar as it is smuggling or if the tax is not paid, as in the case of England, where the situation will not change and which has a serious cigarette smuggling problem, with 50% of cigarettes smoked in England smuggled in, precisely because the tax costs as much as the price of the cigarettes, the situation will not be affected in England because the Commission proposal will not affect prices in Belgium, Holland or France, which is where the smuggled cigarettes come from.
On the contrary, prices will rise in the Member States in the south, especially, of course, if we accept the candidate countries into the European Union; or rather when we accept them, which I hope we shall, prices will rise there as a result of this directive by up to 200% to 400%.
Just imagine if there are derogations to cover this sort of price increase and just imagine what will happen with smuggling from the Ukraine or Russia or from China or India if we allow this sort of price increase.
The public health argument, that is, that higher prices reduce smoking, has also been wheeled out.
How do we know it will?
Because we have statistics.
But the statistics are based on legal cigarettes.
The increase in the price of cigarettes does indeed reduce legal smoking, but it encourages illegal smoking and in England the mafia is having a field day and has put the cigarette market completely out of kilter for precisely this reason.
Furthermore, Commissioner, I must say that the Council has not demonstrated the necessary respect or tact vis-à-vis Parliament, because a week before we submitted our opinion, it presented us with a political agreement in which it attempts to force our opinion.
I hardly think that is the way to run democratic institutions but if, nonetheless, that is how Parliament is to be run, then one wonders why we won the Cold War.
And I heard you say in your previous speech that you are a dyed-in-the-wool liberal.
This makes we wonder how you can come along and support a measure from which, in the economic sector, only large monopolies stand to gain for reasons which, unfortunately, I cannot go into now, but you know full well that I am right, while, in the political sector, you come along with something which looks to me very much like totalitarianism.
I think that this sort of difference between the theory which we espouse and the practice which we follow should give you food for thought.
Mr President, the rapporteur is proposing rejection of the Commission's proposal.
We, in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, are rather reluctant to do this without telling the Commission why, at least without giving the Commission a written explanation.
However, in conclusion it has to be said that the directive cannot remain as it is.
In its opinion, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market also made a number of comments.
It confined its comments to its particular field.
The issue of health protection undoubtedly has a role to play in this proposal for a directive.
However, this is not an issue for our committee.
The question of whether the minimum excise duty should be EUR 140, 120, 100, 80 or 60 is also undoubtedly significant in connection with health protection, but not for the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
For us, it was exclusively legal considerations that mattered.
In this respect, the directive would appear to have two essential weaknesses, which mean that it does not stand up to scrutiny against reasonable internal market considerations.
Firstly, the system of having a minimum incidence of excise duty comes under pressure from the fact that value added tax is imposed on top of this minimum rate.
If I take a country where the rate of excise duty is the bare minimum required and the rate of value added tax is also very low, then I have to conclude that there are distortions of competition if I compare it with a country where the rate of excise duty perhaps exceeds the minimum and there is a relatively high rate of value added tax.
That is why we think that in the future, instead of requiring a minimum incidence of excise duty exclusive of value added tax, it would be appropriate to work on the basis of a system which provides for a minimum rate of excise duty inclusive of the applicable value added tax.
The second point concerns Article 3(1).
We think that this proposal no longer draws a proper distinction between cigarettes and cigarillos or cigars.
The proposal tries to give the impression that cigarillos with filters are cigarettes with dark-coloured wrappers and that they should be taxed accordingly, like cigarettes.
We believe that this is wrong.
The health effects of filters can certainly be disputed, but it ought to be indisputable that a cigarillo with a filter is in any case slightly more healthy than a cigarillo without a filter.
If, however, I treat cigarillos with filters as equivalent to cigarettes for tax purposes - and I am not a cigarillo smoker! - then I penalise the fundamentally healthier product by taxing it like a cigarette.
That is why I think that improvements also need to be made here.
We agree with the conclusion that the proposal should be rejected.
Even if it sounds harsh, technical improvements are necessary.
.
(NL) Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I would thank the Commission for the proposal on upward convergence of excise on tobacco.
Parliament requested this a few years ago and the Commission is now meeting this request.
In our view, the proposal is an improvement on the current situation and also solves a number of problems, including that of continuing to allow for exceptions, as is the case for Sweden now and the accession countries in future.
For that reason, we believe it is a considered proposal.
We did, however, table a number of amendments.
Firstly, there is the issue of VAT which Messrs Katiforis and Wieland also mentioned.
I share their point of view on this score, and that is why my group has re-tabled the amendment that was already adopted in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, namely to include VAT in the equation.
Secondly, our committee was of the opinion that the issue should be clearly placed in the context of existing negotiations in the World Trade Organisation, for the latter plays a major role in this.
Thirdly, we believe that a great deal must be done against smuggling.
I do not subscribe to the rapporteur' s point of view that an increase in excise will, in itself, promote smuggling or, vice versa, that a reduction in excise will lead to a drop in the incidence of smuggling.
I am of the opinion that completely different measures should be taken against smuggling, which are, in fact, the topic of debate in the World Trade Organisation.
Furthermore, we have tabled an amendment on tobacco subsidies, a much-debated topic which is also relevant in this context.
We have also tabled an amendment in which we state that, concerning products which are less unhealthy, we should be working towards a system, maybe not now, but in 2005, whereby the excise on those products would also be lower.
We therefore support the gist of the Commission proposal, as well as the position which the Council has already adopted in this respect.
Mr President, this is one of the few occasions on which I agree with the rapporteur, Mr Katiforis, not because we talk the same language or are from the same country, but because we agree on what is called common sense.
I am sorry, but common sense is nowhere to be seen in this proposal for a directive, which we, too, propose should be rejected in its entirety.
If it is not rejected, we are all in danger of exposing ourselves because, if this sort of directive is adopted, it will have exactly the opposite of, what the Council says, are the desired results.
I should also like to point out that it would be most useful if the Council were present rather than absent, like their common sense.
The Council says that the aim is to combat tax evasion and cigarette smuggling.
If we increase tax, then we shall increase tax evasion.
We all know that, the higher the tax, the more attractive tax evasion becomes.
If we increase the price of cigarettes, as is proposed, then we shall, without question, increase cigarette smuggling because we shall be making legal cigarettes more expensive than smuggled cigarettes.
So we shall be working counter to our aims.
Again, the Council tells us that one of its aims is to protect public health and that this aim will be achieved by people giving up smoking because cigarettes are more expensive.
And who can say that people stop smoking when cigarettes go up in price?
The best case scenario is that there will be no change in the consumption of cigarettes.
The worst case scenario is that smokers on low incomes will change to cheaper, that is, more harmful cigarettes.
Is that what we want to achieve? How clever of us!
Similarly, the proposals in the proposed directive are wrong because, first of all, they restrict application to five, mainly southern countries.
The other ten are not affected because they are already at the topmost point.
Secondly, the cost of living will rise in these five countries, four of which are southern countries, without any increase in wages, thereby exacerbating inflationary pressures. I also think we should ask ourselves what the candidate countries have to say about this proposal for a directive?
Do they think it shows the European Union's concern for them? And it would be helpful to know how their governments are going to persuade them that integration into the European Union will benefit consumers, when they will have to pay 200 to 500% more for cigarettes under this sort of directive.
Finally, I should like to express my disappointment with Ecofin for its rushed attempt to pre-empt tomorrow's vote here by issuing details of its compromise agreement.
That was a mistake on their part.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission for this proposal.
The rapporteur gives me no option but to disagree with him.
Only yesterday in this House we passed a resolution giving the European Parliament's opinion on the third round of negotiations for the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
This House should never forget that tobacco is the biggest cause of preventable illness and disease across the European Union.
It is like no other product.
Each year half a million EU citizens die needlessly due to tobacco.
In Scotland, which I represent, 13,000 people died last year due to smoking.
The Commission proposal will help people to stop smoking.
This proposal will introduce a cash minimum amount of cigarette duty.
Currently the rule is expressed as a percentage of tax, inclusive of the retail selling price, and therefore has little effect on Member States and applicant countries where retail prices are already low.
The more expensive a packet of cigarettes, the bigger the incentive to stop smoking.
Some say that the most effective way to help smokers cure their addiction is to make cost the issue.
Therefore any measures to reduce smoking are more than welcome and are more important to my mind than any arguments which support the tobacco industry.
As regards smuggling, unlike the rapporteur I believe this proposal will prevent smuggling within the EU.
Minimum EU rates of duty are sensible and effective in tackling the scourge of smuggling.
The Commission's proposal is a good proposal and therefore should be wholeheartedly supported.
Mr President, it strikes me that the Katiforis report does not explain why the European Commission proposal to change excise duty rates for tobacco is being rejected.
It appears impossible to underpin this position.
As this new proposal introduces changes to existing directives, the legal base is not at issue.
One of the reasons for change is the fact that the Member States miss out on a huge amount of excise on account of fraud and smuggling.
The internal market, therefore, still leaves something to be desired, and there is also competitive distortion.
If the discrepancies between the Member States become less pronounced, fraud and smuggling will be discouraged and will, hopefully, even vanish altogether.
Furthermore, the necessary increase in tobacco excise for a number of Member States, following on from this proposal, will not cause any damage to health.
For the reasons already stated, I welcome a minimum excise duty of 57%.
Where smuggling practices persist and even involve tobacco manufacturers, the European Commission will need to take additional measures.
I have already called for the dismantling of tobacco subsidies several times.
The amendments by Mr Maaten therefore receive my unqualified support.
The European Union is still very much lacking credibility on this score.
On the one hand, tobacco consumption is discouraged by warning labels, bans on tobacco advertising and higher excise, while on the other hand EUR 1 billion goes up in smoke in the form of tobacco subsidies.
Supporting tobacco growers in the switch to another crop which also entails subsidies, is a very generous solution and therefore deserves Parliament' s support.
I call on the Council to support the European Commission proposals and to stand up to the pressure exerted by one or two Member States.
Moreover, I object to Mr Folias' appropriation of common sense.
I could claim with just as much justification that everyone is entitled to their own stupidity.
Mr President, the position taken by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal under discussion has surprised me.
It diverges considerably from the position taken by this Parliament in 1996.
At that time, Parliament urged the Commission to make proposals for upward harmonisation of tobacco prices, based upon higher duty rates across the Union for reasons including health protection, and to consider measures to reduce the scope for price manipulation by cigarette producers applying widely diverging pre-tax on the markets of each Member State.
The present Commission proposal is consistent with that opinion.
That is why I say that the advice of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee has greatly surprised me.
The Commission is doing what Parliament wanted in 1996 and therefore it is odd that the report should not accept the Commission's proposal.
The changes proposed will bring about increased convergence in duty rates within the European Union and, as such, improve the functioning of the internal market, both now and as it will be after enlargement.
They will also reduce the incentive for excise fraud within the Union.
More surprisingly - and Mr Blokland has just drawn attention to this - the draft report does not set out the reasons for rejecting the Commission proposal.
That is the least that the Commission would have expected.
According to the working document presented by the rapporteur to EMAC in June, the main justification is that the introduction of a minimum amount of taxation of EUR 70 for cigarettes constitutes a shift towards specific taxation, and would disadvantage small- and medium-sized producers in southern Member States.
I would like to emphasise that this is emphatically not the view of the Commission.
The introduction of a fixed amount in euro does not alter the structure of excise duties on cigarettes.
Member States affected by the introduction of the fixed amount will retain the flexibility they enjoy at present to determine the proportions of the specific and ad valorem components of cigarette taxation, as other rules remain unchanged.
I would also like to point out that the Commission proposal has received broad support in the Council.
Last week in the Ecofin Council the Member States unanimously agreed a compromise text produced by the Belgian Presidency, which is clearly in line with the Commission's proposal.
For cigarette taxation, the most significant element is the introduction of a minimum amount of duty of EUR 60 at the initial stage and EUR 64 at a later stage, rather than the EUR 70 proposed by the Commission.
The adoption of the proposal is also extremely important in view of the forthcoming enlargement of the Union eastwards.
Mr Folias has quite rightly drawn our attention to that aspect of the proposal.
The existing minimum taxation requirement - the so-called 57% rule - allows for a higher degree of price manipulation and would not in itself be sufficient to reduce to a sustainable level the gap between the tax and price levels of the present Member States and the candidate countries.
Such a situation would result in substantial revenue loss for present Member States, especially those having borders with candidate countries.
The requirement for a minimum amount of duty will avoid this happening and ensure the proper functioning of the internal market after enlargement.
The Commission is aware that achieving the amounts in euro will require a significant effort from most candidate countries.
Therefore, it has proposed that the Council grant limited transitional periods to candidate countries for reaching the minimum rate of taxation.
Next, I was pleased to see that the two Parliament committees that have issued opinions on the proposal - the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, with Mr Maaten as draftsman, and the Committee for Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, with Mr Wieland as draftsman - accepted the general thrust of the proposal, subject to a number of amendments.
Most of the amendments proposed in Mr Maaten's report have been re-tabled in this plenary.
The Commission broadly shares the concerns of Mr Maaten on the need to pay more attention to health policy and to combat fraud and smuggling.
I do not see why Mr Katiforis cannot accept the arguments relating to health.
It is a well known fact - and I am sure he is aware of it - that 75% of smokers started before the age of 18.
Report after report and study after study confirm that for young people under the age of 18, price clearly is a determining factor in terms of smoking.
I was pleased to hear both Mrs Stihler and Mr Blokland support the view of the Commission that there is a direct link between price and quantity consumed and that therefore the price very definitely has a bearing on health.
Mr Folias said that if the price goes up then cheaper cigarettes will be purchased and smoked.
According to that reasoning, if the price went down then more expensive cigarettes would also be purchased.
That is something that, in reality, is not noticeable.
Therefore, with all due respect to Mr Folias, his reasoning is not in line with reality.
While I am answering specific questions by Parliament, I have to say that I do not understand the argument by Mr Wieland - referring to the legal aspects of the case - when he says that the interplay of VAT and excise taxes would be illegal.
Of course they have a bearing on competition and smuggling, as we all know, but why should this be illegal, as he maintains?
The point of view of his committee is based on the legal state of affairs.
He says that there is a problem in that cigarillos of a certain dimension and character should be treated as cigars and not as cigarettes.
Well, I have some here.
If you showed an average citizen of the European Union this packet of cigarillos, took one of them out - of the same dimensions and weight as an ordinary cigarette - and asked them if it was more like a cigarette or more like a cigar, I would wager Mr Wieland 144 packets of cigarettes or cigarillos - whichever he prefers - that the average citizen of the European Union would classify them as cigarettes.
Most of the amendments proposed in Mr Maaten's opinion have been retabled for this plenary.
The Commission broadly shares these concerns on the need to pay more attention to health policy.
But the amendments require no change to the proposal.
According to the existing review requirements, the Commission already has the obligation to take into account the wider Treaty objectives, including health.
New developments, resulting for instance from the conclusion of a WHO framework convention on tobacco control, will thus automatically have to be taken into consideration in a subsequent review.
The Commission and the Member States have also taken a number of initiatives to combat fraud and smuggling following the conclusions of the high-level group on fraud in the field of excise duties.
To conclude, for the reasons I have given, the Commission is still convinced of the merits of its proposal and still considers the proposals by the Commission to be a direct reply to Parliament's own opinion expressed in 1996.
Therefore the Commission invites all Members of Parliament who have expressed an opinion contrary to that of the Commission to reconsider their position on this issue very carefully before tomorrow's vote.
Mr President, Commissioner, you have just shown us an example.
May I ask you whether the Commission is of the view that tobacco products, like Commissioners, should be assessed not on their packaging but on their content?
Mr President, the Commission always looks at content, rather than form.
But the form in this respect is important. If you ask the ordinary citizen of the European Union, "What is this?
Is this more like a cigarette or more like a cigar?" Because it is exactly the same size as a cigarette, has the same width and the same weight limits, he will say, without a shadow of a doubt, "This is like a cigarette" and not "This is like a cigar".
That is the Commission's opinion too.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
European Council in spring 2002
The next item is the debate on the oral question (B5-0528/01) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission's synthesis report in preparation for the Spring 2002 European Council.
Mr President, in March 2000, the Lisbon European Council set out a new strategy for the coming decade.
At that time we were working on the basis of very optimistic economic data and really thought that we could bring about sustainable growth of at least 3%, along with economic reform, full employment and also social inclusion.
Today our starting point is more difficult because the global economy has gone in the opposite direction and even the European Union, despite its readiness to reform and the reforms which it has already implemented, is experiencing an economic downturn.
That is why the following question is now much more urgent than it was during the preparations for the first spring summit in Stockholm: how does the Commission intend to continue this ambitious process of making the European Union, on the basis of innovation and knowledge, the most dynamic and competitive economic area in the world, and enabling it to overcome the problems which I have described?
This question is all the more pertinent for the spring summit in Barcelona because, after evaluating a strategy of this kind for two years, it ought to be possible to identify the areas where national and European policy have actually been guided by the quantitative and qualitative objectives and see to what extent it has been possible to bundle measures together and make them visible.
The Member States' budgets have actually shown uniform increases across the board in investment in research and development, innovation and further development of the information and communication society.
The few figures which are available to us in the European Parliament unfortunately do not yet speak the specific language which we would have liked, because we had hoped that the Lisbon strategy and its consistent implementation would also have yielded visible added value as a result of economic, financial, employment and social policy being coordinated at European level, so as to demonstrate to the public the benefits which European policy can have for them and quite specifically how it can improve their quality of life and work. We should certainly also ask what approach has been adopted to achieve the ambitious aim of increasing investment in the European Union.
How has cross-border investment in infrastructure actually been made visible apart from through reports? The European Parliament needs to ask all of these questions because, in drafting its synthesis report, the Commission has the duty of actually producing a blueprint for the further consultations at the spring summit, which will then, of course, in the end, form the broad guidelines of the future economic policy of the European Union and its Member States.
In the current economic downturn and at a time when we are also facing particular challenges because of the adverse economic consequences of the terrible terrorist acts of 11 September - and in considering these issues we have to take into account a new aspect, the collapse of consumer confidence - we must also ask ourselves the following question: what can we do to stop a self-fulfilling prophecy, which states that we are sliding into recession, from becoming a reality?
The Commission therefore bears great responsibility for taking more of a lead on setting targets and taking more practical action to reform the economy, not only with respect to the labour market, but also with respect to the other markets, full employment and also social inclusion, by issuing specific guidance on these areas.
Of course this also raises the question, and I should also like to address this particularly to you, Commissioner, of whether the tax situation, where unfortunately we still have countries pursuing independent national policies rather than coordinated ones, does not have an adverse impact on investment in the European Union and, in particular, on cross-border investment.
Commissioner, the European Parliament is still not clear about how it is actually, finally to be involved in this whole process, which is now approaching its second spring summit.
So far we have not been involved as partners in the macro-economic dialogue.
There are no plans to organise another forum with all of the stakeholders, as was done before the Lisbon meeting.
It really is legitimate to ask whether the European Parliament's involvement is adequate and whether it is therefore able to represent the interests of the people in this process of setting priorities for the European Union's economic and structural policy.
We really are in a situation where we need to mobilise our forces and rally optimism.
How do you envisage doing this in your synthesis report? What working methods do you intend to choose and which guidelines do you intend to issue in it?
Mr President, in reply to the questions from Mrs Randzio-Plath, I should like to say first of all that the Commission's synthesis report for the spring European Council in March 2002 is currently being prepared.
As requested by the European Council, that report will assess the progress made on the economic, social and environmental dimensions of the Lisbon strategy.
I mention the environmental dimension in particular since the Göteborg Summit.
Part of this assessment will consider the progress made by Council and Parliament on the Lisbon reform agenda.
The assessment will draw on the series of structural indicators which have been proposed by the Commission in its communication of 30 October 2001.
As Mrs Randzio-Plath knows, those structural indicators are a very accurate reflection of the progress made and the Commission thinks it is a valuable instrument.
The objective of sustainable development will underpin the assessment of each strand of that strategy.
The focus of the synthesis report will also depend on further work by this Parliament and the Council up to the end of this year.
It is somewhat early, therefore, to be specific about the contents and structure of the reports at this stage.
I agree nevertheless with Mrs Randzio-Plath that the synthesis report will need to take account of the likely situation by the time the Barcelona European Council is held.
This means, on the one hand, the new international situation to which she has referred, and, on the other hand, the introduction of the euro on 1 January next year.
At the recent informal summit in Ghent, Heads of State and Government and the Commission renewed their commitment to pursuing the Lisbon strategy of structural and economic reform and social renewal with determination as a response to both those factors, the new environment and the introduction of the euro.
Continuity and the long-term focus of the reform agenda will need to be maintained, especially in view of the current economic downturn.
The economic situation in the euro area and worldwide has made it necessary to adjust economic policy.
But the confirmation by the Ghent European Council of its commitment to the stability and growth pact has brought confidence that the basic policy framework of economic and monetary union will be preserved and it has certainly facilitated the recent further adjustments in monetary policy.
This shows that economic policy coordination is working.
Nonetheless there is still further scope for strengthening economic policy coordination in line with the proposals put forward by the Commission, with a view to fostering a common assessment of the economic situation and appropriate economic policy responses.
To reinforce that message, Mr Prodi is writing to this Parliament, to the President of the Council and to the Heads of State and Government this week, urging them to continue their efforts to make progress before Barcelona on key elements of the Lisbon reforms, such as the Community patent and the telecoms review, in line with the existing timetable, as well as on a number of the financial services proposals.
The synthesis report by its nature covers a wide area of the Commission's activity.
A number of Commission services are therefore contributing to its preparation and this work is being monitored at political level by a group of Commissioners dealing with growth, competitiveness, employment and sustainable development.
The report should be adopted by the Commission on 15 January 2002 and will be submitted to this Parliament on the same day.
By submitting the report at an early stage, it is intended to allow the other European institutions to give their views on the report in good time in order to contribute to the work of the European Council in Barcelona.
I believe that is precisely what Mrs Randzio-Plath wants.
Lastly, with regard to the open method of coordination, that is largely intended in the context of the Lisbon strategy to develop indicators at Member State level and to share best practice and experience.
It is used in line with the principles set out in the White Paper on governance in areas where legislative action under the methode communataire, the Community method, is not possible.
I hope I have answered the questions put by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
As I have said on earlier occasions, I shall be delighted to come and make a presentation to her committee and discuss what the Commission intends to do at the Barcelona Summit in further detail.
But it would be useful if my future discussion with the EMAC committee could take place after 15 January, because by then both Parliament and I will be in possession of the documents that will be the Commission's input into the Barcelona Council.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Liberal Group I would like to support the position expressed by the Chairperson of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the issue we are debating.
I am pleased that Commissioner Bolkestein has said that he is willing to discuss the content of the proposed synthesis report in committee, since it must be the basis for a discussion at a meeting which we hope will be very important and which will take place in my city and the city of the President for this sitting.
We therefore have a special interest in Barcelona being a genuine success and that it be remembered as a truly significant advance in terms of the commitments we have been taking on since the meeting in Lisbon last year.
I would like to insist on one aspect which both the Commission and the Liberal Group have been highlighting.
This is the need to consolidate and clarify the mechanisms and objectives in the field of economic and monetary policy.
There is a degree of confusion, as you know, and this has been discussed both in the Commission and in this House, between the Europe of the euro (which, as the Commissioner has said, is now close to completing its final stage with the introduction of notes and coins), the external representation of the euro and, on the other hand, the system for adopting decisions in the field of economic and monetary policy.
We know that this situation is unsatisfactory and the current crisis highlights this.
We hope that the present situation can be genuinely overcome, in the way that Commissioner Bolkestein' s colleague, Commissioner Solbes, has often said optimistically.
However, at the same time he has been obliged to lower the growth forecasts.
I would therefore like to insist on this aspect and on another which the Commissioner has not mentioned and which I believe is very important within the various elements of Lisbon and their subsequent implementation: the training and technology element.
Lisbon set the objective of a fully competitive society by 2010, in which we would be able to overcome our technological and scientific backwardness in comparison with the United States, which was the term of reference established in Lisbon.
I believe that this is an element which also has to be introduced into this synthesis report, and at subsequent meetings views have been expressed in agreement with this.
I thank Mr Gasòliba i Böhm and Mrs Randzio-Plath for the remarks they have made.
I stress the fact that progress made since Lisbon has been insufficient.
In the area of financial services, for example, the Commission intends to have a mid-term review meeting in February next year to stimulate more political interest in perfecting the internal market and achieving the difficult targets we were set by the Lisbon European Council.
But I stress that we have not done what we should have.
Considerable difficulties remain and we must use the meeting in Lisbon to make further progress.
It would be a good thing if Ecofin ministers were present in Barcelona so that they could do, on the spot, what members of the European Council want them to do.
So far members of the European Council have engaged in laudatory statements but when ministers have to deal with the subjects at hand the political will seems to evaporate.
If the Ecofin ministers were to be present at the Barcelona Council perhaps they could solve these problems there and then.
In the case of patents, the European Council has instructed the Council to come to a decision before Christmas this year.
I am not optimistic.
That underscores the need for the Barcelona European Council to be practical and emphasises the need to make more progress than have been made up until now.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Conversion of vessels and of fishermen dependent on the fishing agreement with Morocco
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0395/2001) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation aiming to promote the conversion of vessels and of fishermen that were, up to 1999, dependent on the fishing agreement with Morocco [COM(2001) 384 - C5-0407/2001 - 2001/0163(CNS)]
Mr President, the European Parliament is offering the Commission the opportunity to correct the proposed regulation it delivered to Parliament and the Council.
The intention of the report, approved by the Committee on Fisheries that we are discussing at the moment, is to correct the rigidity of this proposal, which is currently preventing progress being made in finding solutions to problems for the people affected by the non-renewal of the EC-Morocco fisheries agreement.
From the time the agreement expired, on 30 November 1999, until the time it became clear that a new agreement would not be reached, owners of more than 400 vessels and some 4 300 fishermen were both hopeful and fearful at the time when negotiations between the Community and Morocco were being prolonged.
It was not until 26 March 2001 that Commissioner Fischler announced that it had been impossible to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.
From that moment, the Community set itself the objective of converting the affected fishing fleet.
By presenting this proposed regulation, the Commission is conforming to the guidelines set by the Nice European Council of 7 December 2000.
At that Summit, the European Council ordered the Commission to propose a specific action plan for the restructuring of this Community fleet.
I must state clearly that this proposed regulation does not conform to the needs of the sector in question.
Once again the Commission seems to be presenting proposals, the objective of which we do not understand, that do not amount to decisive action in support of a fleet and certain regions which are suffering a serious crisis.
In fact, rather than helping to preserve most of the fleet and its economic activity, the Commission is presenting a rigid proposal which, if the Council approves it without the substantial amendments approved by the Committee on Fisheries, will have the effect of breaking up a fleet for which the ship owners and local authorities of those regions feel capable of finding alternatives.
This proposal must therefore be amended in the way approved by the Committee on Fisheries, so that the actions proposed may have a beneficial effect on the sector in question.
The Committee on Fisheries does not share the Commission' s breaking-up approach.
The Commission could have focussed on the existing opportunities in alternative sectors, such as the processing industry, aquiculture and especially the promotion of fisheries products.
In the same way, the proposal excludes sectors directly affected by the non-renewal of the agreement, such as the non-extractive fisheries industries.
The land-based companies, during the long negotiation process, have suffered a series of economic setbacks that have led to employment rationalisations and redundancies, leading to considerable losses.
Today they are faced with a future just as uncertain as that of the fleet they depend on.
Faced with this breaking-up approach, the sector affected and the regional authorities have reached verbal agreements with companies and ship owners from various Maghreb countries to create mixed companies, and in this way, according to the estimates of the sector, in the small-scale sector, around a hundred vessels could be relocated with the help of this specific measure, if it were more flexible, thereby reducing to 26 those vessels destined for scrapping.
This would maintain an economic activity which is vital to certain regions and ensure that those who want to continue being ship owners and fishermen are able to do so.
The amendments contained in the Committee on Fisheries' report, in summary, modify the proposed regulation in the following fashion:
In addition to ship owners and fishermen, the land-based fisheries industry which was directly linked to the existence of this agreement are included, provided that their losses exceed 70%.
The requirement that the people affected must have been subsidised for a period of at least nine consecutive months as a result of inactivity in order to benefit now from this specific measure is removed.
This requirement leads to the exclusion of those people who, sometimes temporarily, found alternative work while waiting for a new fisheries agreement with Morocco to be reached.
This is all the more serious if we bear in mind that these ship owners and fishermen had not been warned that, if they found an activity, they would be penalised when it came to conversion.
The Committee on Fisheries has also rejected the requirement to return aid granted for modernisation.
It is not right to apply penalties of a backdated nature in the case of aid which was not subject to these conditions at the time of being granted.
The Commission' s proposal intends to increase public aid per ship owner by 20% in the case of scrapping or transfer to a third country.
The Committee on Fisheries believes that fishermen must also benefit from this increase of 20%.
We have also redistributed the sum allocated to this specific measure in such a way that the amount intended for scrapping is 30%, for the creation of mixed companies, 35%, and for socio-economic measures, also 35%.
This would lead to better implementation of the specific measure.
Lastly, I will mention the budgetary aspect.
In accordance with the conclusions of the Nice European Council, the Commission proposes granting up to EUR 197 million for this specific measure.
It proposes implementing the flexibility instrument in 2002 and allocating the appropriations corresponding to heading 2 of the financial perspectives.
The saving resulting from the non-renewal of the agreement has been EUR 500 million.
It is natural that the Community should also contribute to the cost of converting this fleet.
Mr President, this House may be listening for the last time to words relating to what, for fourteen years, we have known as the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
Tomorrow, on voting on the report we are debating today, our institution will write the last page of a story that has been told since August 1987, when the European Union signed its first fisheries agreement with that country, but which for Spain goes back almost twenty-five years.
There are therefore Community fishermen and ship owners whose lives have been exclusively linked with the existence of the Moroccan fishing grounds.
Our obligation today is to close this chapter with the greatest possible dignity and responsibility towards this sector, which is going to suffer an unprecedented fisheries conversion.
We must thank the Commission for their efforts over the last two long years to try to make tomorrow' s vote unnecessary.
But, given that the situation is irreversible, we must also recognise the solidarity contained in the Commission' s proposal, its recognition that the end of an era cannot be marked by the spectacle of us being miserly towards those people who are waiting anxiously for this plan in order to carry on living and working, the financial cost of which is fully justified.
We hope that the other institutions have sufficient dignity to accept this need.
The amendments introduced by the Committee on Fisheries, above all, contribute to adding a greater degree of flexibility in order to allow Community solidarity to truly benefit a very heterogeneous fleet, which over the last two years has not ceased to seek its own solutions; solutions which greater legislative rigidity may contribute to blocking.
Furthermore, our main obligation is to approve this report in order to provide the necessary legal basis so that on second reading of the budget the necessary appropriations can be provided to finance the restructuring plan. This restructuring plan will no doubt put an end to part of an historic fleet, but it must not mean the end of fisheries relations with Morocco.
It is impossible to imagine that Morocco really wants to turn its back on the European Union, amongst other things because we share two seas and we are obliged to be neighbours, and Morocco can only benefit from this proximity.
I therefore ask the Commission to remain receptive and promote any mutually beneficial fishing cooperation initiative which may arise in the future.
It only remains for me to thank the rapporteur for the wonderful work she has done.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the draft Council regulation on the promotion of the conversion of vessels and of fishermen dependent on the fishing agreement with Morocco, which is the subject of the excellent report by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, deserves our unreserved approval.
The proposal shows that the European Union cares about the fate of such vulnerable and fragile activities, whose survival depended on the renewal or non-renewal of a fishing agreement with Morocco.
European solidarity works and continues to work.
That is for the sceptics.
The Commission proposal considers the problems of conversion from its economic and social angles.
It also has the merit of mobilising new money, EUR 197 million, which is compatible with the mobilisation of other resources already allocated under the Structural Funds.
In Portugal there are 570 fishermen who receive support under this programme, 400 of whom live in Sesimbra, a small, attractive fishing and tourist town very close to Lisbon.
Of these 400 who live in Sesimbra, 150 are already over 55 years old, which means they can be moved into early retirement, since at this age it is difficult to retrain them for a different job.
In simple terms, while the shipowners are liable to receive supplements of 20%, the same is not true for the fishermen, which to me seems an injustice.
Now, the fishermen will be able to get EUR 10 000 euros over one year if they do not do any other work. The possibility of a 20% increase, although modest, would allow them to raise that sum to EUR 12 000, which would make it rather more attractive.
Furthermore, the proposal has quite a rigid structure and should be made more flexible, allowing the Member States, in this case Portugal and Spain, to adapt better to situations that are truly complex and sometimes do not fit within the rigid stays of the regulation.
This flexibility should be accepted so that the aid already granted by the end of 2001 should not all be accounted for under the part of FIFG Article 4 intended for socio-economic measures, and all of it within the Lisbon and Tagus valley region, and it would be better if it could be diluted in other programmes.
Lastly, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I entirely agree with the content and proposals of the report by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, which I think are lucid and sensible, particularly those dealing with the possibility of supporting processing activities that were dependent on fishing.
Indeed, it does not make sense that certain fishery-dependent processing and marketing activities, which in this case have been hit very hard, should not also be funded.
For this reason, too, we are grateful for the report by Mrs Miguélez Ramos.
Mr President, I am pleased to inform the House that the UN Fish Stocks Agreement will enter into force on 11 December. This follows the thirtieth ratification by Malta, shamefully with no ratifications by the EU.
Turning to Morocco, the Greens will be voting against this proposal, not because we oppose compensation for fishermen put out of work, but because we oppose this particular package.
Firstly it provides increased premiums for only certain people, those involved in Morocco.
This discriminates against other fishermen and ship owners.
Secondly, it will fund even more transfers of vessels to third countries, including flags of convenience, and there are still no controls in place to prevent this.
Thirdly, it sets a very bad precedent if every time an agreement collapses or problems entirely foreseeable arise, we decide to dish out huge sums of European taxpayers' money.
Clearly, the problem with fisheries agreements has to be addressed.
Morocco is the first, but there are more to come.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mrs Miguélez for the excellent work she has done.
Its quality is all the more notable insofar as it deals with an issue which is hugely traumatic for a large number of people who depend on fishing in Portugal and in Galicia, Andalucia and the Canary Islands in Spain.
It is a question of finding the best possible way to alleviate the effects of what I believe to be, if you pardon the expression, the chronicle of a death foretold.
For a long time my group has been warning the House of the risks of not linking the fisheries agreement with Morocco to the association agreement.
Today all I can say is that the Kingdom of Morocco has not shown the willingness to negotiate that we expect from a trading partner.
I would like to acknowledge the Commission' s efforts to lessen the impact of the lack of an agreement with Morocco, but I am not going to repeat what has already been said.
It is sufficient to refer to the interventions of the rapporteur and Mrs Fraga, for example, to realise that the Committee on Fisheries has considerably improved on the Commission' s proposal, by making it fairer.
In this respect, it only remains for me to ask, as my group will do, the House to approve the report of the Committee on Fisheries, written by Mrs Miguélez, tomorrow, and that, once approved by Parliament, the report may quickly be provided with the appropriate financial instruments so that it can be implemented.
And, in this respect, I would like to make it clear that the budgetary flexibility instrument is essential.
Ladies and gentlemen, it would be horrendous, to give an example, if an Objective 1 region, with the highest unemployment rate in the European Union, which also suffers the consequences of the competition created by the very favourable agreements which we, Europeans, have granted to Morocco in the fruit products sector, not only suffered the effects of a tough conversion as a result of the lack of an agreement with Morocco, but that, furthermore, as a result of the budgetary miserliness of certain people, it also ended up without Structural Funds.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since it is so late, I will try to be very brief and concise.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Miguélez, for the good work she has done despite the urgency of the issue.
I would also like to congratulate all the members of the Committee on Fisheries for the work they have done.
I believe that together we have all been able to meet the demands of the circumstances: the rapporteur, the authors of the amendments, those who have made it possible to reach compromises and the Members who have supported us. I thank them all for their understanding and solidarity.
The urgency procedure, as I said, always obliges us to work more quickly than we would have liked, but, even so, the result has been very positive.
I now hope the Commission takes account of the significant improvements which the Committee on Fisheries has introduced into its proposal.
I will highlight the extension of aid, better coverage and, above all, the flexibility introduced into the application of the various measures under discussion.
Secondly, we must speak about the funding of this plan, although this is not strictly an issue for our committee.
In Nice, the Council made a political commitment at the highest level, at the level of Heads of State and Government, to the people affected by the dramatic situation created following the failure of the negotiations with Morocco.
I believe that the European Commission has also been able to meet the demands of the circumstances, and I would like to acknowledge that here: the use of the flexibility instrument and the EUR 197 million it proposes for funding demonstrate this.
I therefore congratulate them.
I now ask Parliament' s Committee on Budgets and the Council to support the European Commission and the European Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries and reach the necessary compromise so that this essential EUR 197 million can be used for the proposed purpose.
There is a political commitment and a favourable opinion from this Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries and we strongly urge that they be complied with.
Mr President, it is vital that this report should be approved so that a decision can be taken at the next Fisheries Council on the restructuring programme for the fleet that operated in Morocco and that has been idle since the end of 1999, affecting Portuguese and Spanish fishermen and shipowners and the populations of the areas where they live.
The fact is that compensation for the stoppage finishes at the end of this year.
The central question, then, is the allocation of EUR 197 million for the restructuring programme that is to commence in January 2002, which should be improved along the lines proposed in the Miguélez Ramos report.
For our part, we consider the proposal the Commission has made of using a flexibility instrument in the budget to be acceptable, and we regret that the matter was not made clearer during the first reading of the budget by the European Parliament, inserting the amounts on the line and requesting the use of the flexibility instrument, as in fact the Committee on Fisheries had proposed, as our chairman has just reminded us.
It is, therefore, important that the next Budgetary Council should stop blocking and take these proposals into account, creating the solution that will allow the fleet restructuring programme to come into force early next year.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is late, but we are awake, wide-awake even.
The alarm bells are ringing, the Gordian knot has not yet been hacked in two, but Parliament, I hope, is not giving up.
What is at stake here? At stake are jobs and the way the people of Europe perceive the EU.
Thanks to the emergency motion tabled by our colleague, Daniel Varela, we have an opportunity this evening to discuss an issue which is as problematic as it is urgent.
It concerns how to deal openly and honestly with the consequences which the failure of the negotiations with Morocco have had for the Iberian peninsular.
The bare facts are quickly stated: since November 1990, we have heard, the EU fleet - in practice deep-sea fishermen from Spain and Portugal - has no longer been able to fall back on the resources off the coast of Morocco.
The 4 300 fishermen and 400 vessels affected are hoping that the compensation payments will be continued when they expire in December 2001, as Mrs Miguélez Ramos has explained to us so convincingly.
Behind these figures there are people, families and whole communities who are committed to a traditional industry and we now need to give that industry prospects for the future.
In so doing, our efforts should certainly not be confined solely to giving financial handouts.
It is much more important that we - and here I would bring the Commission and the Council on board too - succeed in producing a comprehensive plan which is convincing and whose aim is to provide reduced, but no less profitable, fishing activity, or alternative work.
I would take this report as a further direct indication of how extremely important and urgent it is to reform the European Union's common fisheries policy, a task which is occupying all of us at the moment.
It is no coincidence that the individual key words - external relations, trade agreements, capacity reduction and extensive restructuring - are also a leitmotif in the working documents on the reform.
The current situation in Spain and Portugal also highlights the fact that it is now high time to conclude a package which is really worthy of the name reform.
It is unacceptable to reduce members of a proud industry to the level of being simply recipients of charity.
As a Community of values we must not allow this.
Falling yields have, I believe, helped us to recognise the huge challenges.
Let us now work together to identify the right action to take and let us show the flexibility which the rapporteur and also other colleagues have reminded us is so important.
Mr President, the proposal that the Commission is putting forward is to be welcomed but needs improving.
I shall highlight three aspects in this regard: the first is that there is no sense in the rigidity that the draft regulation imposes regarding the percentage of the funding to be allocated to each type of measure.
What would make sense would be to allow each Member State the flexibility, within the overall envelope, to allocate these funds according to its own needs, with clear rules.
For instance, in the case of Portugal, funds for destroying vessels should be reduced and funds for restructuring some of these ships and for the social part should be increased.
Secondly, an envelope of this kind should also include funding for the economic conversion of the areas most affected by fishing, and include in this compensation framework collateral activities such as the processing industry.
This would mean, right from the outset, that the financial envelope would need reinforcing, which unfortunately has not happened in this proposal by the Commission, which even so is arguing about certain problems of budgetary procedure.
The third aspect I should like to highlight is that, in the Commission' s view, the aim of this aid is essentially to close a chapter in the common fisheries policy, which was the agreement with Morocco, without making the effort which I believe was needed to expand the fishing possibilities for these countries in third countries' waters, and without duly providing for measures, which again were needed, to help these companies become more international more easily.
The Committee on Fisheries has tabled some amendments, and I should like to pay tribute to the rapporteur, who has made such an effort in this process.
We, ourselves, have also tried to do our part with amendments that will clearly improve this proposal where it has gaps.
As Mrs Fraga Estévez said, since there was no political ability to negotiate at the right time, I hope that there will now be dignity in the answers we are going to give to the fishermen affected.
I also hope that this House will approve the proposal by the Committee on Fisheries and that the Council will do the job it has to do.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking and congratulating Mrs Miguélez Ramos, the vice-chairperson of the Committee on Fisheries, for her report on this extremely important regulation which aims at facilitating conversion for those thousands of fishermen and hundreds of vessels whose activity has been suddenly cancelled because it has not been possible to conclude a new fishery agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco.
Beyond the availability of existing instruments, the Community has decided to make a special effort with a twofold initiative.
Firstly, the Council regulation aiming at widening the scope of existing provisions and, secondly, additional credits for a specific action.
While the proposal for additional credits is currently being discussed by the budgetary authority, today's debate focuses on the legislative proposal.
The Commission welcomes the fact that the emergency procedure should allow the adoption of the regulation by the end of November instead of the end of December.
The report includes 18 amendments, which may be grouped in a few categories, which I shall review now.
The first group consists of Amendments Nos 1, 2, 5, 10, 11 and 13.
The Commission does not believe that the land-based industries - that is to say, fish-processing factories, as well as services to vessels - ought to benefit from the new regulation, nor should the coastal regions themselves.
Indeed, regional development programmes already exist, and those industries in need of conversion or those coastal communities in need of diversification should benefit from the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund.
Aquaculture and the fish-processing industry should benefit from the financial instrument for fisheries guidance.
The second group of amendments consists of Amendments Nos 3 and 4.
The Commission does not believe that all fishermen and vessel owners who have received indemnities in 2000-2001, irrespective of the actual duration of the cessation of activity, should benefit from the new regulation.
Therefore a minimum duration of compensation, as a simple criterion, has been proposed and a nine-month duration has been considered a reasonable minimum.
Moreover, until now, no evidence has been given that such a duration would penalise those who have tried to find alternative activities and are still in a difficult situation.
The third group consists of Amendments Nos 6, 7 and 8.
With respect to the age of vessels to be withdrawn, the Commission has proposed to reduce the minimum age to five years in the case of the exporting of vessels.
All other rules should be maintained.
Moreover, the Commission has proposed that the accumulation of grants for construction should be prevented premiums for withdrawal.
Any alternative rule would be against the sound management of public money, and therefore the Commission could not support those amendments.
On Amendments Nos 9 and 12, the Commission would stress that social premiums for fishermen are already available in the existing regulation.
Nonetheless, it may support increasing those premiums in the new regulation.
However, Spain and Portugal should guarantee that such increased premiums do not create distortion in relation to equivalent social premiums that may be available for workers of other industries in the same Member States.
I turn to Amendments Nos 14 and 15.
The additional credits are not structural funds.
Providing them allows the Commission to set up some rules.
Those rules should be in line with today' s priorities, which amount to scrapping redundant vessels and also to social measures.
No 'adjustment' or 'variation' should be allowed.
Then there is Amendment No 16.
From the Commission' s perspective, granting a joint enterprise in the fisheries sector is quite a risky action.
Two legal provisions limit that risk: firstly a bank guarantee, and secondly, a partially delayed payment (that is, after two years of satisfactory operation).
The budget rules for using additional credits imply the relaxation of the second provision, but the Commission is willing to maintain its financial risk at the same level.
Therefore it has proposed to balance that loss by increasing the bank guarantee to 40% of the premium.
But that is a purely mechanical calculation.
Then there is Amendment No 17.
If the budgetary authority decides to earmark all the commitment credits dedicated to the specific action in the budgetary year 2002, the wording of that article should remain unchanged.
Otherwise it should be adjusted accordingly.
Lastly, Amendment No 18, which has no practical consequence.
The wording of Article 7 should remain consistent with the wording of the equivalent articles of Regulation (EC) No 2792/1999.
In conclusion, the Commission has a favourable opinion of Amendments Nos 9 and 12, and my colleague, Mr Fischler, will propose to the Fisheries Council that it includes them in the new regulation.
Amendment No17 may be considered, depending upon the decision taken by the budgetary authority.
I was speaking on behalf of my colleague, Mr Fischler, who, I am sure, will deal with any questions that I was unable to answer.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.20 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I had not managed to reach my seat.
I wanted to make a very brief comment: my name does not appear on the attendance register and I wanted to say that I was present at both the sitting and the corresponding vote.
I know that this relates to Monday's sitting, but I did want to have it included in the Minutes.
Many thanks.
Obviously I did not sign in, but I was here and I did take part.
Thank you!
Very well, Mr Ebner, it will be rectified.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
Madam President, before the debate begins, I just want to pass on the feelings of the people in Ireland regarding the future of our national airline Aer Lingus.
Prior to the terrorism in New York, it was a star performer in the airline industry, carrying 1.1 million passengers.
It is a great provider to our national economy.
There is a great wish that it not be regarded as the government giving national aid to keep this flying.
That is not really a comment about the Minutes, and besides, there is going to be a debate on that subject.
Are there any other comments about the Minutes?
(The Minutes were approved).
Madam President, I just wanted to bring to your attention the arrest in Greece a week ago of twelve British subjects and two Dutch subjects.
Among the British subjects were two of my constituents, Paul and Lesley Coppin from Mildenhall in Suffolk.
They have been arrested by the Greek authorities on charges of espionage.
These people are plane spotters, aviation enthusiasts, on holiday in Greece.
It does seem to me rather extraordinary that they are still being held in custody in a fellow Member State, and I wonder if there is something that you can do to bring this matter to the attention of the Greek authorities in order they be released as soon as possible.
Mr Van Orden, we have taken note of your comments and we shall take whatever action is appropriate.
Economic and employment situation in the air transport sector and in the industrial and related services sectors
The next item calls for statements by the Council and the Commission on the economic and employment situation in the air transport sector and in the industrial and related services sectors.
Mrs Durant will now speak on behalf of the Council.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the American Airlines plane crash in New York on Monday 12 November has, of course, reminded everyone of the difficult and dreadful plight of the air transport sector.
There is a risk that this latest accident will worsen still further the economic and social crisis that the sector has been facing since 11 September.
However, this should not make us forget the roots of this crisis, which is the result, not only of the combination of economic problems directly linked to the attacks on 11 September, but also of previous structural difficulties which were revealed and aggravated by the events of 11 September.
As President of the Council of Transport Ministers and a Belgian Federal Minister, I am particularly concerned about this situation.
It seems to me more than ever vital to implement structural, economic and social reforms so as to enable the sector to overcome the current crisis, to give it a boost in the form of social measures, and to lay the foundations of sustainable development in this sector in the long term.
In order to do this, we must understand the real roots of the problem and identify the obstacles that must be removed, and I should like to make a start on that here and now, with you and with Mrs Diamantopoulou.
The main cause of the fragility endemic in the European air transport sector is its over-fragmentation, along with a lack of both consolidation at Community level and strategic alliances.
Up to now, the Community structure has been based on the desire to create a single market in which optimum conditions for competition are guaranteed.
The extreme competition that results from this, in a sector where marginal costs are relatively low, gives rise to problems of over-capacity and at the same time prices that are too low in relation to the average costs borne by the airlines.
This particularly fierce competition has therefore helped to make the airlines more fragile, and so they are vulnerable to any economic upset because their margins are so small.
The American air transport industry has for a long time been much more concentrated than its European counterpart, which together with other factors has helped it to cope, for better or worse, with the crisis which is affecting the United States in particular.
Although the difficulties in the air transport sector were caused not by the attacks of 11 September but by structural considerations, the events of that day imposed new constraints on what was already a difficult situation, and it was those constraints which precipitated the current crisis, and which have been made worse by the present context of an economic recession.
I shall list the major constraints, in chronological order. Firstly, US airspace remained closed for four days, then passenger confidence was reduced and there was a considerable fall in the amount of air traffic operating - 20% fewer holiday flights compared with the year 2000, particularly on transatlantic routes where there was a drop of 30% - and to top it all there was the tragic accident two days ago, which will no doubt make the situation even worse.
Then there is the fact that insurance companies have decided to raise insurance premiums for both passengers and aeroplanes in the case of accidents due to a state of war or to acts of terrorism.
They have also decided to limit the airlines' coverage for third-party damages in the same circumstances to USD 50 million.
What is more, additional security measures of necessity mean additional costs for airports and airlines.
Last but not least, American aid, consisting of USD 15 billion in immediate aid and Federal credits to companies in addition to USD 120 million for suppliers of services, have now caused distortions in competition in relation to the European industry, in particular because they have made possible predatory practices on the part of certain companies on the transatlantic routes.
The economic and social consequences for Europe of this combination of structural and economic factors are well known: airlines are experiencing serious difficulties, some of them even going into liquidation, investment is at a standstill and the whole air transport sector is experiencing a terrible crisis.
What has been the Council' s response to all this so far?
At their meetings on 14 September and 16 October, the Transport Ministers had already discussed the consequences for this sector of the attacks on 11 September, as had the European Council of Economic Affairs and Finance Ministers at its meeting on 21 September, with a view to issuing a rapid and coordinated response from all Member States which would make it possible to support the restructuring of the sector while at the same time trying to retain the basis for healthy competition.
The meeting of the Council of Transport Ministers on 16 October in particular examined the proposals contained in the European Commission' s Communication of 10 October on the economic situation of the air transport sector, with a view to implementing a certain number of its proposals.
First of all the Council very rapidly coordinated Member States' measures to deal with the insurance situation.
It decided that state aid provided to airlines and suppliers of services in order to make up for insufficient or non-existent cover for risks resulting from war would be extended until 31 December.
Such schemes have to be declared to the Commission and examined by it on a monthly basis.
As regards the cost of additional security measures, Member States have agreed to take these on board initially, without this being regarded as state aid.
However, they have emphasised the need for users and operators to contribute towards this cost in the long term, when the situation has become more normal again.
As for the four-day closure of airspace, the Council requested and obtained from the Commission a certain amount of flexibility to enable limited aid to be granted beyond that period, on the basis of objective criteria of course, to airlines which were the victims of the closure of airspace and its consequences.
Both the Member States and the Commission believe that this support must respect the major elements of the Community acquis regarding the containment of state aid to the air transport sector, and must not under any circumstances cause distortions in competition.
We do not accept the idea that American companies should use state aid in order to smash prices.
Our companies are suffering from the unfair competition practised by the American airlines.
We must not allow such a situation to continue within the European Union.
This is why the Presidency supports the Commission' s proposal to adopt a code of conduct together with the United States, precisely in order to prevent or remove such distortions in competition.
In addition, the Council has taken into account the request by certain airlines for more flexibility in applying the procedures for allocating time slots.
Moreover, one of the key factors in the rapid recovery of air transport is the winning back of passengers' confidence.
With this in mind, the Presidency and the Commission have worked very hard, with the support of the other Member States, in order to define and implement, as rapidly as possible, measures intended to reinforce security at airports and on board aircraft.
This will be a two-stage operation: the first stage, which is a matter of priority, will be to apply, on a Community-wide basis, the recommendations of the European Civil Aviation Conference on passenger and baggage checks at airports, which are the result of many years' experience.
The earlier these checks are carried out, the more effective they are.
As you know, the Council has invested a great deal of time and energy, particularly through the Council-Commission joint experts group, in order to achieve a policy agreement among Member States as of the forthcoming Council meeting on 7 December.
In a spirit of close coordination with the European Parliament, I believe that it is very important to achieve our aims as quickly as possible.
The Council of 16 October also expressed the hope that the European Parliament should be in a position to give its opinion on this subject as quickly as possible.
In other words, I believe that the public would find it hard to understand if the Council or Parliament were to drag its feet on such a crucial issue.
The Presidency is at the disposal of the European Parliament in order to facilitate a close dialogue between the two institutions, and to enable the Members of the European Parliament to benefit from the expertise of its specialists, with a view to the rapid adoption of measures.
At a second stage we shall be studying the advisability of additional security measures on the basis of the final report of the joint Presidency-Commission ad hoc group, which will be submitted on 7 December.
Some of these measures will perhaps require legislative initiatives supplementing the first stage, represented by the 'Security' regulation currently being examined.
The Council on 16 October thus made it possible to react coherently to the crisis in the air transport sector, but we should now be seeking to reconstruct a solid and sound foundation in this sector, even though we know that the current crisis may continue for several months.
As my contribution to today' s debate, I propose to share with you my personal analysis of the prospects that exist for this sector and the measures that should be taken.
This debate, which the Council has not yet embarked upon, is all the more necessary within this House, because there is no doubt that in the months to come Parliament will be involved in it.
In structural terms, therefore, we must ensure that the sector is allowed to restructure itself, by reorganising the skies over Europe around a number of major alliances.
One way of enabling the airline companies to restore their real viability is to improve the way in which the pressure of competition is channelled in this sector, in particular by having recourse to some form of consolidation.
Without going so far as to recommend mergers or shareholdings which would require a full-scale remodelling of the system regulating competition, the creation of alliances or commercial alignments would be enough to enable a start to be made on the relieving of some problems.
For example, it would make it possible to limit the over-capacity which is such a burden on the sector' s performance, and to reduce the effects of excessive competition on certain routes.
It is a question of allowing economies of scale and of network, which are particularly highly developed in this sector, to operate properly.
Together with the Commission, we must also think about adopting a strategy which will enable us to cope with similar situations. In particular we must study the adjustments to the European competition rules that will be required, at the same time overcoming, if possible, the current legal obstacles.
This raises the sensitive issue of how the companies concerned can be controlled, and it means that we need to think more about the role of the European Community in relation to third countries, and in particular the United States.
In effect, we must allow the major European airlines, around which future air travel will be organised, to be better armed to face their major North American rivals.
With this in mind, I personally support the eventual granting of a clear mandate to the Commission, to negotiate with our international discussion partners, particularly in America.
It is important for the future of civil aviation that the European Union should speak with a single voice.
However, I believe that the preliminary and essential stage in this step forward is to establish a regulatory framework for the air transport sector which will be more coherent and complete.
This 'internal' framework should lay a healthy foundation for the redeployment of the sector and enable us to avoid any distortions in competition.
Out of the wasteland we have at the moment, we need to create a clear and binding regulatory corpus.
This movement needs to cover all areas of aviation, whether safety, security, the fight against noise pollution or more general environmental protection.
With this in mind, the Commission' s proposals for a 'single European sky' should be examined without delay.
This project is the point of departure for a whole range of regulatory measures and should be as detailed as possible in order to build up a strong and united European market.
The European Union must in time become an equal partner in international negotiations, particularly with its American discussion partners.
I hope that I and my fellow members of the Council of Transport Ministers will have an opportunity to come back to the question of the Community' s competency in international negotiations on matters concerning air transport.
We shall have to give some thought to the conditions governing such a mandate, and the guarantees that will be given to Member States regarding the transparency of negotiations conducted in the name of the Community.
In-depth action must also be taken to deal with the social aspects of the crisis.
The bankruptcy of Sabena and the redundancies announced draw attention to the importance of and the urgent need for this.
The collapse of an airline causes job losses not only within that company itself, but also among its subcontractors.
Sabena was the key client of many businesses, not only Brussels-National Airport itself, but also the various providers of airport services.
We cannot rethink the civil aviation sector without rethinking the whole of our social policy in the context of liberalisation.
The Belgian Presidency therefore believes that it is vital that it is able to intervene to support social plans and retrain employees, while at the same time respecting the principle that public money should not be used to subsidise companies.
It is also vital that there should be a more far-reaching analysis of the social and environmental impact of the liberalisation of air transport, with a view to creating the conditions for greater harmonisation in this area.
Finally, it will be necessary to develop more specifically targeted measures by the European Social Fund.
In effect this means that the programming documents drawn up by the Commission and the Member States will have to be adjustable so as to cater for crises in any sector.
This will allow prompt reaction to any increase in the number of people seeking jobs, so that they can be retrained as soon as possible and their knowledge and skills brought up to the necessary levels rapidly and appropriately.
The problem lies in encouraging people to be adaptable.
Among the other vital requirements I will also mention the need to implement an information monitoring system at Community level, with regard to redundancy decisions, the need to increase consultation with social partners, and finally the need to introduce crisis-forecasting management into the European Change Observatory set up on 23 October in Dublin.
In this respect, it is important that the 'Employment and Social Policy' Council meeting on 3 December should study the Commission' s communication on the restructuring of undertakings, which the Commission announced at the time of the Marks & Spencer crisis last summer.
It will be a question of having to consider the concept of the social responsibility of undertakings in the context of restructuring measures.
The December 'Employment' Council will certainly enable an agreement to be reached on the directive on informing and consulting workers, which also represents a definite step in the right direction in the form of the consultation of representative bodies in times of crisis.
Finally, looking at the long-term prospects, the challenge we are facing also includes the task of ensuring that civil aviation becomes a sustainable activity.
Security and safety, economic stability and respect for the environment are the essential components of sustainable development in this sector, which leads me to my last point: the need to make progress in the environmental aspect of the sector.
The responses to economic and social difficulties that are needed in the short term, like the measures on security standards that are needed in the medium term, must in no way prejudice the task of continuing and expanding the efforts being made in this area.
Environmentally responsible growth in this sector will, in the long term, be the vital condition for the survival of this form of transport.
We made considerable progress at the ICAO General Assembly in Montreal in September.
We must take advantage of what the European Union obtained on that occasion - and believe me it was not a foregone conclusion - in other words that consideration should be given to local, national and regional differences when defining these public policies, in order to adopt European regulations which effectively guarantee a high level of environmental protection.
We must put into practice the progress that has been made in policy, in particular by rapidly adopting adequate anti-noise measures, but also by adopting measures to reduce greenhouse effect gases, in the context of the undertaking that we gave in Kyoto and confirmed in Bonn and Marrakesh.
Even though European airlines have been less badly affected than their American counterparts, we must ensure that we put in place, at Community level, a regulatory framework that will ensure that they really are viable, and this means in particular revising the competition rules.
Moreover, it must be possible, in a crisis, for the regulatory framework to guarantee a high degree of social protection.
Together we must build up a civil aviation industry which is sustainable at economic, social and environmental levels.
We must act, and we must act quickly, in order to guarantee that from now on civil aviation will once again become the bridge between peoples and the bringer of peace that it always has been.
(Applause)
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, my group supports the policies set out by the Council Presidency and the Commission.
I believe that we should be careful not to miss the point here.
The air transport sector is experiencing a cyclical and structural crisis, as has been pointed out, but the whole of the European economy - and of the world economy - is also in crisis.
The real response to the employment problem is therefore, of course, to relaunch growth and general policies of social solidarity and job creation.
As far as the air transport sector is concerned, and in connection with the meeting on the social dialogue referred to by Mrs Diamantopoulou, I believe that the deterioration in working conditions and wages that is starting to occur in this sector is obviously a point to which we must pay a great deal of attention.
Moreover, at the level of the European Union, we would like to see the Community' s competition policy adopted and, far from preventing the restructuring of the sector, coming to the aid of that sector, and we should also like this medium-term restructuring policy to be compatible with the policies set out in the White Paper on transport policy, in other words the development of a multi-mode transport policy which reflects, in the medium term, the real situation regarding costs for all sectors as a whole.
Finally, and I believe that it is necessary to draw attention to this point, this Parliament has always voted, by a clear majority, against any spiralling in state aids.
I would find it hard to understand if the majority of this House were to unleash a spiralling growth in state aid to one particular sector.
Finally, on the subject of the United States, let us be clear among ourselves.
The United States of America have presented us with a policy which is a fait accompli.
Their position on aid to their air transport sector is unacceptable and contrary to fair competition at international level.
Since we cannot, apparently, take the issue to the WTO, it is essential that in the context of the overall partnership between the United States and Europe, the European Union should be able to protect those legitimate interests which will, in the long term, work to the benefit of both the American and the European airlines.
Madam President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, the economic and employment situation in the airline industry and in the related industrial and services sectors is critical.
Although this situation was not caused solely by the events of 11 September, it was made much more acute as a result.
Air passengers' confidence has fallen leading to a reduction in passenger numbers, losses have been incurred because of the closure of American airspace and airports, insurance cover has been withdrawn and there has been a decline in the numbers of tourists from the USA and the Far East: these are the main causes, as is the cancellation or postponing of orders for new aircraft.
The fundamental causes of this crisis are, however, of a structural nature: crippling competition between the airlines, built-in overcapacity, a general economic recession and bad decisions by management.
This motion for a European Parliament resolution refers to a host of necessary measures, for example compensation for the closure of airspace and airports, financial support or guarantees from the Member States to compensate for insurance cover being withdrawn, proposals on providing financial support to the European air transport sector so as to establish a level playing field with the United States and strategies to safeguard or create jobs.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left supports this motion, although we are aware that it is intended as a very short-term measure and can only constitute a first step, but a step which should be taken immediately.
In the medium and long term, we need a harmonised European airspace, higher standards of quality and safety, highly trained staff, high social standards and no low wages.
The mass redundancies which were announced in the air transport sector even before 11 September are absolutely unacceptable to us.
We need a strategy to coordinate the different modes of transport; we need an all-embracing European transport strategy.
This problem cannot be solved on a mode-by-mode basis.
Mr President, after the shock of 11 September, the tragic scale of the crisis in the aviation industry and its related services was already apparent, but the situation has become even more complex with the events of recent days. We are now faced with a problem: the problem of the crisis in general and a problem of safety too, which, if the theory on the plane crash should prove to be true, would prompt us to focus more closely on the issue of servicing of aircraft for safety purposes.
Without a doubt, the state of war and the economics of war then precipitated events into a genuine crisis for the airlines which has already had extreme consequences for Sabena and Swissair. As has already been pointed out, the crisis, due to many different causes, not least - there is no doubt - clear strategic mismanagement of the sector, with airlines (which we might describe as too individualistic) unwilling to form consortia, which would have allowed them to streamline human, structural and financial resources; we have seen pricing policies which are misguided and often seeking to evade competition law; there are airports - such as Malpensa, to quote an example from my country - which are unreliable in terms of safety as well.
It is clear today that, in the current situation, the issue has reached dramatic, critical proportions, with the loss of at least 30 thousand jobs in Europe and 180 thousand jobs worldwide.
In Italy, my country' s national airline company has contemplated recapitalisation.
It is preparing itself to take draconian measures, with a further 1 000 job cuts on top of the 2 500 already announced.
Italiatour, Eurofly and the IT services company Sigma Travel will be drastically reduced in size, if not abolished.
The recapitalisation will have to be endorsed by Brussels.
The Commission had already authorised, on 17 October, payment of a public subsidy of EUR 387 million, but Alitalia needs EUR 1.5 billion and we do not know how useful the shares created by the Treasury by issuing bonds will be.
Strengthening commercial links with Air France or joining the Skyteam consortium are likely to be more effective in terms of structural reform.
In conclusion, we endorse the joint motion for a resolution and we feel that the situation calls for various different types of action from the European Union, extremely urgent action which, with the precious help of the European social partners, will succeed in firmly stopping the severely critical situation from further deteriorating now.
Subsequently, however, it will be necessary to plan action to modernise and streamline the sector and to take clear, incisive measures to boost tourism, which, as has already been pointed out, is a sector which, all too often, to be honest, is discussed at length but in which very little is as yet being done.
Lastly, we hope that the forthcoming reflections on the White Paper on transport will lead to resolute, incisive undertakings to support the transport and tourism sector' s economy, helping the many workers and their families, in particular, who must not be allowed to suffer further misfortune.
Madam President, the terrorist massacres of 11 September and last Monday' s aircraft disaster have jolted us into an awareness of the transience of life and to the way in which our society is interconnected.
An attack in the United States is also an attack on the rest of the civilised world, and vice versa.
Now the effects are making themselves increasingly felt, we must also look to solve the economic implications.
In our opinion, the solution should fit into the line that the European Union has adopted in the transport sector.
In principle, businesses must operate without direct government subsidies.
Whether or not we should make an exception in this case should, however, be placed in the correct context. After all, aviation is a worldwide market.
It is not acceptable, therefore, for European companies to go under because governments refuse to grant emergency aid, while elsewhere, government participation keeps companies afloat.
In view of the measures which the United States has taken, the zero option has been ruled out for the European Union.
We will need to establish, therefore, how far we can, want, and are able to, go, and the sooner the better.
This question is not restricted to aviation.
Indeed, in addition to aviation, there are all kinds of related industries, including tourism, that have been hit hard.
We must also distinguish between short-term and long-term measures.
In the first instance, aid must remain restricted to the industry affected and to the damage which is the direct result of 11 September.
The payment of insurance costs is logical and, in principle, a certain compensation for lost income is also necessary, because otherwise there would probably only be a few airline companies left in the European Union.
However, that does not mean that we will prevent already financially unstable businesses from folding under the veil of compensation.
I would now like to focus on the longer term. Since aviation has acquired a global character and attractive services are on offer, businesses are increasingly forced to seek economies of scale.
As a result, fewer companies will remain in business, not only in the European Union, but also outside.
The sector will then become truly global.
National and bilateral legislation, as well as certain existing rights, must be tailored to this.
It is not national claims, but the market that plays a decisive role in respect of such rights.
In that light, I endorse the measures which the European Commission is proposing and I expect that they will also be able to benefit the European Union in other areas.
Madam President, the bankruptcy of the Belgian airline company Sabena a few days ago is not only the biggest bankruptcy in Belgian history, but it is first and foremost a human and social tragedy for between approximately 7 500 and 12 000 workers.
It has already been said, and it is obvious, that Sabena is not an isolated incident.
There are a huge number of airline companies that are going through very difficult times, and the events of 11 September have only made matters worse.
I am aware of this, but with regard to Sabena, it has to be said that the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Durant, has kept two fundamental facts from this Parliament.
Firstly, Sabena has been continuously loss making for the last 40 years, except for one year, and that was probably thanks to an accountancy trick.
For the past 40 years, the taxpayers have had to inject no less than BEF 62 billion into that company.
Secondly, the cause.
Sabena was a Belgian public company with all the hallmarks of the Belgian State and of the Parti Socialiste.
That translated into political profiteering, political appointments of the manifestly incompetent and political interference by the Belgian Royal House to keep the company in French-speaking hands.
For that reason, the alliance with KLM was sabotaged. Everyone knows that in my country.
In fact, parliament is currently setting up a parliamentary inquiry committee in order to scrutinise years of mismanagement, and, in my country, this is saying something.
We are all agreed that the airline industry is having a bumpy ride, and we must find a solution in Europe on the basis of a policy of "Europe first" as long as the Americans are putting "America first" .
However, in the Sabena dossier, we must first of all identify those responsible, notably in the Belgian Royal House and in the successive Belgian Governments.
Mr President, needless to say, airline companies, the aviation industry and tourism are the primary and most visible victims of 11 September, but let us not forget that outside tourism, many small- and medium-sized enterprises and their workers in the supply industry and in the geographical vicinity of airports, will also be directly affected by the tragedy.
In Belgium, the small- and medium-sized enterprises expect one redundancy per job lost at Sabena.
In our view, it should be ensured that government aid, in whatever form, benefits all industries affected.
We are also relying on the fact that the measures which the Commission can take are carried out promptly and on a large scale.
The following measures spring to mind in the first instance: the creating of scope for government investments in the safety of air transport, the prompt handling of specific financial aid dossiers and extended flexibility, albeit limited in time, in slot management.
The extremely difficult situation should also prompt the Commission to clamp down on competition-distorting practices in transatlantic relations.
In this day and age, we are dependent on many factors.
If they all go wrong at the same time, we will end up with a right mess, and Sabena is a tragic case in point.
As a Belgian MP, I would urge that DAT be treated like any other airline company that is being affected by the effects of 11 September.
DAT should also be seen as a company that is being restructured, and must have access to the same facilities which other companies would have at their disposal in the same situation.
Finally, I wish the workers and independent businesses that are the victims of this situation a great deal of strength, and I hope that we can offer them better prospects in the short term.
Mr President, faced with the social catastrophe which the collapse of Sabena represents for Belgium, I should like to add a little humanity to this sitting, by dedicating my first words to all those who, from one day to the next, found themselves, to put it bluntly, deprived of their jobs.
I would ask those who would seek to use this specific issue in order to criticise public enterprises to measure well the responsibilities of all those concerned.
Yes, Europe is responsible when, along with the Commission, certain parties urge rapid, inhumane and brutal liberalisation, and yes, Europe now appears to everyone to be the real driving force behind this process.
People no longer want this kind of Europe.
They now want to construct with us a social Europe, the Europe that we defended at Lisbon, which develops convergence indicators in order to increase employment and combat unemployment, in other words a Europe which refuses to be dictated to by the market.
The 12 000 Sabena workers who were dismissed at the beginning of this month are the first victims of this wave of liberalisation in civil aviation.
The results of other European companies are giving cause for concern.
Thousands of people are afraid of being thrown out of work, and they cannot understand the intransigence of the European Commission over repayment times for bridging loans to the Belgian company, while the United States are spending billions of dollars on subsidising their national airlines so that they can keep their European slots.
They find it unacceptable that the Commission should give preference to sanctions and ukases, in the name of the virtues of liberalism and the market, while at the same time that out-of-control liberalism culminates in companies in Europe closing down one after the other.
By setting up the Lisbon process, the Community authorities and the Member States have proved that they are capable of taking into account the human and territorial consequences implied by every decision.
Such blind liberalisation will do nothing to advance the cause of the European idea or to increase confidence in Europe' s institutions and in our plans for peace and social progress.
It will inevitably lead the public to reject this European and simplistic vision.
Commissioner, the European Parliament' s vote on the Langen report two days ago, confirmed that there are certain sectors that should not be open to competition, and among those sectors are the sectors with which you are concerned.
Let us be clear about this, we do not reject the idea of modern and efficient public enterprises, and we do not want them to be sacrificed and ridiculed.
We are waiting for a forward-looking vision of economic development, a project which is humane and intelligent, and which will enable sustainable development to be achieved.
I hope that that is what we shall see on 3 December.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, what has happened with Sabena in my country is very tragic, and I am pleased that the Belgian Government is making a huge effort to try to cushion the direct and indirect social effects.
Needless to say, that is never entirely possible with a bankruptcy of this scale, but it is important nevertheless that an effort is also being made indirectly, in the area of training and in-service training.
I should also like to ask the Commissioner to advise soon whether something will also be done at European level, what the amounts will be that are involved and what kind of efforts will be made in respect of various airline companies.
Sabena is, of course, a spectacular case, but social tragedies are also unfolding in other airline companies.
That is where a European approach and European support are needed, so that people know that Europe is doing something, for my fellow MEP quite rightly pointed out that at the moment we have a one-sided image of Europe which, in my view, should be rectified.
One thing is clear to me. In my opinion, the role of the Member States and of an individual approach to aviation per Member State is over.
We have been saying this for years, even if some people in this Parliament still believe that a national approach must be maintained.
That era should finally come to an end, in my view.
We must opt for a European approach.
National state aid to airline companies makes no sense whatsoever.
We must decide very quickly on whether - and I share your view in this, Mr Simpson - European aid to a European sector is possible and on the conditions under which that can be done.
However, I do not think the problem is solved by saying: OK, they put USD 5 billion on the table, we will put EUR 5 billion on the table.
In my view, the problem will not be solved in that way, for this financial solution must be accompanied by a simultaneous restructuring scheme.
There was no point in getting the Belgian Government, or possibly the European Government, to bail out Sabena once again and to keep it in the air.
Sabena had to restructure and do something, which happened in too painful a manner.
They have waited for too long to do this rationally.
Instead, it is now happening in a chaotic manner.
That is unfortunate, but I believe we should learn from this.
The fact that Sabena is the first national airline company to go bankrupt in the Union speaks volumes.
We tend to hold on to national airline companies, and those days are over, as various MEPs have stated today.
We must adopt a European approach. That implies air traffic control, security measures and agreements with third countries.
Mrs Durant, I am pleased that you are offering a window in this respect, but I hope that you can convince all your colleagues, for that is exactly what the opposition in the Council was about.
Member States are reluctant to relinquish this authority, and refuse to join forces at European level, and we are now paying the price for this. the Americans are able to adopt a joint policy, but we are not.
You are not represented at international level when aviation is at issue.
It is the fifteen Member States that conclude agreements with open skies etc. and that compete with each other politically.
I hope, therefore, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that you will be able to convince your colleagues.
And I hope that everyone here in this Parliament is convinced of the fact that we must at long last respond at European, rather than national, level.
Mr President, I actually believe that, faced with the recession in the aviation industry and in air transport, we need some strong decisions in order to restore confidence and open up real prospects.
I personally am not satisfied with the Commission' s response, which favours the speeding up of restructuring in the air transport sector.
I am in favour of a European approach. We can discuss and comment on the content of that approach later.
As for restoring confidence, I believe that confidence is actually a product of safety, and the safety dimension in this sector, as in others, is dependent upon the expertise, competence and qualifications of the staff employed.
Commissioner, I am absolutely in agreement with you on the urgent need to develop the social dialogue, but we cannot just be content with a social dialogue at a time when people are facing the problem of redundancies.
Is anyone really listening to the employees concerned? They too have comments, and thoughts, and proposals, and in view of what we have just decided regarding the consultation of workers, perhaps that could be implemented much more rapidly.
I also believe that restoring confidence involves learning lessons from the present crisis and putting a stop to the process of liberalisation that is currently underway.
Frankly, I do not believe that the liberalisation that has developed in this sector has contributed towards its development.
In fact I would rather say that it has contributed towards its difficulties. Restoring confidence also means, at any given moment, taking responsibility for providing assistance.
I believe that the limited targeted measures are insufficient to cope with this crisis.
Since the American aid is considerable, I believe that there should be compensatory aid in the air transport sector, but that it should also be made conditional upon maintaining jobs.
Finally, I believe that we also need to open up prospects.
It seems to me that among our long-term prospects we should be looking at how the European Union can work, not towards concentrations, but towards the development of international cooperation, on safety and the management of air traffic, between the airlines and the public authorities.
Mr President, I believe that we should also increase cooperation between air and rail transport, and that airports should be integrated into the trans-European networks.
Mr President, the terrorist attacks in September have disrupted the operations of many airline companies in Europe, resulting in job losses in the aviation industry and a reduction in the number of overseas tourists coming to Europe.
We want to ensure that we retain competitive airline companies in Europe.
I agree with the key proposals included in the compromise resolutions that are before us today.
It is important that the Commission works out a set of proposals which make it possible for the European airline industry to withstand the competition resulting from the massive help which the American Government is giving American airlines at this time.
We must ensure that the European aviation industry receives equal treatment vis-à-vis our American airline counterparts, particularly when it comes to addressing transatlantic arrangements.
For example, from an Irish perspective, Aer Lingus is highly dependent on transatlantic travel.
Other EU airlines also make a substantial profit from their transatlantic routes.
It is important that these EU airlines can compete against the American airlines which have received state aid from the American Government in recent times.
Mr President, in making our decisions on the aviation industry in Europe we have to take account of the interconnectedness of our economies and politics in Europe and globally as well.
The fact is that Aer Lingus in Ireland had already been hit by the downturn in the high-tech industries where much of the lucrative business travel for Aer Lingus had already been badly hit because businessmen and women were simply not travelling back and forth across the Atlantic.
Clearly, 11 September virtually wiped out that business.
Tourism is also a major linchpin in the economy of Ireland.
Our airline is an important asset in that area of the industry.
If we allow that to go down the drain, who is going to service the Irish tourist economy?
The Council and the Commission are, I am afraid, confused.
They are minimalist and grudging in their response to this crisis for the Irish airline.
That is perceived to be so by the workers of Aer Lingus and the Irish people in general.
We will pay the price in Europe for that perception.
It is important that we recognise that the national carrier in every Member State in Europe is as important as the national anthem or the national flag.
You can shake your head, but that is the reality.
We have to take that into account.
We may regret it, but we must take it into account in dealing with this crisis.
Finally, there are four things I would ask the Commission and the Council to address.
There is an urgent need for a reply to the Irish Government's request to the Commission for permission to assist the Irish airline with the compensation that is due as a result of 11 September.
There is an urgent need for the reform of the competition rules.
There is an urgent need for assistance to help companies create alliances at a European level, which will ensure that the national carriers are not annihilated.
Finally, we need firm proposals for the social fund package that has been talked about here today.
Parliament should be discussing those proposals when we next meet in Strasbourg in December, not next June.
Mr President, the fact of the matter is that, even in the air transport industry, the law of the jungle and the savage neo-liberal policy which applies are such that mergers have taken place and national airlines which enjoyed periods of strong growth in the past have gone bankrupt, a blatant example being the bankruptcy of Swissair and Sabena.
And no doubt others will follow. In the medium term at least, two or three large airlines will survive in Europe to share the pickings with the American behemoths which, with the connivance of our governments, have taken pains to penetrate and take over the European market.
The terrorist attacks on 11 September have intensified the crisis and been used as an excuse for cutbacks and mass redundancies.
And in what is already a dismal situation for many national carriers, along comes the Commission to administer the coup de grace by prohibiting state aid, at a time when the US government is injecting its behemoths with massive amounts in aid.
There can be no doubt that this situation is here to stay and, the more capital is concentrated, the more the workers and consumers will be expected to pick up the tab in the form of job losses and more and more expensive tickets.
That is why the only solution is to support the fight to get this policy reversed and get rid of those who apply it.
Mr President, we have to restore public confidence in aviation and we have to let the market decide what happens to the airlines themselves.
Restoring public confidence means getting security screening right and improving the quality of staff, training, job procedures, pay and conditions.
It means, perhaps, ensuring that there is a state-run security operation at airports and paying accordingly.
That may well create more jobs.
So far as the airlines and their financial viability are concerned, we do not want more intervention, more bureaucracy and more delay.
We need targeted assistance in areas like insurance and the cost of security.
We must let the market decide what the future of the airline industry shall be.
As was said earlier, Sabena made a profit in only one year out of the many years that it has been in existence.
Aer Lingus, Alitalia, Air France and KLM are not far behind.
Why the devil should we support Aer Lingus when Ryanair can make money without any difficulties at all - like Easyjet, like GO, like Buzz? All those airlines can make money at a difficult time.
Why should we therefore bail out the Sabenas and the Aer Linguses with their overcapacity, with too many routes, too few passengers and too much state pride?
I have two specific questions that I wish to ask the President-in-Office of the Council.
Firstly, I am led to believe that there are problems with the Sabena slots that have been offered, in Britain, for example, to British Midland and British European Airways.
They may have them for a short time but there is some suggestion from the coordinator that they may be lost in six months time if DAT is reformed and wants those slots back.
That is unacceptable.
If Sabena cannot fill those slots then others should be allowed to use them.
Secondly, what is being done to ensure that the staff at Brussels airport does not restrict the movement of those new-slot airlines as a result of picketing and delays at the airport? We need guarantees of freedom of movement on the ground as well as in the air.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, it would be a shame if, at this difficult time, the European institutions were to fall into the trap of being both overzealous and too market-oriented at the same time.
On the one hand, in the name of what is in this case totally blinkered liberalisation, they require full adherence to the State aid system, which prevents any action being taken to support airlines. On the other hand, there is a genuine danger that we will find ourselves - there have already been 30 000 job losses within the space of 30 days - with 100 000 jobs being lost in 100 days, in a sector which, moreover, enjoys little in the way of social protection.
For two months, we have been saying that 11 September changed the world and the balance of society. It would be a shame if we were to miss the political significance of this and fail to review the order of our priorities.
In European integration based on social cohesion, in a Europe built on the fundamental principle of work, what priority should we today give to the risk of an uncontrolled wave of unemployment?
Do we still think we can prevent the inevitable market crisis? We are all aware that this crisis has roots in the past, that it is more than just a consequence of the events of 11 September, that it is also the result of excessive market fragmentation.
However, we do not feel that going to the opposite extreme - bringing about a huge merger which would ultimately only save three national airlines: the French, British and German companies - would be a healthy solution.
We are actually not so very far off this situation, considering what happened to Sabena and the engineered drop in the nominal value of the shares of a large number of airlines which are in danger of selling at a loss. A prime example is Alitalia.
Lastly, Mr President, I welcome the code of conduct for US airlines intended to avoid piracy in the market, provided that, as others have said, the European governments do genuinely intend to enforce it, for otherwise it will be just another list of unfulfilled good intentions.
Mr President, the International Transport Agency anticipates that a total of 200 000 people will lose their jobs in the airline industry worldwide in the wake of the attacks.
This organisation also expects that the total losses incurred in this industry will amount to 7 billion this year, and that it will take twelve months before the industry will recover.
That is what we are facing here: a worldwide crisis which has major ramifications for Europe.
That is point one.
Point two - and this has already been mentioned by a number of speakers - is that this industry had been in a very bad way for a long time.
I often have to take the floor when we deal with enormous job losses, and it is always a sad occasion.
This time is no exception.
However, there is something peculiar about it this time round.
Part of the guilty party is sitting directly opposite me, namely the Council itself.
We ask in our resolution for a European airline industry and a European airline policy.
What the Council has offered us is a policy of national carriers where everyone acts in their own self-interest and everyone wants to conclude their own agreements with the United States.
Mr De Rossa said that the national carrier is as sacred as the national anthem.
If that is the attitude, then we will never solve the problem, of course.
If we all act in our own self-interest, we will be unable to reach a European solution.
We will then end up in a frosty restructuring programme, which is exactly what is now threatening to happen.
I think we are all agreed that that should not happen, but we must get the idea out of our heads that we can still have national carriers in this internal market.
It is impossible to pursue sound social policy if the economic backdrop is in total disarray, and as far as that is concerned, the Council is innocent in all of this.
The Commission has made a very good effort.
There are many proposals before us, but these have all been rejected by the Council.
The first thing the Council should allow the Commission to do is to talk with the United States on its own. If that is not done, other things should not be discussed either.
Mr President, the tragic events of 11 September have certainly changed the face of the aviation industry and will probably have more effects in the months to come.
Today I want to deal with the effect they are having on the regional areas of Europe, rather than the major cities like London, Birmingham and Paris, because they will survive and receive support.
We in Northern Ireland watched with interest as Sabena pulled out, and then Aer Lingus, which provided a service from Belfast to Shannon for transatlantic flights and was used by many people in Northern Ireland.
The Republic of Ireland's Government said it wanted greater cooperation with Northern Ireland, but the first time there is a bit of trouble, it runs away!
That is the kind of cooperation we Unionists have to put up with!
No one can persuade me that some of these large companies have not used this situation to put some of their own problems right.
British Airways stayed in Northern Ireland and stood by its staff through bombs and bullets. What has it done?
It has pulled out of Northern Ireland as well!
I condemn it for that.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will ensure that it is not allowed to keep those slots in order to open up more lucrative routes and that if other companies are prepared to start up from the regions those slots will be given to them.
I certainly feel very strongly about this.
I am not in favour of giving large amounts of money to bail out inefficient companies.
To some extent Mr Atkins is right: there are other companies out there which are making money and they have to be supported.
I say to the Commission and the Council that they cannot come here and give us a lecture.
They will have to come back with firm and positive proposals.
It is time for action and time for a dose of realism.
If the Council and the Commission cannot do it now, we will harry them until they do!
Mr President, briefly, on the subject of the discussion that we have just heard, I do not believe that anyone here, either the Council, or the Commission, or any one of us, has exclusive rights to indignation in the face of the social problems that are occurring now for each of these airlines, and perhaps for some of them more than others.
I am particularly well-placed to know all about that.
I believe that this social crisis that is being experienced by a certain number of those who operate and work in the air transport sector is obviously a challenge to all of us.
However, I also believe that, despite this challenge and the need to react to this problem, to follow the road that we took in the past, via massive state aid, would be to avoid or conceal a situation which was already in existence before 11 September.
This is a fragile sector, in which the profit margins have been extremely low in recent years.
Therefore, despite the indignation that we all feel in the face of the current social problem, I believe that to imagine that simply returning to massive structural aid will solve the problems in this sector would be to evade an obstacle which will confront us again later, in an even more dramatic form.
I really believe, on behalf of the Council, even though this debate has only just started in the Council, that it will not be easy, and what you have said today demonstrates that.
We well know how much Member States are attached to their national airlines and how important that attachment is, and here I am speaking more on my own account than on behalf of the Council, where we shall soon have to start these discussions.
We have made an immediate start by giving immediate and specific responses in this sector.
Yes, there is aid in various forms.
There are specific and targeted forms of aid with regard to the closure of airspace, and the possibility of providing even more, on the basis of objective criteria.
There has been aid in connection with insurance facilities.
There are other types of aid, not financial aid, regarding the problem of time slots, so as to enable the airlines to keep their heads above water, or at least not to sink any deeper.
There have been responses.
I also believe that what we have done regarding the matter of security is an immediate response concerning those elements which will restore passengers' confidence in the safety and security aspects, which are obviously so essential if the public is to regain confidence.
I therefore believe that the responses which have been given by the Council and the Commission are immediate responses.
It is true that the social crises which we are experiencing in various European airlines, and particularly in Belgium, and which also call for social responses involving taking these problems into consideration, should not cover up the urgent need to begin a debate, within the Council, on a more structural consolidation of the sector.
This is without a doubt the only way of giving to this sector, in structural terms, not only the social responses which it needs, but also economic responses, and responses which will guarantee its long-term survival, not forgetting - as some of you have mentioned - the need for multi-mode transport systems, the need to place air transport too in the context of short-distance journeys at European level, the development of the high-speed train and any other alternatives which will enable us, in that context too, to provide responses at the level of a common transport policy.
However, I really believe that a return to massive state aid would be a step in the wrong direction, a step backwards, and a step which would, above all, risk leading us, at a later date, into even more serious difficulties.
By contrast, we have provided specific responses, and there are other responses to come: the security regulation, which I hope we shall be able to agree on on 7 December.
I also hope that it will be possible for Parliament to contribute its views on this subject to the debate as well.
There is still an enormous amount of work to do, but I really think that the time has come to begin these discussions on structural consolidation, in addition to the specific responses which have already been provided and which were necessary in the very short term.
Mr President, this has been a highly political debate in which the problem now facing all the Member States has been aired, as have the widely differing views and approaches which are reflected in both the European Parliament and the Council.
Two major sets of issues have been debated.
The first relates to the restructuring of the airlines.
The second relates to the need for social intervention.
As far as the first is concerned, I think that all the speakers agreed on the need for restructuring and for a new airline model in Europe.
There are three points worth making here: first, the present traditional model of ownership and control obviously will not allow the degree of restructuring we would like, or rather the degree of restructuring required.
Meaning that we need a new approach, with a more European dimension.
The second point is that, in today's global world, Europe is not negotiating with one voice.
This works to the detriment of the European airlines.
And the third point relates to state aid.
The point was made that we are debating whether or not to support the airlines and that, when we finally make our decision, it will be too late, because the European airlines will already have gone out of business.
The law on state aid is not the Koran.
Let us assume that a decision is taken on state aid.
What tool do we have at European level? Can we decide to give state aid to airlines?
Of course not. What we can decide at European level is a yes or a no and the facility to grant state aid then shifts to the national level.
Meaning that we have national governments with different capabilities, different frameworks and different airlines.
Meaning that we will probably end up with a direct distortion of competition and the internal market.
Consequently, the state aid path is a hard path to tread as things currently stand in Europe.
To focus on three of the points of the dialogue, I would simply highlight what was said repeatedly by the members and the Belgian minister.
That now more than ever we need a European transport policy, not national policies which at the moment are leading nowhere fast.
As far as the second line of approach - social policy - is concerned, I analysed the potential for intervention under the Social Fund in my first intervention.
Policy to deal with the social fallout and employment needs to be taken, of course, at local, national and European level.
As far as intervention under the Social Fund is concerned, as we have been asked directly to table proposals, I should like to say that, depending on their particular circumstances and the problems which redundancies cause them, the Member States will need to table proposals to change their current programme for the community support framework so that it can be approved by the Commission.
This has already been done in other sectors with large companies being restructured both in Great Britain and France.
Consequently, it is up to the Member States to act fast and adjust their Social Fund programmes along these lines.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I have received six motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37 (2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Combating social exclusion
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, as is well-known, and as the recent Commission report on social inclusion confirms, poverty remains at excessively high levels.
Although the latest available data on incomes in the Member States does not capture the whole complexity and multi-faceted nature of the scale of poverty and social exclusion, it does show that in 1997, around 18% of the population of European Union, in other words, more than 60 million people, lived in homes in which the income was less than 60% of the average national income and that around half of these 60 million people had lived below the relative poverty threshold for three consecutive years.
This situation shows how crucial it is that we implement a global strategy for combating poverty and social exclusion, defending human rights in all their aspects, and that this programme is an instrument that must be implemented urgently.
One year ago, in this House, we approved at first reading the report on this Community programme of providing incentives for cooperation between Member States in the fight against social exclusion as an important aspect of the strategy to combat poverty which the Council spoke of so much at the Lisbon summit in March of 2000.
At the same time, however, the Member States have given new commitments, with the definition, in Nice, of the objectives of the fight against poverty, and in Stockholm, where they committed themselves to promoting sustainable development and quality jobs, confirming their desire to thereby contribute to reducing the risk of poverty and social exclusion.
National plans for social inclusion were also drawn up, identifying a set of factors that considerably increase the risk of poverty and social exclusion, such as unemployment, especially long-term unemployment, low income, low-quality employment, lack of proper housing, unstable health, immigration, early school-leaving, gender inequality, discrimination and racism, disability, old age, family breakdown, drug addiction and alcoholism, and living in a highly disadvantaged area.
Sometimes, these risk factors interact and combine over time, and it is therefore necessary to break the recurring cycle of poverty and to prevent intergenerational poverty and new forms of poverty, including info-exclusion.
It is in this context that the programme becomes especially significant, as yet another instrument with which to fight poverty and social exclusion, which as we see, is continuing to increase.
Lastly, after overcoming the Council' s intransigence on aspects that Parliament has always considered to be essential, specifically with regard to the programme' s budget, the participation of NGOs and financial support for them, the role of the European Parliament and the promotion of innovative approaches, we have reached the end of a long process that includes a second reading on 17 May this year, various working meetings with the Belgian presidency and conciliation, in which, finally, consensus was reached on 18 September.
With regard to the agreement that has been reached, it is important to mention the aspects dealing with the budget and its increase by EUR 5 million to EUR 75 million for the five years of the programme, which is still insufficient, but, given the Council' s intransigence, not reaching an agreement would have meant the programme not coming into force at the beginning of next year.
A decision was also reached on promoting innovative approaches and financial support for actions undertaken by NGOs, which has increased from 80% to 90% in exceptional circumstances.
It is also worth noting that agreement was reached on the participation of NGOs, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, in preparing and holding the annual Round table on the situation' s development and the programme' s implementation.
It is also important to point out that the role of the European Parliament has been acknowledged, specifically in the timely consideration of the synthesis report for the Spring Council, which the Commission will draw up annually and which will examine the overall coherence of policies with social cohesion, including the progress made under this programme.
Lastly, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to thank everyone who has taken part and contributed to this proposal' s success and for the consensus reached in the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament.
Mr President, may I express my political group's satisfaction with the fact that, for the first time at European level, we are now ready to apply a Community strategy to combat social exclusion.
We have urgent challenges to meet.
Not only is it unacceptable for so many million citizens in the European Union and candidate countries to be living below the poverty line, but the knowledge society which we are creating and the increasingly multicultural society in which we live in Europe harbour new risks of social exclusion.
What is important is that this social programme will give us the chance to process our policies on the basis of modern scientific data, on the basis of statistical studies and on the basis of exchanges of best practices, including with countries outside the European Union, such as those in the European Economic Area.
This is particularly important for Member States unused to applying strategies based on social research, the very countries which now face the most serious social problems.
The European Parliament, as the rapporteur, Mrs Figueiredo has just said, had high hopes of this Community programme.
Nevertheless, it supports the joint text brokered during conciliation with the Council and is satisfied with the constructive part played by the European Commission.
The rapporteur has already listed the main points of this conciliation.
We particularly wanted to highlight the innovative approach which the European Commission has promised to promote in order to ensure that citizens with special difficulties are integrated into society.
The ground which we need to cover between now and 2010, the timeframe and political milestone set in Lisbon, will be a long, hard haul and it is crucial, in our view, that the European Council in Laeken set its stamp very firmly on this effort.
We have special need of such decisiveness at this time when, as the previous debate highlighted, we are feeling the economic and social fallout from the crisis provoked by 11 September more and more acutely in Europe; at the same time, the Member States need to move into action by instigating public dialogue and integrating the fight against social exclusion into all their policies.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs had quite a struggle over this issue of combating social exclusion.
I should like to point out that it was more or less unanimous throughout the procedure, and was served by an excellent rapporteur.
However, conciliation, which we had thought would be easy, since we were so much in accord with the Council' s motives when it adopted the Commission' s proposal, proved surprisingly tough and difficult.
I should therefore like to remind the House, briefly, of the reasons for our insistence.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and, I am sure, Parliament as a whole, approves the choice of the open-cooperation method.
It has proved its worth in this area.
We also agree that social exclusion is a complex and multi-facetted process, and that it is necessary to study it in greater depth, particularly as regards its links with poverty.
There are people on the margins of society who are not poor, and not all poor people are excluded, but the area of overlapping is a very large one.
It is not possible to separate the two problems.
However, one of the major strengths of the open-cooperation method is the fact that it allows the exchange of good practice.
It is here that Europe has a responsibility, or I would prefer to say a duty, to experiment and to lead by example.
The information already collected enables us to launch innovative schemes and pilot projects with confidence.
In addition, Commissioner, you are a politician, as we are.
How could you imagine for a moment that we could sell to our voters the idea that, on a problem as serious and as evident as social exclusion, Europe is able only to finance studies, and is not able to take any practical action? This sort of thing is suicidal as far as Europe' s image is concerned, hence the innovatory approaches that you have finally conceded to us.
Fortunately you have other mechanisms, we know, but given the importance of this preoccupation it was necessary to include it.
The controversy over the budget arises from this. You have granted us only five million.
Since we know that you had plans ready for carrying out these studies, we would like to have a guarantee that there will be money available for innovative experiments.
In the same way, the NGOs must be able to work without having to look for unlikely external sponsors.
Well, we have achieved this, and the text has been improved.
I wish the Commission all the best in carrying out the task that lies before it.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her serious and very committed work on this issue and also the work that our own committee has done, as Mr Rocard has just pointed out.
This action programme is a very serious and important step forward for the European Union.
It is part of the recognition of the huge problem of social exclusion which is not only the result of poverty, although it is of course linked to it.
Some of those links are picked up in the excellent report by Mrs Lynne which we will be debating later, concerning the European Year of Disabled People, and in Mr Nobilia's report which recognises the problems faced by elderly or disabled people in exercising, for example, their freedom of movement because disability benefits are not included in the coordination of social security systems.
In our discussions on this action programme, Parliament has insisted on the need for civil society to be involved in the programme itself and its evaluation.
This involvement is critical.
It is clear that the top-down policies, and the hope that overall economic growth would somehow overcome the poverty and lift the poorest out of that state, have not worked.
It is the constructive involvement of the people themselves that is part of the solution.
We therefore expect that the research and programmes funded with this modestly increased amount of money, a limited range as Mr Rocard has just said, will not just concentrate on policy but also on the process of policy formulation and funding decisions, which in itself could be an innovative dimension.
I recently attended a local government conference looking at the national social inclusion plans.
Speakers representing organisations from groups which often experience social exclusion - poor people, those with disabilities, those from minority ethnic groups etc. were asked whether they would rather see the implementation of a few policies that have worked elsewhere or have a full programme of real consultation, even if they did not then get what they wanted.
The answer, without exception, was that they wanted to be consulted because that implied respect for their experience and their opinions.
It is also my hope that the activities funded under this programme will not just concentrate on work as the answer to exclusion.
It is not a solution if the work is poorly paid and exploitative.
I, like many others, look forward to reading and evaluating the results of this programme and hope that they will make real progress in tackling social exclusion.
Mr President, like Mrs Figueiredo, we also welcome this action plan against social exclusion.
We think that certain things have been achieved - as always, in conciliation processes not everything we want is achieved - and, although the budget is still low, the budget for NGOs has been raised and the role that the European Parliament plays is very important.
I think that there is some fine wording in this document: I would remind you of Article 2 - which asks for a high level of employment and a fight against poverty - and point out that the Council considers the current levels of poverty that still exist in the European Union to be unacceptable. However, we are running the risk that applying this action plan - whose implementation next year is welcomed by all of us - will be like putting a small sticking plaster onto a large gaping wound.
In the previous debate we talked about the virtues of the market in terms of sustaining airlines, yet we talk less of the 12 000 jobs at Sabena.
We run the risk of losing much blood whilst we try to stem its flow with a small sticking plaster.
Nevertheless, Mr President, this plan against social exclusion is very welcome.
Mr President, I should like to warmly welcome the final outcome of the conciliation procedure and make a point of congratulating Mrs Figueiredo who, thanks to her meticulous work and by working with all sides, managed in the end to give us this tool much more quickly than we anticipated.
Mr President, the speakers referred - and this is important - to the shortcomings and limited potential of this tool as it stands.
However, we have to start from the fact that we are talking about a policy area which does not come under European jurisdiction.
We have no jurisdiction to exercise policy but, for the first time, the Member States have decided to work together.
So, within the framework of this joint decision to work together, three things have happened.
First, national action plans against exclusion and poverty are being submitted, for the first time.
Secondly, the Social Protection Committee and the European Commission are working together to find a joint policy framework, again for the first time.
May I remind you that we do not even have a common definition of the word "poverty" in the European Union.
Thirdly, we have the programme, which is a first tool, but an important tool nevertheless.
What is important is that, first, the budget has been increased as a result of significant pressure and intervention on the part of the European Parliament and, secondly, we have achieved a common position between the Commission and Parliament during conciliation on 90% funding for organisations which really do not have any resources of their own.
So what does this tool do?
I can sum up the basic elements of this tool in seven points.
One, it supports and helps the structures in the Member States to collate data and analyse and research the situation in all the Member States.
Two, it helps us work together and develop joint social indicators, for the first time.
Three, it supports the procedures used to monitor and implement national action plan programmes on employment.
Four, it supports the exchange of best practices and programmes.
Five, it involves all the agencies, local authorities, non-governmental organisations, governments, foundations and universities. Six - and I should like to highlight this point - it specifically involves associations of people who are the victims of poverty and exclusion and, seven, it allows us to raise public awareness of the huge problem of poverty, which cannot be dealt with simply by governments and European programmes but which needs to galvanise the whole of society into action.
Thank you, Mrs Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Announcement by the President
First of all, ladies and gentlemen, I have some information which I would advise you, if I may, to listen to.
In view of the fact that the World Trade Organization meeting in Qatar lasted longer than expected, Mr Lamy and Mr Fischler will not be able to attend our sitting this afternoon.
I therefore propose that we should continue our debates between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., while we should stick to the planned timetable for topical and urgent subjects of major importance, and of course for the vote.
Madam President, when will my report be debated - the Lynne report on the European Year of People with Disabilities, 2003? Will that now be at around 3.30 p.m.?
We have a sign language interpreter arriving now for the debate at 5.30 p.m. because everything has been changed around so much that we do not know when this report is being debated.
I have deaf members of the public attending and we have the sign language interpreter. So can we please stick to some sort of timetable?
Mrs Lynne, you were quite right to bring this information to my attention.
I think that we can at least leave your report at the time that was originally planned for it, in other words at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, we understand the reasons why Commissioners Lamy and Fischler cannot be with us this afternoon.
Could you confirm, however, that there will be an opportunity for those two commissioners to report to us on the important negotiations at Doha and whether the EU's views were accepted or not.
Of course, Mrs McNally, we shall certainly be holding this debate with the Commission in December, but we cannot really blame the commissioners in question for not being able to come back any earlier.
Madam President, I wish to say a few brief words, just to clarify something.
I was not able to take part in yesterday' s vote on the Caudron report, and consequently did not spot a mistake that I would like to point out to my fellow Members.
As a result of a mistake by Parliament staff, a proposal for an amendment - No 20 - that we had tabled to the Caudron report on the research programme was mistakenly included in the Euratom report.
I do not intend to dwell on this subject, because other amendments by other Members have addressed the same issue.
I do wish to make this observation, however, because people were probably surprised that the insertion of the amendment made no sense at all in the context of Euratom.
Mr Ribeiro e Castro, we are happy to take note of what you have said, and we shall see that the necessary correction is made.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I was in the Members' Bar before we started voting.
I saw a piece of baggage on a chair.
For approximately 15 minutes nobody came for it.
A man approached and I asked him whether it was his bag.
I told him that, in view of the security situation, it was advisable to stay with one's baggage and that, in addition, to be in the Members' Bar you had to be invited by a Member.
He was extremely arrogant and annoyed.
He took his bag and marched away.
He said that he knew Mrs Muscardini.
She then arrived in the bar; I asked her that if she knew the gentlemen, and said that due to the security problems, I had informed him politely of the situation.
I should like to say to this House that we as Members of this Parliament also have a responsibility.
We have been asking for security measures to be stepped up and we all, therefore, must take responsibility for the people we bring here or allow here in our name.
I would just ask you, Madam President, to remind the House of our responsibilities for future security.
I congratulate you, Mrs Foster, on your vigilance. You acted very properly in the circumstances.
Vote
Thank you, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, for having so clearly explained the significance of this amendment, which I shall now put to a roll-call vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0352/2001) by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 92/79/EEC, Directive 92/80/EEC and Directive 95/59/EC as regards the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco products [COM(2001) 133 - C5-0139/2001 - 2001/0063(CNS)]
Following the rejection of the proposal by the Commission
Madam President, may I say to both you and the Commission that I believe that Rule 68 of the Rules of Procedure applies here, meaning that you have to give the Commissioner the floor in order to ask if the Commission intends to withdraw its proposal.
That is the first step.
I agree, and this is why I was giving the floor to the Commission.
Thank you, Mr Katiforis.
I believe Mr Bolkestein wishes to speak.
We really cannot spend any more time on this matter.
Madam President, of course it is also a pity that the Council tried to pre-empt Parliament's opinion with a political agreement and did not have the courtesy to let Parliament express its views first.
That by way of a brief reply to what Mr Bolkestein just said.
But may I say that, pursuant to Rule 68 of the Rules of Procedure, Mr Bolkestein's answer is incomplete.
The Rule is clear.
We ask the Commission if it intends to withdraw its proposal.
Mr Bolkestein has not said if it intends to do so.
He said that he would confer with his colleagues on the course of action to be taken now, from which I conclude that the Commission refuses to withdraw its proposal.
Consequently, we need to proceed to the third paragraph of the Rule, which states that the matter has to be referred back to the committee responsible, without voting on the draft legislative resolution and I propose that we do precisely that.
I quite agree, Mr Katiforis. This is the view we should take of the matter.
Madam President, Mr Katiforis is quite correct, but if the precedent in this House, is anything to go by, now that Parliament has made a proposal, in five years' time the Commission will come forward with an idea which we will reject again.
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to the committee responsible)
Report (A5-0395/2001) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation aiming to promote the conversion of vessels and of fishermen that were, up to 1999, dependent on the fishing agreement with Morocco [COM(2001) 384 - C5-0407/2001 - 2001/0163(CNS)]
Before the vote
chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
Madam President, it would be an oral amendment, which would be a new Recital 12.
It would also apply to the draft legislative resolution and would read: "The proposal was not foreseen in the financial perspective.
The financial envelope of the proposal should be covered by additional resources."
Madam President, as rapporteur of this report I would like to make two points: firstly, that this very amendment tabled orally by my fellow Member Mr Wynn has been rejected at the vote by the Committee on Fisheries on the day my own report was voted upon.
The second is that I do not oppose this amendment being tabled and it should be this House that decides upon its content.
Madam President, is it clear that the vote is only on the legislative part of the proposal and not on the budgetary part?
We shall discuss the oral amendment that Mr Wynn has just mentioned, which does, of course, have financial implications.
I am sure that everyone understands this.
Madam President, with regard to the amendment tabled by the Chairperson of the Committee on Budgets, I support the proposal made by our rapporteur and, also, in agreement with what the Commission said, I would like to say that we have always spoken about this proposal from the point of view of fisheries and we do not involve ourselves with the budgetary aspects.
However, although what Mr Wynn proposes is true - that, as is stated here, the proposal was not included in the financial perspectives - it is nonetheless certain, and for this reason the House must also be provided with this information, that the Commission has requested the use of the flexibility instrument, providing this proposal, in due time, with EUR 197 million.
Therefore, we are in favour of this proposal from the Committee on Budgets, but we would remind our fellow Members in this committee, and the Council, that they should come to an agreement with regard to the use of this instrument and provide the proposal with this EUR 197 million, which is necessary so that fishermen and the families affected can resolve this problem.
(The President noted that there was no opposition to considering the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0384/2001) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on the approximation of the civil and commercial law of the Member States [COM(2001) 398 - C5-0471/2001 - 2001/2187(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0363/2001) by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Commission Green Paper Towards a European strategy for the security of energy supply (COM(2000) 769 - C5-0145/2001 - 2001/2071(COS))
Before the vote
Madam President, I have noticed that there are not just a few minor linguistic errors.
Entire paragraphs of the text are different.
It looks like the translator has translated a different text.
Please could this be checked. And I should like to take this opportunity to say that errors have crept into Greek translations on other occasions.
If you spoke Greek you would understand what I am about to say.
In one section, the words tuberculosis and malaria have simply been transliterated into Greek instead of using the Greek terms.
I am very sorry, Mr Alyssandrakis.
I can only attempt to ensure that the versions in the various languages are properly monitored and checked.
I am told that this will be done and not only for the Greek version, because other versions are also affected by these mistakes.
We shall, therefore, ensure that everything is put right.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0356/2001) by Mrs Schörling, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Commission White Paper on Strategy for a future Chemicals Policy [COM(2001) 88 - C5-0258/2001 - 2001/2118(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr Blak, I think that from now on, we should count the cost of all votes.
Report (A5-0341/2001) by Mrs Flemming, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee on pricing policies for enhancing the sustainability of water resources [COM(2000) 477 - C5-0634/2000 - 2000/2298(COS)]
Before the vote on the entire motion for a resolution
I must point out, ladies and gentlemen, that yesterday, we exceeded the time allocated and that consequently, Mr Posselt' s comment would have applied yesterday too.
I shall, therefore, consult the House: who wishes to continue?
(The House decided to continue voting)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0704/2001), by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy, on arbitrary arrests and the political situation in Laos.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on negotiations within the framework of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention following the recent anthrax attacks
Before the vote on paragraph 2
Given the uncertainty about the precise position of the President of the United States, I propose correcting the second part of paragraph 2 to say "including the search for effective procedures" instead of "the establishment of existing procedures" .
Madam President, there is a short oral amendment which has been agreed by all signatories of this compromise resolution and reads as follows: in paragraph 2, after the word 'terrorism' , a new sentence saying: 'Demands that national governments assume responsibility for additional security costs.'
If there are no objections to this oral amendment, the motion for a resolution I am putting to the vote will include the oral amendment that Mrs Foster has just explained.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, you have presided over 358 separate votes just now.
I hope colleagues will agree that this underlines the need to reform our Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, I gather from the display that the next report is the Bouwman report.
Does that mean that there is not going to be a debate on the WTO?
That debate will take place in December, Mr Rübig, because, as I said, Mr Lamy and Mr Fischler will not be able to join us in time.
). I am afraid I cannot agree with Mr Corbett's point about the votes in this plenary.
There are many committees in this Parliament, which do not have representation from every Member State.
Therefore we will find those people will be disenfranchised and that is becoming a greater problem as the European Union enlarges.
We must have the opportunity for members from every Member State to be able to vote on these reports and on these important amendments.
Madam President, a number of colleagues have remarked that it is a very bad thing to have so many votes on these occasions, but I would like to congratulate you on having kept us going.
I do not know for what purpose my constituents elected me if it was not to exercise discretion and choice in deciding what things to vote about.
I do not think we do a more important thing than cast our votes for and against proposals in this House and objecting to that is a very foolish thing.
Moreover, if one looks at the votes cast today, there were very few foregone conclusions: there were close votes on all the roll-call votes and that seems to me to show the need to test these matters by voting.
The idea that we should have fewer votes seems absurd.
That said, I should like to make a remark about the Watson report.
Once we have got to the point of having Community law, if that law is defied it seems perfectly obvious that there have to be within our nation States - and nations which are not States - criminal rules which uphold it, otherwise the States pass laws which they are not able to enforce and the Community becomes a laughing stock.
Of course, that requires a proper safeguard and proper defence rights.
These days we are thinking about defending our civilisation.
Our civilisation is to do with giving people proper rights of defence and I am sad at recent developments in the United Kingdom that seem to be ending these rights.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Madam President, although I had requested the floor to speak about ten documents, I shall limit myself to the explanations of vote on the Figueiredo and Chichester reports.
Proposal for a recommendation by Mr Watson (B5-0707/2001)
The Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities has voted against this recommendation because implementing it would be synonymous with finally withdrawing vital and crucial policy areas - namely policing and criminal law as these relate to the ordering of our ordinary lives - from the jurisdiction of the Member States and transferring them to the EU.
The recommendation is an absurd rhetorical demonstration of the parliamentary majority' s disconnection from reality, and in a double sense. Firstly, it is - even now - politically unthinkable for the governments of the Member States to endorse the adoption of a recommendation that would make it possible to introduce EU criminal law and to establish a federal police service.
Secondly, adoption of the recommendation would be out of step with actual social conditions which indicate that Parliament' s dream of a European federal state will prove to be a nightmare.
There are not one, but fifteen, different juridico-political cultures and systems in the EU.
EU criminal law and an EU police service would, at best, severely damage the Member States' legal traditions and, at worst, consolidate a centralised system without democratic control and, moreover, do so without solving the problems faced by the Member States.
The core of European cooperation should be diversity and respect for other countries' legal systems.
Figueiredo report (A5-0372/2001)
Madam President, of course, I voted for the Figueiredo report on the conciliation committee text on combating social exclusion.
I have to say that, in Italy, first the centre government, allied with the European socialist parties, increased the minimum Italian pensions greatly, from EUR 382 to EUR 490 per month; now, Mr Berlusconi' s centre-right government has increased them from EUR 382 to EUR 490 for people over 70 years old and has extended the categories of people entitled to receive them.
I call upon the other 14 States of the European Union and the 12 candidate countries to help pensioners and elderly people in the same way, and not just pensioners and elderly people but non-pensioners as well, for the right to life belongs to all people, whatever their age.
Mr President, I voted in favour of this report and I wanted to take this opportunity to say what a pity it is that the European Parliament and the European institutions are not as popular as they might be with the electorate and the people of the European Union because we are not in a position to respond appropriately and quickly to problems which arise and which we are aware of.
We have already seen this once this week with the transport of animals and now we are seeing it again with cross-border payments.
Over the years the public have become angry and have been forced to suffer losses, and now we are in the situation that we are lagging behind; hopefully this initiative of Mrs Peijs will now at least be implemented quickly.
As early as the time of the introduction of the euro I brought this issue to the attention of the Commissioner responsible, Mr Monti, and I asked the Commission to take action on it as quickly as possible.
As we can see it has taken years, and that is a shame because so much damage has been done.
I believe - to stress this once more - that we need to listen more closely to what members of the public have to say, pay more attention to their problems and then take appropriate action.
I should also like to add that I had indicated that I wished to make an explanation of vote on the Flemming report. Obviously this will no longer be necessary.
We have voted against the proposal for a regulation on cross-border payments in euro, which is designed to prevent banks from imposing charges, falsely giving the impression that such payments are free.
This absurdity, which is motivated only by the desire to make people think that the euro itself removes all commissions on cross-border payments runs the risk of proving expensive for all of us in all kinds of unwanted ways.
Furthermore, this proposal is of very dubious legal value.
Its legal basis is Article 95(1) of the EC Treaty, which deals with the establishment of the internal market.
It should, therefore, apply in the same way to the fifteen members of the Union.
It does not, however, because three Members of the Union are not part of the euro zone.
Given these circumstances, it would probably have been more appropriate to make the regulation' s legal basis Article 123(4) of the EC Treaty (last phrase) concerning measures to adopt for the introduction of the euro, and does not, therefore, apply to the countries participating in the single currency.
Article 123(4), however, requires unanimous approval in Council, and Article 95 only requires a qualified majority.
This is probably the factor that tipped the scales in making some countries less reticent.
It is nevertheless difficult to imagine the reality of the legal situation in countries that are not members of the euro zone, that are forced to pay a premium for cross-border transfers made out in a currency other than their own.
To this bizarre situation we can add the absence in the regulation of any article referring to possible sanctions against recalcitrant banks.
Of course there is none, since the Community has no jurisdiction on this matter.
The European Parliament has sought to close this loophole by voting for an amendment that calls on the Member States to define and adopt sanctions that will act as a "deterrent" , but this type of request has no legal force.
.
There are only 46 days remaining before euro notes and coins are introduced across the twelve countries that are participating within this new euro currency regime.
Phasing out national currencies and introducing a single new European currency is not an easy task.
There are over 290 million people who live within the twelve new euro zone countries alone.
However, I do believe that EU Governments have been very pro-active with regard to implementing broad information campaigns concerning the forthcoming practical changes.
It is very important that both small and large businesses contact their local banks and estimate how much currency they will require to carry out their businesses commencing 1 January next.
Surveys carried out within the EU have shown that banks are confident that all ATM machines will have all the necessary stock of the new euro currency notes.
The European Central Bank is satisfied that the requisite amount of the new euro notes will be dispersed to financial institutions in non-Euro zone countries.
I believe that the five-week period for the changeover is of the correct duration.
It would simply be too much to ask small companies in Europe to deal with two different currencies for what was originally planned as a six-month period for the changeover.
I welcome the fact that the different consumer associations in Europe will be vigilant during the changeover period so as to ensure that the interests of consumers are protected during the timescale of the euro changeover.
I, of course, support the need to introduce measures which reduce costs between domestic and cross-border payments.
There is a very strong consumer case to be made for changing the current system which is in operation.
We must strengthen confidence in the structures of the new euro currency.
However, this proposed regulation which is before us today does not discriminate between efficient and inefficient payment systems.
This regulation does not adequately address the relationship between the euro and other non-euro Member State currencies.
I believe it is fair to say that the euro tends to promote economic stability.
I think there has been clear evidence of this since the tragic terrorist attacks which took place in America last September.
We do not want to give international currency speculators an opportunity to play off one national European currency against another.
This would only result in broader devaluations in the value of the euro which is exactly what took place in the Autumn of 1992.
The euro is good news for European businesses.
It reduces export costs.
It is good news for European travellers and it contributes to the medium to long-term economic stability of the European Union.
I have voted in favour of Mrs Peijs' s report and wish to emphasise the quality of the work that our rapporteur produced.
I am very pleased that our House is finally making a statement on an issue as important as this.
The patience of European consumers has clearly reached its limit.
It has to be said that the banks have gone too far by making one promise after another that they fail to keep, content in their certainty that Brussels would not dare restrict their freedom to impose charges.
The Commission has now been negotiating with them for eleven years... in vain.
The banks have always refused to make the necessary investment to keep the cost of cross-border transfers down.
At the same time, the current system allows them to build up a considerable pot of money for themselves.
Consumers are not the only ones to bear these unjustified bank charges: they have a particularly serious effect on SMEs that export their products and the competitiveness of these companies suffers for no good reason.
This situation, which has been incomprehensible to SMEs since the advent of the euro on 1 January 1999, is in danger of becoming explosive, with the euro entering into circulation in less than two months.
How is it possible that the euro zone is only a single payment area for notes and coins, with all other means of payment being discouraged by punitive bank charges? How can banks justify a transfer from Lille to Bastia costing less than the same operation between Lille and Brussels?
One fear still remains and that is that the banks will use their freedom to impose charges to increase domestic prices in order to compensate for the lack of earning opportunities in the euro zone.
Nevertheless, as Commissioner Bolkestein said, 'The banks know very well that the public has legitimate expectations' .
We can only hope that the banks really are aware of this.
The European Union is made up of sovereign states, each with a seat in the United Nations and, so far, each boasting its own currency.
The banks form part of national payment circuits and impose a heavy fine on cross-border payments and money transfers.
From January 2002, twelve EU Member States will act as if they are one country financially speaking.
The banks are in favour of this as long as this enlarges their own scope, but not if they have to forgo the additional payments from their customers.
It seems appealing to demand that the costs for national and cross-border payments in euros should become the same.
That has been Commissioner Bolkestein' s wish for a long time and is now also being proposed in the report by Mrs Peijs.
I can endorse this, as long as it means that banks forgo their levies on cross-border payments.
However, recital 5bis does not prevent new levies from being imposed on national payments by way of compensation for the fact that revenue from foreign payments has fallen by the wayside.
Instead of imposing a heavy fine on a small minority of payments, including mainly business payments, all payments will then attract a minor fine.
That means that the large majority of customers will incur higher costs.
I shall vote against this, as this is highly detrimental to the ordinary account holder.
Chichester report (A5-0363/2001)
Mr President, the document tabled by Mr Chichester addresses the issue of energy supply and, in places, advocates the use of nuclear energy.
I have already stated on a number of occasions that both I personally and the Pensioners' Party are in favour of using nuclear energy.
I would like to stress, in particular, before this House, that I feel the candidate countries' nuclear power stations should be allowed to operate at full capacity.
In my capacity as a member of the joint EU-Bulgaria interparliamentary committee, I recently visited the Bohunice power station in Slovakia and the Kozloduy power station in Bulgaria. Where their reactors meet certain safety requirements, these States should be allowed to use nuclear energy, for they do not have the economic resources to sustain an additional unnecessary cost just so they can replace one type of energy with another.
Where nuclear power stations are safe, we must allow them to be used, particularly those in the candidate countries.
Mr President, I very much welcome the tabling of the Commission's Green Paper on a strategy for the security of energy supply.
It is with great regret that I see that yet again too little attention has been paid to renewable sources of energy.
We will only achieve the Kyoto target if we give preference to these sources of energy.
I am therefore very disappointed at the vote on the Chichester report because here too nuclear energy is still the preferred option.
With the consumption of energy increasing and the sources and reserves of mineral fuels decreasing, the energy supply issue is a very important aspect of the internal and external policy of the EU and the Member States.
The Chichester report may highlight the need to save energy, improve energy efficiency and develop more efficient transmission systems, but it places its hopes for resolving the problem in the liberalisation of the market and competition, on the one hand, and in controlling supplier countries, on the other.
This approach works to the benefit of more general imperialist interests and to the detriment of the workers and society as a whole, in both supplier and consumer countries, which are being sacrificed so that the multinationals which create and exploit recessions and provoke wars which allow them to control the energy-rich areas of the world can make a profit.
Energy policies to make use of domestic energy sources obey the same diktat, with adverse repercussions on grass-roots interests, growth and the supply of high-quality, safe and environmentally-friendly energy to the country as a whole.
The problem is exacerbated by the liberalisation of the energy market and the privatisation of power stations and transmission grids.
We consider that the strategically important energy sector (supply of raw materials, generation, transmission grids) should be in the public sector and should be subject to periodically adjusted national planning which takes account of national requirements and international circumstances.
Energy policy should safeguard cheap energy for grass-roots needs, guarantee the safety of workers and citizens and ensure that the environment is protected.
These should be primary objectives and should take precedence over any economic factors.
Transport policy needs to be revised so that greater use is made of public transport, renewable sources of energy need to be supported and encouraged and research is needed into the most efficient generating systems and the cheapest, least-polluting consumption systems.
The EU and the Member States need to respond to the need to protect the environment and to fail to reduce emissions to Kyoto levels is to practise wicked works.
Major climate problems, the hole in the ozone layer and so on must not be resolved at the expense of growth in the poorest countries, at the expense of the workers or by fatalistically accepting the destruction of our planet.
Workers in Europe and throughout the world and the 2 billion people with no access to electricity are demanding and fighting for a different energy policy which opposes imperialist interests and preferences and the monopolies which are usurping the energy sector.
A policy which respects and protects the environment, a policy which will create the foundations for humane living conditions.
This being so, the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece have voted against the Chichester report.
By making as issue out of Europe' s energy dependence, the report is masking the fact that we are dependent mainly not so much on other countries as on the huge oil corporations which often also control other sources of energy.
This is the dependence that Europe paid a high price for during the oil crisis in 1973, when these corporations decided to impose a general price increase on oil to increase the profits of their less profitable wells.
It is this dependence on oil companies that has led to the 'serious risk of price instability in the short run and lack of resources in the long run' , which concerns the report.
It is not the unfair distribution of the world' s energy sources, a geological factor, that threatens the rational use of resources in a way that respects the natural environment, but rather the fact that their management is controlled by huge private groups, which are solely concerned with their profit margins, when they themselves are not suffering from the erratic fluctuations of the market or even of stock speculation.
The problem does not only affect Europe: the world' s resources cannot be managed rationally and distributed amongst everyone if a collective effort is agreed on at world level, which would mean an end to the stranglehold of private groups on these resources and a completely different organisation of the economy.
During the debate in plenary on Tuesday evening, I stated my support for the 'Chichester' package on the security of energy supply, despite its calls for the liberalisation of the energy sector that I could not have supported had they been proposed in isolation but which, as it happens, are part of a whole multifaceted and bold 'package' , which takes the European discussion on this matter forwards.
This is why I have voted in favour of the 'package' .
Incidentally, I still do not understand how someone can advocate a liberalisation that seeks to bring prices down and which takes the form of promoting the 'least costly' sources of energy and, on the other hand, complains about being increasingly dependent on external sources as consumption increases (or is not decreasing) due to the fact that prices are very (or too) low.
I hope one day to receive a clear explanation of this point from the 'founders' of liberalisation.
The Chichester report seeks to present a 'European strategy' for the security of energy supply.
It is very difficult, however, to discern in the resolution, even one clearly stated guideline.
It could be saying anything and its opposite.
The resolution dodges the real issues underpinning a 'strategy' .
Is it possible to restructure the energy sector without a real concerted public policy that is supported and has been fully discussed?
Can we leave things up to the 'market' , in other words, to the whim of private financial interests?
Is energy a 'common asset' or just a commodity? To what extent is the nuclear risk acceptable?
The resolution is dotted with pipe dreams.
For example, in order to permit the renewal of nuclear power stations, it calls for "appropriate measures" that will guarantee the "elimination" of radioactive waste and the "safety" of the power stations.
This is asking the impossible.
Apart from being confused, the Chichester report falls in line with neoliberal policies.
Paragraph 18 wants to "promote further market opening in the EU" and paragraph 42 considers that "it is essential to complete the liberalisation of energy markets' ' .
Whereas only a public service policy can meet social and environmental requirements and guarantee "sustainable development" in this economic sector.
We are voting against the motion for a resolution.
- (PT) Some of the amendments tabled by the rapporteur suggest that the increase in installed capacity of nuclear energy in Europe is crucial if we are to comply with the Kyoto protocol.
This argument is irrational and lacks objectivity.
All the information available suggests that the opposite is true.
The European Union has already reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by 4% between 1990 and 1999 and will be able to meet the quota for remaining reductions by 2012 (4%) through low cost measures.
According to data from the European Commission, we will be able to comply with Kyoto by implementing measures costing less than EUR 20 per tonne of CO2.
The promotion of nuclear energy does not feature amongst these measures proposed by the European Commission in the European Climate Change Programme and the Framework Directive on Emissions Trading.
The issue of Member States' energy supply is a fundamental aspect of their security which falls mainly within the competence of national sovereignty.
Given the major interactions of energy choices, however, it might be useful to do as the Green Paper does and opt for a longer-term approach and study this issue at European level.
This study must, of course, be carried out without any ideological prejudices that might demonise or romanticise any particular source of energy.
Otherwise, we will be leaving rational discourse behind.
This is the approach adopted by the Chichester report, emphasising, as does the Green Paper, the need for Member States to maintain a balanced combination of energy sources, which gives nuclear energy its rightful place.
This is the only way not to make European countries more dependent on external sources.
It is also the only way to ensure that the European Union can fulfil its international commitments on limiting CO2 emissions.
Research and development in nuclear energy must, therefore, continue in order to build on our scientific and industrial lead in this field, in order to guarantee our countries maximum independence in the field of energy resources, to preserve the environment and to achieve a satisfactory elimination of waste end-products.
I am sorry, with regard to this last point, that the Caudron report has not attached sufficient priority to this line of research, which is crucial.
Unless we move ahead in this direction, the growth in demand will lead us fatally towards fossil fuels, which are as worthy of criticism in terms of the environment as they are problematic in terms of security of supply.
Flemming report (A5-0341/2001)
Mr President, just before I begin on the Flemming report I want to speak about the Katiforis report, which we rejected.
I feel very strongly that by rejecting that report we have done nothing today in this House to promote public health.
We should never forget that tobacco is the biggest cause of preventable illness across the EU and that each year half a million EU citizens die needlessly due to tobacco.
The Commission's proposal would have helped people to stop smoking and it is very sad that we did not support this.
However, on to the matter at hand - the Flemming report.
Although the report was rejected, I should like to explain why I and my two colleagues from Scotland supported some of the amendments.
Firstly, we believe that, in line with Amendment No 3, no country may be obliged to hand over water against its will and free of charge.
The amendment speaks for itself, and that it is why we supported it.
Amendment No 5 was concerned with the more technical matter of water basins.
We agree that water basin areas are not suitable bases for water pricing policies in all regions.
Much of our water in Scotland is in inter-basin management and, therefore, we had to support it.
Thirdly, the rejection of the Flemming report probably was ensuring that no one report could be hijacked by such a national interest.
I hope we will continue the discussion on water, as so many of our citizens are very concerned with this issue.
The report fully endorses the Commission communication, the philosophy of which is to treat a natural resource, water, as a commodity and as a basis for implementing other negative sectoral policies, such as agricultural policy.
We categorically oppose this philosophy and the negative proposals tabled in order to implement it.
The report is geared towards "pricing policies to enhance the sustainability of water resources", which involve recovering the cost of water-related services and limiting the consumption and use of water by making it more expensive.
At the same time, the report is gripped by the familiar "polluter pays" principle, resulting in new incentives and profits for business.
The price - and it is a very high price - of the measures proposed on the hypocritical pretext of supposedly securing the sustainability of water resources, will be paid by the consumer, for which read farmers in southern Europe, given that, as both the Commission communication and the report state, it is they who consume the most water and pay less than the "real cost" for it.
This policy will cause costs to rise and will wipe out even more small and medium-sized farms, which are already suffering the disastrous consequences of the common agricultural policy.
Predictably, the report divides the cost into financial, environmental and resource costs and considers that only the financial cost has been calculated in the past.
Thus, to refer to the report yet again, it states that the cost of building and operating dams on rivers due to over-extraction (by farmers) "may be passed on to the users" or, if water needs to be treated because it has been contaminated, for example by fertilisers, then farmers should pay the cost.
We are opposed to any attempt to treat water as a commodity.
We categorically refuse to allow the Commission to appoint itself as the guardian of water resources and, on the pretext of "encouraging sustainable water use" to add, yet again, grist to the mill of private interests and allow them to penetrate and operate in what is a purely public utility sector.
The entire endeavour is nothing more than yet another chapter in the Community's catastrophic policy. It will work to the detriment of consumers and farmers and, at the same time, champion the promotion of other policies, such as the policy to wipe out the agricultural sector.
Water resources cannot be protected and managed rationally using suppressive pricing policies and collection measures paid for by the consumer.
Only a few large companies charging a high price for their "environmentally-friendly" profile stand to benefit from this policy, which gives them yet another opportunity to rake in vastly inflated profits.
The report' s recitals state that water "is not a commercial product like any other" and that "access to water is an inalienable human right" .
Such statements, however, carry little weight with Vivendi, Suez and other huge corporations, who have appropriated the water 'market' for themselves in order to squeeze enormous profits from it, with the blessing of the State.
These statements look more like a desperate plea, considering the industries that pollute and ruin the planet' s resources for the greater good of their shareholder' s bank accounts.
In the twenty-first century, at a time when the world has never had such great technical capability, the fact that an entire swathe of humanity does not have access to running water, let alone drinking water is largely due to the social barbarity of capitalism.
The issue of water, which is vital for hundreds of millions of human beings far exceeds the geographical boundaries of Europe and, if we are to solve it, and many other problems, humanity would need to put an end to the dictatorship of the market, of profit and of competition.
The rapporteur supports this system and envisages the "sustainable management of water resources" by means of pricing and rate setting.
This would mean, once again, that those with the means, both individuals and particularly industrial groups, could continue to waste water, even to pollute, whilst others who are poorer, will continue to do without.
Society should provide water, this vital commodity, free of charge to everyone and its management should be planned according to the real needs of the population and subject to democratic control.
It is quite clear that the current organisation of the economy, based on the quest for profit, is fundamentally incapable of guaranteeing a "sustainable management of water resources" and consequently represents a threat to the future of mankind, in this area as in many others.
People themselves consist largely of water, and the bulk of our food is also made up of water.
Similarly, we very often deal with water in our jobs and households.
Without a continuous supply of water, we would not survive.
Whoever appropriates water, takes possession of their fellow people.
That is why the water supply should not end up in private hands.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy rightly concluded that access to water is a human right and water is therefore not a commercial product.
The question now arises as to how we manage water shortages and water pollution.
The fair principle that the polluter pays is useful to cream profits from polluting companies, but not a sound argument to considerably increase the costs for households.
It is better to increase the amount of clean and fresh drinking water available by desalinating sea water than by digging deeper for ground water or by redirecting rivers to storage reservoirs.
There was a time when the Soviet Union wanted to fill the Aral Sea with water from rivers which flow to the North Pole.
These days, Spain wants to tap half of the Ebro' s water to promote tourism in southern Spain.
This will be at the expense of fauna and flora in the current river basin.
Thanks to criticism on this, the Right has blocked this decision.
This proves that money and prestige are still worth more than sustainable environmental management.
, in writing. (PT) Despite protests from Portuguese NGOs and myself, the Portuguese government is insisting on adopting an uncompromising approach to the Alqueva project, by preparing to fill the dam to a height of 152m.
This Communication and the report on sustainable water pricing show that filling the dam to a height of 139m, as I have been proposing, would not only enable more than 600 000 trees and habitats of enormous importance to be saved, but would also be more sustainable in economic terms.
We risk deforesting to a height of 152m and then, due to the price of water, seeing that filling to a height of 139m is enough for agricultural requirements.
Over the past few days, Member of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, Alexander de Roo, has insinuated both in this House and in the media that the Liberal shadow rapporteur, Chris Davies, has changed his position under pressure from the Aznar Government in connection with the possible election of Pat Cox to President of Parliament.
This was an absurd and unfounded allegation.
Mr Davies has conscientiously attempted to reconcile his own dislike of the Spanish project (shared by myself) with the position of the majority of the liberal group that it is inappropriate to criticise a specific country in a general report.
Today' s vote illustrated that our group has abstained and that Mr Davis and various Green members of the ELDR Group have voted in favour of the criticism levelled at Spain.
However, by voting against the Liberal amendment (which, in turn, led to the rejection of the entire report), the Greens have missed a major opportunity of stopping the Spanish project on the basis of general principles.
Although the intentions of the Group of the Greens may have been noble, their method was neither effective nor conclusive.
At the moment, the European Parliament does not have a single position in this weighty matter.
Riis-Jørgensen report (A5-0373/2001)
Shipbuilding has for years benefited from considerable subsidies from Member States and from the European institutions.
This has not stopped it from shedding its workforce or even from closing entire dockyards and sacking their employees.
Dockyard owners are attempting to have these subsidies extended in the name of competition, but the money that would be given to them would continue to increase the profit of these companies and to be shared with their shareholders even if the latter withdraw their capital as soon as the dockyards become less profitable and invest elsewhere, without a care for the fate of the workers.
This is made easier for them by the fact that many dockyards are tied to industrial groups such as Alstom, which have interests in several sectors and which make redundancies in some whilst receiving subsidies in others.
As we have no intention of giving any kind of help to the shareholders of the huge shipbuilding corporations, we have voted against the report.
If shipbuilding is necessary for Europe' s economy, it must be brought under state control. The answer is not to subsidise its private owners with money that we will never see again.
. (DE) My group welcomes the Commission's proposal to introduce a temporary defensive mechanism for European shipyards in the light of the breakdown in the negotiations to put an immediate end to the unfair international competition in the shipbuilding sector.
We also fully support the parliamentary amendments contained in the report, and in particular the one extending the duration of the measure until the end of 2003.
For some time now, together with colleagues from other groups, my group has been highlighting the general problems faced by European shipbuilding and the specific problems resulting from the international situation.
In September, the Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left visited eastern Germany to familiarise itself with the situation faced by shipyards there and made renewed pleas to the Commission to take action.
We see it as positive that a Commission proposal has now at last been tabled, which assures the yards, which have clearly suffered considerable damage because of unfair Korean trade practices, that help is at hand in the form of solutions which can be implemented quickly.
Many of these yards are in structurally weak regions with very severe economic and social problems and form the core of the existing economic structure.
Their existence and prosperity are the only way to secure thousands of jobs and safeguard the economic development of these regions.
However, my group also believes that further measures are necessary to safeguard the future of European shipbuilding, which is one of the essential branches of European industry.
These might include, in particular:
programmes to promote investment, which will have a long-term structural impact and create jobs;
the promotion of European cooperation on research and development in areas which affect the maritime economy;
the development of a coordinated maritime policy at European level;
the formulation and implementation of a European transport policy which seeks to move freight and passenger transport from the land to the sea.
We call on the Commission to take a stance on the fundamental issues surrounding the future of European shipbuilding in the first half of 2002 and to propose an action programme to resolve the medium- and long-term problems.
I have voted in favour of this proposal because it is the lesser of two evils.
Nevertheless, this feet-dragging over unfair competition, now with South Korea, is allowing business to shift to the Far East, leading to the eradication of all shipbuilding activity in the European Union, including repairs and renovation as well as the building of new vessels.
Without operational and technologically up-to-date shipyards, our strategies for maritime safety, employment and regional cohesion will be at risk, and will be hard to recover with palliative measures.
Katiforis report (A5-0352/2001)
. (IT) Like all the Members in Chamber, I feel that the protection and safeguarding of human health are vital.
I therefore consider that it is of the utmost importance to uphold the position calling for the introduction of both a minimum excise duty of 57 % and a minimum payment - EUR 70 - with the aim of increasing the sales price of tobacco.
The measure is very important in that it will discourage regular consumers from using tobacco. Furthermore, it will have a preventive effect in that it will discourage those tempted to use tobacco for the first time from doing so.
As I have already pointed out in a written question - reference number P-2140/99 - to the European Commission, I find it absurd that we should increase European financing and contributions to tobacco growers while, at the same time, declaring that we are working to combat smoking.
I therefore call upon the European Parliament to support this measure and throw some light on the matter.
Quite clearly, the proviso must be that the Member States, as Community bodies, also increase their endeavours to prevent, control and curb illegal trading and trafficking in cigarettes.
. (IT) I voted for the Katiforis legislative resolution on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 92/79/EEC, Directive 92/80/EEC and Directive 95/59/EC as regards the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco products, which calls upon the Commission to withdraw its proposal for a number of reasons unanimously upheld by the entire Italian section of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (Republicans, Democrats and members of the Italy of Values party).
The proposal to revise the current subsidies for tobacco growing would have had a disastrous effect on the economies of entire rural areas which are some of the most disadvantaged in the European Union, as can be seen from a recent European statistical analysis carried out by Eurostat.
The Commission addresses the 'tobacco issue' purely from the point of view of health, which is why it attempts to question the provision of Community aid to growers and goes so far as to propose an early revision of the COM in tobacco in order to reduce quotas and cut subsidies to the sector.
We feel that this opinion errs in that it is too rash, and I am glad to say that it was amended at the Gothenburg Summit.
We are convinced that it would be wrong to penalise an agricultural sector which is at the heart of the economy of countries such as Greece, Italy and Spain.
Instead of reducing cigarette consumption, the Commission' s proposal would have created nothing but problems for manufacturers, who would have been forced to change the process of importing supplies from third countries with the result that national productions would have been replaced by lower quality imports.
Lastly, we feel that the position of those who advocate combating smoking by abolishing aid to tobacco growers is ambiguous.
Strangely, in fact, the Member States which do not grow tobacco but which have not banned smoking would receive sums benefiting their Northern European style of agriculture, which is already sufficiently subsidised, and, what is more, they would hypocritically continue to rake in millions of euro in taxes and excise duties on tobacco products and accessories.
Schörling report (A5-0356/2001)
To its credit, the Schörling report points out that "The EU is the world's leading producer of chemicals" and that "it is high time that we developed a new strategy for controlling chemicals" .
We know that the "vast majority of existing chemicals - that have been on the market for at least 20 years - have never been properly tested" and we discover that certain serious diseases are on the increase and that "a link between these diseases and exposure to chemicals is likely" .
The report therefore recommends the rigorous control of chemicals available on the market, testing prior to any distribution of these products - and the withdrawal of any products that do not pass these tests - and a range of restrictive measures for manufacturers and commercial distributors, intended to force them to guarantee minimum safety standards.
This position does consider the interests of the public but is unpopular with the Union des Industries Chimiques, a French employers' organisation which, in a letter to Members of the European Parliament, protests about the constraints that we are attempting to impose on companies that manufacture or sell chemical products.
This shameless lobbying by chemical company owners is in itself enough to make us vote for the Schörling report and for the measures it proposes, even if the rapporteur elsewhere declares herself to be in favour of the market.
.
Both the White Paper from the Commission and the report drawn up by Mrs Schorling are flawed, the latter fundamentally.
The report is based on the general assumption that there are a large number of chemicals that pose a threat to both human health and the environment, and ignores the positive health and environmental benefits to society arising form many man-made chemicals.
Paragraph 16 of the report seeks to extend the REACH system to cover chemicals manufactured in volumes of under one tonne per year; this will lead to a possible twenty-fold increase in the number of chemicals requiring authorisation, and an impossible workload for those given that task.
The scope should be limited to those chemicals produced in volumes over one tonne, as set out in the White Paper.
Paragraph 38, which sets out which substance shall be classified as being of very high concern, is too broad for any authorisation system to be workable.
The definition should be restricted to CMR (categories 1 and 2), and POP substances, as defined in the Stockholm Convention.
The provisions of the report will lead to an unacceptable increase in the amount of tests carried out on animals.
A report by the Institute of Environmental Health in the United Kingdom, estimated that 12.8 million animals will be needed in the testing of 30,000 chemicals.
These figures have been echoed by many European animal welfare groups.
The rapporteur recognises this problem, but places too much faith in the availability and acceptability of non-animal tests.
Furthermore, to gather "base-set" level of information simply for chemicals manufactured in volumes over one tonne per year will take approximately 36 years alone, according to the IEH report.
The timescale set out in the report (2008) is thus completely unrealistic.
The European chemicals industry has been consulted far too late, and its attempts at self-regulation (e.g. Product Stewardship, the Long Range Research Initiative and "Confidence in Chemicals") have been completely ignored by the rapporteur in this report.
Since the proposals in the report look likely to increase the administrative burden on the industry (particularly SMEs), as well as dent its competitiveness on a global scale, this is a serious oversight.
.
(DE) I have just voted against the Schörling Report.
The Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats, to which I belong, did not manage to secure a majority in favour of its constructive amendments.
What has now been adopted has clearly been influenced too much by ideology.
Of course this is about environmental safety, but it is also about competitive and innovative jobs in the chemical industry.
Over the last few weeks I have been investigating the consequences of the Schörling Report by talking to those whom it will affect.
I have visited production plants and had discussions with management, workers and unions.
None of those parties is calling into question the aim of the Commission's White Paper, which is to secure the sustainability of the chemical industry.
From an ecological point of view, we obviously need the greatest possible protection of the environment and consumers.
From an economic point of view, we need uniform basic conditions so as to ensure that there is fair competition for SMEs, users and processors.
From a social point of view this is about having a high level of health protection and high standards of industrial safety.
At least we were able to prevent the registration requirement for substances with a production volume of one tonne per year from being introduced.
As it is, the current classification of substances above 10 tonnes per year and the reporting requirement before they are put on the market is only being managed by the authorities with great difficulty.
The European People's Party Group did succeed in one respect: there was no majority in favour of double testing all chemicals.
This does not increase safety and is costly in terms of time and money; incidentally it is completely unnecessary because the authorities already examine these data.
I do not consider it acceptable to find substitutes for dangerous substances and methods which should otherwise be banned.
You cannot define a substance as 'dangerous' on the basis of its properties, but only on the basis of its uses.
Take a knife: it is extremely useful at home and in everyday life, but it becomes dangerous if it is used as a weapon for anything from attacking people to hijacking aircraft.
It is also regrettable that it has been agreed that confidential data should be made public: if production volumes, procedures or special compositions, which account for a market advantage, all have to be declared, then we may as well do away with competition right now.
This is the lifeblood of our companies.
Any competitor can easily imitate ingenious systems.
We need to establish once and for all which data are subject to property rights and which are not.
Before the second reading in Parliament, I hope that the three committees working on this will put their heads together and come up with a more balanced proposal.
- (PT) I am delighted, not only with the content of the European Commission' s new policy on chemicals, but also with the importance it is attaching to this policy, as clearly demonstrated in the strategy approved by the European Union for the 'Rio+10' Conference, which is due to take place in 2002.
I welcome, in particular, the following points:
1) A complete ban, within a generation, in other words by 2020, of discharges and emissions into the environment of all dangerous substances.
2) The creation of a single system for the registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals (REACH), replacing the current system that treats new substances and existing ones differently.
3) The adoption of the precautionary principle, through reversing the burden of proof for substances that cause great concern.
It will now fall to the manufacturer to prove that a product is not dangerous.
I welcome the Schörling report but prefer, where the tonnage threshold is concerned, the position of the European Commission.
This system, if it proves feasible, will protect Europe' s citizens.
Using the same system to evaluate substances produced in volumes below and above one tonne per year will make the system too cumbersome and, therefore, contrary to objectives that have been defined.
I wish to explain my reasons for voting in favour of this report as amended.
First of all, I feel that it adopts a balanced position, which will improve environmental protection and public health on the one hand and which maintains the competitiveness of the chemical industry on the other, in line with the strategy for sustainable development adopted in Göteborg.
We must understand the fact that only a tiny minority of the more than 100 000 chemical substances in existence have to date been tested and that, furthermore, they are being produced in greater numbers each year.
Consequently, only 14% of chemical substances produced in a quantity of more than one tonne are given a classification under the current system.
The tragic events in Toulouse recently demonstrated the urgent need to close this gap in our knowledge.
At the same time, we need to create a system of registration, assessment and authorisation that is 'manageable' for public authorities and that the industry can, in due course, supplement with the necessary data.
The report' s approach seems to be equally balanced because, apart from purely environmental considerations, it takes account of various socio-economic aspects of prospective legislation, not least the fact that workers in the chemical industry are more exposed, and the specific constraints affecting small and medium-sized enterprises.
Similarly, the report favours transparency whilst respecting data protection and industrial secrecy, which I think is to be welcomed.
Clear references to the precautionary principle and the substitution principle have, furthermore, been added to the Commission text.
Lastly, one of the most important points, to my mind, is still the requirement for all substances to be registered, even if some of them are only registered in a simplified form.
It is often the substances produced in smaller quantities that are the most dangerous for health or for the environment.
I also feel that the timetables put forward in the report are appropriate because they are realistic.
I am very pleased that the White Paper will be followed up with a range of legislative proposals by the Commission and I look forward with great interest to seeing them.
The Committee on the Environment' s vote on this report sends a clear message to industry and to the national authorities to thoroughly monitor chemical substances, and this must be accompanied by the elimination of substances that are toxic and harmful to health and to the environment.
We therefore fully support the approach of this report which improves, on a number of points, the already ambitious Commission proposal.
Having said that, in order to be understood, our message must also be balanced.
This is why we support a pragmatic approach and reject a raft of unrealistic demands that would heavily penalise the European chemical industry.
I wish to point out that this industry directly or indirectly involves no less than 5 million jobs.
I shall turn first of all to paragraph 16, which calls for the registration of all substances of less than one tonne in weight: this means that 100 000 products are involved instead of the 30 000 proposed by the Commission, tens of thousands of files, impossible bureaucracy, a nightmare for the numerous SMEs in the sector and all of this for products which, for the most part, never reach the market.
Extending the scope of the authorisation procedure (paragraph 38) is also unfeasible: in order to avoid an unmanageable situation, we call, in Amendment No 68, for substances for which there is no proof of toxicity to be excluded.
In conclusion, although we must send a message that is powerful, it must also be credible.
Sending a declaration of war to industry, to the workers and to the national authorities seems neither appropriate nor productive.
Given the risk that chemicals present to people' s health and to the environment, we Swedish Christian Democrats believe it to be obvious that, in accordance with the principle of 'no data, no marketing' , chemicals which have not undergone certain tests should not be allowed to be marketed, either.
Furthermore, we support the substitution principle which has long been a well-established principle of Swedish chemicals policy.
In the same way, we believe that a reversed burden of proof should apply to substances that give cause for concern, which means that it is the industry, not the authorities, which has to demonstrate that a subject can be used in an acceptable way.
Because chemicals can involve significant risks in smaller quantities too, we believe that chemicals in quantities of less than a tonne which are imported to, or produced within, the EU should also be covered by the new system.
In that way, we shall in quite a few respects be departing from the position adopted by the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats.
Corbey report (A5-0323/2001)
These days, outrageous packaging is a form of advertising in order to entice buyers.
A great deal of material is wasted on it.
It sounds environmentally aware to blame the consumers who buy packaged food or packaged products. However, those consumers do not create waste themselves, but are left with it following their purchases.
They become the victim of conditional sales, because these days, it is often impossible to buy anything without wrapping.
That is why we need to tackle the production and sale of waste at source instead of focusing on the consumers.
In the proposed resolution, Mrs Corbey is right to make manufactures and retailers responsible for the prevention of the production of packaging waste and notes that precious little has been achieved since the 1994 packaging directive.
The European Commission remains disinclined to present fresh proposals, and the Member States implement earlier recycling agreements with a delay of years.
The rapporteur' s proposal is still torn between two ideas.
I wholeheartedly agree with her attempt to prevent waste.
However, I differ with her on the proposal to get the consumer to pay more for all that waste.
Re-use may be important, but is not the most important solution.
Salafranca Sánchez Negra report (A5-0336/2001)
We are voting against the report in spite of the sound initiatives it contains concerning partnership between the EU and the Latin American countries on, for example, conflict prevention, development cooperation and combating poverty and the drugs trade.
Our opposition is due to the fact that a number of the proposals in the report take supranational cooperation on, for example, defence, security and foreign policy, as well as on areas of institutional, legal and internal concern as something that goes without saying in the EU.
We believe that cooperation in the aforesaid areas can be fully engaged in through intergovernmental cooperation.
The few words the report contains on "health, education and the fight against abject poverty" , "the fight against drugs" and "protection of the environment" , some of the objectives that the European Union claims it is promoting in that part of the world, are nothing more than a smokescreen for considerably more disreputable intentions.
By proposing that "the aim of the new agreement should ultimately be the bilateral and preferential liberalisation, on a gradual and reciprocal basis, of the trade in all kinds of goods and services between the two regions, in accordance with WTO rules," the countries of the European Union are showing that they could not care less about the fate of the peoples of Latin America.
They would like, first and foremost, to make up for their slowness in penetrating the Latin American markets, which are already in a parlous state due to the presence of even more powerful predators, such as the North American multinationals.
Instead of the promised development, the opening up of the markets to huge companies and to the financial establishment has plunged Latin America into poverty.
At least 224 million Latin Americans live in abject poverty, in other words, more than 40% of the population of that region!
And there is not even any discussion of cancelling the debts that are strangling these countries.
We have consequently voted against this report.
- (PT) The Rio summit of 28/29 June 1999 marked the beginning of a new phase in bi-regional relations with a view to creating a strategic partnership between the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean.
The main objectives of the new Joint Strategy must, in line with the priorities adopted in Rio, be political, such as with the extension of the Bi-Regional Political Agenda; the update and revision of political dialogue at ministerial level and the creation of a EU-Latin American Transatlantic Assembly; economic, financial and commercial, such as the conclusion of various Association Agreements and the creation of a EU-Latin America Free Trade Area, which is planned for 2010, and social and cultural, such as the creation of a Bi-regional Solidarity Fund and a global plan to combat drugs, amongst others.
I therefore give my total support to the rapporteur' s position reiterating the need to establish the bi-regional strategic partnership approved at the Rio summit and in the recommendation to the European Council with a view to approving the EU' s common strategy for Latin America and the Caribbean, on the basis of the objectives established in the Rio summit' s priorities.
Lastly, the report highlights the need to improve cooperation on the basis of a sustained and integrated partnership, with a view to promoting human development and the development of civil society and the consequent benefits to all levels of society.
Motion for a resolution on air transport (B5-0702/2001)
Claiming that the airlines are suffering as a result of the 11 September attacks on the United States is a barefaced lie.
Although some carriers have had problems, these are not new and not all airlines are in that position.
Far from it. Air France' s share dividends, for example, have increased by 22%, and this happened three days after the attacks on New York and Washington.
It has just bought out Air Afrique and brought Alitalia under its wing as well as the Czech airline CSA.
And, like other large European airlines, it is also doing very well out of the bankruptcies of AOM-Air Liberté, Sabena and Swissair.
This is the result of giving free rein to the market, which national and European leaders claim should govern everything, the economy and the fate of workers.
In recent years in Europe, this has led to hundreds of thousands of job losses in the air transport sector alone, which does not cause national and European leaders to bat an eyelid because huge profits are consequently pocketed by the companies' shareholders, such as the incredibly wealthy Baron Seillière, the French "bosses' boss" .
The attacks of 11 September have simply been an excuse for the capitalists in the air transport sector to receive new subsidies while pursuing their offensive against their employees.
And they have been aided and protected in this endeavour by the various national governments.
We have seen this again recently in France, in Belgium and in Switzerland with companies going bankrupt and sacking tens of thousands of employees, at no cost at all to the key players who are largely responsible for these bankruptcies, such as Baron Seillière.
We have, therefore, voted against this motion for a resolution which is cynical enough to claim that it is for the sake of employment that it wants to give further subsidies to the companies and capitalists in the air transport sector, who are already responsible for making hundreds of thousands of people redundant.
The reason why I am unable to vote for this resolution is that it is mainly founded on the idea of protecting the expansion of aviation which, until recently, was deemed self-evident.
To date, this expansion has posed a major problem for the environment, leading to increasing levels of pollution, growing insecurity and increasing pressure on public space for airports.
Furthermore, aviation firmly had the edge on railways in terms of taxes, because kerosene is still not taxed, while all forms of travel on the ground are.
Even before 11 September, there was every reason to search for possibilities to stop and reverse this expansion.
The fact that the number of passengers has now dropped dramatically should not be a reason for supporting airline companies by granting even more tax money, but rather a reason for investing in the improvement of other forms of intra-European passenger transport.
A surcharge on the aircraft rates which have taken a nose dive over the last few years due to competition can cover the dramatic upsurge in insurance premiums.
There is no reason for injecting more public funding into aviation.
However, that money is needed desperately to protect the position of the workers of airline companies.
They thought for years that they had a secure, government-protected job in a growth industry, but the industry is now shrinking or even going bankrupt.
(The sitting was suspended at 2.00 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Protection of employees in the event of the insolvency of their employer
The next item is the report (A5-0348/2001) by Mr Bouwman, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on amending Council Directive 80/987/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the protection of employees in the event of the insolvency of their employer [COM(2000) 832 - C5-0017/2001 - 2001/0008(COD)].
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, before we start the debate on my report - and I hope you are also keeping an eye on the time - I should like to raise a matter in connection with the way in which we will be dealing with this report further.
It was scheduled to be debated before twelve noon.
It has overrun.
There is nothing that can be done about this, for that is how it is in this House.
It is a report in the framework of the codecision procedure on employees' rights and insolvency.
I, as rapporteur, have nothing against the fact that we are debating it now, but I do disagree with the fact that we would subsequently vote on it during a very vague gathering of votes later on this afternoon.
I should therefore like to request - and I have already discussed this with the larger groups - to decide beforehand that we will debate the report now but that we will postpone the vote to the brief part-session in Brussels and possibly to a later date, although I am very much opposed to this.
That also gives us the opportunity of tabling a number of amendments and changes as a whole.
It seemed a totally uncontroversial report, but nevertheless, there are a number of elements which require further discussion.
That is why I would ask to postpone the vote until the next part-session.
I do not know whether you can respond to this now.
Thank you, Mr Bouwman, I have taken note of your request.
We can have one speaker in favour of your request and one speaker against.
Who would like to speak out in favour? That is Mrs Van den Burg.
You have the floor for one minute.
I should like to support the request because in my view, it is indeed inappropriate to be voting on a report in the framework of the codecision procedure in a very small gathering of this Parliament.
Furthermore, it will probably give us some more time to consider other compromises for issues which are currently controversial, because it is also a complex report which contains a number of ambiguities about the different amendments.
I would therefore like to support the request.
Thank you, Mrs Van den Burg.
Mr Gollnisch would like to speak against the request.
You have one minute.
I do not really need a minute, Madam President. I requested the floor on a point of order, but, in fact, my point fully echoes the concerns of the rapporteur.
I would like to know whether the Commission might be able to give us any indication of its reasons for withdrawing its communication initially scheduled on the agenda on the World Trade Organisation and, possibly, when this important communication might be given.
Thank you, Mr Gollnisch, I shall deal with that request in a moment, but let us first finish the point that is on the agenda, namely the request by Mr Bouwman.
(Parliament decided to refer the report back to committee) I would now like to give the floor to Mrs Diamantopoulou and give her the opportunity to state briefly why the WTO debate has been taken off the agenda.
Madam President, I just wish to say that it was impossible for Mr Lamy to be here because the WTO meeting lasted longer than expected.
So the Commission will certainly make a statement to Parliament on the WTO, but I cannot say when that will be.
Mr Lamy will come here as soon as he can.
Thank you, Mrs Diamantopoulou, I can only endorse what you have just said. I myself have only just returned from Doha, and it was a tough negotiating round.
Mr Lamy only landed in Brussels at 6 a.m. this morning, so I trust we can all be accommodating in this matter.
Mr Bouwman, I am giving you, as rapporteur, the floor for five minutes to present your report.
I should like to express my thanks once again, for the broad support for the proposals.
This might well be a Pyrrhic victory, but we shall have to wait and see.
I wanted to raise the following matter. We have here a document on employees' rights in the event of insolvency, that is to say when a business is no longer able to meet its financial obligations.
It is a revision of Council Directive 80/987EEC with a number of improvements on what was in there before.
A directive such as this aims to give a minimum level of protection in the event of insolvency.
Almost at the same time that I was appointed rapporteur for this dossier, a group of people turned up from the Sintel company in Spain - a company that was split off from Telefonica, sold by them, in fact.
They had been campaigning in Madrid for months because they had not been paid for months.
In other words, in addition to what I already knew at the time, this realistic description was sufficient to show me at first-hand how significant this report, concealed behind a mass of insolvency terminology, is.
The old document, of course, dates back to 1980.
A great deal has changed since then, especially within the labour markets, in terms of types of employees and descriptions of the same, the economy has become more globalised and internationalised, there are more businesses that operate both within a certain country and outside it.
In addition, there are still cases where it is unclear which country ought to pay out social security benefits.
Of course, there have been a number of procedures for the Court of Justice to deal with, and all these aspects combined have led to the Commission presenting a proposal to change the existing directive.
The three main problems at the time were: the concept of insolvency, the placing of a time-limit on the guarantee and, particularly, insolvency cases with a cross-border dimension.
I have great admiration for those who have submitted the Commission proposals and who have tabled a few amendments following detailed discussions.
These mainly pertain to the new legal basis following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the clarification of the scope and the possible scrapping of the annexes in which quite a few groups are mentioned which can be excluded or not, as the case may be, the new definition of the term 'intervention' and especially the new provisions establishing the guarantee fund that covers cross-border cases.
In my view, it is important to revisit what I describe as the scope as a whole, for the question as to which categories could still be exempt is still subject to possible debate, especially in the field of domestic staff and the so-called share fishermen.
If I had my way, I would scrap this as a whole, as I have also said during the debate.
I think that the Commission would also be in favour of this, but a number of countries provide for exemption provisions, and we do not want to make life too difficult for them.
What we do consider important is that the Commission has meanwhile included a number of elements which were already being developed within this labour market, where, for example, part-time workers, workers with a temporary agency employment relationship, or workers with fixed-term contracts, are concerned via existing directives in these intervention directives.
Since we are as yet unsure about the implications of this, we have to point out - as have many, as will be clear in a moment - that these days, there are an ever increasing number of categories of self-employed, including the quasi self-employed as they are referred to by some, without staff, with staff who would or would not qualify, and then especially those without staff.
Those with staff are, in fact, employers.
In addition, we still have categories of home workers - mind the translation in this case - because it literally means those working from home, and this could well be the topic of a number of discussions.
In fact, it would also be very useful if some progress were made in the legislative work in line with the discussion in the framework of the social dialogue on modernising labour relations, and that is why we made a number of proposals that are now before you.
In this connection, I would therefore ask my fellow MEPs to back amendments which pertain to the self-employed without staff, so as to open the debate with the Council in any case.
I should like to point out that what is at issue is a codecision procedure and that we will be entering into negotiations after second reading in order to be able to take a step forward in the field of social security and social policy in Europe.
Madam President, it is a little odd that I should have to take the floor on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, but that is because Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, who has written the opinion for Mr Bouwman' s report - on which I should like to congratulate him warmly - is unable to attend due to a change in schedule.
I can, in fact, be relatively brief about the opinion.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has particularly attempted to underline the legal aspects of this directive.
A number of elements have been adopted, while a number of other elements have not been adopted by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
In any case, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market deems it extremely important for the opinion to be thought-out well.
That is why it is also important to return it to the committee, so that it can re-examined very carefully.
That also - and perhaps mainly - applies to the position of the self-employed.
Indeed, I welcome the fact that the self-employed fall within its scope, at least the self-employed who can be compared to employees.
However, there is, of course, the risk that we give people who we actually do not want to fall within the scope of this definition at all, a tremendous opportunity, turning them into a kind of preferred creditor in a bankruptcy.
I am not certain whether in the texts as they are worded now, sufficient distinction is being drawn between the two situations, in fact.
That is a problem that will require further examination, also in terms of the position of the self-employed.
Madam President, Commissioner, before I start my speech I would like to inform Mr Bouwman that the company he was referring to is the Sintel company, which went bankrupt, forcing unemployment on a large number of its employees. However, several months ago the Spanish Government took on the responsibility of making backdated wage payments to Sintel' s employees, relocating or finding other such solutions for all those affected.
I say this so that you may be fully informed, Mr Bouwman.
Now I will move on to my speech on this report.
The document we are debating refers to the proposal for amending Directive 80/987/EEC on the approximation of national laws relating to the protection of employees in the event of the insolvency of their employer.
Mr Bouwman has, in fact, given a very clear example of this situation.
The amendment aims to take into account changes to insolvency law in Member States and the need for consistency with other Community directives on labour law already adopted.
All of this should be based on a political will to provide employees with a minimum degree of protection under Community law in the event of their employer becoming insolvent.
The difficulties involved in achieving the intended objective of the Directive are, in my opinion, threefold: firstly, the concept of insolvency; secondly, the complexity of the arrangement introduced to allow a time and quantity limits to be placed on the guarantee; thirdly, insolvency cases with a cross-border dimension.
With the aim of clarifying the situation, the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats has once again tabled two amendments: No 16, which includes cases of externalisation or similar, subcontracts, the 'fake self-employed' , etc., all of which could conceal a true employment contract.
In our opinion, we need to reveal the truth before protective methods are implemented, to protect the salaried employee.
To not do this would be to open the floodgates which would quickly exhaust the fund in question.
Amendment No 17 clarifies the notion of protectable earnings from the corresponding national fund and prevents fraud.
All of this is inherent to the protective nature of labour legislation and is inspired by the desire to clearly define the concepts needed for the fund to serve its purpose.
This is a clarification of ideas which aids progress towards legal certainty and harmonisation.
Regrettably, this is a case which, as we have recently witnessed with another Belgian company, is taking place in large companies, due to the restructuring of these companies and the relations which currently exist in the economic world.
Madam President, I do not know whether this afternoon was the first time that you have been in the chair, presiding over Parliament.
If it is, congratulations.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his exceptionally good report and sound preparations for this dossier.
I fear that in the current climate, the report is indeed very topical and that this will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future.
All the more reason for ensuring that we protect those employees who are faced with bankruptcy and suspension of payment.
That is the rationale underlying the preparations for this report.
I am also pleased that we in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have reached overwhelming agreement.
There are a few loose ends that need tying up, a few points on which we do not yet see eye to eye completely.
A moment ago, I heard Mr Pronk say that it is indeed possible that there are still a number of misunderstandings concerning amendments.
I am thinking in particular of the point he made, namely the fact that on the one hand, we also want a number of self-employed, notably self-employed who are very much like employees, to fall within the scope of the regulation, but on the other hand, this should not open the floodgates to mutual aid between employers and service providers who would be able to use those funds.
We are agreed on the intention.
We should use the time we now have until the actual vote to consider whether those misunderstandings can be removed and whether this joint intention can be expressed in a compromise amendment.
In my view, the point about the self-employed is a very important one, particularly in this dossier.
However, it also crops up in a number of other dossiers.
That is why I should like to draw the Commissioner' s attention to this point and ask him whether the Commission could show some more initiative both on this matter and on the matter of defining which categories should in fact be comparable with employees.
This is not only of paramount importance for the issue of insolvency, of course, but also for a lot of other aspects of employment protection and labour law.
Those definitions in European law are still left for the Member States to deal with.
We have noticed that there are rather considerable discrepancies between them.
As cross-border employment increases, and this will become ever more popular in the European Union, it will mean that we will be increasingly faced with different definitions and different groups which will cause disruption to labour market relations.
Enlargement in particular is a huge cause for concern, as we have already witnessed in the past and are witnessing at the moment in the EU' s border regions.
I should therefore like to ask the Commissioner what initiatives she intends to take on this score and urge her to adopt a pro-active stance on this.
Madam President, my congratulations to the rapporteur on a job well done, together with my thanks for his help in ensuring that the amendments needed to the overall endeavour were accepted.
The amendments to this directive follow on from amendments to two other directives relating to mass redundancies and company transfers, the common objective of all of which is to protect workers' interests when companies are restructured and we must not forget this.
They therefore ipso facto raise the question of coordinating the common concepts used and I think that we need to pay attention to this when the amendments are finalised.
Secondly, this directive also fails to address the question of communitising the definition of salaries.
Despite the difficulties inherent in this endeavour, the Fifteen need to adopt a minimum common definition of the concept of employee if the directive is to be applied uniformly.
Otherwise, every country, depending on whether it has a broader or narrower understanding of the concept, will differentiate the scope of the directive as it sees fit.
We need to tread carefully on this point.
The proposed amendments, which I too support, include extending the scope of the directive to employees under what qualify as "implied" contracts in national legislation.
If we are not mature enough to extend the directive to the self-employed, we could at least extend the scope of the directive to employees who are self-employed but who are treated as employees under special legislation.
Secondly, this amendment is an inclusion in the sense of covered claims and severance pay, as provided for in International Labour Convention No. 173, and I fail to see why we cannot cover them in Europe.
Thirdly, it is the clearest redefinition of the meaning of insolvency so as to include any collective insolvency proceedings and not just traditional bankruptcy proceedings.
In any case it is also in the objectives of the directive and has not approximated any formulation.
The House would be well advised to approve these three amendments.
Madam President, I welcome the favourable reception that the Commission proposal has received and I would like to thank Parliament for its contributions aimed at further reinforcing the protection of workers affected by the insolvency of their employer.
The Insolvency Directive has proved to be an invaluable instrument for protecting employees in cases of economic downturns and it will be a key legislative instrument to respond to the present climate of closures and redundancies.
Although the basic structure of the directive should be retained, specific points of the directive need to be revised.
I welcome Amendment No 2 which aims to prevent the introduction of new restrictions beyond those currently in place in the Member States, and also Amendment No 9 which proposes to prohibit threshold provisions in order to qualify for claims under the directive.
I am also in favour of Amendment No 4 which proposes to extend the protection of workers of employers in other insolvency situations beyond those situations covered by the definition of insolvency proposed by the Commission.
Firstly, the broadening of the definition is fully acceptable.
However, on Amendment No 6, the extension to any other procedure or even to "de facto" situations of insolvency can only be accepted as an option for the Member States and not as an obligation.
I can also accept Amendment No 11, which proposes to add severance pay on termination of the employment relationship, with the addition of the term "where appropriate".
The term "pay" should continue to be defined in the national law of the Member States.
Amendment No 14, which proposes the abolition of a ceiling, is not acceptable in its entirety but I share your concerns on this point and I could accept a provision which allows ceilings which are compatible with the social purpose of the directive in order to avoid a level which is unacceptable for workers.
I am also ready to supplement this provision with a non-regression clause which impedes Member States from lowering the protection already provided when implementing the amended directive.
Finally, I can accept the reintroduction of the old Article 5 of the directive - Amendment No 15 - but this only in the old unchanged version of this article in the 1980 directive.
I am unable to accept the remaining amendments, in particular Amendment No 13 which aims to increase the minimum period for pay to six months.
Such an increase would seriously reduce the chance of the directive being adopted and would place a further considerable financial burden on the public purse and employers which would in turn cast doubt on the system of pay guarantees as a whole.
I cannot accept Amendment No 1, which aims to prevent employees from being "converted" to self-employed persons; Amendment No 7 which proposes the introduction of a Community definition of "employee"; nor Amendments Nos 8 and 16 which propose to add categories of workers who may not be excluded from the scope of the directive.
Efforts to combat illegal "conversion" must be made at national level.
A Community definition of an employed person should not be included in a particular directive, and self-employed workers cannot be covered because they do not have an employer who could be insolvent.
In line with your comments I agree that there are different types of self-employed people.
There are some self-employed people who are economically dependent.
This issue was raised in 2000 when we had consultation with the social partners.
The responses of the social partners emphasised the need to clarify and analyse the situation in all Member States because there is a diversity of situations, there are many different kinds of self-employed people.
This was the reason why we have already launched a study which will provide us with an overview of the nature of the phenomenon across the European Union.
Once we have the results of the study, the Commission will analyse it and after a consultation with the social partners we will present the appropriate way to deal with this issue.
The other categories - home-workers and those in similar categories - are covered to the extent that they are considered to be employees under national law.
There is, therefore, no need to mention them specifically.
Finally, some amendments should be rejected because they would not help to achieve the underlying objective of the proposal.
To sum up, I can accept, subject to some minor redrafting, Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6, 9, and 11, and parts of Amendments Nos 14 and 15.
I reject Amendments Nos 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16, 17 and 18.
I would like to thank you for your contribution.
I would particularly like to thank and congratulate Mr Bouwman for his contribution and for the report.
The vote was postponed a moment ago, just before the debate started.
You will hear in due course when this will take place.
The debate is now closed.
I thank you. Oh, I am sorry, Mr Bouwman.
I should briefly like to take the opportunity to congratulate the Vice-President of this meeting at the end of the debate of her first report as Vice-President.
Thank you very much.
It was a pleasure to start off with a Dutch rapporteur.
The next item is the report by Mr Nobilia on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on new European labour markets, open to all, with access for all.
New European labour markets
Madam President, on behalf of my colleague, Mr Nobilia who is not present and on behalf of my Group, I wish to invoke Rule 146 and ask the House to postpone this debate until the December part-session.
Mr Nobilia has tried various other means to have the debate postponed but, unfortunately, Parliament' s Rules of Procedure do not permit this. We therefore, have no option but to ask the House, pursuant to Rule 146, as I said, to grant a postponement until December - of both the debate and the vote.
Mr Ribeiro, I have taken note of your request.
I should now like to give the floor to a speaker who would like to speak in favour of this request.
Mr Pronk, you have one minute.
Madam President, allow me to add my congratulations on your first debate in which so many Dutch people have taken the floor.
This sentiment is also shared by the Christian Democratic Appeal as the largest delegation in the largest group.
The request is logical in my view.
The matter has been reassigned, something which Mr Nobilia was not aware of.
It is an important report and it seems that we are doing the right thing.
I do not believe that this is the right time to conduct a proper debate, nor is this the right way.
We have to postpone it.
It is not necessary to reach a vote at all cost today.
That is why we support this request.
Mr Pronk is therefore in favour of postponement.
I would now put the request to the vote.
(Parliament decided to refer the report back to committee) I believe that we do this regretfully, for there are so many things that are being shelved and the year has not long to run.
However, the debate has thus been held over until the next time.
That means, ladies and gentlemen, that we will be adjourning the meeting until 4 p.m. because that is when the topical and urgent debate will commences.
Thank you for your attendance.
I declare the sitting adjourned until 4 p.m.
(The sitting was adjourned at 3.35 p.m. and resumed at 4 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Accident in the Gotthard Tunnel
We shall start with the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0710/2001 by Mrs Wallis, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte and Mr Caveri, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the accident in the Saint Gotthard tunnel;
B5-0718/2001 by Mrs Isler Béguin and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the accident in the Saint Gotthard tunnel;
B5-0724/2001, by Mr Simpson and Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the accident in the Saint Gotthard tunnel;
B5-0725/2001 by Mrs Ainardi and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the accident in the Saint Gotthard tunnel;
B5-0734/2001 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the accident in the Saint Gotthard tunnel.
Mr President, the very recent and all too familiar disasters that have taken place in the Mont Blanc and Gotthard tunnels reveal the terrible truth about Europe' s current transport policy.
And in this case, revealing the truth can only lead to condemnation.
The world of road transport seems to have broken free from any legal framework, from any control standards.
Freight companies exempt themselves from having operating permits, work permits are becoming optional for drivers who increasingly come from outside the Union, when their driving times verge on the limit and when they themselves verge on sleep.
How many more Gotthards and Mont Blancs must go up in flames before they are covered by strict legislation, by an effective system of controls which is both harmonised and trans-European? The residents of all sensitive or high-density areas and all professionals are calling for Europe to intervene and the matter is of the greatest urgency.
The most sensible course of action would now be to set up safety escorts for convoys of lorries in every major tunnel.
Until this first safety measure is put in place, lives will still be in danger when these two accident-stricken tunnels are reopened.
We must no longer be asked to show patience over this harmonisation of safety standards for tunnels.
Instead, the finger must be clearly pointed and this political nervousness, this lack of commitment on the part of public authorities to the costly but necessary restructuring of underground tunnels must be condemned.
Although a review of practices in the road transport sector is required, an in-depth discussion of our transport policy is no less needed.
The tragedies that have taken place in these tunnels demonstrate the physical and ideological shortcomings of the 'everything by road' approach, which clogs up transport links and chokes the environment.
Let us open up our eyes, then, and cast off the blinkers that force us to see only roads, and we will finally see the entire European network of stations and railway lines that are almost completely overlooked in terms of providing piggyback transport.
We will see that some ports, such as those in Italy, offer transit options that are likely to reduce traffic considerably on the road links of European trade.
The memory of the victims of Gotthard and Mont Blanc must inspire us to adopt a new approach, one that is more forward looking and more respectful of our means of transport.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you will recall, in the last Strasbourg week we had actually planned to have a debate to celebrate the opening of the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
In fact even then we were already discussing the tragic accident in the Gotthard Tunnel.
If we continue just to talk about this and do not take any measures then we will have to be prepared for the fact that there will be more accidents in these delicate and sensitive areas, in particular in the Alps.
However, in my opinion, and on the basis of my understanding of politics, this is unacceptable.
That is why we must do all we can to actually implement the proposals which the Commission has already rightly made in its White Paper.
I have no doubt that specific safety measures are also needed in the tunnels.
I have no doubt that stricter monitoring of working time, above all, is also required.
I hope that we will soon conclude the conciliation on this and that we will then move on to implementing and monitoring the measures on working time across Europe.
However, the fundamental problem is surely that there is too much freight rumbling through the Alps by road in heavy goods vehicles.
This is certainly not - as time and again it is wrongly assumed, appealing to popular sentiment - about standing in the way of economic links and cohesion; it is simply about this cohesion, these economic links and trade in general being created in a way which firstly is environmentally sustainable and secondly minimises the risk of accidents.
We will never be able to avoid them altogether, but we can minimise them and in so doing we can also above all give the railways a golden opportunity.
I - and I myself have also produced a report on opening up international freight routes - am in favour of the railways being stronger competitors here.
At the same time, I am however, on behalf of my group, also in favour of the transport policy, as postulated and laid down in the White Paper - I will say this once more in conclusion - being implemented quickly, in fact very quickly indeed, so that steps can be taken as soon as possible to avoid there being more accidents like the one in the Gotthard Tunnel.
Who could possibly be against the content of this motion for a resolution when, following the Mont Blanc tragedy, a tunnel has, once again, caused loss of life? Parliament will, most likely, vote in favour of the resolution.
We will move down the agenda and things will continue as before, because calling for an integrated transport policy for the whole of the Alpine region in one resolution is not enough to ensure that it is actually implemented.
There must be a genuine rethink of transport policy at European level.
There must be the political will to confront the road transport lobby and, above all, there must be investment to develop rail networks to meet the needs of everyone, not just to make profit.
This would require a radical break with your policy of privatisation and of dismantling public services.
Furthermore, the organisation of goods transport is inseparable from the global economic system.
The development, for example, of the zero stock system, which is highly profitable for private interests, is an aberration from the social point of view, because it is responsible, to a large extent, for clogging up the roads.
Giving priority to private interests, therefore, is bound to conflict with the general interest.
This motion for a resolution, for which we will be voting, will just be added to the long wish list that the European Parliament is continually producing.
Mr President, it seems to be fate. On the final day of the last part-session - 24 October 2001 - we were discussing the reopening of the Mont Blanc tunnel.
There was a bit of an argument - some were in favour, such as yours truly, and some wanted to put back the date of this major event.
Suddenly, into the middle of the debate came the news of the other incident in the St Gotthard tunnel, an unforeseen incident similar to that which had occurred in the Mont Blanc tunnel and which we had thought would now never be repeated.
Those in favour of opening the Mont Blanc tunnel to traffic immediately were once again advocating this line of action on health grounds, basing their argument particularly on a document produced by the operating company, which, pompously - and maybe rightly - stated that the Mont Blanc tunnel, rebuilt after the accident, is now the safest in the world.
I remember announcements, official pronouncements, so to speak, describing the St Gotthard tunnel as the most important tunnel certainly in Europe if not in the world.
Now we know that a very run-of-the-mill accident was enough in the past, is enough now and will be enough in future to turn these megasafe tunnels into people traps, and the many victims always pay with their lives.
It is difficult to apportion blame for these incidents; moreover, that is not for us to do.
However, one statistic does need to be mentioned here, for it concerns something for which we and, in particular, the Commission are responsible.
Indeed, considering that five times as many vehicles pass through the St Gotthard tunnel as usually run on all the other major routes through the Alps, we are faced with a transport policy error, and that is partly the fault of Europe, for most of the vehicles, particularly the heavy goods vehicles, are European.
I would therefore put two questions to the Commission.
What has happened to the directive on harmonising the minimum safety requirements for road and rail tunnels?
And I would ask the Commission, what has happened to the action plan for an integrated transport policy in the Alpine region? When the answers have been given to these two questions, we can proceed to the usual road versus rail argument.
Lastly, Mr President, I do not agree that heavy goods vehicles should be banned from using the tunnel.
Road haulage contractors have a right of passage and a right to provide a service as well.
Mr President, the dramatic repercussions of the accident in the St Gotthard tunnel, especially after the equally tragic repercussions in the Mont Blanc and Val Thorens tunnels, have put the issue of tunnel safety right at the top of the agenda.
We need to push ahead on two fronts at European level.
First, we need enhanced specifications and, secondly, we need to support motorrail services through the Alps.
The Commission announced in the White Paper referred to by almost all the members that it intends to propose European regulations setting out minimum safety standards for tunnels.
These standards will apply to technical equipment, traffic regulations, user information, training for staff operating the tunnels, for staff dealing with accidents when problems arise and for rescue services.
It is a complicated endeavour which needs to take account of a plethora of different parameters, given the extent to which one tunnel differs from another in terms of geography, size and traffic density.
At present, the Commission is carrying out pre-preparatory work with the help of first-class experts, with a view to submitting a proposal to Parliament at the beginning of 2002.
In the meantime, it also intends to convene a meeting of political and economic agencies operating in the Alps and the Pyrenees.
Of course, even the best legislative proposals are no good unless they are adopted and applied.
And as regards the safety of tunnels in particular, I should like to remind the House of other proposals which have yet to be adopted.
I should like to remind the House of the proposal to introduce digital tachographs which allow the time spent on the road by lorry drivers to be controlled accurately and which several Member States have opposed.
Or the Commission proposal on working conditions for lorry drivers, which Mr Swoboda has already referred to.
Then there is the question of certifying professional drivers and the question of small lorries which constantly exceed the 90 kilometre limit and have become accidents waiting to happen on the majority of roads in most Member States.
The fire in this tunnel also illustrates the need for information for tunnel users.
It is clear that, had users been informed, many could have escaped via the emergency exit or by getting out of their cars immediately.
And, of course, this particular accident again raises the question of freight transport through the Alps.
The absolute priority, in the medium term, is to provide rail links to alleviate freight transport with motorrail services as quickly as possible and this is one of the major priorities in the White Paper.
In the period between 1994 and 2000, the European Commission funded studies into the implementation of the new Lyon-Turin rail link. So far 60 million has been spent, about 50% of the total cost.
This project, in which the Community is, to date, indisputably the biggest provider of funds, is one of 14 projects approved by the European Union Council in Essen in 1994 which, unfortunately, it will not be possible to complete before 2010.
The Brenner rail route also needs to be commissioned as quickly as possible, in accordance with the 1996 guidelines on the western European transport network.
So what can be done in the short term following the problem created by the closure of the St Gotthard tunnel? Immediate use should be made of motorrail facilities in the Alps.
This accident, and its dramatic repercussions, are yet another reason to make every possible effort to shift freight from the roads to the railways, a mode of transport which only accounts for 8% of the market in Europe, compared with 40% in the United States.
The European Commission has also taken new initiatives.
In January 2001, it proposed that the Council sign the transport protocol annexed to the Alpine Convention on behalf of the European Commission, as a political message on restoring the balance of distribution between the various modes of transport.
Because of difficulty in funding these projects, the White Paper proposes Community legislation laying down fairer pricing principles which take account of all the costs incurred for each mode of transport, together with safety costs.
To conclude, the Commission has taken or intends to take various specific measures in order to resolve the particular problems besetting the Pyrenees, the Alps and other sensitive areas.
And I can assure you that it will make every effort to guarantee users the highest possible safety standards.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
That concludes the joint debate.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Human rights
In order to achieve world peace, it is essential for people of different creeds and races to respect each other and live together in peace.
This is not the case in an increasing number of countries in the world, and that is an extremely worrying trend.
Unfortunately, Nigeria is an alarming case in point.
Precious little is left of the hopes which the democratically elected president had raised as successor of the corrupt military regime.
Ethnic and religious feuds are now the order of the day across the country. Not a month goes by without blood being shed.
The number of casualties is running into the hundreds and the situation is getting worse, not better.
In that light, the balance sheet for October is shocking.
There was fighting between Muslims and Christians in Jos and disturbances in Kano where, moreover, there has been a cholera outbreak.
The government army carried out ethnic atrocities and massacres in the Middle Belt.
The government itself was shrouded in silence.
Only after two weeks did President Obasanjo announce that a special committee would investigate the murders.
The billion-dollar question is whether the president is actually up to the task of running this country which is extremely difficult to govern.
Apparently, his position is not strong enough in order to keep the country united and allow the different nations to live together peacefully.
It is frightening.
Just now when we are nearly free of the Taliban, we are lumbered with regions such as the north of Nigeria, where the shari' ah is introduced.
Autonomy for those regions should not go as far as observing their own rules that are diametrically opposed to national legislation and that suppress the population and women, in particular.
To sentence a pregnant woman to capital punishment for having intercourse before marriage is barbaric.
My question to the Commission is: What can the European Union do?
In any event, the dialogue with Nigeria will need to be intensified.
However, Europe' s hands are tied if the president and the government themselves lack the courage to act and to do everything in their power to allow the Nigerians to live together in peace.
Mr President, two years ago, following fair elections in the multi-cultural and multi-ethnic state of Nigeria, the military dictatorship was replaced by a parliamentary democracy.
However, veteran President Olusugun Obasanjo is increasingly facing the difficult challenge of keeping riots under control between northern Muslims and Christian southerners, not infrequently culminating in gruesome blood baths.
For example, we were recently alarmed once again by a dubious military reprisal in the federal state of Benue.
I notice with some discomposure that the army seems to be taking the law into its own hands in various cases.
It is understandable that the Tivs, associated with the South, are very suspicious of the fact that the army was siding with the northern-oriented Jukuns, the population group to which the current Defence Minister belongs.
It is of the utmost importance for the military forces to act within the constitutional mandate and ensure the safety of all citizens.
Increasing tension in the Middle Belt has at the same time illustrated my growing concern for the ever-widening chasm between religions that is fanning out towards the middle and south of the country.
In a personal meeting with his American opposite number, President Bush less than two weeks ago, President Obasanja reassured President Bush once again of his support for the International Coalition against terrorism. On that same fateful Friday, 2 November, however, as the representative of the thirteenth federal state incorporating Islamic penal law, he was also faced with implementing the decree in Kaduna to introduce Islamic penal law, the shari'ah.
This will do nothing to promote the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and the large Christian minority in that state.
Finally, I should like to express my emphatic support for the attempts by the Nigerian President and parliament to look into, and tackle, the causes of the continuing ethnic and religious conflicts, to which, inter alia, Paragraph 4 of the resolution refers.
I would ask the Council and Commission to contribute according to their means.
Mr President, those of us who were in Abuja and Kano last year for the ACP meeting welcomed President Obasanjo's move from military dictatorship to democracy.
We were also aware of the simmering tension in the country, particularly in the north, with outbreaks of violence.
Sharia law has been a potent symbol of the cause of that tension, demanded by some Muslims, feared by most Christians and other faiths; partly the result of northern Nigeria not benefiting from independence and oil as the south has done, and a resentment of corruption that they see as chronic in the country.
Thousands have died as a result of violence, especially in Kaduna and many Christian homes, churches and businesses have been destroyed.
The Zanfara state government has given local vigilante groups the power to implement Sharia law.
In reply seventeen southern states have demanded the right to set up their own police forces.
Northerners are leaving Lagos after riots that have led to deaths.
In the north, journalists in Kano are threatened with Sharia law if they represent it in a negative way.
Now we see in Benue and Taraba in east and central Nigeria tribal, not religious, wars.
The Jukun and Tiv disputes are about land and ancient rivalries, not about religion.
Nineteen soldiers who were trying to keep the peace were abducted and murdered.
Then we saw the awful reprisals in which Zakibian, a town of 20 000 people, was destroyed and over 200 people killed.
Of course we welcome President Obasanjo's announcement of an inquiry.
Ethnic and religious violence must be stopped in Nigeria.
There must be equality before the law and not fear and violence.
Corruption from whatever source must be rooted out.
The European Union must support this.
It must also provide humanitarian support for Nigeria, where over 200 people have died of cholera in the last few weeks, and help the people who have been displaced as a result of this violence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the events in and around Afghanistan have obscured our view of trouble spots in other parts of the world, for example in Nigeria.
The European Union should not, however, be indifferent to what is happening in this the most populous country in Africa.
At the beginning of this year, the President of Nigeria, President Obasanjo, declared that 2001 would be the year in which the Nigerian people would reap the rewards of the transition to democracy.
We supported this statement when we met at that time in Abuja in the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.
The trust has, however, suddenly turned to deep concern.
A split in the ruling party in Nigeria, the absence of economic improvements and the persistence of poor living conditions have made people increasingly willing to resort to violence, thus creating a breeding ground for political extremists.
To keep them in check, President Obasanjo felt it necessary to deploy soldiers in seven Nigerian states.
Since then more than 3 000 people are said to have been killed and there is renewed fear that the military might return to power.
The introduction and application of Sharia law in an increasing number of states has heightened religious and ethnic tensions.
Violent criminals often go unpunished.
The President and all of the forces of democracy in Nigeria are called upon to take determined action against violent criminals using the legal means at their disposal, to secure respect for universal human rights and to hurry through economic reforms which will benefit all parts of the country, if there is to be an end to this misery.
We expect the Commission to monitor this process actively and to do everything within its power to ensure that this trouble spot in Africa once again becomes a place of democracy.
Mr President, I am sure that, like me, when you call for a debate on the Democratic Republic of Nigeria, you know we are actually talking about a corrupt military oligarchy in an African country to which we give our support.
Nigeria is proof, Mr President, that the wealth and value of a nation are often measured according to the priority that it gives to human rights, and especially to women, children and workers.
Nigeria is the most densely populated country in Africa, which means that it has vast human resources.
It also has mineral resources and a high oil production that should protect its population from poverty.
Furthermore, its huge diversity could provide real dynamism.
And yet, for decades, a climate of violence towards democrats has been allowed to flourish there and Nigeria' s rulers have never truly sought to punish the extra-judicial murders and violence.
By not taking any preventive action, the military powers have allowed a climate of latent ethnic conflict to evolve and one of these conflicts, in the East of the country, pitting the Tivs and the Jukuns against one another, has just led to the deaths of 200 civilians, who were massacred by soldiers.
The most shocking aspect, Mr President, Commissioner, is that the State authorities are trying to play down this event by explaining that the soldiers involved in the massacre were reacting to the murder of some of their fellow militiamen.
In my view, we must, as we confirmed at the ACP summit on 1 November, force countries that legitimately claim to be our partners in dialogue, that we choose as partners and that request financial support from us, to comply with commonly accepted rules and with international conventions.
With regard to Nigeria, this would involve fighting the implementation of the Islamic sharia - a woman was allowed to be stoned in front of television cameras a few weeks ago and not a single country reacted.
At the same time, a climate of Islamophobia is developing, with mosques being burned down, and this too is met with widespread indifference.
Lastly, an independent inquiry must now be opened into the murders that took place in November 1999 and in October 2001.
We should be aware that our colleagues in the Nigerian parliament have called these massacres examples of 'ethnic cleansing' .
I wish to end by saying that I have often called in this House for the debts of third world countries to be cancelled, but this debt cancellation must be conditional, Mr President, on these countries truly respecting human rights, workers' rights and the rights of children and women.
We must no longer accept these countries calling themselves democratic and signing conventions, which they then fail to observe.
Mr President, between 22 and 24 October last, Nigerian soldiers raged among the people of Benue state.
Over 200 civilians were killed in this massacre and houses and market stalls were burned down.
There must be a swift, impartial, effective inquiry into these massacres.
The Nigerian Federal government must guarantee full respect for the Constitution and the rule of law without delay.
It is not doing so, despite the hopes placed in it.
The Nigerian army is incapable of restoring law and order; moreover, this is not its role.
Only a police force which respects human rights would be able to rebuild trust between the different communities.
It is the duty of the European Parliament to condemn these massacres, which come on top of religious intolerance and miscarriages of justice.
The way the sharia is currently being wrongly applied in Nigeria is a violation of fundamental human rights, especially the rights of women.
Neither European Union nor United Nations resolutions have acknowledged the escalation of the ethnic conflicts in Nigeria.
There is an urgent need for a humanitarian aid system to be established for displaced persons and refugees.
Lastly, the European Union should implement the procedure laid down by Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement.
Mr President, the murder of hundreds of members of the Benue community and the stoning of the pregnant woman in northern Nigeria highlight the desperate situation this country is in.
The European Commission is monitoring the situation within the framework of its powers and capabilities.
In May 2001, the Commission issued a common position making provision for political dialogue with Nigeria to be strengthened.
This common position is based on human rights and missions headed by European Union diplomats have been in contact with the Nigerian government.
One mission was concerned with the economic situation and the other with human rights and the problem of human rights and the need for the government to intervene and take action have been highlighted.
The government has acknowledged the problems and stressed that it intends to continue its efforts along these lines but I believe that parliament has also set limits on the potential for this particular government to intervene.
There are two points in the motions on which I should like to comment briefly.
The first is the education of the security forces in the human rights sector.
This is a new sector for the Community, which has come under military cooperation in the past.
However, the Community is currently supporting this sort of programme in Algeria, Guatemala, the Ukraine and the Palestinian territories.
The Commission is re-examining the potential for intervention in West Africa, Liberia and the Ivory Coast and, as far as Nigeria is concerned, the United Kingdom, France and the United States are involved in similar activities.
The Commission is monitoring the problems within the specific framework of human rights, but it cannot intervene in the education of security forces for human rights unless the Nigerian government asks it to do so.
As far as humanitarian aid is concerned, the European Commission is intervening wherever the national or local authorities are unable to deal with natural or man-made disasters, but only in countries which have asked for help from abroad.
So far, Nigeria has not asked for any help.
The local authorities are more or less coping with the problems arising mainly as the result of movements of the population within the country, but I must stress, as has already been said, that Nigeria's problems are of a seriously structural nature.
Short-term development aid is not enough to cope with them.
However, the Commission thinks it is important to monitor recent developments directly on the ground, which is why it is planning to despatch ECHO delegates to Nigeria to record the dangers already referred to.
Thank you very much Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Íatural disasters
Mr President, before beginning my two minutes of speaking time, and as a point of order, I would like to point out to the Presidency that there is an error in the transcribed text.
In paragraph four of the Resolution there is a phrase missing, literally 'which should be compatible with European Union doctrine on cooperation, respect for human rights and democracy' .
This was the text agreed by all of the groups according to a document given to the Presidency by the spokesperson for international relations from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
And now, Mr President, I would like to begin my allotted intervention by pointing out that this resolution aims to tackle the problem of the devastation caused by hurricane Michelle, which has particularly affected three countries: Honduras, Nicaragua and Cuba.
The effects of this disaster are exacerbated by the fact that the three countries in question have levels of poverty that I personally would call extreme.
Given that a simple reference was made in the resolution to our recent visit to Nicaragua, in order to provide illustrative evidence of the situation in this country, I would like to point out that Nicaragua is currently the poorest country in Continental America.
Fifty per cent of Nicaraguans live in conditions of poverty and 17% in conditions of extreme poverty - to be poor in Nicaragua means living on USD 1 per month.
In macroeconomic terms, Nicaragua has foreign debt of USD 6 500 million, exports less than a third of what it imports and the country balances its payments and survives, ultimately, thanks to international aid and emigrants' remittances, particularly from the United States and Costa Rica.
With regard to the situation in Cuba, on another delegation visit, I think we all will agree that the situation of that country is extremely gloomy.
Cuba is currently surviving mostly thanks to emigrants' remittances and, secondly, tourism, which represent more than all other Cuban exports put together.
This being the case, what the resolution is aiming to achieve is, first and foremost, to show solidarity with the communities affected and with the human victims of the consequences of this hurricane.
Secondly, and I would like the Commissioner to take special note of this, I would like to express Parliament' s satisfaction with the actions of the Humanitarian Aid Office.
Thirdly, I would ask that, in the case of Honduras and Nicaragua, estimated damages be considered within the framework of the Regional Programme for the Reconstruction of Central America.
Given that we are talking about Nicaragua, there is an amendment tabled by the Socialist Group, and I would like to address the rapporteur here, which says that, as there have been misappropriations of funds - and we are referring to European funds here - certain action has to be taken.
I personally took the trouble to call the Commission delegation in Nicaragua.
I have a fax here in which they tell me that in no case has there been any proof, nor has there been any investigation into these funds, therefore it cannot be confirmed that there have been misappropriations.
During the recent visit we discovered that these accusations had occurred at the same time as an election campaign, but there was no judicial decision in this respect.
For this reason, it seems extremely reckless to me to make statements on this subject.
Mr President, with regard to Cuba, the phrase we have added can be interpreted by the various political parties as they see fit.
But when we say that we want a cooperation agreement to be reached in line with European doctrine, we mean to agree with what was stated in the Newens report and in the common position; that we will only reach a cooperation agreement when the Cuban regime makes significant progress in the improvement of respect for human rights and progresses towards a pluralist democracy.
This is the doctrine of the European Union, which is implicitly expressed in this resolution.
I would just like to say that, three years after hurricane Mitch, Central America is once again being struck by the fresh tragedy of hurricane Michelle.
We must not forget that, since then, it has suffered an earthquake, drought and famine.
However, despite these disasters, democracy is slowly being established in these countries once again, and the European delegation, of which I am a member, which has just been to Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, is unanimously agreed on this point.
The proper running of the elections which have just taken place in Nicaragua is also evidence of this.
Therefore, I feel that we can be proud of the decisive role played by the European Union action in the development of democracy in these countries.
That is why I call for two measures: firstly, to increase the funds appropriated to the Programme for the Reconstruction of Central America, which currently amounts to EUR 250 million for the 1999-2002 period, since the latest disasters were not taken into consideration; and secondly, to review the European Union' s outdated position on Cuba.
Also totally devastated by the latest hurricane, the worst it has suffered for 50 years, Cuba is currently the only country in Central America which has not signed a cooperation agreement with the European Union, and its only hope in these times of trouble is humanitarian, emergency aid.
I could smile and tell you, with regard to Cuba, not to be more Catholic than the Pope, in the knowledge that he had no difficulty in identifying the right choice, but the appalling situation of this countries prevents me from smiling.
Rather, I will warn you not to focus on the wrong enemy.
The enemy is no longer communism: it is terrorism and terrorism thrives on destitution; democracy cannot be built on famine.
Cuba is an important, or rather essential part of the process of bringing integration and peace to Central America which is currently in progress.
Therefore, I urge the Council to instruct the Commission to reopen democratic cooperation negotiations with Cuba, insisting on total respect for European democratic values, which will not accept two different sets of values.
Mr President, it is quite sad that when we have these afternoons debating topical and urgent subjects of major importance, we almost always have to ask again for aid for catastrophes affecting the world' s poorest countries.
Both the delegation which, as Mr García Margallo said, visited Cuba and El Salvador, and the previous delegation that went to Honduras and Nicaragua, were able to see first hand the situation in which these countries find themselves, which, it must be said, is gloomy.
Nobody would say, however, that the situation in Cuba is gloomy; of course there are many problems that Cuba has to resolve, but these are nothing to be gloomy about, as anyone who has travelled to Cuba will tell you.
In any case, Mr President, I think we have to congratulate the European Commission for their speedy reaction to this catastrophe.
We also have to acknowledge the fact that in Cuba there have not been so many victims thanks to the very quick reaction and very good organisation of the public authorities serving both the general public and tourists.
Several Spanish tourists said on TV that they had been looked after very well during this situation of emergency.
I was very happy that the last phrase from paragraph 4 had been removed, which is a last minute amendment.
For the fact that there should be a common position that prevents there being a normal relationship with Cuba, as there is with other countries, is regretted by non-governmental organisations, the church, representatives of the European Union, and even dissidents.
It is quite a sad matter for the European Union that Cuba is the only country in Latin America with which there is no cooperation agreement.
We are aware that when a resolution such as this one is approved in this House, it has to be done by a majority.
If it is true that there was agreement on that phrase being included, then it should be; but, naturally, it is regrettable that there is no cooperation agreement with Cuba, because what is required from this country should be the same as for all the others.
Yesterday we debated this issue and we saw that neither Turkey nor Morocco nor a large number of countries in Latin America have been asked to implement measures before an agreement can be reached.
We have only asked this of Cuba.
This is the difference, and it was made clear in this House, Mr President.
For this reason, if the phrase has to be included, then include it, but it is regrettable that it is only Cuba which is required to fulfil these conditions.
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I too would like to express our solidarity with the people of Honduras, Nicaragua and Cuba, whose countries have been tragically devastated by the effects of hurricane Michelle.
Along with Iris, on 8 October, and Mitch, which we have not forgotten, this hurricane is one of a long list of natural disasters which regularly affect areas which are already suffering, adding tragedy to poverty.
These disasters, termed natural disasters, are a further reminder that climate change and non-sustainable development exacerbate the already substantial devastation and will continue to do so in the future.
Although the European Union is to be congratulated on the aid it is sending to Honduras and Nicaragua, it must be noted that Cuba is totally excluded from this demonstration of solidarity.
Cuba, which has suffered its worst disaster in 50 years, is unable to receive our help, for it is the only country in Latin and Central America which does not have a cooperation agreement with the European Union.
This situation is no longer appropriate: it is our duty to restate the need for a cooperation agreement focusing on environmentally sustainable development to be signed with Cuba without delay, and to review the European Union' s position.
We advocate equal treatment for all countries, and Cuba is certainly not benefiting from the same treatment as other countries.
Moreover, the American embargo on relations with the island is preventing it from buying the food and medical supplies so desperately needed by the people of Cuba.
The pharmacies are empty and there is a shortage of everything in the hospitals.
We cannot tolerate a situation which deprives an entire people of the aid received by neighbouring countries which have suffered the same disasters.
In order to change this, we must also support the call for the embargo against Cuba to be lifted.
Mr President, our initial reaction is to express our sincere condolences to the families of the victims and their countrymen, but we must also immediately re-state our commitment to show solidarity with the affected countries, taking care that this solidarity is shown through immediate, generous and effective action.
The principal role was initially taken by our own European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) and it appears that the Commission acted with the necessary speed by means of this office.
But the action of the European Union should not stop at this point and we should make a significant contribution to the reconstruction of everything which has been destroyed or damaged by Hurricane Michelle.
A large proportion of our efforts will be included within the Reconstruction Plan for Central America and within the framework of the Union' s agreements with Honduras and with Nicaragua.
This is where we fall down, due to the pitiful lack of a similar agreement with the Republic of Cuba.
This is something that we are continually denouncing here in this House.
It makes no sense that Cuba, for whom, amongst other things, the Member States of the European Union include their main economic, commercial and tourism partners, should be the only country in Latin America with which the European Union has not signed a cooperation agreement.
For this reason, at the present time, the European Union is restricted to acting almost exclusively within the field of humanitarian and emergency aid.
We in this House would ask the Commission to show a high degree of flexibility when considering the suitability of projects which, in addition to this type of aid, also contribute to surmounting the damage and helping with the reconstruction of those sectors that have been most affected on the island by the effects of the hurricane.
It is vital that we revise the European Union' s common position on Cuba, which today is obsolete and even counterproductive, with a view to achieving the objectives that should have been pursued in 1996 when it was established, that is to say, the progress and prosperity of the Cuban people.
I would also have preferred that the paragraph added by the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats had requested the same from Cuba as is requested from other countries with which the European Union cooperates.
In any case, I do not think that the situation in Cuba is as gloomy as those who are determined to criticise that country would have us believe.
Mr President, we hope that the dialogue, without preconditions and without the exclusion of any particular subject from the agenda, that appears to have been re-initiated with the meeting this Monday in New York between the President of the Council and the Cuban Chancellor, will soon bear fruit and led to the signing of a cooperation treaty that will benefit Cuba and that will allow the European Union to act under normal conditions, with a greater degree of efficiency and with more influence in their relations with this country.
Floods in Algeria
Mr President, Algeria has been a troubled country for many years.
Its reputation and image abroad has been damaged by the violence, massacres and abuses of human rights there, but that is nothing compared with the pain and suffering of its people at home.
One million people died in the fight for independence and another 100 000 have died in the current power struggles between Islamic militants and the military and among the minority Berber community seeking political and cultural recognition.
Now in this country, four fifths of which - ironically - is Saharan desert, we have the catastrophe of flooding in Algiers with the death toll in flash floods rising towards 1 000 as the grim task of sifting through the mud and the rubble goes on.
It is not the first such calamity.
In 1994, 30 000 people were made homeless in the Tindouf area, but the difference is that on that occasion seven lives were lost, while this time 693 people have already died and over 300 people are missing, with some 20 000 people thought to be homeless.
The urgency now is for the European Union to play its part in providing humanitarian aid.
There is a clear need for shelter, for food, for medical supplies and I certainly welcome the EUR 750 000 which has been given for this purpose under the ECHO fund, and indeed the promised EUR 225 million from the European Investment Bank for drinking water supply lines.
There is also a need for adequate heavy equipment to deal with situations like this and even picks and shovels seem to be in short supply.
Certainly no sniffer dogs appear to be available.
Given Algeria's position in an earthquake area it would certainly be prudent to have such things available for the future.
I would like to hear from the Commission what proposals it has to deal with this.
There is also the need to look at the policy of sealing the floodwater drains against terrorist activities, which in this case has clearly exacerbated the situation.
Mr President, as Mr Swoboda stated, Algeria has already seen a great deal of suffering with the continual deaths in the country, more often than not of innocent people, and also with the poverty that is devastating part of the population.
Therefore, this catastrophe has only made this situation worse, with more than 600 victims, as has been stated, and with more than 20 000 people who have lost any standard of living they may have had.
Also, in this case, the resolution congratulates the European Commission on its speedy reaction, but special emergency aid will probably be necessary.
It is true that the European Parliament colegislates the budget with the Council, and, therefore, the result is what we achieve together, I know, but I am filled with sorrow - especially on these afternoons when we have to talk about so many catastrophes - that there is no sufficient budget heading that can be used in such cases, because we always find ourselves having to beg for, or to transfer some money from elsewhere to deal with these tragedies.
In the specific case of the resolution, the European Commission has also been asked if it could send experts and technicians to help evaluate the damage and find a way to rebuild what has been destroyed.
I know that we ask a great deal of the European Commission, but it is also true to say that the European Parliament is very sensitive to the situation in countries in Central America - as stated previously - as it is with countries in the Mediterranean.
We have to ask - and ask ourselves - as was stated the other day in the Committee on Development and Cooperation when talking about the reconstruction of Afghanistan (after having first destroyed it), that that reconstruction should not be the cause of a reduction in the funds available for Mediterranean countries, countries in Latin America and Africa, who also really have great need of them.
Mr President, I would like to start by expressing my full solidarity and the solidarity of my group with the people of Algeria, which has once again been struck by a huge disaster.
We who support the Algerian people, particularly in their fight for independence, are shocked by the tragic consequences of the floods in that country.
Material and, above all, human loss are jeopardising the country' s development and preserving its excessive structural and political shortcomings.
This disaster reveals once again the incompetence of the Algerian government: the way it builds houses and roads in flood plains and decides to block drains allegedly for safety reasons is proof of the utter irresponsibility of its leaders, and this is on top of the corruption and misuse of funds.
The government has failed in its primary mission of serving the general interests of the people.
It has done nothing to meet the needs of the people or ensure their safety.
Therefore, we must call upon the Algerian authorities to make good their past mistakes.
This situation must on no account be allowed to occur again either in Algeria or elsewhere.
We must no longer allow citizens' lives to be endangered by irresponsible, self-interested or reprehensible behaviour.
Mr President, some people may wonder why we are devoting time to discussing flooding - even flooding on this scale - in Algeria.
In fact a debate is currently raging about this idea of concern.
Recently, at a large meeting in Nuremberg, a leading German Orientalist complained that in parts of the Islamic world people were not concerned enough about the atrocious events in New York.
At the time I replied that we too have shown very little concern about Chechnya, where over 100 000 people have been murdered, or Iraq, where over 100 000 people, mainly children, have starved to death.
In fact there is a kind of partial culture of concern which is divided along cultural and geographical lines.
That is why we need to ensure that we also have compassion for our Muslim and Arab partners when they are hit by catastrophes of this kind, so that terrorists cannot - and after all this was the aim of 11 September - play off one civilisation against another and actually orchestrate the 'clash of civilisations'.
The dead in Algeria are also our dead.
The homeless in Algeria are also our homeless.
If we speak of a global village in economic terms then we must also speak of a global village of compassion and solidarity.
That is why, where our partners in the Mediterranean, in the Arab world, are concerned, who are on our doorstep and with whom we need to work more closely than ever, it is the European Union's duty to provide substantial humanitarian aid, and also to ensure that Algeria is put in a position where it is more capable than it has been in the past of helping itself.
Helping people to help themselves must be our overriding aim, but of course our aim now must also be to provide the victims of this disaster with direct practical help, not only by giving them money, not only by writing them a big cheque, but also by making it clear to them that what happens to them is something which we Europeans are deeply concerned about, something which matters to us as much as what happens to ourselves.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Members of Parliament for their kind remarks concerning ECHO and I shall convey these congratulations to Mr Nielson, the Commissioner responsible.
Firstly, as far as Hurricane Michelle is concerned, the Commission has been closely monitoring its effects in Central America in the Caribbean area since the beginning of the crisis, in cooperation with our experts and partners in this field.
Michelle started on 29 October as a tropical storm off the northern coast of Nicaragua and Honduras, where it caused severe floods.
The communication systems proved their efficiency as they were the only working systems that allowed for a quick evaluation in areas of difficult access such as Moskita.
On 1 November, ECHO started discussions with the NGOs present in the field to establish emergency systems, particularly in the Moskita region in Honduras and Nicaragua - the areas worst hit.
On 4 November, Michelle became a hurricane that crossed Cuba and touched Jamaica.
Fortunately, the local authorities had undertaken timely evacuation measures.
ECHO services decided on funding once an initial evaluation of the hurricane damage had been carried out in Cuba.
This decision to allocate EUR 1 050 000, should be approved by the end of this week and will cover the Moskita region in Honduras and Nicaragua, Cuba and Jamaica.
The decision will mainly involve the evacuation of people in danger, food aid for Honduras, the provision of temporary shelter in Jamaica and the distribution of water, sanitation and health packages in all countries.
Members of this House have raised two main issues.
One concerns Nicaragua.
I should like to assure you that all the distributed funds are regularly monitored and no irregularities have been detected so far.
That was the assessment of the Parliament delegation that visited Nicaragua.
The second comment concerned Cuba.
Some people wanted a revision of the EU Common Position on Cuba, announced on 25 June 2001.
But it kept being said Cuba had not been given any humanitarian aid until now.
In fact Cuba has benefited from around EUR 125 million in aid since 1993, largely in the humanitarian field, as well as the food security programme and some budget line assistance.
But for the time being, the line followed by the Commission is as proposed in the latest European Union Common Position which I have already referred to.
As far as Algeria is concerned, the situation in the country is very complex.
There are many different kinds of problems, but I will only refer to the problem of the flooding last weekend.
The European Commission has followed the situation with great attention and concern.
President Prodi sent a message to President Bouteflika to express the solidarity of the European Union with the Algerian flood victims.
Therefore the Commission, through its humanitarian aid office, has moved quickly in response to the floods.
A decision to allocate EUR 758 800 of humanitarian aid has been taken under the primary emergency procedure to help meet the urgent needs of the victims.
The funds are already being used for a range of support measures including temporary shelter, beds, clothing and blankets, water, sanitation and medical assistance.
Humanitarian operations funded under this decision will be implemented by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and by two NGOs - Médicins du Monde and Médicins sans Frontières.
With those decisions on Hurricane Michelle and the Algerian floods, the Commission underlines its determination to address the needs of victims of humanitarian disasters whenever they occur.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Trade in small arms
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0723/2001, tabled by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the PSE Group, on small arms;
B5-0729/2001, tabled by Mrs Morgantini and Mr Brie, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on controlling international arms transfers and arms brokering;
B5-0730/2001, tabled by Mrs Maes, Mrs McKenna and Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on controlling international arms transfers and arms brokering.
Commissioner, Mr President, just as certain small-scale conflicts receive poor media coverage, so certain categories of what are known as light weapons could be said to receive poor legislative and financial coverage. I mean that the legislation regulating them is insufficient and that they are cheap to buy.
Why are we surprised, then, when it is this type of arms which keep these forgotten conflicts alive? Yet the number of victims alone should concern us, if it were not concealed by the effects of poverty.
However, evidence that the world does have a conscience has emerged in the shape of the United Nations Programme of Action aimed at containing and controlling the transfers, or rather the trafficking of these light weapons which are responsible for extensive loss of human life.
In the light of the current international situation, with the armed alliance in Afghanistan and the international fight against terrorism, there is even greater need for the Union to join and support this resolute, pioneering UN measure.
The European Union' s military policy must be more than just defence measures controlled by senior military staff.
It must, in essence, be based on the prevention and control of the arms trade by an arsenal of binding laws covering all areas of this industry.
Our legislation must target arms brokering and export and detention licences, as well as extradition and police cooperation procedures, and national legislation governing these issues must be harmonised.
Instead of attempting to intervene in blazing conflicts, would it not be better to defuse them before they ignite? The Union' s legislative structure would allow us to do this at the stage when we are still preparing for military action.
Europe must seize the opportunity afforded here.
Mr President, we are quite properly concerned about the spread of small arms and light weapons, particularly the illegal traffick in, and uncontrolled circulation of, these weapons.
I am not sure why Parliament has decided to bring forward an urgent resolution at this time, unless it wants to contribute something useful in the context of the current international crisis, the continuing threat posed by weapons held by terrorists or the consequences of the large accumulation of weapons in Taliban hands in Afghanistan.
There is some passing reference to these matters in the motion for a resolution which contains many useful elements.
For many years I have worked to overcome the problem of anti-personnel landmines but I have always sought to focus attention on the real culprits who use such weapons indiscriminately and irresponsibly.
Usually these were armed rebel groups in developing countries with no concern for human life and they had been supplied by non-western countries.
It is important, therefore, that when considering the matter of small arms we should take care not to become over-obsessed with our own authorities or industry: these are the easy targets.
Instead, we should focus on terrorist groups and other criminal elements that are sitting on stockpiles of weapons or continuing to obtain them from various sources.
It is scandalous, for example, that there has been toleration for so long of large stockpiles of weapons held by terrorist organisations such as the IRA in one EU Member State, in order that it may threaten or carry out attacks in another.
In relation to Afghanistan it is to be hoped that a legitimate government with democratic aspirations will be established there very soon, anxious to engage positively in the real world and begin the development of a sustainable economy and a better life for all its people.
There must also be efforts to remove weapons in Taliban hands and integrate ex-combatants back into some sort of mainstream society.
I am not referring to terrorists there.
Much has been achieved.
Our focus for the future in relation to small arms should be on identifying and destroying stocks of weapons held by insurgents, terrorists and criminals and cutting off their sources of supply.
This is the area on which we should be concentrating our efforts over the coming months and years.
Mr President, nearly ten years ago, in the early 1990s, I travelled through the Khyber Pass, a trip I can strongly recommend to all colleagues - though perhaps not at this moment.
At the top there is a small village where you can buy food, water and "souvenirs".
The "souvenirs" are drugs, home-made Kalashnikovs and home-made surface-to-air rocket launchers.
With the money I had on me I calculated that I could buy ten Kalashnikovs or three rocket launchers.
The only problem was how to get them home through customs, so I did not buy them!
Coming forward to 10 October this year, at the United Nations in New York there was a speech by the American Assistant Secretary for Arms Control.
He used wonderful sounding sentences, such as "we must redouble our non-proliferation and arms control efforts", "the entire globe faces a security challenge!"
But he had no proposals at all for controlling small arms. Why?
Because the extremely powerful and wealthy organisation called The National Rifle Association - the NRA - helped to elect the present administration, which will therefore not stand up to the Association.
With the events of 11 September and the high murder rate inside the United States of America, I wonder just what it will take for America to cooperate with the rest of the world on this problem.
My Group supports the motion because it is a small step in the right direction.
- (PT) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this problem - the trade and trafficking in small arms - is one of the most serious problems facing the world today.
The first observation I wish to make is that this expression 'small arms' is misleading, because small arms include heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, grenade throwers and mortars of less than 100 millimetres.
We are talking about devastating weaponry.
To quote the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, speaking at the Conference held in July, we must be fully aware of the terrible effects of the current trade in these arms.
It is estimated that there are some 500 million arms in circulation in the world today and that, every day, these arms kill on average more than one thousand people.
This is, therefore, an issue to which States must pay serious attention.
It is an area in which the fine line between seriousness and hypocrisy can be most clearly traced.
For many years I have called for the issues of the arms industry and trade to be the business of States alone.
Applying the market economy to this area can only have disastrous consequences, and instead of complaining about the trafficking and dealing in arms, we should be adopting stricter measures on the state control of the production and trade in these arms.
Unfortunately, however, governments themselves are not always entirely blameless.
Currently, in Portugal, a campaign is running, launched by Catholic missionary organisations and supported by the Portuguese section of Amnesty International, to draw attention to this scourge.
And why missionaries, you might ask? Because missionaries are, particularly in Africa, those who have most frequent contact with the appalling consequences of this situation.
Unfortunately, my country - it is not only France, the United Kingdom and other often-mentioned European Union countries - is not entirely free of blame in this matter.
According to figures that have been released, in 1998, the year in which the European Union code of conduct was signed, Portugal sold around EUR 9 million' s worth of arms to countries that it should feel unable to do so, such as Angola, Algeria, Colombia, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Sri Lanka and Turkey.
Portugal also sold around EUR 5 million' s worth of arms to a further eleven countries that should, at the very least, be under strict observation.
We support the resolution that has been tabled.
This is a matter on which some progress has been made, but more energetic steps must be taken.
Above all, the European Union must set an example in this area.
We cannot shed crocodile tears on Thursdays over conflicts that are continually supplied by the legal or illegal trade in these arms.
Mr President, the accumulations of small arms dotted all over the planet are a cause of destabilisation and crisis and the European Union has promised to do what it can to combat this phenomenon.
The European Union has proposed, as part of its joint action on small arms and light weapons, to introduce a series of confidence-building measures, including measures to improve transparency.
The Union has promised funding and technical assistance to countries, international organisations and non-governmental organisations asking for support for this purpose.
The European Union welcomes the results of the United Nations conference on the illegal trade in small arms although, as the members have said, it does of course recognise that the results might have been clearer and more concrete.
However, we believe that the very fact that this first conference was held at all is an important step.
We particularly welcome the decision to organise another conference before 2006 so that the progress made can be examined and evaluated by then.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
As indicated on the display board, the next item is Mrs Lynne' s report. The debate is scheduled for 5.30 p.m.
I am therefore going to suspend the sitting for a short while.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.20 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Announcement by the President
I wish to speak about a very special matter: today, for the first time, If am not mistaken and if I am not misleading the House, we will have the opportunity to have twelve booths, because out of respect for this report and as a result of the rapporteur' s invitation, we will today have sign language interpretation to my right, as you can see, which is a tribute to the communication between this Parliament and all of Europe' s citizens, whoever they may be.
2003, European Year of People with Disabilities
The next item is the report (A5-0377/2001) by Mrs Lynne, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council decision on the European Year of People with disabilities 2003 [COM(2001) 271 - C5-0306/2001 - 2001/0116(CNS)].
Mr President, I would just like to say that I am standing in for my colleague, Mr Andrews, and I am very honoured to do so because of the important issues in this excellent report by Mrs Lynne.
The purpose of the year is to provide for a coordinated effort to change attitudes and to promote the removal of social and environmental barriers to equality and to assist in legal and policy developments.
This means putting a value on diversity and celebrating diversity.
It also includes making us aware of issues relating to multiple discrimination.
I want to stress our full support for the designation of 2003 as European Year of People with Disabilities.
I know that the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs also supports the objectives of the year, as members unanimously backed my colleague's opinion.
There are approximately 38 million people in the European Union who have a disability.
They face a wide range of barriers, including different forms of discrimination.
People with physical and sensory disabilities are just as much a part of our society as able-bodied people.
Very often, however, they are hindered from taking part in our society.
What makes it worse, as Mr Andrews states in his opinion, is that they are not hindered by their disabilities, but by their environment and the attitudes towards them.
They suffer multi-discrimination.
This must change.
Some of the problems include public transport and access to buildings, stairways and doors which are not wide enough to allow wheelchair access.
Surveys show that the intellectual capacity of people with physical disabilities is very often under-estimated.
They can be discriminated against when applying for jobs.
The exclusion of people with disabilities from society not only denies their fundamental rights, but also deprives society of diversity and inclusivity.
People with disabilities can make a positive contribution to society.
Their experiences can encourage more tolerance, understanding and awareness of the needs of others besides their own capacities and abilities.
Our own goal must be to end discrimination and safeguard their rights.
It is important that discrimination against people with disabilities is tackled as a mainstream issue.
The four amendments presented by my colleague, Mr Andrews, were fully supported by the rapporteur, Mrs Lynne, and endorsed by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
They are now Amendments Nos 20, 45, 47 and 48.
I have nothing else to add, only to congratulate Mrs Lynne on her excellent report and on the very touching speech she gave to us in the presentation of the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, sign language interpreter, I would like to express a few thoughts on the World Year of People with Disabilities. I am also speaking on behalf of Mr Mantovani, who is particularly interested in this subject and cannot be here with us today.
This a truly vast subject, as can be seen from the statistics: today there are approximately 30 million people suffering from disabilities in the European Union.
This means that one European in ten encounters barriers not just in the field of work but also in access to public transport, buildings, private services, education and training - in other words, in all areas of daily life.
However, there are other barriers as well, maybe less obvious but just as insurmountable, which restrict the freedom of European citizens with disabilities, such as the barriers to movement within the Union and to going to live in another Member State.
All these barriers too often prevent people with disabilities from playing the active role they would like in society, work, school and daily activities.
We need a multifaceted strategy to ensure that these people are guaranteed equal opportunities in full respect for the European citizens' Charter of Fundamental Rights.
However, there is one right which stands out above the others: the right to full citizenship.
That is why our group, the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats will vote with conviction for the proposal for a Council decision on the Year of People with Disabilities - or, as we used to say in Italy in the olden days - people with different abilities - 2003.
I therefore thank the rapporteur, Mrs Lynne, for her good work and for accepting the 17 amendments tabled in committee.
Three of those were tabled by us, and we feel they are particularly important because they uphold three concepts: firstly, recognition of the importance of the role played by the family at all stages in the lives of people with disabilities; secondly, promotion of a culture of solidarity within society, meaning an understanding that a person' s value is not expressed solely in terms of what he does or is able to do, but primarily in what he represents, namely a human being in all respects; thirdly and lastly, reflection on the concept of the quality of life of a person with disabilities, understood not just to be access to employment or training but also all the other aspects of daily life, in the family and in and as part of society, a quality of life which is genuinely high and equal for people with disabilities too.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mrs Lynne not just on this particular report, but for her constant faith in and fight for policies for the disabled.
I should also like to make a point of thanking Parliament for the support and enthusiasm with which it accepted the proposal for 2003.
We need to make 2003 the year in which we send out a clear message that policies for the disabled are not just solidarity policies.
They are not just humane or charitable policies.
They are policies based on fundamental human and civil rights.
The second important point is that 2003 should not just galvanise governments into action.
It should also galvanise social and business circles and the scientific community into action.
Governments themselves should start up action plans for a package of policies.
Transport, urban planning, special policies for the job market, education.
Society should do everything it can, especially through the civil society and non-governmental organisations, to foster collaboration and take innovative initiatives which can be used as a basis for new proposals for the European Union.
Business circles can also play an important part.
Support for research and new product technology can bring about exceptional new products for people with disabilities and new technological products can be adapted to the specific requirements of different types of disability.
As Mrs Lynne referred to the Commission reports, may I inform you that only yesterday I started up my new web page, which can be read by Braille.
2003 should be seen as a year in which we push ahead with European priorities, such as those set out in the Commission communication on a "Europe without frontiers", while the individual Member States promote their national objectives, which differ from one country to another, given that policies for people with disabilities are at various stages of development.
I must say that I accept most of your amendments, in both spirit and letter.
I should like to highlight the following points: first, I totally agree that we need to concentrate more on awareness-raising about various types of disabilities and the fact that some people with very serious disabilities are victims of multiple discrimination and, of course, the plight of those kept in institutions.
The second important factor are the special policies on education and employment.
Access to the job market depends on education and we need to focus on this.
The third important point is the need for all the agencies involved to work together.
We cannot propose and implement policies for the disabled.
We need to work with their organisations so that we can present policies in which they themselves are involved.
We believe that 2003 will be the start of a new form of collaboration, a new type of innovative policy at European level for people with disabilities.
The budget, which is EUR 12 million, is small but we should point out that it is not for implementing policies but to back specific events of local or national importance, the main function of which will be to kick start societies and organisations.
I should also say that we believe that it makes sense to leave the funding ratio at 50% of activities at national level because this will allow for more events while, at the same time, allowing governments to take additional action in a range of policies.
May I again congratulate Mrs Lynne on her personal stand. I should also like to inform you that the Council will take its final decision on 3 December 2001, the same date as the European Day of Disabled People.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 6.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.55 p.m. and resumed at 6.30 p.m.)
Mr President, I have just one question: on Tuesday morning we approved requests for urgent procedure for the items on financial aid for a series of Balkan countries, and I regret that these are obviously not going to be taken until the mini-session, because we would have had sufficient time to deal with this issue in this afternoon's sitting, which has been suspended twice.
In the past, of course, anything which we added to the agenda on Tuesday morning was always taken on the Friday.
I hope that it will soon be possible to revert to this practice when Friday sittings are reinstated, but I wanted to take this opportunity to ask when these items will be taken in the Brussels sitting because you did not announce this just now.
Mr Posselt, according to my information, these will be adopted on Thursday 28; in other words, they will appear on the agenda for Thursday 28.
As for the rest of your comments, Mr Posselt, you are entirely within your rights to make them, but I hope that the Conference of Presidents considers the basis of your comments, for which there is some justification, I must admit.
Vote
Mr President, I voted for the report on the European Year of People with Disabilities, but Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are also some States whose laws include rules which discriminate against people with disabilities.
I am sad to say that there is even an Italian law which discriminates against them on age grounds, thus violating Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam. Indeed, it stipulates that people with disabilities who are over 65 years old are not entitled to the EUR 350 allowance granted to people with disabilities who fall ill before they reach the age of 65.
I therefore call upon the Commission to present a proposal implementing Article 13 outside the workplace as well, and, at last, to force the States which are not yet applying it to do so. I refer, in particular, to Italy, and I hope that the Berlusconi government will listen to what I am saying and abolish the laws currently in place in Italy - as in other parts of Europe - which discriminate against people with disabilities.
The good intentions of our rapporteur notwithstanding, we are worried that the European Year of People with Disabilities (2003) will be a year in which a great deal of money is spent and numerous events are staged, but which does nothing to change the situation of disabled people, especially those from the poor sections of society.
We are worried by the hypocrisy of all this interest being expressed in people with disabilities by the various institutions of the European Union because it is the very policy of the European Union, with its capitalist restructuring, privatisation of health, welfare and education and undermining of workers' rights and social insurance, which is to blame.
The first dramatic victims of this policy are the handicapped and people with disabilities.
They hypocritically maintain that their aim is to "promote equal opportunities" and "combat discrimination".
But does a young person or a child from a poor, working class family living at risk of disease and accident have the same opportunities, first and foremost in preventing disability, as a young person or child of the bourgeoisie? Does a child whose father is an executive of a multinational company have the same opportunities in finding work as a child whose father is unemployed?
It is impossible to combat the various types of discrimination which arise in a capitalist society as long as the main type of discrimination between the exploiters and the exploited continues to reign supreme.
What sort of a fight against discrimination is their policy, which spreads poverty, unemployment and illiteracy? Of the 38 million disabled in the ÅU, 7.5 million are of school age.
How many of these children have special schools or special classes and the special equipment needed for them to acquire an education? In Greece, only 7% of disabled children attend special schools, while 185 000 disabled children are not even in the education system.
And yet not one ÅU text, including the one under debate, so much as mentions free national health, welfare and special education, even for these people.
Nowhere does it suggest that the technical assistance needed for education, vocational rehabilitation or daily life should be provided free of charge.
This situation will change when the people, the workers and the disabled fight to obstruct the policy of "free competition and market laws" until it has been overturned.
This fight has the vote of the Communist Party of Greece.
Although, as we know, the main purpose of this kind of venture, modelled on International Women' s Day or World Aids Day, is to assuage the consciences of the most sincere of those who support the initiative and to conceal the desire not to do anything of the more cynical among them, we voted for the report on the proposal for a Council Decision on the European Year of People with Disabilities, for that was what the organisations of people with disabilities wanted us to do. They hope that the action taken as part of this initiative will help them to attract public attention and, at the same time, to make their just demands known.
That said, we condemn the hypocrisy of decision-makers within the European Parliament, other European Union institutions and national bodies who broadcast their concern for human rights, non-discrimination and equality loud and clear, but who ultimately refuse to take action or adopt binding measures forcing companies to employ people with disabilities, for example, or to adapt modes of transport for access by people with disabilities simply because they see profit-making as more important than meeting basic human needs, even though society does have the necessary resources to address these needs.
That is the end of voting time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The session was adjourned at 6.50 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 15 November 2001.
Announcement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, Spain has once again been cruelly struck by terrorism.
On 23 November, Ana Isabel Arostegui and Javier Mijangos, both officers of the Ertzaintza, the Basque regional police, were killed in a cowardly attack whilst carrying out their duties in Beasaín, in the Basque region of Spain.
Two days prior to that incident, terrorists set off a bomb in Bilbao, injuring two other officers of the same police force.
On my own behalf and on behalf of the European Parliament as a whole, I immediately sent a message expressing my most sincere condolences to the families of the victims of these despicable attacks, as well as our wishes for a speedy recovery to those injured.
Once again, terrorist groups in Spain have acted with fatal disregard, showing that they deny the right to life and totally reject the concept of democracy.
Having made an assault on justice, by killing Judge José María Lidon Corbi, they have, this time, attacked the Basque regional police force.
In doing so, they are showing their determination to attack the main pillars of democracy.
With our heartfelt thoughts for the victims, their families and all those who fight for democracy, I would like to ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to observe a minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Ladies and gentlemen, since our last session, five journalists have unfortunately been killed in Afghanistan.
Maria Grazia Cutulli, Julio Fuentes, Harry Burton and Azizullah Haidari were killed in an ambush between Jalalabad and Kabul.
Ulf Stroemberg was found dead following a burglary in Taloqan.
As you know, we are also extremely concerned about Ken Hechtman, who is missing.
The eight journalists who have died in Afghanistan since the beginning of the conflict were carrying out their duties in a courageous, passionate and tenacious manner.
They believed that it was their overriding duty to inform others.
I would like to pay a warm and sincere tribute to them for the work they did, because they enabled us to keep constantly abreast of developments in Afghanistan.
Freedom of information is one of the most fragile freedoms. The death of these journalists illustrates this.
I admire the way in which they fulfilled their duties.
At this time, our thoughts go out to their families and their colleagues, who are devastated by their loss.
I would like to ask you to observe a minute' s silence in order to display our deepest sympathy.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Order of business
With regard to the agenda, I have two changes to propose.
First of all, the Committee on Budgets adopted Mr Ferber' s report on the supplementary estimates of revenue and expenditure of the European Parliament, and has asked for this report to be put on Thursday' s agenda, pursuant to Rule 114 of the Rules of Procedure.
(Parliament gave its assent)
The second proposal is from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, regarding the vote on Mr Bouwman' s report on the protection of employees in the event of the insolvency of their employer, requesting that the vote be brought forward to tomorrow' s voting time.
This is because the Council intends to take its decision on this on 3 December.
(Parliament gave its assent)
The order of business is thus established.
Speeches on points of order
Madam President, I would just like to draw the attention of the House to what happened yesterday in Rome. A disaster occurred in which many firemen died and others were wounded; some of them are in an extremely serious condition.
They rushed to save human lives with the same courage displayed by the firemen in New York.
I feel that it is right for us, as European citizens and the European Parliament, to pay tribute to these brave men who have laid down their lives in an attempt to save the lives of others.
A block of flats collapsed, and if these men had not sacrificed themselves, others might have died.
I feel that Parliament should also pay tribute to these brave, remarkable firemen.
Mr Tajani, I have already sent a message of condolences to the Italian government.
Madam President, I, too, would like to express my grief at the deaths which occurred in the incident in Rome yesterday, and to express my heartfelt thanks and full support for the work of the police force and the municipal police, in particular, who are always ready and willing to act in the front line, not just to combat crime but also to come to the aid of European citizens at difficult times such as these, and who are always prepared to lose their lives doing deeds of great bravery, as, sadly, happened in Rome as well as New York.
Madam President, speaking as a Basque and, therefore, as a Spaniard, I would like to thank you for the sensitivity you always show with regard to the problem of terrorism in the Basque country.
On the other hand, and I am sorry to have to say this, I must point out that from time to time on these occasions when, in theory, we are supposed to be observing a minutes silence, there are people in this House who continue to talk, even on the telephone, which seems to me to show, amongst other things, a total lack of consideration.
Mr Howitt, you are aware that Mr Van Orden already brought up this issue at our previous part-session in Strasbourg.
Of course, I acted upon Mr Van Orden' s comments and my Cabinet contacted the Greek permanent representation.
We were given some further details.
There was, in fact, due to be a court hearing this Monday.
We are unable to confirm whether or not this hearing took place.
I am perfectly willing to intervene myself, depending, of course, on how events unfold, and on the situation, which, I can assure you, we are monitoring extremely closely.
Madam President, I should like to thank the honourable Members, whose acute interest in human rights and compliance with the rule of law in the Member States of the European Union is most gratifying.
At the same time, I am glad for this opportunity to point out that all substantive and adjectival rules, human rights and the rule of law are complied with to the highest degree in Greece, as I believe they are in the United Kingdom.
Having said which, I believe that the judiciary in my country will be scrupulous in complying with the requirements of both Greek domestic legislation and international conventions.
However, I should like to take this opportunity, merely for information purposes, to apprise the House of certain facts, so that we know where we stand.
We live in an age in which terrorism operates on an international scale.
The people arrested in Greece had been arrested on a previous day at another airport and cautioned against taking photographs of military installations, especially during operations or exercises and, according to the newspapers, transcripts of communications between air force aeroplanes and between aeroplanes and the base were found among their effects.
They were then found at another airport and it was at this other airport that they were arrested, having been warned what would happen beforehand.
So, as you can see, in these times of heightened awareness of the threat of terrorism, in these times when everyone knows that this sort of ban applies to every military base in Europe, and given that they had been warned, there was no more room for flexibility or turning a blind eye.
Nonetheless, I am sure that the proper procedure will be followed to the letter because Greece is at the vanguard of the 15 in providing the necessary guarantees for all citizens brought before its courts, irrespective of where they are from.
I trust that these few words have given the House the information it needed.
Thank you, Mr Souladakis.
Ladies and gentlemen, given that I have a further ten or so points of order, most of which relate to this issue, and that this matter is almost turning into a debate in itself, I propose that we leave the points of order and proceed to the debate on the preparation for the Laeken European Council, as these comments could be made after the debate.
Future of the European Union
The next item is the joint debate on:
the Council and Commission statements on the preparation of the Laeken European Council on 14 and 15 December 2001;
the report (A5-0368/2001) by Mr Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the Laeken European Council and the future of the Union (2001/2180(INI));
the report (A5-0399/2001) by Mrs Kaufmann, on the Commission White Paper on European Governance (COM(2001) 428 - C5-0454/2001 - 2001/2181(COS));
the oral questions (B5-0529/2001) to the Council and (B5-0530/2001) to the Commission, by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the European strategy to promote quality in employment and in social policy.
At the end of the joint debate, I have six motions for resolution concerning the European Council, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
I would like to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Louis Michel.
We are pleased to have you here and I shall now give you the floor.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Laeken Summit must take us a considerable step further in the process of European integration.
Today you are going to vote on two reports which concern the very structure of the European project and the direction it will take in the coming years: Mr Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo' s report on the future of the Union and Mrs Kaufmann' s report on European governance. In order to address these matters, we must start by answering certain fundamental political questions.
What are the new internal and external challenges facing the Union? How can we simplify the institutional structure of the Union?
How should the various competences be assigned and how should we involve national Parliaments? Indeed, the organisational model cannot be an end in itself; it must be a means to our achieving the objectives in our sights.
It must reflect the idea of society that the vast majority of our citizens want. The Communication on the future of the Union, which we will be presenting prior to the Laeken European Council, takes as its starting point precisely these considerations, which I see are also addressed in both the reports under debate today.
First of all, let us examine the report on the future of the Union.
If the Union were to confine its activities to the policy areas it concerned itself with in the sixties and seventies, the current institutional framework would probably be adequate, but the political situation has changed: our citizens are asking the Union to do much more, to resolve complex problems that only the current form of the Union makes it possible to deal with satisfactorily.
However, the current institutional structures are unable to meet these challenges effectively.
For this reason, the institutional system needs to be reformed so that the Union can take the decisions its citizens expect from it more effectively.
We cannot continue to create fresh expectations without equipping ourselves with the means to satisfy them.
Therefore, we must introduce institutional reforms that go beyond those decided upon at Nice.
We must also preserve the essence of the Community method, based on the institutional triangle, the mechanism which is really behind the 50-year long success story of the European Community. It is a well-balanced method based on a strong Parliament, a strong Council and a strong Commission as well as - in addition to the triangle - a strong European Court of Justice.
It is the only method that will allow us to combine efficiency and democracy, but it needs to be reformed and adapted to cope with Europe' s development and the Union's new priorities.
At the first part-session of the European Parliament after Nice, we all - Parliament, the President-in-Office of the European Council and I myself - came to a realisation: the democratic dimension of the method of reforming the Treaties needs to be strengthened.
In particular, there is a strong demand for the role of democratically elected representatives not to be confined to ratification of the basic texts of our Union.
In the current legal situation, given the constraints upon us, the best solution is to pave the way for the Intergovernmental Conference, which, I reiterate, I hope will be short and decisive, with thorough preparations bringing together the institutions and the national and European Parliaments.
In two weeks' time, the Laeken European Council will take a historic decision, setting up the Convention charged with preparing for the Intergovernmental Conference.
A Convention based on the Convention that drew up the Charter of Fundamental Rights will meet the need to increase people's involvement in the creation of a Union which has been a Union of States and a Union of peoples right from the outset.
This formula, which the Commission and the European Parliament have been advocating since the beginning of the year, has gradually been gaining support, even in those Member States that, just a few months ago, if we remember what happened at Gothenburg, showed great reluctance to accept it and even opposition.
The setting up of a Convention, its composition and structure and the further development of the agenda for the constitutional reform of the Union are the focal points of the Laeken Declaration.
These matters are examined in the motion for a resolution before you today.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mrs Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo, on the excellent report they have produced on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
The European Commission basically agrees with much of the report.
Indeed, Parliament and the Commission both believe that it should take as its starting point the four points set out at Nice, which, as the report clearly shows, actually affect more areas than is at first apparent.
In any case, it would be unthinkable to limit the areas a Convention can discuss when most of its members will be Members of Parliament.
They will therefore need to address all the questions of sufficient relevance.
With regard to certain aspects of the composition of the Convention, however, the Commission would ask the European Parliament to reflect further.
As you know, there is considerable support for the idea that the Chair of the Convention should be appointed by the Laeken European Council.
I, too, speaking on behalf of the Commission, am in favour of this, because neither the mere existence of the Convention nor even the fact that it works well will suffice: the Convention will have to convince the Member States.
It will be far easier for a Chair appointed by the European Council, who enjoys the confidence of the Heads of State or Government, to create the necessary atmosphere of trust between the Convention and the European Council.
We fully support the proposal that the Chair of the Convention should participate in the work of the Intergovernmental Conference as well.
However, we do disagree on one point in that the Commission considers that the Presidium should be smaller than is recommended in the motion for a resolution you are going to vote on today, with one representative for each component group.
The Presidium has to organise the Convention's work.
There is no need for all opinions, tendencies and interests to be represented within its structure.
The motion for a resolution calls upon the Convention to adopt unanimously a single, coherent proposal that can serve as the sole basis for the negotiations and decisions of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I hope this happens and I will be very pleased if it does, but we must be realistic.
It may, indeed, prove objectively impossible to find a broad consensus without lowering our sights considerably or too far.
In view of this, I would prefer to embark on the Intergovernmental Conference with a mixture of stronger and weaker options so that there will still be a chance of achieving incisive solutions, rather than lowering the Convention' s sights before the Conference has even begun its work.
Lastly, I see that we agree that the Intergovernmental Conference should be asked to complete its work before the start of the electoral campaign for the next European elections.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a crucial stage in the life of the Union. We must prepare for this stage using all the tools available to us, not just reform of the Treaties, which we have already discussed.
This is why, at the beginning of my term of office, I made the reform of governance, that is improving our way of working without changing the Treaties, one of the Commission' s strategic objectives.
Now I would, therefore, like to focus briefly on the Kaufmann report on the reform of governance.
Firstly, I congratulate Mrs Kaufmann, the Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Napolitano, and the European Parliament as a whole for the speed and efficiency with which the work, which has involved no less than ten Parliamentary committees, has been carried out.
Here, too, we agree on a significant number of points.
Both our institutions consider that we must conduct a critical review of governance at European level, and reform it where necessary.
The European Parliament supports the creation of an interinstitutional working group as I proposed in my speech of 2 October.
The Commission is ready to embark on this dialogue and we hope that the Council will also take part, at least where matters which are the competence of all three institutions are concerned. I reiterated this point today, a few hours ago at the meeting of the trialogue, and I hope that we will be able to make progress in this matter.
Moreover, the European Parliament shares the Commission's view that we need to streamline budgetary procedures and make the Council's activities more transparent.
What ultimately counts is the fact that the Commission and Parliament agree that democratic legitimacy must remain the central political point of reference in the issue of governance, and that efficiency, although also extremely important, must remain a secondary consideration.
The Kaufmann report also highlights a number of things that are of concern to Parliament.
First of all, I want to stress that the proposals put forward by the Commission in the White Paper are intended to strengthen the democratic process and therefore to strengthen the role of the European Parliament.
I am still of the opinion that the European Parliament is the central element of this democratic legitimisation, without which there can be no real support for our policies from the citizens of Europe.
However, let us look at these concerns as well.
Firstly, the fear has been expressed that the European Parliament will be supplanted by civil society.
I can assure you that this is not the Commission' s intention in that it was, in fact, the Commission that proposed that each institution should revert to performing its original tasks and that the respective responsibilities of the institutions should be redefined.
Secondly - and this is the opinion of the Commission - the European Parliament is the supreme democratic expression of European civil society and the natural representative of its demands.
At the same time, the Commission has to take informed decisions when drawing up legislative proposals. It cannot do this without appropriate consultation - and I repeat, consultation - with economic and social operators and members of the scientific, technological and cultural communities.
We therefore need to rationalise and structure a dialogue that has, for a long time, been a constant feature of our way of working.
I have read what the Kaufmann report has to say on this matter very carefully and assure you that we will pay the greatest attention to the recommendations it makes, including those dealing with methodology.
Similarly, the Commission does not now intend and has never intended in the past to call into question the prerogatives of the European Parliament as a co-legislator. Our proposals regarding co-regulation and self-regulation are only intended to prevent long-established practices from leading to anarchy and the abuses that you, yourselves, have pointed out.
This is the sole objective of the Commission's proposals.
Furthermore, our proposals recommend that any use of co-regulation should be decided on a case-by-case basis, after the European Parliament has delivered its opinion.
I have already said that the conditions and restrictions governing the use of these new legislative instruments should be the subject of a debate, and, if possible, of an agreement, between the institutions, preferably within the interinstitutional working group I proposed on 2 October. That is why the working group is so important.
The same method should be applied to the use of the framework directives, by which I mean legislative acts setting out principles and guidelines that give the Commission and the authorities responsible for execution in the Member States greater powers to adopt executive legislation.
I have already expressed the Commission' s belief that Parliament and the Council will have to adopt a simple legal provision to enable the legislator to monitor and control the actions of the executive.
There is a variety of national experience we could draw on to improve the implementation of Community policies and enable the legislative authorities to guide and control executive activities effectively.
This is also a matter for detailed negotiation between the three institutions.
I have already had occasion to say that the mechanism used by the legislator to 'call back' executive measures adopted by the Commission may not be the best possible method, or, at any rate, it needs considerable improvement.
However, the Commission will reflect actively on other possibilities and expects to be able to present tangible proposals, if possible during the interinstitutional debate that I hope takes place.
I would, moreover, reiterate that it would be inappropriate to decide on a practical action plan on the way the Community legislates - what is commonly termed better regulation - before all the institutions have debated it.
For this reason, in line with the undertaking I gave before this House, the Commission only intends to approve a consultation paper in the next few days which will focus the interinstitutional dialogue on certain priority measures that have also been suggested by the intergovernmental group chaired by Mr Mandelkern.
Furthermore, the Commission will work towards persuading the Laeken European Council to adopt this course and call on the institutions to develop the coordinated strategy desired at Lisbon by June 2002.
Lastly, I would like to clarify a few points concerning the action of regulatory agencies. I agree with you that we must prevent executive action from becoming fragmented and avoid weakening the democratic controls.
It is also true that the Commission cannot continue to take full political responsibility for the actions of agencies over which it has only a partial influence.
For this reason, we propose to define a general model for agencies which ensures the balanced representation of Parliament, Council and Commission.
Our most recent proposals are along these lines, but they do need the firm support of Parliament if we are to achieve the objectives we have set ourselves.
Ladies and gentlemen, two weeks ago, we presented and discussed with you our report on the progress made on enlargement, progress that allows us to pursue the objective, which I now feel is realistic, of admitting up to ten new Member States before the 2004 elections.
Today, the only thing I want to stress is the importance of continuing to increase the candidate countries' involvement in the Union' s activities.
This is why the involvement of representatives of the candidate countries in the work of the Convention is of paramount importance.
For the same reasons, we are increasingly involving the applicant countries in the activities and programmes of the Union.
In addition to enlargement and the reform of the Treaties, I would like to focus very briefly on some other items that are on the agenda of the Laeken European Council. The Union has played a very active part in the diplomatic efforts relating to the current international crisis.
Moreover, the visits I have made with the President-in-Office of the Council to Washington, the Middle East and, most recently, to India and Pakistan have strengthened my deep conviction that it is necessary, or rather, essential, for the Union to play a global role. We have also presented a number of proposals, in different areas, which are necessary for combating terrorism.
Now we must continue along this path and continue to show firm political will and great determination. In particular, we must maintain and develop our commitment to the full and effective execution of the Tampere mandate, on which we will present a report to the European Council.
Overall, the process launched has been successful. It must be developed as transparently and visibly as possible so that our citizens can see in it a response to their everyday security concerns.
The Member States are starting to recognise the need to draw on the principles and tools that characterise the Community method, such as the principle of mutual recognition although there is, however, still a certain reluctance among the Member States to move forward in sensitive areas such as immigration or visas, and this must be overcome by a stronger political will.
Madame President, ladies and gentlemen, the challenges before us and recent international events, confirm the relevance and validity of the European project, which must be strengthened and adapted to respond fully to our citizens' new demands. The Community method, which succeeds in combining legitimacy, democracy and effectiveness, is still the best way to build the new Europe.
For this reason, future Treaty reforms must be aimed at reinvigorating and strengthening it.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, we are on the threshold of a summit, under the Belgian Presidency, that will be very important in the history of the European Community.
Geographically speaking, Belgium is at the centre of the European Union. I hope it can also manage to be at the Union' s political centre.
With regard to the agenda that Mr Michel has presented, Madam President, I would firstly like to state my group' s support for the Leinen, Méndez de Vigo and Kaufmann reports, that deal with the fundamental issue of the future of the European Union.
Firstly, we have always supported the idea that there should be a Convention, because this has proved to be the method that allows for public debate, and for the Charter of Fundamental Rights to be drawn up democratically.
With this in mind, we think that this is the best method to implement: a Convention that is politically solid, that has democratic support and which is methodologically consistent with its objectives.
For this reason, I would like to make some practical suggestions to Mr Michel with regard to the statements he has made.
Mr Michel, in this instance, Parliament would be grateful if you could act in the same way you did with the Convention for the Charter of Fundamental Rights with regard to appointing a President.
Propose a President at Laeken and let the Convention elect the President.
I think that this is a question of good manners, which, in a democracy, are very important.
Secondly, I also think that it is significant that you speak about the dual democratic legitimacy of the Union, because it currently seems as if civil society has nothing to do with MEPs or with members of the Member State parliaments.
It is important that we should open up to and consult with the organisations that enrich civil society, however, we must not forget that democratic legitimacy is essentially achieved through elected representatives.
In this regard, Mr Michel stated that the membership of the Bureau or Presidium of the Convention remains open.
If the President and the troika have a presence in the Bureau, the European Parliament' s proposal will make sense - two MEPs and two representatives from Member States - for this will provide a balance between the two branches of democratic legitimacy.
We also insist that there should be a wide-ranging and coherent proposal; we do not want to have to choose between a selection of sample proposals.
And in relation to the potential time gap mentioned by Mr Michel, we would like to see a proposal, under the Greek Presidency, that brings the work to a conclusion; we do not want the outcome of the Convention to be postponed indefinitely. It must have a follow-up and must lead to a decision from the European Council.
With regard to the Commission, Mr Prodi, I would urge you, with regard to the responsibility you have as guardian of the Treaties, one of the Commission' s functions, to make proposals as quickly as is possible.
There are two points in Declaration No 23, for which the Commission has full jurisdiction, the simplification of the Treaties and the division of competences.
Some time before, you should table a proposal that we can debate.
This is one of the Commission' s functions that cannot be taken away.
With regard to governance, a related issue, we would ask you not to damn us with faint praise, as the British say, and which we Spanish might express as 'killing us with affection' because there are some really interesting proposals, but now the Handelkern report is being published.
Why can we not sit down together and reach an interinstitutional agreement on governance? We also have a democratic responsibility and we cannot consent to legislative power being taken away from us though the back door.
This is a serious warning.
(Applause from the Left) Lastly, Madam President, with regard to the CFSP and the fight against terrorism, you will all be aware that we are all working very hard, using the emergency procedure, on producing a European Search and Arrest Warrant, a framework decision on terrorism, a fight against money laundering, which is also important and related to terrorism, and we think that a joint effort by all should be made on this matter.
But our actions must also show that we have learned from our mistakes and shortcomings, and there is a very serious shortcoming for which the European Union should accept responsibility, and I think that at Laeken an important step could be taken by making defence one of the issues we should address in the Convention and which are to be incorporated into the Treaties.
Finally, Madam President, we have very important political responsibilities where Afghanistan is concerned.
The first hostages of terrorism have been the Afghans and above all the Afghan women.
And in the Middle East we have to continue in our attempt to find a solution that will ensure the security of the State of Israel' s borders, but which will also allow the Palestinian State to function and to be respected.
Madam President, in the short time available to me, I do not wish to repeat what has been said by our excellent rapporteurs, nor do I wish to concern myself with the strategy of the Council and the Member States, who have, for months, been setting this Convention up to be as feeble and unsuccessful as possible.
In this historic context, with one of the most important summits, preparing for an historic Intergovernmental Conference, in the offing, I wish to address the Commission.
Mr President of the Commission, I would very much like to remind you that all the great projects of European integration began with the Commission's visions and outlines and that the Commission was the spiritus rector and visionary behind almost every great step forward.
Let me remind you of the Single European Act, of the first Delors package, of Maastricht with its second Delors package and the Report on Economic and Monetary Union, of the White Paper on the completion of the internal market, of the White Paper on growth, competition and employment with its visions of the social dialogue and of a social chapter in the Treaty, of the White Papers on environmental policy and on the role of Parliament and of all the great concepts produced by the Commission, which went ahead of the Intergovernmental Conferences to prepare their way.
You speak today of the institutional triangle, which will indeed become a struggle for power between Council and Parliament, but where the Commission should be, I see nothing but a black hole.
Mr President of the Commission, where is the Commission's White Paper on European democracy?
Where is your draft European constitution? Where is your White Paper on a system of checks and balances in this supranational space, on the Convention's methodology and on fundamental citizens' and human rights in Europe?
None of these have you produced, and today's marginal comments by you are insufficient. Just to single out one point: if you do not even give this Convention the right to elect its own president from among its own members, you are disowning it before the eyes of the European public as a whole.
That is only one of the many errors you have been propagating instead of a vision.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I would like to say something about the Laeken Declaration and, in particular, about the Convention.
Especially since the failure of the Nice Summit, this Parliament has agitated for a new method for Intergovernmental Conferences.
Across party boundaries, it has worked jointly with our colleagues in the national parliaments and together with various representatives of civic society, to consign to the past, once and for all, the politics of secret diplomacy behind closed doors, of opaque decision-making and of horse-trading in marathon sittings through the long nights.
I believe this new approach, with the calling of a Convention, to be crucial to the European Union's future viability, for the primary issue here is the reinforcement of democracy in Europe.
It is, above all, about our citizens, about a comprehensive and broad debate on what shape should be taken by our common European home, which we hope we will, from 2004, share with ten more European countries.
Mr President-in-Office, today you have put before us the salient points of the Laeken Declaration, which is to be ambitious in its scope.
Let me return to a number of issues.
My group sees the composition of the Convention as being of extraordinary importance, and we take the view that two things, in particular, need to be taken into consideration here.
One is the principle of political pluralism.
There is an absolute need to guarantee that the various political forces are represented in the Convention and that the delegations of this Parliament or of the national parliaments should include not only representatives of the major political parties but also, because we need them, representatives of smaller political parties in the various European Union Member States.
Above all, we need a productive bilateral political debate, without which discussions will be lacking in interest.
Both sexes also need to be appropriately represented.
I see that amendments to the report by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Leinen have been tabled on this subject.
I hope that many Members will support these amendments so that, above all, the national parliaments and the Council will also then consider how they may comply with this criterion.
I believe there is an urgent need for purposeful and structured dialogue with civic society, something which you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, have mentioned.
We could, I think, also consider whether the Economic and Social Affairs Committee, which is an important mouthpiece for civic society, might play an intermediary role in this area.
I am very pleased with the announcement that the Convention is to draw up its own agenda, as not only questions about the institutions will have to be dealt with, but also a broad spectrum of the most diverse political issues, as well as the issue of how a wide variety of European policies are to be formulated in the future.
A report by the Commission tells us that 60 million people in the European Union are affected by poverty, at present, and I find myself thinking that this appalling figure alone tells us what a great need there is for political action, and that this Convention must be about a change of direction and a new kind of politics in Europe.
Mr President, the scope of European Union foreign policy needs to be extended in the light of the recent international developments, but the Member States' governments have to realise that we cannot have a common foreign policy without joint intelligence.
The geopolitical situation, poverty - an increasingly serious problem - and the growth of terrorism - there are now cells in all the countries of the globe - must prompt us to start work at Laeken on a project to introduce genuine joint intelligence, new intelligence which is not created or developed along the same lines as Europol but which is capable of being used transparently with political, economic and cultural analysts who will be able to focus our foreign policy on that cooperation and timely intervention without which the European Union, with or without institutional reforms, will not be able to get off the ground.
With a view to achieving peace in Afghanistan and the subsequent reconstruction of the country, the Union' s role both as mediator and a proactive force must be defined now so that Afghanistan' s future is characterised not just by economic recovery and the establishment of a democratic political system, but also by the reestablishment of a role for women in politics and social life.
The Union cannot ignore the fact that, to bring about genuine peace in the Middle East, we must work actively to oppose those who encourage, or, at any rate, do not offer resistance to local terrorism which, it is now quite clear, is supported at international level, and the Union has the economic and political tools to intervene along these lines.
In conclusion, the success or failure of the Convention depends on the will, the genuine European convictions motivating us, our will as individual parties and governments not just to produce documents on reforms but to focus on practical action that, as well as improving the situation of our own countries, can improve the situations of countries that look to us for help too.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Prodi, the EU' s Heads of State and Government have decided to hold a Convention on 14 and 15 December with a view to designing a constitution for a federation of national states. Now, let us clear up any confusion.
A federation of national states is a federal state. A federal state is a state and not a federation, in the same way as a fruit knife is a knife and not a fruit.
States have constitutions, while federations of states are based on agreements in international law between independent nations.
I call upon the Heads of State and Government to give the Convention a clear mandate. Is a draft constitution for a federal state to be devised, yes or no?
Or is a draft agreement between independent nations, not designed to establish a state, to be devised?
Why not let the Convention devise two different, clear and unambiguous proposals, one for a federal state - model 1, as envisaged by the federalists - and the other for a federation of states - model 2, as envisaged by the Euro-realists and focusing upon the cross-border problems we cannot solve ourselves in our own parliaments? Submit the proposals for public debate, followed by a referendum in which all EU citizens are asked if they want a constitution for an EU state or an agreement between nations acting together.
When we have their answer, an Intergovernmental Conference can be held with a view to proposing changes to the existing treaties.
The great majority of people in all EU countries want a referendum.
Why, then, not ask for their views before we do anything in their name? Let us have a peaceful and competitive debate concerning Europe' s future, and let the people give their answer.
I believe that people will prefer our version of a Europe of democracies, as set out in the minority opinion of the members of SOS Democracy. I would happily defer to the majority in a referendum, but never to officials and ministers operating behind closed doors.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the future of the European Union is, as a subject for debate, no doubt closely related to, and in part inseparable from, the reform of governance, which forms the subject of my report.
You will see, on reading it, that it is not exactly sparing with its criticisms.
It takes up a very definite stance on numerous subjects addressed by the Commission in its White Paper, and, to use a phrase currently popular in Germany, a good thing too!
It is precisely for this reason, President Prodi, that it is important to me that I thank you and your colleagues for your initiative in producing this White Paper, above all for the Commission's willingness, expressed in the White Paper, to unreservedly and even self-critically examine and change all the rules, procedures and ways the EU has of exercising its authority, in short, everything summed up in the word 'governance'.
This merits every respect, being, in fact, about nothing more or less than the reduction of the prevailing gulf between the EU and its citizens.
In this, the Commission finds in Parliament a close comrade-in-arms.
We are, as is well known, only at the beginning of the debate on the reform of governance.
Many of the Commission's proposals need to be considered in depth.
The White Paper announces several initiatives, and when they are definitely on the table, we will express our opinion of them.
I assume that certain proposals can become reality quite soon and not only at the end of next year at the earliest.
I would put under this heading the committees and working parties listed in Commissioner Kinnock's White Paper on reform of the Commission, and which are participating in the consultation procedure.
I will take this opportunity to point out that I think that every future legislative proposal could have an appendix listing all the experts, associations and organisations that played a part in drafting it.
Parliament does indeed support the improved participation and consultation that the White Paper calls for, but we take the view that this requires an interinstitutional agreement on democratic consultation, and I am pleased, President Prodi, that you have mentioned this today and given it your clear support.
President Prodi, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, my report takes at length a very definite position on the issue of better lawmaking, and this is not by chance, for the fundamental issue is the role of Parliament as joint legislator.
Parliament has repeatedly emphasised that it puts its trust in the Community method, and that it sees the maintenance of the balance between the institutions as the best way to make progress towards integration.
It is not, then, some concept that we are defending, but rather its content and political essence, so I want to make it very clear today that, to put it mildly, there has been great disquiet in Parliament about the Council' s and the Commission's long-standing efforts to draft an action plan for better lawmaking, about the working parties that have already and secretly been drafting papers with the objective of putting this programme of action on the Laeken agenda - all of which has been done without involving or even informing Parliament, the joint legislator.
As item 30 of this report quite clearly states, we see this as a grave breach of the Community method.
The report therefore also demands that the action programme for better lawmaking should not be on the agenda for the Laeken Summit.
This is certainly not about this House being unwilling to take part in any consideration of how lawmaking could be simplified or even improved.
President Prodi announced today that the Commission will be producing a consultative document aimed at starting a dialogue with this House on this issue, and I can tell you that this Parliament is ready for it.
Let me say, though, and say quite emphatically, something to which we attach the highest importance: that if Parliament's legislative authority, given to it alone directly by the citizens who elected it, is restricted, Parliament will not take it lying down.
It is, especially, co-regulation that is at issue here.
The use of so-called framework directives is something we view with a highly critical eye.
There must be appropriate mechanisms of democratic control, and on this point, Mr Prodi, there are evidently differences of opinion.
We want a time-limited 'call-back mechanism'.
So I was very surprised that the Council representative made no comments on this of all issues. Better lawmaking is indeed a matter for all three institutions, and I would be interested to know what the Council Presidency has to say on this issue or on that of the proposed interinstitutional working party.
Mr President, despite all the fine words, I cannot shake off the impression that the Laeken Summit is actually intended to clean up the very soiled image of the Belgian Presidency, an attempt to brush successive howlers by the Verhofstadt-Michel government team under the carpet.
These days, one only has to read the foreign quality press, such as The Spectator and The Wall Street Journal, to realise how much damage this Belgian government is currently causing by its incompetent behaviour and, for example, by the insults which Minister Michel, present at the moment, has addressed to Austria and Italy.
That is unfortunate, for the Belgian Presidency could have easily played a significant role in this time of debate about Europe' s core tasks, about Europe' s borders and about the democratic deficit.
After all, we know from experience that the Single Belgian Federal State does not work along democratic lines and that consequently, a Single European Federal State cannot work democratically either.
We know from experience that, for example, matters of social security, are best decided at the level of the individual nations and that the principle of subsidiarity has to be followed to the letter.
We know from experience that a high level of respect is needed for linguistic and cultural differences if we are to co-exist in a proper, democratic way.
We know from experience that problems arise when people, citizens, and voters cannot identify with the political structure which decides on their fates.
In my country, Flanders, 70% of those questioned cannot name even one European institution and nearly 40% do not realise that they elect the MEPs.
Anyway, this should all be steamrollered by the Laeken propaganda machine, and in that way, the Belgian Presidency will finish as it started: insignificant and at the service of the inflated egos of a few ministers.
Mr President, the Lisbon European Council and the socio-political agenda adopted by the European Council at Nice bring us into a new phase of policy on social affairs and employment in the European Union.
As we have heard from the President-in-Office of the Council and from the President of the Commission, interest is now focussed on the quality of work and of social affairs policy.
We in this Parliament want to be fully involved in this development.
We - by which I mean the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, whose Chairman, Michel Rocard, I represent - are therefore putting an oral question to the Council and Commission, coupled with a motion for a resolution.
It is our conviction that secure jobs, favourable working conditions and appropriate workers' rights do not diminish productivity and economic growth and hence the creation of jobs, but, on the contrary, promote them.
Work for all is the objective.
We want a strategy for more and better jobs.
Quality of work involves job satisfaction, which improves employees' motivation, and health and safety at work improve as well.
We are looking to the Commission to produce a proposal on the status of temporary workers.
Moreover, quality of work involves equal treatment of both sexes, the reconciliation of work and family life, and measures to keep older people in the job market.
For this we need the most modern forms of vocational education.
There is a need for further education, in-service training and lifelong learning.
The adaptability of enterprises and their capacity to deal with structural change will be particularly important in creating new and better jobs, and minimum standards across Europe are needed to ensure that employees are involved in this, informed and consulted in due time, and thereby enabled to adjust to change.
In comparison with our economic counterparts, for example, the United States, Europe suffers from a low employment rate.
The Lisbon European Council recognised that this was a problem and proposed an ambitious objective for progressively increasing this rate. It is absolutely vital that we achieve this objective.
The Commission has presented a communication in preparation for the Laeken Summit, in which it sets down the outlines of a strategy for promoting quality of work and social affairs policy.
The drawing-up of appropriate indicators and criteria, as Mr Prodi informed us, is not the least important of these, but is primary.
As I said at the outset, Parliament expects to be fully involved in discussions.
It is our ever more frequent experience that European social affairs policy is carried on by dialogue between sub-committees of the Council - for example the Employment Committee or the Social Protection Committee - and the Commission.
Parliament is often left out in the cold. We protest against this.
Parliament must be able to play its rightful part in formulating proposals on subjects such as employment and social protection which, after all, are of immediate concern to all citizens.
If we are to do this, the relevant specialised fora and the Commission have to keep us up to date with the work they are doing, and Parliament has to be consulted in good time before every European Council.
We expect a clear pledge on this from the Laeken summit.
We are, at the end of the day, the representatives of the people and therefore, in essence, the primary organ of the European Union.
President Prodi just used a very fine expression in describing Parliament as the most important expression of democratic Europe.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President, it is for these reasons that we look forward to your answers to our oral questions.
Mr President, after Mr Barón Crespo' s speech, there remains very little for me to say on this matter.
I am going to refer to the Commission White Paper, and also to the mysterious Council document, the Mandelkern report, to which reference has been made, but of which we have no knowledge.
The two documents deal with the legislative powers of Parliament.
Mr Prodi has made a commitment not to put forward any proposal to the Laeken European Council, and it seems right, in fact, that these issues will not be discussed at Laeken, because, in short, these are issues that affect the very essence of the process of drafting a new European Constitution and which should, therefore, be in the Convention itself, and, possibly, at the Intergovernmental Conference.
What we have to do here is to establish the legislative competences of the European Institutions, and make it clear that, of all the European Institutions, it is the organ of popular representation, the European Parliament, that holds the mandate for this popular representation.
The wording of the White Paper, relating to the powers of enforcement, to self-regulation and coregulation procedures, and to the Lisbon strategy, are all aimed at cutting back Parliament' s limited legislative powers.
Mr President, I have one minute indeed, and it is outrageous, in my view, for draftsmen of the opinion to be apportioned a meagre one minute of speaking time on such a weighty matter.
Overall, Nice has failed to come up with the goods, but as for the areas of competence of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, of whose opinion I have the honour of being the draftsman, the situation is not actually that bad.
I would particularly refer to the improvements made at our initiative to the workings of the European legal system.
The major concern which the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market wishes to express, therefore, is that whatever the fate of the Treaty of Nice may be, the positive changes which I alluded to a moment ago should enter into effect independently of the overall ratification of Nice.
With regard to the Laeken Declaration itself, to put it succinctly, the European Union must show itself prepared to meet the challenges that lie ahead.
It must focus on its core tasks and carry out its tasks properly.
In this connection, the European citizen expects Laeken to send out a clear signal that a great deal of work is being put into a European security policy, both internal and external.
I have been as generous as I can, Mr De Clercq, but one has to recognise the time that is allocated to your Committee.
Mr President, I am pleased that Mr Prodi is here to listen to this.
The Environment Committee is very unhappy with the idea of voluntary agreements, as a way of proceeding.
We want to see a legal framework for them because we believe that this is far too much like secret law-making.
We are not at all happy about the co-regulatory approach - whatever that may be - because we see that as a way of moving away from binding legal instruments, which can sideline democratic control.
Mr Prodi will know that we are very happy with the idea of publishing expert advice.
We are grateful for what crumbs we receive and would like to see sometimes the authorship of the legislation which we then tear apart.
On the question of implementation, we are very worried about the application of the law and I quote "in a way that takes account of regional and local conditions".
We feel it would be better to draw up the law in a more flexible way in the first place.
If you are going to take account of regional and local conditions, it probably means that you are going to upset the conditions of fair and equal competition.
We see a great need for the Commission to devote more energy to the issue of implementation and we see no real need to establish criteria to focus its work in investigating possible breaches of the law.
What they need is more staff.
Finally, I recommend to Mr Prodi to read the occasional paper produced by the European Policy Centre on regulatory impact analysis.
It provides the idea of having a regulatory impact analysis on all new legislation to assess the need for it, to examine alternatives and to examine its overall impact.
It would include, and this may not recommend itself to Mr Prodi or his staff, the idea of a specific regulatory assessment office in the office of the Commission Secretary-General.
I think that would be a very good idea.
Mr President, five principles form the basis of the Commission' s reform of the EU' s forms of governance: openness, participation, efficiency, consistency and a clear division of responsibilities.
The work on these areas cannot be regarded as being complete if one half of humanity is ignored.
No one can say they are working for participation if they do not guarantee that it is both women and men who are participating.
Our Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities called for a council on equality to be set up to, for example, gather information and analyse trends; for women' s rights groups and non-governmental organisations to be part of the database on civil society that the Commission intends to set up; and for considerations of equality to be integrated into information gathering at both national and local level, because women' s and men' s priorities, circumstances and needs often differ.
It is unfortunate that none of our demands has been incorporated into the report.
Mr President, the debate on the future of Europe must be conducted in a very responsible manner if it is not to end in failure, as happened with the intergovernmental method at Nice.
We must recognise the legitimacy of the European citizenship of the citizens of the Member States, for this, too, will help to bring the European institutions closer to the citizens once again.
Today, we have to take into account the way the interinstitutional organisations' systems have developed, and the more sophisticated this development becomes the more it widens the gap between the citizens and the institutions.
When the institutions work properly, problems do not arise, but when they do not work properly - and the number of petitions we receive is evidence of the considerable gap between the institutions and the citizens - the citizens are wronged by the institutions.
Our positive response must be to strengthen the institutions which safeguard the rights of the Union' s citizens.
The Committee on Petitions has been forced to issue an extremely critical opinion on the Commission' s proposals on good governance, for it has found no reference in them either to the European Ombudsman or to the Committee on Petitions' role as the institutional body which safeguards the rights of the citizens, who indeed petition it to uphold their rights.
The proposals for good governance do not appear to contain any significant element that might succeed in bringing the citizens closer to Europe.
This endeavour could be said to be effective in theory but, in actual fact, to have no genuine impact.
Lastly, we hope that it will be possible to make the obscure role of the Council clearer, at least by advertising the institution' s sittings when it is legislating, to avoid the impression of it being a huge black hole.
I recommend the points made in these reports to the other European institutions, for I am sure that Parliament is the only body with democratic legitimacy.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, there are only two observations I wish to make, and they overlap with each other.
I believe that the European Union's practical policy after 11 September has made it clear, through the behaviour of a number of Member States which indulged in bilateralism or appeared enraptured by their own managerial airs and graces, that the European Union is strong wherever it works in accordance with the Community method, and weak wherever it does not.
That is the lesson to be learned from the past two or three months; it shows us how necessary general reform of the European Union is if this approach, which weakens us, is not to recur in future.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is that it is important that we find the right mechanism at Laeken, where the European Council will not yet, essentially, be deciding on content, but where success will depend on the methods by which the content is worked out.
One thing, I believe, must be clear. If there is to be a Convention which owes its existence to the help given by the Presidency, a number of Member States and the Commission, and in which Members of this Parliament and of the national parliaments take part, then it must not be a Convention whose procedures are conceived in such a way that it does not have the room to manoeuvre needed if the right decisions are to be reached.
Nor must it lack a procedure that can serve as the basis for the final negotiations by the Heads of State and of Government.
It is, above all else, unacceptable that so much time is allowed to elapse between the Convention and the summit that the old method of the diplomatic governmental conference destroys all the political momentum built up by parliamentarians.
I believe that this will be the decisive test by which Laeken will stand or fall.
I wish you a great deal of success, knowing as I do that you, in the Council and in the Commission, share this view that these positions must be made to prevail so that we can work together with a view to a result acceptable to all.
The Convention marks the start of a new European Constitution, a bold vision of Europe' s future, a euro which is not suffering from monetary isolation but which is being embedded in socio-economic policy, a European Commission which is transformed into a European government, European elections with European lists of candidates and with people heading the lists of candidates who, via the European Parliament, can produce a president for the European Commission.
We would like more qualified majority votes in the Council and more codecision in the European Parliament.
The Council meetings must become public, allowing national parliaments to adequately monitor the Council Ministers.
We look forward to close cooperation between the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
This is a vision and the possible shape of things to come. The Convention should look to reach consensus rather than draft a catalogue with no strings attached.
The Convention must enter into an open dialogue with civil society, for part of Europe' s future lies in more European cooperation in those fields where citizens expect to see cross-border results, including food safety, immigration, environmental pollution, international crime and terrorism.
However, an equal share of the areas of policy could be apportioned to the regions and civil society.
I am thus in favour of more positive subsidiarity.
We must avoid a situation of Europe-autism and therefore focus on innovative institutional restructuring which goes hand in hand with cooperation in the various fields of policy.
Bringing about new types of European administration means adopting a more open working method and result-focused approach.
We will achieve this by introducing new instruments, such as co- and self-regulation and open coordination, but, in the event of failure, we must have the assurance that we can fall back on call-back mechanisms.
I am pleased with the resolutions before us.
As the European Parliament, let us today choose in favour of a new, transparent form of European administration and let us vote in favour of the Convention, thus ensuring a democratic future for Europe.
Mr President, in February 1787, a previous convention met in Philadelphia.
Several of the American States were opposed to calling the thing in the first place and several others were determined to restrict its mandate and to dilute its effect.
The convention's formal brief was extremely restrictive and it was not itself to decide but only propose.
Yet from that experiment flowered the American Constitution and the post-colonial parliamentary democracy that we still recognise today.
Such a similar result will only come out of this European Convention, if we as a Parliament are bold, well-organised and persuasive.
Beneath the Presidency of our European George Washington, we must draft a clear set of proposals and, while accepting the questions set for us by Laeken, we must retain the capacity to ask ourselves some questions.
Let us be truly creative for Europe.
Mr President, the Union already has implicitly in the Treaties the bones of a Constitution.
We all look to the Convention to make it explicit and clear and to create the proper legal framework for a thoroughly democratic Europe.
That, of course, will involve, as has been said in parts of this debate, fully recognising the prerogatives and powers of this great all-European Parliamentary Assembly.
But democracy at this level will not be effective unless it is also fully effective at the level of the little battalions: at the level of the local authorities, at the level of the constitutional regions, the self-governing internal nations of the Member States.
Now that means that the Convention must look to that question as well, and improving governance in Europe must, as the Commission has said, look closely at the proper involvement of regional and local authorities.
I thought that the Commission was somewhat timid in what they said about that, but alas, Parliament argues yet further timidity and talks down all the references in the White Paper to regional involvement with the Commission.
Recital M and Paragraph 26 are to be deeply regretted as currently phrased in Mrs Kaufmann's otherwise admirable report.
We want to see these amended.
We want to see a strengthening of the reference to the necessary involvement of the Commission and Parliament with the regional and local authorities, as well as with national parliaments.
We do not want to subvert the constitutional framework of Europe.
We want to improve it.
Mr President, the Laeken Summit is to form the basis of a new EU treaty.
The European Parliament' s resolution demands that this change to the treaties results in a constitution for the EU, that is to say, a decisive step of sorts on the way to a federal state.
I believe that something essential has been forgotten, namely that the Irish people have made use of their right to reject the Treaty of Nice.
This right, and this rejection of the treaty by the Irish people, should be respected at the Laeken Summit and a statement made to the effect that the Treaty should be rewritten.
The message from Ireland is clear: less centralism and supranationalism and more respect for national democracy.
What we need are treaty changes along the following lines: openness in the Council of Ministers, with the opportunity to monitor decisions by the national parliaments, at the same time as the national parliaments are given the opportunity to propose laws instead of this right' s being located in the Commission bureaucracy.
This is an important debate and I would like to compliment the Commission on its publication of the White Paper on European Governance.
In light of recent developments, it is obvious that it is a time for stocktaking but there can be no doubt about the relevance of the European Union to Member States and its citizens.
In most respects the European Union has lived up to the ideals and aspirations of Europe's founding fathers.
The achievement of peace alone justifies our existence but we have achieved much more, not least the fact that the ideals enshrined in the Treaty of Rome - of assisting economic and social development of small and under-developed countries - have by and large also been achieved.
Ireland bears witness to this fact and, despite the outcome of the Nice Treaty, Irish people readily acknowledge the benefits of our membership and also support proposals on enlargement.
So what has gone wrong? We have failed, in my view, to communicate Europe.
Citizens do not feel part of the European family.
Their perceived isolation from the decision-making process has left them frustrated and cold.
That sense of abandonment has led to the apathy and indifference as demonstrated by the lower turnout in recent European elections and, in Ireland's case, rejection of the Nice Treaty.
The Commission and Parliament are right about one thing, the EU lacks democratic legitimacy.
Furthermore, no layman, nor many MEPs, really understand how the whole thing works.
The White Paper and this report are all part of a hard sell, the idea being to sell the EU concept to our citizens more aggressively so that the people will learn to love it.
Beneath all of this is the interinstitutional battle and both Mr Prodi and Parliament are desperate to preserve the Community method, fearing there is too much intergovernmentalism about.
Whoever wins this battle between the institutions will make no difference to ordinary people.
It is time to put the true intentions of the EU project to the electorate in each Member State.
Only then will we know whether they want to be a part of it and whether the project can ever work.
But perhaps after Ireland, Denmark and Switzerland, that may be taking democracy a stage too far for all of you.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Prodi, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Leinen have, once again, presented us with a truly sophisticated report, but I feel that they have dwelled a little too much on methodology.
It is, of course, better to have a speedboat rather than a rowing boat, as you can go faster in the speedboat, but if you do not know where you are going, you are not at so great an advantage.
I welcomed the comments made by Mr Poettering, Mr Cox and Mr Voggenhuber, who, for the first time in a long while, focused on the issue of the Commission in their speeches.
In my view, we are now facing a very serious problem.
We have a fight on our hands. There is a tug of war going on between the Council and Parliament.
We are increasing our powers of co-decision, but, at the same time, we are in the process of destroying the Commission.
In doing so, we are introducing further bureaucracy, and I do not think there is any point, Mrs Theorin, in discussing transparency, governance, co-decision and democratic legitimacy, when we cannot even talk about electing the Commission by direct universal suffrage.
I believe that the balance of our institutions depends on this and that we cannot run our economy along the same lines as the great American model. It is the balance of our institutions, the check and balance, the division of powers, and not how to share the cake between the various institutions that our discussions, our debates and the Intergovernmental Conference, as well as the imminent Convention, should focus on.
I think that this is the only way to fight against further bureaucracy, the only way to once again make our institutions meaningful, the only way to reinvigorate European integration.
So, as Mr Salafranca said, there are no favourable winds for those who have no clue where they are going, and I think that, first and foremost, the problem that Parliament has is to know and understand in which direction it wants to travel.
Mr President, President Prodi, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, we in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs showed, by our unanimous adoption of the Kaufmann report, our ability, in the very short time available to us, to act in concert and respond to important reform proposals from the Commission, on which we will be able to take up a position either today or tomorrow, just in time for the European Summit at Laeken.
Let me just pick out a few points from the Kaufmann report and highlight the following: Mr Prodi, we are delighted to learn that you are sticking with the joint working party proposed in October.
What matters now is that we get it moving quickly and start collaborating appropriately on the subject matter in hand.
We, in the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats insist in any case on an early start being made on this work.
We are glad that the Commission of the European Union has given up developing what would have been, in effect, its own administrative structures right down through the regions, towns and local communities, as we read about, for example, in preliminary drafts of its White Paper.
It is also our opinion that it is fundamentally unacceptable that the Commission should adopt a method of open coordination, bypassing its co-legislator Parliament, with guidelines sanctioned only by the Council of Ministers and with the Commission using the financial reins of the programmes to set their general course.
Here, too, the co-legislator needs to be involved.
We urge you to undertake an in-depth reform of the comitological procedure.
It is not acceptable that, with the help of the national bureaucracies, Parliament's legislative prerogative should be made null and void by means of implementing provisions whose content, purpose and extent are not laid down in advance.
We also demand that European agencies be kept to a minimum.
May we remind you that the Commission and the European Parliament are born allies when it comes to the promotion of European integration and action in the interests of Europe's citizens?
The transposition of European legislation requires at every level its own culture of public administration, which must also embrace the application of European rules through the authorities in the Member States. There is an urgent need for appropriate instruction and training of civil servants at these levels.
Thank you, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, this debate is, in fact, far too early to be able to rate the chances of success of the Laeken Summit realistically, but, Mr President-in-Office, it is already a fact that the Belgian Presidency will be memorable, even if it was only because the attack on New York has put the fight against terrorism and Europe' s role in the world, at the top of the list of priorities.
For my group, it is vital for the Laeken Summit to spell out once more that we have our own contribution to make, especially in the search for political and diplomatic solutions for international conflicts, with full backing from the UN institutions, and that we also want to reactivate the dialogue with the Arab States.
The EU' s own role means, inter alia, that Europe refuses to ignore or suspend the principles of the rule of law and human rights in the name of the fight against terrorism, and that Europe insists on justice in the framework of an international court of justice and not in the framework of exceptional courts.
Mr President-in-Office, I hope that Laeken will drive home this clear message to the United States, among others.
Nevertheless, the risk remains that this priority could push aside the sixteen other priorities.
That is why, on behalf of my group, I would like to convey a wish to the Council Presidency. We expect the Council Presidency to make an extra effort at the Laeken Summit to clarify that the Lisbon objectives also apply at a time when we face economic decline, when companies are being restructured and unemployment continues to rise.
It is important for the Laeken Summit to demonstrate to people that Europe is not just about the introduction of the euro. It is also about economic growth, employment, the future of pensions and the fight against social exclusion.
Mr President-in-Office, Laeken' s pièce de résistance will undoubtedly be the declaration about the future of Europe.
This declaration is still one of the Prime Minister' s personal projects with which he, in the capacity of President-in-Office of the Council, is doing the rounds of the capital cities.
As the draft document is still a well kept secret for this Parliament too, we are having to make our contribution to the declaration without, in fact, any knowledge of the content of this document.
I find this regrettable.
That is why I should like to pass on a few suggestions which are extremely important to us in the framework of the declaration on the future of the European Union.
First of all, we must avoid a situation where the Laeken Declaration sets up scenarios whereby the competences of the European Union are cast in stone, thus not allowing Europe any room for manoeuvre where this is not explicitly provided for in the Treaty, or a scenario in which use is made of lists of competences.
Mr President-in-Office, such scenarios certainly do not meet the expectations of the citizens.
Secondly, there is the risk, if I can believe the lobbies, that Europe' s voice will be somewhat drowned out by that of the delegations of the Member States.
We trust that Laeken will launch a balanced Convention and that, furthermore, the participation of women will be guaranteed.
Thirdly, Mr President-in-Office, I was taken by surprise a moment ago when I heard you say - and I hope I did not misunderstand you - that "l'idée d'une assemblée parallèle au forum de la société civile a été écartée" .
This is very bad news, for it is obvious to me that the debate on the future of Europe is already being compromised if the civil society is not accorded a clear status, if a structured platform for a dialogue with the civil organisations is not really being created and if all that remains is a virtual computer debate with no room for real participation.
I hope that this can still be rectified in Laeken, but I would nevertheless wish the Council Presidency every success at this stage.
Mr President, you said that openness, efficiency and bringing the EU closer to the people were to be important issues at Laeken.
I could not agree with you more about that.
Following the not entirely successful compromise in Nice, the Irish referendum and, according to many opinion polls, growing scepticism towards the EU project in quite a few Member States, there are high expectations of the Laeken Summit, with changes to the EU anticipated.
The EU must become more intelligible and citizen-friendly.
A clear constitution is needed, explaining how the EU is governed and who does what.
The EU must cut back on the work it does and concentrate on the cross-border problems.
I do not believe people want the EU to do more in all areas.
Instead, they want it to deliver the goods in those areas it has made its own, taking decisions openly.
It is completely unacceptable for it to legislate behind the closed doors of the Council of Ministers.
If it is to be possible to simultaneously enlarge and deepen the EU, we must involve people and win back their trust.
That is not something we can do through fine declarations and constitutional exercises of an academic nature, but through genuine reforms and political courage.
I hope the rest of the European Council is as courageous as the Belgian Presidency.
Mr President, I would just like to reiterate what the rapporteur, Mr Méndez de Vigo, said just now.
There is no sense in setting up a Convention and then doing our level best to stop it succeeding. What do we mean by 'succeeding' ?
Success means achieving substantial progress towards a stronger, more integrated Union, which will inevitably involve reducing the role and powers of each State, that is the problem, Mr Michel, and increasing the role and powers of the common institutions.
This is your responsibility now as European Council, and this is the decision you must make: to reduce your powers.
At Nice, you failed precisely because the intergovernmental method is an obstacle in itself, in that it favours those who are lagging behind and forces everyone to conform to their slow pace.
The President-in-Office, Mr Michel, and President Prodi have been through some really tough times in recent months, times when the lack of joint instruments was starkly and sometimes cruelly clear.
I feel that the Convention, a genuine Convention, should be an embryonic constituent assembly, and that it is the only thing that can make the future of the European Union brighter than the confusion which reigns at present.
Mr President, with regard to the European strategy to promote quality in employment and in social policy, announcing and adopting plans is not enough: quality employment with rights must be created and tangible objectives must be set to ensure that all social rights are respected.
Creating jobs is not enough: they must not be precarious, employees must be able to live with dignity and must be paid on time, unlike the current situation in Portugal, which, despite the low official rate of unemployment, still has the lowest salaries in the European Union, and where job insecurity is growing worse, the number of companies that are behind in paying their employees is increasing and it is becoming more and more difficult to develop areas that are reaching crisis point.
A policy seeking to achieve quality in social terms calls for priority to be given to employment with rights, with particular emphasis on women and young people, including their training, but also on pay and contracts, and special attention must also be given to the elderly and to pensions, especially minimum pensions, which means that the European Union cannot continue to insist on giving absolute priority to the monetary policies of the Stability Pact, as it is still doing.
Mr President, in our view, the draft declaration that the Laeken Council is due to publish to shape the debate on the future of the Union seems to have been drafted under some very odd circumstances.
According to press reports, the Belgian Presidency says that it deliberately did not release the document to its partners too early, so that they would not have the time to rewrite the text.
This is not a very co-operative way of working and this is what leads us to warn the members of the Council: do not forget that you are representing countries and national democracies, which should have a free hand in these negotiations.
The ideal scenario would be to initially establish an interparliamentary forum consisting of representatives of the national parliaments or which works on the basis of proposals from the national parliaments, as the latter are well placed to sum up the feelings of each nation.
In any case, I would say to the Heads of State and Government, do not allow a mechanism to be imposed upon you that would lead to proposals being made that are out of touch with the interests and preferences of our people.
This is a point that I will explain in greater depth in my explanation of vote on the resolution that will be tabled.
Mr President, many Christian-Democrats have played a leading role at each stage of the development of the European Union, and even now we want to make a joint effort in order to turn Europe into a lasting success story.
The Nice Summit, which was supposed to be the summit of truth, cannot really be described as a run-away success, certainly not in terms of its intention to properly prepare the Union' s institutions for enlargement.
The Heads of State and Government will now hopefully realise that they can no longer afford any half-hearted or premature conclusions at Laeken.
The report by Mr Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo indicates very clearly what decisions are crucial to secure a bright future for the Union.
We back this report and I should also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteurs warmly on their work.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, your work is not complete, and neither is the term of your Presidency.
It would therefore be premature to draw up an assessment of your Presidency at this stage, but pending the Laeken Summit, I should still like to say the following. We have noted, and this is also evident from opinion polls, that European citizens have given up.
They are not really turning against Europe, but they no longer feel involved.
Therefore, more attention should be devoted to issues such as: more information, more public debate, more openness towards the NGOs, making it clear that the Union' s objectives do have a bearing on every single person and that the Union shows equal respect for every human being.
In this connection, I would call on you as Head of Government of a small country not to allow yourself to be pushed into a corner again, as was the case in Ghent and in London, in fact.
People cannot understand this and accept this even less.
I would also urge you to continue to guarantee the same respect for all languages and their users.
I would therefore urge you to discontinue your planned intentions concerning the use of language in the bureaus for the protection of industrial right of ownership.
People do not understand this, neither do they want or accept this.
They do not want a second-rate language, and neither do they want to be treated like second-class citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will just mention five points in the short time available to me.
Firstly, I welcome the Convention. It is not a constituent assembly but it is all we could realistically achieve.
Secondly, we need to be careful not to undervalue or trivialise the term 'European Constitution' , and the members of the Convention need to be courageous and innovative in their role.
Thirdly, federalism must not be a matter just for the States and the European Union, with the basic regional and local levels and linguistic and national minorities being excluded.
Fourthly, with regard to the method, Commissioner Barnier is right to talk about 'maximum consensus' . We are not aiming at unanimity on the reforms.
Fifthly and lastly: the timetable.
We must beware of excessively long delays between the Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference supposed to adopt the European Constitution, for it is an unfortunate fact that enthusiasm for reforms wanes fast.
Mr President, Mr Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo's model of a Convention sets out an accessible and also, I hope, successful way ahead into Europe's future.
I also agree with your desire, in response to statement 23, for an enlarged agenda which, however, the Convention should set for itself.
Even such an enlarged agenda, though, offers little hope of achieving the desired result, namely a single basis for decision-making.
I am far more inclined to think that the possibility suggests itself of submitting to the Council various options which could also take account of the different positions.
I know that on one point I stand quite alone, although I am in the right.
I wish to reiterate my warning against setting an earlier date for the Intergovernmental Conference planned for Nice in 2004, because I am firmly convinced that the people would see it as an evasion of their vote.
If, as all sides in the House maintain, we really are striving for an open debate which is accessible to the public, then nothing could be better suited to that than to include the themes in the next European elections.
Mr President, the Belgian Presidency has played a major role in completing some of the groundwork for the Union' s enlargement.
One is indeed struck by the optimism which is taking possession of those involved: the naming of the date 2004 suggests that the work is nearly finished.
There is even talk of a big bang of ten countries acceding simultaneously.
Commissioner Verheugen is sensible enough to state that it is possible that up to ten new countries will join in 2004.
After all, it is not up to us to determine an accession date for the candidate countries.
The year 2004 is an assumption and a hope, but holds no guarantees for any Member State whatsoever.
We, and they, should therefore continue to make every effort to achieve a sound and credible result.
A great deal needs to be done within the current Union in order to clarify the significance of enlargement.
Naturally, many are right to be truly enthusiastic about this fantastic, historic process.
But under the influence of those who believe they can secure political gain from xenophobic sentiments, a climate of uncertainty has emerged.
False representations of the costs involved in the enlargement are doing the rounds.
They are designed to instil fear and are based on worst-case scenarios: as if it has not been clear for a very long time that the cost of this whole enlargement process would be covered by the EU budget.
Far more important is greater awareness of the need for anchoring more firmly the character of the Union as a union of democratic constitutional states.
The events of 11 September have illustrated this more clearly than ever.
The fight against serious crime and terrorism is a common cause, and reticence in this connection will jeopardise the safety of citizens.
It is actually very strange that our union of constitutional states, as such, has not resulted in greater trust among the Member States and their legal systems.
A great deal will need to be done about this in the coming years.
May I offer my congratulations to the co-rapporteurs for an excellent report and also to the Belgian Presidency for having carried the idea, born in Parliament, of preparing the next Intergovernmental Conference by means of a Convention nearly to fruition, although we still have the Laeken Summit to come.
This is a dramatic improvement on the preparations of previous Intergovernmental Conferences.
Instead of the usual group of foreign ministry officials meeting together behind closed doors we will have a publicly representative body taking ideas from a wide public debate and coming up with a coherent set of proposals for reform.
This is a tremendous opportunity but does not guarantee results and it is for us to make something of it.
We will do so if we avoid divisions on the theology or vocabulary of European integration where we are sometimes divided on the word even though we are united on the substance.
Let me give a couple of examples: in some political parties and countries the word "federalism" is mistakenly equated with centralism and they talk of creating a centralised super-state in the way that Mr Farage spoke earlier.
That is not what anybody wants and if you define federalism as different levels of governance, as decentralised as possible but centralised where necessary with each level democratically structured, then we already have the beginnings of a federal-type system and I am happy, under that definition, to proclaim myself a federalist.
In some countries the word "constitution" is an almost sacred text that has emerged after revolution or after national independence.
In other countries such as the United Kingdom it is a more pragmatic concept.
In that pragmatic sense we already have a European constitution, not a very good one, but we have it and we should improve it further.
The constitution is the Treaties which lay down the field of competence of the EU, the powers of the institutions, the legislative and the budgetary procedures.
Let us recognise that de facto they form our constitution.
Let us improve our constitution by firstly codifying it to make it simple and clear in a single text so that citizens can see how this constitution operates, and secondly by clarifying it in several ways: clarifying the responsibilities, what the Union is and is not responsible for and clarifying the structures.
Let me give one example of confusion that we have now.
The functions of Mr Solana and Mr Patten should be merged into a single individual to represent the Union externally, perhaps with a special status as a specially appointed Vice-President of the Commission.
Finally, as regards clarity and democratic accountability: it is essential that all legislation passes the two tests of acceptability to the Council representing the States and acceptability to Parliament representing the citizens, a double guarantee as to the quality and acceptability of European legislation.
I said this is an opportunity, but it is not a guarantee.
We must fight to make the necessary changes come about through the Convention.
Mr President, in the opinion of the Liberal Group the Convention must suggest alternative prototypes for the development of the EU.
One of these alternatives is the trend (currently underway) towards a federal state.
The supranational Commission would be developed into a federal government, exercising executive power and directing the Union's legislation; this would operate subject to the confidence of the supranational European Parliament.
The Council of Ministers would be developed as the Parliament's second chamber.
Along with this federal model, we must consider a structure which will be built upon the principles of an association of states.
Here, the leading body would be a reformed Council of Ministers made up of representatives of the Member States.
Since the Council would hold the right of initiative, it would not be able to operate in its present manner as a legislative chamber representing the Member States.
In this case, alongside the supranational Parliament there would be a second chamber formed in order to strengthen the position of the Member States, which would be composed of members of the national parliaments.
This type of decentralised association of states is, in my opinion, better suited to an expanding European Union than a centralised federal model.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner Barnier, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, should like to start by congratulating the two rapporteurs, Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Leinen, for their sterling work and the manner in which they have conducted themselves, for want of a better word, from start to finish in order to include as many ideas and views of the Members of the European Parliament in their reports as possible.
Obviously, there are as many excellent and interesting ideas, visions and proposals for the future of Europe as there are responses to the challenges facing the European Union.
However, not one idea, vision or proposal can be implemented or can bring in results unless the right method is used to put flesh on the bones of these visions and proposals.
And the right method is none other than a convention, a body which needs to reflect accurately all the current political forces in Europe.
The work of this convention, which we believe should be the subject of the fullest democratic dialogue, should result in a proposal which is a synthesis and product of all the views formulated at it.
Only thus will the foundations on which the Europe of the future is built be more representative, more democratic and, hence, more efficient, not to mention permanent and equitable.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, I know that you are in a hurry and must go, but I would like to thank you very much for keeping the promise you made to Members of this House, to bring nothing to Laeken on which a decision had already been made, and for being so determined that there should be an interinstitutional working party.
Such cooperation with Parliament is quite exemplary, and I wish to thank you most warmly for it.
I would, though, also like to extend my warm thanks to the rapporteurs, Mr Leinen, Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mrs Kaufmann for having focussed their excellent reports so well on the vital importance to us of making Europe's decision-making structures more democratic and more efficient and for pointing out that there must be no contradiction in this, much as that might have appeared to be the case here and there, with elements of democracy having to be sacrificed for efficiency's sake.
Both as regards the Convention and legislation, what matters to us is that we, as the people's directly elected Members of Parliament, are convinced, not that we can do everything, which would be quite false, but that we should have control of the decision-making process.
Mr President of the Commission, some small differences may well still be there.
We want this 'call back position' only in the event of a delegated decision-making structure being incapable or coming to the wrong decisions - wrong, that is, in the sense of being contrary to what the legislature intended.
It would be better, and is always good, for others to reach decisions along the lines that we have indicated in our fundamental decisions and political approach.
I hope, firstly, that the Council is now willing to set up this interinstitutional working party soon, and, secondly, that we will be able, taking the Mandelkern and Kaufmann reports and the Commission's Final Conclusions as our basis, to conclude the Agreement as early as June next year, or, at least, that the Council will be able, next June, to agree that the three institutions have found a way to take Europe into a future which will be more highly developed and marked both by democracy and efficiency.
Mr President, the issue of European governance is such a complex problem, and one that our fellow citizens have difficulty in understanding, which is, in itself, a paradox.
We all know that Europe is suffering from a serious democratic deficit, and that is why there is obviously a need to radically reform the way in which powers are exercised at European level.
We must do so and bear in mind three objectives, namely to clarify the decision-making process, to improve the efficiency and transparency of this process, and to encourage the involvement of citizens.
That is why I support the guidelines contained in the White Paper and the Kaufmann report.
We must, of course, ensure there is greater transparency in the Council' s work, we must encourage the European Parliament and the national parliaments to play a greater role in the legislative process. We must simplify Community legislation and make it possible to undertake genuine consultation with civil society.
Furthermore, I think it is worthwhile, as the Committee on Constitutional Affairs stressed, to draw up an inter-institutional agreement on co-legislation, to guarantee that the European Parliament plays an effective role and fulfils its political responsibility.
The reform of governance is therefore a step in the right direction.
However, it will obviously not be a substitute for the radical reform that our institutions need so badly.
We must provide ourselves, as soon as possible, with a simple and understandable constitution, clearly defining the division of competences, clarifying everyone' s role so that citizens finally understand who does what, and so that they can know who is responsible.
Lastly, as everyone in this House knows, we cannot have democratic power without democratic legitimacy.
That is why the President of the European executive must one day, and one day soon, I hope, be elected by universal suffrage.
Mr President, the Laeken Summit will be a major but difficult summit, particularly because of the importance of the subjects that will be debated.
In this brief speech, I would just like to focus on the institutional elements of the summit.
The Convention must concentrate on instigating a new phase which will produce a Constitution leading to the creation of a federation of nation States, but it must also establish the competences of the various institutions: the Commission, the Council, the Member States, the regions and the major cities.
These are decisions which will have to be made under the banner of solidarity and subsidiarity, two values which must inspire our new Constitution.
The Laeken Council will also have to discuss the timetable for this progression towards the new institutions.
Indeed, we must ensure that decisions which are fundamental for the future of the Union are not taken at the time of the electoral campaign.
That is why we feel it would be appropriate to initiate the Intergovernmental Conference earlier than planned, during the Italian Presidency in the second half of 2003.
Clearly, the people must be involved in the process of creating a Constitution through the votes of the parliaments - for example, we would have preferred Parliament to have been given the opportunity to debate and amend the Nice Charter for there are parts of it, particularly those regarding the individual, which are wholly unconvincing - especially regarding the European Parliament, for without the involvement of the citizens and their representatives we will not be able to transform the Europe of the euro into a political Europe which can enlarge its borders in the future, maybe even as far as the Yurals: in other words, a great Europe which will bring a long, lasting period of peace.
Mr President, I am going to concentrate on the legal issues, which are what is most worrying right now when it comes to the structural aspects of the EU.
The Council is in danger of infringing Articles 8 and 10 of the European Council Convention, together with Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, freedom of expression, respect for private life and the protection of personal data.
That is something people cannot do much about.
Because there is no balance of power in the legal area, the terrorist legislation, which is entirely necessary, is in danger of undermining democracy in the long term.
The intergovernmental model is out of date.
The European Parliament must become a co-legislator and the EU' s Court of Justice be given full powers.
The Council cannot be turned into a so-called state within a state.
On 11 September, the EU' s structure in terms of pillars ceased to be at all effective.
External and internal security issues became ever more closely connected.
Vigorous measures to combat terrorism and serious crime are now required.
These must nonetheless go hand in hand with increased public control and legal protection, especially when it comes to what are known as the principles of due process, such as, no punishment without law, proportionality, the presumption of innocence and the right to a defence and to be tried before an impartial court.
These rights must become unconditional at EU level.
The Laeken Summit must signal the start of openness and democracy, which are prerequisites for successful enlargement.
They require a convention on a mainly parliamentary basis, obviously with a substantial number of members from the EU institution closest to the people.
The Convention should be able to work towards producing a proposal, so that people in future know what it is they are to adopt a position on.
Anyone who wants to develop the EU and make it better and larger should support the thinking that is being done in terms of devising a constitution which is characterised by an effective division of power and which, it is to be hoped, will develop out of today' s excellent reports.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no democracy without a Parliament.
Today again we find that the European Parliament is the principal integrating element in the European Union.
Nowhere else do Council, Commission and Parliament engage in public discussion, not always achieving unanimity, but openly, and, I hope, constructively.
Our three rapporteurs have presented excellent reports.
This Parliament has, since Nice, been pressing forward with a Community process which must burst forth in Laeken.
I share President Prodi's concern that the European Union is not yet adequately equipped to cope with enlargement, and so I ask the President-in-Office of the Council to check again, and check carefully, whether what was decided in Nice really does enhance the working capacity of the Council and of Parliament.
I doubt it.
The European Community and European Union have developed splendidly over the past nearly fifty years to date, and I hope that the next fifty years will be prepared for in such a way that we can work even better in the European Union over the next fifty years.
Mr President, the forthcoming summit in Laeken will be an extremely important meeting. At this summit, the agenda will need to be drawn up for the Convention which has to submit the reform proposals for the European institutions.
And everyone knows how important agendas are for the outcome of consultations.
We are happy with the planned make-up of the Convention, except that I should like to add that it is important to strike a political balance.
This will mainly be the responsibility of the national parliaments.
Furthermore, I am also of the opinion that the chairman of the Convention should be elected by the Convention itself.
With regard to the agenda for the IGC of 2003-2004, the Council has naturally included the four points of Declaration 23 appended to the Treaty of Nice.
I should like to briefly comment on these four points.
As far as the demarcation of powers is concerned, we are in favour of a more federal structure of the European Union, with a clear distribution of tasks among the Union, the Member States and regions.
Concerning the structure of the future treaties, we endorse a basic treaty with a constitutional character which must also include the Charter.
In respect of the role of the national parliaments, we believe that they must primarily encourage and monitor their own ministers in the supervision of the implementation of European policy.
Are there any more topics for the Convention?
Yes, I should like to outline five. The common foreign and security policy must be included in the Community Pillar.
The policy in the field of police, justice and criminal law must also fall within the remit of the Community, with a European public prosecution office, a public prosecutor and a Community Europol.
The European Parliament must be granted full legislative and budgetary powers.
The President of the European Commission must be elected by the European Parliament and the European Council of Ministers must meet in public when they discuss legal matters.
I am pleased that Mr Prodi has said this now, and I am very interested to see if Mr Michel shares this view.
These are the topics which mainly centre around transparency and the Union' s democratic content and which, as far as I am concerned, should be added to the Convention' s agenda, thus affording the Union a more stable foundation which meets the requirements of a modern constitutional state when the new Member States accede.
Thank you very much, Mr President.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in my opinion, the most important aspect of the Laeken Summit is the following: that the Council is able to reverse the trend seen in Nice, that is to say, that we move away from this feeling of failure at the summit that marked the end of the French Presidency a year or so ago, towards a feeling of success at the Laeken summit at political level and for Europe' s citizens.
I think that this is what the excellent Leinen and Méndez de Vigo report is calling for.
In addition to the details, the concrete proposals, which are, of course, important, the essential thing is to develop a new perspective at Laeken, a constitutional perspective, and this means, without any doubt and as I said before, reversing the current trend.
The method for the forthcoming reform is of fundamental importance.
As is the Convention.
But neither must we let the Convention develop into some kind of tedious rigmarole, and in order for this not to be the case, the Convention should be called in order to prepare reform with true content and a real agenda.
If the agenda for the forthcoming reform remains restricted to Declaration 23 annexed to the Treaty of Nice, we will not be getting off to the right start, and the report that this House will, probably, approve tomorrow, calls for more than this.
It calls for a more wide-ranging agenda.
Above all, it calls for an agenda that, once again, includes the policies of the Union and the institutions that are intended to manage these policies.
It also calls for the Union to have its own legal personality.
It is for this agenda, and so as not to distract public opinion, that the Convention has to be called.
The Convention needs an agenda, but it also needs a mandate, a membership, a working method and a timetable to make it worthwhile.
I would like to highlight the words of Mr Méndez de Vigo: it would be incredible to keep the same number of representatives of the European Parliament as in the Convention that had the task of drawing up the Charter of Fundamental Rights, when the total number of participants in the next Convention will increase significantly.
This imbalance would, of course, be unacceptable.
Secondly, the Convention should work not on the basis of unanimity, but on the basis of majority consensus.
I think that this is the exact definition.
It should have the right to decide who to choose as President and the right to finish its work on time.
This is important in order to ensure that the conclusions of the Convention are not put on ice, because although time, heals all, it also makes us forget.
This is the commitment that we ask of Laeken: an ambitious reform with a different method of achieving more Europe and a better Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I initially wanted to respond to the points made by each speaker, but unfortunately, I do not think that I will have time to go into details.
I shall, however, try to answer as accurately as I can.
First of all, I would like to give my very sincere thanks to the European Parliament and to the majority of the speakers for the quality of their comments, and for the overwhelming European voluntarism that I have heard in this House.
I must say that I do not always hear the same voluntarism in the other European institutions where I work.
I have therefore found a great deal of optimism here, which I was not expecting.
The ambitious goals that you are setting for European integration are very much in line with the ideas and the ambitions that I share, that we share.
So, with only a few days to go before Laeken, it is most certainly a welcome commitment, one that I heard voiced by almost all Members.
One of the speakers said that the Laeken Summit would be a difficult exercise. I am sure that it will be, because the EU candidate countries, particularly during the debate on the future of Europe, will be faced with a number of choices which are virtually breaking points, and which are so important for the future of Europe that some of us will just have to demonstrate a virtue that is extremely difficult in politics, in other words, that of the ability to make sacrifices.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to focus briefly on the Convention, and I would first of all like to explain to you what the Convention is not.
I may thus be able to reassure those of you who already see a thousand and one reasons in the Convention for sacrificing some things that they have always believed in, and which are, in fact, crippling Europe.
The Convention is not and no one has ever thought that it was the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Convention cannot, and I think that it was Mr Méndez de Vigo who said this, act as an alibi either.
To my mind, it should, first and foremost, be a worthwhile sounding board.
I could also put that another way.
It can also be a challenge upon the political responsibility of the IGC members, who will have to take up this challenge, because the Convention will, at any rate, make all Council members face their political responsibility.
Let us imagine, for example, that the Convention is proposing three or four options on a specific subject related to an issue that is fundamental for the future of Europe. One of these options receives unanimous support or consensus, another receives the support of 80% of Members, and the third is given 50-50.
We are well aware that the Intergovernmental Conference is not going to be forced to choose between these options and that it could very well decide to choose another option, to come up with something else, to give these options a different response to the one that the Convention would have given.
In this case, all IGC members, when shouldering their responsibilities, when adopting one option or another, or when selecting from the options which are presented by the Convention, will, at the same time, risk being at odds, not only with the Convention, but with civil society which must, at some point, make known its intentions, its expectations and its aspirations for this Convention.
Therefore, do not underestimate the Convention due to the fact that it is not a decision-making body; do not underestimate its political weight or its political force.
I make no secret of the fact that I have several reservations as to the composition, even though I do not believe that we should no longer consider the request to increase the number of MEPs.
I think that this is quite a legitimate question, even if I must reiterate that, in our proposal, we took up the proportions that were used in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The difference compared to the Charter is that we agreed the candidate countries would take part.
We must take this difference into account.
I shall reiterate that, at the Ghent European Council, we received requests that ran counter to the requests made by the European Parliament.
Several countries demanded an increase in the number of members from the national parliaments, perhaps so that the ruling coalition could have better representation, perhaps to take into account sub-national entities or perhaps because of the bi-cameral system.
Essentially, it is quality, rather than quantity, that counts, and I think that the MEPs will always have an advantage because of the fact that they are in control of this dossier and of procedures.
I would still like to add a brief comment regarding the composition, namely that it would be regrettable if latent rivalries between political groups or specific components rise to the surface.
I think that the debate must be open; we must not consider ourselves according to the grouping to which we belong. I think we must consider ourselves on our intellectual strength, our intellectual objectivity, on our intellectual, philosophical, cultural and political freedom of thought.
This must be done in an objective manner and I am sure that we are all capable of doing this.
Therefore, as far as I am concerned, I am willing to see whether an increase in the European Parliament' s representation will cause too many difficulties, such as, for example, too many Members taking part in the Convention, and whether we will encounter similar requests.
This could mean that the number of representatives might prevent the Convention from working smoothly.
In my opening remarks, I gave my thoughts on the outcome of the Convention and how worthwhile it is.
I think that our work is moving in the direction proposed by Parliament.
We use the consensus method where possible, and have the possibility, where necessary, of presenting options in preferential order, for example.
However, we must avoid imposing the consensus method from the outset, because I think that this would weaken the Convention, which would then only be adopted by the smallest common denominator.
The possibility for the Convention to present various options must enable us to hold a debate with conflicting views.
I would like to go over the various questions that were put to me concerning enlargement.
I would like to respond to the speakers who are not sceptical, but who are obviously concerned.
Everyone says that they are in favour of enlargement; everyone says that it is an important political and historical step. At the same time, however, a number of people seem to put forward arguments as if they have not heard what has been said, to express their reservations over enlargement.
I would like to make something clear.
We have always said that we would, first of all, try to keep up the pace of negotiations with the exceptionally rapid pace set by the Swedish Presidency, and that, secondly, we would do this by judging every country on its own merits.
The fact that we can today give a particularly positive progress report on the negotiations does not mean, of course, as some speakers have suggested, that we are being almost politically negligent and would be willing to accept 10 countries before 2004 without any further verification, further judgment or criteria.
Of course we would not, and therefore we continue to say, with regard to enlargement, that yes, it is irreversible, but also, yes, each country must be judged on its own merits.
These are my comments on enlargement.
I think that Mr Barón Crespo mentioned the presidium and wanted the forthcoming presidencies to be a part of that.
I am not against this at all, but we must keep a sense of balance.
A compromise might be for the next presidencies to take part as observers.
The Convention can take up any issue, including European security and defence policy.
As we know, these are the four themes from Nice relating to the Convention.
However, as soon as you say that the Convention was not an Intergovernmental Conference, and was not going to take certain decisions, and I do not really understand why, some people appear to want to limit the scope of the Nice themes at all costs.
If, having considered every aspect of the themes from Nice, other issues are tackled, it would be quite worrying for an exercise, which will widely involve civil society in the debate, to say 'you are going to be restricted to very specific topics and you can only discuss the issues that we want you to discuss.
That is a bit mean.
Instead, we are in favour of a more optimistic view, where the four themes from Nice are more widely interpreted.
I hope that I can count on the European Parliament, at least the more optimistic of its Members, to help us to convince others of this point of view and of this direction.
With regard to Mr Cox' s comments, I share the point of view that Mr Poettering also expressed, that the Commission must remain at the centre of the Community system.
The question of timing is also important.
There are a number of constraints and there are many elections.
I believe that the time period between the Convention and the Intergovernmental Conference must be six months.
If it is any longer, I feel that we will be in danger of undoing all the good work of the Convention and the debates, and the worst scenario would be for everyone to arrive at the IGC having forgotten the options in the meantime, or for some to have had the time to pretend they have forgotten them, or having completely stripped the options of all substance. Thus, all the worthwhile work of the Convention will also have been for nothing.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is largely what I wanted to say.
I have almost certainly forgotten to say something, but it is time now to answer the last speaker, who asked me if I was in favour of transparency in the Council' s work.
Of course, I am in favour of transparency in the Council' s work.
Unfortunately, I have many more reservations about carrying out a public relations exercise that would weaken the quality of debate within the Council.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, I am a seasoned parliamentarian, having spent more than 20 years in Parliament.
I was also head of opposition in my country for a long time, too long for my liking.
Even in Parliament, if we really want to take the general interests of our citizens into account on specific subjects and specific dossiers, it is sometimes better to hold the debate behind closed doors, and not only when naming names or individuals.
I think that it would be unwise to turn essential debates on extremely delicate issues into media fodder, debates where 15 Heads of State or Government are trying to reach agreement.
I am not totally against holding public debates on a number of issues, but if all the Council formations had to be organised and carried out publicly, I am not sure that that would yield the results that you want, and that I want as well.
Therefore, I say yes to transparency, but I have much greater reservations as to propaganda.
There were two suggestions as to how to involve civil society in the work of this Convention.
The first suggestion was to create a second forum, a second institution and a second assembly.
The major difficulty in doing this is to determine how to select the members of this second assembly, which would bear the huge responsibility of representing European civil society as a whole. It is extremely difficult to select who is the best spokesperson for a specific subject.
We would have therefore created a competing institution, existing beside the Convention, made up of representatives of the institutions.
This was one choice, this was the first suggestion.
The second suggestion that we considered was to work with what I will call a structured network whose origins are found in civil society.
We must ensure that this structured network is not at all limiting, ensure that all those involved, all those representing one aspect of public opinion can submit their thoughts, their expectations, their criticisms, their proposals to the Convention, and that the Convention can, if necessary, call upon them to interview them. In other words, this approach is a dynamic exchange of views between the Convention and everyone in European society, be it the academic world, schools, NGOs, or associations.
It is important to give everyone the channels through which they can express their views.
We have chosen a structured network, on the understanding that everything produced will be included in the Convention' s official documentation, and that all those who contact the Convention will receive an answer, not just an acknowledgement.
I think that the most representative forces of our society will emerge in time.
I am clarifying this so that there are no misunderstandings.
Thank you, Mr Michel. It is gratifying to hear that you are convinced of the good will of this Parliament, but you will understand that we, and hence the European citizens, also stand to win or lose the most from the success of this Convention.
I will now give the floor to Commissioner Barnier.
Madam President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission I too would like to thank you for the weight and quality of the speeches you have made throughout this debate on the two major subjects on the agenda: governance and Laeken.
Please excuse President Prodi, who had to leave us a few moments ago for an essential engagement with the Economic and Social Committee.
With regard to governance, allow me to highlight the very first words of Mrs Kaufmann, who, like Mr Prodi, I would like to thank most sincerely for her availability and for the quality of the work that she has done on your behalf on this both important and difficult subject.
You put it very well, Mrs Kaufmann: the debate on governance is part of the great debate on the future of the Union.
It is not only our reason for being, our raison d' être, that is in question, and I will come back to that in a moment, it is also our way of being, our way of acting.
The Commission, particularly in the White Paper on governance, is going to promote the co-legislation function of the European Parliament.
Through this White Paper, we are offering Parliament the opportunity to be in a better situation to exert its prerogatives, including better checking of the quality of the choice of legislative instruments, better monitoring of the quality of the use of expertise - is it pluralist? - and the quality of the use of consultation - is it fair? To be quite frank, there remains a point of debate between us which Mr Swoboda stressed in his speech just now, you pointed it out: we are not convinced of the benefits of a mechanism that would allow legislative acts to be suspended at any time, this famous call-back mechanism, when the Commission' s responsibility in the current comitological framework is not itself certain.
We proposed looking, together with Parliament and the Council, at other mechanisms that will allow, the European Parliament to exert its responsibility for monitoring in a proportional, that is to say, a balanced manner in the matters currently covered by codecision.
However, ladies and gentlemen, beyond that point of debate on which we need to do more work together, I would like to say that we consider the debate that you have just had on the whole subject of governance to be the means of forging ahead after today' s sitting.
I would also like to say a few words about the Laeken Summit, on which we, like President Prodi, have worked very hard.
We still have a great deal of work to do on Laeken and on the situation post-Laeken.
But I, too, must praise the quality of the work of your two rapporteurs, Mrs Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo, as I have already done before the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
One of you, with their usual frankness, had very harsh words to say about the Commission, which is at the heart of the Community model and method, and which intends to remain at the heart with the threefold role of proposing, monitoring and implementing which was conferred on it by the Treaties. With the reunification of the European continent, as the disparities increase and the centrifugal forces become more numerous, that role of the Commission, at the heart of the Community model, is going to become even more necessary than it has been in the past 50 years.
Mr Voggenhuber accused the Commission of having no vision.
I do not think that he is here to listen to my reply, but I am nevertheless going to give it.
Everyone is free to interpret the word 'vision' as they choose.
Personally, I tend rather to practise the pessimism of reason and the optimism of will, and the reason I quote this fine phrase from Jean Monnet is just to echo what Mr Michel was saying just now, as he confessed that, in a way, he had come here to find some optimism therapy that was not forthcoming elsewhere.
So I just wanted to refer you to that fine phrase from Jean Monnet.
With regard to political will, which has been a common feature of many of your speeches, President Prodi announced four strategic objectives in this House.
We want to pursue them, and he will have the opportunity in his State-of-the-Union speech to the plenary on 11 December to prove that he is serious about them.
What would Parliament have said if, even before the start of the Convention for which we fought together, the Commission had produced its final vision of our Constitutional Treaty or of our Constitution, ignoring or pre-empting the democratic debate that is going to take place, for the first time, on such broad subjects.
I am well aware of this, and I say so under the supervision of my colleague and friend, Mr Vitorino, who worked a great deal with you on the previous Convention on fundamental rights: here we are dealing with subjects that are more politically open and probably more problematic.
The debate needs to take place.
We are going to take part in it but there was no question of us pre-empting it or acting as though it did not count.
Let us not underestimate the approach of governance and the White Paper. The intensity of your debate, today, proves that they are not trivial matters.
Before concluding, as I promised to be brief on the issue of the Laeken Convention and especially on the situation post-Laeken, on behalf of the Commission I would like to thank the Belgian Presidency, Mr Verhofstadt and Mr Michel, in particular, for the political will and courage that they have shown and which they are going to have to show in the few remaining days before Laeken in order to convince the Member States that the draft declaration on which they have worked and which they are proposing to the Member States will be well respected and not diminished.
I, too, heard Mr Michel using familiar words just now.
I feel that, taking into account the Convention and the fact this is the first occasion on which an institutional debate has had to allow time to accommodate the work of a Convention, we do have enough time: two years, and we have an open method which, as it concerns a reform of the Treaty on the institutions themselves, consists of more than just dialogue between the government ministers in the secrecy and comfort of the intergovernmental method alone, of which we have all seen the limitations, both at Amsterdam and at Nice.
Let us use this opportunity and make this Convention serve its purpose as a tool for projecting ideas upwards, to the institutions, to the governments who will ultimately have to decide, and to the people that you represent.
This Convention, let us say it again so that it is clear, will not take any decision.
And once that point has been made quite clear, we need to agree, and I was very pleased to hear Mr Michel' s words on this point, not to be overcautious or too closed in our reading of the four Nice points.
On the contrary, we need to look at them openly and constructively, to take the four points together and deal with them ambitiously.
It is clear that this leads to a Constitutional process. Let us not be afraid of words.
And let us be ambitious as we look at these four points, particularly the point on the use of powers, good tools for exercising current powers and the clarification of competences, which, of course, leads us to ask questions about the European plan. What do we want to do together?
Do we want to stay where we are? Do some want to go backwards and unravel the acquis communautaire?
Do we want to go further in integration, in the general interest of the citizens, on the third pillar, on foreign policy, on defence? These are the demands and requests from the people.
If we want to go further, do we want to go all together or do just a few of us want to go?
And how? All these questions are both central to and pervade the matter, together with the four points, and the Convention, which will not take any decision but needs to make strong proposals, will have a lot of work to do.
This is what I wanted to say and, finally, I, too, think that those of us who are going to take part in this convention need to be open and to listen to what is said outside the debating chamber during that time.
Among the citizens, in each of our countries, in each of our regions, and I am very aware of the forum that the regional framework provides for public debate, for debate among the people, where many useful things can be said and passed on.
We should be open to the debate that will take place during that time in civil society.
The Commission will not be a spectator throughout that period.
It will have its special place within this Convention, as it will subsequently take part in the Intergovernmental Conference and as the President of the Commission will ultimately take an active part in the European Council of the very last Intergovernmental Conference, scheduled to take place at the latest at the beginning of 2004, before the European elections.
Next week, we are going to decide on a communication, on which I am working with President Prodi, on Laeken, on the situation before Laeken and on the likely scenario after the Laeken decisions have been implemented.
Trust us, trust me; the Commission will make regular proposals and will put forward contributions and communications on each of the subjects.
I have heard a group Chairman requesting this.
I can assure you, Chairman Poettering, Mr Barón Crespo and Mr Cox, that, not only, Mr Barón Crespo, on the issues of simplification or competences but on all the other subjects as well, although first of all on the issue of competences, which directly concerns us, the Commission will put contributions and suggestions on the Convention table in order to express a vision. However, I must make it quite clear that that vision, and we will confirm this next week in our communication, will, in all probability, be the preservation of the model of the community method and also, once its preservation is assured, its reinvigoration and legitimisation.
Thank you, Commissioner Barnier.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Procedural motions (continued)
On 15 November, I brought to your attention the plight of the plane spotters arrested in Greece, amongst them my constituents Lesley and Paul Coppin.
That was two weeks ago and they are still in jail.
Last week I visited Mrs Coppin and she is very distressed.
It may be that some of those arrested have been over enthusiastic in their activities and, technically, may have appeared to have broken Greek law but others in the group, including Mrs Coppin, have done absolutely nothing wrong.
There is no evidence against them and no foundation for holding them.
These people have therefore been held in custody for almost three weeks on no justifiable basis.
Neither they nor their lawyer were present when evidence was originally presented to the investigating judge who took his arbitrary decisions in camera.
For much of the time Mrs Coppin and the other detainees had no idea of the nature of the charges against them or how long they were likely to be kept in prison before their case was dealt with.
This is disgraceful by any standards and a flagrant abuse of their civil and human rights.
Provisions under Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights, along with case-law, make clear that persons arrested within the European Union must be brought promptly - and that means within seven days - before a judge who must free them immediately if no foundation for their detention exists.
It must have been clear to the judge, by 16 November at the latest, that there was no evidence against many of the individuals and they should therefore have been released immediately.
What we are now seeing is a charade of justice.
I ask you, Madam President, and the President of the Council and the Commission President, to take immediate action with the Greek authorities to secure the urgent release of all the detainees from custody, particularly Mrs Coppin.
This cannot be allowed to go on for another day.
Thank you.
The President has already taken this matter up with the Permanent Representation of Greece via her Cabinet.
She has also declared herself prepared to take steps personally if this situation persists.
I now give the floor to Baroness Ludford.
Early this afternoon the President felt she needed to cut short and postpone the opportunity for Members to raise this matter.
She felt she had to prioritise the debate on the future of Europe.
But the future of Europe will be nothing if our people do not support us.
This case is a perfect example of the impact on individuals of the quality or otherwise of European integration.
Parliament had a chance to show its relevance to people and missed it in prime time.
Our motion now clashes with the Presidential debate where most of our colleagues are.
I find it difficult to believe that after nearly three weeks it has been impossible to clarify, let alone hear, the charges against the 12 Britons.
I am also puzzled about the role the Greek air force has reportedly had in reviewing the charges as opposed to an independent prosecutor.
The defendants have not had an opportunity to challenge the evidence in open court and now the higher tribunal to which the case has been referred is to be held in secret.
Mr Souladakis said earlier that the Greek criminal justice authorities had respected all relevant rights.
I am surprised that the European Convention on Human Rights is so weak.
We might need a Europe-wide review with a view to reinforcing those standards and we certainly need that in parallel with the European arrest warrant.
I call on the Greek authorities to clarify the charges, release the defendants on bail and hold a trial in open court by Friday of this week.
I would just like to underline that this is an issue that has the support of all parties in my own country.
It concerns not just British citizens but also Dutch citizens.
It has massive public interest and raises questions at a time when we are proceeding in the field of Justice and Home Affairs at European level on the basis of mutual recognition.
That implies that we need to be confident that every country's legal system is up to scratch and meets the minimum standards set down in the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is important and I am glad you have announced that the President will take this up.
Thank you, Mr Corbett.
The points made by all speakers are absolutely clear.
I have already told Mr Van Orden that the issue is being monitored by the President' s Cabinet, that action has already been undertaken and that, if necessary, the President will personally see to this matter if the situation persists.
Following on from the points of order made earlier today, I am grateful the President is going to raise the issue yet again with the Greek authorities.
I am speaking particularly about my constituent Wayne Groves from Tamworth.
He did not even possess a camera so I still do not know why he is being held in detention.
He is sleeping on a floor with a thin mattress, as I understand are the other prisoners.
He has been there for three weeks.
Why, when the magistrate said yesterday that there was no real evidence against them, are they still being held?
I believe along with everybody else that this is in contravention of the European Convention on Human Rights.
If applicant countries have to say that will adhere to it before membership, surely current members should adhere to it now.
I should like to raise the same issue without, however, repeating what has already been said on the matter.
Two lads from my constituency are also still in captivity in Greece on account of the same crime: this is evidently the seriousness with which this matter is being dealt with in Greece.
I would point out that the next item on the agenda is the European arrest warrant.
In relation to what is currently happening in Greece, that is a topic which we, as well as the Council, will have to treat with extreme caution to prevent the situation from causing European distortion in the field of criminal law policy.
Thank you, I have already responded to this point.
Madam President, as we are talking about human rights, I would like to speak on an issue of method, which applies to all the association agreements.
Today, a joint debate is going to take place on the association agreements with Egypt, and it will include oral questions and motions for resolutions.
For the sake of a democratic debate and a more coherent vote on all the association agreements, it is important for it to be split into separate parts.
We suggest that the debate should deal, first of all, with oral questions and resolutions and then, secondly, with the vote on the association agreements.
It is neither logical nor coherent to take a position on these issues at the same time.
The oral questions and resolutions are intended to question the political powers of these countries and to give them time to debate and respond to those questions.
This two-part method allows us to confirm the fundamental importance that we attach to the whole agreement, particularly Article 2 on human rights.
The example of Egypt is telling in that it shows that we do not silently accept a decision that constitutes a violation of human rights, the recent condemnation of homosexuals, and flouts the values that we defend in Article 2 of our agreements.
Our group would therefore like to keep the debate and vote on oral questions and motions for resolutions in one part-session, and put the association agreements back to another part-session.
We have already made a request to that effect by letter to the President.
This point will be dealt with in this evening' s debate.
Mr President, you may not, but Mrs Fontaine certainly will be aware of the following matter which we have raised in the European Parliament, time and again, over the last ten years.
It concerns three Greek seamen from the lower ranks of the crew of a Greek ship who were arrested in Egypt, found responsible for the 7.5 tonnes of drugs on board the ship and handed down very heavy sentences.
To give the Egyptian courts their due, it was not the owners per se or the master of the ship who were responsible, it was the three unfortunate lower-ranking members of the crew.
Mrs Fontaine and all her predecessors have already expressed their support and asked for them to be released and sent to Greece.
Two and a half years ago, one of the three prisoners died as a result of their appalling conditions of detention.
A few days ago, a second man died of tonsillitis of all things.
The third man is still alive but his health is shot to pieces.
The Bureau should call for his release before he, too, gives up the ghost.
Combating terrorism/EUROJUST
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
Report by Mr Watson (A5-0397/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Commission proposal for a Council framework decision on combating terrorism (COM(2001) 521 - C5-0452/2001 - 2001/0217(CNS)) and the Commission proposal for a Council framework decision on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between the Member States (COM(2001) 522 - C5-0453/2001 - 2001/0215(CNS)), and the;
report by Mrs Gebhardt (A5-0398/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the draft Council decision setting up Eurojust with a view to reinforcing the fight against major organised crime.
Madam President, it is a matter of regret and perhaps even of shame that it took the events of 11 September to push European governments into tackling effectively a problem which has plagued our continent for over a generation.
In 1997 in Amsterdam, and again in 1999 in Tampere in Finland, the Heads of State and Government committed themselves to tackling terrorism.
Our review of progress early this year showed that they had done nothing about it, which was why we as a Parliament brought forward a report calling on them to take action.
The events of 11 September have fortunately brought such action and I look forward to travelling to Washington shortly to talk about common action between the European Union and the United States of America.
I would like to thank the political groups in this House for their cooperation in drawing up this report, particularly the Members from Spain.
In my report, I broadly welcome the Commission proposals for a Council framework decision on combating terrorism and for a European arrest warrant.
The amendments which I put forward seek to restrict the list of crimes defined as terrorist crimes and covered by the European arrest warrant to the most serious cross-border criminal offences, and if I may quote Amendment No 16, it specifies those crimes "which aim to destroy the fundamental freedoms, democracy, respect for human rights, civil liberties and the rule of law on which our societies are based".
We seek too to insert safeguards for civil liberties by basing action clearly on international human rights documents, by reinforcing the principle of ne bis in idem, by taking account of time spent in detention awaiting trial and by allowing Member States refusal to extradite when there are manifestly sound reasons for doing so, including in those cases where a person found guilty could face a penalty of death.
Moreover, we seek to provide aids to victims of terrorism and their families.
I shall ask the House to accept one amendment, which was submitted after the deadline and which takes account of the most recent developments in Council.
One Member State is threatening to block progress towards a European arrest warrant.
There is a method - not one which I recommend - but one which may be needed in extremis, in order to press ahead, and that is to invoke Article 40 of the Treaty allowing reinforced cooperation between a certain number of Member States.
Terrorism is a supranational challenge and calls for a supranational response.
We cannot allow the blockage of one Member State to prevent common action in fighting it.
When we met in this Chamber, on 12 September, we had a debate in which I remember Mr Poettering and many others said that we were all Americans.
Since then, we have discovered that we must first be Europeans.
We acknowledge that recognition of judicial judgements and judicial standards requires trust in each other's systems, but not blind trust, and for that reason I have put forward an amendment calling for urgent measures to improve judicial systems in our Member States, to encourage benchmarking, to encourage exchange of best practice.
The process of creating an area of freedom, security and justice is similar to that of creating the single market, but it is more urgent and, moreover, we are dealing not with the freedom of movement of goods, services or capital, but with the freedom of people.
The Greens and other political groups are saying, don't go ahead until you are sure that everybody's judicial standards are perfect.
Majority opinion, however, on the Committee recognises that the scope of the challenge we face and the historical imperative are such that we must press ahead with these measures with prudence, and with vigilance, but also with determination.
We must ensure effective action against terrorists and yet we must not deny legitimate political expression of grievances.
I was surprised to read in El País this morning an interpretation of one amendment, which I support, that it would outlaw Herri Batasuna.
I do not interpret the amendment in this way, nor would such an amendment be necessary to target those involved in supporting terrorist acts.
Other provisions in what we are proposing do that.
I would say to colleagues, and particularly to our Spanish colleagues, that in our determination to tackle terrorism, we must acknowledge that terrorists sometimes express political grievances, and that these require a political response.
Council is discussing the proposals put forward by the Commission; Parliament, which desperately needs powers of codecision, may be reconsulted on this matter.
We are determined to assist governments in their work and yet maintain the delicate balance between the security needs of our citizens and preservation of their democratic freedoms.
In this, cooperation in Justice and Home Affairs has received quite a boost.
Whatever it was that we planned at Amsterdam, the paradox is that events are what drives Europe forward: just as Mr Haider's election led us to adopt effective legislation against racism and xenophobia, so it may be that Mr bin Laden has done much for European Union integration.
May I say, finally, what a pleasure it is to see you as a fellow Liberal Democrat in the Chair in this session.
I wish you a successful debate.
, rapporteur. (DE) Madam President, Madam Minister, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the improvement of judicial cooperation between the European Union's Member States is an important key to the European area of freedom, security and justice.
The establishment, at long last, of Eurojust puts this key in our hands, so that we can combat serious crime, such as terrorism, trafficking in human beings and drug-smuggling flexibly and successfully, without regard to the Community's internal borders.
When Parliament approved the establishment of Eurojust, as long ago as early 2001, it envisaged 1 January 2002 as its starting date.
The Council has made substantial changes to the initiatives underlying Eurojust, which made it necessary to consult Parliament again, but, despite this, I do not see Eurojust's starting date early next year as having been jeopardised.
The Council has, since 11 September, demonstrated its capacity for rapid reaction when circumstances require it, as the safety of people in Europe most certainly does.
The document under consideration today already incorporates significant amendments by the Council at Parliament's suggestion in the first consultation.
Eurojust's areas of competence were therefore defined in such a way as to include borderline cases and new forms of serious crime.
Eurojust can also, moreover, at the request of a competent national authority, support investigations and prosecutions outside the areas described.
This ensures maximum flexibility and efficiency in our shared struggle against crime, which knows no boundaries.
Parliament's proposals for smooth cooperation between Eurojust and the national authorities are also welcomed in the Council's new document, something for which I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude.
Despite this, we still have to make a few changes in order to make Eurojust the best possible instrument against cross-frontier crime.
If I rightly understand the indications from the Member States' governments and from the Council, these will meet with wide-ranging agreement between Parliament and the Council.
Last weekend, the German and French governments, at their summit in Nantes, underlined Parliament's view that Eurojust should become the basic unit of a European State Prosecution Service.
This would strengthen the European Union's judicial aspect, give effect to conventions that have been drawn up but not yet ratified, and continue existing initiatives in this area.
I also consider it important that Eurojust's involvement in investigations and prosecutions should not be hampered by unnecessary bureaucracy.
It makes no sense for Eurojust to set up national branch offices.
Investigators and prosecutors, in Eurojust and in the Member States, must be able to communicate with each other directly.
We know from our experience of organised crime that short routes and procedures alone can offer hope of speedy and sure success in investigations.
Let me conclude with data protection, a point which is of especial importance to me.
The processing of data by Eurojust must include an appropriately high level of protection for the individual citizen.
This can only be taken for granted if the storing of personal data is kept to the minimum required and if data is not stored for longer than is absolutely necessary.
It goes without saying that special requirements must apply to the handling of data on victims and witnesses.
There is also a clear need to safeguard the individual's right to information, which he must be in a position to demand.
It is most encouraging to receive favourable indications from the Council, including in data protection matters.
I hope, though, that they will go much further yet.
Only one wish will no doubt not be granted me: Eurojust will not be based in Luxembourg, which would have symbolised so well this institution's independence and its closeness to European Community law.
Madam President, I have indeed the honour of representing the Presidency here, because, unfortunately, the Minister of Justice is unable to attend today.
I have been asked to discuss this topic on his behalf, which I naturally do with great pleasure.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would, first of all, like to start by thanking you for the speed and flexibility with which you have worked over recent weeks.
The Council meeting of 20 September, and then the European Council that met the following day, decided, as you know, on rapid implementation of the Action Plan against terrorism, with a December deadline for each of the three decisions that we are discussing today, which are key elements of this action plan.
European citizens would not understand if the European Union did not work as fast as possible to adopt the measures in question.
The speed with which the rapporteurs have worked and with which the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has examined the reports, and you are to discuss them today, are exemplary.
Respecting the deadlines set for adopting these decisions depended on all of that, and the Presidency is very grateful to you for that support for its work.
Madam President, first of all, I will deal with the decision creating Eurojust, then the framework decision on the European arrest warrant, and I will finish with the framework decision on combating terrorism.
I will not go back over the objectives of each of the instruments, or not much.
You know them well enough.
I would like to confine myself to the reason why you invited the Presidency here today, and I will therefore go through the preparatory work for each of the decisions.
(NL) With regard to Eurojust, the setting up of a permanent unit was one of our absolute priorities in the field of justice.
The terrorist threat has only reinforced this intention.
We are doing everything we can to ensure that this instrument is adopted in December so that we can meet the objectives of Tampere.
I am delighted to be able to inform you that everything seems to suggest that the Council will be able meet this deadline.
Admittedly, a political agreement had already been struck during the Council meeting of 27 and 28 September on Articles 1 to 8 of this Decision.
You are aware of the fact that these articles constitute the actual core of this Decree establishing Eurojust.
Under the Belgian Presidency, the working party has spent 13 meeting days on this instrument.
The entire text has already been the subject of overall reading in the working party. It has also been examined by the Article 36 Committee and is now before the COREPER.
(FR) An initial opinion from Parliament was adopted on 17 May this year but, given the many changes that had been made to the text, it became necessary to have a fresh consultation.
The Presidency has taken particular care to ensure that the opinions given by Parliament were taken into account throughout the negotiations.
Eurojust should bring real added value compared with the existing instruments.
Bringing together magistrates from the Member States in a single body will surely enable good coordination and close cooperation between the authorities responsible for prosecution.
Eurojust will thus provide an effective instrument with a view to creating the area of freedom, security and justice which has been our aim since the Treaty of Amsterdam.
To this end, we therefore needed to ensure genuine, effective cooperation between Eurojust and the other bodies created as part of our Union.
We therefore needed to be careful to avoid overlaps of responsibility and redundancies.
All these issues are covered by provisions in the draft decision.
Cooperation between Eurojust and Europol and the relationship that those two bodies will have to maintain will be the subject of a separate agreement.
This draft agreement is being drawn up by the members of the pro-Eurojust provisional unit and the representatives of Europol.
It was most desirable to include those primarily affected in the discussion and to better integrate the further developments in Europol that are currently under negotiation within the European Union.
(NL) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in line with your wishes, Eurojust' s areas of competence have been set up in such a way as to afford Eurojust the scope needed to deal with borderline cases and new forms of crime.
Eurojust will take part in the coordination of the competent authorities of the Member States and could ask these to set up joint research teams.
The authorities of Member States which fail to meet Eurojust' s request will need to justify their actions.
A whole host of provisions in the draft Decree concern the introduction of rules to protect personal data.
After all, it was, and is, vital, on the one hand, to provide Eurojust with the possibility of dealing with such data, but, on the other hand, to offer every guarantee that privacy is protected.
The expertise gathered by the interim unit which was set up on 1 March of this year was taken into consideration.
Representatives of this unit took part in the working party and were given the opportunity of sharing their findings during those activities.
I should like to underline the fact that the activities carried out by the interim unit have more than adequately attested to the significance and value of a unit such as Eurojust, particularly over the past few weeks.
Hopefully, you will be pleased to hear that, according to the latest state of activities, it will very much be the task of your Parliament to grant Eurojust discharge for the implementation of the budget.
Despite this, a few important questions remain unanswered, although they are limited in number.
They mainly concern the modalities with regard to the right to perusal of personal data, the entry into force of the Decree and the statute of Eurojust staff.
(FR) Finally, the issue of the headquarters remains open.
It should be possible to make a decision on this at the Laeken Summit.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I will finish this part of my statement by drawing your attention to the fact that, on 16 November, the Presidency insisted that the Member States prepare from now on to implement the framework decision creating Eurojust, so that it can be wholly operational as soon as possible.
Allow me to move on to the work regarding the European arrest warrant.
As you know, the Commission' s proposal is based on the principle of mutual recognition of final decisions. That means that each national authority must recognise ipso facto, with minimal checks, a request to hand over a person made by the judicial authority of another Member State.
The European arrest warrant is meant to replace the current extradition mechanism for the crimes that it covers.
(NL) The framework decision on this arrest warrant is technically a very complex instrument, because it deals with important issues within criminal law procedure, but also with issues which, for example, pertain to the description of people which facilitates the tracing of them.
Given the extent of the tasks and the deadlines to be met, the Presidency has speeded up the Council activities considerably.
The dossier was immediately dealt with by the Article 36 Committee, thus allowing the most delicate issues to be discussed there straight away.
This has necessitated the convening of various extraordinary meetings.
Furthermore, a group of experts has also met several times in order to prepare the groundwork for the most technical aspects.
At the Article 36 Committee, the debates to date have mainly focused on the scope of the instrument that addresses the problems involved in the dual criminality requirement and on the modalities of judicial inspection within the implementing Member State.
The Member States are agreed that the scope must be determined on the basis of a positive list of infringements.
It was impossible to retain the principle of a negative list because it has appeared impossible to reach agreement about the withdrawal of the dual criminality requirement with such a broadly defined scope.
During the Justice and Internal Affairs Council of 16 November, there was broad consensus about the Presidency' s compromise proposal for a positive list and also a mock agreement to apply dual criminality to the infringements which feature on the list.
(FR) These offences are those covered by the Treaty on European Union, the Tampere conclusions, the Annex to the Europol Convention and the four offences proposed by the Commission, which are sabotage, arson, crimes against humanity according to the statute of the International Criminal Court, hijacking of aircraft and hijacking of ships.
It includes, among other things, terrorism and in the trafficking of human beings.
In order to reach a unanimous agreement, it will undoubtedly be necessary to alter the list.
The Council agreed to work on the basis of two proposals.
One envisaged that, for the offences on the list that have not yet been harmonised, the double jeopardy rule should only be withdrawn if the offence is considered to be serious in the issuing State.
That would imply a sentence threshold greater than the twelve months currently established for offences which have not been harmonised among the fifteen Member States.
Under the other proposal, removing dual criminality would be limited to offences committed wholly or partially on the territory of the issuing State, the idea being that a handover could not be refused for acts committed on the territory of the State issuing the warrant.
(NL) During the Justice and Internal Affairs Council of 16 November, the ministers managed to reach agreement on the conditions under which an appeal may be made to the rights enjoyed in the implementing State, as well as on the deadline for handing over a suspect.
The basic principles are as follows: the law of the implementing State determines the modalities under which the rights can be called upon.
In the event of the wanted person consenting to their surrender, a period of ten days is stipulated.
In the event of an arrest, a period of sixty days is stipulated and in special cases, these periods can be extended by thirty days.
The other provisions of the Commission proposal were discussed in the Article 36 Committee on 22 and 23 November.
The discussions centred around the reasons for refusing to implement the warrant and the conditions for applying the principle of territoriality and the principle of speciality.
It is too premature at this stage to moot the idea of an agreement, but the activities are very constructive and all provisions have already been discussed in detail.
(FR) Particular attention is paid, and I think, ladies and gentlemen, that this is a concern that you have expressed, to the rights of the requested person: rights to defence, rights regarding the use of languages, rights regarding transfer.
In this respect, it will be stressed that the requested person' s interest in benefiting from a judicial procedure and appearing before the judge as soon as possible should not be neglected.
Another area of obvious improvement on the current extradition procedure is deducting any detention enforced as part of the execution of the European arrest warrant in the executing State from the prison sentence that the person handed receives.
This is the state of the negotiations concerning the framework decision on the European arrest warrant.
As I have said before, there are still difficulties, but we are hopeful that they can be resolved before next week.
(NL) The third instrument, I should like to mention today, is the framework decision on the fight against terrorism.
For that decision, we can, of course, draw on the experience already gathered in connection with the two instruments I mentioned a moment ago, but that does not take away from the importance of the decision.
First of all, because it is also essential to promote judicial cooperation by harmonising penalisations.
It is crucial to develop a common strategy on terrorism and in that way to develop a truly European criminal policy in that area.
It is also vital to grant European courts of justice broad judicial powers.
But the significance of the framework decision also lies in the subtleties thereof, as some of you have rightly pointed out: all actions in connection with terrorism, including taking part in and supporting a terrorist group, must be considered.
At the same time, great care must be taken not to go too far, and accordingly, a definition should be introduced which rules out any risk of abuse.
The Council is acutely aware of this, and it is with those elements in mind that the activities are moving forwards.
They are making steady progress and that is borne out by the outcome of the meetings of 16 November.
Indeed, we can already ascertain that the changes that were made have brought the positions closer together.
(FR) The definition of terrorist offences is almost finalised.
The element of initial intention has been clarified.
Added to this are two elements that can also be characteristics of terrorist intent, namely severely intimidating the population or unduly forcing a State to carry out an act.
At the same time, the types of conduct affected have been redefined so that only extremely serious offences are covered, in response to the concerns and criticisms that the initial definition was too broad.
Two additional elements have been adopted by the Council in order to confirm the guarantees of respect for fundamental rights.
First of all, the preamble will state that the framework decision is without prejudice to the exercising of human rights, in particular, the right of association, expression and demonstration.
Also, a political declaration will add to these precautions, specifying that the decision does not cover people who are acting to preserve or restore democratic values, or people who are exercising the right to express their opinions, even if, while exercising that right, they commit offences.
Finally, the preamble will exclude from the framework decision' s scope, the activities of the armed forces in a period of armed conflict when they are performing their official duties, as governed by international law.
This is the situation with regard to the crime of terrorism itself.
(NL) With regard to judicial powers, the Council continues to attach importance to the wide scope of these judicial powers on account of the seriousness of terrorist acts.
A coordination mechanism will be brought about in the event of any conflict of judicial powers among the Member States, which is not inconceivable, given the wide judicial powers of the same States.
Progress continues to be made in the activities in the field of punishment.
The current text provides for the obligation on all Member States to increase penalties for punishable acts of terrorism compared to the same acts without any terrorist intent.
The debates which were held on this topic last Friday in the COREPER were about the very same punishment for punishable acts which are associated with terrorist groups.
Consensus appears to be growing about a maximum penalty of fifteen years for leading a terrorist group and of eight years for taking part in such a group.
If the group has not yet carried out any acts of terrorism, the leading of such a group also incurs an eight year sentence.
However, the debates on this issue have not yet been completed.
(FR) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, that brings to an end the account that I wished to give of the three Council framework decisions that are on your agenda today.
As I have already said, the Presidency expects to see the discussions on these three instruments completed between now and December.
That would certainly be an amazing feat, given the Council' s loaded schedule, but it will, above all, show, on the eve of the Laeken Summit, that the European Union has now achieved a certain maturity in the development of European criminal justice and that it is capable of realising the objectives that it set itself.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I wish to congratulate Mrs Gebhardt on her report on the creation of the Eurojust unit.
The ideas that the Commission expressed on this matter in its communication of November 2000 and the recommendations adopted by the European Parliament in May of this year, following the report by Mrs Gebhardt, are, to a large extent, echoed in the text that is now being studied by the Council.
I shall, therefore, limit myself to emphasising two or three aspects in greater detail.
Firstly, as Mrs Gebhardt stated, in the version currently under examination, the rules on the protection of personal data have been extended and improved.
The draft document adopts a balanced approach that respects both the legitimate interests and fundamental rights of Europe' s citizens and the need for the effective coordination of investigations and prosecutions.
There will be an independent joint supervisory body for data protection and, if necessary, legal solutions will be provided for appeals to be lodged in national courts.
Secondly, the role of the Union' s institutions has been strengthened and the Commission is fully involved in the work of Eurojust in its various areas of responsibility.
Parliament will be kept fully informed of the budgetary issues and I hope that it will also be given the task of discharging the budget.
Mrs Gebhardt' s excellent report also includes a list of supplementary amendments, most of which meet with the Commission' s approval.
I shall only mention the examples of the amendments concerning membership of the joint supervisory body for personal data, cooperation with OLAF, the Commission' s anti-fraud body, and Eurojust, Parliament' s discharge of the budget, the time limits for the storage of data and the law applicable in the event of damage resulting from incorrect data processing.
I hope that the Council will also bear these suggestions in mind.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the other two initiatives under consideration, the events of 11 September 2001 have, I am sad to say, confirmed the validity of the recommendations adopted by the European Parliament on 5 September 2001, following an own-initiative report drawn up by Graham Watson.
As Commissioner responsible for Justice and Home Affairs, I wish to congratulate and pay public tribute to Mr Watson, the Chairman of Parliament' s Committee on Citizen' s Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, whose efforts and name will always be associated with this initiative of enormous political scope; the fight against terrorism and against crime in the European Union.
The recommendations in the Watson report, published in September, were, to a large extent, taken into account in the proposals presented by the Commission on 19 September which are now being studied by the Council.
I wish firstly to discuss the proposal for a framework decision on combating terrorism.
The Council debate on this proposal has focused on the three most important and, at the same time, most problematic issues: defining terrorist crime, clarifying the rules of jurisdiction for the prosecution of terrorist acts and the framework of penalties and sanctions applicable to terrorist acts.
With regard to definition, there has been concern to ensure that the framework decision cannot, under any circumstances, apply to legitimate action, for example in the context of the activities of unions or anti-globalisation movements.
The Commission has subscribed to this interpretation from the outset and considers that the solution we are working towards respects the basic structure of the Commission' s initial proposal, which is to, "define a terrorist offence on the basis of the identification of an objective factor: the terrorist act, accompanied by the identification of a subjective element: a terrorist motivation under the terms of the proposal" . This is the text currently under consideration by the Council.
At the same time, the solution also provides more detail on allowing the requirements that must be met for the offence included in the positive list to be considered a terrorist offence, to be identified in legislation itself. We are, therefore, in favour of improving the definition contained in the text currently being studied by the Council.
This aspect, in fact, provides a further guarantee: no common crime, not even acts of violence committed incidentally in the context of certain demonstrations, will be covered by the instrument to eliminate terrorism.
The Council is currently considering the possibility of issuing a statement explaining that anyone acting in the interest of preserving or restoring democratic values, instances of which occurred in some Member States during the Second World War, cannot be considered to be a terrorist.
This aspect is in line with some of the amendments tabled by Parliament to ensure that the fundamental rights and freedoms on which our countries are founded cannot, under any circumstances, be endangered by the present framework decision.
With regard to jurisdiction, the debate in the Council is close to reaching a solution that is very similar to the one recommended in the amendments tabled by the European Parliament.
There is consensus in Council on a balanced formula that combines the Commission' s initial proposal and the more ambitious project suggested by some Member States and by Parliament on national jurisdictions being extended to cover the entire territory of the Union.
Consequently, Member States can, if they so desire, extend their jurisdiction if the offence has been committed in any part of the Union' s territory.
With regard to the third issue, that of penalties and sanctions, I would say that this is still the main problem with the framework decision, given the lack of consensus on a common level of penalties and sanctions for individual terrorist offences.
The Commission is not yet satisfied with the approach that is currently applied for individual offences, under which the penalties and sanctions applicable to terrorist offences committed by individuals would not be harmonised. Instead, weightier penalties and sanctions than those provided for under national legislation for the same offences committed without the special intention required for classification as terrorist acts would apply.
If we limit our ambitions in this way, we will not be fulfilling the mandate laid down in the Article 31(e) of the Treaty, nor will we be following the recommendation contained in the Watson report.
Furthermore, we would be acting inconsistently since, in previous instruments, we have managed to adopt common penalties and sanctions for the counterfeiting of the euro, for assisting illegal immigration and the trafficking of human beings, and it would be inexplicable not to be equally ambitious when it comes to punishing terrorist acts.
I hope that it is possible to find a solution on the basis of the proposal that the Commission presented on creating a range of penalties and sanctions for the individual offences listed in Articles 1 and 2 of the Commission proposal, with greater flexibility to adapt them to the scale of penalties in force in the national legislation of each Member State.
Lastly, this framework decision stipulates that the Member States must adopt all possible measures to guarantee appropriate assistance to the families of victims, implementing, where possible, Article 4 of the Framework Decision on the Status of Victims in Connection with Criminal Proceedings.
This approach is entirely consistent with Parliament' s point of view.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the second framework decision, on the European arrest warrant, must be based on the principle of the mutual recognition of final decisions in criminal matters, in line with the conclusions of the Tampere European Council of October 1999, and with the recommendation made to us by the Heads of State and Government at the Ghent European Council of October this year.
The text we are now discussing, submitted by the Presidency, includes a positive list of offences for which a double jeopardy verification does not have to be carried out.
As you know, the Commission proposal that is being discussed today seeks to make the abolition of the double jeopardy rule universal, with the exception of a negative list identified by the Commission.
Since the Ghent European Council, it has become clear that this approach by the Commission would not have majority support in Council.
Hence the Presidency has moved ahead with a compromise proposal, which assumes that the execution of an arrest warrant for offences included in the positive list does not require double jeopardy verification.
The Commission is prepared to support this compromise proposal by the Presidency provided that the definition of offences included on this positive list is substantial and that it sends a clear, unequivocal message that we are strengthening the mechanisms of judicial cooperation to fight against the various forms of transnational organised crime.
In order to ensure that the mechanism of the positive list works and is effective, the definition of the offences on this list must respect the definition of these offences in force in the legislation of the Member States issuing a search and arrest warrant.
This is an essential component.
Unless this component is complied with, the double jeopardy condition would also be reintroduced for these offences, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid.
I think that we are approaching an agreement on the content of the positive list.
However, at the moment, this agreement is not yet completely signed and sealed.
I hope that, by the Council of 6 and 7 December, it will be possible to conclude a unanimous agreement on a substantial positive list that fulfils the objective of a mechanism for an effective European arrest warrant that can be implemented in a straightforward way.
Regarding the last aspect that I wish to focus on, the Commission has included in its proposal a set of rules that are intended to reconcile effectiveness in the fight against crime, on the one hand, and the protection of citizens' rights and fundamental freedoms on the other.
I hope that the Council resists the temptation to remove provisions that offer protection on the grounds that they are not necessary, since the Member States are, in any event, bound to respect legal safeguards.
It is true that one of the essential elements for the creation of this mechanism is the principle of mutual trust that has resulted from the Member States signing up to the Council of Europe' s European Convention of Human Rights of 1950 and from having jointly proclaimed the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in December of 2000.
I would say, however, that it is, nevertheless, important to emphasise some specific mechanisms that should be included in this framework decision in order to guarantee and safeguard the fundamental rights of our citizens.
Other amendments along the same lines consist of bringing the wording of the Ne bis in idem rule, laid down in Article 29 of the Commission' s proposal, into line with the wording of Article 50 of the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights so as to obviate the requirement for the arrest warrant to be accompanied by proof that the individual has been duly informed of the procedure in time to prepare a defence in the event that he or she is sentenced in absentia.
Another good example of these rules is the deduction of the period of deprivation of liberty from the punishment laid down in Article 24 of the Commission proposal, which states that the period of detention in the Member State executing the warrant must be taken into account for the purposes of calculating compensation in the event that the individual surrendered is not convicted.
There must be a balance between the need for speed and effective cooperation between judicial authorities and the interests of individuals, who must not be subjected to additional or excessive constraints or have their ability to mount a defence hampered.
The Commission feels that it would be desirable, where the identification of the laws and principles that safeguard fundamental rights in a European judicial area is concerned, to extend these rules. The Commission realises, therefore, that it would be desirable to pursue the task of approximating legislation on criminal proceedings in the Member States.
We must, simultaneously, guarantee the effectiveness of prosecutions and the safeguarding of the rights of individuals.
It may, therefore, prove necessary at Union level to address, in a more concerted way, the right to language assistance, the proper treatment of evidence and the issue of the courts' bail system.
The Commission is considering the possibility of issuing a communication on these aspects that could cover a huge range of factors.
These issues require a horizontal approach and, therefore, we propose finalising them at a later date in a specific mechanism.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall conclude by referring to Mr Watson' s proposal for an oral amendment that was tabled here today.
Now that we are debating the Commission' s position, we must step up negotiations to conclude an agreement supported by all fifteen Member States.
Not an agreement at any price, but an agreement that responds to the challenge of the fight against terrorism and organised crime before us.
We also welcome the Belgian Presidency' s commitment to obtaining this agreement.
I also wish to make it clear, however, that, where the European arrest warrant is concerned, an agreement can certainly be concluded on the list of thirty-four offences to which Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck has just referred.
I must also clearly state that the list does not include minor offences because this is a list annexed to the Europol Convention.
I would also say that, if these offences are considered to be offences that warrant police cooperation under the terms of Europol, they must also be considered to be unquestionably serious for the purposes of judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
Regardless of national legal cultures and regardless of the moral censure that a particular offence might generate at national level, I am convinced that the option we should pursue at the moment is to conclude an agreement with all fifteen Member States, a substantial agreement on the list of offences to which the European arrest warrant should apply.
If this agreement cannot be concluded with all fifteen countries, we will then have to consider what to do next.
Madam President, I think that today our thoughts should focus on the basics, which are the good fortune and responsibility of living in democratic States governed by the rule of law.
In a democratic State governed by the rule of law, any political demand is acceptable and to be respected and the democratic confrontation of ideas is always to be welcomed; these are our standards, our very essence, our identifying mark, on which the whole idea of European integration is founded.
By the same token, however, the democratic State governed by the rule of law rejects those who express their ideas through bloodshed.
When faced with those who sow the seeds of terror, death and destruction in our societies, there is only one dialogue possible, the dialogue that arises from the implementation of the law.
This is our guiding thought on this matter.
I said that we are constructing, on the bases and principles of our legal systems in democratic States governed by the rule of law, a democratic Europe governed by the rule of law.
We had a situation that was completely lacking in balance between progress in the field of security and progress in the field of freedom and justice.
The three proposals debated respond, and it was about time, to a request from Europe' s citizens and to the clear political will, at the highest level, of the Heads of State and Government, which, as Mr Watson has clearly pointed out, runs from Vienna to Tampere, and has been strengthened since 11 September at the Extraordinary European Council in Brussels and in Ghent.
These three methods also respond to the principles upon which Europe has been constructed.
Firstly, cooperation and coordination, as seen in Eurojust, where we cooperate and coordinate in order to be more effective in the field of justice.
Secondly, the mutual recognition on which the internal market is based, and this, as the Commissioner has said, a corollary of the confidence between States, which is the fundamental element of the European search and arrest warrant.
Finally, harmonisation wherever this may be necessary and the need for harmonisation with regard to terrorism is obvious, because only six Member States had any legislation covering this area.
Madam President, I trust, no, I am sure, that by voting for these reports with an overwhelming majority tomorrow, Parliament will be giving, as it always has, the political signal that, as responsible representatives of the citizens, we have the obligation to work on the construction of democratic States governed by the rule of law, in those countries in which we are fortunate enough to live.
Madam President, since 11 September, there have been many opportunities to think about and debate upon the consequences of the events of that fateful day and today is no exception.
Without a doubt, the attacks in New York have made us realise that nobody can feel entirely safe from terrorism. When a man and a woman are murdered in Beasaín, as happened last week, for example, each and every one of us is affected, and it is not reasonable to ask the elected representatives of a democracy, Mr Watson, to have to debate under the threat of death.
These events have also reminded us that we were a long way behind in meeting the commitments that the Heads of State and Government had given in Tampere in order to develop the third pillar of the European Union.
The report that we approved by a large majority in committee contains contributions which, in my opinion, are very valid, to the otherwise excellent Commission proposal.
For example, to define street violence as clearly being one form of terrorist expression, or to incorporate a reference to victims and their families and to offer political support and legal protection with the aim of identifying terrorism and bringing terrorists and their supporters to justice through the courts.
This is precisely the purpose of the amendment we tabled in plenary and should be interpreted in this way.
I hope that these and other contributions will be added to the text that the Council is debating, and, in particular, this latter amendment, which I hope the rapporteur will also vote for and will be taken into consideration when the European list of terrorist organisations that Parliament requested is drawn up.
The Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs should fulfil their duty on the 6 and 7 December, and if they do not do so, the Presidency will have to honour its commitment to Parliament to take this issue at Laeken, and if any Member State there is tempted to block a proposal that has the widespread support of our citizens, it seems appropriate to me that closer cooperation should be implemented according to provisions of Article 40 of the Treaty.
The Council' s requests do not date from 11 September.
In September 2000, one year ago, the vast majority of MEPs signed a written declaration requesting the methods that today have been submitted for our consideration.
These are the same methods that we are asking the Commission for in the own-initiative report on the role of the European Union in the fight against terrorism that we approved, also by a very large majority, on 5 September.
Therefore, it needs to be made very clear that none of these measures makes the slightest reduction in the civil liberties of European citizens.
The opposite is the case, we are giving the judicial system instruments to enable it to better protect everyone' s freedom because, faced with the free movement of crime, we must open the doors to the free movement of justice.
Madam President, the two provisions we are debating today respond to both a conviction and an objective: the conviction that we can defeat terrorism and our objective to strengthen the Rule of Law, providing all the instruments necessary to achieve this.
In a democracy, political ideas are put to the test in the voting booth, and not put forward by terrorists.
I am sure that all my fellow Members are of this opinion.
I would like to clearly point out what will be changed by these two initiatives when they are adopted by the Laeken European Council : firstly, Europe will cease to 'show solidarity with' and instead be 'responsible for' .
The solidarity of Europeans with Spanish democrats in their fight against ETA will give way to the responsibility of all European democrats to defeat terrorism.
Secondly, and with regard to the European search and arrest warrant, agreements between governments will be replaced with recognition and cooperation between their various judicial systems.
An injunction will have to be able to be executed without delay, whether it has been issued by a Spanish judge or a French judge, against an individual who is sought in one or other of the countries.
To make my position clear, I feel there should be no more disgraceful spectacles such as the one that took place at Olano.
As well as thinking about the future, however, I cannot help but think with a certain degree of bitterness that these two provisions have come far too late, for the victims.
How different their lives would have been if we had done this earlier!
If only this had been done ten years ago, I am sure that ETA would, by now, have been defeated, and that many of my close friends who have been murdered by ETA would still be here with us, still taking their children to school, giving lectures, writing articles for the press, administering justice, representing their voters.
I would, therefore, ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to reflect upon this tomorrow before you vote.
I would like you to consider that the consequences of this will not only be political, but will, more than anything, be of a human nature, and I would ask the Council to rise, in political terms, to this occasion, and not to miss this opportunity.
There are those that think that politics is the art of the possible.
My opinion is that the purpose of politics is to make what is necessary possible.
I trust that the Fifteen will share this opinion.
I assure you that the defeat of terrorism is possible, and, ladies and gentlemen, you do not realise just how necessary this is.
Madam President, the argument that the anti-terrorism measures and the European arrest warrant do not skimp on fundamental rights, is only sustainable if the protection system of the European Convention on Human Rights for defendants is adhered to in practice.
But that is dependant on the ability of every single judge in the European Union to understand and apply ECHR provisions.
We have no coherent EU programme to ensure they do.
Lest I be thought chauvinist in raising the problem of Britons in Greece, let me criticise my own government in the UK.
They are trying to put through an anti-terrorism bill with a derogation from the ECHR in order to detain suspects without a proper trial, with no legal representation, no judicial review and without being able to hear the evidence given by the intelligence services.
This certainly leaves the UK lacking credibility in a campaign for mutual raising of standards in the EU.
Another worrying development in the UK is the intention to let police and security cooperation measures slip through the Westminster Parliament without proper democratic scrutiny.
Here we debate, but we have no equality with Ministers in deciding the legislation.
Coupled with Council secrecy, this means a very unsatisfactory position in terms of democracy, justice and human rights.
Finally, may I make a direct appeal to Commissioner Vitorino to ensure that organisations acting in the field of raising justice standards, such as the admirable Fair Trials Abroad, can be assisted under the Community budget.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the fight against terrorism is an absolute necessity, the legitimacy of which should not be questioned or we could see our democracies collapse.
However, under no circumstances should it serve as a pretext for gagging our fundamental rights and democratic freedoms.
How can we justify a European proposal to combat terrorism if no added value can be gained from it? Under the current legislation of the Member States, perpetrators of attacks could not go unpunished.
As the public enemy number one is terrorism, why not limit the European arrest warrant to terrorist offences? If the illegal capture of State or government facilities, public modes of transport, infrastructures or public places constitutes a terrorist offence or if the legitimate expression of our freedoms of expression and association, our trade union rights, could, in the future, be criminalised or described as terrorism, if those elements are retained, by voting in favour of these reports we will be renouncing all of our democratic rights.
An explicit guarantee of these rights and freedoms must be included in this proposal for a framework directive.
Our fears also extend to certain offences that could fall under the warrant, as the criterion used is that of the sentence, while the accused persons may deserve protection, for example if they are migrants or asylum seekers.
Even those giving support to those people would, in the future, become guilty of terrorism.
A minimum degree of harmonisation of Member States' criminal procedures is necessary in order to safeguard the principle of equality before the law and guarantee the protection of rights in the principle of collegiality.
Furthermore, as minors cannot be the subjects of an arrest warrant, their description for criminal purposes also needs to be harmonised.
If we are to establish an area of security, freedom and justice, these three dimensions need to be fully effective.
Unfortunately, we observe that the security aspect is dominating the policies of the Union and the Member States.
The fight against terrorism needs to be reflected in security for all residents, without exception and in total respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Finally, if a new text has to be adopted by the Council in the future, we hope that this House will be consulted once again.
Madam President, there is an ongoing relationship between the constraints on individual and collective freedoms in the United States and those in Europe, just as there is an ongoing connection in the matter of such freedoms that has been maintained by the United Kingdom government, first with the Reagan/Thatcher partnership and now with the Bush/Blair partnership.
Many European governments are using the criminal terrorist action of 11 September against the United States as an excuse to issue further legislation curbing freedoms which has nothing to do with combating terrorism.
Leaving aside the special military tribunals set up by President Bush, it is enough to reflect upon the recent laws issued or proposed in Italy or in the United Kingdom in order to understand that their objective is to curb and control growing political opposition to a world social and economic order which is unfair and inhuman: the wealth, well-being, growth and development of a fifth of the human race are mirrored by the starvation, lack of resources, ongoing economic decline and underdevelopment of the other four fifths.
It is strange that we can never manage to find a legal formula to define this major social massacre as an act of terrorism, while we had no hesitation in labelling as terrorist acts all those demonstrations of social opposition which have taken place recently in Seattle, Genoa and so forth.
Article 3 of the proposal for a framework decision on terrorism sends a clear message to all those who, in the future, attempt to show their opposition to the neo-liberal monopoly on thinking and the resulting social system.
Women, men, workers, students, the unemployed, pacifists and ecologists will no longer be opposing the system but will be terrorists because - as Hegel, then an old man, wrongly said - 'the real is rational and the rational real' , and for our legislators nothing is more real than the present social and economic disorder and nothing is more irrational, and therefore terrorist, than the need to overthrow and eliminate it.
Lastly, I would like to make it clear that I do support the European arrest warrant and that, as an Italian, I condemn the fact that my country' s government should be the one to oppose a unanimous decision.
It is shameful because the intention of the Berlusconi government in adopting this position is to prevent corruption being listed among the offences on the 'positive' list.
Madam President, after the events of 11 September, Europe and the European institutions must also assume their responsibility and find the courage to achieve a joint agreement between the Member States on combating terrorism and, in general, combating organised crime, without delay.
The legal instruments which will make this fight genuinely effective include the European arrest warrant, which will, at last, replace the complex and excessively bureaucratic extradition procedures which have now become insufficient and inadequate for fighting crime, particularly international crime.
That said, we need to move one step at a time.
The emotion of the tragic terrorist attacks of recent months must certainly prompt us to strengthen judicial cooperation between the Member States without delay, but in speeding up this process we must take things one step at a time and act responsibly.
Indeed, good laws are not compatible with haste or with lack of precision or emotional reactions, particularly when it comes to identifying the offences in respect of which the European arrest warrant is to be applied.
We would therefore express our concern at the Belgian Presidency' s proposal to apply the European arrest warrant to a list of around 30 categories of offences immediately.
In our opinion, terrorism or the trafficking of human beings, to give just two examples, cannot be placed on the same level as counterfeiting or forgery.
It would therefore be more in the general interest to propose and adopt, first of all, with the unanimous consent of all the Member States, an initial, limited list and then, subsequently, to extend this list gradually, thus focusing initially on terrorist crimes, organised crime, the trafficking of drugs, arms and human beings and the exploitation of minors.
Mr President, naturally, measures must be taken to combat terrorism. That much is clear.
Upon reflection, however, it is interesting to note in this context that most countries have adequate rules.
That being said, an extension to the mutual obligation to hand over wanted criminals might be contemplated, but it should be far more restricted than provided for here.
Having said that, I want to say that I have difficulty finding words strong enough to express my rejection of the proposals before us.
That rejection is something I express not only as a politician but, first and foremost, as a lawyer.
I want to say that it is difficult to find even one lawyers' organisation of any kind in the Member States that wishes to endorse these proposals.
They all have major or minor reservations, and many are forthright in their rejection of them because it is a case of the end justifying the means, and the means to be used amount to a violation of what are fundamental ideals in terms of legal rights, something which, for example, Denmark' s General Council of the Bar has come out very strongly against.
In my view, this panic reaction has meant that these proposals have been treated with a quite scandalous disregard for any basic demand that they be properly examined.
These fundamental legal reforms, which are among the most complicated of legislative matter and require an extensive consultation procedure, are to be implemented without any substantial debate on the issues involved and on the basis of, if I may say so, Commissioner, what is, to put it mildly, inadequate preparation.
It is unpleasantly reminiscent of political 'body-snatching' , and that is a violation of fundamental legal rights.
Madam President, there is a pressing need to harmonise judicial standards but I would like to draw the attention of the President and the Members to the need to harmonise the roles of the intelligence and anti-terrorist bodies as well, for otherwise harmonising judicial standards will serve no purpose.
Current events show just how necessary this is, irrespective of the many considerations put forward by Members from the left side of the House which have the effect of shifting our attention away from the numerous dangers presented by the way terrorist groups work and are interconnected.
In fact, by way of example, the revelations published today in the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica on the change of hands of important nuclear material which is already part of the stock owned by the Mobutu regime, offer a very serious perspective on this trafficking which has taken place and may still be taking place at this very moment in the States of the European Union.
The story of this transaction, the protagonist of which was a former governmental ambassador who was moving freely throughout Europe by virtue of his status as a political refugee, is incredible.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is actually tragic that it took an event like the dramatic terrorist attacks in New York and in Washington to rouse Europe, and the European Council in particular, from slumber, but I am glad that we have managed in such a very short time to put together a package - a counter-terrorism package.
It extends from money laundering, by way of the freezing of accounts, to the measures we are discussing today.
I am glad that, at last, terrorism is defined as an offence in all fifteen Member States and not just in six, as was formerly the case, and can therefore be proceeded against.
I am glad that there is the hope of a European arrest warrant.
I hope that national animosities do not again lead to the postponement of this European arrest warrant, which we so urgently need.
Just go back to Parliament's proposal, when, I believe, the position we took up was a good one.
I am glad that we will make Eurojust a reality and that the enlarged powers to combat terrorism take us another step forward in the right direction.
I am glad that Europol will have joint investigative teams.
All this is very positive in that we are showing the public just what added value the European Union can have.
I demand, though, that currently unresolved points in certain areas be dealt with.
The Member States must finally be required, and with consequences in the event of their non-compliance, to supply Europol with information and to ensure optimum coordination between Eurojust and Europol and appropriate parliamentary management and monitoring.
Parliament has made some excellent proposals on this point, and I congratulate the rapporteur and the whole team of shadow rapporteurs.
I hope that the excellent work they have done will meet with complete support tomorrow.
Following the attacks of 11 September, policy against terrorism had to be tightened in Europe too.
The Commission proposal on the definition and penalty standards for acts of terrorism therefore deserves our support.
However, the Commission proposal on a European arrest warrant with a general scope, and which abolishes the dual criminality requirement across the board is met with less enthusiasm.
This is a bridge too far for a variety of reasons: it pushes countries with a milder climate in terms of criminal law into the defensive and calls into question the fairness of the course of justice.
The proposed general scope is no longer related to combating terrorism.
As such, it constitutes no ground for the enormous political pressure and the break-neck speed of the decision-making process.
Such a proposal revolutionises the application of national and European criminal law and therefore deserves a well considered and transparent decision-making process, preceded by a proper public debate.
Moreover, Parliament is forced to pronounce judgment on the Commission proposal while the Council has, in fact, already turned it on its head: a positive list instead of a negative one, and behind closed doors.
One can hope and expect that the discussion in the Council will eventually culminate in an acceptable compromise, but we do not know this yet and neither are we voting on this tomorrow.
This is why this plenary debate and the vote in this form and at this time are a little absurd and premature, in fact.
For that reason, the delegations of the Dutch Labour Party will abstain from tomorrow' s vote on the Commission proposal for a European arrest warrant.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I will adopt a slightly different position from that of the previous speaker. The Members of the European Free Alliance will approve the measures to combat terrorism.
We want to strengthen the criminal law measures to combat terrorism.
However, we do want to underline that the term terrorism is to be defined as proposed by the European Parliament, for I am a little wary in that respect.
A moment ago, we discussed the procedural motions on train and plane spotting in Greece and on the people who are imprisoned in this connection.
You may well say that this is a completely unrelated matter, but the sense of justice is very different in the different countries.
Similarly, the keenness with which some label anything and everything as terrorism, makes me a little suspicious.
But the measures should not be exploited by the authorities and neither should it be possible to exploit them.
Some of our representatives of the European Free Alliance struggle more with the European arrest warrant. The approval we grant in this connection is clearly conditional.
The guarantees we want to give are contained in the EP amendments which will hopefully be adopted and which we really consider to be minimum requirements.
If the Council refuses to accept these, we will review our position and convince our colleagues in the national parliaments of the fact that better protection of citizens' freedoms is necessary for a fair course of justice.
In other words, this is about minimum conditions, but further to the speeches of both the acting President-in-Office and Commissioner Vitorino, we are quite optimistic about the right direction which this could be heading.
It is, of course, clear that we must be able to make further progress in the harmonisation of legislation, and in the European judicial procedures involving a European public prosecutor, etc.
A number of people put the federalisation of the Third Pillar first and foremost, and maybe we need to be more pro-active in this direction.
We will not tolerate normal, democratic opposition being muzzled or suppressed, or the actions of trade unions and of movements and associations being thwarted in the name of combating terrorism.
But more than anything, we also want progress to be made in the fight against internationally organised crime.
I have first-hand experience of hopeless situations in the fight to surrender people of whom it had been clearly proven that they had committed crimes.
I therefore want to give you my unqualified support in this matter, but subject to the conditions I have announced.
Madam President, I too would like to join others in welcoming the opportunity to have this debate.
The time is so short that it will not allow us to get fully into all the intricacies and details.
However, I can say at the outset that every one of us is in common cause in opposing terrorism and violence of any kind to further political or other aims To that end, we would support coordination and cooperation between the Member States in protecting the rights and interests of each of the Member States and of the European Union as a whole, as well as its 370 million citizens.
At the Tampere summit we took the first step towards that process.
However, what is before us here today with regard to the European arrest warrant represents a major interference in and alteration of the national criminal justice systems and the civil rights and protections afforded to each individual within each of the Member States.
It is a mistake to move this far, this quickly, without properly understanding or fully recognising the differences between the criminal systems within the European Union.
Therefore, I would urge all Members to support the amendments tabled by myself and my colleagues, in particular, Amendments Nos 92 to 101, which put in place firstly, the requirement for a judicial review or a right to appeal against the warrant at both the executing and issuing stage, secondly, a common list of positive offences, which must be drawn up and not used as a stumbling block, thirdly, no interference with the double jeopardy rule, fourthly, that there must be prima facie evidence presented before the warrant can be enforced, and finally, to ensure that there is a quick trial process where a warrant is issued.
I have represented constituents in other Member States in the European Union where they have been held without trial for two years, without getting any opportunity for habeas corpus or any opportunity to present their case.
Finally, on the overall package on combating terrorism, we have to ensure respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms.
It is no good for the Commissioner to say that we have the Charter of Fundamental Rights: That is only a non-legally binding political decision.
Each Member State has signed up to the European Convention of Human Rights which puts in place specific provisions for each individual.
I note that one Member State, just in the last week, has ridden roughshod over the rights and liberties of individuals.
We as a European Parliament, representatives of a transnational organisation, should not allow this to continue.
I would like to use the brief speaking time I have to highlight the plight of the too-soon forgotten victims of terrorism.
I sat in the home of one of my constituents the other day, a woman who lost her husband because he was a member of the army and had been killed by IRA terrorists.
When she came to get compensation for her three sons - just young boys - they offered her a paltry few hundred pounds for each son.
I could go on and list a sad litany of how terrorist victims have been treated.
This Parliament should realise that these people need special treatment.
The governments responsible should ensure that treatment is provided to bring some alleviation of the awful hurt and sorrow they bear.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is very difficult to talk about such sensitive issues when there is so little time available but I would like to confirm that, contrary to what many speakers have said, we have increased protection following 11 September and drawn up a raft of measures which include those we are debating this evening.
However, last year, we instituted Eurojust and we have already delivered one major opinion, as has been mentioned, to the effect that Eurojust should harmonise judicial cooperation within Europe.
Today, we are taking a large step forward. We are taking a quantum leap towards laying the foundations for the institution of a European public prosecutor in the future, and I therefore feel that the area of justice in which all this is taking place is gaining in significance, and it is not an area of repression, Mr Vitorino, but an area of freedom.
I am sure you have drawn inspiration from these principles. I believe that this is an issue of primary importance on which we are about to deliver an opinion and which we feel will certainly open up a whole world of cooperation and solidarity in this area.
There are clearly specific problems and they clearly concern the arrest warrant, which merits close reflection.
Only Mr Di Lello could be so superficial and irresponsible as to cast such hasty aspersions on the Italian government.
I do not feel this is fair.
The legal institutions have their own procedures, and we are fine-tuning this European procedural law, this European area, but it is clear that we must proceed with great caution and not draw up a list of offences, for we would never finish adding to it, and any list of offences will clearly never be comprehensive.
We must realise that transnational crimes do exist, that the crime of international terrorism does exist, Madam President, and that it is a sensitive, significant and tragic issue in today' s society. All we have to do, and it must be our priority, to combat it is, of course, to coordinate the activities.
Italian procedural law, for example, has its own peculiarities, and we hope that there will be reasoned, active unanimity within the Council.
Thank you, Madam President.
I certainly welcome the fact that, today, we are finally debating these two reports: the Watson report and the Gebhardt report, although it is unfortunate that this should be a consequence of the tragic events of 11 September in the United States.
However, I think that there is an opportunity here.
We can make an advance of fundamental importance, a giant step forward in complying with the Tampere agreements and in creating a European area of freedom, security and justice, that everybody wants, respecting the balance between freedom and security, the importance of which no one doubts.
And, most importantly, we shall be able to provide our own small contribution to the solution of this difficult, complex and painful problem that weighs heavy upon us and knows no borders, which is terrorism.
Parliament carried out its work before 11 September and it continues to do so now: I am referring to the Resolution we approved on 5 September.
The Commission has proved its fast reflexes in proposing the framework decisions that we are debating today.
We hope that the European Council is also able to rise to the occasion and makes the right decisions as along the lines of those made by the Commission and that Parliament is making today, and that, at the Laeken Summit, it responds to the demands of Europe' s citizens to close the net ever tighter on terrorists and terrorism in general, despite the technical difficulties, and to appropriately punish the guilty parties who have spilt the blood of so many innocent people and who have cruelly and pointlessly ended so many lives.
Madam President, when we were discussing the Schengen Agreement, one of the most frequent objections raised was that the borders would stop policemen and judges but not criminals.
That was a logical objection, although the Schengen Agreement did represent a step forward.
Well then, the instruments that the Council is about to adopt now, particularly the European arrest warrant, are the answer to these objections.
At last, borders will no longer stop judges and police.
I therefore see the European arrest warrant as a huge step forward in European integration too, and that is why I find the position of the Italian government, which is showing concern at the inclusion of offences, particularly financial offences, in this list, frankly incomprehensible.
I hope that the government will review its position in the coming days and I call upon the Commission and the Council of Ministers to pursue this path, which I feel is quite appropriate given that investigations of any kind include inquiries of this nature.
I would, moreover, point out that, last July, Parliament - including Mr Gargani and the Forza Italia group too - almost unanimously adopted the other Watson motion, which called precisely upon the Council to adopt a decision providing for a European search and arrest warrant in the area, and I would stress this, of corruption and fraud as well.
There is, therefore, already a precedent but, in any case, I feel that this is the right path to take to achieve security and justice in Italy and Europe.
Madam President, I come from a country that has been stunned by the most atrocious totalitarian horror, which seeks to spread terror by indiscriminate and relentless killings.
I can say, with pride, looking at my colleague Bárbara Dührkop, and at so many victims, and almost with emotion, that in my country, nobody has given into the temptation of implementing or asking for emergency measures.
Something that has never been understood and which no one has ever been able to tolerate in Spain is that once murderers have crossed a border that, theoretically, no longer exists, they are not pursued with the same vigour with which they are pursued in Spain.
There is no technical reason, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that can justify this, and no European citizen will accept the explanation that, for technical reasons, we are unable to make progress on tracking down terror and crime.
A common definition of the crime of terrorism and common sanctions are needed, as we have heard the Commission say so many times, to prevent there being safe havens in Europe where criminals can escape prosecution.
These measures would also send out a clear political message of the European Unions' commitment to this issue.
We can say the same of the proposal for the mutual recognition of final decisions that we have agreed to call the European search and arrest warrant.
We support the Commission' s proposals for improvements on extradition between Member States and the elimination of the double jeopardy rule.
I also hope that the Council will take Parliament' s wishes into consideration.
I think, Madam President, that extending judicial cooperation in the fight against terrorism and crime is the way to become more effective whilst not reducing, by any means, the very freedom that terrorists and criminals are seeking to destroy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would first of all like to rectify an omission during my presentation.
I forgot to thank and congratulate the rapporteurs on their excellent work and I therefore do so now.
I feel that today' s debate is a very good illustration of the difficulty of the exercise, if I may use that word, of the task that we have before us, which consists of accepting both what Mrs Terrón i Cusí has just said, namely that terrorists should not have the freedom to repeat the atrocious crimes that they have committed, but, at the same time, we need to ensure that the fundamental freedoms which we all hold dear are also respected.
That, in a nutshell, is what is making our task so difficult.
I have tried to explain to you the approach that we are taking to this matter and that we have the twofold concern to work quickly but not negligently, to ensure respect for our fundamental freedoms as well, which should be constant, including the right to defence for those who are accused and including victim' s rights, as the victims should also receive all the necessary attention and care. We are trying to combine all of that, and it is clearly not an easy task, especially because, as you well know and has also been pointed out in this debate, what is more, the different Member States do not have the same legal or judicial traditions.
All of that needs to be reconciled too.
What I can tell you, and this is my final point, is that we will continue to keep this twofold concern in mind, and it is with this in mind that we will try, with the support and guidance of the Commission, of course, to complete our task successfully.
Finally, just to be on the safe side, I want to confirm once again, as I did during my introductory speech, that we will, of course, ensure that action taken in the context of the exercising of political or trade union rights can under no circumstances be defined as a terrorist act or, therefore, engender the application of the new mechanisms that we are working.
Thank you Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Aviation safety
The next item on the agenda is the debate on the report (A5-0415/2001), by Mrs Foster, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on establishing common rules in the field of civil aviation security. [COM(2001) 575 - C5-0481/2001 - 2001/0234(COD)]
Mr President, the tragic events of 11 September in the United States have given new impetus to the reinforcement of arrangements for aviation security.
The European Council meeting the day after the terrorist attacks on the USA instructed the Transport Council to evaluate the measures to be taken to improve aviation security and complete its consideration of those already proposed.
The draft regulation itself was fairly straightforward and has been amended.
However, the attached technical annex, Document 30, based on the European Civil Aviation Conference - or ECAC - was found to be out of date.
Whilst Parliament has responded speedily to the challenge, we believe that this should not lead to a lower level of parliamentary scrutiny and we reserve the right to amend in second reading the revised annex to this regulation adopted by the Council in its common position.
I have met with representatives from the Council and Commission and have consulted widely with the industry.
Due to the difficulty with the annex, as mentioned earlier, I chose to proceed with the report along the following lines: to work with the draft regulation and annex without amending the original annex as given to Parliament but to reserve the right to a second reading after the Council's common position has been adopted.
This option accords with established procedures and ensures proper scrutiny.
The draft regulation concerns, principally, access control and passenger luggage and freight screening on the ground at airports and is outlined fully in my explanatory statement.
The scope does not extend to on-board security which may need to be addressed at some future date.
The technical standards themselves are those adopted by ECAC in 1992 in Document 30, part 2, relating to security issues revised in January 2001 and, as mentioned, currently being updated.
ECAC membership extends to 38 European States including all EU Member States.
It is worth pointing out to Parliament that this agreement reached by the 38 countries will set a precedent in so far as for the first time the agreement will have binding force upon its contracting parties.
Document 30 had previously been used for general guidance only.
Following on from the joint resolution which Parliament adopted at the last plenary session on the subject of aviation, the key areas for amendment to this text are as follows: first, Member States assume responsibility for additional security costs in the light of the terrorist attacks; second, inspections of airports should be unannounced if airports are to be inspected under real operating conditions; third, Member States take responsibility in assisting employers in the screening of employees engaged in all security tasks, not least because employers are not always entitled to access personal data due to strict privacy laws; fourth, where there is a requirement for structural modifications at airports a six month time-limit will be implemented; and fifth, that a procedure be formulated, as is currently the case in ECAC, that would allow industry access to the Comitology Committee without running into problems of existing legal structures.
In addition, on a general point, we are calling for more effective international cooperation in the area of exchange of information for security purposes.
To conclude, we are all aware of the catastrophic effects on the aviation industry and tourist sector as a result of 11 September.
Around 200 000 directly-related jobs have already been lost worldwide, 30 000 in the EU alone, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.
It is not only big businesses which have been affected but also thousands of small businesses, such as small aviation clubs who produce the pilots of tomorrow.
Airlines, airports, manufacturers, hotels, the transport sector are all reliant on finding a solution to this problem.
This report is not the sole solution but it is a step in the right direction provided that the Member States recognise their moral duty to protect their citizens and accept their responsibility to assist in the financing of these additional security measures.
It is quite clear that urgent action must be taken to restore public confidence which, in turn, would assist the aviation industry, the tourism sector and the European Union as a whole.
Mr President, my group would naturally like to help in the rapid creation of common security rules for civil aviation. This is self-evident after the events of 11 September.
In our opinion, there are four points at issue which we included in our amendments. In this respect, we want to take account of the interests of the industry, in which security and a fair distribution of the burden and expenses involved, must be the overriding factor.
First of all, we must aim to achieve the highest possible level of security when it comes to the protection of airports and their users.
This is also the least citizens can expect from us.
Secondly, additional measures which will probably be taken at a later date, must be verified against the implementation of present legislation.
This means that we will need to consider very carefully whether what is being proposed will also be viable in practice.
The third point is that the Commission, in tandem with the ECAC and the ICAO, must determine whether airports in third countries, in other words, airports outside the scope of the Regulation, meet essential security conditions, for any loopholes in the new system will surface particularly at those airports.
I know from my own experience how to board a plane in Albania without passing through bomb control.
The fourth and last point is that we would like uniform rules to finance the proposed measures in order to prevent unfair competition.
This could be government aid, provided that that is directly linked to the extra expenditure in connection with the present Regulation.
It should also be demonstrated, of course, that the aid is really needed.
The industry itself, operators and users, must also bear a proportion of the costs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament, the Council and the Commission are united in agreeing that efforts must be made to increase the safety of air travel.
The discussions that have just begun show, too, that we are fundamentally in complete agreement with this.
The events of 11 September have, of course, revealed additional deficiencies, which we have to consider in isolation from the structural problems already suffered by many airlines. The two must not be confused.
We are of the opinion that there is room for improvement in all the areas relevant to security - the airports, the aprons, the registration and clearing of luggage, even on board the aircraft itself.
My group and I also take the view that, since safety is in the public interest and must be guaranteed for every citizen who uses airlines, public funds must also bear their share of the costs that an increase in safety entails.
This, of course, demands standardised European procedures, without which we will not solve the problem, and because competition would be distorted if the burden were to revert to the airports or the airlines.
We are, of course, aware that we have a problem.
There is, generally in Parliament, constant discussion of liberalisation, meaning that we now want to use public funds to improve safety in this liberalised sector.
This, of course, means that we have to talk in general terms about what standards can and must be applied in order to use public money to intervene in liberalised markets.
Thank you, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me firstly to express my gratitude to this House, to this Parliament, for including the theme of security in civil aviation on the agenda for this part-session.
I would also like to thank you for your promptness and speed in dealing with this subject, given the urgent nature of the current situation.
I would like to congratulate the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on having concluded its first reading of the Commission proposal in such a short time, because although this has been achieved very quickly, it must be added that this has not been done to the detriment of the quality of work carried out, and with regard to this I would particularly like to thank Mrs Foster, the rapporteur for this initiative, for the excellent work she has carried out despite the urgency of the situation, the lack of time and also for having carefully listened to all the sectors involved, which is the best way of undertaking such work.
Taking the gravity of the situation into account and the need to give an immediate response, and considering the mandate of the European Council of 21 September, our objective was to conclude an agreement before the end of the year.
In her report, Mrs Foster fully recognises the need to strengthen, in a standardised way, the security requirements applicable to civil aviation since 11 September.
I am pleased to be able to tell you that the Commission is, generally speaking, in agreement with the report, given that it supports our intention of introducing common security standards for civil aviation in the European Union, of establishing a Community inspection system aimed at checking the effectiveness and uniformity of these standards, and, therefore, and on this point I insist, at improving the security measures that, as Mr Wiersma or Mr Markov pointed out, are absolutely necessary and urgent.
With regard to the proposed amendments, we can, in principle, accept the first part of Amendment 14, which refers to the gradual introduction of specific security measures, although the measures involved and the timetable will have to be slightly adjusted.
A series of amendments is dedicated to ensuring that part of the implementation costs of the security measures are covered by the Member States of the European Union, on a permanent or temporary basis.
With regard to these amendments, the Commission fully agrees with the spirit of Nos 1, 6, 10, 11, 15, 19, 21 and 22, and can accept them in principle, even though they raise important issues relating to the method of financing the security measures.
We will have to take a look at the exact wording they will need in order for the Commission to adopt them.
Today, the situation can vary between one county and another, even between one airport and another; however, the Commission does not think that this factor could improve the effectiveness of the security measures.
The Commission communication of 10 October, on the economic impact of the terrorist attacks, suggested that the financing, with public funds, of additional security measures could be considered a positive move. However, I am sorry to have to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that this measure was not received with any great enthusiasm by the Council, to put it mildly.
To tell the truth, it was not supported by the majority of States in the European Union.
This is how I know that making such a reference in the current regulation will cause serious problems in the Council, although, I repeat, we agree with Parliament' s position, because we are aware of the tremendous crisis the European Aviation Sector is experiencing at the moment.
This is a sector that is also having to face competition, often unfair competition, from American companies that are benefiting from significant direct aid, provided by the Administration of that country.
It is also possible that the financing of provisions that are not directly related to the improvement of security will not be included in this regulation.
However, with the aim of finding a solution to the significant problem of financing additional measures, I repeat that I am ready to undertake an analysis of the need to harmonise the organisation and financing of security controls in Member States, given what is happening in the United States, and to make the proposals necessary to take the result of this analysis into account.
With this action, the Commission would be taking account of the opinion demonstrated by this Parliament through the various amendments that will surely be approved tomorrow.
With regard to Amendment No 7, which proposes the removal of a Community control mechanism aimed at checking the proportionality and justification of stricter security measures in civil aviation adopted by Member States, the Commission must reject this amendment, even though Parliament and Council are of the same opinion.
We think that it is legitimate to grant the Commission the power to prevent artificial restrictions that are justified for economic reasons.
Amendment No 9 suggests that the results of the Community inspection reports should be sent to each airline.
These reports, ladies and gentlemen, contain general information on the implementation of the regulation by European Union Member States, and on the functioning of their own quality control systems and their ability to detect faults.
However, they do not include details such as the indication of the level of risk and its changes from airline to airline, and therefore, passing on these reports will not contribute to improving individual security, and with this in mind, the Commission cannot accept the content of this amendment.
Other amendments have been rejected because they cause legal problems, as is the case with the last paragraph of Amendment No 14, for example, Amendment No 5, which changes the reference standards produced by an external organisation, the ECAC, Amendment No 12, which goes against comitology procedures, Amendment No 17, which would delay the entry into force of the regulation, making it subject to an impact study, without there being any indication of the final decision.
The remaining amendments improve or clarify the text and the Commission can accept them with slight changes to their wording.
The Commission could also accept Amendment No 20, but would point out that implementing its extraterritorial effects on the basis of bilateral or multilateral controls would be a complicated matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has spared no effort to try to achieve, or to facilitate, an agreement between the Council and Parliament at first reading, on a subject that is so important and, above all, urgent.
I fear that this may not be possible given the absence of prior agreement on tomorrow' s vote.
I think, however, that in the near future, in March, we could be in a position where we have a text, slightly late, it must be said, but if this results in a better quality text and better proposals, this is not such a serious issue, since some of the methods we have discussed here are already being directly implemented by Member States.
Thank you, Mr President.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Foster once again.
And I would also like to thank Parliament for the urgency and effort it has afforded this measure, which is of fundamental importance, and I hope that in March we will finally reach full agreement between all the institutions.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Communities' financial interests
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0390/2001 by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the criminal-law protection of the Community' s financial interests. [COM(2001) 272 - C5-0225/2001 - 2001/0115(COD)];
A5- 0393/2001 by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission annual report 2000 on the protection of the Communities' financial interests and the fight against fraud [COM(2001) 255 - C5-0469/2001 - 2001/2186(COS)] and on the Commission communication on protecting the Communities' financial interests and the fight against fraud - Action plan for 2001-2003 [COM(2001) 254 - C5-0470/2001 - 2001/2186(COS)]
Mr President, protection of the Community's financial interests is a concept that the citizen out there finds difficult to understand. But it is of deep concern to him, as someone who pays his taxes, that his money should be used for the development and extension of a united Europe and that it should not be misused or employed for the purposes of fraud or other kinds of criminal activity.
He has every right to demand that the European institutions to which he entrusts his money will handle it carefully and that, should frauds be committed, these will be detected and punished.
The message we must get across is that we are using every available means to justify the citizen's trust.
The means to hand have, though, been blunt weapons to date, and there has been increased leakage from the Community budget due to criminal practices - figures show it as having doubled to over EUR 2 billion in the past year.
The percentage of undetected crime, may well, by the way, be even higher.
Despite better detection of fraud, judicial cooperation across frontiers is limping along, far behind multinational organised crime.
The Council, the Commission and Parliament have been lamenting this situation for years, but little or nothing has as yet been done about it.
The agreement on protection of the Community's financial interests, signed in Cannes all of six years ago, and the protocols appended to it, have still not been ratified by all the Member States and are therefore not in force.
Despite all the appeals and resolutions by Parliament, and several summit declarations by the Council, there is still no common European legal area to protect the Community budget, indeed, not even an unambiguous definition of the concept of fraud against Community funds.
Still less are any investigations carried out or punitive sentences handed down, which must be in equal measure effective, proportionate and deterrent.
This blockade situation has now seen the Commission produce a proposal for a directive which recalls elements of the 1995 agreement and incorporates parts of them in the protocols, a proposal which, incidentally, Parliament had already made before the 1995 Summit.
The Commission, rightly, bases its proposal upon Article 280(4) of the Treaty of Amsterdam under which the Community is obliged to play an active part in protecting its funds.
This should circumvent the sterile debate about allocation to the first or third pillar of the Treaty, particularly as the Treaty of Nice affirms that the protection of the Community's finances belongs in the first pillar.
So we should not lose ourselves in legal analyses, but send a clear signal. For us, the criminal-law protection of European funds against criminal misuse is a serious matter.
We therefore welcome the Commission's proposal for the harmonisation of national legislation.
It can, though, only be a first step towards the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor's Office to protect Community financial interests, something that was called for at the IGC for the Treaty of Nice but was not, unfortunately, actually discussed.
Mrs Schreyer, we are waiting impatiently for the Green Paper from the Commission on this subject.
It would have been a good thing if we had already had this Green Paper together with the proposal for a directive.
In order to make good this deficiency, the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgetary Control call for the next revision of the Treaties to include the establishment of a European State Prosecutor's Office, on the corpus juris model and appertaining to the first pillar.
The course must be set for this as early as the Laeken Summit.
The Committee on Budgetary Control proposes, as an intermediate step without amending the Treaty, the establishment of an internal financial prosecutor in accordance with the three-phase model in the second report of the Committee of Wise Men.
As has already been said, we welcome the Commission's proposal, but call for an effective instrument, that is to say, a regulation rather than a directive.
Why? Directives commit the Member States to objectives, whilst regulations prescribe the instruments they are to use to achieve those objectives.
The proposal for a directive is meant to insert into the criminal law of all the Member States a standard definition of offences such as fraud, corruption, money-laundering etc. to the detriment of the Community Budget.
There is no doubt that a regulation is the legal instrument to be preferred in order to avoid new confusion of the sort that there has been in the past.
I strongly invite Parliament, the Commission and the Council to now go down this necessary political road together.
I ask you to adopt my report, on which no amendments have been tabled.
Mr President, if you take a look at the figures for fraud and the irregularities affecting the European Budget in the year 2000, you see, above all, a massive increase in the irregularities that have come to light.
Just so we can put this beyond dispute for once: for the taxpayer, it is essentially irrelevant whether it is a question of fraud or irregularity; the money has been improperly spent.
Now, one can, of course, argue about whether more fraud is actually being committed or whether it is being cleared up more effectively, or whether there are more irregularities.
I tend to think it is probably a combination of these.
The Commissioner may well think differently, but we cannot go so far as to say that having discovered 100% irregularities means that we have had the best way of combating fraud, because then we will not have any budget left.
In my position - and perhaps the Commissioner responsible was herself once a Member of this House in a past life - and in this situation, one asks oneself what would happen in a business if the management presented figures like these one year. Here, we are always coming up against the fact that people say we are among the best administrations.
We are striving to be that.
I think that what would happen would be something quite different from what the Commission expects from us as an action plan.
The actual point of my report is that I believe we should just consider where this road might take us.
Mrs Theato has already mentioned one possibility, and an important one at that, which we will not be able to avoid if we want to make changes.
We must address the issue of a European State Prosecutor, and do it without excuses about amendments to the Treaty.
The possibilities are already there in the Treaties.
Your opposition to it, Mrs Schreyer, is your own business, but we will not carry on standing idly before our taxpayers and tell them that we just cannot do anything.
That is not what we have a Commission for.
The Commission is there to act, and of that I would remind you, Mrs Schreyer.
In exactly the same way, we must give greater priority to the protection of the EU's financial interests in the applicant countries.
There were, and are, proposals on this which amount to saying that we will, at some point, have to let our anti-fraud unit be active in an advisory capacity, which we know already.
As the example of Slovakia has shown, the point at issue is not the acceding countries, but the continuing inability of this Commission to get a proper grip on the problematic aspects of enlargement, so that our fellow citizens might get the idea that enlargement has been prepared for in such a way, including financially, that they can happily say yes to it.
The Commission bears great responsibility in this respect.
Madam Commissioner, I am inclined to think that, when one has to submit those sorts of figures and turn them into something tangible, one has to seize every available opportunity to improve matters.
My final point is on an issue on which it would be good if we could seize the opportunity for common action.
It has to do with a question that I will raise now.
Mrs Schreyer, the plan is to appoint Mr Alberto Perduca as Director of the operational department of OLAF, the anti-fraud office.
His qualifications as a public prosecutor, his experience in combating the mafia, and also his experience at an international level make him the ideal man for the job.
Unfortunately, his appointment has been blocked for months now by the new Italian government.
Perhaps, Mrs Schreyer, you might tell us what the Commission has done about this to date.
Would personal intervention by the President of the Commission not be necessary in this case? Has this, as is to be hoped, already taken place?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1995 the Member States jointly signed a convention under which, in order to safeguard Community interests and finances, the Member States make fraud against Community finances a punishable offence.
Subsequently, further protocols were signed also specifying corruption and the laundering of money derived from fraud against Community finances as criminal offences.
There is actually nothing wrong with this convention and the protocols except that they have not all been ratified yet and therefore they are still not in force.
I do not deny that in the year 2000 there was some movement in the direction of ratification.
Whenever I have met with finance ministers I have constantly repeated my request that they be ratified, but the speed is determined by the slowest.
The protocol that makes money laundering a crime has so far been ratified by only seven Member States.
So you can see how long it would take if we were to wait for the process to be completed.
We cannot accept that; that is why we have put forward the proposal for a directive that converts the main content of the protocol and the convention into a directive; this has already been discussed in Parliament on a number of occasions and has repeatedly been called for by the President himself.
I would like to thank you, Mrs Theato, and, of course, the committee as a whole, for joining us in saying that things have gone far enough and we are now going to use Community law and not rely on the convention, the third pillar instrument.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has tabled many amendments that were voted on in the Committee.
The Commission shares the objective and concern expressed by many of these.
But the Commission believes the present proposal for a directive is not in legal terms the right place for the vast majority of the amendments.
I must therefore ask you not to take the proposal for a directive as some kind of tree on which to hang many wishes, concerns and suggestions, correct as these may be.
That is especially the case with the European Public Prosecutor.
Again a word on that, Mr Bösch. Of course, the Commission is the guardian of the Treaties.
In our clear analysis Article 280 does not, as it appears in the Treaty, lend itself to that, not even the 'little' public prosecutor, to use that term again.
In our estimation, and other people do share this view, there is no basis in law for the OLAF Supervisory Committee.
Neither would it be possible to choose the instrument of the regulation, because the proposal as you now have it provides, for example, for the European Court of Justice to have an investigating judge.
But the duties of the Court of Justice and its judicial functions are laid down in detail in the Treaty.
It is, therefore, not possible to use a regulation to institutionalise a new investigating judge.
That, too, requires an amendment to the Treaty.
But we shall be presenting the Green Paper in a few weeks' time, as Mrs Theato has mentioned.
The Green Paper will, of course, initiate a wide-ranging discussion.
I am sure that, as protagonists of this proposal, you will take this discussion to the experts and to the Member States, so that we do not have a repeat of the situation we had in Nice, where there were only reservations and no agreement.
In our opinion, there is no legal basis for some of the other amendments, either.
Provisions concerning cooperation between the national criminal prosecution authorities would be incompatible with Article 280 of the Treaty since they are concerned with the application of the Member States' criminal law and their administration of criminal justice.
Neither can the Commission go along with the suggestion of converting the directive into a regulation, since the Community cannot, at present, create law that is directly applicable in the Member States.
I understand your concern and in view of the present situation I, of course, also support the call for your wish to be met swiftly, but we are a long way from a situation where the European Community can create directly applicable law.
I am sure that this would really not meet with the agreement of the national parliaments either.
The Commission is able to agree without reservation to Amendment No 2 and No 11.
They underline, once again, how important the introduction of the new Article 280 is for protecting the Community' s financial interests.
Amendment No 27, which provides for custodial sentences, possibly leading to extradition, is essential for effectively fighting economic crime, and the Commission would also like to agree to the first sentences of Amendment No 3 and No 7 if these should be voted on separately tomorrow.
I also want to explicitly say that the proposals for extending the list of offences for the protection of financial interests are very worthy of note and, in my opinion, very much worthy of consideration, namely that market-rigging and abuse of office should be included.
It is really more a question here of the strategy to be adopted.
The Commission' s proposed strategy is to adopt the wording of the convention, more or less, as it stands and to present the Member States with a situation where they have already agreed to this very text and there is, therefore, now no reason to convert it into another instrument that sets a clear time for its transposition.
That is one of the legislative measures the Commission is putting forward to protect the Community' s financial interests.
The Commission has listed the proposals we put forward in the year 2000 in the fraud prevention report, for example the proposal to amend the money laundering directive, the proposal to prevent counterfeiting of the euro or measures to combat product piracy.
That is all part of preventing fraud, after all.
The Commission' s report also contains 50 pages listing the measures taken by the Member States to protect Community finances in the years 1999 and 2000.
It starts with Belgium extending its customs administration' s powers to a twelve mile zone outside coastal waters and includes, for example, the creation of a central control information system by Denmark' s customs and tax administration and an increase in staff at Spain' s general inspectorates for agricultural expenditure in the regions. The United Kingdom has, for example, set up a coordination point for general investigations involving the Structural Funds.
For the Structural Funds, the rapporteur, you, Mr Bösch, has included the Court of Auditors' highly critical report, which highlights the differences between the Member States in the application of the regulation that irregularities in the implementation of the Structural Funds must be reported.
I can assure you that I share your criticism and that of the Court of Auditors.
We are, therefore, working very hard with the Member States to get a more uniform and above all a more thorough implementation of this reporting regulation. And this is beginning to bear fruit.
I really must reiterate: even if we will probably continue to differ on the interpretation, in earlier years, transposition was extremely hesitant.
We have found that it took ages for an irregularity to be reported.
It is now de facto better, but that, of course, also means that more irregularities are being reported.
It is like police statistics.
Is it a good thing or a bad thing when the number of cases the police detect rises or falls?
I really must therefore ask you not to discredit those Member States that take their reporting of irregularities seriously and make frequent reports as required by the Regulation by saying they are the 'strongholds' , because it is a difficult instrument.
There is, as it were, a negative incentive: the more irregularities are reported, the more information we naturally have on the basis of which to make financial corrections.
We cannot do without this mechanism.
I also agree with the rapporteur, I agree with you, Mr Bösch, that we must make the statistics more meaningful so we can see which are the new reports and which were already in the statistics before.
Above all, we must look at what has been the result of the reports, what measures have been taken.
OLAF is working on it, the Directorate-General for the Budget is working on it, the Directorate-General for the Regions is working on it, but it is a laborious business.
I am sure we will not have the success we are actually looking for next year either, but we will see that they are becoming more meaningful, as it were, sector by sector.
It also depends on cooperation with the Member States, and OLAF is working closely with the so-called COCOLAF.
I can inform you, however, that every suspected case of fraud, especially in the Structural Funds, is passed on to OLAF.
The most common irregularities with the Structural Funds are concerned with cases where, for example, the Member States approve projects after the period for support has actually finished.
Irregularities also appear, in particular, because other Community policies are not followed.
One quite frequent irregularity is that projects have been approved without an environmental impact assessment being made first.
A lot of money is spent on infrastructures, and that is a very common error, as I said.
If you now ask what damage results, that is, of course, difficult to say.
There is no financial damage, but there may be environmental damage because the environmental impact assessment was not carried out.
Regarding the financial corrections, another important point, we shall have tighter rules for the new support period.
In the report, you have now called for all irregularities affecting financial corrections and the Structural Funds reported in the period from 1995 to 2000 to be listed individually by 15 December.
We do not have that information available and will not have it available so quickly.
The Commission can promise that we will now try to get this information direct for the new irregularity reports in a way that makes the reports meaningful so that we can see which irregularities result in financial loss.
How is the protection of financial interests directive likely to be treated in the Council? Unfortunately, some Member States have already taken quite a clear stance against this directive on grounds of legal dogma.
You have mentioned this.
All the Member States say in the Council, yes, of course, we must do something about this, but then they argue no, that is something that belongs in the third pillar, not in the first pillar.
I would like to see the justice ministers who argue in this way, doing so in a public debate.
Nobody would understand it.
And the population will not accept them saying they can do nothing because one thing is the first pillar but another is the third pillar and the Community can only take action in the third pillar.
It is quite clear that the protection of Community interests requires Community instruments, and I am very pleased and very grateful to you that the European Parliament and the Commission are pulling in the same direction here.
Mr President, those involved in the construction of Europe have always been prepared to take risks. This has certainly been the case as far as the protection of the Community' s financial interests is concerned.
Parliament, notably its Committee on Budgetary Control, has indeed taken risks. We should pay tribute to the determination shown by Mrs Theato who chairs that Committee and is one of the rapporteurs.
Whatever is achieved in this field will be largely due to her efforts.
Having said that, I must admit that along with many other Members I share the Commission' s concern.
We need to work towards creating an area of justice, but we must do so in a responsible manner. Throughout the whole process of the construction of Europe, the forces attempting to hinder it have consistently taken advantage of the mistakes made by more enthusiastic individuals when they lose sight of the Treaty.
This is why I am bringing a critical note into today' s debate.
I do not wish to argue against the concept of a European Public Prosecutor, but I am concerned about laying down the details of the necessary statute. It is indeed a transitional statute but a statute nonetheless.
The House needs to give due consideration to this office. Not only should the Committee on Budgetary Control give it due consideration, but so should the House itself.
Such consideration should also involve dialogue with other institutions, notably the Commission. Not until that has taken place will we be in a position to move forward together and present a proposal consistent with the Treaty.
The same applies, in my view, to the Commissioner' s comments on the rapporteur' s idea of resorting to a regulation in place of a directive.
That is not within Parliament' s competence.
It falls within the competence of our societies and of states governed by the rule of law.
Only in very specific circumstances may direct obligations be imposed on citizens from a Community level.
This is why I have ventured to voice some criticism here today, Mr President. I am, however, full of admiration for the work completed.
I should like, first of all, to thank the two Members for all their work in writing these reports.
They have been tireless workers on fighting fraud in the European Union since they were appointed.
However, there is a problem.
According to the Commission report, there has been a doubling of fraud, in particular, of the revenue collected over the year 2000.
That is of great concern but we must put it into context and remember that much of this is due to Member States not taking fraud seriously.
They are not collecting the money that is due to the European Union, for example, from cigarette smuggling and the money that we could get through taxes.
Member States are also not taking fraud seriously because we still have four Member States who have not ratified the Convention on the Protection of Financial Interests which means that nobody can move on in terms of fighting fraud.
As regards the Structural Funds, 40% of the money is spent in the Member States and the data we have, in terms of following up where that money is spent, is unreliable.
This situation is quite pathetic.
What do we do when we find fraud? We pass a file onto OLAF who do the investigation and then it sits on a shelf because nobody prosecutes.
This is a real problem.
Who is going to take responsibility for prosecution? Only two people have ever been prosecuted by OLAF and this is a green light to fraudsters in the EU.
We must ask if people are against the European Public Prosecutor, then what alternative do they want to see? We are asking a little bit too much in this report by asking for a regulation.
But we also know that about half the Member States are against this and there is a possibility of losing an opportunity to have a European fraud prosecutor for the EU financial interests.
We may be asking for too much too fast and I am concerned about that, but I respect the Members for really trying to push the boat out on this fraud issue.
Mr President, I too should like to start with a word of thanks to the two rapporteurs.
I know that they have both worked hard on this topic from the outset.
I should first of all like to turn my attention to the Bösch report. As the Liberal Group, we have tabled a few amendments to this report, to the effect that we consider mid-2002 somewhat premature as a firm deadline for a public prosecutor.
In order to avoid any misunderstandings, we are clearly in favour of a public prosecutor, but mid-2002 is slightly too early.
In our opinion, more attention should be devoted to the future Member States in Central and Eastern Europe and we would therefore ask the Court of Auditors to issue a report on this as soon as possible, thus enabling us to assess whether these countries are also capable of managing their financial affairs effectively before they accede.
Furthermore, OLAF must obviously work closely together with similar organisations in the new Member States.
We would also like to make our position clear on the Theato report: we are in support of a public prosecutor, but the lion' s share of the amendments that have been adopted in committee, in most cases by one majority vote, go too far in our view.
At this stage, we prefer a directive to a regulation.
We want to avoid a confrontation course with the Council: the line of the Commission is preferable to the abundance of detail in the various amendments.
If these amendments were to be adopted at this stage, we ought to revisit them in the Committee on Budgetary Control, for we believe that, at this stage, matters of this kind should attract the greatest possible consensus and that the decision should not be made by a narrow majority.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, the Prodi Commission' s existing policy on fighting fraud can really only be described as hesitant and dilatory when it comes to the really crucial questions.
And I have very little hope that this will change, especially in the matter of the European Financial Public Prosecutor.
A Green Paper is all the Commission has planned for the remaining years of its term of office.
Your much-vaunted Commission reform programme lacks the crucial safety net.
Those who abuse their freedoms must be capable of being brought to account.
Your first duty ought to have been to clear up the old cases and call those responsible to account.
Instead, you are hiding behind a hesitant judiciary in Belgium and Luxembourg.
To prevent this sad truth from becoming so evident, you are following a policy of concealing information from Parliament, which you now want to get expressly embodied in the Financial Regulation.
You are claiming for yourself the right to decide whether informing Parliament about a procedure is in the European Union' s interest or not.
I would like to have seen you when you were a member of the State Parliament in Berlin, Mrs Schreyer, if the Governing Mayor had told you it was not in the city' s interest to inform you about certain things.
That is precisely how you are presuming to treat the European Parliament today and you clearly fail to appreciate that in so doing you weaken not only this Parliament but, ultimately, also the Commission of which you are part.
Thank you very much, Mrs Stauner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Quality of petrol and diesel fuels
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0389/2001) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the quality of petrol and diesel fuels (COM(2001) 241 - C5-0197/2001 - 2001/0107(COD)).
Mr President, I am here, this evening, to present a report which relates to the improvement of the quality of fuels.
The European Parliament was involved in drafting this legislation, which was originally approved in 1998, in other words, over three years ago; and Parliament was quite successful in using the co-decision procedure to push through cleaner fuels, which significantly facilitate a reduction in traffic emissions.
Even at that stage, the European Parliament noticed that one crucial factor in improving the quality of a fuel is a reduction in its sulphur content.
In the course of the co-decision procedure and conciliation, we accomplished a significant lowering in the sulphur content of both petrol and diesel, despite the way in which the oil industry stridently emphasised the costs of this programme.
On the other hand, we can state that the motor industry and catalyst industry considered it absolutely essential that these low-sulphur, cleaner fuels would be introduced to the market, since, otherwise, it would not have been possible for them to bring about cleaner, better and more advanced engines which feature lower emissions.
We are now at the directive revision stage, at which the Commission, quite rightly, has noted that sulphur is an even more strategic ingredient in the quality of fuels than we then understood.
The Commission proposes that by 2011 both petrol and diesel fuel should, for all practical purposes, be sulphur-free.
We are talking about very low contents.
This is of essential importance, since it has been observed that the consumption of fuels also falls when the sulphur content is reduced, and, in the meantime, climate policy has become a central objective in the European Union.
We must find all possible means by which we can reduce car fuel consumption. This is, indeed, one of the most important aims of this proposal.
Hopefully, then, the European Parliament will come to the decision tomorrow that we will attain one hundred percent of the target of getting these sulphur-free fuels on the market as early as 2008, rather than by 2011 as the Commission is proposing.
In our judgment, this is entirely possible, and it will be a positive influence on the development of cars.
The motor industry will be able to develop better and more advanced engines, which will use less fuel.
We are also proceeding from the assumption, which the Commission also proposes, that this introduction to the market shall start in 2005.
It is important that Parliament decides that sulphur-free fuels should be available (by stages) throughout the area of the Union, with the first steps being made in 2005.
We are also demanding that this availability be geographically comprehensive.
Previously, the situation has been that the various Member States have proceeded at slightly different rates with regard to this improvement in the quality of fuels.
The Environment Committee proposes that the Member States be offered the possibility of certain transitional periods or derogations when this directive is next revised.
Parliament is proposing that this revision take place a year earlier than was decided by the Commission: we would like the revision to take place during 2005.
Despite the demands of certain parties, the Environment Committee has decided that in this connection no topics other than sulphur should be involved.
We can then return to the question of fuel quality parameters other than sulphur during the course of the revision in 2005.
In my opinion, this is a well-justified policy, since the Commission will have time to study this topic in the meantime.
I would also like to stress that a transition must be made to using cleaner fuels also in work machinery, or non-road machines of this type.
This is entirely possible: in eight Member States diesel fuels are already being used in work machinery.
Hopefully, Parliament will decide, tomorrow, that these work machines must begin to use cleaner fuels to the same extent as vehicles on the roads.
The Industry Committee accepts the desirability of moving to zero sulphur in petrol and diesel.
The hotter burn of modern vehicle engines delivers higher efficiency and thereby cuts CO2 emissions.
However, the resulting increase in nitrogen oxide has to be dealt with by catalysts and the virtual elimination of sulphur renders the catalysts effective in dealing with these.
A further benefit is a reduction in the emission of particulates, so the Industry Committee is in favour of the Commission proposal.
A majority vote in the committee demanded a rather faster implementation than the Commission proposed even if some of us were concerned at the Commission's assertion that this will, in fact, produce a net increase in CO2 emissions.
So please tell us, Commissioner, if you stand by your warning or whether you can accept the quicker implementation requested by both the Environment and the Industry Committees.
We would also point out that the EU standard of 10 parts per million of sulphur contrasts with an American standard of 15 ppm of sulphur.
This will make it difficult for us to import fuels from the USA in an emergency.
We would also suggest that the Commission instigate research into the implications of ultra-fine particle emissions from gasoline diesel injection engines.
The question of fuel quality for non-road and off-road machinery is still outstanding.
We understand that proposals on this matter will be forthcoming in 2002.
This is surely urgently needed but we urge the Commission to give full consideration to the interests of those in industry and agriculture who operate such machinery.
We give this proposal a fair wind.
Indeed, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy would suggest that the Commission hoists a spinnaker and speeds up its implementation.
Is the Commissioner prepared to accede to this demand?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission undertook a good deal of preliminary work in preparation for this directive. I refer to the Auto-Oil I and Auto-Oil II programmes.
This work resulted in a balanced proposal which is well-documented from a technical point of view. Congratulations are due to the Commission.
I should also like to commend Mrs Hautala, the rapporteur, very warmly on her excellent work.
I agree with her that it is important to make low-sulphur fuels available as soon as possible. This is because technological advances in the automotive industry permit fuel saving, and, more especially, a reduction in polluting emissions.
It is, nonetheless, true that refineries need to consume more energy and emit more polluting gases in order to produce these fuels. Also, the environmental advantages of low-sulphur fuels will not be felt until vehicles currently on the roads are replaced.
It is a matter of balancing out the emissions. We must therefore be pragmatic as regards schedules and adjust the pace of the introduction of the new fuels to the rate of renewal of the existing vehicle population.
Otherwise, we would be forcing users to change their vehicles, but that is not an option.
I do agree that it would be appropriate to reduce the transitional period during which the various fuels could coexist. For the reasons I adduced earlier, however, a degree of flexibility should be afforded to certain countries.
My group therefore proposes that, whilst bringing the date forward, we should retain the option of granting temporary derogations to those Member States who can demonstrate that the balance of air quality will prove negative.
The new fuel ought to be brought in for non-road mobile machinery as well. It should, however, be introduced more gradually in this case, for the same reasons as I outlined in relation to cars.
This is the reasoning behind our Amendment No 40.
I invite you to support it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, all cars can take zero-sulphur fuel, whether they are new or old.
They do not have to be converted, there are no parts to be fitted or retrofitted.
That is a big difference from the debate about leaded and unleaded petrol that we had a few years ago.
So any car can take low-sulphur fuel and it has a positive effect, especially with older types of diesel engines. Zero-sulphur fuel reduces particle emissions from these older vehicles too.
Most of all, however, we need zero-sulphur fuel because we want new technologies to come on to the market, not in order to reduce conventional emissions but to consume less.
We need direct injection diesel engines and direct injection petrol engines that have a wide range of lean burn.
With lean burn, where little fuel is used, the proportion of nitrogen oxide is greater and we therefore need particular technologies to collect nitrogen oxides in the exhaust system.
Look at it which way you will, sulphur prevents that.
To save fuel and reduce CO2 in the transport sector we simply need zero-sulphur fuel as quickly as possible.
I cannot see, either, why a diesel vehicle with an almost negative particulate value - the air behind is cleaner that that drawn in at the front - is allowed on our streets while on the same street there are tractors and excavators giving off particles en masse because of the poor quality fuel.
I believe these vehicles must be required to use clean fuel, too, if we want to cut particle emissions.
Mr President, I want to say a big thank-you to the rapporteur who has produced one of the best reports we have seen for a long time in the fuel and vehicles field.
I agree with most of what the rapporteur has written.
Above all, I want to emphasise the importance of bringing this proposal forward from 2011 to 2008.
It is very good indeed that we should include fuels for non-road mobile machinery and treat the latter in the same way as all other vehicles.
There is no reason at all to accord special treatment to machinery we do not normally see on the roads, but the Commission' s proposal would, if anything, postpone the day when anything advanced could be done in this area.
The fact that the rapporteur proposes a thorough review of alternative fuels and also suggests that we can mix in more ethanol than the five per cent permitted under the present ceiling is also very much to be welcomed.
I have a problem. This concerns the financial incentives.
I understand the rapporteur' s train of thought, but I think the proposal is wrong in the way we have written it because, according to the Treaty, we can have financial incentives right now.
If we insert this into every directive we now adopt, there is a risk of our creating a horizontal approach whereby we instead restrict the opportunities, as interpreted by the Council, of obtaining financial incentives.
Through what we have written today, we are therefore doing ourselves a disservice.
That is something I want the rapporteur to think about.
Mr President, honourable Members, I am very pleased to be able to address the European Parliament in this debate on behalf of my colleague, Commissioner Wallström.
I am pleased in one sense, because it enables me to return to a former stamping ground.
I used to be an environment minister in the country I know best.
But I am also unhappy I have to be here because the reason is that Commissioner Wallström is not well.
I wish her a speedy recovery, so that she can perform for me on the Balkans on some future occasion, or even on Egypt.
Can I say as a non-official admirer, as it were, that I recognise that the report by Mrs Hautala contributes significantly to a Commission proposal which will, I would judge bring a combination of environmental and economic benefits to our citizens.
The availability of fuels with a maximum sulphur content of 10 parts per million will remove any remaining technical barriers to the introduction of the most fuel efficient vehicles, which will in turn provide a basis for further reductions in emissions of carbon dioxide.
When used in older vehicles, there would also be substantial reductions in emissions of conventional pollutants leading to better air quality.
Let me turn to the key issues which are raised in the proposed amendments and first of all deal with the timetable in terms which I suspect the honourable lady will find fairly familiar.
Several of the amendments propose that the final date after which all petrol and diesel sold would be subject to a maximum sulphur content of 10 parts per million, should be advanced by three years to the 1 January 2008 with the possibility of derogation for those Member States where that seems to be justified.
The Commission chose the date of 1 January 20ll, with the date for diesel subject to confirmation by 31 December, five years before in 2006, so that all Member States would enjoy a mix of air quality benefits and some reductions in CO2 emissions resulting from 10 parts per million fuel.
Although the Commission is willing to consider some advancement in the final date from 1 January 2011, the Commission does not favour Parliament's approach linked to possible prolongation.
The Commission therefore, cannot accept Amendments Nos 5,11, 15, 18, 23, 31, 32, 38 and 39.
However, the Commission can accept Amendment No 30 related to advancing the date for the review.
The Commission can also accept Amendments Nos 22 and 46 and in part, Amendments Nos 8, 17, 42, 43 and 45, relating to defining in greater detail the availability of petrol and diesel with a maximum sulphur content of 10 parts per million fuel, during the introductory period.
Then there is the question of the quality of fuel used in non-road mobile machinery.
A number of other amendments refer to the need to improve and harmonise the quality of fuel used in this machinery across the Community.
The Commission acknowledges that the relative importance of emissions in this sector continues to grow as the environmental performance of engines used in on-road applications improves.
Indeed, it is already clear that the fuel used in this sector in some Member States will have to be improved in the future.
However, as the work on the next stage of emission standards for compression ignition engines used in non-road applications is not finalised, nor is the required fuel quality for such standards yet identified, the Commission cannot at this point accept Amendments Nos 3, 12, 26, 37 and 40.
Let me turn to some other amendments.
The Commission does not accept Amendments Nos 10, 19 and 27 on fiscal incentives in view of the legal basis of this proposal, nor given the possibilities available to Member States under other Community legislation to fiscally promote cleaner fuels through tax incentives.
On the question of alternative fuels, and bio-fuels in particular, the Commission is pleased to consider this subject in more depth, as work on this subject evolves.
The Commission can therefore accept Amendments Nos 33 and 48 and in principle, Amendments Nos 14 and 44.
The Commission can also accept Amendment No 47 in part, relating to other issues to be taken into account in the review and Amendment No 28, in principle and Amendment No 29, relating to reporting.
Concerning the remaining amendments, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 20, 21, 24, 25, 36 and 41.
We can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 16 and 34.
We can also accept Amendments Nos 4, 13 and 47, in part and Amendment No 35, in principle.
Finally, I would like to say that the Parliament has significantly contributed to improving this proposal.
There is humility for you!
I therefore would like to thank the rapporteur once again, for her efforts, her professionalism and her dedication and I would like to thank the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy for its input, as well.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Egypt
The next item is the joint debate on:
recommendation (A5-0387/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision on the signature of a Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement between the European Community and its Member States and the Arab Republic of Egypt [8220/2001 - COM(2001) 184 - C5-0381/2001 - 2001/0092(AVC)] (Rapporteur: Mr Hughes Martin)
and on oral questions:
B5-0531/01 by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy to the Council, on the conclusion of an association agreement with Egypt;
B5-0532/01 by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy to the Council on the conclusion of an association agreement with Egypt.
Pursuant to rule 146 of the Rules of Procedure, I have received a motion from 39 individual Members and from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance calling for Mr Hughes Martin' s recommendation on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy concerning the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement between the European Community and its Member States and the Arab Republic of Egypt to be deferred until the January 2002 part-session whilst retaining oral questions to the Council and to the Commission on this matter on the order of business for today.
Mr President, we realise that the situation in Egypt is one of the best, or least bad in that area.
We are not opposing the association agreement; we are just calling for its adoption to be deferred because association agreements, in particular, contain a very tough human rights clause.
Thus far, the Commission and the Council have never, and I repeat, never, attempted to use cooperation or association agreements to secure respect for human rights.
Ironically, we are being called upon to vote at the precise moment when Egypt is showing a particularly worrying tendency to persecute homosexuals - with a trial in which 26 people were condemned to up to 5 years of solitary confinement - and Catholics.
Well then, at this specific time, I do not feel that taking a few extra weeks to endorse, to ratify these association agreements in order to obtain sufficient guarantees from the Council and the Commission, as well as from the Egyptian authorities, would constitute an act of hostility towards Egypt. Quite the contrary, I feel that it would be an act of confidence in their, and our, ability to make human rights an essential, key factor in foreign and cooperation policy.
Mr President, often in this House, we adopt many resolutions and we say many fine words.
Now is a unique opportunity to influence the rights of those in Egypt whose human rights are diminished.
We need to influence and improve the way Egypt operates in this field.
We need to defer to give Egypt, a friend of the EU, time for reflection.
Resolutions and words, albeit well-intentioned, seem to achieve little.
Here is an opportunity for action.
September 11 should have taught us that we must apply the same principles to our friends, as to our enemies.
Egypt is a friend.
We must give Egypt the time to reflect, because if we diminish the rights of individuals living in those countries, ultimately, we diminish our own human rights.
I urge the House to support the motion.
Mr President, the demand for an adjournment of this debate and vote on the draft association agreement with Egypt is completely unrealistic, not to say bizarre. It shows a complete lack of understanding of the agreement and of Egypt, a great country and a friend of Europe.
The draft agreement contains 92 articles concerning not only economic and social issues, but also the political dialogue which is important for achieving progress and peace.
Negotiations leading up to the agreement have taken over seven years and have been conducted in difficult circumstances.
Those who are calling for an adjournment have clearly not thought about the consequences, especially given the current state of world affairs.
Need I remind you that, unlike certain other Arab countries, Egypt has never been a breeding ground for terrorists?
On the contrary, Egypt has paid dearly for terrorism.
It would be irresponsible not to adopt this agreement.
It is unrealistic to expect Egypt to copy our models exactly.
It is unrealistic to expect to be able to impose our law.
It is unrealistic not to take account of the culture, identity and sovereignty of Egypt.
The Member States and we, ourselves, must ratify this agreement.
We owe it to the European Union because this agreement will be an essential factor in the necessary relaunch of the Barcelona process.
We owe it also to Egypt, a great country and a friend of Europe, acknowledged for its role in working for peace in the Middle East.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the request to defer the debate.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Mr President, Commissioner, I am pleased and honoured to have been appointed rapporteur for the association agreement between the European Union, the Member States and the Arab Republic of Egypt, given the importance of this agreement for both the European Union and Egypt. I believe it is a balanced agreement which treats both parties in an equitable way.
The Arab Republic of Egypt is the largest Arab country in terms of population: it has over 66 million inhabitants.
It occupies a pivotal position in terms of geopolitical affairs and plays a leading role.
Egypt was the first Arab country to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
Since that time, it has continued to have a moderating influence in the region.
Relations between the European Union and Egypt go back a long way. The first cooperation agreement was signed in 1972.
We must remember that the European Union is Egypt' s most important trading partner. Egypt also receives significant funds from cooperation with the European Union: it received EUR 686 million through the MEDA I programme between 1996 and 1999.
The report we are discussing today has been called a new generation report. Its fundamental objective is to help achieve peace and security in the region.
It also aims to provide an impetus for the development of commercial and economic relations between Egypt and the European Union, and between Egypt and its Mediterranean partners. The draft agreement is based on respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights.
The main objectives of the agreement are as follows. Firstly, the establishment of an area of free trade between Egypt and the European Union.
This will entail the abolition of customs tariffs on industrial products within a period of 12 to 15 years after the agreement enters into force. Secondly, regional cooperation, including the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean area of free trade.
Thirdly, it establishes the basis for economic and financial cooperation in many areas, including the fight against terrorism. Lastly, an in-depth dialogue on social issues and cooperation as regards the prevention and control of illegal immigration.
I am delighted that this proposal has received the unanimous support of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
This shows the interest the report has generated. It has also allowed people to express their concerns and fears; some of these are well founded, others less so.
I would like to outline two of the concerns put forward.
Firstly, there is the problem of the Coptic minority.
Coptic Christians represent more than 10% of the population.
It appears that, while they are not systematically persecuted, they do not have the same rights and responsibilities as their fellow Muslim citizens.
It is also clear that extremists are to blame for some of the problems as they do everything they can to exacerbate tension between the two religious groups.
However, some progress has been made, as confirmed by the Coptic religious leaders. One example is the recent construction of new monasteries and churches, despite the red tape involved.
Secondly, certain individuals and groups have been brought before the courts. This has been highly publicised in Egypt and elsewhere.
We need to look beyond the initial verdicts.
The local court judges are sometimes influenced by fundamentalist teaching and hand down harsh sentences.
But, in some instances, higher courts overturn these initial verdicts and act more leniently, in accordance with democratic principles.
I am aware that a lot of work still remains to be done on the issues of fairness and justice, but clearly some progress has been made.
The leaders from the opposition and from NGOs, who I have met with in the country, confirm this.
The report has raised a number of more general concerns.
I share some of these, but I must caution those who very willingly step forward to preach to us and to give eulogies on human rights. They should be aware of the need to put their own house in order.
It is all too easy for the Egyptians to remind us of our own deficiencies, and they are right to do this. We are open to criticism for having been so lax on a number of issues, particularly as regards the fight against terrorism.
We have been reminded that our Member States provide terrorists and murderers, including some Egyptians, with a safe haven where they can live and act with impunity.
We must be on our guard.
Many Egyptians, including some in important positions, do not wish this agreement to be ratified.
They insist that the agreement strongly favours the European Union, especially as regards economic issues, and that it will allow random intrusions into the internal affairs of the State.
The recent letter from the People' s Assembly on this matter is inopportune but significant.
Given these circumstances, I hope that the great majority of Parliament will vote in favour of ratifying this agreement.
It is to be hoped that the agreement will strengthen the role of the European Union in this region and will contribute towards achieving peace.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on 14 July this year, along with some of my colleagues from the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I met the Egyptian Foreign Minister and representatives of the People' s Assembly of the Arab Republic of Egypt in Cairo. This meeting was arranged following the completion of our fact-finding mission, which took us from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and Ramallah.
Our mission enabled us to gain a much better understanding of the gravity of the situation. It also made us more aware of the way in which the European Union is acting as a mediator in the region, thanks to the unstinting efforts of Ambassador Moratinos and his team.
The importance of his work cannot be stressed highly enough.
We decided to hold this meeting because we appreciate the importance of the role Egypt has played in this part of the Middle East. We recall the courageous decisions taken by President Sadat and how he paid for them with his life.
At present, President Moubarak is acting with equal courage and risking his own life.
Both men have worked steadfastly in helping to get the peace process moving.
Sadly, the latter is, today, at a standstill. We were struck by the pertinence of how our Egyptian friends assessed the situation; and this came home to me at the time of the dreadful events of 11 September.
Three weeks ago, I was given the honour of chairing the committee drafting the final declaration of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum. This was an extraordinary session convened by the President of the European Parliament in order to tackle the new crisis and to reinvigorate the Barcelona process.
It was thanks to the contribution of the Egyptian representative, amongst others, that this forum was able to adopt a statement. One of the things this document calls for is for the relaunch of the dialogue between the peoples living on both shores of the Mediterranean on our different cultures and religions.
This would help us to gain a better understanding of each other.
The dialogue should not be pursued merely in a spirit of tolerance.
We tolerate only those things we find difficult to accept.
Rather, it should take place in an atmosphere of genuine mutual respect in which we accept and benefit from our differences.
This is why I particularly welcome the excellent report by Mr Hughes Martin.
It is indeed in the interest of both the European Union and of Egypt to formalise their association by signing the agreement the Council has put to us. It would be completely irresponsible for the European Parliament to delay the signing in any way.
I would like those Members who are overzealous in defending human rights to consider the impression the West, in general, and the European Union, in particular, give when they preach, sometimes opportunely and sometimes inopportunely, to their partner Arab and African countries. They should realise that they sometimes have just as much to learn about the issue as they have to teach.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the rapporteur has done a very good piece of work with this report and we can be pleased that after so many years of negotiations Egypt has at last agreed with us to sign this report.
A short time ago we voted for a deferral of this report and I think anyone who really wants to address the question of human rights in Egypt must vote in favour of this report.
This report gives us, the European Union, the ability to take up this matter because we have this human rights clause in Article 2.
Anyone who is really interested in peace in the Middle East must support this report in any case because it strengthens a country that has been fighting for peace in the Middle East for years.
I cannot understand why honourable Members who voted unanimously in favour of this report a week ago in committee now have reservations.
Nothing in Egypt has changed, I do not know where anything has changed that would make anybody take a different stance now than the one we took in committee.
I would like to raise one final point, that is the letter that the Speaker of the Egyptian Parliament has written to us.
I would like to say that it is unusual to try to influence a decision in this way, an absolutely independent decision of a parliament, and for this reason I shall tomorrow be tabling an oral amendment on behalf of my group, as already arranged with the rapporteur.
Mr President, Commissioner, clearly, the signature of any agreement constitutes an important milestone in the Barcelona process.
This is particularly so if the agreement is being signed with Egypt, which is such an important country. We know and believe it can play a leading role in North-South and South-South dialogue, and be in the forefront of economic and commercial development.
As General Morillon stated, we also believe that Egypt is ready to take the lead in all issues relating to cultural dialogue and civil society, not just in economic and financial matters, and that it is in a position to do so.
Furthermore, Egypt' s key role as a mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict is patently obvious.
For all these reasons, substantiated cases of infringement of fundamental human rights and freedoms, such as those referred to today, give cause for particular concern.
Article 2 cannot therefore be simply a political clause. It has to have tangible value.
It is important for those countries to progress along the road to democracy. We believe the Egyptian government should take this fully into account.
I should like to make one point clear to Mr Sakellariou. Nobody has raised the possibility of voting against this report.
The previous vote was not for or against this report.
As I see it, sounding a note of caution simply amounts to giving Egypt the importance due to it as a country. It does not mean penalising it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the proposed signing of an association agreement between the European Union and Egypt, which will help to strengthen the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
The European Union attaches great importance to the chapter on fundamental rights and freedoms.
We should only sign this agreement on condition that these rights will be respected strictly.
Since 1981, Egypt has been subject to an emergency law granting wide powers to the authorities, to the detriment of human rights and democratic freedoms.
Today, these so-called freedoms are regulated and are subject to strict control by the authorities.
The valuable work undertaken by NGOs has alerted us to this matter.
We call upon the government of Egypt to repeal this emergency law, so men and women can enjoy all their rights. This would mean that people would not be criminalised on the grounds of their sexual orientation, their religion or their opinion.
We will not remain silent on the decision to take legal action against homosexuals, which constitutes a violation of human rights which goes completely against the values we hold dear.
We must not interfere, we must not claim that our values are superior, we must not preach but we must denounce and condemn.
Human rights are universal and transcend all borders.
Mr President, the fact that the European Community and its Member States are entering into an association agreement with Egypt evokes very mixed feelings in me.
My reservations mainly revolve around the unequal and unsafe social position which Egyptian Christians find themselves in. The oral question to the Commission underlines this anxiety.
How does it intend to persuade the Egyptian authorities to improve the situation of the Coptic community? Bear in mind that at least six million Egyptian citizens are involved.
It is therefore extremely regrettable that precisely the violation of their fundamental constitutional rights is not explicitly mentioned in the motion for a resolution.
By way of illustration, I should like to quote three serious instances of abuse with which Egyptian Christians are weighed down: not only do the Egyptian authorities veto the construction of new churches, they also take part in the criminal persecution of Muslims who want to convert to Christianity.
The latter is done under the veiled indictment of subversive activities.
Thirdly, there is legal uncertainty among the Christian community in Upper Egypt: it is exposed to downright religious persecution by Muslim extremists.
Such a vacuum in authority is not acceptable and cannot be solved by combining the arrest of Islamists with the random rounding up of a number of indigenous Christians.
I would therefore urge the Commission, the Council and the Member State governments to put these abuses on the agenda during the consultation with the Egyptian authorities.
They are duty-bound to do this on account of the content of this association agreement.
The positive element, namely that since 11 September, the Coptic churches have been having talks with the Egyptian authority, reinforces this essential provision.
Mr President, I, too, want to make it clear to the rapporteur that, here, nobody has proposed rejecting the association agreement with Egypt.
We are not trying to play the high-handed human rights idealists who are against realpolitik and interests.
Quite the opposite, rapporteur: I feel that we are just a little more realistic in our approach.
Given that seven years have already passed, as you have said, deciding to wait maybe another month or two to give ourselves the time to find a response to specific issues before implementing an agreement which, I am glad to say, is irreversible on many points, is, I feel, being realistic.
Attempting to pursue the issue of human rights with empty, worthless declarations of which we have made thousands in the past and will make thousands more in the future, depriving ourselves of a practical pressure lever at precisely the moment when we could be getting down to the nitty-gritty is, I feel, being unrealistic.
What we requested is that, for once, the European Commission and the European Union should view the issue of human rights as something which needs to be given practical expression in relationships where we have bargaining power with other countries too.
We know that there is a human rights clause, we know that this clause could, theoretically, encourage respect for human rights in Egypt and maybe even increase comprehension of a country such as Egypt in Europe.
The problem is that the upholding of human rights, the possibility of making a direct impact, of putting tangible pressure on the human rights situation, is a policy which is not part of the European Commission' s strategy. It is a policy which has no practical expression whatsoever.
We have endeavoured, in our proposal, to be just that little bit more realistic than you. You do not have time to wait?
No problem. I am all for the association agreements, I am all for free trade and I am all for Egypt!
However, it will not be easy to further the cause of human rights.
Mr President, first of all, should we hurry to forge closer bonds with Egypt, assuming that unanswered questions and miscarriages of justice will fade away and resolve themselves, before we have stopped and thoroughly examined what exactly is at the heart of the State i.e. the way it treats its citizens: the cases of fundamental human rights abuse, the 52 men put on trial for their homosexuality, for Egypt wanting "to protect order and its national values", the conviction of 23 of these men, the repression of Christians by Islamic extremists which is allowed to go unpunished, the case of Dr Saad El-din Ibrahim and other intellectuals imprisoned for having used funds that we, the European Union, gave them.
Moreover, correspondence with the President of the People's Assembly of Egypt and the Ambassador in Brussels only seemed to underline Egypt's complacency on this matter and eagerness to fudge and gloss over the issues.
Does Parliament condone violations of the right to a fair trial, freedom of expression, and freedom of association whether it be social, political, religious or sexual? For that is what we are saying if we gloss over the human rights issue.
We must send out an unequivocal message that such blatant abuses of fundamental human rights cannot, must not, and will not be tolerated by the European Community.
As this is a joint debate I propose to deal with both the report and the oral question together and I should like to say, at the outset, that we very much appreciate Egypt's position as a key regional power.
Egypt, as a number of speakers have said, plays a significant role in supporting the Middle East peace process and the point that the honourable and gallant gentleman General Morillon made about the sacrifices that some have made in supporting that peace process is entirely correct.
We are also delighted that Egypt supports a more substantial involvement by the European Union in the Middle East peace process.
It is also very active in other regional issues, notably in promoting a resolution of the civil war in the Sudan, in promoting regional free trade through initiatives like the Agadir process which also involves, of course, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan and COMESA.
We are also grateful for what Egypt does in helping to consolidate the support of the Arab world for the campaign against international terrorism.
I can only say I am relieved at the way the vote turned out a few moments ago given that we pressed Egypt so hard to conclude the negotiations on the association agreement.
I can remember standing in this Chamber and being asked what I was doing to press the Egyptians to come to an early agreement for the negotiations.
So it has been a rather unusual experience for me today to find a deferral being urged.
The association agreement was a long time in negotiation but its signature marked an important new stage in Europe's relations with Egypt.
The 1978 Cooperation Agreement served its purpose very well but the European Union and Egypt have changed beyond recognition and a new agreement was necessary to underpin what has become an altogether more mature relationship.
The Agreement responds to the enormous interests, both economic and political, both bilateral and regional, that the European Union and Egypt have in common and the result of the negotiations is good for both sides.
It is good for Egypt because it will help the Egyptian economy to face the challenge of globalisation more successfully and more competitively and to carry through reforms within the context of a privileged economic and political relationship with us.
It is good for the European Union because it will give a new depth and quality to our relationship with this key political and economic partner and, in addition, the agreement is good for the Barcelona process.
With this agreement the infrastructure of association agreements which underpins it is now largely in place and I hope that we will make good progress shortly with Algeria, the Lebanon and Syria.
There is now a critical mass of agreements to allow other Barcelona initiatives to flourish.
Let me just refer again to the free trade area which is proposed between the countries which signed that agreement in Agadir.
We must now look beyond the negotiation of the agreement into the need for prompt ratification and adequate implementation and I want to underline the point about ratification.
It is more than a shame that the agreement with Jordan, for example, has still not been ratified by all the Member States and we need to encourage people to get on with the ratification of these agreements rather more rapidly.
We obviously welcome the excellent report which has been drafted by the honourable gentleman Mr Martin.
It is a very professional piece of work and we are grateful for that and the support for the rapid ratification of the agreement by Parliament.
It is in everyone's interest that all the provisions of the agreement enter into force very quickly and I hope that the ratification process in this case proceeds expeditiously.
This will be an important procedural step but also a very positive and encouraging signal to the Egyptian and Member State parliaments.
Certainly, the procedural delays in the ratification process by some Member States are often incomprehensible to our Mediterranean partners.
I have noted the concern of certain parliamentarians that our agreements with Mediterranean partners give insufficient stress to interparliamentary relations.
Existing practice indicates that Parliament will not hesitate to develop increasing close contacts with its Egyptian counterpart but, in addition, let me stress that interparliamentary relations are well covered in the relevant texts.
I have also noticed the European Parliament's concern, which I understand, at the state of civil, religious and political rights in Egypt.
I can assure Members that I have not hesitated to discuss these matters regularly with my Egyptian counterparts.
All aspects of the European Union's relationship with Egypt, including the respect for human rights, are continuously monitored by the Commission which is vigilant on human rights issues irrespective of the agreement.
The provisions of the new agreement provide both sides with important safeguards and a valuable additional forum.
When the agreement comes into force we will be able to raise, and hopefully resolve, any major issue at the appropriate association council or committee.
I just make the point - very gently to honourable ladies and gentlemen who might not agree with this point and who came in a flurry of enthusiasm earlier to vote against going ahead with the ratification of this agreement - that this agreement gives us a much better forum for discussing with the Egyptians exactly the issues which they raised.
Individual cases including alleged restrictions on the Coptic community are taken up from time to time by the Commission.
We collaborate closely with Member States in taking positions on these issues and I hope that Parliament will have noted that we never hesitate to make our views known to the Egyptian authorities.
I note that, as far as the inordinately light sentences on those accused of instigating murderous riots against Christians in Upper Egypt were concerned, the Court of Appeal in Egypt has ordered a retrial.
Most recently, the Commission delegation has explained the contractual basis of grants to non-governmental organisations in the context of the Saad Ibrahim appeal which I have discussed in the past with my Egyptian counterparts.
We have joined with Member States in expressing our concern to the Egyptian authorities at the outcome of the recent trial of homosexuals and I understand the concerns that have been expressed by honourable Members about their case.
But we should also note encouraging developments, the new social legislation on the rights of women, the supervision of elections by the courts and the important rulings by courts on the constitutionality of contentious legislation.
The need for good and fluid European relations with Egypt can seldom have been more important.
In the last few weeks everybody has been talking about the vital importance of trying to demonstrate to the Arab and Islamic world that the campaign against terrorism is not the West setting Europe and the United States against the world of Islam.
Everybody sensible has made the point that it is, at the least, unwise for us to lecture the Islamic world as though we had a monopoly of virtue.
Everybody has talked about the importance of deepening the dialogue with the Islamic world.
We have an agreement which gives us the chance of putting in place a foundation stone for our relations with the countries around the Mediterranean.
The idea that you could have a serious policy on the Mediterranean without having an agreement with Egypt is "for the birds", as the Americans say.
We obviously have to take up human rights...
(Interruption by Mr Cashman)
I respect the honourable Member but think he will do me the credit of knowing that I do not have to take lectures on human rights from anybody.
We want to pursue our dialogue on human rights with Egypt and other countries in the Barcelona process but it would be bizarre to argue that Europe should have a serious constructive policy in the Mediterranean and that it should have a deep and profound dialogue with Islamic countries and at the same time reject an association agreement with Egypt.
So I hope that Parliament will continue to take its cue from the excellent report widely commended by all Members prepared by Mr Martin.
I hope that Parliament will continue to be vigilant about civil, political and social rights in Egypt but will also continue to work hard for a stronger relationship between the European Union and the people in government in Egypt.
Mr President, I would just like to point out to Commissioner Patten that we already have an association agreement with an Arab country. We have had one with Tunisia for two years now and things are going from bad to worse!
Need I say more?
That was not on a point of order!
I would like to inform Commissioner Patten that it was not the intention of the House this evening to reject the association agreement but to defer it.
As to lectures in human rights, we all - regardless of our record - need to be lectured on human rights.
The debate is closed.
In accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received a motion for a resolution.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Aid for reconstruction
The next item is the joint debate on the following four reports:
A5-0386/2001 by Mr Lagendijk on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2666/2000 on assistance for Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, repealing Regulation (EC) No 1628/96 and amending Regulations (EEC) No 3906/89 and (EEC) No 1360/90 and Decisions 97/256/EEC and 1999/311/EC, and Council Regulation (EC) No 2667/2000 on the European Agency for Reconstruction [COM(2001) 551 - C5-0477/2001 - 2001/0223(CNS)];
A5-0385/2001 by Mr Färm on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the proposal and on the amended proposal for a Council decision amending Council Decision 1999/733/EC providing supplementary macro-financial assistance to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [COM(2001) 519 - C5-0486/2001 + COM(2001) 613 - 2001/0213(CNS)];
A5-0411/2001 by Mr Färm on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the proposal for a Council decision on amending Council Decision 1999/325/EC providing macro-financial assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina [COM(2001) 610 - C5-0558/2001 - 2001/0250(CNS)];
A5-0410/2001 by Mr Färm on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the proposal for a Council decision on amending Decision 2001/549/EC of 16 July 2001 providing macro-financial assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia [COM(2001) 618 - C5-0559/2001 - 2001/0258(CNS)].
Mr President, the answer to the question of whether we can support the Commission proposal to extend the activities of the European Agency for Reconstruction to include Macedonia is, in fact, quite simple.
When one or two months ago the Commission presented its proposal for the first time, there was some doubt.
This doubt had nothing to do with the appreciation of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy for the European Agency for Reconstruction.
Indeed, this Agency has had very positive feedback right from the outset. This positive assessment was confirmed recently by a very complimentary remark by the Court of Auditors about the prompt and effective way in which the Agency has carried out its work to date.
Our initial doubts were, therefore, quite unrelated to the Agency, but stemmed from the fact that the Commission itself appeared unsure as to which direction to take with regard to assistance in the Balkans.
Should it run its entire operation via the Agency for Reconstruction, first in Yugoslavia, subsequently in Macedonia and soon, perhaps, in Albania and Croatia, or should the Commission adhere to its original policy to devolve its powers to the delegations in the various countries?
We have, meanwhile, had the opportunity of talking to the Commissioner about this.
He promised that the Commission will soon, early next year, come up with an opinion about the strategy to be pursued with regard to assistance in the Balkans and that it will specify more clearly the role of the Agency for Reconstruction and the role which the devolved delegations must play.
We await this report with interest.
At the moment, and this removes the last lingering doubt, there is no alternative but to accord the Agency an important role if we want to grant assistance in Macedonia promptly and efficiently.
I believe that, as far as this aspect is concerned, we are in complete agreement with the Commission.
Why is it so important to grant aid in Macedonia so quickly now and to do this, therefore, via the Agency? I have pointed out the great significance of the developments in Macedonia for the European Union many times, both earlier in this debate and at other occasions, notably after 11 September.
Macedonia' s importance is many times greater than that of a relatively small country in the Balkans. Indeed, it is the first time that the European Union has managed, in talking with one voice, to do a reasonable job in the Balkans, in Macedonia, something which we would have liked to have seen a long time ago.
It is the greatest success story of European foreign policy so far.
Talk with one voice and do what you do best: that is, after all, what the Commission and the European Union have been doing to date in Macedonia.
There have been talks and consultations, compromises have been reached, financial aid pledged and limited military aid promised.
In my view, that is the best that the European Union has to offer at the moment, and it is important for this effort, namely having prevented a civil war from breaking out a few months ago, to be followed up by sufficient financial aid and sufficient reconstruction equipment.
Hence, a positive opinion, from Parliament too, about involving the Agency.
If the situation changes for the worse in Macedonia, then I fear that that will rub off in the Balkans as a whole.
Hence, once again, my urgent plea for involving the Agency, but also for mapping out a sound strategy.
It is a well-known fact - fellow MEPs, Swoboda and Pack, and the Commissioner, himself, have visited the region many times - that tension in Macedonia is currently very high.
Under pressure from the European Parliament, the European Union and many international bodies, the Macedonian Parliament has, at long last, ratified the constitution.
That has led, and is still leading, to major tension.
Europe can do a great deal to clear that tension, and one of the ways is to translate words into deeds swiftly.
That is where the Agency comes in.
In short, prompt aid in Macedonia is needed, both materially and politically.
At the moment, we need the Agency there for reconstruction.
I would urge the Commission to clarify its strategy in the Balkans soon, and also to specify the role which the Agency has to play and the role which other sections of the Commission will need to play in future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, I have probably set some kind of record here today, for I have been given a whole 15 minutes in which to speak, because I am rapporteur for three different, but quite similar, matters.
Perhaps I shall not need all this time.
It now finally looks as if developments in the Balkans are heading in the right direction and in a more stable way.
We finally have something resembling peace, albeit under armed supervision, with continued violence between ethnic groups and still a long way to go before there is peaceful co-existence.
It has been possible to successfully implement the disarmament of the armed groups in Macedonia, especially following important efforts by the EU.
We can therefore feel a certain optimism, even though history has all too often shown us that peace is fragile, especially in the Western Balkans.
Democracy, too, is making progress.
Last autumn, the Milosevic dictatorship collapsed through the Yugoslav people' s decisive action.
In Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, albeit with a number of problems in the last case, the democratic powers have made progress.
Last week' s election in Kosovo was conducted impeccably.
It felt like a privilege to be present at this historic event as an observer from the European Parliament.
A lot remains to be done, however.
There is a great need for purely physical reconstruction, but also for the development of the economy and infrastructure that were allowed to fall into decay during the nineties.
The most important thing of all is, perhaps, to bring about a genuine process of reconciliation through which the ethnic cleansing that has taken place in large parts of these countries can be got to grips with and solutions found to the serious outstanding problems involving refugees and displaced persons.
It is against this background that those of us in the Committee on Budgets have adopted three reports on temporarily extended, and also, in certain cases, increased, macro-financial assistance to Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Yugoslavia.
First of all, a word about Macedonia.
In November 1999, the Council decided to give Macedonia macro-financial assistance to the tune of EUR 80 million, part of it in the form of a loan, together with a contribution of up to EUR 30 million.
The decision was taken against the background of the war in Kosovo because this crisis gave rise to large costs in Macedonia, to which hundreds of thousands of people fled.
The aim has been to facilitate the implementation of structural reforms and to offset the consequences of the economic disruption caused by the Kosovo conflict.
The aid, of course, has conditions attached to it, mainly to the effect that the programme of economic and public administration reforms continue and that the agreements reached in Ohrid earlier this autumn be implemented.
As is well known, Macedonia has suffered as a result of this internal armed conflict.
The conflict has, of course, also given rise to further problems and caused delays in making the assistance available.
It has only been possible to pay out a portion of it within the relevant time-frame.
That is why we now want to extend the legal basis for these forms of assistance.
That is something we have no problems with at all.
However, the Commission also proposes an increased financial contribution because there are beginning to be problems with Macedonia, where developments have otherwise been positive.
The problems have been exacerbated by the conflict.
That is why the Commission is now proposing increasing the contribution by EUR 18 million.
Against this political background, the Committee on Budgets believes the Commission' s proposal to be well considered.
Nonetheless, we have tabled a number of amendments in order to emphasise that this aid must be administered by the Commission, but in close consultation with both the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The background to this is that we see it as important to monitor not only the purely financial management of the assistance but also more political aspects with a view, for example, to making sure that no part of the assistance is used to equip the Macedonian army.
We would also emphasise that this type of aid, that is to say, contributions in combination with a long-term 'soft' loan, must be seen as exceptional and not allowed to constitute the norm for the future.
We then have the matter of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In May 1999, we decided to provide the assistance in question, comprising a loan of EUR 20 million and contributions of up to EUR 40 million.
This was, of course, also done to ease the economic situation and to support reconstruction in Bosnia and was obviously conditional upon the economy and the institutions of democracy continuing to be reformed.
We have had a number of problems with implementation, as a result of which assistance amounting to EUR 15 million remains to be paid out.
If we are to be able to make this available, we need, then, to extend the legal basis.
In this assessment, we must also take account of the fact that the elections held in Bosnia in November 2000 led to everything' s having taken an extremely long time, what with negotiations and the High Representative' s having had to intervene etc.
All this has delayed both the reforms and the legislative work and, thus, also delayed our making the aid available.
Economic growth has not been particularly good.
These forms of assistance are, therefore, genuinely needed, which is why those of us in the Committee on Budgets support the Commission' s proposal to modify this Council regulation so that we can extend the period up to the end of 2002.
When it comes to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, the same conditions must, nonetheless, apply in this case, as apply in the case of Macedonia.
Finally, something about the third matter, Yugoslavia.
We decided, as late as this year, to provide this macro-financial assistance of up to EUR 300 million in the form, in this case too, both of loans and of contributions.
The primary aim is, of course, to provide financial, social and political support for a stable Yugoslavia, but it is also, and this is something I want to emphasise, to promote Yugoslavia' s role as a stabilising factor throughout the region.
This year, it has emerged that the economic situation has, perhaps, been a little more strained than we had previously believed.
In particular, the privatisation process has taken longer, which has also led to the State budget' s losing income from the privatisation.
We also know it has been a tough process finding a solution to the problem of Yugoslavia' s relationship with the World Bank, the IMF etc.
If no money is provided, there is obviously a great risk of the economic situation' s deteriorating further.
We should, therefore, bear in mind that Yugoslavia now already has major debts amounting to more than 140 per cent of GDP.
That is why the Commission wants these new amounts, constituting an increase of EUR 45 million, to be in the form of contributions.
The Committee on Budgets says OK, but emphasises that these must, nonetheless, be seen as part of the EU' s multiannual programme and that they constitute exceptional assistance.
We have also arranged for the assistance to be paid out, provided that Yugoslavia continues to develop into a constitutional state and that the country continues to cooperate closely with the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
In all these three cases, we also believe that, in order to produce new resources during the current budget year, ordinary budget procedure must be followed.
This can only be done by means of a parallel process involving a transfer of funds from other budget items, something which requires a decision on the part of the budgetary authority.
Mr President, even before the last part-session in Strasbourg, the Commission wanted these matters to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
I said at that time that, in my view, there were nonetheless two matters that needed to be cleared up first.
So that we, too, could see where the funds were to be taken from, we wanted, first of all, to see the Commission' s practical proposals for transferring funds in such a way as to produce the necessary EUR 45 or 18 million.
These proposals for transferring funds are now on the table and have been discussed in the Committee on Budgets.
Secondly, we wanted to sort out the conciliation with the Council concerning next year' s budget so as to be able to guarantee that this aid can be combined with a continued high level of other aid for the Western Balkans and for reconstruction etc.
We have now reached an agreement with the Council whereby this increased macro-financial assistance is to be seen as front loading for next year' s budget appropriation.
At the same time, we jointly accept the Commission' s preliminary draft budget for the Balkans, something which I also hope will be the result of the second budget reading during the next part-session in Strasbourg.
Against that background, we therefore support these three proposals.
Allow me, finally, just to say a few words about my and the Committee on Budgets' opinion on Mr Lagendijk' s report on the European Agency for Reconstruction. I have, myself, on quite a few occasions had the opportunity to see the Agency' s work at first hand, and I view it as a model of efficiency, as does Mr Lagendijk too.
Moreover, this view is also confirmed by the Court of Auditors' report. I believe there are a number of specific reasons for this success.
Among these are the fact that, in accordance with Parliament' s demands, a more decentralised model for decision-making and the employment of EU aid has been implemented and that it has been possible to avoid the unwieldy and duplicated decision-making that we formerly had under the traditional committee system.
In spite of these excellent results from the Agency, the Committee on Budgets nonetheless wishes, in its amendments, to emphasise the importance of correct budget principles for distinguishing between administrative and operational expenditure with a view, for example, to our being able to make a proper, skilled assessment of the Agency' s activities.
Moreover, we wish to introduce a reference to Article 274 of the Treaty, in order to emphasise clearly that this is aid which the Commission and not, in the first place, the Member States have the responsibility for implementing.
Mr President, Mr Lagendijk has produced a very good report.
I would also like to thank Mr Färm sincerely and on behalf of my group, of which I seem to be the only representative here today, thank them both and in general terms agree with everything they have said.
I would also like to highlight a couple of things.
I think this rapid reaction facility, this way of getting money to crisis regions quickly, efficiently and without bureaucracy, really is a good instrument.
In Yugoslavia in particular, as the Commissioner has seen, they were grateful for this really quick and efficient assistance that was only possible because we had this instrument and did not have to use the usual longwinded procedure.
I also believe it really must be extended to Macedonia, because something simply must be done to help the difficult political processes.
The process is far from being completed.
Laws need to be implemented so that the Albanian citizens can see that they really have gained something from these constitutional changes.
The region' s Macedonian inhabitants must see that if they behave as is expected in democracies, they will also be rewarded with an improvement in their everyday lives.
We agree to everything, we also agree to the reservations Mr Färm has mentioned.
But I think the Commission knows all this very well and I am sure it respects it.
This brings me back again to the establishment of the agency in Macedonia.
In view of the pathetic results of implementation and of spending the money earmarked for this country since 1996, I am of the opinion that it is high time we sought to remedy the situation.
Of course, the Macedonian government lacked the will, and we who were down there know they were simply not in a position to do anything.
Whether they were unable or unwilling I would not like to say now, but there was a lack of will on the part of the government, and, in the end, the delegation on the spot was unable to give the government the help it needed.
The necessary technical assistance that the Commission should have given to this government was lacking.
I think it is therefore good that the Commissioner has now thought about measures that can be taken to speed things up.
It will be good for the agency, which is doing excellent work in Kosovo - I expect we shall see that in Belgrade next weekend.
We want it to be possible for them finally to do what the Macedonians are all waiting for and I have nothing against it being used.
However, Commissioner, my problem is that there is so much tinkering around going on now.
Now it is being done in Macedonia. I do not know when you will be so effective again next time.
I would very much like to see a structure for this work in the region, and I would like to hear from you this evening whether you are willing or able to produce a scheme that will either, deconcentrate the delegations and enable them to do this work, or that you intend to deploy such agencies in the whole region.
I believe you owe us an answer on that this evening and I hope that this evening you will tell us how soon you, in the Commission, believe you can lay such a scheme before us.
On this condition, I am prepared to give you my unreserved best wishes for setting up this agency because we have all had excellent experience.
I do not want to criticise the delegation on the ground here.
The delegation on the ground was not able to do what we expected of it because it was not deconcentrated, whatever that means, and it could not give the technical assistance.
In that regard, I really am looking for a longer term scheme from you so that all the countries down there can feel they are being treated, more or less, equally and I think that is also important if we are to avoid creating rivalries between them.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to thank the rapporteurs sincerely for their work.
Mr Lagendijk has already indicated that the situation in the Balkans today is quite different from that six months or a year ago, especially if we think of the elections in Kosovo and the settlement in Macedonia.
But that must not mislead us into saying everything has been done, the matter has been dealt with, we can just hang around and everything will turn out well.
I also think the step the Commission proposes is correct and justified.
But, Commissioner, we have already said, if it is really so and I believe it is, that there are serious differences between the work of the agency and the work of the delegations, and somewhere in between them, as a sort of happy medium, the decentralised delegations, then we must draw general conclusions from that, not because, in the one case, they are good people and, in the other, bad people.
It must surely also have something to do with the structure of the decision-making processes.
In this respect I am sure you will not be able to give us an answer today.
I want to ask you, however, one more thing, namely that, when restructuring the Commission' s work and policy in the Balkans; you will really use, to the full, the imagination that I am sure you, Commissioner, and many of your colleagues possess.
For my part, I believe that the agency, which is not only a reconstruction agency but already a development agency, ought to play a greater part over all.
I admit it can also be done jointly with delegations that are given additional tasks to do with decentralisation.
But I do think that early next year, at the start of next year, we ought to suggest what the Commission' s assistance, support and development structure for the Balkans should look like for the next ten years, for it will take, at least, ten years to achieve the take off we all want for the Balkans and that we need for peace and stability in Europe.
Mr President, I guess it would be a slight exaggeration to say that the Chamber was packed with knowledgeable friends of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but those who are here are eminently qualified to address this subject because I think that the honourable Members who certainly know most about Macedonia and who are, in some respects, most knowledgeable about Southeast Europe as a whole are in this Chamber.
I am extremely grateful for the contribution which honourable Members have made to what has been a pretty successful development of Europe's strategy in the Balkans and I am particularly grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Lagendijk, for his report.
Perhaps I can just re-establish the context in which we are having this debate.
Honourable Members know that Macedonia was the first country with which we negotiated a stabilisation and association agreement.
While we were negotiating that agreement, during each of my visits to FYROM - and I have visited Skopje probably more than any other capital city in the world in the last couple of years - we were regularly on the receiving end of grumbles about the lack of speed of our delivery of development assistance.
When the crisis came this year, we worked very hard and I pay a particular vote of gratitude to the work of my colleague, Javier Solana.
We worked extremely hard to try to get FYROM back on the rails.
We were delighted by the Lake Ohrid Agreement and said straightaway that we would do everything we could to help the implementation of the framework agreement in Lake Ohrid.
My concern, as I have explained to honourable Members, was that unless we made a special effort, we would not deliver that assistance quickly enough.
I would have very much liked to have gone through the process of deconcentration rather more rapidly to FYROM and delivered our assistance in a conventional way, but that was to run a risk.
The most certain way in which we could deliver the assistance was by extending the work of the Reconstruction Agency and that is why we are all here this evening.
I know that some honourable Members were understandably a little confused about our management strategy.
With the benefit of hindsight, with which we are all much wiser, it would perhaps have been sensible if I had consulted honourable Members earlier.
But I hope that we have managed to convince honourable Members that there was no intention on our part to downgrade our relationship with the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
I saw President Trikovsky earlier this week.
He was en route to a prayer breakfast - I am afraid I was not - and I think that we have managed to convince him and the authorities in Skopje now that we are just trying to deliver assistance as rapidly as possible and we have already been delivering assistance in the sectors electricity and housing, etc.
It is understandable that honourable Members should think that there is some confusion in our management strategy for the whole region, But I do not feel that I am being inconsistent in arguing, on the one hand, that we have to work through Europe Aid, through deconcentration, which has now begun and which we must now push as rapidly as possible, while on the other hand, saying there may be odd occasions, particularly crises, which require different sort of arrangements.
We are considering for example, at the moment how to deal with the situation in Afghanistan - whether we should put a task force into Afghanistan in order to get quick-acting projects going as soon as possible.
So I do not think that it is inconsistent to press ahead with the reform of Europe Aid, while at the same time thinking that from time to time other arrangements are necessary.
Perhaps I can just remind honourable Members that we pledged EUR 30 million to the implementation of the framework agreement and that we have also been disbursing EUR 12.5 million under the rapid reaction mechanism.
We have committed about EUR 5 million through ECHO to humanitarian relief and we have got a regular CARDS programme of EUR 42 million for this year for FYROM.
All that work, except the ECHO dimension, will be put through the Agency over the next couple of months.
As far as we are concerned, the next event on the horizon will be the donors conference, which we will try to organise with the World Bank.
There are a number of conditions, as honourable Members will know.
We were first of all insisting on the implementation of the framework agreement on the passage of amendments to the Constitution through the Parliament in Skopje.
We also wanted a law on local government passed, because frankly if it is not, the United States is unlikely to come to a donors conference.
It is absolutely crucial, as my colleague Commissioner Solbes would assure you, if we are to provide macro-financial assistance at a donors conference, that there must be an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
Macro-financial assistance is never given unless there is such an agreement.
President Trikovsky assured me this week that an agreement with the IMF is now on the cards and I think the relevant meeting in Washington is at the beginning of December.
I hope therefore that on the back of the passage of the legislation, which I have referred to, the constitutional amendments and the recommendation of an agreement to the board of the IMF, we can hold a successful donors conference.
If it is agreeable to all the parties, and to FYROM, we will do it before Christmas, but at the moment when it looks as though it is likely to be most successful.
What I do not want to do is to set a date for a second time and have to postpone it, because that would be calamitous.
I am very grateful to honourable Members for the fast delivery of their opinion on what we are proposing.
I am sorry that I cannot express my gratitude by accepting all the amendments which have been put down.
Characteristically, I am not able to do that.
Some of the amendments, for example the references to the provisional nature of what we are doing, are of no real legal value.
Others, I am advised, are not really suitable for inclusion in a legal decision.
I want however to respond slightly differently to two of the arguments which have been put and which you will understand.
First of all, I want to assure the Parliament that it would of course be consulted if there were any question of extending the Agency to other countries.
If we were to propose that, we would of course consult the Parliament.
Secondly, honourable Members, and this is a point that Mr Swoboda has made very eloquently, are concerned about the integrity of the management of what we are doing in Southeast Europe.
They are concerned about the coherence of what we are doing in Southeast Europe and understandably press us to set out our strategy for the management of community assistance for the Balkans.
I am happy to do that.
I just beg Parliament not to press me to do it by 31 January.
I will tell the Parliament why.
We have a good team of people working on the Balkans in the Commission.
They spend three-quarters of their time in meetings in the Council, in consultative task forces and in drafting reports; we are in the middle of drafting a report for the Council, which of course the Parliament will see, on the overall progress of the stabilisation and association process.
I do not want to make unreasonable demands on them, but I can assure Parliament that, as early next year as I can manage it, I will come to Parliament to try to set out the sort of strategy which I think honourable Members are entitled to ask for and which we should be pleased to give.
It is very important that Parliament should make sure from time to time that we actually know what we are doing.
I have been in this job for just over two years and what I am going to say does not suggest that all that has happened is because there has been a new Commission - I am not suggesting that at all.
But we have seen, first of all, a transformation in the region with the latest admirable events, as the honourable gentleman said: the elections in Kosovo and the developments in FYROM.
We know that every time we take a couple of steps forward, something will happen which pushes us back again, but I think that from Croatia to Serbia, to Macedonia and Albania, we are heading in the right direction.
We have a coherent strategy and we have made a remarkable amount of progress.
We have made that progress because we have worked together in a way which has extended stability to the region and underpinned those who are prepared bravely to argue and work for economic and political reform.
At the end of the stabilising and association process is the prospect of potential membership of the European Union.
That has been the most formidable element in bringing greater peace and stability to Southeast Europe.
We must make sure that the huge amount of political and financial investment that we have made in the last couple of years continues to pay off in steady progress and development.
That will of course be more likely if we are able to continue to work with Members of the Parliament.
Does the Commissioner agree that early next year is before the end of March?
Commissioner, I can also confirm that President Trikovsky was at the prayer breakfast, you were not.
But I also note that if things go on as they are, we will soon have more Commissioners than Members in Parliament.
That is also good to hear.
I suggested, President that he should pray for me.
I did it!
Mr President, as I take over from Commissioner Patten who spoke on various aspects of the political situation in the Balkans, I shall focus on the three programmes for macro-financial assistance.
As far as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is concerned, Mr Farm has made it quite clear that we are dealing with two distinct issues. These are firstly, increasing the amount of aid, and secondly, extending the period in which it is granted.
To date, we have disbursed EUR 30 million. This is partly due to delays in reaching agreement with the International Monetary Fund on the economic programme.
It is, indeed, the case that the conditions laid down pertaining to the constitutional changes now under way, and the much-needed support we are giving to economic stabilisation and the reform process mean that the International Monetary Fund' s cooperation is required. According to our information, the authorities in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will soon have in place an economic framework with associated follow-up.
This would act as a link with a support programme sponsored by the Fund.
The economic situation remains extremely precarious.
The International Monetary Fund has therefore informed us of the short-term financial requirements, and of the need for increased contributions by the various donors to cover the foreign financing deficit for the years 2001 and 2002.
This is the main reason for our decision to increase our additional contribution to Macedonia by EUR 18 million.
With regard to Bosnia and Herzegovina, we are currently implementing aid.
EUR 60 million is committed, of which 40 million is grants and 20 million is loans.
The first two tranches have already been disbursed, one at the end of 1999 and the other at the end of 2000. Progress is being achieved in the areas of stabilisation and economic reform.
We have yet to disburse the final tranche of EUR 15 million. The conditions of disbursement are close to being met.
A Commission mission charged with assessing progress achieved is in Sarajevo this week. Speaking more generally, it is fair to say that the new government formed after the elections does, on occasion, take some time to carry through reform processes.
It is currently negotiating a new programme with the International Monetary Fund. Mr Farm also mentioned the need to extend the period agreed on, since that initially planned for implementation of contributions has expired.
From another perspective, the rapporteur also referred to the need to adjust financial or macro-financial aid to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The current EUR 300 million, of which 225 is loans and 75 is grants is proving insufficient.
EUR 260 million has already been disbursed and the Commission is currently preparing to meet with the Yugoslav authorities again in the near future. We hope it will then be possible for the second tranche to be disbursed, providing the conditions are met.
According to information received from the International Monetary Fund, however, it is clear that additional external financing will be required to eliminate the further financing deficit of EUR 150 million. This is why we are proposing to increase the grant element by EUR 45 million to a maximum grant level of EUR 120 million.
I must commend Mr Farm on his devotion to this issue and on the speed and urgency with which he has dealt with it.
Thanks are also due to Mr Wynn, Chairman of the Committee on Budgets and to Mr Brok, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy for their support.
I should like to classify the amendments tabled into groups.
The amendments concerning political conditionality, the financial Regulation and the multiannual financial framework are acceptable, in principle. In some specific cases, however, they do present certain difficulties with regard to presentation or consistency.
To take the reference CARDS in connection with multiannual assistance as an example of consistency, we have stated quite clearly on a number of occasions in plenary that CARDS has nothing to do with macro-financial assistance.
The two elements are quite separate and I think the processes for using them correctly, in cases that might arise, should remain distinct.
We are not favourably inclined, either, to the comment that this assistance is exceptional and will not set a precedent for the future.
That is certainly the case.
Nonetheless, the same is true of all macro-financial assistance.
We do not, therefore, feel that it makes much sense to debate that today.
Neither do we believe that it makes much sense to include elements involving additional delays in the whole process of making this assistance available.
In this connection, whilst keeping Parliament duly informed, it would be wise to give more thought to the role of the Assistance Committee, which is quite a different body.
More detailed information on all these issues can be made available later. I simply wished to give some indication as to our initial position.
Thank you, Commissioner Solbes.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
The next item is the proposal for a European Parliament and Council resolution on the contribution to the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria [COM(2001) 612 - C5-0520/2001 - 2001/0251(COD)].
Thank you, Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
I take the floor to defend the European Community' s contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, a bittersweet task.
I am pleased that we have contrived to approve a significant financial contribution by the Union to the creation of a Global Fund as suggested by the United Nations' Secretary-General. The aim is to fight against the three most common contagious diseases in the world.
They affect the least developed countries who find themselves trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and disease.
The higher the level of poverty, the greater the risk of contagious diseases. In turn, a higher level of disease aggravates the degree of poverty.
It is pleasing, too, that we have achieved this in record time, through the codecision procedure, with urgency and at first reading. A number of amendments were tabled and negotiated with the Council.
In our view, these improved the text of the original proposal.
On the other hand, I have to say how much we regret that the Council and, especially, the Commission, have put us in such a difficult position.
They have presented us with a text which, as originally drafted, bypassed Parliament and denied us the right to exercise our responsibilities as a budgetary authority. No account was taken of Parliament' s repeated statements on the need for much more energetic action in the context of a global strategy to fight against poverty, and, in particular, against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
I refer, in particular, to the report by Bashir Khanbhai, who is with us today.
A lot of time and energy went into it.
It was approved by a resolution in plenary on 4 October this year, yet the initial document put before us did not even refer to it.
In their common declaration last May, the Council and the Commission welcomed the United Nations Secretary-General' s proposal to set up this Global Fund.
Back in July, the Commission announced its intention to commit EUR 120 million to finance it.
It was only last month, however, that Parliament received the documentation enabling it to begin its work. Furthermore, the documentation was incomplete and did not allow us to work properly.
It is only fair to note that, in the last fortnight, Parliament and the Council have demonstrated more of the willingness and flexibility required to reach agreement on the amendments we wished to introduce. I trust the latter will be adopted tomorrow morning.
In our view, the additional nature of the contribution to the Fund is a key issue.
As stated in our Amendment No 2, the first EUR 60 million from the 2001 budget should be added to existing resources and not withdrawn from other budget lines already earmarked for development programmes. As stated in Amendment No 3, the EUR 60 million in question should not pre-empt or impose conditions on future annual contributions.
This is clearly stated in our Amendment No 4. I shall probably be tabling an oral amendment on this tomorrow, Commissioner, prior to the vote.
In our view too, given the very nature of these diseases it is crucial to maintain the Union' s contribution to the fund over a period of time.
The fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria must continue to be pursued energetically in the years to come.
If it is not, it will be unsuccessful and the EUR 60 million we are contributing will be to no avail.
Parliament cannot abrogate its responsibilities as a budgetary authority.
In Amendment No 6, we therefore request the Commission to make all the necessary information available to Parliament.
As stated in Amendment No 7, the last of our amendments, we shall then be in a position to guarantee the suitability, transparency, sound management and working practices of the Global Fund. A report will duly be prepared, and should be included in future annual reports on contributions to external aid that the Community will be required to present.
At the G8 Summit held in July 2000 in Okinawa, the rich industrialised G8 countries pledged substantial funds to fight communicable diseases and help the sick in poor countries.
In September last year the Commission held a conference on the subject in Brussels but no action followed.
Four million of the poorest people died in one year.
In July 2001 another meeting took place in Genoa and Mr Prodi announced to the world's media a donation of EUR 120 million.
My report, unanimously approved on 4 October this year has been sitting on the shelf collecting dust.
The Council adopted a proposal for a legal basis for the fund to be implemented but so far not one euro has been given, and a further 2 million people have died.
When terrorist bombs cause death the victims attract money very fast but the 3-4 million people who die from diseases are not in our minds.
Why does it take the Commission so long to present a plan for implementation when they know that every day 10 000 people are dying? We promise with pride but we fail to deliver.
Do these people not matter to us?
The Commissioners have gone.
There is no interest.
Look at the audience in this Chamber, hardly anyone is here.
That shows what priority the European Union gives to such an important project.
This is not FYROM or Macedonia.
This is AIDS affecting the poorest people in the world and it is about time that the EU contribution is not just EUR 20 per person dying, not just 1% of what is required, but that it is EUR 6 billion per annum.
We have often debated these problems in the past, but quite rightly do so again tonight: 36.1 million people are living with HIV/AIDS in this world, tuberculosis is making a tragic comeback, 300 million people suffer the debilitating and painful effects of malaria.
If anything needed a visionary, innovative and international response, it is the prevalence of these communicable diseases.
We want to support, in principle, this global fund to fight communicable diseases.
We want to see it concentrate on prevention as well as treatment of all three diseases.
We want an innovative and workable governance framework.
We want a true international partnership so it is not just seen as donor business as usual.
We want funding mechanisms that fast-track funds so that we can maintain the political commitment and mobilise further resources.
These are difficult issues and I sympathise with the Commission for the delays that have been forced on it in bringing forward this request for a legal base.
But it should reflect also on why the second reading proposals on our own support through the poverty diseases line were cut back from Parliament's demands, and why President Prodi announced EUR 60 million of support from the global health fund from the ACP countries, which it was not his right to do and, as we heard in this Chamber from their President-in-Office they oppose.
We must be concerned that this money actually adds to the global efforts and does not simply go into the pockets of the pharmaceutical companies.
The amendments that we have constructively negotiated with the Commission and Council improve this proposal: the recognition that we need additional money, the fact that this is simply a first payment and the request to the Commission both to bring forward a legal base for future contributions and to provide a report so that some of these information issues can be dealt with.
I ask Commissioner Nielson if he can give us a time-scale as to when that might be brought forward during the course of next year so we can deal with it properly in the budget process.
Mr President, we have long been calling for an increase in funds for AIDS given the appalling situation.
The European Parliament has made its stance on this issue clear in voting for the Khanbhai report.
We were naturally very encouraged by the decision to release a further EUR 120 million. However, the proposal put before us today, after some prevarication, only amounts to EUR 60 million.
Furthermore, this will come from the existing budget.
This is not extra money.
These funds are not ongoing. We also wish to question the allocation of this money to a single international fund.
What is the aim of this fund?
Is it only for prevention? Or will it also provide access to treatment for people living in the countries of the South?
Will it provide health care infrastructures and medicines? These are the questions we must ask.
How will this fund be managed? How will those that need this money, namely the countries of the South, be involved in these decisions?
It is not simply up to the donor countries. I think that we must ask ourselves all these questions because people are dying everyday, but we have money and it is up to us to help them.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are faced with an unprecedented human catastrophe.
According to the WHO report published today, 40 million people have so far become HIV positive and 3 million will die before the end of this year. It is clear that the majority of the people affected by this disease live in Sub-Saharan Africa.
AIDS is not just a crisis in terms of human health; it also constitutes an ecological and economic disaster.
The WHO predicts that the least developed countries will lose a fifth of their GNP between now and 2010 because of the disease.
In countries like Zambia, one million children will die. The funds announced may appear to be substantial, but as my fellow Member said a moment ago, some questions remain to be answered.
Who will manage these funds? Will the money really reach the people in the greatest need, for whom it was intended?
As we are all aware, work to combat these diseases must involve the provision of infrastructures such as dispensaries, social support structures and doctors. This cannot be done when we have diktats from the IMF and the World Bank which do not allow us to employ civil servants and doctors.
Once again Mr President, I would like to call for the cancellation of Third World debt and for this money to be allocated to education, prevention and health. This is the right way to combat AIDS in the long term.
I would like to finish by saying that we can no longer tolerate the arrogant attitude the pharmaceutical industry adopted last year in relation to certain countries. This is totally unacceptable.
We know that pregnant women who are given AZT give birth to healthy babies.
I hope this arrogance will cease once and for all.
Let me first of all thank you for the kind reaction from Parliament.
The Commission requested the urgency procedure to establish a legal base for a financial commitment to the fund under this year's budget amending the legal base of budget line B7-6211 Aid for Poverty Related Diseases in Developing Countries.
We proposed to transfer EUR 60 million to this line.
This proposal is of high political importance as the fund has attracted wide interest and these are high hopes for its success.
I agree with the content of comments by Mr Sylla and Mr Rod reflecting the fact that there are indeed many questions to be asked.
We still have many unanswered questions.
This is the real reason why it has not been easy or possible for the Commission to move this dossier forward in a very nice, elegant and timely manner.
It has not yet been negotiated at international level, but we still need the budget operation that we are discussing tonight.
I regret that the proposal was transmitted so late in the year to the budget authority but this reflects the fact that we did not have anything good or clear enough before that.
I appreciate your determination in Parliament to make this process a success, despite these procedural hurdles.
I welcome the outcome of the discussions last week between the three institutions.
I note that Parliament has made further efforts to take account of Council's wish for further changes in the recitals.
The Commission can accept the oral amendment proposed by the honourable MEPs here today and for which you will vote tomorrow, in order to obtain a timely agreement by Council.
As regards accounting, auditing and reporting, we want this to be totally transparent vis-à-vis Parliament.
I would however, for the sake of transparency, like to express some sort of warning because if the idea is to pool resources in a global fund, we must avoid becoming such a difficult partner in this work by insisting on our systems of reporting, our auditing and our accounting procedures.
This is the problem we have already with other international organisations and where the Commission is an inadequate partner in many cases.
Some adaptability is also needed if we are to be a well-functioning partner in this endeavour.
The Commission has no reservations as to the actual amendments presented here but we need to keep in mind that this is a collective effort and that is the whole core of the idea.
In reply to Mr Khanbhai's remarks that not one euro has been given here, let me say that every day we are pumping money into the fight against AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis.
It would be a big mistake to think - and even worse to express - that the only thing we are doing is in relation to this fund.
Everybody knows that this is not the case but we hope this fund will add something to the other ways in which we are working.
That is what we are essentially trying to ensure in the negotiations taking place right now, to see if we can straighten out these contentious issues.
We are preparing a revised regulation for the B7-6211 budget line.
This longer-term legal basis will serve as the base for implementation of the Programme for Action on Communicable Diseases in the years 2003-2006.
It is proposed that future support to global initiatives such as the global fund would be financed from this budget line.
We still have to discuss the level of funding.
In the first reading of the Budget for 2002, Parliament proposed a new specific budget line for the fund from next year onwards but we have now agreed to regroup this specific budget line with the one for poverty diseases and use one integrated legal basis.
As I indicated before, the Commission wishes to continue exchanges with Parliament on the modalities and working methods of the fund over the coming period.
The fund is expected to be up and running from January 2002 and all members of the fund's transitional working group are in discussion, trying to achieve consensus on a large number of outstanding and difficult issues.
The Commission is trying to play a constructive and active role in these discussions and I look forward to reporting to Parliament on this process.
I also look forward to working together with Parliament to make this new fund something which will actually increase the efficiency of our response to the struggle against these diseases.
Finally, let me reconfirm our proposal to allocate an addition EUR 60 million from the 9th EDF funds once the Cotonou Agreement is ratified and discussions have been finalised with the ACP Group.
These funds will be earmarked for activities in ACP countries.
I agree, this complicates, to some extent, the administrative function of a global fund, but I do not think we have any choice here.
This is a fact of life and it is not the biggest problem we are facing.
Thank you once again for the cooperative manner in which Parliament has handled this matter in spite of the difficulties that we have had.
Thank you, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 00.05 a.m.)
I want to draw attention to the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe.
We have seen President Mugabe's wanton non-compliance with the undertakings given at the Abuja summit on September and only last weekend the snub he delivered to the visiting EU Troika.
It seems time now to introduce smart sanctions against Mugabe and his henchmen.
This is what we called for in Parliament's resolution and I would ask you to use your best offices now to bring that about.
As you know, Mr Van Orden, the comment made at the end of the troika' s visit was precisely that, if the undertakings were not complied with, the European Union would have no option but to take steps, including sanctions.
I believe we shall be obliged to be consistent if things do not go well, as seems likely.
Human genetics
The next item is the report (A5-0391/2001) by Mr Fiori, on behalf of the Temporary Committee on Human Genetics and Other New Technologies in Modern Medicine, on the ethical, legal, economic and social implications of human genetics [2001/2097(INI)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Fiori, for his excellent work.
I believe he has presented an outstanding report, and the political message is clear: we are saying yes to research, yes to the treatment of serious diseases, but human dignity is the overriding principle and can set limits even to research.
This means, for example, that we reject the cloning of human beings at all stages of their development.
The news from the USA that ACT has cloned a human embryo has probably shocked us all.
People are right to be concerned.
I think being against the cloning of human embryos is neither right wing nor conservative.
Let me quote from a document produced by the French Communist Party. It says that allowing therapeutic cloning by nuclear transfer gives rise to many ethical problems.
The first problem concerns the embryo.
The second concerns the woman as egg cell donor and the risk of actually creating a market.
The third problem concerns the precautions that must be taken with reproductive cloning.
Even if the two objectives of cloning are different, there is clearly a great danger of opening the door to a kind of automatism when we do not at present have the means to control this area.
There is nothing more to be said.
So-called therapeutic cloning of embryos leads to reproductive cloning and that is why it must be banned.
That is what the Fiori report says.
I am shocked at the amendments tabled by the social democrats and others who want to delete this passage from the Fiori report.
Neither are the arguments of those who want the deletion logical.
In the Caudron report we decided that we did not want to encourage the cloning of embryos.
I want to thank Commissioner Busquin because earlier this week the Commission again made quite clear that the Commission will not support this technology.
But if we then fail to prohibit it, that is an invitation to firms like ACT to come to Europe if it is banned in the USA.
I cannot imagine that the majority of Parliament wants that.
I therefore ask you to support the Fiori report and reject the deletions.
Mr President, the work of the temporary committee on human genetics has been complex and interesting. The detailed and thorough report by Mr Fiori which accompanies the motion for a resolution is testimony to that.
The motion for a resolution, presented by the rapporteur in committee, was, in its turn, a balanced synthesis of the conclusions that could be drawn from our inquiries.
These dealt with the many ethical and political problems raised by the major scientific breakthroughs of recent years: the development of genetic tests which open up prospects of early identification and possible remedies for serious degenerative diseases, but also pose risks for the protection of personal data.
In this field, such data concern not only the individual in question but all of his or her blood relatives as well. Therefore, alongside the right to know, everybody' s right to know the likelihood of being predisposed to diseases in the future, a new right now emerges: the right not to know, to deliberately face up to the fate that life holds in store for us, trusting in the future.
The committee addressed problems raised regarding the application of the patent system, the traditional instrument of industrial policy which favours the private funding of research, to those biotechnological and biomedical innovations that have to do with living organisms and therefore pose delicate questions of the limits between invention as a product of human activity and the discovery of living material, which cannot be appropriated.
Finally, the committee addressed the most far-reaching dilemmas of the new frontiers of research into stem cells, which offer extraordinary potential for possible applications. They may be able to root out diseases that have hitherto been intractable, but they also pose radical questions of ethical principles which must be considered insurmountable.
We are not starting from scratch, thanks, partly, to the useful work of the European Ethics Group and the large number of instruments drawn up at Community and international levels, to the extent that, two weeks ago, Parliament was able to adopt by a large majority, cautious, common criteria on this subject on the occasion of the launch of the sixth research framework programme. This programme prioritises the research needed in this field, funding especially those projects dealing with adult stem cells and embryonic cells from abortions or so-called supernumerary embryos, produced for the purposes of in-vitro fertilisation and no longer usable for those purposes, to the extent that the laws of the Member States permit.
Unfortunately, the original project became distorted in committee and an attitude prevailed that was inspired by fear rather than hope.
The spectre of monster-generating cloning was brandished, leading to the absurd conclusion that it is better to let supernumerary embryos die or be destroyed rather than to use them for the benefit of medical research that can save human kind, our children and future generations from the scourges that have afflicted us in the past and still threaten us.
We do not want women' s bodies to be used to produce embryos for research, but it is immoral to prevent the use of those that already exist for the benefit of human kind.
Human dignity was invoked not in support of saving people from humiliating suffering but just to safeguard the first clusters of cells in the early stages of the embryo.
Never, but never in the history of human kind, has the human embryo had the kind of protection it has today.
Lawful, regulated and controlled research is being branded as about to open the door to dreadful speculation, almost as if we should ban organ transplants, which save lives, just because there may be a black market in organs.
Let us combat the black market, but do not let us sacrifice hopes of recovery!
Some invoke religious laws in order to get out of the responsibility, which strict secular ethics place on those who are democratically elected, of making choices for the common good.
What we need to do, instead, is to weigh up the values that are at stake and - proceeding with all due caution and prudence, keeping within all reasonable bounds and opposing all commercial arguments - still allow freedom of conscience, freedom of research and hope for new breakthroughs in the treatment of terrible diseases.
That is why my group hopes that the European Parliament will not go back on what it wisely decided only a fortnight ago.
Mr President, Commissioner, do we wish Europe to become a museum? This was the question put by one of my colleagues in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, having studied the report on human genetics.
This debate raises many ethical issues and possesses many ethical dimensions.
On the one hand, we have the important ethical dimension of respect for human dignity and for the individual and, on the other, an ethically motivated desire to relieve suffering.
It is the first of these dimensions, that of respect for the individual, which has dominated the committee' s report.
Although we are not now debating legislation, we are sending important signals to those concerned with these issues, that is, the research community and people with illnesses.
Are we signalling to the research community that it is hardly worth trying to carry out promising stem cell research in Europe? Are we signalling to patients suffering illnesses that currently cannot be cured or treated that we do not wish to explore avenues of research which might lead to relief for them?
As Liberals, we have the greatest respect for knowledge and research, including stem cell research.
At this stage, we do not know the exact implications for humans, but animal experiments have produced promising results.
We must not, therefore, rule out embryonic stem cell research.
Rather, it must be able to proceed in parallel with research into other stem cells, as parallel research will enable us to increase our knowledge base.
Each needs the other.
We believe that public support for research is vital in order to ensure that the results benefit as broad a range of people as possible and, indeed, the whole world.
We should have liked to have seen the sixth framework programme for research support therapeutic cloning.
A total ban on certain forms of research leads to greater risks of abuse and risk-taking.
There are certainly elements of the research which ought to be monitored by public bodies, and I believe that public support also increases the opportunities for such monitoring.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party thinks it is vital for discussions to continue and, above all, to be conducted in greater depth.
However, no one should have a monopoly on ethical issues.
Personally, I am highly sceptical of the way in which the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, which advises the Commission, has been operating.
Its work has certainly not been conducted openly.
Nor do I believe that critical debate has been permitted within the group.
In Parliament too, we must consider the matter in much greater depth than we were able to do in the temporary committee, particularly in terms of issues such as insurance, genetics and working conditions.
However, the genetics debate should be conducted in all the committees in order to achieve a greater balance of views than is currently the case.
Finally, I should like, on behalf of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, to state that we are unable to vote in favour of the report in its current form.
Only if certain amendments are adopted in the final report shall we be able to offer our support.
Mr President, the first human cloning experiments in the USA must be a warning to us to call a clear halt to all human cloning today.
The distinction between therapeutic and reproductive cloning is a semantic ploy.
In both cases, an embryo is produced, declared surplus, destroyed and used as a raw material.
We must therefore come out quite clearly against cloning because the deliberate creation of life for research purposes is a violation of human dignity.
Human beings must never be a means to an end.
Human life is not a consumable commodity.
It must not be reduced to a commodity and the production of human embryos for spare parts is incompatible with human dignity; for us, and we must make that clear today, human dignity clearly takes precedence over research.
Therapeutic cloning paves the way for reproductive cloning and has a bandwagon effect.
We must impose a clear ban on therapeutic cloning, otherwise there will be no way of stopping the risk of escalation in the worldwide consumption of embryos.
Embryonic stem cell research also involves the destruction of embryos.
Here, too, the main purpose is therapeutic cloning.
We must, therefore, send a clear signal today that we do not want a society where women become suppliers of eggs and embryos become lucrative merchandise.
Adult stem cell research provides us with a clear alternative to embryonic stem cell research, making therapeutic cloning unnecessary.
When it comes to patenting, too, we must quite clearly expect the Commission to put a clear end to the current situation, where it is unclear what can be patented, and give the Member States clear guidance here, because we must not reinterpret the discovery of human life as an invention.
Human life is not created by third parties.
We, therefore, need a very clear signal.
Europe must not be an ethical minefield.
We need clear ethical boundaries.
We cannot have loopholes in the law and human dignity must clearly be our guiding principle.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, encounters between politics and research are not always easy.
Research itself is impossible to imagine without risks.
At the present time, research on stem cells is just beginning, and we do not have time to wait for its results in ten or twelve years' time.
That was the whole point of the committee that we created last year.
Last week, when we voted on the Sixth Research Framework Programme, we voted in favour of a hierarchical classification of priorities and funding for genetics research.
I agree with that restrained vote, which is in line with the opinion of the European Ethics Committee.
The risk identified by today' s report is that medical research involves the desire to clone human beings. The report proposes that any attempt in that direction should be prohibited, and, above all, penalised.
I welcome, in particular, the fact that we went further than simply declaring a prohibition, and I campaigned to make reproductive cloning criminal.
However, must we infer from this that the therapeutic aspect of research into stem cells, whether adult or embryonic, should be condemned and rejected? Who is attributing to today' s scientists and researchers these projects that are bound to be diabolical?
Is it the researchers themselves, or is it other people? We must avoid lumping together the two types of cloning, and here I disagree with the previous speaker, and perhaps we should regard the human race as being capable of producing guarantees and controls.
I would remind you of the story of Frankenstein' s monster, which is one of the founding myths of our modern world.
The monster asked his creator to give him a female companion, if you remember.
Professor Frankenstein started to create the female equivalent of the monster.
He started, but then he refused to create a fiancée for him.
In doing so, he refused to give the monster the possibility of producing descendants, thereby condemning him to solitude and death.
So that was the end of the story of Frankenstein' s monster.
In this myth, which is one of the founding myths of our era, the human race showed its capacity to exercise control over itself.
Now, if we assume that there will be cloning for therapeutic purposes, and remember that this will involve stem cells, there are two human issues involved here, and I should like to conclude by reminding you of what they are, namely the status of the embryo and the use of women' s bodies.
These are complicated issues, and there are some people who do not know the difference between cells and embryos, and who do not want to see any research carried out, not even on the supernumerary embryos resulting from medically assisted reproductive procedures, or on embryos resulting from abortions.
Let us be quite clear about this, in expressing this view they are once again bringing up the question of whether abortion should be a criminal offence.
That is politics, not research.
Other people, including myself, point out that the production of stem cells requires the use of oocytes produced by women.
We must be careful, and here I agree with other female speakers, not to exploit women for research purposes, and I very much regret the fact that, at a recent meeting of the coordinators, which unfortunately I did not attend, it was decided to do away with recital AJ, which was one of my amendments, without there having been any collective consultation.
We have therefore re-tabled it.
That leads me, finally, to emphasise that there is concern on two fronts, firstly, concern on the part of those who want to re-launch the campaign against a woman' s right to abortion, and, secondly, concern on the part of those who would be involved for the purpose of commercialising women' s bodies.
It is complicated and it is difficult.
Having said that, there are some things in this report that I have set my heart on: the need to ensure that no payment is involved, the need for consent, and the requirement that there should be no discrimination, as regards employment and insurance, based on genetic tests.
Mr President, this is obviously an important debate and I share the concern of Members who are anxious to support research to enable the genuine and continual advance of medicine and the improvement of the quality of life for the individual and society, while at the same time, safeguarding the dignity of each individual from abuse, resulting from breaches of the ethical standards necessary for the implementation of these safeguards.
Scientists who deliberately ignore these safeguards are doing a disservice to science and are acting contrary to the common good.
Events of recent days clearly bring this possibility into focus and must surely alert Parliament to the need for quick and positive action.
While not wishing to dispute assurances given by researchers that the breakthrough is not aimed at creating a human being, the reality is that such a fundamental issue cannot now be entrusted to individuals who are free to operate outside existing legislation.
On behalf of my group, I fully support the provisions of paragraphs 54 and 55 of the motion for resolution which call for a ban on human cloning, regardless of the technique used, and on other activities which are intended to result in the modification of the human gene line.
For citizens, and indeed parliamentarians, this is a sensitive and complex issue and I do not consider myself qualified to deal with the many scientific arguments in this debate.
But of this I am certain: society will not tolerate, and must be protected from, any intrusion, deliberate or otherwise, that reduces the dignity and the sanctity of each human being to an object of scientific manipulation.
We, who share in the wonderment of our creation, must act now in the interests of mankind.
Mr President, it is disappointing that we are only now able to deal with the important report of the temporary committee on human genetics.
The Fiori report provides an ethical framework for genetic research, but, unfortunately, this is partly shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, since the financing of this research is established in the sixth framework programme.
I appeal to the Council, where this subject has still to be dealt with, to use a well-considered ethical framework.
This would mean, at any rate, that research which is banned in one or more Member States, such as research with human embryos, would never be eligible for Community funding.
The Fiori report gives a good overview of the ethical and other dilemmas that this research on human genetics entails.
The temporary committee has put a year' s hard work into it and, in general, I am satisfied with the report before us.
The report was radically modified by the rapporteur after revision.
That was certainly necessary, but I still find something lacking.
Not a particular topic, because all topics relating to human genetics are tackled in this report, but nevertheless ...
My Christian philosophy sees this world with all its plants, animals and human beings as God' s creation.
A creation which God imbued with numerous possibilities.
As a result, man is able to find solutions to problems.
I believe that man must search for therapies and treatments for disease and that he is entitled to find them.
I refuse, however, to believe that research into the curing of diseases must involve the use of human embryos.
An embryo is a potential human being, contains all the ingredients necessary to become a person and is one of God' s creatures and as such deserving of protection from the very beginning.
To repeat the words of the philosopher Immanuel Kant: "Act in such a way that you use man partly as an end and never as simply a means" .
And if human embryos are used for research and are destroyed in the process, that is precisely what is happening.
This applies both to embryos left over from in-vitro fertilisation and to embryos produced specially for research purposes.
We were astonished to hear reports that human embryos have been cloned in the United States.
This instrumentalisation of incipient human life is morally completely unacceptable.
Fortunately, Commissioner Busquin followed President Bush in condemning this experiment.
The Fiori report rightly calls for a ban on this therapeutic cloning.
Apart from that, I have serious misgivings about the exaggerated expectations aroused by some researchers and also by some of us, not only among healthy citizens, but worse, still, among patients.
If this type of research ever finds therapeutic application at all, it will not be for at least another one to two decades.
But what of the splendid therapies that can be developed with the aid of stem cells? Should we not develop and use them?
I believe so, but again, not at the expense of human embryos. Hence it is a miracle, and I see it as a blessing from God, that adult stem cells have been discovered.
These stem cells, which are found in the umbilical cord, fat tissue and brain tissue, can be differentiated and also form a rich diversity of tissue types.
So let us put all our resources, expertise and not least funding into developing therapies with the aid of this promising adult stem cell research.
I congratulate rapporteur Fiori on the fruit of his labours presently before us, and hope that it emerges unscathed from this session.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, seldom has Parliament come up against such a sensitive and, at the same time, such an important subject as that dealt with in the Fiori report. This subject is utterly and completely political, a proper subject for the legislator, as we radicals have been trying in vain to make people understand in our country; it is a subject for society, concerning, first and foremost, the millions and millions of people suffering from, so far, incurable diseases, who look to us for an answer which may bring them real hope of health and life.
Today we are potentially faced with one of those great changes in the story of human kind, comparable to the discovery of penicillin or vaccines.
We are faced with a decisive choice that it would be unrealistic and tragic to hold back from.
From this viewpoint, I regret to say, the excellent and instructive work by Mr Fiori has given way to a base text that is the result of the combined provisions of two fundamentalisms that are well rooted in this Parliament, which, like any fundamentalism, would like Europe to stand still while, all around it, the world is moving on.
The spirit of Galileo is with us today.
For us radicals, today' s choice should be clear: 'no' to the Fiori report as it stands; 'yes' to most of the amendments tabled, to achieve freedom of scientific research; 'yes' to all kinds of therapeutic research that can give life and not death to the life that really exists, not that which is only present in textbooks and now lies in laboratory freezers, waiting to be destroyed; and so 'yes' to research on stem cells, which are, in practical terms, more malleable; 'yes' to research on supernumerary embryos that have no chance of life; 'yes' to therapeutic cloning, which - as stated authoritatively by the Nobel Prize-winner, Professor Dulbecco, only yesterday and the former Italian health minister Mr Veronesi today - has nothing whatever to do with human cloning; in short, 'yes' to an adult, secular Europe that is responsible in the matter of research.
Mr President, I simply wish to inform you that the students reading for the Masters degree in political science of the Spanish Government' s external and Latin American foundation are present in the guest' s gallery.
They are a distinguished group of young politicians - local councillors, members of parliament, high-level officials of public administrations - from various Latin American countries who are visiting us and who have spent a fruitful working stay in Brussels this week. They are a good illustration, Mr President, of the increasingly close ties between Europe and Latin America.
Thank you, Mr Vidal-Quadras.
I agree with you.
Mr President, much attention has been given to the matter we are working on today.
We have interviewed many experts and made many visits.
We have conferred with parliamentary colleagues at home and abroad, from both Member States and candidate countries.
There have been many private conversations, and after all this input I have formed a completely personal opinion on this matter, which is both complex and ethically charged.
I should like to note that I certainly respect every judgment conscientiously arrived at.
A division into left or right, conservative or modern, is not relevant here.
Consequently I cannot permit my view or that of other colleagues to be branded as fundamentalist in this House, as has just happened.
Mr President, my view and voting behaviour are largely in accordance with what has been agreed in our group.
I differ on one point: I am in favour of the use of residual embryos from IVF, but wish to limit the deliberate creation of extra embryos.
I am opposed to the blocking off of avenues potentially offered by therapeutic cloning for one day curing such diseases as Parkinson' s and Alzheimer' s.
Reproductive cloning has never been at issue and an absolute international ban is called for.
I reject the production of embryos solely for research.
In my view, we are dealing with a problem of definitions in the case of therapeutic cloning.
Is it permissible for the nucleus of an ovum of mine, combined with a skin cell, to serve at some point in the future to make a heart cell for me?
Finally, patent law is inadequate: the inviolability of the human body is established, but the legislation is ambiguous and as a result patents are granted that are not in the service of mankind or of possible cures.
I would therefore ask my D66 and VVD colleagues who voted differently in the discussion of the report, to support our group on this point too.
Mr President, after about a year of intensive investigation into human genetics and its effects on medicine, after countless hearings and conversations during on the spot fact-finding visits, I now have less hope than when I started. I am thoroughly disappointed.
The Temporary Committee on Human Genetics and Other New Technologies in Modern Medicine did not reach the destination I expected.
The committee' s report will not create the basis for coherent legislation on biotechnology in the Member States of the European Union that many, like myself, were looking for.
Instead, the chaos of opinions voiced in the amendments in plenum looks like leaving it in shreds. In the end those shreds will no longer fit together properly.
I therefore ask you, honourable Members, at least to allow us to prevent the worst.
Let us vote only for what takes balanced account of the social, economic and legal aspects and not steamroller through narrow ethical boundaries.
The European Parliament must not fail here.
We must set standards here.
In a representative democracy, setting standards is the duty of the directly elected parliament and is not left to governments, let alone to forces that are not primarily dedicated to the common good.
At consultations last weekend in Nantes, the German and French governments pointed the way for a common position on the economic and ethical questions raised by biotechnology.
To quote from a German federal government document: "Such agreement between Germany and France could be the prelude to broader agreement at European level."
The European Parliament can shorten the way and set out the markers today.
The Committee on Human Genetics, as we call it for short, has carefully compiled the necessary information and the spectrum of appraisals.
Now, Parliament as a whole, must show science, medicine and business in the Union' s Member States the way forward for the biotechnological revolution.
But we must not fall into the trap of a wrong kind of belief in progress.
Not every step forward taken by human beings is, at the same time, also progress for humanity.
We must not submit to ideologies or dogmas either, however, let alone seek to establish new ones.
Many feel so uncertain in the ethical realm that they would rather forget it.
But there is a lot of clarity here. Sometimes we simply do not see it.
For example, a fertilised human egg cell can only become a human being and nothing else.
So human dignity must be protected from the time the male sperm is united with the female egg.
This absolutely fundamental right has been put in writing again and again, most recently at the start of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
All we have to do is stick to it.
Given that, we cannot allow cloning, for whatever purpose, neither reproductive nor therapeutic.
It cannot be allowed.
Given that, too, we cannot allow embryos to be used, let alone created, for research.
The medical ethos of helping and healing at least stands in the way of deliberate interventions in the human germ line, but a look at the consequences, which are catastrophic in every respect, does so too.
I will leave the matter there.
When it comes to the vote at midday today, we shall have to respect a number of other limits.
But today we must also express our support for progress in the biological sciences.
With the right support, they may perhaps bring us closer to fulfilling the dream of conquering disease and suffering, and we should give much greater support than we have hitherto to the alternatives in the realm of adult stem cells, for example.
I think that is really where the future lies.
Mr President, today' s debate is an extremely important one. In fact, what we are discussing is nothing less than life itself.
We are talking about scientific research with the potential to cure serious human diseases such as Parkinson' s, Alzheimer' s, MS, diabetes and perhaps even AIDS, to improve or prolong life.
It is definitely not a question we should treat lightly.
It therefore strikes me as a sorry state of affairs when this Parliament explicitly refuses to acknowledge the distinction between reproductive and therapeutic cloning: the former aims at the creation of new human beings, the latter at the creation of new tissue.
Directly or indirectly banning the latter means ruling out a host of scientific possibilities that might help human beings.
There is no trace of subsidiarity in this report.
Ethical and moral dilemmas especially should be solved as closely as possible to the people they affect, since they appeal directly to personal conscience.
For this reason, the call to the Commission to come up with legislation cannot command the approval of my group.
Finally, I am bound to say that I am offended by the monopoly that some right-wing and Green MEPs lay claim to in the ethical field.
Some fellow MEPs give the impression that the most restrictive view is automatically the ethically superior one.
Therefore, if we restrict or even ban promising research, which might bring the sick a cure or an alleviation of their suffering or even save their lives, that is a decision with profound ethical implications.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to support Mr Fiori's report, which I think has struck the right balance.
My views have changed in the course of the past year as a result of the evidence we have heard on the temporary committee.
I have two basic concerns: firstly, much of the evidence suggests that developments on embryonic stem cell research may not deliver the results we all want in terms of progress on some of the most serious illnesses that afflict many members of our society and many of our own families; secondly, in the course of this research, we will allow people, and in particular, women suffering from infertility to be exploited.
I am not against embryo research - as an infertility sufferer myself, I have benefited from it and I have donated surplus embryos for research purposes - but we need to be sure that to achieve the aims that we all want, we do not focus in one direction only, while neglecting other areas of research which hold equal if not more promise of success.
Mr President, many people still suffer from incurable degenerative diseases that affect the whole body, such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson' s, Alzheimer' s, diabetes and leukaemia.
Others, in an otherwise healthy body, have poorly functioning or damaged vital organs, such as heart, kidneys, liver or lungs.
As human beings we have succeeded in changing all kinds of things in the world outside ourselves, but can still only solve our own physical defects to a very limited extent.
We find the repair and enhancement of our physical fabric quite simply horrific.
Is man about to act like his own creator and does that conflict with the purpose for which people were put on earth?
Few people will be enthusiastic about creating invulnerable superhumans who will eventually oust normal human beings.
In addition, the sacrifice of human life in order to improve the quality of other lives, evokes feelings of cannibalism.
The discussion is sometimes about extremes.
One extreme position is the desire to ban all scientific research and imprison researchers, the other is the wish to allow every commercial use, such as those, for example, being developed by the American company Advanced Cell Technology, and hence making possible, at the individual level, everything that wealthy people can and are prepared to pay for.
I reject both extremes.
The use of stem cells from one' s own body or if necessary from residual embryos, is defensible.
Any creation of separate life for this purpose should be preceded by investigation of alternatives, and with the trade in embryos we are definitely overstepping the bounds of acceptability.
That also applies to the valuing and modification of human life at the request of the insurers.
Weighing everything up, I feel closer to the line followed by Mr Caudron than to that of Mr Fiori.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for once the European Parliament is not lagging behind history.
Just as an American company succeeds in cloning a human embryo, the temporary committee on human genetics publishes its report, a report which is, incidentally, an excellent one.
In effect, it protects the human embryo by prohibiting cloning, whether for reproductive or for therapeutic purposes.
It prohibits European public funding for research on the human embryo, advising the use of supernumerary embryos for infertile couples, and, finally, making maximum use of work on adult stem cells.
Mankind is not the owner of life: it simply has the right to enjoy the use of that life.
Human beings cannot, therefore, appropriate for themselves even a part of this heritage, which is, by its very nature, inalienable.
Those who want to get rich by playing the sorcerer' s apprentice will one day have to pay royalties to the Creator.
The human embryo should never be reduced to the status of mere laboratory material, or of a tool used for commercial purposes.
This is why the legislators must define, for the embryo, a status which fills the current loophole in the law, in particular by forbidding the patenting of living beings.
Given that the human genetic mechanism is so fragile and complex, and that it is also associated with the mysterious and the sacred, it would be flying in the face of humanity' s evolution, its past and its future, to reap ephemeral gains under the pretext of carrying out research.
I, and my colleagues in the National Front, defend the integrity and the dignity of human life, from conception to natural death.
Those who are opposed to this view have already, unwittingly, entered the realms of barbarism.
To manipulate the mystery of life is to condemn the human race to catastrophes even more terrible than those caused by mad cow disease and Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.
Mr President, the scientific news which has broken over the last few days has created a dramatic backdrop to the presentation of the Fiori report.
More important for me, however, are the numerous letters which I have received from scientific academies, medical companies and patient associations begging us not to clamp down on such promising and hopeful research.
New knowledge about human genetics will help us understand at which points genetic dynamics are vulnerable and open to environmental factors and pressure and the way in which we live, thereby allowing us to develop new strategies for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illnesses.
Stem cell research may well have new applications in treating illnesses such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's, leukaemia and many others.
However, the boundaries on research in these fields must be marked out if we are to avoid ethical, social and legal problems.
This was the point of the amendments which I tabled, together with other Members, as we did with the Caudron report, so as to allow the pioneering research, which I have described, to progress while striking the balance needed in order to avoid ethical problems.
So we can look forward at some point in the future to the beneficial medical applications which this research promises.
I trust that the European Parliament will support the line being marked out and strike the right balance between progress and ethical considerations.
Ôhe text being put to the vote must allow for research into new applications so that, where possible, we can liberate society from the misery caused by disease.
It should be informed not by confusion or fear or by reaction to something we do not fully understand, but by the courage to strive for new achievements which man has demonstrated ever since the time of Prometheus.
Mr President, this debate is concerned with questions that are essential to humanity, such as what is life and how can we halt that ineluctable march towards death which is a characteristic of any existence? To pass on life to another, surely that is the profound meaning of evolution, the only moral law, moreover, which is indifferent to our concepts of morality?
Life is undoubtedly a process.
It is pointless to try to define the point at which life begins.
Some people believe that it begins with the fusion of a spermatozoon with an ovum, yet each spermatozoon is alive, even though billions of them move around in vain.
An ovum that is not fertilised ceases to live.
The embryo, as it divides into two, then four, eight and sixteen and more cells, is the process of the living being.
Until the fourth day, each cell is totipotent, and contains all the genetic information of a potential human being.
Yet in order to become that human being, the embryo has to become implanted in a uterus and develop there for several months.
However, an embryo is not just a type of material.
Therefore, there have to be very good reasons for sacrificing it.
Generally speaking, our societies accept abortion in order to preserve the physical or mental health of a mother.
Cannot this idea of the lesser of two evils also be applied to supernumerary embryos for which potential parenting no longer exists? Is it not better to use those embryos for serious research, rather than destroying them?
No one in this House defends reproductive cloning, but the possibilities opened up by therapeutic cloning deserve to be the subject of in-depth and properly integrated research.
Our society accepts serious medical research carried out on foetuses, children, adults and corpses.
Why should there be special rules for embryos alone?
I would argue in favour of science, in favour of the right to know more.
I argue in favour of public funding for this essential research.
It would be irresponsible to leave it to the market sector alone.
As with any research, there is no guarantee that it will be successful, but we must follow any serious leads.
This applies to research into adult stem cells as well as to research into any of the 216 types of cells that make up the human body. Only a score of those have the power of pluripotency.
Nor can we neglect research into embryonic stem cells. They are pluripotent by nature, and may be of assistance in regenerating all the types of tissue that go to make up the human body.
I am convinced that genetic science will continue, with or without Europe, but I hope that Europe will not be left behind in this revolution.
I respect those Members who have doubts, who see the risks rather than the hopes, but I do not accept that we should use the essential defence of human dignity as a sort of bludgeon to silence those who do not wish to reduce the whole of human dignity to a collection of cells. Where would that leave the dignity of those who suffer a thousand deaths before actually dying, or those who are sunk in the depths of disease or dementia?
Can we really concentrate on the defence of burgeoning human life, when beings already alive are too often ignored, neglected and oppressed? Surely the search for new treatments for cruel diseases, for genetic predispositions or - even worse - predestinations, is the true defence of human dignity?
Mr President, Mr Fiori' s report on genetics marks an important stage in the European and international debate on a sensitive, far-reaching issue which demands close attention in the political world because of the responsibilities it involves.
Science must make progress and move forwards, and we only know a tiny fraction of what there is to know, not least about the cells we are talking about.
That does not, however, mean that anything goes: just as freedom is, in itself, an absolute value but is never absolute because of the way things are, so science and scientific research are vital assets because of the important discoveries that can be put at the service of human kind but they cannot be considered absolute, that is to say, removed from legal, ethical or moral constraints.
The position of the European Republicans, the Democrats and the Italy of values thus coincides with the position expressed in the vote on the Caudron report: it rejects human cloning and genetic manipulation but supports the priority funding of research on adult stem cells and embryo stem cells derived from spontaneous and therapeutic abortions, subject to strict public control.
Ladies and gentlemen, the great area of debate between bioethics and law has been opened up, but it should not be approached from moralistic positions because the distinction is not between progressive secular people and conservative Catholics, that is a black-and-white, simplistic view, but rather between those who believe that science should be allowed to do anything, even if it goes against the dignity of life, and those who believe that that should not be possible.
Our thanks, in any case, go to Mr Fiori: we believe that his is an important piece of work, especially if our major amendments are accepted; it will be a good basis for reflection from now onwards and for preventing major discoveries from becoming patented property for the use and consumption of the powerful rather than being placed at the service of all human kind.
Mr President, we are unanimously opposed to reproductive cloning, which shows how dangerous it is. However, why should we distinguish it, semantically, from therapeutic cloning, when it is actually the same thing?
Does the addition of the word 'therapeutic' change the act?
Have we been able to separate civil nuclear energy from military nuclear energy? This is all the more important since these new techniques require the accelerated production of oocytes, and we know what that means in terms of the exploitation of women' s bodies, the secondary effects on women, and the trafficking in human eggs.
Moreover, research on adult stem cells opens up the same prospects, though without the ethical problem.
I should just like to say a word about 'gene therapy' . More often than not, the genetic element is a predisposition to a disease, and it is external factors which trigger the onset of that disease.
Are we going to modify a gene merely on account of a predisposition, when we now know, following the discovery of the human genome, that a gene modifies other functions which are as yet unknown to us?
Ladies and gentlemen, it is not on the basis of any religious conviction, but rather as an atheist, that I strongly urge caution.
Mr President, it is mankind's misfortune, in my view, that recent discoveries in the field of biotechnology have come at a time when the capitalist system still prevails.
With the inhumane, exploitative regime under which we live today, where discoveries such as this come second to the quest for profit, it is pie in the sky to imagine they might be used for the benefit of mankind.
On the contrary, we must expect them to serve the interests of monopolies in this sector.
It will come as no surprise to us, for example, if a market in human ovaries, embryos and stem cells springs up or if new therapies are only available to those with plenty of hard cash.
In all events, ladies and gentlemen, we must proceed very cautiously with genetic engineering.
I for one cannot overlook the fact that life took a billion years to develop on our planet and evolved by natural selection.
Now we can intervene in the evolutionary process and we may perhaps see the immediate results, but we have no idea what will happen in one million year's time.
And if you think that is a rather long time frame, may I assure you, as an astronomer, that the sun will be in the sky for another 4.5 billion years.
We also face the depraved phenomenon of applications for patents on living organisms and human genomes.
Our view is clear.
It should not be possible to patent any part of the human body, not one cell, not one atom.
We are also categorically opposed to the use of genetic codes by employers, insurance companies, secret services etc.
The Fiori report contains interesting and useful views on a number of questions.
In several articles it points to the risks inherent in commercialisation, especially for the less well off sections of the population.
However, in the final analysis, it remains, to a large degree, within the confines of competitiveness and takes an almost neutral stand on the legal issue.
Let the debate which we are bringing to a close today mark the beginning of a more general reflection on the problem and the starting point for a more responsible stand on these issues.
Mr President, bioethics, or the ethics of the living being, forces us to face certain basic questions, and it is an honour for this House that we should be discussing them today. What is our conception of the human being?
Is it a utilitarian or scientific conception, in which human beings, and, in particular, the weakest human beings, are placed in the service of science, or is it a humanist conception, which places science in the service of human beings? What constitutes the dignity of the human being?
Are we to accept the view that dignity may vary according to age, ability, health, or the manner in which an embryo is created? No, at a time when laboratories are challenging the consciences of the whole world, I would like Parliament to insist that we all have the same dignity and the same humanity.
What is the point of scientific research?
Are we going to allow research to become the mirage of a new financial Eldorado? No, research must retain the nobility of its purpose - to be at the service of human beings, and in particular to relieve suffering, to assist and care for the disabled, and to improve living conditions for everyone, including those in developing countries.
There must be no contradiction between the dignity of the embryo and that of the sick person.
Our position must therefore be consistent and well founded.
We must not be subject to the whims of the moment, but must base our position on respect for the dignity of the human being, which is the only guarantee of scientific progress.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Fiori' s report is ambitious and balanced.
It is ambitious because it does not only deal with genome research, which is perhaps a fashionable topic, but it also discusses all the issues arising from and relating to that research: the uses of genetic information, the patentability of products and procedures derived from living matter, the conditions for genetic tests, cloning, research into mother cells and the research framework programme.
And it is balanced because it presents balanced solutions which are far-removed from any particular fundamentalist position.
Therefore, with regard to mother cells, a distinction is made between embryonic mother cells and so-called adult cells, priority is given to research into the latter - which is very promising - and it is considered that the conditions for producing and obtaining mother cells endanger the integrity of the woman' s body in the case of therapeutic cloning, and this is therefore rejected, or surplus embryos, a practice which is also therefore rejected.
Some argue, in the name of freedom of research, that it should be possible to carry out unrestricted experiments as long as the final objective is therapeutic.
Ladies and gentlemen, research is essential and it must be a special priority, but, like all rights, it has its limits, and human dignity, in particular, provides us with an unassailable limit.
Those of us who believe in this dignity and who try to protect all living beings, cannot sacrifice our values on the altar of freedom of research as the supreme and unrestricted ethical standard, especially when that freedom actually becomes the freedom to carry out the research which is the most profitable for the big pharmaceutical groups.
Today they are presenting us with visions of the future as if they were already realities, when really they are still only promises.
Mr President, the rapporteur has had sufficient courage to avoid simplifications and to deal thoroughly with the issue in a serious and balanced way.
His report is based on an ethical position which is acceptable to everybody, rather than certain religious positions, which are worthy of respect but which are widely rejected, nor that lay ethic which has been referred to today as a supposed supreme standard, which is equally rejected.
I therefore believe that the report deserves our full support.
Mr President, when we decided, about a year ago, to set up the temporary parliamentary committee on human genetics and other new technologies in modern medicine, we did not for a minute imagine that the vote in question would coincide with statements by Heads of State, scientists, private companies and other interested parties.
The announcement about advance cell technology, which uses cloning to create human embryos, makes today's vote even more crucial.
The debates which have been held have brought minor differences to light in important sectors, such as the protection of human rights, the inviolability of human dignity, the right to self-determination, the confidentiality of personal data, respect for people with disabilities and the ban on discriminatory treatment of employees on the basis of genetic criteria.
It was easy to reach a broad consensus on these issues.
The Commission also agreed that genetic information on living human beings could not be patented.
There was also almost unanimous agreement within the temporary committee on banning funding for research into reproductive cloning.
However, it was on the sensitive issue of therapeutic cloning that the debate and differences of opinion took up most of our time.
The lack of any international framework or regulations for applying this research and the risk of embryos being created in obscenely large or commercial numbers were behind some of the relatively strong reservations.
Clearly, it will not be feasible to reach a broad consensus in this sector for the time being and the work of the temporary committee must continue so that a more detailed investigation can be carried out.
I am positive that, if we can achieve international agreement and if private- and public-sector agencies operate in scientifically predetermined areas on the basis of agreed protocols, then the reservations which I mentioned will be put aside.
This is the only way to resolve chronic health problems without running the risk of abuse which infringes the charter of human rights on human dignity, which are principles and values which must take precedence over freedom of research.
Mr President, this debate is about much more than our view of human genetics: it also about the role we assign ourselves as European politicians in the assessment of ethics, science and the integrity of the European citizen.
I have no monopoly on truth and I believe that it behoves us to show humility.
Citizens are quite capable of taking their own decisions honourably and conscientiously.
Personally, I am in favour of scientific research that is as free as possible, with the possible prospect of a cure for hitherto incurable diseases like Parkinson' s, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, although in the latter case you can, of course, simply stop smoking.
The work of our committee has shown that European science treats its responsibility conscientiously.
I cannot square with my conscience the fact that we do not support and in some cases even ban the types of research under discussion, including therapeutic cloning and stem cell research using residual embryos.
Of course, others reach different conclusions and I respect that, but we should take note of the fact that different Member States will arrive at different legislation.
Therefore I find myself unable to support the motion before us, if it remains unchanged.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report on a difficult subject.
I believe that Parliament must firmly reject human cloning.
Recent developments in the United States are alarming indeed, but we cannot allow experimentation with, or a market in, human life.
Technically speaking, there is no difference between therapeutic and reproductive cloning.
If we allow human cloning to proceed under the guise of therapeutic cloning, we risk abuses which I fear would result in the production of a handicapped or impaired child.
This is my greatest fear about this experimentation and I believe those fears are well-founded in some of the statements made, such as those of Dr Antinori.
Human embryos should not be created for research purposes, but this has indeed already happened in the US this summer.
Patent protection must be excluded from such experimentation.
Women are being used as the raw material for such research because there is an invasive procedure to extract eggs, the raw material for cloning.
There is already a commercial trade in this, which is very reprehensible.
Mr President, if Europe is to be the most competitive and dynamic economy in the world, as proudly stated at the Lisbon Council, then we must provide the conditions and the environment which will encourage our scientists to test the frontiers of knowledge.
We cannot hobble that search and yet we must also uphold the dignity of the human person. What is human dignity?
What is the dignity of someone with Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, cystic fibrosis or quadriplegia resulting from spinal injury? Yes, the embryo also is due dignity, but we have large numbers of supernumerary embryos resulting from in vitro fertilisation and these are usually frozen and ultimately destroyed.
Is it not better that these be made available for research purposes, with parental permission, rather than they be uselessly destroyed?
It is vital that any such research in these sensitive areas be done under strict regulation and only in those countries where it is permitted and where there is adequate regulation.
To my friends I would say, the Good Samaritan crossed the road and helped his neighbour: your neighbour may have Parkinson's disease, or Alzheimer's disease or spinal injury, or diabetes.
With due respect, would you pass by on the other side?
This report also touches on the issue of the patenting of biotechnological inventions, Directive 98/44.
This Directive has passed through all the legislative processes necessary in the European Union to make it law, Commission, Council and Parliament.
Transposition, however, is years behind.
It is surely up to the Commission to insist with all the legal powers at its disposal on transposition in all the remaining countries.
Too often, in all these areas of advance, the Commission and the Member States use fine words and then dither and dally weakly while Europe falls yet further behind.
Commissioner, please be robust.
Please stand up for the future of Europe.
Mr President, the ethical dimension of this debate is crucial, but we must not stop there: we must also discuss power.
Who has the final say over the human body?
The bio-patent directive regulates that power.
Unfortunately this directive is not completely transparent.
The opportunities for patents are formulated in overly broad terms and, as a result, power shifts one-sidedly to the big patent-holders.
We must provide a counterweight.
In the first place, we must subject the directive to a thorough evaluation of its socio-economic consequences, and, if necessary, propose an amendment.
Secondly, we must ensure that pharmaceutical companies communicate with the public.
There must be public influence on a research agenda.
What do we want to know, what can we know and who is allowed to know what we know?
Thirdly, we must make sure that gene therapy remains accessible to all.
Gene therapy is so costly for the time being and that may threaten accessibility.
Fourthly, we must ask ourselves what the results of the medical revolution are: we are living longer, we are becoming more individual, we are banishing ailments, and all that has consequences for human relationships, for the labour market and for health care.
Finally, we must draw up a public research agenda, which we must not allow to be delimited by artificial, ethical boundaries.
We must move from a narrow ethics based on orthodox religion to a broadly based social ethics.
The sixth framework programme plays an essential part in this, but cooperation between national public institutions is at least as important.
Mr President, I speak on behalf of a substantial minority of my group that wishes to promote scientific research into embryonic stem cells and also supports therapeutic cloning: it is precisely with gene technology that medical breakthroughs can be achieved that would otherwise be impossible.
We firmly reject reproductive cloning, not only of human beings but also of animals.
We do not share the Christian and obscurantist motivation of the majority of the Fiori report.
The view that therapeutic cloning automatically leads to reproductive cloning is untenable.
This is what we do not support the Fiori report in its present form.
Mr President, at a time when our fellow citizens are asking, now that we have created the Europe of merchandise, to construct a Europe of human beings, the embryo has come to the heart of Europe.
At this point I should like to thank the President of the European Parliament for listening to the voices of some of us, following the British work last August authorising cloning for therapeutic purposes, and creating an ad hoc committee which, having held many hearings, gave rise to the Fiori report, which I welcome for its remarkable commitment to this subject.
Thus, contrary to other parliaments, such as the French Parliament, for example, we are meeting at the very moment when a private company announces that it has carried out human cloning, under cover of therapeutic purposes.
I understand the objective, but we must be aware of the fact that this objective is really, underneath, an alibi, if we remember that there is another objective underlying it, that of the lure of immeasurable profits and potential markets.
What is the real issue here? In defiance of the principle of the inalienability and non-patrimoniality of the human body from the moment of conception onwards, which is laid down in all international declarations, it has been proposed that we should become what we are fighting against, organisms genetically modified by the uncontrolled creation of embryos as a source of spare parts for human bodies, thereby making it possible to repair sick people.
We know that at any given moment in a decision-making process, there comes a time when it is necessary to look up from what we are doing and ask ourselves the question, 'Shall I go on or shall I stop' . We believe that the time has come to set a limit, because the line between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning is a very thin one, since therapeutic cloning is, in fact, nothing more than interrupted reproductive cloning.
I do not know whether I am on the side of ethics, but I am well aware, at any rate, that in expressing myself in this way I am not on the side of modernity.
Such archaic classifications are irrelevant, because I believe that the real shock to civilisation lies among the modernists, those neo-scientists who believe that the human being is a material, and those who regard the human being as an essential resource for technical purposes.
It was in that spirit that I tabled Amendment No 213 on the non-patentability of living beings, like Amendment No 212, showing that there is no difference between therapeutic and non-therapeutic cloning.
It is also in that spirit that I appeal to the President of the European Parliament to allow our committee to become a permanent one, and I appeal to the President of the Commission to involve the parliaments of Europe in bioethics, so as not to deprive the public of this debate, and finally I appeal to the Heads of State and Government to commit to an international convention on bioethics.
Firstly, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur for the work that he and his staff did in producing what was a good report until we had that regrettable vote in committee which has unfortunately now produced a report which I personally cannot support.
This debate on that report comes at a very opportune moment after American research companies announced that they had successfully cloned human embryos.
It is quite clear that if we accept this report we will fall behind the rest of the world in the development of very important treatments for cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.
This debate does not impose any legal requirements upon Member States but if the messages we send out today are heard strongly across Europe, they will have serious implications for vital areas of medical research in the future.
These proposals are restrictive and extreme.
They do not reflect a sensible and balanced approach.
If you look around Member States, for example the United Kingdom, we can see that a genuine lead has been taken to recognise the undoubted potential benefits of these technologies but also that there is the need for controls and proper licensing arrangements which reflect the very real ethical concerns.
We should not, in my view, adopt these proposals as they stand because they are unrealistic, potentially damaging and will seriously harm medical research across the whole of the European Union.
The announcement in the United States this week has quite clearly demonstrated the speed at which research is now moving and the need to move technology and regulation on at the same pace.
If these proposals become EU policy we will see the clock being turned back rather than being speeded up to keep pace with important technological developments.
Mr President, I am one of those opposed to cloning, including therapeutic cloning.
The distinction between it and reproductive cloning is mainly a semantic one and, in any case, therapeutic cloning opens the door to reproductive cloning.
Good intentions, such as the search for solutions to diseases, are not sufficient to prevent what you wish to avoid, such as, and there is unanimity on this point, reproductive cloning and eugenic research.
Those who suggest that there is no openness, that a morality is being imposed on the general public and an ethical supremacy is being claimed, are wrong: there has been a year of discussion, all points of view have been extensively aired, the testimony of scientists and experts has been heard, and in today' s vote everyone has an equal voice.
In the Netherlands, particularly, it often strikes me that liberals, when others do not agree with them, suddenly start speaking about the imposition of a morality.
That fails to do justice to the facts and to the power of independent thought of their fellow MEPs.
The suggestion that therapeutic cloning is indispensable for the preservation of human health is misleading: there are alternative research methods that are also promising.
I am against cloning and against the use of embryos, also residual embryos, because I believe that one must not use people instrumentally, as in my view the consequences are dangerous.
Anyway, it will lead to the making of choices between various kinds of human life and there are alternatives.
Research is important, but the job of government is to set frameworks.
Those frameworks must not be solely designed, as the liberals would have it, to prevent medical and scientific research from being hampered.
Nor must they, in my opinion, be inspired only by the free market and individual interest.
We must also look to the general interest: the consequences for people in general, and not just the sick, the consequences for society and for generations to come.
It is impossible that we should create life and then destroy it.
I should like to convey my congratulations to the rapporteur and am exceptionally pleased with this report.
During this debate it has at times been difficult to distinguish heat from light.
As politicians we have a duty to inform ourselves before being dogmatic and proscriptive on matters of medical and scientific research, albeit with the regulatory tool of the precautionary principle for areas of scientific uncertainty available to us.
We must allow research to continue in order to relieve the suffering of the millions with serious diseases and spinal injuries, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, motor neurone disease, diabetes, cancer, heart disease: the list is endless.
However, the proper regulation and licensing of research in the scientific community is a matter for all of us, at Member State, EU and international level, and the present state of that regulation is of some concern.
Let me be quite clear.
I draw the line under reproductive cloning, eugenics and the deliberate creation of embryos for research.
But even the Vatican does not ban all embryonic stem cell research: it accepts it on material from spontaneous abortions.
To those who would say that it is only a semantic distinction between therapeutic and reproductive cloning, I say: I have a butcher's knife in my hand, I can cut up your steak with it quite legally, or I can cut your head off with it quite illegally - proper sanctions, proper penalties.
We have so many examples of that in life today.
To not allow public funding for research which is legal in a Member State is a curious sanction: nobody is forcing any Member State to make any type of research legal.
Either the research is acceptable and respectful of human life and the dignity of humankind or it is not.
How it is funded hardly makes it more or less ethical.
Let us regulate and license research in this most sensitive and important of areas with commensurate penalties for the exceptional rogue who would put self-glory above the common good and the destiny of humankind.
Wherever you find him or her, may God direct the hands, hearts and heads of the scientific, political and medical communities at this exciting but frightening and bewildering crossroads in time as we test the frontiers of knowledge.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for a year now, we in this Parliament have had the opportunity to get to grips with the ethical, social, economic and legal issues raised by human genetics.
I want to thank Mr Fiori for his comprehensive report.
We are currently in a situation of conflict between the breathtaking progress of modern medicine and the ethical foundations of our society.
The decoding of the human genome, the discovery of the functions of the genes, new medical techniques and now stem cell therapy are opening up revolutionary new possibilities for curing quite specific diseases.
But this means that our political responsibility is also growing.
It is the task of politics to define clear boundaries and give a clear direction to values.
We simply cannot allow scientific progress and the potential treatments that result to erode ethical boundaries.
This week the firm ACT presented us with a fait accompli with the creation of a human embryo by nuclear transfer.
Ethical boundaries have clearly been crossed.
We therefore urgently need to send a clear signal from the European Parliament that human dignity must be protected from research that knows no boundaries and no taboos.
We must, therefore, speak out clearly against reproductive and therapeutic cloning of human embryos, against any interventions in the human germ line and against the production of human embryos solely for research purposes.
This ban must apply for both private and public research.
When it comes to stem cell research, I am, in principle, against research that consumes embryos.
I do, however, find the research into the 72 embryonic stem cell lines that were already in existence before 1 August 2001 acceptable in basic research.
Instead of putting life at everyone' s disposal, special support must be given to alternative research using foetal and adult stem cells.
Every human being has the right to uniqueness. As politicians, we must defend that right vehemently in future.
Mr President, I would like to join in the congratulations being expressed: our colleague, Mr Fiori, has done a tremendous job which has led to a mature and sound outcome.
We Christian Democrats have taken a reserved attitude to the creation of human embryos for cloning, for therapeutic as well as reproductive purposes.
On the other hand, we do not oppose the development of genetic technology; rather, we say 'yes' to research.
But we are anxious for this to take place in a way which respects human dignity.
A human life is of value in itself, right from its commencement, and therefore its dignity must be consciously protected.
During this past year, I have often heard it said that we cannot shackle science or call a halt to development.
This is an irritatingly inaccurate and careless statement.
We are all unanimous in agreeing that a certain type of development must be halted; after all, nobody in this room wishes to permit reproductive cloning.
Here, at least, we remember the appalling lessons of history.
But it would seem that some have forgotten that the racial hygienists at the beginning of the century were, in their day, leading scientists, not demons.
They wished to help humanity within the framework of their own world of values, just like many people do today.
For this reason it is essential that politicians now take the ethical responsibility which properly belongs to them.
We must focus our attention on what kind of values are to form the direction in which we shall advance.
When discussing the ethics of genetic technology, people often raise the ogre of the threat of the superhuman; however the true danger lies not in the idea of creating the superhuman, but in the control of the 'subhuman' .
This takes concrete form in the shape of social hygiene, in which the aim is to isolate 'wrong' forms of life from the more favoured, and to destroy the unfit.
A reminder of this has also been provided by the representatives of the disabled groups which have visited our committee: we must not create the type of society in which only the healthy are welcome.
In two senses at least, therapeutic and reproductive cloning are no different from one another.
In the technical sense, these involve the same procedure; and if we look at the case from the point of view of the embryo, in both cases this becomes a utility for someone or something other than its own, unique purpose.
How can we ensure that a subsequent step will not be towards human cloning, simply on the grounds that, technically speaking, we have already done this? There needs to be serious discussion of this now, so that we are aware of what we are really deciding.
Mr President, the debate we are conducting today touches on the fundamental questions of human existence.
Is there a right to life-long health? Is there a right to natural children or a right to healthy natural children or, ultimately, a right to eternal life, healthy of course?
New techniques are available.
We are being promised cures to many diseases. They are not proven as yet, at any rate not in the field of embryonic stem cell research.
Do we really want to be blinded by the interests of self-seeking researchers? Do we want to allow ourselves to be used by industry and its commercial interests?
The term 'therapeutic clone' is a form of misleading packaging.
It can also be used reproductively. Is the production of clones or the scavenging of 'surplus' embryos in order to use their stem cells ethically acceptable?
No, it is not acceptable. It is more like a modern form of cannibalism.
But this debate is in fact already out of date, overtaken by reality.
There are serious alternatives, adult stem cells, stem cells from umbilical cord blood.
These techniques are already showing great success in practical use, far greater than embryonic stem cell research.
There are no ethical objections to such alternatives.
It is up to politics to set boundaries.
Science is not able to do that, because it does not want to.
We must decide.
We must be courageous in the face of all challenges.
No use must be made of embryonic stem cells, regardless of whether they are cloned or surplus.
No human germ line intervention. No selection, no choice between life that is valued and life that is not, but support for research in the quest for alternatives.
Let us be courageous and set tight limits.
It is high time we did.
I congratulate Mr Fiori.
The ethical guidelines in his report were agreed after a year of debate and discussion.
There was overwhelming support for ethical research but rejection of any form of human cloning, destruction of human embryos in research, or germ line intervention.
We were disappointed therefore when the Caudron report, voted recently, provided public funding for research in conflict with these guidelines against the constitutional position of my country and three other Member States.
Now some amendments to the Fiori report go further than the Caudron report.
Amendment No 238 would allow germ line intervention for therapeutic purposes and this amendment, combined with Amendment No 237, would allow therapeutic cloning.
It is ethically wrong to harm or destroy some human lives for the potential benefit of others, and according to key international scientific leaders, research taking place in the United States is proving that using the embryo is unnecessary.
New embryology is proving that adult and other post-natal stem cells have vast biomedical potential, as great or greater than embryonic stem cell potential, which is already being described as old embryology.
So there are other successful, ethical and non-controversial alternatives.
Let us remember that some scientific breakthroughs turn out to be ethical breakdowns.
Mr President, I would like, firstly, to also congratulate Mr Fiori on his excellent report, which I fully agree with, because the very hopeful future possibilities offered to us by biotechnology must not lead us to forget that the human being cannot, under any circumstances, be used as an instrument at the service of science, and Mr Fiori' s report clearly defines ethical limits for biotechnological research.
In fact, a supposedly civilised society such as ours, which flies the flag of human rights, cannot tolerate the manipulation of the human being, even in its embryonic state, however noble the objective may be.
Therefore, research using embryonic mother cells, even if they are surplus, human cloning - of whatever kind, because it is all the same, since it means the destruction of a human being or opens the door to that possible destruction - and the creation of embryos for research, are unacceptable practices because they attack the dignity of the human being and the supreme value of life which this Parliament, and the European Union, claims to defend so passionately.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before I say anything else I should like to congratulate most sincerely the members of the temporary committee on human genetics, chaired by Mr Goebbels, and the rapporteur, Mr Fiori, who has done a great deal of work.
Recent developments in human cloning in the United States have once again highlighted the need for, and the urgency of, in-depth political reflection in this area, including and especially at European level.
As you know, since this is an own-initiative report, the Commission is not obliged to adopt a formal position on it.
However, bearing in mind the political importance of the questions that it raises, I should nevertheless like to share with you my thoughts on the main points that it deals with and the positions expressed on them in the resolution.
I shall deal with them in the order in which they have been mentioned.
On the subject of the framework conditions for human genetics, the Commission can only fully subscribe to what has been said.
In matters involving human genetics it goes without saying that ethical considerations are of paramount importance.
As Article 13 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states, research should be free but, on the other hand, technological progress may, of course, only be applied in an absolutely responsible manner.
The idea of responsible technological progress, moreover, is one of the main axes of the action plan on issues involving science and society which the Commission will shortly be announcing.
I now come to the major issues at stake.
On the subject of genetic testing, the resolution mentions, very opportunely, the question of genetic tests.
There is a real need to improve the consistency of quality standards in this field, by harmonisation or mutual recognition.
The Commission is to undertake a study of the various technical options that are possible in this area.
There is also an obvious need for genetic research into rare diseases to be better coordinated at European level.
I would also remind you that in the new framework research programme, support for creating a network of laboratories working in this field will be possible in the spirit of the resolution on rare diseases adopted in 1999 by the European Parliament and the Council.
On the subject of pharmacogenetics, the resolution also calls for the creation of a harmonised regulatory framework for the development of new genetically-based products.
As you know, there is already a harmonised framework for the developing, testing and authorising of biomedical products.
Community legislation on pharmaceutical products already applies to gene therapy and to the medicines used in cell therapy in terms of general principles.
However, in view of the constant advances being made in science and biotechnology, technical adaptations will have to be made in order to cover certain products specifically.
Thirdly, there is the issue of the use of personal data linked to genome analysis.
As far as the use of personal data is concerned, the right to the protection of one' s private life and the requirement that there must be free and informed consent are obviously essential.
The Commission will be examining the question of whether and to what extent it is necessary to update and supplement existing Community legislation on the protection of private life.
Personally, I believe that one of the points that we shall be looking at closely, is the question of how such data are used by insurance companies, a question which is, moreover, explicitly mentioned in the resolution.
On the subject of patentability, you have also mentioned the problem of the patentability of products produced using biotechnology.
This is a particularly important question which affects fundamental concepts while, at the same time, having numerous highly technical aspects.
As you know, the directive finally adopted by the Community in this field was adopted after ten years of intense debate, particularly in the European Parliament, and as yet it has been transposed into national legislation in only a certain number of Member States.
Against a background of very stiff international competition, this directive gives European researchers and industrialists an indispensable framework of common reference.
However, in view of its importance as regards innovation, the most urgent task is to establish conditions that will allow it to be applied effectively.
At this stage it is not a question of amending the directive or of reviewing its contents, but there is no doubt that certain aspects of it need to be clarified.
This directive, and the discussions to which it has given rise, illustrate the sort of relationships which it will be absolutely essential to establish between society in the broad sense and science, between the scientific community and the legislature.
Science moves rapidly, and the speed at which knowledge is acquired is accelerating, and yet it is still necessary to legislate.
It is up to the political decision-makers and the authorised public representatives to do this, and to do it responsibly.
However, the decisions taken must be subject to constant scrutiny in the light of the progress made in acquiring knowledge, in the form of an open dialogue between researchers, lawyers, policy-makers and citizens.
There is no doubt that case law will develop.
It can no more do so in a 'scientific void' than science can develop in a 'legal void' .
In order to clarify certain aspects of this question of the patentability of products resulting from biotechnology, and the application of the directive, the high-level working party on life sciences, which I set up and which is chaired by Professor Axel Kahn, was invited to deliver an opinion on this subject.
It recently announced an important declaration, which will be included in the Annual Report to the Parliament and the Council, as provided for in the directive.
This working party points out that the protection of genes by patent does not apply to those elements as they exist in their natural environment, but rather to molecules which have been isolated from the human body and are used in the context of a well-defined technical application.
It therefore emphasises the inaccurate and misleading nature of the expression 'patenting life' .
In the same spirit, the working party points out that it is, in no way, the function and consequence of the patent to make its holder the 'owner' of the protected object, but to confer on the holder the exclusive right to use the product of his or her invention for a certain period of time.
It also warns against the potential negative repercussions of strategies to take out patents that are too wide-ranging in connection with research and its medical applications.
Finally, the working party draws attention to the need to develop a real culture of intellectual property among researchers, who are often not very familiar with such realities.
It also suggests engaging in a process of collective apprenticeship and the sharing of experience in this field, bringing together the scientific community, the legal world, the political decision-makers, industry, the media and the public.
In this spirit, and in order to prepare the Annual Report to the Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the European directive on the patentability of biotechnological inventions, the Commission is planning to set up a working party of scientific and legal experts who will be able to clarify some of the aspects involved.
When the directive was being prepared, the therapeutic possibilities linked to the use of stem cells were not as clearly identified as they are today.
At the same time, therefore, the Commission has also asked the European Ethics Group for its opinion on the specific question of the patentability of products resulting from this technology.
This opinion is expected to be given by the end of this year.
I now come to the last point mentioned: stem cells and research on embryos and cloning.
This question of how stem cells should be used is a particularly delicate subject, as this debate has demonstrated.
The announcement at the beginning of this week of the results obtained from therapeutic cloning by researchers of an American company has once again raised the questions to which such technology gives rise.
It has led me to remind you that the Commission is opposed to any form of research implying the creation of human embryos solely for research purposes or for the production of stem cells.
However, before anything else, I would just like to remind you of a point of procedure: when it comes to bioethics, the Community does not have any normative powers.
For reasons connected, amongst other things, with respecting the diversity and sensibilities of cultures at national level, it now falls to the Member States to establish rules and regulations in this area.
Basically, the questions raised are currently the subject of intense debate in Member States, here in the European Parliament and, I am glad to say, in the Council of Europe, with which the Commission is cooperating closely, and also at international level.
On certain fundamental principles there is unanimous agreement.
Thus human reproductive cloning is universally condemned.
For example, it is specifically condemned in the Charter of fundamental rights of the European Union.
In that spirit, the Commission totally supports the Franco-German initiative seeking to establish an international convention prohibiting human reproductive cloning.
Going beyond that issue, the problems concerning the use of stem cells of embryonic origin and the use of human embryos for research are, as you know, the subject of assessments which vary considerably according to people' s sensibilities and convictions.
The ethical questions associated with them are complex, because we have to weigh certain fundamental principles and the risks of abuse, against the interests of patients and the possibilities of considerably reducing their suffering and that of their loved ones.
It is never easy, therefore, to set limits, and we must try to achieve a balanced position which will be the position most widely acceptable.
In my opinion, the position whereby the creation of human embryos is prohibited but the use, particularly for the production of stem cells, of already existing, so-called supernumerary embryos is authorised, subject to strictly controlled ethical conditions and within national law, achieves such a balance.
This position reflects the opinion of the European Group on Ethics, which believes that the creation of human embryos by transferring the nuclei of somatic cells for research requirements would be premature, given the vast field of research that remains to be explored with the aid of other sources of human stem cells, in particular, so-called supernumerary human embryos that already exist.
Can we definitively rule out certain research opportunities and thereby risk depriving ourselves of the means of relieving great suffering and compromising Europe' s chances of remaining at the forefront of human knowledge? In our present state of knowledge, many questions still remain open, even in purely scientific terms.
This is why the Commission will be organising a conference on 18 and 19 December here in Brussels - and here I should like to repeat my invitation to any MEPs who may be interested - on the subject of 'Stem cells: treatments for the future?'
The discussions are likely to cover the prospective benefits and the priorities of research using stem cells, but also the difficulties of all kinds which such research will have to confront.
I shall end by mentioning one last point, which is that of governance and public debate.
With this in mind, I can only support the report.
I can tell you that the action plan on 'science and society' which we are preparing follows this approach.
It seeks to encourage public debate on these issues.
It is absolutely essential that the debate should be as wide-ranging and as public as possible.
To conclude, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on issues which will broadly affect the future of European society, I am really very happy to discover that this House has played the role of an essential forum for high-quality debate.
In a Europe whose citizens share the same fundamental values, but may have differences of opinion on certain subjects, it is specifically via the excellence of the European Parliament that the democratic confrontation between opinions should operate.
The Commission intends to continue to associate itself with your efforts in this field, and will continue, in close collaboration with you and with the Member States, to make the essential effort to inform, to reflect and to exchange information which is implicit in responsible scientific and technological progress.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.55 and resumed at 11.05)
Vote
(Parliament adopted the Commission proposal)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0382/2001) by Mr Nisticò, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive amending for the twentieth time Council Directive 76/769/EEC relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations (short-chain chlorinated paraffins) [9461/1/2001 - C5-0301/2001 - 2000/0104(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Nisticò)
Busquin, Commission.
(FR) Madam President, the Commission is not in favour of Amendment Nos 1, 2 and 3.
Amendment Nos 1 and 3 could extend the scope that has been proposed and such a move would not be justified on the basis of our current knowledge. It could also undermine the scientific bases of the directive that has been proposed.
We cannot accept Amendment No 2 because it deals with substances that are not covered by the directive proposed.
Furthermore, this Amendment runs counter to the Commission' s right of initiative.
Therefore, the Commission cannot support Amendment Nos 1, 2 and 3.
Madam President, I share the position expressed by Commissioner Busquin, but it is Parliament' s wish to reduce the marketing of these substances, which are potentially dangerous to the environment and to human beings.
Amendment Nos 1 and 2, to the recitals, represent a desire and an instruction by Parliament.
As for Amendment No 3, we are against it.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0404/2001) by Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council regulation applying a scheme of generalised tariff preferences for the period 1 January 2002 to 31 December 2004 [COM(2001) 293 - C5-0374/2001 - 2001/0131(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0176/2001) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council regulation (EC, ECSC, Euratom) on the financial regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities [COM(2000) 461 - C5-0627/2000 - 2000/0203(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0424/2001) by Mr Ferber, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the supplementary estimates of revenue and expenditure of the European Parliament for the financial year 2001 [2001/2243(BUD)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0348/2001) by Mr Bouwman, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on amending Council Directive 80/987/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the protection of employees in the event of the insolvency of their employer [COM(2000) 832 - C5-0017/2001 - 2001/0008(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0415/2001) by Mrs Foster, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on establishing common rules in the field of civil aviation security [COM(2001) 575 - C5-0481/2001 - 2001/0234(COD)]
Regarding Amendment No 6
Mr President, what we are proposing is that in the amendment the words 'develops a mechanism' should be replaced by 'will take place' and that the words 'together with the ICAO and ECAC' , that is, the international aviation organisations, should be added.
(The President established that there was no opposition to voting on this oral amendment) Regarding Paragraph 3 of the legislative resolution
There is an oral amendment which reads : "Reserves the right to amend in second reading any annex to this regulation adopted by Council in its common position if that annex, as submitted to Council, has not been included in the Commission proposal to the European Parliament."
(The President established that there was no opposition to voting on this oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Rapport (A5-0390/2001) by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the criminal-law protection of the Communities' financial interests [COM(2001) 272 - C5-0225/2001 - 2001/0115(COD)]
Madam President, now that we have made all these changes, I am sure your services will tell you that the text has become rather incoherent in terms of the text and its intention.
Given the preparation of the Commission green paper on the European public prosecutor, the run-up to the IGC in 2004 and the fact that several committees of this House were not consulted, I would ask that this report be referred back to committee.
Mr President, I can support Mr Heaton-Harris' arguments.
This a controversial report.
It is important that there should be as wide a consensus on this subject as possible and I should therefore like to propose that the report be referred back to the Budgetary Committee.
Madam President, what Mr Heaton-Harris has just said is to some extent correct.
Mr Heaton-Harris was referring to a section about the interim solution of an internal public prosecutor, whereas the other amendments to the proposal for a directive have gone through.
I do not think that this referral back is necessarily the way to solve the problem created by the vote.
I cannot say, and in the light of the voting in committee, I cannot see how this report should be further amended.
I can only repeat my arguments yet again, Mr President: this is a very controversial subject and it is important that Parliament should, as far as possible, speak with one voice.
I should therefore like on behalf of my group to plead for referral, to allow us to reconsider the whole matter thoroughly.
(Parliament rejected the request to refer the report back to committee)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0389/2001) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the quality of petrol and diesel fuels and amending Directive 98/70/EC 98/70/CE[COM(2001) 241 - C5-0197/2001 - 2001/0107(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Proposal drafted by the Committee on Development and Cooperation for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on the contributions of the European Community to the 'Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria' [COM(2001) 612 - C5-0520/2001 - 2001/0251(COD)]
Regarding Amendment No 4
Madam President, we could vote for the seven amendments en bloc, but I would like to propose an oral amendment in relation to Amendment No 4.
According to the Spanish version, the proposed oral amendment only changes three words: in the first line, where it says 'the Community will establish a legal basis for future contributions' , it should say, 'the Commission should propose a legal basis for future contributions' , and so on until the end.
According to the Spanish version, no greater modifications are necessary, but the problem is that the compromise text we negotiated with the Council was in English and in that version it would be necessary to make two modifications: in the first line, it would be the same modification which I mentioned for the Spanish, that is: 'The Commission should propose' , instead of 'The Community will establish' , and in the last line it should say 'on the three communicable diseases, including any further contributions to the Global Fund' .
Those are the two modifications I would propose to the English version.
Madam President, in agreement with the rapporteur and the Chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, Mr Watson, I would like to present an oral amendment to this compromise amendment, which would add a first sentence.
In English, it is worded as follows:
"...
Calls on the Council to do its utmost to implement the mandate from the European Council of 21 September and 19 October to unanimously adopt this proposal. Failing that, apply Article 40 ..."
(Because more than 12 Members were opposed to voting on this oral amendment, it was not taken into account)
Mr President, the oral amendment that I wish to propose is actually something on which agreement was reached in the negotiations on the compromise resolution, but which was dropped in the final text and should therefore be restored.
We propose inserting the words 'and the Copenhagen criteria' after the words 'Helsinki European Council' .
(The President declared that there was no opposition to voting on the oral amendment) Regarding Paragraph 20
Mr President, my apologies, but in this case it is current events that require us to submit an oral amendment.
We should like the following to be added to this section: "welcomes in this respect the future meeting between the president of Cyprus and the leader of the Turkish community".
I believe that this accords completely with positions consistently adopted by this House.
I trust that honourable Members will have no objection.
(The President declared that there was no opposition to voting on the oral amendment) Regarding Paragraph 30
Mr President, this really will be the last time that I disturb you, in order to ask you whether my fellow-MEPs would object if we added "supports the establishment of the International Criminal Court and invites all States to ratify its statute" to the text.
I believe that this would be a gain for this House to which there will hopefully be no objection.
(The President declared that there was no opposition to voting on the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0368/2001) by Mr Leinen and Mr Méndez de Vigo, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the Laeken European Council and the future of the Union [2001/2180(INI)]
Regarding Amendment Nos 10 and 23
Madam President, may I ask why the most radical amendment, No 23, is not being put to the vote first?
The amendments are indeed compatible and we will be voting on No 23 in a moment.
Both amendments will be put to the vote.
We have given serious consideration to the issue and have concluded that the amendments are compatible.
Madam President, I would query your ruling that the two amendments are compatible.
They are clearly addressing exactly the same issue using deliberately different language and I would have thought now that we have adopted Amendment No 10, which I welcome, Amendment No 23 is no longer necessary.
I do not share your analysis of the matter, Mr Corbett.
Madam President, there is really no need for me to speak now.
I spoke before the vote.
This amendment was, in fact, dealt with when Amendment No 10 was accepted.
I agree with Mr Corbett there because we have asked for adequate representation of both sexes.
That can, of course, also be fifty-fifty, it need not be two thirds one gender and only one third the other.
So the amendment we accepted goes further. In that respect we have decided correctly.
In its wisdom, the House has reached the same conclusion.
Regarding Amendment No 2
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteurs we propose that the words 'concluding summit in December 2003' be deleted and replaced by 'opening summit' .
Then continue as in the text.
There is a practical reason for this.
The Convention will very probably end in June 2003 and if we do not want to have more than three months' break before the Intergovernmental Conference starts, it cannot be in December, but must be after the summer recess.
It must, therefore, be amended here as requested by the proposer, to read 'There must be no more than three months' break between the end of the Convention and the opening summit of the Intergovernmental Conference.'
That is the oral amendment.
(The President declared that there was no opposition to voting on the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0399/2001) by Mrs Kaufmann, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the Commission White Paper on European Governance [COM(2001) 428 - C5-0454/2001 - 2001/2181(COS)]
Madam President, number 18 is only a reordering.
It is followed by Amendment No 9 and I would like to say a brief word about that.
Firstly, this amendment is tabled not by the group but by myself, as rapporteur.
The purpose of the amendment is to make the text more logical and also to make the content of what it says about regulatory agencies coherent.
I discussed it with the various groups yesterday and obtained their agreement.
That therefore means that Amendment No 9 refers to item 19, and, in particular, to the deletion of the second part of the paragraph.
At the same time, the shortened paragraph is to be inserted before item 16, immediately after the heading 'Autonomous regulatory authorities' .
The word 'only' must then be inserted in the fifth line of item 16 so that it then reads '... only be approved if...' .
As I have the floor now, there is a translation error in the Swedish version of Paragraph 27.
It should read 'Committee of the Regions' and not 'Economic and Social Committee' .
We are aware of this, Mrs Kaufmann, and have already made the necessary corrections.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0739/2001), by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on a European strategy to encourage quality employment and social policy
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I have just been informed that the French gendarme who was shot yesterday, probably by ETA terrorists, has just died.
On behalf of my group, and I believe on behalf of the whole House, I would like to express my condolences and sympathy in relation to this latest victim of the fight against terrorism in Europe.
Thank you very much, Mr Barón Crespo.
Mr Bayrou has just informed me of this terrible news and I now give him the floor.
Madam President, the police officer we are referring to was murdered yesterday evening in my region, in the town that I represent, and, naturally, emotions are running high.
This is the second time in a week that French police officers have been hit by the bullets of terrorists driving through police roadblocks.
I simply wish to say that we, in this House, have known for a long time that terrorism recognises no borders.
We have also known that what happens to some people will also happen to others and I think that if the European Parliament could, by observing a minute' s silence, express its solidarity with this officer' s family and loved ones, with the gendarmerie and with all French and European citizens affected by this evil, it would be sending out a very important signal.
Madam President, after the motion for a resolution on Egypt had been prepared, we received a letter from the speaker of the Egyptian parliament which we would rather not have received.
For this reason I would like to table an oral amendment that the following be inserted after recital E:
"expressing its regrets concerning certain paragraphs of the letter from the President of the People's Assembly of the Arab Republic of Egypt on this resolution" .
I have spoken with the rapporteur about it and he has agreed to our tabling this amendment.
(The President declared that there was no opposition to voting on the oral amendment)
Madam President, we would all be very happy to see the letter referred to by Mr Sakellariou, and we would be very grateful if the competent services could distribute it.
Of course this can be done. The letter is by no means confidential.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0391/2001) by Mr Fiori, on behalf of the Temporary Committee on Human Genetics and Other New Technologies in Modern Medicine, on the ethical, legal, economic and social implications of human genetics [2001/2097(INI)]
Regarding Amendment No 126
Madam President, I simply wish to point out that Parliament' s staff should be asked to check the French version of this amendment.
Not only does it not match the original version, but it is also almost incomprehensible.
This is extremely serious, Mrs Flesch.
We shall devote our full attention to resolving the matter.
Regarding Amendment No 51
I join Mrs Flesch in complaining about the quality of translation.
The English version of this amendment is completely different to the French original and largely incomprehensible.
I do not want English-speaking people who look at this amendment to think for one second that I voted for that.
I am prepared to vote for the French version and could I ask that you investigate the quality of translation on this report.
Mrs McNally, I fully understand what you are asking.
I believe we all share your concern and we shall devote all our attention to resolving the matter.
Regarding Paragraph 95
Madam President, I propose inserting an oral amendment in the text before us because, otherwise, it does not make sense for the parts removed include the introduction.
The oral amendment is as follows: 'believes that the setting-up of such a forum ...' , and the text then goes on in the manner with which everyone is familiar.
(The President declared that there was no opposition to voting on the oral amendments)
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
Madam President, I have discovered, from the social briefing, that the Chilean police have stormed offices belonging to the Chilean Communist Party, arresting several workers and wounding the Secretary-General herself.
This has taken place a few days before the elections, which will be held on 16 December, and, according to the social briefing, the Chilean government itself has been shocked by this event.
I would ask you, Madam President, to attempt to get to the bottom of this matter, and should this information prove to be true, to convey the objection of this Parliament.
I find it so unacceptable that this should have happened that I should personally like to express my disapproval.
We shall certainly investigate this information, Mrs Figueiredo.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Dell'Alba report (A5-0176/2001)
Madam President, I voted against the Commission proposal because the Commission is using the reform of its financial management, which I also believe to be urgently necessary, as a pretext to weaken the European Parliament' s powers of control.
The EC Treaty provides that the Commission shall present the Parliament with all necessary information on request.
The Commission is now seeking to make that right to information subject to provisos in the Financial Regulation.
For example, in future, the Commission wants to check whether passing information to Parliament would be against the Union' s interests.
That creates the absurd situation where the party under scrutiny, the Commission, decides what information to put before the one who is to scrutinise it, Parliament, and what not.
That not only weakens Parliament, but it weakens the Commission itself.
In future, it will have to listen to the criticism that it has learned nothing from the past and is continuing to escape effective control.
Bouwman report (A5-0348/2001)
.
(FR) The text that we have just been considering is intended to revise a 1980 directive guaranteeing the protection of employees in the event of the insolvency of their employer and particularly the payment of salaries that have not been paid for a minimum of three months.
This directive needed an update, which we approved, to clarify, for example, the procedure for cases in which companies have bases in several European countries, or to better protect part time and home workers.
Nevertheless, we cannot accept the surfeit of amendments that the European Parliament has accepted, which has led, with the best intentions in the world, to a huge increase in the detailed requirements imposed on all Member States.
It is probably worthwhile considering all the cases of labour relations that are likely to tie an individual to a company, to enumerate every type of salary, allowance or related payment or to list all cases of formal or informal insolvency, but we feel that these provisions must be referred to the legislation of the Member States.
Similarly, it might be useful to extend the period of time during which salaries are guaranteed, but it is up to the Member States to consider, in the context of their social relations and of their own budgets, whether this extension is useful and feasible.
What we have here is a tangible example of how a directive, which, in theory, should be limited to setting broad objectives, runs the risk of being corrupted by pressure from various sources, leading to a restrictive and overly-detailed text, which might be inappropriate to the situation in some Member States.
.
UK Conservative MEPs are sympathetic to the thrust of the Bouwman Report but have voted against Amendment Nos 13 and 14, as well as some other amendments.
These amendments go well beyond the Commission's original objectives in bringing forward this proposal, and there are no grounds for suggesting that the levels of protection in the original Directive are inadequate.
The removal of Member States' ability to set an upper level on the amount of outstanding pay claims to be guaranteed would go well beyond the aim of providing a minimum standard of protection to safeguard the vulnerable.
The extension to six months of the minimum period of outstanding pay claims to be guaranteed would also significantly increase public expenditure and go well beyond the social aims of the Directive.
We note that the UK Government also supports the Conservative position, and we are hopeful that on this occasion Labour MEPs might also accept the instructions of their home government.
I asked for roll-call votes to make sure.
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(NL) Because labour is a significant cost factor in the production of goods and even more in the supply of services, one sees, time and time again, that employers try to reduce their obligations.
It is increasingly common for dishonest employers and those in difficulties not to settle the wage bill when the work has been carried out.
Employees then do not receive their due or can only obtain it after having recourse to the courts.
The European Commission' s proposal omits to lay down in what cases one can speak of an employer, an employee, or wages owing.
Rapporteur Bouwman quite rightly proposes also bringing small independent sub-contractors, homeworkers and domestic staff within the scope of this regulation, so that there are no loopholes if a malicious employer stops paying wages.
The setting up of national guarantee funds will be compulsory, and they must be kept separate from employers' operating capital.
All wage claims by employees, including overtime pay, holiday bonuses and severance payments, must be covered and there must be no ceiling on payments.
This is one of the better proposals, which would mean that the European Union would finally be doing something to help employees.
In recent years most proposals have served mainly employers' interests.
Foster report (A5-0415/2001)
Madam President, I voted for Mrs Foster' s report on airport security.
I am pleased to highlight the fact that this document calls for surprise, unannounced inspections.
This seems a logical course of action which, until now, has very rarely been taken, hence my appreciation.
I notice, however, that only EUR 1.215 million is being appropriated for these inspections.
This is an extremely modest sum and simply not enough.
Whyever did Mrs Foster not ask for more money for these inspections? One might almost say that she wanted to economise on the European Parliament budget.
This seems rather stingy, Mrs Foster, an attitude perhaps more suited to the Scots or Genoese.
I am Genoese and I suggest and believe it would be better to use more money for these airport inspections.
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(FR) No one is against stepping up security in airports and on aeroplanes.
The problem, however, and concern about this is expressed in the justification for an amendment, is that the events "of 11 September in the United States have proven that the liberalisation of airport services (...) made the strict implementation of security measures more difficult" .
The privatisation of these services and its implications for the quest for profit, for high returns and for the exploitation of a work force with precarious contracts, does not make for effective security.
Forcing civil aviation operators and the largest among them, the companies running airports and the airlines, not only to comply with long-standing security measures but also to bear the costs of these themselves would be a straightforward matter.
Instead, the rapporteur concludes that it is up to the States to bear these costs and that even if private interests prove to be irresponsible, incapable of providing security worthy of its name, they nonetheless have the right to make profit and as a bonus, to be subsidised by States, in other words, by the general public.
This shows utter disregard for everyone.
This is why, by voting for further security in the aviation sector, we are condemning this new excuse to subsidise private interests from private funds.
We have, therefore, voted against this report.
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(EL) The proposal on civil aviation security does not address so-called terrorism.
The fight against terrorism is simply being used as an excuse to create a climate of mass fear in order to smooth the way for the anti-democratic, anti-grass roots policies being promoted.
At the same time, and with the same excuse, a first class opportunity for speculation has arisen as a result of the 'safety' measures being recommended or imposed in the form of exorbitantly expensive equipment or services, the cost of which is being passed on to users/passengers.
In addition, an attempt at 'internationalisation' is being made by forcing 'anti-democratic measures' on all countries, which will be subject to inspection by 'inspectors' whose mission has deliberately been left vague rather than being clearly defined.
It is no accident that the proposal lays claim to global validity - on the pretext of transnational agreements between Member States of the European Union and other countries - given that its purpose is to make controls as broad as possible and cut grass-roots freedoms as far back as possible.
A typical example is the new law on air traffic safety signed by President Bush on 19 November, requiring foreign airlines to submit full details of passengers bound for the USA to the relevant American authorities directly.
The USA are asking the airlines of numerous countries to submit advance lists of all passengers detailing their full name, date and place of birth, passport number and place of issue, visa or green card number and any other information deemed necessary to identify possible terrorists.
At the same time, they warn that, if they fail to comply, as of Thursday 29 November, passengers arriving on these airlines will undergo exceptionally stringent checks by the American authorities and their luggage will be searched thoroughly, all of which may take several hours.
This is a bitter taste of the 'big brother' policy and of the restriction and abolition of the freedom of movement and rights of citizens in a climate of 'mass fear' , the aims of which have nothing to do with safety.
In our view, the measures already taken more than suffice and no further measures are required.
Terrorism has social roots and therefore needs a social response.
Adopting more and more suppressive and, basically, ineffectual measures, which have nothing to do with combating terrorism, is mere cunning.
I congratulate Mrs Foster on her excellent report, which I fully support.
This is a piece of work that demonstrates considerable technical understanding in addressing an issue of crucial importance for the future of civil aviation and in respect of which I should like to emphasise the following points:
the need for the Member States to commit themselves to drawing up a comprehensive policy for financing security in air travel, which must be entirely under government control, because security threats against aviation are a manifestation of threats against the state;
the need to pass a number of common laws in the field of civil aviation under the terms of the agreements concluded at the European Civil Aviation Conference, as a means of increasing airport security in the European Union.
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(NL) The growth in air traffic was already stalling before aeroplanes full of unsuspecting passengers were used by terrorists as rockets to destroy great buildings.
As a result of years of fierce competition between familiar traditional national airlines and adventurous newcomers, overcapacity was created, so that they are no longer able to withstand setbacks and must beg for state support in order to survive.
The choice now seems to be between ruthless rationalisation, with a number of airlines going bankrupt and mass dismissals taking place, and government-subsidised price competition designed to maintain overcapacity.
If Mrs Foster has her way, taxpayers will have the privilege of paying for the losses of privatised companies and private companies will have control of government policy.
I would argue for a completely different solution from either ruthless rationalisation or the granting of subsidies.
Pointless and wasteful competition must be replaced by cooperation and decision making on a basic network of connections to other continents and, if necessary, also to peripheral areas within Europe.
Costs of insurance, security, advertising campaigns and fuel tax must be included in full in the ticket prices, so that flying loses its competitive advantage over the train.
Then the retraining and the job security of staff can be paid for, in the short term, from new tax income, without granting further subsidies to companies.
Theato report (A5-0390/2001)
Madam President, as you know, I am the representative of the Pensioners' Party and I got to this Parliament on the votes of Italian pensioners.
Well then, with regard to the report by Mrs Theato on the financial interests of the European Community, I am sorry but when I read the word 'interest' I think of the interest that should be paid to pensioners for the late payment of their pensions.
I therefore voted automatically for this document, of course, but I also thought, 'I wonder if one day we shall manage to protect pensioners' interests by getting interest paid when pensions are paid out late, which happens all over Europe!'
I disagree with Mr Fatuzzo on the Theato report because, as the European Democratic wing of the EPP, as the British Conservatives are, we were completely against the Theato report from start to finish.
We felt that the initial proposal was amended out of sight by the rapporteur and she put in her proposal that the European public prosecutor would lead to Corpus Juris.
It was mentioned many times that initially the European public prosecutor would be the first stage only to protect the Community's financial interest which would then lead on to much greater things.
Madam President, even though you asked me to group together my roll-call votes - I was surprised you asked me in this particular report and not someone else in the Fiori report.
You will have noticed that the British Conservatives actually managed to persuade a number of different delegations in this House to get a majority against some of the proposals.
However, the whole report as it stood is still unacceptable.
Firstly, I would like to say that even though I was here for the Theato report I did not participate for exactly the same reasons as Mr Heaton-Harris.
It is totally incorrect and wrong that we participate in those kind of votes.
Turning to the Watson report, we all agree on the need for cooperation and coordination in combating terrorism.
However, I would like to speak with particular reference to the European arrest warrant.
This represents a major interference and alteration of the national judicial systems and the criminal-law procedures within the Member States.
As well as overturning the civil rights protections which have been built up by precedent and, particularly in Britain and Ireland, under the common law system, it takes no account of the different legal systems within the Member States.
Nor is any account taken of guaranteeing the right of appeal and right to judicial review at both the executing and issuing stage, nor any account of the rights of the individual concerned.
It also fails to set up a mechanism to sort out difficulties and problems arising from a Member State's refusal to enforce the arrest warrant outside the specific areas that it excludes.
Finally, if this law or proposal was brought into any Member State or non-member country, Parliament would be the first to object and complain.
Yet when a EU Member State re-introduces internment without trial and abolishes the right to judicial review, we remain silent and condone the kind of treatment that undermines civil liberties and totally ignores the European Convention on Human Rights.
It is incorrect and it is wrong.
Even though I voted in favour, I voted with grave and serious reservations.
Today, we have elected to abstain in the vote on the report on the criminal-law protection of the Community' s financial interests.
We do not oppose the appointment of a European Public Prosecutor for financial concerns, but the report goes too far and into such detail as is irrelevant at this stage.
The rapporteur is also seeking to convert the Commission directive into a regulation, which is something that we oppose.
- (DA) Although we fully support initiatives for combating fraud, we have chosen to vote against the report, since we do not believe that introducing a European public prosecutor for financial matters is an appropriate solution to the problem.
Hautala report (A5-0389/2001)
I should like to give an explanation of vote on behalf of the British Conservative Group, the European Democrat wing of the EPP, and say why we oppose the regulation being extended to agricultural tractors.
The primary reason for this directive is not to control atmospheric pollution itself as we inhale it but to actually reduce the effect that sulphur dioxide has on advanced catalytic systems.
Tractors are not fitted with these systems so it would be pointless to extend this regulation to tractors.
It would result in more carbon dioxide being produced in the refineries and also a 10% increase in the price of fuel for farmers.
So although we welcome this report as tabled we could not support the amendments on tractors and, therefore, as those amendments went through we voted against the report as a whole.
I hope that the rapporteur, Commission and Council will take note of the fact that they were at least 70 votes short of a qualified majority for second reading.
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(FR) We are, of course, in favour of improving the quality of petrol and diesel fuels in order to protect the environment.
Once again, however, subsidies are being proposed, not for consumers, but for producers.
Since we are against any form of subsidy to employers and, in particular, to the extremely wealthy automobile and oil corporations, we have not voted in favour of this report.
- (FR) In order to improve air quality, especially in urban areas, three different, but convergent, methods may be used: legislative provisions relating to air quality, standards relating to vehicle emissions and standards applicable to fuels.
It is in this third area that successive directives have been introduced, providing for the progressive phase-out of leaded petrol and giving the Member States the option of recourse to fiscal incentives in favour of cleaner fuels.
However, one issue was left to one side, and that was the specifications for sulphur-free fuels.
That is what is tackled by this proposal for a directive, which is very late arriving.
Just as we are opposed to a standard European regulation governing air quality, which is a local problem, so we think it worth harmonising fuel specifications, since the refiners' markets extend way beyond national borders.
Tackling the subject of fuel standards should provide the opportunity for being much more vigorous in introducing specifications in favour of bio-fuels.
Indeed, the fuels we manufacture from agricultural produce cannot be faulted in terms of the greenhouse effect, make a major contribution to Europe' s self-sufficiency in energy and constitute a very important outlet for a number of our agricultural products.
We need to move much more vigorously in the direction of legislation that encourages the replacement of growing quantities of fossil hydrocarbons in motor fuels.
Hugues Martin recommendation (A5-0387/2001)
I voted against the report by Mr Hugues Martin on relations between the European Union and the Arab Republic of Egypt, Madam President.
Why did I vote against it? Because there are civil rights that are not respected enough in Egypt.
They concern all Egyptian citizens, of course, and before we grant any money we should demand that the basic standards of protection of Egyptian citizens of any age - young people, workers or pensioners - be respected and check that they are.
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(EL) When it signs the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement with Egypt, the Council must emphasise the need to protect Community nationals who fall victim to the lack of freedom in this country.
In particular, the Council needs to intervene in the case of the remaining survivor of the three Greek seamen sentenced for drug smuggling about ten years ago.
Although only young, two of them have already died in the intolerable conditions which prevail in Egyptian jails.
The Council should intervene to save the life of the last surviving Greek seaman in jail in Egypt, who should be allowed to serve out his sentence in a Greek jail.
This human rights issue has quite rightly caused concern in Greece and, with this in mind, I abstained from voting for the Martin Hugues motion.
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(ES) I have voted against the report in order to protest at the violations of human rights in Egypt suffered by various groups for reasons of belief, political persuasion, cultural origin and sexual orientation, as demonstrated recently by the judgment against dozens of people in Cairo.
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I voted against the report because of the ongoing human rights abuses against homosexuals, intellectuals and religious minorities.
The Egyptian government must take measures to improve the situation of the 8-10 million Coptic Christians in Egypt, who are discriminated against in legislation and in professional and social life, as well as in the practice of their religion.
The Coptic Christians are currently treated as second-class citizens in the state policy on public appointments.
There is no absolute religious freedom in Egypt, as legislation restricts the ability of Christians to repair churches or build new ones.
It is also vital that the Christian minority perceive the judiciary as impartial.
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(NL) The human rights issue in Egypt, notably the recent witch-hunt against homosexuals and the curtailing of the freedom of women, necessitates us to look at this issue carefully in the relationship between Egypt and the EU.
The Council and the Commission are not doing enough, if anything at all.
That is why I will vote against this report.
- (FR) The discussion on the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement between the EC and Egypt is a tragic illustration of the European Union' s conception of foreign policy.
In this type of agreement, what takes precedence over everything else is establishing a free-trade area in the Mediterranean and giving priority to liberalisation and the dismantling of public services.
The Member States have no reason to be proud of the fact that they are pursuing trade relations with the Egyptian state, which scorns human rights and freedom of expression and of conscience, which practises the death penalty and which has no time for political pluralism.
Today, the imprisonment of 52 Egyptians for homosexuality should be the time radically to re-think our relations both with Egypt and also with other countries with totalitarian tendencies.
What is now a matter of urgency for us is to demand of President Mubarak and his government that they free these 52 detainees immediately and unconditionally.
It is a question of penalising the Egyptian State and its policies by not contributing to the financial enrichment of a minority that despises human rights.
I have voted in favour of this report because it strongly emphasises this requirement.
Watson report (A5-0397/2001)
Madam President, I personally voted for the Watson report introducing the European arrest warrant, although I am very concerned at the fact that this report allows those prosecutors that are entitled to use the arrest warrant to do so even for crimes punishable by four months' imprisonment.
After the terrible attack on the Twin Towers, which led us, at last, to move towards bringing in the European arrest warrant, after this, seeing it being used for chicken thieves does make me rather sad.
I feel we should use this arrest warrant for really serious crimes and not just for much smaller crimes, where national law should prevail.
Madam President, the European Parliament should also take action to adapt not only the individual legislations of Member States but also the functions of the investigative bodies.
The efficacy and efficiency of action to prevent and combat terrorism depend substantially, in fact, on the coordination of these bodies and their modernisation.
In consideration of this, we are proposing the creation of a European intelligence school.
Currently, there are not even liaison offices between the various bodies.
We recently had a glaring example, with serious consequences, of this lack of liaison in communication, intelligence and information activities between the bodies operating in the countries of Europe.
It is the case - for which, in this sense, we Europeans also bear responsibility - of the barbarous murder of Commander Massoud by illegal immigrants of Tunisian nationality, who were able to travel around Europe without any difficulty on false passports stolen in Belgium and the Netherlands.
Madam President, I want to say that there is a large discrepancy between what the European Parliament normally champions, namely democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and what has happened today, when we have adopted this report by Mr Watson on combating terrorism at a speed completely out of keeping with the analysis that ought to have been carried out and the public debate that ought to have preceded such a report.
Adopting the report will have incalculable consequences for the rule of law in the Member States, and there are quite a few NGOs which had warned us against adopting it and called upon us to set a thorough debate in motion and undertake a detailed analysis before doing so.
I believe that, in this connection, many of us have taken decisions contrary to our national constitutions in areas such as freedom of expression, freedom of association, democracy and the rule of law.
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(EL) My group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left, does not support the report by the Committee on Citizens' Freedom and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the European arrest warrant.
Obviously, if we want to promote unification and deal with increasingly international challenges such as terrorism and drugs, we need to create a single area of justice, but this needs to be based on safeguarding and broadening democratic rights.
However, the European arrest warrant, especially in the hasty and thoughtless manner in which it is being pushed forward:
a) reflects pressure from the USA rather than the maturity of endogenous procedures in the European Union;
b) is being extended to a broad range of offences unconnected with terrorism, rather than being confined to the urgent challenges caused by terrorism;
c) is being imposed arbitrarily, rather than through consultation with civil society;
d) suffocates and restricts the area of justice of the Member States.
This being the case, we are concerned that an arbitrary European structure may be created with serious democratic shortcomings.
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(EL) For some time now, and especially recently, the European Union has been no more than a factory churning out legislation which undermines democratic freedoms (Schengen Information System, extended powers for EUROPOL, European public prosecutor, restrictions on the entry and movement of immigrants).
A typical example is the report on initiatives to combat terrorism adopted just a few days before 11 September.
Now the European Parliament is being asked to give its opinion - an opinion which is in no way binding on the Council or the Commission - on two framework decisions on so-called terrorism and the European arrest warrant.
It is perfectly clear that the horrendous events of 11 September have been used as a pretext to speed up the application of political decisions taken a long time ago.
The perpetrators of, and accessories to, these attacks have played straight into the hands of the American and European imperialists, giving them an excuse to settle both international and domestic accounts.
The Communist Party of Greece, with its sense of responsibility for grass-roots freedoms and rights and bitter experience of the laws which sent thousands of members of the Greek resistance into jail, exile or to the firing squad and which are nightmarishly similar to a number of the provisions being proposed, has a duty to divulge the real intentions of the rulers of the European Union.
We should point out that all so-called 'terrorist crimes' are already punished under current criminal legislation in all the Member States.
The real aim here is to terrorise any civil resistance or disobedience movements and the parties proactively opposing and reacting to political and capitalist globalisation as a whole or certain aspects of it.
Standard forms of resistance, such as sit-ins, or the effects of resistance, such as interruptions to electricity or water supplies when the sectors in question go on strike, can easily be classified as terrorist crimes.
The cotton farmers reduced to desperation by union policy who have taken to the national roads in their tractors are in danger of being classified as terrorists and thrown into prison for at least 5 to 10 years.
We have reached the point where expressing an opinion is punished as a terrorist crime.
The framework decision on the European arrest warrant, the legality of which is open to question, undermines the sovereign rights of the Member States and contradicts Articles 5 (2), 6 and 7 of the Greek constitution.
The abolition of double indemnity, the facility to extradite a national to another state, the facility for the state to which the accused has been extradited to extradite him (without the permission of the state which extradited him in the first place) to a third country which is not a Member State of the European Union (for example, a Kurd is extradited by Greece to Germany, which then extradites him to Turkey without asking Greece) contradict basic principles of criminal law.
They also contradict fundamental procedural rights and freedoms which are vital to the defence of those facing prosecution.
The terrorist law and European arrest warrant are the last bricks in the edifice of a nightmarishly suppressive mechanism.
It is obvious that the people building this edifice know full well that their anti-grass roots policy at both European Union and global level will provoke a grass-roots reaction.
They expect this reaction to swell and fear the deluge of grass-roots anger.
What they do not know, or perhaps refuse to accept, is that no force on earth can stop this deluge.
At best, the proposed amendments attempt to improve certain offensive positions or shortcomings in the text, although they do nothing to change their nature.
We cannot be party to this sort of approach.
The only honest stand which respects collective and individual democratic rights is to reject the two proposals outright.
That is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report.
- (FR) The Commission proposals designed to harmonise the definition of terrorism, to define a minimum platform of penalties and to put in place a European arrest warrant to replace the old system of extradition leaves us feeling very unsatisfied.
Indeed, these are old federalist projects which are being dusted off under the pretext of the attacks of 11 September but which, in reality, do not contribute any particularly crucial practical element to the fight against terrorism.
The first proposal, relating to the definition of terrorism and the sanctions used to combat it, has been much trumpeted, as if the lack of a harmonised definition in the countries of the European Union, at present, constituted a dreadful weakness which terrorists would exploit.
It does nothing of the kind.
The definitions and penalties may vary from one State to another, but there is no State which leaves terrorists at liberty.
Everyone is agreed on the matter, even if the names vary.
The proposed text therefore satisfies the federalists' obsession with standardisation but is not going to change very much on the ground.
The same applies to the second proposal, relating to the European arrest warrant.
At present, extradition is, without any doubt, a fairly long procedure, but one which protects individual rights.
The European arrest warrant might be faster, but it is not even reliable, because precautions have to be taken all the same.
We ask, in particular, that the judicial authority of the executing Member State not be restricted to the role of formally recording the extradition request but, rather, that safeguards be established to guarantee the protection of freedoms.
This clause is all the more necessary in view of the fact that, given the pace at which new countries are acceding to the European Union, we no longer know which countries will be members of the European Union in ten or twenty years' time.
The procedure should be still more restrictive when the executing Member State is asked to hand over one of its own nationals to another country.
We think that, in such cases, the normal procedure should be extradition in its traditional form, and not the European arrest warrant.
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(NL) I endorse the present report and the proposal on a framework decision to combat terrorism.
Since terrorism is invariably cross-border in nature, the European countries will need to join forces.
However, the European arrest warrant goes too far in one area.
It concerns the negative list and the abolition of dual criminality, as proposed by the Commission.
Since Member States are not very keen on surrendering criminals as it is, a general arrest warrant and hence the abolition of dual criminality will meet with major problems.
Various Member States, including the Netherlands, will indeed make every effort to prevent surrender for euthanasia or abortion, for example.
That is why I have supported the amendments tabled by fellow MEPs Niall Andrews and Brian Crowley.
They call for a positive list.
This is also in line with the Council' s current view.
The European arrest warrant would then only apply to crimes which feature on this list.
This is, for example, true for an arrest warrant that applies to punishable offences whose criminality has already been harmonised at European level, such as terrorism.
If this appears to be working well, the number of crimes on the positive list can always be extended.
Drafting a negative list may indeed be an option in future, but it is still too early for this.
One should not forget that Member State criminal law largely reflects their national culture.
The discrepancies between the Member States are simply too vast at the moment.
Since the amendments tabled by Mr Andrews and Mr Crowley have not been adopted, we are unable to support the second part of the Watson report with regard to the European arrest warrant.
It seems to make little sense to us to vote for a negative list while the Council has decided on a positive list.
- (DA) We support the fight against terrorism, and we will defend the principle that the political struggle must be conducted by democratic means in democratic states.
If we are voting against the Watson report on combating terrorism and on the common European arrest warrant, it is for the following reasons:
1.
An attempt is being made to force the proposals through Parliament and the Council by means of an accelerated procedure that excludes the possibility of a public debate on the subject and that does not provide the opportunity to obtain a thorough analysis of the consequences for democratic rights and the rule of law.
2.
The common European arrest warrant will entail harmonisation of maximum and minimum penalties by the back door.
That is extremely problematic because there are widely different juridico-political traditions in the Member States.
Likewise, harmonisation and the introduction of a common definition of terrorism will be at odds with the very different political realities in the Member States.
3.
Because it is a principle that can all too easily lead to false information being given or to serious crimes going unpunished, we oppose introducing the option of reduced penalties for anonymous cooperation in the work of detection.
4.
An attempt is being made to force through the proposals before us at high speed and under pressure of the events of 11 September.
However, the proposals are not concerned with the type of events that are already prohibited and in relation to which legal proceedings can be taken in all the Member States.
Instead, the proposals are concerned with so-called European terrorism which, in terms of the very loose definition contained in the proposals, can cover everything from ETA's killing of civilians to actions and statements by individuals and legal political organisations.
Europe must cooperate more effectively in the fight against terrorism, both within its borders and internationally.
In our view, terrorism is one of the greatest threats to democracy, to the free exercise of human rights and to economic and social development.
Terrorism is not a recent phenomenon, but in recent years, we have seen an increase in terrorist activities, with a profound change in the nature of terrorist offences, with new threats arising, and with the use of new and much more sophisticated instruments, which has led to the real or potential effects of these attacks becoming increasingly devastating and deadly.
The terrible events of 11 September have made the reality of this situation painfully clear and have shown how crucial it is that we find an effective response to this scourge; it is, therefore, of vital importance that our Member States have effective criminal legislation to combat terrorism and that measures are adopted with a view to improving police and judicial cooperation, and cooperation at international level.
The first of these initiatives proposes the adoption of a common definition of terrorist acts and a definition of levels of sanctions and penalties - which must be effective, proportionate and act as a deterrent - which must, in all Member States, reflect the gravity of these acts.
There are currently considerable differences between Member States, inasmuch as only six Member States have specific legislation on terrorism (one of them being Portugal). Harmonisation is, therefore, crucial, at this level, so as to prevent terrorists being able to take advantage of these differences in the Member States' legal processes or exploit any legal loopholes arising from the geographical limitations of investigations.
The second initiative is based on the principle of mutual recognition of final decisions.
Its aim is to replace traditional extradition procedures with a straightforward system of surrendering criminals on the basis of a European arrest warrant because, since extradition is a procedural, cumbersome and complex process, it is no longer appropriate to an area without borders.
Under this new system, the European arrest warrant, on being issued in one Member State, must be executed throughout the territory of the Union, but must always, in all circumstances, respond to the concerns of Europe' s citizens in safeguarding individual rights.
Adopting these proposals will, therefore, provide unequivocal evidence of the Member States' willingness to improve cooperation, at all levels, in the fight against terrorism.
It is difficult, in such a short explanation of vote, to sum up all that needs to be emphasised about the dangerous negative aspects of these Commission proposals for a framework decision which, incomprehensibly, the Portuguese government supports.
On the pretext of fighting against terrorism, the European Commission is going ahead with proposals that it has already been working on, led by Commissioner Vitorino, who, far exceeding the necessary cooperation between States, is seeking to go ahead with the supranationalisation of fundamental aspects of justice.
The concept of 'terrorism' put forward by the Commission allows the action of those fighting for national liberation and social transformation, the battles and actions of workers and common people to be criminalised, with obvious consequences for the proper safeguard of democratic rights and fundamental freedoms.
The proposal for a 'European arrest warrant' , which is designed to eliminate the principle of double jeopardy, even if this ends up simply being limited, is a real Trojan horse in a strategy that will have to go further and further, basing its justification on the 'needs' for the aforementioned instruments.
Despite amending some of the negative aspects of the Commission' s proposals, the report adopts the same approach.
Hence my vote against it.
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I have voted against this report because it does not refer to all forms of terrorism.
It ignores totally all of the different expressions of State terrorism.
We all are aware of the various types of terrorism that have been used by Spanish governments since 1975.
This failure to mention State terrorism, even in its general considerations, is most regrettable.
We all know perfectly well too, that anti-terrorist legislation such as proposed by these means do not guarantee a fair trial all over the EU.
We are aware that in the Kingdom of Spain this very year of 2001, the Spanish government has pardoned torturers, released high officials already condemned on grounds of waging a 'dirty war' and tolerates torture in the most despicable ways, until this very moment.
The European Parliament has closed its eyes.
We all will regret it, because that reality is no longer the internal affair of one Member State.
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(DE) We non-attached Members were unable to vote in favour of Amendment No 34 because the direct reference to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which does not yet have force of law, is not legally tenable.
As regards the 'European arrest warrant' , we prefer a positive list to the negative list contained in the report because that preserves the principle of legality as a pillar of criminal law.
The British Conservatives voted in favour of the Watson report in order to underline our continued ongoing support for the war against terrorism, and to confirm our determination to ensure that the European Union presents a united front against those who seek to undermine our values and our way of life.
However, we do have some reservations about some of the details in this measure.
In particular, we are concerned that by including some 22 offences in the scope of the Arrest Warrant, this measures goes further than is necessary in tackling the immediate terrorist threat.
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(NL) Our groups are not very happy with the proposal by European Commissioner Vitorino on a European arrest warrant, although the amendments adopted by the European Parliament (Watson report) do constitute a major improvement on the Commission proposal.
However, our main concern, to protect liberal, Dutch criminal law by applying the European arrest warrant only to a limited list of so-called euro crimes, has not yet been accommodated.
We are in favour of a European arrest warrant in order to combat terrorism and organised crime more effectively, but only under the following conditions: firstly, that European arrests are only carried out on the basis of a positive list of euro crimes, and secondly, that the list of euro crimes is limited to serious offences which are punishable in all European countries, such as murder, for example.
Under no circumstances must the European arrest warrant jeopardise Dutch practice on abortion, euthanasia and drugs.
Insofar as we can make out from the little information that is available to us from the Council of Ministers, the latter is already discussing a positive list, and this list appears to contain no less than 27 broadly-defined euro crimes so far.
Consequently, the Council is now discussing a substantially different proposal from that of the Commission.
By studying the original Commission proposal, Parliament is lagging behind.
Furthermore, it very much looks as if the Dutch government is able to remove more of our objections via the Council than we are via the European Parliament.
This issue once again exposes the EU' s democratic loophole.
Inspection by the Lower Chamber is theoretically possible because the Council takes unanimous decisions. However, this is difficult to realise in practice on account of the Council' s reluctance to embrace openness and due to the late availability of the documents.
The pace at which this sensitive issue is being discussed only exacerbates the problem.
For all these reasons, our groups will vote in favour of the amendments of the Watson report, because these are a considerable improvement on the Commission proposal, but we will abstain in the vote on the legislative resolution.
The war against terrorism is, and will remain, a high priority within the EU, but must not be fought at the cost of the rule of law.
We are concerned that EU governments are currently rushing to coordinate the legislation of the Member States in the war against terrorism and to amalgamate various legal traditions in a very short space of time.
There is a risk of undermining the rule of law, particularly with the Commission' s proposed definition of the term 'terrorism' .
In our opinion, this definition is far too broad and allows room for too many interpretations.
It is quite possible that people who, for political reasons, protest against prevailing social structures and use illegal means to do so, will fall within the parameters of the definition now being proposed.
It is clearly inappropriate to go so far as to view those who protest against what they consider to be an unjust social order as terrorists.
There is a need for terrorism to be defined more clearly than has so far been the case.
In this respect, we therefore welcome the European Parliament' s more specific amendments.
The European Parliament and the national parliaments must also be allowed to exercise real influence before final decisions are taken by the Council of Ministers.
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(NL) Madam President, I have voted against the Watson report for the following reasons.
I fully support the measures against terrorism and in my view, it is possible and necessary for the EU Member States to work closely together in this field.
The European arrest warrant can make a major contribution towards the efficiency of the fight against terrorism within European territory.
I am of the opinion that the European arrest warrant is desirable.
However, this should be thought through and considered more carefully, so that it is not implemented at the expense of other important matters.
The present draft offers too little in the way of guarantees and may sound the death knell of Dutch liberal criminal policy.
In order to strike a compromise, I have tried to table an amendment via the rapporteur which prescribes the following condition for the European arrest warrant: a European arrest warrant may only be issued for offences committed on the territory of the requesting State.
However, this amendment has been vetoed by the Socialists in the working party.
I have also voted against the report because the Council is expected to adopt a different draft.
I am therefore in favour of anti-terrorist measures as well as the European arrest warrant, but not at the expense of the liberal criminal policy in the Netherlands.
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(NL) There is a great deal of confusion about the phenomenon of terrorism.
Most terrorists do not become terrorists out of choice, but are forced to resort to extreme and unacceptable measures due to the lack of understanding shown by leading politicians for their oppositional role and their conflicting viewpoints.
Some latterly well-respected leaders, such as those of Israel, Palestine, South Africa and many former colonies, started their political careers as terrorists.
Terrorism is fought effectively not by creating an even greater lack of understanding and trust, but by ensuring that the problems to which terrorists want to draw attention are resolved swiftly and peacefully.
Politicians who see the risk of terrorism in anything and everything, run the risk of ending up in a police state which lacks essential rights of freedom and democracy.
This, in turn, leads to a tougher political climate, which creates a new breeding ground for terrorism.
Respect for the law weakens when people notice that they are no longer protected from random arrests, lengthy custody and controversial surrender.
This also applies if oppositional non-terrorists are bullied or if people are imprisoned for actions which are not punishable in their own countries.
As long as there are insufficient guarantees to prevent these phenomena, a European regulation is counterproductive in the real fight against terrorism, in my view.
This House has approved a compromise amendment on the legislative resolutions regarding the Watson report on combating terrorism and the European arrest warrant.
Both amendments call upon the Council to apply Article 40 of the Treaty on European Union in cases where unanimity cannot be reached, or in cases when unanimity involves a substantial weakening of the proposal.
Unfortunately, a small number of Members - including the Italian Alleanza Nazionale members - have prevented an oral amendment supported by the rapporteur himself from being voted upon; if approved, this amendment would have made Parliament' s political will clearer.
In fact, calling upon the Council to vote under Article 40 is to be considered a last resort.
We all hope that the Council will be able to achieve unanimity along the lines of the commitments adopted jointly in Ghent and upheld so clearly by Parliament in today' s vote.
For our part, as Italian Members, we shall still make every effort to persuade our government to change its position and agree to extend the European arrest procedure to all the crimes included in the European Commission' s proposal and to give up the extradition procedure, which would be a patent violation of the spirit and letter of the commitments unanimously and formally adopted in Ghent and Brussels in the emotional aftermath of the tragic attack on the Twin Towers.
I therefore hope that no country will now falter in its commitment to fight terrorism, and I hope that mine, which has always contributed to the progress of the Union, will not find itself isolated.
These decisions are all in the hands of the Italian government, because it would also not be acceptable for its veto to jeopardise a whole policy.
Hence the timely reference to Article 40 of the Treaty.
- (FR) By means of this vote, we are now being asked to describe as acts of terrorism what, for us, are acts of solidarity and of justice.
For example, 'interfering with or disrupting the supply of water, power, or other fundamental resource' .
Such actions are generally those of salaried employees - of workers, not Bin Ladens - who, threatened by privatisation, organise themselves to defend their conditions of work, their jobs and, indeed, the tools with which they work.
The basis of the proposal is to punish as an act of terrorism anything aimed at threatening 'and seriously altering or destroying the political, economic, or social structures of a country' , that is to say any questioning of injustice and the established order such as the occupation by the homeless of empty housing or by the unemployed of job centres or of organisations managing unemployment insurance payments or, indeed, European demonstrations against organisations such as the IMF, WTO or the World Bank.
Basically, a measure of this kind would tend to criminalise social activism by bringing fundamental rights into question.
That is why I have not voted in favour of this report, which makes terrorists out of us.
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(NL) After 11 September, Commissioner Vitorino rightly prioritised previous agreements from Tampere in order to reach more effective cooperation in the fight against terrorism, police and judicial cooperation.
That is why we give our unqualified support to the proposal on combating terrorism.
We also support a European arrest warrant.
However, we do not endorse the present proposal when it comes to a negative list. We consider this position to be already out-of-date since the Council is working on a positive list, rightly so.
We are in favour of this, and we expect a decision by the Council before the end of this year.
Indeed, the events of 11 September have forced us to take prompt action.
That is why, despite our objections to a negative list, we will not vote against the proposal, but will abstain instead, in anticipation of the European Commission and the Council producing a concrete positive list by the end of the year, which will give the European arrest warrant in 2001 a tangible dimension.
That is why we expect improvements which have been proposed by the Dutch Labour Party delegation, among others, to be incorporated in the work of the Council, including those pertaining to evidence, right to assistance, more scope for hearing the defendant and the principle of ne bis in idem.
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(NL) The Belgian members of the PSE Group have abstained from the final vote on the European arrest warrant.
They support the efforts by the European Parliament to help develop the legislative framework in the fight against terrorism.
The European arrest warrant is a useful instrument, but the Belgian members of the PSE Group oppose the generally applicable European arrest warrant for crimes which incur a sentence of more than one year.
They are in favour of the Council' s approach with a positive list on the basis of the Europol mandate.
Gebhardt report (A5-0398/2001)
Madam President, I voted for Mrs Gebhardt' s report.
I am, naturally, in favour of any fight against injustice, and the effects of organised crime constitute a serious injustice.
Citizens should be protected by European judges, and let us hope that soon there really will be European judges.
For this to happen, however, there has to be a European criminal code, Madam President, which I have often called for.
Once again, then, I insist that there should be a criminal code and a European code of criminal procedure, otherwise there is no point in having European judges.
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(EL) This is the second time a report on setting up Eurojust has been tabled for debate in plenary in the last six months.
This time it has been scheduled on the same day as the debate on the European terrorism law and the European arrest warrant.
Eurojust is an institution consisting of one representative from each Member State (public prosecutor, judge or police officer) and will have the widest, unaccountable powers to investigate and prosecute.
It will basically have the power to order the authorities of any Member State to start an investigation or institute proceedings and even to take part itself in investigations by setting up joint investigation teams.
The Member State will have to comply with its recommendations; if it does not, it must specifically justify its refusal.
During the previous debate, the argument cited for setting up Eurojust was to fight cross-border crime, that is, to combat crime where there might be a clash between the jurisdiction of at least two countries.
Now it would appear that the rulers of the European Union feel that they do not need any excuses.
Under the new text, this new superpower will be able to intervene even if the crime only affects one country.
Of course, so-called terrorism is one of the crimes for which Eurojust will have jurisdiction.
Eurojust will be assisted in carrying out its virtuous remit by four different databases containing sensitive personal data: the criminal records kept by each Member State on their citizens, the Schengen Information System, the European judicial network and Europol's files.
The long-winded list of personal data includes information on "racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, and data concerning health or sex life".
All this means is that personal records are to be legalised through a quasi-judicial European body.
This is, without doubt, an overly centralised and arbitrary institution which does away with any sense of national sovereignty.
It is also an insult to the famous operational independence of the judiciary of which bourgeois democracies are so proud.
We must not delude ourselves that the objective of this whole legal arsenal is, primarily, to stamp out common crime.
Together with the terrorist law, the European arrest warrant and the future European public prosecutor, this is an attempt to create a suppressive supranational mechanism which will be turned against democratic freedoms and, more importantly, against the grass-roots movement when it rises up against the dominant political and economic choices being made.
This is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report.
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(NL) I welcome the establishment of Eurojust and, with it, the possible cooperation between public prosecutors from the various Member States.
Although the brief, at first sight, remains limited to coordination and assistance, Eurojust can also request inquiries or institute proceedings.
Consequently, I am concerned that in the long term, Eurojust might develop into a European Public Prosecution Office with a general brief.
Indeed, a European public prosecutor with responsibility for financial matters could be very useful, for he could sufficiently protect the Community' s financial interests.
This would then be a European Public Prosecution Office with a limited brief.
A criminal law system at EU level is, certainly at the moment, both undesirable and unrealistic.
National criminal law is closely linked to the national sovereignty of the Member States and must be embedded in a democratic legal system with sufficient scope for supervision.
I am, therefore, not in favour of a general European Public Prosecution Office.
Furthermore, only a national Public Prosecution Office can take sufficient account of the cultural aspects of national criminal law.
The decision to prosecute must, therefore, be taken at the level of the individual Member States.
The Dutch Minister for Justice, Mr Korthals, has assured the Dutch Parliament that Eurojust will not develop into a European Public Prosecution Office.
If the ambition was ever to set up a European Public Prosecution Office, then Eurojust would not be the right route to take.
With this reservation, we, as the Christian Union - Calvinist Political Party Group, have decided to vote in favour of the present proposal.
I voted for this proposal because it forms part of a coherent set of measures that can and must contribute to Europe being able to cooperate more efficiently in the fight against terrorism, both within its borders and internationally.
In this very part-session we have welcomed the initiatives on adopting a common definition of terrorist acts and levels of sanctions, and on replacing traditional extradition procedures with a simple system of surrendering criminals, on the basis of a European arrest warrant.
The purpose of the proposal on Eurojust is to effectively improve cooperation between the judicial authorities of the Member States, whilst ensuring that fundamental rights are safeguarded, because the fight against terrorism, and against other forms of crime, can only be effective through improved cooperation between judicial authorities and police forces, with particular emphasis on the role to be played by Europol.
This is an important and ambitious project, because crime does not recognise borders.
It is, therefore, important to promote this judicial cooperation, and the exchange of information between Member States.
The European Union' s citizens have the right to demand that the Union effectively addresses the problem of ever more frequent threats of crime against their freedom and rights.
In order to do this, a new strategy must be adopted, one that consists of coordinating all our efforts in the aim of combating and preventing crime throughout the territory of the Member States.
Lagendijk report (A5-0386/2001)
Madam President, with his report, Mr Lagendijk has presented a request for assistance for FYROM.
It is certainly a positive step for the European Union to give a helping hand to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in its current stricken situation, especially since it has been tormented by internal fighting within its borders.
I ask, however, and insist and will be pleased if this assistance can be given to all the states of Central and Eastern Europe, which are in need of financial assistance after 50 years of communist dictatorship.
Färm report (A5-0385/2001)
. (NL) I have noticed that recent events have initially borne out what I predicted on 15 March and 3 May.
I would invite you to read up on the Minutes.
At the time, I stated that granting premature support to the Macedonian government, proclaiming desperate Albanians as extremists and distributing funds would not lead to answers, peace and reconciliation, but would fan the flames of violence.
A proportion of the Macedonian population and of the Macedonian government dreamed of a Macedonia without Albanians, or only with completely unrecognisable and adapted residents of Albanian origin.
That proportion wanted to buy arms with EU subsidies intended for peace.
Hopefully, the change in the Constitution will put an end to the idea that within the borders of that country, there is only room for one language and one nation, and that all problems would be solved if the large Albanian minority were ignored, or even driven away.
If, in future, the roles were reversed because the Albanians had become the largest nation, they will hopefully sympathise more with the ambitions of the Macedonian minority than is now the case in respect of the Albanians.
If future aid is now employed for peace, reconciliation and reconstruction, then I can fully support the initiative.
Färm report (A5-0410/2001)
. (NL) The three regions which, following the collapse of former Yugoslavia, have carried on under the old name on the map of Europe, no longer even function as an informal federation.
Even the surrender of the former President to the Tribunal in The Hague appeared to have become a matter solely for the government of the federal state where he lived.
Montenegro has not functioned under Yugoslav customs control for a number of years now, and the deutschmark which was introduced there as currency is soon to be replaced by the euro.
Kosovo has been cut off from the outside world by violence, and the large majority of the population wishes to keep it that way.
They will never resign to returning to a state which they have not recognised at all for eight years.
Today' s reality is that Yugoslavia continues to exist only in the minds of politicians and officials outside that country.
I regret this as a friend and expert of the former federation of Yugoslavia, but I accept the reality which people have chosen at grassroots level.
Since the third state of that name has now also disappeared, I am not opposed to financial aid for reconstruction and for the fight against poverty to the three separate regions, nor to the wish of each separately to accede to the EU.
Färm report (A5-0411/2001)
. (NL) The former Turkish Province of Bosnia-Herzegovina does not form an ethnic unit.
Its boundaries were even completely wiped off the map by the provincial reorganisations of the old Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, the division into a Serbian and Croatian region following the 'Sporazum' Treaty in 1939 and the annexation to the nazi-satellite state Croatia in 1941.
The main reason why the freedom movement under Tito chose to set up a federal state of Bosnia-Herzegovina between Serbia and Croatia in 1945, was that it saw this region as a melting pot for creating one Serbo-Croat nation.
Some time in the future, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro would fuse into one big Serbo-Croat federal state, adopting the same dominating position within the federal Yugoslavia as Russia within the Soviet Union.
This role of melting pot proved unsuccessful.
As in the old Yugoslavia, the majority of the population is made up of Serbs and Croats, and their loyalties lie with the new neighbouring states, Serbia or Croatia, from which they wrongly feel cut off.
I have the impression that we are still taking too little account of this, despite the federalisation of Bosnia, as agreed in Dayton.
Financial aid is needed, but without the proviso that joint administrative bodies must be strengthened.
If the EU were to subsidise the transfer of powers by Flanders and Wallonia in Belgium to the federation, this would also be met with horror.
Lagendijk report (A5-0386/2001) and
Färm reports (A5-0385, 0410, 0411/2001)
We voted against these reports, which are nothing more than a financial statement of the policy of the major Imperialist powers in this area of the world.
The so-called 'aid' to the Balkans is, in fact, intended to 'support the balance of payments and help ease ... the external financial constraints' of these countries, as stated in one of the Färm reports (Macedonia).
The major powers bear a huge part of the responsibility for the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.
They are guilty of bombings which affected not only the targeted regions but neighbouring regions as well, if only because they forced a part of the population of Kosovo into exile.
Their variable geometric diplomacy, which involves them supporting one side and then another, playing on ethnic differences and thus reviving them, is not bringing peace to the region, but encouraging war.
In voting against these reports, we are expressing our opposition to the Imperialist powers' overall policy on the Balkans and to their interventions.
I am not happy with the document on the future of the European Union with regard to the Laeken Council, Madam President, even though I voted for it, because it does not say that the European Union should, in future, have the competence to legislate on European pension systems.
All 15 Member States, plus the other 12 that have applied to join the European Union, have pension systems in deficit.
The national governments have been unable to administer their funds.
What better evidence could there be that only the European Union can solve the problem of those workers who hand their money over to the State and then do not get it back when they reach old age? Perhaps - I hope, I am sure - the European Union will be better at administering the European citizens' pension funds.
With regard to this report on the future of the European Union, in particular the Laeken Council, there are a number of items which I could be in favour of as we want to chart out a new and more dynamic future for the European Union.
However, putting and accepting proposals which quasi agree with a constitution for the future of Europe, working on the assumption that this is going to happen no matter what without taking consideration or consultation with the people, is unacceptable.
Mention has been made also of the democratic deficit and of the need to draw all strands of society together.
With a Convention we end up with a select few non-governmental organisations supposedly representing the majority of the people in the European Union.
However, when it comes to an implementation of what will come out of that Convention, how many countries will offer a referendum to allow for a full democratic endorsement of the future it wants to see. That is why I abstained on the final vote on this particular report.
As far as the resolution on the future of the Union is concerned, there are many reasons why I could not vote in favour, and here are just two of them.
First of all, Parliament should stop trying to avoid tackling issues that are crucial for the future of European integration, and should stop restricting itself to providing information - that is, in fact, very superficial - to those who will actually be performing our tasks.
Furthermore, Parliament is harming its own interests by favouring the parliamentary experience of the future Chair of the Convention over an executive body, whereas the Commission, and Commissioner Barnier in particular, rightly reiterate at every opportunity that the confidence of governments in the Chair of the Convention will be a determining factor in the Convention' s hoped-for success.
In order to issue its opinion on the preparation of the next Intergovernmental Conference, the European Parliament has recently adopted a very strange resolution.
It does not even bother to mention the four themes which, according to the Nice Council, are to serve as a basis for our future debates (division of competences, simplification, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the role of the national parliaments). Instead, it gives a long list of the traditional federalist demands in all areas.
To cap it all, it demands a Constitution for the European Union - a phrase that was not used in the Nice conclusions but which, nonetheless, the resolution says should be the IGC' s 'objective' .
The European Parliament would have done better to closely examine the analysis of Declaration 23 of the Nice European Council, which includes as an objective not a European Constitution but the improvement of the 'democratic legitimacy and transparency of the Union' , which, in our view, seems very different, even the opposite.
The Constitution would involve establishing a higher supra-national power, on fundamental issues as well, which would further distance Europe from its people, and would further weaken its democratic legitimacy.
Was the Nice Council not aiming for a different objective when it mentioned 'the role of national parliaments in the European system' as one of the four themes to be included on the agenda of the next IGC? The 'in' shows that the current priority should be to involve the national parliaments in the European decision-making processes, so that it can reforge links with the citizens.
However, the European Parliament is still a long way off this crucial debate, as there is no mention of it in its resolution.
Admittedly, the Laeken Council can always, if it wishes, head off towards the federalist clouds, but if it wants to address Europe' s real problems we would advise it to take the new direction carved out by the Nice Council.
- (FR) We are told that this summit must 'assess the results of recent months and prepare for the future' .
For the workers of the European Union, the results are tens of thousands of redundancies at Moulinex, Sabena, AOM, Danone, in companies involved in IT and in your intended new economy, in which there is more redundancy than recruitment.
The results, for working people, are an unbearable level of unemployment, an increase in insecurity and unemployment, illiteracy and a lack of healthcare.
When the rapporteurs express their desire that 'political, economic and social progress, security and well-being for Europe' s citizens' should be achieved by means of 'the establishment of a well-balanced economic and monetary system resulting from the consolidation of economic and social cohesion policy, the strengthening of employment policy...' , they are simply repeating the hollow words used by all of those people who do not understand what it is like to fear unemployment and be insecure about the future.
As for the creation of a Convention responsible for preparing for Europe' s future and the revision of the Treaties, the very name of the person who, in France, has been sounded out to preside over it, Giscard d'Estaing, indicates how far-removed it will be from the interests of the workers and the working population of Europe.
We have voted against it.
This report falls in line with the strategy of those who are relying on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference to provide a further qualitative and meaningful leap in the federalist integration of the EU, under the control of the great powers which will, out of necessity, undermine the sovereignty of countries such as Portugal.
It insists on speeding up preparations for a new Treaty, which will extend federalist integration, 'forgetting' the lessons and the political consequences of the Irish people' s rejection of the Treaty of Nice.
Among countless other aspects of which I am critical, the report advocates the creation of a 'convention' - that some people envisage as a form of 'constituent assembly' that it sees as an instrument for imposing conditions on the exercise of the exclusive competence of national governments and parliaments with regard to revising the Treaties, which in terms of its membership, only guarantees the participation of the largest national parties, thereby diminishing the participation of parties with different political positions on Europe, and thereby undermining the pluralism and the genuinely independent and democratic participation of national parliaments.
I therefore voted against the report.
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I wish to put it on record that I voted against a number of proposals put forward in the Leinen and Mendez de Vigo report on the Laeken Summit.
I would like to highlight the fact that I voted against Paragraph 4(d) which calls for "The removal of the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure".
This is yet again, an outlandish attack on the CAP which has served us well.
I do not believe such a move is in the best interests of the future of the Union.
The CAP forms the bedrock on which the Community was formed.
It still represents certainty in a difficult economic climate.
As a result of the adoption of this text and other proposals, I abstained on the final vote.
I deeply regret that 430 Members of the House voted against this fundamental policy of the CAP, as I outlined earlier.
The European Union has been a bulwark against recession in the past.
It has been of immense advantage to my own country, Ireland and I know it will continue to be, in the future, a powerhouse for the citizens of Europe.
But we should not pull down the good structures and leave our farmers and their families on their own.
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(EL) Clearly the plans for the future of the EU are predicated on the intention of serving the interests of big business even better and consolidating the new imperialist order.
Unbridled neo-liberalist policies are being pushed forward, with all that this implies for the people.
We therefore need greater, more widespread and more proactive reaction on the part of our workers and society in general in order to put a halt to this policy and bring about a radical change of direction.
Prospects for militarising Europe, curtailing national independence and grass-roots sovereignty, restricting the fundamental social and democratic rights of our citizens and launching an all-out attack on the workers' movement and standard of living, are still the core objectives of the arrangements which will be pursued by the European Council in Laeken and then later by the Intergovernmental Conference.
The broad involvement of national and European agencies being proposed does nothing to reverse or overturn this policy; on the contrary, it ensures that they will be on board to aid and abet its implementation.
The involvement of all these agencies does nothing to change the substance of the debate, nor does it provide any basic opportunity to intervene, in that, apart from anything else, it will have merely advisory rather than decision-making powers.
On the other hand, it gives the sovereign powers the chance to proceed with the implementation of their plans with some semblance of legal and democratic authority.
An attempt is being made to head off the expected mass demonstrations which accompanied previous revisions of the Treaties in Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice, which is why the method used for the so-called 'Charter of Rights' is being used here again.
However, the results of this method have been tested in practice and proved that broader involvement did not help to consolidate or widen individual and social rights in line with modern-day requirements; on the contrary, these rights were curtailed in line with the dictat of big business, giving rise to serious grass-roots reaction.
The workers are fighting and will continue to fight to limit the adverse impact of these plans and decisions and every possible means will be used for this fight.
However, they will not be duped or misled, their fight is getting stronger and stronger and their counter-attack for a different Europe, for different, grass-roots institutions which serve their interests and bring about peace and collaboration based on mutual benefits and real rather than sham respect for all their individual and collective rights is becoming more and more substantial and dynamic.
. (NL) If we considered the EU as one superstate instead of a collaborative association of free nations that want to solve their cross-border problems jointly, we have to note that this state is showing countless democratic shortcomings.
A great deal is discussed behind closed doors between the governments of the Member States that form part of it.
If these take part in decisions which contravene the wishes of their national parliaments, they can always blame the other Member States for the choices made.
The superstate does boast a directly elected parliament that can discuss everything, but unlike the national parliaments, this parliament has no right of initiative, nor does it have the last word in legislation, budget and the formation of coalition.
It can only oppose legislative documents of the European Commission if there are more voters in favour than stay-at-home voters, including those abstaining and those voting against.
Thanks to this lack of democracy, large companies have much more, and the individual citizens or their organisations much less, influence than in a normal democracy.
Both rapporteurs are right to opt for more democracy.
At the same time, they also choose in favour of continued development towards more harmonisation and centralisation, a trend which has been in motion for years.
The people of the EU stand to gain nothing from more power for a large-scale level of administration that is difficult to influence.
This is why my party, the Dutch Socialist Party, rejects that part of the proposals.
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(FR) It is quite right that the Leinen/Méndez de Vigo report has received huge support in this House.
By proposing a more democratic, transparent and efficient method for reforming the Treaty, the European Parliament' s resolution effectively attempts to provide a remedy for something which has been confirmed by all the opinion polls: the indifference of the citizens to European construction.
It is to be hoped that the Laeken Summit will manage to create the essential conditions for a more logical and balanced institutional project, by means of the mandate of the Convention.
The public will, once again, identify with the European project if the participants in the summit manage to present them with political objectives for which it is useful and necessary to strive.
In order to implement them, it is not necessary to create new institutions.
It will be sufficient to improve and increase the efficiency of the institutions we already have.
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(DE) I welcome the good work done by the rapporteurs and I therefore also voted in favour of the report.
But I do object that a problem with the terms 'constitution' and 'constitutional treaty' has arisen for a second time in connection with this subject.
When the vote was taken in plenum on the Méndez de Vigo/Seguro Report on the Treaty of Nice and the future of the Union on 31 May 2001, an official corrigendum to the protocol had to be submitted with the correct text 'constitutional treaty' .
The same problem arose in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs when voting on the Leinen/Méndez de Vigo Report on the Laeken European Council and the future of the European Union on 22 October 2001 in Strasbourg because of differences between the voting documents - the compromise amendments were only available in English and French - and despite my intervention it was not subsequently resolved by a linguistic correction.
I ask Parliament's Bureau to look into this.
Kaufmann report (A5-0399/2001)
Madam President, I also voted for Mrs Kaufmann' s report on European governance, which, on page 12, last line, item 21, calls for the explanations of vote of the members of the European Council, when they vote on their decisions, to be published, as these explanations of vote are currently not published.
I am pleased to point out that, in contrast, the European Parliament not only provides for this and permits it but makes a point of allowing the Members themselves to express their explanations of vote.
Since I am one of these Members, I agree that the reasons why the European Ministers voted one way or the other should be made known in the European Council too.
With regard to the White Paper on European governance, I had no hesitation in voting in favour of the report by Mrs Kaufmann, since it usefully corrects some of the errors and inconsistencies of the Commission' s document.
But it is still regrettable that Parliament has not shown more will with regard to certain points which were badly dealt with in that report, particularly on our role in the process of consulting civil society, and the need to deal directly and separately with regional powers, on the one hand, and local powers on the other.
- (FR) On 4 September, I had the opportunity in this House, in the presence of President Prodi, to offer an initial reaction to the Commission' s White Paper on European governance.
On that occasion I said that concern for deepening democracy, within the orderly framework of representative democracy, seemed to me to be absent from the text.
There was confirmation of that criticism from all quarters during the subsequent debates.
It should be pointed out that the title of the report, European 'governance' , a word which has no clear meaning in practically any language of the European Union, has simply increased the misunderstanding.
But perhaps that was deliberate and intended to cloud the issue.
Because the more one thinks about it, the less innocent this White Paper appears.
I see one inconsistency, one omission and one fallacy in it.
The inconsistency lies in the principle which, according to the White Paper (title IV, page 37), inspired the authors: "to integrate the peoples of Europe through scrupulous respect for national identities".
This is as contradictory as the 'federation of nation-States' of Jacques Delors, of whom the principal author of the White Paper is a close associate.
In the confusion resulting from it, the linchpin of the European decision-making process, the national State, is abandoned.
The report' s proposals are aimed at (page 38) "providing a structure for the relationship between the European Union and civil society", developing interaction with "regional and local actors", strengthening public confidence in the use of experts, etc...
All these actions have the effect of bypassing the national States, which disappear from the scope of the report, when they should be the key element.
Finally, as I said on 4 September, the White Paper seems to believe that 'governance' can function while disregarding representative democracy.
The Kaufmann report, voted for by our House, vigorously corrects this fallacy, and we are pleased about that, but it fails to point out that representative democracy is, in turn, disturbed, even distorted, if national democracy is not at centre stage.
- (DA) The June Movement and the People' s Movement Against the EU have abstained from voting on the Kaufmann report. That is because, even if the report contains quite a few very positive features, the June Movement is unable to vote in favour of a report proposing measures as federalist as this.
Bösch report (A5-0393/2001)
Madam President, I voted for the Bösch report on the protection of the Community' s financial interests and the fight against fraud.
As you know, Madam President, the elderly and pensioners are victims of fraud more than anyone else.
Since, in the European Union, in administering the money of Europe, so much money goes missing - I am sad to say that EUR 2 028 million was lost through fraud in 2000 - those who suffer most are surely the vulnerable people of the European Union.
I therefore call upon the Commission to submit proposals for more money to be used to expose fraud before it takes place.
I should like to agree with Mr Crowley's last couple of comments.
The British Conservatives, who form the European Democratic wing of the PPE-DE Group, voted against the Bösch report in total because, yet again, there is mention of the European public prosecutor and explicit comments to confer more extensive powers on it when set up, thus leading to Corpus Juris.
It is quite amazing that this House, which is keen to see the European project go forward, is very casual about the way it looks at the legal system it is trying to create for the people of the European Union.
The European public prosecutor has many problems, not least those previously mentioned by Mr Crowley in another speech, because Britain and Ireland have completely different legal systems to the European continent.
Yet again the British Conservatives voted with great pleasure against another report.
.
(NL) On account of its largescale, the EU is far removed from its residents. This makes it into the ideal breeding ground for favouritism and blurring of moral standard by a small powerful elite and its environment.
This elite deems itself above the law that applies to others.
It appears wise for shady and parasitic enterprises to maintain good relations with members of the European Commission and top officials.
In 1999, the Commission official, Paul van Buitenen, gave us an insight into this practice in his book 'Strijd voor Europa' [The Fight for Europe].
Additionally, the unnecessary circulation of large sums of money in the form of funds invites abuse and confusion.
Every government and every interested group will, time and again, try to attract the largest possible subsidies, and to gain maximum freedom in the spending thereof.
We cannot change this attitude by thinking up ever more bureaucratic procedures and rules.
Funds must be intended for solidarity with those who are economically the weakest and for re-distribution to the poorest regions, rather than for patronising conduct or prestige projects.
Anything which fails to meet this standard should remain fully within the money circuit of the national government, without any interference from Brussels.
I share the criticism by rapporteur Bösch on the European Commission, the stagnation of inquiries into fraud and nepotism, and OLAF' s powers that are too restricted.
The fight against the fraud that damages the Community' s financial interests should, for obvious reasons, be one of the European Commission' s main priorities for action.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group can only be delighted at the good results achieved by OLAF during 2000 and, moreover, hopes that such actions can bear even more fruit in the coming years.
The citizens of Europe, the Member States themselves and, of course, all the Members of the European Parliament, it is fair to assume, are demanding this.
The UEN Group and the Italian delegation, in particular, however, finds it impossible to vote in favour of the Bösch resolution, although it obviously agrees with that part of its content that shows the political will to fight fraud more effectively.
In particular, we very strongly oppose the inclusion in the resolution of Paragraphs 32 and 35, which constitute unacceptable interference in the domestic affairs of one of the Member States.
Indeed, 'points to recent changes in the law in Italy' - Paragraph 32 - and 'calls on the Italian government to stop blocking leave of absence for Italian public prosecutors to take up executive functions with OLAF' - Paragraph 35 - are in both form and substance unacceptable criticisms of the exercise of sovereign powers by a Member State, performed in full compliance with all democratic rules.
We therefore strongly deplore the inclusion of the two paragraphs in the resolution, for that sets a dangerous precedent in the relations between the European Parliament and the Member States; these relations must always be characterised by mutual respect for the other' s positions, even when the positions differ.
Agreement with Egypt (B5-0740/2001)
.
(NL) Egypt is a country that is very parsimonious when it comes to guaranteeing the protection of human rights. The arrest and imprisonment of 52 homosexual men on account of their sexual orientation is once again a poignant example of this.
Despite our parliamentary questions, the European Commission failed to add the topic to the agenda at the recent summit meeting with Mr Mubarak.
It appears that human rights issues fade into the background if military or economic interests are at stake.
In our view, it is not right to reward Egypt for its misconduct under these circumstances, and we have therefore voted against the proposal.
Fiori report (A5-0391/2001)
Madam President, I voted against Mr Fiori' s report. Why did I vote against it?
I am in favour of scientific research, but I am worried. Why am I worried?
I am worried that if we change the genes of human beings, tomorrow there will be something very important missing on the human face and in people' s lives. What is more important than anything else in people' s lives?
Love, Madam President! What if, tomorrow, we have human beings who are not capable of loving, of expressing love in all its forms?
What future life will our children and our children' s children have? That is why I am against any kind of manipulation of the origins of human life.
Mr President, the surprising result of the vote on the Fiori report can be interpreted in various ways.
One thing is certain: it shows that Parliament believes that we still need to think very carefully about this extremely sensitive issue.
I will take this opportunity to reiterate the clear position of the Northern League-Padania: we are, and always shall be, against any idea of human cloning.
Our basic premise is the conviction that the embryo that is created is human life from conception onwards and that any intervention on the embryo means its death.
There are alternatives for research which are ethically acceptable as well as scientifically valid, such as research on stem cells, which are also present in the individual after birth.
Therefore, on this occasion, we call for investment in research and experimentation on stem cells taken from individuals after birth.
Mr President, today the House has shown itself unworthy of an excellent report by a committee on human genetics.
A majority of this House, duped by an unholy alliance of socialists and liberals, has distorted a report, so that nearly all of us ended up having to vote against it in order to leave that outstanding product of the Committee on Human Genetics, the original text of the Fiori Report, standing as a beacon of Europe's protection of life.
I am proud that this Committee, in one year, drafted this magnificent report, which will stand as the product of a committee of real experts.
This House has yet to learn how to handle this report in a manner worthy of it.
I appeal to the citizens of the European Union and to the organisations in it defending human life, which are at last becoming as active as the animal protection organisations, to take a close look at how Members here voted and to enter into dialogue with us, so that this House may keep to the course it has taken since the Gergo report at the beginning of the 1980s, that is, to stand up for life - human life for human beings.
From conception to natural death, human beings deserve all the protection we can give, and without equivocation.
Mr President, on the Fiori report, Parliament has relinquished its responsibilities as a legislative assembly, because it has taken a wide majority decision to take on the responsibilities of an authority on ethics and morals.
This is the reason, the root cause of the failure of this Committee on Genetics.
Fortunately, we still have the Caudron report, which, at least, tells us that the European Union will be able to fund projects on stem cells from supernumerary embryos.
At least we shall have the assurance that we will not be forced by the European Union or European Union instructions to throw away cells that might give life and health to millions of people.
As for the rest, it is now a matter for national laws.
We hope that some people will be wiser than others, less willing to bow to the religious bureaucracies that try to impose their own morals and ethics on all citizens, not just the people who follow those religious practices.
Mr President, in my view, it is extremely unfortunate and a missed opportunity for this Parliament that this report has not been adopted.
What can this be attributed to? To the fact that everything that was connected to the report was badly managed: in the first two phases, we had a rather liberal report, in fact, too liberal in my view, and we have ended up with a very restrictive final vote.
Why is it unfortunate not to have a report? It is unfortunate because at the moment, we are allowing industry to carry on unmonitored: we have not concluded any agreements on the absolutely crucial change in patent law which restricts people in their chances of being cured.
Neither have we made any agreements on genetic tests. We have not reached agreement on whether, in European countries, something similar can be demanded when taking out insurance cover.
It is a missed opportunity, we have managed it badly and I think that we have done ourselves, but certainly also the citizens of Europe, a disservice by what has happened now after eleven months.
With regard to Mr Fiori' s report and the resolution resulting from the report, but also very largely from the work of the temporary committee on the problems of human genetics, I was compelled to vote against it because of the significant contradictions included or left in the resolution, but I must say that this vote does not do justice to the work of the committee which has been extremely well chaired by Mr Goebbels.
I agree with the feeling which has just been expressed very rightly by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, and I must point out that the broadly negative vote of Parliament, even though it might ease everybody' s consciences, nevertheless leaves intact the considerable problems which have led to the creation of the committee and which have, furthermore, only increased since it was created, as the events of last weekend have shown once again.
.
(FR) The Fiori report on the ethical, legal, economic and social aspects of human genetics is a good report, on which Mrs Montfort had also done a lot of work.
Unfortunately, it has been distorted by amendments mainly presented by the Left, aimed at removing all the moral obstacles to genetic research.
We are therefore opposed to this distorted text, and in the end, following a last minute u-turn, the European Parliament rejected it, to our great satisfaction.
It is interesting to ask ourselves what conclusions should be drawn from this, particularly with regard to the vote at our last part-session on Article 3 of the research framework programme 2002-2006, presented by means of the Caudron report, which was to decide the conditions under which the European Union would subsidise genetic research.
A rather obscure and unsatisfactory amendment was then voted on, in anticipation of the Fiori report, which seemed to authorise the funding of research into therapeutic cloning and research into the stem cells of embryos.
That same amendment, which was introduced today into the Fiori report in order to distort it, has in the end also been broadly rejected by this House.
Given that the same text was adopted at the last part-session and then rejected during this one, the least we can say is that the situation is unclear.
We believe that we should preserve the European Parliament' s traditional position of rejecting therapeutic cloning and research into embryos in the name of respecting human dignity.
.
(FR) We have voted against this report which, even amended, is unacceptable.
The fact that it contains huge scientific errors is not the most serious thing.
It is above all steeped, from beginning to end, in an obscurantist attitude to science and its applications. Some research may lead to excesses?
No doubt. Especially in a society where the application will be carried out by private companies whose objective is profit.
But why prohibit certain of them which are connected to genetic research, why refuse public funding for researchers whose work, the future will tell, may be decisive in terms of improving the lives of countless human beings?
We voted for some of the good intentions of the text where they were not restricted to being purely platonic, particularly in relation to the protection of workers, the disabled and people suffering rare diseases.
But we refute all its reasoning, the basis of which is clerical, reactionary and misogynist.
We reject anything that goes against the right of women to control their own bodies and to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy.
With regard to patents, not only are we completely against any idea of patenting living beings, but we are against the equally horrendous patents on medical products which cannot be used for the care of millions of human beings too poor to pay.
More generally, we are against all forms of patent on inventions which are not aimed at protecting the inventor but at safeguarding monopoly profits for the capitalist groups which market them.
It is not research which must be restrained, but, rather, we must put an end to this economy based on profit.
Since we trust in the ability of humanity to, one day, govern its economy and social life, freeing itself from the hindrances of private property, we confirm our trust in the work of the researchers and in what science can contribute to a society liberated from exploitation, the rule of capital and obscurantism.
. (FR) The discussion of the Fiori report and its resolution has been characterised by a brutal confrontation between promoters of the exploitation of life and embryos and defenders of their humanity and therefore their integrity.
This stormy debate has largely taken place on the basis of a confusion of values, confirming the historical fragility of the foundations of our humanist and Christian civilisation when faced with the combined attacks of scientism and materialism.
This confusion of values in Europe and within the Member States has prevented any possibility of defining the status of the embryo, and I regret this.
Although science shows that the use of adult stem cells renders the use of embryonic cells pointless, scientific thinking is determined to violate the 'sanctity of life' by promoting the exploitation of the human embryo.
This demonstrates that the defenders of the humanity of life at all its stages of development are confronted with a real ideology which is not only dehumanising, but which is cloaked in a false humanism and realism.
.
(FR) I have voted in favour of this report.
I very much regret the fact that the Fiori report on the 'ethical, legal, economic and social implications of human genetics' has been rejected in plenary session.
The problems relating to human genetics should not be dealt with in emotional and simplistic terms.
Nevertheless, that seems to be the approach taken by the majority of the MEPs who have voted against this balanced text.
This vote represents an unprecedented halt for European research.
This will therefore put the Union considerably behind its international partners, and leave many investigations in the air.
With regard to the great fundamental principles and universal values which we defend, the European Parliament had the opportunity to totally exclude the risks of eugenics, as well as reproductive cloning, while implementing solid legal safeguards to provide a framework for what is possible and acceptable in genetic research.
The European Parliament, by not taking a position on this very topical subject, has shown a lack of courage.
This is all the more deplorable when we consider that numerous patients are awaiting the development of new therapies which may offer possibilities to many of them.
I voted in favour of the 1998 directive on legal protection for biotechnological inventions, which I considered to be in order, although, like most of the texts we vote on, it certainly leaves room for improvement.
It is, however, necessary, as we cannot allow there to be a legal vacuum on this subject in the European Union if we want to stay competitive in international research, which we certainly will not if we do not give legal protection to inventions in the field of biotechnology and freedom to research.
Such freedom, however, must not lead to the erosion of ethical boundaries.
The hope of sufferers that there will be treatment for their as yet incurable diseases leads me to believe that even the Church must be open-minded about putting in place, and making use of, new methods of treating chronically sick people.
Research using existing stem cells, and the promotion of it (also favoured by President Bush of the USA) should be permitted in basic research throughout Europe.
Research on adult and foetal stem cells should, however, be given priority.
The use of stem cells for therapeutic purposes is marching on as a potentially revolutionary new method for treating diseases and injuries.
The therapeutic objective is to develop differentiated cells or permanent tissues for transplantation into patients with diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, heart attacks etc., conditions for which there are, at present, no effective therapies or treatments.
It is, in any case, clear to me that this should involve only stem cell lines which have already been produced and which can be suspended in a culture in which they can proliferate.
For me, erosion of the ethical boundary begins with the deliberate breeding of embryos for research purposes.
That must not be permitted.
.
The Fiori report, even in its amended form, is a muddled and unhelpful contribution to the public discussion on stem cell research and other issues arising from developments in medical research.
Decisions of this nature are largely a matter for Member States and the European Parliament must respect subsidiarity.
The UK, for example, has quite rightly conducted its own debate on stem cell research and come to the conclusion that a tightly regulated research programme can eventually bring benefits to sufferers of highly disabling and painful conditions.
The UK has successfully transposed the patenting directive, as all Member States should have done, and the distinction between inventions and discoveries is quite clearly understood.
No review or attempt to change the directive is appropriate.
For these reasons Members of the EPLP have voted against the Fiori report.
. (FR) The Fiori report has represented an historic attempt by the European Union to impose the adoption of a common position with regard to something which forms the very basis of civilisations: the definition of the human being and its dignity.
We have witnessed a ferocious battle between the defenders of the integral and nonnegotiable dignity of the human being, of which I am one, and the promoters of an ideology which is a combination of scientism with materialism.
By rejecting the report by 400 votes to 37, Parliament has clearly and irrefutably demonstrated the limits of European parliamentarianism.
Together, the Members have refused any compromise solution, which is a victory for philosophy over political logic, and I am delighted about that.
It proves that the European Parliament, which is supposed to be the 'democratic organ' of the EU, has neither the institutional legitimacy nor the political capacity to impose a common position on the basis of the 'nature of the human being' , and its dignity.
By means of this vote, the European Parliament has proved that only the States can create the appropriate framework for dealing with these fundamental issues, respecting the cultural and spiritual traditions on which our civilisation is based.
I am calling for a ban, at European level, on the creation of human embryos for both therapeutic and reproductive purposes, for the following two reasons:
1) We cannot give up the struggle to develop techniques that bring the advantages of being able to manipulate human embryos without the ethical difficulties that this poses.
It would be a mistake for the legislator, out of the desire to give the green light to this technique, to abdicate his responsibility to pass tough legislation, for many years to come, which, in a field that develops at such speed, is all the more necessary. This would send the message to scientists and to industry that they should opt for the development of techniques that are not highly developed today and which are extremely costly, such as adult cell manipulation, but which still have a broad scope for use.
2) The creation of human embryos by means of nuclear transfer would facilitate cloning for reproductive purposes, which is generally considered to be an aberration.
As a matter of fact, this is the reason why the United Kingdom' s House of Lords this week rejected legislation authorising therapeutic cloning.
This ban must allow for three exceptions, however, which would have to be tightly controlled and regulated:
research must be allowed on supernumary embryos, which are produced for the purpose of IVF but whose implantation is no longer possible for the genetic parents and are, consequently, frozen, eventually to be destroyed;
research must be allowed on the 64 cell lines that already exist;
research must be allowed on embryonic or foetal stem cells resulting from spontaneous or therapeutic abortions.
.
(FR) I have voted against the resolution of this report as amended, as have my colleagues in the French Socialist Delegation and the Parliamentary Group of the European Socialist Party, because I have noted that the European Parliament has not managed to achieve a consensus and a reasonable position on the fundamental ethical and legal issues relating to human genetics, which I deplore.
I therefore believe that the text obtained is inconsistent and contradictory on certain points, such as the funding of research into embryonic stem cells or into the use of surplus embryos.
The negative vote demonstrates the inability of the rapporteur and the temporary committee to bring this difficult debate to a conclusion.
The lack of a European Parliament opinion is all the more harmful given that we are at a point where certain Member States are going to have to transpose the directive on the patentability of living matter into their national legislation, thereby modifying their legislation in this field.
I wanted to offer my support for research freedom, particularly for genetic research, into surplus embryonic stem cells, and although this type of research involves uncertainties and risks, it is very important that there be Community regulation and funding so that private research does not have a monopoly in this field.
- (SV) Mr Fiori' s report adopts positions on many difficult issues regarding human genetics, including the ethical principles which ought to apply in this area.
As a Christian Democrat, I believe that we need ethical parameters in society, with the most fundamental aspect being respect for human dignity.
However commendable the aim, it does not justify our using people as a means to an end.
Cloning is, therefore, unjustified in any form, whether the chosen adjective is 'therapeutic' or 'reproductive' .
It is impossible to make such a distinction, as therapeutic cloning is nothing other than the initial stages of reproductive cloning, with, from the beginning, a stated intention to destroy the embryo which develops from the substitution of the cell nucleus.
The embryo already contains everything needed for a human being.
Up to birth and beyond, we do not develop into people, but as people.
Research using embryonic stem cells is ethically highly controversial and is, moreover, banned in four Member States (Germany, Austria, Ireland and Portugal), but this is not the case where the use of adult stem cells is concerned.
It is, therefore, my view that research using adult stem cells should be prioritised, while ethically highly controversial embryonic stem cell research should not be funded through the Framework Programme.
Under the principle of subsidiarity, this does not prevent individual national governments from choosing to fund such research.
The fact that the funds available within the Framework Programme are limited means that we must set priorities.
As such, research which is so ethically controversial and which clearly breaches the law in many Member States should not be supported.
I have therefore chosen to support the report as it was presented prior to the reading in plenary, in line with my vote in favour of Mr Caudron' s report on the sixth framework programme.
.
(FR) This is one of the fundamental issues to which the very notion of compromise has no relevance and which presents us with radical choices.
This is the case with human genetics, where the unassailable dignity of the human being is at stake.
The dividing lines running through this Parliament were clearly illustrated by the vote on the Fiori report.
There is a liberal-libertarian line which exploits the flag for research freedom and claims that there is a so-called need not to be left behind by the United States and calls for European Union funding of research into embryonic stem cells and surplus cells, thereby opening the floodgates to the reification and the marketing of emerging human life, at an extreme stage of its embryonic fragility, to the development of actual embryo farms, where human embryos would be created for the sole purpose of killing them and cultivating their cells.
The so-called compromise approach seems particularly hypocritical and is simply an indirect means of authorising therapeutic cloning.
It consists of accepting the funding of research into cell lines obtained from embryonic stem cells, which means the destruction of embryos and affectively authorises therapeutic cloning, since cell lines do not have the same genetic heritage as the receiver suffering from an incurable disease.
The third position, which we support, and which has been defended competently and with conviction by Elizabeth Montfort, consists of rejecting any exceptions when it comes to the dignity of the human being, at whatever stage of development.
We demand that the prohibition of cloning be maintained and we reject the false distinction between reproductive cloning and therapeutic cloning, since they are exactly the same process.
We demand the prohibition of research into embryonic stem cells and surplus embryos and we demand concerted support for research into adult stem cells, the therapeutic applications of which are particularly promising.
.
(FR) The Fiori report represented an attempt by certain Members to reintroduce into European thinking an intended hierarchy for the dignity of human beings.
Coming from the European cultural and spiritual tradition, I do not believe that any hierarchy is acceptable when it comes to human dignity.
Whether we are talking about ill people, disabled people, people at the end or at the beginning of their lives, every human being deserves the same degree of dignity.
Furthermore, I am categorically opposed to any attempt to subjugate any section of humanity to the supposed benefit of another.
It is one of the great characteristics of man that he strives for his own overall good, and scientific research contributes to this while also having to adapt to it.
Philosophy and history teach us that any compromise of the respect for the human being leads inescapably to its negation.
Finally, it is through political courage and a clear vision of what gives the human being its dignity and greatness, that it remains possible to maintain a civilisation and a form of progress which are truly human.
That concludes the statements on the vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament suspended.
(The sitting was closed at 2.13 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 29 November 2001.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of Thursday 29 November have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Wynn, I can assure you that you will receive an answer very soon.
(The Minutes of the previous sitting were approved)
Order of business
Madam President, the Commissioner probably gave us more than we already formally have in the extremely important negotiations which were preceded by many debates here in this Parliament, and were followed by a resolution which we presented to the Commission, to which the Commissioner made reference during the negotiations at every opportunity and stated: "in the final analysis, I need the majority and support of the European Parliament" .
And we would now decide to hold a debate without a final say from us? I cannot really imagine this.
I would also like to call on the fellow MEPs from the other parties, irrespective of the content of their opinions, to conclude this debate with a political verdict.
We owe it to the Commission and to the dignity of this House.
Since the negotiations are of such significance, we must really employ our full powers and reach a verdict.
Madam President, I do not think that anyone here will deny that the Doha Summit was an important political event, both for the European Union and for the whole world.
I believe that it is equally important to carefully analyse the outcome of the summit and the decisions that were taken there.
Rather than running the risk of adopting a superficial position, Parliament can simply publish a few brief considerations.
However, I think that it is too early to carry out a serious political assessment, which is in fact what is expected of a parliament.
I believe that we must wait and not vote for a resolution this week.
I shall now put the request to the vote.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Still with regard to Tuesday, I have received a request from Mr Westendorp to postpone the vote on telecommunications until Wednesday.
Madam President, on Wednesday's draft agenda there is a joint debate on the Middle East at 3 p.m.
It might be helpful for colleagues if in advance of that debate, in which there will be a great deal of interest, Parliament's services would consider reprinting copies of the joint address to this House by the Speaker of the Knesset and the Speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
The message delivered on that occasion might shed some light in our current darkness.
Mr Beazley, I believe you are referring to the speeches that Mr Avraham Burg and Mr Abu Ala gave to Parliament.
These speeches are available to all Members who wish to refer to them.
I do not think we need to resend them.
They can be consulted without difficulty.
Nevertheless, I think that your suggestion is a very interesting one.
Regarding Thursday
With regard to 'Human rights' , item 3 under the topical and urgent subjects of major importance, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left have asked for the third heading 'Sulawesi' to be replaced by a new heading 'Immigration tragedy in Ireland' .
Madam President, on the list of urgent topics relating to human rights, there is one on Irian Jaya and another on Sulawesi.
Both islands are part of one country, Indonesia.
I propose that they be combined under one title, 'Indonesia' , and that the situation of both islands be dealt with under that title, and we would thereby have time to deal with the tragic situation in Ireland.
Of course, Mr Barón Crespo, I think that this is a very good suggestion.
The suggestion is to add a new heading, instead of removing one, and to deal with the two existing headings together.
We shall therefore take the vote on the request to add a new heading 'Immigration tragedy in Ireland' .
(Parliament gave its assent)
The order of business is thus established.
Speeches on points of order
Mr Stevenson, we shall certainly take note of your complaint.
Madam President, like Mr Stevenson I want to raise a point of order with regard to a matter of discourtesy to this House.
Some months ago I wrote to the President of the Commission asking a formal written question, as I am entitled to do as a Member.
I received a reply which said: 'the research needed in order to provide a detailed response would be out of all proportion to the result desired and exceed the requirements of a response to a written question.'
That is a gross discourtesy to any Member asking a question of a body, which is supposed to be, there to serve and to be transparent in response to requests for information.
If that were the sort of response a minister in the British Government gave to a member of the British House of Commons, he would deservedly be pilloried in that House.
I expect better from the President of the Commission.
I wish to say, on behalf of this House, that when a Member asks a perfectly legitimate question I expect that question to be answered to the fullest extent.
We should not just be given an excuse and some sort of non-answer.
I would like to remind the President of the Commission of his pledges to provide transparency and openness in terms of information to this House.
Of course, Mr Bradbourn, I wholeheartedly agree with you.
Madam President, I had announced that I wanted to make a statement on behalf of the Socialist Group with regard to the constitutional crisis in the European Union following the last meeting of the Council of Justice and Interior Ministers last week.
My statement is as follows:
I would like to express our concern about the grave situation which has arisen in view of the Laeken Summit, because, by supporting the report by Mrs Reding, of the PPE-DE, and the report by Mr Watson, a Liberal, which was widely supported by the European Parliament, this House has defined a clear approach in the fight against terrorism.
Since 11 September, the European Council, on two occasions, in Brussels and in Ghent, has maintained the same approach, without reservations from any Head of State or Government.
The European Parliament has dealt with the Commission' s two proposals by means of an urgency procedure, with huge support at the last part-session in Brussels.
Today, Parliament is going to be consulted once again and we are in a situation where one government, the Italian government, is refusing to accept something which is clear to all the institutions of the European Union.
Madam President, I would like you to express, on behalf of my group, firstly our support for the President of the European Council, Mr Verhofstadt, who will go to Rome tomorrow to try to resolve this unacceptable situation; secondly, to express our support for the Commission, which has exercised its right to initiative responsibly and with a sense of duty.
Finally, I would also like you to strongly protest, on behalf of Parliament, at the unacceptable statements, delivered in coarse and rude language, made at the weekend by a former colleague of ours, now an Italian Government Minister, Mr Bossi, which would make Mr Haider green with envy.
This is a very important issue, on which we are all united.
If we cannot move ahead as fifteen, we will do so as fourteen, but we must combat terrorism on all fronts, and one of them is corruption and the recycling and laundering of money.
(Applause from the left)
I certainly share the concern that Enrique Barón Crespo has raised at the failure of the Justice and Home Affairs ministers to reach agreement on the proposal for a European arrest warrant.
I note, however that, in addition to Mr Verhofstadt's planned visit to Rome, there will be an extraordinary meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs ministers on Thursday of this week.
It must be hoped that agreement can be reached on that occasion.
The House anticipated that an agreement might not be reached and recommended at least consideration of the use of Article 40 of the Treaty which would allow a number of countries to proceed on the basis of reinforced cooperation.
Nobody wants that solution; it must be hoped that we can reach agreement between 15, but, one country must not be allowed to hold up progress in the fight against terrorism called for by the Heads of State and Government in Ghent.
(Applause from the left and the centre)
Madam President, I cannot remain silent for Mr Barón Crespo has, of course, made the most of the opportunity to transform what might actually be well-founded comments into a crusade, which has been on the march ever since the Italian people, of their own free will, elected a new government.
Mr Barón Crespo just will not accept this, and the sooner he does the better.
I want all the Members who are protesting to understand this too: democracy is this, ladies and gentlemen; every people chooses its government freely and willingly.
More specifically, I would stress the absolute falsehood of what Mr Barón Crespo has said.
The government and the Italian people are more committed to combating terrorism than anyone.
The government and the Italian people have paid the price of terrorist attacks in recent years and have always been in the front line.
It is silly to confuse the issue. There is no point in trying to put everything under one roof.
We are discussing the possibility of extending the European arrest warrant and it is on this, the extension of the warrant to other offences not initially covered, that we are attempting - and we are confident that agreement will be reached - to find a way of accommodating the different legal traditions and the different legislative frameworks of each country, so that we can be sure that the decisions we take to address the current critical situation of terrorism will also provide us with a properly harmonised Community legislative framework.
This, then is the issue, this and no other.
Anyone who wants to exploit the tragic events of 11 September to continue with this mad campaign against a legitimately elected government will certainly not find support.
I will end by suggesting that Mr Barón Crespo reserve his enthusiasm for more justified causes, and that he stop trying to mislead us by confusing the issues on the table.
(Applause from the right)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Barón Crespo's comments demand a response.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I would like to say that we expect that the Italian government, in which we have the greatest confidence, will help to ensure that we can finally reach an agreement.
We regard the fight against terrorism as a priority, and this is an issue on which there should not be any differences between the party-political families.
However, Mr Barón Crespo, I also believe this not an issue that should be the subject of party-political controversy, and we also know - please listen to what I am saying, I am trying to be very objective - that no result has been achieved on the party statute.
You also know that it was not those of my own political persuasion who contributed to this failure. I would ask you, just as you are critical in other cases, to be critical of your own party when results are not forthcoming, as in the case of the party statute.
Your credibility would be greater if you applied the same yardsticks right across the political spectrum.
(Applause from the right)
Madam President, the great majority of my group have voted against the Watson report on the European arrest warrant.
However, our motives were very different from those of Mr Berlusconi, and that is why I should like to make this contribution, mainly to avoid being tarred with the same brush.
In principle, the Group of the Greens are in favour of a European arrest warrant, but only after a number of minimum standards have been put in place in the field of law of criminal procedure, for example with regard to legal aid or to criminal investigation methods.
The rationale underlying a European arrest warrant is that all legal systems are more or less the same, and that it really does not matter in which country one is sentenced.
That is not yet the case at the moment.
If these systems were alike, it would not be so difficult to establish these minimum standards.
I know that sooner or later, everyone will support these minimum standards, but our group has made them a condition for a European arrest warrant.
As such, this is absolutely and fundamentally a different viewpoint from that adopted by Mr Berlusconi, and it should not be confused with his.
Neither should it be confused with a kind of anti-European sentiment.
We are in favour of a European arrest warrant, but only when this condition has been met.
Madam President, Mr Poettering, you just mentioned the European party statute in connection with the European arrest warrant.
The only real connection is that they are both things we consider to be desirable.
However, I do not quite understand your criticism of my group.
You were talking as if it was my group's fault that nothing has happened so far.
As I understand it, the situation was rather different.
There were governments that wanted parties existing in only two countries to be granted this status.
Surely that cannot be so, the European party statute cannot be a way of providing back-door finance to national or regional parties.
I just wanted to establish that point so that no false impressions arise or misleading discussions take place.
Madam President, I should like to change the subject and get us off this tack.
Today is International Human Rights Day and I wish to express my distress and horror at the tragic death of the eight refugees, including three children, who suffocated in a container in southern Ireland.
Eight dead refugees who were the victims not so much of the traffickers, as the authorities hastened to assure us, but of European indifference and a global system which allows and encourages the free movement of heads, but not the free movement of people, of a system which condemns two thirds of the people on this planet to live in conditions of unbelievable poverty.
The European Parliament cannot stand by impassively in the face of the present-day refugee tragedy, nor can we feel safe in fortress Europe surrounded by such human misery and such a huge development divide.
I think it is a very good sign that we shall be debating the question of refugees and immigrants during the urgent debate on Thursday, and I would be most obliged, Madam President, if you would convey these views to the Council in Laeken.
I wish to raise also the discovery of eight people dead in a container of furniture in County Wexford over the weekend.
The dead included a four-year old boy, a ten-year old girl and a sixteen-year old boy.
There were three adults found dead also - two men and a woman - and there are five survivors.
It appears that, so far as we understand it, about 11 of these people came from Turkey, one from Albania and one from Algeria.
It seems to me quite appalling that we have a situation in Europe where people are so desperate that they have to put themselves into the hands of criminals in order to try and find a new life in Europe.
We have done something serious about dealing with the criminals on the one hand and with our approach to immigration on the other.
We cannot continue to allow the situation where people are so desperate that they will do anything and even put themselves and their children at risk in order to find a new life.
I would ask those in this House who are supporting Mr Berlusconi in opposing the European arrest warrant to ask themselves why are they supporting a situation where the criminals who put these people into this container will escape the justice which needs to be meted out to them? Could I also ask, Madam President...
(The President cut off the speaker.)
Madam President, I am going to make a very simple proposal relating to International Human Rights Day.
Given that eight people recently lost their lives in tragic circumstances and that you, Madam President, often invite us to show our respect for those who are victims of violence by observing a minute' s silence, we should, naturally, observe a minute' s silence tomorrow morning at the opening of the sitting, for the eight people who recently died at the hands of evil traffickers.
Madam President, I hope that the new President will treat all Members equally.
I have been indicating for quite some time - well before many people who have already spoken - that I want to make a point of order.
I have two points.
The first is in relation to Mr Stevenson's attack on a Belgian minister who is not here to defend herself.
A personal and vitriolic attack like that is unjustified when the person is not present.
Secondly, in relation to what has happened in Ireland this weekend, it is only proper that we should have a debate on this.
People are focusing on the wrong aspect.
It is quite clear that the fortress mentality of Europe is what is causing people to put their lives at risk, by trusting people who are trying to make a profit.
We need to open up the borders instead of encouraging this kind of fortress mentality.
That is the only way we are going to ensure that people do not lose their lives in such a tragic way.
Dover and Wexford are only two examples of what is to come.
Finally, I am very disappointed that some of my fellow Irish Members in this House did not feel that they could support this being discussed in Parliament.
That is a tragedy, considering that it happened in their own constituency.
Madam President, I rise to support the remarks of Mr de Rossa and Mrs McKenna with regard to the horrific situation and tragedy in Wexford, Ireland.
The Irish Government has already expressed its sentiments in this regard and will be taking appropriate action.
I support you also, Madam President, in making space on Thursday's agenda for a debate on this tragedy.
Certainly, Mr Fitzsimons.
As you know, Parliament has decided to include this issue in the debate on topical questions to be held on Thursday.
Madam President, at the last part-session in Brussels you very kindly said that you would write to the Greek authorities about the 12 British and two Dutch plane spotters who were arrested.
I was wondering whether you have had any reply to that letter.
My constituent Wayne Groves is still in prison after nearly five weeks with no charge and no trial.
I believe it is against the European Convention on Human Rights.
I should like to know whether there is anything further you can do on their behalf and whether you have had that reply.
Yes, Mrs Lynne, I have received a reply from Mr Papandreou, the Greek Foreign Affairs Minister, which I shall send on to you and to all Members as soon as possible, as this reply is open to public scrutiny.
As you will see, the letter does not, unfortunately, give an entirely satisfactory response regarding the people who are being detained.
Madam President, I should like to endorse Mrs Lynne' s point of order, but I should like to ask you to re-establish contact, and I should also like to call on my fellow Greek MEPs to ensure that these spotters, who have now spent nearly five weeks in a Greek prison for indulging in their pastime, can be brought to court before next Friday, because procedures will otherwise be delayed by a three-week break and these young men, these spotters who were enjoying their pastime, would then be locked up seven or eight weeks without being brought before the law.
I would therefore ask you and my fellow Greek MEPs kindly to exert some political pressure to ensure that these spotters can have a court hearing before next Friday.
Madam President, I would like to endorse the point made by Mrs Lynne.
Today is Human Rights Day and yet there are 12 European citizens in prison in Greece without trial.
Members opposite have been raising the issue of the European arrest warrant - this incident shows precisely why Members on this side of the House have concerns about a European arrest warrant.
British citizens engaged in the harmless pursuit of plane-spotting find themselves in prison in Greece without trial.
I really look forward to seeing the reply you have received, which you described as unsatisfactory, and hope you will respond in very robust terms to the Greek Government.
They must not be allowed to keep European citizens in prison without trial.
Unfortunately, Mr Perry, the reply was unsatisfactory, as I just said.
Mr Papandreou' s reply was as follows: 'I have made known the interest that the Foreign Affairs Ministry is taking in the matter.
Nevertheless, as you can understand, the executive power cannot possibly intervene in any way in the workings and the independence of the judiciary.'
I shall, of course, see what action I can take in this matter.
But unfortunately the response is, for the time being, negative.
Madam President, I should like to comment on the positions taken by the honourable Members in connection with the arrest of a number of Britons in Greece and, first, to assure them that, as Members of Parliament, we have no way of influencing the independence of the Greek judiciary, and rightly so, nor do I believe that you are able to influence the judiciary in your countries.
Secondly, you must know, as we said during the last debate in Brussels, that the acts for which they were arrested, at least as they have been reported in the press, are acts for which they would have been arrested in any one of the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
So we would be well advised to respect the institutions on the basis of which the fifteen Member States work together, to respect the independence of the judiciary and to respect the laws which apply in the fifteen Member States.
Let us be clear on one thing: there are fifteen countries here, represented by numerous parties and numerous persuasions, all are equal and of equal value, and no one has the right to tell other countries how to act, as if they were countries which did not belong to Europe.
I should like to thank you, Madam President, for writing a letter to the Greek authorities about the plane spotters, and for what you said today.
It is particularly important that you do this on behalf of the whole European Parliament and as you represent a Member State that is not involved on either side.
You said you would reflect on further action you would take.
Could I ask when you will report back to the plenary on that?
I should also like to thank Mr Souladakis for what he said.
I believe that there is a common understanding here of the necessity to observe human rights and of the need for cooperation between our two states in the European Union, as well as for respect for the independence of the judiciary.
Through you, Madam President, perhaps I can appeal to all the Greek Members of this House to see whether we can produce some form of joint statement in support of those principles which might advance understanding and lead to a quicker resolution of this issue for the 12 individuals involved.
Madam President, as you are well aware, the situation caused by ETA' s terrorism in Spain is horrendous, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your work during your Presidency.
I would like to say once again that I totally reject ETA and all those who support it or apologise for it.
Madam President, both myself and my party have been seriously slandered in some sections of the Spanish media, since, through illness, I was not able to attend the last part-session in Brussels, where a debate and a vote were held on Mr Watson' s report, which I fully supported through various press releases which were sent to all the Spanish media 24 hours before the debate and the vote, and which were systematically hushed up.
For all these reasons, Madam President, I would ask for your support in this situation in which I have been unable to defend myself.
To this end, since my position and that of my party was clear, public and expressed prior to the vote, I would like to ask you formally that my vote in favour of the Watson report and Amendments Nos 117 and 118 be registered, as that is how I would have voted had I been present.
Furthermore, I would point out that the inclusion of my vote would not significantly alter the final result of the vote.
Finally, I would like to publicly thank the Efe Agency, the only one to express the truth in its communications.
We will always support the defence of life and the most fundamental rights and we will always be against murderers and those who justify and support them.
Madam President, today we are commemorating International Human Rights Day.
By coincidence, this week's agenda features a joint debate on the area of freedom, security and justice, requiring straightforward involvement by Parliament on human rights.
At the beginning of this year, I denounced in this House the pardon of 15 torturers by the Spanish Government, as this means that torture will continue to be frequently practised by the Spanish police.
Three months afterwards, a young woman, Iratxe Sorzabal,
(The speaker brandished a poster)
was sexually humiliated and subjected to torture sessions for hours from the moment of her arrest.
These photos were taken in the hospital and show the marks ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Madam President, on Wednesday, we are going to debate an item on cooperation between the European Union and the United States in the fight against terrorism.
However, we discovered - on the Internet, in fact - that this debate is going to be based on an exchange of letters between a representative of Mr Bush - a Mr Forster, I believe - and Mr Prodi.
Parliament does not have a copy of these letters, although we can read them on the Internet, in which the United States government demands Europe take forty or so measures to cooperate with the fight against terrorism.
It also appears - we can only say 'it appears' as we have no documents to refer to - that Mr Prodi sent a reply to the United States government at the end of November.
I think that, for this slightly rushed debate to be held in more favourable conditions - the debate is, however, scheduled for Wednesday - it would be helpful for Parliament to obtain a copy of the letter that the United States government sent to Mr Prodi and Mr Prodi' s reply.
That is the request I would like to make.
Of course, Mr Krivine, we shall try to follow this up as soon as possible.
Madam President, this point may be of some interest to the House.
Honourable Members may recall voting in the mini-part-session on the Foster report on common rules in the field of civil aviation security.
This report had to be brought forward very quickly in the light of the events of 11 September.
We were then awaiting the response from the Transport Council meeting last Friday and everyone hoped that a common position would be reached.
I should like to inform the House that the Transport Council and Member States did not reach a common position, despite urgent appeals from all sides on the desperate need for these measures and despite the fact that this Parliament had bent over backwards to do its very best in a very short period of time.
The behaviour of the Member States and the Council in all of this has been quite appalling.
This is probably one of the most important measures that has come through since 11 September and it would have affected 38 European countries.
I will keep this House informed as to progress but I would like you, Madam President, to pass on our comments to the presidency.
I would like to draw your attention, Madam President, and that of Parliament, to the unacceptable and discriminatory behaviour of the Albanian authorities towards the Greek minority in the town of Chimara particularly, where, last week, special police forces demolished buildings, physically abused members of that minority, to whom the buildings belonged, even women and children.
The buildings included the minority' s administrative headquarters, the infants' school and several shops, which, on the pretext that they had been poorly constructed, were destroyed by bulldozers on the instructions of the town' s mayor, whose election, it must be stressed, was not recognised as legitimate by Council of Europe observers.
Madam President, I think that Parliament should take on board these extremely regrettable actions when preparing for the forthcoming negotiations on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Union and Albania.
Thank you.
Madam President, are we, the Members of the European Parliament, all fraudsters? Are we all thieves?
Are we all idlers? Are we timewasters who do nothing from morning to night and spend our time enjoying ourselves and getting rich?
I do not think so.
Yet that is what is stated in a book by an Italian journalist, Mario Giordano, entitled 'L' Unione fa la truffa' [The Union is a swindler]. The title says it all.
This journalist is also, I regret to say, the director of a major Italian television company. The book, which I found in a bookshop in Rome - where I had gone to meet my mother and sister as I often do - filled me with horror and sent shivers down my spine, for it describes all of us Members of Parliament as idlers who do nothing but plot frauds and robberies.
Madam President, please would you examine this book and instigate legal proceedings for libel against Mario Giordano, who, it pains me to admit, is Italian.
Thank you, Mr Fatuzzo, for this information. I can assure you that we shall take a close look at this book and see what can be done to restore our reputation.
Madam President, I wish to draw the House's attention to the vigorous protests and exasperation of Greek farmers, who are again involved in mass dynamic demonstrations against the anti-farming policy of the European Union, which is turning them off their land, ruining them and forcing them to abandon the countryside.
Our farmers are fighting against the policy of quotas which limits dynamic arable farming, even of products in which the European Union and Greece are nowhere near self-sufficient, such as oil, tobacco and cotton, for which the Council even ignored a resolution by the European Parliament calling for a 50% increase in quotas.
Our farmers are fighting against their exploitation by the processing industry, which snaps up their produce at derisory prices.
Hundreds of thousands have already abandoned farming and joined the ranks of the unemployed.
They are calling for quotas to be abolished, at least for products in which the European Union is not self-sufficient.
They are protesting about policy to date.
They are calling for infrastructure projects, such as irrigation works.
They are calling for producer prices which cover the cost of production and afford them a profit.
Madam President, we are at their side in their just fight for survival with all the means at our disposal, even if their fight qualifies as terrorism as defined recently by the Ministers of Justice of the European Union, a definition which we fear will also be adopted by the Laeken Summit.
Mrs Kinnock, I am, of course, very willing to take this step, but I think that it will be even more effective after the debate, which is on the agenda under the item on human rights, has been held on Thursday.
Once we have held the debate, I shall be able to inform the Institute of the position that the European Parliament has clearly adopted.
I would like to inform you that, at the request of several groups, we will be holding a brief but intense commemoration tomorrow to mark the events of 11 September.
The commemoration will take place in the House, just before the address by the President of South Korea, in other words at approximately 11.50 a.m.
European Food Authority
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0416/2001), by Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety (1088/1/2001 - C5-0414/2001 - 2000/0286(COD))
Madam President, today's debate is the culmination of a long process which began in the days of the BSE epidemic.
It is in a sense a proposal that comes as much from this House as from the other institutions of the European Union because our two temporary committees of inquiry culminated in the recommendation that there should be a body of this kind.
One Commission fell, another came into office accepting that something of this sort should happen and it is that proposal from President Prodi, driven forward by the Commissioner, which we are dealing with today.
It is, therefore, the work of many hands and if this debate today is considered, calm and, I hope, rational it is because of the extent to which the three sides in the triangle of forces have attempted to come to an agreed conclusion by the time of this second reading debate, in order to expedite the introduction of the new authority itself.
There should not be any undue delay.
If we can avoid the conciliation stage, we will do so.
There are still perhaps a few reservations which I shall refer to in a moment, but we have come to a point where we believe we have a consensus in this House.
We certainly have a majority in this House and I should like to thank the rapporteurs and the shadow rapporteurs of the other political groups, particularly Mr Bowis, Mrs Paulsen and Mr Staes for the work they have done right through since the original White Paper.
I would also like to thank my own researcher, Michelle Smythe, and everyone from the Commission and the Council, under both the Swedish and Belgian presidencies, who have brought this forward.
Since Mrs Aelvoet has taken a bit of a pounding today I shall pay tribute to her part in it also.
We have now agreed on a timetable to get the new authority up and running.
To do that there is a series of specific compromises: 16 new amendments which broadly find favour with the Commission - I hope Mr Byrne will be able to indicate that - and the Council.
Firstly, we had to adopt an unusual procedure for one point that remains in some doubt, that is, the site of the new authority.
We wanted to set out criteria for the site of the new authority as we believe we should. The Council, however, were not prepared to accept them in the body of the text.
But you do not throw away the whole report for that: we have put it into the legislative resolution and we hope that you, Madam President, will be able to set out exactly what our reasoning is.
The decision will have to be made on merit and not through the kind of political horsetrading that is currently being whispered about.
It would be the worst possible start if this body were sited in an inappropriate place for the worst of reasons.
We tabled the compromise amendments in order to bring forward the major priorities that this Parliament has always emphasised: firstly, a parliamentary hearing for the proposed executive director of the new authority and a three-month period for Parliament to express its opinion on the candidates for a small and tightly-focused management board.
That is the board that will meet in public and will make its opinions equally public so the citizens of Europe can see what it recommends.
It will have a role to play in risk analysis, risk communication and risk management, where its advice is appropriate.
These are substantial powers.
In addition, this legislation gives protection to those who want to report on unsafe practices in the food and feed business.
Citizens have a duty to tell the truth and I believe we have guaranteed that.
If the 16 compromise amendments, and the others already agreed with the presidency, are passed, we can proceed to set up the new EFSA.
The problem of BSE, for example, is still with us: cases of it have been notified in two previously clear Member States this week.
Everybody knows that food and animal feed have to be safer.
The procedures whereby such products come in and out of the European Union have to be open, transparent and, above all, safe.
Some of the practices of industrialised farming have threatened us all.
Producers and consumers alike have everything to gain from a monitoring authority which protects the interests of all and is beholden to none.
On that basis I commend this proposal to the House.
We have come quite a journey since the Commission produced its first White Paper.
At that time I had the privilege of writing the report for Parliament with my friend across the floor - Mr Whitehead - acting as shadow.
Now I am reciprocating as shadow for his report.
My party is not a great party for harmonisation but we are a party for harmony and that is what we have seen in this report and the way it has been dealt with.
I too wish to play tribute to the rapporteur and the shadow rapporteurs, also the Commissioner, Mr David Byrne, and - dare I say it in the light of earlier comments -to Magda Aelvoet, the minister.
I hope Ms McKenna will not take offence if I give her praise in her absence as she too has played her part in looking for and helping us to find compromises which make sense, which do not betray anybody and which take forward the concept of food safety for the peoples of Europe.
This is an issue which is of considerable importance to people.
There is nothing more important than the safety of the food and the drink that they and their families partake of.
There is a European dimension to this because, increasingly, not only does food cross boundaries but people cross boundaries.
So we need to be certain that the food we eat has been grown in soil we can trust and the fertilisers added to it are known to be safe.
The feed that is given to livestock also plays its part in ensuring that the food that ends up in our supermarkets and on our tables merits our confidence.
Then we want to make sure that the processing of food is safe and, finally, we want to make sure that when it is stored and retailed, it is still safe for us to take home.
Then of course it is up to us.
There are many critical issues in this report - the title of the food safety authority has been crucial to us.
We do not want to see an all-singing, all-dancing bureaucracy - we want an authority which is focused on safety, on the assessment of risk, on giving guidance where appropriate to the managers of risk.
An authority that understands that risk can never be eliminated but it can be adequately spotted and dealt with.
Science is crucial, so is independence - that is why the siting of this authority is important.
The pre-conciliation process - if I can call it that - that we have been going through is an example of how to take measures through Parliament and the institutions.
At this last stage Parliament has spoken overwhelmingly with one voice.
I know the Commission and the Council have listened and I believe they will have benefited because we are working together on this measure.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when we talk about the European Food Safety Authority today, there is one thing in particular that we need to say to the citizens of the European Union. That is that we are convinced even now, without this Food Safety Authority, that the food people in the European Union are consuming is safe.
So safe, that I am convinced that it is among the safest in the world.
However, if we believe that a food safety authority would have advantages and lead to improvements in the European Union, there must be good reasons for that.
I would like to name three conditions that I believe need to be met to achieve such improvements.
Mr Bowis and Mr Whitehead have already touched on these points.
The first is the quality of the experts.
It is not acceptable for people the Member States want to get rid of to be sent to this authority as experts and scientists.
It is your job, Commissioner, to invite the Member States to send only the cream of the cream.
Secondly, to secure improvements we need transparency and openness.
Even more than the scientific committees, which have had a high degree of transparency since the BSE crisis, the Authority needs to ensure that it earns the people's trust.
That means that it must be open and transparent in its activities.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, and Mr Byrne, we need controls.
It is also your job, the Commission's job, to convey to the Member States that supervision and control are the most basic tasks of the Member States, something you have criminally neglected in recent years.
If we want to carry on guaranteeing safe food, and perhaps even safer food, if we want to win back the people's trust, then we can only do this by meeting these conditions and by tightening up controls.
If we do that, the new Food Safety Authority will be a step forward for the European Union.
I call on you, Commissioner, to make sure that is the case.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Whitehead, the Regulation that is before us is ground-breaking, in my view.
I am indeed of the opinion that something good can come out of a crisis situation.
We often see this in the food industry too. Crises can lead to headway being made in the legislative field.
The Regulation that is before us constitutes one such step forward.
I should like to underline a few aspects which were important to my group in particular, and which we have also adopted.
Firstly, the Regulation will ensure that it will no longer be possible for infected food to be exported to third countries, often Third World countries.
Secondly, the diversity of food is highlighted. It is also pointed out that traditional products exist, that we should recognise this and that food has a certain cultural role to play.
Thirdly, we as Parliament have ensured that we have turned the proposed food authority into a food safety authority, which is quite an achievement for our Parliament.
Thanks to Parliament and you, Mr Whitehead, we have been able to play a role and have been able to underline the significance of transparency in this respect.
It is indeed true that we need transparency in order to restore consumer confidence.
We, as Parliament, have also ensured that we have gained more insight into the make-up of the management board and into the appointment of the executive director.
Finally, we have also called for more objective criteria for the location.
When we came out of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy at second reading, we noticed we had 28 amendments, 28 amendments which the Council struggled to accept at times.
We carried out a kind of pre-conciliation exercise, one with which I am delighted, because the rapporteurs, along with the co-rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs, made certain that we, as Parliament, were able to take a united stand at the Council, a Council where we heard one voice, where Mrs Aelvoet listened to us, and I am really very pleased about that.
Madam President, our political group is entirely in agreement with the tenor of this report. We also think that it is right to table a number of those amendments again that have not been incorporated into this common position.
Furthermore, we think that these amendments are of such a kind that it should not now take very long at all to find a common solution together with the Council of Ministers and the Commission.
The most important amendment from the European Parliament is that which makes it clear that what we are concerned with here is an authority dealing purely with food safety and not with food in general.
For us, this clarification is important.
It is important to focus specifically upon the safety issues.
Amendment No 4 concerns the correspondence between the EU' s food regulations and other international agreements and regulations.
Obviously, the EU must cooperate in this area with other parts of the world.
However, the trend within the World Trade Organisation, in particular, is in danger of leading to a situation in which we have a series of different conflicts between different systems of regulations.
In that case, we think it is incredibly important to assert the right to tougher rules for health and environmental reasons.
Amendment No 22 relates to the funding of the authority.
For us, it is an issue of principle that an authority should be financed from the Budget.
It must not be financed by means of fees deducted for its services.
That is why Amendment No 22 is important to us.
A number of amendments relate to openness, and those we naturally support.
According to Amendment No 41, board meetings must, as a rule, be public and not held behind closed doors.
We think that is incredibly important.
We also approve of the proposal that members should be drawn from a broad geographical area.
The proposals we are now discussing have their background in the serious food safety crises within the EU in recent years. Dioxin, BSE and salmonella are just a few of the areas concerned.
These scandals are closely linked to heavily industrialised agriculture and to an agricultural policy in which large-scale production and yield have become more important than the environment, animal protection and safe food.
If the EU is really to be able to attend to the causes of the problems in this area, reform of the common agricultural policy is needed, above all, so that sustainability and the protection of animals and the environment are put first.
Only then shall we really be able to tackle the basis of the food safety problems in the EU.
Madam President, the views of the 370 million citizens of the European Union on the food chain in Europe have dramatically changed in recent years.
This is partly due to the advent of BSE, foot-and-mouth disease in Europe and the chicken dioxin scandal that took place a couple of years ago.
Of course the consumer is always right, but on this occasion the European Union legislators have had to redouble their efforts to improve the safety of the food chain in Europe and to restore consumer confidence in food products within the Union.
It has not been an easy task.
However, the White Paper mentioned by Mr Bowis that the Commission brought forward outlines a raft of directives and regulations that need to be updated and modernised so as to make the food chain in Europe safer.
I would like to take this opportunity to commend Mr Byrne, the Commissioner for Consumer Protection and Public Health, for his absolute determination to guarantee that European Union consumers have total confidence in all food products that are sold within the Union.
That not only means improving safety standards of production within the Union but also tightening up rules and conditions for the importation of food products into the Union.
The key element of this White Paper is the setting up of the food authority, as we discussed today.
It is very important that this authority is up and running as soon as possible, no matter where it is located.
This European Food Authority can work with the 15 governments of the Union, in an advisory and preventative capacity, to guarantee that food products from farm to table comply with the highest public health standards.
We live in an internal market with free movement of goods, persons, services and capital.
Food is an internationally tradable product and it is therefore very important that a coordinated and common approach is taken to promoting food safety in Europe.
This is only right and proper in the light of the fact that consumers are criss-crossing the frontiers of the European Union on a daily basis.
I also support the approach taken by Commissioner Byrne in guaranteeing that all interested parties are given due representation with regard to the implementation of the new directives and regulations under the White Paper on food safety.
Groups representing the food industry, farm organisations and consumer interests are all actively involved in the implementation of these directives and regulations.
Indeed, as a result of the Amsterdam Treaty the European Parliament has the power of codecision with regard to the implementation of the new directives and regulations in the area of consumer protection and public health.
We intend to remain vigilant at all times so as to guarantee that confidence in the European food chain is fully restored, sooner rather than later.
I commend the rapporteur, Mr Whitehead, and all involved in producing this excellent report.
Madam President, in response to the many food crises, such as chicken dioxin, salmonella, listeria, foot and mouth disease and BSE, several Member States have set up facilities to monitor food safety.
At the beginning of 2002, Europe will create its own food safety authority.
This new body aims, on the one hand, to meet citizens' expectations by placing food safety at the top of their list of priorities, on a par with unemployment, and, on the other hand, to provide the European Union with a body that is able to defend and promote the European agricultural model on the international stage.
Agricultural products are now an integral part of the World Trade Organisation negotiating round. Within the WTO, the Cairns group is opposed to an approach to agriculture that takes into account food safety.
Nevertheless, in order to be successful, the authority will have to resolve the following problems.
On the one hand, the composition of the Management Board, since, in order to involve all players from all parts of the food chain, the body will have to ensure a place on the board for representatives of the agricultural world in the same way as consumers, the food industry and distributors.
That is why we remain in favour of a Management Board composed of 16 members, and not of 12 as proposed in the report.
Lastly, as regards the definition of functions, who will be responsible for the alert system, for management and for monitoring? This means bringing up the thorny issue of revamping the Rapid Alert System.
The role of the French Agency is limited to risk assessment, whilst the Minister for Agriculture is responsible for risk management.
The European Agency will have to restrict itself to a monitoring role.
My final point relates to the potential conflicts with the national agencies. France, Great Britain, Ireland, Belgium and Greece have their own national agencies.
Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain are about to create their own.
The European Agency will have to fulfil a coordination function, whilst respecting the independence of the national agencies.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when euro-federalists are citing the need for a political Europe, which in their view would enable European integration to become more democratic, in other words, would give fewer powers to the European Commission, what do we see happening? A new body is being set up - the European Food Safety Authority - and it must be said that this authority, because of the representatives appointed to form its Management Board, will necessarily be dependent on the European Commission, despite its legal title.
Let us cast our minds back to the unforgivable errors that the European Commission made during the mad cow epidemic. Its priority, at the time, was the creation of the single market, come what may, rather than the safety of food for European consumers.
In order to make the European Food Safety Authority more credible in the eyes of Member States' citizens, it is not enough for its seat to be independent of the European Commission as well as physically distant. The members of the future Management Board of the new body must be monitored by the same citizens, through their representation at the European Parliament.
It does not seem that the Authority is giving sufficient assurance that it will be independent. It will be subjected to the power of lobbies and to the wishes of the European Commission and therefore, will be independent only of universal suffrage.
Furthermore, who can assure us that it will respect the principle of subsidiarity and individual food characteristics? Will it smother small- and medium-sized food businesses with even stricter regulation, that will be tolerated by fewer and fewer citizens?
Why call it an 'Authority' when it has no legislative power? And lastly, why give it so many resources - EUR 67 million and 339 officials - when it could be equally efficient and less costly if it worked together with the existing national agencies?
Thank you.
For many years, we have been attempting to restore consumer confidence and I believe that the creation of the Food Safety Authority is a step towards achieving this goal.
We must acknowledge that there was some excellent consultation in the management of this dossier and we must not fall behind with this today.
Zero risk does not exist and the consequences of a bacteriological problem, whether or not this is linked to terrorism, can be extremely significant for all our citizens.
We are well aware that food contamination can affect a large number of people.
That is why safety must be at the heart of this system.
We must not be overcome by panic either, because the European food chain, as a result of the many decisions that we have taken in this Chamber, is certainly one of the safest in the world.
However, the shortcomings that have come to light during previous crises compel us to take further measures in the area of food safety.
In order to be effective and credible, the Authority must bring together the leading scientific experts; it must only undertake risk assessment, as part of the Rapid Alert System, whilst risk management must remain in the public domain.
It must also work together with the national agencies.
Its intervention must be proportionate to the level of risk, in other words, if there are simply rumours, communication must then be stepped up. If, however, there is a risk, the required precautionary measures must be taken; if there is a danger, then preventative measures are necessary.
Lastly, the Authority must be independent and utterly transparent.
At the same time, monitoring must be increased and, in the case of a serious offence, penalties must be substantial as well as effective.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as a rule our food is already safe.
Nevertheless, 2 000 people worldwide die every year of salmonella poisoning.
In the United States alone, 9 000 people die each year of microbe-related food poisoning.
These are worrying statistics, and we are not even talking about other food-related illnesses.
With the general principles of food law, we are laying new foundations for safe food and we will be building on those in the next few months and years.
We must work on a system which fills consumers with confidence.
Emotions sometimes run high where food is concerned, beef being a recent European example of this.
Politicians cannot and must not ignore these emotions, but we must consider the facts.
That is where the European Food Authority comes into its own: it must be a beacon of objectivity.
The European Food Authority must join forces with national authorities, but we must ensure that it is not rendered powerless from the word go and that it is headed by an approachable front man who does not need to fight to impose his authority but who embodies quality and authority.
I would like to finish off with a word of thanks to the rapporteur who has proved to personify the self-same quality and authority.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance will, in effect, vote in favour of the Whitehead report.
The European Food Safety Authority, an essential food safety mechanism serving the consumers and the political authorities of Europe alike, is essential to the performance of the functions that it will be assigned.
Its first task is to investigate all the failings that led to the recent food safety crises, both the crises in the food business, such as chicken dioxins, food and mouth disease, trafficking in veterinary products, the excessive use of vaccines and tranquillisers on animals and also the original BSE crisis.
I would point out that even Finland now has its first case of mad cow disease.
That is the first point I would like to make.
My second point is that it is the agency that must also stop the uncontrolled spread of contaminating transgenic products that are even infesting traditional cereal crops, since consumers are rejecting transgenic crops, whose only virtues are commercial.
Therefore, this agency must also, other than resolving all those problems, ensure food safety from the farm to the fork.
In order to do so, the Food Safety Authority must apply, from the beginning of 2002, the principles of transparency and monitoring that my fellow Members have already mentioned.
The failings in the area of hygiene as being the sole criterion, which has been highlighted in the many crises that we have listed, particularly in animal feed, shows that the agency must give advice on good practice, on labelling, on products that have been produced locally, that contain dairy products, instead of dealing with industrial standards alone, which do not prevent salmonella, listeria or any of the more distressing epidemics.
Its main function is therefore to coordinate the national agencies, and to do so, the agency must be independent and transparent.
On the other hand, I have doubts regarding Amendment No 34, which deals with the appointment procedure to the Management Board, a process that seems hazy at best, since it refers to the meritocracy of the Management Board.
So what exactly does meritocracy mean in an agency that should be composed of experts in the relevant scientific fields?
The Management Board has a political and managerial role. I very much fear that this meritocracy is simply a way of masking the pressure exerted by large food corporations.
I hope that the Commissioner will be able to reassure me on this point.
As for where the agency will be based, we believe this is a side issue...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, given the tug-of-war about the location of the European Food Safety Authority, it appears to be a highly prestigious matter. This does not contribute towards safer food or consumer confidence.
Another point of concern is our keenness to impose our strict standards on the rest of the world.
In this respect, I have to say that other parts of the world often do not have the luxury of aiming for the highest possible safety standards for food.
Their priority is to collect sufficient food to survive.
Needless to say, we should not simply export food which fails to meet our safety standards to those countries.
But in those cases where export increases food safety in the countries concerned, export of this kind must be allowed.
In those cases, the automatic destruction of batches should not be an option.
As far as the appointment of the management board is concerned, I do agree with the compromise that has been struck with the Council.
It is indeed unwise to enlarge this management board any further, because this could compromise its decisiveness.
Furthermore, I am opposed to organising hearings in the European Parliament prior to appointing the members of the management board. This applies even more to the executive director.
It would be wise for the European Parliament to move further away from the executive tasks of the future European Food Safety Authority.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the coming week, the Laeken Summit will adopt a number of decisions, including - it is to be hoped - a position on the food authority, deciding where it is to be based.
We know how important it is that this decision is made.
Several years have already passed since the beginning of this procedure; this proposal has been on the table since 1999, at least, so it is high time that the decision is taken.
I feel that, in tabling a second time the amendment which was voted upon at first reading some months ago, Parliament is trying to make two statements, which you, Commissioner, must convey to the governments. The first is that this is a matter covered by the codecision procedure and so Parliament' s opinion on the criteria to be put to the vote tomorrow should also be taken into consideration when it comes to deciding the site of the authority.
We know that one of the approaches taken at Laeken will be horse trading - you can appoint the Chair of the Convention if I can choose the site of the Authority, and you can have the Police College - but I feel, rather, that all these decisions need to be taken on the basis of certain criteria which are strictly related to the interests of the institution we are attempting to create.
Therefore, when Parliament points out that the site chosen for the Authority should have a longstanding tradition in food safety and food safety research in general, this is clearly a criterion whose importance must be stressed.
When we talk about a good scientific infrastructure and facilities in the field of food safety, you, Commissioner, and the Commission must stress the importance of this criterion.
When we say that it has to be easily accessible in terms of communications and have efficient and rapid transport connections; when we say that it has to have connections with those services that deal with public health and consumer protection issues; of course it springs to my mind that the Joint Research Centre, which employs thousands of European researchers, is situated in Ispra, and therefore, my opinion can only be that these criteria apply to one candidate city alone: Parma, in Italy.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work, which is just as we expected.
I think that this regulation and this legal basis will, with the measures that follow, help to improve food safety in the European Union, and will establish the general principles of the new food law.
With reference to general food law, I would like to mention, in particular, that this represents a real success in developing the principle of a seamless improvement in the food chain from farmer to consumer.
A key aspect of the principles set out here remains the traceability of products.
I believe that we have accordingly established two significant new principles and requirements for improving food safety.
The centrepiece of the regulation is the creation of the European Food Authority, or, as it is designated in the amendment, the 'European Food Safety Authority' .
I do not want to spend too much time on definitions here.
What I consider most important is the fact that the framework conditions have been created for this Authority.
The first of these is adequate financial provision.
It seems to me that this has not so far been achieved to the extent we might have wished, and the same applies to conditions governing communication between the Authority and the various authorities in the Member States.
Appropriate arrangements have not yet been set up in the Member States, and there is still a lot to be done in this regard.
As for the openness of the authority, I believe that this House's amendment is certainly correct, but we also have to guarantee that in certain circumstances the Authority can also meet behind closed doors.
An important issue, as many others have already said, is the location of the Authority, and if the Council rejects our proposals, it seems to me that it must intend to locate the Authority in such a way that our requirements and conditions cannot be met.
We cannot let such a situation prevail, nor can we accept it.
The Council must finally give in on this and select a location that will facilitate communication with the Commission, Parliament and the Member States.
Mr President, my thanks go to the rapporteur for the excellent work on this report.
As has already been established, the European Parliament has been very active for several years now in questions relating to food safety.
The rapporteur has also carried out very valuable work by holding discussions with the Commission and Council, in order to ensure that the start-up of the food authority is not delayed; this means that at the Laeken Summit a genuine decision really has to be made concerning the siting of the office.
With regard to the selection criteria, in my opinion Parliament has spoken quite correctly: it is a good idea to emphasise the research connection, the fact that the office is independent, and that there will be effective experts there to guarantee quality.
In the case of transparency, I can only agree with the previous speakers; however, transparency also means that there is cooperation with the consumer organisations.
Let me start by saying that I am all for food and animal feed safety, but I cannot understand why the European Union believes that it is necessary to establish the European Food Safety Authority.
I believe I am right in saying that almost all major diseases, except possibly BSE, come from countries outside the European Union.
Therefore the World Health Organisation, which is already in existence and is doing just such work, should be adequate for this purpose and can protect all of our interests.
This organisation serves 27 of the countries of Europe including the countries of the European Union.
It strikes me that the European Union is creating a further quango which, like most authorities the EU sets up, will be expensive to run and turn out to be a white elephant.
If such a need did exist, surely it should be the work of each national government to look at the appropriate problems. These would be pertinent to the conditions of that country and they can act accordingly.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to start by saying that I have great admiration for the way in which the rapporteur, and also, most definitely, the shadow rapporteurs, have dealt with this very complicated matter which was ultimately resolved very quickly.
There are, of course, minor points which require further attention, and I would mention monitoring as one of them. Who authorises this monitoring?
But also, who will be organising, inspecting and running this food safety authority? This should not be sixteen, but twelve, for we need independence.
What do we actually mean by food safety? We mean that in the internal market, we will ensure that we can guarantee food safety everywhere.
That not only includes Europe' s fifteen Member States, but also all the candidate countries.
I have a few concerns in this respect.
Not because food in the acceding countries would not be safe, that is not what I am saying, but I am worried about the lack of good networks in the new Member States that could carry out inspections and instil consumer confidence.
Last Thursday, there was a meeting involving experts from the acceding countries who alerted us to the lack of such a structure.
That is one side of the coin. Inspection, also from the government, to ensure that the process runs smoothly.
There is also a flip side, namely the lack of a civil society.
That means a lack of well-trained consumer organisations that are independent and that could encourage the government at any time to pursue the policy effectively.
The same also applies to product organisations.
I wonder if the Commissioner would be willing to give us some information on that score, enabling us to see what we can do about this in future.
Madam President, life is one constant risk-benefit analysis - what we do, where we go and what we eat.
While the European food chain remains one of the safest in the world, recent scandals have damaged our consumers' confidence in the food we eat and the methods we use to produce it.
The public has lost confidence in the national and European food safety systems after the scandals and scares with beef, E.coli, lysteria, salmonella, dioxins, eggs, poultry, milk and hormones.
The list goes on.
The public wants to be reassured that the road from farm to market, to the supermarket, to the oven, fridge and table is as safe as can be reasonably expected.
They want safety assessment that is neither secretive, behind the closed front door of the Commission, nor tainted by producer or pressure-group interest.
Since the beginning of your tenure, Commissioner Byrne, you have responded to the needs of the consumers of Europe by making every effort to improve the safety of the food chain.
This proposal is one of key importance for consumer protection in the European Union.
The institutions of the Union have come together to set out the principles of food law with a new authority which can safeguard the food we eat and the way it is produced.
I commend the rapporteur, Mr Whitehead, and the shadow rapporteur, Mr Bowis, for a job well done throughout the discussion in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
The result of their consensual approach has been to strengthen and unify the voice of the European Parliament on the key issue at stake.
I would ask the Commission and the Council to listen to this united voice and to adopt 'European Food Safety Authority' as the title of the institution.
Keeping the word 'safety' in the title of the authority will give a clear signal to consumers as to its purpose and goals.
I also firmly believe that if the authority is to have the confidence and backing of the people of Europe, it is imperative that it operates and communicates in a wholly transparent and independent manner, dedicated to the assessment of food-safety risk.
Risk communication will also be a key element.
One has only to look at the BSE inquiry in the UK and the Philips report which stated that breakdown in risk communication was a major factor in exacerbating the crisis there.
In conclusion, in relation to risk management, the measured and proportionate use of the proportionary principle or the political management ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, the issue of food safety is one of the many unifying factors in the Europe of the citizens we want.
As far as the European Food Safety Authority is concerned, I feel that the European Parliament has played a very major role: a great deal was achieved between first and second readings and, in my opinion, tomorrow' s vote will produce an extremely important report for, indeed, at this point, there is no longer any excuse for procrastination.
We will have an instrument which will help us to keep a constant check on food safety in Europe.
As regards this major work, achieved through the efforts of both the rapporteur and the committee responsible, there are still a number of small points which, I feel, will have to be specified: for example, it is extremely important that the management board should include a representative from the agricultural sector because the fact that we are dealing with a process means that all the sectors need to be represented.
There are still a number of gaps as regards the procedures.
We are definitely going to use operators from the food sector and people and companies specialised in all the parts of the food chain in order to ensure that the necessary information flow banishes all fears from the tables of our fellow citizens.
One last question is that of the site.
An amendment has been tabled seeking to ensure that the locations of the sites of the Commission and the other institutions do not affect the choice of site.
The site should be in a place which has a longstanding tradition in food safety and which has scientific infrastructure and substantial resources in the field of safety.
Of course, I must put in a word for Parma, for Parma is one of the most important places in the Italian agrifoods system.
It is my genuine hope that the Laeken Council will take this candidate into due consideration.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, unlike Mr Titford, I am convinced that setting up an efficient and independent European Food Authority as an early warning system is something very much to be welcomed.
It should act as a transparently functioning scientific reference point for the Commission, Parliament and the Member States, but it should also be open for producers and consumers.
Advice, information and risk communications for consumers can help to increase our confidence in the food we eat.
Food safety is a fundamental requirement for consumers who want to eat healthily and we must take responsibility for that here.
The food scandals over the past few years have demonstrated that we need, in particular, consistent implementation of directives and on-the-spot controls on food and animal feed.
If we are to achieve seamless traceability of production, it is essential to optimise the way we link the scientific facilities of this Authority with the control authorities in the Member States.
This will ensure safety in the whole chain from producer to consumer.
And imported food must be just as safe as food produced in the EU.
This safety can be guaranteed by imposing strict controls on food imports at the EU's present external borders.
In parallel to this, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe need to establish properly functioning systems for monitoring the safety of food and animal feed before accession.
However, one important problem will not be solved by the regulation before us today, and that is the dividing line between food and medical products.
We need to minimise the grey area between these two product categories, food and medical products, as far as possible.
If we do not succeed in this, the result will be new demarcation problems and legal uncertainty.
That is why it is a matter of urgent necessity for us to make sure that when legislation on medical products is reviewed, an unambiguous EU-wide definition of food and medical products is established, so that there is a clear dividing line, because we can only improve safety for the consumer if we establish a clear definition.
Madam President, I recall that when President Prodi first offered me this particular portfolio in July 1999 he emphasised to me the importance of food safety during the life of this Commission.
He particularly suggested the importance of establishing a food safety authority during that period also.
He said that it was important that the consumers of the European Union had the same confidence in such an institution as US consumers have in their Food and Drugs Administration.
I hope that the new authority can deliver on this for our consumers and for our citizens.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank President Prodi for his ongoing support during our work to make his idea a concrete reality.
The wide scope of the general food law covering all aspects of the food and feed production chain that may have a direct or indirect impact on the safety of food has been maintained throughout the first and second readings.
The Commission welcomes this.
We also underline the importance of the wide remit which has been retained for the work of the European Food Safety Authority.
It is important that the food authority builds a comprehensive overview of the entire chain. This should include aspects of animal health and welfare, animal feed safety and plant health, in particular at the primary production level.
Given our recent food safety problems, it would have been unthinkable to have a food authority that did not cover such matters.
The Commission supports Amendment No 1 which proposes that the authority be called the European Food Safety Authority, while ensuring that the broad remit, which is so important, is not affected.
The Commission can support Amendments Nos 29 to 44 by Mr Whitehead, Mr Bowis, Mrs Paulsen and Mr Staes.
These replace Amendments Nos 2 to 6, 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18, 20, 25 and 27, which I do not support.
I can also accept Amendments Nos 7, 10, 13, 14, 16, 19, 21 and 26.
Many of these add clarity to the text or enhance the transparency of the development of food law or the procedures of the European Food Safety Authority.
I also welcome Amendments Nos 22, 23 and 24 which adjust the text to ensure that the correct budgetary procedures are in place and that arrangements for third countries, notably EFTA countries, are appropriate and in line with normal procedures for agencies.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 8 which would allow unsafe food and feed to be exported from the Community to the original supplier in a third country without any constraints or controls.
This is clearly an unacceptable practice that I am not willing to support.
Rejected food or feed could end up being used either in a third country or being shipped back to the EU and that would constitute a risk to food safety.
From experience, the Commission knows that such practices are also potentially open to fraud and black market abuse.
I do not support Amendment No 28 which refers to the selection procedure for the seat, as well as defining the selection criteria.
However, I note that Parliament is also proposing another approach. This involves adopting a resolution to the report which calls upon the Council to consider certain criteria in its selection of the authority's seat.
This House is aware that I believe strongly that the authority's seat should be chosen on rational and operational criteria that will facilitate the smooth working of the EFSA.
For these reasons I can support the principles expressed in the resolution.
I also support the joint declaration from the Commission, Council and Parliament concerning the members of the management board of the authority.
I believe that Amendment No 37 on the board's size, the selection process and membership criteria achieves the right balance between the different views expressed at first reading by the three institutions.
In conclusion, I should like to say that since I took up office as Commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection, I have made it clear that the establishment of the European Food Safety Authority was a top priority.
Community measures which protect the safety of the food supply require a sound scientific basis and the authority will provide this.
The authority is designed to be Europe's automatic first port of call on scientific matters relating to the safety of our food supply.
Today we are taking an important step towards the establishment of the authority, towards giving the European consumer the safest food supply in the world, which is our ultimate goal.
I would like to thank Mr Whitehead, his team and Parliamentary colleagues who have worked closely with him on the amendments at second reading, and also Mr Bowis, Mrs Paulsen and Mr Staes.
I want to thank you for the close working relationship that existed between all of us - not just between our two great institutions, but also on a personal level between myself and all four of you.
I discussed these issues with each of you at some stage over the last few months.
In addition, I would like to thank the Council, both the Swedish and Belgian presidencies, and also the Minister Magda Aelvoet, who put her own shoulder to the wheel on this issue on a number of occasions.
I also thank the people in my own Commission who worked with me so assiduously, so carefully and so hard.
Not only do I appreciate the excellent work that has been done, but I would like to thank all those involved for the speed with which this complex proposal has been dealt with.
The spirit of collaboration with which the three great institutions have approached this file has been admirable.
It is clear from the amendments on which Parliament will vote that compromises have been sought which should enable the regulation to be adopted without a time-wasting conciliation process.
This will facilitate the establishment of the European Food Safety Authority early next year.
Electronic communications networks and services
The next item is the joint debate on five recommendations for second reading:
(A5-0433/2001) on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the authorisation of electronic communications networks and services (Authorisation Directive) [10419/1/2001 - C5-0417/2001 - 2000/0188(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Niebler)
(A5-0432/2001) on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Council common position with a view to the adoption of a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on a regulatory framework for radio spectrum policy in the European Community (Radio Spectrum Decision) [12170/1/2001 - C5-0490/2001 - 2000/0187(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Niebler)
(A5-0435/2001) on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services (Framework Directive) [10420/1/2001 - C5-0415/2001 - 2000/0184(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Paasilinna)
(A5-0434/2001) on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on access to, and interconnection of, electronic communications networks and associated facilities (Access Directive) [10418/1/2001 - C5-0416/2001 - 2000/0186(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Brunetta)
(A5-0438/2001) on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on the Common Position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Directive of the European Parliament and the Council on universal service and users' rights relating to electronic communications networks and services (Universal Service Directive) [10421/1/2001 - C5-0418/2001 - 2000/0183(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Harbour).
Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, my colleagues, Europe's greatest change is, of course, the networking which has taken place; this certainly unifies us Europeans more than a common currency.
It is of everyday and full-time significance, and its importance is growing all the time.
The core philosophy of the entire grand project for an electronic Europe is that the digital divide should not take hold in Europe in the way that it threatens to take hold in many other parts of the world; and we, as well as Parliament, the Council and the Commission all share a common line here.
The Commission's draft framework directive and the other statutes belonging to this telecoms package follow the correct line and are very balanced, and I am highly satisfied with them.
In this rapidly-moving period of change, we will make up for lost ground; and particular attention has been paid to the importance of convergence, of rapprochement.
This means that, to an ever increasing extent, the same content can be prepared on the same hardware, be transferred along the same routes and be received on the same apparatus.
This creates a wholly new information space, or perhaps I should say information world, since this is a part of us, it is a part of us in the workplace, at home and when we are travelling.
Here, in Parliament, we desire that this world be regulated, but that at the same time competition be secured, so that no monopolies, duopolies or cartels are generated.
This will maintain a low pricing level, easy access, and employment and growth in this area.
I could venture to say that if we had had these regulations in force at the time when we decided on the 'electronic Europe' at Lisbon and when (at the same time) the auction in frequencies was initiated, then it would not have been possible for the catastrophe of the frequency auctions to unfold in the way that it did.
It would have been possible to standardise the bid auctions and to harmonise practice, and consequently such irregularities would not have taken place, the sector would not have been driven to its knees and we would have saved many hundreds from bankruptcies and the unfortunate unemployment consequences linked to these.
A telecoms package which consolidates the Union's telecommunication legislation will have great significance in competition with others outside the European Union.
It will result in us having more harmonised markets for this sector which in itself is already international and border-transcending. We will then also obtain the benefit of the European Union's advantages of scale, which in turn will surely have an impact on both employment and on the success possibilities of firms and on pricing.
Of these five statutes, I regard the framework directive to be the most important. The most difficult matters have been dealt with here.
Now we have before us my draft report which has been processed by the committee, for which I thank my colleagues (it was approved unanimously), and then also the presentation of the Presidency State. It has gone far in order to meet Parliament half way, and in my opinion we should approve it.
It takes account of Parliament's stance in two central matters which we have been taking up for discussion throughout this summer and autumn: Article 6 and Article 4.
The latter concerns the appeals procedure and the former concerns the relationship between the Commission and the national regulatory authorities.
Now for the first time, and this can be regarded as a breakthrough, the Commission can intervene in a national statute, if this statute is not in harmony with the general statutes, both in the definition of the market and in the definition of a significant market position.
These are the two matters which we wanted to see implemented, and now, thanks to the Presidency State, they are in your proposal.
Furthermore, I hope that the Presidency State can tell us whether it is also possible that the Council may commit to this as well.
If this is so, then this package should in my opinion be approved.
I have been given to understand that the Commission is also of this view.
Madam President, Commissioner Liikanen, the new regulatory framework for telecommunications replaces the Community system which opened up the national markets in Europe and brought the era of monopolies to a close.
By way of justifying the revision of the Community telecommunications framework, the European Commission stated its intention to reduce the regulatory burdens according to the liberalisation objectives achieved on the basis of the model still in force.
The aim was, in fact, to secure greater confidence in market forces in order to boost the competitiveness of the European market and encourage investment in the emerging markets, facilitating the provision of innovative services.
The purpose of the revision of the prevailing model should, therefore, have the aim of gradually moving the telecommunications market on from its liberalisation phase to a phase of genuine, consolidated competition.
The relationship between the development of the regulatory framework and the dynamics of the markets should be pursued using a forward-looking approach which favours competitive conditions, ensuring the rapid distribution of innovative services, in order to provide direction for the market and the future exclusive application of the procurement rules which are gradually replacing ex-ante rules.
The new model should introduce a transitional phase that fosters this transition to a telecommunications market that can be managed in the same way as any other economic sector in strict respect for competition rules.
This end can be achieved by a body of ex-ante rules harmonised at European level which are characterised by the fact that they are temporary and exceptional; in other words, the regulation that we are discussing and approving ex ante must provide for it to be abolished when a sufficient level of competition has been achieved.
These ex ante rules must be kept to a minimum as regards requirements and strength, in order to ensure that intervention is proportionate to the regulatory objectives.
In view of the flexibility of the new model, which very prudently extends the scope of intervention of the international regulatory authorities, the main thrust of the new regulatory framework must be the need to guarantee the supervisory power that the Commission has laid down in respect of the national authorities, in order to ensure correct interpretation of the new framework and thereby avoid distortion of the competitiveness of the European market between geographical areas.
In fact, with the absence of a centralised authority at European level making it possible to assess the ultimate consistency of national decisions with Community objectives, the new regulatory framework is in danger of not achieving its objectives.
To this end, Mr Daems, Commissioner Liikanen, allow me to illustrate an amendment which I tabled together with 51 Members from different political groups precisely to Mr Paasilinna' s directive. Mr Paasilinna has worked very hard on his proposal on the framework directive on telecommunications.
This amendment seeks to make things clearer for operators, to avoid fragmentation in the application of Community law in the various Member States and to ensure the development of a genuine internal telecommunications market.
The adoption of my proposal would facilitate harmonisation, which can only be achieved by establishing unambiguously defined power allowing the European Commission to intervene to guarantee that the application of Community law is coherent with objectives and pursues the same goals in all the Member States.
Harmonisation and centralised power are the basis for the development of the pan-European telecommunications market.
This what the operators want, this is what the market wants, Mr Daems, Commissioner Liikanen.
The market wants the development of a pan-European telecommunications market, whereas the short-sightedness of the national authorities often tends to slow down that process of development in this phase; that is why I tabled this amendment which, I hope, will be taken into due consideration by the Belgian Presidency, the Council, the Commission and this House.
Mr President, in the concluding part of this package of directives, the universal service and users' rights directive, for which I have been privileged to be rapporteur, are very much at the cutting edge of the whole package.
These are things that will really mean something to all consumers and users of electronic communication services.
The common position that we received from the Council was a major advance over the first reading text and I would like to thank the Council and Commission for accepting so many of Parliament's ideas and suggestions.
The new text has been substantially restructured and clarified which is important for effective transposal in Member States.
As part of that restructuring, the aspects of market intervention contained in this directive - and this is very strong market intervention at a retail price level - are clearly set out.
It is worth reminding all of us in this House that these are very much seen as transitional measures towards a fully open market in which competition rules will reign supreme.
That is the direction we want to move in.
I would like to pick up on some further enhancements that we have made as a result of the second reading.
I would like to thank the Council for working so closely with us and also to thank my colleagues on the Legal Affairs Committee who worked very closely with me in making suggestions.
I hope that they will be pleased with the results that we have achieved.
It is worth reminding ourselves that the whole essence of this universal service directive is to ensure that a core service is available to both able-bodied and disabled consumers across the single market, and also that the users' rights provisions must ensure that consumers have a right to clear contract terms, to comprehensive transparent pricing information and also a guarantee of other important services.
The changes that we have particularly focused on at second reading concern some further important enhancements to the provision for disabled users.
I am pleased to say that at the common position stage, we have a clear indication in a separate article about the importance of Member States providing for disabled users on a wide range of services, in particular ensuring that disabled users have the sort of choice and range of services that all other consumers expect.
Those are broad-ranging provisions that will develop as services expand.
The new area - that I am pleased we have introduced, and I would like to thank the Council for accepting this - is to encourage the development of clear quality standards related to disabled user provision.
That is something that we have added in at this stage because it seemed to us that it was all very well having some common provisions but unless we have a way of monitoring those and making sure that those evolve with the rest of the range of services involved, then things might just stand still.
We will not see disabled users being able to take advantage of new technology and new services in the way we would like them to.
This is a very important provision which I am sure will have the support of all colleagues.
The second area that we focused on in second reading was to ensure that small- and medium-sized enterprises also benefit from the sort of users' rights that are required for individual consumers.
In a rapidly developing world, we already know that small- and medium-sized enterprises are a key target for enhanced electronic communications.
We want SMEs to really buy into e-commerce, into the new possibilities afforded to them by enhanced electronic communications.
They do not necessarily have the negotiating power of larger companies and therefore provision is made for them.
In conclusion, I wish to talk about a third aspect which has involved us in a lot of tough negotiation with the Council, namely over "must carry" obligations which are included within this Directive.
These allow Member States to impose obligations to carry public service channels and channels of specific interest on electronic communication systems.
Many colleagues felt that there should be a specific extension of this to satellite and conditional access systems.
The Council and Commission have told us that this is already covered fully in the access and interconnection directive, but colleagues have not agreed with that.
When it comes to the compromise package that we will vote on I am prepared to recommend to colleagues that we do not support this area but on condition that the Commission assures us that it will continue to keep this under very close scrutiny when it comes to looking at the Television without Frontiers directive and also to encourage the fair access provisions.
If we do that, I am sure that we can move forward to approve the whole package in what will be a major advance for the European economy and for Europe's competitiveness.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me, in turn, to thank the rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs for the work they have carried out in tandem with the presidency, in the search for a common platform on the basis of which we can reach agreement. This will allow us to take a reasonably prompt decision at long last, thus promoting the development of the entire telecom sector, and hence the development of the internal market.
I should also like to include the Commission in my thanks, which, together with the rapporteurs and shadow rapporteurs, helped us in every way possible to reach a common position.
Allow me to outline the process we went through. By process, I mean the procedure we followed to reach a package which is hopefully acceptable to Parliament.
You have to bear in mind that it is not easy to reconcile very different opinions, especially where Member States are concerned, in order to be able to produce a package at the end of it.
It is therefore in this context that the response, prepared by the presidency, to the recommendations for second reading concerning the directives which are now before us, can, in fact, be seen as a very balanced response, which in the view of the presidency might be acceptable.
Needless to say, a number of additional explanatory statements will have to be drafted, for it is impossible to include everything in the body of a directive, for example with regard to comments by the first rapporteur, Mrs Niebler.
In my view, it is indeed self-evident that a new policy requires information and involvement by, for example, Parliament, certainly when it comes to the use of the existing spectrum.
Despite this, I believe that this general principle will necessitate a clarification from the party applying it, namely the Commission, and I therefore also believe that explanatory statements by the Commission, not simply on this score but also on a number of other aspects, could prove useful, as a number of rapporteurs have already stated.
I believe my present role to be as follows: if you, as Parliament, could ensure that this common response by the Council' s presidency will be accepted by you, then this is what will actually happen in practice.
In other words, it is, in my opinion, very important to me that I can officially say to you that, if the Commission can indeed fully support our response and if Parliament can fully accept this common position of the Council, the Council will accept this accordingly.
In other words, it is a package, as was stated a moment ago.
A package entails the risk that if you tug at one string of the package, the whole thing may fall apart.
I am not saying this because I like saying this, but because political realism, with which we are all familiar, teaches us that, if we want to proceed swiftly, we need to adopt a common position which offers a huge amount of benefits.
Let us be honest, the Council' s flexibility towards Parliament has been exemplary, and contained a crucial message which was news to me, namely that the concept of the internal market is clearly being prioritised, even by the Council.
If you ask me, this is a very special new message.
It is in this context that the response of the Council' s presidency is being presented to you here, and I would not like to see my colleagues who have asked me to tell you this, revisiting their previous common position by running a risk and tugging at a string - and I am saying this in all candour - for I then believe that we would be at a complete loss as to know where we would end up in some future procedure or other.
In my view, we have now reached a point where we can make enormous headway, where the Council' s flexibility is, I dare say, rather exemplary, where we stimulate industry, where we contribute towards establishing the internal market and, via the internal market, create advantages for the consumer in all its diversity and with all its aspects, inter alia, via universal service, which we all set so much store by.
In other words, the Council gives you the formal pledge that, if the Commission supports this fully, and if you deem this package to be acceptable, the Council will actually implement this package without any exception.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I would firstly like to thank the President-in-Office for his straight-forward language, for he is simply saying 'take it or leave it' .
But first and foremost, I admire his enormous perseverance, particularly in the light of the fact that we have arrived at this result.
I have to say that one important sentence in the speech of the President-in-Office stood out for me, namely the emphasis he placed on the internal market.
Unfortunately, we have had to work for too long with a Council that no longer appeared to embrace the concept of internal market.
Thanks to you, and I should say, thanks to many of my fellow MEPs here in the European Parliament, this has now been rectified, fortunately.
Needless to say, what is at issue is that we will face more competition, more players, Mobile Virtual Network Operators, etc., and there is nothing wrong with that, of course.
It is about striking a fine balance between rules on the one hand, and scope for further market development on the other.
We are in this transitional phase, and we must aim for normality as quickly as possible, away from ex ante, towards ex post, to put it in simple terms.
This means, therefore, that we must weigh up the whole set of rules and market interventions against the question as to whether this is really future-proof. In my opinion, this will need to be one of the assessment criteria for the Commission, to constantly monitor whether we could proceed any faster towards what I refer to as a more normal market, ex post, in other words.
This also naturally leads on to the question: what will the consumer gain from this?
Will we receive more service and lower prices, in particular? I am therefore pleased with the Council' s compromise proposal with regard to international roaming, and I would ask the Commissioner now: what steps will the Commission take in order to ensure that next year, during the summer holidays, we will not be inundated with complaints by our voters that it is still very expensive, that the cost of ringing from a landline to a mobile line is still too high.
These are the questions which are important to our citizens, and we must simply get results on this score.
Article 6 has been mentioned many times.
One can appreciate it at different levels.
I am pleased that the Council eventually took the bull by the horns and has stated that an internal market requires an independent role by the Commission.
We will continue to fight in the next round, because what you are now offering is too little in my opinion, and more is needed for an internal market, but also on that score, we must of course establish a certain kind of realism.
As I understand it, you have on that basis, in fact, interpreted the revision clause along the lines of 'move towards this single internal market' . Although you have not adopted Amendment No 36, you have done so at a practical level, and I am extremely grateful to you for this.
Finally, in my view, it is very important for us to hear from the Commission what steps it intends to take with regard to digital television, so as to be able to lay down this one European standard as soon as possible.
This is about Europe' s future, about achieving the objective of Lisbon, and I believe that the Commission now also has a key role to play in this.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to touch on a few points in the short time I have available.
Mr Daems, you quite rightly pointed out that you have achieved a great deal in the Council and you also referred to the flexibility on the part of the Council that this involved.
You said that we have reached a good compromise.
I agree, and I think that many of my colleagues in my group will see it the same way.
It is an acceptable compromise.
There are a good many points on which further negotiation is needed.
Mr van Velzen hit the right note.
We will have to carry on negotiating and fighting to achieve a common internal market, because this is just one step and further work will be needed.
I believe that we in this House have one particular problem with this, and I have already heard a lot of people saying that it is difficult to have an informal trialogue as part of the second reading.
That requires a great deal of work and needs a huge investment of time given all the linguistic difficulties involved.
The whole package that we have before us is very complicated and needs a great deal of detailed work.
I think that we here in Parliament - and I am addressing this comment more to Parliament than to the Commission and the Council, although it indirectly affects them too of course - will have to make a greater investment in ensuring that we have whatever support is required to tackle such a complex task from a political point of view.
This will still not guarantee completion of the internal market.
It is right that in future the Commission will have more power and scope for action.
We have not used the word 'veto' .
That is probably very clever in political terms, but nevertheless it is something along those lines.
Nevertheless, by means of cooperation and consultation, the national regulatory authorities have the power to ensure that they can take appropriate action to influence their national markets.
There is an interesting definition of transnational markets.
Nevertheless, there are two further problems to which previous speakers have referred regarding the interoperability of standards.
I believe that the proposal does not go far enough in this respect.
I cannot understand our countries, why they are not in favour of interoperability in the area of standards.
I hope that something more will emerge in this field.
There is also still a great deal more to be achieved, via consultation with Parliament, as regards Parliament's participation concerning technical measures, and that includes, in particular, Mrs Niebler's report, for which I am shadow rapporteur.
I would simply venture to point out that Mr von Wogau will, I hope, be bringing forward an interesting report next year dealing more fully with the issue of Parliament's participation in such consultation processes.
Once more, we have until Wednesday to consider things further, and the Council and the Commission have a further opportunity to comment on these points.
I would be delighted if they would do that today.
Thank you, Mr President, Commissioner and Minister Daems.
Needless to say, I would naturally like to echo the words of praise expressed by my fellow MEPs for Mr Daems for all his efforts, to which Mrs Marcel has also greatly contributed, of course.
I will return to this in a moment, for I would also like to thank all my fellow MEPs, and especially the rapporteurs, for the pleasant and close working relationship so far.
For we must realise that what is before us was only possible thanks to the unanimity with which we in this Parliament have worked on this package.
It was, of course, abundantly clear to the Council that we were not going to yield an inch on essential points, especially on the score that we want one internal market where companies and consumers can benefit from the achievements of that one Europe.
And we can only achieve this in this way.
That is why it is crucial for us to agree on sound procedures that are ultimately monitored by the Commission.
What I miss in the Council' s package before us, is a clear stand on one European standard for digital interactive television, something which my group deeply regrets.
What is clear is that Europe does not seem to be learning from past experience.
Indeed, the overwhelming success of the mobile phone standard, from which consumers and companies have benefited and will do so in future, apparently failed to convince the Council enough to dare adopt a clear stand for once, namely in the field of digital television.
I would therefore ask Commissioner Liikaanen whether he, following in the footsteps of his predecessor, Mr Bangemann, would be prepared to do this and would like to promote the MHP platform.
I would ask him at the same time to present a clear timeframe for this.
You will have understood by now that the package that is before us, this compromise, is acceptable to my group, and I only hope that Mr Daems is prepared to confirm this.
For then it will be implemented to the letter of the law in all Member States.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance wishes to add its voice to the chorus of approval for everyone who has worked so long and hard to enable us to inch forward module by module.
All of the previous speakers, and above all you, Mr President-in-Office, were right in saying that we need to see all this in the light of the e-Europe initiative and of the internal market.
I would like to express my appreciation of your efforts not only personally, but also on behalf of my group, and I know that sometimes things get sorted out in the corridor, over a coffee or in other informal ways, over a sumptuous meal, for example.
I am sorry to tell you that I have a bit of stomach ache.
Not because I have spent so much time recently with lobbyists from one side or another over sumptuous dinners, but because depending on how you look at it, what is on offer is either too much or too little.
Too much in the sense mentioned by Mr van Velzen: 'eat up, that is all you are getting' , or too little in as much as when we reach compromises we have to accept proposals from the European Parliament being slightly amended, with small, nebulous changes involving little words like 'shall' and 'may' , which are then taken out, so that I suddenly feel that the amendments are not so minor any more.
I would like to briefly pick out one point, as I had an excellent exchange of information throughout the whole period of cooperation with Mr Harbour.
I would like to highlight just one point in the context of the Universal Service Directive, and that concerns consumers with disabilities.
We are not giving anything away here.
We live in a society which for reasons of solidarity and on economic grounds takes whatever steps need to be taken.
What is at stake here is that after many years we are giving some very important signals in this area, in order to give people with disabilities full access to the information and communication society as fully integrated consumers.
This political willingness, this political awareness and this political will would simply not have existed to the same extent 20 years ago.
I just wanted to mention that point to demonstrate to you all that time is a great healer.
However, that will certainly not cure my stomach ache.
I think that because of this stomach ache I would very gladly vote for this compromise, because, just like all of you, I am in favour of this internal market, and I would have been happier if it had already been established now, not at some point in the near future.
However, I too will close by mentioning the crucial points that other Members have already touched upon, and which I do not really think are solved in the compromise: interoperability, digital television, transmission obligations, and Article 6 of the framework directive.
Whether this fare is too much or too little, I think it takes us forward an inch or two.
I would be very interested to hear what else you may have to say to us, and then, even if it upsets my stomach, we would be happy to say 'yes' .
I would like to thank the rapporteurs on behalf of my group and on behalf of Parliament for the tremendous work that they have done on their joint reports.
When we look at what the Council agreed upon in Lisbon and the new European initiative in particular and consider utilising the advantages which would accrue to Europe from the telecommunications revolution, we can see that there are many great opportunities out there to be grasped, but they require proper order, proper rules and proper regulation to ensure their use for the benefit of all.
At this point I would particularly like to congratulate Commissioner Liikanen for the innovative measures that he has brought forward and the way that he is striving to bring Europe into the 21st century.
I suppose it is appropriate that a man of his origins should be doing that.
However, there are a number of dangers and risks and in particular, I want to deal with two aspects.
First there is the universal service aspect - the universal obligation that my colleague Malcolm Harbour was talking about.
I will take a slightly different perspective.
There is a risk relating to competition, with new regulations and new rules being brought in, that there will be cherry-picking of the most valuable markets, the most valuable layers, and suddenly larger urban areas will benefit whilst rural areas and peripheral areas will lose out.
On top of that, as already mentioned by Malcolm Harbour, there is the question of disabled access.
Companies and institutions must be forced to adapt their services to suit the needs of the consumers and particularly those consumers to whom the Internet and the telecommunications revolution could open the most possibilities of all by bringing them into the real world and bringing them into dialogue.
A third area that I wish to focus on is the risk of creating new illiterates or new gaps between those people who have computer and electronic skills and those who do not.
We have a population in Europe today that is ageing: we have a huge middle-aged and ageing population that may not have the training and the skills necessary to usefully adapt to computers, electronic commerce and so on.
What is happening in our schools and providing access in education is very important, but we must look to new ways of bringing in the middle-aged and the aged into the process.
Finally, the eSchola initiative is a great one.
I hope it can be extended to bring in older people and more peripheral areas.
My last point is that, when we speak about consumers, let us ensure that we speak about all of the consumers of Europe not just those in the largest urban areas.
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, rapporteurs, I wholly support the objective underlying the raft of proposals we are about to vote on, that of supplementing the internal market with liberalisation and the introduction of a system of genuine competition in a sector such as the telecommunications sector which is vitally important for Europe, its economy and the well-being of its citizens.
However, I feel that no one, including the Commission, should be under any illusion that this raft of proposals, although a substantial step in the right direction, might represent a positive, definitive solution.
I do not feel this will be the case; indeed, the fate of the regulation on unbundling the local loop, despite its almost unanimous adoption, and the difficulties encountered in its implementation bear witness to this.
An underlying contradiction still remains in many Member States, specifically in those where publicly controlled telecommunications companies are still very influential and where, as a result, the State finds itself acting as both player and referee at the same time.
There is a great conflict of interests within most public administrations which, in my opinion, is one of the greatest barriers to the process of liberalising the telecommunications sector.
In order to alleviate the negative effects of the present imbalances in the different national markets, it might be appropriate to confer upon the Commission greater power to monitor and guide the national regulatory authorities, and to create mechanisms for cooperation and coordination between the national authorities.
That is why the Italian Radicals will support Mr Brunetta' s amendment.
Although not the final solution, it could be an appropriate path to take.
If we want an open, competitive, effective telecommunications market, we need to fulfil an essential requirement, and that is to reduce the States' power as managers in the telecommunications sector. The State and the administrations must play a single role: the role they need to play of regulators.
Playing two roles, being both players and referees at the same time, slows everything down and places the success of the liberalisation process in jeopardy.
Mr President, the importance of the package as a whole is clear, both for a major European industry and for its customers and users.
But are we moving fast enough to keep up with a changing market?
I would like to congratulate colleagues, especially the PPE-ED team, for getting to this point where much of Parliament's position has been taken on board in the Council text.
I particularly welcome progress on Article 4 of the framework directive so that the principle of appeals against NRA decisions on the substance of an issue, not just on whether procedure has been followed correctly, has been accepted.
This gives some comfort to operators and provides a more balanced situation.
I also welcome moves improving Article 6 of that directive so as to achieve a more even regulatory framework across Member States through the requirement for cooperation and coordination between NRAs and the Commission.
Personally, I prefer the voluntary approach to adopting common standards in digital television technology rather than seeking to impose one solution.
I say, let the market provide the answer.
The package, as now formulated, seems a big improvement on the original proposal but we are still looking for consumers' concern about levels of competition and service to be addressed through faster transition to a true internal market governed by general competition rules.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Harbour, for the cooperative and pragmatic way in which he has worked on the universal services directive.
In particular, his efforts to achieve a consensus have led to the Socialist Group's amendments - both to strengthen the 'must carry' provisions and to give stronger rights of access to disabled users - being carried in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
The fast pace of technological change in the telecoms sector means that legislation must keep up with the pace of developments.
But it must reflect growing expectations of users and consumers for a minimum set of services at an affordable price, guaranteeing access for all.
The telecoms revolution has created a rise in consumer expectations.
It is our job to respond and ensure that our legislative framework in the EU can deliver competition and consumer benefits.
Consumers, for example, have not benefited from the existence of multiple competitors in the mobile phone market.
Tariffs have not fallen in line with lower costs of running networks, now prompting in the UK an Oftel inquiry and a European Commission investigation.
This directive must ensure genuine universal access and extend to all users, especially those with special social needs, those on low incomes and those with disabilities.
The disabled will be excluded from the opportunities if there are not sufficient guarantees of access across Europe to public payphones, directory services and electronic programme options.
In my country alone, two million blind and partially-sighted people could benefit from this directive if the Council and the Commission accept our amendments.
Finally, on 'must carry' provisions, we need to find a means to allow services and channels in the public interest to be carried on cable and satellite platforms.
If we do not, then I fear the future of satellite television might be dominated by the TV culture of quiz shows featuring stripping housewives, squeezing out educational and public interest programmes.
Let us be clear: Amendment No 26 does not promote a free ride for public broadcasters on conditional access services nor indeed on imposing or mandating this.
The fact is that market conditions do not always provide 'must carry'.
It is appropriate to allow Member States to intervene if and when it is appropriate to do so.
I trust the Commission and the Council will see the merits of supporting this.
We favour a quick deal but it is conditional on the Council and the Commission accepting our amendments, which are a genuine and committed attempt to ensure that the brave new world of electronic communications is genuinely universal.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Daems, if we reach an agreement this week, it will be one of the few decisions in which the European Council' s timetables are put into effect.
That is a good reason why we should try to achieve something in this area, in contrast to what has sometimes happened with regard to other decisions about liberalisation.
I especially want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Harbour, with whom I have worked closely.
I want to agree with those speakers who have said that we are now introducing important rules for disabled users.
In certain contexts, I have felt ashamed at the fact that our rules have not been as advanced as the rules in other large markets.
I also want to emphasise what Mr Harbour said about the 'must carry' principle.
The intensity with which we have debated TV issues in recent weeks shows that it is not entirely acceptable to distinguish between content and the principles we had when we first debated convergences.
We are talking here about important cultural values in respect of which the Commission and the Member States must be able to depart even from strictly commercial rules.
We should support the compromise in the Paasilinna report.
In that context, I also hope that the Commission will apply a fairer competition policy between large and small countries than that we have seen, so that small and different markets too can continue to exist.
That is something to which perhaps not enough attention has been given.
Turning now to the issue of digital TV, I really regret the Council' s position on API for digital receivers.
In many contexts, the European Parliament has clearly given its backing to an open common and approved standard.
In this area, there is no market, as on many other issues.
The market cannot therefore be researched.
I hope that, before we vote on Wednesday, the Commission will be able to say when it is intended to take measures to bring about interoperability and genuine freedom of choice for consumers, and what it is intended that these measures should be.
I therefore hope that the Commission will be able to come up with a declaration before we vote on Wednesday.
That is important for this sector' s competitiveness in relation to other sectors within the telecommunications sector.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, as everything has been said, but not by me - as they say - I will make two or three points simply to underline what has been discussed by the previous speakers.
I belong to the minority who, at first reading, were not satisfied with Article 6 of the framework directive.
The compromise that has now been presented meets with my approval.
I think a balance has been achieved between the national regulators' shadowing of the market and the Commission's right of veto, in order to stimulate the progress of the internal market, of which we are all in favour, even my group.
This represents, in our view, very much another fragmentation of the market.
I want to say something general about the modus operandi itself.
Yes, we are dealing with a very fast-moving market and rapidly evolving technology, and we have tried to take that into account by acting relatively speedily.
I want, though, just to say another word of admonition.
Parliament - by which I mean, we - should not always deny ourselves our rights in the legislative process.
We realise that from time to time, when the worst comes to the worst, but I think it must remain an exception.
I would like to highlight another point.
Mrs Hieronymi made it very clear - and, as a member of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I can only underline what she said - that a unitary standard for digital television, and its interoperability, are issues not only for industry policy, but also for consumers.
I have promised consumers and the general public in my constituency that we would ensure that there was a standard that would enable them to receive on one TV set everything that they wanted to see and that they would not have to install several sets.
I believe we have to go a bit further down that road.
I would like to emphasise the very demand that Mrs Hieronymi made when she spoke just now.
Perhaps the Commission and the Council can leap a bit further over the shadow thrown by digital television and reach a compromise.
Then I, too, would find it easier to vote in favour of the package as a whole.
I will end my speech there and point out that I have stuck to the speaking time allotted to me.
Mr President, it seems to me that the outcome is a vindication of the Community method.
Much of the process was kick-started and propelled by the declarations at the Lisbon Summit, but nothing would have happened if those declaratory statements had not been turned into excellent and workable proposals by the Commission.
They were then propelled forward by some superb cross-party work by rapporteurs in this Parliament and fixed as a result of innovative negotiating skills on the part of the Belgian presidency and from Mr Daems - who contrived to include a gastronomic tour of Brussels in his valiant efforts to secure consensus.
This combination was successful in dragging Member States and national regulatory authorities - some of them kicking and screaming - towards a workable pan-European approach.
That seems to me to offer some lessons for the Barcelona Summit next year: if we want to push forward the economic reform agenda in this sector and in others, we need to continue to rely on the tried and tested Community method and not resort to the intergovernmentalism that frankly was implicit in much of what the Council seemed to suggest in the negotiation positions it took on this package.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this package is actually one of the things that are absolutely crucial to the Council Presidency, and I would like to congratulate them on the commitment they have demonstrated.
We need sensible compromises, and we need them in quick order.
This is a very fast-moving market, and so we need fast decision-making processes that produce binding rulings and, above all, more legal security as well.
It is on that basis that there will be long-term investment, which is what we need in the current economic climate.
Let me just remind you that there are, at present, eighty cases pending in Austria alone, of which only two were decided by the Supreme Court.
This can hardly be the way into the future.
As I see it, the authorisation directive is about harmonisation being a very positive thing, but also at the same time about the need to guarantee rights of access.
It must be possible for the authorities to be helpful in implementing these rights if one is paying for it.
In the access directive, the open interface is of particular importance.
The independence of the alternative operators, and especially of the interface, is something that we should not underestimate in the future.
The possibility of future dynamic development in this area is of the utmost importance to small and medium-sized enterprises.
As regards universal service, we need clear definitions of universal service provisions, especially with respect to what has to be financed by the operator and what by the State; and finance by the State raises the question of whether there is to be a public invitation to tender.
I believe that these liberalisation measures are of quite particular importance to the public - in both the internal and domestic markets.
I cannot actually explain to my constituents the difference between a telephone call from Kehl to Strasbourg and one from Strasbourg to Paris.
Here, I believe, there is a lot more work for us to do.
Mr President, I very much hope that even at this very late stage, right up to the wire, we can achieve a compromise on this package between the three institutions.
Others have mentioned the conclusions of the Lisbon Summit but there are other needs for a conclusion: the needs of industry for early clarity about the new rules, the need of European citizens for cheap, efficient competitive telecommunication services, the needs of European Union businesses for education, for research, for societal applications.
I particularly want to ask about the rights of disabled users and to put a specific question to the Commission on the compromise presidency text.
It is important, not just for social reasons, but for access to employment for disabled users.
I would like to ask Commissioner Liikanen whether in his view the presidency compromise encompasses those points of principle contained in both the framework directive and the universal service directive.
There have been serious criticisms by disabled users about non-implementation of the RTTE directive and this is a crucial point for many of us.
Parliament has rightly supported carefully delineated powers for the Commission and understands also that some qualification is essential.
There is a need for clear rules consistently applied within national regulatory authorities and between regulatory authorities.
The powers for the Commission need to be circumscribed and time-limited, as indeed they were in Parliament's amendments and in the presidency compromise.
I very much hope that when we vote on Wednesday we will have reached an agreement between the political groups and between the three institutions.
These reports will play a critical role, not just in shaping the future of telecoms but also in ensuring a greater choice in competition in the European market.
Even more importantly, I hope they will go some way, in our drive for the knowledge-based society, towards lessening the divide there is between those who have access to information technology and those who do not.
I am speaking on the access and interconnection directive which is extended to provide a pro-competitive and harmonised framework to stimulate competing network infrastructures and interoperability of services.
I hope it will ensure that bottlenecks in the market do not constrain the emergence and growth of innovative services, especially for people with disabilities and services that will benefit users and consumers.
To achieve these ambitious objectives, we first need to influence the way in which Member States regulate access and interconnection and secondly we need operators with SMP to grant other network operators interconnection facilities in a transparent way.
An area where we have had problems and where the harmonised approach between Members has been difficult to obtain under the current framework is international roaming and call termination in mobile networks.
I know that this directive may not be the place for such detailed information, however, in the absence of any movement from the operators, I believe it is important for us to highlight this issue.
The fact is the cost of terminating calls in mobile networks is ten times as much as terminating in fixed networks.
I can appreciate some of the problems in the international roaming, but the differences are too wide to be credible in terms of actual costs incurred and there is a huge spread of prices across Europe for the same service.
The most expensive country is almost twice as expensive as the cheapest.
I want to try to ensure, when we are looking at a level playing field and a single market, that the retail prices are cost-based and transparent and are of benefit to the consumer especially the SMEs who are trying to gain access across Europe and take advantage of the single market.
I hope the Commission will have greater success than they had in implementing the local-loop directive across the fifteen Member States, because this directive needs to be implemented forthwith because lower prices, wider choice and better services are an absolute priority for the EU if we are to achieve a more socially-inclusive Europe and a one-speed Europe.
Mr President, since the European Council in Lisbon, we have travelled a long way in a relatively short space of time.
The three institutions, Council, Parliament and Commission, were aware that the time factor was vital in the case of one of the fastest-developing technologies.
The directive on e-commerce has already been approved, we approved the directive on the unbundling of the local loop - which, by the way, the Member States have not yet fully complied with - but now the telecommunication business, which seemed secure, is encountering more and more problems, which is clearly not beneficial to users.
A new framework is therefore necessary.
And that is what this package of directives we are dealing with provides.
It is not a question of more regulation.
It is a question of regulating what is necessary, with a balance between consumers and operators.
But, above all, it is a question of regulating in the same way, in an equal way, in order to prevent what was happening - a fragmentation of the internal market.
That is why the European Parliament tried to resolve this problem, and the Council, in its common position, made a counter-offer, which I believe was insufficient, but now the Presidency has achieved a package which is more sufficient.
What we are being offered is clearly not ideal, it is not what we would all like to achieve, but as the saying goes, the best is the enemy of the good, and, for the sake of the certainty of the operators, for the sake of the need to have a filter in the Commission to deal with the problems of the internal market, and also, it should be said, for the sake of the good image of the operation of our institutions, I recommend that we approve this package.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, despite all the praise, in which I, of course, wish to join, there are still some large flies in the ointment, which have indeed already been mentioned.
I am speaking in my capacity as rapporteur of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, with responsibility for consideration of the authorisation and radio spectrum directives, and also as my group's shadow rapporteur on the framework directive.
All these reports have been adopted unanimously in the Cultural Committee, and we have managed to bring substantial points from our position to bear in the leading Committee as well.
In the Council, on the contrary, all the Committee's concerns have been utterly cast to the winds, which it would be an understatement to describe as disappointing.
To get to the point: even though the package of directives we are discussing is called the 'telecoms package' for the sake of brevity, it must be clearly pointed out that it certainly does not deal only with telecommunication issues in the strict sense of the word.
Technical convergence does indeed mean that electronic services cannot be divided up by reference to their channels of distribution or the devices used to receive them, but this is specifically, in our view, about digital television and other services related to journalism.
What matters to the Committee on Culture, therefore, is that the whole wide range of Europe's cultural diversity should find a place on the networks and not be merely subject to the laws of the market and of competition.
This means that we see the issue of interoperability, like that of obligations to transmit, as being essential.
By these means alone will Member States and participants in the market have the legal security to guarantee services of general interest and only thus will the provision of the full range of services for everyone be guaranteed in terms of both supply and demand.
It is self-evident that Europe, for its part, does not have a duty to regulate the content of transmissions, but it is obliged to see to it that culture is not beaten into submission by commerce.
The bottom line is that doing without interoperability does not only impose limits on culture, but positively militates against the internal market.
So the Council's compromise is inadequate in every way, and we assume that there will be more change in this area.
Mr President, I, like everybody else, or perhaps most other people in this House, want a single market.
But I do not want a market where competition rules supreme.
Regulation is necessary both economically and socially.
If you have no competition, you will have no service innovation, but if you have cut-throat competition, you will not have service innovation either.
It is necessary therefore to get the balance right.
So, I would suggest to the Commission and Council that Parliament is offering them an opportunity to improve the balance of the package before them, and I would urge them to accept the proposals being put forward by Parliament.
By coincidence, the Commission came forward today with a working document on the performance of industries providing services of general economic interest, and this also covered telecoms.
That document indicates that liberalisation in general is having a net beneficial effect, but I would suggest to the Commission that they need to come forward with a lot more research and hard evidence in relation to specific sectors to convince me that it is true in all cases.
Finally, I would suggest that the Commission needs urgently to take on board the suspicions regarding price-fixing with regard to roaming mobile telephone calls.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, whenever a debate draws to its close and as important a package as this one on telecommunications is adopted, one should be, indeed must be, permitted to look into the future. In this instance there are a number of questions that present themselves at the same time.
Is the Commission already able to assess how much the market will now change - not only in the direction of more competition?
What effects can we expect to see on jobs? Can you, on the basis of the package about to be adopted, already estimate whether the digital divide really will be reduced?
Would what is currently going on not be an ideal opportunity to actually put transparency into practice, both as regards costs and at the consumer end? We are indeed currently finding that the new directives mean that we will have to deal with a flood of confusing information about telecommunications charges, and transparency should surely be at least as important in economics as in politics.
The Council and the Commission exerted considerable pressure on Parliament to consider their proposal as set in stone.
However, eight amendments have been tabled by members of five different groups, which in fact proves that the basic text is insufficient.
Those who signed these amendments, supported by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, particularly want, in order to be technically fair, the broadcasting or 'must carry' obligations to also apply to satellite, the conditional access systems and to businesses providing access to digital television.
In order to safeguard legal consistency, we demand that the conditional access systems and the other associated facilities are also included in Paragraph 2, which is the purpose of Amendment No 26, the only amendment tabled by our group.
We would like to stress to the Minister that we, like everyone here, welcome the speech on reducing the digital divide, but we would also like Parliament to be permitted, now and again, to have the power of co-decision.
Mr President, electronic services are a public commodity in a modern knowledge society.
Consequently, quality, affordable services, irrespective of geographical location or the user's personal profile, must be reconciled with the demands of competition, although the basic objective must be to guarantee universal access.
Particular attention is therefore quite rightly being given to making access easier for people with disabilities.
Consultation with users is essential in order to ensure we have optimum regulations from a social point of view.
I particularly welcome the amendment requiring the Member States to hold public consultations in order to define users with disabilities.
This means initiating a broad debate with individual representatives of people with disabilities, depending on their particular requirements.
So we need to focus on measures for minority users, such as providing public telephones at fixed locations or equivalent measures for deaf or speech impaired people.
At the same time, once this parameter is accepted, we need to develop quality of service standards for services for minority groups alongside general quality of service standards, because that is the only way we shall be able to monitor the degree of access which these people have to electronic services.
The four directives with you today, together with the Spectrum Decision, make up the new regulatory framework for electronic communications - a cornerstone of the eEurope strategy, the information society for all agreed at the Lisbon European Council.
Since Lisbon, successive European Councils have called on the Commission, Council and Parliament to ensure that the new framework is in place by the end of this year.
We still have two weeks to go.
Time is running short, but the EU still has the chance to meet this deadline.
The package of compromise amendments before you today has a broad level of support in the Council, as the presidency told us today.
It is, of course, a compromise.
Nobody gets everything they want - neither Parliament, the Council nor the Commission.
But the Commission nonetheless believes that it is a balanced compromise.
My assessment is that neither institution is likely to get more from conciliation.
Agreement on this package will send an important, positive signal externally.
We all know that the communications sector has had a rough ride over the last year or so.
Early agreement on this package will be a welcome boost.
The package will have a positive impact on the sector in a number of different ways.
The new framework will deregulate, requiring regulators progressively to remove regulation as it becomes unnecessary, so that they regulate only when there is market failure.
In this way, the package provides a transition to the final objective we all share: reliance on competition law to control market power in the electronic communications sector.
The new framework simplifies and deregulates national licensing regimes, removing prior regulatory control over market access for network and service provision, and focusing such controls only on frequency and numbering resources.
It preserves and strengthens universal service, striking the right balance between the rights of users and the need not to impose disproportionate burdens on operators.
In particular, it makes it clear that functional Internet access is a key part of the bundle of services that must be affordable and available to all EU citizens.
Mr Martin asked me about the impact of this solution for the digital divide and employment.
It is very clear that universal service has a key impact on availability.
But we also need policy measures which concentrate on the skills of all citizens and on content.
We need availability at a low price; we need skills and content in everyone's own language to close the digital divide.
Finally - and crucially - the new framework, with the amendments contained in the compromise package, would include the necessary safeguards to ensure that regulators act consistently across the EU, so that companies can expect to be treated similarly in similar situations throughout the EU.
Here I particularly want to thank the European Parliament for its strong support, without which we would not have been able to achieve this kind of compromise with the Council.
I will explain how the compromise package deals with the three fundamental issues that dominated discussion between the Council and Parliament during second reading: right of appeal (Article 4), the transparency mechanism (Article 6 of the framework directive), including matters related to radio spectrum, and finally interoperability of digital TV equipment - which has been raised by many colleagues tonight.
On right of appeal, the compromise package takes Parliament' s line by requiring Member States to ensure that the merits of the case are duly taken into account.
On the transparency mechanism, the compromise package goes a long way towards Parliament and the Commission' s position.
The text gives the Commission hard powers to require national regulatory authorities to withdraw draft measures in the key areas linked to the functioning of the single market: definition of markets and designation, or otherwise, of undertakings with significant market power (SMP).
Commission decisions are subject to an advisory committee procedure.
Radio spectrum is covered by Article 6, paragraph 2, whereby regulators are required to cooperate with each other to ensure consistent application of the regulatory framework.
The compromise does not provide for hard powers of intervention by the Commission on spectrum matters.
Nevertheless, the Commission believes that this provision, together with the Spectrum Decision, will improve co-ordination of radio spectrum policy matters across the EU.
With regard to the Spectrum Decision, the Commission is very satisfied with the compromise proposal, as the major objectives pursued in the original Commission proposal are met.
The adoption of the Spectrum Decision in this form would constitute a major step forward.
Furthermore, it demonstrates how far positions in this important matter have evolved, given the failure not so long ago of legislative proposals along similar lines.
The Spectrum Decision in its present form will set up a general and permanent framework for addressing radio spectrum policy and legal issues in the context of all relevant Community policy areas.
It thereby reflects the increasing importance of radio spectrum in the context of Community policy objectives which depend on the availability and efficient management of frequencies as a vital resource for the provision of economically and socially important wireless usage in electronic communications, transport, broadcasting and so on.
The Spectrum Decision makes it possible to take appropriate action to ensure efficient use of spectrum and spectrum management.
It also provides for technical implementing measures to be adopted under the Spectrum Decision as a mechanism to ensure legal certainty.
Many Members of the European Parliament have raised the issue of digital television.
We clearly have got the message from the European Parliament.
On digital TV interoperability, the compromise package goes towards Parliament' s position, by taking over much of the European Parliament text.
A new article and corresponding recital would be inserted in the framework directive, dealing specifically with interoperability of digital interactive television services.
It would impose an obligation on Member States to encourage the use of open application programme interfaces by platform operators and equipment manufacturers.
In addition, Member States would also be required to encourage API owners to make available, on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, all such information as is necessary to enable service providers to provide all services supported by the Application Programme Interfaces.
Clearly an obligation to encourage does not go as far as an obligation to ensure.
But - and I emphasise this - the provisions of Article 16 on standardisation allow standards to be made mandatory one year after entry into force of the directive if interoperability cannot be ensured by the use of voluntary standards.
The combination of these two provisions constitutes a step forward for the interoperability of digital television, which we all agree is a desirable outcome for European consumers.
Article 16 means that one year after entry into force of the directive, the Commission must organise public consultation then propose the comitology procedure, followed by Commission adoption.
Furthermore, as we have really understood the strong will of the European Parliament to go forward with interoperability, the Commission is ready to start actively to promote European standards for interoperability with all stakeholders concerned.
Mrs Read and Mr Fitzsimons raised the issue of the disabled here today.
Firstly, on the amendments on the disabled, most of them have been accepted in the Council position, except perhaps for two, which overlap with the Council text.
Secondly, I am personally convinced that information technologies give us better chances than before to give equal possibilities to the disabled.
When we make society better for the disabled, it is better for all of us.
Last week we had the information society technologies conference, in which Mrs Read also participated.
We saw fantastic new applications which make life for the disabled better.
We must absolutely encourage their use.
The same was true with the e-government conference.
We proceed along those lines.
The accessibility guidelines recommendation from the Commission a few weeks ago is another example here.
As far as the link between the RTTE directive and this package goes, we are ready to consider and study that issue.
I will come back to that later.
The compromise package is always a compromise.
No institution gets everything it wants.
But this compromise is a balanced one.
It represents a proper balance between the views of the Council and Parliament.
As such the Commission would recommend that the House accept it.
The Commission will transmit to the sessional services of the European Parliament the detailed position on the amendments, including those not covered by the Council compromise.
Finally, I thank the European Parliament and the presidency for their particularly close and substantial cooperation on this file.
My particular thanks go to the rapporteurs, Mrs Niebler, Mr Paasilinna, Mr Harbour and Mr Brunetta, the rapporteurs for the five telecom directives, as well as the chairman of the committee, Mr Westendorp y Cabeza.
But I do not want to forget the shadow rapporteurs and those other Members of the European Parliament who have participated so actively in the discussion of the telecoms package.
It has been an excellent example of how Community method at its best can work.
It has been an extremely complicated legal package.
Everybody had a role to play.
We worked towards the same compromise solution and - if it goes through this week - very rapidly.
The outcome of this would be that Europe would have the most modern, technology-neutral legislation for the future.
I am sure it would be good for jobs, good for growth, good for equal access for all.
I hope that this package will be accepted this week in Parliament.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I would inform Members that the services of the Bureau have a list of the amendments accepted and not accepted by the Commission.
The services of the Bureau will supply this list to any of you who wish to have it.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Report on financial assistance for innovative and job creating SMEs
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0422/2001) by Mr Bushill-Matthews, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission report to the European Parliament and the Council: Growth and Employment Initiative - Measures on financial assistance for innovative and job-creating Small- and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) (COM(2001) 399 - C5-0459/2001 - 2001/2183(COS)).
This is Parliament's second report on the growth and employment initiative which is a multiannual programme.
But it is also, perhaps unusually, the second one this calendar year and the reason for this is that the 1999 report was delayed until January of this year in essence because the Commission had been somewhat sluggish - a point I recollect I observed in my speech in January.
This year, I am delighted to say that the Commission has produced a very thorough and generally much better report and I would like to thank them for the cooperation they have shown.
Ironically, the timing has been more of a problem this time around with Parliament and that is partly because the Industry Committee decided that it wanted to produce an opinion and wrote to the Employment and Social Affairs Committee and asked if the vote in committee could be deferred.
The vote was deferred and then the Committee on Industry decided it did not want to produce an opinion after all.
But these things happen.
Anyway, I would like to thank colleagues in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee for their amendments which have generally improved the report substantially.
I would like to thank the Economic Committee for their opinion which the committee fully supported and which is utterly embraced within the body of the report, and I would also like to thank the Employment and Social Affairs Committee for adopting this report unanimously a few weeks ago.
Parliament clearly hopes that its views as expressed in this report when voted on tomorrow will be of genuine help to the Commission and the EIF in determining any programme changes for the coming year, in which case the report each year needs to be presented annually in good time well ahead of the year to come so that it can influence what happens in the year to come.
The challenge for everybody in the year 2002 is therefore to present the report in the November plenary rather than in the December plenary.
The Commission can help, as I hope they will, by speeding up the inter-service consultation which still seems to be a rather dozy process.
I have it on good authority that the Commission's own report rested in certain DGs in-trays for several weeks before being lifted out so progress can be made there.
It can also help by sharing with Parliament the quarterly information from the EIF and I thank the Commission for agreeing publicly in the Employment Committee to do this.
This will be very helpful, but Parliament can certainly help in sharpening up its own act in terms of getting the timetable much sprucer next time around.
Meanwhile, I would just like to highlight three points from the report: paragraph 13 where we would like to see in next year the Commission report much more concrete evidence of the employment gains that this multiannual programme has produced, not because we doubt what those employment gains might be, but we would like to see some hard data next time around.
On paragraph 14, there are a number of references to other stages in the development of SMEs in their business cycle.
We would like attention to be paid to this too.
Finally, to go back to the earlier part of the report, in Recital F, where a deliberate comparison is made with the United States, because there, less regulation allows for a much more entrepreneurial spirit.
In the EU we believe that we have to get a much more similar mindset to America in the way in which we approach SMEs.
I note with great interest the Minutes of the Industry Council meeting on 4 and 5 December, which proudly proclaimed real progress under the Belgian presidency towards "better practices geared towards elimination of red tape".
If this is true it is most welcome.
I want to believe it.
I would love to see the evidence.
Certainly we all have to do our best to make it true.
SMEs currently account for two-thirds of all workers - the majority of all workers employed in the European Union.
But European employment laws are substantially shaped by the social partners who represent the big employers and the big trade unions but the minority of the workers.
We all need to recognise that SMEs are the biggest employers overall, that SMEs are the biggest engine of growth for the European economies.
It is not enough just to say that we have looked after SMEs, that we have the employment and growth initiative.
It is a great help but we have to do much more.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
(DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, many thanks, Mr Bushill-Matthews, for this excellent report.
I would like to present briefly the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and I do not want to devote myself to long explanations about why small and medium-sized enterprises are the economic backbone of European society.
SMEs find access to finance ever more difficult, and a look at the agreements that Basle II will bring with it leads us to assume that this finance will become even more problematic.
New methods of finance, such as venture capital, initial public offers, or all the other things currently being tried out or referred to, certainly represent a feasible way ahead, and one to which we in Europe will have to give thought, but not one to be used similarly by all SMEs.
It is for that reason that I am glad that the Commission is taking up this issue on Europe's behalf.
I would like, on the basis of my practical experience and of my discussions with many owners of SMEs, to tell the Commission of my principal concern, which is that future promotion of SMEs should also be tailored to their needs.
Many owners of SMEs have no idea, or it is very hard for them to find out, where any kind of support at a European level is to be had.
Support is meant to be transparent.
Then I often hear complaints that support at a European level is very complicated, that compliance with the requirements imposed on SMEs is very difficult and that this often made the whole thing very expensive.
Thirdly, all this should also be calculable in good time.
Very lengthy application procedures stretched over many years result in small entrepreneurs quite simply running out of breath and not making it through to the final stages of the process.
This means that everything possible needs to be done by the Commission to ensure that support for SMEs meets the needs of applicants from the target group, that is, the owners of the enterprises themselves.
At a European level, though, we can ease the burden on SMEs or do justice to them not only by offering finance, but we should also consider how we might remove the burden from them by avoiding additional bureaucracy and regulation, which weigh down on them more and more.
I believe it would be highly appropriate to put in place a screening procedure in the Enterprise Directorate-General which would make it possible to lodge a veto in good time, permitting the passage of regulations beneficial and appropriate to SMEs and excluding those detrimental to them.
Mr President, Council, Commission and Parliament at last agree on something.
The promotion of SMEs contributes to greater investment and innovation, and to the creation of new philosophies of enterprise.
A multiannual programme was started to benefit an initiative towards growth and employment.
Parliament approved a budget of EUR 450 million.
SMEs are an engine for jobs in Europe.
Seventy per cent of all workers are employed by them, and over 80% of all apprentices trained by them.
In order to give them a better chance in the market, however, more financial and fiscal burdens have to be taken off their backs.
They need improved access to risk capital.
The European Investment Bank should apply its funds not only to the knowledge-based enterprises in the multimedia and biotechnology sectors, but also to cutting-edge technologies in the environmental and energy sectors and to innovative service-providers in craftsmanship, trade and tourism.
Interest-rate subsidies paid out amount to over EUR 93 million rather than the EUR 100 million that had been envisaged, yet, all the same, 54 000 new jobs were created where 33 000 had been expected.
If that is not a success...
The excellent report that Mr Bushill-Matthews has produced meets with full support from the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, and my committee was unanimously in favour of it.
I echo his criticism that the report reached the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs far too late.
Obviously there were too many services dealing with it.
Parliament can, though, only take responsibility and perform its supervisory function if information is available in good time.
Future reports will have to concentrate on aspects that make effective analysis possible. What about the quality of jobs in innovative fields?
How is sustainability ensured? How many women - who, at the end of the day, are a significant element in the European employment strategy - are involved?
The Commission's report is encouraging, this criticism notwithstanding, providing, as it does, evidence that it is worth investing in these forward-looking sectors, and that is entirely in the employees' interest.
Thank you, Mr President.
I too should like to congratulate Mr Bushill-Matthews on his report.
He has made every effort to add this report to the agenda at the earliest opportunity and, as he has already indicated, he is not to blame for the fact that that is not the case.
Even the Commission has made more of an effort to ensure that that is done in time, and moreover, the content of the report presented by the Commission is more substantial than when we discussed it the first time round, because we have since gained more experience with the Growth and Employment Initiative.
The report is about this Growth and Employment Initiative and about the three financial instruments which have been developed with this initiative in mind, namely the ETF start-up facility, the JEV programme and the SME Guarantee Facility.
Just like last year, on behalf of my group, I should like to underline the social dimension in this respect.
This initiative is the brain child of the European Parliament that was developed in the wake of the Luxembourg Summit in 1997, and right from the outset, it was made very clear at the time that the initiatives should not only focus on this highly advanced technological sector, but should also embrace the social sector, and I am of the opinion that we cannot repeat this enough.
There is only one point where I cannot completely follow the rapporteur in this report, and that concerns recital F which he quotes.
He refers to the United States of America in this respect.
More investments are made in new initiatives over there, and the decision to set up one' s own business is made more easily.
I acknowledge that this is the case, but I disagree with his analysis that the reason for this would be the US' s milder regulatory climate.
In my view, this is much more related to the whole culture of entrepreneurship, the fact that people over there are used to taking initiatives, that it is not of such major concern to fail once, to go bankrupt once and start again.
In my opinion, cultural factors of this kind play a much more significant role than simply the regulatory climate.
This remark is not really appropriate, in my view.
I hope that we can find a compromise on that score at tomorrow' s vote, for it would be unfortunate if this report were not adopted unanimously.
Mr President, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group I welcome the report and I congratulate the rapporteur.
I agree with the criticisms made of the Commission's report and many of the points made in relation to support that SMEs need, both by the rapporteur and by other speakers here tonight.
But the report does not deal adequately with the crucial issue of whether jobs were actually created by these financial instruments.
The amendment by my group makes explicit reference to this.
The stated intention of the SME guarantee facility is to stimulate job creation by supporting the investment activities of SMEs within the EU through increased availability of loan finance.
The estimate for job creation is an average 1.3 new jobs per SME over 2 years which is described as substantial.
But we do not have a cost/benefit analysis and enough concrete information.
I would ask colleagues to support this report but also to support the amendment which makes this point clear.
Mr President, I am going to use my speaking time to contradict the procedural page and the previous speakers who, while claiming that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs unanimously voted in favour of the Bushill-Matthews report, have attributed to me a vote that expresses the exact opposite of what I believe in.
This report is a plea to grant greater financial assistance to small- and medium-sized businesses.
I am even more opposed to the idea of giving public money to private businesses since large financial and industrial corporations are often lurking behind the all-encompassing SME cause.
It would never strike Mr Bushill-Matthews, who is known for his fervent support of the so-called free market, to propose financial assistance for workers who have been made redundant by the very same industrial and financial corporations or their counterparts.
On the contrary, the rapporteur brings out the begging bowl without compunction, so that public money can be shifted, through the SME Guarantee facility or pre-start financing, into the coffers of large corporations so that it ends up swelling the private wealth of shareholders.
To prove that Member States and the European institutions are no strangers to a bit of hypocrisy, this increased financial assistance is proposed in the name of job creation.
I shall of course vote against this report.
Public money should go to public services, to health, education, and public transport, which could and should create many more useful jobs for everyone than these start-ups, which swallow up money without showing how they are of use to society.
The health sector has been reduced to collecting public money in order to contend with some diseases.
I would like to see employers come round to collect public money.
It is not up to Parliament to give taxpayers' money to help them.
Mr President, we received with great interest the report by Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs concerning the second annual report on growth and employment initiatives.
I very much appreciate the spirit of cooperation with the rapporteur and the favourable comments made on the annual report.
In particular, I know that the committee's report - and I quote: "welcomes generally the content and analysis within the thorough and more comprehensive 2000 report and commends the Commission and the EIF where progress has been made".
I would like to address the main points raised by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs in the report prepared by Mr Bushill-Matthews and have grouped my comments under three headings: provision of information to Parliament and its timing, geographical coverage and an updating of the instruments.
Firstly on the provision of information.
All the completion of the formal Commission procedures for the adoption of such a report may appear too long and, frankly, sometimes it is.
The Commission has helped the rapporteur by providing an advance copy of the report before publication.
We intend to continue this practice of keeping the rapporteur informed prior to the completion of the formal Commission procedure.
We also explored to what extent we can share with the rapporteur the quarterly information received from the EIF without the need for a formal Commission procedure.
It should be noted that this quarterly information is mainly used for operational purposes.
It is to ensure appropriate monitoring of the programmes by the Commission services and cannot be relied upon to provide the same degree of accuracy and detail expected by the annual report.
Secondly, on geographical coverage.
The geographical distribution of the project signed under both the ETF start-up and the SME guarantee programmes varies considerably.
The difficulties of implementing ETF start-up in all countries of the Union stems from the different stage of development of the venture capital market in various countries, coupled with the requirement that ETF start-up only invests pari passu with at least 50% of capital provided by the private sector.
In those countries where little venture capital activity exists it is difficult, if not impossible, to meet the second condition.
In the meantime the take-up of the facility has successfully continued with another foreign investment signed and three more being processed, all together corresponding to a geographical coverage of eleven countries.
As you can see from our annual report the distribution for SME guarantee is most satisfactory.
The initial high take-up in Germany and France was attributable to the existence of well-developed national guarantee programmes in those two countries which were able to take advantage rapidly of this facility.
Thirdly, on the instruments.
The three instruments of the growth and employment initiative have been integrated into the new multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship and in particular SMES 2001-2005.
A change in market conditions prompted the Commission to suggest a refocusing of ETF start-up further upstream: seed, early stage and incubators.
Similarly, it led the Commission to propose diversification in the SME guarantee portfolios, for instance towards microloans in favour of the smallest enterprises and ICT loans that allow small enterprises to take advantage of the potential of electronic commerce.
Finally, with regard to the simplification of joint European ventures, our legal and budget experts have come to the conclusion that the Council decision on the multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship does not allow simplification in significant terms.
To achieve this, a new Council decision would be required and such a decision would also need a new budget appropriation.
Before submitting an appropriate proposal to the Council on which Parliament would be consulted, the Commission services are working on a full assessment of a joint European venture.
In the light of this assessment, the competent Commission services may submit a proposal to reduce considerably the life of the joint European venture programme and so that the whole budget will not be used.
But I and my services will keep you informed accordingly of any developments in this regard.
Circulation of compound feedingstuffs
The next item is the report (A5-0421/2001) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the European Parliament to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 79/373/EEC on the circulation of compound feedingstuffs and repealing Commission Directive 91/357/EEC (PE-CONS 3653/2001 - C5-0491/2001 - 2000/0015(COD)).
Mr President, Commissioner, we have succeeded in gaining the acceptance of open declaration of foodstuffs.
By 'we' I mean Parliament, assuredly also with the Commission's support, but the Commission manifested a mild attack of weakness during the procedure with regard to what we considered necessary to the labelling of compound feedingstuffs.
I think that honourable Members will back me up when I state quite clearly that, if Parliament had not had the right of co-decision in this area, we would not have been able to push this through.
Quite apart from the matter under discussion, I wish, then, to emphasise that we need the right of co-decision in all agricultural policy matters so that, as we have done in this instance, we can come to sound and sensible results and make use of the expertise and political wisdom that reign in Parliament to support the Commission - and, I would expressly observe, to support a strong position taken by the Commission - to achieve satisfactory outcomes in the debates with the Council.
This issue of open declaration has come a long way.
We are now amending a directive dating back to 1979, when open declaration, which existed in Germany at any rate, was abolished at European level, and since which time I have also been active in this field, attempting to make good what went wrong then.
It is a long time, 25 years, since then, but patience is needed in politics as everywhere else.
That we have achieved this result is surely due to there having been the BSE crisis, which made it clear that farmers have to know what they are giving as feedingstuff if they are then to take on the responsibility for the feeding of their animals.
This catastrophe has taught us, in the meantime, that everything we feed to animals is itself in the food chain and is - admittedly by a circuitous route rather than directly - fed to human beings as well.
This makes it a matter of urgency that farmers should know what the feedingstuffs contain.
We then asked you, Commissioner Byrne, and also Mr Fischler, within the framework of the parliamentary procedure to install the Commission in office, where you stood on open declaration.
At the time you said: "Yes, open declaration should come into being."
Indeed it did, but it took another two-and-a-half or three years for the legislation to be tabled.
But a good thing is worth waiting for.
As I have said, the Council then withdrew the good proposal from the Commission, in which the only improvement we had made was to the positive list, and the Commission agreed to the Council's proposal for a less precise declaration to be implemented.
The result we have achieved is a change of direction - a change to the right direction.
We now have open declaration.
The 15% tolerance takes account of the industry's supplies and actual practice in order to avoid the possibility of partial rejection of feedingstuffs, but we have also made it possible for farmers to be told on request the exact composition of fodder and feedingstuffs.
We have likewise obliged the Commission to supply us with a positive list, or at least a draft positive list, by the end of next year, so that we can achieve a positive result in this area within the life of this Parliament.
There must be stipulations as to what can find its way into feedingstuffs.
I would like, finally, to express my warmest thanks to my colleagues, most especially to Mr Friedrich, the Vice-President, who chaired the Committee, but also to Mr Kindermann.
The three of us made up the negotiating delegation, and I must say that if we had not brought such determination, such a common mind, and what was almost joy, to the work in order to show for once that we too were in a position to turn our thoughts into words and laws, then all this would not have been possible.
So, many thanks.
I believe we have done a good job, and it was interesting to take part in a conciliation procedure of this sort.
We did, admittedly, say that a mountain had roared and brought forth a mouse, for, in view of what was up for negotiation, a gigantic effort was involved.
But it was good, too, to get an insight into something like that.
So, to all who took part, including our other colleagues, many thanks.
This result is something we can face our countries and our electors with.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is a saying that what is good is worth waiting for, and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, the rapporteur, has referred clearly to the never-ending story of the matter under discussion.
It is specifically with reference to co-decision that it has at last been made clear that Parliament keeps on coming up with good ideas that find their way into work like this report on the never-ending story about the declaration of compound feedingstuffs.
We must be clear in our own minds that we are dealing here with large quantities, and therefore with a lot of money - not the European Union's money, but that of our partners in the market.
We are dealing with a volume of some 400 million tonnes of feedingstuffs, and it will help us to grasp how much we are talking about if we note that half, about 200 million tonnes, is made up of commercial feedingstuffs, and compound feedingstuffs make up two-thirds of that, some 115 million tonnes.
As Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf pointed out, the conciliation procedure eventually achieved a satisfactory result on the most important points at third reading stage by involving all interested parties - something which I should like very much to commend.
As Parliament demanded, there is now open quantitative declaration, and, although the 15% is in my opinion at the upper edge of the margin, consensus has nonetheless been reached.
It was also clearly stated that the producer, must however, and I see the 'must however' as very important here, state the exact percentages involved at the customer' s request.
Thirdly, there is the positive list.
About 20 000 components have been mentioned, and the drawing up of this positive list may well be a difficult task, but it will, I think, be an interesting and important one.
More time has been conceded, and even more for formulation following the directive's implementation, but it is, I think, important that it should happen that way.
Perhaps the evaluation report would present the right opportunity to introduce further improvements, such as, for example, the possible certification of the producer of the compound feedingstuffs.
There is one more point I would like to mention, namely that the first positive list, to look at things in a European perspective, was the so-called purity law for beer.
As I have said before, it was instituted in 1486 in the area I come from, and made applicable to the whole of Bavaria in 1516.
It was a fine positive list for the production of beer, and you should put all your drive and ambition into drafting an equally good positive list for compound feedingstuffs.
So, then, particular thanks and appreciation to the rapporteur, to the chairman of the Conciliation Committee, Mr Friedrich, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and Mr Kindermann for the tough and persistent negotiations.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, most of us agree that we achieved a very good result in the Conciliation Committee.
I therefore wish, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to congratulate, above all, the rapporteur on his commitment to the matter in hand and, most of all, warmly thank him for cooperating so well with his other colleagues, too.
If the result is confirmed by this House as a whole, it will represent a further significant step towards greater transparency and safety in the production of feedingstuffs.
In addition to this proposal for a regulation, though, there are other reports which also deal with feedingstuffs and with regard to which negotiations are currently in progress between Parliament, the Council and, above all, the Commission.
I am thinking here only of the draft regulation on animal by-products not intended for human consumption - especially Category III, but also of the future use of leftovers from meals and waste from the production of foodstuffs.
I do think that it should continue to be possible to use these by-products, processed under secure conditions and subject to strict controls and, above all, with the stages in processing being effectively monitored, as high-quality feedingstuffs in pig and poultry production, unless the results of future scientific research suggest otherwise.
I look forward to the same willingness to compromise, not only on the part of Parliament, but also on the part of the Commission and of the Council, as was demonstrated in the process that we are discussing this evening.
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the ELDR Group I too would like to start by warmly thanking chairman Graefe zu Baringdorf and our consultative committee, which carried out very valuable work and demonstrated in an exemplary fashion that when one believes in what one does and makes strong efforts on its behalf, one will reach one's goals.
Here, Parliament achieved what it wanted.
This is a very important matter from the point of view of the farmers; these are the people who in their everyday work have to deal with these matters, and this information is very important to them.
As Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf stated, in Germany open declaration was eliminated in 1979, while here in Finland it was eliminated in 1995.
Now it is being reinstated.
The only matter which generated debate and which deserves a moment's consideration is this list of permitted substances, and, in particular, the fact that the various ingredients change all the time.
These include the byproducts of the food industry which Mr Kinderman mentioned; new feedingstuffs arrive all the time, while others disappear.
For this reason, some sound common sense will be called for here.
We must take thought and find out what is right and what is good, and only after that, on the basis of experience, must we go about implementing matters.
Once again my warm thanks go to the consultative committee, which carried out splendid work from the viewpoint of Parliament and, particularly, from that of the farmers.
Mr President, I, too, am of the opinion that this was a good report, and that the result from the Conciliation Committee opens the way to implementation, which, however, I am sure will take some time yet.
The Community's Member States are still, in any case, responsible for the monitoring of feedingstuffs, and, as the parties in this whole process represent very diverse interests, it will be necessary, within the foreseeable future, to discuss monitoring programmes which will standardise supervision of feedingstuffs composition and norms across the board.
I am grateful for the key data laid down in the Conciliation Committee, which is in line with my own experience.
What worries me, though, is the apportionment of costs, specifically the costs of the declaration itself and for the monitoring of it.
I wish to put on record my opposition to the costs continuing to be offloaded onto the farmers.
I take the view that the transparency principle means that implementation of the procedure must involve the producers of feedingstuffs, its importers, dealers in it, and, above all, those who monitor it - who will be numerous - also themselves guaranteeing the apportionment of their costs.
It is also my opinion that there should be safety standards in the production of feedingstuffs to guarantee and safeguard the health of people and animals, ensuring that no products come onto the market that are dubious from the point of view of health and consumer protection, which, of course, presupposes the principle that good technical production practice does not start, and is not interrupted, at purely arbitrary points.
I do think that apportionment on this basis at every production site must prove itself in the next few years and I hope, after this report and after the positive result achieved in the Conciliation Committee, that there will not be another scandal somewhere or other in the foreseeable future, whether in wine, honey, or the many feedingstuffs we can expect to be listed, be they positive, negative, coloured green or anything else, for the list will surely be an enormous one.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to congratulate the European institutions and the members of the conciliation committee who, under the presidency of Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck - who I would have liked to have been here -, who have been able, sparing no effort, to unite differing views in order to reach a reasonable compromise between the two basic positions which initially seemed incompatible.
That is to say, firstly, the obligatory declaration of all raw materials, with a tolerance level of 15%, and the obligation of feed producers to communicate the exact percentages, whenever required by animal farmers, to which I believe we should add a time limit, set previously in this legislation, and, secondly, the positive list - which all the previous speakers have mentioned - which the Commission must present before the end of 2002, once the viability studies have been carried out.
When it comes to restoring consumer confidence, following the recent food crises (BSE, dioxins, etc.) absolute transparency is necessary, even indispensable.
However, ladies and gentlemen, this is an example of how, within the scope of the codecision procedure, it is possible to reach reasonable agreements - good agreements, I would say - and we in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development will therefore continue to ask the Council to gradually extend that procedure to all legislative actions in the field of the Community' s agricultural policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by warmly congratulating the rapporteur and Parliament's Conciliation Committee, whose stubbornness has in the end produced a creditable result.
Almost two years of negotiations with the Commission and the Council within the framework of the conciliation procedure have at last enabled us to reach a compromise on regulations on the labelling of compound feedingstuffs.
When this House votes tomorrow on this directive, it can do so, I believe, with its mind very much at ease.
I see this directive as proof that Parliament must in future have a right of co-decision in agricultural matters as well.
As we are all aware, the crucial issues were the open declaration, the positive list and an evaluation report.
Parliament's main concern was to lay down exact regulations on labelling that would provide for compulsory details of both the quantity and quality of ingredients.
Even with the Council, which did not originally share this position, a compromise text could eventually be agreed on, according to which the ingredients must now be stated by percentage of weight with a margin for error and according to which farmers must be given the exact percentages if they request them.
This binding statement of permissible ingredients is the only guarantee that consumers can in future have greater confidence in farmers' products, and we farmers know how much we need consumers' approval and trust.
The positive list to be produced by the end of 2002 should make that possible.
On the positive side, I would like to make the additional observation that Parliament must also be involved in any future amendments to the directive.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, having gone through two readings and the conciliation procedure, the report on the circulation of compound feedingstuffs now prescribes the open declaration, and the Commission has to produce a proposal for a positive list for feedingstuff ingredients by the end of 2002.
Both these points had been at the core of Parliament's concerns, but had initially been rejected by the Council.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's report is the very model of successful legislative work by Parliament and the Council.
In spite of all the differences between the political groups, constructive collaboration made it possible to draw up points that were important to us members of Parliament's agricultural committee, and the final result was a positive one thanks to circumspect negotiations in the conciliation procedure, guided by our Vice-President, Mr Friedrich, whom I would like to take this opportunity of warmly thanking.
This was the right step in the right direction.
Not only was it possible for Parliament to see its two core concerns accepted, but the Council also had positive elements to contribute.
The possibility of a + 15% tolerance margin for feedingstuff ingredients is something I see as acceptable, in that the manufacturer must state the exact percentages at the customer' s request.
Equally in line with good practice is an evaluation report after three years and, if need be, adjustment of the tolerance margin in the light of scientific and technical developments.
It would be desirable if we could make greater future use of the co-decision procedure on CAP matters and continue to work together as constructively.
Whatever our successes, I would like to conclude with the single warning that good European rules are of no use unless they are monitored.
The BSE and dioxin crises do not in some way reflect faults in European regulation; they were, rather, the result of criminal and questionable practices, which we must counter with determination and in new ways.
Mr President, honourable Members, we all agree that agribusinesses in the EU should maintain their commitment to satisfy the legitimate expectations and demands of both the farming community and consumers.
The marketing of compound feedingstuffs today has certainly improved in terms of traceability and transparency of composition - two issues of great concern for our major customer, the European citizen.
These principles can apply to all feeds to animals.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf says farmers must know what is in their feed, Mr Kindermann applies this to slops and waste and catering waste and I fully agree with those statements.
This piece of legislation is one of the milestones needed to build certainty and confidence.
Farmers are entitled to basic information to be able to properly inform their customers.
From the very beginning, the Council encountered great difficulties in agreeing on a common position.
Most Member States were opposed to this obligation and the positions of Parliament and the Council were quite far apart.
At the time, with a view to reaching a compromise, the Commission accepted the Council's position which finally had the unanimous support of all the Member States.
This led to a difference in view between Council and Parliament after the second reading in April.
I am pleased, however, that an acceptable solution has been found in the conciliation with the declaration of all feed materials under their specific name indicating the exact percentages with a tolerance level of around 15%.
However, as regards the demand for a positive list of feed materials, I have already on several occasions outlined the Commission's reservations.
This concerns especially the deadline of presenting a proposal by the end of next year.
This task is very complex.
The Commission has already launched a feasibility study on this issue.
The call for tenders was published last June and the contractor is currently working on the matter and will also contact Members of this Parliament.
I accordingly undertake to send the report on the outcome of this study to the Council and Parliament as soon as possible and in any case before 31 December, 2002.
I cannot, however, guarantee that I will be in a position to present a legislative proposal on the establishment of a positive list.
For this reason, it has been necessary for the Commission to make a declaration on this subject.
Thank you very much Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 9.30 p.m.)
Vote on requests for urgent procedure
I now give the floor to Mr Katiforis, who will speak on behalf of the committee responsible, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Katiforis (PSE).
Madam President, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has considered how we should continue to work on this directive after we rejected the Commission proposal in the last plenary by a considerable majority.
According to the regulation, we have two months in which to deliberate and then come up with a reply.
The Economic Committee has given me until Monday to complete my negotiations with colleagues, the Commission and the Presidency.
From what I see, there is no urgency in the matter because in any case the political agreement supposedly reached in Council on the matter is not set to begin before July.
There is therefore plenty of time for negotiation and for making contacts, and 15 January - when we shall reply - is not too far away.
Therefore, I see no particular need for urgent procedure and my proposal is that we reject the urgency request.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Proposal for a Council decision on an exchange of letters between the European Community and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) concerning additional funding in 2001 under the current EC-UNRWA Convention for the years 1999-2001[COM(2001) 741 - C5-0663/2001 - 2001/0288(CNS)]
President.
I will now give the floor to Mr Wynn who will speak on behalf of the committee responsible, the Committee on Budgets.
Madam President, last night the Committee on Budgets and, I understand, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy discussed this matter.
There is no problem with urgency being granted and we can do it without report and without debate.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Draft Council regulation on specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating international terrorism[COM(2001) 569 - C5-0665/2001 - 2001/0228(CNS)]Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs
President.
I will now give the floor to Mr Watson who will speak on behalf of the committee responsible, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
Colleagues will recall that we dealt with this matter in urgent procedure in October.
I am pleased to be able to report that the Council has now accepted the legal base that was being proposed.
However, we would contest the fact that neither of the two appendices is attached to the proposal, although we understand the reasons why.
Nonetheless, we discussed this in committee last night and we recognise the urgency.
We would propose an urgent procedure without report.
It would then be up to the political groups to put forward amendments, which might be similar to those we adopted in October.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Presentation by Mr Prodi of the Commission work for the 2002 programme and the communication on the future of the European Union and strengthening the Community method
The next item is the Presentation of the Commission work for 2002 programme and the communication on the future of the European Union and strengthening the Community method.
I now give the floor to Mr Prodi, President of the Commission.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to begin, if you will allow me, by thanking you all for your cooperation over the last six months.
I do not know whether all of you will still be here later on, or tomorrow for that matter, when I am coming back to Parliament.
For this reason I wanted to thank you now while you are all here.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the presidency welcomes this debate on the Commission work for the 2002 programme.
Last year, there was still a great deal of disapproval from Parliament with regard to the Council' s absence during this important debate.
Mr Poettering, in response to your claim that European policy is being neglected by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, I can assure you that this is not the case and that we do not shy away from public debates, but you know this by now.
Having said that, this debate is not a matter of course for the presidency.
First of all, we are giving our verdict on a document that is only a few days old and which the presidency has received for perusal only very recently.
Secondly, participation in this debate is a difficult balancing act for the presidency, while needless to say, your Parliament can, and, I would even so far as to say, must, focus on the implementation of its supervisory role.
I fully agree with you that the policy of the Council and the Commission must be as coherent as possible. This concern about coherence is also shared by the Council and the Commission and is, moreover, borne out in the facts.
As you know, that is exactly why the Belgian Presidency has started to present status reports on the other Council divisions to the General Affairs Council. Our presidency has done this to enable the General Affairs Council to coordinate all activities of the various Council divisions, and thus to guarantee internal coherence and compliance with the Union' s general objectives.
Despite this, each institution is, of course, autonomous in drafting its own work schedule and deciding upon its own emphases. Moreover, the institutions must respect each other' s autonomy.
Mr President of the Commission and Commissioners, the purpose of my visit today is therefore not to assess the Commission and its work document critically nor to weigh it up against the Council' s past achievements and future priorities.
We were very interested to read the work programme, since the Commission has focused on its core tasks and core objectives and therefore no longer gives a full overview of its activities, as the President pointed out, which - and I have been witness to this in the past - used to result in a long list of legislative and policy measures.
In its current form, the work programme has unmistakably gained in clarity.
We are delighted that the Commission is largely on target with the realisation of the strategic objectives for the 2000-2005 period. Indeed, with regard to the internal reform operations, such as in the field of enlargement negotiations and negotiations regarding the new multi-lateral trade round, the reconstruction of the western Balkans, as well as negotiations regarding climate change, the Commission has indeed taken its role of driving force very seriously over the year which is now about to end, and has acted each time Community action was crucial.
(FR) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, issues such as accession negotiations, the successful launch of the euro, sustainable development or the fight against terrorism and crime will continue to be of great interest to us. We will, of course, need to continue to coordinate, as best we can, the action of the various institutions in the European Union in order that specific objectives can be reached.
I am sure you will understand, however, that, as the representative of a presidency that is coming to the end of its term, it is difficult for me to, in effect, put myself in the place of the forthcoming presidencies in presenting the Council' s work schedule for the year 2002.
The presentation of the programme for the forthcoming Spanish Presidency to the European Parliament will no doubt allow this debate to take place and deepen. I would however like to make a few comments.
With regard to the fight against terrorism and crime, and advances in the security of European citizens after the tragic events of 11 September, it has to be said that, at a European level, every effort has been made to provide an adequate, rapid and coherent response to these issues. We fully share the objective of offering citizens a high level of protection within an area of freedom, security and justice, and I would like to underline the constructive way in which the Council and the European Parliament have worked together on this matter, with the full cooperation of the Commission.
We have had proof of this this very morning, Madam President, with Parliament' s agreement to urgent procedure. Terrorism is a great challenge for both Europe and the rest of the world.
We therefore need to continue our efforts to strengthen police and judicial cooperation. This common area of freedom, security and justice, which is yet to be achieved, remains one of our major concerns.
It is essential that we maintain the momentum in asylum and immigration by implementing the Tampere conclusions. There is still a considerable amount of work to do and the Laeken European Council will provide a new impetus.
The introduction of euro notes and coins, in addition to the generalised usage of the new representative and electronic money will constitute an unprecedented qualitative leap forward in the development of Economic and Monetary Union. After the abolition of borders, which created a large internal market, the euro will be, for economic operators and for European citizens themselves, the second tangible manifestation of European integration.
(FR) This qualitative leap forward should make Europe a true economic and financial Community.
From now on, strengthened coordination in economic policies will be an exercise whose implications will be perceived as having an effect on society as a whole.
Economic priorities will also naturally have an influence on other objectives, such as the constitution of a single market for financial services or employment, or coordination in terms of strategies for employment and social inclusion.
(NL) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners. A sustainable development strategy for the European Union requires an integrated approach which takes account of economic, social and ecological aspects in a balanced manner.
In this respect, the Council monitors this balance between the social, economic and environment-technical indicators. These indicators are fundamental for the summary report on the strategy on sustainable development which the Commission is to draft for the European Council of Barcelona.
Indeed, progress that has been made since this strategy was laid down by the European Council of Gothenburg in June 2001, will be assessed for the first time on that occasion. In future, the strategy will be assessed annually at the spring meetings of the European Council.
And this will be done in Barcelona for the first time.
Remarkable progress has been made in the accession negotiations, and it looks like the objectives will be met.
It will be possible to fully meet the deadline that was laid down in Nice and clarified in Gothenburg.
Consequently, it should be possible for the accession negotiations involving the countries which will be ready next year, to be completed.
This will enable them to take part in the European elections of 2004.
The pace of the Council' s activities is perfectly in keeping with that of the successive Council presidencies, and this will undoubtedly continue to be the case in future.
The Commission and the Council ensure that the quantitative aspects of these accession processes do not overshadow the qualitative dimension.
By this, I mean that it is important for the candidate countries to incorporate the acquis in their system of law. Additionally, it is equally important for them simultaneously to adapt and modernise their administrations, further develop their legal capacity and apply the acquis in practice.
The considerable attention which is being devoted today to the administrative and legal capacity of the candidate countries finds its origin in this concern.
In addition, the presidency is pleased to note that the Mediterranean area has been earmarked as a priority for 2002. This will give the Barcelona process a new impulse and strengthen the instruments involved.
(FR) The Euro-Mediterranean Conference of 5 and 6 November in Brussels, has shown, within the new international context, the attachment of all the partners to this process as an essential and preferential framework for dialogue and cooperation between the European Union and the States on the Southern and South-Eastern coasts of the Mediterranean.
The fact that the number of association agreements is rapidly increasing is proof that this form of partnership is the best way of organising exchanges between our countries.
A fifth Euro-Mediterranean Conference has been arranged for 22 and 23 April 2002 in Valencia.
So, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, these are my thoughts on the Commission' s work programme for 2002.
It will of course be the task of the forthcoming presidencies, the Spanish Presidency in particular, to pursue this constructive exchange of ideas with the Commission and the European Parliament.
Thank you for your attention.
Thank you Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck.
I would like to thank you for your previous kind words and for the positive assessment you have made of the cooperation between your presidency and the European Parliament.
I think it is fair to say that we share this assessment and I would also like, in this regard, to underline to Members of this House that, to my knowledge, this is the first time that the Presidency-in-Office of the Council has participated in the debate on the Commission' s work programme for 2002.
This is a very positive step, and I would like to welcome you and thank you.
Mr President of the Commission, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to share my thoughts on the main topic we are discussing today: the legislative programme and the Commission' s working programme.
Mr President of the Commission, you told us that you wanted full and transparent cooperation between the Commission and Parliament.
That is all very well.
You told us: 'To be strong, the European Parliament needs a strong Commission' .
We agree.
But you must understand that we cannot accept being treated as the Commission' s obedient stooge.
We of course unreservedly acknowledge the fact that it is very important that the work programme is clearly comprehensible politically, which is the case here; this does not, however, exempt you from presenting a legislative programme.
And yet, today we have to deal with a work programme that was sent to us at the last moment and a legislative programme of which we had no knowledge before last night.
It is difficult for us to work under such conditions.
The European Parliament is already suffering from having no right of legislative initiative, even in areas where the Commission is failing to act - which is, in my opinion, an institutional anomaly that should be corrected in order to reduce the democratic deficit.
However, Parliament does enjoy the power of active cooperation, which is recognised by the Commission.
I would remind you that, from the start of this Parliamentary term, a framework agreement exists between ourselves and the Commission, an agreement that clearly defines the role of Parliament in the legislative process.
In accordance with this agreement, the legislative programme for 2002 should have been presented to us in October, accompanied by an assessment of the previous programme; in this way we would have been able to make criticisms, remarks and proposals at a politically appropriate time and within reasonable timescales.
I must also underline the extent to which it would be appropriate, on a political level, for political debates on the budget and the legislative programme to mutually support and complement each other.
October or November would be an appropriate time for this to take place.
Today, we are two months late and there is no legislative programme, or rather, we have only just discovered one exists.
Under these conditions, I think that Parliament is de facto deprived of its powers of control and influence, which is not a good thing.
I would also like to remind you of some concrete facts: on 30 November, just a few days ago, less than half of the programme for 2001 had been executed.
In addition to this, half of the initiatives taken were not included in the legislative programme for 2001.
This is astonishing at the very least. It must, of course, be admitted that the unforeseen events that took place, which completely turned the political agenda on its head, justified the tabling of proposals to take account of such upheavals, but a careful reading of the texts shows that, to a great extent, these new proposals have nothing to do with the present situation, or, in any case, could have been tabled at some other time, rather than within the context of the programme for 2001.
In my opinion, this reveals, and I think that most Members in my group would agree, that there is quite a significant degree of disorder within the Commission and a lack of common vision of the guidelines that should direct the common work of our institutions.
The explanations that you give us to justify this, which relate to the Commission' s internal reforms, will not satisfy us forever.
I would point out that these explanations have been given since the start of this legislature.
We cannot accept, Mr President, that the European Parliament be deprived of its powers of control, which are clearly recognised; this situation is not good for either Parliament or for the Commission itself.
At a time when we are talking about good governance, of reconciliation with the European citizen, the most fundamental thing is that commitments made and Parliament' s prerogatives be respected.
Madam President, I too would like to thank the Belgian Presidency, and I hope that we shall all have a really successful summit in Laeken.
Today we are debating the Commission's work programme, and I wish to say that my group supports the general resolution by the various political groups concerning this programme. Why?
Because there is an interinstitutional agreement between two institutions, and I do not think this House is being unreasonable in expecting the Commission to adhere to the undertakings it has given Parliament.
Mr Prodi, in your White Paper on European Governance there is much talk about how Europe could be better governed.
However, you are not performing one of the most elementary tasks, that is to say the presentation of a legislative programme.
I heard this morning that an e-mail with an attachment arrived last night.
The text that I am familiar with so far is a work programme which as far as I can see is simply full of platitudes.
It includes announcements about comprehensive packages of measures, other measures are to be proposed, specific measures are being prepared, and so it goes on for 20 pages.
But what the Council and Parliament need to know above all, and in good time, is what legislation will actually be presented, and, first and foremost, why.
We need to know what the basis for this legislation is so that we can act in unison here.
I must not forget to point out that the national parliaments, which also have a certain role in this process, and a not inconsiderable one at that, have some problems with the whole process.
This is a problem that has to be solved, Mr Prodi.
I also have a few more comments about your communication for the Laeken Summit.
I consider that it contains some extremely interesting ideas that are worth supporting.
It is true to say that limiting ourselves strictly to the four priorities identified in Nice would weaken the credibility of the Convention, in other words the list of issues to be addressed needs to be widened in order to meet the public's expectations and to ensure that the enlarged Union will have a viable future.
However, I also have to say that with this paper too, I kept asking myself why the Commission was showing so little courage and vision in the run-up to such an important summit.
What will the public think if the Commission talks about defending a certain European ideal, as it does in the document, in such an unambitious way? What ideal are we talking about then?
What is the process of deepening that we are all in favour of to be like, and why should it just relate to democracy, as the document suggests? I really find it rather mysterious why, with an eye to Laeken and particularly when we are envisaging convening a historic convention, we do not quite simply say, yes, our common goal is to create a truly democratic Europe.
Furthermore, Mr Prodi, I expect, in view of all this, that in future the Commission will act far more energetically in its capacity as the motor of European integration.
Madam President, allow me to begin with a prediction: the present Commission will scarcely survive into 2004.
It may be toppled by new scandals involving fraud, because the former cases of fraud have not been cleared up and because the reforms that might have prevented new cases have not been introduced.
The Commission may also be toppled by Parliament through a vote of no confidence.
I believe it is heading for the end of the road if it does not change course now.
Parliament' s committee chairmen have asked for what are known as the screening reports on the negotiations with the applicant countries.
Parliament' s group chairpersons have repeated the request.
Still we have not received them.
MEPs sit every day in committee meetings without the relevant and up-to-date papers from the secret legislative process.
There is solemn talk of Parliament as co-legislator, but the legislative power has, in reality, been taken over by officials and ministers in the Council and the Commission.
We are humiliated the whole time.
People who are humiliated can one day deliver a vote of no confidence to the Commission.
After the ground rules had been agreed, we should have had the Commission' s legislative programme in October.
We have now been given an essay containing general reflections and, yesterday evening, a summary containing little detail. However, we have still not been given a proper catalogue of laws.
The Commission should present its annual programme, stating its proposed legal base for this, so that, in the case of each proposal, we can adopt a position on whether the Commission is respecting the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
That is not only a right we possess.
It is a duty imposed by the Treaty on each individual institution.
All the institutions must ensure that the EU does not adopt rules which the Member States can devise just as well or better.
We are asking for an independent discussion of the annual programme as it relates to the proximity principle, and we agree with the other groups in criticising the way in which the Commission keeps its plans secret.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that upholding the Community method has become a habit for many people and I would go as far as to say a religion for some, with its greater and lesser priests: President Delors, you, President Prodi, and Ferdinando Riccardi, who preaches his daily sermon in Agence Europe.
Yet it is a religion, ladies and gentlemen, which has lost its god, for the Community method that you are all upholding was based on the centrality of the Commission, and the Commission no longer has that pivotal status.
The Commission is no longer at the centre of our European integration, it is no longer - as it was when there were six or nine States - the driving force of European integration.
The 15-State Europe has already brought a number of institutional innovations: Mr CFSP is totally outside the Commission' s control.
Well then, ladies and gentlemen, I would like my friend Mr Méndez de Vigo and a great many others to answer this crucial question: do you really think that countries like France and Germany, in particular, not to mention the United Kingdom, of course, will place their confidence in a 25-member Commission, working according to the principle of collegiality, and trust it to take fundamental decisions? That is impossible.
The Commission as it was conceived, to be the central, driving force of the Community method, is no longer, and unless we change the system of European integration radically, the Commission will be increasingly reduced to playing the role of Council secretariat. It is, therefore, a Commission that needs to make an effort to change.
However, I feel, Chairman Poettering, that we are, so to speak, firing on the relief workers, for the problem is institutional, it is Laeken; we need to make radical changes to the institutional system to restore the Commission' s former power and legitimacy.
Only with the American system - with a separate Executive, with the President of the Commission being directly elected, with a scrutinising Parliament safeguarding our Constitutional framework - can we have a properly functioning Europe, a strong Commission, a strong Parliament and a strong Assembly of Member States; otherwise, our Commission' s role will increasingly be reduced to that of Council secretariat.
Mr President, although I agree with many of the comments that have been made today about the year 2001 having been reasonably successful, there are real grounds for concern about the way in which this debate is taking place today.
Firstly, as a matter of principle, we have the institutional agreement of 1993, which says that the programme should be presented by October, and then our agreement of 2000, under which we are to have a broad debate about the programme before it is implemented.
Neither of these have been fulfilled in this particular case.
Why is this totally insufficient? Firstly, the programme which is presented to us lacks focus.
It is somewhat difficult to see priorities when you have seven of them and, within the priorities, lots of themes which are generating new ideas.
If you have more than three priorities, as Bob Zoellick, the USTR, said, you lose yourself in detail and you can never focus on what is really important.
Secondly, we have a lack of detail.
I understand that we now have a legislative programme sent by e-mail, but Parliament has not been associated with this and it seems, as other speakers have said, that we had a legislative programme which was not implemented this year.
Mr Barón Crespo is right that we did not want it.
We wanted a political programme and legislative programme and Parliament to be associated with that.
Thirdly, there is a lack of coordination: not just coordination among ourselves but with the national parliaments.
As Mrs Kaufmann said: how is it possible to establish a programme for the European Union if not all the actors who are concerned at political level are associated with it? This leads me to say that we were better off with President Santer.
We were better off with the last Commission as regards the way in which the programme is presented.
At least we had a programme in its outline and there was a real effort to try to get institutional priorities, and we had a legislative programme with details, which we could see in front of us.
My conclusion today is that the Commission is there to propose.
It has the right of initiative but it is not the European government.
It cannot come to us and say this is what the European Union's programme is going to be and expect us simply to accept everything that is in its documents.
Do you not agree, Mr President, that it would be better for the success of the European Union if we were to go back to presentation of the proposals of the legislative programme in October? We would then be able to discuss, debate, consult on and conclude a programme which the Union could put forward for the year ahead.
If you have all of us with you, you will be better off than if we have interinstitutional wars, which you seem to have started this morning.
Mr President, my fellow MEPs have presented a great deal of justified criticism concerning the procedures in relation to today' s programme.
Allow me, however, to welcome the fact that a kind of evaluation from the year gone by is included and that there is more strategic thinking when it comes to the Commission' s intended way of working.
Now let us talk about the future, however.
President Prodi outlined, of course, how it will be possible in future to deal with the issue of the annual programme.
As Parliament' s rapporteur, I have had the opportunity to monitor this matter for quite a long time.
I hope we can conclude it soon and begin work on the programme for 2003.
As the co-decision procedure has developed, Parliament and the Council, too, must also play a larger role in devising the annual programme.
That does not mean that the Commission' s right of initiative is being questioned, but that all three institutions should be more in step in encouraging both openness and efficiency in our joint work.
Moreover, it would then be easier for national parliaments and citizens to follow the process.
Where the timetable is concerned, it looks as if we can now perhaps agree.
There is an introductory presentation of the general priorities, followed by thorough discussions between the Commission and the committees concerned with a view to establishing the details.
It is important for the parliamentary committees to be involved at an early stage because it is the committees which will then deal with the proposal.
We can then present the definitive proposal by no later than the beginning of November.
When it comes to the content of the programme, last year' s criticism does not mean that we do not want any legislative proposals.
On the contrary, our common framework agreement states that what we are concerned with here is the annual legislative programme.
Parliament has demanded clear proposals in order of precedence, explanatory statements with timetables, budget references, legal bases and information about who is responsible.
Follow-up and evaluation must also be improved.
As we have seen, a very great many proposals are being re-introduced, at the same time as other proposals are disappearing.
It should be possible to set up a joint database to monitor the decision-making process for each topic.
A process which is clear, open and predictable should benefit all the institutions and also the citizens we are here to serve.
It is our joint responsibility to ensure that this happens.
Mr President, the Commission' s communication to the Laeken European Council, with regard to the organisation of the debate prior to the IGC, seems to us to be mistaken in both its objective and method.
With regard to the objective, it states that we must, and I quote, 'draw up credible guidelines in order that an enlarged Europe can achieve political, economic and social integration' .
And yet, if the different peoples of Europe really do want common cooperation and work at a European level, none of them has, to my knowledge, ever asked for this extreme type of integration, that is to say political, economic and social unification, by means of a democratic consultation.
The objective today is not to strengthen this 'integration-unification' , headed by supranational institutions, which we do not want, but to better organise and make more effective the nations' control over Brussels.
Under these conditions, the Community method, useful on occasions, should not become the rule, for it is too supranational, too rigid, and removes the Union from the reality of its citizens.
It should be provided with procedures which are more flexible, founded on respect for national democracies.
This is why the forthcoming Convention should mainly rely upon national parliaments, which should work within networks.
And to start with, it is these national parliaments which should have the task of organising the debate with their citizens and to put forward proposals without having to pass through an artificial forum of associations, which are European in name but not at all representative.
Mr President, in my opinion, the priorities of the Commission' s working programme for 2002 must focus on the European Union' s immediate challenges, both in the internal field (the internal market and Economic and Monetary Union), and in the external field - especially following the attacks of 11 September - including, of course, the fight against terrorism.
These challenges are very clear - how to revitalise our economies just a few weeks before the introduction of the single currency, how to take advantage of the challenges and opportunities offered by accession, with 13 countries seeking entry to the Union and, at the same time, how to reinvent Europe in a situation and at a moment when we are about to begin the work of a convention aimed at preparing a new Intergovernmental Conference, the objective of which must be to prevent the 'Old Continent' becoming an outdated continent.
This Commission' s working programme for 2002 is accompanied by a communication on the Community method.
I believe that that is an absolutely fundamental issue and we would be making a grave error if were to devote ourselves entirely to incidental issues and allow what is really crucial at the moment to stagnate.
Next year there will be elections in several countries of the European Union and we need an institution which not only cares for the coming generations, but which takes account of their concerns and challenges.
And that institution must be the European Commission, Mr President.
This is not the time to analyse the decimal points presented to us by financial analysts.
This is a time for considering the broader picture and I believe, Mr President, that it would be a serious mistake for this Parliament to exaggerate the errors which may be made by the European Commission.
I want to say this, Mr President, because it is in the interest of Parliament and the Community as a whole to have a strong Commission.
It therefore seems to me that, before preaching about how to sort out the world' s problems, we should take a good look at our own institution and respect the work and decisions taken in the field of our parliamentary bodies.
I say this in relation to something Mr Barón mentioned - I regret that he is not present at the moment - and frankly I do not believe that we should take advantage of this debate to introduce extemporaneous issues which are not currently amongst our concerns or relevant to this debate.
I also believe, Mr President, that it would be a serious mistake for the Commission not to direct all its efforts towards restoring that alliance, that harmonious partnership between Parliament and the Commission, which has led to all the progress made within the Community.
Mr President, I hope that, by means of this working programme, the disagreements of the past may be transformed into the agreements of the present and I hope that that method will prevail in the work between the Commission and Parliament.
Anything else would be to confuse what is incidental with what is fundamental.
We should mobilise all our forces in order to consolidate, as I have said, this strategic alliance.
President Prodi stated that he was attached to interinstitutional cooperation and full transparency.
I, of course, welcome such a statement: it is essential for this process to work.
But you have to start by respecting the procedures that are agreed already, that are known and that are laid down in writing.
I have here the Framework Agreement between Parliament and the Commission agreed just two years ago.
I also have Rule 57 of our Rules of Procedure which lays down how we deal with the annual legislative programme and reflects the agreements that have been entered into in the past with the Commission.
That rule states that the Commission shall present its Annual Legislative Programme in October.
Of course, we know that there can be delays, that has happened before.
But it specifies that this Annual Legislative Programme must refer to all proposals of a legislative nature and every act included in the programme must indicate the legal basis and the timetable envisaged for its adoption.
On these points, what we have had before us this week fails to respect our Rules of Procedure and existing agreements reached between the two institutions.
The one positive innovation is that Rule 57(6) has for the first time been implemented with the statement made by the President-in-Office which I like others welcome.
In fact we have a work programme, a work programme - not a legislative programme - outlining priorities.
To outline priorities is fine and the priorities chosen are good ones - perhaps obvious ones, but nevertheless the right ones.
But we need the detail, we need the detail that is required in our Rules of Procedure and in the Framework Agreement.
We need it for our committees to be able to get to work and plan their work and appoint rapporteurs who can work with the Commission in the pre-legislative phase.
It is in the Commission's interest as well as in our own interest.
I understand that we are now receiving the detail by e-mail, but even that, as far as I can see, fails to mention the legal basis and the timetable of each proposal.
General debates are all very well on broad priorities, but we have that several times a year when the Commission presents its programme, when each Presidency presents its programme, and we tend to have that sort of debate surrounding each European Council meeting as well.
What we are supposed to get there is the nitty-gritty detail as well.
President Prodi is right to say that the procedure needs improving, but we have a procedure to negotiate such improvements, the Malmström report in our committee for example.
Mrs Malmström is already in dialogue with the Commission on that and, frankly, we should have waited for the outcome of that before changing procedure.
The President of the Commission cannot unilaterally take existing agreements and tear them up.
New procedures must be agreed by both institutions.
Mr President, Mrs Neyts-Uttebroeck, ladies and gentlemen, this has, I feel, been a useful debate which has served to make things clearer.
A number of extremely clear messages have emerged which the Commission will take into account, for we have the same objectives and there is a harmonious alliance between Parliament and the Commission.
There may have been times when our instruments were slightly out of tune, but we have worked extremely well together.
I have several things to say on this point.
I assure you that the Commission has been concentrating explicitly on cooperation with Parliament, and I feel, moreover, that a Commission President has never been present at so many plenary sessions or attended all the committee meetings and meetings of committee chairmen to which he is invited.
Each Commissioner stands before the relevant Parliamentary committee on average seven times a year to discuss political issues relating to his or her responsibilities, to his or her portfolio; 80% of subjects are dealt with in plenary by the committee responsible; a record-breaking number of confidential documents has been sent to Parliament; each year, to date, we answer over 3 000 questions from Members of Parliament and dealt with 200 petitions referred to us by the Ombudsman.
We are therefore genuinely making an enormous effort to respect our commitment to maintaining a responsible relationship with Parliament.
Of course, there are problems and areas that need improvement, and it is precisely in order to remedy these that we have reformed our way of working.
Today, I hear people saying, and I know what they mean, that we need more than the political programme; establishing the political programme was a step forwards but it is not enough, for it must go hand in hand with the legislative programme.
We are finding it difficult to achieve this, and when we realised that this is what is required, we immediately took steps to establish the legislative programme, albeit with a slight delay.
However, we are aware that the driving force of our relationship with Parliament is the political programme, for it is on the political programme that we must work together.
People are saying we must not start in February and conclude in November and then let the relationship fall by the wayside.
I fully agree with this sentiment.
What I would ask, however, is that we be informed of dates for meetings with the committee chairmen a long time in advance; indeed, I assure you that on the few occasions when we were unable to meet, it was because we already had absolutely unbreakable commitments.
However, if we establish the schedule together, I am sure we will be able to achieve our aims.
Moving on from the subject of cooperation, I would now like to focus very briefly on the issue of the role of the Commission and of the forthcoming Convention, starting with something which may not appear to be a key point but which I consider to be extremely important, namely that we need to work alongside the Council as regards the Convention' s secretariat.
It will be an extremely important time.
Of course, the Convention will not take any decisions itself, but it is such an innovative way of working and the fact that it is going to work transparently before our entire continent, before the entire people of Europe, is so significant that it will ultimately acquire huge importance.
I would like to make a further point in this regard as well, the view has been put forward on a number of different occasions that the Commission should be stronger.
I, too, am of this opinion, but I would like to look at what we have achieved, although our achievements are sometimes understated and difficult to understand, so to speak.
In my opinion, it is the results that count.
The Convention did not just appear out of nowhere, it was not presented to us on a plate; the Convention was a working relationship between Parliament and the Commission immediately after Nice, at a time when both institutions were in the deepest despair.
It is precisely this work, carried out together, which enabled us to rise again towards the goal which we had lost all hope of achieving.
We must acknowledge the substantial help we received from the Belgian Presidency, which really took the project to heart, but it was the Parliament-Commission cooperation which won for us the chance - and I would stress, this is a chance which has never before been available in European history - to reform the institutions by means of a broad, open debate with no time pressure, so that all the European citizens can listen to us and understand what we are talking about.
When the European citizens realise that this debate is the debate on the efficient running of the institutions, on unanimous voting or the different vetoes, the debate on the need to proceed with all speed in the interests of serving Europe itself, well, then the significance of this debate will be understood and, indeed, become crystal clear.
Our problem was that the decisions were being taken in fora and by bodies whose significance was not understood.
Well then, this is the strength of the Commission and the strength of Parliament - patience, and also never losing sight of our primary objectives.
To Mr Swoboda, whose comments were extremely constructive, I would point out that, in terms of the debate we conducted on the basic text, our proposal dates from January 2001 - that is when we made every effort to ensure that the text could, slowly but surely, become the focal point of all our work.
2001 has been a year in which we have redefined the boundaries of our work and outlined the strategy.
Certainly, there is a great deal at stake, for our whole future, our entire future, hangs upon the Convention, but we have, at last, taken this debate to the appropriate forum where the citizens will be able to listen to us.
Finally, on a lighter note, with regard to institutional reform, I would like to inform Mr Barón Crespo and the other four group chairmen that I replied to their letters on 5 December and that my response bears the reference number 850511.
I therefore feel we need to reform the postal services, although whether those responsible for collecting the mail or those responsible for delivering it, I am not sure.
In any case, for my part, I duly replied to the letter, as is my custom.
The debate is closed.
WTO meeting in Qatar
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the WTO meeting in Qatar.
Honourable Members of Parliament, as you know, the fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation took place at Doha in Qatar one month ago.
This meeting can be considered a success for the world community, and certainly for the European Union.
It was not an easy task, for the European Union left for Doha with an ambitious, broad agenda.
Some of you witnessed the progress of the negotiations in situ.
As President-in-Office of the Council, I exchanged ideas on several occasions with MEPs who moreover - and that was very practical -had their meeting room immediately adjoining that of the presidency.
I assume that everyone who was there undoubtedly sensed the great scepticism displayed initially by many WTO members with regard to the EU' s broad agenda.
On 19 November, the General Affairs Council has been congratulated on the results obtained at Doha, and on the excellent work carried out by our negotiators, Commissioners Pascal Lamy and Franz Fischler, and their colleagues.
It is thanks to this work, as well as the cohesion and solidarity shown by the Union through these negotiators, that they were able, in spite of the fact that the situation of the European Union within the WTO was not favourable at the start of the process, to get things back on an even keel and obtain much better results than we might have hoped for.
The Union, which at all times remained a major player in the conference, was finally able to achieve the main objective it had set itself, of launching a new round of multilateral trade negotiations focusing on trade liberalisation, the strengthening of regulations and the acknowledgement of development needs.
In fact, the development dimension is the main thread of what we now call the 'Doha development agenda' .
This is the name, in fact, that has been given to all of the texts adopted.
The work programme adopted in view of the multilateral trade negotiations within the framework of the ministerial declaration includes a package of important implementation measures and takes up those unresolved implementation issues that aim more or less for a re-balancing or an amendment of existing agreements within the context of the negotiation agenda relating to single undertakings.
In addition to this, all chapters in the agenda are focused on specific measures to assist developing countries, with regard, for example, to the access of their products to markets, to their special or differential treatment, technical assistance or capacity building.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot over-emphasise the importance of this fifth ministerial conference for the development dimension.
It should take place before the end of 2003 and will be a key point in the negotiations.
We will need, in fact, to make decisions with regard to further negotiations, notably with regard to investments and competition, issues that will have been studied during the first phase.
It is obvious that this will be, for developing countries as well as for others, a very important time for assessment.
Furthermore, the Union should be particularly pleased with the approval of the derogation with regard to the partnership agreement between the European Community and the ACP countries.
(NL) Mr President, Commissioners, the European Union has made a considerable effort in the field of access to medicines.
It has managed to bring initially very diverse opinions closer together and has contributed greatly to the final text which was met by approval by all parties.
Indeed, the statement about TRIPS and public health has given the developing countries the desired assurance that the TRIPS Agreement is indeed offering flexibility, even without amending that Agreement.
Even NGOs have received the Agreement favourably.
As for further legislation, an important step has been made in order to develop the environmental dimension of world trade.
The European Union managed to ensure that negotiations on the environment start without delay, and that the link between the WTO rules and the trade rules of the multi-lateral environment agreements which form part of them becomes more transparent.
This is a very important breakthrough.
Furthermore, the negotiation agenda offers scope for expanding the environmental themes during the Fifth Ministerial Conference.
However, as is always the case in negotiations, not everything went according to plan, of course.
For example, it appeared impossible, despite efforts, to alter the developing countries' resistance to the introduction of basic labour standards in the trade negotiations.
It appeared impossible to make a reference in the ministerial statement to the development of a permanent forum between the ILO and other international organisations, including the WTO.
However, the European Union did manage to have the phrase scrapped which would have restricted the dialogue about basic labour standards to the ILO, and that enables us to continue our quest for a permanent forum.
Moreover, at the suggestion of the presidency, a statement was added in the shape of this phrase to the conclusions of the General Affairs Council of 14 November in Doha, Qatar, in which the Council and the Commission confirm this objective.
The principle of future negotiations was also laid down for the so-called Singapore themes which form part of the priorities of European industry and which concern investments, competition, trade facilitation and transparency regarding government contracts.
These will be initiated following the Fifth Ministerial Conference on the basis of explicit consensus with regard to its modalities.
There is also reason for satisfaction in the field of agriculture.
The negotiations will aim to further improve market access and dismantle the different types of trade-distorting aid.
In addition to the pure trade aspects, serious consideration will also be given to non-trade concerns.
Some of you have followed the export subsidies saga from very close range.
You know the outcome, but let me assure you that it was nevertheless a difficult journey, and that for a long time it looked like the Commissioners would not succeed in reaching a sound agreement.
But they did anyway, and they deserve all our congratulations on that score.
(FR) Finally, a last word on transparency.
The organisation of internal works at Doha was exemplary.
The alternation between plenary sessions, on the one hand, and issue groups, on the other, ensured the necessary combination of transparency and efficiency.
During the plenary sessions, the delegations had the opportunity to express their opinions and to listen to the positions of others, as well as listening to the assessments, I quote, of the President' s friends. These individuals chaired the issue groups, whose objective was to facilitate bilateral and multilateral discussions between WTO members, to harmonise positions and to draw up written agreements.
It should be noted that none of the President' s friends were citizens of the European Union or the United States, and that these two regions were not represented at the time further balances in the text were drawn up.
I am underlining this because, all too often, there is the tendency to believe that everything that happens at the WTO is a result of constant collusion between the United States and the European Union, and that other countries do not have a say, so this is proof that this is not the case.
Therefore, our respective representatives read the texts at the same time as all the other delegations.
Several delegations from developing countries showed their appreciation and satisfaction with the working method used during their closing speeches.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that today we can safely say that we have put the failure of Seattle firmly behind us.
The credibility of the WTO has been restored.
Furthermore, in the current international context, the success of the conference is a positive sign of international solidarity and confidence in the positive development of the world economy.
Thank you for your attention.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission feels that the ministerial meeting in Doha ended in success - success in terms of the objectives that had been defined for the Union, success also in terms of the interests pursued by the developing countries and success, lastly, in terms of the needs of the global economy and the multilateral trade system.
We came back from Doha with a WTO that was both stronger and more balanced, which was the key objective of the mandate that the Council and your Parliament had given to the negotiators.
So the results very largely lived up to many of the concerns you had expressed in this Chamber, in particular in your two resolutions of 25 October.
I will try, in a few words, to show you how they lived up to these concerns, in the light of the Union' s three key objectives: integration of the developing countries, better governance of globalisation and better access to the market for all.
Let us begin with the first objective, integrating the developing countries in the global economy.
That objective is fully and constantly present in every part of the negotiating programme we adopted in Doha.
From the point of view of development policy, we have made progress on the four aspects of trade policy that are crucial to development - better access for the developing countries to our markets, better domestic policies, in particular with regard to the investment, competition and public procurement aspects of our work programme; a stronger role for the developing countries in the multilateral negotiation process and, lastly, boosting these countries' capacity to derive benefit from the liberalisation of trade.
One point I want to emphasise is the negotiation process.
As the President-in-Office of the Council just pointed out - and I agree with her 100% - the working method in Doha was more transparent, which did indeed enable the developing countries, some of whom, as you may remember, had left Seattle frustrated, others furious, to play their full part in the decision-making mechanisms.
That is an important new development.
As for technical assistance for the developing countries, the Commission, together with the Council and, at the appropriate time, Parliament, will have to rethink the way the Union both when it is acting as such and when it is acting through the Member States, is handling the technical assistance programmes for the developing countries in the field of trade.
Turning to a subject close your hearts, namely the special situation of the least-developed countries, let us remember what was achieved at the third United Nations conference for the least-developed countries in Brussels, which has now been incorporated in the WTO' s work programme. That, too, is good news.
Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck referred to the declaration on intellectual property rights and health, which, I believe, is fairly typical of what we have achieved, given that the Union made the rather difficult but, in the end, positive decision to try to strike a balance between the United States' concerns on the one side and the concerns of third countries on the other.
That is a specific case in which we acted as intermediaries and basically each side saw the other' s point of view, which finally proved the right approach to take.
The EU' s second goal is to improve the governance of globalisation.
You know what the Commission' s views are on this.
Today we face a deficit of multilateral rules, which calls into question the equality between economic players, the transparency of transactions and the preservation of certain social values. This has given rise to fear or concern in some quarters.
Markets have become globalised more rapidly than institutions and regulatory instruments.
This is true in the economic field as in the social and environmental field.
As I said, you know our views in this area; we need to establish coherence between all the aspects of the multilateral system and we need more constant, clear and definite relations between its various pillars.
The WTO is one of those pillars.
It is not the only one and it cannot support the entire weight of this coherence by itself.
In this regard and, once again, in line with our mandate, Doha represents a considerable step forward.
In terms of regulating the markets, global rules on investment, on competition, on public procurement and on trade facilitation now form part of the work programme.
Regarding the environment, Doha will help establish greater international coherence by providing for negotiations to clarify the status of the multilateral agreements on the environment in the context of the WTO.
As you know, the Union had to struggle hard to obtain this decision.
I believe it was right to do so because this is a first step towards establishing greater coherence between the various pillars of international governance, in this case between the trade and environment pillars.
In the event of inconsistency or potential conflict, we did not want this pillar to continue depending entirely on the WTO instrument for settling disputes, whatever the virtues of that instrument.
With regard to one aspect of the international governance issues, we did not hide our disappointment at the outcome of the negotiations, although we accepted it.
I am referring to the social issues.
We did not achieve general agreement on forging the kind of clear link we had hoped to see between the International Labour Organisation and other organisations, including the WTO.
We regret that.
The developing countries were politically opposed to this idea and we could not overcome their opposition.
That is not a reason for giving up.
On the contrary, I believe we have to draw on every available multilateral means of putting this idea forward, because it represents the Union' s view and formed part of our mandate, especially as regards strengthening the multilateral aspect of the World Trade Organisation.
Having failed to succeed in relation to this multilateral aspect, we will be developing the other aspects of Community policy, as we have now begun to do, in particular the bilateral and the unilateral parts.
From that point of view, the agreement we reached yesterday in the Council, by a qualified majority, on renewing the system of generalised preferences - an agreement that quite considerably strengthens the social conditions on which trade preferences depend - is good news.
It shows all those who believe this point is important that if we do not manage to make progress on every front, or at least on the unilateral front, this agreement on the part of the Council, with the assent of your Parliament, which had supported and upheld this position, and with the agreement of the Economic and Social Committee, marked a major step forward yesterday.
On the question of the way the WTO operates, your Parliament had expressed certain concerns.
Here we have one piece of good news, namely that Doha was indeed more open and that thanks to the rather clever variable system of plenary meetings, restricted meetings and regional participation, the African continent, for instance, was able to play a very good part in the decision-making.
The not so good news is that for the time being no decision has been reached during this negotiating round on reforming the World Trade Organisation itself.
To tell the truth, nobody was in favour of this reform, given the inevitable risk of deadlock.
I think the question has simply been postponed and that it will come up again before the round we launched in Doha is concluded.
On the specific question of relations with the national parliaments or your Parliament, the proposal to incorporate a reference to closer association between Member State parliaments was not accepted.
This was because of pressure by a number of developing countries that were not really in favour of the idea and because of the American position, which could be described as reluctant, to say the least.
In any case, there were not enough representatives of the American parliamentary authorities to deal with this question seriously.
So that is where we stand at the moment.
In fact, the Commission and Parliament have already been working in the spirit of transparency, information and consultation that we had hoped to promote within the WTO.
I believe we are doing so to the satisfaction of those of you who are interested in these matters and I fully intend to continue along these lines.
Our final objective is the pursuit of liberalisation of trade as such: to liberate trade in goods, services and investments, to contribute to global growth and, therefore, to reducing poverty, provided we make progress with the rules on the fair distribution of trade benefits.
In this respect, the results are entirely in line with what we had hoped.
In regard to abolishing customs duties on goods, for instance, we are clearly targeting tariff levels.
This applies to the liberalisation of services - the timetable has been decided and the negotiations should open up considerable opportunities to EU companies.
As you know, and those of you who were in Doha made sure of this, your concerns about consumer protection, health, education, public service and cultural diversity were taken into consideration.
The negotiating programme adopted in Doha certainly does not commit us to go beyond the limits that were set both by the Council and by Parliament in this area.
My final point concerns agriculture.
I will now hand over to Franz Fischler who can tell you a little more about this subject.
Here too, however, I believe we achieved our main objective, which was to ensure that the Union remained capable of taking forward the common agricultural policy at a rate that is and will be decided by the EU institutions.
To conclude, in my capacity as, shall we say, principal negotiator, let me tell you that one of the keys to success in this business was our work with the Belgian Presidency and, via the Belgian Presidency, with the Member States, whose presence is not always entirely convenient in such circumstances, and with those of you who were there at the meeting.
I have said it in public.
I think it is perfectly acceptable for me to say it to you in a definitive manner.
(Applause)
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, in order to convey a realistic impression of what the Doha agreement means for agriculture, I would like to very briefly touch upon the individual points of the Doha declaration.
The first part of the declaration concerns the general objective of agricultural negotiations within the framework of the WTO, that is to say the creation of a fair and market-oriented trading system.
At the same time it also acknowledges the work that has been done since the beginning of 2000 under the 'Article 20 negotiations' .
The next section deals with the traditional three pillars of trade: market access, exports, and competition and domestic support measures.
In the case of market access, the text settled on was "comprehensive negotiations aimed at substantial improvements in market access".
This reflects the conclusions of the Agriculture Council on 27 September 1999, in which the importance of further liberalisation of agricultural trade as a contribution towards sustainable economic growth was recognised.
The term 'comprehensive negotiations' means that all agricultural products can be covered by the negotiations, and also that all issues should be covered.
In this connection we also made it clear that geographical information should also be included here.
With regard to export subsidies, the declaration talks about reductions in all forms of export subsidies, in other words exactly what this House called for in its resolution in October.
It is also stated that the negotiations should aim to phase out all forms of export subsidies completely.
However, the text also clearly indicates that none of the statements on the three pillars should anticipate the outcome of the negotiations.
There is therefore at present no commitment to negotiate the total elimination of export subsidies during this round.
However, we also know that there is a broad coalition against continuing export subsidies.
The Cairns Group, the USA and the 77 Group of developing countries all spoke out against continuing export subsidies.
As regards domestic support, the text refers to substantial reductions in competition-distorting domestic support.
This is also in line with your own resolution, which called for the rejection of competition-distorting measures, and it corresponds to our own mandate, which commits us to negotiate on domestic support while retaining the concept of the blue box and green box.
We consciously chose the word 'concept' to indicate that we are perfectly willing to negotiate on the details of the blue box and the green box.
The extent of distortion of competition will be a key element of all discussions relating to domestic support.
Another important point is the special and differential treatment of the developing countries.
I know that one of your own priorities is to integrate the developing countries in international trade.
The wording of the Doha declaration is in accordance with this objective and it also matches the Council mandate of 1999.
Lastly, the text deals with non-trade concerns.
The proposals that the WTO Member States put forward in Geneva in this area are specifically recognised.
As you know, the European Union too presented a raft of proposals on the most important non-trade concerns, such as the environment, the development of rural regions, food security, consumer affairs, labelling and animal protection.
By specifically recognising non-trade concerns, the Doha declaration allows us to pursue these objectives further in forthcoming negotiations.
The last section contains the timetable for agreeing on methodology, 31 March 2003, and the deadlines for presenting the comprehensive drafts.
This is to take place before the next WTO ministerial conference, so that agreement on agriculture can be reached at the same time as the overall package, by 1 January 2005.
Apart from the purely agricultural part of the text, I would also like to point out that the section on the TRIPS Agreement also deals with the issue of geographical information.
This will enable us to pursue our objectives in the negotiations on geographical information and in the agricultural negotiations, and also in the TRIPS negotiations.
Finally, in parallel to the decision on the start of the Doha development round, agreement was also reach on the ACP waiver, which allows us to conclude the solution negotiated with the USA and Ecuador to bring an end to the banana war.
This means that the proposal the Commission has already put forward can be accepted, as soon as you here in the European Parliament have adopted your position on this, which I hope will happen in the course of this week.
I would like to conclude with the comment that the satisfactory outcome of the Doha Conference does not necessarily mean that the forthcoming agricultural negotiations will now be straightforward.
The objectives of the other major WTO members are in some cases very different indeed from our own, but we will do our utmost to secure the European agricultural model and at the same time to negotiate a fair and more market-oriented trading system for agricultural products.
Things will very much depend on our continuing success in achieving a common approach on the part of the Member States, and your support will assist us in this respect.
Another thing that will help us is continuation of the excellent cooperation that we have had with the Council and also within the Commission on this issue.
We are going to have to interrupt this debate.
I propose to try to finish the list of political group speakers and then break.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Members of the Commission, the launch of the new, comprehensive, three-year round of talks at the Doha Summit is a very positive signal for both the World Trade Organisation and the present world economic situation.
The Doha development programme, which includes the liberalisation of trade as well as elements of new rules, stressed the commitment of the developed countries to capacity building in respect of the less developed countries and to helping them implement already existing WTO rules.
I am firmly of the opinion that the small but boisterous anti-globalisation groups have now had a clear response from the less developed countries represented at Doha.
We want to be involved in liberalising world trade and clarifying its rules, as that is also in the interest of the less developed countries.
Every country had the opportunity to torpedo any collective decision - nobody did so, however.
The presence of China and Taiwan at the WTO was also a significant milestone.
We must hope that Russia will be able to clarify its own internal structures in such a way as to allow her also to take part.
The Union' s own goals at Doha at least were successfully achieved.
Commissioners Lamy and Fischler deserve our thanks for succeeding in seeing through to the end some tough negotiations that lasted a good number of days.
Furthermore, the Council' s internal cohesion remained firm the whole time, something that was obviously necessary for the Union to be able to approve the outcome of the talks.
In addition to being involved in the negotiations process itself, Commissioners Lamy and Fischler, together with Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck also, kept us Members of Parliament, who were following the events, well aware the whole time of where things were going.
Sustainable development and the inclusion of environmental considerations in trade policy decisions were agreed to be an all-embracing objective in future talks, something that is certainly of crucial importance to us, the countries in the Union.
As talks on the trade in agricultural products are also to be conducted in accordance with a comprehensive agenda but without any predetermined conclusion having been reached concerning forms of subsidy and timetables, this difficult matter, too, can now be negotiated peaceably whilst the Union' s common agricultural policy is being reformed.
Our parliamentary group, which held talks with several delegations that were present at Doha, thought it regrettable that the US Congress did not send their representatives there.
As we continue our efforts to develop WTO transparency and parliamentary monitoring of ministerial conferences, the presence of the US Congress is essential.
It is also realistic to state that we will only be able to move forward in this matter with the approval of governments.
Hopefully, Germany, as we unofficially heard at Doha, will before very long take the matter up formally in the WTO bodies.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, the WTO meeting in Qatar was a landmark achievement, especially for all those who realise that globalisation is one of the twenty-first century' s greatest challenges and that it is a challenge to bring it under democratic and political control.
In the view of my group, globalisation desperately needs worldwide rules and global institutions.
This means that globalisation can also be at the service of people, and not the other way round.
As Commissioner Lamy said, Seattle two years ago failed on all kinds of fronts. It was not transparent, the groups were imbalanced and participation was not well organised.
There was also a great deal of fear that, due to this failure, a number of matters which affect all of us greatly, including development, the right to adopt one' s own domestic policy, workers' rights, and the environment, would suffer badly as a result.
It is actually a real achievement for us to have witnessed true change in Qatar after those two years.
It constitutes a first step towards a new WTO, in a fight to equip globalisation with rules which are at the service of human values.
My group is therefore delighted with the outcome of this Fourth Ministerial Conference.
Not because we are pleased with all the aspects, far from it.
We shall continue to apply pressure and a whole host of things are still missing, but in essence, we made a significant step forward.
This fresh step is certainly also of importance in the removal of inequalities between North and South.
This is one of the most important things in the globalisation phenomenon as a whole.
It is certainly striking to note what we have achieved on the WTO agenda, both in the way in which all kinds of developing countries took part jointly in the debate in a well-organised manner, and with regard to the agenda itself.
We wanted a development round, and at least we can now say that there is a development agenda.
And needless to say, it will be specific results which will soon be at issue.
In this respect, the TRIPS account and public health care are of huge importance.
It has been recognised that when it really matters, public health care and the need for the same sometimes transcend intellectual property rights, and that allowance is made for this within intellectual property rules.
It is clear that this requires further elucidation, but what is important is what happened there at political level.
The recognition as such will persuade many to join a modern and new worldwide WTO.
Needless to say, the agreements involving the waiver for the Cotonou Agreement of the ACP and EU countries are of crucial importance, for this has helped us bring about an enormous breakthrough in our relations with the ACP countries, a breakthrough which we might not have had otherwise.
In the field of environment and trade, we managed to put a number of items on the agenda of which we feared right up to the last minute that they would not make it.
This is an enormous leap forward, a taboo has been shattered. It should not become green protectionism, but it is of the utmost importance for us that we have managed to bring it about.
According to our group, it is a sad state of affairs that we have not actually made any real headway on the score of democracy and transparency, as already stated by Commissioner Lamy too, and on the score of workers' rights.
We may have prevented certain things from reverting back to the old ways, but we have a desperate need for more success in this area.
Allow me to conclude by saying that our group has greatly valued cooperation with Commissioners Lamy and Fischler, as well as the President-in-Office, and that the Commissioner' s statement that this House must ultimately approve the Doha results, places us in a fully-fledged, grown-up democracy and a fully-fledged democratic role.
We greatly appreciate this, and we rely on a very fruitful campaign in the years to come.
Mr President, it is no secret that the Green/EFA Group does not share the majority view of Parliament over the outcome of the Doha meeting.
For us, with a few exceptions, it was not a success.
It was an unedifying example of the richer countries bullying the poorer ones and has prompted many to assert that the so-called victory in Doha was a failure for democracy.
While it is certainly true the developing countries asserted themselves in a much stronger way than ever before - and that is to be commended - it is also true that the outcome from Doha falls far short of the development round which was promised us.
That is not only the view of the Green/EFA Group, but also of the vast majority of NGOs from both north and south, and of many of the southern representatives there as well.
Let me remind you of some of the interventions in the Doha plenary debate.
The Indian Minister of Commerce, Mr Murasoli Muran, said that the only conclusion that could be drawn is that developing countries have little say in the agenda-setting of the WTO; it appears that the whole process was a mere formality and we are being coerced against our will.
Let me remind you of what Jamaica said.
Ambassador Mr Randsford Smith said that we regret that the draft texts presented to this ministerial conference, as at the outcome of the Geneva preparatory process, do not sufficiently reflect or capture the position and proposals of developing countries.
I could give you many more similar quotations.
Let us have a look in a bit more detail at what they really mean.
There was only a very brief acknowledgement of the need to review implementation issues: that was a key agenda issue for the developing countries going into Doha.
The language on the phasing out of agricultural exports subsidies has been substantially watered down, due to EU objections.
As a result, farmers in the south will continue to have their livelihoods devastated.
As Tanzania's Trade Minister, Mr Iddi Simba, said, the wrong policy on agriculture might lose elections in France, but it loses lives in Africa.
There is no commitment to an early phase-out of textiles and garment quotas because of strong resistance from the United States.
Demands for development linked to the promotion of food security, which is being promoted by many developing countries, were completely ignored.
Commissioner Lamy, I do not expect you to agree with this analysis, but at the very least you should acknowledge the very real anger and frustration of the developing countries throughout the conference and pledge that in the negotiations that are now beginning their interests will genuinely be at the forefront of our priorities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, good work was done in Doha.
I believe we have three good reasons to appreciate the results.
The first is the real involvement of the southern countries and the evidence that multilateralism is effectively beginning to happen.
Before Doha we did not have a pre-negotiated agenda; after Doha we have to deal with a whole range of claims put forward by the southern countries.
As a result, the WTO, still fragile but better recognised, is therefore strengthened.
Of course this is not yet the kind of democratisation the NGOs and European parliamentarians had hoped to see, but there has clearly been progress and Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck is right to emphasise the transparency and improved method seen in Doha.
Unlike Caroline Lucas, I was not aware of general anger or frustration; on the contrary, I noted a sense of relief all round because this method enabled us to finally reach some degree of consensus.
Let me add, and I was surprised that this was not mentioned in the opening statements, that we are committed to negotiating the reform of the instrument for settling disputes.
Secondly, a window has been opened for examining the coherence between social questions and trade rules.
Liberalisation is indeed continuing, in particular in order to respond to the southern countries' interests with regard to market access.
Thanks to the European Union, however, and here I believe we can thank Pascal Lamy for his firm stance, we have the beginnings of a broad agenda - the environment, investment and competition can be negotiated on the basis of an explicit consensus.
In substance, this is still not much and we can understand why some of the NGOs wanted a more ambitious agenda, one that included the social aspect in particular.
If we are to achieve that, however, they and we will have to overcome some major inconsistencies.
Indeed we must not conceal the inconsistencies between different interests and claim to always speak in the name of the south.
Differences must be expressed if they are effectively to be overcome and that is how we managed to make progress on the question of medicines, when the north-south conjunction proved effective.
Similarly, we can make progress on the social aspect only if we carefully reflect on how to help strengthen international trade unionism.
Thirdly, for the first time, as much importance was attached to implementation as to the new subjects introduced.
Here again, I did not interpret the results in the same way as Caroline Lucas.
We made progress on the method and thanks to India we had a system not of prior evaluation but of ongoing evaluation during the negotiations: textiles, agriculture, anti-dumping measures, subsidies and even intellectual property were negotiated - with the possibility of renegotiation.
To conclude, we still have to make great efforts for the future to ensure that the process runs smoothly and in the right directions and here I have two points to make.
The first is that there is a strong risk that the Union' s trade policy will be handicapped by the absence of a common policy.
We have a certain lack of cohesion here and it is up to us to clarify our agricultural and industrial social model.
My second point is that the social question is emblematic.
There is no question of giving up and adhering to the ILO.
The European Union must demand the establishment of multilateral social dimensions for development and solidarity.
So we still have a lot of work to do on this subject, but this should not frighten us.
Mr President, the current World Trade negotiations are important to the future development of the EU, particularly in the context of enlargement.
I am satisfied that our negotiators understand the extent of this challenge and - I hope - draw on the benefit of hindsight resulting from our experiences with the current regime.
From an agricultural perspective, we must not allow the United States to dictate agricultural policy.
On the last occasion they insisted on dismantling agricultural support and then proceeded to provide support for United States farmers at a level three times greater than that received by European farmers.
I am very pleased that in the preparatory talks we seem to have reached a satisfactory agreement on export refunds.
From an Irish perspective, export refunds are crucial because of our dependence on exports to third countries.
Equally we need to take a strong stand on food imports from outside the EU.
We are investing heavily in the implementation of food safety measures and have banned the use of growth promoters.
Yet EU farmers are expected to compete with imports from countries where those products are used.
Equally, in relation to sheepmeat, important to European, and particularly Irish, farmers - badly managed arrangements with New Zealand mean there are no controls to prevent a deliberate New Zealand policy to flood the EU market at peak production periods.
Mr President, I consider Doha a success, but I did think before Doha and I still feel now that the European position of the strategy of expanding the agenda was a serious mistake.
Indeed, overloading the WTO now and in the future with too many expectations for too many sectors will jeopardise the achievement of the organisation' s single, fundamental objective: market access, revitalising the stagnant situation of international trade, in the interests of both rich and poor countries.
Lastly, Commissioner, with regard to agriculture - let us not forget, before we start to feel too pleased with ourselves, that, ultimately, Europe' s negotiating position, as Mr Fischer explained, was actually an attempt to defend the indefensible, to defend the common agricultural policy.
We concern ourselves with working standards in Africa, Asia and South America, and yet, at Doha, we defended the wealthy French peasant farmers against the poor peasant farmers of South-East Asia, Africa and Latin America.
This is the bottom line.
Therefore, the agenda should not be expanded. Let us concern ourselves rather with the opening up of the markets, especially our rich agricultural and textiles markets.
We have taken note of your request, Mrs Schleicher, and I am sure it will be accepted.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Vote
Does the Commission wish to take the floor?
I would like to tell Mrs Jiménez that we are aware of the importance of the issue of nuts and that, like her, we emphasise the need for a reliable statistical basis to provide us with data on their production potential.
So we agree that we must broaden the statistical inquiries provided for under the directive to include new species and new variables.
We believe that the parameters to be incorporated in these new inquiries must first be analysed with the Member States: density, statistical units, etc.
We will take the necessary steps to expand the statistics so that we can reach a decision on the entire issue before the end of 2005.
Once this preparatory work has been completed, and I understand it is statistically complex, we will complete the list of species in the amended directive by, as usual, applying the comitology procedure provided in it.
(The President declared the common position approved)
Simplified procedure
Proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of a Framework Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Cyprus on the general principles for the participation of the Republic of Cyprus in Community programmes
[13207/2001 - COM(2001) 481 - C5-0584/2001 - 2001/0193(AVC)]
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Simplified procedure
Proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of a Framework Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Malta on the general principles for the participation of the Republic of Malta in Community programmes [13251/2001 - COM(2001) 481 - C5-0585/2001 - 2001/0194(AVC)]
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Simplified procedure
Proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of a Framework Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Turkey on the general principles for the participation of the Republic of Turkey in Community programmes
[13248/2001 - COM(2001) 481 - C5-0586/2001 - 2001/0195(AVC)]
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Simplified procedure
Proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1493/1999 on the common organisation of the market in wine[COM(2001) 332 - C5-0311/2001 - 2001/0132(CNS)]
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Simplified procedure
Proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1017/94 concerning the conversion of land currently under arable crops to extensive livestock farming in Portugal
[COM(2001) 559 - C5-0512/2001 - 2001/0233(CNS)]
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Report without debate (A5-0413/2001) by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 577/98 on the organisation of a labour force sample survey in the Community [COM(2001) 319 - C5-0275/2001 - 2001/0127(COD)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report without debate (A5-0403/2001) by Mr Pesälä, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2204/90 laying down additional general rules on the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products as regards cheese
[COM(2001) 410 - C5-0363/2001 - 2001/0159(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report without debate (A5-0442/2001) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on Proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2358/71 on the common organisation of the market in seeds and fixing the aid granted in the seeds sector for the 2002/03 and 2003/04 marketing years[COM(2001) 244 - C5-0206/2001 - 2001/0099(CNS)]
Mr President, it was agreed with the Commission that before the final vote on the legislative resolution the Commission would tell us to what extent it is willing to accept our amendments.
Commemoration of the tragedy in the United States on 11 September 2001
Ladies and gentlemen, at the request of a number of Members we have decided very briefly to commemorate the tragic events that occurred three months ago.
With your agreement, I will therefore read out a message.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, three months ago today, at 8.46 a.m. New York time, the entire world was shaken by the horrific attacks that struck Manhattan and Washington.
At this moment, when I would ask you to reflect and remember, my thoughts, our thoughts, go first of all to the thousands of victims and their families, to the emergency services, to the military and civilian employees whose lives were suddenly shattered.
They also go to the American people, who, since these events, have been living in terrible fear of further attacks.
The European Union is playing its full part in the efforts we have made in solidarity with the United States to combat international terrorism.
The same is true of our commitment to finding urgent solutions to the conflicts that threaten world peace, especially in the Middle East.
Only if we show the necessary resolve and cohesion can we prevent such tragedies ever happening again.
My thoughts are with the victims of all acts of terrorism and war and I ask you to observe a minute' s silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
(The sitting was suspended at 12 noon and resumed at 12.35 p.m.)
Vote (continuation)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is certainly rather unusual to comment on a report that has already been voted upon. Nevertheless, I am happy to make it clear, to avoid any possible doubt, what the Commission's position is on the report that has already been adopted.
Quite apart from the excellent work done on the preparation of this report, we are all agreed that by the end of the year the Council needs to reach a decision on amounts of subsidy and on the budgetary stabiliser, to ensure the necessary degree of certainty.
I support the substance of the proposed amendments to the compromise.
Firstly, I accept the possibility of being able to introduce compensation between the Member States as regards guaranteed quantities in the context of the Community maximum guaranteed quantity.
Secondly, I am in favour of an implementing system which makes it possible to give niche products from small producers a sufficient degree of flexibility.
Thirdly, in view of the results of an in-depth study of the functioning of this market organisation and of the supply of the common market with various types of seed, the Commission will submit appropriate proposals to the Council and Parliament under Article 37, which will include a reference to the setting of the maximum guaranteed quantity.
We will do this in good time to provide a basis for the successor system.
Furthermore, with reference to the way in which the budgetary stabiliser is applied, Parliament's proposal to reduce the amount of subsidy in the year after which the maximum guaranteed quantity is exceeded has a number of advantages and we shall therefore carefully examine this proposal.
(Parliament adopted the joint text)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0416/2001), by Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety
[10880/1/2001 - C5-0414/2001 - 2000/0286(COD)]
Mr President, one word of explanation.
This report now has a series of agreed amendments which we believe will be carried.
There is one unusual procedure - the House has voted already on the criteria for the site of the European Food Safety Authority.
The Council was not prepared to admit that as a part of the report.
We, however, believe that it was necessary to state what the criteria should be and to insist upon that.
The best way we can do that without going to conciliation is to vote it as a legislative resolution, binding therefore only on Parliament.
We hope that the President of Parliament will convey that information and our view on the matter to the Laeken Summit in two days' time.
Would the Commission now like to tell us its position with regard to the amendments?
- (FR) Some 30 000 farms in the European Union cultivate grass and pulse seeds, the main species involved in this common organisation of the market. This is, therefore, most important to employment, producers' incomes, the socio-economic balance of many regions, biodiversity and security of supply.
On the one hand, however, the market prices received by the producers have fluctuated markedly in the last few years, while, on the other, the European Union still has a shortfall of about 15 000 tonnes.
We should, therefore, welcome the fact that aid for seeds will be maintained at the current level, knowing that this is necessary to maintain the balance between production and the market. Under these circumstances, I do not think there is any need to introduce a budgetary stabiliser, since the market has shown that it is capable of regulating itself, all the more so as the Commission proposal on this stabilisation mechanism is general and vague.
Lastly, I also find it inappropriate to model it on the mechanism set up for rice seed, which can be adjusted to the food consumption market.
Finally, and above all, it would be unwise to share a guaranteed maximum quantity amongst the Member States, given that these seed producers often have branches in several countries.
That is the tenor of the amendments I tabled in committee, where they were adopted unanimously.
I am happy to note that the European Parliament proved equally wise in plenary.
Cunha report (A5-0425/2001)
.
(NL) The fisheries agreements which the EU concludes with developing countries are bad for the environment and bad for those countries.
The fact that EU fishermen ostensibly feel forced to move their activities from EU waters to elsewhere indicates that the fish population in EU waters has apparently decreased by these activities, so much so that the yield is now no longer sufficient.
This environmental problem must be tackled at source, namely by reducing the fleet capacity, not by overfishing elsewhere now.
In addition, the agreements are bad for the local economy, since modern EU ships rob local fishermen of their catches.
It is absurd that as part of the agreement, the EU should pay money to the governments of those countries in order to help the fishermen to find other jobs.
The amendments which the Committee on Fisheries and the ELDR have tabled to the Commission proposal are an improvement on the text of the agreement.
D66 has therefore supported these amendments.
Since we are opposed to the agreement as such for the above reasons, we have voted against the legislative resolution.
Lage report (A5-0402/2001) and Cunha report (A5-0425/2001)
We abstained on the reports on the fisheries agreements with Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde because although they provide these states with a certain amount of revenue, the large-scale fishing by European countries merely formalises the plundering of Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde' s natural resources.
The only reason we voted for Amendment No 7 to the Lage report and Amendment No 5 to the Cunha report is because at least they have the merit of formally specifying the amount of financial compensation, without making any advance judgment on the question of whether this sum really makes up for the loss of this natural resource.
Gargani report (A5-0428/2001)
.
At the outset I wish to record my thanks to the rapporteur Mr Gargani for his report on the European Capital of Culture 2005.
I fully support this report as I represent the City of Cork in the EP.
Cork has a long and proud tradition as the second city in Ireland and has been a centre of learning, industry, trade and culture for over 800 years.
As a major seaport it has also been open to many outside influences which have helped to evolve many new links and contacts.
The history of Ireland could be written in Cork, for it was affected in a similar way to all of Ireland.
Whether it relates to conquest and colonisation, the killing of the native Gaelic language and traditions, famine and emigration, Cork has been at the centre of all these tremendous changes.
Today Cork is a well developed modern city, looking to future technologies and opportunities for development.
However, despite this forward vision, it has never forgotten or neglected its past, indeed it treasures and protects its history and culture, in the ballet, the Opera House, the Everyman Theatre, Triskel Arts Centre, National Sculpture Factory, Crawford Art Gallery, Crawford College of Art and Design, University College Cork, Cork Institute of Technology, the School of Music, the College of Commerce, to mention just a few.
From its past citizens in the fields of music, dance, the arts and literature it takes pride in the new generation of activists in these areas.
We in Cork are proud of our hospitality and welcome to all and we face any new challenge presented to us with a confidence in the secure knowledge of past experience.
In 2005, as the European Capital of Culture, Cork will show all that is great in our past but also will provide inspiration for the future.
I take this opportunity to extend to all a welcome to Cork, now and for 2005.
I know you will be touched by its beauty, humour, vitality and calm.
Once you have been to Cork you will never wish to leave.
Graefe zu Baringdorf report (A5-0421/2001)
Mr President, this report is on the circulation of compound feedingstuffs and therefore on what animals eat, and animals include fish.
As you know, Mr President, I am famous among fish, particularly pensioner fish, and I therefore could not fail to ask them, especially the pensioner fish of Morocco, what they think of this directive on the contents of feedingstuffs.
I am not joking, Mr President, I am only telling you in my customary manner why I voted for the motion.
Breaking their usual silence, these fish told me that they support this document but that they would like me to tell Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, when he comes to amend this directive again, to ensure that there is a choice of feedingstuffs on the menu as well, so that animals do not always have to eat the same dishes.
They get tired of having soup for lunch every day as well!
Whitehead report (A5-0416/2001)
Mr President, I would like to explain why I voted for the document on the European Food Authority.
This second subject is a subject which takes us to the kitchen as well, Mr President - nothing to do with me.
Maybe it is because it is lunch time that the next topic is also food-related.
I voted for the motion because, clearly, we have to have good food on our tables.
However, I feel that it would be a good idea for inspections to be carried out on these directives on the monitoring of foodstuffs too.
I regret to say that our Member States do not want inspections, and so I call for the food authority to be given the power, in the future, to genuinely carry out unannounced inspections on public canteens, school canteens, company canteens and canteens in the institutions where elderly people live when they are no longer able to live with their families.
Food is extremely important!
Mr President, I should like to say very briefly that it was a great pleasure for me to vote for the amendments to the common position on food safety, for which Mr Whitehead was rapporteur.
I wanted to express gratitude for his major efforts, for thanks to his work, we have managed to reach clear and sound agreements across the political divide, and that is why we are now where we are.
Today, we only adopted those amendments which met with complete approval by the Commission.
In addition, agreements have already been concluded with the Council.
This means that the Food Authority can become operational in 2002, which suggests that we are completely on schedule.
In my view, we can safely say that this is thanks to effective cooperation, across all groups of this House.
We have created a framework which should work.
If the right people are now also deployed in the right places, and the Authority is accorded a location which will give it the opportunity of establishing external contacts easily, then I believe that all conditions are in place to turn this Food Authority into a success.
It is now down to the Authority itself, and I wish it every success.
It could be useful to the consumer to set up a European Food Authority to see to food safety at Union level.
We agree with the principle.
Yet we would point out that unlike similar authorities in other countries, especially the United States, the European Food Authority will only have an advisory role and no power.
What value can its recommendations have under these circumstances? I ask this, in particular, because a series of recent food scandals, from mad cow disease to dioxin in chickens, has shown that food safety and the quest for profit are a contradiction in terms.
This means that the European Food Authority is liable to be a purely decorative body.
. (PT) Whilst some advances in establishing the European Food Authority are positive, I still maintain that it cannot act as a panacea for solving food safety problems or as a smoke screen for public opinion.
It is important to ensure that there is an Authority which guarantees risk evaluation for the purposes of food safety, enshrined in solid scientific opinion, but it cannot free from responsibility or replace the Commission in terms of risk management of the Community food policy or the competent authorities of each Member State.
The underlying principle of any legislation on food is the protection of human health, and for this very reason, it is vital to introduce the precautionary principle in risk management when scientific data is insufficient or inconclusive.
However, it is questionable whether such a structure that is so cumbersome from the administrative and budgetary standpoint is necessary, but the need to ensure that one representative from each Member State takes part in the Administration should be highlighted.
In any case, it is worth emphasising once again that the food issue can only be resolved by means of a thorough change in the CAP and a genuine food policy that is not based on the interests of the agro-industrial multinationals or the liberalisation of agricultural trade.
I voted in favour of this report.
We have been trying for years to restore consumer confidence and the European Food Authority is one way of doing so.
There is no such thing as zero risk and we know what consequences a bacteriological problem (not linked only to terrorism) can have for a large number of our citizens.
Safety must therefore lie at the heart of the proposed system.
Yet we must not give way to panic, for let us not forget that the European food chain is one of the safest in the world.
If it is to be effective and credible, however, the Authority will have to be supported by top scientific experts, while also drawing on the network of existing national agencies.
Another important aspect that needs emphasising is that we must separate the evaluation of the risk, which falls within the scientific domain, and its management (the measures that are decided), which falls solely within the political domain.
Let me remind you that whatever measures are decided must be proportionate to the level of the risk incurred.
In the event of a perceived risk, but which has no foundation, for instance a rumour, we should respond by informing the consumers.
In the event of a potential risk, we must take precautionary measures. Lastly, in the event of a real risk, we have to take preventive measures.
If we want the European Food Authority to be as effective as possible, it will have to be completely independent, its composition will be a determining factor, and its decisions will have to be highly transparent.
Lastly, the penalties imposed for serious errors or fraud must not only be considerable but, above all, applied.
.
(NL) For years, quality and public health in the production of food were secondary to the pursuit of ever lower production costs.
A cheap food package had to keep the costs down for the public at large.
Governments and private business shared the same view about this reduction in costs, which was achieved, inter alia, by economies of scale, the use of artificial raw materials, intensification of the use of space, the import of animal feed from the Third World and an enormous number of redundancies.
For that purpose, slaughter waste and dioxin-poisoned grass were fed to animals, or animals were gathered in pens and lorries where disease was able to spread readily.
After all, if one wanted better food, there was a separate distribution circuit for those in a higher income bracket.
Only when it transpired that people can contract fatal illnesses from contaminated food, did an increasing number of people want to know what they were eating.
Once again, it is demonstrated that accidents need to happen first before the incentive is there to look for a solution to the problem.
The solution does not lie in enhancing the European bureaucracy, or squabbles about the location and management of a new institution.
Food safety can only be achieved if cost reduction and company profits are no longer paramount and if maximum openness is created in the field of complaints, minority verdicts, composition and safety measures.
I look forward to the revolutionary effect which Mr Staes envisages, but it remains to be seen whether it will materialise.
I voted for this recommendation because I believe that the common position as amended is a great improvement on the Commission' s original proposal.
I fully subscribe to the strong wish expressed by the European institutions: the future European Food Safety Authority must be set up very soon and be operative as from the beginning of 2002.
With that in mind, I agree with the rapporteur in wanting to see a text adopted to which the Council is likely to agree, so as to avoid a conciliation procedure, which always takes too long.
The European Food Safety Authority will be strong and will, I hope, help us counter any food-related risks throughout the European Union.
The Member States will continue to be responsible for monitoring and checks, while risk management and the rapid alert system will remain in the remit of the European Commission.
Finally, I am in favour of adopting criteria for selecting the best location, in the general interest, for the European Food Safety Authority: I believe that the town of Lille fully satisfies the conditions laid down in the recommendation.
.
I wholeheartedly support this report by my Socialist colleague which calls for the establishment of general principles and requirements of food law and for a European Food Authority.
Food Safety is of great concern to the majority of the European Union's citizens and it is therefore vital that this Authority will be efficient, democratic and transparent once it is fixed.
In such a way, the role proposed for Parliament will ensure that this body will remain under close scrutiny and that it will prove to be as legitimate as possible.
Moreover, it is highly desirable that the future location of this Authority should be physically independent from other EU institutions.
This will ensure that it remains independent and thus more credible in citizens' eyes.
Finally, the call for close cooperation with the relevant bodies is pertinent: when there is a suspected food risk it makes sense that the Authority should capitalise on the knowledge available in other related associations.
.
(NL) The group encompassing the Dutch D66 Party has endorsed the Whitehead report on the European Food Authority.
D66 is pleased with the timing of this report, immediately preceding the European Summit in Laeken.
After all, the question of EFA' s location cannot be seen in isolation from the as yet unresolved issue of the EP' s location and the ludicrous shuttle between Brussels and Strasbourg.
We assume that the Heads of Government will look into these issues at length in Laeken.
Bushill-Matthews report (A5-0422/2001)
Mr President, Mr Bushill-Matthews' report is on financial assistance for small and medium-sized enterprises.
A Genoese 70-year old pensioner, Mr Guido Facchinetti, who is an expert cook and has worked in restaurants all his life, asked me to vote for this document for the reasons I have already given, namely that it is appropriate for small and medium-sized enterprises to be financed by Europe.
He said to me: "If I had the financial where-with-all, despite the fact I am 70 years old, I would open new restaurants throughout Europe serving trenette with pesto, Genoa-style chick pea flour, Recco focaccia and Camogli pan-fried fish" - apologies to any of my fish-loving friends who are listening - "for these are excellent dishes and I would like to take them to the whole of Europe.
All I need is the money!"
I hope that this document will make it possible for him to continue to exercise his outstanding abilities as an Italian and a Genoese cook.
. (PT) The launch of the Growth and Employment Initiative is a very positive step in terms of increasing and improving employment prospects in the EU.
In the last few years, SMEs and micro-companies have been responsible for creating the largest number of new jobs.
The report submitted by the Commission provides an objective analysis of the development of the three financial instruments for SMEs: the Start-up Facility (ETF), the Joint European Venture (JEV) Programme and the SME Guarantee Facility.
However, the critical observations set out in Mr Bushill-Mathews' report, which I share and voted for, are highly relevant.
I would like to stress, firstly, the need for the Commission to indicate clearly in future the degree to which forecasts of job creation actually materialise.
Secondly, the Commission should carry out an in-depth analysis of the reasons which lead some countries to make extensive use of the different programmes and others to record a low or nil rate of use.
I would like to point out in this respect that Portugal is one of the Member States not included in the ETF-Start-up Facility, aimed at initial-phase investment in high technology projects.
Indeed, as far as the SME Guarantee Facility in the 31.12.2000 reference period is concerned, the rate of use is quite low.
According to preliminary data supplied by the financial intermediaries, only eight Portuguese SMEs benefited from a guarantee under this mechanism, whereas in Spain there were 2 812 beneficiaries.
That analysis will be a very important indicator for the definition and adoption of regulatory measures, particularly in terms of transparent access to information, simplification of the procedures for submitting applications and speedy allocation of funds.
.
(EL) The policy being applied by the European Union and the Member States is forcing hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into bankruptcy every year, because they are unable to withstand the onslaught of the monopolies.
With the signs of a slump in the economy becoming more and more marked, SMEs and jobs are the first to go and the generally limited and short-term jobs linked to the occasional subsidy do nothing to counteract this.
The Commission proposal merely serves the objective of reinforcing the European venture capital market by setting up financial intermediaries, who are neither controlled nor operate on the basis of job-creating criteria.
In most cases, SMEs do not receive direct funding, in that applications must be addressed to intermediaries, generally conventional 'risk and investment capital funds' which are guaranteed by the EIB and which receive credits and guarantees from it.
Thus, in the final analysis, no one apart from the European Investment Bank, knows which SME is being supported and what funding plans and jobs will result.
These intermediary financial organisations, which have signed contracts with the European Investment Fund, tend to favour early stage investments in high technology sectors such as information technology, communications and the biosciences.
So exactly what aid and which SMEs are we talking about, given that traditional small and medium-sized enterprises, small handicraft enterprises and tourist and commercial enterprises fall outside the funding framework, despite the fact that they are able to promote innovative products?
The highly important specific weight of SMEs in the economy of each country is being ignored, despite its having been proven that they represent the backbone of the business sector in Europe and are the only enterprises to have created any jobs over recent years.
The unequal geographical distribution of this aid is also typical of growing regional inequalities between the Member States, in that over half this funding (be it in the form of start-up aid or the guarantee mechanism) will go to France and Germany, while in Greece, for example, this aid is non-existent because there is no venture capital market to speak of.
We harbour no illusions as to the nature of the EU's employment policy or its policy on SMEs, which is basically non-existent, or the interests which that policy represents, which is why we feel that any reference to employment, to fighting unemployment and to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises within the guidelines for this policy is pure hypocrisy.
Faced with these choices, the workers and small and medium-sized businessmen are joining forces in their fight and struggle to overturn this policy and promote a different policy which takes account of man and his present-day needs.
.
(NL) Small enterprises used to be a very common phenomenon.
In the last 150 years, they have been systematically bought up and forced out of business by large newcomers.
Only in the last few years has there been a surprising, renewed interest in small enterprises.
Unlike before, the big ones now stand to gain from their existence, since they can pass on tasks which they are unable to carry out at a cheaper price.
They involve outsiders in low-wage countries or sell vulnerable parts of their enterprise to the staff or management.
The business risks, including absorbing the peaks and troughs in transport and repair activities, are then borne by a third party.
In most cases, costly collective wage agreements and schemes for better conditions at work fall by the wayside.
In order to survive, people in such small enterprises must work harder and longer hours than they used to in the large enterprises.
The small ones may think that they are independent, but they rely completely on the bank and on the larger enterprises with which they have outstanding contracts.
Consequently, their existence can come to an unexpected end very quickly.
Chances are that ultimately, government aid for small enterprises invariably benefits the large enterprises.
However, I do not dismiss this aid just like that, for there are also situations where small enterprises can offer sound, fresh opportunities to groups of workers, notably to migrants and pioneers in the field of technical innovation.
.
I wholeheartedly support this report which endorses the Commission report on financial assistance to SMEs through the Growth and Employment Initiative.
Since it is presently the case that most SMEs have some difficulty in breaking into the technology market, this financial assistance can often symbolise the make or break of a potentially very successful SME.
It is all too often bemoaned that the EU has failed to foster a culture of innovation and enterprise: the European Investment Fund (EIF) is a vital way in which this imbalance can and should be redressed.
The call for the close evaluation of projects is also welcome: in such a way there will be a vital element of accountability in the scheme.
To bolster this, the call for the involvement for the European Parliament is also vital.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Draft general budget for 2002 (as amended by the Council) and Letter of Amendment 2/2002
The next item is the joint debate on the following four reports, tabled on behalf of the Committee on Budgets:
(A5-0400/2001) by Mr Costa Neves and Mrs Buitenweg, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2002 as modified by the Council (all sections), and Letter of Amendment No 2/2001 to the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2002;
(A5-0427/2001) by Mr Colom i Naval, on financial programming 2002-2006;
(A5-0447/2001) by Mr Wynn, on the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument;
(A5-0439/2001) by Mr Turchi, on Trans-European-Networks.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to be meeting you here again in order to shed light on the salient points of the second reading of the EU' s draft general budget, as drawn up on 22 November.
It is one of the last, but also one of the most important stages in the sometimes complicated process in which the Community budget is brought about.
I greatly value the fact that I am able to make this statement before the MEPs who, as representatives of the European democracy, are meeting here in plenary session.
According to the rules of the interinstitutional agreement, this second reading of the Council was preceded by a consultative meeting of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, which took place on 21 November.
I believe I can speak on behalf of all participants in this lengthy meeting, which did not finish until the small hours, when I say that it was not only a success from a budgetary point of view, because the general budget for 2002 will now soon be established, but also politically speaking, for we managed to agree on a number of new elements which presented themselves to us since our first reading and which need to be discussed, as well as a number of priorities.
On behalf of the Council, I should like to express a word of thanks to the Parliament' s delegations and Mrs Schreyer, who went out of her way to achieve this result.
I should first of all like to focus on the new elements. Needless to say, there were the events of 11 September.
Entirely in line with what was decided at the consultation meeting, the Council wanted to set up a scheme to finance the effects in Afghanistan and in the neighbouring countries after these tragic events.
In our jargon, this means that the geographically oriented budget items are increased, and by these we mean the items for Asia and TACIS of the external policy.
For example, at second reading, the Council decided to pledge a total amount of nearly EUR 488 million in commitment appropriations for Asia.
The Council also wanted to leave open a wide margin under the maximum of Heading 4 'External action' with a view to meeting possible future needs in those regions.
This margin is also in line with the agreement that was reached with the European Parliament to maintain a minimum margin of EUR 70 million for any needs in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries.
Moreover, I should like to remind you that it was also agreed to earmark a minimum amount of EUR 35 million in reserve for emergency aid of Heading 6 for possible needs of this kind.
These elements formed an important part of the discussions we held.
Another new element that came up in the discussions, is the conversion programme of the Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleet following the failure to set up a fisheries agreement with Morocco.
In this respect, the Council has included EUR 170 million of commitment appropriations under Heading 2 of the draft budget and has decided to use the flexibility instrument for the corresponding amount.
In this connection, may I remind you that the Council, by way of accommodating the EP' s wishes, has approved a specific allocation of EUR 30 million in commitment appropriations under Heading 2 for the regions which border the candidate countries, and has also approved the use of the flexibility instrument for the corresponding amount?
In the framework of the agreement with the European Parliament on an amount of EUR 20 million in commitment appropriations under Heading 3 for those border regions, the Council has approved the trial project: 'Effects of enlargement in the border regions' .
This agreement was unquestionably one of the key points of the 2002 budgetary procedure.
In order to give this more lasting form, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission have decided in favour of inclusion in the 2003 budget, taking into consideration the maximum amounts established in Berlin, together with EUR 27 million that were not placed on the 2002 budget which form part of the EUR 197 million which the Commission had proposed in the financial statement pertaining to the fleet conversion programme, as well as EUR 15 million for the border regions.
As far as the priorities are concerned, I would remind you that the Council officially adopted conclusions concerning the budgetary guidelines for the forthcoming budgetary procedure in March of this year for the first time.
In doing so, the Council wanted to indicate its budgetary procedures for the year 2002, as is the European Parliament' s and the Commission' s wont.
During the negotiations, the Council continually pointed at these principles and priorities, and adhered to the same.
In my view, this is a sound method, for it indicates more clearly what it is about and what the goal is, and it enhances transparency.
I therefore believe that we all stand to benefit from the Council' s continued efforts in this direction.
Let us start with the priorities which are close to the European Parliament' s heart. I am delighted that an agreement has been reached in the framework of the joint declaration on the management of the commitments outstanding (the RALs) and of the elimination in the medium term of what people started to refer to as 'abnormal RALs' .
I would point out that abnormal RALs, which we defined as sleeping obligations for which no payments have been made over the past two years, as well as old obligations which have been on the budget for at least five years, cannot only be reduced by increasing the appropriations for payment, but also by causing obligations to lapse to a large extent.
I believe that the measures announced by the Commission will ensure that this matter be resolved satisfactorily in due course.
Moreover, we managed to agree on a statement regarding the implementation profile for the 2002 budget.
This statement means that the implementation of the budget will be spread over the course of the year as equally as possible.
The so-called December fever must be avoided in this respect.
In order to achieve this, the Commission has envisaged the following measures. It aims to implement the 2002 budget, taking into account the implementation of the 2001 budget, and make the necessary changes.
The budgetary authority will be notified when the implementation profile deviates considerably from the proposed profile.
Furthermore, an implementation plan for the 2002 per heading of the financial perspectives will be sent upon submittal of the preliminary draft budget for 2003.
I am convinced that these measures correspond to the horizontal amendments which the European Parliament approved at first reading, so that we can look forward to the budget approval with confidence.
The Council has also devoted special attention to the priorities which the European Parliament had listed at first reading, inter alia by agreeing to the additional appropriations for e-learning and immigration.
Needless to say, I am pleased with the post-ECSC regulations and the pledge by the Spanish Presidency to redraft the Financial Regulation.
I should like to conclude this last list of priorities to be taken into account with one of the Council' s essential priorities, namely the controlled increase of payment appropriations.
I shall come back to this in due course.
At second reading of the budget, we took account of the agreements concluded during consultation.
We have tried to adopt a budget which can accommodate all the EU' s priorities, on the one hand, and which can take into consideration the points which were brought up after first reading without losing sight of the real needs and scope for spending the appropriations, on the other.
I should like to outline the other results to you for each heading.
As far as agricultural expenditure is concerned, letter of amendment 2 has been adopted in its entirety.
Moreover, the Council has restored the proposed amounts in the preliminary draft budget for the budget lines which were cut at first reading and to which the letter of amendment refers.
An additional EUR 4.5 million has been included, as agreed during the consultation of 21 November, whereby Parliament' s observations were taken into account.
In a joint declaration with the European Parliament, special attention has been paid to the protection of animals during transport.
I am also delighted that our institutions can reach agreement on the points of this letter of amendment which pertain to expenditure for rural development, fisheries agreements and the inclusion in the budget of the surplus available from the previous budget year in the sum of EUR 1.2 billion.
I believe I have already outlined the key results in connection with the structural measures, namely the inclusion of EUR 170 million by way of commitment appropriations and EUR 39 million in payment appropriations for the conversion of the Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleet, and the amount of EUR 30 million for the regions which border the candidate countries, whereby use is made of the flexibility instrument in both cases.
With regard to internal policy, the Council has kept most points of its first reading and has also partially adopted a number of major amendments of the European Parliament, including e-learning, which entails EUR 5 million, and the European refugee fund, which entails an increase of EUR 5 million.
The rapporteurs have tried to convince us and they have succeeded, but the Council' s willingness to cooperate should also be highlighted here, in my view.
It is under this heading that quite a considerable proportion of the measures will be funded for the benefit of the regions which border the candidate countries.
As far as the external policy is concerned, the Council has not only increased the budget items covering Asia and TACIS by EUR 66 million compared to the draft budget, it has also adopted letter of amendment 2 concerning international fisheries agreements.
Concerning the common security policy, an amount of EUR 30 million in commitment appropriations has been included, in accordance with the results of the consultation of 21 November.
As for administrative expenses, the three institutions agreed to hold extensive discussions about the report of the Secretaries General regarding the multi-annual development.
In my view, quite a few options are still left open.
As far as the EP' s budget is concerned, the Council has adopted draft Supplementary and Amending Budget 5 for 2001, by means of which expenditure for buildings can be forecast in the framework of the 2003 budget, with the obligation to reduce the expenditure in 2003 by an equal amount.
For a number of years now, the Council has adopted a comprehensive approach during its reading, which means that the main issues in the draft budget are the set priorities and the extent of the expenditure category.
Thanks to this approach, the Council has managed to remain under the existing annual maximum amounts of expenditure, established in the interinstitutional agreement of 6 May 1999.
Additionally, in accordance with the interinstitutional agreement, it has managed to ensure that within the maximum amounts of financial perspectives, margins remain available, as a result of which different Community measures and policy lines can be prioritised.
When the second reading was drafted, the Council aimed for a budgetary discipline, so much so that the budget increases are in line with those of the national budgets.
The total increase of payment appropriations is therefore restricted to 2%.
As you know, agreement was reached during the consultation of 21 November in the framework of this general agreement with the help of the Commission.
The Council relies on the fact that the European Parliament will carry on in this vein during its second reading, so that the percentage increase does not exceed the agreed maximum amounts.
Before you have a final discussion on the budget, I should like to emphasise that the Council has endeavoured to take account of certain budgetary rules and basic provisions concerning the inclusion in the reserve of appropriations, the make-up of expenditure, legal bases, preparatory actions and trial projects.
That is why the Council would state once again that it is opposed to Parliament' s use of conditional reserves, which is in contravention of the Financial Regulation.
Furthermore, the Council has once again opted for the outcome of the first reading of the draft budget for heading B7-1 concerning the European Development Fund, since the increase of a funding or even of a margin in the budget lacks the necessary legal basis and is therefore not possible.
Moreover, allow me to remind you that this is intrinsically about compulsory expenditure.
I should like to conclude this brief outline of the second reading by the Council by highlighting that the budgetary procedure been conducted in a good atmosphere.
As in the past, emotions sometimes ran high during the discussions.
Everyone has put forward their view in clear, concise, sometimes lengthy, yet forceful terms.
However, the aim of the consultation procedure has not been overlooked: namely to bring about agreement between the two arms of the budgetary authority with the help of the Commission. In that way, we can adopt a budget which enables the European Union to face its challenges, and also to accommodate the circumstances and the developments which can be anticipated during the 2002 budgetary year and programme in the best possible way.
On my own behalf and that of the Council, I should like to thank in particular Mr Terence Wynn, the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and the two rapporteurs, Mr Carlos Costa Neves and Mrs Kathalijne Buitenweg, as well as all the members of the Committee on Budgets, with whom I have had the pleasure of working over these six months of the presidency of the Council, in which I have not only become familiar with the European budgetary procedure, but have also learnt to appreciate it.
I thank you for your attention.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with the constructive attitude of both branches of the budgetary authority, the European Parliament and the European Council, and with the support of the Commission, it has been possible, throughout the different phases of the complex budgetary process, to find an answer to a series of new challenges, ensure that previous commitments are fulfilled and deal with most of the priorities defined for 2002.
In the light of a markedly balanced end result, it is only fair to single out the work of the members of the Budgetary Commission, the vital contribution of the draftsmen of the opinions of other committees, the responsible involvement of the political groups, the negotiating skills of the Belgian Presidency demonstrated by Minister Vande Lanotte, whom I congratulate, the competence of the Commission departments, which I hereby single out in the person of the Director-General for the Budget, Mr Mangasson, the work of the entire College of Commissioners and the particular endeavours of the Commissioner for the Budget, Mrs Schreyer, whom I would also like to congratulate.
I would also like to make a special personal reference to the invaluable support and contribution of the secretariat of the Budgetary Commission for the excellent results they achieved.
They went far beyond the call of duty.
In a rapid assessment of the results achieved, we should mention the establishment of better conditions for continuing to improve the performance of the budget and make it more effective.
The joint declarations issued by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission are very important.
For the first time, the Council accepted amendments adopted at first reading by Parliament within the framework of the common agricultural policy, thereby opening up promising prospects for cooperation.
It was also possible to meet new needs deriving from the failure to sign the fisheries agreement with Morocco and the impact of enlargement through the financing of a restructuring programme for the Portuguese and Spanish fishing fleets, and specific support for certain border regions.
Fourthly, financing was agreed for three new agencies with competence in the area of maritime safety, air safety and food quality.
There is also an initial response to new challenges relating to the situation following the attacks of September 11, in particular in the areas of policing, justice and external action; here again special reference should be made to the financing of humanitarian and reconstruction actions in Afghanistan and neighbouring countries.
I would further stress the strengthening of the ability to act in terms of e-learning and the special importance given to the response to the tragic situation of the refugees.
Support for the Commission reforms and progress in preparing for enlargement are also envisaged.
Compliance with commitments entered into previously, whether in the context of Agenda 2000 with regard to the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds, or with regard to programmes arising from codecision or even concerning the policy on external action, are also matters which should be addressed.
Of course, it is only normal that new challenges are appearing for the future.
I would single out the following: the endowments needed for expenses of Headings III - Internal Policies, IV - External Policies and V - Administrative Expenses are subject to enormous pressure and the fact that the situation is under control for the time being should not delude us.
The problems will arise again in the next few years and it will become increasingly difficult to find solutions.
In this context, I would mention with regret the rigidity of the budgetary structure deriving from the Financial Perspective in force, which means that in some categories there are substantial balances and in others the situation is becoming increasingly complicated.
It is incomprehensible that with the current difficulties in various sectors, such as external action, there was a balance of EUR 11 billion outstanding in the year 2000, which is around 14% of the total expenditure. We must have the courage to adopt in good time the solutions that in this case are so obvious.
At the same time, it must be stated again that the division of budgetary expenses into compulsory and non-compulsory is a completely outdated concept and, in the light of the most elementary principles of democracy, it is unacceptable for the effective competence of Parliament to be limited to non-compulsory expenses (around half of the budget) and it is incomprehensible that it has no competence as regards the revenue system.
The 2002 budget is ready and I believe it merits your approval.
As for the tasks for the future and the new role of the European Parliament in the budgetary process, we will be here to deal with them.
Once again, thank you all very much.
Mr President, words of thanks have already been addressed to Mrs Schreyer, the Belgian Presidency for its commitment, and to all fellow MEPs and co-workers.
I would particularly like to thank my fellow MEP, Mr Costa Neves, for all the work he has done over the past year.
For the equanimity and meticulousness which he employed, his willingness to take the contribution of other, also smaller, groups seriously and the way in which he managed to persuade everyone to adopt the same line, which was no mean feat.
At the start of the budgetary procedure, it looked as if the pain for the 2002 budget was mainly concentrated in heading 5.
Needless to say, I was delighted with this as rapporteur.
However, now, having reached December, we could say that Mr Costa Neves has yet again assumed the leading role, for Heading 4 is now also showing cracks again.
For the third year running, we have had to supplement the budget by 200 million by calling on the flexibility instrument.
We therefore continue to scrounge in order to fund the political tasks of the European Union.
Despite this, it was once again possible to reach agreement with the Council.
However, as far as my group is concerned, our support is not really heart-felt, and this has everything to do with the tragic rituals and traditions which typify the budgetary procedure.
The President-in-Office of the Council has praised the Community budgetary method and although, admittedly, this method always ultimately culminates in agreement, more than anything, the annual budgetary ritual is a rather irrational process.
The Commission presents a proposal, the Council takes a huge slice off the proposed amount, Parliament adds a bit more, and we are then supposed to come up with something wonderful in the renowned consultation.
It did occur to me to break up the cycle and to simply leave a number of Council cutbacks in heading 5 where they are, including the cutback at the Court of Justice.
It did seem like a healthy exercise to let the Council come face to face with the effects of its actions and its unilateral obsession to remain well below the ceiling of the financial perspectives.
Unfortunately, I did not do this.
I have had feedback that that is what I should have done.
I decided against it because otherwise the wrong people would yet again be penalised.
This view about assuming one' s responsibility fits in well with the idea that we also mooted at first reading, namely that political promises made by Heads of Governments and Ministers should be accompanied by a financial picture.
We have drawn the necessary lessons in the reconstruction of the Balkans, and it seems fairer to me if it is indicated whether new tasks also require new funding, and - that is at the same time a promise - whether aid to a region in crisis will require cutbacks in peace projects in the Middle East or in projects against sexual violence in South Africa.
What is at any rate a bonus is that this time, aid to Afghanistan featured as a prominent part of the consultation and, unlike in the Balkans, external pledges were not made at donor conferences first, upon which we were expected to pick up the pieces, but these were discussed during the consultations.
I hope that this was not simply a question of good timing, but the start of a positive development.
Another bizarre aspect of the budgetary procedure is the implementation of the budget, and we as Parliament are also guilty of making empty promises.
We want tens of millions of euros more for South America, for instance, without knowing exactly why only 60% of last year' s funding was spent.
And each year, we intend to better monitor and adjust the Commission' s budget, which is no reason not to do it this year.
My group will therefore grant priority to this aspect during the preparation of the 2003 budget.
However, my group is pleased with the minor changes in the Council' s budget in the area of foreign policy expenditure.
Not a great deal of money is involved, but it is significant nevertheless.
It is now clear that Parliament will from now on give its verdict about the Council' s budget in terms of operational expenditure, which is an improvement.
The budget is a means, not an end.
It funds our activities for citizens in Europe and elsewhere, and if there is one slogan of which the European policy-maker cannot get enough, then surely it must be that Europe should be closer to the citizen.
And you cannot get much closer than the people of Elsene, our neighbours in Brussels, and I am therefore delighted with the paragraph in the present resolution which urges us to draw up a sound inventory of what we need, and how we can provide for it, and also to take account of the interests of the citizens in the immediate vicinity, before we start making plans for new Parliament buildings.
I would thank the Bureau for all its efforts and I hope that the planned hearing will lead to positive results, also with regard to the conservation of the quaint little station.
It is important to put forward great visions, but it is just as important to face up to the practical implications of these.
Mr President, I would firstly like to apologise to the House because I must leave, since I have obligations in my capacity as Vice-President in a few minutes time and I will not therefore be able to attend the whole of the debate.
The report which I have just had the honour of presenting deals with an important contribution to the Community' s budgeting and programming system.
We had an agreement, based on the joint declaration of 20 July 2000, in which we established a system for programming and verifying the activities of the Commission in relation to the Financial Perspectives.
Its objective was to serve as a guide for the decisions of the Budgetary Authority, offer a vision of the margins available in each heading, taking account of the contributions already approved during the codecision procedure, and facilitating the application of the new assessment procedure originating from the aforementioned joint declaration.
We are now in an important financial year and, for the first time - we will thank the Commission for this - it offers us this opportunity to see the programming of Headings 3 and 4, in relation to our activities.
There is an issue which interests us, a very methodological issue, on how to plan, in the future, the programmes which are already under way, and there is just one point which interests us: for certain programmes, for certain budget lines, future inflation is included, by means of what the Commission calls a budgetary deflater, and, in our opinion, it ought to be a budgetary inflater.
There is a technical contradiction here.
The Financial Perspectives are expressed in standard euros, while the programming works in current euros for each year.
The result is that we do not really know, when we reach an agreement, what value we may have for the previous year because it will depend on real inflation.
Anybody who has been a trade unionist knows that one can lie through statistics in many ways and this is one of them - by mixing current prices with standard prices; and I will not therefore insist on this.
I am going to give you an example - by hiding future inflation in the framework programme, the Commission reaches the conclusion that, according to its figures, between 2002 and 2006, we will have an increase in annual contributions of 14.3%.
Inflation is hiding the fact that, basically, we really only have an increase of 4.9%.
This is the real increase.
The rest, which brings it up to 14%, is inflation.
That is what we do not like.
The other day, the Commission told the Committee on Budgets that, with the euro, inflation is dead.
Praise the Lord!
I accept that, but I am from the school of Saint Thomas and prefer, when it comes to these things, to see before believing.
When I have seen that inflation has disappeared, I will accept the removal of this type of differentiation between standard prices and current prices and, therefore, this is the main issue from our point of view.
All the rest of the Commission' s work we believe to be excellent.
Our concern is really to prevent a situation where, through this technique, the higher real inflation is, the greater the margin available will be.
It makes no sense and therefore our request, included in the motion for a resolution, is very simple: if it suits the Commission to continue working, for whatever reason, in terms of current euros, it should do so, but the information it offers Parliament must also be expressed in standard euros.
This is the key point of our report.
As for everything else, I would like to thank the Commission for the effort it has made to offer us this information for the first time.
Mr President, I am a somewhat unexpected rapporteur for this report.
The report is in my name because the person who has done all the work on this, the standing rapporteur for the financial perspective, Mr Colom i Naval, decided after a lot of consideration that he could not present it to Parliament.
I know his reasons why.
I have spoken to him about them.
I can respect those reasons but I am somewhat saddened that he is not giving this report instead of me.
For the last three years the flexibility instrument has been the main aspect of the budget and it has overshadowed everything else.
On this occasion we are using it for two programmes, as has been said by speakers before me.
I do not have to outline what that is, but I have to outline one small problem which we have not yet resolved, that is, how the remaining money - the EUR 27 million for the reconversion of the Spanish fisheries fleet - will be found for the budget after next year.
That remains an issue on which I am sure the Commission will be creative and inventive when it comes to next year's budget - to make sure that money can be found, because it is certainly expected.
When the interinstitutional agreement was agreed, the flexibility instrument was one of the items which was reluctantly agreed by both sides - reluctantly from our side because there was a lot of resistance to the IIA anyway.
Do not forget that it was passed in this Parliament by a simple majority, not by a qualified majority.
That was an issue in itself.
The Council did not really like this idea anyway.
If I remember correctly it was the Commission that proposed it as a way out of the impasse.
It is a good job that it was proposed because it has 'saved our bacon' for the last three years.
In the first instance it was the great debate on how to fund Kosovo.
The Council did not want to use it and we went to the wire, if you can remember that famous occasion in this Chamber when we each had two voting lists.
Then last year it was on how to fund Serbia.
That in itself was a problem and now on this occasion we have how to fund the reconversion of the fisheries fleet and also the cross-border initiatives.
These last three years have shown the creaking structure of the financial perspective.
I am sure that this is a point that Mr Colom i Naval would have made.
We have a situation where the financial perspective has great problems with heading 3, heading 4 and certainly heading 5.
Unless Parliament and Council begin to get some sort of agreement on how to fund these categories in the future, the consequences will be there for all to see.
It is the consequences of pre-enlargement.
It is not necessarily enlargement itself.
The preparations for pre-enlargement will be as big a headache as the enlargement issue itself.
We also have the needs of Afghanistan, or perhaps I should say the unknown needs of Afghanistan. What are we going to do about that?
What are we going to do if we get a hoped-for peace agreement in the Middle East? Where is that money going to come from?
There is no room at present in heading 4. I have heard rumours that the Commission may be proposing an extra flexibility instrument for heading 4.
If it does, it will be a welcome addition, but whether it would be agreed by the Council is a different matter.
This head-in-the-sand attitude cannot prevail if we are trying to be serious about how we manage the Union's budget and the taxpayers' expenses in the future.
The negotiations with the Belgian presidency at the second conciliation were 100% better than the first conciliation, which was a waste of time, as I made known last time.
At least this time it was good to do business with the Belgians, as it was last time when I was general rapporteur for the 1994 budget.
There are areas where we have our differences, such as in heading 3 where we have always had difficulties.
In heading 5, one of the main areas where we differ is in our support for the Commission on the reform programme, especially on the establishment plan and the posts that are needed.
However, whilst we have agreed on the establishment plan, the Committee on Budgets voted for one third of those posts in reserve, albeit by a one-vote majority.
The coordinators and the rapporteur are working very hard to try to ensure that we can get a position which will deliver a qualified majority on Thursday because if we do not, we may end up with the Council's position which would not aid the Commission's reform process as we would want it to do.
I have seen the letter that Commissioners Schreyer, Kinnock and de Palacio have written, where they state that the conditions for release of the reserve have been met.
If I was not the chairman of the Committee on Budgets I would say that I agree with those sentiments, but since I am the chairman of the Committee on Budgets I could not possibly say any such thing.
I would like you to know that hopefully, between the vote on Thursday and the not-too-distant future, we can all be in a position where we can see the Commission's proposals coming to fruition and we can get on with the job of making Europe the place that the citizens expect it to be and not associated with the great mystique that it represents for too many of them right now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission' s annual report on Trans-European Networks provides a general outlook on Community assistance in the three main areas of TENs (transport, energy and telecommunications), which are financed either through the general Union budget or through other Community sources such as the EIB and the Cohesion Fund.
I believe that, overall, it is a good report, if one also takes into account the fact that 1999 was a pivotal year for this sector, in fact, 1999 saw the modification of the financial regulation, the approval of the financial framework for 2000-2006 and the creation of ISPA; this year, 50% of the funding was devoted to transport infrastructure works and the emergence of Galileo as a new and priority TEN project.
This does not mean, however, that there are no criticisms to be levelled at the Commission; these derive above all from the type of report it has given us and not from the implementation of the Trans-European Networks.
The first criticism I intend to make about the report concerns the lack of references to the qualitative development of TEN projects.
Very often, the initiation and completion of projects have taken much longer than expected because of procedural differences and a lack of coordination.
In several cases, Member States have had different priorities, while the notion of public or private partnership is not yet well developed.
In future, therefore, the Commission should attach additional information on the projects to its reports, such as, for instance, the original plans, timetables and the results achieved.
This would, first and foremost, increase transparency and thus also permit more effective and productive monitoring of the situation.
Secondly, the financial evaluation of TENs should include information on funding through local, regional and national budgets and also through private resources, since roughly 80% of the total funds comes from these sources.
It would thus be possible to obtain an overall view of the state of funding and to check that the commitments undertaken by Member States are maintained.
Thirdly, I believe that the financial resources available for TENs are too limited in view of the continual challenges faced by the transport sector.
The percentage of TEN activities funded by the general budget is constantly falling, while EIB loans cover more than three-quarters of the funding in this sector, and this is highlighted.
My view is that the funding package for transport TENs should be reviewed and adapted to actual needs, especially in light of the reductions in other sectors, such as the environment.
Lastly, I believe we must properly address the problem of road traffic, the constant increase in which runs contrary to the objectives that were proposed when TENs were created.
I think this is due to a lack of cross-border cooperation, which necessarily undermines the interoperability and promotion of rail networks.
To get round this problem it will, I think, be necessary to gradually shift the emphasis away from the Essen priority projects and national infrastructure projects towards transit and cross-border projects, so as to strengthen the policy of sustainable transport and promote integration between different modes of transport.
In conclusion, I should also like to mention the budget that we are about to vote on.
I believe we have come to the end of two not inconsiderable political problems which reflect the additional needs which have emerged in view of the changed international situation.
In second reading, we have left an ample margin for assistance to Afghanistan and neighbouring regions, and with the Council we have agreed on the figure of EUR 488 million for cooperation with developing countries in Asia.
Once again, then, we have given evidence of our political sensitivity and lent our support to the common foreign and security policy.
It was unthinkable that the Union might absent itself at a time like this, and it was also unthinkable that Parliament might default after the explicit request by the Council.
This does not, however, mean that everything is fine and that no criticisms should be made.
Nevertheless, I must especially congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Costa Neves and Mrs Buitenweg, as well as all the Secretariat staff who have helped and supported us through both good and difficult moments.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the result of the budget negotiations that we have before us is self-evident.
During the period of the budget negotiations, that is to say from the time the preliminary draft budget was submitted to the present day, many new demands on the EU budget have arisen.
World events, the terrorist attacks of 11 September, the war in Afghanistan, and the crisis in the Middle East have all given rise to new budgetary requirements.
The crises in the agricultural sector that we have witnessed this year have meant new budget requirements in the coming year, and the public's changing expectations also need to be reflected.
Together, we have succeeded in adapting the 2002 budget to these new challenges and given how often the European Union is criticised, we should make sure that this positive outcome is heard loud and clear.
We have succeeded, and this is thanks to the well-balanced and reconciliatory way in which you, Mr Costa Neves, have approached the negotiations, and we wish to thank you very sincerely for that.
We have also succeeded because of the exacting approach of the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Wynn, who also demonstrates a willingness to compromise, and we have succeeded because of the skilful way in which the negotiations were conducted at the crucial point by the President-in-Office - by you, Mr Vande Lanotte - and I would like to sincerely thank all of you, together with the rapporteur, Mrs Buitenweg, Mr Colom i Naval, the entire committee, and also you, Mr Turchi, on behalf of the entire Commission, for this very fruitful cooperation.
I would also like to mention Mr Seppänen. He had the historic task of presenting the report on the last budget of the European Coal and Steel Community.
And we can also describe the level of the EU budget as well-nigh historical, that is to say the EU budget share.
The budget as a proportion of Europe's GNP is lower for next year than at any time during the 1990s.
It will amount to only 1.03% of Europe's GNP.
The EU budget is accordingly EUR 4.6 billion lower than the amount provided for next year in the financial perspective.
EUR 4.6 billion is almost 5% of the entire budget, or to put it another way, it was envisaged in the financial perspective that the budget for 2002 might be 5% higher than is now actually being agreed.
I am stressing this point firstly because it reflects the budgetary discipline that prevails at European level, and, Mr President-in-Office, because the EU budget is therefore below the average growth rate for budgets in the Member States. That is also worth emphasising.
Secondly, this result also demonstrates that scope for action has been created to allow the EU to take on new financial tasks, and I am referring here, in particular, to the debate on the costs of enlargement.
That therefore means that Europe, the European budget, is prepared to assume new tasks.
Aid to Afghanistan for peaceful future development of that country is a new task for which the European Union should, and will, assume responsibility.
An initial provision has been made for this in the 2002 budget, with EUR 130 million in addition to the funds already earmarked for humanitarian aid.
This is a positive result, particularly in view of the fact that it would be disastrous if we were to reduce our commitment to the Balkans.
That cannot be allowed to happen, and for that reason the same amount is being made available for the Balkans as this year, with a part being brought forward to the end of the current budget year.
Further aid is also needed for Palestine.
Together with other donors, we are making good some of the loss of income that the Palestinian Autonomy Authority has suffered because Israel is holding back tax and customs receipts because of the escalation of the conflict.
The use of this money in Palestine is subject to strict controls.
It is supervised by the International Monetary Fund, and there are no indications that this money is being misused to purchase arms. That would of course be totally unacceptable.
The European Union is supporting public health and it is supporting education.
We want to use our contributions to give the peace process a chance.
That is our aim, I am very glad that at yesterday's Council press conference the Minister, Mr Perez stressed that Israel, too, regards financial support for Palestine as being important.
The European Union is in the process of shouldering more responsibility on the world political scene, and that is a good thing.
This involves a greater commitment to civil crisis management, which in turn requires financial means and, as you know, and as the chairman of the Committee on Budgets has stressed once again, the budgetary rules are such that funds released elsewhere cannot simply be used for additional expenditure on external policy.
Of the EUR 4.6 billion that the 2002 budget will be below the amount provided for next year in the financial perspective, we cannot just use EUR 400 or 500 million for coping with external policy crises.
Nor can we simply use money from the budget surplus to finance new requirements.
That is why the Commission has proposed that by means of an agreement between the Council, Parliament and the Commission, an extra reserve should be created for additional external policy actions, and I believe that this is in fact the ideal way to avoid unravelling the financial perspective whilst still addressing the new challenges facing the Community in a Community-oriented way.
It would be a good thing if the Laeken Council could also express its support for this approach.
A new feature of the 2002 budget is the commitment of funds for measures in the area of judicial cooperation, including the development of the new information system for Schengen and for Eurojust.
The Commission's estimate of funds for this area is something quite new.
Another new item is the programme to restructure the Spanish and to some extent the Portuguese fishing fleets which up to now have been able to fish in Morocco's waters.
The Commission welcomes the fact that the budgetary authority accepts the Commission's proposal both with regard to the level of this special programme - EUR 197 million - and also concerning the specific shape of the programme and the proposal to finance it by mobilising the flexibility instrument.
The compromise solution of making additional funds available in the 2002 budget for the regions bordering the candidate countries was really not easy to achieve.
However, the compromise of entering part of the additional amount in the 2003 budget for these two requirements is acceptable, and I can assure you that the Commission will make the necessary financial proposals for 2003, so that the funds for the programme to restructure the Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleets will be available.
It is now up to Spain and the border regions to implement the programmes being allocated additional funds as rapidly as possible, and the Commission will support this.
I say this because it is evident that the public and the fishing industry in Spain expect this now, as do small and medium-sized enterprises in the border regions.
Parliament has this year once again very strongly supported the Commission's reform process during the discussions on the budget.
I would like to express the Commission's heartfelt thanks for this.
However, I nevertheless wish to touch on one point, and a very important one at that, regarding the reserve for the 105 new posts envisaged up to now.
In the Committee on Budgets you agreed two conditions for lifting this reserve. The first is that the Commission should bring forward a proposal for a permanent early retirement scheme.
The Commission has already included this in its guidelines for personnel policy, and will consult on a proposal for amending the statute.
The second condition was better matching of budgetary decisions and the Commission's work programme.
This was also the subject of this morning's debate, and the Commission undertakes that, as from next year, it will present the most important initiatives with an impact on the budget at an earlier stage.
I can also assure you personally that I will support this request for the budgetary implications for the coming year of new legislative proposals to be made clear at the appropriate stage of the budget process.
I hope that we will also reach a satisfactory outcome on this point.
Two thousand and two is an important year for agricultural policy.
The interim review of the agricultural policy has to be presented.
Next year the agricultural budget will rise by only 0.5%, which is less than the average, and that is despite the fact that, for example, there is EUR 400 million in the budget for the reimbursement of expenditure to Member States because of foot and mouth disease and that a total of EUR 8 billion is available for the beef sector.
The reform process, the mid-term review, not only has a financial dimension, it is also about setting objectives in agricultural policy, and the second pillar, the promotion of rural development, has an important role to play here.
However, with regard to the Sapard programme of pre-accession aid for agriculture, the Commission still considers that the proposal for a new programme is not the right way to go.
Two thousand and two will also be a very important year for the enlargement of the European Union.
Negotiations should be concluded for the countries that have made the greatest progress, and in concrete terms this means that budget-related negotiations on agricultural policy, structural policy and on the budget itself will be completed.
The Council intends to have determined its common negotiating position for the budget chapter by the end of next June. The budget chapter is, of course, the crowning achievement of the accession negotiations.
The Commission has already agreed to present a proposal that will not go beyond the amounts set in Agenda 2000 for new Member States for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006.
That was also laid down in the interinstitutional agreement.
The Commission accordingly expects to receive the support of the budgetary authority for no more and no less than these annual amounts being made available.
Two thousand and two is also the year in which the convention on the reform of the European treaties will start its work.
We are now virtually on the eve of the Laeken Summit and of having to agree the programme of work for the convention.
An important subject for the future to be dealt with by the convention will be the Parliament's budget rights.
The outcome of the 2002 budget negotiations is evident and this outcome will once again enable the challenges to be met.
Nevertheless, it should be clear for the future that the European Parliament finally deserves full budget rights.
This is a touchstone for the democratic development of the European Union.
Thank you, Mr Tajani.
This is good news for everyone.
Mr President, I would like to thank the general rapporteur for the budget, Mr Costa Neves, for the efforts he has made to achieve a balanced and reasonable budget which respects the competences and prerogatives of this Parliament.
We now have to ensure maximum efficiency in its management and I therefore call on the European Commission to spend the money in a balanced fashion between all geographical areas, since I do not believe it is correct to undermine the priorities set by the European Parliament by redistributing appropriations at the end of the financial year.
To this end, the Commission clearly needs to be provided with the necessary human resources, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs has asked, particularly with regard to the management of external aid, for the Commission to have those human resources which will allow it to carry out the efficient management we are referring to.
Finally, Mr President, I share the concern expressed by other Members, because, in order to fund new priorities in subsequent financial years, new resources will be required, so as not to jeopardise the European Union' s external action commitments.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, who is nearly at the end of the second reading.
I need to remind him, from a control point of view that we anticipate and look forward to him taking a keen interest in how the budget is implemented by the Commission next year and how he drives it forward from there.
The Committee on Budgetary Control tabled a number of amendments to the budget to gain extra information and evaluations from the Commission.
We are actually getting somewhere this year.
It is a tactic we have decided to use in future years as well.
We would also like to thank the Committee on Budgets for allowing us to have a say on transfers, in which we are particularly interested.
Finally, I thank the rapporteur again for taking a keen interest in the amendment concerning the European Court of Auditors.
We on the committee will be looking at this carefully because we understand that the Court of Auditors will be coming to us for more money, staff and resources in the future.
We are very interested to see how this year's situation develops over the course of 2002.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms, I would also like to congratulate the general rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves.
I also want to offer congratulations and thanks to all my colleagues on the Committee on Budgets.
It is a rare privilege - and I can measure its worth as a committee rapporteur - to be able to say that the Committee on Budgets accepted all the demands we had made, they were, of course, legitimate and carefully considered, and which were put forward in Parliament at second reading.
So I want to thank the general rapporteur and all the members of the Committee on Budgets.
That said, I would like to address the Council more directly, address the intelligence of the Council, if I dare put it that way, knowing that Mr Vande Lanotte is bound to understand what I mean.
Four years ago, the European Parliament proposed setting up a European fund for refugees, an idea that the Council angrily struck off the list at second reading.
No European refugee fund.
Four years have passed and now the Council has just proposed more money than we ourselves had even asked for the European refugee fund it had refused to create.
It took the Council all of four years to understand, to become responsible and, with respect, to show some intelligence.
Another example: for several years now we have included a Schengen list at the budget' s first reading, because for several years we have wanted some of its aspects to be communitised and financed from the Community budget.
Each year the Council would angrily strike off the Schengen heading at second reading.
This time, the Council needs the Schengen heading we had introduced because it has to finance SIS II and has decided to finance it on a Community basis.
That brings me to the third problem.
We decided - Parliament did so at first reading and will do so at second reading - to vote to enter EUR 5 million under the Europol heading to combat terrorism.
The Council did not accept this at second reading.
I would ask the President-in-Office of the Council to do the impossible and to create the necessary legal basis and agreements.
I would ask it to use this money without waiting four years, because the terrorists for their part will not wait that long.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to make a number of basic points with regard to the agencies.
The decision to deal with the agencies on an individual basis was an important one.
I have very carefully read through the amendments proposed by the specialised committees, and to those of you who sit on them I would therefore like to send out a signal.
I ask you, firstly, to take a close look at the agencies with a view to seeing whether or not they work well, and then read the report of the Court of Auditors.
Something else, too, about the new agencies.
I think policy is tending in the direction of creating even more agencies, something, which also appears to be the Commission's strategy.
In general terms, this is not to be rejected out of hand, but it becomes objectionable when it comes to finance, as the Commission does not include their funds in the calculations.
So if, in future, the Commission or the agencies, as the case may be, come wanting more resources, then heading 3 will not be able to take the strain.
I too would like to congratulate both the rapporteurs on their budget reports and thank them for the collaborative approach that they have adopted.
We have had a tough budgetary procedure especially in relation to the priorities of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
This will present my committee with problems in meeting obligations on a number of programmes.
These programmes are not just crucial to achieving a dynamic knowledge - based Europe but, in the light of the tough current economic climate that the European businesses and organisations are facing, our key to achieving our aims of creating new jobs and supporting businesses.
However, I appreciate the constraints that we are working under and, as someone who in the past has emphasised the need for prudence, efficiency and economy, I know that my committee will do its utmost to deliver growth and prosperity for the EU.
The issues that I really want to raise concern the implementation of the budget.
First, there is the Commission habit of ignoring some of the priorities of this budget authority and I want to give you an example from my committee in relation to the synergy programme.
It is a small programme, but nevertheless an important one.
However, it did not actually suit the particular director-general to implement this programme last year and so it was just ignored because they believed it did not have a big enough impact.
Secondly, there is the use of transfers, which I believe are open to misuse because often these happen very late in the budgetary process and the Commission will transfer money from areas which are priorities for Parliament to those that are priorities for them.
We must have mechanisms in place to stop this recurring year on year.
Thirdly, there is the lack of synchronisation between the budgetary process and the launch of legislative programmes.
It makes a mockery of the budgetary process and the authorities when you have the launch of the budgetary process in February and the launch of the legislative programme in November.
Very quickly, I wish to move on to the other institutions budgets.
This concentrates largely on preparations for enlargement.
I understand that Parliament has made plans for new buildings to incorporate the new Member States.
However, if we are increasing buildings in Brussels, it is important that we learn from the lessons from Strasbourg and that we do not make the same mistakes as we did with this building which generated a lot of negative publicity and reflected very badly on Parliament.
Therefore, for the future, it is important that we have a clear explanation of what these buildings are going to be used for and that these buildings are environmentally friendly, user-friendly and cater for people with disabilities.
I must express surprise that we are already negotiating on new buildings in the absence of major decisions in a variety of areas including the language regime.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate both rapporteurs on the result achieved and also on the speeches they gave here this afternoon.
However, I have to admit that I still feel slightly resentful about the Council' s result.
I am pleased with the final, positive result, but on the other hand, why did the Council present such an unacceptable initial proposal?
It truly seemed as if the members of the Council were, once again, behaving like little boys running riot with cap pistols, as I expressed it a number of years ago.
Fortunately, everything got straightened out, for we would have had major problems with the whole of the budget on account of heading 3.
I really fail to understand how the Council dares present proposals of this kind.
In my opinion, we have made a rather considerable concession with regard to payments.
I believe that we should monitor this more closely in future.
The Council seems to have taken an interest in this, and it may be wise to be a little less generous next time than we were this year.
But that is a matter for next year.
I should like to highlight that, in future, we will be extremely short of cash in Headings 3, 4 and 5.
We subscribe to what the Commissioner referred to, namely how relatively little the Union is currently spending.
We must, of course, also bear in mind that as soon as new Member States join, the outlook will change immediately.
We are therefore putting some savings away for the future.
Another point which causes great concern, in my view, is the Council' s attitude towards projects which could improve employment.
The issue surrounding Galileo springs to mind, which has caused great difficulty.
All other points which cost money from the EU budget and which can contribute to better economic performances in the coming year - and there are quite a few of those - have been systematically discouraged, and if we do not sufficiently appreciate this, we will really end up in a recession.
If we see what the Americans are currently doing, how much money they are prepared to pour into their recession, we do not have to copy all of this, but we can move slightly in that direction and manage our funds wisely.
Mr President, I again would like to congratulate the rapporteur, the Commission and even, to some extent, the Council for the work they have done this year.
This has been a budget procedure which has so far run with remarkable smoothness.
We recognise the pressures on the budget - whether it is the Balkans, Palestine, enlargement, Afghanistan or the demand for action in new fields of activity.
Balancing these pressures has been quite a performance, particularly on behalf of the Commission, and for that we say thank you.
In those sectors that are the concern of the Environment Committee I particularly welcome the establishment of frameworks and long-term funding regimes which have certainly stabilised our work in the area of consumers.
I welcome the developing framework in the area of health where it is certainly going to encourage the development of steady progress in that field.
It is equally important to say that those kind of stable funding regimes assist our work enormously.
I am pleased that they have been, in the most part, respected.
I also welcome the decision that was going to be taken, but has not, not to withdraw money from the Life Programme for the environmental projects that are so important.
We can only develop our work in guaranteeing the future rights of the consumer, the health of the public and the safe, clean environment if we put our money where our mouth is and spend the cash that is needed.
Mr President the reform of the common fisheries policy on 1 January 2003 will change this important economic sector for the better.
Of that I am convinced.
It was for that reason that the committee did not want to bring in any new Budget lines at the present time, with the exception of the flexibility reserve because of the Morocco disaster, which has been a heavy blow for the fisheries sector and raised many issues. We did, though, seek a few small changes.
A: on food safety, especially with regard to genetic engineering, where there is an urgent need for scientific underpinning.
B: on the monitoring of fishing activity.
We need rigid controls and, perhaps, financial sanctions to deal with the black sheep.
C: genuinely to include the sector in discussions and in the legislative measures in accordance with the bottom-up principle.
Dialogue must be put on a formal basis.
To sum up: We thank the Commissioners and in particular Mr Costa Neves for their constructive and wise collaboration.
The Committee on Fisheries felt itself to be in good hands.
We wish to maintain fisheries for our benefit and for the benefit of the generations that will come after us.
I seem to have another minute to go, so I would like to touch on another subject.
I refer to Mr Turchi and Mr Prodi's statements about Galileo this morning.
I appeal to all of you not to block the road to further development.
Mr Dover, the amendments proposed to Mr Turchi's report on TEN 1999, above all by our British colleagues, should be rejected.
The justification for them is false, as the enterprises had, in a 'Memorandum of understanding' , taken a positive line on their financial participation as early as the beginning of 2001, without the political will having been present at that time.
Mr Dover, please think of the many jobs involved, as Mr Prodi has done.
Mr President, I am now focussing just on sport, or more accurately, its absence from the draft budget that has been adopted by the Council.
A statement has been made in many consecutive summits, most recently at Nice, on the social importance of sport.
Despite that, sport is hardly taken into consideration in the work of the Union.
The situation has become more critical as, unfortunately, the EU had to withdraw from WADA funding.
The Committee on Budgets has repeated the proposal by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, which was agreed in Parliament' s first reading, for an appropriation of five million euros for preparatory actions for a Community policy in the field of sport.
The appropriation would be used, for example, to help the work of sports associations to prevent exclusion amongst youth.
I hope that the motion will receive Parliament' s support in the vote on Thursday. It would also be very much in harmony with preparations for the physical education theme year.
Mr President, my speaking time is limited, but I nonetheless want to address a couple of important issues.
There has definitely been a breakthrough this year in the area of aid, on which I have been working.
We have reached an agreement with the Commission both on how the reporting is to take place and on the direction our assistance is to take in the future.
I would thank the Commission for the constructive spirit in which our discussions have been conducted.
Parliament' s scrutiny and control of aid money will substantially increase.
The conditions are now much better than they previously were for bringing order and method into an activity which is unfortunately often characterised by anything but those qualities.
The fact that the Commission has accepted as a benchmark that a third of the aid must be used as social assistance also definitely represents progress.
The agreement guarantees greater focus upon programmes and activities of special importance in combating poverty.
I also wish, of course, to thank Mr Costa Neves for the way in which he has taken care of the work.
His approach to a very difficult job has been characterised by openness, friendliness and efficiency.
Mr President, Commissioner, the report presented by the Committee on Women' s Rights was approved by Parliament at first reading, practically in its entirety.
A new line, A-3037 N, was added to the amendments in this report, for women' s organisations which do not belong to the European lobby, but which do effective work for the equality and promotion of women.
Both this and certain other proposals by the Committee on Women' s Rights have been removed by the Council, and therefore Parliament, making use of the rights afforded it by the Treaties, since they are not obligatory expenses, is presenting them once again for approval.
We are thereby acting coherently, presenting the amendments which Parliament approved on first reading.
Amongst these amendments I must also highlight line B5-331, Information Society, which is so important for the future, especially for women and their full incorporation into the labour market.
I would lastly like to warmly thank Mr Costa Neves for the very important work he has done and his sensitivity in responding to the needs we had raised.
I hope that the House will approve it by a large majority, because, as you all know, since the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force, all Community programmes must include the objective of promoting women and achieving greater equality, not only in the European Union, but also in the countries with which we have cooperation agreements, particularly in the Euro-Mediterranean area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the draft budget for 2002, both in its Commission section and in the sections relating to the other institutions, deals directly with the financial challenges of enlargement.
The two rapporteurs have budgeted for the structural, administrative and logistical needs which the immense challenge of enlargement will very soon present us with.
For 2002 we are basically faced with two new structural needs originating from the Nice Summit and not foreseen in Berlin.
The first one is caused by the failure of a Community policy, the non-renewal of the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which obliges us to convert part of Portugal and Spain' s fishing fleets, with the great social impact of that conversion on many regions of those countries.
The other structural need derives from the very fact that enlargement is imminent.
We must respond to the needs of the border regions of the Union, whose competitiveness is being weakened by the imminent application of the freedom of circulation of persons, goods and services.
I would like to highlight the fact that the great majority of this Parliament understood both structural needs and supported a joint solution from the outset.
However, it has not been simple to respond to both demands.
Until the conciliation meeting of 21 November it was not possible to agree on a satisfactory solution, and that means living with an excessive degree of risk.
It is therefore very important that we improve the degree of implementation of the appropriations agreed.
Issues such as the entry into force of automatic failed commitments and the achievement of a level of payments which allows for the absorption of the leftovers are priorities which this Parliament is happy to have obtained.
We do not know which new structural needs we will have to deal with between now and 2006 and a degree of flexibility is therefore necessary within the spending categories, while always respecting the principle of maintaining the current financial perspectives which are now entering the third year of their difficult and eventful life.
This acceptance of the financial framework must not, however, lead us to forget how tight it is.
This year Afghanistan and the Middle East are the issues which have once again created tension within heading 4.
The problem is not the ends, but rather the means used by the Council to achieve them.
Nobody disputes the needs of Afghanistan and the Middle East, as well as other international crises which may arise.
But this Parliament does not agree with the Council' s way of doing things.
The Council is once again making financial commitments in external policy without taking account of Parliament' s political priorities, and furthermore it is doing so with non-obligatory expenses, which complicates even further the task of those Members who want to maintain the current financial framework.
We would ask the Council whether it is really so difficult to establish a prior consultation system for external priorities in heading 5?
We take very good note of the words of the Commissioner on the possibility of improving the suitability of the legislative and budgetary procedures during next year and we truly welcome what he has said.
I would like to congratulate Carlos Costa Neves and also Kathalijne Maria Buitenweg, as well as Francesco Turchi on his report on the Trans-European networks.
We would also like to congratulate Terence Wynn on his work as chairman.
We believe that Commissioner Schreyer has found a good ally in this Parliament and that we have received good help from the Commissioner.
We believe that it has been a good marriage of interests.
I would finally like to thank the Council for making the most difficult thing look easy, and that is being here when necessary.
Mr President, I also want to begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mr Costa Neves, Mrs Buitenweg etc.
They have not only sought broad solutions within Parliament but have also persistently maintained our positions in relation to the Council, something which has been especially important.
I also want to thank the Council and the Commission.
We have sometimes been critical about the forms, especially in connection with the first conciliation, but we nonetheless came up with a constructive approach in the end.
It has been possible to solve a number of difficult issues.
It is, of course, incredibly important that we have been able to produce substantial additional aid for Afghanistan, given the enormous needs that exist.
Personally, I am delighted that we have been able to direct a portion of this aid to women' s involvement in constructing the future Afghanistan.
In the same way, there is satisfaction to be found in the fact that we came up with solutions both for the Spanish and Portuguese fishing fleets and for aid to the border regions.
In spite of the fact that work on the budget has, then, proceeded well, we see a number of problems for the future.
One of the biggest problems is that the EU budget is not flexible enough.
Each year, we are witness to events in the world around us which require the EU to contribute resources without delay.
In 2000, this was the case with Kosovo and in 2001 with Serbia, and now this year it is the case with Afghanistan.
We have released funds for these unexpected situations, for example through the flexibility mechanism, but the process has been extremely difficult.
Now, moreover, we are seeing its shortcomings for, this year, we had to use the flexibility mechanism for other, heading-2, aid.
When, at the same time, a crisis like that in Afghanistan occurs, the problem becomes clear.
Obviously, we ought, therefore, seriously to discuss the approach laid down in the interinstitutional agreement, namely that of revising the ceiling in the budget.
The Council is steadfastly saying no to this, in spite of our having a budget, large amounts of which are never used.
The problem, then, is that all that Parliament can do is account for every single krona in the budget, right up to the ceiling, and not allow for any margins for unforeseen events, or else cut back on other of its high priorities and thus let recipients of aid in other parts of the world in practice pay for our new needs in the Balkans or Afghanistan.
We can naturally solve such a dilemma once, perhaps even twice, but when such initiatives tend to become permanent and when the situations in Kosovo, Serbia or Afghanistan give rise to multiannual programmes that pile up without the other needs disappearing, then the situation becomes untenable in the end.
I believe that one of the major issues for next year will be that of finding new ways to increased flexibility.
I therefore welcome the Commission' s ideas as a starting point for this discussion and hope that the Council will show a corresponding open-mindedness.
Another fundamental error is, of course, the poor implementation of the EU' s budget.
We have now launched a number of new methods, which are not only about increasing payments. Instead, we are trying to identify those areas we think of as lagging abnormally behind.
We are trying to specify what is required of the implementation profile. We have conducted extensive discussions as to which services are required if we are to be able to implement initiatives in different policy areas.
Finally, we have also, as Mr Wijkman pointed out, launched a new benchmarking method in the area of aid. These are important areas of progress, but I believe that they need to be developed further in future if we are to be able to win back people' s confidence in how we handle taxpayers' money.
As next year's rapporteur, I naturally see a number of important areas that have to be worked through.
Enlargement is drawing ever nearer.
During the preparations, we must, quite simply, consider not only the short-term perspective but also the long-term perspective when enlargement seriously makes itself felt in the budget too.
Finally, we must also take a genuine look at reforming the Commission.
If we do not succeed in this - and it is not only a question of reviewing the regulations but, above all, of looking at evaluation, follow-up and how we use taxpayers' money - then I do not believe we shall succeed in changing people' s view of the EU.
We must have effective administration and make sure that people regain their confidence in the European Union.
That is one of the most important tasks for future work on the budget.
Mr President, first I would like to heartily congratulate and thank the budget' s main rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves, with regard to his excellent draft budget and his constructive cooperation.
Likewise, I wish to thank the second budget rapporteur, Kathalijne Buitenweg, and also, in particular, the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Terrence Wynn, for his skilful and constructive leadership of the Committee.
The budget for 2002 now being debated is a moderate and disciplined one.
Appropriations have grown by just 2%, which is clearly below the figure for the financial perspectives.
The European Parliament has shown an enormous sense of responsibility, which our group values highly.
This budget is a considerable improvement on the Council' s first proposal.
The agricultural budget is realistic.
There are more funds available to cover outstanding commitments under categories 2 to 4, and there is a common call to use them to clear arrears.
The reform of the Commission proceeds, and any expenditure that should not in fact arise, has been cut.
We particularly appreciate the fact that no negative reserve, that is to say, no uncovered appropriation, has been adopted.
In the first reading of the budget some cuts were made to external actions, such as the western Balkans CARDS programme.
Now we have been able to prevent most of these cuts.
A total of 206.4 million euros is being proposed for the Balkans.
Furthermore, the CARDS programme had already been given 63 million euros out of this year' s budget transfers, so all in all the programme is returning to what was proposed in the Council' s draft budget.
This was immensely important for my group.
For the Commission' s reform 317 posts are being reserved, which guarantees that the reform will proceed.
Of these, 105 are in reserve, and our group hopes that at least the majority of them may still be released.
A flexible instrument had to be adopted once again this year. A compromise decision was reached on its use, according to which Spain and Portugal will see the structure of their fisheries fleets revitalised with the aid of 170 million euros, plus another 27 million in 2003.
Thirty million euros are to be spent on solving border problems associated with new Member States, with a further 15 million being spent on this next year.
Our group supports all these decisions.
Mr President, in the conciliation meeting between the Council and Parliament most of the time was spent discussing the use of a flexible instrument.
The Commission would have promised 197 million euros for the reconversion of the Spanish and Portuguese fisheries fleets, which is a lot of money.
In the same connection, the Nordic countries are demanding 50 million euros to resolve problems on their eastern borders.
It was decided to finance these new needs with a flexible instrument under section 2, but over a period of two years.
This new interpretation of the use of a flexible instrument shows that if there is the political will to finance something, the rules can definitely be bent.
The EU does not have a money shortage.
That is evident from the financial statements for 2000.
Furthermore, there will be a surplus of billions for this current year.
There is 40 billion in outstanding commitments - the so-called 'RAL' s - in the accounts, and it is to be supposed that most of it will never be spent.
The Commission has saved money but it is questionable as to whether it has made any political decisions regarding savings.
As there are such huge budget surpluses, the Commission has not implemented those budget decisions Parliament has made.
To be perfectly frank, the Commission high-handedly invalidated the decisions of Parliament.
If the next EU year is evaluated from the point of view of the budget we might say that things are on an even keel, no rises and no falls.
There are no special areas of focus, only running costs are funded from the budget.
When the Council lacks the ambition to tackle the problem of unemployment, it also shows in the Commission' s draft budget; for that reason, our group takes a critical view of it.
Just a small detail, the Council has not wanted to end the transport of live animals over excessive distances.
The ill-treatment of transported animals continues, and the Council of Agricultural Ministers is to blame.
Mr President, there is an old Dutch saying which reads: 'wie wat bewaart die heeft wat' [waste not, want not].
This has proved invaluable time and again for those who have lived by it.
When we adopt the budget, it is crucial to set aside adequate reserves for unforeseen expenses.
This was illustrated yet again this year.
In this respect, the recent crisis in agriculture springs to mind in the first instance.
Unfortunately, the Commission has abandoned its plans for a reserve in the sum of EUR 1 billion in the compulsory agriculture expenditure.
In our view, the Commission' s argument for this U-turn borders on naivety and bears witness to a short-term view.
Even if expenditure in terms of arable crops, dairy products, sugar, olive oil and mutton turns out higher than expected, expenses are far higher where vinicultural products and cotton are concerned.
Our greatest frustration is the fact that BSE and foot and mouth no longer seem to feature in the Commission' s dictionary.
Mr Görlach from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is right to remark on the underlying uncertainty as to the final end of the foot and mouth crisis in the United Kingdom and other Member States, as well as animal transports and the inconsistent vaccination policy.
Additionally, I share his fear that the BSE crisis is likely to be around for the foreseeable future.
The recent confirmation of a case in Austria speaks for itself.
How does the Commission intend to pay for unforeseen expenditure? Will we once again have to fiddle with the ceilings agreed in Berlin?
The second point concerns the flexibility instrument.
It is striking that these resources, an annual amount of no less than EUR 200 million, have been fully used up ever since this instrument was created three years ago.
I do not call into question the validity of the spending objectives to obtain funding.
What bothers me is the financing method.
Why do budget headings not receive a thorough overhaul for unspent amounts and unprofitable budget lines?
This Parliament wants to be close to the citizen.
It should therefore act as any sensible citizen - if it wants to pay for something new, there will have to be economies elsewhere.
Mr President, negotiations with the Council were, yet again, not straightforward, but it is important that we were able eventually to come to an agreement on the question of the modernisation of the fishing fleet and on additional funds for the Member States' frontier regions.
The roles played by the Commission, and indeed also by some Members, were in our view not always transparent.
The acceding countries must not have large amounts of promotional funds made available to them whilst the frontier regions of our Member States get no additional funds at all.
These regions' economic situation is often not much better than that in the acceding countries.
The poor economic situation in the frontier regions of the Member States may well get even worse after the new countries join the EU, because differing levels of funding - almost all get Objective 1 funding - will greatly favour the frontier regions of the acceding countries, some of which already possess better transport infrastructure than is to be found in the frontier regions of the Member States.
As an example of this, I would mention the airport at Laibach in Slovenia, which is more modern and much better developed than the airport at Klagenfurt in Southern Austria.
The accession of the new states will, for the reasons I have mentioned, make it difficult, or almost impossible, to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the frontier regions of the Member States.
We must, though, be clear in our own minds that the citizens in these regions can hardly be in favour of the accession of new countries under these circumstances.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today is a good day, because we as Parliament have together, and as citizens' advocates, gained something for the frontier regions that the Commission at first denied them, and I wish to thank from the bottom of my heart those Members who helped to make political reality of this important concern that the Heads of State and of Government had articulated in Nice.
My thanks are especially addressed to the Belgian Presidency of the Council, who took the concern of the regions' peoples on board and here provided the financial means it demands.
Commissioner, I now of course expect the Commission to table proposals with all speed.
You have demonstrated that you are in a position to do this where fisheries policy is concerned, and I hope that you will present programmes for the frontier regions within a comparable timescale, so that the money can be tied up as quickly as possible and be spent on the ground on worthwhile projects.
Secondly, I would like to point out that we must, of course, ensure that political priorities and the Budget process are synchronised in the future.
It was this morning that we first had the opportunity to acquaint ourselves with the Commission's political priorities for 2002.
I find that quite unacceptable.
The former Commission, which also had to step down because of problems with the Budget, was significantly quicker and more efficient than the present one when it came to setting priorities and discussing them with Parliament.
As the Commission always needs some supplementary tuition, we will happily provide it.
The best way of doing this is to keep in reserve those positions that the Commission urgently needs.
I hope that will help to make the setting of political priorities and the Budget process go more in step with one another.
I find it unacceptable that we should be told the political plans for the coming year only on the day we are debating the Budget at second reading.
I will also take the opportunity to thank Mr Turchi for his report on the Trans-European Networks.
Here, too, I would like to ask the Commission to see to it that, where funds for stages or parts of networks are made available from the EU's Budget, care is also taken that the whole network is also constructed.
Let me give just one example from my own country, the important transport link from Berlin to Verona via the Brenner Tunnel.
The German federal government readily undertook to finance the construction of the stretch from Berlin to Erfurt, but struck the Erfurt-Nuremberg portion from its list of priorities.
Now, either the money must be repaid, as a stage is no use on its own, or pressure must be brought to bear to get the next stage built.
Let me end by saying something about Parliament and its budget.
I think it is a bit close to Christmas to be drawing up Christmas lists of possible new buildings that we will need if we are to have the space to cope with enlargement.
I think there must be serious examination of whether there is real need for additional space for offices and meeting rooms.
Christmas lists are nice, but the Christ child does not grant us all wishes, and nor should we.
Let me thank everyone, the rapporteurs and especially the Belgian Presidency of the Council, for their cooperation.
Many thanks.
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, I wish to concentrate on a single point, namely the issue of the Commission' s reforms, which are of course an important priority, in this year' s budget too.
There have been quite a few speakers here today who have stated that there are things in the budget process that could be done better and that the institutions should in future work better together, even though this budget has proceeded very peacefully under the expert direction of Parliament' s Mr Costa Neves and Mrs Buitenweg.
However, I also think that, in certain areas, we should give some thought to how we act in Parliament.
In next year' s budget, money has thus been set aside for early retirement and new appointments in order to ensure that the Commission obtains the right manpower for carrying out its tasks.
In Parliament, we have demanded information as a condition of the appropriations, and the Commission has, on several occasions, reported in detail on the staffing situation.
There is a majority in the Committee on Budgets that has wanted to place a large amount of money in reserve until further information has been provided.
I think we must be careful, in making our demands, that we are not too pedantic and do not require too much detail. Otherwise, we shall end up obstructing the reforms rather than promoting them.
We must, of course, ensure that taxpayers' money is managed efficiently and transparently, but I believe it is important for us to concentrate our attention more on results than on detailed management of the Commission' s administration, for that would not promote responsibility.
I think that we in Parliament should honour the obligingness and openness shown by the Commission and either release those items that are in the reserve or at least be content to keep a smaller amount in the reserve so that the Commission obtains reasonable conditions.
Mr President, from Brussels' point of view, the budget for 2002 is coherent and comprehensive, despite the criticisms made by the European Court of Auditors, which I have been examining with great interest.
The Berlin decisions still offer some scope, particularly since there is apparently no need to maintain the levy on the Member States at its present level.
In the implementation of the budget for 2002, I expect the structural support funds for the development of rural areas to be spent in full and all surplus revenue to be reduced to zero before or during the year 2006 if possible, by ensuring that eligible projects are realised within the shortest possible time frame.
In response to another complaint that I hear time and again, I also expect guarantees that enough flexibility will be shown for projects to be replaced if necessary.
At the same time, I expect the Commission to reconsider carefully whether the intended lowering of the support rates for major investments in the least affluent areas is necessary and warranted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first let me pay tribute to the presidency of the Council and to its cooperative approach to this year' s budget.
Naturally I also pay tribute to our rapporteurs and to the Commission for a budget that, in my view, is going in the right direction.
Nonetheless, I have three comments to make.
The first concerns the reform.
In this context I must say that I am most disappointed, we as a Parliament are most disappointed with the various episodes of these past days.
As the President, Mrs Schreyer, will know, I am not addressing her at this moment but the Commission in general, including its Vice-President Mr Kinnock.
I think the kind of communication and exchanges of view we have seen over the past few days between the Commission and Parliament is not likely to help us take the decision we need to take this evening to unfreeze the budget items on reform, which is a pity.
I want to draw the attention of Members and in particular of the rapporteur to two points.
It seems to me that yesterday the General Affairs Council buried the 'European political parties' heading.
That means EUR 7 million are likely to be unusable for lack of a legal basis.
I would ask the rapporteur whether we could vote differently on Thursday.
Furthermore, in regard to the budget heading for north-south cooperation in combating drugs, the Commission has not really followed up that question.
A report that should have been drawn up is not there.
Here again we have entered money under this heading, which has no raison d' être.
So I would ask you whether we could change the vote on Thursday and delete this heading.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe it is right firstly to express my gratitude, as previous speakers have done, for the work of Mrs Buitenweg, of the chairman of our committee and, especially, Mr Costa Neves.
The Union is at a decisive stage of its history, which must be accompanied by budgets which are suited to the challenges we are facing.
We must begin by acknowledging the fact that, if we want to promote the work of the Union and make it truly efficient, we should enter soon into a debate on the Union' s resources and the Community' s budgetary weight.
First of all, I should point out that throughout the difficult negotiation, which has ended with a positive agreement, progress has been made in resolving problems which go beyond a particular budgetary year.
The commitments made in the statements during the conciliation process represent a code of conduct which works in favour of transparency and greater efficiency in spending.
It is therefore important during the next six-month period, under the Spanish Presidency, which has declared its intentions with regard to the financial Regulation, to reach a definitive agreement on this fundamental piece of legislation.
We have responded to the problem created by the lack of a fisheries agreement with Morocco by compensating the Community fleets in Spain and Portugal and guaranteeing the funding of the necessary conversion and modernisation programmes both in the 2002 budget and in the current period, as the Commissioner has pointed out, and I thank her warmly for her commitment.
But it is also necessary for this Parliament to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Commission on such important projects as the establishment of the European satellite navigation system, known as Galileo.
At a time when there are doubts on the part of some Member States, we must make it clear that the programme must not be called into question and that this phase needs to be basically sustained by means of public funding, as the Turchi report demonstrates.
It is true that, as we move towards the mid point of the period of the financial framework in force, the difficulties increase because the new demands, the new commitments, call on the budget without any financial coverage.
Despite the difficulties and contradictions, I sincerely believe that, with the signing of this budget, the way ahead has been partly cleared.
It is a political success because it is rigorous and is accompanied by guarantees of more efficient implementation, and these conditions are essential if we are to ensure healthy and sustainable economic growth.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, here we are at last at second reading and as far as the administrative reform is concerned I agree with Mrs Wynn and colleagues who raised the matter.
It is true that at first reading we were quite severe with the Commission about the reform.
However, as you know, after the Commission' s replies we are quite prepared to give up these reservations, although there are still some points, two in particular, that bother us.
Let me remind you of them.
First there is the question of early retirement; up to now, and for several months now, we have had no reaction and seen no document that meets our expectations.
The second point to which I would draw the attention of Parliament as a whole is the establishment of base management activity, with as its corollary the lack of any reliable response from the Commission on the application of coherent legislative and budgetary procedures with a view to drawing up our next budgets.
I must say that we would not be so concerned if the administrative reform had been accompanied by an even more revolutionary reform, that is, a much more satisfactory system of interinstitutional relations with a view to drawing up the budgets.
I must tell you that if the Council could reply in time, coherently and on a reasoned basis to the questions we or the Commission put to it, we could make progress on every front.
Above all, if the Commission implemented in a reliable manner the budgets we as the budgetary authority adopt, believe me, Parliament would not hesitate today and would find it easier to give a vote of confidence and to abandon many of its reservations, especially those relating to the reform.
You may be sure that Parliament continues to spearhead the reform with a view to modernising the administration; but then the Commission must also give us proof of its serious resolve to reform the working procedures between our two institutions.
Thank you, Mr President.
I, too, should like to congratulate all those involved in this budgetary procedure, which, as far as I can see, was an excellent procedure.
We greatly appreciate the fact that amendments tabled by Parliament to compulsory agricultural expenditure have been adopted under the Belgian Presidency for the first time.
It is somewhat regrettable that the Commission has failed to seize the opportunity to include Parliament' s proposal in the letter of amendment at this stage.
In the light of the foot and mouth crisis, it is crucial for the European Union to do something about the development of marker vaccines and of insurance systems against animal diseases.
I only hope now that the Commission will implement the amendments to this budget, for in the past I have had certain doubts in this respect.
Other amendments which have not been included unfortunately, but which are of major importance, in my view, are the amendments which relate to the quality policy for agricultural products.
This then refers to a quality heading other than the purely organic production.
I hope that the amendment will be adopted and that the Commission will implement it accordingly this time.
Of great concern is still the fact that a large number of amendments are left over, of which the Commission had said before that it was unable or not prepared to implement them.
There is every chance that these amendments will be adopted on Thursday nevertheless.
What will the Commission do in that case? Will it persist in its attitude or will it bow to the wishes of the budgetary authority?
Mr President, I want to speak briefly about an amendment I have tabled to the Turchi report on trans-European networks.
I have no problem about telematics being included in such a programme and I generally support the Galileo project.
But the fact is that nearly EUR 1 billion is committed over the next five years, all from the public sector - from either the European Space Agency or from the Commission itself.
By contrast, only EUR 200 million is allocated to the project by the private sector.
My amendment therefore says that it is doubtful whether the private sector will come up with the goods early enough.
I ask for a reserve of half the money allocated by the Commission for the first year of the funding to be set aside and released only if the private sector signs up to its commitments to take part in this project.
I do not want to smash the project.
I know there are heated discussions in the Council, and many nations have withdrawn their support for now, or are a bit uncertain.
That is not my agenda.
I just want to make sure the private sector comes to the party early enough to make sure there is more confidence in the scheme as a whole.
Mr President, I too thank the rapporteur, the President of the Commission and all those who have contributed to the achievement of an agreement that I see as being positive and satisfactory on two key subjects that have concerned us: the restructuring of the Spanish and Portuguese fleets and the impact of enlargement on cross-border regions.
These two problems do not just affect two nations but have Europe-wide repercussions.
I therefore ask the Commission once again to provide a better definition of the concept of cross-border area and region.
For us socialists, a cross-border region, which should be included in the pilot project and other measures, is one which forms a border by land or by sea.
I do, however, regret certain cuts, in the case of the Balkans for example, but I am also pleased with the success achieved in MEDA recovery.
In this regard, I hope the Commission will give priority to the regional dimension of the partnership provided for within this programme.
I must also express my satisfaction with e-learning, Socrates, Leonardo, Europol, Eurojust and the Global Help Fund.
Thanks also to Mr Turchi for his report.
The projects approved at Essen must be speeded up; the individual States must be involved more, but the space for the great networks linking North and South must also be increased.
Only if North and South can be brought closer together will we have a more cohesive European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me just deal very briefly with some of the comments we have heard.
Mr Colom i Naval suggested that the agreed amounts which are laid down in the multiannual programme should be index-linked.
The Commission cannot endorse this view, because these appropriations must be adopted as absolute amounts.
If we then have a different inflation rate, that naturally creates more leeway in Category III, which such a situation will quite obviously require, and of which Parliament will rightly avail itself.
Many comments related to the implementation of the budget.
May I simply remind the House that a new instrument has been in place this year through which Parliament has been able to take part in the monitoring process, namely the weekly implementation figures issued by the Commission.
This is the only Parliament that is kept so well abreast of the day-to-day expenditure situation.
The Parliaments of the Member States do not have such an instrument.
This is a genuine innovation, and we should certainly maintain it.
For you, of course, it is a very important source of information, enabling you to observe how implementation is proceeding.
I believe that what we have set down in the resolution is another important step towards close cooperation as part of a sound implementation process.
The third point that was raised in many of your contributions concerns the flexibility of the budget as a whole.
How rigid is this system that the Financial Perspective gives us? It is undoubtedly noteworthy that this year, for the first time, the Council consented almost immediately to the use of flexibility instruments, of the flexibility reserve, in the budget.
This really shows how important it is to have a balancing instrument, a fine-tuning instrument.
But of course we must also ask the question whether that in itself is sufficient.
We are in the third year of the Financial Perspective.
Much of what we have to do here together, it must be said, raises budgeting almost to the level of an art form.
This is the third year that we have launched the budget together.
I do believe we can be content once again with the result, which certainly stands up to scrutiny.
On behalf of the Commission, I should like to repeat my sincere thanks to everyone who has been involved in this process.
Thank you Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
Determination of Member States' payments to VAT-based own resource
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0431/2001) by Mrs Haug, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the Common Position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 as concerns the use of ESA 95 in the determination of Member States' payments to the VAT-based own resource (8793/1/2001 - C5-0385/2001 - 2000/0241(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in order to achieve the objectives set in the Treaty on European Union and, more specifically, on Economic and Monetary Union, the Community requires high-quality statistical instruments, which provide all the institutions, governments and economic and social operators with a collection of harmonised and reliable statistics on which to base their decisions.
In this respect, it is necessary to modify the Regulation in order to make it possible to use ESA 95.
We believe that the new ESA 95 significantly improves on the previous version, which dates from 1979.
Progress has been made on the harmonisation of methodology and the accuracy and precision of the concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules which must be applied in order to achieve a quantitative description of the economies of the Member States.
It is clear that, by implementing the change to the new system, the Member States have made additional improvements to the quality of the national accounts as a result of a complete review of their sources and methods used in producing accounts.
Of all the various uses of the national accounting data of the ESA in the budgeting procedure, such as setting budgetary limits, calculating gross national product, setting the fourth resource etc., the only thing that is affected by the modification is the determination of Member States' payments to VAT-based own resource.
In this regard, we agree with the draftsperson of the opinion that to use this new system would make no difference in terms of the level of Member States' payments, since they have already begun to adopt the ESA 95 in producing their national accounts.
To attempt to calculate them again would be expensive and risky and furthermore would not be useful, since all the experts agree that, for rebalancing the levels of taxation, the use of ESA 79 or ESA 95 would not have an effect on the result.
Finally, we congratulate the rapporteur on having obtained a commitment from the Commission to present an annual report to the European Parliament on the state of the collection of own resources, the forecasts in this field for the next budgetary year and certain frequent problems relating to the system.
This will contribute to greater transparency and will allow the European Parliament to be duly informed on the implementation of the modifications necessary for the harmonisation of the new system.
In relation to everything else, we fully agree with the rapporteur' s views.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission firstly wishes to thank Parliament, and in particular Mrs Haug, for your understanding and the common approval of the Council.
As Mr Garriga has stressed, the Regulation is going to allow the Member States to use the best and most recent data from national accounts for the calculation of VAT-based own resources.
As Mr Garriga also pointed out, the Regulation in no way affects budgetary revenue or the balance between Member States in the field of own resources.
The debate at first reading allowed us to better understand and restate the need to improve information to Parliament relating to budgetary revenue.
As a result of this debate, I would like to confirm on behalf of the Commission that, at the beginning of every year, we will present Parliament with a working document on the state of the collection of own resources, the forecasts for those resources for the following budgetary year and any other specific problem relating to the own resource system.
I therefore confirm what has been said by the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, and also Mr Garriga, in this respect.
I believe that in this way we are going to establish fruitful cooperation between the Commission and Parliament, and I would like to congratulate Mrs Haug on this initiative and on the work she has done with a view to the adoption of this Regulation, which is highly technical, but no less important for that.
Thank you Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Green paper on the criminal protection of the Community's financial interests: A European prosecutor
The next item is the Commission communication on the Green Paper on the criminal protection of the Community's financial interests: A European prosecutor.
Mr President, what I have to say is addressed particularly to Mrs Schreyer, the Commissioner.
A fortnight ago, you described me as a champion of the European State Financial Prosecutor.
I take that as a title of honour and might perhaps apply the term to you yourself, as we have now of course achieved what we wanted at the beginning of the nineties - a Green Paper and consequent Treaty amendment.
I believe, though, that the timetable has to be tightened up a bit, as what you have said indicates that such a State Prosecutor will be in place only in 2006 or 2007.
So, we are on your side, but, as we want to speed the process up, I would like to ask you to find the time to enable us to achieve the objective, and, with all the subsidiarity, please see to it that the process is not ponderous, slow or inefficient.
That is important; it will enable us to really move ahead with setting up the State Prosecutor.
The citizens out there demand it, and we are doing something for Europe if we make it clear that it is Europe's money that we are protecting.
Mr President, I would like to pick out a few points.
Firstly, it is a fact that you, Mrs Theato, were the originator of this idea and have been pursuing it for a long time.
I believe that we are now at a stage when, as the Nice Summit showed, it really is important to be precise.
The question at issue was what exactly this meant, which is often taken as an excuse to say that the whole idea will have to wait.
The timetable looks more or less like this: the consultation will run until June 2002.
While a new treaty amendment is launched for the next Intergovernmental Conference, proposals for secondary legislation - that is, on functioning and on such issues as the admissibility of evidence - will be drafted at the same time. The time available will be used for both purposes, so that we can as soon as possible not only give form to the idea, but also make the institution a practical reality.
Firstly I would like to say that the previous speaker, my illustrious committee chairman, was being slightly disingenuous because there is no real demand for a European public prosecutor.
Only two weeks ago in Parliament we saw huge tranches of her own report being deleted because they contained references to such a body.
There will be some dissension among the various political parties in this House but many people are concerned about what this is actually leading to.
I do not think you were being completely fair with us, Commissioner, when you said it will only go so far and no further. Will it lead to corpus juris?
If you say no to this question, how can you reconcile that with the answer that Mrs Delmas-Marty gave our committee a month ago? Mrs Delmas-Marty is the former head of the supervisory body of OLAF and she has written many books on this particular subject.
She said yes - a European public prosecutor will almost certainly lead to corpus juris, a common body of law throughout the Community.
What would be the core competences of the European public prosecutor?
What powers would he or she have?
What are the Community's financial interests? Surely you are not ignoring political signals sent by both the Council - many countries are against this - and Parliament, which, as I said at the beginning, two weeks ago rejected many things to do with the European public prosecutor?
Mr Heaton-Harris, the debate a fortnight ago was about the directive on the protection of Community financial interests, a directive in which the offences of fraud, corruption and money-laundering were defined, and, moreover, in terms already agreed on in 1995 by all Member States, the United Kingdom included.
That agreement, though, is not yet in force, and the Commission therefore proposed to include it in a directive.
Like the Commission, Parliament was of the opinion that the directive was not the right place for a definition of a Public Prosecutor, both of them being convinced that the creation of a European Public Prosecutor could not be accomplished by a directive, but would need an amendment to the Treaties.
It was for that reason that Parliament struck out a Member's proposal that it should be dealt with in the directive, but doing so was not a vote against the European Public Prosecutor.
This, I think, is something we must stick to.
You are right to ask now what the duties of the European Public Prosecutor might be.
One is that he will take over the direction and coordination of law enforcement and also direct investigations, which would themselves be conducted according to national law.
The European Public Prosecutor would then be entitled, having assembled incriminatory and exculpatory evidence, to bring charges on the basis of that evidence, and this would also be done in accordance with national law and in a national court, so there is no question of creating some huge new apparatus or a new European penal code - we all know how much scepticism there still is about that.
Many of these cases are listed in our Green Paper.
There was, for example, the regulation that, where evidence was gathered in one Member State and then, crime knowing no frontiers, was used in a cross-frontier case before another court, it could be objected to on the grounds that it had been gathered in accordance with administrative law. That is something we do not recognise.
It often happens that there is a mass of evidence of fraud being committed against the European budget, but the evidence is, as it were - legally rather than bureaucratically - defined out of existence, because of the sort of differences that there are.
I do not believe that is in the public interest, and it is certainly not in the interests of Parliament.
I would ask you, Mr Heaton-Harris, to examine this proposal with an unprejudiced mind.
We have said that we are committed to applying the subsidiarity principle, but we do of course want there to be real protection in criminal law for Community interests.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to dissociate myself from the remarks made by Mr Chris Heaton-Harris and I believe that the Commissioner has very effectively outlined the framework within which the amendments to the Theato report were rejected in this Parliament.
This is indeed a correct account.
I should like to echo the words of Mrs Theato and call for speed.
Commissioner, you have now announced a timeframe for setting up the post of European Public Prosecutor that is indeed a very slow process.
You will be submitting a proposal after the Green Paper consultation in the course of 2002 or at the end of 2002 or beginning of 2003, this will be followed by a Treaty amendment in 2004, and entry into force is likely in 2006-2007.
You will have to admit that this is all a long way off. I should like to note that at the time, the Committee of Independent Experts made a few suggestions in reaction to the dismissal of the Santer Commission in order to work faster and to move away from multi-stage plans.
I should like to ask you whether you have adopted elements of these proposals by the experts in the Green Paper and whether you are willing to consider them, thus enabling us to make a start on the establishment of the function of European Public Prosecutor at this stage.
Mr President, the Commission had indeed submitted a proposal to amend the Treaty to the Nice Intergovernmental Conference, and if that proposal had been successful, it could be said that the legal basis would have been created as soon as the Treaty of Nice was ratified.
The Council decided otherwise, and this proposal was not even put on the table for the negotiations.
Now we must in fact wait for the next IGC to carry out an amendment of the Treaty that will make the creation of the European Public Prosecutor possible, but, as I was saying, we will be making good use of this time and not just waiting; we will be using the time for consultation to find out the best possible model, and will then be discussing functioning, organisation, status, evidence gained from questioning, periods of limitation, in short, all the things that of course have to be cleared up.
I work on the assumption that we will be having very intensive and practical debates in the Committee on Budgetary Control on the issues that have been raised.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to address the timetable issue, and do so from the same angle as did the previous speaker.
I do not think, Commissioner, that you can in fact afford to wait until 2006. You cannot do so in view of the revelation of two billion euros' worth of fraud and irregularities, and in view of the challenges, some of them financial, with which eastward enlargement is going to face both you and us.
I do think that speed really is of the essence here, and, indeed, you must not wait.
You know that as well as we do, you know our report and you know about the proposals that have been made, which have stated that you are well able to tackle an initial, introductory stage without amending the Treaty establishing the European Community.
Both the Council of Experts, which made proposals in 1999 towards reform of the Commission, and also the latest annual report of the committee overseeing OLAF have mapped out these two stages for you. In view of this pressure, which really is needed, I ask you: why do you still hesitate?
Why are you again putting it off, until 2006? Why are you so hesitant, why do you not take the plunge, as we urged, most recently in the Bösch report?
Mr President, Mrs Stauner, it is not within the Commission's competence to appoint a Public Prosecutor, who can then carry out law enforcement in the Member States and bring charges in them.
That is not the case; rather, the European Union is founded on the Member States' agreement to cede competences to the European level.
The Member States have not as yet ceded the competence to establish a European Public Prosecutor.
The foundation for such a law enforcement competence must first be laid at the European level, in other words, a Treaty amendment is needed to do it, and an effective instrument needs to be created, one that can actually deal with cross-frontier crime in all the Member States efficiently, not only carrying out investigations, but also bringing charges that result in prosecution and, finally, punishment.
It is that procedure that we must apply.
You may well now say that you wish the European Union were different, but I must tell you that the Commission is the guardian of the treaties, and what we propose must therefore take due account of the competences.
This proposal really does, in my view, promise much for the future, and I hope that we can use it to convince even the sceptics.
Mr President, I just wanted to ask a few questions.
I am sorry I was not here at the beginning.
First of all, do you not think that Mr Heaton-Harris is giving a green light to fraudsters? In the past five years only two people have been prosecuted for fraud against the EU.
If he does not come up with any alternatives, it is effectively giving the green light.
I wonder if you could comment on that.
Secondly, how do you convince those Member States which are resistant to the concept of European Public Prosecutor, for example my own country which, in my opinion, is misguided on this point?
Thirdly, how will the European Public Prosecutor be appointed? And, fourthly, do you not agree that it is important not to proceed too quickly and do you accept also that this proposal is not enough?
In other words, Eurojust will simply not work.
Mrs Schreyer, I am going to ask you also to be very brief.
Thank you very much.
Mr President, we are dealing here with a relationship of complementarity similar to that with Eurojust, which I have described.
The European Public Prosecutor proposed here has to do with the protection of Community interests in the financial sphere, whereas Eurojust deals with other types of serious crime.
Of course there has to be a link here, for data exchange among other things, but always from the data protection angle.
We must look at it in a complementary way.
Secondly, the Public Prosecutor's appointment would involve various procedures.
On the one hand, a procedure must be devised for the appointment of the European Public Prosecutor, who would, as it were, represent all public prosecutors.
The national European Public Prosecutors or the Delegates want a decentralised structure and would then be appointed under the relevant law of the Member State.
I do not believe that Mr Heaton-Harris wants to protect fraudsters; rather, this is about what steps have to be taken for protection to be efficient.
I will say again that we have a Community Budget, we have Community finances and we have a common internal market, and to that degree we no longer have borders in the legal sphere, but we do still have seventeen different legal systems, as the United Kingdom has three different legal systems.
These, then, are real obstacles, which leads to the possibility of real defects in law enforcement, defects that we should overcome.
Thank you, Mr President. What the Commissioner is saying all sounds encouraging.
I should like to pose a very brief question: how does she view cooperation between the proposed Prosecutor and OLAF?
Mr Mulder, there are of course various possibilities for that as well.
One is that OLAF would continue in its present function of carrying out investigations under administrative law, in which case provision would of course have to be made for OLAF to present its results to the same Public Prosecutor, who would make use of the intelligence thus gathered.
Another possibility would be for OLAF to itself take over enquiries rather than being limited to an examining role.
We consciously refrained from giving that a prominent position in the current debate, but then it would have been said afterwards that we wanted to give OLAF a specific role.
This is, as it were, an issue that has to be worked out once we have the 'big picture' .
I can only reiterate that we are not now dealing with competing conceptions, but with a White Paper in the drafting of which OLAF played a part.
OLAF is always facing the difficulty of its having gathered evidence or intelligence and then having to wait to see whether a national state prosecutor's office will accept this material and work with it.
If we had a European Financial Public Prosecutor, it would be a really positive step forward for OLAF's work.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
You must not enter into a dialogue.
You must be aware of the Rules of Procedure and apply them.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Questions to the Commission (B5-0536/2001).
Part I
Question No 39 by (H-0878/01):
Subject: Securing the external borders of an Enlarged Union Slovenia has some 370 border crossings with its neighbour Croatia.
However its government currently only has enough money to man around 90 of them.
Thus, some 270 border crossings are currently wide open.
In view of terrorism, organised crime and illegal migration, what plans has the Commission got to ensure a secure border for the Union in the Enlarged Union?
Mr President, one of the future external borders of the European Union is expected to run along the border between Slovenia and Croatia.
There are 36 crossing points along this border where it is legally possible to cross.
The figures quoted by the honourable Member refer to places where crossing the border between Croatia and Slovenia is physically possible but legally prohibited - for instance, footpaths, roads and bridges.
I agree with the honourable Member that it is the reality on the ground - literally speaking - that deserves attention.
The Commission recalls that Slovenia must achieve a high level of external border control upon accession.
The Commission is paying close attention to Slovenia's progress in the framework of the negotiations under the Justice and Home Affairs chapter, as well as in the pre-accession process.
Slovenia is required to demonstrate its capability systematically to check all persons crossing external borders and to ensure effective border surveillance between authorised border crossing points.
In this regard, Slovenia has prepared a detailed action plan for the implementation of the Schengen acquis, as requested by the European Union.
In its action plan, Slovenia has shown that it is taking the necessary steps to ensure that the appropriate infrastructure and equipment are allocated to the border with Croatia.
In addition, Slovenia is taking measures to ensure greater coordination between its authorities involved in border controls.
The Commission wishes also to underline that Slovenia is already engaged in intensive bilateral cooperation for control of the common border with Croatia. This should be further expanded by the conclusion of the agreement on simplified border checks on road and rail traffic and an agreement on cross-border police cooperation.
The latter agreement will also encompass joint border patrols for the surveillance of the green border, that is between the authorised border crossing points.
In addition to the very substantial financial assistance granted to Slovenia for upgrading its border controls - this is financial assistance within the framework of the pre-accession process - the Commission is encouraging and directly supporting the bilateral cooperation between Slovenia and Croatia. This is funded under our assistance programme to Croatia for integrated border management, which will also cover border crossings with Slovenia.
Slovenia and Croatia have recently reached agreement on the demarcation of the common border.
While, in the past, the lack of demarcation did not affect in practice the quality of the border controls and of the surveillance of the green and blue border, this agreement, once ratified, is additional proof of the good cooperation between the two countries.
Thank you Commissioner for a very full answer.
Everybody is aware that this is very difficult.
My point is one that was raised with me by a minister in Ljubljana.
All the crossings, whether they are legal or illegal, will be used by terrorists, smugglers, immigrants, criminals and so on.
Therefore it is a very serious problem.
The minister also said to me: we cannot pay; we do not have the money to man all these crossings!
So Slovenia has got a real problem.
There are nine other applicant countries - if I leave aside Cyprus and Malta where it is presumably easier to control the borders - so we have ten applicant countries, all with problems like this, without enough money to meet the cost.
Is there any possibility that the Commission might propose that the Union takes on a responsibility for guarding our eastern borders?
I would not necessarily agree that the ocean is easier to control.
I mean it is as easy getting to Malta and Cyprus in the dark from the sea as crossing a hill in the mountains.
We know that there is a real problem.
We have organised and funded capacity-building support to provide very strong assistance in this effort and this is what we have to do right now.
It is quite important, as part of the whole negotiation process and accepting the acquis and responsibilities, that we clarify that this is a responsibility for the applicant country.
There are numerous problems.
The issue of controlling the periphery of the European Union will remain with us as a real challenge for quite some time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the EU-Slovakia Joint Parliamentary Committee recently toured our border with Slovakia.
Near Kosicec there is a forty-kilometre long border strip consisting of green fields.
We were told that this is very difficult to monitor and that, at present, a very substantial influx of Afghan refugees can be observed there, perhaps not all of whom are entering Europe motivated by peaceful intentions.
I would therefore like to ask if it is possible for the Commission to introduce satellite surveillance here, for example, or automated systems, making it possible on the one hand to gather statistical material and, on the other, to pick up more of these refugees and so be better protected in future? What programmes are in fact available to these states?
Mr President, it is difficult to add anything substantially new to what I already expressed.
But the mention of satellite monitoring prompts me to say that it is quite well understood in Parliament that the Commission is serious about Galileo and considers it to be an important programme.
This is just one other application.
Not having it would be a problem for the future of Europe and for our ambitions.
I could not agree more with your remarks, but please talk to your national governments about that issue.
Question No 40 by , which has been taken over by Carlos Carnero González (H-0881/01):
Subject: Revitalisation of the Euro-Mediterranean policy On 24 October 2001 President Prodi, addressing the EP plenary in Strasbourg in the debate on the Ghent European Council of 19 October 2001, said: 'The time has come to make new moves in the Mediterranean area. (...) We must now take full advantage of all the opportunities open to us to ensure real progress.
The Euro-Mediterranean region must aim at genuine economic integration and at setting up institutional mechanisms for taking common decisions'.
Which of the existing mechanisms does the Commission intend to reinforce in order to improve the effectiveness of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership?
What new instruments or mechanisms will the Commission propose to generate real prospects of economic and social integration with the Mediterranean countries in the short and medium term?
What institutional mechanisms need to be put in place for the purposes of 'taking common decisions'?
In re-invigorating the Barcelona process we are strengthening the existing institutions of the Euro-Med partnership and moving ahead in a number of key areas.
Concerning the association agreements, 2001 started with the good news of Egypt' s decision to initial the association agreement and negotiations are ongoing with Algeria, Lebanon and Syria.
My second point concerns the association agreement signatories developing free trade between each other.
We are encouraging each association agreement signatory to agree on free trade arrangements with the others so as to facilitate economic cooperation and inward investment.
The Commission is working with the countries which have already started this process to see where technical advice can best be provided to help partners reach agreement.
In parallel we are working on the rules of origin to see how the partners can be brought into the pan-European system.
In order to lay the basis for a Euro-Med internal market so as to fully exploit the future free trade area, we are assisting our partners to bring their regulatory frameworks closer to ours.
During 2001 the Commission has further developed a concept of the Euro-Med internal market, provided information about its implications and opportunities, and we have paid particular attention to internal market issues in MEDA programming.
Cooperation is being strengthened across a range of sectors.
The regional economic dialogue is being reinforced with future discussions focusing on growth and employment.
MEDA is being used to examine certain infrastructure needs from a regional or subregional perspective and, where appropriate, to draw up strategies for interconnection and for linkage with the trans-European networks to ensure that priority projects are funded and implemented.
Together with our partners we are developing a new regional MEDA programme on justice and home affairs and are engaged in discussions on these issues bilaterally in relation to the provisions of the association agreements and in MEDA programming.
Concerning new instruments and mechanisms, in recognition that cooperation between Europe and Mediterranean countries cannot be solely political or economic, the Commission is looking at ways to initiate a new broad-based cultural dialogue in the Mediterranean region.
In this regard, in addition to the programmes which are currently being implemented to support cooperation in cultural heritage, audiovisual activities and youth exchanges, the Commission is examining the feasibility of extending the TEMPUS programme for higher education to the Mediterranean region.
With regard to new structures for dialogue, the Commission will bring forward proposals to adapt the working methods of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, in particular to provide for more frequent political dialogue on regional and international issues.
The Commission will launch a policy dialogue with the Mediterranean partners on employment policy, sharing EU experience on ways of combating unemployment and of creating new jobs.
It will work to improve the available information and statistics as part of ongoing efforts to channel legal migration and to combat illegal migration.
Finally, the Commission will consider ways to stimulate investment and joint development projects in the Mediterranean, for example by studying the need for, and feasibility of, a new bank or other financing mechanism, building on the European Investment Bank.
Let me add some information concerning the performance this year of the activities in the MEDA programme.
For this year, there are commitments under MEDA of about EUR 740 million in the budget which are expected to be fully implemented.
The same is true of other budget lines benefiting the Mediterranean partners.
As far as payments are concerned, they are expected to represent over 56% of commitments this year to reach nearly half a billion euro, in fact the best ever result achieved in the region.
This year is also the first year of the implementation of the revised MEDA regulation which puts in place mechanisms for more coherent programming of the aid, better coordination both with partners and with the other major donors, and more streamlined approval procedures inside the EU.
Consultations have already taken place with the partners and with the other donors on the country and regional strategy papers covering 2002 to 2006 and on the more detailed national and regional indicative programmes for 2002 to 2004.
All these documents should be approved by the end of the year.
I am reporting these details because I do not want to miss this opportunity to inform Parliament about the MEDA Programme which has been quite problematic in the past.
We are now seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the Commissioner for his friendly and extensive reply and also apologise on behalf of Mr Obiols who, contrary to what he would have liked, has not been able to get to the House on time today.
I believe that the Commissioner has given us a variety of reasons to think that the European Commission is taking the same approach as Parliament.
We must prevent one of the greatest successes of European Union external policy, the implementation of the Euro-Mediterranean process, from entering a period of stagnation.
This process must not be limited to Euro-Mediterranean summits or ministerial meetings, such as the one which is going to take place next April under the Spanish Presidency in Valencia.
It is therefore necessary to implement mechanisms which lower the level in a vertical sense and also broaden it in a horizontal sense.
I suggest that, with regard to what the Commissioner has already said, we add, the possibility of relations between civil society, trade unions, women' s organisations, young people, as he has also already mentioned, and, of course, the cultural field.
I would like to hear the Commission' s views in this regard.
I do not have anything further to say on the matter.
Question No 41 by (H-0917/01):
Subject: African children sold into slavery in Europe The BBC recently raised the issue of the increasing trade in child trafficking from Africa to Europe.
There are thought to be around 10 000 West African children living with strangers in the UK alone, and the trade appears to extend across the European Union.
Parents are persuaded that a new and better life awaits their offspring in Europe and send them off to live with distant family and friends in order to receive an education.
In reality, children are put to work as domestic slaves, some are beaten and abused - they rarely set foot in a classroom.
The BBC highlighted the apparent ease of bribing West African officials to buy genuine papers to enable children to be taken to Europe.
Can the Commission indicate whether it is aware of the level of this trade and whether it has statistics from the Member States to quantify the problem? Has it considered whether coordinating action can be taken at Community level to bring an end to this appalling practice and confirm that the OECD Convention on Bribery and Corruption, aimed at discouraging the bribing of public officials in third world countries, has been ratified by the Commission and by all the Member States.
The Commission confirms that it is aware of the phenomenon of child trafficking.
As regards the situation in the European Union, a study has been finalised with support from the Stop programme.
The title of the report is 'Trafficking in unaccompanied minors for sexual exploitation in the European Union'.
It was carried out by the International Organisation for Migration and is available on the IOM's website.
The report includes figures from Belgium, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
The Commission is also shortly expecting a report from Defence for Children International in the Netherlands.
They have carried out a study on the extent to which children are trafficked for sexual purposes into the European Union, how they get here, what happens to them next and what can be done to help them.
Furthermore, for 2002 the Stop II programme will support a follow-up and extension of the IOM report through a seminar on trafficking in unaccompanied minors in EU Member States.
Additional research on the situation in France, Greece and Spain will form part of the preparations of this seminar.
As regards action against trafficking in human beings, the Commission has been developing a comprehensive policy to fight and prevent such trafficking in human beings over the past few years.
The most recent example is the agreement reached on 28 September 2001 on the Commission's proposal for a framework decision on combating trafficking in human beings.
The framework decision essentially concerns approximation of criminal laws and penalties to improve and facilitate law enforcement and judicial cooperation.
The Commission confirms that the political dialogue under the Cotonou Agreement and EU support for good governance in ACP countries have given real opportunities to address the human and social aspects of this practice, as well as the corruption elements that may be linked to it.
Moreover, as poverty and lack of local opportunities are amongst the main reasons for children being trafficked, the poverty-reduction approach of our development cooperation is a meaningful basis for attacking the problem.
It gives a priority to equitable growth and better access to education.
The Commission is also implementing actions and coordination with UNICEF and a large number of NGOs in several African countries where this problem is most acute.
In June 2000, in Cotonou, in Benin I had the strange experience of visiting two projects we were funding from the Commission.
One project was helping abandoned children, the other helping abducted children.
In the same city we had two groups of beneficiaries: one project was for street children or orphans or simply abandoned children, and the other was for children who had been freed by the project from being enslaved.
It was very strange to experience.
We went from one project to another and were told about two different ways in which children find themselves in very serious situations.
We are pleased with our cooperation with NGOs in many countries in trying to do something meaningful here.
Finally, it is not envisaged that the Community as such will ratify the OECD Convention on Bribery and Corruption which is mentioned in the question, as its Member States are ratifying this convention.
At present all Member States, except Ireland, have ratified the convention and it is expected that Ireland will ratify it very shortly.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner very much indeed for that extremely comprehensive answer and also for mentioning his own personal experience of the problem.
I am pleased at the range of measures that he has outlined.
If I could perhaps ask a couple of supplementary points: in his list of countries involved in the various studies on the Stop Programme, he did not actually mention the United Kingdom.
Perhaps he could confirm whether my own Member State is involved or whether it will be brought in in the future.
If not, maybe this is something that I, along with others, can do something about.
Secondly, in terms of the work outlined and personal experience, particularly in relation to the issue of providing information to the parents of children - to some extent setting aside the issues I raised in my question, as it is clear from the BBC report that parents of children are being completely misled by people wishing to exploit their offspring - are there perhaps grounds for involving the EU in some sort of campaign to overcome this problem of misinforming parents, to try and tackle the issue at source.
Mr President, I do not have any information on the involvement of the UK in these investigations and studies.
It is clear that the real value of these studies is their ability to throw light on the whole issue and to raise awareness.
Knowledge, as such, is a strong weapon.
As regards the specific issue of child soldiers, where we have set in place a personal initiative on my behalf, there is a scheme under way with Unicef to try to establish a real information system that could produce reports, using a comprehensive standard base in order to establish meaningful and credible statistics.
At present, we only have the figures that have been flying around for the past five or six years.
So this scheme aims also to exert pressure and keep everybody better informed.
However, the core of this problem is not only poverty, it is also greed.
It is a moral issue.
Highlighting the problem of greed could be part of stronger work in this field.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I must inform you that Mr Lamy has not yet arrived, so Mrs Diamantopoulou will answer questions first.
Second part Questions to Commissioner Diamantopoulou
Question No 44 by , which has been taken over by Mihail Papayannakis(H-0866/01):
Subject: Fatal accident at Perama - implementation of health and safety directives On 20 October 2001, five people died as a result of a fire which broke out while they were working on board a tanker. It is thought likely that the tank in which they were working had not been properly cleaned.
Similar fatal industrial accidents occur frequently in ship-repair yards in Greece while tankers are undergoing maintenance.
The Greek judicial authorities responded to the last accident by initiating criminal proceedings, inter alia for infringement of Presidential Decree 70/90 concerning the health and safety of workers engaged in shipbuilding and ship repair work.
Ten years have passed since the Presidential Decree passed into law and, in the meantime, a number of Community directives on the protection of workers in such conditions have also been issued. Will the Commission say whether there are any directives and accompanying measures concerning the health and safety of workers applicable to working conditions on board tankers, whether they have been incorporated into Greek national law, and whether Presidential Decree 70/90 now covers the obligations deriving from Community legislation?
Mr President, Mr Alavanos's question refers to the fatal accident in Perama, which was a most tragic incident and I should like to express the Commission's condolences to the families of the workers who were killed.
The reply to Mr Alavanos's question as to whether there are any directives and accompanying measures concerning the safety of workers on board tankers, which should have been incorporated into Greek law, is that there are no new measures and no new legislative framework which should have been transposed and that framework directive 89/391, which covers both shipbuilding and the ship repair industry, was transposed into Greek law so as to cover working conditions in such cases.
This specific accident is being investigated by the Greek authorities and the European Union is waiting for the final results of the investigation into the causes so that measures can be taken, in collaboration with the Greek government, in order to prevent this sort of accident from happening again.
Finally, the health and safety strategy is on the European Commission's list of priorities.
There is a huge number of deaths every year at European level.
The new health and safety strategy is due to be announced in 2002, and the report on the application of European health and safety legislation at national level is being drafted as we speak, by which I mean that we are drafting a European report to evaluate the extent to which each country applied the health and safety specifications applicable to each sector last year.
Commissioner, following on from your last sentence, may I ask if the report which you mentioned will contain details of how Directive 89/391 has been applied? I ask because this is not the first time accidents have happened.
In Perama in particular they have become par for the course.
I should also like to ask the following supplementary question: having studied the texts, not that I have any highly specialised legal knowledge in these matters, I found other directives which, to judge from their titles, appear to relate to the matter under discussion here.
Directives 89/656 and 99/92 concern explosive atmospheres and work in such atmospheres, which is what caused the accident in Perama.
Surely these directives have a bearing on the matter? And, in any case, and I only ask because you said that you are waiting for news from Greece, and rightly so, does the Commission not periodically examine the prevailing situation on its own initiative, at least in highly sensitive areas which already have a history, such as Perama?
As the European Parliament knows, the Commission has received specific charges relating to the application of the national provisions transposing the directives which you referred to into Greek law.
I have to say that it is extremely difficult for the Commission to intervene on its own and control and monitor the application of directives in all the Member States.
However, where specific charges and reports are filed, it is obviously obliged both to investigate them and to act accordingly, from nagging at governments through to bringing charges before the courts against the Member State in question if it finds that legislation is not being applied.
There have been charges relating to the application of national legislation, there has been an exchange of correspondence which started in the summer, in August to be precise, between the Greek government and the European Commission, staff from my directorate have visited Greece and examined the institutional framework and its application and we have requested additional information further to a letter sent by the Greek government on 9 November. We believe that the information sent is being processed at the moment and other information has also been requested, so that we can make a full evaluation of the level of application of legislation in the case of the specific directives to which you referred.
Mr President, I actually have a further question.
It is very important that regulations governing health and safety at work are applied in the field of shipping, especially where oil tankers are concerned.
It is also of crucial importance to comply with environmental legislation.
Since the Erika disaster, we have had several projects in Europe that have aimed to improve environmental legislation with regard to oil tankers.
Yesterday an oil spillage was discovered close to a nature conservation area in the archipelago off Turku, in Finland, probably due to some breach of environmental legislation - or at least the reason for it has not yet become apparent.
I would therefore like the Commissioner to comment on what measures can also be taken with regard to environmental legislation so that culprits may be identified, and on whether it is possible that the Commission might also take action regarding the kinds of oil-related accidents that occurred last year in Gotland, on the French coast (with regard to the Erika disaster), and now in Turku in Finland.
Thank you for your question, which of course refers to other policies.
Environmental policy, especially after EUREKA, has been a driving force at the European Commission which, as you know, has submitted a framework of measures and proposals to the Council as regards both the actual ships and their various structural specifications and the measures which coastal countries need to take.
However, as far as the specific issue of the health and safety of workers on tankers is concerned, I have to say, first, that European legislation which applies to building sites also applies here and, secondly, that there is a specific directive on fishing vessels, which are a separate class of ship, and a directive on the provision of medical care on board ships.
That is all the legislation which relates specifically to the health and safety of workers on ships.
Question No 45 by (H-0873/01):
Subject: Collection of statistical data on Greece According to the Commission's answer to my question H-0704/01 on the gathering of statistics on unemployment in Greece, the bulk of the reforms of the employment agencies are expected to be complete by the end of 2003, while the implementation of supplementary measures will continue through to the end of 2005.
Since the Commissioner responsible stated in her answer to my question H-0675/00 in September 2000 that the responsible Greek authorities had given a commitment to speed up the restructuring of public services, the employment agencies and the statistical services, and given that the restructuring is due to be completed by the end of 2001, can the Commission say what the reasons are for the delay and who is responsible for it?
Mr President, the Greek authorities have undertaken to reform the national employment agencies, the so-called OAED, and to set up a modern, integrated statistics system which can cope with the problem of people entering and leaving employment.
This undertaking is contained in the agreement on the community support framework for 2000-2006 or, more precisely, in the operational programme on employment and vocational training, and has been reiterated by the Commission in its recommendations for the last three years.
The Greek Ministry of Labour has tabled a business plan for reforming the employment agencies.
It is basically a plan which meets the need for preventive, individualised employment policies.
It has also tabled a reforming law, which was published on 19 October 2001.
The Greek authorities have informed us that the bulk of the reforms will be complete by the end of 2003, while the implementation of supplementary measures will continue until the end of 2005.
One very important aspect of the reform of these agencies is the improvements which will be made to how statistics are collected and to the modus operandi of the employment agencies, which are the counterpart of the statistical office.
Commissioner, we appear to be condemned, you and I, to discussing the same question every three or six months.
It is like chestnut trees in Paris, to borrow an expression from journalism.
My question is this: you originally told me - I have all the information here and I do not suppose that you will question it - that it would be all done and dusted in 2001.
That is what you told me in September 2000, a year ago.
Obviously, you do not lie.
Obviously, you were given that information and this assurance.
Now you tell me that you have been informed, but not assured I hope, that it will be all done and dusted in 2003, with a few extras 'tacked on' in 2005. What I should like to ask is who is to blame, Commissioner?
Are you in a position to point a finger at who is to blame for this situation? Because this is no way to conduct a policy to combat employment and the periodic employment statistics published by Eurostat are making a laughing stock of my country because the column headed Greece is always blank.
This is no longer acceptable.
Sir, I do not think it is up to me to say who is to blame but I shall repeat the Commission's recommendations to the Greek authorities that the policies on employment, which are subject to the agreed framework of the employment strategy, that is, prevention and an individualised approach, be applied as quickly as possible.
The reform of the national employment agencies in Greece is a difficult and complex matter.
There were procedures which the Greek government had to follow in terms both of social dialogue and parliamentary deadlines.
I only hope that a start will be made on putting these reforms into practice as quickly as possible.
As always, Commissioner Diamantopoulou is highly alert; indeed, she is one of the most alert, able and sharp-minded of the Commission' s representatives.
Employment statistics are certainly extremely important in combating unemployment.
Does the Commissioner know, for example, that in Italy, in order to get a pension, many women are forced to sign on at the job centre as if they were looking for a job, thus altering the unemployment figures? The jobless in Italy therefore always seem far more numerous precisely because there is a law that forces women to join the list of those seeking work even if this work is not what they want or desire.
Since this is an inflated and unfair statistic, does the Commissioner not think that there should be an attempt to seek clear and transparent statistics?
Without doubt, statistical offices need to function objectively and correctly, correct statistical methods need to be used and the results of these statistical surveys need to be reliable if the strategy on employment is to be implemented properly.
The European Commission has repeatedly made recommendations to numerous countries, wherever statistical offices have failed to harmonise with common European standards and there are problems with the statistics which they supply, and a new method is due to be introduced in 2003, in collaboration with the EU Statistical Office so as to ensure maximum harmonisation between statistical methodologies relating specifically to the question of employment and unemployment.
I hope that preparations by the Member States, which have already started so that we can commission this new system in 2003, will be of help both to the European Union as a whole and to each individual country.
Question No 46 by (H-0912/01):
Subject: Health and safety at the workplace As part of the Social Policy Agenda, the Commission has undertaken to publish a statement on a Community strategy for health and safety at the workplace in the course of 2002.
Since comparable statistics are needed in order to carry out such an undertaking, how does the Commission intend to address the lack of data and problems of comparability between national data?
According to EUROSTAT research, the average percentage of accidents which are reported in the EU is 89%, while the corresponding figures for Ireland and Greece are 38% and 39%, respectively, which is very alarming.
What measures does the Commission intend to propose to ensure that accidents at the workplace are reported?
May I say that I fully share Mrs Kratsa's concerns about the availability of comparable statistics at European level on both accidents at work and occupational diseases.
As I said earlier, the European Commission has put the strategy on health and safety on its list of priorities and harmonised statistics from the EU Statistical Office will be the basis for the proper development of this strategy.
The Commission has published two harmonised statistical methodologies since 1990.
The first is the ESAW, the European Statistics on Accidents at Work, with 1993 as the reference year.
The second is the EODS, the European Statistics on Occupational Diseases, with 2001 as the reference year.
Provision was made for a special unit for work-related health problems in the 1999 survey on employees.
As far as accidents at work since 1993 are concerned, the Commission has annual statistics available for nine economic sectors.
These statistics come from various national sources and include statistics from Greece and, once they have been received from the Member States, they are adjusted by the Statistical Office in order to estimate the total number of accidents and ensure that they are comparable at European level.
As regards your comment on statistics supplied by Greece in comparison with other countries, the statistics provided by Greece are supplied by IKA, the Social Security Fund, and only refer to a proportion of accidents because only accidents which result in more than three days off work are reported.
According to IKA estimates, 39% of accidents are reported, which compares with Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom, although we must bear in mind that 45% of Greeks who are self-employed are insured with IKA.
However, we know that, in 1999 in Greece, 43.4% were employers, self-employed or employees of family businesses, while the corresponding European average, according to Eurostat, was 16.2%.
As part of the new Community strategy on safety, the Commission intends to recommend measures to improve the reporting of accidents at work and occupational diseases which, we believe, will help promote this strategy in all the Member States.
However, I must stress that the efficient implementation of national provisions transposing Community directives, especially those relating to the employer's duty to report accidents sustained by employees at work is a matter for national governments.
It is very hard for the European Commission to monitor the situation at national and regional level, let alone at enterprise level.
So it is important for each country to set up national mechanisms to monitor health and safety issues.
Thank you, Commissioner, for all the information which you have given me.
I understand perfectly that, in order to achieve the objectives which you set in the Social Agenda, you need the national governments and the social partners as your allies. But how do you intend to change the climate?
Will the Community strategy which you propose force the Member States to supply detailed records, will you monitor progress, will you use tools other than the standard tools? There are countries, such as Greece which you mentioned, which need to adapt to a number of new circumstances and a new policy, new obligations, in order to highlight and inform the social partners of the quality and economic benefits of monitoring and applying Community policy in the field of health and safety in the workplace.
Mr President, the new strategy on health and safety will be announced at the beginning of 2002 and there will also be a consultation procedure with Parliament and with the Economic and Social Committee and the social partners.
The Commission is already preparing a report under framework directive 89/391, evaluating the application of heath and safety in the Member States. This report is based on the reports submitted by national governments but also takes account of the independent expert's report.
We are in the initial stages of drafting this report as I speak.
However, I must tell you that there are new ideas as regards the application of the new strategy on health and safety and, to reply to your concern as to whether further steps will be taken, thought is being given to applying the open cooperation method to the field of health and safety, which means common objectives, common national action plans, recommendations and cooperation between Member States.
This is one of the proposals which the Commission intends to submit for the new approach.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Questions to Commissioner Lamy
Question No 42 by (H-0895/01):
Subject: Commission contact with the TABD The Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) was set up in 1995 on the joint initiative of the Commission (led by Commissioners Brittan and Bangemann) and the US Department of Commerce.
Is it true that the Commission and the TABD maintain permanent contact and exchange information and proposals with each other? Has the Commission contributed to the financing of any of the TABD's annual conferences?
This question concerns the Transatlantic Business Dialogue that forms part of a series of dialogues established in 1995 at the Madrid Summit.
The objectives of this dialogue, as of others too, and I will come back to this, are in a sense to build bridges across the Atlantic by bringing together a number of private, non-governmental players on the one hand and political decision-makers in the Union and the US Administration on the other.
This system of dialogues that was established at the time certainly includes the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, but also includes a Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue, a Transatlantic Labour Dialogue and a Transatlantic Environment Dialogue; the business aspect being one of the pillars of this dialogue, which includes three others.
The purpose of this range of dialogues is to draw up public recommendations addressed to the Commission and to the US government, which, on a rotational basis, present their recommendations to the political leaders at the EU-US summits.
The Commission for its part attaches the same importance to all these dialogues, and we emphasise this because it has produced valuable results in terms of a number of developments, and certainly in terms of creating more balanced and solid transatlantic relations.
Participation in these various dialogues is open.
It is open to the parties concerned, in the various areas, and the results are obviously largely a question of how much the various participants invest in them.
The Commission is involved at different levels in the events that are organised in the context of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, including an annual conference between the CEOs of the various companies, which could be said to form the annual highpoint of this dialogue.
The recommendations are published and available to the public, both on the website of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue and on the Commission sites, since our reactions to these recommendations are also in the public domain.
In fact, some Members of this Parliament closely monitor the bilateral US-EU bilateral business relations and are invited to take part in the annual conference of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue on a regular basis.
When the first dialogue was arranged in Seville, the two sides shared the costs of this event.
In 1998, at another EU-US summit, both sides undertook to support all the dialogues and in fact that same year the European Parliament created a specific budget heading to support them.
In response to your specific question about financing, since 1998 the Commission has contributed to the financing of the business dialogue, as, incidentally, it has contributed to financing the other dialogues in the form of annual contributions.
In the case of the business dialogue, part of the Commission' s contribution was designed to cover the costs of organising the annual conferences, although most of the costs of these events are now covered by the business sponsorship system.
That in fact explains why the Commission gives markedly less financial support to the business dialogue than it does to supporting the consumer dialogue, the labour dialogue and the environment dialogue.
I want to thank the Commissioner for a very comprehensive answer.
I have two follow-up questions.
My first is as follows. The major companies in TABD are making a number of practical demands, or expressing their wishes, in connection with legislation they want to see within the EU.
I wonder whether the Commission is reporting back on this to TABD, that is to say upon how these demands are being met and, if so, whether such reporting back is in the public domain.
Secondly, I wonder if TABD representatives participated when political summits were held between the EU and the United States, that is to say, meetings at the highest political level.
Have these major companies and their representatives access to such summits?
As far as the first point is concerned, I would like to say that, like the dialogues on consumers, the environment or employment, the transatlantic dialogue on trade is intended to produce desires, recommendations and points of view that can help to provide a basis for our own work.
This contribution is, therefore, far from being exclusive.
Since we are engaging with a number of people from the business world, with trade unions, with non-governmental organisations, we have a whole range of bodies that are contributing to trade policy, part of which is the dialogue on trade.
This dialogue is important because the European and American business world is putting a considerable effort into this, which is commensurate with the importance of our trade relations with America.
This framework provides the opportunity for desires and wishes to be expressed, and recommendations and comments to be presented. We discuss these, as we do with a number of representatives in the area of trade.
With regard to participation at the summit, as I said earlier, those taking part in these dialogues on business, consumers, the environment and employment are, in turn, urged to come and present their recommendations to the leaders of the two sides, in other words to the American president on the one hand, and to the Presidency of the Council and to the Commission on the other.
This is being done in conjunction with the summit' s official meetings, which, as expected, bring us together with the responsible political authorities.
This is being done in conjunction with these events.
Question No 43 by (H-0935/01):
Subject: WTO conference in Doha NGOs had very little opportunity to put their case at this year's WTO Ministerial in Doha.
Does the Commission consider that the opportunities NGOs were offered to represent their interests at Doha were nevertheless adequate? If not, how can it be ensured that NGOs and civil society are able to put their case in an appropriate manner at WTO conferences in the future?
Does the Commission conclude from this that no more WTO conferences should be held in cities such as Doha?
Mr Martin' s question broadly relates to the problems that non-governmental organisations experienced in gaining access to the Doha Conference in Qatar.
First of all, I shall give you some background information. Any member country of the World Trade Organisation can stand as candidate to organise the ministerial conference.
It turned out that Qatar offered to host the Fourth Ministerial Conference, and that it was the only candidate.
If we cast our minds back, so that we have a clear understanding, this decision was due to be taken several months after the Seattle conference, which may explain why there were not as many candidates as some might have wished.
Doha was, therefore, the only candidate city and it is relatively small in size.
Nevertheless, I think that the authorities made a considerable effort - this was something that all those taking part in the ministerial conference mentioned - to be in a position to offer the delegates appropriate accommodation and provide the necessary logistical support.
It is true that several delegations had to restrict the number of their participants due to the limited number of hotel rooms.
That is true.
However, I do not think that it is a catastrophe to slightly restrict the number of participants at such conferences.
In any case, I am sure that this saved the taxpayer some money and as for the delegation from the European Union, we were pleased with the way the conference was organised.
Furthermore, 20 Members of the European Parliament were in the EU delegation and I believe that they said they were satisfied with the way everything was organised.
It is also true that logistical matters were not helped by the events of 11 September and that many security measures were added to the checks that are normally applied at such conferences.
That is true, and it did not make anyone' s life any easier.
I would like to reiterate that, as I also said to Parliament some time ago, we asked the Qatar authorities for access for the non-governmental organisations and were granted it. This is what happened, even if the security restrictions caused some difficulties for everyone.
The last point that I would like to stress is that, again for security reasons, a large number of potential participants, whether governmental delegations, parliamentary delegations or non-governmental organisations, decided on their own initiative not to come to Doha.
In my view, NGOs were offered genuine opportunities to put their case at Doha.
The organisations that were present were able to contact their national delegations, were able to influence the outcome of the conference and we at Commission level widely encouraged transparency towards the non-governmental organisations.
For instance, documents were discussed quickly, meetings were held openly, and everything that favours transparency has been, in my view, significantly improved over the last two years by the WTO secretariats, has been supported, encouraged, and even initiated by the European Union.
Furthermore, the Director-General of the WTO arranged a number of meetings, in accordance with the commitment that he had made at the conference held in Geneva in July.
I willingly take on board the idea of a code of conduct, which could regulate relations between the WTO and the non-governmental organisations.
To come back to our own delegation, I said that it was made up of a number of MEPs, a number of colleagues of Franz Fischler and myself, more than fifteen representatives of civil society, who valiantly made the journey to Doha and who all achieved the goals they had set themselves.
We worked together with them at Doha.
If any one of them wishes to give their opinion, I have no objection to them doing so.
I myself had many intensive discussions with these representatives during the conference, and also with the representatives of other organisations from European civil society, who were not, strictly speaking, part of our delegation.
To sum up, if I compare Doha to Seattle, I think that we had better participation, greater transparency, a more lively reflection, and that the organisations present had a genuine opportunity to put their case. This certainly had an effect on the outcome of the Doha Conference.
I spoke to you this morning on that subject.
Overall I think that progress has been made in the way that civil society is managing to make its voice heard as regards multilateral trade policy.
This happened between the Seattle and Doha Conferences, this happened at Doha and I am certain that this will happen more often after Doha.
Mr President, I do not want to rephrase my question, but to put a supplementary one.
Commissioner, if everything was the way you describe it and Doha really was better than Seattle, how, then, do you explain the numerous complaints by NGOs that they were disadvantaged in the run-up to the event, that they could not get visas issued to them and that they were deterred from active involvement by bureaucratic obstacles being put in their way or by being told that there were too few hotel beds?
Secondly, you have just described the narrow field of vision experienced by the European delegation, and how our delegation was composed.
That was not, however, what my question was about; I was asking, rather, about the extent to which civil society could consider itself represented there, my point being that the situation was quite different from that in a country in which there is the freedom to demonstrate and the corresponding possibility of self-expression.
If though, you do not see things that way, I would very much like you to confirm that a second time.
Mr Martin, as far as the accommodation facilities are concerned, these were inevitably determined by the number of hotel rooms available in Qatar.
If my memory serves me well, there were approximately 4 500 rooms and, again if I remember correctly, about 700 of these had been reserved for the non-governmental organisations, meaning of course those NGOs that were present in that capacity, apart from those NGOs who were part of the delegations.
However, in the context of the European Union, and I suppose that it is essentially the EU that is of interest to you - it is, in any case, of primary interest to me - we are very lucky to participate in such conferences with 15 Member States, which themselves bring a number of NGOs along with their own delegations.
Therefore, from the European standpoint, many NGOs were present and I heard no complaints about this issue, either before or during any of the many meetings that I had with these organisations.
As far as what happens next, I will be taking part in a status meeting next week which will enable me to come to an opinion.
Once again, if you wish to hear first-hand information, those who were there will be able to give you the details.
I think that the NGOs were able to take the initiative in Doha.
Either I myself or my colleagues on my behalf spent time each day explaining to them (as I did for Parliament' s delegations and, of course, for the Council of Ministers) where we were coming from, what stage we had reached and where we were heading, so that they could follow the work and influence it. As you know, when you meet a delegation of this type which is able explain a few crucial points, this is what counts in such circumstances.
I therefore feel that, from this perspective, things were much better at Doha than at Seattle.
I would reiterate what I said earlier, with Doha being the only candidate city, competition and the law of the market concerning the appeal of the conference location did not really play a part.
This is an issue that we can only take note of; since Doha was the only candidate city, I cannot see what other choice we had.
I reiterate that we ourselves specified the condition that access be offered on an equal basis for all the delegations.
Commissioner, would I be mistaken in suggesting that perhaps the admirable arrangements at Doha had something to do with the relative success of that meeting compared with previous WTO meetings? Perhaps we are finding a way of having a more civilised relationship with the NGOs than was evident in Seattle and Genoa?
Are you happy that we now have a more rational and civilised arrangement to deal with the representations of NGOs for the future?
Mr Purvis, I can see what you are driving at and I am not sure that I can go as far as you want to take me in this direction.
One of the reasons why Doha was better than Seattle - and, in my view, this is the main reason - was because everyone (the governments, the WTO, the NGOs) gave much thought as to why Seattle failed.
Everyone learnt a great deal from this failure after the event, if I may say so, and took lessons from it in preparation for Doha.
The reason why Doha was a success was, in the main, related to preparation. The reason why Seattle was a failure was, in the main, related to preparation.
The preparations for Seattle were poor, the preparations for Doha were good, and that is what counts for around 80% of the success.
That basically leaves 20%. In Doha, things were well managed and the number of parties, in other words, the number of people who felt involved in the negotiations, who felt able to influence them, was considerable.
I always thought that what happened in the streets of Seattle only had a very small bearing on what was obviously a failure.
Similarly, I believe that what did not take place in the streets of Doha only had a very small bearing on the success of Doha.
Mr President, Commissioner, let me first congratulate you on your success in the Doha negotiations.
I believe that the European delegation, to which I belonged, did very well to bring the negotiations to their conclusion.
We stand a good chance of completing this round successfully.
Our hosts in Doha also looked after us extremely well, something which I think was a fundamental requirement.
What Mr Hans-Peter Martin is referring to, though, is the dialogue with the NGOs, a point I would like to probe further with reference to the Parliamentary Assembly.
I do not believe it is feasible for this discussion to be carried on every couple of years and at the same location.
Do you not think too that it would make more sense for parliamentarians from the various countries to be able to get together over a period of time and jointly to work through this subject, which is so crucial for the future, in a professional and detailed way?
Mr Rübig, I am very much in favour of the suggestion to organise, structure and make more permanent the consultation between the governments and the WTO, to set up an organisation and parliamentary structure which could be derived from the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
You know, as I do, that we have worked on this area, and this House was a primary contributor.
We have not managed to set up anything with any shape or form for the time being, for reasons that mainly relate, on the one hand, to the great reluctance of a number of developing countries, and on the other hand, to the fact that the members of the American Congress have not, as yet, shown any particular enthusiasm for the idea.
These two barriers are still standing in our way, but I believe that we must not give up, and, in any case, if Parliament continues to move in the direction it has chosen, namely to attempt to set up this inter-parliamentary structure, you will have the support of the Commission in striving to overcome the obstacles that I have just mentioned, which are still standing in the way but which, in my view, must not deter us.
Thank you very much, Mr Lamy.
Questions to Commissioner Byrne
Question No 47 by (H-0880/01):
Subject: Animal transport The European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has recently adopted a report (A5-0347/2001) by Albert Jan Maat MEP, which calls on the Commission to present proposals incorporating a maximum limit of eight hours or 500 km on the transport of animals to slaughter or for further fattening and an end to the payment of export refunds in respect of the export of live EU cattle to third countries for slaughter.
Does the Commission intend to present proposals incorporating the above two resolutions of the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development?
Mr President, as rightly pointed out by Parliament's report, one of the key issues concerning animal transport relates to travelling time limits, and I thank Parliament for its contribution.
Travelling times, as with other parameters such as temperatures or densities, are essential elements to achieve a good level of protection for the animals during transport.
As a matter of policy, the Commission considers it to be of the utmost importance to draft legislative proposals on the basis of sound scientific advice.
The Commission has therefore requested an opinion from the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare on different welfare aspects of animal transport and, in particular, travelling time limits.
This opinion is expected early in 2002.
The Commission will present further proposals on animal transport in the light of this opinion.
As regards the granting of export refunds for slaughtered cattle, the Commission shares the views of the Council, as expressed in its resolution of 19 June 2001 on welfare.
The first objective is to correct the deficiencies observed with the implementation of existing legislation.
There should be more controls and severe sanctions if the existing legislation on welfare during transport is not correctly implemented, be it on transport inside the Community or on exports to countries outside the EU.
Commissioner Fischler is also committed to strengthening the existing rules in this respect.
Community legislation in the field of export refunds unambiguously links the payment of aid to the respect of all the conditions related to animal welfare.
The Community must achieve a well-balanced solution to the different aspects of this question.
For example, it is wrong to assume that if we abolish the refund for live cattle, third countries will import carcases rather than live animals.
I conclude by assuring you that animal welfare is very high on the agenda of the Commission.
Animal transport in particular deserves much attention and action in the near future.
In 1993, the Commission admitted that the laws on animal transport were being systematically flouted.
In 1999, we had further evidence of particular problems in Spain, Italy and Greece.
There is no reason to believe that implementation enforcement has improved at all since 1993 or 1999.
Animals frequently still find themselves crammed into overcrowded trucks, given neither food nor water, often for journeys flouting the current limits and travelling for up to 30 or 40 hours.
The combination of high temperatures, poor ventilation, overcrowding and lack of water can be lethal.
Many animals suffer extreme discomfort during transport and arrive dead or dying at their destination.
The European Parliament has repeatedly voted in favour of an eight-hour limit on transport.
It had the overwhelming support of a majority in plenary.
It had the support of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I am pleased to hear that a proposal will follow the opinion of the Scientific Committee, but what is the Commission going to do to ensure the proposal is enforced properly and to ensure the current laws are enforced properly? What specific actions is Commissioner Byrne going to take to improve enforcement both of current laws and the laws that we hope to see implementing an eight-hour limit and an end to export subsidies?
Mr President, as I have already indicated, this report is due to be presented to the Commission early in the new year and when that report is available it will be closely examined by my services and myself to determine an appropriate response with regard to time limits and distances.
In the meantime, the control of this issue lies in the hands of Member States and it should remain there with the supervision of the Food and Veterinary Office.
That is one of the jobs that is undertaken by the FVO in its inspection reports.
The Commission also takes this issue seriously, not only in continuing its discussions with the Member States in circumstances where there is a recognised failure to comply with the legislation so as to ensure upgrading of standards, but also, where there has been a persistent failure to comply with the legislation, in instituting proceedings against individual Member States.
There are a number of such proceedings being considered at the moment.
You will also be aware of Regulation (EC), No 615/98 which requires and empowers the Commission to withdraw export refunds in circumstances where the animal welfare legislation has not been complied with.
I refer you to the detailed answer given on 19 February 2001 to the question asked by Mrs Maes on the issue of the withdrawal of export refunds and, in particular, to the annex attached to that answer which clearly sets out the number of withdrawals of export refunds in respect of the Member States involved and the values involved.
I assure you that this issue is taken seriously by the Commission and all the measures I have identified have been taken.
We are keeping a close eye on this issue to ensure that animal welfare standards are kept up.
I wonder when the treatment and transport of animals will be seen as part of the public health and food safety chain.
We have already seen how animal nutrition has significance for people' s health, but the ways in which we treat animals and the methods and systems we use to feed and transport them in fact affect public health as directly as does poor animal feed. If these matters are not handled in the right way, there is a significant increase in the risk of diseases.
These are mainly cured with antibiotics, but large quantities of tranquillisers are also used.
One consequence of antibiotics being misused as a result of poor animal husbandry is that what, during the last 60 years, have been simple infections are now - and, above all, will be in the future - significantly more serious when antibiotics are no longer available to us.
The connection between animal health and the treatment of animals and human health is well documented.
There is a close association between the two and definitely a connection in the sense that you make reference to - antibiotics.
The Commission has brought forward legislation in that regard and I refer you to the conference that took place only a couple of weeks ago under the auspices of the Belgian presidency on this particular issue.
I refer you to what I said on that occasion and also to what Minister Magda Aelvoet said in relation to that particularly important issue.
I also make reference to the zoonosis directive which has gone through the Commission and is now before Parliament.
Mrs Paulsen is your rapporteur for that particular piece of legislation and I identify that legislation as also being important in addressing the question of animal health as an influencing factor on human health.
Just one final point on this question, in relation to the transport of animals over long distances.
One of the issues that has to be weighed in the balance and borne in mind is the location and quality of abattoirs and meat plants: they need to be up to the high standards necessary to comply with the legislation passed here in this House and by the Council of Ministers.
The investment needed to achieve these standards means that there are now fewer abattoirs than there used to be and this is necessary in order to comply with the legislation for the protection of human health.
But ultimately it also affects the question of animal transport and the transport of live animals over a longer distance.
That, however, is another issue that has to be borne in mind in determining the protection of human health in respect of animals, animal health and animal welfare.
I am going to ask all Members to be very concise in their questions, and the Commissioner in his answers, naturally, because we are running late and we want to finish the programme of questions.
Mrs McKenna has the floor for a supplementary question.
I am worried that maybe this scientific report is a way of trying to avoid reducing the time and the distance to what Parliament wanted.
There was consensus between the Environment Committee and the Agriculture Committee on the reduction of the overall journey time and distance.
It is very important that the Commission takes this on board.
I am sorry to say I do not find your answer quite sufficient in relation to the export refunds.
You talk about respecting all conditions of animal welfare and say you need a well-balanced solution.
European taxpayers do not want their money going to fund something that causes distress and harm to animals.
We need to stop the export refunds granted in relation to third countries for slaughter, irrespective of whether conditions are being complied with or not.
It is wrong that our money is being used in this way.
This is the message that came out clearly from Parliament.
I would like a commitment from the Commission that it is going to abolish export refunds to third countries for slaughter.
The scientific report you refer to will be made available for your consideration and will be considered by the Commission before bringing forward any further policies.
On the question of stopping export refunds, I have already indicated that is not Commission policy.
It is also not the policy of the Council of Ministers and it does not reflect their views.
Therefore I cannot give the commitment you seek.
We are going to change the order because Mr Lund needs to leave the Chamber urgently.
Question No 49 by (H-0908/01):
Subject: Unacceptable limit values for heavy metals in fish The Danish newspaper Politiken reported on 15 November 2001 that the EU was to raise limit values to allow more heavy metal in fish despite a recommendation from an EU committee of experts that stricter standards should be introduced.
Mercury, lead and cadmium, which are found in shellfish for which there is high demand, can, for example, weaken the nervous system and cause other very serious diseases in humans.
There are absolutely no grounds for raising these limit values.
Will the Commission therefore say why these limit values are to be raised, on which studies any increase may be based, and which studies are opposed to any increase?
I would also point out in this connection that the population of Denmark has long been encouraged to eat more fish as it promotes the general level of public health.
Unfortunately, these endeavours will now be to no avail if, at the same time, the EU intends to raise the limit values for noxious heavy metals in fish.
The Scientific Committee on Food made assessments on lead and cadmium in the diet and advised upon safe intake levels.
It concluded that dietary intake levels were well below the safety thresholds.
When EU legislation on contaminants is established, if the intake levels are below safety thresholds, the principle known as ALARA must be followed. This involves setting maximum levels as low as reasonably achievable.
This is an internationally applied approach.
In this specific case, the Commission adopted limits for lead and cadmium to come into force in April 2002.
Concerns were expressed at the time by the Member States in the Standing Committee for Foodstuffs that the new provisions were not achievable for certain fishery products.
It was agreed, therefore, urgently to review the relevant provisions.
From recent data, it became clear that these limits would impose requirements beyond the scope of what is reasonably achievable, without benefit to public health.
Therefore, the maximum levels in certain fishery products were reviewed and slight increases for certain limited species are now being proposed to take account of this reality.
To set unachievable limits is not defensible.
Given the overall intake levels, the revised maximum levels do not increase the risk to public health.
Thank you very much for your answer.
We are concerned here with ordinary, edible fish and shellfish, of which we normally recommend people in Europe to eat plenty.
I therefore find it worrying that there is now a desire to increase the limit values.
I must ask a couple of supplementary questions.
Is it correct that the Committee of Independent Experts has in actual fact recommended a reduction in the limit values? Is it correct that the United States has stricter limit values in these areas than we have in Europe?
Finally, I want to ask who has asked for these limit values to be increased. Is it the fishing industry and, if so, in which countries does the fishing industry want permission for higher limit values for the heavy metals at issue here: lead, cadmium and mercury?
In respect of mercury the general maximum level is 0.5 mg/kg for fishery products.
That remains unchanged as previously set under veterinary legislation, in particular Commission Decision 93/351.
The only proposed change is that two additional species have been added to the list of fish species for the maximum level of 1 mg/kg.
These are the grenadier fish and the emperor fish which are minor contributors to diet, but data showed the lower level was unachievable.
You then asked me about shellfish.
The proposals will not increase the safety level of eating shellfish for either children or adults.
The only proposed change for limits in shellfish as bivalve molluscs is for lead.
A slight increase from 1 mg/kg to 1.5 mg/kg is proposed, because data shows that the lower level for lead is not reasonably achievable.
Exposure to lead in the diet is well within safe limits.
Otherwise, there is no change for provisions on cadmium or mercury.
Question No 48 by (H-0889/01):
Subject: 'Smiling face' food quality label On 1 October 2001 the Danish food inspectorate began to have its reports put up in the 40 000 or so establishments in that country producing or selling food and drink to the public.
The idea is that within a year all of them will be prominently displaying at least one report, clearly expressing the outcome of the official inspection in a label taking the form of one of four different facial expressions.
A broad smile for example will mean that no adverse comments were made after the most recent inspection, while a really cross face will show that the establishment was fined, reported to the police or had its permit withdrawn.
It would be hard to find a better way of conveying clear consumer information.
Is the Commission aware of this new Danish system?
If so, is it prepared to recommend other Member States to follow suit? If not, does it not feel that the system deserves closer study as a possible basis for future rules on the matter?
I agree with the honourable Member that it is important to raise consumer awareness.
The Commission is favourable to any initiative protecting the consumer.
However, the Commission considers that the task of developing food quality and information to consumers on the results of official controls, surveillance and other monitoring activities in the food sector should be left to Member States.
Member States are responsible for carrying out the official control of foodstuffs at all stages of production and distribution.
It is for them to decide how best to inform the consumer about these activities. This is in line with the principle of subsidiarity.
While the Commission is not aware of this particular initiative by the Danish authorities, it can encourage such steps or the voluntary implementation of such initiatives by other Member States, but it is unlikely to make a similar proposal at Community level.
I stress that these points are made in relation to the outlets that you particularly refer to in your question.
Question No 50 by (H-0942/01):
Subject: State of slaughterhouses in Greece According to the data available, the Greek slaughterhouse infrastructure is extremely inadequate.
Specifically, of the 350 operational slaughterhouses, 50 to 60 fulfil the requirements of Directive 91/497/EEC to a certain extent, and have formal approval, while the rest belong to municipal authorities and communes and are of ancient construction, with inadequate and obsolete equipment and no facilities for the hygienic disposal of liquid or solid waste or highly toxic substances.
Additionally, cleaning and disinfection programmes are not implemented in these slaughterhouses and the slaughterhouse workers do not observe the rules on personal hygiene.
Is the Commission satisfied with the current situation in Greek slaughterhouses, and what steps does it intend to take to ensure that Greece complies fully with Community law?
Slaughterhouses in Greece are approved by the competent authorities under Council Directive 64/433 on health conditions for the production and marketing of fresh meat as amended by Directive 95/23.
47 slaughterhouses are recorded as being approved for placing meat on the Community market.
The meat from the remaining operational slaughterhouses that is judged fit for human consumption can be marketed on the national territory.
The last inspection mission on fresh meat carried out in Greece by the Commission's Food and Veterinary Office was in September 2000 in relation to porcine meat.
This mission identified serious wide-ranging deficiencies in the operation of official controls and production standards in this sector.
As the honourable Member is aware from the reply to his earlier question at the November session, there have been follow-up contacts with the Greek authorities during 2001 in an attempt to resolve the problems found.
To date the action taken has not been satisfactory and the Commission remains very concerned about the situation.
Further high level meetings with the Greek authorities are planned for early 2002 in an attempt to resolve the remaining shortcomings in food safety and veterinary control standards.
With regard to waste water treatment, Council Directive 91/271 concerning urban waste water treatment foresees rules for slaughterhouses.
Waste water above a particular volume must meet conditions established in prior regulations and or specific authorisations by the competent authority since 31 December 2000.
Where slaughterhouses discharge directly into the public sewer, the general rules of the directive are valid.
Detailed information on the situation of industrial discharges in Greece is under assessment.
Commissioner, you said that 47 slaughterhouses meet certain Community requirements, while others can operate freely in Greece.
The point is that we have 350 slaughterhouses, leaving a large number of slaughterhouses which obviously do not meet Community requirements.
Is that correct? I should just like to clarify this.
The second question I wish to ask you is if you have any news on spongiform encephalopathy.
The Commission has conducted an investigation in Greece.
What is going on? By which I mean as regards BSE.
Then there is the serious question of the central meat market in Athens, where the Commission has ordered an investigation.
Given that you are in contact with the Greek authorities, I should be obliged if you could tell me if you have any news on this matter.
As I indicated in my earlier reply, the Commission remains very concerned about the situation in relation to slaughterhouses.
With regard to BSE and other controls, I refer you to the FVO reports on this issue.
On 22 May, I confirmed that I met the Greek minister in the margins of the Agriculture Council where there was a discussion in relation to the weaknesses identified in successive reports of the FVO.
Once again, on 8 June, I wrote to the Greek minister asking for a follow-up to his initial reply of 27 April.
This has led to further interaction between the minister, the relevant authorities in Greece and my own services.
The message to the Greek authorities is consistent: much greater effort and resources must be invested in correcting the deficiencies consistently found in the missions of the FVO.
The conclusions of the FVO reports are available for perusal on the website.
As the time allotted to questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 51 to 83 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was adjourned at 7.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
WTO meeting in Qatar (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Council and Commission statements on the meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Qatar.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I would like to say how grateful and obliged we are to the Commission and the Council for the excellent preparation of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Qatar.
Commissioner Lamy, you and your colleagues achieved something extraordinary in starting from an extremely difficult situation just before Doha and nonetheless, by the end of the meeting, getting all the subjects wanted by the European Union into the programme for the round beginning in 2002, this despite the usual, and largely unjustified, attacks by India and the Cairns Group countries on the European Union.
Essential elements of our pre-conference resolution were included.
Two weeks later, in Accra, I saw for myself the pride of Ghana's government representatives in pointing out that Africa had played an independent role this time, and this could, among other things, be attributed to good preparatory work by the European Union and in particular by Commissioner Lamy.
The developing countries, particularly Africa, are now and for the future fully involved in negotiations, and this was also one of our main demands.
The political declaration on TRIPS represents a respectable result for the African mediators, something that you have already mentioned this morning, Commissioner Lamy.
The demands of the developing countries and of the Africans - ranging from the need for comprehensive technical aid to the Cotonou Agreement's exceptions up to 2008 - have very largely been met.
The core European demands will, though, also be included in the new round of negotiations.
I do not need to go into the details again.
What is important is that we in the European Union can input our conceptions of a socially and environmentally responsible market economy into the system of free and fair world trade and that they can also, slowly, prevail.
I also believe, though, that there is still more that we can do to make the WTO more democratic.
Mr Lamy, you too have referred to the need for us to achieve the creation of a parliamentary assembly.
We in this Parliament should retain our leadership role and also ask the Commission to continue its financial support for us, so that we can especially involve the representatives of the African parliaments.
Let me return to a point made in this morning's debate.
One of our colleagues, Mrs Lucas, pointed out that the outcome was poor, indeed unacceptable.
I thought, here comes a European justification of European interests, but she only referred to India and certain NGOs, which...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the World Trade Organisation has a future.
It is true that in the coming years the 144 Member States will resume negotiations on the further liberalisation of world trade, but more than ever before, the rich man' s club has learnt that survival of the fittest no longer applies.
Indeed, the developing countries have made huge progress and have made their mark during the negotiations.
However, the European Union also has reason to be satisfied.
Thanks to the commitment and perseverance of the European negotiators, both our Commissioners who are present today, an agreement has ultimately been reached on a broad-based negotiation round.
For example, in the new round, there will be scope for negotiations about public spending, competition, investments, and the link between international environmental agreements and the WHO rules.
These trade discussions are held at a significant time, because after the acts of terrorism in the United States, they send out the message that the Member States are prepared to join forces at international level and that terrorists cannot undermine international trade.
Furthermore, it is important to continue the liberal trade policy because it can give the failing world economy a shot in the arm.
Finally, I should like to point out that the WTO' s challenge is to continue to develop the multi-lateral trade system in such a way as to ensure that globalisation yields the best possible benefits for as many people and countries as possible.
We must continue to strive as we have for over fifty years.
Madam President, in a report to the 133 Committee on the WTO meeting in Qatar, the Commission asserts that 'active participation by European civil society strengthened the hand of the EU negotiator' .
This creates the impression that popular movements should be just as deliriously happy as Mr Lamy about the result from Qatar.
That is an unusually impudent lie.
The truth is that the environmental and solidarity organisations are criticising the EU' s action in Doha and characterising the final agreement as a defeat for the poor peoples of the world.
The International Forum on Globalisation observes, for example, that the results from Qatar signify 'the ultimate triumph for the world trade body whose very mission is to exclude civil society from shaping economic systems' .
Prior to the Laeken Summit, ATTAC Belgium wrote that, partly because of its support for the WTO, the EU est essentiellement déterminée par les intérêts des institutions financières et des grandes entreprises.
The truth is that both the European popular movements and representatives of the developing countries are very embittered about the EU negotiators' way of using the language of force to twist the arms of the poor countries' representatives.
It is bad enough that the Commission should represent a Eurocentric, self-regarding and neo-liberal trade policy, but is it not rather crude, Mr Lamy, untruthfully to try to make Europe' s popular movements jointly responsible for the shameful abuse of power of which the EU was guilty in Doha?
Madam President, we view with concern the decisions of the meeting of the World Trade Organisation.
Its repercussions in the short and medium term may prove disastrous for the peoples of many countries, particularly the less developed countries, but also some in the European Union, namely Portugal.
For my country, the opening up in the agricultural and textile areas, including the bilateral agreements being negotiated by the European Union, such as that with Pakistan, without taking Portuguese requirements into account, is particularly worrying.
For the economic and multinational groups, the most important factor was achieved: the opening of negotiations for greater liberalisation of world trade, postponed in Seattle and openly called into question this year by world organisations, namely those which were present at the World Social Forum of Porto Alegre and at Genoa.
The triumphant declarations of UNICE (European employers' organisation) show this clearly when they state that the principal issue was settled, even if not all its demands were fully satisfied.
The final resolution of the WTO itself, referring to liberalisation in particularly sensitive areas such as textiles, important aspects of agriculture, services and others, including the area of intellectual property, leaves little doubt, although its consolidation in practice could yet be influenced by any disputes that may develop.
Even a few small positive advances in the field of intellectual property, after the pressure which countries like Brazil and South Africa brought to bear in order to obtain generic drugs to combat AIDS and malaria, show that it is important to step up the fight against capitalist globalisation in its various aspects, whether political, economic, social or environmental.
The European Union trade associations have already condemned the opening of negotiations within the WTO framework without at least having secured real progress in upholding compliance with the ILO agreements and minimum standards of defence of workers' rights, given that there can be no sustained development without social and environmental development.
The liberalisation of international trade favours the rich countries and multinationals, deepens the gulf between developed and less developed countries, as is clearly shown by studies conducted under the aegis of the UN, intensifies the exploitation of communities and workers by multinationals which dominate international trade and which are only interested in making maximum profit, even if it is at the expense of child labour, food safety, the environment, family farming and multifunctional farming.
Hence the importance of mobilising support for the fight for an alternative of sustained development which places priority on reducing poverty and social expansion, which promotes a review of the CAP, which is more coherent, which provides more mutual support and which is less isolated from the countries of the South.
Thank you, Madam President.
The Qatar trade round was to become a round for the benefit of the developing countries.
This objective has been partly achieved. Partly, because Europe, like other rich countries, refuses to cut down on market-distorting aid.
Europe' s euphoria about Qatar can therefore be put down more to the expected trade liberalisation for its own benefit.
It has to be said that Qatar has given the umpteenth green light for the reform of our agricultural policy.
The challenge is to guarantee farmers a reasonable income without distorting the world market price.
Direct income support, and a widening of the agricultural packages of tasks and rewards are positive steps towards that goal.
Even after Qatar, the impression remains that not all Member States are adopting that line.
Another matter of major importance for developing countries was the clarification of the agreement on intellectual property.
There may be the political explanation that patent law should not obstruct the production of life-saving medicines in emergency situations, this explanation is not entirely satisfactory.
Indeed, it must be possible for countries which do not boast an industry which produces these cheaper medicines to import them freely.
The legal problems which emerge in this connection deserve a resolute approach.
To avoid misuse, inspection to establish whether there is indeed an emergency situation is crucial.
Finally, I would underline that in the fight for the environment and social standards, not distortion of competition, but market access for poor countries and their well-being should be the EU' s most important driving forces.
Madam President, Commissioner, at Doha, the fourth WTO ministerial conference had to set an agenda and a programme. It did this, so from that point of view it was a success.
Yet for whom was it a success?
It was, no doubt, Commissioner, a success for you, since you proved that you enjoy excellent health and the ability to work through the night.
Talking of health issues, Doha was a real success as far as medicines are concerned, but it is chiefly due to Osama bin Laden that the poor people of the world owe their entitlement to access to medicines.
In other words, if the USA had not been afraid of anthrax and had not, therefore, had to challenge Bayer' s intellectual property rights, they would not have given in.
Apart from that, what did we get out of Doha? The answer is, two things, a few clichés and a reprieve.
The clichés are piling up.
First of all there are those clichés about world trade leading to growth, stability, and of course peace.
We had already signed a trade agreement in Marrakesh, and everyone knows that that agreement brought about peace in Gaza and in Palestine, and even peace in Afghanistan.
The second great cliché is that Europe would have held out, but was abandoned by Japan.
The least developed countries, despite having been given everything except arms, also abandoned it.
Korea has maybe stayed with it.
The European Union is showing cracks.
The French farmers are on their own again, apart from some support from Ireland.
However, Europe did obtain a victory on the environment and social affairs.
On the environment, the United States, which is not a party to the Kyoto agreement, did not associate itself with us, and on social affairs, all the European trade unions have expressed their highly negative opinions about Doha.
In addition, Europe obtained a reprieve.
First of all there was the agricultural reprieve.
Until the end of the negotiating round, and therefore until 2005, our farmers will have internal aid and restitutions.
After that, we agreed that these will be abolished.
However, the French representatives Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin called for a stay of execution so that they can get through the presidential elections without any trouble.
They obtained that stay of execution for the CAP, which was facing the death penalty, so well, in fact, that when Poland accedes to Europe, Polish farmers will be deceived because they will be joining the Europe of the CAP when in fact, from 2005 onwards, there will no longer be one.
We also obtained a reprieve for foreign investments.
The IMA was thrown out of the OECD window only to return through the WTO door.
We also obtained a reprieve on pensions.
The insurance companies will not immediately be able to appropriate this large market for themselves.
After Doha, therefore, we are left with the following situation: the European agricultural model has been broken up, the European cultural exception has been forgotten, and the long-term European social model is at risk.
What will remain of Europe?
It will be merely a vast free-trade area, and everyone knows that, according to Adam Smith, free trade equals national poverty.
Madam President, congratulations on being seated there today.
Thank you to the two Commissioners who are present and thank you also to the whole of the Commission's team.
I would also like to thank the Council.
I believe it was only by working together that we managed to achieve real success here.
I include in this, by the way, our colleague Mr Westendorp, who headed our delegation and, unfortunately, is not here this evening, but I believe he deserves as much gratitude as everyone else.
There are just a few points that I want to address.
First, I believe that many Members have yet again forgotten a number of things, above all those whom I always describe as permanently engaging in mantra politics by repeating the same thing over and over again.
I believe that they are forgetting that Doha opened a way ahead for negotiations and laid down a strategy for them.
We should give more consideration to how we can work together with the Commission and the Council in future, for it is only now that the actual negotiations are happening.
The subjects for discussion must be defined, and it is by no means certain that apparent successes we have achieved on many points will prove to be lasting successes over the years, and so I would like to ask the Commissioners in particular how they actually envisage cooperation with Parliament.
I would like this cooperation to be substantially more precise and detailed, giving a much more accurate view of the state of negotiations you will be engaged in on the various subject areas, and also signalling where there are difficulties or problems, not only giving definite information on many points, but actually facilitating political monitoring as well.
Let me make another point.
I believe it will be much more important than in the past to join up policies on trade and foreign affairs.
I would particularly like to mention in this context two regions - the European Union and the United States.
I believe that the European Union and the United States bear to an incredible degree responsibility for the future definition of trade policy, which is much more than can be summed up in the traditional trade themes we were familiar with in the past, incorporating as it does so many new ones.
Development of traditional trade policy and its connection with new subject matter will be the difficult task to be faced in the future.
You - above all Commissioners Lamy and Fischer - managed to bring that off elegantly in Doha, but, as I said at the outset, the real work is only getting under way now.
I believe we must attach much more emphasis to putting foreign policy regarding countries such as, for example, India, Singapore or China, but also regarding many of the Latin American countries, on a much firmer footing, using a stronger foreign policy to achieve greater understanding for what we actually want to achieve in the sphere of trade policy.
There is still the prevalent feeling in certain countries and states that we are actually using our trade policy to engage in indirect protectionism.
We should take care that this sentiment does not arise in the first place, and that, if it does, it can be rooted out.
The Singaporean Ambassador has again drawn my attention to his country's long-standing desire to conclude a free trade agreement with the EU. I believe that bilateral free trade agreements bring with them the possibility of opening doors of that sort, and also have the potential to achieve greater multilateral rapprochement by means of bilateral negotiations.
Commissioners, perhaps you would be so kind as to tell us what you think about that.
Thank you, Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen.
The Doha Conference has spawned a sense of enthusiasm that I can only ascribe to the fact that expectations were so low, for I have to say that we remain very critical.
Inequality of power is simply too pronounced in the world, which leaves its mark on conferences of this kind.
While the developing countries wanted to see the earlier agreements through to a conclusion, Europe wanted to continue to build at multilateral level. There was therefore a certain level of ambiguity which has facilitated some progress.
We are, of course, delighted with the fact that in connection with medicines, unmistakable progress has been made, because there is now at least an agreement about the intellectual property rights.
However, we are hugely vexed by the fact that Europe continues to insist on high import levies on agricultural and textile products, while an agreement on a gradual cutback had, in fact, been reached.
The first results should be evident as soon as 2005, and upon further research, it now emerges that too little has happened in this field.
At the moment, agricultural support as a whole is hardly any lower than at the end of the eighties.
As at previous WTO conferences, the liberalisation of the economy was also mentioned at Doha.
Although the issue of intellectual property rights may have been a positive illustration of this, surely this was only a tiny ray of hope.
Ideally, we would like see that we side with the weak, for whoever observes this world at war is bound to see that this is all about inequality of power.
Madam President, all this triumphant talk masks the latest instalment in a policy to ensure that global trade serves the interests of the multinationals.
Further liberalisation is still the main objective, that is, opening up the markets in poor countries to the industrialised products of the developed countries which, at the same time, will import agricultural produce to compete with our own, together with raw materials at derisory prices.
In the agricultural sector, the main aim is to wipe out subsidies, which would strike a tremendous blow to production in countries such as Greece where, I should point out, farmers have taken to the roads yet again in order to demand a fair price for their labour.
When it comes to foreign investment, competition, public procurement and commercial arrangements, the 'because I say so' approach has been used to impose imperialist choices, despite the almost universal opposition of non-governmental organisations and the less developed countries.
The meeting in Qatar confirmed the WTO as the main tool of capitalist globalisation.
Any interest evinced in the problems of less developed countries and the environment is lip service and, as such, mere hypocrisy.
It does, of course, show that the mass demonstrations have had an impact and that the WTO is trying to hijack the anti-globalisation movement by appearing to be sensitive to its concerns.
But it took good care to shield the meeting from troublesome protestors and we would not be surprised if the next meeting were held in Antarctica.
The only way open to the grass-roots movement is to resist and counterattack both the WTO and the European Union and the governments advocating and applying anti-grass roots policies.
Madam President, I also consider the results of the ministerial conference in Doha to be positive and I would therefore like to join other Members in congratulating Commissioner Lamy, Commissioner Fischler and the Council on their unquestionable contribution to this success.
It is true that the final declaration does not say everything it should say and, I would say, that sometimes it says more than it should say, but any negotiation means reaching compromises and compromise requires concessions.
The thing we must really value about Doha is the bringing together of the diverging, and sometimes contradictory, interests of the Member countries of the WTO and an agreement has been reached to launch a new round, set an agenda, a timetable and a working programme, and, secondly, that the development dimension has been fully integrated into all negotiations and that the least-developed countries and the developing countries have spoken out strongly and their voice has been heard and their concerns taken into account.
The WTO train, as you said quite rightly, Commissioner Lamy, is back on the rails and has already left the station.
I would add that furthermore the means have been provided so that its destination may be a sustainable growth which also benefits the poorest countries.
However, in order for that train to reach its destination, the necessary means must be adopted, the texts must be interpreted correctly, since they are full of structural ambiguities, and guarantee reciprocity in the opening up of the markets and full respect for the rules which govern multilateral trade.
In order to help to overcome the barrier of poverty once and for all, we must adopt the necessary measures to facilitate access, above all by the least-developed countries, because these countries may suffer as a result of the multilateral commercial system, due to the advantages we offer to the developing countries.
Mr President, before Doha, many of us were clearly aware that the issue of access to medicine was going to be the benchmark that developing countries would use to test our seriousness about whether we wanted to launch a development round.
What we have seen is a declaration on access to medicines and public health.
Even the title is important because it is not just about access to medicines, it is about support for public health.
It is groundbreaking and, as someone said this morning, it has within it a commitment to the whole question of flexibility of the agreement on TRIPS.
As the Commissioner is well aware, the United States and Switzerland, in particular, argued that the reference to public health was too broad. They wanted it to be limited to certain infectious diseases.
But I have to say, Commissioner - and you will agree - that what happened represented a real victory for developing countries because they were skilled in negotiation, and that position by the US and Switzerland, in particular, was finally rejected.
It is important that we pay tribute to developing countries and to the negotiating skills that they displayed.
The belief traditionally fostered by the pharmaceutical companies has been that patents are sacrosanct.
After Doha that has changed.
If drug companies price medicines beyond the reach of people who need them, governments can override patents without the fear of retribution.
Despite the progress at Doha, as far as patent rules are concerned, the story is far from over.
I have two specific questions, Commissioner.
Does the Commission agree that the immediate challenge is to ensure that the WTO lifts the restrictions on the export of cheap equivalents of patented drugs to countries which have decided to override a patent but do not have the necessary manufacturing capacity? That issue was not resolved at Doha and has been referred to the TRIPS Council.
Secondly, how does the Commission intend to ensure that countries without production capacity or insufficient production capacity can make full use of the compulsory licensing provisions? This must, in my view, be accompanied by a reduction in the length of drug patents in poor countries.
TRIPS currently dictates a patent term of 20 years world-wide.
At the review of the rules scheduled for 2002, the WTO should at least agree to extend the deadline for TRIPS compliance for all developing countries and base it on development progress rather than on arbitrary dates.
I wonder if the Commissioner agrees with me on this?
Finally, on the question of developing countries, I would like to pay tribute, in particular, to ACP countries, in which we have a particular interest and partnership in the European Union.
The 77 ACP countries succeeded in obtaining a waiver.
They put out a brilliant declaration before Doha.
I have had several meetings with them since then.
They are well pleased with the results.
Doha should have been the development cycle.
Yet what have the developing countries gained from Doha? I do not share other Members' optimism on this point.
For instance, the agreement on access to medicines, which appeared to be a victory, is really a decoy to lure the media and the developing countries.
Presented as a vital stake at this conference and as a major concession to the developing countries, the clarification of the TRIPS agreement and the interpretation of it - which has always been our interpretation - are admittedly a political victory, but that victory changes nothing from the legal point of view. It is of no value before the body that settles disputes within the WTO, and, as Mrs Kinnock has pointed out, the question remains unresolved for those countries which have no production capacity.
For the time being, nothing allows them to use compulsory licensing in order to arrange for the medicines they need to be manufactured by third parties, and this point was emphasised at the recent conference in Ouagadougou.
In the same way, the derogation and the WTO' s reciprocity rule, which were granted at the last minute to signatory states of the Cotonou agreement for a period of eight years, appeared to be a positive achievement.
In reality, however, that authorisation, which the ACP states had been waiting for for months, seems more like blackmail as far as they are concerned.
They were obliged to sign the final Doha declaration or risk having their request refused.
The gains were therefore minimal, and were used by the countries of the West, which are united in their desire to launch a new round, as a means of buying what they wanted.
In reality, what happened at Doha was more like a cynical play at the theatre. We are becoming increasingly committed to unbridled liberalisation and, as we shall continue to insist, a fundamental reform of the WTO really is essential.
Madam President, Mr Lamy, Mr Fischler, I should like to say, first of all, that I am delighted by the success of the Doha ministerial conference, not only from the point of view of its results, but also from a material point of view.
It took place in excellent conditions, despite all the fears that we may have had.
Holding this event in Qatar was in itself a response to the war against terrorism that we entered into following the tragic events of 11 September.
Like other Members who took part in that conference, I appreciated the constant transparency that prevailed between the Council, the Commission and Parliament during the negotiations.
That transparency was also the order of the day among the NGOs present at Doha, who are to be congratulated on the efforts that they have made in this direction since the previous conference in Seattle.
We all hoped that this conference would lead to a substantial agreement that would pave the way for growth to be stimulated, thereby contributing towards economic development at a time when the international community is going through a very difficult situation.
This ministerial conference certainly enabled considerable progress to be made on various fronts, including the inclusion of China and Taiwan.
Another positive result, as has already been mentioned, was in connection with medicines.
As for the rest, the Commission took a tough stance in the negotiations, and the efforts that it made during the final night and on the morning of 14 November enabled the European Union to convince its partners that its positions were well-founded.
However, the work programme is still lagging behind the ambitions that we had set ourselves on certain major issues, such as the environment, the Singapore agenda and social standards.
For my part, I should like to make three comments.
During the conference, the developing countries often adopted a highly critical attitude towards the European Union.
When we were preparing for this ministerial conference, did we listen carefully enough to their concerns? Let us show humility, let us take up our pilgrim' s staff again, let us listen to them and try to understand them, so that we can take their real concerns into consideration, and above all let us stop taking their place in defining the development policy that they need.
Secondly, the Doha ministerial declaration constitutes an undertaking to start negotiations on the priority issues of European enlargement and integration.
Finally, now that the real negotiations are about to start, I hope that the transparency that has prevailed so far will continue to do so, and that it will be strengthened still further between us.
I have just one question to ask the Commissioner. What will be the general structure of the negotiations which will be defined?
Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the European Parliament delegation attending the Doha Conference, I too would like to congratulate our Commissioners on the excellent work that they accomplished and the results that they obtained, which were undeniably very positive and which bear witness to the highly effective way in which our Commissioners handled these negotiations.
I should also, above all, like to say how pleased I was with the excellent cohesion and solidarity between our three institutions which were represented in Qatar.
Basically, and restricting my comments solely to the agricultural issues, I was interested to discover that the European Union has given itself the room to manoeuvre that is needed to reform its common agricultural policy in response to the new expectations of our society, because non-trade considerations were explicitly mentioned in the final ministerial declaration.
It seems to me that this aspect is the vital element in the outcome of Doha.
The priority for European farming today should no longer be to remain competitive in exports at any cost. It should be to satisfy social demand as regards food security and the sustainable rural development.
The Union can also take advantage of a success that it has achieved with regard to the United States, because all forms of aid to exports will be subject to negotiation in the new round.
Finally, it seems to me that the Union can congratulate itself on the fact that special and differential treatment for developing countries has been strengthened.
That should enable them to respond to their needs, including those needs relating to food security and rural development.
This prospect, in its turn, is more likely to encourage the development of farming for food production, and is therefore very important from the point of view of the world demand for food, which is expected to double in the next twenty-five years owing to the increase in the populations of the developing countries and the improvement in living conditions in the emerging countries.
In all, I believe this agreement represents a good balance between trade liberalisation and regulation, and also between trade and the development of all types of farming.
I just hope that the negotiations in the new round will fulfil the hopes that have now been raised.
Madam President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, it is too early to say who won or lost at Doha in terms of the agricultural COM, since the only issue there was agreement on an agenda and a timetable of negotiations.
The winners for now were the developing countries, whose principal demands, including the demands of the ACP countries, were accepted in the text.
The countries of the Cairns group and the United States saw enshrined in the text the principle of ongoing agricultural reform, improved market access and the gradual elimination of export subsidies.
The European Union succeeded in ensuring that this reduction in export subsidies would not be automatic and had some of its main demands in terms of reinforcing the non-commercial elements of the agreement included in the text.
Despite the relative optimism of the Community negotiators, the agreement did not include some of our fundamental demands.
Multi-functional agriculture was not expressly referred to in the text and the strengthening of measures for the protection of geographic indicators was only defined clearly for wines.
Furthermore, one thing was made crystal clear: the elimination, even the gradual elimination, of export incentives, will create strong pressure to reduce agricultural prices internally.
It will therefore not be difficult to conclude that the next reform of the CAP, before 2006, will have to be more thorough than may have been hoped.
Not just because of the cut in the guaranteed prices it will involve, but also and especially because of the qualitative change in the instruments of support for farmers so that, even without market support, they continue to have an income safety net.
Doha was merely a starting point and much has still been left open.
But let there be no illusions.
Today, our commercial adversaries are fighting for an end to the supposedly more distorting support of international competition, but tomorrow they will want to impose an end to all types of agricultural subsidies, that is, the old story of the rings, the fingers and then the rest.
It would not be fair to end without paying special tribute to our Commissioners for the courage and firmness they showed in these negotiations.
Madam President, Commissioners, I will avoid polite flowery phrases, for you cannot talk up the outcome of Doha in such a way as to paper over the absence of any social component in world trade - at least from the point of view of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
It is not only that that is regrettable; we must not overlook the minimal acceptance of environmental and food safety, and the failure to accept the demand for clarification of the precautionary principle.
Now, though, to my main criticism.
The EU often happily talks about the social dimension as a part of our European philosophy, but all it has achieved as regards the issue of core labour standards as human rights in the workplace has been to return them to the position discussions had reached at the 1996 Singapore Conference, that is, they have been put on ice. What has become of our social responsibility?
Perhaps this next observation will not be lacking in interest. I basically welcome the fact that China has joined and that, hopefully, other countries will do so as well, but I doubt that it will become any easier to achieve basic human rights standards at work.
So the beginnings of an opportunity have certainly just passed us by.
I warn against taking conflict prevention too lightly.
If sensible steps are not taken to monitor it, globalisation will spark further demonstrations and more social conflict.
As Mr Mann has already pointed out, Seattle is not a thing of the past.
It can be resurrected, and we, in the safe haven of the European Parliament, should not banish that thought from our minds.
Commissioner Lamy, what are you thinking of doing in future to ensure that core labour standards are not only insisted on by the toothless ILO? How can you help us, after what has happened at the WTO, to make a new start and move things forward?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the team of Fischler, Lamy and Neyts most warmly for getting a new round of talks together.
It is, though - in my opinion, Mr Ettl - significant that people are talking to each other rather than looking for points of conflict.
I believe that this spurt of growth in Europe, especially in employment in Europe, is of enormous significance - but not only for Europe, for, particularly in the developing countries, millions of people will be able to cross the poverty line, something that represents a breakthrough for the poor in the developing countries as well.
I believe this is of especial significance for Europe, which is the world's greatest exporter of goods and services and the world's biggest investor.
Discussions covered many areas affecting the developing countries, the environment, social affairs and animal protection too, and I believe that efforts are being made to find consensus here as well.
We should not forget, though, that the WTO should also be concerning itself with the creation of fair general conditions for investment, competition and market access.
We must remove the administrative obstacles to trade and take reciprocity into account when opening up markets; we need maxima for customs duties and reliefs for SMEs and for products sent in small quantities. Where trade works, so does democracy, and prosperity is the result.
I also take the view that the real, economic actors should be more deeply involved in the negotiations, and I believe it is right and proper that we should bring in EuroCommerce, Eurochambres, UEAPME and the SME-Union, so that they can join in discussions on this subject.
To tell the truth, conglomerates no longer see the WTO as the core issue - there is already a McDonald's in every city in the world.
I would like to end by asking another group to explain to us how they are going to handle the confidentiality of discussions between the Commission and Parliament in future.
I believe we need a solution to this in order to guarantee good, honest cooperation in the future.
Madam President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, the President of the Commission expressed optimism this morning as to the future of Europe.
"A greater Europe is taking form" , said Mr Prodi.
We may ask: is a Europe taking form that is greater in spirit and in intent? A Europe with new aims, a Europe capable of performing its international role better?
I hesitate. It is permissible to doubt.
The Conference of the World Trade Organisation in Qatar in itself justifies tempered optimism.
The European Union' s action through its representatives, namely Commissioners Lamy and Fischler, was difficult but frankly positive.
In fact, European diplomacy contributed decisively to the positive results of the Conference and hence to putting an end to the paralysis of the World Trade Organisation, to restoring its credibility after the resounding failure of the Seattle Conference.
The commitments undertaken by the European Union are far from fulfilling our main priorities, particularly in the environmental and social spheres.
The European representatives were, in fact, faced with a dilemma, where they saw protection of nature and social rights, the representatives of the developing countries saw only disguised protectionism of European interests.
Therefore, there are grounds for hope, but also grounds for disappointment.
It is worth emphasising the positive aspect of the negotiations with regard to agriculture, which are, at last, prompting and stimulating an in-depth reform of the CAP which the European Union proved incapable of carrying out internally.
Equally praiseworthy are the results obtained with regard to medicine prices and the undeniable victory achieved over the egoism of the pharmaceutical multinationals.
The Doha Conference represents just a small step along the steep path that aims to harmonise liberalism and regulation, a small step for globalisation to contribute to world progress and especially to the reduction of poverty, hunger, disease and violence.
Lastly, if the failure...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Thank you, Mr Lage, your speaking time is up.
Before I give the floor to Commissioner Fischler, in my capacity as President - and of course, I am not allowed to take part in the debate - I should like to warmly congratulate both Commissioners and also thank them for the pleasant working relationship which was very constructive, particularly in Doha.
I now give Commissioner Fischler the floor.
Public health (2001 - 2006)
The next item is the recommendation for second reading, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council' s common position with a view to the adoption of a programme of Community action in the field of public health (2001-2006) (A5-0420/2001)
I now give the floor to Mr Trakatellis, the rapporteur.
rapporteur.
(EL) Madam President, the adoption of the Community action programme in the public health sector is the European Union's first integrated attempt to protect public health.
Protecting public health is currently one of the primary concerns of the Union's citizens.
Health must be a priority, over and above political or economic compromises, and cannot be treated as a commodity.
The programme designed to replace sectoral and fragmented Community action on health is a more integrated programme, based mainly on disease prevention, which will help us to introduce quality standards in the public health sector.
The Council has included a large number of the amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading in its common position, mainly as the result of excellent cross-institutional collaboration.
However, important aspects of our proposals have been rejected in the common position; worse, part of the programme's proposal has been deleted by the Council, forcing us to amend the common position in the Committee on the Environment, the members of which voted in favour of the present recommendation for second reading by a large majority.
I should like now to make a few comments on the programme itself.
The main objective of the programme is to strengthen collaboration between the Member States - and hence achieve added value from the synergy of Community action - by developing three lines of approach, which constitute the general aims of the programme.
The first line of approach is to improve the information and knowledge needed in order to develop public health.
The second line of approach is to strengthen the potential for a rapid and coordinated response to health threats.
I should point out here, given that it is three months to the day since the terrorist attack on 11 September, that we need to include a category to deal with health threats from natural, biological and chemical agents caused by unforeseen circumstances, such as accidents or defective infrastructure or machinery, human error or even acts of terrorism.
The third line of approach is to take account of health-determining factors in all policies and activities through health promotion and disease prevention schemes.
The programme, which complements national policies, aims to achieve a high level of physical and mental health and greater equality in health issues throughout the Community.
Given that the programme has limited resources, we need to prioritise health protection measures, so we can support action to prevent the most serious diseases, together with practical action and the need to develop an integrated, cross-sectoral health strategy within which all Community policy and action will help to protect and improve health.
I should like to highlight two points in our amendments to the common position.
Although we are in almost total agreement with the Council on the objectives of the programme and on individual issues, there is still a great deal of discussion as regards coordination and the budget for the programme.
The European Parliament feels that this sort of complex programme, which includes networks, data, various institutions and non-governmental organisations, needs efficient coordination and control.
Obviously, there is a need for a coordinating organisation, which is why, at first reading, Parliament recommended a mechanism called the Health Coordination and Monitoring Centre which would, of course, operate under the Commission and the programme.
We have now confirmed this approach in the Committee on the Environment, which voted for a second reading.
Of course, the Council, in its common position, and the Commission, in its amended proposal, espoused and adopted the main elements of Parliament's position on developing what they refer to as an efficient system and mechanism for coordinating and monitoring the programme.
However, the configuration which they have opted for, in the form of structural arrangements including strengthened central resources, is not ideal and will, at the very least, give rise to confusion and ambiguity, which is why we shall clearly insist on a coordinating centre in a bid to achieve efficient, overall and continuous coordination of the programme.
Finally, the budget.
The programme must be adequately funded.
Parliament is asking for EUR three hundred and eighty million, given that the programme contains extremely ambitious projects and schemes.
Consequently, the budget needs to be increased if we are to fully satisfy the needs and objectives of the programme and meet the demands involved in applying the Council's proposals for preparing, adopting and operating suitable structural arrangements including strengthened central resources, as set out by the Council in the second paragraph of Article 7.1.
It is also vital for us to have the flexibility to redistribute resources.
Finally, strengthening the foundations of our European Structure depends on convergence, not just at the level of economic strategy and policies, such as the single market and EMU, but in individual sectors, such as the health sector.
These are new forms of integration, which I call new convergences, which broaden and deepen the unifying processes.
My view, therefore, is that the new programme marks the start of just such a convergence process in the vitally important health sector.
Madam President, Commissioner, this is the second reading of the public health programme and it is important that the European Parliament re-address a number of issues which it considers to be of fundamental importance.
To start with, we feel that the European Commission really must make suitable structural arrangements, within a year of the date on which the programme starts, for a mechanism which guarantees permanent monitoring and coordination, boosts efficiency and supplies the Member States with information on best practices and an overall evaluation of the programme.
This will provide an opportunity to readjust national policies along the right lines.
Following recent events and their impact on health, we need to extend action in order to deal with unforeseen threats and new circumstances.
As far as the budget is concerned, I shall not mince my words because, if we really want to respond to the needs and objectives of the programme in question, we need to provide the resources required in order to implement it.
Given that current programmes have been extended as a result of the delay in approving this programme, at the expense of the present budget, the sum of EUR 280 million proposed by the Council is already too little and is incompatible with the successful application of the programme.
I know the budget has limited room for manoeuvre, but I think that, on such serious issues, which directly affect our citizens, the Union needs to make its priorities clear and find suitable solutions.
So I ask the Council to reconsider its position, accept the relevant amendments approved by the parliamentary committee and allow for a budget of EUR 380 million.
Finally, I think it is important that the exact objective of the programme under discussion be made clear.
Amendment No 23, which is referred to in Article 2, reinstates questions such as a holistic approach to health, highlighting mental health and well-being, and the importance of preventing and combating morbidity or premature mortality and reducing inequalities in health matters.
I should like to finish by congratulating the rapporteur on his effort to reconcile opposing views and ensure that the procedure for approving the programme will be completed shortly.
Madam President, I should like, in my turn, and this time on behalf of the Liberal Group, to thank Professor Trakatellis for his excellent report and for his particularly productive and effective collaboration with the notional rapporteurs, and in this case, believe me, that is not just a formality.
He has succeeded in extracting from the 57 amendments our essential concerns, as expressed by our vote on the occasion of the first reading.
Above all, I should just like to say that I am glad that he has abandoned the idea of creating a European centre for the coordination and monitoring of public health.
On this point, I would just like to remind the House that the Liberal Group supports Amendment Nos 34 and 57 which, more prudently, are evidently intended to strengthen that coordination and also Community integration at the level of the various existing public health networks, under the auspices of the Commission.
At a more fundamental level, of course, there are still points on which we disagree with the Council: first of all its refusal to include in the enacting terms any mention of a specific disease, any explicit reference to patients' rights, or the methods of action for preventing diseases.
Amendment Nos 16, 22 and 47 are essential.
They emphasise the importance of a policy of prevention and epidemiological monitoring.
Finally, thanks to Amendment Nos 3, 26 and 42, the rights of young and adult patients are finally laid down in a Community programme.
The second point on which we disagree is the budget, on which Parliament has already made numerous efforts to reach a compromise with the Council.
The EUR 380 million which we had adopted at the time of the first reading in plenary session, on 4 April, is in our view the minimum minimorum.
Moreover, as far as the budgetary aspect is concerned the Council' s position is to my mind somewhat paradoxical.
It has drastically reduced the budget to EUR 280 million, and at the same time it intends to open up this programme to the candidate and associated countries.
There is a problem here.
Should it be necessary to remind the House, as our rapporteur has done, that health is one of the most important concerns of the citizens of Europe? Food safety issues, changed attitudes in the face of the AIDS scourge, for example, or the threat of biological terrorism, remind us that the human race is not immune from outbreaks of new viruses or the reappearance of former pandemics.
This fully justifies an appropriate budget for the next six years.
The citizens - and I am just about to finish, Madam President - the citizens, the Members that represent them, and the Commission, all insist on that budget, in order to ensure that health is not sacrificed on the altar of budgetary dogmatism.
We want a strong health programme as early as January 2002. It is in Europe' s interest.
This is why we do not understand the attitude of the Council which, by not wanting to fill in the details of this programme, is in fact leaving the Commission with all the powers, while Members of the European Parliament will be deprived of any right of review for the next six years.
The European Parliament must be consulted about the annual priorities, and I hope that our fellow Members will support us on this point.
Far from being innovative, this programme restricts itself mainly to the setting up of an epidemiological monitoring network.
As far as we are concerned, this is not the main priority; we already have comparable data from other countries.
The Community added value should appear upstream, in the form of a reduction in the health risks emanating, for the most part, from our environment in the broadest sense of the word: transport, pollution, chemicals, food etc., but also from our behaviour and from social, economic and environmental inequalities.
We recommend prevention throughout the world, but we have to start by applying it ourselves in our health programme.
This programme should also give greater consideration to the risks arising from transmissible diseases, including in the candidate countries.
AIDS remains a scourge in Europe, and tuberculosis is resurfacing everywhere.
We also need to think about the therapeutic technologies that we wish to give priority to.
The 'all-drug' approach has revealed its limitations with the increasing levels of resistance to antibiotics and vaccines.
It is time to take other methods and replacement treatments into consideration, but this should also be done on the basis of relevant evaluations.
Finally, we cannot give in on this matter of the budget. Even EUR 380 million over a period of six years is not enough.
By sticking at EUR 280 million, the Council would be demonstrating a desire to restrict the actions of the European Union on public health issues, which is something that we cannot comprehend.
That is why we support Mr Trakatellis' report, which is the result of numerous exchanges between us and which enables us to demonstrate to the Council that the European Parliament' s opinions on health matters must be taken into consideration.
They are reasonable and they are essential to the health of all Europeans.
To develop and harmonise public health at the highest level ought to be one of the tasks of the European Union if its raison d' être is not merely to concern itself chiefly with the movement of capital and goods.
The recommendation contains some good intentions, but nothing about how they are to be put into practice.
Yet even in the most highly developed countries of the European Union, in any case in France, public health is short of resources, personnel, premises and equipment.
The idea of profitability is becoming more generalised.
Local hospitals and maternity hospitals are being closed down.
Because of staff shortages, nurses, carers and junior doctors have horrendous timetables.
Healthcare, and health itself, are commodities which a part of the population is finding it increasingly difficult to afford.
A proper public health policy implies disease prevention.
Yet how can we prevent disease in a society wracked by unemployment and poverty, in which we are witnessing the reappearance of diseases that we thought had been eradicated, like tuberculosis? A civilised society which has the resources of the European Union at its disposal ought to provide everyone with free, high-quality healthcare.
Its inability to do so is one example of its failure.
Thank you, Madam President, whenever there is a European Parliament debate on public health, people still assert for form' s sake that the subsidiarity principle must still be observed.
However, this appears to be a hollow phrase. I have noticed that the EU' s public health programme is being extended and embellished by all manner of things related to public health.
Certainly in the field of education and the provision of information, I do not expect Europe to outstrip the individual Member States.
Moreover, the distance between Europe and the citizen is far too great.
I do, however, support the promotion of health in the candidate countries where even basic health care is below standard.
In those countries, the European Union can offer help to combat various illnesses effectively.
A great deal can be achieved with relatively limited financial resources.
However, the developments in the public health sector in the European Union are going one step too far, in my opinion.
According to the Treaty of Amsterdam, public health is national policy and should stay that way.
I am therefore opposed to public health programmes which are used as a means to undermine national policy while the present programmes hardly offer any added value compared to Member State efforts.
Finally, rather than spending more money on public health programmes, it would be better to phase out subsidies on tobacco growing completely.
This would greatly benefit public health in the European Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are discussing the European Community's programme of action in the field of public health for 2001-2006.
As we will, I think, probably end up going into the conciliation procedure, the programme will probably not become effective before early 2002 and its term will be delayed accordingly.
The European Commission had allocated EUR 300 million for all the European Union's health projects over five years.
I feel provoked by the way the Council of Ministers has again cut this amount and is willing to authorise only EUR 280 million.
This programme set itself the extensive goals of continuing the eight existing action programmes, and there are additional tasks, considered to be urgent, especially in the area of information and, as Mr Trakatellis has already mentioned, in that of the challenges posed by international terrorism, whose scale we can as yet scarcely grasp. That being so, I cannot do other than give my full, whole-hearted support to Parliament's demand for EUR 380 million; indeed, I consider that the very least that the European Community must make available.
We must not be amenable to compromise on this, and the Council must not be left under any misapprehension about this.
The common position on the other areas, however, is in my view a great improvement on what the Commission originally submitted and on the documents produced by the first reading in Parliament.
The great majority of the amendments that have now been resubmitted, and to which the Environment Committee has agreed, I do not see as an improvement in absolutely every respect.
Despite the difficulties I have with them, I would like to express my thanks to Mr Trakatellis for the work he has done and, in particular, for his efforts at achieving a broad consensus in Parliament.
I must say, though, that further and continuing education is certainly a good start across national boundaries, but I have great difficulty with training in healthcare, medicine, and so on, becoming a matter for the European Community.
I see it as a matter for the Member States.
Some Members have expressed doubt about everything having to be done at a European level.
Coming as I do from a large Member State, I have seen only that the centralised allocation of tasks does not necessarily represent an improvement, but that individuals must really be helped where they actually are, and that, I believe, is done better by the Member States.
Madam President, the adoption of Community action in the field of public health is greatly welcome.
The new public health strategy will determine the EU's focus on health for the next five years.
That is why having clear priorities is so important: firstly, improving information and knowledge concerning health issues; secondly, strengthening rapid reaction to health threats; and, finally, tackling health determinants.
However, as many of my colleagues have mentioned, the budget remains an issue.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy would like EUR 300 million.
This is an EUR 80 million increase which would correspond to the amount already in the existing programmes.
As many have mentioned, this is EUR 100 million more than the Council asked for in the common position.
This is necessary in order for the programme to work effectively, and it is more than fair.
I would like to take this opportunity, in light of 11 September, to ask the Commissioner if any new action to combat bioterrorism will be funded by a new budgetary proposal and not from the framework programme?
Finally, I would like to emphasise the importance of working with NGOs.
I am alarmed that the Conservatives in this House have called for a split vote on the issue of NGO networks.
I fear that this will undermine the partnership which has been built up under the previous programme where the Community relied on NGO networks to deliver messages such as the "Europe Against Cancer Week".
The new health programme is about protecting the health of all EU citizens, not just the privileged few.
This will not be achieved without working with the EU citizens who are most interested and knowledgeable about public health.
Health is what matters to the majority of EU citizens.
We should make sure that this programme matters.
Madam President, we are in the process of providing ourselves with an excellent public health programme by 2006, and I want especially to thank Mr Trakatellis for that.
I want to mention a few points I think need to be part of this programme.
The first is what is absolutely the most important objective of a health programme, namely to ensure that diseases do not occur at all.
Preventative measures cannot be emphasised enough, and consideration must be given to these in all policies and all activities.
That applies above all to environmental pollution which, as we know, damages public health when, for example, food is contaminated or poisonous chemicals that are dangerous to health are used in consumer products.
I therefore really want to urge everyone to vote in favour of Amendment Nos 24, 40, 49 and 54.
My second point relates to complementary medicine. It is important for this to be recognised in the action programme and for research, evaluation and the provision of information to be encouraged in the area of complementary methods of treatment.
That is what Amendment Nos 25 and 44 are about.
Thirdly, I want to draw your attention to Amendment No 60, tabled by my own political group. This says that we need to develop strategies for reducing resistance to antibiotics.
This is a major public health issue and a major public health problem, as the World Health Organisation has also pointed out by way of a warning.
My fourth and last point concerns the importance of the efforts in support of the activities of the not-for-profit and non-governmental organisations that operate in the public health field.
They do sterling work in the field and need all the support they can get.
Madam President, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his work.
At a time when there are many questions with regard to what Europe is doing and what it is about, the one area where we can claim to have success and where we have responded to the concerns of European citizens is in the area of public health.
We have been to the fore with in bringing forward innovative programmes tackling common diseases such as cancer, biological hazards, risks to food and food safety, and also the ongoing problems of BSE and foot-and-mouth disease.
The one certainty, the one foundation stone that European citizens could depend on was the European Union.
This has been particularly the case because of the role of our present Commissioner, David Byrne with his proactive attitude to dealing with problems head on, refusing to hide behind any of the cloaks or daggers generally used to get through any difficult political situation.
Instead, he delivers clear and factual information quickly to the people. What we are asking for in Parliament here, in the second reading of the Trakatellis, report is a continuation of that relationship with the European citizen, a continuation of the confidence that the European citizens have in us to deliver for them in real terms.
I, like my colleagues, do not think that the European Union should be involved in setting out treatment programmes or setting out the delivery of medical services to individual citizens - that is obviously best dealt with at national or local level.
However, there is much that we can learn from each other.
There are practices with regard to medical devices and new technologies which are in use in one Member State and are not even discussed in another.
The Commission and Europe can act as the honest broker in bringing together these sides to ensure that we deliver the best possible remedies for people within the European Union.
I have one area of concern in particular - and there is nothing in the report to help resolve the problem - and that is having a clear account of the illness and diseases suffered right across the European Union.
For instance, in areas such as autism, polio, cancer - breaking down the individual cancers is probably easier to collate than anything else - cystic fibrosis and other generic and genetic diseases, we have seen continuing problems for people trying to give services to sufferers.
If the Commissioner could come forward with an idea of being the collator of information, at least we could then say that there is 10% or 12% or 50%, instead of using guess-work or guess-figures as regards the extent of disease, illness or disability prevalent in our Union.
Along with my colleagues, I will support the measures looking for increased funding to be made available.
We must live in the real world.
The work we are asking for costs money, whether in terms of personnel or resources, and we should be fully supportive of that.
I am very grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Trakatellis, the Members of Parliament and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy for their work on this important and ambitious programme.
This programme is important because protecting and improving public health is at the very centre of our citizens' concerns and their expectations.
The recent terrorist attacks have underlined the need to strengthen and extend the existing Community preparedness and response mechanisms.
Many of the amendments tabled are in line with our broad view of public health and how we should address it at Community level.
We can accept 38 of the 60 amendments - 28 in full and a further 10 in part.
I should like to concentrate on a few key areas where some clarification of the Commission's position may be of help.
First, the implementation of the programme.
The success of the programme will depend on the availability of resources and expertise.
The Commission will do everything it can to ensure the necessary, effective coordination by establishing the appropriate structural arrangements.
Putting these in place requires, in our view, a step-by-step approach.
Firstly, the Commission services are engaged in the process of restructuring in order better to reflect the main areas of the programme.
Secondly, in order to strengthen the Commission's capacity to coordinate actions, we intend to outsource some administrative and technical assistance.
For the longer term, we are looking at the possibilities to set up an executive agency.
However, this will have to await the adoption of the Commission's proposal for a regulation on such agencies which I hope will be adopted in the fairly near future.
In the light of this, I can accept Amendment No 8 which calls for the appropriate structural arrangements to ensure the effectiveness and cohesion of measures and actions in the programme and to promote cooperation between the Member States.
However, I am unable to accept Amendments Nos 6, 34 and 57 which impose a deadline on the Commission to carry out this work, and propose the creation of a coordination centre.
This constrains the exercise of the Commission's executive powers under the Treaty.
Having said that, I hope that Parliament will accept the Commission's firm commitment to proceed as rapidly as we can on the establishment of the structural arrangements to ensure effective coordination and monitoring.
The second area on which I would like to focus is the programme's budget.
The Commission's proposal was for a total budget of EUR 300 million over a period of six years.
Amendment No 36 increases this amount to EUR 380 million.
The Council's common position proposes a budget of EUR 280 million.
The decision on this matter is for the Council and the European Parliament, as the budgetary authority.
I would simply say that the Commission is keeping to its original proposal which, in our view, provides a reasonable figure for the implementation of the programme.
I cannot, therefore, accept Amendment No 36.
This amendment and the last part of Amendment No 56 also set limits on how we spend the programme budget.
Such restrictions undermine the essential principle that the programme must be flexible and able to respond to new concerns and threats to health, as they arise.
Recent events have clearly demonstrated the need to retain such flexibility.
Therefore we cannot accept these amendments.
Before I leave the issue of the budget, there is one point I want to make. The Council and Parliament stressed the need to put in place new structural arrangements to ensure effective coordination.
This was not included in the composition of the original proposal in the budget.
In view of this, when we put forward our opinion on the amendments adopted, we intend also to present a revised financial sheet for that programme. This would incorporate an increase in the budget line for expenditure on resources, for technical assistance and support which will be required for the structural arrangements.
I wish to turn now to the amendments concerning the scope and structure of the programme.
Amendments Nos 7, 13, 25, 30, 44, 46, 50, 52 and part of Amendment No 58 touch on a variety of subjects, such as giving support to regional and national centres of excellence in various fields.
Complementary therapeutic methods - developing guidelines for medicine and healthcare interventions as well as actions to improve diet and eating habits.
These amendments cannot be accepted since they cover areas under the responsibility of Member States.
Moreover, there are a number of amendments that require specific comments.
Amendments Nos 41 and 59 seek to impose an obligation for the Commission to report annually to Parliament on the implementation of the programme.
Parliament will be informed on a regular basis of the development of the programme through both the comitology rules and the evaluation process foreseen in Article 12 of the common position.
Therefore, we cannot accept these amendments.
Amendment No 42 cannot be accepted since it limits the scope of the health information system by linking it explicitly to the right of patients to receive certain information on their illnesses and treatment.
I stress, however, that I favour the concept of the promotion of patient rights and I am following the policy on this, which is included in the health forum and - you will note - is specifically referred to in the legislation at recital 3.
Finally, there is a group of seven amendments that we cannot accept because they take away the flexibility necessary for the implementation of the programme or because they duplicate provisions of the common position.
These are Amendments Nos 9, 10, 23, 27, 28, 35 and 43.
On the other hand, there are a number of amendments proposing important new actions that will reinforce the broad objectives and aims of the programme.
To name just a few, Amendment No 48 and part of No 26 that cover activities to counter health threats, including terrorists acts.
Amendment No 47 which covers the development of a vaccination and immunisation strategy.
As these amendments, as well as Amendments Nos 3, 11, 29, 31, 45 and 60 will serve to strengthen the programme and improve its effectiveness, they are all acceptable to the Commission.
I should add that applicant countries can join in and that is provided for.
Furthermore, I also want to mention the reference made to the extent to which it is necessary to acquire information on diseases and disabilities, as Mr Prodi mentioned.
I can, of course, confirm that this particular programme can deal with these issues, particularly under the first strand of the programme dealing with information and data collection.
Let me, in conclusion, Madam President, repeat my appreciation for all the constructive work that the rapporteur and the committee have put in on shaping the future of public health policy in the EU.
For those points where difficulties remain, the Commission is, of course, ready and willing to assist in finding solutions.
Thank you, Commissioner Byrne, the vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
The debate is closed.
Undesirable substances in animal feed
The next item is the recommendation for second reading, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position on undesirable substances in animal nutrition (A5-0408/2001)
I now give the floor to Mrs Paulsen, the rapporteur.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report has progressed very well.
The Commission and the Council adopted most of what Parliament requested at first reading.
Now, the user stage of the directive' s application is, for example, being included, and we have obtained a generic term so that we know what we are talking about.
All products intended as animal nutrition are now defined by a common term in all animal feed legislation.
It is very good that the important rules on, for example, the ban on dilution are now being implemented.
This means that a batch containing unduly high levels of, for example, dioxin may not be taken and diluted with something else so that it comes within the limits.
Personally, I think it is excellent that we have incorporated what are called action thresholds into the directive. That, ladies and gentlemen, is in practice the precautionary principle.
It means that if, for example, a dairy discovers that the level of mycotoxin, a mould poison, is increasing in its milk, an investigation can be launched, in spite of the fact that the limit above which the substance becomes hazardous has not yet been exceeded.
An investigation can then be begun into why the level of mycotoxin is increasing in the milk, and preventative measures can be adopted further back in the chain before the limit has been reached beyond which there is a danger of poisoning.
The Council has accepted everything, except in relation to an issue which we in the committee have now been forced to re-address, namely that of whether or not unsuitable batches of feed should be returned to, for example, the Third World.
The committee and I believe it is profoundly immoral simply to pass on in that way products which do not fulfil the requirements of the directive.
We do not know in such cases where the products will end up, whether they will be used in the poorest areas or whether they will simply return to our own market in another guise.
The committee therefore chose to table amendments which remove this option of re-export.
We also chose to retain a transitional period of six months following the directive' s entry into force.
Subsequently, the Commission and the Council came and offered negotiations under the Belgian Presidency.
We tried to reach a compromise and, in fact, did so.
I would thank both the Belgian Presidency and the Commission for the excellent and constructive way in which they have cooperated with me and my co-rapporteurs on this issue.
We agreed on a compromise solution according to which re-export was to be regulated in the same way as in the general food law which we have today voted through Parliament with a very large majority.
This solution is a technical way of plugging a time gap so that, when the general law comes into force, the provisions of this law will apply to re-export in accordance with this directive.
It is not, then, a new proposal but is concerned with bridging a particular period of time.
The compromise amendment we tabled has exactly the same wording as in the Whitehead report.
This evening, when everything was ready, we learned however that the Council did not want to accept this compromise.
I realise with deep regret that we have to withdraw our compromise proposal and are thus forced into a conciliation.
I want to say to the Council of Ministers that this is purely and simply a misuse of the conciliation institute.
This is not such a complex and serious dispute that we should need to go so far, but my co-rapporteurs and I find the situation such that Parliament is compelled to draw attention to it.
When five political groups sign a compromise, then we are serious about it.
Madam President, Commissioner, there are, under the circumstances, a lot of reports on animal feedingstuffs and animal nutrition before Parliament at the present time.
Yesterday, we discussed the circulation of compound feedingstuffs; today, at a second reading, we are back with undesirable substances in animal nutrition.
Mrs Paulsen has confirmed that, in its common position of 17 September 2001, the Council shared Parliament's view that, in order to ensure a comprehensive level of protection, no mixing or dilution should be permitted and that, in addition, the Member States should be empowered to lay down action thresholds.
I think that the practicality of these proposals will be shown when the time comes to implement them, and if there are problems then we must be ready to make more changes.
We know that everything that is prescribed must be capable of being monitored, which does not mean that only the possibility of monitoring must exist, but that monitoring is actually carried out.
What we are actually hoping for is that we can complete this document today.
Our misgivings about the issues raised by Article 13(2) have been put forward, and we continue to hope that there will be a compromise, even if Mrs Paulsen has now cast doubt on it.
The groups have come to an agreement among themselves.
What is at issue is the re-exportation of products intended for animal nutrition produced outside the Community and not complying with this directive's requirements.
It is not enough to simply say, 'I do not want that, so I shall send it back' . We ask ourselves questions and we face responsibilities.
What happens to feedingstuffs like that? Do they get destroyed, are they diluted, or do they reach us or other countries by other routes?
'You shall not to others do/what they should not do to you' , we say in Germany, so we are actually in favour of requiring the destruction of produce bought as feedingstuff but not permissible as such under this directive, and of it being done on the spot.
The objection now raised to that is that it means the European Union being misused as a disposal plant.
I think we would have no problems with that if we could resolve the question of how the costs would be met.
So it is not enough to simply send the stuff back, and does not do justice to our responsibility as politicians.
We continue to hope that the compromise that is taking shape, which we have brought in in Amendment No 4, will be supported by a majority in this House, and that we will be able to persuade the Council as well.
It will make it possible to put abuses of the system on the record and to document them.
The authorities in the exporting third country must give their express consent to the re-exportation.
I would, though, see the next logical step as being for the exporting third country to also produce evidence of what has subsequently been done with the items taken back.
Madam President, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Paulsen, and the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy for their recommendation for second reading on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on desirable substances in animal feed.
The measures in the Council common position are a key element of the comprehensive strategy to improve the safety of feed.
Prohibition of dilution will reduce the overall contamination load of animal feed.
Operators across the production chain will also be obliged to put in place passive systems and good manufacturing practices to ensure that the feed materials and the feedstuffs they produce are safe.
The setting of action levels will act as an early warning system, triggering a proactive approach to identify sources and pathways of contamination and to take measures to eliminate them.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 as adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Regarding Amendment No 1, the Commission considers that the possibility of returning non-compliant products intended for animal feed to the country of origin has to be maintained.
The Commission shares, however, Parliament's concerns in this regard and agrees, therefore, that this return can only happen under strict conditions.
Regarding Amendments Nos 2 and 3 on the date of application, the Commission cannot accept the time period of six months.
Instead, sufficient time is needed to transpose these far-reaching measures into national legislation.
Serious efforts have to be made by the operators to apply the measures in practice.
The Commission is therefore pleased that compromise Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 6 have been tabled for this plenary session to replace Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3.
I should confirm that the compromise amendments are - should you decide to keep them on the table - acceptable to the Commission.
These compromise amendments address the Commission's reasons for non-acceptance of the first three amendments.
Therefore the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 6.
The Commission will also try to persuade the Council to do likewise.
I wish also to inform you that a revision of the maximum levels of the undesirable substances in Annex I is foreseen.
The Commission has already requested the Scientific Committee for Animal Nutrition to provide updated scientific risk assessments.
These assessments are the key scientific input to the revision of the Annex.
The Commission hopes to finalise this review as soon as possible.
It should be available before this directive becomes applicable.
To conclude, I once again thank Mrs Paulsen for the excellent work she has done on this file.
Emissions from two and three-wheel motor vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council' s common position on the reduction of the level of pollutant emissions from two and three-wheel motor vehicles (A5-0406/2001)
I now give the floor to Mr Lange, the rapporteur.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, although we, sitting here together, are all good colleagues and agreeable people, one does wonder about the point of the five of us sitting here this evening to discuss this report, which is as much about lawmaking as it is about industrial policy and protection of the environment.
It seems, though, to be part of the higher purpose of this Parliament that we should have to do this here, and at this time of the day, all the same.
Since first reading stage, our aim has been to make motorcycles just as clean as passenger cars have become thanks to our legislation.
I believe we can take pride in the reduction of emissions from passenger cars, lorries and buses, because we have in fact, despite greatly increased traffic, been able to achieve a marked reduction in exhaust emissions.
One piece has not quite been fitted into the jigsaw, and that is motorcycles.
Here, too, there is a two-stage strategy for reducing the emissions of new vehicles by 2003 and 2006 to such an extent that, in 2006, a newly licensed motorcycle will in fact be just as clean as a car complying with EURO III standards.
That being so, we now have to boldly take the last step and make the 2006 stage binding as well, firstly, in order to make the objective mandatory.
Secondly, though, in order also to make it safe for industry to plan ahead, as of course new emission technology and new engines are being developed, and 2006 is no longer quite so far ahead.
In that sense, I can also understand that it is in industry's interest to ask for a safe space in which to plan ahead.
We must make the 2006 stage mandatory.
I do not believe there is much sense in waiting still longer for a new test procedure, perhaps one that will have been agreed on with the other world markets, Japan and the USA, and will be thoroughly suitable.
Looking at the horizon, though, I do not see that being feasible in the foreseeable future, and so I suggest that we go back to the test procedure we applied to cars and that has proved itself over time, thereby demonstrating a more realistic way of going about things than has previously been the case with motorcycles.
I believe, too, that the test procedure we now want to make applicable will tend not to produce results significantly differing from those produced by the new worldwide test procedure that is currently under discussion.
We can therefore rely on the test procedure for passenger cars.
What is more important is to decide whether or not to still discuss the procedure gradually.
It is also more important to stipulate that motorcycles should not achieve quite different emission values outside the test cycle, in other words that motorcycles are tuned only to the test cycle, and that electronic manipulation does not take place.
This is therefore both proper and vital, and, on this point, the Council has agreed with us that such electronic distorting apparatus should be unambiguously prohibited.
Secondly, we want, in addition to the 2006 fixed stage, tax incentives for the early placing on the market of low-emission vehicles and for the retrofitting of older vehicles where that is technically possible and without discrimination against their owners.
Another important point applies as much here as to other types of vehicles, such as passenger cars, lorries and buses, namely that it is not enough for vehicles to achieve great emission values only on a test bed; they must be able to keep to them throughout their working lives.
For two-wheelers, too, demands must be made on their durability.
When we vote tomorrow on the package we have presented to you, I believe we will be on the right road, adding this sector's chapter to the success story that is the reduction of emissions from European traffic.
Thank you, Madam President.
I would also like to thank Mr Lange for his excellent report.
Traditional air pollution will in a few years' time be a thing of the past, thanks to the majority of the European Parliament.
With regard to new cars, the second generation of catalytic converters will be compulsory in 2005.
A lengthy and difficult conciliation procedure was required in order to achieve this outcome.
Catalytic converters in lorries will be compulsory in 2008.
This was not so difficult to achieve. The Council adopted the EP' s position at first reading.
Today, we are discussing new motorcycles.
One could sum this up by saying that catalytic converters will be compulsory in 2006.
This is a fair position.
BMW have had a motorcycle equipped with a catalytic converter on the market for a long time.
It is unfortunate that the environmental ministers should refuse to take this reasoning on board.
Conciliation will now be inevitable.
However, because of the EP' s unanimity, the Council is bound to lose out.
The significance of no more ozone smog and far less acidification outweighs the short-term interest of a few manufacturers.
Madam President, I first wish to thank the European Parliament, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Lange, for his speedy preparation of the report on the second reading of this matter.
In general I might say that Mr Lange' s deep commitment to the issues in this area has been held in high regard in the Commission.
I am happy that the rapporteur agrees with the limit values for emissions and their application dates, which are scheduled as from 2003.
The rapporteur is once again proposing, however, an amendment that appeared in the first reading, which has to do with a second stage of mandatory limit values that would apply from 2006.
This stage would be based on limit values and test cycles that currently apply to passenger cars.
As you know, right from the start the Commission has supported stricter limits for emissions as from 2006, in compliance with the following principles: that we should employ a worldwide harmonised test cycle for motorcycles that reflects the actual way motorcycles are driven on the highway, with the corresponding limit values; that we should employ a reliable sequence of emissions measurements in a new test cycle for motorcycles, so that new limit values may be specified in a way that is scientifically sound and in accordance with improved emission control technology.
A UN/ECE working party entrusted with the task has completed technical development work on a test cycle for motorcycles.
In the last few months, a large-scale emissions measurements programme has been undertaken.
I could also mention that test results on fifty motorcycles are now available.
Next week the results will be evaluated by the working party.
We do not have to wait until worldwide consensus is reached regarding harmonised testing procedures.
The technical work carried out under this programme makes it possible to determine a solution for motorcycles that can perhaps be applied first in EU legislation.
The rapporteur' s proposed approach is an option that nevertheless needs further improvements for it to be effective with regard to protection of the environment.
This is an important issue and the Commission cannot support any of the amendments that call for the introduction of a mandatory second stage.
However, the Commission is prepared to participate with the other institutions in shaping an agreement that would be ambitious in terms of technology and that would benefit the environment.
The common position now contains a package of measures for improved in-use emission control, but there is still a number of amendments in the report which define time limits and the details of the regulations more precisely.
The Commission supports Amendment No 6, which has to do with preventing the test cycle from being by-passed, and the first parts of Amendments Nos 5 and 14, which are connected with the conformity testing of in-service motorcycles.
The Commission also accepts Amendments Nos 3 and 12, which would permit the retrofitting of older motorcycles.
The Commission cannot accept the demands in Amendments Nos 5, 13 and 20 regarding durability.
Such regulations could lead to ever-changing regulations in the period 2003 - 2006.
The Commission supports the proposal that the measuring of carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption should be included in the type approval system as an essential requirement for a future reduction in carbon dioxide emissions and improved fuel economy.
Measures connected with this can, however, only be taken after a thorough evaluation has been undertaken.
For that reason, the Commission accepts Amendment No 7, but rejects Amendments Nos 15 and 19.
Amendments Nos 8 and 9 are connected with the introduction of stage 2 limit values for mopeds.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 8, as it would delay the application of stage 2 to new type approvals to a time past that agreed in the existing Directive (97/24/EC).
However, the Commission accepts Amendment No 9, which provides for a clearly defined period of validity for stage 1 approvals, which in the directive is open.
The Commission therefore accepts Amendments Nos 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 17 and 22.
In addition, the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 1 and 18 in principle and Amendments Nos 5, 14 and 23 in part.
The Commission does not agree with Amendments Nos 2, 4, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 19 - 21, and 24 - 27.
Thank you, Commissioner Liikaanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 11.15 p.m.
Address by Mr Kim Dae Jung, President of the Republic of Korea
Mr President, I should really like to thank you most warmly for the very powerful address that you have just given before the European Parliament, and also for the very positive opinion that you have expressed with regard to this House.
You reminded us that it is the symbol of European unity, and you also mentioned the support that the European Union has been able to give you and hopes to continue to give you.
We have, of course, seen and heard with great interest the proposals, the very specific projects that you have in mind in order to encourage trade between Asia and Europe, and you have told us that these projects would help to strengthen our mutual understanding and cooperation.
You know that you have our full support in these undertakings, and we hope that the framework agreement that has been concluded will be a privileged instrument of that cooperation.
Yet you also emphasised, Mr President, the responsibility that the developed countries have to help the developing countries to adjust to the information society, so that the poorest countries will not be isolated from the future development of the world economy.
I can assure you that this is a view to which we in this House attach particular importance, and your message has been not only heard, but also understood and accepted.
Lastly, and this is something that we had talked about at length before your address, you spoke of your hopes for peace and stability in Korea.
I myself had pointed out how much you had encouraged cooperation between North and South Korea, and we share that hope with you, Mr President, with all our hearts and with all our strength.
My last point is that you appealed to us most sympathetically regarding the World Cup match.
We realise how enthusiastic you are about preparing to organise the World Cup.
On this subject I can also assure you that all members of this House will be following it closely, on television of course, but we have also heard your kind invitation that you extended to us.
Each one of us knows that sport and culture are forceful vehicles for bringing about peace, for developing freedom, the rule of law and respect for other people, and all those values that you defend with a perseverance and determination that we deeply admire.
For all this, we thank you Mr President.
(Loud applause) (The formal sitting was closed at 12.40 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like it noted as a matter of urgency that the case of Dr. Ganzert, an attorney from Wels, has been dismissed.
He is at present being held without good cause by the authorities in Nicaragua and has for three weeks been endeavouring to get permission to leave the country.
I wish, though, to thank you, Madam President, for writing to the authorities in Nicaragua and asking for him to be given an exit visa.
I will raise that matter with the President.
(The Minutes of the previous sitting were approved) President.
I should like to inform the House that the Minister of Justice for Belgium, the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Verwilghen, cannot be present at the beginning of this debate because of fog in Brussels.
We are expecting him to arrive at some stage.
I suggest to the House that we will have to continue the debate and our agenda therefore.
We look forward to the Minister's arrival.
Mr President, I would like you to take note of my strong protest at the conditions under which this debate is to be held.
I am not referring to the absence of the Minister, although this is also a problem, but to the systematic manner in which the Conference of Presidents organises debates relating to the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, amalgamating every topic into a joint debate.
It seems to me to show a total lack of respect that, at the same time and for the same duration as a debate of such great importance as that on annual progress in the field of Justice and Home Affairs, we should also be debating the Hazan report on the Council report on justice and home affairs: EU priorities and policy objectives for external relations and the Watson report on a recommendation to the Council on an area of Freedom, Security and Justice: security at meetings of the European Council and other comparable events, and any other matter that may be on this Committee' s agenda.
Mr President, this is the same as if we were to debate the assignment of radio frequencies and the association agreement with Egypt at the same time because they are both the remit of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
I hope that more respect will be shown in future.
I suggest that you raise this matter with your own group leader and that this be a subject, therefore, for the Conference of Presidents to discuss.
Mr President, on Monday, when the sitting opened, I asked for Members to be provided with a copy of the letters exchanged between Mr Bush and Mr Prodi.
Mrs Fontaine assured us that she would do what was necessary.
At Monday' s extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, I put the same request to the Commission representatives, who seemed surprised that Members had not seen this correspondence.
We did in fact manage to find Mr Bush' s letter to Mr Prodi, sent a whole two months ago, on the Internet, but we still do not have a copy of the reply Mr Prodi sent at the end of November.
Furthermore, it seemed that our Committee on Citizens' Freedoms had agreed on the need to see this letter.
I therefore ask you whether a copy can be provided.
I have to inform you that the President did not say that she would make the correspondence available because the correspondence is not available to us as a Parliament.
That is the difficulty that we are in.
So I am afraid that cannot be instituted.
Area of freedom, security and justice
The next item is the joint debate on the following two oral questions:
Oral question to the Council (B5-0534/2001) by Alima Boumediene-Thiery, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the 2001 annual debate on the area of freedom, security and justice (Articles 2 and 39 of the EU Treaty)
Oral question to the Commission (B5-0535/2001) by Alima Boumediene-Thiery, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the 2001 annual debate on the area of freedom, security and justice (Articles 2 and 39 of the EU Treaty)
Ladies and gentlemen, the conclusions of the Tampere Summit have given new impetus to the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
With a view to attaining the objectives that were set, a plan of action was drawn up, which provides for its establishment between two and five years after the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
It is now time for a mid-term review of the progress made on the Tampere agenda, in the light of the Commission' s timetable.
The area of security, freedom and justice covers three major aspects: the Community' s asylum and immigration policy, strengthening judicial cooperation and police cooperation.
So let us look at the situation regarding each of these three aspects.
On the question of asylum and immigration policy and, more specifically, the management of migration flows, under the measures that have been taken, immigration is regarded as a palliative for manpower shortages and as compensation for the demographic imbalances of the states involved, without taking account of the human or social dimension or the consequences of the brain drain.
However, surely this Community migration policy calls into question the universal nature of fundamental rights?
Is the re-admission policy consistent with international obligations regarding the protection of refugees and the right of asylum? As for the European Observatory on Migration, I have a reservation.
Surely we have to admit that first of all we need to reflect on its purpose, its usefulness and the position of the NGOs concerned with migration in this Observatory.
Not a single significant measure has been taken to ensure that third-country nationals are treated fairly.
As for their political participation and the re-definition of citizenship, this question has been evaded on the pretext of protecting national sovereignty, which comes down to denying the democratic rights of citizens resident in Europe.
How does the Commission propose to promote citizenship based on residence as a means of ensuring their rights? Furthermore, what action does the Council propose to take on the directives on reuniting families, on the status of non-Europeans who are long-term residents and on freedom of movement, establishment and work on the territory of the Member States?
The Geneva Convention forms the basis of asylum policy. However, the concept of refugee must encompass both the gender aspect and the social aspect.
Is the Council prepared to respond to the specific sufferings of women and victims of civil war? Surely the Eurodac system, based on a data bank of fingerprints, presents a risk to asylum seekers?
Furthermore, should the Dublin Convention not be reviewed? The competence of a state to examine a file and the decision-making responsibility should be decided on the basis of the asylum seeker' s choice of country of residence rather than by the country of arrival, which is so difficult to decide in a Union that has supposedly abolished borders.
The action plans adopted for partnership with third countries are looking more and more like a means of holding back immigration. What is the situation regarding development aid, a corollary to restricting emigration?
Has cooperation been reduced to financing extradition? Surely the introduction of administrative police at the points of entry from third countries is a negation of the right to seek asylum?
Some progress has been made at civil level, in relation to strengthening judicial cooperation. Several texts have been adopted on judicial powers, the notification of acts, the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions and their enforcement, especially in the matrimonial field and in relation to parental responsibility.
A proposal for a directive on legal aid is under consideration; it aims to secure better access to justice.
The situation is much less promising with regard to reinforcing criminal judicial cooperation: the reservations here are mainly about what constitutes a specific offence.
In the legislative field, framework decisions have been taken on protecting the euro against forgeries, money-laundering, combating the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children.
The Council also appears to be preparing to adopt those decisions that concern the fight against terrorism and the European arrest warrant.
The slow progress is due mainly to Member States' resistance to the principle of mutual recognition.
The setting up of Eurojust is a real step forward for the citizens; the rights of defendants and the protection of data do, however, need better guarantees.
Unfortunately, we find that we are still far from establishing a European public prosecutor' s office or from common legislation and judicial procedures.
We find the most marked progress in the field of police cooperation.
There are now many areas where the police have to cooperate.
The procedures for Europol' s participation in joint investigations, for the keeping of its records and for its cooperation with third countries need to be clearly defined.
Surely we urgently need to guarantee better data protection and finally ensure that we have democratic and judicial scrutiny? As for respect for fundamental rights, I believe we need to review the list of safe countries.
Turning to the Schengen Information System, and looking ahead to the enlargement of the Union, new questions arise concerning its tasks, its technical capacity and its institutional form.
We must not overlook the external dimension of justice and home affairs.
The fight against trafficking in human beings and the fight against organised crime are both areas that should be dealt with under the external relations aspect of justice and home affairs.
(The President cut the speaker off)
We cannot start off the day running overtime.
Otherwise, at the end of the day, our agenda would be totally out of place.
Mr President, this is a rather strange debate today.
Different reports have been put together into an omnibus debate.
My report deals with the question of security at summits of the European Union and similar international gatherings and it looks also at the question of citizens' rights.
It is important that when Parliament looks at problems that affect the Union, it must do so without victimising individual countries.
Just as my recent report on terrorism sought to be a generic report and not one that referred exclusively to the situation in the Basque country in Spain, so this report sets out also to be a generic report and not one that seeks to be particularly critical of any one country.
We have seen violent protests at summits in EU countries - in Nice, Gothenburg and Genoa.
Such protests have been serious, in the last instance resulting in a death.
My report has been drawn up in my capacity as chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Rights and Freedoms, Justice and Home Affairs and I am pleased to say that it has enjoyed a wide consensus in that committee.
I thank my colleagues for the work they have put into it and recommend that they adopt the report as it stands, and vote against the 30 amendments which have been submitted, which seem to me to relate to issues that have already been dealt with in committee.
In looking at the problems of violence that we have seen, the European Union must understand the causes of such violent protest and seek to prevent it.
There seem to me to be two requirements in this.
The first is that we must improve political dialogue on the right to peaceful assembly and to peaceful protest.
The second is that we must find a firm, but proportionate, response to criminal behaviour by demonstrators.
I note that in Sweden and in Italy judicial proceedings have followed from the violent protests that we saw.
The European Union, too, needs to look at whether citizens' rights have been violated, particularly in reference to Article 6 (1) and to Article 7 of our treaties.
It must be recalled that Article 7 was strengthened by the European Council in Nice, which instructed the European institutions to monitor the application of fundamental rights even where there is simply a risk of a violation of them.
In carrying out such surveillance, institutions must be guided by the European Charter on Fundamental Rights.
Hence my report seeks to begin such a study of what has happened and look at whether we have in all cases abided by our commitments.
When hundreds of thousands of people representing NGOs and church groups gather on the streets to express their concern and choose to do so at a series of international meetings, it is not just a coincidence.
It demands an appropriate response and, indeed, a political response.
We must avoid a situation where no answer is given because a society where citizens are afraid of their institutions - and perhaps more importantly institutions are afraid of their citizens - makes for a very weak democracy.
In this context I welcome the démarche taken by Mr Guy Verhofstadt in seeking to engage in dialogue with civil society, in advance of the meetings that have been held under the Belgian Presidency.
This approach needs to be complemented by a White Paper dealing with globalisation, looking at the European Union's position as a major actor in an area for which the Union is directly responsible and perhaps bringing together a number of Commissioners from different disciplines to look at a global strategy for the European Union.
We must look at Article 33 of the Treaty, which gives Member States the task of ensuring the maintenance of law and order, and see whether the responses have been appropriate.
The weakness in cooperation between the Member States' law and order authorities is a fundamental weakness of the Union.
I hope that we will be able to examine this in the context of the creation of a European area of freedom, security and justice.
Our citizens must know that they will receive the same treatment from authorities and enjoy the same rights under the law, whichever country they are in and wherever they are exercising their democratic rights.
As Mrs Hazan cannot be with us, her report has been taken over by Mr Poignant.
Mr President, I have stepped into Mrs Hazan' s shoes.
This is unfortunate for you, but I hope you will excuse me and excuse her.
On the eve of the Laeken Summit, Mrs Hazan said she was very pleased to have the opportunity to present this report on the Union' s priorities and policy objectives for external relations in the field of justice and home affairs and to play a larger part in this debate on the progress made in relation to the area of security, freedom and justice since the Tampere Summit.
The Union is at a crossroads.
We must not arrive late for this rendezvous that is so crucial and strategic to its future unless we want to end up one day with our back to the wall.
Moreover, we now have an opportunity to examine the degree to which the Member States are willing to put justice and home affairs in the forefront of the Union' s policies.
That is the purpose of this report, which highlights the need to fully integrate issues relating to asylum, immigration, justice and police cooperation, i.e. issues of very direct concern to our fellow citizens.
With that in mind, all the Member States will have to take global, integrated and inter-pillar action.
We must also stress the fact that hitherto the European Union has taken too little action in this field, which is still in its early days.
This kind of report must be seen above all as providing food for thought on the added value of deepening the area of security, freedom and justice that is at the very heart of the Union, so that the Union can be prepared to meet the challenges of an external policy in this field.
It is up to us to establish the necessary instruments, a lack of which has meant that we have hitherto been unable to respond to our partners' demands.
Some of these objectives have been listed.
They concern the following areas: combating all forms of organised crime, forming a common front against terrorism, coordination amongst Member States and candidate countries as regards training for the judiciary and police authorities, establishing a co-development policy, establishing close forms of cooperation with third countries in fighting racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination, establishing a strong link between immigration policy and development aid policy, the need to adopt a common asylum policy containing minimum standards for the reception and temporary protection of asylum seekers.
This is a difficult task, which will take a long time and calls for complex international negotiations.
By that token we must give the Union a mandate to take action to achieve this, by supporting the Commission proposals that do and will play their part in establishing this kind of coherent framework.
In this sort of situation, we have to be bold enough to put our foot on the accelerator and ensure that decisions that are still blocked in the Council can enter into force.
Obstacles do exist and we must do our best to overcome them.
We must not overlook the human implications of these problems.
Current events remind us of that, with the terrible tragedy of the eight refugees, including three children, found dead in a container in Ireland last Saturday.
We also remember the 58 victims found at Dover in June 2000.
I hope it will not take other tragedies of this kind for our States to realise how important it is to make progress in these areas.
The Council must, of course, assume its responsibilities, because what is happening here is the result of its overcautious approach.
Similarly, we must not allow ourselves to be blackmailed by any one country - I am referring to Italy - but I believe that yesterday' s events have changed things and Mrs Hazan cannot have known about this last night.
In this regard, the tragic events of 11 September make it even more necessary for us to look at these matters from a long-term point of view.
We must not now adopt an overly hasty position out of a sense of urgency.
On the contrary, only if Europe is equipped with instruments that are permanent, operational and coordinated to a similar degree can it exert its influence on the international scene and impose its vision of humanism and the protection of individual freedoms.
Lastly, we emphasise that Parliament must be able to exercise control over external policy and justice and home affairs policy by means of periodic consultation regarding the overall strategy pursued.
Let me point out that this is not so much a question of making unrealistic and well-meaning proposals and but rather of analysing the situation objectively, which means we must look at this external dimension as a key part of our policy.
The progress made since Tampere is not very encouraging. Whose fault is that?
It is certainly not the fault of the Commission, which is making a great effort to achieve these objectives. Instead, we should criticise the Council, which tends too often to put off the adoption of specific measures again and again, and the unanimity rule governing these areas, which blocks their adoption.
Once again, none of this is new, as you know, since this question was also raised at the Tampere Summit.
Today, we must seize the moment...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the main phenomena that threaten democratic values, people and civil rights today are as globalised as our economy.
Organised crime, drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings and terrorism are phenomena that no longer permit us to continue to think in national or regional terms.
It is therefore by no means too late for the European Union to apply its policy on justice and home affairs to its external relationships.
What is more, in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs we have noticed that there are more and more reports relating to cross-border problems, and Eurojust is only one example of this.
The reinforcement or even the preservation of the constitutional state and democracy in the European Union is determined to a large extent by the situation in the countries surrounding us and those further away.
A significant factor in this is the visible and invisible corruption that is particularly problematic in a number of countries and which is undermining our democracy.
Thus an efficient and responsible immigration and asylum policy cannot be achieved without appropriate efforts for the countries of origin.
However, in order to achieve a good understanding of the causes of migration and asylum applications, we must match our development policy to the actual socio-economic and political context in the countries concerned.
The proposal by the Council, in collaboration with the Commission, is an important document that is pointing in the right direction.
The principle of the constitutional state is being reinforced, both in the area of enlargement and in that of the European Union' s collaboration with other countries, and we should now be aiming to achieve proper coordination in our external policy.
With her report, Mrs Hazan has furthermore managed to reinforce the original text.
Naturally, the objectives, priorities and measures being proposed will still have to be achieved and complied with.
It is also important that Parliament be kept properly informed about progress in this regard, because we have to be able to answer the question that concerns the man and woman on the street: 'What are you doing to solve all these problems?'
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, today' s debate in this Chamber is taking place in a particular international context, which only underlines the need, the urgent need, to achieve the objectives of the Amsterdam Treaty and to respect the programme set out by the Heads of State and Government of the EU countries in Tampere in 1999.
It is also taking place in the context of yesterday' s Justice and Home Affairs Council whose heavy agenda reflected the intensive nature of the ongoing work, and of the forthcoming Laeken Summit, a mid-term meeting to evaluate the progress made since Tampere and, I hope, give new impetus to our efforts to bring our programme to fruition.
Finally, it looks forward to the medium-term prospect of the Intergovernmental Conference to be held in 2004, against the background of the enlargement of the Union.
Some of the questions that have been raised, especially on the role of the European Parliament in the field of justice and home affairs and on protecting the citizen' s fundamental rights in the European judicial area, will figure very largely on the agenda of that debate.
Starting, therefore, with the questions put by Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, I will try to reply to the questions of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
The first question raised touches on a matter of principle: the objective of protecting the citizens, laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty. It is a question that stands at the top of the Union' s political agenda, in the light of the current, dramatic international events and of deadlines that are drawing increasingly near, such as enlargement.
I would say that this objective will certainly not prejudice respect for the fundamental rights set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The Commission is most concerned to ensure that the proposals put forward for guaranteeing internal security and the protection of our fellow citizens are balanced and proportionate and are consistent with a system of values based first and foremost on the rule of law.
First of all, a number of quasi-constitutional texts guarantee these rights in the European Union and are referred to systematically in the Commission' s proposals.
This applies to the European Convention on Human Rights as also to the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.
These texts govern the rights of the Union as they do national rights.
Furthermore, I believe it is imperative to point out that the Union' s objectives with regard to the protection of citizens are not just consistent with the fundamental rights set out in the EU Charter but are based on these rights.
In that sense, we welcome the recommendations made in the Watson report on demonstrations organised in conjunction with the European Council.
These recommendations are reasonable and we believe they create a balance between, on the one hand, the citizens' freedom of expression and their full use of the fundamental right to demonstrate and, on the other hand, the need not to give free rein to those who are in fact against any democratic debate and believe they can pass on their messages by means of violent confrontation with the forces of law and order.
As for the recommendation to launch a dialogue on the internal and external impact of globalisation, let me say that the same concern will be apparent in the communication the Commission will be submitting next January on the external aspects of a sustainable development policy.
Turning to the second point, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery' s question about the possibility of taking special measures to combat the threat of terrorism, I do not think one could say the European Union is going down that road.
Once again, although it is true that to some extent it is urgent to take decisions, and in particular measures to strengthen police and judicial cooperation to combat the most serious attacks on our freedoms, our values and our institutions, I do not believe that the initiatives the European Union has taken or has proposed can be described as special measures, i.e. as measures derogating from key principles because of special circumstances.
No, the proposed measures are basic measures; they were taken, it is true, in special circumstances, but they are not makeshift measures and they are in fact consistent with the mandate our governments and our nations conferred on us when they adopted the Amsterdam Treaty.
Let me also take this opportunity to express my pleasure and my congratulations to the Belgian Presidency for managing, yesterday in Rome, to consolidate decisions taken by the Justice and Home Affairs Council to adopt the framework decision on combating terrorism and the framework decision on the European arrest warrant.
The rapporteur' s suggestion that we should include a temporary validity clause or a review clause is interesting in principle, i.e. the idea of introducing an obligation to assess the impact of a proposal adopted in terms of its objective.
The third point that was emphasised concerns the delay in achieving the Tampere objectives.
The speaker is addressing all the institutions and authorities responsible for implementing the programme decided at Tampere.
The latest edition of the Commission' s programme includes an initial evaluation of the progress made.
Delays have indeed occurred, especially in certain areas such as asylum and immigration or the minimal harmonisation of penal sanctions.
As you know, the mid-term review that will take place at the Laeken European Council is therefore a crucial step.
That will be the moment to check whether the commitments made in Tampere and reiterated on 21 September will be reflected by a real will on the part of the Member States to move ahead.
It will also be the moment to learn lessons from the successes achieved and difficulties encountered to date.
If the Tampere objectives were re-evaluated and, in particular, if the deadlines that were set were called into question again, we would see a crisis of public confidence vis-à-vis a political project, which, as everyone well knows, is essential and a matter of priority, whatever the remaining difficulties.
So what we need today is resolve as much as method, in order not to disappoint public opinion' s legitimate expectations as also the men and women whose job it is to protect our freedom, guarantee our security and ensure that justice becomes more accessible.
The Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers held last week produced encouraging results in terms of the Member States' resolve to match the commitments they made with their actions.
However, it also illustrated all the limitations and ambiguities of a decision-making process based entirely on unanimity.
In Laeken, the Commission will underline the fact that we can only overcome the reluctance to move forward if we begin by injecting a new dose of political will.
When the Heads of State and Government embark on a new, more general debate on the future of Europe at the Laeken Summit, that will also be the time to establish a link between the progress achieved, the progress still to be made and the future of the Union and of the way it functions.
They will have to reflect on how the next Intergovernmental Conference could introduce institutional changes and reform the decision-making mechanisms in such a way as to ensure the full achievement of the area of freedom, security and justice.
The fourth question concerns harmonisation in the field of criminal law.
First of all, let me remind you that the Treaty refers specifically to the harmonisation of criminal law as such.
The object here is not so much to achieve mutual recognition as to make sure the EU Member States combat acts that affect all the countries of the Union in a coordinated manner, in the same manner and by imposing penalties of equivalent severity.
This will be an instrument that complements the mutual recognition of judicial decisions.
Of course, as I have always said and will repeat today, harmonisation must be handled with sensitivity and applied only where it is necessary.
The Tampere European Council listed the sectors where this rapprochement is needed.
There have been Member State initiatives or Commission proposals covering all these aspects.
Several of them have been adopted, others are well on the way to being so and I believe I can say that we will soon have a common set of instruments to fulfil this mandate.
Regarding procedural law, however, I have already had occasion to say that the Commission intends to present a communication on this subject, which has become all the more necessary in the light of the most interesting political debate on the European arrest warrant.
The purpose of this communication would be to define common standards for the protection of individual rights in criminal proceedings in relation to a number of aspects that derive from the Convention on Human Rights and the Strasbourg Court' s case law.
This approach would help strengthen the mutual trust on which the construction of the European judicial area depends, both in the Union as it is today and, later, in a Europe enlarged to 25 or 30 Member States.
The fifth point concerns the democratic deficit that still exists within the Union in fields relating to justice and home affairs.
This is a dual question, since it concerns, firstly, your institution' s role in the decision-making process in the field of justice and home affairs, and secondly, how it can exercise its powers in the appropriate manner.
It is very important to ensure that our resolve to make progress in achieving our objectives goes hand in hand with improved democratic and judicial scrutiny.
Firstly, I must say that over these past two years the Commission has endeavoured to inform and involve the European Parliament as closely as possible in the definition of its strategic guidelines and its initiatives.
Nonetheless, it remains true that we need to think more deeply about Parliament' s participation not only in defining the Union' s strategy but also in its implementation. The Commission regards this as a key point with regard to the progress remaining to be made.
Mainstreaming matters that come under the first pillar with those regarded as coming under the third pillar is proving a source of constant difficulties.
Moreover, there is some risk that this situation could block the decision-making process; even if this risk is overcome at the price of artificially separating acts that in fact have the same aim, this deadlock would make the Union' s action unintelligible to the citizens.
I therefore welcome the Council recommendation, which your Parliament adopted on 15 November this year, on criminal sanctions and Community law, calling for, at the very least, the communitarisation of judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
Regarding Parliament' s access to sensitive information held by the Commission, one of the practical conditions allowing your institution to exercise its right of scrutiny properly, let me point out that a framework agreement, dated 5 July, exists between our two institutions and that the Commission will apply it to the full.
Finally, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery asked about strengthening the candidate countries' institutional capacities.
I believe that in the reports we have published and in our constant evaluation of the improvement in the candidate countries' capacities, we have borne this in mind and given all the necessary publicity to our evaluation of each of the candidate countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the enhanced cooperation between the Union and the United States in the fight against terrorism, I believe this cooperation shows the extent to which the European dimension cannot now be dissociated from any complete and effective international action taken against transnational incidents.
Of course, this cooperation is still in its fairly early days.
It has given rise to problems, especially in guaranteeing full respect for the principles of our European law and of international law.
I see the development of this European dimension as an opportunity to assert our values and our principles rather than sacrificing our principles on the altar of cooperation.
To conclude, Madam President, Mr President, Ministers, ladies and gentlemen, the Union' s response to the challenges and issues of our times must be well considered but rapid, transparent but effective, progressive but coordinated.
It is along these lines that I see the future of that vast building site, which is the area of freedom, security and justice, and that I intend to pursue the cooperative relations with the European Parliament on which we embarked two and a half years ago.
I personally am very grateful for the commitment of all the members of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and above all its chairman, Graham Watson, to whom I offer particularly warm thanks.
Mr President, I congratulate Commissioner Vitorino and the rapporteurs, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery and Mrs Hazan, whose report was adopted unanimously in committee, and the chairman, Mr Watson, whose report on security at international summits is meticulous from a legal viewpoint and politically balanced. This report reflects on the need to respond politically to the problems posed by globalisation in order to contribute to the political, social and economic progress of the international community and to overcome violence.
Too many acts of violence have been committed during the anti-globalisation demonstrations, and also in some cases too many acts of violence against the demonstrators or even those arrested, as in the tragic events in Genoa in which a young man was killed, struck down in circumstances that are still unclear.
I am glad to say that the courts in my country are independent and still able to mete out justice, even if it is posthumous.
There have been too many acts of violence, too many violations of the rules and principles that govern the European Union.
When faced with alarming events, we must not give up respecting the fundamental rights which we solemnly affirm and expect third countries that have barely entered the democratic arena to respect.
Even today, when we are faced with terrorism, we must remember that these rights were won in Europe with the greatest difficulty.
They cannot just apply on holidays and in times of peace.
They exist to protect us in times of struggle and danger.
Therefore, ready as we are to defend ourselves against terrorists, enemies of human rights, by every lawful means, we reject any temptation to use instruments that reduce the levels of civilisation on which we pride ourselves, even when faced with pressing, genuine demands.
The end does not justify the means, especially when it is the means - respect for the fundamental rights of every human being, and the rejection of discrimination between citizens and non-citizens - that form the essence of our democracies.
In this parliamentary term, the Europe of rights is being constructed.
The Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights has been approved and appreciable progress has been made in setting up the area of freedom, security and justice.
We are behind schedule with asylum and immigration but we have made progress on judicial cooperation in civil and criminal matters and police cooperation.
The delays in Member States ratifying the agreements approved by the Council reveal the need for the Community method even in matters of the so-called third pillar.
The strengthening of Europol, the creation of Eurojust, joint investigation teams and the fight against money laundering are just a few of the agreed objectives that are still waiting to be put into practice.
The 11 September slaughter gave rise to the proposal of framework decisions on a joint definition of the crimes of terrorism and on the European arrest warrant.
After incomprehensible resistance from - I regret to say - my own government, even the latter project is about to be implemented, and I hope my government does not make the country pay for its contradictions in this matter.
In any case, I am glad to say that the European Union as an area of freedom, security and justice really will be here soon.
Mr President, I wish to talk specifically about the Council statement which we are expecting on cooperation between the EU and the USA and cooperation in combating terrorism.
The events of 11 September were an excruciating flash of light and we had to react immediately.
However, we must not be blinded into forgetting that terrorism has been a problem on our continent for many years.
After 11 September, I remember Hans Gert Poettering saying here in a memorable debate 'we are all Americans', but we have learned since then that we must first be Europeans.
I welcome the Justice and Home Affairs Council's agreement at the weekend on a framework decision on combating terrorism.
I welcome the Council's recognition of a European Union legal base for the freezing of assets of groups linked to terrorism and, in particular, yesterday's agreement between Council President Guy Verhofstadt and Prime Minister Berlusconi on a European arrest warrant.
Europe has put its house in order.
Europe has shown its capacity to act.
In tackling terrorism there is a fine balance to be struck between the security needs of our citizens and the rights and freedoms which make democracy what it is.
The European Union has shown that it can be tough on terrorism and still be true to its treaties and to the values which underpin them.
It has recognised that networks of terrorism stretch beyond its borders and that we need cooperation between democracies, particularly across the Atlantic.
The next step must be an agreement on better cooperation with the United States.
Articles 24 and 28 of the TEU allow us to build a cooperation agreement on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters with our friends in North America.
We note that there is a famous exchange of letters between Mr Bush and Mr Verhofstadt - some 40 US proposals on what we could be doing to improve our capacity to fight against terrorism.
Most of these can be and I believe are being complied with.
Some of them cause a few doubts since the US appears to be asking for things which it does not require in its own laws, such as retention of traffic data.
Yet others highlight a difference of legal culture between our democracies.
On a visit to Washington DC last week, in talks with senators, congressmen and members of the Administration, I was concerned to learn that the US Patriot Act, adopted by the United States to fight terrorism, appears to discriminate against non-US citizens.
We will need to explore with our American friends quite how it affects those from the European Union.
I was struck too at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing of Attorney General John Ashcroft by the way in which the proposal for military tribunals - the executive order from the President - would provide for hearings in secret, for a prosecution being able to withhold evidence from the defence, for defendants not necessarily having the right to an independent lawyer or to a private conversation with their lawyer, and by how a sentence - including a death sentence - can be passed by a majority of two-thirds of the jurors.
Even if we were able to get an agreement on an extradition package in which the US would not apply the death penalty, the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights, to which all of our Member States are signatories and on which the Union is founded, would prevent extradition of suspects to appear before such military tribunals.
Here, in Europe, we have developed a rights-based approach to international law.
We would like a permanent international criminal court to try those guilty of crimes against humanity and we have called on the Americans to join us in that.
We recognise that democracies need to work together in the fight against terrorism and other forms of serious cross-border crime.
My fear is that, if the US goes down the path of military tribunals, we are on divergent paths.
We must make that clear to Mr Ashcroft on his visit to Europe later this week.
Mr President, one of the most enduring impressions of those who were victims of the violence in Nice, Gothenburg and Genoa is that of helplessness, especially towards the national authorities. Increasingly often, these authorities close borders indiscriminately and unlawfully, expel citizens with a clean record (as recently happened to a Swedish citizen, a member of a non-governmental organisation, who was expelled a few days ago from Belgium on no real grounds), and arrest defenceless demonstrators and subject them to unacceptable procedures, if not torture and terrible violence, as happened in Genoa.
How can it be possible that there is nothing we can do? How can it be that, with all the debates we have had on rights, on respect for dissent and the freedom to demonstrate, with all the talk on the Europe of the citizens, this same Europe is unable to take any action alongside the national courts?
The merit of the Watson report is precisely that it shows the way for Europe to stop being mute. The open statement that Schengen has often been violated and that this must not happen again; the threat to the freedom of the individual from secret, illegally compiled blacklists; the need to penalise, not least through international instruments, the disproportionate use of force by police forces; the ban on discrimination between European citizens: all this, which is contained in the Watson report, is the plan of work for this Parliament, which, unlike the other parliaments in the Member States, manages to find a spirit of true unity on these matters.
I hope it is also the Commission' s agenda, and I hope that this plan of work will succeed in preventing the horrors we have seen in Nice, Gothenburg and Genoa, and will be an important contribution to all the measures being taken against terrorism.
Mr President, I should just like to speak about the draft extradition agreement between the European Union and the United States.
On 7 December 2000, at Nice, we signed, proclaimed and upheld the Charter of European Citizens' Rights. It is very clearly stated in Article 2, under the heading of dignity, that nobody may be condemned to death or be executed; the Charter thus makes a clear distinction between the two things and states that, for us European citizens, a prohibition on being executed is not enough and a prohibition on being condemned to death is also necessary.
Well, we are committing ourselves to cooperation with the United States, which has kept the death penalty, condemns people to death and applies the death penalty, has a justice system that uses military courts, and detains thousands of Arabs without charge and without defence.
We are about to vote on a joint resolution with the other groups - we, of course, will vote against it - stating that extradition may be granted provided the United States guarantees that the death penalty will not be applied; that means that the United States courts may issue capital sentences provided they then refrain from applying them, and all that in spite of the Charter of civil, human and fundamental rights that we have been highlighting so much recently.
We are opening up an enormous breach in our defences against the death penalty.
Friends from the People' s Party, Greens, Socialists, British Liberals, take care!
We are saying we can extradite our citizens to be condemned to death in the United States even if that country then undertakes not to apply the sentence!
It is a complete break with our tradition; it is a complete break with our commitment!
Today, we heard Commissioner Vitorino give a speech full of references to our values and our principles. What, then, are our values and principles?
Extradition to a country that will condemn European citizens to death? I appeal to your feelings, but also to your moral integrity.
We must vote against this resolution!
Mr President, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms has done some notable work in opening up a debate within the European Union Member States and thus assuring the highest security at European Council meetings and other similar events.
Indeed, since the events of 11 September, the significance of these topics has increased enormously.
Nevertheless, both the rationale underlying the organisation of these summits and the views of many of the peaceful demonstrators remain current.
First of all, it is important that international Summits should continue to be held regularly and, where possible, they should be expanded to include representatives of the Third World, as happened at the G8 summit in Genoa.
Indeed, it is only through discussion, dialogue and, especially, the preparation of a genuine cooperation and development policy that the poverty and marginalisation of vast regions of the globe can be overcome.
This is precisely why we do not share the extreme, though peaceful positions of those demonstrators who, in Genoa, called the validity of the Summits themselves into question.
Then there are the views of the so-called anti-globalisation movements, which are also topical and important; they are the views of those who imagine a development model with greater respect for people and the environment, those who imagine a more just society in which wealth is redistributed more fairly.
That is why we should appreciate the innovative method introduced at the Genoa Summit by the Italian Government, which lined up a series of preliminary talks with the demonstration leaders in order to make participation in the Summit itself more democratic.
It must be made quite clear, however, that there can be no tolerance for violent demonstrators.
At Nice, Gothenburg and Genoa, some people, even politicians, succumbed to the temptation of seeking to justify violent behaviour. We should, rather, have the courage to condemn it unconditionally in every case, because, in addition to the views of the authorities and the views of the demonstrators, there are the views of the silent majority of European citizens, who want practical answers to the issues discussed at these Summits, and that is also thanks to the stimulus provided by the demonstrators, but without the unfortunate excesses and violence that completely devastated the city of Genoa.
Lastly, I should like to mention the views of many men and women in the forces of law and order who, every day throughout Europe, strive to deal with major and minor emergencies of public order and crime, often with inadequate resources.
If, as happened in Genoa, some of them went too far, they should be identified and punished individually, but without a whole class of people who often risk their lives for the good of society being unjustly and undeservedly criminalised.
Finally, I congratulate the Italian Government and its Prime Minister, Mr Berlusconi, and the Belgian Prime Minister for having reached that important agreement yesterday on the European arrest warrant. I hope this will be the first step towards European harmonisation on matters of justice, and especially an important precondition for a European political Constitution guaranteeing all European citizens the right to security, freedom and justice.
It is important to put this very broad debate in perspective, and the perspective is terrorism.
Now, we are able to put names to the world' s most dangerous terrorists.
What has for a long time been clear to some people is now, following the military operations of recent weeks and months, obvious to everyone.
The terrorists who are most deliberately and effectively ravaging our planet and threatening world peace are the governments of the United States and Israel.
Daily, these two governments combine in using their huge death-dealing military technology to wreak far greater destruction than any other of the countless terrorists of world history.
Monstrosities of military technology, they practise terrorism in multiple senses of the word.
For one thing, they leave their victims in precisely that state of desperation and impotence that creates fertile ground for reactions similar to Bin Laden' s.
It is absolute power, economic and military, that creates terrorism.
In addition, there is the psychological warfare that is in the process of doing away with the concepts of justice which Europeans usually regard as fundamental to the values to which we subscribe and which, specifically, are a defence against terrorism.
Two months ago, the United States sent Mr Prodi a list of 40 different decisions which, according to the United States Government, should be taken by the EU and the Member States in order to satisfy the United States: surveillance, control, arrest with no counsel for the defence or court hearing provided, and the handing over of suspects for legal proceedings in the United States, involving military courts and the death penalty.
On the last point, I entirely agree with Mr Di Lello.
We must protest most vigorously against the handing over of suspects in any form as long as there is the possibility of the death penalty' s being carried out and as long as no guarantee can be given by the United States of its not being carried out.
It has been shameful to see the way in which the institutions of the EU have complied with demands that are also aimed at abolishing our concepts of justice.
What is at issue here is not military technology but politics and the defence of the law.
Mr President, the documents on terrorism are certainly notable, although I believe we should pay far greater attention to the dangerous, worrying, serious signs of anti-Semitism and aggression against Jewish institutions and figures, including religious ones, as shown by the extremely serious attack on the Chief Rabbi of Brussels. These are also very worrying signs in a climate of passive habituation to such acts by exponents of Islamic fundamentalism in all the countries of Europe.
The European arrest warrant: what a great result for liberal Europe!
Giuseppe Mazzini and the revolutionaries who breathed life into 'Young Europe' in 1840 will be turning in their graves at the thought of a Europe which before giving itself a democratic Constitution is already thinking of a European arrest warrant: necessary certainly for terrorist and criminal emergencies but certainly not for other areas.
We autonomous Members see it as a dangerous sign and therefore we have addressed an open letter to all autonomous and independent movements that are fighting for the principles of freedom.
Some Italian Members have spoken here to stigmatise our government' s behaviour regarding the events in Genoa: well, then, I should like to remind them of the serious acts of delinquency and hooliganism that the false anti-globalisation protesters in Genoa were responsible for.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, nothing in this world is certain any more, and to illustrate this I would like to return to the presidency which Belgium had prepared.
We had focused primarily on the interim evaluation of Tampere, of the decisions and recommendations made there, and on the four priorities which we had chosen for our presidency, namely the conversion from pro-Eurojust to Eurojust; the fight against trafficking in human beings, not only by standardising the laws but also operationally in the field; the fight against the disappearance of children; and last but not least, the freezing of assets.
However, who could have guessed at the beginning of our activities that there would be two incidents which would have a decisive impact on some other choices which the Presidency had to make? More specifically, I am referring to the problems in Gothenburg which obliged us, as Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, to take measures to guarantee freedom of expression, and to secure the safety of citizens, states and also demonstrators.
Who would have thought that the events of 11 September would have had such a profound impact on our political attitudes, now that the framework decisions relating to the fight against terrorism and the European arrest warrant have seen the light of day and have experienced an accelerated genesis.
All the same, I also offer my apologies on behalf of the Presidency for the fact that no one from the Presidency was present during your proceedings on Monday.
However, I am sure you will understand that in the context of the European arrest warrant, which is a matter very close to our hearts and with which we are determined to make headway, we have taken every opportunity to continue our work in this area and, I may say, with some success, as we achieved the breakthrough yesterday, and the European arrest warrant has become a reality.
I would like to focus particularly on some of your questions, which in my opinion were very appropriate.
Firstly, the possibility of achieving the aim of the European Union, namely to create a high degree of security for our citizens in an area of freedom, security and justice, whilst - and this has also been clearly expressed by the various speakers - our fundamental rights as set out in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights are fully respected.
The Council recognises that it is immensely important to fully respect fundamental rights in all areas in which it is active, particularly in the area concerned with guaranteeing the security of our citizens.
I would like to illustrate this issue on the basis of two topical examples which I know have been the subject of intense discussion in your Parliament.
I am referring in particular to the framework decisions relating to the definition of terrorism and the introduction of the European arrest warrant.
In our response to the threat of terrorism, we need to be able to take effective measures quickly in order to demonstrate that Member States are capable of common action, whilst at the same time ensuring that decisions are made quickly, with top priority being given to our devotion to and constant vigilance in respect of the freedoms of our citizens.
Our work has been done at top speed, but no one, and I would like to emphasise this, no one has ever been willing to sacrifice the quality of the texts in order to achieve rapid acceptance.
By working enormously hard over the past three months we have succeeded in taking this justified endeavour into consideration, and in this regard I am particularly pleased with the input provided by the members of the Article 36 Committee.
Furthermore, I understand the apprehension that some people initially expressed when they saw what we were doing in connection with the increased public concern about security after 11 September.
I understand that this apprehension clearly played a role at times during the negotiations.
I understand this fear and I admire the vigilance, but the outcome of our work and the compromises made by the Council of 6 and 7 December demonstrates that the Council never intended to sacrifice the rights in the European Charter, and I think that this is the only result that counts.
The framework decision on the combating of terrorism contains clear instructions for national legislators, which makes it impossible to interpret it in an unnecessarily repressive way.
The obligation to honour these rights as set out in Article 6 of the Treaty has been added, as has the work we have done on the European arrest warrant.
The preamble bears the traces of a well-considered advice by your Parliament which we took into account.
Finally, these precautionary measures are rounded off by the political declaration of the Council included in the decision.
It makes it clear that the decision does not relate to people whose actions are aimed at protecting or restoring democratic values, nor to those exercising their right to freedom of expression, even if they break the law when doing so.
Our work is now complete, and last Thursday the Council reached a political agreement in respect of this framework decision.
There are similar guarantees for the European arrest warrant.
In addition to the explicit references to fundamental freedoms in the preamble, Article 1 contains the connection with Article 6 of the Treaty which I have just explained in respect of the previous instrument.
That the 15 Member States ultimately reached agreement on the European arrest warrant is therefore only to be expected.
Besides the developments that have resulted in the explicit integration of the fundamental guarantees in the European Charter, I would like to add that it is advisable not to lose sight of the future role that the Court of Justice of the European Communities will have to play in the bringing together of the guarantees and the fundamental rights, especially on a procedural level.
In view of its pre-judicial competence, and taking into account the traditionally sensitive relationship between criminal law and fundamental rights, it goes without saying that the Court is ideally placed to perform a particularly important role which consists of harmonising the guarantees offered to our citizens.
To return to the implementation of the action plan to combat terrorism, negotiations on an agreement with the USA in respect of Article 38 of the Treaty on the European Union concerning mutual legal assistance in criminal matters are on the agenda.
At the moment we are still in a preparatory phase.
This is a very important activity, and I am convinced that you will maintain your vigilance with regard to the protection of human rights in this area.
As far as the points on extradition that could be stated in this agreement are concerned, I would like to draw attention to the European Union' s unchanging position regarding cooperation with countries in which the death penalty is still in force.
Extradition cannot take place without the inviolable guarantee that the person will not receive the death sentence.
The Council' s standpoint on the special military courts in the USA for crimes connected with terrorism is not yet known, but I can already tell you that certain delegations are of the opinion that this situation may entail considerable risks in the area of fundamental rights, particularly with regard to the right to fair treatment as set out in Articles 47 to 49 of the Charter.
I would also like to come back to another delicate point, namely the possibility of reaching an agreement on proposals for which negotiations have now reached deadlock, which is preventing the set deadlines on the scoreboard from being met and is preventing the creation of the area of security, freedom and justice.
The Council is aware that some negotiations on the proposals currently on the table are being postponed, albeit, I may say, primarily for impartial reasons.
I do not have the impression that negotiations have reached deadlock per se.
Instead, the Council noted that there were several reasons for this delay and in fact it took the necessary steps to ensure that these discussions could be put back on track.
The blockades without doubt form one of the points of the Laeken debate and I think that this will give the evaluation of Tampere a boost, especially that part in which we have not yet managed to achieve as much progress as we would have liked.
At the same time I would like to draw your attention to the particular progress that we have made in legal matters in the extremely short time in which we have been in action.
I think that a certain amount of quantitative and qualitative effort still lies before us, but I reiterate that everything we need to enable us to achieve this is in place, namely harmonisation of legislation, mutual recognition of court decisions and the creation of a number of European players.
Concrete and decisive progress was made on all these levels in 2001.
The framework resolutions on trafficking in human beings and the combating of terrorism in the area of harmonisation, the European arrest warrant in the area of mutual recognition, and Eurojust in respect of the players, are likewise elements which demonstrate the substantial progress we have made and which should enable us to achieve a truly European policy on criminal law.
On behalf of my colleague Antoine Duquesne, President-in-Office of the Justice and Home Affairs, I would like to bring you up-to-date with regard to the progress of the files I know are close to your hearts, namely asylum and immigration.
I have already told you that the progress in this area does not meet our expectations.
Nonetheless we must remain objective.
We have achieved a breakthrough during the course of this year.
Both the Swedish and the current Belgian Presidency have made efforts to achieve progress in these affairs, which are particularly sensitive.
These efforts have not been fruitless.
Various basic texts, such as the visa regulation and the Eurodac regulations, the directive on temporary protection and the European Refugee Fund have been approved in this manner.
However, it is clear that if we want to adhere to the deadlines set in the Treaty as well as at the Tampere Summit, we will have to redouble our efforts and make it even clearer that subjects such as managing the immigration flows, asylum policy and family reunification will have to take on a European perspective.
I think that we still have a very great deal to do in this area, but you can be sure that the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, just like you yourself, are as keen as you are to achieve this.
Please also allow me to pause at another subject that has also been touched on briefly, namely the question of whether the fact that numerous arrangements and international agreements, particularly those relating to the prevention and combating of organised crime, have not been ratified by the Member States, is being taken into account in the acceptance of measures.
The Council is aware of this matter.
The Council forums regularly examine the ratification situation and try to make it clear to delegations that it is absolutely essential that the decisions be rapidly enforced.
However, the Council realises that every Member State wants to achieve a ratification procedure that fits in with its own constitutional requirements.
This matter is also on the agenda as part of the evaluation of the implementation of the Tampere conclusions.
I am sure that the conclusions of the Laeken summit will demonstrate how important the Council considers this matter to be.
The Council has established that national procedures have been speeded up, and that almost all Member States have completed the ratification procedure for some instruments; for example, the agreement to protect the European Community' s financial interests as well as the two conventions on extradition of 1995 and 1996.
We will continue to endeavour to ensure that these efforts bear fruit.
I might add that the Council has been paying particular attention to this in the adoption of the action plan on the combating of terrorism.
The action plan identifies various instruments including the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters and the United Nations Convention on the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism.
These conventions must be ratified within carefully defined deadlines.
Then of course we come to the questions concerning the democratic deficit within the European Union, about which the European Parliament does in fact have a number of issues to which it regularly returns.
These include not the absolutely essential democratic control over activities that come under the third pillar, and in particular over Europol and Eurojust activities.
With regard to Europol, the Council first wishes to emphasise that since 1 May 1999, the date on which the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force, all legislative decisions to be adopted on the grounds of the Europol Convention have been presented to the European Parliament for advice.
By doing so, the Council has tried to guarantee that the European Parliament would have control of Europol as far as legislative measures are concerned.
With regard to the executive board' s activities, as well as Europol' s operational activities, the Council is currently studying ways and means of organising effective democratic control whilst at the same time meeting the organisation' s operational needs.
Various scenarios are being examined.
One of the problems that need to be dealt with is the involvement of national parliaments in the control procedures.
The Presidency has made this a priority.
The Integrated Security in Europe conference which was held in November gave rise to a debate on stricter control of the sector.
The Council wishes to point out that the concern expressed by the European Parliament is at the top of the agenda.
However, the careful implementation of such mechanisms is a complicated process in which the balance in the Europol system must be carefully monitored.
According to the draft instrument, Eurojust, for its part, should only be assigned a cooperative and coordinating role.
All decisions will be taken by the competent national authorities who will be handling the cases.
However, it is possible for the European Parliament to be kept up-to-date with Eurojust' s activities provided that they are not of an operational nature.
The instrument establishing Eurojust therefore specifies that Parliament will receive an annual activity report which deals amongst other things with data protection.
Parliament is also giving discharge for the implementation of Eurojust' s budget.
A democratic deficit has also been observed by the European Parliament. This deficit refers to the lack of the EP' s involvement in the definition of the strategy of the European Union in all its parts, both inside and outside the Union, except for the fact that Parliament is only kept fully informed and has access to the so-called sensitive information.
I must say at this juncture that the Council is applying the institutional convention provisions to the letter.
In this context, when the matter relates to a proposal or initiative that falls under police or judicial cooperation in criminal matters, the Council applies the provisions of Article 39 of the Treaty establishing the European Union, and when the matter is one that is covered by Title IV concerning asylum and immigration or judicial cooperation in civil matters, it applies Article 67 of the Treaty establishing the European Union.
Experience shows us that the Council has consulted the European Parliament whenever the Commission or one of the Member States has submitted a proposal or an initiative to it.
The Council was in fact present during the plenary sessions and meetings of the appropriate committee of the European Parliament, and Parliament was given ongoing information about the state of affairs.
And now to the final set of problems I would like to discuss with you, which concern the need to keep the European Parliament informed about important changes occurring in the negotiation process within the Council, both in relation to legislative proposals by the Commission and in relation to initiatives developed by the Member States.
As I have already said, it was the Council' s wish to fully involve the European Parliament in the legislative procedures at Community level in accordance with the provisions of the convention.
It is true that the activities of the Council bodies will result in changes to the tenor of some provisions of the proposals or initiatives being submitted to them.
This is in fact in keeping with the common wish to find solutions which have the support of everyone in the Union.
In practice we know that if the European Parliament has not yet issued its advice on a proposal or an initiative, the Council has always been willing to provide the information requested so that the European Parliament can satisfy itself as to the direction the activities are taking.
This having been said, the Council knows that the European Union' s standpoints have a specific value added which differs from those of the Member States. Since it aims in its advice to respond to a different institutional logic and give the Council the right elements within the framework of the democratic task with which it is charged, this task must obviously not depend on developments of the work done by the Council on one decision or another.
What is more, the Council consults the European Parliament, if necessary, in accordance with the provisions of the convention.
Please allow me to conclude this part of my speech by expressing my satisfaction as President for the way in which we have been able to cooperate with the European Parliament.
We sometimes had to seek advice about very profound matters in particularly difficult circumstances and at very short notice.
I think that this is something that may even have been unique to this Presidency.
We have never appealed to you in vain.
The European Parliament has exercised flexibility when giving advice, sometimes at very short notice.
This method of cooperation, coupled with our cooperation with the Commission and the Commissioner, has made it possible to take a major step towards, amongst other things, the European arrest warrant, which I believe is the most important common denominator, because this has enabled us to undertake an action in this area which is comparable to the introduction of the euro in the financial and monetary sphere.
Thus the European arrest warrant has also come into being as far as cooperation in judicial matters and mutual recognition in criminal matters are concerned.
This is only possible if all players demonstrate the good, positive attitude that we have encountered.
I am therefore pleased that in these circumstances, the early annual report relating to judicial and home affairs matters has been given a different perspective than it has in the past.
Mr President, first of all, allow me to say that, once again, I consider this Parliamentary procedure whereby the Commissioner speaks after three speakers and the Minister after seven, as if to say that all those who will speak from now onwards are not even worthy of an answer, to be strange.
Having said that - I do not agree with it but I abide by it - I shall speak particularly about the Watson report, which proposes a useful, appropriate initiative to regulate the security side of future summits of any kind.
The proposal started off, it must be said, in decidedly lifeless tones as regards an objective analysis; then the tone improved along the way.
This is just the opposite of what happened with a parallel initiative for the fight against terrorism, which arose out of the emotional response to 11 September and then all of a sudden became an opportunity not only to produce a European arrest warrant but more especially to cause a real witch-hunt within Italian politics.
But the leader of my Group, Mr Tajani, will speak at greater length on this.
I return now to the Watson report, which proposes the requirement of agreeing public order measures for major summit meetings.
A truly appropriate idea, I was saying: it is a pity that it should have become both an excuse for preparing a summary trial of the events at previous Summits, and especially a Trojan horse in its attempts at party political speculation in a decidedly national vein.
This has all come about through instrumental amendments, in the form of direct attacks on the Italian Government and its President.
Not just this, but it also reiterates a defamatory action, as has already been mentioned, against the Italian forces of law and order, which are accused of serious offences and Gestapo-like behaviour that have never been proved in the numerous inquiries that have so far been opened.
This, then, amongst other things, violates the Italian State' s legitimate autonomy and sovereignty to deal with public order issues.
To those Members who still confuse the limits between national sovereignty and Community competences I say quite plainly - but still calmly - that it is time to stop doing the dirty washing of national politics in the European Parliament, but it is also time to put an end to the widespread sport of misusing points of order and questions in order to provoke improper debates and vitriolic attacks on persons rather than on ideas and political positions.
I say this particularly to the Italian left-wing Members, the diligent supporters who regularly find room to express themselves in this House and also in the newspapers, thanks to the work of partisan reporters with little objectivity.
Fortunately most of Parliament has understood this.
In the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, almost all the amendments from the left were rejected.
I propose that Parliament should do the same in its plenary session, and to make it quite clear I shall indicate the dangerous points: Amendment Nos 22, 25 and 29 are real chemical weapons against the truth.
They should be rejected, otherwise I shall be forced to ask my coordinator to vote against this report.
Mr President, I am glad that, although you are from Regensburg, you are willing to give a minute's speaking time to a Nuremberger like myself.
Mr Santini, who has just spoken, has shown what this is all about.
If we are talking about an area of freedom, security and justice in Europe, if, like the President-in-Office, we are talking about a European home affairs policy, then even such a faithful servant of this master as Mr Santini will have to come to terms with the fact that we will also discuss Italian domestic politics.
Now, I am not an Italian left-winger, but a German left-winger, and I can tell you that I do not share the view expressed by Mr Verwilghen and Mr Vitorino, according to whom what happened in Rome yesterday represents progress.
Yesterday saw us achieve a victory in the first round, for 14 States of the European Union were consistent and determined in ensuring the failure of the attempt by the Italian Prime Minister, out of naked self-interest, to make use of his office of state to obstruct a criminal investigation that could involve him, and in ensuring that private interests were prevented from paralysing the European arrest warrant.
Yesterday, this same Mr Berlusconi - a former Member of this House, who, thanks to its President, was not subject to any proceedings to lift his immunity - had this to say, and what I quote relates to what was told me by President-in-Office of the Council Verwilghen, who drew a parallel between the European arrest warrant and the euro - accurately, in fact, in terms of their dimension and political significance.
What does Mr Berlusconi have to say about it?
Mr Berlusconi says: "Other nations have named 2004 as the deadline for the European arrest warrant to be put into effect, although it could be later."
I quote word for word.
If the Italian constitution is not amended, then we cannot join in, in much the same way that Great Britain is not joining in the euro.
Why do I speak in terms of winning a round?
I prophesy this to you: After all we have experienced in the Council, after all Italy's stonewalling in the interest of its Prime Minister, I tell you here and now that the same Prime Minister will now hold a referendum in order to prevent the European arrest warrant from being effective in Italy.
This is very likely, and so I do not yet believe that we have now implemented the European arrest warrant.
I do believe that this House will have to insist, with the utmost consistency, on the isolation Italy has imposed on itself over the last few weeks being maintained by the 14other European states, because anyone who has, like me or like Mrs Paciotti, crossed swords in this House with Mr Berlusconi or Mr Dell'Utri, will be painted by the Berlusconi press, as I was, as an old Stalinist - and I am not old yet, nor am I yet a Stalinist - or, like Mrs Paciotti, will be described as head of a communist conspiracy against Italy.
Looking at you, Mr Tajani, I understand why the people of Rome did not elect you as their mayor.
I can understand it, above all, when I hear you speak.
Anyone who, even tentatively, questions Italian policy, gets slandered in this House.
Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Watson, who has presented a very balanced and good report despite the ongoing attempts at blockade and the policy of permanent obstruction which Forza Italia, part of the Group of the European People's Party - though hopefully not for much longer - has adopted.
(Applause)
Sir, your speaking time is up.
Mr Tajani has a point of order.
On which item of the agenda do you wish to speak, sir?
Mr President, Parliament' s Rules of Procedure must be enforced!
It seems that in this House there is a claque supporting Mr Schulz in the public gallery, although in this House, as in all parliaments, members of the public are forbidden to applaud or call out in support of one argument or another.
I therefore ask you, Mr President, to enforce the Rules of Procedure and perhaps have spectators removed if they are supporters of one side and do not intend to watch the work of Parliament but just want to cheer someone on.
Mr Tajani, on this point you are right, but I ask you what the President is supposed to do. Should I have the visitors removed from the gallery?
Should I have their hands tied behind their backs?
What has happened, has happened, and I cannot do anything about it. You are right, but I cannot do anything about it now.
In the fight for security from terrorism, we have rightly proclaimed that we are defending fundamental values but, if we compromise individual rights in the pursuit of security, we will have sacrificed some of what we hold so dear.
In the last two years since Tampere, the programme of cooperation on justice matters has been heavily weighted to the security side of the scales - especially since 11 September with the anti-terrorism package.
All this is necessary, but it is time to rebalance the work programme.
At the Laeken Summit, Heads of Government should commit themselves to a thorough review of the degree of respect in practice for the standards we have signed up to in the European Convention of Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
There needs to be a programme to ensure observance of minimum standards of due process, fair trials in criminal proceedings and approximation of rights of defendants.
We should project these standards in our international agreements because there are some worrying developments.
In the UK, there are proposals for executive decisions for detention without trial and an attempt to avoid any significant degree of judicial review.
In the United States, President Bush has signed an order providing for trial in military courts in the absence of fundamental safeguards for fair trial provided for in international law.
The EU must not agree to any extradition agreement with the US whereby people could be convicted in these military tribunals.
Finally, the case of the 14 British and Dutch plane-spotters detained for nearly five weeks in Greece without trial is extremely disturbing.
They have been denied bail, the evidence has been presented in secret and there has been no transparent schedule of court hearings.
They may be guilty at most of a misdemeanour.
It will be a disgrace if the European arrest warrant is agreed this weekend and this situation has still not been resolved.
I call, in particular, on Prime Minister Blair to withhold agreement if they have not been either charged or released by Friday.
Mr President, Mr President-in-office of the Council, Commissioner, fellow MEPs.
Our desire to create a European area of safety and justice is a common one.
Over the past few weeks and even over the past few days, we have taken some important steps, and I would like to personally congratulate you on the efforts you have made in this regard and on the results you have achieved, because efforts are not always enough; we also have to achieve results.
Having said this, I would like to point out - and I share your opinion, but I know that there are others who do not - that security cannot be used as an excuse for threatening fundamental rights.
I am indeed a little concerned when I see how quick some people are to use the word 'terrorism' and to apply it to all kinds of things they do not like, both in international and national politics.
The European Parliament has rightly been pressing for a strict definition, and has been knocking the eagerness to label all dissidents as terrorists on the head.
I am pleased to hear you say that the Council is following Parliament on this.
I would also like to see this confirmed in all texts, because people who want to change the constitution in their country are not necessarily terrorists, and people demonstrating against globalisation and injustice in the world are also not necessarily terrorists.
Absolutely not, in most cases.
We believe that anyone who equates this with terrorism is violating fundamental rights.
We would like to return to the European arrest warrant, including the guarantees being demanded by the European Parliament.
However, I think it is very important that you have been able to implement this and that you were able to bring us this message today.
Mr President, in correspondence that is still being kept from Members in spite of my requests, Mr Bush put four intolerable demands to Mr Prodi.
They are intolerable because they are made by a government that has set up military courts and introduced measures described as 'patriotic' but that in fact take away any right to defence, by a government that, since 11 September, has kept nearly a thousand immigrants in prison without lawyers and without charging them, by a government that, when all is said and done, has still not abolished the death penalty.
In the name of urgency, but also in a state of total confusion, the Council and Commission are trying to make us swallow texts on terrorism that are always questionable and often have not even been put to the vote.
I believe it is time to call a stop to this masquerade and this caricature of democratic debate.
In the name of the war against terrorism, they are waging war against democratic freedoms and the social acquis.
This is not our war; the war we should be waging is against violence, poverty, unemployment, hunger in the world and dictatorships, against corruption and safe havens for Mr Berlusconi.
Mr President, the Watson report uses the issues of the day to accelerate the communitisation of the EU.
This is because better coordination between Member States overcomes the problem described to a large extent.
It is incomprehensible that the report only refers to the Charter, a political statement, whilst the European Convention on Human Rights, the perfect convention for the protection of our citizens' rights, is not mentioned in it.
Since the US terrorist attacks of 11 September, the EU' s attitude towards the US has been highly critical as well as supportive.
The object of our criticism is the new anti-terrorism legislation.
Some discretion in this regard would not be out of place.
Please do not get me wrong; I am no advocate of trials by military tribunals without the possibility of appeal, and I believe that the USA must reconsider this, but I do wonder how we would have reacted if these attacks had taken place in the EU.
Refusing point blank to extradite terrorists to the USA is sending out the wrong signal.
It would be more reasonable for the EU to make clear arrangements with the USA about the conditions of the extradition.
Mr President, first I would like to say that I entirely agree with what Mr Vitorino said about the problems besetting our quest for an area of justice, freedom and security, while remaining very much aware that we cannot have an area of security without justice or justice without police.
We should be lucid enough to realise that generally speaking Europe is in quite a privileged position in this respect, for we have a fairly well-established level of citizens' freedoms, even though we have to remain very vigilant.
We know how to alternate Community responses - and I hope the arrest warrant and our response will be worthy of us - with the proper degree of subsidiarity.
We base our activity on a system of values that have been set out and listed in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and on an approach under which monitoring by the states of the level of citizens' freedoms alternates with recourse to the Court of Justice, both the Court of Justice of the European Communities and the Strasbourg Court.
Unfortunately, however, Europe is not an oasis and the world is interactive: if I may put it this way, the world around us does not stand still, which justifies taking external action in the field of justice and home affairs.
First there are the candidate countries.
We cannot allow any differentiation in respect of these countries.
Naturally, we will have to require the same level and the same perception of citizens' freedoms.
Then there are the countries close to us, the countries that will become close to us by what I might call capillary action.
I am thinking of countries such as Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine, in respect of which we will have to decide how to act.
Lastly there are the partner countries, countries that are the source of immigrants and asylum seekers and with which we must maintain a constant dialogue.
Hence the need for external action.
We have two types of external action.
The first type is rather messianic, involving the export and globalisation of law and order and the constitutional state as we understand it.
Then we have protective action vis-à-vis this external world, because, of course, there are crimes and scourges that know no frontiers, a problem to which we will have to find the appropriate answers, without of course ever abandoning the values we have set out and proclaimed.
In this respect I would like to defend the European Parliament, which has to play its full role, because traditionally parliaments are meant to be the custodians of citizens' freedoms and we have to play this role.
Obviously this means more than involving our Parliament in the strategy and implementation of external actions in the field of justice and home affairs.
It is also a question of our resources.
In this regard, in my few remaining seconds of speaking time and under the authority of Mr Watson, the chairman of our Committee on Citizens' Freedom and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, I would plead for this committee to be given additional resources in terms of staffing.
After many struggles, including a decision this Chamber adopted unanimously, we have managed to acquire one extra member of staff for the committee, although this person is in fact employed by DG IV; meanwhile the Committee on Foreign Affairs has nine members of staff assigned to human rights.
I find it irresponsible that if a Parliament wants to give its Committee on Citizens' Freedoms the resources to do its job, it does not to give it the staff needed to assist the colleagues who are responsible for the committee' s reports.
Mr President, the European arrest warrant was saved in the nick of time.
It was dragged away from the gates of Laeken.
How pleased should we be now? The creation of an area of freedom, security and justice goes to the very core of the relationship between governments and citizens.
The exercising of legitimate pressure versus the upholding of the citizen' s essential fundamental rights.
In the past, revolutions were fought and extensive constitutional debates were held in Europe over this tense relationship.
However, legislation on this matter is now being introduced in the third pillar of the European Union by means of framework resolutions engineered by the Council using secret diplomacy, monitored by national parliaments and the European Parliament.
In this respect, we are back in the 19th Century.
Our desire to reform the European decision-making process and to close the so-called democratic loophole are well-known.
However, it will require a Treaty change and sufficient political will to do this, but we cannot wait that long.
The procedure concerning the European arrest warrant demonstrates that a critical boundary has been crossed.
Our own credibility as representatives of the people is at stake, so democratic legitimacy must also be increased in the current Treaty in the near future.
The proposal that was recently adopted in the Dutch Upper Chamber is one way of doing this.
It asks for the introduction of a phase of active openness in the Council' s decision-making process.
According to this proposal, a final decision on draft framework resolutions is only taken after a period of at least six weeks, during which time citizens and organisations in the Member States are given the opportunity to form their opinions.
The role of national parliaments and the European Parliament should also gain in significance in this way.
This would at the very least prevent us from voting on out-of-date documents as we did in November, or only nodding our assent retrospectively, which we may do this week.
I propose that we lay down such a modest reform of the decision-making process in a new interinstitutional agreement, and if anyone thinks that this is asking too much, they should say so.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, whereas Mrs Hazan seeks by means of her report to make the methods of 'Fortress EU' an export hit around the world, the Watson report expresses concern for the safety of the Heads of State and Government at their meeting within the framework of democracy as it really exists.
What security in Laeken will mean was learned by the people, who, in the run-up to the summit, got a letter in which the police in Göttingen advised against participation in protest actions and threatened that disregarding this advice would meet with preventive measures.
The murder victim Carlo Giugliani probably did not get such a letter, any more than did the people who were beaten up and shot at in the Diaz School or on the streets of Gothenburg.
They were told about the framework programme on terrorism only after the event, because they had demonstrated against the EU and G8 and had defended themselves against police violence.
I wanted to say in addition that the rulers are enforcing their right to security, which is defined in the context of security, justice and freedom, at the expense of the lack of freedom for demonstrators, and so it will not only be demonstrators at Laeken who will not have much to laugh about.
Mr President, an agreement was reached in Rome yesterday on the European arrest warrant; Italy too will sign it.
It is certainly a positive step, but it is no more than the beginning of a long process of trying to set up, at last, a genuine European area of freedom, security and justice.
The new European Constitution should lead to harmonisation of criminal law and procedure in our Union.
The Member States should work towards a situation in which crimes and penalties do not differ from one place to another.
We must all, in short, commit ourselves to establishing fair trials, that is, to having a third judge, allowing evidence to take shape in the course of the trial and to having the prosecuting magistrates separate from the judges.
This is not blackmail, Mr Watson; it is not an Italian caprice, as has been suggested in this House; it is the will of Parliament, which, in 1997, voted for the Roth report, which invited the Member States to carry out a genuine reform of justice in favour of a fair trial.
That is why so many criticisms levelled by the left against the Italian Government in this House are unfounded and the result of propaganda by a handful of fundamentalist magistrates.
Moreover, the foreign press in Italy has recognised this; in this respect, I quote the words of a respected journalist in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Hans Jürgen Fischer, who said, 'All these charges against the Berlusconi Government seemed quite out of proportion to me.'
It is therefore our duty to reject all the attacks made on the Italian Government by left-wing MEPs who do not understand the situation in Italy and who, beginning with the leader of the Socialist Group, Mr Barón Crespo, have made absolutely unfounded attacks on the Italian Government and on Italy.
I repeat, they are attacks that we firmly reject because it is all just propaganda.
In short, a lot of fuss has been made about nothing and Parliament has not achieved any results.
The results were actually achieved thanks to the action of the Italian Government, which concluded the agreement with Mr Verhofstadt yesterday.
Mr President, more than two years ago, on the initiative of the Aznar Government, a new page was turned in Tampere with regard to European integration: to make a politically and judicially viable new common European area of freedom, security and justice, which would make the freedom and security of citizens compatible - and here is the great political debate - with the efficient functioning of, and access to, justice within this area.
The events that have taken place over these last two years, such as the tragic deaths of Moroccan and sub-Saharan citizens in the Straits of Gibraltar and off the Andalusian coast, the death of immigrants in Dover or the recent incidents in Ireland, the repugnant traffic in, and corruption of, minors, and prostitution, combined with the horrific murders committed by ETA and the tragedy of 11 September, have caused an upheaval in the debate and have accelerated the need for the speedy implementation of measures to cope with such a dangerous and worrying situation.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the work carried out by the Council, the Commission and Parliament in this field has its good and bad points.
The good points include the fight against terrorism, where the important role which our President, Nicole Fontaine, has played in this area, as well as Commissioner Vitorino, deserve a special mention; the European arrest warrant and the definition of terrorism are the result of a difficult battle against terrorism that started in this House before 11 September.
I would also like to stress what a good thing it has been to separate the debates on economic migration and asylum, which has helped us to clarify ideas, debates, and even approaches.
However, in my opinion, there is still a long way to go.
There are too many bad points and the most worrying of these in my opinion is the disorder caused by the hastiness and lack of agreement in the Council in areas such as the family reunification of immigrants, minimum standards on the asylum process, conditions for the reception of asylum seekers - to give but a few examples - where our work is sometimes ineffective due to the fact we have to chop and change what is carried out by the Council, which shows that the method with which we have to work is not ideal by any means and needs to be amended.
Mr President, Commissioner, as the last Justice and Home Affairs Council demonstrated, the system for taking unanimous decisions on matters of justice and home affairs has come to the end of its cycle.
If the Berlusconi Government manages, even for a short time, to block the decision on the European arrest warrant, can you imagine what will happen when the Union of the 15 becomes a Union of 30 if we continue to insist on an intergovernmental rather than a Community method for taking decisions? A propos, my congratulations to the Belgian Presidency on the battle which it won in Rome yesterday.
The Council is clearly unwilling to make any fundamental reforms on the basis the commitments made in Tampere, despite the assiduous efforts of Commissioner Vitorino and the political will demonstrated by the European Parliament.
The only sector in which the Council has evinced any particular interest or enthusiasm is in the fight against terrorism, under pressure from and at the suggestion of the United States which, I am afraid, is trying to export and impose its system of justice on Europe, a system which clashes with European customs and values.
How can we extradite European citizens to the USA when the United States cannot guarantee that it will not impose the death penalty? I am afraid, Commissioner, that the alliance with the USA is becoming more and more dangerous for the European Union.
The fact that strict rules are being promoted within an already strict framework is understandably causing concern among citizens, who fear that the fundamental liberties and human rights which they have fought long and sacrificed much for will be restricted.
The end clearly does not justify the means.
For the rest, half way through the five-year period set by the Amsterdam summit for creating a European area of freedom, security and justice, we are seriously behind schedule, for example in formulating a common immigration and asylum policy.
Finally, I wonder, what has happened to European sensitivity and our humanitarian values, when we are incapable of resolving the drama of refugees and immigrants despite witnessing daily tragedies such as the recent suffocation of eight immigrants in southern Ireland?
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, a little more than two years have elapsed since Tampere and the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is important to point out that major progress has been made but that, on the other hand, there are still many obstacles to be overcome.
The Union is proud, and rightly so, of its constant defence of respect for human rights in the world and within the Community.
The recently proclaimed Charter of Fundamental Rights reinforced our commitment in this regard and the area of freedom, security and justice only makes sense if all three of these elements are taken together and if no one of them prejudices any other.
The tragic events of September 11 and the intensified attention to safety measures cannot detract from this fundamental approach.
Since it is necessary to meet citizens' expectations in terms of fighting terrorism, special care must be taken not to fall into excesses or exaggeration, that is to say, 'everything for security' .
The Member States' commitment to building an area of freedom, security and justice was once again reaffirmed at the last Justice and Home Affairs Council.
It is vital that within this area citizens may enjoy the right to express themselves, demonstrate and meet freely and peacefully, provided that they do so in a way which does not constitute a threat, either to their own safety or to the safety of other citizens and property.
Here too, we must not exaggerate.
Any individual or group of people wishing to take part in legitimate demonstrations should not be blocked at the borders, that is, they cannot be denied the right to cross frontiers, i.e. they cannot be denied freedom of movement, which is a fundamental right granted to all citizens of the Union by the Treaty.
Because security is merely an instrument to ensure freedom.
Security loses its meaning when it prejudices freedom.
Security without freedom is tyranny.
In this festive season, my best wishes to Commissioner António Vitorino for the continuation of his excellent work.
Mr President, as this is a debate which deals with various topics, I would firstly like to say that I completely agree with all that Mr Watson said in relation to his report.
It appears to me that Parliament is going to make a worthwhile contribution today in confronting a violent situation in the streets of Europe which is a worry to us all.
With regard to the advances made in the area of freedom, security and justice, I would firstly like to congratulate the Commission on what they were able to achieve yesterday, especially with regard to the European arrest warrant, and I would also like to congratulate the Council for a very particular reason, for the sincerity of the report from the Belgian Presidency with regard to the progress made.
Just as the Council does in its report, I would like to express my concern at the lack of progress made in the area of common asylum policy, and even more so in the area of common immigration policy.
Not only is there no European policy but, as we have seen recently, there are quite a few governments who are developing their own new national policies, and, what is inexcusable in some cases, justifying these decisions citing Europe as the underlying cause.
I hope that in Laeken we can make progress, however small, and make a new commitment in accordance with what the Commission said in its two communications on asylum and on immigration.
On the other hand, I think that the agreement reached on the mutual recognition of judicial decisions, the so-called European arrest warrant, is very important.
This seems to me to be a giant step forward, of course, in the fight against terrorism, but also in the fight against money laundering, in the fight against corruption, in the fight against human trafficking, including of women for sexual exploitation, and in the fight against organised crime.
To me, this seems important, but it also seems that we should take some time to think and it is this that, thirdly, I would like to ask the Council: I think that in Laeken you should take into account not only the advances made in the agenda but also how these have been achieved and which problems must be dealt with.
It seems to me that the unanimity and the lack of real power of this Parliament do not help.
We are living in a world of paradoxes.
A few days ago, in a manner of speaking, we said that Bin Laden had provided the impetus for implementing methods for fighting terrorism that the Commission had been planning and that Parliament had requested some time ago.
Paradoxically, it was also the spectacle made by Mr Berlusconi' s government that brought the debate on the European arrest warrant onto the front page of the papers.
I would sincerely have preferred for this debate to have taken place in Parliament, for there to have been a public debate and for you to have accepted it.
I would like to tell you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that I am pleased that you appreciate the institutional loyalty of this Parliament.
I would just like it if you could, in return for this, display a little more institutional loyalty in the analysis of our texts, in the inclusion of some of our positive ideas in your documents and I think that this would help in strengthening the positive nature of the Commission/Parliament/Council work cycle.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will be relatively brief.
I only have four objections: one about the past, one about yesterday, in a manner of speaking, one about tomorrow, although I really mean the day after tomorrow, and one about the future.
Let me start with the past.
I think that the concept of creating a European area of freedom, security and justice first saw the light of day about 25 years ago.
I think that we have taken a number of essential steps in the right direction without crowing about it, but also without achieving the results we want to achieve.
We did not - and I would like to say this here in the European Parliament - have to organise a witch-hunt or use Gestapo-style practices.
On the contrary, anyone who has read the Watson report and the advice from the European Parliament and who knows the position of the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs and that of the Commission, knows that we do not use such methods.
However, yesterday - and I am now thinking back to Tampere 1999 when we took the decision to put a series of recommendations to the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs - I discovered that since then we have in fact been correctly following the three paths that were delineated there to create this area, namely those of harmonisation, mutual cooperation and the creation of players.
Tomorrow, and by that I mean the day after tomorrow, I hope that at the Laeken Summit we will give new impetus to the Amsterdam resolutions and the Tampere recommendations that have not yet been implemented.
I am saying this here with all the more conviction because I believe that there are two areas to which attention absolutely must be paid: the fight against trafficking in human beings and the fight against the sexual and economic exploitation of children.
And finally to the future.
I have often heard people say that we would have to choose between freedom and security, but I do not think that is necessary.
Justice and security are two instruments that are necessary in order to guarantee freedoms.
A pertinent comment that I often hear, and one that we cannot ignore, is that we will have to ask ourselves about institutional decision-making and more specifically whether unanimity should be maintained in the third pillar.
These are a number of objections that I wanted to put to the European Parliament at the end of this debate.
Mr President, I should like to say to Mr Tajani, who has accused my Group of criticising and being against his government and Italy, that only the first part of what he said is true and that the confusion between criticism of the government and criticism of the country, nation or its people is the first step on a very dangerous path, which in Europe we all know very well.
(Applause from the left)
I inform you that I have received two motions for resolutions in accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the reports will take place today at 11.30 a.m.
The vote on the motions for resolutions will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.20 a.m. and resumed at 11.30 a.m.)
Mr Krivine, I am informed that Mrs Fontaine has not received a copy of this letter.
If one arrives before the end of the day, a copy will, of course, be sent to all Members.
Mr President, personal reference to me having been made for a second time, I am unfortunately obliged to comment on it, and I do so referring not to Mrs Angelilli's assertions, but to what has just been said by Mr Tajani.
Mr Tajani is right to say that the Rules of Procedure do not permit manifestations of approval from the galleries, but we have to recall what happened.
Mr Tajani had made several interjections during my speech, whereupon I remarked that I could better understand his behaviour now that I could see him, or have a better understanding of why the citizens of Rome did not elect him mayor.
Vigorous applause then broke out in the galleries.
"Vox populi, vox dei" - even if the Rules of Procedure make no provision for that.
(Vigorous applause)
Mr Schulz, allow me to comment that appealing to this saying is not at all appropriate in this House because, if vox populi were the voice of the galleries, we could also do without debating, speaking and voting.
Mr President, I would like to clarify just two things.
The first is that, while chairing the sitting, I heard applause, but was not sure that it came from the gallery.
Secondly, when the honourable gentleman spoke up, I told him that he was in the right and also pointed out that I could do nothing about the gallery after the event, but it was made clear that applause is not permitted.
That is what has to be done under the Rules of Procedure.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Vote
(11941/2001 - COM(2001) 429 - C5-0564/2001 - 2001/0160(AVC))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolutions on successive votes)
Report without debate (A5-0445/2001) by Mr Sousa Pinto, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on proposals for Council regulations:
1. amending Regulation (EC) No 1683/95 laying down a uniform format for visas
[COM(2001) 577 - C5-0511/2001 - 2001/0232(CNS)]
2. on a uniform format for forms for affixing the visa issued by Member States to persons holding travel documents which are not recognised by the Member State drawing up the form
[COM(2001) 157 - C5-0216/2001 - 2001/0081(CNS)]
3. laying down a uniform format for residence permits for third-country nationals
[COM(2001) 157 - C5-0217/2001 - 2001/0082(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolutions on successive votes)
Report without debate (A5-0383/2001) by Mrs Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision on the accession of the European Community to the Codex Alimentarius Commission
[COM(2001) 287 - C5-0310/2001 - 2001/0120(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report without debate (A5-0443/2001) by Mr Dary, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 404/93 on the common organisation of the market in bananas [COM(2001) 477 - C5-0436/2001 - 2001/0187(CNS)]
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report without debate (A5-0448/2001) by Mr Gawronski, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission communication regarding the proposal for a Council decision approving the conclusion by the Commission of an agreement between the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) and the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) [SEC(2001)1349 - C5-0596/2001 - 2001/2252(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report without debate (A5-0407/2001) by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission on application of the precautionary principle and multiannual arrangements for setting TACs
[COM(2000) 803 - C5-0106/2001 - 2001/2055(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0435/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on a common regulatory framework for electronic communications networks and services (Framework Directive) [10420/1/2001 - C5-0415/2001 - 2000/0184(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Paasilinna)
Paasilinna (PSE).
Since there have been some errors and possibly problems concerning digital television in this telecom package, I would like to ask the Commission to comment on how it will act if this package is adopted in plenary.
Owing to financial interests, I shall abstain from voting on this report and the following four.
Mr President, although strictly speaking Rule 9 does not provide for this, I would like to declare an interest in relation to the four reports on the Telecom package.
Mr President, the Commission has passed its opinion on the amendments to the Sittings Directorate, and this is widely known by Parliament.
In addition to that, I wish to reply to the rapporteur's question.
If this directive is adopted as now proposed, the Commission will publish the relevant MHP multimedia home-platform standards in the list of standards published in the Official Journal of the European Communities under Article 16 of the Framework Directive.
According to this directive, Member States have to encourage the implementation of the standards contained in the list.
One year after the date of application of these directives, the Commission will examine whether interoperability and freedom of choice for users have been adequately achieved in the Member States.
If that is not the case, the Commission can propose making implementation of relevant European standards mandatory.
The directive requires the Commission to carry out a public consultation on such a proposal.
Following the public consultation, the proposal would be submitted to a regulatory committee procedure requiring support from a qualified majority of Member States before being adopted as a formal Commission decision.
I should like to remind Members that there are links between amendments that may be adopted or rejected and amendments that may lapse, and between the Paasilinna report and other reports in the whole telecommunications package, and therefore we must be rather careful.
Mr President, I am very grateful to Mr Paasilinna, the rapporteur, for addressing his question to the Commission and thereby making a number of things slightly clearer.
I also wish to thank Commissioner Liikanen for the position he has publicly taken, but I would like to add that these reports - of which there are several, the whole package in the last couple of weeks - have put us under enormous pressure and that there have been a lot of misunderstandings because we have not always been able to inform each other of amendments that have been made.
I would like to point out that these misunderstandings have led to my name being used by the Greens to support the content of the compromise motions, although I had signed nothing for them.
Now I find myself back here again.
Pressure of time means, however, that I now agree to them and will not withdraw anything.
I only actually signed two amendments, not the others.
That I had signed the others had evidently been taken as read because of the way I had expressed myself.
This is not an accusation levelled at any individuals, but simply further evidence I wish to adduce to demonstrate what happens when we are under pressure of this sort through wanting to go public with this document towards the end of the year.
I do not want to have to work in this way again on such a thorny problem in the future.
It really is not on!
(The President declared the common position approved as amended) (The sitting was suspended at 12 noon and resumed at 12.45)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0434/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on access to, and interconnection of, electronic communications networks and associated facilities (Access Directive)
[10418/1/2001 - C5-0416/2001 - 2000/0186(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Brunetta)
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0433/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the authorisation of electronic communications networks and services (Authorisation Directive)
[10419/1/2001 - C5-0417/2001 - 2000/0188(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Niebler)
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0438/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on universal service and users' rights relating to electronic communications networks and services [10421/1/2001 - C5-0418/2001 - 2000/0183(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Harbour)
Mr President, I understand the need to maintain the integrity of the telecoms package, but I understand there have been some final changes to the declaration the Commission has issued on 'must carry' rules.
I would like to know whether this text genuinely reflects Parliament's views, particularly the amendments of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and whether the Commission would be kind enough to read out that text so that we can see what we are agreeing to vote on.
Mr President, if you had given me the floor first, as rapporteur, I would have been able to cover the point raised by Mrs McCarthy.
Could I just formally ask you for a separate vote on Amendments Nos 2, 11, 23 and 24? I have been asked to do this as a formality, even though it is included in colleagues' voting lists.
Could I also say to colleagues that this is part of the compromise package we discussed.
I want to make it clear in your voting list, colleagues, that the first part of Amendment No 15 is part of the compromise text and I am recommending you vote against the second part.
My Amendment No 36 is also part of the compromise text, and for clarity for colleagues on the Legal Affairs Committee, this is the amendment you voted on in committee with just the addition of the word 'television' after 'digital interactive'.
That was a compromise.
I agreed with the Council to clarify the wording - there have been no other changes.
Can I also make it absolutely clear that Amendment No 11 is also a compromise text and that is shown at the bottom of your voting list.
I turn now to the points quite rightly raised by my shadow rapporteur, Mrs McCarthy, on the question of 'must carry' obligations.
This is an issue that many colleagues are concerned about and reflects Article 31 of the proposal.
I am recommending that you vote against the committee amendment as part of the compromise but I would ask you, Mr President, to give the floor to Mr Liikanen.
He has prepared a statement clarifying the access provisions for public service broadcasters in the whole electronic communication package.
That access provision is the key concern of colleagues.
So, can I ask you to give Mr Liikanen the floor?
Mr Harbour, if I had seen you before Mrs McCarthy, I would have given you the floor before her.
I could not have foreseen that she would speak first.
In the light of Parliament's concern over the extension of 'must carry' obligations to conditional access and other associated facilities, the Commission wishes to make the following statement.
First, the provision of Article 6 of the access and interconnection directive guarantees all broadcasters access to conditional access systems on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.
Under Article 5(1)(b) of the access and interconnection directive, Member States may impose obligations to provide such access on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, on other associated facilities, in particular application programme interfaces (APIs) and electronic programming guides (EPGs).
Second, the Commission will monitor the application of these provisions at Member State level, including 'must carry' obligations, taking into account any problems that public service or any other specified broadcasters may have in gaining access to satellite and other broadcast networks.
The possibility of guidelines for Member States could be considered.
Third, the free movement of television broadcasting services in the Union is covered by the 'television without frontiers' directive.
In its forthcoming review of this directive, the Commission will assess inter alia the impact of technological and market developments on the production and distribution of European audiovisual networks.
In conclusion, I have noted the importance the European Parliament attaches to the promotion of multicultural and multilingual Europe, also in this context.
Mr President, if I heard the Commissioner correctly he said the possibility of guidelines 'could' be considered.
Did I mishear that? The House needs to know whether they 'will' be considered.
Commissioner Liikanen spoke in your language, Mr Perry, so I think it is quite clear!
Perhaps the Commissioner would like to repeat this part?
Mr President, please permit me to address a question to the Commission before the vote is taken.
The text that the Commission originally submitted for a resolution envisaged the formation of an expert group on radio spectrum policy to continually discuss radio spectrum matters.
The European Parliament was to be involved in these discussions.
Legal and institutional considerations make it impossible to embed the founding of this group in the Frequency Decision, but I would ask the Commission whether they are holding to their original intention and establishing such a group by a Commission decision, that is to say on a voluntary basis. If so, will Parliament be involved in the work of this Group?
Mr President, I can confirm that the Commission intends to create, under a Commission decision, a high level group for discussion at political level on Community policy on radio spectrum.
The group would be made up of representatives from Member States and chaired by the Commission.
As we stated earlier, the European Parliament will be given observer status to this group.
Mrs Niebler referred to this possibility in the explanatory statement of the second reading report.
Of course, the Commission will keep the European Parliament informed on a regular basis of the proceedings of the spectrum committee through the normal interinstitutional agreements and comitology.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0420/2001), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council decision adopting a programme of Community action in the field of public health (2001-2006)
[10222/1/2001 - C5-0390/2001 - 2000/0119(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Trakatellis)
I turn to the Commission again for its opinion on the amendments.
Mr President, as indicated by my colleague, Mr Byrne, yesterday evening the Commission very much welcomes the work carried out by the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment on this important report.
As far as the amendments are concerned the Commission can accept 28 amendments in full.
These are Amendments Nos 2 to 5, 8, 11, 12, 14 to 17, 19 to 22, 24, 33, 37 to 40, 45, 47 to 49, 51, 53 and 60.
The Commission can accept in part ten amendments. These are Amendments Nos 1, 18, 26, 29, 31, 32, 54, 55, 56 and 58.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0408/2001), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on undesirable substances in animal feed
[10593/1/2001 - C5-0413/2001 - 1999/0259(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Paulsen)
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0406/2001), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the reduction of the level of pollutant emissions from two and three-wheel motor vehicles and amending Directive 97/24/EC [7598/1/2001 - C5-0386/2001 - 2000/0136(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Lange)
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0431/2001), on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 as concerns the use of ESA 95 in the determination of Member States' payments to the VAT-based own resource
[8793/1/2001 - C5-0385/2001 - 2000/0241(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Haug)
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0439/2001) by Mr Turchi, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Trans-European Networks 1999 Annual Report pursuant to Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 laying down general rules for the granting of Community financial assistance in the field of trans-European networks [COM(2000) 591 - C5-0255/2001 - 2001/2120(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0396/2001) by Mr Watson, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the recommendation to the Council on an area of freedom, security and justice: security measures for European Council meetings and other similar international events [2001/2167(INI)]
Mr President, as the EPP shadow rapporteur I should like to ask if your secretarial office is in possession of an erratum regarding point 5.5, which the translation office has circulated but which, oddly enough, does not yet appear in the text distributed so far: it is a note made some time ago regarding a very serious translation error which falsifies the rapporteur' s original text.
In point 5, fourth line, the rapporteur wrote: 'The use of guns must be absolutely avoided.'
I repeat, the rapporteur' s text says: 'The use of guns must be absolutely avoided' , and the translation is: 'The use of guns must be absolutely forbidden.'
There is a substantial difference there, apart from the fact that Parliament can, I believe, neither consent to nor forbid the use of guns by any police force in this Community.
In any case, the translation is evidently wrong.
I should like to check whether you are in possession of this corrigendum before voting - irrespective, therefore, of the result of the vote.
Mr Santini, at the beginning of the vote on the Watson report I had already pointed out that there was a corrigendum to the Italian version.
A further check will, of course, be made on the basis of your remarks.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0414/2001) by Mrs Hazan, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Council report on European Union priorities and policy objectives for external relations in the field of justice and home affairs [7653/2000 - C5-0102/2001 - 2001/2051(COS)]
(Parliament adopted the resolution)EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Jackson report (A5-0383/2001)
.
I voted against the Jackson report on Codex Alimentarius because I am heartily sick of the gross intrusion into the European Parliament e-mail system of mass mailing of lobby letters.
It has been totally counterproductive and every effort will be made in future to prevent similar intrusions.
Dary report (A5-0443/2001)
For more than thirty years, the European Union has worked hard to construct its special partnership agreement with the African, Caribbean and Pacific States.
It was within this policy of openness and solidarity that the common organisation of the market in bananas was established to guarantee access to the European market for a certain percentage of the bananas produced by ACP countries, which include some of the poorest countries in the world.
This measure was opposed from the outset by the major, multinational banana companies, which are very competitive, but this often entails exploitation verging on slavery!
Owing to political pressure, economic sanctions, compromises and concessions, the entire quantity protection system will be abolished from 2006 and will be replaced by a protection system based solely on tariffs. As yet, no one knows how effective this will be in protecting the interests of the traditional ACP banana producers.
The agreement reached in April 2001 did of course end the trade war that had poisoned our relationship with the United States for almost ten years. But some of the measures genuinely are a bitter pill for the ACP countries to swallow.
These include the abolition, in 2006, of quota protection guaranteeing traditional producers access to the European market and a 100 000-tonne reduction in the guaranteed production quantity from January 2002. In addition, they are affected by the deficiencies and delays of the financial and technical assistance measures established to help ACP producers adapt to the new market conditions.
They are still waiting to receive their payments.
Michel Dary' s report, that we will reach a decision on today, proposes that we offer the ACP countries a number of safety nets to be used during the transition period, before they step out into the unknown when the common organisation of the market in bananas ceases to exist.
(Speech shortened pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
Ever since 1993, the issue of bananas has been at the heart of trade relations between the European Union and the United States.
Some have even gone so far as to say that it has poisoned transatlantic relations and that this conflict should be resolved as quickly as possible.
I would even venture to say that it should be resolved at any cost.
Those in positions of power, like Louis Vuitton, Hermès and Gucci have had enough!
So much so that people all over the world from the West Indies to Brussels and Strasbourg, some individuals have decided to fight back rather than capitulate.
But who in Parliament can fail to recognise that by giving in to the diktat of the United States, in the guise of the WTO, the European Union is supporting future unemployment? At some point in the long term, 35 000 people in the Canary Islands will be made unemployed, and 30 000 in the West Indies.
Who can fail to recognise that by progressively giving in on this issue, the European Union is disregarding its social model, which it is so keen to export throughout the world?
Finally, who can fail to recognise that by giving in now on this issue, in the future we will inevitably have to give in on sugar, and not just on sugar cane but also on sugar beet? Soon we will have to write off our own agricultural model.
Mr Dary has not avoided these various issues and I think that this Parliament should be proud of having voted in favour of his report today.
Inspired by the strength of our democratic legitimacy, we have chosen the path of resistance, in the face of the intransigence of the European Commission.
Our request for 'cyclone' licences to be available when crops are destroyed and, particularly, our demand for a transition period prior to the start of a purely tariff-based system in 2006 illustrate our opposition perfectly.
This is why I naturally voted in favour of the report by Mr Dary. Overall, I felt it was pertinent to the issues involved, despite having some reservations, which, as I explained to the rapporteur, relate to the distribution within quota C between Caribbean and African producers.
Given Africa' s trade links, in which France has been pivotal for historic reasons, I fear that this change will represent a further blow for the European producers of Guadeloupe and Martinique.
Paasilinna report (A5-0435/2001)
Mr President, Mr Paasilinna' s framework directive refers in general to all rules concerning the creation, maintenance, development and improvement of citizens' communications networks that are integrated together, that is, they provide for the use of televisions, computers and telephones.
I voted for this report with pensioners and the elderly in mind, Mr President.
What have the elderly and pensioners to do with this document? Well, they are the ones who spend most time in front of the television and so, as end-users of these technological advances, they should be taken into consideration.
Unfortunately, they are not taken into consideration enough in this document.
Brunetta report (A5-0434/2001)
Mr Brunetta' s report, Mr President, also refers to telecommunications, and particularly access to and interconnection of electronic communications networks and associated facilities.
Going back to what I said in the last explanation of vote, although this is a document that I approve of in its entirety, here too, unfortunately, I have noticed something missing: there is no provision to allow access to these means of electronic communication - i.e. television, the Internet, mobile telephones - at rates suited to those who are elderly or pensioners, receive modest pensions and should be entitled to have access to these means of electronic communication without any further financial burden, and even with state support.
Niebler report (A5-0433/2001)
The Niebler report, as you have said, Mr President, refers to authorisations for electronic communications service networks.
As the representative of the Pensioners' Party, I voted for it, but I should like - and this is something lacking in this document - exemption from payment of various fees, charges and rates when authorisation is granted for new television service and network players to enter the market.
In this document there is nothing to help those who propose to use these means of communication to give information on employment rights, pension rights or social matters of interest to all citizens, particularly the elderly.
Harbour report (A5-0438/2001)
Mr President, Mr Harbour' s document - another directive on telecommunications, on universal service and users' rights relating to electronic communications networks and services - seeks amongst other things to obtain the greatest possible benefit for consumers.
If, then, what I said in the previous explanation of vote is true, that consumers are for the most part the elderly and pensioners, that means that it should seek the greatest possible benefit for the elderly and pensioners.
That is precisely what many pensioners asked me when once again they went with me to the airport on Sunday afternoon, when I was catching the plane to Strasbourg.
They asked me to tell Parliament, with regard to these documents, that they would like there to be much more on television about their problems and their desires.
Can I say that we fully understand the wish of the Commission and Council to ensure the success of the telecom package in advance of the Laeken Summit.
It is vital to achieve the Lisbon targets, but as the shadow PSE rapporteur, I wish to complain about the procedure.
I also object to the deals which have been struck at the last minute behind closed doors resulting in a compromise package which seriously weakens the provisions for must-carry services and for people with special needs and disabilities.
These were approved unanimously in the Legal Affairs Committee.
It was of course disappointing that the British Conservative rapporteur informed me of his decision to abandon these important provisions for consumers and users in order to achieve political expediency.
My delegation or the Labour MEPs voted in favour to maintain the committee's positions on these important provisions.
Can we remind perhaps the Commission and Council that we are co-legislators, not co-drafters of declarations which have no legal force and rely on the Commission's goodwill to deliver on must-carry.
We will, of course, monitor the Commission's progress to deliver on these provisions.
I have to say that today was a victory for Laeken, for the Commission and Council on the telecoms package, but it was not a victory for democracy in this House.
I would first of all like to remind you of the background to this report.
To begin with it was allocated to the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, like other reports on the telecoms package. At that time I was appointed rapporteur.
Then the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market declared that it was the responsible committee and the report was handed over to Malcolm Harbour, a British Member of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
I remained the draftsman of the opinion, but the opinion I expressed had little influence in the discussions!
This is a terrible shame, especially when the issue is the protection of universal service in such an important sector which is undergoing such important changes.
The report adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs last November makes astonishing reading. The measures relating to universal service have been reduced to a disappointing level and the report focuses mainly on consumer protection.
As I said in my report of the opinion, if universal service includes, within the definition of its component services, the same kind of criteria that are usually used to assess services provided for consumers (affordable prices, availability, delivery timetables and quality), its raison d' être has different types of objectives if we look at the issue for the point of view of regional policy, social policy (preventing the poorest people from being excluded) or public safety policy.
I would like to stress the importance for democracy of the ability to access new communication networks.
New technologies make it possible for people to speak out, to participate in democratic debate and to influence decisions.
Technology can also be used to bring government closer to the people.
Local democracy can benefit greatly from the interactive aspect of online local public services.
Public services can be given a new lease of life through these new technologies, if the means are made available to them, and of course if they have the will to do so.
Lastly, Internet access is essential to the creation of a knowledge-based information society.
The committee' s proposal needs to be improved in order to meet these challenges. This is what I attempted to do in my amendments, all which were rejected by Mr Harbour.
Today we have voted on a report that proposes some interesting changes concerning the protection of consumers, particularly disabled consumers, and the 'must carry' principle, but which, regrettably, cannot claim to provide universal service in this sector!
Niebler report (A5-0432/2001)
Mr President, I voted for Mrs Niebler' s report on the radio spectrum in the European Community and its distribution, just as I voted for all the measures on telecommunications.
In my opinion, however, a quota should have been reserved for Europe of the frequencies available for the electromagnetic emissions with which the electronic messages are sent which are then converted into pictures on our televisions and computers and into signals in fixed or mobile telephones.
Europe must take the lead in the future, and it will only be able to do so if frequencies are available for Europe as such and not just for the national States.
Trakatellis report (A5-0420/2001)
Mr President, EUR 280 million is being appropriated to public health care.
Do not worry, I am not about to suggest you become a surgeon - although, for all I know, you might be dreaming of becoming a surgeon.
I would just like to say that, with regard to this Community action programme, that I hope that the resources of all 15 Member States of the Union will be combined to fund a single European programme which, in addition to the funds appropriated by us, will also benefit from the funds that the individual national States make available to it from their national budgets.
In particular, however, I call for a reduction in the working hours of those who work in toxic environments and, as a result, suffer from occupational illnesses, for this is one of the causes of the high public health costs, not just in terms of human lives but in financial terms as well.
The programme of Community action in the field of public health is an important element of the work towards improved public health in Europe.
Public health is an issue close to the heart of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and a precondition for a dignified and decent life.
We therefore support the Commission' s proposal and the amendments proposed by Parliament in its first reading.
However, it is our view that the amendments proposed by Parliament in its second reading would only lead to the concept of public health being undermined, to a breach of Article 152 of the Treaty and to encroachment upon Member States' self-determination in the area of health care.
We have therefore chosen to vote against all the amendments, with the exception of Amendment 1 on respect for the principle of subsidiarity in the area of public health and Amendment 60 on reduced resistance to antibiotics.
. (NL) Without democratic regulation by the state, health becomes a commodity.
This commodity is available to anyone who is rich and powerful but not to anyone who is poor and powerless.
We see that the average life expectancy of disadvantaged population groups is shorter than that of privileged groups.
There is constant pressure to replace income-dependent insurance premiums with a premium that is the same for everyone regardless of their income.
Commercial companies offer special care to anyone who can and will pay for it.
Hospitals are going into the commercial market; people with the most money can queue-jump and loss-making treatments are being scrapped.
Waiting lists are being created, people are being referred to distant hospitals in other Member States, and the number of unnecessary deaths is increasing.
To combat this trend, it is important for governments to provide good healthcare that is accessible to everyone.
A European programme of Community action in the field of public health can contribute to this.
However, it is necessary that the amendments rejected after the first reading get a comfortable majority today, so that we can clearly establish that health is not a commodity and is not subject to financial compromises, and that there is a great deal to be improved in the area of healthcare in many Member States, which has been neglected for the past twelve years.
With regard to this programme, I have voted against the proposal to 'develop a specific action to promote, by means of public awareness/information campaigns, an improved diet and eating habits which are better suited to the needs of the human body' at European level.
The European Union must concentrate on its main tasks - promoting peace and democracy, human rights, free trade and initiatives for improving the environment.
This is the only way for our cooperative venture to win public support and understanding and gain legitimacy among our citizens.
Otherwise, the EU project will still principally be seen as centralising decision-making among only a few people.
This weekend will see discussions on the outline of future EU legislation/new instruments or treaties at the European Council at the Royal Palace of Laeken in Brussels.
Here, it is more important than ever for the European Parliament to show the political maturity and discipline required not to demand new policy measures at European level, but instead to rally around the central joint undertakings.
It is vital that the principle of subsidiarity, as set out in the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, is actually applied.
A body wholly independent of the EU institutions, the European Court of Justice, should be given the authority to monitor adherence to and respect for the principle of subsidiarity, in order to ensure that more powers are not transferred to European level.
This certainly does not include the centralised implementation of a uniform Europe-wide campaign for 'an improved diet and eating habits' involving all the various cultures, eating habits and tastes that characterise the 370 million citizens of the EU Member States.
Let taste, culture and lifestyle remain different for Greeks, Spaniards, Swedes, British and Germans.
Such diversity is a great asset.
Paulsen report (A5-0408/2001)
Could I express surprise that the compromise package negotiated by the three largest groups has been rejected by the Council?
We would have preferred to have voted on the compromise amendments.
The compromise on the two contentious issues, namely time allowed for setting limits and the right to return contaminated feed to the country of origin with the consent of that country's government, was realistic and workable.
I wish to put on the record the position of the ED wing of the EPP that the Council was crazy to reject the package that was on the table.
If it thinks it can get a better deal in conciliation, then it has another think coming!
Incidentally, the compromise was the best deal for the Italian pensioners as well.
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The implementation of key provisions of the EU White Paper on Food Safety is of paramount importance if we are to restore confidence in the food chain.
The inclusion of undesirable ingredients by feed manufacturers in animal feed was responsible for BSE and the Dioxin scare.
It is to the credit of this Parliament and the other EU institutions that measures were quickly put in place to deal with the crisis and to agree long-.term measures to prevent any re-occurrence.
Today' s debate is a further positive step on this important road ensuring that animal feed available to farmers is of the highest quality.
Not for the first time do I want to put on the record that in all of this sorry debacle, farmers were the innocent victims of circumstances which were beyond their control.
It is also important to say that farmers welcome the controls concerning animal food production.
It is to be regretted that some people used the debate on food safety to undermine the profession of farming and the role of farmers as guarantors of a quality food supply for citizens.
We need to be careful as to how we deal with comments concerning food.
The Dioxin and BSE debates failed to get across the strong message that the quality of European food is the best in the world, and consumers get both quality and value for money.
Any exceptions to this are condemned outright by European farmers.
Recent reports concerning the future of CAP are certainly worrying.
If we are serious about the European model based on family farming, then we must ensure that those who operate within that framework are all guaranteed a decent living.
Lange report (A5-0406/2001)
This document we have just adopted regulates pollutant emissions, particularly from motorcycles.
Mr President, I am sure that you can hear now the deafening noise caused by large numbers of motorcyclists riding through the streets near Parliament.
The noise is unbearable and, most importantly, the pollution is not odourless: quite the opposite, it often stinks.
It is not the effect on our noses which is important but rather the fact that harmful substances are released into the atmosphere.
Would you not agree, Mr President, if you were a policemen trying to enforce these directives we have adopted, that the motorcycles of those who produce so much noise and pollution while using them should be seized without delay? I would have voted for the motion much more willingly if the directive had included these measures.
We Swedish Social Democrats voted in favour of the report on the Directive on the reduction of the level of pollutant emissions from two and three-wheel motor vehicles.
We believe that the recommendation has intrinsic environmental value.
However, in this explanation of vote, we wish to state that we do not agree with Mr Lange' s desire for a binding emission limit for 2006.
We believe that the limit should be voluntary until there are improved grounds for a new limit to be set.
If the limit were to be established now, there would be a risk of emissions from future motorcycles becoming higher than necessary.
We believe Mr Lange' s proposal to use the test cycle for cars is inappropriate as motorcycles are not driven in the same way as cars.
They accelerate in a different way and are usually driven at higher speeds.
Instead, we should wait for the new test cycle currently under development for motorcycles and, until then, have voluntary emission limits.
Turchi report (A5-0439/2001)
Mr President, before I tell you why I voted for the Turchi report, which is on the granting of Community financial assistance in the field of Trans-European Networks, that is to the transport, energy and telecommunications sector, I would like to thank Mr Goodwill, who has joined me in protecting the interests of the pensioner citizens of the whole of Europe, not just Italian pensioners, that is.
We are back to televisions and television programmes - this certainly is the day for telecommunications!
I voted for the motion but I hope that, when we vote on this document in future, in the coming years, economic support will be laid down for television stations which broadcast, in one of our States, programmes made in other States of the European Union.
We have to get to know each other, Mr President - Italians, British, French, Finnish and so forth - and what better way to do so than to watch programmes made in another State, translated into our own languages of course?
I fully agree with the conclusions reached by Mr Turchi.
I would reiterate the points made by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism with regard to the lack of information on financing provided by national, regional and local bodies and by the private sector for the completion of TEN projects, since 95% of the financing still comes from outside the EU.
There is also a lack of information on specific investment in modes of transport via EIB loans, the financial instruments for third countries, other public and private programmes and the Structural Funds themselves that is broken down by transport mode.
Indeed, the Commission only provided information broken down by transport mode for budget heading B5-0700.
We feel we should also point out that, in future, the Commission should attach to the report a clear, simple table containing dependable, transparent data which can not just be used to monitor the correct use of the amounts already made over but will also improve the scope for planning.
This is a monitoring procedure which the Commission' s report reserved exclusively for the 14 priority projects established at Essen which, as we know, are not the only ones on the list.
Finally, I feel I must draw the Commission' s attention to the need to address properly, once again, the issue of Corridor 8 - which does not even feature in the White Paper - and peripheral regions, which are isolated even more by the excessive focus on Trans-European railway lines and the neglect of the air transport crisis.
Watson report (A5-0396/2001)
I voted against this report, Mr President, because it should have been more vehement in its condemnation of demonstrations. Demonstrations are legitimate in themselves as a means of displaying one' s opposition to a policy - where this is the case - but they must be always and exclusively peaceful.
I myself, Mr President, have demonstrated many times against government decisions with which I did not agree.
What method did I use? I chained myself to the furniture in the Bergamo municipal council building, I chained myself to the furniture in the Bergamo provincial council building and I chained myself to the furniture in the Lombardy regional council building in Italy.
Who knows, maybe one day in the next two and a half years, I will chain myself to your Presidential bench, Mr President.
In any case, this is a peaceful means of protest; it does not involve arms or violence, unlike the protests which, I am sad to say, have been taking place for some time now throughout the world, which I condemn, which the Pensioners' Party condemns and which everybody here condemns.
Should you decide to act on that deplorable idea, you will be freed from your chains, if necessary against your will!
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(EL) I worry that the European Union is on a slippery slope, with the recent plethora of measures reducing civil liberties.
Unfortunately, Europe is to acquire an arrest warrant before it acquires a constitution.
This being the case, the EU-USA extradition agreement as part of the fight against terrorism is particularly worrying.
Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights adopted by the European Union Council in Nice in France on 7 December 2000 does not allow anyone to be sentenced to death.
This being so, it is unthinkable to cooperate on extradition to the USA, which has the death penalty and where the conditions for a fair trial do not apply following the courts martial or the detention of hundreds of immigrants with no judicial guarantees.
Even if people are only extradited to the USA if the USA promises that "the death penalty will not be applied", the death penalty may be imposed by the court without being enforced.
In this way, with this agreement with the USA on criminal matters, the European Union is reintroducing the death penalty through the back door.
And that is a huge step backwards.
Finally, I should point out that the USA is applying the death penalty en masse in Afghanistan without even any judgements from their own courts.
This was confirmed both by Defence Secretary Rumsfeld yesterday when he said that we would kill Al Qaeda and in its use of the 15000 pound daisy cutter bomb, which is the most powerful non-nuclear bomb of mass destruction.
Dismantling the Taliban and Al Qaeda and punishing those responsible for the crime perpetrated on 11 September in order to set an example is one thing and the mass murder of all its members and supporters, which not even the Nazis suffered, is another.
It is Europe's duty to react.
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(EL)In its own initiative report entitled "Security at meetings of the European Council and other comparable events", the European Parliament committee wrongly named the "Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights...", has forged another link in the heavy chain which the ruling class intends to use to stem the swollen tide of resistance and opposition to its policies.
The rapporteur, Mr Watson, suggests how we can become peaceful and legitimate demonstrators, the first requirement being to work together peacefully and avoid any manifestation of violence.
Ôhe question is, who is guilty of violence and terrorism?
In Nice, Gothenburg and, even more so in Genoa, violence was indeed perpetrated, except that the perpetrators were the police and state forces.
And, more to the point, in both Gothenburg and Genoa, the target of police violence was clearly not the few hot-blooded demonstrators, but the huge crowd of "peaceful" demonstrators.
Then we read that organisers of demonstrations should avoid cooperating with people suspected of carrying out acts of violence.
It is easy to conclude that, if they do not, they run the risk under the forthcoming terrorism law of being sentenced as terrorists for the crime of supporting terrorist action.
Our response is that protecting demonstrations from extremist elements, who are often agents provocateurs, is a matter for the mass grass-roots movement itself.
According to the report, if we want to cross the borders of our country and take part in an international demonstration, we must earn the authorities' trust by convincing them that we intend to demonstrate peacefully in a legitimate demonstration.
We are extremely worried that soon we will be asked for credentials or to sign a statement.
It also suggests that we need to agree on a common definition of "dangerous person and dangerous behaviour" for all the Member States.
This proposal refers to articles about two new black lists which Europol is planning to publish, one for "troublemaking" demonstrators and one for foreigners.
This being so, the report's recommendation that there should be no black lists or new databases is pure hypocrisy.
As far as police violence is concerned, the only thing the report has to say is that a disproportionate use of force should be avoided and it sits firmly on the fence as regards the conduct of the demonstrators and that of the police forces.
In fact, especially in Genoa, the demonstrators faced unprecedented violence on the part of the police, with illegal charges, hundreds of illegal arrests, dozens of injured and the cold-blooded murder of a young man.
It is no coincidence that the UN Commission against Torture has called for a report on events in Diaz and Bozaneto jail in Genoa.
Obviously, the political mouthpieces of the European monopolies know full well that their anti-grass roots policy is going to come up against more and more grass-roots opposition, which is why they are attempting to use repressive measures to terrorise and restrain popular unrest.
However, history has shown that this sort of action always brings in the opposite results.
The reasons behind the grass-roots movement are increasing social inequality and the attack on fundamental social rights.
The longer these reasons apply, the more mass grass-roots resistance and opposition will grow.
It is for these reasons that the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the Watson report.
Hazan report (A5-0414/2001)
Mr President, thank you for your response to my explanation of vote on chaining myself to the President' s bench.
I remember, on one occasion, I could not release myself from the chains because I had unwisely thrown the key out of the window, but your comment makes the idea of carrying out such a peaceful form of protest and there being such a peaceful likely conclusion to it more feasible, more probable and more pleasant.
As regards the Hazan report, which I voted for, I have to say that I particularly welcome the intention it expresses to combat the intolerable level of corruption which persists in all the States of our Europe, but also - and, I would say, in particular, regrettably, in the candidate countries.
Genuine progress must be made when the chapters are closed with these candidate countries.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.48 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Middle East
The next item is the joint debate on the statements made by the Council and the Commission concerning the situation in the Middle East and on the proposal for a recommendation (B5-0747/2001) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the crisis in the Middle East and the role of the European Union in the region.
Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, you have the floor.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the beginning of December, we once again witnessed a tragic series of events in the Middle East. As time passes, there is a growing risk that the situation could spiral out of control.
The prospect of a serious political dialogue is becoming an increasingly distant possibility. Dialogue however is the only way forward; there is no other credible option.
The various parties appear to lack the confidence and the political will needed to end this crisis, so opening the way for violence and extremism.
It is now more important than ever that the parties concerned are offered help in reaching a different way of thinking.
However, the recent active re-engagement of the United States in the Middle East lead to the expectation of progress towards the resumption of talks.
Unfortunately, the terrible events of recent days have made this work much more difficult.
Nevertheless, the United States, the European Union and the other players most directly concerned have no other choice than to reiterate the firm intention of the international community to prevent extremism and terrorism from undermining diplomatic efforts.
Although the situation in the Middle East is extremely serious, the European Union must not give in.
Both the Israeli and the Palestinian people have the right to live in peace and security.
The Members States of the European Union must therefore work indefatigably towards reconciliation.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is therefore the reason why Mr Shimon Peres and Mr Navril Shaath were each invited to meet the Foreign Ministers separately within the framework of the General Affairs Council of 10 December.
By inviting them, the European Union once again wanted to express its intention to relaunch and continue the political process, and it has therefore used this additional opportunity to prepare the ground for a return to the negotiating table.
In short, it is of prime importance that the European Union once again focuses on the essential need for a political perspective in order to lend weight to the current security negotiations.
The European Union published a declaration after the General Affairs Council of 10 December which was mentioned earlier.
At this juncture, I would like to very briefly repeat the most important elements of this, but at the same time I would like to point out that the text was not shown to either Mr Peres or Mr Shaath before publication.
In this declaration, the European Union clearly sets out the obligations to which it expects both parties to adhere straight away.
With regard to the Palestinian authorities: most importantly, the dismantling of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist networks, including the arrest and prosecution of all suspects and a public call in Arabic to cease the armed Intifada.
With regard to the Israeli government: the withdrawal of its troops and the cessation of all summary executions, the reversal of the area closures and all the restrictions imposed on the Palestinian people, and finally a freeze on the building of new settlements.
(FR) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this wording clearly demonstrates that the European Union always holds a middle position, siding with neither party.
Other external players should follow this example. The wording also clearly explains the conditions necessary for restoring a basic trust between the parties, and also the conditions needed for a genuine peace process.
The European Union is aware of the complex nature of the undertakings that it is calling for the parties to agree to, especially given the current situation on the ground.
However, these requirements have been established on the basis of a rational assessment of the present differences between the parties, and of the ways of overcoming these in the context of a peace process.
The High Representative Mr Solana has undertaken another visit to the region on a mandate from the General Affairs Council.
He will report back on his mission at the European Council at Laeken.
On this basis, it is thus up to the European Union to continue its work to find the most effective ways of bringing the parties to engage fully in the search for a just and lasting peace.
In the meantime, we remain convinced that the implementation of the Tenet ceasefire plan and Mitchell Committee recommendations is the only way to re-establish a political process in the short term.
The plan and recommendations should be implemented without prerequisites or conditions which extremists only use for their own ends. We must not allow extremists to prevent the resumption of negotiations.
As far as the European Union is concerned, the basis for political negotiations is well known. These are Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and the terms of reference of the Madrid Conference, including the principle of exchanging land for peace and the Oslo Accords.
Lastly, the political negotiations have two objectives.
Firstly, the irrevocable right of Israel to exist in peace and security, within its internationally accepted borders, should be fully recognised and reaffirmed. Secondly, a viable and democratic Palestinian state should be established, and the occupation of Palestinian territories should cease.
The European Union also continues to believe that establishing an impartial monitoring body would be in the best interests of both parties. This could help them to overcome the distrust and obstacles encountered in trying to achieve a definitive settlement.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I know that I do not have to explain that the situation is and remains very serious. I know I do not have to explain how important it is that we remain vigilant and ready to act.
Along with the United States and other interested parties, we need to continue to evaluate the potential options, including the possibility that the situation will deteriorate.
The European Union has more than proved its interest and active commitment to seek political solutions, especially in the last few months.
Of course, the parties themselves bear the principal responsibility, but it is important that the international community reaffirms its willingness to help them back onto the path to peace.
(Applause)
Madam President, I think it would be difficult for myself and the other speakers to find words more appropriate or of more use than those used today by the winners of the Sakharov prize, especially Mrs Peled-Elhanan and Mr Ghazzawi.
But we must go on.
Let us follow their example.
I think that the Groups should congratulate ourselves on the agreement reached with regard to the recommendation, but it should be of concern to us that, even though we are not part of the conflict, it should have cost us more than what is reasonable to reach it.
During the discussion, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party attempted to give priority to both the agreement and a balanced position.
However, I think there can be no doubt that our greatest demand is to be efficient, given that our purpose here is not to be conflict analysts, but to be politicians with responsibilities within the framework of the European Union.
From this point of view, I think that the clear position that has been taken with regard to the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli Government is logical and in line with the position of the Council.
However, while insisting on this required level of efficiency, I would like to associate myself with the opinions already expressed by Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck and Commissioner Patten, that there is much need for international action, that the conflict must stop and that the basic approach well established by the Mitchell report must be followed.
In this respect, I would say that it is not sufficient to remain observers and apply pressure.
In a conflict there needs to be strong advocates.
The European Union, the United States, and, obviously, the UN and Russia, are all strong advocates, and it would be difficult to name another moment in history when it has been possible for them to act together in a such an efficient and balanced way.
However, I believe, without a doubt, that this should be our priority: to be able to act as forceful and powerful advocates, if this is a possibility for all of those involved, for the gravity of this conflict requires this.
Madam President, Minister, Commissioner, it is a somewhat peculiar experience to be talking about the Middle East here a few hours after the impressive and emotional presentation of the Sakharov Prize to Mrs Peled and Mr Ghazzawi.
But it is just that - the existence of wise people on both sides of the line who have managed to remain tolerant under tragic personal circumstances - it is precisely the existence of people of this kind that makes it meaningful and necessary for us to continue to search for a solution to a problem that at first glance seems so hopeless.
It is to the cynics in this room, and particularly those outside Parliament, that I say: yes, the European Union has its own special role to play.
We will not succeed without the Americans, but neither will we succeed with the Americans alone.
What does that mean from my point of view?
It means that the European Union must be critical of both sides; critical towards Israel with regard to her reoccupation of Palestinian areas, the erection of blockades and extrajudicial executions. On the other hand, however - and let there be no misunderstanding on this point - critical of the Palestinian authorities who could have done more and must do more in the future to combat terrorist attacks and dismantle networks.
However, whilst we wish to keep a balance, let us not forget that this is not a struggle between two equal parties.
It is the State of Israel that bears prime responsibility for the current conflicts and their resolution.
This means that we must exert as much pressure as possible on Israel to find a solution.
This means exerting pressure in order to prevent them from finding ways out and excuses for not starting negotiations when they could in fact be taking place.
This also means exerting pressure on Israel to distance herself from the kind of thinking which, for example, equates Arafat with Bin Laden.
This is a highly dangerous comparison which will only serve to make it extremely difficult for a solution to be found.
We also owe it to the winners of the Sakharov Prize to do all we can to keep their hope alive.
Madam President, the day before yesterday the Council took a very clear position on the escalation of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
The fact is that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the EU Member States are placing political responsibility for the ongoing Palestinian suicide attacks on Israeli citizens where it belongs: with the Palestinian Authority.
Because of this, they demanded three things of the Palestinian Authority: the dismantling of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist networks, the arrest and prosecution of all persons suspected of terrorist activities, and a public announcement in Arabic of the end of the Intifada, the Palestinian uprising.
Regrettably enough, I cannot consistently trace the Council' s political clarity with regard to Palestinian terrorism back to the recommendations of this Parliament.
I am therefore standing by my Amendment No 6 even after the coordinators' consultation this morning.
The linking of support for the Palestinian Authority with the demands of the Council.
This amendment meshes with the spirit of the compromises that resulted from this consultation.
I therefore ask my colleagues to support this vote by roll call.
Madam President, if this Parliament does not clearly follow the same political line as the Council with regard to the insidious spread of Palestinian terror, the evil forces of 11 September will capitalise on this, because they are really not interested in what the European Parliament expressly states in this recommendation: a safe Jewish state in the Middle East.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are continuing to conduct an anti-Israeli campaign in the style of Picasso' s Guernica, with children' s bodies, usually, elsewhere, the victims of the US, here victims of the Israelis.
Commissioner Patten and we ourselves, with this draft motion, are rushing to provide the Palestinians, at last, with what they need, with what the Palestinian men and women - the Arabs, moreover, in general - and the victims of the dictatorships in the Arab world are certainly demanding.
We are making promises to Mr Arafat and we are agreeing to fight, but for what? To give them rights?
To give them what all the human rights declarations in the world, including the European declarations, fail to recognise as an individual right?
So you want to give them a national State.
This is precisely what they need: another Syrian or Yemeni national State, a State of whatever kind; they need a national State. Commissioner Patten, maybe this is what we need in Italy too to solve our problems; maybe this is what you need in Great Britain to solve yours, would you not say?
The illusion of possible national independence affects Israel too.
You wanted a Yugoslav national entity which would be neutral towards both parties.
Our pleas for democracy and Europe went unheeded.
Do not take sides. Be good Samaritans.
Mrs Morgantini is probably all set to call upon the Israeli soldiers to desert, as, on Italian television broadcast throughout the world, she urged the US and British soldiers to desert in the Afghanistan war.
You are the just like the pacifists and communists of 1938 who supported nazism and urged the allies and the French to desert in that war.
Well then, if this is what you are going to continue to propose, I feel that it is our duty to point out that the Palestinians and all the citizens in the world - but the Palestinians, in particular - have the right to say "no" , as do we on their behalf, to this illusion.
If there were three States - Jordan, Palestine and Israel - the State of Jordan would go immediately, and there would immediately be attempts to use Palestine to eliminate this oasis of democracy between Israel and Palestine representing a third of the democracy in the Middle East.
An emphatic 'no' to this document, which places a condition on continuing our cooperation with Israel and places no condition on our supporting Yasser Arafat.
Well then: this Europe, this Palestine and this Arab world are, quite frankly, not ours.
We will vote accordingly.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, this morning we have all been moved by the testimony of Mrs Peled-Elhanan, who made this Chamber echo to the cries of child victims and the voices of mothers in mourning for them. Because these women have given life, they are now working to prevent further deaths as men continue the senseless killing.
We have also listened to Mr Ghazzawi' s appeal for the dream of peace. Our founding fathers shared this dream and it remains the cornerstone of the European Union.
In listening to Mrs Peled-Elhanan and Mr Ghazzawi, painful memories of past events in the Balkans came back to me. Political and military leaders ignored the fact that the majority of their people wanted peace.
They fought from intransigent positions, the result of their deep-rooted distrust of their enemies.
In order to allay this distrust, the international community had to take resolute action.
This led to the signing of the Dayton agreement, which eventually led to a lasting cease-fire, guaranteed by the deployment of troops. This force has not yet achieved its aim, but Mr Wurtz, it has succeeded in finally breaking the vicious circle of fear, violence and hate.
I think that the international community must today display the same resolve and commitment in response to the desire for peace of the majority of Israelis and Palestinians.
The European Union should lead this action.
I therefore welcome the statement made by the Council the day before yesterday explaining the impartial position of the European Union. The statement was remarkably strong and no less remarkably concise.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I am delighted to hear the European Union express its determination not to give in to a slide towards increasingly indiscriminate violence.
In the same spirit, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy has worked on the recommendation drawn up by our chairman Elmar Brok. This will be submitted to our fellow members for approval.
I hope that Israeli and Palestinian political and military leaders will finally understand that we are only aiming to help them restart the peace process. They have already agreed on the basis of this peace process, but they do not want to implement it because both sides mistrust each other.
We implore them at least to trust the international community to guarantee the implementation of the peace process with the utmost impartiality. We can and must undertake to do this.
Madam President, the war in the Middle East has been going on for over a year now. The Intifada and the Israeli reprisals continue, and the number of dead on both sides is growing.
We feel impotent, concerned and extremely angry. The extent of our anger is a measure of the hope we felt last year when the Middle East was within a whisker of a peace agreement.
We can blame Ariel Sharon for his policy of 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' .
However Mr Sharon was not in power when Ehud Barak, Shlomo Ben Ami and Bill Clinton tried to persuade Yasser Arafat to sign a peace agreement which would have been historic.
That said, the past is the past, as Commissioner Patten so rightly said.
We still want to believe that there is light at the end of the tunnel, to paraphrase the words of the Belgian Presidency of the European Union.
We want to believe that the unprecedented appeal the European Union sent on Monday will be noted. Contrary to what was previously said in the House, this appeal was sent to both parties.
It presents Israel with her responsibilities, but for the first time the European Union makes an equally clear appeal to Mr Arafat to dismantle the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist networks.
There may be light in that yesterday Israel recognised that the Palestinian Authority had, for the first time, begun to take serious action to combat fundamentalists.
There is also light in that Mr Arafat has admitted, quite objectively, that the European Union' s appeal is fair.
At lunchtime today, the Israeli Nurit Peled-Elhanan, winner of the Sakharov Prize 2001, expressed the hope that the voices of the mothers of the Middle East would drown out the voices of those calling for arms.
We also hope and want to believe that European Union' s voice will ring out loud and clear and help re-establish a spirit of hope.
Madam President, I am becoming more and more inclined just to stand back and watch us and watch you in silence.
I am tired, so tired of these repeated debates where it is so difficult to make progress: it would, however, be a silence in which you could hear the muffled voices of those who have been killed, who are calling for peace and justice, as Izzat Ghazzawi and Nurit Peled said this morning; it would be a silence which tells the consciences of all men and women that there can only be peace in Palestine and Israel if the Palestinian people is allowed to exercise the right to live in its own State, existing alongside the State of Israel, in mutual security.
We must make this peace possible and not just by providing economic aid.
We see it every day.
What we build and our citizens pay for is destroyed by shells and bulldozers: from the airport to the port; even the anti-terrorism laboratory was destroyed the day before yesterday.
I support the positions of Commissioner Patten and the Minister, but there can be no economic development if there is no release from Israeli military occupation.
Europe is resolutely taking this line.
A decision must be taken, even a unilateral decision, to establish international protection for the civilian population.
There is no equality between occupied and occupier.
We must take a balanced approach but not be afraid to make political choices.
For peace to be achieved we need clear measures, for our benefit and for the benefit of both Israelis and Palestinians.
Madam President, my group is deeply shocked by the violence that has once again flared up in the Middle East.
The people of Israel live in grief, fear and anger, but they at least have political freedom, elections, economic development and the hope of a better future.
It is in Israel' s interest that the Palestinians also have hope for the future.
People who have hope have something to lose.
Without hope, there will never be the willingness to enter into compromises.
How can people be expected to hope as long as settlements are being built in their back yards, as long as collective punishments are being meted out for the outrages of the few, and as long as Europe does not take a stand against the gross violations of international law?
It is a delusion that more force and more suppression will make the Palestinians more compliant.
There should be an international peace-keeping force monitoring the implementation of the Mitchell Agreement so that a start can be made with the immediate withdrawal from occupied territories and the immediate dismantling of all settlements.
Finally, I would like to ask the Commission a question.
European projects have been destroyed in Israeli attacks; Commissioner Patten himself has already mentioned the forensic laboratory.
How extensive is the damage, and can Commissioner Patten promise that the Commission will recover the loss from Israel?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not really have much to add to what has been said during this debate, except to emphasise that the decisions of the Council, also in the light of what Commissioner Patten has said, are entirely focused on the future, and therefore contain a number of urgent reminders in respect of the two main parties involved, that is to say Israel on the one hand and the Palestinian Authority on the other, and are not intended to be a balanced and reasonable way of commemorating, mourning, and perhaps honouring the victims on both sides.
The violence is terrible.
So indeed is the spiral of violence.
It seemed to us that an urgent call to action was required and that this urgent call needed to be addressed both to the Palestinian Authority and to Israel.
However, the operative part of the conclusions contains a plea for an early meeting at which the European Union, the United States, Russia, the Palestinian Authority and Israel sit down at the table to try to find a way out of the spiral of violence and extremism.
That is our most fervent hope.
I do not think that it is helpful to try to accuse the Council of favouring one side over the other.
That is not the case.
We are in favour of peace, and we are trying to do our level best to achieve it.
That is what this presidency is doing; the next one will undoubtedly also be doing so, and we can definitely use all your support.
Many thanks, Commissioner, for your very moving appeal in this difficult situation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Mr President, I would like to send my greetings to a group of young people, who have not only the modest merit of coming from a town - Pontremoli, in the Lunigiana region - which is particularly dear to my heart and of which I am Mayor, but who I see as representative of the many young people who are looking to Europe.
They have had their eighteenth birthdays this year, 2001, which is the year which has seen the most extreme world violence, but it is also the year in which many of the world' s young people have gained the ability to exercise their full rights and responsibilities in coming of age.
I hope that this mediation operation, this firm moral message from Europe, will be a constructive witness for peace in the future for the young people of Europe and all the young people of the world.
Mr Mayor, that may well not have been quite on the agenda, but there is a saying from the Bible, to the effect that the mouth speaks out of the abundance of the heart.
In that sense, I too can to some extent understand your intervention.
Access to documents as implemented by Council and Commission
The next items on the agenda are the declarations by the Council and the Commission on access to documents as implemented by Council and Commission.
Whereas Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, the Minister, had earlier spoken at the end of a debate, she now has the opportunity and the pleasure of speaking on this subject at the beginning of this one, and we have the honour of hearing her.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the presidency of the Council gave you a commitment, through my good offices, to take the necessary provisions to keep to the deadline of 3 December 2001 for the implementation of the European Parliament and Council regulation of 30 May 2001 concerning public access to the documents of the European Parliament, Council and the Commission.
I am pleased to announce that the Council has kept to this deadline. It took the decision to modify its own internal regulations on 29 November this year.
This decision was published in the Official Journal of 30 November and came into force on 3 December, that is to say the same day when the regulation I referred to came into effect. It brings the provisions of the internal acts of the Council on access to documents together into a single instrument.
It also contains new provisions on the implementation of the regulation. In accordance with Article 2 of the decision, certain other acts have been repealed.
These are as follows. Firstly, the Council decision of 20 December 1993 on public access to Council documents, last modified by a decision of 14 August 2000.
Secondly, a Council decision of 6 December 1999 concerning improving information on Council work and the public register of Council documents. Lastly, the Council decision of 9 April this year on the public communication of certain categories of Council documents.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the process concerning the right to access to documents that started with the Treaty of Amsterdam is being cast in a legal framework in this way.
However, a number of further provisions still need to be established.
The discussions amongst the institutions about the establishment of an interinstitutional committee that will examine what the best practices are, handle any disputes and discuss future developments relating to public access to documents in accordance with Article 15 of the regulation, are still ongoing.
The Council is of the opinion that this committee must be put together at the level of the secretaries-general of the three institutions concerned, and it must be able to submit questions of a general or political nature or relating to matters of principle to the chairmen of the three institutions.
As a result of the recent informal political trialogue between the Presidents of Parliament, the Council and the Commission of 28 November, the Vice-President of the Commission, Mrs de Palacio, formulated an interesting proposal as a solution to the problem of the level of representation within this interinstitutional committee.
Her proposal was to allow this committee to meet at secretary-general level by way of an authorisation - par délégation in French - from their political bosses.
I find this concept very interesting, and I told my fellow Presidents of Parliament and the Commission at the time that I would put this idea to the Council bodies for evaluation.
May I just explain what it is about, because this discussion between the Council and Parliament on the matter of the level at which discussions should take place seems rather parochial.
The Council is worried that the presidents of Parliament, the Council and the Commission would have to act as a kind of appeal court, as it were, if it were to be decided at Secretary-General level that access to a document cannot be granted.
We believe that this is not the kind of role that these presidents should play.
They must not become a kind of appeal court; on the contrary, they must focus on broad issues, general questions, principles and the like.
And that is what concerns us.
It is not about the fact that the Council does not want this interinstitutional committee; it is about making sure that we do not create a court of appeal that is approached quasi-systematically, because we do not think that that will be to anyone' s benefit.
There are other bodies that can be enlisted for this purpose, and this is therefore at the heart of the discussion.
I thought that the suggestion by Mrs de Palacio, Vice-President of the Commission, offered a way out.
For if the secretaries-general of the three institutions meet on the basis of an authority from their presidents, they will then have a mandate and in specific cases will then have to take decisions themselves concerning access to a document.
I am telling you this to clearly explain where the problem lies as far as the Council is concerned.
I hope that my fellow Council members will also find Mrs de Palacio' s procedure positive and that we will be able to solve the problem in this way and get the interinstitutional committee off the ground.
I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that Article 11, Paragraph 2 of the Regulation gives 3 June 2002 as the last date by which the document registers must be operational.
How far have we got in this regard? As you know, the Council' s document register has been available to the public since 1 January 1999.
This register contains all the documents that have been put before the Council or the preparatory bodies and which either serve as the basis for consultations, or have a definite influence on the decision-making process, or give an indication of the situation in certain files.
In November of this year, this register contained references to more than 250 000 Council documents in all our official languages, and it provides access to the contents of more than 50 000 documents.
The register therefore seems to be an effective and reliable instrument with which the institutions' documents can be identified and queried.
Since the register has been operational, there has understandably been a significant increase in the demand for documents, most of which have in fact been available in the register.
The number of consultations of the register is continuing to increase.
In 1999, more than 70 000 hits resulting in about 600 000 requests were registered - and by this we mean screens consulted or clicked on.
In 2000 the number of hits and requests increased to 160 000 and 1 260 000 respectively.
This trend is continuing, and we have already had 130 000 visits and more than 1 million screens consulted in the first six months of 2001.
(FR) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as regards measures to ensure the public is made aware of the rights they have under the regulation, the three institutions concerned are at present examining the various, specific measures to be taken, such as jointly drawing up a practical guide for citizens.
In accordance with Article 9(7) of the regulation, the Commission and the Council must inform Parliament of sensitive documents.
In this regard, the Council remains ready to conclude negotiations with Parliament on an inter-institutional agreement on common security and defence policy. This could be followed by other agreements, particularly on justice and home affairs.
However, given this situation, Parliament should re-examine its position on its application to annul the Council security regulation. It should also adopt measures on the protection of documents classified as sensitive, in compliance with its own Rules of Procedure as recently modified.
This would provide some assurance that these sensitive documents would be kept confidential within Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last month I came here to witness Parliament' s adoption of the report by Mrs Maij-Weggen on amending Parliament' s Rules of Procedure regarding public access to the documents of the three institutions.
This brought to an end some quite considerable work by Mrs Maij-Weggen, and also, if I may say so, by Mr Cashman.
A week ago, and a few days after the Council, the Commission adopted a decision amending its own Rules of Procedure.
Prior to this, on 28 November, we held a discussion to ensure the regulation is applied with the greatest transparency.
It is true that we needed a few extra days for this.
This is why the definitive decision of the Commission was only taken on 5 December.
This prompted a number of questions, and your President raised the issue with us.
I would like to reassure you in no uncertain terms that, in practice, these few days of delay had no repercussions for citizens. The Commission has in fact been implementing the regulation of 30 May since 3 December.
Accordingly, we have a central point of access to the Secretariat-General of the Commission.
We have a postal address, an e-mail address and a fax number available for people to use. It is also possible to consult the Commission' s website.
In addition, there is the new access guide produced by ourselves, which you have discussed, Minister. This will be available on the website from next week.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, as far as we are concerned, all the practical measures necessary for the implementation of the regulation are in place. In fact, the Commission services have already started processing applications to access the new database established in accordance with the regulation.
Article 18 of the regulation provides not only for the amendment of the Rules of Procedure, but also for the amendment of other existing provisions.
Therefore, the appropriate services of the Commission have checked whether the 1983 regulation on opening historical archives to the public was in accordance with the regulation on access to documents.
Some changes were needed. The Commission will shortly put to the Council and Parliament a proposal to change the regulation on historical archives.
The third consideration also concerns Article 18 of the regulation of 30 May. The Commission' s services have drawn up a list of the rules which are to be found throughout Community law which concern access to documents or information within existing Community legislation.
This work has allowed us to identify almost fifty provisions that the Commission will examine in the light of the new regulation.
All provisions that do not comply with the new rules on access to documents will either be modified or repealed.
The fourth point I wanted to make today concerns how the regulation can be applied to agencies.
Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cashman, I understand that this is one of your concerns, which you have rightly raised. The matter is included in the joint declaration adopted along with the regulation.
Work is under way on this issue too.
Since adopting the new regulation, the Commission has provided the agencies with information on it and had invited them to re-examine their own rules on access in the light of the regulation.
The existing instruments of incorporation of the agencies will be modified.
An additional clause will be included in the instruments of incorporation of new agencies.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission' s services have drawn up a guide to inform citizens of their rights under the regulation.
In the first instance, this guide will be available on the Commission' s website in a few days' time. However, in the near future, we plan to develop a common citizens' guide on all three institutions.
I hope this will happen soon.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have outlined all the work that the Commission has undertaken to implement this regulation on access to documents.
This work will of course be followed up by an interinstitutional committee. The committee will be set up shortly and will establish a firm foundation for our cooperation in implementing this new regulation.
Minister, I was pleased to hear you refer to the compromise proposal made by my colleague Mrs Loyola de Palacio on 28 November in the three-way discussion.
She put it forward because a solution has to be found.
I would like to thank you Minister for having noted that Mrs de Palacio put forward this compromise proposal with due regard for Parliament' s concern that political authority should play its full part in the interinstitutional committee.
In order to apply the regulation, each institution has worked independently to modify their own Rules of Procedure when they judged it appropriate.
For its part, the Commission will continue to respect this independence.
The Commission hopes to respect the spirit and the letter of this new regulation, which, we believe, represents a real step forward in terms of transparency and democracy within the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner Barnier, Minister, the public access to documents regulation, better known as the Act on the public nature of Government, was approved in May this year after protracted negotiations.
My colleague Mr Cashman, the President Mr Watson and myself were very closely involved in this.
It was agreed at the time that the practical implementation had to be ready by 3 December, and that applied to all three institutions - the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
The registers were to be ready by 3 June 2002, and today is 12 December.
Where are we now, one week on from 3 December? Parliament approved its revised Rules of Procedure on 13 November, and Parliament' s Bureau saw to its implementation on 28 November.
So as far as we are concerned, everything is in order.
However, as Parliament we feel partly responsible for what the Commission and the Council do, and that is why we have opened this debate.
First the Council: the Council adapted its Rules of Procedure to the regulation on 29 November and published them on 3 December - just in time, in other words.
Two comments: firstly an earlier comment about the Solana decisions.
It is not entirely clear from the Rules of Procedure whether or not the Solana decisions have been overruled by the regulation.
Can Mrs Neyts please once again give us a very clear answer on this? And then a comment about Article 12, Paragraph 5, of the Council Decision, which states that notes, letters and suchlike relating to legislation and addressed to the Coreper, for example, are indeed covered by the regulation.
However, Article 6 states that if Member States make comments about European legislation with regard to the Council or the Coreper in individual notes or letters, these do not have to be published.
It seems to me that this is not acceptable.
In the Netherlands, letters from a municipality to the national government always have to be published, and it seems to me that this should also be the case for Member States in respect of the Council.
And then the Commission; the Commission implemented an amendment to the Rules of Procedure on 28 November and approved it on 5 December.
Now, I am not quibbling over the two days' delay, but I do have a few comments to make.
The first is that the Commission has decentralised the implementation of the regulation.
Is that wise? However, I have now heard Mr Barnier say that there will be one PO box and one e-mail address after all.
So why is that not spelled out clearly in the Rules of Procedure? I cannot find it.
My second comment is about the following problem: why hasn' t the Commission produced a clear definition of the term 'document' , as Parliament and the Council have done? My third point is Article 8 of the Commission Decision.
Why is it so vague about the author of the document?
Is his name not allowed to be known if he is an official? After all, he puts his signature to it in this position, so I believe that this should fall under openness.
It is also not entirely clear what will happen with the agencies.
The Commissioner has said something about that, but has the Commission initiated anything in this area? And then the security rules.
Nothing has been published about these either.
Why have the Council' s security rules been published and not the Commission' s? And now to my last comment, and I would like to pick up on Mrs Neyts' point.
I do not know whether it is wise to have an interinstitutional committee on a non-political level.
Do you have to do this on an official level? I am very hesitant about that.
I think that more consultation is needed on this point; at least we have stated in our Rules of Procedure that one of our Vice-Presidents would have to be responsible for it and Parliament would have to back this pronouncement.
Mr President, first of all let me remind both the Council and Commission that the purpose of the regulation is: "to give the fullest possible effect to the right of public access to documents and to lay down the general principles and limits on such access".
When looking at the Council and Commission decisions, I see an attempt to rewrite the regulation, in particular references to it in Article 9 of the Commission decision - documents which do not reflect opinions or individual opinions will not be made available.
The same applies to Article 11 of the Council decision.
I should like to remind both the Council and Commission that a restriction on access to documents can only refer to the exemptions listed in Article 4 and Article 9, which in turn relate back to Article 4.
Equally, in the Commission's proposals, third country nationals are denied the right of complaint to the European Ombudsman - again, a violation of the spirit of the regulation.
Under delegated powers the Commission believes it will not make legislative papers available until adoption of the final text. I would remind the House and the Commission that 90% of some 5 000 legislative acts adopted every year in the Union are under delegated powers.
The Council has widened access to some of its internal documents, but maintains confidentiality on Member State demands on national delegations and national positions. Why is it that six months after the regulation entered into force, no information campaign has been launched by the institutions?
Why?
When are we going to have the Commission's proposals on amending secondary legislation? Has the Commission adopted security rules?
If so, can it publish them according to the regulations?
When will Parliament adopt its own security rules? I am extremely worried that if someone were now to approach and gain access via either the Commission's decision or the Council's decision we would see a violation of the regulation.
Furthermore, I should like to echo Mrs Maij-Weggen's very important point.
It is not acceptable that we should have secretaries-general representing politicians in this interinstitutional committee.
Politicians must be accountable and responsible for their decisions.
Mr President, I also subscribe to those questions which my colleagues have put to the Council and to the Commission.
In particular, I would like to ask that this committee for interinstitutional cooperation finally be established, in order that genuine transparency can be brought into effect as required by this Regulation.
I also share the view of Mr Cashman that Parliament cannot approve the secretaries-general carrying on discussions of these matters in the name of the politicians, since transparency is, as a basic question of democracy, a highly political matter.
Now we must also look at what will be our future challenges once (hopefully) all these open questions with regard to this Regulation are resolved.
This has been an important first step, but we still have lots of new challenges. I would like to mention some of these.
In my opinion, what threatens to become an even larger problem is the matter which Mr Watson, Chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedom and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, mentioned in a seminar yesterday: this anti-terrorist activity and the questions of the third pillar are leading towards an intolerable situation, since the Council continues to enact these anti-terrorism laws behind tightly closed doors, and the Parliament has virtually zero influence in these matters.
In my opinion we must meet this challenge; questions of the third pillar must be properly brought within the sphere of public access to documents.
Otherwise, there will be no democratic responsibility of any kind as far as these matters are concerned.
Secondly, I wish to mention a problem which relates to the protection of personal data.
In my view we have a genuine problem here as well.
Certainly we must protect personal data, but we cannot approve a situation where (for example) the names and personal details of representatives of industry who are taking part in Commission negotiations can be kept secret in the name of data protection.
No, this idea is erroneous; and in these matters we must be careful to operate on the side of transparency, and so we certainly have our work cut out for us.
'May we see the telephone directory?' 'Sorry, this has certainly not been classified information for two years, but you cannot be given it.'
'How many laws are there?' 'Sorry, we are not counting.'
'How many projects are you running?' 'We stopped counting when we reached 100 000.'
'How many committees are there?' 'Sorry, that is a secret.'
'Who takes part in the preparative meetings?' 'That is unfortunately something we do not know.'
'But you pay travel expenses, do you not?' 'Sorry, we do not know whom we pay these to.'
'May I see which laws are being negotiated with the twelve applicant countries, together with the screening reports?' 'Sorry.'
Those are the types of answer which we, who have been elected to monitor the Commission and the Council, have received.
Like the Ombudsman, the Court of Auditors and the Committee on Budgetary Control, we are unable to obtain what ought to be available to elected representatives in all parliaments.
On 3 December, the regulation on public access to documents came into force.
We were right there with a renewed request to scrutinise the documentation, but the officials discovered that there was nothing to be made available on the basis of the new rules, either.
We have asked for a complete list of committees and working parties and the members of these.
We have asked for details of the enlargement negotiations and to see the declarations and statements associated with current laws.
When we debated the regulation on public access to documents, Parliament' s rapporteurs expected us to be able to obtain that type of information in the future.
I should therefore like to ask our rapporteurs if they will be involved in taking proceedings against the Commission if our renewed request for access to documents also fails in the end to produce a satisfactory answer.
Mr President, most people say they believe in open and transparent government.
I am quite sure the Commission and the Council are genuine in what they say.
I congratulate them on the progress made so far but none of us should deceive ourselves into thinking that we do not need a lot more work before Europe is truly open and transparent.
I want to use my time to cite just one example - a petition to the European Parliament from various names at Lloyds of London.
The petition claims that the United Kingdom Government has not properly applied the EU insurance directives.
As a result of the petition the Commission very properly submitted, over a year ago, questions to the United Kingdom Government.
That is when secrecy and cover-up begin.
The Commission has allowed members of the Committee on Petitions - but only members - to see the actual questionnaire, and then only under extremely stringent conditions.
Why not reveal the questions to the public, why not to the petitioners? The Commission would show it is doing its job.
As for the answers, they are top secret. Nobody is allowed to know them - neither the Members of Parliament nor the petitioners - nobody.
The UK Government says it is an informal communication and that it does not reveal informal communications. The Commission says that under the Framework Agreement it is not allowed to reveal the answers because there may be legal proceedings.
The British Government does not have a leg to stand on.
If this is not a formal communication, I would like to know what is.
The Commission may have some argument, but I would remind the Commissioner of the Zwartveld judgement.
In 1990 the Commission refused access to documents because it claimed there might be legal proceedings.
The ECJ insisted that the documents were presented.
So I would say to the Commissioner this afternoon - you have made some progress but I can give you this example to show that a great deal of progress is still needed in this respect.
Mr President, we are talking today about the implementation of the regulation on public access to documents: the famous Act on the public nature of Government.
We had a nice compromise, the best result we could have achieved this spring, a reasonable improvement on the Commission' s original proposals and the existing Rules of Procedure.
We have essentially brought together the best practices of our Member States to form a new European standard.
What we now have to do is to implement it, of course, and we must do all we can to really make it a success.
As the European Parliament, we naturally want to keep a very close eye on how this will be done in practice, and my colleagues Mr Cashman and Mrs Maij-Weggen have put forward a series of in-depth questions and comments which I wholeheartedly support.
We attach a great deal of importance to the annual report which will be issued about the implementation of the public access regulation and it is very significant for us that we have heard the Council' s and the Commission' s explanation here today.
When I hear the comments about the institutional tale of the Secretaries-General, I am of the same opinion as my colleagues; namely that it sounds as if we are putting it on an official institutional level instead of on a political one.
If you say general and policy criteria, then I would rather speak on a political level.
The 3 December deadline came around very quickly, of course, and we ourselves were only ready in November.
We now have to put our money where our mouth is.
But then I look at the Council and I notice that the documents relating to the Justice and Home Affairs Council have not yet been released, or that not all documents have been included in the register.
Then things start getting tricky again, because then I think: let' s make giving access to our citizens our number one priority, otherwise it sounds as if we are being contemptuous.
I have two specific questions for the Commission and the Council in addition to my colleagues' questions.
How many sensitive documents have been included in the register so far? How are the Commission and the Council informing citizens about the possibilities offered by the Act on the public nature of Government, apart from the guide which Commissioner Barnier announced?
The Act on the public nature of Government is to be evaluated in 2004.
If it then turns out that the regulation does not guarantee sufficient public access, it will be our duty as Parliament to make sure that it does, because we must never lose sight of the fact that the picture that our citizens have of us sitting working in little closed rooms must never be accurate.
This regulation is a fantastic way of doing this differently, but we will have to ensure that it is not just a series of fine words and that it can actually be implemented in practice.
I am greatly looking forward to hearing the answers, particularly to my colleagues' critical questions.
Mr President, I am sorry that my comments have to be directed at Commissioner Barnier, whom I hold in the highest regard, because my complaint applies to a different Commissioner.
As a member of the Committee on Petitions, and to follow on from what Mr Perry has already said, I should point out that this is not the first time the Commission has refused to divulge the contents of documents and other records which we need to see if we are to draw the right conclusions and make the right decisions in cases where European citizens have taken recourse to the European Parliament.
This refusal on the part of the Commission infringes, in my view, the principle of transparency and hampers the Committee on Petitions in its work.
The main excuse for the Commission's refusal is that the information and documents requested would disclose sensitive personal data.
The merits of this contention are contested both by the Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman.
To give you an example, the Commission refuses to give us the names of the representatives of a professional organisation whom it consulted and who, it appeared, influenced its decision.
We deny that this is how personal data is protected and are worried that a possibly less than transparent deal is being hushed up.
Mr Perry also referred to the Lloyd´s affair.
I have to tell you that this hush-up conceals bankrupt companies, a great deal of human misery and several suicides, which is why the report by the chairman of the Committee on Petitions, Mr Gemelli, which Plenary adopted today, calls for the powers and efficiency of the Committee on Petitions to be enhanced so that petitioners can obtain justice promptly and avert irreparable damage, for example to the environment or cultural monuments.
Mr President, Commissioner, I will limit myself to answering the questions that have been asked, the question from the rapporteur, Mrs Maij-Weggen, as to whether the new decisions overrule the so-called Solana decisions; the answer is yes, they do.
As far as the committee on an institutional level is concerned, I would reiterate that the Council has no objections at all to this committee starting work; the only question is whether it will be beneficial for the presidents to meet and take the decisions?
If it is a question of general principles, I do in fact believe that it will have to be the presidents who do this, although this is only my personal point of view.
The solution I have outlined does in fact provide for this.
The only thing that I personally do not regard as a favourable development is the situation where the presidents would become a kind of court of appeal, as it were, if a common decision not to permit access to a certain document or a certain type of document has been taken at the highest official level.
I think that the result will be like a game of ping-pong right up to the highest official level.
I would, however, like to emphasise that the political level is of course always accessible and politically responsible for what the official level decides, including what the highest official level decides.
I do not understand the distinction that some of you are making, as if the official level should by definition not be responsible and the political level should be to the greatest possible degree.
This is not the case; this is not my philosophy; it may be yours, but I do not share it.
I think that we must take another clear look at these things.
It has been pointed out that there are a number of Council documents relating to justice and home affairs that have not yet been included in the Register.
That is right.
We are waiting for the Rules of Procedure on guaranteeing the security of documents, which your Parliament has yet to vote on.
Until such time as this has been done, we find it particularly difficult to make highly sensitive documents accessible, even to your worthy institution.
Mr President, I would now like to respond in as much detail as possible to those who have contributed to the debate.
In general, I am not surprised at the expressions of impatience and vigilance, and at the calls for further action directed at the Commission.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, you reminded us, although I had already done so, that the Commission arrived at its decision after several days extra delay, which we really needed. As you can imagine, I took part in all these debates within the College to assess the implications of this new system, this new instrument for the internal organisation of the Commission.
However, I have assured you, very candidly, that these extra days we required in no way prevented the system from coming into operation on 3 December. Ladies and gentlemen, there have indeed been results since 3 December, as I said to Mr Bonde, who asked me about this.
Since then, we have already received quite a number of inquiries. These have been processed by the Commission' s services, according to the new procedures.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, the register you mentioned will come into operation in June, on 3 June next year. You also remarked that there is some uncertainty over the author of the report, as did Mr Cashman.
We refer to the author of the document in Article 8 of our text. We have not gone into further details on this as, naturally, the author' s description depends on the nature of the document.
Documents may be written by an institution, another public authority, a natural person, a civil servant or a private company.
I would therefore like to explain that the precise description of the author depends of course on the nature of the document.
However, this register will indeed come into operation on 3 June next year, we are working to meet this deadline.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, I would also like to say that the Secretariat-General has a centralised management structure.
As I said a few minutes ago, we have, for instance, an e-mail address, a postal address and a fax number that can be used.
We can therefore reply to people if they write to any specific Directorate-General.
If a problem arises, the Secretariat-General acts as arbitrator. However, we have a central main address and the Directorates-General can reply.
Of course, the decision is taken in the first instance by the Directorate-General which produced the document.
I would now like to address the definition of the document, a subject you are all concerned with. Mrs Maij-Weggen, as I said when I spoke a few minutes ago, we did indeed restrict ourselves to reading the text of the regulation which gives a broad and neutral definition.
This was the wish of the Community legislator and we did not want to limit the scope of our own Rules of Procedure.
As regards the security rules, which you and Mr Cashman also mentioned, I can confirm that these rules, adopted at the end of November, will be published very shortly. Publication is only being delayed by legal and language issues.
I would like to ask for your understanding on this matter. However, the security rules will be published very shortly.
In any case, in the light of what you both said on this matter, we will further increase the speed of work towards publication.
Mr Cashman, you also referred to the need for a publicity campaign.
I promise you we will ensure that information on this new regulation, the arrangements entailed and the new provisions available to citizens is disseminated as widely as possible.
Unless I am very much mistaken, the three European institutions decided not to hold a publicity campaign on this regulation at the forum of the inter-institutional technical working party. However, we will publicise the existence of this citizens' guide thorough our website and all our documents.
The citizens' guide will be available online in the near future.
We will henceforth promote this transparency and openness as endorsed or extended by this regulation.
Mrs Hautala, you mentioned the issue of the inter-institutional committee, as did Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cashman, I cannot elaborate further on what I have already said, though I do appreciate Parliament' s concern over a sense of political responsibility.
Mrs de Palacio' s compromise proposal endeavours to go as far as possible towards meeting Parliament' s wishes. I think you understand this.
To sum up, I told Mr Bonde that we have had results. We are receiving our first inquiries and we are processing them according to the new regulation.
Mr Perry and Mr van den Berg bear out this concern for vigilance.
I believe that this regulation can bring about real progress. Maybe other regulations will go further.
We will see the effects of change as we go along. I promise that the Commission is wholeheartedly committed to implementing this regulation.
I would now like to address the need for transparency and democracy as far as citizens are concerned. The regulation is an initial response to this.
We must also respond in other ways.
This is also one of the issues of institutional reform and the Laeken Declaration. It is also the subject of the open debate that will be possible within the framework of the convention and the forthcoming reform in 2004.
In my opinion there is still much to be done to increase transparency and democracy and to ensure citizens are more closely involved in the decisions we take.
Then, Mr Marinos asked me a question on the ability of the Committee on Petitions to access documents.
Access is of course possible, though we must respect the protection of personal data. The documents of third parties can be accessed but they remain protected by Article 4 of the regulation, which must be adhered to.
Lastly, Mr Cashman asked me a question on the significant issue of the Ombudsman.
I would like to respond to this.
Although I know that you are aware of this, I would like to confirm that the Treaty and the very statute of the Ombudsman means that complaints from third-country citizens living outside the Union cannot be dealt with. This is all I wanted to say to you.
Thank you again for your contributions and your vigilance.
Your reactions came as no surprise to me. We shall henceforth take them into account when implementing this regulation in a specific and operational manner.
Mr President, I would like to put a question to the Commissioner. Is this the way in which the principle of transparency is to be applied, for two days ago it was impossible to discover which regulations you had adopted on access to documents.
It is reminiscent of Orwell' s Animal Farm, where some are more equal than others.
Despite searching, I have been unable to obtain access to your decision.
This is not the way that transparency should function, with its taking more than a week to obtain information.
Secondly, your reaction to the special report of the Ombudsman which was approved...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the Commissioner intimates that we have been given an answer.
We have not.
We tried to renew our old request to Mr Prodi.
That was agreed.
The same day, officials told us that nothing at all new could be made available under the new regulation.
So there is nothing new.
We had raised another question with Mr Prodi in the Conference of Presidents.
We were given promises from both...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, this debate has been quite unsatisfactory and, under the pertinent rule in our Rules of Procedure, I wish to propose to my committee and to the House that we have a resolution to close this debate, to vote on it at our January part-session, and to look at what further action we need to take, given the quite unsatisfactory nature of the responses from the Council and Commission.
Yes, that is a suggestion we will take up.
Mr President, on a point of order, I made quite a serious allegation that there was an attempt to rewrite the regulation.
That has not been addressed.
I maintain that allegation in that both the Council and Commission have introduced a new mandatory and blanket exception on the basis of opinions or individual opinions.
This is not contained in the regulation.
I direct honourable Members to Article 4(3) - public interest disclosure.
It has to be proven that such disclosure would undermine the institution's ability to function.
Mr President, I understand that the debate is closed, but I am here and I am ready to continue.
I am trying to understand why the Chairman, Mr Watson, has said that we have failed to answer the questions.
I have tried to take note of all contributions as quickly as possible. I have also tried to respond in as much detail as possible to at least the main questions, which I was naturally able to answer immediately.
I am willing to appear again before your committee, Mr Watson, and to continue this dialogue.
I have explained the spirit in which the Commission took this decision a few days ago.
The communication to which you refer, Mrs Thors, is certainly possible. I shall endeavour to let you have a copy of our decision, if you have been unable to obtain a copy through any other means.
I have informed you that since 3 December citizens have been able to access Commission documents within the terms of this regulation. We will provide concrete confirmation of this trend, and we remain wholeheartedly committed to applying the spirit and letter of this regulation.
I have tried to respond as fully and as sincerely as possible to the questions put to me. I feel that I had to reiterate this point, Mr President, with your permission.
Question Time (Council)
As they deal with the same subject, Question Nos 1 to 4 will be taken together.
Question No 1 by (H-0861/01):
Subject: Informal European Council meeting in Ghent on the Laeken declaration On Wednesday, 4 July a representative of the Belgian Presidency of the EU spoke in positive terms of the role of constitutional regions in the process of European integration.
You can count on it, and I am speaking on my own behalf and on behalf of Belgium, that we will do our utmost to broach this subject. But there are also 14 other Member States, and it will therefore be important that the constitutional regions ensure they themselves work closely in harmony, Ms Neyts stated.
In a joint declaration issued at the end of May, seven constitutional regions expressed a clear, united position in favour of greater Treaty-based involvement in the European project.
At the informal European Council meeting in Ghent on 19 October, EU Member States promoted the Convention procedure to prepare for further reform of the EU/EC Treaties.
Does the Council endorse the request by Catalonia, Salzburg, Scotland, Flanders, Wallonia, Bavaria and North Rhine-Westphalia to be directly involved in the Convention to prepare for further reform of the EU/EC Treaties? If not, why is it opposed to greater Treaty-based involvement of constitutional regions in mapping out the future of Europe?
Question No 2 by (H-0862/01):
Subject: Regions' powers in a globalised world In Nice an additional Declaration on the future of the Union was annexed to the Treaty.
It offered, inter alia, the prospect of a more precise delimitation of powers between the EU and the Member States, reflecting the principle of subsidiarity.
I am not alone in thinking that regions with greater powers within the European Union are a precondition for a more workable, democratic and transparent Europe.
Furthermore, such European regions are closer to citizens and form a new framework with which the latter can identify, preventing movements such as that of the 'democratic globalists' becoming a movement feeding off anti-European sentiment.
The Council, the European Commission and the European Parliament have a duty, at this key point in the process of European integration, to be resolute and united in opting for a clear division of powers between the EU, the Member States and the regions.
Does the Council intend to give concrete shape to the concept of the delimitation of powers between the Union, the Member States and the regions at Laeken?
If so, how precise is this delimitation to be, and will adequate account be taken of the subsidiarity principle? If not, does the Council consider itself to be sufficiently armed in the face of the growing gap between European citizens and institutions and in the face of growing antipathy within certain movements to all forms of expansion in scale whether at European or world level?
Question No 3 by , which has been taken over by Josu Ortuondo Larrea(H-0863/01):
Subject: Informal European Council meeting in Ghent on the Laeken declaration On Wednesday, 4 July a representative of the Belgian Presidency-in-Office of the EU spoke in positive terms of the role of different nationalities and constitutional regions in the process of European integration.
You can count on it, and I am speaking on my own behalf and on behalf of Belgium, that we will do our utmost to broach this subject. But there are also 14 other Member States, and it will therefore be important that the constitutional regions ensure they themselves work closely in harmony, Ms Neyts stated.
At the informal European Council meeting in Ghent on 19 October, the Laeken declaration and the future of the European Union were discussed.
In connection with the process of establishing a constitution for the European Union, which, for some, goes hand in hand with simplification of the Treaties, does the Council intend to ensure that the principle of constitutional pluralism is enshrined in the Laeken declaration, so that the constitutions of the Member States and their nationalities and states exist independently of, and do not depend for their validity on, a possible EU constitution?
Question No 4 by (H-0864/01):
Subject: Informal European Council meeting in Ghent on the Laeken declaration On Wednesday, 4 July a representative of the Belgian Presidency-in-Office of the EU spoke in positive terms of the role of constitutional regions in the process of European integration.
You can count on it, and I am speaking on my own behalf and on behalf of Belgium, that we will do our utmost to broach this subject. But there are also 14 other Member States, and it will therefore be important that the constitutional regions ensure they themselves work closely in harmony, Ms Neyts stated.
At the informal European Council meeting in Ghent on 19 October, the Laeken declaration was discussed.
Are the powers and position of internal political entities in the Member States in respect of their relations with the EU institutions in an executive, legislative and legal connection to be enshrined in the Laeken declaration? If not, why does the Council oppose recognition in the Laeken declaration of the powers and position of internal political entities in the Member States in respect of their relations with the EU institutions in an executive, legislative and legal connection?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in response to the questions by Mr Bart Staes, Mr Camilo Nogueira Román, Mr Miquel Mayol i Raynal and Mrs Nelly Maes concerning the content of the future Laeken Declaration, the Council can only in the first instance refer to future discussions of the European Council which are yet to take place.
It is indeed up to the European Council to adopt the practical rules and the framework of ideas for the Convention which has to prepare the forthcoming IGC.
This framework should encompass, inter alia, the list of the issues to be discussed, as well as give indications as to how these issues could be tackled most effectively.
The Council will not confine itself to the description of the above-mentioned elements, but will also remind us that the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference must find concrete answers to the questions raised.
However, in the light of the Declaration of Nice regarding the Union' s future, it is obvious that one of the topics that will need to be discussed in the next few months is a more clearly defined demarcation of powers between the European Union and the Member States pursuant to the subsidiarity principle.
Back in July, a number of you already asked the Council - through myself as its personal representative - various questions about these constitutional aspects, and I responded to you at the time. In my response, not only did I officially refer to the preparation of the future IGC, but also to the presidency' s report to the European Council of Gothenburg, in which numerous initiatives are mentioned that are taking place in the Member States in which various regional entities were involved, as well as events that are organised within the framework of the debate in the Committee of the Regions on this issue.
The presidency has now read the resolution on the strengthening of the roles of the regions within the European Union with great interest. The resolution was adopted in Liège on 15 November by the Conference of Presidents of the regions with legislative powers, as they will be referred to henceforth.
The Committee of the Regions' opinion which pertains to the participation of that Committee to the future Convention is now also known.
However, no decision has been taken on the issues regarding the organisation of the debate and the topics which need to be discussed.
As I have already said, these are matters to be dealt with by the European Council of Laeken.
Speaking for myself, I should like to add that I am very keen to find out when the debate within the Committee of the Regions will be opened, for this is an issue that is being avoided at all costs by those involved.
Outside the Committee, a number of its members complain about the fact that surely, a distinction should be drawn between those who have this legislative power and those who have not.
The Committee itself is keeping tight-lipped.
I have to say, I have some qualms on the matter.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, you will understand, of course, that those posing questions have scheduled this Question Time at a very strategic moment, namely a few hours, a few days away from the Council of Laeken.
We would be delighted if you were to give us an idea of what will be discussed at that Council.
Prime Minister Verhofstadt has toured the capital cities and paid a visit to Madrid yesterday.
Madrid is a difficult customer in this regional issue.
The Spanish Government has more or less made the fight against terrorism its number one priority.
In Spain, defending the rights, the real rights of nations and regions is often considered as terrorism or part of terrorism, and this is of course unacceptable. This is not a European stance that we can accept.
I would very specifically like to ask you whether the difficulties which the Spanish very often cause with regard to the representation in the Committee of the Regions have meanwhile been resolved and secondly, and whether they will indeed not be opposed to the concept of 'constitutional region' being mentioned in the Declaration of Laeken.
I would be very obliged if you would look into this.
Honourable Members, I cannot answer that question for the very simple reason that I do not know the answer.
Since I did not have the opportunity of accompanying the Prime Minister to Madrid, I do not know exactly what was discussed. Consequently, I am unable to answer your question in the light of this lack of knowledge.
I am sorry, I do not know.
I am certain that the topic has been discussed, but I am ignorant of the content of the discussion.
I was not there and I have not had the time to find out. I apologise.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I would lend you my mobile, but unfortunately, it is broken.
I wanted to ask you what place the regions will occupy within the framework of the Convention.
I know there are certain things to which you do not know the answer, but we would be very interested to find out whether the regions will actually have the role that was assigned for them by the Belgian Presidency.
We hope that you have been able to adhere to that position after that tour of the various capital cities.
With regard to your own challenging question about your opinion on the Committee of the Regions, I would like to state that, as you know, the constitutional regions are very much in the minority in the Committee of the Regions, and it is of course unnecessary to stage one' s own defeats.
The Committee of the Regions was composed in such a way as to ensure that the constitutional regions would form a minority, and I would want them to be considered as federal states that, in the course of history, have never been given the chance to develop into Member States.
If you allow me, I would also point out that there will be a number of small states that will soon be joining, including Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia, etc.
You will understand that the constitutional regions would feel cheated if they were not to have any rights at all in this company.
I should like to say to Mrs Maes that she is fully aware of the dangers of swapping mobiles and subsequently leaving them switched on, but this is a Belgian inside joke, Mr President, which all fellow countrymen will be able to enjoy to the full, and this is why it is best if we did not.
This was the first point I wanted to make.
Secondly, I have never been aware of the fact that being in a minority is a reason not to engage in a certain fight which is deemed justified.
The times may have changed, but we used to think differently about this.
It is, of course, true that the regions with legislative powers are in the minority in the Committee of the Regions, but I would question whether this was done on purpose.
I do not believe so, but this is a matter of opinion. I can only note that the discussion on this point is far more heated outside the Committee than it is inside.
This is my observation, and maybe this may change one day, but not in the foreseeable future.
I have my own thoughts about a fight which is not even fought at the right forum, but this is my personal opinion.
Mrs Maes, I have read the text, the appeal to the Belgian Presidency which was published either yesterday or the day before.
I cannot share the opinion that regions are a kind of Member State, as it were, but which, by a stroke of really bad luck, ended up not being Member States.
This is a reasoning which could, of course, be taken to extremes, bordering the absurd.
The reply I received from a State Minister of the Indian State of Andarpradesh to my question how many people lived in that province, will always stay with me.
He said 79 million.
79 million for Andarpradesh, just imagine.
This compares to a large Member State in Europe.
But this is not how things work, evidently.
It is the statute according to public and international law of an entity that determines the position of this entity in the hierarchy.
Belgium has found a solution with which you are familiar.
I also believe that we are perfectly entitled to propagate this solution or to publicise it to the others, which is what Belgium did.
It is therefore also the other Member States which, if necessary, should do this for their own delegations and should not expect the Union to solve the problem which they have, as yet, been unable to solve within their own borders, but, honourable Members, this is a strictly personal opinion.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, today, we want to strengthen the new, not only economic, but political and social, identity of Europe.
I think that in order to do this we need to find a new internal structure that is suited to the reality of our diversity.
Our present reality is not, however, simply shaped by the Member States alone, but there is a greater diversity and richness, represented culturally and socially by the historic peoples and nations of Europe and, politically, by the federated States, constitutional regions and autonomous communities, in particular, and also, of course, on another level, by the purely administrative regions, the provinces and the local authorities.
Do you not think, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that, by virtue of the mandate laid down in the Treaty of Nice, that in the Laeken Declaration, this question of European diversity, of the different cultural, social and political realities, should be specifically included as an important part of the debate to take place during the years 2002 and 2003 on the future of the Union and the division of competences between the institutions, in order to seek and find the best possible structure, which will allow us to share, without tension or conflict, the various, necessary levels of competence and sovereignty in existence in Europe?
Mr President, in response to the remarks that have just been made, I think it is important to bear the nature of the issue in mind.
On the one hand, we have the cultural, linguistic and other diversities which constitute one of the greatest resources of the European Union and of Europe in general.
I am aware that these diversities are presented as one of the European Union' s most important assets in the present version of the text.
This poses no problem.
On the other hand, we have the question of whether we should depart from what, to date, has been current European Union practice.
The various institutions of the European Union do not concern themselves in assessing the constitutional arrangements of Member States, providing of course that these arrangements are compatible with fundamental principles, such as human rights and the protection of minorities and so on.
This is our ongoing policy.
I think that we should not confuse respect for diversities with a departure of this nature. In essence, this would involve breaking a long tradition.
I regard this as a wise tradition, although this is merely my personal opinion.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, it does seem that Belgium has found an institutional solution to its diversity.
It is a solution that you are pleased with and I welcome this.
For those who are not directly involved, Belgium' s constitutional structure is of a complexity that pays tribute to the ingenuity of your public law specialists, but it is a solution which I would describe as bespoke.
As you know, I support independence for Catalonia and I do not think this is a viable solution for Catalonia, for instance, within the Spanish State.
The question I have, therefore, is very simple.
Constitutional regions aside, although I recognise that these present some difficulties, could we not include, in the future European constitution, a right that, in my view, is elementary, which is the right to self-determination. Do the Catalan people not have the right to self-determination, will they not have the right, one day, to their own State within the European Union?
Given that Slovenia will soon be a member of the EU, why should Catalonia not be a member as well?
I repeat, that is not the question.
The Member States belong at a specific level in the hierarchy of political entities of public administrative law and international law.
This is a factual reality that you can - and that is another debate - desire to change, you are entitled to do this.
I think that it is too early to say what the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference will do.
The IGC, as you know, will work on the basis of a mandate which is due to be drawn up and approved by all the European institutions.
In any case, it will certainly not turn out to be a repeat of the Congress of Vienna or the Congress of Versailles, but I could of course be mistaken.
Without giving my personal opinion which, as President, I should not do, I would like to support the President-in-Office of the Council in her opinion that the questions are not following any kind of logical order.
The questions we are dealing with are on the subject of the Laeken European Council and the current European Union, however interesting the proposals made by some Members of this House may be.
I now give the floor to Mr MacCormick for a supplementary question.
I wonder whether I might say with real sincerity what a pleasure it is to take part in Question Time when Mrs Neyts is with us because she really does make an effort to answer the question fully and faithfully.
That is genuinely appreciated.
I hope you will pass this message to your Prime Minister and try to ensure, when the Council meets next week, that it really does address itself to the issue of democracy in Europe.
We face a crisis of democracy in the Union and it will become in some ways yet more acute as the Union enlarges.
If people in the regions and localities of Europe feel that their democracy means nothing, because all decisions are taken in remote places; if they are always merely told 'look to the constitution of your Member State if you are not happy with things', that will damage democracy in Europe, not help it.
I therefore ask you most sincerely to try to ensure that the type of issue which my colleagues and I have been putting to you this evening is really thought about at Laeken.
I would like to thank Mr MacCormick for his kind words.
As this is my last Question Time, you must forgive me if my answers to your various questions are slightly too long.
The Belgian Prime Minister is familiar with the issue and he has his own views on the matter.
But in his capacity as President of the European Council he also knows that he will need unanimity in order to have the declaration approved.
Whatever his personal feelings might or will be, he will need a consensus.
We will have to see how far we can go.
That is all I can commit him and myself to.
I just wanted to point out, Mr President, that my surname was misspelled.
It has now disappeared from the board and I hope it will not be misspelled in the Minutes of the sitting as well.
Mr President, on a point of order, it does not seem fair to me that, if any Member is entitled to ask a supplementary question after his initial question, the four of us are only allowed to ask one joint supplementary question.
I do not think that this is what is laid down in the Rules of Procedure.
No, I allowed supplementary questions to be asked by Members other than those who had originally asked questions, as stated in the Rules of Procedure.
We can read it together afterwards.
Then we will see that we are in agreement on this matter.
This is a joint answer.
As you already know, if we were to allow four questions with small differences between them, it would take up the whole of question time.
Mr President, I have a supplementary question along the same lines and I would ask the Minister if she would be prepared to reply to it.
It follows on from some of the comments and questions that have been asked already.
I come from Wales, a nation with four times the population of Luxembourg, which is of course a EU Member State.
Now in its November resolution on governance, Parliament stated categorically that it will welcome proposals from the Convention to redraft Article 5 of the EC Treaty to include a specific reference to the function of constitutional regions within Member States.
This repeated a resolution of the previous October which stated that the Treaties should be amended specifically to recognise and respect the political and legislative powers of the internal nations and regions.
Is the Council aware of these resolutions and if not, will it seek to ensure that attention is drawn to them during its deliberations at Laeken?
I have answered your various questions at length as much as I can.
The degree of awareness of Parliament resolutions, which are many and manifold as you know, is directly related to people's interest in the issue concerned.
Therefore, those who are very interested in federalism, in the internal organisation of states, in the most effective and the most equitable distribution of powers, certainly are aware of these views.
Those who are less interested in the issues are probably less aware of the existence of these resolutions.
It seems to me that it is Parliament's task and responsibility to make other people aware of the resolutions it has voted, so I invite you to do just that.
Question No 5 by (H-0865/01):
Subject: Demand for drugs to fight anthrax The anthrax crisis in the USA has produced a rise in demand for Cipro, a patented drug manufactured by Bayer.
The Canadian Government's response was simply to ask the country's industry to produce 'copies' of the drug.
The US Administration appears to be pondering the same course of action as US legislation apparently allows the Administration, when there is a need for a patented drug, to ignore the restrictions imposed by the patent and authorise its manufacture.
Evidently double standards are operating in regard to the developing countries' request for a reduction in the price of patented drugs and a relaxation of the legislation protecting patents in order to treat AIDS and other diseases.
Has the Council considered what action it would take in the event of a rise in demand for a particular drug, as has occurred in the USA?
Is it consistent with Community law for a Member State to have US-type legislation which allows it to ignore the restrictions imposed by patents? Will it respond positively to the developing countries' request for a price reduction and a relaxation of patent rights, which would clearly be beneficial not only for the developing countries but also for European and American consumers?
In response to Mr Alavanos, I would say that the Council is perfectly aware of the importance of the issue that he raised.
I would also reiterate that Article 152 - formerly article 129 of the Treaty establishing the European Community - specifies, in general terms, that Community action in the area of health shall supplement national policies.
The Community shall encourage cooperation between the Member States in the areas mentioned in the Treaty and, if necessary, shall lend support to their action.
In this context, the Community shall also ensure a high level of human health protection by defining and implementing all the policies and actions.
As you know, the Fourth WTO Ministerial Conference, which took place in Doha between 9 to 14 November this year, adopted a Declaration on the TRIPS agreement and public health.
In the Declaration, the ministerial conference acknowledged, on the one hand, the gravity of public health problems, particularly afflicting many developing countries and least-developed countries and, on the other hand, that intellectual property protection is also important for the development of new medicines.
In this Declaration, WTO members agreed that the TRIPS agreement does not prevent Members from taking the appropriate measures to protect public health and affirmed that the Agreement can and should be interpreted and implemented in a manner supportive of WTO Members' right to protect public health, and, in particular, to promote access to medicines for all.
More specifically, the Declaration recognises that the flexibilities in the TRIPS agreement include the right of each Member to grant compulsory licences and to determine what constitutes a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency, it being understood that public health crises, including those relating to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics, can represent a national emergency or other circumstances of extreme urgency.
Furthermore, the Declaration reaffirms the commitment of developed-country WTO Members to provide incentives to their enterprises and institutions to promote and encourage technology transfer to least-developed countries.
The Declaration also specifies that the least-developed country Members will not be obliged, with respect to pharmaceutical products, to apply Sections 5 (Trademarks) and 7 (Protection of non-divulged information) of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement or to enforce rights provided for under these Sections until 1 January 2016, without prejudice to the right of the least-developed country Members to seek other extensions of the transition periods.
I would add that, in the Declaration, WTO Member States made a commitment to propose, before July 2002, genuine solutions that could be consolidated in order to resolve the problem of those developing countries and least-developed countries that do not have manufacturing capacities for medicines.
There is the problem of possible parallel imports or other measures which must enable these countries to have access to these medicines at a price that is reasonable, and the lowest possible.
This will be done between now and next summer and I assure you that we will have to work like Trojans to achieve this.
Time is not on our side.
The problem is extremely complex, but this is a very important commitment, because it relates to an aspect of the problem which could not be dealt with by the agreement.
I thank the President-in-Office both for her detailed reply and her cooperation over the past six months.
Good cooperation is sometimes marked by a degree of tension.
Thank you very much, it is just that I need to study your reply.
I should like to ask a supplementary question, now that Nigeria has just starting producing AIDS drugs which are, however, old generation drugs of very dubious effectiveness.
You referred in your reply to the transfer of more modern technology for use in particular by the countries of Africa which have been struck by mass epidemics; how can we achieve this?
I have mentioned a few of the things that will make it possible to get access to cheap medicines: compulsory licensing, cooperation with the big pharmaceutical firms - you are aware that the World Health Organisation is working on that and has already devised a number of mechanisms - and cooperation with organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières that are also active in this field.
Finally, if an agreement can be reached next summer, we will find ways of importing those medicines into countries that do not have the possibility of producing them themselves.
Question No 6 by (H-0869/01):
Subject: Attention paid by the Council to the resolutions adopted by the European Parliament concerning the conflict in Western Sahara and assessment of the visit by the King of Morocco to that territory On 25 October 2001, Parliament' s plenary tabled an amendment to its resolution on the progress achieved in the implementation of the CFSP, as a result of which paragraph 33 of that resolution now reads: 'insists, furthermore, that the European Union should cooperate actively in settling the conflict in Western Sahara in accordance with the United Nations resolutions, along the lines requested by the European Parliament in its resolution of 16 March 2000 and the Statement by the German presidency of the Council of June 1999' .
In what way is the Council planning to take what Parliament has called for into consideration?
Will it finally combine forces in order to participate in the speedy, accurate implementation of the UN Peace Plan for Western Sahara (which provides for the holding of a referendum on self-determination), as called for in paragraph 6 of Parliament' s March 2000 resolution? Does it believe that such joint action would enable the positions of its members - particularly Spain and France - to be coordinated in support of the UN Peace Plan?
In this connection, what view does it take of the visit by the King of Morocco to Western Sahara, which was strongly criticised by the Polisario Front?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, during the part-session of 19 and 20 September, the Council took note of the European Parliament resolution on the progress made on the implementation of the common foreign and security policy, and agreed to consider this resolution within the framework of the discussion of the different points it contains.
As was also stated at the time, the Council is delighted with the efforts the European Parliament has made to reach a sustainable solution which is acceptable to all parties involved in the conflict in the Western Sahara. This solution forms a crucial goal for the stability and welfare in that region.
The Council fully and actively supports the process which is now taking place within the framework of the United Nations, as formulated in the resolutions of the Security Council, particularly the efforts made by Mr James Baker.
In Resolution No 1359 of 29 June, the Security Council clearly marked the path to be followed.
In this connection, the extension of the mandate of the MINURSO was significant, because this has made it possible to continue the present consultation among the parties, under the auspices of Mr Baker.
The presidency is in contact with Mr Baker.
The leading role in this process is being played by the United Nations.
In this connection, the Council is prepared to mediate in order to create a climate of trust among the parties and hence to facilitate a sustainable solution, but it does not intend to take the place of the United Nations.
The Council is acutely aware of the great sensitivity surrounding this dossier and of the need for observing strict neutrality. This is to avoid the Council being used by one of the parties involved as an instrument, which would only have a negative impact on the search for a solution, as well as on the role of the European Union in that region.
Moreover, the Council is urging the parties to take a number of urgent, humanitarian measures, such as permitting family visits and liberating political prisoners.
Whichever solution is opted for, it will have to be founded on broad compliance with democratic principles and respect for human rights, including the disquieting issue of refugees, but also of Moroccan prisoners, notably when these people need urgent care, in general, and medical care, in particular.
In addition, I should like to emphasise that here too, the European Union is by far the largest donor of humanitarian aid to the refugees from the Western Sahara.
Since 1996, the Commission has set aside EUR 56 million for this cause.
The visit by King Mohammed VI to the Western Sahara has not impacted on the above-mentioned approach in any way.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, what an interesting answer.
This may be the first time that this House has heard a political statement from the Council which goes much further than the usual strictly formal statements on the conflict in the Western Sahara.
This answer with real content is very welcome.
But I have to tell you the following: having listened to this response, I am under the legitimate impression that in the Council too much weight may be given to a view of the conflict in the Western Sahara that does not consider that the solution to it may only be based on compliance with the United Nations Settlement Plan, which includes holding a referendum on the self-determination of the Sahrawi people, a referendum that has been blocked for many years by one of the parties concerned, Morocco.
You talked about many things: for example, the latest Security Council resolution, but at no time did you refer to the United Nations peace plan. Neither did you refer to the referendum and, also, you have insisted too much on some aspects, whilst forgetting others, for example the violation of human rights in the occupied territories of the Western Sahara.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, in July this year, at the start of the Belgian Presidency, I submitted a question to the Council, to be answered in writing, on statements made by Mr Javier Solana, the person responsible for foreign and security policy in the European Union, in relation to the United Nations Peace Plan, the future of the Western Sahara and the referendum.
Now, in December, with the Belgian Presidency about to draw to a close, I am still waiting to receive an official answer from the Council.
Although it is public knowledge and a well-known fact, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that an official answer was circulated in the United Nations in the month of October - which was even the cause of a diplomatic incident between various representatives of the Member States - the question I am asking is this: when can I have my answer? Please, before you leave us, can you give me this political Christmas present.
The Honourable Member appears to be extremely well informed, which is his right, if not his duty.
The same is not true of us, as we are still trying to find your question; I have no doubt that we received it, but we cannot find any trace of the letter.
So, if you can help us to find it, we will do our best to provide an answer for you before the end of the year.
I apologise for this oversight and for our negligence because, of course, these are the only reasons I can give to explain this.
Thank you.
We would urge the President-in-Office of the Council to look for this missing question, because the question and the answer have been widely reported in the press, at least in the Spanish press.
Mr President, we are probably addressing the question or the comment to the wrong person, but here you represent the Council as a whole.
I have a feeling that the Western Sahara issue, to which I have devoted over half my political life so far, is actually a tragedy.
How the conflict should be resolved is clear - after all, the UN peace plan was there at the beginning of the 1990s - and it is equally clear which European countries have very strong geopolitical interests in its not being adhered to.
I must of course take note of the response that what is done in the UN must be adhered to.
I believe, though, that the European Union and the Member States must, for the sake of a common foreign and security policy, choose a coordinated way of proceeding, one that is in accordance with the UN peace plan.
Following the visit of King Mohammed VI, events have followed in rapid succession.
There has also been a visit to the Western Sahara by the French President, Jacques Chirac, who, in defiance of all international legal positions, said that the Western Sahara was made up of the southern provinces of Morocco - a point we are discussing in the Council of the European Union.
Mr President, the Honourable Member must understand that it is impossible for me to answer such detailed questions.
Mrs Scheele, I have outlined to you what the Council' s position is and what the discussions might have related to. That is the Council' s position and the Council' s answer.
Question No 7 by (H-0874/01):
Subject: Minorities in the Republika Srpska What measures have been taken to make return and reconstruction possible for repressed and exiled minorities - above all Croats and Muslims - in the Bosnian mini-state Republika Srpska? Is the EU supporting the Catholic bishop Franjo Komarica of Banja Luka in his social work and his promotion of understanding between peoples?
The Council has already drawn the Honourable Member' s attention, in its answer to oral question H-0689 during the October session, to the fact that the return of displaced people was part of a whole raft of conditions imposed by the European Union as part of the stabilisation and association process, and the countries of the region subscribed to these conditions at the Zagreb Summit.
The Council's report assessing the progress achieved by the countries of the region towards the conditions for European integration, which was approved on 11 June 2001, stated that the process of the return of refugees and displaced persons to Bosnia-Herzegovina should be speeded up and that the measures to create the proper conditions to enable people to return under the correct circumstances, in accordance with the Dayton-Paris agreement, should be strengthened.
It is, first and foremost, the responsibility of the local and national authorities to take the necessary measures.
The European Union will certainly use the monitoring process to follow this issue and, where applicable, to assess whether, on the one hand, the progress made in respecting the conditions and, on the other hand, the level of relations established and the level of technical and economic assistance are still appropriate.
The 1995 Dayton-Paris Peace agreement, which brought an end to the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, established the post of High Representative who is responsible for monitoring the implementation of this agreement, amongst other things.
The current post-holder, Mr Wolfgang Petric, has not previously hesitated to dismiss local leaders from their duties when it turned out that these leaders were opposed to implementing the peace agreement, including Annex VII, which provides for the return of refugees and displaced persons.
He did so in accordance with the powers granted him by the Ministerial Conference of the Council implementing the Bonn peace accord in December 1997.
On several occasions, the Council strongly supported the efforts made by Mr Petric to fulfil his mandate.
Regarding the material support that the European Union is providing to assist the return and resettlement of these people, this question is primarily a matter for the Commission, which manages Community assistance.
However, the Council understands that, since 1998, in line with the recommendations of the High Representative' s Office and the Return and Reconstruction working group, increasing funds have been granted to support the return of minority groups to Republika Srpska.
This area should also continue to occupy its rightful and important position within the framework of Community assistance provided under the CARDS 2000-2006 programme, Article 2 of which explicitly mentions aid for the return of refugees and displaced persons.
I can assure you, as we near the end of six months of holding the presidency, that the Council and its various members attach extreme importance to the issue of the return and reintegration of refugees in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but also in other areas of the Balkans where this issue unfortunately persists.
The tense situation appears to be gradually easing and the number of people returning to and resettling in the area will increase. Of course, the same amount will not return to each area, but there is no escaping the fact that numbers are on the increase.
We shall continue to attach great importance to this issue and this item is on the agenda of all the meetings where it can be discussed.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, thank you very much for this detailed answer and also for your intensive involvement in this area.
I would just like to put two specific questions.
First: Is it possible for the Council to try and find a precise figure for the number of refugees and expellees who have to date returned to the Republika Srpska? There were agreements about this, which can in fact only be monitored by finding out exactly how many people have gone back.
I would ask you, if you are unable to do that today, to perhaps let me have that information in writing.
My second point relates to tangible aid for the minorities.
I have heard that, especially in the Banja Luka region, the Catholic Church is intensively engaging in care for the sick across cultural boundaries and in many activities in the spheres of social welfare and agriculture, and that funds promised for these have simply not been granted.
That is the second question I am putting, and I am keen to learn whether you know anything about this.
In response to the Honourable Member' s first question, I can only say that I do not at the moment have the exact figures to hand; we are finding them out and they will be communicated to you.
As far as the second question is concerned, I believe that this is more a question for the Commission, which is responsible for the specific implementation of all forms of humanitarian aid, urgent or otherwise.
As you are aware, I believe, it is the Commission that manages these very specific dossiers and I think that it is the Commission to which this question should be addressed.
Question No 8 by (H-0876/01):
Subject: EU and international measures providing for the return of illegally transferred assets Under the terms of the Tampere Council conclusions the Member States committed themselves to taking concrete steps to trace, freeze, seize and confiscate the proceeds of crime.
Member States were urged also to implement fully the provisions of the Money Laundering Directive (which includes the conversion or transfer of property and the identification of the customers of credit and financial institutions), the 1990 Strasbourg Convention and the Financial Task Force recommendations.
They were also urged to adopt the revised directive on money laundering which is now under conciliation.
The Council called for the competences of Europol to be extended to money laundering in general and for common standards to be developed to prevent the use of corporations or entities registered outside the jurisdiction of the EU in the hiding of criminal proceeds and money laundering.
EU States have signed the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime which commits governments to adopt within their domestic legal systems the measures necessary to enable the confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
Does the Council consider that the above EU, UN and Council of Europe measures and strategies confirm that the European Union does have a legitimate interest in relation to money illegally transferred by former dictators, i.e..
Nigeria, and will the Council now undertake to ensure that these monies in banks throughout the EU are returned to the democratically elected Government of Nigeria?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as is evident from the question, the European Community and the Union have already taken a number of measures and others are in the pipeline, notably within the framework of the fight against financial crime.
The specific aim of these measures is to combat the laundering of money and to seize the proceeds of crime.
Since the events of 11 September, a special effort has been made in the fight against funding terrorism.
Alongside this, there are a multitude of other instruments, including the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 1959 and the EU Convention of 2000 on the same topic.
Both treaties contain a number of general regulations in the field of cooperation among states and this package of instruments also undoubtedly contributes to the fight against financial crime.
Furthermore, reference can be made to a number of instruments in the field of substantive law, such as, for example, the framework decision on the fight against forgery.
On 16 October of this year, the Council convened in a joint formation of Ecofin and Justice and Social Affairs.
On that occasion, the Council laid down the decision to adopt a protocol as part of the Convention of 29 May 2000 on mutual assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union.
This protocol considerably improves cooperation among the Member States in the fight against economic and financial crime and, in particular, the fight against money laundering, corruption and forgery, and it provides for broad agreement concerning the dissemination of information concerning financial transactions, accounts and bank details.
The Member States have committed themselves to ratifying this protocol by the end of next year at the latest.
I cannot answer the specific question concerning the repatriation of capital illegally transferred to banks of the Union by former dictators, since this question falls outside the scope of the Council, as the honourable Member was notified in the first part-session of October 2001, in answer to an identical question he then posed to the Council.
Thank you, President-in-Office, for your comprehensive reply to the first part of my question.
Yet again, however, you fail or you are unwilling to understand the thrust of the latter part of my question.
It suggests that there are vast amounts of money removed from places such as Nigeria and the Congo and now in European banks which many people over the years have tried to find a means of returning to the people of Nigeria and the Congo without success.
What I am suggesting is that you, as President-in-Office of the Council, have a responsibility, under the various conventions I refer to, to ensure that these monies are returned to the various former colonies.
Surely you now understand fully the meaning of my question and will reply to it and ensure that these monies, which were illegally removed by dictators and terrorists, are returned to the people in the various former colonies?
I can only repeat the same answer.
For the time being, the Council has no instrument which would enable it to do what you want it to do.
It might be that, in future, such an instrument will be developed and improved, but for now, this is not the case.
In the absence of such an instrument, action by the Council is not possible.
Mr President, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, ladies and gentlemen, corruption is an issue of significance in some countries desirous of joining the EU, and we are currently engaging in accession negotiations with them.
Funds gained by privatisation have often disappeared from these countries in a questionable manner.
Do you believe it would be possible to resolve these issues within the framework of accession negotiations, or at least to apply unambiguous legal provisions in this area?
My response to the honourable Member is that, during the negotiations with the candidate countries, the quality of the constitutional state is an important element. We therefore examine whether the mechanisms which ensure that a state can be considered a constitutional state are in place, or not, as the case may be, and close attention is also paid to the quality of the judiciary.
For example, individual reports on the situation in a candidate country may state that, so far, judges receive inadequate training and are not paid enough and that this inevitably encourages inadmissible practices and such like.
So in that sense, yes, Mr Rübig, in terms of achieving maximum transparency and consistent jurisdiction and ensuring that there are bodies to which one can appeal when one deems oneself to be treated badly, and so on, in that sense, yes, I do believe it is possible.
However, in the sense of delving deep into individual cases, I do not believe it to be possible.
Question No 9 by (H-0879/01)
Subject: The case of Tracey Housel, a British national on death row in Georgia, USA Is the Council aware of the plight of Tracey Housel, a British national on death row in Georgia, USA?
Is the Council concerned that Mr Housel may not have received a fair trial that accords with the standards of international human rights law?
What steps will the Council take to assist Mr Housel?
The European Union believes that the death penalty, which is, of course, irreversible, is a particularly inhumane punishment.
The EU is therefore opposed to the death penalty in all cases and it has agreed to work towards its universal abolition.
The EU is concerned that approximately 90 States keep this punishment, although only a minority - thirty countries or so, one of which is the United States - continues to carry out executions every year.
In 1998, as part of its objective to universally abolish the death penalty, the European Union drew up a series of guidelines to specify the circumstances in which it should undertake specific and targeted actions.
In countries where the death penalty still exists, the Union is working to progressively limit its application and insists that the punishment be carried out whilst observing specific minimum standards.
I know that this is only partly limiting the unbearable awfulness of the act, but, even in such horrible circumstances, this is how things must be done...
The European Union is closely monitoring the situation in the United States, where numerous executions take place.
In 2001, steps were taken to help a number of people on death row, in line with the European Union' s guidelines, in Georgia, Oklahoma and Texas.
In addition, in the autumn of 2000, the Union decided, for the first time, to intervene as amicus curiae in a trial before the Supreme Federal Court involving a condemned man, in order to raise before the Court the issue of the legality in international law of the sentencing to death of a person who was a minor at the time of the events. The Presidency-in-Office of the Union submitted another request to intervene as amicus curiae for Alexander Williams, who was condemned to death for a crime that he committed when he was under 18 years of age.
The matter is still before the Supreme Court of Georgia. In another case - Atkins v Virginia - the European Union intends to make another request to intervene as amicus curiae before the Supreme Court in order to reaffirm its position on the application of the death penalty to people suffering from mental illness.
The Council is aware of the details of the Housel affair and, in particular, of the fact that a judgement by the Supreme Court of the United States could be handed down before the end of the year.
We would like to emphasise that, for those facing the death penalty who are nationals of a Member State, the European Union acts at the request of that Member State, which is best placed to judge whether it is appropriate for the Community to intervene.
At this stage, the Council has not yet received a request from the United Kingdom to assist Mr Housel.
The Council was informed that the United Kingdom is very actively monitoring this matter, in conjunction with Mr Housel' s lawyers.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for that very detailed reply.
I have no supplementary, but I would urge the Council to continue that attitude to the plight of EU citizens because many Members of this House may have constituents who have received what is clearly an unfair trial.
This is something that is on the increase.
I believe that, as well as the Member State intervening on behalf of these EU citizens, the Council also has a clear role.
I fully expect the UK Government to make representations to the Council in what I believe in this case is an example of an unfair trial leading to an irreversible death penalty.
On a point of order, I would like to point out that, with the exception of the last speaker, not one of our colleagues has respected their speaking time.
The result is that we have dealt with only nine questions, the first four of which had a joint answer.
Conflict prevention
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0394/2001) by Mr Lagendijk, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission communication on Conflict Prevention (COM(2001) 211 - C5-0458/2001 - 2001/2182(COS)).
I now give the floor to Mr Lagendijk.
Mr President, over the past few years, conflict prevention has developed into a real 'feel-good' concept, to use a traditional Dutch phrase. Everyone is in favour of conflict prevention.
Why not? There is always something that can be done with it, and why should it not be included in a list of measures?
In that way, conflict prevention slowly developed from a priority of and for pacifists, via a kind of interesting subsidiary activity alongside military activities, to what I would call one the European Union' s central ambitions, currently recognised by many.
It is no longer a plaything of one group, it has become the central pursuit of the European Union as a whole, and this is also the reason why the time has come to translate much of what has been written to date about conflict prevention - stunning reports have been published over the past few years, also by the European Commission, for which congratulations are due - into practice.
Fortunately, we do not need to start from scratch, for notably experience in the Balkans over the past ten years has taught us what the European Union is capable of, and has already done, in the field of conflict prevention.
As you may know, I am also rapporteur for the Stability Pact, which I always extol as the greatest conflict prevention project.
I am really convinced that the coherence in this programme between democracy, economic development and security is an illustration of how conflict prevention has developed from a concept on paper to a very usable instrument in practice.
In my report, I have outlined three points, and today, I should like to do this again.
Maybe the most straight-forward point, yet very tricky in practice, is the cooperation between the European Union and the OSCE.
Everyone says that this should be done, that it is positive that it happens, and it is already happening.
In a high number of locations, cooperation with the OSCE is good, but all too often, I visit places where this cooperation is faltering.
I visited Macedonia recently, with a few fellow MEPs, where the European Union has an observation mission, but so has the OSCE. Cooperation between the two is not really ideal, to put it mildly.
A week ago in Bucharest, the Commissioner made a number of sound proposals for cooperation between the EU and the OSCE, for example in the southern Caucasus and in Central Asia. In my opinion, it would be good if in future, the Commission could possibly monitor cooperation with the OSCE more effectively than it is doing now.
The OSCE often has the same mission and is often active in the same field. This applies to each campaign - including the Balkans, where, once again, things often go well but all too often they do not - in order to better implement this cooperation and this distribution of tasks.
A second point in my report is the European Civil Peace Corps.
Once again, one could state with a certain degree of self-mockery that it has developed from a fun plaything of the Greens to a crucial instrument in the EU' s toolbox.
I would therefore call on the Commission not simply to be grateful to Parliament for the concept of the Civil Peace Corps, as it did five or six years ago, and do nothing else with the idea, but instead to seize the opportunities now, which I am convinced are presenting themselves, to develop this European Peace Corps and to turn it into a central point of EU policy.
This is possible, not only because I, or Parliament, welcome it, but also because in the meantime, experience has been gathered with civil peace observers.
The European Union has an observation corps and has observation missions in several places worldwide.
Germany and Sweden have experience of training civil observers, and I believe that the time has come for the Commission, for the European Union, to better coordinate and pool this expertise and these people, so that in future, the European Union is not only able to act rapidly at military level, but also when it comes to sending civil observers.
Finally, I have come to the third point, which may well be the most sweeping in my report.
I would positively welcome it if conflict prevention were to be removed from the remit of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy. What do I mean by this?
It is no longer acceptable for us to talk about some or other EU policy, for example in the field of agriculture or trade, of which we are of the view that it should serve, for example, to better develop Africa' s economy, while at the same time continue to apply components of that policy - and I would cite the well-known export subsidies - of which we know that locally, in Africa for example, they do not have a stabilising effect. If anything, they mess up the economic structure or hamper its development.
I would prefer it if in future, conflict prevention, like human rights and the environment, were to become a goal of all EU policy, not only in the external policy area, but also in the area of trade and agriculture, for example.
If that is possible, if it is possible to make conflict prevention a central point in all areas of EU policy, then I will be happy, and what I refer to as a hobbyhorse of the 'soft' forces will then have developed into the favourite subject of the hard core of the EU' s policy abroad and all over the world.
Mr President, I should like to concur with the observations made a moment ago by the central proponent of conflict prevention, Mr Lagendijk.
I very often share his views in areas of this kind, for indeed - and we should credit him for this - particularly the green sector has very often put forward the idea of conflict prevention by non-military means with great clarity.
One could also say that this is very topical in this day and age.
The European Union is weak as far as its military contribution to international security and national law and order in countries surrounding us are concerned.
This was clear from the difficulties in setting up this rapid reaction force.
We got off to a good start, but it is often still in doubt, maybe with good reason, whether this will lead to early results.
All the more opportunities present themselves to the Union in terms of non-military means.
And it appears to me that this also falls more within the competences of the Commission.
We have competences in this area.
That is why the civil instrument is gaining in importance, notably for the European Union, in the light of the Union' s military weakness and of the topicality of the civil means in controlling and preventing conflicts alike.
The cold war is over and the entire security context has changed.
Large-scale threats have given way to smaller, sometimes persistent, wars with ideological, Mafia-related and ethnic facets.
The flaring up of such conflicts can be prevented very effectively by civil means, certainly when these conflicts recur.
This explains the flurry of activity which is also especially being generated by the European Union at the moment in areas of tension or precisely where tension has been averted.
Situations of lawlessness require a completely different approach and involve the police, government officials, aid organisations, technicians, observers, economists and people who know how the civil society develops.
In other words, these situations require a comprehensive approach.
I therefore agree with the provoking statement "It should be removed from the remit of foreign affairs" .
As far as I am concerned, this means that it requires a comprehensive approach from society.
This is what matters in conflict control, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy will probably continue to play an important role, but so will other sections of this Parliament.
Indeed, a country' s development as a whole also very much relies on averting violent conflict.
And I have to say that Mr Lagendijk has listed the options very eloquently.
He is right in saying that we, for example, should not simply accept the existence of this two-pillar structure, that we should put them back on the agenda and that there should be a budget for the things we intend to do in this field.
In my view, the unity of the European Union, particularly in this field, is a direct security interest.
We must speak with one voice, even in this field of conflict prevention.
We must therefore keep our own activities as governments and as industry in our countries well under control.
I appreciate the rapporteur' s preference for a peace corps, but I would like to point out that the erratum that I received, which concerns Article 17, is an erratum that is ineffective. Article 17 is still an excellent article and I said with good reason that the peace corps must be developed within the framework of the rapid reaction facility.
We have this framework, and I hope that it is maintained.
Mr President, the PSE Group sets great store by the debate on the EU' s role in the field of conflict prevention, and we greatly appreciate the efforts the European Commission has made in this connection, and also, of course, the excellent report by Mr Lagendijk.
This is an important topic, and it is certainly not only a Dutch pastime, even if we perhaps give this impression a little bit with the list of speakers, the first four of which accidentally, very accidentally, happen to hail from that country.
The European Union is the perfect organisation to play a greater role in preventing conflicts, resolving these or in the subsequent reconstruction.
The Community is the manifestation of a broad security concept based on economic and political cooperation and on shared values.
This successful model is about to be exported to Central and Eastern Europe, Cyprus, and Malta, of course.
Activities are under way in the Balkans with the same intention, and the EU is now facing the task of finding itself a useful role in the reconstruction in Afghanistan.
In my view, all these actions fall under the umbrella of conflict prevention.
Despite this, one can still claim that there is already a culture of conflict prevention within the European Union.
There is sometimes still envy with regard to NATO or the military scope of the United States, as if the European Union would need to emulate this position.
The military instrument is only one of a whole set of instruments which can be deployed to secure safety.
It is used as a last resort.
The aim of conflict prevention is to prevent violence or recurrence thereof by intervening in good time, mainly by using civil instruments.
If conflict prevention is to become an effective instrument of EU security policy, it must form an integral part of our thoughts and actions.
This will force the European Union, more often than is now the case, to anticipate and trace hotbeds of conflict in good time.
It also forces the European Union to develop new instruments, such as rapid reaction facilities, and to considerably improve the three pillars.
It is easy to think of an example where an effective operation requires instruments from all three pillars.
At the moment, this is still often a bureaucratic and institutional nightmare to contend with.
The European Union acquires its strength from the multitude of instruments either available or yet to be developed, including, in a few years' time, the military instrument.
In order to deploy these effectively for the short or longer term, a kind of conflict prevention centre is needed.
What is happening where and what are we going to do about it? But ultimately it is also about political will.
The European Union is active in many, more or less, unstable areas and regions where the level of conflict is mounting, and the European Union should visibly emphasise its conflict prevention policy, more than is now the case, and report on it regularly.
Its ambition should be to play an equally visible role as NATO but then in the field of conflict prevention and the deployment of civil instruments.
I believe that most EU citizens would be very proud of such a role.
The most important exception to general human progress is the inability to prevent violent conflicts.
Science has reached unknown heights, we are undergoing a communication revolution and erstwhile impenetrable problems can now be solved, but the world is no safer for it.
In the nineties, some five and a half million people died in 100 armed conflicts and many times more people were driven out of their homes.
In many countries, the war efforts thwart any form of economic and social development.
Since 11 September, the Americans have come to realise that our responsibility does not stop at our own borders or the countries that are of strategic importance to us.
Not only economies are interconnected worldwide, but so too is human suffering.
We are gaining an increasing insight into the deeper causes of violent conflicts; something which both the Commission and Mr Lagendijk have borne witness to.
These include the unjust distribution of welfare, religious and ethnic contrasts, a lack of democracy and bad governance.
Solving these structural problems is both crucial and difficult.
Better structures must prevent political leaders from indulging in their unbridled hunger for power and wealth undisturbed.
Time and again, it is the masses that are the victims in the struggle for power of which they themselves form no part.
For the first time, our generations experience large-scale contact between civilisations, cultures and religions, and this is bound to lead to a lack of understanding and intolerance initially.
The cause of this is that cultures and religions take their own values and standards too much for granted.
However, believers all over the world not only believe, they know for certain.
And if faith becomes an element in ones own dissatisfaction, this can easily lead to disastrous extremism.
The effective management of conflict prevention and globalisation of value systems is the greatest challenge of this time, and Europe must, in tandem with the United States - that is very important - adopt a strategy which tackles these conflicts at the root.
If the European Union wishes to strengthen its conflict-preventing role, also in the light of Cotonou, it must be adequately equipped.
Resistance in many governments to reinforcing the Commission and its delegations is pernicious for the effective implementation of European policy.
Impressive speeches this morning by the Sakharov prize-winners have allowed us to share in the immense grief and also the moral strength of these victims of senseless violence.
There is little hope as long as tolerance is regarded as treason and the eye-for-an-eye principle leads to blindness, as is the case in the Middle East and Angola.
There is only hope if we actually tackle the injustices, and if tolerance, mutual understanding and intense dialogue all over the world become the leading principles.
After the economy and science, it is now the turn of moral values to make progress.
Mr President, conflict prevention cannot consist only of rapid reaction mechanisms and contingents of police. Conflict prevention, as Jost Lagendijk has already said, means for our Group that all EU policies should be aimed at the reduction and prevention of conflict.
It means cutting agricultural export aid, opening EU markets to sensitive products, a trade policy characterised by social justice and, above all, preferential trading relationships only where respect for human rights is guaranteed.
There is no doubt in our mind that the Gothenburg Resolution marks a milestone for European foreign policy, yet, despite that, what now matters is that we should not only talk about the need for conflict prevention but also do something about it.
This means that a culture of prevention must be created in the European Union, and that it must permeate all its political dealings.
Stopping all armaments exports and supplies of small arms to potential areas of conflict will play a crucial role.
Support for human rights and sustainable development must be the core objective of European foreign policy.
Conflicts can, though, only be successfully prevented if the civil actors are involved, and so we propose the establishment of a platform for NGOs and cooperation with them.
This would mean financial support for non-governmental organisations, but that would be significantly cheaper than armed conflicts.
Mr President, I would firstly like to state that the majority of Members in our Group are in favour of this excellent report by Mr Lagendijk.
However, there is an issue which affects the very essence of this report: September 11.
There is a 'before' and an 'after' September 11, which brings to light the weaknesses in this fundamentally important approach which the EU has taken towards conflict prevention.
I think that we should make it very clear that we need more information on those secret services, which, taking as an example those of the United States, have been supporting a State, such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, which have later become a public enemy of the whole world.
There is another issue of great importance, which also appears in the Lagendijk report, which has not been mentioned until now: that either the European Union chooses to give its wholehearted support to the United Nations and the efforts of the UN to use international law to resolve conflicts, or it will continue to be the world superpower, the United States, that makes the most important decisions and we Europeans will be virtually powerless, only able to put on tiny sticking plasters to cover the wounds that have been inflicted.
This is the reason why it is important that we implement what is set out in the Lagendijk report.
Another aspect I would like to mention is the importance of the economic dimension, which, there can be no doubt, is the cause of many conflicts, and we have to see this also in a global perspective.
For this reason, we have to clarify certain statements, because sometimes wide-scale liberalisation can be a greater evil than the possibility of protection.
Mr President, I should like to use this brief contribution to say a few words of appreciation for the Lagendijk report.
The rapporteur, however, is advised to prick up his ears now, for I was the only nay in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy.
Unexpected support from an opponent? Indeed, when it comes to the substance of the report.
I appreciate Mr Lagendijk' s integral approach to conflict prevention.
Not only with regard to the explicit causes of conflict, but also with regard to the hidden implications of policy that has ostensibly very little to do with conflicts.
I therefore endorse the call to the Commission to carefully study the impact of European policy on local conflicts.
However, where the tasks of the European Union in conflict prevention are concerned, I do not share the rapporteur' s view.
Recognising greater international connections, he calls for an extensive role for the EU.
I have my reservations about this.
Out of appreciation for the report and so as not the create the impression of opposing conflict prevention, I will change my vote against to an abstention.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Lagendijk on his excellent report on conflict prevention, a subject on which Parliament' s position has always been very clear.
There can be no doubt that the best way to win a war is to prevent it from happening in the first place and in order to do this there is no better weapon than to be able to see it coming.
That is to say, to find the underlying causes of war and to work to resolve them.
In order to do this, it is essential that we do not take a solely horizontal approach - an approach quite rightly proposed by Mr Lagendijk -, that is to say, one that includes all of the European Union' s common policies, but also a global approach, which includes the whole of society.
From this point of view non-structural methods to promote reconciliation are important, above all in those regions emerging from conflict.
Without these methods, all of the international community' s peace efforts, or those of the very local communities which the conflict has created, could come to nothing, given that the least dispute can once again light the flames of hatred that had provoked or been the cause of the conflict in the first place.
We need - and I address this particularly to the Commission - to dedicate not only more attention but, above all, more resources to education for peace programmes, along the lines of the work carried out by Mr Mayor Zaragoza when he was the Director-General of Unesco and which Kofi Annan reminded us of a few days ago.
On the other hand, if control of the arms trade is very important, then so is the traffic in diamonds and raw materials.
In this respect, I would also ask the Commission to tell us which methods it intends to adopt in order to improve, and make more efficient, the code of conduct with regard to the control of the trafficking in diamonds, in particular, given that, as the European institutions and the United Nations themselves have reported, on many occasions the fight for raw materials is behind many of the world' s conflicts, especially in Africa.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion, Europe is continuing to pay for a well-established failing in its conflict prevention policies: we are slow, predictable and not sufficiently authoritative.
I therefore feel that one of the strong points of Mr Lagendijk' s report is that it sees the point at which a political institution such as Europe acquires legitimacy in terms of conflict prevention rather than military force, and it gains legitimacy in the knowledge, not least, that sustainable, equitable peace must be pursued through politics, certainly not through military force.
We particularly welcome the way Mr Lagendijk' s report sees conflict prevention as a result of Europe' s social policies rather than just the effect of good judicial cooperation, although we must never renounce that.
Social policies mean that prevention, the ability to predict, to prevent and to resolve conflicts before they happen must be part of all European Union policies, as has already been pointed out by other Members, and these policies must provide for an investment in terms of both financing and human resources.
In this sense, we feel that the number of European Union delegations to other countries is completely inadequate to meet the requirements of the prevention policy.
As Mr Lagendijk said, we must avoid development cooperation becoming conflict cooperation, and we must therefore be particularly careful, rigorous and rational in developing all our economic policies.
Lastly, I share your criticism of the Council and the Commission for not having accepted in the last six years - and six years is an extremely long time in which countless conflicts occur - the proposal put forward by Parliament at that time to institute a European civil peace corps.
We must prevent conflict, and in order to prevent conflict it is often necessary to take risks, and that is what we are asking the Council, the Commission and Parliament to do.
Mr President, it is good to remind ourselves that at the moment there are many people listening other than those in this House.
I should like to congratulate Mr Lagendijk, precisely on this symbolic day when we awarded the Sakharov Prize to peace activists from Israel, Palestine and Angola.
In my opinion, by broadening our horizons, we retain a sense of realism.
We must assess our present actions in the Middle East and Africa, with three million victims in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and we will need to evaluate what we need to do in Afghanistan.
We must avoid conflicts, conflicts that become militarised or that flare up again.
This requires an integral approach, as has already been underlined by many fellow MEPs.
In my one and a half minutes, I should particularly like to draw your attention to one aspect in the report, namely the Civil Peace Corps.
Commissioner Patten, I really expect you to come up with an initiative.
I am amazed at how much money and how many people can be mobilised over the course of a few months to start a war.
Could we not work in an equally focused manner, deploy as many resources, people, when it comes to keeping the peace and preventing war? And that is why I applaud this Civil Peace Corps.
The funding and the framework are in place.
If the political will is there, then what are we waiting for!
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his sterling work and focus on three paragraphs towards the end of the report.
Paragraph 24 addresses the need for increased cooperation between the EU and the UN, as well as between the EU and the OSCE.
In this context, I should like to take this opportunity to ask the Commissioner responsible for external relations, Mr Patten, about his view on the methods for strengthening co-operation specifically between the UN and the OSCE.
I would also like to draw attention to paragraph 27 on the proliferation of light weapons and small arms and the need for a joint code of conduct for arms exports.
Last but not least, I would like to focus on paragraph 28 on the significance of education as a key element in conflict prevention.
It is a real shame that we cannot have a debate here between the rapporteur and us Members of the European Parliament, as I wonder what view of humanity and what ethic and morals are to form the basis for this work on conflict prevention.
Is it not the case that conflict prevention and democracy ultimately rely on reconciliation, compromise and the ability of each and every one of us to tolerate a defeat?
Finally, on a slightly more personal note, as a member of this Parliament I was dismayed when around 200 Members filed out as Kim Dae Jung was about to speak.
One of Asia' s very greatest advocates of democracy and human rights, Kim Dae Jung has paid a very high personal price for his fight for democracy.
Two hundred Members walked out when he was due to speak.
This is no way to maintain the dignity of Parliament.
Rather, it brought shame on this House.
Mr President, Commissioner, a few hours ago we heard three personalities whom we have awarded the Sakharov Prize.
We were moved by the speeches and inspired by their example, but we were also left with an uncomfortable feeling.
Uncomfortable because, while there is no doubt that in the European Parliament we have succeeded in identifying the ways to prevent and resolve conflicts and recognise, even before others do, who can promote them, we have lacked the effective capacity to influence such processes.
I remember having attended a meeting chaired by President Nicole Fontaine at the beginning of this year, with Commander Massoud.
At the time, few people were interested in the visit and we were unable to mobilise sufficient support to bolster Commander Massoud' s position and, perhaps, prevent some of the great tragedies that followed.
We therefore welcome the Commission' s communication and acknowledge its work and merit.
We fully agree with the strategic principle set out by the Commission, and I quote, "the development policy and other cooperation programmes constitute the most powerful instruments the Community has to deal with the causes of conflicts" .
We support the aims of the document generally; however, we also feel, as does the rapporteur, that there are a few vague aspects, possibly prejudiced by the rigidity of the current system of support.
We believe priority should be given to a strong and serious effort in terms of interinstitutional cooperation.
The specific aspects of this are listed very thoroughly by the rapporteur, whom we congratulate.
But I would like to emphasise one aspect: the role of the Commission' s delegations should be reinforced, which also leads us to the issue of the external representation of the Union.
The document of the Commission, referring to the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, mentions joint training of diplomats.
And my question is: when will there be programmes for joint training of diplomats within the European Union itself?
Mr President, there were enough warnings before the crisis in Kosovo really got under way.
Before 11 September, Afghanistan was on the EU' s list of forgotten crisis regions.
I think these are two examples of the way in which we are all too often all too wise all too late.
Unfortunately, when it is too late there is every willingness to employ quite fabulous sums on military action.
This is in stark contrast to the willingness to employ resources on civil crisis prevention and on peacekeeping.
Now, the EU has decided to play an active role in conflict prevention in Africa. That is something I view in positive terms.
However, we should also play a more active and independent role in relation to the conflict in the Middle East.
That role has unfortunately fallen somewhat by the wayside since 11 September.
The Sakharov Prize is not enough.
We must make pro-active use of the tariff agreement in this crisis.
Mr President, what concerns us is that conflict prevention using military means is just the other side of the same coin, by which I mean of the intervention policy of the European Union, which has nominated itself international peacemaker, especially in crises and conflicts which it itself foments, so that it can then intervene and save the day.
Of course, the objective is always the same: to suppress the progressive grass-roots movement and advance the interests of big business in Europe.
The report by the member of the Group of the Greens, Mr Lagendijk, is not, unfortunately, free of the political, economic and military interventionist spirit.
Without doubt, as the rapporteur himself acknowledged today, the right hand of the proposed non-military rapid reaction unit and European police force will be the European army, which the Laeken Summit will be busy preparing in a few day's time.
Anyway, an official source in the European Union has already stated that military solutions will be imposed wherever political proposals are rejected.
That is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece cannot vote in favour of the report...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Lagendijk for another excellent report.
I would also like to welcome his challenging remarks today about, for example, the civil peace corps which I suspect will continue to be a subject of lively debate.
Above all I would like to thank him for what he said about the external aspects of sustainable development.
That is a subject on which we should all focus our attention in the run-up to the Johannesburg Conference next year.
I hope in particular that Parliament will take a special interest in some of the issues he raised, which are of fundamental importance if we are to be credible on sustainable development.
This is a topical debate.
Mr Wiersma suggested it was a Dutch hobby.
I am bound to say that, if it is, it is an extremely good Dutch hobby and I recommend it to every one of the Member States.
There is a growing appreciation of the need to reinforce our efforts to tackle the factors that make conflict and violence arise in the first place.
In the last century, conflict tended to be between states; I do not argue that sort conflict is over and done with.
But in today' s world we face a new type of danger - the failed state, the state that is a danger to its own people and a menace to the rest of the world.
Let me be crystal clear.
Nothing excuses or mitigates terrorism.
But in rooting out terrorism, we have to work to make sure that the world is hostile terrain - not fertile ground - for terrorists and those who back them.
That can mean taking tough military action, as we do from time to time.
But it also means exporting and entrenching democracy, the rule of law and good government; it means liberalising world trade, and using that and our development assistance to shrink the gap between the richest and the poorest, in a world in which the planet's three richest men own the equivalent of the GDP of the 48 poorest countries.
Earlier this year, the Commission published the communication setting out our new strategy of conflict prevention.
It is based on four main objectives.
First, we want to make a more systematic and coordinated use of the European Union's instruments to address the root causes of conflict.
Simply put, we want to get better leverage from our position as the world' s largest donor and as the top trading bloc.
We are starting by integrating conflict prevention into our strategies towards partner countries, taking account of conflict indicators, for example, in our country strategy papers.
The second objective of our communication is to raise the effectiveness of our actions in tackling 'cross-cutting issues' such as trafficking in drugs or arms, the trading of illicit goods, environmental degradation and so on.
On all these fronts, the challenge is immense.
Let me just take, for example, the issue raised by Mrs Ferrer.
The Commission has played, over the last few months, an active role in the Kimberley process, dealing with conflict diamonds. That is aimed at establishing an international control regime for the import and export of rough diamonds.
After the political agreement reached at Gaborone, two weeks ago, between the participants in this process, the Commission is now launching the preparatory work for the full implementation by the Community of the control regime in the course of next year.
The third objective is to develop our ability to respond rapidly to emerging crises.
Concrete recommendations have been put forward, notably to improve the CFSP instruments, such as political dialogue or the use of special representatives.
I can only agree with Mr Lagendijk that 'conflict prevention implies stronger commitment and political direction on the part of the Member States, as the Community instruments alone are not enough to resolve all possible sources of conflict'.
What is required is a bit more of that old-fashioned commodity - political will.
At Community level, we have set up, at my initiative, a special rapid reaction mechanism to equip us to respond with the speed that events in the real world demand, but which the Commission' s procedures are not always brilliantly designed to cope with.
It is now fully operational, and is proving invaluable in current crises, for example in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and in Afghanistan where I hope to use the mechanism first of all to provide support for Ambassador Brahimi's team, secondly to provide support for the interim administration and, thirdly, to begin the work of demining.
The fourth message is to promote international cooperation with governments, international organisations and civil society.
The honourable Member raised this. Mr Sacrédeus raised this as well.
The UN is a key partner here.
We have a new framework, agreed by the General Affairs Council in June, for EU-UN enhanced cooperation on conflict prevention and crisis management.
As recommended by Mr Lagendijk, I am ready to work together with the Council on an enhanced framework for cooperation with the OSCE.
Let me finish by giving you one example of what we have we done and what we are doing concretely in a key zone of conflict.
I am just back from the Great Lakes region where we had a useful troika mission.
Last month, we committed funds under the rapid reaction mechanism to support the inter-Congolese dialogue, to launch preparatory actions for the reintegration of child soldiers and to support independent media or other confidence-building initiatives.
In November, we also committed money under the CFSP budget to finance the South African Guard Support Unit for the protection of the recently returned political leaders in Burundi.
I was pleased to be able to meet them and have a briefing from them.
In the region, we continue to carry out rehabilitation, to deliver humanitarian aid and to contribute to poverty alleviation.
We stand ready to finance demilitarisation and demobilisation programmes as soon as they get started.
So we are, I hope and believe, raising our game.
We were starting to do so before the horrific events of three months ago which the honourable Member referred to.
But we know now how much is at stake; we know how preventing conflict abroad is vital to our own security here at home.
We know that we cannot slacken our efforts, but rather, as Mr Lagendijk has argued, we need to redouble those efforts.
That is the very least we should be doing in response to the atrocities of 11 September.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
EU Relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran
The next item is the debate on report (A5-0418/2001) by Mr Gahler, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on EU relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran [COM(2001) 71 - C5-0338/2001 - 2001/2138(COS)].
Before we move on to the debate, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that there is going to be a slight alteration to the timetable: with a great deal of effort, we are going to exceed the time limit of 7 p.m.
With the cooperation of the interpretation service, I think that we can work until 7.15 p.m., which means that, from 7.15 p.m. there will be no interpretation service, no Commissioner and no President, because we all have other commitments.
I am sorry to have to tell you this, but this is the truth of the matter.
However, I think that the best way to deal with this situation is to let the rapporteur speak, then the Commissioner, and then the Members of this House, depending on how much time we have left.
Therefore, the more concise we can be, the more possibility there will be of ending the debate before 7.15 p.m.
For those of you who will not be able to speak, you will have the chance to do so once again when we resume at 9 p.m. tonight.
Mr Gahler has the floor.
I very much welcome this report and congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Gahler, on his excellent work.
I hope the House will understand if I am not able to be here until the end of the debate, but the Commission will be represented.
As a regional power, Iran has an important influence on developments in its area that has sometimes been called the arc of crisis.
We in the European Union have every interest in encouraging the authorities in Teheran to use this influence constructively, to promote stability, cooperation and development in the region.
And as the process of reform and liberalisation goes forward in Iran, we also have every interest to develop our bilateral relations as we tried to do with our troika visit a few weeks ago.
Over the past few years, and especially since the first election of President Khatami in 1997, the European Union has engaged in a broad dialogue with Iran.
It has been useful but now we should go much further.
That is why we recently presented draft directives for the negotiation of a trade and cooperation agreement.
Once we have a contractual basis for our relationship, we will be in a much better position to develop exchanges not just in the economic area, but also on matters such as migration, drugs, energy and the environment.
That will also give us a sounder basis, with real shared interests, for continuing and deepening our political dialogue with Iran on regional and international issues.
We have welcomed Iran's constructive and measured response to the atrocities of 11 September, to which the honourable Member referred.
Even before those terrible events President Khatami launched a very useful initiative in the UN for a Dialogue between Civilisations.
I was interested myself to have an exchange with the president about the works of Nicolo Machiavelli.
I have the impression that Iran fully understands the importance of implementing UN Security Resolution 1373 in the financial fight against terrorism, the need to ratify the twelve existing anti-terrorist conventions, and the need for a comprehensive convention.
In the aftermath of 11 September and in line with the efforts of the global coalition against terrorism, there will be increased scrutiny and less tolerance of states attempting to build arsenals of weapons of mass destruction.
In this regard Iran has adhered to the relevant treaties and conventions, but we want to see additional steps and increased transparency.
Full compliance with these agreements is essential.
We will also welcome co-operation to ensure a better future for Afghanistan under a new, broadly based administration.
We wholeheartedly support and encourage the process of reform in Iran.
But unfortunately things have slipped in the last year.
We share the concerns expressed by the UN Special Rapporteur, Mr Copithorne, in his recent report on human rights in Iran.
So we still have to adopt UN resolutions on this subject.
I believe we should explore other ways of conducting a more effective human rights dialogue with Iran, and I have begun this dialogue with the Iranian Foreign Ministry.
I have repeatedly told my Iranian interlocutors that we are keen to do that, if they also show a real commitment to reform.
The growing contacts of the Iranian authorities with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Robinson, is a promising sign, as is the recent agreement between the UNDP and the Islamic Human Rights Commission on human rights covering monitoring and capacity building.
A lot more can and should be done, and the Commission will watch these developments closely and contribute in whatever way we can.
The potential for EU/Iran cooperation in trade, energy and economic matters is enormous.
That is recognised in our draft mandate for a trade and cooperation agreement.
The discussion among Member States in the Council has already got under way and I hope it will soon lead to a decision allowing us to start negotiations.
As always, there will be some difficulties on detail, but I am confident that everyone accepts that we have a strategic opportunity to develop our relationship with Iran.
In reply to some of the queries in the report, I can confirm that there will of course be a clause on human rights in the agreement, as there is in all our agreements with third countries.
Equally, we will include provisions on readmission of illegal immigrants, while also developing our cooperation with the Iranian authorities on the broader issues of migration.
Finally, I share the honourable Member's pre-occupation with the drugs control issue.
I know that our Iranian counterparts do as well.
So I expect that the agreement will also help us extend and deepen cooperation in this area. And in terms of the structure of our dialogue with Iran, I wholeheartedly support the suggestion of closer parliamentary contacts.
To conclude, let me thank Mr Gahler again for a very well-argued and balanced report on EU-Iran relations.
I take note of the constructive comments, and am pleased to see that the report encourages the line pursued by the Commission, including the establishment of contractual relations with Iran.
I will report back to Parliament on the progress that is made.
Thank you, Commissioner.
If the debate continues after 9 p.m., then the Commission will of course be represented and will be willing to answer your questions.
However, I thought it would be more appropriate for the competent Commissioner to speak at this time.
Mr President, I feel that this is a balanced report on a complex subject. Its merit is that it lists the signals of progressive opening-up coming from Iran, particularly from its people, who, in the last elections, quite clearly expressed their desire for a policy of economic, social and political reform.
However, at the same time, the ultimate point of reference for us, for the European Union and for Parliament must be respect for human rights.
In this sense, I think we can say to the rapporteur that we do not support some of the amendments he has submitted for the perusal of this plenary in that they seem to be inspired by excessive indulgence in the area of human rights, an area in which we must never make any concessions.
Of course, the Iranian Government has condemned the violence of the destruction which took place on 11 September in New York; of course, it declared its willingness to discuss human rights issues - we welcome that just as we welcome the way that women too have been able to resume their role in the course of recent years in institutions and in schools and university education, and also the Iranian Government' s responsible endeavours to help stabilise the region.
However, certain facts remain, such as the unfulfilled expectations of Iranian society and the international community regarding the abolition of torture, the abolition of the death penalty, the abolition of the special religious courts and press courts and the abolition of particularly degrading and humiliating punishments.
I believe our task is to encourage the democratic forces, civil society and the many women and students who feel that, in the struggle between theocracy and democracy, it is possible for democracy to prevail.
We need to urge the Iranian Government to fully respect the mandate it has received from its people.
Lastly, we must promote political dialogue between the European Union and Iran.
In this sense, we are in favour of sending an ad hoc delegation to Iran and we hope, in particular, that the European Union will be able to play a full, useful political role to help Iran find its own path to democracy as soon as possible.
I feel, Mr President, that it is never our place to judge.
Encouragement and persuasion are part of the spirit of this report and must also characterise the way the European Union reinvigorates its relationship with Iran in the future.
Mr President, what I want to say is that the events of 11 September have, I think, made us all much wiser.
The human cost was tremendous but they made us all much wiser, both us and Iran, I think, and we understand the need for new bridges, dialogue, discussion and cooperation between the European Union and Iran to get under way in such an extended, important and dangerous area of instability.
I think that both the troika and Commissioner Patten have done interesting work and I think that the report and the motion for a resolution are generally on the right tack.
However, I must say that there is a little schizophrenia going on.
I am worried that the report contains a double message.
It is like saying to a neighbour with whom you are on bad terms, for whom you have little respect left, "Let us sit at the same table, but just remember that I think you a vulgar, good-for-nothing thief".
That is more or less what our report says.
In paragraph 19, for example, we are, I think, directly intervening in Iran's internal affairs, given the past pattern, the lack of faith in even in the most straightforward people in Iran, who look at the United States, Great Britain and the European Union and suspect that they are about to come and impose their control again.
This being so, I think that we should tread very carefully.
We need to be in favour of the reforms.
Not for the reformists or against the conservatives.
As with any other country, we only have the right to insist on our own terms, based on the principles of the European Union and European culture, as the basis for meetings and discussion, but not for intervention if Khatami behaves or the clerics do not.
Because we shall be the ones opening up an opposition front in the European Union.
I think that the logic behind our past and present approach to Turkey, which is now a candidate for integration into the European Union, should also inform our relations with Iran.
This does not mean, I repeat, that we should underestimate the importance either of basic questions of human democratic rights, women's rights, prisoners' rights or the rights of religious minorities.
If we are careful, I think that these steps, which are important to both sides, can be taken.
Mr President, as an historian and ex-journalist, I have been quite fascinated by the emergence of, and developments within, the Islamic Republic of Iran over the years.
This particularly applies to the country' s internal power struggle which flared up recently.
An interesting phenomenon in this connection is that quite a few current reform-minded people were once advocates of the power system they now denounce.
It is only natural that the conservative forces in Iran consider this sense of reform as an erosion of the political system.
They control the essential positions of power and neutralise reformist initiatives at their discretion.
They do not eschew highly repressive means.
With this, we have, in fact, outlined the duality in Iranian society.
The very detailed report by Mr Gahler analyses this in more detail.
We are on the side of the Iranian reformists.
They pursue a more open society and openly denounce coercion in religious matters.
Their fervent opponents, on the other hand, create an uncertain internal climate.
Our hesitation about endorsing a formal trade and cooperation agreement between the EU and Iran is epitomised by two concerns.
These are the violations of constitutional rights - think of the beleaguered position of religious minorities in that country - and the material support to terrorist Lebanese and Palestinian organisations.
On the other hand, an agreement would give us a formal foundation for addressing Tehran on a permanent basis with regard to the social abuses cited by Mr Gahler.
It is of crucial importance, however, that we do not wish to isolate the forces of change internationally in ancient Persia.
In fact, this course of action corresponds to the wishes of the majority of the population.
Like the reform-minded forces in the Islamic Republic, Iranian citizens are reaching out to the west, to Europe for help.
We must lend a truly helping hand.
Thank you, Mr Belder.
This presidency would like to sincerely thank Mr Souladakis for his cooperation this session.
He will obviously be able to speak tomorrow as an extraordinary explanation of vote.
If he wants to repeat his whole speech as an explanation of vote, he will have the opportunity to do so tomorrow.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.22 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Maritime safety
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A5-0440/2001) by Mr Watts, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 95/21/EC concerning the enforcement, in respect of shipping using Community ports and sailing in the waters under the jurisdiction of the Member States, of international standards for ship safety, pollution prevention and shipboard living and working conditions (port State control) (PE-CONS 3657/2001 - C5-0525/2001 - 2000/0065(COD));
the report (A5-0441/2001) by Mr Ortuondo Larrea, on behalf of European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 94/57/EC on common rules and standards for ship inspection and survey organisations and for the relevant activities of maritime administrations (PE-CONS 3656/2001 - C5-0526/2001 - 2000/0066(COD));
the recommendation for second reading (A5-0344/2001), by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on the accelerated phasing-in of double hull or equivalent design standards for single hull oil tankers and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 2978/94 (10221/1/2001 - C5-0389/2001 - 2000/0067(COD)).
Mr President, I should like to begin, perhaps unusually for me, by thanking the various people who have made this evening possible, in particular the Commissioner and all her staff within the maritime unit of her DG, and the maritime safety unit in particular.
Also the Council, who are not represented this evening, but it should go on record how helpful the Belgian Presidency has been.
I should also like to say how helpful the French presidency was in making sure that we made rapid progress.
I should also like to thank my colleagues in the European Parliament who stood together through this process, with the difficult challenges we faced, but which we overcame together.
Because of that we are able tonight to celebrate a historic victory for the European institutions in the field of maritime safety.
Together we have achieved a great deal.
I will not dwell on the other reports.
My fellow rapporteurs will do that.
I should like to focus on my report on port state control, which is an essential part of our regime to make sure that events such as that involving the Erika never happen again.
Two years ago today the Erika was a symptom of a failed system of maritime safety.
It was not the first of its kind, nor, sadly, was it the last maritime disaster of its kind.
It symbolised to me and my colleagues in the European Parliament the fact that the flag state controls had failed.
The classification society controls had failed.
The port state controls had failed and the IMO itself had failed.
It is only because of the collective action of the European Union and its institutions that we have stimulated in the last two years unparalleled levels of activity in the field of maritime safety.
Without the European Union, we would not be as advanced today as we are.
We should all be very pleased that we have the European Union to spearhead action in this area.
What do we have to be so pleased and proud about? I want to list some of the achievements that we have secured in respect of port state control.
Firstly, there is going to be mandatory inspection for certain ships.
That is an innovation and I welcome it.
It means that the most dangerous ships will be inspected in future.
Secondly, enhanced inspection for other categories of ships and, thirdly, the guidelines on inspections themselves will become mandatory.
In other words port state control authorities will have to inspect certain types of ships in certain ways.
Fourthly, we want the Member States that have been a weak link in the system to train and recruit adequate numbers of port state control inspectors.
They will have until 2003 to do that, but it is a challenge for them and it is a challenge, I hope, that they can rise to.
Fifthly - and this is absolutely critical to the success of this new regime - we want public access to the information.
Again that is in the amended directive and will be made available via the Equasis database.
Sixthly, we want the Member States and the port state control authorities in particular, to convey the information to the Commission so that the Commission can do its job in making sure the amended directive is uniformly implemented across the European Union.
The seventh point, which I mention with a certain pleasure, concerns the ability to ban and detain certain ships - banning the most dangerous ships, particularly those that fly the flags of blacklisted flag states.
I welcome the strong controls we have to ban certain ships from European Union waters if they have a poor detention record.
That effectively will be a warning shot across the bows of these blacklisted flag states: over a period of time their ships will be banned one by one if they do not improve.
A very important message will be going out from this Parliament.
But also there will be the power to detain, in particular the power to detain ships which, by 2008, do not have a fully functioning voice data recorder, a black box.
Again the message can go out tonight that by 2008 all categories of ships, if they want to come to a European port, must have a black box voice data recorder.
If they do not have one, we will detain the ship until one is secured.
Once more, I welcome the fact that we have all worked together to secure that particular achievement.
The black box will change the culture of shipping.
It will not just be a tool whereby we can learn lessons from disasters and apply them in the future.
A ship with a black box is a safe ship.
Our common aim tonight is to make sure the Erika and disasters like it never occur again.
I do not believe that we will achieve that simply by adopting these reports tomorrow but we will have gone a long way to securing our goal to protect lives at sea and to protect the marine environment.
But we must remain vigilant.
Our duty now must be to make sure that the laws we pass tomorrow are implemented by everyone - the Commission, Member States and port state control authorities.
That is our duty and responsibility.
I hope we can live up to that.
Mr President, Commissioner, after the sinking of the oil tanker Erika on 12 December 1999, this Parliament and the Council requested a significant strengthening of the Community rules on maritime safety and the prevention of pollution.
The Commission responded quickly to these demands by presenting the three proposals known as the Erika I package, which we are still debating two years after that disaster, although we have finally reached agreements on each of them in Council, which are definitive in the case of the first two.
In the case of the modification of the Directive on the common rules and standards for organisations which classify, inspect and examine ships on behalf of the maritime administration, from the outset, the parliamentary amendments to Commission' s original proposal focussed, above all, on the practical aspects of the application of the classification system, on improving the transparency of the information relating to the quality of inspections, on the periodic auditing of those organisations and the withdrawal of their Community recognition in the event of serious accidents, as well as the financial liability of those organisations for damages and accidents where is has been proved that that there has been negligence in inspections.
After the Council' s adoption of its common position, we moved on to second parliamentary reading, where we insisted on issues relating to resolving the conflicts of interest which may arise between classification societies or organisations and the owners and/or charterers of ships, as well as on financial liability in cases of negligence or omission in judgements.
When the Council communicated that it could not accept all Parliament' s amendments, we moved on to the stage of conciliation between the representatives of the two Community institutions.
The discussion focussed firstly on the issue of the conflict of interests, where the Council finally accepted that a classification organisation must not be controlled by owners or builders of ships or by other persons or entities which are commercially involved in the construction, equipping, repair or operation of ships. It also focussed on the idea that, at the point of requesting recognition, the classification society and its inspectors should commit themselves in writing, on an individual basis, to not accepting regulatory duties where there is a risk of a conflict of interests and, in particular, where those societies are the owners of the ship which is to be inspected, or have commercial, personal or family connections with those owners.
For its part, the parliamentary delegation, while considering that much of the work of the inspectors should be done by the maritime administration and that the latter should have subsidiary responsibility, accepted that it should not be obligatory for the Member States to establish a maximum limit for the financial liability of classification societies in the event of damages due to slight negligence in inspections, although in the event that those Member States wish to establish that maximum limit, that limit should not be less that EUR 2 million and EUR 4 million respectively, depending on whether the damage only affects material objects or also people.
However, the delegations of the two institutions considered that this issue should be examined within the framework of the evaluation report, which the Commission will present within three years, on the economic impact of the liability regime and, in particular, its consequences for the financial equilibrium of recognised organisations.
If necessary, the Commission will present, in the light of the said evaluation, a proposal for a modification of this directive which deals specifically with the principle of liability and the maximum limit for the financial contribution.
In conclusion, I believe that the European Parliament should be satisfied with the final result of the conciliation, since the majority of our amendments have been incorporated, either fully, in a revised form or in spirit, into the joint text, and we therefore propose that this latter text be approved by the House at third reading.
Finally, I would like to draw the attention of the relevant legal authorities to the fact that certain people harmed by the Erika accident are yet to receive any compensation for the damage suffered, despite the fact that two years have passed since this tragic event took place.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President and dear fellow-believers - I can call you that, because all of those sitting here are those who have moved this project forward over the years and who are committed to making ships safe.
Speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats, I would like to observe - it being two years since the Erika disaster - that we may be a little late with the adoption of this legislative package, but we have not done at all badly in terms of keeping to the timetable if you consider the difficulties that have been involved.
Even then, two areas of the legislation have involved us having to go through a second reading and the conciliation procedure.
Today, we can see that, on the basis of the Commission's initial proposals submitted two years ago now after the tanker crashed, our joint efforts have brought progress, and I again wish to thank you, Commissioner de Palacio, for the committed support you and your colleagues gave us in the conciliation process.
By means both of these two results from the conciliation process and the common position, we have significantly increased not only the safety of ships, but also that of their crews, the environment and of people who live in coastal regions.
I believe that enhanced port state control, more stringent regulations for classification societies and the progressive introduction of double hull tankers mean that we really have moved ahead in preventing accidents like that of the Erika, or at least alleviating their consequences.
Commissioner, I would like to say this about port state control.
I believe it was a good thing that, in the conciliation process, we - and especially Mark Watts - insisted on sorting out the 'black box' issue now.
You will see that the 'Erika II' package does not quite go that far.
I hope it soon will do, but you will be aware that it is still causing a few difficulties.
That being so, we were right to insist on the requirement for a 'black box' being incorporated into the 'Erika I' package.
My colleagues are aware that I am less happy about the result of the ship classification issue.
We may well not have an upper limit, but we do have an appeal clause.
I trust that the Commission will, after three years, produce a report submitting new proposals to us on how damage can be compensated for.
This affects shipping companies, shipping agents, and classification societies - how about a fair compromise on who should shoulder the damage?
We were, I think, very wise when it came to the common position on double hull tankers.
We should let the whole world know that.
We are always being accused of drafting European norms and disregarding worldwide conventions.
No!
We have accepted that the IMO sets the ground rules and have only made minor changes affecting implementation and time limits.
What we have insisted on as regards implementation looks quite harmless in comparison with what the Americans forced through!
I hope we will be able to adopt the second package next year.
So, Commissioner, bring some pressure to bear on the Council!
As far as the 'cope fund' compensation rule is concerned, we do not want to be kept waiting for the next five years.
I am relying on you to push for this.
rapporteur.
(EL) Mr President, Vice-President of the Commission, this report on the accelerated phasing-out of single hull tankers seemed at first to be an extremely complicated matter and we have been down a long hard road in order to reach today's result.
Nonetheless, I think that we have finally done so in a most satisfactory manner, which has gone beyond all our expectations.
On the one hand, we have managed to find an effective response to the concerns of the citizens of Europe, especially in France following the shipwreck of the Erika, as regards environmental protection.
At the same time, we have taken fundamental measures in maritime safety because, as all sides agree, double-hull tankers may not be a panacea but they are at least proven to be safer than single-hull tankers.
However, we also achieved another objective: the objective of protecting the competitiveness of the shipping industry.
We must not forget that this is a vital sector of our economy, a sector which employs tens of thousands of workers throughout Europe and one of our priorities must be to protect it.
We also achieved something else which I think I should highlight: we managed to find an international solution to a problem which goes beyond national borders.
We have before us a solution which has now been adopted by all the countries in the International Maritime Organisation.
I think that credit for this has to go to the European Commission, the Member States and the European Parliament because, thanks to our initiative, thanks to our - how shall I put it? - our threat that we would proceed unilaterally if the International Maritime Organisation failed to act, the International Maritime Organisation which, we must admit, has not always acted quite as fast as we would all like it to act, has pushed ahead and adopted a number of measures which mirror the initial proposals submitted by the Commission and the Member States.
So clear, efficient measures are being taken for all the classes of tanker which have concerned us and I am happy to say that today we have achieved something which did in fact appear to be beyond reach just a short time ago.
On the one hand, I think that people in France are relatively satisfied with the measures we are adopting and that every European with an environmental conscience is satisfied with the significant progress made while, on the other hand, industrial factors, people engaged in shipping, seamen and shipowners, feel that we have not gone too far and undermined the interests of this important sector of the economy.
So I should like to thank all the honourable members with whom we cooperated so efficiently that we now have this text before us and, of course, to thank and congratulate the Vice-President of the European Commission, Mrs de Palacio, for the way in which she has handled this issue and for her decisiveness and excellent disposition towards the European Parliament.
Mr President, my colleagues, on behalf of my group I thank the rapporteurs for the preparation of their fine reports, and also for the good outcomes in conciliation.
These statutory proposals belonging to the "Erika I" package contain essential measures for the increasing of marine safety.
These matters have also made reasonably rapid progress, and in conciliation the essential changes to the texts demanded by Parliament have been incorporated.
In the case of the classification societies, the Community's authority needs to be increased with regard to the approval and control of these societies.
As the rapporteur stated, the classification society must not be under the authority of the owners or builders of the vessels, or of others engaged in commercial activity in the sector.
Inspections of vessels must also be increased.
Extended inspections must be directed specifically at vessels which represent a risk.
In the case of vessels on the "black list" which are associated with a high risk, the criteria for entry of the vessel to a port must be stricter.
In order that accidents can be prevented in advance as effectively as possible, we need an advance notification obligation for vessels and mandatory inspections of high-risk vessels.
The port control directive will improve the uniformity and effectiveness of the inspection procedure of port States.
It is appropriate that vessels be furnished with Voyage Data Recorders in future, and that access to EU ports can be denied to vessels which are clearly in a poor condition.
An accelerated phasing-in of double hull vessels must be managed in such a way as to avoid generating insurmountable problems with the scrapping of ships and the building of new ones.
At the same time, the flexibility of oil transportations must be safeguarded.
The safety of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution may be promoted by the flag States enforcing the currently valid conventions so as to make them obligatory.
Along with the further tightening of regulations, care must be taken that the decisions to be made are realistic and feasible.
One of the points of emphasis of the EU's White Paper on transport is the favouring of water traffic in transportation.
Because of its environmental friendliness, water traffic is indeed very suitable for heavy goods transportation.
In the event of accidents, however, water routes are highly vulnerable, and environmental damage recognises no borders.
For this reason, decisions made only within the Union are not sufficient; instead, questions of responsibility for marine safety must be dealt with on a worldwide basis.
We need international agreements which also involve (for example) Russia, whose vessels will in future be sailing more and more in the world's seas via the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should at any rate like to thank everyone, including the team behind the Commissioner, for example, for the quality and volume of work they have all done.
However, I regularly suffer nightmares.
When I wake up, I just hope and pray that another oil tanker has not run aground. I hope that will not be the case in the next three years either, for - everyone has already said it - it has been long enough, it is actually taking too long before we can lay down legislation, and we are only halfway.
Speeding up processes of this kind can do no harm at all.
A disaster such as the one involving the Erika is simply a real disaster, not only environmentally, but also economically and socially, and it can be entirely traced back to 80 000 ships, some ten percent of which, 8 000 ships, are absolutely sub-standard.
This is to a certain extent where the problem lies, or in large part at any rate.
Despite the fact that classification bureaux were involved and despite what has happened with, and is suggested about, double hulls, I should briefly like to focus on the port state control, for in the final analysis, what matters is that inspections should become effective.
Mr Piecyk, but also others, have already drawn attention to this.
Actually, we want 25% of inspections by way of a yardstick.
But what mainly matters is that these inspections are carried out by well-trained people, and that they are carried out in the first place.
We should, for example, call the French Transport Minister to account for the fact that his country scores exceptionally low in the percentage of inspections that are carried out.
Although we now have a perfect and itemised list, enforcement still appears to be a problem.
This is often the case when we draft legislation, but particularly so now.
I therefore intend to monitor annual surveys of the Paris memorandum of understanding and other matters in the next few months with the help of others, and check whether inspection of this kind is, in fact, on the increase.
I would also ask the Commissioner to ensure that we receive an annual overview, so that we can be active and pro-active to ensure that what we want to achieve actually happens.
Secondly, I would mainly call for a prompt completion of the Erika II, and for accelerating the process in the light of the tiresome pace on the part of industry with regard to separate funding and such like.
I would like to finish off with one point.
Malta and Cyprus have been mentioned in connection with enlargement.
There are still two that, let us say, are on the waiting list, including Romania.
Romania is another country with an exceptionally bad track record on this black list, and I would call for extra attention to be paid to it.
Mr President, it is by sheer coincidence that today we are sadly commemorating the second anniversary of the sinking of the Erika oil tanker.
On the stormy night of 12 December 1999, this oil tanker, which was flying a Maltese flag, certified by an Italian classification society, manned by an Indian crew, insured by a company registered in the Bermudas, financed by a Scottish bank, chartered by a Shell company that sub-chartered it to a foreign subsidiary of the Total Group, which was transporting extremely polluting hydrocarbon belonging to another subsidiary of Total, sank off the French coast, thus polluting 400 kilometres of coastline and causing considerable damage estimated to cost more than FFR 5 billion.
So, what progress has been made, two years after this tragedy? Hardly any of the victims have received compensation.
The IOPC Fund will only cover FFR 1.2 billion out of the FFR 5.5 billion of damages caused, and procedures are turning out to be lengthy, complicated and inefficient.
The remainder will be borne by the victims, the local authorities and the French Government, pursuant to the application, not of the polluter pays principle, but of the perverse principle dictating that the victim pays.
The various measures that we are currently debating in the three reports by Mr Watts, Mr Ortuondo Larrea and Mr Hatzidakis have taken too long.
Yes, we must strengthen State port controls, Mr Watts; yes, we must ensure the work of classification societies is more efficient, more reliable and more transparent, Mr Ortuondo Larrea; yes, Mr Hatzidakis, we must take concerted action at international level to phase out single hull oil tankers, whilst bearing in mind that double hull tankers cannot guarantee that ships will not sink or run aground.
But why will we have had to wait more than two years after the disaster for such basic measures to be taken in these three areas?
And, more importantly, there are two fundamental questions that remain unanswered, and it has also not yet been established whether it is appropriate to take these decisions at European level.
The first question relates to compensation.
All the victims must be fully compensated.
Today, however, there are considerable differences of opinion at European level.
Some people are in favour of setting up a specific European fund, whilst others prefer to increase the IOPC Fund.
The differences of opinion persist and we cannot move ahead with this issue, whereas the United States, on the other hand, has unilaterally set up a very efficient and comprehensive compensation system, which is effectively funded by consumers of oil products, which is perfectly logical and legitimate.
In Europe, Member States have different ideas about the risks of maritime pollution and it would therefore be perfectly legitimate for the countries that are at the forefront of this risk to take the necessary measures themselves.
I urge them to do so.
The second fundamental question that is yet to be resolved relates to the issue of responsibility.
We cannot allow events, such as that involving the Erika, to ever happen again, where the front company was based in a tax haven, the flag of convenience was sub-chartered, the sub-contractor was an off-shore subsidiary and no less than 11 different companies had an interest in the ship and its cargo, thus creating a real labyrinth, in which the real decision-makers and those bearing the actual responsibility could hide.
This situation is particularly hazardous.
The Member States that are most concerned must ensure, as a matter of urgency, that there is clarification and transparency in the area of responsibility. This must also be done at a global level, as, Mr President, only the threat of very heavy and very severe penalties will be enough to deter the potential polluters of the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the Conciliation Committee, I am delighted that we have achieved a positive result and can now press on and apply effective measures to protect our seas and our shipping industry.
We have taken a moderate line and brokered a series of realistic measures, seeing shipping not as an 'enemy' but as a friend who could do better, given that, may I remind you, shipping is only responsible for 12% of total maritime pollution.
So, ships which seriously endanger our seas will be denied entry to Community ports and voyage data recorders will be fitted to all ships, so that their course can be checked following an accident, God forbid.
Compulsory double hulls will be phased in and the rules governing ship survey and control organisations will be improved.
Clearly, the catalyst behind this successful outcome, or at least one part of it, was the International Maritime Organisation, which took the right stand thanks to the initiative taken by the Member States of the Union.
So now we need to concentrate on fast implementation, and here we are putting our faith in fast reaction on the part of the Commission, not forgetting that five Member States which, I may add, do not include Greece, have been charged by the Commission with not applying a previous, more lenient directive.
May I also remind you and highlight the fact that Greece, whose economy, as you know, is far more dependent on shipping than that of any of our partners, is leading the way and is at the vanguard in the fight for maritime safety and efforts to protect human life and the environment.
We must also give special thanks to everyone who helped to bring this endeavour to a successful conclusion, especially the Commissioner, and I trust that we shall not forget that the seas of Europe are not a separate entity from the other seas on our planet.
Mr President, Commissioner, today being the anniversary of the sinking of the Erika on 12 December 1999, my group and I are pleased to see that conciliation on three sets of proposals has been successful.
Concerning the Watts report, we are particularly pleased that the European Parliament' s delegation succeeded in making black boxes compulsory, which was not the easiest thing to do.
This means that, from now on, a ship will be detained if it is not fitted with a functioning VDR system.
With regard to Mr Ortuondo Larrea' s report, the question of the conflict of interests has been resolved in such a way that classification societies can no longer have any links with shipbuilders, shipowners, operators or charterers.
Likewise, there is the question of the limits of the financial liability of these companies with regard to the financial balance of recognised organisations.
There is also the problem that Mr Souchet mentioned of providing compensation payments from the IOPC Fund or from a European fund in a more efficient manner.
It is also a matter of urgency, as Mr Hatzidakis said, to settle, at third reading, the problem of single hull ships, mainly in view of the 2015 deadline, as maritime safety issues cannot wait any longer - it is already two years to the day since the sinking of the Erika.
Intermittent spills and substandard 'dustbin ships' , such as the one that recently sunk off the coast of Brest, are still all too topical and it is a test of the EU' s credibility to resolve this situation once and for all.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, following the Erika accident, the profound, and totally legitimate, concern of the European citizens and the urgent need to consolidate the Community legislation in the field of maritime safety became clear.
This concern led to the Commission' s proposals and I would therefore now like to congratulate the Commission and its Vice-President, Mrs de Palacio, since we have all witnessed the tenacity with which she has personally dealt with these issues.
I also congratulate the rapporteurs on the wonderful work they have done, completing this package of measures.
Ladies and gentlemen, during my intervention in the May part-session, I said that we could be relatively satisfied with the way we have responded to the expectations of our citizens, in trying to approve these initiatives as quickly as possible - in inverted commas - by Community standards.
The Erika I package and future approval of the Erika II package will make it possible to create a genuine European area of maritime safety and must guarantee an optimum level of protection for the maritime environment and the European coastal regions.
Today I simply wish to repeat part of what I said then, since the circumstances have not changed.
This Parliament has shown its great interest throughout the negotiation process.
We must now continue to work in this direction and promote the measures which are yet to be approved.
We must not rest on our laurels and we must call on the Council so that progress can be made on the Erika II package and, in this respect, Commissioner, your role and your tenacity will be very important if we are to try to convince the Council once again, so that we may have the Erika II package more quickly.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate all of my fellow Members, who, in my view, have done some excellent work.
The European Parliament will have had a great influence on these documents.
I would also like to thank the Commissioner, Mrs Loyola de Palacio who, I believe, has worked as quickly as possible within the procedures laid down.
Mr Souchet thought that the progress made was slow.
I think that he is right.
On the other hand, we had reached the end of a parliamentary procedure, which is very difficult to cut down when we embark on conciliation.
I therefore believe that we have worked as quickly as possible and yet, it will take a total of three and a half years to draw up a text on Erika I after the law has been transposed by the national governments.
All this leads me to make some comments on governance.
We discuss this elsewhere, outside the context of transport, and I think that these subjects require the codification of urgent parliamentary procedures that will allow us to proceed legally. I think that this is a proposal which is expected from bodies such as ourselves or which could be drawn up by them.
We see that we have the same problem with the tunnels and the revision of the Seveso Directives.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think that we must spend time considering the urgent procedures which will be included in the Treaties.
I also think that we must ensure that these directives are transposed into national law.
We now have a body of texts and of maritime law without equal at European level, and also the Erika II package which is currently under discussion.
The Member States will no longer be able to play hide and seek with the European Commission, as they could at the beginning of the Erika I crisis.
Furthermore, we have no guarantee - as President Prodi recently said - that the directives are being transposed into national law within the time allowed.
And, at the end of the day, if we can be satisfied that we have produced some good European legislation today, we still do not know whether all these measures will be implemented, and within what time scale. The victims of the oil spills and accidents have been waiting for these measures for a long time.
Lastly, I think that the controls do not give enough reassurance, and this is true of all the operating provisions.
These usually involve self-regulation at national level, and I think that, in terms of governance as well, and if we truly wish to move forward, we must ask ourselves the question of how we are to monitor the monitoring systems.
Mr President, the running aground of the oil tanker Erika triggered a large number of activities on the part of the Commission, which were truly welcome.
However, I stand by my earlier reflection that it is better to act before an accident occurs than to react after it.
Both the rapporteur and the Conciliation Committee have done an excellent job with regard to the Commission' s proposal to further improve various measures, and Parliament has improved the proposal even further.
We have now pushed through our view with regard to conflicts of interest.
We have, moreover, succeeded in getting the lower limit for classification societies' liability for damages to the level at which we always wanted it.
This must be seen as clear progress.
The report on port State control also looks significantly better now.
In conciliation, Parliament managed to push through the requirement for black boxes, which I believe is a particularly positive move.
The solution regarding the third issue of introducing double hulls or such like for single-hull oil tankers has also been considerably more positive than it long appeared would be the case.
In this case too, Parliament has had almost all its amendments included in the Council' s common position.
In summary, I would like to say that, on these issues, Parliament has clearly shown its capacity to act.
Each of the proposals alone would not have sufficed, but together they constitute a significant step in the right direction.
In a tangible way, we have taken developments in the right direction towards safer and better seafaring and a better marine environment.
Hopefully, this will ensure that accidents such as those involving the Erika or the Levoli Sun will not occur in the future.
Mr President, two days ago, we Finns received tragic news - the beautiful beaches around Runsala near Turku had been affected by an oil slick from an unknown source.
Unfortunately, the proposals being debated today will not help in this type of case.
This is a classic example of a discharge from an unknown source, and despite the restructuring of port and pilotage fees which we have adopted at EU level, these small discharges have increased in the Baltic Sea.
The risk of being prosecuted is also very small.
At the same time, we are now, unfortunately, seeing the opening of the port in Primorsk.
This port has severely icy conditions, and we know that the package which we are approving today may not perhaps lead to vessels having double hulls until 2017.
However, double hulls are no help now, as the ice has already formed in Primorsk port.
Only through compulsory pilotage, effective strengthening of the hull against ice, efficient traffic monitoring and good teamwork between the rescue services can we do anything for this port and this unique part of the world.
I would ask you, Commissioner, in your continued contacts with Russia, to focus attention on the safety of traffic to Primorsk.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the sinking of the Erika reminded the world of the general risks involved in the sea transport of certain types of pollutants, especially oil and oil-based products.
It also highlighted the inadequacy of safety controls and the lack of transparency in sea transport practices, as well as the profound discontent of the populations affected, owing to the slowness of compensation.
As the rapporteur, Mr Ortuondo, has quite rightly pointed out, the victims of this accident have yet to receive their money.
It was also a test of the European Union' s capacity to react quickly and to offer its citizens a suitable response to their concerns.
I must say that, despite the fact that all has not gone perfectly, that perhaps we could have adopted it on first reading - as I would have liked -, that perhaps both Parliament and the Council could have shown greater flexibility, the reality is that, despite everything, within one and a half years of the Commission presenting its initiative, today, two years after the accident, we are finally approving the Erika I package.
In this respect, we must remember that there was a serious disaster off the same coast ten years ago and initiatives were presented by the Commission, but they did not overcome the hurdle of the Council.
I would therefore like to point out that the considerable success of approving this Erika I package today would certainly not have been achieved had it not been for the insistence and firmness of this Parliament, which has maintained systematic pressure on the Council throughout the negotiation process.
I would like to expressly thank Mr Watts, Mr Hatzidakis and Mr Ortuondo Larrea for their work and tenacity over these two years.
Their determination, which I welcome, has allowed us to persuade the Council to approve texts which initially enjoyed only a very small majority yet have been able, at the end of the day, to overcome any reservations.
We have considerably strengthened the European Union' s legislative arsenal.
Furthermore, the texts approved will have significant specific consequences, whose effects will be immediately noticeable.
The Member States must recruit a large number of inspectors in order to deal with greater obligations in controlling ships in ports.
Furthermore, shipowners, charterers, flag States and classification societies who are complacent or negligent in their operation or monitoring of ships will henceforth be liable to severe penalties such as the prohibition of ships not meeting minimum requirements from entering European ports, the publication of the names of negligent charterers or the withdrawal of the authorisation of classification societies in the event of poor performance.
Finally, I believe it is important to highlight another point of fundamental importance: Europe has once and for all made its mark as an indispensable partner in the international arena in the field of safety and all aspects relating to the maritime sector.
In this regard, on the delicate issue of double hull ships, the States of the Union have not only reached an agreement so that, from 2015, no single hull oil tanker will be able to stop in any Community port, but also, and above all, the Union has persuaded the International Maritime Organisation to approve these requirements for all the oil tankers in the world.
I believe it is also important to point out that the Erika II package which completes the whole initiative has made considerable progress recently.
Last Friday the Transport Council approved a common position, pending final and formal approval next week, with regard to the Community system for monitoring traffic and the European Maritime Safety Agency.
With regard to the proposed regulation on the Community fund for compensating damages resulting from accidental pollution, it is true that we are once again waiting for things to move ahead within the International Maritime Organisation.
But I would like to say that it is already a great success that the Community initiative has led the current international debate - specifically within the IMO - towards the creation of an international fund which takes up the principles of the Commission' s proposal.
Of course, we must ensure that the final result in the IMO conforms to our demands and ambitions.
We are working on this and, just as we have ensured that things move ahead in the Union - thanks to Mr Watts' insistence - in relation to black boxes, we also hope that the same will happen on this issue within the IMO.
I would like to clarify certain matters.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say publicly that Malta and Cyprus are making a considerable effort to update their ship' s registers and to exclude and expel those that do not conform to the requirements of the Union.
I would like to end my speech by thanking Parliament and the three rapporteurs, who have worked brilliantly, for their support to the Commission.
I would also like to ask them to cooperate with the other parliamentarians so that the Erika II package may pass through this House as soon as possible and that it may enter into force without delay.
I would also like to publicly thank the services of the Commission, whose efforts have been wonderful.
For your information, I am going to give you a piece of information on the subject of governance: the services relating to the maritime sector in the Directorate-General for Transport - including secretaries - comprise no more than 40 people, and they are the human team behind all these initiatives, as well as a series of other tasks and functions relating to the maritime, port and other sectors.
This may give you an idea of the workload and the efforts made throughout this time.
This time the European Union has demonstrated that we have taken the fight against marine pollution seriously.
I would like to end by saying that, two years after the Erika tragedy, the satisfaction and success represented by the approval of the Erika I package today really must be a homage to all the citizens whose lives have been affected as a result of the sinking of the Erika two years ago.
It must be a homage to all Europeans, who, over recent years, have seen the systematic repetition of huge disasters involving pollutants without any suitable or tangible measures, with sufficient rigour and sufficient demands, being taken, and also those of us who are genuine lovers of the sea and of the environment, who are thinking not just of today but of future generations.
Thank you very much to all of you for your cooperation.
Thank you so much, Commissioner, for your important statement.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Cross-border provision of occupational pensions
The next item is the report (A5-0388/2001) by Mrs van den Burg, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication on the elimination of tax obstacles to the cross-border provision of occupational pensions (COM(2001) 214 - C5-0533/2001 - 2001/2212(COS)).
It is a pleasure for me to present here today a virtually unanimous draft opinion of the European Parliament on two often very controversial topics: tax policy and pensions.
This illustrates the urgency of this dossier.
Two aspects that are very topical at the moment in the European Union are the ageing population and labour mobility. It also illustrates that the report is broad-based.
I was appointed rapporteur for this topic more than a year ago.
The Commission notification had not been published at the time.
We were waiting for a directive proposal and were initially very critical because you, Commissioner Bolkestein, presented nothing but a notification.
Moreover, it took a very long time, until April of this year, before it was published.
As it happens, we as Parliament are now late ourselves with the plenary discussion of my report, also late in the day, but that is purely for reasons of scheduling.
Meanwhile, the report has already had its effect in part.
The ECOFIN Council of 16 October decided to take a pro-active approach based on my recommendations.
This has culminated in the automatic exchange of data and support in the collection thereof.
The first success has therefore been achieved.
It is, in fact, rather apt for the report not to feature on the agenda until now.
Indeed, it can enjoy the benefits of being discussed immediately prior to the Laeken Summit, to take place next Friday and Saturday.
For this Summit also has the topic of pensions on the agenda.
A joint report is scheduled for this Summit which has recently been adopted in the Social Council and the ECOFIN Council by order of the European Councils of Stockholm and Gothenburg and which concerns the social quality, the modernisation and financial sustainability of pensions.
The Ministers have committed to starting a process of open coordination; Member States will be presenting reports before September of next year, and at the spring summit in 2003, more detailed policy on this subject matter will be outlined in the European Union.
As you can see, in my report on the fiscal treatment of pensions, I too have called for the introduction of open coordination process of this kind.
The fiscal policy of Member States is closely intertwined with Member State policy on the content and qualitative aspects of pension schemes.
Indeed, the fiscal incentive to accumulating a pension and fiscal levies on pension payments are conditioned by requirements based on the view of Member States of what a sound pension scheme is, and the conclusion in my report is not by any means that we should simply put these requirements to one side to make way for opening the pensions market within the European Union, as some may be inclined to do.
No, I would clearly draw a distinction between two different situations. The first situation concerns migrant workers who are allowed to take their pension schemes with them to another Member State on the basis of earlier directives.
The Member State is to give these schemes the same fiscal treatment unconditionally, and the Commission is to be active in bringing matters before the European Court, and that receives my full support.
The alternative situation is that all workers, including those who simply remain in their own countries to live and work, should be eligible for tax deductions in respect of contributions to a foreign pension scheme.
This should not be unlimited in my view.
In this case, the national requirements and conditions still apply for now.
However, precisely in order to grow towards an integrated pensions market, I would call for this process of open coordination.
Since the criteria for fiscal incentives have everything to do with these quality requirements in terms of content, it seems right to link this process with what is about to be launched in Laeken.
I would therefore like to give this thought to Mr Bolkestein and the Belgian Presidency to take with them to this Summit in Laeken.
As far as I am concerned, you can also plug into the time schedule that was chosen there and take the 2003 spring summit as a point of reference instead of that of Barcelona, because the topic will not feature on the agenda there.
Finally, I think I can make a brief reference to the recommendations of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment and the Committee on Petitions.
I would also like to thank the rapporteurs in these committees for their contributions, and I hope that this report can help stem the flow of complaints and petitions, to which the Committee on Petitions, in fact, makes explicit reference, for that is, after all, the reason why we do all this, of course, namely the EU citizens who look forward to a truly border-free and obstacle-free Europe in terms of the movement of capital and labour, and in terms of encouraging the effective accumulation of pensions and fair taxation at retirement age.
I should like to thank the rapporteur warmly, not only in general, but also because she has indeed adopted significant sections of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Member States apply different fiscal systems to occupational pensions in terms of taxation or tax exemption from contributions, investment income and capital gains of the pension institution and from pension payments.
Eleven Member States use the EET system, three Member States an ETT system and two Member States a TEE system.
If you read these abbreviations out in Dutch, it seems as if eleven Member States are constantly eating, two Member States are drinking tea non-stop, while three Member States are served a strange kind of intermediate course, and I have to say that, in my view, this strange intermediate course is sometimes rather underrated in the discussion.
In my opinion, this is actually the most negative of the systems we have in Europe, because the tax office eats into it during the accumulation of a pension. This is, in fact, a true form of eating, and is possibly underestimated.
People are too fixated on the differences between the two other systems.
These differences in fiscal treatment may well lead to problems in labour mobility and mobility for the retired.
Indeed, these differences could lead to the double taxation of migrant workers.
Conversely, these differences could also lead to no taxation at all.
Let it be clear that this contravenes the philosophy of the internal market.
In addition, this situation adversely affects the flexibility of the labour market and undermines an important condition for the success of the monetary union.
Something will therefore be done about this situation, and that is why we are also pleased with the communication.
The rapporteur is right in noting that, due to unanimity requirements for decisions where taxation is concerned, we wait forever before anything changes.
I would therefore urge the Commission to do something via the Court of Justice, so that Member States are forced to adapt to the realities of the internal market in one way or another and will no longer discriminate against those entitled to pensions.
Mr President, I really regret that the representatives of the presidency are not present as we discuss this very important issue.
Our ageing European society calls for clear strategies to ensure the adequacy of pension systems.
Several measures, such as increasing the retirement age of an ever healthier population and thus increasing the size of the active workforce, are a crucial step in improving the ratio between the active working population and retired persons.
But it is evident that other measures have to be implemented as well.
The importance of occupational pensions schemes will rise in many Member States.
The European citizen would benefit from single market occupational pension schemes.
The variety of occupational pension schemes and providers would be improved.
The citizen and his employer could thus choose the most successful and best suited scheme, bringing the best interest rates, while offering full security of investment.
More and more Europeans work for relatively short periods of time in another Member State.
They are still disadvantaged when it comes to their occupational pension schemes.
Tax obstacles stand in the way of a fully functioning single market.
The Commission communication sets a strategy to resolve these obstacles that are a clear disincentive to individuals who wish to contribute to pension schemes outside their home Member States, as well as pension institutions that wish to provide pensions across borders.
I welcome the Commission communication as a first step towards a solution of this issue.
Like Mr Pronk, I wholeheartedly support the so-called EET model, as outlined in the Commission communication and in our committee's report.
The EET model means that pension inputs are exempted from taxation.
The pension scheme as well would be exempt and only the output would be taxed.
This system serves to defer taxation to the moment the pension becomes payable, thus avoiding double taxation without the need to harmonise the level of taxation and without thus interfering in the Member States' taxation practice.
Tax issues are in the hands of the Member States.
Like our rapporteur, Mrs van den Burg, who has done an excellent job with this report, I also wholeheartedly support the method of open coordination.
It is the only way we can achieve the results which our fellow European citizens need.
I strongly urge the Member States to work quickly to achieve the necessary results for the benefit of our ageing population.
Although we in the European Parliament may for the time being unfortunately not have the legislative means to decide on these issues, I can assure you that we follow them very closely and will do our best to achieve a common market for occupational pension schemes.
Mr President, I am speaking this evening as much in my capacity as draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Petitions as in my capacity as a Finn with Swedish as my mother tongue and a representative of the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
I am grateful that the rapporteur referred to the opinion of the Committee on Petitions and the fact that we have taken the problems of citizens seriously.
I would like to point to the statistics published in the opinion, from which it may be noted that over 500 petitions in the past decade related to this issue, almost 100 during this term of office, and that 14 of these relate to the situation between Finland and Sweden.
The large proportion of petitions on precisely this issue of the situation between Finland and Sweden is a natural expression of the fact that a free labour market has existed among the Nordic countries since the 1950s and that the Finns who moved to Sweden at that time are now considering moving back.
According to one set of figures, several thousand of these people are living in the town of Haparanda, on the border with Finland, as they cannot afford to return to Finland.
This situation shows the problems we shall face.
The problem is so topical that it was highlighted by Professor Edward Andersson in a message in one of a collection of papers in honour of the sixtieth birthday of the Finnish Judge of the Court of Justice of the EC, Leif Sevón, as well as in the communication from the Commission.
One of the problems on which still further light could be shed is that we in Europe apply such different variants of double taxation agreements within the framework of the OECD.
The different variants of agreements in this area are a problem which I believe should also be covered by the open method of coordination.
It is fascinating that this issue has been taken up by the Commission.
I congratulate you.
When a similar enquiry was conducted in the Nordic countries, former Minister for Nordic Cooperation Ole Norrback stated that the authorities did not believe that there was a problem in this area, although citizens thought that there was.
He also found that he had learned more during the enquiry than he had in his eight years as a minister.
I therefore hope that quite a few of the measures proposed by the rapporteur will be implemented, for example access to better information on the rules which actually apply.
I offer my wholehearted support for any courageous action on the part of the Commission, i.e. also taking cases to court when interpretation is at issue, in order to establish correct interpretations with regard both to taxation and to other similar charges with which we have problems.
I also believe two of the problems to be the crediting of tax allowances and the level of tax deducted at source.
It is particularly important that we work together to ensure that citizens have good access to information in this area.
The 'Swiss Life' sentiment, where pensions are concerned, awakens a feeling of unease in me, typified by the call for a wrong kind of solidarity and a lack of cooperation between the Member States.
The fact that there are Member States where workers accumulate pensions for themselves during their working lives requires full respect for acquired rights, and Member States where the citizens do not accumulate their own pension schemes, should therefore provide for adequate legislation in the short term in order to be able to face the anticipated problems caused by an ageing population.
The call for solidarity between generations with regard to pensions should in the first instance be accommodated in the Member States themselves.
International labour mobility should not be hampered by the different ways in which pension schemes are taxed fiscally.
It is the task of the Member States to remove the existing fiscal obstructions in the short term based on proper consultation, and to better attune the different pension schemes.
And cooperation among these Member States does not benefit from serving self-interest but from putting the interest of the citizen first.
If the European Union wants to create an internal market for its citizens in a credible manner, cooperation among Member States will need to lead to the harmonisation of fiscal measures with regard to pensions.
The EET scheme, in which premium contributions are not taxed but in which the payments are taxed, can then offer a direction for the mutual harmonisation of the fiscal rules concerning pensions.
We therefore endorse the line adopted by the Commission and the rapporteur, Mrs van den Burg, to reach an internal market in which the structure, management and payments of cross-border occupational pensions are no longer hampered by fiscal measures.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen and our rapporteurs, I would just like to start by warmly thanking our rapporteurs, above all Mrs van den Burg, but also Mrs Kauppi, for their cooperation on this report and also for the help they gave me with the report on cross-border provision of occupational pensions.
Today's report on taxation expands and continues the report for which the codecision procedure was negotiated as long ago as July this year.
All of us take the view that occupational pensions - among other areas - will require greater fiscal coordination.
We propose the EET system of deferred taxation, on the grounds that it is already a reality in the great majority of Member States.
If we do not achieve this fiscal coordination, we will have distortions of competition within the financial internal market through differing tax systems, which we do not want to have within a single market of which we want to make the best possible use, including in connection with the introduction of euro notes and coins.
Amendment No 1, proposed by Mrs Kauppi, expressly demands that the Council should make speedy progress towards a proposal for a directive on the activities of institutions providing occupational pensions, which would ensure mutual recognition of occupational pension systems and make a significant contribution to efforts towards effective tax coordination.
It is regrettable that this amendment should be needed at all, as the ECOFIN council, like the European Council meetings at Lisbon, Feira, Stockholm and wherever else, determines priorities and, despite that, has managed nothing more that the sending-out of a questionnaire. I wish therefore to ask the Council why it stresses the urgency of this, whilst its actions do not reflect that urgency.
What are the Council's problems with last October's proposal from the Commission? What does the Council have to say in response to the van den Burg report and to Parliament's resolution of July?
With which individual demands is the Council having difficulty?
We want answers. We want them because we want to carry on negotiating in order to be able at last to achieve the aims of the action plan on financial services and implement Parliament's requirements - for the benefit of citizens and of enterprises and in the spirit of the common objectives that are so often invoked.
Mr President, I should first of all like to take the opportunity, on behalf of the European Commission, of responding to what Mrs van den Burg and her fellow MEPs have put forward here this evening.
Allow me to start by thanking Parliament for the unanimous support it has given via the van den Burg report to the Commission communication on the fiscal treatment of pensions.
I have used the word 'unanimous support' , as was also borne out this evening, not only from the words by the rapporteur, Mrs van den Burg, but also from the words by Mrs Thors, Mrs Kauppi, Mr Blokland, Mr Pronk and others.
This is especially gratifying since this is a very important topic.
There are three points which I should like to elucidate further, and these points are firstly, the subject of the open coordination, secondly, the pan-European funds and thirdly, the developments in the legal field.
The resolution is asking us to develop a process of open coordination, and I would like to say that, in principle, the Commission is in favour of more coordination in tax matters.
An example of this is the working party which is being chaired by the British Minister, Mrs Primarollo. This working party is looking into the harmful tax competition, with very active involvement by the Commission.
However, I should like to say to Mrs van den Burg that there is a subtle, yet important, difference between open coordination and coordination.
In principle, open coordination is applied to areas of policy which fall within the national scope.
However, the resolution mentions the need, inter alia, for tackling double taxation and double non-taxation, and this means, by definition, that there is a cross-border element that, by definition, is one of the aspects of the internal market.
There is, therefore, probably little scope for a formal process of open coordination which, as already mentioned, relates to topics which fall within the decision-making remit of the national states.
And this is not the case here.
Having said this, the ECOFIN Council of 16 October expressly approved the Commission proposal to take measures in order to tackle double taxation and double non-taxation.
There is therefore very much a certain degree of coordination whereby the Commission retains the right, of course, to present further initiatives.
The second point concerned the pan-European pension funds, also mentioned by Mrs van den Burg and by Mr Pronk, I believe.
In this field, the ECOFIN Council of 16 October did not subscribe to the proposal for pan-European funds.
This does not mean in any way that the proposal has lost the Commission' s sympathy.
On the other hand, I am perhaps slightly less enthusiastic about the suggestion made in the report and mentioned a moment ago by Mrs van den Burg, namely that the Commission would prepare a proposal for a statute of international pension funds.
As I said just now, the ECOFIN Council was unable to endorse the proposal for pan-European funds, although these could function without new European legislation.
Under these circumstances, I have strong doubts at to the proposal' s political chances of introducing pan-European funds by means of legislation.
Thirdly and finally, I should like to say a few words about the legal aspects.
Last week, 6 December, the Court of Justice heard the Danner case, and this concerns, as I believe the Members are aware, a German citizen who emigrated to Finland and who wanted to continue with his German pension scheme, but unfortunately, the Finnish tax authorities refuse to grant him tax deductions on the contributions already made to the German scheme.
During the hearing, the Commission supported Mr Danner and made reference to its communication on pensions.
The verdict in this case can be expected next year.
Last month, a second case came to light. A Swedish court referred a case concerning the deductibility of contributions paid to a foreign pension insurance company by a permanent resident of Sweden to the Court of Justice, and this means that the correctness of the Commission' s legal analysis will be tested twice in the near future.
Mr Pronk also emphasised that the Commission should keep its promise that it will take action against Member States that infringe the Treaty freedoms, and I should like to assure Mr Pronk, as well as other Members who have mentioned this, that the Commission is in active dialogue with the Member States.
The Commission has formally asked the Member States for information about their national rules, and is currently looking into the responses it has received, and I can assure the Members of this Parliament that the Commission will start proceedings against Member States, where necessary.
As the Commission has indicated in its communication on tax policy of May of this year, a pro-active strategy for infringement procedures forms an important component of its approach aimed at making headway in the field of taxation.
In a nutshell, with the help of this Parliament and also of the Council, a certain dynamic seems to have come about in the field of tax exemption for pensions.
I should like to say by way of conclusion: let us try to hold on to this cooperation, and in that framework, I gladly accept Mrs van den Burg' s offer of further consultation.
Once again, I should like to extend warm thanks to Members for their excellent work and for the support for the Commission, and finally, I could perhaps say to Mr Karas that the Commission too is saddened by the fact that so little progress has been made on the work on the directive proposed by the Commission on pension funds.
Precious little has happened in this area over the past six months under the presidency that is about to come to an end.
A circular letter, a questionnaire, has been distributed to the Member States.
These questions have been received. Of course, work has been done on them, but that is all, really.
I gather that the Spanish Presidency certainly intends to work on this with greater drive.
Mr Karas, and the Members too, I believe, will agree with the Commission that such progress is extremely crucial and urgent on account of the demographic time bomb on which we are sitting, and I do not need to go into this topic any further. Everyone is familiar with it.
Mr President, in this matter of the fiscal treatment of pensions, I should once again like to thank your Parliament and all the speakers for their support they have given the Commission proposal, and I hope that we will be able to continue in the manner indicated as soon as possible.
Thank you very much, Mr Bolkestein.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Financial collateral arrangements
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0417/2001) by Mr Pérez Royo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on financial collateral arrangements (COM(2001) 168 - C5-0131/2001 - 2001/0086(COD)).
Mr President, the Commission' s proposal on financial collateral arrangements establishes the European legislative framework for this type of arrangement and is an essential proposal in terms of the functioning of the financial market on a European level.
This proposal is an essential element of the package of legislative proposals intended for this purpose.
The main objectives of the proposal, in a very summarised form, are to guarantee the existence of efficient and reasonably simple systems for the creation of collateral under either title transfer (including repo) or pledge structures.
To this end, it is necessary to introduce certain modifications into the legislations of various Member States, especially in the field of the regulation of pledges and also in the field of insolvency law and tendering procedures.
In summary, it is a question of creating a sound and efficient regime for limiting credit risk and thereby ensuring a reduction in its cost and, at the same time, improving the functioning and stability of the European financial markets.
From the European Parliament' s point of view, the main problem raised by the proposal was that of the subjective scope of application of the Directive.
The initial proposal consisted basically of reducing the scope of the Directive to financial institutions and to very large companies other than financial companies, that is, large commercial, industrial or service companies, whose capital base exceeds EUR 100 million or whose gross assets exceed EUR 1000 million.
The European Parliament, or at least the rapporteur, considered that this proposal raised two problems.
Firstly, the removal from the scope of the Directive, and consequently from its benefits, of the majority of companies which are not strictly financial; not only small and medium ones, but also large companies which do not reach those very high quantitative thresholds which I have mentioned.
Secondly, the setting of quantitative thresholds raises the problem of their revision and updating.
The proposed directive resolved this problem by means of the technique of delegating this updating within the Commission, assisted by the Securities Committee, the so-called 'Lamfalussy Committee' .
This is a legislative delegation, a delegation of powers which is unacceptable to Parliament, or at least to part of it, as is well known, since this is not the first time we have dealt with the Lamfalussy Committee, in this field and in others, with Commissioner Bolkestein himself.
The amendment which Parliament intends to introduce in this field consists, essentially, of the following: removing the reference to quantitative limits and, instead, establishing the requirement that, in these cases of agreements with commercial or industrial companies, the other party to the agreement, normally the taker of the collateral of the creditor, should be a financial entity.
This solution has the advantage of resolving, at the same time, the two problems I mentioned, that is, the problem of the exclusion of not very large companies and the problem of the delegation of powers - or of the Lamfalussy Committee, shall we say.
Apart from this amendment, which in turn takes the form of several amendments, there are others relating to the formalisation of agreements and evidence of the provision of collateral, the regulation of the right of use for pledge collateral and to other issues which I will not expand on.
Mr President, I must end by pointing out - and this is very important - that, from the outset, I have tried to work in close contact with the Commission and with the Belgian Presidency, whose help, in both cases, I am very grateful for at this time.
The purpose was to achieve a consensus which would make it possible to approve the proposed directive on first reading or at least to reduce the second reading to a mere formality.
We based our approach on this intention, since most of the actors, both the Member States and the actors within industry, agreed on its importance and on a basic consensus, except on certain points, in relation to this proposal.
It appeared that this objective had been achieved, since it appeared that the Council' s working group had reached an agreement which also satisfied Parliament' s essential intentions.
At the last moment the initial agreement in the Council' s working group has been broken and tomorrow, possibly, in Ecofin a different agreement will be approved, which includes other points which Parliament has not been able to consider in detail.
I therefore fear that the aim I referred to earlier of dispensing with the second reading, or at least reducing it to a mere formality, will not be possible, and we will have to continue working on this directive from next month.
In this event, for tomorrow' s vote, I would ask you to vote for the amendments which were approved in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs with slight modifications and to vote against an amendment which has been introduced in Parliament at the last moment, since the lack of consensus in the Council, that is to say, between the Member States, has also led to a rupture in the consensus which had been expressed in this Parliament' s Committee on Economic Affairs.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
(DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, please permit me to start by making an observation. We have here another example of how lawmaking in this House is normally dealt with just before midnight, whilst we have during the day been largely occupied with more or less pointless resolutions on one summit or another, which are generally fruitless.
I see it as desirable that we should in future deal with important legislative matters at a more appropriate time in the course of the part-session.
Apart from that, I would also like to thank the rapporteur on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee for his very balanced report, which one can also call a proposal by the Commission and a consequence of the directive on settlement finality that was adopted in 1998.
At that time, I was on the Legal Affairs Committee - which then had principal responsibility for the report - and was rapporteur for this directive. I can only say that the problems we faced, and which this report goes a long way towards solving, were the same as those we are dealing with today.
We must simply take care that there is a reasonable balance between the interest in having such credit security systems and keeping them stable, and the other interests that of course exist - those, perhaps, of creditors in insolvency cases - to which consideration must also be given, and that these interests are reconciled fairly.
For there can be no doubt that what is at issue here is not just the protection of these financial systems; there must also be guarantees that others affected by this regulation should not be put at an undue disadvantage.
I think that we have found a just reconciliation of the two, and it is this point that is decisive.
The rapporteur has also mentioned a second angle of significance to us in the Legal Affairs Committee, namely the fact that the boundaries as regards preferential creditors have - I would say - been drawn relatively generously.
We took the view that this category should either in fact be extended to include medium-sized enterprises, or, on the other hand, actually be restricted to banks and direct participants in financial markets.
I believe that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has achieved a good result, and, in view of the lateness of the hour, I would also like to come to a conclusion.
I can say on behalf of the Legal Affairs Committee that we are in agreement with what the rapporteur has presented, and we will also, for our part, support it.
Mr President, this is all going more quickly than any of us thought.
I would like to start by apologising on behalf of Mrs Villiers, who has just, at the end of a vote in our Group's Conservative delegation, been appointed deputy leader of the delegation, on which I warmly congratulate her.
As a lot has already been said, I would like to enlarge on just a few things.
Firstly, the speakers on this item and its predecessor have set themselves a great goal.
We want to do our utmost to ensure that the action plan for financial services - of which this directive is a part - is of high quality and can be adopted and implemented swiftly and in accordance with the timetable.
We hope that, unlike on other occasions, the Council will not delay in producing its own position in response to the preparatory work done at least on this issue by Parliament and the Commission.
Mr Lehne, who spoke before me, has already pointed out that it was the 1998 directive on settlement finality that set up the first milestone for Europe-wide financial policy.
This has to date been the only piece of European legislation governing cross-frontier securities in connection with financial transactions.
We need standardised regulation in this area in order to make the internal market efficient.
We need to do away with the uncertainty as regards the law applicable to transactions across borders in negotiable securities.
We need to do away with the increased administrative costs that stand in the way of an integrated EU market which is more attractive in terms of cost.
We need to do away with the legal uncertainty that comes with 15 different legal systems, because these differing legal systems lead to risks when securities are utilised abroad.
We also need to do away with the differing legislation on insolvency.
There is, then, a need for a standard minimum regulation.
This directive is the only means by which these objectives can be achieved, and so we welcome it and support the rapporteur's report and that produced by Mr Lehne of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Many thanks!
We hope that it will be possible swiftly to implement this report by Parliament, together with the Commission's proposals, and thus turn them into a reality.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking very much your rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo, and the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for the excellent work and very constructive approach on the collateral proposal.
This proposal, as was emphasised by Mr Karas just now, is a priority dossier in the Financial Services Action Plan and it is a crucial element for the timely delivery of the FSAP by 2003 for an integrated European Union securities market, and the year 2005 for the FSAP overall.
Given that the value of outstanding contracts on the European REPO market alone exceeds EUR 1.8 billion, the expected benefits are extremely large.
These contracts will, when the directive is implemented in the Member States, be governed by one legal regime, instead of 15 different ones.
Such a uniform pan-EU legal framework for the use of collateral will contribute to the greater integration and cost-efficiency of European financial markets, by encouraging cross-border business and creating a more competitive European financial market.
Now I come to the tabled amendments.
The Commission generally supports all the amendments except for Amendment Nos 16 and 21 which deal with extended protection of top-up collateral and the restriction of the scope respectively.
We fully support Amendments Nos 1, 2, 18 and19 as they stand.
In addition, and subject to some rewording, which we do not expect will cause any difficulties for Parliament, we can also accept in principle Amendment Nos 3 to 15, 17 and 20.
But we may need some flexibility in finding a final agreement.
By supporting Amendment No 1, we are not abolishing protection of credit-related top-up collateral.
But the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 16 which protects credit risk top-up collateral under the directive, and nor, we believe, can the Council.
Nonetheless, as provided by Amendment No 1, it would be possible under national law to protect that kind of collateral.
To be more precise, Amendment No 16 is not acceptable to the Commission because it could strongly conflict with insolvency law policy which generally discourages improvement of a creditor' s position as a result of an insolvency-related event or at least in a context of deteriorating credit-worthiness.
Amendment No 21 is not acceptable to the Commission because the Commission would like to see as many non-financial companies as possible benefiting from this directive.
Those companies are already using these techniques in the market.
In conclusion, I should like once again to thank Members of Parliament for their sterling cooperation.
I have also been apprised of what has occurred today in Coreper, as the rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo, mentioned.
Tomorrow, as he said, there will be an Ecofin meeting at which I myself will be present.
I do not know what the discussion will lead to tomorrow.
I regret the need for a second reading for obvious reasons, but I cannot help that.
The Commission is in the hands of Council on the one hand and Parliament on the other.
Lastly, I should like to say to Mr Lehne that I quite agree with him on the timing of this debate.
It is an extremely important debate and yet it takes place at almost 11 p.m. and the public interest is very small.
I assure you, Mr President, that if this debate could have taken place earlier today I would have been very happy.
I am sure Members present would also have been very happy.
Despite the time and the fact that Parliament is not so well represented, the debate has been of high quality and I, as President for the sitting, am very glad to have been able to take part at this hour and in this final nocturnal Strasbourg debate of 2001.
We thank you on behalf of Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 10.55 p.m.)
Award of Sakharov Prize 2001
Mrs Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Mr Izzat Ghazzawi, Archbishop Zacarias Kamwenho, it is with great pleasure that the European Parliament welcomes you today in this Chamber, in order to award you the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.
Please allow me to offer a warm welcome not only to yourselves but also to the persons accompanying you, and especially to those of your relatives who are able to be present.
Since 1988, the Sakharov Prize has been awarded every year by the European Parliament in recognition of individuals or organisations who have left their mark on the struggle for human rights and freedom in their home countries.
At the centre of their actions has lain a deep-rooted conviction: the right to live in an environment of respect for the dignity of all human beings, whatever their ethnic origins, gender or beliefs.
This year it has been decided, for the first time, that the Sakharov prize is to be shared between three recipients.
This is an exceptional decision in response to exceptional circumstances.
Mrs Nurit Peled-Elhanan, you are an Israeli who has been through profound and personal suffering.
You once wrote: 'If war is to be ended, it is necessary to realise that blood is the same colour for everyone and that when a single child dies the whole world dies with it' .
When your thirteen-year-old daughter Smadar lost her life in a Palestinian suicide bombing, you did not allow the horror to turn your mind towards hatred. Instead, you chose to denounce - and I quote your words - 'a short-sighted policy which refuses to recognise the rights of the other and stirs up hatred and conflicts' .
How many of us can be sure that we too would maintain the same courage and dignity in the face of the worst injustice of all, the loss of a child? All of us must feel affected in the depths of our soul by the strength and lucidity which have made you the symbol of all those Israelis who are campaigning for a peace which will take into account the aspirations of two peoples, the people of Israel and the people of Palestine.
In awarding you the Sakharov Prize, our aim is to show our deep attachment to supporting all those who, through their daily actions, in spite of such difficult historical circumstances and in spite of the pressure of events, are working tirelessly to improve relations between peoples.
Mr Izzat Ghazzawi, you are a Palestinian whose suffering has also been great.
In one of your letters from prison, you addressed an Israeli friend and poet, Ya' ir Horowitz, who had recently died. In your letter, you tried to re-establish a dialogue that had been interrupted by death, outlining the dream of peace that you shared and drawing on the resources of hope to fight the despair which threatened to overwhelm you because the dream of peace was fading with time.
You have tirelessly promoted the cause of peace and encouraged dialogue between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
Your ardour has never slackened, despite imprisonment and censorship and, more importantly, the irreplaceable loss of your sixteen-year-old son Rami, killed by the Israeli army while trying to help a school friend who had been wounded in the school playground.
You have resolutely pursued that same dialogue, through your writings, your lecturing at Birzeit University, your leading role as chairman of the Association of Palestinian Writers, your contacts with Israeli writers and your joint publications.
You have endeavoured to make mutual understanding and tolerance prevail among the cultures, religions and peoples of the entire region.
Mrs Nurit Peled-Elhanan and Mr Izzat Ghazzawi, by honouring you both together, the European Parliament hopes to make a contribution to the advance of the cause of peace over war, to the expression of tolerance and understanding and to the preservation of hope.
Archbishop Kamwenho, your country has been at war for 25 years.
Two generations of Angolans have grown up without knowing the meaning of the word 'peace' . The death toll of this interminable war makes frightening reading: one million dead, almost four million displaced individuals, hundreds of thousands of war orphans and war wounded, a starving population, meaning one child in five dies before the age of five, life expectancy is less than 45 years, millions of anti-personnel mines scattered throughout Angola, and extreme poverty despite the existence of natural resources which have, unfortunately, largely been used only for purposes of warfare.
The European Parliament has always been committed to the promotion of a political solution to the conflict in Angola, and we have repeatedly stressed the urgent need for all parties to embark on a global dialogue with a view to a lasting peace based on the promotion and protection of human rights.
Our Parliament has repeatedly expressed its support for the efforts made in this direction by the churches and the organisations of civil society.
As Archbishop of Lubango, as President of the Catholic Episcopal Conference of Angola and São Tomé and of the Ecumenical Committee for Peace in Angola, you have been an apostle in the service of fundamental rights and peace and a symbol of the hopes of the Angolan people, of its desire for peace, liberty and justice.
We salute your life' s journey as an individual and pay tribute to your ecumenical spirit, your determination and your eloquence.
We also salute you as a spokesman for the aspirations of all those in Angolan civil society who are working for dialogue and reconciliation.
Today and for all these reasons, Archbishop Kamwenho, we award you the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought.
I shall conclude by expressing our wish to honour the memory of the victims of these conflicts, of all those, children, women and men, who have fallen in Israel, in Palestine and in Angola.
We declare our support for the three winners of the Sakharov Prize for 2001, and we are profoundly moved by their tragic fate, and affirm a common stand against violence in whatever form.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Luisa, my family, Mrs Sartaoui, I wanted to dedicate this speech to the memory of my father and his Palestinian friend, Dr Issam Sartaoui, who both dreamt of peace thirty years ago.
I am, I feel, obliged, however, to dedicate this speech to the children who were killed yesterday by the Israeli army, simply because they were born Palestinians.
It is a great honour to be here today with you, as winner of the Sakharov Prize.
I am well aware that, on such occasions, one should speak of hope and of the human qualities that can lead us to the triumph of compassion and fraternity between people.
Forgive me, therefore, for not speaking of this today.
In Jerusalem, where I am from, hope and humanity are fading away.
Israel is becoming a graveyard for children, which is growing bigger day by day. It is like an underground kingdom, extending beneath our feet and destroying everything in its wake.
It is the kingdom where my daughter lives, with her Palestinian murderer, whose blood, mixed with hers, flows through Jerusalem, which became hardened to the sight of blood a long time ago.
They are there with many, many more children, and they have all been let down.
The murderer of my daughter has been let down, because his act of murder and of suicide achieved nothing.
It did not put an end to the cruel Israeli occupation, it did not lead him to paradise, and those who promised him that his action would have meaning and value go on as if he had never existed.
My young daughter was let down because she believed, just as thousands of her new brothers and sisters believed, that she lived in safety, that her parents protected her from evil and that nothing could happen to sweet little girls who cross the road to go to their dancing lesson.
And all the children who are there with them have been let down, because the world goes on, as if their blood had never been spilled.
In Jerusalem, where I am from, the men who call themselves our leaders have allowed death to hold sway.
It appears, however, that these gentlemen know how to live in peace when they have to.
On Friday 1 December, the editorial of a local newspaper in a Jerusalem in mourning told us that there had been peace in Jericho for two months.
There are no Israeli soldiers there, no Palestinian policemen, no gun shots.
Do not believe that the Americans have succeeded in convincing Ariel Sharon to stop sending young eighteen-year-old Israelis to kill innocent Palestinians, nor that they have succeeded in convincing the Palestinians to stop blowing themselves up along with their innocent Israeli victims.
Far from it.
Jericho is at peace because the Israeli and Palestinian leaders have together decided to reopen the casino ...
When I read this article, I could not stop myself from thinking that my daughter' s life is not even worth a single roulette chip.
Almost 200 children have been killed since the beginning of the Intifada, of this incessant massacre, and they are worth nothing more than roulette chips.
And yet, I was not very surprised, since I always knew that our war was not that of the Israeli people against the Palestinian people, but that of people who destroy lives who call themselves our Heads of State against the people from both sides.
These cunning politicians use God, the wealth of the nation, freedom and democracy, and even our periods of mourning as political tools, and they use our children as if they were figurines in their games of chance.
For instance, you knock over ten of mine, and I shall knock over 300 of yours, and we will be quits until the next time.
None of this is new in the history of mankind.
Leaders have always used God and other sacred values, such as honour and courage, to justify their self-indulgent ambition.
And the only voice, throughout history, that spoke out to expose them and to oppose this was always the voice of mothers; the voice of those who produced the Jewish people, who disobeyed the Pharaoh' s orders to kill little boys at birth; the voice of Rachel, our biblical mother, weeping for her children and refusing to be consoled; the voice of the women of Troy; the mothers of Argentina, the mothers of Ireland, Israel and Palestine.
It is the voice of those who give life and who are committed to preserving it.
It is the only voice that remains after the violence has subsided, and which truly understands the meaning of the end of everything.
Mothers are the only ones who know that the death of a child, any child, whether from Serbia or Albania, Iraq or Afghanistan, whether Jewish or Palestinian, is the death of the whole world, of its past and its future.
When Luisa told me that I had been awarded the Sakharov Prize, I told her that I did not deserve it, since I had never saved a child, not even my own.
But then I thought that the prize had not been awarded to me as a person, but to this voice that I took on through death and which transcends nationalities, religions, and even time.
This voice that politicians and generals have tried to silence since man first walked this earth and since men have been waging war.
I have often been asked whether or not I feel the need to exact revenge for the murder of my daughter, who was only killed because she was born an Israeli, by a young man, who had so little hope that he was willing to kill himself and who only killed himself because he was Palestinian.
I always quote the verse of the great Hebrew poet Bialik. 'Satan has not yet created those who would exact revenge for the death of a small child' .
And this is not because Satan does not have the means, but because after a child has died, there is no longer vengeance, death, or life.
The only feeling that remains, the only desire, the only need, that can never be satisfied, is that of protecting the child.
The mothers who have lost their children will tell you that their arms hurt due to the constant need to hold the child and keep it from harm.
No mother would ever think of seeking consolation by killing one child for another.
If we do not wish our entire planet to become a kingdom of dead children, we must raise our voices as mothers in order to silence all the other voices.
We must once again listen to the voice of God who said 'Do not harm children' . Otherwise, there will soon be nothing left to say, nothing left to hear, other than this incessant cry of mourning.
Ladies and gentlemen, I beg you to listen to the voices that are coming from the underground kingdom of children who have been killed.
That is where justice resides today, that is where true multiculturalism holds sway, that is where we know that there is no difference between blood, between skin, between identity cards or flags.
Listen to the cries of the dead children and help their mothers to save the children who are still alive.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Madam President, distinguished Members of the European Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends: It is with great emotion and excitement I receive this recognition today.
This prize is an act of faith in the ability of the world to promote a sustained dialogue of tolerance and understanding.
It only made my commitment towards a nobler future for the conflict in our region stronger and more persistent than ever.
There are so many events that I would like to tell you about here, but the time I am given is limited.
From my prison, for almost three years I wrote a book called 'Letters Underway' where I asked myself during the bleakest moment the following question: could it be possible for me to address in my book an Israeli figure who is an artist, a father, a real human soul, a man or a woman who would abolish the image of a soldier guarding my solitary cell?
When the answer was yes, I proceeded with my writing. As soon as I was out of prison, I took part in a writers' meeting in Oslo where a few intellectuals from both sides met to discuss how they could contribute to peace.
During ten days of ebbs and flows, the Israelis talked much about the historic distress that befell the Jewish nation and people.
The Palestinians talked about their daily suffering under occupation.
But finally, after ten days, we were able to understand each other's needs.
I could not forget one comment by an Israeli writer.
During this meeting, on the tenth day, he said, 'I always thought that man is evil... now I am not sure'.
In that same year, 1993, my son fell dead to the bullets of the soldiers in his school.
The event changed the taste of everything in my life, but I knew that a good human being is a living one.
Suffering, if we so decide, can be used as a power to heal rather than a blind struggle for revenge and hatred.
The principle of an eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind.
I knew how to use understatement as a means of compromise in my literature.
It is true, however, that the conflict of man with his heart is the noblest sort of struggle.
It is a pity that the conflict of today is between nations and cultures.
Left to the generals of war and enmity, they will make it a bloody history of terror.
Left to them, we will accept it for a fact that our world is either bad or mad.
But those who have read history in a tolerant way, understand that what is needed is a mutual moral commitment towards the facts of existence and the human obligation towards life as the only valuable gift.
Abnormalities of all kinds do not have a race, or a religion, or a certain home.
Only civilisation has its own religion and faith and home.
That is because there has been no unique civilisation as a creation of its own: all through history civilisations borrowed from each other and excelled most when they were able to share their merits and values.
However, the recent fear of a clash between cultures is not groundless.
There is an amazing imbalance between the rich and the poor, and there are a great deal of injustices that threaten the very principle of tolerance in our globe.
Yet, our insistence on dialogue between cultures is at its highest now, because we have to search into the roots of terror.
As a writer living in an exceptionally troubled area, I must look at this issue of intercultural discourse as a story of attraction and excitement.
Whatever happens in our region is doomed to affect the whole world.
That is not because we are the centre of the world.
It is only because the spiritual roots sprang from here to transmit their force among every and each one of us.
Both attraction and excitement arise from this tremendous past.
It is high time now to see that tremendous spiritual past as a part of a human culture.
It is important to see it as a part of a human culture and not a divine call for a holy land that eats up its children.
Man is holy.
Nothing else is holy if man is humiliated and deprived of his rights to live in dignity.
There will be no reason for a detailed map with the human heart being broken in our area at the edge of hope and despair.
We are fed up with the illusion of victory.
No nation can be defeated if it insists on the meaning of life as a value in itself.
Our isolation and anxiety is beyond any proportion, but our faith in the future is also great.
We will always need your support for a sustained peace process, and a support for the peace camps that lit the candles for all those who lost their lives in the ignorant battle.
Once more, with deep gratitude, I thank you for awarding me, together with my partners, this prestigious prize, but it is also with all the anxiety I have in my heart for the future of Palestine and Israel, and the admiration I express for all the men and women who are there now and who have the dream and the vision.
(The House rose and accorded the speaker a standing ovation)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my dear friends, I come from a land where the sun beats down and where the horizon is as wide as can be.
I come from a country whose land is rich and whose people have little hope, where the forest is boundless but hope is not.
From that land I bring greetings to you, Mrs Fontaine, President of the European Parliament.
From that land I bring friendly greetings to you, honourable Members of this generous Parliament.
I bring brotherly greetings to Mrs Nurit Peled-Elhanan and Mr Izzat Ghazzawi, the couple with whom I share this honour.
From that country named Angola I bring greetings to the illustrious guests at this Plenary Assembly.
Nor should we forget the social, written, spoken and televised communication that makes the five continents one huge human village.
Finally, and this is where I probably should have begun, from Angola I bring greetings to this historic city of Strasbourg, home to the European Parliament, a city that I discovered when I was still young, attracted not only by its cultural climate but mainly by the memory of the many missionaries from Alsace who, together with Portuguese missionaries, brought the gospel to our land.
So, to all of you, ladies and gentlemen, I bring a warm embrace from Angola.
Mrs Fontaine, honourable Members of the European Parliament, Mr José Ribeiro e Castro, the party that has accompanied me here, amongst whom I wish to mention the Deputy Minister for Culture and the Ambassador of Angola, the President of the European Parliament, in her kind letter officially announcing the distinction that befell my unworthy person and congratulating me, wrote that peace has always been one of her main objectives and that my commitment to the ecumenical cause had raised her awareness.
In fact, the Episcopal Conference of Angola and São Tomé, which I have chaired for almost four years, wrote in its pastoral message of March 2000 "we cannot spread the gospel without promoting peace" .
The Interdenominational Committee for Peace in Angola, also formed last year, seeks to be the voice of believers on the crucial matter of peace.
In a letter dated 11 January 2001, His Excellency the President of the Republic, José Eduardo dos Santos, in response to a Christmas message of mine, wished me every success in the pastoral action that I am undertaking in the quest for peace and for the happiness of the Angolan people.
And on the day following the announcement of the Sakharov Prize winners, the chorus of congratulations from everywhere and from all layers of society, including the President of the Republic and from Mr Jonas Savimbi, highlighted the unifying dimension of the prize; Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and its quality of stimulating the pursuit of ideals of peace.
Unfortunately, in the land of prizewinners, particularly in mine, we have witnessed actions and behaviour which, humanly speaking, could invalidate the precepts put forward by the parliamentarians of the European Union.
But our sixth sense tells us that this will not happen.
The message of the 2001 Sakharov Prize is safe, and so I can assure you that there are many things that will not be the same as they were before.
I believed and that was why I spoke out.
It is impossible not to speak when faced with the tragedy of the Angolan situation.
Living side by side with a simple and suffering people qualifies us to speak in their name both in recognising the efforts made by the government and in the quest for improvements that the people themselves are calling for.
I said a few days ago that in the 14 years of anti-colonial war there was just one year, 1973, that recorded an unheard of rate of financial growth, whereas in the twenty-five years of the civil war, we have only seen a decrease, that has grown worse day by day, particularly since 1998.
Hunger, nakedness and disease have created images which, if caught and projected onto the screens of the warlords would perhaps also give these people a sleepless night and make them begin to think about Angola.
Malnutrition affects 47% of the population in some provinces, as attested by the appeal for humanitarian aid launched recently by the United Nations.
The war in Angola has various causes.
Thinking about the Lord who brought us here, to Strasbourg today, 12 December, half way between the 10th, the day of the Declaration of Human Rights, and the 14th, the day of His death, I see that I could focus on one of the causes: intolerance.
It was not by chance that the UN declared 1995 as the United Nations Year of Tolerance.
Still echoing in our ears and in our conscience are the words spoken by Pope John Paul II on World Peace day this year and those of Federico Mayor Zaragoza, the then director of UNESCO, when he said, and I quote, 'Humanity must be able to dedicate itself to peace, safeguard it, re-establish it and rebuild it by creating a space for dialogue, consultation and reconciliation.
No more violence!'
It has been very difficult to speak of tolerance in my country because the roots of intolerance run deep, being anchored in the political bipolarisation between the two most popular parties: the MPLA and UNITA.
In this climate, a speech on the subject of tolerance is seen either as a betrayal of these parties, which have great popular support - and are, ironically, at war with one another - or as a reactionary attitude, if expressed by an independent person.
Given this climate, to speak of change would mean sharing power with rivals; but, for us, the church and civil society, the first change would be to accept tolerance as an issue of survival which is, therefore, necessary, from the foundations to the roof, from the political parties to the government, from civil society and the churches themselves to the national project.
Tolerance is the key word, as Locke teaches us, if we want to find a human basis for integrating conflict resolution, including our own, for a harmonious development.
In the case of Angola, tolerance would be given form in the specific aspect of national reconciliation, whose foundations can only be reached through permanent and inclusive dialogue, able to break this never-ending cycle of war.
Tolerance requires solidarity and fraternity and the lesson that we have learned from Europe is the lesson emerging from this great Assembly, which is meeting here today.
Human fraternity, pervading all facets of our relationship, also draws our attention to the economic angle and its ambiguities.
In this 'South' where we live, wealth generates both war and signs of solidarity.
Speaking of mining in particular, I would say that it is already time to increase the transparency that would make it more difficult to finance conflicts but which would also encourage social investment ...
... affecting the standard of living of Angolans, and this would be achieved by themselves, not by something that looks like charity.
To conclude, I shall refer to the thought that inspired the campaign that brings me today to this podium to receive the Sakharov Prize: help Angola to live!
This was the challenge that the Catholic Church set the Soviet Union and the United States in 1986 in its assessment of the first ten years of national independence.
After spending another 16 years at war, we launched the same message.
But to whom, this time? To the MPLA and to UNITA to whom we repeated with a breaking heart: twenty-six years of history have been stained with blood - the blood of brothers killed by brothers, and closing the doors to dialogue would open them to a war without a visible end.
This can be read in the pastoral message issued by the bishops.
Today, with the confidence of the European Union, whose parliamentarians have placed the prestigious Sakharov Prize in our hands, I humbly call for a bilateral and simultaneous cease-fire that will open the way to a cessation of hostilities, as we have called for so many times.
Because we can still make up for lost time.
Agostinho Neto, Angola' s first President, left us these mysterious verses which I have written down:
'I no longer wait
I am the man for whom others wait'
Every Angolan is the man or woman for whom others wait.
Help them to live!
This is why the financial component of this Prize will be going to the Ecumenical Fund for Peace, in other words, to promote education for peace and for national reconciliation amongst the population.
So, my friends, help Angola to live!
Thank you very much!
(Loud, sustained applause)
(The President presented the Sakharov Prize to the three laureates)
(The House rose and gave sustained applause)(The formal sitting was closed at 12.50 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I should like to point out, with respect to yesterday's minutes, that Dr Ganzert, the lawyer detained in Nicaragua, has now been allowed to leave, and to thank you for everything you did to bring this about.
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
(The Minutes of the previous sitting were approved)
Order of business
At yesterday' s meeting of the Conference of Presidents, it was decided that the sitting of Monday 17 December in Brussels will be extended by one hour.
The part-session will therefore begin at 3 p.m. and end at 7.30 p.m.
Madam President, as the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, we are against the extension of the Monday sitting, which will serve only to get the anti-terrorism package approved.
This package was presented in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs this morning, but we could not proceed to the discussion because of the very tight deadlines, and no report was drawn up.
I think it is worrying that Parliament should express an opinion without first having drawn up a report on such an important subject.
We are therefore against this shortening of deadlines, because it simply does not allow us to present a reasoned report on such an important subject.
Thank you, Mr Di Lello Finuoli.
It will therefore be recorded in the Minutes that you are not in favour of the decision taken by the Conference of Presidents.
Decision on urgent procedure
I shall now give the floor to Mr Watson, the chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
Watson (ELDR), chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
Madam President, last night two requests were referred to my committee under Rule 112.
These relate to re-consultation on two framework decisions from the Council, one on combating terrorism, the other on a proposal for a European arrest warrant.
We were asked to treat these as a matter of urgency.
My committee met this morning and agreed to propose to the plenary that we agree to urgency for these texts as submitted without report.
Thank you, Mr Watson.
We shall therefore act in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, as usual.
Does any Member wish to speak against the request?
We shall now hear a Member who is in favour of this request.
Madam President, much less vehemently but, I believe, just as justifiably, I would like to ask this Parliament to vote in favour of this urgent motion.
We in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs have been working on this issue for a year.
On 5 September we voted in favour of Mr Watson' s report in which we asked for concrete Commission proposals in favour of harmonising penalties in the field of terrorism and establishing mutual recognition of sentences, which is known, inappropriately in my view, as the European arrest warrant.
There have been passionate and interesting debates in our committee, and it is a shame that Mr Cohn-Bendit has not been able to follow them.
Work has been done in this Parliament in relation to the texts which the European Commission has been working on for over a year.
I believe that we are all responsible adults and Members of Parliament, we know the background to the texts, we understand their political importance and we can make an effort to accept the inconveniences of doing a little work over these days, so that on Monday, before the Laeken Summit, in a perfectly correct manner in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, Parliament may give its opinion for the second time.
(Applause)
We heard the chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms, one speaker in favour and one speaker against.
We shall now vote on the request for urgent procedure.
(Parliament approved the request for urgent procedure)
Vote
Thank you, Mr Costa Neves.
After the vote on the amendments
Mr President, I am advised that the figures that we have just voted on do not make sense unless we vote on the Wynn report which is about the financial perspective.
We need to vote on that to make sure that we have the figures before we accept that the vote we have just had is complete.
In other words, Mr Wynn, you would like to vote on your report now and then vote on the report by Mr Costa Neves and Mrs Buitenweg.
If that is what you mean, I do not see any problem in doing this.
Report (A5-0447/2001) by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision on the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument (COM(2001) 625 - C5-0557/2001 - 2001/2227(ACI))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0400/2001) by Mr Costa Neves and Mrs Buitenweg, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2002 as modified by the Council (all sections) (14341/2001 - C5-0600/2001 - 2324/2000(BUD)) and Letter of amendment No 2/2001 (14340/2001 - C5-0615/2001) to the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2002
Section I - European Parliament
Section II - Council
Section III - Commission
Section IV - Court of Justice
Section V - Court of Auditors
Section VI - Economic and Social Committee
Section VII - Committee of the Regions
Section VIII (A) - European Ombudsman
Section VIII (B) - European Data Protection Supervisor
On Amendment No 1
Madam President, a brief parenthesis to remove the spanner from the works: we reached an agreement which, from Parliament's point of view, was perfect as far as development policy output targets are concerned.
But we do not to spell it out again in the resolution in question, so we are withdrawing Amendment No 1.
We believe that Parliament has made excellent progress within the budget on this point and Amendment No 1 is therefore no longer necessary.
Thank you, we shall take note of this.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you have concluded the second reading of the draft budget.
I have seen the agreement reached between our two institutions at our consultative meeting on 21 November assume concrete form in your vote today.
I take note of the fact that there remains some difference of opinion on the division of expenditure.
On that point the Council reserves all rights.
Nevertheless the Council is able to agree to the proposed maximum percentage increase that emerged from your second reading.
Thank you, Mr Vande Lanotte.
Does the Commission wish to take the floor?
(Having invited the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Vande Lanotte, the Commissioner, Mrs Schreyer, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Wynn, and the rapporteurs, Mr Costa Neves and Mrs Buitenweg to join her, the President signed the budget)
Mr Sturdy, I can assure you that the President of the European Parliament will take careful note of your request.
Report (A5-0427/2001) by Mr Colom i Naval, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: financial programming 2002-2006: financial perspective headings 3 and 4 (SEC(2001)1013 - C5-0410/2001 - 2001/2162(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Simplified procedure
Proposal for a Council decision, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on an exchange of letters between the European Community and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) concerning additional funding in 2001 under the current EC-UNRWA Convention (COM(01)741 - C5-0663/01 - 2001/0288(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the proposal by the Committee on Budgets)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0453/2001), by Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on cross-border payments in euros (14562/1/2001 - C5-0639/2001 - 2001/0174(COD))
(The President declared the common position approved)President.
I would like to stress that the excellent cooperation between our institutions enabled this regulation to be adopted quickly.
The legislative co-decision procedure was used in an exemplary manner and I would like to give my very warm congratulations to all those who helped to achieve this outcome.
Simplified procedure
Draft Council regulation, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, concerning the adoption of specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism (COM(01)569 - C5-0665/01 - 2001/0228(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the Commission proposal thus amended)
Draft recommendation (B5-0747/2001) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the crisis in the Middle East and the role of the European Union in the region
Before the vote on Paragraph 3
Madam President, I suggest - and I hope the House will back me up here - that we add the following at the end of this sentence:
'demanding the Palestinian Authority dismantle the terrorist networks including the arrest and prosecution of all suspects'.
(Parliament agreed to take into consideration the oral amendment) - Before the vote on Amendment No 7
Madam President, I am certainly not acquainted with the vital reasons that have led to the choice of today' s timetable.
I do not, however, understand how we can end the vote at 11 a.m. and debate a very important report on social and economic problems after 5 p.m., when there may not be many Members present in the House.
If it is more important in this Parliament to talk about Mr Berlusconi than the social policies of the European Union, then please say so and in that way we will know that our work is completely useless.
Thank you, Mrs Muscardini.
As you know, the draft agenda has been adopted by this House.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Costa Neves and Buitenweg report (A5-0400/2001)
Madam President, the Costa Neves/Buitenweg report deals with the general budget of the European Union.
You can see, Madam President, that right now at least half of the members of the public who are watching Members leave the House when Mr Fatuzzo starts his explanations of vote are elderly and pensioners - but that is just a coincidence.
Well, I have looked at the European budget and tried to pick out the entries for initiatives that are specifically concerned with, and of interest to, the elderly and pensioners.
I had to get the magnifying glass which, as you know, on the computer lets you magnify the words written in the various documents, and I looked and looked and looked but could not find any.
That, then, Madam President, is why I had to vote against this European Parliament budget.
I hope next year, at the end of 2002, I may instead have the satisfaction of voting for it because at last there will be some substantial, major, visible entries favouring pensioners.
- (DA) We have voted against Amendment No 7 to the report on the EU' s draft general budget for 2002, tabled by Jens-Peter Bonde on behalf of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities.
As it stands, the draft is of no use at all in securing a better arrangement for MEPs' travel expenses.
It is also our view that MEPs' travel expenses are a subject to be dealt with in connection with a reform of the Statute for Members.
As we reach the end of the budgetary procedure for the financial year 2002, I think that it is important to make a number of comments about agriculture, the Community's border regions and the European Union's external actions, to confine myself to the essential points.
With regard to agriculture, the fact that several billion euros of the 2001 budget have not been used will mean that significant sums will be returned to the Member States, whilst a strong dollar with regard to the euro will have at least had the effect of automatically creating a favourable situation on the markets.
Nevertheless, if necessary, the Commission should not hesitate to extend the special purchase scheme for beef - a programme which was set up in the aftermath of the BSE crisis and which expires at the end of the year - by six months, either through an SAB or a transfer of appropriations, even though it is proposed in the Letter of Amendment No 2 to cancel the billion euros initially earmarked for any additional needs related to BSE.
The border regions, which were generously provided for in the Berlin agreements, will, for their part, benefit from EUR 16 billion over seven years.
The Nice and Gothenburg summits confirmed this policy, entrusting the Commission with the task of setting up an additional programme worth some EUR 191 million.
The Committee on Budgets has deemed it appropriate for its part to add a further 50 million under Interreg.
This is in spite of the fact that in many cases there is clearly no proof that these 22 border regions (from Finland to Greece via Bavaria) are in need of this new money, and that they already receive significant financial support and will be the first to benefit from enlargement.
In comparison, given the amounts at stake, we cannot but be taken aback by the lack of aid which was available following the devastation wreaked on French forests by the storms, the effects of the floods in Picardy and the immediate damage caused by the Erika.
Given the urgent nature of the situation, appropriations ought even to have been re-deployed.
(Intervention shortened pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
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During the budget discussions with the Commission on Category 4, broad agreement has been reached as regards the importance of improving the reporting system on development assistance, as well as the need to develop targets and indicators for measuring impact.
Moreover, agreement has also been reached to have a benchmark that 35% of spending should be allocated in support of social infrastructure.
It was my intention, as rapporteur for the Development Cooperation Budget, to suggest an oral amendment to the original amendment, submitted by me, emphasising "... to the social sectors in a given country, reflects the wishes of the beneficiaries and that a degree... the norm.
Progress towards meeting the benchmark will be monitored through the Common RELEX Information System".
Because of procedural rules and lack of time, however, this oral amendment proved impossible to submit.
The intention, however, was to emphasise that the benchmark should be seen in the context, not only of total donor spending, but also taking into account recipient country wishes.
Wynn report (A5-0447/2001)
.
(ES) The Interinstitutional Agreement of 1999, for which I was rapporteur, created the Flexibility Instrument, a 'light' revision of the Financial Perspectives of less inconvenience to the Council.
In the two previous budgetary years, we rather forced the interpretation of that mechanism, since it was applied by us in order to meet the needs of Kosovo and Serbia, with regard to the fact that the Council refused to keep its word and agree to the revision of the Financial Perspectives which it promised in its Declaration of 6 May 1999.
This year, the European Commission presented a proposal to mobilise the Flexibility Instrument which, for the first time, respected the letter and the spirit of the Agreement.
But once again it has not been possible and the responsibility for that falls to Parliament.
It was a question of providing EUR 197 million of the EUR 281 million it will cost to convert the fleet which previously fished in Moroccan waters, a fleet and an industry which provides employment in the least-favoured regions of the current EU: Galicia, Andalusia and the Algarve.
All of these are Objective 1 regions.
On the afternoon of the conciliation of 21 November, the Council and the Commission sounded out formulae which did not represent a reduction for anybody, but it seems it was not enough for some people to obtain resources which were difficult to justify, but that it had to be at the expense of everybody else.
The result is that the Objective 1 regions of Spain and Portugal will have to pay for 40% of the conversion of their fleet by means of the reprogramming of the FIFG.
My colleague Barbara Dührkop Dührkop will continue with the explanation of vote.
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(ES) I will continue the explanation of vote started by my colleague Mr Colom i Naval.
There were people, however, such as Mr Stoiber, in such a prosperous region as Bavaria, who considered that it was in their electoral interest to name a price which might appear in a newspaper headline: a programme - with no legal basis, by the way - for cross-border cooperation with the candidate countries, funded with some of the money intended for fishing conversion.
Demagoguery is contagious and others followed his example and the conversion programme was taken hostage, despite the fact that there were already appropriations for cross-border cooperation, at least in B5-3003, B5-0510, B2-0141, B3-1010, B3-1021 or B3-0306.
I would like to stress that we are in favour of the intention to prepare these regions and that they have always had our support.
What we are not satisfied with is the fact that it is done to the detriment of the regions affected by an unexpected conversion.
And, although the resolution states that in 1999 it was not envisaged that enlargement could have consequences for the bordering Community regions, this is not the case.
In Germany, for example, the border States will have Community aid of more than EUR 10.5 billion.
We have rarely seen such a miserly and nationalistic spectacle in this House!
This would be typical of the Council.
We voted in favour, but without enthusiasm.
We did so because we do not want to sacrifice those poor regions of the Iberian coast, but also out of solidarity with these regions and also with those bordering the candidate countries, a solidarity which has been sadly lacking in this negotiation.
Peijs report (A5-0453/2001)
At this, the last plenary part-session of the European Parliament of 2001, which is also the last before the introduction of the euro notes and coins, we have to note that the European Parliament has not organised a formal sitting or even a debate of any kind to mark an event which is in principle, for all of the federalists here, who are in the majority, the greatest ever project of European 'integration'.
Why this silence, which has moreover lasted for several part-sessions and which has been broken only by sovereigntist voices? The answer is simple: the final phase of introducing the single currency - which is to say the physical changeover of notes and coins as of 1 January 2002 - is based on two enormous deceptions.
First of all, the single currency is totally useless from a technical point of view and serves only to satisfy the extremist desires of certain federalists who absolutely must have uniform monetary signs throughout Europe.
In fact, we could quite easily have kept the current arrangement: the euro for international purposes, superposed on national currencies.
We are therefore going to turn people's lives upside down, make their lives more difficult in the coming months, and doubtless further reduce the trust which they have in their national institutions, and all of this for no useful purpose except to pander to federalist passions.
The second deception is that public opinion has never been properly enlightened and has even been manipulated.
Neither at Maastricht nor in the ensuing years did the public fully understand the impact of the Treaty, that is to say, that it would bring about the end of the franc.
Subsequently, every possible effort was made to give the impression that the public supported the project, which was not true.
Today the harsh reality has dawned: 52% of French people think that the single currency offers more disadvantages than advantages while 33% think the opposite (Le Figaro, 11 December) and 62% would like to continue using the franc compared with 32% who are of the opposite opinion (Wall Street Journal, 11 December).
Similar percentages are replicated at European level.
The deception is so huge that next year, when people's eyes are opened, we will not only have to rethink the euro, but also consider thoroughgoing reforms of the European institutions to prevent public opinion from being manipulated in this way again.
Motion for a resolution (B5-0747/2001)
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Security and Defence Policy unanimously approved my Amendment No 22 regarding a new Paragraph 9 of the resolution with the following wording: 'Calls on the partners to ensure that the State has a monopoly on the use of force and that no parallel military structures can continue their activities' .
If it is - ever - to be possible for peace to be achieved between Israelis and Palestinians, or between the State of Israel and the Palestinian Authority, it is crucial that the power of the State should have a monopoly on the use of force and that Islamic terrorist paramilitary groups - such as Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hizbollah - should not be allowed to be armed and to carry out terrorist attacks against civilians as they at present do with great regularity.
My amendment was unfortunately rejected by Parliament.
However, the line of reasoning I put forward has been included in paragraph 3.3 of the resolution in the compromise demand 'for the Palestinian Authority to dismantle terrorist networks, including by arresting and prosecuting all suspects' .
I regard this request as progress in itself and as being very clearly worded in the same spirit and along the same lines as my original amendment.
The voting session that we have just completed is yet another perfect illustration of the frequently hemiplegic behaviour of the European Parliament.
How is it possible for this House to adopt, by a broad majority, a motion for a resolution in which it declares its 'solid commitment to the common fight against terrorism' alongside the United States whilst refusing, by a broad majority, to ask the Palestinian Authority to condemn terrorism?
I am stunned that nearly 320 Members voted against Amendment No 6 which proposed something that seems perfectly obvious, in other words, that the support we are giving to the Palestinian Authority and its institutions must be coupled with a firm condemnation of the violence inflicted by the same Authority and the implementation of effective measures that will put an end to the terrorist attacks.
What do we gain by using such disingenuous language? By moving away from a balanced policy, we are putting our diplomatic credibility at risk and we make ourselves appear to be biased.
Do we want the next European mission to be turned away from Israel, just as the mission headed by the Belgian Presidency was? Why send such an ambiguous message to the terrorists, as if there were good and bad terrorists?
Our condemnation of terrorism must be global and there should be no exception.
This will merely enable us to be in a better position to state our desire to see the Palestinian people in a fully-fledged, sovereign State.
All people aspire to a genuine State, which is the expression of their sovereignty, and the Palestinian people have the same right to this as everyone else.
However, we shall not assist the leaders of the Palestinian Authority to act with the responsibility of State authorities whilst being complacent towards terrorism.
Watts report (A5-0440/2001)
Madam President, the Conciliation Committee has spoken to us about the living and working conditions on board the ships that arrive in Community ports.
I voted for the motion, Madam President, because I remember life on board very well, since at a young age I sailed on board passenger liners between New York and the Bahamas.
There are some seamen who live a good life on board once their shift is finished: for instance, the pursers and deck officers dine in the restaurant with the passengers, drink whisky in the passengers' bar, dance in the ballroom with the female passengers if they are men or male passengers if they are women.
In contrast, though, there are the cooks, cabin-boys and helmsmen, who unfortunately live in tiny cabins four metres square and enjoy living conditions that are not quite so pleasant.
I really hope that my vote in favour will be useful so that we can take a real interest in living conditions on board ship, but for all seamen and not just some.
- Madam President, I warmly welcome this report by my Socialist colleague Mark Watts, which will enable EU Member States to enforce international standards for ship safety, pollution, prevention and onboard living and working conditions.
This report has the potential positively to affect a broad number of issues: it could enhance the lives of people working on board ships and, moreover, it is in line with the EU's attempts to take a pioneering role in protecting the environment.
The calls for "black boxes" which carry voyage data recorders, are a vital and concrete way to ensure that those ships calling at EU ports all adhere to common standards.
Ortuondo Larrea report (A5-0441/2001)
Madam President, the Ortuondo Larrea report marked the agreement of the Conciliation Committee to inspections and surveys of ships when they enter European Community ports.
I voted for it, but I would hope, Madam President, that the on-board inspections will be performed by European Union inspectors, and not inspectors from the Member States.
We know all too well, in fact, that the Member States do not want inspections in the way the European directives are implemented, so much so that, in a conciliation to have inspections on the implementation of environmental directives, all 15 Member States of the Union opposed them.
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(NL) I am pleased that agreement has finally been reached at arbitration on the three major measures contained in the Erika 1 package.
We have debated and negotiated at length, and it is now time for the implementation and enforcement of the legislation.
As regards the report on the classification bureaux, the most important subject for the Liberals too was liability.
In the first and second readings we argued for a ceiling on the liability of classification bureaux, since the latter organisations are only one element in the chain of liability.
Unlimited liability is in our view only justified where there is gross negligence.
In addition, a ceiling ensures that eventually the fairly closed markets for classification and statutory tasks will become more open and a more level playing field will be created.
At present, new classification bureaux can scarcely compete with the existing (national) organisation under a regime of unlimited liability.
In order to avoid undermining the Erika 1 package and to retain the gain for Parliament brought by the Watts report (voyage data recorders on ships), at third reading, the Liberals accepted with reservations the proposal that Member States should be free in their negotiations with classification bureaux to agree higher, unlimited liability.
The result of this, however, will have to be evaluated by the European Commission.
The Liberals are pleased that extra guarantees have been built into the Regulation to prevent any entanglement of interests between a classification bureau and the owner of a vessel being monitored.
The bureau must now be completely independent, which stands to reason.
Hatzidakis report (A5-0344/2001)
We are still on the subject of ships, Madam President, in the report by Mr Hatzidakis on the results of the Conciliation Committee regarding double hulls for oil tankers.
I voted for it because it is important to have achieved this agreement.
Double-hulled tankers sail the seas of the whole world providing a better safeguard against pollution.
I should be pleased, however, if there were also better safeguards for the crews, who do not have an easy life on board oil tankers, and I should be pleased, above all, if the electronic and navigational appliances were improved.
Basically, we should try to prevent any disasters at sea by every possible means, either before doubling ships' hulls or, at least, as well as doubling their hulls.
Surely, in the end, improvements to the electronic steering and control apparatus cost less than doubling the hull.
Pérez Royo report (A5-0417/2001)
The report by my colleague, Fernando Pérez Royo, on financial collateral arrangements is an important step towards standardising the legal regime governing financial instruments in Europe.
Like my colleague, I attach great importance to the harmonisation of these markets, within a reasonable period of time.
This is what Mr Pérez Royo's work seeks to achieve.
Although, overall, the report is based on the same model of future European financial markets I myself have in mind, the French socialists have not supported the rapporteur on three points.
Article 2(4) broadens the scope of application of the directive to all market participants and thus modifies the order of preferential creditors in the event of bankruptcy. This compromises companies' chances of recovery by transferring ownership of their assets to creditor banks, bypassing preferential creditors (employees, tax and social security bodies).
Article 6 provides for the use by the collateral taker of the financial instruments' collateral held under the security financial collateral arrangement; these provisions give rise to difficulties related to ownership rights and traceability of securities and thus threaten the transparency of European financial markets.
Finally, Article 10(2), as amended by Amendment No 17, deletes the precise localisation criteria, thus making any credible attempt to increase the transparency of our financial markets doomed to failure and pre-empting the conclusions of the Hague Conference on International Private Law.
Since the vote in the plenary confirmed the rapporteur's choice to broaden the scope of the directive, the French socialists voted against the text as a whole.
Motion for a resolution (B5-0821/2001)
The large groups in this House have just tabled and passed a resolution deploring the Commission's failure to submit its legislative programme for 2002, which they criticise for being insufficiently detailed, in good time, a surprising move coming from them.
Of course, we could not but endorse this initiative, but neither can we avoid asking ourselves what has prompted this almost universal attitude of spite towards Romano Prodi.
At every turn a majority of this Parliament seems to be trying to disassociate themselves from him.
Why?
Has he in the end become disliked because his statements are sometimes insufficiently federalist? Is he being reproached for not providing sufficiently vigorous opposition to the Council, which lately has appeared to be even more exasperated than usual by the Commission's customary 'integrationism' and by its defence of a 'Community method' which has been torn to shreds by Europe's evolution, and in particular by enlargement?
We should also mention an alternative explanation, which might give us rather more cause for concern: the transitional arrangements for bringing the euro notes and coins into circulation on 1 January 2002 are not going too well, and it seems that there is a danger that the public will not enjoy the experience.
It may well be that the federalist politicians in this House are starting to distance themselves from an institution which they are readying themselves to accuse in the future of not doing enough to prepare for the changeover.
The Commission would be a perfect scapegoat - and moreover with some justification - for these politicians' sins.
In the conclusions of the Commission communication, it is claimed that while the Commission 'is carrying out a radical reform of its working methods at the political, financial and administrative levels... in the meantime there are growing fears that Europe may lose touch with the immediate concerns of its citizens' .
I believe these are not just fears.
The fact that the citizens are not really interested in this radical reform of the Commission' s working methods seems to me to be healthy.
It would be worrying if they showed much interest in such matters, which do not arouse enthusiasm even among us Members, seeing that we have not really noticed all this revisionist radical behaviour that is being pointed out to us now.
Instead, we, like the citizens, notice that Europe is getting more and more out of touch with people' s concerns and seems more and more distant.
Perhaps the introduction of the euro, once the initial difficulties of understanding its value in terms of the old currencies have been overcome, may help more people to see Europe as a common reality, although the feeling is likely to remain, especially among the older generations, that they have been tricked out of their old currency, which will have vanished without anyone having asked them for their views.
The feeling that Europe is distant is a real feeling and one that is becoming more and more widespread among the citizens.
At crucial moments in the life of society it does not show itself as such, but emerges as the opinion of this or that government.
The opinions are legitimate, but they do not convey the idea that we all belong to a common entity whereas, in the past, this idea had always been symbolically expressed by the Commission.
It was the Commission that called the tune with statements and practical proposals.
Now, though, partly because it is not the Commission that represents foreign policy, when faced with questions of international politics Europe seems not to exist, and it is not evident in the figure of Mr CFSP.
Enlargement itself, the subject of so much praise and emphasis, is, on the contrary, seen by the citizens as a weakening rather than a strengthening of Europe.
If I do not share the enthusiasm about the 'working methods' expressed in the communication, it is not because I consider that the topics dealt with or the declared commitments are not going in the right direction, or because there are not enough legislative initiatives.
As everyone knows, quality does not depend on numbers.
It should be understood, rather, that over-regulating gives a distorted image of Europe and makes people identify it with that bureaucratic Moloch that is so feared by industry and the citizens.
No.
The intended work programme must be a political document and not an administrative list.
It must state the reasons for certain delays and the real obstacles that have prevented certain objectives from being achieved; it must identify some priority goals through which the unification process can be pushed forward.
Europe fully developing 'an effective role in the management and solution of international crises' will also depend on the Commission' s political will and not just on the possibility of developing on a global scale its function as a proposer of legislation.
Rather than in the cultivation of regulation peas, the identity of Europe will express itself in foreign policy and the security and defence policy.
The Commission should aim essentially at this if it does not want to be reduced even more in 2002 to a purely bureaucratic and administrative body.
Motion for a resolution (B5-0813/2001)
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I agree in general (while having some reservations about some of the language) with the resolution as posed.
I believe the European Union should co-operate on an international level in combating terrorism, organised crime and individual criminals, all of whom use the differences in legal systems to avoid standing trial.
However, my main reservation with regard to this resolution is the absence of any reference to the International Criminal Court, initiated by the Rome Convention.
This court when established will enable the trial of any and every individual suspected of crime, including war crimes.
This court, which is being opposed by the USA Government would guarantee a fair trial and would apply even-handedly to everyone.
In current circumstances this court is needed more than ever.
Lagendijk report (A5-0394/2001)
How wonderful it would be, Madam President, if we could find a solution to prevent conflicts!
I voted for this document, Madam President, but I am convinced that we will be able to avoid these conflicts - 99% of which just happen to involve poor, or rather very poor, countries in the world - if we can make these countries a little less poor.
I therefore think it is appropriate that the European Union should continue its actions of supporting the economies of Third World countries and poor countries, because I am convinced that only by improving the living standards of the citizens of our world who live in poverty - or rather in extreme poverty, not just in poverty, but in the most wretched poverty there could be - will we succeed in preventing conflicts of any kind.
Gahler report (A5-0418/2001)
The report by Mr Gahler, Madam President, concerns the relations between the European Union and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
I have had the luck to have a town councillor for the Pensioners' Party who was born in Tehran and lived in Iran for thirty years and who had dual Iranian and Italian citizenship.
He explained the situation in Iran to me very clearly, and so I am very pleased that people there are trying to go back to the democracy that the Shah had installed into the country, even though he was the emperor.
I shall therefore ask that these talks should continue and that we should have an exchange of members of Parliament between Iran and the European Union, and most of all I propose that you, Madam President, should invite President Khatami to address this House here in Strasbourg.
I welcome moves to improve relations with Iran.
But we must always take account of the fact that human rights in Iran are, if anything, getting worse and not better.
Iran is continuing to fund terrorist groups such as Hizbollah who are active in the Middle East.
In particular, Iran funds terrorist groups that are still holding hostage a number of Israeli soldiers who are officially posted as missing in action.
If Iran is serious about developing better relationships with the West, it ought to put pressure on those groups to release those soldiers.
In particular, I would draw Parliament's attention to the case of Ron Arad, an Israeli air force officer who, in 1986, was captured by a Shi'ite militia group in Lebanon.
He was then in 1987 sold to another group which was funded and run by Iran.
He has not been seen since 1987; his daughter was an infant when he was taken hostage.
Would it not be an appropriate message for this season of goodwill if she could at long last see her father who disappeared 15 years ago? Please would Iran help these soldiers be released if it is serious about developing peace with the rest of the world.
Van den Burg report (A5-0388/2001)
Madam President, the van den Burg report deals with the Commission report on the regulation of taxation of second-pillar pensions, that is, occupational pensions.
We know that there is the EET system and so on, that is, tax is paid either on the contributions or on the interest on the invested capital, on what is received for the occupational pension, or tax is paid on the pensions themselves.
Speaking on behalf of the Pensioners' Party, I propose the EEE system, in other words: exemption from paying tax when the pension contributions are paid; exemption from paying tax when the capital so received is invested; and exemption from paying tax when the occupational pension is redeemed.
If we really want to improve and enhance the possibility of saving through pensions - occupational, company and voluntary - the Member States should give up levying tax on them.
When we are young and think about our future, we should think that one day we shall be old and nobody will think about us, except we ourselves with our pensions.
Occupational pensions will play an increasingly important role in ensuring that pensions provide secure, lasting and effective social protection as well as a decent standard of living for retired people.
There is an urgent need to create a genuine single market in pension funds, and this means providing for a tax system which will, regardless of the country of residence of the member or retired person, avoid contributions and benefits being taxed twice and discourage pensioners from going into tax exile to avoid taxes.
I voted against the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the Commission communication on the elimination of tax obstacles to the cross-border provision of occupational pensions because the methods recommended in it run counter to the objective sought.
This is because the proposals contained in the report submitted to us will generate costly bureaucracy, because of Member States' having to exchange information and work together to collect taxes, and do not in any way constitute a practical and efficient approach towards removing the tax obstacles to the cross-border provision of occupational pensions.
Instead of starting a process of consultation to identify which of the tax models currently in force in the Member States avoids double taxation of contributions and benefits with the greatest efficiency and the least bureaucracy, the report already comes down in favour of the EET regime, when it is obvious that the TEE tax system - which consists of taxing contributions to the plan and exempting pensions drawn from it - would guarantee uniform fiscal treatment, regardless of the country of residence of the member or retired person, that it would allow the country granting tax concessions for setting up occupational pension plans to safeguard its tax base, and that it would make the issue of sharing tax yields superfluous.
(Intervention shortened pursuant to Article 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
Rights of homosexuals in EU institutions
The next item is the oral question (B5-0533/01), presented by 33 Members to the Commission, on the rights of homosexuals in EU Institutions.
Mr President, you promised when you were appointed, Commissioner Kinnock, that the Commission would become the world' s best administration.
I have confidence that you are the right person to tackle that task successfully.
The issue of giving employees equal rights, irrespective of their sexual orientation, is a crucial step on the way.
In the last twelve years, there has been a very positive trend towards enabling homosexuals to be granted the same rights as heterosexuals.
In 1989, my own country, Denmark, was the first country in the world to introduce legislation on registered partnerships for homosexuals, corresponding to marriage, and a number of other countries followed suit.
I would mention the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Finland.
Other EU countries have implemented legislation which approximates to marriage to rather more limited degrees.
Within the framework of the EU too, the trend is now in the right direction.
Allow me to mention four very important points.
Non-discrimination against minorities is now written into the objectives of European cooperation.
On the legal basis of Article 13 of the Treaty, discrimination in the labour market on the grounds of sexual orientation has now been tackled in practical terms.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights expressly states that there must be no discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.
Finally, Parliament has recommended on several occasions that same-sex couples be guaranteed the same rights as heterosexual couples and that the Member States recognise registered partnerships.
There have been very positive developments in recent years.
Now is the time for the EU' s own institutions to comply with the same standards.
I would therefore very much welcome your proposal.
You have the key to nudging things in the right direction, Commissioner Kinnock.
This proposal would enable homosexuals to be accorded full rights if there were partnership legislation in their own countries.
I have a couple of questions in that connection.
Since it is to varying degrees that the Member States' partnership legislation approximates to the marriage laws, I would ask you to explain which countries' citizens will be given full rights. Where will the Commission draw the line?
Moreover, the Commission is paving the way for cohabiting heterosexuals to be given certain rights, for example the right to health insurance covering their partners.
That is progress, but I should like to ask whether the arrangement also covers cohabiting homosexuals in all the Member States.
For example, are cohabiting homosexuals from Britain and Italy entitled to these limited rights?
Finally, a question on the timetable: when do you anticipate its being possible for these new staff rules to come into force in the institutions of the EU? Over the years, many Commissioners have promised the earth in this area, and nothing has happened.
They have, however, set things in motion.
They deserve full recognition for having done so, and I hope you can give a positive answer to the question we have put to you in this House today.
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his characteristically full discourse and discussion on this subject, and also for the very comprehensive material he makes available to us on the staff reform issues.
We will have a chance to return to this subject, as he says, when we get the detailed proposal for the Staff Regulations.
The issues that he raised were covered very briefly in the report that I prepared for Parliament back in 2000, where we indicated that we were looking for a best-practice approach.
The summary he has given us certainly indicates the amount of work that has been done on that.
Given that it is a highly sensitive issue and Member States will certainly be looking at it closely, the sort of balance he has achieved is going to be very much the right one.
It is very important that we see this in the broad framework of recognising stable partnerships as he described it in the November 2000 discussion paper.
That is really what we are discussing here.
We are not talking about any particular type of partnership - that in itself would be discrimination - but recognising stable partnerships.
One of the points I particularly want to raise with him is the question of children from partnerships.
There have been well-publicised cases recently in the United Kingdom about the British forces.
A soldier who very sadly was killed while on active service, had a stable partnership and a child from that partnership, but was not actually covered in the UK situation.
That is an important point.
The other point I want to raise is in connection with pension provisions and about the rights and abilities of staff to be able to decide to whom their pension should be paid and what flexibility they have in making that decision or in opting for whom their payment and benefit provision should be made in the event of their death.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his detailed reply.
I would like to encourage him further.
He is absolutely right that we should look at the best practices available.
We in this House must remind ourselves that we cannot be selective in the application of principle.
We look towards enlargement and encourage good practice, yet here in our institutions we still continue to discriminate.
But I welcome the signs of change.
I hope that these will have the full support of this House and that we will begin to end the 'ping pong' game that we play with the human rights and civil liberties of ordinary men and women.
For that is exactly what lesbians and gay men are.
They are ordinary men and women made extraordinary by society's preoccupation with their sex lives.
Let me also say on a personal matter that in my own Member State, my partner of 18 years, cannot possibly inherit my pension.
That is discrimination.
We must end it both within and outside the institutions.
Finally, I should like to raise one very important issue, namely recognition by an EU Member State of a legal document.
Such a legal document is certainly not available in the United Kingdom.
I look forward to Commissioner Kinnock's replies.
Thank you, Mr President. Giving concrete form to the equal rights of homosexual employees of the European institutions appears to be turning into a never-ending story.
Nevertheless, this House wishes to see European institutions playing an exemplary role in equal treatment, with no distinction made as to the sexual orientation of staff.
The European Parliament has twice pronounced in favour of establishing the same conditions of employment in the case of lasting relationships between people of the same sex as for married couples.
Yet adequate arrangements for this have still not been made.
My group cannot help feeling that within the hierarchy of the institutions, including those of this House, barriers are still being created against the introduction of equal conditions of employment for lesbians and gay men.
We therefore eagerly await the wind of change brought by the reorganisation, now entering its final phase, which will need to clear out the old dust traps from this area too.
My group is glad that, immediately after the Dutch Homosexual Marriage Act came into force, the responsible secretariat in the Commission recognised such marriages where civil servants employed by the Commission are concerned.
Member States where Dutch officials may be posted who are married under Dutch law to a same-sex partner must not of course obstruct the issue of residence permits, not even if it involves subjects of third countries.
My fellow MEP Mrs Buitenweg has asked questions on this matter.
Your Commission should make sure that such obstruction does not occur.
As yet we have had no answer from you.
Can you, Commissioner, give us one today?
Mr President, I want to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his extremely detailed report.
Mr Kinnock, I really did try to keep up with what was going on here.
If I understand the matter correctly, the fact is that the partners of homosexuals who are not Swedish, Finnish or Dutch citizens seeking posts within the institutions of the EU are not recognised by these institutions if, as Mr Cashman says, they do not have documentation.
Perhaps the latter could in those circumstances go on language courses at some stage.
Against that background, I personally do not, unlike certain others in this House, think that we have come a particularly long way.
I appreciate, Commissioner Kinnock, that it is very difficult indeed to make progress in this area because we have a lot of strange prejudices about people of the same sex who love each other in the same way as heterosexuals.
Nor can I quite understand why the institutions of the EU should in this case treat employees on a national basis.
If that reasoning were to be followed through, it would mean that people employed within the EU' s institutions could have their wages set on a national basis, but that does not happen.
I understand, Commissioner Kinnock, that the situation is very difficult in view of the prejudices that exist, but I cannot agree that things are developing particularly quickly in this area.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his very clear reply to the oral question.
My point directly follows on from Mrs Eriksson's.
It is clear that, in many Member States, homosexual couples do not have any rights and there are grave injustices within Member States.
The only light at the end of the tunnel as regards my own country, Ireland, is that our Law Reform Commission announced yesterday - and I suspect it is because they saw something coming down the line from the Commissioner - that they were going to make that part of their research programme for the next year.
Hopefully that will result in the justice that is clearly the right of stable couples, whether they be homosexual or heterosexual.
We have had situations where, because of the lack of rights for homosexual couples, people have been evicted from local authority housing on the death of the other partner who was the named tenant.
We also see that huge death duties accrue to partners who have bought houses together where, on the death of one partner, the other is faced with a massive tax bill, very often resulting in that person having to sell what was, in the truest sense of the word, a family home.
I know you will be addressing some of the anomalies that exist in this but, as Mrs Eriksson has rightly said, they exist in a significant number of Member States and it could cause serious problems in terms of discrimination when we come to implement charges.
I wish you every success and I am extremely glad that we have had an opportunity to raise the issue within this House because there is widespread support for it.
It is not all that often, Commissioner, that we hear good news and I should like to thank you for it on this occasion; it really is very important to us for you to have answered our question both precisely and positively.
Why should this be the case? It is because we are at an historic turning point, one where the issue is no longer solely that of combating discrimination against homosexual people but that of asserting the rights of homosexuals.
At this pivotal point between fighting against and fighting for, I think that you have given us some very positive answers and that we need to continue in this direction.
But why should I attach so much importance to this? Because I think that in our question we pointed out that some private companies had, after all, resolved the problem more quickly than the public institutions.
We know how important it is for public institutions to set an example.
I well remember the huge uproar in France when the French railways (the SNCF) decided to offer their 'couples' fares to homosexual couples.
I do not think that you have had such good fortune in the United Kingdom, but we in France do, and it is the exemplary conduct of the French railways that I should like to highlight today, because this gives us some idea of what the European Commission can now achieve.
That is why all of this is along the right lines, and why it is extremely important.
I would add, however, that for all this the fight against discrimination is not over, and I should like the Commission to also be aware of this struggle, in particular in the light of the fact that it has a Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia.
Why could we not enlarge this to include other forms of discrimination under Article 13? We must not forget that there are candidate countries for accession, countries which will be included in the enlargement programme - I think you know the countries I am talking about - where homosexuality is still a crime.
We must therefore be very vigilant; this is the 'fight against'.
I am quite aware that this was not exactly the question you were asked, but nevertheless it seems to me to be important, if we are making progress on the social rights of homosexuals in the European institutions, for us to ensure that the current policies of all of the European institutions are consistent with this.
Mr President, I should like to begin with the points made by Mrs Fraisse.
She is absolutely right that we are at a turning point.
There has been extensive evidence for this over a considerable period of time.
Mrs Banotti's speech this morning is further evidence that even in countries where there has been a deep-rooted reluctance to change the social and legal conventions, there is movement in the direction of logic, rationality and civil rights.
Things are starting to move, but everyone here is impatient for that movement to be much more positive and much more rapid.
The interesting point raised by Mrs Fraisse about the activity of SNCF permits me to underline a distinction that we still, unfortunately, have to draw about the legal nature, status and powers of the European institutions as employer organisations.
SNCF is an example of a public corporation with its own statute and considerable internal autonomy.
Therefore it could make its own decision in relation to the treatment of homosexual couples.
The same would apply to a private company that is, in this respect, literally a law unto itself.
Unfortunately, that means that company could show a severe degree of prejudice but it could also show a very positive degree of enlightenment.
We are not in either of those categories.
Nor are we in the category of a Member State which has passed a law which is positive about the treatment of stable homosexual relationships.
Consequently, we are faced with a limitation because we are a public institution.
Parliament, Council, Commission, Court of Justice, Court of Auditors - the whole panoply of European Union institutions - have a statute that does not permit us to exercise the degree of autonomy which is the basis for many of the arguments correctly put forward this morning.
I include the arguments put by Mrs Erikkson for which I have a substantial degree of sympathy.
I should like to answer very quickly the other questions, starting with Mr Lund.
I would repeat the point I made earlier.
Once a partnership is recognised under a Member State's recognition of partnership arrangements, we will give equal rights to everybody regardless of the benefit level applied under national legislation in the national context.
Once the key is turned, we will accord the best treatment within our power.
Secondly, on the timetable.
Together with the rest of the proposed changes in the Staff Regulations, we will submit a proposal to this House and the Council in spring of next year.
It will then be in the hands of you legislators and the legislators in the Council to decide the speed of passage and - I hope - the early date of implementation of this and other necessary changes.
I would also like to make a point that relates to material that people in the House may want to get access to.
A positive attitude was expressed in the Council towards our undertaking to make a survey of arrangements throughout all 15 Member States.
We received answers from 13 of the Member States, so it is quite a comprehensive, if informal, survey.
If Members want, on application, to gain access to that information DG Admin. will happily respond.
The information we have collected shows that there is considerable diversity of arrangements.
But - and here is the good news - as I said earlier, there is a gradual but definite tide of change.
Mr Harbour's question about children of stable partnerships is absolutely vital.
The only answer I can give is that if a Member State recognises that the children produced by a stable relationship qualify for the variety of benefits, we will fully recognise that.
Unfortunately, at this juncture we cannot go beyond that undertaking because of the limitations on our legal rights.
When Mr Cashman asks us to pursue best practice, he knows he is pushing at an open door.
But Member States determine the practices, and we have to try to encourage adoption of the best practices amongst them.
We will happily consider, however, any proposal that stable recognised partnerships qualify if home countries recognise or if a country of employment recognises them.
We do not have that second part of the proposal before us at the moment, but we will happily give consideration to such a proposal and investigate its feasibility.
If it is feasible to establish practices in the European institutions on the basis of practices in the country in which an EU official is employed, we will try to introduce that change which could extend certain rights of registered couples, whether homosexual or heterosexual.
I would like to say to Mr de Roo that no barrier is being put in the way of the advancement of gays and lesbians who are officials by the hierarchy of institutions.
That is not the case.
It is the Member States who must determine what our treatment of gays and lesbians in relationships must be.
So far as employment rights are concerned, rights of assessment and promotion, rights of appointment to management, there is no barrier and no hierarchy has expressed any direct or indirect desire to install such a barrier.
We will not install barriers but we cannot guarantee that existing cultural or legal inhibitions can automatically be dismantled.
We do not have the power to do it in the Commission.
I wish we could in many ways, but I would be misleading the House if I suggested that we have, or are likely to get, that kind of massive power for change.
Finally, to clarify a point that Mrs Eriksson made, the reference I made to very limited rights, such as the right to attend language courses, relates only to people who have the right to marry, or the right to have their partnership recognised but choose, for whatever reason, not to exercise that right.
The access people have to various nominal social opportunities that exist now under the Staff Regulations will simply continue in those cases.
Our action, as she was good enough to acknowledge, owes nothing to prejudice.
Our intention is to try to defeat prejudice because it is irrational and frequently brings brutal consequences.
What we cannot defeat is not the prejudice but the laws that exist and are exercised in sovereign power by Member States.
Not until we can secure changes in those laws - and this is gradually occurring - can we take substantial further steps beyond the significant steps that we are seeking to take in the course of this reform and which honourable Members have been good enough to acknowledge.
Thank you, Commissioner Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Flags of convenience in fisheries
The next item is the report (A5-0405/2001) by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the role of flags of convenience in the fisheries sector [2000/2302(INI)].
This report deals with a serious issue and that is fishing under flags of convenience.
Vessels that fish under flags of convenience ignore all the rules, they exploit the best fishing grounds and they wreak havoc.
In recent times, as fleets continue to increase and resource abundance plummets, flags of convenience are increasingly used as a means of avoiding measures taken by countries or regional fisheries organisations to manage fisheries and conserve stocks.
Pirate fishing can be seen as a undesirable consequence of states at last attempting to improve the management of fisheries.
The environmental impact of pirate fishing vessels is virtually impossible to evaluate as by definition data on catches are non-existent or, at the very best, unreliable.
The impact is known to be severe, even if undocumented, as pirate vessels target mainly high-value species such as tuna, shrimp, toothfish etc..
There are also serious social problems.
Ship-owners take advantage of the lack of controls to reduce training safety standards, pay minimal wages, and lower standards of living and working conditions.
They require long working periods without proper rest and they provide completely inadequate medical attention.
They are responsible for many other offences.
Fishing is now a global industry.
Fleets from the EU cover all the oceans of the world, as do those of several other distant water-nations.
Markets are also global.
One-third of the total fish production that entered international trade in 1998 was worth over USD 50 billion.
Capital is perhaps the most global commodity of all.
EU fisheries investments can be found in many countries.
As a result, a concerted international effort is needed to eliminate fishing under flags of convenience.
This will involve the countries issuing the flags or whose citizens work on the fishing vessels, the ports into which they come for re-supply or off-loading, the markets in which the fish is consumed or the home of the capital which finances this destructive phenomenon.
As the EU has both one of the largest fishing fleets and one of the largest markets for fish, it can play a particularly important role in regard to flags of convenience fishing.
Many EU-owned vessels use flags of convenience.
Some may even have had FIFG money to transfer to those countries and I am pleased to see that the Commission has now proposed regulations to prevent public funding being used to transfer to flags-of-convenience countries.
I would call upon the Council to adopt them this week.
In contrast, I should mention Japan and Taiwan, who have recognised the extent to which their longline industries use flags of convenience and they have taken corrective measures by launching programmes to repatriate or to scrap a large number of tuna longliners.
At least 62 Japanese-built flags-of-convenience longliners will be scrapped by the end of 2002.
A further 67 FOC longliners built in Taiwan will be repatriated to replace older vessels, with no overall increase in fleet capacity.
It is expected that this will reduce the FOC tuna longline fleet by about half.
These programmes are funded by both government and industry.
I believe these moves should be highly praised and that this is the way we should proceed as well.
Spain is proposing a law to list certain flags-of-convenience countries and we welcome that.
Regarding market state responsibility, the EU is a large market and so it must improve control measures.
For instance, currently it only wants to ensure that fish are caught according to rules of regional fisheries organisations which the EU belongs to.
This needs to be extended to ensure that fish are caught according to the rules of all regional organisations.
It must also be made illegal for EU citizens or companies to trade in fish caught by flags-of-convenience vessels.
This is called for in the FOA plan of action on illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing.
We should go in that direction also.
The campaign that must be waged against pirate fishing is a global and multifaceted one.
All countries with any involvement in the fishing industry - such as catching the fish, owning or crewing vessels, providing harbours, buying the final product - must participate.
The EU, as one of the most important regions from all these points of view, clearly has a special responsibility.
I can only hope that the Commission and the Spanish presidency acting together will begin to tackle this very important matter in the months ahead.
It is in the interests of all EU fishing industries to ensure that this is done.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we should firstly acknowledge how appropriate it was for the Committee on Fisheries to produce an own-initiative report on this subject.
I believe that the European Parliament is thereby heading in the right direction in terms of unravelling an issue which is complicated but crucial to the future of fishing in the world and to fisheries resources.
Secondly, I believe it was also appropriate that it should be produced by Mrs McKenna, with whom I disagree on so many fisheries issues, but not on this report, which has been unanimously approved by our committee, despite the difficulty of this issue, and furthermore with no amendments from the House.
I therefore congratulate the Committee on Fisheries and our rapporteur.
There is still no doubt much to do, but, in this report, the European Parliament supports the condemnation and prosecution of flags of convenience in fishing and in marketing.
Certain Member States of the Union - such as my own, Spain, as the rapporteur has mentioned here and in the report - are promoting innovative legislative proposals in this field, which is no easy task, as has been said before.
We in the Committee on Fisheries are going to closely monitor the objectives and proposals in this report, aimed at dealing with the serious problem of illegal fishing.
By fighting it, and eventually eradicating it, we will have taken an enormous step towards sustainable worldwide fishing.
Some regional fisheries organisations, such as the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), say that 50% of catches of species such as the swordfish originate from illegal fishing under flags of convenience.
If this percentage of illegal fishing were to be controlled, it would lead to an unquestionable improvement in the fish stock and would therefore clearly benefit legal fishermen, who have so much need for these catches and who behave in a totally controlled, and therefore responsible, manner.
The marketing of these fish and landings in European Union ports - as has been said here - are key issues in this process, as is the definition of flags of convenience and clearly identifying the countries which permit them and tolerate them.
All of these issues are in the report.
I would once again like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs McKenna, and simply point out that I believe the European Parliament has today taken a very important step towards responsible fishing in the world.
Having congratulated everybody, it only remains for me to ask the Commissioner - whose presence I appreciate - for the Commission' s support for the proposals in this report, because it is a very positive step, and that he take account, of course, of the fact that it has the unanimous approval of the Committee on Fisheries, and I hope that the vote for Mrs McKenna' s report will also be unanimous this afternoon.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mrs McKenna on behalf of my group, the Socialist Group, on this wonderful report which has allowed us to strengthen the legislation on the practice of fishing under flags of convenience, which in particular harms the professionals in the sector and the image they project.
The Socialist Group is in total agreement with the conclusions of this report, above all with those which demonstrate the bad treatment received by the workers on these types of ships, in terms of working conditions, wages, safety and hygiene on board.
We believe that it is necessary to encourage the governments which have not yet done so to sign up to the United Nations agreement on fish stocks, which is directly aimed at combating this kind of fishing.
The control Regulation must be rigorously applied by all Member States and by the Commission, so that the landing in ports of this type of catch is not permitted.
We also agree absolutely with the rapporteur when he asks the Commission to seal off the markets of all Member States against the products of illegal fishing, by adopting effective Community commercial and customs legislation.
We believe that we will have to combat this type of fishing in ports and in terms of the marketing of products obtained from it.
We believe that we will have to adopt as many measures as possible in order to eradicate illegal fishing.
Mr President, Commissioner, if I were to ask you which is the odd word out in the following sequence - piracy, poaching, unsafe and fishing - you would no doubt answer that fishing is the word that does not belong.
Quite right: evading management measures, plundering the riches of the sea and the maltreatment of crew members have no place in fishing.
Unfortunately, this type of fishing does exist in the shape of fishing vessels sailing under flags of convenience.
I agree completely with the rapporteur, Mrs McKenna and would like to add the following comment. We must involve the countries that issue those flags of convenience in an effort to put an end to these practices.
Should these countries comply only by striking ships off their registers without tightening controls, we must consider economic sanctions against them.
The fishing agreements that the European Union enters into with third countries could also play a part.
We should exclude countries that allow fishing vessels under flags of convenience and their accompanying transport and refrigeration vessels into their harbours from fishing agreements with the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, pirate fleets - it is hard not to think of the Hollywood adventure films with piracy depicted as heroism and romance in equal measure or the exciting books one read as a child.
However, there is nothing heroic or romantic about the background to my thoughts on piracy now, as I speak to you here, and there is quite definitely nothing to get excited about.
On the contrary, all we have here is a destructive fisheries practice and flags of convenience.
We should not see these modern pirates who sail the seven seas as tough old characters with wooden legs and eye patches; no, these pirates operate on powerful trawlers, often owned by nationals of Member States of the EU.
So exactly what havoc do these ships and flags of convenience wreak? This House has always battled for sustainable fisheries and tried to ensure that working conditions meet minimum standards.
The parlous state of fish stocks and the economic recession tell us that a great deal still needs to be done, and we are addressing these problems in our debate on the Green Paper.
However, regulations and stock management measures have to be complied with and this compliance can only be achieved with controls which actually work and effective sanctions - including political sanctions.
This is the huge attraction of flags of convenience to shipowners, because the countries which generously include them in their registers are not exactly known for their controls and sense of responsibility.
The consequences are catastrophic, to both fish and man.
Regional stock management measures are ignored, stocks which are already endangered are depleted without a second thought and conventions to protect employees are simply ignored.
But there is no point in lamenting what is an obvious situation any further, so my proposal is that we should keep trying to influence flag-of-convenience states and remind them of their international obligations.
Even in Europe we can and must act.
The port state controls adopted in the Erika I package must also be applied to pirate activities, and we must close our markets to the catches landed by these fleets.
Mr President, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen. I should like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs McKenna, and the Committee on Fisheries and its chairman, Mr Varela, for having taken on such an important problem.
Like the European Parliament, the Commission is also extremely concerned about these international fishing pirates and the use of so-called flags of convenience.
One thing is clear: anyone fishing under a flag of convenience is flouting maritime law and resolutions and the resolutions of regional fisheries organisations and ruining all our efforts at sustainable stock management in the process.
Plus, it is not only unfair to honest fishermen, it is outright unfair competition and may indeed, as Mrs McKenna said, cause social problems.
The Commission has not been sitting on its hands.
We have proposed an amendment to the FIFG regulation so as to prevent ships from transferring to flag-of-convenience states.
This proposal is still before the Council, awaiting its decision.
Taking the FAO's international plan of action to combat pirate fisheries as our starting point, we also intend to work out a Community action plan to deal with these practices during the course of our reform of the Common Fisheries Policy. What will this entail?
First, we need a definition of the concept of the actual link between ship and flag state and we then need to anchor this definition in international law.
Secondly, we need to draw up a list of the supervision and control duties incumbent upon each country for every ship berthed in its ports, in order to avoid so-called ports of convenience.
Thirdly, we need to strengthen the fisheries control regulation in general.
Now, if I may, I should like to comment briefly on your specific proposals.
As far as No 6 is concerned, there is already a fleet register at Community level and we therefore feel this paragraph is superfluous.
I fully share the concerns set out in No 9.
No new Member State can accede unless it transposes the acquis communautaire into its national legislation.
We also concur on Nos 15, 19 and 22.
As you know, we are already in the process of drafting proposals for reforming the Common Fisheries Policy, which we shall submit to Parliament as soon as we receive your opinion on the Green Paper, taking account, needless to say, of the proposals on control policy which you have made in this context.
As for No 16, we too subscribe to the principle that we need a list of countries which offer flags of convenience.
Finally, some of your demands on this point were met when we proposed that the FIFG rules be revised.
Parts of No 17 are already included in the control regulation.
The Member States are required to keep a tally of imports in order to ensure that the catch quotas of the regional fisheries organisations are not exceeded.
As for No 18, as I have already said, first we need a legal definition of flag-of-convenience states.
Finally, as regards No 21, the Commission has already submitted a proposal to the Member States suggesting that GSP status be withdrawn from Belize, Honduras and Equatorial Guinea because they have violated the UN Fish Stocks Agreement.
So you can see that we too are genuinely concerned.
I should like to close by reiterating that the guidelines which you have submitted are extremely useful to us and will give us good food for thought when we come to reform the Common Fisheries Policy.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
EC/Islamic Republic of Mauritania fisheries agreement
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this debate on the European Union fisheries agreement with Mauritania, together with yesterday' s vote on the fisheries agreements with Cape Verde and Guinea Bissau, are a good opportunity for a political study on international fishing agreements.
I would like to make three brief observations in this respect.
The first one relates to the economic and social importance of these agreements for the European Union.
As is well known, these fishing agreements with third countries account for 25% of the supply of the Community market and represent around 50 000 jobs.
It has been proved, as in the case of the Efremer study, that they are highly advantageous for the European economy.
The second observation concerns the importance of the agreements for the economy of the developing countries.
Clearly, the European Union cannot paternalistically and high-handedly impose a decision regarding the sectors to which compensation should be applied but, little by little and with diplomacy, we have reached a situation where part of this financial compensation is applied in the fisheries sector and in important activities.
Thirdly, it is clear that these fishing agreements are of mutual benefit for the two parties, for both the European Union and the third countries.
Lastly, I would like to refer to the Gallagher report, since the agreement with Mauritania is the most important one concluded with third countries to date.
In the light of the non-renewal of the agreement with Morocco, this agreement with Mauritania, as the rapporteur stated, is now of special importance for Portugal and Spain, but also for Italy and France, which are countries that also fish in these waters.
As you are aware, the Committee on Fisheries adopted an amendment proposing that the quotas be redistributed by the countries in the event that those for whom they are intended do not use them.
I must say that my group agrees with this principle provided that it is applied from now on, of course, to all fishing agreements and not only the agreements with ACP countries.
Lastly, I would like to thank Mr Gallagher for the excellent work he has done in this report.
Mr President, I would like to say that fishing relations between the European Union and Mauritania go back a long way, to 1987, and it is clear that - since the disappearance of the fisheries agreement with Morocco, to whose demise we all contributed - it is now the most important of all the European Union' s agreements in terms of volume of catches and budgetary allocations.
As previous speakers have said, it is one of the so-called Southern agreements, an agreement under which shipowners contribute to the economic costs by paying for licences.
As you know, in the Northern agreements, the shipowners do not pay.
As the rapporteur says in his report, four Southern States (Spain, Italy, Portugal and France) are going to be the beneficiaries of this new five-year protocol, although it is also the case that, if fishing opportunities are not utilised - as the rapporteur says - other European countries can use them, which is also something which happens in Southern agreements, but not in Northern agreements.
As always, I would like to stress to the Members of this House - and not only those of the Committee on Fisheries - the importance of fisheries agreements with third countries, the importance of continuing to sign up to them and to sign up to new ones.
I stress their importance for those third countries and for European regions which are highly dependent on fishing such as my own, Galicia, and I stress once again that this agreement is mutually beneficial.
Mr President, I would like to read a section from the April 2001 report of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries.
I have been assured by Commission officials that negotiations for third country fisheries agreements are based on information provided by this committee.
Regarding the most recent stock assessment of octopus in Mauritania, the report says "... the assessment conducted in 1998 indicates that the stock was over-exploited..." and it then goes on to say that "... the 1998 working group in Nouadhibou recommended a reduction of 25% of the fishing effort exerted by the cephalopod fisheries...".
This is a far cry from a scientific endorsement of increasing European fishing of octopus even if certain other fleets have reduced their effort.
The Commission states that there was a more recent assessment by Spanish scientists.
However, despite repeated requests, Commission officials have so far failed to provide a copy of this document.
I believe there is an important principle here in relation to access to information.
Parliament, which is the budgetary authority, is being frustrated in its attempts to obtain the relevant scientific information on this major third country agreement.
I cannot understand how the Commission can go for a study by anonymous authors and ignore information provided by its own main committee.
Parliament has a right to know.
The other point I wish to make relates to the clause which appears to facilitate the Atlantic Dawn.
I am curious.
I congratulate the Commission on taking legal action against the Atlantic Dawn, but I would now like to hear from the Commission the latest on this case.
This agreement is morally bankrupt.
It is yet another example of the EU taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries.
The bribe of EUR 86 million per annum is taken from many pensioners and many of the lower-paid.
It is given directly to the ruling elite of Mauritania, who are ethnically different from the bulk of the ordinary people.
Very little money filters down to the ordinary people who are amongst the poorest in the world in one of the poorest regions of the world.
Furthermore, it is destroying fish stocks and destroying such infrastructure as exists.
Worst of all, however, hundreds of local fishermen are being killed each year and, if the excellent Channel 4 documentary on the Mauritanian agreement is any guide, some are being deliberately run down by trawlers engaged in illegal fishing permitted by a deliberately lax, ill-equipped monitoring and enforcement regime.
This is the reality.
For all the fine words in the Commission document, this agreement is creating a human and environmental disaster.
It is set to continue - and why? To satisfy the insatiable greed of the largely Spanish fishing industry, which nobody dares to oppose for fear of reprisals at the Council of Ministers.
A vote for this report is effectively a vote to subsidise murder and it creates the very conditions in which terrorism is spawned.
This serious issue needs to be investigated and therefore I challenge this House to support me in the call for a temporary committee of enquiry, the papers of which will be ready for the next Strasbourg session.
If, as we say, we care about the poor and oppressed, if we believe in the right to life, then this House should support me in attempting to shine a light on this disgraceful situation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, fortunately, what we have just heard is absolutely a minority opinion in this House, and I think we are all delighted about that.
I would like to begin by congratulating our rapporteur, Mr Gallagher, on the diligence and efficiency with which he has done his work.
He well understood that this was an urgent report, given the situation of the fleet affected by the non-renewal of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
A part of that fleet can now be included in the agreement with Mauritania, which will help to relieve the difficult situation which had been created.
The European Parliament is thereby giving its opinion on the Gallagher report on this agreement, which is essential to the European Union, in record time.
I also think it is fair to congratulate the Commission on having reached this agreement, which breaks the curse of the failure of the negotiations with Morocco.
Secondly, I would like to point out - because there has been false and ill-intentioned information on this agreement - that the agreement with Mauritania is very beneficial for both parties. I insist; for both parties, and that is why it has been reached.
Furthermore, I would like to acknowledge that there is no better defender in the world of cooperation development or of the conservation of resources than the European Union.
Therefore, neither private agreements nor public agreements with States other than the European Union, above all Asian States, can in any way be compared with the control and rigour applied by the European Union in these international agreements.
I would also like to take this opportunity, Commissioner, to condemn the recent seizure of a ship, the Lameiro Uno, which, while sailing towards Mauritanian waters, was seized by Morocco, accused of fishing, when this was not the case.
Commissioner, I hope that this intolerable practice by Morocco will not be repeated in the future, since it would jeopardise the achievements of the fisheries agreement with Mauritania.
I would ask you to take good note of this, in order to prevent any repetition of these practices, since vessels obviously have to pass through Morocco' s economic zone in order to reach Mauritania.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Production and marketing of honey
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the bee is a symbol of hard work and, in this respect, Mrs Lulling is the queen bee of the European Parliament in the truest sense of the word, because it is she who, for over a decade, has forced us not with carrots and sticks, but with honey and bee stings, by which I mean with sound arguments, to keep on debating this question, a question which many people tend to underestimate because, unlike me, they were not fortunate enough, back at the beginning of the 1980s, to meet the biggest group of visitors ever to visit this House in Strasbourg - a group of Bavarian beekeepers invited by the late Heinrich Aigner, who also fought long and hard for this cause.
Several hundred Bavarian beekeepers came to the European Parliament, which just goes to show how committed these people are to their cause, which is also our cause.
Beekeepers are not a large group of voters, they are people who look after bees which, as Mrs Lulling has already said, ensure that a balance is constantly restored to our ecosystem, at least to a certain extent.
A cold winter is just beginning, but when it is over we know that spring will arrive, that the bees will again fly off to provide their pollination services and we shall again enjoy a blooming landscape.
But there is a danger that one day winter will come and no such spring will follow because there will be no bees or too few bees to provide this ecological function.
Many people believe that the EU is a country which flows with milk and honey.
With milk we have tried to get the quotas into order.
With bees, we have a self-supply rate of just below 50% in the European Union. Anyone who really wants to see a country which flows with milk and honey should fly to Argentina, as I did this summer.
Argentina could supply the European Union with most or many of the products that we need, but in these times of global political crisis, we are aware of two new elements.
First, we are aware of the need for quality following the BSE crisis and, secondly, we are aware of the need to be able to obtain healthy food from our own soil following the crisis on 11 September.
I think that a functioning European farming industry and a functioning European ecosystem need suitable support for our beekeepers, which is why I ask the House to throw its full weight behind the Lulling report.
Mr President, on the basis of the assessment and the application of Regulation (EC) No 1221/97, two clear conclusions should be drawn: firstly, that it is necessary to increase the amount of aid in each of the lines and the percentage of subsidy; secondly, that we must prevent, as was the case in the period 1998-2000, inequalities between sectors.
With regard to the corrections which should be introduced, we must achieve a reasonable balance in the cost-benefit for each of the action lines and a profound modification which transforms the current degree of co-funding, so that funding is entirely covered by the EAGGF Guarantee.
With regard to future needs, we should make two recommendations. Firstly, we must establish a direct aid system which compensates for the loss of income suffered by European professional beekeepers.
Furthermore, we should create a COM for honey.
Secondly, we must recognise the importance of the role played by professional beekeepers by maintaining their status in the face of large bee-keeping operations, since they thereby allow the existence of a fully sustainable stock-breeding activity, which favours rural development and which, furthermore, produces healthy and high-quality products, and which is socially very beneficial, given its important contribution to environmental quality and its active role in conserving bio-diversity by means of the pollination carried out by bees.
I will end by saying, Mr President, that this task of pollination, which is safeguarded by beekeepers, must be compensated for through a line for specific aid which supplements the current Regulation.
I congratulate Mrs Lulling on her magnificent work.
Mr President, today the future of bee-keeping in Europe is in the balance.
This is about nothing less than saving a sector of production.
This is a matter of urgency because, while we are consuming more honey, production is falling to dangerously low levels.
Today we consume more than twice as much honey as we produce. And if we are producing less it is essentially because of the devastating effect - now scientifically proven - which a certain number of systemic insecticides used to treat arable seeds have had on bee populations, which have been really decimated.
This situation is not unique or unusual; today nearly all European bee-keepers are affected.
Faced with a situation of this nature, the Commission's proposal, which is extremely weak, confines itself, as part of its new regulatory framework, to statistical work and a handful of promotion measures.
These proposals are obviously not sufficient to tackle the problems affecting the sector.
No one is denying that there is a need to refine the statistics, but this work is no substitute for what is most urgent, which is rebuilding bee populations so that our bee-keepers can save honey production in Europe.
Product promotion is a good thing, provided that the product concerned is available.
Furthermore, you have to be particularly careful with promotion when the products concerned are ones of which we have a considerable shortfall, which is the case with honey.
It is necessary to promote the link between the product and the land.
I do not believe that it is the European Union's job to fund the promotion of Chinese, Argentinean or Mexican honey: these are honeys which do not guarantee traceability in any shape or form, which are not subject to quality control, which do not comply with our standards and which are often nothing but flavoured glucose syrups.
We cannot claim that we wish to encourage European agriculture to develop in a way which is more respectful of the environment while at the same time letting our bee-keepers sink into indifference, and it is true that they do not constitute a powerful lobby.
They are all the more deserving of our attention.
Any product, including honey, can, admittedly, be purchased from outside, but the pollination of our plants is not something that can be imported.
We are dealing here with an area which is essential for preserving our environment and our bio-diversity.
That is why I welcome the work done by our excellent rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, and by all of the Members of the Committee on Agriculture who unanimously adopted the amendments which we tabled together.
These open the door to the possibility of Community funding being made available to help European bee-keepers to rebuild their hive populations in response to this urgent situation; we state this in Paragraph 10.
Veterinary costs related to bee-keeping should also be treated in the same way as for other animals; we state this in Paragraph 5.
And to safeguard the future of this industry in the long term, it is essential that, in the future, procedures for the approval of plant protection products take account of their effects on bees in terms of death or alteration in behaviour; this is our Paragraph 17.
It is essential that the precautionary principle be applied here.
Commissioner, the Commission needs to wake up; the Council needs to wake up.
This is a matter of great urgency.
We Members must sound the alarm.
The European Union would bear a huge responsibility if it hastened the disappearance of our bee-keepers.
I hope that all Members will support the wise, necessary and urgent proposals which we adopted unanimously in the Committee on Agriculture.
Mr President, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen. First, may I congratulate you, Mrs Lulling, on being crowned queen bee of the European Parliament here today.
I should also like to congratulate you on the report which you have submitted.
However I hope, with reference to the sting which was also mentioned, that you do not share the fate of the bee which, as you know, can only sting once.
That would be a real pity.
Programmes to improve the conditions under which honey is produced and marketed are regularly submitted by all Member States for approval and, with only 80% of available funds being taken up, the satisfactory application of Regulation 1221/97 would clearly appear to be guaranteed.
For the rest, the Council has approved the European Parliament's motion for the funds earmarked for the application of the regulation to be increased by EUR 2.5 million.
The Commission would therefore be delighted if the Member States and the enterprises in question were to take up all these funds in order to implement as many measures as possible within the current legal framework, in order to help the sector and allow it to develop in line with the rapporteur's considerations.
When the report on the first three years' application of this regulation was submitted to the Council, the representatives of the Member States raised no objections whatsoever and approved the Commission's conclusions unanimously.
In discussions with the Commission, the enterprises in the sector welcomed the fact that the aid regulation in favour of European beekeeping was to be maintained.
The economy in the honey sector is stable, production and imports have remained steady and the self-supply rate has fluctuated between 48 and 50% for several years and is therefore nothing new.
Bearing these facts in mind and bearing in mind the heterogeneity of the sector and the widely differing bee economies in the European Union, we feel that neither a new common organisation of the market in the honey sector nor a direct aid regulation in the form of direct income support for beekeepers is warranted at the present time.
Other suggestions in the report, such as specific aid to improve the bee population through rearing apiaries, can already be implemented under the current regulation, without the need for any new legal provisions.
We also have all the facilities of the structural policy and the policy to promote agricultural products at our disposal. They too need to be implemented accordingly, although the initiative here lies mainly with the Member States.
Having said which, the Member States and the enterprises in question need to work more closely together in applying and implementing the programmes in order to ensure there is coherent political and financial support for this sector across the EU.
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity, as Mr Fischler is still here but will surely not be able to stay for this evening's vote, to say that I am somewhat disappointed.
You cannot say that these paltry funds of between EUR 10 and 14 million - granted, we shall get a bit more next year - are satisfactory because 80% are being taken up.
I realise that we are making demands on the Member States and that a bit more will be done within the existing legal framework, but we also want a more flexible approach than is possible at present.
But I must say that I really am appalled to hear that not one representative in the Council - i.e. not one Member State - had any objection whatsoever; do they really think we need do nothing at all?
I think it is quite something that the Member States apparently feel no need to react to what the European Parliament has to say about your report.
But we and the beekeepers shall make sure that the Member States at least acknowledge what we have to say about the report, just in case they think there is no need to act.
As you know, we have not called for any all-powerful order, but we still take the view that we need direct aid regulations in the medium term.
You say they are not warranted at the present time.
You have heard the beekeepers, they take quite a different view and you must be fully aware of what is happening in this sector.
We shall also ensure that beekeepers are better informed about the facilities available under structural policy and measures to promote agricultural produce, but here too we have very limited funds for numerous quality products.
Mr President, I just wanted to say this to Mr Fischler because I already know what he has told us. I had hoped for something more, rather than being hung out to dry!
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Mr President, I shall be very brief.
My colleagues in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms have told me that at 8.57 a.m. they received an e-mail convening the Committee for 9.30 a.m..
This way of doing things seems rather odd to me.
I should therefore like this not only noted in the minutes but also brought to your attention, Mr President, so that, since we shall be making a formal protest, the Bureau is kept informed of the fact that committees are meeting after being convened with only 33 minutes' notice - something I find rather odd, not to say strange, not to say inappropriate.
Mr President, I do not want to prolong the debate unnecessarily. I would, however like to say that I am the deputy chairman of this committee and I was treated in exactly the same manner.
It is a sorry state of affairs when a deputy chairman is not even given proper notice of an extraordinary meeting.
This sort of treatment is quite simply unacceptable.
Thank you for your observations.
At this point, however, I cannot do anything.
Amongst other things, as you know, this House has expressed its wish that the urgent procedure should be voted on during the next sitting of Parliament, next Monday.
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Zimbabwe
The next item is the debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0759/2001 by Andrews, on behalf of the UEN Group,
B5-0774/2001 by Sjöstedt, Marset Campos and Di Lello Finuoli, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group,
B5-0787/2001 by Maes, Lucas and Lannoye, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group,
B5-0788/2001 by Mulder, van den Bos and Malmström, on behalf of the ELDR Group,
B5-0799/2001 by Kinnock, on behalf of the PSE Group,
B5-0801/2001 by Van Orden, Deva, Parish, Foster, Banotti, Corrie, Gahler, Korhola, Lehne, Maij-Weggen, Sacrédeus and Belder, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group
on Zimbabwe
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is painful to have to stand by as a stubborn president, who has also earned a great deal of credit, uses unscrupulous party activists to help him systematically ruin a country, with no scruples about using deadly force in the process, because he cannot come to terms with the threat of losing power.
Like Mr Gahler, I was one of the parliamentary election observers at the time and saw for myself how Mugabe and his rent-a-mob were driving the country straight towards catastrophe.
Despite massive attempts to intimidate the electors - and we shall no doubt see an action replay of that now - and despite massive support for the opposition candidates, which has ended in death in a multitude of cases, the MDC achieved a remarkable result, clearly signalling to Mugabe that political change was on the horizon.
Now, with presidential elections imminent, Mugabe is again tightening the screw of force and terror.
There is no sign of the return to the rule of law promised in the Abuja agreement; on the contrary.
By using more and more legislative repression, massively restricting the freedom of the press, threatening the opposition, continuing to occupy farms and permanently undermining the rule of law, Mugabe is isolating himself more and more, including from his traditional allies in southern Africa.
This was blatantly obvious at the last meeting of the ACP/EU joint parliamentary assembly in Brussels in October.
These countries are being sucked into free fall by the humanitarian and economic disaster in Zimbabwe and further pressure is needed to make Robert Mugabe change direction and hold the presidential elections in accordance with the standards of free and fair elections, and this is where we also need the support of the institutions of the European Community.
Mr President, the regime of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe is having a very bad press internationally, and with good reasons.
Mugabe is sacrificing countless human lives, literally and figuratively, to his utterly ruthless aim of retaining power.
The shocking Dutch newspaper headline of less than a week ago 'Zimbabwe stinks of blood lust' sadly completely sums up the content of the article by the paper' s correspondent in Harare.
The accompanying vulgar cartoon from the Zimbabwean state paper The Herald underlines this ominous message. The cartoon turns Mugabe' s major challenger in next year' s presidential elections, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change, into a downright caricature.
He is depicted as the yes-man of rich white farmers in his own country and of Western powers.
However, Zimbabwean political reality looks completely different. Naked state terror against white farmers, their black managers and agricultural labourers as well as against political opponents of Mugabe' s party, ZANU-PF.
State terror manifests itself in ten or so methods of repression: undermining the judicial system, politicisation of the army and police, attacks on press freedom, occupation of the estates of white farmers, slander against independent institutions like the Red Cross, purportedly acting as cover organisations for the opposition, electoral fraud, tapping the opposition' s telephone traffic, detention of and slurs on members of the opposition MDC party, violence and intimidation against supposed supporters of the opposition and, finally, murder of political opponents.
In this context, I should like to ask the Commission urgently, in its meeting with Zimbabwean Government representatives at the beginning of next week, to speak up above all for those domestic organisations that help the victims of political violence in Zimbabwe, who now total hundreds of thousands.
When Mr Mugabe became the first President of Zimbabwe some 40 years ago, that land-locked country in Africa was a rich nation that could feed its population and export food to neighbouring countries.
About 1000 white farmers, owning most of the land, produced the food and the surplus.
After independence in Zimbabwe, the Lancaster House Agreement between Britain, as the colonial power, and Zimbabwe allowed for land redistribution to black families and appropriate compensation to white farmers without any loss of production.
Mugabe has failed in implementing these reforms.
He has failed to settle the poor black families.
Since independence, Mugabe has had much time to establish real democracy, rule of law and prosperity for all.
Instead, he has enriched himself, his friends and destroyed his country's economy.
He has made the poor even poorer.
He has intimidated, looted and deprived the white farmers who produced so much wealth for his nation.
Zimbabwe needs a free and fair election now.
Mugabe should not fear.
He will be judged on his record.
If he is a statesman, like Mandela, then he should step down with dignity and let someone else from Zanu-PF contest the election.
If he is still a Catholic, then he should listen to Archbishop Ncube of Zimbabwe who has also condemned him regularly without fear.
Mr Mugabe cannot and will not be remembered in Africa unless he gives his countrymen a chance to breathe, walk without fear and seek opportunities to enhance their quality of life.
I have a simple message for Mr Mugabe - be an African elder and retire gracefully to your village.
Mr President, Article 96 consultations will not be easy but we should give them a chance.
Zimbabwe confirmed its participation, but the original date of 19 December for the start of these consultations was yesterday postponed.
We do not have an indication of another date.
The idea is to hold them next month.
It has been indicated that SADC, ACP and the OAU will be invited to and included in these consultations.
This is good because it broadens out the scope by anchoring in Africa the kind of discussion we have to go through with Zimbabwe.
The consultations will focus on the issues which matter to us - human rights, democracy, the rule of law, good governance and the escalation of violence.
The consultations will provide an opportunity to seek the government's views and their firm commitment in the following areas: politically motivated violence, elections, freedom of the media, the judiciary and illegal occupation of properties.
I would like to reassure Parliament that these consultations cover practically the totality of the issues raised in their draft resolutions.
I would like to stress that there will also be a clear EU position on the points Zimbabwe is bound to raise, such as land reform, interference in its internal affairs, alleged support for the opposition and the imposition of what they call "white values".
Finally, not pre-judging the outcome of the consultations and handling them in the spirit of the Cotonou agreement is not only necessary to address the situation with Zimbabwe, it is also necessary to maintain mutual trust and confidence between the EU and ACP countries.
But respecting the rules and the spirit of these consultations is not the same as carrying them out in a vague and weak manner.
This is not how the piano is going to be played!
As regards electoral monitoring, the Commission is getting prepared for this.
The Government of Zimbabwe has announced that it will not accept monitors; it will only invite friends to observe the presidential elections.
The auguries for an EU presence are not too good, but we will be able to mount an EU mission should this be feasible.
We are maintaining flexibility to react to developments and possibilities.
A key requirement will be that no international observation mission - whether multilateral or bilateral - is manipulated by Mugabe into sending short-term observers only for polling day.
We have to keep in mind that last year polling day itself was relatively calm.
It is clear that the campaigning period in the run-up to the poll is crucial for determining the fairness of the electoral process itself.
The Commission considers that a minimum length of observation time - that is, one month - is necessary and we are discouraging others from sending short-term observers only.
The Commission has suggested that the EU focus its approach on the SADC Parliamentary Forum's norms and standards, which comply with the UN standards and have been endorsed by Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF Party.
There are indications that other international partners, such as the Commonwealth and the United States, will agree to use those standards, which would then allow the international community to judge the openness and fairness of the elections.
In parallel, the SADC Electoral Forum and the Electoral Commissions Forum of SADC countries are being encouraged to open a dialogue with the Zimbabwe authorities and the political parties, on the preparations for the presidential election.
We see close collaboration with SADC in this election-related activity as a way of creating some sort of base-line case so that we will be able to do something if we cannot participate directly.
But this is the preferred option, and Zimbabwe should welcome the EU observers.
The Commission has remained engaged in the country in order, on the one hand, not to pre-judge the outcome of the consultations and at the same time to up the stakes for Zimbabwe of an eventual failure - thus increasing the pressure on them to cooperate.
This is the rationale of what we are doing at this moment.
We have therefore taken the following actions: the Commission has currently a mission on the ground to assess humanitarian needs and food security issues.
This we will do in any case, whatever the political outcome.
Preliminary results show that, remarkably, the deterioration of the situation is much slower than could have been expected.
The Commission has also participated in the UNDP land mission.
Successful or not, it is worth exerting a positive pressure on Zimbabwe by doing anything possible to move forward the dossier of land reform.
The Commission has maintained, as I mentioned before, its offer to support the electoral process.
We continue preparing our cooperation under the new five-year funding cycle, not least to demonstrate to the Government of Zimbabwe what it has to lose.
We will not take any decisions on whether or not to proceed with signing and implementing the Country Strategy for Zimbabwe until after the consultations have been concluded.
To sign or not to sign is a very important question in many cases and here it is quite clear that we want the consultations concluded before we move on.
But not to prepare would also imply lack of respect of the whole process of planning in the Cotonou framework.
The regional dimension is important.
It appears that Zimbabwe's neighbours are becoming increasingly concerned with the deterioration of the situation and the potentially very dramatic consequences for the country and the whole region.
This is why we have taken the initiative to maintain close contact with SADC and Nigeria in view of Article 96 consultations.
It is, in fact, the first time ever that the opening of these consultations has included a reference to the use of our partners in the region.
The General Affairs Council accepted this approach, ensuring close coordination and complementarity with SADC and the Abuja process.
The Commission and presidency have proceeded with a series of informal exchanges with SADC and Nigeria against this background.
We note that these African partners are already exerting effective peer pressure on Mugabe so that a solution to the crisis may be found.
The emerging African ownership approach has to be welcomed, particularly in view of the negative effect that the continuing crisis in Zimbabwe is having on its neighbours.
I must confess that the outlook is not optimistic.
Things look very bad as we move into these consultations.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.30 p.m.
Cluster bombs
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0765/2001 by Sakellariou, Wiersma and van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE Group,
B5-0775/2001 by Brie, Frahm, Eriksson, Korakas, Figueiredo, Marset Campos, Papayannakis, Boudjenah and Seppänen, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group,
B5-0782/2001 by McKenna, Maes, Schroedter, Lucas and Isler Béguin, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group,
B5-0789/2001 by van den Bos, on behalf of the ELDR Group,
on cluster bombs.
Mr President, I wanted to begin my speech by expressing my horror at this war in Afghanistan and any other war.
We have always spoken out very clearly against the Taliban government and the measures it took against its own population, against women' s rights in particular.
But we are also against the deaths of - I believe - thousands of innocent civilians in Afghanistan.
Today we are talking about a weapon which is being used in Afghanistan, a weapon which the United Nations Convention of 1980 called into question, a weapon which is today also the subject of discussion in the Conference taking place in Geneva.
A weapon which, together with anti-personnel mines, makes enormous areas of our planet uninhabitable.
Mr President, I believe it should be banned. As simple as that.
I even find the fourth paragraph of this resolution, which says that we must provide them with more reliable mechanisms, repellent.
I believe that nobody in this House has expressed the horror of any war better than our recent winner of the Sakharov Prize, the Israeli Nurit Peled-Elhanan, who spoke here yesterday.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Cluster bombs, as we all know, are one of the most treacherous conventional weapons ever devised by man.
Civilians and aid workers fall victim to these bombs years after the conflict has ended.
The peace process often grinds to a halt because unexploded bomblets close off whole areas.
Refugees cannot return, because the area is no longer inhabitable.
These are the reasons why our group agrees with the statement made by the President of our Parliament and condemns outright the use of cluster bombs by the US army in Afghanistan.
This bombardment will set the peace process and economic development in Afghanistan back years.
I think it is irresponsible to continue this bombardment and I call on the USA to put a stop to it at long last.
I also call from this platform on all countries, especially those who have signed the UN Convention on Conventional Weapons, to apply an immediate moratorium at their next conference and pronounce a definitive ban on the use, production and supply of these weapons.
And I call on the Commission and the Council in its negotiations with the USA to urge them to subscribe to a ban on cluster bombs.
Could I just briefly refer to the statement made by the Commissioner on Zimbabwe, which I very much welcome.
We have put off these Cotonou negotiations and we really need to have a deadline by which they must take place.
Otherwise I can see Mugabe will just keep on deferring it until nothing happens at all.
I would suggest that we ought to set a date, such as January 12, by which, if nothing has happened, we proceed with the sort of strong measures that we have suggested.
Turning to the cluster bomb issue, I have to say that I have been one of the foremost activists in support of the campaign to ban antipersonnel landmines because our armed forces recognise that their limited military utility is outweighed by the danger that they so often pose to civilians, often many years after a conflict is over.
There are other weapon systems that could be used instead of antipersonnel landmines to equal effect, but without the negative dangers.
There are those engaged in mine clearance actions who will testify to the fact that a large proportion of the hazardous material they come across is unexploded ordnance of various sorts rather than antipersonnel mines Sometimes this ordnance includes unexploded bomblets from cluster bomb units.
I have to say that cluster bombs are not antipersonnel landmines and it is bogus to try and confuse these two issues.
While I would support the need for such remotely delivered munitions to contain self-destruct or neutralising mechanisms, it would be most unwise to insist on a ban until our armed forces are satisfied that their operations would not be impaired or that they have substitute weapons of equal effectiveness.
We have to be very careful and beware of what I might call 'banning creep'.
Otherwise we are going to blur the focus of our actions against systems such as antipersonnel landmines and the wide support which that sort of campaign attracts.
There are some elements in the resolution that I can support, but I am suspicious of some of its driving elements.
Therefore, I am inclined to abstain on the resolution.
Mr President, my group has given the go-ahead for the vote on this resolution, and I am one of those who support the resolution and am vehemently in favour of a moratorium.
We must tread very carefully in this particular war.
We are fighting a terrorist regime but we run the risk of not preparing for peace and of becoming embroiled in this conflict with no clear peace programme or prospects.
We oppose the death penalty which the Taliban have applied and yet we import it club class in huge American transporters.
We abhor Taliban misogyny but say nothing about the rapes carried out by the so-called Northern Alliance - a highly dubious alliance - on a massive scale.
The same applies here: obviously we have to use weapons systems in order to bring this war in Afghanistan to a successful close.
But, on the other hand, we need to ensure that as many civilians as possible are spared in order to prevent this war from escalating around the world and in order to prevent further escalation in weapons systems, especially now that more and more politicians and former pacifists are suddenly beginning to think in terms of the admissibility of war and to accept war as a policy instrument.
Sometimes it has to be the last resort, but what worries me is how comfortable we have become with the idea of war.
It is precisely at such times that we need to ban this sort of weapons system and, more importantly, to strengthen international law.
We have an international coalition against terrorism, but unless we can cash in on it by strengthening the international law of the United Nations, we shall be prey to other constellations which we absolutely do not want.
Hence, as I said, we need to fight terrorism but the ultimate aim must be to strengthen international law and ban - and this too is a topical issue - atomic as well as biological and chemical weapons.
Which is where the USA comes in and of course, most importantly, a ban on these cluster bombs which, in our view, are a means of war which endanger civilians to an unreasonable extent.
Those who know what damage was caused in the Balkans or Kosovo, mainly because of the mines laid by the Yugoslav army - that too needs to be said - they will understand why, at all events, we need to take a moderate line here.
The Commission shares Parliament' s concern about the humanitarian, economic and social problems caused by a variety of unexploded ordnance such as cluster bombs and the particular difficulties of clearing contaminated areas.
A number of studies on cluster bombs show that no less than 10% of delivered cluster bomblets fail to explode on impact and that the remaining unexploded ones tend to have effects similar to anti-personnel landmines.
They also are victim-activated and provoke fatal or disabling injuries as serious as those caused by landmines.
The Commission has taken due note of the proposal submitted by the International Committee of the Red Cross to address the problems caused by cluster bombs and other 'explosive remnants of war' at the review conference of the UN Convention on the Prohibition or Restriction on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons.
This approach is broadly shared by the EU.
At the review conference, which is being held in Geneva from 11 to 21 December 2001, the EU will present a common position on the issue of the unexploded remnants of war, requesting concrete steps to address this issue under the CCW framework.
With this in mind, we have carried out diplomatic démarches to prepare the ground for a successful outcome of the Geneva meeting.
Parliament's initiative is therefore particularly timely and welcome.
The Commission will closely follow developments at the CCW review conference.
On an operational level, the Commission is already providing an indirect but tangible contribution to the reduction of the threat posed by cluster bombs and other unexploded ordnance through the legal and budgetary instrument of the anti-personnel landmines regulation.
Mine clearance carried out under this regulation encompasses de facto clearance of other unexploded ordnance.
We are already engaged in such broader clearance activities in countries such as Laos and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Kosovo, where the anti-personnel landmine problem is very clearly connected to unexploded ordnance pollution.
Mine clearance is also supported as part of ECHO-funded humanitarian aid in many countries and as part of development activities when we are carrying out ECHO-financed reconstruction work or building roads, etc. in a number of countries.
A week ago, in Kabul, I saw de-mining activities funded by ECHO.
Through two organisations we have employed something like 1 500 to 2 000 local Afghan staff who are continually working on de-mining.
We walked on marked paths in areas where I counted 30 to 40 recent non-exploded cluster bombs.
They do not necessarily stay on the surface of the ground.
If a neighbouring cluster bomblet explodes it may bury a few others and functionally they become anti-personnel landmines.
They have three functions: armour penetration capability, spraying shards of shrapnel from the casing, and starting a fire.
It was a very morbid experience but it gives me real satisfaction that we are funding this kind of activity on a large scale.
Certainly this is a main priority in the present situation where we are working to make it possible for the refugees to return home safely.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 6.30 p.m.
Human rights
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Women in Afghanistan - B5-0763/2001 by Crowley, on behalf of the UEN Group,
B5-0766/2001 by Gröner, Theorin, van den Berg and Izquierdo Rojo, on behalf of the PSE Group,
B5-0776/2001 by Fraisse, Eriksson, Morgantini, González Álvarez, Ainardi, Figueiredo and Uca, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group,
B5-0784/2001 by Jillian Evans, Hautala, Sörensen, Breyer, Isler Béguin, Buitenweg, Auroi and Schroedter, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group,
B5-0790/2001 by Dybkjær, Malmström and van den Bos, on behalf of the ELDR Group,
B5-0802/2001 by Thomas Mann, Banotti, Maij-Weggen, De Sarnez, Avilés Perea, Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou and Tannock, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group,
Indonesia- B5-0762/2001 by Belder, on behalf of the EDD Group,
B5-0767/2001 by van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE Group,
B5-0783/2001 by McKenna and Lagendijk, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group,
B5-0791/2001 by Maaten, on behalf of the ELDR Group,
B5-0798/2001 by Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group,
B5-0803/2001 by Maij-Weggen, Deva and Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group,
Immigration in Ireland- B5-0777/2001 by Boudjenah, Morgantini, Frahm, Korakas, Herman Schmid, Miranda and Papayannakis, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group,
B5-0796/2001 by Andrews, on behalf of the UEN Group,
B5-0800/2001 by Terrón i Cusí, De Rossa and Karamanou, on behalf of the PSE Group,
B5-0805/2001 by Doyle, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group,
Togo- B5-0760/2001 by Pasqua, on behalf of the UEN Group,
B5-0768/2001 by Carlotti and van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE Group,
B5-0778/2001 by Morgantini, Sylla, Cossutta, Marset Campos and Sjöstedt, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group,
B5-0786/2001 by Rod and Maes, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group,
B5-0793/2001 by van den Bos and Dybkjær, on behalf of the ELDR Group,
B5-0804/2001 by Schwaiger, Maij-Weggen, Johan Van Hecke, van Velzen and Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group,
Aung San Suu Kyi and Leyla Zana- B5-0769/2001 by van den Berg and Swoboda, on behalf of the PSE Group,
B5-0779/2001 by Vinci, Uca, Ainardi, Figueiredo, Eriksson, Frahm and Seppänen, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group,
B5-0792/2001 by Malmström, on behalf of the ELDR Group,
B5-0797/2001 by Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group,
B5-0806/2001 by Maij-Weggen, Lamassoure and Van Orden, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group,
B5-0809/2001 by Cohn-Bendit, Maes, Wuori and Frassoni, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance Group.
Women in Afghanistan
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we live in the same world as the women of Afghanistan.
I should like to recall their Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women, which they adopted in Dushanbe on 28 June 2000.
These were women issuing a call to action and not only victims.
I should also like to recall, as Mrs Gröner has just done, the Afghan Women's Summit, which concluded on 6 December 2001, last week, and which issued a proclamation which it is important to be familiar with.
This proclamation says: Afghan women want their rights now, not tomorrow, not later on.
All these rights have been returned to them; we therefore need to restore these rights now.
That is why I have tabled an amendment which I would ask you to support, calling for these rights to be re-established as quickly as possible.
We need to give them the means to travel and to receive education and healthcare because ultimately we, the women of the same world as them, are a little anxious.
We are a little anxious and we call on the European institutions and the UN institutions to be vigilant.
Paragraph 5 of the resolution calls for the UN to focus particularly on establishing equality between men and women in Afghanistan, because these women have really been the symbols of many things.
They have been the symbols of their own oppression, but they have also been the symbols of famine.
Six months ago, when we were debating the situation in Afghanistan, they were the symbols of the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddha statues, and even of their own oppression.
It is not therefore a question of discarding the symbol once it has served its purpose.
It is a question of acting in such a way that the women are able to rediscover their rights and, for those who feel able to fight actively as representatives of all of the people, to participate in the government.
These women are active participants in this process and we live in the same world as they do.
They are demanding the freedom to travel and the recognition of habeas corpus; I believe that these freedoms are the same as those enjoyed by Westerners and that we should not seek to draw a distinction between them.
That is why there is no secondary issue here, just one thing which I am asking you and that is, if possible, as an institution, to work to ensure that these freedoms are respected, because we are not sure that tomorrow will be any better than yesterday for these women.
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to add to what my fellow MEPs have already said by stating how gratifying it is to see the delight shown by Afghan women.
However, we are also concerned about the fear that prevails at the same time.
Afghan women have good reasons to be afraid, for we know that the Northern Alliance too has perpetrated crimes such as forced marriage.
It is important that women and children should survive the winter.
At the same time, it is important to proceed with the measures referred to in this House: full access to education and healthcare for women and young girls.
We must immediately proceed on the basis of a rights-based approach.
Afghan women should not have to beg for the right to education as a favour. Instead, this must be a right.
In that way, they will achieve the dignity and receive the education that they require.
We also need to earmark funds but, in this area, equality between the different ethnic groups is required.
We are delighted about the outcome of the Bonn Conference, but the work must go on.
I should also like to draw Mr Nielson' s attention to the special report prepared by my predecessor, Mrs Rehn, on the UN' s peacekeeping activities and ask him to note that there is a lot to do when it comes to the treatment of women by the peacekeeping forces.
Women are needed in the peacekeeping forces, and an understanding is required of how to treat women who have suffered violence.
I hope that the UN will support the proposal tabled by Mrs Rehn in her report to Kofi Annan.
The issue of guilt also needs to be examined, that is to say who bears responsibility for what.
It is the only way in which to bring about healing.
I believe there is a lot of international experience in this area that we can draw upon.
Last but not least, quite a serious issue, Commissioner Nielson.
Mine dogs, which are extremely important in clearing away all this devastation, are also needed.
I hope that the EU can offer support in this area, too.
Mr President, as a co-author of this resolution I am proud that I spoke out in June of this year in this Chamber against the brutality and medieval obscurantist policies of the Taliban government, when they chose to destroy the beautiful Buddhist statutes in Bamiyan.
This was well before they, and their tragic country, became the focus of the world on 11 September, as the Taliban's link with the perpetrators of the attack on the USA became clear to everybody.
Afghanistan is now at an historical crossroad.
I, as a British MEP, am proud of the role played by the courageous troops from my country in helping America rid Afghanistan of its oppressive masters and end their harbouring of international terrorists bent on the destruction of western values, including women's rights.
I salute particularly those who have been wounded in the campaign and hope, as the UK is about to become a major component of the UN peacekeeping force, that no further casualties will ensue.
Two weeks ago I was invited to meet a representative from the Revolutionary Association of Afghan Women and I, as a Conservative, baulked initially at the title "revolutionary".
However, after my meeting I decided that, in Afghanistan, my western views on social and political rights for women would no doubt, in the eyes of the old mujaheddin guard, such as President Rabbani, classify me, too, as a revolutionary.
I welcome the participation of two women in the interim government and I am hopeful that the new generation of younger, progressive and modern political leaders will see the way to establish a new order based on equality of the sexes and on full political and social rights enshrined in their international treaty obligations, and cease to regard women and their role as a purely economic one and a procreative one and banish them to invisibility in their burkas.
Women were once, in the 1960s and 1970s, welcomed by the government of King Mohammed Zahir Shah as full participating members of society in their professions, in higher education and in politics.
I hope that Afghanistan can return to this form of moderate secular government again, and make use of the huge pool of talent residing in more than 50% of its population.
Mr President, Saudi Arabia has no credibility and offers no guarantees in terms of defending Afghan women.
Saudi Arabia is one of just three countries which officially supported the Taliban regime.
It has been promoting and financially aiding Islamic fundamentalism and it seriously violates the human rights of women.
Mr President, given Saudi Arabia' s anti-women pedigree, is it coherent that at the meeting in Washington on 20 November, that country should be named as part of the group that will lead the reconstruction of Afghanistan?
Mr President, Afghanistan is now entering a hopeful stage and they must begin to change the harsh living conditions for women.
We need a plan containing urgent measures in order that Afghanistan may embark on reconstruction and the road to peace and progress.
The European Union must concern itself as directly as possible with imposing order in the distribution of humanitarian aid and establishing speedy measures and structures so that girls and women may receive education and healthcare.
My final recommendation, Mr President, is that we remember those women' s organisations which resisted the Taliban - such as RAWA - and it is those organisations which must now play a decisive role so that women are fully involved in the reconstruction.
'I keep on seeing dead bodies: our country is a cemetery.
We keep on resisting to free ourselves from terrorism and the war lords, and also from the USA, which created Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban and which, in order to fight and kill them, also bomb us.'
Fatima was talking to me on the telephone from Kabul: she is not a refugee but a RAWA leader.
She says the streets in Kabul are once again crowded and the markets are full but there is no money and widows still live on charity and children scavenge on rubbish heaps.
Everyone is still afraid.
A few women have removed or raised their burka, some men have had a shave, music has started to be played again, but there is fear of punishment and vendettas.
That is why, said Fatima - and I agree with her - there should be a United Nations force there, without Russians, Americans or the British but with contingents from other countries: a multi-ethnic and multi-religious force working at disarming the military groups.
Everybody is talking about the rights of Afghan women.
That is excellent, provided women are not used yet again to justify acts of war.
For years, Afghan and also European women have been denouncing the oppression and violence of the Taliban regime to deaf ears in the West.
The war is not over; we cannot pretend it is and talk just of the future and reconstruction.
Important steps have been taken for women to be included in the formation of the government, but that is not enough and the process is not finished.
We must support those democratic women who have a secular view of the Constitution and who rise above ethnic and tribal divisions, but without denying their own identities.
Many of us have met them; together - as other Members have mentioned - we have drawn up demands, but we have also put our own responsibilities on the table.
The mines that maim were produced in western factories; the cluster bombs, dropped in their thousands in recent days and lying unexploded, are products of our factories; ours are the perverse patents allowing mines to be designed in the shape of butterflies or dolls; ours are the pretty yellow cluster bombs, the same colour as the packets of food dropped from aircraft.
A shared road links us to the Afghan women, the road to freedom and justice for everyone, men and women.
The resolution we are voting for today and the Fraisse amendment must not remain lifeless words on paper, but must be given practical effect.
Even before the rise to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan during 1995-1996 the EU was conscious of the poor position and status of women in Afghan society.
This was recognised in the nature of the aid programmes which we financed at that time and which had a strong focus on the provision of health care, education and employment creation for women.
With the arrival in power of the Taliban in Kabul in 1996, the EU agreed a Common Position on Afghanistan.
The Common Position is renewed annually and clearly sets out among its objectives the promotion of respect for international law and human rights, including the rights of women and children.
In addition, the EU undertakes in the Common Position to support aid programmes which integrate gender concerns and actively attempt to promote the equitable participation of both men and women and promote peace and human rights.
As a result, the Commission, through its ECHO-financed programmes and through its budget for aid to uprooted people, continued, even during the Taliban period, to finance actions which provided health care and education for women and girls and provided employment opportunities and training for women.
I met many of these women and men in Kabul last week.
It made me start talking about what I call the 'other Afghanistan'.
We all know the Afghanistan of the warlords.
But there is an alternative Afghanistan.
We also have heroes and heroines of peace and compassion.
Many of them work in projects that we are funding, did so during the Taliban regime and have continued doing so since September 11.
In an ECHO-funded project for vulnerable children, I met the girls sitting there learning to read and write and asked how many wanted to become housewives when they grew up.
Only a few hands were somewhat hesitantly raised.
Then I asked how many wanted to become schoolteachers or doctors.
Everyone put their hand up - they all wanted to do something.
A very nice moment I would say, and their lady teacher was proud.
Another project involved a woman producing quilts which we use for refugee projects.
She was alone, her husband had died in the conflict, and when the Taliban came to power, she had to stop working as a crane operator in the construction industry.
She has 10 children and her home was being used.
They sat on the floor sewing these quilts and that was a very nice experience.
At the end, when we left, I could not resist giving her a hug to express my feelings - clearly not politically correct when the neighbours could see or, indeed, at all.
But it was well received, and I was quite happy to be part of a civilised and nice meeting of cultures in the centre of Kabul.
Now we are fortunately in the post-Taliban era.
Changes are now possible and we hope that what was achieved in Bonn on December 5 will pave the way for a big improvement in the situation of women and girls in the country.
Women were included in the delegations in Bonn; women will hold office in the Interim Administration.
The Provisional Agreement makes a number of specific references to the guaranteed participation of women in the next phases of the political process - the Loya Jirga and the Transitional Administration.
All of this will be overseen by the UN which has a constitutional role, recognised in the Provisional Agreement, to monitor the conduct of the Interim Authority and the emergency Loya Jirga, as well as providing for the development and implementation of a programme of human rights education to promote respect for and understanding of human rights in Afghanistan.
The Commission is currently processing new, additional aid programmes worth EUR 28.5 million, which will start being implemented in the coming weeks, for emergency aid and aid to uprooted people.
Gender will, of course, be either a specific or horizontal issue in all of these programmes.
ECHO is already present in Kabul and we will formally inaugurate the ECHO office there in the middle of January.
Commission officials plan to start being there permanently from 1 February 2002.
It is therefore important to ensure follow-up also in view of what we are discussing here.
Progress will provide crucial indicators to allow the EU and the rest of the international community to judge the commitment of the new Afghan administration to the engagement that they now have entered into.
I must warn you not to expect miracles.
It is a very traditional society, especially outside Kabul.
The reality on the ground does not reflect the elite in Kabul that we easily get in touch with.
There are many deep-seated differences.
We must take a very broad-based approach and make sure that we deliberately include women in the many decentralised activities that we carry out across the country.
Indonesia
Mr President, so it is true after all: Bin Laden' s Al Qaeda network is definitely operating in Indonesia.
It has training camps in, among other places, Sulawesi, the island to which I shall confine myself to referring in this speech.
Using the Islamic terror group Laskar Jihad as a front, thousands of these fighters, some of them foreign, recently arrived on the island of Sulawesi.
The thirty-nine-year-old Ya'far Umar Thalib from Yogyakarta, Pakistan-trained leader of this terrorist organisation set up in the late 1990s, denies the presence of Bin Laden' s followers.
The opposite turns out to be true.
Only yesterday did the head of the Indonesian national security service, ex-general Hendro Pliono, after a meeting with President Megawati Sukarnoputri, confirm that Al Qaeda is operating on Indonesian territory.
I hope that the Indonesian authorities will not content themselves with making these statements.
I call on them urgently to act decisively against Laskar Jihad and this offshoot of Al Qaeda, as there is no time to lose.
Since the conflict first erupted on Amboina on 19 January 1999, one day before the Islamic festival of Idul Fitr, Laskar Jihad has murdered at least 10 000 Christians and has put many times that number to flight in terror of their lives.
I am extremely concerned that after the Moluccas this anti-Christian force should have found its way to Sulawesi too.
I still have a vivid recollection of the story documented this autumn of the eight-year-old Christian boy.
The boy was sitting on the bus with his mother.
En route, some 50 Muslim terrorists forced the vehicle to stop. The attackers checked the passengers' religious identity.
Two turned out to be Christians, the woman and her son.
They dragged the boy off the bus with brute force, leaving the mother behind utterly distraught.
The young victim' s terrified screams were to no avail.
The terrorists dragged him over the asphalt into the jungle, and nothing more was heard of him.
Just one of the countless documented attacks on buses by Laskar Jihad in Sulawesi.
I ask both the Council and the Commission to do their utmost to contribute to the combating of terrorism in Indonesia, to explore in what way they could support a process of conciliation on the ground, and to examine what measures they can take to promote economic development in this region.
We all have to condemn the assassinations that took place in Papua on 10 November.
There is a real danger that more assassinations are being planned.
There is an onus on the Indonesian Government to investigate thoroughly and to bring in the international investigation teams if necessary.
It is essential that those responsible are brought to justice.
It is also essential that the Indonesian Government protects witnesses from intimidation and murder and it should also protect organisations, NGOs and others from the same threat.
It is also important that the Indonesian Government should replace its Kopassus units because they are seen daily as a threat to the Papuan people.
We also believe that the Indonesian Government should call a halt to the army's commercial activities in Papua.
Thousands have died on Sulawesi alone, where there has been two years of fighting.
The Indonesian Government needs to make an effort to ensure coexistence between the Muslim and the Christian populations, which had been possible for many years.
Mr President, since November, after a relatively peaceful period in Indonesia, we have again been alarmed by serious outbreaks of violence in, for example, Sulawesi and Celebes and by the murder of Theys Hiyo Eluay, the leader of the Papuas in Irian Jaya.
I should like first to say a few words about the murder of Theys Hiyo Eluay, which took place on 10 November after he had had discussions on behalf of the Papuan community with the senior command of the Indonesian military forces in West Papua.
Theys Hiyo Eluay was not only a charismatic leader of the Papuas, but was also a moderate man, who did not seek complete independence for his province, but whose aim was autonomy within the Indonesian state and who had succeeded in achieving this autonomy via the Indonesian parliament.
In October autonomy was ratified in the Indonesian parliament and after a dinner with the regional military staff he was murdered on the evening of 10 November.
It is typical of relations in Indonesia that military units are able to frustrate a constructive process of peace and reconciliation in this way and that this kind of murder can take place.
Many people believe that it was an act of revenge, because an autonomous Irian Jaya would never have given the military the power and financial rewards that they had previously enjoyed.
My request to the Commission and the Council is that they should ask the Indonesian Government to investigate the murder thoroughly and punish the culprit, so that justice is done in a country where injustice prevails.
In addition I should like to request help for the regional government of Irian Jaya, for example for the setting up of a civil service academy, so that people have a real chance of administering the region.
And then there is the situation in Sulawesi and Celebes.
These are the same Laskar Jihad groups that previously caused such misery in the Moluccas and were responsible for thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees.
In this case too we would request that the Commission and the Council ask the Indonesian government to protect the Christian community in Indonesia and keep better control of the fundamentalist Muslim groups.
If Indonesia wishes to retain its respectable and important position, the present government really must call a halt to this violence and the European Union must make it clear to Indonesia that political murders and violence are not acceptable; otherwise the relationship between the European Union and Indonesia will in my view be put under strain.
Mr President, the Commission fully shares with honourable Members their condemnation of the kidnapping and murder of Theys Eluay, Chairman of the Papuan Presidium Council, and adds its voice to the call for the Government of Indonesia to ensure a full investigation of this dreadful incident and to bring its perpetrators to justice.
We are informed that this is now being investigated as a murder case, which may not be sufficient to give us full confidence but at least they are taking this approach.
Further action is also needed to restore calm and to develop confidence in the democratic process.
In this context, the Commission warmly welcomes the adoption last month by the Indonesian national parliament of the special autonomy law for Papua and encourages the Government of Indonesia to proceed to full implementation of the new law with determination and with due speed.
The Commission also shares the deep concern of honourable Members concerning the recent deterioration of the situation in Sulawesi.
Since December 1998, there have been several instances of violence between Muslims and Christians.
The two communities are increasingly segregated - and both are armed.
While reports from the area are sometimes unclear, the situation is certainly serious.
Intercommunal violence has flared up recently around the town of Poso.
A report by a local humanitarian fact-finding mission, which visited the area (including Poso and Tentena) last week, suggests that the situation is now relatively calm, but that it remains very tense.
While the TNI and police are making efforts to maintain security, to collect weapons and arrest those responsible for violence, the presence of a large and vociferous group of Laskar Jihad gives rise to continued fears of escalating violence.
The Commission' s Delegation in Jakarta, together with the diplomatic missions of the EU Member States, will continue to make every effort to monitor developments in these areas and to draw our concerns to the attention of the Indonesian authorities in EU démarches and other contacts.
The Commission fully shares the stated position of the European Union, which firmly supports the territorial integrity of Indonesia, while encouraging the government to make urgent efforts to address and resolve peacefully Indonesia' s internal conflicts, whether separatist or sectarian in character.
Colleagues, as you know, eight immigrants, including three children died last weekend in a freight container which had been shipped to Ireland.
Therefore, before opening the debate on the subject, I would ask you all to rise and observe a minute's silence in memory of those victims of the tragedy.
(Parliament rose and observed one minute's silence)
Immigration in Ireland
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I believe that this new tragedy illustrates yet again what we might call the fate of immigrants.
A year ago, it was 58 foreigners who were found dead in Dover; the year before, Yaguine and Fodé, two young Guineans, were found dead in the undercarriage of a Sabena plane.
It seems to me that this keeps happening and that, faced with these tragedies, we actually only have one policy, which is to lock the door and throw away the key.
And, as Bernard-Henri Lévy would say, it seems to me that increasingly people are losing interest in what we might call the suburbs of the world.
It would appear, Mr President, that there are two ways of tackling immigration issues today.
The first, which is increasingly common, is to want to keep our borders wide open so as to have a source of cheap labour, liable to be ruthlessly exploited; and the other is not to want any immigration at all, which is neither preferable nor desirable.
I believe that it is high time, Mr President, that we had some effective legislation, which is rigorous, of course, but simple in terms of form and common to all European countries, which takes account of the needs of both the southern and northern countries.
We cannot continue to strip the countries of the south of their intellectual assets whenever we need them, cynically importing brainpower as if it were just another commodity which we need, as it were, to safeguard our pensions, while at the same time speaking the language of repression.
This is not about repression or charity; it is dignity which is at stake here.
I believe that this is how we should tackle the issue of immigration.
On the other hand - and we have seen illustrations of this throughout the afternoon - if we do not take into consideration the fact that today three quarters of the earth's population is living in the most absolute poverty; if today we do not cancel the debt of developing countries and if we do not discipline ourselves to invest in health, education and infrastructure, I am convinced that, once again, we will have failed to learn the lessons of history, as recent as it is.
Today, these destitute men and women, who are totally neglected, form a breeding ground for terrorism, a place where terrorism thrives.
Fighting terrorism today also means fighting this poverty.
Mr President, I have been so bold as to intervene without taking notes because I really do not think that we can continue to treat these people with such great inhumanity.
Mr President, I should like to thank you for the one minute's silence for those who died.
There may well be further deaths unless we change our approach to this whole issue of immigration and refugee status.
I would like to convey my deepest sympathy to the survivors of this tragedy for the loss of their spouses and their children.
The discovery of eight bodies, plus the five people who are seriously ill, in a container in Wexford in Ireland was an appalling tragedy which has shocked people, not just in Ireland, but all across Europe.
Regrettably it is not the first time that this has happened.
The suffering and terror endured by the injured and those who died - including four children - during the several days they spent in this sealed metal container is barely conceivable.
They spent 53 hours at sea in a Force 10 gale in a container surrounded by furniture.
The deaths all occurred as a result of lack of oxygen.
The very thought of little children being put through that kind of terror is inconceivable.
I urge the Irish Government to enable the survivors to remain in Ireland, to help them rebuild their lives, and to provide them with refugee status if that is appropriate.
It may be that under law they do not qualify for refugee status, but if this is so they should get it, and they should still be allowed to remain in Ireland in any case.
The tragedy demonstrates once again the desperate lengths to which people are prepared to go to try to improve circumstances for themselves and their families.
We hear much about the privileged treatment given to asylum seekers and I hope we will hear no more of this.
The reality of the terrible experience facing many immigration and asylum seekers is revealed in eight people dead and others who are seriously ill.
Lessons have to be learnt from this tragedy.
There is clearly a need for more thorough checking of containers at the point of departure and arrival and for closer cooperation between the authorities in different countries.
But, given that it will not be possible to check every single container, given that inevitably others will try this desperate journey, we should look seriously at the question of obliging those who own these containers to put air vents in them.
Otherwise we are going to face this kind of horror yet again.
Ireland and Europe have to adopt immigration policies based on full respect for human rights as set out in international conventions, such as the Geneva Convention.
Our policies have to address in a much more forceful way the political, economic and social reasons why people are fleeing their homelands.
We must also relax immigration laws to prevent people from being driven to take these desperate remedies.
I very much regret this but I must condemn a statement made by Ireland's Minister for Justice last Monday, where he accused those who argue for a more rational and open immigration policy of simply proposing an open door policy on immigration.
I am quite happy to engage in debate with the minister but the problem is that, in adopting that attitude and in adopting that frame of reference for this debate, he is feeding the paranoia which is at the root of much of the abuse that immigrants and refugees face in their host country.
I would like to thank you, Mr President and colleagues, for the moment's silence for the awful tragedy which took place only this week in my own home county of Wexford in Ireland.
The tragic death of these eight people, including four children, found in the freight container just highlights the daily plight of many asylum-seekers and refugees throughout the European Union.
Witnessing it last Saturday will remain with me forever.
I would like to join personally with colleagues in this House in expressing my condolences to all those associated with this tragedy.
Since that awful incident, the bodies of four dead Romanians have been found inside a container bound for Canada in the Italian port of Livorno.
The scale and European-wide nature of this problem have been tragically highlighted by these episodes and it is up to us as a European Community to respond far better than we have done heretofore.
Since its inception the European Union has always been based upon the values of solidarity and community.
If the EU Council Summit at Laeken this weekend only addresses the issue of the strengthening of borders as a response to this modern day slave trade, it will have failed not only to respect these values but also to fulfil its leadership role.
These appalling incidents highlight dramatically the contradictory attitudes to migration and refugee policies in the EU.
Europe and Ireland increasingly need immigrant workers to do the jobs left vacant by greater prosperity and shrinking populations.
But sadly, at the moment more political effort is being put into erecting stronger border controls to keeping migrants out than to developing policies for structured flows of immigration.
Tragedies such as that in Wexford will continue to take place until this contradiction is seriously addressed by all Member State governments of the EU.
I welcome efforts this week to finalise an EU-wide arrest warrant to deal with these criminal 'people smugglers' who benefit financially from the misery and desperation of others.
The single market has brought many benefits to our citizens, but it has also provided the criminals with just that - a single market for their activities.
Today, more than ever, we need Eurojust and Europol to deal effectively with the individuals who prey on the misery and desperation of others.
In conclusion, the historical legacy of Irish economic migration throughout the world in the past two centuries, particularly during and after our Irish potato famine of 1845-1849 is one which we as Irish Europeans should not ignore.
We should now be generous enough to take our share of those fleeing persecution and those seeking to make a better life for themselves.
If the deaths of migrants in freight containers, on the undercarriages of trains or in ship holds in recent months demonstrates anything, it is that responses to economic migration based solely on the monitoring of the illegal movement of people will not prevent people from resorting to desperate measures to travel to Europe.
It is imperative that we also address the underlying problems within the countries from which these desperate people flee.
Perhaps then the tragedy last week in Wexford of the Turkish, Algerian and Albanian economic migrants will not have not been in vain.
Mr President, eight people, half of them children, have died under horrific and incomprehensible circumstances.
The same thing happened in Dover a year ago.
Then as now, it was said that this must not happen again.
Everyone is shocked, but the truth is that thousands of people die every year under similar circumstances.
We talk about illegal immigration to Europe and about people who try to make their way here without valid travel documents.
It is, however, we who make their status illegal by constantly making the visa requirements more stringent, by constantly sending out the signal that they are not welcome, by forcing the airlines to accept their liability as transporters and by giving shipowners the task of assessing who shall be allowed to seek asylum.
This situation cannot continue.
We must agree upon a common, humane and generous refugee policy and a migration strategy for the whole of Europe.
I hope we do not again have to sit here in this House in two weeks' time following a similar event and express regret about the deaths of more people.
We must look forward.
We must see if we cannot find a solution to this problem other than repressive measures.
Mr President, for clarification, my group was also an author of this resolution but somehow we got dropped off the list.
This is something that we are going to see happening again if we do not look at our whole policy - this fortress Europe mentality - the fact that we are building the barricades and the walls higher and higher.
We are trying to prevent people from coming in and we need to implement measures which will prevent asylum-seekers resorting to traffickers in their effort to reach a country where they can seek asylum, as they are entitled to do under the Geneva Convention.
There is quite a lot of hypocrisy concerning this issue, and I would like to refer to my own Minister for Justice in Ireland, John O'Donoghue.
He was crying crocodile tears at the weekend over this event yet he has tightened the laws in Ireland in every possible way to ensure that asylum-seekers do not come to Ireland to file an application for refugee status, which I would like to reiterate is something that they are entitled to do under the Geneva Convention.
To highlight this minister's hypocrisy further: yesterday, for the first time in the history of the Geneva Convention, there was a meeting of the 141 countries that signed that Convention in 1951.
Our minister, who was crying over what had happened at the weekend and saying that it was one of his worst fears, did not think this meeting was important enough to attend.
We really need to change our policy on how we treat asylum-seekers and refugees and we have to stop building the barricades higher and higher to keep them out.
We have to realise that there are people who are desperate to get out of their countries and that there are reasons why they want to leave.
They are human beings, they are not the so-called undesirables that some people would like to think.
They are exactly the same as the Irish who were desperate to get out of Ireland at one stage going to America and other places - where they were well treated.
We have a duty and an obligation to treat everyone in this world equally.
Mr President, the Commission too is deeply concerned by the repetition of such a dramatic event.
Everyone has in mind the tragic deaths of 58 Chinese stowaways in Dover last year, but unfortunate people die almost every week trying to reach what they consider to be a unique area of peace and prosperity.
Smuggling and trafficking of human beings are nowadays increasingly carried out by criminal organisations which profit from the distress of women, men and children in search of a better life or in need of international protection.
Although many measures have already been taken at national level and under Schengen cooperation to tackle this horrendous form of crime, the Commission can understand the frustration expressed by Parliament when confronted with the apparent failure of existing instruments.
There is definitely a need for enhanced action and cooperation at national, European and international level.
This is why the Commission put forward in November a communication on a common policy on illegal immigration, aiming at creating synergy of national efforts by adding a European dimension.
One of the main messages flowing from this communication is that preventing and fighting illegal immigration is part and parcel of a comprehensive migration policy.
It is crucial in building up support for a common asylum regime based on the highest humanitarian standards, as well as genuine immigration policy in line with our tradition of hospitality and solidarity.
More efficient controls at the external borders, improved consular cooperation and reinforced police and judicial cooperation, are key elements.
Nevertheless, there is more to it than that: partnership with countries of origin and transit, a policy of sustainable return for illegal immigrants and the fight against undeclared work are all essential in this regard.
All this must be achieved in full compliance with international obligations and human rights.
The framework decision on combating trafficking in human beings, the directive on carriers' liability and the directive and the framework decision on the liability of smugglers, already approved by the Council, are only first steps.
In a broader framework, it is crucial to ensure a swift ratification and a coordinated implementation of the UN Palermo Convention against transnational organised crime and its two protocols on trafficking and smuggling, which now form the basis for a global recognition of the problem and a stronger approach to tackle it.
The Laeken Summit is now only a couple of days away.
This will be the occasion for a mid-term review of the implementation of the Tampere conclusions. This should provide a unique opportunity to give a new impetus to a much needed common immigration and asylum policy.
The Union is indeed behind schedule in these areas.
A major political effort to fill these gaps as soon as possible would be our best tribute to the memory of the victims of Wexford.
But rather than looking at the global perspective, the rich world has some soul-searching and wallet-searching to do.
The general level of development assistance flowing from north to south is an unsatisfactory 0.22% of the GNP of the rich countries.
There is a link between this and what we are discussing here and this also defines the challenge we have to face.
Togo
Mr President, Togo is still in a state of political paralysis.
The regular condemnations issued by the European Parliament, the most recent of which dates back to September, have had no effect.
Human rights are constantly disregarded and democracy remains an elusive utopia.
The leader of the students' union, Hounjo Mawudzuro, has been imprisoned.
Last August, the chairman of the main opposition party, Yawovi Agboyibo, was sentenced to six months in prison on fallacious grounds.
New threats of legal action are hanging over him and President Eyadema will not release him unless he applies for a pardon.
In fact only someone who is guilty can apply for a pardon and Yawovi Agboyibo is not guilty.
His only crime is to have criticised the regime.
He should be released unconditionally and be able to stand as a candidate in the parliamentary elections which are to be held next March.
Democracy does not consist solely of holding elections.
These are dependent on what happens upstream, and in particular on the rules stating who can vote and who can stand as a candidate, just as we saw in the past in Côte d'Ivoire and as we see today in Congo-Brazzaville.
The European Parliament should strongly condemn these new developments and see to it that the elections run smoothly.
Only if human rights are respected and the rule of law upheld will it be possible for normal cooperation relations between Togo and the European Union to be resumed.
It is necessary to establish a dialogue with the regime and the opposition.
This is why the Joint Parliamentary Assembly should send a mission to Togo to report on respect for human rights and the smooth running of the electoral process.
The European Commission is concerned by the political climate in Togo.
Though Mr Messan, a local journalist, and Mr Olympio, leader of an opposition party, have recently been released, Mr Agboyibo remains in prison.
Recent reports suggest that more journalists have been arrested.
The European Union has several times conveyed its concern about the political climate to the government of Togo.
It made representations to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 17 August.
On that occasion, the Union emphasised its desire that political parties and the media be able to operate freely.
On 18 October, the Union issued a declaration reiterating its concerns, emphasising the importance it attaches to the freedom, openness and transparency of the electoral process and calling on President Eyadema to have Mr Agboyibo released.
The Commission has taken note of the government's decision to schedule parliamentary elections for 10 and 24 March next year.
The Commission has earmarked about EUR 1.56 million to help prepare the elections.
The funding will pay for electoral equipment and the printing of ballot papers.
The financing agreement has been signed, the first contracts concluded and the first deliveries received.
The European Union has also accepted the invitation of Togo's Minister for Foreign Affairs to take part in the election observer mission.
That participation could be coordinated by the United Nations, should it decide to take on that role.
The conditions for organising and conducting the observer mission have yet to be established.
The European Parliament is obviously very welcome to take part in the election observer mission.
The Commission is, however, disappointed that the government has still not signed the memorandum of understanding required for the deployment of EU observers, and it is continuing to urge the government to sign promptly.
The Commission continues to monitor political developments and respect for human rights closely, especially in view of the early parliamentary elections.
It is ready to provide assistance for the preparation and conduct of the elections.
The main objective of such assistance is to help the government establish the conditions for transparent, free and democratic elections that would enable the European Union to resume cooperation with Togo.
We have still to note that cooperation with Togo, save of course for operations directly benefiting the vulnerable and weak part of the population, has been officially suspended since fruitless consultations with that country ended in the latter half of 1998.
We hope change is possible, but this is a very difficult case.
Winners of the Sakharov Prize: Aung San Suu Kyi and Leyla Zana
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Aung San Suu Kyi and Leyla Zana are two Sakharov prize-winners who have never been able to come and receive their awards.
We are all aware of this.
They are also both female politicians.
I wish - if you do not mind - to stress first of all the word female, because these two women are politicians in countries where it is very difficult to attain this rank and to break into this field.
Gender equality amongst politicians is not either Turkey' s or Burma's strong point, as you know.
If I say two female politicians, however, then I must also say that these are two women who have been elected. They have therefore been elected democratically and are the representatives of a nation, of a section of a nation, of a political movement in one case and a Kurdish minority in the other.
In both cases, these are, at any rate, women who represent people other than themselves.
I have to say that this is already a considerable achievement: they are women, they are politicians and they are elected.
I must also add that these are two women who are courageous.
This is not a moral judgement; it is a political judgement that I am making when I say that these two women are courageous.
Why? Because one of them renounced exile precisely because she was a representative of her people, and the other does not want to be released on health grounds because she is not the only one in prison and she represents a Kurdish minority; other militants are in prison too and she does not want the freedom which her captors are prepared to give her, or which she is said to have been offered because of her health.
That is why it is important to stress that these two Sakharov prize-winners obviously ought to be received by our Parliament but also have their fundamental freedom restored to them.
We should also recognise, however, not only that Articles 10 and 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights should apply to them, of course, but also that it is real-life democracy that is at stake here, and that in one case we are dealing with Turkey, a candidate country for accession to the European Union.
I ask you: can we accept that the violation of fundamental rights is as important as this while at the same time agreeing to this country's cooperating with the European Union?
Mr President, this week we awarded the annual Sakharov Prize to three very worthy recipients who fight for peace and tolerance in an environment which is anything but peaceful and tolerant.
The awarding of the Sakharov Prize is not only a grand ceremony but also an important demonstration, with echoes around the world. Hopefully, it also gives further courage to brave people coping with oppression and slavery.
The prize is an expression of the basic values characterising EU foreign policy: respect for democracy and human rights throughout the world.
Those who were awarded the prize last year live under difficult circumstances, but they live in peace.
That is not so in the cases of two former recipients of the prize: Aung San Suu Kyi, who received the prize in 1990, and Leyla Zana, who received it in 1995.
These two courageous women, both parliamentarians, have been kept locked up by their respective governments year after year, despite international pressure.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been kept in solitary confinement and under house arrest for an unimaginably long time.
It is eleven years since she was elected as her people' s legitimate leader.
We have seen some softening of attitudes on the part of the Burmese regime.
A small number of political prisoners have been released recently.
That is not enough, however.
Together with the other political prisoners in the country, Aung San Suu Kyi must be released immediately.
Leyla Zana is held prisoner by a country that is applying for membership of the EU.
I hope that Turkey will be able to play its part in this House one day.
However, radical and genuine improvements are required in terms of human rights before we can even begin negotiating about membership.
Leyla Zana and all the other political prisoners in Turkey must also be released.
In this House, there is firm cross-party resolve to keep on reminding the world, including Burma and Turkey, of the fate of these two women and of the struggle for human rights, democracy and freedom of expression that they represent.
I hope that the Commission can also talk about what it intends to do to ensure that next year is a year in which we help secure the release of these two women.
Mr President, it is over ten years since Aung San Suu Kyi, the President of Burma elected by 80% of the population, received both the Nobel Prize and the Sakharov Prize for her peaceful protest against the military coup and the military dictatorship in her country.
For ten years she has lived permanently either in prison or under house arrest, while her homeland has turned into one of the most violent countries on earth.
Over half the members of parliament have fled, are in prison, have been driven into exile or have been killed, and several million Burmese have fled to India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, the United States and Europe.
In Burma wholesale repression is being carried out against the members of Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi' s party and members of minority groups.
There is also use of forced labour in the construction of infrastructure, and meanwhile Burma has become the world' s second largest drugs exporting country after Bolivia.
This military dictatorship is kept afloat by drugs, forced and cheap labour, terror and that situation has persisted for over ten years.
Our question is again: European Commission, institute an investment embargo or an economic boycott against this country, as the United States has now done.
It is perhaps the best punishment for this violent dictatorship and the best gift that you could give the elected president of Burma, Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi.
My sympathy also goes out to Leyla Zana.
It is not good for a country seeking to join the European Union to allow such an affair to drag on for so long.
Let Turkey show that it wishes to be a country governed by the rule of law and that it wants to grant Leyla Zana as soon as possible a full place in its society and in the parliament to which she has been elected.
Mr President, at a dinner in honour of this year' s Sakharov prizes the possibility of bringing all these prize winners together was once again spoken of.
The two female winners face the same barrier: they are still without their freedom - Leyla Zana is in a Turkish prison and Aung San Suu Kyi is under house arrest in Burma.
This is an intolerable situation and, at the same time, a reminder to us that human rights work needs not only to be celebrated but requires us to persevere and remain vigilant.
Furthermore, as both women - in the eyes of their governments - are dangerous criminals, I cannot help asking myself whether Sakharov prize winner Nelson Mandela and the ANC led by him at the time would not seem to fit the definition of terrorism now being put together by the EU.
Now, on hindsight, we opponents of apartheid are also being exposed as supporters of terrorism.
We are in danger of forgetting that without conflict and social controversy, however heated and powerful, there can be no democracy.
The right to different political views and their expression, as well as the legal protection of those suspected of crimes - even with just cause, perhaps - must be guaranteed to a far greater extent than is now the case at Laeken.
Mr President, I have the floor for one minute.
As you are the vice-president responsible for reforming Parliament's work, I shall try and give you an example of what one can sensibly say in one minute.
All the groups are agreed.
A famous Bavarian cabaret artist once said after visiting the Bavarian regional parliament, that now he knew what parliamentarianism was: 'Everything has already been said, but not yet by everybody' .
Which is why I do not intend to repeat what all the previous speakers have rightly and quite correctly said. All I wish to say is that I endorse the statements made by the previous speakers.
They are right, it is an outrage that Mrs Sana and Mrs Zana and Mrs Suu Kyi cannot come and collect their prizes from us.
That they are still being kept in unlawful detention, including by a country with aspirations to membership of the European Union, is unacceptable.
Thank you for listening.
I might just add to your comment that I was brought up to know that if you cannot say something in two minutes it is not worth saying.
Mr President, it may sometimes be necessary to take more time to say less.
Still, I must say what I had planned to say.
We attach great importance to this.
I would add that the activities of Parliament on matters such as this are important in themselves and also important to the way in which Europe is perceived both by Europeans and globally.
The General Affairs Council, in the conclusions of its October meeting, called for the release of all remaining political prisoners in Burma including Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Commission strongly supported - and continues to support - that call.
It was ten years ago last Saturday that Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
She is a past winner, of course, of the Sakharov Prize.
She remains, today, a formidably powerful symbol of the principles those prizes represent, as she did before - an inspiration to her own people and to the world at large.
I know how much support she enjoys in this House, support with which I want strongly to associate myself.
It is a measure of both her courage and her commitment to non-violent action that Aung San Suu Kyi has decided to remain in her country under detention and to engage in discussions with the authorities responsible for that detention in order to pursue her goal of establishing democracy in her country.
Her persistence, her passion and her wisdom have been instrumental in the positive developments that have occurred in Burma over the last year, even though it must be recalled that these developments are only the beginning of a process which needs to be further deepened and to evolve into a constructive and more concrete dialogue based on respect for internationally accepted standards of human rights.
Therefore, while we salute Aung San Suu Kyi and assure her of our continued admiration and support, we also encourage the government to pursue this groundbreaking dialogue actively.
We have already underlined the readiness of the European Union to consider positive measures in response to concrete results from the present talks.
But we need to see these results, not least the early release of the many hundreds of political prisoners still held in Burmese jails.
The case of Leyla Zana is very well known to the Commission, as stated in several Regular Reports on Turkey.
The case has been a cause for concern raised with the Turkish authorities on many occasions.
The Commission is aware that the case of Mrs Zana has been discussed many times at the European Parliament and has recently received renewed attention in the framework of the EP report on Turkey as well as during the EC-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee recently held in November.
The Commission welcomes the renewed attention of the European Parliament to this case.
In this context, as stated in the Regular Report for Turkey 2001, the Commission expects that Turkey will observe the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights of 17 July 2001 on the absence of a fair trial in this case.
This would be a significant step by Turkey with respect to the actual implementation of the recent constitutional amendments whereby the right to a fair trial was explicitly guaranteed.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken today at 6.30 p.m.
Nepal
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B5-0761/2001) by Collins, on behalf of the UEN Group;
(B5-0772/2001) by van den Berg and others, on behalf of the PSE Group;
(B5-0780/2001) by Vinci and Herman Schmid, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
(B5-0794/2001) by Malmström, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
(B5-0807/2001) by Thomas Mann, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
(B5-0810/2001) by Messner and McKenna, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group;
on the situation in Nepal.
Mr President, Commissioner, the developments in Nepal are worrying.
I myself, who had planned to go there in the course of the next few months, have, for example, been advised against travelling.
Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, with only USD 220 in GDP per person per year.
Children' s development in Nepal is extremely problematic.
Fifty-four per cent of children under five are said to be too short of stature and to be affected by stunted growth because of poor nutrition.
Illiteracy is another major problem.
Sixty-three per cent of men can read, but only 28% of women.
This trend continues where access to basic and higher education is concerned.
That is why the Finnish section of UNICEF has launched one of its biggest projects, aimed at improving girls' schooling in Nepal, as well as at promoting village development.
One other problem is the fact that education is extremely politicised.
In spite of the unrest in the country, the project is nonetheless continuing both in Katmandu and outside the city.
Those with whom I have talked say that the rebellion that has just taken place cannot be characterised simply as Maoist, but is a general trend.
Certain people in this House believe that Nepal is in great danger of being partitioned in the same way as Tibet.
Those I spoke to did not agree.
We are also conscious that the unrest in the country has been caused by the fact that the population really does not have any confidence in the person who took over following the tragic events within the royal family last summer.
This lack of confidence is partly due to the fact that senior members of the royal family are suspected of also having been guilty of murders other than those which occurred last summer.
Our view is that there are serious threats to human rights, freedom of the press and other traditional freedoms, and this is something to which we must be alert.
Other developments in the country must, however, continue.
To put things in a less black-and-white way, Mr President, a state of emergency has been decreed, and it is correct that the Maoists have sabotaged the negotiations, but the rule of law is meanwhile being undermined.
We do not know how many victims are being claimed.
The helicopters shoot from the air and the press has been muzzled, In Nepal there is both terror and counter-terror.
Child soldiers are being recruited, and I wonder whether this will provide a solution in a country that wishes to avoid civil war but where 12% of the population owns 95% of the property and holds 70% of the power and where, furthermore, corruption reigns supreme.
The Maoists have meanwhile occupied part of the country.
Real political, yet peaceful, change is required, and that end requires the consent not only of the rebels, but also of hard-liners in the regime.
On behalf our group we should like to ask the Commission to address itself to its paper on conflict prevention together with the Lagendijk report that we have approved only today.
We must be able to bring about peace negotiations and to that end exert pressure on all parties at home and abroad.
The Commission shares Parliament's concern on the deterioration of the situation in Nepal.
We also had placed great hopes in the negotiations started three months ago by the Deuba government.
From their contacts with the Royal Nepalese Government, EU representatives in Kathmandu had drawn the conclusion that Mr Deuba was genuinely committed to finding a lasting peace with the Maoist guerrillas in order to be able to focus action on the country's considerable development needs.
The reasons why the negotiations collapsed are not entirely clear, but the Maoist factions first broke the cease-fire.
The Commission agrees that there is a risk that the country is drifting towards civil war.
It also fears that the current state of emergency may jeopardise a fragile democracy already undermined by years of political instability and corruption.
The EU has promptly condemned the new wave of violence and launched an appeal in favour of restoration of peace and law and order.
The Commission is currently preparing its cooperation strategy for the next five years.
Under the current circumstances, consolidation of democracy, conflict prevention and poverty eradication will be the primary objectives of its new strategy for Nepal.
The EU-Nepal political dialogue should be continued and further strengthened while cooperation targets should include promotion of development initiatives in the most deprived areas of the country, to counteract the frustrations and resentment of local people.
In all its present and future cooperation activities the EU will constantly and carefully monitor the situation, including security aspects that might jeopardise its development cooperation.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6.30 p.m.
The Congo
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B5-0773/2001) by van den Berg and Sauquillo Pérez del Arco, on behalf of the PSE Group;
(B5-0781/2001) by Sylla and Miranda, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
(B5-0785/2001) by Maes and Rod, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group;
(B5-0795/2001) by van den Bos and Dybkjær, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
(B5-0808/2001) by Johan Van Hecke and Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group;
on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
A minute' s speaking time is not much to deal with 52 million people and three million dead, Mr President, but I shall try.
The riches of the country are being plundered by friend and foe alike.
For example, the coltran that we use in our mobile phones and military equipment is being mined and exploited by the Rwandans in the Kivu, to their own advantage.
That means hundreds of thousands of dollars of profit for the Rwandan war chest, and what do we do with our policy of double standards?
We support the Lusaka peace process and we demand the withdrawal of foreign troops and the promotion of inter-Congolese dialogue.
But why should Rwanda abandon these spoils of war and withdraw to the borders in order to guard the security of those borders if that should be necessary?
Rwanda continues to occupy the Kivu and profit from its occupation and we support Rwanda with many hundreds of thousands of euros.
We want an inter-Congolese dialogue, but do we really expect that the representatives coming to that dialogue from occupied territory will speak as Congolese, or as Rwandans? In Kinshasa they think the latter.
Meanwhile we are supporting Rwanda and should like to ask: why do we not support the DRC? Must the people of Congo really all die of hunger before we come up with a structural programme?
Mrs Maes, it is up to your political group to decide which issues it spends its time on. It is not up to us.
Mr President, the Democratic Republic of Congo is neither democratic nor a republic.
It is a country with fertile land, vast mineral wealth, populated by people who are poor, sick and starving.
These people have been plundered by cruel and corrupt dictators who continue to enrich themselves.
Soldiers from neighbouring countries such as Rwanda and Congo continue to loot, rape and kill civilians at random.
Villages and towns are destroyed.
Over 2 million people have been killed and 1 million people live in fear in refugee camps.
The UN passed resolution 1376 on 7 November 2001. It advocates disarmament and demobilisation, repatriation, resettlement and reintegration of armed groups.
These measures are essential. How are they going to be implemented?
Who will lead this action?
The EU, the USA or the UN? Or will this be yet another UN resolution for filing in some dusty cabinet.
Last month I attended in Ghana a conference of African politicians.
A veteran politician from DRC was there.
He had had great difficulty in leaving the DRC, and this is what he asked me: how can African countries like the DRC be free from governments run by crooked dictators? I could not answer.
He asked a second question.
Do we need to breed terrorists who will attack Europe and the USA to precipitate effective action like in Afghanistan? I could not answer that either.
Let us make sure that we take action before poor people become so desperate.
Let me first of all remind Members of Parliament of the fact that we are the biggest provider of humanitarian aid in the DRC this year - EUR 35 million in ECHO funded activities and some EUR 10 million from other sources.
The EUR 10 million are going to basic healthcare in the government-controlled part and the EUR 35 million to the eastern part where no-one else is doing anything like this.
Actually disbursing EUR 45 million for these purposes in the circumstances there is quite an achievement, and I am very proud of it on behalf of the many people working there, many of them still in very dangerous circumstances.
However, we have spared no effort over the last years to support the peace processes at work in the Great Lakes region.
We have been active in the region throughout its disastrous recent history.
Whenever we could, we have used our different cooperation instruments to help ease the suffering of the people there.
We have also used all our influence to push for a durable peace in the region.
I would now like to go into more detail on the Lusaka peace process.
We support it not only politically - the Commission has already funded the Lusaka negotiations by a grant of EUR 2.65 million from the SADC regional programme.
The logistic of the Joint Military Commission surveying the cease-fire was financed by CFSP budget-line to the amount of EUR 1.2 million.
The facilitation of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue has been financed by a grant of EUR 2.34 million from EDF monies, and we are considering EUR 1 million further financing from Rapid Reaction Mechanism budget line, which would provide for the implementation of the meeting of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue in January in South Africa.
We are making a meaningful contribution to all these endeavours.
Nevertheless the Commission is concerned about the lack of concrete results following the talks in the framework of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue that took place in Addis Ababa on 15-19 October.
The most difficult issues for the country' s future are still to be addressed.
The Commission welcomes the announcement made by facilitator Masire concerning the resumption of the dialogue in South Africa at the end of January/beginning of February 2002.
The Commission has always been supportive of the Congo.
We are the largest, as I mentioned before, supplier of humanitarian aid as well as one of the few donors that have remained active in the country throughout recent years.
However, the Commission considers that the DRC' s stability and sustainable development will not be ensured until all parties to the Dialogue have clearly committed themselves to the establishment of and participation in one political system.
This is the core of it.
Do they see themselves as participants and players in one political system? Without a clear yes to this, it is very difficult to help the country from the outside.
There are the other issues of external forces at play.
These are real problems, but if we do not see a credible answer to this question emerging, nothing else will ever work.
So all these things have to be addressed in some sort of balanced overall approach.
When this political commitment is made, of course, we will have a much better basis for getting an effective cooperation programme up and running.
What I want to do is to be able to sign - and this is what we are planning - the National Indicative Programme in January in the context of the resumption of the Inter-Congolese Dialogue.
This is the line we have defined in the Commission.
The other activities linked to peace process implementation, i.e. demobilisation and the creation of a new basis for the life of ex-combatants, will be implemented following progress in the field.
I would like to stress that the Commission' s action in the Great Lakes is only part of a wide and sustained effort to enhance the EU's overall political presence as a partner in Africa.
With the Cotonou Agreement, the Union has confirmed that it had no intention of reducing our long-standing cooperation in Africa and the EUR 15 billion envelope that we have outlined and will commit over the next five years clearly demonstrates this determination.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6.30 p.m.
New European Labour Markets, Open to All, with Access for All
The next item is the report (A5-0375/2001) by Mauro Nobilia, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission communication on New European Labour Markets, Open to All, with Access for All (COM(2001) 116 - C5-0188/2001 - 2001/2084(COS).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is rather strange not to have the rapporteur here but I should like to congratulate him, nonetheless, because the PSE supports his report and will accept it as it stands.
We also support the Commission communication, although we take the view that listing current obstacles and postponing legislative proposals is not good enough.
We hope that the relevant proposals and an efficient action plan will be submitted to us at the spring summit.
One criticism we have is that the skills shortages proposed or, rather, identified in the high-tech sector are of course not good enough.
As Socialists, we want to give all employees the chance to benefit from mobility and to increase mobility on the European labour markets.
But we have to offer them these chances.
The new labour market should not be open just to small, special groups; it must be open to every employee in Europe.
Hence we need creative ideas and solutions from the Commission, not just a list of the problems.
We also need a detailed investigation of possible malfunctions on the labour market in border regions or in specific sectors, such as the building and transport industries.
Last but not least, we also need an analysis and a debate of the results of the school system in Europe because, unfortunately, not every country in Europe has done as well as it should.
Mrs Weiler, I propose writing to Mr Nobilia saying that it really is a great rudeness to the House and to the committee that he represents, for him to not be here.
Mr President, I welcome Parliament's report on the Commission's communication on new European labour markets.
It is a very useful input to the preparation of the action plan on skills and mobility announced in that communication.
I would also like to thank the rapporteur, maybe in writing, for his efforts and for the overview reflecting the contributions made by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, as well as the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee.
In its communication the Commission proposes three strands of action to further improve operation of the labour markets: firstly removing skills barriers and tackling skills gaps, secondly removing barriers to mobility, and thirdly improving information and transparency.
The High-Level Task Force on Skills and Mobility, which was set up on a proposal from the Commission following the Stockholm European Council, will soon recommend a set of additional policy initiatives at EU and national levels to open the new European labour markets to all by 2005.
Its report will be submitted to the Commission in December this year, on the basis of which the Commission will present an action plan to the Barcelona Council in spring 2002.
The rapporteur met the chairman and members of the task force at their most recent meeting, when Parliament's draft opinion had already been forwarded to the task force.
It provided a timely opportunity for the task force to take account of your draft report in its deliberations.
The action plan will propose a set of policy initiatives, taking the form of a framework for action, to be transposed into more concrete legal texts, programmes or initiatives, in which not only the Member States, but also the social partners, regional and local authorities and other relevant organisations will be involved.
Let me now react more specifically to a number of the main points made by the rapporteur in his explanatory statement.
First of all, he suggests the effective involvement of the social partners in the representative bodies.
I agree that this is a positive feature of improving industrial relations, which would help the operation of the labour markets.
But we also have to bear in mind that the dynamics of the labour market should not reduce access to these for people who have until now been excluded from these new developments.
I share the objective of involving social partners more in the national action plans.
Secondly, he recommends the establishment of an agreement on the fiscal package to reduce disparities between Member States.
There are still important differences in the tax treatment of individuals and enterprises between the Member States, but it would go beyond the scope of the Commission's action plan to present specific proposals in this area.
Thirdly, he also proposes greater regional and local participation in drafting the national action plans.
This proposal is to be welcomed, particularly since the employment guidelines specifically encourage this.
Fourthly, he recommends better access by local and regional bodies to research opportunities in the Sixth Framework Programme.
I recognise that improving the situation of disadvantaged regions and areas through research investment is part of the process of building up skills and human capital, which will help bring jobs to such regions.
Finally, he proposes the creation of a common legal base for the third - the non-profit - sector.
It seems to me that this requires more analysis and careful thought, in order to avoid putting unnecessary constraints on a sector which has an important potential for job creation.
To conclude, l should like to thank Parliament once again for this report, for its input into the Commission's Action Plan, and for its support for further opening up of the European labour markets.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6.30 p.m.
Language diversity
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
(B5-0537/01) by Eluned Morgan and Barbara O'Toole, on behalf of the PSE Group, on minority languages.
(B5-0753/01) by Eurig Wyn and others, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group on language diversity.
Mr President, I am pleased to see that you have changed the title of this debate: it is about regional and lesser-used languages.
I welcome the fact that we are discussing this at all.
This is the first time in eight years that lesser-used languages have been discussed in this House.
It is appropriate that we discuss it now at the end of the European Year of Languages.
The fact that we have not discussed this reflects the problems that are faced by lesser-used language communities in terms of their relationship with the EU.
The legal base of the budget line is being challenged by the Council.
We have put money on this line this year and we expect the Commission to spend that money.
We do not want any legal wranglings about that.
I hope that Members will vote on the amendments we have also put forward to the joint resolution.
We are asking for a programme to follow up the European Year of Languages where we would also hope to see earmarking for lesser-used languages.
We also want to see earmarking money for lesser-used languages within relevant existing programmes.
This would formalise the procedure which already exists for example in the structural funds where structural funds are used to prop up lesser-used languages in some areas.
It would simply formalise that procedure.
We also want to see culture on a majority voting basis within the Council so that the Commission can present a programme specifically on lesser-used languages which I know the Commission has already.
These are not radical proposals.
I do not know why some Groups are resisting this and not supporting the 40 million people within the EU who speak lesser-used languages.
But I hope this will be a first step and we will see an own-initiative report on this in future.
I wish you: Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda - a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Mr President, as my colleague Mrs Morgan has stressed, more than 40 million European citizens speak autochthonous languages, other than the main official language of the state in which they live.
Languages are an integral part of Europe's linguistic and cultural diversity.
They lie at the heart of the fundamental rights of its citizens and are a key factor in the creation of a peaceful and democratic Europe.
I welcome this long-awaited resolution and urge colleagues to support it as it will be an excellent platform for the future.
The European Year of Languages has been a successful year and it included many projects for Europe's regional and lesser-used languages, contrary to the expectations of many of us.
The recent Council decision emphasises that, 'all European languages are equal in value and dignity from the cultural point of view'.
Although the Council's decision does not refer specifically to regional and lesser-used languages, it does not exclude them either.
This is why I particularly support the amendments referring to the mainstreaming of programmes and I am calling for support for a multiannual programme by 2003.
This is a golden opportunity to direct this agenda for the future and in preparation for enlargement.
We must ensure that Article 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights is on the agenda of the next Intergovernmental Conference and that we also push for qualified majority voting in Council.
Let us work together to ensure that regional and lesser-used languages are here to stay and remain part of the culturally diverse Europe of the future.
Europe's unique richness is its diversity.
Let us ensure that we all protect this.
Just a personal comment at the outset.
My spokesman does not speak Danish.
I do not have the option of having Danish as the working language in my cabinet.
The flow of work would simply choke.
I am not speaking Danish here today - that is not an option really.
I would have to do the translation on my way to the Chamber, having got the material the same day.
I could, but honestly, in my personal opinion, if we are serious about European integration, we have to be prepared to swallow our pride occasionally in order to do things in an effective manner.
The theme of this discussion, in my view, is different.
It has to do with stimulating the diversity that exists out there, and that is, in fact, another discussion.
Here, the Year of Languages is drawing to a close, but it is not quite over yet and many activities are still in progress.
Of the 200-odd projects that are co-financed by the Commission, most are still running and many events will take place throughout Europe in the remaining weeks of the year.
The evaluation of the Year will get under way this month.
The Commission considers that the end of 2001 should not be the end of the European Year of Languages initiative.
A report will be presented to the other European Institutions by 31 December 2002 at the latest, in accordance with the provisions of Article 11 of Decision No 1934/2000/EC establishing the European Year of Languages 2001.
Furthermore, on 29 November of this year, the Council adopted an important resolution on the promotion of linguistic diversity and language learning.
It invites the Commission to present proposals for actions to promote linguistic diversity and language learning by early 2003. Linguistic diversity is a defining characteristic of the European Union, and regional and minority languages, alongside the many other languages used in Europe are a key feature of it.
Regional and minority languages will therefore be taken into account both in the report that the Commission will present to the other institutions in the course of 2002 and in the proposals for actions to be presented in 2003.
However, it is still too early to say what specific actions will be taken in this domain.
As stated in Article 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Union respects cultural, religious and linguistic diversity in its various programmes and activities.
Many, like Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Culture 2000, Media Plus, e-Content or the European Regional Development Fund, are already providing funding opportunities for regional and minority languages and cultures.
We support these efforts which have to have a very broad aim in order to have the effect we intended.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome today's debate.
I am delighted that we are holding it at the end of the European Year of Languages, because we have tried several times during the course of this year to persuade the Commission to do something about lesser-used languages.
The Commission's standard response has been that it was not doing anything because it wanted to devise a special programme next year.
Now we hear that the Commission does not intend to do anything about lesser-used languages.
In this respect I am glad that this question is on today's agenda.
I am sorry that some joker has taken the liberty of changing the title of the resolution.
We are not talking about language diversity, we are talking about the lesser-used languages, which is why I am also rather sorry, Commissioner Nielson, that you chose not to honour a lesser-used language by speaking Danish.
It is not a question of pride, it is a question of respect for the diversity of European languages, of which Danish is one.
I am all for talking about it, I am all for talking more about it, I am all for the Commission's doing something about it.
But I must say to you in all honesty that the text before us today has been thrown together, it is slapdash and flippant and I, for one, am not proud of it.
I am sorry, but it has to be said.
We could have done a much better job if we had had more time, which is why our group does not support all the proposed amendments.
I think that Article 3 is better than Amendment No 4.
Why should I agree to your proposed amendment when our article in the resolution is better than your proposed amendment?
We mean the same thing. We just need less flippancy here.
On another question, all of us here in the House - including me personally - are in favour of qualified majority voting on cultural affairs.
But we should walk before we insist on running.
We can only run once we have learned to walk, which is why we must keep a sense of reason and hope that Laeken prompts something in the convention to bring this about.
Finally, I should like to say that we in the European People's Party are ready to suggest an own initiative report on lesser-used languages at the next meeting of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
This will allow all those who have spoken so fulsomely in favour today to put their money where their mouth is.
I for one would be delighted if we dumped this resolution today because it is not as good as an own initiative report could be.
I assume that the Socialists will want no part of it, so we shall see how it all turns out.
But I should like to inform the House that we shall be putting in for a report.
Please tell your fellow members to vote with us then next year.
Mr President, Commissioner, when this House debated language diversity and lesser-used languages for the first time at the beginning of the 1980s, your predecessor, Commissioner Nielson, said a few sentences in Welsh and, although we did not understand a word, we rejoiced in this declaration of the cultural diversity of Europe.
In this respect, I should like to say to you that our vision of Europe is not a technocratic, bureaucratic or economic project; for us, Europe is, first and foremost, a cultural project, the language diversity of which deserves to be safeguarded.
That includes your mother tongue, Mr President, the English language, because we need to guard against a standard global language which, if it were to be called English, would be an insult to Shakespeare.
Even the main languages of the European Union, such as French, which is also one of the UN official languages, Spanish, which is one of the up-and-coming world languages and was officially used for the first time in the American electoral campaign and will soon become the second language of the USA, and German, which is the mother tongue of the majority of the inhabitants of the EU, are now minority languages.
Our former fellow member Siegbert Alber once said that in Europe we are all minorities.
But our main concern is - of course - to safeguard the lesser-used languages which are official languages but, more to the point, to safeguard the languages which are the subject of today's debate, namely the lesser-used languages which are not official languages of the EU, but which need our massive support.
Unfortunately, we cannot even introduce them as official languages in our committees.
That would probably be asking too much.
But we must do all we can to safeguard the regional and lesser-used languages of the European Union.
Because, taken together, the people who make up national minorities are already the second largest nationality in today's European Union - never mind tomorrow's - after the Germans and before the French.
That gives you an idea of the quantitative dimension of this issue, and if you then look at the qualitative dimension of the nationality problems in the Balkans and elsewhere, then minorities are obviously set to become either the mortar or the explosive in the foundations of Europe.
We are fighting for them to become the mortar of Europe, which is why we support the lesser-used languages.
Mr President, thank you for the debate, to which I listened with great interest.
I do not, however, think I need add anything else, irrespective of which language I might wish to use.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 6.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.50 p.m. and resumed at 6.30 p.m.)
Vote
We will now proceed to the vote.
The next item is the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
During the vote on Amendment No 2 to the joint resolution on Immigration in Ireland:
Mr President, I want to remove the second part of the amendment because apparently a lot of people would support the first part, but not the second part.
To make it easier for people to support it we have removed the second part.
Mr President, I fully support our friend's request, given that if we put the amendment to the vote as it stands some Members may well abstain, and this is after all a very important matter.
If then it is necessary actually to delete the second part we will do so.
It is a pity, but that is the way it is.
In any case, I should like to thank you for your proposal.
Report (A5-0426/2001) by Pat the Cope Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol setting out the fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for in the Agreement on cooperation in the sea fisheries sector between the European Community and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania for the period 1 August 2001 to 31 July 2006 (COM(2001) 590 - C5-0555/2001 - 2001/0246(CNS)).
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0405/2001) by Patricia McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the role of flags of convenience in the fisheries sector (2000/2302(INI)).
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0381/2001) by Mrs Lulling, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the Commission report on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1221/97 laying down general rules for the application of measures to improve the production and marketing of honey (COM(2001) 70 - C5-0398/2001 - 2001/2156(COS)).
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0375/2001) by Mauro Nobilia, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission communication on New European Labour Markets, Open to All, with Access for All (COM(2001) 116 - C5-0188/2001 - 2001/2084(COS).
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
President.
We now come to the vote on the joint resolution on linguistic diversity.
The title is not correct.
It should be a resolution on regional and lesser-used languages and I hope that this will be corrected.
I do not agree.
There are languages which are not spoken by many people but which are nevertheless national languages, such as Luxemburgish.
This is not a minority language; it may become one as a result of immigration, but it is not a minority language.
Admittedly it is not widely spoken, but this proposal is unacceptable.
Colleagues, we appear to have a difficulty.
The wording in the joint resolution, which was agreed by everybody who was party to the joint resolution, is regional and lesser-used languages.
That is what is used throughout the document.
Mr President, lesser-used European languages is correct.
Is that acceptable to the House?
Regional and lesser-used languages of the European Union.
Colleagues, the proposal now is "regional and lesser-used languages in the European Union".
Mr President, forgive me but, initially, in the meetings aimed at reaching a consensus, the title we agreed on was 'regional and lesser-used' .
But furthermore, Mrs Pack, there is another problem with your proposal: if we only talk about the 'lesser-used' , my language would simply not be included since it is not 'lesser-used' , but regional.
Therefore, firstly, that is what we agreed on, and secondly, to be precise, we must say 'regional and least-used' because that is what we are talking about.
There is no other option.
Mr Esteven, we do have the word "regional" right at the beginning.
I want the original version with 'European' in between - regional and lesser-used European languages.
'Regional and lesser-used European languages' .
Is that acceptable?
Mr President, I should like to put another oral amendment to the vote, which needs to be voted on first.
Recital C in the German version reads: "Whereas 14 million Union citizens regularly use a regional or lesser-used language and whereas there are more than 60 linguistic communities in Europe."
This should read "in the Union", not "in Europe". In Europe there are about 300.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution) President.
That concludes the vote.
- McKenna report (A5-0405/2001)
Mr President, perhaps Mrs McKenna will be worried if I say that as my name is Fatuzzo I cannot help mentioning the austromerluzzo, the toothfish, which is the victim of illegal fishing under flags of convenience in the seas of Patagonia.
To save her from worrying I shall say that I voted in favour.
I think, however, it is time the Galileo project was approved, through which it will be possible to see from satellites where the illegal fishing vessels are, when they increase in weight from their cargo, and therefore when and where they carried out the illegal fishing.
In this way it really will be possible to control the phenomenon.
Gallagher report (A5-0426/2001)
Mr President, on page 15 of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets we read that appropriations of EUR 86 million are being devoted to assistance for Mauritania: assistance for research, for fisheries, for developing statistics, for rescue services at sea, for fishing licences, for the costs of organising seminars and meetings, for the development of regional fishing; but I do not, Mr President, see any entry with the title 'assistance to the pensioners of Mauritania, assistance for speeding up the payment of contributions and for having occupational pensions for fishermen' .
I did vote for this document, but I hope that when we next vote on provisions for Mauritania, there will also be assistance provided for the pensioners of that country.
- (PT) I would like to express my support for the new fisheries protocol concluded between the European Community and Mauritania for the period 1 August 2001 to 31 July 2006, which I deem of vital importance to the European Community, not only because of the fishing opportunities it offers and the sums involved, but mainly for socio-economic reasons, since it enables a large number of vessels operating in Moroccan waters to move to new fishing grounds.
I would like to congratulate Mr Gallagher, the rapporteur, on his work. I support the conclusions set out in the report in the explanatory statement.
Lastly, with regard to Amendment No 4 (Article 3b), I would like to point out that the Council only grants a negotiating mandate to the Commission for the purpose of concluding new fisheries agreements and not for the renewal of implementation protocols, since the latter do not alter the substance of the framework agreement.
I also advocate the redrafting of the rapporteur' s proposal in order to make it consistent with Community law in force on this subject.
Nobilia report (A5-0375/2001)
Mr President, I voted for the report by Mr Nobilia, which is concerned with increasing employment in Europe.
How could I not have done so? I must stress, however, that to achieve this result it would be important to set up a single European Internet site that gathered together all job requests and offers from all 15 States in the Union.
It would be essential to have a single European second language, because one cannot move about in the European Union without knowing at least one language in common with all other Europeans, in addition to one' s own language, and lastly one cannot move freely if there is not a single European pension.
You cannot have 15 different pension contributions, paid by 15 different European countries if you have worked in all 15 Member States.
We must have a single European pension.
- UK Conservatives welcome the principle of labour markets being open to all, with access to all, as central to the Single Market.
However, we have voted against paragraph 15 of the Nobilia report, as the idea of setting up a European framework of incomes policy and social security cuts directly into Member States' competences.
We have encouraged colleagues from other parties and groups to follow our lead in rejecting this particular suggestion while supporting the report overall.
Lulling report (A5-0381/2001)
Mrs Lulling, what can be sweeter than honey? What can be more nutritious than honey?
There must be a reason for saying 'honeymoon' ! Mrs Lulling, honey is also the nectar of the gods.
When climbing Mount Olympus I stopped to taste the Olympian honey, the honey of the gods of Greece.
How, then, could anyone vote against this document, which seeks to improve the production of honey in Europe and help beekeepers produce larger and more profitable quantities of this nectar of the gods? I hope that next year, before we come back to this House, all of we Members will be supplied with just the right amount to keep our brains fresher and our bodies in better condition for the long hours of voting and also Mr Fatuzzo' s further explanations of vote.
Finally, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the interpreters, to all those who work longer hours because of my explanations of vote, and to you, Mr President, in particular.
Resolution on linguistic diversity
Mr President, I just wanted to say that, like my fellow Member Bernd Posselt, I voted in favour of this motion for a resolution out of conviction.
We also took the view that this motion for a resolution and this resolution could have been formulated in rounder, more comprehensive terms, with a broader platform, and we are sorry that this was not the case.
Nonetheless, it is a step in the right direction and we hope that the plenary sittings and the committee responsible will not just discuss the issue of lesser-used languages, regional languages and minority languages in the Year of Languages, but will take a specific, targeted and positive approach to this problem in general, so that the problems which have arisen in the past from majorities or minorities remain a thing of the past and positive solutions to these problems can be found.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament and wish you all a happy Christmas.
(The sitting was closed at 6.55 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the sitting of Thursday 13 December 2001 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I have a question concerning the complete report of the meetings: last Wednesday evening Vice-President Onesta announced that a vote would be held on Thursday morning on an urgent debate on the European arrest warrant.
However, on Thursday morning, Mr Watson, chairman of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, asked the plenary meeting to vote on an urgent debate on - I quote now from the complete report - "two framework decisions from the Council, one on combating terrorism, the other on a proposal for a European arrest warrant" .
Confusion abounds.
It proves in particular that last Thursday' s decision was taken too hastily and carelessly. Can you explain to me, on the basis of the complete report of the meetings, on which topics precisely we are to hold an urgent debate?
And since we are on the subject of clarification, can you also assure me that the text on the European arrest warrant on which we could submit amendments up to 4 p.m. last Thursday is still the same text and was not changed last weekend? If that were the case, we would again be making incredible fools of ourselves today.
In answer to your question, Mrs Buitenweg, the subject is solely the European arrest warrant.
(The Minutes of the previous sitting were approved)
Announcement by the President
As you know, this is practically the last time that I will have the honour of presiding over this House.
I am pleased to be able to do so on the occasion of this Conference of Presidents, where Mr Verhofstadt, the President-in-Office of the Council, will give us his account of the Laeken Summit and of a Belgian Presidency that has been particularly outstanding.
I am not going to make a speech.
I would just like to say a few words to once again sincerely thank you for the confidence you placed in me when, on 20 July 1999, you elected me President of the European Parliament.
I took on this role with determination, with passion and with an overriding desire to accurately reflect the beliefs and the positions of the majority in this House to the greatest extent possible.
In this regard, I would like to tell you that I have always been able to feel proud of the European Parliament.
If I may, I would like to thank in particular the Secretary-General, Mr Julian Priestley, and all those working here who have helped me with their extraordinary degree of motivation and friendship.
I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the unfaltering support you have given me, and I would hope that my successor can enjoy a Presidency that is as active and happy as that I have had the fortune to experience myself.
(Loud applause) Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
(The House gave the President a standing ovation)
European Council/Belgian Presidency
The next item is the joint debate on the European Council report and the Commission statement on the European Council meeting of 14 and 15 December in Laeken, and the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the Belgian Presidency.
Mr Verhofstadt, thank you very much for your marvellous speech.
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking the Belgian Presidency and the Belgian Prime Minister for the degree of cooperation with the European Parliament.
While I have not checked the record, from my own memory I believe Prime Minister that you may have been here on the floor of this House more often than any of your predecessors in any previous Presidency.
That is a measure of the personal commitment which you have brought to dialogue with this House and democratic issues in Europe.
I salute and thank you for that.
There has also been a very dramatic change in the mood of this House between now and twelve months ago.
Twelve months ago we all approached the Nice event as an important and defining moment and we felt disappointed when it produced something which resulted in more complexity rather than less, was more incomprehensible to the public rather than less, and seemed to reflect more a sense of deal-making than a sense of ideals behind the European process.
At the end of this Presidency a balance has been restored and we should acknowledge that.
There has been an extraordinary change in mood.
The mood now is more upbeat and much of the thanks should go to you, Prime Minister Verhofstadt, and your colleagues in the Presidency.
One cannot of course confuse mood and substance and so we must now exploit that dynamic for the future through the Laeken Declaration and through the Convention.
The Laeken Declaration is indeed a defining moment for the Union and will be a durable measure of the quality of this Belgian Presidency.
The Convention method is a defining method.
Indeed, so many are so pleased with it that, like all successes, it now has many fathers and we all claim our share.
But so be it.
It is in the nature of success that we should all wish to celebrate it.
With regard to the Convention, we look forward to its inauguration in March 2002 and we take note positively of the Presidency of the Convention in the persons of Mr Giscard d' Estaing and Mr Amato and Mr Dehaene and those others who will join them.
We have to ensure that this Convention, through its Bureau, works in a single and coherent way.
It is a vehicle for Europe, for neither more nor less.
I want to say to my good friend, Hans-Gert Poettering, that about 10 years ago the former President of the Liberal Group was looking for political asylum in this House and I want to thank my colleagues in the Christian Democrats, even before Tampere and the development of justice and home affairs, for offering asylum to that man.
He is a very capable European and I am sure in his hands that the Convention can make progress.
It is wonderful to feel, as the Prime Minister has already remarked, that there are no taboos.
At least with some of the concepts we have crossed an important bridge.
The willingness to contemplate a constitution for Europe, is necessary not just for reasons of simplicity but for reasons of stating and re-stating ideals, contemporary values, citizens' rights, institutional balances, and creating the proper checks and balances.
We need this and I am glad that you found the courage and a consensus to build on.
September 11 was an extraordinary moment in your Presidency, a difficult challenge in terms of our common vulnerability and a recognition that non-Europe, or indeed transatlantic unilateralism, could not work.
It has been a tremendous success for all the institutions, led by the Belgian Presidency and the European Commission and with the willing contribution of this House, that we seized that moment and that we have understood that our common vulnerability can only be answered by common response.
All in all this is a Presidency worthy of the challenge of contemporary Europe and it is a Presidency, Mr Verhofstadt, which you and your colleagues can take great pride in.
We, as your Liberal Democrat colleagues in this House, also feel a great pride in your achievement.
We wish there were more people like you running states in Europe today.
(Applause)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, I have already had the opportunity to say that, in my view, the passion of any European politician should be, in the short term, to narrow the gulf of suspicion, if not distrust, which continues to grow between the citizens and the European institutions.
My group therefore welcomes anything that can help to open up our respective societies to the debate on the future of Europe.
This is why we sincerely appreciate the principle of the Convention, which is a departure from the typical intergovernmental behind closed doors meeting, as it involves European and national members of parliament in the preparatory work of the IGC, and allows representatives of candidate countries to participate.
It is also open to contributions from social players. Rest assured that we will urge our counterparts from civil society to work in a constructive and open manner in the new, European political forum.
Let us hope that those whose desire is to avoid tackling the disturbing issues that have surfaced in our societies will not be supported by the majority of the Convention.
A problem cannot be solved by ignoring its root cause.
That is why I thought the current state of affairs described in the draft declaration that Mr Verhofstadt submitted to the European Council was interesting, because it corresponds exactly with what our fellow citizens are experiencing, but the Fifteen unfortunately decided not to take it on board.
On the other hand, I regret that the Presidency-in-Office of the Council has not shown the same critical attitude when preparing the questions submitted for discussion.
Of course, the European Council did not find fault with any of this.
The two vice-chairs of my group, Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Frahm, will speak again with regard to the specifically institutional aspects of the Laeken Summit.
As far as I am concerned, I would like to stress one single idea in relation to this.
If we genuinely wish, as the Declaration by the Fifteen stated, to use citizens' expectations as the main theme of our imminent reflections, then, in my view, the debate cannot fail to include the institutional questions of the European project, the political guidelines that the institutions are supposed to implement.
Anyone who has taken part in citizens' debates within the framework of the pre-Laeken consultation, or has taken the trouble to listen to the messages that came to light recently in the large demonstrations that took place in Brussels, will have in mind those urgent demands which are practically absent from the Convention' s agenda as defined by the Laeken Declaration.
For example, all social issues, in the widest sense of the word, should provoke discussion on the new role that the euro and the European Central Bank will play.
It should lead us to examine more closely the conflicting ideas on European services of general economic interest.
It should lead us to question the dogma of rationing public spending, to re-launch the debate on the taxation of movements of capital, to stimulate the will to put an end to fiscal dumping and tax havens.
The European Union' s economic policy should no longer be limited to competition policy, nor should its monetary policy be aligned with the demands of the financial markets alone.
In my view, the question of the effective rights of employees facing the might of large corporations, and that of the effective involvement of citizens in drawing up European policies and the assessment of their effects are also an unavoidable topic from this perspective.
All these questions, which we are bearing in mind, make up an institutional dimension.
They have a place, therefore, in the debates of the future Convention.
The same applies to enlargement.
Can the institutional challenge posed by this historic event be separated from the other critical problems that we should urgently prevent? Two figures are all that are needed to illustrate what is at stake.
We remain silent about these figures when we should be confronting them head on and with total responsibility.
By 2004, the European Union' s population will have grown by 30%, but its GNP will only increase by 4.5%. What sort of structural reforms, and, in particular, what type of solidarity policy will be needed in order to avoid dangerous tensions, to enable us to become what the Laeken Declaration calls a big European family?
Lastly, the few lines that this framework document devotes to the CFSP can be summed up almost exclusively by - and I quote - 'updating the Petersberg tasks' . As if Europe' s ability to wage war was a guarantee of its international authority.
Having had the opportunity over recent weeks to visit several regions of the globe, I can say that this is not the most important thing we are asked to do.
What people want from Europe is liberation from oppressive American imperialism, to drive back much more aggressively the rule of unilateralism, to develop a wide-ranging strategy of conflict prevention by meeting the needs of development, equality and dignity of the people of the south. In short, they want Europe to give a very different perspective on events, post-11 September, to that of George Bush.
Let us have the courage to look at life as it is.
Let us once again give a clear and inspired meaning to Europe, and I think that this will liberate the institutional dynamic.
This, in any case, is what I believe.
Madam President, the Belgian Presidency assumed the Presidency of the European Union at an extremely crucial time.
The tragic terrorist attacks in America last September highlighted the need for European Union Member States and our international partners to bolster cooperation to defeat the evils of international terrorism.
European Union leaders confronted these new challenges with vigour and determination and we are all collectively intent on tackling the scourge of terrorism.
The European Union has brought forward proposals to prevent our financial systems being used for money-laundering to fund terrorist activities.
We must all continue to cooperate more closely in the future to ensure that the twin evils of international terrorism and international criminal activities are defeated.
The Laeken summit last weekend had to address a whole series of wide-ranging political issues.
I note with interest that in the final text of the Declaration issued by EU Heads of State, they say "The European Union is a success story but 50 years on, however, the Union stands at a crossroads, a defining moment in its existence" .
I fully agree with this political sentiment.
We have to be sure that any changes which are brought about within the European Union in the future command the goodwill and support of the citizens of the Union.
This is a very tough challenge indeed, not only for European Union governments but also for the European Commission, and indeed for ourselves in the European Parliament.
As the European Union develops more closely, we must guarantee that the citizens of the EU support these new developments.
Without the political support and the goodwill of the people of Europe, the EU as a political and economic entity will be badly weakened.
I hope that this is one of the core issues which will be addressed by the new Convention which has now been set up by the EU leaders.
There will be broad-ranging representation at this Convention which will afford all participants a time for real reflection as to the direction that the European Union must take in the immediate years ahead.
How best to sell the message that the European Union is a positive force for the people of Europe will be a central challenge for the participants of this Convention.
I support the European Union.
I believe that the European Union has helped to improve living standards within the European Union and it has helped to improve our quality of life.
But not everyone is convinced of this argument and we must persuade the opponents of the European Union of its benefits.
The difficulty of this task should not be underestimated.
The European Council decided to participate in international efforts to restore stability and peace to Afghanistan.
This was an important decision, affirming the EU' s readiness to provide humanitarian and development assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
I welcome our political support in this regard but any future actions which are taken on this issue must be strictly dealt with under the auspices of specific United Nations mandates.
I also welcome the strong support given by EU leaders to Yasser Arafat' s role as "Israel' s negotiating partner both to eradicate terrorism and to work towards peace."
EU leaders have rightly called on the Palestinian authorities to dismantle terrorist networks run by Hamas and Islamic Jihad and to arrest and prosecute all such suspects and end the armed intifada.
Equally, European Union leaders are right to call on Israel to withdraw its military forces, stop extra-judicial executions, lift closures and restrictions on the Palestinian people, free settlements and end operations directed against Palestinian infrastructure.
I welcome the fact that European Union is prepared to play an active role in third-party monitoring operations in the Middle East and I believe that the European Union must and should play a stronger role in any future talks that may take place in the Middle East region.
Madam President, my mother taught me that you should keep quiet if you have nothing worthwhile to say, but how are the elections of Mr Giscard d'Estaing, Mr Amato and Mr Dehaene as leaders of the Convention to be commented upon?
We can of course commend the appointment of the three wise men with their splendid careers behind them as a good signal to the Chinese leaders as to how we promote women and young people in the European Union.
What, however, do our own women and young people say about the fact that the future of the EU is now to be directed by those responsible for the majority of our laws' now being adopted by officials and Ministers behind closed doors?
My group expects the leaders of the future to be given places in the Convention, which it also expects to be opened up to that 50 per cent of the electorate who voted 'no' in the referenda in France, Denmark and Ireland and who might have voted 'no' in other countries if the latter had had the courage to ask them.
The critics of the EU, or Eurorealists, ought at least to have one place in every single national delegation, and I should like to thank Mr Verhofstadt for having supported this demand when SOS Democracy had a meeting with him.
The Danish Prime Minister has already offered the Danish critics of the EU a place.
The Convention should draft two texts: a constitution, as desired by the majority, and an agreement between independent nations which cooperate on cross-border matters that we cannot solve ourselves in our own countries' parliaments.
The two proposals can therefore be subject to consultative referenda in all the Member States so that our politicians can see what people want before they call an official Intergovernmental Conference for the purpose of making changes to existing treaties.
The two proposals should be prepared as completed drafts that can be adopted if desired.
The Convention should therefore do some detailed work and employ the necessary experts to help with both the majority and minority approaches.
There should also be ongoing debates on the two drafts in the national parliaments and at public meetings in the Member States.
The successor to the Treaty of Amsterdam must not come as a surprise but as the result of a democratic process.
The democratic process is at least as important as the content of the new treaty, in which it is not only the future of Mr Amato, Mr Dehaene and Mr Giscard d' Estaing that is now at stake, but that of all Europeans.
Madam President, I would also like to thank, in particular, the Belgian Presidency, Mr Verhofstadt, and Mr Michel especially, because I believe they enabled us to keep the game open in terms of the Convention. I see, in particular, that behind one of the issues, namely, that of the direct election of the Commission President, lies the characteristic and insistent work of the Belgian Presidency.
I think, however, that we should not forget, and I am also addressing my fellow Members here, the objective, and, with regard to this, the issue of terrorism, an issue that has already been put on the backburner. I disagree with you, Mr Lannoye.
There was a paragraph which, under the influence of the British members, I believe, was withdrawn, that placed the Americans at a distance. I think that we are already forgetting that terrorism is an international phenomenon.
We are forgetting that not only was Afghanistan under the Taliban, but the issues of Syria, Iraq, Somalia and North Korea remain. However, we are, above all, forgetting that the events of 11 September revealed that terrorism is born of and feeds on dictatorships, on these dictatorial regimes.
And we have already forgotten this, since, at the last session, we adopted an association agreement with Egypt, without batting an eyelid, disregarding the warnings and requests for additional information on a number of serious human rights violations, which have also been voiced today. I would also like to thank our President.
Chairman Poettering reiterated the role played by our President in supporting Commander Massoud. Our own President had invited Mrs Sihem Ben Sedrine here today, who, once again due to despicable, base, mediocre action taken by this dictatorship, which is becoming increasingly dictatorial by the day, will not be able to attend the reception that the President of our Parliament had organised in her honour.
This is the reality of these dictatorships which are at the root of the growth of terrorism, and we are doing nothing, we have already forgotten the lessons of 11 September.
I hope at least, that the next President of the European Parliament will re-extend the invitation originally made by our President, Mrs Nicole Fontaine, and I hope that, for Tunisia, for the Tunisian democrats, for the Egyptian democrats, for all democrats, particularly in Arab countries, our Parliament will in time live up to its objectives and its ambitions.
Madam President, we have all known for a long time that the Intergovernmental Conference on its own is no longer an effective instrument for bringing about a proper treaty amendment.
It is encouraging to hear that a different working method has been opted for at the Laeken Summit.
The Convention has been launched, and its agenda is far wider than the four points imposed at Nice.
That is an achievement on the part of the Belgian Presidency, on which I would warmly congratulate it.
The quality of the triumvirate which will be heading the Convention and its praesidium is also promising.
Nobody will reproach me for the fact that my trust in this leadership is mainly based on the presence in this trio of former Prime Minister and party colleague, Mr Dehaene.
The Laeken Declaration contains more than sixty non-rhetorical questions.
Although everyone involved in Europe since Amsterdam, and Ioanina in fact, knows what the questions are, nobody had expected adequate and complete answers yet.
However, many of us were looking forward to receiving some indicators, and I actually miss them a little in this Laeken Declaration. There has not been the slightest hint of reaching political agreement between Heads of State and Government about the direction which we need to take with Europe.
In fact, wearing my Belgian hat, I could also say that Mr Verhofstadt asks the questions, and Mr Dehaene should make sure the answers are found.
I am left with three questions for the Council Presidency, to which I should like to receive answers.
First of all, do you believe, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that you can deepen the European Union even further through this Declaration and with the Convention, to coincide at the latest with the imminent round of enlargement?
Secondly, do you expect that the national parliaments that have made their ratification of the deeply disappointing Nice Treaty dependent on the contents of the Laeken Declaration will now soon embark upon the ratification process for Nice?
Thirdly, I warmly welcome the idea of publishing the Laeken Declaration in dozens of European newspapers, but are you not concerned that people will also want the questions answered and will want to see concrete policy steps taken before they will well and truly feel at home in the ever-expanding Europe?
I should like to finish off by saying that, at the start of the Belgian Presidency, I had asked you to convene an NGO summit, preferably a few weeks before Laeken.
I did not receive a response during that sitting, but you did organise the summit.
This was therefore a matter of actions speaking louder than words.
We had not been used to this for a while in Belgium, and it was a nice surprise when it did happen. Thank you for this.
Mr President, may I join in the praise of the Presidents of the Commission and Council for having brokered the deal at Laeken.
To have got a British Prime Minister to have signed up to the prospect of a federal constitution is an extraordinary thing.
It is certainly unprecedented.
I fear though that the size of the podium in this chamber will require strengthening and extension so that it can fit in Valerie Giscard d' Estaing and his entourage.
The European citizen will feel truly privileged that we have such a grand praesidium to service our work.
Thank you for the 60 questions or so.
Frankly, I would have wished for more.
First, there is nothing on strengthening the powers of the Court.
Secondly, there is nothing on revising the formula of a qualified majority in the Council.
Thirdly, there is nothing on strengthening the role of the regions within the political system of the Union and, fourthly and finally, we would have appreciated some critical self-assessment of the functioning and performance of the European Council itself.
But we are blessed with a truly pluralist procedure - an exciting and novel one - and we retain the freedom within the Convention to ask ourselves questions.
We will exploit that freedom.
Madam President, allow me to start by using a military analogy in these times of war.
Mr Verhofstadt, over the past six months, you, together with your colleagues in the federal government and the federal state governments, have been Europe' s Lieutenant-General.
Unfortunately, however, you have been the Lieutenant-General of an ill-disciplined army, an army in which too often the Member States refuse to bow to your supreme authority, in which all too many Member States act at their own discretion and wish to go their own way and in which the Member States only serve their own interests and too often put narrow state nationalism above the general European interest.
You may have been aware of this over the past six months, Mr Verhofstadt, but we experience this on a daily basis in our files.
Credit to you for having succeeded in creating a sense of order in that ill-disciplined army at Laeken.
However, the Council is not only an ill-disciplined army, they are also a bunch of opportunists: typically, they quickly wanted to resolve the location issue on Saturday evening.
Credit to you once again, Mr Verhofstadt, for having nipped this in the bud.
For we want, in fact, to move away from the back-room mentality, we want to move away from closed meetings between officials, between diplomats and between fifteen Heads of Government.
We are in favour of an open method, we want to give the Convention' s hopeful method a chance, we want to throw open the doors to let a fresh breeze in.
You posed the right questions at the Convention.
You rightly stated that the debate should be about the distribution of powers at different policy levels.
You also rightly questioned whether it would not be better to leave the daily running of the Union' s policy to the regions where the constitution regulates this automatically.
However, Mr Verhofstadt, could I also level some form of criticism? You did not ask, for example, how constitutional regions, including Flanders, Wallonia, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Scotland and Wales could emphatically be involved in European decision-making.
In failing to do so, you have ignored the demands of your party colleague, Mr Patrick Dewael, the Prime Minister of Flanders, who, together with some fifty colleagues, had even published a weighty document on this matter in May and in October.
I should like to make three observations with regard to the composition of the Convention.
Firstly, I do not believe that a triumvirate without the presence of one single woman genuinely reflects present-day society.
Secondly, there is an imbalance in the composition of the Convention between the MEPs, on the one hand, and national parliaments, on the other.
You, the Council, are making a mistake here. In my view, the European Parliament is the institution par excellence where the European idea, where the European general interest, applies, and you are missing an opportunity here.
And my final comment with regard to the composition of the Convention is that the representatives of the constitutional regions are unable to participate directly in the Convention.
They need to take the indirect route of the Committee of the Regions as observers, and that is a sad state of affairs in my view.
Mr Verhofstadt, whatever happens, you can rely on me and my party, with the nine representatives of the European Free Alliance, to make a constructive contribution to this Convention, for Europe must not lead to uniformity. Europe must remain a sparkling diamond with many facets, facets displaying its diversity and its own identity, for only then can the European diamond sparkle in the European firmament.
Mr President, the past week has been pivotal for the future of the Union.
Firstly, agreement was reached on the European arrest warrant, a major, sensitive agreement which must be seen as an initial step, to be consolidated by a broader, further-reaching political and institutional project bringing further integration.
In particular, at Laeken, we started to define that political and constitutional Europe in which we firmly believe.
The idea that Europe might be condemned to being just a union of agriculture and trade or just a financial and monetary union is waning.
We are, at last, entering a new phase: an exciting phase, a phase of laying foundations and further integration, in which we must establish European political unity while safeguarding national identities and diversities.
The diversities unite us; they must not be seen as dividing the European peoples, for they have come to represent precious social and cultural assets.
Europe' s strength stems, in actual fact, precisely from its ancient culture, from its diversities as well as its common roots.
In this sense, as a European and an Italian, I can only appreciate the work of the Italian Government at Laeken in enthusiastically upholding Parma' s application to be the site of the Food Authority.
If we want the Europe we are building to be a Europe of excellence, quality and competitiveness in the area of quality, when it comes to the Food Authority, Parma is the natural, most suitable and most prestigious choice, precisely because of Italy' s longstanding gastronomic traditions: it has a tradition of culture and quality, professionalism and rigour, and a history of consolidated scientific excellence which is recognised the world over.
In promoting Parma' s application - energetically, moreover, as Italy did at Laeken - we are not trying to impose unnecessary vetoes or advancing nationalistic claims; rather, this is an attempt to allow the quality, capacity, skills and natural, genuine vocation of a territory to prevail over bureaucracy, sterile bureaucratic agreements and pre-established lists, rather than allowing the latter to prevail as has happened on countless occasions.
The citizens do not want the site of the Food Authority to be purely administrative but to have proven experience and capacity in the field of food safety.
I feel that Parma has that proven experience and capacity.
Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to the President, Mrs Fontaine, who, with great authority and courtesy, has steered the work of this House during this first part of our parliamentary term.
Mr President, some believe that the debate on the future of Europe can be summarised in the development of the Community method, where the Commission has the monopoly on initiative, the Court of Justice has political power and interpretation, and the right to impose European law on one or more Member States is achieved by increasing majority decisions.
This centralised vision of Europe in even more areas runs counter to the will of the people, who want to benefit from each other' s experience.
The people of Ireland, which was the only nation to be consulted by referendum, were not mistaken in rejecting the Treaty of Nice.
The Convention will be nothing more than a sham if it pursues the same objective without acknowledging that the Treaty of Nice is dead and buried.
Unfortunately, the objectives appear to remain fixed.
The conclusions of the Laeken Summit welcome the progress made and the agreements reached on the liberalisation of the postal services, which will bring about a weakening of the social and territorial cohesion of our Member States.
It is unacceptable to impose on everyone the choice made by some Member States to privatise and open up their public services to competition.
This proposal is not likely to bring the people of Europe closer, nor is it a condition for peace on the continent.
We must adopt the opposite approach; in other words, bring Europe closer to the people.
In order to do this, we must listen to them and, once genuinely common concerns have been expressed, debate an appropriate common response.
In my view, the European Summit and the Laeken Declaration proved, in fact, to be a fitting sequel to the Belgian Presidency.
It became a catalogue of hollow phrases, of nothingness, of unanswered questions.
It is very characteristic of the state of affairs in today' s Europe that, actually, only someone like former Commissioner, Mr Van Miert, dared to put his finger on the wound.
What Mr Michel ventured to call the 'Grand Cru Verhofstadt' ultimately turned out to be a cheap table wine.
So there will soon be a Convention which is supposed to give a democratic face to an enforced federal Europe.
But surely this Convention cannot cover up the fact that our institutions are systematically riding roughshod over the subsidiarity principle, that extremely drastic measures are taken without prior referendums, and even that the European Union is once again flouting the sovereignty of the Member States at this summit, for example by again callously ignoring the results of the Irish referendum.
Apparently, European democracy suggests that citizens preferably have no say, and if they do, they have to carry on voting until they agree with what the eurocracy has decided, as was the case in Denmark and is also required from Ireland.
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Verhofstadt, may well go down in history, albeit as the man who took things to such extremes that even Commission President, Mr Prodi, refused to hold any more press conferences with him, as the once pro-Flemish politician who refused to protect the Dutch language, as the man who abandoned all his principles, who was once known as the advocate of slimmed-down government and of deregulation but who became the partisan of European centralism exercised by a superstate and who turned inventing little rules into a kind of Olympic discipline.
Mr President, the Laeken Council will sadly rank amongst the less impressive meetings of its kind.
It was a missed opportunity and a serious disappointment, like the Belgian Presidency which preceded it.
Why? Not just because of the consistency of the Foreign Minister, Louis Michel, who for us emerges as an endearing Harry Worth-type figure on the European political stage.
We seem to have passed over his proclamation that the British-led UN peacekeeping force in Afghanistan was to become an EU body.
The key problem is that for this Presidency these last months have been a painful learning curve.
The excessive aspirations of July, often misguided like ideas for a new Euro-tax on all EU citizens or a Tobin tax on capital movements, found themselves on a collision course with reality.
At Laeken the EU's new rapid reaction force was declared operational even though, critically, its access to NATO assets is currently blocked.
Indeed, the precise relationship between the force and NATO remains ambiguous.
The European arrest warrant enjoyed a particularly painful birth with some uncertainty about when, or if ever, it will apply in Italy.
The attempt to assign sites for various new EU bodies also descended into farce.
Little progress was made at Laeken, or indeed, throughout the Belgian Presidency, on the competitiveness agenda in Europe.
The Lisbon strategy, which has been grounded since Stockholm, now faces a moment of truth in Barcelona if we are truly to become the dynamic knowledge-based economy that is sought.
Finally let me turn to the Declaration itself.
The text acknowledges the EU's failings in terms of democracy, transparency and closeness to people but seems to come up yet again with solutions on federal lines.
These options represent the wrong route for Europe.
The Convention should learn the lessons of the last decade, reject ambitions for a European super-state, and focus on modest and intelligent reforms which can really deliver a Europe that works.
Mr President, Mr Verhofstadt, at the end of your Presidency, the situation is now very different from one year ago: the atmosphere has changed completely. We can roll up our sleeves, and you have indeed put three men in charge.
I am interested to see how many members the delegation of the European Parliament will have in the Convention.
We will count them when the time has come.
You have tabled the questions, a great many questions and the right ones, in my view.
Maybe we could add the odd question here and there. Why not?
In my opinion, the Convention should have that flexibility.
You outlined a dream a moment ago.
In my view, it was a very fitting account, a very attractive prospect of what we ought to do, not only we Western Europeans, the Fifteen, but also Eastern Europe and the rest of the world.
However, I would like to ask one more thing, Mr President-in-Office. You have now held the Council Presidency for six months.
We now face seven years in which the Belgian Government will not be President again.
I would ask you to convince all your Ministers of the fact that, during those seven years, European work is of extreme importance, that the government should not only occupy itself with European issues during the Presidency but also mainly outside of that time, for that period is longer and, most of all, certainly as important.
Mr President, I should first like to offer the praise I think is due.
I am extremely pleased that the Presidency has stood by enlargement and the whole programme of enlargement, that there is a continued commitment to concrete negotiations' beginning as from 2002 and that we are aiming to admit the first new Member States in 2004.
That praise, I think, is due.
However, I do not understand the way in which the leadership of the Convention has been put together.
The composition is incredibly one-sided, and we have a huge need for bridge-building in this project. Where are the critics?
We have had a 'no' vote in Ireland; we have had a 'no' vote in Denmark, admittedly a number of years ago; and we know that there is dissatisfaction among the peoples of Europe. Where are the critics?
What has become of young people and, especially, women where this issue is concerned? When Mr Prodi was asked by Danish television what had become of women and young people, he called for honesty and said that, if the EU was to talk with government leaders, it needed men over the age of 30.
If that is the attitude towards how we are to make contact with the people of Europe, then 'thank you for nothing' is what I say.
With regard to the anti-terrorism package, I do not understand why the aim is not to adopt an independent European stance on this issue. I do not understand why there is once again the desire to be the puppy of the United States.
I do not understand why we do not concentrate much more on preventing future terrorism instead of taking the line adopted by the United States.
Mr President, the Laeken Declaration is punctuated by question marks: a sign of the ambiguity which currently exists in relation to the future of the European Union.
Needless to say, the new Convention cannot provide answers to all those questions.
That is why, in my view, priority should be given to improving transparency and a clear demarcation of powers between the European Union and the Member States.
I was pleasantly surprised by the content of the questions concerning this latter point.
It seems that there are no taboo subjects, if even the creeping transfer of powers in the direction of Brussels can be questioned.
I was also surprised, but not pleasantly, by the composition of the Convention' s praesidium: no fewer than twelve people are supposed to make up the total.
I wonder, then, what the role of an ordinary Convention member is. Not a significant one, I fear.
However, this jeopardises the quality of the proposals which this body makes.
The Convention will be relying on quality. Otherwise, its ideas will simply be put away in a drawer and forgotten about.
Mr President, in defining the agenda for the Convention on the future of the Union, the Laeken Council has deviated from the conclusions of the Nice Council with regard to two points which concern us.
Firstly, whereas Nice declaration No 23 had included in the agenda a point entitled 'The role of national parliaments in the architecture of Europe' , the Laeken Council has watered down that idea under a much vaguer title: 'More democracy, transparency and efficiency in the European Union' .
Under this title, it first of all asks how we can increase the democratic legitimacy of the current institutions and, only in second place, whether the role of the national parliaments needs to be modified.
It is a largely biased approach, since in reality the two questions are just one: recognising a prominent role for national parliaments within the architecture of Europe is the best way to reconcile the Union with its citizens.
Second modification: whereas Nice mentioned the status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights in a purely neutral way, Laeken includes another idea in the agenda, the idea of a European constitution, that is, a clearly supranational fundamental text rather than a treaty.
It therefore appears, Mr President, that between Nice and Laeken, the federalist pressure groups have taken charge.
They have managed to have modifications adopted, very significantly, which are both aimed at minimising the role of national democracies. This approach does not correspond with the wishes of our citizens and it will have to be corrected in the years to come.
Madam President, first of all, I would like to apologise to the Members of the European Parliament since I must shortly leave for Canada. There is another European Union-Canada Summit.
In order to get there on time, I must leave for the airport at 7.00 p.m.
It is for this reason that myself and Romano Prodi, since we are leaving for Canada together, must apologise for not being able to participate in the debate until the end.
I apologise to all the Members, especially those MEPs with whom I have had very intense contacts over recent weeks and months: Mr Brok, Mr Méndez de Vigo, the chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Napolitano.
I am sorry that I will not be able to hear them speak, but in any event I hope to continue the contacts we have established in order to prepare this Convention properly.
At the beginning of the debate - and I should like to thank various group leaders for their support and their words of praise for the Belgian Presidency - there were a few jokey comments to the effect that the Convention and its praesidium consist of nothing but Socialists and Christian Democrats, and that the only Liberal among them, namely Mr Giscard d'Estaing, has, in fact, transferred to the Christian-Democrats.
I, for my part, am quite happy for the Socialists and Christian Democrats to dominate the Convention. It may not be strictly my place to say this, but perhaps I am allowed this leeway at the end of the Presidency.
Mr Poettering, there are currently two Liberals in the Council, as opposed to none before. Maybe, with your help, the President of the European Parliament and the President of the Commission will also be Liberals.
So, in fact, we as Liberals are not too badly represented in the European institutions.
Some speakers have questioned the link between the Laeken Declaration and the Nice process.
There should not be a common link. Nice is to be adopted; Nice is to be ratified.
This is necessary to allow enlargement to work at a practical level as from 2004.
It would be a big mistake if we did not do this and if Nice were to be once again mixed up with the Laeken Declaration and the future of Europe.
We would then once again talk about the Nice leftovers instead of the future of Europe.
The great advantage of the Convention is that it breaks with traditional methods precisely at this moment.
The old method entailed establishing, after each treaty amendment, that agreement had not been reached on two or three points, and these two or three points would then be transferred to the next Intergovernmental Conference, which would add a few fresh points and which would try to change the Treaty in the same way.
If agreement was not reached at that stage, fresh leftovers would be created.
The past decade of the European Union has been marked by a history of constantly moving from leftover to leftover, the swill becoming lighter and lighter each time, and the fundamental questions losing weight all the time.
This mechanism is now being discontinued.
This time round, fundamental questions will be put forward.
Mrs Thyssen has stated that these are merely questions that I am posing and for which Mr Dehaene will need to provide the answers.
It is actually quite simple.
Mr Dehaene has helped me draft the questions, and I will now return the favour and help him give the answers in the coming months.
This is also what will actually happen.
The Laeken group is a group of which Mr Dehaene and Mr Amato form a part.
This group will always continue to work as a group of friends and, on that basis, a number of additional incentives can be given, involving Mr Delors, Mr Geremek, Mr Miliband and the other members.
(FR) I would also like to say to the President that it was not desire which was lacking when it came to responding immediately to the questions posed.
My colleagues have often said to me, 'no, it is not a question you can ask' .
I would say, 'why?' 'Because the answer is implied in the question' .
Nevertheless, Mrs Thyssen and all the other Members who have spoken can rest assured that I am going to do my best in the Intergovernmental Conference, in the regular contacts I will have with the various members of the praesidium and the Convention, to help to find the answers to the questions posed in the declaration.
With regard to the membership of the praesidium, there has been mention of the absence of women.
I completely agree and I propose that three men and nine women now be designated by the national parliaments and the European Parliament.
All is not lost yet, since only three of the twelve places have been allocated.
I also truly hope that the European Parliament, the national parliaments and the various representatives will be able to do this.
I would like to end by saying something about the relationship between the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
I believe that what is very important is that a praesidium has been created, that that praesidium consists of twelve people and that amongst those twelve people, two will be representatives of the European Parliament.
The same number will represent the national parliaments.
I believe that these two people are going to have to play an important role, because it will be this group of twelve which prepares things, which prepares the agendas. Not all the decisions can be taken by a Convention of 113 people.
It must be prepared. The praesidium is going to play a dominating role in this respect and in that praesidium there will naturally be two representatives of the European Parliament.
Finally, I would like to stress that I believe it is very important that for the first time there will also be representation in the Convention from the so-called constitutional regions, but the more exact term is 'regions with legislative powers' .
I am the Prime Minister of a country with a federal structure.
It is the same in Germany, in Austria and in other countries.
Little by little, many other countries are beginning to adopt federalism within their institutional system.
And it is working well, because federalism is the only way we have to allow different communities, different cultures and populations who speak different languages to live together, without giving rise to what happens in other parts of the world, where there is conflict.
I would therefore like to stress that we should not use the word 'federalism' in a negative sense.
I sometimes hear people say that federalism spells disaster.
Quite the opposite.
Throughout the world, federalism demonstrates that it is the only way for communities to live together without conflict, without turning to violence, as is the case in many parts of the world.
(Applause) And it is for that reason that I personally believe it is important and an enormous step forward that the regions with legislative powers can be represented.
I have achieved this because I have also been helped by the President of the Committee of the Regions.
I do not need to tell you that around the Council table there were certain people who found it difficult to include the words 'regions with legislative powers' in the declaration and difficult to recognise, as the European Council, that those regions may have a place and a say.
It has finally been accepted and that is thanks to the President of the Committee of the Regions, Mr Chabert, whom I had asked to send me a letter.
The letter which he had sent me said: the Committee of the Regions must be represented and we must demand that the different members of the Committee of the Regions be represented. The regions and cities, but also the regions with administrative powers.
I have therefore been able to use the authority of the Committee of the Regions to include these regions in the text for the first time.
I wanted to stress this here this afternoon, since I feel that they have an important role to play.
There will be discussion of the distribution of competences, the new instruments, institutions and the future European constitution.
I personally believe that we must do this together, excluding nobody, and allowing every section of our European Union to express its view.
(Applause)
Mr Verhofstadt and Mr Prodi, of course we understand why you are obliged to leave the House at this point.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with Laeken we may have found an antidote to some of the poisons present in the Treaty of Nice.
The convening of a constituent Convention - constituent because this Convention will give rise to the Constitution for the new Europe - means restoring a political soul to Europe, in other words thinking about what is to be the future home of us all.
Parliament must therefore welcome the success of the Summit and make sure that the Convention' s work reaches its appropriate conclusion in an Intergovernmental Conference, which will have to draw up the new Constitutional Treaty, to bring about the European federation.
Genuine, practical federalism, which also respects the regional level, as the Council has rightly said, which respects minority languages and all peoples, great and small, will burst into the history of this new century as part of the process of European integration, and anyone representing the people of the Valle d' Aosta can only rejoice at that.
We have set a positive process in motion and the enemies of the European Union are already aware of this; we must therefore step up our efforts.
Mr President, the Laeken declaration is couched in words which satisfy one and all, weighty words.
The objective and method, the Convention and political negotiation, are indeed cause for satisfaction.
However, as previous speakers have said, the declaration does not contain any convincing references to the social State, what some people somewhat sheepishly call the social model, sustainable development, viable development, autonomy and hence, if I may put it thus, a viable Union profile.
Maybe the lack of political unification is to blame for this degree of cowardice.
But it is interesting that we have said nothing of any import about the war and we have said nothing of any import about enlargement itself.
I should like to make a comment here, if I may.
Why does the purely political decision to accept ten new members exclude - politically that is - two from the Balkan peninsula, from the heart and soft underbelly of Europe? We have left a black hole in the Balkans.
It is unacceptable and I should like an answer.
Unfortunately, I probably will not get one now or even, I fear, from the Convention.
Mr President, the conclusions from the Laeken Summit are by no means surprising in terms either of their rhetoric or their content.
As usual, the rhetoric is high-flown and hollow at one and the same time.
For the umpteenth time, openness and proximity to the people are promised.
The words chosen falsify what really is the case in a way that, in terms of cynical demagogy, would put to shame the ideologues both of the Third Reich and of Stalinism.
The reality has proved to be completely different, for the summit' s declared ambition that the institutions of the EU should be brought closer to the people turns out in reality to mean that the people of the Member States are ever more excluded by the closed institutions of the EU, which have fatally misunderstood the nature of democracy.
Moreover, the renewed missions are being placed in the hands of three pensioners of an age that makes Chinese statesmanship look like a youth rebellion.
There is no doubt that these three worthy men will be able to step up the dynamic of EU integration, but there are more and more of us who doubt that the EU and its ambitions to be a great power are any kind of solution. On the contrary, they constitute the very problem.
Mr President, let me say first of all that I appreciate the way we can talk to each other here in a fairly intimate atmosphere.
There is no doubt that it is easier to ask important questions than to find the answers to them.
The President's statement notwithstanding, all of us can only wish these answers to be found, but I want to make allowances all the same for the fact that Laeken saw a very important task performed, that of getting the Convention on track with a president who is not only distinguished but whose appointment also augurs well for the future.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights was our most recent opportunity to learn that the success of such a process largely depends on who presides over it, so let me say that the youthful attire of the President-in-Office led me to fear that the Convention would be given a rather 'young' and 'dynamic' chair.
Unlike Mrs Frassoni and Mr Bonde, I was therefore rather pleased to learn that we were still going to give preference to the opinions of those older and wiser - something which marks out the higher cultures.
The inauguration of the Convention was, though, the only outstanding achievement.
Speaking from an Austrian point of view, I find Point 59 regrettable on the grounds that it has turned out to be very narrow and does not do justice to the need for Europe-wide safety standards.
Mr President, I would like to focus on two results of Laeken which I believe to be essential.
The first is the recognition that the consolidation of the third pillar of the European Union, the fight against terrorism in particular, has at last been developed in the way the citizens have been demanding.
The terrible attacks have led even the least aware amongst us to realise that terrorism is a problem for all of us, and that it involves all of us, not just the victims directly affected.
And that terror is not only caused by those who pull the trigger or press the detonator, but also by their accomplices, and we should therefore be pleased with the Council' s decision to create a single list of all groups, bodies and people who support terrorism.
Secondly, the decisions adopted in relation to designing the future of the Union seem to me to be very coherent with the demands of the European Parliament.
I am convinced that the flexibility with which the agenda has been set will allow us to strengthen the instruments of the CFSP during the Convention, because the globalised world in which we live demands that Europe should play a new role and we have provided it with the necessary means to do this, such as the Community diplomatic service.
Mr President, I do not believe that the machine has worked properly, but I assume that my speaking time is over.
Mr President, Minister, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, of the huge number of problems dealt with at Laeken, I would also like to focus on the point which brings us most hope, the declaration on the future of the Union.
It is a good and strong declaration, which takes up several of the ideas to which the French Socialist delegation is very committed.
We are happy to see that the praesidium, which will play a determining role, will be reasonably large, twelve people, which is what we wanted, and it will be led by three strong political personalities whose commitment to Europe is beyond question.
And as a French person, I am delighted to see that in the end an eminent countryman of mine will preside over the group; though an eminent countrywoman would clearly have been better perhaps.
We also approve of the fact that the Commission is represented, not by one commissioner, but by two, who as it happens are both perfectly qualified for that task.
Another good piece of news is that the timetable will be flexible, so that the Convention may enjoy greater freedom.
Finally, we welcome the broad mandate that the Heads of State and Government have granted the Convention.
And we congratulate the Belgian Prime Minister on the firmness with which he has managed to apply this open mandate to many issues which go beyond the purely mechanical institutional field. It is to this end that I would like to request something: the Convention will have to propose institutional reforms aimed at making the mechanisms work better.
This is all very well, but it can and must also make proposals on content, in response to those questions which the citizens often ask without receiving a clear reply.
What is Europe for?
What are its great missions, within its borders, for its inhabitants, but also in the world? Which policies is it responsible for leading, particularly in the social field?
What are its competences? What are its duties in relation to its inhabitants and the rest of the world in terms of solidarity, prosperity and security?
Under the guidance of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council, the results relating to this declaration are good.
The Presidency has provided strong impetus, very much helped by Parliament as well, which has given it constant encouragement.
The Laeken Council has launched this Convention into orbit, and it can play a decisive role for the future of Europe.
The future will tell whether Laeken has been an historic turning point.
Mr President, Mr Verhofstadt spoke a lot about the need to improve democratic control.
But we do not need to change the Treaties to improve democratic control.
We can do that using the existing Treaties.
I am not talking about applying Article 42 to bring the third pillar matters into the first pillar, although that would be very desirable.
I am talking about instances such as that last week where Parliament was consulted for the fourth time in a year on a text of which half was missing.
We were asked to approve a regulation to freeze the assets of a list of terrorist organisations; the list was not attached.
The regulation referred to two Council texts, neither of which is available to Parliament.
We voted on amendments covering the absent documents in view of the urgency, but if that text is not amended and, in view of this practice, Parliament really should consider recourse to the European Court of Justice unless Council is prepared to treat us in a fairer and more adult way.
Mr President, the writing on the wall states quite clearly that the Laeken Summit has bolstered a European Union in which big business takes precedence over the interests of the workers and the people in general.
The delegates in Laeken Palace did not hear the stentorian voice of the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators from all over Europe: the voice of the poor, of the unemployed, of the people with no job security and of the victims of soul-destroying exploitation who actually create our wealth.
They did not and could not hear their fight and their demand for a different Europe, a Europe of peace and friendship between nations, not a Europe of European armies, intervention and war, a Europe in which social rights and democratic freedoms are respected and strengthened, not a Europe of European arrest warrants, Eurojust and the law on terrorism which use 11 September as a pretext for classifying the social and political fight for a better tomorrow as terrorism.
That is why I believe that the Convention is not the answer; anyway it is an advisory forum and will, I fear, just end up pulling the wool over the people's eyes.
Continuing and developing the unprecedented wave of protest which surrounded Laeken is our only hope and our only way out.
Mr President, I am concerned that the European Constitution is going to be drafted by just 60 people, who it is to be hoped will be worthy of the task but are still a small number to represent hundreds of millions of citizens.
A constituent assembly would have been more appropriate.
In this regard, it is significant that the vice-president is to be Giuliano Amato, who is a member of the Italian and European left but, most importantly, an advocate of that oligarchic desire to have the institutions run just by a few aristocrats, by a small, unelected elite.
We hope that, at least, once the Constitution has been drafted, it will be possible for both national parliaments and this House to amend it, where necessary, unlike the situation with the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Mr President, at Laeken, a number of steps forward have, at last, been taken towards the creation of a stronger Europe with wider borders.
The Convention will have to pave the way for a Constitution which establishes the respective competences of the institutions and includes the founding values underlying our Union as well, but it will also have to represent an essential stage in terms of the harmonisation of the laws of our countries, not least in judicial matters.
However, we must make haste and decide before the end of 2003 to avoid the elections getting in the way of the process and the Constitution being adopted slap-bang in the middle of the electoral campaign. Without the Constitution, without new institutions, it will be difficult to achieve the enlargement which we all, like President Prodi, see as irreversible.
Moreover, I welcome the fact that the Laeken conclusions reserve a chapter for relations with Russia, a country which deserves increasing attention from the Union.
At Laeken, Europe, at last, spoke out authoritatively on major issues such as combating terrorism, and the decision to adopt what has been dubbed the first 'Marshall Plan' for Palestine is confirmation of Europe' s intention not just to wipe out terrorism through military force - as is right and proper - but also to resolve the issues by political means.
The Italian proposal on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis has moved on from declarations of principle to the practical planning stage.
Moreover, we feel that the decision to establish joint control of external borders is extremely positive.
Of course, there is still a great deal left to do.
Not all the issues were resolved at Laeken: I refer to the sites of the agencies, which should be decided on the basis of the specific suitability of the applicant cities and not allocated on the basis of incomprehensible vetoes.
However, it is our duty to be optimistic: the fate of Europe depends not least on our will, on the will of the European Parliament and the national parliaments which represent the people of the Union.
Mr President, the Laeken declaration set the scene for a broad public discussion about the future of Europe.
That is a good thing.
What is not, however, good enough is that three men are being employed to head up this work.
Experience all goes to show that the composition of the Convention will also be one-sided.
The Laeken declaration states, moreover, that deputies may only be allowed to step in if the right member is absent.
Yet deputising is one of the classic opportunities women have for obtaining any kind of representation when it comes to this type of work.
I must therefore call upon the Belgian and Spanish Presidencies to arrange matters in such a way that it is permitted to call in deputies and - rather more ambitiously - call upon them to arrange for everyone to be represented by a deputy of the opposite sex.
Mr President, the President of the Council, Mr Verhofstadt, stated in his presentation that in Laeken there were no taboos whatsoever.
However, it is crystal clear that the stateless-nations-taboo is more present today than ever before.
But as Victor Hugo said, "nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come" .
Right now, the idea of self-determination is present in the Basque people' s mind.
The present nation-states were born at a certain moment with an internal trend towards their transformation.
The peoples and cultures of Europe on the contrary have no known date of birth.
More importantly, there is no reason for their disappearance unless we condemn them to such a fate.
As a matter of fact, their disappearance would be not only a loss to humanity but the demolition of the best basis for the political future of Europe.
Mr President, the Representative of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Laeken European Council which concludes the Belgian Presidency of the Union has been a success.
I do not say this out of courtesy or convenience but because I profoundly believe that the Heads of State and Government, over recent days, have sent the signal that the Europeans were waiting for, one of clarity and the rejection of pretence.
The Laeken Summit has achieved its main ambition: to adopt a declaration on the future of Europe, opening the way to the future great reform of the Union.
As the President-in-Office of the Council has stressed, there was no taboo at Laeken, no issue has been avoided, and I hope that this formula will become a reality, since European construction has too often been opaque, or at least the reserve of the initiated.
Please allow me, on behalf of the French delegation of the PPE-DE Group, to express our pleasure at the nomination of Mr Valéry Giscard d'Estaing as president of the Convention, as well as Mr Giuliano Amato and Mr Jean-Luc Dehaene as vice-presidents.
These eminent people are renowned for their experience and their determination to persuade people to favour a Europe which fully and democratically carries out its competences, but only its competences, which would be clearly defined.
At a time when Europe has a currency, is being enlarged and is trying to provide globalisation with a soul and with values, it is high time that we reviewed our vision of public life and the relations between our citizens and their institutions at all levels.
A new era was begun at Laeken. We are delighted.
But there is still a long way to go.
We must therefore continue with our efforts.
Mr President, we are bringing the Belgian Presidency to a close, and that should surely be in the presence of the Council, normally speaking.
The Belgian Presidency has been congratulated on the fact that the Ministers have attended the sittings so regularly, yet we are now evaluating their Presidency without any of the Council members being present.
I would question the validity of continuing this debate.
Whom are we actually addressing?
Well, that is for the subsequent speakers to decide.
Mr President, after 11 September, we succeeded in cutting back on the leeway which terrorists had, by taking numerous and effective European measures.
At the same time, we have realised that the security which we promote by doing this forms part of a greater security and that we essentially touch a deeper, more fundamental issue, namely the great inequality in this world, which often serves as a breeding ground for conflicts.
If security is not shared, it has no chance of succeeding.
One in five people in this world do not have access to basic education or basic health care.
This requires a multilateral approach.
At present, we notice how the United States, which has operated more multilaterally over the past few months, has now started to act more unilaterally again over the past few days by withdrawing from the ABM Treaty, and is also taking a far more unilateral course with regard to a number of other treaties.
It is of the utmost importance for us, as Europe, to try to use this large coalition to exert pressure so that we continue to operate multilaterally: making enormous investments in new technologies and then winding up with too little funding, attention and energy to help fight poverty in the world is, of course, ultimately not the most effective way of achieving shared security.
Aid is needed for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, once again with Europe at the helm, so that not only the military aspect is highlighted, but that shared security is sought via the route of reconstruction.
The same applies, in fact, to the Middle East. Europe must exert pressure and not be frightened of having a military presence within NATO using its own institutional forms and organisation - the Convention will need to create an institutional form for this - but must at the same time also have the courage to commit itself to this shared security.
And I wish this fundamental aspect had been slightly more underlined at the Laeken Summit.
Although reference is made to the unilateral cancellation of the ABM Treaty by the US and to Europe' s leading role as the world' s greatest commercial power, we could, and should, do more about shared security.
I would call on the Presidency and the Commission to continue to take initiatives in this area, also in the coming weeks, both with regard to the Middle East, the Balkans and Afghanistan.
We are on the right track.
There are tendencies towards unilateralism: let us not get drawn into this, let us persuade our allies to adopt a multilateral approach and give Europe a central role in this.
Mr President, it has not been an easy task for the Belgian Presidency.
Despite careful planning and many years of preparation, everything was brutally overturned after 11 September 2001.
The developments in Afghanistan and the fight against terrorism have completely dominated the agenda.
I had intended to congratulate the Belgians on nonetheless having done a very good job.
Perhaps someone could pass that message on to the President-in-Office of the Council.
Where Laeken is concerned, my group is pleased that the declaration was so ambitious.
It poses the right questions and will enable the Convention to work constructively and with an open mind.
Many of the questions formulated concerning, for example, the path towards a constitution and a clearer division of competences, coincide well with the agenda of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
Despite their long experience and considerable commitment, there is nonetheless a certain amount of doubt about the three well-known statesmen appointed to the Bureau.
Will these three gentlemen of quite mature years really be able to enthuse people, especially young people, when it comes to the debate about the future? It would have been good to have had people of rather more mixed ages and, as many in this House have pointed out, a woman in the Bureau, for more than half of the population of the EU does in fact consist of women.
Mr President, to the outside world, particularly the Netherlands, the Laeken Summit was a meeting of Heads of Government characterised by internal strife.
Strife about who would become the president of the Convention and strife about which country would house which European agency.
These two points completely dominated the Dutch media.
Fortunately, however, something good came out of it as well.
The European Summit has decided on the Convention and not only on the President and two Vice-Presidents, which I am happy about, but also about the tasks given to the Convention.
Luckily, these are very broadly based.
The Convention will need to better distribute and define the Union' s powers and will need to check how the system of treaties and Union legislation can be simplified and in which ways more democracy and transparency can be created in the Union.
And concerning this transparency, I can already say that I, for one, opt for the European Council of Ministers' having the role of a senate, based on the model of the German Federal Council - a ministerial council which, by law, meets in public.
The European Summit has also asked the Convention to develop an idea of a constitution for the Union and to incorporate the Charter of Fundamental Rights into it.
This is a very fine initial package.
However, I would say at the same time that, in our view, more is needed.
The Convention will also need to examine how the Second and Third Pillars can be accommodated within Community policy.
Migration policy has already more or less been accommodated in this way, and policy on internal security is now the sector which is experiencing rapid growth at Community level since the dramatic events of 11 September.
However, foreign and security policy is still intergovernmental, and Mr Solana' s role is made almost impossible, given the way the European Union is structured.
We would also like to embed this policy, and it would be better if Mr Solana became Vice-President of the European Commission.
Finally, this time round, the Summit has chosen a president and two vice-presidents for the Convention.
The role could have been even more solid if the Convention itself had been able to choose its president on the recommendation of the Summit.
There might then perhaps even have been a woman amongst them.
As far as we are concerned, the Convention might also come up with the idea of choosing the President of the European Commission in future.
This could be done by the European Parliament.
The Belgian Presidency has faced a large number of problems, but the fact that it has brought the Convention to a conclusion ultimately makes me think positively about a Presidency that has been dogged by many problems.
Mainly thanks to the Belgian Presidency, the discussion on the future of Europe has been broadened to involve MEPs and it is becoming a public discussion.
This is to be welcomed, but there is also a considerable risk of the Convention acquiring Babel-like features, because it is open to all topics and all opinions.
In their Laeken Declaration, the Heads of Government have chosen fine words to say ultimately nothing.
They have presented the many questions which they themselves had not been able to answer for ten years to a Convention which is only being given a few months to come up with the answers.
It also remains to be seen whether the Convention can narrow the gulf between the EU and the people.
People are not interested in the redistribution of power between the institutions.
What people care about is the content of the decisions, rather than the level at which they are adopted.
Europe is not served by a trench war between federalists and intergovernmentalists.
More intensive cooperation in gradual steps is what is required.
It will then transpire that the Community method is the only viable route to take.
The ideological battle about Europe' s future only has losers.
As far as I am concerned, Laeken should have stated this.
Mr President, I welcome the outcome of the Laeken summit.
On balance it is a very positive one.
The decision to establish a European Convention paralleled by a forum for civil society is a historic one in its proportions.
Never again will the future of Europe be decided behind closed doors, provided we do our work constructively in the Convention.
I particularly welcome the possibility of a European constitution as a possible outcome.
As has been said by Mr Verhofstadt, there should be no taboos in our debate and the idea of federalism and a constitution for Europe could guarantee the role of the citizens in small states better than any other form of governance.
I endorse wholeheartedly the decision of the European summit to give its support to Yasser Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian people and I condemn without reservation the misuse of the Security Council veto in blocking the appointment of international observers to the Middle East conflict.
These decisions, however, were tarnished by an unseemly squabble among some Member States about the location of European agencies which reflected the worst features of the old way of running Europe.
I am also disappointed the Council did not give its explicit support for a legal framework for public services in the context of competition regulations, as the European Parliament urged.
Finally, I also believe it was a serious mistake to back off from a decision to nominate a European Union peace-keeping force for Afghanistan under a UN mandate.
This unfortunately now leaves this area to the dictates of the interests of the more powerful states on the world stage and fails to provide a political presence and role for European values.
Could I finally say that we should ease up a little on the ageism in relation to the praesidium.
I am more interested in the originality or old age of the ideas of these three individuals rather than their chronological age.
I do think, however, that had we tried, we could have found an older woman who could have also made an important contribution to the praesidium.
Mr President, apart from the fact that it is only partially present in this House, I believe we must acknowledge that the Belgian Presidency has not disappointed and that it has been up to the job of dealing with these clearly very difficult circumstances.
I believe that they have thoroughly understood that the task of a Presidency is to bring together wills, to forge consensus, so that the European Union may move ahead.
The decisions taken in relation to the declaration on the future of Europe, in relation to the Convention method, in relation to making the common security and defence policy operative, the declarations on the Middle East peace process, Afghanistan, etc. and above all, in relation to the fight against terrorism, are going to allow the European Union to move forward and make progress.
What we have to do now is turn declarations into deeds, so that our actions do not remain merely rhetorical, particularly in relation to the fight against terrorism.
I believe that the views of the terrorists and their friends, who very much disliked the decisions taken at Laeken, clearly demonstrate that we are moving in the right direction.
What we now have to do, once we have consolidated the internal aspects of our project, is turn Europe into an international operator capable of comprehensive action with regard to the challenges facing the world, a world in which nations are too big to resolve their small problems and too small to resolve the big problems we are faced with on a global scale.
A European Union which is able to act with one voice and independently in different scenarios and regions and which is able to employ a wide range of political, economic, commercial, civil and military measures which will allow it to achieve its foreign policy objectives.
We therefore congratulate the Belgian Presidency, Mr President.
I believe that we are working in the right direction, and I hope that the declarations of the European Council in Laeken, which has been a good finale to a brilliant Presidency, can quickly be turned into concrete actions which, as I said at the beginning, will allow the European Union to make significant progress in its project of political consolidation.
Mr President, we can celebrate today a number of victories for the European Parliament on things which, not very long ago, we were told would never possibly be agreed at the Laeken European Council.
For a start we have a Convention - and I am particularly pleased at this because I think I was the first one to suggest nearly two years ago now, that the Convention method that was used for drafting the Charter of Rights could equally be used to prepare a revision of the Treaties.
We were told that it would be restricted to just four subjects and now it is clear that the agenda is wide open.
It will produce a single document with recommendations, not just listing every single option that anybody can think of.
It will of course come up with options when there is a division, but it will work towards reaching a broad consensus as the basis for the work of the IGC.
On all that we can be pleased.
The fly in the ointment is the curious decision on the choice of the troika for the praesidium of this Convention.
It is no secret that my group would not have chosen Mr Giscard d' Estaing as its preferred candidate, but as you know, Mr President, we have had experiences of constitutional reports from Mr Giscard d' Estaing in this Parliament.
He produced a report on subsidiarity a number of years ago and from that we can draw some lessons because every single paragraph in his report, if I remember correctly, was amended in committee and then in plenary, by Parliament adopting amendments tabled by yourself.
That might be a working method we might well need to employ in the Convention and is something we can draw some lessons from.
I turn now to the less positive result of the European Council - the farce over the agencies.
That too can be used to learn some lessons.
It shows us what happens when we move away from the Community method to intergovernmentalism.
Instead of a Commission proposal we have every country coming up with its own proposal, feeling forced to defend it in an intergovernmental logic and with no result in the end.
It shows the limits of the European Council which should be setting the strategic objectives for the European Union.
When it has to deal with detail like that it of course fails.
Let no government now turn around to the Parliament and criticise us for being incapable of taking decisions, accuse us of being too slow in taking decisions, when the European Council offers us a spectacle like that, which indeed discredits the European Union in the eyes of its citizens.
Mr President, I shall stop now but not without remarking that I believe this is the last time you will chairing the European Parliament before the presidential election comes and you move on to other higher things and may I wish you all the best of luck for a prosperous and successful New Year in 2002.
Thank you very much.
Mr President, if our goal is to establish a federation of States and the constituent process is to involve the Treaties, the Laeken Declaration establishing a Convention that is to propose institutional reform to the Intergovernmental Conference before the European elections and before enlargement, is a success for Parliament and the Belgian Presidency.
However, the European Parliament must ensure this success does not become an illusion.
This democratic challenge must be supported by a great debate open to all the citizens of the Union.
As I see it, the future of Europe is in the hands, in particular, of the great political families which created the European Community and believe in integration, in the European social model, in European democracy and in European reunification.
However, on certain points of the Laeken agenda, the Community process was slowed down by a cross-fire of vetoes.
This is the weapon of the sceptics and populists.
I refer to the deferral of the financing of Galileo, which President Prodi also mentioned, and to the failure to reach agreement on the locations of the European agencies or on the Community patent.
In any case, as has just been said, these shadows reinforce the need for the Community method and majority decisions; I refer also to the security and defence policy, in which progress has been made, and to foreign policy, which is still poorly defined.
Europe is standing shoulder to shoulder with the United States in the fight against terrorism, but it is also concentrating on combating the poverty which divides the world, while the situation in the Middle East has reached tragic dimensions. What should we do?
Is there no way forward? I support Mr Verhofstadt' s call for a Europe whose actions are consistent with the values of freedom and solidarity, which it enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights in order to make globalisation more humane.
Mr President, when a child is born with just a father, we must not be surprised if it grows up with problems.
Europe has many fathers and we have just missed the opportunity to give it a mother.
I would like to talk about the assessment in Laeken on the subject of the application of justice and home affairs policies.
I agree with the progress made on the principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions, both in the criminal field and in the civil field, though to a lesser extent.
And I must congratulate you in this respect on the content and the form of the agreement on the European arrest warrant, which affects a large number of offences and which I see as greater justice rather than greater repression.
I believe we should welcome this.
However, with regard to immigration and asylum, I must say that the Council' s text adopts a tone of renunciation which worries me.
The analysis of the situation is sincere of course, but I do not believe that it reaches the right conclusions.
Mr President, we cannot allow fifteen different immigration policies in this borderless Europe for much longer.
I think that we should draw other conclusions from this situation; the conclusion that these policies require greater impetus, that we should rid ourselves once and for all of the shackles of unanimity and that we should increase this Parliament' s participation in such sensitive issues.
Mr President, I believe we have demonstrated that it is possible to work with our Parliament in this field and that we must put an end to the restrictions imposed in Amsterdam.
I hope that the Convention takes note of this and puts it right.
I would also like to end by congratulating the Presidency on the inclusion of diversity and the idea of federalism in the Treaty and on Mr Verhofstadt' s words to this House in this regard.
Mr President, on the day after the Laeken Summit, I would like to express a few regrets and one hope.
I regret that in the field of foreign and defence policy, the Heads of State and Government meeting in Laeken have not been able to show their capacity to act.
So, while we are living through an unprecedented crisis, the European Union will not be able to decide to send a joint force to Afghanistan.
Such a decision would have sent a strong signal of the will of the Europeans, by showing that we are ready to carry out our responsibilities fully, both in a military sense and in a humanitarian or political sense.
Likewise, once again, in the field of common defence, no immediate decision has been taken.
These statements are largely virtual and the issue of automatic access by the Union to NATO' s resources has yet to be sorted out.
The Union' s foreign and defence policy exists more in speeches than in actions, and I regret this.
More than ever, we must build a political and democratic Europe which is capable of carrying weight and influence in the world.
That is why I would now like to express a hope.
The Laeken Summit has decided to create the Convention.
It has provided it with an excellent president and an open agenda.
I would like to thank the Belgian Presidency for this, since throughout its mandate it has shown courage and vision, as well as the Commissioner responsible for these issues.
This Convention opens the way to a new future for Europe.
I wish it success, and I hope that in two years time we may have a constitution which all the citizens of the European Union can read and understand, and that we finally establish the principle of directly electing the President of the European Commission.
If we do not want to the European Union of tomorrow to be a mere free trade area, if we really want to carry weight in the world, in the new international order, this is the only possible course.
Mr President, time is short, so my only comment will be on the really historic decision to convene a constituent assembly which has already - albeit inaccurately - been called a Convention.
Ôhe European Parliament has every right to be proud because the idea of a Convention was mooted here, in this House, and took shape in the reports by the European Parliament, mainly from 1997 onwards.
Parliament has insisted ever since that institutional development is a waste of time unless someone else is given the job of drafting new Treaties, i.e. unless a political body takes over the role played hitherto by the bureaucrats.
This is not the time to judge whether or not we have finally achieved our aim; that will depend on the degree to which the proposals tabled by the Convention find their way into the new Treaties, which is why the Convention needs to table specific institutional proposals, assuming of course that it reaches an agreement.
If the Convention tables a selection of alternatives to the Intergovernmental Conference, rather than specific proposals, then it will have little effect on the shape of the new Treaty.
Unfortunately, the instructions to come out of Laeken are rather more open-ended on this point than they should have been.
If you stop to consider that no institutional body in the European Union and no institution in any one Member State has studied or tabled more thoughts on the institutional aspects of the European Union than the European Parliament, then a contingent of 16 delegates is hardly in proportion to its contribution to date.
However, just so that our fellow citizens know where they stand, the Convention will not table a draft Treaty, it will table a draft Constitutional Treaty.
The intergovernmental method will be complemented by the Community method, rather than being abolished, which is perfectly reasonable, given that the European Union is a union of nations and a union of states.
However, the Convention takes the fight for greater democracy and greater rule of law in the European Union to a new level.
It really is a pity, Mr President, that the chairman of the Convention is appointed by the Council.
It would have been more fitting to allow a body made up mainly of members of parliament to elect its own chairman.
Mr President, from the list of speakers it would seem that the rest of you will now have to follow the PPE-DE family' s internal debate, but of course that is perfectly in order.
In my opinion, the Belgian presidential term was a great success in difficult circumstances.
In that connection, externally there was Afghanistan, Macedonia, the Middle East and 11 September, and, internally, there were enormous expectations, which mainly focused on the Laeken Summit.
Seen in this light the results of the Laeken summit were good. They will take the Community forward both ideologically and realistically.
Laeken was a confirmation of the political will that exists with regard to speedy enlargement, with ten new members joining in 2004, provided that these countries themselves are determined to try to bring that about in negotiations.
The Laeken Declaration is a successful mixture of questions regarding problems to be solved and, on the other hand, faith in being able to solve them.
The Convention, which - at least as a group - the PPE-DE was the first to propose, will be starting its work soon, and one thing we know for sure is that its praesidium has experience - some 200 man years of experience in all.
Good luck - the work will not be easy!
I think the best decision taken at the Laeken Summit, however, was that by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, whose personal contribution certainly lies behind Belgium' s success there, as he very quickly put a stop to the row over agencies.
When the Prime Minister of a large country starts imagining that he is at some European Food of the Year ceremony, or awarding Michelin points to some city, or when the President of another large country begins to fantasise about beautiful Swedish models, then that is really a very good reason to end the discussion before the Europeans witnessing it laugh even louder at us than they are doing at present.
Mr President, I would like to continue this internal PPE-DE debate by focussing solely on the Laeken Declaration.
It is right, as the Declaration says, that European institutions should become closer to the citizens, less intrusive, less unwieldy and more efficient and open to democratic scrutiny.
It is also right that a whole series of questions should be asked in terms of simplifying the process of legislation, on clarifying competencies of the Union and indeed restoring perhaps one or two to Member States, as is mentioned.
How to involve the national parliamentarians too is a very important aspect and lastly, it is right, as the President of the Council said, that this is a new departure for Europe as a way of amending Treaties rather than having decisions made behind closed doors and smoke-filled rooms early in the morning.
There is a real doubt, however, that these statements of principle will actually become reality. Is the agenda, as some feel, already decided in advance?
Will all the voices in the European political spectrum be heard? Will indeed, above all, the views of ordinary European citizens, be taken into account and listened to in the work of the Convention?
There were some signs under the previous Presidency but not I am afraid under this one, that they did actually care about European citizens.
It had a website - 'Europa' or whatever it was, - but we have not heard much about it under this Presidency. In the conclusions of the Council relating to the Convention, one paragraph is devoted to the forum and it seems to be more about informing the network of organisations than having their contributions in the work of the Convention.
I therefore make this one appeal today that in the praesidium, and perhaps helped by the Commission, national parliamentarians and others, we really should have a real European debate in the Member States involving European citizens so that when we end up with a constitutional framework, we really have something that Europeans can support.
This is the only occasion in history, that I can think of, where citizens can be consulted before a constitution is drawn up rather than afterwards.
So please, Commissioner, ensure that everything is done to make sure this European debate will actually take place.
Mr President, at the Laeken Summit, the heads of government agreed to set up a constitutional Convention on the future of Europe which includes the possible incorporation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, with its costly, social and economic rights, and the direct election of a European Commission President, which I oppose.
I welcome, however, calls for the EU to become more democratic, transparent and efficient, for an enhanced role for the national parliamentarians and a menu of options to choose from in 2004.
The EU already possesses its own anthem, flag, citizenship, army, currency etc. and a whole host of quasi-federal institutions.
To pretend, as the Labour Government in Britain is already doing, that this Convention is simply an opportunity to limit the power of the Union at the expense of the states is ridiculous.
This Convention is much more reminiscent of the American nation-building exercise in Philadelphia in 1787.
The political elites of Europe are ever more distanced from their electorates.
How representative of European opinion are Valéry Giscard D'Estaing, Dehaene and Amato? If this is the court, the jury is a loaded one.
How representative will the Convention be of the peoples of Europe? We should be preparing urgently for enlargement by solving the Amsterdam leftovers, and reforming the CAP and the structural funds representing 80% of the budget of the EU, not preparing for grand constitutional reform of little relevance to the concerns and aspirations of the electorate.
How will extending QMV to delicate areas like social security and taxation help? And what has been done to resolve the problems of the much-needed EU patent because of the obsession with multilingualism in the institutions?
In the European Union there is idealism born out of a desire to see a Europe of peace and prosperity, an objective we can all share.
I come from a country with centuries-old, uninterrupted democratic traditions and I want to say two things to the believers in a European super-state.
Firstly, the EU is not the origin but the expression of peace in post-war Europe, which is underpinned by democracy in the nation-states and respect for the rule of law.
Secondly, idealistic political changes instituted by the political elites which do not have the broad support of the people will be like structures built on sand.
Do not run before you can walk.
When the peoples of Europe want a single European state, that will be the time to call for a European Convention, and not before.
I wish you a happy Christmas.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Belgian Presidency has without doubt gone to a great deal of effort, yet the lack of a European Community spirit on the part of the fifteen governments in the European Union when it comes to important and urgent decisions is something that cannot be overcome by just one Presidency.
The brilliant analysis of the situation and the many questions listed could have come from Parliament's reports on Nice, its aftermath, or Laeken, and they give the impression of having been written down on the spot.
These are questions to which Parliament has for years now been demanding answers for the sake of the future of the European Union.
Is everything now again being jeopardised by so much questioning? Let us take, for example, common suffrage.
The Council has, since July 1998, been examining a European draft electoral law on elections to the European Parliament and has still not come to any conclusion by the end of 2001 - all of two and a half years later.
It is raising the question of whether we want European suffrage.
Looked at as a whole, there is no doubt that the Convention represents an opportunity, yet Parliament contradicts Laeken by demanding that we should negotiate and reach a decision on the basis of one unitary, coherent proposal.
It is equally regrettable that the Heads of State and of Government have again put off until Barcelona and Seville resolutions on the adaptation of the Council's structures and work practices.
Reading the Laeken resolutions reminded me of a saying coined by one of our poets, Hans Magnus Enzensberger: 'He, seated in a common place, / thought up another commonplace.'
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Laeken Declaration on the future of the European Union is a positive step towards a European Union that is more citizen-oriented and more transparent.
A good declaration, however, must not remain mere empty words.
For example, the conclusion of the Lisbon Council that the European Union should be made the world' s most competitive area has to an extent met with a surprising degree of reluctance on the part of Member States to do anything about it.
It is essential from the point of view of the Union' s credibility that words and deeds go hand in hand.
The Union and its institutions have - with good reason - been criticised for being too distant from the people.
In order to promote a more citizen-oriented approach, any preparatory work for revision of the Treaties in the future must be carried out in a more transparent manner.
The European Council must observe the same principles of democracy, efficiency and consistency that we also expect of the other EU institutions.
The expected - and positive - decision of the European Council at Laeken, was to set up a Convention.
So, in this respect, I disagree with my good friend, Charles Tannock.
The problem, however, lies in the fact that three distinguished European statesmen, each with a long life' s work behind them, have now been appointed to lead the Convention.
No women were even shortlisted for the presidency.
Experience is obviously invaluable, but in order to guarantee a citizen-oriented approach we ought now to be thinking about the sort of age and gender distribution there should be among the Convention' s other members so that the EU can really be brought closer to its citizens and in particular the shapers of the future, that is to say, the young.
At Laeken the question of the location of the urgently needed food agency to be set up in the new year was discussed.
In view of the diseases among animals that have recently occurred in practically all Member States, Europeans have the right to expect Heads of State to do their utmost to ensure there is complete safety with regard to food.
The way the matter was dealt with by the Council, however, was more reminiscent of a farce, which, according to the German newspaper Die Welt, put even all the soap operas in the shade.
It is quite indefensible that populist objectives should be able to hamper decision-making in a matter that is crucial to the health and well-being of our citizens.
Mr President, a positive acceleration is taking place in European political integration.
The process of enlargement is a reality, just as the convening of the Convention is a reality; countless steps forward have been taken in the field of justice, as they have in the field of foreign and defence policy.
However, this acceleration in political integration is not being matched by similar acceleration in economic integration, that is, in the creation of the markets on which political integration is based.
It is strange, but we are witnessing a veritable inversion of the Community method.
Indeed, from coal to steel, to the single currency, it has all been a succession of steps forward towards the building of a common home, starting with the foundations and working our way towards the roof.
Now, while we are rushing to build the roof, we are extremely behind in the creation of markets which are crucial for the lives of the Europeans.
There have been too many delays, too many failures, too much egotism: from electricity to gas, from telecommunications to Galileo to the Community patent.
This lack of synchronisation between the physical dimension of the markets and the metaphysical political dimension could cost the process of European integration the citizens' support.
Indeed, the costs of losing political sovereignty are perceived to be too high and the benefits for businesses and consumers are considered to be too low, too limited.
It would be as well, in order to avoid this danger, for European integration to be resumed according to the method of our founding fathers, free from contemptible egotism and without calculated, unnecessary leaps forward.
Mr President, the words 'entrepreneur' or 'employer' occur only once in the Laeken final conclusions, and that in connection with the protection of workers when an employer becomes insolvent.
I believe we have missed an opportunity here.
At the European level, we are engaged in turning the internal market into a domestic market, and Europe is home, after all, to 18 million small and medium-sized enterprises.
I am the President of the European SME-Union, and it is therefore a matter of concern to me that I should point out over and over again that our primary goals should include the safeguarding of existing jobs and the creation of new ones.
At the end of the day, it is the small and medium-sized enterprises that provide two-thirds of all jobs, pay 80% of all taxes and train 85% of young workers.
My second point takes us away from internal affairs to the international arena.
How do we envisage the European Union's future representation in international organisations? In Parliament, we have now decided on this Committee on NATO.
How are we to proceed in matters affecting the World Trade Organisation?
There are many other areas; how does Europe intend to take a leadership role in the future?
The third point that concerns me is in fact the Council's secretariat.
I believe we should set up a body composed of the best minds in the secretariat as well.
It should be possible for the European Council, the European Parliament and the Commission to be equally represented on it.
Our objective should be for the ideas produced by the best minds to eventually bring us a result at which the citizens of Europe will rejoice.
The first two sentences of the Laeken Declaration about the debilitating effects of the two World Wars confirm my belief that the European Union is a force for good in the world and Britain, like all other Member States, derives great benefit from the existence of the EU.
The remains of my grandfather, like many others, lie somewhere in Flanders on the battlefield of the Somme.
My father fought in Montgomery's army in Flanders for the liberation of Brussels.
I am still in Flanders, the third generation of my humble family, fighting here for Britain's interests.
Can there be any doubt as to which generation has got right the way to work out Europe's relations?
The simple certainties of the 20th century are less clear in the complexities of the 21st century.
As I read on in the Laeken Declaration I recall the saying we have in English that, like the curate's egg, it is good in parts.
I particularly like the reference that we are a continent of liberty and, above all, of diversity.
Unlike the United States of America, Europe is a voluntary association of sovereign independent states.
We must never forget that.
Of course we need European-level institutions but let us also recall the wise words of Jacques Santer: "Europe must do less better".
There needs to be a clearer definition of subsidiarity on "less".
Only go to European level for that which can only be done at European level.
On "better" I urge Commission and Council to look closely at the call of this Parliament for a uniform and compulsory code of good administrative behaviour.
The response I received to a Parliamentary question last week from the Commission was dismissive of Parliament's call made in September for such a uniform and compulsory code.
That is not the right attitude, nor is it the way to get the European public on side.
The case for such a code has been set up by the Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman.
I am pleased he will be an observer at the Convention but I would say to Commission and Council that you would do well to listen to him as well as to allow him to observe.
As the final speaker from the floor this year, may I wish all the staff, all the Members and all the people of Europe a very merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
The debate is closed.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 17 December 2001.
Before discussing the order of business, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to take just a minute of your time to add my sincere tribute to those paid by all Parliamentary groups to our outgoing President, Mrs Fontaine, during the sitting of 17 December.
I was one of those standing against her two years ago, as I am sure you all remember.
I am, therefore, delighted to acknowledge today and thank her for her dignity, impartiality, efficiency and the exceptional elegance with which she has fulfilled her duties in the service of the European Union, thereby increasing the prestige of our Parliament.
(Loud applause)
Order of business
Following the decisions taken by the Conference of Presidents on 10 January, a final draft agenda has been distributed.
I should, nevertheless, like to draw the House' s attention to the fact that the order of business for the current part-session will be established definitively at 9.00 a.m. on Wednesday.
Announcement of candidates for election of President
Election of President of Parliament
We shall now proceed to the election of the President, pursuant to Rule 14 of the Rules of Procedure:
Mr Bonde,
Mr Cox,
Mr David W. Martin,
Mr Onesta and
Mr Wurtz.
Good morning colleagues.
This Parliament must continue to be multilingual.
Eleven languages make 110 combinations.
Twenty-two languages make 462 combinations.
Thirty-five languages make 1 090 combinations.
Can you imagine a translation from Finnish, via English and French, to Polish? With direct translation some will vote for budget line 2 while others are still voting on budget line 1.
With more than one relay our system will not work.
If we do not go for reform, then most of us will no longer be able to use our own language.
In two years we might have ten new Member States.
Our buildings are not prepared for that.
Soon even more countries - from the Ukraine to the Balkans - will be applicant countries.
We risk a Babel-like confusion.
Our next President must dedicate himself to internal reform and successful enlargement.
Indeed our next President will not have much time to travel around.
We need a craftsman, a handyman, rather than a statesman.
All of us will be to blame if we are not prepared for enlargement by 2004.
How we vote today is part of that responsibility.
Every vote for me is a clear signal to Mr Cox and Mr Martin: limit your ambitions to enlargement and internal reform.
Today we lose a lot of time over badly prepared votes.
If journalists ask how we voted, we do not always know.
If we knew, we would not have time to serve our people.
We would then be bad MEPs.
Leave it to the committees to prepare the votes.
Let the plenary deal with the important political issues.
Give us at least one week to consult and consider how we will vote.
Today many Members are not allowed to speak in debates.
If you represent a small delegation in a big group, or an alternative view, the group whips will seldom allow you to speak.
Give every Member the right to speak at least three times a year.
Leave one-third of the speaking time for real debates.
Let us corner the commissioner when he or she states that the Commission can accept Amendment No 3 and rejects Amendments Nos 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
Today common decision-making takes place between the Commission and the Council.
They share the information.
Even in the conciliation committees our Members have no access to working documents, legal notes or Minutes.
Does "common" really mean "unilateral"? In the committees the Members discuss draft laws based on outdated drafts.
Behind us sit young civil servants from the permanent representations.
The Commission and the Council have all the information we cannot get.
I have been here for 22 years.
In that time as an elected Member, I have never received adequate information from the committee.
To get information I have to find sources like journalists.
Our next President must ensure that all information is available to all of us and, if necessary, take the Commission and the Council to court.
Today, 70% of all laws are passed by junior civil servants in working groups.
Fifteen percent are settled by the ambassadors.
Only 15% reach the level of the ministers who then read manuscripts prepared by civil servants.
Democracy was born in Europe and buried in the Commission and the Council.
Our next President should re-establish democracy.
He should inspire us to discuss whether our future Europe should be the federalist vision of a democratic EU or a Europe of democracies.
Our next President should unite all elected representatives from national parliaments and the European Parliament in moving law-making from behind closed doors into the open, from civil servants to elected Members.
For what is now needed I offer my skills and energy.
But all I ask is to borrow your vote in the first round: firstly, because it might be your only chance to vote for me; secondly, because many votes will test the groups behind Mr Cox and Mr Martin.
This time we need a practical and politically-neutral shop steward to serve all of us.
Give yourself a better choice.
Improve on both Cox and Martin by voting Mr Bonde from office number 007.
By the end of the day we will have a better presidency thanks to those who drafted the "fair chair platform" and created the first real electoral battle in our history.
The next chair will have a real mandate. He deserves our full support.
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, decision time is now upon us.
We have had more candidates, we have had more debate, and we have had more openness.
It represents a change in the method, in the way we have done our business.
It is a good change and I hope it is a signal of an appetite throughout this House to engage in the years which come and the balance of this mandate in a culture of transformation of how we do our business.
The campaign reveals many perspectives, not least about the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates - and I have my share of both.
I read about myself in polite journals that I am loquacious.
I live in Ireland, where we are all loquacious, near Blarney where there is a stone and a castle.
When visitors come there and kiss that stone, they say in Hibernian English that they leave with the gift of the gab, meaning loquacious in polite journals.
I may be that, but the more important part of this campaign is that it has offered the opportunity to listen and to learn.
I have listened and I have learned that there is an appetite for change, that there is a great feeling in this House that we need to do more politics in the best and visionary sense of that word.
I have learned that we want less voting and less technicalities and more capacity to be politicians and to bring our influence to bear.
In other words, we want more vitality in how we manage our affairs.
We need to bring closure to many of the issues of reform that have been before us for so long.
The complex Members' statute is difficult and the hard work led by Nicole Fontaine is testament to that.
But we must continue to try.
I tell this to Members: I will, in a hands-on way, try to achieve that reform, but never over the heads of the Members of this House.
It will be done in the fullest, most transparent and open shared consultation.
I have learned here how good we are at legislating on and talking about equal opportunity and gender equality, but how bad we are sometimes as an institution at putting it into practice.
I pledge today before this House that, should I have the privilege to lead at the end of the day, I will promote the equality of gender in various ways, but most visibly and at the outset by it being apparent in the construction of the Cabinet.
Since 1998 I have had the privilege to lead the Liberal Democrat Group and together, I believe, with my colleagues, we have established a capacity for doing politics, which is the business of this institution.
We are 626 Members, we are a Parliament.
I am not seeking, Mr Bonde or other colleagues who share your fears, to be the sixteenth president or prime minister of the sixteenth state.
I am proud to be a parliamentarian and we must bring our parliamentary and democratic vision to bear on the great issues of the day in Europe.
We must make Europe fit for a future on a continental scale and we must make the democracy in this House fit to offer a real leadership and act as a counterweight and check and balance against the excesses of technocracy or bureaucracy.
I want to say to Hans-Gert Poettering and to the PPE-DE Group how greatly I appreciate his and their unswerving commitment to be full and faithful partners to an agreement which we made.
But I want to say this also: I have had the privilege to visit many groups, many committees, many intergroups.
I want, if I can, to lead a Presidency which is a stakeholder Presidency, open to build on the talents of those who will contribute.
I ask you for your support.
Finally, Mr President, smaller groups in this House do not find themselves with the credible possibility that my Liberal Democrat Group finds it has today.
I do not know what the final result will be, but I know this much: I cannot see how those who say that they value more openness, a change in the system, who would like to see a fairer share for all, can reconcile this with voting for a large-group candidate, not because of any fault with the candidate, but because of the nature of the system we have.
If you wish to transform the system, today's vote will be the first mark of whether we are dedicated to transformation and change.
That is my appeal; I ask for your support.
I should love to have the privilege to lead; but the choice now rests with you.
Mr President, colleagues, I make no apology for beginning my contribution by thanking the outgoing President, Mrs Fontaine, for the work that she did as President.
She led the fight against terrorism long before 11 September.
It is to her credit that she took those initiatives at that time.
Before a vote is even cast in this election, we already know the winner.
The winner is the European Parliament because, as Pat Cox has rightly said, we have had an open election, keenly, but fairly contested.
That can only help to raise the profile and to improve the image of this institution - something which frankly is very necessary.
The 1999 European elections, Eurobarometer and other opinion polls all demonstrate that this institution has an image problem.
With the Convention, enlargement and the 2004 European elections, we face enormous challenges.
Every Member of this Parliament now has the opportunity, in a secret ballot, to vote for the person they believe can best guide us through this vital phase.
I have been a Member of this Parliament for 17 years.
I have had the honour of being its Vice-President for 12 of them.
In that time I proved my determination to work for Parliament and for all its Members.
As rapporteur on the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, I negotiated with heads of government to secure codecision for this Parliament.
As one of Parliament's representatives on COSAC, I worked to convince national parliaments of the importance of the convention method for the next reform of the Treaties.
As Vice-President of Parliament I have sought to modernise and improve our working methods.
I am deeply conscious of the fact that everything I have achieved in this Parliament has been achieved through working with colleagues across the political spectrum.
I have fought for what I believe to be right, and I have done that, sometimes, against the interests of my own political group and sometimes even against the interests of my own country.
If elected President, I pledge to fight for what this Parliament needs.
That includes: firstly, a stronger role in electing the next President of the European Commission; second, codecision for all legislation; third, an end to the artificial distinction in the budget between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure; fourth, ensuring that we, in this House, are ready for enlargement.
We all know that the European Union faces many sensitive issues in the coming months and years.
My task as President would be to ensure that at this vital time Parliament's voice is not only heard but acted upon on these issues.
This plenary is Parliament's shop window to the world.
It should be the place where the outside world can identify the real points of controversy between ourselves, and between ourselves, the Commission and the Council.
Yet, frankly, because we deal with so many items - about 35 every four-day part-session - and because of the structure of our debates and the amount of time we spend voting, the relevance of what we do in this Chamber is sometimes obscured to the outside world.
We need, as a Parliament, to resolve more issues in committee and reform both the structure of our debates and the way we vote.
We need to provide our committees and rapporteurs with the necessary technical and legal resources to allow us to become a genuine equal to the Council as a co-legislator.
In short, I want this Parliament to become a real debating Chamber - a Parliament where the general public can hear lively debates over real political choices and one where every Member feels that they have the opportunity to participate.
I strongly believe that Members of this Parliament do an excellent job carrying out our legislative, budgetary and control functions.
But no parliament can work in the dark.
It is vital that we reconnect with the citizens so that we really can live up to our claim to be the voice of the people in EU decision-making.
Thirty months is a short time.
Reform will only be possible if the President has the support of all Members across the whole House.
We need a President for all of Parliament.
My record in this House, I hope you will agree, demonstrates that I would be an inclusive President.
I have already committed myself to having a cabinet that would be balanced in terms of gender, nationality and political party.
I would want a team of all the talents from right or left, big group or small group, medium-size or no group.
If elected I pledge to be a President for the whole Parliament and all its Members.
If you elect me today I would see this as the pinnacle of my political career.
All my energy, all my commitment and all my enthusiasm would be channelled into ensuring that this is a Parliament of which we can be proud.
(Loud applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my friends and colleagues of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left nominated me as a candidate as this is an extension of my work as the Group's chairman.
For two and a half years, I have tried, as chairman, to help to bring to life a specific type of politics for Europe.
It is this approach that my candidacy illustrates.
One of the main characteristics of my candidacy is its firmly left-wing stance.
In my view, European leaders are not drawing lessons from the worrying disaffection of the citizens towards the European institutions.
There is growing concern on the ground surrounding employment, social welfare, public services, and sustainable development, whereas the Council and Commission are focusing more attention on deregulation, commercialisation, and solely market-related issues.
I think that we must take a clear stand on this contradiction.
In the same way, one of the salient features of our time is the aspiration of social actors to be involved in the decisions that concern them.
However, within the institutions, undertaking consultation before drawing up policies and, more importantly, assessing their effects after implementation remain largely formal, even non-existent processes.
We cannot stand back and do nothing about this discrepancy which many believe manifests itself in the crisis of confidence that we are currently experiencing.
Lastly, the topical subject of globalisation is mobilising the public on an unprecedented scale. We will see this once again in a few days' time at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.
But the Europe of today has neither the ambition nor the resources to meet the global expectations for alternatives.
We must take action.
A number of us here, in addition to my own Group, think that if we do not make sweeping changes, Europe will disappoint us greatly.
If nothing changes, the historic opportunity that enlargement presents could turn out to be a fearsome trap.
We must make ourselves heard and seize every opportunity to do so.
This particularly applies to the quintessential political day of reckoning that constitutes the first round of the ballot for the presidency of Parliament.
Another aspect of the political approach that I have tried to adopt since the beginning of the legislature, and which I hope my candidacy demonstrates, is the will to avoid dividing the progressive MEPs according to their political culture that is often assumed for reasons to do with history and the specific identity of each nation, each political culture being therefore equally worthy of respect.
Within my group, then, staunch federalist Members sit alongside and cooperate with Members who are deeply attached to the sovereignty of their country.
Both represent a part of the real Europe.
We must design and build the European Union of the future by working together and with mutual respect.
This is a difficult task but it is necessary and, in my experience, ultimately worthwhile.
That is another characteristic of my candidacy.
Last but not least, I will mention one last characteristic; namely that there is a specific set of ethics in politics.
I welcome frankness, transparency and honest relationships, even between opponents and, more importantly, between partners.
Therefore, I have no hesitation in saying that I value my opponent, Mr Cox, on a personal level, and even that I welcome the courteous relationship I enjoy with a number of fellow MEPs on the right, including their main representative, Mr Poettering.
Thankfully, there are other things in life apart from politics.
Nonetheless, I must say, equally clearly, that the candidate common to all these political families cannot, in any circumstances, count on my vote or on my support, direct or indirect, in the following rounds of the ballot.
I should like to affirm this and I shall do so.
On this point, I would like to express my surprise and regret at the extremely disappointing attitude of those Members who did not waver in their campaign on progressive issues in the first round, yet, in the second round, offered their vote to the only candidate of the Right, who has been dubbed the candidate from a small group, especially for the occasion.
Each Member is entitled to his or her own principles and methods; these are most definitely not mine.
Mr President, the cards are now on the table and it is up to us to shoulder our responsibilities.
Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now announce the outcome of the vote.
Voters: 590.
Blank or spoilt ballots: 7.
Votes cast: 583.
Absolute majority: 292.
I shall now read out the number of votes obtained by each candidate:
Mr Bonde: 66 votes
Mr Cox: 254 votes
Mr David Martin: 184 votes
Mr Onesta: 37 votes
Mr Wurtz: 42 votes.
Since no candidate has obtained a majority of the votes cast, we shall proceed to a second round of voting.
Unless there are any objections, the nominations from the first round shall stand.
Mr President, I should like to say thank you for the 66 votes.
Those who voted for me can meet in room R31 at midday and decide when I am to withdraw.
The deadline for submitting nominations for the second round of voting is 12.15 p.m.
Nominations must be submitted to the Oldest Member through the offices of the Deputy Secretary-General.
Mr President, in accordance with the gentlemen' s agreement made at the Conference of Presidents, I would like to ask for an extra quarter of an hour, that is to say, I would be grateful if we could start at 12.45 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.05 p.m. and resumed at 12.45 p.m.)
I shall now read out the outcome of the vote that has just taken place.
Voters: 592.
Blank or spoilt ballot papers: 13.
Votes cast: 579.
Absolute majority: 290.
The number of votes obtained by the three candidates standing is as follows:
Mr Bonde: 76 votes
Mr Cox: 277 votes
Mr David Martin: 226 votes
Since no candidate has obtained an absolute majority, we shall proceed to a third round of voting.
We now need to know whether all the candidates wish to continue with their nominations.
Mr Cox wishes to do so.
So does Mr David Martin.
Does Mr Bonde wish to continue?
Mr President, I should like to request that the meeting be postponed so that the discussion among those who voted for myself can continue.
It is obvious that we are not asking for a single political concession.
Those who have voted for myself are independent Members from small and large groups who do not feel that they have had all their wishes met.
It is a mixed coalition with absolutely nothing political about it, but these people therefore have a need to talk with the two candidates who will be competing in the final round, Mr Martin and Mr Cox.
We met with them in room R31, and we should like to continue a little longer.
Otherwise, I shall have to maintain my candidature, although that is not what I wish to do.
Mr Bonde, I must consult the entire House as to whether or not it consents to suspending the sitting.
(Parliament voted in favour of suspending the sitting)
(The sitting was suspended at 3.10 p.m. and resumed at 3.40 p.m.)
I shall now read out the results of the vote that has just taken place.
Voters: 586.
Blank or spoilt ballot papers: 18.
Votes cast: 568.
Absolute majority: 285.
The results are as follows:
Mr Bonde: 33 votes
Mr Cox: 298 votes
Mr David Martin: 237 votes.
As you will all have realised, Mr Patrick Cox has obtained an absolute majority of votes cast.
I offer you my sincere congratulations, Mr Cox, on your election and my best wishes for the performance of your duties, for a term of office which is fruitful and beneficial to the European Parliament.
I call on Mr Cox to take the Chair.
(Loud applause)
It feels very different to be here.
Colleagues, today has been a good day for parliamentary democracy in the European Parliament.
I want to thank our colleague, Mr Soares, the doyen d'age, for the manner in which he has conducted our sitting so far today.
Our House has divided in votes in this election today on three occasions.
That is politics and democracy.
Our House has decided, and that now gives legitimacy.
I am bound to tell you that after the vigour of this democratic contest in these past months and the past hours today, I feel a deeper sense of the legitimacy of the mandate of this presidency. I thank you for it.
I thank Mr David Martin for the manner in which he has conducted his campaign for the issues which he has articulated and brought forward, which are of common concern and on which we must act.
I thank Mr Bonde for what he has brought to this campaign, in particular an expression of the concerns felt my many in the House who feel more marginal than they ought to.
I thank Mr Onesta for bringing his typical panache to the reform agenda and I commit myself to that agenda.
I thank Mr Wurtz for his kind remarks earlier today.
I know that politics divides us because we have our convictions.
We owe our conviction to no person or group of persons.
Conviction, passion and reason are part of what we bring to our politics, but also an appreciation of being able to do business with each other.
He has brought that too.
I thank my colleagues in the ELDR Group.
I feel very proud that this is the first time in more than two decades that a representative of this group that has played an important part in the democratic life of this House.
Since the very first assembly of the Coal and Steel Community 50 years ago we have done so.
It is an honour to preside over the House today.
I say to my Liberal colleagues that this is a very bitter-sweet moment: sweet, as you may imagine for all those reasons and bitter-sweet because I have always done my politics week in, week out, day in, day out, in the bosom of that group.
I thank you for all the confidence you have shown in me over the years.
I hope I can repay a debt of gratitude and a debt of honour.
(Applause)
I thank Mr Poettering and the PPE-DE Group for their nomination, in addition to that of the ELDR, and for your unstinting support in terms of delivering on what you said.
To have a reliable partner in politics is always important.
It is a foundation on which we can build in an inclusive way in this House.
I thank all those who voted for me.
In acknowledging all those who voted for other candidates, now that the matter is settled I hope we can develop a genuine stakeholder presidency committed to building in this Parliament and in the Union a Union and a Parliament fit for Europe's future.
(FR) On my own behalf and on behalf of all Members, I would like to pay a very sincere tribute to Mrs Nicole Fontaine,
(Applause)... for her great courage, her dynamism and the tireless work she has done day in, day out to defend the interests of our Parliament.
Mrs Fontaine, your presidency of this institution has been outstanding and exceptional.
Nicole, speaking as your friend, I would like to thank you very deeply.
I said earlier today when we were all, as candidates, invited to speak for five minutes, that I felt we needed to do more politics in this House.
We took that very seriously, which is to say, more politics, yes, but I did not expect that we would have three ballots.
You are so enthusiastic for politics at this stage that we will have to see how to build on this for the future.
It reminded me, in a certain way, given my provenance as an Irish European, of the shamrock, which has three leaves and which represents so much to us.
This time it took three occasions before we had a result.
I should like to share a story with you, which is not classically parliamentary but nonetheless has a connection and meaning for me on this day of all days.
It is a story written by one of the celebrated architects of our European integration, Robert Schuman. He once wrote, outside the political domain, that a certain saint of Irish extraction - Saint Columbanus - "is the patron saint of those who seek to construct a united Europe".
I do not say in Parliament that it is our function to deal with these saintly matters, nor to intrude in that domain.
But I recall the story because in the sixth and early part of the seventh century this abbot, poet, scholar and preacher - not the only Irish one to so do - co-founded western monasticism in early medieval Europe.
His remains today lie and are celebrated still in Bobbio in Italy.
One thousand three hundred years ago this early Irish European wrote that he came "from the edge of the world".
I come from the western seaboard of Europe, from the edge of our European world, and I have a deep pride about where I come from.
Although today I accept and acknowledge that I was not elected for my Irishness, I thank you nonetheless that I can also celebrate that fact and that nationality.
You have found at the heart of European democracy the capacity to take someone from one of the smallest groups and smallest states and say that, in contemporary European democracy, there is a place to include all, including those on the geographic or other margins.
It is a powerful message that you have given to a Europe about to enlarge.
I thank you and salute you for it.
(Applause)
I shall now speak briefly in Irish.
Why do I do this? Irish is my native tongue.
It is an ancient language from an ancient European country.
It is an official but not a working language of the European Union.
I do it to underline my conviction that cultural pluralism and cultural diversity are the sine qua non of the Europe to which I am committed and which we seek to build.
(Applause)
Táimid ar imeall na heachtra is tábhachtaí i nua-stair na hEorpa, forleathnú an Aontais Eorpaigh.
Is é an tosaíocht pholaitiúil is práinní ar fád ná go gcuirfí bailchríoch rathúil ar na caibidlí faoin bhforleathnú.
As athaontú na hEorpa a leanfaidh sé go dtabharfar Eoraip scoilte le chéile d'fhonn comhluachanna agus rath eacnamaíoch a bheith ag a muintir i bpáirt le chéile.
(We are on the brink of the most important event in recent European history, the enlargement of the European Union.
The successful completion of enlargement negotiations is the overarching political priority.
Reuniting Europe brings together a divided Europe to share common values and economic prosperity.)
We are building something by way of common values and future economic and social prosperity and we are doing work of historic dimensions.
The Convention which starts in March and on which we now need to work is another opportunity to define institutions and treaties fit for our common European future and for the challenges ahead.
The Barcelona Process of which we will speak tomorrow and in the weeks and months to come will be a message that we too must connect with and bring reform, bring employment and bring social capacity and economic capacity to the Europe in which we believe.
The common theme to which I would like to dedicate this presidency is a political commitment - through policy leadership, through stressing our public purpose, through insisting on the added value we bring on a continental scale - that we are building the democratic part of Europe's future and that we are the check and the balance and the counterweight and the source of accountability for the European technocracy.
We are therefore in our public purpose an indispensable tool to an enriched European future.
It is common, I understand, after an election for the President to claim the privilege to speak to the House on the morning after the vote, when he or she might be better prepared after the rigours of the vote to express a general view.
I have chosen this moment to say a few words.
I should like to claim the privilege to speak on our strategic purpose another day, but I would suggest not tomorrow, because tomorrow we will hear the public purpose of the Spanish Presidency.
If we wish to become a communicating Parliament, we must find our space, we must find our time, we must get our message across, have our story, tell our story, sell our story.
I want, with all of you, if you will do it with me, to ask you to reflect on this.
I have sat in the pit of this Chamber since we came here two years ago and before that, from 1989, across on the other side of the canal.
Right behind the President, you see the image of Europe with the twelve stars.
We are politicians so, of course, we must be pragmatic and keep our feet on the ground; but nothing says that we cannot look to those stars and dream our dreams about what future we wish to create.
I invite you for the next two and a half years, through a stakeholder presidency open to those who will contribute and who are willing to develop what we are as a Parliament, to engage with me in an act of European imagination, sometimes to elevate our gaze above introspection and look to the stars for some kind of European imagination and dream.
Because when we imagine today, we build the capacity for tomorrow.
My friends, thank you for this extraordinary privilege.
I am excited by it and I am humbled by it.
So far as I can give any impulse to motivate or mobilise majorities in this House, I will dedicate my entire energy to doing so.
I want to work with you on committees; I want to work with you in the Conference of Presidents and in the Bureau to achieve together our full potential.
Thank you for bestowing on me today the honour to do so.
(Applause)
Even if there is no bouquet of flowers, the words themselves are bouquet enough.
Departing from the normal order of precedence and because of the nature of today, I should like to invite my friend and colleague, Mr David Martin, to take the floor.
I shall try.
Mr President, in any election held by secret ballot in an Assembly, there is always an element of risk and there is always an aura of suspense.
I must say that at the end of a race that has enthralled us all, you have come first, you have crossed the finish line, and you have now been elected President.
We would like to congratulate you, of course.
And we think that you are the type of President that we want.
I have become familiar, at the Conference of Presidents meetings, with your sense of diplomacy and your witty, but firm, remarks.
That may be the case but, throughout today' s proceedings, Mr President, I felt your concern, I shared your nerves when faced with the uncertainty of the ballot and the final outcome was a great relief to both of us when it was announced.
When you were elected, the first thing you said was that you were President of the whole House, that you were President of all Members, of those who voted for you, and of those who had not.
You are now everyone' s President.
Of course, if you speak to each Member individually, you would discover that many more Members voted for you than the number credited to your name.
But that is how things stand at the end of the day.
The promises that you are making, Mr President, given your Irish nature, must not be directed to any one Member of this House.
Therefore, when you decide, at the beginning of your presidency, to buy a drink, I can understand the concern of the Irish half of your nature, which has to pay.
So, if I may, I would say to you that if you want to be honest and keep your promises, you will not buy just one drink for just one person, but you will have to buy 626 drinks - one for each Member who is here.
Yes, that is what it means, Mr President!
I would like to end on a slightly more serious note.
The group that I chair, the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, was struck by the first remarks that you made regarding the need to protect the diversity of our cultures, because Europe will become stronger by adding the characteristics of each nation and not by trying to get rid of these differences which is what some are seeking to do.
We have taken note of this as well.
We are counting on you to do this.
You can count on us to support you but you can also count on us, if it is necessary, to keep a close eye on the decisions that are being taken.
Thank you Mr Pasqua.
I will keep you in suspense no longer: tomorrow, at 1 p.m., all the Members are invited to come for a drink with me beyond the confines of Parliament.
You too, Mr Pasqua.
President Cox, you have been elected by a majority.
There are different voices at the bottom of the ballot box, and I would remind you of something.
I know that, when a person belongs to a minority group - you belonged to a minority group for a long time, yourself - he gets used to offering advice to all and sundry.
Well then, I remain faithful to your custom and am going to offer some advice to the President of this House, whose status far surpasses that of the Chairman or Vice-Chairman of a tiny little group.
Therefore, I would draw your attention to the wisdom of an old rabbi.
In difficult situations, when he was told that he had two options, he used to reply: 'In that case, I choose the third.'
Mr President, today, you must forget who voted for you and who voted against you.
You represent the institution that must work in the interests of the Community as a whole.
You represent the European ideal, and it is this ideal that is being attacked by a politician from one of the families of those who voted against you: as chance would have it, coincidentally, Mr Haider, and, quite coincidentally again, of course, Mr Berlusconi.
Your role is to act not in the interests of those who elected you but in the interests of Europe as a whole, irrespective of who voted for you or why.
This is what we expected from Mrs Fontaine and she almost always delivered.
Moreover, I know that no-one will ever totally live up to the institution' s expectations.
However, Mr Cox, there is a moral challenge before you, and that challenge is to free yourself from the enormous power of those who supported and voted for you.
It will not be easy, and if you ever need independence or allies to defend the pluralist approach, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, both those Members who voted for you and those who did not, is at your disposal.
Do not let yourself be pinned down by one or the other: uphold the freedom that comes from pluralism. That is your task as President.
Mr Balfe, as a group of one, I am sure you are unanimous on that sentiment.
We have now conducted our parliamentary business but we are joined also by colleagues from the European Commission, whose presence I acknowledge with gratitude because this is an important moment in our democratic life in Parliament.
Colleagues, I thank everyone for the good wishes and advice and reiterate that tomorrow, at lunchtime, I invite all Members to join me in a moment of brief celebration.
That brings us to the next order of business.
We now must elect the Vice-Presidents of Parliament.
It is 5.30 p.m.
If there are amendments I will take them, but I propose to set a deadline of 6 p.m. for candidacies.
They should be lodged with the Deputy Secretary-General in R 00.101 in the Louise Weiss building.
I hope you are in agreement.
Mr President, for obvious reasons, we have to choose between one of the two scenarios and we would ask that we respect the agenda as previously set, that is to say, that the deadline for nominations be extended until 6.30 p.m.
There may be special circumstances in the case of this request.
If this is agreeable to the House - we have had a long day of voting and people need to be able to connect and consult - and we accept that suggestion, the nominations will have to be in by 6.30 p.m., which means we vote at 7 p.m.
The sitting is suspended.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.35 p.m. and resumed at 7.05 p.m.)
First, Mr President, warmest congratulations on your election.
I just want to make a technical announcement before we start voting.
There has been a general breakdown in the computer network and it lasted five minutes due to defective hardware.
The problem has been identified and is being solved and the good news is that the system is now working.
Do not panic: the right people are on the job and hopefully we will have no more problems.
Election of Vice-Presidents of Parliament
The next item is the election of the Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament.
I wish to inform you of the list of candidates that has been received.
I have received the following candidates: Cederschiöld, Colom i Naval, Dimitrakopoulos, Friedrich, Imbeni, Lalumière, David Martin, ...
(Loud applause)
...
Onesta, Pacheco Pereira, Podestà, Provan, Puerta, Gerhard Schmid, Vidal-Quadras Roca.
The candidates have confirmed to me their consent to their candidacies.
The number of candidates does not exceed the number of seats to be filled.
Therefore I propose that they be elected by acclamation, in accordance with Rule 13 (1).
(Loud applause)
The applause is the acclamation that confirms that the 14 are now elected as Vice-Presidents.
However, we must now vote to determine the order of precedence.
I therefore proclaim these candidates elected as Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament. I congratulate each and every one of them on their election.
We shall now vote to decide on the order of precedence.
As we are voting only to decide on precedence, no qualified majority is necessary.
The ballot papers to establish this order of precedence will now be distributed.
The tellers are the same as for the election of the President.
I would therefore ask the tellers to take up position by the ballot boxes.
Mr President, I have a question.
We have up until now been told that we must put crosses against the names of at least seven candidates if the ballot paper is to be valid.
Does this requirement to put crosses against the names of at least seven candidates now still apply?
It is my information, Mr Friedrich, that you may put your mark against any number of candidates, as large or as small as you wish that to be.
It is your preference.
There is no rule on the matter.
Please use only the official ballot papers and mark the boxes corresponding to the candidates you wish to vote for.
If you want to change your vote, ask the usher for a new ballot paper and surrender the old one.
We now proceed to the vote.
The result will be announced tomorrow.
For the election of Quaestors, the deadline for candidacies is 10 p.m. tonight.
Candidacies should be lodged with the Deputy Secretary-General in office R00.101 in the Louise Weiss building.
(The sitting was closed at 7.28 p.m.)
Election of Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The next item of business is the approval of the Minutes of the sittings of Monday, 17 December 2001, Monday, 14 January 2002 and Tuesday, 15 January 2002.
The Minutes have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I think there is a translation error in the Danish text in that, under point 7, 'Closure of sitting' , the words 'The oldest Member closed the sitting at 7.30 p.m.' appear.
I think it was you, Mr President, who closed the sitting, and that is also what the French version states.
Thank you, Mr Rovsing, for looking after my interests so soon.
Douze points!
We will have that corrected in the Minutes.
Are there any further comments?
(Parliament approved the minutes of the previous sittings)
Mr President, there is a matter I should like to raise. On 19 December, just before Christmas, I was the victim of a robbery in the immediate vicinity of our Parliament in Brussels.
I was in my car waiting at the traffic lights when my windscreens were smashed and everything was taken out of the car.
I will spare you the details, but I have heard that raids of the same kind have occurred several times since then involving other cars, even last week.
My question is: could the newly elected Quaestors catalogue the type of robberies that have taken place in the last year near the European Parliament building in Brussels and take tough action with the police so that the latter take measures, for I can assure you, to have to endure something like that is no laughing matter.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, that evidently meets with the approval of the House and we will do that.
Order of business
The final draft agenda drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting on Thursday, 10 January, under Rule 110, has been distributed.
I have received no proposals to change the agenda for this session.
(Parliament adopted the agenda for the current part-session).
Mr President, on a point of order.
In light of the amendment tabled by Mr Davies and myself at the end of last year to the common foreign and security policy report and adopted by Parliament, calling on the EU to act as an honest broker between India and Pakistan over the dispute in Kashmir, could we have a Council declaration or an oral question on this matter at the next part-session?
This dispute dates back more than 50 years; UN resolutions have not been acted upon and, as both countries are now nuclear powers, it is very important that we resolve this dispute.
I ask the EU to be proactive and to offer its services as a mediator, as no other body seems to be doing so.
Mrs Lynne, that is a more unusual point of order but I note the point you make.
I would ask you to have the item raised by the chairman of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party at the next meeting of the Conference of Presidents, which is the appropriate means of seeking to put it on the agenda.
Mr Corrie, the follow-up required is clear and I shall do so.
I shall communicate that to you and to colleagues.
Thank you, Mr Thors.
We will look into that and we will communicate with you.
Mr President, I should like to inform both you and the House of the tremendous damage caused by the horrendous weather which hit Greece in December and which has still not subsided in certain areas, where temperatures have plummeted to below -24 degrees Celsius.
Several million trees have been destroyed, the olive and citrus crops have been ruined; in some cases they have been completely wiped out.
The chairman of our group, Mr Wurtz, has written to the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi.
First, may I congratulate you on your appointment; then may I ask you to start your term of office by intervening to obtain compensation for Greek farmers who, as you know, are the worst paid in the European Union; compensation for the damage caused and your help in restoring it.
The situation is desperate and we must all intervene at once and do something about it.
Mr President, from his palace in Carthage, President Ben Ali continues to repress and dismiss judges and to subject his Tunisian political opponents to intimidation in a number of ways.
I think that Parliament must urgently adopt a position and the Council must issue a statement on this matter this week.
I also think that this situation is absolutely intolerable.
Parliament' s watchword should be 'Carthago delenda est' or 'Carthage must be destroyed' , as we can no longer tolerate this regime.
Thank you, Mr Dupuis.
There is no proposal along those lines on the agenda at the moment and this week we do not have a topical and urgent debate either; but I take note of what you said and we will see what we can do.
Decision on urgent procedure
The next item is the request for urgent procedure on the proposal, on behalf of the Committee of Economic and Monetary Affairs, for a Council Directive amending Directive 92/79/EEC, Directive 92/80/EEC and Directive 95/59/EC as regards the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco (COM(2001) 133 - C5-0139/2001 - 2001/0063(CNS)).
I should like to ask Mrs Randzio-Plath if she is in a position to advise us on whether or not we should grant urgency.
Mr President, I would like to point out, in addition to this, that we want to submit a second report.
We hope that the Commission is also of the opinion that there should be a compromise with the position taken by Parliament, whose Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is well known to have voted the first proposal down, but which is now prepared to draw up a new proposal in the Katiforis report, one which we are keen to present to the whole House in February.
In February, the Council of Finance Ministers will still have enough time to come to a decision about it.
Accordingly, I have also written to the Spanish Presidency of the Council on the Committee's behalf, and have also informed the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Rato of it during last week's meeting of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
That being so, I do not think that the request for urgent procedure should be agreed to.
If they are offering to take one speaker for, and one speaker against, the advice from the committee is not to grant urgency.
Do we have a speaker for or against that proposal? Mr von Wogau, it is not necessary but it is possible.
Mr President, I get the impression that there will be speakers only against the urgent procedure, something I consider a very important step.
There is the danger that the Council will decide on its position before Parliament's has been produced.
I consider it a matter of urgent necessity that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs should deliver its opinion first, and that only then should the Council come to a decision.
It is for that reason that we should reject this request for urgent procedure.
On the basis of the two contributions we have a consensus.
(The request for urgency was rejected)
Election of Quaestors of Parliament
The next item is the election of Quaestors of Parliament.
I have received notification of the following candidacies: Balfe, Banotti, Maes, Marinho, Poos, Quisthoudt-Rowohl, Smet.
The candidates have confirmed to me their consent to their candidacies.
As the number of candidates exceeds the number of seats to be filled, we will hold a secret ballot in accordance with Rule 13(1).
In view of all the voting we had yesterday and as the election of Quaestors runs parallel to our normal business today, I propose under Rule 135 that we vote using the electronic voting system.
Mr President, I would like very quickly to make a genuine point of order.
Mr President, I do not believe that the procedure you are proposing will fully guarantee the secrecy of the ballot.
It is obvious that the neighbours of the Member voting, and who belong to the same group as that Member, can see the screen on the voting machine.
Given the circumstances, I think this is regrettable.
The procedure is consistent with the Rules of Procedure of the House.
My impression from the reaction is that colleagues would prefer to proceed on that basis.
That being so, I will not press the matter of a vote on the procedure but we should then proceed to the vote on the Quaestors.
We shall first hold a test to ensure that everybody is familiar with the electronic voting system.
Do not press me too much on this - I learn as I go along.
This is like multilateral surveillance in stage 1 of Economic and Monetary Union - it is learning by doing.
Mr President, I am as in favour of progress as you are and I support the Lisbon strategy for joining the computerised era, but I very much fear that this vote, under these circumstances, where the Members have not had the opportunity to take lessons, raises many problems.
I would recommend...
(Mixed reactions)
Excuse me, but this is a right of every Member under the Rules of Procedure.
I would recommend that the vote be carried out by means of secret ballot papers.
I take note of that.
Mr President, my machine is not working.
Even my neighbouring colleagues who have tried to help me cannot resolve the problem.
Let us sort out Mr Berthu's machine.
The Chairman of the Socialist Group has made the point that perhaps we should use the secret ballot system.
My impression from the test is that colleagues appear to have mastered the intricacies of the system.
Mr President, that is not the problem.
If the leader of the second largest grouping deems it necessary to use the other system, we should not discuss the matter and do so.
If that is their wish and they feel more comfortable doing so, we should give them that possibility.
You are quite correct that it is not my impression that counts, no more than it is your impression that counts, but I will take you as a speaker in favour of having a secret ballot.
Do we have a speaker against having a secret ballot of the traditional, rather than the electronic, type?
We know the essential point at issue.
Under Rule 135, "The President may at any time decide that the voting operations indicated in Rules 133, 134 and 136 shall be carried out by means of an electronic voting system."
So the procedure to vote electronically is perfectly consistent with the Rules.
However, it is clear that there is a division of opinion in the House as to which is the best method to choose on this occasion.
Therefore I put to the vote whether we should proceed with an electronic vote.
(Parliament agreed to vote electronically) President.
The next item is the election of the Quaestors.
There are five Quaestors so each Member has a maximum of five votes.
If you vote for more than five candidates your vote will be void.
The tellers are the same as those for the election of the President and Vice-Presidents.
I would ask them to vote first and then come to the President's bench so that they can confirm the results.
Mr President, you are quite right; the Rules of Procedure do say that you can use electronic voting.
However, because of the way it works, it is impossible to hold a secret ballot.
I know how Mrs Ainardi voted, I know how Mrs Frahm voted, I know how this fellow member voted and I know how that fellow member voted.
Why can we not vote electronically, but without the asterisk?
Otherwise we all know how everyone else has voted and it is impossible to hold a secret ballot.
Mr President, on a point of order.
With all due respect I appreciate the decision the House has taken but this has not been a secret ballot.
I know how all of my neighbouring colleagues have voted.
I appreciate that if we want to have an open ballot we can do so, but then we should not pretend that we have been voting secretly.
We should vote openly by a show of hands.
That is my first point.
Secondly, I should like to say to our colleagues in the PPE-DE Group that with all due respect, we could have used ballot papers in the same time as we have taken now.
Perhaps we can now proceed in a way that is really secret.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I do not wish to delay matters.
What Mr Dell'Alba has said is absolutely right.
We have proved that 99.9% of Members of the European Parliament are capable of keeping up with the technological skills of their children.
It would be quite absurd now not to proceed with the concluding votes on the Quaestors.
As to the last point made by my colleague on the other side of the House about secrecy, I have not a single clue as to how my colleagues on this side of the House voted, because I did not choose to peer over their shoulders.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I agree with those who say we should use the electronic system, as it is much quicker.
However, I would suggest that the technicians and those responsible for this wonderful piece of equipment should modify it in such a way that would allow us to vote on all the candidates, plus and minus, which means that every single one of them will have a neutral symbol beside it.
In that way, if people look at the screen to see how we voted, they will not know.
That would make it much easier, because otherwise it is easy for people to see how each Member voted.
I am taking two more speakers and then we will conclude this matter.
Mr President, my request does not concern the electronic voting system.
Speaking on behalf of my group, what I am, in fact, interested in is being able to vote at 12.30 p.m. and to have the opportunity to reach political agreements later.
I want to be clear on this.
The agenda had foreseen that the second round would be at 12.30 p.m.
I appreciate that there are political choices to be made and, while in terms of efficiency we could now complete the matter electronically, it is equally clear that there are political considerations.
We will take the vote at the earliest moment but not before 12.30 p.m.
In the meanwhile, the groups have the opportunity to consult with each other.
We should proceed electronically as we began.
(The sitting was suspended at 9.48 a.m. and resumed at 10 a.m.)
Spanish Presidency programme
Mr President, honourable Members, distinguished members of the European Commission, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour for me to appear here for the first time as Spanish Prime Minister and President-in-Office of the European Council to explain to you the priorities of the Spanish Presidency.
The Spanish Presidency coincides with the change of President of this Parliament.
Yesterday, we attended the election of a new President in this House and the farewell to a President who has carried out her work very effectively.
Mr Cox' s personality and political and institutional career guarantee that this House and the Presidency will enjoy fruitful political and institutional relations, which will be aimed at strengthening the European Union and creating a more prominent role for the European Parliament.
The European Parliament has made a considerable contribution to today' s European Union through its work and its proposals, which represent a constant and innovative quest for greater efficiency in the functioning of the European Union.
This House has also been able to adapt its diverse European parliamentary traditions, and try out new formulas in relations between civil society and its political representatives, increasing democratic control and the legitimacy of the European project.
Nothing embodies this idea better than the codecision procedure which nevertheless needs to be improved for the sake of transparency and efficiency.
The Spanish Presidency will therefore work to ensure that the eight conciliations scheduled for this six-month period are completed quickly.
Spain wishes to increase the Union' s institutional cooperation and democratic control; I would therefore like to guarantee the Presidency' s presence in plenary sessions, as has become customary during the previous Presidency.
For my part, I am committed to informing the House following the Barcelona European Council, and carrying out a final assessment of this Presidency after the Seville European Council.
Ladies and gentlemen, the current political landscape obliges the Union to be ambitious in three areas.
The first consists of producing a response to terrorism, from the point of view of creating an area of freedom, security and justice.
The second involves creating an area of greater economic prosperity which safeguards the European social model.
And the third is to make a success of the historic opportunity of enlargement and laying the foundations for the future enlarged Union.
In order to successfully reach these goals, we need to work for a greater deepening of Europe.
By creating 'more Europe' we will strengthen the fight against terrorism and ensure that the introduction of the euro is successful and, only if we are ambitious, we will achieve enlargement, we will make progress with the creation of an area of greater prosperity, we will strengthen the Union' s external role and we will carry out the next Intergovernmental Conference successfully.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to acknowledge, and express my gratitude for, the responsibility that this House and the European Commission have demonstrated in the fight against terrorism.
Days before the tragic events of 11 September, Parliament adopted a resolution which urged the European Commission to present various initiatives aimed at greater effectiveness in the fight against terrorism in the European Union.
We must continue to work in the direction which you and the European Commission indicated at that time.
Accordingly, on the basis of the rule of law, we need to press ahead with the Plan of Action against terrorism in the European Union to ensure that there can be no sanctuary for terror within our borders.
In December 2001 we achieved great progress in this area.
All the Institutions of the Union, and especially the Presidency and Parliament, now need to work to ensure that the instruments approved on that occasion come into effect as quickly as possible.
However, those instruments will not prove effective unless we also achieve closer cooperation between the institutions and the security forces of the EU Member States.
The Presidency therefore considers it a priority that joint investigation teams be set up rapidly, that Europol' s work be made more effective and that action be taken to prevent the funding of terrorists and of those who shelter or support them.
(Applause)As you well know, terrorist organisations establish cooperative links amongst themselves so that they can operate in a manner which exceeds the limits set by our borders.
Spain wants the Union to play a more active role in the international sphere in the fight against terrorism.
A first step towards this will be to develop close cooperation on criminal and legal matters with the United States, in accordance with the principles which underpin the legal system of the European Union, as emphasised by this House.
The fight against terrorism needs to be waged within the context of the area of freedom, security and justice.
The Presidency therefore attaches priority to pressing ahead to formulate a common policy on asylum and immigration, improve the management of the Union' s external frontiers, intensify our action against drugs trafficking and establish mutual recognition of court rulings both in civil matters, through the European enforcement order, and in the criminal field.
These initiatives will require close institutional cooperation if we are to meet the deadlines set for creating the area of freedom, security and justice.
Ladies and gentlemen, the euro has been introduced, if I may say so, brilliantly, to say the least.
By the end of the month few people in the Eurozone will still be using the old national currencies.
This is good proof that Union policies are accepted when they are implemented properly and effectively.
The solidity of our currency also calls for closer coordination of economic policies.
This will mean enhancing the role of the Eurogroup, tightening the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines and ensuring strict compliance with the Stability and Growth Pact.
The euro will also raise the profile of the Eurozone, and this will force the Presidency to ensure that the Union' s views are taken into account in international forums.
We should recall that over the last decade Europe has fallen back six points in its per capita income compared with the United States of America.
We therefore need to press ahead with modernising our economies in order to achieve stronger growth.
Accordingly, another focus of the Presidency' s work will be the creation of an area of greater economic and social prosperity.
It is Spain' s intention that the Barcelona European Council should examine five specific areas with a view to achieving 'More Europe' .
Firstly, we will promote the connection and opening up of European transport and communications systems.
The Presidency will concentrate on the review of the trans-European transport networks, on making the Single European Sky a reality and on pressing ahead with the liberalisation of rail transport.
The second area of work in Barcelona will be to design a European energy market based on opening-up, liberalisation, competition, transparency and interconnection.
With these criteria in mind, the Presidency will examine the opening-up of the gas and electricity markets for companies and for consumers, the rules on third-party access to networks and the creation of infrastructure and interconnections between national energy markets.
The integration of the financial markets is an absolute precondition for the proper functioning of the single currency and a basic prerequisite for European growth.
Spain will work to meet the deadlines of the Financial Services Action Plan and to see that the new approach based on the Lamfalussy report, which includes the necessary respect for institutional balance, is applied as soon as possible.
We are all aware that employment is the best way of achieving social integration.
As a fourth focus therefore, and on the basis of the Luxembourg Process in its current framework, the Barcelona European Council will seek a greater emphasis on the Employment Strategy in the analysis of the structural inflexibilities of our labour markets, in our tax and social protection systems and in the institutions of the labour market.
To get a good job, you undoubtedly first need access to a sound education which facilitates student mobility.
Accordingly, the fifth point at Barcelona will be the Work Programme on education systems for the year 2010.
We need to step up the quality of Europe' s education systems and open them up further to the rest of the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, in Barcelona, the candidate countries will take part in a working session of the European Council for the first time.
In my opinion, integrating the candidates into our work on economic and social modernisation will be the best political signal of our support for the enlargement process upon which the Union has embarked.
There is no doubt that enlargement will turn the page on a bitter episode in our continent' s past. It will bring in countries that belong to the European family, countries which share our values and which have been treated badly by the vicissitudes of history.
The Spanish Presidency' s political will is to help ensure that all those countries that are ready can conclude their negotiations by the end of this year, 2002.
On the basis of the current acquis communautaire and the Financial Perspective, we will, during the Spanish Presidency, be negotiating the chapters relating to agriculture, regional policy and social cohesion policy, financial and budgetary provisions and institutional issues.
Spain will also be seeking the closure of all those chapters that have not yet been concluded.
For the negotiations to be rounded off definitively, all the Members of the Union will need to demonstrate their ability to compromise, the Commission will need to present its proposals on time and, above all, an effort will be required from each of the candidate countries.
Progress will be assessed at the Seville European Council in June.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we also know, and it is our wish, that the European Union is destined to fulfil an important and growing political function on the international stage.
The success of European integration and Europe' s economic and commercial weight are forcing an ever greater and more important external political profile on the Union.
The current international context requires us to step up the Union' s presence in areas where peace and security are directly threatened.
The Spanish Presidency therefore hopes to help develop an ambitious comprehensive regional strategy in Central Asia and Afghanistan to prevent the emergence of new areas of conflict.
But there will be no point in providing a European presence if we lack the capacity for effective crisis management and, specifically, military forces for limited operations requiring a rapid response.
This objective should be achieved in the near future, when the European Security and Defence Policy effectively comes into operation and when the definitive pattern is established for a relationship of consultation and cooperation with the Atlantic Alliance.
In this same area, Spain also proposes to launch a discussion on making the fight against terrorism an objective of the European Security and Defence Policy.
The credibility of the Union' s foreign policy will rest not only on its international presence, but also on effective instruments for implementing that policy and, above all, on a high degree of mutual consultation.
On this last point, Spain attaches priority to developing the European Union' s relations with North America and with Russia.
With North America we need to reinforce the trans-Atlantic dialogue, giving it greater and renewed strategic content.
With Russia, Spain believes the European Union needs to support the strategy that country is currently implementing.
Accordingly, one of the Presidency' s objectives will be to consolidate EU relations with Russia, relations based on specific points and tangible progress.
Ladies and gentlemen, next May in Madrid, the European Union will be holding its Second Summit with Latin America and the Caribbean with a view to renewing and promoting the strategic association between the two geographical regions.
One objective of the Summit will be to work with Chile in order to make progress on the Association and Free Trade Agreement and push forward the Union' s negotiations with Mercosur.
In addition, the European Union will be holding specific meetings with the Andean Community and Central America.
At this point, I am bound to refer to our interest in and concern regarding the developing situation in Argentina.
The European Union will work with the Argentine authorities to find realistic solutions based on dialogue, solutions which will restore confidence and enable the Argentine economy to achieve new growth and competitiveness.
Ladies and gentlemen, the European Union will also play an important role in achieving stability in the Middle East.
For this we will need to step up our coordination with the United States and the other sponsors of the Peace Process.
I hope that the recent European Union Declaration and the contacts established in the last few days on the initiative of the Spanish Presidency will help resolve a situation of instability which is affecting the countries of the region and the Mediterranean in general.
The Middle East conflict is a major factor influencing the progress of the Barcelona Process, the only forum for dialogue which brings together all those involved in the Peace Process, who are due to meet at the forthcoming Ministerial Summit in Valencia.
Spain will also push for the conclusion of the outstanding Association Agreements between the European Union and the countries bordering the Mediterranean, and will work for the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean internal market and the development of the regional strategies on infrastructure.
To help achieve this objective, the Laeken European Council, acting on a Spanish initiative, took up the idea of creating a bank specialising in operations in the Mediterranean countries, an idea we will be working on over the next few months in collaboration with the European Investment Bank and the monetary authorities.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are convinced that it is only by encouraging balanced development that we will be able to tackle illegal immigration effectively.
Aware of the enormous importance of this phenomenon, Spain, with the backing of China and Vietnam, has been working for some time to ensure the success of the ministerial meeting on immigration to be held between the European Union and the Asian members of ASEM.
We know that illegal immigration is the result of poverty and underdevelopment.
This is why the Spanish Presidency attaches particular importance to the Monterrey Summit on Financing Development, which we are preparing in close cooperation with the United States and Mexico.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think it is safe to say that few people could have imagined that 45 years after the signing of the Treaties of Rome, 300 million Europeans would be using the same currency.
We need to pursue this successful course, in what is a key period for the Union.
This will require greater involvement of the people of Europe in shaping the future of the Union.
The Laeken European Council decided to set up a Convention on the future of Europe.
That Convention will be holding its first session on 28 February in the European Parliament in Brussels.
What place could better reflect both the importance of the new phase the European Union is going through and the recognition the Presidency wishes to give to the European Parliament' s work on the future of Europe.
The Spanish Presidency is firmly set on contributing to the success of the Convention.
That success will be the key to consolidating the process of gradual constitutionalisation of the Treaties we are currently engaged in, and to ensuring that such Conventions are in future perceived as a good method of preparing intergovernmental conferences.
I hope that the President of the Convention will be able, as agreed, to present an initial report on the Convention' s work to the Seville European Council in June.
Ladies and gentlemen, I came here today to set out the priorities of the Spanish Presidency.
Those priorities should translate into greater de facto solidarity, a solidarity which will enable us, on the basis of balance and of mutual respect for diverse interests, to continue consolidating the greatest period of peace, prosperity and freedom Europe has ever known.
We know this will be a complex and arduous task, on account both of the number of issues we will need to apply ourselves to and of the ambitious nature of our goals.
But it is only by virtue of that ambition, and on the basis of close collaboration between the institutions, that we will be able, as I am sure we will, to make this project a reality, a project whose ultimate purpose is to improve the lives of all the people of Europe.
Thank you very much for your attention.
(Applause)
Let me take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Santer on his appointment by Luxembourg to the Convention.
Let me remind group chairmen and colleagues that we have votes scheduled for later this morning.
I should like to keep on schedule.
Mr President! Prime Minister, you have chosen More Europe as the theme for your presidency.
Liberal Democrats hope that this will be reflected in your commitment to enlargement of the European Union.
Just as this House insisted on Iberian enlargement some 15 years ago, despite doubts in certain national capitals, so we will militate for an early and successful eastward enlargement in which 2002 will be crucial.
We will judge your presidency primarily by your achievements in preparing the reunification of our continent.
We wish you success, too, in your efforts to guide smoothly the introduction of the euro.
As one who saw in the New Year in France, I am particularly grateful for Spain's role in lending Chirac and Jospin a little small change.
Perhaps next time you see Tony Blair you will hand him a few coins as well and ask him whether his indecision is final.
British entry into the euro would certainly mean the kind of More Europe we would like to see.
Your vision of the future speaks of new transnational challenges.
Relations between India and Pakistan are deeply worrying but Afghanistan must be uppermost in our minds.
Soon the bombing must stop and the building must begin.
We must respond to the plight of the people through generous giving from our aid budget and more help in patrolling the peace.
Your programme speaks of a war against terrorism.
This is no conventional war and it will not be won with conventional weapons.
Some of us fear that military intelligence, which is leading to bombing and military solutions, may be causing collateral damage and storing up other problems for the future.
We hope that Europe can offset this collateral damage by adding to our armoury emotional intelligence, recognising that political problems often require political solutions.
You kindly referred to my report on terrorism, adopted on 6 September last year.
I would draw your attention, too, to our resolution on cooperation between the United States and the European Union in the fight against terrorism.
Liberal Democrats view with deep unease the divergence between the US approach of emergency laws and military tribunals and the rights-based approach that we want for the Union.
We insist that you can be both tough on terrorism and true to our Treaties.
(Applause)You will take forward the building of the area of freedom, security and justice defined in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Your presidency programme asserts that current exceptional circumstances require putting security first.
If this is true we will nonetheless push you to make sure that freedom and justice are not far behind.
In drafting a programme like this any presidency faces a dilemma.
We recognise that.
A list of priorities soon becomes a universal catalogue.
Each Member State brings something different to the party.
While we welcome the input that Spain can make to the Barcelona Process and Euro-Med, we are nonetheless fascinated to read in your programme that the European Union's northern dimension is one of your priorities.
We will follow development in this matter closely.
The reform of the Council that you talk about is most welcome.
We hope that you will ensure that the Council abides by its undertaking to allow public access to documents and that it seeks better relations with this House, which, sadly, does not get a mention in your programme until page 20.
This House is the true democratic forum of our continent and we want to see its rights respected.
If for my Group something is missing in this document it is a recognition of Europe's different regions and cultures.
It reads to me as a rather Castilian programme that does not reflect entirely the Spain which I have visited and the Spain that is represented in my Group.
What has become of the work of the eminent Director-General in the Commission, Mr Eneko Landaburu? Your second definition of More Europe talks about 'signifying the European nature of Spanish society.'
Our second definition of More Europe would be that it signifies the contribution of all Iberian cultures and the flowering thereof among other European cultures in the creation of a Europe whose strength is not that of a monolithic state with deciduous development, but one of unity through diversity.
In wishing you every success, Prime Minister, I look forward to a vigorous debate with the Spanish Presidency.
(Applause)
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, first of all, I would like to welcome you to this House.
We hope that you enjoy these six months and also that cooperation with the European Parliament continues to be as positive and open as it was during the Belgian Presidency.
In a constructive spirit, I would just like, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, to express certain doubts and criticisms that we have concerning the focus of the programme you have just presented.
Setting the objective of 'more Europe' does not necessarily mean wanting a better Europe in the sense of creating a Europe of more democracy, openness and solidarity.
The Spanish Presidency has decided to focus very strongly on combating terrorism. This is certainly a legitimate reflection of Spain' s national policy of eliminating ETA violence once and for all.
However, it would appear important to emphasise that it is neither acceptable nor effective to imagine that terrorist violence can be curbed by reducing the significance of some of the most important victories of the European democracies and the Union such as respect for individual freedoms, citizens' equality before the law and parliamentary control at European as well as national level of all decisions on this matter.
We would certainly have been much happier if you had shown your intention to uphold these concepts more clearly.
Moreover, it is a matter of no small concern that the Spanish government is concentrating on cooperation with the United States without, at the same time, distancing the Union from those decisions of the US administration which place it outside the rule of law and which could lead to a militarisation of the legal system.
Similarly, talking about an international anti-terrorism alliance but remaining silent on the way the Russian government is continuing to terrorise and destroy Chechnya does nothing for the European Union' s credibility.
(Applause) Secondly, Mr President-in-Office, your government' s programme includes a list of themes, but it does not clearly define the political vision for European integration.
Further evidence of this is the fact that the only task you are entrusting to the Convention, which will start work in two months' time, is the preparation of tangible, realistic options to submit to the 2004 Conference.
Yet, as you are quite aware, this Convention is the product of the failure of Nice, and its success will be measured in terms of its ability to constitute a break with the intergovernmental method of reforming the Union and to involve representatives of the people and civil society in the process of European integration.
It is my fervent hope that the Spanish Presidency will support this innovative experiment and accept calmly that we have reached the stage where it is no longer just the States but the citizens and their representatives at European, national and regional levels as well - at regional level too - who can and must be involved in shaping the future of the European Union.
On the subject of shared values, I would like to ask you not to underestimate the European dimension of what has been happening in my native country, Italy, where the principle of the separation of powers is constantly being challenged and where there is still a problem with the concentration of media power combined with an unresolved conflict of interests.
Thirdly, we are greatly concerned at the cursory treatment in your programme of the issue of sustainable development and the urgent need to respond with practical, incisive action to the environmental challenges facing us.
It would appear that this cursory treatment is a direct result of an antiquated idea that the priorities of economic growth and safeguarding the environment and quality of life are still conflicting.
In fact, the opposite is true.
However, and I cannot stress this enough, the environmental constraints governing the economic, social and fiscal policies of the Union and its Member States continue to be inadequate.
In this connection, I would very briefly like to give you two negative examples, which directly concern Spain.
The first is the national hydrological plan, against which there is strong opposition in your country, Mr Aznar: 400 000 people protesting in Madrid and 10 000 in Brussels, as well as 25 000 individual complaints to the Commission cannot be ignored, and we will make this matter a priority in our work.
We do not accept the claim that the hydrological plan is purely a Spanish affair, not just because the Spanish government wants EUR 8 billion from the Structural Funds to be spent on financing part of it but because, if it were to be implemented, it would violate European legislation on nature conservation and the safeguarding of water resources and would lead to a distortion of competition in the agricultural sector.
Also, finally, because the real purpose of the plan is to transfer water resources from poor regions to wealthy regions in order to serve water-intensive farming and tourism development.
This is a recipe for disaster, which has already caused havoc that we cannot allow to be repeated.
I have other things to say to you, Mr President-in-Office, regarding the liberalisation of the electricity market, but I will save them for another time.
In any case, I wish you a successful six month' s work.
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the Spanish Presidency has come at a time of international difficulty and it must therefore deal with highly topical issues.
In order to deal with these issues, as you said, Mr Aznar, we will need 'more Europe' .
The introduction of the euro has created a new reality.
The most important task, Mr Aznar, is to supplement the euro in the economic and social fields.
You have expressed your intention to carry out what you call new economic reforms.
In the language of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, this means promoting the social aspects of European integration in a decisive manner and strengthening economic and social cohesion.
We believe that Europe is not going to improve its economic cohesion and development by means of policies of liberalisation and privatisation, by means of employment deregulation which endangers jobs and by reducing levels of social protection and by tax reforms which make fiscal systems less sufficient and less progressive.
Furthermore, Mr Aznar, the international economic situation demands imagination and flexibility.
We believe that we should not confront it shackled by a rigorous and excessively restrictive notion of the stability pact.
The fact that the world economy is now close to recession is beyond question, Mr Aznar.
The European Union needs political impetus and democratisation of its economic decision-making.
We need budgets geared towards employment and economic and social cohesion.
The stability pact must be made more flexible and at least preserve public investment when there are excessive deficits, and this is an expenditure which is an essential element for the future development of the Union and also, in the short term, an element which will increase and stimulate economic activity.
It is essential to supplement the single currency with a process of harmonisation in the fiscal, employment and social fields, building a genuine economic policy - not just monetary - and making decisive progress towards a social Europe.
Lastly, Mr Aznar, it worries us that there is no attempt to strengthen public services, which would reflect a social view of European integration.
Many fashionable reforms in our countries put an end to public monopolies in strategic sectors, only to convert them in many cases into private oligopolies, which makes them difficult to control publicly and which does not lead to any real increase in efficiency.
I could cite various examples in different countries concerning rail transport, health systems or electrical supplies.
Therefore, Mr Aznar, in summary, we believe that the Barcelona Summit should reflect this type of concern and adopt a much more dynamic and stronger view of European social integration.
You will recognise, as I do, that, on this issue, I am obviously expressing the existing differences, as you know, between our different political forces.
Of course, Mr Aznar, the negotiations on the bases of the enlargement agreement - as the Spanish Presidency has said, and I agree with it - must be concluded during this six-month period.
Otherwise, enlargement will not be possible in 2004.
In this regard, Mr Aznar, I would like to make the following comment: a Union of 27 States - with enlargement to a further 10 States - will increase the surface area of the European Union by 34%, it will increase the population by more than 28%, but the Community income will increase by barely 5%. Do we really appreciate the political challenge posed by enlargement?
Do we really appreciate the degree to which social problems may be exacerbated as a result of enlargement? In the current European Union, 16% of the population have a per capita income which is 90% lower than the Community average, and in the Union of 27 States, for example, this proportion would rise to 34%.
We therefore believe that for the first time, unlike what happened with the so-called Delors packages, where in successive enlargements of the area of the internal market there were firm commitments in relation to decisive increases in economic and social cohesion, we are now in a situation in which economic and social cohesion - as was expressed in the Delors packages - must be thoroughly strengthened and increased.
We would therefore like an unequivocal signal in this regard.
It is possible that the agricultural negotiation will end with the implementation of a transitional period that will go beyond the deadline of 2006.
The problem will be what to do next.
Agriculture, like any economic activity, requires prospects and the negotiation should be accompanied by clear signals on the future of the agricultural policy, where we will surely hear requests from some people for the dismantling of common policies for the sake of budgetary savings.
Others believe that the common policies should not be dismantled, but rather strengthened in certain areas, such as food safety and environmental concerns, which should be incorporated into all our Community policies.
The question of the structural funds brings into focus - as I said in relation to the Delors packages - the future political shape of the European Union.
A larger European Union will require greater efforts to increase economic and social cohesion between the regions.
Mr Aznar, we must construct an area of freedom, justice and security for the citizens, while fully respecting the democratic traditions of our countries and the fundamental human rights embodied in our Charter.
There is no place for terrorism in this area.
Terrorism is our enemy, but neither should there be room for repressive laws or measures which bear no relation to this fight and which contribute to reducing the legal and judicial guarantees of our citizens.
The construction of this area of freedom must also be an opportunity to achieve a very high degree of harmonisation of legal guarantees.
In the field of foreign, security and defence policy, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am going to make a few very specific comments in order to be brief.
The Spanish Presidency has the responsibility to ensure that the European Union and the European Parliament, in cooperation with the Spanish Presidency, take a decisive step in terms of seeking a just solution in the Middle East.
We believe that we should make it very clear that the decisions of the United Nations and of international law should be respected and that Israel' s illegal and military occupation of the Palestinian State should cease.
We should welcome the intention to continue improving the Barcelona process, which is currently in stalemate.
A genuine regional integration of the countries on the Southern shores of the Mediterranean is necessary.
The development of the region cannot be based solely on the aid and commercial concessions provided by the European Union, established individually with each of the Mediterranean countries.
More Europe means playing our proper role in regional stabilisation and promoting the economic development of our neighbouring areas.
Accordingly, the initiative of creating the Euro-Mediterranean Development Bank seems to us to be a positive one.
But, while perhaps complicating the issue, Mr Aznar, the Morocco-Sahara conflict must be resolved through the calling of the referendum on self-determination, as agreed in the United Nations.
We believe that the position taken by the Spanish Government on this problem, in accordance with Spain' s responsibility towards the Saharan people and international law, is commendable.
The Spanish Presidency should direct its greatest efforts towards Central America, particularly at this crucial time, with the acute crisis in Colombia and the collapse of the Argentine economy.
The European Parliament unanimously supported the negotiated solution to the long conflict suffered by Colombia, disassociating itself from the militarisation of the United States' proposal, the Colombia Plan.
In these tragic times, the authoritative voice of the European Union may be decisive in terms of consolidating talks between the government and the guerrilla movement.
We hope, Mr Aznar, that you will act accordingly.
The Belgian Presidency has taken significant steps in normalising relations with Cuba, by beginning to overcome the so-called common position, which is more suited to the Cold War than to present times.
Mr Aznar, my political group has strongly supported the Convention.
We would have liked the participation in it to be more pluralist, but in any event, we are convinced of its importance.
The Spanish Presidency has said that the issues dealt with by the Convention must be very open and that its agreements and conclusions should inform the future decisions of the Intergovernmental Conference and the Treaty of 2004.
Mr Aznar, you will note that I have described a landscape of positive and negative positions.
You can count on the cooperation of the humble group I represent within my political group on all those positive issues.
Mr President, in setting out the presidency's programme with regard to key policy issues, which will be addressed over the next six months by the European Union, the Spanish Prime Minister has stated that his priority of priorities during Spain's six-months' presidency of the EU will be the global fight against terrorism.
I strongly support this political objective.
The European Union has certainly adopted a series of measures to combat international terrorism in recent months as an immediate response to the horrific terrorist attacks in the United States last September.
The prevention of the use of the European financial system as a money-laundering route for terrorism must continue to be a priority for our Union.
The fifteen governments of the Union should also be in a position to freeze the assets of terrorists and those involved in organised and international crime.
I very much welcome the Spanish Government's objective of promoting more police cooperation across the borders of the Union.
This is very important because intelligence agencies within the Union, together with Europol, have to work much more closely together in terms of exchanging and sharing information if the terror networks operating in Europe are to be broken.
The enlargement negotiations with the applicant countries will be entering a new phase during the Spanish Presidency.
This presidency is being entrusted with two very difficult chapters in the negotiations on enlargement, namely agricultural policy and regional aid.
The Union and the applicant countries must sit down and hammer out an agreement on the difficult chapters of the discussions because otherwise enlargement of the Union cannot take place quickly and will not be a success.
Countries in Eastern and Central Europe are presently receiving EU Structural Funds so as to make their economies more competitive.
This is an important policy objective because it will ensure that on entry these countries can participate within the Union in a competitive climate.
If the economies of Eastern and Central Europe are not competitive, then they will not be able to participate within the internal market in any real, effective sense.
Equally, promoting market economies in Eastern and Central Europe is good news for businesses within the Union, which can also expand their goods and services into new markets.
The Spanish Government is also going to set up the Convention in March this year to look at the development of the future of EU policies within the Union in the context of the next Intergovernmental Conference in 2004.
It is important that the terms of reference of this Convention are clear and decisive and that its conclusions in due course do not turn out to be an unattainable wish list.
Amendments to the Treaties have to be agreed by European Union leaders and any proposals emanating from this Convention must be balanced, progressive and achievable.
I also welcome the commitment of the Spanish Government to promote the implementation of EU regulations and directives, which should expand the use of new information technologies into all parts of the Union.
This is exceptionally important if the Union is to remain competitive in the years to come.
Finally, one of the great disappointments of Laeken was the failure to reach agreement on the siting of up to 12 new important EU agencies.
I hope that the Spanish Government can reach agreement quickly on the location of these important agencies, in particular the European Food Authority and the European Maritime Safety Agency.
Mr President, the smallest group in Parliament, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, also wishes to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Aznar, and we should like to talk a little about the Convention, which will begin on 1 March.
It will have a very unevenly balanced membership of 105 people and a 14-member praesidium which also looks as if it will be very unevenly balanced.
I would call upon you to ensure that these 14 members also include representatives of the 49% who voted 'no' in the referendum on Maastricht in France and of the near enough 50% who voted 'no' in a couple of referendums in Denmark.
I think it very inappropriate to put together a praesidium of 14 representatives who think alike and who will produce a result which, after three or four years, then ends up being overturned in a referendum.
It would be more practical to secure a lasting compromise by entering into dialogue straight away with the different points of view to be found among the various populations.
The intergroup here in Parliament, which is called 'SOS Democracy' and whose members are in a way the federalists' polar opposites, as well as partners cooperating on issues of transparency and proximity to the people, has had an excellent meeting with Mr Verhofstadt and also wishes to request a corresponding meeting with yourself.
During the meeting with Mr Verhofstadt, the latter made two interesting pledges.
Firstly, he called for all the delegations from all the countries to include those we call Eurorealists and urged that, for example, at least one of the three representatives - two from the national parliament and one from the government - from two of the countries should be someone with a Eurorealist approach.
He pledged that he would work towards these goals and called upon us to campaign for them.
His second pledge was that he would support a subsequent referendum.
My question to Mr Aznar is as to whether he too would call for broad representation and ensure that referendums subsequently take place.
Will he be involved in ensuring that two different drafts are prepared: a constitution for a democratic federal state, and a democratic agreement between independent countries, so that people can see the difference?
Will he be a party to holding a consultative referendum on two different proposals?
Will be involved in asking people what they think and have an intergovernmental conference called for the purpose of preparing a compromise?
We must discuss how the Charter can bind the institutions together without coming into conflict with the constitutions and the European Court of Human Rights; how a division of the Treaty into two parts will not simply make it less likely that there will be referendums in the event of Treaty changes; how more than thirty forms of decision can be reduced to three clear forms of decision; how we are to formulate a right of veto on crucial issues without paralysing the whole process; how the national parliaments are to be associated with the cooperation process and whether they can assume the Commission' s initiative, monopoly and competence catalogue; and how it can be ensured that matters do not just go the same way as did the rule of law.
In connection with the issue of openness, which Mr Watson also addressed, I should like finally to ask you, Mr Aznar, whether you will change Spain' s position and ensure that Parliament receives the same documentation as the Council of Ministers.
As a friend of Spain, I particularly welcome you to Parliament, and I hope that you will surprise us by implementing that openness which Sweden did not get anywhere with and which Belgium did not work to bring about.
Bienvenido.
Thank you Mr President.
(The speaker continued in the Basque language) Urte berri on danori eta zuri zorionak Lehendakari Jauna.
Mr President, Happy New Year to everybody and congratulations to our President.
Yesterday Mr Poettering mentioned the relevance of you being Irish as the best evidence of political success for the small countries of our continent.
As a Basque, I was very pleased to hear that, because the Republic of Ireland, which has only existed for a century, can give a European stateless nation like ours a very encouraging example.
For that reason too, I wish you good luck and all the best.
During the coming months, however, the Government of the Kingdom of Spain will be at your side watching how faithfully you are following the path marked out by your predecessor.
Let me recall that in 1999 the refusal of the Spanish Government to move from its nationalist blindness threw away the greatest chance for peace in more than a generation.
Prime Minister, can you give this Parliament a glimmer of hope by saying that you will be committed to working towards a political settlement of the ongoing conflict in the Basque country? Time is running out.
At the end of this week you will have 10% less time left in the term of your European Union presidency.
You must hurry up.
We are ready for an immediate breakthrough in the present deadlock.
I will finish by recalling the words of Mr Watson.
He said that it is necessary to recognise that "political problems often require political solutions".
As we are running behind time, thanks to the capacity of some of the group chairmen to express themselves, I will show a less liberal disposition for the balance of the morning.
Mr President, holding a Presidency is always an opportunity for a country to demonstrate its commitment to a common cause which is no less than moving European integration forward in a way that benefits the citizens.
Mr Aznar, I know that you have a difficult job, that the international context, in political and economic terms, is complicated and furthermore, as has been said, that the Belgian Presidency has set a very high standard.
But have no doubt, Mr President, that the Spanish Socialists will cooperate unreservedly in making the Presidency a success for Spain and for Europe.
There will never ever be disloyalty from our side.
Others may show some.
We hope that you do it well, because we want this Presidency to give Spain prestige within Europe.
Therefore, Mr President, your personal effort and that of the members of your government will have to rise to the occasion.
Mr President, in your communication you have listed Europe' s current priorities.
Enlargement, the Lisbon process, the international coalition for freedoms and against terrorism, the single area of security and justice, the external policy, relations with the Mediterranean countries, the role of Europe in Latin America: that is your agenda, Mr President.
But we Socialists would have liked to hear you make some specific commitment, an ambitious initiative relating to some of these issues.
For example, we would have liked it if, when talking about the Lisbon process, you had stressed the social aspects.
Because the Lisbon process agreed a strategic objective which, together with the construction of a more prosperous and competitive economic area, included the objectives of full employment and greater cohesion.
Please commit yourself, Mr President, to making all the coordination methods relating to these social agenda strategies increasingly Community methods.
Associate the European Parliament, the unions and employers with this process.
In our view, this would mean more Europe.
I will give another example: the Mediterranean and Latin America are European priorities, but a good Spanish Presidency, given its special closeness and relations with these two regions, should be able to put the emphasis on them.
Nevertheless, we do not notice in your programme concrete initiatives to revitalise dialogue and cooperation beyond the creation of the Euro-Mediterranean Development Bank, which by the way was foreseen in 1995 in Barcelona and later in Laeken.
You do not tell us how or when you are going to conclude the negotiations with Mercosur and with Chile.
We note the lack of concrete commitments.
Mr President, we are glad that you have chosen the motto 'More Europe' , and not because it is a classic of the Socialist family.
I will tell you now that we will not judge you by the number of meetings you hold in six months, but we will judge you on the results.
So you must move on from words to actions, Mr President.
What do you mean by more Europe? I imagine that it will not be, as Minister Piqué said, that Europe should speak with a single voice in 2050, because, as country folk would say, 'that is a journey that requires no saddlebags' .
I am truly impressed by the ambition of the Minister for External Affairs.
More Europe means more security, but also more freedom.
More Europe means more employment but also less inequality.
More Europe means more democracy and more participation.
More Europe also means a Europe that is more active in the defence of human rights.
More Europe, in summary, also means less nationalism, of either the old type or the new type.
Mr President, if you act in this way, we will be the first to applaud you.
We want you to be successful and we want to celebrate your success together.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to stress the support of the Liberal Group and of my party, Convergència Democràtica de Catalunya, in order to ensure that this Presidency ends with a positive assessment, with distinction, which will include it in the category of the two previous Spanish Presidencies.
Of the issues mentioned as priorities for the present Presidency, I would like to stress the following three.
That the meeting of the Barcelona European Council, in March, provides concrete commitments and results which can be confirmed, in order to ensure the effective implementation of the structural reforms and liberalisation processes necessary for complying with the objectives set in the process initiated at the Lisbon Council.
That the Euro-Mediterranean Council serves to promote a new stage in the process begun, also under a Spanish Presidency, in Barcelona in 1995, in order to ensure greater and better cooperation between the European Union and the third countries of the Mediterranean.
We are in favour of the creation of a financial institution which allows the full and effective application of the funds agreed for the Mediterranean programmes.
We must intensify the Union' s external policy, in which much of its future peace and stability is at stake.
In your key role as a member of the Praesidium of the Convention, we ask that you ensure the incorporation and participation of the constitutional regions in the institutions of the European Union in the constituent text to be agreed at the Intergovernmental Conference of 2004.
As the chairman of the Liberal Group stressed in his speech, the European Union cannot be considered complete unless it includes the full participation and integration of the Europe of the Regions.
It is an issue to which, under the Spanish Presidency, which will begin with the Convention, we attach the greatest importance, as has been stressed.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Spain will endow the Presidency of the European Union with a proposed set of priorities which shows ambition and will.
European integration today means strengthening freedoms, isolating intolerance and making that integration compatible with the necessary fight against terrorism.
The priority given by Spain to enlargement is not accompanied by the necessary commitments to guarantee the legitimate objectives of the Objective 1 territories.
Vital to me, as a supporter of Andalusian autonomy, in order to safeguard the future, are the reform of the common agricultural policy, the debate on rural development, codecision in agriculture and food safety, in order to prevent extremely costly crises and alarm amongst consumers.
The presence of the autonomous communities in the Council when issues relating to our interests and competences are dealt with will always be positive and enriching.
Reflect the reality of Spain in Europe.
Do not try to hide it, Mr Aznar.
The autonomous communities are also States.
A plural Spain in a plural Europe, creating more Union.
Take that political and social reality further.
Mr Aznar, you have not explicitly mentioned Morocco in your speech.
Include it in your Presidency.
Mr Aznar, please do not let the neutrality of the Presidency paralyse our legitimate Europeanist objective of cohesion.
Let us be firm, but let us also talk.
Mr President, it is a shame that, yet again, some of the left-wing Members have adopted a presumptuous, party-political position of opposition to Italy, to a people, that is, who elected their government freely and democratically, with regard to the development of the future and present European Union.
Moreover, such trifling issues do not deserve Parliament' s attention.
Mr Aznar, the Spanish Presidency' s programme is full of issues to be addressed and objectives, and underlying all the initiatives we can see the commitment to restoring politics to its central place in the debate.
Time constraints prevent us from mentioning more than just a few points.
Firstly, the common economic policy that you have tackled, which the President-designate of the Commission has pinpointed as key for the future and which confirms the view we expressed in voting for the euro in Brussels: there can be no monetary policy without a strong common economic policy.
Secondly, the Mediterranean policy, whose progress must be speeded up because, although cooperation between the intelligence services of the European countries is extremely important to combat terrorism - as we have stressed in the debate on that subject - it is equally true that we need to combat poverty, to restore peace to the Middle East, to re-centre the European Union politically: therefore, we need an incisive Mediterranean policy to be a key part of the forthcoming Barcelona Summit.
Thirdly, implementing the concept of More Europe, or More Europe of the Citizens practically, which means we need institutions which are less bureaucratic and more democratic, and we need greater respect for traditions, for the identities of the individual countries, for a Europe which is not just a standardisation machine but generates growth for each country, as the President of Parliament, Mr Cox, said yesterday.
Then we must not forget the Argentinian disaster: the one hundred and twentieth crisis in Argentina since 1975.
We therefore also need to address the issue of the speculation bubble, the excessive disparity between the actual economy and - indeed - the official economy; we must tackle the Argentinian problem by providing aid immediately, not least because of the ties of friendship and tradition our countries have with Argentina.
Mr President, it is a matter of some regret that Spain, a great country that France and the French people hold very dear, has chosen the theme of 'More Europe' .
This theme does not break any new ground, as it has, after all, been compulsory for almost fifty years, and it cannot fail to cause us concern because 'More Europe' equates to nothing more than the constantly increasing destruction of what makes up the substance of Europe, namely the nations.
To some extent, however, Spain will not break any new ground.
You are not breaking new ground, in particular, in the area that you have made your priority as a head of government, Mr Aznar; in other words, the fight against terrorism.
There is something risible about combating terrorism when you appear to be doing everything possible to encourage its growth, both at a superficial and deeper level, in Europe and everywhere else in the world.
An obvious example of its superficial growth is the ridiculous and criminal obsession with bringing down borders, which of course does not fail to make police controls increasingly difficult and which, above all, encourages internationalism which has always been the greatest weapon of all forms of terrorism since time immemorial.
At a deeper level, bringing down borders destroys people' s sense of national belonging, which for centuries has given them a reference point in space and time, and, in other words, a place in history.
They thus rediscover their ethnic origins and begin to fight against what remains of the nation State, a fight that we also encourage on occasion.
Thus, what is happening in Spain is what happens everywhere else.
In our view, we can only combat Basque terrorism by asserting a broad Spanish policy on the international stage, a policy which, fortunately, Spain also has the resources to conduct in Europe, in the Mediterranean and in Latin America.
However, Europe does not allow us to be self-assertive.
At a deeper level still, terrorism is both favoured and encouraged by the deep disorder into which the world is plunging under the battering that the nations are suffering as a result of the sacrosanct dogma of capitalism that is trade liberalisation.
This does not only lead to the destruction of the national sense of belonging, which is also one of the sources of Islamic terrorism, but also to the building, on the misleading pretext of globalisation, of a real wall between the rich world and poor world, which has no future and is therefore in the most dire straits.
From this point of view, it is fortunately encouraging that the nations are showing signs of rebelling, particularly the nations in Europe. Italy and Germany are giving us some positive signs, Denmark and Ireland have already done so, and I am sure that France will too in the days to come.
Mr Aznar, this could be your main worry in the coming six months.
And if you have made a conscious choice to deny what is really happening at national level, I cannot, we cannot, wish you good luck.
Mr President-in-Office, congratulations and the best of luck for your term of office.
The programme you have presented for your Presidency is extremely dense.
I would like, if I may, to put forward a few suggestions which would make it a great, ambitious programme as well.
I belong to a political family which, unlike many others, has always believed that the only things of any importance are ideas and a vision for the future.
Well then, under your Presidency, an old idea we extremists have had for many years regarding law and international law can come to fruition.
During your Presidency, you can complete the establishment, for the sake of humanity, of the permanent international court which will bring to justice those accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
It will be an historic moment, a fundamental change, which, together with the Treaties, will introduce an initial element of international jurisdiction.
Sixty ratifications are needed and over 50 have been obtained.
Many of our friendly neighbours are far advanced in the process.
It is possible, if you want it, and we will all help you - Parliament is going to discuss the issue in February - for the Spanish Presidency to obtain the necessary 60 ratifications in the name and on behalf of 200 million European citizens.
I hope that you will embrace this as a historic opportunity for change.
Think how different it would be, even where the fight against terrorism is concerned if - as in the case with Slobodan Milosevic, who is a mere war criminal awaiting trial - today, we had the chance to send the Osama Bin Ladens or the Mullah Omars of this world for trial before a permanent international court. Then our American friends would not find themselves having to invent military courts and the like.
Well then, we and you yourself have the chance to achieve this, and we are certainly determined to do so.
Of course, Mr Aznar, we fully support the fight against terrorism, but what concerns me is the political response, for clearly, military and judicial responses are not sufficient.
We continue to follow and implement the principle that the enemy of my enemy is automatically my friend.
We are in danger of heedlessly accepting the most unlikely regimes as allies because we need them.
Some of these regimes, Mr President, are close by; they may even lie on the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
There is another point I would like to make.
You see, I feel that we are sitting next to a minefield and that a new vision of our relations with the Mediterranean must be the priority for our present and certainly for our immediate future.
These are just a few suggestions, Mr President, but they would help us to be forward-looking in a practical way, which is precisely what our citizens want us to be.
Mr President, firstly I would like to wish the Spanish Presidency luck for the ambitious programme they have presented here this morning.
The speeches by certain Members have reminded me of what Marx said, not Karl but Groucho, about certain literary critics who were so busy writing criticism that they never had five minutes to sit down and read a novel.
Mr President, I would like to say that the Spanish Presidency has a series of objectives which are being presented straight away, both in terms of the internal dimension of the project and of its external dimension.
It is clearly a question of uniting wills, forging consensus and identifying the right direction so that the European Union can make progress.
This will require two things.
It requires a method, and at Laeken the Convention method was chosen, which is an innovative method: Europe cannot be built on the basis of concentric circles.
And it requires ambition.
I do not agree with what my good friend Mr Watson said, though I congratulate him on his appointment as chairman of the Liberal Group, because I believe that Spain is very well placed to contribute to overcoming one of the historic challenges of our times, which is how to reconcile unity with diversity prudently and judiciously.
How to provide the European Union project with a well-tuned orchestra, well-tempered, as Mozart said, which is guided by democratic impulses and not by a blast of a bugle like a battalion.
Mr President, when freedom was savagely attacked by the barbarity of 11 September, it immediately became clear that notions of security, defence, cooperation, external policy and development aid are interrelated and must be based on a common awareness that the threats and dangers of terrorism affect all of us alike and that we must therefore respond to them as one.
Mr President, I would like to say a couple of things about Latin America.
This Parliament thinks that Latin America does not need gifts, but rather opportunities.
But we also believe that we sometimes have to move on from beatitudes to accounting books and we have, therefore, significantly increased the quantities proposed by the Commission for cooperation with these regions in 2002 and we have presented an ambitious catalogue of measures aimed at giving content to that strategic objective, which the Heads of State and Government drew up at the Rio de Janeiro Summit, of creating a strategic bi-regional partnership.
Therefore, as the Presidency-in-Office has stated, we hope that the Madrid Summit will be able to send a clear and well-defined message of the Europe' s new commitment to Latin America.
I am absolutely convinced that the storey which this Presidency has to add to this Community building will be a match for the ambitious priorities they have presented to us this morning.
Mr Aznar, twenty years ago, one European market with one currency, the euro, was a dream.
Today, it is a reality.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists would like to see the same ambitions inform European security and defence policy, and all the events of 11 September have only strengthened this wish.
It is a prerequisite for peace and progress.
This is why we support the Spanish Presidency if it wishes to inject this ESDP with more dynamism, greater capacity and, in general, more resources to become more effective.
In this respect, it is essential for the message of multilateralism to be broadcast.
The US' s withdrawal from the ABM Treaty is in conflict with this.
We do not want to relapse into a fresh arms race.
We would ask the Spanish Presidency to send this European message to our ally, the United States, in particular.
We can drive this message home and make this appeal to the US with all the more force now that we, as Europe - in the coalition - are prepared vigorously to continue the fight against terrorism, both inside and outside Europe.
I have a second, serious question for the Spanish Presidency. Are you also prepared to fight for a worldwide coalition against poverty?
After all, poverty largely forms the breeding ground for fundamentalist hatred, of whatever origin. It must be a coalition against poverty in Asia, in Africa and also in the Euro-Mediterranean process, for security on our planet is not there for the chosen few, but is only stable if it is shared by all, under an international rule of law.
Does the Spanish Presidency not agree that it would be better to make financial investments in this instead of putting all our money unilaterally into new, Star Wars-like investments?
Against this backdrop, would you make every effort to help Messrs Solana and Patten to have a fully operational capacity for the Petersberg tasks by 2003?
In the Middle East, we hear Iran' s ex-Prime Minister, Mr Rafsanjani, threaten to destroy Israel by means of an atom bomb.
His saying that is wholly unacceptable.
But the policy of Mr Sharon, who has isolated Mr Arafat and has turned innocent Palestinian citizens into victims, has not contributed to security in Israel and Palestine in any way.
Is the Spanish Presidency, in tandem with the United States and Russia, prepared to launch a new peace initiative in the Middle East as a whole? We would be very grateful if it did.
Mr President, Mr Aznar, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, as a Member from the Canary Islands, one of the Community' s outermost regions, and a member of the European Liberal and Democratic Reform Group, I warmly welcome the Presidency-in-Office of the Council.
Do not forget, Mr Aznar, to deal with the outstanding issues facing us in this six-month period to come, during which enlargement and the euro are presenting the European Community with a very special kind of landscape, in which the whole world is more or less affected for various reasons which oblige us to make constant, permanent and joint efforts to achieve peace and prosperity.
I must remind you that, in our European sphere, in all the pillars of the Community edifice, we have maintenance problems.
Therefore, Community policies must include something which you have pointed out: 'more Europe' .
And this is true, especially when it comes to reviewing the CAP, the Structural Funds, the consolidation of the situation of the outermost regions and creating a genuine European immigration strategy.
It is also true when it comes to institutional reforms, defining the role and the participation of the regions in the construction of the Europe of the Twenty-first Century and an appropriate environmental policy, without forgetting the fields of social policy, that is, employment and the SMEs.
Neither must you forget, in your dual capacity as President-in-Office of the Council and Spanish Prime Minister, to export more Europe to the world.
To this end, we must review the Union' s external relations - such as the Council' s common position on Cuba and the future of the Sahara, by means of a self-determination referendum - without forgetting the dialogue with our Mediterranean neighbours - from Morocco to the Middle East - or with more distant regions, such as Latin America, with the problem of Argentina, or the United States and China.
Of course you can count on our support, as always, in the joint European political fight against terrorism.
I wish you luck in this special mandate and I trust that we will all be able to celebrate together following your success in the June exams, because what is good for Europe is good for everybody, especially the outermost regions.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, your priorities for the Presidency do not deal with, or at least place very much in second place, certain policies which, since they are fundamental to the Union and also for Spain and my nation, must be dealt with in 2002: the CAP, the common fisheries policy and the future of the Structural Funds.
On the contrary, you intend to use your Presidency to indulge your authoritarian obsession against European diversity, denying a presence in the Council to nationalities and regions of the Spanish States, employing a notion of sovereignty which is now anti-historical and anachronistic in the Union.
If your approach were correct, Mr Aznar, we would have to concluded that you are appearing here today as a President of a foreign institution.
We do not think like that.
I represent my nation and I am also a citizen of the Spanish State and of the Union, and there is no contradiction here.
You are mixed up in an authoritarian manner in something which is resolved in the Treaties and in practice, while ignoring the fact that in the future, if we do not deal with the problem of sovereignty, not to mention separatism, we will ask ourselves not only why Slovakia can chair a Fisheries Council while Galicia, Andalusia or the Canaries cannot attend it, but also why the historic national status of the Malta or Luxembourg is rightly recognised, while that of Galicia, the Basque country, Catalonia, Scotland, Wales or Flanders is not.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, negotiations with the candidates for accession are entering their most difficult stage yet under the Spanish Presidency.
The chapters on agriculture and regional development therefore demand the utmost sensitivity and particular prudence.
A discriminating approach is called for, especially as regards direct payments to farmers.
If we are not to be reproached for stepping up mass production to excessive levels, we must concentrate more on integrated rural policy in the accession countries rather than carrying over the system of direct payments.
Particular negotiating skill will be required in view of the background of difficulties that are manifesting themselves and the mutually opposing interests with regard to support measures.
It is indeed a matter of crucial importance that the negotiations should make capacity and sustainability possible for the future, by which I mean beyond 2004 and over and above Agenda 2000.
Prime Minister Aznar's performance this morning suggests that his presidency promises to be focused and business-like and committed to addressing the big issues.
The presidency has many tasks on the international front; carrying forward the global war on terrorism is the most difficult and the most important.
The presidency has promised to resolutely promote solidarity with the United States at this time of crisis, and it is right to do so, but other foreign problems will crowd in.
In Zimbabwe we have a growing tragedy which requires urgent EU action: smart sanctions need to be introduced immediately and a clear message sent about the dangerous consequences of the criminal path on which Mr Mugabe is currently engaged.
The presidency faces similar challenges on the economic front.
If Europe is serious about making itself the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010, then Barcelona promises to be a moment of truth.
We simply cannot afford continued failure.
Europe has to get it right.
Since Stockholm things have in fact moved backwards.
The liberalising agenda has become bogged down by new social and environmental targets.
Since then we have seen at least three new EU directives which directly reduce labour market flexibility, with more in the pipeline, as well as new national laws, as in France, that tie the hands of business.
This is a job-destroying agenda.
In the target sectors for greater competition, the picture is frankly unacceptable.
In financial services - telecoms for instance - liberalisation is proceeding too slowly.
The freeing up of energy markets and postal services is way behind schedule.
If Europe really wants to emerge as the global economic leader by the end of this decade, it must show real commitment.
We need to make it easier to start and run a business and to keep and invest profits.
That means a lot of vested interests will need to be confronted.
We look to Prime Minister Aznar to lead the way.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Parliament is engaged in strenuous discussions with the Commission concerning new ways of governing - 'European governance' .
As parliamentarians we have raised objections to several proposals in the interests of effective and lively parliamentary government, but we have also found agreement with the Commission on a number of things.
Something we would both like, Mr President-in-Office, but which the Council has to date refused, is an interinstitutional working party in which we - Parliament, Commission and Council together - could discuss the issues surrounding the new way of governing.
I would ask you, Mr President-in-Office, to take care that the Council agrees to this way of proceeding together.
Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, we are of the opinion that we should in any case be treated equally with the Council, including on the issue of secondary legislation.
It is our opinion that we too should have a call back position should the secondary legislation not work well.
We take the view, moreover, that framework directives should have a sort of 'sunset clause' , a time limit.
We agree with the Commission in any case that lawmaking and the decision-making process in the European Union should again and again have their effectiveness monitored.
This also applies to the area of liberalisation, which we sometimes doubt is being carried out with a careful eye and social awareness.
Questions to be considered in this area include, for example, whether liberalisation always leads to lower prices in the long term, whether it always results in competition or sometimes also to monopolies and oligopolies, the only difference being that this time they are across Europe.
What are the chances under liberalisation for the small and medium-sized enterprises about which we are all concerned, especially in the smaller sectors? How about the issue of concentration, especially in the media?
Italy has already been mentioned today.
We often turn a blind eye to this.
What is the net effect on employment and wages?
I mention these things not because either I or my group are opposed to liberalisation. We mention these things because we want to carry out liberalisation in the interests of our citizens, with a careful eye and social awareness.
It may be for this reason, Mr President of the Commission and Mr President-in-Office, that some governments are sceptical about liberalisation and slow to implement it, because they feel that it does not always exactly lead to the good objective that is in mind, and because they feel that their own people do not always perceive the advantages to be found in the detail of this liberalisation strategy.
So I beg to ask you to consider, within the framework of the Barcelona and Lisbon processes, how liberalisation, which you in your programme want to push and press ahead with, can come about in our people's interest, taking the social dimensions into account as well. The continuation of an arbitrary liberalisation strategy cannot be what it is all about.
Whilst Mr Berlusconi thinks we should strengthen Europe by being more American than the Americans, I do believe we should take our own European road to liberalisation.
Mr President, "More Europe" is a watchword we support, but it must be accompanied by 'More freedom' and 'More identity' .
As strong supporters of the Europe of the peoples we see as brothers - from the Basques to the Corsicans, the Flemish to the Padanians - and therefore also strong supporters of freedoms and autonomies, we identify with the project of European integration, seeing it, not least, as a response to the serious dangers of globalisation.
This motto 'More Europe' must embrace more specific commitments and actions to protect the freedoms and identities of the Europeans.
To achieve 'More Europe' , we first need undertakings to protect the diversities and specific characteristics - linguistic, regional, national and cultural - for which our peoples are fighting, particularly the people of the Po Valley.
This means taking the opposite direction to that advocated by the standardisation directives produced by the technocratic oligarchy, which has not been legitimised by any form of election, and is currently guiding and directing all the European Union' s politics.
Similarly, how could one fail to see the link between the fight against terrorism - which we support - and the dangers represented by illegal immigration, which is the breeding ground for terrorism? There is a Council of Europe resolution which calls for immigration to be limited so as to avoid increasing or exacerbating unemployment within the States.
Why is it not invoked?
Mr President, in Laeken, two decisions were taken which are very important to the creation of a European judicial area in the fight against terrorism: a common definition and sanctions in relation to terrorism and the European arrest warrant.
This Parliament had insisted on these two measures in the Watson report - and I would like to congratulate him on his election and also on his words - and I believe we have done a positive job with the Council and the Commission in implementing it.
In Laeken, an assessment was also made of the implementation of the Tampere agenda.
I will return to that in a moment.
But I would also like to say that on 27 December, COREPER adopted a series of decisions relating to the fight against terrorism.
The decision allowing for a list of people and organisations active in the European Union is significant.
Article 4 of the common position stating the need for the police and judicial cooperation laid down in the Treaty and in the international agreements in this field will be applied to them.
We are delighted with this decision, which is of unquestionable symbolic value.
We hope that the measures for combating the funding of terrorism in Europe can also be applied soon.
And I also hope, Mr President, that the Council will maintain the excellent cooperation that it has enjoyed with this Parliament, with the exception of recent times.
Having adopted the most important instruments for fighting terrorism, we must now see that they are applied.
You can and must convince the States which have the most doubts.
I would also like to point out a cause for concern in relation to the question of immigration.
Your agenda mentions immigration for humanitarian reasons and the fight against illegal immigration.
You miss out an important package: that of rights and duties and that of the organisation of the legal entry of persons.
And there are already documents in the Commission in this regard.
Please promote the whole agenda, so that we do not have to end up regretting unfulfilled decisions, as happened in Laeken with certain decisions taken in Tampere.
Senyor President Aznar, the theme you have given your presidency is 'Más Europa' [More Europe].
'Más Europa' also implies that Catalan, a language spoken by almost 10 million Europeans, can be established in this House. This is enshrined in the Charter on Fundamental Rights and is part of our cultural diversity.
'Más Europa' also means that our Ministers can be directly involved in the European decisions that concern them, as defined in the Treaty of Maastricht.
'Más Europa' also implies that the State must not commit the ecological crime of the national hydrological plan, as stipulated in the European habitat and water directives.
'Más Europa' also means enabling all nations, if they wish, to become full members of the Union; this is contained in several European Parliament resolutions acknowledging the right to self-determination.
President Aznar, my party, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, the Republican Left of Catalonia, and I know that we cannot count on you to make all these democratic advances.
Mr President, when I look at the stars on our flag, I see old and young nations rising up in the four corners of Europe.
They all wish to take their place, their rightful place in this common Chamber.
Allow me to finish in Catalan...
...
Visca Catalunya lliure! [Long live a free Catalonia!]
Visca Europa unida! [Long live a united Europe!]
Mr President, Prime Minister, thank you for your presentation of the Spanish Presidency's priorities.
I will comment on just one of them, namely your determination to complete the single market in the gas and electricity sectors.
We have misgivings about your approach.
You want the EU to be guided by five major principles: openness, liberalisation, competition, transparency and interconnection.
These are fundamental to an open market.
Energy, however, is not like other goods or services.
It has other facets: basic social need and environmental impact.
A rushed and ill-considered liberalisation would be highly dangerous.
Your own country, like California, has recently suffered major power cuts following liberalisation.
Liberalisation leads to a dash for gas, forcing us to import gas from some very fragile regimes.
We need to ensure that indigenous energy sources can play a major role in energy supply.
Renewable energies in particular need legal protection and promotion.
The greatest contribution to security of supply is intelligent use of energy, one of the regulatory requirements of wise liberalisation.
Please ensure that energy efficiency becomes a key national indicator at Barcelona.
Uneven opening of the market between countries brings huge resentment.
We strongly support your efforts to put pressure on certain governments, which keep their markets closed while they take advantage of open markets elsewhere.
I look forward to your assurance that liberalisation of energy will take place in a very strictly regulated framework which protects the environment and takes heed of social consequences, some of which are very serious.
Unlike Mr Evans, we think that is important.
I should like to inform the House that because we are running behind schedule I expect to be in a position to call on the President-in-Office of the Council to respond to the debate at around 12.45 p.m. or 12.50 p.m.
This means that in all probability the vote will not be taken until 1 p.m.
This information will be placed on the screens in Parliament so that colleagues who wish to attend the vote can do so.
But I would like to hear the Prime Minister's response in calm parliamentary conditions, if that is possible.
Mr President, the Spanish Presidency, which has our full support, will play a crucial role in the integration of a Europe which is not just the Europe of the single currency but the Europe of the common foreign and security policy as well.
The Union' s joint action will be judged initially on the success of the fight against terrorism, which is not an internal Spanish affair but a fundamental issue in which we must all be involved, just as we are with regard to the European presence in Afghanistan.
We too will support any undertaking in the Middle East because it is only by resolving the Israeli-Palestinian crisis that we will be able to deliver the final blow to the terrorist organisations.
Indeed, it is a political effort, above all, as well as military endeavours that can bring Europe success against the instigators of the attack of 11 September.
The return to the rule of law in the world will contribute to economic growth and thus help to improve the conditions of the European citizens, whom we also have to provide with a system of social and other protection which abolishes longstanding privileges.
The Convention will also have to decide upon the way to follow to develop the new Charter, and we hope that the Intergovernmental Conference will be able to take place during the second half of 2003 to avoid Europe' s future being debated right in the middle of the electoral campaign.
However, I cannot close without responding to a number of statements made in this House.
The strong Europeanism of Italy and of its democratically elected government is indisputable.
We are always ready to request or provide clarification and would stress that it is absolutely unthinkable that Italy should have anything but an independent, leading role in the development of European unity.
Rather, let the Socialists explain the agreement signed in Berlin with the GDR, with the former supporters of the Berlin wall: an agreement which goes against the great hopes of freedom not just of the German people but of all Europeans.
Mr President, I speak for the Socialists from the point of view of Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
The Barcelona Summit will be a major milestone during the Spanish Presidency and it is essential that we reply to the downward global economic trend by further deepening and strengthening the process laid down at Lisbon and further developed at Stockholm and Göteborg.
The Lisbon policy mix of mutually supportive economic reform, full employment, social cohesion and sustainable development needs to be reinforced through concrete measures that increase the potential for growth and job creation.
It would be a grave mistake to concentrate - as some have done in the debate today - on only one aspect of the Lisbon process, that of structural reform.
At this time, we need to further develop the coherence of the Lisbon process and reinforce it.
In concrete terms, we want a number of priorities developed at Barcelona, some of which are reflected in the Commission's synthesis report adopted this week.
The following are purely illustrative in the limited time available.
We want a strengthening of resolve to achieve the goal of a 70% employment rate by 2010, recognising the good progress we have seen and increasing the participation of unemployed people in active labour measures to at least 20% in nearly all Member States; we want to go further and set a new target of 44%, the level in the three best-performing Member States, to be achieved within a five-year timeframe.
Within this timeframe we need, among other things, further action for women and older workers able and willing to stay in the labour market; action to improve the availability of affordable and good-quality child care; goals for reductions in youth unemployment and renewed emphasis upon life-long learning, training and improved mobility.
We also need further action to address demographic change through an integrated approach to safeguard sustainable and universal pensions.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, the Spanish Presidency of the European Union has given itself the theme of 'More Europe' , which is a desire shared by a large majority of Europeans who, as of 1 January 2002, now share the same currency.
'More Europe' must not mean more of an omnipresent, over-bearing Europe.
On the contrary, 'More Europe' must mean more of a political Europe where it is necessary to improve our standing on the international stage and to enable our economies to become stronger and to create further jobs.
Spain is undertaking its third presidency of the Union and therefore has proven experience in this area.
More importantly, the Spanish government led by Mr José Maria Aznar, whom I welcome, is implementing a successful policy which, if applied to Europe, could turn out to be extremely worthwhile.
As far as the fight against terrorism is concerned, there is, unfortunately, no need to dwell at length on the tragedies that too often plunge the people of Spain into mourning, as they fall victim to barbaric acts carried out by ETA and its counterparts.
It is now easy for us to understand, particularly after the events of 11 September, that the primary concern of the Spanish Presidency is, quite clearly, the fight against terrorism within an area of freedom, security and justice.
However, what citizens really expect from Europe, and from the authorities in general, is for us to put in place the conditions to create a competitive economy that will guarantee the prosperity of as many people as possible.
Mr Aznar, you know how to do this in Spain; we are sure that you will provide the necessary impetus so that the objective set in Lisbon to achieve full employment by 2010 is consolidated and attained within the framework of a timetable defined at Barcelona in March.
It will come as no surprise to any of you that, having been elected to represent the island of Reunion, I welcome the will that was clearly expressed by the Spanish Presidency to pursue the implementation of Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, so that the special characteristics of such regions are taken into account in each of the European Union' s policies.
Lastly, I would like to point out to the President-in-Office of the Council that the first meeting of the Convention will not be held at the European Parliament' s headquarters in Strasbourg; it will instead take place in one of our working places, namely Brussels.
Mr President, the Spanish Presidency has rightly named the fight against terrorism as its first priority.
The Spanish Presidency has also rightly indicated the importance of money laundering to terrorism.
Because the true driving force of terrorism, at least in Europe, is not ideology, but money.
We are concerned about whether it will be possible for the Council to overcome the obstacle standing in the way of fighting terrorism resulting from certain governments blocking the Community proposals on the fight against money laundering.
Secondly, Mr President, the Spanish Presidency insists on the problem of immigration and the need to control it.
The Presidency' s programme also talks about the outermost regions.
I wanted to link these two problems by pointing out that the outermost regions, although they are far from the Community' s continental territory, are in fact part of our territory and that it is currently necessary to control illegal immigration into these regions.
I do not believe that the procedure adopted by certain local authorities is the appropriate one: i.e. providing free tickets so that illegal immigrants in the Canaries can be transported to the mainland of the continent.
But if we do not adopt measures on a Community level, it is possible that other local authorities will feel obliged to do the same.
Finally, Mr President, over recent years it seems that both the Council and the Commission have forgotten where Latin America is.
It is as if the navigation charts have disappeared.
The Spanish Presidency points to the importance of holding the Ibero-American Summit and, also in the President' s speech, he rightly stresses the importance of helping certain countries such as Argentina and Colombia.
I believe it is very important that the Spanish Presidency takes the helm once again, places Latin America on the continent' s navigation charts and, like in the Fifteenth Century, supports, in this new era, the link between the European Union and Latin America.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to extend a warm welcome to the Spanish Presidency.
Prime Minister Aznar, we have great faith in you, and we also wish you every success on the sound plans you have for the coming six months.
In my view, an important task is to ensure that the Convention, which is to develop proposals on Europe' s future, gets off to a flying start.
It is also important that this be done quickly, and I am pleased to hear it is to be launched as soon as the end of February.
I have heard you say that the reform, or deepening, of the European institutions is necessary in order to make a success of enlargement.
I could not agree more.
I have also heard you call for more co-decision and more transparency.
I would like to endorse that too.
The European Parliament must become a normal parliament with full legislative powers, and the Council, in its capacity as co-legislator, must become more transparent in its working practices, possibly modelling itself on the German Federal Council.
I also support Mr Aznar' s plea for anti-terrorism policy to be accelerated and Europol to be reinforced.
Mr Aznar, you are right in saying that tougher action is required to tackle the drugs trade.
Together with the trafficking in human beings, the drugs trade appears to be one of the key sources of funding for terrorism.
It is high time we clamped down on this evil, and I hope you will receive Dutch support for this.
I should like to finish off with an observation with regard to socio-economic policy.
You have spoken of the need for more labour mobility.
In my country, the Netherlands, there is a labour shortage.
There are tens of thousands, and probably even more than one hundred thousand, vacancies for jobs which cannot be filled.
The care sector and public transport spring to mind.
These sectors are performing badly because of a shortage of labour.
Why are European job agencies not being set up to analyse which countries have labour shortages and which have labour surpluses? Surely it should be possible, with the help of brief language courses, to help the millions of unemployed in Germany to find jobs in the Netherlands, for example.
If you could do something about this, you would be helping both the countries with labour shortages and those with labour surpluses.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I welcome your presidency.
The actual introduction of the euro is a red letter day for those of us who want to see European integration and economic development.
The task for the EU is now to ensure that the euro lives up to the expectations surrounding it.
That is why it is a matter of such urgency that Spain should give priority to a dynamic and competitive Europe.
The Socialist leader in this House, who otherwise appears to have no interest at all in this debate, adopted a particularly 'whining' tone in his remarks on this subject.
The fact is that you as a head of government, Mr Aznar, have made a much more dynamic Spain possible, thanks to modernisation of the administration and of economic life.
By means of important structural changes and tax reductions, Spain now presents fewer obstacles to new companies' setting up and has created new job opportunities.
That is why unemployment is falling and prosperity increasing in Spain.
That may be sad for Mr Barón Crespo, but it is good for Spaniards.
It is precisely this transformation that the EU must carry out if the Lisbon process is to be taken seriously.
The Socialists have let two out of ten years simply pass by.
The Spanish Presidency must now increase the pressure and, instead of just talking, pursue a policy of prosperity, development and opportunities for the people of Europe.
Enlargement has now entered a crucial phase.
I trust that Spain, which has experienced dictatorship and has secured democracy and freedom through European cooperation, will now guarantee that the Council does not leave anything undone in the work of enlargement under your leadership and that Spain will show the same solidarity and good will as has been shown to your country for fifteen years.
Finally, I am also looking forward to a presidency whose relations with the United States are characterised by friendship, respect and independence.
Good luck in what you intend!
Mr President, Spain is assuming the Presidency of the European Union at an historic moment for European integration.
Two major events have occurred.
The people of Europe now have the euro in their pockets.
This is an incredible success and we must rapidly construct the political Europe that they lack.
The second major event was 11 September, which reminded us, as if this were necessary, of the nature of the new threats hanging over the world.
The Spanish Presidency is facing these two challenges.
By placing the fight against terrorism at the forefront of its programme, the Spanish Presidency is thus meeting the expectations of a Europe that must become an area of security and a constitutional State for all European citizens.
All resources must be properly implemented at European level to strengthen the instruments of the constitutional State, such as the introduction of the European arrest warrant, the freezing of funds, the mutual recognition of judicial decisions and the development of Eurojust.
However, in order to meet the expectations of our fellow citizens, we have to face another challenge. We must bring about a strong, powerful, and therefore democratic, political Europe.
The Spanish Presidency will be able to use the work of the Convention so that it can go ahead, at last, with the simplification of the treaties, with the task of clearly dividing up the competences between the European Union and Member States, but, above all, with rapidly bringing about the drafting of a European constitution.
On all of these issues, I know that the Spanish Presidency will press ahead with determination.
The programme that was proposed to us today meets the challenges facing us.
We know your vision, we know your determination, and that is why we have confidence in you.
Mr President, tomorrow this Parliament will approve the resolution on the Commission' s Green Paper on the future of the common fisheries policy, which draws up its future.
I would like the motto 'more Europe' , chosen by the Spanish Presidency, to be converted this year into the definitive integration of fishing into the single market, and I would like a CFP to be more participatory, a CFP whose definition and application involve the presence not only of central governments but also of the regions, of regions with competences in the field of fishing, and of course economic and social actors.
Fishing, Mr President, works on an international basis, like the whole of the economy.
Its reform cannot ignore this reality.
Nevertheless, it worries us to see that the Community fleet' s access to external waters is being restricted and that our fleet is losing fishing grounds rather than gaining them.
In six months' time we will be able to judge this Presidency by its results and see whether it has been able to reverse this trend.
Given the importance of this economic activity to numerous European regions, most of them peripheral and Objective 1, and its role as an element of economic integration and social cohesion, we want you to take it into account as a priority objective when it comes to strategies for safeguarding the European social model, which you mentioned in your speech.
I would like you to make that explicit commitment here, thereby helping this sector to recover its fighting spirit and confidence.
Mr President, amongst the priorities of the Spanish Presidency, I have heard no mention of a European policy that shows greater solidarity with the rest of the world.
As coordinator of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like you to clarify your plans for social development and for the reduction of poverty, which the Commission, Parliament and previous presidencies have set as objectives.
You mentioned the Monterrey International Conference. What position will you be adopting on the policies that need to be funded?
Who is to fund them?
Are you going to support the objective of 0.7% of GDP, approved at the last Development Council by the majority of Member States? How much cooperation will there be with Latin America and with the countries of the Mediterranean, with an integrated approach between trade relations and the fight against poverty?
What will your position be on the commitments given through the United Nations programmes on education and health for all?
What will your position be on the current conflicts in Africa?
I hope that on all of these issues you will consult the European Parliament and, also, civil society and the NGOs.
I wish you a Presidency, Mr Aznar, that will be fruitful for Europe.
Mr President, Mr Aznar has laid down the clear objective of 'More Europe' for the Spanish Presidency and has explained how he intends to carry out the programme.
Time constraints dictate that we will have to focus on a small number of issues and not waste words.
The first issue is the Convention, which will have to supplement the Charter of Fundamental Rights, promoting the Community method and the federalist approach as a guarantee of political democracy, economic integration and social cohesion.
The second issue is the Lisbon reforms, which have now become intertwined with the launch of the euro.
The single currency consolidates the single market and represents a decisive step towards political Europe and a common economic policy.
The single currency strengthens Europe' s position in the face of globalisation but means that it is no longer possible for national systems to restore competitiveness by devaluing.
The Stability Pact must be respected.
In the interests of economic recovery and employment, therefore, the structural reforms, mentioned specifically by President Prodi, need to be pursued with the necessary determination.
This strategy must be consistent with the overall goals of integration, cohesion and harmonisation of the series of policies upholding the European social model.
It is not easy to pursue apparently conflicting goals in a balanced way, but this is the challenge of the present times.
The third issue is the 'political' contribution that Europe can make to the fight against terrorism which has been occupying all the major democracies since 11 September.
I call, in particular, for the reinvigoration of the Mediterranean policy and for peace initiatives in the Middle East. Spain has, on many occasions, been at the forefront of action addressing these issues.
Lastly, I support the pledge made by Mr Aznar regarding Argentina, a country afflicted by a crisis which is threatening democracy itself and which could exacerbate the difficult situations of other Latin American countries.
Mr President, as the last speaker, I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for having remained present in the Chamber for the entire debate.
In this speech, which will be brief, I should also like, first of all, to express my personal satisfaction at the presence in the Chamber today of the President of the Spanish government, José María Aznar, who, long before the events of 11 September had already made the defence of freedom and the fight against those who seek to curb it, such as terrorist murderers, one of the leitmotivs of his political approach.
The results of this political action at European level could not be more heartening.
Secondly, the Union' s immigration policy, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, requires your drive and your sensitivity towards such a burning issue, which is, I note, one of the Presidency' s objectives.
I refer, for example, to the undeniable need to give a boost to Community legislation regulating aspects as important as family reunification, asylum procedure, or reception conditions for asylum seekers, in order to achieve a proper organisation of migratory flows, which effectively combats people trafficking in human need and who are responsible for the tragic deaths that are taking place in some parts of European territory, such as the Andalusian and other Spanish coastlines.
Before I call the next speaker I ask colleagues in the House to take their seats so that we can listen with some parliamentary dignity to the reply of the presidency.
Thank you very much, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
I thank you for all of the speeches you have made during this sitting, which I have listened to with the greatest interest.
I wish to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that, of course, I share many of the aspirations that you have expressed here today.
I also share many of your concerns but nor should it come as a surprise to anybody that I do not fully agree with some of what I have heard.
I must of course, say, however, that, in general terms, I have the feeling that the basic elements of the issues, the objectives and the hopes that we, the various institutions and Europe' s citizens in general share are or can, quite reasonably, be promoted for the future, when it comes to putting our ideas and our plans into practice.
I should like, first of all, to emphasise the importance of institutional dialogue and, within institutional dialogue, once again emphasise my commitment.
We will have the opportunity to speak about this European impetus and also about the work of the Spanish Presidency, both in March, following the Barcelona European Council, and in June, following the Seville European Council.
This is not, of course, to undermine the importance of the appearances by various members of the Spanish government at the various parliamentary bodies of this institution.
I must tell you that, as holder of the Presidency, I see no problem in establishing what some of you have requested: the creation of a working group for interinstitutional dialogue that encompasses the Council, Parliament and the Commission and which will enable us to see clearly how best our work can be carried out.
I do not think that the Commission has any problem with this either.
Therefore, from this point of view, I am aware of, and agree with some of your concerns, such as the processing of documents concerning the second and third pillars, which must be resolved with all the guarantees required by the circumstances, the facts themselves and by the sensitivity of the matter, as is done in many national parliaments, with guarantees of security and of confidentiality.
We can clearly make progress on many of these issues and, therefore, the Presidency will not raise any opposition to the creation of this interinstitutional working group.
I should like to focus my speech, if I may, on the Presidency' s objectives and work programme and on no other matter.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have before us an extremely important opportunity for the European Union, at an historic juncture, which is of great significance.
In my opinion, we have before us an opportunity of which we must not fail to take advantage.
This opportunity is evident in various situations.
The entire world situation has changed following 11 September and in a tragic fashion.
The priority in the world today is security and the fight against terrorism.
The change that has taken place since 11 September is causing fundamental strategic changes in the world that will define the world of tomorrow, on which the European institutions must reflect, maintain dialogue and on which they must adopt a position for the future.
The European Union as such, through its various institutions, cannot remain on the sidelines of the important debate and participation in the profound strategic changes that the world will be seeing.
Secondly, this is a very important opportunity from the economic point of view.
I say this for various reasons.
Firstly, because for the first time we have the euro, our single currency, which is a guarantee of stability and which has been a great success.
Secondly, because for structural reasons, to which I shall refer later, our economies need to continue putting their faith in major reforms.
Thirdly, because we are going through a period of economic slowdown and unless we can take advantage of the introduction of the euro, providing impetus for economic reforms, we will be wasting an opportunity to help our economies to recover, which is, of course, extremely important.
The third aspect that must be emphasised is that we are close to concluding a process which has, of course, a huge scope, that we might call enlargement, expansion or whatever we want; but which is, ultimately, the great political process of European unification. This is the objective that would, in itself, of course, fulfil the ambitions of a political generation that is able to look back on European history and which is concerned about planning and organising our future in a reasonable way.
Lastly, we are aware that we must undertake a reform of the institutions, and we have, for this purpose, proposed the Convention and an Intergovernmental Conference.
All of these ambitions provide us with a crucial opportunity.
I wish to convey to the European Parliament the commitment of the Spanish Presidency to share ambitions and, at the same time, to work coherently to achieve our objectives more effectively.
This is why we have set out various priorities, on which, in response to your speeches, I should like to briefly comment.
First of all, with regard to the fight against terrorism, this is no longer a problem affecting only some people, but one that affects all of us, a problem to which some could show greater commitment, but it is quite clearly the responsibility of everyone.
Of course, I appreciate, as I have said, the work and the efforts that the European Parliament has devoted to this matter.
Of course, we have to consider the fight against terrorism not only in itself but also in relation to the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice, and to the Tampere commitments that are part of this more integrated Europe that we wish to build for the future.
Various speakers, in particular Mr Poettering, have called for us to be resolute in the fight against terrorism.
They are right.
We must ask ourselves if in general terms, the European Union is capable at this historic juncture of dealing with the task in hand.
I would say that it is reasonably capable, that the European arrest and surrender warrant - supported, of course, by all Fifteen Member States of the Union - the fight against the funding of terrorist organisations and the definition of a list of groups of organisations and persons that support terrorism are extraordinary steps.
It is my fervent hope that in its sitting of 5 February, the European Parliament will also take a definitive step in this direction.
How can this be done? This must be done on the basis of the guarantees provided by the Rule of Law.
You are quite right, ladies and gentlemen, in saying that the Rule of Law and our freedoms must be fully guaranteed.
It is also true, and it should not be forgotten at this time that this is exactly what safeguards democracies and that this is exactly what these people wish to destroy and what those who dedicate themselves to carrying out or supporting terrorism wish to put an end to.
Maintaining democracy through the Rule of Law is precisely, of course, our best guarantee.
There cannot be - and indeed there are none - half-way houses in the fight against terrorism, because there are no half-way houses between life and death, between legality and lawlessness, between respect for the law and complicity with terrorism.
What there must be is a clear defence, when necessary, from an international point of view, by means of an international coalition, and, when necessary, with the domestic commitment or with the international cooperation of all, to ensure that our freedoms and our Rule of law triumph.
And in order to achieve this, we have to work, from an operational perspective, on issues of security, intelligence, cooperation between police forces, joint investigation teams and also on the common judicial issues that are a crucial part of the process of European integration.
Furthermore, if we are coherent and consider terrorism to be one of the greatest threats currently facing our civilisation, we will have to include terrorism as an objective in the definition of the European Union' s security and defence policy.
I think that this is a very important aspect and warrants very special treatment, at least in two chapters of relations that are highly relevant to the European Union: the first concerns the United States, with whom we also have discuss legal and criminal matters, whilst at the same time, of course, respecting our extradition system and maintaining our position of clear opposition to the death penalty, or of support for the jurisdiction of the courts and for all the sentences that can be handed down to an individual.
But we have to discuss such matters.
We also have to discuss matters in order to reach conclusions on some of your concerns about the importance of cooperation with Russia in the fight against terrorism.
I am sorry to interrupt, Prime Minister.
Colleagues, I really must insist that you take your places quietly.
I ask the ushers to approach any Members who are having conversations and ask them to sit or to leave.
We cannot work in intolerable parliamentary conditions on an occasion such as this!
Thank you, President-in-Office of the Council.
I note your willingness to come before the House after the Barcelona Summit, which we believe is an important additional moment for dialogue between our institutions.
Vote
The next item is the vote.
Proposal for a Decision (B5-0032/2002) pursuant to Rule 150(1) of the Rules of Procedure by the following Members: Poettering, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, Barón Crespo, on behalf of the PSE Group, Cox, on behalf of the ELDR Group, Cohn-Bendit, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, Wurtz, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, Collins, on behalf of the UEN Group, Bonde, on behalf of the EDD Group, on the numerical strength of committees.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Proposal for a Decision by the Conference of Presidents (B5-0021/2002) pursuant to Rule 150(2) of the Rules of Procedure on the setting up a temporary committee on foot-and-mouth disease.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Report (A5-0463/2001) by Bushill-Matthews, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on general aspects of consumer protection policy and more particularly consumer information and education in connection with the application of Directive 90/314/EC (2001/2136(INI)).
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Recommendation for second reading: - on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down a Community Action Programme promoting non-governmental organisations primarily active in the field of environmental protection (13397/1/2001 - C5-0643/2001 - 2001/0139(COD)).
(Parliament approved the common position)
Report (A5-0462/2001) by Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision relating to the conclusion, on behalf of the Community, of the Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (COM(2001) 483 - C5-0644/2001 - 2001/0188(CNS)).
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
President.
That concludes the vote.
- Temporary committee on foot-and-mouth disease
.
I tried to tell the House that, as some colleagues know, almost all my livestock contracted foot-and-mouth disease and were slaughtered.
However, since I do not consider the proposed Committee of Inquiry will affect me financially, I voted in favour of the inquiry.
Election of Quaestors of Parliament
The next item is the second round of the election of the Quaestors of the European Parliament.
Voting: 570, valid votes: 567.
Majority: 284.
Mr Poos: 304 - elected
Mr Balfe: 288 - elected
Mrs Smet: 288 - elected
Mr Marinho: 264
Mrs Maes: 116.
No further votes are required. We have filled all five positions for Quaestor.
I congratulate all the individuals who have been elected.
I invite you to a brief reception.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.24 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
I should like to inform the House that our colleague in the Socialist Group, Mr John Hume, will have the distinction in the near future of being awarded the Mahatma Ghandi Peace Prize by the Indian Government.
The recipient last year of this new prize was Mr Nelson Mandela.
Given his outstanding record of commitment to peace and reconciliation in Ireland, I am very pleased to congratulate him.
I am sure the House will be very proud of this recognition of one of our most distinguished Members.
Welcome
The Delegation for Relations with Russia is today being honoured with a visit by our Russian colleagues, including Mr Vladimir Lukin.
I see that Vladimir, who is an old friend of mine, is upstairs already.
You are very welcome, Vladimir.
He is Deputy Chairman of the Russian State Duma and Co-Chairman of the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.
It is wonderful to see you here, and I hope we can meet personally.
I should not say these things from the chair.
Vladimir, I have only been learning how to be a chairman here since yesterday but it is good to see old friends come to the House.
Introduction of the euro
The next item is the debate on the introduction of the euro, which we have now had in our pockets for some weeks and which is the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream in the European Community.
It has been a wonderful tribute to the capacity of the European Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks; it has been a wonderful tribute to the banking and financial and commercial system and the retailing system; and, most of all, a wonderful tribute to European citizens, who have taken to it with such alacrity, that now it has virtually displaced the currencies in the relevant Member States.
Thank you, Commissioner.
As you remarked, many were referred to and thanked earlier today.
Of course we should thank you and your staff and the College of Commissioners now for all the work you have done in the past several years to bring this to a reality.
You have our congratulations and respect for doing that.
Mr President, my group has decided that the coordinators in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism must be elected at 3.30 p.m.
Since I am one of the candidates, my presence there will be required.
Could I ask whether Mr Pronk could read out my two-minute speech in my place when my name appears on screen?
Mrs Peijs, I have no objection to that if it is acceptable to the House, which I think it is.
So let us act on that basis.
Thank you.
Mr President, I will speak on my own behalf.
On 1 January, many European citizens made their first acquaintance with the new currency: the euro.
And what an acquaintance that was. Barely two weeks have passed and the euro has replaced the national currencies everywhere.
If Parliament' s wish to distribute euro notes among the public before 1 January had been complied with, a few smaller problems might have been avoided, but that is probably just a detail.
I could not agree more that the changeover has been a runaway success.
This is mainly due to the citizens of Europe, a fact to which you yourself have already made reference, as befits a good Liberal. They have reacted to the currency change with enthusiasm and patience.
Shopkeepers should also be praised. They have borne the burden of the actual implementation and, in my view, they are therefore the heroes of the conversion.
However, in my opinion, the introduction of the euro notes and coins is merely a first step, and Commissioner Solbes Mira has already made reference to this.
What matters most now is to ensure that the new currency continues to be successful.
This requires quite a bit from all participating countries: the political will to support the currency and not to cast it in a bad light, as some members of the Italian government have done, the political courage to leave the Stability Pact intact so that the correct financial framework of the euro continues to exist, and the political power to build on the success of the euro.
The time has come therefore, following the most successful European project ever, to take steps in order to further develop the internal market.
If we really want to achieve the objectives prescribed in Lisbon, we must commit ourselves to the further liberalisation of the internal market and to making it more flexible.
There are five clear priorities in this respect, namely postal services, transport, electricity, gas and water.
These are vital in the liberalised and flexible knowledge-based economy that we are pursuing in Europe, and also in the interests of the citizen.
In this way, the citizens know where they stand with Europe.
Only by choosing this option can the EU' s economic power be realised and the new currency kept strong.
Mr President, Commissioner, the largely successful introduction of the euro notes and coins proves one thing and one thing alone: that the people of Europe are highly pragmatic.
The markets, which always have the choice, appear to be much less enthusiastic.
In any case, I believe that the people will use price levels as the true factor that determines whether or not they will adopt the Euroland currency.
However, this currency, which does not belong to any one State, is now posing new problems.
Shopkeepers have already had to carry out, free of charge, the work of the banks during the introduction of the euro.
It is conceivable that, during this period, shopkeepers had the same interest as consumers in doing this.
But now the problem of counterfeiting has surfaced.
Forged notes are already at large and it is easy to envisage the different currencies of north and south Euroland intermingling this summer.
For example, the EUR 200 and EUR 500 notes, which were not printed in France and in the countries of southern Europe, will reach us, which is in fact already happening with notes of German origin.
Next summer, these notes will be everywhere.
Obviously, shopkeepers are unable to identify potential forgeries which are worth, if you will forgive me for saying so, more than 3 500 of our poor old francs, in other words, half the minimum wage in France.
The Commission will be responsible for compensating the victims and those misled by forged euro, since no State can be.
But will the European citizens and the shopkeepers, who accept forged currency by mistake and because they are unable to tell the difference, be compensated by Member States or by the European Central Bank?
Mr President, Commissioner, the euro is an undeniable success, and this is thanks to the European Central Bank, the Commission and all those who worked on the project, including the Members of Parliament.
Mr von Wogau said that the next stage would be political union.
I agree, but I feel it would be a mistake to think that the success of the euro, its capacity to be a strong, stable, reliable currency lies in political union, which is necessary for other reasons.
The euro will be a strong currency if Europe' s economy is strong.
Commissioner, you mentioned the need to coordinate economic policies several times in your speech.
I feel that there is something which is even more important than coordinating economic policies, which, if we overdo it, could even have negative repercussions.
It is important for there to be sound economic policies in Europe: the strength of the euro will depend on it.
We must combine the transparent policies and get away from the present rigidity.
The strength of the euro, then, will depend on the ability of these transparent policies to make the economic systems more dynamic - as Mr Maaten said - to free them from the constraints of corporatism and dirigisme, to liberalise the markets, etc.
All this is often the result of too little rather than too much economic policy and, in this respect, I feel that the tension between policies, the competition between the many different solutions adopted by the countries is of benefit and, through a form of bona fide benchmarking, can foster positive processes of emulation.
Although it does need some fine-tuning, the framework of the single market, together with the Stability Pact - an economic Constitution which many countries like Italy did indeed lack - is broad enough to be able to embrace, without conflict or contradiction, a transparent range of options between which it is left to the individual countries to decide.
I believe that leaving the Member States the leeway to choose between options within the framework of the single market will lead to a stronger economy and that, as a result, the conditions necessary for a stronger single currency will emerge.
Mr President, I am indeed reading the text of Mrs Peijs, and in order to emphasise this, I am standing in her place, but to remove any doubt you may have: I am totally behind it.
The 'euro introduction' project has been a success.
In the Netherlands and in Ireland, the introduction of the euro is practically completed.
More than 90% of all payments are already conducted in euros.
Mrs Peijs is proud - and I could not agree more - that European citizens have so quickly adopted the euro with such a great sense of innovation and have put their own currencies to one side.
The Europeans did not need long changeover periods.
Today, we undoubtedly owe a special word of thanks and recognition to the retail trade, which has absorbed a whole host of difficulties with appropriate flexibility.
The banks and their staff have also contributed a great deal to the smooth transition.
We must now take an important next step. The euro must remain a stable and strong currency.
For that purpose, the President of the Central Bank must first and foremost remain where he is and must closely monitor the bank' s objectives, namely low inflation.
It is almost more important for the Member States to start to realise that they are not on their own and are not fully autonomous, but that everything they do, and notably what they do not do, has a bearing on the entire Community and on the stability of the currency.
In order to sustain the confidence of the markets, it is very important for the large Member States in particular - and perhaps notably Germany - at long last to take the necessary measures to open up their markets completely, to make their labour markets more flexible, to make their pension systems sustainable and to modernise their social benefits.
Instead of being the Union' s driving force, these countries act more as a brake on the Union' s progress.
Any weakness in the currency is down to the Member States and so far not to the Central Bank, which is operating exceptionally well, except in the field of payment balance systems, such as TARGET, and the consumer system.
Mr President, Commissioner, there are two aspects of the introduction of the euro which have been mentioned by Commissioner Solbes and other speakers: the undeniable success and future prospects of the euro.
I will use the short amount of time available to me to concentrate on the second aspect, for the euro really is an open door to the future.
Indeed, I feel that, in addition to its great symbolic significance, the introduction of the euro will not bring immediate short-term effects for our economy or in terms of the rate of inflation; however I do feel that it provides Europe with a wonderful opportunity to develop in a climate of stability, particularly as regards the medium and long term.
In the medium term, Europe has the problem of how to disengage its economy from the US cycle.
Indeed, still today, European development is heavily influenced by exports and, therefore, to a great extent by US demand.
This being the case, the current recession in the United States could impact on us rather than be offset by our capacity for independent growth.
This capacity for development of internal demand can benefit greatly from the integration of monetary policy, but it does not depend on this alone.
It needs to be boosted by an economic policy which combines monetary policy with fiscal policy and, most importantly, with a policy of research and innovative investment such as that outlined at Lisbon, although this policy has not actually been pursued.
The problem exists in the longer term of the euro as a potential world-wide reserve currency on an equal footing with the dollar.
A Parliamentary resolution has already pointed out that the central guideline for the exchange policy should not be a strong or weak euro but a stable euro, varying, of course, within a range in a way that is not destabilising.
To this end, it will be necessary, sooner or later, to promote some form of agreement between the US and European monetary policies for our mutual and shared benefit.
It is true, then, that the euro does represent a major opportunity, but it is an opportunity which has not yet been exploited.
This potential role - as the previous speakers have said too - must be fully realised by politics, by Europe' s political capacity, by a government responsible for the economy which promotes the conditions for autonomous development within Europe and which ensures effective management of exchange outside Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, speaking with one voice through the Central Bank, the governments of the euro zone countries are stating and affirming that Europeans have given an enthusiastic, even euphoric welcome to the euro, the imperial currency, the new Reichsmark.
According to official reports, no problems have marred its triumphant arrival.
Fifteen days after the euro' s introduction, the evidence is for all to see: the great majority of transactions are being made in euro.
To put it bluntly, these crude propaganda-driven reports are very wide of the mark.
Nothing has really worked as planned.
There was a shortage of euro in the first days, banks refused to do their work by refusing to carry out currency exchanges or by placing a limit on them, and, to top it all, by trying to charge for the transaction.
Cash dispensers cannot issue EUR 20 notes, vending machines are refusing to accept euros produced in another country and the opportunities for counterfeiters are increasing because no one knows how to identify the new notes.
We have to admit it: European citizens are not using the euro out of enthusiasm, but under duress because it is increasingly difficult to get hold of their national currency.
Some Germans, for whom there is no transition period, are continuing to pay in deutschmarks even though this currency ceased to be legal tender on 1 January.
There is no advantage, therefore, to using the euro for everyday purchases.
It only causes difficulties and is costly to everyone, not to mention that its introduction has meant States have had to abandon their sovereignty unnecessarily.
Everyone in Europe now has a foreign currency and we are also seeing a return to rising prices.
Everyone realises, when doing their shopping, that prices are soaring, everywhere and in highly worrying proportions, particularly for everyday goods and essential items.
This is perhaps not quite the same as the Ruhr of the 1920s but this is similar to what happened in the 1970s.
January' s price index may be saved by the sales but let us wait for the figures for the whole year.
Let us also wait for the first anti-social effects of competition, which the euro will have on salaries, relocations and redundancies, to be felt.
Therefore, in the name of the right of nations to self-determination, we would like to affirm the right of nations to bring back their national currency, in the same way that the former Soviet states, when freed from the yoke of Soviet federalism, brought back theirs.
Mr President, President Prodi told us this morning that the introduction of euro notes and coins was a huge success.
And several Members have gone even further by speaking of the enthusiasm of consumers, who appear to have embraced the new currency.
In our view, these comments are excessive.
It is true that the changeover to euro notes and coins was well executed, technically speaking, but the consumers had no other choice than, sooner or later, to use the new money.
The real test will be that of managing the euro in the years to come.
And, in this respect, if I were a federalist, I would not be pleased.
I would be rather concerned, because, today, the people who occupy a very difference position to us on the political stage, such as Jacques Delors, are saying exactly what we have always said, namely that the euro cannot function as it is.
We should speed up integration, as Mr Prodi said.
We should strengthen the economic pillar or move towards a political Europe, as other Members are saying.
In short, we need more supranational power to integrate at European level; in other words, that Europe is turned into more of a super-State.
There is the rub, Mr President.
Is Europe prepared to accept this super-State? No, it is not!
First of all, the nations of Europe are sufficiently diverse in every respect that it is not possible to create an optimal monetary zone.
Some of our Members will certainly say that a super-State with the power to ensure consistency is all the more necessary.
Yes, admittedly, it might be all the more necessary, but at the same time, it is all the more impossible.
So this is the vicious circle in which the euro zone countries will struggle over the coming years.
You could also say that it is a race against time.
For the euro to work, either those who oversee it will fairly soon manage to pull apart the nations and build the super-State - and then the euro can survive, but what state will Europe and democracy be in? - or the nations, simply because of their differences, will make it impossible to manage the single currency.
As for us, it is clear what we prefer, Mr President, out of an affection for our homelands and because of our belief in the fundamental need for a national framework for democracy and solidarity.
Is there not a third option, however, that of a single currency without a State?
This could appeal to us, but no one actually knows how it would work if confronted with asymmetric shocks.
Furthermore, the markets themselves do not believe in it, as proven by the persistent weakness of the euro in recent days.
The euro, then, is launching us into an adventure with very serious political and financial consequences of which the citizens were not warned in advance and which they are not prepared to shoulder.
It should really be the people who invented the euro who are concerned.
Mr President, the launch of the notes and coins has finally made the euro a political reality for the 300 million people of Euroland.
Coming from a country which is out, and a party which opposes joining, I was half expecting more glitches and popular resentment at the imposition of an unfamiliar currency.
So far so good, with little inflationary rounding-up.
I congratulate the ECB, the Commission and the national central banks on their handling of the logistics of this massive undertaking without any upsurge in armed robbery or counterfeiting, although I still question the need for a EUR 500 note which can only facilitate criminality.
The naturally cautious British Conservative position is that, although the euro may be an added convenience to travellers and improve price transparency in the single market, it is undoubtedly intended primarily to bolster pan-European identity as a stepping stone to further political integration - something admitted to by everybody bar Mr Blair and our Labour Government - and to control not only of monetary policy, but also of taxation.
The "one size fits all" monetary policy, as the Commission's pessimistic 2001 economic report admits, cannot be right for all of the countries all of the time and, coupled with the fiscal restraints of the Stability and Growth Pact, imposes severe destabilising problems and a lack of flexibility on certain economies, as we have already seen in the artificial boom scenario of Ireland.
The risks of an asymmetric shock developing will only get bigger after enlargement as European labour markets remain unreformed and largely immobile.
President Prodi has admitted this inherent risk and the call will come very shortly for a much bigger EU budget and direct EU taxes to set up bail-out funds to compensate affected countries for their loss of rights to devalue their currencies or lower their interest rates.
Nevertheless, I wish the euro well as the currency of our major trading partners, since UK prosperity is also affected by its stability.
I hope that my pessimistic prognosis, which echoes that of the Commission's own, proves to be wrong over time.
I would also like confirmation from Commissioner Solbes that, in his opinion, for the UK to join the euro it will have to spend at least two years locked into the ERM II phase first before proceeding.
Finally, I should like to congratulate you, Mr President, on your election.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank all the speakers for their comments.
I wish to begin by giving special thanks to Karl von Wogau for his involvement in this process over the last 22 years.
We are sorry to see him leave the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, but we know that his skills will continue to help Parliament and the process of European integration in the Committee of Foreign Affairs.
Karl von Wogau said, in a reference to Jacques Delors, that it is impossible to fall in love with the euro, and yet Christa Randzio-Plath said that Europe' s citizens are happy.
Both comments might be linked to one fundamental factor: the euro is the first aspect of European identity to affect all citizens of the Member States of the Monetary Union.
The euro is extremely important, as were the removal of borders or the internal market, which, nevertheless, only affect goods and citizens crossing the border at a given time, but it is also a piece of our European identity, which we use every day from morning till night, in all the countries of the Monetary Union and exactly in the same conditions.
Because there are clearly also striking differences between us, this aspect, out of all our common aspects, must be highlighted as a very positive one, as the others have nothing to do with any form of unification.
From now on, the euro will give us notes and coins and a slight increase in economic growth, as a consequence of uncertainties being eliminated.
It is true, however, and I am in agreement on this with some of the speakers, that the fundamental elements will emerge as a result of our potential capacity for growth or, to put it another way, as a result of implementing the Lisbon process in a more ambitious way than we have done so far.
We will be able to break free from the United States, as Mr Ruffolo suggests we would want to do.
Nevertheless, experience and the year 2001 have shown us that being relatively independent in terms of trade does not protect us from the effects of a crisis in the United States as a consequence of the course which takes place due to the economic effects arising from the relationships between companies and between financial markets.
The exchange rate will be the real test of the euro.
I have always said that the exchange rate was never an objective of the Union' s policy.
Our objective for monetary policy is to maintain low inflation and we are convinced that a currency with low inflation is, in the long term, a stable currency, a popular currency, a currency that will provide refuge and is a currency that will have an important role to play in the economic world.
Apart from the purely economic aspects, however, what is happening with our institutional structure? Is the euro the beginning of economic government?
I would say that the model we put together in Maastricht was based on a single monetary policy and on coordinated national economic policies. This is our model.
And we have to work on ensuring that the euro is a success on this basis. I am not going to prejudge whether we should make more or less progress in the processes of political integration.
It could be done according to the wishes of those that favour greater political integration, but I also realise that this is a decision to be taken by the fifteen Member States in other bodies, in other forums and following a different debate.
Nevertheless, I am convinced that we can move ahead with the process of greater coordination between economic policies, which certainly does not mean the unification of our economic policies, because our situations are different and, consequently, policies must be applied consistently.
Today, like so often before, we have tended to confuse stability pacts with economic policy guidelines.
Is the Stability Pact the problem for the Union' s economic policy? This is something we have discussed on more than one occasion in this House.
I repeat what I have always said: the Stability Pact is nothing more and nothing less than a necessary factor which allows us to maintain a policy mix between budgetary policy and monetary policy, which facilitates a monetary policy with low rates of interest.
Structural changes to our economies and the move towards growth, coherence between our national economic policies and Union policy as a whole with monetary policy must be managed by means of these broad economic policy guidelines.
We have the necessary instruments; we have to perfect and improve them, but I think that the system is a good one.
The policy mix will be one of the key elements of the Spanish Presidency, as the chairman of Ecofin stressed and I am sure we will have the opportunity in this House to debate this fundamental point.
Of course, the structural reforms, as I said earlier, are still the key to the future.
I wish to make a comment on enlargement of the euro zone.
We have noted greater interest in the 'pre-in' countries in what is happening in our experience in the euro zone.
Or rather, I would say that in the three 'pre-in' countries, considerable further interest has been aroused, which is reflected in some political attitudes that have been communicated or which we have seen in recent days.
Admittedly, there are still some who criticise the euro and what some people in the Eurosceptic world are afraid of, since the short term problems have not occurred, is what will happen in ten or fifteen years' time.
Obviously, there is nothing we can say on this point.
It is difficult to control what will happen in ten or fifteen years' time, but I personally am convinced that by then we will have far fewer problems than we do at the moment in this regard.
What conditions will be imposed on the 'pre-in' countries in order for them to join the Union? Exactly the same as those imposed on the other countries, no more and no less.
Compliance with the Maastricht criteria, with the additional factor of the opt-out clause to which Denmark and the United Kingdom have the right.
There will be no change either for the 'pre-in' or for the candidate countries.
We take the view that the equal treatment of all Member States of the Union is a fundamental principle, which we should not alter under any circumstances.
A last comment on an issue that might be a minor one but which is, to a certain extent, the issue that has concerned us today: the practical problems involved in the introduction of the euro.
Have businesses played the role of the bankers?
No, they have not. Through the system of frontloading, businesses have acted as an incentive for the rapid take-up of the single currency.
It is true that some practical problems have occurred, due more to pressure by some citizens to use businesses as a bank, when they have tried to change high denominations of national currency in businesses and not in the banks, as should have been predicted.
Have there been serious problems of counterfeiting? There have been neither serious nor less serious problems in this area.
So far, we have not seen counterfeits that could technically be called 'counterfeit euros' .
There have been photocopies.
There have been euros produced with scanners, but which are enormously different from the real euro and, consequently, these concerns, which are occasionally expressed, should no longer be an issue.
The euro has an extremely high security factor, unlike some of the world' s other national high circulation currencies, and this should guarantee that this type of situation is not going to occur.
I would also deny the truth of some of the assertions made about the functioning of ATMs.
There have indeed been practical problems.
Anyone who goes to automated toll booths machines not far from here will see that some machines do not work with the currencies of every Union country.
These are practical problems, whose importance we should not exaggerate: they are merely anecdotes within an enormously important and complex process.
Nor do I feel that there are major pricing problems or that prices in the sales will influence prices in January, as they have not done in the past, since they have never been taken into account.
Last week, speaking with the former chairman of Ecofin, Mr Reynders, we said that the clear lesson we have learned from this process is that the next time we change currency we must not do it on the first of January.
But since I am sure that this situation will not arise, I would say that we have no need to worry about this problem either.
Ladies and gentlemen, many thanks for your immense cooperation during this period.
It has been crucial to helping the good work of the Member States, to ensuring that the public has been better informed and also to providing encouragement for the Commission' s work.
The debate is closed.
Procurement
The next item is the joint debate on the following:
Report (A5-0378/2001) by Zappalà, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the coordination of procedures for the award of public supply contracts, public service contracts and public works contracts (COM(2000) 275 - C5-0367/2000 - 2000/0115(COD)) and
Report (A5-0379/2001) by Zappalà, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy and transport sectors (COM(2000) 276 - C5-0368/2000 - 2000/0117(COD)).
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(IT) Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating you on your election to the presidency of this House and I wish you and the entire House a successful two and a half years.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the time has come to vote on the directive on public supply contracts, public service contracts and public works contracts and the directive on specific sectors - entities operating in the water, energy and transport sectors - in plenary.
The Commission worked on them for four years, conducting a series of hearings, studies and assessments. Then Parliament worked on them for a further two years.
A very well-attended public hearing took place and the Committee of the Regions, trade associations and professionals from all over Europe were also consulted.
The fact that such a huge amount of work has been necessary should not surprise us, considering that public works contracts take up around 15% of the Union' s total GDP, that is over EUR 1 500 billion.
It is estimated that only 20% of that sum is actually covered by the provisions of the current directives in that the threshold above which it is mandatory to apply them is relatively high and, in any case, more or less equal to that laid down in the agreements for the participation of third countries.
The current directives are now outdated and therefore need revising and bringing into line with new technologies and new market trends.
It was precisely the need to increasingly develop the internal market which prompted the Commission to research and propose the directives in question.
The subject is of considerable importance and could not and still must not be treated lightly.
In addition to individual Members, four Parliamentary committees delivering opinions and the committee responsible - the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market - examined the texts and tabled amendments: almost more than half this House has been able to examine, debate and amend the texts.
It is a simple matter to summarise the contents: they revise and modernise the current directives, they introduce electronic auctions; they clarify the standards on technical specifications, they define rules on award criteria, they simplify the thresholds and they introduce a Common Procurement Vocabulary.
Overall, the proposals deserve our support and, indeed, have it: we are all aware of how important they are and we all want their path to be smooth.
However, the most significant past and present problems which have emerged and which are the subject of debate within the different political groupings, and between the groupings and between national representatives need to be highlighted.
The thresholds, or the value below which the directives are not binding.
This value, which - as I have said - is already relatively high, corresponds, however, to the value laid down in the agreements with third countries, in line with the Commission' s proposal.
It has been proposed to increase this value.
That would raise two problems: it would reduce the number of work contracts required to comply with the directives, possibly to the advantage of third countries whose existing contracts cannot be reviewed.
It would also allow contracting authorities to operate outside the common rules, with the associated risks.
However, it has been maintained that, even if the thresholds are raised, the number of contracts awarded to European tenderers will not decrease because, below a certain value, it is not economically beneficial for businesses to operate away from their region, still less their country.
A further consideration is the possibility that each Member State and each regional government could apply local rules where the threshold is not reached.
That would mean that the higher the thresholds, the greater the disparities between legislation within the Union. Thus, the rules within the Union would become even less uniform.
In my opinion, whatever the thresholds, we must not allow there to be differing legislation within the Union.
That would shrink, rather than expand the common market; it would also make it possible for individual territorial legislative authorities to restrict access in their regional or national territory purely to local operators.
This should only happen where the matter is not regulated by the directives.
Thus, the general contents of the directives must be included in national or regional legislation as well, and an amendment has been tabled proposing this.
Another major issue is environmental and social concerns.
It has been proposed that the directive should incorporate specific rules governing these areas.
This suggestion has prompted broad, far-reaching debate and could lead to the report being referred back to committee if a position supported by a sufficient majority is not achieved at the vote.
I feel that a law intended to further the internal market' s development in an economic sector and increase competitiveness cannot introduce principles which are not already laid down by the sector' s legislation.
The Commission' s proposal contains sufficient provisions as it is to ensure that all the principles in force on the environment and workers' rights are respected in the drawing up of calls for tender.
This legislation cannot be expanded or altered by means of directives whose scope should be limited to works, supply and service contracts.
The related amendments, adopted, moreover, at the vote by a number of committees delivering opinions and by the committee responsible, seek to introduce new rules.
Were these amendments also to be adopted in plenary, I feel that it would be better to keep the current texts unaltered rather than to have texts which, although more up-to-date, could well mean a step backwards in basic areas.
There is a further issue which these texts cannot disregard but which the Commission has failed to deal with adequately: intellectual services.
The time has come to make a clear distinction between intellectual services and executive services, between design and execution.
This is a difficult concept for certain trade associations to take on board: as they see it, they are defending long-established positions.
However, intellectual activity cannot be considered to be the same as manufacturing something and a company cannot do everything. It cannot carry out both design and execution, except in exceptional cases or where specific technologies are involved.
There are two of reasons for this: works of art are not quantifiable: no two ideas are alike.
The history of Europe as a whole, give or take a century, is full of different kinds of works which have survived the passage of time because of their artistic value.
Not everything, not every service can be compared to a work of art, but the products of the mind cannot be confused with mere execution.
An executing company possesses skills and experience and executive technology and is therefore the most suitable company to design and implement others' ideas on a technical level, but that is all, with a few rare exceptions.
By separating intellectual services from executive services we will be according the professions and the products of the mind their due value.
Joint contract awards, where contracts for executive design alone and execution are awarded together, are appropriate if there are intellectual service providers qualified as such according to the prevailing legislation in the company or attached to it.
These considerations are the basis both for the amendment which makes it possible to award contracts for the design and execution of works either separately or together but requires justification to be produced where mixed contracts are awarded, and for the amendment which clearly defines what is meant by preliminary project paper, final project paper and executive project paper.
Lastly, Mr President, two directives are before Parliament which are essentially similar in that certain specific sectors have been liberalised or will be in the not-too-distant future.
Telecommunications are already considered to have been liberalised and are therefore not being taken into consideration.
The gradual liberalisation of the water, energy and transport sectors, monitored directly by the Commission or, upon request, by the individual States, will allow the second directive to expire without making it necessary to amend the first directive.
Overall, I hope that objective considerations will prompt us to adopt provisions which are specific to the sectors without expanding on them dangerously, provisions which will increasingly further the development of the internal market, which take into account the forthcoming accession to the Union of other countries which have their own traditions and needs, and which will make our rules increasingly uniform rather than fragmented.
Furthermore, I feel we ought to acknowledge that the work carried out by the Commission in its proposal deserves our greatest appreciation.
Lastly, I have to say that I am proud to have helped to develop and, I hope, improve legislation which both contributes to the building of a more united, stronger Europe and also curbs the fraud and malpractice which very often prevail in economics.
Precisely in order to prevent loopholes, it is better for the directives to suffer a setback, should this prove necessary, than to have rules which are too loose.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me take a look at the economic and competitive aspects of public tendering from the point of view of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Mr Zappalà has just referred to the fact that, according to the Commission's estimate at any rate, 14% to 15% of the EU's GDP is accounted for by building and supply contracts and contracts to provide services, all granted by the State or by enterprises whose function is to provide services for the general public.
Looked at in terms of actual figures, 15% of the EU's GDP of about EUR 900 billion per annum amounts to EUR 125 to EUR 130 billion, not a small sum by any means.
In this very area of public contracting, though, the internal market has not yet prevailed to any particular degree.
There is a need for change to be brought about here.
The award of contracts across frontiers is still the exception.
Regulations are complex, muddled, rigid, cumbersome and bureaucratic, and the integration of social concerns and environmental issues into procurement practice has not yet been clarified either.
Those, at any rate, are the challenges Parliament itself enumerated in its debates on the Green Paper and the communication from the Commission in 1996 and 1998.
It is for that reason that we must now focus on the economic objectives and those related to competition policy.
Our aim is also to help bring the Internal Market to fruition in this area.
There is a need for clear, transparent rules that do not discriminate against anyone tendering for these contracts.
On the other hand, though, there must also be the guarantee that nobody tendering for a contract can gain unjustifiable advantages for himself.
It must therefore be made clear that standards must be adhered to as laid down by the law on labour, pricing and the environment.
It is for that reason that Mr Zappalà is not quite correct when he argues in his final remarks that the economic aspects should be separated from the others.
You cannot, of course, evade the other standards in order to gain an economic advantage.
That is one of the ground rules that we all share, and it must also be obeyed.
Mr President, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has long argued for greater consideration of social and employment standards in public procurement in two ways.
The first is by ensuring that current legal provisions are complied with by all tenderers so as to avoid any unfair competition.
I would ask Members to bear that in mind in the light of what the rapporteur said in his introductory remarks.
We need to note in this respect that it is not a matter of social criteria - putting a question mark over the objective nature of the procurement process - but the very opposite: what matters is to create a level playing field for all those taking part in a procurement procedure.
The second way in which we want social criteria to be taken into account is by enabling contracting authorities to pursue certain social and employment objectives, such as equal opportunities and social inclusion in connection with procurement.
But this is always - again I would stress this in the light of what the rapporteur has said - subject to the strict requirement that it does not distort competition.
This is made plain repeatedly in the amendments by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, that were in turn inspired by the opinion of the Committee on Employment.
The opinion of the Committee on Employment looked at the different stages of the tendering process and made a number of recommendations for each of those stages.
At the first stage, the need for the inclusion of a reference to the law applicable should become a component of the contract documentation.
Candidates, tenderers in a procedure, should have access to all the information on all social and employment criteria that they should be taking into account.
Article 27 is particularly important in the general directive in that respect.
I would draw Members' attention to Amendment No 129 by Mrs Berger.
It is an excellent amendment, which I hope will be supported by the House.
At the second stage we need to ensure that we have proper compliance with the standards laid down in the first stage and there should be a possibility to exclude people who have not toed the line in the past in relation to those social and employment standards.
Article 46 is particularly important in that respect and I would draw Members' attention to Amendments Nos 82, 86, 87 and 89.
During the selection of candidates and the award of the contract, we need to ensure compliance with legal provisions relating to employment protection and working conditions.
That is Article 53, which has attracted most attention in the discussions inside the Committee on Legal Affairs.
I would draw Members' attention in that respect to Amendments Nos 134 and 140.
I sincerely hope we can reach agreement on one of those amendments in our vote tomorrow.
Finally, there needs to be an adequate review procedure to ensure that these criteria are applied in the execution of the contract.
Amendment No 108, among others, is important in that respect.
I would draw attention to one final amendment, which is important.
It was highlighted in the opinion of the Committee on Employment and relates to sheltered employment.
Amendment No 36 gives Member States the possibility to reserve certain contracts for sheltered employment schemes or sheltered workshops where the majority of workers in those schemes or workshops are people with disabilities.
This is a longstanding issue in some Member States, in particular my own.
I hope this amendment can be adopted tomorrow and we get a clear reference to this in the directive for the future.
That is the main gist of the opinion of the Committee on Employment.
These concerns are all reflected in the amendments to be considered tomorrow.
I hope they will command the support of the House.
Mr President, I too would like to start by saying something about the question of whether economic legislation is in some way neutral and capable of being separated from other aspects.
We have an example in the field of the so-called Utilities Directive where legislation can achieve widely different effects whilst appearing to be neutral.
If we say that the Directive applies to operations in municipal hands but not to those that are contracted out, we have then made enterprises with the same purpose subject to completely different legal regulations, and the effects are not neutral.
It was for this reason that a large and cross-party majority of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which does not otherwise have a reputation for particular concern for social and environmental matters, was prepared to take up these aspects in its proposals.
I would like to take this opportunity to describe some of them clearly, as we did not just have discussions, but also incorporated into the present proposal significant results from the Industry Committee and also the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Our most important proposal is that, in addition to the provisions of social security and labour law, collective agreements between employers and trade unions - as our proposal still terms them - should also be adhered to at the place of performance.
I believe that the Industry Committee, in order to exclude the possibility of misunderstandings, might also find the formulation "generalised collective agreements" acceptable, especially as the proposal by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market opens the door to other misunderstandings.
We must in any case make one thing clear, and I say this with reference to the Member State from which I come.
We cannot have elements of the political spectrum there fomenting fears for the labour market on the grounds of the forthcoming eastward enlargement, while some of us in this House are engaged in opening the doors and thus possibly justifying their fears.
We must not leave ourselves open to that reproach.
I also welcome the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market' s acceptance of our demand that enterprises be liable to exclusion from the tendering procedure if they fail to comply with the provisions of the law on tariffs and other social security and labour law in the State of establishment or another affected country.
We have incorporated in the Utilities Directive and in the draft under consideration today two important items of potential significance to municipal enterprises, one stating that associated or joint companies with at least a 50% average share in turnover shall be excluded from the scope of the Directive.
That is in the text as well.
The other states that the supply of energy and fuel shall be excluded from the scope of this Directive, thus maintaining the current status quo against the background of the varying states of liberalisation prevailing in the European Union, and avoiding the situation I described at the beginning of my speech in which operations belonging to municipalities are treated differently from contracted-out enterprises.
We are also in favour of postal services being covered by this Directive - not all kinds of postal service though, but only those for which there is as yet no free competition.
If my observation on the subject of tariffs is also included in the final vote, and if the points on which I have enlarged are taken into account, then that is a result with which I think the Industry Committee will be very satisfied.
Mr President, I would like to comment on the second proposal for a directive and I shall also take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election.
I would like to inform the House that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs unanimously adopted the opinion for which I am rapporteur on 12 June 2001.
This unanimous vote is important, in that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs fully acknowledged that the procedures on public contracts were instruments falling under the sustainable development strategy and that the environment should be integrated across all the European Union' s policies, as advocated by the Treaty.
Within this framework, the relevant authorities, which have political responsibility, must be permitted to draw up environmental as well as social criteria that they intend to use in awarding public contracts, whilst, of course, respecting the principle of non-discrimination.
To avoid repeating what other speakers have already said, I would like to draw attention to two points.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs proposed simplifying the award procedures, firstly by doubling the thresholds above which the directive applies for public contracts and, secondly, it is also proposing to give special protection to small and medium-sized companies by stipulating that the contracting authorities have the power to decide that 15% of the total number of contracts that they award can be granted to small and medium-sized firms.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are no doubt of the fundamental opinion that environmental and social security policy matters should actually be governed by environmental and social security law respectively.
There are, though, exceptions to every rule.
Not, of course, being unacquainted with the ways of the world, we are aware that we cannot carry on this debate on these new proposals by the Commission for a directive on the award of public contracts without taking their social and environmental aspects into account to some degree.
It is therefore quite clear to us that social and environmental considerations of course play a part in this decision, but we are making a very clear distinction.
We are of the opinion that, in the European internal market, the conditions for all who participate in this Internal Market should be equal.
The key phrase 'level playing field' was mentioned by an earlier speaker.
Such a 'level playing field' is of course guaranteed only when the criteria we are trying to add on alongside the economic criteria are already a component part of the tendering conditions and are not introduced or implemented only later, when the tendering process has been completed and discussion has moved on to the award.
This has been the reason why, in the debate so far, the Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats has always taken the view that, in so far as such criteria are also to be taken into account, they should be so under the heading of the tendering conditions and not left to be dealt with when the contract is awarded.
I would therefore like to make it clear that Article 53, which was constantly being addressed and represented one of the main points of discussion and dispute, refers to the award.
That is why the Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats will take a restrictive approach when the amendments to Article 53 are voted on.
We want Article 53, as proposed by the Commission, amended as little as possible.
Only then can we guarantee that the possibility of manipulation does not eventually arise, with the authorities that invite the tenders ending up able to use, as it were, criteria introduced into the discussion retrospectively to come to decisions that have quite different backgrounds from those under discussion here and which are informed by objective criteria.
I see this as a quite crucial difference, one that needs to be brought out in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and that has perhaps not yet become completely clear in the Groups.
If I may say just one thing more, we are also opposed to incorporating conditions in the Directive that will in fact end up bringing the internal market to a standstill and causing it to fail, just as we are opposed to leaving those who will later transpose the Directive into national legislation free to include such conditions.
For example, in Germany, my homeland, a so-called 'tariff fidelity law' is under discussion, which will in fact - and I share Mr Kuhne's view on this - mean that tendering will not be on the basis of the generalised collective agreements - which are like laws that one must obey - but rather on the basis of tariff agreements, ranging from regional down to in-house, a condition that will make it possible to put a contract out to tender in such a way that only one enterprise ends up being able to participate in the process.
That smashes the Internal Market to bits.
Such a thing is an absurdity, and one we are not prepared to go along with.
We will therefore vote against such a possibility' s being opened up by means of amendments.
It is, however, very much my view that what Mr Kuhne said on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, namely that there should be no going beyond what is generally binding, is something that could certainly meet with support from me or from the Group I belong to.
My Group has not yet come to a final decision on the threshold values.
We will be doing that in our group meeting before the vote, as there are differing views among us on the subject.
I would, though, like to point out that Mr Zappalà has made a very interesting proposal.
I refer to Amendment No 147 which is by way of a compromise in the event of an increase in the threshold values being decided on and is designed to ensure that the fundamental principles of this Directive apply to all contracts awarded under this threshold as well.
One could say at this point that this goes without saying, but the proposal includes a significant innovation, which I think would be a real step forward for the internal market - the justiciability of what we are doing here, and the justiciability of the tendering procedure.
That is at present not guaranteed in all the Member States under the threshold.
I believe that, if this were to be possible, it would represent real progress.
In particular, I ask the Commission to reconsider their attitude towards Amendment No 147 and to inform Parliament tomorrow of whether they might give this Amendment their approval, because I think this could be a genuine compromise on the issue of threshold values.
Finally, I would like to thank most warmly the rapporteurs, principally Mr Zappalà.
This is one of this House's most problematic legislative proposals, and you have so far piloted us through its depths and shallows very well.
For that you have my gratitude.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate you on your election, by a large majority, as Vice-President.
I shall describe a case which relates to these Directives, and which concerns my home city of Helsinki.
Some time ago the Helsinki public transport corporation, being the public procurement authority, put out to public tender certain bus routes and set criteria stipulating inter alia that the buses to be procured were to have the lowest possible emissions; in other words, that they had to be environmentally-friendly.
And so the City of Helsinki consequently opted to procure buses which run on natural gas and whose emissions are very low.
A competing bidder was not satisfied with this, but appealed to the national court, claiming inter alia that the City of Helsinki had selected a bid which was not the most advantageous one economically, in other words it was not the cheapest.
The advocate-general of the European Court of Justice has recently issued his opinion on this matter, which may be adopted as the judgment of the Court.
In fact the opinion of the advocate-general supports very strongly the view of the City of Helsinki that a public procurement authority should have the right to set environmentally-friendly criteria which it will use in its competitive tender, and also to select products in compliance with this.
It is interesting that the position of the advocate-general is precisely the same as that of the Commission's Directorate-General which is responsible for environmental matters, and different from that of the Directorate-General which is responsible for the internal market.
Now I would also like to draw the attention of Commissioner Bolkestein to this decision, which may well in fact become final; we do not of course know this as yet.
These Directives are of great economic significance: our obligation is to enable the rules of the game to be as transparent and straightforward as possible, and competitive tenders to be as open as possible, and also to ensure that public authorities are able to promote solutions which are environmentally friendly and also socially favourable.
To my esteemed and dear colleague Astrid Thors I would like to say that of course social legislation is different in the different countries, but perhaps this is the precise reason why we should also permit a public authority to comply with its own social criteria, and why we should find sustainable compromises between the political groups in these questions.
Mr Vice-President, I would also like to congratulate you on your election.
Like my fellow Members, who have underlined that this was a report of titanic proportions, requiring a great deal of work, I would like to use my two minutes' speaking time to try to put forward what I personally believe to be the essential points, bearing in mind those involved, particularly the local and regional authorities and the citizens.
In my view, the Zappalà report, which was approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs, improves on the Commission' s original proposal for a directive.
On the pretext of simplifying and updating the existing legislation, the Commission' s proposal does indeed propose to make the regulations uniform, but the main way, if not the only way, it achieves this is through liberalisation and this is something I cannot accept.
Thus, when it comes to using prices as a criterion for awarding contracts, the lowest price is favoured over social and environmental criteria.
I believe therefore, as do other Members, that the stakes are very high.
Given their activity, public authorities should favour employment and sustainable development but decisions are instead based on financial criteria alone.
However, in March 2000, the European Trade Union Confederation pointed out how much importance the Community regime for public contracts placed upon the concept of price, to the detriment of social and territorial cohesion, equality and employment.
As I said, the Zappalà report improves on the Commission' s directive, particularly by raising the thresholds on opening up public procurement contracts by 50% and also by taking into greater consideration the social and environmental criteria.
If adopted in its current form, I think it might represent an improvement on the current situation.
Despite this, it is essentially the approach of liberalisation that is favoured.
In a communication of 15 October 2001, the Commission was forced to put forward the option of integrating social and environmental aspects into procedures for the award of public contracts.
However, this communication is not legally binding in character.
We must therefore go further and approach it in a different way; this is the sense of the amendments tabled by my group.
Within the award criteria, employment, the environment and town planning must be put on the same footing as economic cost.
Of course, my group' s vote will depend on the outcome of the vote on the committee' s amendments and also on the amendments that will be proposed tomorrow.
Mr President, I too join my colleagues in congratulating you on your re-election as Vice-President.
I also wish to congratulate the rapporteur and all the draftsmen on their work on what may appear to be a very simple topic but, when you get into the detail and analysis of it, proves extremely difficult.
Rather than repeating what has been said already, I would like to deal with three particular points.
Firstly, with regard to raising the limits on when tenders have to be put out for consultation, looking for the 50% increase is important because it has already been proven that the present limits do not allow for greater cross-border interaction between companies and between companies and agencies.
This is because the contract limit is too small and the economic reality underlying this is that to move your operation into another Member State requires extra money and a more valuable contract to make such a move profitable.
There is no point in saying that we should be spending public money merely to prop up a failing or ageing system.
We should be using the money properly - of course to increase infrastructure, to provide better services and to increase local employment as much as possible - but it should not be used merely as a substitute for private and other investments or for other initiatives to create local employment.
The second area, concerning environmental considerations, is another very important question.
It is one in which each and every one of us would agree that certain minimum standards have to be laid down.
We have to learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure that we put in place proper controls and mechanisms to guarantee that what we pass on to future generations is in a better condition than that in which we received it.
However, that should not be used as an obstacle or a block to development.
There is a happy medium and a balance between both, which must be maintained.
My third point concerns social obligations, and in particular I agree fully with the Members who said that there must be a social return for the contracting authority and its area from the awarding of the contract.
However, it should not be used to prevent the contracts from going ahead or as an extra bureaucratic layer to be put in place to prevent the best possible price from being brought forward.
My last point concerning the qualitative selection criteria.
Of course we must have protections in place to ensure that those who are guilty of wrongdoing, fraud, racketeering and of interfering with Community assets and finances should be excluded from public contracts.
However, I have one concern with regard to the question of a judgment that is not yet final: we are acting as judge and jury in denying somebody a right to be an applicant for a tender without having a final decision or analysis made as to whether that person is guilty of a crime or not.
This is something we must be very careful of.
In conclusion, it is about time that these directives were brought together, that the texts were clarified and that greater certainty was put into the legislative framework under which people have to operate.
But, most importantly of all, it must be seen as a move towards guaranteeing better public services for all people.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate you on your re-election as Vice-President of this Parliament.
The Commission proposes to consolidate and modernise the present procurement directives.
This is with good reason, for they are too complex and too bureaucratic for contracting authorities and industry alike.
Can we realise political ambitions via the public procurement procedures? This question seems to be at the heart of the long-term discussion on this topic.
Via Amendment No 98, this report wishes to add both social and environmental criteria to the assessment of the most favourable tenderer.
Environmental criteria - a European area of policy par excellence - can be measured objectively by means of management standards and can therefore easily be deployed in practice.
However, we believe that it would be taking matters too far to prescribe at European level that national bodies must take account of social criteria in their assessment.
Social policy is to be established nationally, and that is how it should continue to be.
Furthermore, this amendment would make the procedure considerably more complex, both for the contracting authorities and the tenderers.
It could lead to all kinds of new points of contention and differences in interpretation.
This is why the directive would become just as difficult to implement as the current one.
We wholeheartedly support the exclusion of economic operators that have been convicted of offences.
In my country, there are currently various criminal cases pending against building contractors, and it seems as if fraud is becoming a widespread phenomenon.
This text drives the message home to industry: you do not mess with public money.
Mr President, these two directives are important when it comes to creating an internal market that operates well.
Procurement in the EU accounts for EUR 1.5 billion per year, EUR 40 million of it in Sweden alone.
The figures show the importance of clear and simple ground rules.
Small and medium-sized enterprises must be able to compete on equal terms.
If the EU is to become the world' s most competitive market by 2010, small and medium-sized companies need to be given a boost and the conditions under which they operate made easier for them.
It is important to maintain the threshold values in order to obtain solutions that favour consumers and stimulate competition.
In that way, we can increase the number of purchases and create the basic conditions for a European procurement market.
It would prevent protectionist behaviour in national markets and - something which is not to be sniffed at - make it easier for politicians to be thrifty with people' s taxes.
Clear rules must also apply to environmental and social considerations.
The two directives we are debating today are financial directives.
If and when account is to be taken of environmental and social factors, this should happen when the procurement criteria are established.
In that way, the rules for those who submit offers will become clear, and they will know what prior conditions apply to procurement.
It is the tenderer with the financially most advantageous offer to whom the contract must be awarded.
I also wish to agree completely with what Mrs Thors said about her experience of small countries engaging with the German market.
I have the same experience where my own country is concerned. Nonetheless, I also want fully to acknowledge my country' s extreme uncompetitiveness in the construction sphere, something which also leads to our having high housing costs.
Our goal must be to raise the quality and reduce the costs of cross-border procurement by simplifying it and making it more efficient and widespread.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate you on your election.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a lot of laws are like our favourite clothes. If we do not look after them, they rapidly become unsightly and end up being unusable.
They no longer fulfil their purpose.
So it is only a good thing that the Commission has taken in hand the law on the award of public contracts, which dates back to the Seventies, and that we are now engaged in doing justice to the requirements of modern times and of the Internal Market with two directives.
A certain amount has already been said about the modernisation of the directives on the award of public contracts, and I do not need to add anything to that.
I would, though, like to sound a clear warning that we may be improving the law on the award of public contracts in technical terms and making it more manageable, but at the same time causing its substance to deteriorate.
That is what the Commission intends with its proposed text, in which the smoothly functioning internal market and competition sweep all before them. People's justifiable desires and interests are neglected.
That is something this Parliament must not permit.
Our duty is not to any old mechanism or economic ideology.
Our duty is to the citizens of Europe and their needs, and we are, moreover, obliged to see to it that their taxes are not squandered.
A well-functioning internal market can help in this if it adheres to people-friendly standards.
Public contracts cannot, then, simply be awarded to the lowest bidder.
Social requirements must, as criteria, be no less decisive than consideration for people's health and careful treatment of the environment.
That is why there are amendments tabled by my group, and, in my view, if they are not adopted, it will be impossible to vote for the Directive on the award of public contracts.
Let me give an example. It is, of course, obvious that contractors must abide by regulations on industrial safety and working conditions as well as by all the other collective and individual provisions of labour law.
This also includes adherence to the wage agreements in force where the principal is located.
Without that, we easily end up in a spiral of discrimination and wages dumping at the expense of many workers' families.
Competition in the internal market must not be allowed to be like that.
Competition must not be pursued at the expense of the environment, and so it is perfectly clear that public principals must require the maintenance of high environmental standards.
Let me close with a word on the threshold values for European tendering.
Since the existing threshold values have demonstrably failed to bring about any increase in cross-frontier exchange in the sphere of public contracting, we need have no qualms about raising them.
Speaking personally, I have no problem with the idea of doubling them.
Raised thresholds deter unjustifiably high expenditure on smaller projects, promote greater flexibility in the planning and realisation of manageable projects and contribute to the careful use of money raised from tax.
The public will thank us if we do not oblige their mayors to throw the money out of the window with both hands.
I would like to apologise to Mr Zappalà and also to the Commissioner for the fact that I cannot stay to the end; a party of visitors has been waiting for me since four o'clock, and I really must get to them, although I would actually have liked to stay to hear the Commissioner's reply.
Mr President, at the heart of this debate is the theme of protecting the public interest in contracts awarded by public authorities.
It is also, in the context of the internal market, about encouraging cross-border tendering and working: 15% of EU GDP - that is an important input in achieving public policy aims.
We should be looking to achieve best value for our citizens and a transparent process for those tendering.
But best value can never be based on purely financial criteria.
Price alone can never be a complete measure of what is in the public interest, of what is the most advantageous offer.
I remember, as the member of a local authority, seeing a council waste time, effort and money trying to unscramble a valuable school meals contract that proved to be totally unsatisfactory.
Yes, the price was right, but only the lawyers won.
The goals pursued by public authorities are justifiably, in the public interest, a mixture that includes environmental and social goals.
As long as the playing field is level and the procedure is absolutely transparent, such goals and choices can and should be valid, as the ECJ has recently confirmed.
Such choices, indeed, are a valid and intrinsic part of local political life.
Mr President, it is a happy coincidence that you have taken the chair this afternoon for it permits me to say with what pride it is that I share with you a constituency under our present electoral arrangements as a fellow Member for Scotland.
You have brought credit on our constituency in the dignified and splendid way you have conducted yourself over recent weeks and we are very pleased with that.
In that constituency, as you well know, it is not taken for granted that what is publicly provided or done is bad and only what is privately done is good.
Nor does the Commission take that view.
But, as Mrs Wallis has just said, this debate focuses on the very question of what decisions are properly taken by the public authorities, by democratic procedures on the basis of public choice, and what must then reasonably be left to the market to deal with.
It is crucial for that dividing line to be got right. Mrs Hautala asked a question which the Commissioner must answer when replying to this debate today.
It is a question which can also be addressed to Mr Zappalà, who says that we should only take economic conditions into account, not, for example, environmental or social ones.
If Helsinki or Edinburgh became seriously polluted with diesel fumes, that would give rise to costs. Somebody would have to pay to clean them up eventually.
To say that is a non-economic cost is simply an odd kind of economics. So we turn the thing round: we ask who shall decide if the streets of Helsinki or the streets of Edinburgh need environmentally friendly and sustainable buses?
Who can best take that decision? Is it best taken in Brussels?
Is it best taken in Strasbourg by this Parliament? Is it best taken in London?
No, it is best taken in Edinburgh or in Helsinki.
We need a decision of that kind to be taken locally.
Of course, we do not want that decision to lead to unfair consequences.
It must be open and transparent.
Who can come and bid for this contract and on what terms can they obtain it? That is fine, but do not exclude the local authority, the people of a region, from saying themselves what standards they demand of those who serve them.
If that is to be ruled out by European law, Europe will not grow in popularity among its citizens.
We must have this kind of clear responsibility for the public good taken by public authorities.
I would like to hear the Commission's reply to that point.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission' s proposal for a directive and the report adopted by the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
However, we need amendments that include social and environmental requirements and equal treatment requirements in procedures.
The amendments I have tabled seek to strengthen the role of awarding authorities in monitoring the quality of the tenderers and I would stress the importance of assessing the environmental impact of public and private projects.
I would also stress the need to exclude from award procedures people condemned for crimes such as money laundering, fraud and racketeering.
I want to emphasise this in this House too, for I am sad to say that my country, Italy, is still troubled by the Mafia and, contrary to what the Italian cabinet minister, Mr Lunardi, said, complicity with the Mafia is totally unacceptable.
Mr President, may I too offer my congratulations to you on your election as first Vice-President.
I should like to provide a different perspective on the debate this afternoon.
In this debate we have not heard from the people who are now supplying public authorities across the European Union as a result of the tremendous progress that has been made in opening up public contracting all over the European Union.
So far we have heard nothing this afternoon about the people who are driving the economy forward because they are getting open access to tenders, cheaply and readily available by electronic means.
That applies to businesses, organisations, service providers, manufacturers, contractors all over the European Union.
A few weeks ago I went to see one of those companies in my constituency.
It employs 80 people.
Every morning it logs on to the Official Journal. Five or six tenders are listed there, all for the United Kingdom.
This company does not at the moment have export ambitions but the Official Journal gives it cheap, ready access to customers in public authorities to a standard format.
It fulfils and puts in tenders for them every week.
In this perspective I want to look at the balance between economic, environmental and social issues.
That company in the Black Country in the United Kingdom employs 80 people, that is 80 much-needed jobs, and it complies with every single social requirement in United Kingdom law.
It complies with all the environmental rules in United Kingdom law.
It is perfectly entitled to apply for a contract. Why should that be otherwise?
Why should it have to do anything else? This is primarily an economic instrument.
That is what it was designed to be to begin with.
We may want to add to its social burdens - and plenty of colleagues over there would like to do that.
We will have many more debates with Mrs Thorning-Schmidt and other colleagues about adding to the requirements to improve the safety and health of their workers.
That is fine.
If companies comply with that, they should be entitled to apply for contracts.
I want to pick up on Mr MacCormick's points, because methinks he protests too much.
On the question of the Helsinki bus contract, surely it was up to the Helsinki authorities to decide, before they put the contract out to tender, what was the optimum and most environmentally friendly bus that they wanted?
It is not part of public contract to require the bus manufacturers to do an environmental appraisal for Helsinki before they then submit the contract.
If the Helsinki authorities had said that they wanted 100 buses powered by natural gas and that is the contract, then fine, if that is what they want to do.
But it should be done on an open and consistent basis.
Finally, I want to turn to this question of thresholds.
This seems to be the most extraordinary debate.
I particularly refer to one of the opinions from EMAC, in which our colleague, who unfortunately is not here, said he wanted to simplify matters by raising thresholds but at the same time he wanted to allocate 15% of contracts to SMEs.
Does he think that by removing a substantial number of contracts from the public procurement regime, by raising thresholds, he is going to improve the situation for SMEs? What sort of world are we living in?
This is an area where we want SMEs to compete.
We want local authorities to put in contracts on a consistent open basis that will give our citizens value for money.
We want to oblige them to do that.
Just because they find it difficult, because they think it costs them money - probably because they do not want to comply with all the requirements - they want more discretion to give contracts not on an open basis.
That is what raising this public threshold is all about.
We should not do it.
It will undermine the value of a system that is working well already.
That is what we should be looking at: improvement, not destruction.
Mr President, I too have companies in my constituency that are benefiting from this public procurement regime.
Indeed they are benefiting from providing euro slot machines for public authorities even though Britain is not in the euro zone.
There are lots of opportunities here.
But I want to direct some very pertinent questions to the Commissioner and I hope he will answer those questions in his response.
Commissioner, we need some clarification regarding thresholds, as Mr Harbour has indicated.
I would genuinely like to know what would be the effect on the public procurement market if thresholds were to be increased, and particularly on small and medium-sized enterprises and on consumers.
I would also like to know, as regards our international obligations under the WTO general procurement agreement with third countries, whether it would be the case, as has been established by Commission services, that the US and Japan would actually be favoured contractors and that our EU suppliers would lose out because we would be operating two distinctly different regimes.
I should like to raise questions on the social criteria.
Members have already stressed the compatibility of incorporating strong social progress criteria in award procedures while respecting the principles of competition law and of equal treatment and non-discrimination.
It ought to be possible to combine economic reform and competition policy with strong and sound social justice and social progress principles.
I cannot understand why, if we have a system of transparency and open competition, how we cannot prevent that from being used as a protectionist smoke screen in the publication of tenders.
Why has the Commission not incorporated the full force of good practice from European case law into the body of this directive to ensure that we guarantee the highest social and economic standards in public procurement? Surely we owe that to our public authorities, to our consumers and indeed to our businesses.
Why has the Commission gone down the route of a voluntary approach?
I hope the Commission will accept the amendments mentioned by my colleague, Mr Hughes, to allow for reserve contracts for sheltered employment schemes.
I hope it will respect Parliament's wishes for a strong line to be taken in this directive, ensuring compliance with core labour standards and permitting the exclusion of those in breach of those standards.
Mr President, my warmest congratulations on your election.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report has far more impact than would appear at first sight.
Annually, thousands of contracts are awarded by public, often regional or local, governments.
At the moment, public procurement is said to account for approximately 14% of the entire European GDP.
However, existing legislation is too complicated and complex, as a result of which, to date, this market segment has been far too much hidden from the benefits of the internal market.
The current report, therefore, cannot afford to miss its target, namely the simplification of legislation and greater opportunities for European procurement procedures.
For these reasons, inter alia, I am opposed to raising the thresholds too high, as a result of which a meagre 8 to 12% of all procurements in the European Union would fall within the scope of this regulation.
In addition, the introduction of social and environmental criteria must be handled with care.
Too many conditions that are too wordy once again make matters much more difficult, both for our towns and municipalities and for our SMEs.
We must realise that they will bear the brunt of this European legislation.
We must bring them closer to Europe and get them to spread the European message.
This is certainly not achieved by issuing an unhealthy number of rules and regulations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my heartfelt thanks and respect are owed to the rapporteur, who has drafted this material with much energy, discipline and intelligence.
I admire him most of all for not losing his Roman cheerfulness despite what was at times a very difficult process.
Many thanks also to my colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, where we had what I think was one of our most interesting debates to date.
The discussions in this House have also shown that views on threshold values and social standards cut across Group lines, and we can look forward to tomorrow's vote with great excitement.
I see a requirement for the new Directives to be progressive, fair and functional.
We support the modernisation proposed by the Commission, for example with regard to the introduction of electronic auctions and the electronic submission of tenders.
What greatly worries me, though, is that on one point the Directive is not being made fairer. I am referring here to the issue of social and environmental standards.
It is for the benefit of the other members of my group that I would like to expressly reiterate that the issue is not, for us, that social and environmental criteria have no part to play in the procedure whereby contracts are awarded.
No!
Mr Hager has shown that very clearly.
These standards must be laid down in the description of the product.
We want to avoid the situation where, when the contract is awarded at the end of the process and the tenders have been compared and it is clear that tender no.
1 is the best in economic terms, no.
2 is worse, no.
3 is even worse than that and no.
4 is the worst of all, there is then another assessment which establishes that one firm is more socially responsible because it employs more disabled people and another more ecological because it has a waste management system, whereupon it is decided, despite the fact that there was another tender which was better in economic terms, to award the contract to the more expensive firm after all.
That is the situation we want to avoid, for it would run counter to the internal market.
That is why this is such an important point for us, and a Directive with standards of that sort would basically be no use to us anymore.
Mr President, may I offer you my congratulations and best wishes; I know that you will continue to be as efficient as ever in the performance of your duties.
The battle for social and environmental criteria, which was won mainly thanks to the proposal of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, proves that the European Parliament still basically supports the European social model and sustainable development, which is the only way to make Europe competitive in a global environment.
The amendments to the social and environmental criteria, which have to be evaluated in tandem, do not impose any new obligations or costs on companies; they merely state the obvious, i.e. that we need to respect the acquis communautaire when it comes to protecting work and the environment.
In the same vein, the position taken by the Committee on Legal Affairs, to the effect that contracts could contain terms to encourage the recruitment of minorities or excluded persons and combat employment, should be adopted unanimously.
Now it has been agreed that employment policy needs to be mainstreamed, adopting this position would confirm that we believe and mean what we say.
I am also encouraged by the new paragraph in Article 7 calling not just for a legal framework for protecting work to be defined, but for it to be aligned with Convention No. 94 of the International Labour Organisation and the directive on the secondment of employees.
Meeting minimum labour standards in international conventions is one of the fundamental obligations of the developed countries in the European Union.
Another question which we addressed was the question of thresholds.
I think that, in doing away with thresholds, we really have warded off the danger of excluding small and medium-sized enterprises from the market, which is, of course, what would happen if they had to compete, with the complex procedures in the directive, with large companies at Community level.
This amendment therefore helps employment and helps companies to remain viable.
Finally, I call on the Commission to include other means in procurement by electronic means, not just the electronic auctions which are held on the market.
By which I mean certain models of public procurement, such as electronic catalogues, electronic government purchasing methods and a series of corresponding electronic means used by companies.
Mr President, procurement policy is a very important means of leading social development in the direction of sustainability.
Local authorities and state organisations must therefore naturally be entitled to take account of the environment, the working environment and social goals when they procure goods and services.
This is a right, Mr Harbour, and not a duty, even if you repeatedly try to present it as such.
It is a right that local authorities must be given, with due attention having to be paid, of course, to ensuring that there will be no question of a distortion of competition.
The EU has, of course, some splendid objectives in both the environmental and social areas but, if we do not integrate these objectives into all EU legislation, then little progress will be made and we shall not get anywhere.
The public sector must be able to make environmental demands of the products it purchases, and it is particularly important to emphasise in this connection that it must be able to impose requirements upon such products throughout their whole life cycles.
It is surprising that the EU' s own eco-label has been given so insignificant a place in the Commission' s proposal and, when the public sector prepares technical specifications, it must naturally be able to refer to the EU' s own eco-label.
By means of a number of amendments, we have tried to integrate social and environmental considerations.
I hope that, this time round, the Commission will take a positive view of this.
Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Zappalà, for the considerable amount of work he had done on this most complicated and important issue, as many Members have said this afternoon.
In May 2000, the Commission adopted two proposed directives designed to simplify and modernise Community public procurement rules.
Those proposals contain significant new developments to adapt the directives to modern procurement requirements.
In the interest of simplification, the Commission has proposed a recasting of four existing directives merged into two new ones.
I note that Parliament has taken advantage of this recasting of the four directives to question the Community acquis in areas where the Commission has not proposed any changes.
I refer here in particular to the amendments raising the thresholds, which will significantly reduce the directives' scope, above all - may I say to Mrs McCarthy - with respect to small and medium enterprises.
If those proposals were to be adopted, the Commission would have to give serious thought as to whether the proposal should be retained at all.
Many of the amendments put forward will help make an important contribution to better procurement and are to be welcomed.
The Commission supports those amendments which add to the simplification and modernisation process.
They are Amendments: Nos 1, 3, 167, 141, 4, 13, 16, 17, 24, 28, 34, 36, 174, 40, 50, 128, 53, 79, 80, 85, 88, 97, 109 - to the extent that it concerns production processes - and 112.
The Commission can also accept the substance of a number of amendments, subject to some drafting changes, namely Amendments Nos 2, 10, 42 in part, 45, 46, 47, 123, 52 in part, 93 and 95 in part, 109, 110 and 154 concerning the extent to which environmental considerations can be taken into account at different stages of an award procedure.
Similarly, Amendments Nos 11, 15, 48 in part, 51, 129, 52, 86, 87, 124, 89, 100 in part, 110 and 164 concerning the need to ensure that tenderers comply with employment law, can be included in the directive in an appropriate form.
That is also partially the case for Amendment No 163 concerning information on sub-contracting.
Various amendments designed to address the increasing centralisation of procurement are also acceptable, subject to some redrafting, namely Amendments Nos 5, 6, 20 in part, 126, 21, 41, 168, 172 in part and 175.
In a similar vein, Amendment No 38 concerning consortia formed by contracting authorities and Amendments Nos 39 and 40 are also acceptable.
A number of amendments add to the broad range of electronic means available to contracting authorities, namely Amendments Nos 23, 54 and 65 concerning reverse electronic auctions, as well as Amendments Nos 74 and 104, which deal with the integrity and confidentiality of data supplied by operators.
Concerning confidentiality of data, part of Amendment No 31 can be accepted, though Amendment No 77 would then be superfluous and would have to be rejected.
Various amendments concerning the competitive dialogue, in particular as regards payment of participants, can be taken into account, more specifically Amendments Nos 9, 56, 57 in part, 58 in part, 137 in part, and 138.
Various amendments which I would describe as explanatory and which deal with a range of subjects are also acceptable, namely Amendments Nos 7, 125 in part, 18, 142, 26, 30, 35, 46 in part, 70, 113, 114, 121, 132, 153, 169, 170 and 171.
Subject to drafting changes, the substance of Amendment No 147 concerning the applicability of the Treaty below the thresholds is also acceptable, if placed in a recital.
On the other hand, the Commission has no alternative but to reject amendments which call into question the Community acquis, detract from modernisation of the directives or make the regime more complex.
Accordingly, the Commission cannot accept the following amendments:
Amendments to raise the directives' thresholds - as I said earlier - by 50%, the effect of which would be to remove from the scope of the directives a large number of contracts currently covered, namely Amendments Nos 32, 33, 67, 130, 101, 105 and 106.
The unfortunate consequences of these amendments are not alleviated by Amendment No 147, however good its intentions.
In fact, the raison d'être of the directives is not in itself sufficient without the detailed procedural rules of the directives to guarantee uniform and legally certain application and to safeguard the rights of economic operators through efficient remedies.
Amendments introducing new exceptions to the scope of the directives without appropriate justification, the effect of which would be to remove a number of public contracts from Community competition, namely Amendments Nos 37, 38 in part, 122, 136, 150 and 157.
Amendments which undermine the very objective of public procurement rules, which is to ensure that public purchasers do not allow their decision to be influenced by non-economic considerations, namely Amendments Nos 12, 14, 98, 134, 140 and 166 concerning award criteria which allow for the possibility of using non-economic - and in particular social and environmental - criteria.
Amendments which weaken attempts to modernise the directives by reducing the scope for using electronic procurement, namely Amendments Nos 70 in part, 73, 75, 102, 103, 115, 117 and 131.
Amendments imposing disproportionate requirements on SMEs through the regulation of subcontracting and other requirements, namely Amendments 42, 48 in part, 49, 76, 100 in part, 116, 133, 152 and 159.
Amendments which reduce transparency in calls for competition, in particular Amendments Nos 62, 68 and 78, and which extend the scope to negotiate, namely Amendments Nos 57, part of 61, 66 and 151.
Amendments which restrict the use of framework agreements with no apparent justification, namely Amendments Nos 25, 27, 135, 139, 63, 64 and 158.
Amendments introducing environmental considerations into award procedures in a manner incompatible with the directives, namely the part of Amendment No 45 concerning eco-labels, No 92 concerning the selection stage and No 109 regarding the definition of technical specifications and their compatibility with the environment.
Amendments which are not compatible with the flexible nature of the competitive dialogue, in particular Amendments Nos 55, 58 in part, 59, 60 and 160.
Amendments containing additional cases where persons convicted of certain offences would face mandatory exclusion; in the proposed mechanism, only those cases subject to criminal sanctions in all Member States should be included.
It is not, therefore, possible to take account of some of these cases, namely Amendments Nos 81, 82 and 83.
On the other hand, some of these cases are already covered by the optional exclusions contained in Article 46(2).
Amendments Nos 84 and 90 should also be rejected, since they could lead to a situation where it is not possible to contract with a company which is trying to re-establish itself financially.
Amendments which are superfluous or likely significantly to change the effect of other provisions in the directives without good reason, namely Amendments Nos 8, 19, 20 in part, 22, 29, 30 in part, 43, 127, 44, 45 in part, 55, 59, 60, 69, 70 in part, 71, 72, 94, 96, 108, 111, 143, 156, 162, 172 in part and 173.
Amendments which, without justification, detract from the powers delegated by the legislator to the Commission under existing law, namely Amendment No 107.
The last category of amendments not acceptable to the Commission as regards the first proposal are those amendments which remove clarificatory changes designed to create greater legal security, namely Amendment No 99 on the weighting of award criteria, Amendment No 100 on abnormally low tenders as a result of State aid, Amendments Nos 144, 145, 146, 148 and 149 modifying the definition of works contracts, and Amendment No 161 on the principles governing time limits.
That is it as far as the first directive is concerned.
As regards the second directive, the so-called Utilities Directive, it is the second proposal adopted by the Commission in May 2000.
Besides the objectives of simplification and modernisation, which I just mentioned, this second proposal is particularly aimed at reviewing the scope of the directive in the light of ongoing or future liberalisation of the sectors concerned.
This proposal is also a recasting of the existing texts, with the proposed changes incorporated in a single text.
I can only repeat the misgivings caused, in particular, by the proposed amendments concerning the threshold values.
Many of the amendments put forward will help make an important contribution to better procurement and are therefore to be welcomed.
The Commission supports the amendments consistent with the line it has taken, such as Amendments Nos 2, 7, 21, 37, 43, 47, 95, 111 and 116.
The Commission can also - although somewhat reluctantly - accept Amendment No 29, given the large consensus on this amendment in both Parliament and Council.
Subject to drafting changes the Commission can equally accept the substance of a large number of amendments:
Amendments Nos 3, 18, 34 in part, 35, 36, 38, 40, 64, 87, 89, 92, 96, 99, 101, 118 and 119 concerning technical specifications, the possibility of taking environmental concerns into account at various stages of an award procedure and means of proving technical and financial capacity.
Amendments Nos 4, 9, 44 in part, 56, 90 in part, 93, 97 in part, and 108 in part concerning observance of other legislation, in particular social legislation, clauses relating to the execution of contracts and provisions concerning sub-contracting.
Amendments Nos 57, 59, 60 and 109 concerning exclusion criteria are acceptable in part to the extent that obligatory exclusions are limited to contracting entities which are public authorities and that the list of grounds for obligatory exclusion corresponds to that provided for under the Public Sector Directive.
Amendments Nos 66 in part, 67, 68, and 69 regarding simplification of the provisions on mentioning the relative weighting of award criteria.
Amendment No 70, depending on language versions as changes are not required for certain of them, concerning abnormally low tenders.
Amendment No 76 on the coal and solid fuel sector is acceptable to the extent that it requires voluntary application of Directive 94/22 to be taken into account for the purposes of Article 29, however without such voluntary application being associated with any legal presumption.
Amendments Nos 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, and 86 concerning increased transparency on remedies.
Subject to acceptance of the substance of the Commission's proposal on Article 29 the Commission could also support Amendments Nos 13 and 16 concerning transferral of entities offering postal services from the Public Sector Directive to the Utilities Directive.
The objective of allowing economic exploitation of coal-generated heat at the heart of Amendment No 15 will be taken into account through the acceptance of Amendment No 29.
As drafted the amendment is not acceptable as it would have quite different effects from those intended.
Concerning the issue of contracts awarded between related entities, Amendment No 27 is acceptable in part, as far as the possibilities of awarding service contracts to newly created, affiliated undertakings and of awards of certain service contracts to a joint venture are concerned.
Amendments Nos 51 and 75 concerning preservation of confidentiality in respect of information forwarded by electronic means are acceptable.
Various amendments which I would describe as clarificatory and which deal with a range of subjects are also acceptable, namely Amendments Nos 22, 30, 53, 113 in part, and 117.
On the other hand the Commission has no alternative but to reject amendments which question the Community acquis, and which detract from modernisation of the directives or make the regime more complex.
Accordingly, the Commission cannot accept the following:
Amendments to raise the directive's thresholds by approximately 50%, the effect of which would be to remove from the scope of the directive a large number of contracts currently covered or otherwise greatly reduce transparency; namely Amendments Nos 20, 46, 72, 102, 105 and 107.
Amendments introducing new exceptions to the scope of the directives without appropriate justification, the effect of which would be to remove a number of contracts from Community competition; namely Amendments Nos 6, 19, 24, 25, 26, parts of 27, 28, 45 and 84.
Amendments which would substantially change the conditions provided for in Article 29 and Annex X for the Commission to grant legally binding exemptions in the case of liberalisation having resulted in effective competition or which would create inconsistencies between this directive and other Community legislation: Amendments Nos 31, 58, 76 insofar as its inclusion in Annex X would create a legal presumption, and 77.
Those amendments which undermine the very objective of public procurement rules, which is to ensure that public purchasers do not allow their decision to be influenced by non-economic considerations; namely Amendments Nos 8, 17, 65, 94, 104, 110 and 122 concerning award criteria which allow for the possibility of using non-economic criteria, in particular social or environmental criteria.
Amendments which weaken attempts to modernise the directives by reducing the scope for using electronic procurement; namely Amendments Nos 49, 50, 73, 74 and 103.
Amendments imposing disproportionate requirements on SMEs through regulation of subcontracting, in Amendments Nos 32, 41, 42, and amendments introducing social considerations into award procedures in a manner incompatible with the directive, namely Amendments Nos 33, 55, 62, 63, 71 and 88.
Amendments on technical specifications either introducing environmental considerations in a manner incompatible with the directives or introducing improper requirements concerning equivalence of technical solutions; namely Amendment No 34 for the part concerning eco-labels, 36 for the part concerning costs, 39, 91, 98 and 100.
Amendments which are not compatible with the flexible nature of this directive, which is applicable to both public and private commercial entities, and amendments transferring provisions from the public sector directive without good reasons, namely Amendments Nos 10, 11, 52, 54, parts of 59, parts of 60 and Amendment No 61.
Amendments which are superfluous, would create significant legal uncertainty or are likely significantly to change the effect of other provisions in the directives without good reason; namely Amendments Nos 1, 5, 12, 14, 23, 48, parts of Amendment No 66 on the weighting of award criteria, 106, 112, 114, 115, 120, 121, 123 and 124.
In my reply to Parliament and in view of the fact that Parliament deserves to have the opinion of the Commission on all the amendments which have been tabled, I see that I have been speaking for 24 minutes.
I have some replies to question put to me during the debate but I fear that would take me far beyond the time allotted so I really am in your hands as to what you want me to do.
May I suggest that I try to briefly answer the various questions that have been put and if you think I am speaking too long, please tell me so.
Thank you for your comprehensive explanation.
Perhaps you could offer us the answer in writing but summarise the main points.
In reply to Mr Zappalà, I should like to say that the current definition of works contracts explicitly provides that such contracts may be for the sole construction or cover of both design and construction.
To change that approach would in particular prevent or, at the very least, greatly hamper use of turnkey projects, public/private partnerships, works concessions and competitive dialogues.
The Commission is, therefore, opposed to imposing a separation between the design and the execution of works.
In reply to Mrs Schörling, the Commission has proposed including as possible award criterion the environmental characteristics of a product or service, provided that they present an advantage to the contracting authority.
That criterion allows a public purchaser to evaluate the intrinsic qualities of the product or service and to award contracts to the most economically advantageous tender.
The proposed amendments go further, in allowing more general environmental considerations such as the long-term effects on the environment of the products or services purchased to be taken into account at the award stage.
Such considerations are not measurable; they cannot assist in an evaluation of the intrinsic qualities of the product or services and are therefore inappropriate at the award stage.
In reply to Mr Rapkay and Mr Hughes, the purpose of the public procurement directives is to coordinate the procedures for the award of contracts and not to state which obligations - social or otherwise - private contractors must comply with once a contract is awarded.
Contractors are in any event required to comply with all applicable laws and obligations, whether social in nature or not.
However, the Commission is willing to state in the recitals of the directives that tenderers must comply with applicable social rules, including collective agreements of general application in performing public procurement contracts.
The Commission also agrees that contracting authorities should be required to state in the contract documents the body from which information on applicable social obligations can be obtained.
In reply to Mrs Hautala, I should like to say that regarding the preliminary reference currently before the Court of Justice, the Commission has taken note of the conclusions of the Advocate-General.
However, those conclusions cannot prejudge the judgment itself.
In addition, having regard to the content of the communication on the environment and public contracts, the Commission - as it explained at the time of the Court hearing - does not see an obstacle to the emissions criterion being taken into account where this involves - as the case of the city of Helsinki has shown - an external cost to the purchaser itself.
The Commission will, therefore, wait for the Court's ruling and reconsider interpretation in the light of the judgment and, if necessary, will consider revising its position on the amendments from the European Parliament.
I should like to reply to Mr Lehne but, as he has left the Chamber, I shall skip that part of my reply.
Commissioner, it is true that Mr Lehne is not here, but please feel free to respond anyway.
Your responses will then be conveyed to Mr Lehne.
This is a broad debate which reaches much further than the people involved.
Mr President, the Commission is always pleased to assist Members of Parliament in forming their opinions.
May I therefore say that if Mr Lehne had been present I would have said the following - and I am, of course, willing say it even though Mr Lehne is not here.
Mr Lehne stated that social and environmental clauses must be introduced in the tender documents themselves and should not influence the choice at the award stage.
Therefore, I would support his view that Article 53 on award criteria should not be modified.
Such considerations may be taken into account at the appropriate stage, either in the tender documents or in the contractual clauses.
I cannot support Amendment No 147 by Mr Zappalà, since it will not provide any legal certainty to economic operators.
May I end my reply to Parliament here and conclude by saying that there is now a real need to ensure that our public procurement rules remain relevant to increasingly sophisticated procurement requirements.
That is why Parliament and the Council must now press ahead to ensure that these directives are adopted at the earliest opportunity.
Mr President, I am sorry for having spoken for fully half an hour, but I feel that Parliament is entitled to a complete response to the many amendments tabled.
The Commission awaits the vote tomorrow.
Mr President, in view of the importance of the matter, I would just like to ask the Commissioner to clarify something.
In any case, I would like to thank him for all his comments, which were certainly important from my point of view, although I do maintain - and I will do so tomorrow - that Parliament should have the autonomy to decide on a political basis rather than on the basis of other factors.
However, his response regarding Amendment No 147 does not make sense at all: while the Commission is against raising the thresholds - which, as was said during the hearings, meetings and debates within the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, I believe is because it wants the directives on works contracts to be applied as widely as possible - according to what the Commissioner has just said, raising the thresholds would actually reduce the number of works contracts.
Now then, Amendment No 147 seeks specifically to open up works contracts to competition, and I cannot understand why the Commission is opposed to this.
I would be grateful to the Commissioner if, either now or later in private, by some means or other, he could explain to me what part of Amendment No 147 is unacceptable.
It is important, Mr President, for this is no trivial matter.
I repeat, if it is not appropriate to do so now because it is time to suspend our work or move on to something else, I am quite prepared, if the Commissioner agrees, even to meet him afterwards so that he can explain to me what is wrong with Amendment No 147, which, as I see it, ensures that absolutely all works contracts, of whatever type, can be governed by European legislation.
Mr President, I shall try to be brief.
Until 1971 the only rules and principles applicable to public procurement were those enshrined in the Treaty itself, and in particular the provisions of Articles 28 and 49.
However, experience has shown that the genuine opening up of markets and the creation of a real and efficient internal market required that those rules and principles be clarified through detailed provisions coordinating national procedures.
To revert to the legal situation of the 1970s - and this would be the result of the proposal just made and enshrined in Amendment No 147 - is not acceptable, especially in a proposal aimed at modernising the legislation.
Moreover, to do so would also deprive economic operators of one of the most important advances in the field of public procurement, namely the possibility of enforcing their rights through efficient legal remedies guaranteed through the two specific directives which govern remedies in respect of contracts falling within the scope of the public procurement directives.
Therefore, the introduction of Amendment No 147 simply does not make the amendments aimed at raising thresholds throughout the directive acceptable.
There is still some misunderstanding.
I believe we can find a bilateral means of solving this.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Ozone in ambient air
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0454/2001) by Mr Davies, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive relating to ozone in ambient air [PE-CONS 3658/2001 - C5-0524/2001 - 1999/0068(COD)]
Mr President, I had not followed the last report in any detail but if Commissioner Wallström is in the same sort of mood as Commissioner Bolkestein, I am glad I am not tabling any amendments today.
On a complete change of note, a few weeks ago I was reading to my daughter, Kate, from A Christmas Carol by the 19th-century British author Charles Dickens.
Scrooge sat in his counting house, he wrote.
"The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air."
It must be a great cause for cheer in European cities today that we no longer have to breathe that "palpable brown air".
It is a sign of environmental progress and achievement that air quality now is better than it has been for centuries.
But there is more yet to be done, and in its Clean Air for Europe programme the Commission has identified particulates and ozone as two priorities for action.
Ozone pollution contributes to the premature death of tens of thousands of people each year; it causes breathing difficulties, coughs, headaches and eye irritation.
The World Health Organisation has not been able to identify a threshold below which there are no effects.
It can also damage vegetation, reduce crop yields and stunt the growth of forests and, like acid rain, it can eat into and destroy the fabric of buildings and works of art.
And so we have this draft directive to address the problem.
It started out as a remarkably weak proposal, the key element of which was to set targets for 2010 for the maximum number of exceedances above WHO guidelines, but these targets would not have been binding on Member States.
It also called for the preparation of short-term action plans to deal with acute problems and for more public information and health alerts.
During the course of the past two years, Parliament has been able to use its codecision powers to give this legislation some teeth.
We have strengthened the public's right to information.
We have made it easier for recalcitrant countries to be named and shamed into improving their performance.
We have ensured that damage to materials is included amongst the criteria for consideration.
We have re-emphasised our wish to see long-term reductions in ozone levels achieved by 2020 in line with the National Emissions Ceilings Directive proposals.
But above all, we have addressed the issue of the non-binding short-term targets.
Instead of Member States having to work to achieve these "as far as possible", which was the original proposal, we have insisted that effective measures shall be taken unless the targets cannot be achieved by "proportionate measures".
I want to emphasise that we agreed this wording because both the Commission and our own legal services advised us that it would make the provisions of the directive enforceable and that Member States could be taken to the European Court of Justice if they failed to take such measures.
In other words, we have used our codecision powers to transform a statement of good intent into a legally binding commitment.
Even so, the European Environmental Bureau has criticised us, asking: "Why do we need a directive at all if the 2010 targets are not fully binding?" But this misunderstands the nature of ozone pollution.
It is hugely transboundary.
While peak exceedances are falling across Europe, the average level is continuing to rise, almost certainly as a result of pollution generated far from our shores.
I do not believe that Spain, or Italy, or Germany, or any of us should face the prospect of legal sanctions because they are being polluted from China.
That would not be fair and it would not be realistic.
I want Member States here to be required to do all that they can realistically to meet the targets, no more and no less.
I think that "palpable brown air" gave a lot of character to the story of Scrooge.
But it is not appropriate now.
Perhaps I will ask my daughter, Kate, if she will write a 21st-century version featuring clean air.
However, with the assistance of the Commission and the last Belgian Presidency, Parliament has been able in the meantime to use its negotiating powers to turn a simple wish list into a requirement for our various governments to take action which will significantly improve air quality across Europe.
We have secured greater changes and a more ambitious directive than we could reasonably have expected when the draft was first proposed.
We can be proud of what we have achieved.
Mr President, the directive on ozone in ambient air is intended to provide a response to the problem of tropospheric ozone produced and trapped in the air around the earth' s surface which, as we all know, has damaging effects on both human health and on the planet' s vegetation, ecosystems and on the environment as a whole.
The concentration of ozone, as we know, is due to the accumulation in the atmosphere of precursor agents, but there is no easy solution, of course, to eradicating them, because these precursor agents sometimes act to reduce ozone in the atmosphere.
Various measurements taken at national level have shown that, in climatic conditions such as high luminosity and a stable atmosphere, reducing the precursor agents does not produce the desired effect of reducing the concentration of ozone.
In fact, it does the complete opposite.
Therefore, the solution to the problem of ozone concentration is extremely complex and simply shutting off the sources that generate precursor agents is not an appropriate measure. An example of this would be closing down a factory chimney that emits smoke, which is a precursor agent of ozone, into the atmosphere.
The rapporteur and various members of the Committee on the Environment - including myself - have been working intensely for almost two years to both improve the Commission' s proposal, which was undoubtedly necessary, and also to achieve a balanced proposal that would ensure maximum compliance by the Member States.
Lastly, in October, a joint text was produced, which was then approved by the Conciliation Committee.
I should like to emphasise a very positive aspect of the proposal that has been adopted, which is the combination of long-term objectives with a short-term approach to these high-risk situations, and all the measures designed to ensure rigorous control and monitoring of ozone levels in the atmosphere in all Member States.
I also think it is important to apply the principle of transparency where information is concerned, since the population must be more and better informed about the incidences of ozone levels in the atmosphere.
Another important aspect is the consideration of meteorological conditions and comparisons between the various Member States, which must lead to information being provided so that we can monitor developments in this issue in the various Member States.
This directive represents a major step in the right direction, providing a balanced approach to the problem of contamination and, together with the directive on national emission ceilings, we feel that these will genuinely prove to be very important tools with which we can address environmental problems and especially the problem of contamination in a cross-functional way.
Mr President, thank you first of all to Commissioner Wallström and Mr Davies for the good work they have done on this matter.
Specifically where ozone is concerned, we are of course in an odd situation.
High up in the atmosphere, the ozone layer is too thin, which causes problems, including health problems. Down here on earth, on the other hand, the concentration is, of course, far too strong.
I think, however, that we have obtained a good result from the conciliation negotiations and, in actual fact, probably a better result than many of us had dared to hope for when we listened to some of the Member States' negative attitudes towards solving the air quality problem with which we are concerned here.
Together with the Directive on National Emission Ceilings, for which Mrs Myller, here beside me, was rapporteur, this directive makes an important contribution to securing a lower concentration of ozone in Europe and, especially, in the large cities of Europe.
I think it is good that we have been given a starting point in the form of the WHO' s assessments of the existing risks to health and to the environment.
We have got some partial goals established, or target values for 2010, and these must be met.
However, it is naturally cause for concern that, for many years, we shall be obliged to accept that the WHO' s thresholds are being exceeded to a certain extent on a certain number of days per year.
I therefore think it good that we also obtained agreement to there having to be some more long-term objectives, in terms of which the WHO' s target values must be complied with.
What was agreed was not quite so precise as we should have liked here in Parliament. A reference point was set for 2020.
Many of us should have liked to have seen 2020 become a more definite deadline for meeting the WHO' s recommendations.
I also believe it is good that the Member States should not only be obliged to prepare practical programmes for achieving the targets, but that obligations should also be imposed in terms of informing people about the programmes that are being prepared and about the results - both positive and negative - that are obtained, just as we have acquired a number of rules as to when people are to be notified that there are problems with the unduly strong concentration of ozone - both people in general and people belonging to groups which are especially sensitive to problems in this area.
Finally, I would say that I also think it is good that we have got the candidate countries on board so that they can be involved early on.
We can of course now look forward to the directive' s coming into force before the first candidate countries accede to the EU so that, even at the time of their accession, they will have to comply with the obligations imposed by the directive upon existing Member States.
I hope that, by means of this directive, we can prevent and reduce the harmful effects of the unduly high concentrations of ozone upon people' s health and upon vegetation and that today might prove to have been a good day for future air quality in Europe.
Mr President, I believe that the Directive, which is now in its third and final reading, will improve air quality in Europe. It amends the 1996 Directive so as to meet the national emission ceilings for atmospheric pollutants and the recommendations of the World Health Organisation.
The work of Parliament in the drafting of the Directive was significant, and so once again our warm congratulations go to Mr Davies and to our other colleagues who were involved in this process, which lasted over two years.
In addition, we need to give our special thanks once again for the work of Belgium as Council President.
In the Directive which has now been approved, the Member States are obliged to submit plans which will allow the limit values necessary for the protection of human health and of vegetation to be lowered by 2010.
2020 will be the benchmark year for long-term objectives and for the subsequent revision of the Directive.
In special risk zones, short-term action plans plus active and open information and publicity work are also required.
From the point of view of this Directive, it is of particular importance that an attempt be made to also involve all the candidate countries at as early a stage as possible, since the distance impact of nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds on lower atmosphere ozone levels is significant.
In Finland for example the greater part of the ozone present in the lower atmosphere originates from transboundary pollution, in other words from emissions which our country could, in reality, hardly influence at all without the European Union.
Mr President, as you have personally remarked, we have arrived at the half-way point in Parliament's fifth term of elected office.
Parliament has already at this stage of its term been able to exert significant influence on the improvement of the air quality in the Union and the candidate countries.
In the environmental field, Parliament has thus used its new and enhanced authority in a good and responsible manner.
This work needs to be continued, the Commission must be encouraged to be more ambitious when drafting its proposals, and the good cooperation developed with the Council in the field of the environment needs to be kept as warm and effective as it is at present.
Mr President, I am of course very pleased that we are now approaching the time when we can adopt the Directive on ozone in ambient air.
Thanks to this directive, we shall be able to protect vegetation and people' s health from the damaging effects of unduly high concentrations of ozone, except in those cases where that cannot be brought about by proportionate measures.
I therefore warmly welcome the Conciliation Committee' s joint draft from 11 November 2001.
As has already been pointed out, the directive has been improved on essential points in the process from common position to final directive.
It has become clearer and more consistent, and that has been possible thanks to the high quality of the European Parliament' s proposal and of the successful negotiations during the conciliation.
I wish quite simply to take the opportunity of conveying my special thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Davies, and all the members of the Conciliation Committee.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Sixth Community Environment Action Programme
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0456/2001) by Mrs Myller, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision laying down the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme [11076/1/2001 - C5-0434/2001 - 2001/0029(COD)].
Mr President, with regard to the Sixth Environment Action Programme I would first of all like to offer thanks to the 'shadow rapporteurs' of the various Parliamentary groups for their fine cooperation.
This cooperation with the 'shadow rapporteurs' has meant that the voting agenda, at least, looks very different than in the first reading: we have concentrated exclusively on the most important amendments.
I hope that this fine cooperation will also continue in the voting tomorrow.
The Commission, too, has been a good cooperation partner: we have held a great many discussions.
Our special thanks go to Sweden, which acted as President during the first reading.
The main objective of the programme, of course, is to integrate environmental policy with the other sectors of policy.
In this respect this forms a continuation to the Fifth Environmental Action Programme, but in the course of this integration we must attain concrete objectives and actual results, and then we will also need structural amendments, for example to the Commission's own actions.
The objective of integration is of course that the environmental aspect be taken into consideration in the various policy sectors themselves.
Special emphasis must be given to the areas of energy policy, transport policy, agriculture and fishing, since these are the most difficult areas from the point of view of the environment.
The future agricultural reform must take steps in the direction of more sustainable procedures, and the new instruments for improving the state of the environment must incorporate a clear focusing of the EU's aid policy on the environmental aspect.
The conflict which presently reigns over subsidies from the environmental point of view must be eliminated.
An inventory should be established of environmentally-damaging subsidies, and these must be phased out by 2010 at the latest.
Money, incidentally, can act as a fine consultant, and in this spirit environmentally-related and energy taxes (for example) must also be developed.
I am also very pleased that here in Parliament we have been able to give very broad approval to the idea that environmentally-related taxation needs to be developed also at EU level.
Qualitative and quantitative objectives, and timetables, must be set for the most important environmental problems.
This has been a very contentious question: the Commission has not supported this, and the Council also has doubts.
My own opinion is that in this type of programme it is very important to understand those requirements which are to be placed on decision-making from the environmental point of view.
By setting objectives and by dividing them sensibly over time periods, we will make it possible for political decision-makers to understand, at any given future stage, what sort of decisions must be made in the situation at hand.
In my opinion these objectives are required, in particular, as instruments for directing policy.
The Commission proposes thematic strategies, which will subsequently guide the environmental policy of the future.
The Commission suggests six; Parliament has added an urban thematic initiative, and this has been very largely approved.
The thematic strategies must be approved using the codecision procedure.
In my opinion this is quite self-evident, since it is through these strategies that we will be directing environmental policy in its crucial aspects.
As I stated, there are very few amendments; but I would like to say a few words about one of them.
This is the amendment by the European Liberal and Democratic Party group concerning rejection of the common position.
In my opinion this will not be of any benefit to this matter, nor do I understand its content; it is only by improving the common position that we will bring about improvements in European environmental policy.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, for having, at first reading, voiced the concerns of the European Parliament' s Committee on Petitions.
Given the daily practice of this Committee, these could only be concerns relating compliance with this legislation, as raised in some of the rapporteur' s amendments and compromise amendments.
All policies should be integrated into environmental policy - as stated in some of the amendments - and public participation and information is necessary - also as stated in some of the amendments.
I am not hiding the fact that, as a citizen of a small mining region in Asturias - and I am speaking here in a personal capacity and not on behalf of my group - that I have some problems with the amendment on imposing a time limit on subsidies for projects that could damage the environment.
I do not have a problem with it in general terms, but specifically with regard to the fact that, in the region in which I live, more than 30 000 jobs have been lost as a direct result of restructuring.
For this reason I do not agree with these amendments.
However, we completely agree with the rest of them.
We also agree with some of our fellow Members - and I am sure that my colleague Jonas Sjöstedt would support me here - that this latest proposal is not the one put forward by the European Parliament.
This is a proposal that was debated, on which agreements were reached between all of the groups and between the rapporteur and the Commission and the Council to arrive at this latest proposal that we have here.
For this reason, I also agree with the rapporteur that we cannot accept, and shall reject, the amendment from the Group of the Europe Liberal, Democrat and Reform party that suggests rejecting the proposal.
The proposal is highly important, Mr President.
The Fifth Community Environment Action Programme has come to an end.
The European Union needs a clearly defined strategy with commitments and specific timetables for the next few years and it seems to me that this is potentially a clearly defined proposal with commitments and a specific timetable, which, indeed, we have a great need to implement.
Mr President, I am pleased to say that, at this second reading, the parties have worked to bring their positions closer together.
And although the Council and the Commission have made an effort to accept the many amendments from our first reading, I think that we can now say that it is Parliament that has made the effort to try to find, and reach agreement on, common positions.
In this regard, the role of Mrs Myller deserves a special mention.
We think that this is a reasonable programme that allows the Commission to work, makes it possible to legislate and allows States to be flexible within viable programmes, and for this reason we feel that we must support it.
This is an appropriate framework for combining the development of European communities in a pivotal policy of sustainable development and I think that it is up to the task.
If carried out in this way, it should be clear in conciliation that certain areas are subject to the principle of subsidiarity.
I would also like to talk about principles.
The desire to see all methods used everywhere and to implement a uniform policy in all States runs counter to the principle of sustainability and belongs to the globalist mindset.
It is very easy to attack globalisation when talking about the economy yet not to want to call imposing the same rules on the whole world globalisation.
Social principles, technological viability and the context in which methods are applied are all of great importance to sustainability; the first principle of sustainability is to know how to combine general principles with the imposed rules to suit the needs of each community, each location, each climate and each context.
We must be sufficiently generous of spirit to give those in government the freedom to impose their own rules, something that we shall also continue to do, and to adapt them as they see fit.
Furthermore, we support a scientific policy and feel that the function of the Popular Party and of Parliament, in this case, is to support the Council and the Commission because codecision is not only Parliament' s right, but also a responsibility that should be used to help governments.
For this reason, for example, we respect the dates of all these agreements that the Commission and the Council are to conclude with other European countries.
We need to be serious in this regard and support this policy that has required such efforts to produce.
We support the thematic strategies and a more scientific policy precisely because this means adapting to the current state of affairs, adapting to the situation of a particular State, sector and to the issue at hand.
We have to assess whether suitably adapted and applicable technologies exist, for in many instances, due to the climate, particular conditions, or size of a company, for example, technologies can differ.
The results, however, should be the same.
Therefore, we support the scientific nature and the study of the economic and social impacts that the programme will have, because without social principles, there can be no sustainability.
For this very reason we are not in favour of simply revising subsidies, that is to say, of a target date being fixed whatever the subsidy may be, and this is particularly the case for specific sectors that have had to close due to measures dictated by the Commission, which has imposed laws upon them - such as in the coal sector, for example - that are now facing the problem of some criteria being applied more strictly than others.
Let us first define the criteria for negative subsidies and take account of the fact that five years is not a sufficient amount of time for a generation to recover nor for certain deprived areas to regenerate.
Moreover, we reject the principle of substitution, because it offers no guarantees to industry, to the citizens, or to society, and lends itself to a very free interpretation by certain sectors, countries, civil servants or experts which may lead to the establishment of measures that are damaging to society and that have no legal guarantee.
And the principle of legal guarantee is inherent to the Rule of Law.
I hope that this scheme of management can be implemented.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Myller who, for a long time now, has had the task of working on this action programme and has fought resolutely to enable us to get it into order.
It is splendid to know that we are at last at the stage at which we are to adopt a position on the Sixth Environment Action Programme.
In view of this, it is not perhaps so surprising that many of us wish, and had wished, that the programme might have been better and feel disappointed that it is not as good as we would have liked.
At the same time, we perhaps also feel some kind of frustration concerning the unfair distribution of power we sometimes seem to perceive between the institutions, and wish in some way to express this specifically in the case of the Sixth Environment Action Programme.
I should therefore like to see liberals and others who are reflecting along these lines pull themselves together and rise above their own frustrations.
Let us differentiate between policy and processes and do what we have a mandate for. Let us do it well and take the institutional and constitutional battle elsewhere and not where the Sixth Environment Action Programme is at issue.
Let us see what kind of thing the Sixth Environment Action Programme is and see what we are to use it for, namely as a guiding star in all EU policy -environmental and otherwise- and as a lynchpin of the entire sustainable development strategy with which we shall travel together to Johannesburg in September of this year.
There is no reason for rejecting this document.
We must adopt it today.
Regarding Mrs Myller' s reference to the common environment tax, I would make a point of mentioning recent reports in Sweden to the effect that the dramatic fall in the quantities of climate-changing gases is due precisely to the carbon dioxide tax.
This further supports the case for our having to continue the fight, together with the Commission, to ensure that the Council is convinced that now is the time for us to introduce a common environment tax, especially where carbon dioxide is concerned.
Mr President, we held our first debate on the Commission' s Sixth Community Environment Action Programme in May last year.
At the time, the Commission proposal came under heavy attack from us as the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
In our view, the programme was far too broad and showed a serious lack of priorities.
At the same time, we wondered whether a ten-year plan was really, in fact, outdated.
We are now eight months further on, and have had input from the Commission, the Council and Parliament' s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Any satisfaction or progress? No, unfortunately, neither.
The proposal, as it was presented at the time, has since been cut down to the bone.
The position of the Council of Ministers is deeply disappointing on all fronts.
Last time, I used the image of a Christmas tree, trimmed with a multitude of proposals, which devalued the entire text.
The current plan has more in common with an empty box than a Christmas tree. The form is just about presentable, but is very much lacking in content.
I can tell you straight away who is not to blame for this.
Our rapporteur, Mrs Myller, has done sterling work, and the Commissioner has made every effort to tighten up the plan and take the wishes of this House more into consideration.
However, it is the Council that has frustrated every substantial improvement to the proposal.
It is staggering to realise that when we, as Parliament, vote on the plan' s current version, we shall in fact be back to square one, and this after two years of hard graft on the part of the Commission and Parliament.
Can this be justified to the European citizen? They set great store by the environment.
It is now the Council that has destroyed all the good work that has been done.
So what should have been done instead? According to my group, the priorities that are completely lacking in the plan are climate change, energy, waste and bio-diversity.
In addition, the plan should have been much more concise and should have been characterised by far more cohesion and vision.
In our view, the Council is best summed up as an emperor without clothes.
He may seem unremarkable at first glance, but fails the test upon further inspection.
This is not a strategy, it is even less than existing policy in a pleasant format.
It therefore constitutes a step back, and we propose to reject the present proposal in its entirety.
Mr President, those who work on environmental issues and on a variety of measures, programmes, conventions, items of legislation etc are often surprised and impatient at how slow the process is and at how difficult it is to specify in concrete terms how objectives in terms of protecting the environment and public health are to be formulated and implemented.
That is also how it has been with the Sixth Environment Action Programme.
First of all, it was not certain that we should obtain any action programme at all. When we then saw the Commission' s proposal, we thought that it was extremely vague and lacked both qualitative and quantitative objectives and timetables.
An environment action programme must naturally establish environmental objectives if there is to be any point at all in having a programme.
Mrs Myller, as rapporteur, and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy have genuinely tried to improve the Sixth Environment Action Programme.
I wish to thank the rapporteur for this and also thank other fellow MEPs for their valuable cooperation.
When we are now about to adopt a view on the Council' s position at second reading, we see that the Council has in fact introduced a very great many of Parliament' s amendments. When it comes to specifying deadlines etc, things are still extremely sluggish, however.
We must now take the opportunity of changing this by voting in favour of the committee' s amendments and the compromise amendments tabled by quite a few political groups.
The programme' s overarching aim is to decouple, for example, environmental pressures from economic growth.
Up until now, the improvements that have been made have been offset by increased production and consumption.
Another general principle is to supply the basis and the priorities for sustainable development and to apply the precautionary and substitution principles.
So that it is possible to do this, I should like to recommend all MEPs to vote in favour of Amendment No 44, which of course requires it to be discovered by no later than 2003 which forms of EU aid run directly counter to our aims, that is to say have a negative effect on the environment, and requires the year to be established by which this aid must be abolished.
Where chemicals and pesticides are concerned, I think that all the amendments tabled on this issue are sound.
The chemicals organisations' umbrella organisation, CEFIC, has taken the view that the amendments are not in accordance with the report on chemicals strategy.
I maintain that this view has just been plucked out of thin air. It is sad that such an incomplete and one-sided analysis has been carried out.
As rapporteur for the White Paper, I can assure you that these amendments are sound and that they strengthen the Sixth Environment Action Programme.
When it comes to the proposal from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, we should, in common with Mrs Hulthén, have liked the programme to have been more vigorous and have liked to get more measures through. The proposal is not now to be altered, however.
There is so much we must do and agree upon within these institutions. That is why I would definitely wish to reject the ELDR' s proposal and call upon everyone to vote in favour of the proposal by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and of the compromise amendments that have been tabled.
Mr President, I must first address the proposal from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party to reject the common position.
That is a proposal which we cannot support.
We think it would be irresponsible not to take a decision on the Sixth Environment Action Programme.
I too should have liked the proposal to have gone much further. The original proposal was extremely weak and also vague.
The fact is, however, that some of what Parliament contributed has been incorporated into the joint proposal. We shall therefore have the opportunity tomorrow to introduce a great many of the quantitative objectives and timetables we actually want to see.
We must not pass up that opportunity.
We must put this proposal in its context.
During the period that this environment action programme is to apply, the European Union will be enlarged through the accession of a large number of new countries.
There is a danger of this causing a number of problems in terms of environmental work too.
There is a danger of the work' s losing momentum, and it may become more difficult to push through new environmental laws.
It would not be particularly wise to do without environment action programmes at such a stage.
So that environmental work does not lose momentum, it is no doubt desirable to have a programme with timetables and practical objectives to adhere to when enlargement takes place.
My group will vote in favour both of the committee' s proposal and of all the compromise amendments we arrived at in these negotiations.
We do not think the situation is perfect, but we think it is acceptable.
I wish particularly to mention Amendment No 10, which I think is important.
This concerns the European Investment Bank.
There were quite a lot of MEPs who voted against this amendment in the committee.
I find that incomprehensible because it is an amendment which goes to the very heart of integrating environmental considerations into other policy areas, something that the European Investment Bank has not been successful at doing.
What is required of the bank, namely that it take account of the environment, ought to be self-evident. That is why it is so important for them to receive the clear message that they too are not exempt from what is required.
The same applies to chemicals policy, where we want to see strict wordings.
Mr President, not for the first time in this House I have the opportunity to express concern with regard to the safety of nuclear installations, and in particular those with an established record of poor management, since they put the lives and health of millions of citizens at risk.
Such is the case with the British government's nuclear installation at Sellafield.
This is not just my view: the litany of management blunders and serious technical defects is a matter of public record, which has been exposed, despite efforts to keep it secret.
It is inconceivable that the British Government should set out to justify not only the continuity of Sellafield in its present dangerous condition, but also wish to add further to its operations by commissioning the MOX processing facility.
Because of its closer proximity to Ireland than to most parts of the British mainland, the Irish Government has again raised serious objections to the continued operation of this dangerous plant.
Records in this House will show that on a previous occasion I called on the Commission to exercise its powers under Article 35 of the Euratom Treaty in relation to verification of nuclear installations at Sellafield.
In reply to queries from my political group, the Commission recently confirmed that the last time it undertook such an audit was in 1993, nearly a decade ago.
Bearing in mind the number of times that this matter has been raised in the House by all political groups, how can the Commission possibly justify its silence and inactivity on a matter of such serious public concern? I call on the Commission to immediately initiate an examination of all activities on the Cumbria site and ask the Commissioner to give assurance to that effect in his reply.
Mr President, by bringing together several sectoral directives such as those on climate change and waste management, the Commission is seeking to launch an innovative programme to improve the environment.
The end result is a real labyrinth that is incomprehensible to the citizen.
However, the Council has again adopted a more realistic position by not setting a binding timetable or target.
So what does the rapporteur want? Is it realistic, for instance, to incorporate the substitution principle, which currently has no political or legal definition?
There are also issues surrounding environmental crime, environmentally related taxes and legislation on environmental responsibility.
We should also be in step with the resolution that was adopted last November relating to chemicals.
These issues, which are crucial for our economy, cannot be dealt with hurriedly within the framework of this report.
I am also concerned by the emphasis placed on biodiversity, with the headache involved in setting up the Natura 2000 network, both in France and elsewhere.
The approach to this subject is not correct either and there are alternatives.
We shall therefore vote in favour of rejecting the amendment as a whole.
Let us remain realistic and pragmatic.
Let us go back to the main aims of the Sixth Environmental Action Programme, namely to ensure a high level of protection, taking into account the subsidiarity principle and diversity in the various regions of the Community.
To do this, in my view, is already a fair challenge.
Mr President, I hope we can get agreement on the Sixth Environmental Action Programme, preferably without going into conciliation.
I would like, on behalf of the committee, to thank Mrs Müller for the immense amount of work she has put into this report.
I underline my support for the amount of work she has done because I actually disagree with many of the conclusions she has come to.
Nevertheless, we have dealt with this matter so extensively that we will probably not gain anything by extending the process to the full beauties of late-night conciliation in Brussels.
The amendments tabled by the committee and the rapporteur do not really add up to anything of substance and, where they do, the results would probably be to damage the chances of success of the Environmental Action Programme.
I draw your attention to Amendment No 11, which is already out of date.
I would criticise, as Mr Bernié has done, the reliance of the rapporteur to a considerable extent on jargon.
Old war horses are trotted out again and given one more exhausted run around the course.
The chemical industry is focused on as the villain of the piece and the substitution principle makes a well-earned reappearance in the amendments that the committee has asked the House to consider.
The assumption of at least Amendment No 1 - and to some extent Amendment No 30 - is that the substitution principle exists as a fully worked-out concept.
It does not.
It is an amalgam of assumptions and suspicions fudged together by the green movement as a universal panacea.
The amendments talk of this as a fully worked-out policy, but we should at least be consistent.
The Schörling report, which we voted on a few months ago, called on the Commission to produce a definition of the substitution policy principle, so we can hardly deal with it now as though it really is in existence.
Do we need a Sixth Environmental Action Programme? I do not share the cynicism and despair of some in the ELDR Group.
Some sort of route map or check list is helpful and desirable.
The Commission probably built on previous mistakes by attaching so much weight to the idea of a programme.
The poor Commissioner wanted a slim programme and has ended up with a fatty!
I also regret - and she may regret - the submission of the programme to full codecision because that has certainly lengthened the process without adding to the substance.
The best part of the Environmental Action Programme for me is the concentration on better implementation.
In the old days we wanted an action programme in order to put pressure on the Council to agree to legislation.
Now the trouble is that the Council does agree to legislation and then does very little about it.
Without better implementation we are deceiving the people of Europe into believing that things are getting better and better, in the words of the old Labour Party advertisement.
Just as at home in UK things are not getting better and better, the words remain easy to say but they are often not followed by action and it is up to us to see that they are.
Mr President, I have a speech here, but I must admit that Mrs Jackson has rather distracted me into thinking about how things get better and better after you reach a certain age.
Clearly Mrs Jackson has reached that certain age and she now thinks everything in the past better than it is now.
Like Mrs Jackson, I also wish to thank the rapporteur for her good work.
This document is worth voting for, but it would be more worthwhile voting for if it contained a few more of Parliament's amendments.
In the field of chemicals policy, the field of preserving biodiversity, climate change, transport and the protection of air and water quality, there are clear and worthwhile proposals that could be built upon in the conciliation process.
In the field of fiscal policy, there are some serious and sensible suggestions in Parliament's amendments.
However, the setting at the moment of any kind of European-wide environmental taxes must be better thought out.
At the moment it is like taking a sledgehammer to crack a whole series of very different nuts, with what I would guess would be very limited success.
We must now as a Parliament unite and tomorrow morning take the next step into conciliation, where we are going to have to work together with a view to achieving a common viewpoint to the way in which we are going to protect the environment of our common European home and preserve it for future generations.
I look forward to taking that step tomorrow morning and to the Christian Democrats helping us to do so.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Myller.
She managed to get an excellent report adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
I have to be honest. The Council proposal is weak, lacks any imagination, any specific goals and is a welter of words.
My criticism is also levelled at the four Green Ministers who may have promised progress, but who failed to deliver.
Neither can the proposal as it now stands be used as propaganda material for young people, as Commissioner Wallström stated.
This is why it should be binned, and the large majority of my group will support the amendment of the Liberals to reject the common position.
It is the political choice of the two large groups, the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats and the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
If they vote against and reject the amendment, they too will be responsible for this weak and empty concoction.
Needless to say, the Greens will support all amendments to improve the proposal.
A one per cent reduction in greenhouse gases annually, certification of wood, sustainably-produced and otherwise, the amendment to which the GUE made reference, the European Investment Bank, the chemicals policy along with the substitution principle.
Mrs Jackson, I have to get this off my chest. These are not the inspired ramblings of a Green mind, they are existing policy in Denmark and Sweden, and even the new Danish government, that is from the right-wing school of thought, has no intention of changing this policy.
The amendments, which include a legal framework for voluntary agreements between industry and the European Commission, are all sound, but I have very little hope that they will obtain the required 314 votes.
This means that, ultimately, the officials of the European Commission will get their way, the same officials who proposed the policy not to present a Sixth Environmental Action Programme under any circumstances.
This is why this is a defeat for politics and for European environmental policy.
And the key culprit is the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, prompted by certain officials from the European Commission.
But it is still not too late.
Tomorrow, we will vote, and I hope that maybe some of the Christian-Democrats will see sense and will be prepared to vote for a number of sensible amendments, so that maybe we will end up with a conciliation procedure, which will have some substance at least and which will not merely be a welter of words.
Mr President, ever since the 70s, we, in the European Parliament, have been in the habit of using environmental action programmes to give direction to environmental policy.
This was very relevant in those days, for we had to start more or less from scratch.
A great deal was subsequently achieved, but I am now increasingly feeling uncomfortable.
The evaluation of the Fifth EAP has clearly shown that we are up a blind alley. Partly because many Member States have failed to implement environmental legislation, the objectives of the Fifth EAP have not been achieved.
Since we are unable to draft a programme that adds value to what we are already doing in the environmental sphere, I wonder whether we should continue drafting environmental action programmes.
I will for this reason support Mr Maaten' s amendment to reject the Council' s common position.
This is no reflection on the rapporteur, Mrs Myller, or the Commissioner, Mrs Wallström, but is about the Council' s role.
Let us now focus on the actual implementation of the Fifth EAP.
What will matter most are the implementation of, and compliance with, current environmental legislation, especially in the light of enlargement.
Mr President, presenting a common position for second reading could be seen as a purely technical, tactical move to bring us closer to implementing the decisions.
However, in this debate, as many other speakers have said too, a number of key points still have to be defined.
Indeed, although the Council has incorporated most of the amendments adopted by the European Parliament at first reading, the Sixth Framework Programme lacks specific working time frames and its strategic objectives need to be defined in more practical terms.
We must not forget that this programme will have to operate over a decade or so, and so an approximate work schedule and poorly defined aims are completely unacceptable.
In particular, the European Parliament' s latest amendments call for more decisive, tougher action against the danger of pesticides - this applies both to the present Member States and those waiting to join the Union - again, there must be a substantial effort to combat the greenhouse effect, the increasing sound pollution that pursues us all the time, wherever we go, the too frequent environmental disasters caused by human negligence, disasters for which it is becoming increasingly difficult to find out who is responsible.
Lastly, once again, the European Parliament' s amendments seek to make some of the proposals already mentioned practical reality. I just want to summarise them under at least four basic headings, four areas which have been defined as priorities: climate change, biodiversity, the connection between the environment and human health, and waste disposal.
These issues are so vitally important that anything less than total precision and total responsibility on our part would be absolutely unacceptable, and we cannot put off dealing with them to a later date as the Council seems to want to do.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Myller, and also the shadow rapporteurs, especially our group's own, for the work done on this report.
I consider neither the Commission's proposal nor the report presented by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy to be worthless.
I do not, therefore, quite understand the proposal by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party and the Group of the Greens that the proposal and the common position should be rejected in their entirety.
Another reason why I do not understand it is that, if I understand rightly, the Member States' environment ministers are not exclusively Christian Democrats but, rather, primarily Greens and also liberal Social Democrats and members of our family of parties.
To be sure, we often have to criticise and improve what the Council submits to us but, in view of this political constellation, it is somewhat problematic to say that it is all nonsense.
Despite our criticisms, we have to improve on the Council's proposal without completely rejecting it.
In particular, I would call upon us to produce some stringent wording concerning subsidies that have harmful effects on the environment.
The Council's wording strikes me as too weak.
I believe that, whenever it is said that the protection of the environment costs money, one has first to bear in mind that, of course, the destruction of the environment and its consequences cost money, and that it is even worse when the destruction of the environment is being subsidised - in other words, when money is being paid out for it.
There are possibilities there for very effective savings.
I therefore emphatically support the idea of reducing subsidies.
The Committee has now decided on 2005 as a deadline.
A lot of people have problems with that, and not only in our group.
That is why there are various proposals for compromise.
I believe, though, that we must, whatever happens, agree on an amendment that is more stringent than what the Council has decided on.
We should also not put other economic instruments, such as a fiscal reform, to one side, but should follow them through at a European level.
Mr President, honourable Members, it is an exciting journey that is being undertaken with a proposal for a new Environment Action Programme.
It has been extremely instructive.
Clearly, a certain comfort has sometimes been found in the fact that you have, at all events, had kind and friendly things to say about both myself and the skilful rapporteur.
Possibly we should have talked rather more about what was expected from the Sixth Environment Action Programme as early as when you questioned me.
We perhaps should have straightened this out at an earlier stage, for I can see that this debate embraces many incompatible and rather contradictory desires.
We appreciate that a programme may be needed that extends over a longer period because environmental problems often arise after a certain number of years.
We also need a longer planning period if the measures we take are to be the right ones.
On the other hand, we should of course very much like to draw up practical measures and objectives because it is in that way that we can put pressure on the Member States.
We cannot, however, just come up with credible objectives for a ten-year period.
The programme states the overarching objectives, and it is of course extremely important for us to know that this is the direction in which we must be moving.
At the same time, we are concerned here with a programme of action and of measures to be taken, and that is what we have aimed at.
We must state how we intend to set about achieving the objectives, while the practical objectives and deadlines must be incorporated into, respectively, the thematic strategy and the various draft laws and other proposals we submit during this ten-year period.
The idea behind the programme was not, then, just to continue with the same thing and add a long list of legislative proposals to those which were already in the Fifth Action Programme and which, moreover, as Mrs Jackson quite correctly said, fail very often to be implemented properly. That is something we must get to grips with.
It is, however, also important to emphasise what we in actual fact agree about, that is to say the overall structure and the priorities.
It is a question of daring to say that these four issues are the most important.
It is also a question of the underlying principles that are to govern environmental policy during this ten-tear period and of the need to consult widely and to have broad participation in decision-making on environmental issues.
We agree on which issues are to be highlighted: climate change, the natural environment and bio-diversity, health and environmental measures, and the issues of how we use our natural resources and dispose of waste.
We also agree that current legislation is to be fully implemented in practice, that environmental considerations are to be integrated into all other policy areas and that legislators, decision makers and the general public must have access to adequate information.
The strategy for the next ten years is in actual fact based upon the Fifth Environment Action Programme, which has been developed by means of a description of how environmental policy and its challenges have altered.
Current patterns of life and consumption, the way in which goods are produced and the way in which we live and operate as private individuals affect environmental problems.
The environmental action programme is challenging.
I am aware of the fact and accept responsibility for it.
Even though there has been some tough criticism, I believe it is right to dare to tackle something new and try to find a new structure.
For me, it was important to design an environment action programme which everyone, and not only the experts, can follow and assess when new proposals are made and initiatives presented, as was the case for example with the recent climate package.
That is why I do not of course agree with rejecting the Council' s common position.
Now that we have carried out all this work, we ought surely to try to complete it and help each other as far as possible.
In principle, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy offers its unqualified support for the general approach to developing future environmental policy that forms part of the Council' s common position.
Of relevance here too are the requirements that policy must be based upon participation and dialogue and upon the best possible scientific findings that are available.
That means that we must be very thorough in analysing the problems we face, together with possible solutions, at the same time as studying current research and making use of indicators etc.
In that way, we shall create policy through solid work, and that will be in accordance with the strategic orientation of this programme.
It also means, as I said, that it is meaningless to introduce objectives and guidelines into the programme more or less arbitrarily.
At the same time, I want to avoid possible misunderstandings and explain clearly that I do of course support the use of clear objectives and deadlines.
Moreover, our proposals will include these, and they must be discussed in both Parliament and the Council.
The few overarching objectives the programme now contains are generally known, and so they should be.
I am also, of course, able to approve the additional objectives proposed by the Commission in its communication on sustainable development prior to the Gothenburg Summit, that is to say Amendments Nos 11, 15, 16 and 27.
That is, however, on condition that they faithfully reflect our communication.
I cannot approve the incorporation of other objectives into the programme, as has been done in Amendments Nos 17, 24, 25, 26, 34 and 42.
It is also gratifying that the committee supports the idea of, and proposal for, thematic strategies, together with the proposed content of these.
The committee has added a proposal on the urban environment. This is to be found in Amendments Nos 32 and 33, which are acceptable overall.
We thus have a stable platform for future work and cooperation.
The problem is that the proposal that the strategies should be ready to implement within three years is in conflict with the requirement for best scientific findings and for broadly based consultation and participation.
We should also remember that we have seven thematic strategies to deal with.
In the light, too, of Amendment No 12, requiring all thematic strategies to be subject to the co-decision procedure, this means that the Commission must present all the thematic strategies by no later than the end of the year so that there is time for the co-decision procedure.
We can perhaps meet the deadline for some isolated thematic strategy, but scarcely for all of them.
That is why I would call upon the European Parliament not to push this issue too hard.
Give us an opportunity to develop the strategies and to put forward a package of measures that is best suited to the current problems.
We cannot therefore approve Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 41, but I shall keep the European parliament informed of our work on the thematic strategies, and we shall submit oral reports each year in order to fulfil the requirement in Amendment No 14.
I must inform Parliament that I am opposed to most of the amendments concerning chemicals.
The problem with these is that there is no agreed definition of the principle of indemnification.
We should therefore examine this carefully before we make it legally binding.
Naturally, I believe it has its part to play, but before we make it legally binding we must arrive at a definition which is tenable.
Regarding the proposal that the REACH Register should include all existing substances and that all products, unlike substances and preparations, should be labelled, all I can say is that it would be practically impossible.
We are nonetheless able in principle to approve Amendment No 31 on the coordination of the work involving chemicals and pesticides, even if there is already such coordination.
Regarding the issue of voluntary commitments and agreements, we see these as part of an advantageous mix of various political tools including, for example, legal and financial tools.
According to the OECD, there are more than 300 agreements in the Member States of the Community.
They differ considerably from one another, depending upon how flexibly they are adapted to different situations and objectives.
The Commission plans to submit a communication examining the potential of such tools.
It is too early to determine what the agreements under the programme will look like, and we cannot therefore approve Amendments Nos 9 and 40.
There is general support from the Commission regarding quite a number of other issues, for example sustainable development and integration, measures affecting tax rates at Community level, environmental crimes etc.
In addition to those I mentioned earlier, the Commission is able to support Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 18, 19, 21, 39 and 45, together with parts of Amendments Nos 43, 46 and 47.
I cannot however accept the other amendments tabled.
We are close to reaching an agreement on the Environment Action Programme for the next ten years.
Mrs Myller' s efforts as rapporteur at this second reading have been much appreciated.
No repetition of the debate is required because her amendments have been carefully selected, something which bodes well for the next step in the procedure.
I hope that, on the basis of the amendments supported by the Commission, the Council will adopt a positive approach to Parliament's opinion so that those of us in the Commission, the Council and Parliament, in conjunction with other interested parties, can together continue with our work on conserving and improving our environment.
Thank you for an interesting debate.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Integrated product policy
The next item is the report (A5-0419/2001) by Mrs García-Orcoyen Tormo on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the Commission Green Paper on integrated product policy [COM(2001) 68 - C5-0259/2001 - 2001/2117(COS)]
Mr President, I must confess I was pleased to see you come in, because I was practically under the impression that I was going to be the only person in the Chamber.
I would also like to thank the Commissioner, who, after a hard day, is here with us this evening.
The Green Paper on an integrated product policy should, in my opinion, be the framework for the formulation of a series of guidelines and proposals that will enable both producers and consumers to make full use of the instruments and opportunities offered by the market to be able to make it function in a way that is better adapted to the practice of sustainable development.
This new approach needs to be an improvement on the traditional approach that the European Union has been following up to now, which is essentially based on encouraging environmental improvement in the production sector through standards that establish limits for pollution and also through voluntary instruments that promote the differentiation of companies and products that incorporate environmental improvements.
We have to admit, with regard to these voluntary methods, which have been implemented since the early nineties, such as the co-determination regulation, European eco-audits and the ecolabel, that these have not been as successful as had been hoped and, above all, have not been implemented in a similar fashion in all Member States.
Only 3 200 companies throughout Europe have obtained EMAS certification and only 350 products from 70 companies have these European 'ecolabels' .
In my opinion, the main cause of this situation lies in the rigidity of the system and the still weak consumer demand for 'green' products.
The Commission, aware of this problem, has presented this Green Paper on integrated product policy, with varying degrees of wisdom and balance.
It has been widely discussed in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, but I, naturally, maintain that the Commission has shown considerable dedication to the matter.
Various mechanisms have been proposed with the aim of stimulating the necessary environmental improvement of products and their consumption.
The proposal contains a series of suggestions that would facilitate the implementation of different policies and market instruments that go further than those that focus exclusively on the environment and that, I think, will make it easier for a future White Paper to be more detailed and better developed.
We are faced with the need to adopt a decisive approach to stimulate environmental improvement in the EU market, which will allow products to be given prices that are fairer from an environmental point of view, to stimulate demand that is more appropriate and to make the use of instruments for clean production more widespread.
Furthermore, I believe that this approach will give greater impetus to the integration of environmental policy in other areas, such as the economic or social areas, and with this we will be better able to fulfil the mandates of Cardiff and Gothenburg.
Though the amendments that Parliament has tabled, it has brought a greater degree of precision and clarity to the Commission proposal with regard to the orientation of the IPP and also to the role of each of the actors - companies, public authorities and consumers - and has given very clear consideration to the issue of shared responsibility without this involving a decrease in producers' responsibility, but instead taking into account and also putting an emphasis on the responsibility of both public authorities and consumers.
Public authorities, for example, can provide a very important boost for a more environmentally friendly market though public procurement.
They can also point out useful market instruments to put the IPP into practice: economic instruments, such as tax incentives, for example.
Similarly, the Parliament text highlights the importance of an improved and enhanced eco-label, the need to improve European standardisation processes, the need to set parameters and indicators that are simple to apply and similar in all Member States for the lifecycle of products, not forgetting the need not to endanger free competition in the market or in European companies.
The text also highlights the crucial role of information, which should be clearer, more truthful and easy to understand.
I think that I have accounted for the majority of amendments tabled in Plenary.
I have accepted them and I have only rejected those that I feel do not fit into the framework or context of a Green Paper.
In my opinion, this is a good proposal that deserves all our support.
Mr President, while there are certainly elements worthy of praise in the Green Paper, overall we are left with the impression of a lost political opportunity.
The Commission has strong institutional powers, which it could use to actively drive the IPP process.
Too often we are left with the impression of a Commission that is a spectator rather than a powerful actor.
We also need more joined-up thinking, more explicit connections between the IPP project, the Sixth Environmental Action Programme and the Strategy for Sustainable Development.
We would like to see those links made much more explicit.
To summarise a number of the other concerns raised by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, we believe that the strategy tends to rely too heavily on voluntary agreements.
They clearly have a role to play, but they are not a substitute for regulation; they should be seen as complementary to it.
At the very least we need very clear benchmarks, objectives and timetables for any voluntary agreements so that we can ensure that they are working.
The Green Paper also focuses almost exclusively on products rather than services and therefore misses another whole raft of potential opportunities to green an increasingly large area of our economies.
Perhaps one of the major shortcomings of the Paper is its insufficient awareness of the broader international trade context, under which, unfortunately, some of its proposals would have questionable legality.
The effectiveness of the IPP strategy will be severely curtailed unless the Commission explicitly recognises the reforms that would be needed to the World Trade Organisation in particular, to enable its measures to be set out.
Similarly, with respect to public procurement, greening public procurement is vitally important but there are currently obstacles in achieving that which should have been acknowledged more explicitly in the Paper, along with strategies to address the problem.
It is very significant that in its opinion the Committee of the Regions specifically refers to the restricted scope of local and regional authorities for action when it comes to green procurement and notes that legal action has already been taken against a number of towns and cities which have tried to implement a green procurement policy.
Those are the kinds of areas that need to be changed.
We look forward to an ambitious new White Paper in the near future.
Mr President, this report walks a tightrope between the need to increase production of consumer goods and services and environmental protection requirements.
I welcome the Commission' s proposal and the rapporteur' s tough, practical, calm handling of the subject.
Each product has a life cycle, which starts when it is made available to the consumer. When the consumer uses it, the product' s environmental sustainability - a rather complex term although now universally understood - immediately becomes part of the equation.
The relationship is delicate and it does not end with the use or end, so to speak, of the product' s life.
Indeed, the most serious problems often arise when the product ceases to perform its function and needs to be disposed of, pensioned off, in other words eliminated from the world in which it has performed its function.
It is at this point that the most critical environmental implications come into play, for not all products can be disposed of using the same technology, nor are they all hazardous to the same degree or all biodegradable to the same degree.
That is why the Commission is proposing an initiative which deals with the problem at source: if a product is to be easy to dispose of at the end of its lifecycle, this must be taken into consideration right from the design stage, and this is where the greatest merit of the report lies.
Here, then, is the proposal to create incentives to encourage initial research on how to keep manufacturers better informed of the technologies and raw materials available to this end.
The proposal does not overlook a factor which could give rise to opposition from manufacturers: cost.
The text states in quite practical terms that, in addition to encouraging the provision of aid to producers who will face greater costs if they supply these biodegradable goods, a pricing policy also needs to be established allowing manufacturers to set different prices on the market and, moreover, why not, allowing variable taxation to be introduced as well.
In other words, those involved in protecting the environment, who are therefore helping us, deserve some support.
Mr President, Commissioner, we manufacture products, but what do we do with a product when its life cycle comes to an end?
The Green Paper is about answering this question from an ecological point of view.
So far, in my opinion, we have been giving inadequate answers to this question, with well-known consequences: substantial detriment to the environment by production and the use to which products are put, with associated detriment to the health of workers and consumers.
Rather than carry on with this policy, we should get serious about one that is integrated.
In that way, we shall be able to make financial savings and will not need to eliminate environmental damage.
For these reasons, too, we need a strategy for the development of more environmentally friendly products and services.
The report before us, completed by the amendments adopted in Committee, provides a good framework for a product policy on ecological lines.
The Commission proposal for the discussion process in Committee was of little help, though.
The statements made in this text were couched in vague terms, there were no evident structures for further action, nor was there any evidence of a coordinated discussion process.
I do not think that any entrepreneur or consumer is going to be won over to an environmentally friendly product by such a hotchpotch of proposals.
The Commission must see to it that the statements made in its forthcoming texts are of greater clarity.
What is important to my group is that the environmental costs as a whole should be reflected in the prices of products.
Tax incentives should also be guaranteed so that disadvantaged consumers can also buy environmentally friendly products.
European product standardisation must be involved to a greater extent, and services should also be made subject to environmental criteria.
Another option for the creation of a market for environmentally friendly products would be, for example, the use of economic guidance instruments.
We should monitor their use and the effect they have, and it is vitally important that we should ensure that EU environmental legislation is not neutralised.
In view of the unsatisfactory text produced by the Commission, the rapporteur has done a good job, but further action must not be limited to contributions to discussion.
We urgently need definite proposals for the promotion of environmentally friendly products.
Producers and consumers must be made sensitive to the various aspects of environmental quality.
This report is a start, but the real work on its content remains to be done.
Mr President, I must not be especially critical, but try to look ahead to a future White Paper rather than discuss the rather odd draft Green Paper.
Within the safe food sector, where most of my work is done, a 'farm to fork' principle, which is very effective when attempts are made to legislate and to try to see the connections, has now finally been arrived at following a host of scandals and disasters.
I should like the White Paper to be based on approximately the same principle so that each product can be traced and seen in its context: finite or renewable raw materials, the supply of energy, what form of energy is used, chemicals, the flow chart for the product, logistics etc.
This is especially important for very large volumes of products, consisting in actual fact of food, water and household chemicals. These account for more than half of the consignments transported on our roads and consume an incredible amount in terms of resources, despite our perhaps not even thinking of them as products.
I am therefore looking for a strategy in which everything is traceable and in which we can track a product' s history, and for principles that are valid whether we are talking about a car or a packet of sausages for lunch.
Mr President, I would like to thank Parliament for its resolution on the Commission's Green Paper and just remind you that it is a Green Paper, the start of the debate on integrated product policy.
In particular I would like to thank Mrs García-Orcoyen Tormo being such a committed rapporteur on this challenging and difficult issue.
I would also like to thank you for your speeches.
I would agree with a lot of what has been said during this short debate.
In reducing the environmental impact of products throughout their life cycle, the objective of IPP is fundamental to addressing our environmental problems.
For this reason IPP is a key measure within the Sixth Environment Action Programme and the Sustainable Development Strategy also underlines its importance.
The difficulty we face is that there are so many products on the market today, products that often have long supply chains involving many different actors.
Because of this it is impossible to develop a "one size fits all" instrument.
Instead we need a variety of instruments and exactly which ones depends on what is most effective at each point in the supply chain.
They can be both voluntary and mandatory.
I agree that voluntary measures should be complementary and we should make sure that they are not the only instrument used.
When thinking about IPP at European level, we should also recognise the experience gained in several Member States - Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Italy, to name but a few- over the last few years.
There is, therefore, widespread acceptance of the concept and interest in it.
In 1999 the informal Environment Council asked the Commission to come forward with a Green Paper on the issue.
I therefore delivered this paper to start the debate on what form the European IPP should take.
The reactions to it from the 130 stakeholders who submitted comments were generally positive, but what came back was what has been reflected here, namely that it is sometimes seen as being too fluffy and not really an understandable concept.
But it sounds nice, as they say, and in general the opinions of the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions were favourable as well.
The Green Paper suggested a strategy and tools for making a European IPP a reality.
Many such tools already exist - public procurement legislation, European eco-labels and EMAS, to name but a few.
In other areas we will have to be innovative and think of new instruments.
The Green Paper sought to canvas the views of stakeholders on the way forward.
The Commission did this not just because it wanted to develop the best possible policy, but also because IPP needs the active involvement of all stakeholders to succeed.
Your resolution concludes this stakeholder consultation process and will enable us to develop the White Paper.
From your resolution and the comments from stakeholders it is clear that the White Paper needs to start with concrete environmental problems.
This is what we have learnt from this discussion.
Issues such as climate change, hazardous chemicals and biodiversity affect us all.
If we take environmental problems rather than instruments as our point of departure, we can better convey the idea that IPP is more than just a collection of tools, something that we perhaps did not do sufficiently in the Green Paper.
We have to link it to concrete environmental problems to describe how to use these instruments.
This is also what Mrs Paulsen referred to.
These tools will still be important.
We need to continue developing them because we cannot address millions of products individually.
However, I too am coming to the conclusion that we need to focus our actions on particular products and sectors.
You rightly make this suggestion in paragraphs 24 and 25 of your resolution.
We will also need to set out the strategy for implementing IPP and its advantages and the Commission will need to consider carefully the measures within IPP's scope as well as how it relates to other policies.
It is my intention to ask the Commission to adopt this paper during the second quarter of this year.
Thank you, Commissioner Wallström.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Europe and Space
The next item is the report (A5-0451/2001) by Mr Alyssandrakis on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the Commission communication to the Council [COM(2000) 597 - C5-0146/2001 - 2001/2072(COS)] and the European Parliament on Europe and Space: Turning to a new chapter.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this European Commission proposal is about developing a space policy not at the level of individual Member States but at the level of the European Union.
It was drafted together with the European Space Agency and proposes three lines of approach: strengthening the foundation for space activities, enhancing scientific knowledge and reaping the benefits for markets and society.
The report by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy welcomes these lines of approach and acknowledges the overall benefit of developing space activities.
In fact, the development of launch systems is prerequisite to any other space activity.
We can build in this sector on the experience and technical know-how which the Member States have acquired over several decades, especially from the Ariane launch system.
The second line of approach is a perfectly natural one, in that space is an ideal place for carrying out research which cannot be carried out on earth, such as astronomic research into radiation which cannot penetrate the earth's atmosphere, research under conditions of zero gravity etc.
The third line of approach is very broad and covers everything we call space applications.
These applications range from satellite telecommunications to navigation and earth observation systems and have become an integral part of our daily life.
I should like to stress here that, if mankind is to benefit from space activities, then space must not be used as a platform for strategic competition.
It is highly significant, in my view, that the committee report emphasizes in the very first paragraph that space activities should only be intended for peaceful purposes.
I am particularly worried by the amendment proposing to add the phrase "which purposes may include strategic applications within the context of peaceful operations" .
If we adopt this amendment, we shall be opening the door to all manner of strategic activities in space, provided they are cloaked in the mantle of a "peaceful operation" and we have seen plenty of them on earth over recent years.
In short, this is a Trojan horse that will change the tone of the report and allow all hell to break loose.
I call on all my fellow Members to keep to the Commission text.
I also propose that they adopt Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4 from Mr Souladakis' s opinion.
I must stress that taking a stand against the militarisation of space is terribly important, especially following the recent decision by the United States' government to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Agreement and its insistence on developing the so-called anti-missile shield.
I tabled Amendment No 5 because I wanted to put the implications of this action on the record.
May I also point out that, in my personal opinion, certain aspects of the proposed GMES programme involve strategic activities.
The application of space policy is also the subject of this debate.
The European Space Agency has operated on a transnational basis on our continent for several years now and has played a pivotal role in developing the space activities of European countries.
It is therefore only natural that there should be close collaboration between the European Union and the European Space Agency and we have already reaped rewards from this collaboration.
The committee report notes the role of the European Space Agency and proposes that it be integrated into the European Union in the long term, but without losing its independence.
I must say that I personally am against this.
What worries me is that, if this happens, the European Space Agency will lose the independence which has helped it emerge as a global player.
International collaboration is a sine qua non in the space sector and the committee report refers favourably to it, stressing the need for international collaboration to be developed not just with the Russian Federation, the United States, China and Japan, but also with less developed countries for which the European Union could provide access to space.
Finally, I should like to raise the subject of funding.
As we all know, access to space has its rewards but does not come cheap.
Ôhe Sixth Framework Programme for funding research classifies space and aeronautics as a priority sector.
That may show willing, but it is not enough.
We do not just want a more general commitment, we need a more general commitment.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's debate is important to the future of the European Union's space policy.
I trust that the direction taken in the final vote will be to the benefit of our nations and mankind as a whole.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Committee on Foreign Affairs has examined the Commission proposal and basically agrees with its approach.
However, it notes that the CFSP is dealt with as an economic and development issue rather than as a defence and safety issue, with all that implies for Europe.
This is in all probability due to the fact that the CFSP is still under development.
In this sense, I suppose that this proposal will mature at the next stage, as far as foreign policy and defence systems are concerned.
As far as the content is concerned, I have several comments to make. First, there is a medley of policies in the Member States, which need to be more or less unified.
Secondly, on the question of the strategic use of space: the strategic use of space is unavoidable de facto, but it must be used for peaceful purposes such as Petersberg-type tasks.
In all events, our committee is opposed to the type of strategic mentioned in the famous Star Wars policy.
It will, nonetheless, need to be used for missile interception installations in space and during wars, which destroy satellites.
Having said that, I believe that we need to push forward with this policy, on which we agree, our criteria being that these methods must be used for peaceful applications, policies must be unified and any action taken must be integrated into a single European policy because, in the final analysis, Europe must not be dependent for its safety, communications and security on the satellite systems of either the United States of America or Russia.
In this sense, quite apart from the fact that this initiative is of interest from a development point of view, it will also be of political interest and must therefore be considered crucial to the common foreign defence and security policy of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to start by thanking Mr Alyssandrakis for the good work he has done with us.
Ever since Lisbon, we in Europe have had the ambitious objective of being the best in the world, and technology and science are of course part of that, although I am not primarily thinking of the electronic voting apparatus we tested yesterday, but of advanced technologies such as, for example, telecommunications, earth observation and ecology.
Europe must - as the past demonstrates - concentrate its strengths in these areas.
Airbus and Ariane, based in Toulouse, are showpiece projects, demonstrating that Europe, if it concentrates its strengths, is capable of competing on a global scale.
Industry is becoming ever more concentrated, and what counts here is the creation of European structures linking the European Union, the ESA and the Member States, which will facilitate more effective cooperation across the board.
Thought should, though, also be given to international cooperation beyond Europe.
Here, I am thinking not only of the USA, but also of Russia and China.
Any European research policy should of course be of the sort that is also likely to attract the rising generation in this sphere.
I am myself from the aerospace industry and have been given to understand that fewer and fewer young people have been studying these subjects in the last few years.
We should be tackling that ourselves and not looking to immigration as we do in other areas.
We also need clear objectives in this area, though; hence the urgent request to the Member States to vote clearly in favour of Galileo.
Industry, too, should break new ground here.
It is important to the future that not only State bodies should take on responsibility, but that industry should also contribute to the development of services that the citizens can use and that are also capable of being marketed.
In conclusion, I would like to deal with an important point that has been mentioned, namely the so-called militarisation of space.
I do not think that Europe should be developing a 'Star Wars' programme, but I find the idea of equating any military use of the infrastructure with SDI highly dubious.
After all, we do not speak of the militarisation of telecommunications just because the German Army uses the telephone.
We want a European foreign and security policy, we want a Rapid Reaction Force, we send soldiers to other countries, and these troops must receive the information they need.
So we should indeed be thinking at a European level about becoming independent in this area and capable of using our own infrastructure in the future, so that we can do what our responsibility for our own soldiers and our political responsibility in this area require of us.
I therefore ask for support for the amendment that Giles Chichester and I have brought in.
We really cannot talk here in terms of an SDI; on the contrary, this is a sensible use of the infrastructure in Europe's interests.
Mr President, I join my colleagues in congratulating Mr Alyssandrakis on his report on the Commission communication to the Council and Parliament on Europe and Space: Turning to a new chapter.
This is not the first report that Mr Alyssandrakis has drawn up on the subject of space and, I suspect, not the last.
The Socialist Group will be supporting the report.
We believe that space has important civil and industrial applications.
Europe cannot afford to be sidelined.
Europe cannot afford to allow the US and the other space powers - Russia, China and Japan - to leave us behind.
We need to develop further the technological basis of space activities, in particular launchers, to move eventually to European independence.
On the way to European independence we may have to work with those trying to catch up with the US's enormous lead.
We therefore welcome the statement in the report that space research is one of the priority themes for the Sixth Framework Programme for research and development.
Europe, unless it gets an unequivocal agreement with the United States that it can have access on all occasions to the GSP system, will have to work with others inside and outside the European Union, in industry and government, to develop its own independent system.
We can support the amendment from Mr Chichester to the effect that we can include military applications for peacekeeping purposes.
At the same time we support the rapporteur's own amendment, Amendment No 5, which deplores the US withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and deplores the development of national missile defence, which we believe will trigger a new arms race in East Asia.
To make our position absolutely clear, we are also willing, if Amendment No 1 is passed, to support the rapporteur's Amendment No 2, to the effect that we believe space should be used to create peace rather than conflict.
We do not see these as contradictory but rather as establishing a limit beyond which we do not wish to go.
I hope that in the vote tomorrow we achieve what we intend, as I have set it out this evening.
I would like to add my congratulations to the rapporteur and to focus on just one key issue in the short time that I have, namely the dangers of the militarisation of space.
Many European citizens are deeply critical of the proposed US national missile defence system, which they rightly see as an offensive system which is certain to start a new and costly international arms race.
How much more concerned would they be if they realised the aims of some of their own politicians and legislators? I do not mean people here, but there are others who have ambitions to launch their very own, home-grown European Union programme to militarise space.
That is what some people would like to turn the European space programme into.
We need to send a very clear message with this report, to make it absolutely clear that any use of space should be solely undertaken for peaceful purposes and in accordance with international law.
I therefore welcome in particular the emphasis which Mr Alyssandrakis has given to this in his report and appreciate the amendments he has tabled to strengthen these aspects still further.
It follows that I also very much regret the amendments by the PPE Group, which again introduces that idea of using space for military applications.
Although I accept that this has been put in the context of what are called peacekeeping operations, I am still concerned that this is the start of a slippery slope.
I am very happy that Mr Radwan does not want to see an EU Star Wars, but I am very concerned that his intentions could be misinterpreted: that other people could see peacekeeping in a different context from the one that he sees it in.
We need to remember as well the context of the report released by the European Space Agency in December 2000 in which the so-called Three Wise Men looked into the future of ESA and concluded and I quote: "Embarking on development of a European defence system, including a space component, will provide a significant part of European public investment."
That report went on to say: "We see it as logical to use the capabilities of ESA also for the development of more security-orientated aspects of European space policy."
All this adds up to the very real possibility that the European space policy will adopt a very specific military component and therefore it is timely and urgent to send a message with this report that we want to keep space for peace.
Mr President, I add my compliments to Mr Alyssandrakis for his report and the work that he brings to this particular field of our committee's activities.
My first observation is that the use of space for research and for commercial applications is often overlooked in the wider world because it is not as dramatically exciting as projects like the Apollo moon landings, yet it is extremely important, as this report emphasises.
I welcome the objectives set out in the communication for European policy.
I confess I particularly like paragraph 10, which calls on the industry to do more about commercial exploitation of space.
That is an important way ahead.
We want industry to be very much involved in the exploitation of space.
It seems to me that this report is something of an appetiser - or hors d'oeuvre - for the Galileo report, which we will be considering next month in our Strasbourg part-session.
Paragraph 12 in particular refers to Galileo as being part of the European strategy and to its importance for transport.
We should take careful note of that.
We have to recognise the difficulties in obtaining funding for space exploitation, space research, space utilisation.
I particularly welcome also the reference in the report to the need for international cooperation drawing in other powers and partners.
I come back to the question of using military applications for peacekeeping operations.
To be realistic, we need funding from defence budgets for space projects in a number of fields.
We should not be frightened of drawing on that source of funding for applications intended for peacekeeping.
That is very important to emphasise.
I regret that Mr Alyssandrakis has taken fright at my reference to military applications.
He should take more note of the phrase "peacekeeping operations".
Mr President, Commissioner, Galileo Galilei's words, 'and yet it does move' can be applied to European space policy's present situation.
I have my doubts, though, when I see the downright interminable tug-of-war about the establishment of Europe's satellite navigation system, Galileo.
So I am all the more pleased that there are some first positive signs that European space travel is to be given new momentum, something that is urgently necessary if Europe is not to lose its connection to this important and forward-looking high technology sector.
Whether the systems we are working with are for communication, navigation, or observation, satellites play a decisive role.
We should not make the mistake of comfortably relying on the existing systems of other, even friendly, nations.
We should rather be demonstrating our own capabilities in this field, which is the only way that we will have reliable operational freedom and that European industry will have a chance of a healthy future.
I speak from my own experience, having on several occasions been Parliament's rapporteur on the European satellite navigation system.
In Europe, the potential we have in this field is so valuable, that we should not simply leave it unused.
'Tackle it!' must be our watchword. A political signal is indispensable.
The first stage on this road is the drafting of a coherent strategy for space travel policy, and the Commission has done very good work on this.
I emphatically support the proposed lines of action.
Europe must accord space travel more importance in future.
Let me sum up my priorities for European space travel in a conceptual pairing that may perhaps seem paradoxical: independence and cooperation.
Independence means our own strength, autonomous structures and jobs geared to the future.
Cooperation, on the other hand, represents the strengthening of the EU's relationships through compatibility and exchange.
Space travel should be given new impetus.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Alyssandrakis on this excellent and authoritative report, which urges us to put in place a Community space policy.
That said, given the progress made on Galileo, I think that we are still a long way short of the target and that we must not give up what we already have for something far less certain.
In other words, the intergovernmental method is now proving that it is working better than the Community method.
This is because, throughout the world, space development cannot be achieved unless a number of conditions are in place.
First of all, we must not be afraid of public support, funded from the public coffers.
The market can fund not everything...not American rockets, not Russian rockets, not French rockets.
Secondly, the military funds a large part of civilian resources; let us not beat about the bush.
If we refuse to accept a dual system, we will have great difficulty in launching the space industry in Europe, given that, as you have seen with Galileo, the pacifism of this House is, at the end of the day, a gift to American militarism.
I think that we must also have this set out very clearly in our minds.
The Americans said that they do not want Galileo because it is incompatible on a strategic and military level with GPS.
Lastly, we must also have a genuine industrial policy.
However, I do not think that we are fulfilling these conditions as yet.
This is something that I regret, but we must move in this direction if we eventually want the European Union to be the space power that it should be and that it must be if Europe wants to maintain a high level of technology.
As a final point, I would like to say that I think if we want to move forward in this area, we must strengthen our cooperation with those who want to move in this direction and leave behind those who do not want to.
And this is not simply for the sake of Galileo, it is also for the future of a European space policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for this report, which indicates the way forward that will enable us to open up a new phase in European space policy.
I wanted to speak about space today because this is a subject close to my heart and because I am lucky enough to live in Toulouse, where, as Mr Radwan said, everything is connected to aeronautics and space.
Two of the world' s largest sub-contractors in the space industry are based in Toulouse and much of the work of the European Space Agency in France is carried out in the National Centre for Space Studies.
We all know that satellites are used for the protection and observation of our environment, for risk prevention and for the defence of our territory and are playing an increasingly important role in our daily lives.
The benefits of a coordinated space policy are therefore important to us and have already enabled progress to be made in cooperation.
As several Members have already said, we must now step up a gear and put in place a genuine European policy.
As Mrs Langenhagen said, in an area where it has immense potential, the European Union must acquire the resources that make success possible.
However, the fact that no decisions have been taken on the future of the Galileo European satellite navigation project is a regrettable example of what we must avoid.
Considerable investment has already been made and we cannot allow ourselves to take this amount of time before reaching an agreement, because we lose a little more credibility each time this happens.
But, I know, as all of us in this House know, that you, Commissioner, are making every effort to bring this project to fruition.
In March, the Transport Council is due to take a decision on the future of Galileo and Parliament must bring to bear its full weight so that this decision can be reached.
At the Laeken European Council, the representatives of the Member States pledged to make the common security and defence policy more operational.
As the report points out, if space activities are to be intended only for peaceful purposes, this can include military uses for peace-keeping activities, as requested in the amendment tabled by Mr Chichester and Mr Radwan on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
How can it be feasible for the European Union to develop a common defence policy if it does not make available the technical resources for this domain?
Ladies and gentlemen, we must draw up a realistic and consistent framework for our space policy.
The protection of the environment, the security of our people and the preservation of peace all depend on this.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating you on staying in office.
It is you that we have to thank for your constant reference to religious values in the Convention on Fundamental Rights and for your reclaiming of them.
The phrase 'European values' is often an empty one.
It could, though, be a quite different matter with this report in our hands, because this report means that there is a chance of Europe demonstrating, in a very important area, that we do things differently to the others.
We can make outer space a space for peace. Then again, that has a great deal to do with principles.
Here we have Amendment No 1, which says: '...which can also include a military application for peace-keeping operations.'
Space for peacekeeping operations - one might polemically say, yes, but against whom? Against the little men from Mars, who are on their way here, or for the use - as Mr Chichester has hinted - of a military-industrial complex yet to be created in Europe?
That would be devastating. It would be precisely the dependence on the military-industrial complex that so much characterises the last remaining superpower that we would be inviting in through the back door while still talking of European values.
That would be Pharisaical!
I would very much recommend rejection of Amendment No 1, but the adoption of those following it.
Particularly when Christian and religious values are at issue, values of which you, Mr President, have always rightly reminded us.
Mr President, the USA unilaterally withdrew from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
This happened after their own national intelligence service stated that no missile threat from any 'rogue state' even exists, at least not for the next ten years.
According to the American press, the Republicans in Congress pressured the intelligence organs to change their stance and to create a baseless threat scenario.
A powerful missile shield is now being created in response to this figment of the imagination.
Ultimately, nobody is safe from injustice and from the terrorism which draws strength from this.
September's treacherous terror assaults show us where the true threats to security lie.
A missile shield will militarise space, since antiballistic missiles operate in space.
The result of this will be a renewed arms race, but in response to the USA's example we too are making a small decision on principle here: in our opinion Galileo may be used for military purposes in peacekeeping operations.
The people of this world need common security and justice which applies to everyone.
This must be the main goal of the Union.
The hunt for terrorists will never end if we fail to remove the causes of uprisings and civil rights struggles.
The demilitarisation of space, which was achieved with so much trouble during the Cold War, is ending without any rational reason.
There will always be those who are ready to carry out absurd acts.
Is it the case that when the absurd act does not concern individual structures, but the entire world, it becomes more acceptable? When we worry just about our own security, we are sowing the seeds of war.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the request of the Council, the European Commission has produced a communication on the need to undertake the rapid development of a consistent space strategy in conjunction with the European Space Agency.
Like the rapporteur, Mr Alyssandrakis, I welcome this and I also congratulate him on his excellent work as rapporteur.
The Commission is proposing to strengthen the foundations of its space activities by developing scientific knowledge.
The rapporteur stresses the need to develop further the technological basis.
In my view, all this involves substantial public support, financial support, although support, other than financial, may be required.
The Sixth Framework Programme on Research, for which I am the general rapporteur, meets this requirement in part, by making space and aeronautics one of its seven priorities and granting it a budget of just over EUR 1 billion.
In my report, I also proposed measures to train researchers and engineers, both in the field of space and in other areas, in order to resolve problems relating to their mobility, which are exacerbated by the physical distance between sites.
My last point is to mention the dangers of the militarisation of space.
There are risks, undoubtedly, but I do not think that we can undertake military activities when our goal is to prevent or to manage conflicts in order to keep or find peace.
Nevertheless, our priority must be to develop further the use of space for purposes of general interest and public service.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating you on your re-election.
Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to congratulate Mr Alyssandrakis and thank him for his clear and constructive report, and also to thank all the members of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, as well as the members of the various committees who have taken part in this debate and who have been involved in this report.
I am very pleased to be able to take part in this debate today and to do so on behalf of the Commission, in place of my colleague Philippe Busquin, with whom we work very closely on the issue of space, especially in view of my responsibilities in this area with the Galileo project.
The report you are debating today is an important milestone in the history of European space policy, whose development has recently been taken on board by the Community institutions.
It is the political support for the work carried out by the Commission and the European Space Agency within the framework of their joint working group, work which is fully described in the recommendations of the motion for a resolution.
My colleague, Philippe Busquin, has been working very hard on this project, which I know will go towards fulfilling Europe' s requirements for becoming the most competitive knowledge-based society in the world by 2010.
My speech will focus on three points.
The first is the spirit of the European Space Policy, which is part of the framework of a vision of a Europe that takes full advantage of the potential of the knowledge-based economy, especially through the creation of a true European research area, in line with the spirit of the Lisbon conclusions, which should also be the spirit in Barcelona.
A Europe, furthermore, that actively encourages sustainable development, which, since Gothenburg, has been one of the European Union' s priorities.
A Europe that is willing to involve its citizens more in the decision-making process, thereby giving a practical example of governance.
This is exactly where Parliament' s role is crucial, especially in explaining technical issues, such as Space.
In addition to these general principles we need to mention two specific aspects: firstly, the will to accept the international dimension of space and our responsibilities on the world stage, providing Europe with the means it needs to be truly independent; and secondly, the concern to work on maintaining peace and to ensure the security of all European citizens.
At this juncture, I would like to point out - in response to some concerns expressed by the rapporteur - the resolute nature of the instrument for peace that is the GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) initiative in the area of environmental monitoring and safety.
The second aspect is the recent progress made in this field, given that over the last year considerable progress has been made in the area of space policy by means of the communication that you are examining today and also the associated Council resolution.
European Union policy has taken account of the strategic importance of space activity for Europe.
With regard to the specific progress made, I would like to mention two fundamental stages. The first was the creation of a joint Commission and Space Agency task force, which resulted in a second communication.
This was presented at the end of 2001 to the European Council, the Space Agency and Parliament.
The second stage is the joint preparation of a strategy for the implementation of the GMES initiative.
Within this framework, an action plan has been prepared, firstly at European Union level, then at European Space Agency level, with the approval of an additional section at the Agency Ministers' Council.
In 2001, however, certain limitations came to light, for example the lack of results obtained from the last Council of Transport Ministers with regard to the Galileo project.
I deeply regret that these delays have occurred and I would like to once again state very clearly that, in my opinion, there is no economic justification for calling the viability of the project into question, although what remains, ultimately, are doubts with regard to the political will to go ahead with a project as ambitious as the Galileo project.
I hope that these doubts can be allayed in the next few weeks and that by March the Union will have made a positive decision, once and for all.
The third aspect concerns the future. What, exactly, is there left for us to do?
The answer is, a great deal. In order for Europe to fulfil its proper role in this regard, it must establish close cooperation with all parties concerned, especially with regard to a more operational form of cooperation between the Commission and the European Space Agency.
In the short term, this involves negotiating a framework agreement between these two institutions to formalise cooperation between them and to confer the role of organising the implementation of the Union' s space programmes on the Agency.
An informal 'Space Council' will have to be convened at some stage, that brings together the Research Council and the Council of the European Space Agency.
In the medium term, it is proposed that the Councils of the Union and the European Space Agency, as well as the European Parliament should decide on space policy, on the basis of the guidelines provided by the Heads of State and Government.
However, in the longer term and specifically within the framework of the debate that is due to start shortly on the future of the Union, the European Space Agency, and space policy in particular, must also be reflected in the Treaty itself.
Before drawing my conclusions I would like to make some comments on a number of recommendations outlined in the Alyssandrakis report.
I would like to focus specifically on the issue of frequencies.
A European coordination mechanism is being set up in this field in the form of a task force in which national political leaders will participate in the area of regulation.
Another issue is that of full convergence between the report by the think tank' s task force and Parliament' s point of view, with regard to the need to carefully study the situation of competition on a world scale and to adopt appropriate measures, especially with regard to launch pads.
We are also very interested in the idea of organising an international conference to explore opportunities for cooperation.
As Mr Alyssandrakis is well aware, we are already cooperating very closely with Russia.
Finally, generally speaking, the Sixth Framework Programme should make progress in the direction proposed in various recommendations, because for the first time, the subject of space is one of the priorities of this framework programme, but also because the European Space Agency will, for the first time, be able to participate in the programme as a partner with full rights.
Ladies and gentlemen, the report that you are going to adopt represents a substantial and powerful boost for the efforts to implement an authentic European Space Policy.
The success of such an undertaking requires the mobilisation of all of those involved and strong support from all of you here today.
I would like to say - along the same lines as some of the other speakers, such as Mr Savary and Mr Caudron - that we cannot block the necessary capacity and presence of the European Union with regard to space technologies on the pretext that certain types of project could have a dual usage.
It has been clearly stated that the objective of the GMES initiative is peace, and that the initiative is not financed from budgets, nor from funds with military financing and uses.
In fact, quite the opposite is true, and this holds for the Galileo project too.
Simply avoiding taking part in the space race for the sake of peace will not prevent space, which is already partially militarised, from becoming more so.
We must have a firm will to be in space with the criteria of the European Union in mind: to see space used for peaceful purposes for the benefit of mankind as a whole.
Thank you, Commissioner de Palacio.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Road Transport
The next item is the Joint Debate on the following reports:
(A5-0437/2001) by Mr Hatzidakis on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive [9068/1/2001 - C5-0433/2001 - 2000/0060(COD)] laying down for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorised weights in international traffic,
(A5-0469/2001) by Mr van Dam on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Council Regulations (EEC) No 881/92 and (EEC) No 3118/93 for the purposes of establishing a driver attestation (10353/1/2001 - C5-0473/2001 - 2000/0297(COD), and
(A5-0430/2001) by Mr Grosch on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council [COM(2001)56 - C5-0037/2001 - 2001/0033(COD)] on the training of professional drivers for the carriage of goods or passengers by road.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, when I started working on this report, I thought I would be able to wrap it up in no time at all.
In the end, it was far more complicated than I had imagined, but today we are on our way to an auspicious ending and that is what counts.
The aim of this proposal for a directive is to harmonise the maximum length of both rigid and articulated buses when undertaking transport throughout the European Union.
Until now, this matter has not been regulated explicitly; there was only the guarantee that rigid buses of up to 12 metres and articulated buses of up to 18 metres could circulate freely in the European Union.
At national level, for example, there are 4 different maximum lengths for rigid buses, meaning that some buses are unsuitable for EU-wide use, thereby distorting competition.
The Member States wish to harmonise these maximum lengths, at least for buses used throughout the European Union, and have asked the Commission to work out a proposal.
I should like to remind the House that Parliament adopted 3 amendments at first reading.
In the first amendment, it proposed extending the date until which Member States may authorise buses with dimensions not complying with the requirements of the new directive to circulate on their territory from December 2009, as proposed by the Commission, to 2015, in order to allow a normal economic life for those buses.
The Council proposed stretching this date even further until December 2020, a modification the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism agreed with fully.
With the second amendment, the European Parliament proposes the same length of 18.75 metres for articulated buses, as for buses with trailers.
The common position also accepted this amendment so of course we have no problem there.
The last amendment allows rigid buses of up to 13.5 metres to have two axles.
Buses between 13.5 and 15 metres long must have three axles, in order to avoid exceeding the maximum weight per axle.
This amendment too was accepted.
Only the part of this amendment defining "rigid" was not accepted, but this is a merely terminological question.
It should be noted that the common position adopts the Commission's proposal to use the new manoeuvrability criteria which are in the process of being adopted within the Economic Committee for Europe of the United Nations in Geneva.
Portugal and the United Kingdom, I would remind you, may ban buses from their territory which do not comply with the old, stricter manoeuvrability criteria for up to three years after the directive enters into force.
Similarly, Member States are allowed to impose local restrictions on the use of extra long buses for safety or other reasons.
I am referring here to Article 7 of the common position, which the committee discussed at length.
This should largely meet the concerns expressed in some amendments rejected at second reading in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
Consequently, it is clear from all this that there is nothing left for me to do but to propose, as the Committee has done, that Plenary adopt this common position without amendment, since it strikes a reasonable balance between internal market, regulatory, safety, technical and commercial considerations.
Mr President, the proposed regulation introducing a driver attestation requires all drivers in the employ of transport companies within the European Union to carry a standardised document.
As a result, it would be a simple matter for inspectorates across the EU to verify whether the relevant driver is employed correctly, that is to say in accordance with current, national social legislation rules.
At the moment, such inspection is difficult to implement outside national borders due to varying regulations and documents.
Parliament has backed this initiative at first reading. It was noted, however, that this proposal could not be expected to be a universal remedy.
After all, there are also bilateral, international and ECMT licences, by means of which drivers from outside the European Union can legally work in a certain way in the European Union.
For a number of businesses, the dividing line between the legal and illegal deployment of these drivers does not seem clear enough.
Consequently, this proposal only applies to drivers who are employed by EU businesses and who drive lorries from these businesses.
However, Parliament was of the opinion at first reading that the proposal should be subject to a phased introduction for non-EU drivers and EU drivers on account of the administrative measures which Member States would be required to take.
With this, Parliament demonstrated that it had an insight into the situation in the sector, where non-EU drivers form the key problem, at least judging from the number of complaints about these practices.
This is why Parliament has opted for a two-year delay before the regulation enters into force for EU drivers.
In addition, Parliament was of the opinion that the data to be included in the attestation should also comprise the driver' s licence number and social security number.
In its common position, the Council has shown widespread endorsement of Parliament' s views.
It recognises the issues described and deems the attestation at least to be a constructive element in solving existing distortions of competition in international road transport.
Of Parliament' s amendments, the Council has only directly adopted the amendment on the inclusion of the driver' s licence number and social security number.
The amendments on a phased introduction for non-EU and EU drivers have not been directly adopted by the Council.
The Council does accept a phased introduction but does not yet wish to establish the ultimate date on which, based on data currently available, the proposal becomes effective for drivers from the European Union.
The proposal should not enter into force for EU drivers until it transpires that this would actually add value, based on an assessment of the regulation in force at the time.
In addition, the Council has given an interpretation of the inspection percentage (20%) of the number of attestations issued.
As rapporteur, I have to conclude that the positions of the Council and Parliament are not miles apart.
Both recognise the nub and urgency of the problem: non-EU drivers.
This is the group, therefore, that should come under this regulation as soon as possible.
Both the Council and Parliament agree on this.
As far as EU drivers are concerned, I should like to note that - on the basis of data available - the situation is far less urgent.
The evaluation established by the Council seems to be a useful tool for bringing more data to light.
However, I am of the opinion that it is very desirable to settle on an end date for this evaluation.
This is why I am very impressed with Commissioner de Palacio' s written pledge to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism to commission the relevant evaluation within three years.
I trust that she will orally confirm this assurance during this sitting.
All in all, I think that Parliament can be satisfied with the text that is now before us.
I would therefore like to recommend that, together with the Commissioner' s pledge, it be adopted without any amendments .
I should like to finish off with a remark about the report by Mr Grosch.
I endorse the report, but it is vital that the candidates be adequately tested after each training course and that daily practice be included in continuous training.
If we prescribe that it is on the basis of national standards that each driver must be trained, this will promote so-called 'student tourism' , which is exactly what we want to avoid.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that the liberalisation of road transport has brought us in Europe greater choice and better prices.
Competition has also correspondingly become more intense, which has necessarily also led to the tendency for safety and work conditions to lose out in many businesses.
The directive now before us on the training of professional drivers for the carriage of goods or passengers by road is intended to be, in essence, a protective measure and to improve the situation of these drivers.
Not only technological developments but also more stringent environmental and safety requirements seem to us to make a sufficient case for, on the one hand, improving their training and, on the other, needing to add to this through continuous training on a regular basis.
In the many discussions we have had with the industry, we have also, however, established that shortages in the labour force must not result in this directive having a restrictive effect.
A reason why I also wish to thank all the groups, who played a very constructive part in this dialogue, is that the Committee accordingly attempted to introduce proposals for amendments which were not intended to completely change the Directive, but to make it a bit more flexible.
For one thing, we created a sort of bridge to the driving licence, being aware that, in many Member States, training leading to the award of a driving licence already imposes certain conditions equivalent to the training requirements we are proposing.
So it seems important to us that the training should be gone through without being duplicated, once for the driving licence and again in professional training.
The same philosophy applied to the training objectives.
Our concern was not to lay down every detail, but only the training objectives in general terms and thus to leave them in the Annex, because this makes possible the flexible use of these training objectives and leaves open the possibility of adapting them in the light of future developments.
Training at present varies from one country to another, and we have accordingly laid it down that countries can revise the details in consultation with the Commission.
The objective is that training should be equal.
This Directive is not intended to alter any training already provided by a country.
Continuous training appears to us to be an important issue as regards further development, and we hope that, here too, a bridge to the driving licence may be created, because we see continuous training for the driving licence as also constituting a significant element at a later stage.
We have also opted for flexibility in the form of seven hours' continuous training, in other words, one day, rather than for larger units, in order not to impose a burden on businesses.
We have not, I think, gone over the top with one day, representing 0.05% of an employee's labour input.
I personally also insist firmly that there should be flexibility about the training centres.
If we are to speak in terms of mobility in Europe these days, the training centre is not necessarily to be tied to the business or to where the driver lives.
If this certificate is to be valid right across Europe, it should also be possible to train anywhere in Europe.
In this, we are also aware of the fact that this may well be an interesting and important Directive, but that, unfortunately, not all the problems have yet been solved.
Mr van Dam has just mentioned the bilateral authorisations, which are still valid in Europe, leaving room for misuse in this area.
We know too that certain businesses continue to avail themselves of the possibility - something I rather regret about Mr van Dam's report - that we will limit this standard driver's certificate to the countries that are not members of the EU.
For there are excesses in these areas within the Fifteen Member States too.
I do not want to name the firms involved, but some names in this field are well known to us.
I would like to conclude by saying that all this could form an integrated whole if, tomorrow, we were to gain a standard driver's certificate, a directive on journey times and rest periods, a card to confirm these and then also this Directive on driving licences and the training needed today.
This could be readily monitored; hence our appeal for improved monitoring, not only to the Commission, but especially also to the Member States.
Any Directive, no matter how good it is, can only be of value if it is regularly monitored - monitored, moreover, to an equal degree in each and every Member State.
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate our three rapporteurs - Mr Hatzidakis, Mr van Dam and Mr Grosch - for the work they have done.
The level of knowledge of the members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism never ceases to amaze me, in regard to technical details such as the number of axles on buses, turning circles of buses, and so on and so forth.
I am grateful to them for their work.
As far as the PSE Group is concerned, in relation to Mr Hatzidakis' report, we are happy with the common position and the same goes for Mr van Dam's report.
We will be voting accordingly.
Regarding Mr Grosch's report, I welcome the directive because it recognises that we now have an opportunity to improve road safety.
Working conditions for drivers have direct economic but also safety implications.
By proposing a training regime for professional drivers we will be enhancing the status of those drivers.
It is also important to recognise that in light of enlargement these provisions will have to be incorporated into legislation by the candidate countries.
I know many Member States include driver education in their basic education system, but for those that do not, this directive will make it possible for all drivers to receive proper training.
The issue of subsidiarity was raised in committee and indeed is raised again in plenary through a number of amendments.
My group believes that the compromise position that we reached in committee, with the help of our rapporteur, Mr Grosch, enables the directive to offer mere guidelines and therefore negates the need for subsidiarity.
My group will therefore be voting against most amendments that advocate this principle and in support of the rapporteur's position.
We will also vote in favour of Amendment No 43, which proposes an assessment of the effectiveness of this directive and vote against other amendments that try to be too prescriptive.
We are, in short, agreeing with the rapporteur.
I thank all the rapporteurs for their work and congratulate them all on producing three well-balanced reports.
First of all, I should like to thank the three rapporteurs for the volume of work they have carried out.
I should particularly like to congratulate Mr Van Dam on the important work he has done.
The St. Gothard tunnel accident made it clear that common European legislation is very necessary and urgently required so that tough action can be taken against illegally employed drivers who do not carry the necessary paperwork.
However, whether attestations will be sufficient will become evident from the evaluation.
I should also like to congratulate Mr Grosch on his report.
This too stresses the need for prescribing uniform requirements for drivers, because this is a typically transnational profession.
In the final analysis, what matters is safety and fair competition on the roads and, in this light, it is of the utmost importance for each driver to have had adequate training before they use the public roads, and for them to be able to specialise and receive continuous training, and for the requirements to be equivalent in all Member States and accession countries.
This will also afford the profession more standing, which is very important, and will also make it more appealing.
For the Liberals, it is essential for what has been learnt also to be tested properly by an independent body.
However, a certain degree of flexibility and pragmatism will be required.
The duration of the training, as proposed by the Commission, is unnecessarily long and would have an inhibiting effect.
Furthermore, a proper exam will provide far more certainty that the driver has actually learnt what he thinks he has learnt.
However, the flexibility which Mr Bradbourn and others would like to build in is excessive in our view.
We are unable to back the majority of the amendments because they would, in fact, render the regulation superfluous and the exam ineffective, and we should thus be overshooting our target.
Mr President, Commissioner and rapporteurs, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to take the opportunity briefly to point out that, in fact, in a very short space of time, we have slowly but surely put together a package consisting of a number of reports. These reports are not only those before us but are also those on the organisation of working hours, whereby the working hours for employed, but also for self-employed, drivers have been reduced from an average of 60 to 48 hours.
In this package, we have drawn on our concern for safety, the environment and efficiency to still try to get a number of proposals adopted in order to improve the whole environment of freight transport by road, as well as the role which the driver plays in this. Reference has already been made to accidents which happen on a regular basis, also involving people from third countries who do not carry the paperwork.
With regard to the report by Mr Van Dam, I should like to note that we really have been in a position to implement this in a relatively short space of time, and that is why I should like to support his attempts to prevent another round of amendments so that we can roll up our sleeves at the earliest opportunity, in the knowledge that there will undoubtedly be a number of flaws which will be picked up during the evaluation which will take place within three years - at least, I assume that this promise will be confirmed shortly.
I also endorse the comments by Mr Brian Simpson that the way in which subsidiarity is being used by Mr Bradbourn in his amendments is not actually the way in which we should be working at the moment.
As the Group of the Greens, we shall resolutely vote against this approach.
I should like to finish off with a word of thanks to rapporteur Hatzidakis and, obviously, Mr Grosch.
Mr Hatzidakis, this was a technical amendment.
These are the kinds of reports which we passed on to the then chairman with great pleasure, and I wish you every success in your next job in this transport environment.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are now discussing three proposals concerning road transport, which are not in themselves the most exciting topics to the general public. Consequently, few political points can be scored.
But even small steps are necessary in order to ensure flexible transportation.
I thank those who have drafted the reports for their splendid work and, for example, Mr Grosch for his positive and constructive attitude to his colleagues' proposals for amendments.
With regard to Mr Hatzidakis's report, it is particularly satisfying that the Council is now permitting the use of old buses until the end of their economic life.
Anything else would of course be a senseless waste of resources.
As far as dimensions are concerned, I would like to mention the situation regarding lorries.
Finland and Sweden allow lorries which are larger than normal.
We allow lorries six and a half metres longer than elsewhere in the EU.
These dimensions should definitely also be adopted for use throughout the entire area of the EU.
If this procedure were followed, the load carried by lorries would be increased from forty tonnes to sixty tonnes.
The advantages here are obvious even to the layman.
Space would be saved on our congested roads, since two Finnish lorries are the equivalent of three lorries from elsewhere in Europe.
Continental Europe could from time to time take a lesson from Nordic pragmatism.
The combination of improved traffic flow and the economy of scale would lead to a cleaner environment.
This is precisely what is announced in the Transport White Paper; merci, madame Palacio Vallelersundi.
Therefore I ask the Commission to respond in this matter and to consider a proposal along these lines.
It should be remembered that road transport is far and away the most important mode of transportation in Europe, which in addition to everything else offers door-to-door service.
The railways, which, sad to say, work poorly, must of course be improved.
The fact that icebreakers travel more quickly than goods trains is absurd (not that Finnish icebreakers are particularly slow!).
The last thing we should do, however, is to throw a spanner in the works for road transport.
The dynamism of Europe depends on a flourishing economy, and the lifeblood of this is effective road transportation.
By standardising provisions we can ensure fair conditions for competition, not only between forms of transportation but also between Member States.
I believe that these proposals are a step in the right direction.
Mr President, I too wish to thank our colleagues for their fine drafting of the reports concerning road transport.
These actions will improve traffic safety, and this is an important matter.
A reasonably balanced common position on the maximum authorised dimensions for vehicles has been achieved, as the rapporteur Mr Hatzidakis stated.
Extending the transitional period makes it possible to make sensible use of the current stock of buses until the end of their life-span.
The time made available for this is now truly sufficient.
Technical development offers the opportunity to use increasingly longer vehicles, while at the same time also taking safety factors into consideration.
Standardising the maximum lengths of buses will also reduce distortions of competition.
The adoption of a standardised driver's certificate will promote fair competition in the sector and will also improve traffic safety.
Applying the Regulation solely to the drivers of third countries, at least in the first phase, is justified.
This third report on standardising the professional training of drivers for the carriage of goods or passenger vehicles by road may both promote traffic safety and improve the status of drivers.
At the same time it will also be possible to raise the prestige of the sector and to increase its attraction to young people.
This, too, is an important matter.
It is also worth noting that a better mode of driving will also spare the environment.
The basic training requirement for drivers must not however prevent existing drivers from returning to the sector.
Account is taken of this in the report.
Participation in training must be as flexible as possible.
The training programme must be drafted in such a way that the length of one course section should be at least seven hours.
Most important, however, is to ensure that the training makes it possible to truly improve the professional competence of drivers, exactly as Mrs Sanders-ten Holte recently emphasised here.
Mr President, Commissioner, every day we read newspaper reports of major accidents on Europe's roads, caused by lorries with over-fatigued, over-worked and inexperienced drivers.
Who among us does not shake his head and wonder how such a thing is possible on our roads at the beginning of the 21st century? The quality standard for road transport in the EU can and must be increased - there is no doubt about that.
The driving profession, with the ever-increasing demands made upon it, must be built up and made more appealing.
The safety of road transport must also be improved.
It remains to be seen whether the option that the Commission is proposing here will indeed improve the situation.
In my view, the directive before us will achieve no decisive added value.
Training is inherently to be welcomed and is advantageous to the profession, but the driving test means that every driver, even today, has to demonstrate more than just a comprehensive knowledge of the Highway Code.
'Swept twice keeps cleaner longer' , they say back where I come from, but there is no clear and compelling logic to the way the Directive now - as I see it, unnecessarily - requires double the course content in many areas.
Here is a crucial example.
There is in Germany already a real training scheme for professional drivers, which takes three years, so, in comparison, the time required, referred to in the title of the Directive and, incidentally, reduced further by the Council, can only be described as basic vocational training.
Nothing more can be achieved within a time limit of 140 hours.
I mentioned added value, yet, when I consider the details of the regulations under consideration, what I perceive at several points is more of a deterioration.
An eighteen-year-old is now supposed to be allowed to drive a forty-ton lorry with a hazardous load across the Alpine passes - and that after only a few hours' basic training!
That cannot be what the originator had in mind.
We need the profession of driver to be enhanced; that is what the Directive is meant to do.
There is, though, a need for improvement as regards safety on the roads.
Perhaps everything would be much better, if we had, at long last, a new tachograph.
Mr President, Commissioner de Palacio, ladies and gentlemen, we have before us a directive on weights in international traffic, which is, of course, not only about weights, but also about dimensions.
This is a typical tactic, to have a heading announcing, actually very tersely, what is meant to be at issue, and then, in the directive in question, to proceed to expand on it as a matter of course.
I have already for some time now been following with a critical mind developments on European buses, because this wealth of detail was actually far from necessary at a European level.
We - and Parliament is at one on this point - are, at the end of the day, fighting for the principle of mutual recognition.
We should then, if at all possible, cause the principle of mutual recognition to prevail in fact.
Let there be harmonisation only where it is really, absolutely necessary.
I wish at this point to commend the directive as an example of how short and precise an overall provision on European buses should be.
What I would really like is for this directive to abrogate all other directives on European buses, thus enabling countries and nations to have buses of a design appropriate to their needs, as, of course, a village bus in Sicily's hot climate has to look different from a bus in London's rush hour or a bus that has to cover great distances in northern Finland.
This is where harmonisation is false, costing a lot of money and calling for unnecessary effort.
This is where the Commission urgently needs to do some thinking about which areas require voluntary self-regulation and which need standards to be laid down.
We have excellent standards committees, but only where they are absolutely necessary do we need framework directives.
Mr President, these proposals for the training of heavy goods vehicle drivers are, like much of the legislation adopted by this House, totally unnecessary.
All we need is the mutual recognition of national qualifications, possibly underpinned by a loose framework directive, to ensure minimum standards, especially with regard to third-country nationals.
However, what we have is a typical piece of EU legislation: intrusive, prescriptive, vastly expensive.
It is a Christmas tree on which we have hung our wish list of expensive baubles.
Environmental issues are important, but they have no bearing on the ability to drive a truck.
The proposals for training on a healthy diet have already attracted widespread ridicule in the British press.
Asking the British trucker to give up his sausage and eggs is like inviting the Pope to a disco - it simply makes us look absurd.
But we are inviting worse than ridicule.
In the UK alone these proposals are estimated by the industry to cost over EUR 200m a year in a business already under great stress.
The time commitment for training required of the individual owner-operator is unsustainable and will drive hundreds out of business.
In this House we constantly pay lip service to the needs of SMEs, yet again and again we ignore their concerns.
We talk about the problem of unemployment, then we pass directives that destroy jobs.
These proposals form part of a concerted attack by the Commission on the road haulage industry.
I should declare an interest: my stepson is a truck driver and he and his colleagues are aghast at these proposals.
I have studied them in vain for a realistic business impact assessment.
We are looking at huge costs, huge damage to the industry - especially to small businesses - and huge damage to European competitiveness.
A further impediment to the achievement of the Lisbon objectives, and all for what? For benefits which at best are vague and speculative.
I urge colleagues to reject the Grosch report.
Let us stand back for a moment and consider the huge damage we do as we create a torrent of onerous and unnecessary legislation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing three reports, or to be more precise, three legislative proposals that aim to improve road safety and guarantee better a smoother operation of the internal market.
I would like to congratulate Mr Hatzidakis on his excellent work as rapporteur on the report on the maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorised weights in international traffic, and on his work on achieving an agreement at the end of this process.
I would like to express my satisfaction, because the report' s conclusion manages to find a reasonable balance between the internal market, regulation and safety, without forgetting technical and commercial considerations.
In fact, this was the intention of the Commission when it proposed the initiative and, I would, therefore, like to thank Parliament for adopting the common position, which the Commission fully supports without amendment given that, in practical terms, it incorporates all the amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading and introduces other slight modifications to the Commission' s initial proposal.
Now that I have thanked Mr Hatzidakis for his work, I would like to also thank Mr Van Dam for the work he has done and tell him here and now that the Commission intends to draw up an evaluation report over three years, as soon as the Regulation enters into force.
I hope that, with this, Parliament will be able to vote on the basis of the Council common position and bring the matter to a conclusion, which will allow us to embark upon a more focused battle for employment and to regulate the situation of third country nationals employed as drivers by EU transport companies.
Lastly, I would like to refer to the training of professional drivers for the carriage of goods or passengers by road.
I would like to thank Mr Grosch, who has drawn up the last report on road transport that we are debating today and say that the report and its explanatory statement show that the European Parliament shares the point of view of the European Commission on the importance of this proposal, even though it is a technical proposal.
The measures proposed allow for a complete package to be introduced in the area of training and assessment of bus and truck drivers to establish minimum requirements.
Mrs Langenhagen, this is not an obligation to reduce the amount of professional training given in particular countries, it simply seeks to establish minimum requirements that must be met in all countries.
There is, therefore, no need to alter the three-year requirement currently in force in Germany.
In fact, the opposite is true, given that this is in excess of the minimum stated in the Directive.
What is really needed is for all German drivers, not just the minimum number, as is the case today, to take up and complete this training.
The objectives are to raise the quality of professional drivers and standards in road transport in general and to guarantee positive results in terms of road safety.
Generally speaking, we can accept the majority of the amendments, making a few alterations here and there, but some of them, on the other hand, we are bound to reject.
For example, Amendments Nos 25 to 41, which aim to make the initiative the sole responsibility of the Member States.
We should not forget that only 5% of Community bus and goods vehicle drivers currently benefit from professional training.
Just 5%.
This proposal is, therefore, essential in order to improve this situation, and only Community legislation to make it mandatory can fulfil this objective. These amendments, however, would lead to reduced safety standards and a clear distortion of competition.
In particular, with regard to Amendment No 37, we will incorporate some of Mr Bradbourn' s concerns into the modified Commission proposal, in order to thus leave a wider margin for the principle of subsidiarity, because we feel that on some of the issues he has raised, he is right.
Even if the Commission is able to accept the principle of parallel training with the aim of obtaining both a driving licence and a certificate of professional competence, we would prefer to avoid any kind of duplication, and this why we cannot accept Amendments Nos 6, 16, 17 and 18.
We cannot accept No 5 either, because imposing basic training on drivers who already work in this profession but do not have three years previous experience could cause difficulties in the sector, which is currently suffering from serious problems due to a lack of drivers.
However, in the spirit of compromise we could accept Amendment No 27.
With regard to Amendment No 10, which relates to the inclusion of training within working hours, the Commission considers that this is an issue that both sides of industry should agree upon, and, therefore, cannot be accepted.
The Commission has problems with Amendment No 13, which refers to the place of training.
We feel that there could be a certain degree of flexibility in continuous short-term training, and that it should be able to take place both in the Member State in which a driver is normallyresident and in the country in which he or she is contracted to work, but not in other areas, given that there are similar accepted requirements with regard to driving licences and the driver card.
Amendment No 19 introduces an international transport option based mainly on the understanding of languages.
This is not the aim of this proposal and, therefore, cannot be accepted and we reject it.
The Commission does not accept Amendments Nos 2, 22 and 23 either, because they go beyond the scope of the current Directive.
Finally, we believe that Amendments Nos 42, 44 and 45, which lay down the duration of training in the body of the text rather than in the Annex, cannot be accepted either.
I shall conclude, Mr President, by thanking the three rapporteurs for their work.
I would also like to thank Parliament, and there are no surprises here, for two of their proposals, specifically the proposal on maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and maximum authorised weights in international traffic, and the proposal establishing a driver attestation and I hope that these will be approved so that we can move ahead as soon as possible with their implementation.
I hope that in later stages of proceedings we will be able to reach agreement on the training of professional drivers for the carriage of goods or passengers by road, which we also consider to be a vitally important factor in improving road safety and in preventing market distortions, specifically in the transport market within the European Union. I hope this happens because, as I have already said, many of the amendments tabled are going to be accepted and some of those that mention the suitability of leaving a wider margin for subsidiarity will be incorporated into the amended proposal that we will be presenting at an appropriate time.
Thank you, Commissioner de Palacio.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
ACP/EC Partnership Agreement
The next item is the recommendation (A5-0412/2001) by Mr Rod on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation on the proposal for a Council decision [2117/2000 - COM(2000)324 - C5-0417/2000 - 2000/0124(AVC)] concerning the conclusion of the Partnership Agreement between the African, Caribbean and Pacific States on the one part, and the European Community and its Member States, on the other.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, even though I adopted a rather critical tone in the report' s explanatory statement, we must nonetheless adopt a constructive approach and, despite the fact that time is getting on, I would recommend that the European Parliament issue an opinion in accordance with the ratification of the ACP-EU agreement.
The signing of the Cotonou Agreement was not initially accepted.
Although the ACP countries had always shown they were willing to continue their cooperation with the European Union, Europe was becoming involved in other matters.
European interests on the international stage changed and Africa became a marginal continent.
There are no ACP countries among the 10 leading beneficiaries of European aid.
A genuine political assessment of Lomé was never carried out but the same foundations have been used for Cotonou.
However, we have doubts regarding the ability of the Cotonou Agreement to provide a dynamic for sustainable development if we do not have a more balanced international economic order, in which the developing countries will finally have rights.
The structural causes which have undermined the success of the Lomé Conventions are still present: the burden of debt which is strangling the budgets of the ACP countries and their potential to invest in sustainable development, the continued deterioration of trade terms to the detriment of the ACP countries, in the absence of an international system for trade regulation of primary products, a structural adjustments policy which imposes budgetary restrictions on ACP countries and, lastly, an inconsistent European policy which, like its development policy, not only subsidises agricultural production and exports its surplus to developing countries, thus destabilising the local markets, but also authorises industrial fishing vessels to fish the territorial waters of the ACP countries, which adversely affects the local people' s means of subsistence and compromises the protection of biodiversity.
Furthermore, do not underestimate the internal working problems of the ACP group, the democratic shortcomings in certain countries and the misuse of funds by corrupt regimes.
The Cotonou Agreement is not groundbreaking.
It perpetuates and accentuates the transition towards liberalisation initiated by Lomé IV and continued by the international institutions: that is, the liberalisation of trade, coupled with the withdrawal of the non-reciprocal trade system, as well as Stabex and Sysmin, in favour of the future trade regime which is likely to take the form of Regional Economic Partnership Agreements (REPS) that are compatible with WTO rules. But can the ACP countries contend with global competition?
By differentiating them from the least developed countries (LDCs), which benefit from the 'Everything but Arms' initiative, is there not a danger that this will undermine the cohesion of the ACP group? There is economic liberalisation as well, within the framework of the general agreement on the commercialisation of services.
Privatisation of this economic sector is a very dangerous process in the ACP countries where the basic public services such as education, health and justice are already fragile, even non-existent.
Equally, the reference to the TRIPS agreements is a danger for the people of the South who are at risk of being denied access to their own natural resources.
Biodiversity is under threat.
Furthermore, in the Cotonou Agreement, the environment is relegated to the background and the sole aim is to limit the environmental impact of development policies, which runs counter to a sustainable development strategy.
However, the Cotonou Agreement contains some interesting aspects that we must put to good use.
Acknowledging civil society as an actor in the partnership is a major step forward.
Its representatives must take part in the dialogue on development strategies and policies at an early stage, be involved in the implementation of programmes and directly benefit from the funds.
We must define civil society and ensure that it is not exploited by any party.
The civil society in each ACP country must therefore be organised at national as well as at regional level, in order to actively participate in its country' s development.
This process has been launched with the ACP Civil Society Forum.
The European Union must support this process, as it did under the Belgian Presidency.
The role of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly is thus strengthened in that it must monitor the participation of civil society as well as, and in particular, the implementation of democratic processes.
But it has no binding instrument to do this.
Political dialogue is another essential element.
It must also be reciprocal and effectively implemented.
The 'Everything but Arms' initiative was undertaken without consulting the ACP countries and penalties are still random.
Lastly, since the European Commission wishes to make considerable investments in several key sectors, the National Indicative Programmes should give priority to strengthening public services and administrative and institutional capacities.
In reality, everything depends on how the Cotonou Agreement is applied.
For example, the new Cotonou Agreement provides for flexible aid planning, in other words, according to how each country performs. But who will define the performance criteria?
Will we assess the ability of each country to re-gain some balance in macro-economic affairs or the impact of aid on eradicating poverty? It does not seem likely that the new distribution of competences between the Commission services will provide greater consistency in the development policy.
To what extent will the Directorate-General for Trade be able to encourage a more favourable trade model in the ACP countries, whilst also protecting European trade interests? Lastly, the fact that the Directorate-General for Development is gradually being stripped of its prerogatives in this area does not bode well.
As far as we, the Members of the European Parliament, are concerned - and this will be my final point, Mr President - after tomorrow' s vote, our task is finished in theory.
Since the European Development Fund has no budget, we are no longer responsible for monitoring and achieving the objectives of the ACP-EU cooperation.
This is unacceptable and we must work together to implement this agreement so that aid can make a real contribution to the well-being of the people of the ACP countries, as regards their food, health and educational requirements.
Mr President, it is now one and a half years since we were able to congratulate the Commission on the Cotonou Agreement, and it is really somewhat disgraceful that there are still only three EU countries that have ratified the agreement.
I realise that there are probably some that are on the way to doing so in the course of the spring, but it is still not too satisfactory.
At least it is good that our approval is being put in place tomorrow, even if I agree with the rapporteur that it is only the beginning. However, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
A lot has undeniably happened in the world since the agreement was signed in June 2000, but that does not of course make it any the less important.
I think it can be said that the fact that foreign policy is bound up with development policy has, since then, been heavily underlined, and I am also pleased that I am today speaking on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, for this shows the connection between foreign policy and development policy.
In a speech in December 2001 in Berlin with the title, 'From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe' , Commissioner Nielson made these words his own.
Which form of policy comes first may be immaterial.
However, 11 September made this connection and, in particular, the importance of foreign policy, abundantly clear.
11 September showed what can happen if we do not ensure development in all parts of the world.
It is now our task to pursue such development.
The same applies to our continuing work in Kosovo.
In connection with Zimbabwe too, the link between foreign policy and development policy is clear, as too is the fact that, in spite of everything, the EU has succeeded in obtaining an agreement, which means that we can operate in Zimbabwe in the hope of achieving good results.
I agree with the Commissioner, whose speech contained the concluding remarks - which I would certainly echo - to the effect that the C in CFP '...stands for common, not convenient and colonial' .
I agree that we therefore still have work to do, as we also have here in Parliament.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur for the enormous amount of work he has put into this document and for the information that is in it.
However, I am disappointed that he is so pessimistic, both looking back to the past and forward to the future.
Of course I support some of his criticisms: too much paperwork, a lack of decision-making, slow delivery times and a lack of capacity in developing countries.
This has given rise to frustration, but Commissioner Nielson is tackling these problems with some vigour.
I am much more optimistic than the rapporteur.
I believe the Cotonou Accord is the right path.
Lomé had its faults.
But it was a unique concept and much good work was done.
The new Partnership Agreement is based on the right principles, enhancing the old Lomé Convention.
The theme of poverty alleviation must be right.
The only question is how best to implement it.
There is much discussion on project finance versus budget support.
Should we be using multilateral aid or bilateral aid? I strongly support multilateral aid backed up by bilateral aid where it can complement a project.
I do not believe that project aid has failed.
The problem has been the under-capacity of countries to continue projects once they were completed by the European Union.
I am equally not yet convinced that budget support can be controlled tightly enough in many developing countries and fear that it will open the door to corruption.
I believe it is the new factors in the Cotonou Accord that will have the most influence: the political dimension, the emphasis on good governance, conflict prevention and resolution, the interaction with civil society, the regional approach to strengthen trade and the Parliamentary element of the Joint Assembly.
All these are elements that should strengthen the partnership.
All this has changed my role as co-president in the last year.
I certainly have played a more political role in the past year, discussing, for instance, conflict resolution and good governance with President Taylor in Liberia, or having discussions on the Zimbabwe situation with the Presidents of Botswana, Malawi and Mozambique, and hearing and seeing the effects on their countries.
All this depends on an effective Commission, with properly funded and staffed delegations.
Most of the ones I have seen are extremely badly serviced at the moment for lack of funds and the petty paperwork they have to handle.
This is Parliament's fault.
We must urge all countries to ratify the agreement, as Mrs Dybkjær has said, to allow the ninth EDF to come into force.
This partnership has to work.
If we really wish to see an end to economic migration and terrorism in the world, we must provide a standard of living in developing countries which persuades people to stay and work there.
Will the Cotonou Agreement yield more results than its Lomé predecessors? The new cooperation agreement with the ACP countries has drawn on the experience gathered to date, and bears witness to new insights in the field of trade, good governance, aid and the role of civil organisations.
There is naturally room for criticism but, in my view, Mr Rod is taking things too far in his comprehensive report.
In his analysis, Europe is the devil personified while the ACP countries have been elevated to the status of saints.
The disastrous, violent conflicts are caused by poverty, and poverty is caused by the rich West.
Unfortunately, things are not as simple as that.
It is unfair to claim that Cotonou will only lead to unbridled liberalism.
However, the agreement does stress with good reason the importance of the participation of players other than the local government, such as NGOs and the private sector.
Not only donors have to draw lessons, but also the developing countries themselves.
It is therefore to be welcomed that Cotonou reminds the ACP countries of their own responsibilities.
It is right that aid should be provided according to the achievements of the receiving countries.
Success in the longer term does not only depend on us but also, and above all, on the partners' own continuous efforts.
Would Commissioner Nielsen agree with me on this?
Administrative capacity is crucial if results are to be achieved.
At least as important is preventing the abuse of power and human rights violations.
I therefore consider the planned, broad dialogue to be at the heart of the Cotonou Agreement.
It is vital that the EU and the ACP partners should not stop at good intentions.
Europe must drastically reform its own development, trade and agricultural policy and the ACP countries must put all their efforts into democratisation, political stability and conflict prevention so as to allow their countries to develop socially and to make them fully-fledged trading partners.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Rod and congratulate him on his excellent work on this matter and stress that, broadly speaking, I agree with the ideas he puts forward in his explanatory statement and with the conclusions he proposed and which we approved in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
I shall, therefore, limit myself to a few brief observations.
I wish to say, first of all, that, to my mind, the greatest success of this new Convention lies in the very fact that its moment has actually arrived, given the long and difficult obstacles that we have had to overcome.
These difficulties and obstacles began with the recommendation to end our partnerships with the ACP countries and culminated in the untimely and rather inconvenient problem of migration, already in the final stage of negotiations.
The final outcome of these negotiations, in addition to the establishment of a new Convention for a period of twenty years, is therefore, to my mind, to be considered one of the more positive aspects.
There are also other, more substantial reasons for the Convention, however.
For example, a greater call for the participation of civil society, especially if this is given a broad meaning and if it is not at variance with the cooperation and support deserved by the central administrations of the ACP States, which suffer, as a rule, from considerable structural weakness.
This also applies to the regionalisation that has been planned, if this is undertaken carefully, if it is not imposed and if it does not represent an undesirable fragmentation of the ACP countries.
It should be pointed out, however, that there are also aspects of this new Convention that make us rather apprehensive.
Firstly, the systematic call for the imposition of unilateral conditions and objectives which, apart from having the potential to destroy a partnership that we want to be of equals, could also undermine the choices made by the ACP countries themselves on their own development policies.
Secondly, the rapid move towards enshrining the liberalising rationale of the WTO which, as we know, has been particularly damaging to the least-developed countries.
These are aspects which we cannot sweep under the carpet and which, like the clear change of direction towards the East of the European Union - I would remind you that none of the ACP countries is yet on the list of the ten countries that benefit most from European cooperation - may compromise a partnership that we would like to be beneficial, mutually advantageous and capable of ending the cycle of underdevelopment and the enormous poverty that affects those countries.
Mr President, we are not doing much more than going over old ground.
It is nearly two years ago that the negotiations about the Cotonou Agreement were completed.
Despite this, I hope that the Council will take the report by Mr Rod seriously.
I would compliment the rapporteur on the sharp analysis in his report.
The fact that a number of inconsistencies have survived in the Cotonou Agreement and the unwillingness to reduce underdevelopment if this means abandoning self-interest put the rapporteur in a sombre mood regarding the outcome of the development project.
I share his concerns on this.
I can only partly subscribe to the shift towards integration in the world trade system instead of a change of that system to benefit the poorest.
Admittedly, aid without trade is not very effective, but trade is no panacea for underdevelopment.
I should like to finish off with a word on the future regional trade agreements.
From the WTO' s perspective, there is little choice other than continuing with Lomé in the same vein.
However, I should like to draw your attention to another perspective, namely that of development.
I am not so certain that the regional economic partnership agreements will benefit all our partners.
Specifically, the least developed countries will not find them very useful.
Furthermore, conflicts of interest may arise between the various countries in their more or less artificially divided regions.
This is diametrically opposed to the EU' s conflict prevention policy which is high on the agenda.
Mr President, Commissioner Nielson, ladies and gentlemen, the new agreement on cooperation and development, the Cotonou Agreement, constitutes a significantly improved framework for cooperation with the ACP States.
It is an agreement that we emphatically support, one in which the significant improvements in terms of content and policy originated in proposals by Parliament.
We do not, therefore, share either the rapporteur's highly critical assessment or his reasons for it.
Indeed, we take the view that it is something of a caricature.
Let me, in response to the rapporteur's analysis, list three points in favour.
Firstly, the establishment of a parliamentary assembly represents genuine progress, in that, after an appropriate preparatory period, ACP States will be represented only by freely elected parliamentarians, rather than by ambassadors, as is still to some extent the case.
This principle must not only be incorporated into the new rules of procedure of our Joint Assembly, but also put into practice.
We will vote against the admittance of any ACP ambassador if, for example, he displaces freely elected African delegates.
The second is the regional approach to cooperation, also originating in proposals by this Parliament, which puts an end to economic parochialism in Africa.
Our cooperative effort must in future be focused on regional free trade and cooperation agreements.
We insist that our regional parliamentary cooperation should begin on the ground this very year, for example subsequent to our Southern African meeting in Cape Town in March or our meeting with ECOWAS in the course of the year.
Thirdly, we support the reinforcement of the clause on democracy and human rights, which we believe must be speedily implemented.
Let me mention only Nigeria, Togo and Zimbabwe as examples of why this is so.
We hope that this will bring about genuine parliamentary partnership with our fellow parliamentarians in Africa and elsewhere in the ACP countries.
Mr President, our friend Mr Rod' s recommendation in favour of Parliament' s ratification of the Cotonou Agreement is accompanied by an exhaustive analysis of the agreement, its significance and new developments, made from a critical point of view that we share for the same reasons as the rapporteur himself: because of the gaps in the Treaty and the shortcomings that have already become apparent during its short provisional life.
This does not prevent us, however, from supporting it and encouraging its ratification.
This agreement was drawn up in a world significantly different to that of the first Lomé Convention. Under current global conditions, economic instruments are no longer sufficient in themselves to steer globalisation towards the goals of justice.
We must also have instruments of political cooperation.
For this reason, even with all the shortcomings, this agreement should be welcomed so that we can get the best out of it.
The role of the European Parliament in this agreement cannot be limited to controlling the European Development Fund.
I think that we can achieve a great deal with this agreement.
At the moment, we can publicise its positive aspects and attempt to have it ratified by our national parliaments.
It is scandalous that a year and a half after it was signed, only three of the fifteen Member States appear to have ratified it.
Another important action that we can encourage is the consolidation and effective operation of the national parliaments in ACP countries.
Mr Rod highlights the participation of civil society as something new in the agreement and recognises the ever-important role of the State but, within States themselves, efficient parliaments are the best guarantee of preventing poverty, fighting corruption and of making our cooperation more effective, which is the underlying objective of the Cotonou Agreement.
We support our partners' parliaments and also the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, which will be able to carry out the function of democratic control conferred on it by the agreement.
Mr Rod asks us the million-dollar question: does our cooperation in the context of the Cotonou agreement aid the development of our ACP partners or does it simply seek to impose the liberal model on these countries? And does the liberal model actually guarantee fair development in these countries?
I think that, on its own, it does not work. For this reason, we should make an effort to ensure that this Cotonou agreement is apart from being merely a framework for trade relations, an instrument for decent and equitable political and economic relations with the ACP States and to ensure that our cooperation with them is one of the pillars of a supportive and democratic world order that we need and which we are committed to, at least, as far as my group is concerned.
Mr President, I welcome the report by Mr Rod and I agree with him that the renewal of the framework agreement governing cooperation between the EU and ACP States is best considered against the backdrop of the challenges posed by globalisation, economic liberalisation and the European Commission's reform of external assistance.
Indeed, over 18 months after the signing at Cotonou, we can now begin to assess the agreement by looking at the actual progress made in bringing it to life.
First, despite its strengths, in one particular aspect at least the previous Lomé agreement fell short, that is in the fight against poverty.
I very much welcome the promotion of poverty eradication as one of the core aims of the new partnership agreement, but we must ensure that this is also reflected in the Commission's programming through its country strategy papers.
I regret to say that the strategy papers reviewed so far show the transport sector receiving 35% and macroeconomic support 25% of all programmable resources.
In the Committee on Development and Cooperation we have on countless occasions stressed the need to plough resources into basic health and basic education if we are serious about poverty reduction.
It is right to stress this point again tonight.
The second crucial change from Lomé concerns civil society participation.
What sort of results can we expect after hearing reports that civil society has not yet been involved in a genuine and meaningful way? I am disappointed to see that out of a possible 15%, only 2% of resources have been allocated to capacity building in the country strategy papers drawn up so far.
Was this because civil society organisations were not consulted or because civil society has such a low absorption rate?
The Cotonou agreement stipulates that civil society participation should come from the bottom up, yet without the capacity this is impossible.
Finally, in pointing out some of the practical challenges that lie ahead, I would not and do not want to denigrate the huge achievement of the negotiation and signing of the agreement in the first place.
The EU-ACP partnership remains a model for North-South cooperation in our world and one which we celebrate properly in our vote for ratification in the European Parliament this week.
Mr President, allow me first to congratulate Members of Parliament on having taken this important step in the process of approval of the Cotonou Agreement.
You all know how important it is to complete the ratification process in order to be able to implement the agreement fully, including its financial component.
You also know how important the ACP-EC relationship is in the framework of the Community' s development policy.
One very important aspect is that the text of the Cotonou Agreement is a negotiated text.
This is also indirectly reflected in the comments from many in this debate about the fact that having the agreement is quite an achievement.
The way we obtained it was through real negotiations.
This is what Mr Howitt pointed out in presenting this as a model for a more global relationship between north and south.
There are many deficiencies in it and much of the criticism comes from the fact that it is still very ambitious and it is difficult to implement.
This has to do with the expectations we have as to what our partner countries actually put into the programming process.
This is not for us alone to decide, which is partly my response to Mr Howitt's comments.
I shall now make some brief comments on the report as such.
I find the report' s approach towards the trade dimension of Cotonou interesting, although I cannot agree with all of it.
Certainly, the report' s evaluation of the economic and trade regime under Cotonou is based on a political view of development and North-South relations.
For example, we do not agree with the report that the Cotonou Agreement is in favour of "development only through market laws".
In our view, the Cotonou Agreement provides a comprehensive framework, integrating trade as one instrument among others to promote sustainable development.
The core element of future trade relations will be the Economic Partnership Agreements which aim to create favourable conditions to enhance both the volume and the benefits of trade.
It is true, negotiations of regional economic partnership agreements will aim at the progressive and flexible liberalisation of trade flows and at the integration of ACP countries into the world economy.
But this will be in line with their level of development and will take into account the socio-economic impact of trade measures.
REPAs will be based on regional integration, strengthening and deepening the existing regional integration initiatives.
This is also why I do not share the view expressed by Mr Belder that these initiatives could be some sort of risk, in relation to conflict prevention.
We clearly have the expectation that this regional cooperation will be part of conflict prevention and strengthen it.
This is what experience tells us.
REPAs will also be linked to comprehensive economic and social measures which can be financed through the EDF.
This is not sufficiently reflected in the report.
Some statements in the report could, in our view, be more precise.
For example, the reference to EU beef exports to Western Africa is highly critical of substituting local beef by subsidised EU beef.
However, this argument is based on EU exports from 1981 to 1991.
We are now in 2002 and the Community' s export policy to developing countries has changed in recent years.
In particular, since the early 1990s we have considerably reduced the export refunds for beef exports to Western Africa, precisely to avoid any substitution of local beef by subsidised EU beef.
As a consequence, there has been a progressive decrease of EU beef exports to ECOWAS countries from a level of 54 000 tonnes in 1991 to only 1600 tonnes in 2000.
This is a classical case.
We have had a number of them in the debate about coherence.
Most of these cases are historical cases and they have all been solved.
But there are other very real, meaningful important problems to discuss within the framework of the debate on coherence, so I would strongly advise everybody in this debate to put the finger on the real problems instead of providing only archaeological material.
There is also a certain confusion in the report when it comes to trade relations with LDCs.
It is stated that LDCs would automatically opt for the Everything but Arms regime, whereas non-LDCs had the choice between Economic Partnership Agreements and the normal GSP regime.
This is not the case.
On the contrary, it is important to stress that LDCs will be part of the regional economic partnership agreements process.
REPAs will tackle all barriers to trade, including issues such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures or technical barriers to trade and will build on the existing regional integration initiatives.
Both are highly relevant for LDCs.
Finally, let me emphasise that REPAs need to be integrated into the development strategies of the ACP and the EC.
It will therefore be essential that negotiations on the REPAs and implementation on the one hand, development policies on the other, are mutually supportive and that appropriate EU support measures are included in regular EDF financing.
REPAs will set a trade policy framework which will need to be fully coherent with development policies.
It is true that the objectives of the Cotonou trade agenda are ambitious but doing nothing and continuing with our past approach would incur major risks and would probably not reverse the economic marginalisation of ACP countries.
When we look at what has happened so far on the basis of the instruments of the past, this is quite obvious.
The Cotonou Agreement provides the instruments to help ACP countries to integrate in the world economy and to reduce poverty.
We have to use them in the best possible way.
It would be a misunderstanding to think that our agreement here and our instruments can do the trick.
There are very good basic reasons why these poor countries are not well integrated into the world economy.
There are real problems there.
The report is written as if it were a realistic assumption that as part of the engineering and the negotiations underlying the Cotonou Agreement we could easily have confronted and changed many of the underlying global issues.
I hope I am not shocking anyone by saying that it is not as easy as that.
It never was an option to offer the ACP countries a framework of economic development that was not based on the fact that the market economy is here to stay.
But this is not the same as saying that the market is the only method.
The Commission disagrees with that statement.
In fact the whole endeavour of our ACP-EU cooperation, as well as the rest of our global development cooperation effort, is proof of the fact that we are trying to do something that could never have been done if development was left to the market as such.
This is why we do it.
Let me end on a more conciliatory note by quoting from the conclusion of the report, which I strongly support.
"In effect the existence of a new ACP-EU cooperation agreement is a victory in itself.
Furthermore, it contains innovative aspects that will have to be interpreted and used constructively.
As the European Parliament has no powers to amend this text, it is essential to work to get the most out of it, so that aid can make a real contribution to the well-being of the people of the ACP countries, as regards their food, health, educational requirements, etc."
This is the kind of language I can identify with.
We welcome this conclusion.
I want to conclude by expressing deep satisfaction on behalf of the Commission that the European Parliament has now concluded its part of this process and we hope to see it concluded in general as soon as possible.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
There are no comments.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr van Orden has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I should like to draw your attention to the continuing deterioration of the situation in Zimbabwe.
Last Friday Zimbabwean ministers had a meeting with EU representatives and they have been asked to write a letter or a report by tomorrow on improvements in the situation in Zimbabwe.
In fact, over the last week things have continued to deteriorate.
It is very important that the international community should show that it really means business by bringing Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe to task.
We need to be preparing smart sanctions now.
I urge you to ensure that the Council and the Commission take a uniformly tough line on Zimbabwe before it is too late.
Presidential elections will be held there on 9 March and time is running out.
Thank you very much, Mr Van Orden, we take note of your words and we shall communicate them to the Presidency.
Mr MacCormick has the floor for another point of order.
Mr President, I should like to take up a point Mrs McKenna raised yesterday concerning electronic voting and the secret ballot.
It is unhappily the case that the secret ballot arrangement by electronic voting is imperfect at the moment.
It is imperfect because, even when one uses the device mentioned by Mrs Jackson yesterday of a paper to cover the screen, it is easy for one's colleagues behind and beside to see how one voted.
When a secret ballot is important, Members should be protected from peer-group pressure.
I would therefore like you to refer to the Bureau the question of whether the electronic voting system can be improved in order to really function as a secret ballot and protect Members from those pressures from which they ought to be protected.
Thank you Mr MacCormick, it is not necessary to communicate this request to the Bureau, since it already began to study this issue yesterday.
There are other possibilities.
It is not that your consideration is irrelevant and we perfectly understand your political interest, but on the basis of our experience yesterday, which was the first under this system, the services are examining how to resolve this issue.
I, as the person responsible - for the moment, since the allocation of posts in the Bureau has still not been decided and I still have my former responsibilities in relation to buildings -, received a proposal yesterday afternoon which related to this.
I therefore imagine that the Bureau will be able to resolve this issue soon, with the help of the Quaestors.
Mr Sumberg has the floor for a point of order.
I would ask you not to spend too long on points of order.
Mr President, on a point of order.
May I ask you to ask the President of this Parliament to note that a vote took place here yesterday for a full inquiry into foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom.
The vote for that was carried because the British Labour Government refused my constituents an inquiry into that terrible disease.
In this Parliament yesterday the British Socialists ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Sumberg, please, this is not a point of order.
I know that you have the right to try to take advantage the opportunities granted you in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, but it was not a point of order.
Thank you.
Future of the common fisheries policy
The next item is the report (A5-0470/2001) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission White Paper on the future of the common fisheries policy [COM(2001) 135 - C5-0261/2001 - 2001/2115(COS)]
Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform you that Mr Fischler, the Commissioner responsible for the issues dealt with in the three reports on this morning' s agenda, is ill.
He was in Strasbourg yesterday, and he is still in Strasbourg at the moment, but he will not be able to take part in these debates.
I must therefore ask you to forgive the Commission' s absence.
I believe that we cannot paralyse debates, but that we should go ahead.
The Commission will be represented here by the top officials responsible but not by the Commissioner, who will not be able to participate.
On the other hand, the Council, which is not present either, has not apologised for its absence.
I believe that we must move ahead with our agenda.
On behalf of the House, I would like to wish Mr Fischler a speedy recovery.
Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, has the floor.
Mr President, I would like to point out, in support of what you have said, firstly, that Mr Fischler had informed me that he was unwell and was therefore not able to be here with us today.
I must say that Mr Fischler has always attended other debates.
Since he is unwell, a case of force majeure, we must of course simply reiterate the President' s wishes for his speedy recovery.
I think we must go ahead with this debate since we have already spent a lot of time preparing the reports scheduled for today, essentially the Miguélez report.
These are very important issues and we have managed to have them debated during this January part-session, which was difficult since there were institutional aspects to be resolved.
And furthermore, we are holding the debate on a Thursday, which is not usual for fisheries, and the reports will be voted on on a Thursday morning.
Therefore, as chairman of the committee, I would request that we go ahead with the debate despite the fact that the Commissioner is not present and that we send him our best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Mr President, before the fisheries debate in which I too will be taking part, I would draw your attention to the fact that this afternoon' s agenda features the Stauner report on the Community action programme Leonardo da Vinci.
I understand that further research is being carried out, as a result of which it would probably not be wise to vote on it at 5 p.m. today.
I would ask you to consider, together with rapporteur Stauner, whether this topic is ready for a vote today.
I have a feeling that it is not.
Mr Meijer, the question of procedure which you raise is certainly feasible.
The vote is scheduled for this afternoon, if the debate is closed.
If we have finished with the report which you have referred to, by Mrs Stauner, in accordance with the agenda, the vote is scheduled for 5.00 p.m.
I would be grateful if we did not hold up this debate any longer.
Furthermore, Commissioner Vitorino has informed us that he is on his way to Strasbourg, but it will be difficult for him to get here before the vote.
But if necessary, Mr Varela, Commissioner Vitorino could express the opinion of the Commission, which it has sent us in writing, before the vote, if you think it is essential.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what we are going to vote on today is clearly not the Miguélez report.
For obvious reasons: the Committee on Fisheries, by accepting the majority of the amendments to my report, and myself, by reaching a compromise on certain points with some of the Members presenting amendments, have made significant modifications to the initial text.
This text is, therefore, a synthesis of the various positions held in this Parliament in relation to the reform of the CFP, and when it comes to evaluating it there will be certain people who consider that the glass is half full and others that the glass is half empty.
In any event, I believe that the report contains a sufficient number of positive elements in comparison with the current CFP for me, as rapporteur, to request that this House vote in favour of it.
I must say that in the Committee on Fisheries there has been more agreement on the shortcomings of the current CFP than on identifying concrete proposals for its reform.
Nevertheless, I believe that it contains sufficient positive elements to lay the foundations for a future CFP.
The greatest difficulty has been in reconciling the various interests: those of the companies, in order to allow them to be economically viable, those of the preservation of resources and social and economic measures which are able to defend an activity largely based in the least developed regions, outermost regions and Objective 1 regions.
The European Commission should be able to show sufficient political intelligence to reconcile these three aspects, above all because the failure of any one of them would lead to the failure of the other two.
We are concerned about the existing contradiction between the highly critical analysis carried out by the Commission of the current CFP, which is shared by the European Parliament, and the subsequent proposals for reform, presented in the Green Paper, which are hardly innovative.
The Green Paper opts for little change, or 'more of the same' , which pleases nobody.
The report I am presenting is clear when it comes to defining the fundamental objective of the common fisheries policy: balancing the viability of a strategic European Union economic sector - which contributes to our food supply and is vital for employment and the economic and social cohesion of the outermost regions of the Union - with the maintenance of sustainable marine eco-systems.
With regard to the conservation and management of resources, the Committee on Fisheries asks for TACs to be set by means of rational and transparent measures, incorporating scientific opinions and data from the sector' s professionals, especially since they will be set on a multiannual and multi-species basis.
It asks for an end to the incoherences between the current CFP and the single market, demanding that areas of restricted fishing, either closed seasons, boxes or restricted access, be based on scientific criteria for the protection of resources.
In fact, as the report indicates, the current CFP entails a derogation from the principle of equal access and, in the absence of a Council decision, this derogation will end on 31 December 2002.
The CFP is obliged to respect the fundamental principles contained in the Treaty, including, ladies and gentlemen, the principle of equal treatment.
Relative stability requires a new analysis, as the report states, of the communities which are highly dependent on fishing, which considers the evolution in the Community over the last 25 years.
This analysis is essential to the review of the CFP.
The Committee on Fisheries has also rejected the extension of the exclusive access zone beyond the current range of 6-12 miles.
With regard to the fleet, the report makes its point clearly by pointing out that the Multiannual Guidance Programmes (MAGPs) have not produced the desired results, largely as a result of the lack of will of certain Member States to implement them correctly.
The reduction of the fleet is a socio-economic sacrifice which, in order to be understood and accepted by the fisheries sector, must be carried out in a balanced fashion in all Member States and also receive sufficient Community financial support.
The Community must continue to contribute to the modernisation of the fleet, by means of structural measures, strengthening the aspects relating to safety and living conditions on board, without this involving any increase in fishing effort.
It is therefore necessary to continue with the structural aid.
With regard to inspection and control, we recognise that the operation of monitoring and control mechanisms is unsatisfactory.
We believe that all the efforts aimed at conserving resources are destined for failure if we do not have a harmonised European system with a high degree of conformity within the sector.
It is necessary to extend the competences of the Community inspectors and establish a single penalty system.
With regard to international relations, the Community must deal with them decisively, relating them to the European Union' s foreign policy.
From the point of view of fisheries, the Union' s international relations must be seen from a primarily commercial point of view, with a view to achieving fishing opportunities for our fleet.
The fisheries agreements constitute and will continue to constitute an essential element of the new CFP.
To this end, it is necessary to create a uniform strategy in the reaching of international agreements, in such a way that the professionals are subject to the same conditions in terms of fishing opportunities, the payment of charges, licences and the using of surplus quotas.
The European Union' s commercial relations and policy on markets must combine the respect for the principle of Community preference with a reduction in tariffs together with the establishment of a list of sensitive products, giving the processing industry access to the supply of raw materials.
As for the social aspects, they were completely absent from the Green Paper.
We ask the Commission to fully incorporate these economic and social measures, which are necessary in order to ensure the economic and social cohesion of the regions dependent on fishing.
The fisheries sector is characterised by tough working conditions and a lack of collective agreements, which makes it necessary to increase social dialogue.
To end, within the time allotted to me by my group, I would like to express my regret at the elements that have been lost during these long months of parliamentary negotiation, in particular two points: a Community fleet which can operate under a single flag and a single body of Community inspectors.
I regret that the European Parliament, on this occasion, is not the innovative and pioneering institution which all we Members wish it to be.
In terms of fisheries we are decades behind in relation to the European project, but just as we now have euros in our pockets and our skies are watched over by Eurocontrol, sooner or later the European flag will fly on our fishing vessels.
Mr President, I have changed my usual seat in the Chamber.
Today, I am speaking on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
The Committee on Development has made a number of fundamental comments on the fisheries policy in relation to the development policy.
First of all, the Committee notes that the European Union is one of the world' s most important fishing entities and we must be aware of this.
Furthermore, the EU' s market is so vast that over half the fish consumed is either caught by the EU' s fleet outside Community waters or else imported, much of it from developing countries.
One can therefore understand that the common fisheries policy can have quite a considerable impact on developing countries.
The Committee on Development believes that the European Union must ensure its common fisheries policy is consistent with its policy on development and cooperation.
This is obviously essential because it cannot simply shift the problems of the European fisheries sector to other areas. And, as we know, these problems are numerous; for example, we have excess fleet capacity, overexploited resources, declining employment and a largely degraded marine environment.
Therefore, to shift these problems to other areas of the world is not acceptable and is not an intelligent, long-term policy.
We also believe that the fisheries agreements, which are one of the crucial elements of the common fisheries policy, must not only be based on this first principle, but also upon reliable scientific assessments of the status of fish stocks and on the impact of fishing on target species, in particular.
As the main rapporteur said, scientific assessments are clearly necessary.
If we do not have them, which is, unfortunately, often the case in developing countries, we should adopt the precautionary principle so as to avoid the over-exploitation of resources.
The final point that I would like to make is that we must ensure adequate protection for coastal fishing communities in third countries and thus guarantee their food safety.
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(ES) Mr President, since we had no choice, the Committee on the Environment decided, with one abstention and a large majority in favour, that only the balance of the marine ecosystem - as other Members have said - is going to guarantee employment in fishing in the future, and the fleet ought to be brought into line with the existing resources.
As the rapporteur said, we must overcome the failure of the current CFP.
All of us who live in coastal regions know that biological rest periods, prohibited areas, dimensions of nets, TACs, etc. do not improve the situation and that the proposal made in the Green Paper does not go any way towards improving it.
We in the Committee on the Environment believe that we must take action on sources of pollution, of which there are many - industrial pollution, huge pressure from tourism, which we in our country understand very well - action on special ecosystems such as those which we have in our country, like the estuaries, action on oil refineries and other plants which act in opposition to what we want to see.
We need social, environmental and economic indicators that guarantee that actions are effective, as well as accompanying social measures and incentives aimed at sustainable fishing practices, such as the small-scale fishing which takes place on our nearest coasts.
We must respect the cautionary principle, which is well defined in the code of conduct of the FAO and in the United Nations agreement.
We must increase consumer confidence by acting not only on traditional fishing, but also on aquaculture.
There must also be information and increased awareness, as well as the participation of the citizens and the sectors involved so that the measures to be adopted in those sectors may be successful, as well as the participation of local and regional authorities.
And control and monitoring - as the rapporteur said - of the measures adopted, because otherwise there will be inequality between the various countries.
Mr President, in our view, we must not forget that greater fleet capacity does not guarantee employment.
Employment has fallen by 19% in the productive sector and by 10% over recent years in the processing sector.
We must therefore act to eliminate this contradiction.
Mr President, I, too, wish Mr Fischler a speedy recovery and am also in favour of us not deferring this morning's debate.
The subject is simply too important.
Getting this report, with its 400 amendments, through the committee was a really tough business.
The large number of amendments was certainly not attributable to the involvement of Mrs Miguélez Ramos, whom I respect as a colleague and who has done exemplary work in producing a balanced report, and I would like to thank her once again for this.
Some will mock and ask themselves what all this expense is for, but I cannot emphasise enough what significance this report has for the future of fisheries in Europe.
A common fisheries policy has been in place for just about twenty years, with all their highs and lows.
Fisheries swam through many a trough.
Brussels cannot be made to bear all the responsibility for that, however.
On the contrary, not every Member State and not everyone in the fishing industry is pulling their weight, and it is for that reason that the CFP has not fully met the high demands made of it.
This year, we are at a crossroads in the truest sense of the word.
In which direction do we want Europe's common fisheries policy to go in future? I can assure you that Parliament's recommendations will fall on good soil at the Commission, as this cooperation between the institutions in the interests of Europe's fisheries, and for their benefit, must be carried on, and it will be.
Now that the Commission knows what this report recommends, it can submit its reform proposals, which we await with eager anticipation, and so I hope there will be a large majority.
One thing, though, must be clear.
This will be a voyage over a rough sea for, as I have said, there are massive challenges ahead.
Let me briefly highlight a few things that I see as vital to Europe's future fisheries policy.
Firstly, without fish, there will be no more fishing industry.
This equation may be simple, but it is true.
We must give even more attention to the maintenance of healthy stocks than we did previously, because only healthy marine eco-systems guarantee sustainable management with a future ahead of it.
After all, we all - here in Parliament and out there on the coastline - want a viable fisheries sector, and one that is viable not only for today and possibly tomorrow, but for the decades yet to come.
Secondly, we know too little about how the marine eco-system is interlinked, and so there must be more intensive research.
Thirdly, it is a fact that there are insufficient fish in European waters, and so we must also fish outside them, and to this end we need agreements with third states.
These are expensive and are costing more and more; they will probably be too expensive as soon as tomorrow.
We have to strike out on new pathways here, even if this will require greater involvement of those who directly profit.
We owe this to our taxpayers.
Time is passing too fast, not only the time I have to speak, but the time left to reform the CFP.
Let us, by the end of this year, find a common and sustainable solution in the interests of our European fisheries.
Mr President, the review of the common fisheries policy gives us a chance to guide the future of fisheries in the European Union over the next ten years and we have to get this right.
The CFP has not yet achieved what it set out to achieve, and that is a sustainable fisheries sector.
Instead we have a situation where our fish stocks have been depleted and our seas polluted, while our technological capacity to fish has increased beyond recognition.
The cornerstone of the new CFP has to be environmental and economic sustainability.
One way of achieving this is to recognise the CFP's regional dimension.
We should increase industry involvement in fisheries management and conservation, allowing for an improvement of dialogue between fishermen and scientists.
Sustainability means that we have to take the environmental dimension of fisheries management seriously.
However, this has to be coupled with clearer procedures for responding quickly to conservation emergencies.
We should retain the principle of relative stability, but also ensure greater effectiveness and consistency in the control and enforcement of EU requirements, while attempting to simplify the burden of control on fishermen.
As we know there are still weaknesses in inspection and control, and the inspection structure and coordinated approach must be welcomed.
However, the use of uniform penalty procedures will require careful examination.
The area of fisheries agreements which Mr Lannoye talked about also needs to be reviewed.
Development considerations, poverty reduction and environmental impact are key considerations.
There have been many examples where local fishermen in some of the world's poorest areas can no longer fish.
When they cannot fish, they do not eat.
Reform is essential.
A lot has to be done in a very short time, but there is too much at stake for it to fail.
I hope that this time next year, when we return for the first part-session in 2003, we will see a newly reformed CFP fit for the future.
Mr President, when it is normal practice to congratulate rapporteurs on their work, it is difficult to find appropriate words to use when something exceptional has been achieved.
So I shall say simply that it is a tribute to the work of Mrs Miguélez Ramos that a report that attracted over 400 amendments at the committee stage has come to plenary with only 25 to be considered.
Before dealing with the nature of the substantive motion for a resolution, I want to touch briefly on the amendments by my own group.
Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 look to the international level.
Amendment No 3 seeks common definitions and methodology in respect of fisheries subsidies and fishing capacity and effort and the interrelationship between them.
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 are designed to improve the monitoring both of the cost-effectiveness of fisheries agreements with third countries and of fishing activities conducted in the context thereof.
Amendment No 6 seeks only to soften the wording of recital H because of doubts that the CFP can actually guarantee those working in the sector living conditions comparable to those in other production sectors, although it should certainly assist in this respect.
Finally, Amendment No 7 wishes merely to add recreational sea angling to the areas to which, along with deep-sea and coastal fishing and aquaculture, separate attention needs to be given.
We hope that these amendments will meet with the approval of the House.
More generally, we believe that the motion for a resolution has achieved a commendable balance between the demands of fishing as an economic activity and the need for conservation.
In sustaining the principle of relative stability, and the six- to twelve-mile limit, it recognises the fragility of fisheries-dependent communities.
In endorsing a move to multiannual and multi-species quotas, it promotes an approach to fisheries management that is better for the industry and the environment alike.
It also addresses other issues of environmental concern, such as shark finning and the bycatch of citations.
Further, it takes serious note of our responsibilities towards the developing world.
Another of the aspects dear to my own heart is the move towards establishing a far greater input into the decision-making process by fishermen, scientists and conservationists.
I add, with a touch of pride, that this is an approach pioneered in my own constituency, with the involvement of organisations such as the Scottish Fisherman's Federation, The Shetland Oceans Alliance and the World Wildlife Fund.
The number of amendments at committee showed how many different and often conflicting views there can be where fisheries issues are concerned.
The final report demonstrates just how well we in this House can manage to reconcile our differences.
I hope that, as voted later today, it will remain something of which Parliament as a whole, the Committee on Fisheries in particular, and Mrs Miguélez Ramos, despite her modesty and her own personal reservations, can be justifiably proud.
Mr President, it is obvious to everyone that the fishing industry needs fish.
Without fish there can be no fishing industry.
One of the biggest problems with the common fisheries policy over the past 20 years has been that several objectives have not been prioritised.
This has created conflicts.
The only way to ensure that the fishing industry has any kind of future is to put conservation at the top of the agenda.
This is a prerequisite for the industry, not an obstacle that has to be overcome.
Unless conservation is the number one priority, compromises with other objectives of the common fisheries policy, such as economic ones, will always lead to further erosion of stocks.
We have tabled an amendment which would set as a prime objective the need to ensure that fish stocks and other marine species remain abundant.
Both the fishing industry and the Committee on Fisheries claim that they agree with the need to conserve stocks and protect the marine environment.
The recent cuts in quotas for several stocks in the EU last month provide ample illustration of the need to make conservation of stocks the main priority.
Mr President, I think this is the first time in seven and a half years in this House that I have had to say publicly that my speech is very personal and does not echo the views of my group.
There are other very legitimate opinions in the Group of the United European Left.
But I warn you that it has been difficult to reach a position.
In any event, I would firstly like to thank Mrs Miguélez for her work.
Initially, she presented a draft report which seemed to me to be perfectly balanced and which I believe should have served as a basis, with the contribution of all the members of the Committee on Fisheries and with the spirit of Mrs Miguélez, for supplementing what she presented to us.
But 400 amendments were presented, the majority of which I believe were motivated by exclusively national positions, which do not contribute to the consolidation of a common policy, one of the few common policies, but quite the opposite.
Mrs Miguélez, after these 400 amendments, made a superhuman effort to present some new compromises.
I withdrew.
In this respect, I believe that she did good and even admirable work, but I believe that the final result, the 400 amendments, on which I do not believe we were very generous with her compromises in many respects, is not very coherent.
There are strong contrasts, in some respects we go into many details and in others we hardly deal with the general issues.
But, in any event, it is very important to me that I say this, and I will do so very frankly: there are amendments which, in my view, represent fundamental modifications to the Treaty, at a time when the implementation of the euro is strengthening the free movement of people.
It also expresses the will to make progress with the common fisheries policy and strengthen it.
Furthermore, one has the sensation that sometimes we are asking for nationalisation of controls of Community waters, while at the same time asking for Community controls in third country waters.
And sometimes one has the feeling - excuse my frankness - that regionalisation is being used to talk about other things.
I am going to advise my group not to vote against the final result.
I do not believe that Mrs Miguélez would deserve that and, in any event, I would repeat once again my spirit of cooperation and I thank you once again for your admirable efforts to achieve a balanced result which, in my view, has not been achieved.
Mr President, I am disappointed that the Commissioner is not here but I fully appreciate that he is ill and wish him well.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, for her work in producing this most important report after very extensive consultation.
The whole purpose of the Green Paper on the common fisheries policy published in March of last year was to stimulate debate on the future of the common fisheries policy.
It did indeed stimulate debate, particularly in my own country.
The Commission called for thorough and urgent reform of the common fisheries policy.
As a Member of Parliament representing a constituency in which many depend on the fishing industry, I share this view.
The debate and discussions generated by the Green Paper will be incorporated into the Commission's White Paper for consideration by the Council this year.
I welcome the consultation process and can assure colleagues that in my Member State the authorities took care to carry out a broad and meaningful consultation.
The marine minister set up a special review group in order to present a coherent response to all concerned.
This is as it should be.
Under the common fisheries policy, and indeed under other EU policies, there has been a tendency to make policy decisions without full consideration of the valuable views of those working and living in the sector concerned.
Proposals and recommendations in response to the Green Paper on fisheries policy were produced by the Irish national strategy review group on the common fisheries policy, which was set up by the marine minister and included stakeholders.
It is vitally important that they should be included at all times.
No common fisheries policy or other policy can be successful unless the stakeholders play an important role in it.
No doubt the discussions this year in Council will be difficult.
Important decisions have to be made in key areas, particularly the social and economic dimension of the common fisheries policy.
It is my view, and one that I know is shared by many Members representing coastal regions, that the Green Paper does not address these aspects adequately.
It takes little account of the importance of the fisheries sector in coastal regions where there is no alternative source of employment, be they in Ireland or elsewhere in the Community.
There must be integration; with my country in mind, consideration must be given to fisheries policy, regional development policy, rural development policy and Objective 1 areas.
I welcome the frankness with which the Commission has spelled out the current state of European fisheries and many proposed changes, if implemented, would help to solve some of the current difficulties.
A number of additional critical changes must be made to further strengthen the common fisheries policy.
Greater involvement of fishermen and stakeholders in the management process is long overdue.
Involving fishermen will do a great deal to improve the credibility of any future policy.
Genuine regionalisation of management and control will greatly benefit the sector.
I would urge the Commission to underpin the decentralisation process by creating a Europe-wide network of regional advisory committees.
Unless practical and feasible changes are made to the control system, fisheries policy will not have the confidence of fishermen and will certainly fail.
My country has benefited greatly from membership of the European Union over the years.
However, the fishing industry has paid too high a price in having to share its abundant fishing grounds off the west coast of Ireland with greedy neighbours.
If there is a depletion of stocks it is not Irish fishermen but some greedy neighbours in other Member States who are responsible for it.
Mr President, in my country secret cabinet papers are released 30 years after the discussions to which they refer took place.
As a result, over the last two years, previously secret papers on the negotiations leading up to Britain's entry to the then Common Market have been released and we have been able to see documents relating to the establishment of the common fisheries policy.
It transpires from these documents that, at its inception, there was no legal basis for the CFP.
Furthermore, ministers knew this; they were prepared to, and did, lie to the British public about this, despite the certain knowledge that the policy would be a disaster for the fishing industry, but fishermen were regarded as being politically expendable.
They were sacrificed to ensure that the timetable for British entry was kept on track.
Since then, the expected disaster has materialised in the form of tens of thousands of fishing and fishing-related jobs lost, financial losses approaching £1 bn for every year of the CFP and a fleet in terminal decline.
The CFP is also a disaster on a technical level.
In a 1997 report the Parliamentary Research Service noted that the only examples of successful management systems were to be found in the Falkland Islands, Iceland, Namibia and New Zealand, where fisheries fall within a single jurisdiction.
There is no example of a common fisheries policy ever working effectively, so the CFP is fatally flawed by virtue of the fact that it is a common policy.
To this Green Paper and the report by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, therefore, I and my party can respond that the CFP was built on lies and that technically it is a shambles.
It represents all that is wrong with the European Union and we believe that it, like the EU, should be abolished with immediate effect - reform is not an option.
Mr President, I naturally wish Mr Fischler a speedy recovery and I would ask the officials present to give him a detailed account of our concerns.
The new common fisheries policy is currently being prepared, and I would therefore like to draw the Commissioner' s attention to three crucial points.
First of all, it is imperative that the new common fisheries policy retain the system of TACs and quotas as its basis, as this is the best way of bringing catches into line with the status of fish stocks.
These quotas must indeed become multiannual, particularly so that, as the Association du Grand Littoral Atlantique (AGLIA) has requested the Commission, we can avoid erratic fluctuations from one year to the next and enable fishermen to have a minimum of foresight, without which no human or economic activity is possible.
Furthermore, these quotas must in no way become individual or transferable. Should this happen, we would witness an irreversible concentration and the extinction of sea life in most of our coastal regions.
We continue to stand by our current system of the collective management of quotas by Member States and the professional fisheries organisations.
Secondly, the new common fisheries policy must stop using the brutal, unfair, costly and inefficient system of compulsory reductions in fleet capacity.
The Commission is proposing to strengthen the existing mechanisms for fleet replacement.
We are totally opposed to this.
The fact that the Commission yesterday approved an excessive construction of trawler factories in Europe does not mean that it must, practically by making the same mistake again, make it impossible to undertake the essential modernisation of our non-industrial fleet, the need for which is, sadly, all too evident, particularly given the numerous tragic accidents that are caused due to the fact that the fleet working along the Atlantic coast is becoming out-dated.
The fleet must be managed with flexible and reversible instruments.
In this connection, aid for modernisation, and most importantly, setting up aid for young people must certainly be maintained in the meantime.
Thirdly, the new common fisheries policy must establish a sustainable management system, integrating the skills, knowledge and expertise of professionals into the decision-making process.
A number of recent examples, involving anchovies or hake, for instance, show that it is extremely dangerous to rely exclusively on estimates and on models drawn up by biologists to justify decisions that have particularly serious socio-economic consequences.
In an area where resource assessment is an extremely complex matter, we must have every available source of information at our disposal.
I hope that these three concerns, which were greatly emphasised during the consultation process, will inspire the draft regulations that the Commissioner is due to present to us shortly.
In comparison to the Green Paper, we still have a fair way to go and a great deal of effort must be made.
We call upon the Commissioner to propose to us a new common fisheries policy, which is essentially forward-looking and no longer a pitiful stopgap measure, because we believe that fishing activities in all our maritime States lies at the heart of the development of coastal regions.
We believe in the future of the fishing industry.
We would like to have a common fisheries policy that also believes in the future of the fishing industry.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like - as others have done - to begin by acknowledging the work of our rapporteur, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on an issue which was frankly difficult - as we all know - given the conflicting positions and interests in this field.
However, I regret the final result, because I believe it is not as satisfactory as we should have hoped.
I therefore voted against the report in committee, which delivered a result - as you will remember - of 12 votes in favour, 6 against and 3 abstentions, amongst them the rapporteur herself.
Why do I consider the report to be unsatisfactory? Because I believe that, after more than 20 years of the so-called common fisheries policy - which is common only in name - and after 17 years of the transitional period of two Member States, Spain and Portugal, we should have made rather more progress in the communitisation of this policy and gone beyond what is proposed in the Miguélez Ramos report, which opts for the maintenance of the status quo.
I shall refer to two key issues.
In my view, these two issues are: firstly, the distribution of fishing opportunities in Community waters between the Member States, maintaining relative stability, which is not a principle but a discriminatory mechanism by any reckoning; secondly, the complete refusal to test, even experimentally, new management systems which are producing wonderful results in the world and in the great fishing powers - such as Norway and Iceland - by means of transferable fishing rights, which we are flatly refusing to even to test.
I sincerely believe that with our internal market and our single currency it is unacceptable to exempt a whole economic sector, fisheries, from the advantages of the European Union, which are laid down in the Treaties, since it is an economic sector like any other and it is expected to play a strategic role in the future and many regions depend on it, many of them Objective 1 regions.
I believe that we can and must reach a greater consensus without harming other fishing communities - which must all be understood and defended - in order to update the issue, or, at least, to open up new possibilities, however slowly and gradually.
I believe that we will have to carry on talking a lot over the coming months in our committee in order to find genuinely European compromise formulae.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I start by congratulating the rapporteur on the report which she has tabled before the House today on the future of the common fisheries policy.
It was no easy task and I think that Mrs Miguélez has done a brilliant job.
And if the outcome is not to everyone's liking, then it is we who are to blame, not the rapporteur.
The House has examined the problems of the common fisheries policy on numerous occasions in the past.
This Commission communication is the first stage in the Commission's overall strategy to improve the CFP in the run up to reform.
So at this stage we need to lay down a few basic principles and priorities for the future CFP.
First, we must ensure that the basic aim of the CFP is to develop the fisheries sector and guide fishing activities towards viable levels from both the economic and environmental point of view.
Any other policy would be absurd.
Secondly, we must ensure we have a more integrated policy at European level, a more harmonised CFP.
The Commission should submit imaginative proposals which help advance European integration.
We shall only be able to implement the single market in the fisheries sector if we have uniform joint management of resources for the benefit of a Community fleet.
Mr President, this Green Paper comes at a time when the EU is confronted with dwindling stocks, over-capacity and ineffective and over-centralised management.
The review is an opportunity not only rectify shortcomings but also to preserve crucial provisions which are worthwhile and necessary for the survival of Europe's fragile fisheries-dependent communities.
We must preserve the six- and twelve- mile zones at least.
We must continue with special conservation areas like the Shetland Box and support historic fishing rights through the fundamental principle of relative stability.
The common goal of conserving stocks for future generations remains the most important objective of the CFP.
It is imperative that the promotion of sustainable fisheries and the needs of fisheries-dependent communities are kept to the fore.
The report paves the way for decentralisation and the Commission must set out a comprehensive form of zonal management, delivered through zonal management committees.
I stress the word "management".
The fishing industry, the processors, the scientists and NGOs must all be actively involved and their expertise utilised to ensure that the new CFP ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I will concentrate on the EU' s agreements with the developing countries.
The report contains a series of sound declarations of intent but, because in reality they have never been put into effect, the current fisheries agreements are neither an effective contribution to stepping up the fight against poverty nor of economic benefit to the developing countries.
One of the world' s poorest countries, Mauritania, has just entered into a fisheries agreement with the EU.
Experts have found that, if the resources are administered sensibly, fishing for cuttlefish alone can give Mauritania an income of USD 100 million per year. However, Mauritania cannot afford to develop its own fisheries and will therefore receive much less compensation from the EU which, with its overfishing, is in the process of eliminating the cuttlefish stock.
Last year alone, moreover, 300 Mauritanian fishermen lost their lives because fishing conditions had become more dangerous.
The EU takes from the poor and gives to the rich.
Those are the deplorable facts.
Mr President, as other Members have already done, I would like to thank Mrs Miguélez Ramos for the truly exemplary way she has handled this extremely important, weighty, complicated, complex task, endeavouring to incorporate Members' views as far as possible.
That said, many speakers have reiterated that we are satisfied with the finished product.
We cannot be entirely satisfied, but then that may have been inevitable.
There are various issues which are as yet unresolved; these are the issues on which we and the Commission will have to work in the coming years, particularly over the next six months.
We all know which issues remain unresolved.
For my part, I would like to identify what might be called three criteria which, if applied, could enable us to find viable solutions to the individual issues.
Firstly, we must not take the line of imposing penalties.
This approach too was the result of an excessive desire to educate, to make fishermen understand that if there are no fish they will not be able to continue to make a living.
But that is in the natural order of things; it is common sense.
The operators know that conserving fish stocks is the best way to preserve their jobs and they are therefore on our side.
Secondly, we need more imaginative solutions.
For example, we have been pursuing the exclusive line of trying to reduce the fishing effort for years now and we know that that line does not yield results, so let us now try to find a different solution.
Thirdly, we need to be aware that we cannot have a common policy which all support if we do not involve the institutions, the operators and the territories.
That is why we need regionalisation.
If we apply these three criteria, I believe it will be possible to find a viable solution to all the issues raised on which we are focusing, and that we will be able to produce a balanced proposal which combines a common policy with respect for the diversities and individual characteristics of each of our countries.
Mr President, we have set ourselves two objectives, namely to guarantee fishing activities along our coasts whilst also preserving the breeding of fish stocks.
These two objectives are shared by all.
We had to make a choice, as the rapporteur has, to either change the entire system, at the risk of destabilising everything or to adapt what we could.
We chose the second proposal of the two, which was also my preferred option.
Two principles should then be respected: firstly, that of access to waters - to the 6-12 mile coastal band, I believe - this is already provided, and secondly, the principle of relative stability, which was also taken into consideration.
These two choices are fundamental and I hope that Parliament will ratify these.
I will mention three of the changes that we must make.
I am convinced that it is better to place TACs and quotas at the heart of the common fisheries policy, as they offer the greatest guarantees, particularly if they are multiannual.
The second change is if multiannual guidance programmes (MAGPs) are retained - and they should be - we must assess the consequences they have for the safety of fishermen.
Last year, in Brittany alone, which is where I live in France, we lost 25 men at sea.
I imagine that you have a similar situation where you live.
This is a considerable number, and it is obviously unacceptable.
I think that we must step up safety at sea and enable our fishermen to continue to build new boats.
We must not allow fishing fleets to become out-dated because this increases risks at sea.
My last point concerns penalties. A good regulation is one that is applied to all equally.
Fishermen feel that, even when two identical mistakes are made, the penalties imposed are different.
I think that the Commission must pay particular care and attention to these three changes.
Mr President, it is my view that Parliament should reject the Green Paper.
This position is not reflected, however, in the report now under our consideration, which, despite containing some acceptable and praiseworthy aspects, has not been drawn up with the necessary energy to counteract the positions of the Commission.
In the Green Paper, the Commission in fact refuses to consider fisheries as a normal economic sector, crucial to the economy of various maritime countries, such as Galicia, which I represent, and as a sector which must carry out its activities within the norms laid down in the Treaties, respecting, above all, the principles of sustainable development.
The Commission is upholding the privileges enjoyed by certain States by means of the discriminatory principle of relative stability; it does not propose an appropriate policy for fisheries agreements with third countries and even considers ending, in the medium term, structural funds for fleet renewal.
Mr President, in the past, the sea was regarded as an infinite source of food for man.
Meanwhile, even those with an economic interest recognise the danger of the oceans being emptied of their fish stocks, not overnight, but gradually, because the young fish are increasingly given less of a chance of reaching adulthood and of procreating.
The rapporteur shares with many politicians the hope that it will be possible to combine sustained catch levels with a better protection of the natural balance.
She is right to call for more consistent compliance with agreements, but that is only a short-term solution.
Despite the fact that demand for fish continues to rise, a reduction in catch levels at sea will become inevitable.
This is why replacement employment in coastal areas must be sought, as well as the protection of the Third World.
This is in preference to highlighting the differences between countries with small, traditional ships that sail out all year round and countries with large, state-of-the-art ships which need to remain docked for part of the time.
The fact that these two groups continue to blame each other for the depletion of stocks will - more than anything - serve as a good excuse for our not taking adequate action, and we shall not therefore solve the problem.
Mr President, the report on the future of the CFP must make a major contribution to the shape of this policy after 2002.
I should therefore like to highlight six issues that I consider to be priorities.
The first is that we safeguard the continuity of fishing for future generations, which will only be achieved by strengthening the policy of protecting resources and we must therefore take serious account of scientists' recommendations, the mesh-size of nets, the protection of juvenile fish and the reduction of discards.
The second issue is to ensure that there is a balanced and flexible management of the quotas and of the TACs, thereby enabling quotas to be transferred from Member States that do not use them to those that need them.
The sound implementation of the multiannual guidance plans, or of the instruments that come to replace them, seems crucial if we are to achieve this objective, and serious penalties must be imposed on those countries that do not comply.
The third issue concerns the need to strengthen the international fisheries agreements component, and the European Union must negotiate new opportunities for its ship-owners.
The fourth issue concerns the need to approach the fisheries sector with an awareness of its specific characteristics and this is why the principle of relative stability must be upheld.
My fifth point is that we must strengthen the social dimension of the CFP, so as to provide fishermen with essential support for their survival.
Lastly, we must pursue the structural policy of support for the sector with the aim of keeping the Community fleet permanently up-to-date and adapted to new circumstances.
I should like to thank Mrs Miguélez Ramos for all the commitment she has shown in her work.
The end result is not ideal, but I hope that it will provide the basis for what is needed.
I should like to end by conveying my best wishes to the Commissioner, Franz Fischler, and to take the opportunity to share a saying with him: "a good plate of cod in the Portuguese style and a good glass of red wine will cure the worst bout of flu" !
I would like to emphasise the points that must be considered to enable us genuinely to take the Mediterranean into account in the common fisheries policy.
We must introduce an integrated policy through genuine cooperation at international level, whilst striving hard not to give in to a lax attitude, which would have a detrimental effect on our work.
This can be achieved by revising existing legislation, namely Regulation (EC) No 1626/94, and by adapting the regulation on minimum landing sizes, technical measures and fishing gear to each region.
We must also carry out in-depth research to enable us to develop an accurate idea as to the potential of anchovy, mackerel, blue-finned tunny and other fish; in other words, how much fishing effort can be supported by the various species.
We can do this by paying greater attention to the members of the Mediterranean-specific industrial tribunals and by stepping up the activities of the Regional Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, which must be given effective jurisdiction and resources so that it can take action, both in terms of deep sea and inshore fishing.
I would like to thank our excellent rapporteur, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, as well as my colleagues, Mrs Langenhagen and Mrs McKenna, for visiting the Mediterranean coast, particularly Sète, Mèze and Port-la-Nouvelle, for supporting these proposals and for coming to find out what the situation is on the ground.
Mr President, I wish to begin by welcoming the report and congratulating the rapporteur.
I think we all recognise the tremendous difficulty involved in coming forward with this report.
There are probably things in it that not everyone likes.
However, in the circumstances it is probably the best that could be achieved as we try to reform the CFP.
We have to ask ourselves what the European Union wants to achieve in reforming of the common fisheries policy.
The one thing we can say for certain is that the present common fisheries policy is not one of the best-loved policies of the Union, and there is certainly no guarantee that future changes will endear any future policy to the industry, especially given the pressure on fish stocks and the differing views of scientists and fishermen.
However, the opportunity is there to be seized and we have to ask whether we can get things right this time. Can we achieve a proper balance?
Are we in a position to respond to the needs of the industry and respond in time? The problems of the industry have built up a great degree of resentment.
We have heard here today that there are those who would love to scrap the common fisheries policy and hand it back to national and regional governments.
That will not put any more fish in the sea or solve any more problems.
Fish are migratory: they do not stay in one place all the time, year after year.
So while such a move sounds easy - and to some it sounds very good - we have to ask a number of questions.
Would renationalisation mean any more fish? I do not think so.
Would it mean more financial support? I would suggest that it might result in even less financial support to the industry, and markets would not improve.
So we have to find an acceptable position.
I have to say bluntly to the Commission that if it cannot get the policy right in the next four to five years, then it will be forced to hand it back to national governments.
We have an opportunity to get it right.
The Commission has to involve local fishermen, local areas and local people if it really wants to get it right.
I would certainly support that - but there has to be meaningful consultation.
Mr President, the common fisheries policy is one of Europe' s sensitive policies.
It is characterised by the confusion between the general interests of a common policy, which is dedicated to managing a declining resource, whilst rationalising a traditional economic activity, and the objectives for developing extremely remote regions, for which fishing is one of the few sectors of activity that provides medium- and long-term employment.
The Commission Green Paper on the Common Fisheries Policy paints a very gloomy picture and I regret that it contains no reference whatsoever to fishing in the territorial waters of extremely remote regions of the European Union.
The ideas that are proposed, and above all, the solutions advocated, are obviously designed to meet the challenge posed by continental fishing and are poorly adapted to extremely remote regions.
These regions have fought for respect for their differences, as laid down in Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and so that their specific characteristics can, at last, be taken into account in each of the European Union' s policies and, more importantly, in the common fisheries policy.
The dimension of this sector in extremely remote regions, its characteristics and, above all, its impact on all fishing activities in Europe should, however, make it much easier than anticipated to justify the practical and specific measures for extremely remote regions, particularly in terms of resource and fleet quotas, of support for coastal fishing and aquaculture, as well as public limits on investment, upon which the growth of this activity in these regions depends.
An adequate level of investment would enable them to develop and to modernise their fleets, to ensure greater coherence in the measures proposed by the European Commission by reconciling, on the one hand, the objectives for providing financial support to the businesses involved in processing and selling fish products and, on the other, the need to ensure that these businesses receive a regular supply of high quality raw materials.
Lastly, I would like to add that we should be careful when concluding international fishing agreements and ensure that they take into account, where applicable, the proximity with extremely remote regions.
Fishing licences issued by third countries to Community fishing vessels should be given, first and foremost, to fishing vessels from the extremely remote regions that are nearest and should not be seen as a means of dislodging the European fleet.
I cannot conclude without congratulating Mrs Miguélez Ramos on the remarkable and difficult work that she has done to enable us to reach a consensual and satisfactory document. It is a task that seemed almost insurmountable.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Stocks of cod and hake
The next item is the report (A5-0458/2001) by Mr Hudghton, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on rebuilding stocks of cod and hake in community and adjacent waters [COM(2001) 326 - C5-0466/2001 - 2001/2190(COS)].
Mr President, my one-minute allocation in the previous debate did not give me enough time to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, for the work she did and the manner in which she did that work.
I would suggest that the subject of this report also illustrates the need for reform of the common fisheries policy.
In other words, if we had a successful fisheries management system in the European Union, then perhaps we would not need emergency measures to safeguard declining stocks in this fashion.
But we do.
These plans seek to restore stocks of cod and hake to sustainable levels.
But they also have socio-economic implications, not only for those who fish cod and hake, but also for fishermen whose livelihood depends on stocks associated with either of these fisheries.
This report emphasises, therefore, a number of key concerns: there should be no broad-brush approach; there must be accurate scientific advice, the impact of industrial fisheries must be recognised; there must be adequate funding; and accessible diversification programmes should be available.
The Commission itself admits that it has not relied solely on scientific advice and that there is a general lack of scientific advice for assessing long-term recovery plans.
The Commission's own words are telling.
I remain unconvinced that scientific advice is sound enough to earn the confidence of the fishermen affected by these measures.
The Commission believes that the major problem of scientific advice is black landings.
I have no doubt that so-called black fish landings do have a negative impact on statistics.
But that points to inherent flaws in the current management system.
Surely discards are a bigger problem, perhaps the major impact? The report therefore stresses the importance of properly funded and precise scientific advice.
It also calls for the idea of observers to be extended to ensure that scientists observe actively on fishing vessels.
This should also help to instil confidence in technical measures.
The Commission states that with regard to the North Sea closures of last spring it was aware that the effort displaced from the area closed to protect cod would create increased pressure on other stocks.
The Commission does not, however, address the extent to which this impact could have proven disastrous, had it not been for the responsible action of Scottish fishermen, for example, who voluntarily tied up at their own cost.
I put it to the Commission that the issue of displaced fishing effort was not properly thought through and that potential displacement must be properly assessed in future closures, with the benefits of closure balanced against the detrimental knock-on effects.
In welcoming the commitment to tie-up schemes by the Commission, I note that it is not only encouraging compensated tie-up, but also removing the current ceilings on financial contributions.
I am deeply concerned, though, that funding is not applied equitably amongst fishermen affected by such measures.
If fishermen are willing to take responsible action themselves, when going to sea could risk further stock decimation, there must be some mechanism that allows them to do so without going bankrupt.
I strongly urge Members to support both the amendments in the vote today.
The first asks the Commission not to neglect the specific needs of mixed fisheries, whilst the second calls for measures to encourage environmentally-friendly and smaller-scale fisheries.
Finally, I also call for the deletion of paragraph 7, which not only is an open attack on small-scale fisheries, but also a ringing endorsement of the promotion of large-scale industrial fisheries which, I contend, is unacceptable.
In conclusion, we have to strike a balance here between the need to advance the recovery of stocks and the need to avoid disproportionate restrictions on the many different fisheries affected and the resultant negative consequences for those whose livelihood depends on the sea.
To this end I call on the Commission to take on board the recommendations of this report and to ensure that the fishing industry and scientists are fully involved.
In this respect would it not make sense to bring about the early introduction of zonal management committees and allow them to take forward recovery plans in a proactive rather than a reactive way? I hope that this afternoon Members will support this report and its amendments.
Mr President, I wish to add my congratulations to the rapporteur on an excellent and timely report.
In my earlier speech I was unable to take the time to do so.
I should like to wish the Commissioner well.
We could perhaps have a cheap go at him this morning for not being here but, if he is not well, we wish him a speedy recovery.
Unlike Mr Cunha I cannot offer him a remedy for a speedy recovery, but a hot Irish whiskey is not bad for the flu either.
I should like to say that this report addresses many current concerns in the fisheries sector and certainly rebuilding the stocks of cod and hake is going to be a tremendous challenge.
We have to face the reality that this is going to be extremely difficult to achieve.
That is the one thing that we have learned recently.
But the truth is that it has to be achieved if we want to maintain stocks in our seas.
We have to do everything the rapporteur has outlined: increase net size, bring in square mesh panels and recognise, above all, that we must face up to the problems created by discards.
This is something that has not been faced up to.
We have paid lip service to it but have not been able to resolve the problem.
Protection of juveniles is equally important and must be one of our priorities.
We must have improved scientific information: there can be no broad-brush approach, as has been said.
In my area in the Irish Sea we now face, for the third year running, the closure of the fishing area for six weeks.
There is greater willingness among fishermen to cooperate with the authorities and the European Union to achieve the recovery of stocks.
I have to ask the Commission one question: does it really feel in all honesty that it has responded to the fishermen in this area? I have to say that it cannot bring in closures and tie-ups to help recovery without compensation, as this will not work.
I would say to the Commission that it is not myself, the rapporteur or any Members in this House with an interest in fisheries, but rather the fishermen who are out there working, trying to make a living and trying to survive in very difficult circumstances who need convincing of the need for this.
The Commission will not obtain their cooperation unless they are given the support they require.
Mr President, we are debating a new Commission proposal which contains supplementary measures for the recovery of stocks of cod and hake, and which the Socialist Group supports with some reservations, stemming from the scepticism with which the people involved have received it and the lack of agreement amongst the experts.
In fact, there is no consensus amongst scientists on the effectiveness of these measures, and this means that, while we share the objectives, we nevertheless doubt their effectiveness.
The opinion of the Scientific Committee, for example, says that a more drawn-out recovery plan which involves less sacrifice for the fleet is a possibility.
Hake and cod are two highly valued species on the Community market, resources of which have been drastically reduced as a result of over-fishing.
But not only by over-fishing of these two species, but also of other associated species, which are part of the food chain and which have reduced sources of food for hake and cod, thereby affecting the conservation of those stocks.
These preservation measures, which are being presented to us today, imply a forced reduction of the fleet' s activity and taking a part of it out of service, and the Community is therefore obliged to maintain an aid policy which is able to alleviate these negative effects.
Mr President, I would like to thank the House for having this debate during a prime morning session - normally our debates are at midnight!
Long may this continue.
The Commission communication on the rebuilding of cod and hake stocks is a critical issue for those involved in the industry in Scotland.
I would like to pay particular attention to the issue of cod.
Scientific advice for many years has been stark.
It tells us that various stocks are so far outside safe biological limits that major initiatives are now urgently required to stabilise the decline.
Thus some form of action must be taken as a matter of urgency.
Firstly, there is the proposal that fishing effort should be reduced by up to 40 to 50%.
This is ambitious and begs thorough consideration, working alongside all other Member States.
Elements of fleet reduction are being achieved through decommissioning of vessels.
In Scotland the Labour-led coalition has committed over GBP 25 million to such a decommissioning scheme.
In fact, the first boats began decommissioning last week.
Secondly, additional technical measures have been introduced to improve the selectivity of gear.
Thirdly, new monitoring measures have been proposed.
The issue of closed areas and possible real-time closures have also been considered and, in some cases, introduced in order to allow for the regeneration of stocks.
The need for action on cod recovery is paramount if there is to be a cod fishery at all.
We need only look at Newfoundland and Canada to see the consequences of overfishing.
Even today the cod have not returned.
However, there are other factors at play.
Global warming and the linked heating of our oceans are also considerations.
We should never forget the key link between the environmental decisions that we make in this House and the consequences that these have for the sustainability of our seas.
In conclusion, all stakeholders, the European institutions, Member State governments and the fishing industry must be involved if any of these measures are to be successful.
An effective stock recovery programme is essential for the future of cod fisheries in Scotland and the UK.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Environmental Protection Requirements and the Common Fisheries Policy
The next item is the report (A5-0457/2001) by Mr Lavarra, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament 'Elements of a Strategy for the Integration of Environmental Protection Requirements into the Common Fisheries Policy'
[COM(2001) 143 - C5-0343/2001 - 2001/2143(COS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that defining a strategy to further integrate environmental protection requirements into the common fisheries policy is an urgent priority. We therefore welcome this Commission communication.
However, in my opinion, we should see the communication as the starting point for an open dialogue with operators, research scientists, political institutions and consumers.
The integration of environmental protection requirements into the common fisheries policy must happen in such a way that it has the sector' s support, without the costs being borne solely and exclusively by the fisheries sector, particularly since this means small fishing businesses, and in view, especially, of the fact that the sector is the victim of forms of pollution of the marine ecosystem caused by external factors such as marine transport and coastal industries.
Furthermore, I feel that the integration of environmental requirements must have a scientific basis, and we hope to receive specific data which is the product of current research from the Commission soon.
In the meantime, we must certainly apply the precautionary principle, but, in this case as well, we need to adopt measures which do not jeopardise the income of small fishing businesses and are different from those proposed by the Commission.
Indeed, where the Commission speaks of the interaction between the fisheries sector and the environment, it does little more than list the harmful effects of fisheries on the environment, overlooking positive environmental measures which could benefit the fisheries sector such as improvement of coastal areas, creation of restocking and nursery zones, protected marine areas, increasing tourist fishing and investment in research.
Again, in the face of the very real problem of overfishing, in my humble opinion, the Executive is not drawing up alternative proposals to the drastic solution of terminating the fishing activity altogether, the result of which would be to drive the fishermen away from the sector without establishing adequate accompanying or support measures for them.
Therefore, in the proposal contained in the report adopted by the Parliamentary Committee on Fisheries, we call upon the Executive to improve coordination of research into fisheries and research into marine biology, not to cut structural aid and to pay greater attention to the specific character of the Mediterranean, whose diversified, multi-species fishery warrants appropriate legislation.
For example, we are not asking for exceptions to be made for the Mediterranean to current bans such as those on the swordfish nets known as spadare; however, we are calling for agreements with third countries banning or limiting this method of fishing, for otherwise, we will merely be penalising our fishermen without resolving the problem of overfishing.
Lastly, I must call for greater attention to be paid to eco-labelling, as a response, not least, to the dioxins in fisheries products alarm which has knocked consumer confidence.
, draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
(ES) Mr President, we in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy could have spoken jointly on this report and on the report by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, since they are closely related.
The present report discusses the integration of the environment into the common fisheries policy, and a part of the Green Paper also refers to the preservation of the environment in the marine sector.
In reality, the strategy of integrating the environmental policy into the rest of the Union' s policies is a strategy which has been mentioned in recent European Councils repeatedly - especially in the Gothenburg European Council - but which is applied little in practice, especially in relation to the industrial policy, the fisheries policy and other Union policies.
In relation to the fisheries sector - as the rapporteur says - it is unacceptable, for example, that a third of catches are destined for destruction for the production of meal and oils, especially if we also bear in mind that those meals and oils are not controlled and may later end up in the food chain, which could lead once again to a lack of food safety which is of so much concern in the European Union.
We must respect reproduction periods and use nets that do not desolate the marine environment.
We are witnessing on our coasts the continuous use of nets which desolate and wipe out all life on the seabed.
Biological diversity must be preserved, as laid down in the sixth environmental action programme - which we discussed this week and which we are going to vote on at noon - preventing pollution of coastal areas.
Mr President, I live in a country in which we are surrounded by coastal areas that are extremely beautiful and rich, but which are constantly affected by the actions of industry and excessive pressure from tourism.
This also endangers fishing.
I believe that we must not only act on the capacity of the fleet so that the resources we have can be replenished, but that we have to act, above all, on the sources of pollution which impede our marine wealth.
Mr President, Mr Cunha said earlier that the best cure for Commissioner Fischler's flu would be to eat Portuguese cod.
I thoroughly agree with that, so long as it is washed down with copious quantities of Scotch whisky.
I welcome the terms of Mr Lavarra's report, but I would like to ask for support from this House for the two amendments by my Danish colleague, Mr Busk.
Mr Busk is quite rightly concerned that the rapporteur has taken a rather negative attitude to industrial fishing, which, as we know, is a mainstay of the Danish fishing industry.
The Committee on Fisheries recently visited Denmark and met key people involved in industrial fisheries.
Again, yesterday, there was a seminar here in Strasbourg organised by the Intergroup on Sustainable Development, which heard all sides of the debate for and against industrial fishing.
It is quite clear that there are many and widespread misconceptions regarding this sector and it is important that this House corrects these misconceptions.
Firstly, it is worth pointing out that the sandeel fishery is a clean fishery: by-catch is relatively unusual and where, on occasion, there have been well-publicised cases of juvenile haddock or other by-catch being landed by Danish industrial trawlers, these cases have been brought to our attention because Denmark has an effective inspection and monitoring regime with very strict discipline and very stringent punishments for offenders.
Secondly, as indicated by Mr Busk in his amendments, the TAC for sandeel has actually been reduced by the Council this year to 850 000 tonnes, against scientific evidence which stated that we could take over a million tonnes.
Only 25% of the sandeel biomass is being fished.
Compare that to the 75% of the cod biomass that we exploit in the North Sea.
So if anyone is guilty of overfishing, it is certainly not the sandeel fishery in Denmark.
They have also invested a lot of money in getting dioxins out of oil, fish oils and fishmeal, which is a product of the sandeel fishery.
We must support the Danish fishing sector in this case, and that is why I ask this House to support Mr Busk's two amendments.
Mr President, first of all I want to say thank you to Mr Lavarra for an excellent piece of work in connection with the report.
I am able to support the conclusions overall, and I would particularly call upon us to create new development opportunities in the European fisheries sector by integrating environmental considerations into the common fisheries policy.
The forthcoming revision of the common fisheries policy will also ensure much more far-reaching implementation of the common decisions in all the Member States.
We must dare to talk openly about what fish, as 'raw materials' , mean for the fishing industry in those countries which have extensive fisheries, and we must also put the regional importance of fisheries into the balance alongside the risks involved and application of the precautionary principle.
Moreover, we must also recognise the major contribution that fishermen make to daily life.
I will concentrate, then, on a few points I disagree about.
I want to begin by saying thank you to Mr Stevenson who has talked in very clear terms about the experiences of the Committee on Fisheries' delegation in Denmark and about how, in Denmark, it has been possible completely to remove the mystique from sand eel fishing, as well as to rebut the many assertions to the effect that it is industrial fishing that is destroying the food chain.
We therefore need to state that there is now no scientific basis for saying that industrial fishing has a negative effect on the marine environment.
Without a sound scientific basis, it is rash to want to cut back on industrial fishing, something which would have major consequences for jobs in the fisheries sector.
What we must do, therefore, is to strive to obtain a broader and better scientific basis in this area too.
Nor can I support item 9, which is factually incorrect in as much as it would be particularly unreasonable not to use fishmeal and fish oil, which are products very rich in protein and which are of very great value.
What is more, the European fishmeal industry has made very great strides towards developing a technique for eliminating dioxin.
In other words, it would really be much healthier in the short term if we were to think in terms of using fishmeal to feed fish within aquacultures rather than, if I may say so, in terms of their receiving it through the normal food chain out in the oceans where, right now, the dioxin content is unfortunately higher than we would wish.
In this context, it is important to note that dioxin does not come naturally from the sea and is not found naturally in fish, but is a form of pollution that comes from the land.
There are unfortunately too many food scandals, and it is therefore also important for us to point out that the fisheries sector is as a rule the victim and that it has not been possible subsequently to prove that it is this sector that is liable for the scandals or occurrences in question.
I must also say that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is unable to support item 14, since we are opposed to financial aid for the construction of new vessels.
As I was very pleased to hear Mr Stevenson also do, I must naturally call for us to support the two amendments I have tabled on behalf of the ELDR Group.
Mr President, as regards the Miguélez Ramos report the Verts/ALE Group considers that the conservation of fish stocks and the protection of the marine environment are of fundamental importance to the common fisheries policy.
The alternative will inevitably be overfishing and problems for the industry in the long term.
Given the importance of conservation this report falls very far short of what is really required.
Among other things, it seeks to relieve the fishing sector of responsibility for depleted fish stocks by saying that it is the fault of pollution, habitat destruction etc.
While these factors play a role, there is no doubt whatsoever that the major cause of depleted fish stocks is the excessive amount of fishing carried out by the fishing fleets of the European Union.
It is time we stopped this state of denial and faced reality.
We also object to the calls for alternatives to the decommissioning of fishing vessels, which is the single most important step towards allowing stocks to recover.
We also need to look at the fact that vessels are being transported to other parts of the world, thereby simply passing the problem on.
Considering the desperate need to incorporate the concept of environmental protection into fisheries, this report falls far short of what is required.
The Verts/ALE Group cannot support it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.45 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon)
Vote
Colleagues, this is the moment when you regret the vote of last Tuesday.
You have a rookie in the Chair.
As a safety precaution, if you have a seatbelt, strap yourself in.
I intend to do that myself.
Proposals by the Conference of Presidents - Appointments to committees and to the temporary committee on foot-and-mouth disease.
(Parliament approved the proposals)
Report (A5-0454/2001) by Davies, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive relating to ozone in ambient air (PE-CONS 3658/2001 - C5-0524/2001 - 1999/0068(COD))
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0456/2001) by Myller, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision laying down the Sixth Community Environment Action Programme (11076/1/2001 - C5-0434/2001 - 2001/0029(COD))
(The President declared the common position approved, as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0437/2001) by Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 96/53/EC laying down for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorised weights in international traffic (9068/1/2001 - C5-0433/2001 - 2000/0060(COD))
(The President declared the common position approved)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0469/2001) by Van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Council Regulations (EEC) No 881/92 and (EEC) Noº3118/93 for the purposes of establishing a driver attestation (10353/1/2001 - C5-0473/2001 - 2000/0297(COD))
(The President declared the common position approved)
Report (A5-0378/2001) by Zappalà, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the coordination of procedures for the award of public supply contracts, public service contracts and public works contracts (COM(2000) 275 - C5-0367/2000 - 2000/0115(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I am sure Mr Corbett has a specific contribution to make on that matter.
Mr President, on a real point of order, could you rule on whether or not Mr Watson's intervention was actually a point of order?
Mr President, I have given my opinion in my capacity as rapporteur on the amendments tabled to my report.
At this point, however, I should like to inform the House that if Amendment No 1 - which, in my opinion, completely changes the spirit of the report as adopted by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy - is adopted then I will not be able to support the final resolution and I will be in the unpleasant position of voting against my own report.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0470/2001) by Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission Green Paper on the future of the common fisheries policy (COM(2001) 135 - C5-0261/2001 - 2001/2115(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0458/2001) by Hudghton, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on rebuilding stocks of cod and hake in community and adjacent waters (COM(2001) 326 - C5-0466/2001 - 2001/2190(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0457/2001) by Lavarra, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament 'Elements of a Strategy for the Integration of Environmental Protection Requirements into the Common Fisheries Policy' (COM(2001) 143 - C5-0343/2001 - 2001/2143(COS))
Before the vote:
Mr President, we were indeed suggesting that as a Parliament we are looking for reform of this institution.
I do not think going on beyond 1.30 p.m. is a reform.
We should break at this stage and take the votes that remain at 5 p.m. this evening.
Mr Elles, there are only four amendments left to vote on, then we will have completed the 443.
We will continue with the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I voted for the Davies report on the amount of ozone in the air.
I am imagining myself in the year 2030, Madam President.
The European Parliament has been moved from Strasbourg to Rome.
Two elderly Members meet: Mr Fatuzzo and Mr Chris Davies.
I say: 'Do you remember, Mr Davies, when codecision still existed?'
'Of course I do,' replies Mr Davies, 'I had drawn up a report on ozone in the air.
Just think, if we had still had codecision and that rule now, in 2030, thirty years on, we would have had to produce another report on the new requirements on ozone in air.
I am pleased to say that the European Parliament has changed its rules and now we decide whatever we want on our own, without the Council.'
Only a dream, of course, Madam President!
Recommendation for second reading by Mrs Myller (A5-0456/2001)
Madam President, we have adopted the Sixth Framework Programme on the Environment and I voted for the motion.
I must tell you about another dream I have had, Madam President.
There was a city called Europolis, and you yourself were the mayor of that city, Madam President, and you were very happy.
Why is that? Because this was an ideal city because of its beautiful environment: clean air, no noise, grass and flowers, much better than the fake flowerbeds we have in Parliament, where the flowers are painted on the ground.
It was the ultimate environmental city and it was all made possible by these programmes.
That is why I voted for the motion.
.
I welcome the adoption of this Sixth Environment Action Programme as I believe that it will greatly strengthen EU environmental laws across a range of key sectors - water, air, and noise pollution, waste management, levels of pesticides and dangerous chemicals, and the reduction of greenhouse gases.
As far as Ireland is concerned, I must caution that the Irish government's laissez-faire attitude to environmental protection over the past five years means that Ireland will have great difficulty in achieving the EU' s new environmental objectives as adopted by the European Parliament today.
The Irish Government has one of the worst records in Europe when it comes to complying with existing objectives, thus making it more difficult for Ireland to achieve the new targets set for the next decade.
The Government' s policy of effectively ignoring EU environmental laws, to which it has signed up, means that Ireland will have great difficulty in achieving the EU' s new, stricter environmental objectives.
Failing to comply with EU environmental laws is not only a matter of breaking agreements Ireland has freely entered into with our European partners, it also is a denial of the right of Irish people to the clean and safe environment they are entitled to as EU citizens.
Recommendation for second reading by Mr Hatzidakis (A5-0437/2001)
Mr President, Mr Hatzidakis' report is on the dimensions of road vehicles, including motor coaches.
As you know, pensioners and elderly people, who enjoy a spot of sightseeing and visiting the beautiful cities of Europe when they are in good health, often travel by coach.
I overheard some pensioners talking to each other when they were on one of these very buses, and one said to the other: 'How are things?' 'Fine!'
'But how are you getting on with the euro which has just been introduced?' 'Extremely well, because I remembered' - they were two Italian pensioners - 'that, immediately before the last war, we had lira and cents, and so I went back in time.
However, I am also pleased to have very comfortable buses, and this is thanks to the Hatzidakis report.
I therefore hope Mr Fatuzzo will support it.'
Well then, having listened to all this with great pleasure, I did, of course, vote for the motion.
- (NL) During the initial discussion concerning the authorisation of long, rigid buses on 3 October 2002, I pointed out that these are suitable for sparsely-populated areas where the roads are wide and dead straight.
In low-traffic urban areas and on narrow, winding country roads, they can pose risks for passing cyclists and pedestrians alike.
Moreover, without a compulsory second rear axle, they can destroy roads on soft soil, such as in the peaty areas in the Netherlands.
It is therefore certainly justifiable for a number of EU Member States only to authorise buses up to 12 metres long.
If these countries are forced to authorise buses of 15 metres, they will need to install additional prohibition signs throughout the country.
Although such buses might then have access to the country, they would still be unable to reach many locations in practice.
Naturally, such buses are cheaper to produce and run, and use up less fuel per passenger.
In the final analysis, the issue seems mainly to revolve around saving costs at the expense of safety.
At the time, this was for me a reason to reject the proposals in the main, and this is still the case today.
The Council proposal to authorise until 2020, instead of 2009, buses which fail to meet the requirements of the directive does not meet with my approval either.
Recommendation for second reading by Mr Van Dam (A5-0469/2001)
Madam President, as you are aware, this report introduces a driver attestation for driving in the European Union.
The European Parliament regulation stipulates that articulated lorry drivers must have their social security number - their pension number, that is - written on their driving licence.
Of course, as representative of the Pensioners' Party, I welcome this regulation and voted for it, for it will increase the size of pensions: having to write the social security number of drivers on their licences will force employers to pay their pension contributions, and there will therefore be more workers in Europe with higher pensions.
- (NL) In every industry which is not tied to one location, some employers try to get people from other states to do the work for low wages.
This could mean that the financial administration is contracted out to India, that supermarkets have clothes made in the Philippines or that lorries are driven in western Europe using Bulgarian or Lithuanian drivers.
Free competition provides companies that pursue the lowest possible costs and the highest possible profits with major advantages.
They take away other companies' market shares, even if this is at the expense of employment, the environment or animal welfare.
As long as the authorities do not act against this, the worst companies retain the best chances of survival.
In freight transport, this means that freight companies will use Eastern European drivers outside of their own Member State, and thereby avoid paying tax.
Both the remuneration and the working conditions are unacceptable.
We have had to wait for too long for the introduction of a driver' s attestation showing the driving licence number and social security number of the person concerned.
I accept the fact that this will first apply to lorry drivers from outside the EU, but from 2004 their areas of origin might well form part of the EU.
An effective control system will require the attestation then also to be introduced for lorry drivers who are based in the EU.
Zappalà report (A5-0378/2001)
Madam President, I have had a sleepless night thanks to Mr Zappalà, for I could not decide whether to vote for or against an important amendment which specifies whether the fulfilment of important environmental and social welfare objectives should be taken into account in contract award procedures, that is, whether, when awarding works contracts, public authorities should give precedence to companies which are more advanced and provide greater protection for citizens and workers in the field of the environment and in the field of social security and pensions.
After a great deal of effort and agonising over what to do, I did, in the end, vote for the motion, although I hope that forthcoming European directives and regulations will regulate all environmental and social welfare legislation in Europe to a much greater and better degree and to the benefit of the citizens and workers.
We Swedish Social Democrats, Mr Andersson, Mrs Hulthén, Mr Färm and Mr Karlsson, voted against Amendment No 63 because we think it important to have framework agreements for intellectual services too.
The designation, 'intellectual services' should be specified.
In Sweden, framework agreements concerning, for example, architectural, medical, auditing, banking and consultancy services are quite usual.
If this amendment were to be implemented, it would have very awkward consequences in Sweden.
We Swedish Social Democrats voted in favour of Amendment No 16, which we consider to be a well balanced amendment.
It is desirable that public contracts should not be awarded to economic operators who have belonged to criminal organisations or have been guilty of acts involving corruption or fraud.
We nonetheless believe it important that the recitals show that it is the Member States that are to determine which conditions are to be fulfilled and what penalty is to have been imposed for the judgement to involve exclusion.
We also voted in favour of Amendments Nos 48, 79-83, and 86-90, but would nonetheless point out that we really do not think that an enumeration of these different crimes belongs in a directive such as this, because such a list can never be complete.
I abstained during the final vote on the two reports by Mr Zappalà.
First of all, I would like to point out that I share Mr Watson' s view regarding the need to reform the European Parliament' s working practices.
It is quite simply impossible to vote, with full knowledge of the facts, on hundreds of amendments in one hour of voting time.
In fact, this is only a parody of democracy.
As far as public procurement is concerned, Parliament' s amendments, even though I appreciate the reasons behind them, make the work of the contracting authorities unnecessarily complicated.
Public tendering was devised to ensure optimum use of public monies.
Yet, in trying to meet all kinds of political objectives through an award procedure that seeks to seek out the lowest bidder, Europe will end up with excessive bureaucracy, both for companies and for the public authorities.
We cannot subscribe to the approach adopted by the rapporteur or to that of the Commission.
On the pretext of simplifying and updating existing Community legislation on awarding public contracts (the directives of February 1998), both approaches seek to create a single European market using liberal criteria.
We cannot accept a situation where the lowest price is favoured in the award of public contracts and where social, territorial and environmental criteria are relegated to the background.
This approach is in thrall to liberal dogma and does not meet the expectations of users, or those of employees, since its principal effect is to harm quality, security and employment.
The issue of threshold values proposed by the Commission, above which a public contract will be open to Community regulation, seems rather risible.
To increase these by 50% does not propose an alternative; it simply temporarily defers the moment when private trusts can get their hands on the EUR 1 000 billion generated each year by public procurement in the European Union as a whole (or 14% GNP).
We must take a different approach, where the public services are provided by public companies and monitored by the citizens.
That is why we voted against the Zappalà report.
- (NL) Madam President, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteur and the Commissioner on the result achieved with this important report.
By combining and simplifying various directives in this field, more than 10% of gross European product is covered, and a more transparent and simple directive is to be welcomed with open arms.
However, I am disappointed with the surfeit of amendments, and it will become necessary in future to use a different system because, due to the multitude of detailed amendments, it will be impossible for fellow MEPs who do not have an intimate knowledge of the content of the report to know what they will be voting on.
The European procurement policy aims to give the economy a shot in the arm and to involve small and medium-size companies more in the contracts to be awarded by authorities.
This is a noble-minded enterprise, to which I, as a Liberal, give my unqualified support.
I am satisfied with the outcome of the vote on the possibility of exclusion on the grounds of social and environmental criteria.
The functioning of companies within the standards prescribed by the client should under no circumstances form the basis for exclusion.
Needless to say, everyone should adhere to the law, provided this is generally applicable.
I am pleased that the social and environmental criteria which can be prescribed now only pertain to products and/or services delivered and thus not to the conduct of the supplying companies.
Although finally, for reasons of my own, I have voted against increasing the thresholds, I am in agreement with the 50% increase out of practical considerations.
Needless to say, the amounts which were agreed as thresholds in the WTO Agreement remain applicable, but not for contracts which fall outside the scope of that agreement.
The contracts which can be awarded beneath the thresholds will naturally also benefit the SMEs - the regional companies, that is - and this is, in a sense, what adopting a social policy within the regions means.
Having spent two years on the above-mentioned directive, the result is something to be proud of, although, needless to say, it is difficult to please everyone on every score.
- (NL) Public procurement has for a long time been considered a universal remedy.
On the one hand, it constitutes an alternative to nepotism, the giving away of contracts by authorities to entrepreneurs who are on friendly terms with politicians or high officials. On the other hand, it is intended to bring an end to the manufacture and provision of services by companies that are owned by the authorities themselves, and to grant private companies access to new markets.
I can accept the first intention, but not the second.
The latter would make authorities dependent on companies.
In the Netherlands, it has recently transpired that building firms make agreements with each other about the price which an authority has to pay when building contracts are awarded.
In that way, companies determine between themselves who is next in line for the subsequent contract.
This creates a monopoly, in fact.
Even if this is punishable, it appears in practice extremely difficult to prevent such a course of events.
What I welcome in the rapporteur' s proposals is the fact that in the case of relatively small contracts, authorities are relieved of the European procurement obligations that are expensive and opaque to them, that employment for disadvantaged groups can be safeguarded, that environmental criteria will play a greater role and that people convicted of financial malpractice will be excluded from procurement.
I endorse these improvements, but not procurement in general.
I have voted in favour of the committee' s proposals for increased threshold values to force public contracts, especially for goods and services, to be awarded at European level.
In their new manifesto, Sweden' s Christian Democrats wish to strengthen the autonomy of local authorities and anchor this in the constitution.
We believe that more confidence should be placed in local politicians.
Increased threshold values would give the elected representatives closest to the people more opportunity to decide for themselves whether or not procurement at European level is the most suitable alternative.
The major political obstacle standing in the way of the adoption of this report is the application threshold values of European standards, which are of absolutely crucial economic importance for public works companies, the environment, public finances and infrastructure quality.
The crux of the matter, politically speaking, is simple: above what amount, in millions of euro, must a public contract be subjected to Community procedures?
There are two conflicting theories, therefore:
Those in support of increased threshold values have pointed out that this would avoid administrative costs and cumbersome bureaucratic processes for contracts which will not, in any case, attract international competition.
They would therefore not enable more cross-border procurement to be carried out in the area of public contracts.
At the same time, however, the local authorities must bear the extremely high costs of the tendering process.
On the other hand, I am in support of maintaining the threshold values at their current level, as proposed by the Commission.
The aim is to create a genuine single European market in this sector.
Furthermore, the increases requested would strip the directive of its impact to the point where it no longer has a raison d' être.
I believe that this increase would risk a radical reduction in the number of contracts which would essentially be open to Community competition.
The majority of contracts would be granted in accordance with national or regional procedures.
This is why I abstained from the vote in plenary.
Zappalà report (A5-0379/2001)
Madam President, it is a pity Mr Zappalà has just chosen this precise moment to leave the Chamber, but I am sure someone will tell him that I voted for this document on public works contracts in the water, energy and transport services sectors. However, I do hope that the next report on this subject will also stipulate that pensioners and elderly people - who have to use a lot of water and consume a lot of energy and often use public transport - should also receive water and the energy supply in their houses for heating and cooking free of charge, and that they should not have to pay for public transport services either, for pensioners and elderly people have certainly worked hard in their lives and they fully deserve and have the right to expect some thanks from society.
The second Zappalà report on awarding contracts in the water, energy and transport sectors pursues the same objectives as the first Zappalà report on awarding contracts.
On the pretext of simplifying and updating existing Community legislation, the rapporteur hopes to create a genuine, liberalised single European market in the water, energy and transport sectors.
The criterion favoured is that of price over social and territorial cohesion, equality and employment.
The battle raging over threshold values, like that of taking into greater consideration social and environmental aspects, is, of course, important.
We have therefore voted in favour of the amendments that aimed to do this.
But we reject the underlying logic of the rapporteur and the Commission, namely that of liberalising these sectors, as it presents a risk for users and employees.
On the contrary, whereas some governments are contemplating a review of their policy of liberalising and privatising their public services, the approach of the rapporteur and the Commission seems archaic and dogmatic.
That is why we voted against the report.
Grosch report (A5-0430/2001)
Madam President, this report approves a directive stipulating that both goods and passenger vehicle drivers must have passed a special test in addition to their driving test.
As I said just now, where they are still able to do so, a great many pensioners travel by bus or coach out of necessity or to go sightseeing.
I have to say that it is extremely important that public transport drivers pass these tests, and it is therefore important for this type of test to be introduced so that the pensioners and elderly people who travel by bus can do so in the greatest comfort and always say: 'What a good driver we have had today!'
We abstained from voting on this report.
The only reason we did not vote against is because the introduction of 'uniform driver certification' for professional drivers carrying goods or passengers working in Europe, whether nationals of the European Union or a third country, could help to improve road safety.
However, the report is still rather vague about the details on how to obtain certification, as well as on who bears the cost of training leave.
Furthermore, there is no mention of the salary increases that it will bring about.
And this is not surprising, as the rapporteur acknowledges the fact that he does not stipulate any measure that runs counter to the interests of employers.
Whilst acknowledging the urgent nature of road safety, this report exonerates employers from their responsibilities in this area.
Although it states that working conditions for drivers are unacceptable, it endorses their meagre salaries.
The report blames the 'current economic climate' .
As if this 'climate' came out of nowhere!
As if, above all, we did not know that the only ones to benefit are road transport employers and the parent companies!
But, the rapporteur does not feel the need to question them, nor ascribe to them the insecurity to which they subject all road users by imposing disgraceful working conditions on professional drivers.
- (DE) My group agrees with this report for the following reasons:
1.
In recent years, drivers have faced ever-increasing demands as part of their job.
This makes it, in our view, a matter of urgency that all the Member States should put in place obligatory basic vocational training culminating in the award of a certificate of professional competence.
2.
We expect that improved quality of training will result in a significant improvement in safety in road traffic.
3.
This Directive, in conjunction with the Directives or guidelines on tachographs, the regulations on work time and the social security conditions applicable to drivers, represents another building block for the social protection of professional drivers.
4.
The transport sector plays a major role in the context of EU enlargement.
The more harmonised provisions have already been transposed into the acceding countries' legal systems, the fewer problems of adaptation there will be with regard to technical standardisation, social security standards, provisions on the protection of the environment and road safety regulations in the future.
5.
We share the view that the subsidiarity principle means that, although there must be targets as regards what training must incorporate, the actual form and method of training must be left to the national authorities.
There are of course regulations that we view in a critical light, such as, for example, the low number of total training hours stipulated and their division into teaching blocks.
In the final analysis, the decisive factor for us is that, in future, the job will require not only a driving licence, but also specialised knowledge of the areas of service provision, health protection, safety and logistics.
- (NL) For many years, drivers formed part of a profession that could be practised with little training.
If drivers had enjoyed extensive education, this was not deemed relevant to this job.
This made their profession appealing to many who found it difficult to stay in education and who were pleased to be able to earn their own income at a young age and in a relatively independent capacity.
For this reason, many people who have the required driver' s licence for lorries and buses may not be happy if stricter requirements are about to be prescribed for their profession.
They are exempt from basic training, which prevents them from becoming unemployed and are only obliged to undergo further training every five years.
The number of hours of training now to be prescribed - a minimum 210 hours and a maximum of 630 hours - is lower than is already required in some Member States.
These Member States now need to accept that drivers from abroad who are less well trained will now start to work in their countries.
Consequently, the contribution to road traffic safety, economical use of fuel, good relations with the public, command of languages and better working conditions will therefore be very limited.
I therefore regard this proposal as a first step which, in time, will need to be followed by others.
Rod report (A5-0412/2001)
Madam President, we have approved the agreements with the African, Caribbean and Pacific States.
I voted for the motion, particularly because page 11 of the document, lines 11-15, reads: 'The fishing agreements between the European Community and some ACP countries limit local fishermen' s activities in territorial waters and endanger stocks for local people and their means of subsistence.'
The rapporteur, Mr Rod, has reiterated what I have always stated in my explanations of vote.
What are we doing, fishing in the territorial waters of these States when they need to be able to work to make a living? It is therefore appropriate that we should endeavour to change this way of fishing of the States of the European Union.
.
(ES) I have voted in favour of the Rod report because I support the signing of the Cotonou Agreement.
This is for various reasons.
Firstly, because through this agreement the EU is reaffirming its commitment to the ACP countries, and therefore its will to contribute to the sustainable economic and social development of those countries.
Secondly, because it makes the eradication of poverty by means of gradual integration into the world economy the main objective of the agreement.
And thirdly, because the political dimension it includes could make a major contribution to removing the obstacles which have largely prevented ACP-EU cooperation from bearing the fruits we expected.
In fact, without democracy and peace, it is not possible to promote economic development or to guarantee that the benefits of that development reach the whole population to an equal degree.
Hence the importance of the political dialogue, good government and the prevention of conflicts that the agreement seeks to achieve.
I therefore do not agree with many of the criticisms contained in the explanatory statement accompanying the Rod report.
It is true that everything in this world can be improved, but Cotonou represents a step forward in the EU' s development cooperation policy.
It is a step which many others must follow, particularly in relation to Parliament' s control of EDF funds.
This agreement, however, takes us in the right direction.
The Joint Parliamentary Assembly was established from the desire to bring the European Union closer to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States, with the aim of enhancing the economic, social, institutional and cultural development of the ACP countries.
On 23 June 2000, a new agreement was signed at Cotonou in Benin.
It is intended to last 20 years and to reinvigorate the cooperation policy between the European Union and the ACP countries: this is now urgently needed.
The new agreement, which is due to enter into force this year, goes beyond the strict framework of trade and public aid - which is certainly needed but is not sufficient - it adds a more political dimension by introducing 'good governance' .
But be careful, ladies and gentlemen, let us not be mistaken.
It is misleading to think that we could transpose into developing countries a State model similar to the one that we constructed in developed democracies.
It is equally misleading to think that the end of poverty decrees that development gains ground, rather than being brought in from outside.
First and foremost, development is and must be endogenous, because determining export priorities involves making a very dangerous choice - it highlights differences and tensions by encouraging the emergence of a caste of entrepreneurs who are focused on their profit alone, to the detriment of the people.
It is therefore hoped that this new agreement will take a responsible approach and that the former colonial powers, which include many Member States, finally break free from their guilty practices and will resolutely commit to a new partnership with the ACP countries.
This would be a partnership that places the emphasis on appreciating the specific assets of each country and not on transposing a European model that cannot be adapted to Africa or some Asian countries.
Being from the island of Réunion, I am, without doubt, the MEP who lives closest to the African continent. I can assure you that we must pursue our efforts so that this continent, which has for too long been mistreated, finally emerges from under-development.
Therefore, I willingly voted in favour of these new agreements.
- (DE) My group supports the recommendation on the ACP/EC Partnership Agreement.
We welcome the fact that the EU's relations with the ACP States have, in the meantime, achieved a high level.
New areas of cooperation have been opened up by means of direct commercial exchanges under the Cotonou Agreement.
This makes it all the more disconcerting that only two of the Fifteen EU States have ratified this Agreement.
There is no doubt that the Agreement represents an improvement on its predecessors, because it takes the interests of the ACP States into account to a greater degree, yet we are not dealing here with real parity and equal treatment.
It is dishonest of the EU, on the one hand, to demand of the ACP States efforts to develop a self-supporting economy, whilst at the same time using export subsidies to stifle early attempts at doing so.
Nor, politically, are the ACP States granted the power of co-decision that is their due.
The poorest countries, which need the most support and for which thoroughly worked-out approaches to cooperation and development policy are a necessity, have few if any opportunities to take part in the parliamentary assemblies of the EU and of the ACP States.
I see it as particularly regrettable that the EU still has a split - not to say distorted - relationship with Cuba, a Caribbean state in relation to which it lets itself be guided more by American interests than by its own.
The Belgian Presidency was keen to break the ice in relations with Cuba and to open up channels for dialogue.
In doing this, it worked on the basis of three important considerations:
1.
The EU and its Member States must pay closer attention to the situation in Cuba and take note of the facts in an unprejudiced way;
2.
Both sides must acknowledge the political, parliamentary and socio-economic differences and mutually accept them in a particular way;
3.
We must not go down the road of making excessive demands of each other.
Certain demands are being made of Cuba that are not being met in a number of EU States.
When Mr Aznar presented the programme for the Spanish Presidency, I regretted the lack of any clear commitment to continue dialogue towards the objective of concluding a partnership agreement between the EU and Cuba, if at all possible before this year is out.
I am concerned that the modest progress we have achieved may be brought to nought.
Mr Dalmas, the Deputy Foreign Minister of Cuba, with whom representatives of my group had talks in December last year, clearly expressed his country's hopes for a continued and more intensive dialogue with the EU, and its willingness to engage in it.
Political experience tells us that it is hard to put a broken thread of conversation together again.
Cuba should not be excluded from the ACP process, but constructively involved in its further development through dialogue.
We must welcome the work done by Mr Rod, who puts forward both a constructive and critical approach to the Lomé process.
It is critical in that the report ruthlessly analyses the shortcomings, the delays and the occasional inconsistencies of a very flawed system.
However, Mr Rod always bears in mind that the very fact that the Lomé Convention exists and persists is, in itself, a success and a necessity.
Lomé sanctions the commitment of the European nations to the nations of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific and reaffirms how special the bonds between them are.
To better their common interests, it seeks to use their historic ties that our various countries have fostered over the course of many centuries.
The Lomé system is an instrument of development, based on trade preferences, which is permanently weakened by the WTO process.
That is why it is important to reiterate that, whatever commitments have been made by the European Union under the WTO, they do not override the legal commitments undertaken by the European States towards their developing partners.
The Rod report reiterates this in a very timely manner.
That is why the MEPs belonging to the Mouvement pour la France will support the rapporteur' s recommendation to issue the opinion that is in line with this new partnership agreement.
García-Orcoyen Tormo report (A5-0419/2001)
Madam President, we are trying to ensure that products on the market are safe for the environment and for the Community' s consumers.
What a good aim, what fine proposals, what an important Commission report! How could we not support it?
However, Madam President, should we not first - and I want to say this openly - look after the health of the workers who make these products and only then, when that is done, concern ourselves with the health of the citizens who consume them? If they are dangerous when they are consumed, just think how dangerous they must be while they are being made in a closed environment on the factory floor!
I therefore call for a report to be adopted soon which deals with the health of those who make products as well.
The development of a market for more ecological products is, of course, an admirable environmental policy objective.
In this respect, I can only support the European Commission' s approach set out in its Green Paper on integrated product policy.
However, we cannot imagine an environmental policy that is totally detached from all economic and social considerations.
In this sense, I welcome the development of the 'European eco-label' that assesses every product against a list of environmental liabilities in accordance with strict criteria, which are yet to be defined. In my view, it is wiser to favour incentive measures over penalties.
But whatever instrument is chosen, I think it is essential to ensure no penalties are imposed on small- and medium-sized companies and craft industries that practice traditional production methods.
To assist those adapting to these structures, we must consider financial support and tax incentives.
Practising price correctness by including environmental costs when calculating the real cost of products is also an interesting proposal, on the condition that this measure does not have the effect of excluding the most deprived consumers or, at least, consumers who are the most vulnerable from a social point of view.
With these reservations, I voted in favour of the report by Mrs García-Orcoyen Tormo.
Alyssandrakis report (A5-0451/2001)
.
(EL) It is not often we see a rapporteur vote against his own report.
In this case, the spirit of the report adopted by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has been altered to such a degree that my political principles left me no other choice.
It is, I think, highly significant that the majority position adopted in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy was that space activities should only be intended for peaceful purposes.
It would have been even more significant had Plenary maintained the essence of that position.
However, the amendment adopted by Plenary, adding that these purposes may include military applications in the context of peaceful operations, totally negates this initially pacifist stand.
In doing so, the European Parliament has opened the door to all manner of strategic activities in space, provided they are cloaked in the mantle of a "peaceful operation", and the group of the European People's Party, which proposed the amendment, and the group of the Party of European Socialists, which backed it, are primarily to blame.
We have seen on several occasions and we are seeing more and more frequently just what the strong countries in the European Union understand by peaceful operations.
We saw it in Yugoslavia and the Balkans, we see it in Afghanistan, we expect to see it in all four corners of the world.
Aggression, however it is dressed up, lies at the heart of imperialism.
Now they are clearly thinking about using space to facilitate their criminal policy against the people, to collect information and to spy, so that they can plan their Common Defence and Security Policy operations better and conduct a witch-hunt against terrorism and no doubt elsewhere too.
Some people are flirting with the idea of collaborating with the USA on an anti-missile shield and some people perhaps think that space is the perfect place to position weapons.
The fact that the European Parliament has chosen to adopt a pro-military resolution rather than a pacifist resolution comes as no surprise, nor is it the first time.
We expect nothing less from an institution created by the bourgeoisie for its own protection.
But nor does the outcome of the vote mean that the matter is closed for the grass-roots movement.
Resistance to imperialist policies, be they in the form of financial enslavement or in the form of military intervention, is growing all over the world.
We have no doubt as to what the final outcome of the grass-roots fight will be: it will be a different world, a peaceful, humane society for mankind.
As has been mentioned several times, this report aims to help the markets and industry 'reap the benefits' of new developments in the European space policy.
This is why it calls for the 'public funding of infrastructure' in this area and casts no doubt whatsoever on the policy of subsidising private profits with public funding, which is a permanent feature of the European institutions as well as the European States.
We reject this policy and what it implies, both for the space industry and for other areas, as it only serves the interests of capitalists to the detriment of the interests of the working population.
We therefore voted against this report.
- (NL) Fifty years ago, space travel was seen as an important step forward.
Not only for the readers of books on supposedly human life forms on other planets, but mainly for the competitive battle between the two most powerful countries on the planet.
Meanwhile, all that remains from this space travel is a museum in Moscow full of space rockets and man-made moons, as well as some film footage of Americans who walked on the moon in 1969.
Trips to the moon have been a thing of the past for a long time, and further space discoveries can also be made from Earth, thanks to ever improved telescopes.
The only major space project which Europe has in the pipeline is a satellite system for traffic navigation which is set to compete with an American system that is already operating worldwide.
I already explained during the vote on the Langenhagen report on 3 October 2001 that I consider this costly project to be a bit of an unnecessary luxury.
I fully appreciate that my colleague, Mr Alyssandrakis, finds such projects, which fit in with his scientific expertise in this field, interesting.
I, however, consider it to be, above all, an expensive showpiece, from which the majority of people in Europe and our environment will not benefit.
At most, it will be of military interest, certainly if the anti-militaristic considerations in the report are voted out.
That is why I reject the proposal.
The Alyssandrakis report has the value of acknowledging and underlining the remarkable efficiency of the European Space Agency, an intergovernmental body and major world player in the area of space research and space applications.
The ESA sharply refutes those who, on ideological grounds, claim that intergovernmental cooperation can only lead to inefficiency and deadlocks.
On the contrary, the ESA foreshadows the Europe of the future, one that will unite and draw together wills and skills varying from one domain to another.
Our main task is therefore to preserve at all costs the partnership dynamic that has been launched between a number of States, which are aware of the crucial importance of the space industry for Europe' s independence.
The ESA is fortunate in that it escapes the cumbersome bureaucracy of paralysing procedures.
Let us take good care, therefore, to keep the ESA out of the Community loop, which in no way prevents us contemplating various methods of cooperating and working together.
Let us, above all, try to avoid turning the ESA into a European institution.
It would not make any sense to do this either, because some members of the Agency, large members at that, are not members of the European Union.
Our second task, as the rapporteur points out, is to retain the high level of technological capability that we have gained by granting 'substantial and sustained public support for space development in the various forms we see in our competitors: dual programmes and massive research aid' .
The absurd deadlock over Galileo, which means that we remain dependent on external systems in the fundamental area of satellite navigation, shows, on the contrary, to what desperate impasses the Community method can lead. The ability of a few, more flexible, links in the chain to cause deadlock is enough to paralyse a project that is crucial to European independence.
Miguélez Ramos report (A5-0470/2001)
Madam President, I have had a dream which concerns the Ramos report on fisheries.
I saw a lake in a storm: a lake in Palestine at the time of Jesus.
Indeed, I could see the figure of Jesus fishing in a boat together with Saint Peter, but Saint Peter' s face looked like Mr Varela' s.
He was fishing but he had not caught any fish.
Surprised, he asked Jesus, 'What is going on? Aren' t there any fish?'
'Of course there are,' was the reply, 'this is 2001, you know, not the first century A.D.!
The thing is, nowadays, we have to have equality between men and women.
Therefore, only if there is a woman fishing will there be large catches of fish once more.
Therefore, Mr Fatuzzo, you who can see me in your dream, remember that, since this is a report by a woman, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, this is the right direction to take to achieve successful fisheries in the European Union.
Vote for the motion, therefore, and you will see how many fish Europe catches!'
I wish to congratulate Mrs Miguélez Ramos on the report she has presented, which makes a positive contribution to the debate on the reform of the common fisheries policy.
I should like, however, to emphasise two points on which the rapporteur adopts a different approach to the one I have advocated and which I feel are of vital importance to this discussion.
In her report, the rapporteur calls for a redefinition of zones which are highly dependent on fishing, implementing the principle of relative stability and distributing available resources according to the actual degree of dependence on fishing.
I consider, however, that keeping control of this distribution is essential, as is establishing mechanisms to correct the distribution whenever justified.
We cannot forget that there are areas, such as the outermost regions, that are highly dependent, socially and economically, on fishing activities and for which, on the basis of Article 299 of the Treaty, the system of limiting access within 50 miles must be maintained.
Both the Commission and the rapporteur have declined to address a situation which is having an increasingly significant impact on overall catches, namely leisure fishing.
This activity has still not been regulated and, consequently, is not covered by the rules governing fishing.
. Every effort has been made to coincide with the proposed PSE line as far as possible, given that the original report faced great difficulties in committee and that conflicting national interests are at stake.
Where the EPLP vote differs from the PSE line, the reasons for doing so are related to maintaining consistency with the UK government negotiating position on the future of the CFP.
The EPLP vote differs from the PSE line on the following points: recital B, Amendments Nos 6, 24, 17 and 16, paragraphs 20, 12, 26 (original text), 45-47, 60, 64, 67, 68, 72, 73, 82, 84 and 91, Amendment No 5, paragraph 2 (part 2), Amendment No 3, and paragraphs 119 and 120.
Hudghton report (A5-0458/2001)
As I have said on several occasions, Madam President, Fatuzzo rhymes with 'merluzzo' , which is the Italian word for cod!
How, then, could I not speak on the subject of cod and hake? Here, we are trying to save the cod and hake species from extinction, for marine pollution is reducing their numbers significantly year by year.
Therefore, if I may make a suggestion, Madam President, after announcing that I voted for the motion and stressing that what this document says is right, could we not manage - at least where fish are concerned, seeing as it is difficult to do this with men - to clone cod and hake? In this way, we really would be able to resolve the problem of restocking our waters; we would have loads of cod and loads of hake and we could all enjoy this excellent fisheries product!
The plan presented by the Commission unfairly penalises fishermen for whom cod is still a by-catch.
The Commission is accusing the fishing industry of being to blame for causing stocks of the two species in question to decline, but it has, obviously, not taken proper account of the impact of industrial sand-eel fishing on the cod population.
The sand-eel represents food to cod and it is the declining stocks of sand-eels that are causing the imbalance in the cod population.
As far as hake is concerned, the situation no longer appears to be as 'disastrous' as the Commission believed six months ago, and this is confirmed by the TAC that has been retained for 2002. The TAC is slightly higher than the level we were given in 2001.
This is a timely reminder of the modesty attributed to biologists, whose opinions are the only ones governing the current CFP.
The ICES estimates seem to be needlessly alarmist in nature, especially as far as hake is concerned, the population of which, it seems, has begun to recover.
The proposed measures are therefore not the right ones.
Moreover, the Commission itself acknowledges that it is going beyond the scientific recommendations.
Furthermore, there is, at a point when the Commission is making statements of intent regarding good governance in the Green Paper, a complete lack of consultation with the profession.
What a difference there is between what is in theory said, and what in fact is done!
Lavarra report (A5-0457/2001)
Madam President, as usual, I would like to take the opportunity afforded by my final explanation of vote to say 'Bon apétit' to those Members - who, as you see, are many - who have had the patience to remain in the Chamber to hear why I voted for Mr Lavarra' s report on fisheries.
Why should we not say 'Bon apétit' and have some exquisite, delicious fish for lunch? The purpose of this report too - and these are the last reports on fish, which is why I have such a desire to have a delicious plate of fried fish on the table before me - is to exploit the fishing activity to obtain the greatest quantity of fish possible, in other words to catch the greatest possible number of fish.
Mr Lavarra' s report maintains that this is possible if the fish live in a clean environment.
I know that a large number of fish are getting together to form the 'Fish Green Party' , for fish have the right to live in a clean environment, just as we do.
These fish will be so happy to be many and to end up frying in the pan to tickle the taste buds of the Members of the European Parliament, even if with some delay caused by Mr Fatuzzo.
Bon apétit!
.
(EL) The report contains a mixture of undisputed findings and hypotheses and draws conclusions which, at the very least, force us to question the rapporteur's intentions.
For example, its findings on the pollution of marine ecosystems - and hence of fish - by dioxins which can pass into the food chain are correct, as are its findings on the dangers of using genetically-modified fish from third countries.
But apart from that, no accurate data are given to support its conclusions on the overexploitation of resources and the dangers to fish stocks.
Unfortunately, the report fails to name and shame big business in the fishing and fish processing sector as the main cause of these problems.
Big business is to blame for polluting the seas with sewage, dioxins and other contaminants; it has no compunction about using any methods in the production process which maximise its already obscene profits and is totally indifferent to the environmental implications.
For the same reason, big business is now busy producing and releasing genetically modified organisms, fish etc. into the environment.
It is big business in the fisheries sector, which runs huge fishing fleets of powerful, high-capacity vessels and huge processing factories to turn the fish into pet food etc., which is to blame for any overexploitation of resources and for polluting the seas.
And while both the Commission proposal and the report fail to highlight the tragic consequences of this action and fail to hold it accountable, the report basically calls for fishing activities to be frozen by introducing "biological rest areas" and measures to develop aquaculture, which even the report itself questions at another point.
If this policy takes hold, it will kill off entire regions of the ÅU which depend on fishing and will damage the interests of the small and medium-sized fishing enterprises which have no part in industrial pollution or the overfishing of resources.
At the same time, the report uses incentives to replace the fishing fleet and incentives to strengthen aquaculture to reward industry, simply asking that it change direction.
It is for these reasons that we are unable to vote in favour of the report.
However, because certain issues and findings in the report are correct, we shall not vote against it.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.55 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Madam President, on a point of order.
I would like to draw to the House's attention the action of Levi Strauss, the jeans manufacturer, which is today closing two of its Scottish plants.
650 Scots, mostly women, face the prospect tonight of losing their jobs and their livelihoods.
Local politicians and trade unions are calling for meetings with the company.
The lack of information and consultation by this company is quite a disgrace, showing more clearly the importance of proper information and consultation legislation prior to such a decision being announced.
I would ask this House to show solidarity in supporting the workforce in Dundee and Bellshill and the families who have been affected by this decision today.
I ask the President of Parliament to write to Levi Strauss to ask why it is shedding so many European jobs and why it has not properly consulted its workforce.
Mutual recognition of financial penalties
The next item is the report (A5-0444/2001) by Mrs Cerdeira Morterero on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the initiative of the United Kingdom, the French Republic and the Kingdom of Sweden for the adoption of the Council Framework Decision on the application of the principle of mutual recognition of financial penalties [11178/2001 - C5-0443/2001 - 2001/0825(CNS)].
Madam President, I would firstly like to express my satisfaction - as you have just done - with the initiative of the United Kingdom, France and Sweden, which we are considering today.
The European Union and the existence of a European area of freedom, security and justice involve, in turn, the creation of an area without internal borders in which the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital must be guaranteed within the territory of the States of the Union, as laid down in Article 14 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.
There can be no obstacles to the application of the law in the European Union.
The Tampere Summit called for the principle of mutual recognition to become the cornerstone of judicial cooperation in both civil and criminal matters in the European Union.
Trust between Member States in terms of their judicial decisions and their correct application is the least we must demand.
Similarly, the Member States must make a greater effort in order to achieve a minimum degree of harmonisation of national criminal legislations.
Until now, the application of financial penalties was regulated by means of two European agreements: the Hague Convention of 1970 and the Convention on the implementation of foreign criminal sentences of 1991.
I would like to stress that the former, despite having entered into force, had only been ratified by five Member States; and the latter, the 1991 Convention, has not even entered into force.
This is undoubtedly a clear demonstration of the need for initiatives of this type with a view to accelerating and making a genuine contributing to the construction of the European area of justice which we agreed on in Tampere.
While various legal acts already exist in the civil field, in the criminal field - which is much more sensitive - there has been much more hesitation.
To date, only decisions on arrests and the guaranteeing of evidence are based on the principle of mutual recognition.
We still have a long road to travel and greater political will is required on the part of the Council in order to be able to fulfil the mandate of the Tampere Summit through the work prepared by the Commission, which often comes up against obstacles and little cooperation from the Council.
This initiative represents a significant advance in terms of eliminating these obstacles.
Mutual recognition is undoubtedly a key element for the construction of an area of freedom, security and justice.
Similarly, I welcome the legal instrument chosen: the framework decision, which will no doubt prevent the complexity and long duration of ratification procedures.
I would also like to highlight the fact that, as in the conventions I have mentioned, it is based on the principle of dual criminality, and its absence is, therefore, one of the grounds for non-enforcement.
The initiative proposes that a certificate by the competent authority should guarantee the legality of the judgement and hence replace examination of the substance of the case.
The difficult problem of how to divide up the proceeds between the two States concerned is resolved in Article 10 by allotting compensation payments and orders to pay court costs to the Issuing State and all other monies to the Executing State.
I therefore welcome the initiative and largely concur with it.
I consider that a legal area as called for in Tampere requires the unbureaucratic transmission and enforcement of judgements in criminal cases and that this initiative is a first step towards a comprehensive application of the principle of mutual recognition.
I particularly endorse the provisions relating to the law to be applied, alternative custodial penalties and the amnesty, pardon or commutation of financial penalties.
I also support the scope for the Executing State to reduce the financial penalty as laid down in Article 5.
However, I have considered it coherent to insert a threshold which, as in the agreement implementing the Schengen Convention, should be EUR 40, and I would like to emphasise that conversion of the amount of the penalties would be the exception as the currency in the Issuing and the Executing State would normally be the euro.
I would like to stress that I personally consider EUR 40 to be a small and insufficient amount, but I have proposed this amount for the sake of coherence with the agreement implementing Schengen, which set that amount.
I would like to insist on both issues, and ask the Council - which is not present today by the way - to take account of the sensitivity and proposals of this House and, in particular, of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, and I therefore believe that the initiative must include the following in the framework decision:
A European legal area must be based on the principle of mutual recognition.
Therefore, the mere harmonisation of legal instruments is not sufficient.
The European Union' s Charter of Fundamental Rights sums up, for the first time in the Union' s history, in a single text, all of the civil, political, economic and social rights of the European citizens, and those of all the people who live in the Union' s territory.
From now on, all of the Union' s legal instruments must be measured in relation to it.
Thirdly, the documents to be transmitted must be translated into all official languages of the Executing State.
If the person liable to pay the fine or even go to prison knows only one of the official languages of the executing country he would not be able to read these documents affecting him, which would be an infringement of his rights.
Finally, it is necessary that, in those cases in which the competent authority of the Executing State is not known, the contact points of the European judicial network should be used rather than designating additional central contact points.
Therefore, the majority of the amendments have been tabled with the sole objective of improving the original proposal and contributing to compliance with the Tampere mandate, as well as adding one more element to the construction of a genuine area of justice, freedom and security.
Madam President, it is a joy to see you occupying the President' s chair.
Allow me to start my contribution in this full Chamber by explaining that my group considers it to be a positive development that a lack of boundaries does not lead to impunity.
It will not be possible for a non-EU citizen to abuse his status in order to break laws or, for example, traffic rules. We will soon be agreed on this.
The problem my group has is that the implications of this initiative of a few Member States, and the subsequent report, are not restricted to administrative penalties.
Much more is at stake, including decisions through which those convicted may acquire criminal records.
Serious allegations may even be involved since, in some countries, thanks to the day penalty system, custodial sentences can be exchanged for financial penalties.
In those cases, therefore, what is at issue is the recognition of decisions in the field of criminal law.
Amendment No 1 of the report rightly contains the following comment, and I quote: "This requires a knowledge of the legal systems of other Member States and mutual trust in the operation of the legal system." and this is true.
But how does one promote this trust, how does one examine whether legal systems are fair, and how does one guarantee citizens a minimum level of protection across Europe, for example in connection with the enquiry which precedes the sentence? Well, this brings me back to what I have been saying all along about drafting minimum standards in the field of penal and criminal procedures law.
This is important now, and it will be no less important when enlargement is a reality.
My group wholeheartedly supports these administrative penalties and the principle of criminal penalties, but not until we have formally established the basis for trust by means of the minimum standards.
This is why my group proposes restricting this decision to these administrative penalties.
Madam President, criminal law is closely related to the national identity of the Member States.
National history and culture have given different tinges to criminal law systems.
This is precisely the reason why we can see huge differences between the criminal law systems in the European Union.
The open European area and growing international crime have shown that cooperation in this field is necessary in order to ensure that the Union remains an area of security and justice.
After all, the European Council of Tampere subscribed to the principle of mutual recognition within the European Union in criminal matters with good reason.
The present proposal forms a first step in the implementation of the principle of mutual recognition.
I welcome the initiative by the United Kingdom, France and Sweden to make a start on mutual recognition in criminal matters in this reasonably straightforward area.
The proposal is quite simply designed.
Theoretically, the principle of dual criminality applies, that is to say in both the Issuing and Executing States.
The lack of this is a reason for the Executing State not to implement the sanction.
Precisely because of the proposal' s simplicity, it might actually be far more effective than the international treaties have been so far.
Many in this Parliament would prefer a proposal to harmonise criminal legislation.
They believe that harmonisation at European level would lead to more confidence in the criminal legislation of other Member States and in the application thereof.
I doubt whether that is true.
Confidence cannot be enforced from above by harmonising legislation.
It is precisely in those cases where diversity can continue to exist, and is even considered to provide added value, that mutual trust can grow.
And practical experience is often the best way of achieving this trust, or not, as the case may be.
This is why this mutual recognition is the ideal tool for cooperating in this sensitive area.
And it is true that mutual cooperation in the field of criminal law will take time in other areas due to the need for mutual recognition.
But if it takes its time, this also means that trust has apparently not reached the required level.
Wanting to force this trust by imposing harmonisation may well have the opposite effect.
In the main, the amendments of the Cerdeira Monterero report are practical improvements.
I particularly support the rapporteur' s proposal that use be made of the contact points of the European judicial network and no new contact points set up.
After all, this would unnecessarily complicate European judicial cooperation.
I do not support Amendment No 3, where the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union is added as a frame of reference for decisions by the Union.
The Charter has, rather, the status of a political declaration and not that of a judicial frame of reference.
The ECHR on the other hand, that has been signed by all the EU' s Member States, present and future, is legally enforceable.
The suggestion made to the effect that the texts are on the same footing is incorrect.
Madam President, we welcome this initiative as another small step along the road towards fulfilling the Tampere mandate to make the principle of mutual recognition the cornerstone of judicial cooperation.
It is right that within a developing area of freedom, security and justice Member States ought to begin laying the foundations for establishing trust in each other's legal systems.
We need an EU legislative initiative to facilitate efficient cross-border cooperation and improve upon previous international legal instruments, which are often cumbersome and bureaucratic.
Indeed, the 1991 Convention on the enforcement of criminal sentences - which otherwise would be relevant here - is not yet in force some ten years after it was signed.
It is right for the EU to base cooperation on the concept of executing the decision of the issuing State, rather than that of deciding whether or not to grant cooperation in response to a request.
The other international convention - the 1970 Convention - contains 13 grounds on which a request can be refused, so we can understand why the system does not work at the moment.
However, many of us in this House are concerned not to allow the principle of mutual recognition to undermine the rights of the individual and in this field generally it is essential that the legal safeguards outlined not only in the European Convention on Human Rights but also, I would say to Mr Blokland, in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights - which ought to be legally enforceable - should be observed.
My group would certainly agree with Mrs Cerdeira Morterero that we should use the existing system of contact points in the European Judicial Network, as it is pointless to keep reinventing the wheel with different systems of contact points for various initiatives.
However, we have a core problem here: people who care about civil liberties - and here I include myself - are put on the spot about agreeing to measures of mutual recognition without having a comprehensive programme to raise the standard of observance of individual rights.
My group believes that we need a comprehensive approach to this, and we are very much looking forward to the Commission White Paper on this subject.
I have been reproached for agreeing to the European arrest warrant, while very strongly supporting individual rights.
It is a challenge to all of us - Parliament, the Commission and the Council - to put in place those safeguards, because it is difficult to keep on agreeing until we have them.
But my group believes that, with the Eurosceptics of the Right objecting to any cooperation in this field, we have to say that those of us who are not on the Right, who care about civil liberties, should agree to these measures but then put pressure on the Commission and the Council to have these citizens' safeguards.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I too wish to offer my particular congratulations to Mrs Cederschiöld on her election as Vice-President of this Parliament.
The Commission welcomes the initiative we are debating today of the United Kingdom, the Republic of France and the Kingdom of Sweden which seeks to guarantee the mutual recognition of financial penalties.
It is worth pointing out that this issue was addressed in the Commission communication on the mutual recognition of final decisions in criminal matters, which we issued and debated here in the European Parliament in July 2000.
The need for this specific instrument was identified in the programme of measures designed to apply the principle of the mutual recognition of decisions in criminal matters adopted by the Council and the Commission in November 2000.
I wish to thank Mrs Morterero, in particular, for her excellent report.
As she quite rightly stated, there is no international instrument currently in place in all of our Member States for the application of financial penalties in criminal matters.
There are only the two instruments to which the honourable Member referred, but one of them has never come into force and the other has only been ratified by five Member States.
This means that what we are discussing today is the first European Union instrument in this field, which, I think, we also want to be ambitious.
This instrument will implement the principle of mutual recognition through the application of cross-border financial penalties, thereby ensuring that there will be no safe havens in the Union for those who attempt to escape the application of financial penalties set by the competent authorities of the Member States.
This instrument will strengthen the progress made in the implementation of the principle of mutual recognition by means of the Council' s approval of the Commission proposal on the European arrest order.
As Baroness Ludford has already said, the Commission is working on an initiative intended to identify the basic principles and criteria for the legal protection of European citizens' fundamental rights in criminal matters.
It is also worth pointing out, however, that we are not, in this field, working with a blank piece of paper: we are working within a legal framework which exists and which is - if I may say so - consolidated.
All the Member States have signed up to and joined the European Convention on Human Rights, all the Member States have legal systems of criminal prosecution that are subject to the supervision of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and all the Member States have jointly proclaimed, in political though not legal terms, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
These are legal and political instruments that enable us to establish a frame of reference within which we can implement the principle of mutual recognition of final decisions in criminal matters.
The Commission broadly agrees with the approach adopted in all of the amendments tabled by the rapporteur.
We understand the basis of the proposal on setting a minimum threshold of EUR 40 for the principle to be implemented because, in some cases, unless there is a minimum charge of EUR 40, the costs of transfer and implementation would not justify the execution of the judgment.
I fully understand the criterion of EUR 40, which has been imported, shall we say, from the Schengen Agreement.
I simply wish to point out that the wording should be sufficiently careful as not to give the idea that we are allowing the mere fact that a border has been crossed to be a way of escaping criminal liability, even if this is, in financial terms, quite limited.
Finally, I should like, once again, to thank Mrs Morterero for the positive and innovative spirit of her report and express my hopes that this will be adopted by the European Parliament.
Thank you, Commissioner Vitorino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5 p.m.
Training and recruitment of seafarers
The next item is the report (A5-0450/2001) by Mrs Kauppi on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Commission communication on the training and recruitment of seafarers [COM(2001) 188 - C5-0468/2001 - 2001/2188(COS)].
Madam President, I also wish to congratulate you on your new task which you have begun today.
From a Finnish point of view, I am really pleased to see Scandinavian colours in the presidency.
Madam President, Europeans have been seafarers since the earliest decades of history.
Not only European integration but the growing together of Europe has its first roots in the sea voyages of antiquity which took merchants and explorers from the east coast of the Mediterranean to the North Atlantic and to the British Isles.
But globalisation, our globe that is growing ever closer, began with sea travels that made contacts between people on different continents possible.
The maritime sector has throughout the course of European history played a crucial role in the political, economic, social and scientific development of our nations.
Seafaring and ship building remain crucial fields of activity in today's European Union.
The merchant shipping sector is, for example, of strategic importance to the economic well-being of the European Union.
The last two decades have unfortunately seen a sharp decline in the number of EU seafarers.
This is caused mainly by two factors.
First, EU shipowners have a lower demand for EU seafarers because of financial considerations.
Third-country nationals who might not be as highly educated and trained as their EU colleagues are employed instead.
Secondly, the supply of well-qualified EU seafarers is declining since fewer and fewer young Europeans choose maritime careers.
A number of the causes that underlie the unwillingness of young Europeans to choose maritime careers can clearly be identified.
Community and international law on living and working conditions is inadequately applied on EU merchant vessels.
Modern technologies are not used enough to improve living and working conditions on board.
National authorities and the social partners will have to step up their efforts and see to it that existing legislation is fully applied.
Maritime training in the EU needs to be developed further.
A high-quality system of maritime education and training is vital to the future of EU seafaring.
I encourage, therefore, the building of networks between the academic institutions for seafarers' education and training.
Cooperation between training institutions and companies in this sector should be increased.
For example, the sharing of facilities and specialisation may allow institutions to purchase capital equipment and to launch courses for the new target groups.
The Community offers financial support for training and human resource development, so these should be used to their full extent.
I urge Member States and social partners to exploit fully all possibilities of funding, such as the European Social Fund, Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes.
The existing Community funds should be used to supplement existing funding from national and regional budgets for maritime education and training.
The Commission communication is an excellent resumé of the current situation.
We in Parliament thus ask the Commission to enlarge its valuable analyses further.
Employment and training of seafarers depends closely on the market conditions of the maritime transport sector.
I therefore urge the Commission also to provide an analysis of the underlying economic variables relating to maritime transport, in particular with regard to the competitive position of the EU fleet.
The industry, in discussion with MET institutes and the social partners, should intensify its efforts to develop career paths, training and job content that take account of opportunities available in the wider maritime sector, following time employed at sea.
I will summarise by saying that the shortfall of EU seafarers in general, of well-trained personnel, is likely to have negative consequences as far as safe navigation, number of accidents and marine pollution are concerned.
These accidents are mostly caused by human error.
There is a clear need to safeguard the employment of EU seafarers on board and on shore, to preserve the maritime know-how in the Community, to develop maritime skills and to improve the safety of maritime transport.
This requires high-standard training possibilities as well as adequate employment and career prospects.
The responsibility for the necessary action is shared between the industry, the social partners and the Member States' authorities.
But you clearly know that the Commission has a big role to play in this area.
Madam President, I too would like to express my best wishes for your term of office.
It is with great pleasure that I speak on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, who sent me to this beautiful city of Strasbourg to attempt to remind people of their existence.
Mr Kauppi' s document, whose content, proposals and analysis of the difficult situation of seafarers I fully support, takes me back in time to when I was the age Mrs Kauppi is now.
I was not a member of a parliament, I sailed in the ships which take American tourists from New York to the Bahamas and vice versa.
Being a seafarer myself, I met a number of people who worked on the ships.
At that time, seafarers were fortunate individuals with extremely high wages; jobs as crewmembers of both passenger and cargo ships and even oil tankers were sought after.
However, now, 35 years on, I have met friends who used to sail with me again and they tell me that everything is different now, for the ships that sail the seas of Europe are now manned by Indonesian and Colombian seafarers and seafarers from all the world' s poor States, and their wages are a maximum of EUR 100/150 per month, that is less than 10% of the wages of European seafarers.
I therefore feel we must work to ensure that, whatever the flag flying on the ships sailing the European seas, the crewmembers have agreements laying down the same wages as those of workers on dry land.
Seafarers must not be exploited on European ships just because they come from poor regions of the world.
Madam President, despite being a woman of the South and not being a seafarer, which is a shame, because this sector still remains largely closed to women, I do not wish to miss this opportunity also to congratulate you on your new position.
I should also like to begin by congratulating both the Commission and the rapporteur, who highlights some of the aspects of strategic importance to maintaining the high professional standards that it is considered will meet the needs that the Union is going to have if it wishes to maintain, and put into practice, a mechanism on which it legislated recently, intended to ensure maritime safety. This mechanism requires a new professional approach in ports, new competences in the field of inspections and, above all, new requirements for the seafarers working in the Union' s exclusive economic zone.
It is true that all of these matters fall within the competence of Member States, but we have already seen that, in the field of safety, if there is no strategy there will be no effectiveness.
We also know that 80% of accidents are attributed to crewmembers.
This is an unacceptable factor, which has its roots in the fact that our ship-owners, and our entire maritime transport system, are dependent on a single factor that is decisive in human activity, for reasons of competitiveness and of the very survival of the industry, but which must be regulated within the Community and also in the international institutions, whether it be the IMO or the ILO.
And yet, on this matter, the Member States have had no development strategy in place.
Employment has fallen in this sector by 40% and salaries have also decreased. This has led to these professions, especially those of experienced officers, who are essential for navigating the specific coastal characteristics of the Union and for meeting the needs that I have mentioned, being taken over by citizens of third countries who do not even share the same language or the same ability to communicate.
This is why, Madam President, we repeat that the Commission must regulate and harmonise not only training courses but also pay and living conditions on board and the safety of crewmembers, and it must also act together with other economic blocs that have unilaterally expanded the market, leaving it uncontrolled, or which have established protectionist practices, as the United States has done.
We feel that the Commission is genuinely able to ensure - and is on the way to doing so - that the Member States continue to supply high-quality seafarers, in order not only to do justice to our past but also to our future.
Madam President, I congratulate Mrs Kauppi on this report.
I have to admit that representing London I do not have too many fishermen in my constituency and I am delighted to be able to put forward a few comments on behalf of Mrs Scallon who, unfortunately, cannot be here today as she has a pressing engagement.
She has followed this dossier very carefully because of the large fishing industry in her constituency in Ireland.
I should like to pass on her and my thanks to the Commission for focusing on this important issue.
When speaking to stakeholders in this industry, Mrs Scallon found that they were very concerned about the concept of flagging out, which was one of the root causes of the sharp decline in EU seafarers and the increase in the use of third-country ratings and junior officers.
EU crew members suffer a severe competitive disadvantage; with their working conditions of working one week on, one week off with full pay on passenger ferries, they find it very difficult to compete with non-EU crew members working nine months on, and one month off without pay.
As a result, there are few training places available for EU junior officers and ratings and, sadly, redundancy is being offered to many in this industry in the EU.
In line with many of the points highlighted in the report, Mrs Scallon heard that there was concern regarding the lower standard of EU training and the possible danger to public safety that might be caused by language difficulties with multilingual crews, where no translation was available.
Both Mrs Scallon and I would definitely like to see more training places available if we are to stop this decline.
Experienced seafarers are also ideal for other temporary, onshore work off-season in areas such as recruitment, training, freight forwarding, insurance and arbitration.
As part of the suggested awareness campaign, we should also look at the possibility of funding the promotion of seafaring at secondary-school level.
Mrs Scallon closed by remarking that it was sad that even in the fishing villages of her own country, seafaring, rowing and sailing were not subjects which played a great part in the curriculum.
That is something that we both regret.
Thank you, Commissioner Vitorino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5 p.m.
Leonardo da Vinci programme (1995-1999)
The next item is the report (A5-0449/2001) by Mrs Stauner on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Commission's final report on the implementation of the first phase of the Community action programme Leonardo da Vinci (1995-1999) [COM(2000) 863 - 2001/2069(INI)].
Madam President, I asked for the Commissioner to speak before we took a decision because Mrs Stauner raised an important question and we did not hear the Commissioner's reply. What is going on?
Did this happen or not? And for us then to decide.
I fail to understand how we can take a decision without the Commissioner's reply.
Besides, I saw for myself that the Commissioner asked to speak.
I realise that, but I have to comply with Rule 144 of Parliament' s Rules of Procedure.
We must therefore proceed in this way.
I would like to say the following in support of Mr Koukiadis. I thought that somewhere in the Rules of Procedure - I was unable to look it up in this short space of time - it is stipulated that the Commission can be asked to comment on any point that is presented.
I think it good that this should happen in this case, and I have the impression that the Commission is also willing to comment.
I thought that it was a general rule in this House that if the Commission wishes to speak out on something, it actually does so.
This is only a rare event because issues like these hardly ever get into the news so suddenly but, in this case, I think we ought to create a precedent and that the Commission, if it so wishes, should be able to make a statement in a case like this, especially because its own role is at issue and, otherwise, widespread confusion could be created in the press.
Madam President, I should like to insist emphatically that this statement be made and I do not think that it should take very long.
In principle, I share Mr Pronk' s view.
Unfortunately, the Rules of Procedure do not allow that possibility, but we may well address this matter as part of the ongoing review of the Rules of Procedure.
In fact, I seem to remember that a general option of this kind is to be introduced, and that would no doubt be appropriate.
Because we have now referred the matter back to the committee, I must formally follow the rules.
We can probably allow the Commissioner to take the floor in order to present his points of view, in spite of the fact that we have already made a decision.
However, we cannot of course change a decision that has already been made.
Madam President, I asked to speak but I did not want to break the Rules of the House.
When you called for one speaker in favour of and one speaker against the decision to postpone the report by Mrs Stauner, I did not like to speak because I am not supposed to take a position on that.
Nevertheless, I should like to stress that the Commission has informed the House a number of times that both our Directorate-General for Administration and OLAF are currently examining a lengthy report into several allegations by a Commission official of possible irregularities within the Commission in relation to a variety of issues.
As I have said, the examination of the report by OLAF and the DG for Administration is ongoing.
They have not yet reached a conclusion as to whether the report contains new elements in relation to Leonardo that would require further investigation.
I have been told by my colleagues who are directly responsible for these matters that they will reach their conclusions shortly.
Madam President, I do not want there to be any misunderstandings about this.
Commissioner, I am obliged to you for your statement.
I was certainly not aware that you had entrusted this Commission official with the task of producing a conclusive report by 31 August, but I then learned of this, not from the Commission, but from other sources.
Do you, though, not think it a matter of trustful cooperation or proper administrative procedure that you should at least inform the rapporteur when a report completing the evaluation of a particular stage of an action programme is coming out? It is at Leonardo that new accusations are levelled in this report.
I practically have to assume that you wanted to have your innocence certified by Parliament, and then, when perhaps in about another six months' time, it came out that yet more scandalous things had been going on, it would be easy for you to say: 'Oh please, Parliament sanctioned what we did!'
Please stick to the rules of fair play.
If there is to be a general report, I will not be able tell whether there is perhaps something about Leonardo I in it.
Because the matter has been referred back to the committee, the debate will not now take place.
Basle II
The next item is an oral question (B5-0001/2002) put by Mr Karas, Mr Radwan and Mrs Villiers to the Commission on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats on Basle II - own funds for credit institutions.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by saying that I am very glad that it is under your presidency that I have been called to speak, as I rejoice to see you in Parliament's new bureau.
The reason why the Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats has addressed this question to the Commission is that we want, after the Villiers report, prior to the presentation of the third consultative document and before the Commission complete the draft Directive, to give a clear signal to the public and to the enterprises affected that we speak for the affected parties in the Directive's drafting process and that we want to be more involved in the discussion process, both as regards the monitoring of the Basle Committee and also the preparation of the Directive.
The basic conception of Basle II, of closer alignment of the capital base of banks to the actual risks, is in our view something to be welcomed.
What is of the essence, though, is what form it should take in practice, as it is only through a conversion appropriate to our economic structure that the financial sector including an essential pillar of the economy and its enterprises, above all the small and medium-sized ones, can actually be strengthened.
The previous proposals by the Basle Committee on banking supervision are, in our present view, still unsatisfactory, and we believe that they should, in many instances, undergo thorough revision.
Our question today is prompted by our economic structure.
Eighteen million small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe create 75% of European jobs and pay 80% of the taxes.
These enterprises' capital costs are therefore crucial to their competitiveness and to the maintenance of the small and medium-scale economic structure.
We believe, Commissioner, that the Commission - and I would also like to know what you intend doing about this - should be an intermediary between the six Member States of the European Union that are not members of the Basle Committee and the nine that are, and that we really must do everything we can to ensure that the Nine really do represent the Fifteen.
It is only if this happens that I can regard it as at all feasible to incorporate the Basle result unchanged into the draft Directive, as Commissioner Bolkestein has said in his statement.
If this does not happen, all the various opinions will find their way into discussion of the Directive, leaving Parliament, the Commission and the Council far less room to manoeuvre.
It is for this reason that we, that is Mr Radwan, Mrs Villiers and I, have put a number of questions to you, which we urgently want to have answered when the Directive is drafted.
They relate to the consequential costs for small and medium-sized enterprises and to the issue of flexibility in the Directive's application to small and medium-sized enterprises and to banks; they also relate to the date on which the Directive will enter into force and to the Commission's role as co-ordinator between the nine represented on the Basle Committee and the six not represented on it.
The question takes up the cause of the medium-scale economic structures in Europe and is intended to give voice to the questions that small and medium-sized banks and enterprises want to ask.
We look forward to you giving definite answers to them.
Madam President, on behalf of my colleague I would like to start by saying that the review of capital adequacy is an extremely significant project forming part of the Commission's financial services action plan.
The aim is, as mentioned, to modernise the existing capital requirements for banks and investment firms.
This will lead to significant benefits within the European financial services markets in terms of increased efficiency and enhanced competition, while at the same time improving financial stability through prudential requirements that are both more comprehensive and more sensitive to the risks faced by these institutions.
The European review is taking place in parallel with the review by the Basle Committee on banking supervision of capital requirements for internationally active banks.
Before going on to specific questions, let me mention that excellent progress has been made but the review is still ongoing.
My response to your questions should therefore be read in that light.
As regards the internal ratings-based approach and smaller banks, the framework likely to be proposed will be based on an evolutionary and flexible approach.
Different approaches will be used by institutions depending upon the level of sophistication they wish to adopt - their risk management practices and so on.
The significance of the IRB approach has already been identified in Parliament's resolution of 17 November 2000 on the evaluation of the own funds directive.
The IRB approach should be designed prudently but in such a way as not to unduly exclude smaller and less complex institutions.
The Commission has pursued the above from the beginning, both in preparing its proposal and in participating in the Basle process.
To accommodate the needs of smaller and less complex institutions, the second Commission consultative document of February 2001 diverged on specific issues from the Basle consultative document.
Particular focus was put on the Basle minimum standards, which were modified to make them more appropriate to the European Union context.
For example, the Commission's consultation paper proposed requiring institutions to apply the IRB approach to all material exposure classes.
This will give institutions the possibility to exempt from the IRB approach portfolios that are immaterial.
This means applying a partial use approach.
The Commission believes that such flexibility strikes an appropriate balance in the European Union context.
Another aspect included in the Commission's second consultative document was the proposal to allow banks to use pooled data in estimating the probability of default of borrowers.
This will allow smaller institutions to overcome the possibility that their individual amounts of data will be too small to be statistically meaningful and to rely, where appropriate, on an internal rating system developed by a banking association.
On the potential effect of the new regime on the cost of lending to SMEs, both the Commission and the Basle Committee have strongly emphasised the importance of ensuring that the capital adequacy regime leads to appropriate treatment of credit to SMEs.
During 2001 significant progress was made on this aspect and the Commission is committed to a successful outcome in this significant issue.
A modified risk-weight curve for corporate exposures has been developed, which is likely to reduce the capital requirements for many SME borrowers relative to the proposals in the second consultative document.
Recognition is likely to be given in the IRB approach to a wider range of collateral.
I will say more about this in a moment.
Work has continued on the development of risk-weight proposals in respect of retail lending.
In the IRB approaches these are lower than for lending to corporates.
Retail lending is likely to be defined in such a way that small business loans that are treated as retail loans by a bank and that meet the other relevant criteria will fall within the retail risks weight.
That will benefit the regulatory capital charges of relevant small-business loans, while maintaining appropriate levels of prudential soundness.
The question of recognition of a wider range of collateral in the IRB approach has received a good deal of attention during 2001.
This is of particular importance in the context of lending to SMEs.
The emerging thinking is to recognise a broader range of collateral than was previously proposed.
The likelihood is that the approach will be not to name specific types of physical collateral that will be acceptable, but to set eligibility criteria that seek to ensure a certain sustainable value of the collateral in the event of borrower default.
It is envisaged that appropriate recognition will also be given in the IRB approach to situations where loans are secured against receivables and that the risk mitigation aspects of financial leases will be appropriately recognised.
Consideration is also being given to recognising the practice whereby life insurance policies are placed with the lending institution as security for a loan.
I now turn to the fifth question on implementation of the new Basle Accord, concerning the question of uniformity and flexibility and the date of implementation.
On the question of uniformity of application and flexibility, it is important to state once again that the new framework will be based on an evolutionary approach.
It is designed to be used differently by institutions of different sizes and complexity.
A key focus of the Commission's efforts lies in ensuring that the specific features of the European Union context, including the wider range of institutions to which the regime will apply, are fully reflected in this new regime.
For reasons of competitive neutrality, the European Union legislative framework for banks and investment firms is based on the principle of equality of treatment between competing institutions, at least as regards certain business and market segments.
For this reason, a capital adequacy regime that is profoundly innovative, should not be introduced for only one category of institution.
For reasons of international competitive equity, it is very important that European Union institutions move to the new framework within the same timescale as institutions of other jurisdictions, including, for example, the United States.
The target date for implementation is 2005.
The Commission intends to adopt the proposal for a directive shortly after final agreement is reached in Basle.
This, together with the full and thorough consultative process that is taking place in order to produce a very high-quality proposal, will enable the Commission to contribute to the fullest extent to a process which will allow legislation to be adopted in good time to achieve the accord implementation date.
The importance of rapid implementation of the new framework was recognised in the resolution of this Parliament of November 2000 on the evaluation of the own funds Directive.
On the sixth question, I would say that the Commission is aware of the concerns of some commentators, including some Member States, that the treatment of the maturity dimension proposed in the second consultative document could create competitive disadvantages for banks which typically grant long-term loans.
This matter is still being considered in Basle.
On the seventh question, regarding limit retail loans, the Commission believes that the borderline between corporate loans and retail loans should be such as to allow certain kinds of lending to SMEs to be treated as retail in nature.
The question of where exactly the cut-off point between a retail loan and a non-retail loan should be, is subject to ongoing consideration.
The definition currently proposed in the IRB framework includes a use test, whereby such a loan can be treated as retail in nature if is treated in the institution's risk-management systems and assessments in the same manner as other retail loans and meets the other relevant criteria, including those in relation to value.
The Commission regards this approach as useful and effective.
The Commission recognises the special risk characteristics associated with home loans.
It also recognises that European residential mortgage markets have different features from other mortgage markets in the world and that they are of particular importance to the European Union banking system.
Work is continuing to develop an appropriate treatment for loans of this type.
Finally, on the eighth question - regarding coordination between the nine EU Member States that are members of the Basle Committee and the other European Union Member States - the European Union perspective is indeed strongly represented in the Basle Committee.
Spain joined the Basle Committee last year, which brings the total number of EU countries on the committee to 9 out of 13.
The Commission sits as an observer on the committee, as does the European Central Bank.
This has allowed the views of the European Union as a whole to be conveyed, as reflected in the recent development of the Basle proposals, in the review of the capital requirements applicable to lending to SMEs, and in the wider recognition of collateral.
The work of the Banking Advisory Committee is very important in this regard.
The BAC is an advisory committee to the Commission, bringing together banking supervisors and regulators.
The authorities responsible for the prudential supervision of investment firms have been invited to participate in discussions of the capital review.
A dedicated working structure has been established to assist in developing concrete proposals that should address EU concerns, in particular as regards the application of the capital framework to a wide range of institutions, including smaller banks and investment firms.
To conclude, let me say that the Commission considers that very good progress has been made.
Of course further important work remains to be done before the third consultative document is published later in the year.
The Commission looks forward to finalising this work and adopting a legislative proposal so that the new regime can be introduced in a timely manner.
Finally, the Commission regards it as important to the process that Parliament be kept informed of the Commission's developing thinking in relation to the potential proposal for a new capital adequacy regime.
Commissioner Bolkestein has just this week written to the chairman of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee to suggest that it might be useful to arrange a meeting where members of the committee could be apprised by Commission experts in greater detail as to the emerging thinking in relation to the capital adequacy review.
I thank the Commissioner for his very detailed and informative presentation.
I very much welcome what you said about the flexibility and evolutionary approach with regard to the internal ratings-based approach.
It is vital that this risk-sensitive framework should be potentially applicable to a wide range of credit institutions, both large and small.
I also welcome what you said about pooled data, which is essential to ensuring that smaller institutions can take advantage of a new risk-sensitive framework by pooling data with similar, smaller institutions.
I further welcome what you said about the modified risk weight curve and retail lending and collateral.
All these issues are going to be vitally important in ensuring that the new framework is adaptable to the diversity of large and small credit institutions and investment firms in the European Union.
I welcome a risk-sensitive framework.
There is no need for a more sophisticated and risk-sensitive framework to be more bureaucratic and costly.
At all costs we want to ensure a fair balance for SMEs.
There is no need for a risk-sensitive framework to make SME borrowing more expensive.
I am confident that if the Commission and Parliament do their work properly we can devise a solution and a new accord which are risk-sensitive, protect savers, encourage systemic stability and ensure that small businesses can continue to have access to loan finance.
In many cases I hope that this may even bring down the cost of lending for small businesses.
It is vital that we get this right.
I look forward to the further exchange of views that has been proposed.
There is a great deal more work to be done, but I am encouraged by what I have heard so far in response to the question tabled by myself, Mr Karas and Mr Radwan.
Madam President, in deference to your international linguistic approach, Commissioner, I will refrain from speaking in my national language and use the lingua franca of our epoch - English.
I pay tribute to your valiant rendering, not only of the English language - in which you have no problem - but also of the specialised terminology of the financial markets, which probably caused you more throatache than the language itself.
You paid tribute to the modernising efforts of the financial services programme.
Indeed it is a remarkable programme, which has to succeed if we are going to have a unified and integrated capital market in Europe - a great competitive advantage for an economy.
However, the word "modernise" can be such a terrible weasel word at the same time.
Many things can be cloaked in modernism.
In this particular case there is an upside, insofar as the integration of capital markets is helped; at the same time, however, the increasing leverage of financial institutions, inter alia, has already given rise to various risks will do so in the future.
There have to be ways of strengthening control of those risk-management models which banks will use in order to assume control.
Such models are very costly and hard to control.
When I say "control" I do not mean control in the old-fashioned bureaucratic sense.
New methods have to be invented for checking on these models so that they perform in a way that helps the banks perhaps to leverage more while at the same time keeping them in check.
If they are not kept in check the risks could be very substantially increased.
The other risk in this area is that we create a risk-management divide where big banks and big financial institutions will have all the means at their disposal to engage in modern risk management.
Meanwhile, small banks will become more and more marginalised in this respect and be increasingly burdened with costs which the bigger institutions have managed to shrug off.
If indeed a way out is to be sought through partial application to small banks, this may exacerbate the lack of transparency in the whole area.
The recent Enron debacle offers a sobering lesson in what a lack of transparency could provoke.
Therefore our advice would be to temper a little the enthusiasm for surrendering control to the markets, while building up the official control side a bit more and applying it in a modern way using modern methods.
Such methods might, in the short term, limit profitability, but if they are to spare us a couple of Enron-type disasters in the long run, they will more than compensate for any reduction in short term profit.
Madam President, Commissioner, I too would like to thank you, Commissioner, for your exhaustive reply.
I share your view that substantial progress has been made in the Basle II discussion process so far.
Mr Karas, and Mrs Villiers as well, have referred to a number of fundamental problems, especially with regard to the various financing structures in Europe, and we still have a whole range of problems to resolve.
You were right to address the problem of internal and external ratings, where we have made progress, but, as you yourself have said, the crediting of securities and the time long-term credits take to be assessed as being of a significantly higher risk are all yet to be discussed in Basle.
What emerged from Mrs Villiers' and Mr Karas' question today was important for me to learn, and so I ask you to add to it.
There are two points still outstanding.
One of them is, as before, how the Commission exerts influence in Basle - if it sees these problems in the same way that we do; I got that from their answer. You have, admittedly, mentioned the Member States - including Spain, the new one - but, at the end of the day, it is we who are the legislators.
What matters is that it be made clear there how we envisage transposition.
I would like to have a more definite statement from you on that.
The second thing that interests me is this. We all hope that, in Basle, all the problems that preoccupy us in the parliamentary process here will be solved.
After all, we cannot all take part. What happens, though, if they are not solved?
What view, then, for example, does the Commission take of something that has fundamental importance for Austria and Germany, namely, how we assess the value of long-term credits, if this problem is not resolved? That is the question that arises in my mind, and there is still the statement by your colleague Commissioner Bolkestein, who is present here, that a 1:1 transposition is imperative.
A statement like that leaves us relatively little room for movement in Basle.
What ideas are there circulating within the Commission about the introduction of a degree of flexibility here?
At the same time, I would like to add that I would be very interested to know how you envisage the process of transposition.
When Basle II is adopted - and you have yourself said that you are aiming for 2005 - it should all happen very fast.
What we have heard from the Commission to date is that there will be a framework directive and then appendices to - as it is so elegantly phrased - deal with the technical details, and which will sort out the questions of a system of supervision as well.
It will be a very rapid process.
I would greatly welcome it if this working party linking Parliament and the Commission could start very soon, in order to get those within Parliament who are interested - and we three from the group of the European People's Party/European Democrats are very much so - involved in the process in good time and thereby avoid various problems with timescales.
Madam President, I will be brief because I spoke for too long in my first speech.
I would like to underline that I spoke on behalf of Commissioner Bolkestein who is responsible for these issues.
I should like to make three points.
The first is the influence of the European Union in the Basle Committee.
I mentioned the global framework.
Nine out of 13 members of the Basle Committee are members of the European Union.
The Commission and the European Central Bank are involved in its debates.
We have the opportunity to convey the European Union's points of view in the debates and in the Basle Committee framework.
Thanks to the coordination of our positions, we influenced the debates in the Basle Committee, in the areas of review of the capital requirements applicable to lending to SMEs and the wider issue of recognition of collateral.
Those are two examples where our proposals did play a major role in the debates on the Basle Committee.
Secondly, creating compatibility between flexibility and transparency is a key issue for the credibility of the overall system.
It will be necessary to establish not only the relationship between the minimum capital requirements of the institution and the risks that such an institution takes on board, but also to guarantee that there will be transparency in the criteria that are used by the supervisory bodies of the Member States.
That is why the financial services action plan is seeking a certain degree of convergence of the supervision in order to guarantee that flexibility in the application of the system will not detract from the necessary transparency and the outside control of the way each system acts.
Finally, let me ask you to save your more detailed and technical questions for my colleague, Mr Bolkestein.
I am sure he will be willing to give you full and comprehensive answers.
I do not dare to go any further than this because let me remind you that the last Renaissance man was Leibnitz and he died some years ago!
Thank you, Commissioner Vitorino.
The debate is closed.
I also wish to thank you for all your good wishes on the occasion of the first Swedish Presidency.
Vote
I voted for the motion, Mr President.
I agree that we should proceed with the mutual recognition of financial penalties since we do not seem to be able to achieve an agreement to establish a single European penal code or a single European code of criminal procedure.
However, I would not want this makeshift solution to become a definitive one.
I feel that Europe must gradually approximate Member States' legislation and only accept mutual recognition where a genuine agreement cannot be achieved.
I therefore hope that, next time, we will be voting not on the mutual recognition of financial penalties but on a code of procedure for uniform financial penalties throughout Europe.
Kauppi report (A5-0450/2001)
I am, of course, Mr President, very honoured by the Members' consideration, for whenever I start to speak, increasing numbers of Members come from the corridors into the Chamber, as you can see is happening at the moment.
With regard to this document, I would like to say that sailors and seafarers' chief complaint about their job is that it is not stable and that when they arrive in port - as we all know, after a day ashore they cannot wait to get back on board - they have to wait months and months, sometimes years there.
In my opinion, there ought to be an agreement for seafarers which stipulates eight or nine or six months on board every year and guarantees this rhythm of work throughout seafarers' working lives.
.
(EL) The report acknowledges the dramatic fall in the number of seafarers in the ÅU and the shortage of properly trained men and officers.
You only have to remember that the number of seafarers in the European Union has fallen from 320 000 in 1978 to 120 000 today to agree that the seafaring manpower of the Member States of the European Union has been totally decimated.
The report ascribes this state of affairs to secondary causes and avoids tackling the root cause of the problem.
The cause of this decimation is the European Union's very own maritime policy, which is predicated on the good old competitiveness of the shipping companies' fleets and benefits the shipping industry, with painful consequences for seafarers' families.
For the sake of this competitiveness, the European Union's common maritime policy has recognised flags of convenience since as early as the mid 1980s, resulting in sweeping changes at the expense of seafarers and obscene profits for big business.
The shipping industry uses current legislation and the EU's proposals to exploit seafaring labour from third countries and seafarers from within the European Union by paying lower wages and offering lower social benefits, thereby undermining the fundamental rights of workers (collective agreements, 7-hour day, contracts of employment, time off during the year etc.).
Falling standards in training and further training, which have wiped out the fund of know-how which used to exist, are the result of the EU's own policy, which has pushed for diplomas to be changed to certificates of ability to exercise the profession of seafarer and for professional diplomas to be abolished.
The report makes no reference whatsoever to these serious problems; it merely regurgitates the usual wish-lists or, worse, proposes applying the good old sub-standard, fragmented training programmes, which are tailored to the needs of the shipping market, and networking educational institutions and companies.
Objectively-speaking, this sort of assessment and proposals such as these ally public concerns about the huge social problem of unemployment, accidents at sea (crimes at sea, to use the words of seafarers) and ecological disasters, while concealing the liability of shipowners and their political puppets.
In our opinion, if seafarers step up their fight at national and international level, if seafarers join forces with seafarers from third countries and overturn these policies under the banner of "an equal day's pay for an equal day's work", if seafarers are recruited subject to vested insurance rights, collective agreements and compulsory national insurance and if state education and training for seafarers is brought up to standard (for example by upgrading state-run naval schools), this will go a long way towards resolving the problems of the training and recruitment of seafarers.
This sort of policy would guarantee that the needs of contemporary seafarers' families are met, as well as guaranteeing safety at sea and environmental protection.
It is for these reasons that the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece intend to vote against the report.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 5.10 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 17 January 2002.
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I should like to ask you to add my name to the attendance register.
Not only did I vote, I even took the floor during that session; yet I am not included on the list.
I hope that this can be rectified.
Yes, indeed, Mr Pronk.
(The Minutes of the previous sitting were approved)
Announcement by the President
I should like to inform the House that I received, shortly after my arrival in office, advice from the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, inviting the President to submit to the European Court of Justice for review the question of the legal base with regard to the European Company Statute.
The deadline for implementing that request was today.
I consulted widely, both inside and outside the House on this issue and had the opportunity to hear opinions of the Conference of Presidents.
I have made a decision, while respecting the weight of the argument - which is a substantial legal argument - not to make a reference to the European Court of Justice.
Essentially I have made this decision, prior to the forthcoming convention and having regard to the Laeken Declaration which expressly mentions Articles 95 and 308 - the articles in dispute in this case - so we can make an act of political faith between ourselves and the other institutions as we prepare for that convention.
I have since spoken to the President of the European Commission and to the President of the Council, Mr Aznar López.
I am assured in both cases that they understand the political act of faith which has been made.
I believe that they will want, in the coming weeks, to try to find between our institutions a way to recognise the substance of these issues, which is about our role as a Parliament in representing citizens of the Union and their concerns in the law-making process.
I hope that in the end this act of political faith in the primacy of politics will be repaid, understood and not misunderstood.
It is important - this side of the Barcelona Summit, with an issue that has been with us for three decades and perhaps has no parallel in the issues before us - to appreciate that it was not an easy decision to arrive at.
I hope, in the end - both for those in the House who were inclined to agree with my view last week and for the many who were inclined at that time to disagree - that they will appreciate that the judgment is one made in good faith.
I believe we can build on it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, most of you will be aware that I have taken a different line from our President.
However, I respect this decision, and if you have succeeded in bringing forth from this result an attitude of goodwill that will later actually be reflected in amendments to the Treaties or in some other acknowledgement of our rights, that would be a success that would not have been possible without the joint action of the Legal Affairs Committee and our President.
Mr President, I totally agree with your decision.
I believe that what we are dealing with here is an act of political faith, in view of the fact that we are attempting to defend the existence of the European Company Statute, without prejudice to the fundamental issues arising from the legal base.
Mr President, as you know, my position was quite the opposite and I am still convinced that it is a mistake not to refer the matter to the Court of Justice.
I simply wanted to say this in plenary as well, because if we accept that the Council can pass an act under the co-decision procedure, taking away the power of co-decision from Parliament, we are playing into the Council' s hands.
Unfortunately, I do not think that the Council will look upon this in a positive light, but rather as something that it can do again.
I just wanted to say, therefore, that I think it is a mistake not to refer the matter to the Court of Justice.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate you on your decision not to make a reference to the European Court of Justice, as the creation of the European Company was one of the objectives for this parliamentary session, and is one of the five decisions for which the economy has been waiting.
For thirty years, this decision has been awaited; for thirty years, negotiations have been in progress.
To go to the Court of Justice now would mean this business being dragged out for another five or six years; for I am convinced that no firm would avail itself of this important new form under such uncertain conditions.
So I believe it wise in this case to refrain from making a reference to the European Court of Justice.
Mr President, on a point of order: it will hardly surprise the House if, on behalf of my Group, I support the position you have taken.
But I would nonetheless urge you in your intervention at the European Council in Barcelona to make the point very strongly that we as a House are not happy with the procedure that has been taken and that we hope in the future to see a much more constructive and collaborative approach to us from the other institutions.
Mr President, as you know, the Group of the Party of European Socialists supports your decision.
From a legal point of view, whether or not we have lost influence in the co-decision procedure is debatable.
My group - as Mr Medina Ortega has already stated - thinks not and that also, from a political point of view, the decision we have taken is the right one.
As we approach the Barcelona Summit, I would ask you to not only defend our position with regard to the implications of this decision for the European business world, but also, given its importance, from the point of view of consolidating economic democracy and workers' rights.
Mr President, I had not actually intended to speak, but I do of course have something to say whenever the others have something to say.
I would like first to say a few words of thanks to you for the way you dealt with this issue.
As Mr Lehne said, a majority of our group was in favour of legal proceedings, but there were other opinions, such as that of the esteemed Mr Karl von Wogau.
I liked, however, the way you dealt with the issue politically, telephoning the President-in-Office of the Council, the Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, and, of course, keeping in touch with the President of the Commission, Romano Prodi.
We, of course, have confidence in the Spanish Prime Minister; not only in that role do we trust that he will keep his word and that words will be matched by deeds, but also in his role as President-in-Office of the Council.
I also have something to say to the Commission. So, Commissioner, please tell the President of the Commission, Romano Prodi, that, tomorrow, when we deal with Mr von Wogau's report, with financial services and with everything we associate with 'Lamfalussy' , we expect the Commission to take up a position in defence of Parliament's rights vis-à-vis the Council of Ministers.
That is what we expect tomorrow.
If such a statement is not forthcoming, it will have serious consequences for our relations with the Commission, and so, Mr President, your action will no doubt help the President with his statement tomorrow.
Again, let me extend my express thanks to you for the way you have handled this matter politically.
(Applause)
Mr President, as former Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and as it was under my chairmanship that this very issue was debated, I asked if I could be the last to speak on this subject.
I would like to make it quite clear that, from the very outset, the Committee on Legal Affairs considered this matter to be a legal issue of enormous political significance, since it dealt with Parliament' s prerogatives and the inter-institutional balance.
Having said this, from the very beginning, the Committee on Legal Affairs was extremely aware that the priority in this case was not to hinder the entry into force of this directive, which had been under discussion for thirty years and, in fact, the decision made by this Committee specifically requests that, in the event of a decision being taken to refer the matter to the European Court of Justice, the outcome of this would be upheld, even if our decision were overruled.
In saying this, Mr President, I am expressing my respect and understanding for the fact that the decision that has been taken at this time - which appears to reflect the majority opinion in this House - responds to the concerns of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
I would even go further than the comments made by some of my fellow Members.
In this case, if the European Parliament does not refer the matter to the European Court of Justice, it will be showing a greater degree of political responsibility.
Because although it is not giving up the defence of its prerogatives, it understands that there is an immediate greater value in postponing the referral of this matter to the Court.
I believe that the European Council declarations will strengthen our position, and not only the Barcelona Council but also the Intergovernmental Conference, and it is to be hoped that we can put an end to the imbalance in legal bases which has arisen as a result of this situation.
I thank all those colleagues who have made brief contributions to what is, in effect, a mini-debate on the matter, including those colleagues who disagree with the choice that was made.
For as long as I have the privilege to lead the House I will always do my very best as regards my own judgment - and with consultation - to represent our interests and the interests of our citizens.
We talked a great deal in the course of the weeks before we elected a president about making our House more political.
I hope that this act of political faith will say that we bring primacy of politics to what we do for the next stretch.
We will see whether that can create a supportive and creative environment between ourselves and the other institutional players in our work for Europe at the forthcoming convention.
Procedural remarks
Mr President, on a point of order: I would like to request the assistance of my colleagues in Parliament, and indeed of the Commission, following the disaster that struck Dublin in particular last week when it was inundated with serious floods, rendering homeless many frightened people, some elderly.
The scenes in Dublin were more reminiscent of other countries, where there are greater extremes of climate.
When I returned from Parliament I found my neighbours - I shall declare an interest, I live in that part of the city - were bobbing around in boats, carrying their pets.
That is something I never expected to see in my country.
I know some of your constituents, Mr President, suffered the same experience.
I would like to express my admiration for those who responded to the tragedy but also, if possible, to request some help with re-housing many of those who lost their homes in this tragedy.
Mr President, I just want to say how much I appreciate the fact that this matter has been raised. It affects both Mrs Banotti's constituency and my own, and I want to be associated with her remarks.
She lives in that area, which my son represents in the City Council.
I have to say that the response, not only from the government, but also from the people, was heroic.
On this question I will communicate with the relevant Irish authorities and will raise the matter with the European Commission.
Mr President, the President of the United States and other senior officials recently announced that they intend to continue and extend their attacks on other countries on the pretext of combating terrorism or preventing these countries from developing weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Bush talks of an axis of evil between Iran, Iraq and North Korea and has said that he is keeping open all his options for making the USA and its allies safe.
Other senior officials have spoken along the same lines, causing a great deal of concern...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Korakas, on the issue of substance which you raise we have a debate tomorrow afternoon with Mr Solana.
It seems to me that the perfectly intelligent point you wish to make should be made during that debate.
Mr President, I should like to ask the European Parliament to oppose this policy and to put a stop, at long last, to situations which put us in danger of another world war.
Mr President, I would like to draw attention to the seriousness of the situation around Calais following the second refusal by French courts last Friday to close the Sangatte refugee transit centre.
In particular, I want to highlight the damage being done to the British rail freight industry by the policy of the French authorities effectively to close the tunnel to freight trains for 18 hours a day.
Eight thousand British jobs are being put at risk as a result of this state of affairs, including in my own area of the east of England.
Apart from the other very serious implications, the situation makes a mockery of the idea of the free movement of goods across the European Union.
I hope the Commission will institute urgent proceedings against the French authorities in order to rectify this situation.
On Thursday there will be a joint debate which will include a reference to this matter.
Those colleagues who are interested should take note of that debate.
Let me remind colleagues again that, whatever their point of view on this matter, it is on the agenda for Thursday and that is the appropriate place to debate it.
Mr President, the nineteenth Winter Olympics start in Salt Lake City in the USA on Friday 8 February.
As you know, the aim of the Olympic Games is to promote world peace, friendship, understanding, solidarity, dialogue and the peaceful coexistence of nations and cultures through the common endeavour of athletes from all over the world.
This is the spirit in which the Olympic truce, the fundamental principle behind the Olympic Games, was born in the eighth century.
Weapons were laid down and all hostilities ceased while the Games were on.
As the idea of this truce, of global conciliation, echoes ideas and values repeatedly proclaimed in this Chamber, I should like to ask you to write to the President of the Olympic Committee, Mr Rogge, and to the Secretary-General of the UN, Mr Kofi Annan, confirming that the European Parliament supports the idea of a truce and calling on everyone involved in armed conflict to lay down their weapons and use the coming weeks, while the Olympic Games are under way, to resolve their differences peaceably.
We shall communicate that as you request.
Mr President, I should like to know whether you share my concern at the mawkish exhibition held in Parliament's building in Brussels last week entitled "We on death row".
This exhibition set out to glamorise convicted felons who have committed heinous crimes.
Surely our constituents would prefer us to save our sympathy for the victims of these crimes and for the families of the victims who are condemned to a life sentence of grief?
Colleagues may also like to recall that public opinion in a number of Member States is still resolutely supportive of the death penalty.
Can we please avoid such distasteful displays in the future, or at least see that the interests of victims and their families are given due respect?
Mr Helmer, I should like to point out to you that the Treaty of Amsterdam includes among its terms a prohibition on the use of the death penalty.
This applies not only in Member States ...
... but also is a requirement for entry for candidate states.
At the risk of creating further offence to you, I have to admit that I attended the opening of the exhibition and was proud to do so.
Mr President, I should like to ask you to consider writing a letter to the President of Nigeria offering the condolences of the Members of this House on the horrendous explosions that took place in Lagos.
Over 1 000 people were killed and there are now over 4 000 orphans there.
I am sure everyone in this House would wish them to know our feelings.
Mr Corrie, I shall be pleased to do so.
Drug trafficking
Mr President, I shall try to make myself understood, despite the noise.
The present report deals with a Commission proposal with a view to the adoption of a Council framework decision.
It aims to help create an area of freedom, security and justice, as provided for by the Treaties, particularly since Amsterdam, and for which, subsequently too, a programme had been expressly scheduled during summit meetings.
However, the proposal in question is not terribly far-reaching.
More specifically, it is about the common fight against cross-border crime, particularly in terms of making arrangements regarding minimum maximum penalties to be included in the legislation of the Member States.
In fact, the entire document has been written in such a way as to maximise its chances of being adopted by the Council, which means that it merely codifies the lowest common denominator emerging from what is to be included in the legislation of the Member States.
As such, it has, in fact, become a fairly modest document which we in the Committee thought required some more reinforcement in places. The reinforcement should be sufficiently constructive to ensure that the improvements remain within the realms of what is possible.
We have therefore not held an explicit debate on drugs policy.
Neither in the framework decision, nor in the proposal did we want to include a decision on whether certain drugs should be legalised or not, and neither did we want to draw a distinction between certain soft and hard drugs.
These issues are all far too ambitious.
Our goal is, in fact, far more modest.
I therefore hope that, during the vote, we will reject the amendments which do implicitly deal with these issues, so that we can present to the Council a viable proposal which is in line with the opinions that are, democratically speaking, held by the majority of the European population.
We have tried - and we have, in my opinion, reached consensus about this in the Committee - to tighten up the proposal in terms of penalties, for example by not seeking to replace custodial sentences by alternative penalties where serious offenders are concerned.
For them, spending twenty-four hours helping out in an old people' s home does not really constitute a suitable, alternative punitive measure.
Furthermore, we have already suggested that the Commission and the Council should perhaps consider the options of civil law penalties which particularly affect offenders in terms of what is most dear to them, namely their possessions.
Thirdly, we agree that we would prefer not to develop a shadow bureaucracy under the authority of the Council' s Secretary-General.
If the Treaty of Amsterdam already mentions a transfer of elements from the third pillar to the first pillar, this must be implemented, and we should refrain from leaping forward to an entirely different policy by instituting a shadow bureaucracy under the Secretary-General.
Even within the Dutch political spectrum, I am not one of the extremists, but rather a moderate, on this score.
I am therefore of the opinion that this legal approach with regard to penalties etc. forms a kind of tailpiece and is not the most important component of our drugs policy as a whole.
What matters most are the preventive and therapeutic measures, and the policy developed in these sectors.
However, we should not neglect the legal approach because, to a large extent, it has a lot to do with keeping the peace.
This is therefore very much a tailpiece that should have its place.
For the rest, and on behalf of all of us, I believe that Community cooperation should be imposed in a more stringent manner at times, whilst maintaining respect for the national courts' own boundaries, maybe even somewhat more respect than has already been shown in the Commission proposal.
I would now like to turn to the amendments. Following the vote, thirteen amendments have been tabled in the Committee, something which I am not terribly happy about.
Or rather, I would like to advise against nearly all of them.
In Amendment No 37, the idea that we will not focus on the prosecution of addicts is broadened to also include users.
In my view, it is not for the report to comment on this but, rather, up to the Member States to decide on the policy they generally wish to enforce, or resume enforcing, where users are concerned.
In any case, it is clear that our position in terms of not wishing to prosecute addicts is based on our preference for a therapeutic emphasis in our policy.
Furthermore, I have noticed that the words 'large-scale' , 'international' , 'cross-border' and 'organised' appear liberally in these thirteen other amendments.
This is rather forced in my opinion.
They are already used a few times in the text itself, and it seems as if the people who tabled these amendments are, in fact, on a mission to restrict the scope of the proposal.
The text even states that action is to be taken specifically if the trade is from one EU country to another EU country.
Adding the words I have just mentioned seems downright ridiculous. For what arrives directly from Columbia, Surinam and the Dutch Antilles would not fall within the scope of this framework decision.
I would really advise against adopting these amendments in the strongest terms.
Incitement and complicity too are exempted from the scope of this proposal in one of the amendments.
I would say that there are some that are more liberal in their inclinations than the rapporteur.
Since he himself is not one of the strictest people, I would therefore, in fact, like to reject all amendments which I consider to be unduly liberal.
Mr President, since this is the first opportunity I have had to speak since your election, I should like to wish you the greatest happiness in your Presidency of the European Parliament.
I should also like to congratulate Mr Oostlander on the quality of this report, into which he has put a great deal of hard work, and to which the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats gives its unreserved support.
The issue of drugs is a central concern of Europe' s citizens.
For years, the European Parliament has demonstrated its commitment to the fight against drugs.
And today, the European dimension of this fight is clear to see in actions that range from the adoption of legal instruments to combat the manufacture of drugs, the trafficking of drugs and money-laundering to cooperation with producer countries and promoting the prevention of drug addiction and the fight against it, involving treatment, rehabilitation and even the development of information and coordination networks between Member States.
We should bear in mind that, since the end of the 'cold war' , there has been an unprecedented increase in drug trafficking as a source of funding for the activities of criminal and terrorist organisations.
It is currently estimated that drug-related crime and drug trafficking itself could represent approximately eight per cent of world trade.
Putting an end to this trafficking would, therefore, mean shutting down the largest sources of funding for these criminal and terrorist organisations.
This proposal for a framework decision, however, as Mr Oostlander quite rightly pointed out, proposes nothing new and nor does it strengthen the mechanisms for combating international drug trafficking.
The proposal is a necessary step, and we know that it is intended to respond to the needs identified both in the Vienna action plan and in the Tampere conclusions, as well as in the European Union 2000-2004 Drugs Strategy.
This is, indeed, a necessary step, but an inadequate one: it is limited to establishing the lowest common denominator of the national provisions in force in each Member State for offences in the field of drug trafficking.
Consequently the Member States must adopt the necessary measures to ensure that these offences are punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties, including custodial sentences with a maximum term of imprisonment of no less than five years in serious cases.
Now, in my opinion, this is a very low limit, especially given that the legislation in force in the Member States already imposes heavy penalties for drug trafficking, in particular when the scale and the seriousness of the case can be considered to be aggravating circumstances.
For example, in my country, Portugal, this limit is twelve years, and can be increased by one-third.
Lastly, I wish to mention an aspect which is of the greatest importance, and that is the confiscation of all illicit proceeds acquired directly or indirectly from the crime of trafficking or from being a member of a criminal organisation or of a plot to traffic drugs.
I feel that this will satisfy the wishes of many of the organisations that have made a remarkable effort in the fight against drugs, that some of the proceeds obtained through the confiscation of these goods can be put to use in the policy of prevention.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have to admit that I am speaking on behalf of a significant minority within our group.
The drugs situation in Europe is becoming worse and worse.
The fact that our borders are becoming ever more open is basically something to be welcomed, of course, but the downside of this is that smuggling, including drug smuggling, is on the increase.
I am concerned that it looks as if more and more countries are abandoning clear and explicit restrictive attitudes to drug abuse.
Our objective must be nothing other than a drugs-free Europe.
Giving up that objective would be tantamount to leaving thousands of young people in the lurch.
Mr President, I am well aware of Mr Oostlander' s problems in arriving at a balanced view.
In general, I think he has succeeded.
I welcome the more restrictive tone he has adopted here today, but there are wordings I do not agree with.
What is absolutely clear is that the amendments are along completely the wrong lines.
To embrace a permissive attitude towards so-called soft drugs would be devastating.
We know that these are the gateway to heavy drug abuse.
We Swedish Liberals, and a large proportion of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party in general, will vote against all attempts to relax the strict and clear policy on drugs.
We reject Amendments Nos 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35 and 37.
We are able to accept Amendments Nos 32 and 36.
Mr President, the rapporteur asked us a moment ago to refrain from making any references to the legalisation or otherwise of drugs or to whether or not a policy of tolerance is to be adopted, because this is not what is at issue here.
However, I am not so certain.
To me, illegal drug trafficking is simply too broad a term.
Mr Oostlander is opposed to the Dutch practice of tolerance, and that is fine.
I am myself of the opinion that it is only a half-baked compromise.
I would prefer to see soft drugs legalised, which are, after all, less harmful than the alcohol which flows abundantly in this establishment too.
It is not only in the Netherlands that soft drugs are tolerated.
For reasons of public health, this policy is also being replicated in other countries at local, regional and sometimes even national level.
We may be making bold statements now, but matters will prove different in practice.
Let us therefore confine our efforts to a policy which we can implement, which is also a European task according to the principle of subsidiarity and on which there is broad parliamentary and social consensus, namely a policy to tackle lucrative, organised, cross-border drug trafficking.
Mr Oostlander is entitled to thrash out the rest at national level. After all, the elections are in the offing.
Mr President, Mr Oostlander notes with regret that this Commission proposal does not amount to much.
It merely codifies the lowest common denominator to emerge from the legislation in the Member States.
In all honesty, I happen to be pleased with this cautious approach by the Commission.
Criminal law is an area which is strongly influenced by national culture and history.
In my view, restraint is still essential when competences are transferred to European level.
Only where clear-cut, cross-border issues arise can European legislation offer added value.
This opinion seems to be shared by few in Parliament.
Imagine my surprise when, this time, I was overtaken on the right by my fellow MEPs from the socialist and green groups.
With their amendments, they set great store by the concepts of the subsidiarity principle, cultural differences and national legislation, while the issue in question, namely illegal drug trafficking, is clearly a cross-border problem which requires European legislation.
My fellow MEPs want to add the words 'cross-border' and 'organised' to the definition.
To me, these concepts appear to be inherent to drug trafficking and need not be added.
At best, they will complicate implementation of the decision.
Finally, the rapporteur struggled with this simple codification of the lowest common denominator to emerge from Member States' legislation.
Those who tabled the amendments seem to be wrestling with the lowest common denominator itself.
This does demonstrate that the subsidiarity principle is nothing more than an argument that is dusted down for the occasion in order to protect a Dutch drugs policy that is out of step internationally.
I support the proposal which makes a responsible start on combating illegal drug trafficking, a cross-border problem which directly affects the security of European citizens.
In my view, the fact that the Netherlands can get into difficulty because legislation there is not applied as it should be seems to be a result of inconsistent policy. Policy needs to be aligned to European and international legislation, and not the other way round.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on Saturday evening, in Italy, Alessandro Macioci, a young, eighteen-year-old man died.
He committed suicide by inhaling the exhaust fumes of his car, because he had been accused, Mr Oostlander, of drug trafficking after the police found 2.5g of hashish on his person.
These are the facts, Mr Oostlander, this is not something out of a novel.
This is the way in which the police forces of various European Union Member States are interpreting the policy that you are proposing to us to combat serious crime and this is the way that the harmonisation that you are proposing is interpreted.
Against all logic, this harmonisation is interfering in the affairs of the Member States of the European Union; it boils down to absurd policies - in a country such as France, for example - and restrictions for the States which are finally beginning to understand.
I am thinking here of the State to which you belong, namely the Netherlands, where you have not approved the policy, but I now also have in mind Belgium, Portugal and Spain, where Members of the Partido Popular Español are conducting some very worthwhile experiments in Madrid into risk reduction.
This is a policy that we obviously cannot harmonise.
What we must harmonise is always the worst - it is a very libertine approach to law, Mr Oostlander, because you are proposing laws which cannot be applied.
The Liberals and the 'libertarians' want laws that can be applied; but you adopt a libertine approach to the law.
And for 30 years, your policy has, day in, day out, produced laws that have never been applied.
Your policy is also destroying entire countries, such as Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Laos and Burma.
These countries are literally being destroyed by your prohibitionist drugs policy.
I think that, in addition to the many friendly pats on the back that I get from numerous fellow Members, even from the centre right, Mr Oostlander, these Members realise that this prohibitionist policy is a criminal policy that encourages crime; they realise that we must adopt a very different approach.
Even if you try to limit the scope of your report, as you tried to do in your opening remarks, it is going in completely the opposite direction.
The Commission should not be getting involved in this.
The Commission was not capable of saying no to Mr Arlacchi and to his criminal form of management that lasted five years, which consisted of recycled KGB officers and Russian generals who were involved in drug trafficking. We all know this - these are the facts that we read every day in the newspapers.
Let the Commission deal with things that it knows how to deal with!
The Commission should take a look at the UNDCP reports, but should stop bothering us with absolutely absurd proposals such as this.
I think that it is high time that Parliament had the courage to be slightly less hypocritical, and for it to do what our fellow Members Chris Davies and Marco Cappato recently did in Great Britain; as MEPs, we must finally demonstrate the absurdity of these laws.
Mr President, as one of the previous speakers said, the Commission proposal laying down minimum provisions on the constituent elements of criminal acts and penalties in the field of illicit drug trafficking is a tiny, timid step towards resolving the massive problem of the illicit trade in psychotropic substances.
Unfortunately, the main proposal, on penalties, is geared to an upper limit of no less than five years, meaning that judges are free to decide between no penalty at all and several years.
This, of course, does little for harmonisation because almost all national laws allow for severer penalties.
However, I should point out that with the proposed amendments, most of which I trust will be adopted, we have managed to extract some secondary benefit from this decision.
First, they state quite clearly that addicts should be treated as patients rather than criminals and that drug abuse should not be a criminal offence.
Secondly, it is proposed that revenue from property confiscated from drug barons should be used for prevention and therapy programmes. Finally, I hope that future Commission proposals will be more ambitious and will set clear, harmonised minimum rather than maximum limits on penalties for the worst drug traffickers so that we can secure an area of security and justice within the European Union.
Mr President, I, too, should like to congratulate Mr Oostlander on the fact that he has made a number of valuable suggestions to improve the Commission proposal: firstly, strengthening the mechanisms for confiscating the profits of criminals who traffic in drugs.
If we hit these people where it really hurts, namely in their wallets, this will be far more effective than stiff custodial sentences.
Neither should we focus on the prosecution of addicts, but rather pour all our energy into prevention.
This is a sound message which, with limited resources, Europe must take as a guiding principle.
However, this is where our paths diverge.
I am delighted that, following a European trend to adopt a more realistic drugs policy, a majority of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party will be supporting all the amendments aimed at distinguishing between hard drugs and soft drugs and at the non-prosecution of users, as well as the amendments which will restrict this proposal to cross-border, criminal drug trafficking.
Let us concentrate our limited resources on the big criminals rather than the small users.
I, for my part, should like to warn fellow MEPs from the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats against engaging in token politics when they talk of dangerous signals which Parliament would in this way be sending out.
In the final analysis, we do not yet have any say in this area.
My group also places question marks alongside two specific Commission proposals.
It would be unwise not simply to limit the minimum maximum penalty of five years to certain crimes but to arrange for it to be applied to all drugs-related crimes.
We will accordingly be backing the amendment for a restriction.
Finally, in our view, the arrangement through which informers would receive a penalty reduction in exchange for information about drugs gangs is going too far.
This is a very sensitive matter in which different Member States uphold different traditions.
To make an arrangement in this way, so suddenly, would be taking things too far in our view.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Oostlander, on the excellent report that he has tabled, and state that this framework decision submitted by the Commission is part of a global strategy to combat drugs based on a balanced approach of measures to reduce supply and demand and to act against illicit trafficking.
This proposal is not the entire European policy on drugs: this proposal deals with only one specific component, which is the fight against drug trafficking.
But our approach to the issue of drugs in the European Union is part of the Action Plan for 2000-2004, which will be assessed at its halfway point, some time this year.
In Laeken, the Heads of State and Government asked us to approve the framework decision on the harmonisation of penalties at European level for drug trafficking by the end of May of this year.
That is the sole purpose of this proposal.
The Commission is of the view that, in the fight against drug trafficking, there must be close cooperation between the various judicial, police and customs authorities of the Member States to deal with the challenge of transnational drug trafficking.
If such cooperation is going to be effective, it must be underpinned by a common approach at Union level, specifically in the approximation of definitions of the charges and penalties that apply to trafficking, which must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.
We welcome the objectives set out in Mr Oostlander' s report.
Measures to clamp down on traffickers must clearly be supplemented and backed with a policy of prevention and the social rehabilitation of drug addicts.
The instrument that is envisaged is only intended to cover the penal aspects of the drugs phenomenon.
The Commission worked on this criminal law initiative, you might say, in full awareness of the facts, for we had carried out major preparatory work, in particular studying the definitions in each Member State, the penalties that can be applied under the law and - of no less importance - the specific ways in which penalties for drug trafficking are applied in each of the 15 Member States.
This study, which was made public, consequently enabled us to make a comparative analysis of the legislation of all the Member States in the field of drug trafficking.
Hence the first important point to make is that our objective is to harmonise penalties for drug trafficking.
This proposal should not be considered to be limited to transnational or cross-border trafficking because the two issues amount to the same thing: in most drugs cases, the trafficking starts outside Europe and is, therefore, always transnational.
I therefore fail to see how we can envisage punishing cross-border trafficking more severely than the serious trafficking we are seeing within every Member State. The States cannot have two penal codes, one to be applied to drug trafficking that takes place exclusively within their borders and another for drug trafficking that has a cross-border dimension.
Let us move on to the second issue: the definition of drug trafficking.
The Commission has already been criticised for lacking ambition where this matter is concerned.
What have we done wrong? We have limited ourselves to taking up the key elements of the United Nations' 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic and Psychotropic Substances, and we have combined this definition with national provisions on the definition of offences related to drug trafficking.
We have, therefore, simply attempted to produce a synthesis of definitions of drug trafficking.
However, here - and this is my third important observation - we have respected the principle of subsidiarity.
This is why the individual consumption of drugs is not included in this definition and nor is the not-for-profit sale of drugs for personal consumption.
These are left to the exclusive jurisdiction of each Member State, because, as this debate has demonstrated, in this field the solutions put forward by the fifteen Member States differ widely.
The Commission' s proposal will not, therefore, change these differences in national legislation in the areas in which drug trafficking for the purposes of personal consumption is considered not to incur punishment.
But when the trafficking is of such a scale and seriousness that it has to incur penalties, the Commission proposes that these should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.
The minimum penalty of a maximum sentence of five years is a sanction which provides not only considerable room for manoeuvre for judges to apply the law according to the circumstances of each case of trafficking, but it is also a proposal that seeks to convey an idea of the harshness with which we wish to punish the cases of drug trafficking to which this penalty applies.
I know that in some countries - and Mr Coelho mentioned the case of Portugal - the minimum penalty of the maximum sentence is heavier than this.
I must say that in other countries, the penalty is lighter, and we feel that this sentence of five years represents a minimum standard for harmonisation, giving, of course, each Member State the option of establishing other, harsher standards in its legislation for the minimum maximum penalty than can be applied.
However, this is an issue that is being discussed at Council level.
I feel, therefore, that this proposal, which I hope Parliament will approve, is an initial step in a fight in which all Member States participate against drug trafficking, which threatens the health, the security and the quality of life of our citizens, and which, as Mr Oostlander has pointed out, is one of the sources of funding for countless other criminal activities, including terrorism itself.
In this context, I hope that Parliament will support the report and will enable the Council to adopt this framework decision by the end of May this year.
Third-country nationals
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
Report (A5-0436/2001) by Baroness Ludford on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(2001) 127 - C5-0250/2001 - 2001/0074(CNS)) concerning the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents;
Report (A5-0455/2001) by Mrs Kessler on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(2001) 388 - C5-0350/2001 - 2001/0155(CNS)) on the conditions in which third-country nationals shall have the freedom to travel in the territory of the Member States for periods not exceeding three months, introducing a specific travel authorisation and determining the conditions of entry and movement for periods not exceeding six months.
Mr President, this proposal implements one of the most important commitments of the October 1999 Tampere Summit on justice and home affairs.
This called for the legal status of long-term legally resident third-country nationals to be approximated to that of Member State nationals, so that they have a set of uniform rights as near as possible to those enjoyed by EU citizens.
Thus its objective is that immigrants or refugees who have been legally resident for at least five years should be given EU long-term residence status.
This proposal self-evidently does not cover people who are illegally present in the European Union.
Nor does it apply to persons who are temporarily resident, such as students or those granted temporary protection.
In view of the hesitations in some quarters, not least in some parts of the Council, it is important to stress that the EU is merely drawing out the logic of Member States having given some immigrants a legal right to stay long term.
It is only adding an EU dimension.
This EU dimension consists of social and legal justice inspired by the fundamental provisions of the EU Treaties, and hard-headed self-interest for the European economy and society.
There are estimated to be up to 20 million people living legally in the European Union who have not taken, or who have not been permitted to take, citizenship of the Member State in which they live.
One thinks of Turkish citizens in Germany, North Africans in France as two major communities.
But there are eligible communities of a myriad of nationalities in all Member States.
In my own, the United Kingdom, the Economist last week estimated that half of the 2 million Muslims living there are foreign nationals.
Most of these would have been Commonwealth immigrants arriving in the 1950s and 1960s.
I will return to the UK position later.
My wish to be rapporteur for this report stems partly from my commitment to combating racism.
The fair treatment and active integration of third-country nationals, accompanied by measures to prevent discrimination, will assist in the fight against racism and xenophobia.
This becomes all the time more, not less, important.
It is strongly in the social and economic interests of the EU to integrate such people, and hypocritical, in the light of other EU policies, for us not to do so.
There is great concern about the alienation of some immigrant communities and their social and economic disadvantage.
There are also worrying reports of increased incidents of racially motivated harassment and hostility, especially since 11 September.
The best means to counter all these factors is to ensure that the immense contribution of immigrants is facilitated, recognised and insisted upon.
Rights equal to those of EU citizens in areas such as employment, education and social protection will enhance their economic contribution.
Other measures would in addition enhance social integration.
I draw attention to Amendments Nos 33 to 35, which I authored, on equal access to legal proceedings, participation in local life and voting rights, but I should immediately state that the new ELDR Amendment No 56 is intended to replace Amendment No 34, in order to clarify that it means participation in local community life, for instance in neighbourhood forums, and that Amendment No 35 is only aspirational in encouraging Member States to give local and European voting rights.
The Green Group has re-tabled several of my original amendments that got voted down in committee.
To be consistent, the ELDR will vote for them.
Let me come to the delicate task of trying to get a balance in the vote on amendments so that all parts of this House can support this report.
I should like to appeal to the Right to accept that a reasonable outcome would consist in taking some of their points, but not all of them.
Thus a reference to the Council anti-terrorism measures in assessing threats to security is acceptable, but some of those go too far.
In practical terms Amendment No 82 is acceptable, but not Amendment No 9.
While it is acceptable to mention acquisition of knowledge of the host language as being fundamental to social integration, it goes too far to insist that this is a criterion for granting of EC residence status.
I appeal to the Left not to let objections on points of detail obscure the big picture, so that we fulfil Parliament's long-held commitment to legal rights for third-country nationals.
It is regrettable that the UK is opting out of this measure.
Not only will this be socially unjust to UK residents, but it will also make the UK less attractive to talented professionals, a point made by business interests.
I urge Parliament to rally to a consensus on this balanced and reasonable proposal.
I also urge the Spanish Presidency to reach agreement in the Council as a demonstration of the seriousness of its commitment to social integration, and also to labour mobility, as will be called for again in the Barcelona Summit.
We have 20 million residents who, by definition, are mobile.
It would be hypocritical of us to deny them the right to move around the European Union.
Mr President, common regulation of the conditions under which third-country nationals shall have the freedom to travel in the territory of the Member States, is much to be welcomed.
During the Committee's deliberations, the fragmentary attempts at regulation, based on French and Portuguese initiatives, were repeatedly subjected to criticism.
There was a demand for a more global approach to mobility in the Schengen area, a demand which has been met by this Commission proposal for a directive.
On the one hand, the conditions under which third-country nationals have the freedom to travel for a maximum of three months are to be regulated and harmonised, thus complying with the obligation laid on the Council by the Treaty of Amsterdam to lay down these conditions within five years of the Treaty entering into force.
On the other hand, a quite new instrument - that of the specific travel authorisation - is to be introduced, permitting the extension of freedom to travel to six months under certain special conditions.
Let me say at the outset that I do not understand why a directive was chosen in preference to a regulation as the legal instrument in this instance.
The text is framed in sufficiently definite terms.
Since a directive needs to be transposed at national level, the application of the instrument is delayed for an unspecified period of time.
This instrument, moreover, replaces, among others, Regulation 1091/2001, which has already entered into force.
This, then, is another reason why a regulation would be the more appropriate legal instrument.
There has been no essential change to the freedom to travel enjoyed by third-country nationals who are not required to have a visa and by holders of a longer-term residence permit.
There is, though, a new regulation for those holders of the national visa issued by the Member States for longer-term residence who are not yet in possession of the residence permit.
Contrary to the Commission's proposal, such third-country nationals should, in my judgment, continue to be permitted to travel on Member States' territory even before they apply for the residence permit.
It would represent a retrograde step back to the legal situation under the Schengen Convention if freedom to travel were to be granted only once that application were made, and would be comprehensible to none of the parties affected.
Moreover, there is no evident reason why this category of persons should be treated differently to, and worse than, other third-country nationals covered by the directive when it comes to the date on which their freedom to travel begins.
Third-country nationals travelling with a national visa would, in any case, then have to fulfil the same conditions as those travelling with a standard Schengen visa.
This is a result of putting the visas on an equal footing as regards unrestricted travel.
It means that the consultation procedures between the Member States on the confidential lists 5A and 5B in the Consular Instructions must also apply to national visas.
Those Member States with reservations about nationals of certain third countries would otherwise have no possibility of taking cognisance of them and monitoring them if national visas were issued by other Member States, resulting in a security loophole that the events of 11 September have made quite unacceptable.
Although there was lively discussion on this point in Committee, an overwhelming majority of its members supported my proposal.
This result confirms the Committee's strength, which lies in its ability to reach, in response to changed conditions, a new decision on a matter on which there has already been a vote.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
(ES) Mr President, I would like once again to congratulate the Commission on having presented us with a raft of proposals intended to facilitate the adaptation of the European Union to the realities of the new European society.
Europe, once a continent of emigrants, has now become a continent of immigrants. The proposals put forward by the Commission aim to facilitate the integration of these immigrant populations into our respective societies.
In the debate that took place in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on this issue, several amendments were tabled: some were serious, others less so.
In the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the committee responsible, Baroness Ludford made a sterling effort to attempt to refine and perfect the legal concepts, but I am left with the impression that, just because of the odd majority, the text of the directive would be ruined if we were to adopt most of the amendments approved by this Committee.
Baroness Ludford, herself, has tabled some proposals in this regard, which appear to us to be correct, and I believe that, in short, the most important thing that this House could do now is to try to steer the text of the Commission proposal back to a form more along those lines.
In short, this means achieving the highest degree of equality and comparable conditions between long-term residents from third countries and Community citizens, whilst respecting, naturally, national laws and their constitutional principles, without establishing artificial requirements that would hinder the integration of these people who have already been living in our countries for a long time.
To sum up, I believe that what we can hope to achieve as a result of the final proposals presented to us by Baroness Ludford and the debate that took place in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs is that, as far as possible, the House should change the text back to the original Commission proposal and reject many of the amendments that have been adopted, as I have already said, by a chance majority in the Committee on Citizens' Rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank not only the Commission and you, Commissioner Vitorino, for the even-handed presentation on long-term residence by third-country nationals, but also Baroness Ludford, the rapporteur, for the close cooperation.
What is important to me is the amendments to this directive making it possible for the Member States to carry out security checks.
Not only the host country, but the whole European Union, benefits from this, as Schengen makes it possible to cross the internal frontiers at any time, and so the other Member States must be able to rely on the first host country to receive third-country nationals in a responsible manner.
Checks of this kind take account of the security needs of the host population, and also the needs of the third-country nationals living in our Member States.
They are, on the one hand, protected against acts of terrorism, whilst, on the other hand, the state in question is making it clear that the third-country nationals living among us do not represent any danger to internal security.
By this means we can give a clear rebuff to those forces that are endeavouring to make xenophobic capital out of acts of terrorism.
Something that is also important is the possibility of making integration a criterion for the grant of a residence permit.
As a rule, third-country nationals with long-term rights of abode want to be naturalised, to become part of society, and to be able to make themselves understood.
For communication leads to understanding, and those who understand each other grow closer together.
We must, then, put down markers.
We must require language learning and promote it, for deficient knowledge of the language means a lack of communication and virtually inevitable exclusion from many areas of life.
If our immigrants are not to remain set apart from society, we must promote language learning, or else the new citizen is on a foreordained path to low-paid work.
To require it is primarily to give an opportunity and not to set up an obstacle; no doubt we all agree that we want to give a fair chance to the people who come to make their home among us.
Mr President, at the Tampere Summit, the European Council declared that the legal status of third-country nationals should be approximated to that of Member State nationals so that they have a uniform set of rights as close as possible to those enjoyed by EU citizens.
The Commission' s proposal set out, in a very clear and balanced fashion, the conditions that must be fulfilled in order to acquire long-term resident status.
This is a balanced proposal.
The criteria are, amongst others, the length of legal residence and adequate resources.
Furthermore, the individual must not constitute a threat to public order or domestic security.
I must say, however, that some amendments cause me great concern as they run counter to the Tampere objectives.
Article 7 of the Commission' s proposal on the threat to public order is clear and I think it is worrying and counter-productive to draw a parallel between immigration and terrorism.
On the other hand, we share the view that the level of language knowledge assists in an individual' s integration but it should not, under any circumstances, be considered a condition for obtaining resident status. Why is this?
Well, quite simply because it is not an objective and precise criterion. There is no cause and effect link between a specific level of language knowledge - what level do we mean? - and integration itself.
I myself know people who have been living in my country for ten years, and everyone says that they are perfectly integrated, despite the fact that they still have some difficulties with French.
Lastly, I think it is unfair to introduce the requirement for suitable housing as an additional condition to avoid granting status to third-country nationals legally residing in the European Union.
Many nationals do not have suitable housing, unfortunately, and they are not second class citizens because of this.
Everyone would like to have suitable housing.
It is fundamental that we create a welcoming society and acknowledge that integration is a two-way process requiring adaptation by the immigrant as well as the host society.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is certainly odd that, in 2002, we have specially to state that those who reside long-term in our Member States without being EU citizens are to be treated on something like the same terms as those of us who have happened to become EU citizens through birth.
I find it strange that this has to be stated as something out of the ordinary.
It stands to reason that it should be completely obvious.
I believe that our fellow MEP, Baroness Ludford has carried out a very good piece of work.
It is a balanced approach.
When she points out that, by means of more common rules, we shall also prevent racism and xenophobia, I believe that she is touching upon something very important.
We do not want citizens to be divided into an A team and a B team.
This is a momentous issue for Europe.
A Europe which, as we always say, is based upon humanistic values concerning the equal worth of human beings must stand up for those values.
In that respect, I believe this to be a major and important step forward in Europe.
Mr President, I should like to thank both rapporteurs, and I welcome these initiatives.
I also echo Baroness Ludford's comments on the British government's lack of enthusiasm.
It is a pity that her more progressive ideas narrowly missed endorsement in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and we now have before us a more begrudging approach to long-term residents from third countries, with an overemphasis on terrorism, language acquisition and sufficient resources, especially in the area of pensions.
Again, I agree with Baroness Ludford's comments on the first two of those.
The Commission's proposals were certainly better than what is now proposed in those areas.
This says to me that the image of third-country nationals in the minds of some in this House represents only a very narrow part of the reality - in terms of a specific geography perhaps, a social class or political views.
This image certainly does not include the overwhelming majority of third-country nationals, who contribute enormously to the economy and society of the European Union and have proved this over a number of years. Why else would so many of our governments be increasingly seeking to recruit from third countries at all skill levels if this were not the case?
Why should such people choose to come here and settle for a number of years if they are to be seen as suspect or second-class, here on sufferance only and viewed as another dimension of a disposable society? As others have said, we should be looking at equal rights for people who make such contributions to our societies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am now speaking on the Ludford report, the primary purpose of which is to create better conditions for people legally resident here, over a long period of time, through according them more rights.
That, for a start, is the right approach.
The problem, though, is that the third-country nationals within the EU constitute a sort of third class of citizens, ranking below the citizens of the country they live in and then after the citizens of the other EU countries, who are in second place.
The report enshrines this distinction in law and thus justifies the fact that discrimination will never be permanently absent.
For those who really want to ensure equal rights for all, must also assimilate these differences.
There is, though, a second point which I see as even more important, and, again, it is about enhancing the rights of long-term residents in the EU.
Only a specific element among them is addressed here, namely those with legal resident status.
It thus excludes all those living here illegally.
One could say, 'OK, the illegals just do not feature in the report and so we are not going to say anything about them today' , but that is precisely the problem: we are always dealing exclusively with people with legal resident status, and almost all the other projected legislation - even own-initiative reports - has seen the failure, over and over again, of amendments intended precisely to enhance the rights of the illegals.
The inevitable conclusion is that the illegals are simply the logical consequence of the 'fortress EU' policy, and that is why I entertain no high hopes of major changes on this point from within Parliament, the Commission or the Council in the immediate future.
Let us then be honest enough to say that we are interested only in those who have the great good fortune to be able to enter the EU at all - under very degrading conditions and often illegally - who then play the joker and get asylum from whatever EU country it happens to be, or who simply happen to be people the capitalist system can make use of.
There is to be no improvement in the law for all the people who fall through this particular grating.
In my view, both these proposals contain a series of regulations which, on their own terms, are reasonable and humane.
Baroness Ludford' s report, in particular, tries to comply with congenial demands for fair treatment and active integration. It would be a poor do if it did not.
I have a couple of comments, however.
We are now ensconced in Fortress Europe, and the political attitude that dominates the area in which EU legislation prevails is defined by conditions of access that are so strict as almost to make the proverbial eye of the needle look like an open barn door.
Secondly, I have to state that the proposals before us show my own country' s government up in a disgraceful light.
As newly appointed minister for 'Integration and Deportation' , our former fellow MEP Mr Haarder, a Liberal, has been pursuing a policy that must cause former colleagues in his political group to wonder.
The rules now being negotiated are significantly less xenophobic than Mr Haarder' s proposals.
Thirdly, the fact that the Danish people have acquired a xenophobic government that is further to the right than the EU rules are does not cause the People' s Movement, which I represent, to change its view of Schengen and Title IV of the Treaty on European Union from which Denmark, as is well known, is exempt.
This technique of integration, used in certain quarters of the EU system, presents a deadly danger to democracy.
It is not the EU that should get rid of a government for us.
It is not the EU that should implement a humane foreign policy. It is the Danes themselves - we, the people.
Mr President, we believe that the two draft directives presented by the Commission on the conditions of residence and movement of third-country nationals within the European Union are, to put it mildly, lagging far behind our current requirements.
These conditions arise from a state of mind that we thought had become obsolete following the attacks of 11 September and which sought, in particular, to put unrestricted openness and movement before the security of our fellow citizens.
Unfortunately, we must point out that this dangerous state of mind is still very much alive.
As far as the conditions of movement of third-country nationals are concerned, for example, the draft directive abolishes the current obligation to declare themselves, under Article 22 of the Schengen Convention, when they move between EU countries.
Each Member State retains the option of maintaining this obligation, but in a watered down form and with a longer time limit for the declaration.
In our opinion, this is exactly the opposite of what should have been done.
We should have examined how to make this declaration of presence more operational and more effective.
Everyone here is aware that following 11 September, Europe has been accused of being too easy for terrorists to use as a base, because its internal borders are too porous.
Yet, we are quite obviously considering a proposal that would increase this porosity.
Similarly, we are opposed to introducing a specific six-month travel authorisation which is not provided for under the Treaty and which would distort its spirit, as the Treaty' s common visa policy only relates to visas valid for less than three months.
Lastly, with regard to the second draft directive relating to third-country nationals who are long-term residents, we believe that the Community has no jurisdiction to introduce, even by unanimity, a common status comprising uniform principles.
Article 63 of the TEU specifies only that the Council can take 'measures' relating to immigration policy in the area of entry and residence conditions, but that it cannot and must not be a question of a full status which would impose a centralised, uniform and rigid solution for all Member States.
In particular, we do not believe it is appropriate to grant third-country nationals who benefit from this so-called status rights that remove differences between them and national citizens and grant them a virtually automatic right of stay in the other Member States.
Those of our fellow Members who believe that we are here, first and foremost, to protect the interests of our respective peoples will vote against these two draft directives.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can only welcome the Commission' s initiative on the freedom of circulation of third-country nationals within the Schengen area, since this is something that I, myself, specifically wanted when we discussed the two previous reports.
In fact, the instrument proposed certainly meets the requirements for a more global and integrated approach, which is what we had asked for.
Congratulations, then, to the Commission for its initiative.
Let me now turn to Mrs Kessler' s report, and say that, overall, my group supports its direction and its amendments.
Like Mrs Kessler, we also believe that the regulation is, as it stands, a more adequate legal instrument than the directive.
We agree with the clarifications that she has made regarding the definition of the length of time that the travel authorisation is valid.
There is, however, one point in Mrs Kessler' s report which surprised me, speaking from a personal point of view, namely, the virtually unrelenting effort she has made to combat the Commission' s proposal, under which the holders of a long-stay visa who do not yet possess a permanent residence permit can only move around freely if they have submitted an official application for a residence permit in the Member State that issued their visa.
In her report, Mrs Kessler writes - and I quote - 'There are no obvious grounds - what a lovely way of putting it, Mrs Kessler! - why the rules on the point at which the period of freedom to travel begins for these particular third-country nationals should be any different from those concerning the other third-country nationals covered by the same legislation.'
You have written 'there are no grounds for this' in your report!
Well, in fact, Mrs Kessler, there are grounds for this. What the Commission is proposing in this case is exactly what the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs voted for unanimously and what this entire House approved when it voted in favour of my report on the French initiative.
The truth, Mrs Kessler, is that we are in line with the Council' s position that Parliament rejected whilst approving the report that I have just mentioned.
There are therefore grounds for this, Mrs Kessler, both institutions share the same view, how on earth can you not recognise that?
Mr President, I would like to refer to Baroness Ludford' s report.
Before we deal with other aspects of immigration policy, a common status is needed for third-country nationals who are long-term residents in strict compliance with the Tampere Agreements, the aim of which was to give these third-country nationals a set of uniform rights comparable with those enjoyed by EU citizens.
We need to resolve situations such as those that, in theory, hinder the free movement of third-country nationals within the EU today.
For this reason my group hopes that this House will send a strong message, directed mainly at the Council, supporting the European Commission proposal.
In this regard, I would personally like to thank Baroness Ludford for her work.
We cannot accept some of the amendments that have been adopted in Committee or that have been submitted once again to this House.
As Mrs Roure mentioned, we cannot allow subjective issues to obstruct the authority to grant this long-term resident status and, even less so, dangerous propaganda exercises that draw parallels, not between border controls and terrorism, as used to be said, but between long-term residents and terrorists, or, at the very least, terrorism.
Once again we are going to defend the right for third-country nationals who are long-term residents to vote in local and European elections.
I can only hope that, despite the numerous empty places on the Council benches, this message will leave Parliament and be heard.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in actual fact, we are discussing two subjects which are quite distinct although closely connected.
Indeed, a joint debate on immigration is taking place on two fronts: the first concerns the recognition of the status of long-term legally resident third-country nationals; the second concerns the regulation of the stay in a Member State and the freedom to travel for fixed periods and for specific reasons.
Certainly, the first proposal would appear to be more important in that it seeks to establish the conditions under which citizens of third countries who are long-term residents in a Member State, within the meaning of the directive, can also travel to a different Member State of the Union from that in which they have been granted residence.
The debate on the directive within the Council is encountering obvious difficulties because the matter is so broad and sensitive.
Many States are still striving to define a clear position on the various provisions of the directive, taking into account the different situations and dispositions too.
Moreover, the extent to which States are affected varies as well: for example, in certain geographical areas, such as Italy, the problem of immigration is clearly more acute, and it is more severe and more urgent than in others.
It must be pointed out once again that there are other factors related to the main issue, including, for example, family reunion projects and other asylum projects, not to mention the complex issue of refugees.
In general, we would advocate the approach of those governments which are attempting to establish a direct link - a dialogue, we might say - between the directive and national legislation.
This is what we are doing in Italy: striving, as I said, to move ahead with this proposal.
However, once we have laid down certain minimum criteria, it is still necessary to leave each Member State to decide how best to implement its own legislation.
Mr President, I should like to say a few words on the Ludford report on the rights of long-term residents.
My apologies for missing the first few minutes of this debate but, amongst a number of problems today, I was held up in the passport queue at the airport.
Ahead of me were two UK passport holders but, being of Asian origin, they were being subjected to what I consider to be quite unacceptable levels of interrogation.
Colleagues around the House will know that is all too typical at customs points all around Europe.
My apologies also to Baroness Ludford.
Mr Medina said earlier that some of the amendments that went through committee weakened the Commission's original proposal.
It was due, in part, to the lack of numbers on my own side that these amendments went through in committee, so I apologise for that.
We should strive as far as possible to give all long-term residents the same rights as EU citizens.
We should reject the PPE-DE amendments which seek to classify long-term residents as somehow second-class citizens.
As Mrs Roure said, we should encourage people to integrate and I support their efforts to learn languages.
But using an individual's progress in language as a criterion as to whether to grant long-term status is discriminatory.
If the ability to speak your home nation's language properly was generally used as a measure of the right of residency, I can think of a lot of people back home who would not have the right to live there!
Other parts of this report, which state that proof of adequate retirement cover is a prerequisite for third-country nationals obtaining some rights or the same rights, are equally subjective.
We cannot invite people to the European Union only to say "pay your taxes here, but do not expect any social services or social benefits in return".
That is perpetuating a second-class citizen status.
Two hundred years ago our ancestors charged around the world, colonising and abusing distant countries.
We have a right and a duty now to set society straight and to put our own house in order.
We must urge all Member States to educate our own citizens much more fully as to the benefits and positive advantages of having an integrated society.
In a few years there will come a time when new EU Member States will be crying out for third-country nationals to come to help them with their economies and to fill employment vacancies.
We must have things sorted out by then.
Mr President, Commissioner, the report - by which I mean not the draft report, but the report that has emerged from the Committee into the plenary session - shows real evidence of a firm grip on reality.
It takes into account the lessons we have to learn from 11 September, and also the guidelines on immigrant workers that we passed on a very broad basis in plenary session.
I therefore also welcome the conclusion that it comes to, namely the checks before long-term resident status is granted, such as the requirement for legal residence over a period of five years and checks being made as to whether the person in question has sufficient funds available for himself and for the family that can expect him to provide for them, or the requirement that he has a job and has social and retirement insurance.
I also, in view of what happened on 11 September, welcome the introduction of security checks.
We have no need of criminals, or of people who represent a danger to the European Union's public safety and order.
I also appreciate the fact that the Member States will be enabled to introduce checks on other criteria such as language skills, housing accommodation and more along similar lines.
Again, in relation to criminal offences, the increased scope for deportation is also a positive sign.
I welcome these regulations because they are in step with the granting of an ordered sequence of privileges along the lines of: access to employment, education, social security and integration, and this is also to be embraced.
We in the European People's Party declare our support for the controlled acceptance of third-country nationals, so that integration may actually be facilitated and the EU's security and stability may continue to be guaranteed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission I should like to thank the rapporteurs, Baroness Ludford and Mrs Kessler, for the detailed work that they have presented to the European Parliament today.
In our view, the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents in the territory of a Member State is a fundamental aspect of drawing up a common immigration policy.
The status of long-term residents puts admission policies in a long-term perspective, providing third-country nationals who wish to do so the guarantee of being able to reside for a long time in their State of reception.
This status, as the Commission proposes it, would give these people the legal security necessary to be able to integrate successfully into European societies.
The objective that was declared in Tampere and reiterated in Laeken is to guarantee legal immigrants equal treatment and ensure that they have comparable rights and obligations to those of the European Union' s own citizens.
The Commission proposal set the objective of approximating the rights of long-term residents with those of citizens of the Union.
We defined the precise and objective conditions to which the access of third-country nationals to the status of long-term resident is subject. The conditions that we proposed were worded in such a way as to assess whether the third-country national has, in fact, established his or her long-term residence in the Member State in question and whether he or she intends to integrate into that country.
This person must have lived in this Member State for a sufficiently long period (five years) and have proved that he or she has integrated economically by demonstrating an income and sickness insurance.
Furthermore, the person in question must not represent a threat to public order.
The report that you are now discussing also suggests a further condition that will improve the person' s status: a mastery of the language of the country of residence.
The Commission considers that language is a criterion for integration and, therefore, language learning must be at the heart of the new integration policies. The Commission is carrying out a study on these policies, in line with its communication of November 2000, and intends to present an initiative on the subject to Parliament and the Council in 2003.
Hence my willingness to consider the language issue, which is proposed in an amendment tabled by Mrs Klamt, particularly in its objective dimension and, specifically, when the State of reception provides immigrants with proper conditions for learning.
With regard to adding a new requirement for old age pensions or retirement pensions, I do not feel it would be useful to increase the conditions to be fulfilled in order for the status of long-term resident to be granted.
The legislation of most Member States already grants this status automatically, without checking whether the condition of old age pensions has been fulfilled.
This matter must be seen as part of a broader and more complex issue that involves the relationship between migrant workers and social security systems in general.
And, therefore, the Commission is working on extending the benefits of Regulation No 1408/71, on the coordination of social security systems, to third-country nationals.
We also feel that this is the context in which this matter should be addressed.
With regard to some of the proposals for amendments that have been tabled, the Commission takes the view that only when the status of long-term resident is granted will the beneficiary be able to enjoy equal treatment in comparison with the nationals of Member States in practically all areas of socio-economic life.
Nevertheless, we are sensitive to the proposals for amendments that have been tabled to enshrine, even before this status is granted, equal treatment in the field of legal proceedings and access to legal remedy as stated in the amendments tabled by Baroness Ludford, and we shall, therefore, incorporate them into the text.
With regard to participation in political life, the Commission is not stating an opinion, because it takes the view that there is no legal basis in the Treaties for us to address this issue.
Some of the amendments that have been proposed reflect particular concern about the issue of public order, a concern that is totally understandable following the events of 11 September.
I share the opinion that has been expressed here in the course of the debate, according to which we must avoid making the mistake of creating a dangerous link between immigration and terrorism, which would lead to a type of generalised suspicion towards all third-country nationals.
The Commission drafted a working paper on the relationship between safeguarding domestic security and respecting our obligations and international instruments in the field of protection.
In light of this document, we have checked all of the clauses on the protection of public order contained in our proposals.
The aim of this work was to ensure that the Member States were in a position to effectively protect public order in the face of the threat posed by terrorism.
This study led the Commission to review some of its proposals, including this proposal, specifically with regard to two points: we removed the requirement for the threat to be effective before residency status is granted, thereby providing for cases of potential risk as they can already be interpreted in light of the current wording of the Geneva Convention of 1951; we also removed the ban on implementing emergency expulsion measures as long as certain requirements are met.
I would say that these two amendments involve the concerns of guaranteeing domestic security and the fight against the terrorism, and that, for this reason, the amendments proposed should not be considered.
Finally, the innovation and the considerable added value of this proposal lie in the right granted to holders of long-term resident status to move to another Member State.
In this case, integration works already not only at national level, but also at European level.
And those individuals who have resided in a Member State for a certain amount of time will be in an advantageous position in comparison with those who come directly from their country of origin, should they wish to move to another Member State.
I think that this is a very important aspect, and should, therefore, not be ignored.
With regard to the proposal on the free movement and the freedom to travel of third-country nationals, for which Mrs Kessler is rapporteur, I should like, first of all, to point out that the proposal contains important aspects in terms of the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice.
The fact is that the Schengen acquis already contains rules on the movement of third-country nationals.
Nevertheless, the conditions for the exercise of this freedom to travel are not always transparent and are spread out across various instruments.
The Commission shares the European Parliament' s opinion that we must pool together in a single legal instrument all the fragmented elements that define this freedom to travel.
The proposal, therefore, lays down the conditions that enable third-country nationals to move around freely whether or not they are subject to visa requirements, whether they have residency papers or have a long-term visa, whilst they are waiting for residency papers to be issued.
Furthermore, this proposal is also intended to regulate the travel of various categories of people that have a legitimate interest in remaining for a period of between three and six months within the border-free area without their situation being equated with immigration in the true sense of the word.
Examples of these are tourists, investigators, musicians on tour, individuals on family visits, and those undergoing hospitalisation and convalescence.
The introduction of a specific travel permit that allows travel for a maximum period of six months, whilst not spending more than three months in the territory of the same Member State is planned for these categories of people, which complies fully with the letter of the Treaty.
Most of the proposals for amendments featured in Mrs Kessler' s report are designed to explain and clarify the content of our proposal.
With regard to the issue of the legal instrument, the choice proposed is for a regulation rather than a directive.
Where all these proposals are concerned, the Commission supports any solution that ensures a positive response from the Council.
The only point on which we do not agree with the proposal by Mrs Kessler concerns Amendment No 5 on movement within border-free areas with a long-stay visa, which, as Mr Deprez has already emphasised, must be carefully studied.
We ask Parliament not to approve it.
A long-stay visa is a national visa, which will be issued in accordance with national rules and not in accordance with the rules of Chapter 3, Section 1 of the Schengen Implementing Convention.
From this point of view, I think it would be difficult, where the long-stay visa is concerned, to impose the rules that have been planned for short-stay visas, in other words, by prior consultation.
Parliament has already rejected this type of proposal, during the debate on the French initiative on the long-stay visa, and contested the legal basis specifically and the fragmented approach overall.
From this very angle, which Parliament had already approved, the Commission also contested the legal basis and declared that it would, in any event, submit a proposal that will also include holders of a long-stay visa and that it would once again pursue the objective of the French initiative, making it part of a broader framework.
I share the concern underlying Amendment No 5, which envisages the possibility of a third-country national travelling immediately within the border-free area.
This possibility, however, already exists today because a third-country national can always request a uniform visa, the so-called 'C' visa, and move around freely on that basis.
To close, I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs. I hope that the proposals tabled by the Commission receive the across-the-board support of Parliament.
Thank you, Commissioner Vitorino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Relief, rehabilitation and development
The next item is the report (A5-0464/2001) by Mr van den Berg on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on Linking relief, rehabilitation and development - an assessment. (COM(2001) 153 - C5-0395/2001 - 2001/2153(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioners, the European Union is the world' s largest donor in terms of relief.
Thanks to European funding, people who are hit by war or natural disasters in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Somalia and the Balkans are helped to get back on their feet.
However, things too often go wrong when direct relief is discontinued and a switch is made to aid for the reconstruction and development of the affected area.
This problem is referred to in specialist literature as the grey zone.
Allow me to illustrate this with a textbook example. After Hurricane Mitch left a trail of destruction in Central America in 1998, the Union responded quickly with relief.
As from 1999, the Commission subsequently worked on an action programme for reconstruction in Central America, and ECHO was set to leave the area from March 2001 onwards.
The action programme contained some sound elements, such as local participation, coordination with the Member States and other donors, and decentralisation of powers to the delegation in Managua.
In practice, however, the programme moved far too slowly.
Two years after the disaster, only a few projects had been rubberstamped.
This example unfortunately illustrates the rule and not the exception, and this is of course unacceptable, both from a political and humanitarian perspective.
Who would like to explain soon to the people in Afghanistan that we are unable to keep our pledge of aid due to our own inability to respond promptly and with due flexibility following the relief phase? The question arises as to what measures the Commission is taking to prevent the problem of the grey zone from occurring during the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
During the preparation of this report, the Commission and the organisations involved in the field were consulted extensively.
The Commission recognises the problem of the grey zone but, at the same time, its evaluation, which we are discussing today, remains too vague and too theoretical.
That is why a number of specific proposals are being submitted to the Commission in my report, partly on the basis of the conference with the NGOs involved and intensive talks with your official services.
The Commission recognises that inflexible and bureaucratic procedures form one of the key problems.
By way of solution, the Commission would like to draw up appendices to the Country Strategy Papers as a result of which a rapid and flexible reaction in a crisis situation must become possible.
I support this proposal, but only if those appendices are approved within a two-month period.
Can the Commission give an indication as to whether it has already drafted new, simplified, rapid and flexible procedures for the approval and adjustment of the appendices? For otherwise, the proposal for these crisis papers will simply remain a hollow exercise.
In addition, in my capacity as rapporteur, I would refer to the enormous importance of coordination and cooperation, not only between the Commission services but also with the Member States, international donors, local partners and NGOs.
From my talks with the Commission, it transpired that there is a clear need for a flexible instrument for construction and rehabilitation, so that this grey zone can be dealt with.
The existing rehabilitation regulation is too restricted.
Projects in the field of security and good governance, for example, fall outside the scope of the Regulation, and resources are limited.
It is evident that the total amount of, for example, some EUR 50 million for Asia lags far behind the level of need in Afghanistan.
That is why I suggest reviewing the existing rehabilitation regulation, so that, in the post-crisis stage, the real needs of the people in an affected area can be accommodated in a flexible manner.
In order to guarantee sufficient funding, it is important that, as soon as a crisis breaks out, resources are freed up quickly via a trigger mechanism from the existing non-used budget and reserves.
In what way does the Commission want to act upon my plan in terms of concrete proposals? The problem of the grey zone between relief and rehabilitation is well-known.
It is no longer acceptable for people who are directly faced with the effects of war or natural disasters on a daily basis to be left out in the cold due to our inability to react to the local situation in a rapid, flexible and coordinated manner.
Since Europe, being the world' s largest relief donor, plays a fantastic role, we must, as Europe, close this gap by means of sustainable development in crisis areas.
That would truly constitute an enormous contribution to security and stability in conflict regions in Asia, Latin America and Africa.
This might well be a wiser investment than committing substantial sums for defence materiel, such as F16s, at this stage, although I know that the Commission is not concerned with these matters.
As your rapporteur, I will therefore closely follow how the Commission and the Member States tackle this problem in the near future.
I expect a great deal from the pledge made thus far, but I am anxious to know what the Commission' s actual response will be.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Mr Mantovani, who is prevented from being with us today by air traffic problems, I would like to make a few observations on the Commission communication with regard to the difficult concept of the linkage between relief, rehabilitation and development.
I would like to thank Mr van den Berg for his excellent work, on which a broad consensus was achieved at the vote in committee.
First of all, I feel that it is vital to improve complementarity, coherence and the cost-benefit ratio, for these are necessary to bridge the gap between the various stages of international assistance, the famous grey zone, and, more generally, for the effectiveness of the Union' s development and cooperation policy overall.
Indeed, the multilateral financial institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the various UN agencies and the Paris Club need to be more involved in this process.
Moreover, it would seem appropriate to distinguish between internal and external coordination action in order to establish who does what at both European and international level and also at the level of the individual Member States; this would make it easier to plan and therefore make us more effective in implementing rehabilitation and development initiatives.
The contribution of our group, the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, focuses precisely on the need for greater complementarity, particularly as per Amendments Nos 15 and 16 tabled by Mr Mantovani, and for better coordination of the different actions, in order to obtain greater effectiveness and improved results in the action linking and coordinating relief, rehabilitation and development; in particular, there is a call for appropriate coordination and ex post evaluation methods, budgetary control and less bureaucratic interference, to provide a greater guarantee of Union development aid reaching the countries in crisis, and therefore precisely the people who genuinely need it, effectively and without time wasting or needless duplication or overlapping of effort or financial resources invested.
Mr President, like Max van den Berg in his report, we are in favour of the Commission' s communication on the links between the European Union' s actions in emergency situations in the countries of the South and the Community' s development cooperation policy.
In committee, there was some agreement with the communication we are assessing here, but there are also shortcomings which the proposals contained in the resolution we will vote on later are aimed at resolving.
This resolution includes a series of concerns and recommendations aimed at improving, in practice, the European Union' s action in the field under discussion, which we hope will be accepted.
The whole of this debate demonstrates that there is a dialectical relationship between humanitarian aid, which the European Union mobilises in order to deal with emergency situations resulting from all types of disaster, and the aid which is regularly granted with a view to promoting the development of a particular region or country.
That is to say that programmes aimed at rehabilitation or development must include within them elements aimed to preventing conflicts and preventing, where possible, so-called 'natural' disasters and their worst consequences.
Furthermore, actions in cases of emergency must contribute, where possible, to the eventual rehabilitation and development of the region in question.
Today we are recognising that there are considerable dysfunctions within the European Union' s actions in terms of the transition from one area to another.
The majority are due to the distribution between administrative bodies and the distribution of competences as well as deficient coordination between the services which are involved in programming and the implementation of those actions.
Another obstacle is the bureaucratic complexity of many mechanisms employed for this purpose.
What seems more serious to us is that there are countries with which the European Union still has no cooperation agreement, such as Cuba, which prevent us from acting in situations of emergency or prevent humanitarian aid from having the desired continuity in the field of development cooperation.
The Commission is good at carrying out analyses but often lacks the clout to actually implement policy conclusions.
The internal organisation is still too hierarchical, bureaucratic and centralised, and the Member States give the Commission too few resources and too little policy leeway for it to be able to take decisive action.
These structural shortcomings therefore stand in the way of solving the problem of the grey zone.
The transition from relief to reconstruction and development requires flexibility in the decision-making process.
Sluggishness and too much interference can affect the intended results even more adversely than the technical risks, which can be accompanied by speedy procedures.
Needless to say, what we need first of all is the best possible prevention policy with regard to natural disasters and violent conflicts.
Everything possible must be done before a crisis breaks out.
The state of readiness must be at its best, plans must be ready, cooperatives must be arranged and the implementation partners must be identified as far as possible.
Detailed and flexible disaster plans must form part of the Country Strategy Papers.
ECHO must focus on relief, but it seems very desirable that it also employ staff with expertise in the field of reconstruction in order to make the transition smoother.
The monitoring procedure regarding implementation must shift from ex ante to ex post.
Internal coordination can only be effective if a multidisciplinary team is deployed at an early stage.
When can we expect specific Commission proposals for simplified policy procedures? The report by Mr Van den Berg makes excellent suggestions.
The entire donor community is responsible for improvement.
The grey zone problem is an additional reason for speeding up the Commission' s internal reorganisation.
It is high time splendid analyses were translated into still more splendid policy action.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur for his excellent report on linking relief, rehabilitation and development.
It is an enormously important subject, fraught with problems.
There is no doubt at all that there is an increase in disasters worldwide, both man-made, as in Afghanistan, and natural, such as in Goma, DRC.
It needs the full cooperation of all parties to have most effect: the donors, the beneficiaries, implementing parties like governments and NGOs, and bilateral aid.
In Afghanistan we have seen the bombing and destruction that has taken place.
That will mean urgent and instant relief, the rehabilitation of millions of refugees and development aid.
It was horrifying to see in today's paper that a poor family has sold its twelve-year-old daughter into marriage just to get enough food to feed the rest of the family.
This is tragic.
So getting aid to those most in need is absolutely vital and that requires local knowledge and the right kind of aid.
Two weeks ago ECHO informed the Committee on Development and Cooperation that the situation in Goma was totally under control and that everything that was required was there.
That very night we heard NGOs stating on the television that 90,000 were starving and that babies were already dying.
Is this opportunism, accurate evidence or over-reacting?
It is almost impossible to plan for natural disasters.
It is better to have a centralised European depot that can react quickly in an appropriate way.
Linkage is all about cooperation and one body being responsible for decisions.
Workers' rights
Mr President, I want to begin by thanking the two rapporteurs for their work on two important directives.
I shall concentrate on the directive concerning information and consultation rights of employees, but I also want to say something about working time of persons whose occupation is the performance of mobile road-transport activities. It is very important that self-employed people should now be included, even if there is a transitional period, for we are concerned here with protective legislation for those whose job it is to drive lorries.
In work of this kind, there is no difference between being employed and being self-employed.
Just as Mr Schmid says, this is also a road safety issue and, from that point of view, it makes no difference whether the person driving is employed or self-employed.
Where information and consultation are concerned, I agree with Mrs van den Burg who, in her speech, said that the directive was of historic importance.
It is of historic importance.
Three women have been involved. I can add a fourth.
When, in June during the Swedish Presidency, the Council succeeded in reaching a common position, which laid the basis for this directive, a female Swedish minister was also involved.
I think it quite obvious that there should be this type of information and consultation in an internal market, that an internal market is not only about companies' rights but also employees' rights and that the latter must be informed and be able to put forward their views.
Sometimes, people in Sweden can be heard saying, 'What does this really mean for Sweden when we, of course, have much better legislation?' Well now, that is true.
Our legislation is such that this directive does not perhaps affect us at all.
That being said, minimum directives are still important, not only for those countries which do not have such good legislation but also, indirectly, to prevent an internal market with social dumping arising whereby companies are set up whose employees suffer poor conditions. Accordingly, it is important for all the countries that we should increase the minimum levels and have minimum directives that lead to better conditions.
Finally, I again want to thank the rapporteurs for two good directives.
I hope that we can go further and improve information and consultation in the future.
Mr President, I do not share the enthusiasm of my colleagues for the results of this conciliation but I am equally warm in my congratulations to both rapporteurs.
They won and I lost, to my regret and possibly their surprise.
We all know that if the Council had not given in then Parliament itself would have conceded rather than lose either directive.
So Parliament had a weak hand but both rapporteurs played it extremely well.
I congratulate them for their skill.
They were helped by the early climb-down of the UK Government during both conciliation processes.
It was particularly ironic that the UK Minister for Europe should have come to Strasbourg last autumn - to plead with UK MEPs from all parties to vote down the whole Ghilardotti report - to find that not only were Labour MEPs positively promoting the report but the UK representative then bent over backwards to support it as well.
Politics is certainly an odd business.
As colleagues know, I am a fervent supporter of information and consultation but an equally fervent opponent of a one-size-fits-all straitjacket for companies of all shapes and sizes.
This directive, as amended, is more likely, in my view, to be a barrier to employee involvement than a bridge.
Moving to the working time directive: in my view this is bad legislation.
It could have been worse had it limited night-time driving, but I was delighted that the rapporteur finally saw reason and this proposal was removed.
But it is still bad legislation in its provisional extension to include the self-employed. As the Spanish representative said, when joining other countries in registering his country's dissent from the final text, it is the first time that the entrepreneurial sector has been included in any directive.
I will certainly fight to make sure it is the last.
We should want to see more jobs, not less.
This should not and must not be seen as a precedent.
Energy performance of buildings
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Vidal-Quadras, on his excellent work on this important directive.
As he has pointed out, the European Union consumes more and more energy and therefore also imports more and more energy products, because our demand outweighs our capacity for supply by means of our own resources. It is therefore important firstly to diversify our sources of energy, by seeking new energy sources including, of course, renewable energy and furthermore we need to promote and pursue energy efficiency.
I hope that Mr Vidal-Quadras has taken a favourable view of the opinion of the Environment Committee, since I believe that the points which we have highlighted within it contribute to enriching some of the aspects of his excellent proposal.
I believe that a key reference for increasing the Member States' receptiveness to the proposal is that account should be taken of local climatic and special conditions.
Another point on which the Environment Committee has insisted is the homogenisation of building certificates in the different Member States, which would allow for comparisons of the energy efficiency achieved in each building.
We also wanted to define those buildings which are excluded from the application of energy-saving measures and, also, in order that our proposal is not rejected, we have proposed, like Mr Vidal-Quadras, that we accept the Commission' s proposal aimed at reducing the area of the buildings affected.
I am in favour of this approach, Mr Vidal, like my committee, but I also understand your position.
I believe that we will have to wait and see what the final result is and we will have to respect it. The important thing is that the directive should go ahead, Mr Vidal-Quadras.
Announcement by the President
At the Conference of Presidents' meeting on 31 January 2002 it was decided to alter the duration of the adjournment of the session.
I should like to inform you that pursuant to Rule 10(4) a plenary sitting will be held in Brussels on Wednesday, 20 March 2002.
The purpose of that sitting will be to hear the outcome of the Barcelona Summit meeting. It will be addressed by the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Aznar.
EIB Annual Report for 2000
The next item is the report (A5-0392/2001) by Olle Schmidt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the EIB Annual Report for 2000 (C5-0541/2001 - 2001/2218(COS)).
Mr President, Mr Maystadt, I should like to thank you, Mr Maystadt, very much for the kindness and readiness to help which you and your colleagues have shown to me and the committee. It made the work considerably easier.
I also wish to thank my colleagues.
The role of the EIB has been of topical interest in the debate in recent years, and criticisms have been made. These have mainly been targeted at deficiencies when it comes to environmental issues, openness and transparency.
The EIB has understood the criticism, and significant changes have taken place. For this, you, Mr Maystadt, and your colleagues deserve our recognition.
The analysis for the year is in many respects a follow-up to the sterling work carried out a year ago by Mr Lipietz.
A number of the views put forward at that time are being repeated now.
As is well known, the most important issue for the EU is enlargement.
This involves a fundamental change constituting a major challenge both for the candidate countries and the current Member States.
Today, most EIB loans go to different types of regional development project within the EU.
That is certainly fully compatible with Statutes of the EIB, but future enlargement makes it necessary to reconsider this distribution of resources.
There must be an increase in the future Member States' share of the total loans.
Solidarity on the part of the EU must also, of course, extend to include third countries that until now have been recipients of EIB loans. Among these are the Balkan countries, the Mediterranean countries and the ACP countries.
Now it is also Russia' s turn.
There is also a need for discussion concerning which less developed countries the EIB is mandated by the Council to support and concerning whether, for example, the 49 least developed countries are not in fact in greater need than the ACP countries traditionally supported by the EU.
In the information society, economic growth and an improved standard of living are not only the results of constructing new roads and factories, but also of education, innovation, new technology, e-commerce and the development of other knowledge-intensive sectors.
In my view, this has to be reflected to a greater extent in the EIB' s activities.
It is important that the EIB should continue to strengthen its support for small and medium-sized enterprises.
There are clear opportunities for growth in this area.
The EIB needs to become more active in making SMEs more aware of the possibilities that already exist for granting such loans.
From having been a rather closed institution, the EIB has begun to change its attitude to information and transparency.
Contact with democratically elected representatives at local and regional levels is important.
There is a knowledge of the projects at local level.
Contact with non-governmental organisations has improved, and the bank' s web site has also improved.
The EIB has published a list of projects at the assessment stage.
In my opinion, it would be good if all the public documents from the internal evaluation unit were published on the Net.
As matters stand, the EIB is supervised by its Board of Governors, that is to say by the 15 Finance Ministers, but it lacks prudential supervision by a competent authority.
The committee has discussed the possibility of letting the European Central Bank, or ECB, exercise supervision over the EIB because the EC Treaty provides for the Council to give the ECB specific tasks of prudential supervision.
If the Council does not want to give the ECB this remit, the issue should be clarified at the next Intergovernmental Conference, with the objective of establishing proper prudential supervision of the EIB' s activities.
In order to improve the way in which the Bank fulfils its obligation to render accounts, the committee proposes that the external Auditors' Committee forward its findings to the European Parliament, as well as to the EIB' s Board of Governors.
Mention might be made of the fact that the EIB has already shown a willingness to cooperate more closely with OLAF.
The environment is the issue which the NGOs are most interested in.
These issues received much attention in the Lipietz report last year.
I believe that the EIB has become more aware of environmental issues and that the Bank' s support for environmental projects has increased considerably.
Another key factor is the EIB' s environmental assessment capacity.
At present, the EIB has only one person responsible for coordinating environmental issues, while the project teams are composed of engineers and economists who have received additional environmental training.
In my opinion, more staff are required in this area.
More trained environmental experts should be appointed or contracted to review the environmental impact assessments correctly.
There are, therefore, many demands upon the European Investment Bank.
If all of these needs are to be met, it is necessary to increase the capital of the Bank.
In line with what applies to commercial banks able to handle greater risks, the Member States should, for example, consider reviewing the ratio of capital borrowed by the Bank to capital of its own, with the purpose of including the EIB' s reserves.
Mr President, I should like to welcome the Commissioner to the House.
Finally, I want to comment on the amendments that have come in.
I am able to support Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4 and 6 from Mr Lipietz etc.
They do not change the content of the report but highlight the environmental issues and the issues concerning openness and transparency.
I cannot, however, support Amendment No 2, which I find unnecessarily far-reaching.
I am only able to support Amendment No 5 as a supplement to Paragraph 30.
Mr President, I want to begin by thanking the rapporteur, my Swedish colleague Olle Schmidt, for a very good report.
It sheds light upon the important areas of Europe' s future development, which the EIB has a major responsibility for promoting within the framework of its powers.
The report also addresses the demands Parliament should make upon the EIB as Europe' s financing institution.
I therefore want to confine myself to highlighting a few more of those aspects I consider to be most significant.
I am thinking of the candidate countries, the way in which projects are prioritised, small and medium-sized enterprises and supervision of the EIB.
Where the candidate countries are concerned, it is extremely important that there should be a significant increase in their share of the total loans of EUR 36 billion.
In 2000, they had access to EUR 2.9 billion.
In view of the forthcoming enlargement of the European family, there must be an increase if it is to be possible to achieve the objective set at the Lisbon Summit.
When it comes to prioritising projects, it is important to safeguard Europe' s competitiveness and therefore prioritise infrastructure in the broad sense of the word.
That applies, then, to communication not only in the traditional sense of roads, connecting links and the availability of energy-efficient transport systems for goods and people, but also in the sense of telecommunications, IT, e-commerce, education, increased knowledge and support for new technology.
Small and medium-sized enterprises at present account for more than 60 per cent of EU jobs.
In an enlarged EU, they will probably account for a significantly higher percentage.
Of the 18 million companies in the EU, 99% are small and medium-sized enterprises employing 66% of the workforce.
More than 90% of these companies have fewer than ten employees.
If, like many new companies, the existing small and medium-sized enterprises are to be given the opportunity to grow and become larger, or simply become large companies, more must be done in terms of supplying information, contributing to projects and providing access to venture capital.
The rapporteur has proposed that the Commission be called upon to give the ECB powers to exercise supervision over the EIB.
I agree with that.
The Bank has no national connection and cannot therefore be compared with a private commercial bank.
The ECB is therefore a suitable supervisory body until such time as a possible European finance inspectorate is established.
In view of the objective set by the Lisbon Summit, priority must be given to those projects which lead to economic growth, development and increased employment in an enlarged Europe and which attach major importance to small and medium-sized enterprises' opportunities for growth.
Competitiveness and staying power should be the guiding principles here.
Greater demands must be made upon the EIB in terms of providing information and evaluating projects and the importance of proper professional supervision and auditing must be emphasised.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to extend a warm welcome to the President of the European Investment Bank, Mr Maystadt.
In February last year, I expressed the hope of turning the discussion of the annual report in this Parliament into an annual tradition, and this is what we are honouring now.
It has taken a while before the report could be included on the agenda - indeed, it was already completed in November - but it is good to uphold this tradition.
Moreover, I understand that, this coming Thursday, you also intend to present the plans for the future and the 2001 annual report to the press and the Council.
Last year, we met immediately after this presentation, whereas this year, our meeting immediately precedes it, and I hope that you will be able to lift the veil and give us some information about these plans for the future.
Before I deal with the content, I should also like to thank Mr Schmidt for his report and for the sound cooperation during the handling of the amendments tabled by us and other groups.
In my opinion, it has been a productive group effort.
I should now like to turn to a number of points which were also raised in our annual report last year, and note with satisfaction that you have indeed devoted attention to these in your further plans, and that Parliament' s areas of concern indeed recur in the Corporate Operational Plan which you presented this year.
I should like to comment on a few of these areas of concern.
I will skim over other points, because these have already been dealt with by others.
I trust that the environment will be dealt with adequately by the Greens and others.
Needless to say, we support this, as well as the tabled amendments, although, like Mr Schmidt, we are loathe to replace Paragraph 30 which concerns the balance between the environment and other objectives.
In other words, we do want to maintain this balance and only accept the amendment in question as a supplement.
Transparency and evaluations have also already been commented on, and the subject of SMEs has already been raised by Mrs Grönfeldt.
I should, however, like to touch upon the matter of supervision.
Last year, this was the subject of an extensive debate here, and you noticed that we made it very clear this year in the report that it is desirable for the European Central Bank to play a role in this supervision.
You have probably seen the Financial Times of 29 January and ascertained that this is now also very much being considered in ECB circles.
This was evidently raised during a lunch meeting with the Chairman of the FSA, the British financial authority, and I remember that we, too, raised the point during a lunchtime meeting with Mr Duisenberg and his colleagues in the past.
It is my impression that, although the Bank is amenable to the idea, it is quite reticent because it is not equipped for this at the moment.
I would call for a somewhat broader discussion to be held about this financial supervision in this Parliament, but also in the Council and in the Commission, for I have the impression that this topic is being dealt with in different reports in a very fragmented manner.
It is important to sketch the broad outlines in this matter too.
Perhaps we could do this in a more coherent discussion some time in the future.
As far as the EIB is concerned, it is not so much about supervision of the latter' s conduct.
A number of arrangements have been made on this score and this supervision is also being exercised in a number of areas.
It is mainly about the economic supervision of companies.
The advantage of that could be that, by means of the financial resources available within the Bank, and also with the available reserves, more could be done and more risk-bearing action could be taken than is currently the case, provided that sound supervision is in place.
I would now like to turn to another topic which, with a view to the future, will become an important point of discussion, namely that of increasing the Bank' s capital.
I assume that the supervisors, the Ministers for Economic and Financial Affairs, will be talking about this during the forthcoming meeting in June.
You have seen that, in Paragraph 33, we declare our support for such a capital increase.
This matter should be brought to a conclusion from 2003, and should particularly play a role in enlargement.
The point of departure in this is - this is actually a comment I should like to make - that it should add value to EIB loans.
The EIB should not do what is also possible within the market, and I believe that it is important that it act in a transparent manner.
Unfortunately, I am unable to make any of my other comments, but I shall do so in due course.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Maystadt, President of the European Investment Bank.
My colleague, Olle Schmidt, the rapporteur, has already expressed the opinion of the Committee on Economic Affairs on the annual report of the EIB and has presented proposals which, according to our committee, would improve its operation and also meet the need to provide it with greater resources to fulfil its commitments.
I would like to draw your attention to a very specific and topical point.
In Laeken it was agreed that the EIB would carry out a study to create a financial instrument or institution which would guarantee that, in terms of the cooperation between the European Union and the third countries of the Mediterranean, the level of use of resources responds to the effectiveness and possibilities for development cooperation that the situation demands.
We know that in the Mediterranean, in the medium term, very serious conflicts may arise with the European Union itself, and that in order to ensure our own peace and stability in the future it is necessary to strengthen this cooperation and ensure better application of resources which, according to the experience of the first MEDA programme, has only been 30%.
Therefore, this initiative agreed at Laeken, of presenting a proposal or alternatives to increase the level of application, seems to us absolutely essential and urgent.
Also, if this could be consolidated at the next meeting of the Special Council of Barcelona, we believe that it would be even more appropriate, because the whole issue of development cooperation with the Mediterranean was born in 1995 in Barcelona, under the Spanish Presidency.
The current Presidency of the Council has also considered the issue of cooperation with the Mediterranean to be an urgent priority and we decisively support this initiative.
Mr President, as Mr Schmidt also pointed out, the initiative leading to Parliament' s resolution on the European Investment Bank' s annual report was taken by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, with Mr Lipietz as the original rapporteur.
I think it necessary for the European Parliament to express an opinion about the EIB' s activities because the EIB is not only a Bank but also an EU institution that finances large projects and uses Community funds to steer development.
The EIB has been criticised for neglecting environmental issues, as well as the issues of openness and transparency.
Mr Schmidt also mentioned that positive changes to the EIB' s policy have taken place recently in response to the criticism.
I hope that the EIB will continue in the same spirit.
I want to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report that addresses important issues.
It proposes, for example, that loans to the candidate countries should be increased and that evaluations should be made more easily accessible to the general public.
A further proposal is that dialogue between the two sides of industry, politicians and non-governmental organisations etc. should be strengthened as aspects of openness and transparency.
The report could, however, have been more vigorous when it comes to environmental issues.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has tabled six amendments that specifically address environmental issues and matters of transparency.
A prerequisite for expressing our support for an increase in the EIB' s capital should be that the projects lead to sustainable development.
Performance indicators must also be established so that the EIB' s activities can be measured and evaluated properly.
I am delighted that the rapporteur expressed his support for most of our amendments.
In accordance with Mr Schmidt' s wishes, I also accept Amendment No 5 as a supplement to Paragraph 30.
It would, however, be unfortunate if Amendment No 2 were not to be adopted.
If civil society is to be able to keep track of an issue, the documents must obviously be available in the national language.
I call upon MEPs to vote in favour of this amendment.
Mr President, the European Investment Bank may be said to be one of the European Union' s unknown powers that be.
With loans amounting to EUR 36 billion granted in the year 2000 and total capital of EUR 100 billion, it exercises significant influence through its policy.
In spite of its influence, there has been very little discussion of the Bank.
This is the second year that we are discussing the annual report in Parliament.
What is perhaps most remarkable of all, however, is how little all this is discussed by the Bank' s owners, in the Member States and in the parliaments of the various Member States which, I believe, are in many cases quite unaware of the Bank' s activities.
This situation may be compared with that in relation to the World Bank, which has been exposed to extensive examination and debate, or with that regarding the European Development Bank which has also been examined in a different way to the European Investment Bank.
A good deal of criticism has been directed against the EIB' s activities and in two areas in particular. First of all, the EIB has been criticised for having supported a series of projects that have increased environmental problems, as well as for shortcomings in terms of environmental impact assessments.
Secondly, the EIB has been criticised for a lack of openness and of willingness to engage in dialogue with, for example, environmental movements in different countries.
I think that this criticism has been justified.
Comparisons show, for example, that the World Bank is in actual fact significantly better than the European Investment Bank at providing environmental impact assessments and at publicising these.
It is rare for the Left to have occasion to praise the World Bank, but it does in this case.
For some years now, the European Investment Bank has shown a new attitude to greater openness, which is very welcome.
What is important, however, is that this new positive attitude also be followed up by practical measures.
Mr Schmidt' s report addresses certain demands for measures with which I agree, referring, for example, to the need for more resources, including more staff working on environmental issues and the question of greater openness. There is a need to go further, however.
I believe, for example, that it is reasonable to demand that, if environmental impact assessments are carried out, they should always be published before decisions are taken.
The EU' s demand for environmental impact assessments must also be fulfilled when loans are granted to projects outside the European Union, and these assessments must be available in translation in the national languages of the countries to which the loans are granted.
The European Investment Bank should also comply with the Århus Convention, entailing an obligation of great openness towards the environmental movement.
This should mean a big improvement.
The EIB should also have a more evolved policy when it comes to development issues, for example, development in the Developing World as the Bank' s activities there increase.
The Gothenburg Summit gave the EIB the task of supporting sustainable development and concentrating on climate issues.
This should have far-reaching consequences for the type of transport and energy projects that can be supported.
It should imply, hopefully in practice too, a change of focus for the Bank.
I believe that increasing the Bank' s capital must be conditional upon reforms being carried out.
Only if the Bank is obliged to implement such reforms should it be agreed to increase the capital.
I am opposed to the idea of allowing the European Central Bank to act as a supervisory authority.
The European Central Bank is a genuinely undemocratic institution which should not be given tasks of this kind.
Mr President, it is right and proper that we should keep on highlighting the significance of SMEs for the European economy.
SMEs ensure growth and employment in Europe.
It is therefore right, and indeed important in terms of Europe's development, that the EIB should step up its support for SMEs or carry on with it.
Half of the total lent, about EUR 5.7 billion, was used for that purpose in 2000.
This amount should be increased or its continued availability ensured.
We must not stop the support measures.
It is also important that more risk capital should be made available to these enterprises, and this is something which I personally strongly support.
It goes without saying that the points of criticism made in the report must be taken seriously.
It is not acceptable for the EIB's own home page to list its activities in only two or three languages.
By so doing, the EIB is limiting its own significance.
Mr President, Mr Maystadt, the Lisbon Process cannot be imagined without the European Investment Bank.
Support for SMEs and for entrepreneurship as sources of employment is becoming more important, as external finance other than through banks is becoming more expensive and bank finance for small and medium-sized enterprises is becoming more and more problematic.
When we consider what the European Investment Bank has achieved since 1968, in terms both of funds and of initial support for projects, I consider the outcome to be an impressive one.
I must say that the integration of the EIF and the EIB under one roof, which was pushed through by the Lisbon Process, has resulted in an optimisation of the European Investment Bank's activities right across the board.
I would therefore ask those who now want to push for the founding of another bank, to rely on, and make use of, the competence and qualified expert staff that the European Investment Bank has at its disposal.
It is for that reason that I oppose the founding of another bank.
It would surely also be in the interests of the Central and Eastern European States for the work of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and that of the European Investment Bank to be more efficiently harmonised and coordinated with each other.
I am therefore sure that both the European Investment Bank's quality and its financial activity will be improved still further, or advanced, at the European Summit in Madrid, due, among other things, to the European Commission's consolidated report.
As has been pointed out by my fellow Members and also in Mr Schmidt's report, one must surely see to it that the best possible use is made of funds for small and medium-sized enterprises.
It will, without doubt, be a matter for our concern that there may be a decreasing number of small and medium-sized banks and financial institutions available with which the European Investment Bank can manage the flow of its funds.
So it is, of course, very encouraging that the European Investment Bank has a network of 130 active intermediaries and that activity in Italy has now resumed to an encouraging extent.
We should bear in mind, though, that what matters, above all, is that small and medium-sized enterprises should really be enabled to get access to working capital and also risk-capital financing at their local level.
It is therefore important, Mr Maystadt, that an assessment should be submitted of what influence this activity by the European Investment Bank has actually had on growth and employment at local and regional level.
Regional development is, after all, one of its main fields of activity.
We know that the whole European Union benefits if economic and social cohesion can be realised at regional level.
So this assessment must be carried out, as should in future be done, before the Spring Summits, so that even better use may be made of the European Investment Bank's instruments.
One final plea, Mr President.
All the institutions are committed to the need for gender mainstreaming.
I have noted that progress has been made in appointments to the European Investment Bank.
There is so far, unfortunately, only one woman on its board, and so the Member States are urged to give women, too, the facilities and opportunities to play their part in the Investment Bank's work.
I also note that, at its highest level of management, only one of the twelve officials is a woman.
There must be changes here.
Mr President, I will make a few quick comments which have occurred to me during the debate.
Firstly, I would like to thank Parliament for taking the initiative of holding a debate on the annual activities of the European Investment Bank.
You know, and some of you have highlighted, the important role the Bank plays in the channelling of savings towards investment in key sectors of the European Union as well as sectors outside it.
You have highlighted the Bank' s fundamental objective of contributing to our aims in close cooperation with the Commission.
The Bank has already implemented the Lisbon initiatives.
Initiative 2000 is fully operational and continues to increase its actions in the funding of small and medium-sized businesses.
President Maystadt will make some subsequent comments, but I would like to congratulate the Bank on the good work it is doing in this particular sector and, above all, on the transformation which has taken place as a result of paying greater attention to risk capital.
In this respect, the European Investment Fund is turning risk capital into an important Community institution as a complement to the market forces which govern supply and demand.
Some of you have suggested that the Bank should pay greater attention to environmental factors.
I believe that we must be aware that each institution has its own function and the function of the Bank is basically financial.
Environmental issues are fundamental, of course, but each institution must play its corresponding role.
I would like to make two further comments.
The first relates to the extension of the Bank to other areas.
I believe that this issue is mentioned in the seventh point of the report.
Nevertheless, we must not forget the extension of the Bank' s actions over recent years.
We only need to remember that, in 2000, Croatia was included in the CCEE contribution and the special option for the Customs Union with Turkey, and that in November 2001 the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was included.
Some of you have expressed your concern with regard to the careful monitoring of the Bank' s activities.
It is true that the statutes of the European Central Bank open up this possibility, but it is also true that it has no authority whatsoever.
Even if it had it, we would have to raise the question of whether the idea of monitoring the European Investment Bank is consistent.
The European Investment Bank is not a commercial bank. It is a multilateral bank which belongs to the Member States and has been established as a Community institution by the Treaty.
Therefore, in my opinion, it is doubtful whether it is correct to have additional monitoring of one Community institution by another Community institution.
Above all, bearing in mind that we now have a clear system for controlling the Bank by means of the auditing that is being carried out, which directly informs the Council and the government and is attended by external auditors.
Furthermore, you also know that the Court of Auditors already carries out inspections of its activities when they involve European Union funding.
Therefore, I believe that this issue warrants more profound analysis.
We do not believe that we should create other monitoring posts or institutions.
Finally, with regard to the issue of Barcelona and the possibility of funding cooperation with the Mediterranean, raised by Mr Gasòliba, President Maystadt will comment on the actions of the European Investment Bank.
I will simply say that the Commission is working on the Laeken mandate in order to have a report as soon as possible.
We would all have liked it to have been finished for Barcelona, but, naturally, we will have to follow the normal procedures.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to say what an honour it is for me to have another opportunity to answer the questions raised by the House, as Mrs van den Burg wished; this could become an annual tradition.
Although the European Investment Bank has no formal obligation to report to the European Parliament, I think that it is natural, in a democracy, for all public institutions, including the financial institutions, to have to respond to questions and to take into account the priorities expressed by the representatives elected by the citizens.
It is therefore a great pleasure for me to attempt to answer the questions that have been raised, bearing in mind that five minutes does not, of course, give me enough time to provide a detailed answer.
We will, however, have the opportunity to continue the dialogue, particularly within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, under the dynamic chairmanship of Mrs Randzio-Plath and on the basis of the excellent report by Mr Olle Schmidt.
Today, I would simply like to give some details in response to the four categories of questions raised.
The first category contains questions on the activities of the EIB; the second relates to questions on supervision; the third category regards questions on the policy regarding information and transparency and, as for the fourth and final category, I will speak briefly about equal opportunities, an area that is particularly close to Mrs Randzio-Plath' s heart.
First of all, as far as the EIB' s activities are concerned, Mrs Randzio-Plath quite rightly pointed out that regional development was still the main task of the European Investment Bank.
In conjunction with Commissioner Barnier' s services, we developed a set of indicators and we are attempting to assess, in a more systematic manner, the impact of projects that we finance on regional development.
The growing importance of the EIB' s activities in the candidate countries has also been mentioned and Mr Schmidt quite rightly emphasised this point.
Enlargement is a huge challenge for us all, for those who are already in the European Union and for those who are about to join it.
Clearly, the European Investment Bank must step up its work in these countries to assist them in fulfilling the conditions of membership as quickly as possible.
Currently, the EIB already has a portfolio in excess of EUR 16 billion, so far mainly for infrastructures - such as transport, communication and energy infrastructures - but also for the environment and these funds are increasingly being granted directly to promoting the private sector.
The environment is another area on which the rapporteur and other speakers have focused in particular, and I think that it must be approached from two angles.
The first angle is that of the number of environmental projects that we finance; these are projects which play a direct part in protecting or improving the environment.
I can now give you - before anyone else hears them - the figures that I will be publishing next Thursday.
Last year, we granted EUR 6 billion to environmental projects in the form of individual loans and EUR 2 billion through what we call global loans, in other words, loans to intermediaries, which themselves provide loans to local authorities.
This therefore amounted to EUR 6 billion for environmental projects in the European Union and EUR 0.5 billion in candidate countries, which means that, currently, approximately one fifth of our loans go directly towards improving the environment.
We hope to gradually bring this figure up to a quarter of the total volume of our loans.
This is the first angle, but there is obviously a second angle - and your Committee has quite rightly paid this a great deal of attention - which is that the other projects, those that are not directly aimed at improving the environment, must also take into account the impact they have on the environment.
We must therefore put in place the resources to enable us to assess more systematically the environmental impact of these projects.
This is the reason why, following a suggestion made in last year' s report by Mr Lipietz, we carried out internal restructuring and set up an environmental group within the project department, whose specific task is to ensure that proper account is taken of environmental aspects when assessing such projects.
And we, of course, intend to further improve our resources dedicated to this task.
To continue on the subject of the EIB' s activities, we must mention the Mediterranean.
Without going into too much detail, I would simply like to say that we have taken note of the objectives announced by the Spanish Presidency and that the EIB is at the Council and Commission' s disposal, if it is felt, given the extent of our activities in the Mediterranean, that the EIB can help to achieve these objectives.
Lastly, I note the concern expressed by several of you, particularly Mr Schmidt and Mrs Randzio-Plath, regarding the support given to small- and medium-sized businesses.
We are continuing to provide this support, not only through global loans but also through the European Investment Fund, which last year gave risk capital of EUR 800 million to small- and medium-sized businesses.
With regard to supervision, we should bear in mind, as Commissioner Solbes stressed, that the EIB is already supervised in various ways.
I would simply say that we are working to apply the prudential banking rules.
If it were considered advantageous to organise additional supervision by a body that is specialised in banking supervision, the EIB would, of course, have no objection.
We would welcome an external authority specialised in banking supervision checking that we are correctly applying the prudential rules.
As for the policy regarding information and transparency; first, we now publish all our strategy documents; second, we publish an overview of our assessment methods; third, we publish, with a few exceptions, the list of all the projects currently being examined so that the public can respond and submit its comments; last, we now publish all the full assessment reports carried out by the independent ex-post evaluation department, which was set up a few years ago.
I should like to end by briefly touching upon the subject of equal opportunities.
Mrs Randzio-Plath has, on several occasions, drawn our attention to an undeniable imbalance within the Bank' s higher management.
There is still only one woman on the Management Committee.
I regret this, but it depends on Member States.
As far as the management itself is concerned, we decided last year to appoint four women to senior management level, which will therefore begin to correct this imbalance.
To sum up, Mr President, we are determined to ensure that the EIB remains an institution that serves the European Union, something which requires, by necessity, greater cooperation with the Commission and strengthening dialogue with Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at noon.
Financial services legislation
The next item is the report (A5-0011/2002) by Karl von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the implementation of financial services legislation (2001/2247(INI)).
Thank you, Mr Prodi, for your statement, but also, and perhaps more importantly, for your introductory comments.
This statement is peppered with 'constructive' ambiguities, and I hope that, on this basis, we will manage to complete the fruitful discussion that we started in this House, following the resolutions that Parliament adopted on 13 March and 5 April 2001, and the publication of the Lamfalussy report.
I have two comments to make on the important nature of the discussion that we are holding today.
My first comment is that, as the rapporteur pointed out, following the introduction of the euro, it is crucially important that we put in place an action plan on financial services, especially if we want to reach the objectives that we set collectively at Lisbon, namely to make the European Union the most competitive economic area in the world.
However, the institutional issues are also important and provide the evidence of democracy.
From this perspective, the discussion that we are holding today is of major importance when you take a look at the timetable before us: the Convention and the IGC, the Commission' s White Paper on Governance, the essential reform of Article 202 of the Treaty and the redrafting of the interinstitutional agreement on comitology, which patently does not take account of the evolving powers and role of the European Parliament as a legislator, in particular, in the economic and monetary Union.
I think that, from the Commission' s point of view, the fact that the two pillars of economic and monetary Union are working well means that the European Parliament is a full partner and this demonstrates the importance of the discussion that we have been holding with you for almost a year now.
We will all appreciate the outcome of this discussion, from our own perspective, both in economic and institutional terms.
Personally speaking, I would like to underline two points, the first on the issues that you brought up in your statement and the second on what will certainly be the subject of future discussions that we will hold, particularly within the framework of the Convention.
Regarding the first point, I think you mentioned the notorious 'constructive' ambiguity of doing business on an equivalent basis.
We do not believe that equal treatment is a matter of discussing complex subtleties: it is in the hands of the Council.
You are aware of this, Mr Prodi.
In any case, this is how we are interpreting your statement and comments.
Behind this, however, there is the idea that this request, in addition to the formal statement that you have just made, must be used as a reference each time that we have to issue an opinion on a document within the framework of the financial services action plan.
Then, also, there is the issue that you have not tackled today and that we will continue to bring up in the forthcoming meetings that we shall have with you, namely, how can we avoid a possible disagreement between the European Parliament and Commission? On this point, we believe that the idea of an informal trilogue enabling us to reach a balanced and mutually acceptable agreement, as proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, is the correct negotiating basis for the future.
Mr President, more and more often in present-day society we are seeing situations where legislators are expected to enact laws very quickly and effectively.
It would seem that these demands being made with regard to financial services are quite justified.
This means we really have to evolve a modern legislative process, as Mr von Wogau mentioned.
Unfortunately, a modern legislative process often seems to mean that it is the European Parliament that is expected to give up some of the legislative powers it enjoys by virtue of the Treaty.
The problem with the Lamfalussy package is that the European Parliament cannot be completely certain it would not, in fact, be surrendering the legislative power it has on behalf of the citizens of the EU to the Council, on the one hand, and the Commission, on the other.
In this regard, the European Parliament must ensure that these parliamentary supervisory powers are brought into closer focus.
As President of this institution, you will surely seize on the proposal that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has put forward: whenever the European Parliament suspects that the Commission is using more than its fair share of powers of implementation, you could negotiate an ad hoc scrutiny mechanism to prevent Parliament' s legislative powers from being watered down.
We all know that Parliament' s legislative power is not an end in itself: we really try to ensure, on behalf of the public, that decisions are taken openly and democratically, and that all views worthy of attention are taken into consideration during the process.
It is also perfectly clear that the EC Treaty is no longer relevant to modern times in this respect.
The Commission' s commitment to amending Article 202 of the Treaty in the very near future, which would restore Parliament' s legislative and supervisory powers, is to be welcomed with open arms.
It should also be emphasised that the European Union needs a hierarchy of legal acts, with legislative powers and powers of implementation being defined very clearly.
At present we are in a grey area with this Lamfalussy package, the direct result of level 2 decision-making.
Mr President, not many Members of this Parliament are attending the debate today in this House.
And this debate is probably not going to be treated as a priority interest by the media.
Nevertheless, and I am addressing the public who are in the galleries, this is a very important debate for European citizens.
I hope that today, after many months of work, negotiation and seeking a consensus, this Parliament will take a decision on the report which has been admirably well drawn up by Karl von Wogau, and which represents one more step forward in the process of constructing an economic and monetary Europe, and furthermore, is an important step within the framework of the process started at the Lisbon European Council aimed at achieving greater flexibility, competitiveness and growth and creating jobs.
I also hope that this process will include other important decisions at the next European Council in Barcelona.
At a point when the euro and its implementation have been a great success, this Parliament, the Commission and the Council must demonstrate that they are fulfilling the obligations laid down for them in the Treaties.
Mr President of the Commission, you have done this recently - and I thank you for being here today - by adopting the appropriate measures and reproaching those countries which are on the point of exceeding the criteria established in Maastricht in the field of deficit.
This is a good decision, and I am therefore deeply disappointed that the German Commissioner has shown a lack of solidarity in certain comments made in Bild am Sonntag.
I do not approve of this, because what we want is to maintain the internal cohesion of the European institutions and the balance between all of them.
In this respect, this exercise is politically positive, because Parliament has had to fight hard to gain its competences, like all parliaments.
Therefore, having gained them, we want to keep them, since that is what the people demand.
Baron Lamfalussy' proposals, which we all agree are needed, also mean, in the long run, putting our trust in the European Commission.
On behalf of my group, I would like to tell you that we have always defended the European Commission, because it is at the heart of the Community institutions and is the most obvious motor for integration.
However, as Mrs Berès and Mrs Hautala have quite rightly said, we must take precautions.
We neither can nor want to give anybody a blank cheque.
That is why this negotiation has gone on so long and has involved so many people.
And I would like to acknowledge, not only the rapporteur, whose work we have all praised, but also Mrs Randzio-Plath, Mr Napolitano, the coordinators of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Bolkestein and his team, as well as Mr Rato.
Mr President, we have finally achieved a text, whose declaration you have read today and which, in the judgment of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, fully satisfies - and I say this emphatically - our expectations: we are going to be treated on an equal basis with the Council, our rights of codecision and the transparency requirements we demanded are going to be guaranteed and there is a formal commitment from the European Commission that, in the next reform of the Treaties, which the Convention is going to analyse, there should be a modification of Article 202.
Today is therefore a good day for European integration: we are sending messages to the markets that we are prepared to make even more progress in realising all the aspects of economic union.
It is also good news for the citizens, who, thanks to our choosing this method, are going to see the disappearance of much rigidity, which will give us hope for greater growth and employment in the future.
Congratulations, Mr Prodi and Mr von Wogau.
Congratulations to all of you.
Mr President, what we are debating is the proposal that Parliament and the Council should delegate substantial implementing powers to the Commission.
Parliament is happy to go along with that, provided there are substantial guarantees as regards the oversight of such delegated powers.
Those who sometimes worry that in seeking such guarantees Parliament is trying to modify the interinstitutional equilibrium should remember that this substantial delegation of powers is itself a modification of the interinstitutional equilibrium as it exists and that in those circumstances it is quite legitimate for Parliament to seek to obtain certain guarantees.
After many months of discussion, talks and negotiations with the Commission, the result has now been put forward to us in the form of the statement just made by Mr Prodi.
I must say that it contains a number of significant steps forward.
First, the Commission recognises that Article 202 of the Treaty should be changed at the next revision of the Treaty - it supports Parliament's position on that.
But, in the meantime, the Commission recognises that Parliament has the right to examine and take a position on the implementing measures that it puts forward to the specialist committees that will be set up to work with the Commission.
Parliament will have three months instead of just one month, as it has under existing procedures, to examine and take a position on such implementing measures.
The text of the Commission does not limit Parliament's right to examining whether the Commission has gone beyond what has been delegated to it, something which we could anyway solve by means of a legal case, if ever it came to a conflict.
It gives us the right to object, if need be, on the substance.
That is also very important.
But what happens if Parliament objects and then the Commission does not accept its objection to an implementing measure? There the text is a little ambiguous: it speaks of equivalence without saying equivalence with whom.
Mrs Berès has already made the point: equivalence with the Economic and Social Committee, equivalence with the press? No, it is obvious for us insiders that it means equivalence with the Council.
That is what we have been talking about for months, and Mr Prodi's introductory remarks made it clear that the Commission too accepts that it means equivalence with the Council.
That is how we interpret it and I think there can be no other interpretation.
We have a third step forward and that is a guarantee in case all this does not work.
We have the sunset clause: after four years the delegated powers will revert to Parliament and the Council, unless we agree to renew them.
That is a guarantee to us and it will concentrate the minds of the Commission in between times, making it aware that it must exercise these implementing powers in a way that Parliament finds satisfactory if it wishes to have any hope of their renewal.
Fourthly, we have some important guarantees as regards openness and transparency, and we have acceptance of Parliament's idea that a market participants' committee should be set up alongside the other committees.
So, all in all, we can be satisfied with the progress that has been made, even if the drafting on the points I made earlier could have been a little better.
Nonetheless, I would ask whether the full text of the Commission's statement and Mr Prodi's statement today could be incorporated not just in the Verbatim Report of Proceedings but also in the Minutes, because it was a very significant statement and should be recorded in our Minutes, so that we have a proper record of what the Commission has undertaken to do.
Mr Corbett, your request has been anticipated.
This will appear in the Minutes as a document of record of some substance.
Mr President, for more than a year we in Parliament's negotiating teams, together with the Commission and the Council of Ministers, have been struggling with a puzzle.
We have all agreed with Baron Lamfalussy and his wise men that effective regulation of financial markets and the creation of a single financial market require us to delegate powers to the Commission and to a more nimble official committee.
But there has been a key problem.
Although this House was given the power of codecision vis-à-vis such legislation by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, it was not given the power to oversee effectively the role of any committee.
What we have seen of such committees in the past, we have not liked; they have been secretive, bureaucratic, Kafkaesque.
One condition on which my group insisted was that this culture of secrecy must change fundamentally, opening up decision-making not only to us in Parliament, but to the world outside.
We needed guarantees of transparency, openness and consultation.
Here they are in the President's statement and in the letter that Commissioner Bolkestein addressed to the chairperson of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
But how were we to ensure that those promises of a changed culture, so often honoured in the breach, were finally respected? It became clear that no lasting change could happen before the convention and the intergovernmental conference of 2004 had been concluded.
Only an IGC could change Article 202, which basically gives sole rights of oversight of committees to the Council of Ministers, ignoring the new role of Parliament.
We needed a promise that our concerns, ignored in successive treaty revisions, would be taken on board.
We needed an interim solution that meant that Europe's savers and investors did not have to wait still longer before the completion of the single market in financial services, which was first launched in 1973.
The health of the European economy depends on this legislation.
A vital and dynamic economy depends on an efficient financial system for collecting savings and funnelling them at low cost to the most productive uses.
It was long clear to the Liberal Group that the only interim solution would be to put a time limit on the delegated powers.
For the first time in EU legislation, we will have a sunset clause that will remove the powers of the Commission and the committee after four years unless they are used wisely and well.
Thankfully, the initial opposition of the Socialist Group and the European People's Party, together with concerns about legal uncertainty, were overcome.
Any regulations passed by the committee will remain on the statute book even if its powers are suspended, but Parliament can bite if it needs to.
This is an important moment for liberalisation of the European economy.
The deal will underpin the euro - for what is a single currency if the markets on which it is traded are still divided by national barriers? It will give confidence that, whatever the challenges ahead for economic and monetary union, the European Union can surmount them, and it shows that Parliament is a serious and responsible legislature and partner in economic reform.
The Lisbon reform process is back on track.
I wholeheartedly congratulate Mr von Wogau, our rapporteur, and commend this report to the House.
Mr President, what is interesting about this report is the expressed concern for Parliament's rights.
This is matched by the claim that the committee wants to enhance democratic control over this fast-moving area.
What I do not see is any concern expressed for those in financial services or for the customers they serve.
Without dwelling on any particular aspect of the financial services legislation to which this report refers, I have to fulfil my own democratic responsibility and point out that the aggregation of Community legislation is slowly, but inexorably, strangling the financial community and making it almost impossible to trade.
In this context I am constantly reminded by my constituents that those most affected are the small and independent financial advisers, the net effect being that business is becoming steadily concentrated in the hands of larger and larger firms.
On the other hand, I see no slackening in the number of financial scandals which break into the headlines.
In fact, the very reverse seems to be the case.
Coming as I do from a tradition where parliament is the guarantor of safeguards and freedoms of individuals, I therefore find this report yet another exercise in increasing the power of the Community institutions, with no thought for what the legislation is trying to achieve.
The committee is counting the angels dancing on the end of a pin while the industry gradually collapses.
This to me typifies what the Community is about.
Mr President, President Prodi, Commissioner Bolkestein, once again, we are faced with the inadequacy of the European legislative procedure, as Mr Huhne pointed out a short while ago too.
In this context, Parliament has two distinct aims, which could have been conflicting: on the one hand, the need to secure a more significant, effective role for Parliament in these matters, to secure, that is, greater democratic legitimisation of the rules we are debating; on the other hand, however, there is the urgent need to conclude the Financial Services Action Plan with all speed in order to implement the common market in this sector.
We are seriously behind schedule, and the persistence of this hotchpotch of regulations is creating barriers which are costing the European citizens dearly.
One example is the case of pension funds, which have long been constrained by protectionist rules in the different Member States.
The average size of European pension funds is one sixth of that of pension funds in the United States and the yield in Europe is 60% of the American figure.
This represents a severe handicap for pensioners, for savers in general and for the efficiency of the economy.
The time factor is crucial.
We are lagging behind severely and we must therefore be responsible in our attitude and not neglect the need to give a vigorous boost to the construction of the internal market in our pursuit of the goal of securing a proper role for our institution.
To sum up, Mr President, my view is that the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau, Mrs Berès, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs have succeeded in achieving a balance between these requirements, providing us with a good short-term solution and pointing the way for the future.
The Italian radicals will therefore vote for the measure.
Mr President, I would like to ask you to record Mr Bolkestein' s comments in the Minutes of our meeting, because, if I am not mistaken, Mr Bolkestein is correcting Mr Prodi on a crucial point.
He is saying that the word 'equivalence' does indeed mean equivalence between Parliament and the Council.
Mr President, may I briefly reply to Mr Goebbels? There is no contradiction between what the President said and what I said.
The equivalence is with the Council and nobody has ever thought differently.
Colleagues, if you read the text of Mr Prodi's preliminary remarks, you will see they carry the sentiment in substance.
Those remarks will be Minuted. They cover the issue that has been referred to.
Mr President, on behalf of the British Conservatives and the rest of the PPE-DE Group I would like to say that we strongly support the compromise set out in the von Wogau report and reiterated by Mr Prodi this morning.
Parliament has secured significant concessions on transparency, on consultation and on oversight.
Parliament's rapporteur is to be congratulated for securing those.
Parliament should also express its appreciation to Mr Bolkestein and his staff, and to the Commission, for responding to the concerns that we raised about these matters.
Mr von Wogau deserves much praise for drawing to a conclusion the lengthy negotiations that we have had on this important issue.
We in Parliament have taken a pragmatic approach.
This is a workable interim solution pending final resolution of the whole matter of delegated legislation in 2004, when Parliament could and should ask for a legally binding call-back mechanism, which is desirable but, sadly, not permissible within the terms of the current Treaty and arrangements.
It is of vital importance that Parliament backs this compromise when it votes at 12 noon today, because without it we will not be in a position to deliver an integrated financial market - whether in 2004, 2005 or indeed ever.
That financial market is not just of interest to bankers; it could also lead to cheaper prices and a wider choice of financial products for consumers and businesses, cheaper borrowing, higher returns for savers and investors, as well as doing a great deal to start defusing the pensions time bomb.
All these are highly significant benefits to the ordinary people who elected us to serve on their behalf.
Accepting this compromise will bring us considerably closer to achieving our goal of an integrated financial market and delivering those benefits to ordinary people right across the European Union.
Mr President, I should like to say thank you to Mr von Wogau who has expertly prepared a very well-considered report on this difficult issue.
It is an issue which has been waiting to be solved for a very long time, and I wish to be the first to welcome a solution.
Our debate today shows the general dilemma we face between, on the one hand, wishing to be effective and, on the other hand, wishing to secure democratic control by means of the legislation we adopt, and it is this issue of, on the one hand, effectiveness, and, on the other hand, democratic control which is to be discussed in detail during the forthcoming Convention.
Those of us who want to see clear ground rules for the European institutions are often criticised for being nit picking and preoccupied with power.
I disagree very strongly with that view.
In my country, Denmark, we had a constitutional struggle that lasted from 1866 right up to 1901, in which parliamentarianism was finally adopted as the central democratic principle.
It is the same process we are now in the throes of at European level.
I am therefore also very pleased that, in the midst of this struggle, we in the EU are able to deliver a result, namely this practical agreement.
To refer again to the situation in Denmark 130 years ago, the whole political system was just about paralysed during the Danish constitutional struggle.
I am therefore very pleased about the President of the Commission' s, Mr Prodi' s, statement that the Commission approves the content of this report, which ought to receive considerable support from the European Parliament.
However, it is extremely important that the Council not merely accept the content, but also the basic message, of this report.
Quite a few Members of the Council basically believe that this whole matter is futile and is merely a case of Parliament' s making a nuisance of itself.
That is not so.
It is, in short, about exercising democratic control by means of our common European legislation.
Mr President, I will comment briefly on five points.
Firstly, at this point in the debate the facts have been well established.
The history of the tempestuous relations between Parliament, the Council and the Commission have been well described and if, as Lenin said, only fools discuss the facts, I do not want to fall into that temptation and I will say no more on this point.
Secondly, if you will allow me to speak autobiographically, I belong to the generation of Spaniards who well recognise the importance of parliament in a democracy.
What is more, I was part of the Spanish Parliament that created the Constitution.
I therefore have great sympathy for Mrs Randzio-Plath' s defence of the rights of Parliament.
Thirdly, to continue in an autobiographical vein, I am also a committed European and I am absolutely sure that, just as the euro was essential yesterday, today structural reforms are absolutely necessary and, amongst them, we must place special emphasis on the reform of financial services if we want the European economy to be competitive.
My fourth point is the reconciliation of these two objectives: doing things well and doing them quickly, speeding up the process and respecting the rights of Parliament, must be carried out, as Mr Huhne said, within strict limits, the limits laid down in Article 202, which are badly worded and whose reform we advocate.
Finally, the solution to this dilemma has been discovered by the new Knight of the Order of the Legion of Honour, Karl von Wogau, and supported by this Parliament.
I hope that the Commission appreciates this vote of confidence from Parliament in the Commission and the Council, and that it will never fall into the temptation - since Mr Bolkestein likes Latin - to alter the par conditio, because the reaction of a spurned lover is unpredictable.
Parliament has the powers to try to go into the maximum detail within level 1, which would delay the process.
Parliament could, like a spurned lover, delay discussing the proposals and that would mean doing the opposite to what we should be doing.
I believe that today is a great day for all of us.
I congratulate Karl von Wogau, the Commission and the Council and I hope that in Barcelona we will be able to reap the harvest which we have begun to sow today.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, today is indeed a most decisive day as far as the role of Parliament is concerned.
President Prodi's statement - which I see as an undertaking by the Commission - has made clear in an unprecedented way that the Commission will put its weight behind the idea that the two components of the legislature should have real equality of rights in what they do.
I believe that what Commissioner Bolkestein had to say was also of particular value.
It was, in particular, thanks to Mrs Randzio-Plath's initiative and endeavours that we were able to convince Commissioner Bolkestein as well, something that was not so easy, nor was it clear from the outset that we would be able to do it.
I do not believe that Commissioner Bolkestein has now been transformed from a devil into an angel, for we did not see him as a devil and he is not an angel now, but a good piece of work has been done.
Commissioner Bolkestein, I would also like to express my respect for the way you today clarified and enlarged on what President Prodi said.
Firstly, I see this as a clear commitment by the Commission to bring about the parity, as President Prodi stated, of the two components of the legislature, to give equal weight and value to the roles of the two legislative bodies, the Council and Parliament, and finally, to do so by means of the amendment to Article 202.
The statement is clear and unequivocal, and it is as such that we will always, to some extent, keep it in mind.
There are, secondly, definite statements on how this equal treatment will affect financial services.
I assume that other areas are also affected by the intention - even subject to the legal position as depicted by Mr Bolkestein - to do everything legally permissible to achieve de facto equal treatment for the two components of the legislature.
I must acknowledge that what you say, Mr Bolkestein, is indeed how the law stands.
What I can read between the lines, though, is that the legal position will not be used to keep the unequal treatment in place until Article 202 is amended, but that everything possible is to be done in the meantime to achieve de facto equal treatment of the two legislative bodies in all essential matters.
For my third point, Mr President, I will address you, for it has to do with the setting up of an interinstitutional working party to make appropriate preparations, something which President Prodi has repeatedly urged, most recently persuading Mr Aznar, the President-in-Office of the Council, to give a positive response to the effect that this working party is now actually going to be convened.
I would think it right and proper, Mr President, if joint discussions in the Conference of Presidents were to prompt you also to take the initiative in order to achieve what, as I have said, President Prodi was the first to propose, namely this interinstitutional working party.
Today is an important day in the sense that it is now a matter of record that we recognise the knowledge and insight possessed by the experts, but at the same time that democratic control means that it is parliaments that, at the end of the day, decide on political objectives.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, I would like firstly to congratulate Mr von Wogau on the wonderful work he has done on this report.
This report and the statements made about it by both the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, and Commissioner Bolkestein, free up a process which has really prevented the speed that we would have liked in the negotiation of projects and the proposals for the creation of an internal market in the financial sector.
In the little time remaining for me, I would like to focus on two aspects.
Firstly, once we have freed up the process by means of the agreement that today' s debate represents, what we have to do is get to work.
That is to say, we have to make the 42 directives envisaged a reality, by 2003 in the case of the capital market and by 2005 in the case of financial services.
Secondly, I would like to point out that the European Parliament has never created obstacles when it has been asked for speed, urgency and cooperation in the implementation of projects and issues of such importance as the implementation of the euro or the European internal market itself, which are two very important successes of European construction.
The Commission has not normally created obstacles, nor has Parliament, and if we have ever been faced with obstacles, it has been in the Council.
In other words, everybody must fulfil their responsibilities.
Mr President, Mr von Wogau has submitted an excellent report.
Nevertheless, Mr Prodi' s answer is not totally satisfactory, because Mr Prodi was still vague on the crucial point, namely that of equal rights between the Council and Parliament.
Mr Prodi tells us that the Commission is declaring its political will to work towards a situation where Parliament enjoys equal treatment.
Equal with whom and equal to what? Commissioner Bolkestein told us that we must not discuss the sex of angels, but that 'equivalence' obviously means equivalence between Parliament and the Council.
At the same time, however, Mr Bolkestein is warning us that the Commission cannot guarantee us this equivalence.
Why did Mr Prodi not use these simple words, namely 'equal treatment with the Council' ?
Mr President, I am the European Parliament' s rapporteur on the market abuse directive.
I must now table an amendment, therefore, laying down in substance that the Commission will be permitted to make technical amendments to this directive and that Parliament will have three months in which to respond.
If, within this time, Parliament has not adopted a resolution stating that the proposed technical amendments go beyond the executing powers specified in the directive, the Commission will stop its measures.
So far, so good!
If this does not happen, I will have to write 'the Commission will work towards a situation where Parliament enjoys equal treatment' .
Mr President, who are you trying to fool?
Can you really propose this sort of text to Parliament? I think that the Commission must make a commitment to show respect for the resolutions adopted by Parliament.
That, Mr President, is democracy - pure and simple.
Mr President, even though I have only two minutes in which to speak, I have to begin by saying this: Esteemed Commissioners, we MEPs are now committed to working on the assumption that the Commission's statement is made in accordance with the thinking behind the codecision procedure and on the basis of the role played by Parliament and the Council in the Lamfalussy procedure being one of equivalence and parity.
And what are we doing today? This is a very important stage in the new European Union's coming into being, and I think we have managed to specify what paper and pencils are to be used, where the entrances will be, which architects to appoint and what they can do and when they can do it on the road towards standardised financial services.
What we should not forget in all this, though, is what the edifice will look like, because it will be one of the most important high-rise blocks in the European Union.
Following this trial of strength between Parliament, Commission and Council, the issue is now what we want this building to be like.
That is the next step and also what we in Parliament expect.
Our expectation is that the standardisation of financial services will not result in the problem of consumers having this sort of excess of information, that, in other words, once equal entitlement to them is offered without regard to national frontiers, that it does not come pouring in like a flood of videoclips inundating the consumers, who will then be 'overnewsed and underinformed' .
We, of course, expect to prevent the big businesses' desire for excessive market concentration, resulting in a mere two or three players ending up defining the market.
The insurers Allianz have said that they will only go into markets where they will be among the top three, and that, on an international level, will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The third problem is the insecurity of investors.
We are implementing this at a time when only 65% of Germans who invest in stocks and shares state that they want to carry on doing so.
We live at a time when we have to deal with the collapse of important pension facilities in the USA, and 'ruinitis' is going round.
This must not be allowed to happen in Europe.
There you have a demand for what your legislation should contain.
If we end up with USA-style unequal distribution, then we in Europe will have failed.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur and all the speakers for this excellent debate on an extremely important subject, which has focused both on the matter at hand and, more importantly, on its symbolic value and on the joint commitments we must make for the future.
We all know, we all realise that we need to respect the current sensitive and possibly inadequate balance between institutional matters and policy, but we also know that we will have ample opportunity to go back over these issues during the debate launched within the Convention.
Today, the Commission has committed itself according to the terms of the statement I have read - and it could do no more - but soon it will undertake to work with Parliament to ensure that its institutional rights are fully recognised.
Mr President, Mrs Randzio-Plath has drawn to our attention the importance of financial markets and the Commission wholeheartedly subscribes to her words in that respect.
She said so in order to stress the importance of the report by Mr von Wogau and there again the Commission agrees with Mrs Randzio-Plath.
Mrs Villiers very succinctly put her finger on the sore spot by saying that a compromise is necessary and that is what we are discussing this morning because the call-back option is not permitted under the Treaty and the comitology procedure.
That is perfectly correct.
Mrs Villiers then went on to say that we are talking here about benefits for ordinary people.
There again the Commission wholeheartedly agrees.
Fortunately we are living in the European Union where more and more ordinary people own shares and all we are doing this morning is providing a legislative framework which safeguards the interests of ordinary people.
I am very pleased to say that we are making good progress in this work.
If I have understood Mrs Randzio-Plath correctly, her interpretation implies that the Commission would not go against a simple majority in Parliament.
Without saying so she refers to the "aerosol declaration" which the Commission appended to the comitology decision of June 1999.
If that is what she meant - this is not the first time that Mrs Randzio-Plath and I have discussed this matter - then that is not a possibility for the Commission because, as Mrs Villiers and other Members of Parliament know, it does not agree with the comitology decision or with Article 202.
I should like to address Mr Goebbels' comments.
He said that the Commission should show respect for Parliament's resolutions.
The Commission does show respect for Parliament's resolutions.
More to the point, the Commission has said that it will take the fullest account of Parliament's position.
What more can Mr Goebbels want? I should like to add that the Commission has respect for Parliament's resolutions, but it has more respect for the Treaty.
It has more respect for the agreed comitology procedure.
The Commission shows respect all around but is bound by the formalities of the Treaty and wishes its words to be interpreted in that way.
Mr Goebbels also made reference to the word "equivalence".
The Commission has very clearly indicated its sympathy with Parliament's position with respect to Article 202.
It has laid that down in black and white in the White Paper on comitology.
The Commission will continue to work on that basis - as stated by the Commission President, Mr Prodi, when he said that the Commission would continue to do that and, fully respecting the existing institutional balance, the Commission would treat Parliament and the Council on an equal footing.
In the end we are striving for what we can achieve only at the next IGC, which hopefully will start in the year 2004.
Since this is close to the hearts of Members of Parliament, may I end by summarising in seven points the safeguards which this Parliament has.
Firstly, the extent of delegated powers will be defined through codecision.
Secondly, there will be a fully open and transparent process including a market participants' group attached to the European Securities Regulators' Committee.
Thirdly, there will be a sunset clause - and this is in response to a specific request from Mr Huhne in this Parliament - limiting the duration of the delegated powers to four years after adoption of each legislative act.
Fourthly, the Commission, as I have mentioned a few times this morning, will take the utmost account of Parliament's position and of any resolution - Mr Goebbels - stating that the Commission has exceeded its delegated powers.
Fifthly, the Commission will support a change to Article 202 at the next IGC.
Sixthly, there will be a full and open review in 2004 and we hope an interinstitutional monitoring group to ensure everyone carries out their commitments connected with the Lamfalussy process.
Seventhly and lastly, if the Commission fails to respect its engagements Parliament will not grant any further delegated powers in future.
In effect, Parliament can make its voice heard in no uncertain fashion and the Commission is bound to listen to that.
I should like to thank the rapporteur and Members of Parliament for their constructive attitude.
Mrs Randzio-Plath was kind enough to say a few kind words in my direction.
May I reciprocate and say that I have always found the discussions with the chairperson of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs very fruitful, friendly and, in the end I hope, constructive.
Mr President, may I briefly put a question to Commissioner Bolkestein?
On the basis of which article of the Treaty did the Commission agree, at Stockholm, to declare that it would not go against a majority opinion of the Council?
Mr President, both Mr Goebbels and Mrs Randzio-Plath are well aware of the answer.
They know that when the comitology procedure was decided on in mid-1999, the Commission issued a unilateral declaration, which has become known as the "aerosol" declaration, which was given in exchange for something called the contre-filet, another procedural device.
The Commission and Council accepted that the contre-filet procedure would disappear, and in its place came this unilateral declaration, which referred to a much earlier case in connection with veterinary matters.
That is why in the unilateral Commission declaration mention was made of particularly sensitive cases, because the veterinary situation back in the early 1980s concerned human health.
The declaration stated - again by way of replacement of the contre-filet procedure - that the Commission would not go against a majority opinion of the Council, thereby basically maintaining the status quo, while bringing things into sharper focus.
Therefore the Stockholm resolution adds nothing beyond what was already in place under the comitology procedure, because the same words - the ipsissima verba - that appeared in the declaration by the Commission in June 1991 reappear in the resolution of the European Council.
So matters have basically remained the same.
If Mr Goebbels is asking on which article this is based, then the reply is on Articles 202 and 211.
Mr President, there has been a qualitative change in the form of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This shows me, though, how necessary it actually is to have secondary legislation on a basis that accords with the Treaties.
I just want to ask whether the Commission is now, at last, declaring itself willing to grant the competent committee in Parliament, the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs, observer status on the Securities Committee and invite it to the meetings on a regular basis.
Mr President, much as the Commission would like to come to a final and positive agreement with Parliament, I regret that on this specific point the Commission cannot agree with Mrs Randzio-Plath since the presence of a parliamentary observer in the Securities Committee would not be in accordance with normal constitutional principles.
As Mrs Randzio-Plath says, it would amount to a mixing of executive and legislative powers, and for that reason the Commission cannot see its way to agreeing with the chairperson of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at noon.
Structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco
The next item is the debate on the second report (Á5-0016/2002) by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco products.
Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, Article 93 of the Treaty states that efforts must be made to harmonise excise, that Parliament must be consulted in this procedure and that the aim of the Treaty is to harmonise taxation to the extent that harmonisation is necessary to ensure the establishment and the functioning of the internal market within the time-limit laid down in Article 14.
Of course, Article 14 expired a long time ago, back in December 1992; however, as the internal market has not quite been completed, the purpose of the Commission's first proposal was to serve the objectives of Article 93, with which we have no choice but to agree, given that they derive directly from the Treaty.
Because Parliament has a consultative role in the matter, the Council is pushing for a fast response from us.
The Commission too has put pressure on Parliament, brandishing the fact that the Council is in unanimous political agreement on the matter, so all that is left is for us to endorse the Council's and the Commission's faits accomplis.
This was, in my view, an unfortunate way of dealing with Parliament, especially on the part of the Commission, because it is tantamount to asking Parliament merely to endorse a fait accompli without making any contribution of its own whatsoever.
Our purpose in life is not to sign blank cheques, Commissioner.
And, may I say to the Council that I trust that its haste in requesting an urgent procedure does not mean that it is merely going through the motions and that it will give serious attention to Parliament's opinion, into which, I can assure you, we have put a great deal of thought.
Parliament has already rejected the previous Commission proposal by a large majority.
The main tenet of that proposal was to impose a minimum fixed tax of EUR 70 per 1000 cigarettes, alongside the minimum 57% tax charged on the most popular market brand.
I do not want to go into the technicalities of how this tax is calculated at this point.
Parliament rejected the proposal because it accepted the following arguments: first, imposing a minimum fixed tax would put small and medium-sized tobacco companies at a distinct disadvantage.
Assuming that the only way a small tobacco company manages to get its most popular brand on to the market is by reducing the price, it immediately faces a heavy fixed tax which bears no relation to its production costs, putting it at a disadvantage in relation to large tobacco companies.
Secondly, the immediate effect of the Commission proposal was to increase prices in southern countries, where per capita income is lower than in the northern countries in the main zone of the Union.
Insofar as taxes were harmonised, they were harmonised upwards, by increasing prices.
Parliament had, in fact, called for this sort of harmonisation in the past, but it was clear from the last vote that the new Parliament voted in took a different view and in 1996 and 1999, Commissioner, the rapporteurs voted against the Commission proposal.
I believe that Parliament is now convinced that constantly increasing the price of cigarettes does not achieve the objective, which I support, of reducing smoking; all it does is to reduce legal sales of cigarettes and encourage cigarette smuggling which, in some countries, has reached worrying proportions.
In addition, the Commission proposal would result in astronomical price increases in candidate countries of 200% to 400%.
Consequently, the Commission's old proposal, which in essence forms the basis for the Council's political agreement, does not serve the purpose of Article 93 because it tends to destabilise rather than consolidate the internal market.
However, as the Commission and the Council are determined to stand by their initial position, although they have no reason to do so, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has asked me to table a compromise proposal.
This proposal is as follows: the Council can adopt the Commission's initial ideas and Parliament will withdraw its opposition to them.
However, it will call for an alternative method of harmonising taxes.
This alternative will be based on a combination of minimum excise duty of 57% plus a minimum value added tax of 15% which, once the relevant mathematical formula has been applied, gives a harmonised tax of around 71%.
So what we propose is to introduce two methods of taxation and to allow the Member State in question to choose between them.
The pros of this solution are as follows: first, it will not push up prices and put the industry in certain Member States in the south at a disadvantage.
This is, of course, vital to the candidate countries, as I have already said.
Secondly, it will help to harmonise prices, in that we already had price convergence with the minimum 57% tax and it was the value-added tax which was causing the fluctuations.
Consequently, our new proposal does more for harmonisation than the Commission proposal.
Thirdly, it allows Member States to protect their small and medium-sized enterprises from distortions of competition caused by imposing a fixed tax.
And by shifting the focus away from price increases on cigarettes, these measures will discourage smuggling.
I think the Council should show courage and imagination, accept the two different versions and leave the final decision to the Member States.
I am positive that the new proposal, which I am confident my fellow Members will support, has so many advantages that the Member States will opt for it and we shall soon have just one system of harmonised taxation.
Allow me to finish, Commissioner and members of the Council, by saying that I, too, want to see smoking reduced.
But I do not think that we can do so by constantly hiking up prices.
Cigarettes are already extremely expensive in Europe and smoking shows no signs of abating.
Which is why I am against the amendments tabled by Members trying to support the anti-smoking campaign by raising prices.
I do not think the price mechanism can be used to achieve everything.
There is much that it can be used to achieve, but not everything, which is why I am against these proposals.
This is my compromise proposal to Parliament and I call on the Commission and the Council to take it seriously and not to look on it as a mere formality, because that would be insulting to Parliament.
Mr President, it is with some regret that I must disagree slightly with my colleague, Mr Katiforis.
I am speaking particularly on behalf of the UK PSE delegation in order to say that we will not be supporting this report for many of the reasons that Mr Katiforis has already outlined.
We do not accept the argument that price makes no difference to the amount of cigarettes consumed.
In fact, I have figures here from the UK, which show that a 10% increase in the price of cigarettes leads to a 4% decrease in consumption.
So there is a link between the cost of smoking and the amount that is actually smoked.
That is the case that the UK PSE delegation is making, particularly with regard to Amendments Nos 2 and 3 on reducing the excise duty below that set out in the original report.
It is important for Parliament to vote against this report, because very recently we adopted the tobacco directive, which, as we all know, took various public health measures to reduce smoking.
It therefore seems very inconsistent to adopt this report, which seeks to pass measures and form opinions which will, to some extent, go against the measures we have already taken on public health grounds.
That is not to say that we do not understand the issues raised about the applicant countries and about small and medium-sized tobacco producers.
If voting against this report has an effect on them, that is unfortunate and is not something that we would wish to see.
But when we are discussing tobacco we are talking about a product which is harmful to health wherever you happen to live, and that is the main argument.
This is a health measure rather than anything to do with production or with harmonising duty, though that we accept the latter as a principle.
I felt that I needed to explain our position and say why the UK PSE will be voting against this report later today.
Mr President, it is obvious to us, too, that increased prices lead to a drop in the consumption of tobacco products, particularly cigarettes and hand-rolling tobacco.
The situation in the United States and Sweden, where excise is very high and consumption relatively low, illustrate this trend, as well as a study conducted by the World Bank.
In two previous resolutions from 1996 and 1997, the European Parliament left no doubt as to the fact that it is seeking an upward harmonisation of tobacco prices by means of increased excise duty.
As the Commission proposes in the explanatory note, the new minimum excise amount in euros for cigarettes is based on the average excise yield in the Member States, namely EUR 90 per 1 000 cigarettes and subsequently reduced to EUR 70 per 1 000 cigarettes in order to prevent the majority of the Member States from having to increase their excise duties.
It is, in this connection, once again worth mentioning that the excise yield in nine Member States is even more than EUR 70 per 1 000 cigarettes.
This is why my group is opposed to a further reduction.
In our view, Commissioner Bolkestein' s proposal is a big improvement on the current situation.
He already mentioned health aspects during previous discussions a few months ago.
We would like to further reinforce this aspect.
We have tabled a number of amendments, in conjunction also with Mr Blokland.
Firstly, there is the VAT issue in respect of which the rapporteur has submitted proposals which we support.
Secondly, we believe that this matter should be firmly placed in the context of existing negotiations in the World Health Organisation.
We are of the opinion that more should be done to combat differences in smuggling prices, since they form one of the reasons for fraud and smuggling, although they are not the only reason.
In our view, a system should be considered during the four-yearly review by means of which the use of more harmful products can be discouraged.
In the final analysis, and I am taking this opportunity to repeat what I have said before, it remains an unacceptable anomaly, on the one hand, to increase the excise duty on tobacco products, although partly for health reasons and, on the other hand, to continue to heavily subsidise tobacco growing in the European Union.
Mr President, there is no doubt that cigarettes seriously damage your health.
However, it is hypocrisy on the part of the Commission to maintain that it is helping to protect public health by introducing more taxes on tobacco products, which are a widely consumed product, when it leaves consumers at the mercy of very dangerous products in the food chain, imported tobacco products of dubious quality, and is pushing for health to be completely privatised.
One thing is for sure: increasing taxes - and hence the price to the consumer - will not reduce smoking.
Otherwise it would surely have happened by now.
What will happen if taxes are increased is that consumers on lower incomes will be forced to buy cheaper contraband cigarettes from third countries which are possibly even more damaging to their health.
In other words, smuggling will increase, not decrease, as the Commission maintains.
The proposed measures will increase the cost of living at a time when consumers' wages are constantly being eroded by the policy of the European Union.
The campaign against smoking and the campaign against tobacco cultivation in the European Union have become one and the same and we are against that.
The campaign against smoking benefits consumers' health, while the campaign against tobacco cultivation benefits large-scale producers and industry, mainly in the USA, to the detriment of tobacco farmers and processors in southern Europe.
That is precisely why we are against abolishing or even reducing tobacco-farming subsidies, as many would have us do.
That would wipe out tobacco farming in the European Union, which would then be wholly dependent on imported cigarettes.
These are just some of the reasons why we are against any form of additional excise because, as I have already said, it does nothing to protect public health; in fact, it may well have the opposite effect.
Finally, we suggest that revenue from tobacco taxes should be used to fund education, preventive measures and centres where smokers can kick the habit and obtain treatment.
Thank you, Mr President, we all seek clarity, including clarity in the policy on tobacco products and the excise duty that applies to them, excise yields which are largely used to combat the negative effects tobacco consumption has on health.
Unfortunately, Mr Katiforis' s report lacks this required clarity.
However, the report has made it clear that the rapporteur wants to protect the interests of the tobacco industry, and particularly in those countries where products are also available at low prices.
The rapporteur' s approach serves the interests of the cigarette industry and not the interests of the citizen.
It is therefore very disappointing to note that the rapporteur confines himself to amending the Commission proposal where the level of excise duty is concerned without giving a reasoned consideration.
This consideration is something which the European Commission itself does give with regard to increasing excise duty, namely in terms of promoting a well functioning internal market and discouraging smoking by pursuing a consistent and convincing policy.
This is underlined in the amendments I have tabled together with Mr Maaten.
In the past, Parliament has in two resolutions clearly called for an upward fiscal harmonisation of excise on tobacco.
The claim that the increase in excise would encourage smuggling is not proven.
Quite the reverse, in fact, smuggling practices occur precisely in those areas where tobacco products are cheap.
However, research has shown that the increase in tobacco prices encourages people to quit smoking and deters non-smoking young people from taking up the habit.
It will be to the credit of Parliament if the amendments that I have tabled together with Mr Maaten are adopted.
Finally, I should like to note once again that, sadly, one billion euros' worth of tobacco subsidies still go up in carcinogenic smoke.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the United States - a country which has achieved the most striking results in curbing cigarette consumption - the incidence of taxation in relation to price is much lower than in all the European countries, even those with the lowest excise duty levels.
I feel that this is a benchmark we must not disregard.
There is another factor that we must not lose sight of.
The British Member said that increasing prices leads to a reduction in cigarette consumption, and this is evidence to prove it.
However, what happened in Italy is that an increase in cigarette prices brought about by an increase in taxation did indeed reduce the consumption of cigarettes sold on official markets but only because it greatly increased the consumption of contraband cigarettes.
This is especially true in that cigarette smuggling takes place not between European countries with differing excise duty levels - and we would point out that excise duties in the United States vary from State to State - but from outside Europe to inside Europe: cigarettes are smuggled from Montenegro across the Adriatic and by this route to the whole of Europe.
Moreover, we will be in danger of exacerbating this phenomenon of criminal, mafia smuggling if we continue to pursue this policy of increasing excise duties.
The positive results obtained in terms of public health in the United States - I want the Members to understand this - were pursued and achieved by applying lower rates of excise duty than in Europe.
Mr President, I will make a few brief and concise observations.
I fully agree with what the rapporteur said about the legislative procedure, the role of Parliament and the need for loyal cooperation between the institutions.
I also agree with the rapporteur on his modifications to the Commission' s basic proposals.
The Commission proposes a special tax, an abscissa of 50% with a threshold of 70%.
Mr Katiforis proposes, firstly, to reduce this threshold to EUR 60 - a proposal which my group agrees with - and secondly, to offer the States which this directive is aimed at an alternative option: to apply the rate of 71%, including within this rate both special taxes and valued-added tax.
I believe this is an innovative and important approach which respects the principle of price proportionality, which to a certain extent puts an end to the minimum threshold, and introduces a degree of clarity into indirect taxation.
The accumulation of indirect taxes and value-added tax have been repeatedly condemned by this Parliament and this option - to establish a combined minimum level for the two taxes - seems to me to be a good solution.
I also agree with the rapporteur that price plays a part in dissuading people from smoking, but it is not the only method, and we therefore expect the Commission to send us supplementary proposals soon, aimed at putting an end to this habit.
I also agree that the price increase in coastal and border countries may lead to an increase in fraud.
I would ask the Commission to strengthen the cooperation procedures in order to eradicate fraud, which is one of the elements that erodes indirect taxation, especially here, but we will talk about that later with Mr Bolkestein, in relation to the Kauppi report.
Congratulations, Mr Katiforis.
On this occasion you can count on the support of my group.
Mr President, we feel that the Katiforis report on the proposal for a directive on the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco products is a good compromise on the Commission and Council' s proposal.
Indeed, adopting the Commission' s proposal, we would ultimately have made the legislation too inflexible and created great difficulties, particularly for the manufacturing sector, with the result that the cost of national production - especially in southern Europe - would have increased and its quality decreased.
There would also be an increase in smuggling, as has already been pointed out. In particular, we feel that the idea of a fixed amount minimum excise tax on cigarettes, as proposed, would not have protected - or rather, would have compromised - equality in the field of competition between very large and small and medium-sized tobacco companies, thus leading to distortion of the principle of competition.
In our opinion, Mr Katiforis' report focuses on three goals. Firstly, the goal of tax harmonisation - it proposes a rate of 71% - in that VAT rates are made subject to a common rule for we are imposing a total tax for the first time: excise duties plus VAT; by taking this line, we will achieve greater convergence and avoid indiscriminate price increases and penalising the manufacturing industries of the Member States of southern Europe.
Secondly, the goal of combating fraud and smuggling.
Thirdly, it also achieves the aim of greater prevention of health risks, which is not obtained through continually increasing taxation but, we feel, especially through specific investment in research too.
Lastly, we feel that the position on cigars and cigarettes as presented in the Katiforis report is more convincing in that it also avoids potential employment slumps, thus safeguarding the principles laid down in Article 127 of the Treaty.
Therefore, Mr Katiforis, the Italian members of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, European republicans, democrats, Italy of Values members and liberal socialists will support your report.
Mr President, 22% of all cigarettes purchased in Great Britain and Northern Ireland are smuggled into the country.
In the year 2000 smuggling of tobacco caused losses of GBP 3.8 million to the British Exchequer.
Her Majesty's Customs and Excise have been able to cut the cross-Channel bootlegging of tobacco by an impressive 76% since March 2000.
The bootleggers are up in arms at this, but now, with the Commissioner announcing his intention to take action against the United Kingdom for creating barriers to the free movement of goods, the door could be opened even wider to give smuggling an even greater field day.
The cheap smuggled tobacco has produced new smokers among the young people in the United Kingdom.
That is a tragedy.
It has also threatened the few remaining jobs in the British tobacco industry.
The British tobacco industry should have an even playing field with the tobacco manufacturers in the rest of the European Union and should not be penalised.
Mr President, I and my delegation of British Conservatives welcome the rejection of the Commission's proposal in the previous vote in Parliament, and we regret the current proposal to accept the Commission's proposal, which is flawed.
We will be supporting a number of Mr Katiforis' amendments because they make a bad proposal rather better.
However, overall, we cannot give our support to this proposal because we do not believe in the upwards harmonisation of tobacco taxes.
Tax is a matter for nation-states, for domestic governments, and should remain the preserve of domestic governments, which are democratically elected and democratically accountable, tax being one of the most fundamental aspects of nationhood and statehood.
In addition, we are by no means convinced by the health arguments on smoking and tax.
We are increasingly concerned that ever-spiralling levels of tax on cigarettes may lead to increased smuggling.
Such illegal smuggling of cigarettes from outside the European Union is now causing a great deal of concern and may lead to an increase in smoking, certainly in my constituency and much of the United Kingdom.
So the health issues in favour of high tobacco taxes are not clear cut but, even more importantly, we do not believe in the upward harmonisation of excise duties or, in particular, the upward harmonisation of tobacco taxes.
Hence, we will be opposing the Commission's proposal.
Mr President, Commissioner, smoking is dangerous both for people who smoke and for those in their vicinity.
Even those who are not even born are harmed by the fact that their mothers or fathers smoke.
Smoking is therefore very much a public health issue.
We must therefore do everything to prevent people from starting smoking.
I know what I am talking about, Mr Katiforis, for I, myself, have been a smoker.
The words 'public health' do not even appear in the report.
Mr Katiforis is a very intelligent and agreeable fellow MEP, but even intelligent MEPs are occasionally wrong.
This time, Mr Katiforis is wrong.
There is a lot of evidence to show that higher cigarette prices reduce the level of smoking.
Less tobacco is consumed, and fewer young people begin smoking.
In my country, the Public Health Institute has calculated that the one-off effect of the increase in cigarette prices in 1997 was to save 12 500 people from premature death, thanks to the fact that 100 000 people gave up smoking when cigarettes became more expensive.
We are talking here simply about my own country, Sweden, which has only 9 million inhabitants. As is well known, taxes in Sweden are, moreover, significantly higher than in the EU generally.
The arguments are therefore in favour of our being obliged to accept the Commission' s proposals.
However, I do not believe it is sensible for the EU to support tobacco cultivation at the same time as great efforts are being made to prevent smoking and reduce the spread of cancer.
We must be a little more consistent and not engage too much in double standards.
I therefore hope that Parliament will support Mr Maaten' s amendment and, through it, the Commission' s proposal too, albeit in a somewhat stricter form.
Mr President, I belong to the majority in this House that rejected the Commission's proposal in November, and I would actually have been quite happy to have left it at that, but now we are confronted by a second report that we have to vote on.
Unfortunately, the Commission is sticking to its plan to raise the minimum rates of excise duties.
Today's are on tobacco; according to my information, the Commission wants to introduce a proposal to increase excise duties and to abolish the zero rate on wine, even though it is a proven fact that wine drinkers are more intelligent and less prone to weakness of mind in old age.
What else the Commission plans to cook up the day after tomorrow, I do not know.
This proposal will not achieve the objective set for it, that is, the progressive convergence of excise duties in the internal market, and puts an unnecessary question mark against the balanced compromise achieved in 1992 under Luxembourg's Presidency between supporters of proportional and specific taxation.
If this hapless proposal from the Commission were to be implemented, there would also be a massively greater risk of smuggling, especially in the countries of the South and in post-enlargement Central Europe, because the price of cigarettes there would increase by between 200% and 500%.
As far as the campaign against tobacco consumption is concerned, which has to be pressed into service in justification of the Commission's exorbitant proposal, I can only reiterate that there is no proof whatever that cigarette prices slow down tobacco consumption.
Far from it, smoking then even becomes a status symbol.
In view of these considerations, I reject the Commission's proposal.
The amendments introduced by our rapporteur, leaving it to Member States to choose between excise duty at EUR 60 per thousand cigarettes and excise duty plus VAT of 71% of the price, represent the lesser evil, and, politics being the art of the possible, I will, of course, follow the rest of my group in voting for Mr Katiforis' report with full conviction.
Mr President, the new report brings the positions of the Commission and Parliament closer to each other and I welcome the efforts made by Mr Katiforis in that respect.
His report now proposes to approve the Commission proposal subject to two amendments.
The first amendment concerns the taxation of cigarettes and offers Member States a choice between two taxation systems.
The Commission is, however, of the opinion that this will lead to less rather than more harmonisation of tobacco taxation.
The option proposed would not oblige any Member State to change its level of taxation and would even make it possible for a number of Member States, including Member States applying relatively low tax levels, to lower their rates.
This would be in clear contradiction to health policy objectives, as has been pointed out by Mrs Honeyball this morning.
For this reason, the Commission cannot accept this first amendment.
Moreover, it feels that one of the reasons why it is proposed - in particular the need to conserve the balance between specific and percentage taxation - is already taken into account in its proposal.
As I explained previously, Member States affected by the introduction of the fixed amount in euro retain the flexibility they enjoy at present to determine the proportion of the specific and ad valorem components of cigarette taxation.
To justify the amendment, the report also points to the situation of candidate countries, for which the minimum duty level should be an achievable objective.
But offering them a choice between two taxation systems after accession would leave us with a wide gap between their tax and price levels and the tax and price levels of the present Member States, resulting in substantial revenue loss for present Member States.
The Commission is aware that achieving the amounts in euro will require a significant effort from most candidate countries and has therefore proposed to the Council that limited transitional periods should be granted to candidate countries to reach the minimum rate of taxation.
The second amendment rejects the change in the definition of cigars and cigarillos.
However, the Commission remains of the view that products having the characteristics of cigarettes should also be taxed as cigarettes.
That change was requested by a number of Member States and has the unanimous support of all the others.
It has also received substantial support from the cigars and cigarillo industry.
I would also like to comment upon the two other amendments adopted in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The first one suggests adding a new recital, calling upon the Commission to submit proposals to eliminate fraud and smuggling.
The Commission shares the view that rate harmonisation in itself will not eliminate fraud and also that other measures are required to combat fraud and smuggling.
However, this does not need to be re-emphasised.
A number of initiatives to combat fraud in the sector of excise products, have already been launched following the 1996 report of a High Level Group on fraud in the alcohol and tobacco sector.
The most recent example is the Commission proposal of 19 October 2001 for a decision of the European Parliament and the Council on computerising the movement and surveillance of excise products.
It will be more appropriate to discuss the issue of fraud, which is a general issue relevant to all excise products, within the context of this proposal.
The second amendment concerns the upper limit of the euro amount proposed by the Commission and suggests lowering the amount from EUR 100 to EUR 85.
The motivation of the amendment is that EUR 85 is easier to achieve than EUR 100 for the applicant countries, which today apply excise duty levels between EUR 6 and EUR 24.
I would point out that this upper limit is not relevant to applicant countries.
It is only relevant for Member States already applying a very high amount of duty but which, in spite of this, do not meet the 57% minimum.
In conclusion, I can say that the Commission sees this report as a step forward in comparison with the first report, as it endorses the need for enhanced approximation of rates of excise duty.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Mr Corrie, your point is well made.
Your suggestion is one possibility.
We also need to ask the huissiers to ensure that when Members enter the Chamber they are not engaged in conversation.
Conversations are for outdoors.
Vote
The next item is the vote.
Recommendation for second reading on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive relating to the type-approval of two or three-wheel motor vehicles and repealing Council Directive 92/61/EEC (8402/1/2001 - C5-0472/2001 - 1999/0117(COD))
(The President declared the common position adopted)
Simplified procedure:
Proposal, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2019/93 introducing specific measures for the smaller Aegean islands concerning certain agricultural products (COM(2001) 638 - C5-0590/2001 - 2001/0260(CNS))
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
- Proposal, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, for a Council decision on the arrangements concerning the AIEM tax applicable in the Canary Islands (COM(2001) 732 - C5-0691/2001 - 2001/0284(CNS))
(Parliament referred the proposal back to the committee)
- Proposal, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, for a Council regulation temporarily suspending autonomous common customs tariff duties on imports of certain industrial products and opening and providing for the administration of autonomous Community tariff quotas on imports of certain fishery products into the Canary Islands (COM(2001) 731 - C5-0692/2001 - 2001/0289(CNS))
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
- Proposal, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, for a Council regulation establishing measures to be applicable in 2002 for the recovery of the stock of cod in the Irish Sea (ICES Division VIIa) (COM(2001) 699 - C5-0690/2001 - 2001/0279(CNS))
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Report (A5-0015/2002) by Nisticò, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending for the twenty third time Council Directive 76/769/EEC relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations (substances classified as carcinogens, mutagens or substances toxic to reproduction) (COM(2001) 256 - C5-0196/2001 - 2001/0110(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0468/2001) by Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC, Euratom, ECSC) No 259/68 laying down the Staff Regulations of officials and the conditions of employment of other servants of the European Communities (COM(2001) 253 - C5-0249/2001 - 2001/0104(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0013/2002) by Hughes, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on the organisation of the working time of persons whose occupation is the performance of mobile road-transport activities (PE-CONS 3676/2001 - C5-0688/2001 - 1998/0319(COD))
(Parliament adopted the joint text)
Report (A5-0026/2002) by Ghilardotti, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive establishing a general framework for improving information and consultation rights of employees in the European Community (PE-CONS 3677/2001 - C5-0687/2001 - 1998/0315(COD))
(Parliament adopted the joint text)
Report (A5-0460/2002) by Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Commission proposal with a view to the adoption of a Council framework decision laying down minimum provisions on the constituent elements of criminal acts and penalties in the field of illicit drug trafficking (COM(2001) 259 - C5-0359/2001 - 2001/0114(CNS))
( After the vote on the Commission proposal)
Mr President, I wish to express the Commission's disappointment that the vote has gone against its wishes.
The only thing that remains for me to do is to bring the result of this vote to the attention of the Commission, which will take due account of it and inform Parliament accordingly.
You are quite correct.
That is what I declared - that the report, as amended, was not adopted.
The procedure that now takes place, if the Commission does not withdraw the proposal, is that we refer it back to the committee responsible without voting on the draft legislative resolution.
Report (A5-0436/2001) by Ludford, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive concerning the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents (COM(2001) 127 - C5-0250/2001 - 2001/0074(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0455/2001) by Kessler, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conditions in which third-country nationals shall have the freedom to travel in the territory of the Member States for periods not exceeding three months, introducing a specific travel authorisation and determining the conditions of entry and movement for periods not exceeding six months (COM(2001) 388 - C5-0350/2001 - 2001/0155(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0016/2002) by Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 92/79/EEC, Directive 92/80/EEC and Directive 95/59/EC as regards the structure and rates of excise duty applied on manufactured tobacco products (COM(2001) 133 - C5-0139/2001 - 2001/0063(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0464/2001) by van den Berg, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on Linking relief, rehabilitation and development - an assessment (COM(2001) 153 - C5-0395/2001 - 2001/2153(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0392/2001) by Schmidt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the EIB Annual Report for 2000 (C5-0541/2001 - 2001/2218(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0011/2002) by von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the implementation of financial services legislation (2001/2247(INI))
Before the vote on Paragraph 13:
Firstly, I would like to congratulate the new President of Parliament personally. I hope that he will have the patience to listen to me as the previous President used to.
I have to tell you that I took part in the work of the Conciliation Committee establishing the working hours of mobile workers performing road transport activities.
I discussed the matter with my friend, Mr Ugo Gustinetti from Alzano Lombardo in the province of Bergamo, who has worked as a driver all his life, and he said to me: 'What is much more important than rules is that there should be genuine monitoring of driving time' .
Therefore, I propose that the Galileo satellite system should be used to monitor all the vehicles moving in the European Union from the sky.
Mr President, I wish to make an oral statement on the vote on the directive on working time in the road transport sector.
My delegation welcomes the adoption of the directive.
The improvement of road safety in general and greater protection for crew are both matters for concern across the whole of Europe and must therefore be regulated on an EU-wide basis.
The latest events in connection with the hauliers' scandal in Luxembourg and in my homeland, Austria, have shown that there is much wrong in the transport sector.
The plenary's adoption in January of the proposed regulation introducing an attestation for drivers was a proper indication of the desire to get the better of the illegal employment of third-country nationals.
The directive that the plenary has adopted today represents another important step.
The requirement to adhere to rest breaks and the laying down of maximum and night work times are making their contribution to safety on Europe's roads.
It is for that reason that we voted for the adoption of the directive.
It is, however, regrettable and disturbing that self-employed lorry drivers have not, for the time being, been included in the scope of the directive.
That is a problem.
It will probably give rise to new forms of pseudo self-employment.
- (PT) The result achieved by the Conciliation Delegation is very positive and represents a very significant achievement for the European Parliament.
By adopting this directive on the organisation of the working time of persons whose occupation is the performance of mobile road-transport activities, we will eliminate distortions to competition within the sector and at the same time promote road safety.
I welcome, in particular, the agreement achieved on the central issue of this directive: the inclusion of self-employed workers.
Including these workers within the scope of the directive seven years after its entry into force and the possibility of the Commission undertaking a study of the consequences of the exclusion of self-employed drivers, to be carried out two years before the end of that seven-year period, have proven to be a useful and balanced formula for overcoming the resistance of some Member States and thereby obtaining the agreement that is crucial to the adoption of this new directive, which is of vital importance to the common transport policy.
The definition of a self-employed driver put forward in the directive also makes a valuable contribution to preventing the creation of new forms of false self-employment during the period of temporary exclusion of self-employed drivers.
With regard to the hours of night work, guarantees are provided for the competitiveness of the outermost countries, whose drivers have to travel long distances in order to reach the main centres of production and distribution, travelling at night when traffic is less heavy.
The outcome of the agreement between Parliament and the Council, therefore, represents an appropriate balance between the economic aspects and road safety and the health of workers.
.
I am a supporter of the general principles involved in regulating working time, for the benefit of workers in terms of health and safety considerations and, in the case of road transport, for the road safety/accident prevention benefits that will be achieved.
I do believe that regulations of this nature must balance the acknowledged benefits against the practical realities faced by transport operators, especially in rural and island areas where no viable alternative to road transportation exists.
The concession on limitation to night working is important to Scotland, where long road distances are unavoidable and where transport operators already suffer such disincentives as high fuel taxation and relatively poor road networks in many areas.
Rapport Ghilardotti (A5-0026/2002)
Mr President, Mrs Ghilardotti has documented the debate on the directive on consulting and informing workers in an excellent report, which I support.
Moreover, I was sure she would do a good job, for Mrs Ghilardotti was Chairman of the regional council of Lombardy, the largest region in Italy, when I was a regional councillor, and this document will certainly help workers to take part in the life of the undertaking they depend on for a living.
However, I would like to ask Mrs Ghilardotti, who, I regret, does not appear to be in the Chamber at the moment but who, I am sure, will read my explanation of vote, whether we cannot manage to achieve a directive which would require workers always to be informed of their pension rights as well.
.
This directive will give valuable protection to many employees whose livelihoods are at risk, in particular due to the increasing ease with which companies relocate.
It will not, of course, stop job losses but it will prevent situations from arising where employees read that they are being made redundant in the newspaper.
It will also enable preparations for large-scale job losses to be made if they are inevitable.
It does not adversely affect the 97% of companies with fewer than 50 workers that fall outside the terms of the directive.
This final agreement is certainly not as strong as the Green/EFA Group wanted.
Nevertheless, we will support the agreement because it is a major step forward in some states like the UK, which currently has no such protection for workers.
We saw this in my constituency, Wales, when Corus made 3,000 steelworkers redundant, with disastrous effects on many communities and no prior consultation with the workforce.
The six-year exemption unfortunately shows that the UK Government has learned nothing from that experience and workers in Wales will continue to be amongst the most vulnerable in Europe to job losses.
I hope it will not take six years before all workers in Europe enjoy the same rights.
.
A stark example of the need for improvement and the establishment of a common European framework for informing and consulting employees is occurring in my home area at this moment.
A long established multi-national company - Levi-Strauss - recently gave advance notice of redundancy in relation to workers at two factories in Scotland, at Bellshill and Dundee.
The news media were informed first, and the announcement was accompanied by a statement explaining that the company had unilaterally considered and rejected any possible alternative to closure.
This type of action is deplorable, not helped by the fact that the UK is seen as having the weakest legislation in this area.
I therefore welcome and support moves towards a reasonable EU-wide standard for proper consultation with workers.
Rapport Oostlander (A5-0460/2001)
Mr President, I too voted against Mr Oostlander' s report, but this does not mean that I am against combating drug traffickers.
We all agree that it is right to fight to eradicate the scourge of drugs from the face of the earth - not just from European territory - but if we do not restore our young people' s faith in values, including the values of politics, we will never succeed.
Therefore, when will we decide, for example, to remove from bookshops a book by a certain Italian journalist named Mario Giordano, entitled 'L' unione fa la truffa' [The Union is a fraudster]? It is unacceptable to sell books entitled 'L' unione fa la truffa' in European bookshops.
I call upon the Presidency to take the necessary measures.
.
I have been on record many times before and I would reiterate this call today that soft and synthetic drugs should not be legalised in Europe.
I do not support the legalisation of ecstasy, cannabis or other synthetic drugs such as LSD or amphetamines.
The UN Convention against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs prohibits the use, manufacture and distribution of ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines and this policy position must be fully upheld.
I would like to say for the record that I did not register my vote today because there was a wholescale misuse of language put forward in various amendments which sought to fully confuse the key elements of the debate today.
It is undeniably the fact that the use of these drugs causes damage to the user' s health.
They can hardly be perceived as providing a positive function.
I believe that the World Health Organisation has taken the correct approach on this issue.
We cannot and must not support the creation of a drugs culture in our society by legally permitting the use of soft and synthetic drugs.
For example, some people have put forward the proposition that ecstasy use should be deemed quite normal in society.
I abhor this particular line of argument particularly in light of the fact that there has been a number of tragic deaths in Ireland and across Europe from the use of ecstasy.
The long-term effects of the use of ecstasy are still very much unknown, other than we know that ecstasy is still a drug that can cause depression and memory impairment.
While the European economy is performing strongly, we must also ensure that key social problems such as drug abuse are combated in a society.
European initiatives to reduce the level of drug abuse in Europe must be supported at every opportunity.
I do believe that the European Social Fund has played a key role in this regard in the past and must continue to do so.
- (NL) Those who organise international trafficking in hard drugs are only concerned with making money on the back of the suffering of others.
Proposals not only to lock these criminals up but also to strip them of their profits receive my support.
Without these profits, they have no motive for continuing their harmful trade.
Unfortunately, Mr Oostlander argues that, within his group, he is not one for splitting hairs in order to fight the thirteen amendments from the Left.
Those amendments focus on organised cross-border crime, national competences and the consideration of therapeutic and personal use.
In addition, he makes no secret of the fact that, in his view, the proposals are minimal, and he hopes that they will be further tightened up in future.
Some see his proposals as a way of opening the door to ruthlessly combating the production, transport and use of soft drugs.
This would lead to the criminalisation of the users, who would then need to make their purchases from criminals who trade in hard drugs.
With regard to those amendments, I consider whether they contribute to the discouragement of soft drugs in a way similar to that employed in connection with other harmful, but legal, stimulants, such as alcohol and tobacco.
The rejection of the improvements by the Left necessitates my rejecting the entire package, unfortunately including a few sound proposals made by the rapporteur.
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I wholeheartedly applaud the efforts to standardise the meaning of and define the penalties for drug trafficking.
Essentially, this report represents a balanced, far-reaching, sensible and tough approach to a perennial problem which besets all Member States of the EU.
For too long, the terms and conditions of what constitutes a drug trafficking offence have been too woolly, thereby creating serious pockets of crime in some parts of the world and within the EU.
An additional welcome measure is the standardisation of penalties, with prison sentences with a maximum term of no less than five years.
Once this law becomes enforceable, it should act as a real deterrent.
Fines should only be used as an additional measure to prison sentences since otherwise they could lead to the belief that you can somehow pay your way out of a criminal offence.
Lastly, I welcome the nuanced approach that the report takes vis-à-vis mitigating circumstances.
For example, minors and those who have committed offences under physical duress, should clearly not be subject to the same penalties as all offenders.
Report Ludford (A5-0436/2001)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we naturally welcome the proposal for a Council directive which is totally in line with the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere conclusions, which stressed the need to finally put in place a policy for integrating third-country nationals.
Having said that, we could not support the report. We regret that the proposal does nothing more than set out the conditions governing the residence of third-country nationals and that it does not, in any shape or form, establish a genuine European status for third-country nationals comparable to that of EU citizens.
By the same token, family members must enjoy the same rights as the person they are joining.
Yet, the way in which it is presented in the report, the right to live a normal family life, which is internationally recognised, does not take into account certain fundamental laws.
Although the right to vote was, in principle, adopted in part, the conditions of application are not mentioned.
Political rights are, however, an integral part of any integration policy.
Fundamental rights are universal and if the universality of rights must be applied without exception, it should also apply to everyone, whether or not they are EU citizens.
As for the criteria regarding resources and evaluating the stability of resources, would it not be better to offer all residents access to the labour market, rather than to confine some of them to exclusion?
Furthermore, there is no reason why students or persons that have been granted residence with subsidiary protection should be excluded from the scope of the proposal.
Firstly, however, the concepts of public order and security, which are reasons for excluding persons from permanent status, require a common definition.
Yet these concepts are now left to the discretion of the States or the competent authorities, which gives rise to serious discrimination, particularly towards third-country nationals.
Lastly, with regard to procedures, the examination process takes six months, which is far too long.
If the application is refused, a redress period, which does not exist, should be provided and this must have a suspensory effect, enabling any attempt at the expulsion of the person to be blocked, in the name of the right to self-defence.
My final point is that the directive does not cover the millions of third-country nationals who are residing illegally, but who urgently need a political solution from Europe.
The Union must therefore shoulder its responsibilities.
To sum up, this report does not promote equality between citizens of the Union and citizens of third countries.
The European status of a long-term resident does not exist.
We must not therefore sanction this type of political approach.
Mr President, Baroness Ludford' s report calls upon us to facilitate the movement within Europe of citizens who wish to stay here for at least three months of a six month period.
The Pensioners' Party is for this and is pleased to see citizens of any other State travelling within Europe.
In this regard, however, I feel we should distinguish between citizens who come to visit Europe with honest, noble intentions - Baroness Ludford belongs to the nobility so she, better than anyone, can understand that nobility must be valued - and the honest citizen is noble, and citizens with ignoble intentions.
In other words, an open doorway for the new nobility of honest citizens but doors closed to the delinquents who, I am sad to say, are to be found everywhere, just like black sheep.
The nobility, however, the new nobility of people with noble intentions, must be allowed to enter Europe.
- (DA) The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party in the European Parliament has abstained from voting in favour of the overall report because we are unable to support Article 5(1) of the Commission' s proposal.
- (PT) This proposal for a directive has my vote because it represents a major step forwards and makes a valuable contribution to the creation of a more coherent Community policy in the field of immigration.
It is an attempt to define the status of long-term resident, because we all recognise the need for the European Union to reach a compromise on harmonising the situation of citizens of third countries residing legally and permanently in a Member State, in which they must be guaranteed legal, economic and social rights on a par with those enjoyed by the Union' s own citizens.
This status will be obtainable after five continuous years of legal residence, at the request of the interested party, who must have financial resources and sickness insurance, so that he or she does not become a burden on the Member State, and as long as the applicant' s behaviour poses no threat to public order or to domestic security.
On the other hand, once this status has been granted, the individual will be guaranteed a set of rights, such as the right to work, to education, social security, healthcare and access to goods and services, etc., thereby making this a real instrument for integration into the society in which the individual lives.
It is worth emphasising once again the importance of creating a more energetic policy for integration, which is crucial to promoting greater economic and social cohesion and to preventing discrimination and racism.
Nevertheless, we must also stress the fact that genuine integration requires efforts on both sides.
Furthermore, I welcome the series of procedural guarantees established in this proposal for immigrants who are anxious to be granted this status and which will enable us to prevent potential abusive behaviour by the competent authorities of the Member States.
We voted against the Ludford report, which supports the Commission' s proposal to establish a single status for third-country nationals, who have been legally residing in one of the EU countries for more than five years.
In our view, this idea is fundamentally flawed, as it will make the existing status uniform and more rigid, and deprive each Member State of any margin for manoeuvre in an area - namely, the presence of long-term foreign residents on its territory - which must, first and foremost, remain a matter for the national sovereignties.
Secondly, we cannot give this proposal a legal basis without distorting the meaning of Article 63(3) and (4) of the Treaty establishing the European Community, which only provides for 'measures' regarding residence and not a 'status' in the full meaning of the word.
It is true, however, that if the Treaty of Amsterdam had not been ratified, the weaknesses that the Commission is now exploiting would not exist.
Lastly, we are seeing once again that, in practice, the Commission is using the concept of status as a lever to grant long-term resident third-country nationals (including refugees as well, for good measure) rights that are virtually equal to those of national citizens.
Article 12 of the proposal for a directive lists the areas where equal treatment would be de rigueur, in other words, almost all of them, except the right to vote.
This systematic equality is unjustified; although foreigners clearly have a right to receive benefits in return for having paid social security contributions, each nation must have the freedom of choice to decide whether to grant benefits that are funded from tax contributions.
We wonder whether this desperate attempt to achieve equal treatment for all is one of the profound causes of the disaffection towards citizenship that is currently evident in our countries.
We are in favour of full equal rights, including political rights, for everyone living and working in the European Union, whether citizens of a Member State or third-country nationals.
The proposal for a Council directive sets itself a different objective altogether; amongst others, that of increasing the mobility and flexibility of the immigrant workforce within the European Union.
Nonetheless, the proposal makes several improvements - which we have voted for - to the status of persons who originate from third countries and who are residing in the European Union.
That said, the proposal aims to limit even these few improvements to long-term residents only, which we cannot adopt.
It is even more difficult for us to adopt most of Parliament' s amendments, which further restrict the original text and have no other aim than to pander to nationalist, sovereign or xenophobic prejudices.
We shall not vote against this text, because, in many ways, it improves the situation of certain third-country nationals who live and work in the European Union.
But we refuse to give our backing to the numerous restrictions that it contains.
We therefore abstained on the whole text, rejecting the particular amendments - that is, most of them - that would make the original text worse.
It is a pleasure and a joy to see our fellow Member Baroness Ludford back at work.
Since she was appointed a senior human rights specialist at the European Parliament, we can only remember the emblematic report that we voted on last March, which was dedicated to the fight against racism and xenophobia.
She threw all her belief and all her effort into the task so that she would succeed in impressing upon us her passionate belief in 'anti-racism' .
Today, thanks to her impressive resilience, she has not disappointed; the active integration of third-country nationals will be achieved more quickly and to a greater extent and will be a useful weapon in the fight against racism and xenophobia.
Baroness Ludford has reassured us and put our minds at rest.
Her report is therefore presented as a list of duties.
Duties that are, of course, reserved exclusively for the people of Europe.
Therefore, third-country nationals who have been residing in an EU country for more than five years shall automatically acquire the status of long-term resident.
The administration has mandatory powers to issue the resident permit which is valid for ten years and is automatically renewable (Articles 8 and 9 of the directive).
Once the status has been granted, Member States can only withdraw it under very restricted and specific circumstances.
The legal certainty of the holder must be as high as possible.
The holder can therefore be absent for a period of more than two years without having his long-term resident status withdrawn.
The host Member State is obliged to grant to third-country nationals and their families, under the right to family reunion, the same rights as those granted to nationals, whether this is in terms of education, professional training, social protection, social assistance or tax.
They can also enjoy additional welfare benefits, such as economic or cultural benefits, in order to enable them to integrate completely.
To complete the picture, obtaining this status must constitute the first step towards being granted the nationality of the Member State in which they reside.
This objective will fulfil the desire that Parliament has voiced on numerous occasions to see a multiracial, multicultural society flourish within the Community, where there could be no discrimination on grounds of race, gender, ethnic origin, religion etc.
We are greatly looking forward to seeing Baroness Ludford welcome with open arms the several thousand refugees from Sangatte who are hoping to settle in England.
Home, sweet home!
- (NL) If the measures for residents and visitors from outside had not been prepared before 11 September 2001, they would probably have been subject to a long delay due to the new fear of terrorism and lack of security.
It is high time we tore down the last vestiges of statutory discrimination against a large proportion of our population.
This discrimination affects people who, mainly in the 1960s, were attracted as 'guest workers' from Turkey or Morocco to come and fill the most unpleasant and worst paid jobs.
Initially, their permanent residence was not taken into consideration by the six Member States of the then European Communities.
After 40 years, many of these people from the first generation of migrants still do not have the nationality of their country of residence.
For these people, there was no European unity for years.
Unlike people with the nationality of a Member State, they were required to continue to comply with visa obligations in each separate Member State which they crossed in order to spend a holiday in their country of origin.
The fact that they are now afforded more equal rights is unfortunately not so much the effect of indignation about the discrimination against them as it is a way of building one large European super state and of demonstrating that the old national borders have largely become defunct.
- (DA) I have abstained from voting in the final vote on this report.
I have done so because Denmark has a reservation in this area and not because I disagree with the intention behind the report or the directive.
I would emphasise that I am in favour of giving rights to third-country nationals when they accept work in another EU country.
Rapport Kessler (A5-0455/2001)
Mr President, this directive is not unlike the previous, noble directive of Baroness Ludford. As I see it, it discusses the possibility of movement, particularly for unemployed people who come to Europe to seek work - which is good - but also for pensioners and elderly people who wish to see the beautiful sights of our Europe.
As representative of the Pensioners' Party, I would like to take this opportunity to call upon Parliament, in addition to allowing the movement of people who wish to visit our beautiful European countries, to do everything possible to make it easier for those elderly people who have worked for a lifetime and now, at last, have the time to dedicate to healthy, intelligent, educational, cultural travel round the beautiful sights there are to see in Europe.
The Commission' s proposal on the movement of third-country nationals within EU countries for stays of less than three months is not restricted to harmonising conditions; it also aims to reduce certain controls in the name of 'freedom' .
This is the case, for example, with the 'reporting of presence' by foreigners under the Schengen Convention which I mentioned in yesterday' s debate.
Even if this obligation to declare oneself was poorly applied, I was of the opinion that it was a matter of urgency to strengthen this obligation, rather than to weaken it.
In another area, the Commission is also pursuing its former approach by proposing to introduce a 'specific travel authorisation' issued by a Member State which will apply in all the others, in order to facilitate the movement of third-country nationals for a period of less than six months.
This reform is a good illustration of the subversive technique whereby a series of small steps can finally bring about the grand plan.
As things stand, stays of more than three months are subject to national visas which fall within the sovereignty of each State.
The 'travel authorisation' proposed by the Commission would erode this mechanism.
In order to justify this derogation, on page 9 of the Explanatory Memorandum, the Commission mentions the case of certain foreigners who would need to move around the EU over a six-month period in their capacity as 'recipients of services' , such as 'tourists' or 'persons taking health cures' or even 'musicians' , as Commissioner Vitorino mentioned during the debate.
This pretext is rather weak; hardly any tourists stay for six consecutive months in the EU and there is no justification for developing a directive specifically for them.
The advantage for the Commission is elsewhere, namely the destruction of the coherence of a system based on national sovereignties in order to introduce a different kind of system, one that has supranational objectives.
This dogmatic exercise will not bring any other benefits for our current area of priority, which is controlling migration flows and security.
On the contrary, there is a danger that it will harm it, by encouraging weaknesses and inconsistencies to appear.
Rapport Katiforis (A5-0016/2002)
Mr President, before I left for Strasbourg, I met my great friend and colleague, Mr Giuseppe Italia - that really is his name, the same as my country, Italy - and Giuseppe Italia, who lives in Cremona, said to me: 'I know that you are going to vote on this report.
That is good, I am in favour of that.
I am a chain-smoker and I am prepared to go out of my house to have a cigarette if there is someone indoors who does not like smoke.
However, I am sixty-two years old: I don' t drink, I don' t have sex any more because ...' - he did not expand on this point - 'but, at least, leave me the pleasure of smoking cigarettes for I do not disturb anyone and I have no other pleasure left in life.'
Therefore, I voted for the motion: I am in favour of smoking in appropriate places and I am against increasing taxation on cigarettes.
Mr President, after Mr Fatuzzo' s diverting speech, I would like to add my comments on the Katiforis report.
I come from the south of Italy and I am sad to say that we continue, as always, to be badly served by airlines.
I should have been in the Chamber for one of my reports - I am a shadow rapporteur - but I did not get here in time.
In any case, I would like to point out here that this connection between smoking and health which we are continuing to make in resolutions on excise duties and State tobacco subsidies is inappropriate.
There is clearly a connection between health and smoking but this is not the way to solve the problem.
In southern Italy, particularly in Naples, contraband cigarettes are sold door-to-door and on the street: therefore, if we really want to boost the smuggling activity, the way to do it is to continue to wage war on this product.
I would also point out that in some very poor areas with a high level of delinquency, such as the province of Caserta, tobacco succeeds in literally keeping3 000 workers off the breadline, and these jobs would be placed in extreme jeopardy.
Congratulations, Mr Katiforis, on your two-fold resolution which the House has endorsed almost unanimously.
Mr President, I should like to make a comment on the Katiforis report.
I share the concern about the less privileged regions.
I have the feeling that some States - and I am thinking of France, but do not rule out that there may be others - use the whole tobacco excise issue to put themselves in a good light abroad by adopting a progressive policy, that is to say a policy that promotes health and is against tobacco, while they actually devote too little attention to compensatory measures for their regions that rely on tobacco for a living.
I also heard in Corsica a complaint similar to the one expressed by our fellow MEP.
I therefore believe that those in Paris care little about the suffering in the regions in their concern to make us more healthy.
Not by cutting down on sex, but by cutting down on smoking, Mr Fatuzzo.
Rapport Van den Berg (A5-0464/2001)
Mr President, yesterday, I followed with great interest the debate on the reform of development cooperation policy and the debate with the Commission on the grey zone between relief and development cooperation.
I fully concur with the report by Mr Van den Berg.
I should like to stress that, wherever I go, I hear complaints from women in situ about the lack of involvement and the lack of participation in the practical implementation of reconstruction.
In Somalia, for example, the women are on the spot but the men take the decisions in Kenya, far removed from reality.
I therefore believe that the verbal concern about gender aspects is not sufficient.
We must insist on women being actively involved in the field; they are sufficiently responsible to consider, and help assess, the way in which reconstruction should take place in practice.
Relief, rehabilitation and development: pensioners and the Pensioners' Party are in favour.
Indeed, they are so much in favour of this that I too, Mr Andria, was delayed in my plane journey to Strasbourg.
Why is that? Because I had to stall hundreds of pensioners - doctors, lawyers, architects and engineers - who, having learned of this report, wanted to leave immediately for developing countries to offer their services to help them, free of charge, with no remuneration, in the hope that this document would support, encourage and assist those elderly people and pensioners who so wish to continue to be useful after their retirement in the many developing countries.
It was very difficult to dissuade them and I hope that, next time, they will have reason to applaud the European Parliament because it accepts their help.
We voted in favour of this report for the sole reason that, if the European Parliament rejects the text, this should not serve as a pretext for making further cuts to emergency interventions that are granted to cope with natural disasters in poor countries, interventions which are already disgracefully low.
By condemning the coordination problems alone, the report is, however, concealing the dreadful lack of resources.
What is more, the report makes no mention of the fact that, despite the fact that natural disasters have equally disastrous consequences in poor countries, and that these countries are completely incapable of coming to terms with even the slightest of their consequences, this is because they do not have the material and human resources, such as hospitals, doctors and transport, and that they are so poverty-stricken from being plundered, both in the past and present, by the capitalist companies of the world' s most powerful countries.
To speak of 'gaps' in 'international assistance' is utterly scandalous when referring to the most powerful countries, which restrict themselves to making purely symbolic gestures when they have to assist a poor country in coping with a natural disaster, but which, in fact, spend astronomical amounts on dropping bombs on a poor country such as Afghanistan (and many others before it).
Rapport Olle Schmidt (A5-0392/2001)
We have voted in favour of the report in view of the importance it attaches to transparency and environmental considerations.
We would nonetheless make it clear that we are opposed to Paragraph 22, designed to make the ECB the EIB' s supervisory authority.
Report Von Wogau (A5-0011/2002)
Mr President, Mr von Wogau could not fail to win the vote of Mr Fatuzzo and the Pensioners' Party on this major document on European finances, public finance and the financial market.
Pensioners and the elderly like to keep abreast of money matters, of course, because they know the value of money after a whole lifetime of dealing with it.
I would like to take this opportunity to express the great joy with which elderly people throughout Europe welcomed the introduction of euro notes and coins, the new currency; they feel as if they are in a fairy tale country, in a land of dreams where there is more money than before.
I am sure that this European finance policy will bring pensioners and the elderly greater pensions, more money and greater well being. Europe is drawing closer to them.
Before I explain why I voted for the report in question, I would like to draw your attention to Mr von Wogau' s major contribution to Parliament' s work as a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. I know he will be just as valuable as a member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
My heartiest congratulations!
The process of integrating the financial markets involves reshaping all the structures which supplement financial services.
In this context, it becomes even more important to take note of experience gained in markets outside as well as within Europe in terms of organisation, operating procedures and the functioning of control measures.
In particular, to this end, we need to introduce new telematic technologies to increase the efficiency of the securities markets.
In fact, the use of these new instruments, which both allows the level of competitiveness between securities operators to grow and makes it possible to manage large volumes of transactions according to time frames and procedures which, until a few years ago, were unhoped for, has helped to raise the 'quality' of prices on these markets and to reduce brokerage costs.
The implementation and integration of the securities markets must, however, be based on a more effective decision-making process - I refer here to the Lamfalussy report - which safeguards the interinstitutional balance while fully respecting all the levels of democratic control established and in operation.
That said, the first thing we need to do is speed up and streamline the legislative process, adopting legislative acts at first reading where possible.
Secondly, there must be an increase in transparency and provision of information, for these are an essential basis for the development of an integrated European securities market.
The third improvement needed is consistency and clarity of procedures for both consumers and investors.
We therefore need an information system to facilitate transactions, from the placing of orders through to payment.
Lastly, it is vital to regulate the role of securities brokers. This should take the form of regulation of brokers and regulation of activities, in addition to establishing a new balance of supervisory powers in which Parliament' s powers are equal to those of the Commission.
The report by Mr von Wogau on 'comitology' within financial services - namely, on the Commission' s introduction of implementing measures for legislation in this area - raises a number of very interesting questions, but, in our view, does not always provide the right answer.
The starting point of the discussion is the current wording of Article 202 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, which grants to the Council, and to the Council alone, the responsibility of delegating implementing powers to the Commission, which is contested by the European Parliament. It believes that, given the recent extension in its co-decision power, Parliament should now jointly decide the rules, as well as the implementing measures.
The European Parliament is putting forward some excellent ideas in the von Wogau report, such as the automatic inclusion of a sunset clause in legislative acts, under which any delegation of powers to the Commission with a view to taking implementing measures would be suspended at the end of four years so that its appropriateness can be re-examined.
On the other hand, Parliament is departing from its true role in wanting to verify all the implementing measures, and even 'to attend meetings of the Securities Committee as an observer' .
The Council traditionally enjoys two types of powers, executive and legislative.
Due to its executive powers, Article 202 grants it a specific role in drawing up implementing measures.
The same does not apply to the European Parliament, which has only a legislative role in applying the Treaties, and must not therefore be involved in everything.
Nevertheless, the Commission clearly has a problem when it comes to supervising the drafting of the implementing measures.
The European Parliament' s reaction may not be fully appropriate, but it has been triggered by a genuine reason.
The next Intergovernmental Conference should respond to this by strengthening the role of the Council in the execution committees, and by strengthening the democratic scrutiny exerted over these committees: the scrutiny of the European Parliament over the Commission' s representatives, possibly, but also the scrutiny of sectoral assemblies made up of national parliaments, which would be exerted over the Council' s representatives.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.08 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Situation in the Middle East
High Representative, Commissioner, you have the dubious fortune to live in interesting times, as the Chinese might say.
You may be the architects of the Union's awakening in foreign policy.
I welcome the meetings that Mr Sharon had last week with Palestinian leaders.
I regret that it is the first time since he came to power that he has directly engaged with the Palestinians and I hope it is not mere coincidence that the talks come just before his trip to Washington DC.
But it will not be enough to talk about a cease-fire.
We need to be talking about an Israeli pullback and an end to the destruction of EUR 17 million worth of EU-funded Palestinian infrastructure.
I recommend, High Representative, that if we want peace we do not define any starting date.
Nonetheless, the news that some Israeli reservists are reportedly refusing to serve outside the 1967 frontiers is a welcome development.
After all it was similar pressure from reservists that led to Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon and, taken together with Arafat's expression of willingness of the Palestinians to end the conflict and the need to find creative solutions, these green shoots of optimism need to be nurtured and encouraged to grow.
High Representative, you spoke of the Mitchell report and light at the end of the tunnel.
I hope this is not the headlamp of an oncoming train.
Sometimes America's friends - or so-called friends - in the Middle East have been about as helpful to the peace process as the so-called loyalists in Northern Ireland have proven loyal to the UK Government.
The Union has a serious dilemma if it believes that US policy on the Middle East is damaging the entirety of Western interests.
I wish you wisdom and courage in your discussions with our friends on the other side of the Atlantic.
High Representative, you spoke also about Afghanistan.
My group is concerned about reports of interfactional fighting in Northern and Eastern Afghanistan, leading to thousands of Pashtuns fleeing villages, reports of 50 or more people being killed in Gardez.
Such reports are an ominous sign and strengthen the case for an international stabilisation force to prevent any possibility of a slide to civil war.
Our priority would be to complete the elimination of terrorist networks but in this regard we believe that whatever questions there are over the status of combatants held by the US in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo Bay, they should be treated consistently with the 1949 Geneva Convention.
(Applause)
That Convention was the fourth such to establish principles for the treatment of enemy soldiers and civilians in wartime.
I hope that you will support my call for a United Nations committee to review it, to determine whether further changes are needed concerning armed insurgents and terrorists who do not fall within the traditional definitions and, if not, at least call on the Americans to sign the 1977 amendments to extend protection to guerrillas and combatants, amendments which the US has refused thus far to sign.
In his state of the union address, President Bush displayed a shocking belligerence.
Just as his environmental policies lead to global warming, so his diplomatic and military policies are pushing the world towards a new cold war.
In this century every shot the US fires will indeed, in the words of the poet Emerson, "ring round the world" and unless you can appeal to, and nurture, a wider concept of American self-interest, then we risk the menace of a new military millennium.
(Applause)
Welcome
Situation in the Middle East (continued)
Mr President, like previous speakers I, too, am gravely concerned that since last December the situation in the Middle East has deteriorated to a new low.
There has been an appalling loss of life, the conflict in the region between the Israeli and the Palestinian people has deepened and the hopes of restarting the peace process regrettably have receded.
Between 15 January and 25 January last, over 45 people were injured from bomb attacks alone, while ten people were killed during the same period.
This is a staggering level of violence and hatred by any standards.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been left homeless as a result of the demolition of nearly 100 houses by the Israeli forces at the refugee camp in the Gaza Strip.
I very much welcome the fact that the Spanish Presidency has written to the Israeli Foreign Minister expressing our deepest concern at the damage that has been done to projects funded by the European Union as a direct result of Israeli attacks against the Palestinian institutions.
Mr President, violence has brought neither greater freedom to the Palestinian people, nor greater security for the Israeli people.
In both cases the result of violence over the last few months has achieved the opposite to what was originally intended.
Violence has only resulted in an intensification of hatred and recriminations between the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples.
The Israelis and Palestinians must resume the search for peace and the two sides must act together and they must act in tandem.
The Mitchell principles have clearly laid down the broad parameters for an overall peace agreement.
Any future agreement must both recognise Israel's right to live in peace and security and ensure that the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people are protected and promoted.
This means the establishment of a viable and democratic Palestinian state and an end to the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Israeli and Palestinian authorities are going to have to move to renew some level of security cooperation with the aim of ending this awful present cycle of violence.
Persons involved in perpetrating any of these awful terrorist attacks which have taken place must be arrested and must be brought to justice, including terrorists operating in the Hamas and Islamic Jihad organisations.
Recent discussions between representatives of the Palestinian authority and Prime Minister Sharon must be seen as a somewhat positive move, but negotiations must surely be meaningful and cannot be seen as a cosmetic exercise under any circumstances.
We must all remember that Yasser Arafat is the democratically elected leader of the Palestinian people and he has the political authority and the political mandate to represent the concerns and the needs of the Palestinian people at this time.
Yasser Arafat is a viable peace partner for Israel and he commands the support not only of his people, but of the broader international community.
I welcome the recent article written by him in the New York Times in which he stated that the Palestinians were ready to end the conflict with Israel.
This call for reconciliation and coexistence must be welcomed by all interested parties.
I strongly believe that the EU must continue to play as active a role as possible in brokering a peace between both sides.
President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon are meeting this week and I hope that this will signal a more willing involvement on the part of the United States to re-intensify its efforts to reach a political agreement in the region.
I strongly believe that the European Union and the American government have mutually important roles to play in ending the violence in the region and restarting meaningful peace talks.
Finally, the Israelis and the Palestinians must also calm the situation and de-escalate the conflict.
Sustained attacks by Israel on the Palestinian Authority and its security forces and facilities are wholly misguided.
Incursions by the Israeli military forces into Palestinian territories must be halted immediately and there must also be a lifting of restrictions that are imposed on the Palestinian people.
Let us all remember, as was said by previous speakers, that the alternative to the Palestinian Authority is Palestinian anarchy.
Thank you, Mr President, there is, once again, a glimmer of hope in the Middle East.
There are two indications of this.
First of all, there was the discussion between Prime Minister Sharon and prominent representatives of the Palestinian Authority that was held in the middle of last week.
Furthermore, a regular follow-up every couple of weeks has been announced.
In addition, there is the public assurance by Mr Arafat in the American press that he wants to call an end to the terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens.
I sincerely hope that the meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Sharon next Thursday will help these developments move towards a de-escalation of the extremely bloody Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Just consider the extent of the killings and destruction on both sides.
And suffering, certainly personal suffering, cannot be captured in cold statistics or weighed up on a merely rational level.
Meanwhile, a consistent rejection of, and fight against, terrorism do remain the conditions par excellence for creating any political compromise between the State of Israel and its neighbours.
This is of direct interest to various countries in the region, for they fan the Palestinian and Lebanese flames of terrorism willingly and knowingly.
This is why the clear warning by President Bush addressed to them in last Wednesday' s State of the Union speech deserves full support from the EU Member States.
However, this political realism is lacking on our Continent, precisely at a time when European shortcomings have come to light in NATO in such a poignant way.
The EU Member States support efforts to bring peace to the Middle East, especially by making a credible and effective contribution to the current fight against terrorist networks in that region.
This will benefit the Israelis and Palestinians alike.
I would therefore call on the Member States in the person of their High Representative, Mr Solana, to make this contribution.
Last week, a young person from my town, Apeldoorn, sent a touching e-mail about peace in the Middle East.
His appeal was not for a spiral of violence but a spiral of prayer.
Along with the psalmist, I would say indeed: pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that Mr Patten' s comments - and I am sorry that he is not here at the moment - are absolutely unacceptable.
In my view, to speak of the senseless destruction - and this is a point on which we obviously agree with him - of the Palestinian infrastructure and to speak of the selective killings of Palestinians without mentioning the Israeli victims is absolutely intolerable.
But this is also symptomatic of the policy that Commissioner Patten has, for many months, been conducting towards Israel.
I am pleased that the High Representative, Mr Solana, is here with us, because at least he can raise the quality of our debate slightly above the level we are used to in this House.
Having said that, I do not think, Mr Cohn-Bendit, that we can resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine by simply asking both sides to make a little effort, or even asking both to make a great effort.
Mr Barak made some proposals with which we are all familiar and these proposals were not accepted.
The Palestinian Authority existed and the Palestinian Authority has sanctioned the suicide attacks that were and still are carried out every day against Israel.
That is the reality today.
I think that the European Union has an opportunity to show true generosity, but not by means of the tourist trips that Mr Wurtz is suggesting.
The European Union could show its true generosity by saying to the public, to the people of Europe, that they must have the courage to fully integrate Israel into the European Union, that this is the only way to guarantee security in Israel, to finally give five million Israelis the feeling that they can live in peace alongside the Palestinians, but within the European Union.
This proposal has been put forward.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must urgently begin to reflect on this in slightly more depth.
Mr President, I have the feeling that, recently, in each debate in this Parliament on the Middle East, we basically go over the same ground.
The only thing that changes is the state of the crisis, which, unfortunately, is increasingly worse in that region.
Since the last resolution we approved in the European Parliament, with the majority support of the parliamentary groups, there have evidently been more terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
I think there have been five in the last ten days.
We have also, however, seen the siege by the Israeli army increasingly close in on the Palestinian population and its institutions.
There has been very considerable material and personal damage which I consider to be completely unjustifiable.
Within the landscape of violence, which is very controversial both inside and outside the region and also here in the European Parliament, we should be able to agree on certain things.
The first is that nothing can justify acts of terrorism, which reduce the chances of peace and produce nothing but pain and indignation.
The second is that it seems clear that the Palestinian National Authority does not have the capacity to restrain this wave of violence.
The third is that not everything is permissible in the fight against terrorism: when we have the Rule of Law, we must always act within the parameters of the law and with scrupulous respect for human rights.
The fourth is that the parties in conflict must understand that no act of violence is going to improve their position.
And the fifth is that we cannot stand on the sidelines; on the contrary, the European Union must maintain its political pressure and its permanent presence in the region.
I am happy to see the efforts the Council and the Commission are making, but I am even happier to hear that there is a glimmer of light on the horizon.
I agree with the Council declaration, which says that our first priority must be to put an end to the suffering of both peoples.
And it seems to me completely pointless for us to try to find somebody to blame.
On the contrary, I believe that we must seek solutions and, for example, the European Parliament should promote and sponsor an international conference for peace in the Middle East, a second instalment of the one held in Madrid ten years ago, from which Mr Solana could no doubt recount many experiences.
Let us hope that amongst all of us we can contribute to peace, because I believe that that is the only truly important thing at the moment.
Mr President, the recent Palestinian suicide attacks, Israel' s tough reaction to them and, to some extent, the statements by Prime Minister Sharon about Mr Arafat, have once again brought the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a head.
This spiral of violence must now be broken as a matter of urgency.
The international community must urge both parties to reach a permanent settlement and cease the terror.
One glimmer of hope is at any rate the consultation between Prime Minister Sharon and some Palestinian official representatives that was held last weekend.
As far as the European Union is concerned, a tougher stance would be welcome.
We must strengthen our position in the peace talks, given the exceptional interests - and first and foremost the humanitarian interests - that are at stake.
European leaders can no longer afford to look on from the sidelines, at the risk of a much greater and more extensive conflict emerging in the Middle East.
The peace process will be a lengthy and tiresome process, but I remain convinced that with the necessary trust, the indispensable political will and the necessary perseverance, we can attain our common goal, namely a peaceful and prosperous Middle East.
I too nurture some small hope.
In actual fact, there seems to be greater awareness within Parliament of the tragedy taking place and also of where responsibility lies for this situation, not least our own responsibility.
As Mr Solana has said on a number of occasions: we have wasted many opportunities.
I fear we will waste others too, but I do feel it is important that we have gained this awareness.
I find Mr Bush' s support of Ariel Sharon' s policy truly irresponsible, opportunist and inhumane, for it is not that the two sides lack confidence in each other: this is a specific policy, a specific decision - Ariel Sharon has made this explicitly clear in his speeches in the Knesset - not to allow a Palestinian State to exist, apart from 'Bantustan' territories, and not to give back the Occupied Territories.
I do not understand why we do not realise that this is his policy and take appropriate action.
At the same time, some responsibility certainly lies with Yasser Arafat, and it is an appalling tragedy for both Palestinians and Israelis that terrorist acts are taking place.
However, my hope lies in Commissioner Patten' s words, in Mr Solana' s words, in actions and signs, and I would like to tell you of the great hope that I have in Israeli society.
On Saturday, together with 300 Israelis - young people, coloured people, young lads who have refused to serve in the Occupied Territories, women, university professors - we crossed the Kalandia checkpoint, running serious risks for the Israelis who crossed it were told they were not allowed to enter the Occupied Territories.
Three hundred of us crossed the Kalandia checkpoint to go to meet Yasser Arafat.
The young Israelis said: 'We want peace. We are the other Israel' .
And Mr Arafat embraced them.
However, the most important part was in the afternoon when we met the Palestinians and Palestinian organisations, and they too displayed their desire for peace.
I therefore feel that it is imperative that we believe in these organisations and act to support them.
I too, like Mr Cohn-Bendit, want to issue a challenge.
If Mr Arafat leaves the territories, there is a danger that we will not be able to get him back in again.
It is important that we work to support this operation, to bring Abu Ala and Avraham Burg here.
International protection is vital for the Palestinian people; moreover - and here I agree with Mr Sakellariou - it is vital that we take practical action, even suspending the association agreement, for Israel must respect human rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the tragic situation of Palestine illustrates two political truths, which are only bitter for utopians.
First of all, each nation necessarily aspires to sovereignty, in other words, to have the full reign of a territory that is its own and which it can organise as it wishes.
Secondly, it is not, therefore, borders which create conflicts, but the lack of safe and recognised borders.
It is not the division of nations which engenders war, it is when the nations are thrown together.
Throughout the world, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural societies have failed, causing bloodshed, and yet there are many utopians even in this House who would like to conduct such experiments on our European societies.
I greatly admire Mr Cohn-Bendit' s realistic attitude towards the Middle East, an attitude that totally contradicts the hare-brained ideas of his friends and his own colleagues, regarding the situation in France for example.
That said, the tragic but fragmented events - bloody attacks, arms trafficking, the mutual accusations of murder, terrorism, the repeated failures at maintaining a truce, the unacceptable destruction - are sad consequences, which must not, however, be confused with the profound causes of the situation.
The fundamental problem is that there will only be peace if the Israelis and the Palestinians each have a territory that is marked by recognised borders and, within this territory, they have the opportunity to govern their country freely, without threats or interference.
The State of Israel now possesses three quarters of Palestine' s former territory under the British mandate.
The Palestinians must be permitted to live freely, in peace, in the other quarter.
As sensitive as some places are for the Jewish people and for other believers, places which have great religious significance, we must bring an end to the colonisation of the occupied territories which stems from 1967.
We must observe the United Nations Security Council resolutions and we must also bring an end to a military occupation that has lasted for almost 35 years now and which is an outright record in history.
Of course, Israel has a right to secure serious guarantees in exchange for its withdrawal.
These guarantees can be granted within the framework of the United Nations Organisation, and, in particular, by the United States of America.
They must be more serious than those that failed to prevent the 1967 conflict.
However, this is no longer 1967.
Israel must thus have the courage to appreciate its victories, to withdraw from the occupied territories.
Only then can peace return to the Middle East.
Mr President, Mr Solana, Commissioner, the reports you have presented today may not have been positive or optimistic, but they sketched a realistic picture.
I am very glad that, after a short, perhaps terrifying moment, the European Union has clearly demonstrated that it is not willing to sit back and let the Palestinian structures, supported moreover by funds raised by the European Union, be destroyed.
This is not about denying Israel the right to defend itself against terrorism, but about our strongest condemnation and rejection of excessive courses of action that really have nothing to do with counter-terrorism.
I am very pleased that this is what both representatives have done, clearly and unmistakably, and that they have made their position clear without falling prey to emotionalism.
That is important because the pro-peace groupings that are present both in Israel and in Palestine are waiting for Europe's voice to be heard.
I support all the efforts at joint action with the USA, but where this is not possible, we must be an identifiable, and indeed, readily recognisable, European voice.
My second observation, on the Balkans, may well be taken as underlining all of what has been said here.
I would only ask that particular additional attention be given to the situation in Albania, where things are not at present developing very well.
I wish to make it very clear that I cannot see us going down the road towards an association agreement with Albania if Albania does not concern itself with the country's stabilisation.
What has happened in the past weeks is, alas, no contribution to stability.
We want stability in the Balkans, we have done much, and with great effort, to achieve it, and let no power in the Balkans cause this stability to collapse again.
I would therefore ask you both to follow events in Albania, in particular, very closely, and represent our positions there with a great deal of clarity.
Thank you, Mr President.
After months of heartrending and meaningless violence in the Middle East, we must now nurse and foster each and every glimmer of hope.
President Arafat has indicated that he is prepared to negotiate with any Israeli party and to help search for a creative solution for the return of the refugees.
These are two courageous steps forward which deserve our support and should be immediately responded to by an equally generous offer by Prime Minister Sharon.
In addition, we have noticed that, in Israel, a shift has emerged in public opinion with regard to one of the key issues of the conflict, namely the illegal occupation of the Palestinian regions.
There are now 110 reservists of the Israeli army who have signed a petition in which they refuse to take part in the occupation any longer.
These brave soldiers deserve the open and emphatic support of the European Union because they are choosing international law and human rights, rather than choosing to obey their orders and to follow the path of least resistance.
They are, in fact, choosing the road of peace, away from occupation, away from terror and state terror, and towards the negotiating table and, hopefully, peace eventually.
I would be interested to hear from Messrs Solana and Patten whether they are prepared to express this support.
It is with considerable sadness, and with full sympathy for your frustration, High Representative Solana, that we have seen the ongoing deterioration of the situation in the Middle East over the past few months, especially when we were convinced, after 11 September, of the urgent need to find a political solution to the problem.
I should simply like to recall the closing statement of the special session of the Mediterranean Forum, held in Brussels in November, before the vote on 13 December on our recommendations preceding the formal declaration by the Laeken Council.
I would remind you that this statement called for the immediate and unconditional implementation of the Tenet plan and of the recommendations of the Mitchell committee, and reiterated our conviction, Mr Cohn-Bendit, that establishing an impartial monitoring mechanism would serve the interests of both parties.
It has to be said that all of this has come to nothing and that, in fact, recent events seem to have closed the door on any serious attempt to restart negotiations.
Although, like William of Orange, I believe that it is neither necessary to have hope in order to embark on a course of action nor is it necessary to succeed in order to persevere, I feel that we must welcome the fact, Mr Solana, that you are ceaseless, as you have just demonstrated, in making every possible effort to give renewed hope, which is so badly needed in that part of the world, to the Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
We can only encourage you to pursue all initiatives for cooperation between the United Nations, the United States and the most directly involved Arab States, in order to put forward proposals, in conjunction with them, on actions that are crucial to restoring mutual trust and respect, without which the current downward spiral of violence can never be halted.
This is why I am not in favour of our Parliament today playing the role of excommunicator.
As Commissioner Patten said in his last speech to this House, 'What is past, is past' .
What we are interested in is the future and the immediate future.
I also feel that I am summing up the opinion of the majority of Members when I repeat that we in Parliament are ready and willing to fulfil our mandate to take the initiative by issuing another invitation - why not President Cox? - to the representatives of the two States at the highest level, perhaps even Mr Arafat himself, to come and explain their intentions to us, as the speakers of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the Knesset did in September 2000.
By the same token, we would like to encourage you to give positive consideration, in conjunction with the Presidency-in-Office of the Council, to the possibility of holding an ambitious peace conference along the lines of the conference held in Madrid, in which, Mr Solana, you played such an important part, as you reminded us.
In our own interests and for the sake of coherence with the spirit of our unreserved commitment to the fight against terrorism, we must play as active a role as possible in saving the peace process, while respecting the legitimate rights of the region' s peoples.
Mr President, the European reaction, which has been somewhat more coherent than usual, has come at the right time.
It has now become quite clear that Mr Sharon' s policy is leading nowhere.
When there are no political prospects on the horizon, the Old Testament prescription of 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' leads directly to horror and to chaos.
Bloodshed leads to further bloodshed.
This is a return to the Middle Ages, even to prehistoric times.
It is therefore high time that the Council of the European Union, the Commission and all our governments spoke up, loudly and clearly, whatever the President of the United States might think.
It is Mr Sharon, and not Mr Arafat, who has the power to end the conflict. How can he do this?
Simply by complying with international law, by ending the repressive occupation of Palestine and by withdrawing behind Israel' s internationally recognised borders.
The best way to protect both Israeli and Palestinian citizens is to re-establish a proper border between the two peoples.
The way out of the deadlock of hatred does not lie in the humiliation and the destabilisation of Mr Arafat.
It lies in land distribution and in acknowledging Palestinian nationhood, not in the medium term, but immediately.
Mr Solana, Mr Patten, you must state this quite clearly.
This is the urgent message that all of Europe' s representatives should be conveying.
Mr President, I too congratulate the High Representative, Mr Solana, and Commissioner Patten for their untiring work.
We share your frustration at the lack of outcomes.
Has the time come now for us to move on from dialogue and move into shared partnerships, overcoming perceived religious differences to tackle common human evils of poverty, ill health and illiteracy? Surely the place today for dialogue is within Islam, between Muslim and Muslim, to work out ways of discarding false jihads, rejecting distorted interpretations of the Koran that lead inevitably to misguided martyrdoms and terrorist assaults.
Islam is a faith that promotes peace, equality and a secure life.
Meanwhile we should tackle the lack of democracy in the oil-rich states.
Here we can assist through building civil society and use means such as our association agreement with Egypt to exert undoubted influence.
High Representative Solana mentioned the Islamic Republic of Iran.
My view is his as well.
I believe we should open a Commission office in Tehran as soon as possible.
This is an Islamic state, and yet a democracy; it has Sharia law, and yet a parliament.
Surely Iran is part of the solution rather than part of the problem - a peaceful society in a violent region.
I thank our Commissioner and our High Representative and their staff for all their work.
Mr President, Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon's recent remark that he regrets not having killed Yasser Arafat in Lebanon in 1982 is unforgivable.
But I suppose we should not be surprised: Mr Sharon's own terrorist behaviour in Lebanon, when he permitted the massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, was subsequently condemned by Israel's Kahane Commission of Inquiry.
Given this fact, it is regrettable that he was subsequently elected as Prime Minster of Israel, this being the root of many of the current problems.
Current Israeli policy is ludicrous and counterproductive.
How can they make demands on Arafat to behave as if he was the leader of a normal state, while at one and the same time they make him a virtual prisoner in his own home, destroy his airport and his broadcasting station and humiliate him? Who do they want to replace him with?
In the post-11 September situation, the European Union has been oversensitive in its approach to the Middle East.
We are indeed an honest broker and we should be vigorous in that approach. The fact that the Americans are indebted to us for the solidarity and the support that we provided when they needed it should mean that we are entitled to a reciprocal response from them.
And instead of being the puppet of Israel, they should join with us in an even-handed policy approach to the tragedy in the Middle East.
If that is not forthcoming, then we should act on our own.
It is frustrating that the United States through its present stance is becoming much more part of the problem than part of the solution.
Mr President, I thank Mr Solana and Mr Patten for continuing, in spite of everything, with their already excessively longstanding efforts to achieve peace in the Middle East.
We are clearly facing a frustrating, cruel and, if I may say so, surreal, situation.
It is surreal because we are facing a situation in which the Prime Minister of Israel does not support the constructive conclusions of his Foreign Affairs Minister.
It is also surreal because Mr Sharon - who regrets not having destroyed Mr Arafat, who he describes as irrelevant, in Beirut in 1982, and who calls the Palestinian Authority a terrorist organisation - is meeting with three notable members of this so-called terrorist organisation.
It is surreal because Mr Arafat is under great pressure to combat terrorism but, at the same time, Israel - and we are allowing it - is bombing and thereby destroying the resources available to the Palestinian Authority for combating that terrorism.
This surrealism, however, is welcome if it can bring us closer to peace and development in the region, not only for Palestine.
I would like to say however - and I hope I am wrong - that I hope these talks by Mr Sharon with these supposed terrorists from a supposed terrorist organisation, are not simply another attempt to gain time before his meeting with President Bush in Washington tomorrow.
I would like to ask the High Representative, Mr Solana, a question relating to the famous seized vessel, the Karim-A: it appears that the people who are trying to ascertain whether the evidence of Iran' s involvement is reliable are working on the basis of stronger evidence than the appearance of arms which are 'made in Iran' , because we all know that the fact that arms are manufactured in a particular country does not necessarily mean that they are supplied by the government of that country.
Mr President, I say this - and I will end here - because, in this era of trilateral evil, and the demonisation of the situation and the desire to spread suspicions all over the place, it could be a fatal error to encourage suspicions of this type in relation to those invisible enemies which Mr Bush is currently dealing with.
Mr President, this debate has focused largely on the situation in the Middle East.
I am not sure that the largely one-sided tone of this Chamber is at all helpful.
I endorse Mr Brok's call for a more balanced approach but as requested I also want to take the opportunity briefly to touch on another area of crisis which is of increasing concern at the moment and where the European Union has the capacity to exert some influence.
I am referring to Zimbabwe.
Even if electoral observers are allowed in, we must maintain the pressure on Mr Mugabe to deliver free and fair elections.
We do not want to be in a position of merely recording that the election was fixed and standing back and wringing our hands afterwards.
We want the presence of observers to deter violence and electoral fraud so that the Zimbabwean people can make a genuinely free choice.
Many of us continue to be alarmed by reports from inside Zimbabwe about the situation on the ground.
I am referring to the fact that five MDC supporters have been killed in the past week, that MDC demonstrations and rallies have been disrupted by the police, that the independent press is restricted, the Independent correspondent, Basildon Peta, was earlier today arrested under the Public Order and Security Act and the Australian journalist Sally Sara has been refused admission.
Taken together one might think that these matters already constitute a breach of EU conditions.
I have some questions for Mr Solana.
What representations are being made to the Government of South Africa to apply greater regional pressure on the Mugabe government? Are the measures for the implementation of smart sanctions now in place?
What level of deterioration in the situation will trigger these sanctions? Is the European Union's response being fully coordinated with that of the United States?
Thank you, Mr President, talking about the conflict in the Middle East means being faced with the substantial dilemma of striking a balance between Israel' s right to safe borders and a viable Palestinian state.
We are further from this goal than ever before, or so it seems.
Nobody feels safe anymore, either in Israel or in the Palestinian state.
Nobody appears to be able to play an objective role in getting the peace process back on track.
The extremists set the agenda, and the Americans seem to tolerate the tough stance adopted by Prime Minister Sharon.
Whichever way one defines the position of President Arafat, it seems to me that, without him, chaos would descend on the Palestinian Regions.
What can the European Union do? In my view, we should mainly keep the channels of communication open.
I back those fellow MEPs who say that we must continue talks with both parties and exert pressure on Israel to accept the Palestinian Authority as the only significant interlocutor, and so find the way back to consultation.
However, we must also continue to ask Mr Arafat to tackle the terrorists on his own home turf.
The European Union should be prepared to postpone a certain form of cooperation with Israel in this context, but not to rule such postponement out in respect of the Palestinian Authority either, should it transpire that the fight against terrorism is not being taken seriously.
This brings me to yet another point which I should like to put to Mr Solana.
The conflict in the Middle East is also tied in with the relationship between the EU and the United States, and this issue is also important in the fight against terrorism.
In addition, I should like to find out his reaction to the statements by President Bush who talks about the axis of evil and the three countries he refers to by this. What is the EU' s reaction to this?
Is he driving a new wedge between the European Union and the United States? I would particularly like to know what implications these statements by President Bush have for the policy of the European Union, particularly with regard to Iran.
I am interested to know how the Council assesses Iran, but also the other countries which are being accused by the Americans of state support for terrorism.
In my opinion, this will be an important issue in the time to come, also in connection with the fresh debate on the military superiority of the United States and the military weakness of the European Union.
Mr President, as the last Member to speak in today's debate, it appears to me that there has been an unusual degree of unanimity, accompanied both by concern and a determination to bring about some sort of happy ending.
Are we really in the worst stage of the Palestinian crisis or has the tragedy risen to its climax, to be followed by catharsis and a way out?
Without wishing to judge, we must admit that Sharon's policy has even made victims of the Israelis: he has painted himself into a corner with a no-win policy.
Perhaps Sharon dreams of a final solution to the Palestine problem, to complete the circle of one of the darkest periods in the history of Europe. But America must take its share of the blame for failing to understand that supporting no-win policies basically undermines its own policy and role.
Are we Europeans merely bystanders here? No, we are not.
I believe that the proposals made by both Commissioner Pattern and the High Representative, Mr Solana, and everything else said during the debate, are very serious proposals with the potential to become practical policy.
Nor do I think that we, the European Union, are mere bystanders doomed, like Sisyphus, to roll the boulder to the top of the mountain and then watch others toss it back over the edge.
We must, however, also turn our attention to other matters because now we have a crisis in the Middle East and tension on the borders of the European Union.
And then we have another crisis within Europe.
The Balkan crisis.
In this sense, Mr Solana was right to comment on the state of flux around Albania, around Kosovo, around Montenegro and the area in general, where there is not so much a fragile equilibrium as an unstable equilibrium, which is far worse.
The success of any endeavour which, in the Balkans in particular, has been undertaken mainly by the European Union, must be based on - and we must insist on - a fundamentally political solution, because that is where, in the final analysis, we shall be judged on our ability to manage crises peaceably and bring about political results.
Pursuant to Rule 37(2) I have received seven motions for resolution to wind up the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
Several colleagues - Mr Cohn-Bendit, General Morillon and some others - made a number of suggestions as to initiatives Parliament might take.
I am very open to working with the Conference of Presidents and colleagues on those.
Last week I had a very productive private meeting with Ambassador Moratinos to seek his advice as to how best to move some of these ideas forward.
We will talk about that in the appropriate forum.
Vertical agreements and concerted practices in the automobile industry
The next item is the Commission communication on vertical agreements and concerted practices in the automobile industry.
Mr President, it is my pleasure to make this - albeit brief - presentation of the draft motor vehicle Block Exemption Regulation, which the Commission adopted this morning.
Parliament is aware of the relatively severe practical limitations of the current Block Exemption Regulation, which is due to expire next September.
It is not sufficiently beneficial for consumers, particularly where they wish to exercise their right to a single market.
Moreover, the rules currently in force hinder the development of new methods, including Internet distribution; lastly, access to technical information for independent repairers needs to be improved too.
We have therefore put together this Block Exemption Regulation, which the Commission has adopted today, and I would like briefly to outline its main points.
The basic line underpinning the regulation is that the new system must be more stringent than the existing regulations and must allow greater competition on the sales and after-sales markets.
What are the main characteristics? Firstly, as regards the sale of new vehicles, flexibility and freedom to choose are the draft' s key points.
When they select their distributors, vehicle manufacturers can choose between a selective distribution system and a distribution based on territorial exclusivity, but they can no longer combine the two systems.
Both systems allow a vehicle manufacturer to guarantee that the members of its distribution network are qualified and that its distribution network covers all the areas of Europe, thus ensuring total coverage of the territory.
In both cases, the rights linked to the single market will be much, much better safeguarded than at present.
In an exclusive distribution system, distributors will be assigned to a specific geographical area such as a city, within which no other distributor will be permitted to open a showroom or carry out sales activities.
An exclusive dealership may, however, sell to any potential buyer that approaches its showroom.
This also applies to independent resellers, to those known as grey resellers.
These resellers could be supermarkets, for example, and they would exploit the price differentials to buy vehicles in countries where the prices are lower and then sell them in Member States where prices are higher, thus helping to create a genuine single market.
If, on the other hand, manufacturers opt for selective distribution, the distributors can advertise and send out customised mail shots and e-mails to consumers throughout Europe, even visiting them in person.
Consumers could, however, still encounter difficulties in dealing with a dealership from another Member State, particularly as regards simple, direct contact with the foreign dealership, payment of invoices and agreements regarding the delivery of the vehicle.
We therefore deemed it necessary to adopt a more radical approach in order to bring about greater integration of the markets, making it genuinely possible for consumers to buy vehicles abroad.
A vehicle distributor must be able to open sales or delivery outlets closer to consumers' places of residence, including in other Member States.
On a practical level, this means, for example, that an Amsterdam Volkswagen dealer could open a showroom in the United Kingdom and sell Volkswagen Golfs there at the Dutch retail price, which is 23% lower than the British price.
This, of course, would create the necessary market conditions for reducing the currently considerable price differentials of motor vehicles in the European Union.
Then consumers are demanding multi-brand dealerships.
The draft regulation makes multi-brand selling much more simple.
The only permissible constraint is that the different brand models are displayed in different areas of a showroom so as to avoid confusion between brands.
This display method is already used in car showrooms and has proved universally satisfactory.
Moreover, the draft regulation seeks to reorganise the existing relationship between sales and after-sales services, allowing specialisation.
Distributors will be able to opt to provide after-sales services themselves, as dealerships currently do, or they will be able to subcontract to one or more authorised repairers.
These repairers must observe all the quality requirements set by the vehicle manufacturers.
In addition, block exemption makes intermediaries' work much easier: one example is that of Virgin Cars, which buys vehicles on behalf of consumers and will now be able to find the best deal for consumers more easily.
All these factors give distributors more room for manoeuvre to organise their activities on the basis of market conditions, exploiting new sales opportunities and thus consolidating their independence from manufacturers.
Another way to reduce dealers' dependence on manufacturers is by laying down the obligation for manufacturers to give sufficient grounds for deciding to cancel distribution contracts.
If the distributor does not agree with the grounds given, it can have recourse to a mediator or a court.
Moreover, the Commission has decreed, through this draft regulation, that a reasonable period of notice must be given before the cancellation of a contract, in most cases two years.
All these measures ensure that distributors can make full use of the new opportunities offered to them by this draft regulation.
I would now like to say a few words on after-sales services, which are also extremely important.
The new draft regulation seeks to ensure that consumers have a genuine choice and that they can have recourse to both authorised repairers and independent operators.
In the interests of the safety and reliability of all vehicles - we have placed great emphasis on this objective - we have to ensure that all operators can compete with each other in all sectors without this affecting the quality of the service provided, which must continue to be of the highest level.
The new regulation allows all vehicle manufacturers to set quality requirements which must be respected by all repairers who wish to be authorised repairers.
Manufacturers can therefore guarantee that the members of their network comply with high quality standards.
This avoids foreclosure of these markets as new operators could now be designated authorised repairers, provided, of course, that they are prepared to observe the requirements set by the vehicle manufacturers.
The proposal also lays down the benefit for dealerships whose contract has come to an end of being able to continue to operate as official dealerships of their brand for as long as they satisfy the quality requirements.
The general level of technical skill on the market is thus increased and a substantial Europe-wide network of official repairers is maintained. This will help to bring higher quality of service and greater road safety.
Moreover, we can expect the proposal to have a positive impact on employment and small and medium-sized businesses.
The proposal seeks to make it easier for independent operators on the after-sales market to compete.
In view of the increasing complexity of motor vehicles, it is important for independent repairers to have better access to all the necessary technical information, including diagnosis devices, equipment and training.
Any discrimination between official repairers which are part of the network and independent repairers is therefore unacceptable.
The proposed changes also encourage the use of spare parts which are cheaper but of equivalent quality, making repair work less costly.
I would like to end, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by focusing on the procedure.
The next stage in the procedure is consultation with the European Parliament and the Member States and the publication of the draft regulation in the Official Journal.
This will allow the Commission to receive comments from all the interested parties before adopting the final regulation.
The whole process should be concluded before next summer.
I am especially looking forward to giving a more detailed presentation of the draft regulation to the Parliamentary Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on 19 February and to continuing the fruitful dialogue already underway between the Commission and Members of Parliament, particularly Mr Konrad, who is your rapporteur for the subject, and the Chairman, Mrs Randzio-Plath.
Mr President, we have addressed a complex subject: a subject which is also extremely important, practical in nature and has wider significance.
If we want the European citizens genuinely to identify with European integration, we cannot afford to let such a key element of the single market as that in motor vehicles to continue not to be a single market, for it would be unfair to the consumer.
Mr President, Commissioner Monti, ladies and gentlemen, many thanks to you first of all, Mr Monti, for setting this proposal before Parliament.
We very much welcome the fact that this proposal's first outing has brought you to Strasbourg, and this is much appreciated.
As became clear during discussions in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I welcome many points of this proposal, including those on the sale of more than one make of car, original spare parts, access to technical information, and liberalisation as regards the separation of service and sales, but I have a query about how freedom of establishment within the internal market is to be regulated.
We in Germany have a regulation entitled the Group Exemption Regulation, which states that a regulatory framework should continue to exist, subject to a time limit.
That is something I welcome.
The content, though, amounts to liberalisation if all it says is that individual dealers may be restricted at national level but entitled to set up as many subsidiaries as they like within the EU internal market.
This modifies these rules and makes a nonsense of them.
It will create problems for us and we must discuss this.
Such is my first important question in this context.
Mr President, there is much to be welcomed in the Commissioner's statement, in particular its acknowledgement of the role of the grey market in bringing prices down, the use of the Internet, car supermarkets in the proper trade in spare parts and servicing.
There is one question I have to ask.
It looks as if in different national markets exclusivity can be maintained in a position which could be anti-competitive.
How wide, in a given national market, could these exclusive deals with the dealer networks remain?
Mr President, I should also like to thank Mr Monti for coming to Parliament today and making a very clear statement on a very complex issue.
It would have been very helpful if we could have had the text in advance, but I understand and hope it will be available very quickly.
I should like to raise two points with him.
What concerns British consumers - and much of it is addressed in his proposal - is clearly the question of price.
Does the Commissioner see a role for putting price bans and price guarantees in the regulation so it is reviewed after a certain period to ensure that prices are converging? That would give a clear signal about the direction he wants to go.
The second issue concerns freedom of dealers and their ability to invest.
He has moved substantially in the right direction but I am concerned, in the example he gave, about the ability of a dealer to Holland to go and invest and set up a dealership in the UK.
How is that going to protect dealers who already have a substantial investment? Would it not be much better for them to be able to go and buy cars in Holland and sell them to consumers there, rather than have what could be a random solution which would actually dissipate the impact of the dealers' independence that he wants to give them?
I hope there will be further occasions, in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, for example, to go more into the detail.
What seems to me links the first two speeches is a concern that indeed would be there if a location clause could exist.
One distinctive feature of today's Commission decision on the draft regulation is that the location clause is not there at any percentage level.
This should go a long way towards alleviating those concerns.
As regards making sure that prices converge, this is one of the objectives of the overall proposal.
As you know, we keep regular track of the convergence or non-convergence of prices.
We produce a report twice a year on the price of different models in the different Member States.
That will be a powerful means of gauging the consequences, among other things, of this new regulation.
We have resisted the temptation to become price regulators and to link specific competition arrangements for distribution to the size of the price differentials.
It is not for us to say that this price differential is acceptable, but that this plus one is not.
We are working on the roots of the phenomena, so that price convergence should develop.
As for the Anglo-Dutch example, my answer briefly is that both modalities would be allowed, namely the setting up of dealers' outlets in the other countries and unrestricted trade without changing the location of the dealers.
Mr President, on a point of order: before you ask the first speaker to make a contribution, I indicated that I wished to be added to the list.
Mr President, I have a short question for the Commissioner. I was the rapporteur seven and a half years ago when we first discussed this project.
I am pleased to see that the Commission has moved so far, but I still have a question.
Maybe I am too cynical and too liberal, but why do we need to have rules? Why cannot we just use the Treaty as it is?
Why do we need to have special rules for car dealers and for car sales? So far as I am concerned we could use the normal competition rules.
Mr President, I support Commissioner Monti's initiative and I am pleased that his Commission colleagues are also supporting him.
Certainly the current rules benefit car manufacturers and dealers and disadvantage consumers.
I see this particular proposal as upholding the principles of the single market, and I am convinced that it will lead to cheaper cars for EU citizens.
I have one major concern and that concerns my own country.
Is the Commissioner aware that the vehicle registration tax in Ireland will add anything between 50% and 100% to the price of cars? So an initiative like this will be virtually meaningless unless the Commission is able to persuade the Irish authorities to reduce the vehicle registration tax.
I know tax is a national competence, but we are moving towards harmonisation of tax and I would therefore humbly request that the Commissioner approach the Irish authorities to seek a reduction in the vehicle registration tax, so that Irish citizens can enjoy the same benefit as their continental counterparts.
I should like to congratulate the Commissioner on steering this package, which was not entirely unanimous, through the Commission so skilfully.
The same problems exist in the UK: 52 models examined in the UK are still more expensive.
My question is the same as Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's.
If we have the partial reforms that the Commissioner is proposing here today, and we carry those out in opening up the market to grey trade supermarkets, in particular Internet sales, is it not the case that the block exemption becomes obsolete, and when will the day be when we actually get rid of these rules?
Finally, Commissioner, in 1999 I asked you a question in response to which you told me that cars in Britain would be cheaper if Britain joined the euro.
Is that still your position, and what difference do you think that would make in terms of price differentials?
I realise, not without relief, that I am not the Commissioner responsible either for taxation or for monetary union, but merely the Commissioner for humble competition policy which, nevertheless, has a role to play and tries to play it vigorously - with the support of Parliament, which is apparent once again today.
On competition proper, why not be even more liberal and refrain from applying sector-specific rules? Well, we have looked into this and a detailed analysis has brought us to the following conclusion.
If we did not have specific rules for this industry competition-wise, the industry would fall under the application of the block-exemption regulation on vertical restrictions.
That would have two main drawbacks.
It would allow the industry to use very similar distribution agreements to those permitted at present, on which our evaluation report was pretty negative.
Also applying the general regime would not be a satisfactory means of improving competition on the after-sales market.
Independent repairers could be foreclosed from the market as a result.
This is clearly something which could not be accepted.
Furthermore, all motor vehicles would most likely continue to be distributed through the same type of selective and exclusive distribution systems if no new regulatory regime was introduced.
Last, but not least, the general regime does not offer provisions which are crucial in the car sector to ensure benefits for the consumer.
This is the case with the so-called availability clause, which allows, for instance, a British consumer to buy a right-hand-drive car in a left-hand-drive country.
So, although we are in principle against sector-specific rules, as you have seen with the telecom package with my colleague, Mr Liikanen, we have moved some way towards the adoption of general competition rules.
But here the particular nature of the situation has led us to firmly believe that a sector-specific rule would be more appropriate.
As for supermarkets, for example, I can only say that, during the lengthy consultation process undertaken by the Commission, no supermarket or association speaking on its behalf directly expressed a desire to sell cars on a regular basis.
On the other hand, it would not be true to suggest that the draft regulation adopted today gives no business opportunities to supermarkets.
A supermarket could become a mono- or multi-brand sales dealer if it satisfied the criteria laid down by the manufacturer.
Similarly, it may act as an intermediary for consumers.
Finally, on the two issues which do not relate to competition but have a bearing on prices, tax and the euro, I will not go beyond the answer I gave on the issue of the UK, cars and the euro.
As for taxation, the honourable Member underlined that this is a national responsibility and it is tempting, but perhaps not entirely consistent, to argue that this is to be jealously guarded as a national prerogative and yet ask the Commissioner to lobby actively for harmonisation.
I will, however, pass this message on to my colleague, Mr Bolkestein.
Mr President, Commissioner, everyone knows today that cars are complex and highly sophisticated products.
If you now allow dealers to subcontract maintenance and repairs, an entire continuous chain of responsibility will be broken.
This should cause us to be concerned for the consumer.
How, in your opinion, Commissioner, will car manufacturers be able to honour their guarantees, ensure compliance with quality standards and, if necessary, recall vehicles if they now have only an indirect link with subcontractors?
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that the debate does not concern either the Commission' s final objectives or its principles in relation to this proposal, but rather the possible unwanted consequences which may result from the application of the future regulation of the sector.
Therefore, given the removal of the localisation clause, I would ask you, Commissioner, whether you think there should be a transitional period for small distribution companies, bearing in mind the investments made or under way in this sector, which have a great influence on the level of employment.
Commissioner, I congratulate you on the presentation of this document which is the last of the raft of rules relating to vertical restrictions.
I would like to make some comments.
You have given the example of the distributor in Amsterdam who could open a branch in London.
Let us bear in mind that distributors are dependent - as always, but even more in this case, given the quantity of the investments to be made - on manufacturers, and that contracts do not extend for very long periods.
It is true that, in the event of a resolution, they could go to tribunals, but I believe that, in the majority of EU countries - at least, Commissioner, in yours and in mine - the indefinite extension of cases would lead to the bankruptcy of distributors.
Therefore, given that selective distribution is allowed, I would ask you whether, in order to achieve equality of prices between the different countries, it would not be more sensible, for example, to restrict this prohibition of the selective vendor selling exclusively to the final consumer or to other members of the network.
That would favour parallel importers who would contribute to lowering prices.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for the clear account, and I am of the opinion that what is being proposed can optimise and improve the internal market principles.
To that extent, I am in support of the proposals.
The Anglo-Dutch example which the Commissioner quoted is related, inter alia, to the additional taxes which are being levied in each Member State.
I know that taxes fall within the national competences, but I believe that the Commission is entitled to intervene if competition and internal market regulation are hindered.
You state that you yourself are not responsible for taxation, but it is always the Commission that does the talking.
If I therefore address the Commissioner, I assume that, formally, I am addressing the Commission and not specifically the Commissioner.
I thus assume that you can take this message with you, as my Irish fellow MEP pointed out.
In addition, I should like to ask why it is not possible to take a registered car from another Member State to the country where you live. In this way, far better use could, in fact, be made of the internal market.
Commissioner, you have already heard many Members who believe that the approximation of prices must also be achieved by means of fiscal harmonisation, possibly more than by means of this regulation.
The current regulation affects 100% of the distribution contracts.
Nevertheless, you are establishing very tough limitation clauses in relation to the definition of a retailer.
Do you not believe, Commissioner, that this new regulation could create legal uncertainty amongst dealers, which may also endanger the continuity of the investments they are making and, also, to a certain degree, the employment of these dealers throughout the European Union, who number more than one million people? Are you not rather afraid that, with this policy of opening up competition, the large-scale distributors may benefit to the detriment of the small dealerships?
I will be brief.
I want to welcome the announcement by the Commissioner.
We will have to wait and see how it actually works in practice.
The companies we are dealing with here are quite powerful.
Does the Commissioner have an understanding with Member States that they will not top up their vehicle taxation as a means of recovering income lost as a result of lower prices, thereby wiping out the economic benefit to consumers?
In addition, would it be possible to make displaying or advertising pre-tax prices along with post-tax prices obligatory? Generally we have post-tax prices advertised.
Finally, what impact, if any, would this have on guaranteeing on a Europe-wide basis the car which may be bought in another state?
Mr President, the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy considers it an important question as to what effects this will have on technical legislation, specifically with regard to on-board-diagnostics or the various interfaces.
How, too, are we to ensure actual adherence to working standards and norms? Is it envisaged that there will be some sort of third-party certification, with neutral third parties checking that the standards have actually been kept to?
In this area some action concerning taxation is important.
The Commission has a role to play in this.
I would remind you that the Commission's position for the Nice IGC was that there should be a shift to qualified-majority voting in those areas of taxation which are crucial for the functioning of the single market.
I would not expect Member States to top up with higher taxes.
They would face constraints in doing so.
Will the new system bring about legal uncertainty for dealers? I believe not - on the contrary.
We are also confident of avoiding the sometimes-feared economic consequences for dealers and employment.
The draft regulation offers former dealers the opportunity to become official repayers within the manufacturers' network and to locate where they wish.
At any rate we already know that, this draft regulation aside, several manufacturers are planning to restructure and reduce the number of official network dealers in their systems.
As to the European warranty, it remains in the proposal.
Networks have to provide warranty, irrespective of where a car is bought.
Thank you very much for your dedication and brevity, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Questions to the Commission (B5-0002/2002).
We are going to change the order of the first two questions in accordance with the Members and the Commissioners.
Part I
Question No 39 by (H-0030/02):
Subject: Nuclear safety: Bulgaria's failure to comply with EU partnership agreement and agreements to decommission reactors at Kozloduy With regard to the decommissioning of units 1 and 2 of the nuclear plant at Kozloduy by the end of 2002, Mr Kovachev, the Bulgarian Energy Minister said on 8 January 2002 that his country will not be honouring its commitments to close down and dismantle the dangerous, old-style reactors, as provided by the revised partnership agreement between the European Union (EU) and Bulgaria, and the Sofia Memorandum, which Bulgaria signed with the Commission in 1999.
How will the Commission ensure that the commitments contained in the partnership agreement to decommission units 3 and 4 will be honoured, and what stage has been reached in the decommissioning of units 1 and 2, given that all four units are unsafe and cannot be upgraded at reasonable cost? Can Bulgaria ask for the opening of negotiations on the energy chapter under the pre-accession process when it refuses to honour its commitments to the EU on nuclear safety and has not drawn up a new energy strategy to bring it into line with free market rules (production and pricing) and the opening of the market to competition?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is unable to confirm the information according to which the Bulgarian government has announced its intention not to abide by the agreements entered into in respect of the decommissioning of the Kozloduy nuclear power station, nor can we attribute such a statement to the Bulgarian Energy Minister, Mr Kovatchiev.
Differing opinions have in fact been expressed in political circles in Bulgaria during the current public debate on the closure of the Kozloduy nuclear power station - specifically of its units 1 to 4.
Information available to the Commission indicates that, in a statement on 10 January 2002 on the early decommissioning of the four reactor blocks at Kozloduy, the Bulgarian Energy Minister mentioned 2008 or 2010 as possible dates for the closure of Blocks 3 and 4.
The Bulgarian Energy Minister's statement did not refer to Blocks 1 and 2.
The situation is that, in the agreement I reached with the Bulgarian government in 1999, we agreed on the decommissioning of Blocks 1 and 2 by 2002, that is this year, and that we would have discussions with the Bulgarian government on the decommissioning of Blocks 3 and 4 in connection with the revision of that country's energy strategy and that a decision on this would be reached before the date originally envisaged.
The Commission made it clear that it understood this to mean that 3 and 4 would be decommissioned by 2006 at the latest.
I must, though, say quite clearly that Bulgaria has not yet come to a formal decision on this matter.
This means that we cannot, of course, complete the energy chapter of negotiations with Bulgaria as long as we do not have a definite decommissioning date set down for Blocks 3 and 4.
The agreement I reached with the Bulgarian government at that time constitutes part of the European Union's common negotiating position in the energy chapter with regard to Kozloduy.
It is clear, therefore, that this chapter cannot be completed without compliance with the content of this agreement.
The matter is clear to that extent, and, on the Commission's behalf, I now repeat that the decommissioning of Blocks 1 to 4 of the nuclear power station at Kozloduy in accordance with the agreement entered into is an absolutely indispensable requirement for the conclusion of accession negotiations with the Republic of Bulgaria.
Work has begun on the decommissioning of Blocks 1 and 2 and the right administrative and technical conditions are in place.
As an international fund stands ready to finance these operations, I am working on the assumption that everything will go according to plan.
I do not share the concern expressed by some that the decommissioning of reactor Blocks 1 to 4 will result in major economic difficulties, particularly as regards competitiveness.
The Commission has calculated that Bulgaria has considerable over-capacity in energy production, and, as a new nuclear power station of modern design is being built, any loss to Bulgaria will be compensated for, and any problems are, in our view, perfectly capable of being surmounted.
To sum up, we have not the least indication that Bulgaria will pull out of the commitment it has made.
I would also like to expressly underline that the Bulgarian Prime Minister, at my most recent meeting with him, quite expressly confirmed to me that his government stands by the undertaking given by its predecessor.
Commissioner, thank you for your reply confirming that reactors 1 and 2 will be shut down this year, in 2002, that work has in fact already started, and that reactors 3 and 4 will be shut down by 2006 at the latest, as originally agreed, as the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, has assured me in writing and as you have stressed repeatedly.
I should like to ask you to keep up the pressure here because there will always be uncertainty about the security of supply. I should like to know exactly what the Commission has done about the single, interconnected operating system which could be used to exchange energy so that we do not have countries wondering what will happen now that reactors 1 to 4 at Kozloduy are to be shut down and whether or not they will be short of energy?
My second question concerns the loan granted to Bulgaria to bring reactors 5 and 6 up to Western safety standards.
What has been done about reactors 5 and 6?
In order to avoid misunderstandings, I have to again tell you, Mr Trakatellis, in the clearest terms that there is as yet no binding promise by the Bulgarian government that Blocks 3 and 4 will be decommissioned by 2006; there is, rather, an agreement that the decision on decommissioning these blocks will be taken earlier than the Bulgarian government originally planned.
The Commission stated in this communiqué that it understands that closure will take place by no later than 2006.
Formal notification by the Bulgarian government is still required, but it is certain that that is on its way.
Moreover, Mr Trakatellis, I have to tell you that energy provision in Bulgaria is a matter for the Bulgarian government.
Nor is the issue of energy efficiency in the Balkans and Bulgaria's position in the energy market a matter within the immediate remit of the Commission.
I can only reiterate our estimation that the decommissioning of Blocks 1 to 4 will not result in an energy shortage in Bulgaria, where there is, on the contrary, substantial overcapacity.
I entirely agree with you that it is a matter of absolute necessity to inform the Bulgarian public in precise terms of the need for decommissioning and the measures that are to accompany this, as in fact - as you are no doubt well aware - the people of Bulgaria do not, as a whole, understand this requirement by the international community.
We always behave as if these things were self-evident, and so I am grateful to you for addressing this point.
The overwhelming majority of Bulgaria's population does not see it as at all self-evident that the country's largest and most important power station should be decommissioned under pressure from the international community.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would be interested to know to which technical norms and standards the Commission actually refers when deciding which blocks are dangerous and have to be closed down.
Mr Rübig, the Commission did nothing of the sort, and indeed it cannot.
This was a political condition for the opening of negotiations with Bulgaria, one that was laid upon us by the Member States.
This political condition was formulated by the Member States in consequence of an assessment carried out by the industrialised States as early as the beginning of the 1990s, in the course of which the safety of nuclear power stations in Eastern Europe was subjected to examination.
This determined which of the nuclear power stations were seen by the Western industrialised States as incapable of being retrofitted at reasonable cost.
I am, at the moment, unaware of what standards the States applied at the time.
If you are interested, though, I would be happy to initiate the relevant research on your behalf.
The Commission did not set any enquiries in motion, but performed its political function of achieving a result with the Bulgarian government as regards compliance with a political condition for the beginning of negotiations.
I congratulate you, Commissioner, on always being allowed to make statements on such scintillating subjects, first Temelin and now Kozloduy. You must be a very happy man.
May I ask how much a decommissioning of this sort costs?
What happens to the contaminated materials? Who pays for it all?
How long does such decommissioning take? What actually happens if there is some sort of mishap before 2006?
Who pays then?
Who bears the costs?
Following on from your answer to Mr Rübig's question, do you not also believe that we are yet again seeing how urgently necessary it is that we should have common European standards rather than always arriving at decommissioning dates by a process of rough estimation?
Blocks 3 and 4 in 2006 - that is what we have said now.
Should we perhaps not make that 2004 or 2003? What happens then if something goes wrong in 2005?
Madam, much as I regret it, the Commission bears no responsibility for the safety standards at nuclear power stations anywhere in the world, not even in Bulgaria.
Even if I were able to answer your technical question, I would not be permitted to.
Responsibility for the operation of the Kozloduy nuclear power station, for any safety problems connected with it and also for any accidents that might occur, is borne exclusively by the operator, that is, in this instance, the Republic of Bulgaria.
I must also make it clear that the Commission is not in a position to take on any responsibility as we are not in a position either to have any influence on how this nuclear power station is operated.
I have no personal view on how safe or dangerous this nuclear power station is.
I am quite happy to give you detailed information on the technical processes involved as soon as such information is available to me.
We have to work on the assumption that the time required to complete a project like the decommissioning of a nuclear power station, is to be reckoned in decades rather than years.
That means that we are dealing here with a very long-term operation, which may, under certain circumstances, also involve long-term commitments or burdens on the Community budget.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
As the author is not present, Question No 38 lapses.
We invite Mr Liikanen to take a seat in the front row.
Part II Questions to Commissioner Liikanen
Question No 41 by (H-0054/02):
Subject: Improving the regulatory environment for SMEs The internal market is an ideal environment in which European undertakings can conduct business.
However, some important obstacles to the free circulation of goods and services continue to hamper their operations.
Given the need highlighted at the Lisbon Summit and in the European Charter for Small Enterprises for an improvement in the regulatory environment, further action in this regard is required.
What steps is the Commission taking to that end?
Mr President, the internal market has been of huge benefit to companies, but still more can be done.
Progress in this area is being watched within the framework of the Commission' s Internal Market Strategy for Services, approved in November 1999.
The Commission examines the Internal Market Strategy each year to evaluate the results achieved and suggest improvements.
The evaluation was last carried out in April.
One of the aims is to improve the operational environment for companies and special attention is paid to helping small enterprises in much of the action that is taken in association with this aim.
The Commission also monitors developments in the business climate for small enterprises with reference to the yearly report on the European Charter for Small Enterprises.
The report for 2002 will be coming out in the next few days and will assess the action to help small businesses that the Member States and the Commission have said they are taking.
The Conference of European Ministers responsible for SME policies to be held on 23 February in Aranjuez, in Spain, will be reporting on the conclusions of the report for 2002, and they will be submitted to the European Council when it convenes in Barcelona.
At this stage I might say that there has been progress.
Progress has been made, for example, in such areas as access to finance and the exchange of good practice.
In addition, in December, an SME envoy was appointed whose task it will be to step up exchanges with small and medium-sized enterprises and their representative bodies.
He will work in the Enterprise Directorate-General and his job will be to act as liaison officer on issues such as opportunities for SMEs to acquire funding and exploit innovation as well as matters to do with competitiveness, better regulation, implementation of the internal market process, participation in EU programmes and how best to enhance consultation procedures.
Last year the Commission launched an initiative called 'Helping SMEs to go digital' .
The aim is to make SMEs aware of the opportunities offered by information networks.
Six events have been planned for this year in different Member States and there is to be a large-scale conference in Brussels.
The Commission' s work to improve regulation is also making headway.
There have been a number of proposals to improve the situation, both in a White Paper on Governance in the European Union and in the Laeken communication on improving and simplifying the regulatory environment.
The proposals relate to the whole lifecycle of Community acts.
Under discussion are, for example, the need for more effective consultation with interest groups and civil society, an evaluation of Community action and costs, and a simplification of current laws.
By no later than June the Commission will have put forward a proposal for a straightforward action plan to simplify and improve the regulatory environment, after the Community' s institutions and other interest groups have been heard.
The Enterprise Directorate-General will be actively involved in drawing up this plan and drawing on the experience gained from the business impact assessment system and the test project connected with it.
The conclusions drawn, as a result of this project, will be ready this month.
Commissioner, you have given me such a complete answer that I have few remaining doubts to ask you about.
Nevertheless, I would like to insist that the measures he says are going to be adopted, above all in relation to the simplification of the regulations, be genuinely implemented and applied as quickly as possible.
Great declarations, great words and great policies are all very well for existing undertakings, but it is essential that those who - inspired by the entrepreneurial spirit which we are so keen to promote - decide to create a new undertaking, are not faced with obstacles and difficulties which prevent them from going ahead.
Furthermore, and in order that this policy may be truly effective, information on actions implemented by the Commission must reach the smaller entrepreneurs, a sector which very much needs it.
Mr President, I agree with the honourable Member that words are words and only actions are important.
When our report appears this week on the SME Charter it will present a picture of what has been done in Member States.
It is very important for the Commission that we are able to present this year a thorough impact analysis of all new legislative proposals and that we know what the genuine costs to companies are, and that we always consider what the most simple solution might be.
I am prepared to go back over this matter with the honourable Member in minute detail.
But I agree: deeds are what is most important, whereas words are only good for a very short while.
I would like to pick up on the Commissioner's last reply and I am delighted that he is talking about thorough impact assessment.
I would like to put it to him that at the moment impact assessments that we receive attached to Commission proposals in many cases are not thoroughly done, they are not looking at the full implications, they are not necessarily independent.
Would he agree with me that it is vital to have an interinstitutional arrangement for independent impact assessment so that when proposals come through this House and colleagues add burdens on business they are properly costed? Also, when the Council adds provisions to Commission proposals in common position, they should be properly costed too?
Would he not share my view that this is the sort of bold proposal we want to see?
I have to say that the proposals we have seen so far from the Commission on regulatory assessment are far too timid.
I share Mr Harbour's view that there is a lot to improve in the impact assessment.
For that reason, when I took office I launched a project to create more solid methodologies for business impact assessment.
The results of this work are ready now in February.
Alongside this, the Commission proposed at the Göteborg Summit the need for sustainable impact assessments, which means impact assessments that include economic, social and environmental factors.
This work is now proceeding inside the Commission and is led by the Secretary-General.
I fully agree that we must have predictable accepted methodologies so that anybody can assess how we have come to these conclusions.
The Commission is ready to open the debate on these issues and to appear before the respective committees, for instance, to discuss what we have learned in our business impact assessments.
The Commission appreciates the importance of both business and sustainable impact assessments and the need to achieve them quickly.
Secondly, of course it does not mean that measures will not be taken if costs are incurred but we should at least try to assess the costs honestly and then an informed decision can be taken.
Mr Crowley arrived immediately before I gave him the floor.
If you wish to ask your question, the Commissioner will reply.
Question No 40 by Brian Crowley (H-0025/02):
Subject: Improving the business environment in 2002 and creating an inclusive eSociety
Will the Commission outline its proposals for 2002 aimed at improving the business environment, including for small and very small businesses, and will it indicate its time-scale for bringing forward the promised new initiatives aimed at consolidating the move towards an inclusive 'eSociety' ?
The European Commission will publish within a week the annual report on the European Charter for Small Enterprises.
Through the annual report we monitor progress on the environment for small businesses.
The 2002 report evaluates actions reported by the Member States and the Commission in favour of small businesses.
The conclusions of the report will be presented to the Conference of European Ministers responsible for SME policies on 23 February and submitted to the European Council.
As I have already said, the report shows signs of increasing political commitment and major progress has been made in the field of access to finance.
Progress has also been made in exchanges of good practice such as cutting red tape in company creation.
As regards the efforts of SMEs to adapt their business practices to the global knowledge-based economy, the Commission launched last year the GoDigital initiative for SMEs as part of the eEurope Action Plan.
In some countries this report has received a very positive welcome. We are organising campaigns throughout the European countries at the moment.
Before the end of 2002 a portal to provide SMEs with legal information, guidance and advice will be set up.
The Commission has also just today adopted a Communication on eEurope Benchmarking, where you can follow how SMEs are being connected and how broadly they use eCommerce.
This Commission communication highlights new challenges in relation to Internet usage: broadband is needed to stimulate new services; schools are connected but the Internet is not yet sufficiently part of the pedagogical process; governments online have to move towards full electronic transactions.
The indicators include amongst others Internet penetration in business and the percentage of companies selling online.
While good progress has been made, the take-up of eCommerce is not as fast as expected.
This confirms the relevance of actions such as GoDigital, but also indicates the urgent need to identify obstacles to eCommerce amongst especially small companies as well as consumers. eEurope should be continued beyond 2002 and shift its focus towards effective usage and availability of the Internet for all citizens and businesses.
The communication on the impact of the e-Economy on European enterprises contains proposals to deepen cooperation between all relevant stakeholders to develop a policy agenda for maximising the benefits of the e-Economy for European enterprises, taking into account the needs of SMEs.
The Industry Council endorsed this proposal in December 2001 and invited the Commission and the Member States to intensify the debate on the e-Economy.
The Spanish Presidency has decided to launch a policy debate with Member States to agree future priorities for the promotion of the e-Economy in Europe and to address this topic at the Industry Council meeting in early June.
To this end it will be necessary to identify policy changes at national and European level to adapt to the needs of the e-Economy.
These activities will be developed in close cooperation with the reflections and the preparatory work relating to the future of the eEurope Action Plan.
Mr President, Commissioner, this electronic Europe project met with enormous difficulties when spectrum auctions started to be held.
It resulted in bankruptcies, which are still continuing, and unemployment.
What do you intend to do to prevent this from happening in the future, with certain Member States collecting charges against the general intentions of the e-Europe project - at the same time leading the sector into a wild downward spiral - and others not?
Mr President, last December - thanks to the European Parliament' s swift action - new legislation was passed on all electronic communication.
For the first time it also contains a legal basis for spectra. It allows for the creation of what are now new bodies: a committee, to discuss long-term questions, and a working party, to consider the current administration.
Now that we have a common legal basis and joint bodies, it will be possible to discuss common aims beforehand and coordinate action.
This is obviously no guarantee that everyone in the end will choose the same approach, but I hope that we can at least agree together policies in an open and transparent way and that before the first State starts dividing up the spectra the rules will be known to all.
The market will be able to act more wisely when it is known at least how things are moving in different regions of Europe.
I believe that the sort of bedlam we experienced last time will not repeat itself, but it cannot always be guaranteed that common sense will prevail at all times.
As the author is not present, Question No 42 lapses.
Question No 43 by (H-0042/02):
Subject: eEurope 2002 initiative The Spanish Presidency, in its published work programme, notes that the 'eEurope 2002 initiative will have to be relaunched with new objectives'.
Can the Commission explain why a strategy launched only two years ago is now in need of a 'relaunch', indicate the reasons for the failure of the original strategy and outline the objectives that the new strategy seeks to achieve?
I should first of all like to thank Mr Harbour for keeping e-Europe high on the European agenda.
When we look back at the year 2000 we can see that the e-Europe action plan really rewrote the European political agenda.
The idea was to set clear targets for the EU and Member States, clear deadlines and follow it up.
Has this idea worked? I think it has.
To give you a few examples: the telecoms package and unbundling the local loop.
We would never have been able to imagine these rapid procedures without high priority being given to information society.
Internet penetration has increased.
It was 18% in March 2000 and 38% in December 2001 - more than double.
Nearly 90% of schools are now connected to the Internet.
Today 90% of European enterprises have Internet access.
We now have the fastest research network in the world.
The start of progress in getting government on-line is well under way.
A comprehensive overview is now available.
It was accepted today in the Commission.
I am happy to pass it on to Members of Parliament.
What are the new challenges? First of all, Internet penetration has risen sharply but is still very unevenly distributed across Europe.
Schools are massively connected but still the number of pupils per on-line PC varies enormously.
We must have more PCs at school per student.
Even though businesses are more and more connected the reorganisation of business procedures is only starting.
Business consumer e-commerce is still rather small.
Governments have started enthusiastically to go on-line.
Normally there is a question about presenting activities on their website.
Real interactivity is still rare.
All the interactivities give better services to citizens and increase the productivity of the public sector.
The Commission has not come to the end of its actions because technology moves quickly.
Broadband Internet is now a real option.
Broadband is the essential physical infrastructure of the knowledge society.
Without broadband we will not deliver fully Lisbon.
Other nations have already made their choices for broadband.
The Commission's report to the Barcelona Summit said: "Broadband Internet access will be a key factor for improving the performance of the economy.
Broadband networks will form the backbone of an increasingly interconnected and integrated society.
E-Europe should be continued beyond 2002 and shift its focus more towards effective usage and availability of the Internet."
The Commission is particularly happy that the Spanish Presidency shares this analysis and has put the launch of e-Europe 2005 action plan on its agenda.
The first discussion on a possible new action plan will take place at the informal telecoms council in Vitoria in Spain on 22 and 23 February 2002.
The Commission is ready to go into pro-dialogue also with the relevant committees in the European Parliament.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for a wide-ranging reply and I note that two of the central achievements are those which Parliament has pushed through very strongly.
However, my concern is not the work that he has done - for which I commend him very much - but rather, for example, the delays and problems that Member States are experiencing in transposing the electronic commerce directive, passed by this House with great speed.
Similarly, I see that as regards copyright in the Information Society - another fundamental plank in the legislation that he does not mention - discussion is continuing on ideas for new levies on computer disks and other issues that will fundamentally hold back the development of the e-society.
Does he share my considerable concern that Member States do not appear to be taking anything like seriously enough the fundamental principles that he has enunciated and would he give us some indication that he will give positive vent to them at the forthcoming meetings? Will the Commission publish evaluation reports on both of these issues so that we in this House can put some political pressure on Member States to get on with it?
The two directives on electronic commerce and copyright are extremely important.
It is the Commission's duty to ensure that Member States transpose them into their law.
They are both within the remit of my colleague, Mr Bolkestein, but we are cooperating here and I am ready to contact him after Question Time.
On the matter of copyright, the Commission is organising a workshop in the next few weeks on digital rights management technologies.
When content is sold on line it is very important to guarantee a system where the copyright holder can receive proper royalties for his production.
New technologies like digital rights management are helpful there.
My personal wish is that this technology could result in more targeted methods to get proper revenue for copyright holders so that Member States would not need to go for these very broad untargeted solutions such as copyright levy.
Finally, on the follow-up of the Member States, there is often a problem that progress is piecemeal and there is not sufficiently strong coordination in Member States to guarantee that progress will take place in all areas.
That will be one of the issues we will raise at the next informal Council and we will pass this challenge to European Council in Barcelona.
Mr President, Commissioner, what does the Commission intend to do about the threat that the digital divide will increase, because it affects people who are also financially badly off? Secondly, the usage rate of Internet connections amongst us in Europe is low.
What does the Commission intend to do about this? Thirdly, the development of content here in Europe is also slow.
It is nevertheless the key to greater action in the spirit of e-Europe.
How do you intend to tackle this?
All these issues are extremely important.
I have just a few remarks.
Schools are well placed to bridge the digital divide.
Through them we can guarantee education for all.
In Europe comprehensive school systems still work.
We can guarantee skills for everybody.
When the Internet comes to homes via children we can avoid the divide from the start.
But we must also look to the older age groups.
Here, the combined efforts of the public sector in training, public access points which can be run by local communities, post offices and the private sector provide extremely important backup.
Here I hope all Member States will take active measures.
As regards usage, we are now discussing flat rates in general.
In America, higher usage is often explained by the fact that there are more flat-rate offers on the market, not only for broadband but also for narrow bands.
We have not reached a final conclusion on this, but this question is being raised now, as we have seen a tail-off in demand for broadband in the form of ADSL and cable.
Should that be a solution? I will reply to that after we have done some more internal work.
As for content, if the Internet is not in your own mother tongue it will be not the Internet for all.
The Commission is now implementing its programme, eContent, which concentrates on multilingual and multicultural platforms in the content area.
It brings together different operators from different Member States.
There has been huge interest and it is doing fine.
The Information Society Technologies Programme is shifting attention towards applications.
In the future the user will be at the centre.
We have often put technology at the centre, but we must now put the user at the centre instead.
Users are not looking for technology, but rather for content, services and applications.
For that reason the attention of research is moving in that direction.
The Commission supports these efforts.
Mr President, the UMTS licences were auctioned for very large sums. What effect will that have on digital television licences?
I believe that new jobs have been created precisely by these initiatives, which also involve very substantial investments.
What view do you take of the development of risk capital in this field?
To be honest, Mr Rübig, last year was not an easy one for the risk capital market.
The venture capital market developed very rapidly in 2000, then we saw the difficulties and it went down.
At EU level, the European Investment Funds invested in venture capital funds in various Member States.
These investments were well-timed because of the lack of venture financing.
We have also been using Community budget funds, with part of the multiannual programme credits transferred into the investment funds.
Through these efforts the public sector has been playing its role.
At the same time it is very important to complete the legislation on a genuine internal market for financial services and risk capital.
In this regard we hope that the solutions resulting from the Lamfalussy report will be very useful.
Today on the Internet I saw some good news: some new venture rounds for wireless applications have been completed.
Perhaps the worst is over, but the market is still very tight compared to the situation in the past.
So all such measures, an active financial market and public support measures, if there is market failure, will be needed.
Thank you very much for your cooperation, Commissioner.
Questions to Commissioner Diamantopoulou
Mr Alavanos's question concerns the Lisbon targets and whether or not Greece will be able to attain them.
First, the target of full employment set in Lisbon was a political commitment by leaders of the Member States, not a binding legal commitment.
Except that the political commitment was also highly significant and all the national action plans for employment have been drawn up and submitted on the basis of that commitment.
In Greece, the second Community Support Framework applied over the last five years was completed in December 2001, so it is difficult to make an overall evaluation of it.
Naturally, the job market was reformed and training and proactive employment policy structures and mechanisms were created during the course of the second Community Support Framework.
The problem lies with the employment services which Greece started to reform at the end of the second Community Support Framework.
As far as the third Community Support Framework is concerned, Greece is one of the few Member States which has set quantitative national targets under its national action plan, having announced a target of 61.5% for 2005.
The third Community Support Framework includes a hefty 2.9 trillion drachmas to fund pro-active employment policies and reforms.
The implementation of the third Community Support Framework is a huge challenge if Greece is to introduce the mechanisms needed for employment policy, such as an individualised approach, because the Greek national employment agencies need to be completely overhauled and training mechanisms need to work more efficiently and be geared to regional development objectives.
The Commission is working closely with all the Member States and, as you know, it repeats the guidelines every year so that the Member States can take account of European agreements on the application of employment policies.
Commissioner, I know you are a supporter of English as our official language, so I shall put my question in English.
By chance, I have before me Eurostat's statistics on the economy labour market.
Total unemployment in the European Union in 1990 was 7.7%; in 2000 it was 8.4%.
In 1990 unemployment in Greece stood at 6.3%, less than in the Community.
In 2000 it was 11.1%, the second highest rate after Spain.
In Ireland, unemployment in 1990 was 13.1%; in 2000 it was 4.4%.
Ireland and Greece are both cohesion countries.
How do you explain that, and what critical view would you take of the Greek Government's actions during the second Community support framework?
First, may I thank you for your support.
I knew that a progressive person of your experience would agree that English - and our mastering it in Greece - are very important.
As far as the statistics which you quoted are concerned, we need to analyse the structure of unemployment in Greece.
The rate of employment for men is exactly the same as the European average, but there is a huge difference in the rate of employment for women, which is 40% in Greece, compared with a Community average of 56%.
Similarly, there is a very serious youth unemployment problem.
Here too, in comparison with other countries, unemployment is very high among the young in Greece, 29%, mainly because the various types of part-time employment found in numerous countries, including the country you referred to, are counted as full-time jobs.
According to the Commission's recommendations, what the Greek government needs to do is to focus more on policies for women and young people and on policies for older workers, because here again very few older workers are actually in employment.
These are the three main employment policy problems and, according to the national action plan which it has submitted, this is where the Greek government has focused its efforts.
Of course, the Commission will continue to make recommendations where policies have not progressed as the Greek government promised, as it did in September this year and will again next September.
Question No 45 by (H-0008/02):
Subject: Employment in Greece According to the Recommendation for a Council Recommendation on the Implementation of Member States' Employment Policies (COM(2001)0512/final), Greece continues to have one of the lowest employment rates in the European Union, and unemployment in Greece has stabilised at 11%, which is considerably above the EU average.
These data show that the labour market suffers from structural problems, a finding borne out by the Commission Communication on structural indicators.
According to this Communication, Greek indicators concerning entrepreneurial expenditure on R&D, access to the internet, lifelong learning and public spending on education are the lowest of all the Member States.
Will the Commission say whether, following the Council Recommendation and the Commission Communication, Greece has taken any specific additional measures or initiatives concerning the above sectors with a view to promoting employability and improving its position?
I should like to start, Mr President, with the tables of indicators announced by the Commission in its most recent communication, which will be sent to Barcelona.
It is true, as the honourable Member says in his question, that Greece's indicators on matters such as entrepreneurial expenditure on research and development, access to the Internet, lifelong learning and public spending on education are lower than those of other Member States.
However, I should like to point out that the Commission's philosophy behind these annual indicators is not just to compare the situation between Member States which do not always have the same points of reference; it is to look at the progress made by Member States from one year to the next.
If we take the indicator for Internet access, Greece has progressed from 4.5% last year to 11% this year.
These are the main objectives for the operational programmes for 2000 to 2006.
In other words, there are operational programmes for education, vocational training, lifelong learning, the information society and the dissemination of the information society in both the public administration and the business sector.
This is one of the major challenges of the Greek government's national action plan and the Community Support Framework.
Of course, we must not forget that these programmes have substantial Community funds, but that alone is not enough.
Very substantial national funds are needed, together with efficient, urgent policies, especially for the information society, if these indicators are to improve significantly by next year.
Thank you, Commissioner, you are of course quite right.
What counts is the progress made from one year to the next and that is precisely why I should like to ask you if any indicators apart from the Internet, which you referred to, have improved? And secondly, as regards the third Community Support Framework, which makes provision for all the major budget items which you mentioned, has Greece actually started spending any money?
We are already more or less at the end of the second year. Thirdly, I should like to ask a question which I have been asking repeatedly for several years now, Commissioner, because I have been unable to obtain a reply.
Has anyone ever - not last year or the year before, because that would be impossible - but let us say five years ago; has anyone ever actually counted how many jobs have been created over a period of time from funds budgeted for job creation, just to give us a snapshot of exactly how efficient it is.
I referred to this specific indicator because it shows such a huge difference, with growth in the order of 150%.
Spending on education and research and technology has risen, while other indicators have remained stable and have not changed.
In reply to your questions on the third Community Support Framework, the first prepayments have been signed, accounting, if I am not mistaken, for approximately 10%, and as for counting jobs for the second Community Support Framework, I do not think we could supply actual figures, because they would probably be fictitious, by which I mean that there are the direct jobs created under the Greek programmes, the stages, and the indirect jobs created by training and the impact of local development funds, either in the public sector or in the private sector following training.
These jobs are not counted because the national employment agencies are unable to quantify the results of training but they are some of the important statistics which are required by the third Community Support Framework if we are to be able to monitor progress.
Question No 46 by (H-0035/02):
Subject: Undeclared work in Greece In 1998, the Commission published a communication aimed at launching a dialogue among the Member States with a view to combating undeclared work which, according to data at the time, accounted for some 15% of the Union's GDP, while in Greece and Italy the figure exceeded 20% of GDP.
Recent investigations by the Greek authorities, together with other available data, reveal that 10.5% of businesses are not registered with the Social Security Institution and that the percentage of non-registered workers fluctuates between 21% and 30%, resulting in a loss of billions of euro from the public purse and, in particular, the social insurance funds.
What commitments did the Member States make as a result of the dialogue launched in 1998?
What progress has been made?
What are Greece's commitments and what recommendations have been made to that country? What measures will the Commission take to combat undeclared work, in the context of the qualitative employment policy and the open coordination method, to ensure that pension schemes remain viable?
Mr President, may I assure the honourable Member that the European Commission shares her concerns about the impact of undeclared work, the impact of losses on the public purse, the impact on the job market and the impact on the pension system.
The guidelines issued by the Commission in 2001 for 2002 call on the Member States to take measures to combat undeclared work and to encourage registration using a variety of means, such as regulatory measures, incentives, reforms of the tax system, allowances, collaboration with the social partners and special plans for relations between the social partners, between employers and employees.
Greece's response does, I think, bode well for the future.
By which I mean that the Greek authorities have introduced a series of measures dealing mainly with work inspectors, controls carried out by inspectors and the auditing agencies of the various insurance funds have been tightened up and, according to our information, a further 120 work inspectors are to be deployed.
The commitments made by the Greek government in its national action plan also include a series of other measures dealing with allowances, that is, incentives to register low-paid workers, the results of which will not transpire until a later date, once they have been applied.
On 26 February, the Commission is due to present the study started following the 1998 communication to which you refer. Experts from all the Member States will attend this conference and the presentation of the study to discuss efficient practices for dealing with undeclared work which have brought in significant results in certain countries.
As far as the impact on pension schemes is concerned, I should point out that one of the parameters for combating the problem of the viability of pension funds is to increase employment.
Not to increase employment generally any old how, but to increase employment which pays statutory tax and insurance contributions.
This is the only way of boosting the funds and helping them to stabilise their finances.
The open method of coordination established between the Member States does not, I repeat, involve any legal commitment vis-à-vis the Member States.
Political commitments have been made and the Member States are due to submit pension reform plans, together with their economic and social implications, in September 2002.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your reply.
I do not share your optimism about progress because, as we can see in Greece and Italy - and I refer here to Greece in particular because it is my own country - there has been no progress.
Twenty-five percent of unregistered workers alone are foreigners, in which case there is hardly any justification for the mass influx of unskilled foreign workers into Greece.
Do you really believe, with this situation, that the ambitious targets set by the European Commission can be achieved, or should you be calling for means over and above political commitment, the means which countries need to have if they are to make progress? Because undeclared work impacts not just on pension schemes, it also impacts on free competition and, of course, protection for workers, because we are hardly talking high-powered jobs here.
I ask you in all honesty, do you feel that the means which you have at your disposal right now are sufficient to stamp out this phenomenon and its many and varied implications?
I must stress, Mr President, that the Commission is not a superstate and it cannot judge policies which are purely national policies and for which each Member State takes the specific measures which it feels it needs to take.
What takes place at European level on this particular issue is collaboration between the Member States, through the guidelines, in which undeclared work is a priority and, naturally, steps have also been taken in countries such as Italy which have serious problems.
Steps have been taken within an institutional framework to increase incentives to register workers and integrate immigrants.
My evaluation of the measures taken by the Greek government, which is why I was cautious, is that its reaction bodes well in that it has introduced a series of institutional measures which are now under way, such as integrating immigrants and paying companies incentives for low-paid workers and, once they have been implemented, these institutional reforms should bring in positive results.
As you know, the measures taken by government are evaluated every year and the guidelines contain the Commission's input.
As you know, Commissioner, where there is undeclared work there are usually undeclared businesses.
So I think we should be discussing not how many people have not been registered with social security agencies but how many businesses have not been registered at all, either with the Ministry of Trade or the police.
Nowhere.
There are sectors in Greece in which this is the rule rather than the exception.
And their economic raison d'être is that no one knows about them.
Of course, the Commission does not interfere in internal affairs in the Member States and rightly so.
But I do still wonder if companies in general can get away without registering from the point of view of Community legislation? Is there nothing the Commission can do about this during the course of its duties?
As you said, this is a matter in which it is very difficult for the European Commission to intervene.
The registration of companies, which is the top priority for a country as far as its tax system, that is, its revenue is concerned, and as far as its social security system, that is, pensions are concerned, is obviously a priority for the Member States and I do not think that any recommendations are needed along these lines.
I can only hope, from the information at our disposal, that the computerisation of the Social Security Institution, the law on regional companies and certain reforms along these lines will bring in results.
Question No 47 by (H-0015/02):
Subject: Transfer of unemployment entitlements Under the provisions of Regulation (EEC) 1408/71, employees who are nationals of EU Member States may acquire unemployment benefit entitlements in any Member State.
Immigrant workers, from non-Community countries, who wish to receive unemployment benefits in an EU Member State other than their country of residence are not entitled to do so under the terms of the Regulation, which does not allow them to transfer their entitlements.
How can you justify the fact that employees from non-EEC countries are not entitled to unemployment benefits if they change their country of residence despite having paid contributions like other employees?
Why are they not allowed to make use of forms E301 and E303 to transfer unemployment entitlements?
Regulation 1408/71 and Regulation 574/72 protect the social security rights of workers by coordinating the different national social security systems of Member States.
There are two main rights that workers have through these regulations.
Firstly they have the right to unemployment benefit; secondly, to look for employment in another Member State and to continue to receive unemployment benefit for a maximum period of three months.
However, this regulation applies to workers who are Community nationals.
In 1997 the Commission presented a proposal to the Council to extend the scope of this regulation to workers who are third-country nationals.
The same extension had been included in the larger frame of the Commission proposal of 1998 to modernise and simplify Regulation 1408/71.
There were many discussions over many years.
There was a very complicated discussion in the Council of Ministers.
There were many disagreements between the Member States.
The main obstacles to progress in this regard had been the lack of agreement on the legal base.
It is not a legalistic or technical problem, it is a political one.
But the difference in the legal base concerned first the Commission's proposal, which was based on the implementation of Articles 42 and 308, and certain Member States which considered that the basis of this proposal could be Article 63.
The political difference is that under the last article there are some Member States that have the right to opt out of the regulation.
Under the Belgian Presidency the Council of 3 December 2001 unanimously agreed that the basis which must be used is Article 63.
So the Commission will very shortly present a new proposal to extend Regulation 1408/71 to third-country nationals using this new basis of Article 63.
As far as the substance is concerned, I must highlight the Commission's agreement with your concept.
I should just like to make one comment: it is the employers, the bosses, who are forcing these workers to move into other national territories.
Workers are good for paying taxes, they are good for having profit sweated out of them, but there is no need for them to understand their minimum rights.
This is totally unacceptable.
Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 48, 49 and 50, by Mr Fitzsimons, Mr Korakas and Mrs Thors respectively, will be replied to in writing.
Questions to Commissioner Patten
As the author is not present, Question No 51 lapses.
Question No 52 by (H-0960/01):
Subject: Reconstruction of Afghanistan and improving the subhuman situation of women What specific action or programmes is the Commission preparing in order to improve the situation of women in Afghanistan? How will it ensure that women actually receive the aid and benefits intended for them?
The Commission is very much aware of the need to improve the situation of women in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Our initial EUR 57 m commitment to reconstruction in Afghanistan includes specific provision for this.
The Commission services are currently finalising contracts with NGOs and UN aid agencies to implement 18 projects worth EUR 25 m and programmes to support internally displaced Afghan people and refugees.
Gender is a cross-cutting issue in all projects funded from the Aid to Uprooted People budget.
In 2001 more than 50% of the projects directed at health, education and refugee care had specific and significant gender components.
The Commission is currently assessing project proposals for the 2002 budget for uprooted people.
The amount envisaged is EUR 24 m.
In the new political situation in Afghanistan the Commission is planning to open an office in Kabul in February or March this year.
This office will further enhance the Commission's ability to oversee the performance and delivery of its aid to Afghanistan.
ECHO reopened its office at the beginning of last month.
Regarding the humanitarian aid provided by ECHO, women are involved in various types of projects; all medical and nutritional projects funded by ECHO aim to treat malnutrition among children under five years of age, as well as to monitor the health status of women, in particular lactating and pregnant women.
NGOs generally organise elementary hygiene education for women.
NGOs have access to all beneficiaries, women included, and can employ women as local NGO personnel in medically related programmes.
Medical NGOs play a great role in the training of women.
Commissioner, I would like to ask a supplementary question which focuses on two aspects.
Firstly, will women manage some of this economic aid?
Secondly, since there are specific risks for women - just today a girl of seven has been sold into marriage by her family in order to deal with hunger and meet their needs - I would like to know whether the Commission intends to create specific funds to prevent this type of violation of women' s rights.
Given the situation I have described, which will no doubt be repeated tomorrow and the next day, I would like a concrete reply from the Commission.
It is also very important to know whether women will manage these funds.
The fact that there are many armed men very much hinders progress in the improvement of the situation of women.
The simple answer to the very important first question that the honourable Member asked is an unequivocal yes.
Not least do we hope that women will be centrally involved in a great deal of our development activity, but there are women in the interim administration.
I hope there will be in the transitional administration.
Women played a crucial role, let us not forget, in the success of the Bonn talks in December and we will be doing what we can to support the Afghan Ministry of Women's Affairs which will, I hope, be a good example of women managing programmes to help develop society and to help protect the role of women in a society which has abused them for far too long.
The honourable Member asked a question about the specific security of women and young girls.
In the light of recent well-publicised events, I wholly understand that.
I hope that the overall improvement in the security situation and the increasing grip of the interim authority with our support will help to prevent things like that happening.
But after the ferocious talibanisation of Afghan society over the last few years, and given the position of the country where warlordism is still rife, it is going to be some time before we can promote the sort of strong gender policies we would like to see.
However, we will do all that we can.
I am greatly encouraged by what the honourable Member has said.
As the author is not present, Question No 53 lapses.
Question No 54 by (H-0965/01):
Subject: Reform of the Stability Pact In light of the joint statement made by Patten and Solana on the reform of the Stability Pact, what is the Commission doing to ensure that the programme becomes more effective in the delivery of its services and in streamlining its personnel?
The High Representative and I wrote to ministers in November setting out proposals for the future work of the Stability Pact.
Our main aim was to take the opportunity, two and a half years into the work of the pact, and with the arrival of a new special coordinator, to build on its achievements by enhancing the complementarity between the work of the Stability Pact and the EU stabilisation and association process, by focusing the pact's activities as tightly as possible and by putting a particular emphasis on encouraging regional cooperation.
The General Affairs Council approved the recommendations in our letter on 19 November and asked the new Special Coordinator, Dr Buseck, who took up the reins on 1 January, to assess the current activities and working methods of the pact and to identify five or six objectives to be achieved by the end of this year.
The Council asked him to report back to its meeting on 11 March.
The Commission is now working closely with the Special Coordinator in the preparation of this report.
Detailed consultations are taking place within the informal consultative committee which was established following the High Representative's and my own recommendations in order to improve coordination between the pact and the stabilisation and association process.
Two meetings have already taken place: on 11 and 31 January.
In conclusion, work is well in hand.
The Stability Pact and the Commission are working very closely together to deliver the improvements the honourable Member refers to.
I have every confidence that the report which Dr Buseck gives to the Council on 11 March will set out a number of practical proposals to that end.
I thank the Commissioner for his answer.
I am slightly perturbed that it seems to be taking so long to get this matter addressed.
As we have just heard, it is not going to be until 11 March that we get further developments.
I should like to ask the Commissioner, first, what measures are going to be recommended which will increase ownership by local people on the ground in the Stability Pact.
It has been seen as remote and, unless we have proper ownership, quite frankly it will continue to be remote.
Secondly, one of the areas of concern has been the quality of implementation in the Stability Pact.
Is he happy that we are moving in the right direction in terms of implementation?
Thirdly, there is a view that there was a chronic lack of information on the ground about the Stability Pact.
Is a strategy being put in place to deal with that?
As regards the first point, Dr Buseck is well aware of the problem to which the honourable Member referred.
The proposals he brings forward on 11 March will reflect that awareness of his.
The honourable Member will know that he is extremely experienced in dealing with the problems of the region and in particular in mobilising private sector support.
I am looking forward very keenly to working with him.
He will do an excellent job and he will want to engage with others who are working alongside him in an enthusiastic and transparent way.
On implementation, it is fair to say that overall we have established an impressive record as far as the Commission is concerned in implementing what we have promised to do in the western Balkans and in south-east Europe as a whole.
What we have been able to achieve in Serbia, in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and in other countries, is impressive.
I hope that we will be able to ensure that where there have been any bottlenecks affecting infrastructure projects with the Stability Pact - and sometimes those bottlenecks are the result of problems in the beneficiary countries - we will be able to resolve them.
Dr Buseck and I are trying to focus on those problem projects and get them moving as rapidly as possible.
As for information about what is happening on the ground, that is an issue which Dr Buseck is well aware of.
We will help him to address it, trying to ensure that the publicity for the achievements of the Stability Pact goes to the pact, rather than to individuals.
It is a pleasure to work with Dr Buseck.
I think he will do outstandingly well and he can certainly count on our understanding and support and, I am sure, the understanding and support of Parliament, in the efforts he makes in the future.
Question No 55 by (H-0002/02):
Subject: Aid to Asia and Latin America Given the European Parliament's amendment to the 2002 budget that 35 per cent of EU external assistance is allocated to social infrastructure, mainly basic education and health; and given Commissioner Patten's letter to the President of the Committee on Development and Cooperation of December 2001, that 'the Commission is willing to implement the budget on this basis. . . understand(ing) that the Parliament's focus is on the overall picture for EC assistance rather than the global performance of all donors'; what precise measures will the Commission take to operationalise this decision in relation to the regional budget lines providing aid to Asia and to Latin America? Can the Commission reply with respect to communication with its delegations, the mechanism for agreement of Country Strategy Papers, the operation of its Quality Support Group, dialogue with partners, as well as in any other respects?
In the context of the 2002 budget, the Commission has supported a benchmark that 35% of spending in Development Assistance Committee Group 1 countries, including macroeconomic assistance with social sector conditionality, is allocated to social infrastructure, mainly education and health. This recognises that the Community contribution must be seen as part of the overall donor support in a given country and that a degree of flexibility must be the norm.
The Commission is committed to work towards meeting this benchmark in assistance to the social sectors in all its programmes, including Asia and Latin America.
With a view to honouring this commitment, a number of initiatives will be undertaken. In particular, these will include, first, improved emphasis on the social sector in all Commission programmes, in line with the priorities in the Community's development strategy.
Second, the establishment during 2002 - and I know this is a point on which the honourable Member has himself laid great emphasis - of a solid statistical basis allowing DAC sectoral classification of programmes and projects from 2002.
A reclassification exercise of all 2001 commitments will be undertaken with a view to enabling comparison to be made.
Third, we want to make available to Parliament all approved country strategy papers, including multiannual programmes and associated financial envelopes.
Finally, the continuation during 2002 of work on the definition of internationally agreed performance indicators and implementation of sector-wide programmes in the social sector.
The Commission is in contact, as the honourable Member knows, with Parliament's Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the organisation of a seminar in the spring of this year, where the Commission will report on progress made in these areas and, I hope, continue to gain from the experience and enthusiasm and commitment of the members of the Development Committee, including, of course, the honourable Member.
The last time I debated with Mr Patten on this subject in committee he accused me of having an overdose of testosterone.
I am glad he has not repeated that tonight.
Stamina is what we need in dealing with this issue.
He is right in saying that there are a number of areas of agreement between the Commission and Parliament, not least in the DAC reporting where progress is such that we very much welcome it.
We welcome too their cooperation in relation to the seminar.
I am concerned that the emphasis in his answer was on definitions, about reporting, about statistics - i.e. analysis - rather than the tougher decisions that are equally required to shift resources.
It is important that we do not simply talk about the process in terms of information being available - important as that is, and agreed as we are on that issue - but that the Commissioner actually tells us, as those country strategy papers are passed, as the Quality Support Group evaluates new programmes, as delegations (and he did not answer the point about the role of delegations in this) take their decisions, as new staff are recruited, how will he ensure that real resources are allocated in greater number to basic health and basic education? We need to see some shift of resources during the course of this year.
Give us some hope that it will happen.
First of all I am not against testosterone in trying to achieve some progress in this area.
We need to show a great deal of energy and commitment.
Secondly, as far as the role of delegations is concerned, as the honourable Member knows, I place particular emphasis, on the deconcentration exercise, which is a particularly ill-starred, euro-gabble way of referring to trying to manage our programmes in the field and as closely as possible to the people whom we want to see benefit from them.
The delegations will play a key role in drawing up the country strategy papers, which will have to reflect the priorities of our development philosophy and development strategy.
The honourable Member asks us to give him hope that we will be seeing a real shift.
The purpose of providing a better statistical basis for analysing and planning what we are doing is to demonstrate that we are making an effort to achieve the objectives which the honourable Member and I have in common and which are also the objectives of my distinguished colleague, Commissioner Nielsen.
So there would be no point for example in the CRIS exercise in which we are engaged if we were not intending it to have an impact on policy.
I think the honourable Member accepts that one is looking for steady trends, rather than being too nailed down to specific figures in specific years in specific countries.
One wants to see a shift of emphasis and a clear indication that the Commission's programmes are as associated as other peoples' with the objectives of poverty alleviation.
I will make one additional point, which I attempted to make yesterday morning in the parliament of the country I know best.
There is still a tendency when people look at what we are doing to compare apples with oranges.
It is very often the case that other countries or Member States appear to have a far higher proportion of development assistance committed to poverty alleviation than we do because they look at what we are doing in the Balkans, in Russia, in the NIS, in parts of the Mediterranean, and compare it as though it was exactly the same as our more straightforward development assistance programmes.
Because we are carrying the burden in those areas, admittedly with Member States' money, they are not having to do as much there as they would presumably have to do for political reasons, and therefore the figures sometimes flatter them at our expense.
That is part of the price we pay for having an external actions budget which has development assistance at its core but has other priorities as well.
Could the Commissioner tell me if what he said adds up to a guarantee that there will be a better balance between commitments and payments in Asia and Latin America and that we will have better utilisation of the funds voted for in the budget?
I could also - if I was not as cautious a man as I am - point to progress already in increasing the percentage of payments in relation to commitments.
The figure last year in the Mediterranean was 56% to 57%, much higher than any figure we have achieved before but lower than I want to see.
If you look at the achievements of Europe Aid - all of whose staff I addressed yesterday - they are starting to be able to demonstrate an improvement in relation to commitments.
They have demonstrated a considerable success in reducing dormant commitments and sleeping commitments so that the reste à liquider has fallen quite substantially.
So we are making progress.
It will take some time before we achieve the sort of figures that all of us want to see, but we are headed in the right direction.
I very much hope that before I make my swan-song in this packed Hemicycle I will be able to point to even greater achievements by the excellent staff in Europe Aid.
We are going to put the last question to the Commissioner.
Question No 56 by Olivier Dupuis (H-0007/02):
Subject: International Criminal Court
For several years now the establishment of the International Criminal Court for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity has been a priority of EU foreign policy.
Only recently, the EU, through the Belgian Presidency, reaffirmed its commitment to working to secure, as rapidly as possible, the 60 ratifications required for the Criminal Court to be brought into operation.
To date, 48 countries have already ratified the Rome Statute, including all the EU Member States apart from Portugal (which has, however, already completed the relevant domestic procedures), Greece and Ireland.
Three candidate countries - Poland, Hungary and Slovenia - have already ratified the Statute and Estonia has announced that it will shortly deposit its instruments of ratification.
Given the fundamental importance which the EU attaches to the speedy introduction of this first stage of an international justice system and in view of the tragic events which have occurred around the world over the last few months and years, would the Commission not agree that the ratification of the Rome Statute should be explicitly established as forming part of the 'acquis communautaire' and as a new 'Copenhagen criterion' to be met by any future candidate for accession to the EU? Does the Commission agree that ratification should serve as a precondition for the signing and ratification of any association or cooperation agreement between the Union and third countries?
First of all I would like to apologise to the honourable Member for not being present earlier to hear his, I am sure, eloquent - though I am not sure, supportive - speech in the excellent debate on the Middle East.
He knows that was not meant as a discourtesy, it was for democratic reasons upstairs.
I am sure we will be able to lock horns about some of those extremely important issues on other occasions.
As for his question, the European Union attaches a great deal of importance to the ratification of the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The adoption of the common position of 11 June 2001, which aims to promote early ratification of the Statute and the swift establishment of the ICC, and the ratification of the Statute by 13 Member States underline our commitment to this objective.
Ratification preparations by the remaining two Member States are at an advanced stage.
The European Union's commitment to this issue is also reflected in the level of Community funding given to NGOs working for ratification.
Since 1995, this has reached almost EUR 7m under the European initiative for democratisation and human rights.
With respect to the enlargement process, the European Union position on support to the ICC is part of the common foreign and security policy acquis, which candidates are asked to subscribe to.
In addition, in line with the common position, the European Union regularly raises the question of ratification in the framework of political dialogues with accession countries.
Moreover, the Central and Eastern European countries associated with the European Union and the associated countries Cyprus and Malta aligned themselves with the EU declaration at the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly in November 2001, which sought to encourage a swift start to the ICC.
In January 2002, they also declared that they shared the objectives of the EU common position on the International Criminal Court and undertook to ensure that their national policies conform to that common position.
The Council of Europe has also called on all its members to ratify or adhere to the ICC's Statute as soon as possible.
Mr President, I too have no desire to go into the ins and outs of the matter, which was on this afternoon' s agenda.
I simply wish to say to Commissioner Patten that I knew he had informed us that he would miss some of the debate.
I am, therefore, very sorry, as I said a short while ago in plenary, that he was not able to join us.
Having said that, politically, we are at odds on the matter, but I believe we will have the opportunity to discuss this again later.
With regard to his answer to this specific question, I am quite satisfied with the Commission' s position.
I would say that making this issue, as Commissioner Patten said, part of the acquis communautaire is a crucial point and this will certainly help the candidate countries to speed up their ratification procedures.
I certainly do not want to detract from the acquis which the Member concerned and I have discovered together, but I would only add my wish that some of our other partners in international affairs were also committed to establishing the international criminal court.
It continues to be an issue that we raise with our transatlantic friends with considerable vigour.
We did so with the last administration and we are doing so with this one.
It is not a question of the administration having changed its policy.
I would have thought that recent events - including those related to Afghanistan - would have bolstered the case for an international criminal court.
Maybe it will take a little longer for that message to get home.
Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 57 to 83 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was adjourned at 7.30 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
VAT - Direct and indirect taxation
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, VAT fraud is a widespread problem in the European Union, which is unfortunately becoming more common all the time.
According to reliable estimates, during the first half of 1998, for example, Member States detected 250 cases of so-called Carousel fraud, worth more than 500 million euros in all.
To this must of course be added other types of fraud, and all the fraudulent transactions that remained undetected.
We can therefore estimate that VAT fraud costs the EU and its Member States hundreds of millions of euros every year.
Generally it is a matter of Carousel Fraud.
Carousel Fraud means the acquisition of goods without paying the VAT as required under the rules of the internal market.
It is characterised by a chain of invoices, with or without goods, extending across one or more borders.
The essential feature of this type of fraud is that one or more links in the chain do not pay invoiced VAT to the tax authority, while other parties in the chain receive VAT refunds based on these very invoices.
Carousel Fraud generally concerns small items of value, such as computers and mobile phones.
The most effective way of preventing this type of fraud is through close, administrative cooperation between the Member States.
It is generally known, however, that the current legal framework is not up to the task.
In order to streamline the current legislative framework, the Commission has now put forward a proposal for a regulation that would considerably enhance and improve current forms of administrative cooperation in the field of VAT.
I also support the Commission' s proposal for a directive, in addition to which I propose measures in my report to make direct cooperation between the authorities still more effective and practical.
The main point of the proposal is to allow for direct contact between local and regional authorities responsible for the fight against fraud.
At present, all communication must go through central liaison offices, meaning that all requests pass through one country' s administrative machinery from a local office to a national liaison office and down the same path in the other country.
This means that requests for assistance often arrive too late at their proper destination.
The tax evaders may well have disappeared by the time the local officials in the country that received the request for help look into the matter.
I agree with the Commission that cooperation at local level would improve mutual understanding regarding requests for information, would increase the motivation of tax inspectors, and would avoid wasting the few resources that exist.
I therefore wholeheartedly support the Commission proposal, which should be seen as a major step forward in the fight against fraud.
All too often, criminals can take immediate advantage of the most up-to-date and advanced means of communication, while the authorities are weighed down by bureaucratic, cumbersome rules, which slows down the work involved in tracking down the criminals and uses up far too many of the administration' s resources.
The Commission, however, could have gone still further to speed up cooperation and increase flexibility.
I support the Commission' s proposal for sending communications in electronic form wherever possible.
I would also propose that, to speed up the flow of information, electronic communication should be made the rule, and traditional correspondence on paper the exception.
For the same reason, to speed up the exchange of information, that is, more room for manoeuvre should be given to the local authorities with regard to language policy.
The obligation to translate requests for assistance between authorities must be made more flexible.
Why should it be a requirement to translate a request for assistance into the official language of the second country if, for example, a Finn and a Greek come to an understanding that they will deal with one another in French?
There is one point, however, where the Commission proposal goes too far.
The Commission is proposing that the Member States would be under an obligation to restrict many of the rights contained in the Data Protection directive if they thought this necessary in order to safeguard important economic or financial interests.
It should be noted that there is no such obligation contained in the said directive but that it is simply a possibility that Member States can resort to.
This aspect of the matter would therefore be better addressed by an amendment to the Data Protection directive and at this stage it should be left to the Member States to consider whether or not to pursue this line of action.
Finally, something should be said about the legal basis.
The Commission bases its proposal on Article 95 of the Treaty, which means the co-decision procedure for Parliament.
I agree with the Commission' s view that this proposal should concern administrative cooperation only and must be dealt with according to the procedure laid down in Article 95.
The Council has always rejected this view, formerly, and changed the legal basis to Article 93 or 94, which only require Parliament to be consulted.
Now, however, the Commission has decided to take the Council to the European Court of Justice over another proposal for a directive concerning the recovery of claims.
The legal situation will thus be cleared up soon.
I would also like to hear comments from the Commissioner in connection with this choice of legal basis and any new information he might have for Parliament regarding how the case regarding the legal basis for the proposal for a directive on the recovery of claims is proceeding in the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mrs Kauppi, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, my colleague Mrs Piia-Noora Kauppi, for this report, which met with very broad support in the competent committee.
That means that there was excellent communication between all the parties involved.
The report constitutes yet further evidence of the competence for which our young colleague has, in a short time, acquired a reputation in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, as also for the industriousness shown by the quality of her work.
Many thanks for that.
The report is, secondly, evidence of our need, in many instances, for 'more of Europe' . It is only together that we can combat fraud more efficiently and thus more successfully.
In this connection, we need, on the one hand, better coordination in order to move towards cooperation and exchange of information, and, on the other hand, an improved and more professional legal framework to facilitate this process of information and coordination more readily.
The Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats says 'yes' to improved cooperation by the authorities against VAT fraud, although we of course emphasise that we are not only opposed to VAT fraud but also every form of fraud.
In any case, 250 instances of it were uncovered in the first half of 1998, with losses amounting to over EUR 500 million.
I can do no other than associate myself with the rapporteur in saying that we do not need obligatory translations in cross-border requests for information, but rather more flexibility as regards the data protection directive, deregulation to make things simpler, rationalisation and flexibility to get the work processed more quickly, so that we can get on the fraudsters' trails and so create greater security in Europe.
Madam President, I would like to express my total support for the rapporteur, Mrs Kauppi' s suggestion, and, consequently, for the Commission proposal, to which the Kauppi report gives its almost unreserved support.
We Socialists also wholeheartedly support this Commission proposal.
The proposal deals with two very important matters.
The first is the issue of tax fraud in a specific area, that of VAT in intra Community and triangular operations.
The second issue, which is related to the first, as an instrument in combating fraud - is that of cooperation between public authorities to find a solution to, or at least, to reduce, the level of fraud previously mentioned.
Mrs Kauppi gave a perfect explanation of the proposals in her speech and I fully share her sentiments.
Having said this, I would like to make two additional comments with regard to the content of this report.
The first refers to the validity, today, of the 'provisional VAT system' , a system which was implemented in 1993 on the completion of the single market, of a strictly provisional nature, even with an expiry date, that has been spun out and which has not been respected, as you are all well aware.
I would like to draw your attention to this because the reason we are having to discuss this report and the fraud it deals with today is that, to a large extent, we continue to maintain this provisional VAT system - set up by intra Community operations - which places a burden on a series of operations in the country of destination without having those border controls that were maintained by the system in place before the entry into force of the single market.
Clearly, in a definitive VAT system, which is appropriate to the single market, with taxation at source, we would probably not be discussing this issue, because much of this fraud would be prevented at source.
This is the first observation that I would like to make with regard to this report.
My second observation concerns a very important point, which Mrs Kauppi referred to: the legal base chosen by the Commission to present this proposal for a directive.
In my opinion, the Commission' s interpretation of the Treaty has to be applauded, for considering that the base applicable in this case was Article 95, that is to say, for deciding that tax matters can be reduced to matters of substantial, substantive tax law, but not to those of adjective law, to those matters - such as those we are dealing with at the moment - that deal with the management of taxes and the exchange of information between public institutions in the management of taxes.
In these cases, it is not really a matter of fiscal law or tax law itself, in the strict sense of the word, reserved for national parliaments and, as a consequence, for unanimity, but of an issue that can be dealt with, as is happening now, by the codecision procedure.
I would like to conclude, Madam President, with a piece of advice that stems from my last comment; it would be a good idea if, in the next Convention and reform of the Treaty, the field of tax matters could be defined once and for all and that a precise framework for harmonisation can be established.
Naturally, not all tax matters can be harmonised; there are certain areas, such as income tax, that will never be completely harmonised, but there are others - and here I am essentially thinking about the basis for calculating tax on company profits - which should be set up as something that can be harmonised and exempted from the unanimity rule, which would give Parliament the leading role in areas as important as those we are dealing with.
Madam President, the EU is continuing to be taken for a ride by professional fraudsters, a situation which is, regrettably, a beneficiary of the excessively complex VAT system.
It is through our tax regulations, which are in part difficult to understand, that we are laying ourselves open to fraudsters and indirectly promoting tax fraud.
What we need in order to raise the level of taxpayer honesty and increase tax revenue is not only efficient monitoring and effective cooperation by the tax authorities, but also comprehensible and simpler legal texts as a fundamental precondition for this.
The taxpayer very often refuses to pay taxes he regards as unfair.
Incomprehensible tax laws and the tax burdens arising from them are, though, always or automatically seen by the taxpayer as unfair.
We are therefore in urgent need of a reform of the VAT system, which is far too expensive and complex to the point of being incomprehensible even by experts.
It is not acceptable for transactions to be tax-exempt within the business chain between the Member States but taxable at national level.
It is advance deduction of tax within the business chain that facilitates this evasion of tax in the first place and that should therefore be abolished.
By taking this step, we would be cutting the ground from under the fraudsters' feet, simplifying the system and avoiding needless controls, with all their vexations, which are a further burden on our small and medium-sized enterprises.
We should, therefore, be thinking, first of all, not only in terms of how we get the different authorities to work together better, but also about how we can simplify the system that makes fraud possible in the first place.
That would be a step in the right direction, but we will, nonetheless, support Mrs Kauppi's report, as we share her view that it is self-evident that cooperation should be improved and that the effort must be made to make Europe less bureaucratic.
Madam President, I have no doubt that the existing arrangements for cooperation in the area of VAT fraud are inadequate in the context of the evolved single market.
VAT fraud costs the EU and its Member States several hundred million euro each year.
Although measures have been taken over the last few years to come to terms with it, VAT fraud is still a considerable problem today.
I agree that the best way to tackle this ever-increasing fraud is to have close administrative cooperation between Member States.
By allowing direct contacts between local offices, the fight against fraud will become less bureaucratic and more effective.
However, let me sound a note of caution in relation to the efforts inherent in this Commission proposal to base this measure on Article 95 of the Treaty.
Article 95 specifically states that it may not be used for fiscal provisions.
The Commission's view is that this proposal is merely about administrative cooperation and that it does not relate to actual tax collection or tax measures.
With respect, I do not agree - my country does not agree - that by stealth the present position should be eroded.
I do not think that SCAC - the existing administrative committee in the tax area - should have more of these functions assigned to it.
It is the thin end of the wedge.
This proposal relates to fiscal instruments which Member States use and it should certainly be adopted, but it should be adopted with the correct legal basis, which is Article 93, providing for unanimity of voting at Council level.
The regulation that this proposal aims to replace is based upon Article 93, and quite simply this proposal should be also.
Mrs Kauppi has referred to the concerns regarding the legal basis in her attached explanatory memorandum.
In the past where conflicts have arisen in relation to the legal basis, the Council has always rejected the Commission's view and has changed the legal basis to Article 93 or 94.
As pointed out by my colleague, it did this most recently on the proposal for a directive on the mutual assistance for the recovery of claims.
The Commission has decided to take the Council to the Court of Justice in this matter and Ireland will be joining the action on the side of the Council.
While I welcome the substance of what this proposal aims to do, for the reasons I have outlined in relation to the legal basis, I and my Irish colleagues will be voting against the report.
Madam President, they say that 'noblesse oblige' and I should, therefore, start my speech by congratulating Commissioner Bolkestein, on the skill with which he was able, this morning, to resolve the conflict that Parliament, the Council and the Commission have been facing for such a long time, preventing us from progressing towards a single market in financial services.
I would also like to congratulate Mrs Kauppi on her report, which has managed, as has already been said, to achieve the support of most of the political groups in this House.
I would like to make just a few specific observations.
In a recent appearance to prepare for the monetary dialogue with Wim Duisenberg, the President of the European Central Bank, we were given a report which demonstrated that the introduction of the euro will make price differences between the various countries in Europe more evident, as a result, amongst other things, of differences in taxation.
This leads us to call for the harmonisation of VAT and for it to be applied at source, as Mr Pérez Royo suggested, but, until this happens, it is clear that these price differences will encourage fraud.
For this reason, 'more Europe' , or more decentralised cooperation within the European Union, is always welcome.
I was a tax inspector and I know how the obligation to refer to higher public authorities can paralyse an idea.
We need to eliminate formal requirements.
I see no need for a translation: nobody would ask for a translation of information that would permit the arrest of Jack the Ripper and I do not see why things should be different in the field of taxation.
With regard to the legal base, I disagree with the last speaker but I agree with Mr Pérez Royo, given that the difference between substantive law, which characterises the essential elements of the tax system, and formal law, which was set up in order to guarantee that these obligations are met, is well known.
Whereas the rules of substantive law have their base in Article 93 and, therefore, unanimity, those concerning formal law, administrative law and application law have their base in Article 95 because, amongst other things, this allows us to avoid unanimity and also paves the way, as we saw this morning in the field of financial services, for what the Spanish Presidency calls 'more Europe' .
May I begin by saying that it gives me a great deal of pleasure to be able to discuss with Parliament today a proposal for a regulation to strengthen administrative cooperation between Member States in order to enhance VAT control.
I thank Mrs Kauppi very much for her report.
It is extremely constructive.
I can only echo what was said by Mr Karas who referred to Mrs Kauppi as his "young and effective colleague".
She is not my colleague but I should like to echo the appreciative words of Mr Karas.
Mrs Kauppi, along with other Members of Parliament, spoke about the legal basis of this proposal.
It is about administrative cooperation. It is not about changing the VAT regime.
I wish the Commission could do that.
We have wanted to do so for many years but we are not able to do so.
But no, it is about administrative cooperation.
It is not designed to change in any way the obligations of taxpayers or the rules governing the application of that legislation, but rather to gear administrative cooperation to the challenges of the internal market.
That is why the Commission is submitting this proposal under Article 95 of the Treaty.
In taking that article as the legal basis the Commission is consistent with its proposal for Regulation No 218/92 as well as with its proposal to modify the recovery directive.
The Commission is correct in choosing Article 95 as the basis of this proposal.
As Mr García-Margallo y Marfil said quite clearly, it gives Parliament codecision and that is what many Members of this Parliament want.
I take this opportunity to thank Mr García-Margallo y Marfil for the kind words he uttered in my direction.
I add to that that the Commission is extremely pleased that we have settled the matter of the so-called Lamfalussy proposal and that we can now continue with the work ahead.
More to the point, the Commission is of the opinion that this proposal is an important element of the new VAT strategy to improve the operation of the VAT system within the context of the internal market.
It also constitutes a response to the Council calling on the Commission to present proposals for fighting VAT fraud.
The intra-Community market is today seriously affected by organised VAT fraud, where professional fraudsters abuse the exemption mechanism of the VAT system.
Tackling that kind of fraud requires rapid and efficient cooperation between the tax administrations of the different Member States.
But at present the legal framework is too weak to support really effective cooperation, essentially because it is vague, over-centralised and the exchange of information is not sufficiently intensive.
In addition, cooperation is complicated owing to the existence of two legal instruments in this area with different scopes and different rules.
This proposal sets up one single legal framework merging, for VAT purposes, the regulation and the directive, and modifies the current arrangements in three ways: firstly, the proposal lays down clear and binding rules governing administrative cooperation between Member States, for example, for the presence of foreign officials during controls, or for organising multilateral controls; secondly, the proposal devolves cooperation and provides for more direct contacts between tax inspectors of different Member States.
This is also a point which Mrs Kauppi drew to our attention.
She said that when French and Spanish controllers - for example - in a border area want to communicate, at the moment this communication has to pass via Madrid and Paris.
It is obvious that direct communication between inspection staff will make cooperation faster and more effective.
Thirdly, the proposal aims to intensify the exchange of information between tax administrations in order to combat fraud more effectively.
I am very pleased that this proposal gets the support of all speakers this evening, except for Mrs Doyle, whom I can no longer convince, since she is no longer here.
The Commission is extremely pleased with this support.
I would therefore like to particularly welcome the positive contribution of the rapporteur, Mrs. Kauppi.
But given the fact that examination of this proposal is ongoing in the Council, and given the Commission' s strong desire to address this issue in a timely manner, I believe that the most appropriate course of action at this time is for the Commission not to formally accept the amendments put forward by Parliament, but to endeavour to take them on board, as much as possible, during the negotiations in the Council.
However I fear it will not be possible to take some of these amendments fully into account.
In particular, as regards the issue of electronic communication, I would like to stress that much of the information covered by this regulation is not available in electronic format, and therefore, in practice, cannot be exchanged by electronic means.
As regards the translations, I share the argument according to which Member States should strive as far as possible to waive a translation.
But the Commission takes the view that the arrangements under which Member States should waive translations should be determined in an implementing regulation, binding for all Member States, and not individually by each Member State.
Finally, as concerns data protection, the Commission takes the view that if Directive 95/46/EC is fully applied, fraudsters would be informed that they are under suspicion, and consequently it is to be expected that they would transfer their fraudulent activity and would dispose of the evidence of fraud.
That would seriously hamper the fight against VAT fraud.
I am personally confident that an agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission will be achieved on these issues.
The Council has already started to discuss the proposal in detail.
It will do its best to achieve an agreement as soon as possible, and we are making good headway.
But your support of the proposal is important to achieve that much desired result.
I would therefore recommend this proposal most warmly for Parliament's approval.
I thank Parliament for its most constructive intervention.
Thank you, Commissioner.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
State aid
The next item is the report (A5-0002/2002) by Mr Rapkay, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission' s ninth survey on state aid in the European Union (COM(2001) 403 - C5-0632/2001 - 2001/2269(COS)).
Madam President, Commissioner, today the world's eyes - or let us rather say, the eyes of Europe - were again upon you and what you were doing, although you were dealing with matters different from those which we are dealing with here tonight, which do not appear to be that interesting.
However, I have just heard that I am permitted to speak for eight minutes, as my group is not especially interested in the subject.
I see, though, that Mr Evans and Mrs Riis-Jørgensen are here, and so we can, anyway, give a repeat of our performance in committee, swapping our positions on this issue.
But, joking aside ...
We have jointly - and ambitiously - resolved that the European Union is to become the world's most competitive region within the next ten years.
If the European Union wants to be the world's most competitive region, that means that its enterprises must be the most competitive enterprises in the world.
It also means that we need the European Union's ambience to be both favourable to competition and capable of handling it.
Thus far, it is right that our task should be to roll back state aid to enterprises as far as possible, and our task must also be - if we actually have to grant aid at all - to direct it increasingly towards horizontal goals.
To that extent, the perceptible decline in aid between 1997 and 1999 is to be welcomed - and that is the period under consideration, the period covered by the Commission's ninth aid report.
We still, of course, call on the Commission to perform its role as a guard against aid that distorts competition.
On the other hand, we should desist from seeing aid policy only through lenses coloured by ideology, and from engaging in it from one ideological standpoint or another.
Some of us do that from time to time in this House, and I will give an example of it later.
Whether we like it or not, it is a matter of fact that aid is a tool of state policy, because it is used for incentives to facilitate control in line with the market and because it can be used to avoid the need for intervention in the form of instructions or prohibitions.
That cannot always be done.
It is sometimes more appropriate to achieve something by means of legal regulations, but also sometimes just as practical to do it by means of control in line with the market.
Aid has a vital place among the political instruments, as it can be used to correct failings in the market and reduce differences in standards of living between regions of the European Union.
What we are doing with European regional and structural policy is, indeed, also aid, albeit not of the State variety that we want to discuss this evening, and those policies are political instruments in supporting SMEs, environmental protection, research and development.
Let me say, Commissioner, that I welcome the fact that you, or the Commission, now have, in addition to the register of aid systems, which has now come into being, the State Aid Scoreboard.
That was something called for by all groups in Parliament.
This State Aid Scoreboard, which is in its earliest stages, can, in my view, be developed into an instrument which will make it possible to discern trends and assess aid by reference to qualitative criteria - the qualitative criteria to which I have just referred.
That, then, is something I value.
It is not only the quantity of state aid that should be comprehensively assessed; we also need qualitative criteria and objectives that have to be taken equally into account.
As I have said, I have named them.
Sometimes they justify control measures with time limits, and even existing market distortions can be removed in the medium term by the use of aid.
I believe that the Commission has a far more broad and open mind - with apologies to Mr Evans, and Mrs Riis-Jørgensen - than has the present conservative-liberal majority in this House.
I have noted that, in general debates, there is always full-bodied rejection of aid as if it were quite simply a snare of the devil.
The politicians in the field, should one ask them, take quite different views of certain points.
In reality, they too want nothing to do with its general disparagement.
Let me now give you the example I mentioned earlier.
The Commission has, fortunately, been investigating for some time the extent to which sleights-of-hand in the taxation of businesses are being used to obtain illicit aid.
The Commission is doing this on its own initiative and because it is right to do so, but it is also doing it because it was called upon to do it.
In committee, I formulated a passage in my draft report which the Commission, remarkably, emphatically supports, and along the lines of which it intends to go forward.
When a vote was taken, the majority in committee cut out this passage.
Now, I will be giving you the opportunity to make good this error tomorrow.
My group will be reinserting this passage, and a couple of others as well, by means of an amendment.
Do please remember that this is common policy on which we have agreed.
So, tomorrow, you can make good the committee's error, or, alternatively, make it clear in public that that is not how you see the details of aid policy.
You will have to do some thinking about that.
I want to wind up by saying that too much praise for the Commission is not such a good thing. Let us cut back on it a little.
So I would like to refer, Commissioner, to something I touched on once or twice in committee.
It also has to do with the subject of qualitative criteria, qualitative and quantitative assessment.
That is the area, as you will rightly observe, of regional aid granted by the Member States, which makes up a very large part of the aid total, well above half, I think about 56% or more if I remember rightly.
You will conclude that that is the area in which a reduction in aid can be best and most rapidly achieved.
That is, though, rather a generalised way of looking at things, and I would again recommend that you think a bit about whether it is not perhaps the area of regional aid in which we have very definitely to be guided by qualitative criteria.
If we were to have a debate on that next year, that would represent some small progress.
Madam President, I should like to challenge some of the assertions that have been made by Mr Rapkay.
Firstly, there is very much more that unites us on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs than you would think from some of the assertions he has just made.
We can see that from the report that we are considering.
There are 22 paragraphs in this report.
Mr Rapkay had only six areas where his report was significantly amended.
We have six amendments to consider tomorrow.
Let us look at the things that unite us.
I certainly do not believe that state aid is the work of the devil.
In a sense that was excessive rhetoric on the part of Mr Rapkay.
We actually both believe in a competitive Europe.
We are in favour of making our economy competition-friendly.
Mr Rapkay's excellent report - which I will support in its current form tomorrow - is a consistent report building on the one produced by the committee last year.
Of course there will be some differences of emphasis between us.
We do not all share the same political outlook.
But there is a trend in relation to the views that have been forward by the Economic Committee which are at the core of Mr Rapkay's report and for which I congratulate him.
Yes, I certainly believe in the rigorous application of state aid.
I congratulate Commissioner Monti for the stance that he has taken in this area.
It is something that broadly reflects the position of our Economic Committee.
Our committee is committed to taking forward the Lisbon process. Building a competitive Europe must be a part of that, so it is important that we have proper state aid control.
Part of that is through the transparency that comes from the State Aid Scoreboard, of which Mr Rapkay has been a keen exponent.
He has raised the issue consistently.
We are delighted that Commissioner Monti has made progress in this area.
There is more work to be done in developing the scoreboard.
I am not absolutely sure that the Competition DG competition is at the front of the queue in terms of the Internet-friendly nature of its particular website.
I am absolutely confident that more progress will be made.
I went on to the Internet the other day to find out about the Competition Day that is coming up.
It was not a particularly friendly site to deal with.
I should like to mention the Steel Aid Code.
I have consistently said to Commissioner Monti that the industry is looking for guidance here.
We want the current regime to stay in place in some format.
I hope that Commissioner Monti will feel after mature reflection that, given the difficulties with the United States of America, that is something he could support.
Madam President, as Mr Rapkay said, we can talk to each other as we are used to doing now that we are gathered 'in the bosom of our family' .
I would first of all say thank you again to Mr Monti for the great efforts he has made in this area, and I would also thank Mr Rapkay very much.
We do not always agree, but I am very pleased with the report, even if there are a number of things we have to discuss regarding how we are to vote tomorrow.
There are also a couple of practical matters I should like to comment on, first of all a matter on which I myself have done some work, namely the Commission' s proposal concerning the shipyards package.
We had a debate on this here in Parliament last autumn.
I was very much against the proposed aid to shipyards, and I therefore want to ask the Commission how this matter is progressing.
I was delighted to note that, at the Council meeting of Trade and Industry Ministers at the beginning of December, it was impossible to obtain the necessary majority for adopting the Commission' s proposal.
The Commission was not immediately willing to alter its proposal, which was based upon the results worked out in what is known as the TBR report, drawn up by the Commission every six months.
Naturally, I am concerned that the Commission' s next TBR report will conveniently demonstrate that we need aid for more types of ship than those cited in the Commission' s original proposal.
I would therefore ask Commissioner Monti to answer the following question: is there a new TBR report on the way from the Commission and, if so, can the Commissioner then inform us as to what conclusions are to be drawn by it?
Tomorrow, we in Parliament will vote on a proposal we did not have time to discuss before the vote.
It is most certainly a proposal that does not fall within your area, Mr Monti, for it concerns the fact that, quite extraordinarily, the airlines have been allowed to retain airport arrival and departure times which, under normal rules, they have made too little use of to be permitted to retain.
We are, then, preparing special legislation which we are now rushing through and which will, of course, mean that smaller airlines that wish to enter the market with competitive prices will not be allowed to offer this service to us as consumers, who shall instead have to put up with airlines which do not deliver the goods and which - when they do deliver them - only do so at unduly high prices.
That is also the reality where state aid is concerned, for it largely favours the old national companies with their monopolies.
For me, that is an example of the way in which our fine words about cutting back on state aid are all too infrequently followed up by firm and practical action.
I would therefore also permit myself to ask you a question, Mr Monti. How does this proposal fit in with our general desire to cut back on state aid and create a situation in which we can all compete fairly and on an equal basis?
Madam President, Commissioner, I have no hesitation in adding to those words of thanks that have gone to Commissioner Monti and Mr Rapkay, as rapporteur.
State aid granted on a large scale, often for shortsighted reasons, has for a long time been a strain on the purse of the European taxpayer and has slowed down the reorganisation of the economic structures of our Member States.
Although aid granted by Member States might be justified in particularly exceptional circumstances, large amounts of aid and various tax concessions distort competition and go against the principles of the single market.
For that reason, reductions in state aid and effective monitoring strengthen the competitiveness of the European economy and thus boost economic growth and the creation of jobs.
At the Stockholm European Council the Member States renewed their commitment to reduce state aid as a proportion of GNP.
There was also a promise to redirect state aid to horizontal objectives that benefited the Union as a whole.
This commitment must be kept to.
According to the general survey we are now dealing with, a decline in state aid was achieved in the period 1997 - 1999.
We cannot, however, be satisfied with the progress made up to the present day.
We in Parliament have time and time again called for action that would guarantee greater transparency in this area.
The Member States still do not have any monitoring instrument that can be compared to the state agency monitoring that is conducted at Community level.
Data on state aid is still provided only in the form of total sums.
To make an accurate analysis possible we need more detailed information on the use aid is put to and the sectors and companies that receive aid.
Like many of my colleagues before me, I also take a very positive view of the Commission' s announcement that a state aid register and scoreboard is to be introduced.
I also urge the Commission to continue with its earlier policy of reorganising the Union' s economic and production structures, especially with regard to sector- and case-specific state aid.
In this respect I agree fully with what my colleague, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, said about the shipbuilding industry, which is also a major sector from the point of view of Finland, my country.
There has been good progress made recently in that area by the Council.
If Europe is to become the world' s most competitive economic area, it will mean giving up the practices of old.
It is clear, however, that new and permanent jobs will not be created by trying to maintain dilapidated structures.
Madam President, they could not fly for four days after 11 September and now they want to have a monopoly for more than a year.
Everything can be blamed on 11 September.
Please give us a free economy.
I understand Mrs Riis-Jørgensen as saying "they want".
So far as I am aware, this is not a Commission position or decision, even though my colleague Mrs de Palacio is the Commissioner responsible in this area.
Thank you, Commissioner.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Monitoring of BSE
The next item is the report (A5-0467/2001) by Mr Olsson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the follow-up to the BSE crisis with regard to public health and food safety (2000/2321(INI)).
Madam President, allow me to begin by thanking everyone who has helped with this report: MEPs from other political groups - especially Mrs Roth-Behrendt, former chairperson of the Temporary Committee of Inquiry on BSE - together with the Commission and the Food and Veterinary Office in Dublin.
Globalisation increases with every day that passes.
It is a good sign that we are trading more and more across borders.
We need a free flow of goods within the European Union, as well as an ever freer flow of goods in the world.
It is, however, important that this should not lead to our seeing a freer flow of viruses.
Where mad cow disease is concerned, it feels as though the European Union has gone into the free market back to front.
First of all, a free market was created, and then we began to investigate whether the rules were adequate for a free market.
In recent years, a number of gratifying measures have been adopted.
For example, we have created the European Food Authority.
Moreover, food legislation has been reviewed, and this will lead to sound legislation once all the legal acts have entered into force.
Experience so far is alarming, however. A look back shows that many Member States have been poor at complying with the legislation.
It is, then, not only the defective legislation but also inadequate compliance with this that have resulted in the present position.
It is extremely important that we now remedy this and become better at complying with the legislation.
If we consider the connection between these different diseases, we can see that scrapie, which is the oldest TSE disease, was discovered as long as several hundred years ago, while BSE, which attacks bovines, was not discovered until 1986.
We are obviously at a stage where a lot is happening.
Life continues, and so does its negative sides.
We must therefore be prepared for the possibility of constantly discovering new problems.
During the autumn, there was some anxiety that BSE might also be able to attack sheep.
That is presumably the background to Paragraph 11, about the need to monitor sheep, being included in the report.
I believe that its inclusion is a mistake and call upon Members not to vote in favour of it, for it appears that the investigation which was to have been carried out on sheep' s brains was most likely carried out on cows' brains.
Scientists too, of course, make mistakes from time to time.
The problem with BSE is that it is a disease which crosses the species barrier.
This means that there is a risk of people too being infected. We know that Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a major worry in this context.
I want to point out some of the measures we propose for the future in the report.
First of all, I want to state that, for ethical reasons, ruminants must obviously never be fed with meat meal.
They are not carnivores by nature and nor, therefore, must they be forced to eat meat.
It is, however, sensible - and we return to this in the second report - for primary produce that is suitable for human consumption also perhaps to be used as feed.
The problem is that there is a risk of disease if an animal eats other animals of the same species.
What is termed a cannibalism ban ought therefore to be introduced, prohibiting the feeding of animals with feed produced from animals of the same species.
There is a considerable risk of infection, and there has been little in the way of compliance.
We must therefore probably observe that it will not be possible within the foreseeable future to remove the ban on feeding omnivores with meat meal and bone meal.
In the long term, when there is better compliance, it may perhaps be possible to do so.
Regarding the important issue of sanctions, I want to put a direct question to Commissioner Byrne.
If individual Member States do not meet their Treaty obligations, the EU must have powers to intervene by taking measures to guarantee food safety - an issue that we also address in a number of points in the report.
We also believe that the Commission must be able to impose sanctions upon Member States that have not done enough to apply this type of legislation.
It would be particularly interesting to hear the Commissioner' s view on this.
Finally, I want to repeat what I actually stated at the beginning of my speech.
Research is needed within both this and other adjacent areas if we are to be alert to new problems' and diseases' arising.
Diseases of this kind are dangerous to both animals and human beings, and it is incredibly important that we in the EU devote adequate resources to maintaining the fight against them at a high level.
Madam President, Commissioner Byrne, this being the fifteenth year since cases of the disease first appeared, one might think we had done everything necessary and had got a grip on BSE.
When we in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development were drafting our opinion and yet again pointing out that all Member States should now be carrying out their checks properly, we did think that, well, that has to be re-emphasised.
We could not have guessed that it would become such a live issue, yet we are now learning from Germany, mainly from Bavaria and the Rhineland Palatinate, that the tests were done carelessly and the checking handed over to private firms which were ill-suited to it.
One can only scratch one's head in bafflement.
One can, of course, tell the Commission to better exercise supervisory control, but one can scarcely demand that any more, as the people at the bottom know just as well what it is all about.
Let us face it, BSE is a dangerous disease, and it is actually scandalous that tests are done only from the age of thirty months.
Most of the animals that end up in the slaughter line have not been tested.
Take Great Britain, where tests are still not being done at all, because animals over 30 months old are not permitted to enter the food chain, even though tests are, of course, necessary in order to establish the incidence of BSE among animals that are not getting into the food chain.
When it comes to the scientists who made a laughing-stock of themselves by examining sheep whose brains then turned out to be those of cattle, we cannot of course say, 'OK, then there is no danger to sheep.'
There is a danger to sheep, so they too have to be tested.
Turning to the circulation of animal bone meal, there are still evidently thousands of tonnes of infected or potentially infected animal bone meal making their way around the world, so that BSE is still spreading further afield and cropping up in places where we had never expected it.
We see here, Commissioner Byrne, that the feed ban is evidently inadequate.
It must be stated where the stuff has to go and how it is to be destroyed.
As the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has also made clear, the same applies to feeding with swill and food leftovers, which has, over and over again, brought us foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest when feed contained these in untreated form.
This means that, here too, we can do nothing by means of a ban on its own, but must say where the stuff should go.
If we had voted on the so-called interim report - 'The Handling of Animal By-products' - all of ten years ago, we would, of course, be under far less pressure from BSE, and if we had had it all along, there would have been no BSE.
I would say the same about swill and food leftovers: if we had had proper handling of these food leftovers, there would have been no infection with foot-and-mouth disease and rinderpest.
We must reach the stage where one system prescribes this for all countries.
Those who have an economic interest in bringing about the proper handling of animal by-products must be granted licences and punished by their withdrawal if they fail to do what the law prescribes.
Whoever breaks this law must lose his livelihood, because human health in our country is at stake here.
We must be bold in showing this rigour, or else - even in ten years' time - we will still be discussing the recurrence of lapses.
Mr Byrne, I wish to expressly confirm to you that the Commission bears no responsibility for these latest failures.
They are the responsibility of the Member States.
The Commission has also done good work on the drafting of the interim report and on its presentation.
Madam President, I shall try to be brief, but I should like to say to the rapporteur, Mr Olsson, that this report comes at a time when we have the impression that we have reached a standstill in the BSE crisis.
The Member States have, on several occasions, shown how hard they are finding it to manage this crisis.
The European Union must not, therefore, shirk its responsibilities in this matter, particularly with the prospect of the forthcoming enlargement.
It is crucial, today, to better coordinate everyone' s efforts to put an end to this epidemic and to prevent further crises arising in the future.
Our objective is food safety.
We will only be able to achieve this objective by means of better coordination of the policies implemented in each State, and through greater harmonisation of screening procedures and of the fight against the disease.
My group, however, is divided over the measures to be adopted in this field, although I personally fully support the report by Mr Olsson.
On the whole, my colleagues fully support these measures, which must enable us to achieve the objective of food safety.
The differences of opinion concern the approaches to be taken.
This is something I regret, because this obligation to public health must not allow us to relax the rigour to which we have subscribed under the precautionary principle.
The aim is not to pit farmers and environmentalists or farmers and health specialists against one another.
Farmers want to produce and to be able to guarantee the quality of their products; environmentalists, like those responsible for public health, want to contribute to a sustainable development, but everyone' s objectives are, in fact, the same.
Therefore, this obligation to public health does not allow any relaxation of rigour in terms of implementing the precautionary principle and the principle of zero tolerance, respecting the ban on feeding animals with animal meal, and the destruction of existing stocks of such meal.
I can see that our British colleagues are having a hard time and that they would like to find alternatives to destroying the entire national herd, but none of this should allow us to relax the rigor that we want to see in this monitoring of the BSE crisis.
I should like to conclude, Madam President, by reminding you that, in this field, it is crucial that the Commission is able to put a number of sanctions in place and that it ensures that the necessary inspections are made by the Food and Veterinary Office.
Community legislation must be implemented more systematically and must be implemented in all the Member States in the same way.
Sanctions must be followed up and we must be able to guarantee consumers the highest level of safety in order to restore the public' s confidence in their farmers and in their political leaders.
Madam President, the Commissioner is in danger of hearing the same speech many times in different languages.
This is the English version.
I am speaking here on behalf of Mrs Roth-Behrendt, as her father died yesterday and she has had to return home.
I am sure the whole House will join me in expressing sympathy to her.
These are the things I want to say.
First and foremost, we still do not know enough about BSE and about how it is spread.
We certainly do not know enough about its incidence in all the Member States of the Community.
We know that we still have it in the UK and although in the coming year it may be that other Member States have more cases than us, that is not a cause for satisfaction for us, but rather for commiseration with those who are still discovering the full horror of what this may mean for them.
In the UK we have had over a hundred cases of the human form of CJD.
We pray that other Member States will not go through that agony either.
The Commissioner will be entitled to say to us, when we talk about inadequate testing, that the Commission has said time after time that the real truth about BSE was hidden because there was no effective testing.
If this debate does one thing at least, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and others have said, it may impress upon us that the Member States need to be able to do this.
I am glad that Mr Olsson accepts that there is an equality of effectiveness between the way the UK takes out animals at 30 months and the slaughter of affected herds and testing of individual animals before they enter the food chain in other European countries.
I would not want to see any misunderstandings about that.
I believe we need more effective checks for contamination.
There are some late, worrying statistics in the UK and elsewhere about animals born after the checks were put into effect, which are still now showing symptoms of BSE.
There are obvious suspicions about the hoarding of meat and bonemeal and about where and how the testing is effected.
Mr Olsson wants the FBO to be in effect the monitoring agency.
I do not mind that, but I believe that nothing should subtract from the responsibility of the individual Member States to ensure that their testing and external controls are effective and are carried through.
Then there is the question of animal waste to herbivores.
We will be debating this when Mrs Paulsen's report comes back for its chequered second reading.
I would simply say that I am in that party in this House that believes, with Mr Olsson, that we should outlaw the feeding of animal waste of any form to ruminant animals.
It is high time that was done.
Finally, on the issue of sheep, I would just say to Mr Olsson that when we look at that lamentable failure over the testing of what turned out to be cows' brains, all that tells us is that there was incompetence of a grotesque kind.
It does not tell us that we have proof positive that BSE has not jumped species once again and got into the sheep population.
I would like to hear the Commissioner's views on those things and I apologise for repeating some of the other excellent remarks made in this debate.
Madam President, I welcome the report as it raises many important issues as we work towards a comprehensive and a safe food policy in the EU.
Control of infectious diseases goes hand in hand with proper monitoring.
Close consideration should be given to how infectious diseases are monitored by European Union institutions.
We must likewise question the methods of countries outside the EU and impose stricter import controls like those carried out in Australia and New Zealand.
However, we must remember, if regulations are drawn up, that it is important to impose penalties on Member States which fail to implement EU legislation on feed and foodstuffs, otherwise regulations are not worth the paper they are written on.
I call on Members to let common sense prevail.
Of course we need to test animals for BSE, but let us base the tests on sound scientific practices.
There is no proof that testing animals at 24 months is foolproof.
On the contrary, animals can develop BSE after 24 months.
I have had no satisfactory answers as to what this calculation is based upon.
The 30-month threshold currently imposed seems to be working.
The forecasts are that the UK will be BSE-free by 2005, and this has been achieved using the 30-month threshold.
Meat under 30 months can now be exported from the UK and it is true to say that it has proved to be a safe product for the consumer.
Another concern is the compulsory testing of sheep.
Again I urge caution and call again on sound scientific evidence.
The whole UK flock was nearly wiped out last year because of the discovery of BSE in sheep.
However, luckily someone questioned the validity of the findings and it was then discovered that the test was actually carried out on a cow's brain after all.
This episode did little to restore farmers' confidence in proper scientific research.
We need to develop a comprehensive animal health strategy and ask ourselves what we have learned from BSE.
The main thing, without a doubt, is not to tamper with nature on ethical grounds.
Herbivores must not be made to eat meat or fishmeal.
However, we must now concentrate on the future and work on a policy and strategy to undo the damage to the food chain.
Finally, the farming community has suffered a great blow over the past few years.
Let us work together now towards a food safety policy and a reform of the common agricultural policy which moves us away from a so-called consumer-led policy that led to intensification - but let us not move either to a consumer-led policy based on unfounded theories.
We must regain consumer confidence by producing a policy that will embrace all aspects.
Madam President, infringements of the fundamental principles of food standards law provide a great deal of headline material in many, if not all, of the countries of the European Union.
Although they involved a lot of distortion and scaremongering, reports played a significant role in preventing such occurrences from being forgotten.
The breaches in the investigation of BSE which have become public knowledge in recent days represent setbacks for all those who have campaigned to introduce a high level of consumer health protection in food production, and I think they had had some of those already.
It is precisely the great public interest in this subject, and the apparent avoidability of the most recent instances of human health being put in danger, that justifies the introduction of strict sanctions as asked for by the report, in order to finally stop new cases of BSE flaring up.
The highest standards in food production should apply in the European Union.
Such is the most significant statement in the White Paper on Food Safety.
The legal framework this requires must, as I understand things, be allied to a recognised early warning system through the EU countries, so that suspicion that human health has been endangered will result in the products being designated and their manufacturers named in public.
As a rule, public warnings are always desirable, above all when it is suspected that a product has been widely distributed, which is always the likely case in the never-ending cycle of food production.
It makes sense to me that specific food producers should be publicly named and warned where, in future, there is the mere suspicion of danger through unhygienic production practices or basic materials.
The widely-honoured principle is this: checks on animal feed are the preliminary stages of foodstuffs inspection.
The report's demands are indeed far-reaching.
Practical experience will show whether breach of a specific duty by the withholding of information should have the same consequence as fraud against the financial interest of the European Community.
The whole importance of the report lies in the necessity of referring again and again to the need to abide by existing prohibitions and instructions.
I wish to observe in conclusion that Mr Olsson's report is of contemporary relevance and shows close acquaintance with the present situation.
I do not believe that it is a plan of campaign for the next BSE crisis.
Madam President, BSE crystallises the fears and the doubts of both consumers and producers: a considerable fall in the consumption of beef and a more than 20% fall in the price of produce.
Europe, which is largely responsible for this tragic health crisis, must learn the lessons from it, particularly with regard to the failings that have occurred.
Instead of giving the Commission and the Veterinary Office greater powers, it would be better to harmonise the measures that need to be taken and then implement them effectively. How, for example, is it possible that the list of specific risk material varies from one State to another?
The European Union, the largest consumer of agricultural produce, must impose its requirements for food safety on extra-Community policy. In other words, it must apply to imports similar rules to those that regulate European production.
With regard to research policy, all means must be harnessed: research into the disease, methods of transmission, means of prevention, the updating of tests on living animals, etc.
With regard to waste treatment, how is animal meal stored? How is it going to be processed?
This crisis also has a major economic and social aspect, with the threat to entire swathes of the farming sector.
The fall in the number of farms clearly illustrates the professional crisis affecting young farmers.
How, indeed, can they contemplate the future with ease if the high-quality products adapted to the new expectations of consumers are not selling?
Other professions lower down the food chain are also affected.
This is true of small butchers and specialist butchers, who refuse to give up their right to remove bones in their shops when they only work with healthy carcasses.
Farmers have already made huge efforts to ensure quality, labelling and traceability, for which they are not always compensated.
Large-scale distribution continues, in fact, to favour cheap meat, even if this means importing from third countries.
If, as we are told, society has opted for quality, it must stand shoulder to shoulder with farmers in this process.
It has become crucial to launch information campaigns to reopen dialogue and to finally restore confidence between consumers and producers.
This step is essential to finding a way out of a crisis that is still unfolding.
Ladies and gentlemen, the first thing we must bear in mind at the outset of this evening' s useful and necessary debate on the monitoring of the BSE crisis is the confusion, the distress, the suffering and the fury of farmers, whose possibilities, prices and morale have all been struck by a veritable earthquake that has shaken their world, ruined years of work on breeding and good practices and has caused them to be distrusted by consumers, which they feel is particularly unfair.
We are concerned to see that, in many farming regions, as you know, Madam President, large numbers of still young farmers are leaving the business because, unable to put up with the consequences of a crisis for which they are not responsible any longer, they are forced to stop farming.
In some cases, their despair leads them to take violent action, even to commit suicide.
The Commission, which reacted so badly and so slowly to the outbreak of this crisis, first by denying it and then by playing down its severity, appears today, probably to get itself off the hook, to be prolonging the matter by imposing whole ranges of measures which do nothing to allay consumers' concerns; they risk destabilising the markets and increase the costs of making changes to the industry, whilst at the same time proving itself to be more generous in laying down regulations than in providing money.
The European testing programme for scrapie enters into force this month.
Is this good timing when each test costs as much as a sheep' s carcase and cannot currently distinguish between the prion which causes scrapie, which is harmless to humans, and the prion that causes BSE, which can be transmitted to humans? Furthermore, Argentinian meat imports have started up again.
Is this really the right time, when some parts of Argentina remain infected with foot-and-mouth disease? Incidentally, the special purchases programme, set up by the Commission is about to be abolished, on 31 March, and according to Agenda 2000, the intervention mechanism for beef and veal is due to end on 30 June 2002.
I call on the Commission to state unequivocally that these deadlines will be put back, because going ahead with these blows to the beef and veal industry would be like cutting off the oxygen to an injured person who is being resuscitated.
Instead, we feel that at a time when the BSE epidemic is at very different stages in the various Member States, it is the vigilance of the States themselves that provides the bests results.
In the United Kingdom, where the disease originated and which has had 99% of all clinical cases, the measures, which admittedly took a long time to be adopted and an even longer time to be properly implemented, are now bearing fruit.
The number of BSE cases has steadily fallen by 40% per year to reach fewer than 1000 cases last year, whereas in 1992, there were 36 000.
In France, where the epidemic is more recent and where systematic screening over the last eighteen months seemed to initially increase the number of cases, there has been a slight decrease since the end of 2000.
The other countries affected have a lower rate of prevalence and also appear to be in control of the situation.
As you are aware, it is now Japan' s turn to be infected by the epizooty that we have experienced.
In Europe, we must now, therefore, allow the authorities of the Member States to get on with their work so that farmers can regain the total confidence of consumers, whilst, within the Union, resolutely making the necessary efforts to provide real traceability.
Consequently, with regard to France' s maintaining its ban on British animals and meats, the European Court in Luxembourg - the judgment should be read in its entirety - has acknowledged that the ban was largely justified due to the still insufficiently reliable traceability within the industry in the United Kingdom.
It is also crucial to effectively implement, by means of systematic and rigorous inspections, the same quality and safety requirements, in order to provide consumers with the same guarantees for meats imported from third countries as for Community meats.
Item 25 of the draft resolution that has been presented to us makes a timely insistence on the importance of this issue by emphasising the Commission' s responsibility to "ensure that the same safeguards are applied with regard to imports from third countries as apply to Community products, in particular as regards BSE testing, the temporary ban on feeding meat-and-bone meal and the proper removal of specific risk material."
Furthermore, the Commission should also inform us, as well as the Member States, of the results of its inspections.
To sum up, Madam President, consumer confidence, which is crucial if our farmers are going to find new hope, will only fully return when they see that in the European Union, public health protection comes before the dogma of free trade.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Olsson on his work and also on the willingness he has shown in incorporating the suggestions he received from all Members of Parliament into his report.
The report' s explanatory statement gives a perfect account of the BSE crisis from its origins in the United Kingdom in the 1980s.
The 180 000 infected bovine animals in Great Britain, in addition to the 1 325 in the rest of Europe by the year 2000 and the 101 human cases of new variant CJD have raised serious issues about animal feed and have highlighted the far from harmless effect of this feed on the food chain.
Today, fortunately, we can congratulate ourselves on the scientific advances made in discovering the cause of the disease and on the efforts being made by the Commission and the Member States to eradicate it once and for all.
However, there are still some loose ends that need to be tied up in order to complete these investigations and implement the measures that are strictly necessary, because the measures that have been implemented are extremely costly to public and private funds, and for this reason, we must not ask for anything that is unnecessary, even though it costs nothing to ask.
Consequently, I wish to put forward the idea that, until there is scientific evidence to support it, we should neither gratuitously request that the age for obligatory BSE testing be lowered, nor should we ask for the list of risk material to be extended.
It would be a different issue altogether were veterinary scientists to recommend this, but, as things stand, they have not done so.
With regard to conclusion No 27, which calls for a reform of the CAP to tackle this problem, I would say that the CAP deals with a great deal more than food safety alone and that this safety is sufficiently complex to be addressed within the reform of the CAP.
This is well understood by the Commission and hence the White Paper on Food Safety, the European Food Authority and all the legislation on food safety and animal feed that we are revising in this legislative period.
This is the framework in which the technical and regulatory actions to be taken to guarantee food safety in the whole food production chain and not in the CAP are established, although one side-effect of it could be to impact on some aspects of the CAP.
Finally, as has been said on many occasions, we think that if the crisis was not tackled earlier, it was not due to a lack of research, studies or mandatory regulations.
It was due to a failure to implement standards and to a breakdown in the appropriate controls for their implementation.
These are areas in which we should have more influence in the future.
Thank you, Madam President.
It is beyond me why, after putting so many strict measures in place, we are still fighting BSE. Due to the unknown incubation period, the measures that have been taken only take effect in the longer term.
It is therefore possible for new cases of the serious Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to emerge, against which we are still powerless to do anything.
We have to be very frank about this.
On the other hand, we can also state that, by the compulsory removal of specific risk material, a guarantee is put in place that the carrier of the disease no longer ends up in the food chain.
Since it is no longer permitted to feed cattle animal and bone meal, I expect that, in time, the number of cattle infected with BSE will be relatively small.
At some point, we hope that tests will show that we are at the level we were at prior to the BSE crisis, namely a few cases per annum.
Unfortunately, the testing of cattle for BSE has disastrous side-effects.
If one cow appears to be infected, the entire herd is slaughtered.
However, this makes no sense.
BSE is not the same as foot-and-mouth disease.
Infection is caused through the feed and is passed on down the breeding line. That is why the birth and feed group need to be traced and tested, and not the cattle accidentally sharing the same shed.
It is irresponsible to sacrifice healthy animals to a false sense of consumer confidence.
We went against God' s creation by turning ruminants into cannibals.
We cannot conceal our shortcomings with futile measures.
We will once again abuse God' s creation if we slaughter and destroy animals unnecessarily.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament is using the Olsson report not only to take up a position on the current BSE situation, but also, in particular, to look into the future.
Our objective is to guarantee food safety, and we will not have reached it as long as our knowledge of this disease is incomplete.
That is why I particularly support the demand for the resources needed for continued research into TSE diseases to be made available by the Commission.
We need to learn more about these diseases and epidemics, which were previously unknown, in order to be able to combat them more effectively.
Society's hysteria, which was particularly marked in Germany, is diminishing.
People are going back to eating meat, and are again buying it cheaply.
There is a need for clarity about who, in the European Union, is to bear the costs of additional impositions such as tests and investigations, and conditions for this must be the same from one Member State to another.
We must, in the same way, see to it that regulations are transposed in the same way in every Member State.
The provisions of the TSE Regulation need to be stringently applied, with tough penalties imposed for disregarding or fraudulently evading them, not only as regards the production and utilisation of animal feeds but also tests, regulations on slaughtering and the disposal of hazardous material.
Animal feed is the target of criticism as much as ever and will continue to be so until we have open declaration and can at last check to ensure that only what is listed on the container is actually in it.
We cannot carry on being driven by fear of fraud, improper treatment and erroneous identification to destroy valuable substances and, apart from that, to import materials or feed from overseas, for example, where we have no influence on their production and composition.
That is why I put working towards openness, ease of control, and truthfulness right at the top of the list, for only by them will we achieve credibility and trustworthiness.
Until that day, the ban on feeding omnivores with meat and bone meal will have to stay in place.
It follows from this, though, that the Commission urgently needs to develop innovative methods of disposal and recycling, such as, for example, the production of biodiesel from tallow or fats.
It must at least be made clear that unprocessed offal, waste water, fat and tallow still have to be treated.
We intend that this report should promote greater awareness and urge the Member States to be unstinting in their efforts to beat this disease.
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Olsson, on his excellent work in compiling this report.
As a farmer myself, and someone who had a beef herd, I can testify to the wholesale damage and destruction that BSE has done - not only to the beef industry in my own country, but also in Member States throughout the Union.
So I welcome his efforts in fighting BSE.
This is a scourge that we must defeat across the whole of Europe.
I welcome any moves that will strengthen the efforts already made in the UK and by the Commission to stamp out BSE.
However, the report also raises some serious questions that are to be addressed if we are to maintain the efforts to improve food safety.
Firstly, I do not believe that the whole-herd slaughter policy has any scientific base for adoption.
BSE is not a contagious disease and cannot be spread between cattle.
As we have seen with foot-and-mouth, to adopt the scatter-gun approach to disease control policy of mass culling does nothing to instil confidence in the consumer and only serves to spread further concern.
In fact, if a farmer has to lose his whole herd for one case of BSE he may be less inclined to declare the animal and may bury it instead.
I ask Commissioner Byrne to review the whole slaughter policy for BSE in the EU.
Secondly, there have recently been worrying cases in the UK of beef being illegally imported from Ireland, which breaches the UK's very strict regulations.
In the UK at present we have a scheme in place which prohibits beef over 30 months from entering the food chain.
In one recent case, beef over 30 months from a plant in Cork was shipped illegally for processing and then resale within the UK.
It is a testament to the tough and stringent controls in place in my own country that this particular breach was picked up so quickly and effectively.
But I call on the Commission and other Member States to ensure that their own authorities are as vigilant against this dangerous trade.
Finally, there have been far too many cases of meat containing specified risk material being exported into the United Kingdom.
The growing number of cases and the fact that they come from so many Member States - Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Ireland, to name but a few - must be a huge concern for us all.
I am not seeking to apportion blame in any way, but if we wish to see the farming industry - particularly the beef industry - flourish in Europe, we must all shoulder the responsibility to enforce the rules.
What I am calling for is a mood of resilience and an ardour to implement the EU regulations and the tough controls that we have in place, and for us to work together to improve the inspection regimes in all Member States.
I call upon the Commission to take a more robust attitude to the enforcement of this regulation.
We have found in the United Kingdom that the only way to rebuild the beef industry is to rebuild consumer confidence.
We will only do that by guaranteeing the public a safe product that they can trust.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report focuses principally on public health and food safety.
Feeding with infective animal meals or fats is still regarded as the principal trigger for BSE.
It is irresponsible, in view of the experience we had of poor adherence to the ban on feeding ruminants with animal meal, to think at present in terms of lifting the general EU-wide ban on it.
Moreover, consumers would find it incomprehensible.
All animal meals still kept in stock, as well as feed containing them, must be destroyed without delay in order to prevent future cross-contamination of feedingstuffs.
There is a particular and connected danger presented by the animal meals, some of them infective, still stored in other states.
The smallest amounts of this material is sufficient to cause infections, and this is yet another reason not to lift the ban on feeding with it.
Guaranteeing the safety of humans and animals most certainly and fundamentally presupposes a working and stringent system of controls in the Member States.
I welcome the strict prescription of effective tests for BSE in all the Member States, and also the demand that the age for testing be reduced to 24 months.
The Commission must also intervene in favour of the introduction of the open declaration of all feed ingredients in all nation states.
Even before the Central and Eastern European states accede to the EU, they need to set up working systems alongside our own to oversee the safety of food and feedingstuffs.
There is an especially urgent need for slaughterhouses to be reorganised so that the immediate removal and disposal of hazardous materials in accordance with European directives may be guaranteed.
Imported food must be every bit as safe as that produced in the European Union, and so tests for BSE must now be made obligatory in countries outside the EU.
The safety of food, including that which is imported, is a fundamental requirement for consumers who want to eat healthily.
We must make it our concern.
Madam President, in the previous legislature, this issue was dealt with mainly by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, whereas the committee responsible is now the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
This is right and proper, for in this tragedy - a tragedy which is equally great for all - there are in effect two victims, also equally affected: the consumer and the farmer.
I remember the long hours of debate, the on-site inspections carried out at the beginning of the committee of inquiry' s work and then during the work of the supervisory committee monitoring the committee of inquiry, set up because Parliament did not have confidence even in the information provided by the Commission; in effect, it proved to be severely lacking in many areas.
Now we know more than we did then, for the world of science has also provided some answers and clarified the main issues somewhat.
We now know that the bulk of the blame for this tragic affair lies with the State, with the world of politics.
Basically, there are some Member States which have been less diligent in enforcing precautionary rules and, above all, bans, over the past two years.
Other States seem, once again, to have adopted, as in the past, the approach of a conspiracy of silence, in what could be described as an irresponsible attempt to hide and minimise the impact of the tragedy or - at least - the problem.
Already, in the past, precisely this attitude of lack of transparency has caused the most severe damage for farmers, for they were the butt of suspicion, mistrust and discouragement on the part of the consumer.
I therefore feel that the most important part of the Olsson report is precisely its loud call to governments to enforce the rules properly and thereby restore the confidence of the citizens, whether they are consumers or farmers, with an adequate information campaign and, most importantly, with sufficient support not least for those who are the direct victims of the tragedy: the farmers.
Madam President, Commissioner, it is, I believe, beyond dispute that public health and food safety are matters of importance to all of us, producers every bit as much as consumers.
Preventative consumer protection is on everybody's lips, but my understanding of these things leads me to believe that our role as politicians is not to give additional impetus to the emotional discussions that are still being carried on about the ongoing handling of the BSE crisis.
For my part, I do not want to help discussion of matters concerning BSE to slavishly follow the spirit of the age.
In view of current events in Germany, I favour the strictest controls right along the food production chain.
We also, of course, need the toughest sanctions when offences are committed.
In the meantime, I advocate testing for BSE from 24 months.
Now, when can we actually expect science to come up with definite findings on how individual animals get the disease? I think that when that does come to light, we could say goodbye in no time to the idea of killing off all our livestock.
Until then, going down the road of mass slaughter is only one alternative.
The feeding of omnivores with meat and bone meal will no doubt continue to be prohibited, at that for a variety of reasons.
We will certainly maintain the current ban on feeding with animal meals for as long as the open declaration of feedingstuffs is not made mandatory and for as long as the processing of offal from healthy animals cannot be carried out with any guarantee of safety.
I will mention, though, the formulation used in Mr Olsson's report. He, too, says 'for the foreseeable future' .
'For the foreseeable future' means, for me, that the future may perhaps find us back on a better road ahead.
Let me conclude by saying that it is easy for us to explain to any critically-minded consumer that healthy meat on healthy bone is part of good diet.
Processed healthy bone in animal meal is, though, apparently a danger to the omnivore.
Just try making sense of that.
We could take numerous other examples to illustrate this state of affairs.
I take the view that we, bearing as we do political responsibility, have to get back to discussing things in a more matter-of-fact way.
Madam President, we still know very little about BSE, a disease that has shaken the whole European agricultural sector.
We urgently need new research into what causes it and how it spreads.
There is no reliable proof of the quality of the screening process.
The call to lower the age of animals to be tested from thirty months to twenty-four months is hardly relevant.
In most cases, the disease is still diagnosed in animals when they start to behave strangely.
The possible connection between calf feed and BSE must be studied.
There has been no clear explanation for recent individual outbreaks of the disease.
It is nevertheless worth supporting the disposal of stocks of bonemeal and tallow.
The disease must not be allowed to spread by accident as a result of contaminated feed.
There must be unambiguous declaration of ingredients in animal feed, and responsible cattle breeders must be able to make the right choice on the basis of reliable information when purchasing animal feed.
The wellbeing and health of animals must be safeguarded.
There can be no transitional periods allowed for new Member States joining the Community with regard to food hygiene and declarations of quality and ingredients, as the new Member States will be joining a real internal market.
The applicant countries must be given technical and financial support in the prevention of the BSE risk.
We have to ensure that the measures will also continue after the enlargement process is over.
A lot was done last year to bring BSE under control and this brought results: for example, consumer confidence in beef is starting to return.
At this stage it is reasonable to remain cool, reinforce the measures that exist, and await the outcome of new studies.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to thank Mr Olsson for his good and critical report, which does a thorough job of highlighting some difficult points.
The common concern of us all is, without any ifs and buts, the maximum possible safety of our food, which, though, should also look good and taste good.
To produce this food, we need farmers, we need agriculture and we need agro-food production.
That is still the case.
It is this fact that prescribes the frame of reference in which we are at present working on this own-initiative report.
The report rightly highlights a series of shortcomings, no doubt the most serious of which is the appreciable difference in the ways Community legislation is implemented in the absence of any common level of protection.
This is where, in my view, the Commission is meant to be able to intervene and should be in a position to do so.
The precautionary principle must be adhered to by any means available.
Current events in Bavaria and the Rhineland Palatinate show how important responsible controls are.
We must therefore hold fast to the imposition of strict sanctions when binding regulations are not complied with, but I counsel a more cautious approach where a scientific justification has not, to date, been found.
I cannot therefore go along with testing for BSE as early as 24 months, with the ban on feeding with leftover food, even if it has been treated in accordance with contemporary scientific knowledge, and, likewise, the idea of slaughtering the whole stock when a case of BSE occurs, which is something I reject.
There is an urgent need for more research into comprehensive food safety.
We need farmers to be well-trained, good managers, motivated and - which is most important - respected by society, and these farmers need a fair price for what they produce.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, would like to thank Mr Olsson most warmly for taking upon himself the very difficult task of drafting this report.
Ever since the first case of BSE occurred, Parliament has always very closely observed and discussed the steps taken at both European and national level to deal with the crisis.
It is important for us, the farmers right across Europe, that all possible steps should be taken to avoid future food crises.
The precautionary principle, already mentioned by many of my fellow Members, must be adhered to, and the latest medical findings must be taken into account.
One difficulty that has become apparent is that of the marked divergences between Member States in the way they implement EU regulations and the partial absence of details as to how and to what extent Community legislation is being transposed.
I am in good company when I say that, above all, though, much firmer measures must be taken in respect of non-compliance, including the removal of hazardous material.
I do not believe that it is sensible to provide for the reduction to 24 months of the age at which tests are carried out.
I think this would give rise to unjustifiable costs.
Tests should continue to be carried out at 30 months in order to obtain secure results.
I therefore also support those amendments that provide for this.
As I have already said, the greatest protection is offered by proper slaughtering and removal of hazardous material.
Let me make another observation. I really would like to make the point that the common agricultural policy surely already does justice to the objective of food safety even now.
In my opinion, there is no absolute link between the continuing handling of BSE and the treatment of food leftovers.
The BSE crisis was, as we know, triggered by the production of animal meal under improper conditions and the equally improper feeding of it to ruminants.
The problems of recycling should be dealt with in another report.
A second consideration to which we should give attention is that the subject of animals, which are actually omnivorous, should be dealt with elsewhere, in a report of its own and not in this report, which is actually only on the ongoing handling of BSE in ruminants.
Madam President, I am very encouraged by the recommendations in Mr Olsson's report and his support for the Commission's approach in this.
I want to thank him for this report. His extensive experience in this area is evident from the detail and the high quality of this report, and I thank him for that.
There is too little time available to speak of the recommendations that the Commission can support.
I would like, therefore, to concentrate on those recommendations with which we differ or where there appear to be differences within Parliament itself.
The recommendation to reduce the age of testing of bovines to 24 months is an example of this.
Almost eight million tests were carried out last year on healthy animals aged over 30 months.
The youngest positive case in these animals was aged 41 months.
This suggests that there is no immediate urgency to lower the current age limit.
However, the situation will remain under review.
Another issue where there is some confusion is in relation to the Commission action in cases of poor implementation of BSE measures by the Member States themselves.
I have gone on record repeatedly to the effect that the existing enforcement mechanisms, namely the infringement proceedings, do not have sufficient teeth.
The Commission's intention is to present a proposal to the Council and Parliament shortly on food and feed controls.
This proposal will fundamentally review the inspection systems in the Member States.
In the process it will also propose much stronger action, including stronger sanctions, which many of you have referred to as having been contained in Mr Olsson's report.
The question of financial penalties in the case of fraud or serious malfunctioning of a national control system is being considered in this context.
The incidence of BSE in the Community gives mixed signals.
The total number of cases in 2001, excluding the UK, is likely to be in the region of 1,000 cases. This is more or less double the 482 cases registered in 2000.
However, most of this increase was due to the impact of the generalised testing of healthy and at-risk animals with the newly available rapid tests.
In addition, frankly, Member States that previously were not looking very hard for BSE have now learned their lesson and have hugely improved their surveillance efforts.
Nonetheless, there is still room for improvement in the area of implementation, as the reports of the FVO consistently highlight.
Another continued difficulty is the problem in the Member States in coping with the huge volume of meat and bonemeal which must be destroyed.
The Commission has actively reminded Member States of their obligations to respect Community law in this regard and I would refer to a number of contributions from Members of the House on this matter, and would draw your attention to the fact that there is legislation in place relating to this issue which must be complied with by Member States.
Finally, the continued uncertainty over the possible presence of BSE in sheep is also of concern, and many of you referred to this.
A decision was taken only last week to substantially increase the level of testing for TSEs in sheep.
This will provide a much better picture of the potential problem facing the Community if the presence of BSE in natural conditions is ever confirmed in sheep.
So, I greatly welcome this opportunity to respond to Parliament's initiative in the report.
It is only a little over a year since the most recent crisis peaked.
We have made a lot of progress in the meantime.
At this stage I should summarise the key measures that have been put in place.
First of all, the use of meat and bonemeal in animal feed has been suspended.
Testing for BSE has been introduced for all healthy animals aged over 30 months and for at-risk and casualty animals over 24 months.
The list of SRMs has been extended, notably to include the vertebral column and the entire intestine of bovines, and mechanically recovered meat from the bones of ruminants has been banned.
There has also been very important progress on the legislative front.
Regulation No 999/2001 on TSEs was finally agreed and entered into force on 1 July 2001.
Very good progress has also been made on the animal by-products proposal, with the question of how to deal with catering wastes as the main obstacle to final agreement.
The agreement also on the open declaration of animal feedingstuffs and on the Food Safety Authority will also greatly strengthen the overall framework in relation to TSEs.
Turning to imports from third countries, there are already a comprehensive series of measures in place under the TSE Regulation and its implementing provisions.
The FAO has undertaken a series of inspection missions in the candidate countries in recent weeks and months.
Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay will also be visited shortly.
The reports on these missions are now coming on stream.
It appears that while there has been some progress, further important efforts are still required to achieve full compliance in these countries.
I am very concerned that they should not repeat the mistakes of the Member States in their handling of the BSE problem.
The Commission will be actively calling on the countries concerned to take urgent corrective action.
I also intend to raise the matter in the meeting of the Agriculture Council with the candidate countries scheduled for next month.
Let me conclude by thanking Mr Olsson for his report.
I want to assure Parliament that the Commission's attention remains firmly fixed on TSEs.
I am insistent that there will be no complacency.
I know that Parliament will continue to keep a close eye - rightly - on eradicating this disease.
There were a number of points raised by Members that I would like to refer to.
In the UK there is now testing of all bovines born between August 1996 - the date of MBM ban - and the end of 1997.
The youngest positive test was found at 41 months.
That is in respect of eight million tests of healthy animals.
I should emphasise that there is no question ever of lifting the ban on the feeding of meat and bonemeal to ruminants.
That ban is in place and will remain so.
There is no debate concerning that issue.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Madam President, I should first of all like to thank Commissioner Byrne.
I am delighted that he replied so clearly to my direct question concerning sanctions and that this is an issue which is being dealt with by the Commission.
I am really looking forward to our being able to adopt a position in this House on the Commission' s proposal concerning the way in which the issue is to be handled.
I see this as a major step forward when it comes both to this issue and to the control and inspection of foodstuffs generally.
I can also tell the Commissioner that I share his view of the proposal to reduce the age of animals that are to be tested for BSE to 24 months.
That was not my proposal. Rather, it came from elsewhere.
I shall therefore help vote down this proposal tomorrow, using the same arguments that the Commissioner used.
I want to take the opportunity of thanking you, my fellow MEPs, for all your kind words.
It has been a pleasure to work on this report.
I would, however, emphasise in conclusion that the danger is not over.
As we have seen during 2001, new cases have been discovered in many other countries, not only within the EU but also in the candidate countries, Slovenia and Slovakia, as well as in Japan.
BSE is still a problem.
I share the view expressed by Mr Whitehead concerning the BSE investigation which proved to have been carried out on cows' brains instead of sheep' s brains.
That means that the only thing we know in many of these situations is that we really do not know anything, or that we do not know a sufficient amount.
That is why there is a need for research.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Climate change
The next item is the report (A5-0025/2002) by Mr Moreira da Silva, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion, on behalf of the European Community, of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the joint fulfilment of commitments thereunder (COM(2001) 579 - C5-0019/2002 - 2001/0248(CNS)).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have now been waiting for ten years, since the Rio de Janeiro Conference, for this moment to arrive.
It is true that the absence of the United States makes the Kyoto Protocol less universal than we would have liked.
It is also true that the Protocol is less ambitious than originally intended.
Nevertheless, the alternative to this small step would be incomparably worse: without the political agreement reached in Marrakech, we would have to waste another ten years in negotiations on drawing up a new Protocol.
I am, therefore, pleased that tomorrow we will adopt the Kyoto Protocol and we hope that this can enter into force as early as this year.
There is, however, one aspect of the Council decision that concerns me.
I am talking about the alleged desire of Denmark to reopen discussions on the burden sharing agreement, which was approved in 1998.
Such a renegotiation is unjustifiable, unacceptable and would heap ridicule on the European Union' s international standing.
We should remember that, very recently, we censored Russia for attempting to do exactly the same thing.
However, in addition to this environmental message that demands that we act, approving the Kyoto Protocol also sends out other political signals that are worth highlighting.
Firstly, it has proved that it is possible to regulate globalisation.
Secondly, the European Union has demonstrated its capacity for leadership and, in this particular instance, I wish to congratulate Commissioner Wallström on the admirable way in which she has exercised this leadership.
Thirdly, it has created a new economic paradigm, the carbon economy.
From now on, the price of a tonne of carbon will be quoted on the markets and carbon dioxide emissions will represent a cost to be reflected in the price of all products.
The winners will be those able to produce the same things using cleaner technologies.
Having assessed the situation, let us now talk about the future.
Between 1990 and 1999 the European Union already achieved a 4% reduction in its greenhouse gas emissions.
Nevertheless, the lack of commitment by the vast majority of the Member States is still a matter of serious concern and the situation is very worrying in some sectors, such as transport, in which it is predicted that emissions will increase by 50% in the next ten years.
Given this framework, the community instruments proposed by the Commission are to be praised, specifically the European Climate Change Programme and the directive on emissions trading, on which the European Parliament is due to deliver an opinion within the next six months.
However, although we know what the Community strategy is, what role should the Member States play? In my view, the Member States must not fall into the easy temptation of only implementing reduction measures that entail low costs in both economic and political terms.
This would basically be an attempt to resolve the problem by cutting emissions in industry and in the energy sector without tackling the transport or civil construction industries.
This option would be environmentally dishonest and economically irrational.
By avoiding applying the policy to some sectors, Member States would not only be wasting an opportunity for technological change but would also run up a much higher reduction bill for the future.
The strategy must, therefore, involve a reorientation of economic polices, internalising the environmental costs of the 'greenhouse effect' in all economic sectors.
This will only be possible if we introduce certain measures that are considered to be consensual, such as the production of renewable energies, energy efficiency and public transport, in addition to clearly unpopular measures such as ending subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, an energy tax and a tax on carbon dioxide emissions in the transport sector.
I shall conclude by thanking the shadow rapporteurs of all the political groups for their cooperation and commitment.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur for the presentation of his report, and also for his commitment to climate protection in recent years.
I would also like to thank the Commission, in particular Commissioner Wallström, who has done everything to make it possible for us to now discuss in definite terms the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, which, we can now, thank God, get to grips with.
Tomorrow we can say only 'Yes' or 'No' to the Kyoto Protocol, but it has taken a great deal of work to give us the chance to say 'Yes' to a comprehensive agreement.
I thank all those who have played a part in this.
The Kyoto Protocol has come in for heavy criticism and will continue to do so.
Most recently, as the rapporteur has mentioned, it is burden sharing on which criticism has again been focused.
I will say here quite openly that burden sharing merits criticism, and that those who say that the burdens are shared unfairly, are right.
No one, though, is reducing too much; all the Member States are reducing too little.
The experts tell us quite unambiguously that, if we want to put a stop to climate change, we must reduce greenhouse gases by 50% worldwide.
The magnitude of the task and the pettiness of the discussions between the Member States about this first step - which is, after all, a very modest one - is shown if we work on the basis that the industrialised countries need to reduce by over 50% in order for the developing countries to have any kind of chance of achieving some sort of prosperity for themselves.
India produces a tonne of CO2 per head of the population, as against the Member States of the European Union with about 10 tonnes on average.
Against such a backdrop it is bad enough that some EU Member States are permitted to increase their emissions, and that the Member States that produce a very great deal of pollution, such as the one from which I come, complain about now having to reduce their emissions by a relatively large amount.
The Kyoto Protocol is only an initial step and must be followed by many others.
We should not, therefore, be small-mindedly discussing the number of places after the decimal point, but energetically striving for a sustainable economy, being careful with resources and saving energy.
Madam President, I also wish to welcome the Commissioner at this late hour.
I cannot help but wonder if it is always the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy that meets on Tuesday night during the part-session in Strasbourg or whether we are regarded as some kind of suspect fundamentalist sect that is always placed lowest down on the agenda.
That would be pretty odd, given that we are responsible for one of the most important issues in Parliament, namely that of the environment.
I should like to ask both the President and the Commissioner to look into whether it would be possible to change this, that is to say whether it would be possible at least sometimes to raise the status of environmental issues by debating them in the daytime and not always after nightfall.
I had really intended to begin by parodying a well-known Conservative politician in Sweden who once said that he was not only a Hallander but also a European.
I should like to say, today, that I am not only a proud Gothenburger but also a proud European.
I am proud to be able to say that Parliament has now concluded its debate on the Kyoto Protocol, and I look forward to the Council' s also being able to ratify it in March.
I am particularly proud, however, of having been able to participate in the little delegation that visited the United States last week.
We were given the opportunity of discussing the climate issue with both Congress and the House of Representatives.
I have the sense that there is not only a physical ocean separating the continents but also a mental ocean, given the way in which the United States regards the climate issue and believes it should be handled.
Certainly, the climate issue has now been recognised as a problem in the United States because their own researchers have stated that it is a problem.
However, it is still believed that the solution to this problem is to be found in the United States.
It is this view that most divides us.
The United States regards a global environmental threat as a domestic problem that only concerns Americans, while the European attitude is that the issue should be dealt with jointly.
I therefore wish to thank the Commissioner for having taken such an active role and also thank the rapporteur of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, Mr Moreira Da Silva, who has kept us together and ensured that we have held a common view and position beyond the frontiers of Europe.
We need, in the future, to stick together not only in theory but also in practice.
That cohesion will be put to the test following ratification, as it will also be when, a little later on in the spring, we debate the European Climate Change Programme and emissions trading.
It is just unfortunate that certain members of the Council will feel the need to make a fuss about the way in which the burden is distributed.
It is pretty pathetic that it is Members from a Scandinavian country who will be doing this.
However, there are black sheep everywhere.
Whatever the case, I am pleased that we are able to conclude the debate on the Kyoto Protocol today.
Thank you, Madam President, the Kyoto Agreement is an historic agreement, the basis of which was laid in Rio in 1992. Bush senior was in two minds whether he would actually go to Rio, but he eventually went and signed the Rio Agreement.
The attempt to conclude an agreement with the Clinton/Gore administration in The Hague at the end of 2000 failed.
It was disconcerting to witness how Bush subsequently discarded the Kyoto Agreement. Fortunately, the breakthrough came in Bonn in July of last year - a major breakthrough - and it is for my group of great importance that nuclear energy plays no role, either with the CDM or with the Joint Implementation.
Parliament will ratify the Agreement tomorrow.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has already given us a taste of what to expect: 33 votes for, 0 against, 0 abstentions.
We will see similar figures tomorrow too.
We will be voting unanimously.
Hopefully, the Council will do the same, which on 4 March will first need to iron out a minor Danish issue, but I feel confident.
Europe has taken the lead, and I, too, should like to thank Commissioner Malmström for her boundless commitment.
As far as the content is concerned: 8% less in Europe and 5% less in the industrialised world, is far from good enough.
However, Kyoto is the only international Treaty we have for combating global warming.
And like the Ozone Treaty, it will need to be improved many times.
But Canada, Japan, Australia and Russia still need to ratify the Treaty first.
This will hopefully be done before the Rio Plus 10 Summit meeting in Johannesburg.
Like Bush senior, Bush junior is in two minds whether he should go to Johannesburg.
Hopefully, like his father, he will decide to attend after all.
Last week, we were in Washington with a small delegation, and there are indications that the United States is actually under pressure to change its attitude.
The Democrats were embarrassed about the fact that their country was not participating in the Kyoto Protocol, and a number of Republicans too have seen the light.
Bush will probably proclaim a national climate policy soon: a modest, partial disengagement from economic growth and energy consumption.
Not good enough but far better than what he stated a year ago.
We have made it clear that the economic costs of such a policy for America will be greater than the costs of taking part in Kyoto.
It is also satisfying that a number of large concerns in the US want America to take part in the Kyoto Protocol.
The question is no longer whether, but when, the United States will take part.
Three major questions remain.
First of all, there is the implementation. Attaining 8% less is starting to become a serious matter.
Then there is the discussion about the objectives following the initial period. One per cent less per annum is a very good start, and I hope that the Commission can confirm this.
Finally, the most important and most difficult issue is to persuade the developing countries to come onboard in due course.
Madam President, Commissioner, as Mr Moreira da Silva reminds us in his report, ten years have passed since the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.
I hope that in September we can celebrate the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol.
We will have to consider whether or not these last ten years have been wasted.
Whilst on the one hand we recall how reports, financed mainly by Americans, were falsified during this period to show that climate change did not exist, in the same way that any scientist who insisted on the problems that climate change could cause, was discredited, it is also true to say that public awareness has greatly increased over these ten years. In other words, we may have wasted time in implementing measures, but the level of public awareness is higher than ever before.
I think that today we are all aware of the significance of the Kyoto Protocol, the meaning of climate change and its associated effects, such as the submergence of islands, the destruction of coastline, the massive displacement of millions of people and the loss of biodiversity.
Therefore, I think that we have made gains on the one hand even if we have suffered losses on the other.
It is also true that, from 1990 to 1999, greenhouse gas emissions were reduced in Europe, but it must be said that this is due, to a large extent, to two countries in particular, for very specific reasons.
There are many countries, such as my own, whose greenhouse gas emissions have increased - excessively, to my mind.
Spain' s emissions have increased by 23%, although the possibility that at the next Council of Ministers, according to today' s papers, the Spanish government will decide to ratify the Kyoto Protocol is to be welcomed and is good news.
This is an example that other countries should follow, to be able to reach, in September, the figure of 55 countries needed to ratify the Protocol, which account for over 55% of all greenhouse gas emissions.
I believe, in agreement with some of my fellow Members, that the final result is not as ambitious as expected some years ago, but, as Mr Moreira da Silva also states, the alternative would be much worse.
We have to work to ensure that States ratify the Protocol, but also that they implement specific measures, with the priority of those economic sectors that pollute the most, such as transport.
The rapporteur very clearly states that emissions caused by transport could rise by 50% over the next decade.
Priority measures should be direct action in key economic sectors.
I also agree with Mr Moreira da Silva that the balance that has been achieved should be left alone, for, as many of my fellow Members have already said, Mrs Wallström and this Parliament have done some great work and, although it may be modest, the step forward is very significant.
Madam President, the Kyoto Agreement is very important and we can all be satisfied that at long last it is to be adopted.
The EU has shown astonishing powers of leadership in talks on climate change.
Without that, the Protocol could not have been saved.
European companies have had to agree to strict measures to try to achieve an 8% reduction by 2012 compared to the 1990 levels.
Our competitors in the United States do not have to withstand this burden, President Bush has stated quite coolly that this way he is protecting American industry and production.
The EU cannot bear the responsibility for the entire world alone.
The USA, Russia and China must all commit themselves to a common aim.
This has been insisted on strongly at WTO talks.
It is not merely a matter of commercial policy but the world we share and our future.
The burden has already been shared within the EU.
Now there is talk of emissions trading.
We cannot let emissions be auctioned off; we have only bad experience of the UMTS and other auctions.
I am especially worried about those industrial sectors and companies that have already made massive investments to reduce emissions.
These responsible companies cannot now be allowed to pick up the bill again.
Surely it is nobody' s intention to force successful and environmentally caring companies out of the market?
The Union' s need for energy is only increasing with economic growth, regardless of the savings made.
To achieve the Kyoto targets we have to continue to save energy and adopt the use of renewable energy sources.
To ensure the supply of basic levels of energy, however, nuclear energy is the only realistic option.
Madam President, it is quite remarkable how Parliament is united across the boundaries of group and nation on this issue, and the Commission and the Council, too, are of the same opinion, that we want to ratify Kyoto.
I hope that tomorrow's vote will see us achieve the greatest possible majority and perhaps even unanimity on this issue.
There is a cultural significance to this, for - if I am right - Europe would be assuming cultural leadership on an important issue for the first time since the Second World War.
In the past, we always followed the Americans, trailing them by five to ten years.
This time, Europe is indeed ahead.
That is something that I welcome.
Only a few, though, are aware of what this ratification signifies.
Signing it takes no time, but putting it into practice is extraordinarily difficult.
Some have already referred to that.
I find it all the more regrettable that, on this issue, we - we, the popularly and directly elected European Parliament - are only being consulted.
This is a great economic upheaval - and we are only being consulted.
That strikes me as extraordinarily regrettable, although I must say that I would still say 'Yes' to Kyoto if Parliament had the right of codecision, and I assume that my fellow Members would do likewise.
I also call to mind the fact that we are acting on the basis of the precautionary principle, which has, in the meantime, found its way into our lawmaking.
Were we not to act, our inaction could, under certain circumstances, lead to us being sued in the European Court of Justice and compelled to ratify Kyoto.
This agreement also has its advantages, for we are putting our industry and ourselves under pressure to develop the most energy-efficient products and processes, and, finally, we are making ourselves competitive, even though I cannot deny that there will also be difficulties for some branches of industry.
Madam President, the European Parliament could have insisted that the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol complied with what is called the assent procedure, whereby this legal instrument could not have been brought into force in the Community without the approval of the European Parliament.
Against certain legal advice, we are now, however, satisfied that our opinion on this matter is being heard, and this is because we have said how important it is to have the Protocol ratified at long last.
Parliament is really doing its utmost now to see that the Kyoto Protocol will be in force when the meeting on sustainable development is held in Johannesburg in September.
That is very important.
I would like to add my thanks to those expressed here both to the rapporteur and the Commissioner.
It is certainly true that this process, which has now ended with the acceptance of the Kyoto Protocol by the Community, will not be the last indication that the European Union can demonstrate a real capacity for global leadership, and can also show its citizens, as the rapporteur stated, that globalisation can also be controlled if proper rules are applied to it.
There has also been talk of the economy in this debate.
It is important to realise that a good number of companies have already become aware of just how much potential there is for business in policies on climate.
We must also have confidence in this and include the United States in the process.
As my colleague, Mr de Roo said in his speech, a large number of companies in the USA wish the United States would become involved in this process.
It may actually be, as my country' s Minister of the Environment has said in this connection, that the USA will become the last open-air museum of the old technology unless it joins in these efforts.
Now we have before us the task of implementing the Kyoto Agreement in practice in the Community.
Thanks go to the Commission for the swiftness with which it proposed a directive on emissions trading as well as a large-scale climate programme just before the Marrakesh Conference.
This spring the European Parliament can now participate with determination in drafting the rules of this directive on emissions trading.
I believe that in this we will be acting with the express purpose of seeing to it that the companies that have already played their part will also receive a reward of some sort, and that all the other companies will also be tempted to join in.
Madam President, Commissioner, as Mr Moreira da Silva stated, on 4 March the Kyoto Protocol will be submitted for ratification to the Environment Council.
I am convinced that the Spanish Presidency is determined to overcome any last-minute difficulties that could arise and that the result will be satisfactory.
This will mean that the European Union is taking another step forwards in leading the struggle against climate change.
We have seen once again this evening that the United States is widely criticised for not sharing the level of commitment the Protocol demands.
This puts all EU Member States, and this is particularly true if we are able to get the United States to sit around the negotiating table, in a position of urgent need to fulfil each and every one of the provisions laid down in the Protocol, unless we want to suffer total ridicule and have our reputation in international politics tarnished.
Nevertheless, although achieving the Kyoto objectives will not be easy, it is possible.
This is demonstrated by the data in Mr Moreira da Silva' s resolution.
We must become a society that is poor in carbon and rich in the use of cleaner technologies, taking full advantage of energy efficiency.
We know that the role of the market is crucial to achieving these objectives, but we are still hesitant when it comes to implementing specific measures, above all when we give in to those short-sighted sentiments that still perceive the Kyoto Protocol as an attack on competition and employment when it should be seen, because it can now be seen, that the opposite is the case.
We must act on demand at Community level on aspects such as the internalisation of costs, emissions trading and the exchange of certain policies such as transport, energy or agriculture.
With regard to demand, we must focus on training and motivating some European consumers who are still very apathetic and uninformed in this regard.
I believe that the rapporteur has tabled a proposal that is committed to sustainable development, which is clear and precise in stating exactly where we need to act.
For this reason it deserves, and I think already has, this Parliament' s gratitude and total support.
Thank you, Mr Moreira da Silva.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I wish to say that I welcome the European Parliament' s draft resolution on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion, on behalf of the European Community, of the Kyoto Protocol.
I wish first of all to thank Mr Moreira Da Silva for the report and for the fact that it has been possible to resolve this issue of such political importance by means of a vote in Parliament at an early stage.
I also want to take the opportunity to emphasise how much I value the cooperation with the European Parliament concerning the Kyoto Protocol.
Your efforts, including visits to the United States and contacts with parliamentarians in different countries, have been extraordinarily important.
The cooperation we have had during the negotiations, especially under Mr Moreira Da Silva' s leadership, has contributed to our having come as far as this on our home ground.
I also wish to say that I consider it self-evident and very important that Parliament should be fully involved in the work we are now doing on the European Climate Change Programme and on the proposal concerning emissions trading.
For some years, the EU has of course advocated that the Kyoto Protocol should come into force at the World Summit on Sustainable Development to be held in Johannesburg in September of this year.
If it is to be possible to achieve this objective, the EU should set a good example.
Mr Liese and Mr Linkohr are right: even though we can quarrel about the distribution of the burden, this is just a first step if we want to take the climate experts seriously.
It can only be seen as a first cautious step along the road.
I am particularly pleased about Parliament' s support for the proposal' s being adopted as soon as possible so that we can ratify the whole proposal by no later than 1 June, when the Member States have concluded their own national procedures.
I want to comment briefly on what is termed the Danish problem, which is to be regarded as a technical complication.
It is also in terms of a technical problem that we are trying to solve the issue.
At the Council meeting in December, the Environment Ministers agreed that we should try to find such a technical solution and that a decision should be taken during the Council meeting on 4 March.
I hope that this will be possible.
If this decision is adopted at the Environment Council meeting in March, this would be a clear signal that the EU is determined to comply with the Kyoto Protocol, a move that would strengthen the EU' s credibility and leadership role in the matter of combating climate change.
It would also increase the pressure on other parties, for example Japan and Russia, to follow our example.
The prospects for this are fairly good, given the way things look at present, particularly in Japan.
At the same time, we are going to continue the dialogue with the United States and try to convince them to resume the Kyoto negotiations or at least adopt similar measures on a national basis to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
If we are to be credible, we must put our own house in order first.
In plain language, this means that our first priority must be ratification and effective implementation of the Protocol on the part of the EU.
Thank you for your views and for this debate.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Education and training systems
The next item is the report (A5-0017/2002) by Mrs Martens, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the Commission communication on the draft detailed work programme for the follow-up of the report on the concrete objectives of education and training systems (COM(2001) 501 - C5-0601/2001 - 2001/2251(COS)).
Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to emphasise the importance of this report, which underlines the fact that the role of education does not consist merely of preparing young people for employment - even if employment also underpins society and is a means of gauging inclusion and economic and social reproduction.
It is generally said that training is about filling in the gaps.
The same applies to education.
What we really need to do here, therefore, is define what these terms actually mean, which is not happening today.
We must, therefore, also discuss the definition of the gaps that we want to fill with our education and training policies.
Definitions of this matter are not unanimous; it could even be said that there is a profusion of definitions and that this very profusion reveals our political leanings and the values that we advocate, individually and collectively.
To my mind, the greatest challenge of this decade is that of social cohesion.
In a world in which everything is going faster and faster and in which speed of movement has become a factor in the generation of wealth, there are increasing numbers of men and women for whom the doors to work, to culture and to knowledge are closed.
I would go so far as to say that exclusion is on the increase and that this trend is harming our various strategies for social cohesion, a concept which we are nevertheless fond of in the European Parliament.
Consequently, the gap is continually increasing between a growing number of European citizens and what I would call the world of money.
This divide illustrates not only the distance between the individual and the market, but also the confusion, the loss of meaning in a collective system within which there are two groups: those who make the rules and those who merely follow them.
We must, therefore, urgently discuss the issue of the continuous assessment of the European social model and of the price that we are prepared to pay to produce this social cohesion, this citizenship.
In this context, we must do everything we can to ensure that the decision of the Lisbon European Council, confirmed by the Stockholm European Council - which, in strategic terms, places economic growth, better employment and greater social cohesion on an equal footing - becomes a reality for all and that finally, everyone, without a single exception, has access both to the social skills required by citizens and the professional skills required by economic producers.
I now call on the Commission to take my suggestion fully into consideration and put in place the necessary policies for social cohesion to no longer be the consequence of other strategies and become a fully-fledged, high-priority approach in order to safeguard public welfare, in other words, the harmonious and dignified development of Europe' s citizens.
Madam President, according to Hegel, culture - that is, philosophy - spreads its wings only at the falling of the dusk, but it is getting on for dawn here!
In any case, in my capacity as shadow rapporteur for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport for the Martens report, I would like to start by thanking and congratulating the rapporteur on her work. I am not greatly opposed to any of it and would just like to highlight a few particularly important points.
I feel that it is important - as the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has also pointed out - that this report should address the issue of education not just in terms of professional training, of the development of skills which will increase our citizens' chances of finding high quality work, but also in terms of more general education, of which school education is part in a wider sense, directing it towards a humanistic culture which - although it does not directly provide professional skills - certainly achieves that task of social cohesion which is our goal.
The same may be said of the report' s focus on equal opportunities for all citizens and the possibility that European Community action might remove those gaps, those divergences and distances which, in our society, still divide those who have skills, who have access to a computer and information technology, for example, from those who are still excluded from this world.
These are the main principles of the Martens report and I feel that Parliament cannot fail to support them.
This is the line taken in both the report' s declarations of principle and its practical recommendations: it focuses especially on the need to root and ground these recommendations in the changes currently taking place in the world of communications and in new teaching methods and, above all, to facilitate the climate and conditions necessary for the need for a higher level of quantity and quality of education for all to be met.
In this respect, all the measures seeking to actively involve teachers, students and trainers in the implementation of the programme are vital.
The emphasis placed on language learning, on strengthening the ties between the world of work and civil society, on the need to find more attractive images to encourage students and teachers' learning and mobility must not, however, mask the practical root of the problem: the need for financing which respects the choices of the individual.
To this framework we need to add a top priority action plan to assess and intervene with appropriate, effective tools in the tensions which can develop in the worlds of education and work where there are cases of discrimination, with the common desire to fight racism and intolerance.
For all these reasons, the Committee on Culture thanks the rapporteur once again for her work and calls upon Parliament to adopt the Martens report.
Madam President, I welcome the report on the Commission communication on the concrete objectives of education and training systems.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for her conscientious work.
In line with the goals of the Lisbon and Stockholm European Councils, it is vitally important that we enable the generation of young Europeans to choose European research careers and European scientific disciplines.
I also agree that companies have to play a key role in training students and employees.
However, before submitting the report we should pay attention to the following points.
There seems to be a gap between the proposals in this report and the progress made by the Commission and its expert group so far.
My understanding is that the Commission has already started its work on social inclusion and reset its goals on the Leonardo da Vinci programme by, for example, including older people and disabled people within its scope.
This is welcome.
We look forward to the European Year of Disability in 2003.
In addition to that, one should not neglect the efforts made by the Commission on cooperation with the candidate countries at all levels.
While not wanting to undermine the good work of the Commission, I must say that more can be done.
We should also underline the importance of encouraging increased integration of European Union, Member States and regional initiatives in order to make efficient use of the relatively small budget for education and training systems.
In this respect I would suggest better cooperation between the different kinds of funding and an exchange of best practice, together with better dialogue between the supranational, national and regional decision-makers within the Community.
Finally, I would like to see more attention paid to the lack of equal opportunities for all individuals to experience better European integration throughout their professional lives.
There are possibilities within the budget to facilitate exchanges of experience of vocational training systems in the different Member States.
I encourage this.
Europe can offer better education for everybody.
Parliament's report should not forget to underline that.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the Commission and Mrs Martens on her report, although I must admit that, like a pupil at night school, all I can think about is going home to bed. This is a detailed and, I think, exemplary programme of work because it systematically links the objectives, the indicators and the timetable, thereby giving us a benchmark.
But what we have to ask ourselves is, what sort of benchmark is it if, when it comes to the crunch, we shy away from a real policy of educational convergence at European level.
We ignore the main differences, we are not willing or perhaps able to do anything about them or our priorities lie elsewhere and we use the Bologna method to set targets which every Member State has yet to meet.
I have my doubts, which I have already voiced to Mrs Reding.
Nonetheless, I think that it is a benchmark and we shall see in a few years' time how hard it is for some and how close others have come to it.
But I think dialogue is indispensable, and not just at the level of Parliament.
We need to find a way of formulating an opinion and a view before we are presented with faits accomplis.
We need dialogue at school unit level.
Teachers are strongly resisting indicators, at least in Greece.
Most indicators are quantitative, only a few are qualitative, meaning that the picture we get will not always be the most accurate, and we do need the most accurate picture.
I also share Mrs Martens' view that we need more indicators on education systems, not just training systems.
And here the Commission proposal really is one-sided.
I know we are all worried about unemployment, I know that we want to leave school with prospects of getting a job rather than joining the dole queue, but a general education for young children is equally valuable.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I want first of all to say a big thank you to the European Parliament, and, above all, to Mrs Martens and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, for the support, points of view and proposals to which the debate on this report has given rise.
Following Lisbon, and as part of the implementation of the strategy established there, we have given new impetus to European cooperation in the field of education.
The result is positive, because the Council and Parliament are agreed on this issue.
We have agreed on the following common objectives: firstly, increasing the quality of our education systems; secondly, facilitating the access of all to education and training systems; and thirdly, opening up education systems to the world.
Despite the fact that this involves some very complicated work, the finishing touches are now being put to a detailed work programme of the kind requested by the European Council in Stockholm.
The proposal will be discussed at the Council meeting on 14 February.
It specifies the most important points in terms of achieving the objectives laid down and, with the help of the open coordination method, identifies how it will be possible to measure progress.
Upon request, the tools used must not only compare the different EU countries with one another but also be used for the purposes of comparison with other high-achieving countries.
The views and proposals put forward by Mrs Martens in her report will, as far as possible, be taken into account in preparing the final document.
The Commission is entirely in agreement with Parliament about the two-fold objectives of education, namely to promote personal development through helping people gain the skills which will be of use to them throughout their lives, and to lay the foundations required if young people are to be integrated into society and the labour market.
Reporting on the objectives and the detailed work programme will take account of these issues, which are interrelated.
The President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, recently expressed the view that education, training and research are the keys to economic renewal, sustainable development and new jobs.
A knowledge-based society cannot be created without knowledge.
These different aspects therefore need to complement one another.
A prerequisite of being able to achieve such a situation is that we work together.
The work in pursuit of common objectives has only just begun.
In the future too, we shall have the opportunity to work more with Parliament and other EU institutions, as well as with international organisations such as the OECD and the Council of Europe.
Together, we must obviously also ensure that the candidate countries are involved in the cooperation process, and preparations for all this will be made before the next meeting of the European Council in Barcelona.
Specifically, we shall have the opportunity of working with all these countries in Bratislava in June at the meeting of the 36 Education Ministers.
In conclusion, I want to thank you for this debate and for your attention.
Thank you, Commissioner.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.10 a.m.)
Resumption of the sitting
Mr President, I do not want to comment on yesterday' s Minutes, but would like to make an observation of a different kind; so I hope you will allow me to do that first.
Indeed, I understand - and I am speaking as the coordinator for my group for the ACP Meeting - that none of the Commissioners will be attending the ACP-EU Meeting in Cape Town in four weeks' time.
Not one single Commissioner, not Mr Nielson, nor Mr Patten, nor Mr Lamy, nor Mr Fischler, for that matter.
In order to avoid a huge disgrace, you could perhaps make an urgent appeal to the European Commission to ensure that a Commissioner attends this Meeting, for an entire programme of questions in writing and such like are on the agenda there.
It is also a disgrace in respect of the 70 developing countries that the Commission is not making an effort to attend the ACP Meeting.
This would be the first time that this has happened, and I have been attending ACP meetings for years.
Hence my urgent request that an appeal be made to the European Commission.
I will take it up with the Commission, Mrs Maij-Weggen, and when we have the response we can come back to the House.
Statement by the President of the European Parliament
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I welcome your Presidential programme.
You started with a statement: the culture of change in this second half of the legislature.
I would say that, fundamentally, what this requires is the consolidation of the culture of democracy in the European Union.
We are facing a veritable obstacle race, in political and electoral terms, in the next two and a half years.
I believe that there are basically two things we must do: one concerns our citizenship.
We already have European citizenship and the euro, but we must convince our citizens to participate actively in the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament.
And this is something that we must all do together.
At the same time, we must focus on those who wish to become citizens of the European Union, the citizens of the candidate countries and try to engage them in the most noble aspect of our great adventure, which is not simply discussing budgetary issues, but sharing a common destiny founded on peace and democracy.
I would say that these are the noble objectives that we share with a view to making Monetary Union, which is already a reality, into an Economic Union and, above all, as you rightly said, a Political Union, giving primacy to the most noble aspect of politics in public life.
There is also another important dimension to the European Parliament, which is our voice stating the universal primacy of human rights.
Not because we are superior, but because we Europeans have learned, in the course of a long and painful history, that human rights are the best cement for maintaining peace and prosperity.
This is an important point, both with regard to the world that borders our own - I am thinking here of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and also the Mediterranean - and especially with regard to the Middle East.
I welcome the fact that yesterday, for the first time, a large number of Members took part in the debate on the Middle East.
We must keep this up.
With regard to the most tangible issues that you raised, the agenda of reforms, I should like to express my agreement with you, in that the most important thing we can do is to make our message more specific and to give primacy to political debates.
In this regard, I also wish to thank you for having mentioned the work of the members of my Group, who are also Members of this Parliament, but whom you mentioned specifically.
First of all, with regard to the reform of the Rules of Procedure, the Corbett report.
It is obviously Parliament that must decide, but the President also has powers of proposal and of approval.
The Corbett reform is not only the product of the rapporteur or of the Socialist Group.
This reform is something as vital to us as the air that we breathe.
It is absolutely crucial if we are to ensure that our debates resonate beyond the walls of this Parliament.
Secondly, the Members' Statute.
At the moment, the Members' Statute, which is a long-standing ambition of this Parliament, towards which we have been working for many years, is not simply something we wish to see. It is constitutionally essential if Parliament is going to be a member of the European Union with full rights.
This is the issue: we are not simply discussing the problems, the type of Assembly or the advantages that we could gain.
This is an issue of dignity and of equality between the citizens and their representatives.
As you know, you have always had the support of the Socialist Group on this matter, and considerable progress has been made by recent governments that are part of our political family. I also hope that you also maintain your resolute support for the work being done by the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, not only because he is rapporteur for the Socialist Group, but as I have said on other occasions, because this is the birthright of the entire Parliament.
With regard to defending democracy within the European Union, I welcome the agreement reached yesterday on the Lamfalussy programme on the basis of the von Wogau report.
I wish to highlight a few points that I consider to be crucial and which should lead to Parliament maintaining a very firm stance.
First of all: governance.
This is an absolutely crucial issue and we must prevent a drastic reduction of our powers and a return to commitology.
I urge you, Mr President, to ensure that the interinstitutional working party announced by President Prodi in the December Plenary and which the President of the Council, Mr Aznar, also ratified here, is set up as quickly as possible so that we do not see our power of codecision eroded.
Secondly, immunity.
Recently, there has been a major shortcoming on an essential issue, from the point of view of the dignity of Members.
I am counting on you to take this issue seriously so that we do not find ourselves in a situation in which a fundamental aspect of parliamentary dignity is rendered meaningless.
Lastly, the Convention.
I also thank you for having today appointed Giscard d' Estaing as its Chairman.
The Convention is the daughter of our parliamentary work, but it also has other partners and members and I think that Parliament must act as the keeper of the conscience in this field to ensure that the Convention is visible to the public, achieves tangible results and is not simply a forum for discussion.
Furthermore, it must be able to push forward and develop something on which we can all agree.
As you know, Mr President - and with this I shall close - we supported an excellent candidate, Mr Martin.
I see that you have integrated many of Mr Martin' s ideas into your campaign, but in any event, I should like to say that if you implement this programme, you will have the loyal and honest support of the Socialist Group in this work, which concerns all of us.
Mr President, my dear Pat, congratulations once again, this time on your new professional début.
It is splendid to see you doing what you promised.
You are showing yourself to be trustworthy.
We have obtained a new Europe today, but we have also had a new Parliament since January.
Now, we are to be politicians, not technicians, and you have shown, and will show, us the way.
Pat, we are hungry, in fact very hungry, and we have an appetite for change.
Our group will support you entirely as you prepare the individual dishes that can satisfy us.
However, our group will always have an appetite for change.
In Denmark, we have a lovely song that our family often sings.
It goes like this: 'Life' s harvest is in struggle never ceasing...' , '...while changeless calm is death' s abode' .
Our group has always wished for struggle, for we have an appetite for change.
Enlargement is the most important matter we are facing at this time.
It is about people rather than about technical devices, budgets, laws and rules. We are clearly the place where people are to meet, and we must make this place work.
Our group will do everything to move the tradition on, as we have already done by now inviting members of the national parliaments in the candidate countries to visit us.
What is most important, however - and what we have a very great appetite for - are reforms to this House of ours.
We have a need for reforms, and not only reforms of our statute - important as those are - but also changes to the way in which we work, so that we can deliver the results our electorate wants to see.
That leads me on to my next point, concerning contact with the people.
The prerequisite for being in touch with the people is that we should be able to deliver the goods and, more specifically, the goods that people demand.
That means being able to put our own house in order and being effective and concentrating on what is really important and what we have some influence upon.
In those terms, what is most important are reforms, results and communication, and certainly it is splendid to hear you communicate.
You are enthusiastic, you show your feelings, you are colourful in your speech and you use the right words.
I would almost go so far as to say that we in effect have a female President, for you employ the feminine side of your personality: imagination and creativity; and that is what we need if we are to reach our citizens.
We must be politicians, not technicians.
All right, we were unable to have a woman as President, but a man with feminine sides to his personality is no bad thing either.
The Convention is what is most important in connection with the Europe of the future.
Moreover, it is important that we should not just engage in navel-gazing but try to find solutions to the tasks facing us. Rather than get bogged down in a dispute about whether we are to have a 'Constitution' , a 'Basic Treaty' or a 'federation' , we should design a system in which there is democratic control over political decisions.
When we draw up legislation for our citizens, they must be able to see who are making the decisions, and those who are must be democratically accountable for them.
That is the message of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
We want to see political accountability in Europe.
We are "fit for the future" , but our group is also "fit to fight for the new Europe" , as well as being "fit to fight for the future together with yourself" .
Mr President, the Group of the Greens and the European Free Alliance is pleased with your speech because, in it, you remind Parliament of its political role and do not dwell on technical details, although I am certain that it will take a lot of time to regulate these.
We do not want to be a well-oiled voting machine.
We want to make history and we want to highlight Europe' s own role in the world at a time when peace and stability in the world are under threat.
It is not sufficient to organise development cooperation.
We must be able to promote peace and stability in a European manner, on the basis of our values.
We want to maximise our role as a parliament.
We want to monitor.
We want to enact laws on behalf of public opinion but also in contact with that opinion and with the media which should bring us closer to the public.
A great deal of progress has been made.
I arrived in this Parliament having had experience of many parliaments before, sometimes parliaments which were usually better attended than this one, a phenomenon which I regret.
Outside these walls, people often think that we are not a real parliament, but I have found a true parliament here.
However, we must ensure that we have a statute, we agree with you on that, otherwise we as MEPs lack credibility.
In addition, we must also further shape the assistants' statute into which Mr Onesta has put such great effort.
Moreover, we must be given more competences.
Codecision must be extended rather than eroded, and this must be done in a fully transparent manner.
Needless to say, the activities must be reformed.
The will to reform is there.
A great deal can be done within the current Rules of Procedure, provided that the will is there, the will to debate rather than read out little monologues prepared on paper, the will to be present and to enter into dialogue with each other.
The debate must not stifle pluralism, quite the contrary.
We are here to talk, for we are a parliament in which it must be possible to express the whole range of opinions.
This is why we do believe that the Corbett report is a solid basis for a discussion, but if it means that the rights of small groups are cut back, or the rights of individual MEPs compromised, then we touch the soul and diversity of this Parliament, and that is not acceptable.
We also want to express our slight concern to the Council.
Parliament cannot accept shortened procedures if the Council fails to debate with us in our committees.
We can hold more debates there, but not in the absence of the Council, not without the attendant transparency and not without the debate that we want.
We must condemn creeping reforms without clear objectives.
We want more democracy, respect for subsidiarity, a rapprochement between citizens and the European Parliament and a dialogue with the regional and national parliaments. If not, the already strong distrust among our citizens will only grow.
We must clearly establish the legal basis for our actions once and for all, and not let our legal basis be taken away.
We welcome your instruction to prepare the future in consultation with public opinion and with the parliaments in the candidate countries.
You are moving closer to them.
We encounter them in the joint meetings.
Why do we not open up our committees to enter into debate with them, as we also want to do with our own public opinion, and why do we not open up our sumptuous chambers more than has hitherto been the case?
The Convention will be the proof of the pudding.
We are putting our trust in this.
If we want to prepare Europe for tackling the enormous tasks of enlargement, the Convention cannot afford to fail.
It should not endeavour to write a cookery book, which is subsequently used in some new night-time session to concoct a grim menu.
We want a Convention that knows the direction in which Parliament wants to guide it.
As the European Parliament, we must face up to our task in that Convention and involve the others in that debate, both regional and national parliaments, as well as public opinion, and ensure that Europe takes the qualitative step forward that is required for enlargement.
Mr President, during the debate held in preparation for the election of the President of Parliament, I had the opportunity to say what I expected of the new President.
Basing my comments on the undisputed observation that the increasing numbers of citizens are showing a very worrying lack of interest in the European institutions, I said that the number one priority of the new President should be to do everything in his power to win back their confidence.
I am therefore pleased to see that this objective is implicit in your programme.
You said that we must win back the confidence of the people.
We fully support you in doing this.
How can this be achieved in practical terms? I myself have come up with three ideas.
I think that two of them partly cover the same areas as your plans, but I would venture to say that the third idea could remedy a shortfall.
The first idea concerns the involvement of citizens in the debate on the future of Europe.
I suggested that our President launch, in parallel with the work of the Convention and in conjunction with the national parliaments, a campaign on the theme 'Let your voice be heard' .
This would be an incredibly bold experiment for our institution to undertake. We should stimulate a real confrontation of ideas, as you said, we should listen to what the people have to say to us on what they expect from Europe and strive to connect the Convention to the subjects of these diverse discussions.
Then we should all face up to our responsibilities.
We want the Convention to shake up the IGC, so let the citizens shake up the Convention!
My second idea was for our President to take the initiative, along with ourselves, in organising meetings in Parliament of groups of citizens from various European countries to discuss common objectives that we could support.
I mentioned three examples.
The first is to organise meetings involving young people to discuss questions that directly concern them, such as Erasmus-type grants or the full and mutual recognition of qualifications, as well as broader subjects - we could call them more civilisation-related issues, like those that were recently discussed in Porto Alegre, under the alluring title 'Another world is possible' .
Another example is to invite women from all over Europe to meet and discuss the question of the full application of Treaty provisions that encourage equality.
The last example, which is similar to your proposal, Mr President, is to organise meetings of members of civil society from the candidate countries and Member States to examine, together, the ins and outs of this quite historic undertaking and to give us the best possible chances of making it a success.
In the same spirit, you proposed to invite observers from the candidate countries and we shall support you in this effort.
The third idea that I mentioned two months ago is the only one that I fear was missing from the speech you gave this morning, and that is the idea of putting pressure on the Commission and the Council regarding several emblematic legislative texts that clearly spell out to our fellow citizens the direction in which we want to take Europe in the future.
I am personally thinking, particularly at a time when so many businesses are undergoing restructuring, of the directives such as that on the information and consultation of workers, that on the European Works Councils, or even of the framework directive on services of general interest, and am looking forward to the possible - and, in my view, desirable - reform of the Treaties in this crucial area.
The general approach advocated by my group and the many practical suggestions that turn it into a reality are the same as they were before your election and they will remain thus during your mandate.
In this spirit, we will naturally be prepared to help you to make our Parliament a positive role model for millions of European citizens.
Mr President, your speech today shows the value of the open election campaign.
We have taken the time to discuss our own circumstances, and I should like to thank the President for his contribution and the discussion today, as well as table proposals for consideration.
Consolidation of the laws could of course take place through our refusing to debate, or directly rejecting, proposals that are not consolidated.
It cannot be sensible to accumulate 70 amendments in order to see how the law stands where fish are concerned.
A reform in the interests of transparency should ensure that all meetings are open and all documents accessible, unless a qualified majority approves an exemption supported by reasons, of the kind we approved in the Martin/Bourlanges report.
Political appointments must be a thing of the past.
In future, everyone should be appointed and promoted according to their qualifications, here in Parliament too, and we could make a fresh start with those who are now to be appointed from the candidate countries.
The plenary sittings must be turned into lively occasions.
A third of the time could be set aside for spontaneous debate, as you intimated.
Those active in Parliament must have the opportunity to tackle the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council if they do not receive answers.
All MEPs must be permitted to speak at least three times a year.
The number of votes must be cut back so that we are only voting on political differences.
After each debate, the coordinators should meet and make the technical preparations for the voting.
Details of the voting list should be known at least a week before voting takes place so that we can all consult our electorates and be aware of what we are voting on.
The way in which posts are distributed should be revised.
The d' Hondt method could be replaced by the Saint Laguë method in which the distribution is on the basis of 1,3,5 instead of 1,2,3,4,5.
It would provide the same proportionate distribution, but it would make it possible for the smaller groups not always to have to take what the large groups leave aside and, in cases where the small groups are not represented, they could be appointed as observers.
The independent Members should have their quota of opportunities, and we should ourselves remove all forms of discrimination instead of risking new legal proceedings.
The Corbett report' s attack on the small political groups should be replaced by a gentlemen' s agreement through which we achieve some of Mr Corbett's objectives without reducing the groups' rights.
In the Convention, majorities and minorities must have the same access to qualified aid and be able to put forward, and campaign for, proposals in the same way.
There cannot be special rights for specific positions.
The European Movement and the federalists do not have a sole and exclusive right to organise the debate with civil society using Parliament' s money.
We must join in getting the whole of Parliament and the Convention to operate in such a way that all Members representing all positions feel they are being treated properly and on an equal basis.
Today at the meeting with Mr Giscard d' Estaing, we must make a point of ensuring that all alternates in the Convention are given full rights of participation in the work.
Good luck with the reform work!
Mr President, you have called for a more democratic and less bureaucratic Parliament.
I see this as an important concept, and so I would like to start with the situation of the Unattached Members, the 33 truly second-class Members who do not have access to the d' Hondt system which is used to distribute everything in this House, who are not entitled to table documents or amendments and who are forced to admit even to their electorate that they are unable to play a full part in the Parliament' s work.
There is a report which has been at a standstill for two years in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs; moreover a judgement was returned a few months ago by the Court of Justice which raised a number of important points in terms of whether those measures were appropriate or did not need to be amended, or whether legal penalties should not be imposed for failure to apply them.
Mr President, I call upon you to pursue this matter and to revitalise that aspect of the work of this House, for I feel that, precisely with regard to the goal you mentioned, one of the problems facing us is not just the general, essential need to make our working methods more democratic and to ensure greater participation by all the Members, but also to take into consideration the second-class status of the Unattached Members which is endorsed and still confirmed in this House.
From this point of view, Mr President, as has already been said, the Corbett report not only fails to provide an adequate response but is also, in a number of respects, a caricature of what should be an endeavour to improve our conditions.
How could one possibly envisage - the Members may not be aware of this, but Mr Corbett did make this suggestion - doing away with topical and urgent debates, which are one of Parliament' s opportunities for real political debate, as President Cox said? At this point, we might just as well do away with the resolutions at the end of political debates as well and, that way, we will become even more of a machine for voting on reports.
I feel that this is not the right direction to take and, in this connection, I genuinely hope that the political groups, the Members and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs itself will carefully reconsider this suggestion, which is not a good one.
Mr President, we need a Parliament whose work is better structured.
When we have major debates, attended by members of the Commission or the Council but where only 10 or 15 Members of this House are present, it does not reflect well on Parliament. Parliament is not doing itself any service.
Then, two hours later, maybe, this House becomes a sort of voting chamber, not least because, as we know, the existence of a certain penalty system makes it convenient to come here and vote.
We used to have explanations of vote and a system which made debates visible and comprehensible for journalists and the public. That is no longer the case.
The other point concerns publishing our debates.
Mr Collins has raised this point and the other Unattached Members agree with him.
Even today, for example, this meeting could have been organised in such a way that everyone participated or it could even have been transmitted over the internal system.
I feel, and it is our deep conviction, Mr President, that, just as your election was broadcast over the Internet - and this was a major step forward - in this age of the Internet, both committee and plenary debates can and should be broadcast to give all the citizens, not just the European citizens, access to our work.
Lastly, a word on the subject of the statute, Mr President.
The statute is important, but it must also include Members' prerogatives; in other words, it must not be a statute centred solely on the financial side of being a Member of Parliament.
I feel that the challenge facing us is to produce a Statute that definitively defines and establishes MEPs' status, their responsibilities, their prerogatives and their rights in respect of the institutions preparing for enlargement.
I wish you every success in your work in this area, Mr President, and I hope that major reforms will be achieved under your presidency before 2004.
Please be assured that, as I mentioned in the speech, I want to work between now and the Barcelona Summit to put together the interinstitutional working group or at least to be able to engage in that dialogue.
The Spanish Prime Minister has already subscribed to that idea before this House.
The Commission presidency has also backed the idea.
We need to lock it down.
You are perfectly correct: it is not something to be left for the medium term. But its agenda is one that will carry us over a number of other major hurdles.
Mr President, I shall keep it very brief.
I am delighted that you have emphasised the 'primacy of politics' .
In the final analysis, this Parliament has grown from a paper tiger into a watchdog of democracy, and that is down to politics.
In my view, communication and information are crucial in this connection.
Information more so than communication.
They are not the same.
Communication is about bringing news.
Information implies a dialogue with those to whom the information is directed.
The dialogue must be open and objective, and should not degenerate into indoctrination and propaganda but should comprise communication and information.
Sound information means that one has to present something of substance, that one has something to offer or something that one can pass on.
It need not be perfect, but a dialogue is necessary to make any improvements.
How will we deal with this? There are countless reports on this subject.
I myself had the honour of being the author of one of the many that are stored in the dark recesses of this institution.
There have been many reports, yet little has changed in the many years I have been in this Parliament. How will we tackle this?
Could I make a suggestion, as we have tried all manner of things?
Why do we not hold an open debate? You as representative of Parliament, along with those you select, you on behalf of Parliament along with the representatives of the media.
Not with the intention to indoctrinate.
I know how anxious the media is about propaganda, and with good reason.
But simply an open dialogue to examine together how we can best serve the parliamentary, democratic culture, and hence Europe, a democratic Europe, for this is what is at stake in the final analysis.
Mr President, I wish to say first of all that your work programme is also ours and that really your ambitions are also ours, and I am sure you will have the support of the House.
I wish to make three distinct observations.
Mr President, you spoke of a realistic and intelligent defence of the prerogatives of this House; you mentioned the Lamfalussy report; also, yesterday you decided not to attend the Court of Justice and to adopt a long-sighted approach on a matter vital to Europe' s citizens.
I would say that this intelligent defence of our prerogatives - which are not our own, but which represent our responsibility towards the citizens - is a leitmotif that I wish to highlight.
Within this defence of our prerogatives and this maintaining of better relations with the other two institutions, in which we all have an interest, there is, nevertheless, one aspect that you touched on briefly and on which I should like to focus: access to the 'screening' documents for the candidate countries which, to date, are being denied us.
It makes no sense for us to ask our colleagues from the candidate countries to familiarise themselves with these 'screening' documents, whilst we ourselves do not have access to them.
This is one of the practical issues, which should not simply be of concern to us, but which we should attend to immediately.
The second aspect concerning this Parliament' s prerogatives is image.
One image reveals more than a thousand words and the press conference held yesterday by the three institutions, together with the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau, will mean that, in future, we will not have to read, as has happened before, that a directive has been approved, when what has really been approved is a Council common position.
The three institutions are committed to demonstrating responsibility towards the citizens to produce effective and good legislation.
Which leads to the second aspect: the insistence on the rigour of this institution is important.
The three institutions have to improve the quality of legislation.
This has been said on various occasions and is one of the great challenges overall, not just for the European institutions.
Legislation must be legible despite its complexity.
We must eschew jargon and unintelligible expressions, as has been said.
To this end, when it comes to reforming this House, I wish to point out that this is a House of committees.
We must support your idea - expressed, amongst others, by the Provan group and by other working parties within Parliament' s Bureau - that the more technical work must be carried out by the committees, but without its visibility to the citizens suffering.
It is important that the citizens understand the work we are undertaking, not only in Plenary, which is already happening, but also in the committees.
This is why we have to improve the committee' s system of communication with our citizens.
I shall finish by discussing a third aspect, which is dialogue with the citizens.
Mr President, you are a magnificent representative of what this House stands for.
Your personal skills will ensure that we are able to undertake a useful piece of work.
I use this word carefully: we have worked constructively on European integration, on what the European institutions really do, on what this House does and on to what extent we in this House feel responsible for the extremely important task of representing Europe' s citizens.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate you on an excellent start to your presidency.
This debate has shown that there is much support and much appetite in this House for reform, in this lively exchange we are having in the catch-the-eye procedure at the end of this debate.
You were kind enough to refer to my own report, which hopefully will be on the agenda at the next part-session.
We are building quite a broad consensus on the bulk of the proposals contained in my report.
In the last few days many groups have been kind enough to invite me to address their meetings and to engage in building this consensus.
I am now quite confident that there will be a majority next month in favour of a useful package of reforms that will not solve all our problems - far from it - but will be a useful step forward.
To those colleagues who feared that there may be elements of my report which are unfavourable to the smaller groups, I would like to reassure them.
There is nothing that significantly undermines the position of the smaller groups in my report.
If they continue to have fears, I shall be very happy to meet them to try to find a solution to any issue they wish to raise.
My preferred solution is to persuade them, but I am open to other solutions if we can find them.
This will be a useful part of the reform process and I thank you very much for your support.
Mr President, on a point of order: I just wanted to engage in 30 seconds of navel-gazing.
I agree with everything that has been said about reform.
But when we talk about reform, let us not forget the conditions in which backbench MEPs work in this House.
David Martin reproached us for not spending more time in the Chamber, but one of the problems is the amount of time we waste getting to this place.
I will not relaunch that debate, but anyone looking at this splendid Chamber and the palatial public spaces of this building would not believe the cramped conditions in which a backbench MEP works.
Please do not forget, you important people who have spacious offices - even the secretaries-general of the political groups have office space four times that of a backbench MEP - that when you have an assistant and a stagiaire crammed into one office, you have no place in which to meet visitors.
Mr President, will you at least pledge to back us in getting computers for MEPs, preferably flat-screen computers so we can fit them on to our desks in our tiny offices and be more efficient for the 21st century? I am sorry to raise such a brass-tacks issue: I know parliamentarians are always shy about raising the matter of their own working conditions but, frankly, unless we can be efficient in dealing with our work, we cannot deliver good service and present a good showcase to the world.
I would not like people to look at the masses of space in the public areas and then come and see our little cramped offices, out of which we lose a third for a useless bathroom - but that is another matter.
Please help us to be efficient, Mr President.
The Bureau is looking at the technological aspect.
I am sure we can do that.
I am not sure what I can do as regards the buildings aspect, but you have my sympathy.
Mr President, it is being stated that President Prodi took a position in a press conference yesterday on Commissioner Verheugen's behaviour in the Commission.
This has to do with Stability Pact issues.
Mr Verheugen is alleged to have assented in the Commission to the Commission's decisions, but then, last Sunday, to have dissociated himself from them in an interview with a German newspaper.
I wish to ask you to give consideration to a procedure whereby we, that is, in Parliament or some appropriate forum, might hear an explanation of this from Mr Verheugen.
That is my request, which I would like to make a matter of public record.
I will check with the Commission as to whether the Commissioner is available to come to the House this week or, if not, on another appropriate occasion.
Mr President, since Mr Poettering has raised this issue, I would remind him that, for the last six months, we have been waiting for Mr Bolkestein to speak to us, as we requested, on the remarks he made about Islam.
I think that we must start at the beginning, because otherwise, only the Group of the European Popular Party will be able to raise these issues and I believe that we all have the right to have the Commission make a statement.
As long as we make sure we are dealing with issues of political substance and not something else I am sure we can find a modus vivendi.
I should like to thank everyone who has participated in today's debate.
I should like to say in particular to the Commissioner and the Council present here that we are normally not so self-indulgent in terms of the time we take to talk to each other as colleagues.
It is very important that in this House we work towards establishing an esprit de corps.
It is very important that we work on this culture for change.
If we do that I guarantee that the other two institutions will also benefit.
I hope this has been time well spent for you too.
The debate is closed.
Combating terrorism
The next item is the joint debate:
Council statement - Decision taken on 27 December 2001 on measures to combat terrorism;
Report (A5-0003/2002) by Watson, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council framework decision on combating terrorism (14845/1/01 - C5-0680/2001 - 2001/0217(CNS))
and
on the proposal for a Council framework decision on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between the Member States (14867/1/01 - C5-0675/2001 - 2001/0215(CNS)).
Mr President, if we can conclude this debate with a vote that confirms the broad consensus that we have reached to date on this matter, I wish to call on the parliamentary groups not to change the report.
We will be renewing our commitment to the fight against terrorism and we will be ending a process which, as Mr de Miguel has reminded us, began in the European Parliament.
By doing so, we would be turning one of the most illustrious pages in the history of this House.
We now hope to see a rapid transposition of these measures so that they are effective, so that decisions are taken that are able to freeze the assets of European terrorist groups and so that efforts are coordinated in the fight against terrorism, not only between Member States, as has happened most notably between Spain and France in recent times, but also between the competent bodies that have been established within the European Union.
Mr President, I am convinced that with this process, we will not only be responding to a demand expressed very firmly by Europe' s citizens, but we will also be making an invaluable contribution to the cause of freedom.
There is no greater risk to the freedom of thought, of expression and to the right to life itself, than violence expressed through terrorism.
Every democratic State has an obligation to provide justice with instruments such as those we are discussing today, which will make its work more effective.
Under the Rule of Law, democratic dialogue must be based on mutual trust and non-violence, with the aim of defending democracy, precisely as we stated in one of the report' s sections on the Union' s role in the fight against terrorism.
To do anything else, ladies and gentlemen, would be to accept that the laws approved by democratically-elected parliaments should change to please the murderers and for them to stop killing; this hope, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, should be rejected because it is antidemocratic and immoral.
Mr President, the Council should realise that it is heading for a great row if it carries on as in its complex package of 27 December, making legal definitions of who is a terrorist without any democratic scrutiny.
I predict that the Council's next step will be to institute Europe-wide bans.
It would be outrageous to do that in secret and without accountability.
Turning to the framework decisions on combating terrorism and the European arrest warrant, my group will support them.
For a normally sensible British journalist yesterday to say that Europe blindly, on the nod, is about to indulge in its own sinister overreach, really is over the top.
My group will not vote to postpone the entry into force of the European arrest warrant until there are common minimum standards of procedural law.
Urgent action to catch terrorists and criminals cannot be postponed, but the habeas corpus amendment drafted so deftly by Mr MacCormick is very worthwhile.
However, high minimum standards are also urgently needed in parallel.
It is a fiction to say that, since we all have excellent justice systems, mutual recognition is enough.
I could highlight flaws in the system of my own country - for example we have the highest number in prison of any EU State - as well as flaws in other Member States.
The Council, as well as MEPs, must welcome proposals that the Commission is preparing on achieving equivalence in criminal justice standards.
If some of the people who now oppose the European arrest warrant - in particular those on the right, not least in my own country - also cry "shock! horror!" at what they might claim is harmonisation of criminal justice systems, they will be guilty of great hypocrisy.
We need the European arrest warrant; we also need a programme of equivalence in common minimum high standards.
Mr President, the issue of the European arrest warrant is really quite bizarre, not only because important issues remain vague, but also because Parliament lacks the courage to exact what it agrees to in substance.
First of all, I should like to give you a random example of this lack of clarity. The Council has rightly pared down the Commission proposal, as a result of which a Member State can refuse to extradite someone if that person has not done anything wrong according to that country.
I agree with this.
Accordingly, a Dutch doctor who carries out an abortion on an Irish girl in the Netherlands does not face extradition to Ireland.
However, could this doctor ever go on holiday to Ireland, or any other EU country, if Ireland requests extradition on the grounds of manslaughter? This remains unclear, and a lack of clarity in criminal law leads to the sense of justice being eroded.
I should now like to turn to the issue of parliamentary courage.
Mr Watson, ever since the Di Lello report, this Parliament has been of the opinion 'that the Member States have to agree on common minimum standards for certain aspects of procedural law in order to guarantee a common level of protection of the constitutional right across the EU' .
Since the European arrest warrant has demonstrated the need to protect our citizens across the European Union, and we also have the tool to enforce this protection, then we must also have the courage to use it.
And you need not be frightened.
If the Council is just as dynamic and decisive in guaranteeing citizens' rights as it is in taking repressive measures, the European arrest warrant will not run into any delays. Certainly not now the Commission has presented a first version of the minimum standards, by means of which it has demonstrated that these are both necessary and possible.
With regard to the definition of terrorism, my group adheres to a number of guarantees included in the recitals and the Council Declarations of 6 December, including the guarantee that nothing in this framework decision 'can be interpreted in such a way that people who exercise their constitutional right to free expression of opinion can be charged on terrorist grounds, even if they break the law in the process.'
But all good intentions to adopt this text have been seriously hampered by the fact that these guarantees are not included in the Council Decisions of 27 December.
The essence of the definition in this text is identical, but the guarantees have disappeared.
They are not even referred to.
Our amendment to the resolution aims to plug this loophole and, since only time will tell whether I am unnecessarily distrustful or justifiably cautious, I would ask the other groups to give my group this assurance.
Mr President, for a second time, we are rejecting a text which forms part of a campaign conducted by the Bush Administration and which, in the name of the fight against terrorism, merely seeks to place the most basic democratic freedoms in jeopardy throughout the world, with total disregard for international conventions.
To illustrate this, there are still, because of 11 September, 500 immigrants in the United States who were arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorist activities, are being secretly detained and have never been charged.
Military proceedings have been instigated.
And, several dozen prisoners are now being detained in appalling conditions, at the Guantanamo Bay military base, who have no guarantees and no status.
Here in Parliament, we have been made to endorse a list of terrorists, which was, in fact, drawn up by the CIA on the basis of its own criteria and without justification, whilst England, France and Italy are taking measures to curb freedoms, particularly those of immigrants.
Furthermore, we have had a common definition of terrorism thrust upon us, one that is destructive of freedom and which, if applied to the letter by a leader like Mr Berlusconi, could lead to trade union activities, such as strikes within the public services, being classified as crimes.
The last point I will add is that we do not fight the terrorism of private individuals by supporting terrorism engaged in by a State, as is the case with Mr Sharon - we do so by eradicating poverty, injustice and corruption from the globe.
Mr President, I have just returned from Porto Alegre, and I understand the concerns of Mr Bush and his allies in the face of this huge movement that is fighting rampant globalisation.
I, however, have chosen the camp I support; I reject a campaign that seeks to criminalise any movement that challenges the established order.
Mr President, I sympathise both with the previous speaker and with all those who, as frequently happens, mention - albeit, in my opinion, inappropriately in some cases - the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi.
To get back to the debate, the European Parliament is, at last, going to vote on two fundamental issues: combating terrorism and the European arrest warrant.
Of course, this vote is only a sort of belated attempt to comply with bureaucratic procedures in respect of decisions which have actually already been taken.
As has already been stressed, this way of going about things is not particularly acceptable, for it represents a genuine political humiliation for the European Parliament, which - and we must not forget it - is the only democratically-elected European institution, the only institution which fully represents the European citizens.
We can be satisfied with the endorsement of the European arrest warrant, a tool which will certainly be effective in legal terms in combating terrorism and international organised crime, replacing the complex, excessively bureaucratic extradition procedures.
However, we must not forget that the fight against terrorism, particularly the sort of terrorism which we have encountered in recent months, cannot be conducted solely by means of arrest warrants, for this would be a hypocritical and wholly inadequate approach.
As Mr Solana stressed yesterday, Europe will only be able to attempt to win genuine international credibility if it is capable of restoring peace and social and political justice to the Mediterranean Basin and the Middle East.
Europe' s undertaking in these critical areas must not be dictated solely by emergencies and emotion or, even worse, by the selfish desires of those who see their own peace threatened: it must be part of a European project, a practical, ongoing undertaking seeking to secure a fitting economic, political and social future for these areas.
In conclusion, we are confident that the new constituent phase which will be inaugurated with the installation and work of the Convention will genuinely succeed in making Europe a strong, responsible political actor, capable of achieving a single common foreign and security policy and a common European area of freedom and justice.
Thank you, Mr President, the date of 11 September has made it even clearer that a tough battle against terrorism and organised crime is what is needed in order to guarantee the free area of peace and security in the Member States.
Via the present proposals, the Council is making a commendable effort to contribute to this by making rapid extradition possible.
However, I do have some concerns.
In my view, a restricted, positive list of criminal offences should fall under the European arrest warrant.
The criterion is whether there is a European or international definition, as in the case of terrorism, for example.
However, the list which is now before the Council contains many criminal offences for which there are no European definitions available. The nature of the listed offences is diverse.
They cover fraud, rape and manslaughter. What is the cross-border aspect of these offences?
Do the existing extradition treaties not offer sufficient scope in this area? However, in order to prevent this welcome initiative from being shelved again, now that a difficult compromise has been struck, I would give it the benefit of doubt.
Mr President, we need to strengthen control at the European Union' s external borders if we want to combat the menace of terrorism effectively.
I would point out that there is an undertaking made by the Ministers, which commits the Strategic Committee on Immigration to implementing measures such as the joint training of border control officials through the creation of a European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control.
In this connection, we have firmly condemned the activities of a country which is hoping to accede to the Union, Turkey.
People continue to arrive in Italy illegally by boat and Turkey must assume its responsibilities: the international authority has drawn up a list of what are known as 'rogue States' , but I would like to stress the responsibility of the 'Mafia States' too, which are making no effort at all to curb this appalling trafficking of people dragged into situations where there is no hope and which have no end.
With regard to the arrest warrant, I must point out that the Italian Government has endeavoured to ensure that this framework decision cannot be enforced until the Constitution has been amended.
Indeed, we need to consider two different requirements simultaneously: the security of the European citizens in the face of severe terrorist threats and the safeguarding of Constitutional freedoms and guarantees - fundamental, inviolable rights - whose sanctity must be defended in the face of all rules, including those of international law.
Mr President, Commissioner, esteemed Presidency of the Council, I take a very positive view of the commitment brought, formerly by the Belgian Presidency and now by the Spanish, to this great issue of combating terrorism.
The added value of this European Union of ours was also shown by the speed with which the European institutions, in particular the Commission and the Council, responded to the terrorist attack on 11 September with a whole package of measures ranging from the definition of the common offence via the European arrest warrant, to facilities such as joint investigation teams in Europol.
This is a very positive response.
What is, however, highly problematic about certain areas of this decision-making process is the circumvention of Parliament - of Parliament, which represents the citizens of our European Union and the involvement of which is required by law and Treaty, indeed it must be involved prior to a resolution of the Council rather than afterwards.
As this is not the first time this has happened, and since there seems to be method in this approach, I would like to take this opportunity to protest in strong terms.
Such modes of action involving circumvention of the Treaty should no longer be tolerated.
I wish to add to this the demand that Parliament be in future more involved in the adoption of third pillar measures.
The Regulation of 27 December stipulated the persons and groups whose accounts were to be frozen.
I would be interested to know whether there is a report evaluating the success or otherwise of this operation, indicating which accounts were actually found and what funds were frozen.
I would like to conclude by repeating my demand that Parliament should be involved in an effective way, as this would, on the one hand, enhance efficiency and, on the other, maintain legal certainty.
Mr President, if any good came out of the events of 11 September - and it would be a brave person who said it did - I would single out two things.
Firstly, it caused the world to look, for the first time perhaps, at the whole question of Islam as a religion - but I will leave that for the moment.
Secondly, it caused Europe, the USA and the West to look again at the whole question of international relations.
We cannot close our eyes and minds to the problems of small countries thousands of kilometres away or impoverished and troubled regions - whether or not we agree with the regimes there - and just think that they do not matter.
If we do, we run the risk that the problems will manifest themselves on our doorsteps.
One way that happens is through terrorism, which obviously we cannot ignore.
We counter it by international cooperation.
Mr Blokland said earlier that we need to be harder and firmer.
In addition to repressive measures, it is fundamental that we look at and try to address the root causes - poverty, war, oppression and a whole range of issues - that lead to terrorism.
We all abhor and condemn terrorism.
These two reports are a first step towards greater international cooperation in addressing terrorism and increasing international police cooperation.
We, as politicians, are elected to monitor at a European level what happens.
We must press for the highest possible standards, for maximum cooperation, and constantly keep the situation under review and monitor progress.
Mr President, I have taken the floor to express both satisfaction and concern: satisfaction at the tangible step forwards taken by the European Community in terms of combating terrorism; concern at certain inappropriate compromises imposed by some Member States as a condition for them agreeing to endorse our Convention, compromises which we were not able to oppose before it was too late because Parliament was not consulted before the decisions were taken.
The Italian situation is one example: our Italian citizens had to suffer humiliation and dissatisfaction on the part of the other Member States just because our government attempted, without success, to make the scope of the European Convention subject to certain conditions, excluding from it certain offences which are of great importance to our Prime Minister, who - by pure chance, as the State attorney for Milan, Francesco Saverio Borelli, would say - happens to be on trial in Italy for precisely these offences.
I refer in particular to the offences of corruption and fraud.
Failing in that attempt, our government had the gall to request, and this time obtained - a concession made purely to get out of the impasse - another misleading clause, which, in fact, is in danger of rendering the Convention on the European arrest warrant unenforceable in the foreseeable future.
I refer to the clause to the effect that the government deems it necessary to amend the Italian Constitution in order to be able to implement the European rules.
This is not the case: our Constitution does not need to be amended in any way; it provides all possible guarantees.
My country can therefore now postpone indefinitely the introduction of a major instrument for fighting crime on the pretext that the Constitution has not yet been amended.
I am aware that adopting the amendment we have proposed on this matter would be a superfluous gesture, but it would be the only way to make it clear that Parliament needs to be involved before decisions are taken, not afterwards.
Mr President, all of us in this House are agreed that it is a good thing to move towards the creation of a common European judicial space.
We are also agreed, particularly in respect of the arrest warrant, that it makes the adoption of common and high minimum standards a matter of urgency.
Mr Watson and Mrs Terrón i Cusí have asked us today to take it on trust that it will be done as a matter of urgency.
We have to take some things on trust, but I would be reluctant to take all on trust.
Furthermore, standards alone are never enough because standards can be broken.
The only thing that guarantees high standards being observed is effective remedies.
One of the most effective remedies ever devised was devised by the English common lawyers - I speak as a Scotsman - in the way of making sure that those who are wrongly detained are brought to court and released if the jailer cannot show cause for keeping them there.
That is a really effective remedy.
In adopting the European arrest warrant each of our states makes its own judiciary the instrument of justice in another state.
That is a good thing, that we help each other.
But it should also be the case that if the powers of one country's courts are abused by misconduct of prosecutors in another country, they can be recalled with an effective remedy.
An effective remedy must be a Europe-wide remedy and one that diminishes the risk of undue detention pre-trial like the old 110-day rule which we celebrate in my country.
Let us have Amendment No 4 and make sure that we have remedies that are effective as well as standards that are high.
Mr President, terrorists acts are now punishable in all EU countries, and it is already possible to extradite criminals from one EU Member State to another.
That means that what is being proposed here is to some extent an empty gesture.
It is clear, however, that it is in danger of weakening legal certainty.
The proposal means that extradition cases would not be examined in the same way as before and that special legislation against crimes specifically classed as terrorism would be implemented on very vague and unclear grounds.
I think it is dubious, on such vague bases, to have a special legal system within a legal system.
We can now already see how people who ended up on the UN' s and EU' s terrorist lists have had their assets frozen without discovering why.
As a result, they have no means of defending themselves, either.
I believe that when, as we must, we combat terrorism, we must do so by employing, rather than weakening, the Rule of Law.
Mr President, since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September of last year, we in the European Parliament have debated the threats to our freedom, democracy and values in a more realistic light than before.
Most of us have realised that an attack on the United States is an attack on ourselves.
Just a few months further on, however, there are circles that are busy relativising the threats by distancing Europe from the United States.
None of us likes the restrictions and controls that hit all of us and limit everyone' s rights to freedom, but we have to accept them because we do not know where, and precisely who, the enemy is.
We must, however, face the fact that until the divisions that divide the world economically, religiously and ideologically have been removed, it is impossible for us to bring about the area of peace, security and justice we want to see.
While I shall vote in favour of the framework decision on combating terrorism, I shall abstain from voting in favour of the framework decision on the European arrest warrant since the latter has not appeared on the scene because of the terrorist threat but serves the overall purposes of federalism and is not limited to striking a blow against terrorists.
In actual fact, I agree with Baroness Ludford that legal certainty is not, in all Member States, at a level that can justify such far-reaching surrender procedures as are at issue here.
Mr President, this is one of the most illiberal and dishonest measures ever to come out of the EU, one with potentially enormous consequences.
It has nothing to do with citizens' freedoms and rights, and everything to do with a monstrous power-grab by Brussels.
In the book 1984 by George Orwell, the state ministries were given names which represented the exact opposite of their functions.
Thus, the Ministry of Peace was concerned with war, the Ministry of Truth was responsible for propaganda, and so on.
From this stemmed the term "Orwellian inversion", meaning a description which implies the opposite.
How appropriate it is, therefore, that this measure should be approved by the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs - the ultimate Orwellian inversion.
In approving this decision, the committee should be ashamed of itself and, if this so-called Parliament adopts that decision today, it too should be thoroughly ashamed.
It will be betraying the very principles it claims to support.
Mr President, I would like to tell the rapporteur that he is mistaken.
We are the ones on trial: it is not the Council that is being put to the test today but Parliament.
The Council has taken its decisions, and it took them in meetings held behind closed doors, in secret, decisions partially harmonising criminal law and criminal procedure.
In particular, the European arrest warrant, whose scope is much wider than just terrorism, is an incentive to introduce heavy prison sentences.
Above all, in automatically recognising the decisions and procedures of national penal systems, it fails to lay down any common minimum guarantee safeguarding the rights of the defendant.
These are guarantees that Parliament cannot afford to hope will be put in place just for the future for it is its duty to demand them for the immediate present, to demand, that is - and here I am addressing Mr Pirker - that the procedures be respected rather than merely lamenting the fact that they have not been.
Parliament must demand that, to safeguard the Rule of Law, no fundamental principles are jeopardised.
Mr President, I am sorry that Graham Watson is not present, because I wish to begin by paying tribute to his work on these two reports, in his capacity as chairman of the Committee on Public Freedoms, Citizens' Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
As I have inherited this position, I feel, if possible, even more obliged to acknowledge the work that has been undertaken.
I agree fully with what he has said, but with one important difference.
We are talking about minimum guarantees of procedure as if there were none.
There are, and although they are not common, which is the case in many areas, they are equivalent.
They are also adequate for the time being.
Not having - as European citizens who wish to establish a common area of justice - to become involved in discussing how to improve these guarantees is another matter altogether.
We must make a clear distinction between the two issues.
The Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, together with the Socialist Group, will vote against these amendments, not because we are against the issues, as some speakers have claimed, but because we must make it clear that all Member States have minimum guarantees of procedure which are adequate and equivalent.
We must, therefore, act on the basis of this trust.
We all want to be more ambitious for the future, however.
The European Union flies the flag of human rights and guarantees and, therefore, when we establish this area of justice, we shall do so resolutely, in the committee that I chair and in this Parliament, as far as we can in this legislature.
We will never consider it to be enough.
Mr President, the European arrest warrant that is before us is an unqualified political, legal and procedural sham.
It is a procedural sham because the framework decision is already prepared and drafted.
Everything was ratified at the Laeken Summit on 14 December 2001.
The consultation of Parliament is therefore utterly illusory; it is worthless and I would even go as far as to say that it is insulting.
It is also a sham in substance, because its original purpose was to combat terrorism following the attacks of 11 September.
In reality, the scope of the future arrest warrant was widened to include 32 offences, which means two things.
The first is that we are proposing to change from using a system of extradition between States, which guarantees individual freedoms, to a single legal system, without the representatives of the people being involved in this change.
The second is that, on the pretext of combating terrorism, the European arrest warrant will provide the basis for cracking down on the convictions that are included on the list in question.
In the future, for example, for having criticised an immigration policy that a judge supports, or for having declared one' s national preference in one' s country, or for having expressed an opinion that is deemed politically or historically incorrect, a patriot could be expelled from his country, arrested, and transferred to another country that has an unfamiliar language and legal system.
What you are preparing is, in fact, not the Europe of security, which requires many other measures; you are preparing the Europe of uniformity, of power systems and of ready-made thinking.
Big Brother is watching you.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr de Miguel for his statements today.
The Watson report, which has recently been provoking extremely serious debates and has caused a number of clashes, is back on the table today.
Today' s debate is on the amendments made by the Council after the decision was approved by Parliament; these amendments include those of the Italian Government, of course.
My respect for Parliament prevents me from focusing on the controversy triggered off by a certain political party.
The passage of time has proved these accusation to be nothing but hot air, hot air which, I regret to say, has been blown this way again today, thanks, not least, to Mr Di Pietro, on whose behalf, as a friend, I take it upon myself to apologise to the House, especially for his grossly inaccurate accusations which are more the product of blind hatred of the individual concerned than proven facts.
The priority of internal security and the protecting external borders must therefore be underscored firmly once again.
Internal security and the fight against organised crime can no longer be matters purely for national competence.
The trafficking of drugs and human beings and terrorism are transnational phenomena which can only be addressed at a higher level.
With regard to the need to create an internal judicial space, the differences between national Constitutions and judicial systems must be taken into account so that national legislation can be genuinely harmonised.
The European arrest warrant must be accepted as an essential tool for combating terrorism and crime but, if it is to be genuinely effective, it needs to be handled in the same way in all the Member States.
Only thus will the citizens be able to have guarantees of effectiveness in the fair handling of individual cases and the certainty of justice rather than the freedom and rights of the powerful - as somebody in this Chamber has insinuated - but the freedom and rights of all the citizens, including citizens of third countries who wish to live and work lawfully in Europe.
We must fight to stop Europe becoming the new forum for attempts to exploit the legal system to persecute political figures or other forms of intolerance which diminish the dignity of the individual.
In conclusion, Mr President, the battle against old and new forms of crime and unlawful activities, against organised crime, money laundering and corruption - combined with a bold fight against terrorism in all its forms - must not be confused with inquisition-like persecution.
Henceforth, we must quickly build a common judicial space, maybe even placing the rules governing penal law under the first pillar again, making the different legal systems consistent and with the objective of combining inflexibility in fighting unlawful activities with firm consolidation of the Rule of Law.
Mr President, we must never forget that our task here is to build, all together, a Europe based on the freedom of the citizens.
Mr President, I should like to begin by reiterating the importance of this debate and of the piece of legislation that has brought us together today, because we have spoken so often of these matters that we sometimes run the risk of losing sight of how important the issues really are.
I should, therefore, like us to be aware of the importance of what we are today deciding on, not only from the point of view of creating a common area of freedom, security and justice, but from the point of view of the political decisions that have led us to this agreement.
In general, we tend to value things once we have lost them.
I should like to value this decision - and I would ask you to do the same - for what we have lost as a result of not having taken this decision before.
If ten years ago we had initiated the arrest warrant, if we had defined the crime of terrorism, if we had made European judges and police forces work together, if Europe had accepted ten years ago that defeating terrorism requires joint action and not only solidarity with those who directly suffer its blows and if we had confronted terrorism with the entire might of European democracy, today ETA would be a thing of the past.
This is why I say I would like you to consider from this point of view the importance of the instruments that we are today debating and which we will be adopting.
If we had introduced them before, we would not have suffered such irreparable losses.
We have lost years of freedom and human lives and we have buried friends, dear friends, who would have been with us here today.
History has shown that human beings can be extraordinarily cruel if their actions go unpunished.
This is why I say that, if we had acted previously, ETA would today be a thing of the past.
We would have fewer orphans, fewer widows, less suffering and less fear.
Think about this when you vote, ladies and gentlemen.
Be proud to be key players in this major decision and do not forget that, above and beyond all the speeches, what you are doing is giving life and freedom a chance.
Mr President, this House is requested to give its approval to the proposal of the Council on a framework decision that concerns directly basic principles of democracy.
This Parliament is merely consulted.
Its opinion is, in the words of Mr Turco, "no more than a costly bureaucratic exercise".
More than forty years have passed since I learned from Patrick McGuilligham at the Faculty of Law in Dublin what the expression "rubber stamp parliament" means.
In our last sitting in Strasbourg, talking about the area of freedom, security and justice defined in the Amsterdam Treaty, the Spanish presidency put security first, ignoring the fact that the only real guarantee for security is the implementation of freedom and justice.
Mr Watson, on that occasion, stood up to say: "We will push you to make sure that freedom and justice are not far behind."
Yesterday two more Basque organisations - SEGI and ASKATASUNA - were expelled from the area of freedom and justice in the name of Mr Aznar's priority - Spanish security.
Can this judicial decision form part of the European judicial space mentioned by Mr Watson?
Thank you, Mr President.
The European Parliament' s renewed consultation about the framework decisions on the fight against terrorism and on the European arrest warrant bears the hallmarks of a diversion, although it presents the Dutch members of the PVDA in this Parliament with an opportunity to express our satisfaction with the result achieved in negotiations by the Dutch Minister in the Justice and Internal Affairs Council.
Thanks to this result, an initially unacceptable proposal proved satisfactory after all, a compromise that is nothing to write home about in terms of content but that does secure the important achievements of our criminal law policy.
Moreover, we do support the amendment relating to the European habeas corpus order.
However, viewed in terms of the European Parliament' s relationship with the Council, this debate and subsequent vote actually constitute a mere show which compromises the credibility not only of Parliament but also of the Council.
Every presidency pronounces touching words about the crucial dialogue with the European Parliament but, in this area, we have been taken for a ride twice.
Firstly, Parliament was consulted about superseded proposals and, secondly, Parliament was allowed to have its say on completed proposals which were already set in stone.
The vital new proposal on criminal procedural law seems to me to be a good opportunity to right this wrong and thus to better organise this dialogue.
Mr President, today we have genuine reason to be pleased, because I am convinced that, with the approval, in a few minutes, of Mr Watson' s reports, we will be taking another important step towards the creation of the common European area of justice, freedom and security that we all wish to see.
Another reason for this Parliament and, of course, for me personally, to be pleased, is the fact that the decisions adopted by the Council at the Laeken Summit take up the tenor of the positions that this Parliament has expressed on several occasions.
I cannot however, approve the lack of sensitivity that the Council has shown towards Parliament - and this has been recognised by fellow Members and by the Council itself - with regard to consultation on the list approved on 27 December 2001.
In achieving the difficult balance between freedom and security, a position in which we often find ourselves at the moment, we are taking the appropriate measures.
We cannot postpone the approval of resolutions and democratic standards which protect democrats against the terrorists and against those who prevent the exercise of the democratic freedom of Europe' s citizens.
At the same time, it is also our duty to acknowledge that we have a certain responsibility to continue to create this area of freedom and security, an aspect that some Members of this House have already put forward in various amendments.
Sometime very soon, we will have to address these issues, but today is not the right time.
Mr President, I too feel that, in adopting the Watson report, we will be taking a step forwards in the creation of that area of freedom, security and justice provided for by the Treaty of Amsterdam and merely accelerated by the tragic attacks of 11 September.
On the one hand, a common definition of terrorist offences is introduced, which has been greatly improved thanks precisely to the intervention of Parliament and which is necessary for the effectiveness of our undertaking in this field.
On the other hand, not least in the area of criminal law, we are starting to implement the principle that Parliament has already upheld by unanimously adopting the Di Lello report on the mutual recognition of judicial measures when it came before Parliament, which is based on the assumption that all the Member States ensure minimum respect for fundamental rights.
Here, we do not have the Guantanamo prisons but the supervision of the Strasbourg Court to safeguard human rights, although there is room for improvement in all our systems, of course.
Thus, we are also bringing the effectiveness brought by joint action into play in the fight against terrorism, while still respecting the national diversities which make European integration unique.
I regret to say that the slow progress of this integration means that the European Parliament is still in the situation where it is merely consulted by the Council.
However, we can be confident that, once the Convention' s work and the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference reforming the Treaties are over, this will no longer be the case, and that the Community method, which provides the greatest guarantee of democratic decision-making across the board, will be fully adopted in the Third Pillar too.
Mr President, having heard all the speeches, the Presidency of the Council wishes to join in expressing its pleasure that today a major decision is being taken; the decision to approve these two Watson reports.
I agree with the speakers who said that this is a great day.
I would say that it represents a huge step forwards in the construction of this area of security, justice and freedom.
Although it has been suggested that we could have done this sooner, the fact is that we are now, at least, on the way to achieving it.
At the same time, I should like also to say, Mr President, in response to the words of some honourable Members of this Parliament, who expressed their concerns that the implementation of these decisions could endanger fundamental rights, human rights and the idea that every European country accepts the primacy of the Rule of Law, I should like to say that this primacy and the safeguard of these fundamental values and human rights are the foremost considerations of the Council and the Member States when implementing these antiterrorist measures.
We are convinced - as I feel sure Parliament is - that the best way to combat the scourge of terrorism is precisely to do so on the basis of our system of values and with the law behind us.
And also to fight resolutely, in order to safeguard this system of values, which terrorism wishes to ignore.
I therefore wish, on behalf of the Council, to offer every guarantee that citizens' rights will never be violated by the implementation of the decisions taken by the Council, which are also supported by this Parliament in the two Watson reports.
Mr President, Mr de Miguel, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is pleased to be able to take part in today' s debate, which we consider politically important for the future of the area of freedom, security and justice.
We have, on several previous occasions, examined the legal configuration of the European arrest warrant and the framework decision on measures for combating terrorism in the light of the Watson report, which was adopted by Parliament on 5 September 2001.
I would like to reiterate that the Commission was already working on these areas over a year ago, at the request of the Tampere European Council, and I think that Parliament can testify that the Commission treated this subject with the desired importance, so that negotiations could be completed by the deadline we were set by the Extraordinary European Council following the events of 11 September.
Moreover, I would once again like to praise the efforts of the Belgian Presidency to achieve the results that are the subject of our debate today.
The two texts before you are an important step in improving the ability of the European Union and the Member States to fight effectively against organised crime in general and against terrorism in particular.
As we wished, the European arrest warrant will fully replace the extradition process throughout the European Union, something that had been requested by the Tampere European Council in October 1999, a request that was reiterated by the Extraordinary European Council of September 2001.
I would also like to stress that, from the outset, the Tampere European Council not only advocated using the European arrest warrant to combat terrorism, but also to make the European arrest warrant an instrument that would replace the entire extradition procedure between Member States.
The requirement of 'dual criminality' - under which the person accused can only be surrendered if the facts that motivated the issuing of an arrest warrant also constitute a crime in the Member State where the arrest warrant is to be executed - is abolished for 32 offences that are punishable by a term of at least three years' imprisonment in the Member State which issued the arrest warrant.
This list effectively covers the most serious crimes and the largest part of these was taken from the Europol Convention, which was ratified by all the Member States, meaning that it was subject to the democratic vote of the national parliaments of the 15 Member States.
The European arrest warrant will enable European magistrates to work directly together, with full independence and whilst fully observing fundamental rights.
The administrative phase of the extradition procedure has been abolished, the political nature of the extradition procedure has been abolished, the procedure has been placed entirely under the authority of the magistrates and judges of the Member States, and I think that this plays a crucial part in strengthening the area of freedom, security and justice.
As far as terrorism is concerned, the text will enable us to harmonise the definition of terrorist offences at Member State-level.
The text defines terrorist offences in terms of specific acts, such as attacks upon a person' s life or upon the physical integrity of a person, kidnapping or hostage taking, causing extensive destruction to a government or public facility and seizure of aircraft, and also in terms of the aim pursued such as intimidating a population, destabilising the structures of a country or an international organisation, unduly compelling a government or an international organisation to perform or abstain from performing any act.
It also provides a definition of a terrorist group, which is inspired by the concept of a criminal organisation established by the Joint Action of 21 December 1998, and makes it a specific offence to direct a group and participate in a terrorist group.
Furthermore, a mitigation mechanism provides for a system that aims to facilitate the cooperation of reformed terrorists with the police and judicial authorities.
I would like to stress that this definition is particularly important, at a time when the European Union must speak with the same voice at the negotiations that are currently taking place at the United Nations in New York on the adoption of the international convention on global terrorism.
We intended, however, to clarify some aspects of the text, particularly in the light of the many comments by MEPs.
I hope that you will be pleased to see your views brought together by the text which was adopted by the Council, particularly those views regarding trade unions or anti-globalisation demonstrations.
These activities cannot, under any circumstances, be classified as crimes by the framework decision, even when they do occasionally get out of hand.
To claim that the aim of this instrument is to punish such demonstrations would be a purely popularity-seeking exercise.
Everything is now perfectly clear and established in law.
Furthermore, the Council will be issuing a recital and a statement to confirm that the framework decision will not apply to the behaviour of those who are acting in order to preserve or restore democratic values.
As for the respect for fundamental rights, a subject that both Parliament and the Commission treat with particular attention, I believe that the two texts are satisfactory.
Regarding the arrest warrant, it has been repeatedly reiterated, most notably in Article 1, that in the execution of a European arrest warrant, the Member States and judicial authorities must always ensure that they scrupulously observe the principles recognised by Article 6 of the Treaty and that are reflected in the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We have also confirmed that it is not possible to expel or extradite a person to a State where there is a serious risk of that person facing the death penalty, torture or other punishment or inhuman or degrading treatment.
I would like to stress, and I understand Mr MacCormick' s concern on this issue, that your amendment may have the opposite effect.
I am being very honest with you.
I would like to point out that the habeas corpus amendment is contained in the legal system of each Member State and that, in addition, Articles 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, taken up by the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, contain rules on the conditions governing detention and release, where the detention is unlawful.
There is nothing in the European arrest warrant that derogates from the application of the provisions of the national legal system and the European Convention on Human Rights in relation to the definition of conditions governing detention, which exist in the European Union Member States.
The Commission hopes that these texts will be formally adopted in May at the latest, as soon as the Parliament' s final reservations have been dispelled.
All the Member States must then adapt their national legislation so that the two texts can enter into force on 1 January 2004 for the European arrest warrant and 1 January 2003 for combating terrorism.
The key to the success of the process initiated with the European arrest warrant will be mutual trust in independent and effective legal systems.
That is why, as you advocated in several of the amendments tabled today, and as I announced the last time I came before the House to speak on this matter, the Commission will issue a communication this year on minimum procedural guarantees within the European Union.
The first discussion document is already available electronically via the Commission' s web site and you can all access this document directly.
The document will enable us to launch a public debate on these issues and to prepare the communication that the Commission will present before the end of the year.
In this communication, we will tackle questions as diverse as the right to language assistance, legal assistance, the rules on appeal, the collection of evidence, and the issue of alternatives to provisional detention or decisions by default.
Our medium-term objective is to propose a legislative instrument in this area, following the public debate.
Mr President, I am still bearing in mind the prospect of implementing these texts within the framework of the enlargement of the European Union.
The key to success in this area will also be mutual trust in independent, reliable and effective legal systems.
People have accused European legal affairs of lagging behind for years.
The two texts before you today are without doubt a major step forward and I am counting on the commitment of the Spanish Presidency and on the commitment and support of the European Parliament to pursue this ambitious integration.
The message is clear.
Violence is unlawful.
We have the legal and legitimate tools to protect democracy because the urgent demand to provide security and to combat terrorism expressed by all European citizens is something we are taking seriously.
(Applause)
Thank you Commissioner.
After the Council statement, I received two motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.30 p.m.
Financing of development aid with a view to the UN International Conference
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the financing of development aid with a view to the UN International Conference (Monterrey (Mexico), 21/22 March 2002].
Mr President, the EU attaches great importance to the Conference.
We are convinced that in the current international context, we cannot approach the Financing for Development Conference on a business-as-usual basis: this time we need concrete action.
The present crisis will impact on economic development worldwide and it will be once again the poorest who pay the highest price.
We must counter this tendency by trying our best to make globalisation work for the poor and not against the poor.
In this context, the Financing for Development Conference represents a key opportunity for the international community to enter into a new "global deal" on the assumption that a safer world for all will only be possible if there is a strong signal on the renewed commitment in the fight against poverty.
After the agreement reached in the Preparatory Committee on the final document for the Conference, we should focus our attention on positive initiatives that the EU could make in key areas and on the input we can make in the political declaration in Monterrey.
Action is needed on the volume of ODA: we have to agree on concrete steps to double ODA flows within the next five years, in order to be able to achieve the Millennium development goals.
ODA must also be more efficient: we have to complete work on the untying of aid in time for the Conference.
All the themes discussed internationally will remain on the international agenda, whether or not they are specifically included in the Monterrey consensus.
One such case is the discussion on global public goods.
We will continue arguing in order to give some real impetus to international solidarity.
In our view, Monterrey and Johannesburg are closely linked, as both look at ways and means to implement the Millennium Declaration and the International Development targets, which we strongly support.
Also they are both related to the trade negotiations following the launch of these in Doha.
We have an opportunity to work in a comprehensive manner and we look forward to taking part in the conference and making it a success.
Mr President, we live in a world characterised by great material wealth, but the wealth is unevenly distributed.
At present, more than three billion people are trying to survive on less than two dollars per day.
Eradicating poverty is a moral imperative, but it is also an issue directly linked to our common security.
We live in a world in which countries and people are increasingly interdependent, which is more divided and in which there is greater danger of tensions, large-scale migration, damage to the natural environment and increased crime.
All this can of course also be linked to desperate acts that can lead, for example to terrorism.
It is against this background that we must view not only the forthcoming conference in Monterrey, but also this autumn' s world summit in Johannesburg.
On both occasions, rich and poor countries will have an opportunity to agree upon a long-term plan to eradicate poverty step by step.
The rich nations must offer increased support.
The poor nations must determine their priorities when it comes to work on combating poverty, greater respect for democracy and human rights and a more vigorous fight against corruption etc.
I think the consensus document referred to here today is weak.
No amount of fine words and eloquent rhetoric can eradicate poverty.
The spirit of this resolution is therefore that the EU should make every conceivable effort in Monterrey to ensure that specific pledges are made on increased cooperation and transfers of resources, debt cancellation and generally increased aid in a range of areas.
One particular issue is that of work designed to increase the production of the global, or 'public' , goods to which Commissioner Nielson refers, that is to say efforts to protect the climate, combat deforestation and develop vaccines and medicines to combat infectious diseases etc.
Through this resolution, we are sending a clear signal to the Commission, to the governments of our Member States and to the international community that, as parliamentarians, we take these issues extremely seriously and desire more than merely words in Monterrey.
We want to see practical results.
Mr President, with the UN Conference in Monterrey around the corner, the world is facing a fundamental choice.
Despite all the fine speeches, international conferences and development programmes, the gap between rich and poor has only widened over the past decades.
1.2 billion people, that is one fifth of the world population, live on less than one dollar a day.
The three richest people together own more than the total income of the world' s 48 poorest countries, and 130 million children never attend school.
These are the bare facts.
We all have a clear lesson to learn from the disastrous attacks of 11 September.
In the Global Village, we have to be prepared to tackle these problems together, but our response falls extremely far short of the mark.
I want to warn against a new international doctrine according to which the western world, having turned its back on these one billion people fighting for their daily existence, withdraws behind barriers made up of weapon shields and expensive technological defence materiel.
The amount of USD 379 billion which, if it were up to President Bush, is being earmarked for the Pentagon next year is more than seven times the total amount of development aid spent last year worldwide.
This situation is all the more poignant when one realises that, despite the worldwide agreement to spend 0.7% of GNP on development aid, the figure has even dropped to an all time low of 0.24%.
This is unacceptable because it is precisely a doubling of the worldwide development aid figures that is required in order to meet our international pledge, namely that, by 2015, all children in the world will be able to attend school and receive medical care.
The pledges for 2015 are clear.
The Member States must now very quickly meet this 0.7% target in a practical way.
We must not allow the breakthrough at Doha to be watered down.
European agricultural policy must change to benefit the Third World.
Without any serious commitments by the Western countries, the conference in Monterrey will end up in a stalemate.
This is why Europe, as the world' s largest donor of development cooperation and as the largest international trading power, must be prepared to throw its weight into the balance, building on the successes achieved at Doha, with a view to reaching authentic binding agreements in Monterrey about aid, education, health care and far-reaching debt relief.
Mr President, we must welcome the International Conference on Financing for Development, as this is an essential theme in the debate on reducing aid to developing countries.
For more than 20 years, the UN has told donor countries that they must dedicate 0.7% of their GNP to state development aid, in accordance with OECD standards, but only four countries are respecting this commitment.
Aid is decreasing in general and the current average is 0.2%.
Developing countries are suffering badly from the gradual and structural deterioration in trade terms for basic products and are caught up in the vicious cycle of paying back often illegitimate debts, as well as the interest charged on them.
How can we raise financial resources for the human, economic and social development of these people, given these circumstances?
Our hopes rest on Monterrey therefore, unless the outcome has already been determined and the American positions dominate this conference, as was the case at Doha.
By faithfully following the liberal principles of development that the international institutions and the European Commission have been applying for 20 years, the document before us, just as the Monterrey consensus, never calls neo-liberal globalisation into question.
However, the income of the population of developing countries has continued to fall over the same period, which proves this formula is ineffective and counter-productive.
It is failing, but we carry on regardless.
I do not know if the draft consensus for Monterrey, which does not propose any ambitious objectives, any practical financial measures or a timetable, is set in stone.
If that is the case, and if the conference limits itself to making wonderful statements which will never be followed up, I think that we must cancel it and the millions of euro that have been earmarked to organise the conference must be given directly to the least-advanced countries.
It would be a shame because there are grounds to condemn and criticise, but there are also grounds to discuss and, in relation to mobilising aid, propose cancelling debt, taxing capital and reforming the WTO.
The European Union must seize this opportunity to push through the adoption of ambitious objectives as well as restrictive measures, which could enable poverty levels to be cut in half by 2015.
The EU must reiterate the commitment made at Gothenburg to request the Member States to increase their aid to 0.7%.
The governments and parliaments which agreed to the principle of a Tobin-type tax must demonstrate their interest in regulating the financial markets and redistributing wealth towards the south.
Mr President, all those taking part in the summit must ensure that it is a success.
The European Union has a responsibility to do this.
Mr President, the situation of poverty in the world is perfectly well known, as is the deep gulf that separates the northern and southern hemispheres.
Nevertheless, and despite several declarations of good intentions, the formal 1974 commitment to attain the objective of public aid for development at a level of 0.7% of GDP and despite the fact that the World Bank recently found it necessary to double the resources earmarked for public aid, the truth is that it is no higher than 0.22% in the OECD countries, the lowest level ever, having fallen by around 25% in the last decade and not currently exceeding 0.32% in the Member States of the European Union.
Against this backdrop and with Johannesburg on the horizon, the Monterrey Conference is taking on an undeniable importance.
It is truly time to reverse past actions and negative trends, to look at the problem of the development of poor countries in a different way, a way that demonstrates greater solidarity and to adopt practical and binding measures.
We respect the Council decision of 8 November, but it is crucial that the Spanish Presidency and the Commission spare no effort to ensure that Monterrey results in objective and scheduled commitments that guarantee some progress, even with the awareness of the retrograde and unacceptable positions of the American administration in this field, which cannot impose conformist positions on others, and even with the awareness of the weaknesses of the so-called Monterrey consensus itself.
Monterrey must also result in guidelines that put an end to the devastating effect of foreign debt on the development of developing countries, by putting forward mechanisms that do not hold back the Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative and which are primarily founded on global recognition of the principle of debt relief.
The appalling situation in which the developing countries find themselves cannot remain as it is and the European Union and its Member States must not only not content themselves with being the largest donor but must also adopt a clear position which helps these countries to find a way out of this situation.
Mr President, the widening gap between the world's rich and poor represents an enormous potential risk to all concerned.
Traditional development aid, which is taken more or less to be a sort of gift day in which the rich countries give to the poor ones, does not work.
What we need is an all-embracing concept of the peaceful development of the poor countries.
This is, of course, easier said than done, but we must remember that it is the countries with a wealth of raw materials, such as Angola or Nigeria, for example, whose people are the poorest.
That is not by chance; there is a system behind it.
We need to ask ourselves which, in this instance, are the donor countries and which the recipients - a question which, for me, has not been answered unambiguously.
The position of the developing countries is worse than in the days of colonial rule.
The key is fair world trade, in which raw materials have to be at the prices they deserve, and in which the net product must remain in these countries in order to develop their infrastructure.
Ladies and gentlemen, the debate is adjourned. It will be resumed this afternoon.
(The sitting was adjourned at 12.25 p.m. and resumed at 12.30 p.m.)
I will pass on your remarks to the President.
Vote
The next item is the vote.
Proposal for a decision on the numerical strength of the standing committees (Doc.
B5-0060/2002)
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Proposal for a decision on the numerical strength of the interparliamentary delegations (Doc.
B5-0059/2002)
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Conference of Presidents proposal - Appointment of Members of Parliament to the Bureau of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly
(Parliament approved the proposal of the Conference of Presidents)
Simplified procedure:
Proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 95/93 of 18 January 1993 on common rules for the allocation of slots at Community airports (COM(2002) 7 - C5-0020/2002 - 2002/0013(COD)) (by the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism)
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Report (A5-0465/2001) by Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the energy performance of buildings (COM(2001) 226 - C5-0203/2001 - 2001/0098(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0466/2001) by Piia-Noora Kauppi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on administrative cooperation in the field of value added tax (COM(2001) 294 - C5-0269/2001 - 2001/0133(COD))
and
on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 77/799/EEC concerning mutual assistance by the competent authorities of the Member States in the field of direct and indirect taxation (COM(2001) 294 - C5-0270/2001 - 2001/0134(COD))
(In successive votes Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
Report (A5-0025/2002) by Jorge Moreira da Silva, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion, on behalf of the European Community, of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the joint fulfilment of commitments thereunder (COM(2001) 579 - C5-0019/2002 - 2001/0248(CNS)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0003/2002) by Graham Watson, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council framework decision on combating terrorism (14845/1/01 - C5-0680/2001 - 2001/0217(CNS))
and
on the proposal for a Council framework decision on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between the Member States (14867/1/01 - C5-0675/2001 - 2001/0215(CNS))
(In successive votes Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
Report (A5-0002/2002) by Bernhard Rapkay, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission's ninth survey on state aid in the European Union (COM(2001) 403 - C5-0632/2001 - 2001/2269(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0017/2002) by Maria Martens, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the Commission communication on the draft detailed work programme for the follow-up of the report on the concrete objectives of education and training systems (COM(2001) 501 - C5-0601/2001 - 2001/2251(COS))
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0467/2001) by Karl Erik Olsson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on monitoring of the BSE crisis with regard to public health and food safety (2000/2321(INI))
After the vote on Amendment No 1:
Mr President, I should like to notify you that, at any rate, it is still possible to vote on the second part of Amendment No 1.
In terms of words, you are probably right, but the spirit of the amendment is in contradiction.
So I would ask the rapporteur, Mr Olsson, for his advice on this matter.
Mr President, I share your view.
We are concerned here with three different alternatives.
We have now voted in favour of one of them, which mean that the others cease to be options.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report Vidal-Quadras Roca (A5-0465/2001)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca' s extremely important report on methods of saving energy, particularly as regards the construction of buildings that are fit for habitation, where heating costs are the most burdensome for the citizens of the European Union.
On this occasion, as regards the heating costs very often sustained by pensioners and the elderly, I hope that our States decide to allocate pensioners a sum of money, which would differ from region to region, to meet these costs.
There are extremely beautiful areas of Europe such as Sicily where the cost of heating houses is very low, but there are other just as beautiful regions - in Sweden and Finland, for example - where heating costs are much higher.
I would add Scotland to your list of places where heating costs are very high.
Report Kauppi (A5-0466/2001)
I will talk about Scotland in a minute, Mr President.
With regard to Mrs Kauppi' s report on cooperation in the field of value added tax, I have to say that I met an old school friend, Mr Bertone, at Genoa airport. He said to me, with regard to the matter at hand: 'How good you are in Europe at making us pay more taxes, at organising yourselves and reaching agreements to improve the way we pay taxes!'
Just like myself, Carlo Fatuzzo, Mr Bertone is from Genoa and Genoa has a reputation in Italy similar to that of Scotland in the United Kingdom: in other words, we are very thrifty, as they say.
Indeed, my friend, Mr Bertone, of Genoa, said to me: 'Yes, you are good at making us pay out.
Why do you not do something, rather, to make us pay less tax, which would make us Genoese happy and probably the Scots as well? I hope this happens as soon as possible!'
I have voted against this report. The reason for my having done so is that the report quotes Article 95 of the Treaty as a legal basis, involving majority decision-making in the Council and codecision making for the European Parliament, and this in spite of the fact that Article 95 states that it does not cover 'fiscal provisions' .
What, therefore, we have here is something so crucially a matter of principle as a reorganisation of the way in which tax issues are dealt with, involving an abandonment of intergovernmental cooperation with its demands for unanimity in accordance with Article 93 of the Treaty.
I cannot support the Commission' s view that the report only concerns administrative cooperation and that the proposal would not have any fiscal consequences because it does not directly relate to tax collection.
In the past, the Council has always rejected this position, and it changed the legal base to Articles 93 and 94, which only require that Parliament should be consulted.
The Swedish Christian Democrats fully support the Council' s approach.
We believe that tax issues should not be decided by majority decision in the Council and by codecision in Parliament.
Our clear position is that, in the future too, unanimity shall be required in connection with decisions on taxes, and this in accordance with Article 93 of the Treaty.
Report Moreira da Silva (A5-0025/2002)
This report talks about climate change and what we must do to clean up the air. I totally agree, Mr President.
However, do you remember what a beautiful day it was yesterday here in Strasbourg?
The temperature was 14-15 degrees and it was as if Spring had come; we all enjoyed it very much.
Well then, Mr President, I started to wonder whether, ultimately, global warming, which we are all endeavouring to fight and which raises the average temperature of the earth, might not be better than if the earth were getting colder. Should we not reflect carefully before fulfilling these requirements, for maybe a little more heat in our world would be a good thing?
Report Watson (A5-0003/2002)
As you are aware, this document has been the subject of much debate, and it has also provoked opposition, particularly in Italy, as you know, Mr President.
I want to reiterate what I have said when we have voted on the European arrest warrant and combating terrorism in the past.
I agree that there should be rapid procedures for arresting those who ought to be arrested, whatever Member State of Europe they might flee to.
However, my ultimate goal and the ultimate goal of the Pensioners' Party is genuinely to achieve a single code of civil procedure and a single European penal code because, when all is said and done, if we all agree that a particular deed is a crime, then we must all agree on that without exception and without differences.
This is too important an area for there to be differences within Europe.
Mr President, when we are reflecting on the problems of improving procedures in the House it is worth noticing that an explanation of vote of this kind is one way one can reply to a point taken by the Commissioner at the end of a debate.
At the end of the debate on the Watson report, Mr Vitorino said that the amendment relating to the habeas corpus order would risk confusing the issue and undermine respect for human rights.
In that he completely ignored the point that the first condition stated for the operation of that amendment was for there to be a violation of human rights in the receiving state.
The point I made in my speech in the debate was that it is not enough to have common agreement to respect rights; you must have effective remedies.
That text of ours would have put in an effective remedy.
Since Parliament in its wisdom (or unwisdom) chose not to adopt it, I voted against the Watson report on the Arrest Warrant.
Other Members from the United Kingdom will come to regret that they did not too.
Some of my colleagues in the European Free Alliance - a majority of them - voted for the Watson report; not that they did not also regret the absence of the habeas corpus amendment, but that they felt a strong commitment in conscience, as we all do, to getting the European judicial space going forward, and thought that necessary.
Mr President, I wish to thank you for enabling us to arrange this properly.
I thought we had submitted the names in time, but there was some misunderstanding.
What is at issue, then, are the anti-terrorist laws and a European arrest warrant.
We are strongly critical of these terrorist laws, and above all of an arrest warrant, in terms both of their content and of the speed with which these laws have been devised.
We are also critical of the fact that there has been no basic examination of the proposed laws or assessment of their impact.
Moreover, the European Parliament has in actual fact dealt with the issue without much in the way of reflection.
We were therefore also extremely anxious that our Amendment No 4 should be voted through today.
Unfortunately, it was not.
I therefore think that Parliament has not accepted its responsibilities when it comes to protecting those deprived of their freedom and safeguarding human rights.
Following the attacks in the United States on 11 September, the work designed to produce new anti-terrorist laws within the EU has proceeded at a furious pace.
These draft laws are extremely far-reaching, and the security of the individual may be in danger.
The same concerns also apply to the interpretations brought to bear upon how a terrorist group is really to be defined.
A majority of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance therefore voted against the arrest warrant.
All this is also having further consequences.
In Sweden, the freezing of the assets of al-Baraka, a not-for-profit association, has directly affected a number of Swedish citizens of Somalian origin.
It has also been made impossible for Somalians to send money to needy families and relatives.
This is a clear example of what can be the indiscriminate effects of these laws, and the fact that measures of this type can be taken without any proof being required is an injustice committed against people.
In my opinion, greater reflection and more impact assessments were needed before we took this decision.
Mr President, I voted against the decision on combating terrorism because I feel it is fundamentally flawed.
I recognise that there have been some improvements - for example in Recital 10.
A lot of people are putting faith in the Council's statement, which is not part of the legally binding text.
It is basically only a political promise.
People should be extremely wary of political promises.
The statement protects the right of people to protest, which is one of the fundamental issues that people were very concerned about.
If it had been in the text itself it might have been legally binding.
But there is no guarantee as to how this legislation will be used.
Will it interfere with the rights of people who are unhappy with the status quo and want to change things?
We also have to look at how it will impact on foreigners, for example people from different cultural and religious backgrounds - some people in Western society are extremely wary of them.
There is a great threat to their fundamental rights.
On the European arrest warrant I would endorse what Mr MacCormick has said.
It was very disappointing to see so many people in this Parliament not support an amendment that would have given people some sort of protection in relation to protecting their basic civil liberties.
The Communist Party of Greece never misses an opportunity to denounce the fact that the capitalist mechanism and police state being built up by the European Union are capitalist society's response to the rising tide of protest and demands for justice being generated by its own anti-grass roots policy of serving the interests of big business.
The leaders of the ÅU know full well that, despite their efforts, they cannot fool the people by cloaking their policies in pro-grass roots terms.
This tactic was on a slow but sure course up to 11 September.
Now, the horrendous events of that day are being used as a pretext to speed up the application of political decisions taken long ago.
The perpetrators of and accessories to the terrorist attacks have played straight into the hands of the American and European imperialists.
Which is why we are now examining, for the second time, the improved proposals for a Council framework decision on combating terrorism and on the European arrest warrant, the heavy artillery in the capitalist arsenal.
Basically nothing has changed in the draft decisions, apart from a few editorial improvements to appease the reactions, and the addendum stating that "the European Union is founded on the universal values of human dignity, liberty, equality, solidarity and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; it is based on the principles of democracy and the Rule of Law".
The pure hypocrisy of this statement is highlighted by the fact that the framework decisions deal a very severe blow to democracy and collective and individual social rights.
According to article 1, anyone fighting for fundamental political and social change can easily be labelled a terrorist.
Types of protest, such as symbolic sit-ins, or the results of protests, such as interruptions to the electricity or water supply when workers go on strike, need only cause "significant economic losses" in order to be labelled terrorist crimes.
The same applies to protests by farmers who block the roads.
Extending the responsibilities of the organisations to which the "terrorists" belong may create a handy mechanism for prosecuting troublesome organisations and parties but it also gives them the incentive to engage in provocation.
The only people above all suspicion are the rulers of the ÅU and the USA.
They are in no danger of being tried on the basis of their own law, which labels acts which may "seriously damage" the country as terrorist acts if the perpetrator carries them out with a view to: (i) seriously frightening the people or (ii) unreasonably forcing the public authorities or an international organisation to carry out or refrain from carrying out an act or (iii) seriously destabilising or overturning the fundamental policies or constitutional, economic or social structures of a country or international organisation.
Did the European and American imperialists do any less or any different in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Chile, Greece and dozens of other countries?
The people throughout the world know exactly who the terrorists are.
Likewise, they also know that violence and suppression cannot reverse the historic advance of mankind and they will continue their fight until all the terrorist laws have been repealed.
It is for these reasons that the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report.
The European Union, and the European Parliament in particular, do not have a very consistent view of the fight against terrorism at all.
I have risen on previous occasions to ask for increased border controls, including those controls at the internal borders of the Union.
But this has not happened.
What has in fact happened is that the policy on phasing out internal controls has been pursued unchanged.
That is why, on Monday, at the debate on the Kessler report, I condemned the scheduled withdrawal of the 'reporting of presence' which, under the Schengen Convention, should be demanded of third country nationals who wish to move between European Union Member States.
We are today examining the last phase of the plan to create a European arrest warrant, which seeks to abolish, for certain offences, the former extradition system between EU Member States, which gave discretionary power to the executing State, but there is an obvious contradiction as far as this point is concerned.
We have seen the list of offences grow in size with the subsequent versions of the plan. However, the essential guarantees that we requested in our explanation of vote of 29 November 2001 have still not been included, such as the right for the judge of the executing country to properly check the validity of the request and for the new system not to apply to the nationals of the executing country as they should continue to enjoy maximum protection.
The European Parliament is prepared to turn a blind eye to all these anomalies, because they are helping to build a super-State.
At our previous sitting, however, Parliament did not hesitate to vote in favour of a resolution that refused to facilitate the extradition of terrorists or potential terrorists, who have been arrested in the EU, to the United States.
It would, in fact, have been important to make a gesture in relation to this issue, because the United States is now facing a battle to protect the whole of the western world.
We are, therefore, trying to achieve too much with the European arrest warrant, which is dangerous.
And we are not doing enough to support the United States against terrorism and this is shocking.
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The British Conservatives voted strongly in favour of the framework decision on terrorism in order to underline our continued ongoing support for the war against terrorism, and to confirm our determination to ensure that the European Union presents a united front against those who seek to undermine our values and our way of life.
However, we were obliged to vote against the proposal in relation to the European Arrest Warrant.
As now proposed, the procedures go much further than is either necessary to deal with the terrorist threat, or desirable in terms of both safeguarding human rights or respecting due legal process, as is currently satisfied by the extradition agreement processes.
Nonetheless, let no one be in doubt of our determination not to waver in the long war against terrorism, but we do not believe that the European Arrest Warrant as currently proposed will achieve the ends to which we are all striving.
- (NL) The initial perplexity which the attacks of 11 September caused have not only led to unqualified support for American action in a country where the possible mastermind behind those attacks could be hiding, but has also resulted in measures being considered which would seriously affect civil rights deemed obvious hitherto.
All the primitive ideas which guardians of law and order had ever entertained to make it easier to lock up, extradite and condemn opposition forces were suddenly given free rein.
It is not only the American administration that comes up with new inventions such as the introduction of the notion of 'illegal combatants' , who are subsequently unable to enjoy the protection received by prisoners of war.
Unfortunately, this development also plays a role in Europe. Anyone who, for a long time, had fought for the right to extradite people to countries where capital punishment still exists, for calling an end to freedoms deemed undesirable in neighbouring countries or for curtailing the rights of suspects, seized their opportunity.
Meanwhile, those who, in panic, allowed themselves to be convinced of the need for such draconian measures are starting to consider the implications.
This morning, the President of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats rightly said that support for Russian action against Chechnya cannot be justified in the name of combating terrorism.
The fresh proposal by Mr Watson is an improvement, but not yet sufficient to prevent accidents.
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(DE) I did not abstain in the final vote on the report through opposition to the European arrest warrant. It was much more the case that I was opposed to the rushed procedure with which this matter was dealt with.
Report Rapkay (A5-0002/2002)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Rapkay' s document on State aid in the European Union - both on my own account and on behalf of the Pensioners' Party - but while I was voting I was thinking, Mr President.
Should we not consider the money that governments use to cover and make good pension fund deficits to be State aid too? When the State budget intervenes to make good the balance of pension funds, that, in my opinion, is State aid which distorts competition in the European Union between different systems and procedures for managing pension funds in Europe.
We need greater competition when it comes to pension types available on the market too.
I hope this is achieved in the future.
Mr President, I just want to say, in addition to casting my vote just now, that we need to attempt to make the concept of State aid totally clear.
Today' s document addresses this subject - which has already been dealt with in the past - in a number of respects, it develops and analyses it and also welcomes in principle the decline of that aid during the period 1997 to 1999.
It remains to address the issue of regional aid, the money that passes from the State - for regional tax income is not sufficient, at least in Italy - to the regions and from the regions directly to many bodies and companies, which thus break competition rules and distort the market, particularly in respect of other companies which, for example, are not based in regions with a special statute, which are particularly favoured.
. (PT) This report on State aid closely follows the line of the previous report, endorsing the observation that there was a reduction in State aid during the period between 1997 and 1999, specifically due to reduction in aid in Germany and Italy, the two countries that provide the highest levels of State aid.
The rationale of the report is based on defending the reduction of State aid and on stepping up the measures used in this context, specifically tax measures.
The objective, in accordance with the conclusions of the Stockholm Summit, is to achieve a steady reduction in State aid by 2003, only allowing aid, in exceptional circumstances, specially requested by the Member States.
Existing Community aid will, of course, continue.
Nevertheless, with the creation of the State aid assessment panel, pressure on Member States to reduce aid will increase, with States basing their approach on protecting competition, ignoring the problems suffered by weaker economies and pilfering America' s own policy, which continues to grant State aid in various economic sectors, in defiance of WTO rules.
This is why we have voted against the report.
- (NL) The rapporteur is backing the March 2000 Summit in Lisbon which declared that the EU would be the world' s most competitive region within ten years.
The high price we need to pay for this will even lead to many Europeans not having a sense of victory when the project proves successful.
In the US and Japan, many people are worse off than in large parts of Europe, despite considerable company profits and growth.
Competition means that those who manage to sell the cheapest products and services at minimum cost survive to the detriment of everyone else.
The latter cannot, therefore, afford to take issues such as human rights, working conditions, public health, the environment and animal welfare too seriously.
State support, government initiatives and Community enterprises are crucial instruments for correcting the adverse effects of the market and for promoting the well-being of people and of the environment.
I condemn state support if it is aimed only at using tax revenue to compete better against others within a free market, as in the case of aviation, but not at maintaining facilities and regional employment in vulnerable regions.
The re-nationalisation of regional policy, feared by the rapporteur, cuts down on red-tape and waste, but does need to be offset by contributions provided, in a spirit of solidarity, by rich Member States for the benefit of the poor.
Report Martens (A5-0017/2002)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Martens' important report on education and training, but I hope that the pensioners of the different sectors of European industry will soon stop playing cards or sitting at home in front of the television, counting the days they have left to live, and be used, if they so wish, to pass on their knowledge to workers, especially young workers.
For example, pensioners from the banking sector could teach new employees how to manage the bank' s money and achieve good results, and a similar process could be introduced in other sectors: there should be more pensioners in vocational training and lifelong learning.
Report Olsson (A5-0467/2001)
Mr President, I wish to point out with some emphasis that certain items in Parliament's report on the ongoing handling of BSE are having negative effects on Europe's farmers and I therefore voted against these unrealistic demands, which had been introduced by some elements in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
To be specific, these were the obligatory reduction to the age of 24 months, the debate on omnivores in connection with BSE, and also aspects of waste management.
I am, furthermore, opposed to the demand for a reform of the CAP with food safety as one of its objectives, as this is already set down very definitely in Agenda 2000.
Our agricultural policy is founded on the principle of multifunctionality and on family-run farms, and the production of safe and high-quality food is a matter of concern for farmers like us.
By doing this, we would be sending the wrong signal.
The delegation of the Austrian People's Party in this Parliament has therefore abstained in the final vote.
I want to wish the presidency and all the interpreters 'bon appétit' before focusing on the matter at hand, which does nothing to whet the appetite, for this is a document on BSE, bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Mr President, paragraph 5 'calls on the Member States to step up ... compliance with the temporary ban on MBM' . But why, Mr President, is it 'temporary' ?
If meat-and-bone meal is dangerous, we must make the ban on using it permanent and leave the firms that produce meat-and-bone meal to make something else - maybe they will produce Italian-style spaghetti or spaghetti with pesto, which would be a much more appropriate subject for debate at this precise moment.
In other words, Mr President, meat-and-bone meal should be taken completely off the market once and for all.
On the occasion of the debate on the Olsson report on the monitoring of the BSE crisis, I would like to draw attention to the scandalous decree handed down by the Court of Justice on 13 December 2001 which condemns France for having failed to observe the Commission' s request to lift the ban on British beef imports.
The decree cites the higher powers of the Commission, which itself refers to the superiority of the freedom of movement.
This raises a question of principles - what sort of Europe do we want? A Europe where each nation has the right to exercise its fundamental choices, or a Europe where the Commission determines from on high what is the so-called common good?
We believe that each nation must be sovereign. With regard to public health, in particular, if one of the Member States democratically chooses one option, the others must note the choice made, even if they do not agree with it.
We must stress that the French Government has put itself in an impossible situation, by ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam, which gives the Commission the powers that it is now using against us. When will governments realise that the texts that they sign will have some consequences?
When will they realise that their actions will catch up with them? When will they stop pulling the wool over their own eyes, and over the eyes of the citizens at the same time?
In the wake of the decree of 13 December, there is no point in the French Government saying that it will not obey it, the Commission will not go to the trouble of complaining to the Court of Justice to request a penalty payment for each day that the French Government failed to execute the decision.
We will therefore have to pay a ransom for having the right to use - and this is still on a provisional basis - a fundamental competence that we ourselves foolishly abandoned when we signed the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Of course, this absurd situation will only last the length of the election campaign in France.
As soon as the elections are over, our next government will probably rush to obey the decree on the quiet.
What we need is a fundamental reform of the Treaties in order to restore national sovereignty.
. BSE undoubtedly triggered a crisis of confidence on the part of consumers and an economic catastrophe in the agriculture and food processing industries.
It is in the interests of all concerned to ensure that lessons are learned and sensible measures put in place to eradicate BSE.
Such measures must of course be justified by sound scientific data.
It seems to me that the 30-month threshold is justifiable, and forecast to succeed in rendering the UK BSE-free within a reasonable timescale.
The main lesson to learn from BSE and other recent food scares surely is that we must favour a return to natural methods of food production and feeding of livestock.
In Scotland for example, the majority of livestock has historically been grass-fed, resulting in a relatively low incidence of BSE in that country.
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(EL) The report on the basic technical principles for monitoring BSE tackles the right issues in the right way.
We agree with the proposals addressing the principle of prevention and the proposals containing a final definition of terms and concepts, which will prevent the same issues from being interpreted differently in the Member States, given that the current lack of clarity is delaying the application of legislation.
We also agree with the principle of zero tolerance as regards even traces of dioxins in food and animal feed and the ban on the use of the bones of one species of animal in the feed for the same species of animal.
However, we have acute reservations on a number of other points in the report.
For example, although we do not disagree with the proposal on reforming the common agricultural policy per se, what worries us is that the Commission may use it to cut back on subsidies or the production of basic agricultural products.
This has already happened with cotton, using high nitrate levels and environmental protection as a pretext, and with tobacco, using the anti-smoking campaign and the protection of public health as a pretext.
We likewise disagree with the proposal to give the Community services more powers of control, because we feel that they have yet to prove that they are more sensitive or more efficient than the national authorities in this sector.
The repeated cases of dioxins in chickens, mad cows etc., which are only discovered with hindsight, to the detriment of public health, confirm our reading and justify our opposition to any increase in Community powers.
Finally, we should like to point out that, as long as reducing production costs, no matter how, and increasing the profits of the huge monopolies in the sector continues to be the primary and decisive criterion for producing which agricultural products and food, the problems will not only not go away, they will multiply.
Any controls, especially preventive controls, however important, cannot reverse these trends, as the fact that most problems are identified with hindsight, once they have taken on tragic proportions and caused massive public health problems, goes to show.
That is why we believe that we cannot achieve complete food safety with communications and resolutions, however progressive they may be, because they cannot and will not touch capitalist methods of production.
We support the report and controls to restrict these problems, albeit critically; at the same time, we must point out that we shall only have complete food safety if the basic criterion for producing food is consumer protection, animal protection and environmental protection, rather than the profit motive.
- (NL) Feeding animal slaughter waste to the surviving animals within the same animal species is something that can only be dreamed up by somebody for whom financial considerations are paramount.
Cows and sheep that normally only eat vegetable feed are turned into cannibals.
It is not surprising that something as unnatural as that should lead to fatal diseases which were hitherto unknown.
People still fail to draw the right conclusions from this.
In a free market, the person who manages to produce in the cheapest manner wins the competitive battle, even if this is at the expense of jobs, the environment, animal welfare and public health.
This is why there remains a great temptation to continue to use animal and bone meal in the traditional way.
Some undertakings, some Member States and some Members of this Parliament are of the opinion that everything can be solved by slaughtering healthy cattle for preventive purposes in the vicinity of a source of infection.
This was the case during the BSE crisis and again with infections caused by foot and mouth disease.
Anyone who attempts to tackle parts of this failing livestock policy has my support.
Rapporteur Olsson and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy rightly call for more monitoring of compliance with bans already introduced, stiffer penalties for infringements and the destruction of existing stocks.
However, in order to take away the temptation to commit an infringement, the economic advantages also need to be systematically removed.
The issue of the French embargo on British beef, which I brought up during yesterday' s debate on the Olsson report, exemplifies the deeply undemocratic way in which the European institutions operate.
The Court of Justice condemned France in law, in the name of a strictly uniform vision of the single market, whilst acknowledging that France may essentially have valid reasons for protecting its population, given the uncertainties surrounding the traceability and labelling of British bovine carcasses.
The French Government declared its intention not to apply the Court' s decree and the Commission demonstrated that it was prepared to impose severe penalties upon France.
We are therefore faced with a legal system which forces Member States either to stop implementing the measures that they consider essential for protecting their nation' s public health, or to buy the right to do this.
Of course, it is primarily the French Government that is to be held responsible for this situation, having cheerfully transferred food safety to Community jurisdiction by signing the Treaty of Amsterdam. The French Government is now discovering, several months later, the regrettable consequences of taking such a decision so lightly.
More generally, however, the Olsson report should have brought into question an entire system that constitutes an attack upon democracy. This is a system that denies a nation the right to take measures which it considers necessary for ensuring public health, even if other nations have a different view.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was adjourned at 1.13 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Financing of development aid with a view to the UN International Conference (continuation)
We now continue with the debate on the Council and Commission statements on financing of development aid with a view to the UN International Conference in Monterrey on 21 and 22 March.
Mr President, one of the consequences of globalisation is the emergence of the feeling of belonging to the world.
This means that our citizens increasingly feel that the poverty and underdevelopment in which a large part of the population lives affect them and makes them demand that the public authorities demonstrate greater commitment in the field of development cooperation.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I hope that this message is conveyed to you when you arrive: responding to this request from the citizens for greater solidarity requires giving the least-developed countries the opportunity to implement the changes necessary to achieve the progress and well-being of their peoples and to make the framework that you have described for us this morning and, with which we are very happy, a reality.
It also requires, however, a fixed-term commitment to go beyond what was agreed in Laeken and to establish a strict timetable for States that have not yet done so to achieve, within the deadline set, the objective of allocating 0.7% of gross domestic product to official development aid and to do so in order to comply with an ethical requirement: we cannot continue to tolerate the living conditions that so many millions of people, who embody our own dignity and our own rights, are forced to endure.
Solidarity is part of our acquis.
We must also make this commitment for the sake of coherence, because the challenge of eradicating poverty, which the European Union has taken up, requires a budgetary effort in line with the magnitude of the task facing us.
And because, without development, democracy and respect for human rights are nothing more than pipe dreams.
And, lastly, because contributing to the progress and development of peoples is the best weapon with which to ensure international peace and security, something that, unfortunately, not all countries seem to understand.
I am sorry the Council is not here too.
They knew that we started at 3 p.m.
Mr President, Mrs Ferreira had good things to say about solidarity and people' s demands that solidarity be shown with Third World countries.
Unfortunately, that is not the development we are seeing in Denmark at the moment where we are cutting back on development aid in a way that I think is very unfortunate.
Even though we have cut back, we shall of course still be among the largest providers of aid, but it is, at any event, totally the wrong signal that we in Denmark, and the Danish Government, are sending at the moment.
I also fear that the Montreal Conference will just be another conference, with no practical consequences, and I should therefore like to highlight three practical issues in my speech here today.
The first is the demand for development aid.
I think it absolutely crucial that we set practical objectives for when the individual EU countries are to have reached a figure of 0.7%.
As far as I remember, we have been hearing about this 0.7% since 1974, and the vast majority of countries are still a very long way from achieving that goal.
That is why I am also looking forward to hearing what the Commission has elicited from its visit to the different countries in terms of establishing definite time frames.
These are what are needed.
The second thing I should like to urge is that Mr Lamy' s efforts to remove trade barriers - efforts which have so far been directed towards the least developed countries - should also apply to other countries for, without trade and without the opportunity to trade without customs barriers, no progress can of course be made.
The third thing I should like to emphasise is that we must look at what we can do in the public sector with a view to promoting private investment, and I believe that, in this area, we can bring about more fruitful cooperation than we have done so far.
In that way, it will also be possible to translate the World Economic Forum' s words into practical action.
Mr President, on 8 November 2001, the Council of Development Ministers urged the European Union and Member States to increase development aid.
I believe that we must now take firm and visible action.
How do we go about doubling the current level of aid given by industrialised countries to achieve the required USD 50 billion a year, as recommended in several of the preparatory reports for the Monterrey conference, so that we can meet the most basic requirements of developing countries, particularly in terms of education and health?
What stage has the Commission reached in its negotiations with each Member State on a timetable to enable us to achieve the objective of 0.7%, which was set some 32 years ago? Although the attitude of the United States is placing the very existence of aid for development under serious threat, the Monterrey conference would be an opportunity for the European Union to prepare and set in motion a strict process to rigorously monitor this timetable.
There are still other avenues to be explored. Firstly, we must cancel debt and go much further than the HIPC initiative.
The crisis in Argentina is an urgent reminder - as if it were needed - of the need for us to act. The world parliamentary forum, held some days ago in Porto Alegre, also recommends, by means of a resolution, that the United Nations establish an international tribunal to combat debt in order to guarantee financing for development.
Furthermore, it is time to seriously consider introducing a tax on international financial transfers.
Lastly, reforms in the financial system and international trade system are obviously needed in order to make them more democratic and to combat the mechanisms which cause poverty in developing countries.
Furthermore, as regards the current situation with aid, we must ensure that payments of sums are made in a swift and efficient manner as, at the end of 2000, EUR 9 billion remained in the coffers of the European Development Fund and we must also change the focus of the ODA.
It is, first and foremost, private investors who find this attractive, as it helps to further develop each country' s specialist knowledge of production niches for exporting goods in terms of the requirements of the global market and not of populations.
The commitments made towards developing countries must be honoured.
This is a legitimate expectation of the 2.8 billion people who live on less than USD 2 per day.
Mr President, every time we discuss the issue of the poor countries, out comes the usual catalogue of figures: 800 million people suffering from malnutrition; 40% of the world' s population suffering from malaria; 2 million people contracting aids each year in Africa alone; almost a billion children who cannot read or write; water shortages; health and social problems and so on and so forth.
It has become almost a customary ritual to trundle out these data each time.
However, Mr President, we need to take action.
There is an urgent need for more practical measures from industrialised countries and international financial institutions, not least through more effective cooperation, without duplication or overlapping of effort. That means more careful monitoring of the allocation of development funds.
In other words, we need practical measures implemented with the greatest transparency and with the minimum bureaucracy necessary for the monitoring process.
Of course, the March 2002 International Conference at Monterrey and the Johannesburg world summit to be held subsequently this September will be extremely important in this respect.
Their success would certainly be a clear signal for further, more general acceleration of measures boosting sustainable development.
Key areas for action include mustering local financial resources for development and international resources, including countries in international trading and so on.
The European Union is certainly the main donor but, together with the individual States, it has a key role to play in this respect.
We need closer cooperation with United Nations organisations such as the FAO in order to ensure that the allocation of these funds genuinely serves to improve the levels of nourishment and living conditions of poor peoples.
Mr President, there is no dispute that the European Union is contributing to the war on poverty, but, as we all know, we fall a long way short of our declared objectives.
The removal of poverty, backwardness and ignorance must be first on the list if we are to combat terrorism.
A new world economic order and a new kind of politics are on the agenda - things that were called for by the more than 60 000 participants in the Second World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.
Argentina is a shocking illustration of where neoliberalism will take us.
Those who want to provide really effective development aid should not close their ears to the message from Porto Alegre, but actively involve those democratic forces that are active in that forum, in the brainstorming process and in the implementation of a new politics of development.
Mr President, I have listened very carefully to all of the opinions expressed here by the honourable Members who have spoken in this debate.
Most of the speeches raised issues which the Council, of course, bore very much in mind when it took the decisions necessary to achieve the Monterrey consensus.
Most of the requests that I have heard are also shared by the European Union and the Council, which represents the European Union, and the Commission, which will also represent the European Union at the Monterrey Conference.
Naturally, I would say that it is highly praiseworthy that these opinions should be expressed in this parliamentary forum, which must be the forum for expressing our ambitions and our aspirations.
I would say, however, that Parliament also well understands and I imagine that it is sensitive to the fact that we are immersed in an international negotiation in which it is not simply enough for the European Union to hold and to express its ideas, of which we are proud, but instead to try to conclude an agreement with everyone else.
I have to say that the European Union is in a very special position at this type of conference.
It often finds itself in the middle, between some partners at the same level of development, which very frequently do not share our ideas and are not quite so generous, and developing countries which, naturally, do not agree with us, because they have the right to demand much of us and, often, much more than we can normally give.
I would say that the Monterrey consensus contains all the basic and fundamental elements and, from everything that we have heard today in Parliament, I would say that we have sufficient baggage, both in the Council Presidency and the Commission, to carry on having faith in our ideas.
We already know that there is consensus and that the consensus is very broad, but this does not exclude us from being more ambitious in Monterrey.
I have already listed these ambitions but I wish to repeat them.
The European Union intends to issue a message in defence of its values, which I listed previously: the defence of democracy, of good governance, of strengthening the institutional development of aid-receiving countries, the Rule of Law, peace and security and human rights.
All of these elements that have been mentioned here in the European Parliament are fundamental values of our culture and civilisation and will be the values that guide us in the debates in Monterrey.
In any event, I would say that we have sufficient grounds to feel satisfied, since the Monterrey consensus takes up all of this, perhaps not as far as we would have liked to see, but it does address these issues in a substantial way.
Let us hope that at this meeting, which will be held in March, the European Union, which has a common and single position and counts on the support of Parliament, can go even further with these principles and these objectives that I have expressed and which, as I have seen, enjoy the support of this Parliament.
I should also like to say, in conclusion, that the Community delegation intends to include five Members of the European Parliament and that, therefore, Parliament will be fully integrated in the delegation and will have first hand information.
Naturally, I remain at the disposition of this House and at your disposition, Mr President, to return here after Monterrey and inform you on the outcome of the Conference.
Mr President, it is very important to stick to the view that volume matters when we talk about these problems.
It is also very important to remember that fighting global poverty is not a short-term repair job in the poor countries.
We often hear the view that, since we have been giving development aid to Africa for 25 or 30 years and they are still poor, maybe the whole approach is wrong.
That is a fundamental mistake.
This is not a short-term project.
Any global society with just a minimum of decency has to understand that the transfer of resources from the rich to the poor must be a permanent feature.
That approach alters the focus of the discussion about what is wrong with development cooperation.
In fact, it holds the key to understanding what globalisation means, and it means taking an inclusive approach to viewing the real world.
We had better get used to the idea that a permanent transfer is part of the challenge facing us.
This is not the same as accepting that development cooperation should simply deteriorate into becoming some sort of social gap-filling.
The whole agenda for structural or political reform vis-à-vis governance is absolutely essential to achieving real progress.
But it makes a big difference if seen as something we will have to do for some more years or as part of the future.
The whole attitude of different countries to the idea of sharing in this and of this being inseparable from the world view in general is crucial.
Mrs Dybkjaer and Mrs Boudjenah mentioned the 0.7 % target for the EU.
This is on our agenda for the first time.
It has never really been discussed at EU level before, either between the Commission and the Member States or between Member States themselves.
So we have made it a new area of discussion.
We have established some sort of peer pressure and the response from the series of discussions in capital cities that we carried out before Laeken was in a sense encouraging because all Member States reacted positively to the need to establish some sort of calendar.
In this area decision-making still lies with the Member States - the Commission has acquired no new powers here - but this discussion is now legitimate and we will bring it to the fore as one aspect of our input for the Conference in Monterrey.
This discussion will not end at Monterrey; it is a reflection of how Europe sees itself and the role it should play in the world that we want to move forward in this area.
In response to Mr van den Berg and Mr van den Bos, who both commented on the imbalance between military and development spending and the whole philosophy behind this, I would point to the general view that the cradle of European and Western civilisation was ancient Greece.
Personally, I think it was home to the kind of Europe I want to represent and is the part of Greek history with which I want to identify.
I think and hope that for Europe the cradle was in fact Athens rather than Sparta.
This is my response to what Members said about the balance between the military approach and this more humanistic or morally driven way of defining our role and our philosophy in this world.
This is the baggage we will be taking to Monterrey and this is, philosophically speaking, the message we will deliver there.
I have received six motions for resolutions tabled in accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
Preparations for the March 2002 meeting of the UNCHR in Geneva
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the preparations for the March 2002 meeting of the UNCHR in Geneva.
Mr President, this debate provides the opportunity for an exchange of views prior to the deliberations of the 58th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
The Human Rights Contact Group has already brought together representatives of non-governmental organisations, Members of Parliament, civil servants from the EU institutions and others to discuss key concerns for Geneva.
The broader the input, the more confident the EU can be in the approach which it adopts at the UN Commission.
As ever, when you invite the Commission to these annual debates, it comes at a time when the EU has not definitively decided upon the initiatives which it will take at the UNCHR and their final form will only be determined after negotiations on the ground in Geneva.
Regrettably, there is all too much choice when looking around the world for examples of human rights violations.
That is why the EU must adopt a coherent approach when determining the best way to promote respect for human rights.
Our communication on human rights of last May, and the subsequent conclusions by the General Affairs Council, set out a strategy for such an approach by an EU that would actively engage with the world in the promotion of human rights through, for example, the human rights clause which forms a regular feature of Community agreements and which finds its most advanced expression in the Cotonou Agreement; through the dialogue which we have undertaken to conduct in contacts with all third countries, as reinforced in the guidelines on human rights dialogues which were adopted by the Council last December; through our engagement with NGOs, including the extensive funding for human rights projects channelled through the European initiative for democratisation and human rights and mainstream programmes and through our cooperation with the UN and other organisations.
These factors should be taken into account by those who point to the inevitable element of selectivity in the countries and themes which are the subject of EU initiatives at the UNCHR.
They are not the sum total of the EU' s human rights policy necessarily, just an element of it.
There are several issues which will feature throughout this year' s UN Commission.
First, the highly regrettable failure by the US to secure re-election to the Commission and the participation of several states whose human rights records are - to put it very politely - less than acceptable.
This means that the EU will have to work extra hard to ensure that core human rights values are reflected in the decisions taken.
Second, the fight against terrorism, which has rightly permeated every corner of the political debate since 11 September.
Human rights considerations are involved here at several levels.
We must guard against any muddling of concepts.
The EU maintains the important distinction that states are the perpetrators of human rights violations, whilst terrorists are particularly abhorrent criminals.
And it is right that actions by states - whether at a legislative, judicial or penal level - are subject to international law and proper scrutiny.
In fighting terrorism, we and our allies must uphold the values of respect for international human rights and humanitarian law.
The international community must also be alert to opportunistic attempts by states to justify domestic repression and crackdowns by claiming that they are "fighting terrorism".
Zimbabwe is the most clear example of this.
The fight against racism will also be given due prominence at the 58th session of the UN Commission, and the EU may present a statement on the issue as in previous years.
After a rather bumpy journey from Durban, we now have a solid declaration and programme of action - a welcome development which we must now put to good use.
Combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination against minorities is one of the four priorities under the European initiative for democracy and human rights for the period 2002 to 2004.
EUR 17 million per year have been set aside in order to support NGOs and other organisations in the promotion of rights and awareness-raising as a concrete follow-up to the World Conference.
Finally, a word on two countries of particular interest, both to me and to this Parliament.
First, China.
This is the only country with which the EU has a dedicated human rights dialogue.
The human rights situation in China rightly gives rise to a great deal of concern - from the extensive application of the death penalty to the suppression of religious and cultural rights in Tibet, Xinjiang and elsewhere and restrictions on the freedom of expression as evidenced in the recent measures on the use of the Internet.
In this difficult context, the EU dialogue and seminars - the last of which, in December 2001 brought together European and Chinese experts to discuss the prevention of torture and the right to education - are one conduit for encouragement, cooperation and criticism.
As the General Affairs Council has underscored, progress on the ground is a necessary corollary of the dialogue and that is why we evaluate the dialogue annually.
Second, in Iran, some progress in reform is offset by continuing serious human rights concerns.
The UN Special Representative on Iran highlighted this at the Third Committee last year, referring in particular to the sharp increase in public hangings and floggings.
The EU is engaging with Iran in an effort to secure improvement.
The positive outcome for the EU resolution at the Third Committee shows that the international community shares our concerns.
The acceptance of a visit by the Special Representative would be a further step in the right direction.
The mandate for an EC trade and cooperation agreement is currently under discussion in the Council.
I can assure honourable Members that human rights considerations will play an important part in any future negotiations.
Parliament' s resolutions and debates are a crucial stimulus to the process of preparing for the Commission on Human Rights.
I hope that, if possible, representatives from Parliament will, as in previous years, visit the UNCHR in session and that they will contribute to the wider debate.
In the past few years, Mrs Robinson, the High Commissioner, has tried her level best to turn the UN Human Rights Committee into the public conscience, and she deserves all credit for this, in my opinion.
However, that does not detract from the fact that an increasing number of questions arise surrounding this annual high mass in Geneva.
The human rights organisation summed the situation up as follows: it is the foxes that are having to watch over the chicken' s eggs.
It is indeed suspicious that countries such as Kenya, Sudan, Togo and Congo, which do not have particularly good track records when it comes to respecting human rights, should chair this committee and help determine the standards.
In addition to the composition of the committee, the procedure - notably the system of majority voting - also raises questions.
Governments that are the focus of investigation by NGOs often stick together in order to defend their own common interests, apparently under the motto: if we spare others, we do not run the risk of being condemned ourselves.
That is why I support what Commissioner Nielson said a moment ago.
Now that the US no longer forms part of this Committee, the European Union should take over the helm more than ever before.
Europe must adopt a more assertive and consistent role when defending human rights.
It must support more resolutions, also with regard to large countries, such as China and Russia.
Some European Member States all too easily swallow their principles if economic interests are at stake.
In addition, the Union must insist on the committee' s recommendations actually being followed up.
A great deal of money is being spent on early warning, but the experts' reports on this matter are systematically overlooked.
The credibility of the Human Rights Committee in Geneva, and of human rights policy full stop, is at stake today, and I believe that, in this connection, the European Union bears a very heavy responsibility.
Mr President, I am pleased to say that I have attended the UN Commission on two previous occasions, with both Mr van Van Hecke and Mr Wuori, who are taking part in the debate this afternoon.
The Council said that we boast a long tradition in Europe on human rights, but it must be recognised that sometimes we hesitate in condemning the human rights abuses carried out by our so-called friendly states.
I would urge that we must never hesitate; we must apply the same rules and standards regardless.
Double standards undermine our highest ethics and our aspirations for a world free from human rights abuses.
I agree absolutely with everything the Commission has said.
However, in relation to the Cotonou and Association Agreements, I would say that we must enact the human rights and democracy clauses when human rights abuses occur.
Anything else will be seen as a pitiful endorsement of such abuses.
We cannot, and must not, look the other way, for one day people will look the other way when it happens to us.
The young people and the others who look down on the Chamber today wonder what we talk about.
We talk about a world where we can celebrate difference, where there is no persecution because someone's colour, creed, belief or sexuality is different from another's.
I would just like to finish, regardless of any prepared speech, on what is absolutely essential and vital to remember.
Pastor Niemöller said: "When they came for the communists, I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
When they came for the Jews, I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me - there was no one left to speak out."
We must ensure that we are never hypocritical in the defence of human rights, and 11 September must teach us surely that the same rules must be applied regardless of whether a country is our enemy or our friend.
Mr President, Commissioner, President-in-Office of the Council, the European Parliament has lofty ambitions in terms of human rights.
We have a responsibility, or moral duty, always to pay attention to human rights abuses wherever they occur.
We therefore support the meeting of the UN Commission for Human Rights in Geneva.
It is an important forum for promoting these issues to the global arena.
More and more countries are signing fine declarations and international conventions, but these are often not complied with.
Even though more and more countries are officially democracies, we know that - every second of every day, throughout the world - horrific treatment is meted out to human rights campaigners, campaigners for democracy and a variety of leaders.
This year, the focus is very much upon terrorism and the campaign against terrorism. You too have talked about this, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
These matters are obviously important, but they are extremely closely linked to human rights.
It is a human right not to be affected by terrorism.
Terrorism is also born out of oppression and the lack of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights.
I hope that the meeting in Geneva will be characterised by discussion of these issues.
There is a broad agenda of issues that the EU must tackle in Geneva: violence against women, the situation of children, torture and the death penalty. Declarations are needed in these areas.
A lot of countries give considerable cause for concern.
Allow me to mention three areas.
First of all, China, which holds the very dubious world record for the number of executions carried out there.
Every day, there are reports of torture, the imprisonment of dissidents and the oppression of the people of Tibet, of the Falun Gong movement and of all those who are fighting for democracy.
Year after year, we appeal for a resolution on China.
Every year the same thing happens, namely that there is no such resolution.
Let there be a resolution this year.
Secondly, Zimbabwe.
Every day, we can observe the vicious spiral of murder and persecution through which this country is sinking ever more deeply and completely into the abyss.
We must show that our patience is at an end.
Finally, Tunisia.
Somewhat away from the main headlines, extremely serious human rights abuses occur there too.
Mr President, the working environment of the UN Commission on Human Rights has been described as a sea of sorrows that knows no shores.
While we are now once again steering our EU vessel into these waters we must avoid the sort of recklessness Odysseus showed when he sailed past the Pillars of Hercules out to the open sea.
Although the EU has no coherent policy or strategy on human rights, with certain exceptions such as torture and the death penalty - in other words it lacks the assurance afforded by a compass and the firm guidance offered by nautical charts - we must steer our course at least with the help of bright stars and reference points.
The United States having failed to join the Commission last year, the EU is now the flagship of the Western European Group in Geneva.
For that reason it is especially important that the Union should have an integrated policy based on clear geographical and thematic priorities, which does not grope about in the dark so much as it once did.
President Cox last stressed the major significance of human rights in the EU and the work of this Parliament this morning.
This should not be allowed to become just a rhetorical commitment.
Undisturbed by commercial considerations and the songs of other such sirens, the EU must be able to allow its celebratory commitments to become a practical reality, and adopt an active position on difficult questions, such as China' s human rights violations with particular reference to the situation in Mongolia and in Tibet, or Russia' s behaviour, especially in Chechnya.
In this connection neither can we allow the fight against terrorism in any way to jeopardise human rights and the principle of the Rule of Law, or tolerate their abuse as just an excuse for perhaps otherwise questionable intervention.
Mr President, tomorrow, Parliament is to adopt an excellent decision, proposed by several groups, Article 8 of which mentions a number of countries.
However, there are of course countries not mentioned here, and I would call for these not to be forgotten at this meeting.
I would also especially call upon the Council not to forget Turkey, which still holds political prisoners in solitary confinement, when combating torture is discussed.
I would urge that the prisoners in Camp X-Ray, who are being held there in defiance of the Geneva Convention, should not be forgotten.
I would also urge that, when political and social rights are discussed, there should be no forgetting Turkey again, which is now in the process of banning the HADEP party because it is close to winning the minimum 10% of the votes it needs to be represented in the Turkish Parliament.
I would also again call for the United States and China to be remembered when the death penalty is discussed and for its not to be overlooked that the United States has still not approved the International Criminal Court by ratifying the Statute of Rome.
I would also say to the Commission that I very much approve of these agreements which we draw up in relation to third countries and which have human rights clauses attached.
I just do not understand why observance of the agreements is not rather more strictly enforced, and I am thinking particularly in this context of Israel which has an agreement with the EU that is quite clearly not observed.
I do not understand why such breaches have no repercussions and why the agreement is not cancelled immediately.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in spite of the wonderful speech that Mr de Miguel has given, I believe that we can safely bet that the Council and the European Union will this year adopt, as they did last year and the year before that in Geneva, a scandalous, shameful, cowardly position, which, unfortunately, will not be the one that Parliament defends.
I think that we can be absolutely sure, that we can bet one hundred to one, that there will be no resolution on China, no resolution on Tibet, that there will be no support given to the European Union for resolutions on the situation of women in Saudi Arabia, that there will be no resolution or support from the Union for a resolution on Tunisia.
There will not be anything - like last year, although it is true that, last year, the European Union even came to an arrangement so that it would not have the United States to deal with this year.
I shall not even mention Chechnya.
Commissioner Nielson is still trying to find Chechnya on the world map.
Even within Parliament, Mr Oostlander and his accomplice, Mr Sakellariou - but this will not come a surprise to anyone - have even sabotaged an initiative to organise a meeting between two negotiators, one Chechen and one Russian.
This is how the situation of human rights really stands.
I do not think that we can turn a blind eye to this.
Mr President, in spite of Mr Dupuis' gloomy forecast, the UN Commission on Human Rights conference in Geneva is a new opportunity to make progress on ensuring that human rights are respected, promoted and safeguarded.
We have known for quite a while now that suffering, poverty, human rights violations, persecution on the grounds of sex, sexual orientation, religion, culture or race are global phenomena.
Millions of human beings have to suffer these affronts every single day.
11 September reminded us that the breakdown of security is also a global phenomenon.
This latest conference in Geneva, the first since that fateful day, should not, therefore, cause us to lose sight of our aims.
We have to continue working to defend citizens' rights: the right to life, to democracy, to breathe clean air and to live in an environment in which economic and social rights are respected as an inseparable element of human rights.
We must not forget that the balance between security and freedom is not only a demand that is coherent with our shared history, but that it is the only thing that can guarantee stability and, therefore, democracy.
Europe must play a leading role in this conference.
We have to be capable of defending a common position.
Now, more than ever before, human rights must effectively be the backbone of EU policy.
If we want to achieve this goal we need to have more political ambition and a single, forceful and radical voice against those who violate human rights.
A voice that will be heard in Geneva and which makes us proud to be European.
I know that this seems to be a Utopian vision, and appears difficult to achieve, and it is, but, as Guy Verhofstadt reminded us when he took office as President-in-Office of the Council under the Belgian Presidency: 'he who does not believe in Utopia does not deserve to be called European' .
Mr President, the United Nations Conference opens a week after the presidential elections in Zimbabwe.
By then hand-wringing resolutions deploring human rights abuses by a re-elected Mugabe government would be no more meaningful than were the protests of the then League of Nations following Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia.
The European Union has issued deadlines and ultimata.
We must now gather support from the international community for those measures.
We should thank President Mbeki and other African leaders for their work behind the scenes, but now is the time for them to speak out publicly and firmly against Mugabe's oppressive regime.
We must make sure that the conditions of our ultimata are met in full.
We must be sure that Mugabe will allow an EU team to observe the election process and the EU must be allowed to choose the make-up of that team, which should include British Members.
Our observers must be free to move where they wish and free to report back.
A genuine free press must be restored and recent media laws must be repealed.
Above all, the murder, maiming and intimidation of political opponents must stop now.
It is time for the world to judge Mugabe by his actions, not by his promises.
By the same token, the world will judge the EU by its effectiveness, not by its rhetoric.
Mr President, I have listened very carefully to the honourable Members' speeches, and, in my opinion, the wide variety of concerns that have been expressed here today clearly shows the complexity of the extraordinary task that is facing us in coordinating the European Union' s action in the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first to recognise that the Human Rights Commission, being an international body in which compromises have to be made, is not exactly a forum in which the European Union can impose its principles and criteria; we have to reach agreement with others in order to pass effective resolutions, because we do not have a large enough majority to get approval for resolutions on all points, particularly on those we want approved.
Although I recognise that many of the resolutions made by the Human Rights Commission leave much to be desired, I do not totally agree with Mr Dupuis' chaotic and pessimistic view; I share, instead, the optimistic, positive, idealistic and utopian vision that Mrs Rosa Díez is encouraging the Council to pursue in the defence of these values, which are our own and which Parliament advocates on a daily basis.
Many issues have been mentioned, all of them extremely problematic: China, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and Turkey.
All of these issues are on the agenda.
We deal with them every day and significant progress has, of course, been made over the last few years.
Without a doubt, the Human Rights Commission gets results every year, even though these may not be as far-reaching as our own ambitions and aspirations.
However, there can be no doubt that the European Union should always be inspired by the desire to keep alive the flame of the fight for its basic principles and the defence of these, which I described in my opening speech.
The Council feels encouraged and supported by Parliament in knowing that this is the true home of the desire to uphold these principles which are inseparable from our project, the European project.
I would just like to make one specific comment to Mr Stockton with regard to Zimbabwe.
Naturally, what takes place in the Human Rights Commission is important for Zimbabwe, but I would like to remind you that the General Affairs Council took decisions last Monday, which we are going to implement in Zimbabwe, to declare, through our actions and not through our words or aspirations, our policy, which has Parliament' s full support and which has been decided unanimously by the Council of Ministers of the European Union, as regards not permitting or tolerating the anti-democratic behaviour of Mr Mugabe' s government.
And, consequently, all of the measures agreed upon by the Council will be implemented jointly by the Council and the Commission.
I assure you, Mr President, that the Council is fully committed to the defence of the values and principles that are inherent to our culture, civilisation and to the Community acquis.
The European Union and all of its countries that have a place on the Human Rights Commission are the bastion, the vanguard of the defence of these rights.
This is our interpretation.
I would only ask Parliament to give us the necessary room for manoeuvre and confidence to defend these interests, which are our own, those of our culture and civilisation, and to do so as forcefully as possible, so that this can be made a reality in international society, which is, of course, very complex and which, unfortunately, the European Union cannot manage completely on its own.
It goes without saying that our contribution and our determination will never falter.
I can agree with practically everything that has been said in this debate.
Moving forward on the human rights agenda is basically no different from any other activity in international politics.
This has to be understood.
What can be done in a given situation in a given case is part of the broader political progress or lack of progress made at any given time.
The reality is that we do not have a separate entity in international society in which we can discuss human rights only on their own merit.
Politics never goes away.
It is always part of this discussion, especially when we talk about it internationally.
For that reason we have to equip ourselves with something one might call robust pragmatism in order to be strong enough to stay on course and pragmatic enough to know whether or not we can make headway in a given case.
As for Zimbabwe, I can inform Parliament that we are now positioning the first electoral observers.
We already have people in Harare who are being groomed to act as electoral observers.
We will thus have ten to fifteen people who will form the long-term team of observers.
I am also pleased to inform Parliament that Mr Pierre Schori will head the observation team for Europe during the election in Zimbabwe.
We should not take it for granted that we will be able to carry out effective electoral observation.
We are giving priority to positioning ourselves so that we can do this as well as possible and with as broad a representation as possible from Europe in our team as a whole.
But the main priority is to actually do our work and not be marginalised by some tactical or political manoeuvre.
Without this observation work the basis for us to give a final judgment will not be satisfactory.
Nothing about Zimbabwe is easy.
I am not in a position to express optimism or pessimism, but so far we are doing our utmost to ensure that we will be there with an effective team to observe the elections next month.
I have received six motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure:
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Relations between the EP and national parliaments
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0023/2002) by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on relations between the European Parliament and the national parliaments in European integration (2001/2023(INI))
Mr President, the forthcoming Convention will only fulfil its mandate if it provides convincing responses on a key point: how to guarantee the democratic legitimacy of the process of European integration.
This is the starting point for the report which has been adopted by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and is now before the plenary.
We are, of course, all aware that the Convention has to redefine the Union' s missions, its role on the world stage, in global development and in working for peace, its growth and cohesion policies and its policy of security in freedom and justice.
However, it would be a mistake to dismiss all the rest as pure institutional technicalities, as abstract exercises in institutional engineering of no interest whatsoever to the citizens.
One reason why the European cause has lost the citizens' support is because the difficulty of influencing or even understanding the Union' s decisions makes them feel removed from too many of them.
To regain support, it is vital to make it absolutely clear who is taking the decisions in the Union, how the decisions can be made transparent and comprehensible and how they can be monitored, and by which institutions the citizens can be effectively represented in Europe.
All these points are questions precisely of democracy, indeed they are questions which are crucial to democracy.
The role of the parliamentary institution with regard to these issues is vital, although not decisive in itself.
We must therefore take a firm decision to strengthen the role of the parliamentary institution in the Union' s structure, to further parliamentarise the Union, supplementing the progress achieved during the 90s.
Parliamentarisation must occur in two areas: the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
Both contribute equally to the democratic legitimisation of the European Union as a Union of citizens and peoples rather than just States.
To spell it out, if, as the European Parliament, we have been guilty of a certain exclusivism, we must change our attitude.
We need to eliminate any mutual mistrust between the European Parliament and national parliaments; we need to understand the concerns of national parliaments and propose appropriate solutions.
The report I am presenting to you sets forth three paths for action: Firstly, national parliaments should have greater guidance and supervisory powers over their respective governments and should be able to exercise these powers effectively. Secondly, there needs to be increasingly close, systematic cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments, including through interparliamentary agreements signed by the respective leaders.
This is an innovative idea whose development I entrust chiefly to the initiative of the President of the European Parliament. Thirdly, both national and European Members of Parliament should be endowed with a constituent power, to be shared with the governments and the Commission - as in the Convention, which is about to start work - to work on revising the Treaties with a view, we can now say, to producing a genuine European Constitution.
These are the appropriate solutions to pursue, not those which would lead to confusion of the roles of the European Parliament and national parliaments and add to the unwieldiness of the Union' s institutional structure and decision-making mechanisms.
In particular, as a House of Lords report has regretfully shown, a second Chamber made up of members of national parliaments 'would be an unreal solution to some real problems' .
It is my firm hope that the spirit of this report will be properly interpreted and welcomed and that, with your support, the Convention will have the benefit of our contribution.
Mr President, as Mr Napolitano pointed out, the issue of relations between national parliaments and the European Parliament is one of the key issues on the agenda of the Convention that is about to begin its work.
Hence the timeliness of the debate on this report tabled by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which includes the opinion of the Committee on External Affairs for which I had the honour of drafting its opinion.
In my personal view, Mr Napolitano' s report has many merits, and on this I congratulate him, but it also advocates some options that can be criticised from a political point of view.
In the capacity in which I am speaking today, however, I must limit myself to listing the objectives pursued in the opinion delivered by my Committee, which have been partially echoed in the motions for resolutions we are now discussing, specifically in Nos 13, 14 and 15.
With regard to external policy and common security, including defence, which, as is well known, remains essentially in the intergovernmental sphere, listing the issues is relatively simple: on the one hand, the European Parliament currently performs its supervisory role by means of the right to be informed and the right to be consulted conferred on it by Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union and by means of its budgetary powers to approve operational expenditure on civilian crisis management and on associated administrative tasks; on the other, national parliaments do not enjoy genuine participation in the drafting of such policy, although they do have decisive powers over the military expenditure of their respective countries, which then have a major influence on the operational resources made available to the CFSP.
The provisions of Title V of the Treaty on European Union require the Member States to observe the principles of coordination and mutual solidarity when defining and implementing the CFSP, so this democratic and parliamentary deficit must be corrected.
Because of its significance and importance, I would highlight the proposal for a Parliamentary Conference on the CFSP to be held on a regular basis, to be convened jointly by the parliament of the Member State holding the presidency and by the European Parliament, in which Members of the European Parliament and of the national parliaments would participate, with the specific intention of improving the essential exchange of information in this field.
Within the current institutional framework, this conference would enable the various Parliaments to undertake their work more effectively in accordance with their respective competences.
What is more, however, with this proposal we are also giving form to the principle that both the European Parliament and the national parliaments represent the peoples of the European Union, since both are directly elected by the citizens and both provide full guarantees of the exercise of democracy.
Mr President, I should like to say, as draftsperson of an opinion, what a very great pleasure it has been to work alongside such a distinguished parliamentarian as Mr Napolitano, the author of this excellent report.
There are few differences between the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and his report.
In particular we want to endorse firmly the point in his conclusion that the so-called second chamber of the European legislature would be an unworkable third chamber and we are very glad that the suggestion has been so carefully refuted from inside one of the countries from which it emerged, namely the United Kingdom.
On the report itself, the recommendations of the Committee on Legal Affairs were largely adopted by the rapporteur in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
Our paragraph 1, dealing with collaboration among the parliaments of the Union, is well covered in his paragraph 10; our paragraph 2, on the importance of participation of representatives of the European Parliament and national parliaments in the future Convention, has been adopted by Mr Napolitano.
This is very important because it speaks of the need for vigorous debate in the Convention to see whether we can produce a consensus.
Some rumours emanating from the direction of Mr Giscard d'Estaing suggest that his idea is that there need not be a debate because all will be clear from the presidency.
If that is so, we must disabuse him of that notion.
This has to be a Convention that will debate.
In paragraph 4, that reappears as paragraph 12 in the Napolitano report.
Finally, the one point of difference between the Committee on Legal Affairs and Mr Napolitano was whether there ought to be articulate and express mention of the role of regional parliaments with legislative power in this report.
I think strongly there ought to be.
The Committee on Legal Affairs voted for it clearly and my own group has tabled some amendments.
Mr Napolitano said to me privately that he thinks this could be taken up on a different occasion through the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
If he were able to make an assurance to that effect tomorrow, it might be possible for us to reconsider things.
I shall speak to him privately about that.
It would be good if we could go forward with maximum agreement.
I ask, in the mean time, that Parliament concentrate on this paragraph 3 and the parallel amendments tabled by myself and colleagues.
Mr President, as colleagues know, today across Europe there is popular discontent with regard to Europe's apparent disconnection from ordinary life.
The European political process is widely seen as an elite preoccupation of little or no relevance to many outside the political classes.
Quite rightly concern about this crosses national boundaries and the ideological divide.
It is a wish to try to remedy this discontent that lies behind Mr Napolitano's report, which we in the PPE-DE Group support.
There have been a number of responses to this unhappy and unacceptable state of affairs, one of which included the suggestion of establishing a second European parliamentary chamber comprising national parliamentarians.
The conclusions of this report, as the rapporteur has already mentioned, echo a recently published report from the House of Lords in my own country.
They recognise the important role of national parliaments, but reject the argument for a further second chamber.
Rather than further encumbering the European political process, this report recognises that it is for the European Parliament in its sphere, and national parliaments in theirs, in accordance with their own national traditions, to scrutinise their own governments' conduct of European business and activities in the Council of Ministers.
Consensus has rightly emerged that an important component of the way to reconnect Europe with national political life, and through that with European citizens, is through an alliance between the European Parliament and national parliaments and national politics, which at present seem to give insufficient weight to thorough and comprehensive scrutiny of European matters.
In this report Mr Napolitano, as befits the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and rapporteur, has most skilfully woven together an approach to improving relations between the European Parliament and national parliaments and to strengthening cooperation between them.
The pedantic constitutional purist from any one Member State might cavil at some of the detail, but this report provides a template for action which cannot be carried out by any single parliament.
Changes must take place in a wider framework of change and democratic openness on all sides.
If political and democratic openness and acceptability matter - and no political group in this House believes in them more than we in the PPE-DE Group do - the Napolitano report represents an important starting point.
But we must not complacently rest on our laurels now.
This report represents words; we must now see action.
Change, in line with the thrust of the report's conclusions and catalysed by the Laeken Convention as the rapporteur himself pointed out, is needed to start to remedy these democratic deficiencies in the European political system which, if left unattended, could be so damaging.
Mr President, Commissioner, judging by the results of the latest Eurobarometer, the people of Europe have more trust in their police force than in their parliaments.
This is an alarming sign, which should compel the people' s elected representatives to work together to eliminate the reasons for this. The legitimacy of democratic regimes is at stake.
It is up to the MPs of each Member State to reduce the democratic deficits that are appearing at national level, and which also exist at this level.
In the report before us today, MEPs are being called on to examine how the role played by the national parliaments in European integration could be strengthened.
Not to the detriment of the role of the European Parliament, but to complement it.
Mr Napolitano, the rapporteur, is proposing a number of specific measures which have been approved by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and which could, in my view, easily receive the unanimous approval of the Convention.
Mr Napolitano quite rightly calls for the powers of the national parliament vis-à-vis their respective governments to be strengthened, prior to decisions being taken in the Council.
In some of our Member States, the procedure of influencing decisions is well organised.
In other States, it does not even exist in embryonic form.
To put it simply, the national parliaments let their government get on with things and complain afterwards.
The rapporteur, quite rightly, also rules out the idea of a second or even a third legislative chamber. A new institution such as this falls at the stumbling block posed by the question 'why set up a new institution?'
If we 'institutionalise' the Convention with the participation of the national parliaments, this is another way of exerting a much-needed influence at the preparatory stage of the extensive reforms.
It is clear that the method advocated by the European Parliament must henceforth be used to reform the Treaty and it could even go beyond constitutional matters.
For example, why not call a convention to prepare the next European Union multi-annual financial programme? If this financial envelope must incorporate a new specific resource in the form of a European tax, I think it is essential that the representatives of the national parliaments deliberate it from the outset.
Mr President, the essential message of this splendid report, which the Liberal Group strongly supports, the central message really is that national parliaments could, and should, contribute more to the political system of the European Union.
But they ought to focus on what they do best and not tread upon the prerogatives of the European Parliament.
What national parliaments must improve on doing is to scrutinise and check the executive power of the Council.
What they do worst is to second-guess the legislative powers of the European Parliament.
That is why we firmly reject the British proposals to insert a third legislative chamber composed of national MPs, whose function would be "to police subsidiarity".
Such a national cuckoo inside the federal nest would shatter the codecision procedure, which is the key formula in the Union's own march towards becoming a mature post-national parliamentary democracy.
Such a chamber would be stuffed with dutiful poodles of the Council, making a mockery of parliamentary involvement in European affairs at the national level.
I trust the British government will listen to the debate on this question in the Convention and then withdraw its dangerous and obscurantist proposal.
Mr President, the role of the national parliaments is admittedly laid down in the Treaties, but the democratic deficit, which is essentially a failure to monitor the relevant national government, has got greater as European integration has moved forward.
Deficient monitoring facilities and the governments' failure to supply appropriate briefings often make it impossible for the national parliaments to perform their function.
This development must be brought to a halt, and the authority of national parliaments to keep tabs on their governments must be reinforced.
That is why I particularly support the statements in item 1 of the report.
Improved cooperation between the national parliaments and our own is indeed necessary, especially in areas such as policy on the EU, which are founded on collaboration between one State and another.
There is one statement in the report which I, as a member of the Constitutional Convention, would like to emphatically underline, and that is item 17.
Proposals such as that made by the German Foreign Minister get no support from me.
The problem is the preponderance of the executive.
We need the European Union to be made, in a far-reaching way, more democratic and parliamentary, we need definite constitutional reinforcement of the existing parliaments, but we do not need another chamber.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I and my delegation feel that it was a wise decision to entrust the drafting of this report to Mr Napolitano. In the concern at the imbalance between the powers conferred on the executive institutions and the scope afforded to the parliaments as a whole, he has found a key factor on which to base his report.
In effect, Mr President, the European Parliament has been expressing its concern for years. Mr Napolitano' s report proposes an initial, effective solution which is perfectly in line and in harmony with the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The second key element of the report concerns the matter I had occasion to highlight months ago to the Italian Ambassador himself, even before anyone else, for it is primarily an Italian issue: the incompatibility between holding the office of Member of the European Parliament, on the one hand, and that of member of a national parliament, regional councillor or - I would add sotto voce, calling on Mr Napolitano to take note of the fact - mayor of a big city, on the other.
Moreover, if the European Parliament is to regain its political role, there will have to be an increase not only in the quality of the debates but also in MEPs' attendance in Brussels and Strasbourg.
The third element which I have to mention is the report' s wise, categorical refusal of a Chamber composed of representatives of national parliaments, thus avoiding making the decision-making process more unwieldy and, most importantly, preserving the distinction between the competences of national and European parliaments.
Our goal is therefore an institutional agreement, and we hope that President Cox will respond to Mr Napolitano' s call to initiate it.
We are moving towards a process of strengthening the institutional role of the parliaments, which are elected to play a political and governing role, rejecting any decidedly antiquated element of concentration of executive power in the hands of institutions which are not at all legitimised by the people' s vote.
I would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Napolitano for his excellent, brilliant work.
Mr President, Commissioner, since the outset, Europe - well, what we call Europe in actual fact means the quasi-State, which passes legislation in Brussels and occasionally in Strasbourg, which hands down justice in Luxembourg and which produces currency in Frankfurt - is desperately seeking some legitimacy, a lack of which means its existence is in question.
The best evidence of this lack of legitimacy is that the people of Europe, when they are consulted, send this Europe back to the drawing board, as the people of Denmark and Ireland forcefully, and on successive occasions, did not long ago.
The report by Chairman Napolitano, whom I would like thank, seeks the answer to this existential question that we occasionally deliberate (and that we could term 'democratic remorse' ) in a sort of hybrid parliamentarisation, a risky experiment where the national parliaments and the European Parliament bargain between them in a sort of democratic no man' s land that is both vague and opaque.
Mr President, Commissioner, legitimacy can only be conferred by the people themselves, when they are directly consulted, and cannot descend in the manner of the Holy Spirit out of such a distinguished Areopagus as our future Convention and, even more so, its praesidium, the most recent embodiment of what used to be called out-and-out despotism.
European integration must involve the people and not the institutions. If it fails to do so, what we are continuing to call Europe will remain an increasingly foreign abstraction to Europeans, as the latest Eurobarometer has just demonstrated in a compelling manner.
Mr President, the Napolitano report on relations between the European Parliament and the national parliaments is based on the fair observation that there is a serious imbalance in the European Union between the executive bodies that have extensive jurisdiction and a parliamentary power that is still too weak.
The report concludes, again quite rightly, that there is a risk of a growing democratic deficit.
What can we do, therefore, to correct this deficit? Although Mr Napolitano has shown some openness in relation to the traditional positions of the European Parliament, I do not think that his report has yet reached the correct balance in its demands for the extension of the powers of the House, and that it confines the national parliaments to an indirect and, in most cases, illusory role, by placing everything under the vague term of 'parliamentarisation' .
In our view, this lack of balance is a result of an omission.
The report does not mention that the European Parliament is merely an assembly with implementing powers and that the national parliaments alone have full sovereignty.
On a more serious note, it does not mention that this legal inequality is increased two-fold by unequal political legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens.
We cannot undertake any worthwhile reforms in the European Union if we hide from such huge realities.
That is why I added a minority opinion to the Napolitano report in order to explain that there will not be any true democratisation of the Union unless we reassess the value of the national parliaments, and unless they acquire direct power in the European decision-making process.
I described how this could be done in a report submitted to the Intergroup SOS Democracy, which will be assessed at the next Convention.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Napolitano on his report, which has been deservedly praised today, and to which my group has not tabled radical amendments, just a few for the sake of fine tuning.
This report starts by making it very clear that the European Parliament and the national parliaments, in their own contexts, fully represent the peoples of the European Union who are, Mr Berthu, sovereign peoples, as stated, amongst other things, in their constitutions for more than a century.
In this regard, I would like to thank Mr Napolitano for accepting my amendment, with which I wanted to highlight this extreme situation, which is almost always invoked by those who want to strengthen a particular institution at the expense of others.
At the end of the day, this approach is, frankly, ridiculous.
European citizens need a European Parliament, in the same way that they need their national parliaments, and the relationship between these should not be based on rivalry but on cooperation.
The report not only reaffirms the need for this cooperation, but also, in my opinion, very realistically calls for it to be organised through an interparliamentary agreement in order to make better use of resources.
It deals with improving the exchange of information and avoiding overlapping between various activities for cooperation.
It also recognises the competences of the national parliaments, not only with regard to the governments of the Member States, but in the application of Community Law.
It shows that these powers are much greater than those which are often known or spoken about.
If the national parliaments do not want to exercise these powers, that is their own business.
Mr President, the national parliaments and the European Parliament have to cooperate, not compete with one other.
Mr Napolitano' s report, as we would say in Spain, 'gets things straight' .
From the point of view of cordiality and solidarity with the national parliaments it makes things very clear and lends support to deep, solid and substantial cooperation.
Let us support it with our vote.
Mr President, Commissioner, the fact that the European institutions are democratic does not just strengthen our Europe of principles; with the prospect of enlargement, it is the sine qua non for its very existence.
If the gap between the institutions and our citizens gets any wider, the time will come, sooner rather than later, when they turn their backs on us.
The role of the national parliaments is predicated on the philosophy that the European Union is a union of states and a union of nations.
As a union of nations, it expresses itself through the European Parliament and, as a union of states, it expresses itself through the national executives, which in turn rely on the trust placed in them by their national parliaments.
A strong European Parliament and strong national parliaments.
The involvement of the national parliaments in the decisions taken by the Council of Ministers must be visible, subject to control and sanctioned by the national parliaments.
It is the national parliaments which will keep their citizens in touch with developments in the European Union and make them feel that they are European citizens.
What all this means is that we urgently need national constitutional reforms, as Giorgio Napolitano explains in his exceptional report, so that the Member States' European policy can be constantly baptised in the waters of the national parliaments.
This in turn means that we need new mechanisms for information to flow from the Union to the national parliaments and to ensure that, institutionally, they are up to scratch.
The high profile of the national parliaments at the Convention convened to prepare the next round of Treaty reforms is, I think, of historic importance.
And even if the proposals made by the Convention will not be legally binding on the next Intergovernmental Conference, its democratic credentials will be such that they will be hard to ignore.
However, what we do not need is for the national parliaments to be represented in a new European institution which gets bogged down in what is, whichever way you look at it, a lot of European red tape.
Upgrading the role of the national parliaments in giving credence to European decisions will strengthen the procedure in question; at the same time, however, it honours the role of the nation states as the legal and cultural expression of their people in this exciting unifying structure.
Once again, my warmest thanks to Giorgio Napolitano for his excellent report.
Mr President, I too should like to add to the list of congratulations issued to the chairman of the committee, who is therefore also the rapporteur for this report.
A good report has been drawn up, providing a sound basis partly for continued dialogue with the national parliaments but also for an influential role for the committee in cooperating with the Convention. That is because there will be a real need for everyone of first-rate ability, whether they be in the European Parliament' s delegation to the Convention or on the committee.
I therefore very much hope that this can continue.
These are, of course, years in which we are, in actual fact, involved in an incredibly exciting project aimed at developing an international democracy that is also supported by the people for, despite our having been cooperating for 50 years, we have of course to acknowledge, firstly, that we are only at the development phase and, secondly, that we still do not have full support and understanding for the project.
This is, of course, something that we have experienced many times in Denmark, where it has been difficult to obtain people' s acceptance of new treaties, and it has now also been experienced in Ireland.
I believe that the referendums are merely symptomatic of what is happening in Europe as a whole, and that is what we must take seriously.
We should not perhaps attach too much importance to what has happened in those two countries.
It is up to the national authorities to be serious in their response, but I believe we must acknowledge that what is at issue here is more than just isolated Danish/Irish scepticism.
There is nothing strange about the fact that acceptance is difficult to obtain, for we have been accustomed to using the national parliaments as the basis for our democracy, and now we suddenly have to demonstrate that there is nothing to stop our having both the national democracies and an international democracy and, above all, that they can operate in tandem.
That is what the challenge is and, in a certain sense, I think we can tell ourselves that we have perhaps been ahead of our time.
If we did not have the EU that we know today, we should have had to prepare something as a response to the global challenge.
In reality, it might have been simpler if we had started from scratch, but I now think we must proceed on the basis we already have.
It is true, Mr President, that involving the national parliaments in the European structure does not imply new institutions, it implies increasing their powers of control and information vis-à-vis their own people.
As you know, honourable members, there is to be a Convention, the involvement of the national parliaments in which is of historic importance.
But that is not enough.
They need clear guidelines on the issues which the Convention will address and which are tantamount to drafting a European constitution.
In-depth debates are needed, either in plenary or in special parliamentary committees, so that delegates come here to state not just their own personal opinions but the more general line of thinking of their parliaments.
This is something I have yet to see in the parliaments of the Member States of the European Union, in Greece at least.
If those responsible for national parliamentary work are not interested in organising this sort of debate, I fear that our debate here will be of limited interest.
Mr President, among the four Post-Nice topics, I consider the role of the national parliaments particularly important because it can prepare a way into the hearts of Europe's citizens.
When important speeches are made to this House - even when they are made to better-attended sittings than this one - I often regret the fact that they do not evoke the interest they deserve on the part of the public, and that we tend to be talking to each other.
What matters, though, is that we should evoke this interest, and, moreover, give the EU democratic legitimacy.
We will only succeed in this, though, if we can get the public to understand that what is happening in Europe is not just any old thing, but that their future is affected, in real terms, by whether those to whom they have given a mandate can share in decisions about the future and whether their national parliaments can resist it when the EU oversteps the bounds of its competence.
This report could play an essential part in bringing this about.
Let me congratulate the rapporteur and, therefore, express my support for him.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to congratulate Mr Napolitano on his report.
The issue of relations between the national Parliaments and the European Parliament is one of the central issues of the European debate and will be one of the key aspects of the work of the Convention and it is absolutely crucial that, apart from any delays that might occur and the normal diversity of opinions, this House addresses the issue calmly and intelligently.
There is no point in sweeping the difficulties arising from the construction of a democratic Europe under the carpet, especially at an historic moment when, even at national level, it is crucial to reinvent and strengthen representative democracy.
At this stage on the path we have been following together for many years and which we wish to continue to follow with equal commitment on many others, we have an obligation to understand, not to shirk and to claim a special responsibility that comes from the fact that we, the members of the national and European parliaments, are the representatives elected directly by the citizens.
It is, therefore, crucial that we move towards the national Parliaments and the European Parliament having greater participation and control, both in drafting legislative decisions and in establishing the political guidelines of the European Union.
As this report clearly acknowledges, none of these parliamentary institutions has exclusive rights to represent Europe' s citizens.
And hence the need for greater cooperation from the institutions, in an organised and if possible involved way, whilst due respect is given to their autonomy and their specific responsibilities.
In order to achieve this, we do not need to complicate the decision-making process, to impose competences or to continue to foster suspicion.
We are simply asking each of the institutions to play their own role better and better.
We also hope to see greater involvement by the national Parliaments in the political and legislative process of the European Union, and we are, therefore, committed to helping establish conditions for the effective national monitoring of each government in their capacity as a Member of the Council of the Union.
To conclude, the assessment and the ways forward indicated in this report offer good prospects for the joint work that we will be undertaking in the Convention being able to make this new Europe more democratic, easier to understand and closer to all European citizens.
Mr President, our new President, Pat Cox, has called on us to show understanding for each other in debate if possible.
I will try to do so even though I only have one and a half minutes.
Mr Voggenhuber spoke about how the issue of the national parliaments was brought into play again and again, and I think one must add in the factor that there is of course understandable jealousy and frustration in the national parliaments, which leads to those who come to us joining in an artificial protest.
A clear delimitation of competences would help there.
The Convention is also urged to ensure that the parliamentarians are not played off against each other, but that in what is done they should follow the lead we have consistently given.
To Mr Abitbol, who is constantly lamenting the democratic deficit in the EU, I would like to say that there the argument is being turned around precisely the wrong way.
The fact that we have this democratic deficit does not mean that we have to bring the national aspect more into play, but that we need all the things we are demanding in this House, such as more democratic institutions, or else we will come to utterly false conclusions and hand Europe's citizens over to precisely those things that the European democracies and the people who care about diversity do not want, that is, being ruled unilaterally by powers subject to no control, in this instance economic forces.
My final point is that that it is remarkable that the chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has not entered any objection to item 17 of the report.
That shows that there is something we agree on.
But the amendments tabled by the Greens, which one feels are about regional institutions as much as national parliaments, merit your consideration and, in my view, your vote as well.
Mr President, Mr Napolitano has written a sound report on one of the most sensitive themes of the forthcoming Convention, namely the relationship between the European Parliament and national parliaments.
This topic is sensitive because national parliaments increasingly have the impression that competences are being taken away from them and given to the European Parliament.
And if we are being honest, that is true to a certain extent.
Since the transfer of a number of tasks of the Member States to the European Union, especially in the last ten to twenty years, and since the introduction of the codecision procedure - in other words since co-legislative powers were granted to Parliament - competences have indeed been transferred.
However, this does not mean that national parliaments no longer have any important tasks to fulfil.
Paragraph 1 of the resolution is explicit on this score.
National parliaments must guide their Ministers in the Council.
In addition, they must check up on their Ministers when they leave the Council, they must ensure that the European directives and regulations are implemented correctly, and they must also ensure that European programmes are executed correctly, both in terms of content and in terms of finance.
If this is not done properly - as we see it is not in my country in the European Social Fund, inter alia - the European Commission will be claiming back hundreds of millions of guilders.
In that case, national parliaments have not carried out their work properly either.
In my opinion, the distribution of the competences between national parliaments and the European Parliament should not become the most important point of discussion in the Convention.
As Mrs Schleicher has already indicated, particular attention must be paid to the points on which national parliaments have lost competences which have not been passed on to the European Parliament.
After all, that is where the democratic loophole is, and this is where we should mainly focus our activities in the Convention.
We must check this very carefully, and we must ensure once again that these competences are returned either to national parliaments or to the European Parliament. Indeed, this translates, in my view, into the parliamentarisation and democratisation of the European Union, rather than to a situation in which matters which really belong with the parliaments are left to the Council.
Mr President, Mr Napolitano has hit the nail on the head on this issue.
Competence in the legislative and budgetary fields, and in the area of national control, belongs to national parliaments.
In the supranational context, these competences can only be exercised by a supranational parliament, whatever structure the Convention or the next Intergovernmental Conference may give to this body.
Mr Napolitano has emphasised the importance of maintaining this difference in powers, and most importantly has underlined the real danger of certain powers bypassing the competence of the national parliaments, in the field of foreign affairs and within the third pillar, for example, which should not be entrusted to a supranational Parliament.
There is another, much more subtle, way of eroding parliamentary power, which we are now considering, the so-called open method of coordination that is commitology, which is used, for example, in the Lamfalussy report, with few opportunities for parliamentary control, self-regulation or co-regulation.
I believe that this is an issue that the Napolitano report has also highlighted and to which we should give our full attention.
Mr President, I would like to start by saying that I join in the congratulations that have been offered to Mr Napolitano on his magnificent report.
It is clear that we need to give the EU a constitution, that we need to put an end to the current democratic deficit, and that we need to set up a division of powers that has its own characteristics, and that this, naturally, will result in the parliamentarisation of the Union, increasing the competences of the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
But in what fields? The competences of the European Parliament, logically, in the field of control and legislation on Community affairs, and the national parliaments in the field of control of their own governments.
This control is certainly absent in many Member States and this is a hindrance to the participation of the national parliaments in active control and in the proposal of European issues in each State.
But there is also another issue: in the debate on the Convention on the future of Europe, I believe that the role of the autonomous communities with legislative powers should also be discussed, in order to produce a coherent and constructive definition of their role within the Union, with the aim, amongst other things, of bringing the process of European integration closer to its citizens and increasing its efficiency.
This is also what I believe the role of the national parliaments with legislative powers within the Union should be.
Mr President, I have taken the floor not just to thank all the Members for the support they have expressed, for their suggestions, such as Mrs Maij-Weggen' s suggestion, on the issues which need further analysis and for their well-structured, stimulating expression of reservations. I have taken the floor principally to confirm what Mr MacCormick said, that is to make public an undertaking which I had mentioned in private.
I am fully aware - and I beg Mr MacCormick and the other Members who have signed the amendments to believe me - of the importance of the issue of regional parliaments with legislative powers.
However, I do not feel that it is appropriate to address this issue now in the context of a report which is expressly dedicated to the roles of national parliaments and Member States.
In any case, as Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs as well as your rapporteur, I hereby undertake to ensure that this issue is addressed specifically in an appropriate manner.
Moreover, I would not wish the importance of this issue to be masked by a rejection in Parliament of the amendments tabled.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we have just discussed indicates that cooperation between the national parliaments and the European Parliament has reached a new level.
I would even go as far to say that a new frame of mind has taken hold.
Mr Napolitano, I would like to thank you and congratulate you on behalf of the Commission.
The question of national parliaments, of the role that they must play, that they can be asked to play, in the future architecture of the Union, is related to the question of subsidiarity.
It is also related to the question of shared legitimacy which goes hand in hand with shared sovereignty.
In this respect, through the question of national parliaments and through the delimitation of competences on which your fellow Member, Mr Lamassoure, is working, it is essentially the problem of subsidiarity which is raised and this will be one of the key issues for the Convention to deal with via the constitutional process that will be launched in a few days' time.
It is therefore from this very useful perspective, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that we now have the extremely high quality findings of the European Parliament, which are telling us why and how we must take better account of the national parliaments.
Why must we do this? Perhaps because the European Union has not taken proper account of this question, from both its national and regional angles, nor has it taken this question seriously enough in the past.
I say this with the benefit of hindsight and with the benefit of my experience, given that I have been a member of a national parliament for some 22 years.
I can testify, as several of you can too, I am sure, to feeling a sense of helplessness as a national politician, when faced with so many texts from Brussels, which are merely to be implemented rather than discussed.
Due to this feeling of fait accompli, the frustration of national politicians - a word that one of you used - is not only directed at the Commission, but also at the Council and the European Parliament.
Parliament' s desire, as you stressed, Mr Napolitano, to embark upon a new stage in its relations with the national parliaments, is demonstrated by what I would call significant and courageous action.
This action has been apparent, for some time already, through the active role that the House plays within COSAC, in the many formal and informal contacts between MEPs and national politicians - I can testify to this during the preparation of the Treaty of Nice - and in increased administrative cooperation.
The Commission is naturally in favour of this new phase, because it is aware of the contribution that the national parliaments can make to the Union' s integration.
The further we move forward with integration - and we hope that it does progress, in the sensitive areas of national sovereignty, and particularly the second and third pillars - the more pressing the question of the legitimacy of the whole system will be.
From an objective point of view, there is, for example, a shared interest in having better control of what happens under the third pillar, which is of so much interest to the citizens, and this control could be strengthened by the communitarisation that both the Commission and Parliament desire.
I therefore think that the approach of the Union institutions must respect two broad principles.
First of all, it must not bring their legitimacies into conflict, as universal suffrage runs through European integration in several ways; in a direct way for this House and in an indirect way for the Council and the European Council.
I think that this is one of our assets.
Then, it must take into account the division of powers which is specific to each State, as well as the prerogatives and the requirements of each individual country' s national parliament.
You are reflecting on how to better involve the national parliaments.
The imminent launch of the Convention, which most of you have mentioned, is in itself an initial response to the desires expressed by the national parliaments.
As I said, the Convention is a result of the effort made by both Parliament and the Commission and the will expressed by the 23rd COSAC meeting in Versailles in October 2000.
However, ladies and gentlemen, although no one is questioning the importance or the nature of the contribution of the national parliaments, there is - at least, not yet - no consensus on the form that this could take.
The recent report by Mr Chevalier and Mr Mahou, which was presented to the Laeken European Council, states this quite clearly.
We now know that we may have two options: either indirectly, by improving the prerogatives of each national parliament in each of the Member States, or directly, by introducing new procedures to enable the national parliaments to intervene more directly in the European decision-making process.
It is clear that we must underline and strengthen the national and indirect option and it is also obvious that this is the majority' s preferred option.
The Commission does not have to judge the value of each institutional system.
On the other hand, it can state its interest in favour of disseminating all the good practices - and we are well aware that some practices in some Member States are better than in others - in terms of information and consultation.
The Commission can state whether it is willing to examine amending the protocol to the Treaty of Amsterdam, in order to take into account these good practices.
The European option is more direct and certainly the more difficult to take, because, at the moment, the national parliaments themselves do not agree on specific issues.
However, ladies and gentlemen, we will have to consider the more direct European option when we discuss, for example, the clarification of legislative tasks of the Council, or when we assess the experiments which have already been carried out collectively as part of the work with the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
For its part, and like the House, the Commission does not support the idea of a new chamber, which would, in reality, be a third chamber.
The European decision-making process is already sufficiently complicated, not to mention, of course, the risks of institutional conflicts that might arise between the third chamber and this House, with which the Commission has, for many years, shared and defended a certain vision and ambition for the Community model.
To sum up, and as you put it so well, Mr Napolitano, the Convention, which has not yet begun, will deal, in particular, with this key question, which is the subject of your report.
Some subjects may therefore be raised immediately and, although I do not imagine that we will issue a specific opinion on subjects as closely related to the institutional autonomy of each Member State, Mr Vitorino and myself, who will represent the Commission at the Convention, would like to say that we are ready and willing to provide our ideas and our support to this in-depth examination.
This may well be what we will do, for example, as regards the role of the constituent power of the national parliaments or even their role in interpreting the subsidiarity principle.
Ladies and gentlemen, almost all of you have mentioned the Convention, which will take up a great deal of our attention as of 28 February.
Be that as it may, I repeat, one of the key issues that will determine the success of the Convention, to bring it up to the highest possible level of ambition, will be our common ability to convince, to lead, to work openly with the national parliaments and from this perspective, Mr Napolitano, I believe that your report is not only courageous but that it will also be very useful.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at noon.
Management of regional policy and the Structural Funds
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0006/2002) by Mr Pohjamo, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the management of regional policy and Structural Funds (2001/2066 (INI)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to thank everyone for their active involvement in preparing this report.
The subject gave rise to some lively debate in committee and there were some good amendments to the report.
The representatives of the Commission also brought their input to the discussion.
I am delighted that the committee was in full agreement with the main aims of my report.
In my opinion, the Union' s economic, social and territorial cohesion is an aim that is as essential as the single market or monetary union.
The forthcoming enlargement is a major challenge, and it will also bring pressure for reform in the administration of regional policy and the Structural Funds.
The purpose of this report is to analyse the problems of practical implementation and put forward proposals on how the operation of the Structural Funds might be improved within the framework of the existing rules and what facts should be taken into account in preparing the next reform.
The report brings a practical viewpoint to the debate on regional policy kindled by the Commission.
In order to obtain background information for my report, I sent a bulky questionnaire to a number of regions in each Member State.
Replies have come in from almost every Member State, and, as a result, I learnt of the practical experience gained, directly from the regions and people who had implemented programmes.
Now I wish to focus on the report' s most important conclusions.
The first is the increase in effectiveness and results.
In the practical implementation of the Structural Funds one should be aiming at effective and result-oriented use of appropriations, execution of projects according to timetable, and optimum project quality.
In the regions, the administration of the Structural Funds is often felt to have become more difficult, and bureaucracy seems to have increased.
The regions feel the financing provisions are complicated, partly unclear and open to interpretation, although the aim has certainly been otherwise.
Funding should be channelled as directly as possible to the regions, which should be allowed to differentiate themselves from one another in order to be able to make effective use of the aid from the Structural Funds.
With cooperation from the regions, Member States and the Union, administration should be improved so that the right actions target the right regions at the right time in terms of getting results.
Management and its follow-up must be flexible and proportionate to the size of the programmes or projects.
The n+2 rule for financing must be kept in force.
The key aim of the report is the simplification and clarification of practices and administration, and increased results.
The Court of Auditors has also criticised the complicated practices associated with the Structural Funds and called for simplification and better results, and this has also been the Commission' s aim, although there is still much to be done regarding this both by the Commission and the Member States.
The second conclusion of the report was that programmes should not take so long to get started.
The new programming period has got off the ground very slowly, with programmes taking as much as two years to be approved.
The Member States have not been able to forward their documents on time, and the Commission was slow to process documents.
Simplification and clarification will also help to avoid delays.
As a possible remedy, the report suggests separating the periods covered by Objective Programmes and Community initiatives so that their preparation is not scheduled for the same time.
In this way there would be more preparation time for both the Commission and the regions and the sort of delays that are occurring at present would not arise as we move into the next programming period.
The third important conclusion of the report is that the principle of additionality should be applied.
The Union' s regional policy has weakened the situation where EU funding replaces national funding: the regions have even seen more national money withdrawn from them that they have received from the Union.
The Commission should review and clarify the rules for compliance with additionality so that this principle would also apply at programme and regional level.
The fourth conclusion of the report is more effective evaluation and monitoring of the Structural Funds.
Monitoring should be more concerned with results: what has been achieved with funding and how.
Parliament should have open and transparent channels for obtaining information and arranging follow-up.
The Commission should produce the necessary background information and reports in a clear form so that the committee and Parliament can use them effectively.
When I was drafting the recommendations for voting, I supported the amendments that reinforced the conclusions of the report.
My colleagues also tabled amendments regarding the content, which in themselves were worthy of support, but fell outside the scope of this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this European Parliament own-initiative report now under our consideration is completely right. It makes perfect sense for the European Parliament to study, discuss and propose ways of improving the practical implementation and the management of the Structural Funds with a view to achieving greater efficiency.
Despite the fact that the reform of the Structural Funds culminated in the 1999 Berlin Summit, which made substantial improvements to the way in which it is run, the experience of the last two-and-a-half years tells us that there is room for further improvements.
The importance of the objectives of the policy of economic and social cohesion, of which the Structural Funds are a fundamental instrument, forces us to make continual efforts to improve.
And we are all obliged to make this effort: the European institutions, specifically the Commission, but also the Member States and the beneficiary regions.
What we really need is a continuation of the work to simplify and to minimise the bureaucracy of the functioning of the Structural Funds, which makes it necessary to improve management methods in areas such as the funding, monitoring, following-up and implementation of the programmes we support.
By the same token, the Member States and the regions must be more selective in their choices of projects to support and ensure that appropriations are put to the best use and, for this reason, the 'performance reserve' -type mechanisms must be improved in order to encourage and reward the regions that have made the best use of the Structural Funds.
Furthermore, national economic policies must never neglect the objectives of economic and social cohesion at domestic level, and I would want them to be coherent and not contradict these objectives.
The same applies to the other Community policies, specifically the common agricultural policy, competition policy and State aid, which could be of enormous value, because of the importance of the legal and financial instruments that underpin them and if they were better directed towards other plans for cohesion.
Let us focus, lastly, on the need for greater decentralisation, or a more effective implementation of the principle of subsidiarity in the context of the European Union' s policy for economic and social cohesion.
Obviously, there is still scope in this field to give the Member States and the regions more responsibility.
The principles of decentralisation and subsidiarity must be taken as far as possible.
We must, however, be careful.
Let us not confuse, where the Structural Funds are concerned, the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity with a hypothetical and absurd renationalisation of the European Union' s economic and social cohesion policy.
The principle of subsidiarity must never be used as an instrument with which to attempt to drain the financial resources of the European Union' s economic and social cohesion policy.
What this principle requires instead is an effective policy, at European level, of economic and social cohesion, and it also calls for an improvement in the resources allocated to this genuine pillar of European integration, in light of the challenge posed by enlargement and by the drastic increase in the consequent regional asymmetries.
Let us not forget that countries such as the United States of America allocate more resources to redistribution policies than the European Union.
Mr President, to sum up, I say 'yes' to greater decentralisation of the management of the Structural Funds; but 'yes' also to maintaining and improving the essential functions of the European Union' s economic and social cohesion policy, which are the redistribution of resources and the promotion of development in its least-favoured regions.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Pohjamo on his work and his initiative, for I believe that we are not dealing with a joint report here.
This is an own-initiative report by Parliament in which we are attempting to introduce new ideas that will improve the management of the Structural Funds at a crucial time for both the European Union as a whole and for the future of this Fund.
This report has arisen from the obvious need to improve the management of regional policy, as a whole, and that of the Structural Funds, which needs to be managed in a more flexible way. It also responds to the widespread sense of unease in the European Parliament.
The room for manoeuvre and involvement of this Parliament when the Commission presents its reports is practically zero.
Therefore, we believe that it is time to give both the Funds, on the one hand, and Parliament on the other, a greater political role to play.
It is time to ensure that the delays which currently afflict the management of these important Funds are not ignored; it is time to correct them and to add new features.
We need to differentiate between the budgetary efficiency of the Funds and their real effectiveness.
Flexibility is, without a doubt, a factor that will increase the real impact of the Structural Funds on society and on the greater cohesion that we are all looking for.
We need to introduce new measures for the assessment of these Funds and more socioeconomic parameters, good practices, greater visibility and, of course, better monitoring of the principle of additionality.
We believe that initiatives such as this, which will hopefully be approved in tomorrow' s vote, will bring new ideas that will improve the management of the Structural Funds and regional policy as a whole.
This will ensure that we arrive at the new Agenda 2006 with a major element of added value for everyone.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the own-initiative report by Mr Pohjamo, whom I would like to congratulate on his clear approach, once again highlights the objectives that must be met by regional policy and Structural Funds.
They are the result, no more, no less, of the observation of failures in previous programmes.
How can we therefore fail to agree with a number of proposals, which are declarations of intent that seek to make the programming system more efficient?
I would, however, like to highlight some priorities which appear important, particularly on the ground, when I visit my citizens.
I hear the first comment time and time again, which concerns the limitation of small projects.
General simplification is, of course, a laudable objective, but it must not automatically lead to large projects being favoured; only the good projects and those which are useful in terms of development and that are economically viable should be favoured.
The second comment relates to the political will to increase the involvement of Member States and their local and regional authorities in monitoring, but also, prior to this, in drawing up programmes, because we must bear in mind and remember that the most appropriate level from which to properly judge a project is the level that is closest to the person responsible for its initiation.
Lastly, every aspect of this subject, whether it be the definition of programmes in the regions, the way they are monitored or developed, or, above all, the way various assessments are completed, reminds me - and I hope that you will forgive me for using this expression - of a labyrinth.
We must ensure that excessive collaboration and a surfeit of technocratic barriers do not put the projects at risk and do not result, as in France, in the funds being only partially used.
I cannot conclude without giving my thoughts on paragraph 12 of the report.
It is curious, to say the least, to see the Commission being asked to interfere in the legal and administrative affairs of the Member States.
In answer to whether to be more or less regionalised, this is their problem.
To sum up, it is all the more difficult to allow Europe, on the pretext of regionalisation, to once again assume a right that belongs to it because it results in the Member States being stripped of their substance.
Mr President, Commissioner, the report before us clearly shows that, now as ever, the management of structural policy is deficient in various respects and, above all, that there is much room for improvement in it.
I have been carefully reading these reports for years, and the catalogue of defects is always basically the same.
Admittedly, an attempt was made to simplify regional policy under Agenda 2000, yet I still have criticisms of four key areas: first, a lack of efficiency; secondly, high administrative expenditure; thirdly, high liability to fraud and fourthly, a lack of evaluation.
I am committed to the fundamental European concept of solidarity.
It is also in the interests of the prosperous States to bring the poorer ones up to the Community level.
Despite that belief, I call for a far-reaching reform of the EU's regional policy, without critical examination of which the future of the enlarged EU, especially as regards its post-2006 financial arrangements, will be uncertain.
Do not misunderstand me: enlargement will cost a fair bit and people have to be told that.
How sensible is it, though, in reality, for the Commission, for example, on the one hand, to propose cuts in the CAP to the candidates for enlargement and, on the other hand, to make available more extensive structural aid by way of compensation? These Structural Funds can only be used to their fullest extent if the applicant countries take on board the fact that their budgets are going to incur new debts.
Has the Commission really thought this through?
As it is now time for Question Time, we will suspend the debate.
It will resume at 9 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
Question No 1 by (H-0950/01):
Subject: Inhuman conditions in Egyptian prisons Since 1989, Costas Kastanias has been serving a life sentence with hard labour in maximum security prisons in Egypt in connection with the case of the motor boat, the 'Thanasis'.
He is the sole survivor after the other two Greeks convicted and imprisoned in the same case died under the harsh and inhuman conditions in Egyptian prisons.
The last person involved in the case to die, Tasos Kontoyannis, did so under controversial circumstances.
Questions concerning this case have already been put to the Council in the past.
There is intense public concern about this case in Greece owing to the inhuman conditions in Egyptian prisons ( 3 by 4 metre cells housing 20 people) and the fact that Costas Kastanias' health has been irreparably damaged. Will the Council therefore say whether it will exert its influence to enable Mr Kastanias to serve the remainder of his sentence in Greek prisons?
I am also very pleased to be able, on behalf of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council, to participate in Question Time in the European Parliament, and furthermore in a parliament which has such a dignified President.
With regard to Mr Alavanos' oral question, I would like to state that the Council has not had the opportunity to study the matter to which the honourable Member refers.
This is an issue which essentially falls within the competence of the Member States, and which Greece is dealing with directly with the Egyptian authorities.
There also appears to be a bilateral agreement between Egypt and Greece on the exchange of prisoners, which aims to enable prisoners to complete their sentence in their country of origin.
The Council knows that conditions in Egyptian prisons can be harsh.
Spain also knows this to be true, for its own part and as a Member State of the European Union, because it also has problems with Spanish prisoners in Egyptian prisons.
Although financial cooperation under the Association Agreement between the EU and Egypt does not directly deal with the issue of the situation in prisons, these two instruments can serve to promote awareness of the conditions in detention centres and the treatment of prisoners. Other Member States have in fact used it to this end.
The Association Agreement, which was signed on 25 June 2001 in Luxembourg, and which has still not entered into force because some of the ratification instruments have yet to be put in place, establishes respect for human rights as one of its essential features.
The protection of detained or imprisoned persons features in the international human rights instruments and the National Indicative Programme for Egypt for 2000 to 2004, which comprises a financial package worth EUR 351 million and also provides support for the development of civil society, education and for increasing social protection and the rights of the most disadvantaged and marginalised groups in Egyptian society.
I believe that, in effect, the Council should use the instruments provided by this Association Agreement to put pressure on Egypt, to become more involved with the fate of EU prisoners in Egyptian prisons, but, naturally, we cannot rely on an instrument that will allow this to take place when it is not ratified and when the ratification instruments are not even in place.
Therefore, I think that it is a good time to call upon Member States to ensure that this and other Mediterranean agreements that are awaiting ratification are ratified as soon as possible.
I thank the Minister for his reply.
My question is an SÏS.
This is literally the chronicle of a death foretold.
Three men were imprisoned in 1989.
Two have died, the most recent from tonsillitis in October 2001.
Twenty prisoners are kept in cells measuring 3 by 4 metres.
I call on the Minister, on behalf of this prisoner suffering a living death and on behalf of any Spaniards or other Community citizens, to intervene politically with the Egyptian authorities so that they can serve out their sentences in prisons in the Member States of the European Union.
Otherwise, Minister, if they get buried in bureaucracy or under the numerous other demands on our attention, we shall end up as accomplices.
It is a matter for the Greek Government, but the Greek Government does not have the necessary clout, whereas the European Union has a much greater chance of succeeding.
I have taken good note of the request made once again by Mr Alavanos and I would like to tell him that this matter will be referred to the Council to see if the Presidency-in-Office of the Council of the European Union can take immediate action in Cairo, taking into account the state of health of the prisoner Kostas Kastanias, to whom Mr Alavanos was referring.
The Council would remind honourable Members that in item 2 of the conclusions of the Action Plan from the extraordinary European Council of 21 September, the European Council calls for the implementation, as soon as possible, of all the international agreements in force in the fight against terrorism, that is to say, all those produced by the United Nations, the OECD and other international organisations.
The European Union supports the Indian proposal for drawing up, within the United Nations, a general convention against international terrorism, which should enhance the impact of the measures taken over the last 25 years under the auspices of the UN.
Within the context of its own programme, the Presidency considered it vitally important to create a common area in which the fight against any form of crime, and its more serious forms in particular, such as terrorism, the trafficking in human beings, drug trafficking and money laundering, is undertaken with criteria for regulation and by means of common activities in which all Member States should participate.
In this context, the Presidency proposes that objectives as important as the European arrest warrant and the abolition of formal extradition procedures should be defined.
The Presidency also thinks that strengthening relations between the European Union and the United States is highly important and a matter of priority, specifically within the framework of judicial cooperation in criminal matters within the fight against terrorism.
The Council would like to take this opportunity to state that the question of the status of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union must be resolved within the framework of the debate on the future of the Union.
The European Council, at its meeting in Laeken on 14 and 15 December 2001, entrusted a Convention with the task of responding to any issues that might arise during this debate, especially with regard to whether the Charter of Fundamental Rights should be integrated into the basic Treaty and to the issue of the European Community' s signing up to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Without prejudging the answer to this question, the Council would like, all the same, to remind you that Article 6(2) of the Treaty on European Union states that "the Union will respect fundamental freedoms in compliance with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950" .
However, Article 3 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as deduced from the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, allows it to be established that no-one can be removed, expelled or extradited to a State in which they could be subject to the death penalty, to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your answer, but, with all due respect, I would like to ask you the question once again.
We are all aware that the necessary cooperation between democracies, and therefore between the European Union and the United States, in the fight against terrorism, is taking place, but this cannot act as an obstacle to the European Union' s vigorously defending the application of its inherent values: in this case, its defence of the abolition of the death penalty.
Regrettably, in the United States, as we all know, the death penalty is still in force.
We are also aware that the Convention will deal with the integration of the Charter of Fundamental Rights into the future European Constitution, but the Charter was also proclaimed by the Nice European Council and I believe that a proclamation is politically binding on those who proclaim it.
In these terms, Mr President-in-Office, and taking up the reference you made to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, I ask you: will the European Union extradite any person accused of serious crimes, including terrorism, if there is a possibility that they would be condemned to death or executed in the United States?
Mr Carnero González was present in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy when I said, quite clearly and unambiguously, and I am honoured to be able to repeat this here today, that the European Union will never - I repeat - never, allow any European citizen to be extradited, under any kind of agreement with the United States, whilst there is no guarantee of two things - not one, but two - that the death penalty would never be applied, and that they would never be judged by one of these military tribunals that have recently been set up since 11 September.
I said this in Committee and I am repeating it today in Plenary.
And certainly, with regard to the abolition of the death penalty, we also said, in a debate that took place right here in Parliament very recently on the position of the European Union in the Human Rights Commission, that one of the main standpoints of the Delegation from the European Union and its Member States in the Human Rights Commission is precisely to fight for the abolition of the death penalty in every country in the world, regardless of religion, culture, etc.
As the author is not present, Question No 3 lapses.
Question No 4 by (H-0958/01):
Subject: Revision of the common position on Cuba At its meeting in Brussels on 6 and 7 December 2001 the ACP Council of Ministers adopted a resolution which reads as follows: 'The ACP Council of Ministers...2.
Calls on the European Union to translate this spirit [the entente which emerged during the recent (30 November) visit by the Community troika, as acknowledged in the first paragraph of the resolution] into a substantive revision of its common position on Cuba so as to treat Cuba in a fair and impartial manner; 3.
Expresses the firm expectation that such revision of the EU' s common position will lead to Cuba' s accession to the ACP-EC Cotonou Agreement without any special or inequitable conditions whatsoever;...' .
What action is the Council of the European Union going to take in response to the ACP countries' repeated request for the common position on Cuba to be revised and for Cuba to be allowed to accede to the Cotonou Agreement on the same terms as the other ACP countries? Has the Council already replied (or is it intending to reply) in any way to this request from the ACP Council of Ministers?
The European Parliament is well aware of the dialogue between the European Union and Cuba, which was interrupted by the Cuban authorities when they cancelled the meeting with the EU troika that was scheduled for April 2000.
The dialogue resumed on 1 and 2 December 2001 with the visit of the troika to Havana.
The resumption of dialogue is the result of a great deal of hard work by the Presidency, and on which the Council fully informed this House, in its November and December part-sessions in particular.
The Council also had the opportunity to broach this subject at the meeting of the Joint ACP-EU Assembly in Brussels between 29 October and 1 November 2001.
On that occasion, the Council stated, amongst other things, that it had never vetoed the inclusion of Cuba in the Cotonou Agreement, but that it was Cuba itself that had withdrawn its request to join in May 2000.
The Council announced that it was ready to look into the matter once Cuba had officially put forward its application in accordance with the provisions laid down in the agreement.
On 10 and 11 December, the General Affairs Council carried out its tenth evaluation of the EU Common Position on Cuba and considered that it would continue to be valid, and was the basis for European Union policy on Cuba.
The Council also considered it essential to pursue the dialogue that had been started in order to achieve tangible results, particularly with regard to future cooperation based on the respect for the democratic principles of human rights, fundamental freedoms and the Rule of Law.
In this regard, the Council stated that it was waiting for significant signs from the Cuban Government that it was meeting the objectives of the common position.
The Council also reiterated that EU objectives with regard to Cuba would still consist of promoting the transition to democratic pluralism and the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, sustainable economic recovery and an improvement in the standard of living of the Cuban people.
After a detailed study and various exchanges of information, the Council also noted serious shortcomings in the recognition and implementation of civil and political liberties, as well as the Cuban authorities' refusal to consider the possibility of introducing reforms that would result in a political system based on these values.
In spite of this, the Council also noted some positive signs, such as greater religious freedom and the non-application of the death penalty for the last two years, which takes us back to the previous question, concerning EU policy matters.
Where it is not possible to abolish the death penalty, we need to at least reach at a situation in which it is not applied, as well as a considerable reduction in the number of political prisoners and an increase in the number of ratifications of United Nations Human Rights instruments.
These are the positive signs.
The Council was also pleased with the Cuban Government' s decision to agree to sign up to all United Nations Conventions against terrorism, adopted at the sitting of 4 October.
The Council also noted the importance that the European Union attaches to Cuba' s acceptance of the principles included in the United Nations Pact on Civil and Political Liberties and also of the agreement on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and expresses its wish for Cuba to sign both Pacts as soon as possible.
Finally, I think it is important to point out that in the context of the tenth evaluation of the EU Common Position on Cuba, the German delegation made a statement in which it approves the Council' s conclusions, but calls on the Commission to produce a framework for cooperation that will be effective in the short term.
The Council intends to evaluate its common position on Cuba within the next six months in light of developments during this period.
We would like to once again express our friendship and personal respect for the President-in-Office of the Council, but I have to say that we think it was a mistake to ratify the common position.
We believe that the common position is a negative thing, that everybody in Cuba, from the authorities to the opposition and the church perceives it to be negative, and that practically all the ambassadors from EU States in Havana consider it to be ineffectual and even counterproductive.
I certainly believe that this ratification of the common position has acted as a major stumbling block for the reopened process of dialogue that we, like you, wanted and looked upon with a great deal of hope.
My question is this: How will the Council respond to the repeated requests from the ACP countries for Cuba to be treated like all of the other countries and for it to be offered a guaranteed place as a signatory to the Cotonou agreement?
This is the question, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, with no disrespect, that we will be asking once again in Cape Town, in the Joint Assembly, in the presence of all the speakers from ACP countries, who have unanimously asked on numerous occasions for Cuba to be included as a member of their community.
Thank you and, once again, welcome, Mr de Miguel.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Martínez, my dear friend, when I am asked this question in Cape Town, I shall give the same answer I am going to give you now.
The EU' s position on this issue has always been positive.
As I told you, Mr Martínez, during the negotiations on the Cotonou agreement now in force, which were held in February 2000, if my memory serves me correctly, there was already a formal proposal by the ACP committee for Cuba to join when the new Convention was signed, with the total agreement of the Council of the European Union.
To the surprise of the Council and the ACP countries, the Cuban delegate - at the time the Minister for Industry - disappeared from the meeting, and there was no way this matter could be formalised because Cuba was not present to give its consent.
When Cuba is ready to take on not only the benefits but also the obligations inherent to the Cotonou Convention, I guarantee that the Presidency of the Union and the Council will agree to it unreservedly.
There will be no lack of opportunity for this to happen.
You mentioned the Joint Assembly, and I am talking about the ministerial meeting that is planned under the Spanish Presidency, between the ACP countries and the Ministers of the Council of the European Union, which will take place in Santo Domingo.
This could be as good an occasion as any.
We are always willing to give a positive response, if and when Cuba can commit itself to accepting not only the benefits, but also the obligations inherent to the Cotonou Agreement.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Miguel Ángel Martínez and myself, who have both been in politics since 1977, have discussed these matters a great deal and I would like to make one or two comments.
Firstly, what Cuba wants - as the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Pérez Roque, stated to the parliamentary delegation - is for the European Union to guarantee that if Cuba applies for entry into the ACP there will be no opposition on their part.
Before they make their request to join they want a formal guarantee it will not be opposed.
Secondly, Mr Martínez and myself have different perceptions of Cuba.
I met members of the opposition, dissidents, who literally told me that those who are not part of the regime simply do not exist.
Secondly, there was an amicable debate on the ambassadors' assessments - at least in the meeting I attended - but I would like to know how the opinion of all the governments, with the slight reservation of Germany, can be contrary to the opinion which, according to Mr Martínez, was expressed by the ambassadors: these are keen to establish unconditional dialogue, whilst the governments are keen to uphold the common position and have been since as far back as December.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if he agrees with me in his assessment that the Cuban government has a long way to go before it can fulfil the obligations of the democratic clause, both for an Association Agreement and to establish other links with the European Union, and I would like him to expand on the subject of economic freedom, fundamental rights - which was previously called formal democracy, that we now all share - and above all political pluralism, which are the prerequisites of the common position.
Mr de Miguel, I am afraid I shall ask you not to give the detailed examination of this issue that Mr Garcia is asking for, but to answer this question with the brevity we are used to in this House.
As briefly as possible, I would like to tell Mr García-Margallo that I basically agree with the line he has adopted.
I told him previously in my answer that the European Union takes a positive view of Cuba' s joining, as and when Cuba is ready to accept the obligations laid down in the Cotonou agreement, and to build a relationship with the European Union with certain conditions, as everybody is aware.
Question No 5 by (H-0959/01):
Subject: Spanish Presidency and the subhuman situation of women in Afghanistan What action is to be taken by the Spanish Presidency in order to improve the subhuman situation of women in Afghanistan?
Mr President, the Spanish Presidency is going to continue with the current Union policy, which is aimed at systematically improving the human rights situation in Afghanistan, particularly in relation to Afghan women.
In its sitting of 10 December, the Council expressed its support for the Petersberg Agreement, which defined the provisional agreements applicable in Afghanistan and repeated its promise to play an important role in the international effort to contribute to the reconstruction of the Afghan society and economy.
On that occasion, the Ministers also stressed the particular need to promote the role of women within Afghan society.
During the ministerial conference on the reconstruction of Afghanistan which took place recently in Tokyo - on 20 and 22 January - the Presidency of the European Commission, in its capacity as co-presidents of the Union in the steering group for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, set out the Union' s position to the other international donors and the provisional Afghan authority.
The Union' s delegation stated, amongst other things, that the European Union' s assistance would be conditional upon all the Afghan groups unreservedly applying the spirit and the letter of the Petersburg Agreement, the objective of which is the creation of a broad-based, multi-ethnic, fully-representative government committed to acting in favour of sex equality and improving the situation of women.
Also in Tokyo, the European Union stressed the importance of Afghanistan taking on the work of emergency aid, rehabilitation and development, and that people of all regions, ethnic groups, and in particular women should participate in it.
The Council will continue to closely monitor compliance with these criteria over the coming months and years.
In this regard, the Council wishes to point out that the European Union' s special representative in Afghanistan, Ambassador Kleiber, has begun his work in Kabul, assisted by a special representative of the Presidency, Ambassador López Nadal.
The Council will take special care to ensure that women may participate, and participate fully, in building the country' s future.
In this same context, the Council would also cite the reply given to oral question H-0897/2001.
Over recent years, Taliban fundamentalism has hit women, and today its effects are still ruining the lives of Afghan women.
Men are still armed and this poses an obvious threat.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the day before yesterday a seven-year-old girl was sold into marriage in order for her family to deal with hunger and meet their needs.
The President-in-Office of the Council has given me a very committed answer, which we already knew.
To expand on it, and without returning to past questions, would the Spanish Presidency be prepared to adopt any measures to ensure that seven-year-old girls do not continue to be sold into marriage? Would you at least be willing to communicate the urgent need to adopt measures to prevent this horror?
.
(ES) Mr President, I would like to reply to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo by saying that the Union' s policy with regard to Afghanistan on this issue is absolutely indivisible and applies to all possible violations of human rights and of women' s rights in particular.
The case she mentions is but one more on the list of horrors and suffering experienced by many human beings in Afghanistan, children and adults, men and women.
And the Union' s policy on all these issues has therefore been, and will always be, the same.
I can guarantee that we will implement and try to strengthen our political action in Afghanistan and any aid will be conditional upon the safeguarding of these rights, which includes preventing the selling of children into marriage.
Mr President, I would like to underline, in my capacity as a member of the Committee on Budgets, that Europe is meant not just to be a payer, but also, and in particular, a player.
I believe, in particular, that social conditions in Afghanistan are anything but satisfactory.
What matters is that women should be integrated into working life. To do that, you of course need businesses, above all small and medium-sized enterprises and family firms.
Do you believe it might be possible for us, by means of our payments, to stimulate such things as the setting-up of businesses?
.
(ES) What we are trying to create is an integral development plan in Afghanistan, which we have just begun to do.
We now have the financial means, which, by the way, are very considerable, since the contribution of the European Union has been, as you know, very significant, the most significant of the contributions of the international community.
But other members of the international community have also contributed.
We now have the sum we need to carry out the necessary development plans and naturally the development of small and medium-sized businesses is, in everybody' s view, one of the fundamental elements of the development of Afghanistan, where, in the short term, we cannot expect to see significant investments in large industries and large projects and, therefore, we are going to begin to create all these programmes in conjunction with the Commission.
We are naturally very aware that women play a very important role in small and medium-sized businesses and this is going to revitalise the role of women within Afghanistan.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, during the Taliban presence in Afghanistan, and before that, the situation of women has been horrendous.
They have been marginalized, humiliated and persecuted.
Furthermore, it has been instilled into their beliefs and their way of thinking that this was a normal situation, which makes change difficult.
We clearly cannot accept the sale of girls, the continuing marginalisation and the lack of recognition of women' s human rights.
Parliament therefore believes that the Spanish Presidency of the Union could do something more, create some special support programme for these women who have suffered particular marginalisation, because the current situation in Afghanistan cannot in reality be compared with the reconstruction of other war-torn countries.
Could you expand on the answer which the President-in-Office of the Council has given us on this situation?
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(ES) I would like to remind you that the responsibility for creating development programmes aimed at making the necessary investments with the money acquired at the Tokyo Summit falls to the European Commission, which has to create all these programmes, which not only relate to the development of small and medium-sized businesses, but above all to education.
The total exclusion of women from the Afghan education system is well known; by depriving them of education they have been completely denied access to all the assets of society.
Commissioner Patten and the corresponding Directorate-General of the Commission are creating all these programmes, one of the fundamental objectives of which is - I repeat - recovering the role of women within Afghan society.
I am not currently in a position to give you any details but naturally I will communicate the concern expressed here in the European Parliament to the Commission, so that the funds may be dedicated in particular to programmes aimed directly at recovering the role of Afghan women in society.
Question No 6 by (H-0963/01):
Subject: Presence of regional governments at Council meetings The federal, regional or decentralised structure in a number of Member States has led them to include representatives of those regions or Länder in their delegations for meetings of the Council of Ministers, as provided for by the Treaty of European Union since the Maastricht reform ten years ago.
Regional representatives have sometimes led the Member State delegation and, during the Belgian Presidency, have even chaired Council meetings dealing with matters falling within the competence of their regions.
However, in the case of other Member States such as Spain, which also have regions or autonomous communities with wide legislative powers, the central government prevents the regions or autonomous communities from taking part in their delegations for the various Council meetings, even when competence rests exclusively with the regions rather than the central government.
How does the Council view this state of affairs? Which Member States with a federal or autonomous political structure similar to Spain's include representatives of their nationalities and regions in their delegations?
Which Member States do not do so?
Will the Spanish Presidency boost the participation of those regions or autonomous communities in the wake of the recognition given to the regions at the Laeken summit?
The Council would remind the honourable Member that Article 203 of the Treaty establishing the European Community lays down that the Council will consist of a representative of each Member State, of Ministerial rank, empowered to make commitments on behalf of that Member State.
In accordance with this provision, it is the exclusive competence of each State to decide how it is to be represented in the meetings of the Council and who is going to be included in its delegation.
This decision will inevitably depend on national constitutional agreements which differ between one Member State and another, because each Member State has its own Constitution and its own territorial organisation.
Consequently, the Council cannot comment on decisions taken individually by a Member State in relation to representation.
Mr President, nothing could be more true than what the representative of the Council has just pointed out: each Member State clearly has the power to decide the composition of its delegation at each Council meeting.
Nevertheless, I believe that when, in these Council meetings, the national delegation does not include representatives of the regional governments which have exclusive competence, it creates distancing between the Community and the citizens, on the one hand, and its representatives on the other.
Some people will call it distancing, others of us call it democratic deficit, especially when some communities do have that opportunity to be represented in the regions and others do not.
In certain Member States, such as mine, the regions, the Autonomous Communities, are as much States as the central governments, as laid down in the Constitution.
The President of my region, Galicia, is strongly in favour of this regional participation.
Nevertheless, it is stated that it is the national government which is represented in relation to external policy, and I would ask: does the Council believe that internal Community policy decisions, in areas such as fishing, agricultural policy and consumer policy, fall within external or international policy or do you believe that they are internal Community issues?
Mrs Miguélez Ramos, I cannot agree with your assertion that the regions are as much States as the States of the Union, because the latter are the only members of the Union and the only ones that have the right to participate in the Council of Ministers.
The regions may have their competences within a context of decentralisation and the concession of competences by the State to territorial regions.
That concession of competences varies from one State to another and, furthermore, they vary greatly in many countries.
Even in the case of countries which have made significant concessions of competences, such as Germany, Austria or Spain, the systems are completely different.
You cannot compare the German federal system with the Spanish system of Autonomous Communities.
Therefore, the representation of the State essentially takes place by means of internal cooperation and each State can, within this context, represent the interests of the territorial regions of its territory in the way that best suits the general interests of the whole country.
Community policies are not external policy matters, but Community policy matters, but I would remind you that according to Community policy, the representatives in the Council are the Member States of the European Union and it falls to them to defend the positions which affect all of those countries according to their constitutional system.
We therefore work on the principle that each State applies its constitution as it stands and that in no way means that the quality of the representation of the interests of the territorial communities depends on any particular system.
I am grateful for the Council' s reply since it demonstrates that the Council cannot violate the principle of institutional autonomy by which we are governed.
Secondly, I would like to point out that Spain has been a Member of the European Union since 1986 and since then this institutional framework has been respected.
And also throughout the period of Socialist government.
Thirdly, I will say that there are no homogenous positions in relation to this debate, even in the academic field, in the views that the different Autonomous Communities advocate.
Therefore, I would like to ask you whether you think that it would be more fruitful to improve the role of the Committee of the Regions in the Union' s work.
I have already said that the essential thing is to strengthen the system of internal cooperation.
Furthermore, I have not referred exclusively to the country I represent, but to all of the Union' s countries.
I do not believe that the interests of the Autonomous Communities are sufficiently incorporated into the definition of the policies that the States put to the Council.
This is essentially done through dialogue, via the established institutional channels.
I believe that this must be the objective of all the governments of the Union: to have increasingly intense internal cooperation with the territorial communities, above all with those with legislative powers.
President-in-Office, I represent one of Europe's most ancient and longest surviving kingdoms - Scotland - which is a largely autonomous part of the United Kingdom, to which it belongs.
Indeed, Scottish ministers sometimes attend and even represent the United Kingdom at Council meetings.
However, my question refers to the Convention which is being set up to look at the future of Europe, at which no Scottish minister or Member of the Scottish Parliament will be present.
Do you feel that it would be appropriate for regional assemblies, parliaments and governments to be represented at this very important Convention that is going to decide the future shape of the Europe, of which Scotland and your regions in Spain are very much a part?
Mr Purvis, the European Convention is about to get under way.
It will include representatives from the governments, from national parliaments, from the European Parliament and from the Commission.
Representatives from the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee are also invited.
Nothing is preventing any country from including within their parliamentary or governmental delegation people who are particularly concerned with the problems of the regions.
Therefore each country is free to include who it likes in the Convention.
Neither the Presidency nor the Council intend to dictate the debate within the Convention.
The debate will be open and free.
All issues relating to the regions may be dealt with within the Convention and the latter will make what it feels are the appropriate recommendations to the Intergovernmental Conference on the importance of the role of the regions in the Union' s decision-making process.
The Intergovernmental Conference will decide on this issue at the appropriate time.
You know that only supplementary questions may be asked.
Points of order have been raised and I am going to allow them, but I would ask you not to abuse points of order.
Mr President, I believe it would have been more appropriate if you had given me the floor first, since in other similar debates, when there have been questions from Members which are similar to each other, you, sitting as President, have combined them all.
I have Question No 13 which is practically identical to No 6, and I would have liked you, as on other occasions, to have combined questions so that we do not have to debate the same issue twice.
I do not know if there is still time for you to allow me to put Question No 13.
I am going to tell you as carefully as possible how the Rules of Procedure work.
I have never combined questions because that is done by the Presidency of Parliament.
I am simply presiding over the sitting and I do not have that competence.
It is something that is decided in advance.
Otherwise I would very gladly have done so.
We are going to wait until Question No 13 arrives - I am going to make an effort - so that you, even though it may be a reiteration, can ask it.
They are important questions.
Mr President, on a point of order: Mr Purvis has covered much of what I was going to say.
It is interesting to hear the points of view of Mr Purvis and other colleagues on the issue of Scotland's representation on this Constitutional Convention when the Conservative Party and the Nationalist Party could not even get it together to be part of the Scottish Constitutional Convention which set up and made room for the Scottish Parliament.
I would like to ask the Minister whether there is a list available to the public and to colleagues here, showing how regional governments are represented in the various Council meetings.
Mr Purvis touched upon the fact that Scottish ministers attend Council meetings in accordance with their areas of expertise and the areas they are involved with.
I wondered how other regional governments work in this connection and whether such a list would be available to colleagues.
In my capacity as President for this sitting and guardian of the Rules of Procedure, I am not going to allow more than the permitted two questions, because that would set a dreadful precedent and deprive the other Members, who have Questions Nos 13 or 14, of being able to speak.
Put questions in writing, raise your hand at the beginning, quickly and with the reflexes of a parliamentarian, or use the corridor when the President-in-Office of the Council leaves.
I am requesting the floor for a point of order, if you will allow me, although I have no intention of taking up any debating time.
I simply wanted to say that, without going into the pros or cons of the system for listing questions and putting them in order, I believe that my question and the question from Mr Ortuondo are very different, despite what he said a moment ago, although I admit that they involve the same issue.
I agree, Mrs Miguélez, but, as I have said, there is a body for establishing whether questions coincide, and this is predetermined under the authority of the President of this House, not myself, since I am merely in the chair for this sitting.
Question No 7 by (H-0966/01):
Subject: Unacceptable decision to refuse to issue visas to members of FARC-EP At the Laeken Council it was decided that the EU Member States would refuse to issue visas to representatives of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP).
This decision is a serious new violation of international law and democratic freedoms, since it is directed against a large popular movement in Colombia which has considerable support not only inside the country but also abroad, including in many EU Member States, because of its long-standing struggle for a political settlement to the conflict in Colombia, democratic agricultural reform, democratic and trade-union freedoms and an end to the death squads' reign of terror.
In view of the fact that the representatives of FARC-EP are participating alongside official Colombian Government representatives in the peace process, which enjoys the support of the EU, can the Council say whether this decision has anything to do with the recent 'law to combat terrorism' and whether it intends to reconsider this antidemocratic decision and to back the process to achieve peace based on a political solution in Colombia?
The decision referred to by the Member who asked the question was not taken at the European Council in Laeken, which did not deal with the situation in Colombia, but appears in the declaration of the Presidency, on behalf of the European Union, in relation to the peace process in Colombia of 7 December.
In it, the European Union indicates that, until further orders, the Member States of the Union will not issue new visas or residency permits to representatives of armed groups, not only of FARC, but all armed groups, without prejudice to the continuation of the efforts of the Member States of the Union which are participating in the dialogue between the Colombian parties.
The European Union has also expressed its support for the efforts of the Member States of the Union which, on the request of the Colombian Government and the parties in conflict, are taking part in the talks which the President, Andrés Pastrana, has entered into with the ELN and FARC in order to reach a negotiated solution to the conflict.
This decision has nothing to do with the framework decision on the fight against terrorism which you refer to, but is a part of the strong condemnation from the whole international community of the practices of armed groups, which carry out activities such as kidnaps, extortion and other types of crime which are violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law, and endanger the peace process which is not yet secured in that country.
The European Union insists that its position in relation to the armed groups in Colombia will be studied and reviewed in accordance with respect for human rights, international humanitarian law and diplomatic immunity.
The European Union unreservedly supports the efforts to encourage all the parties involved to respect human rights and international humanitarian law, and calls on all of them to condemn the violations of them.
It also asks the armed groups to free all hostages, foreigners and Colombians, and to immediately renounce these practices.
The European Union has also urged FARC to return to the negotiating table in order, amongst other things, to deal with the issues agreed in San Francisco de la Sombra in October 2001.
It is pleased at the resumption of the dialogue between the government and the ELN, and hopes that these two movements will show signs of their determination to seek concrete results aimed at a lasting and peaceful solution to the conflict.
In its declaration, the European Union also insists that the Colombian Government continues and intensifies its efforts to disarm the paramilitaries and bring the people responsible for the crimes perpetrated, whoever they may be, fully to justice, so that they may pursue - both at a local and regional level, and respecting biodiversity and the environment - the efforts already started to combat illegal crops, the production and trafficking of drugs and that, independently of the peace process, a programme of decisive socio-economic reforms be created and applied urgently.
As this Parliament knows, the peace process in Colombia is at an uncertain stage.
The European Union is still actively supporting the peace process and the laudable efforts of President Pastrana and considers that there is no alternative to a negotiated solution to the internal conflict.
The European Union will make an effort to apply the autonomous commitments adopted within the framework of the European support programme for the peace process in Colombia, provided that security problems do not prevent it.
Mr President, I should like to say the following to the President-in-Office of the Council: as you know, negotiations are continuing in Colombia. In other words, the two parties involved, the government and FARC, have pursued the negotiating process and FARC has made a considerable effort to find a solution to the problem.
However, the solution clearly lies in disarming the paramilitary groups, the so-called 'death squads' , which are still operating with impunity in Colombia. The solution also lies in guaranteeing the freedoms and the democratic rights of all citizens, in combating poverty, in moving ahead with agricultural reform and lastly, in guaranteeing the social rights of the Colombian people
Now that FARC is sitting at the negotiating table with the Colombian Government, why does it appear that the countries of the European Union are not making an effort to ensure that these negotiations are successfully concluded and provide members of FARC with the necessary visas so that they can, as they must, maintain contact with countries involved in the peace process, and we know that some countries in the European Union are interested in seeing a positive outcome to this peace process.
This, then, is my question to you, Mr President-in-Office.
I believe that in my reply I gave a full explanation of the Council' s position and our firm position on not issuing visas to FARC, since we do not believe that they are used for making contacts relating to peace, but for other activities.
I share the Council' s view that FARC-EP can justifiably be criticised, especially for murders and kidnappings of Indian leaders.
At the same time, it is absolutely clear that it is the paramilitaries who, aided by Colombia' s military, are responsible for most, by far, of the violence in Colombia.
If those responsible for the violence are to be deported, it would have made just as much sense to have expelled Colombia' s ambassador.
Nor must we forget that those on the legal Left in Colombia are systematically executed if they appear in public.
My practical question to the Council is as follows: did the United States exert pressure and demand that FARC representatives' visas be withdrawn before the EU decided to do this?
I also said in my first intervention that the Council is deeply concerned about the activities of the paramilitaries and is putting all the necessary pressure on the Colombian Government so that there is no cooperation of any type on the part of Colombian armed forces with these groups and in order to prevent the general belief that the paramilitaries are in some way acting in connivance with the government, which is not true at all, at least not with the government of Mr Pastrana.
I therefore agree with what the honourable Member said.
We do not agree with the activities of the paramilitaries and of course we are putting every necessary pressure on the central government to ensure that it does not in any way aid or collaborate in the activities of these groups.
I am afraid that the Council did not understand my specific question.
Perhaps there was an interpreting problem.
My question was as to whether the United States put any pressure on the EU to withdraw the FARC representative' s visa.
No, Mr President.
Question No 8 by (H-0967/01):
Subject: Arrests of demonstrators and police brutality during demonstrations on 14 and 15 December During the unprecedentedly large-scale demonstrations in Brussels on the occasion of the European Council Summit at Laeken, on 14 and 15 December, the police violently and provocatively charged peaceful demonstrators and even mere bystanders.
Undercover secret police officers dressed as demonstrators mounted particularly brutal attacks.
They beat demonstrators and bystanders savagely, apprehended dozens of citizens without any justification, tied them up and kept them lying on the ground for an hour - even those who were injured and bleeding - and humiliated women by stripping them in front of male police officers posing as interpreters.
They rode roughshod over fundamental rights which the people had struggled for decades to win.
The Belgian Presidency and the media tried to cover up the events exposed by legal teams (teams of lawyers working to defend the demonstrators' rights) and by victims of the attacks themselves.
Is the Council aware of these incidents and, if so, how does it view them?
Article 33 of the European Union Treaty clearly stresses that individual measures adopted by police authorities are the sole competence of the relevant Member States.
Therefore, the Council is not in a position to comment on the issues mentioned by the Member who has asked the question.
The fact that demonstrations take place at the same time as a sitting of the European Council is completely irrelevant in this case.
I realise that it was hard to tell when the Belgian Government was acting in its capacity of President of the European Union and when it was simply acting as a Member State, but I would like to know what really happened and why all these measures were adopted despite being condemned by various speakers as breaching the rights of citizens who were demonstrating peacefully in Belgium during the last summit.
I have already said that I am not in a position to reply to that question, but what I am certainly not prepared to do is agree with the statement by Mrs Figueiredo that the demonstrations were peaceful.
I was there and I saw it, and many of the demonstrations which took place in Brussels were in no way peaceful.
There was extremely clear damage in the city and if that is Mrs Figueiredo' s idea of a peaceful demonstration, neither I nor the Presidency-in-Office of the Council agree with her.
There is no possibility of a reply, Mrs Figuereido. I know that you have differing opinions, that has been made very clear, but there is no possibility of a reply since that would lead us into a debate and this is Question Time.
Mr President, I was, of course, referring to all the peaceful demonstrations and not to the other kind and it is on these that I would like to have an answer, precisely because they were peaceful.
The President-in-Office of the Council has stated that it is not within his competence to reply to this question and I respect that.
You have made your clarification and we take note of it.
Question No 9 by (H-0968/01):
Subject: Dismantling of Islamic terrorist group Laskar Jihad in Indonesia Parliament's resolution on Papua (Irian Jaya) and Sulawesi in Indonesia adopted on 13 December 2001 points out that 'the fighters of the Islamic terror group Laskar Jihad, after leaving behind a trail of blood and destruction on the Moluccan islands from 1999 onwards, have now become active on Sulawesi'.
The result of this situation is that 300 000 of the Moluccas' population of 10 million are now refugees, most of whom are Christians.
On the island of Sulawesi, the largest Christian town of Tentana, with a population of 50 000, has been besieged by Laskar Jihad fighters.
Jafar Umar Talib, the leader of Laskar Jihad who was trained in religious warfare in Pakistan, claims that he has 10 000 fighters under his command.
Afghans and other foreigners form part of the Muslim militia against the Christians.
What progress has the EU made through the Council on the resolution's appeal to the Indonesian authorities 'to dismantle the Laskar Jihad terror organisation, which is for the most part responsible for the cruelties of the past years in the Moluccas, and to bring the perpetrators to justice'? Has there been collaboration with the USA and what action has the Council taken to secure an end to terrorist violence against the Christians of the Moluccas and Sulawesi?
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(ES) Mr President, the Council is deeply concerned about the sectarian violence in Indonesia, regardless of the religious or ethnic origin of the victims.
The Council has expressed this concern to the Indonesian Government and the Union' s other partners, as well as the United States, on several occasions.
The Council has urged the government to prevent more members of Laskar Jihad from reaching Malaca and central Sulawesi and ensure that those who are already there leave those areas.
There is still work to do and the Council will continue to take advantage of the cooperation and frank dialogue it has established with the Indonesian Government on these issues to work for an improvement in the situation.
I wish to thank the Spanish Presidency for its answer.
I also want to take the opportunity sincerely to welcome Spain to the European Parliament as the country holding the presidency of the European Union for the first half of this year.
I nonetheless want to ask a number of follow-up questions.
Does the Council believe that the Indonesian authorities have taken the necessary, adequate measures for dismantling the Islamic terrorist group, Laskar Jihad?
Is it the Council' s view that Laskar Jihad is continuing with its terrorist activities, or is any form of de-escalation now to be seen, with the prospect of a cessation of this violence against innocent people, mainly Christians in the Moluccas? Last of all, I wonder if the Council considers there to have been close cooperation between the United States and the European Union in combating this Muslim terrorist group.
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(ES) Unfortunately, Mr Sacrédeus, the measures taken are never sufficient to beat the terrorist threat.
Naturally, the Laskar Jihad organisation can be classed as an organisation of this type.
Therefore, I do not believe that the threat has been contained and nor do I believe that the Indonesian Government, however many measures it has taken, is able to deal with the threat to Indonesia posed by this very large organisation.
You ask me whether the European Union and the United States should cooperate.
I believe that this cooperation is at the heart of all the political declarations made since 11 September.
The European Union and the United States now have a common front in the fight against terrorist threats in any part of the world where they may take place and we are holding dialogue with the United States precisely in order to help Indonesia to contain the threat posed by this terrorist organisation.
Question No 10, by Guido Podestà, which has been taken over by Mrs Sartori.
Question No 10 by (H-0969/01):
Subject: The situation of women in Nigeria - the case of Safia Husaini Tungar Tudu The case of a thirty-year-old Nigerian woman, who was married at the age of 12 and has four children, the last of whom was conceived as the result of rape, for which she has been sentenced to death by stoning, arouses serious concerns regarding the situation of women in many African countries, including Nigeria.
According to Sharia law a married or divorced woman is guilty of adultery if she has sexual intercourse with another man, even if, as in this case, she is the victim of rape.
The political and military power established under undemocratic regimes entails control over the private lives of those subject to it.
This control extends to the birth of children and hence women are more exposed to punitive and often inhumane laws.
Can the Council say what new steps it intends to take to ensure the abolition of practices which violate fundamental human rights?
Can it also say what steps it intends to take to promote a process of democratisation and secularisation in countries such as Nigeria, where the interpretation given to religious law (which in fact distorts the true meaning of the religion concerned) adversely affects the rights of women in particular?
What action will the Council take as soon as possible to ensure protection for the life and dignity of the Nigerian woman referred to above?
Mr President, the Member States of the European Union and the European Commission have decisively supported, in a coordinated fashion, the international efforts in favour of Mrs Safia Husaini.
The European Union has studied the possibility of taking formal action in the event that the Islamic Court of Appeal, the Sokoto Sharia, confirms the sentence.
The European Union has already expressed its concern at sentences passed in accordance with Islamic criminal law, the Sharia, during the 57th sitting of the UN Human Rights Commission in 2001.
The Member States of the Union and the European Commission - in coordination - have decisively supported international efforts in favour of Safia Husaini, in accordance with the meeting organised by the European Union' s Heads of Mission in Abuja on 23 January.
The Spanish Presidency proposed to the Member States that we make a representation to the Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister, in order to express the European Union' s new position in the field of the application of the death penalty.
This representation was formally approved by the Council of Ministers of the Union, which took place last Monday, and has been carried out by the Presidency of the Council of the Union to the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
With regard to the broader issue of respect for fundamental rights and specifically women' s rights in Nigeria and the rest of Africa, the Council is determined to pursue the policy which it has long been implementing in this field and, in particular, by means of the following instruments: the Cotonou Agreement, Article 9(2) which lays down the parties' obligations, their international commitments, in relation to the respect for human rights, and reaffirms the equality between men and women, the Cairo declaration and action plan approved at the Africa-Europe Summit held in Cairo in April 2000, which insists on respect for human rights, the Common Position relating to human rights, democratic principles, the Rule of Law and good government in Africa 98/350/PESC and Council Regulation (EC) 965/99, which establishes the requirements for the application of Community development cooperation actions which contribute to achieving the general objective of development and consolidating democracy under the Rule of Law, as well as respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms and specifically Common Position 01/373/PESC on Nigeria, which expressly mentions the respect for human rights.
Thank you, Mr President, for your comprehensive response to our question.
The events of recent days compel us, however, to call for a further Council initiative, for, as you will know, not only has another woman, in addition to Safiya Yakubu Hussaini, been sentenced to death by stoning - Aishatu Abubakar, whom the same court in the same region of Nigeria condemned to a similar sentence on similar grounds a few weeks ago - but the news has arrived today that, in the Sudan, a young 18-year old Christian woman named Abok Alfa Akok, who does not speak Arabic, has also been sentenced to stoning by what is, in this case, a civil, not a religious court, without being permitted a defence and without being given a linguistic translation either.
Well then, I believe that the undertakings assumed by the Council are important but that, alongside them, there should also be constant protection in individual cases.
I therefore place in your hands these two new cases as well as that of Safiya.
I fully agree with you that the Council must continuously monitor all these humanitarian cases which affect individuals and countries with which the European Union has a preferential relationship by means of the Cotonou Agreements, in this case Sudan and Nigeria.
I take very good note of both cases which, naturally, I am unaware of. But I will do what I can to obtain all the necessary information through the services of the Commission and through our own diplomatic services.
I assure you that the Presidency of the Council of the European Union will make the Member States aware of these facts, we will take the necessary measures and we will take immediate diplomatic action to protect the rights of the two poor women you have mentioned.
President-in-Office, the justice minister of Afghanistan recently announced that the new interim government would maintain the Sharia law sanctions of stoning women to death for adultery and of limb amputation for theft.
The latter penalty was even supported by Prime Minister Karzai in a statement made at a press interview in America.
The EU has just pledged EUR 1.5bn in aid to Afghanistan over five years at the Tokyo Conference.
Should this not be made conditional on the disapplication of internationally unacceptable, cruel and unusual punishments such as those I have just referred to?
In fact, our aid to Afghanistan, for the development of the country, and the payment of the significant sums you have mentioned, which were laid down at the Tokyo Summit, are conditional from the outset, according to the Council' s declarations, upon respect for human rights in Afghanistan and in particular the application of equal treatment between men and women.
I believe that in the case you have mentioned, the European Union must state that, although we respect the traditions and the religion of Afghanistan, we also demand that human rights be respected in that country.
And the execution of Islamic sentences is not compatible with our notion of respect for human rights.
Nevertheless, I would like to remind you that it is common practice in all Islamic countries to apply the Sharia, the Islamic law.
Afghanistan is not the only country where these violations are committed.
We have already heard what happens in some African countries.
It would take a very long time to list all the cases of application of Islamic sentences in other countries of the Middle East which there are genuine violations of human rights and in particular the rights of women.
I believe that the European Union must be a pioneer in terms of defending these rights, but we must take the necessary precautions not to offend religious feelings since, as you know, there is currently a debate about the clash between the Islamic and Christian civilisations and we need to apply the necessary prudence.
However, the case you mention must be taken into account and I will certainly raise it in the Council and the Commission so that it may be monitored and we will try to prevent this sentence being carried out.
Question No 11 by (H-0971/01):
Subject: Turkish ban on the foundation and operation of parties with the word 'communist' in their name Human and democratic rights are systematically and persistently violated in Turkey, a country which is a candidate for membership of the EU.
One such instance is the ban on the foundation and operation of parties with the word 'communist' in their name based on the antiquated provisions of Article 96 of the Law on political parties, which dates from 1920.
The Socialist Power Party of Turkey was founded in 1993 and operates legally.
It has fought vigorously for democratic rights and takes part in elections.
At its last congress, it decided to change its name to the Communist Party of Turkey but, because of the abovementioned undemocratic law, it is in danger of being banned.
At the moment, the Turkish Parliament is in fact debating amending the law on political parties, which may provide an opportunity to abolish the undemocratic ban.
What is the Council's view of the ban under Turkish law on the foundation and operation of communist parties?
Does it consider that Turkey can become a member of the EU without first having lifted the ban? Will it raise the question of amending this undemocratic and reactionary law with the regime in Ankara so that the Communist Party can engage freely in political activity?
In fact, Turkey is drawing up a draft amendment of the law on political parties.
However, the truth is that we do not know the exact content of this draft law because it has yet to be submitted to the Turkish Government.
We therefore only have references.
The Council is not aware, even from these references, that the activities of the Turkish Communist Party are being hindered nor that there is any threat to ban it on the basis of an obsolete provision of the former law on political parties.
In terms of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Turkey more generally, the Laeken European Council concluded that Turkey had made progress towards complying with the criteria set for accession, particular by recently amending its Constitution, and that there was therefore now more possibility of opening accession negotiations with that country.
Turkey is being encouraged to make more progress towards compliance with the accession criteria - the famous Copenhagen criteria - particularly in relation to human rights.
The Council is closely monitoring the efforts for institutional political reform currently being made by Turkey and is especially focussing on whether those reforms will lead to real improvements in relation to human rights and fundamental freedoms in that country.
As we all know, this situation is still highly unsatisfactory in many respects.
The Council will be sure to question Turkey in the event that the intended amendment of the law on political parties in any way threatens democratic freedoms.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am astounded that the Council knows far less about this than the Turkish press.
For example, it is a known fact that the relevant committee of the Turkish National Assembly has submitted a bill on parties in which no changes have been made as regards the ban on the word 'communist' .
I also find it hard to understand why the Council does not know that members of the Communist Party of Turkey are being prosecuted, given that 150 members have been arrested and their offices have been raided, all from the day it opened for business.
But apart from all that, there were one or two quite specific points in my question, to which I have not received a reply.
Does the Council consider that Turkey can be a candidate country, or rather can it become a member of the European Union without first having lifted the ban? I did not receive a reply to this specific question.
.
(ES) I think I have made it clear, Mr President, that the Copenhagen criteria are absolutely fundamental before we can think about starting any type of negotiation on any hypothetical future Turkish membership of the Union.
I think I have made that clear. I am sure that the Member who asked the question is perfectly aware of the Copenhagen criteria and I therefore believe that this statement by the Council makes it absolutely clear that our view is that no type of negotiation can begin with Turkey until the Copenhagen criteria have been fully respected.
Question No 12 by (H-0001/02):
Subject: European Council support for a United Nations Convention on Disability Has the European Council discussed support for the proposed United Nations Convention on Disability, and which Member States are expected to vote in support? Will the President-in-Office arrange for this issue to be tabled for further discussion at the High Level Group on Disability?
And will he use the Office of the Presidency to promote support in third countries outside of the EU?
Mr President, the European Council did not debate the issue mentioned by Mr Howitt.
The Commission has taken no initiative in this area in relation to the Council.
I would also like to remind Mr Howitt that the high level group on disability does not belong to the Council but to the Commission, and it would therefore be both more practical and more appropriate for the Commission to provide information on its debates.
In it contacts with third countries, the Presidency will raise all the issues it considers important and appropriate to deal with.
Mr President, I do not think that is the most helpful answer a Member of the European Parliament has ever been given in this Chamber so perhaps I can ask the President-in-Office whether he could give me a little more encouragement. Is he aware, for example, of the request from 37 million disabled people in Europe and many outside our borders that the United Nations should enforce better rights for disabled people?
Is he aware that next year is going to be the European Year of Disabled People, and is he taking an interest in that? Is he aware that since 1996 we have had a rights approach to disability that would suggest that we should support such a Convention?
In his answer he has given no evidence whatsoever that he is aware of those facts.
Given that he has admitted to this Chamber today that he and his colleagues have not even discussed this issue, at the very least will he respond to the request from this Parliament that he should table such a discussion? If the members of the high level group on disabilities convened by the Commission are all members of the Council, it is within his power to do that if he wishes.
Perhaps he will now answer the point.
I feel I have given you a clear answer to your question, Mr Howitt.
This does not in any way mean that the Council has no concern for disabled people.
But you asked me whether the European Council has discussed this issue and I have told you that it has not.
I have simply said that it has not discussed it, which does not mean that it is not going to discuss it or that it has no desire to, but simply that it has not yet done so because it has not had the opportunity so far.
This does not mean that the Council is unaware of the problems of disabled people or the coming events and international meetings on the disabled in which Member States and the European Union itself will have to adopt a position.
I have suggested that you address this question to the Commission, which, since it leads the high level group on the disabled, will be in a better position than me to give you a concrete answer.
As we all know in this House, disability rights feature prominently within the Spanish system.
Indeed, in many areas of disability rights Spanish law is a model that other Member States could usefully follow with regard to integration, access and equal treatment.
Following on from that, could I urge firstly the President-in-Office to use his good offices and his benign influence on his colleagues within the Council to ensure that there is a strong European Union voice and presence at the United Nations Convention on Disability? Secondly will the Spanish presidency guarantee that it will put equal access and equal rights for all disabled people in the European Union at the top of the agenda?
Thirdly and finally, in preparing for 2003 as the International Year of the Disabled, will it also give extra support to the Special Olympics, which will take place within the European Union in 2003?
I simply want to reply to the honourable Member that I have taken good note of his suggestions to the Presidency and that we will always be prepared to contribute to the European Union taking on an increasingly active role in relation to disabled people and, in particular, in relation to the United Nations Convention on disability.
Question No 13 by (H-0005/02):
Subject: Appearances before the European Parliament and involvement in its business on the part of Spanish ministers during the Spanish Presidency The year 2002 has just begun and Spain has taken over the rotating EU Presidency.
The previous incumbent was Belgium and during its six-month term of office not only the country' s Prime Minister and other government ministers, but also the government leaders and ministers of the various Belgian regions, appeared before the European Parliament and chaired some of its meetings.
Since it is laid down in the Spanish Constitution that the Kingdom of Spain is a state comprising autonomous communities which have exclusive powers that in certain cases are similar to and even greater than those of Belgium' s regions, would the Spanish Presidency say why no plans have been made for representatives of any of Spain' s autonomous communities to appear before the European Parliament and to take part in its proceedings?
The Council would remind Mr Ortuondo that Article 203 of the Treaty establishing the European Union lays down that "The Council shall consist of a representative of each Member State at ministerial level, authorised to commit the government of that Member State" .
Apart from this provision, it falls to each Member State to decide the composition of its representation and, therefore, it falls to the Presidency to establish, in its capacity as such, how it will be represented in its appearances and parliamentary acts.
This decision will inevitably depend partly on national constitutional provisions, which differ from one Member State to another.
It therefore follows that the Council cannot make any comment on the decisions taken by the Presidency in relation to its representation, and in particular, to the contacts it maintains with the European Parliament.
I would firstly like to thank you for your answer to the previous question on this same subject.
As you will have realised, the reply just given by the President-in-Office of the Council is the same as the one he gave to Question No 6.
I would like to point out that Article 203 of the Treaty establishing the European Communities speaks of 'ministerial rank' and, both in the meetings of the Councils of Ministers and during the Presidency, there is quite naturally participation by representatives of the Belgian regions or autonomous communities, or whatever you want to call them, and also - as the MEP who spoke about this said earlier - the region or nation of Scotland, the German Länder or the Austrian States and other such examples within the Community.
In this regard, I would like to ask whether you consider the Spanish Government' s action in this respect to be appropriate.
When talking about, for example, economic and financial affairs, or a plan for budgetary stability, it reaches agreements with the other governments of the Union, but when the same is to be raised on the level of the Spanish State, you impose it by law, instead of seeking agreement and consensus with the Communities which have exclusive competence in these areas.
I can only reply be repeating my previous answer on this issue.
It falls to each State to organise its representation in the Councils of Ministers and in Parliament in accordance with their own internal laws and constitutions.
Mr Ortuondo gives some correct examples and some less correct ones, because it is true that there may have been some Belgian representation or, in some cases, some representation from a German Land, but I do not remember ever seeing Scottish Ministers in any Council.
Perhaps he is confusing the Scottish Secretary, who is a Minister of the Central British Government, with a representative of the Scottish Government.
That is a great mistake.
There should not be any confusion on this issue and I would like to make it perfectly clear that it is the governments which decide on their representation and there is therefore nothing more to say on this issue.
With regard to Mr Ortuondo' s question, there are two aspects which I would like to mention.
The first is the invoking of the constitutional foundations of a State, which are constantly being called into question by Mr Ortuondo' s party, demonstrating its irresponsible and destabilising attitude.
The second is the curious analogy we have heard about other States of the Union, Belgium for example, when it is well known, except amongst those displaying ignorance or bad faith, that the territorial organisation of the Belgian State obeys a very complex and unique system, involving the interlinking of cultural and linguistic communities with political communities, and a system of compatibilities between federal responsibilities and regional responsibilities which is completely different to the situation of the Autonomous Communities in Spain.
In this context, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to know whether you agree with the view that this rich diversity in the territorial organisation of the States making up the Union is something which stimulates, enriches and strengthens European democracy, which prevents homogenising reductionism - despite what Mr Ortuondo seems to think - and that, of course, it must be fully respected by the Community institutions.
Mr President, I have nothing to add to what I have already said.
I believe that the diversity of the Union is guaranteed by the respect for the constitutional systems of each country, and each country organises its presence in Councils, and during its presidency, and in other institutions, in accordance with its internal laws and constitutional provisions.
Mr Vidal-Quadras said that the party I represent, and I myself, want to subvert the Spanish Constitution.
The positions we advocate have nothing to do with subversion.
According to the Spanish Constitution, the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, to which I belong, has certain exclusive competences in certain areas.
On tax issues, for example.
Decisions are habitually made in the Council of Ministers of the European Union on fiscal issues while the interested parties are not represented there to defend themselves, as is the case with our Autonomous Community of the Basque Country and the Autonomous Community of Navarre.
We do not feel represented by the Madrid government because we have frequent differences on the issue of sovereignty; a sovereignty which has not been granted us as a result of the generosity of the Madrid government, but which originates from the historic rights of the Basque people.
I would ask Members not to enter into debates on situations relating to their respective countries, but rather to put questions to the Council.
On the other hand, all opinions have the right to be expressed in this House as long as they end with a question, as has been the case with Mr Vidal-Quadras and other Members.
All I ask is that the Rules of Procedure be respected; otherwise, the danger is that, during the Presidency of a particular country, questions will focus on problems and debates specific to that country.
As the author is not present, Question No 14 lapses.
Question No 15 by (H-0010/02):
Subject: Biological and toxin weapons On 15 November 2001, Parliament adopted a resolution (B5-0708/2001) on negotiations within the framework of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention following the recent anthrax attacks.
At the fifth review conference of the Convention held in Geneva last November, the US delegation was the only one of the 144 countries represented which refused to recognise the legal commitments ensuing from the Convention. Will the Council, therefore, say what steps it will take in response to Parliament's resolution to secure multilateral disarmament and the non-proliferation of biological and toxin weapons by way of a legally binding protocol?
Do not worry, Mr President, I am pleased to answer this question.
As Mr Papayannakis no doubt knows, the European Union has been playing an active role in the negotiations with the ad hoc group of States which are parties to the Convention on Biological and Toxin Weapons and in the 5th review conference, held in Geneva from 19 November to 7 December 2001.
This activity was based on the common positions adopted in 1996, 1998 and 1999 and on the conclusions of the Council of 11 June 2001.
The European Union therefore regrets that, after six years of negotiations on the basis of a unanimously agreed mandate, the 5th review conference of the Convention on Biological and Toxin Weapons has not managed to adopt either a final declaration or a document with concrete measures to strengthen that Convention.
To strengthen the Convention on Biological and Toxin Weapons is still one of the Council' s priorities in the field of health.
In accordance with the conclusions of 10 December 2001, on the repercussions of the terrorist threat on the European Union' s non-proliferation, disarmament and arms control policies, the Union intends to actively promote the global and effective application of multilateral instruments in the field of non-proliferation, disarmament and arms control.
With regard to the Convention on Biological and Toxin Weapons, the European Union confirms that the mandate of the ad hoc group of States which are parties to the Convention is still valid.
The Union has decided to continue its work towards a successful conclusion of a 5th review conference of the Convention, newly convened for November of this year.
Thank you for your reply, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, and for your statements as to what the Council and the Union intend to do about these terrible weapons.
However, the problem which we are up against, Mr President-in-Office, is this: the United States wants out of the agreement because it is legally binding.
You say that we shall keep trying to achieve something more specific in the future.
My question is this: what talks are you holding with the United States, what can you do to make them change their mind and what information do you have on the matter? Because everything else depends on this.
I do not question your good intentions, what I do question is the analysis of the situation which the President-in-Office's statement appears to contain.
In fact, we have one particular hope: that in November 2002 we may have an agreement at this 5th review conference of the Convention.
But that agreement will not naturally be complete if the United States does not participate, and this issue is therefore one of the issues included in the current dialogue with the United States, with a view to the preparation of the summit between the European Union and the United States which is expected to take place before the end of the Presidency - certainly in June, if not in April, since the date is yet to be decided.
Our argument with the United States is that, not only would the non-participation of the United States in this 5th review conference of the Convention and its new agreement damage the credibility of the whole international effort, but that to have a clear position on the Convention on Biological and Toxin Weapons is also one of the agreed actions which can be carried out jointly by the European Union and the United States in order to implement measures to combat the terrorist threat.
Because it is well know that these biological and toxin weapons may be used for criminal purposes by international terrorist organisations.
Therefore, the more committed the whole of international society is to this issue, and the United States in particular, - since it is one of the top producers of biological and toxin weapons - the better.
I believe that this is being included in the dialogue we are holding with the United States in the Senior Level Group and in the agreements we want to reach with the United States at the summit between the United States and the European Union, which is going to take place during this six-month period.
As the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 16 to 37 will be replied to in writing, apart from Question No 36 which deals with an issue which is on the agenda.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
(The sitting was adjourned at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Management of regional policy and the Structural Funds (continued)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A5-0006/2002) by Mr Pohjamo, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the management of regional policy and the Structural Funds (2001/2066 (INI)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this own-initiative report is concerned with analysing problems in the use actually made of the Structural Funds and with submitting proposals as to how their management and effectiveness could be improved, not least with a view to the next pending revision of post-2006 regional policy.
The rapporteur has succeeded both in highlighting the improvements achieved in the wake of the 2000 reform of the Structural Funds and also in drawing our attention to difficulties in their application, especially the problems in connection with the delayed implementation of the programme.
It is these to which I wish to give particular attention.
Although it was an essential objective of the pre-2000 reform of the Structural Funds to avoid repetition of mistakes from the beginning of the 1994 planning period, but rather to get fully involved in the first year, this has only partly succeeded.
Negotiations on the programme still took up too much time. The guidelines set out by the Commission were not always understood in the regions.
Negotiations were often delayed through the pace at which the Commission worked and through slow response times, which were sometimes contingent on new requirements imposed by the Commission.
It is reported from the regions that these in turn were seen there as merely petty.
On the other hand, the Member States were not always prompt in sending in the programme documents and the additional items of information that had been requested.
All these things, Mr President, are facts - facts of which I had warned when I was the rapporteur presenting an own-initiative report in the same terms, appealing urgently for the start of a new planning period not to again be delayed as it had been in 1994.
Let us then now draw the right and necessary conclusions for 2006, or else reports of that sort will in fact be nothing more than wastepaper.
There should be no gaps occurring between programming periods.
That is why I support the rapporteur's proposal that we should also examine whether in future there should not also be separation and limitation of the periods for which project-oriented programmes and Community initiatives run.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Mr Pohjamo' s resolution included some amendments tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and some tabled by Mr Fava and myself.
I would like to draw your attention to two amendments which I feel to be important: the amendment on the principle of additionality and the amendment clarifying the concept of cross-border region.
Additionality is essential so that Structural Funds appropriations supplement national funds rather than replacing them.
I would add that Parliament cannot and must not be a spectator in the management of structural expenditure.
In this respect, I would put forward two guidelines: firstly, the reform and modernisation of the public administration; and secondly, the establishment of development banks consistent with PEP and SPD parameters.
I will end by calling upon Commissioner Barnier to take note of the fact that there needs to be some flexibility in the application of automatic decommitment in that the process must recognise those who are working successfully in the same Member State.
It is right that the idle should not be allowed to get away with it, but it is also right that those who benefit should be the best, the most far-sighted and the most modern.
Mr President, Parliament must make an assessment of the quality of projects according to the results achieved a priority, and the Commission must ensure that Parliament is in a position genuinely to carry out careful monitoring.
In this sense, the proposed informal working group will be useful.
Sometimes, however, the Commission does not respond within the time allowed and certain States are guilty of this too, particularly in the negotiation phases.
It is therefore appropriate to pause and take stock of the situation in order to enable the Commission to provide responses more quickly, to achieve uniformity of provisions on the different funds as quickly as possible, to ensure that we progress along the road of streamlining bureaucracy - making increasing numbers of regions and local communities accountable and providing them with consultancy services - and to speed up the automatic decommitment mechanisms so as to allow swift reallocation of funds and the drawing up of an annual detailed, specific report which will make it possible to proceed with full knowledge of the facts from evaluation to programming.
Moreover, a bridge programme should be envisaged allowing certain States, including Italy, to make use of the unused funds from the 1994-99 programming period, similarly to what happened at the end of the 1993 programming period.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Structural Funds were designed to support the effort that the Member States put into their regional development policy and thus to strengthen the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the European Union.
It must be noted that the aid provided by the Structural Funds to the most disadvantaged regions is absolutely vital and that the contribution of these funds has become essential in enabling certain regions, which are lagging behind in development, to catch up, particularly the outermost regions, which I know well.
The start of the new 2000-2006 programming period has once again shown us the problems in the practical implementation of the Structural Funds, with the Member States regretting the time taken by the Commission to approve the general programme guidelines and the Commission criticising the time taken by the Member States to submit their programming plans and the additional information requested.
It is essential that the next programme negotiations are kept within strictly limited, precise and binding time limits, so that the Member States and the Commission respect the rules laid down.
The time that elapsed between setting up the programmes is, without doubt, one of the reasons that explains why the initial figures on their execution are so disappointing, but this is, of course, not the only explanation.
Following Agenda 2000, the processing of the funds was decentralised and each Member State gained overall responsibility for implementing, monitoring and ensuring the efficiency of the structural interventions on its territory.
As for France, I wish to formally appeal to the prefects of the regions that are eligible for Objectives 1 and 2 to make every effort to mobilise and encourage those responsible for the projects and to give them all the necessary technical support to enable them to carry out the programmes more successfully.
Unfortunately, it is often difficult to involve businesses in Community programmes, since the management of the projects appears complicated and the procedures appear slow.
This is an aspect that the national authorities must focus on, without fail, in order to enhance the attraction of Structural Funds in the private sector.
Lastly, to conclude with a firm proposal, I think that one of the ways to simplify and lighten the administrative burden would, in fact, be to introduce a single regional development fund in 2007.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are debating the own-initiative report on the management of regional policy and the Structural Funds presented by Mr Pohjamo, whom I would like to thank for his good work.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has tabled five amendments because we want to highlight some of the aspects relating to the issue we are dealing with.
Firstly, while we agree that cooperation with other agents - other than State and regional governments, that is to say, with local communities, NGOs, private bodies, etc. is beneficial in terms of achieving the economic, social and territorial cohesion of the Union, we do not believe that that cooperation has been satisfactorily respected in all the Member States, but that it has been applied in an unequal fashion.
We therefore affectionately urge the Commission to try to ensure that socio-economic and environmental cooperation be applied equally in all regions receiving Community Funds and to ensure that the programming of projects is subject to consultation with the parliaments and governments of the constitutional regions which have legislative powers.
We also demand the creation of clear indicators intended to assess the application of this cooperation principle.
Furthermore, within the framework of the guidelines for the intermediate evaluation of September 2002, we want the Commission to define indicators for the efficient allocation of the reserve which, as well as financial management, take account of other aspects of management, such as cooperation, additionality and the quality of expenditure.
At the same time, we ask that, in the event that unspent resources are reallocated, the appropriations which are not used be directed towards the least-favoured regions which are most active and innovative, as well as measures in favour of sustainable development.
Finally, in support of the rapporteur' s idea - with regard to including the quality aspect in the annual monitoring of programmes subsidised by the Commission - we propose an assessment of their contribution to the implementation of the Union' s strategies relating to sustainable development and employment.
We hope that our amendments will receive the majority support of Parliament, since they will serve to improve our Community economic and social objectives.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank Mr Pohjamo for his excellent report, for the interest he always shows, as do the other members of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism and its new chairman, Mr Caveri, and as did the previous chairman, Mr Hatzidakis, for their collective efforts to make the management of regional policy and Structural Funds more straightforward and more efficient.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think it is very important for the Commission to receive both encouragement and constructive criticism.
I have been listening very closely and with great interest to each of the speakers and, if I may, I would like to write to some of you within the next few days in order to clarify a number of points.
Mr Pohjamo, the Commission supports your comments regarding the financial execution, particularly the very severe and very strict n+2 rule that is to be applied, as well as your remarks on monitoring and control and also on the quality of the programmes and projects.
Like you, we have seen that there are some difficulties in the management of funds.
In the few minutes that I have, I would like to make three comments to clarify or explain the work of the European Commission.
My first comment concerns the new rules for the 2000-2006 period, which were laid down for a new working method and which also defined new responsibilities for those involved in the management of Structural Funds.
Each of the persons involved needed time to prepare and get up to speed.
In the case of our Directorate-General, these changes came about at the same time as the internal reorganisation of the whole institution.
I am not looking for excuses; I simply want to give an explanation.
These new regulations were also drawn up from much stricter requirements regarding the quality of programmes.
I am thinking, for example, of the provisions governing the ex-ante appraisal.
In this area too, the various players needed time to understand and grasp these new requirements.
There are also areas where this change required a choice to be made between several objectives.
I shall give an example that you yourself, Mr Pohjamo, mentioned. You quite rightly pointed out that the negotiations on the programme documents took an average of eight to twelve months to complete, instead of the five months scheduled by the legislator.
The truth, and I want to be honest about this, as I always am before this House, is that a five-month deadline to draft a document that is intended to cover a seven-year period was not realistic, when you understand the tough challenges involved and the amounts involved in the Structural Funds.
A choice had to be made between completing the job rapidly, sometimes even in a hurry, and quality.
The Commission, I must say, and I think that you will acknowledge this, decided to put the quality of the programme documents before all else.
Given the excessive number of months taken to complete the programming - and I repeat, Mr Pohjamo, that I took careful note of your comment, and I may come back to this point later when we discuss the report by Mr Musotto - I decided, in future, to propose that the Commission anticipate, as far as possible, the presentation of its proposals on the new regional policy, namely, the new agenda beginning in 2007, so that we can begin programming and implementing projects at the very beginning of the agenda, rather than two years later, because I share your sentiment.
Second, within the limits of the room for manoeuvre that these texts allow, the Commission is already committed to responding to certain problems that you have raised, Mr Pohjamo.
I would firstly like to reiterate our desire to approach the management of Structural Funds in a transparent manner, and the communication that the Commission adopted on 5 July on the results of the programming of funds for Objective 1 between 2000-2006 is evidence of this.
The Commission has also recently simplified the procedures for handling programming complements, which was an area of criticism. I heard many regional chairmen and ministers voice this criticism.
I also decided to set up, in order to study all the areas where we could simplify matters, a working group between my office and the Directorate-General on regional policy, so that we could make specific progress with simplification.
Remember that the commissioner speaking to you, ladies and gentlemen, is speaking to you using a wealth of experience and hindsight that I have gained, and cannot forget, from being chairman of a local authority in his own country.
Therefore, I understand very well this need to reduce bureaucracy and excessive complications.
The only boundary that I have, to tell the truth, and which I will not exceed, is that I must supply accounts, accurate accounts, sometimes very detailed accounts on several thousand euro, both to the budgetary control authority - in other words, the European Parliament - and to the Court of Auditors.
It is my personal responsibility, that of the Commission, to provide fair accounts when they are requested.
As regards the sensitive question of natural or ecological disasters, which you mentioned in your report, Mr Pohjamo, I wish to point out that changes can be made to the programmes, as we have done in the past, with the Italian, Portuguese and Greek programmes, for example, when there were earthquakes between 1997 and 1999, or, more recently, in France, because of the hurricane.
That does not, of course, take into account the freedom that the national and regional authorities have within the programmes adopted by the Commission to finance projects that they believe to be most applicable and, if necessary, to re-deploy or re-programme appropriations.
My third comment is that I naturally want to reiterate that everyone, myself in particular, must comply with the regulations that the legislator wanted in order to supervise the management of the Structural Funds.
It is in the light of this reminder that I must examine certain proposals that you have put forward, Mr Pohjamo.
Therefore, your proposals on imposing penalties for infringing the additionality principle or for cutting short a programming period are to be taken into account in the current debate on the future of the cohesion policy.
I took note of these proposals and the comments for use in the debate and I will take them into account.
But beware of proposals that could involve modifying the legislative framework, or even amending the Treaty itself, such as the idea of creating a single regional development fund.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, whilst respecting the competences and the responsibilities of our respective institutions, I would like to reaffirm to you that the Commission is at your disposal and is willing to loyally fulfil its duty to keep Parliament informed. It will do this by regularly reporting back on the use of the Structural Funds, including by objective, as I have started to do for Objective 1 and as I will do for Objective 2; by systematically informing the House of our work by means of reports, including reports which provide assessments, and by coming before the committees on a regular basis, such as the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In fact, I shall be doing this in a few days' time.
I think that together this forms a solid basis for a genuinely transparent, sincere and ongoing dialogue between our institutions.
Lastly, I would like to confirm the links that I am establishing between the report by Mr Pohjamo and the next report, and that all these comments on improving the management of Structural Funds will be very useful to me, to us, in drawing up the Commission guidelines on the future regional policy.
I believe that better management of appropriations, provided in a timely fashion, for useful projects in each of our regions, that the proper use of Structural Funds during this period, will be evidence and an argument for pursuing, or even stepping up all our actions by revamping regional policy in the next agenda.
That is why, Mr Pohjamo, I would like to express my sincere thanks to you for the time that you have taken, for your initiative in drawing up this report on the current management of Structural Funds.
(Applause)
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Economic and social cohesion
The next item is the report (A5-0007/2002) by Mr Musotto, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the second report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on economic and social cohesion (COM(2001) 24 - C5-0527/2001 - 2001/2207(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it must be pointed out that this report is being tabled before Parliament at a particularly important historical and political moment in European integration, namely just before the start of the Convention which is to lay the foundations of the new Europe, a Convention of which Commissioner Barnier is an important member.
We are therefore especially glad that he can be here today.
It must be said from the outset that cohesion policy is a major success story in terms of Community integration. Indeed, it is, has been in the past, and will continue to be, one of the cornerstones of that process.
Consistently with the Commission' s second report, we have noted that between 1988 and 1998 per capita GDP in Objective 1 regions rose from 63% to 70% of the Community average - and this is a great success - moreover, the benefits of cohesion have not been limited to direct recipients of related funding but have also extended to countries which are net contributors in terms of exported goods and services.
Of course, the process has not yet reached its conclusion.
Much still remains to be done and there are difficulties to address and overcome, including, in particular, the scourge of unemployment, which, I am sad to say, is affecting many regions where the unemployment rate has not dropped at all.
We need infrastructural investments in order to eliminate the marginalisation caused by geographical location and the remoteness of the islands and the most outlying regions; accessibility is a determining factor in terms of the competitiveness of an area and it needs to be improved, although without incurring excessive environmental costs.
In future, cohesion policy must be recast, first and foremost to cater for the changed circumstances which enlargement will bring for all of us, but it is also vital that the future regional policy should be based on the results of Commission documents, particularly the most recent document issued a few days ago, known as the periodic report.
I am afraid to say that the gap between rich and poor will grow as, after enlargement, one sixth of the Community population will have an income of barely 40% of the Community average.
Preaccession instruments such as ISPA and the Sapard programme have been set up to assist the candidate countries, to enable them to prepare for the new situation of which they will have to become a part; these have been essential tools for the transition from candidate countries to Member States.
However, we need to promote a genuine regional development policy. In this regard, I feel that the European spatial development perspective can serve as an important technical source of major integration and development.
There are two key objectives to pursue: solidarity towards the new Member States and avoiding penalising, indeed protecting, those currently benefiting from cohesion policies.
A major effort therefore needs to be made in terms of solidarity - especially political solidarity ensuring that all the peoples are involved and are provided with the requisite information - in economic and financial policy.
The 'statistical convergence' must not be mistaken for 'real convergence' by the current beneficiaries, who will certainly not automatically become richer simply as a result of the accession of poorer regions.
We need administrative methods which will improve efficiency; we need to streamline, clarify and facilitate the demarcation between the role of the Commission and that of the regional and national levels; it will be necessary to simplify procedures increasingly and we need greater subsidiarity and more decentralisation.
It will also be essential to rationalise the support instruments by reducing the number and size of funds and better coordinating Community policies and cohesion policies.
Regions which continue to lag behind in terms of development, measured in terms of unemployment and other criteria in addition to per capita income, must be maintained under Objective 1.
Lastly - and this is a point of contention which prompted wide debate - the allocation of financial resources must be increased or, at least, revised and brought up to a sufficient level: the threshold of 0.45% is an absolute minimum below which it is impossible to go.
We hope that Parliament and the Commission will both call for a increase in the budget dedicated to the future resources of cohesion policy.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. (DE) Mr President, the Commission's report and Mr Musotto's are laudable, the one for its analytical description of the situation and the other for its supplementary proposals, although the observations of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs were taken into account only to a somewhat modest extent.
Further to them, though, I would like to elaborate, from my Committee's point of view, another issue which has almost been pushed into obscurity.
Commissioner, we have learned essential lessons from the difficulties we have had in raising poorer regions or suffering former industrialised zones to the level within the European Union; they should spur us on to improve things and should serve as a benchmark for the process of enlargement.
It is above all the poorer industrial zones in the future Member States whose need for massive restructuring measures causes me great concern.
I refer above all to coal and steel regions; the steel industries in these countries are absolutely incapable of competing with our own, and the collieries are a potential problem.
I do not want to go at this juncture into what will happen if we are unable to give our new friends sufficient aid.
I will only observe that, as the ECSC's expiry is imminent, we no longer have a suitable instrument in this field.
I reiterate that now because the ECSC continued to be of excellent service to us in recent years, no cofinancing is needed and the system of financing could in any case have been adapted.
We also have to make solidarity payments to the applicant countries.
I reiterate that now because the new States will not have adequate access to financing.
I have touched on this issue now because the Commission played a considerable part in changing this instrument without envisaging the difficulties in the process of enlargement or even giving them some thought.
Do something about this problem, Commissioner!
The problem is not a small one.
We do not have enough instruments suited to the processes of adaptation while enlargement is going on.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when considering the report we are now discussing, on the future of cohesion after enlargement, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities unanimously approved the following fundamental principles:
firstly: cohesion policy, as defined in the Treaties, is a crucial pillar for the future of European integration and must not, therefore, be renationalised;
secondly: the active promotion of a policy of equality between men and women is a prerequisite for achieving real economic and social cohesion;
thirdly: the fact that disparities between the richest and poorest regions are predicted to double following the planned enlargement to a further ten countries and a significant fall in per capita income makes it crucial that the sum currently spent by the Union on cohesion polices is at least 0.45% of GDP, and for the sake of coherence, this amount must be increased.
I should also like to draw your attention to the objective laid down at the Lisbon Summit of achieving, in the European Union, in 2010, a 60% rate of female employment, because this increase in women working is essential not only in order to increase the European GDP, but also to finance the future of social security and to bring about an increase in tax revenues.
I therefore ask the Commission to consider gender equality as an integral part of the Community polices that contribute to economic and social cohesion; to include the aspect of gender and equal treatment between men and women in cohesion policies and assess, on the basis of precise indicators and quantified objectives, the contribution that economic and social cohesion makes to achieving the Community strategy for equal treatment and opportunities between men and women.
Mr President, I must congratulate Mr Ìusotto on his report, which is a job extremely well done.
We must look, first, at what conclusions we can draw on the basis of progress so far and, secondly, at the challenges facing us.
As regards what conclusions we can draw from the policies applied so far, what we can say is that we have clearly made progress, but that this progress has varied from one Member State to another.
In some Member States there have been very positive results and a great deal of progress, while in others such as my own, unfortunately, the results have not been as positive as they might have been.
This means that governments need to get the message, especially in the light of the new regulation now being applied, which is more decentralised than the previous regulation, and do what they can to bring about the results which other countries have achieved.
Secondly, the question of enlargement is now a factor, bringing with it even greater demands.
Because numerous poor countries are joining, this will, as we all know, artificially inflate the income of numerous regions in comparison with the Community average.
Because of the statistics, numerous regions will cease to be covered unless they take measures during a programming period.
Consequently, 0.45% of the Community GDP earmarked for the Structural Funds must be the lower limit.
We cannot drop any lower and have reliable policies.
Many of my fellow Members disagree with this view and they do, of course, have every reason to put forward their arguments.
But what we have to ask ourselves, especially those of us who really believe in the European Union and its prospects, is just how much money we are spending from the Member States' GDP in order to achieve the ambitious objectives set by the European Union.
Is it because we are spending so much money that we object every time the Community budget increases? At some point we must realise that ambitious objectives cannot be achieved without the necessary funding.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish, on behalf of my group, to congratulate Mr Musotto on his report, which calls attention to some pertinent matters.
The measures to achieve economic balance have been insufficient: they have been heading in the right direction, but they have been insufficient.
Regional and social differences in terms of prosperity have even increased in the present Member States.
In future we must pay attention to strengthening rural vitality and diversity in regions which are unfavourable in terms of geographical location and natural conditions.
Additional costs resulting from difficult conditions, for example in island regions and mountain areas, must be compensated for with combined efforts and precisely defined regional policy measures.
Furthermore, the sharp disparities in unemployment rates and structural problems must be taken seriously in planning regional structural policy.
The commitment of SMEs and skills and know-how to projects is an important priority.
Aid action under the Structural Funds must also be better coordinated with national employment targets.
GNP alone is inadequate as a criterion in determining eligible areas.
We have to equally consider permanent problems associated with climatic and geographical conditions.
For example, extremely sparsely populated areas, long journey times, and cold and hot climates mean additional costs, which will also be there after enlargement.
An effective cohesion policy requires that sufficient financing is safeguarded.
There are actually rather different views in my group regarding how that can be addressed.
Whatever the case, it is important to have improved coordination between the various forms of aid granted out of the funds available.
The enlargement of the Union requires a reinforced cohesion policy.
Enlargement must not go ahead at the expense of the worse-off regions, but through joint efforts.
It is important to ensure that all the Union' s resources are spent effectively, and that includes the most remote regions.
We have to ensure together that the whole area of the Union is included in the single market and derives benefit from it.
For that reason, cooperation with the peripheral areas is more important than ever.
Mr President, my first point is that this is where one normally praises the rapporteur.
I cannot, unfortunately, do that on this occasion, as the rapporteur did not succeed in developing a discussion in the committee that would lead to a common position by Parliament on the Commission's proposals, nor, indeed, did he make the effort to do so.
I see this as a great pity, as a core report and a core position on the part of Parliament are just what is needed.
The Greens, by contrast, have a clear position.
They reject all attempts to protect vested rights and the exceptions to them.
Solidarity between regions must remain the supreme imperative, whilst there must not be such a thing as first and second-class Europe.
In consequence, the Structural Funds must primarily benefit the poorest regions, which just happen to be in the East.
That means that a phasing-out is at the same time an important instrument, and it also cushions the present regions in receipt of support.
Option 2 highlights the problems and offers a solution, and hence it is Option 2 that enjoys our full support.
At the same time though - and this is my next point - our group objects to the Commission's tactic of involving the candidate countries in the management of the Structural Funds at too late a stage and then making a saving at the end of the day.
Last week' s proposal strikes me as scandalous.
It economises on the cohesion policy rather than introducing it earlier, in the pre-accession process.
That is why we urge that a start be made now, with the candidate countries, on phasing-in, on setting up the payment agencies, on training in the management of Structural Funds, in order to make decentralised structural policy, rather than centralised project-based policy, the objective of the Structural Funds.
Future coalition policy must be characterised by sustainable development and participation by local actors, and we must make a start on this now.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, unlike Mrs Schroedter, I regard the final result of the Committee's vote on Mr Musotto's report as a success.
The report demonstrates, firstly, a balanced assessment of the disparities within the European Union, which continue to be marked, secondly, the challenge thrown down by enlargement, and thirdly, the need for improvements in the area of the EU's structural and cohesion policies.
I would very much like to highlight four fundamental points.
The first is that there must be no renationalisation of Structural Fund policy.
I can save myself the effort of justifying this, as Mr Duin has already done that for me.
Secondly, a polycentric model of space would be a sensible approach to counteracting the disparity between the centre and the periphery.
Thirdly, there is a need for improved coordination among the Structural Funds as well as of structural policy with the other Community policy areas, especially the common agricultural policy and fiscal and economic policy.
Fourthly, consistent application of the bottom-up and partnership principles at every stage - planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation would not only promote closeness to the citizens, but also the subsidiarity principle.
What is imperative, quite apart from the need to continue with aid for the underdeveloped regions of the present Member States, is that the soon-to-be Member States of the European Union must enjoy our full solidarity with them, which means the involvement of these countries, with equal rights, in EU structural policy, without allowing the present Member States to fall by the wayside.
Serious shortfalls in development make it, in my view, already perfectly clear that even 0.45% of Europe's GDP will not be sufficient to do this.
Provision of support and transnational cooperation in the border regions will be of great significance as enlargement takes its course.
Justice has not, in my judgement, been adequately done to this in the report.
The course for the Structural Funds, with their criteria and indicators for support, must be set in such a way that economic and social cohesion is also reflected in falling unemployment figures.
My own country, the Federal Republic of Germany, is setting a bad example in this respect, for unemployment in the 'Objective 1' regions is rising dramatically.
We have a rate of over 20%, but this figure is, fortunately, not as high in the more developed regions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Title XVII of the Treaty establishing the European Community, particularly Article 158 thereof, includes among the Union' s political priorities the promotion of the Community' s 'overall harmonious development' , aiming at 'reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least-favoured regions, including rural areas' .
Personally, I feel that it is necessary to continue to pursue this objective with a coherent, continuing, sustainable policy.
The second report on EU cohesion presented by Commissioner Barnier depicts a situation which has improved but which has certainly not been resolved.
It is clear that the progress made has not been uniform and that severe regional disparities remain which - as rightly pointed out by the rapporteur - are increasing rather than diminishing.
With regard to the objectives, I fully support the position of my fellow member, Mr Musotto.
The criterion for deciding which regions are eligible for receiving aid lays down the threshold of 75% of average Community per capita GDP.
My personal feeling is that, as of 2006, it would certainly be more appropriate to use the unemployment rate as a measure, for the entry of poorer regions which are in greater need of aid will certainly not raise the level of the regions currently under Objective 1.
Mr President, the forthcoming enlargement of the Union gives this debate on economic and social cohesion a special dynamic.
Indeed, it is evident that when the candidate countries join, the current system will prove to entail too heavy a financial burden.
This forces us to make choices.
The Commission has already indicated a few options, but we must give this matter some more thought.
We believe that, in some cases, a policy in support of economic and social cohesion that also supplements national policy is useful and desirable.
The Structural Funds have a special and relatively broad task in this respect.
The Cohesion Fund, on the other hand, pertains to one particular aspect of economic cohesion, namely participation in EMU.
In our view, this should also be at the heart of cohesion policy: helping Member States meet the convergence criteria, both before and after enlargement, without drawing a distinction between old and new. In that way, not too much will need changing.
The reports of the Commission have also proven that the current system works.
The Cohesion Fund is intended to provide economic stimuli on the basis of transparent, clearly defined criteria.
As far as we are concerned, this is how things will remain, because otherwise we run the risk of losing our way in a structure of soft criteria, and the European and Monetary Union cannot survive on soft criteria.
That is why I have tabled a number of amendments to which an honest but plain approach is central.
I hope that fellow MEPs will give this matter serious thought.
Mr President, the Committee on Industry considers this report to be quite positive. It feels that the indicators in euros paint a more reliable picture than the current measurement and eligibility criteria and also considers that the unemployment indicators are important because in some regions, only 44% of people of working age are in employment, although disparities in production are also significant.
The Committee on Industry also takes the view that the concentration of the Union' s economy in a triangle which is twice or four times as productive as the outlying regions is one of the problems accentuating these disparities and making it difficult to correct them, and is of the opinion that future programming must make a qualitative assessment of the various indicators.
With regard to enlargement, we must allow greater flexibility in the way funds are used, in line with the specific characteristics of each State.
The Committee on Industry supports an increase in the Union' s financial effort for cohesion policy, specifically by making competition tougher and by adjusting the budgets of Community policies. It takes the view that any policy that is given greater financial resources than cohesion policy could neutralise it and that the most developed countries grant production aid that almost equals the Community budget.
The lack of tough competition favours neither cohesion nor integration and is one reason for ongoing criticism within the WTO.
The Committee on Industry urges the Commission to guarantee the creation of a European energy and communications market that respects universal service, prioritises energy efficiency and research, energy saving and the use of renewable energies.
The Committee considers it essential to complete infrastructures in the fields of accessibility and transport in order to reduce the effects on the competitiveness of the current outlying regions, without which the efforts for cohesion that we have already made will suffer.
The Committee wishes to draw attention to the effects on the price and the taxation of energy in the outermost and overseas regions.
It recommends that endogenous energies should be developed as well as clean and safe technologies for the use of coal, nuclear energy and hydrocarbons.
Mr President, Commissioner, congratulations first to Mr Musotto on a fine report, and I say this against the backdrop of the harsh criticism by the Greens, whose attitude I do not share.
I would like, in my contribution to this discussion, to focus on the future of regional policy.
Reference has already been made several times this evening to the reconciliation of two fundamental needs with each other, which must be possible, with a high degree of solidarity towards the new Member States on the one hand, but also, on the other, solidarity with those regions that are at present lagging behind or undergoing economic transition.
To put it another way, even if it is generally acknowledged that the regions in all the applicant countries must be supported as a matter of priority, the 'Objective 1' regions of the present fifteen Member States, which will, in the course of enlargement, lose their eligibility for support only because of their relatively high standard of living in an enlarged EU, that is, only by dint of the cosmetic use of statistics, should not overnight be excluded from any opportunity to be supported.
Commissioner, it will be necessary over the coming months to discuss how to guarantee equal treatment of these regions, which have yet to complete the process of economic convergence, with the areas being embraced by enlargement.
Political and economic considerations mean that future cohesion policy must not concentrate exclusively on regions whose development is lagging furthest behind, but it must also take into account the advantages and disadvantages in urban areas, in areas undergoing socio-economic change, in regions with permanent natural disadvantages and also the cross-border dimension.
The financial means this policy needs must of course be made available.
The present threshold of 0.45% of Community GDP must therefore not fall any lower - that too was mentioned several times this evening - in order that cohesion policy may not be jeopardised.
At the present time, we have in any case not yet exhausted the possibilities open to us.
Everything else must be tested by reference to the new financial framework and in the light of the results of enlargement.
I therefore think it inappropriate to be already, as a precaution, articulating demands for the replenishment of funds.
Ladies and gentlemen, in discussing Mr Musotto's report, we obviously want to express our concerns about the future of political cohesion in the Union, given that, if the gap between the rich and the poor is to narrow and they are to feel that they belong to the same European body, they need to converge economically and socially.
Of course, our starting point is fundamentally contradictory.
We want much greater enlargement, but without providing the corresponding funds and we invent lower and lower cohesion targets along the lines of "if the mountain won't come to Mohammed, then let' s take Mohammed to the mountain".
Be that as it may, we face a very tricky problem and we are required to resolve it in less than optimum circumstances, while keeping up the fight to improve those circumstances.
Obviously, we do not want a twin-track Europe, as previous speakers have stressed, but we want a multi-track Europe even less.
So our objective must be to help the new regions where they need help, but without abandoning the old regions which also need help, when they need help.
So I think we need to state that 0.45% is inadequate and that the Cohesion Fund and other Community initiatives need to keep functioning as they have done so far, given that they have proven to be extremely efficient.
And of course we must take a very careful look at the future of political cohesion, in conjunction with the policy of sustainable development and agricultural policy. It is our duty here to avoid stop-gap, hasty solutions which might prove to be the undoing of our farmers, whom we need for the countryside, for the environment, for our very existence.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, European regional policy includes a differential element, which is dictated by geography and which defines the outermost regions.
They are distant, isolated, fragmented and are highly dependent on the outside, and they have been experiencing inconsistent development since the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which allowed the application of specific measures to correct their backwardness.
Over recent days, the authorities of these regions have been meeting in the Canary Islands to analyse, together with the representatives of the European Commission and the three States involved, the situation of these special regions in relation to social and economic cohesion.
I am sure that, as well as asking for special treatment, they will have requested some of the measures which Mr Musotto is asking for today in his report - and I congratulate him also - in which he stresses the need to differentiate between statistical convergence and real convergence, as well as the suitability of using alternative indicators to per capita income, such as unemployment, the lack of infrastructures, the lack of transport and energy, double insularity, the training of human resources and the levels of ozone in the outermost regions.
In this way, I am sure that their economic and social development will not be restricted and Europe will have clearly demonstrated its solidarity with its people.
Mr President, the Musotto report is a good report.
The overall thrust is quite correct.
The purpose of Cohesion Funds is to counteract the natural centrifugal forces of a large single economic and monetary unit, which is what the European Union and the euro zone are, by helping the less advantaged regions come up to the level of the more prosperous ones.
This is the point: if the less advantaged remain less advantaged, the Cohesion Funds will have failed in their purpose.
But that is why, contrary to what Mr Mussotto and the Committee on Regional Policy demand, we should stick to the 75% of average Community GNP as a graduation point.
Having reached that level the pump will have been adequately primed and the graduating region, with a suitable transitional process, should be well able to continue up the escalator to 100% and higher.
Surely it is only reasonable that at that point these Cohesion Fund resources should be reallocated to those regions which lie further behind.
That is why I will vote against recitals O and R of Mr Musotto's report.
There must also be financial discipline.
An open-ended honey pot is not conducive to encouraging self-help and self-reliance.
This is why I cannot countenance leaving open-ended the possibility of an even higher percentage of European Union GDP being committed to cohesion policies.
0.45% should be quite adequate and will make us hone our priorities and procedures, even in the context of enlargement.
So the second half of paragraph 57, or any compromise of similar effect which leaves the amount be made available open-ended, is not acceptable.
Given these small but significant changes I will be very pleased to support Mr Musotto's report as an important contribution to the future well-being of all parts of our European Union.
Mr President, I would like to thank the many Members who have helped to enhance this resolution with over 50 amendments.
I would also like to make three brief suggestions to the Commission, for - like many other Members - I am convinced that cohesion is not a financial obligation but, first and foremost, a resource, and that if we do not have a Europe of equal opportunities we will never have Europe.
That said, I will turn to the first two suggestions, which, moreover, have already been put forward this evening.
I feel that it would be appropriate to reflect on the parameters, for the gross domestic product may well be in danger of becoming inadequate as an indicator of the real state of well-being or distress of our countries.
We therefore need to assess other factors as well such as the rate of unemployment, the quality of infrastructure and the cost of labour.
My second suggestion is this: since I feel that politics should always prevail over arithmetic, I would call upon Parliament and the Commission not to concentrate on the effects of enlargement as portrayed by statistics, although I do believe deeply in enlargement.
Indeed, we will strive to ensure that no government can see it as a handicap, for it will certainly be a great political asset for Europe.
That said, we would like to avoid certain regions unexpectedly finding themselves in a state of wealth for purely statistical reasons.
Politics must continue to take precedence over arithmetic in this sense.
Here is my third suggestion: we should reinvigorate the strategic profile of our cohesion policy, learning to invest in non-material resources such as training, knowledge and information.
We feel that this is the road to take if integration is to have any practical meaning.
Mr President, last week this debate was dominated by some unfortunate news for cohesion.
In committee we saw the discharge of the 2000 budget, with an execution of 56% of objective 1, 4.5% of objective 2 and 0% of Community initiatives.
We are not talking about the cohesion funds.
The Commissioner, as he told us, wrote a letter to the Presidents of the various countries, reminding them of the 'n+2' rule, that is, that funds may disappear after two years of not being executed.
That is by way of a precaution, amongst other things, and I think it is correct.
The Commission proposed 0.14% of the budget to solve the problems of enlargement.
In any event, I am very pleased with the report by Mr Musotto, in which he makes an enormously positive assessment of regional policy and cohesion policy.
It is a successful policy which is going to ensure that soon there will be almost no Objective 1 regions amongst the Europe of the 15.
The messages of Mr Musotto' s project are clear: procedures must be taken seriously.
I am pleased that the Commissioner has maintained what Parliament proposed: that the programming period be brought forward two years to the next financial perspectives.
He also sends a message relating to the quality of investments and participation, and the implementation of the partnership, which has not yet happened.
But the star has been enlargement: enlargement itself, the effect of enlargement on the other regions that currently receive aid and the absence of a reply to the four questions, Commissioner.
An apparent absence of a reply, since you can give us a satisfactory reply through good work, which is easy if done with common sense and if we believe in cohesion.
Mr President, I will end by saying to the Commissioner that Parliament trusts that the Commission will obtain that response which we all need.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Musotto on his excellent work.
It is difficult to not repeat points which have already been made by other speakers at this stage in the debate.
I will be brief.
One: cohesion policy has proved to be a policy that works, and the report confirms this.
It may not work as well as we would expect or like it to, but it is a policy that yields results.
What is more, in many regions, for many of our fellow citizens, it is sometimes the only practical, positive, friendly aspect of the European Union that they see.
This is an asset which increases the spirit of European citizenship and overall cohesion.
My second point is a fact: we can try to postpone it, ignore it or put off dealing with the issue, but it is still a fact.
In practical terms, enlargement will upset the balance and distort the statistics on which we have built this cohesion policy, for we have based it on what is certainly a statistic, the number of inhabitants and the average income disparity which will be created.
I feel rather hesitant about advancing proposals on this issue, Commissioner, but I would invite the Commission to be less reticent.
Starting to think about the way cohesion policy will have to change in the face of enlargement does not mean placing a question mark over the entire policy of enlargement.
My suggestion is that this debate could, perhaps, focus on three factors: resources, as has been said, for it is unthinkable that resources should remain at their current level; the tools, for I feel, for example, that, while the Structural Funds are a tool which is suitable for a cohesion policy which differs greatly from region to region, it may be that the Cohesion Fund, which is less selective, should be rethought, at least in terms of the way its funds are allocated; coordination of the policies.
In many cases, where there are no additional resources, coordinated policies could be of benefit such as, for example, tax discounts, which it is still not possible to apply to some regions because of a rigid Commission policy on State aid.
Mr President, I also want to address a rigid Commission policy.
As a result of a recent competition policy decision, over EUR 1 billion of much-needed UK regional regeneration investment in poor urban areas and derelict sites has been cut by 75%.
Following the conclusions of the Belgian informal meeting in October, the Commission must now undertake a review of the operation of state aids and regional regeneration policy.
Can the Commissioner please state what follow-up action has been taken? Can it also reassure us that competition policy will not continue to undermine the legitimate efforts of regional and cohesion policies?
Secondly, unlike my Conservative colleague, Mr Purvis, I do not believe that we should take a rigid view of the reform of funding post-2006 at this stage.
Poorer regions such as Merseyside in my region, and in the rest of the EU 15, may continue to need Objective 1 funding, but more importantly than that, today a delegation of trade unionists from Manchester came to Strasbourg to fight to save 650 jobs threatened due to industrial restructuring.
Last year 9 500 jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector in the region alone.
Can the Commissioner therefore tonight give his support for the continuation of a strong role for European assistance post-2006 for our urban and industrial restructuring regions as well as our poorest regions?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since it is impossible, in two minutes, to discuss the countless issues concerning cohesion, which have, furthermore, been dealt with very thoroughly in the report we are now considering by Mr Musotto, whom I should like to congratulate on the excellent work he has undertaken, I should just like to express a few ideas on the implications of enlargement for the European Union' s economic and social cohesion policy.
The first idea is that if we want to have a viable European Union which has good prospects for the future, we will inevitably have to improve economic and social cohesion policy.
Eastern Europe must feel the same level of European solidarity experienced by countries such as Portugal, Spain, Greece and Ireland following their accession to the European Union.
Improving cohesion policy is necessary, however, not only to counter the huge regional imbalances that will result from the entry of scores of least-favoured regions in the current candidate countries, but also to continue to deal with the backwardness that still exists in the current Europe of fifteen countries, particularly in the outermost regions.
This is all the more important because eastwards enlargement will probably accentuate the lack of economic and social cohesion in the current Europe of Fifteen, in other words, regional asymmetries could increase within the current European Union as a result of the dynamics created by the enlargement process, particularly in the relationship between the outermost regions and the centre of Europe. In other words, countries such as Portugal could become further consigned to the edges of Europe and the current centre and could become even stronger because it will then be the centre of a Europe which is economically integrated from its western almost to its eastern borders.
By this I wish to state that following 2006, we will need a cohesion policy which does not only look eastwards, but which also considers the still existing cohesion deficit in the current Europe of Fifteen and the new problems it will face as a result of enlargement.
The reading of the second cohesion report demonstrates that the Commission is aware of this problem.
We feel sure that the third report will provide appropriate and fair solutions.
Mr President, Commissioner, with its membership increasing from 15 to 25 countries, Europe is at a turning point and must face up to the challenge of its size.
History commands us and we have commitments to do this.
The fact remains, nonetheless, that there will be numerous question marks, when we realise that a Europe with 25 Member States will have 30% more inhabitants, 30% more territory, but only 10% more wealth.
Along with enlargement, Europe is therefore in need of greater solidarity.
But how are we going to manage to show more solidarity with the same amount of money? It is impossible.
There is no use in continuing to bury our heads in the sand.
Europe must decide to provide the necessary resources for the radical transformation that will bring about enlargement and must reformulate the criteria for granting structural aid so that the poorest populations are not adversely affected.
We must therefore pay particular attention to the outermost regions, which are amongst the ten poorest regions of today' s Union.
In this respect, I welcome the recent proposal by the Spanish Presidency to set up a permanent forum specifically for these regions.
Ladies and gentlemen, Europe has chosen cohesion, and therefore solidarity, the price of which is the coherence of our common project.
Mr President, Commissioner, one of the recitals of this report states that extremely large regional differences constitute both a political and economic threat to the EU.
That is quite correct.
We must hold an enlarged Europe together.
I want very briefly to emphasise a number of points.
Enlargement is very important for the whole of Europe, and it is not the poorest regions which should pay for enlargement.
There must therefore be sufficient budget resources for the whole of this process.
At the same time, we must use the money in the most effective way, which is why the EU' s agricultural policy should be reformed and coordinated with regional policy so that it promotes rural development, that is to say promotes differentiated economic life in agricultural areas too.
Each Member State must also have its own policy of solidarity and cohesion, and all growth policies must effectively favour justice for the regions.
That applies especially in the fields of education, research, employment and transport.
Finally, I wish to say that future cohesion policy must pay attention to regions with pronounced, permanent geographical disadvantages, for example long distances and a sparse population.
The whole of the EU has an interest in its being possible to be resident, and earn one' s living, throughout the EU.
As the last speaker I have two points to make and one question for the Commissioner this evening.
The first point is about making sure that the poorest regions of Europe do not pay the price of enlargement.
I disagree with what Mr Purvis said.
Areas such as South Yorkshire and Merseyside in the United Kingdom must continue to benefit if they need it, and if they are shown to need it.
The second point is to retain some kind of aid for areas undergoing industrial restructuring.
My question is about competition policy as well, and about coherence between competition policy and cohesion policy.
I am getting a lot of complaints about the way competition policy is being applied, particularly, recently, about voluntary and community sectoral organisations being treated in the same way as private sector organisations and being told that for projects they cannot receive more than 50% in total in public sector intervention.
I want to know whether it is Commission policy to treat the voluntary and community sector the same as the private sector.
Does that apply to other public sector organisations? It is an extremely important point because if this is the Commission policy, a number of projects which are going ahead in some our most deprived regions will simply cease to go ahead.
It is not what the Commission worked for many years.
Regional policy pushed to put these projects in the hands of the voluntary sector and now they seem to be disadvantaged.
I would like to know what the Commissioner's position is.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you can imagine, I am deeply committed to the regional and cohesion policy, not only because I have the honour of directing this policy on behalf of the Commission and in conjunction with my colleagues, Franz Fischler and Anna Diamantopoulou, but also for another, more political reason, which is that I believe, as several of you have said, that the cohesion policy, which has grown in importance over a 15-year period, symbolises a certain concept of the European Union.
It is the proof that the European Union is not merely a supermarket where we quite simply rely on the laws of supply and demand and on fiscal transfers in order to ensure solidarity or to avoid a two, three or four-speed development. It is the proof that we have agreed that we should share our financial resources and redistribute them in a regulated manner, and also to work with greater coherence.
This policy is the proof that the European Union is not merely a supermarket; that it will, one day, I hope, be a political power and that it must remain a community that stands together.
This is the profession of faith that I wanted to give to you at the beginning of my answer.
In this spirit, I feel that Mr Musotto' s report is an extremely worthwhile and useful contribution, as you have all said, to the debate on the future of the cohesion policy that I unveiled to you in January 2001.
And since I am speaking about a concept of Europe, I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the debate on cohesion, which I launched a year ago and which I will be seeing through to completion, in a genuine and decentralised manner, with the Member States - you can count on me to do this - the debate will be part of the other wide-ranging debate on the future of Europe.
Depending on how the Heads of State and Government respond to the question of cohesion, depending on whether we maintain, or even extend, the cohesion policy, whether we scale it down or take it apart, we will somehow answer this broad question - one of the subjects to be tackled by the Convention, which we will also be attending - on the future of Europe. What do we want to do together?
I think that this contribution, Mr Musotto, is also important because it brings together the points of view of five parliamentary committees after an in-depth discussion has been held.
And then, finally, you will adopt this report in a few days and only after the Commission has published the first interim report on cohesion, which I released last week.
I will also be coming to present this interim report to the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on 20 February, as I pledged to do.
For all these reasons, I am pleased - in spite of the criticisms or questions, which I feel are constructive - to note in your report, Mr Musotto, a genuine convergence between Parliament and the Commission, on four essential points at least.
First of all, in the future, the main priority of the cohesion policy must be aid to regions that are lagging behind in their development, in other words, the poorest regions.
On this point, there is agreement, including amongst the Ministers that I met in Namur during the Belgian Presidency, and you confirm this agreement, that the poor regions, which are lagging behind in their development, are located in the future Member States (and they make up almost all of the regions of the future Member States) or in the Member States of today' s Union.
Therefore, our priority and focus is on the regions that are genuinely lagging behind in their development.
The second point of convergence is that cohesion, as many of you pointed out, is not an aspect of one single policy, but of all Community policies, which must, as stipulated in the Treaty, contribute to the cohesion between European countries and regions.
This applies to the CAP, which has not been effective, to transport - Mrs de Palacio is here and she could explain this better than myself - to energy, competition, research, employment and many other policies.
Each of these policies, even more than before, must contribute to increasing economic and social cohesion, if only because of the question marks that enlargement will raise, which, as we note in our second interim report, will increase gaps and inequality.
The third point is that we must strive to have more than a minimalist cohesion policy and reinvent a policy which applies to all the territories of the Union that are experiencing difficulties.
In other words, I note our consensus on the idea that the future regional policy will, after 2006, take into account all European regions, to varying degrees, of course, depending on whether the region is lagging behind in its development or is in a more prosperous region.
This policy should contribute to the integration of all regions in the Community and promote territorial cohesion.
To do this, it must be more simple, more decentralised and, at the same time, more specific (this is one of the questions that I raised in the cohesion report), specific, for example, on the urban question - half of European citizens will live, already live, in towns; specific on the regions that are undergoing industrial restructuring that you mentioned; specific on the regions that have lasting or definitive natural handicaps, mountainous regions or islands; or even specific on thematic objectives, such as the information society.
On this issue too, I await your ideas, but I have explained my outlook.
The fourth point of convergence is that we need resources in order to meet all these challenges and, for the next cohesion policy, resources which meet the needs of a larger Europe.
The current threshold of 0.45% of GDP, which I myself quoted last year in reference, is the absolute credible minimum below which, I feel, it is impossible to go without jeopardising the very essence of the cohesion policy.
In my view, the fact that Parliament and the Commission are tonight giving a joint response to these four points is an important and worthwhile political element in the debate on the future of the cohesion policy. Not everyone, as yet, shares this ambitious vision.
This applies to certain Member States, where some political leaders - whom I respect and to whom I listen - are talking of the deterioration of politics and one is talking of renationalisation. We therefore have to show, time and again - and I am thinking of Mr Izquierdo Collado' s earlier comments - the merits of the cohesion policy, we must aim to convince and to show that this policy has been worthwhile, that it has helped to bring about greater coherence, but that we still need more.
I cannot prove this single-handedly.
You can count on me to do this at Commission level, with the help of all my colleagues, but I will not be able to do this if the regions, the Member States and Members of Parliament do not contribute to this task.
It is also natural for us, at this stage, not to have total agreement on all the subjects raised in Mr Musotto' s report.
There are points that we must debate or discuss, such as the instruments of the future cohesion policy, the place occupied by Community initiatives, that of the Cohesion Fund or a possible single regional development Fund.
All this will, of course, depend on the level of our ambition towards this policy.
Another point of discussion is the choice of eligibility criteria.
The Commission chose, and made this choice a long time ago, the criterion of GDP per capita and per region for determining which regions are lagging behind in their development.
I think that this is a reliable, straightforward and transparent indicator that all the Member States accept, and it is so that we can maintain an objective approach and a certain impartiality that we are not, at this stage, proposing to add other criteria to the criterion of per capita GDP.
Ladies and gentlemen, this does not mean, however, that the Commission will not listen to appeals by the regions which may be affected, either by enlargement or by the so-called 'statistical effect' that several of you have mentioned, by a mathematical decrease in the Community average of per capita GDP or the drop, also mathematical, of the eligibility threshold, which means that some regions that are still having serious problems (not only those in southern Europe, but also in East Germany, in England and elsewhere) are mechanically and artificially situated below this threshold, although they are still experiencing real difficulties.
I will say once again that I am committed to proposing, at the appropriate time, a fair, Community-wide solution so that we can continue to assist the regions which are situated just below the new eligibility threshold.
Furthermore, if we maintain a genuine cohesion policy, which does not only cover regions that are lagging behind in their development, we should be able to take into account other criteria and move, as some of you have pointed out, towards making greater qualitative investment in people, in training men and women and in the information society.
I also note that, in the current programmes, - those that I approved and which have got off the ground - there are more programmes based directly on quality, rather than quantity, than in the previous period.
Lastly, I am not forgetting and will not forget the particular attention that must be given (not only in accordance with Article 299 of the Treaty, but also because the real problems they face, and their unbearable levels of unemployment) to the seven outermost regions of the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that these brief clarifications may help to increase even further the degree of consensus between Parliament and the Commission, so that together we can preserve and promote the model of European society, the core of which is cohesion.
One MEP touched upon the subject - and this will be my final point - of the appropriations that you were proposing to grant to the countries which will join the Union, most likely in 2004.
I do not share the very harsh judgment that Mrs Schroeder expressed earlier and I do not think that it is fair.
We proposed a phasing-in process.
These countries already benefit from the Cohesion Fund, and they are experiencing (I regret that Mrs Schroeder is no longer in the Chamber to hear my response) great difficulty in using up the appropriations.
And this is why I suggested, along with my colleagues, for this genuine reason, that we adopt a progressive approach to the cohesion policy.
I am not trying to trick anyone or create an effect.
I do not want to see money that has been earmarked by Europe for the candidate countries, which will join the EU in 2004, to stay in Brussels or be returned to Brussels.
That is why we are being quite ambitious and going further than the proposals set out in the Berlin Agenda for the first year of membership and why we are proposing more money. But we want to avoid a situation where this money cannot be used by the countries that do not yet have the necessary administrative structures in place to manage these appropriations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall end here.
Lastly, I confirm that the Commission is due to adopt the third cohesion report in December 2003 and that the report should set out the Commission guidelines for the next agenda.
This should, therefore, be done earlier than usual, so that we can, as I said before, begin to turn the new programming period into a reality on the ground, as soon as the new Agenda begins in 2007, rather than two years after that.
We still have a few months to stimulate and make a success of the political debate on cohesion policy. If we succeed in stimulating this debate (and I need you to help me to do this), a decision will be taken, at the appropriate time, by the Heads of State and Government, which will not only maintain cohesion as the heart of a specific model of European society, but will enable the Heads of State to commit, on a budgetary and financial level, to fulfilling the political and strategic choice that they made when they decided to undertake reunification of the European continent, through extensive enlargement that will take place very soon.
We shall support the new Member States and I hope, personally speaking, that the Agenda, in 2007, will enable them to benefit, like all the other Member States, from every aspect of the cohesion policy.
Speed limitation devices
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0012/2002) by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 92/6/EEC on the installation and use of speed limitation devices for certain categories of motor vehicles in the Community (COM(2001) 318 - C5-0267/2001 - 2001/0135(COD)).
Mr President, this proposal for a directive seeks to extend speed restrictions, which already apply to some commercial vehicles, to other categories of passenger and goods vehicles, i.e. to lighter commercial vehicles than those to which the restrictions already apply.
In other words, to category Ì2 and Ì3 passenger vehicles and category Í2 goods vehicles.
The European Commission's proposal makes provision for speed limitation devices to restrict passenger vehicles to 100 kph and goods vehicles to 90 kph.
And basically, I agree with the European Commission's proposal.
A study carried out in Holland and brought to our attention by the European Commission demonstrates that it stands to reap profits in the order of EUR 40 million a year and benefits to society in the order of EUR 89 million a year from the transport sector alone.
If we extrapolate these figures, we stand to gain something in the order of EUR 3 billion.
But I do not want to dwell on this study because others may dispute it.
I should like to dwell for a moment on common sense.
And common sense tells us that, if we restrict speeds, we stand to gain, first from road safety, because there will be fewer accidents; secondly, we stand to gain in the environmental protection sector and, thirdly, we shall ensure there is fair competition between companies because we shall have the same limit everywhere, throughout Europe; at the same time, companies will not be able to force their drivers to drive very fast, putting human lives at risk for the sake of their profit margins.
That is why the amendments which I have proposed do not differ in any great respect from the text of the European Commission's proposal.
I should like to comment on two amendments accepted in committee.
The first concerns the exemption, which we propose should be 5 years from when the directive enters into force for category Ì2 and Í2 vehicles weighing between 3.5 and 7.5 tonnes.
What we are proposing here is that the directive should apply five years after it enters into force and, secondly, that the European Commission should submit a study eighteen months after the directive enters into force on so-called intelligent speed adaptation systems so that we can see if we can use these systems to differentiate speeds depending on the circumstances and, of course, if we can have even lower speeds in urban areas.
The European People's Party has tabled an amendment for category Í2, which includes vans, calling for the speed limit to be raised from 90 to 110 kph, because they are a different type of vehicle; they are lighter vehicles and I think that we can be more flexible here.
Some fellow members voted against this and explained their reasons.
They have ideological, political reasons and they do not think that the European Commission, or rather the European Union, should intervene here.
I should like to thank them, I understand their reasons and, even though I disagree with them, I respect their position.
But I should like to ask them, given that there are some amendments which make the European Commission's proposal more flexible and bring it closer to their own position, to examine these amendments constructively and, if they can, to vote for them, because it is my prediction that, their position notwithstanding, this directive will, at some point, become European law.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen - at least those of you who are still here - the PPE-DE group supports the entire content of Mr Hatzidakis' report.
We take the view that we may well support the Commission's proposal in principle, but that we do want to bring about some changes on a few points.
The traffic safety issue is, of course, decisive, and we need this regulation because traffic safety is not bound by national borders and heavy goods vehicles do, indeed, cross them.
In principle, we also need speed limitation devices for smaller vehicles, as we have had good experience of speed limitation devices in heavy lorries.
It is because these HGVs travel across borders everywhere that we need European regulations.
However, Madam Vice-President, we have to introduce the regulations in a slightly refined form and with longer time limits, for we are dealing here with major economic burdens laid on small and medium-sized enterprises.
We should therefore be more generous in the transitional provisions, in order that the burden on the economy may not be allowed to be too great.
Let me conclude by appealing to the Social Democrats and Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, who is herself a great expert on traffic safety.
As our Amendment No 12 demands, Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, we need different speeds for small and large lorries.
So we are again asking you to support our Amendment No 12, so that we can permit a speed of 110 kph for smaller commercial vehicles.
If we impose the same speed limit on all HGVs, we are pre-programming traffic jams into the motorway system.
If we are to ensure traffic flow, we must make it possible for smaller vehicles to overtake.
With that in mind, Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, I ask you to support our amendment.
We will then have a great piece of legislation!
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Hatzidakis, for the considerable openness and readiness to compromise that have characterised his work on this report.
The transport of both goods and people on the roads is ever increasing.
Movement on the roads is international and cross-border, and so too, therefore, must be the rules we lay down.
A shining example is the legislation on speed limitation devices.
When it came into force in 1994, it had met a certain amount of resistance both from the industry and from the drivers themselves, but this evaporated when the advantages became apparent.
In a Europe in which more than 40 000 people lose their lives in road accidents, all kinds of methods must be tried in order to make the roads safer.
Once speed limitation devices had been introduced, it was no longer possible to build speeding into systems under which the heaviest vehicles operated.
This new proposal will lead to speed limitation devices also being used in lighter commercial vehicles and buses, and this will have further positive repercussions.
Recently, there has been a marked increase in the frequency of accidents involving lighter commercial vehicles.
Those of us in the Group of the Party of European Socialists support the amendments in favour of a longer transition period.
One issue which, however, recurred in the debate on this directive, and which Mr Jarzembowski addressed, is that of whether there should be different speeds for different categories of vehicle. It was argued that identical speeds create congestion and bottlenecks on the roads.
I do not believe that is the case.
The fewer speed differences there are, the smoother the traffic flows, in actual fact.
There are mathematical calculations to show this.
It is enough to imagine a road on which vehicles are maintaining the same speed.
In that case, the traffic flows more smoothly.
That is why I demand that Amendment No 12 be rejected.
Mr President, I am quite sure that we all accept the premise that an inappropriate speed by any vehicle can cause accidents.
But more often than not accidents are attibutable to the manner in which the vehicle is being driven, or the carelessness of drivers failing to be vigilant, especially in bad weather for example.
Accidents are also caused by drivers crawling along at a snail's pace on motorways and in some cases they could be avoided by having a minimum as well as a maximum speed limit.
There has to be recognition that there is a world of difference between motorway and urban driving.
Whilst clearly agreeing with the Commission and my colleagues, including Mr Hatzidakis, that we must do all we can to improve road safety across the European Union, I cannot agree that the way forward would be the introduction of this directive, which advocated a one-speed-fits-all approach.
It is recognised that the United Kingdom has the best safety record in the EU.
It is equally true to say that it was one of the first countries to fit speed limiters on coaches, for obvious reasons.
In addition, this directive is also meant to improve the environment and congestion and again I would refute that claim.
To extend this directive to those categories of vehicles included in the proposal, and to impose the upper speed limits as outlined, would be a mistake.
It is bad enough struggling along motorways when two heavy goods lorries are running parallel because one decides to overtake on a hill and clearly cannot accelerate.
If this directive comes into play I believe that congestion and environmental pollution will increase.
Finally, the right way forward would be to seriously consider advances in technology, for example the proposed voluntary agreement on pedestrian protection.
In addition, there is also the possibility of ISA and I would support a study by the Commission along those lines.
Nevertheless, ultimately, it should be left to the discretion of the Member State to decide what would or would not be appropriate.
With the exception of a couple of amendments, my delegation will be unable to support this report.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank Mr Hatzidakis for his sound preparation of this report.
Traffic safety is rightly one of the core themes of the White Paper.
The number of people who are killed each year in the European Union is still far too high.
These fatal accidents are often caused by speeding.
With a view to reducing the road accident toll, speed limitation devices for lorries are an effective instrument for improving road safety. Indeed, lower speeds lead to fewer road accidents and fewer victims.
Furthermore, benefits can be expected in the fields of maintenance and of a cleaner environment.
In order to ensure that speed limitation devices cannot be interfered with and in order to guarantee that they are maintained in proper working order, reliable inspection is needed.
Annual compulsory inspection seems best suited for this purpose, in my opinion.
But in that case, an adjustment to the European General Periodical Car Inspection Directive is necessary in order to bring about a level playing field.
I should like to draw your attention to the issue of intelligent speed adapters, a very important point in my view.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission, at the earliest possibility, to conduct a study into the possibilities which this system could offer.
It could contribute to greater safety on the roads, less irritation and a greater sense of security on the part of drivers.
In general, I should like to ask the Commission to give an extra boost to technology which should make intelligent road and traffic control systems possible. This is with a view to the expected growth in demand for transport, as a result of which the benefits of this directive in terms of road safety will be lost.
The level of safety will go down once again, the build-up on roads will increase again and the beneficial impact which we are pursuing by means of this directive will be cancelled out.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Hatzidakis, for his fantastic work on this directive, a report which fully supports the Commission' s proposal and which incorporates numerous amendments which improve the text of the proposal without changing its objective.
The purpose of the proposal is to extend the scope of the obligatory installation and use of speed limiters to vehicles in lighter categories than those currently affected by these limitations.
This measure represents the realisation of the priorities formulated in March 2000, within the framework of the Commission communication on road safety, which also received the explicit support of this Parliament.
The proposal will contribute to an increase in road safety, the protection of the environment and the maintenance of conditions of equal and fair competition between all operators within the European Union.
I would like to make some comments on the report we are dealing with here.
There are several amendments which we can support: Amendments Nos 4, 6 and 7 can be accepted in their entirety; Nos 5 and 10 are acceptable in principle, although the dates need to be altered, and the same is the case with Amendment No 6, which I referred to previously.
The Commission would prefer the following timetable: two years for new vehicles, three years for international transport and four for national transport.
I believe that this answers some of Mr Jarzembowski' s questions on the effects on small and medium-sized businesses, which are the most frequent users of this type of vehicle.
There is an adaptation period and, if we bear in mind the rotation of this type of vehicle, the time of the entry into force of the directive, etc., we see that it is not so out of place.
With regard to Amendment No 9, the Commission could accept a study in the context of road safety towards 2010, as long as it does not involve a separate report.
In any event, the time limit of 18 months is excessively short to carry out such a study. We need two years as a minimum.
In this regard, I would like to stress the great importance the Commission attaches to intelligent speed restriction systems and great attention will be paid to the study of this issue.
The concepts behind Amendments Nos 8 and 11 are unacceptable to the Commission.
The acceptance of greater maximum speeds for a limited period of time not only raises technical problems for which there is no solution, at least at the moment, but would also hinder the implementation of the measure.
The Commission believes that, for the moment, there is no advantage in applying this directive to M1 and N1 vehicles.
Furthermore, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 12, which Mr Jarzembowski advocated, amongst others, because the triple objective of the directive - road safety, environmental protection and competition under equal conditions - cannot be achieved unless all vehicles are bound by the same speed limit.
Finally, we will carefully study Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3, which refer to the textual differences between linguistic versions, in relation to the definition of vehicles.
I would once again like to congratulate the rapporteur and all the Members who have spoken in this debate.
I hope that, through the application of this directive, road safety will improve, which is the intention, since the figure of 42 000 deaths per year is completely unacceptable to all of us.
The debate on this report is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Excise duty on rum, liqueurs and eaux-de-vie
The next item is the report (A5-0001/2002) by Mr Marques, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposals for Council decisions:
1. authorising France to extend the application of a reduced rate of excise duty on 'traditional' rum produced in its overseas departments (COM(2001) 347 - C5-0401/2001 - 2001/0142(CNS))
2. 2. authorising Portugal to apply a reduced rate of excise duty in the autonomous region of Madeira on locally produced and consumed rum and liqueurs and in the autonomous region of the Azores on locally produced and consumed liqueurs and eaux-de-vie (COM(2001) 442 - C5-0422/2001 - 2001/0169(CNS)).
Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, as a Member for one of the outermost regions, I welcomed the opportunity to draw up the report we are now discussing.
I am pleased because the Commission' s proposals to reduce the special rate of excise duty on the consumption of certain alcoholic drinks produced in Madeira, the Azores and the French overseas departments are yet another measure giving form and substance to the principle of remoteness, enshrined in Article 299(2) of the Treaties.
We should bear in mind that this legal basis, endorsed by the Treaty of Amsterdam, provides for the adoption of specific measures in various fields, especially that of tax legislation, in accordance with the very particular geographical, social, economic and cultural situations of these European regions.
In short, the European Union can give these territories special treatment in line with their very specific situations, and the only limit on this special treatment should be the integrity and coherence of the Community legal system, including the internal market and common policies.
Only by providing this specific treatment will we ensure that these regions can become involved in the dynamism unleashed by the internal market, by Economic and Monetary Union, by the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union, and even by the phenomenon of globalisation.
Only by providing this special treatment will we ensure that these regions can offer genuine equal opportunities for our citizens living in the outermost regions.
The measures to reduce the special rate of excise duty on rum and liqueurs produced and consumed in Madeira, on eaux-de-vie produced and consumed in the Azores and on rum produced in the French overseas departments are crucial to offsetting production costs and thereby guaranteeing the survival of traditional activities of considerable economic, social, historic and cultural importance for these regions.
One hundred and forty jobs are at stake in Madeira and the Azores and 40 000 in the French Overseas Departments.
At stake are also elements related to the specific identity itself of these regions, particularly in the French Overseas Departments, where activities linked to the planting of sugar cane and to the production of sugar and rum are an important part of the economic and social history of these territories.
All of these activities are, therefore, linked to the sugar cane, sugar and rum industries, which depend on this tax measure, in a context marked by the revision of the COM in sugar and by the dismantling of customs barriers for exports to the Community market of spirits from third countries.
Indeed, without the tax measure now being proposed, how will rum production in the OD be able to remain viable, when production costs for rum are considerably higher there than in neighbouring Caribbean countries, when rum from the Caribbean is able to enter the Community market without duties in 2003? We should bear in mind that Community rum producers pay between four and six times more for sugar cane and three times more for their work force.
Here, costs arising from adapting rum production units to environmental standards, in order to comply with Community regulations, are increasing.
I shall close by emphasising that, despite the permanent nature of the specific characteristics that justify the special treatment granted to the outermost regions by Article 299(2), these tax measures are not only limited in terms of time - they are valid for seven years - but are also limited in quantitative terms.
They are, furthermore, subject to periodic evaluation, in order to assess whether the reasons which justify the granting of the tax derogation still exist.
Before us, therefore, lies a well-drafted and balanced proposal by the Commission, to which we should all give our support.
It responds, on the one hand, to the need for special treatment for the outermost regions and, on the other, safeguards the integrity of the Community' s internal market.
This is also the type of measure that creates and promotes European citizenship in territories far from the centre of Europe such as the outermost regions.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, this debate concerns a specific issue, which is of limited reach and importance in the Azores, not wishing to make any comparison with the situation in the overseas territories or even in the autonomous region of Madeira, just two days after the Las Palmas summit of the Presidents of the Outermost Regions, which was attended by representatives of the Member States and the Commission.
I should, therefore, like to welcome the conclusions of that summit and call on the Council and the Commission to take them into consideration.
This year is of particular importance to the Azores where fisheries are concerned, since important initiatives such as the revision of the common fisheries policy, the revision of Poseima-Fisheries and the quotas policy for groundfish are to be approved.
These are areas in which it is crucial to fully understand the realities of the Azores and to take account of their specific situation.
The Commission proposals on quotas for fishing groundfish cause us the greatest concern from this point of view.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I am pleased to note that Mr Marques' s report fully supports the Commission' s proposals.
According to these reports and the Commission' s proposals, these measures are essential in order to maintain the local production of rum, which is traditional in French overseas departments, and of rum, liqueurs and eaux-de-vie, which are traditional in Madeira and the Azores.
These traditional activities are very important for the economy of these regions and it is essential to maintain them in order to ensure an economic, social and territorial balance for these regions of the European Union.
I would like to say something relating to the legal basis of the proposals, since there has been controversy about it, which the rapporteur, Mr Marques, has mentioned.
Both are based on the application of the second paragraph of Article 299 of the EC Treaty, which is precisely the one relating to the outermost regions.
This provision allows the Council to adopt specific measures, which may repeal other fundamental provisions of the Treaty, laying down the conditions for its application in regions which - we must state this very clearly - have very different specific characteristics owing precisely to their condition as outermost regions.
I would like to point out, ladies and gentlemen, that this provision was included in the Treaty of Amsterdam with the purpose of creating a common legal basis for actions in favour of these regions.
These actions must allow for the complete integration of these regions into the Union, while recognising their own characteristics, such as their great distance from the continent, the dependence of their economy on a small number of products, many of them relating to traditional and small-scale activities.
Therefore, the Commission considers that this second paragraph of Article 299 of the Treaty is the appropriate legal basis for these proposals and any others which may arise in the future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Galileo Joint Undertaking
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0005/2002) by Mr Glante, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Proposal for a Council regulation on the establishment of the Galileo Joint Undertaking (COM(2001) 336 - C5-0329/2001 - 2001/0136(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies, gentlemen, and above all, you interpreters who are assembled here in such numbers for so few of us Members, it is always a pleasure to be able to discuss such an interesting and exciting topic at such a late hour.
I hope that the lateness of the hour will not downgrade the project.
I refer to the Galileo satellite navigation system, the first great project to be shaped jointly by the European institutions and the ESA. In technical, economic and political terms, it is eminently comparable with such projects as the Airbus and the GSM mobile telecommunications standard.
This system will to some degree be in technological competition with the existing American GPS system, which is a good thing for European technology, but it will also be compatible with GPS - at least I hope it will, and that is something by which we set store - and be able to supplement it.
I have been told that the United States is seriously concerned about developments in Europe.
That cannot be a bad thing, and can mean only that we are on the right road and that we will make technological progress in Europe by the use of this system.
It is certainly in competition, in technological terms, with the existing GPS, but there is also the possibility of their interacting.
We are working towards the system being able to use the same receivers for GPS and Galileo signals.
That will increase the utility of both systems.
I would also like, at this point, to refer to the coordination between GPS, Galileo and EGNOS. Most discussions fail to do justice to this point, but I think it too is important.
After 11 September and during the Afghanistan conflict, the United States had apprehensions about the security aspects of what is a civilian project, but these will be safeguarded.
Both the civilian character and the public control of the Galileo project make disruption, interference and misuse impossible.
A certain levy on receivers will mean that broad use will be free of charge. Broad use of GPS is free of charge, and so will Galileo be.
More exact services of a higher order will have to be paid for in order to guarantee the refinancing of the running and development costs. The service will, however, be permanently available.
This afternoon I had the pleasure of a conversation with the US Government's representative in Brussels, who again expressed his concern about the project's development.
I was able to reassure him, but not in the sense that we would unreservedly submit ourselves to the GPS system.
I made it clear to him that we are building our own system, that we are working towards cooperation, but that we will carry on with development and not let ourselves be led into some kind of technological dependency.
I think that these informally expressed wishes and these remarks show that we are still on the right road.
The Member States have delayed taking a decision for a long time, and I hope that they will enthusiastically endorse this project in March, despite certain problems that they have with the Price Waterhouse study - indeed, I get indications from various Member State governments that they will.
I hope that we will get to that, and believe that it is high time we did.
We are already a couple of months behind, but will be able to make up for them.
I would like to again express my gratitude to the Commissioner for the conversation we had and also for providing these documents, which again explain what Galileo is about and can allay any suspicions or misgivings.
Let us turn now to the report itself and to the proposal, which is not uncontroversial.
I think there is, as there was in the past, overwhelming agreement that we want this project and that we want it to be a civilian one.
As a result, though, of events last year and in recent months, we are also agreed that it needs to be available to some degree to our troops who are sent out to maintain the peace.
That will be feasible, technically feasible, but it will also be politically desired and feasible.
It is, though, to remain a civilian system, as it was before.
There were great problems in discussions about how private enterprise was to be involved in this undertaking.
The Commission proposal works on the assumption that private firms will be involved, including financially.
Financial participation is - shall we say - a symbolic act.
It would be enough to finance the development stage by means of public funds alone, but industry is to be involved.
That is what I want too, but I have had no clear indication from industry that they are becoming amicably disposed towards the Commission proposal and getting on board the Joint Undertaking.
My proposal that the development company should be established, coming into being in parallel with the Joint Undertaking but dovetailing closely with it, offers a compromise, a way out of the dilemma.
Indications from the business world are variable - some are rejecting this proposal, while others have a very open mind about it.
I have endeavoured simply to use this proposal to reduce to some extent the inhibitions that businesses have, and I hope that they will participate in the development company.
In so far, I hope for broad support tomorrow.
Unfortunately, I cannot support the European People's Party's proposals, which date back to the Commission proposal and thus, in my opinion, give industry another argument against joining in.
, draftsperson of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
(DE) Mr President, Commissioner, thank you also, Mr Glante, for your efforts at producing this report in this form, and thank you for what you have said.
Mr Radwan, in his capacity as your shadow rapporteur, will further enlarge on the PPE proposal that you feel unable to support.
Having its own satellite navigation system has been one of Europe's concerns for many years now, but it exists only as an aspiration.
No decision on it has as yet been reached.
It is in connection with Galileo, of all things, that everything is weighed in the balance a thousand times over, every euro is examined closely, whereas in other areas the European purse-strings are much looser.
What I reproach the Member States for is the way they delay and defer, hang back and hesitate, and that is what could stick in the minds of Europe's citizens.
That is also what Europe's image threatens to become if we are not careful.
I, however, want Europe to be modern, technologically on the ball, quite literally the worldwide Number One.
This is where Europe can play its trump cards - economic strength, a talent for innovation, technological capacity and vision.
I do not want to make apocalyptic predictions, but I am convinced that, without Galileo, Europe could completely lose its position in an important sector and will fall back so far that it will, at the end of the day, be quite impossible for it to catch up.
If we do not manage to get Galileo started and at last open the doors to new technologies, if we do not manage to make the necessary funds available, then we will become a laughing-stock across the world, and in outer space as well.
Why am I telling you this? We need now, at last, a resounding 'yes' to Galileo and a competitive alternative to GPS!
The Council wanted industry involved in Galileo as early as possible.
The Commission submitted a proposal which Parliament put to the acid test, and which received - and still receives - severe criticism from different sides, and I do think there were omissions on the Commission's side as well.
Our Committees have identified a number of problem areas.
Industry involvement in the Joint Undertaking - whether direct or via the development company - must not, though, be made so hard to reach that Galileo's failure becomes a possible result.
Europe needs Galileo, or, as the Commission puts it in its information note, Galileo is indispensable to Europe.
That is why I hope Parliament will speak with a clear voice and that there will be a large majority tomorrow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of an opinion on the Galileo proposal, I would like to focus essentially on two financial aspects of the Commission' s proposal, leaving the rapporteur and the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism the task of discussing its merits.
The Commission has presented a proposal for the setting-up of a Joint Undertaking to complete the development phase of Galileo; this would provide a single management structure with legal personality which would be flexible and capable of concluding the necessary contracts.
The founding members would be the Commission and the European Space Agency, which would contribute a maximum of EUR 520 million and EUR 550 million respectively. The European Investment Bank and any private company providing a minimum sum of EUR 20 million could be further members.
The cost of this phase is estimated at EUR 1.1 billion, to be split equally between the European Community and the European Space Agency, with an extra EUR 200 million coming from the private sector, pledged through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding in March 2001 by representatives of the main industries concerned.
The Community' s financial contribution will come from two budget lines: from B5-700 - Trans-European Networks - and from a token entry under the B6 Research chapter pending a final decision on the 6th Framework Programme.
Out of the amount financed by the European Space Agency, EUR 50 million would be paid in cash and EUR 500 million in kind, as stated in the European Space Agency' s Statutes.
I have tabled two amendments in my opinion: the first concerns the possible future participation of the candidate countries in the development phase of Galileo, as called for by Parliament in its resolution of 3 October 2001.
I have called for instruments to be identified in the budget which will allow them to participate, not least in order to avoid further widening the existing gap.
The second amendment concerns the role to be conferred on the Budgetary Authority; I therefore call upon the Commission to inform it on a regular basis on the implementation of the development phase of Galileo, and for the annual report on the activities of the Joint Undertaking to be sent to Parliament and the Council and not only to the Court of Auditors as proposed by the Commission.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to thank the rapporteur at the outset for his close cooperation.
All of one mind, we are on track to make Galileo a reality.
I would also like to start by thanking the Commissioner, who repeatedly and doggedly pleads, and indeed fights, for Galileo at Council level.
Economically, technologically and politically, Galileo is a strategic project for the future.
That has already been said several times.
Here in Europe, we should remember how it was explained to us decades ago that we did not need the Airbus, we did not need a missile industry.
They would do all that for us, and it would be for the best.
Where would we be today if, for example, we had not developed the Airbus ourselves?
Now, though, I have two practical observations on Mr Glante's report. I consider it essential that industry should today already be actively involved in Galileo.
There is no use in describing Galileo's importance in fine words; we need industry to make a clear commitment to Galileo.
We must make a start right now on developing services to get products onto the markets of the future, products which would enable Galileo to be self-financing, which is what both sides of this House want: hence we need absolutely clear support for the Commission proposal to this end.
We should, though, perhaps give thought to some reduction in the 'front-loading' .
I see Galileo's political dimension as a second important point.
We want Europe to have a common foreign and security policy.
We have the Rapid Reaction Force, and we want, in the future, to send our soldiers to troublespots.
Here, too, we need to assume responsibility for our soldiers, which means that we have information systems of our own and are no longer dependent on third countries.
What this means is that Galileo is, to some extent, necessary if we are to grow up in the way we approach external policy.
Tomorrow should, therefore, see Parliament send a clear demand, for the sake of Europe's future, that the Council should decide in favour of Galileo!
Apart from that, we propose, as an alternative, that, if the Council proves to be Galileo's undoing, we might well have to have thoughts about the defence budgets, and I am very definitely of the opinion that it is our primary duty to ensure that Galileo remains a civilian product.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I would like to express my regret that we have engaged in a battle over amendments after the enormous success of Mrs Langenhagen' s report.
I think that divisive forces have also been at work in the European Parliament, but I am convinced, from what I have heard, that they will not succeed.
I hope that, however we vote on the amendments, tomorrow' s vote will be an overall majority in favour of the Galileo report.
The most important thing is that Parliament does not become divided, and that it continues to show its support for Mrs de Palacio and the Commission on this extremely important project.
We cannot merely focus on accounting and notarial-oriented matters when discussing a subject of this importance, when the Americans are pouring millions of dollars into their aerospace and space industry.
We are today facing the acid test.
Either the European Union is capable of launching a space programme as modest as Galileo, forty years after the daring innovations of Airbus and Ariane, or - as some Members who are sitting on other benches have said - we show that we are incapable of doing this.
If we have to show that we are incapable of this, I do not want Parliament to take any responsibility for this and I hope that the Commission and Parliament will, in future, display a united front when showing the Council what its responsibilities are.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance takes a positive overall view of the report by Mr Glante.
It is not a question of deciding whether or not to approve the Galileo project.
This has already been decided in the report by Mrs Langenhagen, as she herself has just pointed out, and I myself gave a favourable opinion on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Our objective is now to decide how to manage the project' s development phase.
We agree with the rapporteur' s proposal to create a Joint Undertaking whose shareholders would be the European Union and the ESA, an undertaking which would be dissolved once the development phase is completed.
We also agree with his proposal to create, alongside that, a development company in which the private sector will participate.
It will enable conflicts of interest to be avoided whilst drafting the specification and the tendering procedure during the deployment phase.
The Undertaking will not therefore be judge and judged.
We do not believe that the proposed monitoring committee will serve a useful purpose, since the Member States are already represented in the Joint Undertaking.
However, we are in favour of setting up a committee with an ethical purpose, whose opinions will be consulted and which will ensure that Galileo is used properly and in accordance with the principles laid down by Parliament.
Lastly, we do not agree with the amendments tabled by Mr Radwan, which reintroduce the concept of Galileo being used for military applications, even occasionally, on the pretext that this could be done for humanitarian ends.
If this amendment received a favourable vote, we could not vote for the report thus amended.
To sum up, if the use of Galileo for military applications is not reintroduced by any means whatsoever, we will vote in favour of the report by Mr Glante, in its current form, unless the monitoring committee concerned, which we recommended setting up in the first report, does not have an ethical purpose.
Madam Commissioner: the PPE-DE broadly supports the Galileo project in principle.
We recognise the case for a complementary and alternative satellite radio navigation system.
We recognise the importance of maintaining European technological capability for space activity.
We welcome the emphasis on a civil project intended ultimately to be commercially viable in a number of fields such as communications and Earth observation, as well as position - finding.
The difficulty lies in determining how to fund a venture until it becomes self-financing, particularly in view of the large sums of upfront investments required.
We want to see industry fully involved in the planning, specifications and preparatory stages to ensure a better chance of technical success.
That is why we have reintroduced amendments to lower the entrance fee for business to be part of the Joint Undertaking.
We see no particular merit in the proposal for a development company at this stage which duplicates the Joint Undertaking structures.
We are mindful of the difficulties of funding such a large-value infrastructures project solely from the private sector, which is why we have put forward the amendment enabling some funding to come from defence budgets provided it is used only for peacekeeping purposes.
This merely supports the comments made in Annex 1 of the Commission's own information note concerning strategic considerations.
In closing I would say that it is a great pleasure to be here as the other half of "les deux gilles ciel et espace" club, with my colleague, Mr Savary.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mr Glante for the report he has presented.
I would also like to thank Mr Savary and Mr Chichester, the whole of the Sky and Space team and all the MEPs who backed a document supporting the Galileo programme with a view to the European Council at Laeken.
Unfortunately, we were not able to achieve it on that particular occasion, but we hope to do so next time.
We must not be discouraged and we still have time, although not much, to try finally to move ahead with a project which seems to me absolutely crucial to Europe and which furthermore is going to be a measure of Europe' s real will to have a presence on the international stage.
I will just focus on three aspects which have been referred to here in relation to the report.
We all feel that the participation of the private sector is crucial.
Our differences lie in how and from when, if I have understood correctly.
I wish to say in this respect - as Mr Savary and Mrs Langenhagen have said - that, regardless of the result of the amendments relating to Mr Glante' s report, I hope that the report, in the form it takes after the amendments or without them, has the greatest possible support, regardless of my preferences for one formula or another.
We believe that the private sector should be incorporated from the outset, not only because of the limited funds which it is going to provide during the development phase of 2002 to 2005, but because in the medium term it falls to that sector to contribute substantially during the following phase, not only in the implementation phase, but also in the operative phase.
The substantial increase in the financial participation of the private sector is an essential condition if we are to achieve, within the framework of the future financial perspectives, the necessary public funding in the latter phases.
The participation of the private sector should not be improvised, but rather it should be prepared from now, and that was expressed in the resolution of the Council of Ministers in April of last year.
The Commission' s proposal, which is being presented today, simply puts this principle into practice.
It is true that there is a suggestion, raised by Mr Glante, which replaces that direct participation with the creation of a Joint Undertaking, with the creation of a promotion company in parallel with the Joint Undertaking, which does not seem sufficient to us, as I have pointed out.
We believe that participation must take place within the undertaking and furthermore that there is a clear will, not only in the space sector, but also in the applications sector, to go ahead with this phase, with this public or private participation.
I would also like to say that, by participating in the capital of the Joint Undertaking, industry is now beginning to accept a minimal risk, and I think that is appropriate, because it must also participate in the final definitions of the architecture of the whole system.
Some in the Council and in Parliament fear that conflicts of interest may arise.
In my opinion, these days, national legislations provide formulae which prevent this type of conflict of interests.
As I have said on previous occasions, we are giving aid and funding programmes, while there is a bank acting as financial adviser on the aid, while, linked to that bank, there is a non-governmental organisation, which carries out the programme and while, also related to that bank, there is a study group which is assessing the reality of the programme.
And we say that all of that is correct and that there are sufficient barriers to guarantee that a conflict of interests is not possible.
I believe that, in this case, there are even more concrete and clear ways, the famous Great wall of China, which would allow us to prevent this type of problem.
Article 9 of the Statutes says that, in the proposal we are making, in the field of contracting, the executive committee must act totally independently from the management board in which the companies participating in the Joint Undertaking would be represented, that is to say that the executive committee acts independently of the companies which may participate in tenders.
To prevent concerns, there are formulae which may offer greater guarantees.
With regard to the role of the States of the Union, we fully agree with the approach taken in the report by Mr Glante, that is, the creation of a monitoring committee made up of representatives of the Member States, so that those States may closely and continuously monitor the activities of the Joint Undertaking.
We have therefore proposed to the Council, and they have approved it, that in the Regulation, not in the statutes of the Joint Undertaking, but in the Regulation, a monitoring council should be established made up of representatives of the States.
This council should meet before each meeting of the management board of the Joint Undertaking to offer its opinion on the positions the Commission intends to advocate in relation to the different points on the agenda.
These operating rules seem to us to be the most appropriate for achieving our objective, since they maintain the operating autonomy of the undertaking while allowing the States to control the activities of the Commission, which represents the European Community on the management board of the Joint Undertaking.
With regard to the military dimension, ladies and gentlemen, I will say that Galileo is a system designed for civil purposes, which will have to be managed by civilians and that, furthermore, that is one of its essential differences when compared to the GPS.
Having said that, it is true that there is a service reserved for public administrations, which is intended for applications such as fire services and security, which at certain times can be used for other purposes, but at the moment the open GPS is being used for certain applications and for certain military uses.
It is inevitable that they will carry equipment which is synchronised with Galileo.
By this, ladies and gentlemen, I mean firstly that this type of system always has a double use.
Secondly, as you know, there is a free access signal, which is totally free of charge, and another access signal, pre-paid, with services, codified, but which is also free. And a third signal is reserved for the public sector, but - I insist - is intended not for military uses but for civilian uses such as those I have indicated.
Ladies and gentlemen, in relation to Galileo, all the elements for taking a decision are on the table in the Council of Ministers, and the funding for the whole of the development phase, without any State of the Union having to give a single euro more in order to implement the project.
We must make it clear that the current financial perspectives cover the whole of the development phase of Galileo.
No State should have to put in another additional euro.
Galileo is essential to European industry, to technological capacity, to European space technology, but also for a series of other factors, such as autonomy, sovereignty and the capacity to offer an alternative service to GPS, which would strengthen the latter, since, as we have often said, Galileo will be and should always be, compatible with the GPS, both should be mutually strengthened, and, in the event of the failure of either of them, the other should serve as an alternative for all users.
It only remains for us to see whether or not there is political will and I believe that this is one of those occasions which will demonstrate whether or not there is political will to move towards a Europe which counts in the world.
The ball is in the Ministers' court and we hope that they decide that there is that will.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, with regard to yesterday' s vote on the Olsson report, Paragraph 1, second part, states that I abstained from the vote.
I actually voted against.
I would appreciate it if this were corrected.
We take note of how you voted, which will be corrected.
Due to an error, the proposals of the Conference of Presidents on the appointment of Members of Parliament to bureaux of delegations to joint parliamentary committees do not appear in yesterday' s Minutes and they will, therefore, be included in today' s.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I wish, on the record, to thank France and Belgium for the guard on the buildings having now been markedly stepped up.
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
We take note of your observation.
Mr President, at the last sitting, we were all horrified at the possibility that Safiya Husseini might be executed in Nigeria.
I was going to ask for the floor, but Mr Corrie asked for it and I felt that he was representing me when he asked the President to intervene.
There is currently a mobilisation in my country, because it appears that the execution has been brought forward to this Saturday.
This horrifies us even more, because the case of this woman, like that of many others, is a display of savagery.
It is horrendous that a woman is going to be executed for having had a daughter, which is her fifth child, whatever the circumstances of the child' s birth.
We should make a final effort to prevent this execution which the authorities have brought forward to this Saturday in an attempt to avoid the international pressure on them not to carry out what I consider to be a murder.
Mr President, I would ask you to make the appropriate representations.
Mrs González, the whole House shares your feelings and, as far as our institution is able, we will take all possible measures to ensure that such an atrocity cannot be carried out.
Mr President, I should like to make a comment on today' s agenda. It strikes me that today' s debates will finish around 5.30 p.m., while the votes will not start until 6.30 p.m.
We have had this situation for a long time now. It means that for many of the Members, it is just too late to return home at the end of the debate, and they therefore have to stay on until tomorrow, or return home sooner.
In my view, it is an excellent thing that we are here, even if we have to burn the midnight oil as far as I am concerned, if we have something to discuss.
If that is not the case, then we should not be required to sit here drinking coffee for an hour.
I would therefore ask you if you could perhaps put it to the President to see whether this problem can be solved in such a manner that Members need not at any rate stay on any longer than is necessary.
Yes, Mr Maaten, but we have an agenda established.
Within the bounds of this agenda, we will try to take your concerns into account as far as possible.
Women's rights and equal opportunities in Mediterranean countries
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0022/2002) by Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on EU policy towards Mediterranean countries in relation to the promotion of women's rights and equal opportunities in these countries (2001/2129(INI)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is a political vision and a vital project for the EU.
But it is not just a sound method of promoting its economic interests; the main objective is to create an area of peace, security, stability and prosperity.
The history of European unification teaches us that, unless there is prosperity for all, men and women alike, there can be no zone of peace and stability.
At present, the role of women in this process of cooperation is marginal or focused on the economic sector, with negligible results as regards improving their standard of living, whereas our committee believes that such a political vision should consider women to be instrumental in promoting cohesion, peace and sustainable development.
The aim of this own initiative report is to assess policy to date, to urge the European Union to implement all the necessary policies to promote the social, political and economic rights of women in the Mediterranean and to urge the partner countries to assume their responsibilities and rise to the challenges inherent in this objective by all possible means.
Assessing the situation is no easy task, because there are considerable variations from one country to another.
There is a lack of statistical data broken down by gender, an absence of studies by the European Commission and the national governments effectively evaluating the impact of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation on the promotion of women' s rights and a special regional Mediterranean programme has yet to be applied.
Generally speaking, unemployment also affects women with a university education and illiteracy is on the increase.
Early marriage and other entrenched customs mean that girls often drop out of school.
There is evidence of entrepreneurship in the Maghreb, but the lack of financing and credit facilities tends to block women's initiatives.
Violence, poverty and poor health among women are also commonplace, as is their absence from or under-representation in decision-making posts and, hence, their absence when Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is being negotiated and planned.
Tradition and religious stereotypes affect legislation, the ratification of international agreements and the application of such agreements.
Our committee calls for the effective implementation of what has already been laid down in the Barcelona Declaration regarding progress towards democracy and respect for human rights and for the gender dimension to be incorporated in the three pillars of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
It also calls for association agreements to incorporate an explicit provision on protection forwomen's' rights and also to provide for a policyfor monitoring suchprotection.
We are delighted that the study and the first regional Mediterranean programme for women have already been decided and we call on the Commission to take a global political approach, rather than confining the programme to vocational training, and to provide all the tools needed so that the issue of sexual equality can be dealt with in the broadest possible context, as it is in the countries of the European Union which apply this principle.
The European Commission and the Commissioner, who is present here, are experienced in drawing up and applying this sort of programme in the Member States and candidate countries and we believe that this experience will stand them in good stead when it comes to drawing up the regional Mediterranean programme.
Similarly, our committee is in favour of supporting women's organisations in the partner countries and of networking them with women's organisations in the Member States of the European Union.
We predict even greater potential for cooperation with women's organisations and social agencies in the candidate countries and the Balkans because the entire region is responding to the challenge of stability and peace by mobilising civic society.
In addition, having noted that the European Investment Bank has no budget for financing and supporting women's activities, we are in favour of a study into the possibility of creating a Euro-Mediterranean Development Bank for the Euro-Mediterranean zone because we feel that this will give women and women's organisations a chance to develop and obtain facilities and credit.
We are also in favour of setting up a database and observatory to monitor this progress and the compilation of data used to assess and plan future policy.
We also paid close attention to the problems of women immigrants from these countries in the European Union and we call for the red tape and other obstacles to legal immigration into the Member States of the European Union to be lifted, because we believe that they result in poverty, marginalisation and the exploitation of human and, more specifically, women's lives.
These phenomena have been denounced repeatedly, both by our committee and by the European Parliament as a whole.
This report is the result of excellent collaboration with the other political groups and I should like to thank my fellow Members for their amendments and for working with us and to ask you to endorse the report in its entirety.
Mr President, Commissioner, as members of this Parliament' s Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, we are extremely concerned about the situation of women in the Mediterranean countries, which was so well described by Mrs Kratsa in her report.
Widespread illiteracy - especially in certain countries, as the percentages she presents indicate - early school leaving, without achieving a level of study which prepares them for later life, and a lack of participation in the labour market - especially amongst young women - are factors which, together with poverty and marginalisation, above all affect women in the majority of cases.
This is the case despite the cooperation agreements, which contain many clauses, but never make it very clear that the situation of women should be taken into account amongst the objectives, and that the promotion of women and their access to better levels of personal well-being and to the labour market must also be amongst those objectives, so that they can pursue their own professions.
In these areas, health problems are one of the most serious situations they face, not only through a lack of healthcare, but also because of a lack of prevention.
These problems affect the whole population in general, but particularly women.
This is particularly surprising, given that we know the MEDA programme has had problems in this House, because not even half of what was intended has been implemented.
The MEDA programme, which is aimed at cooperation programmes in the Mediterranean areas, in particular the Southern Mediterranean, would be a wonderful instrument for creating specific programmes for women, aimed at promoting the role of women and increasing the living standards of women, which would be an advantage to the whole population, since we all know how important women are in the least-developed societies and, in particular, in traditional societies, where women bear the greatest responsibility for the family which, furthermore, usually includes a large number of children.
By means of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum of Women Members of Parliament we are well aware of the situation of these women, and we know what they expect from Parliament and the European Union.
We therefore have the obligation to draw attention to these facts so that their needs may be met.
Mr President, this is unfortunately the story of a so far unfulfilled commitment, which I will comment on later.
I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Kratsa, for being so willing to incorporate all of those amendments and issues which we in the Socialist Group have wanted to raise in order to supplement this excellent report.
In reality, the work in committee has been a complete collaboration between all the groups, and I hope that the House will reflect this in its vote this morning.
We have managed to achieve compromises on almost all aspects of a problem which has become very serious, because it affects the great majority of women in the associated countries of the Mediterranean.
It is true that there are slight differences between the various countries, but, in general, the situation of women in these countries is of great concern: illiteracy, early school leaving, unemployment, violence against women and health problems, originating from their reproductive health and the lack of adequate services for women.
The report exhaustively describes all these situations.
The European Union and the Member States must renew their commitment to the women of the Mediterranean countries.
In very many cases, cooperation agreements do not fulfil the commitment to deal with the special situation suffered by these women.
It is what we call "the transverse introduction of the gender perspective", because the situation suffered by women is not the same as the situation of men and therefore it is necessary to analyse what this situation is from the outset, in order to provide the tools necessary to resolve it.
Unfortunately, the regional programme within the framework of the MEDAs has once again been delayed and therefore this report is going to see the light of day long before this regional programme is implemented.
I hope that by then we can take up the fundamental ideas contained in this report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot continue to lament the situation suffered by women in many countries of the world, especially in this region which is so close to us, without taking action.
It is an urgent issue and we must promote the necessary mechanisms in order to ensure that the lives of women in these countries really becomes better and easier.
We must restate this commitment because there is no more time and we have to act.
Mr President, there is of course a tendency for its only to be women who take part in the debate whenever we have issues concerning women on the agenda.
I should therefore like to begin by saying that there are in fact two men from my group who have submitted to Parliament an appeal for equality that will also be forwarded to the President.
This appeal, entitled 'Enough is enough' , calls upon all the groups to consider what real progress they have made with equality and actively to take initiatives to improve the situation.
Next, I should like to thank the rapporteur for her brilliant report, which deals very well with an area in which some time needs to be devoted to the position of women, and I would pick up on a couple of individual points which I should like to emphasise.
First of all, I think it is incredibly important that we should acquire statistics, and I would urge the Commission to look at how we can improve the statistical base, for any discussion about women, men and inequality is a non-starter if we do not have the necessary statistics.
Whether there is to be a supervisory body or data bank, or whatever, is less important.
What is crucial is that we obtain statistics.
The second thing is that, in my view, it is entirely right - and this is also related specifically to this appeal - that the Commissioner should ensure that women participate when the association agreements are negotiated.
We are well aware that we very often only have men around the negotiating table.
When that is the case, women have already been reduced in status, and their position does not become a topic of central concern.
The third thing I should like to highlight is the issue of programmes.
It is crucially important to investigate what practical programmes we can offer to secure better education for women so that they themselves will also be in a position to do more to promote equality.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the Greens and European Free Alliance congratulates Mrs Kratsa on her excellent report.
I should also like to emphasise that we were pleased with the constructive manner, namely by cooperation between the groups, in which this report came about.
We concur with the rapporteur' s view that Euro-Mediterranean cooperation is, politically speaking, of crucial importance for Europe.
Not only is this cooperation a safe way of promoting Europe' s economic interests; its key objective is to establish an area of peace, security, stability and welfare.
In order to accelerate this cooperation, a better understanding between the European peoples and the peoples of the partner countries is necessary, as well as an active mainstream society which is capable of taking part in this process.
In all of this, women occupy a key position.
They must be encouraged to acquire their own political identity and for this purpose, they must be given the opportunity, via education and awareness-raising, of making up for an unfair disadvantage that has built up over the centuries.
Women must no longer solely be regarded as mothers, no matter how important their role in bringing up children may be.
They must also be seen - provided they gain access to education - as fully-fledged partners in the labour market and in politics.
With a view to enlargement, women from the South must conclude a solidarity pact with women of the North, and they need to support each other in their justified demands.
In this respect, Europe should function as a driving force.
Our Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, headed by an inspiring chairperson, Mrs Karamanou, has an important role to play in this.
Mr President, I feel that this whole report - for which I thank Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou - lacks something, that there is a taboo throughout, that there is a word it avoids mentioning. I understand the sensitivity of the subject but, if we do not mention this word, we will not be able to address the root of the problem or cooperate with groups of women who are fighting in these countries for their freedom.
The missing word is 'religion' , in other words Islam and the political abuse of Islam by the ruling power.
The key obstacle to the emancipation or liberation of the women in these countries - as was the case for a long time in our own countries - is the equivalence of religion and politics, an equivalence which makes the provisions of the Sharia the sole legal basis for laws on the situation of women in those countries, and this is becoming increasingly the case.
None of this is mentioned in the report, and I understand the difficulty, but I also fear that our reticence will not help the groups of women in those countries who, unaided, are courageously starting to raise the issue of separating religious and political authority.
The most important laws on women are those making up what is known as civil law.
Well then, all those laws which codify - and I repeat - codify discrimination against women are, albeit in different forms - directly applying the interpretation of the Koran.
There are women there fighting for the separation of powers, there are women fighting for the Koran to be brought up to date.
None of this features at all in the report, where the effects are listed but the cause is not addressed.
I regret this, for I feel that we are lagging behind them.
I would like to add my voice to those of my fellow Members in congratulating Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou on her report.
Certainly, listening to Mrs Bonino, we cannot deny the truth of what she has said.
The two minutes' speaking time restriction undoubtedly prevented her from going into more detail. This is an important issue which must certainly be dealt with using a different approach from the one adopted in the recent report, which focused on 'women and fundamentalism' .
If we take that approach, we will not be enabling either the women or ourselves to make any useful contribution to the growth - the cultural as well as economic growth - of these countries, and we will not be enabling these peoples as a whole to escape from a cultural and religious situation in which the human and civil rights of people in general and women in particular are being trampled underfoot.
I therefore feel that the issue must be addressed from the perspective outlined by Mrs Bonino, for the matter has hitherto been little debated in Parliament.
However, with regard to this report, as it stands, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and make two recommendations to the Commission and the Council. They are contained in the text before us but I would just like to emphasise them.
The first is that the presence of women at all levels of social, economic, financial and political life in conditions of equality, not least as regards decision-making, is a prerequisite for democracy and therefore for peace and well-being.
In everything the Union does to pursue these objectives, it must ensure that the programmes we have already implemented or are currently implementing are totally inflexible in terms of respect for the protection of rights, and that none of the work carried out by the Council towards partnerships and cooperation ever fails to take into consideration the need for these rights to be respected.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to thank Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou for her sound analysis and for her excellent collaboration in the drafting of this report.
I think we can refer back to the Beijing World Conference of Women, where, too, steps were taken towards women's empowerment and capacity building, and the MEDA programme actually provided us with the right instruments.
I must say, though, that we lack the statistical data to carry out a more exact and more precise analysis.
For example, the data is not in the report on the programme, and no yardstick has as yet been laid down against which progress can be measured.
Why was it that MEDA I and II included not even one regional programme exclusively devoted to women? Why is the democratic clause not applied with greater thoroughness where there is flagrant violation of women's rights, as with genital mutilation, for example?
The Valenciano Martínez-Orozco Report gives important pointers to that.
Why is fundamentalism not addressed in greater detail? I ask the women from the other groups, though, to pluck up the courage to introduce these issues into the Plenary rather than having their treatment obstructed in the Bureau.
I ask myself why women are barred from education in many countries. It is a destructive tendency.
Particularly in rural areas, up to 60% of women are excluded from education, even from being taught about reproductive health.
Why, for example, do our Member States, when dealing with immigration and asylum, not show a very emphatic red card to the illegal trade in human beings? In the Member State from which I come, for example, the recognition of gender-specific persecution or any persecution that is not carried out by the State as grounds for asylum is currently being made into an electoral issue, and the good starts we have made in our immigration law therefore end up being put out of the reach of women in the Mediterranean.
I think this is an area where women like us need to work together even more.
With this report, we are setting a good example.
Not only do we need more women performing social functions here, we also need them in our partner countries, and I emphasise again that the European Union must focus its instruments of cooperation even more intensely on women, so that it is to the advantage of us all that we, with the help of the democracy programme, empower women and open up dialogue.
First of all, I would like to thank Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou for her excellent work.
This report reminds us how important it is for the European Union to promote the role of women in economic and social life, both by means of Community policies and in the context of cooperation with third countries and the Mediterranean countries.
I would simply like to add a few words on the current situation, which is impeccably described in this report.
Although circumstances have improved for women in some Mediterranean countries, there is still a long way to go, in particular as regards access to education, vocational training and the labour market, but also in social matters, with regard to single and divorced women, single mothers and women in rural areas.
The European Union should draw attention to any progress that is made and lend its support should the opportunity arise.
The European Union must also ensure that the good intentions stated during discussions on partnership or association agreements are in fact followed by practical measures, with a view to increasing social cohesion.
However, there is still much progress to be made.
The promotion of gender equality in the Mediterranean countries is hindered by a number of obstacles such as the influence of cultural and religious traditions and the lack of social and legal structures.
At a time when some of these countries are undergoing significant economic expansion, the integration of gender equality into all policies and, in particular, policies concerning access to training and the labour market, must be promoted, as women can only have access to positions of political, economic or social responsibility if specific measures are implemented with regard to training, backed up by appropriate social measures such as, for example, the establishment of childcare structures.
The Spanish Presidency has reiterated its strong interest in developing programmes such as MEDA and in partnerships between these countries and the European Union.
This is an ideal opportunity to encourage our current and future partners to promote women' s economic, social and civil rights in order to create an active society involving both men and women, which, I hope, will enable an area of peace, security and prosperity to be created in the medium term.
Mr President, I wish to offer Mrs Kratsa my warmest congratulations, both on her initiative in drafting this report and on the report itself and the clear policy proposals contained in it.
This report will be a huge help to the women of the Mediterranean who, despite some improvement in their situation over recent years, still suffer sexual discrimination and inequality.
Illiteracy, poverty, domestic violence, inadequate medical care and little involvement in professional and political life are the main aspects of life for women on the southern shores of the Mediterranean basin.
However, what is worse, and here I agree completely with Mrs Bonino, is that women are the main victims of religious and political fundamentalism, of ultra-conservatism and of autocratic regimes who hang on to their power by controlling the sexual conduct of women, their way of life, their reproductive functions and even their mode of dress.
Without doubt, irrationalism and fanaticism are the main obstacles both to the emancipation of women and to social and economic progress in general in these countries.
Obviously, the best defence against the powers of irrationalism and fanaticism is to strengthen the worldly aspects of the state and legal democratic order.
We must send out a clear message.
No political system, religious movement, tradition or custom can take precedence over respect for the fundamental freedoms of women, human rights and the Rule of Law.
As long as these basic aspects of a democratic state are lacking in numerous countries around the Mediterranean, there will only ever be a faint glimmer of hope of any improvement in the position of women and the resolutions passed and conferences held within the context of the Barcelona process will be meaningless.
That is why we are calling on the European Commission to use every means at its disposal, especially when negotiating association agreements, to include clear-cut clauses and commitments protecting women's rights and the principles of the Rule of Law and recognising them as the sine qua non to social development in the countries of the Mediterranean and the promotion of the Mediterranean basin as an area of peace and cooperation.
Mr President, I wish to make four points in connection with this report.
Firstly, I feel that the fact that this report has been produced is a very positive thing.
I also thank the rapporteur for her efforts.
Secondly, I take the view that Mrs Bonino's reflections are something we should all share.
What is lacking in the report is precisely the principal cause underlying the facts of this situation, which was analysed in the report, in part unsparingly; the cause of it, though, is not there.
Thirdly, it appears to me that we are, from the point of view of consistency, far too amicable, far too calm, far too balanced.
Appeals are made, recommendations are made, requests are made, things are emphasised, but, in my view, far too little is demanded.
I believe we must in future exert much more pressure on this issue.
We must exert massive pressure on these countries and the societies in them, even with the suggestion of sanctions - and I do know that the word is not quite the right one.
That means that we must convince them and give them to understand, that the failure to positively influence the placing of women on an equal footing in these countries will have consequences.
Fourthly - and here I pick up on one of the Liberal Mrs Dybkjær's ideas - this is very much an issue for men too.
I am a bit of a black swan here today, but I hope that those men who are not here today will, when the vote is taken, do the right thing and advance the policy of this report a few steps further - and I hope that they will also do so in future.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mrs Kratsa and the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities because not only is this a report of substance, it also puts the question of women's rights straight back on the Euro-Mediterranean agenda.
The Barcelona process is basically a means for dialogue between the Community and the countries of the Mediterranean.
Needless to say, this dialogue cannot simply be based either on the principles of the European Union or on the principles underpinning the regimes in these countries.
It has to be based on international law, human rights conventions, the Beijing declaration, which these countries have signed - all the international texts and conventions which place women's rights at the heart of human rights, bringing us back to the question of the gender dimension of foreign policy.
Because the Barcelona process is one of the ways used to develop the European Union's foreign policy.
I should like to inform the House that the Commission has already taken an initiative to adopt a text of recommendations and principles in the hope that it will be accepted by the foreign ministers and will govern every contract and agreement between the European Union and third countries as regards women's rights and the gender dimension of foreign policy.
The Commissioner responsible for foreign policy issues and I have already held initial talks.
The first conference of international experts on the matter has been organised and will be held some time in April.
Our aim is to have an established programme of recommendations and agreements in principle at political level by 2003.
Of course, we shall be holding separate discussions on this with the Committee on Women's Rights, I imagine very soon, once we have the full programme and timetable, so that we can discuss a specific text with the parliamentary committee.
The financial tools for the Barcelona process are ÌEDA I and ÌÅDA II.
But, as you rightly said, we have no reason to be especially proud of the results of ÌEDA I as far as the social sector and women's issues and rights are concerned. The difficulties are caused, in large part, by our inability to close the gap between administrative systems and, in even larger part, by differences in principle.
The objective of the ÌEDA IÉ programme is to create a free trade zone between Europe and the Mediterranean countries in the long term, by 2010 and, within it, to implement programmes which will help these countries develop economically, along with social and economic measures to support this economic development.
And, at the heart of these measures, there must be measures for women and for involving women in education, the job market and social and economic life.
It is the Commission's job, following the forum held during the Belgian presidency, to prepare a specific regional programme during 2002 containing measures on the job market, women's networks and easier access for women to financing by developing initiatives which also relate to training.
This report will provide a great deal of input into the final programme which the Commission presents but, in closing, I must stress that I believe that any regional programme, irrespective of how much funding it has, if it is not applied within the framework of international agreements - I repeat this because the approach on the European side is often considered paternalistic - so I repeat that this programme will only succeed and bring in the results we all hope for if it is applied within the framework of international agreements, the Beijing declaration on respect for human rights and respect for women's rights.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Illiteracy and social exclusion
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0009/2002) by Mrs Hermange, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on illiteracy and social exclusion (2001/2340(INI)).
Mr President, almost two years ago, we adopted the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The right to knowledge and, consequently, the right to know how to read, write and count are part of this Charter.
Consequently, the opportunity to learn how to read and write should be available to all as a fundamental right, and parents, teachers and politicians should recognise their obligation to ensure that this opportunity is grasped by all, in particular because, when people cannot express themselves with words, they often do so with their fists, as they feel excluded from school, business or even their own family.
This right to knowledge is not currently realised, however, as 10 to 20% of the population of the European Union, or as many as 30 % if we count the candidate countries, are considered to be illiterate: 45% in Portugal, 35% in Italy, 22% in Ireland and Great Britain, 15% in Germany and France and, to add the candidate countries: 42% in Slovenia and Poland, 33% in Hungary, 29% in Bulgaria and 20% in Lithuania.
Illiteracy increases the divide between privileged members of society who are in a situation of relative security and those who are disadvantaged and marginalised, who do not have access to the labour market and consequently suffer financial insecurity, psychological isolation and social exclusion.
From an economic perspective, we all know that illiteracy also affects our businesses and their modernisation: it leads to increases in costs relating to the accident rate, employers' contributions and time taken to complete work because of the need for additional supervision.
However, although the European Commission and our institutions have produced a number of documents, there are still a number of obstacles: gaps due to a lack of reliable data, the lack of clarity of certain programmes proposed and policies which are still insufficiently integrated.
This matter, which I consider to be serious, Commissioner, should also be addressed through integrated policies associating social, and cultural and educational objectives, and should be discussed at policy level to increase awareness of this phenomenon.
It is with this in mind that I call on the Commission to submit to Parliament and the Council a Green Paper on Illiteracy, together with a timetable for achieving tangible objectives along the lines of the social agenda, precisely defining the measures to be taken at European level.
In the same vein, I call on the Commission, in connection with the employment guidelines, to propose specific indicators and benchmarks relating to illiteracy, in close cooperation with the social players.
I also ask the Commission to submit to Parliament, each year, a written report, incorporating statistical data, on progress towards the objectives of combating illiteracy and social exclusion.
We should all be aware that this matter is a key issue for development and for harmony in our societies.
We are not always aware of this, which is why I would also like us to be able to set up, not another observatory but, within the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, based at Thessaloniki, a sort of European illiteracy monitoring centre, as suggested by my group, specifically by submitting Amendment No 5.
Lastly, I would like to say, with regard to the amendments tabled recently, in particular by the Group of the Greens, that I am in favour of Amendment No 4 and that I would have been in favour of Amendment No 2 had it been considered as an additional item.
As for Amendment No 3, even though I am not against it in principle - the amendment requesting a Green Paper on illiteracy and mathematical illiteracy - I call for a vote against it because I think that, in the wording "Green Paper on Illiteracy" , the problem of mathematical illiteracy is obviously included.
Lastly, I cannot accept Amendment No 1.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, those were the points I wanted to mention.
Mr President, my compliments, in particular, to Mrs Hermange for her initiative in taking up one of the elements of the new strategy on combating social exclusion and poverty such as illiteracy, which I feel is a genuine barrier to the exercising of fundamental human rights, the rights of all citizens.
The idea that functional illiteracy affects over 10% of the European Union' s population is horrifying, to say the least, in a developed society in which Europe is pursuing ambitious goals such as those set by the Lisbon Council: firstly, the need for every citizen to have the necessary skills to be able to live and work in the new information society; and secondly, to make Europe the most competitive, dynamic economy in the world.
I feel that we must approach the debate on illiteracy, or rather the problem itself, with great vigour, taking this approach and with these goals before us.
The resolution focuses on certain points which I would like to mention briefly: firstly, knowing how to read and write is a fundamental right which must be guaranteed to all people; secondly, combating illiteracy is essential because it secures and strengthens the freedom of the individual; thirdly, the task of combating this disturbing situation must be undertaken by society as a whole and by public authorities and administrations in particular; fourthly, 'returning' illiteracy, which particularly affects elderly people, especially those in danger of social exclusion - who, as they lose their self-sufficiency, are obliged to live in sheltered accommodation, leaving their family and socio-cultural environment behind them for good - is a scourge which must be combated.
Therefore, governments should promote an incisive initiative through Community programmes, while it is up to you, Commissioner - and, as we know, you are very aware of the problem - to honour the undertaking to address this issue.
Mr President, I would like to begin with a phrase from the rapporteur' s explanatory statement in which she clearly states that extreme poverty and social exclusion must be considered to be a violation of human rights and illiteracy an intolerable violation of those same rights.
Furthermore, we must remember that, as she herself has said, between 10 and 20% of the European population is functionally illiterate.
The situation of these people severely restricts their ability to find decent work and to integrate themselves into the society in which they live.
They also have difficulties in reading some of the official documents which we regularly present.
This situation really contributes to the fact that, in a prosperous continent such as Europe, between 18 and 20% of people live in poverty, if we consider that they are below 60% of the average in their country of origin.
This is an intolerable situation.
The rapporteur proposes a series of objectives which we agree with and which must be taken into account in future decisions.
Firstly, a definition of the different forms of illiteracy - which we still do not have - with common criteria and mechanisms.
Secondly, common action against the situation of functional illiteracy, with an open method of cooperation between the various countries.
This fight against illiteracy must be incorporated into other Union policies and must be taken into account whenever we talk about education and training.
There must be a timetable for specific achievements, and Parliament must take account of the progress made, as the rapporteur has said.
The matter must be integrated into equal opportunities policy.
We have just discussed another report which speaks about this and we are perfectly aware that illiteracy figures in all countries are always higher amongst women.
And finally, there must be participation by social agents and the sectors involved.
This participation is crucial.
In previous programmes to combat poverty, as you will recall, there were concrete projects which spoke of the crucial importance of participation by all the sectors involved.
Mr President, Commissioner, I must congratulate Mrs Hermange on her initiative on this report on illiteracy, since it is a problem which we do not normally pay much attention to, because we think we have achieved total literacy, since the majority of Member States of the European Union have made enormous efforts over recent years to achieve this objective and we thought we had done so.
However, there are increasingly pockets of marginalisation in the cities, there is an immigrant population establishing itself in our cities and that means that the problem of illiteracy, and particularly functional illiteracy, is a really serious problem today, because it is always linked to poverty, to marginalisation and to social exclusion.
As defenders of human rights - and this is one of the most fundamental rights, as has been pointed out here - we have an obligation to draw attention to this matter so that programmes are set up to resolve the problem.
The worst affected are the young people who come from these sections of the population, who do not have employment opportunities, or in some cases find insecure jobs, without any opportunity to improve their working conditions.
Since the Lisbon Summit, becoming the most competitive information society in the world has been one of our objectives.
If the information society is fundamental to work in the future, these young people who can hardly find work under normal conditions, will not have any opportunity unless we integrate them into this information and knowledge society.
It is therefore urgent to carry out programmes and actions by means of the Green Paper which the rapporteur is requesting, so that these sections of the population, which are increasing with the immigration of recent years, are offered a solution to this fundamental problem, so that they can access other systems of personal welfare.
We always focus on health, housing and employment, but this is a fundamental problem and resolving it should be a priority.
I once again congratulate the rapporteur on this wonderful initiative, which draws attention to a problem that is still facing us.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Hermange, on her presentation of this report to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and on her extremely detailed work.
We know that Europe is one of the most prosperous continents in the world but, despite that, a substantial number of our citizens live in conditions of extreme poverty and social marginalisation.
One of the parameters for measuring these conditions, in addition to income, is, without a doubt, illiteracy, for illiteracy is a cause of exclusion and prevents access to human rights, as the rapporteur rightly said in her report.
Illiteracy, understood to mean either a lack of basic education or 'returning' illiteracy, is causing an increasing divide between those who are privileged and enjoy relative security and those who are disadvantaged and marginalised, who do not have access to work, who are in danger of isolation and do not participate in social life.
Illiteracy also represents an expense, a cost both for businesses and in social terms, as well as a cause of exclusion.
It is an ongoing problem in Europe, although it is not thought of as a cost, but there are no reliable data available for analysis.
Combating illiteracy and social marginalisation is now essentially the responsibility of the Member States, but at the Lisbon Summit - as has already been said - the Heads of State and Government set themselves the goal of making Europe the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world, etc, etc.
Moreover, the European Social Agenda was adopted at Nice.
Therefore, combating illiteracy and marginalisation must become one of the priorities of the Union and the Member States, with all the relevant policies applied in the context of a global, integrated strategy.
We therefore firmly support the rapporteur' s calls for a Green Paper and an Action Plan. I will not go into their contents because they are already outlined in the report.
However, we do call strongly upon the Commission to promote these texts: Parliament will support them and stand shoulder to shoulder with the Commission to ensure the Council endorses them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, it is scarcely credible that between 10% and 20% of people in the European Union are unable to understand printed matter and documents and make use of them.
Even I will readily concede that I am not in a position to fill in my German tax return forms without expert help, let alone actually fill in an application form for a project promoted by Europe.
It is, though, surely not this sort of documents to which this report refers.
People who have difficulty with reading and writing are restricted in their ability to participate in the life of society, and, when it comes to earning a living, are relegated to work for which minimal qualifications are required and which is therefore badly paid.
On economic, but above all on ethical and moral grounds, it is our duty to preserve people from this fate in this century of the information society and of lifelong learning.
Parliament is therefore doing the right thing with this report by describing a problem which is often shamefacedly hushed up, and offering solutions to it.
That has been done in this report as thoroughly as necessary and as briefly as possible, by the rapporteur, Mrs Hermange.
European legislation, though, is limited in this task to measures of development and support, as general and vocational education falls within the remit of the Member States, and that is where it should stay.
The Member States' sole duty is to make real the right to education which is now also enshrined in Article 14 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The work of the monitoring centre which the report calls for should be carried on in the already-existing Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop) in Thessaloniki, using the resources available there.
That makes sense in view of the costs involved and of the relevance to the functions Cedefop performs in any case, and so I ask you to support our Amendment No 5.
I would also subscribe to and support a European Year devoted to books and to reading, in view of our young people's widespread mania for television.
Mr President, Commissioner, this own-initiative report, which we should welcome, concerning the specific subject of illiteracy sheds light on two particular approaches recently implemented by the European Union in adopting the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on the one hand and the action programme combating social exclusion on the other.
As Marie-Thérèse Hermange, our rapporteur, reminded us, the right of each individual to know how to read, write and count is the practical basis that enables these individuals to exercise their rights as citizens.
This right must be guaranteed by practical measures wherever the scourge of illiteracy is present; it is therefore enlightening to be reminded of the figures.
In practical terms, I believe it must be possible to develop these actions in two directions.
We need to make the connection between illiteracy and unemployment, on the one hand - for example there are the proposed actions targeting illiteracy in the workplace - in order to ensure the coherent implementation of the decisions made in Lisbon, and between illiteracy and social inclusion on the other.
We should devise actions for social inclusion that are independent of the professional situation of the people concerned, and I am thinking of women in particular.
I believe the case of migrant women must be considered in this respect.
The report also calls for the creation of a monitoring centre, and I think it is realistic to plan this within an existing tool, Cedefop, since compatible indicators and benchmarks between Member States are the basis of any coherent Community policy.
In conclusion, I believe that this report must be seen as a tool to facilitate the drawing-up of a measure involving local, national and Community levels, each with their own specific responsibilities.
Today, the handling of these issues requires Community initiatives and the impetus to encourage the Member States to make decisions that are essential for their people.
I would like to start by congratulating Mrs Hermange on this important document, which I support, and to wish Commissioner Diamantopoulou every success in her work. This is the first time I have had the pleasure of seeing her this year and I am sure she will be just as successful in her work in the second part of the legislature as she was during the first two and a half years.
I feel that this document is extremely important, and it is crucial that Mrs Hermange has stressed that illiteracy does not just mean not knowing how to read and write, but not understanding discussions and being unable to move about in modern society, where it is not enough to know how to read and write but where a certain culture and savoir-faire are necessary for a person to have any status.
In some States of the European Union, this form of illiteracy is as high as 30 to 35%.
I would therefore stress the importance of resolving this issue.
There is another Commission document on the issue, which has been referred to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport - on that famous subject 'lifelong learning' - but this is a question of learning not the languages of other States but our own.
Well then, I am concerned by what happens as a result of this kind of illiteracy during elections.
Voters who are illiterate in this way do not know what or whom they are voting for when they go to the ballots and they do not understand the programmes.
This means that democracy is diminished.
Pensioners, I must say, know exactly which way to vote when they go to the ballots, but we must be sure that everyone understands why and for whom they are voting.
Mr President, as others have also said, this is an incredibly important report.
The nightmare scenario for the future is that society will be divided into two groups: the initiated, who know everything and are plugged into the knowledge society, and those who have been left behind and will therefore be marginalised in society.
Nor is there any doubt that this is a European issue, which is why I also sincerely support what the rapporteur has said about open coordination being the best method of achieving progress in this area.
The only way is to make it genuinely very embarrassing for the Member States if they do not do something in this area, and for the status of their efforts to be made as public as possible.
We must proceed with the proposal on lifelong learning as quickly as possible, and I naturally hope that the Commission will include the views adopted by Parliament today in the proposal on lifelong learning, for that is where they in fact belong. I also think that we must endeavour to get some new thinking into this area.
We must bear in mind that, if adults are to learn about a subject, going back to school is not an option.
Instead, they have to learn in some other way. They have to learn in the context of the labour market; they have to have time off work to be able to go to classes; and they have to learn through the process of schools and teaching coming out to the workplace.
I believe it is very important to establish the connection between work and learning so that we can continue with lifelong learning.
The last thing I want to say concerns an idea for the Commissioner that could perhaps be taken further and might also put pressure on the Member States to demonstrate that they are doing something in this area.
It is the possibility of introducing 'knowledge accounts' for the individual Member States through which the latter would simply report each year on how much they had done in the area of lifelong learning to combat illiteracy and promote knowledge and education in general.
'Knowledge accounts' are a good idea, Commissioner, which I hope you will consider.
Mr President, today's report on illiteracy is a very important contribution to the wider issue at European level, i.e. our review of the basic skills of literacy and a working knowledge of arithmetic as prerequisites to social integration, as prerequisites to the European Union's achieving the Lisbon objective of a knowledge-based economy.
We have, without doubt, entered a new stage, in which basic skills do not stop at reading and writing and now include IT skills, high-tech skills, entrepreneurship, foreign languages, interpersonal communication skills and social skills.
All this can be summed up nowadays in four simple words: the need to learn.
The Commission's policy in this sector will be expressed in a series of initiatives and programmes which are currently in the pipeline as a result of cooperation between the Council, Parliament and the Commission.
My first point is that the Lisbon Council in 2000 called for the Commission to draft a report on the specific future objectives of education and training systems.
This report was presented in Stockholm and we are currently preparing a programme of work on the subject of the universal acquisition of basic skills, which will be presented in Barcelona.
The acquisition of basic skills is one of the 13 basic objectives for the education and training systems of the European Union.
This objective includes defining indicators to measure over a ten-year period the extent to which Member States ensure that all their citizens acquire a working knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic.
This is the first specific indicator which will reflect developments in this sector over a ten-year period.
Secondly, I should like to remind the House of the communication which the Commission published in November 2001 on creating a European area of lifelong learning, which stresses that lifelong learning depends on acquiring basic skills.
Thirdly, I should like to mention the forthcoming action plan on skills and mobility in the European Union which the Commission, by which I mean President Prodi and I, are due to announce next week, the aim of which is to achieve a real European job market based on mobility and a minimum level of common skills at European level.
My fourth point concerns the Community strategy on combating social exclusion.
As you know, the bottom line in the national actions plans of most countries is that there is a direct link between social exclusion and the acquisition of basic skills.
And both the Equal programme and the Social Fund make provision for funding for individual programmes relating to access to basic skills, especially by groups subject to discrimination.
And we must not forget that certain groups, such as people with disabilities and immigrants, must overcome even greater problems in order to acquire basic skills.
My fifth point concerns cooperation at international level, in other words, our international strategy.
The European Commission is working with the OECD, ÁSÅÌ and G8 to support direct action to get basic skills put on the corresponding agendas.
Which brings me to the report and, more specifically, to the application of the open method of coordination. As I mentioned in relation to the strategy on exclusion, we can take it as given that the Council of education ministers will approve the open method of coordination on common objectives for education and training systems next week.
As far as the Green Paper is concerned, I must express a certain reticence, mainly because numerous new policy initiatives have been started, important matters are in the pipeline in various Councils and we are now in a position to take action on illiteracy; it would perhaps mean additional delays if we were to proceed with the Green Paper, given that we now have most of the information we need from work carried out in previous years.
Which brings me to the recommendation to Member States on reading and writing lessons and access to basic skills.
I must stress here that we need to respect the principle of subsidiarity and take particular care in our approach to education, which is a strictly national matter.
The open method of cooperation is an excellent tool, giving the Member States added value in the form of indicators and exchanges of best practices.
On the question of a European illiteracy monitoring centre, I have taken note of the proposal by the Members of Parliament on the need to use existing institutions, such as Cedefop, and I would remind the House that there are already a number of programmes, such as the OECD Pisa programme, which provide some initial answers.
Before creating new tools, we need to be sure that we are making efficient use of tools which already exist.
Finally, as far as the proposal for an annual report on illiteracy to Parliament is concerned, we want to look at the most efficient way of informing Parliament and what use Parliament can make of reports on national action plans on social integration and reports via the open method of coordination, i.e. how existing means, reports which are drafted every year anyway, how this dimension can be used so that the information provided is exponential and more efficient.
Thank you, Commissioner Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon today.
Social policy agenda
The next item is the report (A5-0004/2002) by Mrs Hermange on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the scoreboard on implementing the social policy agenda (COM(2001)104 - C5-0536/2001 - 2001/2215(COS)).
Mr President, it is unusual to speak twice in a row in the same day.
I would like to thank you, Commissioner, for your comments and suggestions, which we will have to discuss.
Commissioner, we have greatly criticised the Nice Summit, yet it has provided you with a valuable instrument: the Social Agenda, which was drawn up with the objective of making the European Union the world' s most competitive economy, as decided at the Lisbon Summit.
As we all know that there is no openness between European, national and local partners, this agenda raises the issue of responsibility and attribution of powers of all those playing a part in its implementation.
It is in its dual role of ensuring openness and acting as a social instrument that the Social Agenda is a key component of economic and social modernisation, as its implementation will, in the long term, be decisive for achieving the strategic objectives laid down by the Lisbon European Council.
We are sure of this, even if it is not currently given much consideration.
That, Commissioner, is why Parliament and its Committee on Employment and Social Affairs deeply regretted not having been able to consider the Social Agenda prior to the Stockholm European Council.
We therefore ask that Parliament be involved in the implementation of the adjustment of the Social Agenda, as well as all the social partners, and we insist that, from now on, the scoreboard make clearer the various responsibilities of the parties involved.
We also call on the Commission to supply information on how it proposes to act on a number of requests we have made: to define an appropriate legal basis for the development of civil dialogue; to provide a tax and legislative framework for the development of the social economy; to integrate the social dimension into competition policy; to submit a directive on social security cover for new forms of employment; to reinforce the action programme and instruments against poverty and social exclusion and submit a proposal to amend Directive 92/85/EC on introducing measures to help improve the health and safety of female workers; and to launch an initiative aimed at better guaranteeing the social quality of work.
You will also understand, Commissioner, that we are calling on you to speed up a number of operations: in particular to submit a proposal for a review of the enterprise committee directive as soon as possible so that the legislative procedure can be concluded as intended, to submit to Parliament a memorandum on policy in the area of health and safety at work that could serve as a consultation document, to conduct in-depth examination and assessment of the impact of the Luxembourg process, and, lastly, to propose activities to mark the European year of the disabled.
Commissioner, we are convinced that this scoreboard should not be confined to setting out actions implemented by the Commission but should eventually become a strategic instrument by means of which the agenda' s implementation can be supervised, and where need be adjusted.
We are also convinced that partnerships should be strengthened in all the actions taken in this area.
Commissioner, Nice has provided you with a valuable tool. You therefore have a valuable role to play in making social policy more transparent.
Take this opportunity to transform this Europe of commodities into a people' s Europe, in the knowledge that Parliament will be right behind you.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mrs Hermange on the extreme care and sensitivity with which she has drafted this report on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. I agree with her that the table of results of the Social Agenda should include all planned activities and the division of responsibilities and should be submitted to the European Parliament within a reasonable period of time so that Parliament can study and give an opinion on it.
The European Parliament has supported the Commission proposal on a cohesive policy framework for social development right from the start, although it did point out that the updated European standard which was the whole purpose of the Social Agenda should serve the values of solidarity and justice underlying the European structure better and more efficiently, given that these values are currently under attack.
In order to promote these values, the European Parliament stresses in its resolution that we also need to promote the full participation of women in economic and social life.
The European Parliament also stresses in its resolution that the gender dimension needs to be included in all sectors covered by the Social Agenda and monitored in regular reports.
We need a proposal to amend the directive on the safety and health of pregnant and breastfeeding workers, i.e. directive 92/85.
We need to highlight the fact that the social partners have a responsibility to put the principles of equal pay and equal opportunities into practice.
We need to take an initiative to improve working hours and strike a better balance between work and home, we need a more substantial take on sexual equality in all pre-accession negotiations and we need to promote dialogue with women's organisations in candidate countries.
As rapporteur for the Committee on Women's Rights for the Social Agenda, I should like to ask the Commission to tell the European Parliament how it intends to follow up these issues and if it intends to present a proposal for a directive on equal treatment in sectors other than the employment sector.
Finally, the European Parliament has highlighted the need to make it easier for social agencies to take part and I should like to ask what initiatives you intend to take to increase the participation of women's organisations.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should obviously, first and foremost, like to congratulate Mrs Hermange and thank her for her excellent cooperation. The result is there for everyone to see.
This report is based on a very broad consensus, for not one single amendment has been tabled.
However, I should also like to say that, with this report, the European Parliament actually falls between two stools.
On the one hand, it is a fact that the scoreboard which we are discussing has actually been outdated for a long time. On the other hand, the new scoreboard has not yet been finally rubberstamped by the European Commission, despite the fact that, in Stockholm, we were assured that this scoreboard, together with the summary report for Barcelona, would be before us by no later than January.
I should, at any rate, like to thank the Commissioner for the opportunity we have had, together with the coordinators, of obtaining current information about the Commission' s intentions, and of making our concerns known regarding the state of implementation of the Social Agenda.
Commissioner, in my view, we should make this sound initiative an integral part of the procedure in order to guarantee Parliament' s involvement during the implementation of the Social Agenda.
I should therefore like to afford this debate a little more topical value by seizing the opportunity urgently to call upon you, Commissioner, but especially - and I am stressing this - the entire board of Commissioners, to implement the ambitions of the Social Agenda and the pledges made during the Swedish and Belgian Presidencies down to the last detail and according to the time schedule.
After all, Commissioner, there are quite a few reasons why we are concerned.
It is, of course, the case that 2001 has produced some welcome results, but it is vital to keep this momentum going and, for this, we need a new and better scoreboard, which clearly indicates the responsibilities with the attendant expiry dates.
I will give you a few reasons why we are concerned.
First of all, the role of the social partners in relation to labour organisation and lifelong learning is crucial if the Social Agenda is to be implemented , and I hope that their contribution to Barcelona will be considerable.
But where consultation fails, the legislator needs to step in, and this is currently the case with temporary agency work, in connection with which we have long been waiting impatiently for a Commission proposal.
Secondly, following the successful completion of the directive on worker participation in the framework of the European Company and the directive on the information and consultation of workers, nothing now stands in the way of a review of the enterprise committee directive.
This also applies to the action plan to improve health and safety which Mrs Hermange introduced a moment ago.
According to the Social Agenda, the initiatives should have been before us at the end of 2001/beginning of 2002, but, Commissioner, there is no trace of these in the operational programme of the Commission.
I am also picking up signals that there is quite a bit of resistance in the Commission.
I should therefore like to say one thing in conclusion, Mr President.
I should like you, Commissioner, to pass on these words to the College of Commissioners: pacta sunt servanda [Treaties should be respected].
This Parliament will never accept the Social Agenda being shelved, and I hope that you will be able to use the support of this Parliament in the College of Commissioners.
Mr President, the ELDR Group would like most sincerely to congratulate Mrs Hermange on her report and on the unanimity that it achieved in committee.
That said, it is only fair to give notice to the House that we may find ourselves less able to form part of a consensus when the Commission brings forward some of the proposals referred to in paragraph 14.
In some cases it will depend on the form of the proposals, given our commitment to subsidiarity; in others, it will depend on their exact content.
I would, for example, express my own concerns in both respects over the second indent of the paragraph and any proposals for providing a tax and legislative framework for the development of the social economy, the third sector.
Many voluntary organisations have already expressed their worries to me that such a measure, unless we get it exactly right, could well prove more of a hindrance than a help to their activities.
This is just one of the reasons why I would like to give wholehearted support to the first indent of paragraph 14.
Knowing how much volunteers contribute to our well-being, I sometimes wonder just how much of a society we would have without their efforts.
We urgently need a proper legal base for the civil dialogue.
Without one, we will find it much more difficult to do what the President of Parliament urged us to do yesterday: involve EU citizens in the creation of a Europe fit for its future.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur on her work.
We are looking for a greater role as a parliament in ensuring that we can conclude agreements with regard to social inclusion, so as to best respond to the needs and demands of those people we represent.
Parliament's role must be a constructive one.
However, I have some concerns regarding the amount of legislation sought by this report and the move towards creating more bureaucracy and red tape, which could work to the detriment of the ideals underlying the social policy agenda.
We must favour creating a proper business environment where employment can be created, and where proper and real jobs can be maintained within the European Union.
Nowadays when we look around the world we can see how it is more common and easier for industry and business to relocate outside areas with high social costs and high taxation.
We must work towards a more progressive system in which workers are entitled to keep as much of their earned income as possible and there is better provision of services in the social sphere in areas such as housing, health and education through the national exchequer.
We may not achieve those with the proposals contained in this report.
I am in favour of the report, but I have specific concerns.
We must also look at the whole legislative process implied by what is being called for in this report.
Although Parliament is seeking a greater role, more involvement in coordination and quicker action, with hindsight it is also looking for more legislation to be put in place.
Legislative instruments are called for when negotiations are not concluded in relation to training, lifelong learning, organisation of work, adjustments, new forms of work, guidelines for negotiations by social partners and supplementary sickness insurance.
However, the Commission has proposed something different.
The Commission is taking a far more proactive and forward-looking approach in its proposals.
We must support the call for research, which unfortunately was not highlighted within the committee report.
There has to be a radical increase in employment participation.
An emphasis must be put on better jobs.
More must be done towards building a European labour market with more mobility included within it.
Finally, we must play a greater and clearer role as regards the place within society of those with disabilities.
These people represent 10 % of the population, yet they are excluded from so many walks of life.
We have not yet achieved as much as we should have done for those people.
Mr President, congratulations to Mrs Hermange on her report, and also to the Commission on its communication.
It is a new instrument that is being developed.
It is the first time that it is on the table, so it goes without saying that it will require fine-tuning in future.
All criticism should therefore be seen in this light, and criticism is obviously always relative.
I welcome this instrument, and would want to make two comments in this respect.
First of all, we have developed a great deal of European legislation.
One of the aspects to which the annex to the communication refers is the need for codification.
This is absolutely vital, in my view, for the complexity of European legislation and the large quantity of European legislation are starting to play tricks on us.
Needless to say, we can insist on more European legislation, and more European legislation is probably required in the social field.
However, there should also come a time where we can catch our breaths and take stock, certainly in the light of enlargement. After all, all these new laws will also need to be transposed in the candidate countries.
If I consider the social situation in the candidate countries, then this is certainly not straightforward.
They are very poorly developed in the social field, and if we pass new laws, these will also apply to them. I therefore call for occasional reviews to be drawn up of the situation as it stands.
Would it not be useful to consider the results of all the existing laws? How do they operate in practice?
Also, should the results in practice not be included in the scoreboard so that we at any rate have an overview, not only of our wishes for improvement, but also of the reality in the field? I call for including this too in the scoreboard.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish first to congratulate Mrs Hermange and thank her for this fine report, which is every bit as good as its predecessor.
We share her analysis and also the criticisms she has raised in the report.
I wish also to thank you, Commissioner, for your ideas on the Barcelona Summit.
Only this morning, I was telling a party of visitors from Bad Hersfeld how much commitment you demonstrate.
Your agenda has enjoyed very strong support from Parliament, and especially from the group to which I belong, but we now expect definite proposals and initiatives, action plans and also - Mrs Smet - directives.
This will not work in the complete absence of directives.
Of course, we should make more use than hitherto of the new method of coordination, especially in discussions with the candidate countries.
I see that as an excellent instrument for getting these countries involved right now and also giving them the opportunity to set out to us their current concerns and needs, and what they have achieved.
Here too, I do not share Mrs Smet's opinion that these candidate countries lag behind on all these points.
I think we urgently need a reform of the European Works Councils directive.
If you have problems at the Commission, Commissioner Diamantopoulou, then just take the excellent report that Parliament produced last autumn.
We must also shape social policy along precautionary lines, and not always leave it until, so to speak, the child has fallen down the well.
The scandal surrounding lorry drivers in Luxembourg is only the tip of the iceberg.
The head of Luxembourg's government has said that there is an urgent need for action on the part of the European Union, and perhaps we should take him at his word.
The Spanish presidency is, unfortunately, rather hesitant, but, Commissioner, Parliament supports you with all the commitment it can muster.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the degree to which the European Union complies with the Social Policy Agenda is a major indication of its interest in resolving the countless social problems that still exist.
We are still seeing not only major delays in this policy' s implementation, however, but also that concerns with social policies are not being reflected in other policies and in the Community budget and we are even seeing a reduction in funds in the fields of employment and social affairs, which is unacceptable.
Even in the field of social inclusion, and despite the miles of paper that have already been used up on the subject and despite national inclusion plans and countless declarations of intent, there are still serious problems which could grow worse as a result of the slowdown in economic activity and the insistence on privatisations in fundamental sectors and in public services that are essential to a genuine policy of social inclusion, in addition to the fact that financial resources are still very thin on the ground.
If the European Union' s leaders persist in this approach, there is a danger, as the report states, that the commitments given in the Agenda will not be fully met by 2005.
This is why it is so important for the Commission to speed up its work and, above all, to change its policies, giving the utmost priority to the social aspect in areas such as quality employment with rights, the fight against poverty and social exclusion, the guarantee of access to fundamental rights, specifically for the more vulnerable social groups such as children, the elderly, immigrants and the disabled and the establishment of equal opportunities for men and women in all areas.
Lastly, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Marie-Therèse Hermange and her colleagues in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for including in the report proposals that I tabled, specifically on asking the Commission to adopt initiatives and to present an action plan for the effective prevention of musculoskeletal injuries at work, to take initiatives to provide appropriate safeguards for workers' rights, and notably employment, in the event of the restructuring or relocation of undertakings and to take initiatives, and notably adopt an action plan, to put into practice equality of payment for men and women.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Mrs Hermange on her excellent work but also express some dissatisfaction at the Commission' s communication.
We do not, of course, want to ignore the various initiatives planned by the Commission regarding employment and certain social issues, nor do we want to disregard the negotiation initiatives undertaken by the social partners.
The fact is that, although the agenda has a programme structure, endorsed since Nice by the Lisbon conclusions, in particular - and which, moreover I clearly support - this initial assessment of its implementation would seem somewhat inconclusive, removed from the original plan and goals set.
Indeed, I wonder whether, in the meantime, a predefined model and predefined frameworks exist, within which the responsibilities laid down by the agenda for the many parties involved can be exercised; whether there is evidence of even embryonic good quality work and what its particular characteristics are; whether the job placement systems and systems providing information on opportunities are successfully fulfilling their role and whether school and training courses are starting to be rationalised.
Moreover, it should be ascertained, at both Community and national level, whether industrial relations are moving steadily towards general development in terms of flexibility and security and whether local bodies and social forces are starting to cooperate responsibly in respect of national action plans and whether these plans are starting to be fully consistent with Union guidelines.
It would also be appropriate to ascertain, in order to get an overall picture, whether the States have at least initiated an internal debate on their social rules, on cohesion within their national territories and on the integration of groups which are relatively or extremely marginalised because of age, disability, sex or profession.
One last point concerns enlargement, on which the agenda focuses greatly, unlike this initial assessment, which merely refers to NGOs' activities, although that is not to say they are not important.
To sum up, the point we are trying to make is that, although much of the issue is left to the principle of subsidiarity and the active responsibility of a number of parties to manage, the social protocol, although behind schedule, is an integral part of the Treaties, and social policy at last goes hand in hand with economic policy in the open method of coordination.
It is, therefore, vital that the Commission take a more incisive, specific role, which must be shared by the European Parliament in a more substantial, ongoing fashion.
Mr President, I have very great respect for the ambitious work which the rapporteur, Mrs Hermange, has put into the report on the scoreboard for implementation of the social policy agenda.
However, I am at the same time concerned that the work has led to the request for a long list of legislative initiatives on the part of the Commission, relating for example to lifelong learning, organisation of work, the need to reconcile work and private life, working environment policy, supplementary sickness insurance and the hiring-out of staff.
There are two main reasons why I believe that demands for legislative initiatives within these areas are the wrong road to go down.
First of all, we Swedish Conservatives believe that these issues should not be dealt with at Community level.
They are best dealt with at national level and, best of all of course, through negotiations at national level.
Secondly, I believe that adding more and more pages of legislation to the thousands upon thousands of pages that the candidate countries are now already required to accept and incorporate into their own legislation would make it considerably more difficult to implement any enlargement of the EU.
I therefore agree with what my colleague, Mrs Smet, said about its being important to pause and reflect and to review the legislation that already exists.
We are not being given the opportunity to vote against individual points in the report.
We Swedish Conservatives will not be able to support the report as a whole in the final vote, in spite of the fact that there is actually a lot in the report that we think is positive.
Unfortunately, the initiatives are, as I said just now, to be taken at the wrong level.
They should be taken at national level.
Mr President, I should like to start by saying that this report will help enormously in improving how we use an important tool.
As Mrs Smet said, it is vital that we understand that this is the first social policy tool we have had at European level, a tool achieved with a great deal of hard work and sensitive negotiation.
The report and the amendments tabled by the honourable Members touch on three issues: content, time and procedure.
As far as the content is concerned, I would remind the House that the Commission highlighted the need for a binding Social Agenda in the spring of 2000 and spent 6 months making important policy preparations in close collaboration with the French presidency and Parliament, in the person of Mrs Van Lancker, resulting in Nice in agreement between the leading countries, for the first time ever, on a long-term, five-year Social Agenda.
The Commission was specifically instructed to implement this Social Agenda and it announces a programme every year so that the commitments made will be fulfilled by 2005.
I should like to remind the House that I presented the results of the first year's implementation of the Agenda to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs in October 2000.
It was 100% efficient; there was a 100% correlation between commitments and implementation.
In October 2001, I again presented a table of actions in 2001 to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and again there was a 100% correlation between commitments and results.
The question is, does the Agenda remain constant or does it absorb new factors over the course of time?
The Commission is basically - or rather absolutely - committed to the Social Agenda as adopted in Nice on the basis of the Agenda agreed in 2000.
In the meantime, we have promised to review it in 2003 and, of course, I agree with the report that Parliament will need to play an important part if we are to have the facility to adjust it.
My second comment concerns time.
First, the report on the Agenda and the Commission's summary report to the spring Council need to be submitted at the same time.
This always creates problems, which we are trying to resolve.
Secondly, our criticism is based on the results of the first year of the Agenda, as Mrs Hermange says in her report, so we must bear in mind that the report in question had to be submitted two months after the decision taken in Nice.
This brings me to the procedure. I agree with the report on three points: first, that the Social Agenda and the table of results cannot simply be a statement of past action and should make a careful examination of broader achievements and look to the future.
Secondly, it must refer back to the wider review of the factors involved and look forward to future expectations, these factors being, of course, the social partners, together with women's organisations and civic society organisations, as described by the honourable Members.
The third point is that the stability and cohesiveness of the Agenda are not written in stone, i.e. we must intervene wherever there is an emergency or new elements create problems at social level with social repercussions.
As was the case recently with the initiative on restructuring, to which the Member in question has already referred, where we had 350,000 redundancies in a year due to corporate restructuring in the European Union.
We had no choice but to intervene, even though there was no commitment in the Agenda.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I am positive that this report and the close collaboration with the committee in question will help to improve consistently the performance of the Social Agenda which, I would again remind the House, is a completely new tool and which close cooperation will help to make even better.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Welcome
Vote
I wish to table an oral amendment to Amendments Nos 10 and 16, which are identical.
This is to do with the original text's stipulation that the Joint Undertaking's registered office should be located somewhere where it would be exempted from taxation.
For reasons of competitiveness, and other comparable reasons, this is of course not feasible.
In consultation with the groups, the text should be replaced by:
... "subject to the existing tax regimes and negotiations with the potential country of location".
(Parliament gave its assent to the tabling of the oral amendment) (Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, there is an omission in item 9 of the joint resolution.
In the discussions between the various groups, the European Commission was given the task of reforming the CEMT permit system, but this role has been omitted from the text of the resolution.
I therefore suggest tabling an oral amendment and adding the following words, which we agreed.
The text would then be worded as follows: "Calls on the Member States, in close collaboration with the Commission services, to initiate a qualitative and quantitative revision" .
(The House gave its assent to the tabling of the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on the situation in the Middle East
Regarding Amendment No 2
Mr President, I request that the first clause - "calls on Israel to comply with" - be replaced with the clause "calls on the two sides to comply with international conventions" , and that, after the words "arrested and imprisoned" , the words "by Israel" be inserted.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0100/2002) on measures to combat terrorism
Regarding Amendment No 8
Mr President, paragraph 5, where it says "to sign and ratify" should read "to ratify or accede to the Rome Statue" because at this stage it is no longer possible to sign the Statute.
So paragraph five should read as follows: "Calls on the Member States to appeal to all UN members to ratify or accede to the Rome Statute setting up the International Criminal Court".
(The House gave its assent to the tabling of the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0023/2002) by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on relations between the European Parliament and the national parliaments in European integration [2001/2023(INI)]
Before the vote
Mr President, I would like to table a compromise oral amendment absorbing Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9 tabled by Mr Belder.
My amendment replaces citations 2, 4 and 6 of the report with the following: 'Having regard to the recent statements by a number of Heads of State or Government on Europe' s future,' .
Mr President, Mr MacCormick has now withdrawn Amendments Nos 18 and 12, but Amendment No 10 deals with the same subject.
Will the latter be withdrawn accordingly, or will it be kept?
First of all, I would like to know whether the House agrees to the oral amendment tabled by Mr Napolitano as rapporteur, to replace the three citations with the clause he has just read.
Are there any objections? Good.
The amendment is adopted.
Mr MacCormick has proposed to withdraw Amendments Nos 12 and 18.
Mrs Van Lancker says that Amendment No 10 can also be withdrawn as it deals with the same point.
I have also been informed that Amendment No 17 is on the same subject.
On the basis of what I have been told, I therefore conclude that Amendments Nos 10, 12, 17 and 18 are to be withdrawn.
Could you confirm that, Mr MacCormick?
Mr President, I am content with that, but they are on different points.
The other two amendments make this observation: there are exactly 15 Member States in the Union at the moment and that is not disputed.
Whether there are more nations is a different question.
However, in a spirit of goodwill I withdraw these amendments as well.
Mr President, on a point of order, at yesterday's vote on the Watson report on the European Arrest Warrant, there was confusion on the numbering of amendments.
You will see from today's report that what was Amendment No 3 has been penned over as 4.
Even in the Official Report it is not quite clear on some of the pages.
Amendment No 3, which dealt with the legal concept of habeas corpus, had been circulated to us in the Irish delegation of the PPE-DE Group.
We knew that the amendment would be defeated but nonetheless I and a number of my colleagues decided to vote for it because of our firm belief in the principle of habeas corpus and that it is a good one.
We wish to indicate our vote that this legal remedy should have a place in European law.
Looking at the record of yesterday's proceedings, Amendment No 3, which we received yesterday morning, became Amendment No 4 at the vote.
Our decision to vote for the principle of habeas corpus was negated by this change in the numbering of the amendment.
I wish it to be recorded here that our vote was intended to support the principle of habeas corpus.
Mr President, I offer this explanation of vote on behalf of the PPE-DE Group.
The concern of the PPE-DE Group was that, as a result of the ambiguity of its wording, Amendment No 8 to the resolution on the European judicial area could be wrongly interpreted.
This wording - particularly in certain language versions - could be interpreted as meaning that the entry into force of the four measures was being replaced by that of the framework decision on terrorism.
Following Mrs Buitenweg' s clarification, we have voted in favour, because it is logical that the framework decision on terrorism should serve as an interpretative criterion for these four decisions.
Hatzidakis report (A5-0012/2002)
.
(NL) For a long time, we used to aspire to ever faster road vehicles for the transport of both freight and passengers.
Speed restriction was seen as a temporary and unwanted hitch in technology waiting to be perfected.
Each deliberate attempt to return to any form of speed restriction was considered an infringement of the driver' s individual freedom or a barrier to favourable profit margins for hauliers.
The rising death toll on the roads is forcing us to have second thoughts.
Despite this, the prescribing of devices for an ever larger proportion of road transport is only part of the solution.
If appliances are made compulsory but if the legal speed limit is not sufficiently restricted, then this looks more like a disguised form of subsidy for companies that can tap into a new market in this way.
This is comparable to the covenant with the car industry, which produces headlights that are activated automatically when the car is switched on, whereupon the driver needs to switch them off again in order to meet national statutory provisions or safety requirements.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur confines the proposal to company cars, extends transitional periods and, in part, increases the maximum speed of category N2 motorised vehicles to 110 km.
Speed limitation devices only make sense if they are designed to make compliance with such a serious statutory speed restriction enforceable, and this is, sadly, still not the case.
Marques report (A5-0001/2002)
Mr President, firstly, in my capacity as a member of the EU-Bulgaria joint interparliamentary delegation, I too would like to welcome the Bulgarian Prime Minister, Mr Georgi Parvanov, to the European Parliament.
As regards the Marques report on rum in the French overseas territories and the Azores, how could I vote against the motion? Last night, I dreamed I saw the pirate, Captain Morgan, who said to me: 'I have been appointed by the trade union of pirates to advise you to vote for this document, for otherwise we pirates will not be able to sing our usual refrain' - which I will read, not sing here - '15 men on a dead man' s chest and a bottle of rum' .
The bottle of rum is essential, and so I voted for the motion.
.
(FR) Rum is no longer sufficient fodder in the FOD!
Faced with a truly lamentable situation for this type of quality product which, like others, has fallen victim to competition from the ACP countries, we must preserve the French demand for rum from the overseas departments and therefore extend the derogation which has been in place since 1995, that is, a reduction in excise duty, until 2009, for social and cultural reasons, in the hope that structural measures will be taken either to save the rum industry by making it competitive or by providing alternatives to the 40 000 jobs concerned.
I am in favour of extending the reduction in excise duty on FOD rum for a quota of 90 000 hectolitres of pure alcohol in France, particularly as I believe, in general, that the exorbitant excise duty should be reduced on wines and spirits, in particular in the North of the Community.
This is therefore a good precedent, as the Commission, which is drawing up proposals to abolish zero excise duty for wine, should also be discouraged.
In my opinion, we should take every opportunity to protect against such intentions.
However, I consider that, in the interim report that the Commission is due to present to us in 2006, not only should the continued presence of the reasons justifying the derogation be assessed, but Community rules concerning State aid should also be taken into consideration and the continued derogation should be conditional on the effective restructuring of the sector.
I believe this to be a legitimate request.
With regard to the reduction of the crippling excise duties on liqueurs and eaux-de-vie produced and consumed in Madeira and the Azores, I am also in favour of granting this derogation until 2008, with an interim report to be produced in 2005.
This is for reasons of regional policy, in order to enable small firms to survive, despite competition from imported products with far lower production and marketing costs than local producers.
.
(FR) Article 299(2) of the Treaty provides for the possibility of introducing special measures in order to ensure the survival of activities in the outermost regions where a climate of legal certainty is greatly needed if economic operators are to maintain their position and to grow.
The production of rum has a major impact on the economy of the French overseas departments as 40 000 jobs are involved.
The Council Decision of 1995, which is due to expire at the end of this year, authorises France to impose a reduced rate of excise duty within French metropolitan territory for "traditional" rum produced in the French overseas departments.
The current review of the COM in the sugar sector and the dismantling of customs barriers in 2003 have led France to propose that these tax arrangements be maintained beyond 2002 on the grounds that the measures adopted at national and Community level would not in themselves be enough to allow FOD products to compete with products from other regions.
In order to preserve this traditional agricultural activity, which generates jobs at every stage of cane-sugar-rum production, the current system sets a minimum level for imports from the FOD into France which is strictly limited and supervised in order to compete with the ever-increasing sales of rum from third countries, which are not subject to the same production specifications.
In order to ensure the survival of the sector, rum producers in the FOD are obliged to use local raw materials, which guarantees quality, but which, for example, prevents Guadelupian rum from being produced using cane from Martinique as well as from third countries.
Rum from the overseas departments is therefore obliged to participate in the FOD rural development policy, which increases restrictions and production costs and places it in a disadvantageous position on the market in relation to products from third countries.
The dispensational tax system therefore merely aims to compensate for the obligation incumbent on FOD producers to participate in the survival of the cane-sugar-rum sector.
(Intervention cut short pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
Glante report (A5-0005/2002)
Let us talk about the Galileo project, Mr President.
As you know better than me, Galileo Galilei, the great Italian scientist, used to study the sky with his telescope from the earth.
Here, the opposite is happening: Galileo will study the earth from the heights of the satellites, which is where he will be sent into orbit.
This coincidence is curious but it does not alter the fact that the Galileo project is very important, and so I voted for the motion.
.
(EL) The purpose of the GALILEO programme is to design and build a satellite navigation system which allows users to determine their position on earth extremely accurately.
Apart from the fact that it is much more accurate than the American Global Positioning System (GPS), which has been up and running for several years now, the main point about GALILEO is that, unlike the GPS, it is to come under political, rather than military control.
It is also the first European space project and, if it can be successfully installed and commissioned, apart from helping to improve navigation, it will give a tremendous boost to space science and technology.
The European Commission communication under examination does not relate to the GALILEO system per se but to the creation of a joint public/private undertaking to finance its development.
Mr Glante's report proposes several important improvements to the Commission proposal.
However, the European Parliament approved two amendments by a large majority, led mainly by the European People's Party, with the backing of the Party of European Socialists, which seek to militarise the system by making express reference to military use of the system for so-called "peacekeeping operations".
If the Council and the Commission follow this line of thinking, it will completely negate the non-military purpose of the system and will, of course, be an addition to the European Union's arsenal in its interventions against the people.
It is worth noting that the European Parliament approved a similar amendment in my report on the European Union's space policy on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy at the last part-session.
This is no random coincidence; as we pointed out on that previous occasion, it demonstrates a clear intention to use space for military purposes.
These developments prove that the global grass-roots movement needs to step up its fight against imperialist aggression and the militarisation of space.
It is for these reasons that the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the report.
The MPF delegation firmly supports the Galileo project for the implementation of a European satellite radionavigation programme, a system that will work parallel to yet independently of the American GPS system whilst maintaining 'interoperability' , in other words, it will not work against this system and will permit the possibility for the two systems to work together.
The Galileo project seems exemplary for three reasons.
From a technical point of view, it will have numerous positive effects for all economic activities and will increase Europe' s general productivity at a time when this is very much needed.
From an institutional point of view, it is clear that a project on which there is Europe-wide cooperation would be justified with regard to subsidiarity, and that the European Space Agency (ESA) could provide the appropriate instrument for this.
Finally, from a political and strategic point of view, the Galileo project will grant Europe independence from the United States while the acceptance of the GPS monopoly, on the other hand, would imply a tangible dependence that would increase over time.
In spite of these arguments, the final decision on the development of the Galileo project has been deferred from Council to Council, and the latest, held at Laeken, was no exception.
It is already almost too late for a useful decision to be made.
Apart from the technical discussions on the precise procedures for the involvement of private partners, the true reason for the delay lies in the United States' hesitation, which has influenced certain European countries.
This brings us to the main issue: do Community procedures not slow the whole process down because they are too rigid and the partners are not all in agreement? These structures are acting like a brake now on the project' s launch and they will act like a brake tomorrow and at each stage of development, especially if we want to add military or 'peacekeeping' operations.
On this point, the European Parliament is frankly making a mistake in demanding an ever greater communitisation of the project, for example in estimating, in its resolution of 17 January, that "The ESA with its basis of intergovernmental cooperation should in the longer term be brought within the EU" .
In truth, the opposite is the case: we need to apply the principle of variable geometry to Galileo, as for Airbus and Ariane, and create a structure that groups together only those States that are truly involved in the project.
This would be the best way to pull this project out of the rut it is currently stuck in and make real progress.
.
(FR) I would like to start by congratulating my colleague, Norbert Glante, on his research and negotiations on this matter of great strategic importance.
I would now like to draw your attention to the Galileo system.
We often hear mention of this project without really being aware of its future applications.
Galileo is a satellite radionavigation system that allows the user of a receiver to capture the signals transmitted by a number of satellites in order to determine its position in time and in space.
At the moment, there are two systems of this type: the American GPS system and the Russian GLONASS system.
These two systems have been developed on a military basis, which is not the case with Galileo.
On a practical level, we will be able to use this system in areas as varied as transport, fisheries, agriculture, telecommunications, oil exploration, defence and civil protection activities.
To give you an example, in the field of inland transportation, it will allow planning and better management of transport times, the automatic control of vehicles, a reduction in traffic jams and the number of road accidents and so on and so forth.
Of course, we are not at this stage yet.
The implementation of Galileo should take place in four phases.
We have completed the definition phase.
We now have to launch the development phase for 2002-2005.
During this period, we will have to establish the technical and financial conditions necessary for the rapid deployment of infrastructure in 2006-2007 in order to be able to exploit this system commercially in 2008.
The European Commission has made us proposals with regard to this second phase of Galileo.
Our Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy was of the opinion that the proposals made with regard to structures were not appropriate.
Thus, according to the model envisaged by the European Commission, private companies would be able to participate fully in the establishment of the Joint Undertaking.
Following the example of the rapporteur, I believe that there would be a conflict of interests if these companies were directly involved in the joint undertaking, since they would then have to respond to invitations to tender issued by this same company.
It therefore seems desirable that only the founding members, the European Communities and the European Space Agency, should be members of this Joint Undertaking.
The EIB may also become a member of the Joint Undertaking in the future.
(Intervention cut short pursuant to Article 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
. (DE) I consider the establishment of a European satellite navigation programme to be generally sensible and deserving of support.
I have, despite this, voted against the Glante report today, as I am unable to follow the rapporteur down the road he is taking.
In no way is there any certainty that Galileo will succeed in economic terms as a competitor to GPS, which has until now enjoyed a monopoly of the market.
I therefore take the view that the financial risk should be borne equally by the public sector and private enterprise.
The rapporteur wants to facilitate industry's involvement in financing Galileo by means of a development company instead of giving it a share in the Joint Undertaking, as the Commission had planned.
One objective in this is to allay the Member States' misgivings on the security policy front, and the other is to avoid the private businesses which constitute part of the Joint Undertaking enjoying competitive advantages when tenders are invited to set Galileo up and operate it.
I take the view, however, that the end result of this purely optional solution to financial participation will be that the investments Galileo will need will be raised by the public sector alone.
Industry will get on board only when Galileo has demonstrated its earning potential and is set to make profits.
This would boil down to funds raised by taxation being invested as venture capital and to substantial shares in the profits then being handed over to private enterprise.
That is not how I envisage taxpayers' money being handled.
Nor am I convinced by the argument of possible conflicts of interest in tendering procedures.
It is, for example, the usual practice in municipalities for enterprises owned by the local authority to tender jointly with private firms when contracts are put out, without this resulting in unequal treatment.
As regards the argument of security policy, I have misgivings of a quite different kind.
Both the Commission and the Council leave no room for doubt that they regard Galileo as a central component of the independence of European defence policy.
Parliament has not been able to make up its mind to decisively reject the use of Galileo for military purposes.
I, though, reject all use of satellite navigation systems for military purposes.
- (NL) The rapporteur is right to refer private companies to a separate development company.
However, I do not back this proposal, for GALILEO is 15 years overdue.
The benefits which a navigation system supported by satellites could have for the government, industry and individual users have long since been stolen from under our noses by the American competition.
Only if we intend to close off the European market for American goods and services is it useful to develop a system with Community funding that, within a liberalised global market, is doomed to lose the competitive battle to the American GPS system.
This intention does not exist, and it even looks like we are painstakingly trying to avoid trade wars with the US over the import of dangerous goods and pollution by noisy aircraft.
European companies are, of course, free to try, off their own bats, to compete with the American product with something that is of superior quality.
In doing so, they may be able temporarily to gain a tiny foothold in the market and subsequently do profitable business with the Americans, which will enable them to incorporate European inventions into improvements to the existing system.
This does not apply to a large-scale project that has partly been funded with tax money and that can only win or lose.
Such a waste of Community funding only serves the interests of industry and the military machine.
The members of the MPF delegation to the European Parliament have supported Mr Glante' s report in order to give their backing to the implementation of the Galileo programme, but they are anxious to show their disagreement with the mixed Community and intergovernmental approach, which has been retained.
This project is a perfect illustration of one of the domains in which European cooperation is vital.
The common interest is obvious and clearly defined.
The Galileo system is crucial if we are to ensure the independence of the Member States of the European Union in the strategic domain of satellite position-finding, since it will mean that they no longer have to depend on the GPS, that the United States controls in a discretionary fashion.
On the other hand, in attempting to manage the project with a 'Joint Undertaking' , where the Commission, together with the ESA, would make up one of the two pillars, we would be running the risk of paralysing its implementation, causing disagreements, bureaucracy and delays and making it impossible to call upon competences outside the Union and so on.
The only effective solution would appear to be a specific ESA programme, for ESA mechanisms have proved their flexibility and efficiency.
Only a voluntary intergovernmental framework will permit the satisfactory resolution of the essential issue of the use of the system by the military.
.
I wholeheartedly support this report by my Socialist colleague which will endow Europe with an independent technology which can be widely used for several practical purposes, including transport and telecommunications.
It is increasingly vital that the EU should develop an independent technology from the only two which exist in Russia and the United States.
Presently, we have a precarious situation whereby the EU is reliant on these two countries' systems which could potentially be called into use for military purposes at any point.
Financing for this project has always been a contentious issue: its financial underpinning must inevitably come from the private sector, but the ensuing relationship between the Joint Undertaking and the private sector must be carefully defined. This will preclude any conflict of interests or awkward ambiguity between the partners of this project.
In light of this, it is a sound proposal to establish a development company which would effectively act as an arbiter between the partners of this project.
Lastly, a monitoring committee which would observe the project throughout its creation will ensure that the project is as transparent and accountable as is necessary.
Joint motion for a resolution on the Middle East (B5-0101/2002)
Mr President, I am delivering this explanation of vote on my own behalf.
I voted for Amendment No 1 on the Israeli reservists refusing to serve in the occupied territories, against the instruction of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
This instruction was given purely for tactical reasons, because if this amendment had been adopted, the Group of the Europe People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats would not have voted for the resolution.
I feel, however, that if there are men and women in Israel and the Palestinian territories who have the courage to say no to war, there is a glimmer of hope, and this is a wonderful example of courage to which we must cannot, under any circumstances, fail to respond.
In any case, I feel - and I want to believe - that history will prove these reservists right.
.
(EL) The European Parliament resolution on the Middle East may ascribe some responsibility to the Israeli government, but it remains faithful to the general policy of sitting squarely on the fence, which is why the MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece abstained from the vote.
The Communist Party of Greece condemns the blatant violation of international conventions, international law and bilateral agreements by the Israeli government and, more importantly, the aggressive, barbaric tactics of the Israeli forces occupying the West Bank and Gaza.
The barbaric move in cutting off President Arafat's headquarters - and hence, to all intents and purposes, the Palestinian Authority - in Ramallah is intolerable and we call for an immediate end to it.
We also condemn the increased and indiscriminate use of violence by the Israeli forces against the Palestinian people, as a result of which the Palestinians have suffered hundreds of deaths and thousands of casualties among the civilian population and constant bombardment of their infrastructure, including their homes and fields.
We welcome the fight by the Palestinian people for a fair and peaceful solution in accordance with UN resolutions and we stand by them in their struggle to found their own independent state around the capital of East Jerusalem.
We also welcome all the Israeli democrats who oppose their government's barbaric policy, who are fighting for a fair and viable solution and who often risk their life by refusing to be party to their government's illegal and inhumane action.
More importantly, we stand by the Israeli soldiers who refuse to murder civilians.
We consider that the ÅU's stand to date, despite its pronouncements to the contrary, has not helped to resolve the Palestinian question.
On the contrary, by promoting the new order together with the USA and keeping to its tactic of sitting firmly on the fence between the murderers and the victims it is perpetuating the problem so that it can turn it to its advantage in accordance with its imperialist interests in the region and beyond.
We call on the governments of the Member States, especially of the countries represented at the UN Security Council, and the ÅU to raise the issue of increased tension in the Middle East, the failure to apply the UN resolutions already passed and their violation by Israel at the UN and to call on Israel to help find a fair and viable solution to the problem and recognise the right of the Palestinian people to an independent state, which will make a decisive contribution towards stability and security in the region.
. (PT) The situation in the Middle East is so serious that it requires urgent measures and greater solidarity in demanding an end to the continual illegal incursion by the Israeli army into territories under the control of the Palestinian National Authority, to the virtual house-arrest of President Arafat, to the extrajudicial execution of Palestinian representatives, to the violation of the most basic human rights, including the torture and killing of children, and to the destruction of Palestinian infrastructures and other installations funded by the European Union and by other donors.
The international community must, as a matter of urgency, adopt new initiatives that lead to an end to the violence, to re-establishing trust and to reopening negotiations between the two sides, in accordance with international law and with the relevant United Nations resolutions.
Hence my support for the Joint Resolution which, although watered down, could express the European Parliament' s concern at this situation, repudiate the statements and actions of Ariel Sharon, and reaffirm that the solution to the problem, including the safety of Israel and peace itself, requires the State of Palestine to be recognised in conditions that are viable.
I regret the fact, however, that the majority of those on the right has refused to show solidarity with the Israeli army reservists who refuse to serve in the occupied territories, and whom history will show to be completely right, although I welcome the decision to send a very high level parliamentary delegation to the region to meet the Israeli and Palestinian authorities and to convey a message of peace to both communities, together with the European Parliament' s insistence on the need to urgently send international observers to the region.
I hope that, this watered-down resolution of the European Parliament will at least be implemented immediately.
.
(FR) At a time that is particularly tragic for the Middle East as well as particularly dangerous for world peace, at a time when the United States is no longer providing the impetus for the peace process, reverting to a more partisan approach, a time at which the Arab States seem to be stunned by the position adopted by the Americans, it would appear to be the clear responsibility of the Europeans to take the initiative and to try to overcome the current situation of violent impasse with diplomatic advances.
Alas, however, we have yet to make any significant achievements.
Member States which may have had the diplomatic ability to act are becoming paralysed by the collective mechanisms of the Union, which can only produce joint statements.
The European Parliament resolution is just another manifestation of this European powerlessness.
There are murmurs from France.
The suggestions are appropriate but France believes that it no longer has the strength to push them forward.
The organisation in the occupied territories, of elections based on the theme of peace would act, however, as a lever that would force the Palestinians to adopt a clear position with regard to the Intifada and terrorism.
The recognition of the Palestinian State by all, as a starting point for negotiation, going beyond questions of personality that muddy the waters, would allow the peace process to be relaunched on a more solid basis.
Naturally, the European Parliament resolution makes no reference to these proposals, since, coming from a single Member State and not from a European authority, they cannot by definition, in the Union' s eyes, be pertinent.
Not being supported by genuine political will, it is very likely that these proposals will vanish into thin air, when they could have put both parties back onto the path to political dialogue.
Motion for a resolution on terrorism (B5-0100/2002)
.
(FR) The vote on our motion for a resolution against terrorism means we can state firmly once again that terrorism is evil by definition, is totally unjustified and should be eradicated at all costs.
The main characteristic of and driving force behind these unscrupulous minority groups is the imposing of their ideas and power through violence and fear.
The causes of terrorism should not be confused with the means it employs.
Terrorist leaders, whoever and wherever they are, have need of resources to be able to achieve their goals, namely:
money, first and foremost, from their personal fortunes or obtained through racketeering, criminal activity, drug trafficking or petrodollars...
foot-soldiers, which they find in fragile environments by playing on nationalism, religion, ambition, dreams, revenge, poverty or despair...
terror, which they impose on democracies and their citizens that are ill prepared to resist ... and always ready to negotiate compromises...
We remember all the terrorist movements and their actions over the last few years, whether it be the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany, the Red Brigades in Italy, movements in Corsica, in Ireland or in the Basque Country, striking every day, not forgetting the massacres at the Munich Olympics, the suicide bombers in Tel Aviv and the networks of the fundamentalist multimillionaire Osama Bin Laden.
All these actions have a common goal: to destroy democratic systems by means of terror.
Combating terrorism should be the main objective of all democracies, wherever they may be.
The ability to call upon a large amount of resources is needed in order to implement measures with determination, to mobilise the citizens, explaining to them what is at stake, and to strengthen the power of the public authorities at both national and European levels.
Without this...there is not much hope!
This is why I supported the European Parliament' s forceful and legitimate request to be closely involved in the actions of the Council in this area.
If we are to combat terrorism effectively, public opinion must be roused, and the European Parliament is the best representative of this opinion.
Joint motion for a resolution on development aid (B5-0034/2002)
Mr President, as Vice-President of Parliament responsible for relations with national parliaments, I very much welcome both the tone and the content of Mr Napolitano's report.
I am convinced that his ideas will help us enhance what is already a good relationship between ourselves and our national counterparts.
I strongly believe that this relationship is vital if we are to ensure that the EU is built on democratic foundations.
However, I agree with some of my colleagues when they emphasise that the regional parliaments which have legislative powers are an equally important part of ensuring democracy in all EU decision-making.
To take my own country, for example, over half the work of the Scottish Parliament is not about implementing laws thought of in Edinburgh or even implementing laws coming from London, but in fact about implementing laws from Brussels - about ensuring that EU laws are properly transposed into Scottish legislation.
So while it is important that we look at national parliaments - and I continue to welcome the emphasis we give to that - we should also now consider how we might embrace the regional parliaments in our work.
I believe this is an excellent and very wise report, much like the rapporteur.
I am personally in full agreement with this report, because I believe it takes the perfect approach.
However, I have not taken part in the vote - despite agreeing personally with the contents of the report - owing to my appointment as a representative of the President of the Spanish Government in the Convention.
Not because I believe there is any incompatibility - which there is not: either legal, material, ethical or any other - but, quite the opposite: the status of MEP - which I share with two other Members who have also been appointed by two other Heads of State and Government, in Greece and Luxembourg - gives added value to the Convention, which is a joint task and not one of opposition.
Nevertheless, also for personal reasons, which are much more symbolic or aesthetic, if you like, Mr President, I have preferred not to participate in the determination of an approach which will undoubtedly serve as a basis for the position taken by Parliament' s delegation in the Convention.
Although there is no incompatibility of any type, I would like it to be noted that my blank vote is purely intended to reflect the fact that I was present.
.
(EL) The proposed resolution by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is a move in the right direction, which is why I support it.
National governments are generally relegated to the edge of the European structure.
Their role needs to be developed, not with yet another institution which will get bogged down in the red tape of the European Union, but by:
improving debates of European issues in national parliaments,
examining each minister's programme before it is presented to the Council of Ministers,
controlling the activities of the Council of Ministers,
setting up more high-profile committees on European issues in national parliaments,
involving national parliaments in drafting European legislation,
strengthening collaboration between the national parliaments and the European Parliament.
We voted in favour of Amendment No 21, and more specifically paragraph 3, of the report because we agree with the rapporteur that the European Parliament and the national parliaments within their respective areas represent the people of the EU.
However, we do not believe that increased parliamentarisation of the EU requires the European Parliament' s powers to be extended where all the EU' s decisions are concerned.
It is important to remember that intergovernmental cooperation takes place between governments controlled by the national parliaments, which also demand accountability.
We voted in favour of paragraph 7 of the report because we agree in principle with the rapporteur' s view that it would be an unfortunate development if the governments were to go overboard in developing new instruments for exercising power that exclude the parliaments' influence.
At the same time, we would emphasise that - in spite of its being insufficiently rooted in parliamentary procedure - the open coordination method has been, and remains, a successful and welcome method of achieving increased integration, cooperation and results in areas not considered suitable for more supranational forms of decision-making.
We voted in favour of paragraph 8 of the report because we agree with the rapporteur that it cannot be regarded as legitimate - in terms either of the practicalities or of providing representation - for MEPs to have a double mandate, that is to say with seats in both the European Parliament and a national/regional parliament.
Where seats in regional parliaments are concerned, we are nonetheless proceeding on the basis that the rapporteur is referring to such parliaments as have independent legislative power and not to such parliaments as have delegated decision-making power, such as the Swedish county councils.
It should be possible reasonably to combine a seat in the latter type of parliament with a seat in the European Parliament.
.
(FR) The Napolitano report reflects the traditional view held in the European Parliament on its relationship with the national parliaments: that these are isolationist and content to console themselves with the subordinate role of defenders of fragmented national interests.
This view clearly fails to take into account the fact that the most vibrant level of democracy is that of the nation state, and that to disregard this to too great an extent is also to disregard democracy.
The European common good is not decreed from above, from a European democracy that is too weak to be anything other than a kind of technocratic smokescreen, but lies instead in the peaceful dialogue between the interests and aspirations of various national democracies.
There is a point, however, to which the Napolitano report claims, according to the explanatory statement, to have brought 'an extremely important innovation' : that is, the proposal of some sort of 'joint constituent power' .
This, in reality, exposes the true intentions behind the report' s mollifying proposals: the idea is, in effect, no more and no less, to take away from the national parliaments the exclusive right of ratifying European Treaties and, therefore, of defining the competences of the European Union themselves.
This new 'constituent power' would be shared between the national parliaments and the European Parliament, as well as, as is stated in paragraph 21 of the resolution, by the Commission and the governments of Member States, which is truly unprecedented from the democratic point of view.
Such a reform would constitute a serious climbdown.
The power to revise the Treaties, not to mention the 'constituent power' , belongs to the people alone, and certainly not to national or European executives; the people can delegate this power in certain cases to assemblies that have been elected for this purpose, such as the French parliament in the cases specified in Article 89 of the Constitution, but the European Parliament is not one of these assemblies, because no constituent power, or even the revision of treaties, is included in the powers specifically conferred on it by the people.
.
The report confines the national parliaments to a role of scrutinising their respective governments, a role which has been curtailed ever since the extension of qualified majority voting in the Council broke the link between European decisions and those taken by each people separately.
It also seeks to widen the powers of the European Parliament, failing to recognise that legitimacy is primarily granted by citizens at national parliamentary level.
In order to revitalise democracy in Europe, it is essential to give each people the visible power of decision at European level.
Consequently, in future we must see national parliaments as standing at the centre of the decision-making process, rather than on the periphery.
The Nice European Council in fact appears to have had an intuition of this when it placed 'the role of the national parliament in the European architecture' (and not on the fringes of that architecture) on the agenda for the next IGC.
Citizens in the European Union generally see elections to their national parliaments (and, in some countries, elections to the national presidency) as the fundamental democratic choice between, for example a left- or right-wing government.
The legitimacy of democracy is today based on the elections to the national parliaments and, as a consequence, the institutions of the European Union must be adjusted to this fact.
Most importantly, major decisions in the Council should have to be ratified by the national parliaments.
- (DA) SOS Democracy is unable to vote in favour of the Napolitano report because it does not give the decisive role to the national parliaments, which are the only institutions that have a close relationship with the people.
.
(ES) The fact that the process of European integration is at such a decisive point, as a result of the enlargement under way, on the one hand, and the new political and economic challenges facing the EU, on the other, demands the cooperation of both the European Parliament and the parliaments of the Member States so that the citizens, via their legitimate representatives, may participate in this process.
Hence the timeliness of the excellent Napolitano report and my vote in favour of it.
Since, while it is clearly necessary to guarantee the democratic control of Community policies and decision making, it is also clear that this control must be carried out while respecting each of the areas of parliamentary activity.
In this respect, I believe the commitment given by Mr Napolitano, as chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, to draw up a report in the near future on the role of parliaments in the constitutional regions within this process is particularly positive.
The regions with legislative powers are a fundamental part of the mechanism, and not only because they are closer to the citizens, but also because the parliaments of these regions, as legitimate representatives of the people making up the Union, have the right to participate within the framework of their competences in the control of the legislative process for Community policies and to have a voice so that they can defend their interests.
.
(FR) Whilst I generally support the Napolitano report, I abstained in the final vote because I believe it premature to conclude against the possibility of having a second European chamber or Senate for the Member States.
It will be the task of the forthcoming Convention to develop these ideas, and to draw its own conclusions on the institutions to be created, or not to be created, depending on the global architecture that will eventually be retained.
.
(NL) Much of the power robbed from the national parliaments for the sake of European unification has not ended up with the European Parliament, but with the national governments.
That is why the EU' s existence has enhanced the power of Ministers and Secretaries of State.
The way in which they reach agreements with each other within the Council cannot be verified by the European Parliament or the national parliaments.
If a decision is made which clashes with their national public opinion, they can always say that they themselves wanted things differently, but that it was the neighbours that prevented this from happening.
The Ministers of the neighbouring countries come up with the same excuse.
This intergovernmental method of decision-making is no longer a guarantee that the diverse wishes that prevail in the Member States are taken into account.
I therefore call for an interparliamentary method of decision-making, rather than an intergovernmental one.
The European Commission makes proposals, the European Parliament decides on these at first reading and, subsequently, the national parliaments individually debate the applicability of these decisions to their own countries.
In this model, the Council no longer fulfils an independent, decision-making role.
Unfortunately, the proposals by Mr Napolitano do not go that far yet, but he is right to reinforce the role of the parliaments at the various levels in respect of the governments.
. (PT) I felt obliged to vote against the Napolitano report although I acknowledge that its resolution reflects a range of positive concerns about the role of national parliaments, both in exercising control over their governments, especially when these governments are involved in defining and implementing European policy, and in producing this policy.
I also acknowledge, as I mentioned expressly in my speech, that the rapporteur was able, in part, to include in the document some of the proposals put forward in the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, for which I was draftsman.
Nevertheless, I cannot agree to some of the conclusions that have been adopted, which I feel are of great political significance.
Amongst these, I would highlight item 21, on the emergence - by means of the Convention - of a constituent power, albeit exercised jointly by the European Parliament and the national parliaments, the Commission and the governments of the Member States, and the outright rejection of a future Senate (item 17), which could, in my opinion, destroy the principle of parity between the Member States of the Union.
Through this explanation of vote I have made my position clear, because, in addition to the objections I have stated, which determined my vote, I feel that Mr Napolitano deserves my intellectual respect for his work and for his efforts to increase the role of national parliaments in the EU, rejecting the simplistic plan to give the European Parliament exclusive rights to represent Europe' s citizens and to be the guardian of democracy in the relationship with the other institutions of the Union.
Pohjamo report (A5-0006/2002)
. (DE) My group agrees with Mr Pohjamo's own-initiative report.
Positive effects have not yet been forthcoming, to the extent we had hoped, from the current provisions of the law and from the reform of the structural funds within the Agenda 2000 framework.
The following, in particular, need to be optimised:
the lengthy negotiations on programmes between the Commission and the Member States
the complicated financial provisions
the involvement of the regions in the implementation of programmes and projects
the expenditure on administration, and
the non-binding nature of the monitoring of project implementation.
Unless further structural changes are made in the administration of the Structural Funds, it will continue to be scarcely possible to resolve the problem posed by the decrease in disparities between the Member States not being reflected by a decrease in those between the regions within them.
Such changes must, in particular, cover the following aspects:
time limits on projects
discontinuance of the financing of projects, the realisation of which overruns the timescale envisaged
the redistribution of Structural Funds resources from countries not availing themselves of them to those which have submitted sufficient qualifying projects
greater weight to be given to infrastructure projects which promote employment.
Enlargement of the EU makes it a matter of urgent necessity that the Commission should produce, by 2003 at the latest, definite proposals to guarantee that present Member States should suffer no detriment as regards structural resources and that the countries that are candidates for accession should be treated equally in line with the tasks of a common structural policy.
There is no other way to achieve the objective of long-term reduction of existing differences in levels of development and the consequent enhancement of economic and social cohesion.
The amendments tabled by my group have also supported this statement of political objectives.
- (NL) As long as the structural funds remain unchanged, there will be tension between the regional side and the European side.
Viewed from the regional angle, this is about the regions' own funding to which they are entitled and which they must be able to spend independently and as freely as possible.
From the European angle, this is about European money that can only be made available under strict conditions for use in regions and cities and that must be demanded back if deadlines are exceeded or the planned spending plan deviated from.
These clashing demands can only be brought into line with each other following much official, preliminary consultation and a great deal of inspection.
This means that high expenses and much bureaucracy are involved in spending these funds.
It might be preferable for Europe to confine itself to the redistribution of funds that can be freely spent for the benefit of investments in regions suffering from a disadvantage, a crisis or a geographical location that is economically disadvantageous, and keep interference in spending to a minimum, or eliminate it altogether.
Such a change would allow European officials to be deployed on other tasks on which work still needs to be done and would put an end to the needless re-circulation of funding from rich Member States back to the same rich Member States.
That might result in fewer propaganda hoardings sporting a European flag, but it would be far more effective.
.
I wholeheartedly applaud the call for EU Structural Funds to be made more efficient and more result-oriented.
Indeed, Structural Funds are a prime way in which European citizens can be made to feel that the EU is doing something for them and it is crucial that the widespread impression of red tape and bureaucracy is not confirmed.
All too often, the execution of Structural Funds has been bureaucratic and the implementation slow and inefficient.
With considerable successive growth in the amount of money allocated to the Structural Funds, it is vital that the principles of productivity, regional added value and quality should not only be reiterated, but also vigilantly monitored.
The effective allocation of the Funds requires the cooperation of all levels of European government.
National governments have a role to play in freeing up the execution process and I favour the call by MEPs for a more direct channelling of Funds to the regions.
In addition, the Commission should be more proactive in approving guideline documents, thus further freeing up the process.
Finally, the consideration of Structural Funds and enlargement is apt: the EU could use this opportunity to allocate Funds more effectively, first time round.
Musotto report (A5-0007/2002)
Fatuzzo (PPE-DE).
(IT) Mr President, I would like to point out - this document concerns the economic and social cohesion of the regions of the European Union - how important it is in the opinion of the Pensioners' Party and myself that the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union should not bring about any change in the major cohesion policy implemented through the Structural Funds.
I feel that it is the duty of all the wealthiest regions of Europe to contribute, both financially and otherwise, to the progress of all the other, less wealthy, poorer regions, for I am sad to say that there are still poor regions in all areas of the European Union.
With this in mind, I therefore voted for the Musotto report.
.
(FR) I would firstly like to thank both our rapporteur from the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, Mr Francesco Musotto, and indeed the whole of this committee for the high quality work they have presented.
To vote for this report is, as far as I am concerned, first and foremost to underline the fact that the principle of cohesion and thus of solidarity and the integration of the peoples and territories of the Union is enshrined in the Treaties and, this being the case, it is essential that it be defended.
The fact that the progress made has been uneven, and, more importantly, that unacceptable regional disparities remain, giving rise to the marginalisation of the less developed regions, should therefore be underlined - and this report does so - in an appeal to the States to support the efforts for regional economic convergence made at European level.
The report' s authors, who, quite rightly, think it essential to ensure an extremely high degree of consistency between action taken at a European level under the heading of cohesion policy, and Member States' domestic policies that support development, therefore call on the Member States, in accordance with the principles of additionality and subsidiarity, to support this drive for regional economic convergence instigated at European level, by means, for example, of an appropriate investment policy.
This drive is all the more important given that we must overcome the challenge posed by enlargement.
Cohesion should, in this regard, be even greater if we want to avoid these disparities between regions dramatically increasing upon enlargement.
Finally, I will fully support Amendment No 49, which underlines all the possible shortcomings of the 0.45% of Community GDP devoted to cohesion policy, if we want to establish an effective cohesion policy that brings genuine solidarity.
.
I voted in favour of this report, but would like to stress some key aspects in relation to fisheries policy.
The preservation of historical fisheries interests is inextricably linked to economic and social cohesion in fisheries-dependent communities.
Under the principle of relative stability, the proportions of stocks allotted to given states in given fisheries remain constant.
When catch opportunities increase or decline in a given fishery, all states with legally recognised stakes in that fishery derive a proportional share of the spoils.
Relative stability is fundamental to fisheries policy and the maintenance of fish stocks, and should not be undermined.
Moreover, the importance of the Hague preferences must also be stressed.
The Hague preferences recognise the extent to which many coastal communities are fisheries-dependent and offer additional protection.
The socio-economic role of these arrangements cannot be exaggerated - they must be maintained as not only fundamental to the Common Fisheries Policy but also integral to the basic objectives of cohesion policy.
Finally the importance of FIFG funding must be emphasised when it comes to fisheries-dependent communities, and in particular with regard to fleet renewal for safety reasons for a sector that operates in a clearly hostile environment.
.
(FR) I believe there is a fundamental contradiction between the so-called cohesion policy and the neo-liberal tendencies which dominate in Europe; in fact, widespread competition and privatisation run counter to genuine harmonisation.
This involves the extension of funds providing the necessary transfers and adjustments, which would, in turn, introduce positive distortions rather than pure market phenomena and the blind quest for profitability.
These funds could be provided by a unified tax on capital returns.
The Musotto report recognises this contradiction in its own way, for example by underlining "the need to adapt competition policy and fiscal policy" .
However, it immediately feels the need to make up for this by singing the praises of a private-public partnership.
In spite of their tentativeness, the report' s suggestions are sound: it calls for a better assessment of the effects of enlargement and considers the 0.45% of Community GDP devoted to cohesion policy to be a minimum.
This is why I did not vote against this report, even if it falls far short of the requirements of a genuine policy for solidarity and equality on a European scale.
.
The EPLP welcomes the conclusions of the Musotto report on Cohesion.
However we believe it is premature in the debate to take a fixed position on the future options for designating European Assisted Areas.
There will continue to be areas of need in the UK post-2006 and we would like the Commission to assess the role that both a safety net mechanism and transitional funding could play in assisting poorer regions of the UK post-2006.
It is disappointing that the British Conservatives failed, among others, to support this amendment.
In addition their failure to support a stronger role for local and regional governments in the management of European funding is a blow to democracy and partnership.
. (PT) This report has the merit of making a reasonable diagnosis of the current situation with regard to economic and social cohesion within the European Union.
We agree, in particular, with the emphasis it gives to the fact that cohesion is, under the terms of the Treaties, one of the pillars of the Community.
We also agree with the explicit reference to the delays in fighting asymmetries in development and in standards of living and even to the steps backward being seen in regions of some countries.
We must also agree with the need the report expresses to provide continuity and to strengthen future regional policy and, therefore, to oppose the possible withdrawal of some regions from Objective 1, for purely statistical reasons.
Nevertheless, and with regard to the causes of these situations of delay and backsliding, the report does not go as far as we would have liked.
Furthermore, in terms of the inadequacy of financial resources made available for the objective of cohesion, it omits essential aspects such as the absence of a redistributive aspect to the Community budget and the absolute need for a revision of the financial perspectives, all the more important on the eve of enlargement.
The report also ignores some crucial factors for the least-developed regions, particularly the harmful effects and, consequently, the need to revise macro-economic, financial and sectoral policies, which often prove to be profoundly inappropriate for these regions.
Mr President, this report creates a depressing picture of the situation of women in some Mediterranean countries.
It demonstrates that they are disadvantaged economically, that they are disadvantaged in terms of health and, perhaps most significantly, in terms of education, with the levels of literacy among women in some Mediterranean countries way below that of men.
It is important that Parliament draws attention to that issue, but that is not sufficient.
We should also ensure that EU policies are designed to help women improve their standing in some of those countries.
For example, the MEDA programme so far has no lines particularly dedicated to the education of women, to improving the health care of women.
We should look at that.
We should also look at the way our economic relations with some of the Mediterranean countries operate and see if they could be used to enhance the status of women, for example, by supporting women's cooperatives and other activities.
I voted for this report, which is an excellent initiative for creating a coherent, clear and effective policy at Community level on the problem of illiteracy.
This is a problem that has never received the attention it deserves, probably because until very recently it was taken for granted that the more highly developed countries did not have problems of illiteracy due to their systems of compulsory education.
It should be noted that the last Community actions specifically concerning this problem were approved in 1987.
Nevertheless, the OECD report on reading and writing, published in June 2000, clearly shows this not to be the case, in other words, that illiteracy is a reality in our countries, entailing high economic and social costs.
The OECD defined literacy as "the reading and writing abilities that adults use in their everyday lives, at work or in the community, to achieve their objectives, to acquire knowledge and to increase their potential" .
This being the case, the existence of illiteracy is a negation of one of the most basic human rights, which is the right to education, and is also a barrier to access to other rights, because it prevents people from improving their standard of living, restricts access to the labour market, limits individuals' freedom of expression and, consequently, their participation in society, and prevents them from enjoying the civic rights to which they are entitled.
The figures available to us on the scale of this phenomenon at Community level cannot be underestimated, because they affect a considerable percentage of the population of the Union European between 15 and 65 years of age.
It comes as no surprise, but always with considerable unhappiness, that my country, Portugal, is the worst affected.
Unless something is done, this problem will only get worse.
(The President cut the speaker off pursuant to Rule 137 of the Rules of Procedure)
.
(FR) Whilst recognising the fact that knowing how to read and write is a right for all, the report will be of little help in promoting a policy that can really make a difference in the fight against illiteracy.
I feel that the references made to teachers and trainers are only useful if we safeguard a genuine recruitment policy in national education, because this is a public service remit.
There are, in effect, tens of thousands of unfilled teaching posts throughout Europe.
The recent demonstrations by primary school teachers and parents in the Nantes region against the closure of classes and for the creation of jobs and a limit on class sizes are an illustration of this.
Finally, it is the damaging effects of liberal policies - unemployment and attacks against public services - that are the cause of an upsurge in illiteracy.
If we are to combat illiteracy, we must also combat poverty.
However, as the report does propose a certain number of positive measures such as equal access to fundamental rights for all, non-discrimination and equal opportunities, as well as specific aid to the EU regions most affected by this by this form of social exclusion, I voted for this report.
Hermange report (A5-0004/2002)
The EPLP has voted for the Hermange report on the scoreboard implementing the Social Agenda because there are many positive aspects to this report on the European Social Agenda.
However, there are several areas of concern where the report calls on the Commission to supply information on how it proposes to act on a number of requirements that are in the Social Agenda but which the EPLP did not support in plenary in 2000.
In paragraph 14 the EPLP could not support the call for a European right to strike and abstained.
The EPLP feels that this is already dealt with by Member State legislation and is also covered in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is a debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Terrorist attacks in India, in particular against the Parliament
The next item is a joint debate on the following five motions for resolutions:
B5-0053/2002 by Mr Collins on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group,
B5-0061/2002 by Mr Mann, Mr Morillon, Dr Tannock, Mr Sacrédeus and Mrs Maij-Weggen on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats,
B5-0072/2002 by Mrs Frahm on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left,
B5-0081/2000 by Mr Sakellariou and Mr Van den Berg on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists,
B5-0089/2002 by Mrs Lynne on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party,
on the terrorist attacks in India, in particular against the Parliament.
Madam President, 13 December 2001 was a black day, not only for relations between India and Pakistan.
The attack on the Indian parliament by radical Islamic terrorists was an assault on the nerve centre of the world's largest democracy, on a freely-elected representative institution and on a multi-ethnic society.
The aftermath has seen troops mobilised on a massive scale and weapons systems massed in a threatening manner.
There is great danger that raids by terrorists will gain them access to these weapons.
The situation has been made more acute by the attack on the American cultural centre in Calcutta, which is suspected to have been the work of militant Muslim fundamentalists.
Pakistan has for some years been suspected of affording Islamic extremists a safe haven and giving them logistical and material support.
This time, though, President Musharraf ordered action to be taken.
Around 1 500 suspects were interned and some 400 offices belonging to Islamic extremist organisations were closed.
This is something that gives cause for hope.
The involvement of President Musharraf, a military leader, in the international anti-terrorist alliance has without a doubt helped bring his country out of isolation.
His words on television to the effect that he wanted to be consistent in fighting terrorism, must, though, be matched by actions.
It is much to be desired that those Taliban fighters who have gone to ground in Pakistan should be unmasked and arrested.
The radical Islamic religious schools, which are an intellectual breeding ground for the Taliban, must undergo organisational restructuring and the reform of the content of their curricula.
What is most important, though, is to investigate the causes of the sympathy for the Taliban and of the continuing adulation of them as freedom fighters over wide areas of the country.
There is a need for intensive intellectual engagement here, which requires that state education be made a priority.
People whose good education at school has gained them self-confidence and the capacity for critical judgement will also be in a position to resist all kinds of dictatorship and all forms of manipulation.
Pakistan must come to accept the idea of religious freedom for minorities.
This has been brought to our minds by, among other things, the most recent massacre during a service in a Christian church.
The Islamic terrorists responsible for it have still not yet been caught.
Anti-Christian discrimination - including at the hands of the public authorities - must become a thing of the past, as must the persecution of other religions.
India has demanded that Pakistan expose and extradite the ringleaders behind the attack on the Indian parliament, and it is quite right to do so.
Actually doing this, though, will require a great deal of patience.
The Indian rocket tests are ineffectual as a means of exerting pressure and constitute a provocation with counter-productive effects.
The Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats calls on both parties in the conflict to bring all diplomatic means to bear on this crisis situation.
We must see to it that military force is renounced.
It is a matter of concern for me as vice-chairman of the delegation to the South Asia Association for Regional Cooperation that Pakistan should finally ratify and implement the SAARC Convention on Suppression of Terrorism.
Overall, the path mapped out by the Lahore and Simla Agreements must be followed.
The European Union is very well able to play the role of a respected mediator, which surely all the parties want.
Our balanced policy has earned us a great deal of trust over the years.
Both these States and the security needs of South-East Asia as a whole are deserving of our commitment.
Mr President, recently, at the beginning of last month, we faced the unforeseen possibility of a heated exchange between India and Pakistan.
Luckily, this exchange was avoided thanks to the sense of responsibility demonstrated by both sides.
In other words, following the heated clash and the circumstances in which it took place, and rightly so, with the terrorists in Afghanistan, there was a risk of yet more unfortunate developments between two large countries with nuclear capabilities.
However, this does not mean that the problem has been resolved.
In this sense, the purpose of our debate here today is to remind both countries, both India and Pakistan, of their responsibilities towards their people and the neighbouring region.
At the same time, however, we too need to assume our responsibility, as the European Union, to help find a peaceful solution to all the differences in the area, to respect for international law and human rights and to anything and everything relating to the Rule of Law and human rights.
However, this endeavour should not lead us to overlook the fact that Pakistan does indeed have a serious human rights problem, serious problems with democratic issues and serious problems with religious minorities.
These problems are not being raised here in order to accuse Pakistan or in a gesture of friendship towards India.
On the contrary.
They are being raised as urgent priorities which both countries need to address, for their own good, for the good of the area and for the sake of peace in the area.
Both countries are responsible for the stability of the area.
And both countries are responsible for future developments, so that these areas can stop being areas of poverty, misery and conflict.
In this sense, I believe that today's resolution and unanimous support for it from all sides of the House will make both a symbolic and a substantial contribution.
Madam President, let me say from the outset that I condemn terrorism wherever it takes place.
But I condemn in particular the attacks on the Indian Parliament and the US cultural centre.
There is no justification for terrorism, whatever the perceived provocation.
But we have to look at the root causes of terrorism.
That is why I am delighted that we have widened this resolution, even though we were unable to change the title; I would not like us to think that we are linking any country or organisation with these attacks.
We still have no real knowledge of who perpetrated them so I am very pleased that the Indian government is investigating it and that Pakistan is helping with that investigation.
It gives me the opportunity to address the wider problem: the threat of war again between India and Pakistan.
I welcome President Musharraf's announcement that he is clamping down on terrorism, but it is also important to look at the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, which has been going on for over 50 years.
I repeat the call for the EU to offer its services as a facilitator to both sides and to take account of the relevant UN resolutions.
What I am proposing is something similar to what Senator Mitchell did in Northern Ireland.
The people who continue to suffer are the ordinary people and civilians of India, Pakistan and Kashmir.
People who say a facilitator provided by the EU, the Commonwealth or the UN is no way forward are not offering any alternative.
We have to find an alternative to the bloodshed and to the continuation of this dispute.
I hope we will vote for the resolution, to demonstrate not only our horror of terrorism but also the desire to find a solution to the tension within this region.
Madam President, on 13 December last year an appalling and vicious attack occurred on the parliament of the Indian Union in Delhi, which is their most visible symbol of democracy and secular nationhood.
Let us not underestimate the danger this posed as, had it succeeded in killing the assembled government ministers and opposition leaders, it could have heralded a war between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers with massive conventional land forces as well - although India has at least declared a policy of no first use of its nuclear arsenal, unlike Pakistan.
The responsibility was soon traced to militant Islamic terrorist groups based in Pakistan, with full support and training from the Pakistani government, and also responsible for the earlier attacks in Srinagar against the Kashmiri State Assembly.
This is in clear violation of Security Council Resolution 1373 forbidding states from sponsoring terrorism against other states.
Nevertheless, I welcome President Musharraf's change of heart in backing the United States in their war on terrorism which toppled the Taliban regime and destroyed the al-Qa'ida network in Afghanistan, even though this regime was largely a creation of Pakistan's interservice intelligence agency; in particular, his speech of 13 January promising reforms of the madrassas, or religious schools, which fomented so much hatred of the west and bred an atmosphere conducive to the massacre of Christians peacefully at worship last year.
This is a promising start, but Pakistan has yet to accede to the request to extradite the 20 ringleaders of the plot.
There are deep concerns that the kidnapping of Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl may have involved renegade pro-Taliban members of the Pakistani security forces.
There is now also some evidence from e-mails that the controller of the shoe-bomber Richard Reid, from my country alas, may have been based in Pakistan.
I call, therefore, on Pakistan to ratify the SAARC and all UN conventions on terrorism and I congratulate India on its restraint in the face of provocation and on its joint declaration with the EU in November last year against terrorism.
During the Afghan war in the 1980s we in the west supported Islamic militant ideology in order to oppose the spread of communism.
America, alas, paid the price on 11 September.
Will the west again repeat this mistake?
Madam President, I should like to express the Socialist Group's deep concern about the growing phenomenon of fundamentalist terrorism, not only in India but all around the world.
I express our concern about the threat this poses to democratic societies and reaffirm that acts of terrorism anywhere in the world threaten peace and stability, but no more so than in India and Pakistan at the moment.
Both of these possess nuclear weapons and one of them at least has not disavowed first use of those weapons.
We support India's demands for Pakistan to contribute to a full investigation into the attacks on the Kashmiri State Assembly and the Indian Parliament.
But we urge both sides to do all they can to avoid slipping into the prospect of war.
That will require willingness and leadership on behalf of both India and Pakistan, and President Musharraf in particular.
The only way forward is through negotiations.
We hope that India and Pakistan, with the support of the European Parliament, can take that road rather than the much more dangerous road for themselves and the rest of the world.
Thank you for your kind words regarding the election of a Swedish Vice-President.
Her election has meant a lot to us Swedes.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate you and wish you every success in office.
This resolution by Parliament is to be welcomed with satisfaction.
The Members of the House have stressed that what happened was an exceptionally serious terrorist attack against the supreme institution of greater global democracy.
The European Union has unanimously expressed its outrage at this event.
The Council has made a number of statements condemning these incidents and expressing the solidarity of the European Union with the Republic of India.
The Council and the Commission have also stressed repeatedly that Pakistan must continue and expand its anti-terrorist policy.
India is asking for Pakistan to take specific action to demonstrate that it is determined to stamp out all forms of terrorism, a perfectly legitimate request.
Following the attack on 13 December, we have witnessed an unprecedented influx of troops along the border between the two countries and the increased tension and military clashes are causing concern.
We therefore welcome the announcement by the President of Pakistan, General Musharraf, on 12 January, announcing drastic measures to combat terrorism and religious fanaticism.
It is a step in the right direction and will help to defuse the tension between India and Pakistan.
The Commission will continue to draw both sides' attention to the need to cooperate rather than take the military option.
Next week, when the European Union and India meet at ministerial level on 14 February, the troika's message will be twofold.
First it will assure India that it has its full support in combating terrorism, as agreed in the declaration against terrorism at the second summit, and secondly, it will encourage both sides to return to the negotiating table as quickly as possible and to start withdrawing their troops.
Thank you, Commissioner Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Humanitarian aid for Goma
The next item is a joint debate on the following five motions for resolutions:
B5-0058/2002 by Mrs Maes, Mr Rod and Mr Lannoye on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance,
B5-0065/2002 by Mr Van Hecke and Mrs Maij-Weggen on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats,
B5-0073/2002 by Mr Sylla, Mr Miranda, Mr Sjöstedt and Mr Koulourianos on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left,
B5-0082/2002 by Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco and Mr Van den Berg on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists,
B5-0090/2002 by Mrs Sanders-Ten Holte and Mrs Dybkjær on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party,
on humanitarian aid for Goma.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it never rains but it pours, but this especially applies to the distressed population in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Not only have they suffered under conditions of war for years, resulting in numerous refugees, and occupation by neighbouring Rwanda, their plight has now also been compounded by volcanic eruptions.
Recent tragic reports confirm the miserable situation the population is in.
The short dry season has started and a blanket of heat has descended on the country.
There is toxic dust, and toxic vapours are emerging from the lava.
The population has no firewood and uses the heat of this lava stream for their cooking fires.
You understand that this is a miserable situation involving a city which - at least in part - is reminiscent of Hiroshima in terms of destruction.
The section of the city that was not affected by the eruption lives its normal life, insofar as this is possible under these circumstances and under the occupation.
This means, therefore, that it is very difficult to distinguish the real victims from the others, and it is currently hard to tell who is suffering the most.
This is a report which I have also found confirmed in a recent communication by the Bishops' Conference which complains about the fact that the rations supplied are, in fact, insufficient, while the food supply is adequate; that a large section of the city has been razed to the ground but that it is hard to tell who are, in fact, the people who have really been hit.
Surveys have been carried out, but the results of these are yet to be confirmed.
Fortunately, a stream of international aid has been set in motion, and the European Union has played a prominent role in this.
I feared that, in my speech here, I would have to pass on a few complaints, for they are obviously brought to my attention.
For example, I hear that all aid has to go via Kigali, and that the situation is being taken advantage of there.
On the other hand, I have been told that Kigali airport is the most convenient in terms of freight handling, and that aid is no longer being hindered at the moment.
I know that aid has been supplied by the Democratic Republic of Congo to Bukavu and that it has to leave from there. However, that aid is labelled as aid from the Congolese population, and the occupying forces therefore do not allow the goods to be distributed.
I therefore want to put your minds at rest in a way, but the measures announced by the European Parliament are absolutely vital.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I of course agree wholeheartedly with my two fellow Members.
As you know, the eruption of the Nyiragongo volcano in Goma, in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is believed to be the most serious in central Africa for 25 years.
I would firstly like to pay tribute to the people - numbering between 300 000 and 500 000 - who initially fled Goma, but who are now returning because they are committed to their hometown.
We must bear in mind that this is a humanitarian and ecological disaster, which has occurred at a time when 80% of the farm workers had finished sowing their wheat and corn.
We must bear in mind that it is the most fertile agricultural land that has been buried beneath lava, which has flattened houses and destroyed public buildings, particularly those housing NGOs.
What is more, this tragedy has happened in a climate - as the previous speakers said - of violence and conflict in the Great Lakes region.
As well as this tragedy, I think that we must now fear, because of the lack of clean drinking water, a spate of epidemics, cholera and dysentery in particular.
We already know what this type of epidemic can lead to, particularly after the so-called 'tropical' genocide in which 50 000 people were killed in the same region of Goma.
There has even been an explosion - we have seen pictures of it - in a petrol station.
We have seen people looting and others leaving with jerry cans on their heads, going in search of petrol.
I think that all this is also contributing to the climate of insecurity, which we must tackle.
Although we can now welcome the fact that, as Mrs Maes said, the European Union has been quick to play a very active role on the ground, and that humanitarian aid has finally reached Goma, certain questions have, nevertheless, been raised and I think that we must try, along with the Commissioner, to provide an answer.
First of all, in 1977, the same volcano began to erupt.
It is deeply regrettable that houses were rebuilt on a volcano, whose embers were still so active.
This was one of the questions raised in Goma, but I am raising it here because of all the other similar situations throughout the world.
Houses are rebuilt in areas where similar disasters have already happened.
Furthermore, I think that this tragedy must encourage everyone to respect the requirements drawn up for the 'ten-year action against natural risks' and that the European Union must play a greater role in this.
Finally, we must seize this opportunity to compel all political forces, and particularly those that are at conflict, to guarantee that help is provided to displaced people and refugees.
The Commission and the Member States must play a more active part in the international ten-year action that I mentioned.
Lastly, since cooperation between the European Union and the Democratic Republic of Congo is now being resumed, I think that we must push our partners to bring an end to conflict and to establish a fair and lasting peace.
I think that, at the very least, these conditions are necessary if we want to stop the same conflict from happening again.
We must bear in mind - and this is my final point - that other disasters can happen; we know, for example, that Lake Kivu contains huge methane resources and that the lava which is flowing into these waters risks is causing many other problems as well.
I thank the European Union for having taken swift action, but I would like to stress that we must step up our work and, through this, we can establish a fair and lasting peace.
Thank you, Commissioner Diamantopoulou.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Human rights
The next item is a joint debate on the following 28 motions for resolutions on human rights:
B5-0052/2002 by Mr Pasqua on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group,
B5-0066/2002 by Mr Morillon, Mr Galeote, Mr Van Orden, Mr Cushnahan and Dr Tannock on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats,
B5-0074/2002 by Mr Papayannakis, Mrs Ainardi and Mr Cossutta on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left,
B5-0083/2002 by Mr Sakellariou, Mrs Napoletano, Mr Van den Berg and Mrs Terron i Cusi on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists,
B5-0091/2002 by Mrs Malmström on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party,
B5-0097/2002 by Mrs Hautala, Mr McCormick, Mr Wuori, Mrs Boumédienne-Thiery, Mr Jonckheer, Mrs Rühle, Mrs McKenna, Mrs Isler Béguin, Mrs Schörling, Mr Lannoye and Mrs Schroedter on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance,
on Guantanamo Bay,
B5-0054/2002 by Mrs Schroedter, Mrs Lambert, Mr Wuori and Mr Staes on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance,
B5-0067/2002 by Lord Bethell, Mr Oostlander and Mr Posselt on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats,
B5-0075/2002 by Mr Brie on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left,
B5-0084/2002 by Mr Sakellariou, Mrs Krehl and Mrs Lalumière on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists,
B5-0092/2002 by Mrs Thors on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party,
on the case involving Gregori Pasko and the closure of TV6 in Russia,
B5-0055/2002 by Mr Rod, Mrs Maes and Mrs Isler Béguin on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
B5-0062/2002 by Mrs Caullery on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group,
B5-0068/2002 by Mr Corrie, Mr Gemelli and Mrs Maij-Weggen on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats,
B5-0076/2002 by Mr Marset Compos and Mr Cossutta on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left,
B5-0085/2002 by Mr Scarbonchi, Mr Fruteau and Mr Van den Berg on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists,
B5-0093/2002 by Mrs Sanders-Ten Holte, Mr Van den Bos and Mrs Dybkjær on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party,
on the elections in Madagascar,
B5-0063/2002 by Mrs Caullery on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group,
B5-0069/2002 by Mr Posselt on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats,
B5-0077/2002 by Mr Marset Campos on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left,
B5-0086/2002 by Mr Van den Berg on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists,
B5-0094/2002 by Mr Maaten and Mrs Dybkær on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party,
on the elections in Cambodia,
B5-0057/2002 by Mr Rod, Mrs Maes and Mrs Lucas on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance,
B5-0064/2002 by Mrs Muscardini on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group,
B5-0070/2002 by Mr Bowis, Mr Gemelli and Mrs Maij-Weggen on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats,
B5-0078/2002 by Mr Brie on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left,
B5-0087/2002 by Mrs Ghilardotti and Mr Van den Berg on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists,
B5-0095/2002 by Mrs Sanders-Ten Holte, Mr Van den Bos and Mrs Dybkjær on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party,
on Eritrea.
Guantanamo Bay
Madam President, Commissioner, what has been going on in Guantanamo Bay? That section of the European intelligentsia whose approach is still marked by naïve optimism and which still believes that, after 11 September, we can respond to violence without using violence and to war without using weapons, has spoken out about the conditions in which al-Qa' ida fighters, captured in Afghanistan, were transported to Guantanamo Bay.
Let us try to imagine what would happen if, in the light of the tragic experience of the revolt in Mazar-i-Sharif, the Americans had not taken all the necessary precautions to enable these fanatical fighters to be safely transported; fighters who, for years, have been trained to seek martyrdom by carrying out acts of the most mindless violence.
Had they not been treated in this way and had they simply been collectively transported by aircraft, they would have become unbalanced and uncontrollable.
What is going on now in Guantanamo Bay?
All eyewitness reports testify that the prisoners are being treated well and that the injured are receiving all the care needed for their recovery. So, why is this urgent resolution now being tabled, given the wave of solidarity that Parliament voiced unanimously after the attacks?
The only possible reason is so that we can, in the name of fine principles and grand sentiments, distance ourselves from the war that the Americans are continuing to wage against international terrorism. No, ladies and gentlemen, this war cannot be waged by applying international conventions, which were approved at a time when we needed to protect fighters engaging in traditional battles, and when civilians were not an automatic target, as they are now.
The war waged by terrorists against defenceless people renders all the Geneva Conventions null and void.
The essence of the war against terrorism resides, first and foremost, in collecting information, the aim being to prevent further attacks by infiltrating groups in order to destroy networks which, as we all know, still exist on our territory and in the United States.
This is what the Americans are trying to do at Guantanamo Bay.
We can only congratulate them on their efforts.
That is why our group will not be associated with the joint resolution tabled by other groups, but we will table our own resolution, which, in essence, calls for a revision of international law so that we can adapt to the conditions of the new era that began in New York and Washington on 11 September 2001.
Madam President, military manoeuvres and Guantanamo analyses aside, mankind is on trial now, as are our willingness and ability to sustain a world in which the rules of law agreed a priori will prevail, because only then will we retain the moral and political right to judge everyone else who is indifferent to or tramples international rules of law underfoot, be they terrorists, the Taliban, anyone at all.
The European Parliament cannot demand any less than what is being demanded by various legitimate voices in the United States, at the UN and even in the European Union.
By Mr Powell himself, by Mr Robinson, even down to Mr Solana.
The world cannot be governed by the law of the Far West, including Texas, or by the customs and habits of the town of Leeds.
Those with the fastest guns and the slowest reflexes to ideals and institutions cannot take the law into their own hands.
Because otherwise we shall end up, Madam President, with a world in which what we see is tragedy rather than cinema.
Ladies and gentlemen, and I appeal here also to my fellow Members on the other side of the House, when we rally against the death penalty, we are not defending the wretched crimes of some murderer or rapist.
We are defending ourselves, our perceptions and our culture.
It is for the same reasons that we are calling for the prisoners at Guantanamo to be treated as required under current international law or even American law, which cannot of course be limited to members of the Taliban who are American nationals.
This sort of discrimination is unacceptable even in the jungle.
Madam President, this resolution seeks to emphasise the essential point that the fight against terrorism, which will be long and hard, must be conducted as far as is possible in compliance with international law and the Rule of Law.
This call comes both from United States society and this House itself, which I hope will adopt the resolution.
With regard to the al-Qa' ida fighters held at Guantanamo Bay who were taken prisoner in Afghanistan, there are two problems.
The first is that of their detention, in that there are disturbing International Red Cross reports on the conditions in which they are being held.
The second is the legal status of the detainees: there is some uncertainty regarding this but the fact that John Walker, an American citizen, is being tried by a civil court while the other detainees are being tried by a secret military tribunal is there for all to see.
This is unacceptable.
General Morillon may well be right when he says that the Geneva treaties need to be updated, in that the Convention provides for the status of prisoner of war but, where such status is uncertain, provision needs to be made for the existence of prisoners of an undeclared war, for there is no reason why they should have fewer guarantees or receive less care in terms of respect for human rights as far as detention conditions are concerned.
The resolution also makes the important request that the United Nations Security Council set up a court responsible for Afghanistan, so that both the issue of the legal status of the prisoners and that of the detention conditions can be addressed.
In endorsing this request, we will be taking a very sensible step which will also help to advance the fight against terrorism.
Madam President, Parliament must deplore in no uncertain terms President Bush's military order permitting the secret trial of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay by a military commission, which may adopt its own rules of evidence, judge and pass sentence.
This is outside American jurisdiction.
As has been pointed out by other speakers, the only American al-Qa'ida member so far captured is to be tried in a court in Virginia with full legal representation!
This military order breaches all provisions for a fair trial as guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the US is a party, such as the presumption of innocence, choice of counsel, impartial and timely hearing, and the right of appeal to a higher court.
The US Government has introduced a category of unlawful combatants, an unknown term in international law, while refusing to grant the suspected al-Qa'ida fighters and Taliban troops captured in Afghanistan the status of prisoners of war.
These concerns have been highlighted by renowned lawyers throughout the world, who contest the legitimacy of forcibly taking those now detained in Cuba out of Afghanistan without any extradition order, as well as their status as combatants, and calls for them to be treated as ordinary criminal suspects with all associated rights.
We must also take into account the fact that some of these people, who are merely suspected of being al-Qa'ida supporters, have been deported from Bosnia to Guantanamo Bay.
The reports of ill-treatment of prisoners is absolutely shocking.
Nobody can deny what we have seen for ourselves on television, including reports that they have been shackled, hooded, sedated during transfer and their beards forcibly shaved.
This sensory deprivation is something that was criticised in Ireland in the past in relation to prisoners in Northern Ireland - even by our own government.
Yet everyone is turning a blind eye to what is happening in Guantanamo Bay.
We have to speak out in the interests of international justice, respect for human rights and respect for the Rule of Law.
America should abide by those international covenants as well.
Parliament would do very well to speak out and send a very clear message that we do not agree with the policy they have adopted.
Madam President, I fully support the USA in its handling of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay.
It is fully in the interests of Europe's citizens that the American security forces be allowed to interrogate these suspects.
This would not be permissible were they classified as prisoners of war under the 1949 Geneva Convention, since POWs are only obliged to divulge their name, rank and number, whereas unlawful combatants - their correct classification, in my view, according to the provisions of Article 4(2) of the Geneva Convention - can be interrogated.
I have to say to speakers on the other side of the House that a declaration or non-declaration of war is an irrelevancy under the Geneva Conventions.
The US needs to interrogate these individuals as it is an essential part of the worldwide struggle against terrorism.
The decision by the US to classify them in this way is, therefore, not vindictive but practical and necessary, but it exposes the inadequacy of the anachronistic international jurisprudence in this area.
Furthermore, it is my belief that many of these individuals are so dangerous that they would not have hesitated to attack their own guards.
If they became aware that one of their fellow detainees was likely to crack under interrogation, they would have made efforts to kill him as well.
The only possible alternative - beyond the physical restraints which were placed upon them, both in transit, when they might well have bitten their way through the avionic cables in order to down the planes, and on land - would be the use of high doses of intramuscular tranquillisers which, although effective, would have carried significant risks to the detainees and would have required medical and nursing personnel to accompany them.
There is no evidence that the Americans are treating them cruelly or inhumanely, and we should support them rather than engage in speculative and ill-informed criticism.
My concern is twofold: firstly, as regards what will America do with those it does not file charges against who, if returned to their own countries of origin, may face torture and death for reasons of unrelated Islamic militancy; and secondly, with regard to paragraph 5 of the resolution, which suggests a role for the international criminal court, which has yet to get off the ground?
Unfortunately, as well-intentioned as this may be, my understanding is that certainly domestic terrorists, rightly or wrongly, are excluded from the Rome Statute provisions, but it may be that international terrorists could fall under its remit.
This is not clear at present.
I have a number of additional concerns about the ICC, such as command responsibility, which blames military commanders even if they had no knowledge of the crimes committed, and also the fact that amnesties and peace and reconciliation processes would become more difficult to achieve between belligerents.
Nevertheless, this whole area of jurisprudence ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Madam President, regardless of their situation, today millions of people have seen in the media the degrading conditions in which the prisoners have been transported and have seen on television the humiliating conditions they have been subjected to inside and outside the sadly famous cages.
It is not simply a question of condemning the attitude of the United States authorities, but also of rejecting the shameful comments made in the initial days by the base' s military commanders.
Some of them, in very bad taste, showed disdain and racism towards the prisoners.
A superpower which is not just a military, but also a civil, power should, in my opinion, set a proper example of respect for human rights, even if two twin towers had been destroyed for each of the 50 states of the Union.
Whatever happens, they should always show full respect for human rights.
Nevertheless, I hope that 11 September has not numbed American public opinion so much that it has become blinded and cannot react in a decent a dignified fashion within the United States itself.
In any event, many Europeans are prepared to remain vigilant, to remember that it is essential to maintain our values and principles in this war which we must wage against terrorism and fanaticism.
Or are we going to be prepared to renounce the values we claim to defend at this point in European construction?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the first time that those who consider themselves the guardians of western culture, those who give the rest of the world lessons in democracy have proven to be the guardians of barbarianism.
We see them imposing embargos on Iraq, where they have killed thousands of children.
We saw them in Yugoslavia, together with their friends on this side of the Atlantic, killing civilians, flattening infrastructures and destroying the environment.
Barbarianism is a fundamental aspect of imperialism.
Mistreating any person is a crime.
Mistreating prisoners of war is an even more serious violation of international law.
And let there be an end to the discussion as to whether or not the detainees in Guantanamo are prisoners of war.
If the Americans were waging war on Afghanistan, then they are prisoners of war.
If the Americans were not waging war on Afghanistan, then the detainees have simply been kidnapped.
And they have been transferred to occupied territory on the island of Cuba on purpose, as a serious provocation to the heroic people of Cuba.
The Americans are making no secret of what they are up to with the backing of their friends, and unfortunately some of their friends are here in this Chamber.
They want the whole world to know what is in store for anyone who falls into their hands.
But, ladies and gentlemen, however terrible their barbarianism, it will not stop the march of history.
The people will see to that.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Gerardo Galeote, signatory, together with General Morillon, of the PPE resolution on this issue.
I have arrived late for this debate, but I have had time to listen to some speeches and I believe we should return to the basic issues.
I believe there are three basic issues: firstly, terrorism is the great threat to the Rule of Law and to open and democratic societies today; secondly, the United States and Europe share the same vision, the same social organisation and, of course, the idea that respect for human rights is the very cement of our organisation.
Thirdly, we must clearly state that, if the European Union flies any flag, it is the flag of respect for human rights.
On this basis, we clearly can and must raise our voices and, rather than ask, say, because asking would mean believing that the prisoners in the Guantánamo base are not being treated in accordance with humanitarian principles and the truth is that all the indications suggest that they are.
I am not going to enter into the argument about whether or not the Geneva Convention applies to them.
We in the European Union must say that, in the case of any doubt, the principles of the Geneva Convention must be applied, but that the Geneva Convention itself lays down a legal basis to resolve all those issues which may endanger the security of the organisation or the prisoners themselves, while a judicial tribunal establishes whether they have the right to protection under the Geneva Convention or not.
So far, Mr President, I have the impression that they are being treated absolutely correctly and that therefore this debate is unfocused.
This has probably been an error in terms of European public opinion - if not in terms of American public opinion -, a public relations error, because the truth is that it has been the United States itself that has published these photos which so offend our sensibilities.
We must clearly continue, and we will continue, to be vigilant, but always on the basis of the idea that we are fighting this war together.
Mr President, the Commission notes the various concerns expressed by many honourable Members at the legal implication of the United States decision to deny these detainees prisoner of war status under the Geneva Convention.
We have all seen the photographs taken of prisoners detained at the United States military base in Guantanamo and have read reports about their treatment.
Despite the uncertainty about their formal status there has been no proof that the prisoners are not being treated humanely.
This has to be the fundamental question.
The European Union has a long-standing ongoing dialogue with the United States on human rights issues and in the field of justice and home affairs. In the majority of cases there is agreement between the European Union and the United States.
But where we disagree, for example on the death penalty, we put our case and discuss our differences frankly.
I agree with those honourable Members who believe that this issue strengthens the EU's argument in favour of the establishment of an International Criminal Court.
We will continue to pursue this line of argument with our United States counterparts.
The European Union will continue to monitor the situation in Guantanamo.
We will do it carefully and will not hesitate to raise this issue bilaterally with the United States whenever appropriate.
I would like to conclude by repeating what Mr Patten has already said in the Tokyo Conference of donors for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Our main concept is justice for events, and this is the precondition to win peace as well as to win the war.
The case of Grigori Pasko and the closure of TV6 in Russia.
Mr President, certain Members of this House, and certain forces, tend to apply more stringent standards to a small country such as Madagascar, which we will be discussing shortly, than to a large country such as Russia.
We are, though, obliged to do the very opposite.
Russia is a member of the Council of Europe, and has a special partnership agreement with the European Union, so, on human rights issues, we must apply stringent standards to this country even if it is a powerful one and partnership with it is in our own interests.
The Russians signed up to stringent standards when they joined these organisations, and now they must meet them.
What has been done to Mr Pasko is therefore wholly unacceptable.
Mr Pasko is a person who has acted in the interests of the people of the European Union, Russia, and its Asian neighbours in warning of dangers menacing the Russian people and all of us.
As a Russian democrat, as an environmentalist, and as a human rights activist, he deserves our support.
He campaigns for freedom of opinion and constitutional legality in Russia, and so, in contrast to those who are trying to silence him, he is a patriot.
This case in particular, then, obliges us to speak plainly and to demand that Russia's secret laws, martial laws, and military courts should disappear and that Mr Pasko be set free, not by being pardoned, but by the utterly unfair and unjustifiable charge against him being withdrawn.
There is one other thing we must say loud and clear. There is a need to create the conditions in Russia for the restoration of nationwide independent media.
The closure of TV-6 is a scandal that cries out to heaven, and stands out as the conclusion of a coordinated policy engaged in by the Kremlin and by President Putin himself.
I therefore ask you to support this motion for a resolution.
Thank you, Mr President, in my country, we often say that it is beyond anyone' s comprehension.
I was very much reminded of this phrase during a recent incident at the Russian Kultura channel.
In a programme, the presenter recommended a recently published book on the position of intellectuals under the Stalin regime.
He had deduced very subtly that the publishers must have thought the time had come to reflect on almost forgotten survival techniques. This is a discerning way of ridiculing the Kremlin' s authoritarian press policy.
However, the penniless directors at TV-6 have little to smile about these days.
Last month, their channel was taken off the air by judicial order.
In that way, the last, national, private channel, with its own independent reporting, disappeared in Russia.
More than half of the Russian population were able to receive the TV-6 programmes.
From now on, these citizens will have to rely on the two public channels, ORT and RTR, to provide them with information.
In short, the forced closure of TV-6 certainly spells a decline in the Russian press landscape.
The present draft resolution is therefore right to point this out.
Has TV-6' s fate now been sealed for ever? No, for, next month, the Ministry of Press Affairs will decide on a new licence for Channel 6.
There is therefore a chance of this independent broadcasting channel being given a new lease of life.
Interestingly enough, the day before yesterday, it received public backing for this from the right and the left political opposition camps in the Russian Federation.
This option is definitely not the Kremlin' s preferred choice.
The leaders in Moscow much prefer the idea of turning Channel 6 into a special sports channel. In their view, this also fits in perfectly with Putin' s new campaign for national fitness.
Whether watching television for hours will indeed produce a healthier nation is very much to be doubted.
With a view to the desired de-politicisation of society, however, it is an effective instrument.
This draft resolution also makes reference to the case against the military journalist Grigori Pasko - with very good reason.
The obvious link between his case and the closure of TV-6 is that both rest upon a shaky legal foundation, something which is not compatible with the fundamental principle of the Rule of Law in the Russian Federation.
This is one of President Putin' s basic principles, which we gladly share with him.
Given the expressions of endorsement conveyed by Russian society to Grigori Pasko and the editors of TV-6, there are surprisingly many more like-minded Russians.
This sober resolution is a welcome affirmation for them and is designed to ensure that justice prevails for Gregori Pasko personally and that press freedom in general is protected in Russia.
Mr President, Mrs Schroeder mentioned the case of Mr Nitikin.
The two cases involving Grigori Pasko and Igor Sutyagin are more or less identical.
Although Mr Pasko was sentenced in 1999, the Kaluga regional court has only recently acknowledged that there was no legal basis for his imprisonment.
He is still in prison.
This illustrates the Russia of today, Russia under Mr Putin, the Russia of Mr Putin' s friend, Mr Oostlander, who had us vote on a report on Russia - which I voted against - and in which we approved substantial funding of programmes for the media and for freedom of the media, for an independent judiciary and for the protection of the environment.
At almost every part-session, however, we have to remark upon the fact that, in these areas and in many others, things in Russia are not working.
This is the policy of the European Union. In other words, we are funding the fight to protect the environment and, at the same time, we have to fight to have environmental protesters released from prison and so on.
This is a ridiculous policy.
It is obvious that Mr Prodi' s concerns do not go much further than Gazprom and gas.
We all know this and I urge those who tabled texts to include a small oral amendment.
I also urge the Commission to express its strongest opposition to the Russian authorities.
I do not think that this is a matter for the Council alone.
Moving on, it is most shameful that we are not spending enough time discussing the situation in Chechnya.
Not a day or week goes by, however, when there is not an article on Chechnya in our newspapers.
I urge you to read the latest article by Mrs Politovskaya in 'Courrier International' magazine.
What is happening in Chechnya, which is still part of Russia, even though it should not be, is absolutely atrocious.
Of course, there are no pictures like those taken at Guantanamo Bay; there are no pictures but the situation is obviously much worse.
Madam President, the Commission shares Parliament's concern about the cases of Grigori Pasko and the closure of TV6.
Against the background of our joint efforts with Russia to establish closer political and economic relations, the European Union has repeatedly made clear that it expects Russia to act in accordance with the values that it committed itself to respecting when it entered the Council of Europe and the OSCE.
These basic principles, including free and independent media, necessarily constitute an integral part of our partnership, underlying the strategic partnership that we are building.
Besides legal considerations, editorial freedom in Russia has suffered a number of setbacks in recent months.
This is a worrying development.
In addition, the Pasko case raises concern due to the dim and unclear circumstances surrounding his trial, including the lack of any public incriminating evidence.
At any rate, we will continue to use all CFSP instruments to support the causes of independent media and editorial freedom in Russia, including by raising all relevant cases in the framework of our bilateral political dialogue with Russia.
In addition, the Commission will continue to devote special attention to supporting civil society and independent media in the context of the European initiative for democracy and human rights, for which Russia will be a priority in the short and medium term.
Elections in Madagascar.
Mr President, the results of the first round of the presidential elections, which were held on 16 December 2001 in Madagascar, have been the subject of great controversy and conflict between the two leading candidates, namely the outgoing president, Didier Ratsiraka, and his rival Marc Ravalomanana.
It is claimed that Mr Ratsiraka has rigged the election results and his intentions remain a mystery.
He is not stepping down and his silence is leading to fears of violent actions being carried out by his supporters.
Although the Ministry of Home Affairs attributes only a small majority to Mr Ravalomanana, he is claiming to have won the first round and is calling for the second round to be cancelled.
However, the official results mean that the two men must face one another in a second round and the international community is hoping and praying that it will be organised.
Mr Ravalomanana appears to enjoy the support of the people, as hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated in his favour, bringing the country to a standstill with a general strike and claiming victory over the opposition.
This strike is having disastrous consequences for Madagascar' s economy, and last week cost between USD 8-10 million. The losses incurred, following 10 days of strike action, have already exceeded Madagascar' s annual education budget.
Let there be no misunderstanding about this. This is not a question of us supporting one candidate over another, and I have no more sympathy for Mr Ravalomanana than Mr Ratsiraka.
What could be a cause for concern for the future are his autocratic tendencies, which came to the fore when he was the capital' s mayor, and if elected, Madagascar' s power would be in his hands.
Human rights supporters are becoming disillusioned.
But what we need, first and foremost, is respect for democracy and the Rule of Law.
That is why it is essential that the two candidates agree to the ballot being checked and that the High Constitutional Court agrees to compare the results.
This comparison is the only democratic means of establishing the real results of the ballot.
The Commission must do everything in its power to resolve this conflict, which is pulling the country apart, but also to help in establishing a genuine Rule of Law.
The conflict must be resolved with respect for human, political and civil rights, but also for political pluralism.
Respect for fundamental principles is essential in consolidating the democratic process.
Mr President, after the dark period of colonialism and dictatorships in the developing countries, I feel that it is positive that we are talking today about elections in these countries, even though their social and civil structure is weak, as is the concept of democracy.
It is difficult to distinguish between the parties, given that every culture and every society needs to select its own representatives.
I do feel, however, that we must reiterate the need for transparent elections, for we must promote the development of democratic awareness and culture just as we must promote the growth of civil society.
Moreover, through the instruments available to us, the Cotonou Treaty and the ACP/EU Joint Parliamentary Assemblies, we must propose systems and methods of democratic control, ensuring they are appropriate to the current level of civil society in those countries.
We will be able to move forwards if we succeed in getting across the message that democratic growth, the safeguarding of human rights and the creation of a pluralist State - and therefore of consensus within a pluralist society - will enable this country to grow, for it needs so badly to be actively included among the world' s civil societies.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on 25 January 2002, Madagascar' s High Constitutional Court published the result of the elections.
The slow procedure and the quasi-monarchic nature of the regime that has been in power for almost 20 years, which, in particular, had led Madagascar' s government to refuse the presence of international observers, and the ambiguities found in the public statements made by the opposition, sow more than a seed of doubt as to whether these results are reliable.
But are Madagascar' s leaders solely responsible for this parody of democracy?
Why was this country, which is one of the poorest countries in the world, not the focus of particular attention from international public opinion before these regrettable events occurred? Have the countries of Europe, and France in particular, forgotten the past they share with Madagascar?
Ladies and gentlemen, the Madagascans do not need us to take them by the hand, nor do they need us to make electoral choices on their behalf. However, Europe cannot, under any circumstances, stand aside and do nothing.
In spite of the 'good behaviour' that the observers have emphasised - which is one of the Madagascan people' s defining characteristics - the situation is exceptional for this country.
More than 500 000 people take to the streets every day to demonstrate on a scale that has not been seen since the country gained independence. Madagascar has been brought to a virtual standstill by a general strike that is having disastrous consequences, and the support for which is as strong as ever despite being in its tenth day.
We cannot remain indifferent, given the serious nature of this situation.
We must therefore adopt initiatives to help the people of Madagascar to rediscover a dignified way of life.
And this will only happen if the second round takes place in a transparent fashion; in other words, if the international organisation and if the European Union ensure the elections are conducted in the proper manner.
We must demand that the two candidates show respect for the Rule of Law and safeguard civil peace so that the electoral problems do not escalate into an ethnic dispute.
We must quite simply call for the voice of the people to be heard and for their verdict to be respected.
Mr President, the Commission, which stands by human rights, respect for democratic principles and the Rule of Law, is particularly concerned and worried about the political situation in Madagascar.
Time is short and we are under pressure to monitor the elections, which are currently being prepared.
The Commission will not be able to send observers for the second round of voting on 24 February because Madagascar was not on the Commission's list of priorities for 2002, including for reasons which originate in the country itself.
However, the European Union is prepared to support the election process and the Commission has decided to send a team of technical experts to the second round of elections in Madagascar with instructions to support a consortium of local observers.
Elections in Cambodia
Mr President, the elections in Cambodia, which at least represented progress by virtue of being the first local elections for decades, were preceded by an electoral campaign in which the media were manipulated by the ruling party and persons in positions of power, who exploited them for their sole benefit.
A tide of intimidation directed at the opposition parties culminated in innumerable violent deaths and mysterious murders.
That being so, these elections cannot be described as free in the true sense of the word, even though our colleagues have reported from Cambodia that the ballot itself seems largely to have been conducted in a correct manner.
We must, though, register the fact that there is still a great need for democracy to really take root in this country, which has been tested by adversity and has suffered more than any other in the world from the horrors of the twentieth century.
No other country in the world has seen a totalitarian rampage such as took place in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and so the wounds are not going to be healed overnight.
We must, though, nonetheless see to it that we apply clear standards and promote democracy and the Rule of Law - and that can only be done through the local communities.
I therefore appeal to the Commission and the Council to systematically promote and support the newly-elected local assemblies, by which I mean not only the representatives of the ruling party but also those of the opposition parties, which must not be allowed to degenerate into fig leaves, but which are needed so that this first tentative step towards democracy may result in real democracy and not just a propaganda show.
We therefore need training and development for local politicians; they, their access to the media, and free media themselves, need to be fostered.
These need to be the priorities of our future policy on Cambodia.
Forces such as Funcinpec, too, as well as others, need to be promoted by us, so that a genuine and stable multi-party system may arise in this country that has suffered so much more than any other.
Mr President, the European Commission agrees with Parliament that priority must be given to supporting basic democratic institutions in Cambodia.
That is why we spent EUR three million in the form of technical assistance to ensure that the recent municipal elections ran smoothly and why we sent observers from the European Union at Cambodia's request.
The European Commission coordinated a total of 120 observers in Cambodia on the day of the election.
This is the first time we have sent observers for purely local elections.
I must say that I was especially pleased that Carlos Costa Neves headed the mission, as this shows that Parliament and the Commission are now working even more closely together on election observer missions.
According to initial reports, preparations for the elections and polling arrangements went smoothly and voters arrived peacefully and in an orderly manner.
We did, of course, receive reports of incidents of violence, murder and intimidation which are giving us serious cause for concern and which took place despite the fact that both the government and the other political parties stated they wanted no violence during the elections.
And we consider that media coverage of the elections was biased.
As the electoral process has not yet been completed, the results have not yet been announced and accusations and appeals have not yet been filed, it is too soon to draw any final conclusions as to how the elections passed.
But clearly, for the first time in its history, the people of Cambodia had the opportunity to vote for local councillors and they turned out en masse in order to do so.
The European Commission representation, together with European Union diplomatic missions in Cambodia, will continue to monitor progress in the post-election period.
Only then shall we be in a position to evaluate the full importance of efforts to ensure that this country continues on the road to democracy.
Eritrea
Mr President, we, who supported Eritrea' s struggle for independence, are alarmed by the changes in this country's governing authorities, while the tragic consequences of the recent conflict with Ethiopia are already causing suffering.
In September 2001, 11 members of the Eritrean opposition, including several former ministers who had published a letter calling for a return to democracy by the ruling party, were arrested by the government.
As well as the arrests, a ban, described by the authorities as temporary, was imposed on the private press.
The elections were also adjourned and the formation of new political parties was prohibited.
Journalists and Eritrean dissident politicians were gagged by the regime.
These repressive measures, which violate freedom of expression, are worrying and unacceptable.
They blatantly contradict the Eritrean authorities' proclaimed desire to undertake democratic reforms.
Furthermore, the expulsion in October 2001 of the Italian ambassador, who represented the European Union on the ground, severely undermined relations with Eritrea.
Yet, in order to enable relations between Eritrea and the European Union to return to normal, it is essential that human rights and fundamental freedoms be respected.
For this to happen, the Eritrean Government must not only release all political prisoners and journalists, but it must also lift the ban on all independent journalists.
That is why the European Union must re-examine its relations with Eritrea in the light of the Cotonou Agreement, Article 96 of which calls for an inter-Eritrean national conference to be held, bringing together the various political leaders and representatives of civil society, with a view to finding a solution to the current crisis and to setting the country on the path to democracy and sustainable development.
Mr President, Commissioner, I ask you to share the sorrow as well as the anger I feel in speaking as a friend of Eritrea.
From 1889 to 1952 Eritrea was under the flags firstly of Italy, then of Britain.
It was then given by the international community to Ethiopia in federation, and then it was annexed by that country.
It then suffered 32 years of war during which its economy and its environment were ruined and its people dispersed.
We then came to 1993 and its referendum for independence.
I was there as a UN observer.
There was a spirit of hope abroad in that country.
The refugees were returning, reconstruction was beginning to take place.
90% of people voted in that referendum.
99% voted for independence.
President Isaias was elected president.
With a moderate lifestyle and a period of optimism stemming from it, we hoped for the best.
For some years the problem was border conflict.
Now sadly the problem is internal.
Human rights have deteriorated, opposition is not tolerated, eleven former leaders of the government party have been arrested, the press is suppressed and journalists arrested.
The Italian ambassador has been expelled.
Multiparty elections which were promised for last December were cancelled and now parties themselves have been banned.
Democracy has been cancelled in Eritrea.
Eritrea is desperate for support in rebuilding a country ravaged by war.
They need our aid, but aid must not be without guarantees of good governance.
To our friends in Eritrea we say: "come back to the world community of democratic government.
Turn away from totalitarianism".
To the Commission I say: "be firm".
Human rights are not just for our benefit.
They are not to make us feel good.
They are for the benefit of the people of Eritrea and Eritrea needs those human rights now.
Mr President, Commissioner, as the previous speakers have already said, the situation in Eritrea is becoming increasingly serious as far democracy is concerned. The Eritrean Parliament, which is made up of elected members who all belong to the People' s Front for Democracy and Justice, has decided to ban the formation of political parties.
The independent press has been suppressed and many journalists, politicians and political opponents, including former government ministers, have been arrested, accused of treason against the national assembly. There is an increase in repressive measures being taken to control the citizens, especially students, two of whom died while imprisoned in the desert.
The Italian ambassador has been expelled.
The state of the economy and of citizens' living conditions is becoming increasingly serious. The non-governmental organisations operating in Eritrea report situations which have reached hitherto unknown severity: even doctors, nurses and paramedics have been removed from hospitals and sent to the front, leaving the people with no health care at all.
The violence inflicted on the people, particularly women and children, is indescribable.
The international community cannot just stand by and watch.
We need to intervene as swiftly as possible to help define the borders.
The UN Security Council and the Algiers Commission have committed themselves to doing this, but we need a European delegation, a troika, to go to Eritrea and we need to reassess relations with this country on the basis of the Cotonou agreements.
We need to demand the announcement of parliamentary elections - already scheduled, moreover, for December 2001 - elections which must take place under international supervision. We must demand the release of all political prisoners, and that the freedom of the press, the freedom of association, the freedom to develop society and the freedom to form political parties and trade unions be restored.
All this must be an essential prerequisite if the Union is to resume the financing which is absolutely vital for the reconstruction of the country' s war-torn economy and for its development.
The Council and the Member States need to adopt a coordinated approach to relations with Eritrea which is as effective as possible and such as to contribute quickly to the process of achieving peace at the country' s borders and within Eritrea.
The ACP/EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly will take place as of mid-March.
We hope that, at that forum, we will be able to debate the processes announced previously as having already taken place, and that we will be able to find a way to initiate a peace process with the Eritreans as well, to restore democracy and, most importantly, to restore to the citizens, men, women and children acceptable living conditions which are no longer shameful.
Mr President, before saying anything else, I would like to express my total mistrust of the present leaders of Eritrea and my absolute condemnation of their actions.
The situation in Eritrea is extremely critical, and we now have a better understanding of what prompted this people to go to war against Ethiopia.
However, the solution reached was not a mutually agreed solution but a concession obtained from Ethiopia, which won the war by military force.
Moreover, Eritrea brought down a regional resolution at the ACP Assembly of November 2001 by refusing to discuss the issue of relations between the two States.
With regard to the Italian ambassador, we should ask why he was expelled.
He was expelled for the 'crime' of conversing with Eritrean civil society rather than just with the country' s leaders.
Therefore, we must be resolute in addressing this situation, first and foremost in order to free the Eritrean people from the ruling power.
I feel that maximum effort and total commitment on our part will be needed to bring growth to civil society, to create a world that is civilised and not excluded from the assembly of the civilised nations.
That the Commission use the Cotonou Agreement to this end is not just necessary but, given the situation, its responsibility.
We cannot allow the situation in this area to persist.
Mr President, recent developments in Eritrea are causing the European Commission a great deal of concern, and we feel that arresting political protesters and muzzling the press are making the situation in Eritrea even worse.
It is good that issues such as the arrest of political protesters, the electoral law and the bill on political parties have been debated in the long-awaited gathering of the national assembly in Eritrea but we are, of course, sorry that no decision was taken on when detainees will be referred to the courts or released and that the formation of political parties has again been put on hold.
We hope that the committee set up to safeguard the future of the press in Eritrea will be able to help get the restrictions on the private press lifted soon.
The Commission is working with the presidency and the Member States, so that it can react in a forceful manner to the present crisis.
Without question, the whole endeavour is based on international law, human rights and human rights conventions and our efforts will be directed towards making sure that political dialogue with Eritrea continues and is reinforced within the context of article 8 of the Cotonou Agreement.
A visit to Eritrea by the high-level troika is being planned as soon as the report by the Boundaries Commission is published, hopefully within the next few weeks.
Because of the tension between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the Commission believes that every effort should be made to prevent the conflict from escalating.
And the Commission needs to make an active contribution towards conflict prevention and the restoration of peace and stability in the area.
However, we need to tread very carefully and avoid any action which might leave the political leaders in the area with their backs to the wall.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Earthquake in Turkey
The next item is the debate on 2 motions for resolutions:
B5-0071/2002, by Mr Van Orden, Mr Morillon and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group,
B5-0080/2002, by Mrs Ainardi, Mrs Figueiredo, Mr Papayannakis, and Mr Alavanos, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group,
on the earthquake in Turkey
Once again, Mr President, Commissioner, tragic events have forced our attention on Turkey, following yet another earthquake recently.
I think we owe it to our neighbour to provide every type of assistance, financial, humanitarian and, I would add Commissioner, long-term assistance.
Our resolution says exactly what we are calling for and there is no need for me to comment on it.
What I would like to say is that, if you take a long-term view of the problem, because earthquakes are endemic in this area, you will soon see that we do not have a practical policy for earthquakes, a damage-limitation policy, a policy on repairs, assistance, anti-earthquake measures to protect us, the European Union and all its neighbouring countries, including of course Turkey.
However, we do have the means and the centres and the researchers and I wonder, Commissioner, if we are using them properly. This is not the first time we have discussed this question and I should like to take advantage of this unfortunate incident to raise it once again.
Mr President, as a representative of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, which is Christian Democratic in character, I wish to express our deep and sincere sympathy with all the victims of the terrible earthquake in Turkey. We would also express our sympathy to the Turkish Government and to everyone in Turkey.
What has happened shows that, despite all the conflicts of political opinion, the most important thing is still life itself.
It is important for the Turkish authorities and the EU to do everything possible to get aid through as soon as possible.
The events in Turkey highlight the need, at international level too, for some form of emergency force to respond to appalling natural disasters of this kind.
The fact is that the international TV companies are on the scene much more quickly than those of us from the European Union and those from various aid organisations.
Let us work to ensure that aid gets through more quickly.
In conclusion, I would just mention the fact that, the last time something similar happened in Turkey, there proved to be some coming together of Greeks and Turks.
Mr President, I should like to express my most sincere sympathies and undivided support for the Turkish people, hit yet again recently by another earthquake, with lives lost and extensive damage.
I hope that those who lost their loved ones and those who were left homeless or lost their possessions will soon find the strength to recover from the shock of this unforeseen disaster.
I should also like to mention here that the Greek government immediately expressed its support and sympathy and offered help to the victims of this catastrophic earthquake, and to pass on to the European Parliament just how much the Greek people sympathise with the suffering which the earthquake caused the Turkish people and how close it has brought them once again.
The spontaneous response of the people, especially when disaster and suffering strike, is the ultimate expression of sincerity and faith in coexistence and solidarity between nations.
I trust that in the future, in the very near future, these two nations, Greece and Turkey, will be brought closer by happy rather than tragic events, such as the accession of Turkey to the European family, the European Union, within which these two nations will enjoy and serve the same values and ideals of democracy and personal freedom, values and ideals which unite and safeguard their common desire for prosperity, peaceful coexistence and cooperation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it goes without saying that we all sympathise with and support the victims of the earthquake in Turkey and which, as a previous speaker said, is the second earthquake to hit Turkey in under two years.
Obviously, action to help the victims speaks louder than words of support and we have no choice here but to admit that there is no mechanism at European Union level to provide help in these and similar natural disasters.
And another thing: we could say of the area of Turkey which was hit that it is an area where poverty attracts misfortune.
If buildings had been built to earthquake standards, we would have had fewer victims. Even the director of the earthquake institute in Istanbul stated that there is no building control committee in the area to check that buildings meet specifications.
So let this too be an incentive to improve our earthquake defences.
Mr President, the Commission shares the European Parliament's interest in and concern for the humanitarian situation of the victims of the earthquake in Turkey.
I should like first to reply to Mr Papayannakis's question on dealing with natural disasters. The Commission has already proposed, some time ago now, that a service be set up at European level to deal with natural disasters.
This proposal concerns not just earthquakes, but floods, fires and major accidents such as those which occurred recently in Austria and France, and makes provision for a first decision-making level resulting in a form of cooperation and proper coordination of national mechanisms, so that exponential results can be obtained from the mechanisms in the individual Member States for dealing with disasters.
As far as the specific question of the earthquake in Turkey is concerned, our representation in Ankara has assured us that the Turkish authorities responsible for dealing with emergencies have not asked for help and that no help with civil protection or humanitarian aid are required at present.
And that is after cooperation between the Commission and the government.
According to our information from the Red Cross, humanitarian requirements are being met relatively well.
The Red Cross has said that it is providing 7,000 tents and 10,000 blankets, as well as survival kits for families, and the government has sent 1,000 tents and 3,000 blankets for people obliged to sleep out of doors.
This is the situation so far, according to information from our representation and the Red Cross.
We therefore have no plans for the time being to assist Turkey under ECHO.
The Commission will monitor the situation in Turkey closely and will work with other donors so as to encourage a coordinated international effort so that priorities for action can be clearly defined from an orderly statement of the needs and problems of the area.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
State of implementation of working time directive
The next item is the report (A5-0010/2002) by Mr Koukiadis, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission report: 'State of implementation of Council Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time ( 'Working Time Directive' )' (COM(2000) 787 - C5-0147/2001 - 2001/2073(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, I am particularly honoured to present the report on the first five years' implementation of the working time directive.
Working times, like wages, have been one of the main subjects of employee claims throughout the history of industrial relations.
These claims and success with them are down to the trade union movement, because the arrangements which it has brokered have restored workers' dignity, improved their standard of living, reduced risks to life and limb and, by deregulating working times, given them time for a political and social life.
Despite the fact that health and safety legislation forms the legal basis for the directive, we must not underestimate its other aspects.
That is why the Member States must safeguard this acquis as the cornerstone of social cohesion.
At the same time, it is also why I have the right to express my disappointment in a number of states for their unwillingness to transpose the directive into national law on time, despite their self-evident obligation to do so.
I should also like to comment on the fact that the Member States have not provided detailed statements of national arrangements which allow the Commission to clearly assess if they are complying with the arrangements set out in the directive.
For example, it is totally unclear if and to what extent it applies to all public-sector workers.
Implementation so far has given rise to a series of disputes and/or straightforward infringements.
One of these issues is the issue of doctors on duty, although this links up with the more general issue of equating readiness to work with working time and, in this sense, it also applies to other categories of workers.
The ruling by the Court of Justice, whereby readiness to work requiring the worker to be present in the workplace and to have alert physical and mental faculties qualifies as regular paid working time, is in keeping with the traditional approach under labour legislation.
Another issue is the infringement of the right to leave where there is a limited contract of employment.
Here too, the Court of Justice's ruling that the right to leave is a basic right to which even temporary employees on a limited contract of less than one year are entitled will help in the fight against infringements.
A third point which deserves the Commission's attention is the woolly definition of maximum working time.
It is strange there is still controversy over the exact meaning of a definition which has applied for decades.
The transposition of the directive in certain countries in the form of collective agreements is also a major issue.
This is a matter of general interest.
Without question this method, which promotes collective autonomy, must be encouraged.
However, it must be used in a way which produces the same results as it would if the directive were transposed in a legislative act.
This has not been the case in the past, either because sectoral collective agreements have been used, rather than a general cross-sector agreement covering all workers, or because there are no collective agreements which apply to all workers.
Finally, again in connection with arrangements under traditional industrial relations, there is the problem of special arrangements for specific categories of particular types of workers such as women, mothers, persons with disabilities, children etc.
Special care must be taken with arrangements for these categories of vulnerable workers and an initiative must be taken to improve them in the light of past experience so that they can be integrated into the European Union's policy of increasing the number of women in work and making it easier for persons with disabilities to access the job market.
I should like to use the last part of my intervention to comment on what is to become of traditional arrangements following the emergence of new forms of work, where the principle of flexibility and traditional job security are being turned into employability.
We need courageous innovations here if we are to guarantee the principle announced at Lisbon of combining flexibility with protection and this principle needs to be translated into industrial relations by taking specific measures to organise working times.
If we are to replace traditional job security with employability, we need a new approach to working time arrangements because new problems are emerging, such as how to turn part-time employment into full-time employment, what to do about weekly rests and the ban on working on public holidays, how far to adjust working time arrangements where paid work is turned into self-employment, how to control the application of specific working time arrangements in the case of teleworking, what new balance must be struck between home life and work and, finally of course, how can we make time spent on lifelong learning count as working time.
In closing, I should like to add that the European trades unions rightly want to highlight all these issues relating to modern forms of work as immediate priorities in a widespread campaign which they are planning to start on 14 February to follow on from today's debate.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like it to be noted that I am speaking in place of Mr Pérez Álvarez, who has been the shadow rapporteur for this report on behalf of my group and who is able to attend this sitting.
On his behalf and on my own, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur and say that I am pleased with the work he has done and with the positive attitude he has adopted towards the amendments which had been presented by Mr Pérez Álvarez.
Directive 93/104/EC is a continuation of Directive 89/391/EC, on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work, with the idea that the creation of the internal market must lead to an improvement in working and living conditions, by means of approximating legislations.
In this respect, the Commission' s report is a general description of how the Member States have transposed and applied the aforementioned directive with results which clearly indicate that the method and result could be improved.
It has been demonstrated that not only the temporary delay in compliance with the transposition period and, consequently, the non-application of the Directive within the time limit, but also that the exclusions and exceptions have been due to criteria which are not always clear.
Therefore, transposition, by means of collective agreement, has not always been accompanied by the desired success for this instrument of social dialogue.
The amendments presented by Mr Pérez Álvarez were aimed at highlighting and providing a remedy for these shortcomings and the amendments I am going to mention now have the same aim.
Amendment No 1, because the confusion between the concepts of 'exclusion' and 'exception' , which are always in the singular, must not become an opportunity to sidestep the mandatory nature of the directive.
Amendment No 2, proposing an additional clarifier, which is not intended to replace, but to clarify and extend the content of the paragraph, also by means of concepts and definitions which guarantee the application of the Directive, faithful to the idea that things should be judged by what they are and not what they are called.
We believe it is important to expressly highlight these two points for the sake of improving the living and working conditions of workers.
All of this must done in accordance with Article 31 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, "Fair and just working conditions" .
Firstly, that "Every worker has the right to working conditions which respect his or her health, safety and dignity" , and secondly, that "Every worker has the right to limitation of maximum working hours, to daily and weekly rest periods and to an annual period of paid leave" . Both aspects - health at work and working times - are clearly linked, and all of this is aimed at a more just society governed by the respect for the individual and collective rights of workers.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries, I would like to compliment Mr Koukiadis on his report and thank him for the consideration he has given to the conclusions of the Committee on Fisheries, for whom issues of safety are a high priority.
Mr Koukiadis' report directly concerns only the first of what are now three directives on working time.
He pinpoints variations in interpretation, types of derogation and manner of transposal as contributing to defects in its implementation.
Such problems could be compounded by the fact that different rules apply to different sectors.
For example, fish processors are covered by the first directive but those engaged in fishing as such by the second.
It is difficult to predict the effects of this for two sectors that are so closely related to one another.
Similarly, potential changes in the nature of aquaculture may mean that different rules are needed for the future from those that fit its character today.
That is why we are asking the Commission to monitor these aspects of implementation in future reports.
It may be that there are other sectors for which a similar approach would be helpful.
It is desirable that individual sectors are covered by rules that are genuinely appropriate to their own particular situations.
However, many implementation problems might be avoided and quicker adaptation made to technological and other change if such rules could come out of agreements between the social partners.
We point to the agreement between the European Community Shipowners' Association and the Federation of Transport Workers in the EU as an example of best practice in this regard.
Finally, with safety so much at stake, we hope that the rules will become accepted as setting minimum standards to improve upon, rather than maximum ones to adhere to simply because that is what the law demands.
Mr President, I should like to sincerely congratulate the rapporteur on his extensive and critical work on this report on the working time directive.
It was indeed quite an urgent issue to be tackled, given the controversial discussions at the several sessions of the Court of Justice on this very matter.
Before I speak on a number of matters to do with the working time directive, I must say that I am very pleased that a couple of Member States have already implemented a huge number of different legislative, administrative and collective agreements in this regard.
I also feel that the measures taken by the supranational decision-makers go in the right direction, since the Commission's new directives cover the areas excluded from the scope of the original directive.
However, there is still a lot of work to be done.
We all know - and the rapporteur did well to criticise it - that some Member States resort to the tactic of claiming that their existing legislation covers the provisions of the directive.
I cannot understand, therefore, why they hesitate to implement a fairly flexible directive in the large amount of time available.
I therefore agree with the report's encouragement of the Commission to investigate why the Member States refuse to comply with some of the directive's provisions.
We should insist as well on controls on the conditions of application of the directive to new working-time patterns, for example, precarious work, part-time work and fixed-time work.
In addition to that I see a strong need to focus more intensively on the increasing number of homeworkers.
The Commission itself has made strenuous efforts with regard to open and distance learning within the Leonardo da Vinci programme, for example.
I feel obliged then to ask you: why do we not give stronger encouragement to the social partners to negotiate the relevant working-time issues?
Nevertheless, the report could have gone further into detail, as it unfortunately neglects so-called self-employed workers.
I am convinced that the need to include this category within the directive is a matter we should all support and in doing so we should merely be adding further to a well-drafted report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the working time arrangements which we are examining here are part of the neo-liberal policy to reverse the industrial relations which the working classes have fought hard to achieve.
This policy undermines workers' rights by applying flexible forms of work and working time arrangements and undermines full and stable employment by replacing it with part-time and temporary employment.
The aim, of course, is to increase the level of exploitation of the workforce and maximum the profits of big business.
Which is why an attempt is being made to abolish the stable seven- or eight-hour working day and weekends off and why collective agreements are being ripped up and limited contracts are being extended.
Workers must be on standby whenever and for however long their employers choose.
In addition, making part-time employment the rule not only hits workers in their pay packets, it also makes it practically impossible for them to acquire pension rights.
The result of the European Union's policy is an increase in under-employment which, in some countries, already stands at over 30%.
We support a different policy, a policy which extends workers' rights and fights against capitalist restructuring.
We are fighting for the repeal of the legislative framework which imposes daily working time arrangements and flexible forms of employment.
We support full and stable employment, eight hours a day, five days a week, more extensive social rights and pay rises commensurate with today's needs.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Commission report before us is not merely necessary.
It will bring a great deal of work in its train in the Member States.
The rapporteur has taken a great deal of trouble about the analysis, and for that I am very grateful to him.
The directive strikes me, though, as something of a patchwork rug.
There are too many loopholes with national regulations crocheted in elsewhere, making individual interpretations possible and the whole thing impenetrable.
What is most fundamentally at issue is the protection of workers, a cause which we have taken up.
Both the Commission and the Member States, therefore, have to be urged not merely to adopt the definition and interpretation of particular concepts, but to check precisely on potential deviations from specific legal provisions, in order not to cause any confusion which might, at the end of the day, result in the opposite of what was actually intended.
Most uncertainty in the Member States concerns the maximum permitted working time, although clear limitations are laid down in Article 6, Article 18, and in the final provisions.
The possibility of also using collective contracts or agreements between the social partners to transpose the directive should be seen in a fundamentally positive light.
All that is needed is for this to actually happen, and when it does, it must be completely in the spirit of the directive, without a back door or the possibility of evading its provisions at a halfway stage.
It is also urgently necessary to reach a clearer definition of the concept of 'standby duties' , and, above all in view of the judgment of the European Court of Justice, to implement it completely along those lines.
The judgment in Luxembourg clearly brought out this directive's weaknesses, and it is regrettable that the Commission has to lag behind on this point.
The Koukiadis report will be a great help in the work in hand.
I hope we will actually find the points listed by Parliament still in the directive when the time comes to transpose it.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Koukiadis on his excellent report on the implementation of the working time directive and agree with the last speaker, who pointed out that there are loopholes in the working time directive, although these are being closed as time goes by.
I should like to remind the House that there have been significant developments over the last two years in connection with doctors' working times and in connection with working times in the fisheries industry, not to mention the recent directive on workers in haulage companies.
The Commission report on the implementation of the working time directive contains a general review of how the Member States implement the directive.
The Commission is not obliged to publish this report but we felt, politically speaking, that it was conducive to greater transparency and openness.
This means, as Mr Koukiadis rightly pointed out, that the transposition of the directive varies hugely from one Member State to another.
Here too, we must to admit to the need to reconcile economies and societies with very different customs and practices, which is why the agreed framework is flexible and does not insist on uniform, inflexible solutions which it would be impossible to put into practice and which would make it hard to even agree on a framework.
The Member States have been given considerable room for manoeuvre in transposing the directive.
The directive allows a number of exceptions based on legislation or collective agreements, thereby giving the national authorities the flexibility I have already mentioned.
The Commission is happy with this multi-faceted approach and has no ambitions to push for uniform solutions in this sector.
However, I should like to comment on a number of specific recommendations made to the Commission.
The report calls at various points for the Commission to monitor transposition and take the necessary steps if the directive is not transposed correctly.
We are in agreement here and the proceedings available to us when Community directives are infringed have already been instituted or are due to be instituted in the cases referred to.
As regards the definition of working time and the implications of the ruling by the Court of Justice in the Simap case, which found that the time spent on duty by medical staff in first aid teams counted as full working time, the Commission is examining the implications of this case and has already held a meeting between the national authorities and the Commission services and is planning to schedule a study of the legal situation and the implications of this ruling on health systems and other sectors.
The European Parliament report also calls on the Commission to clarify where exceptions are justified on the basis of industrial agreements.
There is a clear reference to the specific term in Article 18(1) allowing the Member States to deviate from the upper limit of 48 hours, provided that the worker is happy to work the extra hours.
Here too, I should point out that there are safety valves to avoid measures and implications which are unacceptable to the worker.
The only country to have made use of this exception is the United Kingdom.
The same directive stipulates that the Council must review this provision at the Commission's proposal, accompanied by an evaluation report.
And I can assure you that the Commission will be submitting the evaluation report in question.
I should also like to stress that the national authorities in every Member State will be filing national reports in 2002, analysing the practical implementation of the directive in question.
The Commission will use these national reports to draft a summary report on the implementation of the directive in the Member States, which will give us a clearer picture.
I should like to close with a few comments on new work models.
Obviously it is hard to apply traditional working time to new forms of work and the debate on lifelong learning and time compression is a major issue.
What I can say here is that social dialogue is already playing an important part and will play an even more important part in the future.
The social partners and their discussions and agreements on the role of lifelong learning and the principles of teleworking and the agreements already reached in specific sectors demonstrate that, in the initial stages, individual agreements at European level can create the right conditions for moving forward, if necessary, to a legislative framework.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 6.30 p.m.
Stimulating Internet access
The next item is the oral question (B5-0003/02), on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, to the Commission on stimulating Internet access.
Mr President, I should like to welcome Mrs Diamantopoulou here this afternoon.
I know she will be speaking on behalf of Mr Liikanen.
We are obviously disappointed that he is unable to be here.
We understand the pressures on the time of Commissioners.
We know that across the Commission there is great interest in this subject and, in particular, in a number of the areas for which Mrs Diamantopoulou is responsible, this issue will also be of crucial importance.
The thrust behind our question - which is tabled at a timely point in the run-up to the Barcelona Summit - is that the need across the European Union to deliver access to information society services and to encourage the climate in which new services will develop has to be at the foundation of the Lisbon goal to deliver the most competitive knowledge-driven economy in the world.
I emphasise "knowledge-driven" because what we are talking about is the ability to achieve the widespread dissemination and availability of that knowledge.
Part of the problem with this topic is the whole issue of jargon, and our question perhaps falls into that trap by talking about flat-rate Internet access.
Perhaps colleagues will bear with me if I just set out why that is so critical.
If the Internet is really to deliver its full potential as a global knowledge network, as an instantly accessible medium, then we have to encourage people to use it in such a way that they become detached from the feeling that, with a time-based connection, they have to hurry through what they are doing, that the facilities are not always there and available to them.
That really is what this is all about. It is making that huge library of information and services available in such a way that people can have continuous access to it at a price they can afford.
That is really at the heart of this question.
We know that quite a lot has moved forward.
I am pleased to have been a member of the teams in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, which have worked very hard with the Commission to push through directives on matters such as the unbundling of the local loop and the whole of the electronics communications package.
We understand our role and responsibility here.
The ultimate delivery of these services will have to come from the marketplace.
It has already happened successfully in mobile telephony; it is already happening now in the marketplace as new investment is going in.
However, we have to encourage investment in the backbone capacity that will carry these services and encourage people to develop the new services that will take advantage of that increased capacity.
What we are talking about is moving from the relatively small knowledge pipelines that are coming into our houses and our businesses to much larger pipelines of knowledge.
New services will be delivered with them. For example, a full-length movie will be delivered in seconds rather than hours, as it is at the moment.
In conclusion, we look forward to hearing how the Commission is going to encourage that development of fast Internet access, how it is going to stimulate that provision across the Member States, what further action may be necessary, and what further support we can give to this crucial aim for the future of the European economy.
My special thanks to the honourable Member; this is indeed an exceptional issue which is a top priority not just in the European Parliament and the Commission but in each individual portfolio, because an electronic Europe is at the top of everyone's agenda.
The summit in Lisbon called for cheap, high-speed networks for accessing the Internet.
For reasons which you yourself explained, this is the cornerstone of a European knowledge-based economy, the cornerstone of policy for a Europe of justice, equality and inclusion.
As you state in your question, Internet access charges are an important factor.
There is the matter of flat-rate charges for access - as you quite rightly said, there is a problem of terminology and how to translate terms into all the languages and I have to say here that there were words which I recognised in English but not in Greek - so, flat-rate charges for access based on flat-rate connections by Internet service providers and the new telecommunications companies which have taken over the networks of the former monopolies.
The national regulations of four Member States, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain and France require the former monopolies to provide all market factors with flat-rate Internet access.
This is known as the FRIACO principle, which means Flat Rate Internet Access Call Origination.
This service will soon be up and running in Italy too.
The industry maintains that FRIACO results in increased use of the Internet and, because there are no time charges, users spend more time on the Internet and become Internet literate.
It also maintains that, with all these FRIACO services, consumer demand for broadband access and services is increasing.
The Commission welcomes the decisions by the regulatory authorities in the Member States which I referred to earlier and encourages the use of this model in the other Member States.
The Commission's support and encouragement take the following forms: first in the open network provision committee, the forum chaired by the European Union, in which the regulatory authorities and the ministries of the Member States are represented in their advisory and regulatory capacity.
This issue will again be on the agenda of the open network provision committee at its meeting on 20 February 2002.
Secondly, in the seventh publication on the application of the package of regulatory arrangements in the telecommunications sector which it submitted to the European Parliament and the Council in December 2001 and in which it specifically supports flat-rate narrowband Internet access as a gateway to broadband access.
Similarly, as you too mentioned, binding decisions have been taken within the wider context of the continuing implementation of the e-Europe action plan.
The Commission is also making sure the regulation on unbundling local loops is applied correctly.
Unbundled access to local loops allows newcomers to compete with established service providers by providing high-speed data transmission services and constant Internet access using digital subscriber line technology.
The Commission also referred to this aspect of high-speed Internet access in its seventh publication, together with the provision of equal access to high-speed Internet access services retailed by established service providers.
The Commission is also encouraging guaranteed fair and equal terms for the provision of short leased lines which take costs into account. These are another form of access to the Internet and are important mainly to small companies and companies using the data services of newcomers to the telecommunications market.
So the Commission is clearly operating at two levels.
On one level it is backing specific cooperation policies and the use of models which are already a success, and I have said how, and on the other level it is monitoring the application of binding decision such as regulations which, of course, play a very important role.
As far as disseminating and consolidating broadband technology is concerned, the Commission acknowledges in its report to the European Council in Barcelona that this technology is not at present being provided and used by the Member States as quickly as we would expect.
This being so, the Commission has proposed to the European Council that it set a target date of 2005 for the provision of broadband technology throughout the European Union.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Rail freight in the Channel Tunnel
The next item is the joint debate on:
the oral question (B5-0004/02) by Mr Savary and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission on rail freight in the Channel tunnel;
the oral question (B5-0005/02) by Mr Davies and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission on rail freight in the Channel tunnel.
Mr President, since 7 November the SNCF has suspended all cross-Channel rail freight services because of fears for the safety of its staff at Calais following threats from those seeking to enter the UK illegally.
As a result, Channel Tunnel freight services are now in a state of deep crisis.
However, we are pleased today that both French MEPs and British Labour MEPs have pushed for a debate, and indeed that the ELDR Group has joined us in calling this debate this afternoon.
We need cooperation, not conflict, to resolve this particular problem.
No more naming and shaming, no more buck-passing; we need the British government, the French government, the SNCF, Eurotunnel, EWS and others to start working together more effectively.
A lot has been done, but there is a lot to do.
Added to my list is the European Commission.
Articles 28 to 30 of the Treaty and Regulation 2679/98 guarantee the free movement of goods.
That means free movement through the Channel Tunnel.
I thank the Commissioner for intervening in this particular crisis and for responding positively to requests from myself and others.
In the past few days a security fence has been built and we welcome that.
But policing is still only between the hours of 9 p.m. and 3 a.m.
We hope to be able to persuade our French colleagues of the need for 24-hour policing and adequate police numbers.
We need the SNCF to resume services as soon as possible and we need urgent modifications to locomotives to ensure they do not need to stop at Calais purely for technical reasons.
These are practical measures that will make a big difference in the short term.
We hope you, Commissioner, will continue to act to ensure that this vital link in the single market is restored.
Mr President, the Commission is worried about the fall in rail freight due to security problems at the SNCF station.
This situation is having an adverse impart on the distribution of freight transport services between the modes of transport on this important route.
This is damaging rail transport and runs counter to the Commission's collective view of the role of rail transport, as set out in the White Paper presented in September 2001.
The partial suspension of rail traffic through the Tunnel is reducing the use made of its potential and, as a consequence, the return on the investment in this vital European transport infrastructure.
The Commission has been fully apprised of the situation since it emerged in November.
In application of Regulation No 2679/98 on the free movement of goods, the Commission services asked the French authorities to take all the necessary measures to restore the smooth flow of traffic back in November.
They also asked for regular reports on developments in the situation.
According to our most recent information, the situation has improved slightly.
The police are patrolling the area, rail capacity has been increased, where possible, from 1,200 to 1,600 tonnes.
Work on the Frethun freight terminal started in December and a reinforced fence is expected to be completed at the beginning of February.
Security installations on the site, such as video cameras and heat detectors, will be in place by the end of June.
Contacts with the French authorities will be maintained, Commissioner Bolkestein has suggested meeting his French and British counterparts and the ministers responsible for the internal market in order to discuss the matter on the fringe of the next Market Council on 1 March.
Our objective is to restore the free movement of goods by June at the latest, once all the work on the terminal has been completed.
My last comment refers to asylum and external border controls.
The policy of the Union and the Member States on asylum and external border controls is also in jeopardy.
The Commission believes that approving harmonised rules will help stop certain Member States from being more attractive than others and it has already tabled proposals along these lines.
Mr President, we used to have a joke in the United Kingdom about there being fog in the Channel and the continent therefore being cut off.
Now it seems more a case of people loose in the Tunnel and trains and trade cut off - which is altogether more serious.
The effects of the restrictions are very damaging to free movement and employment: thousands of jobs are at risk.
I have to say that for those affected, removing the restrictions by June sounds a very long way off.
The problem is the proximity of the Sangatte camp for refugees: it is too close and should be moved, and makes policing very difficult.
This Tunnel is an asset and enterprise which is jointly owned and benefits both France and Britain, as well as the wider Community of Member States.
It is probably the single most important physical link drawing Britain and the continent together.
The difficulty of policing illegal immigrants is damaging to this process and must be resolved soon.
I call on the Commission to press the French authorities to take action.
I call on the United Kingdom government to offer more assistance to its French counterparts and to the hauliers and businesses concerned, rather than seeming to turn a blind eye to their concerns and difficulties and spending more time harassing truck drivers and train operators with prosecutions and fines.
The authorities need to take action and not take it out on other innocent parties.
Mr President, firstly, I should like to pay respect to my colleagues Mr Watts, Mr Savary and Mrs Darras for bringing this point to the House for our consideration.
It is ironic that I speak on this subject because, as a rapporteur, I helped push through this House the issue of free movement of goods at border areas where there was disruption.
Primarily it was meant to attack the issue of industrial relations at borders.
But this is interesting: I praise and applaud the Commission's lateral thinking about the application of these articles that have been laid before them.
I knew then, as I know now, that the requirements set down in that particular set of articles were merely mechanistic, that it comes down to political goodwill.
People here today will appreciate that it requires all parties to pay attention to what is happening at the Channel Tunnel and to make sure that they do not allow it to be obscured by the mere arguments, cultural or political, that exist there.
There are problems.
In this particular issue there are problems of slender resources - we understand that - whether of the police or of security personnel at the areas where they are involved.
But we need to get freight through unfettered.
Let us also recognise that this is an international problem.
People have been displaced as a consequence of wars and of major disruption and there are also economic émigrés who will pay any price to get into the UK.
Quite often it is a price paid to criminal gangs, there to exploit the motivation of these people.
Real solutions, therefore, lie in the hands of politicians coordinating their actions at government level.
Peace and development in the areas of the world facing crisis are also what we must strive for.
In France we have also seen, all too unfortunately, human tragedy that has left in our minds the human aspect of all that is going on there.
The attempts of the French authorities to tighten security are welcome.
The highest level of vigilance must continue to be demanded, as Mr Watts has said.
Attending to this question in the House confirms the international status and interest which it deserves.
Not just the Channel Tunnel, but other issues as well, will be resolved by such processes.
This gives us just such a platform to launch that process.
Mr President, first of all I would be grateful if Commissioner Diamantopoulou would convey to Commissioner de Palacio my personal thanks for the work that I know the Commissioner has already undertaken in this regard.
Coming from one of the more remote parts of Europe, namely Scotland, it is so important for us to be connected with the centre.
The problems we face at the moment are acute.
I refer to exports and the logistical problems that are being created, as well as the problems for the rail freight companies generally.
What is an acute problem could, if matters are not dealt with properly, become a chronic one.
Commissioner Diamantopoulou has already referred to the fact that what is happening with the Channel Tunnel is counterproductive to the policy which we all want to see pursued, namely that of getting freight on to the railways and off the roads.
Given the present situation within the United Kingdom, the difficulties that it has in exporting and the railways there, and looking to the future of the whole transport policy of the European Union, I sincerely hope that as much pressure as possible can be brought to bear from all quarters to get this problem resolved as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I follow Mrs Attwooll as one of the other Members for Scotland in this House.
I am very grateful to Mr Watson and to the Liberal colleagues who put forward the questions which promote this debate today. It is a vital debate.
To try and make the point Mrs Attwooll was making yet more vivid, 30 miles away from the house in which I live in Edinburgh, midway between Edinburgh and Glasgow, at the town of Motherwell, lies the most northerly freight outpost of the trans-European network into the United Kingdom, the Motherwell Eurocentral depot.
We have been told in recent weeks that the carrier out of that port, EWS, will not be able to afford to continue providing a service out of Scotland at the current available number of trains per day.
It would be a crisis for Scotland, and therefore a crisis for transport across the Union, if that happened.
It is well known, for example, that the Scotch whisky industry depends heavily on rail freight to get malt scotch and blended scotch into the European market.
Heavy losses are being made on a vitally important trade.
In these circumstances it is encouraging to be told that the Commission takes this matter seriously, but it is not encouraging to be told that all will be well by June, because the information we are receiving from the commercial parties involved is that they cannot last until June at present levels.
This is a time when people throughout the European Union people are asking themselves the question: Do we obtain the benefits which we are promised from our membership of the European Union?
These benefits particularly relate to the opportunity to trade freely across the Union.
Other benefits which have been promised are those arising from intermodal transport - that not everything should go on the roads. That affects not just people in Scotland; it even more affects people down the motorway routes through England, if far too much heavy freight traffic goes down there.
We need traffic on the railways. We also need traffic by sea.
We are very grateful to Commissioner de Palacio for the work she has put into securing the new ferry link between Scotland and Zeebrugge, but if we are going to have a sensible transport policy which really does spread the load and save the roads from excessive use by heavy traffic, we must have this railway line kept open.
I am grateful to colleagues who have raised this question.
I am grateful to the Commission for taking it seriously; but I want to know as well what compensation will be available to ensure that those who have lost money are not prevented from trading altogether by the uneconomic conditions now prevailing on this route.
Mr President, the free movement of people, goods and services - one of the cornerstones of the internal market - is in various ways at stake in this matter.
The free movement of people, but also of goods, should not lead to the unverifiable movement of asylum seekers as a result of open borders.
Untenable situations have arisen at the Eurotunnel caused by stowaways on trains. As a consequence of this, restrictions have been in place for three months now, as a result of which the volume of goods by rail through the tunnel has at least halved.
This loss of turnover causes disproportionate damage to the Channel Tunnel operator, who is not even certain that the sanctions for stowaways are now in place.
The discussion on the White Paper on transport policy is in full swing.
Despite all the differences of opinion, almost everyone involved is agreed that the growth in the transport of goods must not unilaterally end up on the roads.
Rail, in addition to water, is a sound alternative.
The restricted use of the Eurotunnel has forced many companies to transport goods by road for the time being.
There is a fear that, once again, the reputation of rail transport will incur lasting damage.
In order for transport capacity to recover, the underlying problem has to be solved.
This is not the place to discuss the problem and tragedy of illegal immigrants in Europe.
However, the asylum policies of the two countries on either side of the Eurotunnel is undeniably responsible for the drastic decline in the transport of goods by rail though the tunnel.
The United Kingdom has to contend with the dubious reputation of pursuing a flexible immigration policy and of hardly fighting illegal employment.
Whether this is an accurate description or not, the British government fails at any rate to discourage refugees.
On the other hand, French asylum policy can be referred to as being two-faced.
The large stream of refugees via France is not stopped until they reach the Eurotunnel and are held at the camp near Sangatte.
This amounts to a concentration of hundreds of desperate people only 3 km away from the Eurotunnel, the gateway to England, their country of destination.
Locked up in a camp within walking distance of the gate to the other side. Surely this is tantamount to leaving the fox to watch the geese!
Asylum seekers deserve our sympathy, for they too are ultimately the victims of ambiguous rules, random implementation and inadequate inspection.
It is high time that the French authorities detained the asylum seekers in France, for example near an international airport, from where, upon being refused admittance, they can return to their own countries.
The sad images from Frethun require both the Commission and the Council to do everything in their power, not only to remove this impediment, but also to tackle the cause.
They must not be allowed to shirk their responsibilities while the market for the transport of goods is being disrupted in this way.
Mr President, I am truly perplexed by the oral questions tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party on the disrupted Channel Tunnel rail freight services. This disruption was caused by refugees trying to enter Great Britain illegally.
Judging by the oral questions tabled, the main, or even the only problem, is that of the disruption to the freedom of movement of goods through the Channel Tunnel, and therefore the losses incurred by rail freight companies which could be exacerbated - I shudder at the thought - by unfair competition between the various methods of transport to the detriment of the railways.
Like my fellow Members, I strongly regret the losses incurred by the rail freight companies and I would even add that, in my view, it is illogical that France, whose socialist government bears the responsibility for this matter, is not severely punished, morally and financially, for its inability to maintain public order.
However, I would also like to say, ladies and gentlemen, that this matter poses much wider and much more serious societal problems than just unfair competition between private operators.
That is why I will add a set of additional questions to those tabled by the PSE and ELDR Groups.
First of all, some of the people who attempt to enter Great Britain illegally are asylum seekers, but some are illegal immigrants, even in France.
How do many illegal immigrants manage to reach the heart of Europe, having passed several internal borders, without being noticed? This is a fundamental issue that should be resolved.
Furthermore, what measures are being taken to immediately escort these illegal immigrants back to the European Union' s external border?
My second question refers to the fact that a large number of asylum seekers who attempt to enter Great Britain are from Afghanistan.
However, as far as I know, the Taliban regime has now been eliminated and these people can return home.
What measures are therefore being taken to repatriate them?
My third and final question refers to some people's belief that if we had a single European asylum policy, we would not have such problems.
Of course, this might mean that refugees would no longer receive unequal treatment in different European Union countries. But does the Commission think that the overall number of asylum seekers would go down?
If it does, how exactly would this be achieved? On the other hand, this might mean that if the European asylum standards were aligned at a high level - which is what the Commission regularly states it intends to do - the overall number of asylum seekers in the European Union would significantly increase.
Mr President, I join my Scottish colleagues in asking the Commissioner to help us to resolve this situation as urgently as possible.
It may surprise the Commissioner to have such a representation from Scotland, but Scotland is probably one of the greatest victims of this situation in the Channel Tunnel.
Because of the reduction in transit through the Tunnel, we do not have a mere three services a night - we have none, because the service from Scotland to the continent has been withdrawn completely.
As Mr MacCormick said, it is no longer possible to transport Scotch whisky to the Continent or to send our microcircuits to Paris, Frankfurt or Milan.
But more than that: it is no longer possible for us to import parts and continental products by train.
Costs for both exports and imports are increasing, as are road congestion and pollution.
A service which did something to bring Scotland closer to the golden triangle of Europe has been lost, and so Scotland returns to the periphery.
This is a tragedy, and why? Because we seem incapable of organising our immigration systems on a European basis and of providing adequate security to ensure that any such arrangement works.
Clearly there are faults on the French side of La Manche and on the English side of the English Channel, but the victims are my constituents - hundreds of miles from Dover and Calais - in Scotland.
I call upon the UK government to resolve its immigration system, in collaboration with its neighbours, so that it does not attract tens of thousands of desperate people.
It is surely not coincidental that the UK is one of the only European countries without identity cards.
I call upon the French authorities, from their old allies of the Auld Alliance, their Scottish cousins, to enforce real security at their end of the Tunnel so that the rail freight service to and from Scotland can be resumed.
I call upon the Commissioner and the Commission to knock all their heads together urgently in order to reach a solution to this absurd state of affairs.
Mr President, I apologise for my late arrival and I would like to thank you for rescheduling my speech to a later time.
The reason why we tabled this question is because the public sees the problem at the Eurotunnel site - since it involves two large European countries and also since it concerns our security and asylum policy - as requiring intervention by the European Union.
We cannot let this situation rumble on, as it would then illustrate Europe' s lack of power.
This situation also implies that we have envisaged solutions that can be applied to other borders and to other locations that are under pressure from migration.
We are therefore calling, since the asylum policy and judicial and security policy are not sufficiently harmonised, for the Commission to work with France and Great Britain so that strong measures can be taken in three areas.
The first area is to re-establish, as far as possible, the freedom of movement, particularly that of rail freight in the Channel Tunnel.
What is happening, despite considerable investment by the rail operators and the SNCF in particular, contradicts our policy of moving towards using rail rather than road.
The second area is that if we fail to harmonise security legislation and mechanisms, we must take coordinated and coherent measures in the two countries to combat those involved in human trafficking, by increasing controls and introducing stiffer penalties, as this activity constitutes an intolerable attack on human rights and is a shameful trade.
As far as the third area is concerned, what is happening at Eurotunnel demonstrates the urgent need to harmonise Europe' s asylum policy.
This is because what is happening there, and what France and England are being remonstrated for, is a problem which may concern all European Union countries in the future.
We know, thanks to the experience of what is happening throughout the world, that there will never be a perfect and wholly reliable solution, given the disorder in the world and the growing disparities between North and South.
The first and most important solution, the fundamental solution is, of course, to have a much more generous and more balanced development policy.
However, since we do not have this and as a short-term measure, I think that we must implement common measures in the two countries, so that we can ruthlessly track the people who trade on illusions - human traffickers, in other words.
I think that this is very important.
Lastly, I personally hope that, rather than leaving the these two countries to face their responsibilities alone, we find, with the help of the Commission, measures which are strong enough to be held up as an example and that can be applied to other locations in Europe.
Mr President, clearly we are having trouble applying one of the basic principles of a free Europe, the principle of the free movement of goods.
Numerous approaches have been voiced, from the possibility of invoking articles in the Treaty to intervention by the Commission to persuade the French government to act more quickly.
The current legislation of the European Union allows the Commission to institute infringement proceedings against a Member State found to be obstructing the free movement of goods.
However, these proceedings are subject to strict criteria when the obstacle is created by a few private individuals and the Commission can only act if the authorities in question fail to take the necessary measures.
This clearly does not apply in the present case.
Serious efforts are being made, contacts between the Commission and the French government have proven useful and we shall continue to work along these lines.
The French government has already closed the site in question, a study has been carried out and initial efforts have been made to install the technology required but, of course, the level of policing, the number of police officers required and the installation of the high-tech equipment needed are matters for the French government.
The second point I should like to make brings us to the root of the problem.
Why has traffic been suspended? Why are there constantly problems with train traffic through the tunnel?
Why are illegal immigrants trespassing on various sites used by rail freight transporters? I think, as several Members have said, that the root of the problem is to be found in common European policy; we need a common asylum policy to discourage immigrants from trying to reach specific Member States.
So the Commission has already tabled a number of proposals on procedures and rules for granting refugee status and minimum common requirements for receiving asylum seekers.
Another proposal sets criteria and mechanisms for determining the Member State responsible for examining asylum applications.
These proposals stipulate that, if an asylum seeker remains in one Member State for an extended period, then that Member State is responsible for examining the asylum application.
This means, in this particular case, that asylum seekers will be unable to acquire refugee status in Britain after an extended period in France.
So I think that, when it comes to finding an immediate solution to a problem which is having a significant impact on certain areas, especially remote areas in Scotland, as well as on the European continent, and on trade relations with Great Britain, the French government alone is responsible.
It needs to take action as quickly as possible to complete the plan submitted and it is working with Great Britain and the Commission in order to do so.
As far as a long-term solution to the problem is concerned because, as numerous Members have said today, the problem today may be on the border between France and Great Britain, but tomorrow it could well surface somewhere else in Europe, we need a fast decision on a common asylum policy at European level.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
Ladies and gentlemen, the sitting is suspended until voting time at 6.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 6.10 p.m. and resumed at 6.30 p.m.)
Vote
Report (A5-0010/2002) by Mr Koukiadis, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission report: 'State of implementation of Council Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time ( 'Working Time Directive' )' (COM(2000) 787 - C5-0147/2001 - 2001/2073(COS)).
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Koukiadis report (A5-0010/2002)
Bonde and Sandbæk (EDD), in writing.
(DA) We have chosen to abstain from voting on the overall report.
We believe that implementation of the directive in Denmark - characterised as inadequate by the Commission - would undermine the Danish system of agreements in the long term.
Denmark had chosen to implement the directive on the basis of the collective agreements and so hand the matter over to the two sides of industry.
Because, following pressure from the Commission, the directive is, however, shortly to be elevated to the status of law in Denmark, we can only express our dissatisfaction with the Commission' s interference in a system that operates well.
We nonetheless support the general improvements proposed by the report, including more precise definitions of concepts, for the wordings of quite a few definitions have led to misinterpretations during the implementation of the directive.
It is important that the text should be clarified in many areas so that employees' rights are protected and there is improved health and safety in the workplace.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 6.40 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I hereby declare resumed the session adjourned on Thursday, 7 February 2002.
Statement by the President
Mr President, thank you for that statement.
We will send someone to Colombia to see what we can do as a European Group and we hope, within a few weeks, to have a different option than simply to deplore that our candidate has been kidnapped.
Order of business
I move now to the order of business.
Mrs Pack, I understand that you wish to make a request concerning the agenda for Thursday.
Let me then make a proposal which the House in its wisdom is at liberty to accept or reject.
In the light of this request I propose taking the three reports from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport in separate debates.
(The House agreed to this proposal)
Mr President, you proposed a change to the agenda based on the Council' s availability, which, of course, we understand.
Basically, your proposal is to take Mr MacCormick' s reports on the waiver of parliamentary immunity now and, whatever the quality of the work by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, which gave its opinion on the two reports last week, we believe that the time we have been given to examine the two requests for the waiver of parliamentary immunity might be insufficient.
We also believe, in the interests of holding a good debate, in order for our parliamentary democracy and the essential procedure of parliamentary immunity to function properly, in order for us all to be able to give our honest opinion, having had the opportunity to examine all the documents and in order that we do not give poorly informed opinions, that it would have been better to place the two reports on the agenda of the Strasbourg part-session.
I hope that the House can support us in this decision.
Rule 6(6) is very clear: "The report of the committee shall be placed at the head of the agenda of the first sitting following the day on which it was tabled".
Under the Rules I am suggesting the correct procedure today.
The rule itself is very clear and it does not seem to fall within the discretion of the President or, at this moment, of the House itself, to alter that rule.
I understand and appreciate the point you make about political preparation but it seems to me that this must remain on our order of business in order to respect the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, this change to the agenda was not taken into account when you made your proposal.
This change is directly related to the Council' s availability.
Until now, it has always been customary to examine waivers for parliamentary immunity at the Strasbourg part-sessions.
I understand perfectly well, therefore, that we placed this issue at the head of Monday' s agenda, but I do not think this was what was intended, especially after last week' s vote by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Madam Berès I made the suggestion to take the McCormick report at 4 p.m. because of the lack of availability of the President-in-Office, not on the assumption that the reports would not have been taken today.
Our agenda, as originally foreseen for today, was to be led by the Council on the Barcelona Council.
Mr McCormick's reports would ordinarily under our Rules of Procedure have appeared in today's agenda.
My announcement was simply to reverse the order on the grounds of the absence of the Council.
Decisions taken at today's meeting
The next item is the communication by the President of the European Commission, Mr Prodi, on the annual political strategy for next year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure today to inform you about three important matters dealt with by the Commission.
I need to be clear but also go into some detail in this speech, and so I apologise if it gets a little boring!
I will deal first with the Commission's political priorities for 2003, then with the Commission's human and financial resources and, lastly, with the Convention which is going to start work tomorrow.
First, then, the Commission's political priorities for 2003, which will be one of the most important stages in the organisation of our political life.
This year, for the first time, the three main institutions will conduct an in-depth dialogue on the political priorities and the legislative working programme for the coming year.
We shall do so on the basis of the new understanding presented at the Conference of Presidents on 31 January.
For next year, we have identified three priorities: enlargement, stability and security and a sustainable and inclusive economy.
Fully successful enlargement has been a top priority for this Commission since the beginning of its mandate, and enlargement will therefore remain a key priority throughout the second part of my term of office.
In this context, 2003 will be a very important year, in which we must all be ready to assume our full responsibilities towards the new Member States.
We must be ready to welcome into the Commission our colleagues from the new Member States and to face new challenges.
Let me remind you that if we complete the enlargement negotiations in 2002, then 2003 must be the pivotal year when we prepare ourselves to make sure that enlargement goes ahead smoothly on 1 January 2004.
During 2003, therefore, the Commission intends to do several things.
Firstly, we must help the future Member States prepare to fully assume all the responsibilities arising from accession. Secondly, we must make sure the Commission fulfils all its obligations from the very first day of accession.
Thirdly, we must rethink Community policies. This will be the most significant enlargement in the entire history of European integration, and it is essential that we reflect on what common policies the enlarged Union will need.
However, if enlargement is to be a total success, we must also give a high profile to the other two priorities I mentioned just now.
Indeed, the three subjects we are talking about today are closely linked.
First and foremost, stability and security.
Within the Union, our main objective is to step up progress towards a European area of justice, security and freedom.
Therefore, the fight against crime in all its forms - including terrorism, or rather, starting with terrorism - is and will remain at the top of our agenda.
I also believe that there needs to be particular focus on all the complex effects of immigration.
Outside the Union, another of our priorities is to spread stability and security throughout our continent and to the regions bordering on the enlarged Union.
To achieve this, we need to strengthen our partnerships with neighbouring countries.
The reinvigoration of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership must do more than seek to establish a market place: it must create a genuine community of good neighbours.
To this end, we shall pursue our strategy of strengthening the Barcelona process.
In particular, on the economic front, we shall seek to develop joint projects and initiatives together with the countries on the Mediterranean's southern shore through a new financial institution based on the EIB's operation - notably, this morning, we approved the idea that it should be an institution in which the EIB holds the majority share - on the basis of the guidelines the Commission has, indeed, adopted.
Furthermore, we shall spare no efforts in seeking to help resolve the conflict in the Middle East, where the most recent developments have, at last, generated a glimmer of hope after months of tragedy.
We shall also move forward with the association and stabilisation process in the Balkans and, in the wider world, we shall continue to support the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
Our third priority for 2003 is a sustainable, inclusive economy.
I believe it will not be long before the economy recovers, but a lot depends on how resolutely the EU implements the Lisbon Strategy.
Indeed, the external dimension of this strategy is particularly important as it can help us direct the path of globalisation and ensure that its benefits are shared as widely as possible.
To achieve this, we shall be fighting on several fronts. Firstly, the negotiations begun at Doha will be entering a crucial phase, not this year but in 2003.
Then we must ensure that the Kyoto commitments are implemented. Finally, we must improve the global partnership between north and south, practically affirming Europe's solidarity with Africa.
Proper discussions will be opened on these issues at Monterrey in a few weeks' time. The situation is certainly not the most encouraging, there is certainly no cause for optimism in our - at last serious - commitment to the Developing World, but the Commission undertakes to work in this sphere.
My second subject for today is the analysis of the Commission's human and financial resources.
Our Annual Policy Strategy does not simply identify the key political priorities; it also seeks to ensure that the Commission has sufficient resources for its tasks.
This is the commitment I gave at the start of my term of office, and it is now becoming reality as we achieve coherence between policy decisions, planned activities and resources.
This Commission has never undertaken to do anything without having the necessary resources and will never do so.
We must therefore ensure - and this is the plan we are working on - that optimum use is made of human resources.
We have made every endeavour to improve the situation, through productivity gains, negative priorities - identifying tasks to be abandoned, that is - and internal redeployment.
At this point, however, we cannot prepare properly for enlargement without more staff.
There is absolutely no doubt about that if you consider, for example, that the number of languages used - in Parliament too, of course, and in all the work of the different institutions - will almost double.
As you know, the Commission must also be ready to ensure application of the Community acquis right from day one of accession.
This means we have to complete all aspects of enlargement preparations by the end of 2003.
To this end, precisely with a view to preparing gradually for enlargement, after rigorous analysis, the Commission has requested 500 non-permanent staff in its Annual Policy Strategy for 2003.
We all know that the current ceiling for administrative expenditure does not allow sufficient resources to cover preparations for enlargement.
The Commission therefore considers it essential to use the flexibility instrument it has proposed.
This request for 500 non-permanent staff in 2003 forms part of a global package of staffing needs to cope with enlargement, and it is derived from a detailed analysis of all the activities the Commission will have to perform in future.
The complete results of this analysis will appear in the preliminary draft budget for 2003 and will be presented for debate in this House.
Our other two priorities - security and an inclusive economy - give the Commission additional responsibilities too.
However, in order not to have to ask for yet more staff we have decided to approve new initiatives only if they can be carried out by redeploying our existing staff and/or by phasing out some of our existing activities.
This shows how seriously and responsibly the Commission is committed to its priorities and also to budgetary discipline. Apart from anything else, the Commissioner for the Budget is here and she is watching to make sure that I respect this undertaking.
With regard to financial resources, the Commission and the Budgetary Authority must urgently find a more structural solution to the permanent overstretching of external relations Heading 4.
No action can be totally efficient under the current constraints: in other words, we are wasting resources.
Last year's international developments, and especially the events of 11 September and the ensuing war in Afghanistan, showed once again that the Union needs specific mechanisms for making the extra funds it needs for crisis intervention swiftly available.
This is of the utmost importance if we are genuinely to strengthen the European Union' s voice in the world.
The breakdown in Heading 4 that the Commission proposes therefore accommodates crucial political priorities such as Afghanistan, the Euro-Mediterranean Bank and the Global Health Fund, without jeopardising our other fields of external action.
I would therefore urge this House and the Council to address the issue of resources as soon as possible, for the actions I have mentioned cannot be put off.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, focusing on the Commission's political priorities for 2003 must not make us forget that we are on the threshold of a genuinely historic event that will shape the future of Europe.
Indeed, tomorrow, in this building, the Convention mandated to put forward proposals for the Europe of the twenty-first century and to prepare a first draft of Europe's future Constitution will meet for the very first time.
Under the present Treaties, the European Commission has the role of initiating legislation and safeguarding the general interests of the Community.
Naturally, therefore, the Commission wishes to deliver a strong political message on the Convention's significance and on its objectives.
Let me start by reminding you that the Convention is the result of the joint efforts of the European Parliament and the Commission, and we must be proud of this joint achievement, for not everybody supported the idea of a Convention some months or even weeks ago.
The Commission is therefore very pleased to see a constitutional debate on the future of Europe getting under way, especially as most of the Convention' s members will be elected representatives of the people, not just representatives of national governments.
I am pleased to see that the appointed representatives are of a very high calibre.
No one can attempt to direct the Convention or to dictate the way it should work or the conditions it should respect.
The Convention is composed of the highest calibre people who will manage their work themselves, independently.
I believe that not only will it work freely and produce excellent results but that afterwards, ultimately, the governments will not be able to ignore its outcome when they set about reforming the Treaties.
The governments are still sovereign, of course, but the work of this Convention will have a huge impact on the future of Europe.
Of course, as we know, the Convention is open to ideas coming from civil society.
Thus, no one will be able to claim that the new Treaty is the result of negotiations between Brussels bureaucrats and diplomats from which ordinary citizens have been excluded.
We must not forget that the desire for a Convention was conceived the morning after the night of the Nice Council.
It was conceived when we realised that we could not go on like that.
It was not the result of a coincidence, it was generated by the realisation that a method had failed.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission intends to play an active role in the Convention's work via the two designated Commissioners and my own direct, personal undertaking.
We are aware of what is at stake and we can see that European integration is the only new development, the only proper institutional change being attempted in the world.
It is the only practical attempt at democratic globalisation amongst the seas of words.
However, we must also, through this Convention, propose a common plan for European society with which our citizens can identify, and we must therefore decide immediately, at the start of the Convention' s work, what we want to do together and in what kind of society we want to live in the coming years.
It is this choice of society in Europe that will determine the means we use to achieve it and the powers and responsibilities the future European Union should have, not the other way round!
Therefore, we must first decide what we want to do together and then adapt the institutional structure to suit our objectives.
We believe that the Community method is still a suitable instrument, the instrument that has distinguished and characterised Europe' s greatness thus far.
However, we cannot take the conservative line of simply defending it to the hilt: we shall be proposing innovative ways of adapting it to the needs of tomorrow's Europe.
I am confident that this House will support the Commission as we strive to find solutions that will ensure that the European Union' s decision-making process is both efficient and democratic.
(Applause)
Mr President, I do not at this moment want to go into the fundamental question of whether it makes sense to deal with such an important contribution to debate by the President of the Commission on the basis of who manages to catch the President's eye.
We will certainly have to discuss that on another occasion.
Mr President of the Commission, we can of course go along with everything that you have said.
You spoke about enlargement, and I would ask you to think - and perhaps say something later - about whether you in the Commission might also apply the system we want to introduce after the accession treaties are signed, that of having observers from the candidate countries here in Parliament.
Do you think it might be possible to involve figures from the candidate countries in the work of the Commission, while these countries are not, as yet, Members?
You then talked about the Mediterranean.
If it is true that around 7 000 deaths a year occur in the Mediterranean, for example among people in transit by boat from Morocco to Spain or Portugal, how can we, on the one hand, achieve an improvement in the situation in these countries, and, on the other, make the prevention of these pitiable people's deaths an achievement for our security policy?
You spoke about the Mediterranean Bank, which can be a positive element to which we are not opposed, but no structures must be created in addition to the European Investment Bank.
I would therefore be grateful if you could say something about that.
You spoke about stability, and, as far as stability and the repatriation of debts in national budgets are concerned, I would like to encourage the Commission to keep on course and write your warning letter, as you had planned, ...
... to both these Member States.
I find it an unacceptable system in which those who are at the end of the day to be criticised, themselves decide whether such criticism should be meted out!
I think we need quite new ways of forming judgments in this area.
My final observation, Mr President, is perhaps aimed more at us ourselves, but I would be grateful if the President of the Commission could say something about it.
(Interruptions)
Just calm down!
It is your convictions too that I am expressing.
The Council is not here today.
I do not want to criticise anybody, but we must prepare for the future, and for the reform of the Council, by ensuring that the Council is represented when the President of the Commission makes an important statement in this House.
This is not now aimed solely at the Spanish Presidency; it is a topic of general relevance to the reform of the Council.
I believe that there is an urgent need for reforms to the European Council of Ministers!
(Applause)
Before I call on the President of the Commission, I would like to observe, Mr Poettering, that was a long minute and point out that Council was not expected to be here.
Our debate on the strategy for next year is planned for 20 March.
Normally when we question the Commission in these circumstances, we do so without the presence of the Council.
Mr Poettering, I am very happy to answer your questions and I will try to be as brief as possible.
You raised the question of observers coming from the candidate countries to visit the Commission.
In my opinion, this is a good idea.
Technically, it will not be easy, but if we want the Commission to be able to work up to speed as soon as enlargement has taken place, we must start to establish this relationship of training and learning now.
It will not be easy because the candidate countries are not, of course, as yet in a position to decide who their future Commissioners will be, and the rules are not yet quite clear.
I can assure you, however, that we are addressing the issue and we intend to resolve it openly and constructively.
The second point is security.
I have always maintained that, like all serious problems, the major issue of macro-immigration is something that cannot be resolved at national level.
It is absolutely impossible for the problem of the great waves of migration from the east and the south to be resolved purely by national measures.
European cooperation is needed, and so we must conclude this element of the Tampere agenda and work together on protecting borders, as we proposed.
A further point is the Euro-Mediterranean Development Bank.
What were the political and economic aims behind this?
We have seen increasing dissatisfaction on the part of the southern Mediterranean countries in recent years, caused by our favouring the east - as they put it, in clear, direct terms.
I explained that, in effect, we had been compelled by history to undertake this enlargement immediately but that I was committed to setting up a strategy for the south as soon as possible.
This we have done.
The bank could have merely been a fund or a facility, as has been suggested - that is a fund set up for the purpose - or it could have been a genuine bank.
A bona fide bank will have greater autonomy, a greater capacity to intervene in the private sector and greater flexibility, and, most importantly, it will be in a better position to perform an education role, to get the leaders of the countries of the southern Mediterranean to work together with our people.
We therefore decided on a bank, but we do share your concern, Mr Poettering, the concern of everybody here and in the Member States, not to create another minor bank and further bureaucracy when there is a European Investment Bank which is already dealing - with extraordinary success - with EUR 9 billion of investments in the southern Mediterranean.
I would inform you that there have been no cases of default on payment, except with regard to the investments made in Gaza, and you will understand why that might be the case there. We want to capitalise on this experience and so the Commission has proposed a bank.
However, the major shareholders in the bank will be the European Investment Bank, the Commission, the share-holding countries and, most importantly, the countries of the southern Mediterranean. Although these countries will, of course, start off with a fairly small share, their role in the bank itself will increase with time.
With regard to the last point, I do not feel the Commission needs to give Parliament any explanation of how it is dealing with the matter.
It has fulfilled its obligations and mandates consistently and complied with the need to give early warnings where the figures showed that this was necessary.
We have not carried out any special assessments.
We have complied with our primary obligation, which is to fulfil our mandates, and will continue to do so in the future.
Mr President, a complaint and three messages.
The complaint is that we are experts in devaluing important debates.
This is the most important debate in terms of the European Parliament' s work over the next year and we are dealing with it as if it were a question of procedure and a rubber-stamping debate.
I believe that this is absurd and things should not be done in this way.
As for the messages; firstly, I would address the Commission.
Mr President of the Commission, in December we criticised you, but now we must welcome the Commission' s efforts and I am quite happy to say that the Vice-President, Mrs de Palacio, has actively contributed to our reaching an agreement which makes it possible for there to be a legislative programme and a work programme.
Please carry on in this way.
Specifically, you have asked us to support you in relation to having more civil servants and more resources in order to deal with enlargement.
I would remind you that Parliament already indicated in Agenda 2000 that enlargement could not take place without amending the forecasts for 2000.
You have added Afghanistan and other priorities.
The Council should be hearing this because it is the Council which is most intransigent.
No representative of the Council is present.
I have noticed that Mr Poettering, in a display of generosity, has not applied the Poettering doctrine; I imagine that if the Secretary of State comes, he will apply it; he will say that it should be a Minister.
But, in any event, it is important that the Council should also hear this message from the Commission.
You have our support.
Mr President, I am not going to go into detail on each of the issues because they are all very important and there is a degree of convergence.
I will make a final point. In relation to the Convention, we are in agreement; I also welcome the fact that you said it was a joint initiative of Parliament and the Commission.
This morning I read some headlines in a prominent Italian newspaper which said that it had been you alone.
I am delighted that you have countered what the Italian press has said by pointing out that it has been a joint effort.
Mr President, Parliament wanted something like the Convention before the Charter of Fundamental Rights. It wanted it afterwards and it wants it now.
I believe this is very important.
Mr President of the Commission, you are the guardians of the Treaties, and my specific question is, are you prepared to exercise your powers of initiative in the Convention in order to preserve and strengthen the Community method?
Here is a brief response to a brief question.
Thank you, Mr Barón Crespo, for your positive comments on our progress; moreover, I said in a previous debate that my rhythm was like that of a diesel engine, and diesel engines take a while to get going but then run at full speed and keep going for years!
The issue of flexibility in the budget is of paramount importance.
We cannot confuse the need for rigour and your supervisory obligation and the Commission' s obligation to be subject to your supervision - which is the fundamental basis for democratic legitimacy - with the failure to be flexible and take major new events and changes into account.
This is a question of adapting to change that we must address together.
We must succeed in genuinely taking control of the budgetary changes which prove to be necessary and which are discussed and agreed on.
This is the line we are taking.
With regard to the joint effort and the comments in the Italian press, I did not say that I was alone but that I was alone the morning of the press conference, and I can assure you that I certainly was alone, for I had Mr Chirac on one side and Mr Jospin on the other, with the journalists facing me, and I can assure you that nobody dreamed of suggesting the Convention then.
Of course, Parliament had already proposed it - that is clear; it was fiercely debated but it seemed a totally unfeasible project.
It was only the negative events which made it a clear possibility, and we were able to move forward.
It is my opinion that, if that crisis had not happened, we would not have the Convention now.
Of that I am convinced, for even crises can be learning experiences.
With regard to the right of initiative, it is, of course, the great distinguishing feature of the Community institutions, marking them out from other bodies, and we are committed to it.
It is vital that we defend it, as you said, and strengthen it, but we must also adapt it, modernise it and bring it into line with Parliament' s work, for the right of initiative is not a weapon: the right of initiative is the driving force behind the institutions.
We must be totally responsible in our use of it, and that is our aim.
Mr President, President of the Commission, these are important issues you are addressing.
There is good reason for returning to them and developing this debate.
I look forward to such a debate' s being held in a few weeks' time with more detailed proposals concerning your priorities.
Allow me to thank you for your contribution to the new procedure we have now brought about.
Above all, I want to say thank you to the Vice-President of the Commission, Mrs de Palacio.
We now have a timetable and new procedures for bringing about better cooperation between the Commission and Parliament when it comes to the annual legislative and work programme.
I believe that this interaction in the form of a partnership will operate extremely well, that it will be easier for citizens and the rest of us to follow the procedures and that the follow-up will be better, etc.
I believe that, as early as in a week or so, Parliament' s different committees will enter into discussions with relevant members of the Commission.
That is an important part of the work of reforming our various institutions, both for Parliament and the Commission.
I should like to ask the President of the Commission how those in the Commission intend to proceed with the work in the White Paper, sent out in March of last year, on better forms of governance.
Many of the issues affecting democracy and the future of Europe will be discussed in the Convention but, at the same time, we of course have 'everyday issues' which also fall under the working title, 'better forms of governance' , for example increased openness, simpler procedures and increased participation on the part of citizens.
I wonder if you can say something about those matters.
A question of this kind requires only a very brief response.
Amongst other things, we are working together with the European Parliament in an interinstitutional group on precisely these matters.
Huge progress has been made, which has been widely acknowledged, and, most importantly, we have approached the issue of transparency working together with Parliament.
Clearly, we will only be able to make major changes to the rules in conjunction with the Convention, but I can assure you that we work differently now: we will be changing the rules together.
Mr President, I thank you for the commitment you demonstrated in saying, with regard to the Convention's task, that we must decide what sort of society we want and what it will demand.
My question is this: is it to be that society in which everything, including social issues, is governed by the market?
Or is it to be one in which social justice continues to be vigorously advocated and given form, with society itself taking its share of responsibility for it? Is the Europe of the twenty-first century to remain a Europe of solidarity, not only within the framework of the European Union itself, but also through cooperative partnership, for example with the states that will not only be joining the European Union, but are, moreover, still European, but not yet Members?
This is a crucial question to which, I have to say, we - all of us in Europe - have not paid enough attention.
Clearly, we are all involved in a battle in which most of us are displaying solidarity - liberalising the markets, standardising rules, streamlining systems, eliminating monopolies, abolishing privileges, which are certainly very important operations - but, and here I share Mr Modrow' s concern, we are also faced with a situation in essentially all the European countries of increased disparities.
These are facts, statistics.
I am not criticising or passing judgment.
I therefore feel that it is essential to initiate another debate on these subjects, to focus on them once again, for the European model has always been concerned with justice and solidarity as well as efficiency.
There is no doubt that, if we fail to do this, we will be sowing the seeds of Europe' s destruction.
We are, however, setting an example of solidarity.
Enlargement is a unique event, it is the only instance in the world of countries whose economic situations differ widely being brought together.
If only others in the world would try to do something similar to what we are attempting.
This is a practical display of solidarity.
We must move forwards in this direction, but I would stress that the carelessness with which all of us in Europe are currently treating these major issues of solidarity and social balance is unacceptable.
They warrant much deeper reflection at this time, and prevailing thought on these matters appears to be far too one-dimensional.
Mr President, enlargement presents us with really interesting tasks.
I believe it to be important to the public that we should build visible bridges, one example of which is the bridge between Vienna and Bratislava.
I believe that we should in fact, as part of the TEN programme - the Trans-European Networks - start on the building of visible bridges.
I wish to urge the Commission to do everything possible to enable the public to see that these bridges are a guarantee of Europe's future.
We must not just create visible bridges but rebuild those which have been destroyed as well.
Indeed, we must not forget that, although the Danube has been reopened, it is served by pontoon bridges and other partially effective remedies for the destruction of war, remedies which only allow some of the traffic to resume.
Therefore, not only have we failed to make any progress but we have actually regressed.
I feel we must dedicate more attention and resources to this than we have thus far.
Mr Prodi, I do not wish to speak about something you have decided on today, but rather on something that you have not decided today.
It is the issue of the directive on temporary work agency workers, which has been under preparation for a long time already.
I am disappointed because Parliament has been waiting since last summer for this proposal to come on the table, and I am a bit embarrassed because it seemed that it was almost finished and ready to be published, but last Monday's Financial Times has since published an article with a lot of press complaint against this proposal.
It looks as if the Commission is giving in to such pressure and postponing the decision again, so I should like to ask you whether you really are impressed by these kind of press campaigns and when are you planning to issue the proposal?
I think it is a proposal which fits in perfectly with the Barcelona summit and should be presented before that summit.
May I remind you also that the Social Affairs Council of next week has already scheduled it on its agenda.
In all sincerity, Mrs van den Burg, we do not base our agendas on what we read in the financial pages: we set them according to our own criteria.
This issue of temporary work has been scheduled for debate on 20 March for some time: we chose 20 March because we needed to fine-tune certain technical aspects since, as you know, there are certain specific rather than general solutions which impact on cost and services in the different European countries.
Therefore, approximately a month ago, when we set our agenda, we decided to give ourselves until 20 March, not least because it was not envisaged that the issue would be debated at Barcelona.
However, we will focus on this matter when the Commission meets immediately after Barcelona.
Mr President, it seems wholly appropriate to me that the Commission should focus on enlargement and on emergency situations in countries such as Afghanistan next year.
My question to the Commission is: how does it intend to fund these operations?
Is the Commission looking to fund these from existing Headings 4 and 5, in other words by shifting the funds? Is it looking to obtain extra funds from other budget headings or is it looking for a complete break from the financial perspectives and to present a completely new budget for next year?
I will give a very brief response and then Mrs Schreyer will go into the details.
We have presented a document on enlargement in which we remain within the constraints of the Berlin agenda.
We have made huge sacrifices and we have also aroused some discontent in the candidate countries, but the transfer of resources is considerable for we will be giving the new countries 4% of their national income each year, which is an absolutely huge, unprecedented amount.
I will now give the floor to Commissioner Schreyer, who will give you the breakdown of these transactions.
. (DE) Mr President, I will reply to Mr Mulder's question by saying that 2003 will of course also see a great deal of the foreign policy budget being taken up, because European policy is being faced with ever greater demands.
We will be able to raise the funds needed for Afghanistan, as promised at the Tokyo donor conference, from the foreign policy budget.
New things may also, for example, be required of us in respect of Cyprus.
If the successful outcome is actually achieved, with a political process leading to Cyprus's accession to the EU in 2004, this will mean that we will have to make preparatory funds available in 2003.
That, then, will be a new requirement - and let me add that I hope this will be so.
The Council has decided, within the framework of the common foreign and security policy, to send a police task force into Bosnia from 1 January 2003 onwards, and this too will make demands on the European budget.
I believe that we should work together on this, affirming that we also want part of this mission, being a joint action, to be jointly financed, and that is something we have to make clear.
Mr Mulder, we had the opportunity to talk about this yesterday.
The Commission has proposed a new financial instrument for crisis operations, and I am gladdened by the many expressions of support there have been for this in Parliament.
Together, perhaps, we can convince the Council that the right response would be to fund such emergency measures on a Community-wide basis.
Mr President, let me say a few words about the Mediterranean Bank.
I welcome the way the Barcelona process is being made deeper and given a more definite form.
I would again like a definite answer about something I cannot comprehend, namely why you decided against this facility, which, in this year alone, could demonstrate with what commitment we are working on a pro-active Mediterranean policy, whereas - as we learned from our experience with the foundation of the 'Bank for Eastern Europe' - a bank or its subsidiary needs a longer period of time even to become operational, and is much more expensive in terms of personnel and budget allocations.
Quite apart from that, have you even found a political solution to the problem?
If we need partners in the Arab states - where there are already so many funds that certainly not all the Arab states will get involved - what will you do if Israel also wants to participate in this bank? Would this not handicap its foundation from the start, and would it not therefore be better to start work on a facility capable of demonstrating to everyone the European Union's commitment to a Mediterranean policy?
Let me ask in conclusion: When will the Commission, as guardian of the treaties and thereby obliged to watch over the Member States' commitment to Europe as a community based on law, send a warning letter to Member States which jeopardise the rule of law?
Thank you, Mrs Randzio-Plath, for bringing the debate back to the Euro-Mediterranean Development Bank, for I have realised that there are some other issues that require clarification.
You made the direct comparison with the EIB, and it is precisely in order to avoid a long start-up period that we have opted for a structure in which the European Investment Bank holds the majority share.
The EIB has EUR 9 billion invested in that area, it has experts and an established way of operating.
I have, of course, in recent days, been in almost daily contact with President Maystadt regarding this matter, discussing the technical side of the issue.
For their part, they can see no problems or obstacles and are ready to get off to a quick start.
Moreover, in my speech just now, I stressed that there have been no defaults on payments.
Why have I mentioned this, Mrs Randzio-Plath? Because, in my opinion, this shows that the EIB is proceeding with extreme caution, that it is pursuing this policy with all possible care, but, at the same time - and this would not be possible with a facility - we can undertake operations which we have not attempted before: we can be much more active in the private sector and we can work together with local, regional and national banks, thereby greatly increasing our action; we can thus have a very different type of activity.
This structure also provides part of the answer to your second question.
I can see - and I would stress that we are still at the stage of the Commission proposal and so we can still explore the matter further - that the countries of the southern shore of the Mediterranean appear to be content with a structure with which they can form a relationship and work together and in which they can be shareholders and sit on the management board.
In other words, we have opted for this compromise formula to enable these countries to make an active, responsible contribution - they can sit on the management boards and have an active role - and, at the same time, to exploit the experience of the EIB, on which we can all rely.
Which countries will take part? It is open to the countries of the southern Mediterranean, but we have not addressed the specific issues because they will be dealt with in a political debate with the Council, nor the future debate with the third countries.
For now, I believe that it is right to take this path, to link Europe and the southern shore of the Mediterranean; to start work and see what opportunities present themselves in the future.
I can assure you, however, that we have also reflected on the problems of coordination with the World Bank, which already operates in this field but only has a quarter of the EIB' s investments, employs four fifths of its resources in a single country, Turkey, and, in other words, does not have a general activity dedicated to the Mediterranean; the African Development Bank operates throughout the Mediterranean but with negligible impact.
Our bank' s responsibility for development will be absolutely vital, and the choice we have made strikes precisely the right balance between innovation and caution.
Mr President, first of all an observation about the Convention which begins tomorrow with a draft agenda that is completely unacceptable.
Mr Giscard d' Estaing will adopt a position on whether MEPs' proposals are good enough to be translated and debated.
Every MEP must naturally be entitled to make proposals and have them translated, put on the agenda and, finally, voted on.
Today our delegation has obtained the fifth draft agenda.
We are not familiar with the first four, and I would therefore ask our own President to ensure that, in future, we are given all the documents as soon as they arrive in Parliament.
Turning now to the Commission President, Mr Prodi.
I see that the Commission is opposed to a competence catalogue which is able to place limits upon the EU' s activities.
In that connection, I should like to ask Mr Prodi whether, at least, the debates in the Convention might not be prepared for by putting forward proposals as to what might be transferred back to the Member States if, for example, there was an obligation to halve the number of laws.
To draw up a competence catalogue, knowledge of each individual area is required such as only the Commission and the national governments have at their disposal.
Finally, I should just like to thank Mr Prodi for the fact that, two years after the decision, we can now obtain agendas and Minutes from meetings of the Commission.
That is major progress.
Mr Bonde, I have not gone into the issue of competences.
I merely said that we first need to establish what we have to do together and then the debate on the working of the institutions will follow on from that.
I feel that the most important thing is what the Union will do in the future, what role it will play in the globalised world and, therefore, what tasks have to be performed at Community level for these objectives to be achieved.
Subsequently, we will move on to the debate on competences, which will clearly be based first and foremost on applying the principle of subsidiarity, which we want to avoid violating at all costs and which will serve as a guide as to what we can and cannot do.
Thank you President Prodi.
I want to thank the President of the Commission and Commissioner Schreyer for assisting with this communication this afternoon.
Can I just remind colleagues that this communication offered a possibility for the first time here today to hear the general strategy of the Commission.
It does not replace or displace the debate which is foreseen for March 20. That debate will include the participation of the Council of Ministers and of the Presidency-in-Office.
That was not foreseen for this session.
It is never the case that a Commission communication followed by questions leads to a full debate, nor is it the case that the Council normally attends and I should like the record to indicate that.
Mr President, I have just one brief comment to make.
Mrs Karen Fogg is the EU Commission's representative in Turkey.
She is in a great deal of difficulty, as her e-mails were not only intercepted and read, but also published in a newspaper, and a great effort was required to get Turkey to put a stop to this.
As this also has to do with contact between the EU Commission's representative and Parliament, I ask you, Mr President, to bring it to Turkey's attention that we find this unacceptable and that we expect Turkey to leave no stone unturned in finding out whether the secret service or someone else was behind this, and to prevent personal and official e-mails being published in newspapers.
Mr Swoboda, could I point out to you that last week already, because I agree with the seriousness of this issue, I spoke personally and directly with the Turkish Ambassador to the European Union and conveyed what I am sure was the collective concern of this House.
Mr President, I asked earlier to take the floor for a point of order.
This is what I wanted to say:
Mr President, a few days ago, the Pastrana government took advantage of provocation in the form of hijack, which was condemned by the FARC, which denied it had any part in it, to break off peace talks and start mercilessly bombing the buffer zone, putting into action the United States' 'operation Colombia' to wipe out the FARC and resolve the problem militarily, at the expense of the interests of the Colombian people.
It goes without saying that, under this American operation, paramilitary teams will be shipped in after the bombings have spread death and destruction in order to finish off the job.
I should therefore like to call on you, Mr President, when you intervene to try and get the green candidate released, to ask the Pastrana government to halt the bombings, release the hundreds of FARC members being detained in inhumane conditions, together with your three Irish compatriots being held in the same inhumane conditions, and call for the peace talks to resume.
That, of course, is the first statement which with I opened the sitting today and I made precisely that call.
Request for the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr Pasqua and Mr Marchiani
The next item of business is the two reports (A5-0032/2002 and A5-0033/2002) by Mr MacCormick, on behalf of the Committee of Legal Affairs and the Internal Market concerning requests for the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr Pasqua and Mr Marchiani.
Mr President.
In these cases which are before us, there are very serious allegations levied against two Members of Parliament, which are stated on the first page of the explanatory statement of my report, which I recommend to Members to take a look at.
The procedures were commenced in July 2000, concerning illegal arms trading, influence peddling, misuse of corporate funds, breach of trust and receiving stolen goods.
This concerned the sale of arms to several African countries in breach of French law on arms trading by companies through which countless transfers and even cash payments were made to a string of different people.
There is a charge against Mr Pasqua, but not against Mr Marchiani, which concerns illegal funding of an election campaign through acceptance of donations and funding of the European election campaign in breach of the provisions of Article L52.8 of the Electoral Code.
These being the charges, the first charge concerning illegal arms trading, etc., against both Mr Pasqua and Mr Marchiani, the second against Mr Pasqua only, the examining magistrates are requesting the waiver of parliamentary immunity of these two gentlemen, so that certain judicial supervision measures may be taken against them. The Members would be forbidden to enter into contact with certain witnesses, or co-accused, or to visit certain countries and they may be required to put up bail.
This notification order was forwarded first to the public prosecutor of the Republic at the level of the Court of First Instance, then through the public prosecutor at the Paris Court of Appeal and then from that public prosecutor to the Minister of Justice and by the Minister of Justice to the Parliament here.
It should be noted, at the First Instance, that the public prosecutor of the Republic firmly supports a request for judicial supervision by the examining magistrates, stressing the gravity and nature of the case and describing it as necessary in principle.
However, the public prosecutor at the Court of Appeal considered that, and I quote, "contrary to the view expressed by the other prosecutor, the present request for waiver of immunity gives grounds for reservations".
On the one hand, the request for judicial supervision does not stipulate what countries the accused would be forbidden to visit and on the other, following a ruling by the Cour de Cassation, the scope of the proceedings finally to be pursued is still to be determined by the relevant Court of Appeal.
The Minister of Justice, however, forwarded the request for waiver of immunity, together with the forwarding letters from the public prosecutor at First Instance and at the Court of Appeal, without attaching any further remarks.
This is the situation in which we have to take a decision.
I want to say, first of all, that the crimes of which these Members are charged are serious ones.
We have an absolute rule that we form no opinion either way about the merits of the charges but that the Members enjoy the presumption of innocence.
The public prosecutor in France is entitled to pursue his duties under law and Parliament takes no side on that issue.
They are serious crimes and of a kind that would not ordinarily attract parliamentary immunity because they do not relate to the ordinary and proper activities of a Member of this Parliament, or a politician operating in a democratic society.
It does make it important that I should acknowledge that both Members strenuously affirm their innocence and denounce what they consider to have been abusive elements in the prosecution process.
However, in the nature of the case, I can have no view and Parliament should take no view about these points.
The present request for waiver of immunity, therefore, does not concern the issue whether these prosecutions may or should continue in accordance with French law.
Under Article 10 of the Protocol of 1965, there is no relevant immunity, either for a deputy of the French National Assembly or, therefore, for a French MEP in the face of prosecution on charges of this kind.
The issue of immunity and the request for waiver relates only to the issue of whether the Court may issue binding orders restricting the MEPs' freedom of movement, or their freedom in making contact with other persons.
I would draw to the attention of all colleagues that if there are freedoms which are vitally important to the exercise of public representative office, especially in a Parliament of this kind, freedom to communicate with other citizens and the citizens of other countries, and freedom to move as one chooses, is critically important, as part of doing the job.
In its present form, the request for waiver of immunity seems unacceptably precise and indeed the documents of the case seem to indicate that no attention has been paid to the recommendation for the request of waiver to be taken forward only on the basis of a more specific statement, concerning places and persons involved.
There is one other aspect of the case which, I regret to say, gives rise to a suspicion that regard for the conditions of free parliamentary debate has not sufficiently animated the prosecution, and that is the fact, which was disclosed in the course of this, that the prosecutor at one point asked our President, your predecessor, for details of the voting records of these two Members in order that the possibility of their having exercised improper influence could be pursued further.
Article 9 of the Protocol, as President Fontaine sharply reminded the prosecutor, makes us entirely free from any legal proceeding whatever in any expression of opinion of vote cast in performance of our duties as Members of this Parliament.
In these circumstances, the Legal Affairs Committee, and I wholly endorsed its view, proposes that the request received from the French Minister of Justice for waiver of immunity ought to be rejected in the form in which it has been presented to the Parliament.
I hope that decision, together with the explanatory statement, will be forwarded, if it is adopted by the Parliament.
This may not be the end of this matter but, in the form we received it, this request for waiver of immunity was in the view of the Legal Affairs Committee unacceptable, and I commend that view to the House.
Mr President, I would like, if I may, to make some comments that have been inspired by this report.
My first comment is that this report deals with a serious matter.
Firstly because the charges are serious, and secondly because this relates to the freedom of individuals and the freedom of Members of Parliament.
I have four comments to make on this report.
First of all, a debate is clearly taking place on the purpose of parliamentary immunity - something that the general public do not understand and which is perceived as a privilege, even though it should not be a privilege.
I think that this debate must be held especially since the general public does not understand the issue and that the charges are particularly serious and particularly significant.
Having said this and be that as it may, under the Rule of Law, the procedure must be strictly observed and we must ensure that these matters are considered in law and that procedures are strictly observed.
My third comment is that the media coverage of these procedures is not compatible with an impartial justice system and the requirements of an impartial justice system.
My final comment is that the Europe of human rights is obviously not yet in place, that there is no habeas corpus in France, although a great deal of progress has been made, particularly as a result of the support given by Mr Jospin' s government to the issue of the presumption of innocence.
Nevertheless, with 125 suicides committed each year in prison, France may have abolished the death penalty but it has not yet eliminated it altogether.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Professor MacCormick, for his work on these two very difficult and contentious reports.
However, there are two points which I would like to make in particular with regard to these requests.
Firstly, there is a hint, maybe not explicit, of political interference with regard to the judicial operation of the investigation into these alleged crimes committed by Mr Pasqua and Mr Marchiani, and secondly, there has been a continuous source of leaking to the media, which obstructs and interferes with the proper recourse to justice and investigation.
There is an old maxim in the British system legal system called "justice delayed is justice denied", and this case has been dragged out again and again.
Misinterpretation, purposely or otherwise, of the Rules of Procedure of this Parliament has been used to delay it even further, and literally because somebody is a candidate in an election, or forthcoming election, in France, this is being used as a stick with which to beat them.
We must therefore concur with the opinion of the rapporteur and the Legal Affairs Committee that the way in which this procedure has progressed is incorrect and that immunity should not be lifted, and we should commend that report to the House.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Barcelona European Council
The next item is the joint debate on:
Council and Commission statements on preparations for the Barcelona European Council
the report (A5-0030/2002) by Mr Bullmann on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Spring 2002 European Council meeting
the report (A5-0021/2002) by Mr Karas on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the economic consequences of the attacks of 11 September 2001
the oral questions (B5-0006/2002 and 0007/2002) by Mrs Jackson on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy to the Council and to the Commission respectively on sustainable development strategy for the Barcelona Summit
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the European Parliament for giving me the opportunity to appear before the House.
I appeared before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on 7 January, and it is a pleasure for me to be able to present the economic and financial priorities for the six months of the Spanish Presidency, particularly in relation to the Barcelona Summit.
Since 7 January, when I appeared before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, there have been significant advances on certain aspects, such as the agreements between Parliament, the Commission and the Council, in relation to the harmonisation of financial services.
On behalf of the Presidency-in-Office, I would like to thank the parliamentary groups for the efforts they have made, especially the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, to reach an agreement in this area.
In a little less than two weeks time, the spring European Council will take place under the Spanish Presidency in Barcelona, and I would now like, Mr President, to give details of the main economic issues this Council will deal with.
Firstly, it is beyond doubt that the launch of the euro, on which a report will be presented to the Barcelona Council, has been a success not only from a monetary and technical point of view but also from a political point of view, as a result of the considerable support it has received from all citizens throughout the European Union, throughout the eurozone, and also the efforts made not only by the European Central Bank and its excellent staff, but also by very important sectors of European society, such as the financial sector and the commercial sector, to make the physical introduction of the euro a success.
In this respect, European society owes a debt of gratitude to all those workers and professionals who have contributed to the consumers and families having been able to enter the era of the euro so easily.
I believe it is also important to point out, as I did in the meeting of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on 7 January, that the introduction of the euro must be understood as a response, not only of acceptance of the single currency, but also a positive response from the citizens to the processes of European integration and also the processes of economic reform and change.
And, in this regard, I believe that the slogan of the Spanish Presidency, 'more Europe' , is perfectly compatible with the spirit of those millions of European citizens who have accepted from the outset the existence of a single and common currency for us all, or at least for the eurozone.
One of the characteristics of the beginning of 2002, from an economic point of view, is undoubtedly the slow-down of the European economy, which was more pronounced than initially expected and which saw negative product growths, even in some of the large economies, and the Barcelona Summit is therefore to take place within a context in which the growth potential of the European economy - the capacity of our economies to grow - is becoming one of the citizens' demands, and the Presidency believes that they must receive a response from government, the European Parliament and the Commission.
I believe that, regardless of the speed of the response from the European authorities on some occasions, as in the case of the events of 11 September, what is beyond question from the point of view of economic growth, and given the good macroeconomic foundations of the euro economy, from the point of view of both budgetary stability, which I will refer to later, and from the point of view of inflationary pressures, the Presidency believes that the potential for growth is the key to recovering the confidence of the European citizens in sustainable and stable growth throughout the region.
In this regard, it will be the potential for growth in the medium and long term which will lead to an increase in employment and near full employment in the European Union, as indicated in the Bullmann report which is going to be discussed during this same sitting in relation to the spring European Council, that is, the Barcelona Council, together with the Karas report on the economic situation following the attacks of 11 September.
For all these reasons, I believe that the Barcelona Council must highlight certain aspects relating to the coordination of economic policies, but above all, the structural reform aspects.
Mr President, I would like very briefly to refer to the coordination of economic policies in EU Member States, particularly those in the eurozone, and indicate that the fundamental instrument for the coordination of these policies, together with the Stability and Growth Pact, are the broad guidelines of economic policy, which, as Parliament well knows, are approved by the Ecofin Council, after being accepted by the European Council in June.
Therefore, the Presidency believes that the Barcelona European Council will guide Ecofin on the main issues to be included in the broad guidelines of economic policy and these proposals will be included in the Key Issues Paper which the Presidency will communicate to the Barcelona Council.
In that Presidency document, which is being drawn up at the moment in accordance with the results of the informal debates of Ecofin in February and the next Ecofin of 5 March, with all the countries of the European Union, the Presidency intends to strengthen the coordination of economic policies between the Member States, and particularly in the eurozone, to consolidate the commitments which guarantee budgetary balance, contribute to the sustainability and quality of public finances, and promote, without doubt, the growth potential of the European economy by means of structural reforms.
Mr President, I will comment on two points in particular: coordination of economic policy and structural reforms.
In relation to the coordination of economic policy, there is no doubt that the consolidation of the internal market and greater integration and interdependence amongst the economies of all the Member States points to the need for greater coordination of economic policies throughout the region and particularly in the eurozone.
I would point out that the broad guidelines of economic policy are an essential instrument that should be specifically targeted at the eurozone with a greater intensity than on previous occasions.
Furthermore, in relation to the coordination of economic policies, there are requests from various countries, which the Presidency believes to be very well-founded, which point to the need to improve and harmonise European statistics and indicators, both macroeconomic and in relation to structural reform, and also to carry out a periodic analysis of the policy mix in the eurozone, which ensures that the combination of budgetary and monetary policies, with an independent European Central Bank, are consistent with the needs of the European economy.
In this regard, as I announced on 7 January to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, at the end of January in the Eurogroup there was an initial analysis of the policy mix with a report both by the European Central Bank and by the Commission and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which concluded that, at the present time, the orientation of macroeconomic policies - both monetary and budgetary - in Europe, is suited to the needs of the European economic cycle and the Spanish Presidency intends to hold another specific debate on policy mix before the end of June.
From the point of view of the coordination of economic policies, I must mention the need to maintain the principles of macroeconomic stability and reduction of public deficit, which ensure the stability of the eurozone and the whole of the European Union, and, at the same time, guarantee the development of interest rates in the medium and long term which are compatible with a recovery of investment and business confidence, which are essential to the recovery of all the economies of the region.
In relation to the political commitment of the European countries to the stability pact and the convergence plans, I would like to repeat that there is currently a commitment from each of the Member States to achieve budgetary balance by the target date of 2004.
Furthermore, we are analysing the sustainability and quality of public finances, analysing the effects of generational pyramids and the ageing of the populations in each of the countries, and the Commission, as Parliament knows, has reiterated to the Member States the need to take measures which ensure the sustainability of public finances.
It is in these very first few months of the year that the Ecofin Council analyses the Member States' stability and convergence plans for the current year, that is, for 2002, and that review has taken place in the meetings of January and February; the Commission' s recommendations on each of the convergence and stability plans have been unanimously approved at those meetings.
In the case of those countries which were most out of line with their initial forecasts, as a result of the slow-down of the economic cycle in relation to their respective internal demand, there have been clear commitments to comply with the objectives of the stability pact in both the short and the medium term.
In the chapter on structural reforms, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Barcelona European Council is going to pay particular attention to the liberalisation and opening up of various markets. I would like to refer specifically to three areas which are going to form part of the central nucleus of the Barcelona Council: the reforms of network industries, the liberalisation of the financial and capitals markets and also the reform of the labour markets.
I will comment on the three areas in that order, Mr President.
Firstly, in relation to the reforms of the network industry, which principally involve transport and energy, there is no doubt that over recent years there have been asymmetrical liberalisations within the European Union, which, in order to update the degree of liberalisation in all the countries of the region, now require movements in the same direction and of the same intensity that will guarantee, on the one hand, the same situation of liberalisation in all European markets, and therefore the absence of disparities which may affect competition throughout the Union, and at the same time also a policy of exchange or of cross-border networks which will allow us to create a genuine market of supply and demand at European level, in relation to both transport and energy.
The Presidency believes that the Barcelona Council must mark the beginning of a genuine energy market which exceeds the minimum limits laid down in the current directive, and this requires the adoption of ambitious liberalisation timetables in the gas and electricity sectors in order to favour the free choice of provider, especially in the companies market.
As demonstrated by the experience of the countries which have made most progress in the liberalisation timetables, these measures must be compatible with greater quality of service and with security of supply, in accordance with the public service nature of electricity supply in all the countries.
Nevertheless, liberalisation must also be accompanied by homogenous instruments for measuring the openness of markets in all the countries of the region and also transparent rules on access to transport networks which ensure the existence of genuine competitiveness for third countries that want to participate in a liberalised domestic market.
Furthermore, the process of liberalisation, as I have said, must be accompanied by quantified objectives for interconnections between the networks of the Member States, and this requires the implementation of the measures contained in the legislative package approved by the Commission on 21 December, including the proposals for the development of infrastructure projects and changes to the system of funding trans-European energy networks.
From the transport point of view, Mr President, the Presidency believes that the Barcelona Summit should have two objectives: on the one hand, to promote the single sky package for air transport, and on the other, to promote the railways package in order to gradually introduce competition into the provision of services, essentially in relation to the transport of goods.
I will now refer to the financial markets, Mr President.
The completion of the process ...
Mr President ... Is it customary in the European Parliament to offer the speaker water?
I am sure we can look after the Council Presidency.
Thank you very much, Mr President, for your compassion towards the Presidency-in-Office of the Council.
Not all parliaments are so friendly to the government.
With regard to the reform of the capitals and financial services markets, the Presidency believes that completing the process of integrating the European financial system is a fundamental challenge within the general objectives of the Presidency.
In this respect, the efforts to create a genuine financial and capitals market in Europe are concentrated on three important areas: firstly the achievement of a fully integrated share market, that is, of fully integrated European stock exchanges by 2003. Secondly, the achievement of the so-called 'financial services action plan' in 2005 and, finally, the achievement of the objectives of the 'risk capital action plan' , which is essential to the development of the funding of small and medium-sized companies.
These are, no doubt, ambitious aims, Mr President, which cannot be achieved - and I believe all the European institutions have understood this - without a more rapid and flexible legislative procedure that meets the needs of markets as dynamic as the financial markets, which, furthermore, are fully globalised markets, as we all know.
In this regard, and in line with the initiatives taken under the French Presidency, a working group chaired by Mr Lamfalussy was set up and it communicated its recommendations to the European institutions and, after a process of negotiation between the Commission, the Council and Parliament, agreements were reached. I would like once again to congratulate Parliament on its cooperation in this respect.
I believe that the first directives the Spanish Presidency will try to promote, and which will benefit from the new legislative framework, are those on which there is already a political agreement as a result of the efforts of previous presidencies, and especially the Belgian Presidency, which I would like to acknowledge here.
The directive on market abuse is essential - as Parliament knows - to guaranteeing the rules of conduct which investment services companies are subject to and which guarantee the protection of all investors on a European level.
Furthermore, Parliament is currently studying the directive on financial guarantees, which may be approved under the Spanish Presidency, and to this we must add the regulation on international accounting rules, which will provide a European framework for accounting which will increase the transparency and comparability of information throughout the European financial markets.
In Barcelona we must also move forward and pay attention to directives which, although they will probably not be adopted during the Spanish Presidency, are going to mean considerable progress and can be adopted under subsequent presidencies; furthermore, the directive on brochures, which is aimed at harmonising the transparency obligations of issuers; secondly, the directive on financial conglomerates, which will provide sensible regulations on a European level, by trying to reduce the so-called systematic risks by means of greater cooperation as established in the Brouwer report; thirdly, the directive on pension funds, which is clearly essential in order to achieve a genuine supplementary pension fund market in Europe, which will benefit workers and all citizens, and which requires a suitable balance between their needs, the security of investors, and freedom to diversify the portfolios of these funds within a framework of security; and progress is also being made on other directives which we hope will be given impetus under the Spanish Presidency.
Lastly, Mr President, I would like to comment on the reform of the European labour market as a priority of the Barcelona Council.
There is no doubt that the development of employment in Europe has been satisfactory but not sufficient, as demonstrated by the fact that, at the highest points of the cycle, the European economy maintains structural rates of unemployment, notably greater than those of other regions such as the United States.
And furthermore there is no doubt that the labour market' s capacity to adapt to evolutions in the economic cycle ensures quicker recovery of the economies and, therefore, more intense recoveries of employment at times of sustained growth or at the high points in the cycle.
In this respect, the Presidency believes that more progress must be made on active policies relating to labour markets, focussing on groups which have difficulties accessing the labour market, and also reducing the fiscal burdens relating to employment.
There has already been progress in this respect, but we believe that efforts must continue to focus, on the one hand, on measures on work opportunities such as those based on a review of the Luxembourg process, so that we may have a better system of incentives in relation to work creation.
With regard to the demand for work, we must promote work-seeking by the unemployed, by means of policies which make it absolutely clear that it is better from both an individual and a collective point of view to work than to be receiving benefit, both in terms of personal development and the financial situation of everybody, and also to promote schemes for extending the retirement age in all our countries.
There are specific issues such as the increase in the employment of women, special care for women with young children and the reconciliation of their family and work responsibilities, and also introducing greater capacity for European companies to adapt to the evolution of demand, to adapt their costs to European and international demand situations, as well as a system for setting salaries which allows, in addition to the appropriate involvement of social partners, sufficient flexibility and decentralisation which offers companies the margin to adapt to very different geographical and sectorial markets throughout the European economy and the globalised economy.
Mobility is also one of the challenges, not only on a European level, but on a national level, and particularly on a regional level, and here I believe that policies for seeking better practices and comparisons between the policies of each of the countries are essential measures which must be promoted in Barcelona.
All these issues relating to the labour market must inspire the review of the Luxembourg process and give impetus to the adoption of the necessary structural reforms of the labour markets in each of the countries of the European Union.
Mr President, at the European Council, in addition to these three areas of the financial markets, network industries and the labour market, the Presidency is going to incorporate, for the first time, an analysis of the relationship between growth and the environment, or in other words, the need for environmentally sustainable growth, and to this end, it is clear that we must make progress on formulae which guarantee sustainable development.
I would like to make the following comments in relation to the incorporation of the sustainable development strategy at the Barcelona European Council:
In accordance with what was agreed at the United Nations Assembly in Rio in 1997, the Gothenburg European Council added a third environmental dimension to the process of economic reform, as I have said, and in accordance with these conclusions, the Council took note of the need to draw up a 'road map' of an annual nature, with the measures to be taken in the environmental field, within the strategy of sustainable development, and to be taken into account by the Presidency of the Council, in collaboration with the Commission.
The Laeken European Council welcomed the choice of environmental indicators, for the monitoring of the implementation of the sustainable development strategy, and also welcomed the progress made in relation to the European ratification of the Kyoto Protocol.
Using the environmental indicators which I have just referred to, which were approved at the Laeken Council on 17 January 2002, a first synthesis report has been presented assessing the process carried out.
With regard to the Ecofin Council, at its next meeting next week, on 5 March, a report on this issue will be discussed, that is to say a synthesis report which has already been prepared by the Economic Policy Committee and which will allow the Barcelona European Council, as well as successive spring Councils, to continue to guarantee the implementation of the three dimensions of sustainable development.
The Barcelona conclusions, together with the Commission' s communication, must allow the Seville European Council at the end of the Spanish Presidency, on 25 and 26 June, to prepare the European Union' s position for the summit on sustainable development which will take place in Johannesburg in September 2002.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to mention the framework for the development of entrepreneurs in Europe, which is another concern that various Councils have demonstrated, and which will be taken into account in Barcelona, especially in relation to the development of a suitable framework for small businesses and new entrepreneurs in Europe.
Last weekend, the Presidency held an informal Council of Ministers on small and medium-sized businesses in Aranjuez, in Spain, which came to several conclusions that I would like to communicate to the European Parliament.
Firstly, the commitment to hold informal Councils on small and medium-sized businesses, before the structural reform summits in the spring, which can communicate specific recommendations to the spring summits in relation to a sector which represents more than 90% of European companies and a considerable proportion of employment in our countries.
Secondly, specifically in relation to the Barcelona Summit, the Aranjuez meeting believes that member countries and the Commission must be informed of the need to favour the development framework for European small and medium-sized businesses by means of two methods: firstly, by reducing time limits and administrative costs through the use of new legal instruments which are easier for entrepreneurs to implement and secondly, by using telematic means, and at this first stage of a quicker and less expensive framework in terms of time and costs, to make a detailed analysis of how each of the legislative measures taken affects small and medium-sized businesses.
Therefore, legislators and governments must think firstly on a small scale, bearing in mind the effects their legislation and regulatory measures may have on small and medium-sized businesses, and they must do so while taking account of the contacts made with the business organisations for small and medium-sized businesses.
Mr President, with regard to priorities of the Spanish Presidency, the Ecofin Council will analyse next week, on 5 March, a priority which responds to a mandate of the Laeken Council, in relation to the need to improve and increase our presence in the development of the countries of the south of the Mediterranean, seeking instruments which take account of costs, but which also allow the countries of the south of the Mediterranean to play a greater role.
It is a question of introducing a genuine partnership into the formula for pursuing the economic and social development of these countries.
This must focus not only on works and infrastructure, but also on the creation of a genuine fabric of industries and private businesses, a genuine economic civil society in the countries of the south of the Mediterranean.
Work is being done in this regard within Ecofin, in the Financial and Economic Committee, together with the European Investment Bank, on proposals which, probably within the field of the European Investment Bank and in cooperation with the Commission, may allow the existence of a development institution in the Mediterranean, with the priority and majority participation of the European institutions, and specifically the European Investment Bank, but also the borrower countries which can cooperate in the design of development programmes, as well as third countries, inside and outside the region, which wish to cooperate with Europe and with the countries of the south of the Mediterranean on this initiative.
Lastly, Mr President, the candidate countries will participate in Barcelona and, to this end, the Barcelona European Council has invited not only the Heads of State but also the Economic Ministers, who will hold a meeting on the structural reform of the enlargement countries, together with the European Union' s Economic Ministers.
I would like to end my speech, Mr President, by thanking the European Parliament for being kind enough to allow the Presidency to participate in this sitting, during which I believe we will not only be able to explain the Presidency' s positions, but also reply to the questions and initiatives which the different parliamentary groups and Members may raise on structural reform in Europe and on the priorities of the Spanish Presidency.
Thank you very much, Mr President.
Thank you, Mr President.
I see now that you are enjoying the fruits of your labour with a drink of water.
You had remarked earlier in the House that you likened yourself to a diesel engine.
I was afraid that you might look for a glass of benzene, which would not of course accord with the security conditions of the House.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission and the majority of the female representation of the Commission, whose presence we should welcome, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office of the Council began his report with the success of the introduction of the euro, which is a success for our peoples, and which has exceeded any expectations we may have had in any of the European institutions.
The President-in-Office of the Council has congratulated the European Central Bank and its staff.
I would be grateful if he would expand on his congratulations to the Commission on the work it has done and, in particular, President Prodi and his predecessor in the post of Minister for the Economy, Mr Solbes.
I do not say this because I am a fellow countryman, but because of the important work they have done.
Now, the problem facing us is that the success of the euro demands a response which can only take one form: an active economic policy in Europe.
We are in a new situation.
The President-in-Office of the Council has reminded us how the BGEPs, Ecofin and others work; but it has been demonstrated that when faced with problems, things, in the form they were conceived some time ago, do not work well.
In this respect, the review relating to the economic evolution of the Member States shows that some, politically, have been hunted hunters.
They created a Stability and Growth Pact in order to monitor others and, in the end, they have had to apply the lesson to themselves.
But this does not lead me to feel any Schadenfreude, as the Germans say.
The issue is that in the medium term we cannot safeguard the euro with the current economic management structure.
Secondly, the President-in-Office of the Council mentioned the structural reforms and the policy mix since Lisbon.
We see the policy mix as the fight for full employment, social cohesion and sustainable growth, bearing in mind the need for Europe to recover technological leadership through strong investment, above all in human capital.
In this respect, the important issue is the composition of this policy mix cocktail.
We believe that it must consist of a harmonious and combined quantity of each of the three elements.
On this basis, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, please allow me to comment on your proposals on liberalisations.
My group has been committed for many years, and I am thinking of the creation of the single market with its four hundred directives, of the process of structural reforms which has allowed us to create internal markets within the Union.
From this point of view, the President-in-Office has spoken firstly about the network industries: energy transport and also, as a network activity, telecommunications.
We believe that what we have to do, and we have been doing so for some time, is to make progress on the creation of these markets.
What has surprised us, and I would be grateful if the President-in-Office of the Council could explain this to Parliament, is the public statement by the President-in-Office of the Council and President of the Spanish government, and he has not denied it, that, in view of Barcelona, the problem is the confrontation with the Socialist majority, and he mentioned three governments by name, the German, French and Portuguese governments.
I do not know what form this confrontation is supposed to take.
We want organised markets.
We do not believe that liberalisation has miraculous effects such as the removal of rules.
We believe that what we have to do is establish rules which protect producers and also consumers and citizens.
I do not want to go into Spanish matters, but the Minister for the Economy has enough work to do in Spain in order to deal with the problems of the liberalisation of the energy market.
Secondly, with regard to financial services, I take good note of the fact that the Council values the agreement proposed in the von Wogau report on the so-called Lamfalussy proposal.
But I would also like to point out that, while it has allowed us to get out of trouble, it has not resolved our problem.
In other words, in terms of democracy, I believe that in the Convention we will have to hold very detailed discussions on the basic legislation and the implementation of the legislation with the possibility of parliamentary control.
Finally, Mr President, in relation to the liberalisation of the labour market, I believe that many of the things the President-in-Office of the Council has said are reasonable; in other cases he has used so many euphemisms that it is really difficult to know whether the intention is the liberalisation of redundancies or greater flexibility by means of negotiation.
I would like to express a concern which is felt by our fellow citizens and, if you will allow me, Mr President, I will quote; "we must condemn the errors of unfettered liberalism, with no rules, one of the main problems of which is uncertainty in the workplace and a model of society in which globalisation brings everything down to precariousness, mistrust and individualism without perspectives."
Mr President, this quote is not from Karl Marx but from the Cardinal of Milan, Carlo Maria Martini, who has just retired.
I believe that this closely reflects a concern which is widespread amongst our fellow citizens.
It is all very well to move ahead with the reform of the labour markets, in a positive fashion, but there is enormous concern about a form of liberalisation which may lead to the disappearance of the rules of the European social model and also a form of liberalisation which replaces public monopolies with private monopolies.
In this regard, we hope that the Barcelona Summit is a summit which can bring positive results and does not become a series of pre-electoral confrontations.
Mr President-in-Office, this House will vote tomorrow on an amendment on your National Hydrological Plan, so we hope you enjoy your glass of water today.
If the European Union were drawing up an end-of-year report card on the Lisbon process, I suspect that the report would say "must try harder".
Over the last year, we have seen some progress on this agenda, in particular the adoption of the telecoms package in Council, the agreement on the European company statute, reduction of the tax burden by three-quarters of 1% of GDP.
All of these things help to promote growth and jobs, provided they are consistent with the growth and stability pact, and clearly we need to be shifting the tax burden away from things we want more, like jobs, and onto things that we want less of, like pollution.
But I am afraid this report card would also show that the Union is failing in too many areas.
The Commission communication to the Barcelona European Council speaks of a firm commitment to the growth and stability pact, which will help build confidence.
If this is so, it was sadly lacking when the Finance Ministers fudged an early warning decision on Germany and Portugal just recently.
The rejection of the take-over bids directive is a major setback to competitiveness in the Union and I challenge the other political groups and the Council to join us in speeding through the new Commission proposal under a fast-track procedure, so that we can get it onto the statute book by the end of this year.
Another area where we have failed is the failure in Council to adopt a common position on the pensions directive which is essential, not just for a secure retirement for an elderly population, but also for labour market mobility.
The European Parliament has done its job.
We gave you our first reading opinion in July of last year and we now look to the Spanish Presidency to send us a common position by June of this year, if we are to meet the Commission's target of adoption by the end of this year.
Another area where the schoolteacher would rap the Council over the knuckles is the European patent.
If we want to close the innovation gap between Europe and the United States, we need easier and cheaper and faster pan-European patent protection.
When it comes to behaviour in class, I am not sure that the Union would score well.
I welcome the Commission's decision this afternoon to take the Council to the Court of Justice for an attempt to take away the Commission's powers over state aid.
The reason we have state aid rules is to ensure a proper functioning of the single market and we need to abolish barriers to competition and to free trade to allow the Commission to be the policeman, and the Council should frankly be ashamed of challenging the Commission on that.
Finally, our report card would show a pupil which is lacking ambition.
If the European Union is to be a star pupil, we need progress on liberalisation of energy and gas markets, on implementation of the financial services action plan, on agreement of a public procurement framework.
The process of economic reform is not an end in itself.
It is about increasing prosperity of our people and preparing the European Union for enlargement.
What message is it that we are sending to applicant states if we are incapable of implementing ourselves the demanding reforms that we are expecting of them?
When it comes to reviewing what happens at Barcelona, we will be judging you by the report card.
At the moment, the pupil has to work harder.
Mr President, a lot of things may be going to happen at the Barcelona European Council, but it will not be the opportunity to assess the implementation of the sustainable development strategy that was proposed at Gothenburg: a sustainable development strategy which - I would remind you - is based on the balance between the economy, social cohesion and the environment, three factors which all the European institutions - Commission, Parliament and Council - recognised as being inextricably linked.
We thought, after Gothenburg, that the idea had been established that the Lisbon objective of making Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 was inadequate as it stood, and that it should be supplemented by the goal of making the Union the most ecoefficient economy.
Evidently, we were wrong.
The Spanish Presidency' s commitment to returning to the initial Lisbon philosophy and to confirming the three sacrosanct principles of liberalisation, deregulation and neo-liberal globalisation was matched by the Commission' s marked reluctance to pursue the proposals made last year, despite their commendable nature, and by the explicit decision to make the environmental pillar a sort of almost covert addendum to the Barcelona agenda.
Indeed, we feel that the Commission communication to the Spring European Council in Barcelona fails to take sufficient account of the environmental factor or of the crucial need for certain changes to the current economic development model.
This is serious because it is evidence of the inability of the European institutions to ensure any sort of continuity in their pursuit of priorities established by common agreement, which clearly cannot be reshuffled every six months to suit the political preferences of the Presidency-in-Office.
This is why we feel that the Spanish Presidency' s intention to speed up the process of liberalisation in the most diverse sectors is in direct conflict with the sustainable development strategy.
We have many doubts regarding the economic and social model based on deregulation, flexibility and further liberalisation of the internal market, as recently confirmed by Mr Blair and Mr Berlusconi in their joint statement, which, it is no coincidence, made absolutely no reference to sustainable development.
We are particularly saddened by this in view of the meeting due to take place in Johannesburg, where all the world' s Heads of State will meet to assess the environmental situation 10 years on from Rio de Janeiro.
However, we do feel that the Barcelona Summit should be treated as an opportunity to make substantial progress in incorporating environmental issues into the European Union' s policy package and, to this end, it is vital that we assess and review all the sectoral strategies.
I would like to touch briefly on the issue of energy efficiency, Mr President, which is an area that is clearly still extremely problematic.
In this context, we feel that it is essential to reiterate the importance of renewable energies. Of course, we are also completely opposed to the increasing pressure, not least from the Spanish Presidency, to reopen the debate on nuclear energy, for it is dangerous and outdated in terms of both acceptance by society and environmental sustainability.
In other words, Mr President, we fear that Barcelona will be a wasted opportunity from the point of view of achieving the agreed sustainable development goals.
We hope fervently that we are wrong and we look forward to meeting again to review the situation after the Barcelona Summit.
Mr President, the Lisbon process was unclear and ambiguous right from the beginning.
It contained two different strategies.
The one strategy prioritised cutting-edge technologies, research-based innovations, e-commerce, the liberalisation of network markets and such like.
The second strategy prioritised full employment, social integration and education for all, instead.
In that way, all the groups could imagine they had won in Lisbon, and everyone could therefore applaud the decisions.
Now, however, we see ever more clearly the gulf between the two ways: that which pinned its hopes on the élite and that which put its faith in the ordinary people, often the weaker groups.
I think that, as rapporteur, Mr Bullmann has really endeavoured for as long as possible to preserve unity and the policy of compromise on socio-economic matters.
We can nonetheless see how certain Member States and political parties have become increasingly impatient and wish to abandon the route of a compromise policy.
We in the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left view many of the amendments that have come in with great concern.
If they were to be adopted tomorrow, the majority of our group would feel compelled to vote against them in the final vote.
We should not do that with any pleasure, but there are limits.
One simply cannot just go on compromising.
We shall therefore follow the vote, amendment by amendment, before we adopt a position.
Finally, I wish to lodge a protest against the fact that almost no account at all has been taken of the candidate countries' needs and interests in our discussion prior to the Barcelona Summit.
There are only a few years left before enlargement, and it is high time that we began to face that reality head on.
It is a shame that we have not taken a clearer and more comprehensive view of this state of affairs.
When we come to prepare for a summit of the scale and size and opportunity that is presented by Barcelona, it is necessary to take into account what has happened in the past and to try to predict with some certainty where we need to be in the future: It is wrong for any group of people, whether the Council, the Commission or even this Parliament, to think that we have to come up with new ideas for every single summit.
There are so many things that remain to be done and so many priorities that were set down at Lisbon, Stockholm, or Cardiff that have yet to be completed, to be achieved and to be reached.
We ought to focus more on improving the quality of the proposals that we put forward, ensuring that they respond to the demands and needs of the peoples of Europe, and more importantly, ensure that they lay down a solid foundation for the future development of economic prosperity, of stability and of sustainability.
I do not believe that there is a conflict between economic development and sustainable development, nor that we cannot put in place an aggressive taxation policy to create employment, to ensure that business and industry can have a competitive environment in which to succeed and prosper, and that does not necessarily lead to the detriment of social protection, or of investment in social services like education, health and infrastructure development.
I would certainly oppose all measures or any ideas towards harmonisation or coordination of tax policy within the European Union.
This is an area that is exclusively within the remit of the Member State governments alone, and it is wrong and has been proven wrong many times, that, to use the simple analogy of previous eras, higher taxation means that you can spend more on social protection.
That idea has been turned on its head by the economic realities of existing Member States - also by the performances of other Member States, such as in my own country in particular - Ireland, where an aggressive reduction in taxation policy, reducing the cost of labour and the income tax levy and ensuring that business can survive in a harmonious industrial relations environment with the majority of the earnings that the workers are getting going into their pocket and not going into taxation; while at the same time, increasing the levels of protection that are available for those who are most vulnerable within our society and increasing investments in education and health.
There is a new and different way forward that can succeed and operate for the betterment of the governments and the European Union as a whole, but most importantly for the betterment of the people.
What we bring forward from the Lisbon process and the Lisbon summit, most importantly of all, is access to education, training, learning and knowledge.
If we do not give the skills to our people in order to take advantage of new employment opportunities that are out there, then we deny them the real human and civil rights of participating fully in society.
If anything is to come out of the Barcelona summit, it is a re-endorsement and re-affirmation of the importance of lifelong learning and a knowledge-based society with education and training for all.
It is the most important aspect to come.
Fine words have been spoken at past European Council meetings about the integration of sustainable environmental policy into economic and social policy.
Unfortunately, these fine words are not reflected in the plans which are being presented to us under the Spanish Presidency.
Muchas palabras sin hechos.
This is why I would call on the Council and Commission to take the Gothenburg environmental agreements seriously, and to translate these into concrete policy plans.
This means in the first place that an unequivocal system of indicators must be put in place.
Strong cohesion between indicators is very important in this respect for the development and assessment of a sustainable environmental policy.
This system of indicators must obviously be integrated into the way in which the development of economic and social policy is measured.
Secondly, the sustainability impact assessment, as promised by the Commission, is to be developed in the short term.
In addition, I should like to ask you to give your attention to the liberalisation of the energy market.
Opening up the energy market must not lead to the unwanted formation of monopolies.
If there is to be a proper guarantee of the supply of energy, government intervention to ensure supplies must still be possible.
Situations such as that in California can still be prevented by intervening in the Commission' s plans in good time.
Mr President, not only words, but deeds are what we need, precisely in those areas where we have a responsible role as stewards of God' s creation.
Mr President, with the Barcelona European Council in mind, the Commission has just presented an action plan for the mobility of people in Europe, which, in our view, contains several debatable points.
Some proposals are, admittedly, based on obvious common sense such as lifelong learning, better coordination of social security systems or the transferability of pension rights.
The Commission' s initiative, however, is written from a strange point of view.
First of all it states that geographical mobility is five times higher in the United States than in Europe, as if the intention was to render the nations of Europe identical to the United States.
This would be a serious misinterpretation.
Our real objective, which is what most of our fellow citizens want, is the respect for nations and also for the lifestyle, culture and language to which they are rightfully attached.
Let us not switch round the priorities on the sly.
To do this would be to take a truly totalitarian approach.
The Commission has also slipped calls for a common immigration policy into this action plan which really do not belong there.
This is another matter altogether.
We should not use this method to force the States to adopt guidelines, of whose existence they are not fully aware.
Mr President, this is a debate which is going to take very different routes depending on which committees Members sit on.
As a Member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I want to concentrate on environmental issues in the context of Barcelona.
The first thing is to stress the importance which the Committee on the Environment, and I hope the European Parliament, places on the addition of an environmental dimension to the Lisbon Process of annual assessment of economic growth and social cohesion.
Indeed, we were really rather surprised in the Committee on the Environment that the environmental pillar of sustainable development should not be considered of equal importance to the social and economic pillars.
I would like to take this opportunity of expressing thanks on behalf of myself and my colleagues to the European Environment Agency for the work that it has done in relation to the environmental indicators.
The director of the Environment Agency, Mr Beltrán, will be retiring soon and we are very grateful for the work that he has done.
It is also important that we should not leave these indicators floating in the air while congratulating ourselves on the fact that we have produced them.
In the view of the Environment Committee, it is very important that we link their production to clear targets and timetables for the work of the Commission and of the Parliament.
I would make a domestic point to my colleagues here, namely that we really address the issue of sustainable development better in this Parliament.
We ought to organise, for example, an annual debate with an annual assessment of progress in all our committee areas.
It is essential to continue to see that environmental considerations are taken into account in other policies.
This is something which environment commissioner, Mrs Wallström, has always been very keen on.
She faces a tremendous uphill struggle.
One policy which illustrates the desperate need for environmental considerations to be taken into account within it is fisheries.
I represent the south west of England.
We have a number of fishing ports and we are currently facing the consequences of a desperate failure to take environmental considerations into account when operating the Common Fisheries Policy.
We have exhausted fish stocks.
We have fishermen with no fish to catch.
We have dead dolphins being washed up on the beaches of Brittany and Cornwall because industrial trawlers are trawling them up in the middle of the channel and then leaving them for dead.
That is a very good example of non-sustainable development and the Parliament ought to get involved in doing something about it.
Sustainable development is going to be very important in the context of enlargement.
The likelihood is that the applicant states in eastern and central Europe will want to be like us as soon as possible - heaven help them.
That means that they will want more roads, more cars, more transport emissions and so on.
More damage to the environment will probably be done and we have to find a way, without being culturally imperialist about it, to ensure that rapid economic development in the countries of eastern and central Europe does not damage the environment, particularly the natural environment, in the new Member States.
Rio and the Rio Summit is going to bring forth an absolute cascade of words.
Whether or not Rio means anything and brings about any concrete results remains to be seen.
It is a pity that the Commission has produced its document so late that we cannot give at this point our collective view in the context of Barcelona.
That document for Rio contains some very good points, especially the emphasis on providing incentives for environmentally and socially sustainable trade.
One thing I would highlight from the position of the Environment Committee is the need for the European Union to sort itself out when it comes to addressing the issue of genetically modified production in the countries of the third world.
In December in South Africa there was news of a large increase in the acreage in South Africa which is under cultivation for genetically modified products. What is our message to a country like that?
Do we say that the more you produce of that, the less you can export to us? Is that going to be a sustainable message to give them when they want to make a living for themselves?
Finally, a word on the dreaded Spanish hydrological plan which has moved across the screen of the European Parliament increasingly frequently.
It is not a good idea to condemn one Member State for action taken in good faith by a democratically elected government.
In this instance, the Spanish government has submitted an environmental impact assessment in relation to the plan and the European Commission is considering it.
This is not the point at which we should start condemning Spain.
The Spanish hydrological plan will be a very difficult issue for the British Labour Members of the European Parliament to decide how they are going to vote.
Even at this moment, Mr Tony Blair is desperately cultivating Mr Aznar as an ally, so the British Labour Members are caught between supporting their Prime Minister and voting against Mrs Roth-Behrendt who has tabled the amendment.
That is not an enviable position to be in and I do not envy them.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
(ES) Mr President, if it is a trait of the high-born to be grateful, I would like to begin by saying to Mr Bullmann that I, being of the extreme centre, am extremely happy to have reached an agreement, a compromise, with him.
Secondly, as a generic request from both the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I would now ask the Council to involve the European Parliament in both the definition and the monitoring of the strategies established in Barcelona.
As Pablo Neruda said, the work we have to do is like the old wine of my country; it is not produced by one man but by many, and not from one plant but from many.
My third point: the areas of agreement that have been expressed here.
I agree with the President-in-Office of the Council that it is absolutely essential to maintain intact and unharmed the dogmas of price stability and budgetary austerity, both for the large countries and for the small ones.
We in this Parliament well know how monetary delights and budgetary frugality end: like days of wine and roses.
They lead to nothing more than a headache the next morning.
With regard to structural reforms which increase competition, those benches have shown a certain reticence, certain reservations.
In the field of the liberalisation of strategic sectors such as transport, electricity, gas, telecommunications or financial services we must not move backwards, even in order to gain momentum.
Fourthly, I also agree with other speakers that we must attach importance to strategic development factors: lifelong education and support for small businesses.
I would say a final word to Mrs Jackson.
The National Hydrological Plan is not, as the amendment says, an example of unsustainable development.
It is a fine example of sustainable development, because it is a question of taking water from where there is a surplus of it to those places where some days we pray for rain and on others we are moving around in boats following a storm.
As she has pointed out very correctly, it is a parliamentary decision by a legitimate parliament following a broad discussion and with the almost unanimous support of the National Water Council, in which all the Autonomous Communities, including the Socialist ones, are represented.
Somebody has been selling false currency in this Parliament.
I would ask you to bring them to account and that this false currency be exchanged for a good one, for a genuine one, like the one we now have in the European Union.
Mr President, I will begin by noting an interesting development in this House.
The criticism is levelled over and over again - and, I think, rightly - that we do not engage in debate.
The latest consequence of that is that we now have Barcelona, 11 September, and water.
I venture to doubt that that will add up to a debate.
I will speak, though, on the subject to which my Committee devoted its opinion, the fallout from 11 September.
Here are a couple of core theses to add to what Mr Karas, I think quite rightly, had to say: one should not overestimate it as an event, but the experience of its impetus has taught us that we are vulnerable, and the first consequence of 11 September was, and is, that politics has once again become the driving force.
It has done so whether you like it or not, as even the leading captains of industry have conceded in the meantime, but we too must be honest about the fact that it is precisely at the European level that politics is failing!
Secondly, 11 September made it even clearer that the greatest peacetime redistribution of assets in human history is jeopardising peace and also taking away market opportunities, and that right across the board, which is leading, through the failure of politics and the new situation in which we are now, to enterprises having demands made on them from the centre.
For them, 11 September might well have been an opportunity, if they had gone about it in a credible way, to do what global politics has not been able to do so far, that is, to unreservedly support human rights.
We are discovering something quite independent of 11 September - but, again, taking shape because of that event - the changes in all sectors of the market, with growth in many of them.
I am thinking of counter-terrorism, of what we are considering doing in space, and mobility.
If neither politics nor business can come up with what they should, consumers have power through their freedom of choice, and they now want enterprises to act in way that is socially, and not only environmentally, responsible.
I am therefore very glad that what we got through the Industry Committee, that is, the call to consumers to demonstrate social awareness when buying goods, is now also to be found in the main report.
What is missing, though, is the great logical conclusion to this, which we had taken through the Industry Committee, and the absence of which from the main report I regret.
We need a global Marshall Plan, without which we will have drawn the wrong conclusions from these events, and without which Barcelona, too, will be ineffective.
Mr President, in the report for the 2002 Spring Summit, the committees on Employment and Social Affairs and Economic and Monetary Affairs have attempted to point out innovative approaches, and, in many areas, they succeeded.
Speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats, I congratulate Mr Udo Bullmann on the work he has done and also on his capacity for dialogue and compromise.
What has to be on the agenda in Barcelona? Firstly, reform of the education systems.
The PISA study provided something of a salutary shock in Germany.
Training and education are at last being given political priority.
In order to be moved forward, the pupils need greater demands to be made of them, with all-round education as early as possible, and specialisation as late as possible.
It is only through comprehensive knowledge, including languages, that they will have unimpeded access to the labour markets of Europe, which will be open to them.
Secondly, reform of the systems by which people are employed.
The total of unemployed people in the EU stands at 13.6 million, and this is a development that is not going to be done away with by giving statistics on the labour market cosmetic treatment.
The management of unemployment must give way to perceptibly increased employability through training schemes, market-driven continuing education and connection to the Internet.
Simplistically concocted and standardised solutions, such as the reduction of working time across Europe, are of little weight.
We need intelligent, discriminating solutions such as more flexible working times, tailored to different sectors and regions.
Thirdly, reform of the social partnership.
Social dialogue must prove its worth, all the more so when times are hard.
The European social model has made a significant contribution to the peace of society and to increased productivity in Europe.
As a model, it is flexible and far from rigid, and so it deserves to be extended.
Fourthly, the way in which the social partnership is regulated.
Workers have a vested interest in small businesses and trades, which are the backbone of all in the EU's national economies, securing 70% of all jobs and 75% of all apprenticeships.
They should be helped to set up and to become innovative.
They are in a permanent learning process, through which they achieve a considerable growth in experience.
Qualities such as these must not, though, be undermined by the burden of taxes and levies and by the excessive regulation of SMEs.
Fifthly, reform of the States' budgets.
Our group insists that the obligations under the Stability and Growth Pact must be adhered to by all the countries in the eurozone without exception.
Not even downturns in economic activity may be misused to soften it.
It was only the threat of a warning letter that led at last to a consistent austerity policy being at least hinted at in Germany.
That all expenditure by the State should be tested applies, though, not only in my own country, but is true of all subsidies.
I have great confidence in the Spanish Presidency, which knows the value of our European social model, and how important sustainable economic growth is.
Let us trust in its ability to motivate us at the Spring Summit in Barcelona!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we live in a dangerous world, even if, from the outside, the European Union appears to be a haven of peace.
Of course, not everything in Europe is perfect.
We must modernise our economic and social structures and we must prepare for the challenges of globalisation in order to seize the opportunities that it presents.
In doing so, the Socialists want to protect the European social model.
Social justice and social inclusion must remain our constant objectives but this does not prevent us from reforming the employment market.
But if flexibility and mobility are a cure-all for full employment, how do you explain the recent rise in unemployment in the United States? In the Silicon Valley, the heart of the new economy, unemployment currently stands at 6%.
The workers concerned, who are generally highly qualified, are not moving away.
Those who are forced to leave are the 500 000 non-American specialists who had received temporary work permits under a special law.
When comparing employment markets, we cannot disregard the fact that there are 2 million Americans in prison, versus 80 000 in Germany or 60 000 in Great Britain.
The American model is not always to be commended.
To sum up, we accept social reforms but are against 'social dumping' .
Following the Lisbon Summit, Barcelona is expected to step up economic reforms.
The Socialists do want to achieve a real internal market.
Liberalisation, however, does not mean deregulation.
Liberalisation calls for better rules and a genuine monitoring of these rules; the Enron affair should be a lesson to us all.
By modernising its economy, Europe has a duty to maintain efficient public services for its citizens, particularly the least affluent.
At a time when the United States is rediscovering the virtues of public service, Europe must not bring down its own.
The Socialists are in favour of macro-economic stability.
However, the Stability and Growth Pact must be applied in a non-dogmatic fashion but attention must at the same time be paid to the global situation.
We need budgetary discipline, but we need flexibility as well, when the state of the world economy demands this.
Today the Americans are showing us their pragmatism in terms of budgetary and fiscal policy.
We are also in favour of globalisation, but reject globalisation that has no well-defined and multilaterally accepted rules.
We reject globalisation that offers no solidarity, particularly to the developed countries. Yet - and the events of 11 September serve as a cruel reminder of this - the developed countries can only live in peace if they help to resolve conflicts which allow dogmatic agitators throughout the world to convince unemployed young people that they live in a world that has no prospects.
It is up to us, Mr President, to show them that a common future is possible.
Mr President, it has been no easy task to formulate Parliament' s discussion paper for the forthcoming summit.
Mr Bullmann has done his best, and I thank him for that.
My group would nonetheless make reservations about a number of points in the report, certain parts of which are, in our view, pervaded by a fear of liberalisation.
For us, there is no contradiction between a free market economy and good social conditions. On the contrary.
Experience shows that, in by far the majority of cases, we all benefit as consumers from free competition guaranteeing low prices and good quality.
At the Barcelona Summit, government leaders will have to adopt positions on a very ambitious plan of action for promoting qualifications and mobility in the EU over the next five years.
I think this plan is a really good initiative.
Decisions must be made at EU level to make life easier for those who wish to seek new challenges by studying, or taking jobs, in other EU countries. They must be guaranteed social rights.
However, there is also a long list of initiatives that the Member States must implement in order to strengthen the various forms of education. This must be done through open coordination, and I think it a splendid idea that we should implement open coordination in this area.
I just think it important that it be accompanied by an open debate involving all the parties concerned, for, without such an open debate, there is a democratic deficit in the method of open coordination.
I also think we must take care that open coordination is not used out of all proportion and that we do not set common European objectives and quotas for everything under the sun. We should then end up by destroying a good idea, and we are not in any case in favour of open coordination where child care is concerned.
Mr President, as a Catalan, I am pleased that Barcelona will be the capital of Europe for two days.
I fear, however, that the great expectation that my fellow countrymen have of the Union will be disappointed.
The Heads of State and Government will be gauging the progress we have made in meeting the challenge set at Lisbon.
Catalonia, however, is expecting a great deal more from Europe than this rather puerile challenge: first of all, it is expecting the European Union to acknowledge Catalonia for what it is, in other words, a major nation.
It is also expecting the Union to recognise its ancient language, spoken by almost 8 million people, as an official language and a working language of Parliament.
Lastly, it is expecting to be able to fully participate, as the major nation that it is, in the various European bodies.
It is hoping for a political Europe where encouraging the spirit of enterprise does not mean discouraging those who crave justice.
A Europe where liberalisation does not mean the liquidation of public services.
A Europe that is concerned about sustainable development and which is consequently unable to adopt the National Hydrological Plan, in spite of all the pressure that is currently being put upon us to do so.
Catalonia is hoping for a Europe that welcomes immigrants and shows solidarity for people who fight against new forms of colonisation.
Catalonia needs Europe, without a doubt, but Europe also needs Catalonia.
Seny - Catalan common sense, in other words - would work wonders at the Council and the Commission.
In a few days, my fellow countrymen will, no doubt, firmly express some of their aspirations much better than I can.
I hope they, or rather we, will be heard.
Mr President, what stands out in the Commission document is, on the one hand, the acknowledgement that the backdrop to the Lisbon strategy was an economic growth rate of 3%, which did not reoccur in 2000 or in 2001 as a result of the economic slowdown that took place and, on the other, the document focuses on two fundamental objectives also mentioned in the Bullmann report: fulfilling the objectives of the Stability Pact, specifically the 'zero deficit' strategy, by 2004, and the speeding up of those processes that are lagging behind.
Consequently, although it acknowledges that we are still seeing worrying levels of poverty and of inequalities in income, the proposals it makes are designed to exert greater pressure for the liberalisation of public markets, the creation of a single market for risk capital by 2003 and of financial services by 2005, the opening up of the electricity market by 2003 and of the gas market by 2004, pushing ahead with a second package of liberalisation in the rail sector and the commitment to reforming the labour markets.
Although the document puts forward some positive measures in the social sphere, with the halving of poverty levels by 2010 and the adoption of social inclusion indicators, the fact is that speeding up privatisations, the attempt to make the labour market more flexible and the insistence on applying the rigid criteria of the Stability Pact whilst failing to take account of the diversities of the Member States and the serious social problems that some of them face, will lead to greater poverty and unemployment.
The trust that employers as a class are placing in this Barcelona Summit is telling.
Hence our firm opposition to this Commission document.
The Bullmann report, which was initially reasonably balanced, was then ruined by moving too close towards the positions put forward by the Commission, another reason why we should oppose it.
Mr President, the right-of-centre government in my home country, Denmark, has today appointed an internationally recognised con man, a Mr Lomborg, as leader of the government' s so-called Institute for Environmental Assessment and in that way taken a major step towards abolishing any kind of sustainable development.
Through its verbal manoeuvrings, euphemisms and concealments, the EU's Council Presidency is more elegant at overcoming social and global conflicts, but the overall result is the same.
It is claimed, for example, that the integrated transport systems programme is of benefit to the environment, but the development of the EU' s motorway network since the Treaty of Maastricht was adopted ten years ago has, alone, led to a 15% increase in traffic-related CO2 emissions, and that is quite independent of the political resolutions to reduce total emissions.
There is nothing in the programmes to suggest radical changes.
The summit programme represents everything but sustainable development, and that is true not only in an environmental perspective.
What, then, of global social and economic sustainability? What Barcelona is mainly about, of course, is consolidating and developing the EU countries' share of world economic domination.
It is not only the environment that is being sacrificed, it is the great majority of the world' s population.
The link between the EU' s full-blown capitalism and the political and military oppression it practises is frighteningly clear - only not to the EU élite.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, I fully endorse the recommendations in Mr Bullmann' s report, particularly the appeal to respect some of the goals established at Lisbon, which are based on a vision of the welfare state in which it is not just a mere appendage to economic policy but an essential part of a sustainable development policy seeking to achieve full employment and raise the quality of employment.
I also support many of the - sound - recommendations made in Mr Karas' report.
However, the strategic role assumed at Lisbon by the research and development policies of promoting education and lifelong learning and increasing the active population and the employment of older workers requires that these goals be part of an economic and social policy developed and decided by a single entity according to an agreed decision-making process, not least using forms of open cooperation.
From this point of view, the delays which have accumulated in public and private investment in research and lifelong training, which - I would remind you again - make the processes of mobility and flexibility dependent on the achievement of the absolutely imperative conditions of security and employability, are cause for concern.
Still more disturbing, however, are signs of a slackening of efforts to develop a policy mix which combines responsibility for coordinating economic policies promoting sustainable development with responsibility for coordinating the employment and social cohesion policies, introducing a new era in social dialogue.
If the significance of this sort of approach, which seems currently to prevail - that is, separating once again the common economic policy, which is, moreover, often implicit, from social policy, which is in danger of being relegated to the status of an auxiliary policy - were not actually to be acknowledged at Barcelona or if it were not to be openly discussed, that would irreparably compromise the goals set at Lisbon for the period 2002-2010.
This danger is all the more serious in that it appears to coincide with the aim of a transnational political front which is openly seeking to distort the strategic content of the Lisbon decisions.
This is the case with a document signed by the Italian and British Heads of Government which endorses not structural reform but deregulation of the labour market and the abolition of collective bargaining, making it subject to voluntary opting-in of individual employers and workers.
This is a violation of Article 30 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which cannot be accepted or endorsed at Barcelona.
Mr President, while of course the liberalising thrust of the Lisbon process in the Barcelona Summit is welcomed, I would like to bring to your attention two warnings.
Firstly, what we do not do, and what we refrain from doing, is as important as what we are positively trying to do.
We should learn in the name of competitiveness to refrain from burdening and cluttering the European Union from excessive regulation or initiatives which are not strictly necessary.
In that perspective, I hope the Barcelona Summit will turn its attention to the crucial issue of regulatory impact assessment.
Too often, initiatives are launched without the full impact on business, on the environment, but also on consumers and administrations, first being fully examined.
Let us all turn our attention to tightening up the hurdles which we need to leap over before we actually launch initiatives.
The second warning is this. The Lisbon process - and no doubt this will be picked up at the Barcelona Summit - is now groaning under a whole series of targets.
Targets are fine, but they can quickly undermine the credibility of the process if the targets are either not met or are simply met by Member States through a statistical sleight of hand.
I would appeal to the Council and the Commission to be wary about implementing and establishing too many targets if those targets are clearly not always going to be met.
My group has long been critical of the Lisbon process, not least because of its unquestioning belief in economic growth per se, with no attempt at any qualitative evaluation of it at all, yet we still cling to this as a key indicator of economic wellbeing and assume that that means social wellbeing as well.
If I have to fence my house, put up burglar alarms, catches on the windows, etc., it may be good for the economy, but it is not good for my quality of life.
We also criticise the ambition about being the most competitive knowledge-based economy, on the basis that in any competition, there are going to be losers, both within the European Union and globally.
What we are looking at with Lisbon is that we have to beware that social cohesion, which was another of the goals, does not become a casualty of our search for competitiveness.
We are also very much aware that Lisbon is not enough.
Gothenburg added the environment and the promise of Spring summits, which Barcelona is, as sustainability summits.
In my group's view, all summits should be about sustainability, but I would settle for at least one a year as a start because the environment underpins our economic development, and if you do not have sustainability, you can kiss goodbye to the stability pact.
Mr Bullmann's original report gave us a comprehensive reminder of a number of issues concerning employment, social cohesion and the importance of sustainability, but I think we saw considerable tension introduced with that report, with certain EMAC resolutions; not least, paragraph 25 and its push for liberalisation with no qualitative evaluation on the social and environmental side whatsoever, and paragraph 36, which tells us that the European Union did a very good job at Doha in our push for the liberalisation of world trade as the catalyst for international growth.
We have to get away from this idea that sustainable growth somehow means 3% year after year, if that is going to eat up our finite resources and pollute our environment.
We have to decide as a European Union what we mean by sustainable economic growth and it is not what we are voting about here.
Mr President, More Europe, the theme of the Spanish Presidency, is an objective that we support in principle. The real question, however, is what Europe?
At a time when the European Union is in need of strong economic and social growth and must meet the aspirations of its citizens who are making their voice heard, the Barcelona Summit is being heralded as a decisive step in achieving an accelerated liberalisation of public services that the President-in-Office of the Council earlier referred to as 'a network industry' .
Liberalisation provides the magic answer.
We face growing expectations of more ambitious and high-quality public services, however.
Can this just be national self-interest? I think that this need is universal.
The sizeable disparities that exist between countries in terms of people' s access to these services justify drawing up common European standards that will allow harmonisation to be carried out from above.
It is not fewer public services that should be on the agenda, but more public services, which have been improved through development, by being made more democratic and through modernisation.
The Union still believes that public services, or services of general interest, are an exception to the rules of competition.
They must instead become the heart of European social cohesion, the key to action for a progressive Europe, and become one of its reference points and one of its values.
When presented with the progress report on cohesion in the Union, will we continue to destroy with one hand what we are trying to achieve with the other? The Barcelona Summit will not restrict itself to this issue, of course, but the fundamental problems are the same: the economic situation, the fight against terrorism, enlargement, the need for more democratic institutions; that is, so many issues which call for renewed consideration of the meaning of the European Union and its goals, with the first meeting of the Convention opening tomorrow.
It is no longer sufficient to include the formal reference to 'a more social Europe', and to the fact that we need to be closer to the people.
We need strong signs and practical action.
The answers predicted to come out of the summit are not yet moving in the right direction - very much the opposite in fact.
A more liberal Europe is unfolding behind the More Europe theme, and this is the credo of the market.
The people have other expectations and they will express these expectations forcefully at the demonstrations that will take place on the eve of the Summit.
It is crucial that we listen to them.
Mr President, Mr Rato y Figaredo and Commissioners, I believe we are debating a very important topic today, and I am delighted that this is being done under the Spanish Presidency.
Nowhere has unemployment fallen so dramatically as in Spain.
I calculated a moment ago that the Union' s total unemployment figure has fallen by 1% thanks to Spain' s enormous efforts. Without these efforts, we would have had an unemployment figure of 9.5%; instead it is now 8.5%.
I think this is an exceptionally important achievement which should be emulated in some other countries.
This achievement has been brought about by a combination of economic reform, social dialogue, etc., and the intention is to follow this example across all European countries.
There are also a few unfortunate developments, of course.
The first one has already been mentioned by Mr Poettering, namely the issue of the warning letter in Germany.
How did this come about?
I should also like to mention two perfidious features, the first one being that a country that is not a member of the eurozone, namely Great Britain, should intervene in eurozone matters. It is not their concern, they are not involved in it in any way; yet they still help make a qualified majority impossible.
This is really outrageous!
At this rate, Putin and Bush will soon have a say in our interest rate.
This is not acceptable and, in my view, we should put an end to this at the earliest opportunity.
The second perverse feature, the internal German Finanzausgleich, is of a different kind.
In the Stability Pact, we try to avoid getting into debt, but in the German Finanzausgleich, the accumulation of debts is rewarded, and federal states which have no need of getting into real debt are forced to do so nevertheless.
This must also be put a stop to.
If we can manage to do this, this will benefit our economic role which will become more community-oriented.
Mr President, I personally considered the decision taken at Gothenburg to incorporate the environmental dimension in the Lisbon process to be crucial. However, I feel somewhat pessimistic about the possibility of the forthcoming Spring Council developing that approach coherently.
I will limit myself to mentioning the three main reasons for this pessimism, in the hope, of course, that I will be proved wrong. Firstly, the slow pace of the attempt to place the environmental dimension on a genuinely equal footing with the economic and social dimensions, evidence of which is the fact that only some of the indicators for assessing progress made have been established thus far.
Secondly, the excessively closed way in which the Lisbon and Gothenburg strategy is being managed, without the European Parliament, or the regional authorities or social partners either, being involved as they should. Thirdly, the delay in the endeavours of the Community institutions, including Parliament, to bring their activities into line with the principle of sustainable development, a principle which allows neither completely separate departments nor overlapping responsibilities.
This concept of development is based on the principle of policy integration and therefore requires maximum coordination and cooperation and the creation of joint planning, guidance and monitoring instruments.
The reason for all this is fundamental: innovation, research, training, quantity and quality of work and valuing the environment and culture are increasingly becoming elements of the same policy.
These requirements are clearly expressed in both the Bullmann report and the motion for a resolution discussed in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, and they therefore have my full support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we in the Liberal Group support the general approach and objectives presented by the Spanish Presidency for the Barcelona meeting and we were able to discuss them in detail when Vice-President Rato y Figaredo appeared before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Nevertheless, I would like to make a few comments.
One is that we believe that, by the end of the Barcelona European Council, there must be a timetable for the objectives set.
Two years have passed since Lisbon and the truth is that, if we look at the evolution of productivity levels, for example, the evolution of the economy itself, not in absolute terms, but in comparison with the United States, or the failure to achieve certain fundamental objectives such as the liberalisation of certain sectors which are still over-protected and which clearly distort competition, the results of this process are not so far satisfactory.
Therefore, in order to make the meeting of the European Council credible, in addition to creating another list of things to be done, as has often been said, we must establish a clear relationship between the objectives and the timetable.
Mr President, two years after the Lisbon Summit, the most optimistic and most willing Europeans recall the announcement of a new paradigm: to make the European Union the most competitive knowledge-based economy in the world and achieve greater social cohesion.
This strategy, which was finalised at Gothenburg, is becoming a strategy for sustainable development in the environmental and social spheres.
We wanted to believe this, we would like to believe this, we still want to believe this, but, in reality, the integration of economic, social and environmental dimensions is still merely an illusion.
The Spanish Presidency, however, is not pretending.
It is working with great honesty.
It perceives the Union' s sustainable development to be the efficiency of markets, goods, services, capital and employment.
Can we pretend to believe this? They want to sell us the accelerated liberalisation of the markets, transport, electricity and gas, although they know that this will result in our being less capable of supplying services to combat poverty, to provide social protection; it will bring about less territorial cohesion and fewer high-quality jobs, as all the studies have shown.
We are providing flexibility in the employment market and the mobility of employees instead of a real job creation policy.
Mr Bullmann' s report is trying to achieve the impossible.
He would like to have his cake and eat it.
He wants the commitments of the Stability and Growth Pact to be fulfilled and to see investment in education, research, the environment and networks.
He wants high-quality employment and flexibility in the market.
There is no doubt, in our view, that the real priorities of the Barcelona Summit are the development of the social economy based on solidarity, an independent income, including for young people who are slipping further into poverty, a real definition of services of general interest, a reduction in working time, investment in the environment and lifestyle.
These, in our opinion, are the priorities of the Barcelona Summit.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, and Mr President of the Commission, I wish to limit myself to speaking about Mr Karas' report.
Firstly, it is to be welcomed that a distinction is drawn between actual economic consequences of 11 September and political and economic deficiencies that preceded them by some considerable time.
It goes without saying that the European Union must allow Member States to support enterprises with serious problems that really are attributable to the consequences of the attack, in order to alleviate or prevent adverse effects on their employees, whether these effects are direct and commercial or are associated with these and of a social nature.
Secondly, though, it is irresponsible for enterprises to take steps to rationalise - in other words, cut jobs - out of hand, and unjustifiably defend this by reference to the events of 11 September.
It would in fact be nonsensical and damaging to use State aid to intervene in such situations.
Thirdly, the assertion that the European Central Bank's cutting of interest rates and the introduction of the euro in Europe could nip an international financial crisis in the bud, is one that I consider incapable of being proven.
Fourthly, additional adverse consequences for the economic situation, such as the rapporteur fears, might be brought about by increased expenditure on the armed forces and on internal security, can be drastically minimised by a sensible policy of development, which would focus on removing such causes of terrorism as poverty, oppression, exploitation and cultural intolerance.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, in these two minutes I would like to concentrate on a related matter that will play an important part in the Barcelona Summit.
Mr Prodi, the President of the Commission, has mentioned that the biotechnology action plan proposed by the Commission will also be on the agenda.
I believe it is a good thing that this will be discussed in Barcelona, as biotechnology offers opportunities for growth and employment.
I think it right that the Commission should be advancing so courageously on this issue.
I will state openly that most applications of genetic technology and biotechnology throw up no fundamental ethical problems, and so biotechnology should be supported, and, in that we save resources by its astute use, biotechnology can also make a contribution towards sustainable development.
However, Mr President of the Commission, there are also well-founded concerns.
I get the impression that, in the Commission's action plan, these well-founded concerns tend to be presented as a problem of acceptance, so that all that is needed is enough talk and public information and there will then no longer be a problem.
Parliament, though, has always emphasised that there are also requisite boundaries, boundaries that are necessary in themselves and which we have to lay down politically in order to protect health and the environment, but also on ethical grounds.
For we are no longer the European Economic Community; we are the European Union, and so we need common values, with the consequences that derive from them.
I therefore consider it false of the Commission to deal with stem cell research in a very wholesale way in their document, which does not sufficiently distinguish the ethical problems.
Mr Aznar has done things very differently in recent days.
He has explicitly aired the ethical problems.
I would like to call on the Council and the Commission to give their attention to these problems.
I wish to ask my fellow Members to support Amendment No 27 to the Jackson resolution, in which we have precisely and even-handedly dealt with this balance between opportunity and risk and call on the Council to act appropriately.
I want to address three points.
Firstly, the liberalisation of the energy market, secondly the European research area and the flanking measures which need to accompany the sixth framework programme, and thirdly, entrepreneurship.
On entrepreneurship, is it not about time that we heard some of the results from the many benchmarking exercises which have been undertaken?
Is it not time that we named and shamed those Member States who are not taking the actions necessary to improve entrepreneurship and competitiveness? The European Parliament's Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy has voted on the liberalisation directives for gas and electricity and we have reached the conclusion that if liberalisation takes place without paying attention to the environmental, consumer and social consequences, you are embarking on a dangerous journey.
We would ask, for example, that energy efficiency be used as an indicator in the Lisbon and Barcelona processes.
If a Member State is so inept that it does not use energy intelligently, it will never be competitive.
It is one of the best indicators of the will of that country to do well in today's world, so we ask for indicators there.
And please, tell us what your many benchmarking exercises have shown.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has drawn up a fine resolution on sustainable development.
Everyone is in favour, yet when it comes to specific initiatives, the support base dwindles very quickly.
The Aznar government currently wants an annual European subsidy of EUR 1 billion for its Plan Hidrológico Nacional, a ludicrous plan, which flies in the face of sustainable development, to transport water across one thousand kilometres instead of saving water and desalinating sea water.
The Commission is tempted to give this 1 billion.
This is unacceptable.
That is why I urge all fellow MEPs to support Amendment No 10, including the reference to Spain.
Allow me to conclude my speech with the following words in Spanish: El plano estupido del Gobierno Aznar no pasará.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, to put the environmental dimension on the same level of importance as the economic and social dimension and to act accordingly means stopping talking about sustainable development and actually getting down to implementing it.
To be vigilant and demanding in relation to the application of the sustainable development criteria in the Member States with regard to their compliance with European legislation and the application of Community funds is the obligation of the Community institutions.
The motion for a resolution from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy is an initiative which insists on these aspects and it therefore deserves the support of this House.
However, to bring a national issue such as the National Hydrological Plan to the European Parliament, in the context of this resolution, is a grave error which has nothing to do with the desire for sustainable development but which has to do with an intention to abandon the principles of subsidiarity and autonomy on the part of the Community institutions.
Mr de Roo, to try to deprive a Member State, a priori, without good reason, of the Community funds necessary for its economic development and for the social cohesion of its regions is, in reality, to go against the very sustainable development of that Member State. The Spanish National Hydrological Plan is not an enemy of sustainable development.
Its approach is based on a total commitment to compliance with Community environmental legislation and the criteria underlying the sustainable development strategy. It has the majority support and approval of the competent national institutions and constant national and Community scientific and technical supervision.
Improving the quality of life of more than fifteen million people depends on its implementation and the immense majority of the Spanish population show support and solidarity towards it.
Our electors expect us to offer appropriate responses to the issues on which we have to take a position.
The best political responses are the result of reflection, prudence and a profound knowledge of the issues; under no circumstances do they result from demagoguery.
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, often it seems that education plays second fiddle to the issues of market liberalisation, technological innovation and indeed the promotion of telecommunications and entrepreneurial infrastructure.
However, the Bullmann report calls to our attention that all these measures come to absolutely naught if we do not have an educated citizenry that can create, operate and service these sectors.
Therefore, education in the context of a sophisticated manufacturing and entrepreneurial milieu in a society that requires frequent switches in skills basis and a society that requires mobility across borders, becomes a precondition, a predeterminant, of our success in a knowledge economy, not simply one of the results of its successes.
How can we hope to have a competitive, dynamic economy when Member States today have substantial proportions of illiteracy, huge inequalities in linguistic capacity, protectionism and discrepancies in occupational and educational qualifications, and numerous financial and legal barriers to mobility.
The changes we need, require fundamental cooperation across Member States of a kind that education ministers, vice-chancellors of universities and national qualification agencies find enormously difficult.
Therefore facing these extraordinary difficulties, the one thing at Barcelona that would move us forward immensely would be to provide the framework, the joint commitment and a realistic appraisal of the resources required to ensure that we make these fundamental leaps to promote education as the fundamental step in the future of the competitive knowledge economy in Europe.
Mr President, the Parliament's committees on which I sit have in the last few days made important progress with legislation on both financial services and energy market liberalisation.
It will be tragic if the European Council cannot also match Europe's urgent needs and their own rhetoric at Lisbon and bring this area of legislation to completion and soon.
Beyond this, I stress the critical importance of research and development and innovation to the future of Europe.
Mr Prodi highlighted this policy area and said quite rightly there is no reason why Europe should not lead the world in biotechnology, which is undoubtedly going to be the leading area of science and industry, of employment and improved quality of life for the next few decades.
And yet, what do we have? Bickering over the Community patent, moratoria and antagonisms, procedural obstacles which have forestalled all progress in genetically modified crops and a tremendous promise they offer to us in Europe and the developing world especially.
What do we have? Over-complex and expensive approval procedures and patenting processes for new products in healthcare and pharmaceuticals.
We cannot afford to lose our best scientists to our competitors where they are better appreciated, given scope to realise their ambitions and are suitably rewarded.
We are already two years past Lisbon, there are only eight more years to 2010 when we are to be the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.
Action will speak louder than words, Mr President-in-Council, there is little or no time to lose.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, when I spoke to you in January during the debate on the priorities of the Spanish Presidency, I stressed that the European Union could learn a great deal from Spain, with its largely successful policy that the Prime Minister, Mr José María Aznar, has pursued for several years.
Today I can only repeat what I said then and say it more firmly, in the run-up to the Barcelona European Council.
At Lisbon, against the backdrop of a difficult international economic climate, the EU Heads of State and Government expressed the desire to make the European Union, in the medium-term, one of the most competitive, most dynamic and most prosperous regions of the world.
The Barcelona Summit must ensure that this desire does not turn out to be a vain hope and that the economic, social and environmental reforms contained within this ambitious objective are carried through to completion and that they are not allowed to be deferred.
We must take the euro as a starting point to achieve a seamless Europe, where the markets are fully integrated, a Europe where businesses, workers and students can use the whole of the Union as a reference and as a sphere of action.
There is no better way for our fellow citizens to achieve social integration than by undertaking a professional career.
The new phase in the employment strategy must place more emphasis on the structural barriers to job creation, on the tax regimes and social welfare systems, and enable closer cooperation between the national services that are tackling unemployment. In all these areas, it is not the time to withdraw into oneself, to be overcautious, or reckless.
Just as some countries of the European Union are single-handedly conducting a policy resulting in restricting people' s will and ability to start up a business, work, and therefore hire employees, other countries of the Union, of the eurozone, are establishing an environment enabling everyone to develop their spirit of initiative and creativity.
I therefore hope that the Barcelona Summit is an opportunity for Europe, for the whole of Europe, to move in another direction, which encourages dynamism, entrepreneurial freedom, competitiveness and responsibility.
Mr President, the Lisbon strategy was a success.
I also wish to state that the previous summit - the Spring Summit in Stockholm - was a success.
However, I am not too sure that the Barcelona Summit will be so.
That will depend upon the balance between the various issues, for most of the talk I have heard so far has been about liberalising various markets.
I myself come from a country, Sweden, which has a Social Democratic government and which has done more than many other countries to liberalise the markets.
I therefore have nothing against liberalisation as such, but it must be balanced against a vigorous employment strategy, quality of employment, the fight against poverty and, in particular, efforts towards sustainable development.
These aspects do not appear to weigh so heavily in the arguments deployed prior to the Barcelona Summit.
In his report, Mr Bullmann has succeeded in achieving a balance between, on the one hand, liberalisation and, on the other hand, sustainable development, employment strategy and quality of employment.
I hope that this balance will be achieved at the Barcelona Summit because that summit will be judged by outsiders on the basis of how successful it is in that respect.
It must not just be about liberalisation.
The other aspects of the Lisbon strategy must also be dealt with if the Barcelona Summit is to be a success.
Mr President, before I start my speech proper, I will digress briefly in order to respond to Mr Trentin.
When populism is introduced into a debate or a discussion, the debate will not bear much fruit.
Mr Berlusconi and Mr Blair did not meet out of a desire for formal ceremony. They met in the conviction that there is a labour market model which needs reforming.
We have an outdated model which needs modernising.
We are also aware that there are conservative forces which protect workers on paper but do not afford them any protection at all in practice.
That said, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Karas on his excellent report.
It is a faithful, accurate description of the state of the European and world economies following the terrorist attacks of 11 September last year; it is also a working document containing proposals on the future development of the European economy.
To bring about this economic revival, we must start with the rigorous application of Regulation 1466/97, which obliges the Member States of the eurozone to present and comply with stability programmes, while it obliges all the other States, pending total accession, to establish a sound, rigorous economic policy which is very close to that of the Member States.
It is absolutely vital that all the acceding States apply these rules rigorously: any deviation or indulgence would be counterproductive and would mean that they would subsequently be unable to endorse positions adopted towards other States which appear weaker on paper.
The sectors worst affected by the crisis are also identified: insurance companies, the aeronautical industry and tourism.
The suggestion put forward of a State reinsurance mechanism is certainly interesting, precisely because these terrorist acts are not committed against individuals but against the community of all people.
It is vital that we learn from this crisis for the future.
Growing nationalism and our performance of a leading international role must not lead us to disregard poverty and marginalisation.
The greatest error we can make is to identify our own security and stability with the weakness of other, potentially enemy countries.
Mr President, the Lisbon process was important because it made a significant breakthrough by deciding to take an integrated approach to the economic employment and social policy dimensions to ensure that each was given an equal standing in terms of policy development.
It is important that Barcelona does not backtrack on that commitment.
It is important that Barcelona realises that if there is going be social cohesion, if we are going to reform and develop our European social model then the equilateral triangular approach to the development of Europe has to be maintained and developed.
Specifically, I refer to paragraph 22 of the Bullmann report which deals with the question of services of general interest.
It is extremely important in my view that this House gives strong support to that paragraph.
This an area of the European economy which accounts for something like 16% of investment and close to 9% of employment.
Of course it has to be reformed, but at the same time we have to ensure that the services which general interest deliver are delivered in an equitable, fair and a universal way.
That cannot be done in an ad hoc way.
It cannot be done by each Commissioner or each Council taking its own ad hoc approach.
We need to take on board a proposal of this Parliament that we put in place a directive, not a one-fit-for-all directive, but a directive which would provide a framework for services of general interest, which would establish the principles on which they are to be provided and which would put on an institutional basis an evaluation of how those services are delivered.
Mr President, I would like to address the House to talk about the issue of sustainable development at the Barcelona European Council.
The Commission' s resolution clearly contains many interesting points; but in relation to Amendment No 10, which discusses information and the sustainability reports which have to be produced in order to receive Structural Funds and in relation to the Spanish National Hydrological Plan, I wish to say that I am very concerned, because the criteria for sustainability are not well-defined at the moment.
We have no good definition of what we consider to be sustainable and this leads to subjective views, propaganda and unjust positions.
I believe it is necessary to improve the criteria that are going to define sustainability with an open mind, because the integral policy requires that we incorporate the multifaceted nature of sustainability.
But we must also take account of territorial criteria.
We must therefore employ objective and territorial parameters, since sustainable development always affects a specific territory.
In this respect, climate change, for example, cannot only be applied to gas emissions, but also to desertification, which is perfectly quantifiable, and to rain levels.
Something else also worries me, however.
While we have managed to incorporate sustainability and the environment into a transversal policy, the latter, the environment, must also open the door to social and economic criteria.
There cannot be sustainability without an assessment of the social impact, of the habitability of regions, of the negative economic impact and of the costs.
We must therefore enrich the criteria for sustainable development, otherwise we will create situations of asymmetry and injustice which make it difficult to implement energy and water policies in the future.
Mr President, it was very important progress we made in Gothenburg with the adoption of a combined strategy for sustainable development and the simultaneous incorporation of the environmental dimension into the Lisbon strategy.
The Barcelona Summit next month will therefore be the first opportunity for taking stock of their implementation.
I think that the challenges in the environmental sphere have not been dealt with fully enough either in the Spanish Presidency' s work programme or in the Commission' s discussion paper for the summit.
By means of the proposals to be debated tomorrow here in Parliament, those of us in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy have tried to correct some of these deficiencies.
Allow me just to mention a couple of examples.
I believe it is important to get the Cardiff strategy on environmental integration tightened up so that we might have clear objectives and timetables established for implementing the strategy.
It is also important that we arrange for systematic sustainability assessments to be carried out of all the EU' s political initiatives.
In the area of agriculture and fisheries, we are all aware of the problems.
It is hugely important that, in the new agriculture and fisheries reforms, we should see to it that the requirements in terms of the environment and sustainability are also considered in relation to enlargement.
Finally, I hope that the European Council will demand of the Commission that work on a new chemicals policy for the EU be hurried along as much as possible.
I hope that the Council will listen to Parliament' s eminently justified demands and recommendations.
Mr President, a great deal has been said already.
I have just two comments to make.
The first concerns the strategy for sustainable development in the run up to the Barcelona Summit, which puts flesh on the bones of the endeavour started in Gothenburg last year, when the environmental dimension was woven into economic development and social cohesion, successfully in my view.
The common objective of these endeavours is to put the European Union's long-term, global strategy on sustainable development into practice.
Biotechnology is an important sector today - and will be even more important tomorrow - and we must not overlook that aspect of it which can play an important part in sustainable development.
This point is covered in Amendment No 27 proposed by my group.
If used with care, biotechnological applications, and genetically-modified organisms in particular, can make a positive contribution both to the economy and trade and to environmental protection, for numerous reasons which there is no need to reiterate.
At the same time, if we are to establish consumer confidence, we need to pay attention to concerns on this count and the call for analytical control methods, as well as markers and tracers, to be applied to genetically modified organisms is a legitimate one.
It will guarantee compliance with the principles of safety, responsibility and proper information and, at the same time, create conditions of healthy competition in a highly promising sector.
My second comment concerns the Commission communication on the action plan on mobility.
The Commission proposal for a social security card is lacking in substance. Why?
Because it does not create a European area of health which meets the demands of European citizens; all it does is simplify bureaucratic procedures.
Unless the card includes details and medical data, naturally with the interested party's consent, which can be used in the other Member States, it will do nothing to improve present medical coverage at European level.
Naturally, what we need is for the Member States to run compatible medical IT systems. This, of course, is where the Commission comes in and we expect it to take positive action on this issue.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to single out one aspect of the summit, namely employment, since the socio-economic policy which we pursue has, after all, a considerable bearing on employment.
Firstly, I am of the opinion that the summit should consider whether the objectives laid down in Lisbon can be met.
In my view, this is impossible at the sluggish pace which we are currently seeing in Europe.
I have studied the figures relating to the development of employment and unemployment.
Last year was disappointing, and we will therefore never be able to meet the target.
This is partly due to the fact that there is no longer any pressure from the European Union to actually implement the national action plans for employment which Member States are required to submit every year.
During the initial period of the Luxembourg process, the bad reports which the Commission gave the different Member States were still headline news. News of such reports has now been relegated to token entries on the last pages of some newspapers.
This means, therefore, that the pressure to utilise the open coordination method is slowly being reduced.
The summit should therefore consider what can be done to increase this pressure.
I would now like to mention two specific points. Firstly, the costs to employers of creating employment are far too high.
If I look at the difference between the costs and what employees are eventually left with, then non-management staff, for example, retain on average 45% of the costs of employing them, while management retain 35 or 36%.
If nothing is done to curb these costs for employers, the level of redundancies will remain high.
Secondly, the difference between unemployment benefits and wages is too small.
Many people remain unemployed and combine this situation with moonlighting, because wages are too low.
Mr President, when the Barcelona Summit takes place, it will be two years since the Lisbon process began and the objective was set of creating the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by the year 2010.
It is now high time that we provided stronger support for developing and consolidating the process of modernising the European economy and that we made clear our demands for practical measures.
If we are to be able to create a dynamic and competitive Europe, then deregulation, liberalisation, structural changes and tax reductions must be implemented.
That will in turn lead to basic conditions being created for new companies and new jobs, as well as to increased prosperity.
We shall not obtain a dynamic and competitive Europe though further detailed regulations or through the EU' s taking on responsibility for an increased number of areas.
What is fundamental to achieving the Lisbon objective is, first of all, an internal energy market characterised by liberalisation, competition and openness.
This is of the greatest importance to European industry and the people of Europe if they are to obtain better service and lower prices.
The second prerequisite is an internal market for financial services with a view to improving the opportunities for investment and economic growth by means of lower capital costs and increased profitability.
Modernisation of the European economy is partly aimed at reducing unemployment in Europe, for example by increasing employee mobility, something which is also very important if the common currency is to flourish.
Small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular, must also be provided with sound basic conditions in which to start up, grow and become larger - or, perhaps, even to become large companies.
I believe that these viewpoints should have been the main content of Parliament' s statements about the continued direction of the Lisbon process prior to the Barcelona Summit.
Unfortunately, that has not quite been the case, something which we Conservatives regret.
The report even contains a number of points that are in direct conflict with dynamic and competitive development.
If the report were really to have supported the Lisbon process, it should have focused upon deregulation, liberalisation and increased competition.
Thank you, Mr President.
On behalf of the Presidency, I would firstly like to thank all the parliamentary groups for their speeches and I will try to be as concise as possible, bearing in mind that there have been many references which have overlapped or coincided.
I would firstly like to address those who have noted any kind of defect in the excessive deficit procedures, that is to say, the procedures for monitoring the governments' stability plans.
I would like to insist that the Eurogroup and the Ecofin Council have had absolutely no hesitation in confirming the validity of the stability pact and that, with regard to the implementation of the early warning procedure in Article 99, by the Commission, the Council believes that the declarations and specific commitments made by two countries in relation to their compliance in the short term, that is, during this year, and in the medium term, from now until 2004, with the objectives of their stability plans and the stability pact in general, with a balance or almost a balance, in 2004, were commitments which met the needs stemming from our stability commitments.
In this regard, I believe that the Commission has acknowledged that, independently of procedural factors, the efforts and commitments made by both countries are clear and thorough from the point of view of the macroeconomic stability of the European Union and the eurozone in particular.
I would also like to stress that, in Barcelona, from the point of view of competition and liberalisation, the Spanish government, and therefore the Presidency, is going to promote political agreements which represent considerable progress towards the liberalisation of markets, bearing in mind that we are talking about services which in many respects are essential to society, and that they must therefore be accompanied by levels of quality and security of supply, which must not be reduced.
I believe that economic experience does not indicate there are any cases where competition in the market economy has led to the countries involved having worse services than those which do not have competition, but quite the opposite.
Nevertheless, efficiency in the allocation of resources, and therefore prices for consumers, can be extraordinarily beneficial.
Spain is a good example of this.
Spanish family consumers, that is, domestic consumers, have made a saving since 1996 of EUR 2 400 million as a result of the liberalisation of the electricity market, and the same has been true in relation to telecommunications and other markets.
To continue with the same example, I would highlight the effort that Spanish society has made in relation to the modernisation of the labour market, which has reduced the unemployment rate in Spain from 23% in 1995 to 12% in 2002, and that during the current Spanish legislature, that is, by 2004, that rate will be 9%, which is around the European average.
Therefore, liberalisation and competition do not pose a risk for the citizens, but quite the opposite. There is a considerable saving in the cost of public services and a considerable increase in employment, and it is unquestionably the responsibility of the public authorities, the regulators, to guarantee such factors as the quality of service and sufficient supply.
I believe that experience, not only in Spain but in many countries of the Union, confirms this.
What is beyond doubt, ladies and gentlemen, is that we are now fortunately at the end of a recession which has been very intense and relatively rapid, as the President of the Federal Reserve, Mr Greenspan, has assured us this afternoon; and what Europe needs is capacity for economic growth.
Many of the objectives which you have raised, such as environmental, social, health, educational and quality of life objectives, require economies whose potential grows, and I must remind the European Parliament that, over the last ten years, the European economy as a whole has only grown by over 3% in one year and by less than 3% in the other years.
An economy in these circumstances has to be content with a structural unemployment rate of close to 9 or 10% and I am convinced that not a single parliamentary group present believes that to be a good policy, either in economic or social terms.
I believe that the introduction of the euro has demonstrated that European citizens want more Europe and want economic reforms, and - while Mr Barón is present, since he urged me to also congratulate the Commission on the introduction of the euro - I congratulate the Commission, all the central banks, the governments and all the people who have contributed to the introduction of the euro in Europe, and above all the citizens.
Various speakers have also mentioned the problems of sustainable development, and I believe that they are perfectly compatible with economic development and furthermore that is the clear definition of the type of economic policy we want in Europe.
I would like to point out that the Barcelona Council, in line with the recommendations of the Gothenburg Council, is going to take account of the third dimension of structural reform, that is, the dimension which includes sustainable development and that, following the Laeken European Council, we now have environmental indicators which are going to lead to the first report, which was made public in January 2002, just a month ago, on 17 January, and on 5 March, next week, the Ecofin Council will analyse that report in order to take it finally to the Barcelona European Council which will also allow us to reach agreements establishing the European position, with a view to the Johannesburg Summit on sustainable development.
I perfectly understand the demand from the parliamentary groups and Members that environmental issues must be at the forefront in terms of structural reform, and in this respect I would like once again to stress that the Barcelona Summit is going to bear these issues in mind, not in a generic way, but in accordance with the environmental indicators approved by the Laeken Council.
The candidate countries have been mentioned.
The candidate countries are going to be in Barcelona, and they are going to be there to talk about their structural reforms, and therefore, in an informal but effective way, they are going to be able to participate in the debate on the liberalisation of markets in Europe and the increase in growth capacity and I believe that is a good demonstration of the will - not just of the Spanish Presidency, but of all the countries of the European Union and this Parliament - for the candidate countries to participate effectively in the debates on the establishment of European policies, even before the accession process is complete.
The issues relating to small and medium-sized businesses have also been mentioned; I would like to confirm that we are not talking about generic declarations, that the informal meeting last weekend in Aranjuez, in Spain, is going to bring proposals to the Barcelona Council so that the countries make reductions in timetables, reductions in administrative costs and use new technologies intensively in order to achieve this, and that, furthermore, the Commission, before the end of the Spanish Presidency, will make a series of recommendations on certain issues which are essential to small and medium-sized businesses such as the transfer of ownership of family businesses, which over the next ten years may make up approximately 30 to 40% of property transfers within European companies.
Issues such as Basilea II, which has been mentioned by the parliamentary groups and by some Members, are going to be analysed during the Spanish Presidency in the informal Ecofin in Oviedo, where we will hold a debate on the new rules which are going to affect the financial sector as a result of the Basilea agreements, known as Basilea II, on how they may affect the funding of all companies and, in particular, small companies.
It has been rightly pointed out that the labour market is not just a question of flexibility.
This is undoubtedly the case, and the public authorities have a role to play on issues such as the defence of workers' rights, the defence of the creation of active and passive social policies which respond to the needs of workers, the creation of training systems and positive discrimination policies in favour of specific groups such as women or women with young children.
What is absolutely clear, however, is that the best kind of social and labour policy is one that can generate stable and quality employment, and which accepts the idea that on the one hand we have a policy of social protection and on the other we try to give the European citizens the incentive to work rather than receive benefits.
That is being used today as an instrument in all the countries of the European Union, and I believe that the benchmarking procedure is useful for analysing questions relating to direct public spending incentives for people to leave behind unemployment benefit and join the labour market with salaries which do not clearly benefit from the fiscal reductions which are taking place in our countries; with formulae which give people receiving unemployment benefit the incentive to accept job offers and with formulae which reconcile training with the needs of companies, as well as extending working life within our labour markets.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to refer to the need, which has also been raised by some speakers, for specific timetables to be established in Barcelona.
There is no doubt that the Barcelona Council intends to set quantifiable objectives which allow the States to make commitments which the public understands and accepts.
I believe that, by reconciling political positions, which are not necessarily similar, no issues which are clearly sensitive, such as the provision of essential services, in which public authorities undoubtedly have a role to play in terms of guaranteeing the concept of public service, and the concept of quality, I also believe that we can establish processes which create genuine European internal markets which put the European economy in a position to compete with other world economies, now that we have taken the gigantic step, in terms of the construction of Europe, of introducing the euro.
Mr President, I asked the President-in-Office of the Council a specific question on statements by the Spanish Prime Minister - who is also President-in-Office of the European Council - that made reference to my political family in the Council, but he has not yet answered my question.
It is for the President-in-Office of the Council to decide whether he answers the question or not.
Mr President, I have no problem reminding Mr Barón of what he already knows - that there is a very constructive relationship between the Spanish government and other European States, and that we have been able to reach political agreements with all governments, whatever colour their political family - to use the language Mr Barón himself likes to use - and that, bearing in mind the influence Mr Barón has over his political family, we hope that the conclusions of the Barcelona Council will allow all political families to contribute to the wellbeing of all Europeans.
Mr Rato y Figaredo, thank you for speaking to the European Parliament this afternoon. We wish the Spanish Presidency every success in its term of office, as I am sure you are aware.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
International Criminal Court
The next item is the Council statement on the International Criminal Court.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you that, due to lack of time, you will have to strictly adhere to your allocated speaking time.
Thank you, Mr de Miguel. You can rest assured that you will always be able to count on the support of this Parliament, which has expressed its political will in this regard on many occasions.
. (DE) Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, EU policy in the sphere of human rights and democratisation includes as an integral component the fight to ensure that serious crimes do not go unpunished and the struggle for justice at an international level.
The statute of the International Criminal Court, concluded in Rome, represents probably the most significant achievement of international law since the establishment of the United Nations.
The European Union has always advocated the International Criminal Court and continues to support this project vigorously, as demonstrated by the common position adopted by the EU in June 2001, in which we put the case for the agreed statute to enter into force as soon as possible and for the Court to be established.
The Commission unreservedly approves the start made in this common position, and I, too, wholeheartedly concur with what Ramón de Miguel has just set out in his capacity as President of the Council.
The Commission welcomes the official statement in January 2002 by the Central and Eastern European countries associated with the European Union, as well as by Cyprus and Malta, countries also associated with it, and the EFTA countries belonging to the European Economic Area, to the effect that they associate themselves with the objectives of the common position.
The EU's budget is being used to support projects by non-governmental organisations, by means of which projects the whole world is to be made aware of the need for the Court to be established.
Since 1995, then, within the framework of the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights, some EUR 6.9 million have to date been spent on projects of this sort.
EUR 2.1 million were made available in 2001 for three projects by non-governmental organisations in support of the International Criminal Court, which complement each other.
The 'NGO Coalition for the Criminal Court' project aims to facilitate civil society's involvement, in cooperation with governments, within the framework of the United Nations' Preparatory Committee for the Criminal Court, and promote and facilitate technical cooperation, so that binding national legislation can be enacted to implement the statute concluded in Rome once it is ratified.
The project 'Parliamentarians for Global Action' is engaged in a parliamentary campaign to ratify and effectively implement the statute of the Criminal Court and promote the rule of law, and the project 'No peace without justice' concentrates on campaigns to build public awareness and organise conferences in support of the Criminal Court.
In the May 2001 Commission communication on the role of human rights and democratisation in third countries, the combating of unpunished crime was ranked as a measure to be promoted as a high priority.
The Commission will therefore continue to support the establishment of the International Criminal Court.
EUR 5 million has been allocated to the special budget line for the International Criminal Court, which also includes the ad hoc courts for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and also the newly-established court for Sierra Leone, for 2002.
In 2002, the Commission will be concentrating its efforts on two aspects, firstly on increasing awareness of the Criminal Court, as part of which it wants to call on more than the necessary sixty countries to proceed with ratification, so that the statute can enter into force, whilst, at the same time, wanting to ensure that all areas of the globe are represented.
We want, secondly, to concentrate on the enactment of binding national legislation to implement the plan; this would cover the training of the specialised staff involved - judges, lawyers, law enforcement agency staff and parliamentarians - to enable them to contribute to the work of the Court.
We can also make a limited contribution to covering the Court's main costs.
Proposals as to how to realise these objectives will be invited in March this year.
I too was fortunate to be able to listen to Commissioner Verheugen first, so that I can now concur with both speakers, both the speaker on behalf of the presidency and the speaker on behalf of the Commission.
Their statements dovetail perfectly with what the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats would like to see.
We also fully share their views on the significance of the Court.
If we talk about the need for reconciliation, then it is true that justice is to be done first, and the Criminal Court that has been set up for this purpose is therefore an extremely important instrument for ensuring the international rule of law, particularly in its preventive effect on people with dubious criminal backgrounds who have acquired high political positions, as we have witnessed in Yugoslavia and near the Great Lakes in Africa.
It is of the utmost importance for impunity to be no longer acceptable and for this now also to be universally known.
The resolutions submitted by Parliament contain a few important points.
First of all, we as groups mutually agreed during the negotiations to urge the President and the Congress of the United States to review their position on taking part in the International Criminal Court.
We have such high regard for the US that we need to make this appeal in a proper manner.
This is why I also deem the amendment in this connection, which concerns an old document from the negotiations, to be wholly inappropriate.
It makes no sense to try to convince the Americans by using tough words.
Instead, we should prevent the irritation, which is already in evidence among the Americans in respect of Europe, from escalating any further and try to discuss these matters in a friendly manner.
Another point is the need for the provisions of the Geneva Convention with regard to prisoners of war to be updated, so that we can take account of the status of the people currently held in Guatanamo.
We, as a group, set great store by providing a definition in this connection.
In addition, we hope that the Spanish Presidency will succeed in setting up this International Criminal Court under its own presidency.
Mr President, too much time has passed since, on 17 July 1988 in Rome, the establishment of an International Criminal Court was approved, to bring to justice those individuals responsible for the most serious crimes which, as has already been mentioned here today, are the scourge of the whole world, including terrorism.
There have been 52 ratifications of the Statute to date but, ladies and gentlemen, as you are all well aware, 60 are needed for it to enter into force.
Given that we anticipate that the International Criminal Court will enter into force in the first six months of this year, under the Spanish Presidency, that the first assembly of signatory States will take place in New York, in September this year, that the attitude of the United States has not been positive so far and there are also well-founded suspicions that the American administration will be supporting a campaign against the Court, even going as far as to revoke Clinton' s signature at the UN on 31 December 2000, I would like to take advantage of your presence here, Mr de Miguel, to ask you a few specific questions.
What does the Presidency of the Union intend to do with regard to the Bush administration to avoid this risk of taking a backwards step?
Does the Presidency not think it necessary to draw up a plan with specific measures and resources to attract the United States to the International Criminal Court? What does the Presidency of the Union intend doing to guarantee that the 18 aforementioned judges, an integral component of this Court, designated at national level, meet with the requirements with regard to qualifications, balanced regional distribution, experience and parity between men and women?
When the Rome Statute was approved, Kofi Annan considered it a gigantic step forward.
However, a long time ago, Benjamin Ferencz, former prosecutor at the Nuremburg War Crimes Trial, said that there can be no peace without justice, no justice without law, and no meaningful law without a court to decide what is just and lawful under any given circumstances.
Today, following 11 September and the conflicts in the Middle East, the citizens see the establishment of this Court as something urgent and necessary.
Let us not, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, let time slip away and forget about this until the next crime or war reminds us of this ever-present threat.
Mr President, right is wrong.
If all individuals are not treated in the same way, if war crimes and crimes against humanity go unpunished, how can we credibly pass judgment on less serious violations of the law? It is of the utmost importance for a permanent International Criminal Court now to be set up specifically in The Hague, the judicial capital of the world.
This court is one element in the development of our civilisation.
It should naturally be universal.
Asian and Arab countries, in particular, are still under-represented, and I urge all signatories to proceed to ratification.
It is very poignant that the United States too should refuse to ratify the Treaty.
It was mainly the Americans who proclaimed in Nuremberg that individuals have duties towards the international community which prevail over those towards their own State, and that this should become international law.
Meanwhile, for the Americans, the same international criminal law apparently applies to everyone apart from themselves.
A rare insight into the arrogance of power is provided by a bill that has already been adopted by the Senate and that boycotts the court and every country which participates in it.
Another outrageous bill would even authorise the President of the United States to use violence to liberate people kept in prison by the court.
If sufficient guarantees are built in to ensure a fair judicial process and competent judges, there is no reason at all why America should be fearful of this court.
The Council and our Parliament should get this message across to our counterparts in America in a friendly, yet unambiguous manner.
Also, as many countries as possible, spread across the different continents, should proceed to ratification in the short term.
The court should not become too European.
It can prove in practice that States that do not participate are in the wrong.
Anyone who refuses to recognise the International Criminal Court commits an injustice and lags behind our civilisation.
Mr President, only another eight ratifications are needed for the International Criminal Court Treaty to enter into force, but there are a number of problems to be resolved before the Court can become that instrument of international justice and the fight against impunity that we want it to be.
The first obstacle is the persistently hostile attitude of the United States.
We call upon the Presidency of the Council and the Commission to make it clear, once again, at all formal and informal meetings with the United States, how much importance Europe attaches to this issue.
It would be genuinely feasible to find some creative instruments to put pressure on the United States, and I believe this has not been seriously attempted.
The second problem concerns the difficult issue of internal rules to bring national legislation into line with the Court' s Statute.
This will certainly be a difficult process but we must not allow it to become too drawn-out.
From this point of view, I would genuinely like to express my pleasure at Commissioner Verheugen' s words to the effect that he and the Commission are in favour of supporting the training of specialists to help the Court operate more effectively, not least by providing financial aid.
Mr President, I come from a country that has already completed the process of ratifying the Rome Statute, thereby confirming the humanist tradition of attachment to justice which characterises the Portuguese people; the tradition of a country which abolished the death penalty 450 years ago and life imprisonment 118 years ago.
The most important thing, however, is that we can see the values of justice and of the fight against impunity spreading to the five continents.
Slowly, it is true, but spreading nonetheless.
We are also pleased to note that the forthcoming establishment of the ICC will contribute on a different scale to the rejection of the death penalty.
It should be added that justice is only justice if it applies to everyone in the same way.
We know that the ICC is not and never will be perfect.
It will often appear to be dispensing 'winners' justice' , but, in addition to its normal jurisdictional function of investigating and prosecuting particularly serious crimes, it will also perform two other highly relevant tasks: one is to act as a deterrent to prevent further crimes being committed and the other is to provide compensation and reparations for the victims.
It should also be pointed out that the International Court will only take action if national criminal authorities are not proceeding with the investigation and the prosecution of crimes, either because their laws do not cover such crimes or because the authorities are not able to proceed.
We consider this to be a satisfactory solution as long as it is properly applied to the difficult problem of the conflict between the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and the sovereignty of the national criminal systems.
Mr President, the impartiality and the independence of the ICC are fundamental values and are part of the defence of what is the greatest asset of the European Union: the respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms, as well as the Rule of Law.
We should, therefore, take every opportunity to praise the objectives that have led to the creation of the Court, and these objectives should not be disparaged under any circumstances.
Mr President, I feel that, in recent years, the way this issue has been addressed has been a prime example of cooperation between the European institutions.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Commission, the Commission officials and the Council for their constant focus on the matter and for their openness to society, Parliamentary group and NGO initiatives, for I feel that a model of cooperation has emerged from this exercise - which we have already applied, for example to the treaty on antipersonnel mines - which is proving effective and therefore warrants due analysis.
Mention has been made here of some of the countries which have not ratified the Statute.
There are others, from Russia to China, which should, perhaps, also be mentioned or be the subject of focus.
Fifty-five countries have ratified the Statute, and I feel that our efforts must now be directed towards achieving a political and geographical balance.
The endeavours made at the Seville Conference, for example, to include the Arab countries, the very positive, unexpected stance adopted by the Arab League and the recent statements by the Mexican President, Vicente Fox, give rise to the hope that, with further endeavours, we might not merely achieve that quota but, I believe, even attempt to take a flying leap beyond it and make participation as universal as possible.
From this point of view, I feel that, as in other cases, Europe can be proud of these 10 years of dogged, resolute, difficult hard work, in which it was alone at the outset but which is now widely recognised.
The attention accorded to the special courts of accountability too, such as the Sierra Leone court which is about to be set up, is evidence that, when it so wishes, Europe can also be a community of values.
Mr President, I feel we can congratulate ourselves on the fact that 55 States have signed the Statute. However, some European States have still not done so.
It is therefore crucial that we encourage them to sign up.
Since 1995, this Parliament has been working towards the creation of this criminal court, and subsequently, in 1998, the Rome Conference very clearly stated the work that needed to be done to set it up.
We are at the end of this process, but, perhaps, at this point, an effort must be made to get 60 signatories to the Statute.
However, Mr President, I would also like to say to the Spanish Presidency that all this effort is only worth it if the end result is significant.
In order for this to be an instrument of fundamental importance, we need a whole series of working and operating mechanisms.
I would ask the Spanish Presidency, during whose term of office the Statute for the International Criminal Court will in all likelihood be approved, to put all its efforts into ensuring that the court will have the sufficient means to be able to function as it should.
This has been Parliament' s concern since 1995: that this struggle for a future that is more just will be successful and that this International Criminal Court will take on the crucially important role that it should have in the future.
I have received 7 motions for resolutions pursuant to Article 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Democratic rights in Turkey, in particular the situation of HADEP
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on democratic rights in Turkey, in particular the situation of HADEP.
Mr de Miguel has the floor on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, the Christian Democrats in the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats are able fully to support what has been said by the Council and the Commission.
Turkey' s constitutional court wishes to declare a further political party illegal.
Over the last 40 years, as many as 23 political parties have been declared illegal in Turkey.
These have been parties with religious, regional, cultural and ethnic bases which have been considered to go against the Kemalist structure of the unitary state.
Allow me to draw a clear comparison.
If we had had such a constitution among the various Member States of the European Union, a large number of parties would have been declared illegal including, for example, my own party, the Swedish Christian Democratic Party, and its sister parties throughout the EU.
I promise that we in the European Parliament will show no lack of vigour, energy and persistence in monitoring this judicial process in Turkey.
Within the framework of an ad hoc delegation, we intend to act in such a way as to protect democratic rights, the multiparty system and, of course, the rights of the Kurdish minority too in Turkey.
Kemal Atatürk, who died more than 60 years ago, founded a unitary Turkish state.
It is time for a debate among the Turkish people about whether this constitution and this unitary state fulfil the requirements of modern society and pluralistic democracy.
My view is that the Kemalist unitary state is based more upon power, threats, compulsion and authoritarian demands for loyalty than upon winning over people' s hearts and inspiring an inner loyalty, healthy affection and patriotism in relation to their own country.
The time should be past when a constitutional court declares one political party after another illegal. Moreover, these are large political parties more often than not.
Turkey has not signed the Council of Europe' s convention governing the rights of minorities and proceeds ultimately on the basis of Kemal Atatürk' s constitution harking back to the 1920s and 1930s.
I wonder if Turkey is not in actual fact scoring an own goal by not opening itself to the outside world and not acting differently towards its minorities.
Only if it changes in these ways can people' s hearts be won over in Turkey and the rest of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President of the Council and the Commissioner have rightly observed that we have managed to set in motion a process of reform in Turkey, but one that still has many, many deficiencies.
What is decisive, as the Commissioner has said, is actual practice and implementation.
I sometimes rather feel that we are being led a dance when the constitution is amended, but not the implementing legislation, thus making it possible for the police and the other security authorities to act, for example, against those who want to be taught in Kurdish and sign up for courses accordingly.
I believe that we cannot accept that.
Anyone who believed that the Kurdish question was resolved by Öcalan's arrest has, alas, been disappointed, as Turkey has not yet taken advantage of the chance to pursue another policy on the Kurds, for example, by giving the mayors of whom the President of the Council has spoken, the means - financial and otherwise - enabling them to improve matters in South-East Anatolia, which is what they want to do.
On the other hand, admittedly, intransigent officials are arrested or abducted without it being known whether this is the work of the security forces or of private organisations and without any real attempt being made to find the people who have been abducted or those responsible for the abductions.
What Parliament stands by is this: We campaign for the cultural rights of the Kurds - rights that are inalienable, that do not amount to separatism or terrorism, that do not create difficulties for Turkey, but which could be the salvation of Turkey as a European country.
Mr President, the prosecution of the people's democratic party stems from disturbances at their party congress as long ago as 1996.
Since then, the PKK has declared a ceasefire and Turkey has started its long programme of political reform.
In particular the revision of Article 69 seems to be designed to expand the scope of party political activity within the political system.
The reform should be taken further quickly so that no regionalist party, nor those of mainly Kurdish origin, should be under threat.
It would be a very good signal of the resolve of Turkey to carry on with European integration should the Supreme Court decide this case at the very moment when Turkey takes its seats inside the Convention.
The banning of the Fazilet party last year was a poor signal.
If there are serious allegations against persons for connections with terrorism they should be charged, but the party itself should be saved for parliamentary democracy.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I can be brief about what has led us to this discussion: the charge of separatism against HADEP is undesirable and, mainly, unjustified.
HADEP is a democratic party which is trying to defend the cause of the Kurds peacefully, and has done so in the past.
It is therefore only right that the Council, the Commission and Parliament, too, should denounce this charge unequivocally.
I can only hope, therefore, that the decision to re-examine this case next Friday in terms of the present constitution and the proposed constitutional changes, and not to proceed full steam ahead towards a ban, forms part of a more general change of direction regarding what, in my view, is the central issue under debate here, namely the question of how political, cultural and religious minorities in Turkey should be accorded a place in the political system.
This is about fundamental human rights: the right to speak one' s own language, the right to use that language in the media and the right to be taught in that language.
But more than anything, it is about the need for crucial political reforms.
In this sense, the case against HADEP epitomises the choice which Turkey is facing: either the country opts for pluralism, democracy and freedom of expression, or these basic European principles remain subordinate to a dogmatic view of state security.
However, let there be no misunderstanding about the fact that this criticism of Turkey and this support for HADEP are based on one crucial premise, namely that it is to be welcomed that Turkey is one of the EU' s candidate countries and that the European Union must do everything in its power to enable Turkey to acquire membership.
Consequently, it is not my intention, by supporting HADEP and criticising the Turkish government and authorities, to keep Turkey outside the EU indefinitely, but rather to prepare Turkey for fully-fledged democratic membership of the European Union.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, when Turkey embarked upon a constitutional review process last autumn, my group immediately visited the country in order to initiate an in-depth dialogue with the government or the Grand National Assembly and with representatives of civil society.
Unfortunately, we quickly became aware of the limits of this process.
We were refused permission to visit Mrs Leyla Zana, the Sakharov prize-winner, and other former MPs of Kurdish origin, who are still in prison.
Whilst the human rights organisations welcome every advance that is made, the sheer number of specific cases they deal with demonstrate how much work still needs to be done before we see the democratic Turkey that we all hope and pray for.
We did not expect, however, to find out some weeks later from the President of the HADEP party himself, Mr Murat Bozlak, that he was summoned before the Constitutional Court to face a likely ban on the political party that he leads.
In order to encourage the European Parliament to react strongly to this extremely serious and arbitrary development, we immediately invited President Bozlak to come and meet all the groups and proposed sending a parliamentary delegation to Turkey.
I welcome the unanimous support for both these initiatives.
The only crime that HADEP has committed is that of continuing to gain influence throughout Turkey, to the point where it is now guaranteed, if elections were to be held, that it would enter parliament, in spite of a specially made law, which sets a 10% minimum score for parties to be represented in parliament.
I also welcome the fact that we decided, by means of a resolution which all the groups support, to send a clear message to the Turkish authorities, and the following statement, in particular: 'The European Parliament calls for the case against HADEP to be dropped' .
I therefore propose that together we undertake to ensure that this is done.
It is the very least that we can demand of a country that will tomorrow be taking part in the Convention on the future of Europe.
Mr President, certainly the Turkish Government has improvised some cosmetic measures to hide its awful human rights record, but new repressive actions give us more serious grounds for concern, as the President-in-Office has said.
The atlas showing the world's languages in danger of extinction presented last week on International Modern Language Day highlights the critical situation for most of the languages of this planet.
We ought to have the courage to denounce all governments - like the Turkish one - that threaten so many linguistic communities with extinction.
President-in-Office, can we accept under democratic criteria that political parties opposed to the disappearance of whole communities could suffer the prohibition of their activities. Should we set a bad example with our own situation in the Basque country where our language has been considered at risk of disappearing?
Thank you very much, Mrs Uca.
I have received five proposals for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was adjourned at 8.39 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
.eu" Top Level Domain
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (Á5-0027/2002), on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position established by the Council on the implementation of the .eu Top Level Domain.
Mr President, the draft regulation we are now discussing provides for the implementation of the .eu top-level domain, which should raise the profile of the European Union in cyberspace and allow the ring of confidence created by the single market to shine through to the Internet.
In the vote at first reading in July 2001, Parliament adopted amendments tabled by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
The amendments primarily reaffirmed the principles of non-interference and self-management in the realm of the Internet and recommended efficient administration of the .eu domain, with less red tape.
Although the Council accepted a large number of our amendments in the common position adopted on 6 November 2001, some of them did not meet with its approval.
The Committee on Industry therefore went back on the offensive to call for the 'first come, first served' principle to be taken into account in registration policy, so that the policy of extrajudicial conflict settlement could be based on recovery of costs and in particular so that the consultative procedure could be provided within the committee structure.
In fact, the Committee on Industrial Affairs, like the Commission, felt that the .eu top-level domain must become operational as soon as possible and must be able to work quickly and efficiently in order to be successful.
To the very end, the issue of the consultative or regulatory nature of the committee structure was the main sticking point in the discussions between Parliament and the Commission on the one hand and the Council on the other.
Informal contacts between Parliament, the Council and the Commission were continued after the amendments tabled by the Committee on Industry were adopted, and the three institutions finally reached an agreement.
This agreement is reflected in Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12, which have been tabled on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, Group of the Party of European Socialists and Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
As far as the committee structure is concerned, we split the difference or rather, we adopted two thirds of the one position and one third of the other.
The regulatory mode will apply to most measures concerning the implementation of the regulation, in other words, the general interest policy rules and principles and the definition of the criteria and procedure for the designation of the Registry.
The consultative mode will apply to the designation of the Registry and to the conclusion of the contract between the Commission and the Registry.
The reason why the Commission and Parliament ultimately accepted a compromise about which they are less than enthusiastic is that they want the .eu domain to be made available to users as soon as possible, in accordance with the desire expressed by the Lisbon European Council.
Mr President, on behalf of Parliament, may I insist that the Commission and the Council undertake to pursue this aim with due diligence.
I know that Commissioner Liikanen intends to make a statement to this effect during this part-session and that the declaration to the same effect that is due to be adopted by the Council will be communicated to us tomorrow before the vote on the amendments.
On this basis I recommend to the House that we vote in favour of Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.
Mr President, following the numerous informal contacts with the Council and the Commission which enabled us to reach a compromise, I should like to thank Commissioner Liikanen and the staff of his departments, the Spanish presidency for its unstinting efforts, my colleagues, Mrs McCarthy, draftsman for the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, and the coordinators of the political groups.
Together we have achieved a result which should pave the way so that the .eu top-level domain can be launched at the end of the year.
It is a pleasure to be speaking under your gavel for the first time and to offer you my congratulations, and I hope I can have 10 seconds extra at the end for saying that.
It is a pleasure once again at second reading, to be supporting this very important measure on behalf of my group and also to pay tribute to Colette Flesch for the energy and time that she has put in, particularly in handling very astutely the negotiations with the Council and the Commission over the last few weeks, so that we quite rightly have a compromise deal which I have signed up to on behalf of my group, and which we urge your colleagues to support tomorrow.
One of the crucial reasons for that, as Mrs Flesch mentioned in her speech just now, is that we need to get this new .eu domain name operational as quickly as possible.
We are working in a crowded market, colleagues.
The .eu has to survive in a whole world of new domain names, and it will only be of real value to commercial organisations and NGOs and other institutions who want to use it, if the procedures that are put in place for registration are the best possible that can be achieved.
People want to be able to have their registrations handled quickly and clearly and to have the sort of guarantees about their copyrights and trademarks that we expect, because after all, with the institutional backing it has from the European Community over all the European Union, people will expect it to be nothing less than the best.
It is going to be under scrutiny, so best practice is all-important.
But we must get this done and get it through as soon as we possibly can.
We look forward to the declarations of the Council and the Commission.
I will be withdrawing my amendment, which put down a specific timescale of 6 months for getting the registry authorised, or rather to get the tender documents out in 15 months overall.
I have been criticised in the industry for being too generous, so I hope that will be the absolute maximum.
We look forward to hearing your declaration, and I should like to say in conclusion that this is an important measure, which must be done well and be done quickly.
Mr President, I too, on behalf of my group, endorse what Mrs Flesch and Mr Harbour have said.
The solution put forward with the amendments, which we urge Parliament to adopt en bloc, is a compromise solution, but I feel that it is a useful, appropriate compromise in that it will allow us to move forward quickly with the creation of the .eu domain.
I feel that this is to be welcomed as positive for it represents another tangible step forwards - made possible by the cooperation not just of the rapporteur, Mrs Flesch, but also of the Commission and of Commissioner Liikanen, in particular - towards the implementation of the undertakings given at the Lisbon Summit.
Therefore, since it is clear in many other contexts that decisions too can sometimes encounter practical difficulties and delays in implementation, I feel that our review of the situation tonight is cause for great satisfaction.
I will stop there for fear of repeating what my fellow Members have said on the matter, but, without wishing to pre-empt what Commissioner Liikanen has to say, I add my voice to the call for the time frames for putting the .eu domain in place and making it operational to be made as short as possible.
This point remains to be discussed and so I will leave the floor to the Commissioner now, who, we hope, is going to make a statement on the matter.
The adoption of the regulation to make the .eu top level domain a reality is now reaching its final stage.
I would like to express my thanks, particularly to the rapporteur, Mrs Flesch, for her sustained efforts to reach a compromise.
I wish also to thank, in particular, Mrs McCarthy and Mr Harbour and also Mr Carraro.
Their understanding of some of the complexities raised by this initiative has contributed significantly to the outcome we are discussing today.
It is my pleasure to indicate that the Commission can accept the compromise amendments from 7 to 12.
Several of the amendments proposed introduce useful additional clarifications to the provisions of the common position.
The Commission can support the amendment relating to the examination of the first-come, first-served method amongst the existing options when defining the registration policy and within the boundaries of the regulation's framework.
It can also support the amendment introducing the cost-recovery principle in the policy relating to the extra-judicial settlement of conflicts.
The most complex issue to address was without doubt the type of committee and procedure to select for this Regulation.
The Commission can accept Amendments 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12.
With respect to Amendment 6 of the recommendation for second reading, as adopted by the Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy Committee, the Commission cannot support the amendment to Article 8.
However, in the light of Parliament's concern over the implementation of the .eu top level domain, the Commission wishes to state the following:
The Commission shares the view of the European Parliament that, to be successful, the .eu top level domain should be in place very quickly and should not be burdened by an excessive regulatory framework.
An advisory procedure was therefore considered by the Commission to be the most appropriate for this regulation.
In line with the decision adopted at the Stockholm European Council in March 2001 to adopt all the necessary measures to ensure that the .eu top level domain is available users, as soon as possible, the Commission has resolved, however, to accept the regulatory procedure for Article 3(1) and Article 5, in order to facilitate the early adoption of this regulation, and with the confidence that this step can further promote the spirit of collaboration needed to achieve the objective set at the Stockholm Council.
The Commission stresses that the selection of the Registry, to organise administer and manage the .eu top level domain, should take place as early as possible and that all reasonable efforts will be made to ensure a prompt publication of the call for expressions of interest after the entry into force of the regulation.
This presupposes that the criteria and procedures for the designation of the Registry are completed in due time.
The Commission is committed to submitting the measures required for the implementation of the .eu top level domain in a timely fashion and shall do its utmost to ensure that the relevant procedures are completed and promptly to allow the .eu registry to become operational as early as possible after the entry into force of the regulation, unless exceptional circumstances intervene.
The Commission calls on the Member States to fully subscribe to this objective and to provide the support required for achieving it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
1999 discharge (measures taken by Commission)
The next item is the debate on the report (Á5-0024/2002) by Mr Blak, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the action taken by the Commission on the observations contained in the resolution accompanying the decision giving discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the 1999 financial year.
Mr President, in the discharge for 1999, we looked at the budget from all sides.
Light was shed on all the sectors.
All the EU institutions were examined in turn because, even if it is ultimately the Commission that is responsible for implementing the budget, it does not, of course, act in isolation.
It is bound by decisions taken in Parliament and in the Council, and it is dependent upon the effectiveness of supervision in the Member States.
The agricultural area is a shining example.
The Commission is proposing a reform of agricultural policy, but the Council and Parliament are resisting this and proposing that the subsidies be made still more bureaucratic, over-generous and vulnerable to fraud and trickery.
The flax, milk and sugar subsidies are good examples.
There is, however, a continual need for fundamental reform and a new administrative culture in the Commission.
We do not always agree with the Commission, but we basically have the same objectives, namely that the Commission should become an efficient and modern administration.
What is most important is that the Commission' s reform plan should proceed in the right way.
My original plan was to compare the individual directorates-general of the Commission and offer a characterisation of each one of them.
That would have been in keeping with the spirit of the reform, but it has not been possible to carry out that comparison.
I should like to call upon the Court of Auditors to investigate what is practised in the Member States.
The discharge for 1999 highlighted a number of very sore points in the Commission' s administration.
One of the most important was the inadequate review of auditors' reports and the insufficient degree of follow-up.
In the report on the discharge for 1999, the Commission is asked to send Parliament reports twice a year, summarising all the auditors' reports and their recommendations together with the ways in which these have been followed up.
Apparently, the Commission will only agree to the internal auditing service' s briefing Parliament once a year, and that is absolutely not enough.
The financial controller used to brief Parliament four times a year, and that is what we also expect from the new department.
The supply of information is always the biggest bone of contention between Parliament and the Commission.
I have had an incredible amount of information supplied in connection with the discharge for 1999, and I should like to thank the Commission for this.
However, clear rules that can be applied are needed, irrespective of the identities of the Commissioner and of the rapporteur for the discharge.
The framework agreement is a mess.
It can be used to withhold documents and to keep them confidential, for it is the Commission which, in the last analysis, decides whether a document is confidential.
What is more, it is bureaucratic and leads to long delays.
I have respected the framework agreement because that is what applies at present, but I think we should make efforts to have it renegotiated, and I should like to ask our President, Mr Cox, to honour his pledges concerning openness and reforms, especially in this area.
The Committee on Budgetary Control might well consider spending more time on evaluation.
We must ensure value for money.
It is unfortunately my impression that most evaluations are simply binned.
The Commission has promised to submit results of evaluations that have been carried out. It does not go into how often and in what way.
What does the Commission say to providing a briefing every quarter or every six months? There are quite a few practical issues arising from the discharge for 1999 that it has not been possible to follow up, either because OLAF investigations are not complete or because a disciplinary case is under way in the Commission.
Many of the big issues raised by the discharge for 1999, such as the IRELA case, are still being dealt with by OLAF, which does not put much of a move on.
There has been a lot of focus on IRELA, the Institute for European-Latin American Relations that has now been closed down.
I am not sorry that the Institute has been closed down.
The Commission now has delegations in the majority of Latin American countries which attend to the links between Europe and that part of the world, but matters have to be properly cleared up.
OLAF is at present in the process of concluding an internal investigation to clarify whether disciplinary procedures need to be instituted.
IRELA still has EUR 3.4 million to repay.
I should like to ask the Commission what the situation is regarding those repayments.
I should also like to applaud the Commission, and especially Mrs Schreyer, for following up the Flechard case.
This showed that it is possible to admit to a mistake and then change the rules.
I really do think it is a splendid result we have achieved.
There is then the issue concerning the Stockholm Representation which, on the other hand, cannot be brought to a conclusion.
I accept that the matter rests with the Swedish prosecution authorities, but we shall need to do something about this.
I should like finally to say thank you for one and a half year' s worth of sound cooperation and, in particular, to thank Commissioner Schreyer.
It has been a pleasure to work with someone so well qualified. As it turned out, it was not just cooperation but more along the lines of a good friendship, through which we have achieved fantastic results.
That is something for which I should very much like to convey my thanks here in this House and, if this is to be the pattern for the future, then it is really something we can build further upon.
It has been really splendid.
Mr President, I should like to express my gratitude to the rapporteur for this report, which concludes the budget discharge for 1999.
Parliament is required to exercise its powers of scrutiny over the Commission's expenditure.
However, this is only possible with access to all the documents and information.
Otherwise, the discharge decision does not constitute genuine scrutiny but is merely a formality.
I therefore draw your attention specifically to the demand set forth in paragraph 4 of the report, which states that Parliament must have the same access to Commission documents as the Court of Auditors has.
The Commission must stop devising a wealth of new strategies and delaying tactics to withhold documents from us.
The latest example is the van Buitenen report of 31 August 2001.
I was the rapporteur on the first phase of the Leonardo programme in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, yet the Commission gave me absolutely no indication that fresh accusations of mismanagement had been raised and were being investigated by the Commission and OLAF.
Indeed, if a third party had not drawn my attention to the situation at the very last minute, the Commission, despite its superior knowledge, would have allowed Parliament to grant discharge for Leonardo I. Since then, the Commission has played down the situation and deployed a variety of stalling tactics.
I ask you, Mrs Schreyer, is this the trust and cooperation which you and your colleague Mr Kinnock never tire of demanding from this House? What have you got to hide?
The entire report is apparently already in the hands of at least one German newspaper, together with the relevant OLAF report. Is not it time, Mrs Schreyer, for it to be made available to us as well?
The Framework Agreement, which was cobbled together and presented to Parliament immediately after the 1998 general discharge without any opportunity for discussion, has shown itself to be ambiguous and misleading, and clearly conflicts with our Rules of Procedure.
It is therefore unacceptable in its current form.
The Agreement must be brought into line with the Rules of Procedure, not the other way round, which is what Mr Bourlanges' proposed amendment appears to be demanding.
I therefore ask you to reject Mr Bourlanges' amendment and to leave Parliament's rights of scrutiny - set forth in the EU Treaty - intact.
No committed European can genuinely be in favour of curtailing the rights of Parliament to benefit an already excessively powerful Commission, putting Europe at risk of becoming an uncontrolled and uncontrollable bureaucracy.
This is the last thing our citizens want to see.
As regards the disgraceful affair of the adulterated butter, known as the Flechard case, I would have preferred more plain speaking.
However, I have no doubt that the spineless investigation into the Flechard case - which concerns not only wasted money but also the risk these products posed to health - is an issue which will give us plenty to talk about during the 2000 discharge procedure.
Mr President, with the discharge procedure for 1999, the Commission and Parliament opened up a new approach, characterised by greater institutional cooperation.
It is the Commission that deserves praise for this result, but also the rapporteur, Freddy Blak, for having managed this procedure with determination, common sense and intelligence.
We are undeniably seeing progress in the field of agriculture, not least as a result of the implementation of the integrated management and control system, but it is equally true that no progress has been made in the monitoring of fraud in the food industry.
This situation is paradoxical: a deviation by half a meter in the route of a tractor working the land or the replacement of a milk cow on a date that is not considered to be in accordance with the regulations can lead to a declaration of financial irregularities and corrections by means of statistical projection.
Nevertheless, fraud in the food industry committed in order to obtain export subsidies is rarely monitored and when it is, cases of fraud often disappear within the labyrinthine processes of national justice systems, and do not result in Community sanctions or a public explanation of the facts.
This is a state of affairs that we cannot accept.
Mr President, I am sorry to take the floor again, but I am a little surprised that there is a report from Mr Van Buitenen of which I have been unaware.
I should like to say here in the House - and this is something of which I am totally convinced - that that man should be removed from the Commission.
He smashes and destroys European cooperation because his life' s work is to set himself up in opposition and to carry out assignments we cannot live with.
I am very sorry to see something like this appear at the last minute, but I want to recommend to the Commission that it get rid of this man once and for all.
He is a thorn in the side of all of us.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Supplementary estimates for 2002 - DAB 1/2002
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets:
Á5-0056/2002 by Mrs Buitenweg on supplementary estimates of revenue and expenditure of the European Parliament for the 2002 financial year and
Á5-0057/2002 by Mr Costa Neves and Mrs Buitenweg on the draft supplementary and amending budget No 1/2002 of the European Union for the 2002 financial year for Sections É, ÉÉ and ÉÉÉ.
Mr President, I shall be discussing both documents together, not only that on Parliament' s budget but also that on the Convention, a report which I drafted together with Mr Costa Neves, for both reports are closely connected.
The Convention on the European Union' s future commences tomorrow.
We are therefore in good time to commit the funding for this.
The Convention offers a good opportunity to obtain a more decisive institution, to bring about more efficiency in this House and also to increase the legitimacy of the institutions.
The concept of such a meeting of representatives of Parliament and governments was born here in this House.
The European Parliament sets great store by the success of this Convention.
This is one of the reasons why we agreed to an accelerated procedure.
I therefore hope that Parliament makes it possible for the supplementary and amending budget No 1/2002 to be approved tomorrow, to coincide with the start of the Convention.
I should like to single out a few details of the Convention' s budget. The Council' s Secretariat-General has made an estimate and arrived at an amount of approximately EUR 10.5 million for a 10-month period, until December 2002.
Part of this amount, EUR 6.5 million, will be payable by the participants: the three institutions - Parliament, the Commission and the Council - and the governments and parliaments of the Member States or the candidate countries.
This, for example, covers all kinds of travel expenses which are usually borne by the institutions or the national governments.
This leaves us with a balance of some EUR 4 million.
This is the amount which actually matters for this is the Convention' s own budget.
How will this EUR 4 million be managed? It is only a small amount, of course, but, politically speaking, it is very important for the three institutions to have a sufficient say in the budget.
On a limited, practical level, it goes without saying that the Convention and its Praesidium will decide on how this budget will be spent. But if expense funds are moved elsewhere, for example if more funding is needed for daily expenses, to the detriment of the forum for NGOs and citizens, then that is a political matter.
Then it is important, particularly for a Parliament which wants to play an important role in the Convention, to have a say in the budget.
The problem, however, is that the Convention itself has no legal basis and that the normal budgetary principles did not, therefore, apply.
The Member States insisted that Parliament and the Council should not form the two arms of the budgetary authority, but that the EU Member States as a whole should have the final word.
Although this was inopportune for us, we showed an understanding of this problem in the negotiations and arranged matters in such a way that the Member States were eventually able to give their seal of approval, though not before the three institutions had given their avis conforme.
Accordingly, the Member States can only approve something if the three institutions agree.
As a result, the European Parliament has acquired the right of veto, we have a say in the budget, we also have the right to information and to peruse documentation, we can give discharge and such like, and we have therefore, in practice, held on to the important achievements of Parliament.
I am very aware that this solution is not very attractive on the surface.
We would, of course, have preferred it if the amount had been included in the budget in the normal way, but this is how it was, for there was no legal basis.
Seen against this backdrop, I therefore think that the Committee on Budgets has achieved a very respectable result.
Despite this, there has been some criticism.
I was at the Bureau today and, there too, concern was expressed about the role of Parliament and about the implications of Parliament not answering to the Council but to the Member States as a whole.
There was also concern in the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
This is the reason why we have included a long amendment in the resolution which expressly states the achievements of the agreement and which also states that this agreement in sui has no legal character.
It forms an exception, an agreement that only applies to this particular situation.
I hope that this addition, in which we expressly state that the agreement is an exception, as well as the fact that we managed to retain Parliament' s say in the budget after all, will lead to wide support for this agreement.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as a result of the consensus achieved between the institutions in the trialogue held on 18 February, Parliament is now, I believe, able to give its assent to the Draft supplementary and amending budget No 1/2002, which deals with the financial resources intended for the special 'Fund' that will cover the spending of the Convention on the future of the European Union from the first day it begins its work.
The work has been carried out swiftly and, in my opinion, well.
Given the need to ensure that all the factors that might contribute to the effectiveness of the Convention' s works are put in place in good time, its budgetary framework has already been defined, in accordance with the rules of transparency and institutional balance.
The particular nature of the Convention explains the specific characteristics of its legal and budgetary frameworks, revealed immediately by the very existence of the 'Fund' , and by the fact that this is subject to exceptional financial rules.
Particular account has therefore been taken of the temporary nature of the new body and the requirement for greater flexibility has been met.
The factors I have mentioned form the basis of a specific interinstitutional agreement, which defines, in particular, the sum of the contributions from the institutions providing the finance, which are Parliament, the Council and the Commission, as Mrs Buitenweg already mentioned.
Under the terms of the agreement reached in the trialogue of 18 February, the full involvement of Parliament is, therefore, guaranteed at all stages of the life of the 'Fund' , (created by intergovernmental decision) - it must be stressed - particularly with regard to the processes of transferring appropriations and of discharge. The exceptional nature of the initiative and, as a correlation, that of the applicable rules is perfectly clear.
I should like to conclude by thanking all my fellow Members for their cooperation, and I would specifically like to highlight the work of those who took part in the trialogue, Reimer Böge and Kathalijne Buitenweg, as well as the contribution of the Committees on Constitutional Affairs and on Budgetary Control, which helped to focus attention on certain aspects.
I also hope that, by means of this budgetary procedure, we will remain associated with a Convention that could well make history.
Mr President, let me begin by saying that it is a great pleasure and an honour for me to address the House under your Presidency for the first time.
I should like to make it clear that I am speaking primarily on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The rapporteurs - whom I also wish to congratulate on their work - have both pointed out that the Committee on Budgetary Control gave this matter very careful consideration and this is reflected in the reports.
We did so because we want the proceedings of the Convention to be a success.
This is our unanimous view, and I would like to make that clear.
On this basis, we will be voting for the supplementary and amending budget which is contained in the report submitted to this House by the Committee on Budgets.
However, it must be clear that this extraordinary budgetary procedure is a one-off; under no circumstances can it constitute a precedent for the future. This has been emphasised by the rapporteurs.
Furthermore, the budgetary transactions must be conducted with maximum transparency and clarity, not least in order to justify the trust and hopes invested in the Convention.
Although the Committee on Budgets is satisfied with the agreed procedures, a number of key issues remain unresolved as regards budgetary control.
We have set these out in our statement, which was drafted in great haste, and we note that some of these points have been included in the resolution, for which we are grateful.
The main concern, from our point of view, is the granting of discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget which, under the Treaty, is the prime and sole decision of Parliament and is normally non-negotiable.
Yet Article 20 of the Council Decision on the financing of the Convention states that the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States shall give a discharge to the Secretary-General of the Convention, after Parliament, the Council and the Commission shall have consented thereto. What exactly does this mean, given that the terms assent or avis conforme are not defined in the various language versions?
What procedures are envisaged for this process? A satisfactory solution has yet to be found in this respect.
The second issue which inevitably arises is Parliament's access to documents.
The Treaty clearly states that the Parliament must receive all documents and information which it deems necessary to the discharge resolution procedure.
Yet Article 4 of the motion for a resolution tabled by the Committee on Budgets merely refers to the Court of Auditors in this context.
This does not reflect the spirit of the Treaty.
As has already been noted, this is a sui generis procedure which diverges in part from the Treaty.
Nonetheless, Parliament must have full and free access to all documents.
I welcome Article 5 of the motion for a resolution tabled by the Committee on Budgets, which stresses that budgetary procedures, in particular on discharge, will have to comply with ordinary law, should the Convention's remit be extended beyond the period originally projected.
I would like to reiterate my hope that we will be able to adopt this report tomorrow and thus get the Convention off to a good start .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow we have to vote on a supplementary and amending budget which, without doubt, is, and will remain, unique in the history of this Parliament, for we are negotiating a figure which amounts to 0.005% of the European Union budget and have even arranged a debate specifically for this purpose.
We asked Commissioner Schreyer to appear before this House to discuss the reports and the action we are taking.
There is good reason to discuss these matters, for they concern the financing of the Convention.
This House pushed harder than any other European institution for the setting up of the Convention; we promoted and demanded it.
We demanded it because we believe it is necessary to develop and introduce new procedures in Europe in order to improve interinstitutional relations and the interdependence between the three institutions.
This means that there must be mutual respect, an awareness of roles, and transparency.
The Spanish Presidency's initial proposal on the management of the funds necessary for the financing of the Convention alarmed us all, for it stipulated that the Council alone would provide the money, administer it and - above all -monitor how it is spent. It made no reference at all to Parliament!
Of course, under no circumstances can this be a precedent for future relations between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
The Committee on Budgets and this House firmly rejected this model.
In doing so, we had to adopt an accelerated procedure as there was no time to follow our usual procedure.
Indeed, we had to involve coordinators to discuss the matter.
We could not even make proper preparations within the Committee on Budgets.
Nonetheless, we did so because we were keen to ensure that the Convention could be launched tomorrow.
What this House has achieved is to ensure that in conformity with our powers, we are now part of the budgetary authority as regards the allocation of funds.
We are one of the two elements of the budgetary authority whose task is to decide on the allocation of funds.
Transfers of funds can only be carried out with our consent, which is also necessary for the granting of discharge.
This gives rise to other issues and we have discussed these as well.
In the Committee on Budgets, we believe that the solution identified is a good one.
We have, however, gone one better, for our colleagues from the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Committee on Budgetary Control have added an extra dimension, which is all to the good.
We will certainly ensure that the procedure adopted for the Convention, and the implementation of this procedure, do not become a blueprint for any other institutions which may be set up at European level at any time in the future.
One existing institution - namely Coreper - will assume a function which has not been assigned to it at all at European level.
It will be the body to which Parliament, the Council and the Commission grant the right to consent to discharge.
It is astonishing: the Council will grant consent for the discharge of Coreper - one of its own institutions!
This is very bizarre.
This will not be a blueprint for any future arrangements in the European Union, and the discharge procedure will not be carried out on this basis in any other context.
We will vigorously resist any moves in this direction.
Parliament will defend its rights, and we will monitor developments very closely.
However, we will vote in favour of the report tomorrow because we recognise that the Convention must be able to start its work.
It is important to send out a positive signal to Europe by demonstrating that we are no longer applying the old procedures but are adopting a new approach, a new direction, and are shaping the future of Europe!
Thank you Mr Walter for your excellent speech, but I have to say that I am not the good fairy today; it is Mr Costa Neves, who had five minutes and only spoke for three.
Mr President, the proposal to free up EUR 4 million for the Convention, which commences tomorrow, was rushed through the institutions at breakneck speed.
We have therefore witnessed a complete change from the sluggishness of the decision-making process for which, with good reason, we are often blamed.
Having said this, the funds are community funds raised by the citizens.
Without giving a value judgment here about the Convention phenomenon, it is evident that it entails costs.
Given the Convention' s working method, the lion' s share of these costs, however, will be accounted for in terms of the normal activities of national parliaments and European institutions.
This does not detract from the fact that these costs should also be made transparent, like those required for making infrastructure available.
Neither the Convention' s character, nor the urgency, can absolve the Council or Parliament from their joint responsibility for the EU budget.
This fund of EUR 4 million should also be spent in a transparent and effective manner and will, inter alia, cover the costs of the chairman and the secretariat.
Precisely at a time when the remuneration of expenses is high on the agenda in this House, it is important that the Convention too pursue a responsible policy.
Reports about exorbitant remuneration can best be refuted if transparency is in place.
There should certainly not be a whiff of profiteering surrounding a project concerning Europe' s future.
There are no objections, as long as this fund still has a healthy balance at the end of 2002.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the setting up of the Convention is indeed a step of extraordinary significance.
I believe that the Convention on the future of the European Union will shape the face of Europe.
I am pleased that it has been possible to reach an agreement, an understanding, on its financing despite the misleading speculation at the outset, especially concerning the amount of funding necessary.
As has already been mentioned, the costs for this year are estimated to total EUR 10.5 million.
Part of these costs will be covered by the Member States or candidate countries, namely the travel expenses for their members.
Most of the costs will, however, be borne by the European institutions.
I should particularly like to mention Parliament's contribution here, which will be provided as infrastructure resources, namely translation and interpretation.
One estimate reveals that a further EUR 4 million will be required for other sundry expenses.
What are these other sundry expenses? They include, for example, the funding of any studies which may be required, or, perhaps, additional translation services.
The estimate thus stands at EUR 4 million, and a consensus has been achieved very quickly on how these EUR 4 million are to be provided: EUR 400 000 from the Council, EUR 1 million from Parliament, and EUR 2.6 million from the Commission.
These resources will be paid directly, via the supplementary budget, into a fund which will then be available to the Convention.
I believe that with the Interinstitutional Agreement, to be signed tomorrow, our discussions have resulted in an arrangement which will ensure extraordinary transparency. In this way, all three institutions will be involved in setting the budget for the Convention, making any amendments to this budget, and granting discharge.
In this context, the prior assent of all three institutions will be required, especially in respect of the discharge. The institutions will not be dealt with en bloc; voting will not be based on majorities.
Instead, the assent of each individual institution will be required.
Clearly, this is a quite exceptional model, and I am pleased that this point is emphasised again by this House in its resolution.
It is entirely in the Commission's interests - and let me stress this point - for this exceptional nature to be underlined.
The Convention is exceptional, and the solution which we have found makes it clear, above all, that it is in the interests of all three institutions to ensure that the proceedings of the Convention are a success.
Let me conclude by reiterating one key point: despite all the speculation, we have achieved a good solution very quickly, and it would be a very positive step if the signing of the Interinstitutional Agreement, together with the adoption of the resolution on the supplementary and amending budget, could take place tomorrow.
In conjunction with the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Budgets, we will thus have made a significant contribution to establishing conditions for its success.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
EU relations with South Caucasus
The next item is the debate on the report (Á5-0028/2002) by Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the European Union's relations with the South Caucasus, under the partnership and cooperation agreements.
Mr President, the South Caucasus, that is to say Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, is a region with which one quickly falls in love, with fantastic people and amazing countryside.
At the same time, it is a region that easily causes even its best friends to despair.
Only in the last few weeks, preliminary census figures have shown that Georgia and Armenia have each lost approximately a million people since independence.
It could scarcely be any clearer that post-Soviet social and economic policy has been a total failure.
The Soviet planned economy has only partly been replaced by a normal market economy.
Instead, widespread corruption flourishes, based on clan loyalties and mafia domination.
However, the catastrophic situation is not entirely self-inflicted.
A study by the Centre for European Policy Studies describes developments during the 1990s as being 'partly a result of liberalisation ... caused by transition to a free market system' .
The wretched economic and social situation has exacerbated the political, cultural and national conflicts that characterise the area.
Unfortunately, there are no clear signs of solutions to the conflicts concerning, for example, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia or Abkhazia.
Sometimes, there is positive news, such as President Shevardnadze' s appointment of a mediator from Abkhazia considered acceptable to all the parties, the regular discussions between Presidents Alijev and Kocharian concerning Nagorno-Karabakh or Turkey' s recent decision to make it easier for Armenians to obtain visas.
Just as often, however, there are worrying reports concerning, for example, an escalation in Georgian protests on the border with Abkhazia, increased tension on the border between Georgia and Chechnya and the cessation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani discussions at presidential level following the Key West Summit in April of last year.
Against that background, it is no exaggeration to state that the South Caucasus is a powder keg that could explode at any moment.
The risks are not reduced by the fact that the area is a transport route for the Caspian Sea' s and Central Asia' s gas and oil field and is situated in the vicinity of Afghanistan, a factor which has led to reports to the effect that Al-Qaida members may be found in the border country between Georgia and Russia.
That has now in turn caused the United States to send troops to a country which still accommodates Russian military bases.
The South Caucasus can be designated a test case for the EU' s peace policy.
At the Gothenburg Summit, a programme was adopted for the prevention of violent conflicts.
A civil peace corps could constitute a tool for such an action plan, designed to prevent conflicts.
I also propose that the EU draw up a clear strategy for the South Caucasus, benefiting from lessons learned from the Stability Pact for South-East Europe.
If it is to be possible to implement this, the EU' s presence in the region must be strengthened by full representation in Jerevan and Baku too, and not only, as at present, in Tbilisi.
The environmental situation in the South Caucasus is alarming.
The nuclear power station in Medzamor must, as agreed, be shut down by no later than 2004.
For this to be possible, alternative energy sources are obviously required, a need which the EU could help meet on the basis of its experience.
The EU must also continue its attempts to get regional cooperation projects under way, especially when it comes to the railway line between Baku and Nakhichevan.
The vast majority of politicians, intellectuals and representatives of independent grassroots movements in the region have expressed a strong desire to be bound more closely to Europe.
This has partly happened because the three states are members of the Council of Europe.
At the same time, many also have a strong desire to see their countries become members of the European Union.
I think that the European Parliament should give the clear answer that the countries of the South Caucasus are, of course, entitled to become Member States of the European Union if they so wish.
With regard to the amendments, I recommend approving all of these apart from Amendments Nos 2, 14 and 16.
I would particularly advise against approving Amendment No 2 because such approval would mean a sudden U-turn, unsubstantiated by new arguments, in relation to the position held by the European Parliament since 1987.
I am conscious of the fact that there are Armenian circles that try to exploit the events of 1915 to excuse today' s Armenian politics.
It is, however, clear from the report that I have not been influenced by this factor.
This report is very critical of the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijani territory.
That does not, however, mean that history has to be re-written.
After the First World War, Turkish courts sentenced those mainly responsible - Enver Pacha and many others - to the most severe penalty under the law, partly for their responsibility for the mass murders of Armenians.
It is a mystery to me why, 80 years later in Turkey, the attempt should be made to brush all this under the carpet.
All nations have skeletons in their historical cupboards.
Those who recognise this and openly come to terms with their pasts command respect, while those which deny and conceal their pasts mostly evoke surprise and disappointment.
Mr President, may I start by congratulating you and wishing you all the best for your term in office. May I also congratulate Mr Gahrton on a job very well done and on the skill he demonstrated in reconciling the basic positions of the various political groups on the individual issues and setting them out in his report.
It was a painstaking task but it has brought about a well-turned, balanced text which, with the members' additional amendments, is a realistic and objective summary of the current situation in the South Caucasus, the problems and the prospects outlined and the various dimensions and parameters which colour relations between third countries in the region and the European Union.
Given the generally-accepted view that the region of the South Caucasus is especially important to Europe and the fact that the European Union has taken various political and economic steps to express its desire to support the process of safeguarding reform and political stability and establishing the rule of law in these countries, I think it is worth pointing out the advisability of reinforcing the role of the European Union in formulating a strategy to resolve the problems in the region, while taking account of the specific national and historical sensibilities of these nations and encouraging neighbouring countries, especially Russia, Iran and Turkey, to make a constructive contribution towards the peace process in the South Caucasus.
The report rightly calls in this context for Turkey, which has a partnership agreement with the European Union, to prove itself worthy of its European ambitions by terminating the blockade of Armenia and creating a basis for reconciliation with it in line with the compromise set out in paragraph 15 of the report, which I urge the House to adopt.
Russia is called upon to play an equally important and pivotal role in averting conflict in the South Caucasus and resolving the highly sensitive energy question, with the countries in the region involved either as power producers or consumers.
I should like to close by stressing that the European Union's interests in the South Caucasus have to be maintained and stated consistently, with active support for the desire expressed by these countries to belong to Europe and with close collaboration between them and the European Union and its institutions in all sectors.
Congratulations!
Mr Gahrton' s report is an excellent, balanced report calling for a greater European Union presence in a bridge area between Asia and Europe.
The southern Caucasus could become a calvary but it could also remain a powder keg.
Behind the essentially peaceful facade, tensions are rising which could explode given the right political situation.
It would therefore be as well to play down the age-old disputes between the Turks and the Armenians.
We hope that paragraph 15, upon which we are going to vote tomorrow, which is in line with the policies of many international bodies, will be a useful step in this direction.
If the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy' s proposal is endorsed by the majority, we will henceforth be able to start to look towards the future and leave the past behind.
In addition to the ethical and political issues, major economic interests are at play in the region: there is controversy regarding the exploitation of the Caspian Sea and the routes for the oil pipelines are still provisional; there is the potential for great pressure to be put on Russian policy, which applies different criteria for each of the three countries and in respect of the ethnic minority too.
It would appear that the OSCE Minsk Group is exploring a fresh approach to the compromise for Nagorno-Karabakh and the various occupied territories behind closed doors.
Let us hope so!
Mr Gahrton is right to call for a European Union special envoy to be appointed for the southern Caucasus.
A conference between the countries of the southern Caucasus and the European Union could also yield results and make it clear whether it would be better to adopt the 'step-by-step' method or an overall solution.
Mr President, our fellow MEP, Mr Gahrton, and I usually disagree about most things where the EU is concerned.
It is therefore especially pleasing to have the opportunity this evening to praise Mr Gahrton for what is in every respect a well balanced and sound report on the South Caucasus.
The EU must have a clear and well thought-out policy for a region as important as this on the border between Europe and Asia.
We are aware of Russia' s significant role, of the opportunities - but also problems - presented by oil and of the region' s increasingly strategic role following the war in Afghanistan.
Today, five American military advisers went to Georgia to train the army there in counter-terrorism.
The EU can operate as an active mediator.
It has an important task in terms of strengthening the democratic forces and civil society and combating the environmental problems.
Mr Gahrton mentioned the fact that a first important step in strengthening the EU' s presence in the region would be to set up delegations in both Azerbaijan and Armenia, but more money from the EU is also needed for the region. Mr Gahrton and I are in agreement.
There needs to be more EU involvement in the South Caucasus too.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we should give a very warm welcome to Mr Gahrton' s report, which offers the three republics of the South Caucasus region the prospect of a way out of a situation marked by regional conflicts and a state of uneasy truce, so that they can finally find the path towards the durable peace that each of the republics and their populations desire.
We have the political responsibility to help them in their quest.
The reflections and proposals contained in the report also give an indication of the potential of the European Union to wage an active diplomatic campaign and to affirm its status and its role, and these are not fine words or empty rhetoric.
Be they friends or rivals, these three republics in the South Caucasus are sister nations. The doors of the Council of Europe have been opened to them, and in that forum of discussion and exchange many of the tensions between them have already been eased.
This antechamber of Europe must offer them new prospects of even closer fellowship with the European family, so that the Union can ultimately snuff out their age-old tensions.
This highlights our responsibility, for the world and our continent are becoming increasingly interdependent.
Besides the familiar question of oil, water is now becoming an equally strategic issue for the entire region, and before, on top of all this, an accident occurs in the Metsamor nuclear power station, it is also our responsibility to help these three countries to pre-empt such a threat.
Mr President, the report contains a long list of good intentions for the South Caucasus, which is undoubtedly an unstable problem area.
Europe naturally has an interest in the conflicts in the area being solved, but I must express doubts as to whether the EU is in a position to play such a large role in the area as this report proposes.
I therefore wish to emphasise that, even if the possibility of EU membership is only mentioned as a long-term prospect, these countries do not constitute natural candidates for EU membership.
All these many fine words are scarcely enough to solve the major problems in the area, and I would venture to doubt whether the Commission has the capacity to implement the desired changes.
I should like to add a few remarks on Amendment No 2 to paragraph 15.
I think it wise of Mr Duff to propose a formula that simply talks about reconciling historical differences.
I would therefore call for a vote in favour of the amendment.
Events during the First World War, which neither the British nor the American governments were then able, following investigations, to characterise as genocide, cannot profitably be discussed in the terms they are discussed in paragraph 15 of the report.
That is not the way to achieve the normalisation of economic and diplomatic relations.
It is true that the land border between Turkey and Armenia is closed, but there is no question of a blockade in the ordinary sense of the word.
There are air links between the countries, and Armenian citizens are able to travel into Turkey.
The closure of the road and railway links is a consequence of other unsolved aspects of the political and diplomatic situation.
What the EU can do is work towards a combined negotiated solution to the issues that divide the two countries.
Reflection and diplomacy are required.
The European Parliament will not promote a solution by setting itself up as a judge of events in the distant past.
The Union for Europe of the Nations Group will vote in favour of the report on condition that Amendment No 2 to paragraph 15 is adopted.
Mr President, I cherish very intense, personal memories of South Caucasus.
More than ten years ago, I was there as a journalist and followed the process of post-Soviet decolonisation.
The hospitality and geniality of the local population have always stayed with me.
At the same time, however, inter-ethnic conflicts have darkened the political horizon of the three Transcaucasian republics.
The rapid, armed escalation of these conflicts is still a burden upon the entire region.
Just think of the explosive centres of crisis formed by Abkhazia and Nagorny-Karabakh.
Mr Gahrton has attempted to unravel the Caucasian knot of conflict, which is a nigh impossible task. The aim is to provide specific recommendations for a constructive European contribution towards the pacification and reconstruction of the region.
I would particularly like to underline his appeal for prioritising European support for establishing the rule of law in Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
A western Caucasus specialist told me yesterday that this matter of concern requires more coordination between the Member States and the European institutions.
The Commission may be able to tell me whether it shares this concern.
More so than with the draft resolution, reading the explanatory statement to the Gahrton report evoked a sense of protest in me.
I should like to single out two controversial points. Firstly, Mr Gahrton' s analysis and interpretation of the post-Communist socio-economic collapse of the Transcaucasian republics has no regard for the legacy of the Soviet economy, or the mockery which native leaders made of the privatisation process.
Secondly, the rapporteur is very critical of the role of the United States in the region.
I doubt whether the republics are in danger, or should live in fear, of 'neo-colonialism' from specifically that quarter.
Meanwhile, the idea of an 'Organisation for Economic Cooperation in South Caucasus' appeals to me greatly.
It is a practical step towards establishing mutual trust, turning back the process of regional economic disintegration and re-creating a transnational system of infrastructure.
Current European aid projects, including Traceca and Inogate, are ideally suited to these goals and, what is more, prove that European efforts of this kind would be worthwhile in the southern Caucasus.
Mr President - I am delighted to see you perched so high up there, if I may say so - Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Per Gahrton, for the many efforts he has made to try and bring this report up to an acceptable level.
He reminded us very clearly in his introductory remarks that we are not there yet, that we still have a very long way to go.
Today, as he said, the South Caucasus is a powder keg; as for the North Caucasus, the less said, the better.
Today in the South Caucasus there are the unresolved questions of Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, Adzharia and so on.
All of these issues have been smouldering for years.
In thirteen years of transition from Communism to democracy, during which time the European Union has invested a billion euros in the region, I do not believe we can claim that European policy in that part of the world has been a resounding success.
As Mr Gahrton said, the underlying question concerns these nations' future prospects, and the Commission in particular - with the complicity of the Council, as usual - is refusing to offer any enticing political prospects to these countries and seems to reject the view that the only criterion for membership of the European Union is the fact that the people of a particular country feel European at heart.
One need only travel to Georgia, Azerbaijan or Armenia to ascertain that the people of these countries feel European, and so we have no reason whatsoever to deny them the prospect of a European future, which we have been doing in countless ways.
The other extremely serious problem, and one for which President Prodi bears the brunt of responsibility, is the failure of the European Union to safeguard its fundamental interests, the fact that it signs agreements, month after month, year upon year, with the Russian Federation.
As for the pipelines, all of them have to pass through Poland to reach Russia.
No energy-supply lines can pass through the Caucasus.
If it were not for the Americans, we would not even have the little pipeline that passes through Azerbaijan and Georgia.
This is the sort of policy that breeds dependence rather than interdependence.
Commissioner Nielsen evidently believes that the Caucasus is a region with a population density akin to that of Greenland or the Antarctic.
That is not the case.
The Commission is forgetting that the Caucasus region is the doorway to Central Asia, which will be the chief supplier of the energy of tomorrow.
This is the prospect that the Commission and the Council are presenting to us, but we in this Parliament could and should be calling on the Commission to take a decisive step, to make a bold political gesture by inviting these three countries to become candidates for accession to the European Union, to accede in ten years' time, once they are ready.
They certainly could be ready by then if this prospect were set before them now.
As things stand, the only prospect is that the powder keg of which Per Gahrton spoke is likely to set off a few more explosions.
Mr President, the rapporteur has presented an impressive report which makes it clear that the South Caucasus states are of key importance for Europe's security.
In particular, the fossil fuels and energy reserves known or suspected to exist in abundance in these countries, and their strategic position as the new 'silk route' for oil and gas, give them a global political dimension.
This is both a blessing and a curse for them.
At present, promoting social and economic development in these states is undoubtedly the imperative.
Against this background, the resources allocated by the EU naturally seem distinctly insubstantial.
It goes without saying that closer ties with the European Union are a desirable objective.
The EU must not renege on existing agreements such as the closure of the nuclear power station in Armenia.
As regards the fraught historical relations between Turkey and Armenia, we must avoid awakening hopes on either side that the European Union will assume the role of referee in this conflict.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would like to stress that item 15 of the resolution, which will be put to the House' s vote and which calls on Turkey to create the conditions for reconciliation with Armenia, is highly apt and important.
As we know, reconciliation between these countries is one of the key prerequisites for the establishment of peace in the Transcaucasian region, and the international community has every right to expect Turkey, as a major power, to conduct itself in a responsible manner on this important issue.
Nobody can understand why the Turkish government continues to reject dialogue and to maintain a policy of systematic hostility towards its small northern neighbour, opposing the establishment of diplomatic relations and maintaining a stringent and damaging blockade that it imposed in 1993.
This blockade must be lifted unconditionally, and its lifting must not be linked in any way to a requirement that Armenia drop her legitimate demand for international recognition of the genocide committed against the Armenian people.
On the contrary, the abandonment of all revisionism by Turkey, in the same way as Germany has done, which would form the basis of a profound reconciliation with Armenia is, as we are well aware, the only means of guaranteeing the establishment of lasting peace in the South Caucasus.
That is why, Mr President, we shall support item 15 of the draft resolution.
Thank you very much Mr President.
I am very happy with Mr Gahrton' s report because it makes a timely and useful contribution to our discussions on Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, three countries, currently members of the Council of Europe, which have not reached the level of political and economic development to which they aspire and which we would want them to have.
The conflicts in Nagorno Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia still represent the greatest threat to the stability and development of the region and of its neighbours.
These conflicts, at a standstill today, could tomorrow become new danger zones, and, for this reason, I fully agree with Mr Gahrton' s point that the European Union must make a huge effort to help solve these problems, with a view to promoting the causes of peace and development.
We are not starting with a blank slate, which is why before looking at some of the key points of this report, I shall give a brief summary of our current relations with this region.
The partnership and cooperation agreements that we have signed with each of the three countries provide a unique platform for cooperation in a broad range of fields, from political dialogue, trade and investment, to relations with civil society.
The implementation of these agreements, which entered into force in 1999, is gaining impetus.
Furthermore, we are continuing to provide considerable levels of aid to Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The European Union has provided some EUR one billion since 1991, the year in which these countries gained independence.
Last year, the European Union sent the region a clear sign of its wish to make a greater contribution to conflict prevention, to conflict resolution and to rehabilitation following conflicts.
In February 2001, the first EU ministerial troika for the region conveyed this message, which was later confirmed in the conclusions of the General Affairs Council of 26 February.
In a joint statement adopted at the meetings of the Cooperation Council last October, the three partner countries explicitly expressed their satisfaction with the intentions of the Union.
Mr Gahrton draws our attention to some of the instruments we have used in other places and suggests that we apply them to the southern Caucasus: a common strategy, a stability pact, a special envoy and other measures.
Since we are aware that there are limits to what we can do, let us look at how far we can go and what the new financing needs are.
Instead of creating new instruments, we should focus on maximising the benefits of already existing instruments. In this regard I should like to highlight three aspects of our discussion: firstly, the political will of the participants, above all else, is the key, the aspect most likely to result in progress.
In the current situation it is crucial that we maximise our efforts to support our commitments, particularly by means of political dialogue.
Difficult choices will have to be made and a culture of commitment to the southern Caucasus will have to be developed.
Secondly, in order for the European Union to be able to participate to the highest possible degree in conflict resolution, we must continue intensifying our common foreign and security policy as well as our role in the measures to promote conflict resolution.
I am referring, in particular, to the OSCE Minsk Group, to Nagorno Karabakh, to the friends of the Secretary General of Abkhazia and to the Joint Control Commission for South Ossetia.
We have made progress recently; since last year, the Union European has been participating in the tasks of the Joint Control Commission for South Ossetia, but a great deal remains to be done to ensure that the Union' s voice is heard in certain mediation circles.
Thirdly, we have to ensure that the southern Caucasus has a definitive place on the agenda of our relations with the main players in the region, such as Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States, and as some of you have said, also in our own interest, amongst other things, for reasons of energy supply.
In conclusion, there is not a single and easy answer to the question of how to improve relations between the Union and the southern Caucasus.
The Gahrton report rightly reminds us that we have to work patiently, on various parallel levels, probably for a long period of time, within the limits of available resources and on the basis of the achievements of the last year.
The Commission wishes to explore new ways of promoting peace and development in the southern Caucasus.
I wish to remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that at a certain point, there will have to be a limit to European integration, and I should like to point out that in terms of geographical proximity and of historical ties, we are closely connected to countries such as Morocco, Algeria or others on the shores of the Mediterranean.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Impact of transport on public health
The next item is the debate on the report (Á5-0014/2002) by Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the impact of transport on health.
Mr President, I am very happy to be able to introduce my report at this evening's plenary session.
Colleagues will recall that this is an own-initiative report and in our early discussions in committee some concerns were expressed about the potentially enormous scope of a report on such a broad subject as transport and health.
We agreed that in order to be useful, we would need to prioritise the issues that we focussed on very rigorously.
For that reason I focussed this report on just two key issues: gaps in existing legislation and where further work can have genuine added value.
First, the introduction of health impact assessments for all major EU transport projects and policies is probably the single most important initiative which could help integrate transport and health policies and help to minimise the negative impact of transport on health.
The second issue I focussed on was the promotion within the bounds of subsidiarity of cycling and walking within EU transport policy.
This would have an enormous impact on maximising the positive effects of transport policy on health.
To demonstrate why action is urgent and necessary, my report summarises some of the key negative health impacts arising from transport growth.
These include air pollution, noise, lack of physical movement and others.
To take just one of these, transport is now the dominant source of air pollution in urban areas and despite the past decade's improvements in air quality in Europe, close to 90% of the urban population is still exposed to excess ambient levels of particulate matter, NO2, benzene and ozone. These can affect respiratory functions and lead to other health problems and diseases like cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
Although it is true that vehicles have become relatively less polluting, the effect in absolute terms is offset by the increase in the number of vehicles on the road together with the increases in the length and frequencies of journeys.
The significance of this was demonstrated by a recent study that found that air pollution now causes a higher mortality rate than road accidents.
This is also a very timely debate.
New evidence from scientists in California in just the past few weeks demonstrates that car fumes can actually cause asthma rather than only exacerbating asthma in existing sufferers.
New research in the UK, part-funded by the UK Government, reveals that children find it increasingly hard to breathe the closer they live to main roads.
So having focussed on two priority areas, I should explain the process used to identify those areas.
First, on health impact assessments: in all the relevant literature it is clear there is still a lack of integration of health issues into transport policy at EU level.
This was most recently and clearly evident in a synthesis report produced by the WHO and the UN Economic Commission for Europe in January of last year.
That report was called for by European ministers to provide an overview of relevant existing agreements and to provide further recommendations.
Their overwhelming conclusion was: "The main gap seems to lie in the lack of an overarching integration strategy which would bring together and use the synergies of policies and legislations relevant to transport, environment and health."
We also have an EU Treaty obligation to better integrate these fields.
Having spoken to a number of experts, it seems to me that health impact assessments should be introduced for all major EU transport policies and projects so that we can understand better the potential health risks and benefits of different proposals.
These analyses could be very helpfully integrated with strategic environmental assessments.
This proposal actually complements and builds on proposals that are currently being considered in the Commission's proposal for a new programme of Community action in the field of public health.
What I am proposing is that this commitment should now be implemented urgently as regards transport and health.
Some people will say that this methodology is not yet ready to be implemented.
I would counter that very strongly.
While this methodology, like all methodology, is still evolving there is more than enough knowledge to start implementing now.
We need to be very clear about that.
The other part of my report focuses on promoting cycling and walking within the bounds of subsidiarity.
I make a number of proposals which would help to promote those modes of transport in the EU.
But I want to finish by coming back to an amendment that I notice that the PSE has tabled to the report which will have the effect of delaying the start of the health impact assessment until 2004.
I regret that amendment since the methodologies exist for starting this process now.
There is really no need to wait three years until the Commission comes up simply with proposals.
For that reason, I will be making an oral amendment, which I understand has been agreed to by the PSE, to change the year 2004 to 2003.
I hope very much that the other groups will accept that too.
Action in this field is urgent.
Until we are prepared to give health concerns a major place in transport strategy, our children will go on paying for our inaction with their health, and increasingly with their lives.
Mr President, Madam Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, transport issues have to do with public health, among other things.
Transport users have accidents, suffer the stress of gridlock and, as local residents, are exposed to traffic noise and exhaust fumes and many other hazards, not only in urban but also in rural areas.
In some cases, they affect an entire Member State, as we are witnessing in Austria, my own country, where major problems are caused by transit traffic.
It is sensible, therefore - indeed, it is essential - to analyse and evaluate the impact of transport on public health and draw appropriate conclusions.
Against this background, we owe a debt of gratitude to the rapporteur, Mrs Caroline Lucas, for this own-initiative report.
We must also thank her for her willingness to work with all the groups - particularly the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats - in seeking sensible compromise solutions.
The text which I assume we will adopt by a fairly large majority tomorrow is both ambitious and modest, and therefore deserves to be taken seriously.
We want the Commission to carry out professional impact assessments and to use the scientific data as a basis for appropriate legislative initiatives wherever - but only if - these initiatives are necessary.
If, indeed, it proves possible to implement some points by the end of 2003, which is one of the proposals set forth in the oral amendment by Mrs Petersen, we should welcome this step.
We will be delighted to give it our support.
We look forward with interest to the work of the Commission and our Vice-President, Mrs de Palacio.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for a sound report and for the valuable cooperation we have enjoyed during its preparation.
Those of us in my political group have really helped ensure that we shall be able to obtain a good final product.
Efficient transport is crucial to our economy, especially in the case of regions far from the centre of the EU.
At the same time, those of us who are dependent upon both passenger and freight transport must be entitled to communicate without such communication' s damaging public health through air pollution and noise.
We must therefore make efforts to integrate public health considerations into transport, and we must apply that part of the Treaty which states that we must have a high level of health protection in all the EU' s policies.
We support the proposal in favour of health impact assessments for transport projects and policies.
There are many good examples given, which we can use in our continued work.
I would also call upon the Commission to do the same.
Cyclists and pedestrians must be able to proceed safely and quickly.
Cars must be designed in such a way that, in the event of their colliding with passengers, they cause minimal injury.
Moreover, we must multiply the good examples of cycle paths and pedestrianised precincts to be found in municipalities and regions throughout the EU.
These are concepts we must make use of when we draw up our policy.
I also wish to support the draft oral compromise tabled by the rapporteur.
I hope we shall obtain a good result.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The vote on this report will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
The debate is closed.
Labour cost index
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0461/2001) by Mr Mayol i Raynal, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation concerning the labour cost index (COM(2001) 418 - C5-0348/2001 - 2001/0166(COD)).
Mr Mayol i Raynal has the floor.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, it is my duty to present to the House a proposal for a regulation concerning the labour-cost index.
This proposal is based on Article 285 of the EC Treaty, a new provision introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In particular, this article lays down that the Council, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251, shall adopt measures for the production of statistics where necessary for the performance of the activities of the Community.
Article 285 goes on to stipulate that Community statistics are to be compiled in accordance with the principles of impartiality, reliability, objectivity, scientific independence, cost-effectiveness and statistical confidentiality and that their compilation must not entail excessive burdens on economic operators.
The framework here is one of codecision procedure, and the European Central Bank has requested that this statistical instrument, this labour-cost index, be an indicator to be taken into account when drafting the monetary policy.
The Economic and Financial Affairs Council (Ecofin) meeting on 29 September 2000, adopted an action plan on the statistical requirements of the economic and monetary Union, which includes a project to draw up provisional statistics on labour costs.
I ask that this project be presented at the earliest possible date.
At the present time we already have an index of labour costs.
The index was created during the 1990s by the Statistical Programme Committee, but it has no legal basis, and the way in which it is calculated leaves a lot to be desired in terms of how recent the figures are, its coverage and comparability.
The underlying notion of the European Central Bank' s request and the Commission' s proposal is that the cost of labour is one of the causes of inflation.
The European institutions responsible for economic, employment and monetary policy therefore need to have regular reliable indicators of labour costs.
This opinion is debatable and I also believe that it is shared by one committee within the Commission and rejected by another.
As far as low pay is concerned, the argument against the aforesaid opinion is that several Member States have a minimum wage which is increased in response to rises in the cost of living and not vice versa.
Nonetheless, it is useful for the European Union to have a macroeconomic indicator of labour costs, which can be a particularly valuable tool for management and labour representatives in their negotiations on the formulation of collective agreements, etc.
The aim of the proposal is to establish a common framework for the production, transmission and evaluation of comparable labour-cost indices.
That is the objective of Article 1.
These costs are defined as the total quarterly costs incurred by the employer in the employment of labour (Article 2).
The data must be broken down by economic categories.
Four indices will be established: an index relating to total labour costs, another index showing labour costs, excluding bonuses, which are not paid regularly, then an index of wages and salaries and, lastly, an index of the combined amount of social security contributions plus taxes paid by employers less the subsidies they receive as compensation for direct labour costs.
On this last point, it should be noted that it is often the government which sets the level of these contributions and that it cannot therefore be claimed that inflation is fuelled by pay rises alone.
The data for the labour-cost index are to be compiled on a quarterly basis (Article 5(1)) and must be supplied in index form within 70 days of the end of the reference period (Article 6(1)).
Transition periods may not extend more than two years from the date of entry into force of the regulation (Article 9(1)).
In implementing the regulation, including the adoption of decisions on derogations from its provisions, the Commission is to be assisted by the Statistical Programme Committee.
Here are a few points to consider.
Analysis of labour costs is undoubtedly an important factor, as I have said, in terms of the macroeconomic perspective.
It may, however, raise some questions.
This index will ultimately have to be refined through the creation of a separate index for total cost excluding expenditure on vocational training for which the employer is responsible.
There is also the possibility, for which provision is made in an amendment tabled by my group, of taking hourly productivity into account and of postponing the first deadline for the submission of an assessment report until 31 December 2003, in order to permit an analysis based on a period of operation which takes account of a possible transition period.
For technical reasons, this matter was not raised in committee, and so we were compelled to table this amendment belatedly.
Please excuse me, but I realise that my time has run out. I am not used to these timed reports and have exceeded my allotted slot by one minute and eleven seconds.
At such a late hour, I appreciate that this is a reprehensible abuse of your tolerance, and for this I apologise again.
Mr President, generally, when we have to deal here with proposals on the compilation of statistics, the Members of this House are not particularly enraptured - as is apparent this evening - because they regard it as a technical matter which is essentially of little concern to politicians.
Our electors are surely unlikely to be interested either in the work and effort we devote to these proposals.
I am often the rapporteur on proposals concerning the compiling of statistics by Eurostat, and I am forever preaching to my fellow Members that ill-informed citizens or politicians - yes, even female politicians - will misjudge situations and take unwise decisions, and that is dangerous.
When it comes to statistics, there are certainly some people who delight in citing the quotation about there being three kinds of lies - lies, damned lies and statistics - on the grounds that quoting statistics is the most devious form of lying.
Be that as it may, we still must not forget that reliable and comparable statistics are a necessity.
Eurostat does excellent work in this domain and will continue to do so, provided that we politicians furnish it with a legal base and the financial resources it requires to perform its task.
Having said this, now that we all have the single currency in our pockets, I should like to emphasise the need to have statistics on labour costs at our disposal, because they are part of the indispensable information that makes it possible to evaluate what is actually happening on the ground in terms of inflation within the euro area, to evaluate developments that are crucial to the stability of our currency, which is now the currency of all our countries apart from the three that have not adopted it.
It is wrong to say - and I disagree with the rapporteur here - that the cost of labour is not a source of inflation, because it is simply not true that increases in labour costs are always justified by the rising cost of living or by improvements in the productivity of the workforce.
Think of what is happening in Germany, where, contrary to all common sense, the trade unions are demanding pay rises which would threaten thousands of jobs and increase inflation at a time when the largest Member State of the European Union is already causing us enough concern over its compliance or non-compliance with the Stability Pact.
Mr Solbes can tell us something of what went on in the Council of Ministers, because many people believe that the Stability Pact has already died a natural death.
This is why every effort must be made to ensure that we obtain as quickly as possible a common framework for the production, communication and evaluation of comparable labour-cost indices of the sort that will result from this proposed regulation, which must be adopted as soon as possible.
My group, by the way, does not agree with the amendments tabled by the rapporteur on behalf of his group, because he is asking for things that are impracticable and counterproductive - and this, incidentally, is also the view of the Commission and Eurostat.
We shall therefore reject these amendments.
Mr President, your generosity is appreciated although as I am not an economist, nor a statistician, nor a liar I hope, I think I will be quite brief.
What strikes me about me about the Commission's statement is that in a zone as large as the EMU, labour costs are generally considered as the main potential source of inflation.
That is an overstatement of the situation.
I accept, of course, that rises in prices and labour prices and labour costs can impact on inflation, but clearly in our Member State economies, where increasingly wage rates are negotiated through national agreements and are linked to productivity, and have all kinds of other factors built into any increases that employees get, the likelihood of labour costs being the driving force behind inflation to my mind is untrue.
That is not to say that it is not a factor.
What is a significant factor, however, is the operation of the market itself.
I have personal experience of this in Ireland where prices on the housing market have simply exploded.
Houses that were being sold five years ago for IEP 80 000 are now selling for IEP 250 000 Irish Pounds.
This is extraordinary and wage rises had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
It had to do with market demand, growth in the economy, etc.
In fact probably, indirect taxation as part of government policy in relation to spending has a greater impact on inflation.
Having said all that, this is a useful tool for the European Union to develop.
It is important in order to manage the euro and the European monetary zone.
It is inadequate in some respects because large areas of income are excluded.
Professional fees for example are not included in this labour cost index and we all know the extent to which professional fees are virtually uncontrollable.
These bodies set their own fees by and large, certainly in the Republic of Ireland.
Also the issue of costs for education and training should be factored in, because obviously this is a cost, or should be a cost, in most cases to employers.
So this is a useful tool and we should proceed with it.
We need to review the position within a year or two to see how it is working to see what else might be factored in.
And I would just ask the Commission to bear in mind that if it really believes that labour costs are the main potential factor for driving up inflation it will be making bad policy decisions.
Thank you very much, Mr President, many thanks also to the rapporteur, Mr Mayol i Raynal, and to all the speakers who are present here this evening to discuss an important, albeit statistical issue, which simply concerns the definition of labour cost indexes, which will enable us to better understand what is happening in Europe, how we can compete more effectively, and which are a crucial factor for defining monetary policy.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have opened a debate which is of certain interest, but which is not exactly a debate on the proposal for a regulation that we presented.
I would say that the concern that some of you have expressed about the interrelationship between salaries and inflation, which could be a debate for another occasion, has little to do with what the text of the preamble to the proposal for a regulation actually says.
This states that a set of statistics, of which the labour cost indexes form an essential part, is an aspect that is crucial to understanding inflationist processes and the dynamic of the labour market.
I would say that this statement is hard to refute.
Clearly, we could go into the other issue in greater detail.
With regard to the debate itself, I shall simply refer to the two concerns expressed by Mr Mayol i Raynal.
To what extent, on the one hand, can indexes be drawn up in the future which do not take account of training costs and which exclude this type of cost? Clearly, here we have a purely technical problem, to do with the cost/benefit ratio.
These total costs are quite insignificant.
Ultimately, they affect less than 2% of total costs and, nevertheless, calculating these training costs would have or would lead to a very significant cost in terms of compiling the statistics as a whole.
For this reason, until we have better information that enables us to do so at a lower cost, we are not in favour of adopting this approach.
Nor are we in favour of not drafting the report that is planned for the end of 2002.
I fully understand the arguments put forward by Mr Mayol i Raynal to the effect that we will still be in a transitional period and not all of the regulation will apply 100%.
The truth, however, is that we will already have a certain amount of experience in implementing the regulation and, furthermore, we will be able to more clearly highlight its shortcomings and problems.
If the aim of the report is to understand the difficulties of implementing the regulation and adopting the measures necessary for this implementation to take place as efficiently as possible, we believe that maintaining the year 2002 as the target date is still correct. Nevertheless, if Parliament wishes to have additional information at a later date on the implementation of the regulation, it is fully within its rights to request it and Eurostat and I, personally, will be happy to provide it.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is all I have to say.
Thank you for your cooperation in approving this regulation, which is important in statistical terms and also important to defining the future of monetary policy.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.13 p.m.)
Mr President, Members of the House need no telling how useful to us the publication Recent and Forthcoming Work in Committee is.
It gives us a way to plan forward.
A week ago I was asked by a colleague who works as an advisor to the Scottish Parliament if there was anyway I could help her with the problem of foreseeing business coming forward in the European Parliament in order that committees of that other parliament should be aware of our work and able to plan in relation to it.
I said that there was a marvellous publication and I would get it for her.
My staff asked for it in Parliament this week and I asked the Parliament office in Edinburgh if they could provide it.
I was informed that this is a rare work of which Members of Parliament get one copy each and which may not be copied for anyone else, and no further copies can be obtained.
In these days of transparency in the conduct of our business, it seems to me that is a provision which ought to be re-examined.
This very useful publication should be made widely available.
A second point: Yesterday, we approved minutes which drew attention to Mrs Doyle's statement of Thursday, 7 February, that in respect of the Watson report the PPE-ED Group by mistake failed to vote in favour of the habeas corpus amendment.
Had they not made that mistake because of a late change in numbering, that amendment would have been carried in Parliament.
This is a momentous fact which I hope will be drawn to the attention of Commissioner Vitorino, the President-in-Office of the Council and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi as chair of the relevant committee of this House.
We have taken note of your second point, Mr MacCormick.
With regard to the first point, I believe that the President of Parliament intends to give one of the Vice-Presidents responsibility for supervising relations with the citizens and for transparency and communication between Parliament and the citizens.
It has not yet been decided which Vice-President but I think he or she may be the person you should contact regarding the matter you have raised.
Socrates Programme
The next item is the report (A5-0021/2002) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the implementation of the Socrates programme [2000/2315(INI)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, before I elaborate upon the report on the implementation of the Socrates Programme, I should like to congratulate Mrs Pack on the sound work she has done.
We have heard all the figures and it is impressive.
The Socrates I Programme, which ran from 1995 until 1999, was very successful, yet also met with the necessary criticism.
The students and teachers involved admitted wholeheartedly that the experience gathered had been very useful and that the programme had made a practical contribution towards European citizenship.
However, the criticism mainly centred around the procedures being overly bureaucratic and insufficiently transparent, around payments being long overdue and around too little being done with the results.
So how are things being done this time round? The Socrates II Programme, that runs until 2006, has now been underway for more than 18 months, and although an interim evaluation report has not yet been published, there are already indications that a great deal has improved.
The relationship between the Commission and the national bureaux appears to have become considerably more flexible, and the administrative procedures have been simplified in places.
Nevertheless, I should like to make some observations. The procedures, certainly those for the smaller projects, still put potential participants off on account of their laboriousness.
And according to my sources, contracts are sent out late on a regular basis, and payments are overdue.
This is unacceptable to my group.
As a result of this, projects run into financial difficulty, and that certainly does nothing to promote the EU' s credibility.
Furthermore, cooperation with other European programmes still appears to be inadequate, which is also a significant shortcoming.
The Socrates Programme must be managed efficiently, and this also includes coordination with other European programmes.
I should therefore like to urge the Commission to devote special attention to these points.
The Socrates Programme is too valuable an instrument for promoting the mobility of pupils, students and teachers to be allowed to go under due to administrative and financial stumbling blocks.
It is an excellent way of promoting knowledge of other European languages and cultures in order to achieve a harmonious Europe, which is something we all want.
In my view, this programme should be given a freer rein, financially too, but, Commissioner, I am jumping the gun a little bit, given the position of my own Finance Minister.
Mr President, I very much welcome the establishment of the second phase of Socrates and thank Mrs Pack for her excellent work.
We have undoubtedly seen increased cooperation in the field of European education combined with a new commitment to life-long learning and that is heartening.
In Wales, my own nation, and indeed the whole of the UK, there is a problem in encouraging the acquisition of language skills across the board.
ERASMUS has gone a long way to improving this and I would like to see an increase in the figure of 460 000 participating students a year.
Such exchanges make a distinct commitment to better linguistic skills, but also promote cultural cooperation.
The Commission must continue to do its utmost to ensure that the application procedure is more user-friendly and I agree with comments by other speakers that at the moment the administrative side of the programme makes it difficult for participants.
There has been a real administrative burden on the applicants throughout this programme, particularly under the COMENIUS scheme which needs to be addressed urgently.
Regardless of how successful this programme is, it must always be as open as possible for those wishing to participate.
Mr President, the Socrates programme is not just a system of educational exchanges.
It is a tool for moulding young people and imposing a certain educational model.
The basic problem of education, by which I mean a general curriculum for young people, falls outside the scope of the programme.
On the contrary, its purpose is to manipulate pupils, students and teachers in order to establish the European one-way system and make it easier to subjugate young people to the policy of the European Union, to the rules of the market economy and to so-called new working conditions.
The European education area is a front for converging education systems by tailoring them to the requirements of big business and the last thing that does is to improve education overall.
Even educational exchanges and the system for providing lessons operate as a lever in this direction.
The first thing we need to do, if we really want to improve education systems, is to stop the European Union from interfering.
In the final analysis, this is a matter for the grass-roots movement.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Pack on her report on the Socrates programme, which has provided me with the starting point for a number of observations.
We can certainly say that the main objective of developing European citizenship and, in particular, of improving the quality of the educational systems, has been fully achieved.
Evidence of this are the considerable benefits derived from the programme in terms of increased cultural awareness and the overcoming of cultural prejudice and stereotypical concepts and, following on from this, the language skills acquired by those receiving Socrates grants.
Despite that, the analysis revealed a number of weak points such as the integration of the Socrates programme with the Comenius, Lingua and Leonardo da Vinci programmes, which will require considerable adjustment and greater coordination and consolidation.
Something which I feel demands a great deal of reflection is the financial support given to the successful applicants for Socrates grants: the appropriation is insufficient to support the students because of a quantitative grant distribution requirement that has resulted in the available sums being too small.
Indeed, the situations in the Member States differ widely in the face of a global reduction in the size of the grants allocated to each student, while the parental contribution is tending to increase.
As the report has already pointed out, this trend clearly generates the danger of growing inequalities between students.
In this regard, the basic resources provided need to be sufficient to enable students to be independent and live without relying heavily on support from their families, considering that study grants should not be differentiated according to the country of residence of the students or the country which they visit under the project.
This financial discrimination would make the programme available only to a group of individuals who can count on parental support.
A further highly negative aspect of the allocation of the grants is the bureaucratic financing procedure, which is currently seriously behind schedule. This must of necessity be rectified.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Socrates programme is a good example of action that relates closely to the people and which has an important European value-added element.
We have also had some experience of it in Finland, which became involved in the programme while EU membership was still being negotiated.
We on the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport hope that the current applicant countries will take full advantage of the opportunities the programme offers.
The Centre for International Mobility, which administers the programme in Finland, recently published a study on the experiences of foreign exchange students.
We are very pleased that Finland is of interest as a destination. Every year we receive more than 3 000 foreign students.
As the report may have universal applicability I will summarise it briefly. The respondents stressed the importance of study in a foreign country, above all with regard to personal and social growth.
The courses of study were also reasonably successful.
The exchange students completed an average of thirty-three study weeks during the academic year.
Finland earned special praise for the excellent facilities in its universities and colleges, particularly computers and libraries, as well as for the study guidance provided and student halls of residence.
From the point of view of the mobility of the workforce it is interesting that the students said they were now more willing to consider a possible career in Finland.
This was especially true of students from Central Europe: southern Europeans were not very interested in working in a Nordic country.
The report under discussion pays particular attention to the processing of applications and the flow of payments.
Although there have been improvements in these areas problems still remain.
The report states that unwarranted delays in the payment of grants hamper the implementation of programmes and bring Community institutions into disrepute.
With regard to this, I would, if I may, draw everyone' s attention to Parliament' s role as a provider of guidelines.
While, on the one hand, we insist on greater efficiency and flexibility, we might, on the other hand, be increasing bureaucracy and making it take longer to deal with matters.
For example, the Commission used to make a lump-sum payment to the Technical Assistance Office to cover payment of grants.
Now it has to fill out as many as one thousand eight hundred separate payment orders.
This obviously has an impact on the speed of the process.
Furthermore, the implementation of the programmes in the Member States must be subjected to assessment by an external auditor.
Therefore, a small rural university in Finland, for example, has to embark on a costly procedure for the sake, let us say, of two minor projects, even though, under our laws, the State Audit Office will perform the same task in any case.
To prevent malpractice and error we should establish good administrative practice and not just devise ever more complicated control systems.
Mr President, from a quantitative and operational point of view, certainly, the Socrates programme has progressed well and Commissioner Reding is one of the people we have to thank for that.
We have also heard a great many favourable comments from the rapporteur, Mrs Pack, who should not detract from her report by turning the House into a sort of football field and giving yellow cards to speakers with whom she disagrees.
I think that every view expressed here is useful on an issue as tricky as education in Europe.
I should like to point out, first, the importance of increasing Community funding and participation, and secondly, the need to streamline the programme and heed the views of those who take part in it.
With Erasmus in particular, there is a risk, while it is good to give children a chance to study abroad, of disrupting undergraduate syllabuses.
When asked, many of the children who have taken part will say, it was a good experience but there are a lot of unanswered questions in undergraduate education overall.
Lastly, I should like to point out that this programme is by its very nature a programme of freedom, freedom of movement of students and freedom of movement of ideas and knowledge.
We need to see a large question mark here, because it also extends to countries outside the European Union, especially Turkey; a large question mark because there are tens of thousands of children and young people, like the children in schools who cannot study in their mother tongue, Kurdish.
We must not forget this, we must not turn a blind eye, we need to make this programme a programme of overall freedom.
May I first of all acknowledge the value and potential of Socrates and in so doing thank the rapporteur for her work.
I welcome the report which is positive.
Its adoption will lead to a more effective and consumer-friendly application of the programmes.
The rapporteur is to be complimented on her efforts to take on board the experiences of those directly involved and I particularly wish to acknowledge the fact that the views of the Irish agency, Largos, are reflected in the text.
I fully agree on the need to simplify the administrative procedures and to make the programmes more accessible and relevant to national agencies and participants, in particular the proposal to develop the Symmetry information management system.
The rapporteur's proposal for regular progress reports on joint actions will lead to ongoing evaluation, thus ensuring maximum value in respect of funding and, more importantly, greater effectiveness of the programmes themselves.
I compliment the many voluntary participants and, in particular, the teachers without whose involvement the programmes could not succeed.
I have met many of them and have experienced at first hand their resourcefulness and dedication.
All in all, Socrates is addressing in a unique and effective way the need for a greater intra-community action in the field of education thus leading to a greater understanding and sharing of Europe's diverse culture.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first to express my heartfelt thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Pack, and indeed to Parliament as a whole. Parliament has proved a committed partner throughout this common enterprise of establishing educational programmes and setting the Europe of education on track.
Its support has been invaluable. We would not be where we are now if Parliament had not lent a hand.
Thank you all again.
Mrs Pack, I should also like to thank you and the other Members who have taken the floor today for your positive assessment of the youth programmes.
They exemplify the kind of Europe we are aspiring to, a Europe where authority is not exercised from the top down but from the bottom up. This is actually starting to happen.
Hundreds of thousands of young people have been able to study in another country. Hundreds of thousands of teaching groups are working with teaching groups in another country, and hundreds of thousands of teachers are on the road.
That is great!
I fully agree with those who believe that, apart from occasional minor problems, this splendid programme is working very well and should be developed further.
I also agree with those who maintain that there are financial risks involved, and that the grants are too small.
I have to tell you that I often meet Erasmus students.
I have not yet come across a single unhappy one.
They all say that given a second chance, they would do it all again.
However, they also tell me that the grants are too small.
We are aware of this and very much hope that the Finance Ministers will increase the resources available, so we can pass the increase on to students. It would then be possible to bridge the gap between social classes able to pay for travel and those unable to do so.
I am entirely on your side. Consequently I trust you will support me in the future, as we press for increased financial resources for these programmes, particularly in the context of enlargement of the Union.
As the House must be aware, we are already working with potential new Member States to ensure they are fully integrated into our educational programmes. Nonetheless, costs are bound to increase dramatically once these states become part of the Union.
Additional resources will therefore be required if the awards are not to become even smaller. We shall have to fight for these, and I am confident Parliament will be on my side.
I should now like to turn to the issues that the speakers have raised.
Parliament does recognise that improvements have taken place as regards monitoring and evaluation.
We are currently implementing a programme to evaluate Socrates II, and the results will be used as a basis for the Commission' s proposals for new initiatives to replace Socrates.
I can assure the Chairman that the committee will be kept abreast of research and its assessment.
Then there is the issue of the relationship between the Commission and national agencies, that is, decentralisation.
You will be aware that we have striven to put the links between the Commission and these agencies on a sound footing, and efforts to bring about an improvement are ongoing.
All those involved have referred to administrative burdens.
We have endeavoured to simplify the administration of the programme and make it more democratic, as you have also recognised.
We have adjusted the Erasmus institutional contract to reduce by about 50% the number of contracts that beneficiaries have to sign.
My services are also considering the feasibility of amending Socrates decisions, as Mrs Pack suggests. The aim is to avoid increasing the bureaucratic burden, particularly for schools involved in small projects.
This will be achieved, Mrs Pack, with Parliament' s help of course.
Once again, I appeal to Members to lend us a hand because progress is much faster once the House takes these issues to heart.
There is only one minor area where I am unable to respond positively.
You have suggested doing away with cofinancing for small projects.
I would very much like to, but integral financing would contravene the Community financial rules adopted recently and endorsed by Parliament.
A radical reform of these rules would be required before going any further.
Parliament would have to give an opinion as to whether it wished to go down that road.
Regarding the payment contract delays, things are now much better.
We have not yet cleared the backlog, but the year 2001 will be an improvement on 2000, and 2002 will in turn be an improvement on 2001.
The new procedures are now in place.
We have brought committee meetings forward and simplified the legal base to finance the candidate countries.
I should like to say a few words on Symmetry.
An effective data management system is urgently required and we are making progress, despite the problems experienced at the outset.
Following a call to tender, a contractor was appointed in 2001.
Symmetry will be developed in 2002 and 2003.
Delivery is planned for August 2003.
Lastly, there are the Joint Actions.
You are quite right, ladies and gentlemen, it is important to have plenty of these.
2001 was an introductory year involving a limited number of issues of common interest to Socrates, Leonardo and Youth.
The 2002 call for proposals will take place in April and the topics chosen are social integration of target groups, active citizenship amongst the young, local guidance networks, formal and informal training. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you will appreciate that we are taking Parliament' s proposals very much to heart.
This is not just to keep Members happy, but quite simply because the House is right. Parliament is quite properly inspired by its wish to improve the citizens' Europe, a Europe whose young people are the cornerstone in the building of the new continent we are all engaged in constructing - a Europe where it is good to be alive.
Thank you Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Culture 2000 Programme
The next item is the report (A5-0018/2002) by Mr Graça Moura, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the implementation of the 'Culture 2000' programme [2000/2317(INI)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the implementation of the Culture 2000 programme has been a constant concern of the parliamentary committee of which I am a member.
My colleagues and I have attempted, on the one hand, to monitor the various fronts on which the programme is being developed and the methodology or methodologies that have been adopted for its implementation; on the other hand, we have sought to make soundings amongst our electors and amongst European cultural agents and operators in general, so as to gauge the reactions provoked by the programme and, most importantly, so that we can assess its results.
This legislature is now almost halfway through and the framework programme has also already reached almost half of its intended duration.
The Commission will soon have to revise it, particularly in view of the financial shortcomings it has experienced from the very beginning, which are being felt more and more and which the President has just mentioned.
It is also becoming necessary for all of us to start thinking about 'post-Culture 2000' , in other words, about the programme that will follow the current one and which will have to take account of its successes and failures.
The report that I am presenting reflects the deeply and widely held opinion of all the members of the parliamentary committee who voted for it.
Since this is a follow-up report, your rapporteur deliberately sought to promote and stimulate the tabling of amendments, because these would be likely to add further issues relevant to the study.
Consequently, almost all of the amendments tabled were incorporated into the text.
The report therefore reflects the many different shades of opinion that were expressed in the parliamentary committee and very accurately conveys the reactions of our electors.
A report of this nature cannot fail to reaffirm the high-minded objectives of Culture 2000 and its role in the construction of European citizenship and in the defence of cultural diversity and of linguistic pluralism.
It must also reaffirm the inspirational and high-minded principles which the Programme has obeyed since its conception, which cannot, for any reason, be ignored at the implementation stage.
Both these principles and those objectives must be seen as fundamental building blocks for European integration and for the development of the democratic citizenship that all citizens of the Union enjoy.
Since these have been carefully considered, approved and signed up to, not only by this House, but also by the Council and the Commission, there is no reason for these positions to be changed.
These are lines of cultural policy that are of importance to all Member States and, with the prospect of enlargement, to all Europeans.
They are about constructing the European cultural area as an area crucial to freedom and to freedoms.
Lastly, Mr President, I should like to ask Commissioner Reding to view this report as a tool which could help the Commission to more effectively undertake the tasks entrusted to it in this field; its present tasks, now that the Programme has reached its halfway stage, and its future tasks, as long as the experience it has gained - as I said - can lead to an even better programme following on from Culture 2000.
This House' s vote will therefore mark an important milestone in cooperation between Parliament and the Commission.
The Culture 2000 programme will also provide the helping hand which the Commissioner mentioned a few moments ago with regard to the Socrates Programme.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Graça Moura for having taken so much time and trouble in his effort to pinpoint Parliament's political guidelines, which also underlie this programme, in the implementation of the programme. For example, how does this programme give our citizens improved access to and participation in culture?
What actions involve our fellow citizens? The huge administrative costs and the criteria for handling the programme cannot conceal the programme's original objectives, nor should they call them into question.
Having read the report, we must state, loud and clear, exactly what we expect of a European cultural policy, especially in the run up to enlargement and the forthcoming convention. If you talk to artists today, they are all worried that culture will get buried under the convention, under the debate on subsidiarity.
I hope it does not and we shall fight to see that it does not.
How can the mechanics of the programme be improved, so that it becomes a real cultural tool which meets the requirements of artists and citizens alike? Should the programme support the arts sector or work for the good of society?
Given the current situation, these are the questions we need to ask when we think of the future. Needless to say, this, too, is a programme which needs to be put on a better financial footing if we are to avoid creating frustration rather than satisfaction.
I do not want to anticipate the debate on the follow-up programme post-2004, but even Mr Graça Moura addressed this point because it is already well under way at the Commission, and the report calls on us to start giving it serious thought so as to avoid leaving the field open, including at the convention, to the enemies of any form of culture policy work at EU level.
We should all remember that a European cultural policy which respects our citizens' differences and cultural traditions goes straight to the heart of the political debate. In other words, it is the only way of giving Europe a soul.
Mr President, the procedure we are dealing with, the control of a programme throughout its execution, is normal in any Parliament.
For this reason, I think that Mr Graça Moura' s report is very appropriate. I will say straight away that it deserves the approval of the Socialist Group.
After the conciliation procedure, which has been mentioned previously, I expressed my annoyance with the Council given its intransigence in relation to accepting the financing we requested.
This means that a programme that directly affects what we call the heart of Europe and which replaces other programmes that in the last few years have been most enthusiastically received by the most dynamic and youngest citizens of the European Union, has been allocated little more than EUR 33 million per year, an amount so small within the already modest Community budget that it disappoints those of us who see the European Union as something more than solely a vehicle for agricultural and structural spending.
On this basis, we should remember two circumstances: the first is that the Culture 2000 programme exists alongside other resolutions from this Parliament which should produce guidelines for its implementation.
I would cite as a particular example the Ruffolo report in which, amongst other things, the Commission is urged to set up a European observatory to monitor cultural cooperation or a three-year cultural cooperation plan.
The Commission should therefore adopt a dynamic approach to Culture 2000, incorporating Parliament' s guidelines year after year.
My second observation: the years remaining in this programme will coincide almost precisely with a working period, initiated at the Nice Council, which we have come to call a 'constituent' period.
Whether there is a Constitution at the end of this or not, it is clear that the desire to increase the links between European communities and to awaken in each citizen a feeling of belonging to the Community cultural space is amongst the main objectives of the Convention.
Is there a sufficient constituent basis amongst European communities?
Is there any cultural identity between them? Many of us think that the constituent basis should be European culture, following Bruckmanns' s idea, that is to say, a common behaviour, a similar attitude to life, shared ideals, common artistic and cultural patrimony, and so on.
Therefore, the political centre of gravity at this time should be more than just currency, more than the CFSP, even, but the linking of citizens to the Community idea and the search for and protection of a European culture.
EUR 33 million is a very paltry sum to finance the only European cultural programme to be implemented during this period, but we can console ourselves, Mr President, with the thought that the conclusions of this report will contribute to the improvement of its functioning.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Culture 2000 programme is ideal for promoting European cultural cooperation.
As mentioned a moment ago, it will inject feeling and soul into Europe.
I should therefore like to thank Mr Graça Moura for his initiative in drawing up an interim balance sheet.
This is very useful.
It has become a sound report on which I should like to make a brief comment.
Culture 2000 has become an unwieldy programme since it aims to cover the entire field of our cultural heritage and, as I understand it, this has created great difficulty for the Commission, certainly in the first year.
And although there is some improvement, the complaints keep flooding in.
As mentioned before, red tape puts many potential participants off and, especially in small, often innovative projects set up - as, of course, is often the case in the cultural sector - by inexperienced participants who have nonetheless taken the plunge, there is very often the risk that they will be rejected in the first round on purely formal grounds, which is counterproductive.
The criteria are often unclear, and even national bureaux struggle to make sense of them.
In my opinion, all of us together must think very carefully about what we want to achieve in future with cultural policy, and we must set priorities for our instruments.
I should like to add this to the agenda, so that we can also have an impact on the Convention.
In conclusion, I should like to say something about finances.
As I have already indicated, I completely agree that the budget is small.
But irrespective of whether the financial means are sufficient, I should like to note that they need to be managed efficiently, for a large proportion is not being spent at the moment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner. Roy Perry mentioned the sum spent on olives each year during the previous debate on education, and EUR 167 million over five years is a pittance for culture.
As an actress that is nothing new to me.
It is all too familiar.
What a pity we cannot change and improve on this.
My thanks to the rapporteur, especially for his willingness to engage in an open dialogue with us shadow rapporteurs.
He really was there to discuss and take everything on board.
We have two major problems.
One is the material direction we want to take in the future, the questions we are asking now.
That is not anticipating the debate, as Mrs Pack just said; the debate needs to be held now, if we need new ideas and want to format a new programme in 2004 for 2005, provided it is still running.
The other problem area is administration, bureaucratic expenditure, overly vague selection criteria and implementation methods which are shouting out to be modified.
These details are all contained in the report.
I want to canvass in public for this Culture 2000 programme even now.
Culture and cultural programmes are the soul of Europe, as everyone has said.
You do realise that art and culture have an exponential effect on our integration policy and if we lose these partners along our common way, then our numbers shall dwindle and our strength in this fight, which we really do want to join forces on, will be sapped.
The Sunday papers are full of articles swearing allegiance to culture, but nothing ever comes of it.
I am already fed up with saying the same things, but we must keep on saying them. It is not just the Culture Ministers; the Finance Ministers also have a responsibility.
Everyone in Europe has to find a place in society.
Everyone is searching, perhaps from the cradle to the grave, to quote Mrs Pack.
Everyone wants to feel at home in our European society, to recognise themselves in the reflection of European society which art and culture offer.
If we cannot manage this, we shall not mange to root out conflicts, perhaps even as they arise, and we have a joint responsibility to do so.
Parliament is fighting the good fight, the Commission is fighting the good fight.
If we cannot get the Council on board, it is we who shall be left holding the baby!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that the Council - incidentally, the Council is not with us - has engineered a kind of Barcelona for culture. By that I mean that objectives are identified, indicators established and evaluations requested.
Is that not actually the situation we find ourselves in when we draw up a mid-term evaluation report on Culture 2000 and realise that several problems have still to be resolved? There are plenty of problems.
Culture 2000 could certainly be criticised for lack of transparency, difficulties over selection, in short, for everything related to method.
Nonetheless, it is abundantly clear that method is not the only issue at stake in Culture 2000. We seem to have reached a turning point.
The difficulties we have come up against in Culture 2000 - and when I say we, I am referring to both Parliament and the Commission - have arisen because we are now required to progress, to move on rather than set up yet another programme. Previously we had several small programmes; we now have a single large one.
What then did we find now we have a single large programme?
We found that in the ten years following Maastricht we have indeed succeeded in putting in place some 2 500 projects involving 12 000 operators. The other side of the coin, however, is that between 1996 and 2000, 8 000 projects involving 40 000 operators were rejected.
It is abundantly clear that demand far exceeds what we can supply, and that the problem confronting us is not merely one of method.
We must therefore seek other solutions beyond how best to see this programme through to its conclusion.
Last week, I was surprised - pleasantly surprised, that is - when I heard the Culture Minister speaking for the presidency and calling for the implementation of Article 151.
Article 151 of the Maastricht Treaty should indeed be implemented, but if you study the text of that article it appears to be an incentive.
Fostering, support and encouragement are certainly called for.
More is probably needed.
Bear in mind that we are also discussing education today, and we know that education is forging ahead precisely because we moved beyond providing encouragement.
We now take decisions. Perhaps when the Convention meets and discussions on a new approach and redrafting a number of key texts are held, Article 151 should be reviewed from a perspective other than its mere implementation.
Obviously, there is more to all this than the problems we are confronted with in connection with Culture 2000 and culture in general and which are budgetary in nature.
The budget is not simply a cash register; there is the issue of unanimity as against qualified majority.
Matters of principle need to be discussed.
Referring back to what previous speakers said on the size of projects, citizenship, promotion of citizenship, encouragement and support for creativity, clearly, both parties should be involved.
Nonetheless, each should retain its particular approach whilst working together.
What should the role of Member States be? What should their initiatives involve?
What should the European Union do? These, Commissioner, are the reasons why I wanted to propose that we move towards a Barcelona for culture.
Madam President, I would firstly like to make an observation with regard to all the issues we deal with in the parliamentary committee which I belong to, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
Less than 1% of the Community budget is dedicated to all of these areas, which leads me to believe that they are not one of Parliament' s greatest priorities, given that such a small proportion of the budget is dedicated to them.
We hope that this situation will change in the near future.
Secondly, I would like to say that just a few months ago I attended a meeting, in the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, attended by cultural leaders from the Member States, such as the directors of national museums, and I am sorry to say that they were all fairly disgruntled with the Culture 2000 programme.
Many of them said that they thought it was a backward step in relation to the previous programmes, Ariadna and Raphael, and that given the expenditure on the bureaucratic formalities necessary to request financial assistance, that assistance did not pay at the end of the day.
Generally speaking, they expressed the feeling of being somewhat deceived.
I feel that we need to try to distribute the available funds so as to create more support than discontent, and I feel that this is very important for the image of culture at the European level.
I think it is important that we simplify bureaucracy, because everyone agrees that this was a great obstacle.
We also need to make sure that there are no delays in payments, because many beneficiaries cannot cope with such delays.
It is also important for us to ensure that projects are not rejected for purely formal reasons, and that we have to provide opportunities for small structures, another issue on which there were complaints.
Madam President, last year with the European Parliament' s Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, I had the opportunity to visit Cracow in Poland.
We learned a great deal from that visit, not least that the applicant countries will make a tremendous contribution to the cultural life and vitality of Europe.
We asked a question of one of the professors at the Cultural Institute in Cracow: Is there a distinctive European culture The reply summed it up neatly: He said he often visited America, and clearly we share a western culture with the United States, but nonetheless when he went there was something missing and that was the historic environment.
He said that in city like Cracow you can see, touch, feel history and culture all around.
I can certainly see why as a citizen of that city he made that point.
So I endorse Mr Graça Moura's comment that it was regrettable that the historic environment was not included in the forum on cultural cooperation last year.
We must never neglect the historic environment in all our countries.
I simply endorse the rapporteurs call to include our Mediterranean neighbours, our Islamic neighbours; we must cooperate with the Islamic countries.
In particular we must remember that Europe today is a multicultural society.
We must rejoice in that and we must make sure that our programme contains significant elements to deal with that.
There has been comment today, some of them fair criticisms, about difficulties in administration, but I want to cite a success story.
I was delighted in my own constituency of Portsmouth that a grant of EUR 150 000 was given to a consortium of museums, including Portsmouth's D-Day Museum, dedicated to peace across Europe.
That is a project that certainly has been very successful and they are delighted to have received European support.
We must monitor projects very carefully.
That is one I am sure that will pass with flying colours.
If we want more money for culture in Europe, let us think seriously about a European lottery to get the money for it.
Madam President, during the previous debate on the European Socrates programme, we welcomed broad participation by our citizens, especially our young citizens, thereby bringing the European concept into the public eye throughout Europe.
A great deal has been said about funding for and bureaucratic obstacles to the cultural agenda, but I should like to direct your attention to the question of the concept and, more importantly, to the question of what next?
I am very grateful to Mr Graça Moura for conducting the discussion on the future concept for Culture 2000 so openly in his report and express my support to him for doing so.
My question is, is it right, given that we have so little money, to promote big projects first and foremost.
Surely we should also be prepared to integrate small networks, which can inject momentum, and exponential momentum at that, into the concept for the follow-up programme? That is what I am in favour of and I should like us to put proper funding in place and, at the same time, develop the programme so that there is less red tape and more opportunity for smaller groups to participate.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Culture 2000 programme - as this good report establishes very graphically - does not only make clear the increasing need for culture, but also makes a contribution towards the creation of a unitary cultural area.
The report, though, shows just as clearly that this programme is marked by a disparity between the wealth of its objectives on the one hand and the astonishing poverty of its budget on the other.
The rapporteur is right to highlight the explicit recognition of culture as an economic factor and also as a factor in social integration and citizenship.
As with so many other programmes, for example, within the regional policy framework - which is not to excuse it - it cannot but be noted that the first two years were characterised by the late appearance of calls for proposals.
Indeed, I will at this point use the same words as the rapporteur, who speaks of 'chaotic programme management' , in these first two years.
At the end of the day, Culture 2000's low level of implementation during its first year of operation can be attributed to that and to lengthy and cumbersome internal procedures.
This is where, in my view, the Commission has to make real efforts to shorten the cycle of the projects and guarantee the programme's continuity.
In conclusion, I would like to pick out from this report's Explanatory Statement a question that particularly interests me as a regional politician and put it to the Commission.
It is this: How can the necessary complementarity and coordination be established between Culture 2000 and the resources of the Structural Funds allocated to culture in the Member States? That might be an interesting angle, and one to which we might give some thought.
Madam President, I should first like to thank Mr Graça Moura and his team for all their efforts to make that splendid idea of a Europe of culture, a Europe with historical roots and a Europe anchored in the soul of its citizens become a reality.
The programme was set up on 14 February 2000 and has therefore just celebrated its second birthday.
It is still in its infancy but enough experience has already been gained to provide the basis for an initial assessment.
It emerges from this report that there are a number of points on which Parliament agrees with the Commission, even though we do not always explain conclusions regarding the current programme in the same way.
In addition, I have made a note of some useful guidelines for the future and I would like to thank Parliament for these.
In the first place, it has emerged that Culture 2000 is a difficult programme to manage.
This is certainly the case and must be recognised. Further, as you have stated, there is a mismatch between the number of objectives agreed and the level of the budget.
I am sure the House recalls the battle Parliament had to fight, not against Ministers for Culture but against Ministers in charge of budgets. The latter did not wish to award funds to culture.
How can one hope to manage a thousand fine ideas, all perfectly feasible in the field, when there is only enough funding for three? That particular circle cannot be squared, and unfortunately this is the situation we are in regarding this project.
I have to say to all those who are concerned that we have not spent the money, that the money certainly has been well spent, down to the last euro. There is nothing left in the kitty.
The reason for this is that if we did not spend what little we do have available, requests for additional funding could not be justified.
All that could be spent has been spent, and we have still fallen far short of satisfying all the needs identified by the world of culture. I am not referring to a wish list, but to genuine needs.
You are doubtless also aware that there is scope for the programme to cater for a wide range of new beneficiaries, as soon as they are in a position to develop cultural actions and to set up a project.
To give you an example, ladies and gentlemen, in the context of a single call for proposals, a dance company might find itself competing with a chamber of commerce or a tourist office.
That is what openness is all about, that is what is happening in the field.
One should perhaps consider whether to continue in this way or restrict the opportunities for involvement.
It is also worth recalling that between 2000 and 2001 the programme was extended to a further nine countries. Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia participated in it for the first time.
Sixty cultural operators from these countries were chosen to be organisers or joint organisers in 2001. This represents 12% of the total.
Clearly therefore, enlargement really is happening at cultural level.
These are not fine words. It is what is actually happening in the field.
Slovenia was added to the list this year, bringing the number of participating countries to 28.
I should emphasise that the countries joining us do not represent a problem. On the contrary, they enrich us a great deal.
I always ask cultural operators from the existing Member States to extend the hand of friendship and cooperation to potential partners in accession countries, so they can experience for themselves what the Europe of cultural cooperation is all about.
I should also like to point out the efforts made by the Commission to improve the management of the programme. These efforts have borne fruit, because the selection process is now swifter.
The call for proposals for the year 2002 was published on 15 August 2001. It will therefore be possible to publish final selection results in early spring.
We believe that is entirely reasonable.
The reason why this was not the case from the outset was merely that a significant delay was experienced in launching the programme. The delay was neither of the Commission' s making, nor of the European Parliament' s.
The need for firmer guidelines and better focusing on objectives has also been highlighted.
You are quite right.
I believe that things have been firmed up and criteria set and published for the next three years, from 2002 to the end of the programme.
We were indeed forced to adjust our approach in formulating calls for proposals, whilst remaining in line with the decisions in the framework programme. This was because of the management problems I referred to and because of the increased number of new participants in the programme.
Initial results of this new approach show that priority issues, whilst they retain their priority, only represent 48% of all projects under Action I, and 58% of the total for Action II.
Prioritising did not therefore exclude other types of Community finance, and the scope for cooperation was not curtailed. In fact the opposite proved the case.
We witnessed the emergence of new operators and new beneficiaries. This is essential to develop and energise a European area of cultural cooperation, and to breathe life into it.
I believe we are all agreed that in principle at least there should be no acquired rights, so the same recipients continue receiving subsidies. We would like a changeover.
If that is indeed our wish and we act accordingly, we must accept the consequences.
We observed that several of your concerns mirror those voiced by the operators on the occasion of their Forum on 21 and 22 November 2001.
The operators expressed reservations concerning retaining priorities by artistic domain.
We therefore propose to work together on new approaches for the future.
The Chairman of the Committee on Culture and the rapporteur also called for better communication regarding the programme and the projects supported.
I am pleased to inform you that the new culture portal will be launched in a few weeks' time, at the next informal meeting of Culture Ministers. We fully intend to develop different methods of communication regarding the programme.
A newsletter will be launched and you should start receiving it shortly. I should also like to inform the Chairman of the Committee on Culture that I intend to wait on the committee to present the new portal myself.
I shall also personally present it to the Ministers for Culture in the near future. All selection results will, of course, be made available on the Internet too.
As regards suggestions for the future, I should first like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Graça Moura, for encouraging us to look to the future. If things are not to everyone' s satisfaction at present, we should not focus on criticising the past.
Instead, we should work on decisions aimed at improving matters in the future or even bringing about major changes.
In my view, there is scope for considerable debate for example on how best to focus on objectives, and on the need to ensure genuine European added value. There is also the issue of how culture has a bearing on all other Community policies, including those policies whose implementation is solely within the competence of the Member States.
I have the structural funds, particularly, in mind.
Madam President, I should like to emphasise something I hope is very clear, namely that the cultural dimension is not isolated and is not enshrined solely in the Culture 2000 programme.
We are not concerned with supporting culture in isolation, rather with developing a mentality which will permeate all the European Union' s actions, regardless of their classification: financial, cultural, or economic.
We are engaged in creating a genuine common cultural area, as Mr Graça Moura states in the preamble. We hope to imbue all the actions supported with a sense of Europe as well as a sense of culture.
Supporting culture does not mean merely supporting a few players in that area. What it means is supporting the legacy inherited by Europeans, educating, becoming involved with the people, and that is the basis of our programmes.
If we do manage to build a Europe where the citizens understand that they certainly have a strong culture but that their neighbours do as well, then we will indeed have succeeded.
I would like to say, in conclusion, regarding relations with third countries, that President Prodi has made it quite clear that we need to open up Europe.
We have opened our continent up to neighbouring countries and are in the process of opening it up to the candidate states.
Nonetheless, it is also necessary to build bridges to other continents.
The work has begun by means of specific programmes notably those aimed at North Africa. I have in mind the Euro-Mediterranean project.
That involves a considerable commitment in the areas of education, youth and culture. All this is crucial if we are to establish the dialogue and mutual respect so essential to the smooth functioning of a well-balanced society.
Youth Programme
The next item is a report (A5-0019/2002) by Mrs Gröner on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport on the implementation of the Youth programme [2000/2316(INI)].
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(DE) Madam President, I was unfortunately prevented from being here this morning and will therefore sum up our position on the Socrates, Youth and Culture 2000 programmes.
The rationale behind the choice of these programmes can be traced back to the decisive consideration that the programmes in question are surely the Community's most important support programmes in the fields of education, youth, and European culture.
Being aware of the importance of these specific areas, Parliament has, moreover, let itself be guided by the allocation of substantial funding and the recent extension into 2006.
Nor should we forget the legislative processes initiated by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
We explicitly welcome the formation of an evaluation group, whose objective must be to closely supervise Parliament's implementation of Community programmes.
We welcome the initiative taken in forming the evaluation group as well as that to extend this control machinery on the basis of new instruments and appropriate structures.
We also emphasise that it is heavy demand from within the Member States that has led to the Socrates, Youth, and Culture 2000 programmes being allocated additional resources.
We had to take note of the fact that the programmes' low level of implementation during 2000 was attributable to lengthy and cumbersome internal procedures.
Parliament therefore expects the Commission to guarantee more efficient implementation, not least in order to help Europe's credibility in the eyes of its citizens and taxpayers.
It is with concern that we observe bottlenecks, especially within the centralised management framework.
Here of all places, attention should be paid to the utilisation of financial assets.
It is a significant step in the right direction to further decentralise the administration of the programme, yet, thinking in terms of a united Europe, we must not forget that, as regards the determining of the programmes' political orientation, the sole competence of the institutions must be guaranteed.
Madam President, may I congratulate the rapporteur on her report and the Commissioner and the Commission services for creating a real new framework here for contact between the youth of Europe and the rest of the world.
There are numerous positive points, but I should like to comment on what I think is one of the problems.
The Youth programme is very mean towards a particularly vulnerable group of young people in Europe. I refer to young immigrants.
By ignoring their specific needs, by overlooking the additional problems which they face and by failing to dedicate special actions to their social integration, it is in effect slamming the door in their face.
And yet it is the young immigrants now at the heart of Europe who, with all the other young people, are building the future of Europe.
We therefore need special support for these vulnerable groups if we are to avoid ghettos and exclusion and ensure they become productive and creative.
Whereas, I see the risk here of the programme's favouring groups of more privileged young people who are drip-fed on state benefits.
I should also like the Commissioner to go beyond the Youth programme and, instead of focusing on young people over 18 years old, to spare a thought for the fact that their formative years are during childhood.
There are tens of millions - the figure is somewhere in the region of 60 million - children under 18 years of age in Europe and we should be looking at how a whole series of their rights are trampled underfoot at that tender age.
Serious exploitation and myriad dangers jeopardise their formative, cultural and educational years.
I think we need a dynamic European policy on children, we need someone to speak out on their behalf and effectively defend their material interests.
Given that the UN is convening a summit in May to discuss reforming the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a summit which the European Parliament has asked to attend, it would be an excellent idea if the Commissioner were to take the initiative on a new, integrated and uniform policy on children and young people at European level.
Mr President, I welcome Mrs Gröner's report very much.
Despite a belated start, the YOUTH programme has proved to be an invaluable programme.
Why is this programme valuable? It is important because one of its main objectives is to include a higher proportion of disadvantaged young people: individuals, groups, or organisations, which otherwise would have no access at all to any kind of European funding.
There has been some criticism, of course, concerning the high administrative costs, as the programme comprises so many small projects, which are naturally therefore more expensive to administer.
I have been fortunate to have worked closely with a disadvantaged youth group from Wales, my own nation, who received funding under the programme.
The young people involved gained so much and to see them speaking here in Brussels, some of whom were previously young offenders, highlighted to me the importance of this programme.
The inclusion of worthwhile projects with disadvantaged youth groups, I assure you, is worth every penny of the expenditure.
We must safeguard the programme and protect its main objectives of targeting disadvantaged young people.
Madam President, it might be opportune to recall that the arts and languages of the various European countries were providing tangible evidence of mankind' s genius long before the Commission came into being.
Fostering such abundance is indeed one of the Commission' s less controversial duties. The Gröner report is on the right lines.
However, there are grounds for criticising the programmes we are debating today for two different sets of reasons.
The first of these is of a technical nature and is also contained in the various reports before us today.
It concerns the programmes' lack of transparency and their unwieldy nature. The application documents have driven everyone who sent for them to distraction.
Maybe the documents are, in fact, some new form of art the Commission is nurturing.
The main effect of streamlining procedures would be to do away with subsidies to intermediary bodies. These bodies aim to help artists and students to benefit from the much vaunted European funds but some of them are actually chaired by Members of the House.
I have no wish to make any false assumptions. Nonetheless, blurring responsibilities in this way is most undesirable.
The second set of critical comments is of a political nature and concerns the thinly disguised intention of using these programmes as a basis to develop propaganda aimed at turning the younger citizens of our Member States into an a-national sub-species of 'homo-europeus' .
Madam President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Gröner on her excellent work, and also the Commission and, in particular, the Commissioner, for the initiative of this White Paper, which I think in itself is a great success.
However, the time has come for us to make a real effort to ensure it is applied in all Member States, given that to not implement it would mean that we would not be able to profit from all the money we have invested in the preparation of this White Paper, which would be truly regrettable.
We should not forget that young people are our future, the future of Europe and of a large part of the world, and this project is trying to bring the youth of more than thirty countries closer together.
Therefore, we cannot allow the success of this programme to be tarnished by the excessively long periods needed to authorise projects or by delays in payments, although on this point I have to say that I was delighted to hear Mrs Gröner say that this problem is being solved during the course of the programme.
We must make sure that Commission reports are clear and coherent, and, more than anything, that each year there is an annual report that covers all the National Youth Agencies.
Additionally, administrative costs should not be too high and, lastly, I would like to ask the national governments for assistance in granting visas to those youths from outside the European Union who want to participate in these programmes.
Madam President, I should first like to express my appreciation of the work done by Lissy Gröner.
She has always been a standard bearer for the young in the House, pressing for full commitment to a genuine policy for youth.
Incidentally, in no way can youth policy be likened to propaganda. It is, in fact, the polar opposite.
The Youth programme encourages people to get to know each other, it promotes additional languages, cultures, and freedom of expression. In so doing, the programme helps to foster fundamental values such as tolerance, diversity and solidarity.
These are the foundations on which the citizens' Europe must be built.
Every year we make it possible for hundreds of thousands of young people to work together, to interact with their peers and with other cultures, and to commit themselves to helping those in greatest need to improve their lot in society. This is indeed civilising work, not mere propaganda
I would now like to deal with the various issues that the speakers have raised.
We have endeavoured to improve the management of the programme and to make it easier to participate.
A number of Members have, in fact, recognised the effort made in recent years and months.
We have already succeeded in reducing the time it takes to come to a decision.
I do not claim that things are perfect, but they are far better than they were at the outset. I can assure you that we will persevere to ensure that simplified administrative procedures and shorter decision-making processes become the norm.
A number of speakers highlighted the significance of opening this programme up to disadvantaged youngsters.
I was delighted to hear Members refer to specific cases illustrating how disadvantaged youngsters have benefited from the programmes. The programmes helped participants to develop as persons and integrate into society.
This good work will, of course, continue.
You will be aware that 50% of the centralised projects are open to these young people.
We shall do our best to ensure that the remaining projects become more accessible to them in the future.
In this connection, I should mention that the priorities, namely combating racism and xenophobia, are to be strengthened in 2002.
These priorities will be taken into account both at country level by those countries involved in the programme and at the level of activities involving third countries, especially in the Mediterranean area.
It has been shown that youth exchanges and dialogue help to nip problems in the bud so they do not develop further.
A willingness to be receptive to others and try to understand them is the basis of a harmonious society.
Then there is the issue of girls.
We most certainly want the Youth programmes to reach out to girls too.
I can assure you here and now that we are close to equality and that the programme is open to almost 50% of girls.
The Euromed Youth programme is still causing concern, due to low female participation.
At the beginning of the year I met with the Youth Ministers of the Maghreb countries and made it abundantly clear that we hope to see at least 50% female participation there as well.
The reason is that we are trying to help build a harmonious society in those countries also, and the 'feminine influence' tends to promote peace.
It is therefore essential to ensure female participation in the Youth programmes to attain the desired results.
Madam President, you are doubtless aware that the Youth policy was totally transformed following large-scale consultation with hundreds of thousands of young people in all Member States. Young people were given an opportunity to express what they expect of Europe, and they were listened to.
Their ideas have been incorporated into the White Paper on Youth. This direct exchange of views with young people is set to continue in 2002.
A series of meetings is planned. An electronic portal is also in place, so young people can access information on Europe.
In conclusion, I should like to inform the House that the Euromed Youth II programme has just been launched.
EUR 14 million is allocated to it for the period 2002-2004, which represents a 40% increase in available funds.
This is very significant, because we need to foster links with countries in the southern Mediterranean and in northern Africa in order to promote better understanding and to ensure that immigrants to Europe from those areas provide solutions rather than creating additional difficulties. In the same spirit, the intercultural dialogue is to be extended to include the countries of south-eastern Europe and the Community of Independent States.
In addition, further programmes have been launched with enlargement in mind. They aim to facilitate more youth exchanges in border regions in the future.
Vote
Mr President, I would like to say that a compromise between the Parliament and the Council is reflected by six compromise amendments, Amendments 7 to 12, which modify the recommendation for second reading as voted on the 24th of January and the Commission can accept the six compromise amendments.
Chairman, as indicated last night, the question of a rapid implementation of the EU top level domain was part and parcel of the compromise which was reached between the three institutions.
We heard last night the statement by Commissioner Liikanen, which was part of this package.
There is still outstanding the statement by the Council, which I think the Presidency has received, so I would be grateful if you could read out to the House the statement from the Council.
I am grateful for being given the floor.
That is very democratic behaviour.
In the European Parliament everybody enjoys freedom of expression, whereas in the Spanish Parliament this is not possible.
Firstly I would like to express my profound solidarity and sympathy for all victims of the current conflict in the Basque country.
May I ask my Spanish colleagues to assure me that at this very moment people are not being tortured in Spanish police headquarters? ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
That concludes the vote.
Report MacCormick (A5-0032/2002)
Mr President, everyone is aware that parliamentary immunity was not instituted to safeguard the personal interests of elected representatives.
It is provided to serve the greater good, namely democratic institutions. Its purpose is to ensure the latter' s independence from executive, legislative and media powers.
Elected assemblies must therefore give careful consideration to all events and proceedings taking place in the run-up to elections.
I am pleased this was the case regarding the request to lift the parliamentary immunity of certain colleagues, one of whom is standing in the French presidential election.
- (FR) We voted for the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Charles Pasqua, accused, with Jean-Charles Marchiani, of illegal arms trading, influence peddling and illegal campaign financing.
The courts are looking into the financing of the list he headed in the elections to the European Parliament and the 'Demain la France' movement, which appear to contain sums of unknown origin exceeding the legal ceiling.
Amongst his fellow candidates was a 'housewife' residing in Gabon and also an African Elf oil emirate, at the heart of the African casino and gaming networks, who appear to have provided a 'contribution' of FRF 7.5 million.
It is not the place of Members of Parliament to stand in for the courts, nor to pass judgment on the substance of the case.
However, it is their responsibility to waive an immunity that would prevent the courts from carrying out their investigation independently and from finding out the truth of the matter, all the more so since this is a matter which deals with the election to the European Parliament.
Do we want to add, to a Berlusconi mixed up in a multitude of scandals and a Chirac taking advantage of his presidential status to escape the law, a Pasqua who is 'immune' from any suspicion of illegal financing from African business deals? Italian judges are calling for a new 'clean hands' operation; European judges are calling for a European power of investigation and a coordination of their resources to fight against money laundering and financial crimes.
To refuse them the freedom to conduct an investigation into a Member of Parliament would be to create a Europe of impunity.
Report MacCormick (A5-0033/2002)
- (FR) We voted for the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Charles Marchiani, accused, along with Charles Pasqua, of serious crimes - the illegal sale of arms to Cameroon, to the Congo, to Angola, illegal campaign financing from the sale of arms and influence peddling.
Messrs Falcone, Attali, Mitterrand, Sulitzer, and others who have been indicted in the same scandal, have either been held for questioning, are being investigated or on bail.
The judges cannot use these measures in this case due to the immunity of Marchiani and Pasqua, who are taking advantage of this fact to hold up the investigation.
It is not the place of Members of Parliament to stand in for the courts, nor to pass judgment on the substance of the case, nor the investigation.
However, it is their task to waive an immunity that would prevent the courts from carrying out their investigation.
To refuse them the freedom to do this would reveal the true nature of this so-called 'desire for transparency' , meaning that an MEP is above the laws that apply to all citizens in his country.
If a majority of so-called 'committed European' MEPs protect these so-called 'separatists' , so often implicated in Franco-African scandals, from the law, it is because, in fact, despite all the speeches they may make, they all share a certain idea of Europe: one where tax havens, arms dealers and oil companies reign supreme, a political world that is poisoned by money, and a contempt for justice and for the sovereignty of the African peoples, the front-line victims of this 'arms for oil' trafficking.
Recommendation for second reading Flesch (A5-0027/2002)
Mr President, this document provides for the establishment of the '.eu' domain for use as the country code in URLs.
Last night, it was as if I were watching a television programme on a huge television screen displaying these new '.eu' codes together with the customary national country codes '.it' , '.de' , '.be' and '.es' and so on, and it came to me that it would be a good idea to suggest to the rapporteur, Mrs Flesch, next time she documents this proposal, that the codes attached to the current URLs of the countries making up the European Union should be replaced with the '.eu' code, thus avoiding the national and European codes being in use concurrently.
Just as we have a single currency, we could also have a single URL.
Report Buitenweg/Costa Neves (A5-0057/2002)
- (FR) I would like to make three comments with regard to the financing of the Convention that will prepare for the 2004 Intergovernmental Conference. Firstly, the representatives from the Member States have succeeded in putting together a complicated arrangement, when it could have been much simpler; secondly, this complexity will backfire on them; and thirdly, it will be so much harder to implement because essential expenditure has visibly not been included.
First and foremost, the interests of simplicity and logic dictate that, to finance the Convention, Member States should have created a fund financed directly from their own contributions and controlled by themselves: the Convention is, in effect, a unique body, set up outside the Treaties as part of an intergovernmental process in preparation for an Intergovernmental Conference.
Instead of this, they have formulated a complicated procedure, under the terms of which funds are partly financed by the Community institutions, Parliament, the Council and the Commission, pursuant to an 'interinstitutional agreement' that gives the aforementioned the right to examine Convention expenditure.
For example, Article No 20 of the basic decision states that discharge of the Fund' s expenditure can only be granted by the Member States after the three institutions have given their assent; Article No 6 of the agreement states that these institutions should be regularly informed of the implementation of expenditure; Article No 4 states that any increase must be authorised by them.
This complicated arrangement gives the institutions a means of influencing the Convention' s expenditure, and therefore the way in which it functions and, lastly, its decisions, There is no doubt at all that this power, if used effectively, will be used against the Member States.
Finally, there will be plenty of opportunities for conflict, for it already seems that the total budget for the Convention (EUR 10.5 million for the first ten months), has been underestimated.
In fact, the working conditions of the various parliamentary representatives - the European Parliament, the national parliaments of the Member States and the national parliaments of the candidate countries, are quite unequal, and this three-speed system, in which the European Parliament is disproportionately privileged, will, in all fairness, prove untenable.
We therefore need to provide additional resources to the other two categories, or at least to the third.
Report Mayol i Raynal (A5-0461/2001)
Mr President, I was very disappointed to have to vote against the report at the end.
And on behalf of my group I must say we were very disappointed to have to take that negative position because we have supported many of the positive aspects of the report.
In particular, as we look to move forward and create a new environment for the creation of new jobs and new opportunities for people within the European Union, we believe that going back over old policies which have failed and rejuvenating them under a new name will not work.
Paragraph 29 was the main reason why we had to vote against this report.
Paragraph 29 calls for coordination or harmonisation of taxes in the European Union, in particular with regard to the business environment.
There has been empirical evidence to prove that reducing business taxation, reducing the cost of labour, increases employment opportunities, increases real jobs with real incomes and also can lead to greater social benefits because of increased taxation delivery.
That is why we believe this is the wrong method to move forward and one that should be ignored.
Mr President, Mr Mayol i Raynal' s report concerns the labour cost index; it is extremely important that this is standardised throughout Europe.
This important regulation divides the labour cost index into four categories.
Article 4 of the regulation stipulates that employers' social contributions and taxes paid by employers should be indicated as a single total.
No, Mr President!
The Pensioners' Party is opposed to this labour cost index.
Taxes are one thing and pension contributions are another.
We need to know how much a worker' s pension affects labour costs and how much they are affected by taxes.
If we do not distinguish between the two we will never resolve the issue of pensions.
It is a good idea to know how much European workers earn, because it will enable us to measure wage disparities.
This is the reason why we voted for this regulation.
However, its very title reveals its true colours: wages themselves are considered to be costs.
Costs for whom, exactly?
For society? For the workers themselves, in terms of health, for example?
No, of course not. The costs are those borne by the bosses.
Or to be more precise and not to beat about the bush, the obstacle to their profits. From here, it is only a very small step to state that certain workers cost too much.
To truly take into account all of the costs borne by companies, we also need to add up the bosses' salaries and the expenditure that is borne by society as a whole: direct or indirect government aid to companies and payments to shareholders.
For our part, we would like to make use of this information in order to fight for the total harmonisation of wages at the European level.
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(IT) Of course, I welcome the content of Mr Mayol i Raynal' s report, which I voted for, just as, moreover, after the Ecofin Council request in September 2000, I welcome the Commission' s intention to establish, at last, a labour cost index whose validity and usefulness are supported by a legal basis and recognised throughout the Union.
That said, I wonder what the Commission will do with the future data and what its actual significance will be.
In particular, I have reservations regarding one part of the Commission' s text, which states that labour costs are a potential source of inflation.
The rapporteur himself raises this concern too, for if there is any question to be posed in that regard it is whether a mere four categories are sufficient to provide all the elements necessary to achieve the complex figure we want.
We are all aware of the significance, within a production category, of the labour cost per product unit, linked as it is to the extent to which machines are used and, therefore, of the importance of geographical location.
Again: we need to be able to ascertain whether any areas that might be penalised by higher labour costs per product unit benefit from State aid or the Structural Funds, and then monitor this data to verify whether it increases over time or remains the same.
This would make it possible to assess the effects of cohesion policies, in some cases, and the effects merely of choices taken freely by entrepreneurs in response to opportunities, in others.
Lastly, we need to consider, in addition to trade tariffs and external inflation factors, the effects of the taxation and related policies of each country.
This is because - and we share the rapporteur' s view - we believe that there is no country in the Union whose wage negotiation mechanisms appear, at first glance, to generate a labour cost whose index causes the cost of living to rise.
The truth is that wage negotiation mechanisms ceased some years ago to serve the purpose of furthering the distribution of wealth and, in some cases, do not even succeed in fully offsetting the effects of inflation retrospectively.
To sum up, these are the analyses to be made if, as the Commission advocates, indeed, we want to provide social partners with more refined tools for negotiating wage agreements.
However, it is some consolation to think that social partners already have the results of the aforementioned analyses available for their practical studies.
Resolution on Barcelona European Council
Mr President, paragraph 15 - which I support - of this document on the Council of Ministers Summit in Barcelona, Spain, calls for the burdens on labour resulting from taxes and social security to be reduced.
I agree, for I feel that we will not be able to satisfy the need for secure pensions paid regularly and on time if we do not create more jobs and reduce labour costs.
I would like to take this opportunity to add that the Pensioners' Party and I personally call urgently for the reduction in the cost of labour to go hand-in-hand with proper administration of pension funds and for a higher proportion of contributions, which are currently paid into the Member States' budgets, to be channelled instead into the pension funds freely chosen by workers from among the many funds that I hope will soon be set up in Europe, including a single European pension fund open to everybody.
, in writing.
(SV) We voted in favour of paragraph 29 because we believe that tax coordination is necessary for combating harmful tax competition.
Moreover, we believe it would be an advantage if there were to be tax convergence on company profits.
However, we are undecided about increased convergence of value-added tax.
The Lisbon decisions do not constitute a coherent strategy but form two different strategies which have barely been patched together into one and the same decision guidance document.
The one strategy is about strengthening Europe' s industries of the future by promoting cutting-edge technologies and boosting the power of research-based innovation in European industry.
The second strategy is about producing full employment, social integration and lifelong education for all.
It was a laudable attempt to bring about a social compromise, but it has not been implemented in actual policy, and it is now ever clearer that certain governments and political parties in the Member States wish to enter upon a new course.
The Bullmann report is aimed at retaining a policy of synthesis and compromise.
The amendments adopted here today mean, however, that Parliament now concurs with those governments which are proposing a clear change of course.
In spite of the fact that we acknowledge the rapporteur' s efforts to defend important social objectives and that we have supported many of his proposals, we believe that the report as a whole has acquired a clear right-wing bias and indicates a path of development that will create major problems for ordinary people around Europe.
We are also concerned that, in preparing for the Barcelona Summit, the Commission, the Council and Parliament have done so little to take account of the candidate countries' needs and interests.
We have therefore voted against the report in its altered form.
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The UK Conservative Delegation vote today reflected our considerable reservations about this report, and not just because of its mentions of the importance of tax co-ordination and the wonders of the single currency.
One central task facing Member States is the full implementation of the Lisbon Council conclusions in terms of stimulating employment, essentially by boosting the competitiveness of their economies, their companies and their people.
We strongly believe in social inclusion.
Despite acceptance of some of our amendments, in our view this report implies that social inclusion generates full employment.
We believe it is the other way round.
During the Portuguese Presidency, in March 2000, ministers decided on a vast operation to liberalise and privatise public services, to the detriment of employment, social cohesion, regional planning and the quality of services provided to users.
Today, the Bullmann report once again proposes to accelerate this process with the Barcelona Council in mind.
At a time when the British railway network is on the brink of collapse and Enron has gone bankrupt, pursuing this approach does not correspond to a rational argument but rather to purely ideological motives; in other words the quest for short-term profits for a minority of shareholders and parasites.
The Barcelona European Council, under pressure from Blair and Berlusconi, will be one further stage in this move towards greater flexibility in the labour market and the liberalisation of the public services, notably in the energy and gas sectors.
We would like to respond to an offensive against the market by meeting our citizens' needs.
And there can be no middle way here.
This is why we voted against the Bullmann report.
We voted against certain points in Mr Bullmann' s report on the European Council' s Spring Summit 2002, the Lisbon process and the direction to be followed in future.
We are basically well-disposed towards the European Union.
Through European integration, cross-border problems can be solved more effectively than they would be if they were only to be tackled within each Member State.
Such problems may relate, for example, to the environment, trade, movement across borders, human rights and conflict management.
As Liberals, we also believe, however, in the subsidiarity principle.
Every political decision should be made as close to those affected by the decision as is possible and appropriate.
Those issues which are not clearly of a cross-border nature, or those cases in which there are clear differences between different countries or regions should therefore be dealt with at local, regional or national level.
The EU should concern itself with those issues it is best qualified to deal with.
Social and employment policies are areas we believe are best addressed within each country, region or municipality.
The EU should only have limited competence within these areas.
Each Member State should have full responsibility for its social security systems and the right to make its own decisions about them.
To quote examples, neither child care nor employment policy is harmonised at EU level.
These issues are not of a directly cross-border nature.
Moreover, there are major differences between national and local opinions on what may be considered the best policy.
Nor are all these issues best dealt with through political decisions.
For example, high growth and sound competition are more important for employment than political measures.
That would not, however, prevent the EU' s Member States from cooperating and exchanging ideas in the social sphere.
Closely linked to social and employment policy is, of course, the tax burden.
We are therefore also voting against European coordination in the area of tax.
Taxes should be decided upon as close to the people as possible.
Social issues, equality, sustainable development and increased employment are important issues.
We wholeheartedly support many of the ideas - though far from all of them - presented in Mr Bullmann' s report, but at national or local level.
- (NL) In March 2000, the Lisbon Summit took a thoughtless decision.
The justified ambition to achieve social security for everyone was not translated into a fairer distribution of existing work by means of a general cut in working hours, early retirement and an increase in public services, but into a desire to achieve yet more economic growth for private businesses instead.
This growth and the competition with the two other economic superpowers means that existing public services in the field of public transport, energy supply, postal services and telecommunications, again have to be taken over by large international concerns.
This is a disastrous route because it makes our people dependent on competition, and as soon as Europe loses this competitive battle, it will plunge our continent into a deep economic crisis.
Moreover, privatisation leads to our democratically elected parliamentarians having less say and to pressure being exerted to save on labour costs.
This is why the idea of a 'social Europe' , as backed by some advocates of the Lisbon decisions, will not get off the ground; a 'Europe of capital' will emerge instead.
Unfortunately, the Bullman report continues on this wrong path of confusing 'social' with 'capital' but, according to the Right, this is not yet taking things far enough.
This is, for me, a reason to vote against.
- (SV) I have voted against the report because, in paragraph 29, Parliament calls for 'European tax coordination where it is necessary to meet the Treaty objectives' and urges the Commission and the Council to 'foster the process of convergence of VAT ... and of taxes on business income' .
The Swedish Christian Democratic Party is against depriving the national parliaments - in Sweden' s case, the riksdag - of the right to make decisions about people' s taxes.
If, instead, the EU starts making the decisions on tax, then the national parliaments and the Member States will be deprived of one of their most basic areas of competence. Instead, policy will be centralised at European level and in Brussels, ever further from the people.
Demanding accountability will be a less clear and straightforward issue, and elected representatives will be more distant from the citizens who elect them and provide them with their mandates.
Politics will become more anonymous and inaccessible.
The EU will then become not only a project of cooperation but also a State - without, however, consisting of a common people, which is the necessary emotional basis and prerequisite for long-term cohesion.
I have voted against the Bullmann report because it one-sidedly advocates liberalisation and welcomes the Stability and Growth Pact and the result of the Doha Summit.
Most seriously of all, however, it does not recognise the need for a balance between the environment-related economic and social indicators and the fact that the Council meeting in Gothenburg established a strategy for sustainable development by adding an environmental dimension to the existing Lisbon process.
Particularly in view of the worryingly few pronouncements made by the Spanish Presidency on the environmental dimension, for example prior to the annual assessment of sustainable economic development and social cohesion, I regret the fact that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has not produced an opinion on the report and that the views expressed by the Committee at the Barcelona Summit have therefore been framed in the form of a separate resolution.
The head of the EU' s environment agency (EEA), Domingo Jiménez-Beltran, thinks that the Commission's report to the Barcelona Summit contains no environmental survey and that interesting facts and analyses concerning the state of the environment in the EU are not accessible to the decision-makers.
Report Karas (A5-0031/2002)
Mr President, Mr Karas' document - a report on the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 and their economic consequences for Europe - is a document we have debated, and put to the vote as well, of course - and I too voted for the motion - but with which I am slightly uncomfortable.
Why is this matter the subject of so much debate, particularly in this important Chamber where it is usual for a great many people to listen to me, as you can see, including Mr Dell' Utri and Mr Fiori, who, as always, are among those who are listening most carefully to my explanations of vote?
I am sure they will agree with me that it would have been better not to have talked about the economic consequences of the terrorist attacks at all.
It would be better never to talk about the consequences of terrorist acts, for in discussing them we increase their effect and unwittingly further the designs of the perpetrators of the acts.
The recession in the 2001 economic cycle was not only made worse by the fall in world demand and by the consequences for every sector of the attacks on the USA, but also by a policy of applying the Stability Pact strictly and the obsession with nominal convergence.
In practice, we have ignored the issues that affect European citizens' living standards and quality of life, such as investment in production, particularly public investment, the maintenance of wage increases that are in line with and boost productivity, the profound inequalities in income distribution, high unemployment and poverty.
These objectives have suffered as a result of the inflexibility of the monetary policy underpinning the euro and which will, in the long term, lead to greater difficulties or an unwanted increase in flexibility in other areas, specifically in employment contracts and labour in general.
It should therefore come as no surprise that a report which is supposed to address the ways in which we can support the sectors directly affected by the attacks of 11 September ultimately turns out to be a reaffirmation of the prevailing dogma. It states that, in Barcelona, we need to step up the liberalisations and reforms of the labour market and blindly comply with the objectives outlined in the Stability Pact without taking account of the problems of the stage in the cycle that we have now reached.
The report does, however, raise two positive issues: it states that companies must not use 11 September as an excuse to make employees redundant and insists that the European Central Bank should reduce its key interest rate.
Nevertheless, in view of its initial ideas, we can only vote against this report.
Report Blak (A5-0024/2002)
Mr President, like many other Members, I voted in favour of granting discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the 1999 financial year, not least because I firmly endorse recital D of this document, which states that the Member States and the Council are responsible for the effective use of resources.
With this statement, the report is saying that we have no control over how the Community' s funds are spent.
The European Union spends its budget on improving the living conditions of the European citizens, but who verifies whether this expenditure actually serves any purpose? The Member States!
What does this mean?
If the Member States are in control of everything, what are we doing here in Brussels adopting directives and regulations and, most importantly, spending money when we have no control over how it is used? An intelligent statement then, recital D!
Sustainable development strategy
- (ES) We voted for this resolution because, amongst other things, it calls upon the Barcelona Council to take the decisions of the Gothenburg Council on a sustainable development strategy and the annual assessment by the EU on this strategy into consideration, whilst pointing out that the next 'Rio+10' conference in Johannesburg offers a crucial opportunity to fully defend the principles of sustainable development on a worldwide scale.
It indicates that the environmental pillar of sustainable development should be as important as the social and economic pillars, in addition to referring to various issues which expand on the need to include environmental policy in the EU' s other policies.
With regard to Amendment No 10, which refers to the concern at the unsustainable nature of several water management programmes, specifically the Spanish National Hydrological Plan, we voted for all its points, although in the end only part of it was approved.
I have voted in favour of the report.
It is extremely positive that the fifth part of Amendment No 27, which emphasises that it is research on adult stem cells that is to be given priority within biotechnology, has been adopted.
In other words, the deeply controversial research on embryo stem cells, about which ethical questions have been raised, is to be given a secondary role, which is something I welcome.
Embryo stem cell research is prohibited in many Member States.
All the major Christian churches, especially the Roman Catholic Church in its ethical teaching, reject methods that use fertilised embryos - future persons with all their genetic make-up - for research purposes.
The project it is planned to carry out in Spain would involve using Community funds to subsidise continued and unsustainable over-consumption of water for intensive agriculture and mass tourism.
The project is in danger of affecting areas bordering on the delta of the River Ebros, which are very valuable in terms of their bio-diversity in general and bird life in particular.
The project has also met with very well-founded criticism from a large part of the research community in Spain.
Against that background, I believe that the Community' s structural funds should instead support alternatives such as sustainable planning for water treatment in towns, the modernisation of irrigation methods, the integrated treatment of ground and surface water etc.
I would therefore depart from the position adopted by the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats.
The project it is planned to carry out in Spain would involve using Community funds to subsidise continued and unsustainable over-consumption of water for intensive agriculture and mass tourism.
The project is in danger of affecting areas bordering on the delta of the River Ebros, which are very valuable in terms of their bio-diversity in general and bird life in particular.
The project has also met with very well-founded criticism from a large part of the research community in Spain.
Against that background, I believe that the Community' s structural funds should instead support alternatives such as sustainable planning for water treatment in towns, the modernisation of irrigation methods, the integrated treatment of ground and surface water etc.
I would therefore depart from the position adopted by the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats.
International Criminal Court
- (FR) We are being asked today to give our opinion on the proposal for the establishment of an international criminal court.
The principle of an international court, independent of any State, which is able to judge both States and the torturers of colonial wars, the putschists of Latin America, those guilty of genocide in Rwanda and the Balkans or even the murderers of the Palestinian people, is just.
The impunity enjoyed by all of the aforementioned should cease and we support the struggle being led by the democratic and progressive movements on this issue.
We should be able to judge the crimes of the past and provide the tools to be able to judge those of the future.
It is important that the peoples of the world take up this issue.
However, within the current framework, which is hostage to the post-11 September attack on freedom, this court risks becoming, at best, an instrument without power or resources, and, at worst, an institution manipulated by the powerful few, being able to take action against all those who question the established order.
This worst case scenario is to be feared because the judges will not be at all independent of the States that appoint them.
This is why we will not be voting for this proposal.
This is a very complex issue, which needs to be studied with the utmost seriousness.
An international judicial body which prosecutes crimes against humanity must be totally independent, of which there is no guarantee in the case of the ICC, because it is closely tied to the United Nations Security Council.
This means that we cannot discount the risk of its being used as a political instrument by the 'winners' against the 'losers' , an instrument of the law of the 'strongest' .
Let us remember the unacceptable example of the 'ad hoc' Court established for the former Yugoslavia.
Furthermore, the planned sanctions must not represent a step backwards in relation to the achievements and progress in civilisational terms that have been made, such as, for example, the abolition of life imprisonment, which has long been the case in Portugal.
We would also need to consider whether the ICC is the most effective way of ensuring that the crimes provided for in its status do not go unpunished, and whether the ICC complies with the appropriate rules with regard to the principles of criminal law and the prerogatives of national legal systems in dealing with the same crimes.
We feel that this is not the case.
Lastly, I feel bound to criticise the proposal, contained in this resolution, for the revision of the Geneva Conventions on the status of prisoners of war, at a time when we are seeing the USA thoroughly violate these conventions.
Hence my vote against the report.
Despite its considerable shortcomings, we voted for the joint resolution simply to make it clear that we support whatever can be done to fight for democracy in Turkey, for the recognition of the rights of the Kurdish people, specifically their language, and to prevent further attacks on political parties and defenceless communities.
The resolution should go further, however, as the statement by our group does, a statement with which I fully agree.
The reason why I have not carried over my support to the joint resolution is its enormous limitations.
In fact, it does not even mention the need for a general amnesty for all political prisoners, although it calls for the release of students, and removes the option of sending a delegation to Turkey on 1 March 2002 with the aim of obtaining objective information on the trial of the HADEP.
Nor does it insist on the need for the release of Leyla Zana and the former Members of Parliament of Kurdish origin who were sentenced to 15 years in prison, despite the request from the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe, himself, for a new trial for these prisoners and despite the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights to this effect.
.
(EL) The bid to ban the HADEP party in Turkey and the court case against it, starting in Ankara tomorrow, are just one example of how fundamental democratic rights are being violated in Turkey, where any political activity has to be sanctioned by the military regime.
Obviously, one of the reasons it is being prosecuted and will probably be outlawed is because there is every likelihood of its winning a large number of seats in parliament at the next elections.
It is, in principle, a good thing that the European Parliament intends to call on the Turkish government to stop persecuting this party.
But we should not forget that it is not the only political party being persecuted.
Other parties have been banned or are in the process of being banned.
According to Article 96 of the law on political parties in Turkey, any party with the word 'Communist' in its name is banned.
That is why the newly-founded Communist Party of Greece was warned by the Turkish judicial authorities that it would be banned unless it changed its name, with party members subsequently being arrested during the course of their political activities and attacks on their offices.
There are still thousands of political prisoners being held in wretched conditions, mainly in F-type solitary confinement cells. It was because of this that political prisoners went on hunger strike and many of them and many of the relatives and partners supporting them have since died.
And the hunger strike to the death which started on 20 October 2000 still continues, with dozens already dead.
We demand that the European Parliament join with the Turkish democrats in calling for political parties to be allowed to go about their business, for freedom of expression to be introduced and, more generally, for democratic rights and freedoms to be respected and that it call for political prisoners to be released and for the so-called F-type cells to be abolished or for the proposal made by Turkish law societies and other social bodies for three cells to be joined together, now referred to as the 'three doors, three locks' proposal, to be accepted
Obviously a lot of people, including in this Chamber, deliberately talk of progress in Turkey, knowing that, to all intents and purposes, there is no progress or that, in certain sectors, things have got worse.
They want no change to the status quo, so that it is easier for them to exploit Turkey's market, its cheap labour and its geopolitical position.
Nor do they explain why there are still insurmountable obstacles to the Kurdish culture and language, why more than 10 000 political prisoners are languishing in gaol in what we know to be wretched conditions, why political parties which oppose the policies of the Turkish regime are being banned or are threatened with being banned, why democratic freedom fighters are being arrested and murdered on a daily basis and why the 'democratic' Republic of Turkey is still being run by its army.
We stand by the people of Turkey in their struggle to establish democracy and progress.
We denounce the efforts being made to muzzle them and the support being given to the regime by those looking to their own imperialist interests.
- (NL) In a democratic state, political and ethnic minorities have rights, too.
This is still not the case in Turkey.
Everyone has to bow to the dominant language and culture and to the majority view concerning the lack of rights of ethnic minorities in that country.
Anyone who talks a different language, hoists a different flag or forms a party which achieves particularly good results in a specific part of the country is accused of separatism, and residents of regions where a minority forms the majority have suffered much destruction and repression.
An ethnic massacre in the past, the one targeted at Armenians in 1915, is still being denied, maybe because the Turkish authorities want to retain the option of doing something similar in the future.
The Turkish state does recognise other new states in Europe, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Lithuania or Slovakia, but is extremely anxious about the modest requests for self-government and cultural rights of a very large minority people in its own country.
For many years, systematic attempts have been made to keep Kurdish parliamentarians outside the Turkish parliament by introducing a 10% election threshold and a ban on political parties.
It is therefore important for a European Parliament majority to make it clear to Turkey that it will never acquire a place within the European Union as long as ethnic inequality and repression continue to exist.
Report Gahrton (A5-0028/2002)
Mr President, I voted for the motion and welcome this document on the European Union' s relations with the South Caucasus - which, as we know, is made up of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia - which states that the inhabitants of these three states feel European.
This gives me great pleasure and I hope that, in future, these three states will also join the great family of the European Union, but it pains me to read in item 2 of the explanatory statement that the people of the southern Caucasus states live on one dollar per day.
Although I am sure that the people of the Caucasus put this dollar a day to good use, I feel that it is too little and, of course, the pensioners and elderly people of the Caucasus, who, I am sure, live on even less than the average of a dollar a day, come to mind.
I therefore call upon the European Union to do more for the inhabitants of the southern Caucasus who feel European.
- (DA) Members of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party in the European Parliament are abstaining from voting in favour of the report on the situation in the South Caucasus.
We support Amendment No 2 from Mr Duff and others which urgently calls upon Turkey and Armenia to cooperate in resolving their historic disagreements with a view to improving their cultural, economic and diplomatic links.
- (SV) I have voted in favour of the report.
It is with great satisfaction that I note that Amendment No 12 was rejected.
The result of the vote was 391 against, 96 in favour and 15 abstentions.
It was aimed at removing the clear and insistent exhortation in paragraph 15, in which the European Parliament 'reiterates in this respect the position in its resolution of 18 June 1987 recognising the genocide upon Armenians in 1915 and calls upon Turkey to create a basis for reconciliation' .
From having been a core Armenian area up until 1915, the north-eastern part of Turkey has now been almost emptied of all its Armenian population.
In the interests of its own future, there is no other way for Turkey to proceed than to acknowledge the genocide and to seek reconciliation with, and provide compensation to, the Armenian population and those in the vicinity of Armenia.
Only in that way can Turkey as a country and the Turks as a people avoid being haunted by their own history.
The politicians and people of Turkey have a lot to learn from the way in which Germany and the German people acted following the extermination of the Jews in the Holocaust of the Second World War.
I would like to believe that the Turks are prepared to embark upon that path.
It is definitely in Turkey' s own interests to endeavour to become a European state based on human rights with full respect for religious freedom and the rights of minorities.
Report Lucas (A5-0014/2002)
Mr President, I am sure that, like me, you were pleased to see that Mrs Lucas' report seeks to increase the use of the bicycle as a mode of transport, for it is a clean, non-polluting mode of transport which is good for the health of those who use it, even if they are not called Coppi, Bartali, Merckx or Gimondi.
I have to say that we are assisted in this by many of our town mayors, for they ensure that the buses are always full of people during the rush hour and thus discourage the citizens from using buses and encourage them to travel by bicycle instead, for the cost of public transport is always exorbitant. Thus, the citizens and workers prefer bicycles, which cost nothing to ride, to public transport.
I therefore hope that the mayors of these towns will continue to promote the use of the bicycle in this way.
- (NL) For years, it was a matter of course only to see the benefits of the continual increase in traffic.
It was good for individual freedom and good for the economy.
Attention was devoted only to promoting traffic safety, so as to restrict the number of fatal accidents.
These accidents were considered to be the only drawback.
We now know that air pollution and noise also adversely affect many who do not drive very often, that professional drivers suffer from a lack of normal physical activity and that many pedestrians and cyclists become the victims of the increase in motorised traffic.
The rapporteur is right to draw attention to this issue, and seeks the solution in the form of a 'health assessment' for all transport projects and transport measures.
I have backed her in this right from the word go.
I regret the fact that she is not being taken entirely seriously, particularly by representatives of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats, and that this group has claimed that the European Union does not really have a role to play in this area.
It is time we did away with the misconception that only the promotion of economic growth and large-scale projects is important.
In order to survive in a society that has undergone massive change, mainly due to technical progress, human beings and the environment need more protection.
Report Pack (A5-0021/2002)
Mr President, last night I dreamt of the great Greek philosopher, Socrates, whose name has been given to the Socrates programme admirably outlined by Mrs Pack. I voted for the report.
However, in this dream, Socrates seemed very angry, very upset and very annoyed, and he said to me: 'What is this programme you have given me? Why have you named this programme after me?
I deserve a more important programme. And above all,' said Socrates, 'I am not saying I want poison to be administered to others as it was to me, but I want a programme bearing my name to concern itself, not just with young people, but with the elderly too.
I was prevented from becoming a pensioner by being forced to drink hemlock, the poison I was given in prison.
I would have loved to be able to grow old and become a pensioner and go sightseeing around Europe!
But you are not interested in the elderly.
Tomorrow morning, tell them what I have said in your explanation of vote.'
This is what I have done.
Report Graça Moura (A5-0018/2002)
Mr President, this is an extremely important document outlining the progress of the 'Culture' programme over its first two years of operation - 2000 and 2001. Parliament adopted this report with a view to facilitating all European Union actions seeking to improve the culture of the European citizens.
I know that culture is an extremely important investment, even though it is not tangible, even though it is not a road or a house.
I am therefore genuinely pleased to discover that this programme is running very well, despite a few technical hitches, which will be resolved in its next three years of operation.
I will therefore always persist in calling for more funds to be spent on improving the culture of the European citizens.
Report Gröner (A5-0019/2002)
No, Mr President, I am not, on the other hand, a supporter of the 'Youth' programme.
I voted for the motion because I would never want it to be said that a representative of the Pensioners' Party, of the elderly, that is, is against young people.
I am for young people: if we were not young once, we would never have been able to grow old.
However, I am opposed to one point of this report, or rather, to what I learned on reading page 13 thereof, namely that the young people of the candidate countries have had difficulties in obtaining visas from some of the Member States of the European Union.
Oh no - that is not acceptable.
It is imperative that we do something and I am sure that Commissioner Reding, who is listening to me even though she is not here - I am sure she is in her office watching the monitor and will hear why I voted for the motion - will investigate the matter and ensure that, in future, no young person from the candidate countries who applies to enter our European Union will be refused a visa for this purpose or have its issue delayed.
That concludes voting time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12.11)
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 25 September 2003.(1)
   I am delighted to have the opportunity this afternoon to extend a warm welcome to Dr Jong-Wook Lee, the recently-elected Director-General of the World Health Organization, and his colleagues, who are in the official gallery this afternoon.
It is Dr Lee's first visit to the European Parliament.
I should like to thank you for being here, Dr Lee, and, through our respective mandates, I very much look forward to working with you in the future.
On behalf of the European Parliament, I would also like to welcome to our official gallery the Swedish Riksdag's Committee on the Constitution, its Chairman Mr Gunnar Hökmark and Vice-Chairman Mr Göran Magnusson.
Our colleagues from the Swedish Riksdag are very welcome here.
I know they have already had a busy round of meetings this morning which will continue this afternoon and tomorrow morning.
I should like to point out to you that this is the tenth committee delegation this year to come to the European Parliament from the Riksdag.
We have great pleasure in welcoming you here, and our door is always open to do business with parliamentary colleagues.(1)
   A corrigendum to the agenda of the sittings of 8 and 9 October 2003 has been distributed.
Are there any comments?
   – Mr President, the next item on the agenda is the oral question on the liberal professions.
At the Conference of Presidents no agreement could be reached on a motion for a resolution to accompany this oral question.
There have since been further discussions, and I think there is now a majority in this House in favour of an accompanying resolution.
I would therefore like to propose voting on a resolution in the next Strasbourg week and would suggest that we set a deadline of 12 noon on Thursday of next week for the submission of motions for a resolution.
(1)
   Mr Howitt, we shall pass on your gratitude to all those you mentioned.
   Mr President, with reference to Rule 2 of the Rules of Procedure of this House I want to draw attention to a statement made quite recently in the Scottish Parliament in which a Conservative Member of that Parliament said, in relation to the chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries, that ‘it is incumbent upon him to represent the views of the UK Government in relation to the Constitution, and the fact that it might enshrine the common fisheries policy’.
This was in relation to the draft Constitution and Mr Stevenson's rapporteurship of a report on the subject.
Can you perhaps confirm, Mr President, that under Rule 2, no member may receive a binding mandate, and further that it is certainly not incumbent on the chairman of any Committee to receive a mandate from any government - be it Edinburgh, London, Madrid or wherever.
Could you perhaps also confirm that Mr Stevenson is in fact free to stand up for Scotland if he wishes to.
   I can certainly confirm, as you remarked, that Rule 2 deals with the independence of the mandate of Members of this House, and that Members of this House exercise that mandate independently, as I know our colleague Mr Stevenson normally does.
   Today, on behalf of Parliament, I issued a statement on this matter.
I shall provide you with a copy and I am happy also to communicate with Ms Tonelli's family.
   Nobody raised this during the Order of Business today, which could have allowed us to test the will of the House on the matter.
We may, however, be able to discuss the wider implications of it during the debate on the preparation of the European Council on 16-17 October, because it is clearly a cross-border issue.
Colleagues may thus, during that debate, make some points on this matter if they wish.
   –As the Council still cannot attend, I propose to amend the agenda slightly and the next item is the oral question (B5-0278/2003), by Klaus-Heiner Lehne and others on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on market regulations and competition rules for the liberal professions.
   That concludes the debate.(1)
   The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the preparation of the European Council in Brussels on 16 and 17 October 2003.
I should like to say to Mr Antonione that we appreciate the enormous pressures that he has been operating under today.
When we are given ambitious schedules, they are sometimes very difficult to keep to, even with the best will and the highest levels of flexibility.
I would, however, make a general appeal to Mr Antonione and I would ask him to pass this appeal on to his colleagues to give the appropriate priority to the interinstitutional relationship with this House.
I would ask that we use our best endeavours to avoid repetitions of what is an unfortunate but in the case of this afternoon unavoidable problem.
   Mr President, we are grateful that the Secretary of State made a report on the first session of the IGC.
I have to say that, like Mr Barón Crespo, I greatly regret the suppression of the notion of the Legislative Council, a decision which will not foster the separation of powers within the European Union.
The more serious problem appears to be caused by Spain and Poland, on the grounds that they are to lose the blocking minority they enjoy beneath the Treaty of Nice.
I have to say that these are spurious grounds for complaint.
The facts are that Spain and Poland need several more partners to join with them to reach the 38% of the population needed to block a decision.
The Convention proposes to lower the QMV threshold from 62% to 60%: a mere 9 million people.
This is at best a marginal question of bruised self-esteem for Spain and Poland.
On Thursday, I trust the true friends of Spain and Poland will explain to Mr Aznar and Mr Miller that they should drop their complaint and assist the IGC in reaching a speedy political agreement to respect the first and second parts of the Constitution.
The IGC will then be free to proceed to refurbish and modernise Part III, which is its proper responsibility.
   Mr President, on a point of order, I should just like to say that the procedure whereby the rapporteur comes back again and replies at the end of the debate is an excellent innovation.
I congratulate you and Mrs Frassoni for organising the previous debate in this way.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0294/2003) by Mr Bodrato, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Green Paper on European space policy (COM(2003) 17 - C5-0209/2003 - 2003/2092(INI)).
   – Mr President, I am obliged to Mr Busquin, who knows that I have for a number of years had a particular interest in Galileo, which has become very dear to me. Yet I am constantly being asked what Europe is really looking for in space, and why Europe should spend money on space when there are other problems on Earth that are so pressing and in need of high levels of funding.
So, although I do not expect this issue to meet with either rejoicing or unqualified approval, my firm conviction, which I know to be shared by many of my fellow-MEPs, is that space is of strategic importance for Europe and for the European economy.
Thanks to new technologies, it provides new opportunities.
It provides jobs for our engineers and prospects for the future.
Europe must not be satisfied with technological achievements that are less than first-class, and Europe is capable of them.
It is a matter of fact rather than a secret that space policy is one of the core issues for the twenty-first century.
Our everyday lives are already being shaped by the most varied applications made possible by space and the satellites we have put into it, behind which lies technological know-how that needs to be nurtured.
We, in Europe, have valuable resources, by which I mean not only engineers and technicians, but also research establishments and enterprises.
These give rise to innovations, but, as I keep being told, and as I have heard this afternoon, researchers and brainpower go where more is on offer, not only financially, but also in terms of technology.
That, Commissioner Busquin, is why I believe there to be an urgent need for real efforts to be made towards a coherent European space policy, as you have so aptly described it.
Europe must become aware of where it stands and of what opportunities it has.
No longer must we make declarations; now is the time for us to at last take action.
Europe must also be willing to invest, and, while there is no doubt that this can sometimes be a painful business, the space sector is not only highly cost-intensive, but also highly competitive.
Let us then take up this challenge!
Without decisiveness and commitment, Europe will lose independent access to space, and will also lose out when it comes to the applications resulting from it.
Commissioner Busquin, I share your view of the dangers of dependence on others, and so I welcome the Commission’s Green Paper on European space policy and Mr Bodrato’s detailed and stimulating report.
Europe needs a political signal to begin a new chapter in space travel, and I hope that we will, by a clear resolution tomorrow, help to give European space travel the right impetus!
   – Mr President, Commissioner, I wish first of all to thank the rapporteur, Mr Guido Bodrato, for the remarkable work he has done and for the ability he has demonstrated to listen to divergent opinions and to reconcile them.
I believe that this is an altogether remarkable document.
This report is particularly exciting because it comes at the end of what has been a historical period for space, thanks in particular to the crucial boost given by Mr Philippe Busquin and his staff.
Indeed, for the first time, Europe is outlining something other than a policy to regulate competition and the internal market.
It is drawing up a genuinely proactive industrial and technological policy which I hope will reassure all those who sometimes doubt whether Europe provides any real benefit.
Europe has achieved these results firstly through Galileo, which has given us the opportunity to create the first European mixed investment company, in other words, a joint company that will support an industrial and technological project.
It has also done so by laying the foundations, with the help of the Green Paper, of a space policy that acknowledges that space is a major technology by dint of the importance of its applications in all spheres, including the civilian; a policy that acknowledges the need for proactive political support; a policy that recognises the need to uphold our independence with regard to the emerging powers. This is a point of which Commissioner Busquin has reminded us and one that we feel is extremely important.
At the same time, we must remain open to the world because, in the background, extremely fruitful cooperation is taking place with the USA, with Russia, over the Soyuz system at Kourou and with China over Galileo. In other words, space is entering a new era: an era of growing influence for the European Union as a space power that can act completely independently of the world’s superpowers against the backdrop of a crisis, in particular the crisis besetting public budgets.
We now need to follow the direction set out in the White Paper.
I personally hope that relations between the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Union improve.
We need the ESA and its skills, but we also need the Union and its political support if we are going to be able to speak with a single voice in the first division.
I also wish to see institutional consolidation within the Commission.
Because the Treaty provides for space competence to be shared at European level, the Commission will have to ensure that full use is made of this competence.
In this regard, I wish to express my attachment to the framework programmes for research and development and for the ‘aeronautical-space line’, which appears for the first time in the sixth FPRD.
I am also committed to developing a culture of programmes and the capacity to launch sectoral European programmes through the other Commission services.
Having said that, I am thinking in particular of Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) for the environment and of the follow-ups to Lisbon for education.
In other words, I wish to congratulate Commissioner Busquin and Mr Bodrato and say that this is a fine example of a dossier in which Europe can do most when it moves ahead with political will.
I offer my best wishes for success and continuity for what we have managed to achieve together in the five years of our mandate.
   Thank you very much, Mr Piétrasanta.
   The next item is the report (A5-0294/2003) by Mr Guido Bodrato, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on European space policy.
   The next item is the report (A5-0257/2003) by Mr Della Vedova, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the control of concentrations between undertakings: 'The EC Merger Regulation' (COM(2002) 711 - C5-0005/2003 - 2002/0296(CNS)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0311/2003) by Mr Rack, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on minimum safety requirements for tunnels in the Trans-European Road Network (COM(2002) 769 - C5-0635/2002 - 2002/0309(COD)).
   Mr President, we pay a high price for road traffic.
And this time I am not referring to the Frenchor the German, but to the death and mutilation of people with a value as human beings that cannot be expressed in money terms.
Every year, some 40 000 men and women die on our roads, the equivalent of two full jumbo jets crashing every week in the fifteen EU Member States.
Annually, more than 200 000 people are scarred for life through injury and/or a handicap.
Never do we in any way take note of these statistics.
Last week, a delegation of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, which I had the pleasure of chairing, visited two long tunnels with two-way traffic in the Alps.
One of those was the Mont Blanc tunnel – 11.6 km long – where, in March 1999, a burning lorry caused an inferno, thereby claiming the lives of 39 people.
Our visit started with a brief moment at the monument that was erected in memory of those victims.
During the three years that this tunnel was subsequently closed, considerable investments have been made in a large number of facilities, which have been discussed in this report.
Nevertheless, the sight of lorries passing each other in both directions on a total width of no more than seven metres is still a frightening one.
Mr Rack has rendered the proposal more effective without underestimating the seriousness of the risks.
We therefore hope that the Commission is willing to recognise this.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.The debate is closed.The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0303/2003) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission communication on an integrated framework for fisheries partnership agreements with third countries (COM(2002) 637 - C5-0070/2003 - 2003/2034(INI)).
Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna will take the floor as a replacement for the rapporteur, Mr Cunha, who has been called away to attend to other higher duties.
   – Mr President, if I may, I too will begin by stressing Mr Cunha’s excellent qualities as a Member of this House and as a citizen of Europe.
I would also like to emphasise how much he will be missed in this Parliament, in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and in the Committee on Fisheries.
I might add that I wish him every success with his duties in his senior position in the government of a great Portuguese region, the North.
Even though I am a member of a different political party from Mr Cunha, furthermore, I do not have the problem of which the Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, Mr Struan Stevenson, complained here.
Since he is not a member of the UK Labour Party, Mr Stevenson distanced himself from UK Government policy.
I do not have the same problem, but that is just a question of style: the British style on the one hand and, on the other, the Portuguese, Iberian style.
If I may, moreover, Mr President, I would like to begin by underlining how correct and balanced I believe Mr Cunha’s report, as well as the Commission communication, to be.
I wish I could be as reserved as Commissioner Fischler, who to all intents and purposes confined himself to expressing his agreement with the report, which he felt endorsed the content of the Commission communication.
That much is true.
There does not seem to be any major disagreement between us on this matter.
I would say that the European Union has developed a very interesting type of diplomacy in the field of fisheries.
As Mr Stevenson also said, that diplomacy has led to a very interesting and very original model for fisheries agreements, one which we might even consider exemplary and which could quite happily act as a model for distant water fisheries negotiations between other countries.
That diplomacy should continue to develop freely, I would argue, with a view to upholding the interests of the European Union’s distant water fleet.
This fleet must not be considered as belonging to Portugal, or to Spain, or to France: rather, it should be understood to be a European Union fleet, since the Commission is our only spokesperson, our only representative in these international relationships.
Mr President, I support Mr Cunha’s report, as well as the content of the Commission’s text.
I hope that distant water fishing in the European Union will continue to develop along the three axes of the conservation of resources, support for the poorest communities and also equal treatment for those working in the fishing industry.
To conclude, I would say that we must combat illegal fishing and flags of convenience, which are, at times, the worst enemies of genuine fishing and fishermen.
   – Actually, Mr President, I would rather not have spoken this morning; I would rather have kept silent, just like the Israeli women in black who have been silently saying ‘Stop the Israeli occupation’ ever since 1988.
I have too much love and respect, however, for my group’s chairman, Mr Wurtz, who has asked me to speak, and for my colleagues, but, most of all, a symbolic gesture might not work here and so I will have to use words.
I must say, Mr Solana, that I feel frustrated, embittered and, above all, highly indignant.
Indignation is a political concept, not a state of mind, and I am indignant because, every day, I feel caught up in a spider’s web in which the law, justice, freedom and the truth suffocate and die every day: they perish in the Dance of Death performed by the Sharon government, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
On the one hand – and it is not trite or futile to repeat this – there is an army that is militarily occupying a country; on the other, there is international law, which is constantly being flouted and which we now repeat like a litany.
International law should be obeyed, but not a single resolution is being obeyed.
I have no hesitation in considering Hamas and Jihad to be enemies, even though, as I am non-violent, I have eliminated the concept of enemy.
It is clearly criminal to send young people to kill themselves and others; those who do so are responsible for these deaths and I consider it a crime, but please let us also break out of this inertia, this diplomacy that causes more deaths every day and contributes to this crime.
I feel responsible, together with you, all of you, for what is happening in that country, because it is not enough just to call for compliance with international law.
Of course, it is a good thing to go there, and I, too, thank Mr Solana and I thank Mr Moratinos very much, although I have to say that, at the time of the Quartet, Marc Otte was, in fact, absent because of Ariel Sharon’s blackmail at the most sensitive moment when they were resuming talks on the Roadmap. We were not there at that moment, because we rightly recognised that Ariel Sharon had been legitimately elected.
Yasser Arafat, too, was legitimately elected, and he cannot be accused of representing everything that is evil.
He is not my leader – I am an autonomous, free-minded independent – but it must be admitted that Yasser Arafat has been a prisoner for the last three years, and that is no minor matter.
Yasser Arafat has been a prisoner for the last three years and he certainly cannot be in military control of the Jenin area, where there are Israeli tanks, bulldozers and soldiers.
He cannot.
He can do what the government under Abu Mazen and now Abu Ala has been trying to do: to come to a political agreement with all the forces, including Hamas and Jihad, the moderate wing, let us say the wing that accepts peace or accepts a total cease-fire.
Every time, however – it is not just a trivial thing to say: it really is true, and that is how it is – every time, some leaders get killed. This is of no small importance, and I am very grateful to Mr Poettering and I would not like him to feel embarrassed because the left likes him so much today or because I usually respond to problems in a cross-party way.
I thought Mr Poettering’s speech was marvellous, to the point and perfect, even on the subject of the wall.
Commissioner Monti, I think you should go and see the wall.
As Mr Poettering said, the wall separates, destroys and kills freedom and the chance to communicate.
That is not the state that people want to create for Palestinians and Israelis: we want a state in which Palestinians and Moslems communicate together.
That wall is an obscenity, it is clear to everyone, I have seen it, I went to see it last Saturday.
In Adudis, it cuts the whole village in half.
An article in the Israeli newspaper, , by Gideon Levi, who is an amazing journalist, tells of how, in order to cross the road, children have to squeeze through the gaps in the concrete: their thin bodies get through but their schoolbags do not and they throw them over to the other side.
It is an obscenity that must be stopped.
Now, I am convinced that there are many things that can be done; I am also convinced that Parliament must take itself more seriously when it drafts and adopts resolutions.
I am tired of writing resolutions and building bridges: the resolutions need to be enforced.
We have been saying since time immemorial that we need to set up an arms embargo and that we need to verify the applicability of the association agreement; most importantly, we have decided on a high-level delegation (I have nearly finished) from Parliament.
I believe we should do this; we should keep following the Roadmap, and there is a hope … I am sorry, Mr Cox; I am sorry, everyone; I have not written out my speech and so I have lost track of time, but I should like to say one more thing.
There is a great hope in Palestine and in Israel: it is those thousands of Palestinians who endure every day and who do not agree with the bombs and the attacks, and those hundreds and thousands of Israelis who are fantastic, like the two pilots last week who were ordered to bomb Nablus and refused.
They were over Nablus; the young men felt for the people and turned back; obviously they were suspended from duty.
This is extremely important: it shows that a sense of humanity is growing, and we must make it grow within ourselves, in others and among Palestinians and Israelis.
   – Mr President, who will take the risk of defying, let alone attempting to dismantle, the Palestinian terrorist organisations Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Ahmed Quraya, the new prime minister in the Palestinian emergency cabinet that was sworn in on Tuesday, has himself said that he will not in any case.
How, Mr Solana, do you respond to that, or is the Council remaining silent about its explicit demand that the Palestinian Authority should dismantle terrorist organisations within the areas under its control? Who, too, will dare to give a real warning to the other countries that are stirring up conflict between Palestine and Israel, headed by Syria and Iran?
Instead of supporting Israel in this, prominent EU Member States are falling headlong upon the Jewish state. Not to mention European expressions of support to Syria, which, let it be noted, whilst being a member of the UN Security Council, has for years functioned as a training camp and base for Lebanese and Palestinian terrorist networks!
Is the European Union really going to enter into an association agreement with Syria, as Commissioner Patten very recently proposed in this House? Do you share my view that Brussels is thereby sending a completely wrong political signal to such a violent region as this one?
Think of Haifa!
   – Mr President, horrifying though they may be, the terrorist attacks in the Middle East – whether Palestinian suicide bombings against Jews or targeted Israeli strikes against Palestinians – cannot hide the fundamentals of the problem.
For, while it is true that there can be no peace without security, there can be no peace without justice either.
In the light of this thought, then, what is the fundamental problem? It is knowing whether or not Israel, which has, in the course of the conflicts, come to occupy 72% of the former British Mandate over Palestine, is prepared to hand over the remaining 28% to the Palestinian people, in order for a free and sovereign state to be founded there.
Is Israel prepared, after thirty-five years of military occupation, to evacuate these territories and cede power back to the Palestinian Authority?
If the answer is in the negative – and one is reluctantly forced to admit that nothing hitherto could induce one to think that it might be anything else – then the violence will continue: violence in retaliation, retaliation through violence, colonisation through wall-building.
New wars will be waged in defence of the principle of retaliation.
We believe that both Israel and Palestine have a right to security within recognised, respected borders, but it is no good weeping over the number of victims if we cannot propose a political solution.
One might disagree with Mr Cohn-Bendit’s suggestions – I certainly do – but his plan at least has the virtue of existing.
Let us clearly state where we want to go.
That is the prerequisite for the resolution of this conflict.
   Mr President, our history is one of boundaries that we cross, a history of walls that we pull down after having built them.
This is because a wall, Mr President, can be rebuilt, but a life cannot, and I agree with Mrs Morgantini when she says that it is not enough to call for international law to be respected.
Does international law allow a State to protect terrorist cells that are going to attack the civil population of another State? I ask you that.
I agree with her when she says that it is our duty to intervene and I share her indignation that we cannot be happy with moral stances, as we so often are, stances that ease our consciences, but, ladies and gentlemen, a clear conscience is the opposite of real conscience.
Yes, Mr Cohn-Bendit, we need a political shock!
Nor can I let it be said that this wall is the same as the Berlin wall, as I heard mentioned just now.
I personally am against this wall, because I am against the line that it follows.
A wall dividing one nation in two and a wall that aims to create a border, even if the border is completely open to argument, cannot, however, be considered to be the same thing.
I would like to add that I was one of those that signed a petition against the line the wall follows, in particular at Abu Dis.
Everyone is calling for a return to the 1967 borders and I am surprised to note that today there are passionate calls for what, yesterday, was rejected just as passionately.
This is because, in the end, what the more moderate amongst us are asking for today, is nothing more than a return to the Clinton parameters, the parameters that were recently rejected altogether.
Mr Monti quite rightly said that Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not recognise Israel’s right to exist, as the suicide attacks have shown.
We are deeply embroiled in the matter and there is in actual fact not just one conflict; there are four.
There is a war being waged by the Palestinian authority for the legitimate liberation of the Palestinian state and we are supporting it.
There is war being waged by the Israeli State for its safety.
We are supporting this too.
There is also, and this has to be said, a type of colonial war being waged by some Israelis and there is, and we really cannot overlook this one, a war to destroy the Israeli State being waged by some Palestinian factions.
If we are not aware of these four conflicts then we cannot understand what is happening.
   Thank you very much, Mr Monti.
   Mr President, according to the agenda, we were due to have a debate on the situation in the Middle East and yet, apart from Mrs Kuntz’s speech, only Palestine has been discussed.
As far as I am concerned, Palestine is not the Middle East.
In French it is what we call the Near East.
It seems that there is a Middle Eastern country that has completely disappeared from our radar screens; Iraq.
I am not seeking to force a debate on Iraq, but personally I had prepared a speech on that country.
I would simply like to ask a question which I feel is relevant to this House, which is so mindful of human rights: what exactly do we know today, in terms of international law, about the fate of the former head of the Iraqi diplomatic corps, Mr Tariq Aziz? This is an extremely relevant question, perhaps to be debated at our next meeting.
(1)
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject we are dealing with is not politically controversial; on the contrary, it has to do with the safety of air travel, which is a matter of concern for us and for all travellers.
Although we are not experts, we know about air travel and have experience of it.
From that experience we know that not all airlines and not all aircraft are equally safe.
Some companies, who are not too fussy about safety, can still, these days, change over to other airports where less stringent monitoring is in force.
That shows the need for a Community safety policy for airports.
In any case, the Commission estimates that, even if the likelihood of an accident is unchanged from in 1996, it should necessarily follow from the observable growth in air traffic that, by 2015, there will be a serious accident happening every week.
The likelihood of an accident varies widely among different regions and continents.
Did you know that the airlines with which you fly in Africa, Asia, South and Central America, are far more likely to meet with accidents – at least twice the world average? The risk is lowest in Western Europe and Australia, but highest in Eastern European countries – 50 times the risk in Western Europe.
This directive is therefore absolutely necessary if internationally applied safety controls are to be harmonised.
The continued absence of a Community policy is to be regretted; this is still a task for the Member States.
It is regrettable too that the Member States and the airlines are afraid of supplying the public with the information that we consider necessary.
   Mr President, pursuant to Rule 144(2) of the Rules of Procedure, the Group of the Party of European Socialists requests that this report be referred back to committee. This is for the reasons I adduced yesterday as rapporteur, namely the need to adjust the report to the interinstitutional agreement.
   Pursuant to Rule 144, I will therefore give the floor to one speaker in favour and to one speaker against.
   .
I support and have voted in favour of Mr Colom i Naval’s report, which authorises financial payment from the Solidarity Fund to Portugal.
The scale and severity of the tragedy which struck our country justify appeals for EU support.
The Commission’s first response was confined to EUR 30 million, which Commissioner Barnier himself recognised as falling well short of expectations and requirements.
I welcome the European Parliament’s display of solidarity, its support for Portugal and the negotiating skills of the Portuguese Government, in particular those of the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Dr Carlos Costa Neves.
The EUR 48.5 million in aid for which we have voted today is a fairer and more fitting amount than that previously provided.
   .
As you know, Portugal was scourged from north to south this summer by a plague of fire on a scale never before seen.
In all, more than 400 000 hectares were consumed by fire.
Apart from the economic losses, valued at EUR 1 372 billion, we also regret the loss of the 18 victims who died and the sources of income and homes of 45 000 people.
Apart from the human and economic consequences, this tragedy has also brought social and environmental costs.
We have now voted in favour of this proof of the European Union’s solidarity, to be given to the affected communities through the Solidarity Fund.
I would like to join the Secretary of State, Mr Costa Neves, in sincerely thanking the European Commission and the European Parliament for their speedy and efficient processing of Portugal’s application for Solidarity Fund assistance.
The amount contributed by the Solidarity Fund will be EUR 48.5 million.
I can only point out that this amount equals 8.5% of the total damage suffered.
Finally, if I may, I will agree with the rapporteur’s observation that the damage caused by this disaster could, in part, have been avoided by means of adequate and effectively-implemented prevention measures.
For this reason, I support the increase in the budget for those elements of the Forest Focus programme dealing with prevention policy.
   .
The aim of this report is, amongst other things, to enter into the budget the EUR 48.5 million mobilised to assist Portugal in accordance with the provisions of the Solidarity Fund in the wake of the tragic forest fires which swept through Portugal this summer.
The Solidarity Fund was mobilised quickly, and this amending budget was adopted in one single reading.
That is very welcome, since it ensures more rapid assistance from the EU budget following the applications presented.
The amount now approved, however, is clearly insufficient given the costs of the direct damages, more than EUR 1.3 billion, and, in particular, given the total costs of the eligible damages, around EUR 104.3 million.
It should be remembered that when Commissioner Schreyer was questioned in the Committee on Budgets, she expressed her willingness to review the sums allocated to Portugal if the damage estimates were to rise.
This would be done principally through an amending budget.
The Commissioner has kept her word by issuing this amending budget once the Portuguese Government provided further information.
It is now the government’s turn to assess the current situation as regards the consequences of the forest fires, taking particular account of the effects of the rains in the fire-affected areas.
   .– As a Portuguese, it is with great sadness that I recall the terrible, nation-wide disaster that caused the deaths of a score of people and destroyed hundreds of thousands of hectares of forests and farmland, while 45 000 people lost their possessions and their jobs.
The direct damage suffered by Portugal amounts to almost EUR 946.489 million, a sum well over 0.6% of GNI (in other words, more than EUR 718.12 million).
On 4 August 2003, following the tragic summer fires in Portugal, the Portuguese authorities announced their intention to submit to the Commission a request for mobilisation of the European Union Solidarity Fund.
The request was officially received on 13 August and additional information was submitted by Portugal on the 22 of that month; at a public hearing in September, Portugal stated that it was asking for Solidarity Fund intervention to the value of EUR 48.5 million.
In view of the fact that, in its September resolution on the ‘effects of the summer heat wave’, the European Parliament suggested that the Solidarity Fund contribution should be increased in the case of Portugal so as to be closer to the eligible amounts, estimated at EUR 94 million …
   I voted in favour of the Frassoni report on ‘Better Law-Making’.
While awaiting the entry into force of the European Constitution, which will bring unquestionable advances when it comes to the transparency of Community procedures and respect for the distribution of competences and for the principle of subsidiarity, I believe it is necessary to improve legislative practice in the framework of the treaties currently in force.
From this point of view, the interinstitutional agreement between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament is good news, for it offers greater clarity and coherence while respecting the powers, procedures and general principles of our positive law.
Too often, the documents adopted by our Assembly are still difficult to access by the uninitiated. We can do better.
The interinstitutional agreement opens the way to realising an ambition of the kind already referred to in the White Paper on Governance.
It now remains to give practical expression to that ambition.
   I have voted with satisfaction and relief in favour of the excellent report by my colleague, Mr Bodrato, concerning the Green Paper on European space policy.
Satisfaction, because what is at stake is European autonomy: a Europe that is sovereign in strategic terms must have its own military and spatial capacities.
Relief, because this vote shows that the European institutions have become aware of the concerns of manufacturers and politicians faced with the recent economic deterioration of this sector and the increased strength of our international competitors.
Europe will take up the challenge of space if it takes strong measures in response to the White Paper to be presented in December and if manufacturers engage in restructuring in order to become more competitive.
If this is to happen, we shall need a boost in public investments. Otherwise, our big groups will not retain their high profiles in terms of technology and human resources, and we shall lose skills.
Following the crucial support given to the Galileo programme and to Ariane V, this vote by the European Parliament shows that the European Union knows how to defend its vital strategic interests and, over and above that, wishes to contribute to the knowledge of a universe about which the human race cannot remain indifferent.
   Article 2 of Council Regulation (EEC) 4064/89on the control of concentrations between undertakings sets out the guidelines according to which the Commission is to assess whether a concentration between undertakings is or is not compatible with the common market.
Instead of the current model, which mainly concentrates upon whether the companies would acquire a dominant position, we recommend a more flexible model (what is known as the SLC test), according to which a concentration between undertakings must be prohibited if it may contribute to a weakening of competition or the creation of a monopoly.
   The Della Vedova report reflects the ideology of the Commission, adopted in its own way by the liberal majority of this Parliament.
Indeed, the real problems posed by the acceleration of the global movement towards concentrations between undertakings are treated exclusively as threats to competition.
The known risks for consumers (price rises, lack of transparency etc) or for the employees of these companies (such as stock market redundancies, the abandonment of activities and the transfer of production to companies offering least in terms of social benefits) are not taken into account as such.
As if free competition had demonstrated that it was up to dealing with these risks!
In France, the latest concentrations between undertakings – from Vivendi to Air France, from Alstom to Péchiney – have shown how, in terms of their concerns, national and European institutions are getting it all wrong when it comes to the things that are needed.
For us, it is, however, these very things that go to the heart of the general interest.
Taking them into account would certainly make it worthwhile revising the procedure for the European control of concentrations between undertakings, but the option followed in this case is still hostage to the ‘healthy competition’ dogma.
That is why we have voted against this resolution which, with its blind alleys, is an insult to the employees concerned and, more generally, to all citizens.
   .
Dictatorships are keen to detain critical foreign visitors at their borders or send them straight home from their airports.
The United States, too, has a tradition of barring those regarded as enemies or as dangerous influences.
The most effective way to get into the US as a suspected person is to have one’s visit enforced by means of an extradition order by an American judge.
Visits of one’s own free will are already in practice affected by the attempt to demand thirty-nine items of personal data on each and every passenger on transatlantic flights, including the choice of meals as a means towards determining whether someone is a Moslem.
On 20 May, I was one of those who took part in the protest against this at Schiphol airport in the Netherlands.
Europe cannot prevent the US from refusing entry to visitors from abroad, but that does not mean that the EU itself must cooperate in collecting data of this sort within Europe for the Americans’ purposes.
Such cooperation is and remains contrary to European standards on the protection of privacy.
I am glad that the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has lent its unanimous support to a ban on the transmission of data by airlines and automated booking systems, if this discriminates against those who are not US citizens, the data is kept for long periods and if information or review procedures are not in place.
   The European Parliament’s resolution concerning the huge mortality rate for bees is fairly disappointing for, once more, it confines itself to evoking only a possible link between these phenomena and the use of certain pesticides, Gaucho and Regent, for the treatment of seeds.
It proposes that new studies be carried out and a committee of experts put in place.
As for the urgent provisions, it is content to request, in a very vague and allusive way, ‘preventive measures to be taken to tackle the use of new generations of long-residue neurotoxic products’.
In the course of the debate prior to this resolution, held on 25 September, I had considered that, at present, the latest studies carried out, like the practical experience of beekeepers, reveal the existence of a direct link between the death of bees and the use of these insecticides.
That does not mean that other causes, like the general pollution of the towns and countryside, cannot have an influence.
These causes must not, however, serve to mask the influence of these insecticides.
Their use must therefore be suspended, at least provisionally, as a precautionary measure.
Not wishing to add my voice to that of the supporters of a wait-and-see policy, I have nonetheless voted in favour of this resolution which, moreover, has been improved along the way by an amendment by Mr Souchet.
   .– I voted for the excellent own-initiative report by Mr Arlindo Cunha on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, which underlines the importance of a more active Community policy geared to signing international fisheries agreements.
These agreements, indeed, give the Community fleet access to third countries’ waters, which is of vital economic importance to my country.
I must also point out the specific importance that these agreements generally have for the outlying and outermost regions of the European Union and the fact that, as the report states, they provide direct employment for 30 000 people, as well as an even greater number of indirect jobs in ancillary and processing industries.
These agreements, which account for 20% of the total Community catch, have also been an incentive for the development of the local fishing industries and, insofar as they help boost economic activity and trading volume in the co-signatory countries – developing countries, as a rule – they may prove to be additional valuable instruments for cooperation and dialogue with the European Union.
I agree with the concerns expressed by the rapporteur that these agreements should be governed by the same criteria of sustainability, conservation of fish stocks and precaution that prevail in fisheries in Community waters, particularly the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (Food and Agriculture Organisation – 1995)
   – Mr President, I would like to remind the House that during the last part-session in Strasbourg, I spoke on two occasions about Members’ freedom of access to the House.
We all know about the budgetary situation for the car pool.
Some Members have found that when they are very short of time, they cannot get a car; they have to take a taxi and then downstairs, even though they say that they are Members, they cannot come upstairs, which takes up more time.
This was why I was not present for the first roll-call vote today.
I would urge the Bureau to address this issue of Members’ freedom of access to the House, regardless of whether the situation arises because of a demonstration or for other reasons.
This is an important issue.
I read the minutes of the Bureau’s meetings regularly.
I read about colleagues who write letters whose content may or may not be important, but I have seen nothing to indicate that certain interventions, notably from Mr Posselt and myself, have been discussed by the Bureau or that we are being offered a reasonable and acceptable answer.
   – I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 9 October 2003.(1)
   – The final draft agenda as drawn up pursuant to Rules 110 and 110a of the Rules of Procedure by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday, 15 October 2003 has been distributed.
The following changes have been proposed:(1)
As regards the report by Mr Queiró on defence equipment (A5-0342/2003), I have received a request from the UEN Group to refer this report back to committee pursuant to Rule 144 of the Rules of Procedure.
– Following the referral back to committee, I have received a request from the PPE-DE Group and the GUE/NGL Group to include, after the debate on the Brok report on Wednesday, Council and Commission statements on the forthcoming EU-Russia summit, including the situation in Chechnya, without motions for resolution.
   – Mr President, it may be possible to reconcile the two positions: firstly, we would accept the joint proposal from our two groups to debate Chechnya on Wednesday afternoon and secondly, we would defer the point on Bolivia to Wednesday evening, which means that it would be addressed in the presence of the Commission only.
Opting for this solution would, I think, enable us both to express our views on Chechnya and also say what we think about the bloody repression in Bolivia, which, I would remind you, has led to the deaths of almost eighty people in the space of one week.
(2)
   Mr President, I am delighted to see that at the European Council meeting in Brussels last week, the 25 Heads of State and Government joined together in congratulating His Holiness, Pope John-Paul II on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his Pontificate.
His Holiness is one of the extraordinary figures of the 20th and 21st centuries and we now stand on the threshold of re-uniting a Europe which was divided for nearly half a century.
The Pope played a significant role in helping to bring down those barriers and close the final sad chapter of World War II.
I hope, Mr President, that you will send a message on behalf of this House and join with the European Council in congratulating Pope John-Paul and wishing him well as he continues his work for peace throughout the world.
   – Mr Hyland, I communicated sentiments of a similar sort on behalf of the House last Thursday.
   – Mr President, I should like to respond to what Mrs Corbey has just said about the second reading on medicines and draw your attention to the fact that we have some very tight deadlines to respect and that the price of medicines is not taken into account in this second reading; indeed it was not in the first reading either.
I do not think therefore that we should confuse all of the issues; above all, we must not fall behind schedule, given that the Italian Presidency ends in December and that our work will be completed at the end of April.
I wanted to draw your attention to this point: it is essential that we have European legislation in the field of pharmaceuticals as soon as possible.
   – Mr Harbour, I can raise that matter with the Conference of Presidents since there is still some time, but it is not at my personal discretion to change the agenda as adopted by the House.
   – Since two Members have now touched on this issue, I should like to make a brief comment.
Since Tampere in October 1999, the European Commission has brought forward a number of proposals for directives.
In every instance so far, the European Parliament has delivered on time.
But in six cases where we have done our work, the Council of Ministers has thus far failed to do its work, as I pointed out on behalf of the Parliament at the European Council meeting last week.
Some of these issues have been outstanding on the Council's agenda for more than two years.
Yes, there is a problem, but that problem is not in this Parliament, it is with the Council and the Member States.
   – Mr President, I would like to focus my fellow Members’ attention on a certain important question of major significance for the future of this institution: the matter of the Members’ Statute.
I understand that last week the Committee of Permanent Representatives referred Parliament’s proposal for a new Statute back to Parliament for further debate.
I would now like to ask here in plenary how Parliament intends to proceed from here so that we may have a new, more transparent and coherent Statute approved before the elections, and what procedure it intends to use to debate this issue so that we may switch to a new and even better system in the forthcoming parliamentary term after the European Parliament elections.
I would like to hear your opinion, as President, on the matter.
   – Regarding the points made on information policy, I will discuss the matter with the Vice-President who deals with this, Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca.
He is also the interlocutor for the European Parliament with the Commission on the issue of information policy.
We can then come back to the colleagues who have asked these questions.
   – Mr President, it never ceases to amaze me that a Member of this House, who belongs to an organisation declared illegal as a result of being an extension of the terrorist group ETA, who is subject to legal proceedings in France, who is apparently using the funds allocated to honourable Members in an irregular fashion, should, taking advantage of his status as a Member of this Parliament and protected by the freedom that implies – a freedom over which the terrorist group ETA rides roughshod on a daily basis – try to justify the unjustifiable.
I would have hoped, Mr President, that he would have condemned the latest attack by ETA which took place this weekend, but it is clear that, from a person whose positions are morally repulsive, who has not been able to condemn the murder of a six-year-old girl or any of the crimes of the terrorist group ETA, it is impossible to expect any comments or behaviour other than the type he has demonstrated here.
   – Mr President, various Nobel Prizes have been awarded recently to scientific and literary luminaries, but one in particular deserves a mention here.
The Nobel Peace Price was awarded to an Iranian lawyer, Mrs Ebadi, who has campaigned tirelessly, boldly and courageously for human rights and women’s rights in her country.
This prize constitutes a huge boost in the struggle for the emancipation of women in Iran, and in the struggle for democracy against the theocratic rule of the mullahs in that country.
Mrs Ebadi, therefore, was welcomed by thousands of people, thousands of democrats singing her praises.
It was thus unfortunate that Iran’s supposedly reformist president, Mr Katami, should have belittled her, telling her that, when all was said and done, the Nobel Prize was not as special as all that.
Iranian society as we see it today, therefore, is in ferment.
It is a society striving for democracy, fighting a battle for freedom, democracy, human rights and women’s rights in Iran.
Mrs Ebadi can now take up a commanding position in this battle.
Mr President, I would be grateful if you would congratulate Mrs Ebadi, because this Nobel Prize deserves a mention here, since it has been awarded to someone engaged in a great cause, one of the causes of this House, the cause of democracy, rights and freedoms.
   Mr President, under Rule 122, I should like to say just one thing about Mr Salafranca's comments a few minutes ago.
First of all, he did not trust my words, so I am not a trustworthy person for him and I am very proud of that.
Secondly, he did not say I was lying so what I said was the truth, the plain truth.
Thirdly, he said that I am outlawed under I do not know how many circumstances, by I do not know how many courts in Spain and France.
We are certainly outlawed in Spain, by the young Spanish democracy I mentioned.
But I am sorry, Mr Salafranca, I have no problems outside Spain.
It seems that there is a slight difference regarding the notion of democracy between Spain and all the other countries in Europe.
   – Mr President, Mr Gorostiaga has referred to the possible problems I may have inside and outside Spain.
I would like to say to him – since he has mentioned it and since he has referred to this event – that my private car has been blown up in Barajas airport by his friends from the terrorist group ETA.
I will repeat what I have already said, moreover: Mr Gorostiaga has never once spoken out in this House to condemn the crimes, murders, extortion and shots in the back of the head carried out by his friends and cohorts in the terrorist group ETA.
I believe that position to be morally repulsive and gutless.
Furthermore, it is shameful, Mr Gorostiaga, that you should enjoy the freedom associated with being a Member of this House – a freedom over which your friends from ETA ride roughshod every day – and that you use it to make your totally disgraceful outbursts.
   – The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0343/2003) by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position with a view adopting a European Parliament and Council Regulation concerning monitoring of forests and environmental interactions in the Community (Forest Focus) (8243/01/03 – C5-0292/2003 – 2002/0164(COD)) (Rapporteur: Encarnación Redondo Jiménez).
   – Mr President, forest fires are indeed a scourge which destroys thousands of hectares of woodland throughout the European Union every year, especially in southern countries.
As we know, not only was this year no exception to that rule, but the situation reached tragic proportions in southern countries, and especially in Portugal, where 20 people died, 45 000 lost their sources of income, and it is estimated that more than 11% of woodland was consumed by the fires.
The total cost is more than EUR 1.3 billion in direct damages.
This disaster provides ample proof that the European Union needs to promote measures for fighting forest fires, particularly at the level of prevention.
A large majority in the European Parliament used the resolution of 4 September 2003, on the consequences of the summer heat wave, to indicate that that was its understanding of the situation.
That resolution asked not only for more funds to bolster the Forest Focus programme, but also for the inclusion in that programme of adequate prevention measures consonant with the actions laid down in Regulation No 2158/92, which expired on 31 December 2002.
I would also like to remind you that not all the fire prevention measures included in that regulation are covered by the forestry-related actions laid down in the recent Regulation No 1999/1257, on rural development.
I mention this because continuity is important in relation to prevention measures, which are even more urgent under the present circumstances.
The rapporteur rightly reiterates her insistence on including the prevention-related amendments tabled at first reading and then rejected by the Council.
She also asks for an increase in the amounts for financing the Forest Focus programme.
These are positive proposals which should be adopted once more by this Parliament and which I support.
Moreover, I regret the fact that the final compromise does not consider all of these measures together.
I feel that the need to preserve the heritage of our forests, combined with the high-risk situation of many woodland areas, means that the Council must accept these amendments, tabled by Parliament, on prevention and financing.
   – Mr President, in the wake of the fires which ravaged Portugal last summer, laying waste more than 10% of the country, it has become increasingly obvious that the disaster could have been avoided, to a great extent, by means of effective prevention measures.
It brings to mind the old proverb, ‘prevention is better than cure’.
During his visit to the regions affected by the fires, Commissioner Barnier himself drew attention to this consideration.
It has become abundantly clear that we need monitoring systems, but above all that we need to guard against the causes of woodland decline.
Only by studying the causes and their effects will we be able to mount a relentless campaign to fight the fires.
The prevention measures, therefore, aim to reduce the size of the affected areas, fight the causes of fire and monitor our forests.
The European Union cannot content itself with monitoring the fires and taking action after the disaster has occurred.
What is needed is a real prevention policy.
The task, then, is not to impose unwanted measures on Portugal, but rather to devise tangible, robust courses of action that are compatible with the national forestry strategy currently being devised.
I would argue, therefore, that prevention should form an integral part of the Forest Focus programme, regardless of the regulation on rural development.
When dealing with an issue as important as forests, one of Europe’s treasures, one cannot consider skimping on a few pennies.
With a view to financing these prevention measures, therefore, I have already proposed increasing the amounts in the European Union’s general budget, by means of the financial perspective for the period up to 2006.
No preventive measure can truly come into operation unless it is supported by adequate financial resources.
Finally, I could not end this speech without congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, for the sensitive manner in which she has dealt with what is a most delicate issue for Portugal.
   – The next item is the report (Α5-0335/2003) by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, concerning the quality of bathing water.
   Mr President, the quality of bathing water has improved.
The water is better and cleaner in the Netherlands and in the rest of Europe.
A new bathing water directive is now before us with less red tape, with only two parameters left, but with stricter standards, which is to be welcomed.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has struck sensible compromises.
Mr Maaten, the rapporteur, wanted, and still wants, to abolish this directive.
Fortunately, the Liberals are on their own with this view.
Europe is more than a market and currency.
The Netherlands will need to make an effort to comply with both the old and the new directive, and take action instead of moaning.
Thanks to the warmer climate, people will swim more frequently and other types of water recreation will also be introduced.
The amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy are good, except for Amendment No 19.
For the sake of a few hundred Scottish sheep, there is a huge loophole in legislation.
Intensive farming in the Netherlands also suffers from the spread of disease during heavy rainfall.
In the Netherlands, the cows became ill and measures were taken.
This should be our response, and not an enormous loophole in what, let me add, is also sound legislation.
   I would like to concentrate on an important amendment which has been mentioned in this debate, namely Amendment No 19 on the conformity and control of transitory contamination.
It is critical for me as a Scottish representative in the House.
In south-west Scotland, the Irvine and Aire river valleys are particularly susceptible during times of heavy rainfall – in flash floods during the summer months, for example – to failing to meet the micro-biological standards for good quality during those few, rare days.
This does not mean that beaches in Britain are hotbeds of pollution.
It means we need flexibility in measuring and sampling to deal with these natural occurrences.
Amendment No 19 introduces a two-part system of management action.
Its purpose is to bring the Commission's proposal into line with the approach adopted in World Health Organisation guidelines for recreational use.
The guidelines acknowledge that the tighter standards proposed by the WHO would be breached under some circumstances, i.e. heavy rainfall, and include an allowance to discount samples during these periods, provided that management measures are in place to protect bathers.
The amendment encourages authorities to take preventive action where possible to protect bathers from exposure to pollution.
The Council of European Municipalities and Regions has also backed Amendment No 19, and local government wants to see bathing water quality improve by introducing more flexibility into bathing water rules.
   Mr President, the Commission’s proposal contains some good features in the form of more stringent requirements concerning bacteria content, with a maximum of 500 Escherichia coli per 100 ml and 200 intestinal enterococci per 100 ml.
The sampling frequency recommended by the Commission is not, however, sufficient and undercuts the current arrangements in Denmark.
The bathing season is set at three months in Denmark.
The Commission’s proposal would mean the number of samples we take each season falling from ten to two.
In the quest for clean bathing water, it would clearly entail a reduction in safety.
It is, however, with pleasure that I am able to observe that quite a few of the amendments tabled by the liberal rapporteur, Mr Maaten, disappeared in the course of discussion by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
Mr Maaten’s jolly proposal concerning definitions of bathers and bathing water and a colourful range of star-spangled flags on the beach has fortunately disappeared.
It saves Parliament from becoming still more of a laughing stock in the eyes of the public.
The rapporteur’s report gave rise to 124 supplementary amendments by fellow MEPs in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, but the many amendments to Mr Maaten’s proposal also show how a political group can waste a huge amount of MEPs’ time.
I am unable to support the report’s proposal to include other leisure activities in the definition of the framework for the bathing water directive.
   – The next item is the report (A5-0290/2003) by Guido Sacconi, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision on a monitoring mechanism of Community greenhouse gas emissions and the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol (COM(2003) 51 – C5-0031/2003 – 2003/0029(COD)).
   – The next item is the report (A5-0296/2003) by Bernd Lange, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 97/68/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to measures against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery (COM(2002) 765 – C5-0636/2002 – 2002/0304(COD)).
   – Mr President, Mr Lange, we are indeed heirs to a fine tradition in this area of European lawmaking.
We have laid down rules for cars, motorbikes, ships, and motor-driven saws, and now it is the turn of non-road vehicles.
This House is characterised by its continuity, in that you do not have to agree with every word, but every time, we have the same problem.
The industry that builds the machine says, ‘We’ll sort it out’.
Those who use the machines will of course say, ‘Oh God, we will need to use this for a long time before we can write the investment off.’
All this is understandable, and so I believe that the compromise at which we have arrived is the right one.
It is in particular the fact that we are in step with the Americans that means we are on the right track when it comes to doing our bit to reduce distortions in competition.
I am quite convinced that the reduction of emission values is more expensive in an area as industrialised as Europe than it is in other countries.
Our problem is a simple one; there are more and more machines.
They may be getting cleaner, but machines as a whole are becoming more numerous, and so we cannot take as rosy a view of our pollution of the environment with exhaust gases as we might wish.
Although I am glad that we have found a way to accommodate the railways to some extent, a degree of harshness is still apparent, so there are two or three amendments with which I am not quite so happy.
It is quite clear, though, that if people want, in the long term, to run these large motors – which are not 80 horse-power jobs, but check in at between 600 and 1000 kW, and have a correspondingly massive output – then they will have to put their hands in their pockets to do so; they must realise that they will have to do that in future, and they must make preparations.
I believe that we are on the right track.
If one thing or another remains to be sorted out, then our injured rapporteur will be able to handle that.
   – The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0336/2003) by Mrs De Sarnez, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the Council common position adopting a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a programme for the enhancement of quality in higher education and the promotion of intercultural understanding through co-operation with third countries (Erasmus Mundus) (2004-2008) (8644/1/2003 – C5-0294/2003 – 2002/0165(COD)).
   – Mr President, Commissioner Reding, we have been in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, Media and Sport until now, where we voted on three very complicated reports.
That is why I arrived so out of breath, but we did very well.
I would like to thank Mrs de Sarnez for carrying out her work with such determination and so much drive.
In doing so she achieved what we wanted to achieve; we will be able to start the Erasmus Mundus programme at the beginning of 2004.
This report emphasises something that is very dear to Parliament, that is, we are creating a European learning area, an expression we were not allowed to use in relation to Socrates II.
Today, I think everyone is talking in such terms and that, I believe, is a good thing.
We are bringing Europe back onto the international stage.
Europe will become more competitive and more attractive to young people from abroad.
As against the EUR 180 million that the Commission wanted, we have set a figure of EUR 230 million.
Achieving this increase took a great deal of effort, but I believe that it is also a reflection of the ambitions we have for this programme.
To be genuinely appealing such a programme requires financing.
We put further emphasis on language learning and that is a very important point because the students who come here study in three different countries and we expect them to try to learn at least two of the languages of these countries.
I see Erasmus Mundus as a marvellous way of continuing Socrates-Erasmus, and I believe that we will make this programme a great success in 2004, the very year that the European elections are taking place.
I hope that in so doing and in showing what we are capable of, we will make this a real attraction in the European Union and beyond.
These students, coming from outside the EU, will be able to study in three places in Europe; they will assimilate the cultural diversity of the European Union, they will learn the languages and they will carry Europe’s message abroad.
I am glad that we have come so far together on this road.
   – Mr President, I should like to present my warmest congratulations to the rapporteur for her excellent work.
By covering postgraduate education, this Erasmus Mundus programme will be a very useful addition to the existing Erasmus programme, which, as you know, promotes respect and intercultural understanding as well as dialogue between our different peoples.
The greater openness to the outside world that these Erasmus Mundus programmes bring is something quite remarkable and will make it possible to further enhance understanding between peoples.
Yes, peoples: I did say peoples because I note that these days, unfortunately, it is the fashion to talk about citizens and to forget about peoples, as we see in the Convention's draft constitutional treaty.
I belong to a people, the Catalan people, which does not necessarily coincide with the French and Spanish states, and I am pleased to recall here that the Erasmus Mundus programmes will foster mutual understanding between peoples, not only European peoples, but peoples from all over the world.
Catalonia – since that is what I was talking about – hosts many students from throughout Europe.
Barcelona is an attractive cultural centre and the fact that Catalan is not, regrettably, an official language astounds some students when they arrive there.
They then discover that in Barcelona, Valencia, Palma or even in Perpignan, classes, or some of them, are taught in Catalan.
In Barcelona, the majority of classes are taught in Catalan.
You may have had the opportunity to see a very wise and very well-made film by Cédric Klapisch, which is the story of some Erasmus students and which also mentions this language problem.
I think it is desirable for all European languages to enjoy equal rights, not only in these Erasmus Mundus programmes, but also in all of the European institutions.
   – Mr President, Commissioner Reding, it is encouraging that we are able to initiate two new educational programmes today, which, although they perform different functions and tasks, have a common goal, that is to say to make Europe more attractive and thereby to arouse greater interest in Europe across the world.
The point has already been made that the programme, which generally applies to higher education institutions and students from across the world that have gained a first degree, must, however, also take account of vocational training, such as technical courses for engineers and higher technicians, which are included in the category of ‘higher education institutions’, and for which appropriate proposals are to be drawn up.
Close cooperation between various European universities will make it possible to increase quality and increase international competitiveness.
The compromise on the financial framework of EUR 230 million is just that – a compromise and no more – and I believe that this programme will only succeed in achieving its ambitious goal if all parties involved – the European Union, Member States and universities – accept these challenges and do their bit.
EUR 230 million alone will certainly not suffice.
Furthermore, it must be made clear that these financial resources must be raised in addition to other educational programmes and not redeployed from them.
   – Mr President, Commissioner Reding, I would like to congratulate Mrs de Sarnez on her excellent report and thank her once again for her cooperation.
The Erasmus Mundus Programme can only be passionately supported.
On the one hand, the programme’s added value consists in the possibility of mobility, in the learning of foreign languages as well as in intercultural exchanges.
On the other hand, Erasmus Mundus accepts, in a pro-active and constructive way, the educational challenges of globalisation.
It is precisely because the programme is open to students from third countries that Europe can distinguish itself further in the field of higher education.
In an age of globalisation, there is competition for the best products, the best ideas and last but not least, for the best brains.
It is for this reason that Europe must make itself more attractive and competitive as a place of study and education.
As draftsman for the opinion of the Committee on Budgets for the first reading of the report in April 2003, I too am particularly pleased today to see that Parliament has notched up one significant success.
With EUR 230 million instead of the proposed EUR 180 million, Erasmus Mundus will have a sound financial basis.
After all, what can sensible programmes achieve if they are not adequately funded? What we have achieved is creditable, but the current commitments and the new initiatives are altogether inadequate when set against the Lisbon objectives.
When money is tight and budgetary resources limited, we cannot expect to reach dizzy heights, but nor should money being tight and limited budgetary resources be excuses for preventing us from making farsighted political commitments.
Ladies and gentlemen, education is the number one investment in the future.
Do we want to have the most dynamic and most competitive economic area in the world by 2010? If so, then we have to get our priorities right by investing in research and training, and Erasmus Mundus is a step in the right direction.
   – The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0314/2003), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position of the Council with a view to adopting a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council adopting a multi-annual programme (2004-2006) for the effective integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in education and training systems in Europe (Learning Programme) (8642/1/2003 – C5-0293/2003 – 2002/0303(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Mauro).
   – Mr President, I should like first of all to thank Parliament for having made the Learning programme possible, because this programme relies on the results of preparatory and exploratory measures in favour of online training – Learning – that Parliament has voted for ever since 2001.
Parliament's active support will therefore enable us to adopt this programme in record time, less than a year after the Commission tabled its proposal in December 2002.
It is also your rapporteur, whom I should like to thank, who has made it possible to respect this very tight deadline.
Mr Mauro has spared no effort and has done an excellent job.
For example, thanks to him, teacher training has become one of the main objectives of the programme.
In fact, we are aware that this training is one of the keys to the programme's success and that all of the Member States are already working on it.
I am grateful to him for enriching the programme in this way.
Today, then, we need to reach a decision with a view to the second reading, and I am sure that Parliament will be able to agree.
The Council agrees with the content, including with the addition of teacher training.
But, as you know, its position on the programme's budget, as set out in its common position, which was adopted by qualified majority, was initially very different from Parliament's.
An agreement has now been reached.
There is no doubt that we would have preferred a higher amount than that proposed by Parliament, but this has proved to be impossible.
The EUR 44 million on which your institution must vote is therefore a compromise, but a compromise that will make it possible to complete the procedure, saving time and resources, and to launch the programme as planned on 1 January.
I believe that, on this simple basis, we should tell ourselves that it is better to have a little less money and be able to start implementing a good programme straight away.
   Mr President, Commissioner Reding, training and education will be a major issue in the Council, the Commission and in this House, and I believe that, if we want to do justice to the -Learning programme, in order to bridge the digital divide between individual countries, regions and generations, then this report has certainly taken a step in the right direction.
All European education and training systems must accelerate access to and use of new information and communication technologies to improve quality and reduce discrepancies.
Once again I would like to mention the Bologna and Barcelona objectives, which, as you have already heard, could, if implemented, give the European economic area and learning area a chance.
I am sorry to say that the situation in many countries – Austria included – is currently such that cost cutting has prevented increased investment in education that had been agreed, resulting instead in an increase in cutbacks in the education sector.
Regrettably, we are moving further and further from the objective of becoming the most knowledge-based society in the world by 2013, as the Council has already indicated and predicted that it will still take a long time.
When new programmes are initiated, they should also be implemented with the necessary determination, which means that they should – as the -Learning programme actually does – show visible signs of success after three years.
I think that it is for the European Union to give a visible impulse in this area, thus starting a chain reaction and again making education a top priority in the Member States, so that it does not fall victim to the cost-cutting that has been the case to date.
   – Mr President, Mrs Reding, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
A dynamic knowledge economy requires a sound Learning programme.
I should like to make three observations.
First of all, I think it positive that primary education is also involved in the programme, but the target group should also include people other than young people, for we must not neglect the elderly, or, for that matter, those who live in remote areas.
It is precisely those people that we need to take out of their Learning isolation.
Via lifelong learning, they benefit from this programme and they can pass on their knowledge and experience to the next generations.
Grandmothers can chat online with their grandchildren – I am an expert at it.
Secondly, there is virtual twinning of schools.
There are large discrepancies between the different areas in Europe in terms of the use of information technology in education, and we must ensure that disadvantaged schools are given the incentive to dare take the plunge to Learning.
Exchanging information and best practices via the Internet platform is of key importance.
This is how schools will be able to benefit and learn from each other’s expertise.
Thirdly, the candidate countries must also explicitly be involved in the programme.
From experience, I know that there are schools that are already far advanced in the application of ICT in their education.
The Join Multimedia programme run by Siemens is a case in point.
I sit on its jury, and it is also appropriate, Commissioner, that this is linked to a European prize.
I have attended the prize-giving ceremony and I was deeply impressed with what was on offer, to which this prize gives a boost.
Finally, not only is the quantity important, but the quality should also be superior.
I hope that the private sector that has been established, with the Learning Industry Group, can make an important contribution to this.
Cooperation between the private and public sector is a necessary step towards a European dynamic knowledge economy, which is, after all, our aim.
   – Mr President, the Union’s earlier education programmes are success stories because they are programmes on a human scale.
The e-Learning programme now under discussion will hopefully extend that series of success stories.
The general aim of the programme is to improve the quality and accessibility of education and training systems by means of information and communication technologies.
I hope that teachers and learners will have a major role to play in achieving this aim.
If we succeed in this we will also be more likely to realise the programme’s aims.
The e-Learning programme is a good example of how pilot projects can claim a place in European Union policy.
Back in 2001 the European Parliament began to support the initiative to promote e-learning and now we hold in our hands a proposal for a five-year action programme.
Although we have not managed to increase the programme’s budget to the level we wanted exactly, the rapporteur, Mario Mauro, can be very pleased with the work he has done.
The main focus of the e-Learning programme will be the e-twinning of schools.
If networking between twinned schools truly gets under way, schoolchildren in different parts of the EU can get to know other pupils of the same age and learn about their everyday lives.
If it is successful in this way, the programme could reinforce the idea of EU citizenship.
E-learning offers new pedagogical models for teaching and learning.
According to a study by the European Schoolnet, the development of interschool learning environments is flourishing in Europe.
Commercial learning environments are used by just one in three users of virtual education.
It is very important that these individual endeavours are made visible and available for others to make use of.
The e-Learning programme does not give direct support to this, but hopefully in future we can also invest in the development of content.
   – The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0319/2003) by Mrs Hermange, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Commission proposal for a Council decision authorising the Member States to ratify, or accede to, in the interest of the European Community, the Convention on Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Cooperation in respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children (the 1996 Hague Convention) (COM(2003) 348 – C5-0302/2003 – 2003/0127(CNS)).
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in June 2003 Parliament adopted, by a large majority, a report by Mr Belder, in which we called for there to be no more ad hoc Parliament approval on urgent macro-financial assistance and for this no longer to be allowed.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance can only be amazed that, this morning, we did exactly the opposite in a report by the same Mr Belder.
   Mr President, I did not quite understand.
Has Mr Turmes just proposed to vote in favour of the urgent procedure or against? It was not altogether clear.
   Mr Turmes, could you please clarify this?
   Thank you, Mr Jarzembowski.
I wanted to comment briefly on your remark about transport policy being discussed in the morning for once.
My reply comes from Part Two of Goethe’s : ‘’ (‘For he whose strivings never cease is ours for his redeeming’).
   Mr Sterckx on a point of order.
To which of the Rules of Procedure does your point relate?
   – Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement.
I should like to point out that Mr Dillen’s group – his predecessors – when I proposed ...
   Mr Simpson, I should like to congratulate you on your second European act this morning.
   Madam President, I shall not get into the argument between the European Parliament and the Council about the pace at which rail transport is being liberalised, because, for everyone concerned, the objectives are the same, namely to turn Europe’s railways into a commodity providing large profits for predatory capitalist businesses such as BASF, Ikea and Connex, which is a subsidiary of Vivendi.
Far from learning the lessons of the liberalisation in Great Britain, Germany and elsewhere, the reports by Mr Jarzembowski and Mr Sterckx in fact propose only that liberalisation be speeded up and made the norm.
Not only international and national freight but also passenger traffic is from now on to be exposed to the laws of the jungle prevailing in the market.
The proposed standardisation will take place only on the basis of the lowest common denominator, to the detriment of high safety standards and in such a way as to encourage social dumping, as in the case of road transport.
This ultra-liberal position must therefore be rejected.
To adopt it would be, on a long-term basis, to turn our backs on the prospect of putting in place a European public rail transport service.
As an MEP, I shall not wait for the next disasters to be announced before joining forces at European level with rail users and railway staff to thwart these trends.
   – Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis in the realm of rail transport will not be solved by liberalisation but only by removing the obstacles to fair competition that are stacked up against the railways.
We urgently need an end to social dumping.
It is a scandal that the Italian Presidency of the Council is not putting the Markov report on its agenda.
It is a scandal that road and air carriers are still not required to foot the bill for the social costs of their respective transport operations; we need an internalising mechanism along the lines of the Swiss model.
The great demise of the railways, incidentally, is not confined to freight traffic.
Are you aware that even a privately operated passenger service such as the Thalys high-speed link between Paris and Brussels is not profitable? In fact, all European passenger lines are running at a loss today, and liberalisation will not change that.
In other words, we need less ideology and more political action; we need investments in the infrastructure, financial compensation for anti-rail dumping on the basis of the model we have in the domain of renewable sources of energy, where we subsidise losses to compensate for the fact that producers of energy from non-renewable sources do not pay for their environmental impact, and, thirdly, an end to social dumping.
   Thank you, Mrs de Palacio.
   Madam President, I wanted to say this a minute ago, during the debate, straight after Mr Dillen’s speech.
In it, he made a passionate plea for the ‘Iron Rhine’ railway connection between the port of Antwerp and the Ruhr area.
I wanted to point out that, when, a year or 18 months ago, we discussed a Commission proposal to extend the TEN projects – a proposal which did not make it through in the end, and which has now been replaced by a new one – I tabled an amendment to include the Iron Rhine as a matter of priority.
I just wanted to put on the record that Mr Dillen’s predecessors abstained on that proposal back then.
   – Thank you for that very clear presentation, Mrs Lulling, we now know what we are voting on.
   . – On the whole, I support the derogations that are being put to the vote in favour of the so-called ‘outermost regions’.
These derogations are justified on account of the endeavour to give those islands a starting position that is more comparable to the mainland, by compensating them for the inevitably higher costs of transport over long distances to the centre of the State of which they form part.
That kind of derogation does not apply in this case.
What is necessary to protect the Azores or Martinique is much less relevant in the case of Corsica, which is less remote.
Cigarettes are produced on that island and the price is kept down for local consumers and tourists.
The 32% tax is nearly half the rate applied in France, and also lower than the 57% minimum rate laid down for the EU as a whole.
This derogation is a remnant from the regime of the Emperor Napoleon I – who hailed from that island – from 1811.
Continuing this derogation until the end of 2009 is not in the interests of public health.
I certainly do not begrudge the inhabitants of Corsica, who speak a language other than French, greater autonomy and even the right of secession, but I am not willing to buy their favour by keeping the price of an unhealthy stimulant artificially low.
   Mr President, we were in the future and you, Mr President, had become honorary President of the great Pensioner’s Party, which had 30% of the vote across Europe.
You came up to me, as honorary President, linked arms with me and said: ‘Dear Mr Fatuzzo, you not only have to vote, and I advise you to vote, for Mrs de Sarnez’s report that provides for the Erasmus Mundus masters for cultural exchanges between young people, but you must also propose the foundation of the Fatuzzus Mundus senior masters – I repeat:  – so that there can be intercultural exchanges between pensioners, who would dearly love this’.
Will this remain a dream?
   In proposing 250 inter-university European Masters with a quality label (‘Erasmus Mundus Masters Courses’) and with the support of the European Union; in awarding scholarships for 4 200 postgraduate students from third countries; or, again, in offering scholarships for 1 000 scholars invited from third countries to Europe, the stakes have been set high, and the budget should be commensurate with these.
If, clearly, the budget made available for this new instrument must not in any way put a strain on the budgets for the existing programmes, it remains no less the case that the budgets initially provided for by the Commission (EUR 200 million) and by the Council (EUR 180 million) are far too niggardly to give full scope to this new instrument of exchange and cooperation within the field of higher education.
Now, the stakes are high. It is, in fact, a question not only of forging closer links between the European universities but also of boosting the competitiveness of higher education provision by making it more attractive to students and teachers in the rest of the world.
The linguistic stakes cannot be ignored. It is a question of emphasising both the importance of the EU’s linguistic diversity and the need for third-country students to know at least two EU languages.
   .
Although the European Parliament agrees with the Commission on this issue, it wants to increase the budget to EUR 230 million, compared to the Council’s proposal of just EUR 180 million.
It should be noted that this programme goes beyond the standard Erasmus scheme, since it covers Europe and the rest of the world, as well as Masters and postgraduate courses.
As we know, the underlying argument proposes to integrate European higher education systems to form a European education market, where postgraduate courses will have a particularly prominent role to play.
On the other hand, we already know from our experience of other projects, particularly the traditional Erasmus programme, that less well-off students tend to be doubly discriminated against and alienated by these schemes, which fail to reimburse all the costs.
My point is that the difficulties encountered in increasing the amount of funding for this programme prove that there is no intention of fighting such discrimination and that a set of conditions to which we object is going to be retained.
What we really need to know is not so much which universities will teach courses like these as who will be taught on them.
The amounts earmarked for scholarships and to the ‘quality of the hosting provided for students’, already mentioned here, still fall well below what is required in order to broaden the social base from which Erasmus students and teachers are drawn.
That gives us cause for regret.
   I was in Paris Mr President.
A night at the a cabaret, dance, topless dancers, with feathers as appropriate.
Fantastic!
There, in the middle of these hundred dancers, the only male dancer appeared.
I looked at him: it was Mr Mauro, who was dancing with the gracefulness of Fred Astaire and was singing with the voice of Frank Sinatra.
Then, at one point, the music stopped and Mr Mauro, dancer at the turned to me and said: ‘e-twinning of universities: that is what my document will achieve.’
Could I vote against this report, Mr President, after Mr Mauro’s exploit?
   I was on holiday, bathing at the seaside.
On the beach, I saw Mr Maaten, tanned, a great swimmer and a surfer, but still an MEP and a politician.
At one point, in fact, he held a meeting, giving a speech to retired swimmers who had rushed in their numbers to hear him.
He spoke about his directive, he said that he wanted clean waters, and everyone was listening to him.
I, however, saw that he was glancing towards the sea where there were some beautiful bathers, buxom like the lifeguards in Baywatch, and his eyes were constantly following them.
Then, I had a doubt: was he not calling for clearer and more transparent waters so that he would be better able to see the beauties that swim in these waters? The suspicion persisted, but still I had to vote for the motion.
   Water quality is an important environmental issue, and it was therefore important and commendable that the EU should have adopted a framework directive on water, 2000/60/EC.
The framework directive establishes the general framework for protecting all types of water (water in rivers and lakes, together with coastal and groundwater).
It is not, however, important that the EU should have a directive regulating the quality of bathing water.
That is an example of the EU’s being unnecessarily detailed in regulating matters that are not even cross-border in nature.
We would instead emphasise the autonomy of local authorities and the Member States in this area.
   . – Many in this Parliament believe that the EU should concern itself less with the protection of health at the workplace or with environmental pollution.
That became clear earlier, in the course of the voting on my proposals regarding substances harmful to health, such as asbestos and solvents in paint.
EU involvement is limited to exerting pressure for a reduction in the costs of health care, and to implementing the Stability and Growth Pact that is to support the value of the euro.
Only when I pressed for far-reaching measures to counter the advance of the new disease SARS was there short-lived support for a more active policy.
Today, we are talking about the quality of bathing water, which, at first glance, is the kind of thing that would only be a matter for municipalities and provinces.
Now that many people are bathing and swimming in lakes and seas far from home, however, there is good cause to introduce international safety standards.
It is notable that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is proposing to reject the report on this by the ELDR rapporteur, and thus also, of course, the Directive aimed at protecting the quality of the environment and human health against chemical and microbiological contamination.
In addition, more amendments aimed at lowering the standards for contamination are being kept in reserve in case that fails.
I have recommended that my group cast a ‘yes’ vote after these attempts at dilution have been rejected.
   Mr President, I could not fail to vote in favour of this important report by Mr Lange on reducing emissions of gaseous pollutants.
It is excellent, I had to vote in favour of it, but I have seen that, after the incident which took place in Parliament with Mr Schulz, the President-in-Office of the Council – Mr Berlusconi – does not miss an opportunity to listen to all the Members who speak in this House.
After listening to and watching Mr Lange, Mr Berlusconi declared that he had prepared a film in which he saw him as the protagonist.
Mr Lange was, however, luckier than Mr Schulz, because the film was a remake of ‘Gone with the Wind’, because of the resemblance between Mr Lange and Clark Gable.
Oh, how I envied and I continue to envy Mr Lange who is to be part of this film, a remake of ‘Gone with the Wind’, as the new romantic Clark Gable!
Could I vote against it, Mr President?
   I am sure that Mr Lange will be delighted to know that he looks like Clark Gable.
That concludes the explanations of vote.(1)
(2)
   Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, changes, or new features, have clearly been added to the European budget for 2004: it has been described as a budget for a Europe of twenty-five, with a new nomenclature, based on activities, objectives and targets.
This does not necessarily make the budget easier reading when, for example, we have 215 activities instead of the distinction previously made between administrative and operational expenditure.
Furthermore, we will soon also have the new feature that the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure will be removed and, one of these days, we will see the budgetisation of the European Development Fund (EDF).
When that day comes, however, will we in this House still be able to complete a discussion on the matter in two hours as well as take a vote on EUR 100 billion’s worth of spending?
There is, therefore, a deficit in budgetary democracy, ample proof of which is the fact that this Chamber is completely empty!
There are also other budgetary deficits, first of all in the reliability of the forecasts.
There are the figures for outstanding commitments: between EUR 6 billion and EUR 8 billion of unused appropriations each year, and this is a problem, especially when, on top of this, we do not have enough money to give to beekeepers, sheep farmers, fishermen, and so on.
There is also a deficit in budgetary justice: year after year – this is a truism – Europe has its winners and its losers and they are always the same people!
The Spain of Mr Aznar, who preaches to the whole world about budgetary balance, receives royalties worth EUR eight billion every year and without this income Spain would enjoy no budgetary balance at all.
At the same time, other countries that form a majority, pay up – France and Germany, for example.
In France, we lose between EUR 2 and EUR 4 billion every year, which is the equivalent of one TGV line every year!
Something is clearly wrong!
There is also a deficit in the hierarchy of budgetary priorities: it is all well and good to earmark EUR 200 million for the reconstruction of Iraq, to give another EUR 200 million to Afghanistan, and EUR 240 million to Turkey to cover pre-accession costs, but should these really be priorities when the whole of Europe has only EUR 600 million in 2004, with which it can build the equivalent of a few kilometres of TGV line?
Should we be spending EUR 640 million on Afghanistan, Turkey and Iraq – which nobody forced us to destroy – when we cannot even build high-speed rail links or major transport networks?
The budget contains a perversion of solidarity, which in turn reveals a fourth deficit; a deficit of coherence.
This is a Europe that, at Lisbon, stated its desire to be the number one world power in the field of knowledge, which Nikita Khrushchev wanted for his country as long ago as 1960, in order to beat the United States.
This is a Europe of Erasmus Mundus, which wants to be a global university, a Europe of major works Pericles, a Europe of universal external policy, a Shiva with one thousand arms, in Cotonou or Mercosur, in Asia, in South Africa, ‘everything but arms’, for the poor and even for the rich.
And yet, this Europe of global dimensions has a truly provincial budget of EUR 100 billion, in other words, one per cent of its GDP, and this percentage is not increasing.
Given the contradiction between these global ambitions and this laughable budget, the question is raised as to where the truth about Europe lies.
The answer is to be found in the budgets: year after year, Europe churns out impressive-sounding speeches which, in reality, fall considerably short of what is needed.
   – Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, there are just a couple of points arising from the Budget for 2004 that I would like to single out.
I would like to ask the Commission whether it really thinks it makes sense, now, at the beginning of the new year, to cease to provide funding for the Euro Info Centres, the Carrefours, or, indeed, town twinning.
I find myself wondering even now whether the Commission really thinks it has such a good image in the eyes of Europe’s people that it can afford to do without the few who are working for Europe in these areas.
I really am slowly coming to wonder about that.
The fact is that we, not only in our capacities as MEPs, never stop trying to advance these things and to motivate them, yet the Commission does nothing about making immediate arrangements for the funding of these bodies to be continued.
This, I think, is where it should do something as soon as possible to enable us to fund – let me say it again – the Euro Info Centres, the network of Carrefours, and also town twinning arrangements.
If you no longer have the people on your side, you will soon be very alone, and the Commission will find that far from pleasant.
Let me take up another issue, that of the agencies.
We in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats proposed that 10% be put in reserve for these, and thank God that was accepted.
This is about making it possible for the agencies to be monitored.
We have seen all this happening before in many other areas.
We will see to it that adequate controls are ensured in the agencies in the future.
Let me add something political. Up to now, I have assumed that category 3 exists to fund internal policies.
There are already over ten agencies in this area, and I really am slowly losing the desire to fund more and more administration using the parts of the Budget that are actually meant to be for political activities.
This category is for funding policies rather than red tape, and that should be set out clearly.
There is only one thing I would wish to add to the great deal that Mr Elles had to say on the subject of Iraq.
It is that those of our fellow-Members from other groups who are already calling for a supplementary budget should be honest enough to vote in favour of our amendment and thus enable us to have sufficient funds available for the whole of 2004 and not have to ask for additional funds in six months’ time.
I do believe that a true and transparent budget involves it being specified at the beginning of each year just how much money is available.
For my final point, I would like to address myself to the Council. Last November, we expended a great deal of effort, between first and second reading, on negotiations towards extending Parliament’s right to be consulted on the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
I am disappointed by the way that three Council Presidencies have told us that this resolution would, at last, be activated if we were to give EUR 10 million for the Police Mission.
Let me make it perfectly plain that what this boils down to is that either we agree to something, or the negotiations are stalled.
It really is a pretty poor state of affairs if the Council thinks it can wrest something from us by making promises in respect of something that has already been agreed.
I would also like to point out that our group has always called for funding for this Police Mission.
I do not actually have the time to thank the rapporteurs, which is what I wanted to do, but I will do it all the same.
Thank you very much!
   – Madam President, first of all, I, too, should like to thank Mr Mulder for the work he has done with such great balance and commitment that it has achieved a substantial consensus within the Committee on Budgets.
The 2004 budget is very much a continuation of the 2003 structure.
The main objective for next year is to provide sufficient funds and a sufficiently well-structured system to cope with not only the challenge of enlargement but also the new responsibilities that an enlarged Europe will have to take on on the world stage.
I should like to focus on just a few points, because many things have already been said.
I would mention, in particular, the support that Parliament is reserving for the reconstruction effort in Iraq, especially after the recent UN vote; the confirmation of its commitment to Afghanistan and the reaffirmation that ongoing programmes must be supported and maintained, despite the current difficulties; and the principle whereby aid to developing countries should be precisely targeted, especially in the case of priority objectives such as combating poverty.
I therefore feel it is essential to ensure that the Tacis, LRRD and MEDA programmes are preserved, and I see a need for a new instrument to update the policy of proximity and to put it into practice.
Lastly, I would mention the protection and promotion of children, especially those who are victims of wars and natural disasters.
Finally, I should also like to thank the Commission, which has, once again, been extremely open to working with the Committee on Budgets, and I hope that, by next year, we will have succeeded in this challenge.
   – Madam President, Commissioner, members of the Council Presidency, ladies and gentlemen, the Budget resolutions are about setting down in figures the policy that one wants to implement; it is about turning one’s own political priorities into a proper structure of figures that will stand up.
This year, my group, that of the Party of European Socialists, has again been successful in playing its part in this.
We agreed, early on in the year 2000, that we would make Europe into the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economic area in the world, with qualified full employment and greater social cohesion.
This, the Lisbon objective, is our guiding star, and we must not lose sight of it even when we are fighting over the many minor lines in the Budget.
It is precisely there, among these rather minor lines, that we find expenditure on our action plans, ‘Europe 2002’ and its offshoot, ‘Europe 2005’, which are meant to prevent regions and people from being left behind by the headlong developments in our information society.
In this regard, it is also important that we should have sufficient funds available to be able to promptly and effectively integrate the new information and communications technologies into Europe’s education and training systems.
Not only does Learning, a multiannual programme, work towards social cohesion and towards bridging the digital divide, but it also improves opportunities for lifelong learning and enhances the European dimension in education, and that is something we need.
We need people to be innovative and mobile, people who are capable of putting the new technologies to work in innovative production processes.
Innovation creates new jobs, most frequently in small and medium-sized enterprises, support for which needs to be further stepped up.
We know that small and medium-sized enterprises employ over half the EU’s workers, that they produce something like half the total turnover in the European Union, and that they are innovative and geared towards growth.
All this adds up to sufficient reason for a Social Democrat like myself to keep harping on about the importance of support for SMEs, whether this be by implementing the lines for action from the Charter for Small Enterprises, by helping SMEs to put new technologies to good use, or by improving their financial environment.
In all this, we have to pay particular attention to the very small firms, the micro-enterprises, even though the Commission is proving to be a bit clumsy about this.
The fact is that they make up the majority of our businesses.
Our average SME employs five people. From this moment on, we need to make greater efforts towards achieving the targets we set ourselves in Lisbon, indeed much greater efforts in view of our having twenty-five, rather than only fifteen, Member States, from May next year.
   – Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I will begin, of course, by congratulating our rapporteurs, Mrs Gill and Mr Mulder.
What I would like to say to you is this: we have on the table the last budget to be adopted in this Parliamentary term, and our minds are turning more and more towards the multiannual financial framework which will guide our budgetary policy in the medium and long term.
The Commission is discussing the foundations of that framework, and Parliament will have to deliver its opinion on it.
The report ordered on this issue by President Prodi gives us some cause for concern, as, of course, does the crucial question of economic and social cohesion.
The overriding feature of the budget of any federal state – which is increasingly what we want our budget to be – must be its redistributive function.
In a democratic, politically coherent and socially responsible Europe, such redistribution can only be achieved if economic and social cohesion is the central aim.
That, moreover, is the case in those Member States which have a more federal structure, such as Germany.
The Sapir report is based on the premise that there is a conflict between cohesion and growth.
To us, that premise seems ideologically motivated and unsound.
Good cohesion policies are, by their nature, good economic growth policies, just as bad cohesion policies are also, by their nature, bad economic growth policies.
What is worrying about the way the Community budget works at present is precisely that budgetary redistribution sometimes redounds to the benefit of more central countries or regions, and even large companies or multinationals.
That tendency can be seen in product sale subsidies and export refunds.
These are the areas which should be reviewed more thoroughly; these are the mechanisms and distortions which the next financial framework must tackle, and which must continue to act as the ultimate guiding principle of the Community budget.
   Madam President, I would also like to offer the rapporteurs my heartfelt thanks and with regard to social policy I would say that a number of problems do still remain.
I am pleased that Mr Mulder’s programme for small and medium-sized businesses in Central and Eastern Europe can also be used for health and safety.
I hope that he will confirm this, because otherwise the value of the programme is less than I had thought.
I believe that fortunately this is not the case.
So much for my first point.
My second point is that of the celebrated 500 million.
I have EUR 10 here in my hand and perhaps I can give them to the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Then they can offer them to the Conference in Madrid, they are just as much a pittance as the 200 million that they are willing to give at the moment.
It is of course very bad that we say to a country that is in such difficulty, a country that in theory could be one of the richest countries in the world and that perhaps one day will be again, that we say to it: ‘No, we can give you 200 million,’ – although money is always given back by the European Commission at the end of the year – ‘More is out of the question and anyone who asks for more is behaving irresponsibly.’
Then it seems we are concerned with bookkeeping and not really with the resolution of problems.
Sure enough, we can also put up EUR 10, then we are being even more responsible and then perhaps everything will be fine.
However, I believe that we are then failing in our duty, that we are then acting as bookkeepers and not as politicians.
However, we are meeting here in this Chamber as politicians and therefore we must also talk about the actual problems.
It may of course be that there is some other reason, but we must be prepared to reveal what it is.
I would very much like to hear what it is.
   Madam President, unfortunately, I could not resolve the problems of the Structural Funds with EUR 10.
However, in all events, I must say, Commissioner, to start with this issue, that we in the Committee on Regional Policy and Transport consider that the Committee on Budgets has moved in the right direction as regards category II, the budget for the Structural Funds, by basically replacing the amounts set out in the preliminary draft budget and sometimes going higher.
This was also our position when we gave our opinion on the budget and consequently there is no need for me to refer to this further.
As far as transport is concerned, while I welcome the fact that the amounts in the preliminary draft budget for transport safety have been replaced – and for us the question of transport safety is a matter of absolute priority – I wish to say that we disagree with Amendment No 553 by the Committee on Budgets, which refers to the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
Here, in an effort to limit appropriations horizontally as far as personnel are concerned, I think that problems are being created for the ‘take-off’ of this agency, which needs to operate efficiently and quickly at European level, so that there is one contact for these issues with the Federal Aviation Administration (FΑΑ) in the United States.
I think that the Committee on Budgets has gone further than it should have done on this specific issue.
One last comment on the trans-European networks.
We welcome the fact that the levels of the preliminary draft budget have been increased by 5 million for commitment appropriations and 52 million for payment appropriations.
We would like to hope that these sums will be taken up.
We would also like to believe that the Member States will honour the undertakings they have made, including recently at the last European Council in Brussels, to make the question of the European networks an absolute priority.
   Madam President, I would also like to begin by complimenting the rapporteur, Mr Mulder, on the way in which we in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development have been able to work with him.
We are not satisfied in every regard, but we have made good progress.
We have a clear message for the Council. Because the interim reform of agriculture policy has very far-reaching consequences for the European countryside.
Now that this reform is a fact it seems as if the Council, witness its draft budget, does not understand what the said reform actually means for farmers and country people in the European Union.
What is being asked is that the countryside and agriculture be more market-driven and that more countryside policy lead to more dynamism in the countryside.
If the European countryside wants to survive this reform, then it is advisable to use the money available more appropriately.
After all, to give just one example, the average European dairy farmer alone gives up some EUR 6 000 in income per year.
In my own country it is double that: EUR 12 000.
Nor will the enlargement of the European Union have its intended effect.
A new, longer external border makes the risks of epidemic animal diseases such as foot and mouth, swine fever and fowl pest greater.
Add to this that the food safety, animal welfare and the environmental requirements in the European Union for the producer are the highest in the world, then we must have all hands on deck to structure the 2004 budget so that allowance is made for both the consumer and the farmer.
Given the high ambition level of the European Union, a small consumer supplement on a number of products, such as milk and meat, would for that matter be very easy to defend.
Madam President, as rapporteur for the agriculture budget I have on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development submitted the following change proposals for the treatment of this first reading.
To begin with we would like to see more money being set aside for the LEADER programme.
The same goes for the SAPAR programme, extremely important for our new Member States.
We would also appreciate the introduction of a new budget line for the LEADER EAST programme.
In addition, we want EUR 23 million extra for control and prevention.
We would also like to see EUR 6 million extra for promotion payments by the Member States, in particular to give the market-driven policy more substance.
In addition, EUR 1 million extra for promotion payments by the EU.
With regard to the information supply for the amended agriculture policy, we would like to see 3 million extra being set aside.
And in the area of animal diseases in particular we would like EUR 12 million extra to be set aside for veterinary measures and animal welfare and public health measures.
We would also like EUR 18 million extra to be set aside for the animal diseases emergency fund.
   Madam President, when the previous budget debate was held in plenary at the end of September, I expressed concern about the reports on the irregularities at Eurostat.
The Commission has since presented reports on the activities, but it is, however, unfortunate that these do not make clear what has happened and who is responsible.
It is essential, in this connection, to emphasise the important role played by Eurostat in monetary union.
The European Central Bank depends upon reliable statistics in order to be able to take its decisions on monetary policy.
It is therefore extremely important for the irregularities to be investigated without delay and for correct procedural routines to be devised, so ensuring that Eurostat’s activities are focused upon producing statistics.
I also believe it is time we began to conduct a more general debate on how the EU budget is really used.
I should like to draw attention to some of the recommendations presented in what is known as the Sapir report, which observes very correctly that the EU budget is out-of-date.
Expenditure, income and procedures are incompatible with the present and future situation.
The report proposes, among other things, that the costs of agricultural and regional policy must be considerably reduced and that funds must be set aside from the budget in cases where they can create basic conditions for employment and growth.
Everyone seems to agree about the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises for economic growth.
Action should also be taken to benefit such enterprises.
In the future enlarged EU, it will be necessary drastically to cut back on agricultural aid, to reform structural funds and to create room for growth through private enterprise.
Both the issue of Eurostat and that of how the EU budget is to look in the future are about credibility.
If people are to have confidence in the EU, it is of fundamental importance that their money should be neither misappropriated nor squandered, but used in a sensible way that benefits people and development in the EU.
   Madam President, I too would like to add my thanks to Mr Mulder for the way he has carried out his work as budget rapporteur this year.
I will be supporting the budget proposals for 2004, but with a certain amount of reluctance, and I will certainly be supporting amendments to them.
In particular, I commend the amendments proposed by the Committee on Culture and ask Parliament to think of those organisations such as the youth parliaments and the Youth Orchestra, which do wonderful work for young people but need their funds to be paid in a prompt and efficient manner, something which is not always the case.
I would particularly commend the remarks by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, and the Commission must get the legal base in order so that those funds can be paid next year promptly and on time.
I think I am the last speaker from Parliament before the rapporteur and the Commission and I just want to make three fundamental points.
The level of the European Union budget, at just over 1% of Europe's GDP, is about right.
When I started my political life an elderly gentleman said to me 'always remember that when you put your hand up to vote for expenditure, you are actually putting it down into my pocket'.
One penny in the pound is acceptable, one cent in the euro, but no more.
Secondly, the Commission must get its accounts in order.
All the good work done by European Union programmes is totally destroyed by these regular accounting problems.
Is there not a single Commissioner prepared to accept responsibility for this and do the decent thing? All the while they do not do so, the European Union is the loser.
Finally, we must have proper democratic control.
Last year, for instance, the budgetary authority voted EUR 3 million for Euronews.
I heard only yesterday that to this day not a single cent of that money has been given to Euronews, which is one of the best ways for citizens in the European Union to find out about European affairs.
I fear that the Commission could not care less whether Euronews fails.
Worse than that, it is ignoring the budgetary authority, which it should do its best to respect.
   – Mr Rübig, I take note of your comment but, as you know, all Members who have spoken were entitled to do so because they had put their names down to speak or because their groups had put their names down.
   . Madam President, I would like to thank everyone who has taken part in this debate and I thank you all for the encouraging words and sometimes also for the disapproving words.
That is part and parcel of normal debate.
It will be clear to you that I cannot respond to everyone.
I would like to touch upon the main points.
I am in any event pleased with the comments of Mrs Schreyer, who says that in comparison with previous years the budget on which we are about to vote is one that shows the smallest increase in comparison with the proposals of the Council and the Commission.
I very much appreciate her remarks about the acceptance by the Commission of initiatives with regard to agriculture.
This I find a good thing.
Once again I hope that the Council too will adopt them, but to be on the safe side this Parliament has amended all the preparatory actions and all the pilot projects in both category I and category III should the Council reject the actions in category I. I can only recommend: try to finance it from category I. The margin is greater here than in category III.
Mr Garriga and Mrs Dührkop have expressed their concern about the progress of the codecision procedure on the A 30 lines, etc.
I share this concern.
I hope that come the end of the year we do not find ourselves in a situation in which we have serious difficulties about how to continue funding these projects. I think that it is of the utmost importance for the reputation of the European Union in general and in the interest of everything that we fund that these programmes continue.
Nor do I think that we should make legislation in haste. It seems to me that the Commission would be wise to reflect as soon as possible on the possibility of a transitional period, so that we can in any event continue with the funding of those projects that we have funded in the past.
As regards the issues touched upon by various speakers, I would wish, as rapporteur, to adhere to the maintenance of the financial perspectives as they have been agreed.
I can only express the hope that when we vote, certainly where category 1B is concerned, we do not exceed these financial perspectives.
I do of course agree with Terry Wynn, who says that this is only the first reading.
Nonetheless, I think that even in the first reading we must adhere to this principle as far as possible.
Mr Dover, he is no longer in the Chamber, expressed doubts about the need for the many languages in the European Union.
This is a recurring theme in many speeches.
I think that we must simply comply with the Treaty.
Mr Terry Wynn has, I think, given an excellent account of the problem, both as regards category 1B, about which I have already spoken, and as regards the Iraq question.
I think that we must simply await the result of the vote and decide what we are going to have to do on the basis of it.
Mr Ferber and many others also spoke about the importance of the info points, I have already talked about them myself.
In this matter too I think that the Commission must come up with proposals quickly, so that we do not cause these info points any irreparable damage, because they are highly regarded by the European public.
Even with new financial regulations we need to take measures so that we can continue with them.
As for Mr Kuckelkorn, so far I have been pleased with the satisfactory level of cooperation with regard to the agencies.
I hope that this remains so in the future too.
Two points about these agencies, on which a decision will probably be made on Thursday: putting 10% in the reserve and talking about the organisational charts of the agencies.
I hope that everything can be worked out in close cooperation with both him and the agencies, so that we can resolve this whole issue before the second reading.
There is no intention to make unnecessary difficulties, but a Parliament does need to exercise its democratic powers properly.
Mr Bartho Pronk, he is no longer in the Chamber, but I can confirm that the guarantee funds for small and medium-sized businesses will also apply to those small and medium-sized businesses that are concerned with health and safety at work.
There is nothing to prevent this.
Finally, Mr Goodwill, who was wondering about us giving the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen extra duties without making new resources available to it.
There has been close consultation with the agency and it feels that it would be able to perform these extra duties within the draft budget handed over by us.
So if they themselves say that, then who am I to give them extra money? That is why I have come to this viewpoint.
I am hoping for continuing good cooperation with each and every one of you and once again can I express my thanks to everyone who has contributed to this debate.
   . Madam President, Commissioner, fellow Members, support for Iraq? 160 million, 200, even 500 million are being mentioned as if they were nothing.
Whatever it ends up being, I want to make it very clear here that the funds for development aid must not be drawn on for this!
Combating poverty is the main aim of European development cooperation, this is what the money must be used for.
In my opinion the reserve and the flexibility instrument are the proper sources for the European contribution to Iraq.
As rapporteur I have made out the case for the modification of the nomenclature of the budget lines for development cooperation with Asia and Latin America.
The majority of the people living below the poverty line of 1 dollar still live in these two regions.
These budget lines must come under development cooperation and not under external relations.
It is a matter of activity-based budgeting here and not of the internal structure of the Commission as a basis for the breakdown of the budget.
Another point is the know-how in the EU delegations.
If the level can be boosted here through training and extra investments, not only will we achieve the target figure of 35% for the social infrastructure in developing countries, but we can also ensure that at least 20% of this can be spent on primary education and health care.
   Mr President, Commissioner erheugen, I would like to mention that the Bulgarian authorities have in the meantime apologised to me, as I myself experienced this with my German passport.
I would now like to put aside this question because I believe that you will continue to work in this area and that this problem will be resolved, if at all possible, before 2007.
   Commissioner, I am of course sorry that we do not have more specific details to show us the extent and gravity of the problem.
Allow me, therefore, to tell you that the turnover from the electronic trade in pharmaceutical products exceeds EUR 5 billion, while we do not know who is selling the pharmaceutical products.
Inquiries conducted into the matter have shown that they are people engaged in criminal activities.
Similarly, we do not know the place of origin of the pharmaceutical products, because they often do not come from places such as the USA or Canada, but from India or Brazil, with the result that the composition and content of the pharmaceutical product are very harmful and bear no relation to the indications. There is also a circuit of counterfeit, fictitious medical opinions, which result in a threat to the life of the person accepting the pharmaceutical product.
This too has been observed in Great Britain.
Unfortunately, in 2003 alone, more than 600 British subjects purchased pharmaceutical products over the Internet.
Do we really have to allow this advertising, especially when it concerns young ages? The pharmaceutical products which have the greatest market penetration via the Internet are for the overweight.
So they concern very young ages.
I think that, irrespective of national legislation, we absolutely must take steps at Community level also.
The Commission will be aware that in 2001, the European Parliament voted for a maximum overall limit of eight hours or 500 km to be placed on the transport of animals to slaughter or further fattening.
The Commission's Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare concluded that ‘welfare tends to become poorer as journey length increases … hence journeys should be as short as possible’.
In light of the above, will the Commission, despite not having included a maximum overall journey limit in its proposed Regulation, now support such a limit if Parliament again calls for a maximum overall limit when adopting its Opinion on the proposed Regulation?
   In considering this legislation, would you bear in mind that a certain flexibility is certainly desirable? For example, if you have a rigid nine hours or eight hours with rest periods thereafter, you may be within sight of the ultimate destination.
In such cases, it is certainly better to allow an hour or two extra driving rather than a 12-hour rest period followed by a further one or two hours' driving.
I appeal to you to consider a certain flexibility in the application of any legislation related to animal transport.
In June 2001, on an initiative by Sweden, the Member States' Health Ministers decided to call on the Commission to draw up a Community strategy to reduce the harmful effects of alcohol.
At the present time, we are witnessing increasing regular consumption of alcohol and an increasing amount of 'binge-drinking' among young people in certain Member States.
The links between starting young and heavy alcohol consumption, drug abuse and crime are an established fact.
Alcohol-related problems are also severe in several of the accession countries.
What progress has the Commission made in drafting a global Community strategy to reduce alcohol-related damage and in setting a timetable for the various measures?
   Commissioner, thank you for that response.
As I am sure you know, this is an issue of great concern to a lot of people across the European Union, and they will want to know that we are tackling it with a great degree of urgency.
I would like to bring to your attention Council Directive 98/58/EC – the general farm animal welfare directive – which states that 'no animal shall be provided with food or liquid in a manner (...) which may cause unnecessary suffering or injury'.
Given that the mechanical force-feeding of ducks and geese does exactly that, will the Commission please state whether it is satisfied with the application of Directive 98/58/EC in France and Belgium in particular?
Directive 98/58/EC also allows for Community measures to ensure the uniform application of Council of Europe recommendations.
Given that Germany and Denmark, together with Poland, have already prohibited force-feeding, will the Commission now come forward and propose an outright ban on so as to harmonise EU legislation in this area?
   Thank you very much for your cooperation with Parliament this afternoon, Mr Byrne.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 42, 43 and 44 will be replied to in writing.
We will move on to questions to Mr Bolkestein.
In their report to the Commission, Commissioners Bolkestein and Patten state that the US has failed to provide them with sufficient guarantees regarding the protection of the personal data requested by the US authorities on passengers travelling to the US with European airlines.
The interim decision of 5 March 2003 nevertheless remains in force, under which European airlines are permitted to transfer personal data on their passengers to the US authorities.
When will the Commission lift the interim decision of 5 March 2003, given that it is clearly in breach of Community legislation on the protection of citizens' personal data?
According to national legal practice in some Member States it is illegal to relabel parallel-imported pharmaceuticals so that they bear the name used by the trademark holder in the importing country, if the pharmaceutical concerned can be sold in the importing country under the same name as it was marketed under in the exporting country.
This rule applies regardless of whether the parallel importer can show that, when the product is not renamed, the importer is deprived of 25% of the market owing to rules on the substitution of pharmaceuticals and doctors' prescription habits.
In the Commission's view, is it consistent with the provisions of the Treaty on the free movement of goods and with Court of Justice case law concerning parallel imports of pharmaceuticals for national courts to justify their ruling that the above practice is illegal on the grounds, for example, that the lack of access to the market is solely a commercial obstacle which importers must seek to overcome by means of (in principle unrestricted) marketing which targets prescribing doctors (despite the fact that parallel importers do not have access to Drug Master Files or equivalent scientific/technical data, and regardless of whether the price of the pharmaceutical is regulated by rules on the dispensing of medicines)?
   . If Mrs Riis-Jørgensen has more specific details concerning any particular case that has come to her attention, the Commission would very much like to learn of it and will follow it up in the light of the case-law of the courts with the appropriate action.
The Commission will be grateful to Mrs Riis-Jørgensen for bringing those circumstances to its notice.
   – Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Bolkestein for his clear response.
I am also pleased with the reply he has given, namely that the Commission has declared Spain to be in default by reason of inadequate compliance with the directive on government spending.
This is of such importance because this is not the first problem in the case of the Spanish Hydrological Plan, the and it will not be the last.
The fact is that this plan is enormous and requires a great deal of government funds, also government funds from the Commission, for which an application has been submitted but which, fortunately, has not yet been granted.
I should like to urge the Commissioner to continue to act with the severity he has shown in this specific case, because it is important, in my view, for Spain to realise that it must comply with European legislation in every particular, not only as regards environmental impact assessments, but also where government tendering is concerned, particularly in this case.
   . The Commission is of the opinion that training programmes are important and is therefore most attentive to what Parliament decides and wishes to do in that area.
Whether the training programmes as such will be part of the proposal to be finalised around the summer of next year, I do not know.
After all, the training programme is one thing and the directive is something else.
But certainly the Commission is more than willing to cooperate by giving Mr Rübig the benefit of its experience in carrying out training activities and if he would care to send a letter me along those lines, then I shall be at pains to see to it that the matter is dealt with in an adequate fashion.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0346/2003) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles (COM(2002) 244 – C5-0269/2002 – 2002/0124(COD)).
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in actual fact, I am taking the floor as chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market to acknowledge the work done by the vice-chairman, Mr Rothley.
This proposal for a directive has been developed with great tenacity and intelligence by Mr Rothley, and I want to give him credit for it here.
We are particularly grateful to him because this directive has come about as a result of Article 192, for which I have a particular fondness, as it is an indirect legislative initiative which gives Parliament a leading role and which also confirms the right of initiative of Parliament and its Members.
In such a sensitive industry, this leads to more effective European citizenship because, as Mr Rothley has said, it makes it easier to take out a short-term policy for a temporary stay in another Member State and to get short-term insurance for a vehicle purchased outside the owner’s Member State of residence.
As a result, it will be simpler to purchase a car in any country in the Union where the best terms are available.
I think this will be of interest to a great many European citizens, because of that single insurance market that Mr Bolkestein was talking about and which is thus established, and it will be a valuable and useful development for the European Community as a whole.
The most sensitive part of the report – it has already been underlined, but I should like to reiterate it – concerns the higher levels of cover laid down by the Member States.
The Commission had set a sum of EUR 1 million per victim in cases of personal injury and EUR 500 000 per accident for damage to property.
We believe EUR 5 million per accident for personal injury and EUR 2 million for property damage would be more appropriate and flexible and could be a compromise position.
I must formally give Mr Rothley the credit for this compromise, because he has taken into account the various situations that exist in the insurance market, once again with a view to achieving a single insurance market.
He has also addressed the issue of legal costs.
It was not appropriate at this stage, however, to extend insurance cover to injuries sustained by pedestrians and cyclists as a result of accidents in which they were involved, because this is an even more sensitive area and I think it may need to be regulated by a specific measure.
If, as Mr Bolkestein has recognised, Parliament and the Commission have worked well and usefully together, I hope that the Council and the Commission will take our amendments to heart and that such an important directive as this will be able to help to bring the citizens of Europe closer together in common citizenship.
I very much hope this will happen, because the compromise that has been reached is an excellent balance, which I hope the Commission will take into account.
   Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your clarification and thank you, Mr Rothley, for this proposal with which you have made another contribution to the further completion of the internal market.
We know it is a slow, but steady process.
Even if it takes twenty years before the fourth directive is followed by a fifth one, we will get there in the end.
I have confidence in this.
You, Commissioner, are well on your way to achieving it, and I hope that eventually, we will reach this optimal position.
Insurance law is also complex in this case.
I myself am a personal injury lawyer and have myself sustained personal injury in the past.
This has probably given me the opportunity of working here.
It is of extreme importance for this legislation to be transportable to your country of residence, because as the injured party, you often face a great many problems with the various legal systems.
So, as far as that is concerned, I am very pleased with the proposal as it is now before us.
I think that the insurance companies are also delighted with a further harmonisation, which affords them, too, more clarity.
We set up a green card system some time ago, and this takes it further within the EU.
The minimum amounts proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market struck me as being very high, because these rarely come into play in practice, if at all.
I am therefore actually more pleased with Mr Rothley’s compromise proposals, for they are more geared towards the market as it is in reality.
The amounts should not be too high either, because, I believe, enforceability would then become an issue.
Nobody benefits from legislation that is not enforceable.
I would like to state once again, therefore, that this proposal is closer to reality than the extremely high amounts initially formulated.
Then again, the Commission’s proposals are a little on the low side, and I think that what Mr Rothley has proposed is ideal.
We Liberals can give our warm support to this proposal.
On a different note, in an amendment, I had requested more harmonisation in the discussion of personal injury, in terms of the level of invalidity or the level of the value of the injury.
I gather from Mr Rothley that a follow-up report on this is already in the making.
I think that we are making another contribution to the internal market’s completion, for which I am grateful.
It will receive my unqualified support.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0334/2003) by Mrs Smet, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on violations of women's rights and the EU's international relations (2002/2286(INI)).
   Mr President, I too wish to thank Mrs Smet for a very solid piece of work.
What is nice about our committee – the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities – is that we can often agree from right to left.
I agree with a lot of what previous speakers have said.
I nonetheless wish to point out to Mrs Dybkjær that the view that the European Union should become a very strong military power is not shared by everyone present in this Assembly.
That is not, however, something that we should debate here and now.
It was interesting to hear you, Commissioner Patten, say that, as long as 20 years ago, you appreciated the need to promote women’s rights as universal human rights.
The problem is that not everyone in your position – or in lower positions, for that matter – has arrived at that insight.
That is partly why we are standing here today with a report such as this to discuss.
Mrs Smet also addresses the internal criticism in our Member States, which makes its presence felt indirectly.
Mrs Valenciano Martínez-Orozco talked a lot about the asylum procedure.
I could also talk for hours about the way in which, above all, the deportation of asylum seekers – when they have had their requests rejected and are to be kicked out of our Member States – contravenes everything that goes under the name of the dignified treatment of human beings.
I should like to hear more about the subject addressed by Mrs Smet in paragraph 17 concerning women’s participation in the agreement process.
We have recently had experience of this in our committee, both where Afghan and Iraqi women are concerned.
Almost nothing at all has been done about their participation, in spite of the fact that we have all said it is an important matter.
I should also very much like to hear Commissioner Patten’s comments on paragraph 19, to the effect that the Commission should address these issues in all the relevant forums, such as G8 meetings and WTO rounds.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0286/2003) by Mr Pitella, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the Structural Funds: trend in outstanding commitments and requirements for 2004 (2002/2272(INI)).
   – Mr President, despite Commissioner Barnier’s undoubted competence, it is undeniable that one of the most intriguing features of European politics is the persistence of a significant level of under-execution of the Structural Funds, as measured by the execution rate for payment appropriations.
This becomes stranger still in view of the fact that the first objective of structural policy is the sustainable development of the Union.
It is quite true that the persistence of high and rising levels of outstanding financial commitments does not necessarily mean that none of the final objectives of cohesion policy can ever be reached.
In any case, those objectives must be reached – and fast – so that the lion’s share, at least, of the outstanding commitments does not become lost through the bureaucracy of the institutions or through the political and administrative incompetence of the governments of the Member States.
Moreover, the blame can and should be shared by the two decision-making tiers.
That is a logical consequence of the disparities in the breakdown of executions between the countries of the Union, and between the different Structural Funds.
Rendering regional policy and Structural Fund management more effective, therefore, depends on the right choices being made at national level, but it also stems from regulations and from the elimination of pointless bureaucratic requirements.
The report, moreover, recognises the Commission’s role in introducing simplifying measures, but also argues that those measures are inadequate and proposes, quite rightly, that they be revised.
Furthermore, cohesion policy is on the agenda and the tabling of the Sapir report means that its reevaluation cannot be avoided.
Without wanting to pre-empt a separate political debate at this stage, it is important to emphasise that the fastest and easiest way to render political policies superfluous is to make them incomprehensible and impracticable in advance by administering the prescribed dose of bureaucracy and red tape.
The Commission, therefore, must urgently enhance and emphasise its strategic function in defining priorities, leaving the responsibility for implementing and managing funds to the Member States.
Hence I welcome Mr Pittella’s report, acknowledge its timeliness and support its proposals.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, nobody these days would dare to question the fact that the Structural Funds have been and still are an essential tool for reducing inequalities in regional development.
It pains me greatly, therefore, to see that as much as EUR 91.6 billion in available funds – or the equivalent of the European Union’s annual budget – has not yet been used.
In the run-up to the deadline for the 1994-99 programming period, there were still some 300 European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) programmes which had made no claims for payment whatsoever.
Under the circumstances, such figures verge on the disgraceful.
My sole consolation is the knowledge that, of all the Member States, Portugal is one of the best at implementing the Funds.
In fact, for Community support framework II (QSF II), for which complete data have only recently become available, Portugal’s implementation rates are exemplary: 99.6% for the ERDF, 98.3% for the European Social Fund (ESF), 100% for the European Agriculture Guidance and Guarantee Fund(EAGGF) and 90% for the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance (FIFG).
Portugal’s overall execution rate of 94.2% is significantly higher than those of its European partners.
Similarly, the QSF-III for 2000-2006 is still proving very irksome for the European Union.
Yet again, the figures for Portugal are on track, according to the mid-term reviews.
The causes of this under-implementation are well-known: long, complex programmes, unreliable payment forecasts and overlapping programming periods.
In the face of the large amounts of unused funds, the Council has proposed solutions which, to my mind, err on the side of caution.
I am convinced that measures such as these will not yield the results expected of them, and that some of them will even be counterproductive.
The Commission should be forced to take responsibility for defining priorities, enhancing the consistency of operations and monitoring implementation, leaving the Member States solely responsible for implementing and managing structural operations.
Apart from anything else, this under-execution of the Structural Funds is extremely bad for the image of the European Union among its citizens.
Finally, as a citizen of Portugal and a native of the Algarve, I am hopeful that the forthcoming QSF-IV for 2007-2013 will continue to allow the Algarve region to benefit from structural operations, even in the context of an enlarged Europe.
If that does not happen, I feel it would be legitimate to call for a fair solution permitting regions such as this, which are ineligible simply due to the effects of the statistical impoverishment of the enlarged European Union, to be assisted in their quest for convergence.
   . – Please excuse me for taking advantage of your attention, but I think that this debate is important and that many of the comments not only deserve our attention, but also comments and answers from us.
Mr Pohjamo and Mr van Dam pointed out, as did Mr Pittella, that it was important that this new n+2 rule was properly used for the 2000-2006 programme: we noticed at the end of 2002 that it had not caused very significant decommitments.
The moment of truth will be at the end of 2003, as many of the regionalised programmes were signed in 2001.
Personally, I think that the rules are useful.
It is a rule of good management.
Like Mr Pohjamo, I also think that the key lies largely in the Member States improving their forecasts.
You have stressed this point.
Mrs Glase mentioned over-complicated procedures.
I would like to put forward my point of view, and I must say again, as I would say to Mr Markov, that I have to implement these procedures because they are in the regulations, which you are well aware of, which were established at Berlin 2000-2006.
I have sought to use all the margins for flexibility in these regulations and I have found some, which you were informed of last year when I met with the Ministers to propose them: we are already seeing some effects of these simplification and flexibility measures.
Nevertheless, I cannot act as if these Berlin rules did not exist.
I admit that they are complicated.
I think that we can simplify them.
One way of avoiding having to make such observations during the next period – Mrs Glase mentioned planning for too long a period – is to reduce the time of that planning: I agree with this idea.
When I became a Commissioner at the end of 1999, I had to implement this new period.
What have I been doing for one or two years, practically two years? I have been consulting and planning with the regions and Member States.
For the first two years of the programme, we did not use any money, we did not undertake any projects, because the first two years, 2000 and 2001, were used for negotiating the programmes.
The reason why I have moved the debate forward for the future period and why at the end of 2003 the Commission is proposing its guidelines and new policies for cohesion and its plans for regulation for 2004, is in order to move the whole process forward, and, as long as the governments, the Council and Parliament give their views on the future Agenda, the Financial Perspectives and these policies as soon as possible, we will then be able to use the last year of this 2000-2006 period, 2006, for consultation rather than waiting for the start of the next period.
The hope that I have – I am again being very cautious – what I am working for, Mr Pittella, ladies and gentlemen, is for us to have clear ideas as to the amount of money available, on the new cohesion policies and the new regulations quite soon in order to be able to devote the whole of 2006 to consultation regarding future programmes and for us to thus be able to undertake programmes and projects from the start of the future period and not two years after the start.
That is my aim.
Mr dos Santos and Mr Markov mentioned the outstanding commitments.
Personally, I say to Mr dos Santos, I have not tried to deny Mr Pittella’s figures: I know these figures well, and I have tried to explain them impartially, because there are explanations.
At the same time, along with my colleagues I have endeavoured to gradually reduce this RAL: for example, for the ERDF, the outstanding commitments for the 1994-1999 period were EUR 7 billion at the end of 2002; they will probably be EUR 3.8 billion at the end of 2003.
We have therefore reduced them practically by half.
Mr Markov, I was surprised by one of your comments regarding making the n+2 rule more flexible: you talked about the possibility of n+3.
If we go down this road, we risk worsening the utilisation problems and worsening the outstanding commitments.
Yes, Mr van Dam, I am working on simplification for the next period: I want to reduce the number of instruments, I want to reduce the number of planning decisions.
I will undoubtedly propose abolishing the zoning of Objective 2.
I want to focus the priorities and also base matters on the projects and increase the flexibility and redeployment margins during the period.
These are the simplification ideas that we are working on.
Mr van Dam, I do not, however, share your feelings regarding the results of this Structural Funds policy.
I do not think that it is possible to create a map of bad management as rapidly as you did: I know of cases of bad management in countries that have been members of the European Union for a long time and not only in the new countries in the South.
I do not think that we can point the finger at any particular country, as in those countries I am seeing an overall effort, even if it is sometimes quite slow, to improve management and control and to modernise administration.
You asked for the next policy to concentrate on Objective 1, on the regions that are poorest or most behind in their development: that is what we will propose but, nevertheless, I have not decided on removing all European action from the other regions.
In the current Member States of the Union, sometimes even in the developed regions, there are real problems linked to industrial relocation, restructuring, poverty, extreme poverty in cities, and the problems of desertification in certain areas of the countryside.
I do not think that Europe can be indifferent, that the Union can be indifferent to these problems in the fifteen countries of the current Union, because if the Union is indifferent, if it has to concentrate all of its budget on the new countries plus a few regions in the South, we should not be surprised if the people themselves become indifferent to the European Union.
The whole policy that I am aiming at with this reform of the Structural Funds for the future period is focusing and using this policy to serve the broad objectives of solidarity and of the Lisbon and Gotenborg Agenda, making the regions, rather than spectators, the partners in these objectives.
In any case, Mr van Dam, I can tell you very clearly that personally, I am in favour of a real reform, sometimes even a radical reform: I will never be in favour of the re-nationalisation of this cohesion policy.
Mr Piscarreta mentioned the idea of going further, as did Mr Pittella himself, in entrusting the Member States with management: yes, I am ready to go very far in decentralising management, but naturally, that means that first there must be a better sharing of financial responsibility.
As long as the European Commission is practically solely responsible to the budgetary authority, and the Court of Auditors, I am obliged to check, control and ensure that the control systems are correct and are operational.
Probably, in the spirit of what is written in the new European Constitution, we will be able to move towards a better sharing of responsibility and therefore towards a greater decentralisation.
This is what I wanted to say very quickly in response, and to say to Mr Pittella and each of you that I remain prepared to answer all of your questions before your committees and the plenary and to continue this dialogue: we need it, and many of the suggestions made in Mr Pittella’s report will be among the proposals that the Commission will make, particularly in terms of managing the future cohesion period, in the third cohesion report.
   The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0345/2003), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position of the Council with a view to adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 94/35/EC on sweeteners for use in foodstuffs (9714/1/2003 – C5-0299/2003 – 2002/0152(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Ferreira).
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish firstly to say that I really appreciate Mrs Ferreira’s work.
I also support her proposals, for example when it comes to our not being able to accept the Commission’s deciding alone which substances constitute sweeteners.
Nor can it be reasonable that a substance considered dangerous and not to be approved should be sold until stocks are exhausted.
Health must come first in this case.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance think that Amendment No 2 (Article 1a (new)) is far too general and that it focuses too much on the new sweeteners.
In our Amendment No 4, we want the Commission to present a report regarding a re-evaluation of the authorisation granted in respect of the sweetener aspartame.
There is comprehensive criticism from independent experts who question the fact that the Scientific Committee for Food (SCF) has given the green light to aspartame.
According to the criticism, the Scientific Committee has ignored critical and independent investigations and perhaps let itself be influenced by the food industry or the aspartame manufacturers.
We cannot disregard the fact that there is information that should prompt a reaction on our part if we want the precautionary principle to apply and protect people’s health.
There is a recently written report from Spain showing that aspartame formaldehyde accumulates in cells, something that may destroy DNA and, for example, cause liver or brain damage, especially in the case of people vulnerable to such damage.
To use Mrs Oomen-Ruijten’s words: the political winds are blowing from both right and left in this House this evening.
That cannot, however, prevent us, in the Greens/ALE Group, from requesting that the arguments be examined once more and the precautionary principle applied when the researchers disagree and come up with different positions.
I therefore appeal to my fellow MEPs in actual fact to vote in favour of Amendment No 4 tomorrow.
   The next item is the debate on the oral question (O-0066/2003 – B5-0281/2003) byMr Gargani, Mr Rothley, Mr Lehne and Mr Manders, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, to the Commission, on the German deposit system.
   – Mr President, I should like to congratulate the Commissioner on the news that has already reached us via the television and to which he responded a moment ago.
I hope that this Liberal initiative, which, by the way, received unanimous support in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, has helped you to reach your decision.
Given the timeframe, it looks like it was of some help.
I would like to concur with Mr Medina Ortega that we are not, in principle, opposed to a deposit system.
If we want a deposit system, it would perhaps be helpful within one internal market if we were to introduce a harmonised Community system, as a result of which all businesses and all consumers within one Europe would know where they stand.
We are against a restricting deposit system, and the voucher system in Germany does not belong in serious legislation but rather on a fairground, where it entitles you to a few rides on the merry-go-round, but not to do a few laps in Germany.
As far as this is concerned, we are pleased with your announcement that you are going to intervene.
What I would like to know is whether you could indicate whether it is possible to force, or at least implore, the German Government to suspend the current system with immediate effect?
This should happen in any event until a European-wide system has been introduced, or at least a system that complies with the current framework, so that Article 28 would not be violated.
This is my first request.
Secondly, can you confirm whether it is true – as Mr Lehne claimed – that businesses that have suffered enormous losses, but also perhaps consumers, could recoup the damage from the German Government, for example?
I hope that with this measure that you announced, German consumers will very soon again be able to choose freely between such European products as Badoit water, San Pellegrino or Bavaria beer.
If this were possible, then I hope that after these ten months of being deprived of these enjoyable European products, the European market will once again be open and that it can help complete the internal market.
   – Disposable cans are not environmentally sound.
The environmental burden of re-usable plastic bottles is two to three times lower, and so, environmentally speaking, a deposit system is a good way of reducing litter.
At the moment, deposits are payable on disposable cans throughout Sweden, the whole of Denmark and all of Germany.
The Commission, the Liberals and also the Christian Democrats are not averse to the principle of deposit systems.
This is an improvement.
Unfortunately, Mr Lehne stands outside of this consensus.
The deposit system also exists in parts, and I repeat in parts, of Spain and Portugal.
The Commission is not summoning Spain and Portugal before a European court.
In the Netherlands too, you cannot take all returnable bottles to all supermarkets.
The Commission has been put under pressure by campaigns from businesses and from elements in this House.
This shows once again that the Commission sets greater store by the internal market than by the environment.
In ten states and in some fifteen large cities in the United States too, ‘island’ solutions have been provided in the form of local and regional deposit systems.
The fact that Germany happens to have an unsuccessful system, under which you cannot return your tin cans to any shop, has to do with the boycott campaigns by large sections of industry, which are opposed to the deposit system principle.
Irony has it that historically, they all have their origins in an act dating back to 1991 that was submitted by a Christian Democrat Environment Minister, Klaus Töpfer, which the present Minister, Mr Trittin, a Green, is now simply implementing.
Germany will eventually make it easier to get the deposit money refunded in different places.
This deposit system will then become very common.
The Commission should, in fact, propose the introduction of deposit systems throughout Europe.
We should let children and junkies earn a few euros on the back of the idleness of parents and their fellow citizens.
This is preferable to the situation in the Netherlands, where EUR 80 million is being squandered on a pointless advertising campaign entitled ‘Nederland schoon’ – Keep The Netherlands Clean.
The Commission is able to accept the following amendments: Nos 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 and 12.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: Nos 2, 7, 8 and 13
The Commission is able to accept the following amendments, provided they are somewhat reworded: Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 24, 25, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49 and 50.
The Commission is able to accept the following amendments, at least in principle (Nos 20 and 21) or in part (Nos 11, 17 and 18)
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: Nos 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19, 22, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 and 40.
The Commission is able to accept the following amendments, provided they are somewhat reworded: Nos 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and 32.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: Nos 3, 6, 8, 9 and 12.
The Commission is able to accept the ten amendments tabled by the European Parliament.
   Exceptionally, I began with that point of order largely for safety reasons and to remove the possibility of a fire alarm.
Having made his point, I thank Mr Watson for extinguishing the candles.
   I should like to take this opportunity to inform the House that the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr Kofi Annan, will address our plenary session in Brussels on 29 January 2004.
We very much look forward to that.
   Mr President-in-Office, the welcomes the Council’s decision to adopt a defence policy, reinforcing a consolidated relationship of cooperation with NATO, and stresses, with regard to the work of the IGC, the need for each Member State to have a Commissioner with voting rights; if Europe is to meet the challenge of wiping out terrorism, it must be capable of protecting every part of its territories and every citizen of its peoples, but also of promoting peace, justice, freedom, democracy and development in countries in which violence and hunger force millions of people to despair and to become refugees.
The tragedies which have taken place along the coasts of Italy call for the Council to decide to give political refugees the right of asylum, a matter which has been at a standstill for too long, and to clearly condemn governments which do not respect human rights, do not invest in resources to combat hunger and fail to expose terrorist and fundamentalist organisations present on their territory.
Europe must make clearer efforts to resolve the Somali crisis, which, since 1991, has seen thousands of desperate refugees die, initially in the Indian Ocean, and now in the Sicilian Channel.
These were not just any immigrants: they were Somalis, Mr President-in-Office!
You must hold another Nairobi Conference, then, and conclude it with a federative pact between the Somali states heralding democracy and a fight against fundamentalism, terrorism and poverty.
Those whose names were on the lists of terrorist organisations issued after 11 September must not be consultative partners either for the individual states or for the Union.
The Council, whose decision to create an agency for the common management of borders we welcome, must promote a new cooperation model under which aid serves to benefit the people and those who deny human rights are condemned.
In addition, the Council must ask for mercy for those whom law has condemned to death, like the young Iranian woman who has been condemned to death for killing a man who was raping her.
   Colleagues, I should like to take this opportunity to extend a warm welcome to Mr Olivier Kamitatu Etsu, the President of the transitional Parliament of the Democratic Republic of Congo who, together with a delegation of that parliament, has joined us in the official gallery.
I wish them a productive stay in Strasbourg.(1)
   – Mr President, I am requesting the floor for a few minutes to ask for the assistance of the Presidency and to explain the clearly irregular situation which has arisen in this report.
An amendment by my group, voted for by the immense majority of the committee, has surprisingly disappeared from the text being voted on today.
That amendment called for the recognition of the right to asylum for women who suffer serious persecution and violations of their human rights.
For this reason, Mr President, and on behalf of my group, I would ask that we postpone the vote on the Smet report until the services of the House clarify this situation, which we believe to be immensely serious.
   .– Mr President, a correction to the text has been made after very lengthy negotiations.
I will read out this correction and would ask the Socialist MEPs whether it ultimately reflects what they have asked for.
If not, I agree that it should be sent back.
I will read out what the text of paragraph 13 should be, because there have indeed been a number of difficulties, partly because sections have been deleted from the text.
   Mr President, in support of Mrs Valenciano’s intervention, and in view of the fact that this really was a significant procedural violation, I would like to support her proposal, which does not entail referring the report to the committee but simply delaying the vote so that matters can be clarified.
We support Mrs Valenciano’s position, which, in procedural terms, is absolutely right.
   I shall put to the vote Mrs Valenciano’s request to postpone the vote.
   .
Mr Rothley is a remarkable kind of Social Democrat.
He always does the opposite of what you would expect a member of his group to do.
In June, his major achievement was that he provided for a considerably higher salary for all MEPs other than the already excessively paid Germans and Italians.
Years previous to that, he had claimed that his intention in doing this was to enhance Parliament's dignity.
Now, as rapporteur, he is proposing in his Amendment No 15 to exclude pedestrians and cyclists from bodily injury cover in the drivers' legal liability insurance, irrespective of whether the driver is at fault.
His motive is now that this concerns a delicate and very controversial problem, one that is better regulated in a separate legal instrument.
If this separate legal instrument were to come into being at the same time as this directive, then there would be nothing wrong with his argument.
However, Mr Rothley knows very well that this House has no right of initiative.
If we were to reject this component, we would need to wait and see whether the Commission were ever to table this separate proposal.
If this proposal were to be tabled, Mr Rothley anticipates possible further problems.
In that way, the weakest party is put at a disadvantage.
That is why I reject this proposal.
   We welcome more efficient administration of the Structural Funds.
At the same time, we believe it would be risky to administer the resources in a single fund, as recommended in Mr Pittella’s report, because it could lead to smaller projects disappearing.
Instead, priority should be given to a harmonisation of the rules concerning the use of the funds.
   .
I congratulate Mr Pittella on the report he has produced. This makes a contribution to the complex debate on the Structural Funds.
I would nevertheless like to draw attention to two points on which the rapporteur’s approach differs from mine, and which led me to table two draft amendments for which I request the support of this House.
The amendments are:
- Amendment to paragraph 23 of the motion for a resolution: I would like to reiterate the great importance of mentioning the principle of legitimate expectation, in relation to the eligibility of advances granted by Member States to final beneficiaries and their inclusion in reimbursement claims received before 31 December 2002.
The principles of solidarity, flexibility and effectiveness complement rather than compete with each other.
- Amendment to paragraph 35(b) of the motion for a resolution: in accordance with the principle of simplification, and on the basis of one of the aims of improving the utilisation of the funds, I propose that provisions be made for an opportunity to analyse whether combining the funds and centralising the way they are managed would help to improve their efficiency.
This will all depend on the course events actually take, which will allow us to decide at a later date whether such an analysis is appropriate.
(2)
   The next item is the report (A5-0348/2003) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the annual report from the Council to the European Parliament on the main aspects and basic choices of CFSP, including the financial implications for the general budget of the European Communities – 2002 (7038/2003 – C5-0423/2003 – 2003/2141(INI)).
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner, I think that Mr Brok's report is not so much a report as a manifesto – a manifesto for the shape the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy ought to take, and a manifesto that also touches upon the other major issues faced by the Union, such as delineating its final borders.
This is a very topical subject, now that, as the President-in-Office of the Council has said, with the return of 10 countries into the European fold the Union is being enlarged in a way that was inconceivable and unhoped for just a few years ago.
Of the many countries that are hoping to join the Union, I would like to highlight here the importance of Ukraine, a country balanced between two worlds, the European world and the Slav world, which it would be in our interest to admit to the European Union.
I am not just saying that because I have visited that country as a member of a European Parliament delegation.
The Brok report – as my colleague has just said – provides an excellent assessment of the Council's annual report, which contains nothing more than a simple balance sheet devoid of any in-depth political analysis and scarcely identifies any priorities.
If, however, in the short time available to me, I may add something, no matter how slight, to the Brok report, then I would like to support the proposal made by Mr Wuori in an amendment that East Africa should be added to the priority areas listed in the report.
We cannot overlook the important and incisive part played by mediation in the Ethiopian-Eritrean, Somali and Sudanese conflicts, a part which involved enormous sacrifices and difficulties on the part of Italy, whose authority was duly recognised.
Italy has encouraged the increasing involvement of the European Union in managing such crises, and I believe that it is both right and necessary to include East Africa in the priority areas for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, including, specifically, in paragraph 8 of the Brok report.
   Mr President, in my country, you sometimes hear the useful warning never to throw out your old shoes until you have replaced them with new ones.
This common admonition seems to be very relevant in the case of Europe's security.
I urge you not to trade NATO for such uncertain military aspirations cherished by a number of EU Member States.
Meanwhile, this defence ambition on this side of the ocean causes renewed internal European division, as well as fresh transatlantic tension.
I fully share America's great concern about NATO's cohesion and future, given the autonomous military course taken by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder.
The ambivalent ideas about security in Paris and Berlin are entirely reflected in the Brok report: the EU as a complementary security organisation of NATO no less!
The Brok report is honest enough to recognise that the EU's current military capacities are inadequate for peace operations.
In short, I would prefer NATO to look after our security in Europe, and – within the NATO context – to let the EU Member States finally show what they are worth as loyal allies.
   Mr President, following the collapse of Communist dictatorships in the former Eastern bloc, the world has not exactly become a safer place.
As Samuel Huntington has pointed out, we progressed, after the Cold War, from a bipolar to a multipolar world, and more than ever before, what matters is to identify friend and foe and, hence, also the threats that face us.
As has rightly been pointed out, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and badly governed states are Europe's three most important threats.
I should also like to add the demographic pressure of an uncontrollable and encroaching Islam to this list.
Europe must therefore provide an efficient and well-developed security and defence system.
This will require political will, as well as investments.
In that respect, we have to conclude with some sense of shame that the average outgoings for each soldier in Belgium are three times lower than in the other European Member States.
The Belgian Government has already announced that it will not be increasing the defence budget during this term in office, which has, in fact, only just started.
It is therefore a sign of some hypocrisy on the part of the Belgian Government if it wants to take the lead in the development of a defence system at European level on the one hand, while refusing to accept the consequences and obligations that this entails.
   Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Brok for his balanced approach, which has now become legendary.
His report bears witness to how much the world situation has changed since last year.
At that time, terrorist attacks were uppermost in our minds, whereas now the focus is on the invasion of Iraq.
The rapporteur reminds us of the chasms that have been thrown up between the Member States of the European Union, which have severely strained transatlantic relations and which have affected different NATO members to varying degrees.
Mr Brok believes that it is, however, now necessary to redefine Europe's role and, perhaps, to take advantage of the political crisis sparked by the war to make the Union a credible and powerful political actor on the foreign policy stage.
Of course, the means of achieving this objective are still relatively ill-defined: some new Member States and their neighbours have, yet again, discovered America and its promises of political and economic guarantees.
For this reason, it is advisable not to forget Member States' duty to refrain from intervening in international affairs on the basis of unilateral national positions until the European Union has had an opportunity to define a common European position.
I do not, of course, have time to go into all this in greater depth, but the future of our foreign policy is linked to the European Constitution; the veto can wreck the most ambitious peace plans, as we have heard this morning.
The European Union's common foreign and security policy objectives depend, not least, on its ability to equip itself with military resources, with the result that we can only envisage relatively low-cost operations.
Perhaps we shall have to content ourselves with that, even though, ultimately, I do not believe we can.
The Franco-German Brigade alone, a core Rapid Reaction Force, might well have been enough to stop the Balkan crisis in 1991, as Mr Frattini has also said today.
We must insist: in addition to the small steps forward achieved …
   I am convinced that this is the EU’s big chance to play a positive role in promoting world peace and to give up trying to be a poor man’s United States, with its militarism and philosophy of violence.
Instead, the EU should develop an alternative non-violent peace policy.
Unfortunately, the Brok report is permeated by traditional over-confidence in military interventions as the only way of bringing about peace. Ought not the EU to learn from the United States’ failures in Afghanistan and Iraq?
Ought not the European Parliament to remember its own decisions along different lines, for example the recommendation to the Council, adopted as long ago as 1999, to set up a European civil peace corps? The Council has ignored this recommendation for ten presidencies.
The European Parliament should also strongly support the promising talks now under way between the Beijing Government and the representatives of the Dalai Lama.
It can do this by approving Amendment No 10 which repeats our old demand that the EU appoint a special representative for Tibet.
Through the people with whom I am in touch as Vice-President of the Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China and as a member of the European Parliament’s all-party Tibet Group, I have contacts in both quarters.
I therefore know that both Beijing and the Dalai Lama would welcome a strong initiative from the EU on this issue.
   Mr President, here we have another Brok report, still taking its inspiration from the same principles, still driven by the same desire, which is to construct a common foreign policy.
Mr Brok still fails to understand that the interests of the various European States differ, that their policies are consequently incompatible and that this common policy, which was established, it should be recalled, more than twelve years ago, under the Maastricht Treaty, is one of the hoariest of old chestnuts to have inspired the European federalist outlook.
Rarely in history have so many eminent persons written so much and devoted so much energy to achieving this strange and pathological goal, which consists of ensuring that their country no longer exists.
Most fortunately, however, these pipe dreams remain laughable and have still not been realised to any extent whatsoever.
Let us focus for a moment on what these dreams are and what is so clearly going on here.
They reveal an entire blueprint for the world and, I would even say, a genuine fear of the world.
First of all, Mr Brok, who believes that the Council and the Commission are incapable of setting real priorities, takes it upon himself to perform this task, by deciding on what he calls, in Article 7, the ‘immediate external borders’, in other words the East and the South.
At the same time, he welcomes the fact that the crisis operations carried out under the common foreign policy have been supported by NATO’s planning and command structure – I am quoting here from Article 30 – and he advocates, of course, closer cooperation with NATO.
What is the world-view that is being set out here? If the European Union has to implement its principle of ‘Strength through Unity,’ it must do so against the States located in its outermost regions, and closely related to this, must implement this principle, according to Mr Brok, through ever closer relations with the United States in the context of what he calls the ‘Euro-Atlantic Area’.
To sum up, Europe would be constructed in such a way as to support the unity of the white developed world against everything that is different, everything that surrounds it and everything that it sees as a threat. Is this what the common foreign and security policy is, Mr Brok?
How then can we expect people to believe that Europe’s goal is to counterbalance US power when its sole aim is clearly to strengthen the unity of the white world against a South that it perceives to be a threat? Can we not see that those singing the praises of the common foreign policy are also the greatest supporters of a wait-and-see policy and that the centre of this Euro-Atlantic area has never been more accurately called ‘the White House’ in other words, a house populated by whites, in league with one another, huddling together happily against the threats posed by the world.
Well, ladies and gentlemen ...
   The next items are the statements by the Council and the Commission on the forthcoming EU-Russia Summit, including the situation in Chechnya (6 November 2003).
   Mr President, close cooperation with Russia is vital if the international community is to compel Iran to restrict the application of nuclear energy to purely civil purposes.
I trust that the Council and the Commission will clearly put this message across to President Putin.
After all, what matters now is for yesterday's concessions to Iran to be realised.
In this context, I should also like to touch upon a complaint made by President Putin. According to him, Russian companies have had sanctions imposed on them for supplying the nuclear sector in Iran.
However, according to Putin's sources, European and American companies got off scot-free having made identical transactions.
I would like to ask the Council and the Commission if this serious allegation concerning Europe's contribution is true.
I should like to offer the Council and Commission a second, equally urgent item for the Summit's agenda.
In the Gulf of Kerch, a serious border conflict between the Ukraine and Russia is at risk of escalating out of control.
The immediate cause is the construction of a dam from the Russian peninsula Taman to the Ukrainian island of Tuzla in the Gulf of Kerch.
We from the European side should make an urgent appeal to both parties for a peaceful settlement of this thorny territorial dispute.
I also concur with what Mr Staes said in connection with the request that Europe should do everything possible in connection with what has happened to Arjan Erkel.
   – Mr President, I was shocked by what Mr Frattini had to say about Chechnya.
In making these statements, you are putting yourself at odds with what the majority in this House has thought and said for years, and also opposing the position that the majority in my party, the European People’s Party, has taken for years in this House.
We have stood up for freedom and human rights in Chechnya, where Russia is engaged in a brutal colonial war, the second stage of which was inaugurated by President Putin in the course of the bloodiest election campaign in history.
Mr Putin is, unfortunately, not going to solve the problem, for he is a quite substantial part of it.
On attempting to consider the problem from the point of view of Russia’s interests, one discovers relatively quickly that Russia’s interests and Chechnya’s are in fact one and the same.
Russia is suffering from financial problems; in Chechnya, billions are being senselessly squandered on a futile and bloody war.
In Russia, democracy and the rule of law are suffering decline and – as Andrei Sakharov’s widow Yelena Bonner, has very powerfully described – the war in Chechnya is being taken as an opportunity for old structures to re-establish themselves.
Russia is suffering to a quite substantial degree from remilitarisation and the return of elements from the secret services, developments that also essentially derive from Chechnya and the war that is being waged there.
Russia is suffering from terrorism and from organised crime.
As Mr Oostlander so rightly said, the war in Chechnya is doing nothing to remove these problems, but is making matters worse.
It can therefore be said that those who commit themselves to freedom in Chechnya and to its liberation are ultimately also committing themselves to freedom and liberation for Russia.
In the long term, Russia will have to recognise that the only solution for its problems is for Chechnya to be a real democracy, and we have to see that the problem is that the pseudo-referendum that has been held there is intended to legitimise someone who was and is a villain rather than a legitimate partner in dialogue, namely President Mashadov.
   Mr Patten, this is not the first time you have addressed the House on this issue.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I believe we should welcome the fact that the cause fought for by the abolitionists has become, in the space of a few decades, a few generations, one of the general public’s most passionate demands in the field of human rights.
When in 1961, abolitionists such as Martin Luther King talked about abolishing the death penalty, it appeared to be a pipe-dream.
The following generation – my own – was made aware of the issue as a result of the policy conducted in this area in France, when François Mitterrand and Robert Badinter abolished the death penalty in 1981.
We should also bear in mind that countries we thought would never abolish the death penalty so quickly, such as Turkey and various candidate countries, have succeeded in doing so, by showing some real political will, especially since our sitting in this Chamber in June 2001.
I therefore believe that, as regards this issue, instead of talking about tactics, it would be infinitely preferable to talk about political convictions and the will to back up these convictions.
In fact, when our fellow Member, Mr Ari Vatanen, takes part in the Paris-Dakar rally wearing a badge that features the words ‘no death penalty’, he is raising the awareness of an entire continent.
By the way, as Mrs Trautmann said, what is at stake is our ability to tame our instincts for revenge.
When we rally forces, we manage to save a Nigerian woman who had children outside marriage from the death penalty.
I believe that if we rally forces again, we will be able to get a man named Mumia Abu-Jamal off death row. He has been imprisoned only because he is black, because he was a journalist, because he spoke out for those who have no voice and because he spoke out against the abuses perpetrated by Philadelphia’s racist police.
It is with all of these individuals in mind that I say today we should think carefully.
As regards the death penalty, the colour at stake is not black or white, but the colour of blood.
This is why, in my opinion, we must not extradite people to countries where we know they can expect the death penalty.
In particular, it upsets me to think about our fellow citizens currently in Guantanamo, because we do not know what their fate might be.
Ladies and gentlemen, what is needed is political will, not tactics.
   I can inform Mr Dell’Alba that the Council has received neither a proposal nor a legislative initiative on this matter.
Despite this, being aware of the importance of the question, the Italian Presidency raised the issue of the execution of prison sentences at an informal meeting of Ministers for Justice held in Rome on 13 September 2003.
As you can see, we are waiting for developments in this debate, which the Presidency initiated.
   Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you spoke as such and you replied in this role as if you were not also the representative of the Italian Government.
Mr Turco’s question said exactly this: that your colleague, Mr Castelli – also President-in-Office but also a member of a government of a Member State and as such entitled to present the proposal to which you refer – announced on 7 August, in the and in a Parliamentary hearing, that the Italian Government, or he, personally, intended to launch an initiative to define minimum standards of living in European prisons.
Since we thought it an excellent idea and since Parliament has been calling on the Council to do this very thing for years – and I would now add the idea of extending the right that Italian deputies have to visit prisons to MEPs – I would like to ask if you can confirm this intention in this House on behalf of the Italian Presidency.
   I do not feel I can reply as a representative of the Italian Government.
I can only say, as a representative of the Presidency, that this debate was commenced – as I said before – at an informal meeting of the Ministers for Justice.
There will clearly soon be developments and results that, at the moment, we are not in a position to predict, given that the debate began on 13 September, less than a month ago.
A few days ago, a framework agreement on customs union was signed between Turkey and the occupying regime in northern Cyprus.
Given that Turkey is not entitled to conclude trade agreements without the approval of the European Union, not to mention the fact that the signing of such an agreement with Denktash's self-styled 'state' is tantamount to provocation vis-à-vis the European Union and the Republic of Cyprus, which is to join the EU in 2004, does the Council believe that the signing of this agreement represents a positive contribution by Turkey to efforts to resolve the Cyprus question, as it undertook to do on the basis of the Helsinki Agreement and the European Union/Turkey Association Agreement?
   Thank you, Mr President.
Mr Frattini, could you perhaps give me a concrete answer to the question whether the Council intends to act on Mr Mugabe's dictate and, whether or not they do, whether it is intended to continue to provide direct aid to the NGOs that are active in Zimbabwe.
Or are we going to follow the guidelines issued by the Zimbabwean Government and deliver the food aid directly to the government bodies? Meanwhile, you may like to know that the situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated even more, in the sense that there is now also a shortage of fertiliser for the production of food, a shortage of fuel and such like.
The situation is therefore getting worse all the time. I am a little worried that the response will be inadequate if all that is done is to maintain existing sanctions up to, and including, February 2004.
At the meeting between the Council Presidency and German Chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, in Verona on 23 August 2003, the idea of establishing an EU Coastguard Service was discussed (as reported in the Sunday Times of the 24 August 2003).
In the light of this initiative, might I draw the Council's attention to a proposal that I submitted on this issue to the Convention on the Future of Europe (CONV 150/02)? I should be interested in learning what is the Council Presidency's reaction to the proposal.
   As Mr Cushnahan knows from the Council’s reply to his previous question, the Commission was commissioned to carry out a feasibility study to improve controls at maritime borders following the adoption of the comprehensive plan to combat illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings in February 2002.
The report contains some recommendations on ways of improving border controls and refers to the possible establishment of an operational structure.
The Commission forwarded this report to the Justice and Home Affairs Council of 12/13 September 2003.
The Council is looking into this report to draw any possible conclusions.
These actions are testimony to the importance that the Council accords the issue of controls at maritime borders.
We are convinced that the management of external borders should have a substantial European dimension if we are to succeed in making progress in implementing measures that have already been determined by the Council seeking to combat illegal immigration and associated crime.
   – Mr President—in-Office of the Council, the problem you have raised in the reply to my question satisfied me only in part.
That is because, unfortunately, over the last ten years – as you well know – specifically in Ciudad Juárez, more than 320 bodies of women and girls have appeared.
Furthermore, more than 4 470 women and girls of between 14 and 16 years old have disappeared.
I would therefore like, in addition to the action the Council is going to take with Mexico in relation to the Agreement, to see an examination of what specific actions – since we are not talking about a violation of human rights in general, but a very specific case which involves the disappearances and deaths of many women and girls, specifically in Ciudad Juárez – have been taken by Mexico to try to verify these facts, and, on the other hand, whether it is possible, and whether the Council will allow it, to consider what assistance is being requested by the authorities of that country so that the international community may contribute to clarifying these facts, which are very serious.
   I can only say to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo – as I have already said – that at least one of these programmes is, in actual fact, operational: it is called ‘Project Neptune’, began in September 2003 and provides for operations that are already underway.
As regards funding, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo is well aware that it is the Commission that decides and deliberates on the conditions.
I will take note of these concerns, which I, personally, share, and I will also make the Commission aware of them.
   I will reply very briefly and the answer is obviously ‘yes’.
We are in favour of any initiative that gives force and popular legitimacy to the current constitutional process, but this is a favourable view and a vision that, as you so rightly said, Mr Sacrédeus, cannot impose solutions on other countries’ constitutional systems.
   I can say to Mr Ebner that there have not been any proposals to this effect.
My personal opinion – and I emphasise, my personal opinion – is that any ideas that can enrich the popular legitimacy of the new treaty will be interesting and valuable proposals, but, of course, there are some national systems that can hold referendums of this type and other systems that cannot.
I can, however, say, Mr Ebner, that, in the course of the work of the Intergovernmental Conference, no one presented these ideas.
   – Mr President, I want to ask about Europe’s next big ‘referendum’, namely the elections to the European Parliament on 13 June next year.
What is the Presidency contemplating doing to increase voter turnout on that day, along with their understanding of the European Union?
   I would like to inform you that Mr Frattini must leave at 7 p.m. on the dot and Mr Ebner, Mr Crowley and Mr Rübig, as well as the two Members tabling questions, have asked me for the floor.
   Like Mr Medina Ortega, I also want to say that not enough is being done in favour of ultraperipheral regions.
In Ireland, for example, the network into and out of Ireland is often considered sufficient, but the west of Ireland is even more peripheral and remote, and this problem is not addressed by the Commission's present policy.
There is no railway line connecting the regions in the west of Ireland – all networks lead to Dublin, which is not peripheral.
There is already a rail link in place in the west, but it is not used as a result of the fact that the policy is not strong enough to put in place such a network in the peripheral regions of the west of Ireland.
   I would like to ask Mr Frattini whether, when referring to less favoured areas, this should not only be understood to be the outermost regions but also mountainous regions, because these, too, are penalised for geographical reasons.
   I am happy to answer Mr Ebner’s last question, although, of course, I have also taken note of the other comments that I have heard.
I would like to say to Mr Ebner that the Presidency recognises the importance of giving particular emphasis to mountainous regions, in so far as we received, when drawing up the draft constitutional Treaty itself, some proposals which seek precisely to recognise the specific nature of mountain regions.
These proposals are some of the few that the Presidency has agreed to discuss, and they have, therefore, been added to the agenda for debate that is to take place shortly at the level of Ministers for Foreign Affairs.
I must say, therefore, that we recognise the serious nature of this issue.
   I can say that the Council is certainly aware of the trial and of the imprisonment of five Cuban citizens who have been resident in Florida since 2001 and is also aware of the concerns expressed by representatives of non-governmental organisations regarding the conditions in which they are being detained.
The Council has not discussed the conditions of trial.
As far as the more general stance of the Council and the Commission regarding Cuba is concerned, I would refer the Members who have tabled the questions to the debate that we held in this House at the beginning of September, because the conditions and stance have not changed
   Thank you very much, Mr Frattini, for the speed and clarity of your reply.
But, apart from thanking you for the information, the supplementary question I would like to put is as follows: when the sad and reprehensible death sentences – which we also condemn – were passed in Cuba by the Cuban Government and by Cuban courts, everybody criticised and condemned – including the European Council – that action by the Cuban Government; so why, in the situation where families of Cuban prisoners cannot see the prisoners imprisoned in Florida, which is a violation of all human rights, do you not behave in the same way as in the case in March and concern yourselves with human rights, whoever is suffering these deprivations and violations of human rights?
   Mr Marset Campos, I can only say that I am not expressing – and I do not intend to express my personal opinion here.
I can confirm that the Council, although aware of the situation, decided not to examine or address the conditions or the situation relating to this trial.
This is how things stand.
On the other hand, however, as regards the violation of human rights and the sentences that have been inflicted by the Cuban Government, the European Union has, as you are aware, expressed a specific position unanimously and with the support of Parliament.
This is the state of affairs.
I will, of course, make a note of your concerns and the measures that you have called for, which I will, of course, forward as you worded them.
   We learn that the Council knows about but has not examined the conditions of the trial.
We also know that the Council has been paying special attention to the fact that the Cuban courts have sentenced about 70 United States agents.
What will the President-in-Office reply if he is accused, not him but the Council, because he is replying on behalf of the Council, of unbridled hypocrisy, of having two sets of weights and measures and of the fact that the European Union outdoes the United States in its aggression towards socialist Cuba? What will he reply if someone accuses the Council of what we openly accuse the European Union of?
   Mr Frattini, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure I am going to give the floor to the three people; three minutes and then we will end the sitting.
   The next item is the report (A5-0351/2003) by Mr Menéndez del Valle, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on peace and dignity in the Middle East.
   Mr President, the report before us is undoubtedly a well-intentioned document.
It is very long, and not one understanding or balanced remark is missing from it.
It can justifiably be said to be a very long report, considering how little it has to say that is new.
The whole thing could be summarised in the words from recital A: ‘whereas the time has come to end the violence and widespread terror that has existed in the region since well before the launch of the United Nations partition plan in 1947 and the founding of the State of Israel on 14 May 1948’.
‘[T]he time has come to end the violence’.
How very true, its having so far been going on for some thousands of years.
It is nice that the European Parliament thinks it knows exactly what should be done, but it is not particularly nice that this cannot, and will not, be done.
This report might usefully be kept, for it could also be used next year and the year after that, for nothing will come of what it contains.
Another document has been published in the last few days, contrastingly more interesting than this report.
The document is entitled ‘Arab Human Development Report 2003’ and has been issued by the UNDP, that is to say the United Nations Development Programme.
This comprehensive report, written by Arab scholars, explains why the situation in the Middle East continues to go off the rails.
It is an account of the massive suppression of knowledge, political freedom and freedom of expression that characterises the Arab world.
It is an account of the brainwashing of children and of the way in which women are deprived of control over their own affairs.
It is an account of 270 million people living in the darkness of the Middle Ages.
Let us debate peace and dignity in the Middle East in the light of the UNDP's report.
To do so requires far greater effort than the showy but ultimately vacuous offerings that the European Parliament has come up with in its own report.
It is a matter of urgency, moreover, for the time bomb is ticking in the Middle East.
   Mr President, Mr Menéndez del Valle’s report is a bad report for three reasons: its one-sidedness makes it intellectually indifferent.
It espouses Arafat’s argument unreservedly and completely overlooks what is today’s most pressing question: how can a democracy combat kamikaze terrorism effectively? Then it is morally reprehensible because it puts terrorists and the victims of terrorism on the same level.
And you get the impression that some people think the idea that the Jews should respond instead of doing nothing and letting themselves be killed like in the good old days is rather shocking or scandalous.
Lastly, it is politically sterile because it locks Europe into a position of powerlessness on the grounds that it cannot be recognised as impartial and therefore capable of acting as mediator.
That is why this report’s fate can be predicted even before it has been adopted, which, unfortunately, it will be; it will join the countless other plans and texts that have been stillborn.
   .
Mr President, it is late, and there are other items still to come, so I just want to thank once more the rapporteurs, Mrs Zrihen and Mr Langen, for their excellent work and also all honourable Members for their contributions.
We will carefully study all of this in the follow-up both to the industrial policy communication and the action plan for entrepreneurship.
So I look forward to seeing you back in this House in early winter next year.
   Small businesses play an essential part in terms of dynamism, innovation and employment throughout the European internal market.
That is why I am pleased to see the growing and increasingly visible recognition given by our Parliament to these key players in the European economy, and in particular by the Committee on Industry, which now never misses an opportunity to encourage this phenomenon.
My colleague Mr Langen’s report says a lot about the part played by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, which has brought about definite improvements to the Commission Green Paper on ‘Entrepreneurship in Europe’, thanks among other things to the many amendments we put through together with my colleagues from the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
Finally, the spirit that drives entrepreneurs, large or small, is given a definition that will enable measures to be put in place to simplify the red tape involved in the creation and operation of businesses, their transfer and the essential forms of tax relief.
There is, however, still much to be done, like drawing up a European specification for businesses, better representation for SMEs in Community think tanks, aid mechanisms for their internationalisation, etc. and I expect our work will continue in this direction.
   The next item is the report (A5-0330/2003) by Mrs Angelilli, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on compensation to crime victims.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like, first of all, to thank Mrs Angelilli for the high quality of her report and express my satisfaction with the support this House has expressed for this initiative, which is based, as you all know, ladies and gentlemen, on Article 308 of the Treaty, and which enjoys such broad support as this in Parliament.
I welcome Mrs Angelilli’s draft amendments and agree with the underlying thinking.
With regard to these amendments, I would just like to draw attention to the fact that, to my mind, Parliament should preserve the essence of an initiative such as this, based on common minimum standards.
I too would like to be more ambitious, but I would draw the House’s attention to the fact that excessive ambition might render this initiative difficult to approve, whereas I would like to see it approved in the shortest possible order.
For this reason, in order not to delay matters any further, the Commission will not table an amended proposal but will opt for the compromise of fighting to put forward the intention underpinning the overwhelming majority of Mrs Angelilli’s draft amendments, 53 out of a total of 77, in its negotiations with the Council on adopting this proposal.
   The next item is the report (A5-0326/2003) by Robert J.E. Evans, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, concerning the prevention and control of trafficking in human organs and tissues.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Robert Evans for his report.
He has addressed a very important issue, and the activities of the criminal gangs engaged in the trafficking of human organs are one of the worst examples of organised crime.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy supports the Greek initiative, and we have raised a number of additional points, the majority of which have been accepted by the lead committee.
Our primary concern is to make the impacts on public health even clearer than in the proposal by the Greek Presidency.
Secondly, in this context, we also see a connection with legislation which we are currently negotiating with the Commission and the Council, and which deals with the issue of quality and safety of cells and tissues.
Here too, Parliament voted by a large majority to reject any trade in unmodified cells and tissues.
Unlike the Commission and the Council, we believe that there is a legal basis here too so that we can discuss this issue, in part, in the codecision procedure.
The committee made this very clear once again.
I agree with the rapporteur and do not share the opinion of the Commissioner as regards the exceptions.
We should not allow for any exceptions in this text.
As a matter of principle, all types of trade in cells and tissues should be punishable by law.
However, we need more precise provisions here, and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy submitted a motion, which, unfortunately, the lead committee rejected.
Nonetheless, we will table it on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats again tomorrow for a vote.
We would like to make a clear distinction.
We believe that whenever financial gain is involved, the trade in organs and unmodified cells and tissues should be banned.
However, I emphasise the phrase ‘unmodified cells and tissues’, because if drugs are produced from cells and tissues, then of course the investments made by industry in these drugs have to be refinanced, and for this reason, we need to provide for the opportunity for these products to be sold.
I would therefore ask you to support Amendment No 49 tabled by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats for the purposes of clarification.
   The next item is the report (A5-0341/2003) by Mrs Stihler, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on measures for the recovery of cod stocks
[COM(2003) 130 – 2003/2104(INI)].
   . – Mr President, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by thanking Mrs Stihler, for her report.
On Monday, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) published its new scientific recommendation for 2004 and has now, unfortunately, been obliged to confirm the disastrous state that cod stocks are in, including in the waters to the west of Scotland, in the eastern English Channel, in the Skagerrak and in the Kattegat.
ICES has now advised that fishing for these four stocks be closed down. This, of course, puts us in a massive dilemma.
Can we justify basing our decision solely on ICES’ argument in favour of replenishing stocks, which would result in our having to prohibit not only fishing for cod, but also for a whole range of other fish, and, in due course, in thousands of fishermen facing oblivion? Or could we find a way out by improving our plans for stock recovery, so that, although stocks would recover more slowly and would also involve some elements of uncertainty, fewer fishermen would be forced to abandon their trade?
This is certainly a difficult decision, but it is one we will have to take before we can adopt any kind of plan to replenish cod stocks.
The outline that we are debating today is a general one, and serves as a good basis for a cod stock recovery plan that would secure us the chance to revert to normal management conditions. It starts by identifying the lower limit below which scientists regard a stock as threatened with collapse.
The plan contains formulae for calculating total allowable catches (TAC) on the basis of scientific estimates of current stocks.
If the stock is larger than the lower limit, the TAC will be set in such a way that the stock can increase by 30% in the following year.
It introduces limitations on the fishing effort, allocated to the Member States in proportion to their share in the total allowable catch of cod.
It also contains measures to improve the monitoring and control of the vessels whose fishing effort is subject to management measures; these include provisions on prior notification and on the requirement to land cod in designated ports.
   Mr President, I appreciate the Commission’s proposed recovery plan for depleted cod stocks.
It means that the Commission is complying with its commitments under the common fisheries policy.
I also appreciate Mrs Stihler’s work and her report, together with the cooperation that she and I have enjoyed, in my case as draftsmanof the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
That committee’s amendment according to which the precautionary principle would lead to drastic measures being taken and to the Member States having the opportunity to take measures in addition to the common ones in order to protect and preserve stocks has been adopted by the Committee on Fisheries, and that is something I am pleased about.
As we heard earlier, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) will tomorrow present its annual report on the fish stocks in our oceans.
Again, a total moratorium is recommended, which should make the doubters realise that measures really must be taken.
We know that the Council, which can no longer put its head in the sand, must take action and adopt this plan.
It is the fourth version that the Commission is presenting to the Council.
Even though I am satisfied with the Commission’s proposal and believe that it is a move in the right direction, I should also like to have seen the Baltic Sea included, because we know that cod stocks are just as threatened there.
The International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission has, moreover, come up with further plans, which sounded quite good in October.
I therefore withdrew my amendments concerning the Baltic Sea in the Committee on Fisheries.
At a later meeting in October, the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission deviated from its own principles concerning what should be done.
It is completely ignoring the scientific advice and states that the catch is 45% larger than what international advisers claim.
That is very serious.
Not taking the measures recommended by the international advisers is a waste of fisheries resources.
The advisers consist of 1 600 researchers from 19 countries, and not listening to these researchers constitutes a waste of what could be flourishing fishing communities and a flourishing industry.
In the Baltic Sea, we could have fished three times as much as we are doing today.
Take a genuinely sound decision here in the House now, as I hope will also be done by the Council and the Commission.
   Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Stihler on her report and thank her for her hard work on this highly controversial issue.
As we have heard once again, the ICES has stated that cod stocks are in such a dire state of collapse that it is recommending the complete closure of the cod fishery in the North Sea, the Irish Sea and the West of Scotland.
It claims that years of stringent conservation measures have failed to rebuild stocks and that only the total shutdown of these fishing grounds will enable any meaningful recovery.
Of course, we know from bitter experience, that when the scientists once again call for the complete closure of the cod fishery, they also mean the virtual closure of the haddock, whiting, plaice and prawn fisheries, where cod is caught as a by-catch.
Let me say this now to Commissioner Fischler and say it very clearly, because if there are any more cuts at the December Council meeting this year, it will spell the end of the UK white fish fleet.
And I do not mean any more drastic cuts like last year, I mean any more cuts at all.
The two previous massive decommissioning rounds have reduced the British white fish fleet by around 40%.
The harbour workers and ancillary staff who rely on the white fish fleet for a living are now teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
Any further cuts will be fatal.
It would mean that, even if cod stocks ever do recover, there will be no UK fishermen there to catch them.
I do not intend to attack the scientists.
There is nothing to be gained from shooting the messenger, but this most recent ICES report once again highlights the vital importance of listening to the advice of the fishermen as well as to the boffins.
Last year scientists told us that haddock stocks were dwindling.
The fishermen said this was rubbish.
Now the scientists agree that there are an estimated 400 000 tonnes of haddock spawning stock biomass in the North Sea.
So who is right?
Could I in addition say that it appears the scientists are not listening to each other when arriving at their grand conclusions.
According to new scientific research from the respected Sir Alistair Hardy Foundation in Plymouth, which has been monitoring the North Sea for the last 70 years, stocks of cold water plankton, on which cod larvae feed, have been driven hundreds of miles to the north by an unprecedented rise in water temperatures.
This perhaps explains why there is a great abundance of cod being caught around the Faeroes, Iceland and Norway, but none left in the North Sea.
So for heaven's sake, let us start listening to the fishermen as well as the scientists.
The fishermen have a vested commercial interest in seeing cod stocks recover.
That is the only way we are going to get a decent living for our fishermen in the future.
   .
Mr President, Amendment No 709 may have to be adjusted technically to reflect the result of the vote today.
This amendment aims at offsetting the cost of amendments adopted, so that Parliament remains within the self-imposed ceiling of 20% of Heading 5.
A number of amendments rejected in the Committee on Budgets have been retabled and, if they are adopted, their cost will have to be offset by adjusting Amendment No 709 accordingly.
   . – Mr President, if I am right in my understanding of this, it says here that we are allocating EUR 8.4 million to the political parties.
It now appears from what the House has resolved that the line being marked ‘p.m.’, is a token entry.
Voting on that now would go against what the plenary has already voted, and so I now ask whether that is actually the case.
   . Mr President, Mr Walter is absolutely correct because, in the previous vote, we voted against the amendment to put the EUR 8.4 million in the reserve or on the line.
We are therefore left with only a p.m., so we cannot retain the wording of the paragraph in its current form.
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   – Mr President, under item 8, this document states that the Western Balkans do not form part of Europe, which is quite nonsensical.
I would ask the rapporteur to clarify this, as I will not, otherwise, be able to vote in favour of the report.
   . Mr President, I am sorry but the fact is that technology is not always up to scratch here.
I wanted to inform you, as regards Amendment No 8(2), that I propose to replace the words ‘all steps’ contained in the original text with the words ‘steps’.
This would enable us to hold a joint vote.
   . Mr President, as regards paragraph 11, I propose an oral amendment intended to replace the words ‘alternative energy sources’ with the words ‘renewable energy sources’.
(4)
That concludes the votes.(5)
   . The European Parliament has, in its preliminary draft budget, once again approved an item ‘3710 – Contributions to European political parties’ – stated for the record.
We have voted against this measure.
For several years, our House has been itching to fund so-called ‘European’ political parties out of the public purse.
This has been impossible, however, due to the lack of a legal base.
The Treaty of Nice made a timely appearance on the scene and provided one (Article 191(4) TEC), but an implementing regulation is still required.
This is not easy to draft, however, because it seeks to discriminate, in a very clumsy way, between the supposedly ‘integrationist’ political parties and the others, but also between the strictly European political parties and those that, from a national base, work at European level.
It thereby runs counter to Article 191(4) of the Treaty, even as amended by Nice, which gives a broad definition of those who can benefit from funding, where it refers to parties ‘at European level’ – unlike what the current wording of item 3710 would have us believe.
In order to overcome this new hurdle, the draft European Constitution makes yet another change: it subtly targets political parties ‘at’ European level (Article I(45)(4).
Unfortunately for the federalists, however, this text is still a long way from being adopted.
   The Danish Liberal Party’s Members of the European Parliament, Mr Busk and Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, voted against Amendment No 338 in the vote on the EU budget for 2004.
We think it is inappropriate to support tobacco production in Europe.
Adoption of Amendment No 338 would, however, be nothing more than an empty gesture, since the EU would still be legally obliged to provide the aid.
Instead, we believe it should be decided to remove the aid as part of an overall reform of the EU’s agricultural aid schemes.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very glad that the House has nevertheless not agreed to the amendment by the Group of the Party of European Socialists aiming at cutting EUR 40 million for the export of live cattle.
We, too, are opposed to export subsidies for the transport of live animals for slaughter, but this indiscriminate amendment, which did not distinguish between cattle for breeding or production and animals for slaughter, was lamentably inappropriate.
Whilst I am very glad that a majority could not be found to support this amendment, I would like to make it clear that such amendments are detrimental to agriculture, particularly in less-favoured areas.
   .
The draft budget for 2004 confirms the trend towards reducing the size of the budget, in evidence since 1997.
This draft budget is the equivalent of less than 1% of Community gross national income (GNI), despite the fact that it is the enlargement budget, with greater requirements in terms of social and economic cohesion, and despite the fact that the EU is experiencing an economic recession.
Thanks to the acceptance of Agenda 2000, the restrictive financial framework of the Copenhagen Council and the consequences of the constraints imposed by the Stability Pact, which directly affect the implementation of the budget, the budgetary procedure has become a bargain basement where inconsequential issues are debated and where the policy pursued is one of transfers, cuts and redistribution of funds.
All of this reduces budgetary transparency.
We regret that the creation of a budget line of EUR 20 million for the reconstruction of Palestine has been rejected, given the deterioration in the living conditions and infrastructure of the people of Palestine.
We do, however, welcome Parliament’s approval of our proposal requesting that the Commission maintain the level of funding for East Timor, bearing in mind the ongoing need for reconstruction in that country and the international undertakings signed with it.
Reparation should, therefore, be made for the unjustifiable 70% cut proposed by the Commission, which has deleted the specific budget line for East Timor.
   Mr President, for most of this year the College of Quaestors, with the support of the Bureau, has been trying to amend the budget to extend the health insurance scheme to former Members as long as: they have served at least two terms in the European Parliament; are aged at least 60 when they leave the European Parliament; and the costs of the scheme will be shared in the same way as for Parliament's officials except that, additionally, former Members will pay a premium equivalent to roughly five years' contributions into the scheme.
This will put this category of former Members in the same position as staff with the same length of service.
In this multi-million euro budget, Miss Gill has sought to frustrate this modest and comparatively inexpensive scheme at every opportunity.
Her attitude towards her ageing former colleagues has been cruel, vindictive and hypocritical.
While she condemns them to a painful and sick old age she has no similar reservations regarding her own benefits.
I challenge Miss Gill to tell us whether she makes use of Parliament's private health reimbursement scheme and whether or not she benefits from Parliament's voluntary pension scheme.
Miss Gill's attitude has been and remains a disgrace.
Even now I hope she will soften her attitude, but I fear I will hope in vain.
   Mr President, I am concerned.
We were aware of the cases of Legionnaire’s disease in Strasbourg, but we are now seeing a particularly nasty outbreak of liberalism.
I am referring to the Jarzembowski report and I am astonished that the vote went in favour of the rapid liberalisation not only of freight but also of passenger transport, despite the warnings of the Commission and the Council and despite the fact that most rail companies are not ready for such changes.
We would be acting without having seen the evaluation asked for by the Commission and in the knowledge that this action will have significant consequences in terms of safety, social conditions and the quality of service provided to the citizens.
I believe that Parliament has today voted quite irresponsibly and that it has been dictated to by national self-interest and by forthcoming elections.
We have allowed election dates to influence our votes.
   . – I voted against the proposal to expand the liberalisation of rail transport in Europe.
Although the effects of directive 2001/12 on access rights to the Trans-European rail freight network could not be evaluated, because it is still being transposed in the Member States, the European Commission and Mr Jarzembowski propose to speed up the complete liberalisation of rail transport.
It is simplistic to claim that the fall in rail’s competitiveness is due to its failure to open up.
Passenger rail transport did not need to be opened up for competitive and safe rail lines to be built.
Cooperation between operators works – at least where the Thalys is concerned.
What Europe lacks is an industrial policy, closer cooperation between public service operators and the development of Member States’ and the Union’s budgets for investment in the trans-European networks.
Despite the improvements that have been made to it, Mr Sterckx’s report confirms what the Council of Ministers has already accepted: subordinating safety to profit.
I support the Savary report on creating a European Railway Agency, whose administrative board would include representatives from employees’ organisations and which would take account of the environmental, social and safety aspects in line with the proposals tabled by Mrs Ainardi.
   – Mr President, I regret having to address something that is an internal group matter, but, on Tuesday, our group agreed with the rapporteur that this item 8 would be amended, as it is drafted in a misleading way.
The fact that this was not done obliged a number of Members, including Mrs Pack and myself, to vote against this report on the grounds that its infelicitous drafting gave the impression that the Western Balkans, Belarus, the Ukraine and Moldavia were among the neighbouring regions of Europe rather than of the European Union.
There is no doubt, though, that these states form part of Europe, and, self-evidently, the Western Balkans also have the prospect of accession – indeed, ever since Thessaloniki, the right of accession, too – as soon as these states fulfil the European Union’s criteria.
I therefore object to the way in which this form of words puts the Western Balkans on the same level as West Africa and the Southern Caucasus.
That is quite nonsensical.
I do assume, however, that the expression ‘Western Balkans’ does not mean Croatia, as this House, on the basis of an amendment that I jointly got introduced into another report by Mr Brok, decided as long ago as 9 April this year that it regards Croatia as a candidate for accession in 2007.
   . The rapporteur, Mr Brok, levels the accusation that the Council’s report on foreign policy in 2002 is just a book-keeping exercise listing action, without opinions on objectives, priorities or the meeting of costs.
In his report, he takes the opportunity to himself express what the Council omits to say.
When talking about influence over neighbouring regions, he makes no distinction between possible future EU Member States in the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union on the one hand, and desired spheres of influence in West Africa and the Middle East on the other.
The EU’s capacity for action would be benefited by the abolition of the principle of unanimity of the Member States and by increased power for the future European Foreign Minister.
A powerful, united European superstate is a major contributor to the United Nations, which must be radically reformed, partly for the sake of European interests.
From 2004, a European intervention force should have a 5000-man force permanently available for rescue and humanitarian operations, which, by 2009, should be ready to fight in wars elsewhere in Europe according to the Kosovo model.
A united front with the USA is desirable.
I thank Mr Brok for his clarity.
Since his model differs substantially from my beliefs, I shall be voting against this report, although I do agree with him on one point.
Omission to combat the human rights violations in Chechnya on the part of the EU will result in the formation of a new seed-bed for widespread terrorism.
   . Ten years ago, the whole world expected that it would be possible to solve the conflict between Israel and Palestine peacefully in the short term.
Instead of disputing each other’s right to exist and forcing neighbouring peoples to emigrate, they would live peacefully side by side from then on, without humiliation, obstacles or fear.
Then, however, the extremes on both sides saw another chance to sow the seeds of hatred.
Fear of the other’s violence is leading people to choose the path of violence.
The majority of the inhabitants of Israel does accept a Palestinian State, but, back home, gives the power of government to an opponent of that State, because it sees in him its best chance of protection against Palestinian violence.
In Palestine, groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad have grown powerful because people think that, in any case, agreement can never be reached with the occupying power, which is seizing ever more land for settlements and the construction of a wall.
It seems that relations between Israel and Palestine will be forever hopeless as a result.
On 12 November, the moderate powers from both countries are due to come together in Geneva to present a negotiated final solution for a just peace.
Fortunately, this report moves in that very direction, but it is important that a comfortable majority in the European Parliament emphatically supports the peace plan today by adopting Amendment No 11.
   It is understandable why Parliament and the Commission should look into the problems encountered by small enterprises in Europe, particularly the craft trades.
The documents with which we are here concerned take us, however, into a virtual world or ideological construction glorifying the market.
In this way, the Green Paper on Entrepreneurship and this report, which comments upon it, presuppose that ‘entrepreneurs are the driving force of the social market economy’.
Wage earners, obviously viewed as the force of inertia, will be most appreciative.
Moreover, the Green Paper conceals nothing of the Commission’s ill opinion of the ‘bottlenecks affecting the flexibility of [the] labour market’.
The Langen report also asks for initiatives to be taken to ‘put an end to old-fashioned attitudes which insist on attributing guilt to entrepreneurial activity and demonising business profit’.
Yet, in ‘real life’, it is in fact large companies’ attempts to maximise their profits that crush small subcontractors.
Such companies require the lowest prices and the highest rates of work from them, with repercussions for salaries and the conditions of work of wage earners now without secure employment.
The documents proposed have nothing to say about this, but repeat the tired refrain about the need to reduce social charges. We have therefore voted against this biased report of limited scope.
(6)
   The next item is the report (A5-0331/2003) by Mrs Figueiredo, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission communication ‘Towards uniform and effective implementation of the common fisheries policy’ [COM(2003) 130 – 2003/2104(INI)].
   . Mr President, I think that the comments we have just heard confirm both the quality of Mrs Figueiredo’s work and the full agreement and convergence of the views of the Commission and Parliament on this subject.
I have one reservation with regard to the last comments by Mr Stevenson as I do not agree with his analysis of the state of the common fisheries policy, but he will no doubt understand that the Commission’s assessment is not completely akin to his own.
As regards the issue of shrimps, raised by Mr Maat, we will certainly take note of this issue and there is no doubt that Mr Fischler will talk to his colleagues about it and, if necessary, to Mr Monti.
   The next item is the report (A5-0332/2003) by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the annual report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the results of the multi-annual guidance programmes for the fishing fleets at the end of 2001 and on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the intermediate results of the multi-annual guidance programmes for the fishing fleets at 30 June 2002 [COM(2002)446 – COM(2002)483 – 2002/2262(INI)].
   The next item is the oral question (O-0065/2003 – B5-0280/2003) by Mr Jové Peres, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on the reform of the CMOs in tobacco, cotton and olive oil.
   The next item is the debates on cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law (Rule 50).
   The next item is the debate on the motion for a resolution (B5-0434/2003), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on human rights violations and failure to show respect for the rule of law in Burundi.
    Mr President, we are about to debate a resolution on Burundi.
I think it is useful to recall the background to the current situation in that country.
It is now ten years since the murder of Mr Ndadaye, its first democratically elected President.
Since then, Burundi has been ravaged by civil war.
The war amounted to a confrontation between ethnic groups.
Sadly, it resulted in almost 300 000 deaths.
A peace process is currently under way.
Initially, this was led by the President of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, and later by Mr Mandela.
The terms of the process provide for a cessation of armed conflict.
This was to be followed by the various stages of an electoral process and transition to democracy.
An equitable power sharing system was to be established, together with a rotating Presidency passing from Hutus to Tutsis every 18 months.
All these arrangements are contained in the August 2000 Arusha Peace Agreement which resulted in the present transitional government.
A delegation from the Committee on Development and Cooperation visited Burundi between 22 and 27 June of last year.
On 9 July 2003 the President of Burundi appeared before the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
On 8 October an agreement on effective implementation of the cease-fire was reached between the Government and the main faction of the so-called Forces for the Defence of Democracy led by Pierre Nkurunziza.
Unfortunately, armed confrontations between groups such as the FDD and the FNL have continued.
The African Union has dispatched the African Mission In Burundi peace-keeping force known as the AMIB. It consists of 3 000 soldiers from Ethiopia, South Africa and Mozambique.
The force is tasked with assisting in the disarmament and demobilisation of rebel soldiers and with their reintegration back into society.
In addition, if peace is maintained, it should be easier to for humanitarian aid supplies to reach displaced persons and the population in war-torn areas.
The last of the AMIB soldiers arrived in Burundi last Sunday.
The force is financed by the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Mozambique.
Nonetheless, there appear to be financial difficulties over keeping it in the field.
At the same time, the problems in the south of Kivu are ongoing.
Confrontations are still taking place and they represent a threat to peace in the region.
The European Union suspended aid to Burundi in January 1997.
Aid was reinstated, however, following the response to the peace negotiations.
EUR 48 million was granted for a rehabilitation programme aimed mainly at supporting the return of displaced persons and demobilisation.
The programme also aimed to facilitate justice and reconciliation.
In addition, institutional support amounting to EUR 2 million was awarded to the Ministry of Economy.
A further EUR 150 million was allocated at the Paris Conference in 2001. This included an ECHO programme for the return of Burundian refugees from Tanzania supported by UNHCR.
European Union funds amounting to EUR 285 million are currently available to Burundi.
Additional funds will be allocated under the ninth EDF.
We would like this resolution to serve as a reminder to the authorities in Burundi that they need to involve women in the peace process.
We believe women have an important part to play in the latter.
We also encourage neighbouring countries to support the peace process in Burundi.
Finally, we hope to be able to rejoice that peace has come about in this small country in central Africa.
   . Mr President, like Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco, it is with a certain degree of optimism that we welcomed news of the conclusion of the Pretoria Protocol between the transitional government and the armed Hutu group, the FDD.
This Protocol is in our eyes an important step towards consolidating the peace process in Burundi.
It shows that many of the local actors are prepared to respect the Arusha Agreement as a framework for the peace process.
Like the author of the resolution we are discussing this afternoon, we are also concerned about the exclusion from the process of the last rebel group, the FNL, and we feel that it is important to continue to encourage all initiatives to launch the negotiations between the FNL and the transitional government in Burundi.
What have we done so far? For the most part, we have supported the peace process as far as possible, deploying a number of instruments to ease the conflict and promote reconciliation, including food aid, financial contributions and the despatch of observers from the African Union.
Pending the establishment of the facility to support peace, we are preparing, in collaboration with the African Union, an emergency project to maintain peace in Burundi, which totals around EUR 25 million.
Naturally, we hope that the entire donor community will stand alongside us.
We are working towards the economic reconstruction of Burundi with a rehabilitation programme, totalling just under EUR 50 million, which is designed to ensure the physical rehabilitation of the economic and social infrastructures that have unfortunately been destroyed by the civil war, as in other parts of Africa.
In August, we signed an indicative national programme with Burundi, as part of the ninth EDF, which amounts to around EUR 70 million, part of which is naturally allocated to the restoration of the political institutions in the transitional phase.
Therefore, in our view, support for the peace process and a substantial contribution to the reconstruction of the country are the two objectives that the Union must continue to strive towards in order to support the little progress being made as regards the peace process in that country, which sadly continues to be troubled.
   – Mr President, the ceasefire agreed on 29 January of this year in Nepal between the government and the Maoists lasted only seven months.
As long ago as March, both sides were given a code of conduct, whereupon rebel leaders were released from prison.
Three rounds of negotiations resulted in the Maoists abandoning their demand for the abolition of the monarchy.
The government produced a framework for reform of the state; I have its road map and objectives in my hand as I speak.
It provides for round table conferences involving all parties, as well as prompt elections to the national parliament, new structures featuring regional self-government, the introduction of the market economy and education and employment rights for ethnic groups and people with disabilities, all of which adds up to a substantial package.
In August 2003, though, the Maoists ended the ceasefire, since which time three hundred people have been killed, twenty-five of them last weekend alone, and acts of intimidation, extortion, serious fighting and murders have become daily occurrences in Nepal.
For the first time, foreigners have been abducted and shots fired at tourists.
In this country, so heavily dependent on tourism, the situation is becoming more tragic.
The Group of the European People’s Party calls on the Maoists to renew the ceasefire once and for all and to return to the negotiating table.
Should the two sides need a mediator from outside, the EU is eminently capable of performing that role, we Europeans enjoying a high degree of acceptance throughout South-East Asia.
We therefore call on the Council to appoint a special ambassador to Nepal, with which, Commissioner Lamy, the Commission must build up the EU’s relations.
One first and important step would be for the staff complement in the new office in Katmandu to be increased.
Although putting an end to the civil war is the first priority, at no time must respect for human rights be neglected.
Democracy must be extended, reforms acceptable to people at the grass roots must be implemented, and minorities must be treated with respect, particularly the Bhutanese refugees in the camps that Parliament’s delegation to SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) visited, the funding of which by the UNHCR is evidently no longer certain.
The minorities also include refugees from Tibet, who have been obliged to leave their homeland in fear of their lives, and who pass through Nepal on their way to India.
According to the information I have received, the handing over to the Chinese of eighteen Tibetans was an exceptional occurrence – let us hope that it remains one.
The Nepalese government must guarantee that deportations will be prevented, and all refugees from Bhutan and Tibet must be guaranteed protection under international human rights agreements.
   – Mr President, I was glad to hear Mrs Stihler speak, and also that a number of Socialist Members have rejoined us, as we covered two important human rights issues without the second strongest group in this House saying anything about them.
I was already worried that the group had ceased to exist or had abandoned human rights policy.
I would just like to ask, in the event of their no longer needing their speaking time, whether the Rules of Procedure would allow it to be transferred to us in future.
We would be very grateful for that.
   There is no danger of us not noticing your presence, Mr Posselt.
The joint debate is closed.(1)
   – Mr President, I do not want to prolong the proceedings, but you will have become aware that the cry of ‘Check 16’ has become a running gag in the House.
Because of an event that you will probably be able to follow up – although you are again the wrong person for me to be telling about this – I asked, during the last part-session, for the House secretariat to pay attention to the circumstances under which a vote is re-examined when one or more Members ask for this to be done.
Neither then nor now have I received any notification from the secretariat.
We often talk about the dignity of Parliament, but that also involves us being given an answer to this question by the secretariat.
   Clearly, Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure already covers this matter.
However, I will ask the Conference of Presidents to give you a response.(2)
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 23 October 2003.
   I should like to take this opportunity to welcome to the official gallery a number of distinguished visitors here with us today.
Mr Mejdahl, speaker of the Danish Folketing, is very welcome here this afternoon.
We are also joined by colleagues from the Committee on European Affairs of the Swedish Riksdag, and I should like to welcome them to our Chamber.
As you know, this afternoon we shall have our exchange of views with Commissioner Verheugen on the Commission monitoring reports on the Accession States.
I know that a number of distinguished guests, including ambassadors, have joined us for that today.
They are very welcome.
I note in particular that the Romanian chief negotiator and acting minister for European integration is in the gallery, as is Mr Theodor Stolojan, the leader of the Romanian opposition: they too are very welcome.(1)
   Mr President, that was an astute proposal by Mrs Thors.
If she now joins us straight away in voting for immediate referral back to committee, that will sort the whole thing out brilliantly.
   I gather, from the round of applause, that this is what the House would like, in which case the House needs to change the Rules, because they do not permit me to do this.
The vote must take place at the time I indicated earlier.
So please be here at the beginning of the debate to ensure your view is taken into account.(1)
   Mr President, I too, want to be brief.
Tomorrow’s agenda includes a vote on a resolution on the liberal professions.
The fact that Parliament was not sitting last week meant that it has not been possible to put together a compromise in good time, so I ask that the vote be postponed to the next Strasbourg part-session.
Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Rothley have also agreed to this.
Thank you.
   Mr President, I agree with Mr Lehne’s proposal since we have not in fact reached an agreement on the text of the joint motion for a resolution amongst the different political groups.
   Mr President, I want to return to the question of the agenda and of Mr Wuermeling’s report.
We have given some thought to how we might resolve this problem at once without changing the agenda and have come to a conclusion that I think even Mrs Thors would agree to. I hereby move that the Wuermeling report be moved up to the first item on the agenda; I would ask you to announce it now, and notify you here and now that I will then move that it be referred back to the committee straight away.
   This reflects precisely the dilemma in which the groups have placed me.
If I follow the logic of Mr Schulz and he is defeated, and the Wuermeling report thus becomes the first item on the agenda, that would completely upset the rhythm of the work planned for today.
I shall not follow that suggestion.
However, if, as we proceed with our agenda, colleagues can come to a consensus and can come to me at the end of the first item with an agreed proposal, I shall then put that to the House, and we can act on it accordingly.
If no consensus can be reached we shall proceed as indicated earlier.
   Mr President, to echo the speeches of some of my colleagues, Mr Berthu and Mr Dell Alba in particular, I would say that it could perhaps be useful to put an end to surveys and not to ask people for their opinion because, if they are asked for it, there is a risk that they will give it and, clearly, if this runs counter to the overriding attitude and if it is politically incorrect, then it is very unpleasant for the European political establishment.
In a democracy, moreover, there is also a formality to be gone through in this area, that is to say elections, and I would point out to you that these are extremely dangerous.
In any case, they could, for example, lead, as from June, to greater interest in the political sympathies I represent.
I wonder if elections too should not also be abolished and then perhaps the people of Europe also changed as soon as they begin to have negative thoughts or as soon as they apparently hinder the progress of European democracy.
   Mr President, I should like to refer to the recent crisis in Sri Lanka.
Mr Cushnahan cogently pointed out that, at a time where it is now possible, after 23 years of civil war, to bring peace to the country, the President declared a state of emergency once the proposals for peace had been put forward by the rebel Tamil Tiger groups.
You, Mr President, Mr Poettering and other Members of this House have met the Prime Minister, who as we speak is with Mr Bush in Washington.
Parliament ought to be recalled back in Colombo.
There is no justification for the prorogation of Parliament, nor for the declaration of a state of emergency, nor for sending troops out onto the streets.
The European Parliament might well ask that democracy, the rule of law, parliament and government be reinstituted in Sri Lanka.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since 12 August, the date of his abduction, there has been no news from Dr Arjan Erkel and we do not know what has happened to him.
He was kidnapped in Mukala in Dagestan and nothing has been done to free him.
I feel that the European Parliament and the European Union should take action with a view not only to getting information and calling for his release but also to protecting the institutions that provide voluntary services in territories where the health situation is absolutely disgraceful.
   Mr President, I would like to point out that, on 2 July 2003, the Italian Presidency made a commitment before Parliament to present the moratorium on the death penalty to the United Nations General Assembly.
This undertaking was supported on 23 October by a resolution adopted unanimously by Parliament.
Today, we learn from the press that the Italian Government has decided not to present the resolution to the UN.
I urge you, Mr President, to convey our disappointment to the Presidency and to keep point 3 of our resolution, which provided for the results and assessment to be discussed in any case.
Although these are, I feel, very important, a debate is still called for.
   Mr Watson, I am – shall we say – moderately optimistic that everything will be sorted out.
I am entirely optimistic that far and away the greater part of it will be.
Although we cannot exclude the possibility of mishaps in one instance or another, I will reiterate that all the problems that might crop up are capable of being isolated and will not result in any overall danger to the internal market, the Agricultural Policy, or the food market as a whole.
If I may turn to Romania and Bulgaria, it is certainly the case that Romania still has a long way to go, but there is no doubt that it has, over the last two years, caught up to a significant degree.
Bulgaria and Romania were given their financial signal when we undertook to present the financial package in the first half of next year, that is, during the Irish Presidency, and, moreover, very early on in the year.
I have already discussed in depth with the Irish finance minister how this can be handled.
I regard the political and technical difficulties involved in the financial package for Bulgaria and Romania as being manageable, for the reason that we intend to use the same methods, the same principles and the same rules as we did for the Ten.
We are not putting together a new package for Romania and Bulgaria; instead, we are, so to speak, extrapolating what we have already done for the Ten.
That is also the only option available to us if our orders are that the financial package for Romania and Bulgaria is not to prejudice the next Financial Perspective, which, in its turn, should not prejudice the conclusion of negotiations with Romania and Bulgaria.
That is why we can do no other than choose the same methodology that we have already chosen for the Ten.
So I do not think that is so terribly difficult and do not want to exclude the possibility of our being able to make perceptible progress in this area in the first six months of 2004.
   Mr President, the Commissioner did not answer my third question about the accession of these 10 countries to the European Economic Area.
It may be that he has chosen not to answer, but maybe he forgot.
I would like an answer.
   – Mr President, I should first of all like to warmly congratulate Commissioner Verheugen.
In Germany, there is a ‘Chancellor of Unity’ and now also a ‘Commissioner for the Unification of Europe’.
My sincere congratulations on this.
I am particularly glad that, in your report, you have quite clearly given priority to the political criteria in respect of Turkey.
This is an important point.
It is evident that the progress made is significant to the Turkish public.
I think we should note this with a sense of gratitude.
Secondly, I have to conclude from your report that you are fairly disappointed with what has actually happened.
So am I, to say the least.
I thought that more would have been done than has actually been the case, especially with regards to the position of the army; this at any rate, is evident from your report.
These are matters with major implications.
Your optimism concerning the ten countries that will be joining the EU on 1 May relates to minor aspects that can still be ironed out.
I think that the big step towards the democratic constitutional state – which still has to be taken in practice – is of such a scale that we can hardly expect this to be completed in a year from now.
Correct me if I am wrong, Commissioner, but is the date of December 2004 either the date on which we will no longer take our political community of values as such seriously, or as the date on which the guillotine comes down on Turkey's membership? In that sense, I think that this date is causing us increasing anxiety.
Would it therefore not be preferable, in respect of Turkey, if we were to focus on programme-based progress, or guidance, on the road to a democratic constitutional state?
   Mr President, on the subject of the European Economic Area, Mr Titley, I appeal to Liechtenstein, in the interests of the functioning of the European Economic Area, to not associate signing the Treaty with problems stemming from Europe’s past, but rather to seek dialogue with the Czech Republic concerning these difficulties.
At present we are working extremely hard to show the Principality of Liechtenstein and the Czech Republic a possible way out of this problem.
I cannot yet predict how successful we will be, but we are trying, and we are doing our best, but obviously, you never know.
I agree with you, Mr Oostlander, that it is precisely in the area of the military that we had hoped for more progress in Turkey.
There are two issues that give me particular cause for concern.
The first is that Turkish military personnel are still in supervisory authorities controlling important areas of civilian life, such as the National Council of Education or the National Council of Radio and Television.
The military have lost nothing there.
It is also the case that large portions of the Turkish defence budget are not subject to the control of parliament, and when a budget is outside parliament’s control, then that clearly indicates a lack of democracy.
There is no question about that.
I do not think that we need new benchmarks for Turkey or a new deadline or anything else.
Turkey itself will decide whether or not the end assessment will be favourable.
It is up to them to press ahead with reforms and, as Mr Poettering quite rightly said, to put these into practice, so that we can make an assessment. The political conditions governing accession have been met.
The roadmap is clear: a decision at the end of next year.
The Commission will accomplish this task seriously, fairly and objectively and will not shy away from this responsibility.
   – Mr Verheugen, I understand your anger with the media.
I have three questions.
Firstly, it was announced in the media in Poland that fifty-one complaints have been lodged, and in Parliament it is said that an iron fist is needed.
Perhaps you should also use the iron fist in your area, but when the iron fist is directed against people, then it will be difficult and not just the officials will be affected.
I have the impression that the social burdens in Poland will increase; the wind is blowing in the government’s face.
The second question is what do you think about the regional processes in the candidate countries? In Prague there is 3% unemployment, in the industrialised area of Northern Moravia there is approximately 30%.
My third point is that we want good partnerships.
We have just spoken about the Roma and if we want to have a good partnership with Russia then the issue of Russian minorities in the Baltic States must be tackled with greater consistency and seriousness, without political reservation and discrimination, but rather in a way that really leads to a solution.
   Mr van Orden, I would just like to repeat what I have already said.
I must apologise for the irregularities and derelictions of duty that have been blamed on staff unknown to me, but I cannot allow the fact that duties were neglected anywhere to lead me to also violate my own and to disregard the Commission rules.
I ask for your understanding.
We sent the document to all rapporteurs – and to you – a few minutes after it was adopted by the Commission.
I would, however, urge you to evaluate the progress in regular personal dialogue with me as we often did last year.
As regards Bulgaria and Romania, I agree with you.
The one country should not wait for the other, and we have also guaranteed this, but at present there is no need and no reason to contemplate decoupling the one country from the other in this accession process.
   – I lament the fact that the press were given precise details the day before yesterday of the contents of the report that you are presenting this afternoon to the Members: this order of things does not seem to me to correspond exactly to what should be the democratic functioning of the institutions.
You have told us that this wayward trend is difficult to control, and that worries me.
Then I note that the report on accession preparations treats Turkey in the same way as the other candidates, the ten plus two, in that way seeming, contrary to what you said, to anticipate the decision to be taken by the Council at the end of 2004 on this issue.
Finally, I notice that, before the ten countries have even entered the European Union, they are already being threatened by safeguard clauses and being severely rebuked by the Commission, which is, furthermore, adopting a schizophrenic stance, systematically alarming the candidate countries and, at the same time, getting them to believe in themselves.
Should the candidate countries really be put on trial in such a way? Or, does this awkwardness on the part of the Commission not reveal a fundamental methodological error which has not allowed the specific characteristics of each country to be properly taken into consideration in the enlargement process and which is in danger of having long-term consequences?
   Mr President, I have listened carefully to the statements of the President-in-Office of the Council, which outlined general approaches which I feel I can support, but I would prefer to focus on a number of practical issues, not least because Mr Antonione called for the European Parliament’s support.
To obtain this support, which we are, moreover, quite willing to give, he must enter into dialogue with the positions of the European Parliament.
On 21 October, there was a meeting of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs in which the Italian Foreign Minister took part, representing the President-in-Office.
I would like to draw the attention of Mr Antonione and the House to two points once again.
We are firmly in favour of keeping the reference to the Legislative Council, the concentration of the European Parliament’s legislative function in the Council, which is an important point, a major innovation of the draft Convention.
Now, Mr Antonione tells us that he has taken note of the fact that the majority is opposed to this.
I would express my doubts once again regarding this approach: one cannot take decisions just by counting the numbers for and against.
Sometimes, I even have the impression that the views of 28 governments are part of the equation, whereas only 25 are entitled to give an opinion, for three are mere observers.
In the Convention, there were analyses, exchange of opinions, a search for solutions, a debate on the points for and against each solution, and, lastly, compromise.
We cannot accept that the Intergovernmental Conference should do no more than tot up the fors and againsts.
Mr Antonione has made a commitment – and I appreciate the significance of this – to keep the matter open.
I do not know exactly what the outcome of this will be, but we call strongly for this point not to be deleted.
The second point concerns the procedure for revising the Treaties.
Mr Antonione did not mention it today, but Mr Frattini undertook before our committee to look into drawing up an Italian proposal to go beyond the text, which was not agreed in the Convention and is not, therefore, binding for any party.
We are in danger of creating an absurd situation where we go back to square one on issues already resolved in the Convention with a compromise but we are unable to discuss issues which were not the subject of an agreement in the Convention, such as, precisely, the revision procedure.
I do not know whether the Italian Presidency intends to include this matter in the comprehensive proposal planned for the third week in November too, but we reiterate our firm commitment to fight for this to be included.
Lastly, Mr Antonione did not mention the issue raised by Mr Méndez de Vigo: it is unacceptable for sectoral configurations of the Council of Ministers to produce amendments to the Convention’s text.
   Mr President, Commissioner Barnier has painted a bleak picture of the situation, expressing the Commission’s concern, shared by many, at the way the work is proceeding.
He told us that it is not the Commission’s fault, it is certainly not the Italian Presidency’s fault, it is certainly not the fault of the Convention, still less the fault of Parliament. Well then, I would like to know whose fault it is.
Is it Estonia’s fault? Poland’s?
The fault of Mr Aznar, who would rather have the Nice method than that proposed by the Convention? Commissioner Barnier, might it not be that we are all a little to blame for having approached this issue with so little drive that, of course, once the gates were opened, once it became possible to say that the Convention had got this or that wrong – starting with the Commission – everyone rushed to follow the Commission’s example with regard to a text which, in all probability, being the lowest common denominator, was certainly going to be in danger, once the gates had been opened, of everyone rushing to try and amend it for the worse?
The truth is that we missed our chance at Nice, we missed our chance at Amsterdam and, in my view, we missed our chance at Maastricht; we missed the chance – which Parliament had once demanded but then forgot about – to stress that we needed, first, to go deeper – do you remember the famous concept of going deeper before enlarging? – and today’s debate shows how far we are from achieving the intentions expressed at the start of the Italian Presidency, which Parliament was still expressing in September.
I now wonder whether, given the way things are progressing, it might not be appropriate for the Italian Presidency to take stock of the situation properly.
It is true that you have made a number of commitments, but one of them was to take the moratorium to the United Nations, whereas we were told yesterday that no such thing is going to happen.
You undertook to round off the six months with the commitment on the Convention, but the Italian Presidency – Italy, a founder country – has a duty to itself, to its history.
If it were to come to a watered-down text, in my opinion, the least that the Italian Presidency should do is avoid concluding with a hotpotch text, a text that would do more harm to the Union’s interests than failing to come to a conclusion.
Since this is the way things are, since we do not have a worthy, powerful draft capable of withstanding great resistance, a federalist draft along the lines of that proposed to this House by Altiero Spinelli almost 20 years ago, since we do not have a powerful vision to inspire us, then it is no surprise that everyone is digging in their heels over minor issues.
We Radicals are going to hold a convention on 13 and 14 November 2003 on this subject, in the hope that, on the basis of a reflection in which many can take part, both here and elsewhere, we might be able to achieve a position to the effect that Parliament can reject a text if the negotiations should really go very badly.
   The next item is the report (A5-0312/2003) by Marieke Sanders-ten Holte, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation concerning Community cooperation with Asian and Latin American countries and amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2258/96 (COM(2002) 340 – C5-0368/2002 – 2002/0139(COD)).
   Mr President, firstly, I wish to say that I think there are a number of good points about the Commission’s proposal.
At the same time, I want to emphasise that the rapporteur, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, has done a very good job.
Under her leadership, we have been able, during the committee reading, to agree upon a number of additions and changes that make the legislation both more focused and concentrated more upon poverty issues.
I am especially pleased about the target of approximately ten per cent for efforts within the environmental area.
Environmental issues are all too often hidden away in development work.
We have a long list of problems, especially in Asia, that have to be tackled when it comes both to pollution and to safeguarding basic natural resources.
A majority of the poor in rural areas are in actual fact more dependent upon what we might call the ‘gross biomass product’, that is to say what is produced by nature, than upon the ‘gross domestic product’,that is to say what is produced by the economy.
We then have the controversy as to whether there should be one or two regulations for Asia and Latin America.
I am conscious of the fact that Parliament wanted two regulations, but I think that the Commission has very strong arguments in favour of its proposal.
In recent years, a number of measures have been implemented to make the organisation of development cooperation more efficient, and it would be strange if we were now to complicate this with two regulations and, as it were, to obstruct the simplification of the procedures otherwise under way.
I think Mrs Sanders-ten Holte had an excellent proposal for a regulation divided into two separate chapters.
I am not convinced by the argument that the countries are, apparently, so different.
We have a single framework for ACP cooperation, and it operates quite admirably.
Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra may talk about his 26 votes in favour compared with zero votes against but, if he were to listen in the corridors, he would hear that a very great many of his fellow MEPs are now deeply concerned about our getting into a conflict over this.
I should therefore like to urge my fellow MEPs, irrespective of what is said by the leaders of the political groups, to vote against the amendments aimed at our having two different regulations.
   Mr President, I have requested the floor as a result of personal comments in accordance with Rule 122 of the Rules of Procedure.
I wanted to refer to the comment made by Mr Wijkman with regard to the votes by means of which the Committee on Development and Cooperation’s proposal was approved, which were 26 in favour and 2 abstentions.
Mr Wijkman has not questioned these results, but has referred to the opinion in the corridors probably being different.
I would like to say, Mr President, that I have the greatest respect for everybody’s opinions, but that in a democracy it is votes that count.
With regard to the Commissioner, who has also referred to this humble Member of Parliament and who has said that he has heard no argument to convince him of the need for two regulations, I would like to say to MrPatten who is a good friend of mine that I believe that he has not properly understood the position here.
I believe it is not the Commission who has to be convinced of the validity of the arguments, but Parliament, because, Commissioner, I would remind you that it is the Commission that answers politically to this Parliament, and not Parliament to the Commission, and that we are involved in a codecision procedure in which it is assumed that Parliament has something to say.
   Mr President, I do not want to repeat what other Members have said, especially my colleague, Mrs Dührkop, but I should just like to give a warning in relation to two of the reports you have in front of you.
Later this month the Committee on Budgets will have a conciliation meeting with the Council on a variety of issues and one of those issues will be to get an across-the-board agreement on those areas where we have codecision.
There are seven areas in total, three of which are on the plenary agenda for this week.
We in the Budgets Committee especially through the work of Mrs Dührkop, who has worked in a very assiduous way have tried to seek an agreement on these reports.
We now find, however, that two of the reports are giving us serious problems.
If Amendments 19 to the Prets report and 14 to the Ilvari report are carried, we will have real problems when it comes to the conciliation.
In fact I am sure the Council and the Commission will say that the reports actually violate the Financial Regulation.
If Parliament were to reject those two amendments it would make life a lot easier.
I need to give warning now that, if those two amendments are carried, I, as Chairman of the Budgets Committee, would consider that to be a breach of Rule 63a.
In other words, we will taking into account the Financial Regulation and the budgetary consequences.
I will stand up during the vote to ask Parliament to support an oral amendment to ensure that both these reports fall into in line with the Financial Regulation.
Hopefully, when we come to conciliation, we can get a consensus on all the reports and not just five out of seven.
   Mr President, the risk is clear.
I should like to say to the honourable Member that if there is no agreement in the codecision procedure, if there is a delay, if we have to start discussing all the details again from the beginning, then no decision will be taken before the January 2004 deadline.
We may perhaps reach a decision in spring, or in summer.
I do not know, but I do know that throughout that time it will not be possible to pay the bodies in question, because without legal bases nobody will provide a signature so that a payment can be made.
That much is very clear.
It would be illegal, and no one is going to accept the responsibility for doing something illegal.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0279/2003) by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on women in the new information society (2003/2047(INI)).
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0344/2003) by Mrs Roure, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the Hellenic Republic with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on the creation of an immigration liaison officers network (9870/2003 C5-0260/2003 2003/0817(CNS)).
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0361/2003) by Mr Hernández Mollar, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, with a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on procedural safeguards for suspects and defendants in criminal proceedings throughout the European Union (2003/2179(INI)).
   . Mr President, I shall be very brief.
First of all, I should like to reiterate my congratulations to Mr Hernández Mollar for his report and say that everything concerning the work on evidence will be done during 2004.
This is clearly stated in our legislative programme, and that is what I said to the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs during our structural dialogue on the priorities for next year.
In parallel terms, I can say that the Green Paper on bail is ready and will have to be discussed by the Commission.
I believe it will be adopted in the first few months of 2004.
To Mr Turco I should like to say that I do not even dare to imagine what would have been said if I had presented the Framework Decision before seeking the opinion of this Parliament on the Green Paper: first things first!
Provided you vote favourably as regards the Green Paper tomorrow I can guarantee you, Mr Turco, that the Framework Decision has arrived.
I can assure you that we have not been sleeping, but if you endorse our ideas the legislative instrument is ready to be presented to the Council.
Finally, this is not the best hour of the day to disagree with Mrs Buitenweg or Mrs McKenna about the European arrest warrant. This has been a long-standing point of difference between us.
Nevertheless, I will clearly say that I would not call a European arrest warrant 'oppressive legislation'.
I do not intend to subscribe to such an approach because legislation that aims to reinforce law enforcement cannot be considered purely as oppressive legislation.
There might be misuse of legislation, and that is precisely why we are adopting these minimum rules on procedural safeguards.
That is also why we have an ambitious programme to bring together the legislation of Member States as far as procedural guarantees are concerned.
I hope that Parliament will endorse Mr Hernández Mollar's report tomorrow.
That will help the Commission to bypass some of the resistance expressed by some Member States as far as this initiative is concerned.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0360/2003) by Mr Blak, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the discharges to be given for the financial year 2001 to: 1. the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (C5-0102/2003 – 2003/2046(DEC)) 2. the European Environment Agency (C5-0098/2003 – 2003/2044(DEC)) 3. the Translation Centre for the bodies of the European Union (C5-0100/2003 – 2003/2045(DEC)) 4. the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (C5-0096/2003 – 2003/2043(DEC)) 5. the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (C5-0094/2003 – 2003/2042(DEC)).
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Blak on his report.
I agree with the essence of what Mr Heaton-Harris has said.
The new Financial Regulation makes it possible to include the Agency for Safety and Health at Work, the Environment Agency, the Translation Centre, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in the European Parliament’s discharge procedure for the first time.
I expressly welcome the fact that all the agencies are now discharged by Parliament, as the most recent cases of internal irregularities in the Commission clearly show how important it is to have ongoing checks of the institutions.
This innovation is doubtless important, but can be only the first step.
A second innovation, an equally essential requirement, is that Parliament must be given a power of codecision in the appointment of directors.
It is a contradiction for Parliament to have a say in appointing the ombudsman and the Commission President, while having no such right in respect of the agencies.
We know there is a tendency for agencies to proliferate.
There are more and more of them.
These agencies are evidently to be given their own legal personality.
As a Parliament, therefore, as taxpayers’ representatives, we must insist on having a power of codecision in them, in the way they are appointed.
I have had a printout made of the various agencies we have at the moment.
There is a first generation, to which Thessaloniki and Dublin belong, then a second generation with Copenhagen, Turin and I do not know who else, agencies not receiving a subsidy from the new budget, which you have already mentioned, Alicante and Angers, Codecision EP and Council, Brussels, Brussels temporarily.
That is all those agencies like the European Food Safety Authority or the European Maritime Safety Agency, where they have said they will do something but they do not yet know where or when or how.
That is an offence against Europe’s taxpayers.
That is not addressed to you, but we do of course know that these agencies will have to start work somewhere sometime, and the Member States have proclaimed at the tops of their voices that they will, but they do not know when, they do not know where and they do not know how much it will cost.
We have to be concerned about that, and the Social Democrats in this House, like the Christian Democrats, as Mr Heaton-Harris has said, will be insisting that we have a power of codecision here and we shall be pressing very hard for it.
Reiterated congratulations, by the way, to Mr Blak on his report.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0265/2003) by Mrs Honeyball, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission communication on taxation of passenger cars in the European Union (COM(2002) 431 C5-0573/2002 2002/2260(INI)).
   . Mr President, the operation of 15 different systems for the taxation of passenger cars within the European Union has resulted in tax obstacles, distortions and inefficiencies which prevent both the European citizens and the car industry, and trade, from fully benefiting from the advantages of the single market.
As a result, Commission and Parliament are receiving numerous queries and petitions each year on this one particular issue.
On 9 September 2002 the Commission presented a long-awaited communication on taxation of passenger cars, which received a warm welcome at the time from all parties concerned.
The communication aimed, on the one hand, at providing options for action at Community level which would remove tax obstacles on the movement of new and used passenger cars, which would not incur any revenue loss for the national budgets and would not increase a total burden for the citizens.
On the other hand, it also provided some policy measures which would establish a more direct relationship between taxation levels and the polluting emissions of passenger cars, thus contributing to the Community's environmental objectives under the Kyoto Protocol.
The Commission considered it necessary to launch this debate with the Member States, the European Parliament and with important stakeholders before launching any proposal on passenger cars.
This pragmatic approach allowed for a more favourable position on behalf of the Member States on a potential fresh proposal compared to the position they took in 1998 on the previous proposal which still remains on the table in the Council.
The Commission hopes that the European Parliament will provide strong support to the policy measures included in the communication and thus reinforce the Commission's position during future discussions at the Council.
I am happy to see that strong support already appears in the opinions provided to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs by both the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
I regret to note, however, that this support is not as strong in the final version of Mrs Honeyball's report as adopted by the ECON Committee.
Finally, I should like to thank Parliament and the rapporteur, Mrs Honeyball, for their efforts to conciliate and strike a balance taking into account the complexity of vehicle taxation issues.
   . – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we know that CO2 emissions from road traffic will increase by 31% by 2010, rather than falling by 8% as we agreed in Kyoto.
That is why, six years ago, we agreed a CO2 strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from traffic.
The first pillar was a self-imposed commitment by the motor industry to reduce emissions to 140 g by 2008.
That seems to be working.
The second pillar is consumer information, labelling for new cars, and that is not entirely working yet because it has not yet been implemented in all Member States and thirdly, tax incentives for low-consumption cars.
I have to say that this is not working because we have in fact a patchwork of different registration taxes or annual taxes in the European Union.
In that respect, the Committee on the Environment – and I think Parliament as a whole – would like to have a framework for tax incentives for low-consumption cars so that this third pillar of the CO2 strategy can also be implemented and we will really manage to reduce transport-related CO2; this will enable us to keep to our Kyoto target and get greenhouse gas emissions, and with them global warming, under control.
I believe we also need a change of heart for the sake of the consumer, however, because we really do have a patchwork of tax legislation.
Reforming the group exemption regulation has not helped.
The price advantage is not being passed on to consumers because the effect is being absorbed by this patchwork of taxes in the European Union.
That is another reason why, more than ever, we need a framework for sensible motor vehicle taxation in the European Union to enable consumers to benefit from this internal market advantage.
I therefore support Mrs Honeyball’s report.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate the Commission on its initiative and Mrs Honeyball on her excellent report.
Today the taxation of passenger cars in the Union is undoubtedly, as we say in Catalan, a real , in other words, a ‘rag bag’.
As the report rightly emphasises, the functioning of the internal market is affected by the diversity, the heterogeneity and sometimes the complexity of tax systems.
The Commission and the report are, therefore, quite right to address this issue, in order to ensure that competition takes place in the best conditions possible.
Indeed, it appears extremely appropriate to consider taxing the use of vehicles rather than their acquisition, and the Commission is, therefore, right to propose abolishing the vehicle registration tax and establishing or increasing taxes on circulation, fuel and the use of some road infrastructures.
We need to give priority to environmental criteria in order to achieve the Kyoto objectives, as the report rightly reminds us.
On the other hand, as regards diesel vehicles, I agree with Mrs Honeyball that they should benefit in terms of taxation.
Studies in this field appear to conclude that emissions from diesel engines are generally lower than emissions from other types of engine.
The logical consequence of the ‘polluter pays’ principle would be to levy less tax on something that pollutes less.
We must never forget, however, that from the environmental point of view and also for geopolitical reasons, the final objective must be to replace current fuels with non-contaminating and non-conflicting sources of energy.
To this end, we should welcome all research efforts conducted into new energies, such as hydrogen.
   I should like to thank President Paksas for his remarks today, which underpin our growing connection and bond with the future states of the European Union.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has just described the ways in which industry, especially the motor industry, must constantly be modernising its plant.
We know that there is no getting away from this and that every investment in technology results in the loss of between 9% and 25% of jobs.
We must indeed find the means to counteract this loss of jobs, which occurs as a result of technology.
I was interested to hear the Commission’s statements to the effect that we had minimum rules for workers’ rights.
Such a statement is, of course, no use whatever to the workers in Genk.
I hope, though, that the Commission will remember this statement when it amends the European Works Councils Directive, as it is shortly to do, and will at last take account of something that has, in some places, become common practice, that is, making the European Works Council responsible when European mainstream issues are under discussion in a firm, and will also extend the rights of information and consultation in such a way that rights of participation – and I am not talking about consultation, but about participation – are built in.
Thirdly, it is essential that the Commission should learn how, in the social dialogue, to make it clear to the social partners that they have to expect penalties for failing to abide by these agreed ground rules, or else such rules will become a joke.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the collective redundancies at Genk announced by Ford are not the first of their kind and no doubt they will not be the last.
They simply reflect, I believe, the current business philosophy of global enterprises.
Collective redundancies are almost invariably a means of compensating for the reduction of profits as a result of diminished demand, a purely managerial and, I might add, unimaginative approach which the economic order must, as a matter of policy, counteract if increased demand is to be ensured.
Looking at current policy, one can see that the cutbacks that are made in all areas of society do not stoke up demand, but, on the contrary, stifle it still further.
One particular demonstration of the truth that management can secure employment strategies by means other than collective redundancies is to be found in the motor industry, in the works contracts at VW or, most recently, at Opel, which reduce working time to thirty hours and thus share out the work among more people.
If current reports in the media are to be believed, though, it is evident that other, politically motivated considerations are involved in what is going on in Genk.
According to these reports, at any rate, Ford is concentrating collective redundancies on locations – of which Genk is one and Cologne another – in those countries that did not acquiesce in US policy in the war on Iraq.
The reason why the debate in this House today is so important is that the planned redundancies are not in line with Parliament’s resolution on the social consequences of industrial conversion – not in the way they have been thought out and not in the manner in which they are being put into effect.
Let the Commission re-examine how the rules have been complied with.
Redundancies on this scale are anything other than a milestone on the way to fulfilling the Lisbon Agenda and result in devastating upheavals in the regions concerned.
If we really want not only to become the strongest region in economic terms by 2012, but also, as was stated at Lisbon, to create full employment, then the Commission, too, has to go about things in an entirely different way.
   – A few years ago, the CEO at Renault, Mr Louis Schweizer, who had, incidentally, been the principal private secretary in the cabinet of France's Socialist Prime Minister in a previous life, decided, in the interest of his shareholders, to close down the Renault factory in Vilvoorde and make a few thousand Flemish workers redundant in the process.
Today, with the drastic streamlining measures at the Ford Genk factories, Flanders is yet again facing a tragedy in the car-manufacturing sector.
Although I hope that Mrs Smet’s optimism will prove to be justified, many people fear that the dismissal of 3 000 workers in Genk is simply heralding the factory's final closure and relocation.
You sometimes hear fatalists claim that, due to increasing globalisation, nobody can prevent these relocations, but we should still maintain that the Belgian Government has a massive responsibility in this area.
Commissioner, the truth is that the Belgian Government has known since January 2002 that the Genk car manufacturer was in serious trouble.
After all, different media, including the weekly magazine , have also reminded us that Flemish managers warned the Belgian Government that Belgium, and thus Flemish industry – which is already being weighed down by excessive labour costs – has been placed in a bad light in the United States.
Many people in Flanders suspect that the ill-considered action by, , the Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister, may have played a part in the decision of the Ford management to streamline the Genk assembly works.
If Europe wants to avoid tragedies of the kind that have unfolded in Vilvoorde and Ford Genk in future, far-reaching measures will need to be taken across all EU Member States in order to guarantee to industry, too, the , Community preference, which has, quite rightly, been applied in agriculture for decades.
If they are not, a region like Flanders should be able to outline socio-economic policy of its own.
   – Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the context of this debate, I should like to ask you two urgent questions in connection with the reorganisation at Ford and, more specifically, the collective dismissal of about 3 000 workers in Genk.
I do not think that I have to convince anyone of the fact that this is a real tragedy, not only for the people at Ford Genk, but also for the suppliers and for the region as a whole.
However, Commissioner, the way in which this reorganisation is being managed is shocking, and in my view, contravenes European rules.
The fact is that Ford has been in breach of contract on two occasions, the first time by failing to comply with the collective labour agreements that were concluded with the workers in 2002, and in which investments were planned.
The second case, Commissioner, is, however, for Europe to deal with, as it has to do with a failure to consult the European Works Council in this matter.
The reorganisation at Ford is clearly a European matter, because the cancellation of investments at Ford Genk has repercussions for two other establishments in Germany.
Moreover, jobs have also been scrapped in Cologne and the Jaguar factory in Barnsley is being closed down.
This clearly illustrates, therefore, that this reorganisation is a European matter that should be dealt with by the European works council.
However, as it happens, Commissioner, the works council was not consulted in this matter.
Ford is deliberately entering into negotiations on a company-by-company basis.
This, in my view, clearly contravenes legislation concerning the European works council for which we voted here in 1994.
After all, no attempt whatsoever is currently being made to find a solution for this reorganisation at European level.
As my fellow MEPs have already pointed out, this could have yielded alternative solutions, for example, by spreading the work among various people in, for example, the framework of a shorter working week.
My first question to the Commission is whether it intends, on the basis of European legislation on European works councils, to require that the Ford management start negotiations within a European framework at this stage.
A second question on this subject, Commissioner, concerns the following. The regulation concerning Ford's European works council is apparently based on the notorious Article 13, the so-called voluntary agreements, to which the directive and annex with minimum provisions do not apply.
Would this not yet again constitute a reason for the Commission to impose these famous minimum rules on all agreements concerning European works councils?
   – In this debate, a great number of references have been made to agreements between Renault and Ford, but I do not think that these agreements actually exist.
For what was the case at Renault? It is true that the provisions with regard to the European and national works councils were completely ignored.
That was the big problem.
It was, above all, an issue between the workers and the company.
Here, we have, in fact, another problem.
There is, of course, also a problem between the Belgian Government and the company.
That is the crux of the problem and, in my view, there are two or three reasons for this.
The first reason is, I fear, the very complex system of Belgian social security.
It is simply the case in Belgium that, relatively speaking, the whole surreal business is funded by social security to a far greater extent than in other countries, but that, of course, leads to a bad competitive position compared to those other countries.
It is not, however, for Ford to solve this; it is a task for the Belgian Government.
The second reason, of course, why matters have been brought to a head, is that it has taken far too long to comply with Ford's requests to do something about the shift bonus.
Then it suddenly transpired that the German companies were more competitive, although wages there are higher than in Belgium.
Who then is to blame, is it the workers? No, it is the Belgian Government.
The Belgian Government should take responsibility for this and should prevent this from happening again.
This, I believe, is the main conclusion that we can draw from this.
If there are problems with legislation, it is fortunate that there is a directive, so they should refer to it and start legal proceedings.
In the case of Renault, it has transpired that this can have a positive outcome.
That is the method, but we must in this matter look for a solution that is different from that in the case of Renault.
   Mr President, although I am of course unable to make any statement about the state of affairs at Ford in Genk in the brief speaking time available to me, but I would like to make it perfectly clear that there has been no breach of the European Works Councils Directive.
The European Works Council has been notified, and there has been a breach of Belgian law on collective labour agreements.
As regards the European Works Councils Directive, I can explain it to anyone, as I was its originator.
I was myself chairman of the works council of Ford Europe for six years.
I would recommend waiting to see what comes out of the discussions between the trade unions and the European Works Council, as I am sure that Ford Genk will get compensation for what it was promised in the collective labour agreement.
There is no wages bargaining in the European Works Council; that is a matter for the parties to the collective labour agreement and not for the European Works Councils.
   I was absolutely certain that you were perfectly aware of the functioning of the institutions.
I was giving the information to our visitors, to our guests, not to you, Mr della Vedova.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission (B5-0412/2003) by Mr Bouwman, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Mid-term Social Policy Agenda Review.
   The next item is the report (A5-0333/2003) by Mrs Dybkjær, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on Election 2004: How to ensure balanced representation of women and men [2003/2108(INI)].
   I would also like to warmly congratulate Mrs Dybkjær on this report.
It has come at exactly the right time, just before the European elections, and it has been mentioned here by several speakers already: we will have to do our utmost to match this turnout percentage of 30-31% that was achieved for the European Parliament elections.
This is certainly not helped by the accession countries, where we only have 14% at the moment.
I therefore believe that in the context of the verification of these countries, we will have to ensure that gender equality forms part of our future fundamental community law, and that we must therefore make sure on an internal level that this is also done in the relevant parliaments.
It is all very well pointing the finger at other countries, however; but we also have examples of women being seriously short-changed in our own countries.
In my country, it was not so long ago that only one female minister was appointed.
There was a great deal of protest against this, but fortunately that cabinet soon fell and we now have five female ministers and five female secretaries of state.
To my great regret, neither of the two ministers appointed by my own party, which purports to do a great deal for women, is a woman.
Not because there are no capable women, but because there are always other people who are more important and who have to take priority.
As long as we carry on in this way, women will have no chance.
I am also of the opinion, however, that we ourselves must keep hammering on about gender equality and that we must keep a very close eye on it.
For example, I would have nothing against following examples like those mentioned in Mrs Dybkjær's report – like in France where party financing depends on the number of women on the list – because we cannot stand still, we must do something.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission to pay additional attention to this point in its consultations with all Member States.
   The next item is the vote.(1)
   . It is no longer the case that certain family duties and certain careers are reserved for men or women.
Policy is no longer determined by what men think is important.
Women are no longer expected to leave the most important decisions to men.
This development contributes to greater equality between people.
Unfortunately, this is not happening simultaneously throughout Europe.
We can see from the number of women elected to national parliaments that the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands are in the lead, that the southern European and English-speaking countries are trailing way behind, and that the role of women in the East has even been forced into a decline.
There is a justifiable fear that after the enlargement of the EU, the number of women in the next European Parliament will be lower than it is at present.
We will only be able to bring about change in this area through the greater participation of women in areas where there are conflicts of opinions and interests, and through their participation in the organisations involved.
We must eliminate the obstacles to this.
Electoral legislation may contribute by abolishing systems based on districts, but not by legislating on the composition of candidate lists.
My party, the Socialist Party of the Netherlands, has lists for the Upper and Lower Houses which comprise 50% women in electable seats, but we do not do this through coercion but through conviction.
The feminisation of politics is achieved from the bottom up and by pursuing the struggle outside Parliament.
   Mr President, in view of the words of the rapporteur, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, who did not manage to have her point of view endorsed by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, nor in plenary, she has recognised that she cannot share the conclusions or the result of the vote.
I believe, Mr President, that the most honest and reasonable thing for Mrs Sanders-ten Holte to do would be to relinquish her responsibilities, since she cannot accept the opinion of plenary and since she has not been able to win the support of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
   Mr President, I wanted to speak briefly on the explanations of vote on the Iivari report in order to thank Mrs Iivari and to declare that it was with much conviction that I voted in favour of this report, which has now clarified a number of points and created the conditions for the necessary means to be used, especially where the European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages and Mercator are concerned; whilst, of course, the other issues in this report are close to my heart, this one is particularly so.
I believe that this House has, recently, been consistent about this, and that it is taking the lead, and I hope that the Commission, just as it has attempted to clarify these matters, will continue to do so by way of the languages action plan and will demonstrate in practice the further commitment that Parliament has demanded.
   . This proposal is intended to establish a multiannual programme (2004-2008) for awarding grants to promote cultural organisations, in order to establish a legal base for existing grants, which were previously included in the Commission’s administrative expenditure.
Now, however, following changes to the Financial Regulation and rulings of the Court of Justice a legal base is required for these grants.
This line must be approved so as to ensure that existing cultural organisations receive Community funding, in particular the Cistercian Route line.
It is a pity that the budget has fixed a total of only EUR 30 million for the entire period.
Lastly, I welcome the rejection of the proposal for an amendment attempting, unacceptably, to give Nazism and fascism equal standing.
   . I have abstained because Amendments 1 and 2 have been refused.
We must bear in mind that the new reform of the Spanish Penal Code, proposed by the PP and supported by the PSOE, opens up the possibility of holding incommunicado for 13 days.
Lawyers will not have enough time to prepare the cases, and for Basque political prisoners, an impediment will still remain to their being assisted from the time they are arrested, by lawyers they can trust.
   . I supported Mrs Honeyball’s report because I believe it demonstrates the European Parliament’s support for the Commission so that this institution can open up a real debate in the Council on the crucial harmonisation of tax in the automobile sector.
This proactive attitude is what the vast majority of European citizens want because they associate the excessive red tape and high administrative costs, and also the fragmentation of the car market, with the difficulties in consolidating the internal market.
I wish to add that the crucial environmental dimension, which is covered adequately in the reports, requires a new attitude to the taxation of cars.
   That concludes the explanations of vote.(1)
   I would like to get my thoughts on the discussion between Mr Salafranca and the rapporteur off my chest.
I think that the rapporteur has behaved courageously, and that it is a pity that it is so difficult to bring about change in the European Parliament.
   Mr President, I would like to express my astonishment at the opinion expressed by the rapporteur, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, because although it is true that everybody exercises their votes as they can, as they wish or as they see fit, this report for which she has been rapporteur has been the subject of much debate in our Committee on Development and Cooperation, and the vote today has been very clear; therefore, I believe her proposal that we must seek a solution to be inappropriate.
I believe that the solution has been expressed by this Parliament, through very clear votes, in favour of there being two separate regulations to eradicate poverty in Asia and in Latin America.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 6 November 2003.
   The final draft agenda as drawn up pursuant to Rules 110 and 110a of the Rules of Procedure by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 13 November 2003 has been distributed.
The following changes have been proposed:
I have received a request from the PPE-DE Group for a separate debate on its Oral Question on Eurostat to be taken immediately after the Commission statement on the legislative and work programme for 2004.
   Mr President, both my Group and I appreciate that when we are seeking parliamentary time it is advisable to be brief.
That being so, we recognise the Conference of Presidents' decision last week to refuse to have a separate debate.
We would therefore like to propose that this oral question be attached to the overall debate on the legislative and work programme for 2004, because over the weekend we heard that President Prodi will be raising the question of OLAF during that debate and we have a number of questions we would like to ask in that context, which are included in the substance of this oral question.
That is a reasonable way for the House to proceed.
It is what happens in normal practice.
We will not be asking for a separate debate, but we have questions we wish to raise when Mr Prodi is with us on Tuesday.
(1)
   Mr President, I would like you to ask Mr Cox, the President of Parliament, to raise with the Commission the situation regarding Mrs Radia Nasrawi, who has just completed five weeks on hunger strike in protest at the intolerable human rights situation in Tunisia.
She is one of the leading human rights activists in that country.
Her life has been made unbearable by the activities of the Tunisian authorities, who oppose her human rights work.
This situation is one which has been repeated many times over in relation to other human rights activists.
I would particularly like the Commission to ensure that the European Union representative in Tunisia makes direct contact with the Tunisian authorities in writing, insisting that the human rights of Mrs Radia Nasrawi and others in Tunisia be respected.
The only European Union embassies to have taken a stand on this issue are those of the Netherlands and Finland.
It is quite disgraceful that the European Union itself has not made its views known on this matter at this critical juncture for Mrs Radia Nasrawi.
   Mr President, we have all been able to witness the fact that about a week ago, the President of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, sounded the starting shot for the Italian election campaign.
Mr Prodi has issued a political manifesto, in which he has outlined the strategy and necessities that the Left needs to embrace in order to secure an election victory in Italy.
We take the view that the President of the Commission must maintain a certain political neutrality, that he must be above party-political wrangling.
It is now clear that he no longer does that.
The Eurostat scandal would have been a good opportunity for Mr Prodi to take his political responsibility and to step aside.
The publication of this political manifesto is going too far.
He should shoulder his responsibility: either remain President of the European Commission and concentrate fully on that task, or else conduct a political campaign in Italy.
   – Mr President, I would like to return, albeit briefly, to the massacres which have scourged Europe, and not just Europe, in the past week.
I feel it is right that we should express our fierce condemnation of terrorism and specifically of these incidents.
I would like to remember, in particular, the 19 Italian victims of the massacres in Nasiriya.
It is important that the President of Parliament expresses our sympathy for the victims and our condolences to their families tomorrow, but I feel that it is also appropriate to thank all the armed forces of all the European countries who are currently on peace missions throughout the world.
Lastly, I hope that Parliament will make a firm commitment to implementing increasingly effective measures to combat terrorism, for the message which must be sent out by the European Parliament is that none of the European peoples are going to let themselves be intimidated by these cowardly attacks.
   Mr President, Secretary of State Colin Powell and President George Bush are both in Europe this week: Colin Powell to meet with EU Foreign Ministers and President Bush on a state visit to Britain.
I hope that the Foreign Ministers and Prime Minister Blair will impress on their guests the need for transatlantic understanding to flow both ways.
Europeans are rightly alarmed at the unilateralist policies of the US administration, its readiness to contemplate pre-emptive strikes and its refusal to internationalise the occupation of Iraq.
Europeans are deeply unhappy at the prospect of military commissions imposing the death penalty or unlimited detention for the Guantanamo Bay detainees, and at the way the US is trying to sabotage the International Criminal Court.
These are some of the reasons for the demonstrations against President Bush.
They must be peaceful protests, and as such I personally intend to join them.
I have just returned from Washington as an ad hoc member of the US delegation.
Our hosts were gracious and hospitable, we had useful discussions and we have a huge amount in common.
However, as well as us understanding their position, the Americans need to understand our objections, and our Foreign Ministers and Prime Minister must convey these objections this week.
   Mr President, I hope I will be forgiven for moving from matters of life and death to more commercial matters.
This House, in its role as legislator, is deeply concerned about intellectual property and the need to protect holders' rights in the interests of consumers and of fair play.
It is all the more alarming if the holders of the rights themselves abuse the rights to the disadvantage of consumers.
I regret to say that this is what is being done now in Scotland by Diageo, the multinational spirit drinks producer, which produces Cardhu whisky.
The supply of Cardhu single malt has run low.
However, now Diageo is producing something called Cardhu pure malt whisky.
Not all Members of this House may be aware of it, but there is a very big difference between pure malt whisky – which is a blend of various malts – and single malt, which comes from a single malt distillery.
It is vital to the health of this Scottish and European industry that consumer trust is maintained and that sharp practice by producers is eliminated as quickly as possible.
This industry has often sought and obtained the support of the European authorities.
We should insist that they themselves play the game.
Mr President, please write to the chief executive and get Diageo to stop this!
   – Mr President, I should like to return to what our fellow Member said regarding Mr Prodi’s untimely remarks of a few days ago.
I should like, through you, to ask our President, Mr Cox, what action he intends to take to remind the President of the Commission that positioning himself as leader of the Italian Left at a time when his own country holds the presidency of the European Union, and at a time when Italy is engaged in a bloody ordeal in Iraq, is inelegant to say the least.
Taking such a stance is in any case contrary to the spirit of the rules governing the European institution in question and contrary to the most basic of political ethics.
I would request, Mr President, that you pass on this comment to Mr Cox.
   Mr President, I represent the south-east region of England and am the only Member to live in the county of Hampshire, very close to the port of Southampton, the home port of the new , which will be the greatest liner in the world.
This liner, built in France, will sail from England, showing there is some life left in the .
I know that the people of Southampton, and the port workers of that city, would wish to associate themselves with the condolences expressed to the families of the people killed and to those injured in the awful accident at Saint-Nazaire.
   Mr President, the speech by the Greek Communist Member who condemned the USA as an imperialist occupier of Iraq is a little rich from a party which in its day supported the USSR's invasion and crushing of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, the Czechoslovak 'Prague Spring' in 1968 and the Afghan invasion in 1979.
The USSR would never have left these countries if it had not been forced to do so by the economic collapse of the Communist system.
Unlike Baroness Ludford, I welcome tomorrow's state visit by President Bush to the United Kingdom, and his commitment to hand over power to a democratically elected Iraqi Government by the end of next year.
I salute the courage of all the brave coalition forces in Iraq who are fighting for law and order and freedom and justice in that country, and against international Islamic terrorism.
   The next item is the Commission statement on the European Year of People with Disabilities (2003).
   Mr President, I was not surprised that the European Year of People with Disabilities was a success.
Anyone who has consulted and spoken with NGOs, activists and community groups on the ground, as I have in my constituency, will know that the people who represent our 37 million fellow Europeans are very clear in what they demand from us.
At the weekend, I was told by one group in my constituency that they are happy that the European Year will have some follow-up, but they want clarity about what that will be.
As Mr Bouwman said, they were promised an employment directive that would be implemented by Member States, and yet they see the Member States still dragging their feet.
That is not to say that the Commission and colleagues have not pushed those Member States to implement the employment directive in its disability provisions, but it is not being implemented.
They are therefore concerned that implementation will be lacking in other spheres.
They want to see action after 2003, not merely more words.
   The next item is the report by Mr Liese (A5-0369/2003) on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Council decision [COM (2003) 390 – C5-0349/2003 – 2003/0151(CNS)] amending decision 2002/834/EC on the specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration: ‘Integrating and strengthening the European research area’ (2002-2006).
   Mr President, I would like to start by taking a critical view of the bitter attack made upon Mr Liese, the rapporteur.
If, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, it is so scandalous that someone should try to get this House to accept a different position, then you evidently have no idea what Parliament is meant to do.
Our function must surely be to take up an independent position rather than being a mere extension of the Commission, and so I would like to take this opportunity of expressing warm thanks to Mr Liese.
Today’s vote blazes a trail.
Mr Liese was right to say that what we are not doing today is deciding whether or not we welcome research on stem cells or embryos.
In my own group, too, there are different opinions on that, but we can quite clearly agree on one thing, namely that it is not acceptable that research involving the destruction of human embryos, which is illegal and punishable in many Member States, should be funded out of the EU’s tax revenue.
For money to be invested in research projects that are illegal in the Member States in which they are carried out would be without parallel in the European Union.
Being, like Mr Liese, from Germany, I can say that this, for Germany, is yet another quite remarkable situation.
It is utterly unacceptable, Commissioner, and something that the German public cannot be expect to tolerate – particularly since we are net contributors – that German taxpayers should be coerced into co-financing one out of every five projects in the field of research using supernumerary human embryos, that is, research in the course of which embryos are destroyed, even though this is a criminal offence under German law.
I think this is a problem for other countries in a similar way.
Let me repeat, Commissioner, that you are sending out completely the wrong message!
You are rewarding the production of supernumerary embryos, which one might term a stock incentive.
Your proposal reduces human embryos to the level of a biological raw material.
There is something on which I ask you to elaborate, Commissioner, something that I find utterly inexplicable, and that is that I have heard that what we are talking about here is nine research projects out of 15 000.
Just nine projects, and I ask myself why you are so vehement in their defence.
I get the impression, Commissioner, that this is about something quite different, that what matters to you is ...
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this debate can clearly not avoid the basic issue and fail to deal with the fundamental ethical problems, even though they are not what we are here to discuss and decide on now.
If they were the issue, I would happily say to Mr Cappato – who criticised national legislation banning this type of research for being prejudiced – that there is no prejudice here; this word is always used as a smokescreen when there is disagreement.
This is a principle, not a prejudice – the principle that an embryo has human life.
More than this, it is a known fact and recognition of this fact.
This is not, however, what we are here to discuss.
As various speakers have stated, we are only looking at the issue of European funding for this type of research.
On this point I fully agree with Mr Bowe, who holds a completely different view of the basic issue.
He said – and I agree with him – that there is no European consensus on this issue and because there is no European consensus there can be no European funding in this area.
That and that alone is the issue at stake.
Otherwise, we will be breaching the principle of subsidiarity, which we believe must be scrupulously observed.
If there are Member States that wish to undertake this type of research, then let them.
If it is legal in their countries, let them, but let them do so with their own financial resources.
Using Community funds, particularly funds contributed by citizens in countries where such procedures are illegal and are even prohibited by law, would constitute a breach of the principle of subsidiarity.
This would constitute a financial breach of the substance of the principle of subsidiarity.
This is basically what we are fighting for in this debate, although we are happy to engage in ethical debate if necessary.
We must emphasise, however, that this is not the real issue.
Furthermore, I wish to add my voice to those of my fellow Members who are calling for greater priority and greater investment to be given to research into adult stem cells.
I urge the House to support the amendments tabled by Mr Gargani, which express the opinion adopted by a majority in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the revolutionary technique of therapeutic cloning echoes to a large extent man’s ancient dreams and myths.
Therapeutic cloning opens up a whole new area for human knowledge and medicine.
Dogmatic attitudes in this field, particularly those based on the Bible, are therefore pernicious.
They demonstrate little concern for the reality of people’s lives.
Loyalty to beliefs and to their origins is their .
We all agree with the universal ban on reproductive cloning but this does not mean that it is a taboo subject and that it should be likened to devil-worship, which is what we are seeing at the moment.
Only recently, an extremely eminent French philosopher, Marcel Conche, in a book entitled ‘Confession of a philosopher’ which is a dialogue with André Compte-Sponville, claimed provocatively that the right to be cloned, provided, of course, that it is subject to strict rules is – would you believe – a fundamental right.
I do not share this view, but it is a fine exercise in intellectual freedom.
Those who would like to ban cloning outright but are unable to achieve this are putting so many obstacles and barriers in its way that research will be completely stifled.
We cannot accept such a blatant strategy.
Unlike Mr Lisi, I see no good reason for completely excluding Community funding from the Sixth Framework Programme for Research ‘Research using embryonic stem cells’.
It should be emphasised that, even today, it is impossible to tell which stem cells, those derived from embryos, from foetuses or adults, best meet the needs of fundamental research and clinical applications.
The answers clearly lie in undertaking scientific research and in the freedom given to scientists and researchers.
   Mr President, regarding the order in which amendments would be voted, I would suggest that when we look at those amendments referring to the date we take first those furthest away from the Commission's proposal, which includes a date.
Those would be Amendment 68 from Mr Bowe and others, followed by Amendments 10, 64, 25 and 24.
That would be a more logical order, given that they are furthest away from the Commission's suggestion.
I hope the voting lists can be changed along those lines.
   Mr President, there is talk here and there about information from Stockholm and Sweden concerning how many stem cell lines there are.
I wonder about the date to which the answer obtained by Mr Liese is relevant.
A lot has happened since 2002.
I have received an answer from the Carolingian Institute to the effect that they only have three well-characterised stem cell lines now available to them.
That is significantly fewer.
I hope that the Commission discriminates according to date in this area.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.The debate is closed.The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
   No scientific evaluation justifies research on embryonic stem cells and researchers have said that using these cells for therapeutic purposes has proved unsuccessful.
Nevertheless, alternative methods, such as adult stem cells, offer very promising results.
Two comments must be made on the argument, which enables this fundamental research on embryonic cells to include adult stem cells.
First and foremost, existing cell lines are sufficient and this is the proposal by Mr Liese.
Then, it ignores the fact that the purpose of adult stem cells is to repair tissue on the patients themselves, whilst the purpose of embryonic stem cells is to follow the development of the human being from conception onwards.
The Commission proposal is ambiguous and inappropriate since scientists do not promise any results for 10 to 15 years and this research does not match the urgency of the needs of patients who are suffering while they wait for a treatment to be found.
We need to prioritise funding for research into adult stem cells, the only alternative method which does not raise ethical issues and which is a technique that has been approved by all Members.
I will not support the Commission proposal amended by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy and I will vote in favour of the Gargani amendment, to which I also added my name.
   The next item is the report (A5-0389/2003) by Mr Linkohr, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on Investing in research: an action plan for Europe [COM(2003) 226 – C5-0381/2003 – 2003/2148(INI)].
   Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Linkohr who, naturally as rapporteur, carried out a very important task and who has, for a long time, been familiar with the issue.
This is a very high-quality report, which is entirely worthy of the members of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
I would also like to thank the rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and its members.
Once again this report shows, and I am delighted about this, the importance that Parliament attaches to research and innovation.
What is also very important is that this is a growing phenomenon.
The Council of Ministers now regularly discusses research and innovation.
The Growth Initiative introduced research and innovation as a key element of European growth.
In the same way, knowledge production has – and this is quite logical – become a major political priority in the knowledge-based society.
This is why, moreover, the 3% objective, which was discussed here in Parliament, was also adopted by the Council of Ministers and must be implemented.
Mr Linkohr did, however, quite rightly mention that, in order to implement the 3% objective, an average increase of at least 8% is necessary, 9% for the private sector and 6% for the public sector.
It is a good idea to repeat these figures regularly if we want to take up the challenge.
The actions proposed in the action plan are aimed at many aspects, in particular creating a more favourable environment for private investment as well as in research and that regards, in particular, the areas of competition, intellectual property, the regulatory environment, financial markets and taxation.
Nor must we forget however, as you stressed, the issue of public support for research and innovation, which remains essential, as does, of course, the whole issue of fundamental research, and I will return to this after the speeches – which will no doubt provide some responses – on this European Research Council which is being discussed and formed.
There is, of course, also a process and the action plan is the start of the process.
There is no time to lose.
Fundamentally, I believe that we need, once and for all, to not see research as an expense, but rather as a priority investment for the future of Europe.
I think that this is the key element in the approach and I feel that, with the joint action by Parliament, the scientific community, and industry, there is greater and greater awareness that this is a question of life and death for Europe, in economic and social terms.
I would like to thank you Mr Linkohr, and all of the Members too, for having given your backing to these issues and I hope that the next time I speak, I will of course be replying to more specific aspects of what has just been presented to you.
   – I very much welcome Mr Linkohr’s own-initiative report on ‘Investing in research: an action plan for Europe’ and wish to express my personal thanks to him.
I endorse his call for a significant increase in the amount of money spent on research in Europe with the aim of achieving the Lisbon targets, even though prompt transposition will be made difficult by the present tightness of many Member States’ budgets.
If research in the EU is to be built up on a long-term basis, any increase in expenditure must therefore go hand in hand with greater efficiency in the application and management of the resources and with a more pronounced bias towards basic research.
I am glad that the lead committee has agreed to my amendments in this regard.
However, it also rejected the motion that what are termed the new instruments in the current Sixth Research Framework Programme should be drafted more rationally.
This has led my own group to reintroduce Amendment 1, in which Parliament ‘calls, in the context of the 6th Research Framework Programme, for the ideas of 'networks of excellence' and 'integrated projects' to be geared more closely to the guiding notion of the European Research Area, and that adjustments, particularly in relation to the size of projects – both in terms of the number of project partners and of the financial volumes involved – should therefore be made.’
It is our expectation that this will enable, even now, the EU’s research policy to be adapted to the currently prevailing realities.
I therefore ask you to adopt this amendment.
   . Mr President, I am delighted to present these two reports to you.
I will deal with the easier one first, the eTEN programme, which the Commissioner has outlined with admirable clarity.
I want to recommend to Parliament that it accept the Commission proposal.
I was interested that the budget blood still runs in the Commissioner's veins.
He was quite right to point out that this proposal is a reallocation of an existing budget and is not about raising the total budget.
However, if the 10% ceiling is raised to 30%, it will mean the deployment of fewer but more focused projects in the future.
The Commissioner again is quite right that when the potential for deployment of a product is recognised, the main barriers it faces are financial ones.
There are difficulties which we well know in obtaining private capital for initial investment in this area.
To raise the ceiling in this way is a proper use of funds in the eTEN budget programme.
I hope that the Commission proposal is accepted and I have not tabled amendments, nor have other colleagues, which is the right thing to do.
The IDA programme is more complicated.
I had hoped that we would get a first-reading agreement on this but this proved not to be possible.
In some ways, for very good reasons, the Council showed a good degree of diligence in its considerations of this proposal.
What we are looking at here is extending the IDA successes in cross-border cooperation and communication between public administrations.
This will build on that and also extend this cooperation to citizens and to businesses.
However, there are also important changes which relate to the procedure, which has been streamlined and simplified.
It is good that lessons have been learned from previous IDA work.
The Commissioner knows that I was the rapporteur on two or three separate IDA proposals and I note with some wry humour that this was long before the phrase 'eGovernment' was widely used or even invented.
However, the proposal can and will have real benefits.
The Commission estimates that for every euro spent on IT infrastructure, the public sector can gain up to EUR 1.8.
The annual cost of the TESTA programme, the part of IDA that deals with infrastructure, is EUR 4.6 million.
The benefits are estimated to be EUR 8.6 million across the public sector: a genuine multiplier.
The new programme will be called IDABC.
I will read to you what it means because it is sometimes easy to forget: Interoperable Delivery of pan-European eGovernment Services to Public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens.
Although it is a real mouthful, we can point to the IDA successes as bringing real benefits to European Union citizens in ways that really touch their lives.
IDA is currently working in the following areas: agriculture, humanitarian aid, the internal market, statistics, environment, trade, employment and education.
I pulled out here, and in my explanatory statement, five or six specific projects: the Solvit network, which provides a mechanism for people who come up against barriers to the internal market to raise the issue with the Member State concerned; the Euphin programme, which enables authorities to exchange data on public health issues, including communicable diseases in a fast and secure way; Ploteus, a portal that supplies information on learning opportunities around Europe; TourNet, a system for linking tourism administrations so that they can share information about their own particular areas; and finally Transcards, a more local and focused programme, which allows citizens living on the French-Belgian border to use the health facilities of either Member State, regardless of which country they live in.
They are all good, quotable examples of tangible benefits the IDA way.
This new proposal will bring not only tangible benefits in the IDA way, it will also bring benefits to European citizens and businesses.
It will facilitate the free movement of people, goods and services by making eGovernment applications more accessible across national boundaries.
I very much hope that Parliament supports the Commission proposal in the way that I have amended it and I commend it to you.
Lastly, I should like to make a very brief comment on the report by my colleague, Mr Clegg.
I will not go into the detail.
He has done an excellent job here and is quite rightly using very specific language about some of the shortcomings of Member States.
The Commissioner indicated his seriousness as regards addressing those Member States which did not meet the due deadlines: the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy made it clear that it would back him if he wanted to take the action he has outlined.
I am confident that Parliament will also support him in this.
We are already getting some indications that the accession countries are saying that they do not have enough time and need more breathing space.
It is difficult to resist those arguments if existing Member States, which should be well able to transpose and implement, have not done so.
I commend my own two reports, and that of Mr Clegg, to the House.
   – Mr President, my task is a relatively simple one.
The committee adopted both of Mrs Read’s reports by a large majority, without us having to make major changes to them.
This means, Mrs Read, that I can keep my comments relatively brief.
Our group unreservedly endorses the Commission’s intention, which the committee has also approved, namely to increase the upper limit for aid granted for trans-European electronic networks from 10% to 30%.
Although the overall framework is no bigger – which means that fewer projects can be supported – we were persuaded that the 10% limit was too low, so we support this motion, and you can rely on our unconditional support for the first report.
In the second report, your concern is to introduce greater flexibility into pan-European Government services, which are capable of being used in every conceivable way.
In it, you express your desire to do away with the Commission’s distinction between ‘projects of common interest’and ‘horizontal measures’, thus allocating resources, totalling EUR 59.1 million for 2005 and 2006, and EUR 89.6 million for the period from 2007 to 2009, in a more flexible way.
We support you in this concern, too, and I believe that both your reports, in which you describe the problems in great detail, will enjoy the support of a broad majority in this House.
I would now like to conclude with an additional observation on the trans-European networks as a whole, a topic that has been on our agenda for many months, indeed for years.
Up to now, the problem has been that these great projects – whether in transport, telecommunications, in the energy infrastructure, in research and technology – have suffered from insufficient financial resources.
The consequence has been that the implementation of the Essen resolutions, which first sought to promote the trans-European networks, has been very slow, very sparing and very incomplete.
A group of experts under Mr Karel van Miert conducted a mid-year study of the transport infrastructure.
The Commission’s new initiative for growth, the sixty-two projects in which are expected to be signed off by the Summit, deals precisely with this area.
Even though we are, today, discussing only funding and total budget, I can tell the Commissioner that the approach of promoting and extending trans-European networks is the right one if we want, not only to free up markets, but also to make Europe fit for the future and thereby move a bit closer to achieving the goal we set ourselves at Lisbon.
   Madam President, Commissioner Busquin, ladies and gentlemen, my fellow fans of communication, since, as was just mentioned, we are by and large among friends in this house, there is actually a whole range of dangers that Mr Herzog has just highlighted and that I will not go over again.
I will, therefore, endeavour to be positive by saying that the three reports, despite everything, form part of a policy intended to prevent the digital divide and, from this point of view, I will not just thank the two rapporteurs for their work, but the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance will also support these three reports.
I will go back over Mrs Read’s proposals in a little more detail because as regards these very technical subjects, which are, however, of financial interest to the European territorial authorities – and I am speaking as someone from the Auvergne, moreover – these proposals help to ensure that the information society is not left in the hands of one or two monopolies.
There is not just Bill Gates in the age of computers, and that is just as well.
I will, therefore, make every effort to concentrate more specifically on thanking all those who told us beforehand what they were doing, so that we could clearly follow the amendments that were being prepared.
The TEN programme is a decisive implementation tool alongside the general rules for granting Community financial aid in the area of trans-European networks.
This is provided for until 2005.
The objective is to raise the aid ceiling to projects in the telecommunication sector from 10% to 30% and this proposal is not insignificant because it will probably enable the Lisbon objectives to be backed up and therefore Europe to be developed in the area of services of general interest.
This is precisely what we are interested in; that this is known as universal services or services of general interest, and that this service will in any case ultimately apply to all citizens and will be a tool that is strengthened for the good of all.
This concept of services of general interest is perhaps even truer, moreover, with the IDABC programme for the period 2005-2009.
Indeed, we the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance are as you know pro free software and have found that it is backed up because it is included in the idea of interoperable delivery of pan-European Government services to administrations.
We therefore support these projects.
I will say, to conclude – because it is interesting news – that the town of Munich for example, apart from the example that was set with IDA, has switched to LINUX, to free software, and I hope that other administrations will take up the same challenges.
   Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteurs for this report, which is, , technically detailed.
We will give our full support as regards expenditure, so much so that, for my part, I have sent a letter signed jointly by myself, as Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and the Chairman of the Committee, supporting the Commission’s proposal on the IDA programme as regards raising the maximum funding level. What is the reason for this?
We feel that 10% is only a symbolic gesture whereas raising the figure to 30% is a tangible action, which will show people that Europe is close to the citizens rather than far away, particularly where TENs are concerned.
As the rapporteur for this subject, however, I would like to speak about TENs in general.
I feel that raising the maximum level is important for trans-European networks in general.
We started with 10%, we raised the figure to 20% at first reading and now we are talking about 30%: this is significant.
In addition to this, however, I feel that we need to amend the report on TENs so that it provides the possibility of introducing a subsidised system, with regard to all the networks included in the TENs in all sectors, including telecommunications and including IDA, in order to give the States the option of doing all this on the ground where they have problems with local authorities.
I believe this is something that could streamline the procedure and provide an increasingly smooth channel for funding to reach the territory.
In addition, I must mention what is known as -rewarding, which we already see as a comparative document and which should, in the future, reveal the good States and the bad States and, above all, make it possible to intervene where it is necessary to use the funds in question.
Lastly, I would state that we certainly do not support what is known as the quick shortlist, in that it runs counter to the procedures of the Treaties.
That area is not the responsibility of the Commission but the responsibility of the Council and Ecofin, on the one hand, and the European Parliament, on the other.
   Madam President, two aspects of this package warrant particular attention: the first concerns the double standards it adopts towards the Lisbon strategy: the social aspect is totally overlooked and ignored by the Member States, specifically targets for employment, social inclusion and equal rights and opportunities, but when it comes to liberalising sectors that are of interest to economic groups, the Commission is asked, in the Clegg report on telecommunications, for example, to press ahead with infringement proceedings against Member States that have dragged their feet in the liberalisation process, without even bothering to find out whether public services are guaranteed for all citizens.
This position is unacceptable.
The second aspect concerns increasing the maximum funding level from 10% to 30% of a project’s total investment costs at implementation stage, but without increasing the overall budget, which is a problem, because this means that fewer projects will be taking part at a time when a balanced development must be guaranteed.
In other words, the countries with the greatest shortfalls must not find it more difficult to get projects funded.
Consequently, this increase of the maximum funding level must be accompanied by an increase in the overall appropriations.
   The next item is a report (A5-0383/2003) by Mrs Kauppi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the introduction of special tax arrangements for diesel fuel used for commercial purposes, this with a view to aligning the excise duties on petrol and diesel fuels [COM(2002) 410 – C5-0409/2002 – 2002/0191(CNS)].
   – Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have to tell Mrs Wenzel-Perillo that Mrs Kauppi’s report, in the resolution of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on page 9, has this to say: ‘We call on the Commission to submit a new proposal as a matter of urgency.’
That is precisely what this is about.
We have not rejected the proposal or said that the whole thing is preposterous.
There are very many approaches, and they are all right, but, if we are thinking in terms of the whole picture, there are still very many questions left to be resolved.
I think that the harmonisation of fuel excise duties makes sense, but does that achieve its purpose if we retain differences in taxation, tolls, road pricing and vehicle taxes?
If we are in favour of an internal market, we also have to think about the effects on the environment.
Does it really make ecological sense for us, in this directive, to favour heavy goods vehicles by separating the diesel and excise duty rates for the commercial and private sectors? Are diesel cars not urgently needed to bring about a reduction in CO2 emissions?
We therefore cannot see any justification for aligning the excise duty rates for diesel and petrol. Are there not circumstances under which this uncontrolled abundance of divergent diesel tax rates might result in abuses, and lead to an abuse of the trust of all those who took on board higher acquisition costs when they changed over to diesel?
Let me conclude, then, by saying that something remains to be done about tax in relation to the internal market, but many issues still have to be resolved before we can describe the cost-benefit equation as balanced.
I am, therefore, rather surprised that, on page 24 of tomorrow’s communication by the Commission to the European Parliament, it is stated in the working programme for 2004 that this directive is already to be transposed, even though we are today discussing the need for the Commission to submit a new proposal.
Only if the new Commission proposal is quick in coming will we be able to achieve the working programme’s objective.
   – Madam President, I cannot but endorse the rapporteur’s view, as Europe needs more fiscal competition rather than less of it.
The average tax rate in Europe already stands at over 40%, which is markedly higher than in Japan and the USA, and with its consequences we are all familiar.
We have to contend with rising unemployment, fewer enterprises being set up, and declining levels of investment.
The Commission is aware of these facts, yet it nevertheless advocates the introduction of tax increases, taking away the dirty work from the Member States’ finance ministers, who increase the taxes and shuffle off responsibility onto the EU.
Doing this would be simple if we were to jointly commit ourselves to making the internal market a reality and were to ensure that the competition rules were not cut back.
As the Member States would have to commit themselves to slimmed-down structures, this would automatically reduce their administrative obstacles and taxes.
If we do not seize this opportunity, Europe will become an ever-expanding giant, but one enfeebled and dried out.
It could also mean a great idea running into the buffers.
This would be a pity, as we need a strong Europe.
   –Madam President,because Commissioner Bolkestein has used what I have to describe as intellectually dishonest comparisons to pillory my country and has presumed to describe our taxes as far too low, I must, with some regret, put him right on some points.
I do not know how good Commissioner Bolkestein was at geography in primary school, but I have to point out that Luxembourg just happens to be where it is, and when Mr Blokland travels from Holland to Strasbourg, he is not indulging in ‘gasoline tourism’ if he does so by way of Luxembourg.
That is the easiest way to get here, and it just so happens that he has to fill up his tank .
That, after all, is one of the common market’s freedoms – free movement of goods, of capital, of people, and so on – and it is one of these fundamental freedoms, the free movement of goods and services, that the Commission is now seeking to jeopardise.
I would also like to point out that, every day, 100 000 people cross the border into Luxembourg every day to work, coming from Belgium, Germany and France.
They are entitled to fill up their tanks there.
We are creating jobs for 100 000 commuters across national borders, who would otherwise be hanging around on the street in France and in Belgium.
Your arguments, Commissioner, do not hold water, and I find it regrettable that you have presumed to adduce them.
   .
Madam President, what would a debate be without a last intervention from Mrs Lulling? It would not give me the same warm feeling, the feeling that I have now.
Thank you very much for your contribution, Mrs Lulling, but would you please explain to me why Luxembourg's diesel consumption is 500% higher than Austria's, the next highest in the list? If you can explain that to me, then perhaps I will change my proposals.
But you cannot explain. It is quite simply because the excise taxes in Luxembourg are very low.
It is an open-and-shut case.
   – The first item is the Commission statement on its legislative and work programme for 2004 and the Oral Question on Eurostat (PPE-DE: O-0067/2003 – B5-0415/2003).
   Mr President, there is a difference between guilt and responsibility.
Who bears political responsibility for the Eurostat scandal? The scandal is not that someone has had their fingers in the till.
The most serious scandal is that we have an accounting system that still makes embezzlement possible.
Forty-seven auditors and other experts have worked with Eurostat since June 2003. They have asked for 78 contracts but only received 60.
Of those 60, 28.5% were implemented in contravention of EU rules governing invitations for tenders. Where are those 18 missing contracts?
Who is responsible for their not being there? Who will obtain them?
There must of course be copies of the contracts in all the firms. Why have they not been obtained straight away, and where are the banks’ copies for the secret accounts?
Who is responsible for the fact that the 47 auditors do not have them? Who is taking responsibility for ensuring that all the documents in proof now come to light?
Mr Prodi, you have just held a meeting with the Committee on Budgetary Control in my group’s offices, where you promised openness and zero tolerance for fraud, as you also did when you came to office in 1999.
Up until now, however, zero tolerance has been shown first and foremost to those who have revealed fraud and warned against the accounting system that permits it.
The Commission has shown efficiency in its dealings with Paul van Buitenen, Marta Andreasen and Dorte Smidt-Brown.
They were quickly and resolutely frozen out.
Who has responsibility for restoring their civil rights?
When will you say to Mr Solbes: ‘Pedro, you are not perhaps the guilty party, but Eurostat is your responsibility.
Step down.
I accept Mr Blak’s proposal and assume responsibility myself for providing a full explanation of the Eurostat scandal’.
   Mr President, to begin with, I should like to say how encouraging it is that Commission President Prodi and the Commission have apparently learned from the Eurostat case, that there are a number of things that are to be tidied up and that a number of reforms are to be implemented so that nothing similar happens in the future.
In the process that is now to be begun, it is absolutely crucial to ensure that we continue to have a strong internal audit service which, in spite of everything, is of course the first link in the chain when it comes to discovering fraud, misappropriation and irregularities.
It is important for us to have a strong and independent OLAF.
It is particularly important for us to have a clear definition of political responsibility.
I think, in actual fact, that political responsibility is of crucial importance and, what is more, political responsibility borne by the individual Commissioner.
If we do not have this, I do not believe it will be possible for the reforms to percolate through the system and down to the individual employee, lowest in the hierarchy.
I therefore listened, of course, with great attention to Mr Prodi’s remark that we are now to have a definition of political responsibility.
I should therefore like to ask the President of the Commission how the political responsibility we are now to have defined differs from that defined by the independent experts and that indicated in the Code of Conduct signed by the Commissioners in 1999.
We are now also to have a monitoring unit for picking up signals if something goes wrong.
Mr Prodi argues that the Commission did not have the ability to intervene prior to May 2003.
My question, however, is this: what kind of signals is this group to pick up? Now that it has emerged that 14 critical auditors’ reports are not enough, just as complaints from various employees to different Commissioners, letters in the press, hearings in the Committee on Budgetary Control and auditors’ letters to the Commissioner responsible in the department responsible are not enough, what kind of signals are needed before the Commission intervenes?
   Mr President, I want to make clear my distaste for the complete farce that went on over the release of the OLAF report and the reports on Eurostat.
As a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I was perfectly entitled to see those reports without being subjected to a ridiculous Stalinist rigmarole.
It clearly demonstrates the Commission's contempt for this Parliament, for democracy and for the people that ultimately have to underwrite the Eurostat corruption, by which I mean the taxpayers of Europe.
The report highlights the fundamentally inadequate procedures for combating fraud and more importantly how slow the Commission was to react to clear evidence of major problems within Eurostat.
I am also deeply concerned about the snail's pace at which OLAF worked in investigating this whole sorry matter.
The stench of graft is all around us and is getting stronger by the day.
   – Mr Elles, I share your view about the presence of Members, but unfortunately the President cannot run Parliament like a regiment of soldiers.
   Mr President, whenever we speak, just about anywhere in our own countries, particularly over the past five years, there is one topic that is always particularly sensitive, which is: how are the finances being managed? Then the general opinion on Brussels is not all that great.
This is why it was very much to be welcomed that the Prodi Commission declared that from now on, there would be zero tolerance across the board.
We were therefore very shocked to hear the claims made in connection with Eurostat a few months ago.
It has to be said that the Commission was quick to react when the news broke, but the big question is: what did the Commission know before that point? In my view, there are clear indications that the Commission, in the years leading up to May 2003, could have had some knowledge of what was happening at Eurostat.
The Commission failed to take any action in the light of that information.
Although it may talk about the need to improve information, we were told at regular intervals that an enquiry had begun at Eurostat.
The big question is: why did the alarm bells not go off sooner in the Commission?
When I hear the Commission speak, the main point it is driving home is that it is proud of the results achieved.
In fact, the Court of Auditors stated yesterday that there are signs of improvement, and the Commission can be proud of this, with good reason.
However, as for the aspects that went clearly wrong, the Commission washes its hands of them.
The fault lies with OLAF, or the director-general, or whoever, but not with the Commission.
That is wrong.
I can only refer to an English politician, maybe a statesman – Mr Kinnock will undoubtedly know him – Lord Carrington.
He knew nothing of the Falklands war, he was not sufficiently informed and despite this, he assumed the political responsibility for it.
That is a very honourable position in my view.
In the political culture from which I come, a minister, a secretary of state or a councillor is always responsible, and that should also be the case for a Commissioner and for the Commission.
That is an issue on which we in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party will be focusing.
   – Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, your Commission was not formed out of the blue.
It succeeded the Santer Commission, which had to go precisely because nobody took responsibility.
You stated that you were going to apply zero tolerance, and we took you seriously.
At the moment, however, we are utterly disappointed.
After all, it has taken a thousand press articles before Parliament was informed about the Eurostat fraud, and today, you are bringing us a fine story, showing, in fact, that you are evaluating OLAF rather than Eurostat and your own responsibility.
You stated that the Commission should take the political responsibility for OLAF's actions without having the means to do this.
I find this incredible and ,I would follow this up by saying that the Commission is also politically responsible for Eurostat.
In its defence, the Commission states that is does not have the means for that either.
The gospel contains a fine fable which states: Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.
I would like us to ...
   Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Council representative, ladies and gentlemen, I fully agree with everything Mr Salafranca has said on Eurostat and, in this opinion, I would point out the rightful need for a transparent response, which has been fully met by what the Commission has done and by the action plan presented today.
It is worrying that we should continue to exploit this matter for political ends, blowing out of all proportion a question which is certainly not central to the life of the Union, while the Iraq tragedy strikes once again, reminding us of our inability to act and, what is more, our hypocrisy in the face of a war which was started to combat terrorism but which has ultimately served only to fuel it.
We are not involved.
We do not have our finger on the world’s pulse.
Our times demand a great injection of political measures, giving Europe a soul and making it more than a wounded, helpless giant that some people continue today to want to see caught in the vice of bureaucratic neutrality: we need more politics of the kind proposed in Mr Prodi’s document, which he has addressed as a European citizen to his own country, first and foremost, but which applies to the Union as a whole and to all its political groupings, including the members of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, Mr Poettering, the many Christian democrats whom you should be representing as well, who cannot sit back and accept any shift to the right.
   – Mr President, I would like to start by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to President Prodi for coming to the Committee on Budgetary Control this morning.
The plan of action that he presented to us needs some commentary, and I would like, in the first instance, to deal with the continuing failure to sort out the issue of communication between the administration and the Commission – by which I mean the Commissioners, even though I can see how many measures already exist on paper; the September 1999 code of conduct, the ‘Charter for Delegated Authorising Officers’ of December 2000, and so on.
I do believe that what we need in this area is not new rules, but the application of the ones that already exist, and that is what I want to press for.
Secondly, it is clear that new mechanisms have to be created to do this.
President Prodi, let me warn you most urgently not to create even more bodies, but instead to strengthen the ones we have and implement reforms where these are needed.
I see little point in this new machinery to collect all the information on possible instances of fraud.
I see no point in having a body to uncover financial irregularities.
I do not see that there is any need to set up a management committee as a replacement for OLAF’s Supervisory Committee.
You have touched on a great deal, and there is good in that, but the issue of whistleblowing still has to be sorted out.
Reference has already been made to the fact that it is no longer a live issue.
There is so much for us to do together, and so I urge you, before you issue the communication, to take Parliament seriously, to talk with us, to have a look at the Bösch report, so that we do not go down false trails.
To do so would harm the European budget and hence the European taxpayer.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us consider the Eurostat affair.
I am very disappointed by the measures announced by President Prodi, which indicate that the will to really tackle these problems is absent.
Above all, I note the absence of changes in structure and personnel, for example changes to the responsibilities of the three Commissioners concerned.
Let me just remind you how this House, right at the beginning of this Commission’s term of office, wanted to hold fast to the separation of the budget and budgetary control, precisely in order to avoid the conflicts of interest that face us now.
I find no trace of any serious reprimand for the three Commissioners responsible, making it clear that they were in breach of their supervisory responsibilities and of their duty of care.
That, Mr President, is something that every ordinary employee, in similar circumstances, has to guarantee in the course of his employment.
Thirdly, the controls must be made much more effective, as Eurostat is, in my view, a shining example of how all the Commission’s checks and balances can fail.
It would have been easy for you to take at least one or two of these three possible courses of action, but you have taken none of them.
What this means, Mr Prodi, is that, for the second time since 25 September, you have failed to draw a line under the affair and regain the trust of Parliament and the public.
There is one thing that I will not under any circumstances allow you to get away with, and that is your assertion that the reform of the Commission will be completed only in 2004 and that a Eurostat case will no longer be possible.
Let me tell you that the opposite will be the case, as your reforms and the new Financial Regulation will weaken control still further.
As a result of the abolition of the independent auditors, the Directors-General possess power to an unparalleled degree.
Let me ask you this: is that really what you want? Democracy needs control, and an entity as deficient in democracy as the Commission certainly does.
   Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, all the political strategies presented are certainly very attractive, but, in many cases, they could come up against obstacles of varying size if they are not supported by a completely reliable organisational and administrative system.
The accession of the new countries, which we planned, promoted and achieved all together, must take place within a solid, transparent framework in order to avoid creating major problems for the Community staff, who are already being called upon to take on more work, or damaging the image and credibility of the European Parliament.
Therefore, the priorities and major decisions must have the necessary support of a Europe which works, which is transparent and, most importantly, which can account for how Community funds are spent and used.
The Eurostat affair does nothing to further that cause.
It pained me to hear Mr Procacci, who had not read the OLAF reports or the audit, describing this as a minor incident; if we were to read the reports he would realise that they are extremely disturbing.
It is therefore the responsibility of the Commission to step up the controls that have proved to be as watertight as sieves thus far, improving the system in such a way as to distinguish between monitoring and controls, on the one hand, and operational management – officials granting authorisations – on the other.
Furthermore, the Consultative Committee for market operations, which operated under the previous Financial Regulation, has been abolished, and yet it has become clear that many transactions were not made subject to any requirement of economic benefit, transparency or contractual legitimacy, creating a kind of free zone, in which, even after 1999, or maybe especially after 1999, orders could be assigned with only one firm taking part, often where there was a conflict of interests and with unsigned contracts, leading to damage to Community finances, the extent of which it is difficult to assess.
   – Finally, we shall hear from 'Cardinal' Cohn-Bendit!
   – Mr President, allow me to endorse the procedure proposed by Mrs Kauppi.
Obviously, rejection goes further than any amendments to a text that the majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs proposes to reject.
So let us vote first on rejection of the proposal, as this will save us having to go through a pointless voting procedure.
   – Mrs Kauppi, I fully understand that point.
I have no wish to contest the view of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
However, I am obliged to operate according to the Rules of Procedure.
Having heard Mrs Kauppi's explanation, are there any objections to the oral amendment?
   – Mr President, together with Mrs de Villiers and Mrs Lulling, I myself have tabled an amendment in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. That amendment was adopted with 22 votes in favour, 2 against and 2 abstentions.
That amendment has now disappeared.
I want to know where it is.
That amendment has been adopted and we now need to vote on it first.
   – Mr Blokland, I do not have a problem with the House, but I have a duty to obey the Rules of Procedure.
The Rules are clear: if there are amendments, I put them to the House.
There is no plenary amendment today to reject the Commission proposal.
I am very sorry, but that is not my problem.
It is someone else's problem.
Now I will do my duty and continue with the vote.
   . – As I have said on several occasions, the knowledge-based society is more than a mere aspiration; it is already a tangible reality.
In this respect, I agree with, support and encourage all actions that seek to provide a practical basis for political statements such as the Lisbon Strategy of 2000 and the Europe plan adopted in Seville in 2002.
I therefore voted in favour of the report, although I am convinced that the specific sums involved should be gradually increased.
If, as the Commission proposed, the Community funding of projects put forward under the Ten programme will rise from 10% to 30%, with the concomitant reduction in the number of projects approved – since the overall value of appropriations allocated will remain the same – there must be a real increase in the appropriations that are made available.
It is in these areas and not in whimsical legal texts looking into the future that European solidarity must be grounded and on which we must construct a genuine EU that is increasingly solid and ingrained.
As the rapporteur observed, various projects ‘whose potential has been recognised’ end up never seeing the light of day due to a lack of funding at implementation stage.
This is all the more regrettable because we know that some of these projects, such as Health, Learning and Security, could bring enormous benefits to our citizens.
   . – The rough figures for Portugal’s current degree of investment in research and development (R[amp]D) are of enormous concern, because total spending, as a percentage of GDP, stands at approximately 0.8% whilst State funding amounts to 65% of the total, with 30% coming from businesses and 5% from abroad (essentially from European funds).
Nor must it be forgotten that the future of business investment in R[amp]D depends on developments that are taking place in many other aspects of society, and on changes in the labour force and in the country’s overall development.
These are issues that go far beyond science and technology policy.
The European Parliament report is relevant because it reflects current concerns at the level of development of R[amp]D activities in Europe and the sector’s specific characteristics and needs.
One aspect that warrants particular attention is the emphasis the report gives to the need to increase investment in the public sector, observing that this is crucial to the progress of R[amp]D in the private sector.
Although the report is vague on a few points, it basically endorses the Commission’s proposals, and adds some others, specifically increasing funding under the 7th Framework Programme for R[amp]D (to EUR 30 billion); the creation of ‘technology communities’ and the creation of a European Research Council.
   Research is a crucial factor if Europe is to return on a long-term basis to the path of growth.
I say ‘on a long-term basis’ because it is not a question simply of boosting economic activity in the short term but of guaranteeing in the long term, and in accordance with the Lisbon and Gothenburg objectives, the existence of an innovative and vital European industry.
That is why I voted in favour of Mr Linkhor’s report, and I hope that this will serve to strengthen investment devoted to research, both in the budgets of the Member States and in that of the EU.
It is necessary, however, to remain vigilant and avoid a situation in which, under the pretext of support for innovation, measures are taken that tend to satisfy certain industrial lobbies, often alien to the EU, to the detriment of the very interests of our researchers and entrepreneurs.
I therefore voted against paragraph 28, the ambiguous wording of which might cause it to be thought that, at the expense of innovative SMEs in the sector and to the benefit of the American multinationals wishing to perpetuate their dominant position, Parliament was going back on the position it had adopted in the framework of studying the draft Directive on the patentability of software.
   Mr President, I should like to mention with regard to the Minutes that the statement I made yesterday before the order of business about the Italian soldiers and policemen killed in Iraq also applies to the statement made by President Cox when he opened today's sitting with the same subject and to the minute's silence observed by the European Parliament.
   Mr President, I read today in the Minutes for yesterday's sitting that the statement which I made about the situation in the Baltic States and flagrant violations of human rights was made in response to Mr Tannock's intervention.
That is not correct.
I started my statement yesterday before the order of business with a word about what Mr Tannock had said, which I qualified, and then I immediately went into the main point of my intervention, which was the situation in the Baltic States.
I should therefore like to ask for the Minutes to be corrected.
My intervention was not in response to Mr Tannock's intervention.
   The next item is the report (Α5-0385/2003) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on enhancing ship and port facility security.
   The next item is the report (Α5-0364/2003) by Mr Jarzembowski on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on market access to port services.
   – Mr President, much as I should like to thank the rapporteur, the Commissioner and others for the work that they have done, it has not yielded the desired outcome.
The Green Paper on ports was clear, because it was determined to tackle competition among ports, particularly unfair competition and the implications of this unfair competition on the environment when new terminals are built.
Ultimately, we ended up with a directive on competition in ports and the opening up of markets to new service providers.
Examining what has come out of the conciliation procedure, we have to say that the balance is not favourable.
It does not include the compulsory authorisations that had been requested for new service providers with regard to social, environmental and other requirements, such as safety.
A definition of self-handling is missing, because reference is made to own crews, which leaves plenty of scope in current labour relations at most ports.
Enough has been said about pilotage.
Transparency too, so adulated by Mr Jarzembowski, is in our view, a step forward, but it does not come close to what we had previously asked for.
All in all, the proposal is unacceptable, certainly bearing in mind the ILO treaties with regard to poor working and labour conditions, and safety.
There is a considerable risk of these ports turning into ports of convenience.
Taking all views into consideration, we in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance reject this compromise as a proposal that fails to strike the right balance.
Liberalisation is not a panacea and, as Mrs de Palacio suggested, rejecting the proposal does not pose any problems whatsoever to others.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our ports are of enormous importance to our prosperity, and they form the linchpin for world trade.
Unfair competition among ports should therefore be avoided, and we can imagine a directive to this effect, but it has not been drafted yet.
However, the fight should not lead to a lack of security, social dumping and environmental pollution in ports.
Self-handling that has been proposed in this forum, even in its watered-down version, constitutes a serious infringement of this.
In this light, the European Parliament would have liked to make self-handling dependent on a real compulsory authorisation and omit the pilotage services from the competitive battle.
It is therefore very unfortunate that neither the Council nor the Commission acted upon the compromise that was struck in Parliament.
Despite two and a half years of discussion, the camps are diametrically opposed to each other.
We are in favour of a breach in social tradition in our ports.
After the ships of convenience, we are now also being faced with ports of convenienceThis fear is not only present among port workers, but also among those who are concerned about social peace in our ports, which is being jeopardised by your directive, Mrs Miguélez Ramos.
This push for liberalisation is currently presenting more risks than benefits in our ports.
We will therefore vote against it, and do so emphatically.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, reference has been made to waves, and these are still lashing my part of northern Germany, rising indeed to a great height, and it is difficult to speak in just about 120 seconds about an issue that will affect the structure of our European ports and coasts as a whole.
I am fundamentally convinced of the advantages of creating a clear, open and transparent common legal framework.
I am convinced that competition between ports demands the continuation of a purpose-built framework and of certain rules, not least for the sake of the workers and of our environment.
This, then, is the great objective towards which we are progressing together.
Members of this House, led by the rapporteur, Mr Jarzembowski, have got seriously stuck in to the readings and have framed a large number of amendments to make the objective a clearer and fairer one.
A conciliation procedure is not a walkover, and I know from experience that you never come from one with a full bag of goodies.
Nonetheless, we have to rigorously examine what has come out of conciliation, and each of us must carefully consider whether we can be satisfied with it and whether we can defend it to the people back home.
As I see it, the Council has moved far too little.
It is the Council that must take responsibility, and I have to say that I am particularly thinking of the German Government when I say that.
On Thursday, then, will be the hour of decision.
Every one of us will have to face questions: What is now the real situation as regards balance? What about compensation payments and adjustments?
Let me remind you of Article 12. I have to concede that, time and time again, I find myself admiring Mr Jarzembowski’s negotiating skills, but, even so, in this instance, I cannot forget the interests of many small ports, coming as I do from Cuxhaven, which is one of them.
Some global players may be satisfied, but I am not.
I do not want to leave it to the nation states to sort out the compensation payments in a way that is as yet unclear, particularly as nothing has been laid down.
That may be just a point of criticism, but it is a decisive one.
I admit that I am still struggling with the directive, and with myself, but will the people at home understand that?
   Mr President, Commissioner de Palacio, a great deal has been said and, frankly, I would like to ask all the Members a question.
We are talking as if, by adopting the compromise text before uswe are running the risk of plunging from paradise to purgatory, if not even to hell, where port services are concerned.
Frankly, without the directive that we are about to vote on, there would be nothing stopping the individual Member States – as has been the case thus far – from adopting national legislative measures to open up the market in port services without any legal framework.
I am one of those that have fought hard and I remain convinced that authorisation should have been made compulsory.
We did not succeed in obtaining this, but we do have a directive that refers to subsidiarity, to what the Member States could have done, however, and that lays down reference criteria for authorisation which fully protect social, security and environment rules.
Of course, this is true if an individual State wants to make authorisation compulsory.
Without the directive, however, the Wild West would have been a lot wilder
We all know what the initial proposal was and how it was worked on.
We all know the limits that were set for self-handling,the provisions that we abolished, those which provided for a type of Wild West without any regulations for new ports, for new sections of ports or for port sections not open to commercial services.
These are the reasons why, for example, all the workers’ unions in my country, Italy – CGL, CISL, UIL – are asking us to adopt the compromise text.
We are not going from paradise to purgatory.
As regards what individual States could have done, I have the feeling that we have not yet reached paradise, but that we have probably climbed up from hell to purgatory.
– The debate is closed.The vote will take place on Thursday at 11.30 a.m.
   – The next item is Question Time (B5-0414/2003). We will take questions to the Commission.
Is the Commission confident that the ISPS Code (International Ship and Port Security Code) of 2002 will be implemented in the EU on time (1 July 2004) and that all non-EU jurisdictions, especially major flags of convenience, will be in a position to enforce its conditions?
   – Mr President, on 12 December 2002, the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO’s) diplomatic conference adopted a new Chapter XI-2, on special measures to promote maritime safety, as part of the IMO’s SOLAS (Safety of Life at Sea) Convention, together with a new code named the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code), which seems to be of fundamental importance to the establishment of a global maritime safety system.
On 2 May 2003, the Commission presented the European Parliament and the Council with a Draft Regulation on enhancing ship and port facility security.
The purpose of this draft is to introduce these new instruments into Community law, together with the necessary interpretative provisions.
On 9 October 2003, the Council (Transport) unanimously adopted a general approach to this draft.
The European Parliament will abstain from voting on it at first reading on 19 November 2003.
In view of the evident progress made with the work by these two institutions, the Commission hopes that this document will be adopted as quickly as possible so that the Member States are given the opportunity, by no later than 1 July 2004, to fulfil the international obligations into which they have entered within the IMO.
1 July 2004 is also the deadline for vessels flying flags other than those of the EU Member States.
The IMO has no intention of granting more time in which to implement these measures.
In common with the United States’ authorities, the Commission agrees with this analysis.
In accordance with the relevant regulations of the ISPS Code, it will therefore be possible for any vessel that, after 1 July 2004, does not comply with the safety arrangements laid down in these international instruments to be refused access to any port in a state that is a member of the IMO.
   Mr Nielson, there was a long debate about this earlier this morning and you must accept that there is very little time between now and 1 July 2004 for all ships and ports to comply with the requirements of the ISPS Code, especially with the lack of total clarity at the moment.
The financial risk to businesses that cannot comply with the code is enormous. What about flags other than European flags?
Even if our own Member States comply, could there not be a substantial risk that many other ships will not be complying by then and will not therefore be allowed into European ports? Has the Commission tried to make any assessment of the impact on European and even world trade if there is not full compliance by 1 July 2004?
Is the Commission aware of the deep concerns expressed in the diamond industry concerning the new De Beers distribution system entitled ‘Supplier of Choice ?
Does it agree that this system is entirely at De Beers’ discretion and is based on selection criteria which are both opaque and subjective? Is it aware that one third of the De Beers core customers have been removed thus far under ‘Soc’, leaving diamonds in fewer hands and generally reducing competition and supply?reserves the right to reopen the case should changes in the factual or legal situation as regards any essential aspect of the agreements modify its present view.…’
Will the Commission now reopen its investigations into ‘SoC’ before it becomes fully operational at the end of this year
   – On 16 January 2003, the Commission announced its authorisation of the ’ distribution system called ‘Supplier of Choice’.
This authorisation was given after made amendments to the original ‘Supplier of Choice’ draft presented to the Commission.
A summary of the amended ‘Supplier of Choice’ had been published in November 2002 in the Official Journal and interested third parties were called upon to present their comments.
As Mr Corbett stressed, when the Commission authorised the ‘Supplier of Choice’, it committed to monitoring the market and reserved the right to reopen the case should changes in the factual or legal situation as regards any essential aspect of the agreements lead it to modify its present view.
The Commission intends to fully make good its commitment.
It will therefore continue to supervise use of the ‘Supplier of Choice’ in order to ensure that Community competition rules are respected.
To this end, the Commission will pay heed to any business that claims that these provisions have been violated and that their business has suffered as a result.
Despite the fact that it has already received some information regarding the specific use of ‘Supplier of Choice’, the Commission does not yet have all the details in this regard.
This is why the Commission intends to use the powers given to it by the regulation on the application of Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty in order to collect information that will allow it to adopt a position on the issue, in full knowledge of the facts.
In the weeks to come, therefore, requests for information will be sent.
When the Commission has examined the information that it has received in this way, it will decide what action to take regarding the case in question.
   While I thank the Commissioner for his reply, perhaps he would tell us how many formal complaints he has received in recent weeks from within the diamond sector about the supplier of Trisystem? I welcome the fact that he is going to look into this in detail and gather all the relevant information.
May I invite the Commissioner to take account as well of the remarks made by the chairman of the De Beers company itself, Mr Oppenheimer, in a recent address to the Harvard Business School alumni conference held in Cape Town.
Mr Oppenheimer stated, and I quote ‘we make no pretence that we are not seeking to manage the diamond market, to control supply, to manage prices and to act collusively with our partners in the business’.
May I suggest to the Commissioner that this is a remarkable admission to make.
It was made in March 1999, just a few months before the launch of the supplier of Trisystem.
May I invite the Commissioner to take account of this admission when he investigates the best-known world monopoly still in existence, which has still not been investigated by the Commission using its competition powers.
   . – As regards Mr Corbett’s last remark, I will take the liberty of drawing his attention to the fact that the Commission, and, in particular, this European Commission, has begun to pay close attention to these issues.
As regards the question relating to complaints, I can say that the Commission has indeed received complaints regarding the ‘Supplier of Choice’, that will be looked into according to the standard procedures that the Commission follows in applying Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty.
As regards the number of complaints, Mr Corbett, as well as their origin, of course, the Commission considers that the principles of good administrative management impose on it an obligation of confidentiality regarding precisely their number and origin.
Of course, if a business that presents a complaint to the Commission considers it appropriate to make this public, then it is fully entitled to do so.
   – As they deal with the same subject, questions 39 to 45 will be taken together.
   In fact, I am referring back to Mr Cushnahan’s and also to Mr Sandbæk’s questions.
Among other things, I asked the Commission if it really does provide the Member States with sufficient legal and technical means to identify goods that are entering illegally.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his suggestion for the next question because it would be interesting to discover which countries, for example, instead of requiring observance of the agreements, are endeavouring to ensure that the agreements and the interests of the European citizens are not respected.
What steps is the Commission taking to tackle the issue of debt cancellation for low-income countries?
With regard to the Irish Government’s endorsement of 100% cancellation of the debts of the poorest countries, which recognises the need to attend to countries suffering from a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS and also calls for a greater degree of accountability to be placed on human development issues when assessing the amount of debt a country is able to repay, what is the Commission’s view of such a debt policy? Is it foreseeable that the Commission will take formal steps to establish a European policy of debt cancellation for low income countries, and when in the future could this be expected?
   . – We are not able or willing to add or subtract anything from the internationally-established Cairo consensus.
This also covers the discussion Mr Posselt is trying to push forward.
As part of this Cairo consensus, it is clear beyond any doubt that coercive abortion as an instrument of family planning is explicitly rejected.
We can play around with this and say that abortion occurs for different reasons: it could be voluntary, and take place after counselling.
Maybe Mr Posselt will see that as something to oppose and take up politically.
However, the Commission is sticking to the Cairo consensus: that is the basis on which we work.
We are extremely careful to ensure that we do not walk into uncertain territory, precisely because of the sensitivity of this subject.
You will have to take my word for it, Mr Posselt, that we are very careful about sticking to the balance and substance of the Cairo consensus.
One week after the local elections in Albania, the Central Elections Commission has decided to repeat, on 16 November 2003, the elections in four constituencies (the municipalities of Piluri, Dhermi, Qeparo and southern Himara), citing irregularities during the election process of 12 October 2003, in spite of the fact that in two of the four cases the irregularities cited occurred after the finalisation and certification of the results.
As a result, there are legitimate concerns that these actions are intended to overturn the results of the local elections, which were 65% in favour of the Unity for Human Rights Party candidate as against the opposing candidate from the socialist party.
These concerns are heightened by the criminal prosecution of five Albanians of Greek origin who participated in the elections and are accused of issuing anti-Albanian propaganda and putting up foreign symbols.
What steps does the Commission intend to take, particularly within the framework of the Stability and Association Process between South East Europe and the European Union, to ensure that democratic process is complied with in the elections due to be held again in Himara on 16 November 2003
   Thank you, Commissioner, for your reply.
As you said, unfortunately the irregularities – which provoked my question in the first round – were repeated during the elections in Himara the other day, with a real orgy of violence, injury, bombings against candidates and so on.
I am delighted that, as you said, the Commission will be following the situation attentively in order to take suitable steps within the framework of any cooperation between Albania and the European Union, especially as the Greek minister for foreign affairs, Mr Papandreou, presented the matter to the Council yesterday, albeit somewhat belatedly and after the event, and Commissioner Patten fully shared his concerns.
   – This is not a question, Commissioner.
I imagine that you take note of this statement.
I would like to thank you for the almost 60 minutes you have spent with us this afternoon.
   Mr President, on a point of order and by way of follow-up to Mr Newton Dunn's point of order, I have been sitting here listening with great interest to what Mr Nielson has said, but had a specific question to put forward in part three.
Since you invite oral questions for Commissioners for parts one, two and three, why is it that after the second half hour we did not revert to the first question of part three? Why is it that those of us with questions one, two and three in part three will not receive oral answers?
I find it a discourtesy to colleagues.
If our turn is never to be reached, we should be told to put down a written question to the Commissioners.
If we can only have answers from the Commissioners who are available on the day – Mr Monti and Mr Nielson in this case – then why invite questions to any Commissioner? Why have a section, under other questions – part three – which should have had half an hour, and then ignore it?
I fail to understand this, and with respect find it a discourtesy to colleagues.
   – The next item is the report (A5-0381/2003) by Mr Mussa, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a Council recommendation on cancer screening
(COM(2003) 230 – C5-0322/2003 – 2003/0093(CNS)).
   – The next item is the report (A5-0391/2003) by Mr Blokland, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on shipments of waste
(COM(2003) 379 – C5-0365/2003 – 2003/0139(COD)).
   – The next item is the report (A5-0365/2003) by Mr Lisi, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive on amending Council Directive 96/82/EC on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances (PE-CONS 3665/2003 – C5-0435/2003 – 2001/0257(COD)).
   – The next item is the report (A5-0386/2003) by Mr Adam, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation on establishing a system for the identification and registration of ovine and caprine animals and amending Regulation (EEC) No 3508/92 (COM(2002) 729 – C5-0027/2003 – 2002/0297(CNS)).
   Mr President, yesterday I had the great honour of sharing a platform with the President of Parliament, Mr Cox, when we both addressed the CBI national conference in the United Kingdom.
Mr Cox referred to the real concerns that exist in the UK, by saying that Parliament, the Commission and the Council are now committed to the concepts of developing subsidiarity and no disproportionate regulation.
If that were so, we would have to look at these proposals within that context.
Nobody challenges the need for better identification, but the truth of the matter is that the UK Government itself has calculated that the cost of introducing this system in the UK will be just short of GBP 100 million, a cost of between GBP 13 000 and GBP 16 000 per farmer.
We heard from Commissioner Byrne that the EU has made its own estimate.
I have more faith in the calculation of the UK Government than I have in the calculation of the EU authorities.
The fact of the matter is that the committee has been unanimous in its view.
The speeches that we will hear this evening will be unanimous in their view.
They will be in favour of better identification but also of proceeding by way of practicality, flexibility, looking at operating different methods within Member States, and of having identification – certainly within the United Kingdom – on the basis of batch control numbers.
I say to the Commissioner that there is unanimity across this Parliament, from Mr Wyn, my political opponent in Wales, to Mrs Attwooll, who is from another party in the United Kingdom and Mr Adam, from the Labour Party.
We are all unanimous in this view.
It is a view that the Commission should take on board.
So far, I have not been terribly encouraged by the stance adopted by the Commission.
Mr Adam has done a great deal to achieve unanimity, and I congratulate him on that, as other speakers have done.
We have the facility of trying to persuade Mr Adam, if there is no movement on the part of the Commission, to consider having this report referred back to committee.
I hope the Commissioner will be in a position to respond positively to the amendments that have been proposed by the committee.
However, if the Commission simply closes the door on us, then I for one will be among those who seek to persuade Mr Adam tomorrow to ask for this report to be referred back to committee so that we can stress to the Commission that it must be a listening Commission – not just when people appear before the CBI in the United Kingdom but also with regard to the daily work we do at Parliament.
   . – Mr President, I have taken careful note of the various arguments made and I appreciate the efforts put into this, especially by Mr Adam, to contribute to the overall goal of reinforcing the system of identification and registration of sheep and goats in the Community.
I have sympathy with the farmers' situation, but I should like to remind the House – as Mrs Doyle did – of the 2001 foot and mouth disease outbreak, which proved that individual identification was necessary.
Mention has been made of the costs involved in this.
Advice I have received regarding the estimates given by one Member State points out that these costs are not accurate.
The costs we have put forward are much closer to the likely outcome of the situation.
The Commission can agree to Amendment 3 with regard to the stage of development of electronic identification, but the Commission cannot agree to Amendment 3 with regard to the introduction of electronic identification on a voluntary basis.
The Commission can agree to Amendments 17, 18 and 23 with regard to the postponement of the entry into force of the reinforced system until 1 July 2005.
In view of the evolution of the discussion in Council, the Commission could agree to Amendment 17, with regard to deferring the age of tagging in general until 6 months.
The Commission can agree to Amendments 6 and 27, on the submission of a report on the experience gained with regard to the implementation of electronic identification.
However, the Commission cannot agree to submit a new legislative proposal with a view to the general introduction of electronic identification on 1 July 2007.
Neither can the Commission undertake field trials as foreseen by Amendment 21.
The Commission can agree to Amendments 4 and 7 concerning the role of the Joint Research Centre.
However, the Commission cannot agree to Amendments 1 or 2, as reliable registration cannot be achieved through electronic identification only.
The Commission can agree to the linguistic Amendment 12.
However, the Commission cannot agree to Amendment 28, as this issue is covered by general rules.
The Commission can agree to Amendment 14, as the responsibilities of the transporter shall include the assurance that animals are properly identified and registered.
The Commission can also agree to Amendments 20 and 32, as regards the provisions of the mark, but the Commission cannot agree to Amendments 19, 31, 32 or 33, as animals shall keep the same identification code when means of identification are replaced so as to ensure traceability.
The Commission cannot agree to Amendments 30 and 32, by which animals shall be identified by an eartag or a tattoo in one ear only.
The double tagging is essential to ensure that identity is retained where one eartag is lost.
The second eartag can be replaced by an electronic identifier.
The Commission can agree to Amendment 34, accepting that eartags may be made of metal or plastic and may consist of one or two parts, taking into account approval by the competent authority.
The Commission can agree to Amendments 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 16, 25, 26, 39 and 40.
However, the Commission cannot agree to Amendments 22 or 24, as the competent authority shall establish the database including the procedures for submission of data.
The Commission cannot agree to Amendments 35, 36, 38 or 41 with regard to batch-recording as the general system.
Individual identification is essential for the effective tracing of animals for veterinary purposes, which is of crucial importance for the control of contagious diseases.
Therefore, a general system based on batch-recording is not acceptable.
Batch-recording does not achieve the results that are required by this proposal, bearing in mind that the batch may well be broken up again and again, in which case traceability becomes quite impossible.
This is something that many people in the House will remember when we recollect the difficulties that were presented to the authorities in a number of Member States, including, in particular, the UK, in seeking to achieve good traceability at the outbreak of the foot and mouth disease crisis, where three weeks passed before there was effective identification in some cases.
That was in a context, as far as I am aware, where 19 farms were infected by the disease from the time of the announcement of the movement order restriction to the implementation of that movement order restriction: only a matter of hours, not weeks.
The Commission cannot agree to Amendments, 5, 13 or 29, as Community financing is not foreseen.
I recognise that this proposal will require significant efforts by both operators and authorities, but I shall stress that these efforts are both worthwhile and necessary.
For full clarity and transparency I will circulate a succinct table of the Commission's position in respect of each of these amendments to facilitate matters for you in the vote tomorrow(1).
The Commission can accept the following amendments: 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 20, 25, 26, 34 and 40.
The Commission can accept the following amendments as part of the compromise package: 3(1), 6, 9, 11, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 32(2), 37 and 39.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 1, 2, 3(2), 5, 13, 14, 19, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32(1), 33, 35, 36, 38 or 41.
   Mr Cappato, it is probably too early in the morning to start me on the subject of the two places of work, but concerning the specific request you make, I will ask the services today to make contact with you to try to examine the details of the case.
In consultation with you, we will endeavour to come to an appropriate solution that complies with the Rules of Procedure.(1)
   Mrs Berès, I shall make some comments in respect of the point of order you raised, but first I turn to our colleague Mr Méndez de Vigo.
I thank him for the leadership he has shown on behalf of the European Parliament through the work of the Convention and as our representative on the IGC.
We deeply appreciate that work.
Second, Mr Méndez de Vigo recently tendered his resignation as Parliament's representative on the IGC.
I was informed of that and I believe I did my duty correctly.
I took that information to the Conference of Presidents.
There, we exchanged views on what the response should be, and the Conference of Presidents – with an accord short of unanimity but nonetheless an accord – decided to appoint Mr Brok as Parliament's representative.
This was done transparently, in accordance with the procedures.
Views not far removed from those you raised in your point of order, Mrs Berès, were expressed; there was a plurality of views at that Conference, and a plurality of positions as regards the different group leaders.
Nonetheless, there was sufficient momentum to confirm the appointment of our colleague, Mr Brok, to that position on behalf of Parliament.
I underline 'on behalf of Parliament'.
   I shall add one remark on the issue of the budget.
Mr Barón Crespo is correct to point out that since 1988 – when we signed an interinstitutional agreement with the Council on financial perspectives – in terms of discretionary expenditure adjustments, the Council has outspent Parliament by a ratio of three to two.
This Parliament has acted with responsibility when given responsibility.
   Apologies for stealing your lines in advance, Mr Duff!
   Mr Antonione, the Presidency’s position seems to be quite clear and is essentially in line with Parliament’s position; that is precisely why the brokerage endeavour seeking to bring about a high-minded, noble compromise that is in harmony with the text adopted by the Convention must be supported; the overall balance of the text cannot and must not be altered.
Mr Frattini’s statements on the speech you made in this House give us great hopes, as stressed by Mr Brok, of the final outcome of the work of the Intergovernmental Conference: I remain, therefore, one of those who are passionately optimistic.
I am sure that we will achieve the goal towards which we are all working; I am absolutely convinced that no one will have the courage, no-one will want to risk being held politically accountable for giving Europe a heart attack and shattering a long-held dream.
Mr Antonione, I believe, however, that it is right to bring to the Presidency’s attention a number of issues, which really do require some thought. Firstly, the role of the European Parliament.
It would be a serious mistake to limit the role of the House which represents the peoples of the Union; I believe that the provisions of the text adopted by the Convention are appropriate and should not be altered.
Secondly, the composition of the Commission: the accession countries – representatives of which are in this Chamber – have great hopes of the Europe of the tomorrow.
We must not let them down by keeping them out of the Executive.
That is why it is right for there to be a Commissioner with full rights for each country, at least during the initial phase of tomorrow’s Europe.
Now, Mr Antonione, for a matter which has been the subject of much debate, and I feel that its importance must not be underestimated by the House.
I feel – I am absolutely convinced of this, and not because I am a strong supporter of the Church – that the preamble to the Constitution should include an explicit reference to Europe’s Judeao-Christian roots.
We must not deny a fundamental part of our history, we must not deny our deepest roots, we must not renounce the Europe of principles, we must not renounce this explicit reference, precisely because we want – and many countries understand this – secular institutions.
This has been taken on board, Mr Barón Crespo, by the German Chancellor, the Social Democrat, Mr Schröder, who has decided not to block a proposal which seeks to make the individual, the central importance of the individual, the central importance of the citizen, the focus of tomorrow’s Europe.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, it may be that we have the promise of clearer positions. This morning, both the Council Presidency and the Commission’s speeches were more specific and took a harder line: could it be that they are indicative of what will happen in Naples?
A Europe with clam sauce or a more-or-less Neapolitan pizza which will be served up to the European public for next year? At this juncture, taking into account the hourly developments like the finance ministers’ initiative, maybe the Council Presidency should review things in Italy with some urgency, if these are Mr Tremonti’s contributions, and also, moreover – and nobody has mentioned this, not even the general affairs ministers – the Italian and European shift of position on Israel just a few hours ago.
I suppose we will take note of it but only in a few hours’ time, I fear.
At this point, we would like to give two pieces of advice or express two hopes.
For the forthcoming European elections, why should we not devise a political – I repeat, political – initiative and hold a European consultative referendum? You will win it and you will also be able to raise awareness about the subsequent institutional referenda that will be held.
On the other hand, Mr President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner, are you, maybe, looking into the possibility of doing something new before 15 December? Are you trying to resolve the most serious problem which you seem to have, giving more power – with a US or UK flavour – to the Commission President?
It is not a question of having 15 or 20 or 25; quite the opposite, it is a question of focusing less on ethnic representation and more on issues of programmatic, cultural and political representation. Have a little more confidence in yourselves rather than continuing to try and produce more rules, extensions and derogations, a strategy which is typical of canon law, not of secular law or the kind of law which creates rules which all can follow, including in the customs of society in general.
   Thank you very much, Commissioner Verheugen.
The vote on the motion for a resolution will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
   The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on Euromed.
   Mr President, the transformation of the Parliamentary Forum on the agenda for the Naples Summit on 2 and 3 December into a Parliamentary Assembly will be an extremely significant political development, as the House has seen from the ACP experience.
The Parliamentary Assembly is an instrument for political cooperation which both reminds the Member States of their responsibilities precisely through parliamentary measures and gathers strength for new measures.
The next step in Naples must be swift action on the part of the Council to implement the decisions already taken during the Valencia Ministerial Conference, especially the initiatives based on culture and dialogue between societies – both bilateral and multilateral initiatives – in order to reinvigorate the neighbourhood policy which is the key to the balance and development of the Mediterranean area.
The transformed institution will, moreover, have to adopt a working model for which we can all see the need.
Our decisions must be put into practice for, in this area, we must admit that we have failed somewhat.
If we consider the Barcelona process, Meda, Meda II and the Valencia Conference, and the past and present expectations raised by these developments, it may be that we have failed somewhat in implementing all the decisions taken.
A great deal of work has been accomplished but, without a doubt, there is still some to be completed, and the Assembly is clearly the right body to verify whether we have observed and achieved the objectives we set ourselves, particularly as regards the promotion of democracy and the rule of law, for a genuine, coherent, effective Euro-Mediterranean Partnership must fully incorporate not just the social and economic dimensions but respect for and promotion of human rights as well.
Point by point, we would like to mention a number of developments that must be included on the agenda and seen as priorities.
Firstly, a programme for supportive cooperation between the two shores of the Mediterranean in the fight against terrorism and international organised crime.
We need to introduce specific measures to stem this flow of – often forced – migration, which is a tragedy for mankind.
Secondly, we need to verify the forms of development of the section provided by the EIB for the Mediterranean and the Middle East as an instrument for supporting the goals set by the new strategy, with the financial participation of other Mediterranean countries; I would point out that this Assembly expected a bank to be an active operator in the area.
Thirdly, we need to insist on the development of south-south relations.
In my opinion, the Agadir agreementis an important means of creating a genuine free trade area.
Fourthly, the procedures of the MEDA regulation need to be streamlined in order to increase the effectiveness of the project.
   With an eye on the clock, Commissioner Verheugen has declined to speak again.
We regret that and thank him for it at the same time.
Pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received five motions for resolutions.(1)
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
   Mr President, on behalf of the European People's Party and European Democrats, I should like to ask for the vote on Mrs Smet’s report to be moved to the first part-session in December.
The reason is that the translations into various languages of paragraph 13, which will be incorporated into the report, arrived very late and the political groups wish to have the possibility of tabling amendments or calling for a separate vote.
This proposal could not be made in the time available to us, because we followed the procedure under Rule 110a, which is why we are asking for the vote to be moved to the first part-session in December so that we would have the facility for various groups to request a separate vote on this paragraph.
   Mr President, I would like to inform the House of the problem that I came across yesterday.
I had requested the use of the press briefing room from 3.30 p.m. to 4 p.m. to talk about the case of the Catalan separatists who were on trial in the morning before the European Court of Human Rights on the subject of allegations of torture by the State…
   – I am sorry, Mr Mayol i Raynal, but the rules of procedure are very strict: your request should be made to the College of Quaestors and not to the House.
If you have information to present to the House then you have time slots for that at the beginning of the sitting.
I cannot interrupt the vote for an explanation of this kind.
I hope that you will forgive me.
   . Mr President, I would just like to inform the House that, in order to avoid confusion between chemical formulae and abbreviations, the English version of Annex I, part I is the correct text.
   – Do not worry, Mr Lisi.
The language services will be informed.
   . Mr President, I would clarify that some amendments voted by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy have been withdrawn, as shown on the list.
I refer to Amendments Nos 11 and 12.
   – Indeed, it is, in principle, indicated on the lists.
A significant part of Amendments Nos 11 and 12 has been withdrawn and does not form part of the so-called compromise package.
   . Mr President, the Commission is fully aware of Parliament's views on this issue and takes them very seriously indeed.
The institution is carrying out a thorough examination of the matter and of the appropriate internal procedures.
On that basis my colleague, Mrs de Palacio, will be making a recommendation to the college of Commissioners in the near future.
She wants me to assure you that we will fully respect our commitments under the framework agreement.
You will be informed promptly of the Commission's decision.
   – Very well, I infer from your statement Mr Adam, that this cancels any request for referral back to committee.
We shall therefore proceed to the vote, as you requested.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to inform you that, in the context of inter-parliamentary relations, the Knesset Delegation for relations with the European Parliament, lead by its chairperson, Mrs Blumenthal, is visiting the European Parliament.
In wishing Mrs Blumenthal and the members of her delegation a warm welcome, I would like to stress the importance that we attach to such a visit, in particular, given the current situation.
The tragic events with which the Israeli and Palestinian people are faced on a daily basis, make the resumption of dialogue between these two parties – a dialogue that the European Parliament has always encouraged – more necessary than ever.
This is why, and without wanting to go into detail about the conflict that has been affecting your region for too long, I hope that the meetings that you will have with Members of the European Parliament will be fruitful and that they will be able to contribute to better reciprocal information, so as to better bring about conditions, in which just and sustainable peace will finally be able to put an end to this interminable conflict that affects your region and which, day after day, causes the deaths of too many innocent victims amongst the Israeli and Palestinian populations.
Mr Cappato, we are now voting and I would prefer to continue if that is acceptable.
Especially after the announcement I have just made, I do not want to reopen the debates.
   Mr President, there is a little confusion as to why we have been asked to vote twice on this particular Karlsson report for rejection.
Could you clarify the situation?
   . Mr President, we now come to the vote on Amendment 24, the famous Nisticò compromise.
There are some translation problems here.
I would like to point out that the English version is the correct one.
   – Very good, we will take note of your declaration, Mr Liese.
   Mr President, Mr Lisi’s report concerns the control of major-accident hazards involving the circulation of dangerous substances, particularly where the mining and transport of these products is concerned.
I certainly could not vote against the report and so I voted for it, but I wonder and I put it to Mr Lisi: might not the euro be a dangerous substance which ought also to be classed as a dangerous substance against which we need to be protected when it is circulated? Without wishing to shock you, Mr President, I am afraid that, in Italy, the circulation of the euro has brought an increase in the expenditure of all the workers and pensioners because its cost is significantly higher.
   Mr President, last night, I dreamt once again about Mr Fatuzzo the sailor who worked on a cruise ship sailing between New York and the Bahamas from 1963 to 1965.
Since I had to express a view on Mrs Miguélez Ramos’ report on enhancing ship and port facility security, no one better than myself as a sailor in 1963 was qualified to give good advice.
The advice I received, however, is that there needs to be another amendment: in other words, why does Mrs Miguélez Ramos not call next time for pensioners drawing their pension for the first time to be given a free cruise?
   Mr Paasilinna’s report calls for a European information network security agency to be established, clearly and, in particular, combating information, computer and electronic communication line piracy.
However, I believe, Mr President, that Mr Paasilinna would have produced a better report if there had also been an amendment providing more security against pirates who take money from workers, money which the workers should have been able to keep for themselves for their pensions.
It would therefore be better if there were measures to combat the piracy of information networks and to combat theft of pensioners’ money.
   Mr Adam’s report, Mr President, deals with the identification and registration of ovine and caprine animals.
I voted for the motion: it is certainly good to register the development of sheep and goats too, but the wish expressed to me by a pensioner citizen is that Europe would also concern itself – and I hope Mr Adam will do so soon – with the registration and preservation of pension contributions paid in by workers, contributions which often, frequently – as least, this happens in Italy and, I fear, in other European States too – get lost somewhere in the process, disappear, resulting in the workers receiving lower pensions than they are entitled to.
We must therefore ensure that years of work are registered and monitored throughout a person’s life.
   Mr President, with this report, Mr Blokland calls for freedom of movement in Europe for waste – urban waste, industrial waste – and I voted for the motion.
However, I would be pleased if European pensioner citizens were to be considered worthy of at least as much freedom of movement as is given to urban and industrial waste.
As you know, those who receive a welfare allowance, such as hearing- or visually-impaired people or citizens who need constant assistance, lose the right to draw their disability allowance if they travel in Europe outside their own national state.
I would therefore prefer the directive in question to address the movement of pensioner citizens as well as waste.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I also voted against today’s proposal because I cannot support the use of common resources for purposes of research that is expressly prohibited in some Member States.
Precisely because the Member States’ individual laws differ greatly on the matter of human embryo research, more restrictive positions on embryo research should not be ignored.
It must therefore be left to each Member State to take its own decision, in accordance with its own laws, about the kind of research on which it will spend money and about the research purposes for which no funding will be made available.
Finally, in view of the fact that, unlike adult stem cell research, there have still not been any unquestionably promising results in embryo research, I cannot understand why funding should be provided from the Sixth Framework Programme.
   Mr President, my voters do not want their tax money to be used to kill unborn human beings, even if, unlike in Germany, it is permitted for research purposes in many Member States.
For this reason I came out quite clearly against this report as it now stands and have from the outset supported the clear line taken by Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and by Mr Gargani.
We were, however, prepared to go a long way in a compromise motion in order to prevent something worse. I would like to thank Mr Nisticò and Mr Liese for giving this House the opportunity for a compromise that is so far-reaching but which sets limits.
Unfortunately, this was turned down by a tiny liberal left majority of this House and I must make it perfectly clear that that is probably the end of compromises in this matter.
This House is divided on this important issue and I imagine there is the same division in the Council of Ministers.
I do not believe that we should use our in any case meagre research funding to finance such highly controversial research on so divisive an issue; we ought to concentrate on things that are not controversial in the EU and leave this question, to which the principle of subsidiarity should apply, to the Member States.
   Mr President, Mrs Gutiérrez-Cortines, a Spaniard, calls with this report for soil protection through a range of different maps and legislation – so that we preserve our ability to produce top-quality agricultural produce.
I welcome this but, reading about soil protection, I had the sudden desire to ask the rapporteur, to ask Europe, whether we ought not to be endeavouring to ensure that, in connection with soil, our governors too, rather than having their heads in the clouds, keep their feet on the ground, that they walk safely with their feet on the ground.
All too often, indeed, they think about the stars and the sky rather than the everyday needs of all the citizens.
Mr President, I will conclude, if I may, by saying that we need more presidents like you, for all the states of Europe need presidents called ‘Onesta’ – if you will forgive the play on words – not just France.
   – My surname thanks you for that remark, Mr Fatuzzo.
   Mr President, Mr Blokland’s report concerns the movement of waste in Europe, waste from towns and from outside towns.
I voted for the motion because this certainly represents progress for Europe, but I would like Mr Blokland and Europe to concern themselves more with the free movement of citizens too, particularly pensioners and particularly pensioners with disabilities because, at the moment, I am afraid, under Regulation 1408, people in receipt of social benefits and healthcare allowances – such as hearing- and visually-impaired people and those requiring assistance – lose the right to draw their disability allowance if they travel in Europe.
There must be as much freedom of movement for European citizens as there is provided for in this directive for urban and industrial waste.
   The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the outcome of the EU-Russia Summit.(1)
   – Mr President, let me begin with three statements: the war in Chechnya is not Mr Putin’s private affair; the war in Chechnya is not a war against terrorism; and the war in Chechnya still spawns daily acts of violence on a massive scale against the human rights of the civil population.
We can only talk to President Putin about advancing the partnership between the European Union and Russia on the basis of these three premises.
For this reason, we strongly support the criticism contained in the resolution on which Parliament will vote tomorrow directed at the current President-in-Office of the European Union, for the inadmissible statements made by Mr Berlusconi supporting Mr Putin’s policy in Chechnya.
These statements – and I am addressing the under-secretary, Mr Antonione – were utterly unacceptable and totally devoid of any connection with the policy expressed by the European Union up to now. As Mr Poettering has reminded us, the European Union regards Chechnya as an open wound.
Mr Berlusconi’s affinities and personal friendships cannot and must not jeopardise the rigor with which Europe must demand that President Putin put an immediate end to the abuses and violence in Chechnya and seek a political solution to that conflict.
Mr President, 3000 deaths since the beginning of the year, 300 people missing, 50 mass graves discovered and elections known to be a farce: this is the balance of the war in Chechnya, and a story of long-standing impunity: the Italian Presidency really ought to call President Putin to account over this.
We would have expected some words of regret from Mr Antonione about what has happened and some plain speaking about what will happen in future.
We note, Mr President, that these words have not yet come.
   The next item is the report (A5-0378/2003) by Pasqualina Napoletano, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on 'Wider Europe Neighbourhood: A New Framework for Relations with our Eastern and Southern Neighbours (COM(2003) 104 2003/2018(INI)).
   – Mr President, after the votes in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, Mrs Napoletano’s report can surely be adopted by us all.
On the other hand, the report has become too broad in scope and too detailed.
The basic problem with it is the way it confuses concepts, which is due to the fact that the Commission has combined the Wider Europe policy and relations with our neighbours in the same initiative.
In practice the Wider Europe policy covers relations with our eastern neighbours which are in Europe. Our southern neighbours on the other hand are the non-European countries of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has endeavoured to clarify concepts with its Amendments 15 and 16.
The Union would have a Wider Europe policy which would be supplemented by our policies known as the Northern and Southern Dimension.
The new Neighbourhood Policy and the new Neighbourhood Instrument would be implemented in respect of all our neighbours, in the east, south and north.
I hope these amendments will be adopted.
   – Mr President, after the second world war, the people of Europe had the vision of integrating their countries, and more than 50 years on the EU is the result.
Today our great Europe needs to have the vision of a neighbourhood policy, in the East and in the South, and I am grateful to Mrs Napoletano for her report, which provides many ideas.
We have a whole arsenal of instruments with which to put flesh on the bones of this neighbourhood policy: economic, political and technological.
We should also use the other institutions, the Council of Europe and the OSCE, which have a contribution to make to this neighbourhood policy.
I believe that a strategy of neighbourhood agreements for individual countries or groups of countries might be helpful, like the Schuman declaration of 1951, only then it was for coal and steel.
It is a model that we can still use today for sectoral agreements with our neighbours.
A technological agreement with North Africa on solar hydrogen, for example, would be of huge importance for both us and them.
We do not want a fortress Europe, but an open Europe, and this policy should help us to achieve this.
   . – Mr President, I should like to comment on just a few issues.
Firstly, differentiation, which is of course a key component of the Commission proposal.
Our approach is based entirely on differentiation, which means that each country is treated individually.
It is not a multilateral project, but a bilateral one, tailor-made for everyone, and that is why Russia is not treated in the same way as Libya; that would simply be impossible and quite frankly it would be foolish even to attempt to do so.
This also means that the scope and substance of the common ground will vary quite considerably, at least at the outset.
At some point in the distant future it may be possible for all of the trains to call at the same station, but for a long time there will be differentiation.
Obviously, the idea of our concluding a free movement of workers agreement with the countries of North Africa in the foreseeable future is just as inconceivable to me as it is to Mr Gahler.
But no one has mentioned this possibility either.
My final point is this: several speakers complained of a lack of conceptual clarity and consistency.
I am rather surprised by this.
I think that the concept is actually quite clear.
We want to have a policy that is designed for all those countries that will be our next-door neighbours after enlargement, whether through shared land or sea borders.
As Romano Prodi rightly said, these countries stretch from Russia to Morocco.
Obviously it would be an easy matter to draft an overall strategy for all European countries and all neighbouring countries outside Europe, who are not Members of the European Union, by quite simply combining the strategies and policies that are already in place – in fact I could do this over the coming weekend if you wished.
But it would do nothing to change the fact that we would have to apply different instruments in the western Balkans and Turkey, for example, from the ones that we need to apply in say Libya or Syria, because our objectives in respect of the western Balkans and Turkey are quite different.
Mr Brok’s attempt is honourable, and I will not hold it against him either – I know exactly what he wanted.
Mr Brok will certainly agree with me when I say that writing an alternative to accession for Turkey in a formal Council or Commission document at this stage would amount to announcing the end of the common strategic approach.
You can certainly demand this, Mr Brok, but the Commission is unable to comply.
   . Article 2(2) of the Schengen Convention states that where public policy or national security so require, a Contracting Party may, after consulting other Contracting Parties, decide that for a limited period national border checks appropriate to the situation will be carried out at internal borders.
If public policy or national security require immediate action, the Contracting Party concerned shall take the necessary measures and shall inform the other Contracting Parties thereof at the earliest opportunity
For the application of these provisions, the Schengen Executive Committee of 20 December 1995 adopted the decision on the procedure for applying Article 2(2) of the Schengen Convention.
In line with the aforementioned texts, that is to say OJ L 239, 22.9.2000, p.133, the Joint Action of 26 May 1997 with regard to cooperation on law and order and security (OJ L 147, 5.6.1997, p.1) and the Council Conclusions of 13 July 1997 on security at European Council meetings and other comparable events (document 10916/01 JAAI 82), the Italian Presidency promoted a draft Council resolution on security at European Council meetings and other comparable events.
The draft resolution does not abolish the civil liberties laid down in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union of 7 December 2000 (OJ C 364, 18.12.2000, p.1); in particular, it contains specific provisions regarding protection of personal data for exchange.
   I thank the Minister for his reply, which troubles me of course.
I would like to ask him the following supplementary question: what is the fate of this draft resolution; in other words, has it been accepted in principle by the other 14 and which are the basic provisions contained in this proposal for a resolution?
Can the Council say which Member States amended their national law by 6 September 2003, the deadline laid down in Article 42 of Decision 2002/187/JHA?(1) What are the terms of these laws and the main differences between them?
What national rules have defined the status and the powers of national members of Eurojust since the entry into force of the decision? What are the terms of these rules and the main differences between them?
   The Council has not received any information from the Member States regarding the implementation of Decision 2002/187/JHA setting up Eurojust.
The Council would like to draw the honourable Member’s attention to the fact that the decision does not require Member States to communicate such information to the Council.
It is, nevertheless, aware of the fact that the Commission is drawing up a report on the implementation of Decision 2002/187/JHA; it has been informed that the Commission intends to present this report to the Council by the end of the year.
Since there is a lack of information on the rules for national transposition, the Council cannot provide the honourable Member with details of the national rules defining the status and the powers of the nations that are members of Eurojust during the period from the entry into force of the decision to date.
The Italian Council Presidency did, however, organise a meeting on the issue, which took place in Rome on 13 and 14 November 2003.
   – As far as we are aware, only eight Member States have replied to date, whereas the planned deadline for replies was 6 September.
The issue is extremely tricky because, in the meantime, Eurojust is operational and personal data, some of which is very sensitive, is being exchanged.
I believe that the problem, regarding Eurojust, is that the cart has been put before the horse, that is to say that this bureaucratic structure to aid cooperation has been created without rules and guarantees and without making sure that these rules could be complied with by the deadlines laid down.
It is enough to mention the Möllemann case – in which Eurojust was involved, with data exchange – of a German Liberal representative who committed suicide precisely whilst a police and judicial operation was under way involving several Member States.
The question remains: what rules did the German delegate apply in exchanging information in the Möllemann case, since Eurojust maintains that German rules were applied, whilst the Germans claim that Eurojust rules were applied? As you can see, Mr Antonione, there is a problem that urgently needs resolving.
The 6 September deadline was not respected: urgent measures are called for.
   As has already been stated, in October in response to oral questions H-0544/03 and H-0549/03 on the same issue, the Council is aware of the trial and detention of five Cuban citizens residing in Florida since 2001 and the concerns that have also been voiced by human rights NGOs, not least, as regards the conditions of detention.
The Council has not discussed the conditions of the trial.
As regards the general attitude of the Council and the Commission regarding Cuba, I refer the honourable Member to our debate in this House at the beginning of September.
   . I am not currently in a position to make such a commitment because, as you know Mr Andreasen, it clearly depends on the other Member States of the Council as well.
I can tell you that on this matter there has already been, as I had occasion to mention just now, an exchange of opinions during yesterday’s lunch and during the Troikameeting I therefore believe that such an issue could also be resumed in light of the commitments made publicly by Colin Powell when replying in a press conference to a journalist, to the effect that, on his return to the US, he would look into the issue further and attempt to remedy any difficult situations.
I hope that there will be a positive development and that it will no longer be necessary to address this issue.
   On 16 and 17 October 2003, the European Council examined the state of the peace process in the Middle East, discussing possible ways forward.
It was stressed that the European Union expresses its firm commitment to the clear objective of two States – Israel and a viable, and democratic Palestinian State – living side by side in peace and security in the framework of comprehensive peace in the Middle East, as laid out in the road map.
Furthermore, the European Union reiterated its determination to contribute to all aspects of the implementation of the road map and stressed the importance and urgency of setting up a credible and effective third-party monitoring mechanism.
The European Council said that it is deeply concerned by the situation in the region and noted that, despite support given by the international community to the quest for a just and lasting solution, insufficient effort has been made by the concerned parties to seize the opportunity for peace set down in the road map, underscored by the recent Quartet Ministerial Statement issued on 26 September 2003.
On the contrary, rising violence is bringing increasing suffering and death for both the Israeli and the Palestinian peoples and putting at risk security in the region and beyond.
The European Council therefore called on both parties, Israel and the Palestinian Authority, to live up to the commitments they undertook at the Aqaba summit on 4 June 2003.
The European Council urged all sides in the region to immediately implement policies conducive to dialogue and negotiations.
The EU relationship with those who take steps to the contrary will be inevitably affected by such behaviour.
The Union will take every opportunity to make these positions accepted by both sides.
The EU-Israel Association Council, which took place on 17 and 18 November 2003, gave the Union a good opportunity to give a clear political message to the Israeli Government.
In particular, the Union stressed its concern at the route of the so-called security fence and the continued expansion of settlements, and reiterated the need for Israel, in the fight against terrorism, to avoid civilian casualties and destruction so as not to exacerbate the plight of the Palestinian people.
Furthermore, the Council stressed the importance of the Union playing an active role in the peace process.
As regards the specific question from Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, the Council believes that the Geneva Agreement is a positive contribution to the debate on resolving the crisis in the Middle East, in accordance with the Union’s position in this regard, expressed most recently by the European Council of 16 and 17 October 2003.
The European Council welcomed initiatives from civil society on both sides and said that it is ready to further assist in the effort to promote , confidence-building and the search for a lasting peace.
The steps for reaching a definitive, comprehensive solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict are set out on the Quartet’s road map.
   Thank you, Mr Ortuondo Larrea, for tabling this question. The Council would, first of all, like to stress that, in the discussions of December 2002, particular attention was given to structural measures for fleets that needed to be adapted to reflect the reform of the common fisheries policy.
In this regard, the Council was fully aware of the need to ensure consistency between the restructuring policy for the sector and other aspects of the common fisheries policy, in particular the objective of achieving a stable, enduring balance between the capacity of the fleet and the fishing opportunities available in and outside Community waters.
As a result, the decision adopted in December 2002 on aid seeks to concentrate Community financial support on a series of measures that the Council deemed to be a priority within the new framework.
As regards constructing new vessels, Regulation No 2369/2002 states that public aid in this sector will continue to be available up until the end of 2004, but, from now on, will be given for fishing vessels not exceeding 400 GT.
Leaving aside the issue of whether certain fisheries activities carried out with fishing vessels not exceeding 400 GT are sufficiently profitable, it must be stressed that the Council regulation does not allow for construction aid, for the types of shipping vessels that you mentioned, Mr Ortuondo Larrea, equal to that laid down for shipping vessels under 400 GT.
Nevertheless, as regards direct investment for safety at sea, working conditions and the quality of products, Regulation No 2369/2002 provides for aid for equipment and modernisation after 2004 without applying the 400 GT limit.
Any similar measure to the one suggested by Mr Ortuondo Larrea would, however, require a proposal from the Commission.
Will the Council bring pressure to bear on the French authorities over the continued detention of political prisoners without trial? I refer in particular to the case of six Breton nationalist campaigners – four of whom have been imprisoned without trial for over three years and one, Alain Solé, for over five years.
Arrested in 1999 for alleged participation in bomb attacks, Alain Solé's health has deteriorated seriously as a result of his unlawful incarceration.
He is now an insulin-dependent diabetic following the lack of adequate medical care in the months following his arrest.
Each time his release has been ordered in accordance with French law, he has been linked to separate criminal charges and has remained in provisional detention.
The prisoners' detention is in clear violation of Article 5(3) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Will the Council commit to examining this issue in light of international standards governing the rights of those in provisional detention to trial within a reasonable time?
   Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in view of your reply, rather than asking the question I had planned to ask, I am simply going to make a suggestion: read Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty and then reply.
On the occasion of a meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in Madrid on 19 October 2003, Turkish Minister of State Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned of ‘a splitting of the Mediterranean into a Christian and a Muslim club’.
At the same meeting Erdogan, in his capacity as Prime Minister of the applicant country Turkey, also made the following statement: ‘We would not like the EU to become a Christian club’ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 20 October 2003).
One of the questions being considered at the ongoing Intergovernmental Conference is whether the preamble to the planned EU constitution should contain a reference to Europe’s Judeo-Christian roots.
To what extent does the Council consider that a reference of this kind to a historical fact could in any way make future EU membership for Turkey more difficult? Given that the Bible constitutes Holy Scripture for Christians, Jews and Muslims alike, to what extent could the Council imagine supporting a formulation such as ‘Europe’s biblical heritage’ as a way of describing the core texts of Europe’s religious heritage, in order to include these three world religions in the preamble?
   Mrs Izquierdo, the Council is not present.
   Mr Mayol, the Council will reply in writing, as it is obliged to do.
(5)
   The next item is the debate on the second report (A5-0370/2003) by Mr Queiró, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions European Defence Industrial and market issues Towards an EU Defence Equipment Policy (COM(2003) 113 2003/2096(INI)).
   . Mr President, I wish, pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, to have the opportunity to defend my honour.
Mrs McKenna said that this report was the product of the defence or arms industry lobbies and I wish to state that, as far as I and indeed my colleagues are concerned, no lobby...
   . Mr President, I do not wish to reopen the debate; I simply wish to respond to Mrs McKenna, who claims that this report represents a victory for the arms industry lobbies.
The offensiveness of this claim does not deserve a response, but the slur on my good name that it represents forces me to protest.
I have nothing, of course, against Mrs McKenna’s opinions, which are bound to differ from my own.
What I cannot accept, however, is her insinuation that I have supposedly acted subserviently to the interests of this sector or even that I represent these interests.
I am quite aware of what to do in the event of a conflict of interest.
Apart from being offensive, this insinuation is false and completely inappropriate to the serious political context in which this debate has taken place.
Mrs McKenna’s claim and the disgraceful lack of ethics that it reveals therefore reflect on the person who uttered it.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0397/2003) by Mr Lagendijk, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the Stabilisation and Association Process for South East Europe: Second Annual Report (COM(2003) 139 2003/2094(INI)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0390/2003) by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Foreign and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1080/2000 of 22 May 2000 on support for the United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR) (COM(2003) 389 – C5-0325/2003 – 2003/0142(CNS)).
   – Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Swoboda’s report on the Stability Pactfor South-East Europe has two essential objectives, one being to make the Stability Pact more stable, and the other to take Parliament’s views into account and involve it in the process of appointing the special coordinator.
On this I am in full agreement with Mr Swoboda.
Hitherto, the Coordinator has been appointed for only six months at a time, but now he is to hold office for a year.
We regard this as progress.
Parliament’s involvement in the appointment process as a budgetary and political authority is also to be welcomed.
It would be desirable if this process of appointing the coordinator of the Stability Pact each year were to be a speedy one, and what the Commissioner has said leads me to believe that there is the will to make it so.
In every instance, the parliamentary dimension must be built up, and in saying that I am referring not only to the European Parliament, but also and especially to the regional parliaments in the countries to which the Stability Pact applies.
We can never do enough to involve members of the regional parliaments in the important work of stabilising the Western Balkans.
The Stability Pact and its present coordinator Erhard Busek have already had a great effect – something that has been noted with appreciation, and rightly so – on both trade and investment, or in the use of several infrastructural measures to combat crime.
Much, though, remains to be done, and I believe that the Swoboda report, to the content of which we will be giving our full support tomorrow, will make an important contribution to this.
   The next item is the report (A5-0398/2003) by Mr Coelho, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, with a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the second-generation Schengen information system (SIS II) [2003/2180(INI)].
   . – Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to thank Mr Coelho for his report, which clearly highlights the fundamental challenges presented by the second generation of the Schengen Information System, known as SIS II, and I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate him personally on the initiative that he put forward for the hearing on 6 October in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on this matter, because this hearing directly reflects his concern to give the citizens detailed and clear explanations of the usefulness of the work that has been undertaken on the Schengen Information System, with which the Commission fully agrees.
I should like to reiterate the fact that the Schengen Information System is a key instrument for the principle of abolishing internal border controls and that, naturally, its development and day-to-day running must take place with scrupulous regard for the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals.
As to the issue that the rapporteur raised, concerning the nature of the Schengen Information System, I should like to recall that, since the very beginning, police authorities have been authorised users of the System, in particular in the context of their monitoring activities within EU territory.
The Schengen Information System must now, however, be set in a different context – the context in which it came into existence.
Initially, the system was designed as a measure of compensation for the abolition of internal borders, set in a clearly intergovernmental framework.
Since the Schengen was integrated into the European Union, the Schengen Information System has been central to the area of freedom, security and justice.
The acceptance of the United Kingdom and Ireland’s partial participation in the Schengen system without these countries abolishing controls at their borders confirms this development.
The Spanish initiatives to extend the functions of the existing system and which provide for Europol and Eurojust having access to some of the system’s data – I stress, to some of the system’s data - also form part of this development.
As regards SIS II, the Council has to date confined itself to accepting its existing functions and to providing broad guidelines on new functions.
The debate on precisely what new functions of the system will be implemented in order to enhance its effectiveness and whether these will further alter the nature of the existing system is still to take place.
I therefore welcome the fact that Parliament wishes to play an active role in this crucial debate, which must be as transparent and wide-ranging as possible.
As you all know, the Commission was given the mandate to develop SIS II, but the current Schengen Information System, known as SIS I+, is managed by France, under the terms of Article°92 of the Schengen Convention, and does not, therefore, fall within the sphere of the Commission’s competence.
Mr Coelho’s report on SIS II is based on the Commission’s work to develop this new generation, and the Commission has given a commitment to adopt, in the near future, a new communication to Parliament and the Council detailing the state of the work on developing SIS II in the first quarter of 2003, as well as the important issue the rapporteur highlighted, concerning the technical synergies that will be possible with the future visa information system, known as ‘VIS’.
To give you a brief overview of the work that has been undertaken, I should like to remind you that the results of the feasibility study conducted by the Commission were immediately conveyed to Parliament, in the Spring of 2003.
Currently, the project to develop SIS II is at the stage of publishing the call for tender.
The Commission services have spent the last few months drawing up the specifications for this tender in close cooperation with the Member States and have kept the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs informed on a regular basis.
In his report, Mr Coelho highlights the fundamental challenges in terms of data protection and the importance of involving the authorities responsible for data protection in the development of SIS II.
The Commission is fully aware of these challenges, both as regards the system’s development, and concerning the preparation of its legal base.
This legal base will include rules on data protection that will also cover access by private individuals.
The Commission is also holding regular and intensive meetings with the Joint Supervisory Authority, and has included specifications on data protection in the tender.
Finally, Mr Coelho’s report refers specifically to the need to harmonise the principles of data protection.
Although this call for harmonisation goes beyond the issue of SIS II, the Commission intends, in the course of next year, 2004, to propose a legal instrument on rules for the protection of personal data under the third pillar.
I therefore wish, once again, to emphasise the importance the Commission attaches to Parliament’s full involvement in the debates that will take place, which I hope will be as transparent as possible, and to which this report will certainly make a decisive contribution.
I hope that this report wins the support of this House,
   Madam President, this report and this debate in Parliament are, from a political point of view, quite meaningless.
What we have here is a non-binding recommendation in an area outside Parliament’s competence.
This lack of real significance is in sharp contrast, however, to the importance of the underlying subject.
The subject is frighteningly important.
It has to do with nothing less than national, supranational and international police authorities’ uncontrolled use of the information and monitoring systems forming part of what is termed the second generation Schengen Information System, known as SIS II.
I am able to say that George Orwell’s nightmare visions of Big Brother pale in comparison with this state of affairs.
The systems are to a large extent secret, particularly for those implicated.
Evermore extended use is being made, officially and unofficially, of the information collected.
In reality, there is no democratic, parliamentary and judicial control.
The original rationale behind the Schengen Information System, or what was known as SIS I – namely nothing more nor less than the securing of border controls – has long since been replaced by an ambition to collect police information in the broad sense of the term.
Involving more and more information on more and more subjects, the Schengen Information System, or SIS, and, for that matter, Sirene are outside the domain of the law and not subject to controls.
I am unfamiliar with my fellow MEP’s, Mr Coelho’s, background and motives.
I have no reason to doubt his concerns.
What I contest is the realism and usefulness of the proposals.
I am more in agreement with the premises of the minority statement which, in my purely personal opinion, should have emphasised still more strongly that we are not concerned here with the mere dangers of misuse and of a legal vacuum.
The misuse of such a legal vacuum is an almost inevitable consequence of the police state factors that are already present and that have been approved.
   – Madam President, if one considers the SIS in the light of history, it represents Europe’s further development of Germany’s racist Central Register of Foreign Nationals, which has for years listed every foreigner living in Germany, and if we are to talk, in this House today, in terms of freedom, then the state is free to examine its human material and to sort it into categories, and at the same time has the task of doing so.
To an overwhelming extent, most of the personal data stored in the present-day SIS relates to people who have been refused entry into the EU.
The development of a second-generation SIS is not just, though, about building up its storage capacity and fortifying the new borders in the East; what is even worse is that its operations are being extended by the introduction of new database categories and search options, the aim being to facilitate the use of SIS II for manhunts.
This amounts to a fundamental change in the database’s character.
What was a racist index of persons barred from entering the EU is becoming a powerful instrument in the hands of the state’s apparatus of repression, enabling it to track people down.
This SIS is the first satellite in Europe’s ‘star wars’ programme to monitor immigration; we can reject it and, for that reason, we must.
   The next item is the Commission statement on the EU-Canada Summit which will take place in Ottawa on 17 December 2003.
   Thank you, Mr Watson.
The debate is closed.(1)
   Mr President, it is now 14 years since the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, on 20 November 1989.
Unfortunately, our economies still operate in a way that fails to take account of children’s needs.
Child labour still takes place, in Portugal too, where it is estimated that over 4% of children work in various sectors, due to the precarious economic situation of many families.
We welcome the important initiatives condemning such practices and protecting children’s rights, specifically the global fight against child labour.
I would therefore urge everyone, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to demonstrate greater commitment to ensuring that a child’s smile signifies hope for a fairer world, in which child labour does not exist.
   We take note of your remarks, Mrs Figueiredo.
   Mr President, the Sacrédeus report as presented to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, was adopted unanimously without amendments.
My group warmly welcomed this report, which would have put an end to the shameful lack of transparency with which grants had been awarded to various bodies in the world over many years.
Meanwhile, however, in the context of the budgetary procedure for 2004, Parliament has once again pronounced itself in favour of earmarking funds for various bodies that are dear to some of the Members of this House.
Personally, I deplore that pronouncement.
This situation now compels us to accept amendments tabled by Mr Salafranca, which are entirely out of tune with the spirit of the original report by my honourable colleague Mr Sacrédeus.
Nevertheless, we rely on the Council, in its wisdom, to take the right decision in order to ensure that the future budgets of the European Union are transparent.
We need to guarantee fair competition among the regional bodies and to identify those that can best contribute to the propagation of knowledge about the European Union.
– I give the floor to Mr Bowis.
   Mr President, on behalf of the British Members of this House, may I thank the President of Parliament, through you, for his words of sympathy, and extend the sympathy of my colleagues and of colleagues across all parties from my country in this House at what has happened in Istanbul.
We believe there are some 107 casualties; it is known that there are 7 dead so far and 4 British diplomats are missing.
This is an atrocity that will appal the whole House and the European Union.
We express sympathy, of course, to all those affected, whether they are British, Turkish or other citizens of Europe.
I thank the President of Parliament for his sympathy.
   Mr Bowis, I will be sure to inform the Presidency of the essence of your speech.
I would also like to extend my sympathy to you and your fellow British Members.
Sadly, this is a time in which many nations are affected by this terrible wave of terrorism.
   As you said Mrs Muscardini, the English text is the correct one.
The competent authorities will be informed of the matter and I can tell you that you will be able to have the text in all languages before the vote.
   . – Mr President, solely in my capacity as rapporteur, I would like to thank the Vice-President, Mr Imbeni.
We worked together very well.
There are differences of opinion as to whether the result is very good or very bad, but I am grateful to the Vice-President. Together we tried to bring out what was best for Parliament.
   – Mr President, with the agreement of the rapporteur, Mrs Rühle, I ask that the network of Europe Houses be included among the activities to be supported.
   Mr President, with these proposals, we wish to see two international agreements implemented on Persistent Organic Pollutants, otherwise known as POPs.
The term designates a broad range of very harmful substances that are to be found everywhere.
They have even been found in Commissioner Wallström’s blood.
By that I mean they are in everyone, and they affect the environment and our health, even in extremely small concentrations.
The international agreements we are now entering into are there to ensure that some of the world’s most poisonous substances are phased out through measures to eliminate them and through controls on their use, import and export, as well as on emissions from them.
I have a couple of comments on the legal basis in the original proposal by the Commission, which recommended both Articles 95 and 175.
Since the Stockholm Convention itself refers to the environment and public health, the point of departure must be the environment, and we have therefore chosen to bet on its being Article 175, namely the environment article, that will be used.
I also just want to emphasise that the two binding agreements mean that we must completely eliminate these poisonous substances.
This means that we must proceed on the basis of the precautionary principle.
We must ensure that the procedure for adding new POPs to the list of banned substances is as uncomplicated as possible.
We must ensure that we stick to the existing stocks on the basis of the ‘polluter pays’ principle.
We must ensure that we do not produce unintended POPs through waste incineration.
It means that we in Europe must reduce the quantity of waste, partly through sorting and partly through recycling.
Finally, we must also ensure that the developing countries are in a position to comply with these agreements, which also cover, for example, DDT.
It means that we must be willing to guarantee research into, and the development of, new substances that can be used and that do not have harmful effects.
I want to recommend that you vote in favour of the proposal, and I wish to thank you for your constructive cooperation, as well as my fellow MEPs for their own solid and very constructive cooperation.
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   Mr President, I should like to move an oral amendment to Amendment 2, so that it would read: '... the increase in cooperation and interoperability in the field of European defence...'.
   –.I voted in favour, although I am afraid that some of the lines suggested for reforming the current management model of the Schengen Information System (SIS) could lead either to excessive monitoring – which would limit citizens’ freedom of movement – or to excesses in the activities of this System.
I believe that a solution could involve proposing to create a European agency steered by a management board composed of representatives of the European institutions and Member States, and financed entirely from the EU budget and subject to control by the European Parliament.
This would give us much greater balance between ensuring security and the freedom of movement of persons and goods, and also in the checks carried out by States at their own borders.
Bearing in mind the new reality that has emerged since 11 September 2001, the proper use of our monitoring and information-sharing mechanisms for monitoring our borders – in particular the new technologies – must be guaranteed.
One issue of particular concern is the streamlining of the collective security instruments that are the subject of this proposal.
On this point I have confidence that access for a greater number of authorities to SIS data will be moderate and rigorous and feel certain that only clearly indicated bodies (Europol, Eurojust and Police Authorities) will be able to access it and that the justification for this access will be objective and documented, in addition...
   By a majority of 229 votes to 209, we have rejected the Jarzembowski report.
Had we approved it, we should have run the risk of seeing disasters like those involving the , the or the , which have hitherto occurred exclusively in offshore waters, starting to happen within the confines of our European ports.
I welcome the rejection of this directive.
In practice, it would have achieved nothing more or less than a proliferation of ports of convenience and widespread social dumping, to the detriment of safety, the workforce and the environment.
It would have authorised shippers to use inexperienced, untrained and temporary labour to handle their own cargo.
It would have undermined the terms of employment of port employees, especially of dockers.
The same applies to employees in other trades, such as pilots, tug masters and inshore pilots, the quality and independence of whose services were jeopardised by the draft directive.
The dockers had put us on guard against the dangers of this directive with a wave of Europe-wide strikes.
Within a single week, more than 20 000 signatures were collected on a European petition against the liberalisation of port services, reflecting the anxiety of everyone in the sector.
It is up to us politicians to continue listening to these professionals and to develop public port services on a European scale, which are the only possible guarantor of safety, legality, continuity and quality, of the preservation of past achievements in the field of social welfare and of respect for the environment.
Let us hope that this defeat for the advocates of liberalism will be decisive and not merely a temporary respite.
   .– The Queiró report defends a Europe that is totally at odds with the values I uphold.
It ‘insists on the need for the EU to endow itself with military capabilities, so as to ensure the credibility of its foreign and defence policy objectives’, affirming that ‘if this project is to be successful, Member States must make a commitment to military expenditure over a period of time’.
It ‘expresses its conviction that NATO remains not only a fundamental guarantee for the stability and security of the Euro-Atlantic area, but also an essential framework for developing joint operations’.
It defends ‘the development of a European defence equipment industry which is competitive and viable’ and concludes that it is essential that ‘Community support programmes be set up to review defence equipment’.
All of this is a vibrant plea for European militarism, defending the interests of arms dealers.
I, myself, refuse to accept military competition, irrespective of the ‘bloc’ in question.
I want to promote peace in the world, which leads to better living conditions.
Those who justify the increase in defence expenditure are doing nothing to meet social needs; their key concern is the interests of their shareholders.
That is why I voted against this report.
   . In the Western Balkans, on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, there are still a great many unresolved problems in relations between the peoples living there.
External interference in wars has contributed to this.
Coercion by military means without power of persuasion does not provide the key to a democratic future.
Foreign troops are still stationed in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
An administrative status for the Republic of Serbia in northern Bosnia, for the areas inhabited by Croats on the south-western fringes of Bosnia, for Kosovo and for Albanian-speaking north-western Macedonia is still being put off until some future time.
Lasting solutions that have genuine support among the inhabitants must be found, and quickly.
The admission of areas of the Balkans to the EU while their administrative future is still contentious could potentially suck the whole of the EU into civil wars and their suppression.
Although I do not subscribe to the approach of the rapporteur, Mr Lagendijk, on the military points, I believe that the strengths of his report lie in its opposition to the undermining of the International Criminal Court by the USA, its demands for equal rights for the Roma and its criticism of the humiliating visa regime.
I also support his call for a speedy settlement of the permanent status of Kosovo on the basis of far-reaching autonomy or independence.
Unlike those in my group who are abstaining on account of Kosovo, I support this report.
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   The next item is the debate on the oral question (B5-0413/2003) by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the current situation of the European networks and Info-Points.
   Mr President, when President Megawati was a presidential candidate, she stated that the economic, social and political oppression of Aceh's people was the source of their dissatisfaction and the reason for the unrest.
She also pleaded with them not to let a single drop of the people’s blood stain the earth.
Today, Aceh is in a state of emergency.
Violent military operations are under way, and people are being displaced, killed and raped.
There is no access to the province, and emergency aid is being delivered, contrary to all international standards, by the military.
Concern about the population of Aceh should be growing for several reasons.
In May, the message was that the insurgents would be defeated before long.
After a six-months’ offensive, 40% of the people are living under the poverty line.
Now, the state of emergency has, moreover, been extended, and the government has begun to speak about a lengthy war, perhaps of another ten years.
The situation in Aceh is naturally complicated, involving as it does diametrically opposed political visions, competition for gas and oil resources and a population that, for a long time, has been denied the autonomy promised during the war of independence.
Support for the separatists cannot, now or in the future, be crushed by the military operations.
On the contrary, the military’s violent infringements of human rights will lead to still greater support for the insurgents.
I fear that both parties’ armed forces believe that they can escape unpunished from their misdeeds when independent observers are unable to gain access to Aceh.
Especially worrying are the latest rumours that a military group suspected of having committed systematic human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999, together with a group of soldiers from the Indonesian army charged with, or convicted or suspected of, serious human rights abuses are now also active in Aceh.
This is one of the most worrying signals for the Indonesian Government.
It is therefore crucially important that access to Aceh be given absolutely top priority internationally and in the EU’s dialogue with Mrs Megawati.
   Mr President, for me this is not a debate on the rights and wrongs of those in Aceh who campaign for independence, nor is it a criticism of Indonesia's right to intervene to secure law and order, so long, of course, as that country does not permit human rights abuses to be committed by any of its forces.
It is a debate about the escalating humanitarian crisis.
As we know, most of Aceh's 4.2 million people live outside the two main towns.
For them food, water, electricity and communications have been disrupted.
Healthcare and education have become impossible.
Five hundred schools have been burnt down, thousands of people have fled from their homes and Governor Puteh has said that unemployment and poverty are now at alarming rates.
We worry about human rights and I raise two issues.
One is the fact that 77 community heads have been replaced by military personnel and the second is that active in Aceh are people like Major General Damiri, Brigadier General Suratman and others who have been convicted of crimes against humanity in East Timor.
They are on duty in Aceh.
Kofi Annan has appealed to Indonesia to ensure access to humanitarian aid and human rights organisations.
He is right.
The obstacles to this are in Presidential Decree 43/2003, which states that international and local NGOs are not allowed to conduct activities contrary to the objectives of the military emergency conditions.
That is a catch-all provision that is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.
It is not acceptable that all aid has to be rooted through the Indonesian authorities, nor that NGOs are restricted to Banda Aceh.
Finally, we call on Indonesia to investigate with urgency the disappearance of the human rights defender Abdussalam Deli, and the killing of his colleague, Raja Ismail.
I hope the Commission and the Council will assist us in these aims.
   Mr President, during an earlier debate on Aceh, on 5 June, I pointed out that the borders in the developing world are largely a product of European colonial administration.
In this case, we are now seeing the result of the conquest of Aceh by the Netherlands a century or more ago.
Peoples that have been assigned to large, powerful neighbours run the risk of becoming second- or third-class citizens for good, without access to leading positions, without the possibility of active political participation and without having their natural resources at their disposal.
These peoples can only be protected by a large degree of self-government or by secession.
The more armies are deployed to prevent such a possible secession by means of terror, the more hated they make themselves, and the more difficult reconciliation between the ruling and the other peoples becomes.
This is how the breeding ground for those secession movements grows.
In Indonesia, the failing government is striving for popularity among the Javanese by showing that it is dealing with other population groups firmly and giving the army free rein.
That is comparable with the situation in Sri Lanka we discussed in an earlier agenda item.
The President needs this war to keep herself in power.
Negotiations are alternated with forceful military intervention.
Refugees from Aceh have told me how hopeless the situation has become.
Anyone who was present at the peace talks in Japan can no longer safely enter Indonesia.
In East Timor, we saw the devastating consequences of this kind of policy on the part of a previous president.
Europe must not resign itself to the current hopeless situation, and it must not put trade relations with Indonesia, particularly the supplies of arms that were resumed in 2001, above human rights.
This is an alarming situation, and must lead to our ensuring that the autonomy and emancipation of the peoples of Indonesia have their place, and that there is no military victory, oppression or uprooting of these peoples.
   – Mr President, in Vietnam, there is a marked gulf between what is claimed to happen and what actually does as regards the freedom to practice a religion.
The freedom to believe in a religion, or not to do so, is guaranteed.
That is what Vietnam’s constitution claims; that is what the country has undertaken to do in a number of agreements, for example the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The reality, though, is something else.
Worshippers, priests, monks and eminent religious dignitaries are harassed, persecuted and locked up.
State recognition is denied to such faith communities as the Montagnard Christians or the Hoa Hao Buddhists.
Vietnam’s United Buddhist Church was banned in 1975; its Patriarch was interned for 21 years and was released only in 1998 following international pressure.
Much hope was kindled when he met the Prime Minister in April of this year, but, following these conversations, the authorities stepped up their action against the adherents of this church and of other religions.
In October, the Patriarch and his deputy were placed under house arrest, and many of their followers were sentenced to two-year terms of imprisonment.
Cooperation between the European Union and Vietnam is founded upon the absence of any restriction on the exercise of human rights, as is stated in our cooperation agreement of 1985.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats strongly condemns the latest acts of repression.
If the Hanoi Government does not want to jeopardise its cooperation with the EU, legal status must be granted to all churches, and people interned for their religious beliefs must be set at liberty.
We urge the Council and the Commission to use all diplomatic means to make religious freedom a reality in Vietnam.
I ask you, Commissioner Kinnock, to use your personal influence to make this issue central to tomorrow’s meeting in Brussels between the representatives of Hanoi and those of the EU’s Commission in the EU-Vietnam Joint Committee.
We believe that Parliament needs to send a delegation to Vietnam to examine the situation on the ground and have talks with office-holders of all religions.
   Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to welcome Mr Vo Van Âi, president of the committee for democracy in Vietnam, who is in the official gallery with Mrs Volkner, vice-president of the same organisation.
I believe – and Mr Casaca said this – that Parliament is tired of having to return to the issue of Vietnam, it is tired of lies and promises from the Hanoi Government, and I do not feel we can continue in this situation.
Yesterday, the US congress adopted a very similar resolution to that which we will vote on in a few moments, and I feel that is another demonstration of weariness from the other side of the Atlantic.
The issue is in the Commission’s hands.
We are quite aware that there are problems in the Council, in which one State known as ‘the birthplace of human rights’ is cultivating some imperalistic nostalgia, is paying a great deal of attention to the sale of and harbours extremely bizarre anti-American opinions.
This is an established fact, which should be clarified.
I am sorry to say that the Council and the Member States are often absent from this House.
There is still the issue of the Commission: tomorrow the Joint Committee is meeting – the Commission and the Hanoi authorities – and it should be then that the Commission, which has a programme assigning tens of millions of euros in aid for legal reform in Vietnam, raises the issue of the legal status of the Unified Buddhist Church and other churches.
The Commission should make the Hanoi authorities understand that if there is no progress in this specific area then cooperation aid will be suspended immediately.
I believe that without a strong gesture from the Commission in the meeting tomorrow, this umpteenth Parliament resolution will be useless.
I expect a very specific reply from Commissioner Kinnock on the approach that the Commission is going to take tomorrow in Brussels.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 20 November 2003.
   I should like to inform the House that at the beginning of tomorrow's sitting, the President of Parliament would like to pay a personal tribute to the Spanish servicemen who were killed in Iraq last weekend.(1)
   A corrigendum to the agenda of the sittings of 3 and 4 December, containing the proposals for changes made by the Groups, has been distributed.
Are there any comments?
   – Mr President, the corrigendum to the agenda was originally meant to include the MacCormick report on the immunity of Mr Gargani, but the Secretaries-General agreed yesterday that we first, of course, had to have the opportunity of examining it.
We cannot now retrospectively alter the agenda without the groups also having the opportunity to discuss it.
I would therefore ask that it should not by some means be retrospectively put on the agenda, but that the groups should have the opportunity to talk the issue through, and I believe that other Members of this House feel the same way.
   . Mr President, I am a little uneasy about the proposal that my report on the immunity of Mr Gargani be brought forward.
The Secretary-General of my Group stated that she would have liked to have had the opportunity to discuss that report, along with other reports, at our group meeting before the part-session.
We understood the report was being deferred until the second December sitting in Strasbourg, and so we did not have the opportunity to discuss it.
Furthermore, I learned that there was a defect in paragraph 2 of the report as it was adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, but I have not seen any of the adjustments to it.
As I am the rapporteur, I would have liked to have seen such adjustments.
On these grounds, with the greatest respect and with regret to my colleague, Mr Gargani, I ask that this matter be deferred until the next Strasbourg sitting.
   Mr President, I seek your advice as to what redress I have against an inflammatory press release which has caused hate emails to be sent to my office.
Richard Howitt MEP claimed in a press release that I had directly accused the Turkish Prime Minister of supporting militant Islamist groups, following the atrocious bombing in Turkey last week.
In fact, I made reference to media reports of a former Turkish Government's alleged provision of covert support to Islamist groups in their fight against the Kurdish PKK, and made no reference to the current Prime Minister, Mr Erdogan.
Furthermore, Mr Howitt claimed I disregarded the plight of Turkish civilian victims.
My use of the word 'atrocious' shows this is patently untrue.
I regret any misunderstanding and extend all my sympathies to those who have suffered, irrespective of race or religion.
The Member, in his role as Labour's European Affairs spokesman, should have understood the sensitivities in this case.
I would be grateful for a correction from Mr Howitt, as otherwise legitimate debate on accelerated EU membership for Turkey will be stifled.
   Mr President, I am pleased that Mr Tannock has expressed his regret at the offence caused by the remarks he made last week at a meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
Indeed, I also regret his receiving hate mail, as he described.
Mr Tannock was very clear in his remarks that he did not regard Turkey as a victim of the terrorist attacks and that the victims were 'British and Jewish' - not Turks.
Not simply did Mr Tannock go on to criticise the Turkish Prime Minister directly, but I believe his remarks could be regarded as offensive to Muslims and in general to the Turkish victims of the attack, irrespective of their religion.
I am pleased that my statement has caused him to retract those original remarks.
   The next item is the joint debate on Council and Commission statements on the preparation of the European Council (Brussels, 12 13 December 2003), including the Social Summit, and on the progress report on the Intergovernmental Conference.
   It is my pleasure to welcome to the distinguished visitors' gallery the former Prime Minister of South Korea, Mr Nam, and his Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Lee.
They are here to participate in the European Parliament North-East Asia Forum meeting which takes place on 4 and 5 December 2003.
You are both most welcome to this House.
   Presidents, ladies and gentlemen, like Mr Cohn-Bendit, I also take the view that there is no hurry, because the Nice declaration, which started the entire process, scheduled the Intergovernmental Conference for 2004 and I believe that a good and long-lasting agreement which takes a long time to reach is better than a bad agreement reached quickly.
I must, however, acknowledge the merits of the Italian Presidency and the progress that appears to have been started in Naples.
Naples represents a very positive step in the development of the Intergovernmental Conference, on which I heartily congratulate the Italian Presidency, and which has given rise to positive expectations in many areas.
It would be extremely damaging now to disappoint these expectations.
Progress was also made on enshrining the rule of one Commissioner per Member State with full and equal status.
The limits imposed on the powers of the President of the European Council is to be welcomed, as is the creation of a diversified and versatile system for the rotating presidencies of the various formations of the Council, replacing the unnecessary elimination of the rotating presidency system.
I welcome the rejection of the so-called ‘simplified’ methods of revising the Treaties, which would constitute an abuse of the traditional model of international and constitutional law.
Having said this, however, some points still present cause for concern and on these I would appeal to the common sense of Europe’s leaders and to the imagination of the Italian Presidency.
Firstly, the principle of the primacy of Community law must be clarified and in a way that does not destroy the very principle of national sovereignty.
Secondly, the transparency and openness of the legislative workings of the Council must be guaranteed, since the prospect of our having a legislative Council appears, unfortunately, to have been abandoned.
Thirdly, there must be considerable caution and limitations imposed on the passerelleclauses: these must not be seen as a means of re-establishing so-called simplified methods – which are also irregular, in my opinion – of revising the Treaties.
Next, there is no need to use this too ‘forward-looking’ vocabulary, including ‘minister’ or the word ‘constitution’ itself.
A solution must also be found to the issue of recognising the heritage of Christianity, of the Judaeo-Christian religion, together with other components of Europe’s historical and spiritual inheritance, and the secular nature of the institutions must be confirmed.
One would have to be extremely intolerant and prejudiced not to accept the proposal of the Italian Presidency.
I wish to say a few words on the issue of qualified majority voting, which Spain and Poland appear to see as an obstacle: we are in favour of parity (60% plus 60%).
Spain must understand that it is the largest of the medium-sized countries and not the smallest of the large countries.
Europe needs more medium-sized countries, not more countries obsessed with the idea that they are large.
This is extremely important for the development of Europe’s common interest.
   – Mr President, the comments made by the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Antonione, concerning the progress made at the Intergovernmental Conference give us great hopes of the final outcome of the proceedings in terms not only of adherence to the timetable but, above all, in terms of content.
There has been no backsliding over the text adopted by the Convention, and the Italian Presidency’s resolve not to brook any compromise merely for the sake of having the Treaty signed has therefore paid off.
Mr President, Parliament, which, this week, has the task of encouraging the Member States to reach an agreement that will, at last, give Europe its first constitutional charter, cannot but agree with the position adopted by the Presidency.
President Cox has rightly insisted on the need to act effectively with due haste.
We fully support his comments and share his sentiments completely, but we do not identify with the comments of those pessimists who appear to want to throw in the towel at the sight of any difficulty.
I therefore support, President Antonione, your comments in favour of abandoning national particularism.
Europe cannot miss this extraordinary opportunity.
I am certain that no State will want to be held accountable for shattering a dream.
Finally, as a member of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I call on the Intergovernmental Conference once again to insert in the preamble an explicit reference to Europe’s Judaeo-Christian roots.
Lastly, Mr Watson, a word on the Guantanamo question: you speak Italian well, you understand it very well and I hope you read it too, because, according to the reports I have read in the Italian press, it appears that, on more than one occasion, the Presidency of the Council has called on the US authorities to respect human rights in Guantanamo as well.
   Thank you for your kind invitation, Mr Titley.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office of the Council has twice had to preside over an Ecofin Council, which twice in the space of four weeks committed a serious foul against the European Community project; the first instance was your letter to Mr Berlusconi in the aftermath of an Ecofin Council meeting, in which you heaped criticism upon the Convention’s proposals to the Intergovernmental Conference, and the second came last week.
That cannot be allowed to go uncontradicted, and we cannot simply move on to the next item of business.
Whether one looks at it from the point of view of democratic politics, of economic policy, monetary policy, in legal terms or from the European angle, the way you have gone about things is harmful, unacceptable and deserving of condemnation.
Today, Commissioner Solbes told us that the Council has not kept to the spirit of the Treaty.
On Monday, Mr Trichet, the President of the ECB, told the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that the European Central Bank attaches great importance to the Stability and Growth Pact remaining unchanged whatever happens, for it has proved its worth in terms of economic and monetary policy.
He called on the Council, the Commission, Parliament and the Member States to take their own responsibilities seriously.
It is in particular Germany and France whom I urge to refrain from blaming the EU in general, and the Stability Pact in particular, for their domestic difficulties.
Apportioning blame makes no proper contribution to achieving jointly-agreed objectives.
The European Union is made up of all of us.
Germany and France overstepped the mark in the way they interpreted the rules, and what was a Community matter they made merely intergovernmental.
By a political decision, they set the rules aside, but the Community is not an alternative to politics.
The finance ministers have impaired its credibility, shattered confidence and given rise to other problems.
That is not acceptable.
   – Madam President, I believe that, if you follow the debates in this House, the very substantial differences of opinion that exist here become apparent, and seldom have I heard anything more nonsensical than the statement that the Chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has just given us, in which she accused the Commission of using rigid procedures as a method of cyclical adjustment.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, I can only shake my head at that.
If you are capable of accusing the Commission of such a thing, then which Europe, which euro zone, are you living in? We can do no other than back Commissioner Solbes to the hilt and urge him to take the Heads of State or Government to court, for such a breach of the European Stability and Growth Pact cannot be accepted without protest.
When this House is told that the Italian Presidency of the Council has managed to produce some tremendous conclusions, I ask myself whether this piece of paper is worth more than an international treaty such as the Stability and Growth Pact.
Why should Germany and France see themselves as bound by this piece of paper when they could not keep to the rules? The leading German daily paper, the , spoke of Germany and France as a ‘’, as digging the European Union’s grave rather than acting as examples to its other Member States of how to do things.
The Pact is flexible enough as it is.
It is not the case that there has to be a 3% deficit; instead, the term used in the Pact is ‘budgetary compensation’.
The difference between 0% and 3% gives the Member States EUR 250 billion in reserve to deal with difficulties caused by the economic cycle, the management of international crises and natural disasters, so the problem is in fact that Germany and France already had no room for manoeuvre left when things started to get difficult.
It follows, Commissioner, that it is the reforms that you have to get to grips with rather than growth alone.
That is why we are firmly opposed to the Stability and Growth Pact being altered.
It has to be adhered to, and the Commission must be given more powers in its dealings with the Council.
   . – The Queen of the Councils of Ministers, the Ecofin, has come tumbling off her pedestal with a loud thud.
In the Brussels glasshouse, this debate about the finer details of the Stability Pact is still going on, whilst normal citizens, at least in my country, the Netherlands, have for a long time been debating something else. Why do the rules we agree on apply to some countries and not to others?
What about the rules we will agree on in the new constitutional treaty, on which all Dutch people are allowed to vote in a referendum? In order to gain any credibility, this constitutional treaty will need to contain tough procedures to enforce monetary rules.
I am in favour of a much stronger role for the Commission.
Countries that are themselves in breach of the rules should be excluded from voting on the assessment of other countries that infringe the same rules.
The French and German Governments have opened Pandora's box.
This may well serve a short-term interest, but they have lost all credibility as the axis of European cooperation. As such, they carry a heavy responsibility.
   Madam President, I rise to ask you if you will join with me in expressing your concern to the Turkish judicial authorities about the delays in bringing to trial those persons involved in the affray that took place in Galatasaray, Turkey on the occasion of a football match with Leeds United in April 2000.
This terrible event led to the murders of my constituents Christopher Loftus and Kevin Speight.
A local man, Ali Umit Demir, has now been convicted of these murders.
However, he has appealed against the original sentence, and now, along with others involved in the original affray, is awaiting the start of a retrial.
The preliminary retrial hearing has now been delayed twice, once in July and again in September of this year.
The third date for the hearing has now been arranged for 11 December 2003.
While I am very grateful for the interest, concern and assistance shown in this matter by the Turkish ambassador to the EU, Mr Oguz Demiralp, I would welcome the support of the President of Parliament in sending a letter to the Turkish judicial authorities seeking assurances that the legal proceedings will go ahead with no further delay.
I am sure the President understands the distress the families of the murdered men are experiencing, caused by the lengthy and drawn-out proceedings for the retrial, which have only added to their original grief over this matter.
   Madam President, as I am sure my fellow Members are aware, as a result of the various initiatives launched this year in Parliament, that on 1 December we were due to receive Mr Oswaldo Payá, to whom we awarded the Sakharov prize last year.
Unfortunately, the Cuban authorities did not allow him to come.
He sent a message to Parliament, which he asked me to read out. I read the message out, in its entirety, at the meeting of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
I will not repeat it here; I simply wish to have the matter recorded in plenary.
This is a powerful and stirring message, in which he recounts the difficulties facing democrats in Cuba, but also talks about the ongoing determination of the Varela Project (I would draw the attention of all my fellow Members to this fact) and condemns the fact that he was prevented from coming here.
He condemns the situation in the concentration camps and the situation of the detainees, which are precisely the issues on which we would like to hear him and to be able to discuss with him.
He also calls on the European Union to provide moral support for cooperation, which we will certainly not refuse him, and states that the European Union must hold constructive dialogue with all of Cuban society.
I would therefore ask Parliament’s president and the Conference of Presidents to consider this matter again, since our invitation of 13 November was thwarted and it is extremely important that we achieve the release of Oswaldo Payá so that he can come and tell us what is happening in his country.
   Madam President, as there is time remaining, allow me to bring to the attention of Commissioner Fischler an issue relating to his decoupling proposals and the area required to be farmed once decoupled.
If farmers have to farm 100% of the area they farmed during the reference years 2000 to 2002 in order to draw down the decoupled or area-based payment, it will put huge pressure on the price of rented land or Conacre as we say in Ireland both in Ireland and in other countries.
I wonder if Mr Fischler is in a position to consider that farmers should must farm 80% or more of their land? If not, we will put a false floor under rented land and active farmers will not be able to afford it.
Farmers who want to fill out the 100% of their base-year area are going to have to take that land.
A distortion is being introduced into the market as a result of this requirement, and I would urge Mr Fischler to do all he can to ensure that the land is in the hands of the best farmers to farm it.
That is one of the principles of decoupling.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0393/2003) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission report on the assessment of the activities of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) (COM(2003) 154 2002/2237(INI))
   – Mr President, work on the Bösch report was obviously overshadowed by the Eurostat affair.
In its efforts to shed light on the Eurostat affair – its secret bank accounts, mis-management and nepotism – the Committee on Budgetary Control also uncovered significant shortcomings within OLAF.
In this case, OLAF’s main failing was to work too slowly.
In so doing it missed the opportunity to recover a considerable proportion of the at least EUR 8 million that had been embezzled.
I believe, however, that the report adequately reflects the various criticisms of OLAF’s work.
One thing must surely be clear to all of us, and it is clear: the real guilty party in this more than dramatic case of fraud is not OLAF but the Commission. They hushed it up and issued denials for so long that they had no choice but to continue doing so.
And the Commissioners responsible, including the President of the Commission, are still refusing to accept the political, as well as the actual, responsibility for this embezzlement.
On top of this, the Commission tabled its report – this Article 15 report – more than one year late.
That is not very respectful of the law either, Commissioner.
In our view, Eurostat showed above all how necessary it is to have an anti-fraud office, if the Prodian zero tolerance of fraud is not to mutate into full tolerance of fraud.
We want an independent OLAF and we continue to need a strong OLAF Supervisory Committee, made up of external experts.
An independent OLAF is still far from being a reality, because unfortunately the Commission repeatedly manages to exert influence because of its links to OLAF in terms of organisation and staffing.
The Commission’s attempt to take internal investigations away from OLAF, which only recently came to light, is a perfect example.
Commissioner, that was not a rumour, as you have just claimed; a meeting really did take place.
If your top officials did not inform you of it then I can give you sight of the minutes of that meeting.
The Commission has an inexhaustible wealth of ideas in this respect, with which it now even appears to want to honour the OLAF Supervisory Committee.
So far it has tended to be seen as a nuisance, but now, so we hear from the Commission, representatives of the Commission, Parliament and the Council are to be involved to make it more democratic.
This would, however, only serve to undermine OLAF’s independence further and we will certainly not be accompanying you down this precarious route, Commissioner. OLAF’s work will also continue to be difficult.
We are aware of this. That is why, alongside strong, unswayable managers, we also need clear framework conditions.
There is still a long way to go before we have a European financial prosecution service, but I hope that there will be no turning back.
I am not able to support most of the amendments tabled by the Liberals and Greens, with two exceptions, but we can go along with most of the PSE’s amendments and I would ask for your support for our ten amendments.
   Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, as we are reminded in Mr Bösch’s meticulous and exhaustive report, OLAF’s current director took office three and a half years ago.
This body has grown so much that it now has 364 members of staff.
The time for expectations, transitions and adjustment is, therefore, over.
The time has definitely come for a balance sheet, for an evaluation and for accountability.
The audit that has been planned for OLAF is crucial, as is moving from the current ‘Supervisory Committee’, which is simply a figurehead, to a monitoring, evaluation and decision-making body with ultimate authority.
Our Committee on Budgetary Control has always viewed OLAF as a working instrument for a European Prosecution Service, an institution made increasingly necessary by the growth and sophistication of transnational European crime.
The outcome of the current Intergovernmental Conference will consequently be crucial.
We must ask ourselves whether, until OLAF is given the status of a European Prosecution Service, it makes sense to continue investing in police action that this organisation cannot legally pursue and instead employ auditing methods that are used in all financial crime-fighting and which no financial investigation body can do without.
Clearly contributing to OLAF’s poor performance in the recent Eurostat case was a lack of understanding of basic concepts of communication and information, and an imbalance between the interests in play.
Another contributing factor was the lack of auditors, whose skills must always be at the heart of combating financial fraud or irregularities.
This is a time for rigour, strictness, hard work, professionalism, balance, reason and common sense and this is precisely what we hope to see OLAF achieve.
   Mr President, I should like to give Mr Bösch the highest praise for a splendid report, which is both penetrating and thorough, and I should like to say to Mrs Schreyer, who is my favourite Commissioner: you should ask someone else to write your speeches instead of coming out with the nonsense we have heard this evening.
It is unacceptable.
There has been a great deal of criticism of OLAF of late, and rightly so, but OLAF must not be made a scapegoat for the Eurostat case, for example.
The Commission must not use OLAF as a dustbin for all the cases it does not feel like dealing with itself.
Even if a case has been forwarded to OLAF, that does not release the Commission from its obligation to act.
OLAF must be fully independent, and we must admit that we were wrong to set OLAF up as an administrative part of the Commission.
The secretariat of the Supervisory Committee must be fully independent of the Commission.
The staff working for OLAF must be independent of all the institutions, and it is important that staff are not allowed to apply for posts in the Commission afterwards, because we have of course seen examples of cases being shelved because people had to go back to the Commission.
I telephoned OLAF about Eurostat in the spring of 2002, after Dorte Schmidt-Brown had contacted me for the first time.
OLAF told me that it had neither the time, the inclination nor the staff to look over the Eurostat case.
In their words, Dorte Schmidt-Brown was a hysterical woman who should try to relax a little.
It was not until Parliament became vociferous on the subject that the investigations picked up speed. It is very worrying that OLAF only prioritises investigations that have the interest of Parliament or the press, and it is also very worrying that OLAF does not take whistle-blowers seriously.
I hope that we do not see any more of this kind of case.
It is absolutely crucial that we are able to rely on OLAF’s objectivity, and that people work quickly and effectively in the future, but I should also say that OLAF is not known for being the sharpest tool in the box.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bösch’s report is a critical but also a very constructive one, and I congratulate him on his intensive work.
Of course, we could have voted on its outcomes and possible implementation at an earlier stage if the Commission had submitted its evaluation of OLAF’s three years of work on time, as envisaged in the Regulation, instead of over nine months late.
Some of the mismanagement and irregularities could then have been addressed more effectively than is possible now, at the end of the parliamentary term and the Commission’s term in office.
Eurostat is a case in point.
We know the background to OLAF’s establishment: an interim structure was all that could be achieved because a Treaty amendment was not envisaged at that stage.
As a result, OLAF was in a paradoxical position from the outset.
In its work, it is independent – we insist on that – but it is subordinate to the Commission administration in organisational terms.
Nonetheless, delays, cumbersome processes and inadequate application of the OLAF Regulation by both parties – the Commission and OLAF – have regrettably characterised this agency to date.
Let me cite just a few examples: its protracted recruitment process, its excessively long investigations, its failure to inform the Supervisory Committee as required, and above all the poor training and the failure to adequately respect the defence rights of the individuals under investigation.
I take the Supervisory Committee’s clear statement on this latter point especially seriously, as it directly highlights the need to create a European Public Prosecutor to protect the Union’s financial interests.
This House has called for such an appointment for a very long time and the Commission has now added its voice to these calls in the Convention and at the Intergovernmental Conference.
I am grateful to President Prodi for now having addressed this issue in his action plan.
The fundamental rights of the individual can only be guaranteed within a judicial framework based on the rule of law.
Until this objective is achieved, I fully support strengthening the Supervisory Committee, both as regards the Secretariat – we need to discuss its allocation to the European Parliament budget – and also, and especially, the appointment of highly qualified, independent persons as members of the Supervisory Committee.
In sum, what we need is not a new regulation but a number of amendments, as the report makes clear.
We need a strong OLAF.
I ask the Commission to take our demands seriously so that we can move closer to a zero tolerance policy.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to congratulate Mr Bösch on the report and express my appreciation of the firm stance he took towards those directly and politically responsible for the fraud who have been charged.
A plea to Commissioner Schreyer: I urge you not to try to play down the Eurostat case which remains one of the most alarming and awkward episodes that the European Parliament has ever faced.
The enormous economic damage caused has not and may never be quantified.
Let us move onto the report.
If what Mr Bösch wrote in the report were to be implemented, then we would live very peacefully in Europe.
Financial interests would hardly be protected; legality would be the key element in all European issues.
If, however, the established principles, which are summarised in Recital G, which state, and I quote, that ‘the Commission committed itself to a ‘zero tolerance’ policy with regard to fraud and irregularities’, are not translated in practice, then everything that is written will not make the immense effort poured by the rapporteur into his report worthwhile and no specific objective will be achieved.
Now, given what has come to light on Eurostat, would it not have been more appropriate to put an amendment tabled by myself to the vote in committee – although, I am glad to say, Mr Bösch explained this issue – which reads, and I quote: ‘Can only condemn all the cases in which OLAF has been unable to conclude its investigations within the allotted 9-month time limit, in particular the Eurostat case, which has been suspended for over three years and in respect of which a timely investigation could have broken a chain of events which has now been exposed as anything but straightforward and of which certain elements are under investigation by the judicial authorities’?
This amendment will be put to the vote and, I hope, adopted tomorrow in this Chamber.
At the same time I do not want what I have said about OLAF to be misinterpreted, for it cannot become a scapegoat for fraud perpetrated by others.
This is why OLAF must be able to continue to receive its funding, which must be sufficient to strengthen the staff, in particular the investigation officials.
I completely agree with the rapporteur in Article 33(1), when he calls on OLAF to inform the European Parliament in detail if an investigation takes longer than the prescribed nine months.
Coming back to the Eurostat case, which disturbs and irritates many of us, I feel I can say that I certainly agree that our positions should be cautious, but, at the same time, we cannot accept an arrangement, which would mean that it would be seen as counterproductive to place the European Institutions in jeopardy over this case.
We should be discussing and debating something else: in the Eurostat affair, were the contracts concluded properly or did fraud come to light?
If, as would seem the case from reading the reports, many contracts were concluded without lawful signatories, if there were conflicts of interest that led to certain, illegal economic benefits, if documents were systematically lost that should have been subject to control and news published outside that was intended solely to facilitate negotiations, if more than 50% of contracts were concluded with a single bid, then, clearly, damage running into millions of euro has been done to the European Community and this aspect must override everything else, including the preservation of the European institutions.
   . Mr President, honourable Members, with your permission, I would like to respond briefly to a number of points.
There is certainly no doubt that the Eurostat affair is not merely about gross misconduct at Eurostat – and I refrain from using the term ‘fraud’ simply because the matter is still under judicial investigation and I do not want to be accused of making prejudicial comments.
Mistakes were also made in the Commission, and OLAF should have carried out the investigations more swiftly.
This is why Mr Prodi has also devised an action plan which, on the one hand, contains comprehensive measures regarding Eurostat and, on the other hand, addresses the issue of communication between the departments and the Commissioners, as well as measures relating to OLAF.
Let me say again to Mrs Stauner: the measures relating to OLAF do not include shifting the internal investigations into Commission officials back to the Commission. On the contrary – and let me quote from Mr Prodi’s speech – the aim is strengthening OLAF’s operational independence by refocusing its activities.
Therefore there might be a case for reassigning to Commission departments certain horizontal tasks that are unrelated to investigations.
I think you know as well as I do that OLAF’s core tasks – in other words, what was reinforced and, in part, newly established in 1999 – are indeed the internal investigations, the rights to conduct internal investigations, and the duties to do so. I entirely agree with Mr Bösch that more capacities must be established in these areas.
At the same time, however, it is also true – as the Eurostat case itself has shown – that sometimes an external investigation becomes an internal investigation because the external investigation suddenly raises the question: Why did these mistakes with the competition process occur? Why are these specific contracts always concluded here?
Let me reiterate one point: the drafting of the action plan which Mr Prodi has outlined to the Committee on Budgetary Control is well under way and the text to amend the law of the Regulation will be with you at the start of January, I hope, or at any rate promptly in January.
I see many similar approaches on the issue of the amendment of the Regulation.
Mrs Theato has just mentioned them again.
As the President of the Commission has pledged, we will work very closely on these points with the Committee on Budgetary Control, also in advance of the drafting process.
   . – Mr President, the Commission should perhaps finally decide whether it is satisfied with OLAF’s work or not.
I almost have the impression that we are criticising OLAF out of the blue, yet I had the feeling that President Prodi has been taking OLAF apart with his criticisms while we have been defending it, since so many Members of this House, speaking in today’s debate, have stated that Eurostat is not an OLAF matter, it is a Commission matter.
The Commission must finally adopt its own identifiable line here.
Otherwise, I am very pleased that it is happy with everything to do with OLAF.
In that case, though, I really do not want to hear any more, not from the President of the Commission, about the obvious shortcomings, in terms of quality, which have arisen in connection with Eurostat.
That does not mean that we have not moved from our position, and I think there are still a number of misunderstandings as regards the independence of the Supervisory Committee.
The Supervisory Committee must, like OLAF’s Director-General, be appointed on an interinstitutional basis; today, it is part of the Commission, and not – lest any myths arise – in a vacuum.
We think that there must be a separation, and that includes a physical and financial separation.
It is unacceptable that the staffing of the Supervisory Committee, which exercises a monitoring function, should be the ultimate responsibility of a body which is the subject of that monitoring.
We have adopted a firm position here and I hope that this House will endorse this position tomorrow.
   Mr President, the message for Mrs Schreyer this evening is crystal clear: she should say to Mr Prodi that we have no need of his action plans.
They are only there to gain time, to sweep the whole matter under the carpet.
We cannot tolerate this.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0407/2003) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2561/2001 aiming to promote the conversion of fishing vessels and of fishermen that were, up to 1999, dependent on the fishing agreement with Morocco (COM(2003) 437 C5-0357/2003 2003/0157(CNS)).
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking you, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, very warmly for your excellent report and for supporting our proposal.
The Commission has proposed making various changes to the system to promote conversion of fishing vessels and fishermen that were, up to 1999, dependent on the fishing agreement with Morocco.
We propose the following amendments: compensation will now also be paid to every fisherman who has lost his job because the ship on which he worked has now joined another fishery, for example through a joint enterprise.
This will extend the group of beneficiaries, so we must, therefore, also extend the deadlines by one year so that all new beneficiaries are able to apply for assistance and to give the authorities in Spain and Portugal enough time to make a decision.
I am also willing to accept Amendments Nos 2 and 3.
However, I cannot accept the amendment tabled by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna as it calls for an amendment to Article 12 of the Regulation, which governs structural support in the fisheries sector, as regards socio-economic measures.
We cannot amend this Regulation at the present time.
   . Mr President, honourable Members, I am very grateful to you and to everyone who has contributed to this debate.
I fully agree with the rapporteur that it is positive and important to undertake the adjustment for this very specific case of the Spanish and Portuguese fleet in connection with the Morocco Agreement, or the expiry of the Morocco Agreement.
However, I still believe that we should not have recourse to knee-jerk legislation of any kind.
While I do understand the issue raised by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna here, I think that this is something we should examine during the midterm review of the structural measure.
A midterm review is envisaged in any case, and I believe that is the right moment to discuss all the elements and experiences that we have gathered during implementation in the first half of the implementing period.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0406/2003) by Mr Stevenson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of the Fisheries Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Mozambique (COM(2003) 419 C5-0354/2003 2003/0154(CNS)).
   . Mr President, honourable Members, I can continue where I left off.
This concerns the Fisheries Agreement and the renewal of the Protocol to the Fisheries Agreement between the European Union and Mozambique.
First of all, I would like to thank Mr Stevenson for his report and also for supporting the Commission’s proposal to conclude this Protocol.
With the aid of this Agreement, the Community’s fishing vessels can resume their fishing activities in Mozambique’s waters.
The new Agreement also expands the set of agreements on tuna fishing concluded by the Community in this major region.
Moreover, we have succeeded in establishing a highly innovative partnership agreement, for Mozambique will earmark the entire amount of the financial compensation to funding marine surveillance, research, training and various other measures designed to develop Mozambique’s fisheries and improve its capacities for fisheries management.
As regards the other amendments proposed here, let me say that Amendments Nos 1 and 2 do not seem necessary from our perspective, as we already supply Parliament with this information under the relevant framework agreement between you and the Commission.
Amendment No 3 – this is really an old story – concerns the renewal of a Protocol.
As long as it relates to a renewal of the Protocol, no separate negotiating mandate is required, as it falls within the scope of the existing negotiating guidelines.
For that reason, I must reject this Amendment.
   Mrs Miguélez, you began your speech by saying ‘it is me again’.
The fact that you have spoken more than once in one evening simply demonstrates that you are very hard-working.
You know that the Presidency is always very happy to hear you.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0362/2003) by Mr Cashman, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the adoption of measures concerning the repatriation of mortal remains (2003/2032(INI))
   Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate Mr Cashman.
His report is based on a resolution that I tabled.
Following on from Mr Titford's comments, today I tried to contact an undertaker friend to see if he had anything he wished to add tonight, but it seems he is on his holidays somewhere, as it so happens.
We all accept that Mr Cashman’s excellent report is still and I do not mean to denigrate it - an aspirational report.
It aspires to improving a situation that is indeed common.
Every year I hear of one, two or even sometimes three cases where people experience problems in relation to the repatriation of remains.
If we look at the dates of the various pieces of legislation that Mr Cashman has mentioned in his report, we see that they are all at least 30 years old.
30 years ago the world was very different.
As Mr Cashman said, huge numbers of people are now moving about and spending holidays in other Member States.
In two of the cases I have very recently heard about, the deceased had been killed under what were considered to be suspicious circumstances.
Only this morning I had a phone call from the mother of a young man.
She has been waiting 17 months to have his remains repatriated, and local courts have constantly changed their minds about the prosecution of the person believed to have been involved in the death of this young man.
So, it is not just a question of the technical matters relating to repatriation.
Very often, delays also occur in relation as the report mentions - to the circumstances of the death.
I have just received a copy of one of the questions the Commissioner referred to.
This was an answer to a question I tabled on 11 October 2000: 'the Commission, following extensive consultations with all parties concerned, concluded that detailed harmonisation of national rules in this area, over and above those that already exist, is neither desirable nor necessary and would not be justified from the point of view of subsidiarity or proportionality'.
That is a depressing answer, Commissioner, so I hope very much that, in the provision of services directive you are proposing, you will recognise that this is an important issue, and above all that in these situations we are very often discussing a deeply human tragedy.
   . Mr President, I believe it would be right to correct the record as regards Mr Titford's contribution.
I would point out to him that the report is about the adoption of measures concerning the repatriation of mortal remains.
It is about barriers to movement rather than the conditions of the corpse.
I want the principle to be accepted.
Mr Titford could, at any time, have suggested amendments to me.
Despite discussions in Strasbourg on my report, he subsequently offered no amendments.
I am deeply saddened.
I always deal honestly and openly with all my colleagues, but he flattered me privately and failed to act publicly.
I need to correct the record in this regard.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0400/2003) by Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on a European Union strategy to reduce atmospheric emissions from seagoing ships (COM(2002) 595 C5-0154/2003 2003/2064(INI))
   . Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Lucas, for her thorough, well-drafted report on the Commission’s ship emission strategy.
Reducing ship emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases is a priority for the Commission, since we know that if measures are not taken, by 2020, ships in European Union seas will emit more air pollutants than all land-based sources combined.
I therefore welcome most of the proposals in the Parliament’s draft resolution and I am pleased to say that the Commission is already working to take these forward.
For example, on market-based instruments, we are examining a range of possible options.
We held a useful stakeholder workshop in September 2003 to which parliamentarians were invited.
On the issue of taking international ship emissions and EU national emission ceilings into account, we aim to launch a study soon to get a better perspective on how significant ship emissions are in individual Member States compared to land-based emissions.
On the use of shoreside electricity and abatement technologies for air pollutants, we aim to use the same study to examine the costs and benefits and present positive examples.
We shall feed the results of this work into the Clean Air for Europe Programme in 2005, and present proposals as appropriate.
The question of ship sulphur is of course subject to codecision negotiations on the Commission’s marine fuel sulphur proposal.
The proposal as drafted would deliver a significant 40% reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions targeted in asset-sensitive northern Europe.
The Council’s progress on the proposal has been slower than we would have liked, but we have used the extra time to investigate the costs and benefits of the tighter sulphur limits proposed by the European Parliament in June 2003.
In response more specifically to Mrs Lucas’ points, we share her concern about the slow progress in Council and we now hope that a common position will be agreed upon under the Irish presidency early in 2004.
We have found that the 0.5% fuel sulphur limit proposed by the European Parliament would give rise to a price premium of approximately EUR 70 on every tonne of fuel.
The environmental and human health benefits of the tighter sulphur limit would still outweigh the costs but the overall cost to the shipping industry would double to over EUR 2 billion.
We must consider whether this is proportionate, bearing in mind the Commission’s commitment to promoting a modal shift from road to sea transport.
Lastly, in direct response to a question raised by Mrs Lucas on the issue of ship greenhouse gas emissions, I am pleased to inform her that the International Maritime Organisation is due to adopt a strategy on this issue later this week.
   Mr President, I should like to thank Caroline Lucas for her report and also pay tribute to Heidi Hautala, upon whose original report this is built and who is now back in national politics in Finland.
It highlights an issue that the citizens around the European Union are not even aware of, despite the fact that what the Commissioner says is absolutely true.
If present trends continue, over half the pollution produced in the EU will be out at sea.
It is true that the use of sea transport and inland waterways is the most environmentally friendly way of moving goods with the possible exception of a locomotive using electricity produced in a nuclear power station.
It is important we see development of this particular type of transport.
It is also true that we take the pressure off the roads.
In my own country, lack of investment in roads means that one alternative could be the development of more coastal shipping, using ports, for example Scarborough and Whitby, in my region.
However, there is a downside to the improvements that we have achieved on land and in fuel quality.
If you fill up your car with the latest diesel at 10 parts per million, the downside of that is that the sulphur, which has been taken out of your diesel, remains in the bunker fuel which goes to the ships, and could be 26 000 parts per million.
The Hautala report, at first reading, called for reductions to 1.5% in sensitive areas like the English Channel, the Baltic and the North Sea.
It is very encouraging that the amendments that I put forward at first reading with regard to abatement technology were taken on board.
P[amp]O Ferries, operating on the Dover-Calais route, have two identical ships operating, one with the abatement technology and one without.
I hope the Commission will look at the initial results of those trials to see whether this technology is an alternative, more cost-effective way of achieving the aims that we want.
I hope that these amendments will be taken more seriously by the Commission than some of the amendments that the Commissioner referred to, which call for even stricter levels that may not be cost-effective.
We must bear in mind that if we reduce the sulphur levels of fuel for ships, we increase the emissions at the oil refinery where these sulphur levels are reduced.
It is important that we act internationally, and not unilaterally, through the International Maritime Organisation and Marpol Annex VI.
It is particularly disappointing that only five Member States have ratified Marpol Annex VI.
Unless there have been developments which the Commissioner could refer to, I understand that the United Kingdom - which is always critical of other countries that do not ratify agreements such as Kyoto - has not ratified Marpol Annex VI.
It is vitally important, when we look at emissions, to see where they take place.
Emissions out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean do not cause us problems on land.
I am worried that some of the more ambitious suggestions in Mrs Lucas' report, for example an 80% cut, are out of proportion to the cost.
But we now have a reasonably balanced report which we will be pleased to support in the vote in plenary tomorrow.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0410/2003) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards reduced rates of value added tax (COM(2003) 397 C5-0359/2003 2003/0169(CNS)).
   – Mr President, the Commission has recently developed the bad habit of confronting us with proposals, among other things, on the pretext that they dismantle distortions of competition in the internal market and rationalise the VAT system. Unfortunately, they are counterproductive in the current climate.
The proposal before us is a case in point.
Our rapporteur, Mrs Randzio-Plath, has displayed moderation and realism in preparing her report, and I pay tribute to that.
She has also demonstrated these qualities again very comprehensively in her speech.
We have generally followed her line because she wishes to make it possible for the Member States to retain their reduced rates of VAT.
This applies especially to the reduced rates for labour-intensive services, such as hairdressers and others, which were introduced in 2000.
It would be wrong, in the current economic climate, to trigger higher inflation by substantially increasing VAT rates.
In my country, for example, this increase would entail a leap in the VAT rate from 6% to 15% for the labour-intensive services listed in Annex K. This special provision was intended to create jobs and reduce ‘black’ working.
It expires at the end of the year and is not renewed in the Commission’s proposal, for according to the Commission’s report, its dual objective – which I have mentioned – has not been achieved.
However, we do not share this view of things, and nor – as Mrs Randzio-Plath has explained – do the many other people whom we have consulted.
It is also doubtful whether an experiment conducted over just three years can be described as a failure after such a short time.
It would be premature to draw conclusions at this stage.
Unfortunately, I see no good will on the part of the Commission, and our committee has incorporated most of the services listed in Annex K into the expanded Annex Ha so that the reduced rates will continue to apply if the Member State so wishes.
On behalf of my group, we have tabled amendments enabling the Member States to continue the experiment at least until the new directive enters into force.
If these two amendments are rejected, the provisions of Annex K – Mr President, I still have the two minutes allocated to Mr Karas, who is not here – will expire at the end of the month.
The Member States would then have to increase the rates before being allowed to reduce them again in a matter of months when the new directive comes into force, when many of these services will be eligible for the reduced rates.
The situation would become quite farcical.
The third amendment, which I have tabled on behalf of my group, would permit the Member States to retain the parking rates of at least 12% for a further 15 years, so that the changeover would not have to take place abruptly over night, which I think is reasonable.
Despite what the Commissioner would have us believe, nor is there any need to follow his line in the interests of enlargement.
I hope that the Commission will see sense and support our very reasonable proposal, and if it does not do so, I trust that the Council of Ministers will vote unanimously to do so.
   – Mr President, are taxes only a means of generating income for the treasury, or can they also be used to serve other purposes of government policy? This is, in actual fact, the underlying core question on which I, with others, and Commissioner Bolkestein fundamentally differ.
What is more, it looks like he is increasingly on his own in his puritan rejection of the use of the instrument of reduced rates of VAT, which is still being deployed as an experiment, to promote employment.
At the time of the autumn 1997 employment summit in Luxembourg, the idea of reduced rates of VAT was mooted here in this Parliament.
This idea already met with resistance then from the Directorate-General dealing with tax cases and from a number of Member States.
Despite this, it was decided to carry out, in a very select number of labour-intensive sectors, an experiment which would definitely not result in any cross-border distortion of competition.
It was in these that the Member States were allowed to apply the reduced rates of VAT.
However, it had to remain an experiment, limited in time. People could not agree beforehand on clear criteria whereby the experiment could be assessed.
This evaluation was also done too late, the experiment had to be extended first, and the evaluation was left up to the Member States and badly coordinated.
In the Netherlands, the first evaluation report met with strong criticism, and a re-appraisal done at the request of parliament yielded many positive results.
I do not have the time to enter into the detail of this, but I think that you are familiar with those reports.
I have noted nonetheless that, eventually, you only adopted the negative tenor of those evaluations and have written the experiment off with what amounts to only the prejudices that preceded the experiment.
There was wide indignation in the Netherlands about the simple termination of an experiment that had been found to be effective for hairdressers, cobblers, decorators and bicycle repairers – and this in times of recession, no less.
After all, you do not need economic models in order to figure out for yourself that the re-introduction of the high rates will cost a very large number of jobs.
I am delighted that this indignation is widely shared in this House as well.
Moreover, the following logic is applied here: if there are no cross-border or competitively distorting effects, why would the EU prohibit Member States from applying the VAT rates that they think are sound? Why would governments and parliaments not be allowed to weigh up for themselves the goals to collect as many taxes as possible or to promote employment and make moonlighting legal?
The Council of Ecofin Ministers has now also clearly and unanimously announced its wish to extend the experiment and to remove the current uncertainty for those involved. In my view, your response in this matter to ignore this request and only to promise to tolerate the illegal continuation of the experiment does not show much respect for European rules and for the way they are implemented in the Member States.
'Tolerance' – surely that can only be intended as a joke on the part of the Commission as Guardian of the Treaty?
I should therefore like to urge the Commissioner once again to make a definite, formal proposal to extend the experiment, and to do so before the end of this month, and definitely before 1 January 2004.
After all, it is quite clear that there is wide support here in the European Parliament to include the experiment of Annex K in a structural insertion of these labour-intensive services in Annex H of the Directive.
It is also clear, though, that this will not be done before 1 January.
The sooner the structural facility becomes operational, the better.
This will receive our unqualified support and as long as that is not the case, the experiment must remain in force on a formal footing.
   The next item is the presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report.
I am pleased to welcome the President of the Court, our former colleague Mr Fabra Vallés, back to the House.
   – Mr President, let me, on behalf of my group, thank the President of the Court of Auditors for his report, although what I have to say I will address to the Commission.
After nine years as an MEP – four and a half of them on the Committee on Budgetary Control – one imagines that there are no more particularly enlightening experiences in store.
My belief that this is the case was disproved this week; I had a moment of clarity exactly two days ago when, in the Committee on Budgetary Control, a Commissioner who was already under pressure was faced with a situation in which the Commission apparatus had not yet supplied answers to four questions by a fellow-Member relating to the Eurostat case, even though those answers had been due since mid-October.
What I found illuminating about this was that, for the first time and for just five minutes, I found myself obliged to appreciate what an enormous achievement this was on the part of the Commission’s apparatus and what this says about the depth of its loyalty to a Commissioner.
I am bringing my political problem not to you personally, Commissioner, but, so to speak, to the Commission as a college of Commissioners.
I have started to feel tempted to stop directing political criticism at the Commissioners and to start feeling nothing but pity for them.
If, in the months in office remaining to them, they cannot manage to give their apparatus some sort of structure, so that their officials go in fear of their masters and acquire a minimal amount of loyalty to their political leaders, then we are in for lot of fun and games in the coming months.
If the present Commission does not at last get that message, then heaven help their successors in the next one.
If there is no change in this state of affairs, then nor will there be even the slightest change in the public’s perception of the Commission; it will, if anything get even worse.
The time has come for this to be said out loud, and I believe it is necessary that it should be.
   Mr President, as the rapporteur for the European Parliament discharge for 2002, I was pleased to see that the Court of Auditors has dealt with some of the issues of concern raised in Parliament.
It is clear from the report that there are still problems.
The secretarial allowance rules still contain loopholes, which mean that the money is not always spent on staff, as it should be.
Despite earlier warnings from the Court of Justice, the rules on the funding of political groups still show shortcomings.
There was evidence of that this week when an OLAF report showed that a former political group in this Parliament had misused funds.
Finally, the pension fund still lacks a proper legal basis and does not even have sufficient funds to cover all its liabilities.
The European Parliament, as we all know, is always very good at criticising other institutions – we have done so today, but we also have to put our own House in order.
Yesterday, a coalition of the selfish, the naïve and the greedy once again blocked a proposal to reform the system of pay and expenses for MEPs, which would have solved this problem once and for all.
Opposition to this was led by Mr Schulz and Mr Nassauer.
They are the same people who wrote to you, Mr President, asking for reform of the system of travel expenses because a German newspaper published their pictures and shamed them into action.
The Bureau, as I understand it, postponed that debate.
I hope that the German proposal will be taken up even though the SPD, the CDU and the CSU – not the Greens – have made it clear, privately, that they hope it will not be taken up.
The best evidence of this hypocrisy came last night, when the Bureau discussed reform of the secretarial allowance as mandated by the Court of Auditors.
I am told that Mr Friedrich’s first reaction was to ask whether MEPs could still employ their relatives if the new rules were adopted!
I am not against MEPs employing relatives if it is done in an honest and transparent manner, even though I personally do not think it is a wise move.
However, Mr Friedrich’s reaction demonstrates that, unfortunately, for some MEPs on both sides of the House, the only purpose of their membership of this Parliament is self-enrichment and deceit.
Fortunately, there are many MEPs, including colleagues such as Mr Kuhne, who want to reform our system of expenses.
This question will be at the heart of my report on the discharge for the European Parliament for the 2002 financial year.
2004 is an election year; we cannot afford to embark upon this election with the current system, which is morally corrupt.
If necessary, we must publicly shame our House into action.
   – Madam President, perhaps I can give Mr Fabra Vallés, the President of the Court of Auditors, a tip on how his institution can be better appreciated by the other institutions, for that – as you, Mr Fabra Vallés, said, and as I also believe – is what is lacking at the present time.
Perhaps you should make your reports a bit clearer.
Perhaps you could just state that the Statement of Assurance is absent or that you do not believe that reforms will be in place by the time promised, or perhaps you could just report that, where agriculture is concerned there has been no preparation for enlargement to speak of.
If one can talk in terms of only 2% funds getting to their intended recipients, then this policy has proved to be a non-starter.
That is the simple view taken by our fellow-citizens.
I cannot see any way of putting a cosmetic gloss on these things.
If reform is the issue, then we have our own indicators.
I am not talking about the time before 1999, but about the present day, when I say that, when we are told by a Commission that the report will be produced a year later, in contravention of the law it exists to guard and uphold, then something has not happened, that something being a learning process within the Commission.
When one has to wait months to get a reply to questions relating what is currently going on in Eurostat – that is, questions relating not to the distant past but to the mistakes being made right now and to the continued waste of taxpayers’ money – then nothing has happened.
When we are told that, if we want reforms and proposals for legislation by the end of December, we will get them in January, then, again, someone has failed to learn anything.
It is by these criteria that we judge whether a reform has happened and has been successful.
As you will by now have gathered, we are highly sceptical.
   – Madam President, measures facilitating the simplification of procedures and formalities are always positive, and in this particular case of health care provision they are even more important because they will help to make the free movement of persons easier.
These rights need to be extended to as many people as possible, and therefore it is a positive step that a European health card has been successfully created for everyone who travels, studies or works – and also for their family members – in any European Union Member State, thus replacing the forms that currently exist, but without containing data that might put their privacy at risk.
I also consider it a positive step to provide all citizens with information on the rights they enjoy in this field in the various Member States and that this should be duly guaranteed.
I therefore congratulate Mrs Jensen on the work she has done.
I hope that the citizens of the various Member States of the European Union will indeed gain direct access to full health care and that this will happen as soon as possible, according to an established timetable.
I also hope that today’s vote will help to ensure that this timetable is adhered to and that the health card will become a reality during the coming year.
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the Commission and Commissioner Diamantopoulou heartily on this excellent document, as well as the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, and all the Members that are flocking into this Chamber from their offices to hear me speak, since they have certainly not come to vote.
I would like to thank them because there have never before been so many Members as there are today to hear me.
I am infinitely grateful to you all.
I must tell you that I dreamt that Mr Berlusconi came into the Chamber at the end of December to report on the work done during this term-in-office in Europe.
In the dream, Mr Schultz stood up once again and, turning to Mr Berlusconi, said: ‘Mr Berlusconi, what would you do if you fell ill when travelling in Europe, for example here in France?’ Hearing this, Mr Berlusconi grasped his genitals – as we do in Italy – to ward off danger and then said: ‘Mr dear Mr Schultz, I will go a great deal further than this Commission Charter, which is already significant.
When Italy has the Presidency of the Council and I am President-in-Office again in thirteen and a half years’ time, I will endeavour to ensure that all the citizens can travel throughout Europe to receive treatment for all illnesses.
Remember, therefore, to vote for this document and to show my satisfaction for this wonderful health Charter’.
   The next item is the vote on a request for urgent procedure to be applied to the proposal for a Council regulation concerning transitional measures for the reform of the Staff Regulations, in particular with regard to pay and pensions (COM(2003) 612 C5-0492/2003 2003/0241(CNS)).
(1)
   Mr President, I would like to thank all those who are going to support the conclusion at first reading of the debate on a regulation that we hope will be able to enter into force on 1 January 2004, as planned.
I would like to thank the draftsperson, Mrs Sauquillo, the Commission, the Council and all those who will accept my compromise amendments and thus allow the report to be adopted today, just in time to ensure that the regulation enters into force on 1 January next year.
This is an extremely innovative report which, for the first time, gives Community resources to third countries so that they can help us to combat illegal immigration in their territory.
   . – Mr President, as rapporteur, I am obliged to make a comment and recommend the rejection of the amendments other than those originating from the Committee of which I am Chairperson.
I would, though, like to observe at the very outset that, whatever the different political groups to which we belong, we worked together very well on this, and this is particularly true in the case of Mrs Hermange – the rapporteur of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs – and myself.
Although it was no longer possible for that committee to put together an opinion and vote on it, we are voting the same way.
I would furthermore like to make it clear that we disregarded group boundaries in voting together on one point on which the House has taken a political decision, namely the reduced rate of tax for labour-intensive services, and were outraged to hear Commissioner Bolkestein say yesterday evening that he envisages extending this for only six months, even though even the Council is thinking in terms of two years and we in terms of six.
The Legal Service told the Committee that Amendment No 22, which is before us today, was not permissible, and the Committee voted it down for that reason.
I fear, though, that Amendment No 22 could, today, politically speaking, send out the wrong message.
The plenary can of course be wiser than a Committee, and so I recommend that it adopt Amendment No 22, thereby making a clear statement that we are extending the lower rate of VAT for labour-intensive services beyond 31 December 2003.
In exactly the same way, by means of Amendment No 21, we can do the same for films.
   – I simply want to make the wording more precise, because I think that the original wording was not very easy to understand.
At the end of the amendment proposed by Mr Corbett, and with his agreement, I propose that the amendment should be worded as follows, ‘the introduction, in Article 1(2), of equality between women and men, which should, however, be regarded as a value and not simply as a principle’.
   Mr President, we MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece followed your proposal for one minute’s silence in memory of the seven Spaniards who lost their lives in Iraq.
We grieve deeply for the needless loss of human life, even of secret agents on an obscure mission, and we offer our heartfelt condolences to their families.
However, we cannot fail to point out that the Spanish government which sent them there bears sole responsibility for their deaths.
More importantly, we grieve for the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed by the foreign invaders and conquerors of their homeland and we bitterly condemn the fact that you made no reference to them, as if they were a lower order of human beings.
We hope that sense will prevail and that the foreign invaders will withdraw from Iraq before the resistance of the Iraqi people forces them to beat a retreat.
   .– Although the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market is certainly not a court, the ‘normal’ reaction to the documents supplied by the examining magistrate, Mr Courroye, concerning Jean-Charles Marchiani, would be to allow justice to take its course, because the charges against him are extremely serious, namely that the MEP is accused of misappropriating EUR 5.5 million in the Falcone affair.
He is accused of having been involved in illicit arms trafficking with Angola, and in two cases of corruption linked to public contracts, involving Leclerc tanks and Roissy Airport.
His only defence is to rely on , in other words the suspicion that legal proceedings have been initiated first and foremost in order to attack a politician simply because he a politician.
However, as regards the French authorities, and the tax authorities in particular, but also those MEPs of all origins who make up the Committee on Legal Affairs, Jean-Charles Marchiani apparently benefits more from .
This is an unacceptable attitude, and one that discredits all of us.
To waive Jean-Charles Marchiani’s immunity would be to reject a world in which tax havens, arms dealers and oil companies reign supreme.
It would be a rejection of the ‘France-Africa’ arrangement which is corrupting the political world and which shows utter contempt for justice and the sovereignty of the peoples of Africa.
For these reasons we voted in favour of waiving immunity.
   .– This draft amending budget proposes to cut EUR 5 billion in payment appropriations for the pre-2000 Structural Funds and ratifies the agreement in principle that the European Parliament made with the Council at the Budgetary Conciliation on 24 November 2003.
The Commission justifies the cut as being due to difficulties in the processing of payment claims and budgetary under-implementation relative to the forecasts of payment claims from the Member States.
It remains to be seen, however, how these payments will be implemented in future, bearing in mind that less than EUR one billion have been entered in 2004 for pre-2000 programmes.
The question is that, if there are nearly EUR 13 billion in outstanding authorisations for pre-2000 programmes, these authorisations should be fully implemented rather than cancelled, in accordance with the principle of the purpose of the expenditure, so as to uphold the principle of economic and social cohesion.
Rather than any concern for implementation, this is an attempt to respond to the constraints of the Stability Pact, by reducing in this way the national budgetary contributions of the European Union, particularly those of large countries such as Germany and France.
   .– This proposal for a regulation aims to maintain the current scheme of support for the marketing of certain fishery products from the outermost regions, a scheme which has successfully existed since 1992 and is part of the objectives of the POSEI programmes.
The proposal aims to compensate for the additional costs of disposing of these products through financial compensation for production, processing and marketing, taking into account the costs arising from insularity, remoteness from the market, the small size of local markets, topography and climate.
In this respect we agree with the rapporteur regarding not only her approval of the current scheme but also the change in the legal basis from Article 37 to Article 299(2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community, relating to the specific characteristics of the outermost regions.
It is also necessary to ensure that this scheme will be ongoing, in view of the fact that the constraints on these regions are permanent.
I do, however, regret the reduction in the budget for the scheme from EUR 17 million to EUR 15 million per year for 2003–2007, when it ought instead to be increased.
The rapporteur’s proposed Amendment No 3 is debatable, considering that the desired flexibility in relation to under-utilisation of the amounts made available may jeopardise the key for their distribution among the Member States.
   .– At the time of the review of the common fisheries policy in December 2002, the Council considered that the outermost regions deserved special treatment, specifically as regards the management of the Community fishing fleets.
This Commission proposal comes in that context but falls short of what might be desired in view of the real difficulties of the regions in question, which have non-industrial fleets and small-scale companies, which have led to less than full take-up of the support available for fleet modernisation and renovation.
It is therefore important to ensure that this process of modernisation and renovation can continue without constraints deriving from Community legislation.
The rapporteur’s proposals improve the Commission proposal.
First, they propose a more suitable legal basis, Article 299(2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community, which recognises the special constraints affecting the social and economic situation of the outermost regions.
In addition, they derogate from the provision on public aid for fleet renewal for a further two years, until 31 December 2006.
Lastly, the rapporteur also calls for a report to be produced evaluating the implementation of these measures, in order to examine whether they should be continued after 2006.
It is regrettable, however, that the necessary strengthening of FIFG structural aid is not included.
   . Conservative MEPs believe that corruption is wrong and should be rooted out at all levels.
There are, however, ways and means of doing this.
We believe that the European Arrest Warrant and the European Public Prosecutor unnecessarily impinge upon nation-states' own legal systems and are therefore undesirable.
It is for this reason that we have abstained on the Rutelli Report.
   – Four years of reduced rates of VAT do not allow us to see the complete effects of this experiment; all the more since, knowing that it was temporary, some employers did not implement it.
All the industries consulted, however, claim that lowering VAT has positive economic effects that are by no means insignificant.
In this way, the number of wage earners working in the housing maintenance sector has increased in France by 8.6% in two years.
This is why we need to continue down this route.
As draftsman, I can only welcome the Commission text and, in particular, Annex H, extending Annex K to some services, such as catering.
Since each Member State freely chooses to apply a reduced rate in a category appearing in Annex H, all sectors that benefited from the experiment must not now be excluded from the scope of the directive.
This is why I voted in favour of the amendments by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Furthermore, Amendments Nos 22 and 23 that I tabled with Astrid Lulling for the part-session are extremely important; indeed they allow for the experiment to be extended until the current changes to the directive come into force, which is absolutely necessary in order to avoid disastrous consequences in terms of jobs.
   .– EU rules prescribe the goods and services on which the Member States may impose high rates of VAT and those that, by way of derogation, may fall within the reduced rate.
This exception already applied to food and clothes, but in 1999, labour-intensive services were also, on an experimental basis, brought under the umbrella of reduced rates of VAT.
This has had a beneficial impact on employment.
According to a recent hearing here in Parliament, the deployment of this instrument has created an additional 250 000 jobs throughout the European Union.
There are also other positive effects.
If we keep the bicycle repairman affordable, this will promote cycling.
It is astonishing that the Commission should now wish to put a stop to this.
The Commission supports its decision by deficient and incomplete enquiries and has insufficient evidence to substantiate that the experiment has led to unsatisfactory results.
If the experiment is discontinued, countless jobs will disappear in Europe, 8 500 of them in the Netherlands.
My party, the Socialist Party in the Netherlands, sees taxes as a useful instrument to achieve sound social security and provide public services, but it denounces this way of enforcing increases in them.
We want to maintain the reduced rates of VAT on hairdressers, bicycle repairmen and cobblers.
I call for enforcing the Member States' right to keep the rates of VAT on labour-intensive services low if this is underpinned by sound arguments from a social and employment point of view.
   .
Although this area of indirect tax is reviewed every two years, the Labour delegation for the UK sees no reason to change the current Annex H. This, we believe, should be the responsibility of the national governments as long as they are non-distortive in terms of trade and industry.
   – The joint resolution by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party on the preparation of the European Council in Brussels reflects the liberal, militaristic and anti-democratic Europe that they are building.
Asking for the transfer of sovereignty from US occupying forces to Iraqi representatives or even demanding a fair trial for the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay cannot delude people as to the true nature of Europe.
First of all, it is in thrall to liberal ideology.
Competition, growth, the Stability and Growth Pact and the liberalisation of transport and postal services have been presented as needing no justification, whilst people are suffering the full impact of this policy, starting with unemployment and job insecurity.
Managing migratory flows and controlling borders is the grim response to the ill-fated people of this earth who are ready to do anything to escape from poverty, underdevelopment, dictatorships and wars.
Finally, the Intergovernmental Conference continues to sit and negotiate giving constitutional status to liberalism, regardless of the 450 million Europeans.
This is a Europe to which we do not belong, and that is why we cannot support this resolution.
We are ‘old Europeans’ who, with thousands of others at the European Social Forum in Paris/Saint-Denis, proposed a different Europe based on peace, democracy, social rights and public services.
   I have voted against the resolution (which was nonetheless adopted by 346 votes in favour, 106 votes against and 58 abstentions), for, on crucial points, it does not meet what is required by central features of the Swedish Christian Democrats’ values and our work to protect the rights of small countries in the EU.
We wish to see a reference to Europe’s Judaeo-Christian and Biblical inheritance in the Preamble to a future European Constitution.
I therefore welcomed Amendment No 7, involving support for the Presidency’s efforts to have Europe’s Judaeo-Christian inheritance incorporated.
This was rejected by plenary (with 213 votes in favour, 293 against and 17 abstentions).
I also supported Amendment No 8, which put forward demands for a Commission constituted on the basis of equality, with a Commissioner with full voting rights for each Member State.
Parliament voted against this, however (by 349 votes in favour, with 147 against and 49 abstentions).
Instead, paragraph 8 now states, mistakenly, that the Commission would be in danger of acquiring an intergovernmental character if a Commissioner were appointed for each Member State.
Nor do we support paragraph 5 in which Parliament adopts a position on the proposal for a clause in the intended European Constitution.
The clause would entitle the European Council to give itself and the EU increased powers, as well as to change the voting rules in favour of a qualified majority rather than unanimity, without the approval of the Member States’ national parliaments.
   .– Public opinion sees the EU as, above all, a large-scale organisation far removed from the citizen, and as one offering tremendous scope for fraud.
Fraud is committed by directors, by EU Commissioners and their cabinets; it is committed through the involvement of private companies and by providing people with an income without expecting anything in return.
There is fraud in order to line one's own pockets, fraud to buy one's friends and fraud in order to secure the future of one's own job, irrespective of corporate planning.
In order to fight this kind of fraud, an increasing number of bureaucratic control rules have been established, as well as different control services that work alongside each other, each active within their own limited remits.
The existence of OLAF, and previously UCLAF, did nothing to stop fraud in the past, including the Eurostat scandal that has recently come to light.
The approach so far has been characterised by increasing internal control instead of more openness, which allows public opinion to look on.
Examiners are involved in matters that have to remain secret for fear that they will cross the path of judicial procedures.
OLAF's function would become a great deal more useful if it were also to focus on removing the breeding ground for fraud and on bringing wrongdoing out into the open.
Before it can do that, though, we may need a parliamentary inquiry.
   I will pass your comments on to the President of Parliament, who will raise the matter at the Conference of Presidents.(1)
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 4 December 2003.(1)
   . – Mr President, as rapporteur, I should like to echo Mr Papayannakis’ request and call for the vote to be moved from Tuesday to Wednesday, the reason being the problems caused by the amendments not having been translated into a number of languages.
This will then also give the various groups the opportunity of concluding compromises.
However – and I support Mr Harbour in this – I would certainly not be in favour of moving the vote to Thursday.
After all, then we run the risk, this being a codecision procedure, of being left with a limited number of people and of not reaching the quorum, particularly as we are nearing Christmas.
I am therefore in favour of moving the vote to Wednesday.
This compromise could then be the starting shot for all groups and rapporteurs to join together in guiding this report through the process.
   Mr President, we have the same problem with the Lisi report concerning the conciliation on compensation and assistance to air passengers.
What is regrettable is that, on Thursdays, Members leave during the vote, and that is a real problem.
So, either these votes, which really are extremely important and require a qualified majority, are indeed transferred to Wednesday, or they take place on Thursday, but right at the beginning of the sitting, so that we do in fact have the quorum needed.
   I should like to welcome members of a delegation from the Romanian Senate to the Official Gallery.
They are led by Mr Nicolae Pătru, Chairman of the Committee for Agriculture of the Senate.
They have come to Strasbourg on a familiarisation visit.
They are very welcome.
   In his absence I should like to thank Mr Laschet.
The award is to be presented in May 2004, some weeks before the election.
In addition to the personal honour, of which I am very conscious, it is a wonderful tribute to the role of the European Parliament in an election year and I would be happy to receive the award in that context on behalf of this House and the contribution it makes to European Union affairs.
   Mr President, on the last occasion we met I raised a question about the Scotch whisky industry which was of considerable public concern.
You very kindly, on behalf of the House, took it up with Commissioner Byrne, who is fortuitously here present.
I am glad to report that the Scotch Whisky Association has reached a consensual settlement of that difficult question for the time being.
I hope that it will be possible for the whole matter to be resolved through satisfactory industry standards.
The attention that this House and other public bodies paid to this matter was instrumental in reaching a solution, so I thank you and encourage you all to celebrate the New Year of 2004 with an appropriate beverage!
   Especially if you are sponsoring it, Mr MacCormick.
   Mr President, I am almost ashamed to mention a simple news item at a time when international news is so important and at a time when we are lamenting the failure of the Intergovernmental Conference.
In my country, in my region, workers have taken the managers of their company hostage.
That is reprehensible, and, we are told, it is not a socially acceptable way of negotiating.
Just after the acceptance of the French plan was achieved in the Commission – and I would say after a long brave struggle – Alstom decided to quite simply close one of its companies in my region, to relocate it to Montrouge, near Paris.
If a Europe for workers envisages acknowledging that a restructuring plan, accepted by the Commission, will lead to such protectionist measures, then this is a deplorable vision.
We should not then be surprised that managers are taken hostage by workers when there are no longer other means of negotiation.
   I am not in a position to give such confirmation.
I will wait until 16 December to see if that is true.
Then we could remind the Commission of its failure to honour the deadline for the forwarding of that material.
   Mr President, I have listened to Mr Beasley repeat the shameless arguments that, in Latvia and Estonia, they are flagrantly violating the rights of almost half the population in these countries, who were born and have worked there and whose only crime is that they are of Russian extraction or speak Russian.
These people are being forced with humiliating examinations to abandon their country.
At the same time, communist parties are banned in these countries and their cadres are being persecuted, as are the veterans of the anti-fascist war, and monuments are being erected in honour of the SS and the Nazi conquerors.
At the same time, the universities are being closed, while the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is being forced to open universities and to ensure the Albanian minority, 25% of the population, is represented in the parliament and in the government.
The problem is that similar views and these sorts of violations are also being supported by the Commissioner materially responsible for enlargement, Mr Verheugen, and by the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, who said in a recent response to my letter that, in his view, the ban on a communist party was no reason to censure a country by preventing it from becoming a member of the European Union.
However, because the communist parties in the Member States of the European Union are still legal, I fear that this is a foretaste of autocratic and anti-democratic measures to come.
That is why I am protesting, and I have insisted today also that this protest on my part go on record.
   Mr President, I have requested the floor following the speech by Mr Gorostiaga.
It is difficult to understand his approach, since he is confusing a film with a provision by a government which intends to guarantee democracy.
And, furthermore, you say this as a representative of a political party which is illegal in Spain, which defends terrorists and kills those of us who defend our ideas.
Mr Gorostiaga, your approach is totally out of line with what we in this House defend: freedom of expression, which you do not defend in any of your considerations and even less in your speech this afternoon.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0387/2003) from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on setting standards of quality and safety for the donation, procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of human tissues and cells (10133/3/2003 – C5-0416/2003 – 2002/0128(COD)) (Rapporteur: Peter Liese).
   Mr President, after more than a year of discussion regarding this directive, the position of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is clear and has remained almost unchanged.
It has been said that it is a public health directive, as Commissioner Byrne mentioned just now.
Furthermore, if it is true – and I am answering Mrs Korhola – that ethical principles are at the heart, and form the basis, of the majority of our decisions, then it is not for Europe to regulate and, even less so, to harmonise in this area.
We must, therefore, concentrate on the amendments that, in practice, meet the needs of potential recipients.
The report has made much progress along these lines, even in this House, thanks to the tireless work of Mr Liese whom I thank.
Let us take note that the progress includes effective traceability at all times; the possibility of authorising, in exceptional circumstances, the lifting of anonymity for gamete donations – this was crucial for thousands of infertile couples waiting for the gift of life; and adding to the text an amendment, which I tabled, on information campaigns designed to raise living citizens’ awareness concerning the donation of tissue and cells.
To move on now to the controversial issue of voluntary and unpaid donation, the liberal group is satisfied with the compromise that was reached, a better compromise than the one reached for directive 100.
The text specifies that the donation must be made of the donor’s free will without payment, with the exception of possible compensation, for which detailed rules are to be laid down by Member States on the basis of subsidiarity.
All the same, I am sorry to see that amendments that explicitly encouraged the donation of umbilical cord blood and the registration of potential bone marrow donors were refused.
As regards organs, the Commission has been promising us a legislative initiative since this was first an issue, because this is a considerable problem taking various forms: organised trafficking, shortage etc.
It does not, however – and this is understandable – want to act with great haste and it puts forwardthestatement discussed in detail by the Commissioner.
So be it!
Having said that, and on this issue of the difficulty of finding compatible organs, we could perhaps suggest the inclusion of a proposal, within the framework of this declaration, to encourage European cooperation through the Retransplant consortium.
Currently, only six countries are involved in it and that is not enough.
To conclude, Mr President, I welcome the fact that, as regards this issue, which, as we can see, is complex and sensitive, the European law that we are in the process of drawing up in this House establishes first and foremost general principles and rules, which must be flexible and progressive in the interests of putting patients first.
It was both important and vital not to close the door on genetic research, in particular for stem cells.
We achieved this and, therefore, I recommend, on behalf of the liberal group, that we adopt, without modification, the overall compromise reached between Mr Liese, the shadow rapporteurs and the Italian Presidency.
The objective sought with this text, and I would remind you of this, is to resolutely combat shortage and trafficking, and to promote solidarity and quality.
This is the only message that Europe should send out to the hundreds of thousands of patients waiting for heart valve transplants, corneas, bone cells, donated sperm and oocyte, or simply for reparatory transplants for severe burns.
   The next item is the report (A5-0469/2003) by Klaus-Heiner Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on takeover bids (COM(2002) 534 – C5-0481/2002 – 2002/0240(COD)).
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0467/2003) by Mr Schmidt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards value added tax on services provided in the postal sector (COM(2003) 234 C5-0227/2003 2003/0091(CNS)).
   Mr President, I must, all the same, ask Mr Bolkestein whether or not he supports the amendments that we tabled.
What is this all about? Either we follow the socialists and all those that did not understand the interests of those they claim to protect and we purely and simply reject the Commission proposal, or we follow the route that I was proposing, but that I did not have enough speaking time to explain.
I was calling on all those who want to purely and simply reject the Commission proposal to think about it.
If they adopt the amendments, tabled by Mr Schmidt and myself on behalf of our groups, then we are giving the go ahead for a rational directive, which will not cause prices to rise.
Could Mr Bolkestein indicate whether or not he supports our amendments?
   . Mr President, it is with the greatest of pleasure that I shall reply to the question put by Mrs Lulling.
I could have done so earlier but she did not ask for it and therefore I did not think it was necessary to reply.
In answer to her question, the Commission considers that any study of the postal sector and particularly those which must be done according to Directive 97/67/EEC should take into account the impact of VAT in the sector and that it undertakes to take into account the spirit of Amendment No 6.
As regards Amendments Nos 7 and 13 proposing to delay the entry into force of the directive until each Member State has achieved a certain degree of liberalisation, the Commission's position is that it cannot accept linking two issues which are quite separate, but the Commission could accept a date of entry into force of the directive no later than January 2006, by which date the Community postal market as a whole should have surpassed that degree of liberalisation.
The Commission does not support amendments linking the scope of the proposed place of supply rule and reduced rates to Article 2(1) of Directive 97/67/EC.
Postal services as defined in that Article are those supplied by the universal service provider.
The linkage proposed by that amendment would not eliminate current distortions of competition in the postal market and therefore the Commission cannot support Amendments Nos 1, 8, 11 and 12.
For reasons of subsidiarity the Commission cannot support Amendments Nos 2, 4 and 9 which seek to oblige Member States to apply a reduced rate and to prescribe how a certain part of national VAT revenue should be spent.
Nor can it accept widening the scope of applicable rates as suggested by Amendments Nos 3 and 10.
Such amendments would not be acceptable to a majority of the Council either.
As regards Amendment No 5, the Commission considers that the issues posed by philatelic stamps are no different to those existing today.
Under current legislation, stamps are only exempt when sold at face value.
They are taxable in all other cases.
Since this different tax liability is not causing problems today, it should not cause problems once the proposal is approved.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0461/2003) by Mr Manders, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Council common position for adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage (10933/5/2003 - C5-0445/2003 - 2002/0021 (COD)).
   Mr President, I would like firstly, as other Members have done, to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Manders, and the rapporteur for my group, Mrs Niebler, who has not just been able to reach agreements with Mr Manders, but also to seek consensus within the group and also to inform us punctually of what was happening with this proposed Directive.
As has rightly been said, we are dealing with a really important Directive.
We are all aware of the importance of environmental protection and the fact that this Directive reflects the ‘polluter pays’ principle.
However, we must also be aware that polluters are often companies, and we must ensure their survival within our economy.
I therefore believe that there are two important principles: the first, which Mr Gargani has mentioned, is not to promote the relocation of our companies towards other markets, and the second is to find the greatest possible degree of harmonisation within the European Union.
I believe that all the countries of the Union must comply with this Directive, and it must oblige the Member States equally: we must not allow each Member State to apply it differently.
The scope must be as broad as possible, as laid down in the common position, and, with regard to the possible exceptions for operators with regard to compliance with any previous legislation, I believe it is true that Amendments Nos 9 and 16 are excessive, as has been said here, and would allow some companies to escape their duty to pay.
But it is true that we must seek some mechanism according to which the fact that companies comply with the legislation in force is considered a mitigating factor.
With regard to the reparation measures, we must allow the Member States to be able to cover the damage created, as reparation measures, as laid down in Amendments Nos 10, 11 and 12 approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Finally, with regard to the time period during which a company can be held responsible, I believe that the 30 years laid down in the common position is an excessive period.
The environmental contingency it would represent for companies seems to me to be excessive, and I support Mrs Thyssen’s amendment, which would reduce this time period to 10 years: it makes much more sense to reduce the time period during which companies must be held responsible for the environmental damage caused.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0418/2003) by Mr Koch, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 74/408/EEC relating to motor vehicles with regards to the seats, their anchorages and head restraints [COM(2003) 361 C5-0283/2003 2003/0128(COD)].
   Mr President, the Commission would like to thank Mr Koch for his excellent report.
This proposal to amend the Council Directive of 22 July 1974 relating to seats and head restraints of motor vehicles is one of the two proposals associated with the 1997 directive on installing safety belts.
This latter directive is, moreover, the subject of a change that seeks to make the installation of safety belts obligatory in all vehicles.
These provisions follow the enforcement of compulsory use of safety belts in vehicles, provided for in the directive of 8 April 2003.
At the moment, only car seats must comply with the technical criteria and satisfy the resistance tests provided for in the directive of 1974.
From then on all seats, and in particular those in coaches, that are in vehicles put into service in the Community from July 2004 should be tested in accordance with the directive.
They must be compatible with the installation of safety belts.
The Commission proposal also includes a ban on installing side-facing seats in any vehicles designed for transport of persons, with the exception of city buses with more than 22 seats.
The Commission cannot support the rapporteur’s proposal to allow, despite everything, the installation of side-facing seats in coaches.
I must remind you that when the directive of 20 November 2001 was drawn up as regards safety of buses and coaches, this issue had already been the subject of a debate.
The Commission was then called upon to carry out a study on the safety of passengers travelling in side-facing seats.
This study showed that there were no technical solutions adapted to this layout of seats and it recommended a ban on side-facing seats in all vehicles for the transport of people.
Another study, conducted by the Commission in 1996, had already showed all the risks incurred by passengers wearing a safety belt not adapted for this arrangement of seats.
The Commission cannot, therefore, accept Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
The Commission can accept the following amendments: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 (except paragraph 5a), 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 33, 38, 39, 40, 41 and 42.
The Commission rejects the following amendments: 4, 5, 20 (paragraph 5a only), 21, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36, 37, 43, 44 and 45.
(1)
   – Mr President, the tendering directive, the single European sky directive, the directive on takeover bids, the agencies, the concrete work on economic growth – one need only recall the decisions made on major public works and the finance mechanisms associated with them – and the careful analysis launched by the Italian Presidency, followed by specific proposals on competitiveness, a subject which lies at the root of the Lisbon process which is only slowly taking shape in the way we want; the specific measures on immigration – which should take place legally with flows regulated by individual countries’ requirements – with particular regard for the border control agency; the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and the Foundation for Dialogue between Cultures and Civilisations, whose main task will be an assessment of the dialogue between religions in the hope of curbing fundamentalism, since this is terrorism in the making; the action in the Middle East – where we have worked hard towards a dialogue between the two sides, and Italy in particular has also provided a venue – with the launching of an intervention plan with a EUR 5 billion budget for the next five years: these are undeniable achievements that attest to the generosity of the Italian Presidency.
There is, of course, one discordant note: the mechanism for giving the European Union a new formal constitution has jammed.
At this moment we must pay particular attention to the sirens of the material constitution.
We need time to reflect, because what emerged in the heat of the moment is certainly worrying.
I will not mention those involved but rather the issues: a two-speed Europe, the emphasis on closer cooperation, a Europe made of concentric circles, in which all share the same policies but each group remains open to new associations – this is not the political scenario that the 25-Member Europe needs.
We must not lose what lay at the heart of the Convention: the general interest of Europe, which gave rise to the decision to abolish national veto rights in most cases and proposals for a transparent and credible voting system.
In the general interest of Europe we must make a fresh start and work with new formulas that we can create if we so wish.
   Mr President, I have a somewhat urgent question to put to Mr Prodi before he speaks.
We have just heard that Mrs de Palacio announced at the Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council meeting that the Kyoto Protocol is dead.
I should like to hear from you what the Commission’s position is on this and whether Mrs de Palacio has acted within her mandate.
(1)
   Your wish is well within the Rules, Mr Gollnisch.
I should like to point out, however, that we have had the debate on this matter: we are now dealing with the vote.
Mr President, since 1993, when the internal market became operational and border controls were abolished, the Customs authorities have ceased to be a source of basic statistical information on the trading of goods between Member States, but such information is still needed, and that is why the system known as Intrastat was set up. It could have celebrated its tenth anniversary this year, but the people at Eurostat are at present not in a celebratory mood.
If, though, the changes over the past few years are to be taken into account, then the 1991 Regulation urgently needs to be adapted; the proposal put before us by the Commission is a good one, and one that we can largely accept.
Above all else, both its text and its rules have become simpler and more comprehensible.
The scope has been more clearly delimited, and that is something that we do not always see.
The Member States have been left more room for manoeuvre where the collection of statistics is concerned.
Finally, we can welcome the way in which the Commission’s text takes account of the SLIM programme in lessening the burden on firms.
Despite this, I tabled a handful of amendments, which were adopted unanimously, and I might add that I did this with the agreement of the Italian Presidency of the Council.
For a start, the threshold at which firms are exempted from providing information is raised by 1%, which will allow thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises to cut costs without the quality of statistics being adversely affected.
Another amendment is aimed at excluding goods which are imported into a Member State only temporarily but without being altered there.
Such would, for example, be the case if I were to get married and hire my wedding dress in a neighbouring country, and then take it back there. That would not be included in the statistics.
   Thank you very much Mrs Lulling!
You always keep the House up to speed.
I am sure we are much better informed on this matter now.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this amendment requires clarification.
I personally am in favour of its substance, and, like the majority in this House, I also voted in favour of it at first reading stage, but the Council could not be persuaded to accept it.
We have just voted on a compromise with the Council.
Amendment No 38 is not part of the compromise package agreed with the Council, but Amendment No 58 is, and replaces it.
I believe that if we vote in favour of Amendment No 58, we will be making it possible for the directive to be adopted without a conciliation procedure.
That does not mean that Parliament has changed its mind in this matter; indeed, we made this clear not only at first reading but also, repeatedly, on other occasions.
In this procedure, though, we should not insist on the amendment.
Somebody asked me, ‘How, if you have principles, can you compromise on such important issues?’ I believe that Europe demands compromises of us in matters of policy in order that we may make progress.
I do not believe that politics should be left to people who have no principles.
That is why I ask you to vote against Amendment No 38 and in favour of Amendment No 58.
   . – I am taking the floor to thank Parliament, and particularly the rapporteur Mr Lehne and all the committee members, for this important vote which at last gives us a European rule on takeover bids.
We have been trying to achieve this result for 15 years. At last we have succeeded.
It is an important step towards unifying the markets and providing greater efficiency.
It is the outcome of hard work, and I should like to express the Presidency’s satisfaction.
   .
The ‘Culture 2000’ programme was set up to provide a single funding and programming instrument in the field of cultural cooperation in the European Union, replacing existing sectoral programmes, namely Rafael, Ariane and Kaleidoscope.
Culture 2000 was given around EUR 167 million and will end on 31 December 2004.
The new framework programme for Culture is not due to start until the beginning of 2007.
The Commission plans to extend the current programme to 2005 and 2006 in order to ensure continuity in the actions that have been undertaken, which we believe is a positive step and we consequently voted in favour of this proposal.
We feel, however, that the sum allocated to this single instrument is clearly insufficient to meet the needs in the field of cultural cooperation.
The sum proposed for 2005 and 2006, of around EUR 67 million, is particularly low, given that enlargement will have taken place.
An evaluation of the impact of the current programme is becoming crucial because, as the Commission admits, some changes will have to be made.
Examples are: greater support for preserving and restoring cultural heritage of European interest that is considered to be cultural heritage by UNESCO; greater participation and support for cultural cooperation initiatives by local associations and institutions, greater support for acquiring cultural equipment by local associations.
   . The proposal for a directive on high standards of quality and safety in connection with human tissues and cells fills a huge gap in Community legislation to safeguard a high level of quality and safety for tissues and cells intended for transplants or any other uses which need to be accurately defined.
Similarly, it will result in comparable levels of quality and safety in all the Member States.
On the basis of the positions of my group, the GUE/NGL, I voted against block Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 4 and Amendment No 38 and I voted in favour of block Amendment No 2 and Amendment No 58.
The European Parliament should not restrict the operational breadth of the directive for reasons of conservatism but should safeguard high levels of safety and quality.
   Mr Fatuzzo, the order of the House requires me to call you now.
It seems you have a larger audience now than you sometimes might have had in the past!
   .
For over a decade now, we have been debating the takeover directive, the first version of which, as we know, was unable to get over the last hurdle in this House.
I am glad that, thanks to the negotiations involving the Council and our rapporteur Mr Lehne, the adoption of this important text is now, at last, within our reach.
The Portuguese-Italian compromise arrived at in the Council and adopted in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs strikes me as the best possible result in a complex situation.
Stipulating the Europe-wide applicability of Articles 9 and 11 whilst allowing the Member States the option of not making them binding on their businesses, although not ideal, is the only compromise possible, to which the alternative would be not having a directive at all, and nobody wants that.
A small step in the right direction is always better than marking time on the spot for years.
I would argue that there are a few highly strategic areas in which the Member States should be accorded special rights, which they would be entitled to use in the event of takeovers.
The report before us indirectly covers the possibility of the Member States availing themselves of the right already referred to, and also solves the specifically Scandinavian problem with securities with multiple voting rights without jeopardising the important level playing field, which guarantees enterprises equal opportunities.
   . – In the past, companies were meant to last.
Despite conflicts of interest, entrepreneurs and workers agreed that their companies would provide jobs for future generations.
The entrepreneur who had founded the companies saw this as his life’s work.
He believed in his product and in his contribution to progress for his town or region.
For the workers, it was the place that provided them with a source of income and brought them and their colleagues together.
More say in the business and a better income were the future.
These days, companies are commodities.
They are bought, closed down or plundered to release the capital for activities that yield more profits for the owners.
Anonymous international forces are quick to call an end to all the old certainties.
Legislation about takeovers can serve very different goals, one of which is to protect the employees and their permanent living environments, while another is to facilitate the trade in companies in order to yield maximum benefit for their shareholders.
These two goals are not very compatible.
This is why those who claim that the fact that a directive on takeover bids is being introduced is more important than its content are wrong.
As in 2001, I am once again voting for everything that contributes to a directive of the former kind and against everything that leads to one of the latter.
   . I voted against this directive because three crucial amendments were rejected that were aimed at ensuring that the workers of both the bidding company and the target company were fully informed and consulted in good time in the event of a takeover bid.
Some claim this is already guaranteed by other directives and that there is therefore no point in dealing with the matter in this directive.
That view is shared by Commissioner Bolkestein.
I am not convinced and it is hard to understand why the introduction of a minimum amount of social dialogue into this directive should meet with such opposition.
But I do agree entirely with Mr Bolkestein that this directive, as it has been adopted with the Commission’s and the Council’s agreement, is not a social directive, it is even a clearly antisocial directive!
After more than 15 years of debates, I regret to note, like the ESC, that neither the Council, nor the Commission, nor the majority of Parliament have been able to understand something so simple and obvious as that workers are just as important as shareholders and that they have in particular the right to be informed and consulted over mergers.
It is a sad day for the European social model.
   – Mr President, this document refers to VAT, value added tax, on postage stamps.
I had a vision: it was the year 2013 and I was still a Member of this Parliament and Mr Schmidt was again presenting a report on stamps.
In the future, however, increasingly fewer European citizens used – I am speaking as if the year were 2017 – postage stamps and the ordinary postal services so Mr Schmidt’s directive made provision for financing people who write letters by paying them the postage on their correspondence.
I mean to say, Mr President, that postage stamps and postal services are becoming so rare that letters will become antiques, just like vintage motor cars.
That is my last statement today; indeed it is my last statement of 2003.
Thank you and .
   Thank you, Mr Fatuzzo. I think you have brought the House to silence with your remarks.
   . I do not agree that, in the name of competition between state and private services provided in the postal sector, we should be led to increase the cost of postal services to citizens and to a complete denial of the utility function of state post offices.
That is why I too, like the whole of the GUE/NGL Group, voted against the amendments by the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the proposal as a whole.
   .
The Liberal Democrat delegation did not vote with the rest of the ELDR Group on the Schmidt report.
We voted against Amendments Nos 1 to 13 and the proposal, as we wished the proposal in its current form to be withdrawn.
Our reason for doing so is that we believe VAT on postal services, especially in respect of securing a universal service for packages below two kilogrammes, is a matter best left to national governments under the principle of subsidiarity.
However, we remain open to considering future proposals aimed at ensuring greater competition.
   . In the present European context, especially with regard to the problems raised by taxation and indirect taxation in particular, I cannot accept the Commission’s proposal to remove the VAT exemption for postal services.
How can such a proposal be made, knowing that the 1977 sixth directive has still not been updated, that the problems of harmonising VAT rates persist, and that an impact assessment has still not been made of liberalisation in the postal sector? Regardless of the matter of VAT liability, how are we to believe in healthy competition to the sole benefit of users in the Member States when the Commission proposes an optional reduced rate for conventional postal services, which can only highlight the technical problems relating to weight and the disparities in rates between Member States.
Once again, the Commission is putting the cart before the horse and trying to persuade us by autosuggestion. Well, we are not stupid and we reject this text.
(2)
   Mr President, at the start of the part-session yesterday, I wanted to make a proposal and I asked for the floor.
However, I was not given it due to a lack of time.
I wish to make that proposal now.
Would that be possible?
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0473/2003) by Mr Mulder and Mrs Gill, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the year 2004 as modified by the Council (all sections)
(11357/2003 C5-0600/2003 2003/2001(BUD) 2003/2002(BUD))
and Letters of Amendment Nos 1, 2 and 3/2004
(14837/2003 C5-0570/2003, 14838/2003 C5-0571/2003, 14839/2003 C5-0572/2003)
to the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2004
Section I European Parliament
Section II – Council
Section III – Commission
Section IV Court of Justice
Section V Court of Auditors
Section VI Economic and Social Committee
Section VII Committee of the Regions
Section VIII(A) European Ombudsman
Section VII(B) European Data Protection Supervisor
   – Mr President, I should, in turn, like to congratulate Mr Mulder on the result of all his efforts: a well-balanced budget which reflects the largest possible consensus in our Parliament.
Nevertheless, as rapporteur for the budget of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, I am left with a somewhat unpleasant feeling.
After all, it has become a constant during the annual budget negotiations that in terms of foreign policy, all kinds of new pledges are made, as a result of which cuts have to be made elsewhere, which I regret.
Indeed, how can the European Union be a credible and effective player on the world stage if we get Latin America and Africa to pay for Iraq’s reconstruction? EU Member States often tend to make big promises, but then forget them when it comes to putting their money where their mouths are.
This is why I am pleased that the Committee on Budgets has backed my main amendment, in which it is clearly stipulated that new future commitments can only be funded if these are met by new additional financial resources.
Commissioner Schreyer was right to note that the actual extent of expenses still remains under the statutory ceiling of 1.24% of the EU’s GDP, so I see it as extremely significant that the Committee on Budgets accepted the proposal to set aside a substantial part of the EU budget’s margin, namely EUR 16.5 billion for external EU policy.
After all, anyone who has ambitions on the world stage not only requires one voice but also more funding.
If we fail to succeed in this, we will be excluded from the negotiating table through nobody’s fault but our own – which is often the case as it is – and will afterwards be presented with the bill for international crises without being able to influence the decisions made.
   ) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like raise a couple of points in connection with the adoption of the 2004 budget today.
Firstly, as I recall, this Commission pledged, when it came to office, to carry out reforms and equip the European Union and the European Commission with the capacity to act for the future and make them less vulnerable to fraud.
The 2004 budget will be your last budget, Commissioner, and it is not yet apparent that all the reforms have been completed satisfactorily.
That is why I hope we can agree to put the relevant items in the reserve so that you can finish the work.
We will gladly release the funds as soon as the relevant documents have been submitted to us.
I want to raise a second issue which I addressed in very clear terms in connection with the first reading, namely the issue of ‘Europe of the citizens’.
We fought for this, and I am very happy that an agreement has been reached with the Council and a legal framework has now been established for city partnerships that will help us to overcome all the problems and create legal certainty for the next three years.
It is undoubtedly a programme which can be extended.
However, I now hear that there is a solution for the Carrefours and Info-Points for 2004 but not beyond.
I do think it is rather worrying, especially after talks with the Info-Point in my home town, that there are obviously different budget lines from which the Info-Points can draw funding and that not all of them are affected by the problems relating to the new budget regulations.
Perhaps the Commission could check internally to see where the error lies.
I do not think that we can offload the problem on these agencies, which are performing outstanding service to the European Union by providing information to broad sections of the public.
Continuing our debate of this morning and in response to the Intergovernmental Conference of last weekend, I would like to make one thing very clear: it is quite pointless at present to mull over how much money the European Union will have at its disposal after 2006.
From this perspective, I can understand why the six governments sent their letter, if we do not yet know what the agenda for the European Union will be after 2006.
In my view, that is the first question which must be answered.
If an agenda is defined, adequate funds must be provided to carry it out.
It will not work if the Member States say: ‘That is the financial platform, but everything that I wish to achieve must be carried out anyway.’
We should use the time that the Heads of State or Government have given us to consider what the European agenda should be and how much money it will cost to fulfil – and this financial framework should then be made available.
That is the only rational approach when we come to discussing the financial period after 2006.
   Mr President, Commissioner, representative of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to begin by saying that, following the events of last weekend, and what has already been said here this afternoon, the main virtue of this 2004 budget, for an institutionally very complex year, is the mere fact that it exists at all.
The budget offers stability and confidence, key factors if enlargement is to be a success.
It is therefore essential that the Commission and national administrations respond effectively.
This Parliament has offered its support for the reform of the Commission and its request for posts, because we believe that the Union’s budget is synonymous with credibility, and there can be no credibility when in the last three financial years the average use of available payment appropriations stood at 85%, according to the European Court of Auditors.
The agreement between the Council and Parliament has once again been in the interests of the citizens.
Once again, Parliament has demonstrated flexibility in the negotiations, without relinquishing its political priorities.
The work of the rapporteurs, of the chairman of our committee, Mr Wynn, and of the Members who have participated, has been of great merit, because, amongst other things, the agreement allows us to maintain a level of spending which is in line with the efforts of the States to achieve a balance in their public accounts, to deal with the Union’s basic commitments in processes of institutional crisis – I would remind you that next May there will be a Latin American-European Union Summit, and it is important to stress that, from a budgetary point of view, the creation of a solidarity fund has also been promoted – and, finally, give value to Community policies which have, and will have in the future, a fundamental role.
I am talking, for example, about the financial support for programmes such as Argo, which is essential to the common management of migratory flows and the control of external borders, as well as the approval of a Community initiative in favour of the victims of terrorism, which, beyond the sums which have been directed towards them, demonstrate to the citizens that the Union is involved in the fight against terrorism in any of its forms.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the final speaker for my group before the rapporteur, I wish to pay tribute to the major consensus which we have achieved here.
However, I also have a number of critical comments concerning the manner in which the Group of the Party of European Socialists has liaised with the press during this budget procedure.
The basic question is this. Can the budget be used for political purposes?
Can we place items in the reserve in order to achieve political goals? We seem to be doing so in a wide variety of areas, Mr Walter.
We are doing so in Afghanistan, because we have said: ‘Various things that this House views as desirable are not happening in Afghanistan.
We have the impression that the Commission is downplaying the importance of combating the drugs trade.
Please supply us with the information about what you are doing, and then we will release the funds.’
Mrs Gill’s budget is full of reserves which we intend to use as a means to persuade the administration to take action and ensure that at least some progress is made.
In this respect, this budget is indeed an instrument for this House to signal its political goals.
We in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats adopted the same approach to the Vienna-based European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), when at the height of the debate – namely when the Centre refused for more than two weeks to publish a study on anti-Semitism which was then published by our fellow Member Mr Cohn-Bendit and others – we asked: ‘Why on earth are you getting EUR 6 million per year if you are not going to publish your reports?’ We were told: ‘You cannot suspend its funding.’
That was precisely what we did, although Mr Walter did not notice.
When he finally woke up, he issued press releases that said: ‘Mr Laschet has no expertise whatsoever.
The Committee on Budgets cannot do this.’
Mr Walter, I would have expected you to table a motion here today to retrieve the funds from the reserve.
After all, the plenary could have made that happen.
Just because you sleep through decisions that we take in the Committee on Budgets, it is unfair of you to go to the press and issue this kind of press release.
I will give you a shout at around 5 p.m. today, shall I? ‘Good morning, Mr Walter, the items have been put on ice, and the Committee on Budgets will only release them when the confusion between politics and academia at the EUMC has been resolved’.
You might like to mull over this simple piece of advice, Mr Walter, before you make such ridiculous statements again.
   – The 2004 Budget for an enlarged Europe is less than 1% of gross national income, the lowest since 1997.
Commitments are decreasing; payments are decreasing.
Structural funds, such as agricultural expenditure, are similarly decreasing.
Funds from Heading 4 allocated to foreign aid have been reduced to a bare minimum: aid to Latin America has also been cut by EUR 35 million.
There is great financial pressure on essential elements of EU policy, such as human rights or the duty to provide help to the most needy. Funds for development aid have been similarly hit by measures of devastating severity.
In such conditions, how can we seriously believe that poverty will be eradicated by 2015?
As for the question of funds for Iraq, it is not only a matter of finance.
The occupation must end immediately.
The Iraqi people need to recover their sovereignty as quickly as possible so that they themselves can identify their needs and arrange the means to satisfy those needs.
Recourse to the flexibility instrument will release EUR 95 million.
The solution proposed – to reduce funds from Heading 4 – is unacceptable.
This Budget does not meet the challenges that the EU must meet today for a fairer, more caring world.
   I do not know, Mr Ortuondo, whether it is really a supplementary question to mention the Pope.
But Mr Antonione is entitled to reply as he sees fit, but only if he wishes to do so.
   Mr Ortuondo and Mr Nogueira, I would ask you not to get into a general debate on Iraq, since we often discuss these matters in this House.
There is a clarification of what you asked.
What did Mr Nogueira ask?
   . – The Council is interested in the case of the Greek and Filipino seamen placed under house arrest in Pakistan and in the measures taken by the Pakistani authorities.
It considers that the request of the Pakistani Government regarding the detainees is groundless and unprecedented in international law.
Intensive negotiations are under way with the Pakistani authorities and various steps have been taken to support the Greek seamen, including via the head of the EU mission in Islamabad and during the recent visit to Brussels of the Pakistani Foreign Affairs Minister.
On 4 November 2003, the Council called on the Presidency of the Union, in Islamabad, to take urgent steps with a view to securing the immediate release of the persons concerned.
This initiative was taken on 9 December on the basis of a letter, which was the result of prior cooperation between the Greek and Italian authorities during a meeting in which the crew members’ lawyers also took part.
   No, no, I offered the floor to Mr Antonione, but he listened and gestured to me, in principle, that he is not going to reply.
If Mr Antonione wishes to answer – and I say this to him explicitly – at the request of the honourable Member, then he may do so.
Mr Antonione is entitled to reply with words or with gestures, as he sees fit.
   . – The right to enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is a fundamental right which is in line with the provisions of Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
That right is currently denied to more than one fifth of the world’s population.
The lack of health care and services, supplies and information and the spread of HIV and AIDS are jeopardising all attempts to eradicate poverty which, according to the Treaty, is the main objective of Community development policy, as confirmed in the joint declaration of the Council and Commission of 10 November 2000 and enshrined in the UN’s millennium development objectives.
Pursuant to Article 35 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, in defining and implementing all Union policies and activities, a high level of human health protection must be assured.
The European Community’s development policy with regard to sexual and reproductive health is based on the action programme of the UN International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in 1994 and on the key measures, known as ‘Cairo + 5’, adopted in 1999 by the UN XXI General Assembly.
Those programmes and key measures stipulate that reproductive health should cover: advice, information, education, communication and services in respect of family planning; education and services in respect of pre-natal care, safe childbirth and post-natal care, with particular reference to breast feeding and health care for the newly born child and mother; prevention of and appropriate treatment for sterility; prevention of abortions performed under dangerous conditions and appropriate treatment for complications caused by such abortions; treatment of infections of the reproductive organs, of sexually transmitted diseases and of other conditions affecting reproductive health; information, education and advice, where appropriate, in respect of human sexuality, reproductive health and responsible parenting.
On 15 July 2003, the European Parliament and the Council adopted the regulation on aid for policies on reproductive and sexual health rights in developing countries.
That regulation aims to provide financial assistance and specific advice for the purpose of improving reproductive and sexual health in developing countries and guaranteeing observance of human rights.
Recital 16 clearly stipulates that the regulation prohibits the promotion of incentives in favour of sterilisation or abortion and that abortion should never be presented as a method of family planning.
It should be noted that, amongst the specific measures eligible for the Community’s financial support, Article 3 of the regulation includes the reduction in the number of abortions performed under dangerous conditions.
Within the framework of European Union policy concerning the promotion of human rights, fundamental freedoms, democratisation and the rule of law in third countries, Council Regulation No 975/1999 on development cooperation policy and Council Regulation No 976/1999 on Community operations other than those of development cooperation aim, , to make a technical and financial contribution to measures with the particular aim of promoting and safeguarding human rights and the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and of other international instruments concerning the development and consolidation of democracy and the rule of law.
Finally, as regards the last question, Recital 5 of the aforementioned Regulation No 1567/2003 provides as follows: ‘The Community and its Member States uphold the right of their individuals to decide freely on the number and spacing of their children; they condemn any violation of human rights in the form of compulsory abortion, compulsory sterilisation, infanticide, or the rejection, abandonment or abuse of unwanted children as a means of curbing population growth’.
   Does the Council believe that EU funding of organisations which provide abortion where legal, or which promote legislation for abortion where currently illegal, is compatible with the declaration by the World Medical Association's second assembly in Geneva in 1948, which calls for the utmost respect for human life, from the time of conception? Does the Council believe that the Republic of Ireland's budget for bilateral overseas aid, which commits almost more funds for reproductive health than for safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, is compatible with the European Union's commitment to improving the provision of basic health care in the developing world?
   – Mr President, this is not strictly speaking a supplementary question, but, with your permission, a very brief reminder of the Rules of Procedure, with reference to Rule 43.
Listening to the President-in-Office of the Council’s answers to Members of this House, it strikes me that they are extremely important and deserve to be heard by more of us.
Furthermore, Rule 43 calls this session ‘Question time to the Council and Commission’ and I believe it would be very useful – even though it is the Council, of course, that is deluged with such questions – if replies were given in the presence of a Commission representative. That way, by abiding more strictly by the letter of the Rules of Procedure, we would have a greater understanding of what the different institutions think of the questions put to them.
On 12 November, the parliament-appointed Greek National Radio and Television Council (ESR) decided to impose a fine of EUR 100 000 on the private television station Mega Channel for showing two men kissing in the popular late-night TV series 'Close your eyes'.
Mr Laskaridis, President of ESR, reportedly stated that 'there have been unacceptable and extreme dialogues which prepared a vulgar atmosphere and led to an event which might happen in the society but it is not usual.
It is a peculiarity which is out of the productive process of life'.
Demonstrations have followed in Athens, while the private TV station has announced that it will appeal to higher courts, and a petition was signed by all private TV stations calling for a rethink of the decision.
Does the Council not believe that this decision is contrary to Art. 6 TEU and to the European Convention on Human Rights? Will the Council express its concern to the Greek Government concerning the homophobic decision of the ESR?
   Mr Turco knows that the Council never passes political judgment on domestic issues in Member States; I believe, though, that however bureaucratic my answer, that it has to some extent given you an idea of what we are trying to do and how we are completing proceedings before deciding on any possible measures.
   The Council would like to stress its general disapproval of any situation in which human rights and respect for the individual are not adequately guaranteed.
As has already been stated in the answers to questions H-0544 to H-0549/03 from September’s Question Time, the Council is aware of the trial and imprisonment of five Cuban citizens who have been residents in Florida since 2001 and the concerns that have been voiced by human rights NGOs as regards their conditions of detention.
Nevertheless, the Council is not in a position to discuss the conditions of the trial.
As regards the position of Mr Hernández and Mr González, the treatment of the two Cuban prisoners and their families is an issue for bilateral resolution by the United States and Cuba, since protection of the rights and interests of third country citizens is, according to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the individual competence of each Member State concerned.
Furthermore, the Geneva Conventions are legal provisions which only govern the treatment of people captured during armed conflict, and not the treatment of civilians like these two people who have been detained on the grounds of alleged violations of criminal law.
As regards the more general issue of respect for human rights, the Council would stress that it is taking advantage of all meetings held at any level with third countries to spell out the need to guarantee and promote such respect.
In particular, the Council would like to stress that, in the Conclusions drawn up after its meeting in Brussels on 12 December 2003, it issued a declaration on transatlantic relations in which it insisted on the need for the European Union and its transatlantic partners to defend a common agenda based on the promotion of the rule of law, democracy and human rights.
In this case, however, the Council informs the honourable Members that the case of the Miami Five has not been discussed with the United States since this is a matter for bilateral resolution by the latter and Cuba.
   Mr President-in-Office of the Council, a short while ago, in reply to Question No 5, you told us that the Council considers that it has an obligation to get human rights respected throughout the world.
I assume that means from the Arctic to the Antarctic, with the United States of America located somewhere in between.
You also told us that the way in which it does so depends on the level of relations it has with the country in question.
Is the level of relations which the Council has with the United States of America such that it does not allow it to raise the issue of the human rights of these five prisoners with the government of the United States?
Or perhaps it has to do with the issue denounced in Question No 20 by Mr Patakis, in other words that the Council relies on the United States for the European Union's policy on Cuba and related issues?
   I believe that I have already replied to this question in my main answer.
All I can do is repeat what I said.
As regards the situation of Mr Hernández and Mr González, the treatment of the Cuban prisoners and their families is a matter for bilateral resolution by the United States and Cuba, since the protection of the rights and interests of citizens abroad is, according to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the individual competence of each Member State concerned.
I believe that the issue can be considered without a doubt, as I have said, to be among the matters that the two countries need to discuss and resolve bilaterally.
   The Council has repeatedly explained to Albania that correctly conducting municipal elections in a lawful manner is part of the process of the country’s with the European Union.
The serious failings demonstrated in the municipal elections of 12 October and 16 November 2003, in particular in Imara, can only harm further with the Union.
In this connection, Albania has been made fully aware of the fact that a constructive political climate and a policy of sustainable reforms remain crucial elements for progress in negotiations for the Stabilisation and Association Agreement and, therefore, for any further with the EU.
   The Council reminds the honourable Member that Member States’ representatives decided at a meeting of Heads of State or Government on 13 December to establish definitively the seat of the European Food Safety Authority in Parma.
On that occasion the seats of nine other agencies were also established.
   – Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, this question was put before the decisions of 13 December were known about, and I congratulate Italy on succeeding in acquiring this Food Safety Authority for itself.
Italy was the only country that did not agree that this agency should be located in Helsinki at the summit held two years or so ago, but now you have got it and you have my warmest congratulations.
Congratulations too on agreeing generally on the agencies package, because it seems reasonably balanced, and although you acquired the Food Safety Authority you had to distribute these agencies among other countries too.
   Within the framework of the political agreement achieved on reform of the CAP, the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, at a meeting last June in Luxembourg, decided to extend the derogation from certain measures implementing the system of quotas in the milk sector for the Azores up until the marketing year 2004/2005.
Furthermore, the Council allowed the said region an additional quota of 50 000 tonnes as from the marketing year 2005/2006.
In the meeting held in Brussels on 16 and 17 October 2003, the European Council invited the Council to examine the Commission proposal as soon as possible.
As has already been pointed out by the Presidency in the answer to question H-699/03 by the honourable Member in November 2003, the Council hopes that, in the session of December 2003, after it has received the European Parliament’s opinion, it will be able to adopt the regulation proposed by the Commission extending the derogation from certain provisions of the quota system for the Azores in the milk sector as of the marketing year 2004/2005, in order to make it easier for the milk sector in the said outermost region to adapt to the supplementary quota allowed by the Council.
The Council invites the honourable Member to contact the Commission for the information that he would like to see mentioned in the Council’s answer.
   Mr President, I thank the Presidency for the clarification it has given and I can also clarify to the Presidency that, today, in this House, the opinion of the European Parliament on this matter has been adopted and that the Council will, therefore, be in a position to take a decision.
I wish to emphasise, however, that this decision does not add a single litre of milk to the Azores’ milk quota and nor does it exempt any producer from fines.
This must be made clear and there should be no attempt to cloud an issue which is crucial to the economy and agriculture of the Azores.
The question I would like to ask you, however, Mr President, is whether, in this decision that you will be taking in December, you will uphold the principle of adapting the regional quota to the Azores’ self-sufficiency in milk and dairy products, as decided by the Nice Council in December 2000, since this is, I believe, a fundamental principle which, if upheld, could lead in future to the much-needed adaptation of the regional quota?
   Mr President, I am slightly out of order, I do not have a supplementary question.
I simply assume that, because the Greek language is difficult, the President-in-Office was unable to understand the interpretation of my previous question.
I understand him, some languages are difficult to comprehend and I therefore reserve the right to raise my supplementary question again as an oral question at the next part-session.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, my heartfelt thanks to the two rapporteurs.
The amendments improve the common position, but, as far as I am concerned, it is not necessary to wrap the pharmaceutical industry up in cotton wool any longer or any more.
At the start of the second reading, I put a number of questions regarding the new Member States on the table.
I shall not pursue these, as I fully agree with what my colleagues Mr Blokland and Mrs Jackson have said on this subject.
The second point is much more fundamental and concerns the manufacture of medicinal products for developing countries that are undergoing a serious health crisis.
In early December it became known that AIDS has claimed five million lives over the last five years.
This is a serious situation, but there is hope.
On 30 August, on the eve of the WTO Conference in Cancun, the United States, the EU and developing countries came to an agreement speeding up the enablement of the manufacture of generic medicinal products for developing countries.
It was not an enormous agreement, but it was a start nevertheless.
However, we must now put that into practice.
I cannot understand why the Council, the Commission and some fellow MEPs are not prepared to do what the European Union decided before the Cancun Conference.
The Commission seems to be of the opinion that this matter belongs with the Community patent and national patents legislation.
That does not seem to me to be an acceptable stance, because we do have data protection.
That is exactly what this legislation is about.
A minute ago, Commissioner, you asked me to name a specific medicinal product that cannot now be manufactured on account of data protection, and AZT is such a medicinal product.
Now, as it was at first reading, Parliament is prepared to get involved, and several resolutions have been adopted, for example the report by Mrs Sandbæk from the Committee on Development and Cooperation, which unanimously called for the Doha agreement to be implemented in this legislation.
Finally, I have two questions for you, Commissioner.
Firstly, you have just said that you are prepared to introduce, in the near future, the legislative measures enabling the implementation of the decision of 30 August.
When can we expect a proposal from you, and is it possible that that will take place in January? Secondly, I am assuming that products manufactured in the European Union are always authorised in the EU.
Are you now stating that the data protection in this legislation does not constitute the slightest obstacle to the manufacture of generic medicinal products for developing countries by European undertakings? If not, are you prepared to amend this legislation again if necessary?
   Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteurs.
The pharmaceutical review is important for EU citizens.
In this review we are not only encouraging research and innovation but we are also trying to get generic medicines on to the market more quickly.
This will cost the taxpayer less.
Considering that the drugs bill in the UK has gone up in the region of 30% in the last three years, it is no wonder that a sensible pharmaceutical compromise is necessary.
We have a compromise package on offer: either Parliament accepts a compromise or we go into a conciliation process in which we risk losing much of what Parliament has wanted.
I urge colleagues to back the compromise on offer.
As one of the movers of the original amendments, I warmly welcome the introduction of Braille on the information packaging that patients receive.
Product names will appear in Braille form on the packaging and a full information text will be available in a range of formats, including Braille, on request.
I would have preferred more, but I accept the compromise as a step in the right direction in giving access to information to blind and partially sighted people.
This is a balanced piece of legislation and one which I feel happy to support.
I hope that colleagues will support the compromise.
   Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on a point of order? I would appreciate it if you would tell me under which Rule you are requesting a point of order.
   Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, you know that this is not a point of order.
It is a political position.
   Mrs Corbey, this is not a point of order.
I cannot reopen the discussion on this matter.
I understand, but I cannot reopen a discussion that has already taken up so much time.
You do not have a point of order.
   Mr President, mine is as much a point of order as the last two were.
I asked two specific questions on the Human Medicines Directive, particularly on the definition of a medicinal product, and recital 7 on the legality of it.
Maybe those two specific questions could be answered by the Commissioner.
They are important.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (Α5-0452/2003), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on traditional herbal medicinal products (12754/1/2003 C5-0519/2003 2002/0008(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Nistico).
   – The next item is the recommendation for second reading (Α5-0458/2003), on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on measuring instruments (9681/4/2003 – C5-0417/2003 – 2000/0233(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Chichester).
   – Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as you can see from this Chamber, the feeling is unanimous: after 25 years, it is time for the European Parliament and the Members of this Parliament to have a single Statute or a single set of rules. Furthermore, after 25 years, it may well also decide on our place of work.
Perhaps unlike my colleagues, however, I personally think that it is just fine.
There is a genuine problem: public opinion is focusing on us and this system is not working.
Of course, I find the word ‘Statute’ a bit pompous.
The basic idea was to incorporate into the Statute a genuine charter for MEPs, which would also include the prerogatives of MEPs, a common package that would have given a meaning to the word ‘statute’.
If we want the extremely important system of financial provisions for MEPs to progress, let us call it by its name.
We should, however, reserve the word ‘statute’ for a time when, like national parliamentarians, we have common rules for the other issues that had also been incorporated – and which today have to be removed, or we imagine they will have to be removed, for a whole series of reasons – but which remain fundamental.
Our statute will only be valid when we have provided for prerogatives and functions and for effective equal status with national Members of Parliament, as, for example, in Italy, where MPs can visit prisons whenever they wish.
This seems to me to be the correct meaning of the ‘Members’ Statute’.
   Mr President, today we have a chance to remove the barriers which have held back meaningful discussion on the whole question of the Statute of Members.
If we can make progress on the Statute, then we can tackle the thorny question of our own expenses.
Because of the covert way in which we MEPs are paid expenses, we have left ourselves wide open to criticism.
The Statute and the reform of the expenses are inextricably linked; they go hand in hand, as Mr Rothley clearly pointed out.
Therefore, while we are asking the Council to make progress on the Statute, I am asking Parliament to make progress on reform of the expenses scheme because, if we bring in a system that is clear, unambiguous and fair as regards our expenses, then we can face the electorate with confidence again next June.
   The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the role of the Union in conflict prevention in Africa, particularly in the implementation of the Linas-Marcoussis Agreement in Côte d'Ivoire.
   . – In my capacity as rapporteur, I would like to make a brief statement for the benefit of Members.
Today, we are voting on the compromise package on medicinal products legislation, a compromise influenced by a lot of different ideas from this House.
I therefore ask Members to support Blocks 1, 2 and 3, but not under any circumstances Block 4 or parts thereof.
If even only one amendment from Block 4 is adopted, we will have to go to conciliation, and it will not be possible to adopt the Common Position today; hence my appeal to you.
The package we have put together with the Council is a good one, so please support the compromise.
   Mr President, thank you for having given me the floor now because, in actual fact, the three reports on which we are to vote constitute a package.
With my fellow MEP, Mrs Müller, we have managed to obtain very sound compromises, thanks to which we are making very significant progress where pharmaceutical legislation is concerned.
I should like to join Mrs Müller in saying that it is vital for us to vote in favour of the compromises as presented and not to vote in favour of the amendments that were not the subjects of these compromises.
Any vote in favour of an amendment that is not a part of these compromises would bring into question the compromises at which we have arrived in conjunction with the Italian Presidency.
I should really like to make it clear to our fellow MEPs that they should vote in favour of the compromises and not in favour of the other amendments that do not form a part of these.
   . Mr President, I should like to report to the House that, following the debate last night and discussions with the presidency, in the spirit of compromise reflecting our work on this portfolio, I am mandated by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy to withdraw Amendments Nos 3 and 11.
On that basis, I understand that the Commission is in full support of all the amendments and the presidency has indicated its support.
Therefore, I urge colleagues to vote for the rest.
Block No 1 will effectively subsume three other amendments.
   Mr President, my Group asked me to give an explanation on its behalf.
Simply and briefly it is a point which concerns paragraph 2(b).
As I said in the debate in the morning, we are very strongly in favour of reform of the Protocol concerning Privileges and Immunities.
The existing rules relating to privileges and immunities are unsatisfactory.
However, as we said in the debate leading up to the decision on 3 and 4 June, the text that was approved then is unduly extensive in the privileges and immunities it prescribes.
So we voted against paragraph 2(b), not because we oppose reform but because it is too generous a model for reform.
   I do not know what has gone wrong in the Verts/ALE Group, but the Rules of Procedure state very clearly that you are supposed to give notice of explanations of vote.
However, Mrs McKenna, I will take your explanation of vote.
   We would emphasise the importance of our finally getting closer to obtaining a Members’ Statute that would mean the end of the system of covert compensation that has so far existed in Parliament.
We welcome a system through which actual travel expenses are reimbursed.
A system involving one salary – even if this is higher than many MEPs’ present salaries – is better because it is an open system which can be scrutinised and assessed by the electorate.
Despite this basic approach, we now wish to make it clear that we consider the salary level recommended by Parliament’s report from June 2003 to be too high and that we shall continue to press our government to argue in the Council for a more sensible salary level.
   .
I am convinced that the Members’ Statute, demanded so vehemently by this House, is yet another indication of the failure of the Italian Presidency of the Council.
The chosen solution to the issue of the taxation of MEPs’ salaries is botched and temporary, but, above all, there are no rules on the legal status of MEPs.
Under no circumstances can I vote in its favour while the issue of immunity remains unresolved, nor can I accept the curtailment of rights that guarantee the exercise of an independent mandate, such as are accorded to our counterparts in the national and regional parliaments.
I therefore no longer have any confidence in the Council’s will, at the present time, to bring about a single statute for MEPs, and, for that reason, I vote against the resolution RC B5-543-/2003.
   . – The introduction of astatute for the Membersof the European Parliament has been advocated for years now as a miracle cure for self-enrichment of MEPs.
Instead of enabling Members to increase their income substantially by means of excessive benefits that are not recorded by the national tax administrations, it would make a clear-cut distinction between income and the expenses actually incurred.
At the same time, it would bring to an end the equality of pay between MEPs and the members of national parliaments in their country.
I actually agree with that equality of pay, although it does lead to extreme differences in income among MEPs in practice and is therefore seen as encouraging fraud.
The lowest-paid make up for their deficiency, and the highest-paid willingly cash in too.
Consequently, I have always supported the endeavours to bring about such a statute.
However, earlier votes revealed that no majority support for this could be obtained without tax cuts and enormous salary increases for MEPs from a large number of Member States, including my own country, the Netherlands.
The current proposal is based on the resolution of 3 June 2003, which I voted against for that reason.
It does make some concessions to the Council’s objections, especially on national taxation, but these do not improve the proposal sufficiently to enable a ‘yes’ vote at present.
   . – The compromise is a step forward for the competitiveness of the pharmaceutical industry, the knowledge-based economy and the availability of medicinal products in the EU.
Dossier protection for pharmaceutical products in the EU varies from six to ten years.
The result is that the supply and price of medicinal products varies considerably among the Member States.
The ‘8 + 2 + 1’ compromise involves eight years’ dossier protection, plus two years for generic medicinal products, to put the dossier in order, followed by market access, and then one year’s extra protection for the innovative industry if a medicinal product also has a therapeutic effect for other illnesses; and results in greater price competition, an improved supply of medicinal products and a boost to the knowledge-based economy.
The Council has failed by omitting to include homeopathic medicinal products in the compromise package.
As a result, these medicinal products remain a legal grey area, and homeopathic medicinal products will continue to circulate illegally on the market.
I therefore call on the European Commission to present a proposal as quickly as possible regulating the registration of homeopathic medicinal products at European level; only then will the European market in medicinal products be complete.
Homeopathic medicinal products represent an important alternative for many people.
I, too, rank among those who have a great deal of confidence in the therapeutic effects of these medicinal products.
   . – From the very outset, the joint resolution adopts a paternalistic tone in its assessment that the conflict in Côte d'Ivoire ‘cannot be attributed solely to the ethnic factor’ – which, in any case, attaches value to the factor in question.
Is it not, though, the neo-liberalisation of the Ivorian economy, the reduced prices for raw materials and the consequent impoverishment of the people, the way in which multinational companies openly set Ivorian neo-colonial factions against each other, that have enabled speeches about ‘’ to find an audience, and facilitated ?
The joint resolution has nothing to say about the need to withdraw the French peacekeeping troops; the historic links between the army, French businesses, and the political class in Côte d'Ivoire and the neighbouring states mean that the French army and foreign office cannot be regarded as neutral, so the involvement of other actors needs to be encouraged.
This at once weakens many of the points in the Linas-Marcoussis agreement.
The best policy for preventing conflicts is to eradicate their causes, and, in this instance, those who started the fires are no good at putting them out.
There is a need to get away from the profoundly anti-democratic, neo-colonialist way of thinking in order to move towards another form of cooperation between Europe and Africa.
I therefore abstained from voting on a resolution that does not get to grips with these problems.
(4)
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0435/2003) by Mrs Sommer, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the widespread introduction and interoperability of electronic road toll systems in the Community [COM(2003) 132 – C5-0190/2003 – 2003/0081(COD)].
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, having removed the structural defect in the Commission proposal, by which I mean the requirement that systems be interoperable before they are abolished, the report points in a direction with which we can all agree, and for that thanks are due to the rapporteur.
Our essential need is for a toll system that is compatible right across Europe and built to a standard that will last into the future.
Europe has, since the 1990s, seen the introduction of a multitude of different toll systems, all stitched together in a patchwork, and there would be many more patches were it not for this directive.
The directive is intended to make it possible, in future, to get right across Europe with one technological item and one contract, and what that means is that the systems will have to be compatible by 2007.
Looking further ahead, it recommends the introduction of a satellite-based toll system and, at the same time, calls on the Commission to submit, by 2009, a strategy for the conversion of the services.
That was what our group had demanded, and I am glad that we have the rapporteur’s backing in this.
Why are we recommending a satellite-based toll system? We do so because it has the potential to add value to our transport policy.
If I might use a rather laboured analogy, I do not buy a typewriter and then a computer if I am going to be putting my documents on the Internet.
A satellite-based toll system also promises more for the future, firstly, because it can – provided that the political will is present – provide comprehensive and cross-border coverage of vehicles, and, secondly, because – as my colleague Mr Swoboda said – it provides a basis on which future traffic flows can be directed and on which different modes of transport can be logistically interlinked.
Thirdly, it will be possible to use it in combination with mobile communications technology as a means towards introducing other services, such as, for example, rapid help in the event of accidents, local hazard warnings and the tracking of dangerous goods, to name but a few.
Perhaps the Commission should have put greater emphasis on these technical considerations.
I would be happy if we could complete this directive within the life of this Parliament; after first reading would be best of all.
   The next item is the report (A5-0475/2003) by Mr Paolo Costa on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council regulation establishing a transitional points system applicable to heavy goods vehicles travelling through Austria for 2004 within the framework of a sustainable transport policy (PE-CONS 3689/2003 – C5-0562/2003 – 2001/0310(COD)).
Let me point out to you, Mr Martin, that I am obliged by Rule 123 of the Rules of Procedure to call you to order.
I will also point out to you that, should you repeat your actions and thus oblige me to do so again, a note will be made to that effect in the Minutes of the sitting.
If this warning is of no effect, then I will, with regret, have to order you from the Chamber, so I ask you to desist from your disorderly conduct.
   Mr Martin, that is of course a matter for your group alone, and has nothing to do with this House.
Where that is concerned, you will have to call your group’s management to order.
   – Mr President, it was not easy to reach agreement on the ecopoints.
I should like to thank my fellow MEP, Mr Costa, for his efforts in this area and also his predecessor as Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, Mr Caveri, who has also worked hard on this.
Indeed, a great deal of energy went into striking a compromise and into changing the transitional system that was put in place upon Austria’s accession, to a more general system.
No matter how much I appreciate Austria’s specific problems and the way in which that country is trying to find an answer to them, I do believe that it is impossible for any one Member State to have a permanent derogation in this field.
It is clear, though, that there should be a balance between general environmental problems and the geographic situation in Austria on the one hand, and the free movement of goods, on the other.
I do not believe that the balance between those two elements is easy.
We could peddle very fine theories on this subject, but in practice, after all, tough decisions sometimes need to be taken.
I think it extremely important that we should also take a long-term view and try to draft a regulation for traffic across the Alps in general.
We should also examine this problem in the context of the Cocilovo report on the Eurovignette.
In any case, we regard the agreement that was reached in conciliation as an acceptable one.
My group will endorse it.
I am slightly worried, though, by the statements that the Austrian minister made following conciliation.
I think that statements of that kind are more likely to complicate matters than to contribute to a solution.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, why was it so difficult to reach an agreement? Because we were faced with the task of finding a solution for a country that has not itself played a constructive part in the process.
We have known what Austria does not want since the first reading here in the European Parliament on the Council decisions.
To this day I do not know what Austria does want.
I only know that again they do not want the compromise.
So I ask for your understanding when I say that we have dealt with the matter quite seriously.
How can we find a continuation of the ecopoint system that does justice to Austria’s legitimate interests if Austria does not take part in the decision-making process? I can only say that I and my group agree with this compromise, even if the newspapers and the Parliament’s Minutes and press releases said I voted against it – I only voted against the number of points because I thought 6.9 million was rather too low.
The Commission also had other calculations, but I was unable to get my way in the parliamentary delegation.
I am therefore naturally for the compromise that was reached.
When Mr Swoboda says we succeeded in introducing modern technology into Europe, he is right except for one country.
I would like to reiterate that here at this point: because of the ecopoint system the lorries on the roads in southern Germany and northern Italy are more modern than the ones the Republic of Austria itself has licensed in its own country because it does not use the ecopoint system.
Austria could have set a good example here with national rules.
The directive on the introduction of Euro 3 and Euro 4 made provision for this, for using tax incentives to encourage modernisation of the HGV fleet.
Then much of what has been said to us so emotionally today would have been easier to believe.
I hope that the compromise will be given a large majority here tomorrow.
   . – Mr President, firstly, Mr Swoboda is correct to say that the system of ecopoints will benefit everybody, since it will speed up the modernisation of the lorry fleet; secondly, it is being maintained, although not in the way the honourable Member would like.
Therefore, because a system of ecopoints is being maintained, which means special protection for the whole of Austrian territory – which is very significant – I would ask the honourable Members to support this proposal, and remind them that in the codecision procedure it is not the Commission which negotiates or acts, but this Parliament and the Council.
The Commission's only capacity is to try to facilitate an agreement.
   The next item on the agenda is the report (A5-0464/2003) by Mr Lisi on behalf of the Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council regulation establishing common rules on compensation and assistance to passengers in the event of denied boarding and of cancellation or long delay of flights and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 295/91 (PE-CONS 3676/2003 – C5-0518/2003 – 2001/0305(COD)).
   . – Mr President, it is not realistic to expect perfection, but I believe that this is a step forward in terms of the protection of passengers’ rights and I hope that Parliament can support this initiative tomorrow.
I would like to thank all the Members who have worked on it, in particular the rapporteur, Mr Lisi, and Mrs Cederschiöld.
   The next item is Question Time (B5-0416/2003). The following questions are addressed to the Commission
   As the author is not present, Question No 27 lapses.
   I have just one question concerning the group of countries that will now be acceding on 1 May. Will you until 1 May still be the point of contact for any minority representatives in those accession countries who still wish to raise a concern before then?
Is that still within your field of competence? That is one question, and the second question is, who will be the point of contact in the Commission following accession?
   . – This question gives me an opportunity to make that clear because it is obvious that not everyone has understood it yet.
My competence for relations with the accession countries is complete and undivided up until 1 May 2004.
That therefore means that anything that still has to be discussed with those countries passes through me and if minority representatives want talks or if something still needs to be raised with the governments in this area I am naturally willing to do so.
Quite by chance, I met with the representatives of the German minority in Poland in Wroclaw only a few days ago.
So if there should be any concerns I am ready to do so.
After 1 May – after accession – the commissioners will be responsible for the areas of falling within their portfolios.
So in the matter of the protection of minorities I think my colleague Mr Vittorino will be taking over after 1 May 2004 and if I know him he will certainly be very committed to seeing that the rights of minorities are safeguarded everywhere.
   – As I understand it, Mrs McKenna’s political statement contains a question as to what I think of it.
It is one that I am happy to answer.
I agree with you, Mrs McKenna.
I agree with you except on one point: the European Union has never implemented sanctions against Austria.
This must be made very clear.
It was the Member States, acting as sovereign states, who introduced restrictions on bilateral relations.
The EU as such never imposed any sanctions on Austria.
Like you, I believe that we cannot allow double standards on human rights in the European Union.
This means that if we deal with a matter as a human rights issue, it will be treated as such across the board.
Consequently, if we identify human rights abuses relating to psychiatric treatment, we have to address the issue in all Member States, both new and old.
Obviously, this can still be done after accession, since the relevant Treaty provisions will remain in force – the provisions that refer to the need to obey and respect the fundamental values on which the European Union is built.
There is no doubt that these values include respect for human rights.
   Thank you very much for your cooperation this afternoon, Mr Verhaugen.
There is a point of order.
I would ask you to make sure it is a point of order, Mr Posselt, since we cannot debate political issues during Question Time.
   . – I am sure Mr Busquin would be more able to reply in more detail, but I shall make a general remark on how the Community research budget functions.
We do not fix issues of that sort beforehand: calls for tender are made, thematic priorities are set, assessments from independent experts are received.
On the basis of this evaluation, projects are selected.
The kind of breakdown you mention is not normally done in Community research projects, but I can forward your remarks to Commissioner Busquin.
   I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he could confirm that the moratorium on research into using embryonic stem cells is about to be lifted, and that the Commission will be prepared to consider, and potentially fund, applications for research involving embryonic stem cells on the basis of Parliament's resolution of 19 November 2003, which he mentioned.
   . – This is an extremely sensitive dossier, which my colleague Mr Busquin has handled with great sensitivity and expertise, so I will be very careful with my replies.
According to the prepared replies, there are two parts here.
I shall continue in French.
   . – In accordance with that moratorium, research is permitted only on human embryonic stem cells which have been stored in banks or isolated in the form of cultures.
This moratorium is equivalent to a policy agreement between the Council and the Commission and has no legal value.
It comes to an end on 31 December 2003 and after that, in the absence of any new legislative text, the Commission is legally obliged to implement the Sixth Framework Programme which authorises this kind of research.
It will do so, particularly since it has received a very strong political signal from Parliament, which is in favour of this type of research.
   – Commissioner, it is not only Parliament that is divided over this issue, but also the Council. There are even divergences in the criminal law provisions in different Member States.
Let me therefore ask once again: given that the Council cannot agree on this extremely important matter, and given that there is a blocking minority, can the Commission not decide to set the subject aside until the Council has reached agreement? That is my first question.
My second question is whether you know why Commissioner Busquin never takes part in question time debates on this subject.
It is not the first time this has happened.
   Perhaps this second question, Mr Posselt, should be communicated to Mr Busquin in any event.
   . – Mr Busquin is very strongly present in the European Parliament and all Community institutions.
I personally have witnessed a great number of debates on this particular issue in which he personally had invested a great deal.
I undertake to give the honourable Member a reply on this issue later on this week.
I want to ensure we are precise when we are talking about sensitive legal issues.
   Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mr Liikanen.
The implementation of the Coal Plan in 1998 has seen the Minero Siderúgica de Ponferrada SA (MSP) company receive millions of euros in subsidies, supposedly to create jobs and establish alternative industries.
Five years on, unemployment has soared (over 1500 jobs lost) and no industries have been established to compensate by creating new jobs.
The subsidies are supposed to allow MSP to achieve market competitiveness by 2005, and diversify the district’s economy.
However, what has actually happened is that the subsidies have been diverted to companies which contribute nothing to the local economy.
Virtually all underground mining operations have been closed down, so that a major part of coal production now comes from the opencast Fonfria and Feixolin mines.
These two mines, those finished and those which it is intended to open, mean the destruction of the Laciana Valley (an acknowledged World Biosphere Reserve, Special Bird Protection Area and Site of Community Interest).
If what is at stake is maintaining a ‘strategic coal reserve’ for emergencies, does the Commission not believe that it would be reasonable to leave easily accessible and exploitable coal seams untouched, the very seams being used for this opencast mining – and maintain the prerequisite underground coal mining for present needs, which is capable of generating employment?
   Mrs de Palacio, for months now I have sometimes had difficulty following your arguments, and that is still the case as regards your reply on the subject of coal.
You say that we should continue opencast mining in Europe because there is a supply problem.
There are no shortages on the world coal market.
There has been no fluctuation in prices for decades, and there has never been any pressure on Europe, which has no difficulty in obtaining coal.
This shows that you do not have any objective criteria.
The ‘percentage of imports’ criterion cannot be regarded as a threat to our security of supply.
We are much more seriously threatened by, for example, computer viruses.
To come back to this particular Spanish case, we have the impression that in the region concerned, Mr Victorino Alonso, who is the boss of the various undertakings, is misusing the money that Europe gives him, because he is using the money to improve the competitiveness of his undertakings, whereas it is money that ought to be used to preserve jobs in the region.
   Mr Turmes, I would ask you to put supplementary questions.
I have already said this today.
The Rules of Procedure provide for other opportunities for statements and debates.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that Mr Turmes is talking about something different, otherwise I do not understand.
The aid for coal is not European aid, because Europe gives nothing to , but it is aid from the Spanish national government, not from Europe.
The Commission and the European Union, at Community level, do not fund aid to the coal sector.
Mr Turmes must be talking about national aid received by that company within the framework of the restructuring plan for coal presented by Spain.
I would also say to Mr Turmes that the Commission has no record of the things you are talking about.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the lines mentioned in the oral question are part of the priority project no 8, multimodal axis Portugal-Spain-rest of Europe, included in the Commission’s Decision of 1996 on the Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network.
The growth initiative has also considered that the cross-border Vigo-Oporto line fulfilled the conditions for being included on the so-called ‘quick start list’ for which, as the honourable Members are aware, as well as being part of the trans-European networks, it must have a cross-border component and work on it must begin immediately, that is to say, in the next three years (2004-2006).
During the period 2000-2006 the Cohesion Fund is financing the Miño line, to the north of Oporto.
The decisions relating to the granting of total aid of EUR 87 million for the Nine-Braga-Lousada-Nine lines will be adopted in the coming days.
Since 1987, studies on the Galician Atlantic Ferrol-Portuguese border railway line have received Community aid, which in 2003 amounted to a total of almost EUR 6 million.
For the period 2004-2006 it is intended to allocate another EUR 5 million to fund studies on this rail axis, in response to a new request from the Spanish authorities.
With regard to the Spanish railway line between Ferrol and the Portuguese border, several technical studies have been completed and many are still in the process of being produced.
Work has already begun to the north of Vigo.
According to the information received from the national authorities – Portuguese and Spanish – the Vigo-La Coruña line is expected to enter into service in 2007 and the Vigo-Oporto link in 2009, and the La Coruña-Ferrol line, which would complete the section of the line in Spanish territory, would be ready and operational from 2010.
In its appeal concerning the implementation by Greece of Regulation (EEC) 3577/92(1) and in particular Article 3, paragraph 2, the Commission states that the right of the host state to regulate the manning of vessels carrying out cabotage is restricted to the deck and engine-room crew.
However in its reply to my question P-3616/97(2) it had adopted a completely different position: 'Article 3 of Regulation (EEC) 3577/92 dealing with manning covers all aspects relating to the crew (...)
In particular, when assessing the number of jobs involved in the passenger and ferry services and cruise activities, the cabin crew and catering personnel have been taken into account as part of the crew.'
Will the Commission say why and by what procedure it changed its position and no longer considers cabin crew and catering personnel as part of the crew covered by Article 3, paragraph 2, of the Regulation? Is it unaware of the safety problems which will be caused by the existence of mixed crews on passenger ships and car ferries, particularly in view of the tragic accidents that have occurred in the European Union, and does it assume responsibility for this?
Does it intend to support the principle of the 'host state' particularly with regard to cruise ships?
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0457/2003) from the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Council common position with a view to adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the promotion of cogeneration based on a useful heat demand in the internal energy market and amending Directive 92/42/EEC (10345/2/2003 – C5-0444/2003 – 2002/0185(COD)) (Rapporteur: Norbert Glante).
   – Mr President, to complete the picture, let me say that the Council sent a letter to the Secretariat and to me, so the formalities have been observed.
The Council has acknowledged our compromise.
I had an opportunity to speak yesterday about the report by Mr Chichester.
At that time we had not received any letter.
So we have made some progress.
I now want to make sure that it is clear to those concerned what CHP really means.
It means Christmas Holiday Package.
I think we all deserve a pat on the back, and I wish you a merry Christmas.
   The next item is the report (A5-0431/2003) by Jürgen Zimmerling, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council extending and amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1659/98 on decentralised cooperation (COM(2003) 413 – C5-0319/2003 – 2003/0156(COD)).
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are considering a regulation which expires at the end of the year.
The role of this report is to provide a successor.
We want to continue with the existing and worthwhile provisions in 2004-06, and in order for the legal basis to allow a seamless transition we want to try to succeed on the first reading, together with the Council and the Commission.
We seem to have been successful so far, in that all the amendments proposed today are, on the whole, very worthy of support.
We have sought to put the emphasis on the initiatives and stakeholders in the decentralised cooperation in the developing countries themselves rather than those in the European Union.
The wording of Amendment No 10 is now the result of a compromise proposed by Mr Sauquillo Pérez del Arco and myself, and now states, among other things, that independent establishments are also included.
We have adopted the wording used in Recital 11 on the status of churches and ideological groups in the Annex to the Treaty of Amsterdam to ensure that the ministers could accept it without any difficulties.
The Commissioner has already said that Amendment No 5 is the real sticking point.
Everything else has also been agreed in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Amendment No 5 provides for an increase from EUR 18 million to EUR 36 million.
I have to say that while obviously I would like to see such an increase, given the current situation I do not think this report and the new regulation are the appropriate place for demanding one.
It would undoubtedly mean – as the Council has made very clear – that no solution would be agreed at first reading.
For that reason, I would prefer to stick with the EUR 18 million, as per the proposal, and then set a higher figure in the new negotiations for 2007 onwards.
   ,. – Decentralised cooperation is a form of intervention that complements the EU’s development policy. Its main aim is to improve the quality of aid and to create conditions for the undertaking of further action and cooperation.
Its main characteristic should not therefore be the amount of funding.
The development, moreover, of the legislative framework does not appear to have resulted so far in a greater take-up of appropriations, while the financial reference amount in the European Commission's proposal for 2004-2006 makes provision for an average annual sum which is higher than that of the previous period of application of the action and which, in my opinion, corresponds to the objective set.
I agree with the objectives and the need to continue the action. In addition, the size of the aid and its experimental character impose a flexible procedure in order to optimise its efficiency.
However, it is understandable that action by these agencies and the management of Community funds on their part should be characterised by transparency and honest financial management.
Finally, I should like to point out the dynamic character of this form of cooperation. It is important for the annual evaluation of the action not to be limited to a quantitative presentation of the actions funded, but also to include a qualitative evaluation of the cooperation so as to reveal the trends taking shape for coming years.
   The next item is the report (A5-0447/2003) by Olga Zrihen, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on promoting gender equality in development cooperation (COM(2003) 465 – C5-0367/2003 – 2003/0176(COD)).
   – Mr President, Commissioner, Article 3 of the Treaty sets out the European Community’s desire to ban all forms of inequality and to promote equality between men and women.
The Council has mentioned gender equality as the basis for development cooperation.
In Beijing, a 10-point action programme on this has been adopted and has been signed by all countries.
The situation still leaves a great deal to be desired, not least in the area of development cooperation.
Of the approximately 1.5 billion people who live under the poverty line, 70% are women.
Not only are they lacking financial resources, but also, in most cases they have to go without social rights, such as the right to proper food, drinking water, education, health care and fundamental human rights.
Since the Council has defined gender mainstreaming as the guiding principle for development cooperation policy, disappointingly little has actually happened.
That is why I welcome the action programme.
It should give gender equality in development cooperation policy an extra shot in the arm.
Reference has already been made, in this House’s debates and documents, to the link between poverty and gender inequality.
The countries where there is great inequality between men and women are also the poorest.
There is less poverty in countries where inequality between men and women is not so pronounced.
The success rate of development projects in the fields of health care, literacy schemes and agriculture, for example, appears higher if women are involved.
Investing in girls appears to lead to lower child mortality and mortality among women, offers higher food safety and means an improvement in the fight against poverty.
This is not, unfortunately, common knowledge, and so I was pleased with the publication of research by UNICEF on 11 December last, which clearly underlined this.
The report, in fact, states that without measures to get more girls into schools, it will be impossible to achieve the millennium objectives.
It is apparent that more girls attending school not only benefits them, but also boys and their countries.
The report describes that gender discrimination stops developments in their tracks.
The report also describes that, barring a few exceptions, the industrialised countries and international financial institutions have failed to make good their own promises.
Hence my support for the action programme which aims to promote analysis and integration of the gender aspect in the priority areas of Community development cooperation, horizontal integration of the gender aspect in projects and programmes, and the advancement of gender capacity in the European Community itself.
These are three important points, particularly the last one: a change of mentality is needed, not least in the bodies of the European Union itself.
In the light of the urgency and opportunities, I am backing the amendment to increase the budget from EUR 9 million to EUR 11 million.
I sincerely hope that the Commission will be able to agree to this.
   . – Mr President, not with pleasure but with some regret, I will start by saying that Mrs McKenna's choice of language is disappointing.
I do not accept that the Commission is male-dominated.
This is outside the scope of how we work professionally in this field.
This is not nice, and it is also factually wrong.
We do things in this area which are not normally or not always labelled as gender activity.
We are engaged in land reform issues and changing legislation in many countries without describing this as gender action.
However, it is extremely important to devise modern legislation that creates equal rights on land ownership and, for a country like Kenya which decided to go for free primary education in one big step, to provide budget support that makes it possible for girls to benefit from that opening.
The budget support of EUR 50 million for Kenya was not labelled gender support but, in reality, this is hard-core, big-money, gender-relevant policies.
This is mainstreaming.
I must insist that this is where the big battle is being fought.
I could understand the discussion here if this was about the distinction between 9 and 200 million euros, rather than about the distinction between 9 and 11 million euros.
Then I would see some sort of logic in what has been said here tonight.
But the budget line on this specific activity is a catalyst for moving forward good new ideas, innovative approaches, etc., to inspire the more general work on mainstreaming.
That is why it is a mistake to move the money level as such up and down.
I would very much regret it if Parliament did not act on this issue in a manner that will create a smooth and rapid decision-making process.
It is a mistake to think that the attitude and the sincerity of the fight for gender equality is reflected in a choice between 9 or 11 million euros.
We must be judged by our general work and we are relatively confident of that judgement.
   The next item is the report (A5-0465/2003) by Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the coexistence of genetically modified crops and conventional and organic crops (2003/2098(INI)).
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, nearly six months have passed since the question of coexistence last played a leading role in this House.
Back then we were discussing the regulation on genetically modified food and feed.
I was the rapporteur, and we had to battle with the Commission and certain Member States in order to secure the flexibility in the form of Article 26a.
We were successful, and I congratulate Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, whose own-initiative report on the subject sends another important political signal from this House.
I think it is incredibly important that we now call on the Member States to make use of and give shape to that flexibility which we in Parliament fought for on their behalf.
However, I also agree with Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf that it will be necessary to establish European regulations on coexistence.
I do not understand how the Commission can say it is able to authorise this centrally, and has the competence to do so, when it does not know the answers to the questions raised by coexistence.
Another reason that I think Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf’s own-initiative report is incredibly important is that very soon there will be a vote on the Seed Directive under the comitology procedure, which, unfortunately, leaves Parliament out of it.
I also think that the section in which we state that the pollution value for seeds is determined by the proximity value is extremely important.
We should not reproach ourselves: the threshold value we agreed – 0.9% – is very hard to maintain, even if we do not require absolute seed purity.
Consequently I hope that tomorrow this House will be able to send this important political signal.
   Mr President, I have added two amendments to the report.
These would entail the Member States being instructed (paragraph 7 a [new]) or recommended (paragraph 7 b [new]) to introduce a levy on GMO seed and GMO feed.
The revenue would cover day-to-day administration and the testing of farmers’ organically farmed and non-GMO conventional land. The revenue would also compensate for damage caused by GMO pollution which occurs despite correct practice on the part of GMO farmers.
I would emphasise that the damage occurring despite correct practice must also be covered by the polluter and not by the public authorities via taxes paid by innocent citizens.
It must, however, be possible for a Member State to be exempted if a decision to that effect is taken at a public national parliamentary sitting in the Member State concerned and is presented by the Head of Government to an EU Council meeting.
In this way, the Member States’ sovereignty would be guaranteed, at the same time as its being possible for a grassroots-based environmental campaign to achieve results across borders.
   The next item is the report (A5-0459/2003) by Struan Stevenson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of an agreement in the form of an exchange of letters extending to the period 1 July 2003 to 30 June 2004 the validity of the protocol setting fishing opportunities and a financial contribution as provided for in the agreement between the European Economic Community and the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire on fishing off the coast of Côte d'Ivoire (COM(2003) 556 – C5-0458/2003 – 2003/0219(CNS)).
(1)
   Mr Miller, although my initial suspicion is that all this has nothing to do with the agenda, I can quite understand your desire to see it in the Minutes, so that is where it now is.
   The next item is the report (A5-0451/2003) by Mrs Aaltonen on behalf of the Committee on Petitions on petition 842/2001 concerning the effects of discriminatory treatment afforded to persons with Multiple Sclerosis, within the European Union (2003/2173 (INI)).
   . Mr President, I wish to join with others in congratulating Louise McVay for a tremendous achievement in bringing this issue this far, and my thanks for excellent cooperation to our rapporteur, Mrs Aaltonen.
Indeed, I pay credit to Louise's local constituency MEPs, Mrs Read and Mr Whitehead, who have followed this through the parliamentary process.
This debate, resolution and report is a historic landmark for 400 000 people with multiple sclerosis in Europe. It will lead to concrete action.
Just as resolutions of this Parliament on the rights of people with autism and on the recognition of sign language for deaf people have meant real achievements, I believe that will be true from today onwards for people with multiple sclerosis.
I am very pleased that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has produced an opinion to contribute its authorship to this report, because within seven years, 50% of people with multiple sclerosis lose their jobs, even though they want to work and are capable of working.
This is not just about access to appropriate health care, it is the fact that getting access to that health care could make a huge difference to people's working, social and personal lives.
I would like to thank the Multiple Sclerosis Society of the United Kingdom.
Sarah Philips, its chair, is also with us in the public gallery.
Because of their campaigning, a new scheme was introduced in 2002, which means that 3 000 more people with multiple sclerosis now benefit from the latest and most effective treatments in the United Kingdom, my own Member State.
It is truly an achievement of disabled people working and campaigning together, and one that we, in common with our colleagues in the European Multiple Sclerosis Platform, want to see spread throughout Europe.
We talk about people suffering from MS. I understand why we use that language.
But we do not want disabled people to be seen as victims, we want them to be seen as achievers like Louise McVay, whose achievements we celebrate in this European Year of Disabled People.
   Mr President, I would like to add my congratulations to the rapporteur and most especially to the petitioner, Louise McVay, on her initiative and determination in getting this matter to the European Parliament.
It takes resolve to get a matter on the floor of the European Parliament, and for someone suffering from the ravages of this disease, it shows outstanding strength of will.
I am also pleased that it is the European Parliament's petitions procedure that has enabled that to happen.
Allow me to tell a personal story.
About ten years ago, my sister-in-law, married to my twin brother, invited me to their home for the weekend.
She asked me to look at my twin brother.
He did not appear to be standing quite correctly – something was wrong with his balance.
She said that it was my job to convince him to go to a doctor.
I did that job and the early stages of MS were first of all diagnosed.
That subsequently was proven not to be the case: he had a related disease, called ataxia nervosa.
Like MS, it attacks the mobility of the patient, not the thinking part of the brain at all.
In two horrible years he was confined to a wheelchair and finally the disease killed him.
In one respect he was very fortunate: he had a great employer.
I will name them: Shell UK.
They paid for treatment, a chauffeur to drive him to and from work and for a personal assistant to operate his computer and to push his wheelchair.
They had the sense, the decency and the foresight and, I suppose, the resources to treat a disabled person as a real person.
That is all that anybody asks and that is what this report asks.
I have told this story for two reasons.
Firstly, to remind all of us who are fit and active today that tomorrow we could find ourselves in a wheelchair.
If that happens as a result of an accident, often compensation is paid.
If it happens as a result of disease, there is no insurance or compensation and you are in the hands of society – people like you and me.
Secondly, for some diseases there is no treatment – or it is only patchily available – and there is very limited research.
Further research is needed and we must be prepared to encourage and support that research as requested in this report.
Louise is right: if there is therapy that helps, for example beta interferons, then it must be made available to all sufferers.
I am particularly grateful to the rapporteur for putting forward the oral amendments that would allow the pressure from this petition to be used to help not just the hundreds of thousands of sufferers from multiple sclerosis, but also sufferers from other similar mobility-impairment and neuro-degenerative diseases, who need help too.
We must learn from each other and we must learn to help Louise and the hundreds of thousands like her.
   The next item is the Commission’s statement on the World Summit on the Information Society (first phase: Geneva, 10-12 December 2003).
   I would like to make a point of order: this was a debate without a text, but in actual fact there is a text, a text which raises the issue of the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, and presents the fact that it is taking place in Tunisia as an opportunity, not as a sign of the end of the information society.
The text is not the text that could have been debated in the plenary if the groups had wanted it to be: it is the text of a written statement on the need to make the second phase of the Summit an opportunity to promote freedom and democracy, a statement signed by Mr Cohn-Bendit and myself, and I invite every Member to sign it.
   . The World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva has barely featured on the European Parliament’s agenda beyond the insider interests of a small number of Members.
Unfortunately, as a result, Parliament and, indeed, the other institutions were hardly represented – beyond the official statements by the Member States and the Commission – as active participants.
The evaluation of the Geneva Summit and the ensuing implementation measures must now be geared towards the second phase of the Summit in Tunis in November 2005.
For the first time at one of the major UN conferences, civil society groups were included as partners, and this proved very beneficial.
The presentation by the developing countries, with multifaceted initiatives to overcome the digital divide, was impressive.
Surprisingly, the ACP Council of Ministers produced an ACP/EU common position for signature.
The basis for an implementation strategy, which I called for in my 2001 general report and which is long overdue, and which must focus on the social benefits for all sections of the population, has therefore finally been established.
This must include the right to freedom of opinion.
The Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action must be evaluated by the Commission and Parliament in terms of their implementability.
At the same time, the remaining contentious issues must be resolved before Tunis, including how the Digital Solidarity Fund demanded by Senegal can developed in a sensible way.
   –I would inform you that, as of today, 18 December 2003, Written Statement No 17/2003submitted by Mr Stevenson, Mr van de Bos, Mrs Maes, Mr Papayannakis and Mr Whitehead on a prohibition of trade in cat and dog furs has been signed by the majority of Parliament's component Members and will therefore, in accordance with Rule 51(4), be forwarded to its addressee and published, together with the names of the signatories, in the Minutes of this sitting.
   . Mr President, first of all I would like to clarify for our colleagues from the future new Member States that we are voting today a budget of the EU of 15, which means that allocations we have voted for EU-10 in our first reading will be taken on board in the Amending Budget.
Some EU-10 figures have been modified as a result of the conciliation, including an additional EUR 100 million in payments for the cohesion fund, compared to the amounts proposed by the Commission and the Council, that is Amendment 335 in block 1.
I also have some technical corrections and precisions to make.
Concerning Amendment 308 on OLAF, footnote 16 needs to be adjusted for the vote.
Instead of two temporary A3 posts for the Supervisory Committee, it should read 'two temporary A7 posts'.
On Amendment 378 concerning the Preparatory Action to support civil society in the new Member States, there should be a 'pm' entry instead of 'zero'.
Last but not least, Members should be aware that a technical adjustment will have to be done in accordance with the vote, so that Chapter XX is coherent with the vote taken on the different policy areas.
   . Mr President, President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, you have successfully concluded the 2004 budget procedure, and I would like to emphasise that this outcome is the result of excellent cooperation between the European institutions.
You have done your homework, and from a budgetary perspective, the preparations for enlargement are now complete.
Let me say this: outsiders might think, from the results of the 2004 budget, that the budget specialists are able to produce minor miracles.
However, it is not a miracle; it is the outcome of a great deal of good hard work.
This result was achieved thanks to the outstanding chairmanship of Mr Wynn and the excellent work by the rapporteurs, especially Mr Mulder and Mrs Gill.
The last budget in this parliamentary term is a real masterpiece.
On behalf of the Commission, thank you very much!
   For those colleagues who are not budget specialists, the payments in the budget for next year for the EU-15 total EUR 94.6 billion, and for the EU-25, EUR 99.7 billion.
In the light of the comments made, both by the Council and the Commission, I should like to remind the Council, in particular, why it is important not to interfere with the parliamentary prerogative in budget-making in the next IGC.
   . Mr President, honourable Members, this report demonstrates yet again that the European Parliament is willing and able to identify compromises.
We are concluding this matter at second reading.
I would have wished that the cooperation, especially with the Council, had been as good as on trade.
In these negotiations, the Council was a little less willing to compromise than in the other negotiations.
Nonetheless, we have achieved a result that we can rely on and that we can accept.
I would therefore ask my fellow Members to vote for the amendments in Block I, and I think that although one or two Members might feel uncomfortable about the outcome of the conciliation process, by and large, this report is acceptable.
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   Mr President, I do not share Mrs Sommer’s view that the preconditions for the internalisation of external costs should not be created in technical terms in this report.
If the PPE-DE Group does not accept this on principle, it should vote against it, but it should not use technical arguments as a pretext.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you to reject Amendment No 5 as this is the only way for us to ensure that the regulation will come into force immediately on first reading, thus establishing a legal basis for further developments from the coming January.
So please reject Amendment No 5.
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–I should like to point out to the House that we are joined today by Louise McVay, the woman who first brought this matter to our attention.
Along with Mr Gemelli and other colleagues I had the chance to meet Louise McVay last night.
It is wonderful that this Parliament, as this time, can establish in a report like this that, where there are active citizens with real interests and issues, we have an open door to care and to listen.
It is an entirely appropriate vote at this time.
   . – Mr President, I would like to put forward an oral amendment and change the wording in points 4, 9, 11, 13 and 15 from ‘multiple sclerosis’ to ‘multiple sclerosis and other similar diseases’.
   .– Any people that has suffered war and destruction is entitled to appeal for help with reconstruction to the relatively wealthy Europe.
The decision to wage war on Iraq was not, fortunately, the EU’s, but that should not prevent us from making a solidarity contribution in the wake of that war.
The problem is that this war is not yet, by any means, over; there are still foreign troops on Iraqi territory, there is no legitimate Iraqi government and every day, attacks from the Iraqi opposition on the occupiers claim victims.
Iraq is, in fact, an American protectorate, and it appears that it will remain that way for the foreseeable future.
Much as the capture of Saddam Hussein is to be welcomed, it does not mean that peace is on its way.
As long as this occupation continues, responsibility for recovery and reconstruction lies with the Americans.
Europe should not yield to the demand that it should foot the bill in order for European industry to be allowed to get involved in recovery.
I am therefore not advocating that this EUR 200 million should be paid now, but I am in favour of a larger amount at a later stage.
This should, moreover, not be at the expense of development aid for poorer countries, as is the case in the current proposal.
For those two reasons, I am voting against.
   . There are two elements that characterise this budget for 2004:
- it is going to be the budget for enlargement of the EU to ten new countries with per capita incomes of roughly 40% of the Community average.
We shall have a rise in inequalities within the EU and greater needs in the economic and social cohesion field;
- conversely, it is going to be the lowest Community budget since 1987 in relative terms, that is, 0.98% of the Community GNI in 2004, less than EUR 100 thousand million, when it could be up to 1.06% of the Community GNI.
It is no accident that the size of the budget has been getting smaller since 1997.
This budget not only underfinances enlargement to the detriment of economic and social cohesion, but it also gives a clear signal about the Community’s future financial framework.
It is regrettable that the European Parliament should have approved this path so far, accepting in the current process a growth in payment appropriations of only 2.3%, which will penalise execution, a reduction in payment appropriations for the Structural Funds, a financial package for the codecision programmes that falls short of what is needed, and the financing of Iraqi reconstruction to the detriment of cooperation and development in other regions of the world.
That is why I voted against it.
   On 28 April 2003, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development organised, at the request of Mr Souchet and myself, a hearing on the problems encountered by the beekeeping sector in Europe.
The alarming conclusions of this hearing led to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development appointing Mr Souchet and myself as co-rapporteurs of this own-initiative resolution.
This was a success; it was adopted with a massive majority in October 2003 and exposes the serious difficulties encountered by our European beekeepers.
At the same time, I made it a point of honour to follow the development of the 2004 budget.
When the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development had been consulted, I therefore proposed doubling the proposed budget of EUR 16.5 million to EUR 30 million.
Indeed, new countries are arriving in 2004 that are major honey producers and that are experiencing similar problems.
In addition, given that there has been no increase in the ‘aid for beekeeping’ budget for several years, I was right to think that if this budget line were to be increased, it would be this year or never.
I am sorry to say that the Committee on Budgets, faced with following a drastic plan, granted us only EUR 20 million (that is EUR 3.5 million more).
So be it!
We were, all the same, satisfied: few budget lines have been increased.
   .– During the vote on the Podestà report, the Members belonging to the VVD, the Dutch People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, abstained.
We can support the gist of the report, but have reservations about those phrases that relate to the funding of future actions.
The VVD delegation believe that it is unnecessary to draw on the margins under financial perspectives, our own resources in other words, if this is not absolutely necessary.
   .– A small Member State is being subjected to a measure which public opinion in that country has unanimously rejected out of hand.
In that country, the impression is now being created that EU membership and democratic decision-making about their own living environment are no longer all that compatible.
The arrogance of the large countries and their interests in trade and transport has in this so-called compromise at third reading been the deciding factor.
To Germany and Italy, Austria is nothing but an inconvenient barrier to their doing business with each other, to which the impact on the quality of life in the alpine valleys is being completely subordinated.
This is the way to act if you want to incur the EU’s hatred.
Austria would probably not have become a member of the European Union without the undertakings given upon its accession to restrict through freight traffic on the roads.
I do not expect Austria to resign now, but I do not blame it at all for not taking any notice of the decision presently to be taken.
From the beginning of this conflict, I have supported the Austrian representatives in this Parliament, on 4 September 2001 and 12 February 2003 to be precise, in the face of complete ignorance on the part of the majority.
Today, I am once again joining them in voting against.
   . Having gone before the Heads of State or Government, the Giscard draft appears to be deadlocked.
The (CPNT) [Hunting Fishing, Nature and Tradition] delegation, from the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities (EDD), hopes that the time has come for people and democracy to be put first.
The outcome of the Brussels European Council was heavily influenced by the forthcoming elections and the intense pro-referendum pressure weighing on the draft Constitution.
Whether this was a calculated move or a sudden brainwave on the part of our Heads of State, our delegation can feel satisfied that certainties have been challenged by the risk of rejection by the people in various countries.
Such rejection would not be confined to the question of the weighting of votes for Spain and Poland, but would also have shaken the foundations of the project.
As the CPNT reminded the House at the beginning of discussions, neither the Giscard draft nor any amount of last minute patching-up were able to produce sound policies based on principles of democracy.
The time has come to start afresh and get the European project back on track.
The European Council of 12 December 2003 brought to a close a long period of drifting.
The next six months represent an opportunity for us to listen carefully to the citizens.
The CPNT delegation to the EDD Group does not, therefore, share the opinion of the majority and firmly rejected the joint resolution.
   .
The Heads of Government have failed.
We in this European Parliament now demand that the Irish Presidency should, in January 2004, present a concrete plan of action to complete the Constitution before May 2004.
I should like to say at this stage that if that does not happen, further enlargement over and above the Ten is out of the question until a Constitution is in place.
Financial perspectives will be examined extremely sceptically and legislation (after first reading) will meet with strong protest.
This House does not want ‘business as usual’, even if we have to call on the Convention, the national parliaments and the European Parliament to help each other in taking action.
I would therefore urge the public to support ‘their’ Constitution and bring pressure to bear on their governments.
   .– The abolition, in the recent past, of centuries-old road tolls was, at the time, regarded as modernisation that was necessary in the name of freedom of movement.
The road network has meanwhile grown tremendously.
Installation and maintenance costs of ever wider and crossroad-free roads are becoming too prohibitive to be able to pay for them out of taxpayers’ money without the need for huge tax increases or without cuts in other government provisions.
Without road tolls, the car driver is very much at an advantage compared to the train user, and environmentally-unfriendly freight transport is given preferential treatment on the roads. As a result, the old road tolls are being re-introduced after all, accompanied by new electronic technology.
The Commission has created the impression of wanting to use this toll collection as a means of enhancing EU interference and promoting EU projects.
Is this about establishing a central toll service, promoting new technology at the expense of existing technology and finding new justification for Galileo, a prestigious project that guzzles money?
Or is this about removing the irritations about long waiting times for cash payments, about needing to clutter up each car with electronic registration gadgets and about continuously having to pay for bills from different Member States? A majority in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has changed the tone of the proposal from interference to practical solutions.
I support this change.
   .
Although I voted in favour of this document, I wish to emphasise that the recent European Council meeting in Brussels was not a failure.
It was a success, a double success in fact: no agreement was reached on the rash constitutional fantasy; it also introduced the Growth Initiative.
By 2010, we will have mobilised investment worth several million euros in projects for genuine harmonisation, cohesion and growth: Trans-European networks (transport, telecommunications and energy), as well as innovation, research and development.
This is what integrating Europe is really about!
As I stated in another explanation of vote on the IGC, one can detect in this two-fold decision the influence of the founding spirit of Robert Schuman himself: ‘Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity’.
For this very reason, it is utterly deplorable and something we must firmly reject – that following the Brussels Summit, Germany and France – it is always the same countries! unfortunately accompanied, this time, by the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria, have exerted intolerable pressure to limit the EU Budget for 2004 to 1% of GDP.
This attitude ignores all current developments, damages Europe and tears it apart.
Furthermore, it betrays Schuman and the European spirit.
I also welcome the inclusion of paragraph 49 on Cuba and Oswaldo Payá, which was the result of my proposal in the original UEN text.
   . I fully support the conclusions of the Graefe zu Baringdorf report, and those of my colleague, Mr Souchet, in his speech yesterday on the coexistence of GMO and non-GMO crops.
This is a major problem, and one that we must not put to one side by giving immediate authorisation to cultivate and market GMOs, as called for by the Commission.
We must first examine the possible extent of contamination of traditional crops, which at least 70% of consumers would like to preserve.
Where possible, prudent rules on coexistence should be established, and the companies receiving authorisation should be made to bear the responsibilities and costs arising from introducing GMOs.
Lastly, financial guarantees must be put in place to cover these responsibilities.
As yet, none of this has been clarified.
It is therefore appalling to see the Commission ready to hand out authorisations, using subsidiarity as a pretext for passing on to the Member States the almost impossible task of establishing rules on coexistence, while refusing to allow the same States to declare certain areas GMO-free (Commission decision of 2 September 2003 against Austria).
This dossier has been approached with an intolerable disdain for the citizens.
   . I am pleased that Parliament has received the Graefe zu Baringdorf report so positively, but I am surprised by the vote by Members, notably French Members, in favour of disseminating new varieties of GMO, before rules restricting coexistence have been established.
Yes, the ambition of seed-producing firms that have earmarked significant funds for research and for the development of genetically modified varieties is, of course, to obtain the maximum return on investment as quickly as possible.
They tend quite naturally to give credence to the idea of the inexorable spread of a new generation of seeds, called upon quickly to replace seeds that have been improved without genetic modification, as if this were a phenomenon similar to machines taking over work previously performed by animals.
Such a move towards standardising seeds – all-purpose GMOs – and the corresponding disappearance of traditional and organic farming would undermine both the agricultural diversity of European territories and the specific nature of what is produced.
The fight for agricultural diversity for the effective and sustainable plurality of these industries is, therefore, an integral part of the fight for cultural diversity.
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   The next item is the debate on the Commission statement on the natural disasters in the South of France and the regions ‘Languedoc-Roussillon’ and ‘Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur’.
   . The South of France has just suffered an unprecedented natural disaster.
We are now beginning to assess the scale of the damage, which has been considerable.
Seven people have died and around 100 000 have been affected by the disaster.
Tens of thousands have been forced to shelter in gymnasiums or other makeshift accommodation.
In the town of Arles alone, a third of the population has been evacuated.
Thousands of jobs have disappeared under the water.
Hundreds of flooded businesses have had to close their doors, plunging their employees into the uncertainty of temporary unemployment.
The Camargue, with its fragile eco-system, is completely submerged: 250 km of dykes have been damaged, 560 hectares of farmland are under water, over 1000 animals have drowned, the entire rice sector has been destroyed.
Damage in the region has been put at more than EUR one billion.
Europe must show solidarity, in accordance with Article 2 of the regulation establishing the Solidarity Fund.
This is an unprecedented disaster, as the region has fallen victim to the River Rhône’s ‘centennial flood’ – the most serious for a century.
On behalf of the French Socialists, I ask the EU to make funds quickly available.
Those stricken in the Rhône Delta expect nothing less.
   . Devastating floods have once again struck my region, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, and Languedoc-Roussillon.
I should first like to express my utmost sympathy to the victims of these disasters.
Although the French Government has taken the necessary emergency steps and declared a state of emergency, we need European solidarity.
This has already been seen on the ground, and I wish to thank the German, Italian, Belgian and Czech teams that have gone to the aid of the victims.
Hopefully, European solidarity will also manifest itself in the mobilisation of the EU Solidarity Fund.
The French Government is in the process of preparing a request to this end, which will be submitted at the beginning of 2004.
My region has already benefited from such funds, following the storms and appalling floods of September 2002, and I can assure you that these funds are of enormous importance.
Whilst the Structural Funds enable the cofinancing of some preventative and aid measures, zoning and normal consumption of funds limit their scope.
They are thus insufficient to help the stricken populations and regions.
Nonetheless, I hope that the prevention of natural disasters will, in future, become an integral part of their aims: while we have a duty to repair the damage, the only real aid policy is prevention.
   Mr President, everyone shares the euphoria about the recent developments in Georgia: the storming of the parliament and the resignation of President Shevardnadze, who at one time enjoyed sustained acclaim.
After a long tradition of having been the first colony in tsarist Russia, and then having been the birthplace of Stalin, and finally Eduard Shevardnadze, there now comes democracy.
It is reminiscent of the Central Europe of previous years: Romania after Ceaucescu, or Serbia after Milosevic.
Many European countries will be inclined to think: this is a nearby region, a Christian region, together with Armenia, but at the same time a long way away from us, only accessible from the Black Sea, via Turkey or via Russia.
What relations could the European Union have in the future with that country? In addition, Mr Belder has already drawn attention to the problem of its national minorities, and Abkhazia, in particular, has been a Georgian breakaway region for a long time now.
The inhabitants of South Ossetia are actually unhappy about being part of Georgia, and in Ajaria people are supporting a leader who would gladly have remained loyal to Eduard Shevardnadze.
A great many unresolved problems remain, therefore, and I think that, if a solution is not found to these internal problems, the democracy that is now able to get off the ground in Georgia will start at a disadvantage.
It is very important to work towards this, therefore.
In Amendment No 3, my group calls for the EU to ensure that its involvement, which is supposed to make a contribution to democracy, does not lead to interference in Georgia’s domestic politics.
We do not believe that the purposes of democracy would be served by the European Union adopting the wrong attitude, putting too much emphasis on forcing together different population groups that have difficulty living together.
It will have to be a cautious process, one that is primarily based on the efforts of the peoples of Georgia themselves: the Georgians as the largest group, but also taking account of the three large national minorities.
   I would communicate to Mr Posselt that we have given instructions that the bells in the House should work and let us hope that the Members stay alert.
The honourable Members know the rules.
Thank you very much for your positive information.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 18 December 2003.
   – Mr President, the agenda for this afternoon includes Mr Pex’s report on sanctions for pollution offences at sea.
Mr Pex is well, as are Mr Doorn and others, and I am telling you that so that you are not dismayed by what I also have to tell you, which is that they have been in an aircraft accident.
It would appear from what I have been told that the aircraft ran off the runway, but all of them are all right.
Mr Pex has asked that his report should be taken today rather than being adjourned, and that it should be presented by Mr Bremmer, who, although he is not a member of the committee, is well-informed about the issue.
I was more than willing to convey this request to you.
   – Mr President, although, admittedly, we are announcing this at relatively short notice, we would like a change made to the vote on Thursday, and Mrs Gebhardt would be happy – assuming this to be possible – to explain our reasons for this.
   Mr President, I will begin by presenting the apologies of Mrs Randzio-Plath, who is unable to be present.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs will be voting on this question of extension this evening under the simplified procedure, Article 158 (1), so the outcome should be known quickly.
I think we will in fact have an agreement, but the vote takes place this evening.
   I call the former Mayor of Bologna, our Vice-President Mr Imbeni.
   – Mr President, I should like to bring an entirely different matter to your attention, namely the special expropriation act in Valencia regulating urban development activities – the LRAU – which, in my view, is an outright violation of various international treaties, including the European Union’s Charter of Fundamental Rights.
It appears as if the Valencian authorities have designed this Stalinist law in order to achieve their plans cheaply.
The law stipulates that expropriations can take place in the general interest, but, in practice, has the effect that project developers have a licence for carrying out their lucrative plans.
Compensation for house owners who are evicted is ridiculously low; there is no means of recourse against it and the residents, often retired foreigners from across the EU, are not even informed.
This seems to be a mediaeval situation.
I would therefore call for one of Parliament's committees of enquiry to examine whether this law violates international treaties and also for this law to be rendered inoperative during the enquiry.
   In the course of my remarks on behalf of Parliament to the December 2003 summit meeting in Brussels, I spoke in precisely those terms regarding all of the institutions' contacts with the United States, its administration and Congress.
   Mr Nordmann, I believe that your expression of interest in transparency through publication is something that would commend itself to this House.
   Mr President, I wish to begin by reacting to Mr Titley's remarks.
Firstly, I should like to say clearly that he has my wholehearted sympathy and solidarity.
We do not know yet who is responsible for the inadmissible behaviour in question.
He mentioned that the House hears Herri Batasuna praising terrorism.
I should like to say to Mr Titley, that, as an honourable Member of this House, he has the Irish presidency right now. He can check all the records of this House and if he finds even one word praising terrorists in my speeches, he should say so.
I do not think he will find anything.
If there is proof of that, he should bring it before the Irish presidency.
   Mr President, Mr Gorostiaga has never condemned any of ETA’s attacks, whoever their victims have been.
He has on occasions expressed regret when there have been deaths and he has always justified ETA’s terrorist actions.
This is precisely what is known as an apology for terrorism and I would therefore like to express my solidarity with Mr Titley in relation to what has happened to him and what he has said today.
   Mr President, I am informed that on 29 December 2003, at approximately 2 a.m., the Casal Jaume I Cultural Centre in Russafa, a district of Valencia, was attacked by persons unknown.
All Casal Jaume I centres are members of the Acció Cultural del País Valencià association, whose goals are to study, support and promote the cultural heritage of Valencia.
Acció Cultural has more than 9 000 members.
Many young people are also members of Casal Jaume I centres.
The following day a press conference was held in the centre and the reporters could see the damage for themselves.
The Secretary-General of Acció Cultural referred to 21 attacks since July 2001 on the Casal Jaume I centres in Valencia and the nearby towns of Llíria, Carlet, Sueca and Vila-Real.
Even the headquarters of the Bloc Nacionalista Valencià party has been attacked.
In Valencia, there is continuing violence against parties and associations promoting and supporting cultural heritage and progressive values.
All those attacks have been reported to the police.
Violence is now on the increase; some people have been threatened, others attacked.
To date, the response of the government has been inadequate.
   Mr President, I am sorry to have to make yet another complaint about Air France.
On this occasion it concerns embarkation.
We used to leave through terminal 2D, where there are plenty of security machines and things ran smoothly, but for the last two months we have been leaving from terminal 2B, where there is one small security machine.
Today it took an average of 40 to 45 minutes to get through.
I am really speaking on behalf of some very stressed-out passengers from the Interpretation Service and for staff who were in tears at the thought they might not get on the plane.
Members who went to the lounge and were called at the appropriate moment in fact found they had to queue for 40 minutes.
The plane was then very late in leaving.
Could you perhaps ask that these facilities be improved?
   I was on that plane, Mr Corrie, and I will indeed take up correspondence.
2b or not 2b: that is the question we need to raise!
   Mr President, I wish to bring the attention of this Assembly to recent studies on the effects of climate change in particular, which were published in the scientific journal .
They document a massive loss of species, both plant and animal, as a result of climate change.
The golden toad is the most memorable of these species, although probably not the most deserving.
In the light of this, I should like to ask Commissioner de Palacio to retract comments she made in December on the death of the Kyoto Treaty and request that she seek to revive that Treaty and redouble her efforts in getting Russia to join.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Sterckx’s report takes an important stand on the maritime environment.
With effective action we will protect waters in which people bathe, safeguard the supply of clean fish to eat, and improve maritime ecology, especially in enclosed sea areas.
Oil from ships is very dangerous in many ways and for that reason pollution offences must be dealt with firmly and by making those who contribute to them accountable.
The committee has reached an excellent conclusion, which Mr Sterckx’s amendments make more specific.
There is one point I nevertheless cannot support as it stands: the proposal for a common coastguard goes just a bit too far.
As the coastguard also has many other responsibilities, this should be considered in the wider context.
Mr Poignant has done some good work with regard to his own report.
There is just one detail in it, however, that should be addressed. I too am in favour of ships displaying the emblem of the European Union.
The amendment to display the emblem on national flags is problematic, however, as the rapporteur has also said himself. It would require a debate on flag legislation in the Member States.
If this amendment is dropped, it will be possible to bring this whole issue to a swift conclusion.
   Mr President, I begin by thanking our rapporteur, Mr Pex, although he is absent this evening, for his work on this very important report, which we broadly support.
It is extremely important to have legislation in place under which those responsible for unlawful oil or chemical discharges from ships can be prosecuted.
We are no longer prepared to put up with reckless behaviour, which too often has resulted in irreparable damage to the environment.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to differentiate between intentional and accidental pollution.
The United Kingdom already has criminal sanctions in place for unlawful discharges from ships, as specified in the Marpol Convention, and matters relating to criminal law should, as such, fall within the competence of the Member State and not the Community.
Furthermore, as there have been no practical difficulties between Member States in deciding where a prosecution should take place, this proposal should be removed from the framework decision.
Finally on this point, the introduction of a European coastguard is neither practical nor necessary, nor is it consistent with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
British Conservative MEPs will oppose those amendments.
As regards the Poignant Report, in principle we support this proposal and accept that the new regulation will improve cooperation between the administrators of maritime registers in the Member States.
As I clearly pointed out prior to the vote in the debate of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, British Conservative MEPs will vehemently oppose the integration of the emblem of the European Union onto our Red Ensign.
It will do nothing to enhance security and could even make EU-registered ships potential targets.
In addition, identification is not an issue, as all vessels carry their unique IMO numbers as well as the name of their ports of registry.
To conclude, registration principles are determined internationally in the United Nations and IMO system, which is global rather than European.
The EU is not a nation-state – fortunately – and it is doubtful whether anyone else would recognise an EU flag in terms of the international conventions.
   Mr President, I also want to thank the Commissioner for the brilliant work she has done on this matter.
I wish to comment on two things.
The first concerns waste.
Considering how Sweden, with its model project in Oskarhamn, has shown how highly radioactive nuclear waste can be got rid of, I would recommend those who are in doubt to go over there and see how it is done.
You take a bus, travel five kilometres into the mountain, and you can see what they are doing. It is public and easily accessible.
The method appears to be clearly delineated.
It is well accepted, and the sites designated for possible final storage are well accepted in the municipalities, where more than 70% of citizens have agreed to have them.
I consider the problem of waste to have been solved in technical terms.
If anyone wants to carry on a smear campaign against nuclear waste, they are welcome to do so.
We are all entitled to our opinions.
I am pleased about the option of being allowed to export nuclear waste.
In Denmark, we have 230 kilos from our experimental reactor and elsewhere which, under the current rules, we apparently have to store ourselves at an additional cost of approximately, or more than, EUR 100 million.
If we are not permitted to place it with the very many tons that exist in other countries, we shall acquire an additional expense to no purpose.
We are therefore pleased about being able to export waste to countries that will accept it, that fulfil the EU’s safety requirements and in which we are certain that inspection and such like guarantees that the waste is being constantly monitored.
I will limit myself to segregated decommissioning funds.
These funds are the single biggest distortion in the liberalised EU electricity market.
EDF, EON and RWE are buying up other companies with billions from these funds.
Mrs de Palacio, when we discussed the Liberalisation Directive, we as a Parliament said that we should tackle this problem under the EU Treaty.
You said: 'Don't worry, we will tackle it under the nuclear package under the Euratom Treaty, because that is a good way to do it'.
I did not trust you at that time.
Today we know that you fooled us.
You knew one-and-a-half years ago, through your legal services, that it is not possible under Articles 31 and 32 to have segregated decommissioning funds.
You waited for the legal services of Parliament and the Council to come out with it, but you knew it!
I challenge you to publish the legal service advice on the nuclear package so that the whole world will know that you fooled us on this issue.
Mr Chichester, as a fair and plain-speaking English MEP, you got directly to the point when you asked what added value the directive has.
It is a public relations exercise for the European public.
You understood very well what this is about.
   . – Mr President, Mrs Ahern is a much-respected fellow Member of this House and I hold her in high esteem.
Sadly, at the end of her intervention she referred to the nuclear package as nonsense.
That amounts to condemning as totally worthless the work undertaken by the Commission.
By implication, Mrs Ahern also condemned as totally worthless the work undertaken in good faith by the rapporteurs with a view to improving on the Commission’s proposal.
All this work was dismissed as nonsense.
In my view, Mr President, nonsense is an unduly pejorative word to use.
I would never resort to it to describe Mrs Ahern’s views and opinions.
I would certainly refrain from referring to them as nonsense.
I might say they were mistaken, lacking in rigour or unrealistic, but I would never dismiss them as nonsense.
For the sake of my personal regard for Mrs Ahern, and in the interests of parliamentary courtesy, I therefore call on Mrs Ahern to withdraw the word nonsense.
As I said, I believe it is unduly derogatory.
   I asked a question about the legal basis, Articles 31 and 32, and the decommissioning funds.
I distrust the Commissioner.
The only way I could believe the Commissioner would be for the Commission to publish its legal opinion on the nuclear package.
Would the Commissioner agree to that?
   I shall say simply that the legal basis – Articles 30 and 31 of the Euratom Treaty – has been accepted by the legal services of the Council and the Commission.
   If I understand correctly, Mrs Ahern, you are requesting the floor, on the basis of our Rules of Procedure, in a personal capacity.
I give you the floor on that basis alone and for a maximum of one minute.
   Mr President, I wish to speak in a personal capacity on a point of order because I have been traduced here tonight by the rapporteur, Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca.
I am entitled to my opinion, and so I repeat that this directive has been stripped of all meaningful safety requirements.
It has to add to the existing safety requirements of the IEA, therefore it is a nonsense.
Not only is it a nonsense, it is a scandalous nonsense.
The genuine work that has been done is, as has been said, a PR exercise – a whitewash exercise.
This is very clear from the Council's response.
The Council has – and will retain – the ultimate responsibility for the nuclear safety of our citizens.
   The next item is the report (A5-0443/2003) by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision amending Decision 77/270/Euratom empowering the Commission to issue Euratom loans for the purpose of contributing to the financing of nuclear power stations (COM(2002) 456 – C5-0570/2002 – 2002/0246(CNS)).
   Mr President, there is no justification under Euratom for allowing the Commission to extend the Euratom loan by EUR 2 billion, as proposed in November 2002, bringing the loan up to EUR 6 billion altogether.
This loan has been increased about five times since it was set up in 1977 and is a thinly veiled attempt to promote the nuclear industry: whilst asking for the extension of the loan, it also changes the condition and type of project to be funded in light of the expansion of the EU.
This is akin to Enron's creative accounting.
Indeed, we could even call it fraudulent accounting practice.
You will get a similar, Enron-style scandal as a result of all this.
It is compounded by questions of transparency and whether the proposals are not already obsolete.
In addition, questions about the distortion of the market, particularly in regard to plant construction, have been raised.
I am not satisfied that these loans are for safety as opposed to plant construction purposes.
Indeed, I have evidence that construction activities are taking place.
   Mr President, thank you for giving me leave to express my support for urgent procedure in the case of this proposal for a decision.
The proposed instrument provides for the continuation of the system of dock dues, with an exemption mechanism for certain local products from our four French overseas departments of Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique and Réunion, for a ten-year period beginning on 1 July 2004.
The proposal also extends the present regime for six months, from 1 January to 30 June 2004, to fill the legal vacuum that has existed since 31 December of last year, the date on which the last statute expired.
I wish to commend the content of this proposal, which is the fruit of intensive consultation between the Commission, the French Government and the representatives of the four outermost French regions.
My only reticence relates to the lack of flexibility in the exemption mechanism in the case of new products or activities.
Be that as it may, this proposal will serve to maintain a vital source of revenue for our local authorities, especially those of the smallest communities.
It will thereby help to sustain the present effort to foster the economic development of these areas in pursuance of Article 299(2) of the Treaty.
I regret that our Parliament has been unable to devote sufficient time to the drafting of a precise report on the text of this proposal for an instrument that is crucial to the future of our outermost regions.
I would nevertheless encourage the House to vote in favour of urgent procedure in order to fill the present legal vacuum, which is liable to have a highly detrimental impact on our overseas departments. We can thus clear the way for the adoption of this new system for the next ten years, leaving the French authorities enough time to transpose the decision into national law by the first of July.
   Mrs Sudre, the purely legal issue here is about whether we can vote on the substance of this motion on Thursday.
We now come to the vote on the request for urgent procedure.(1)
   The next item is the report (A5-0484/2003) by Mr Herzog on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the Green Paper on services of general interest (COM(2003) 270 – 2003/2152(INI)).
   Mr President, I too would like to praise Mr Herzog for the work that he carried out both enthusiastically and seriously.
I believe, however, that the text that came out of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs gives, in a way that is more in line with the current climate, an accurate picture of the situation and the prospects as regards services of general interest.
Services of general interest make up a substantial part of the European economy, which is increasingly becoming an economy of services; liberalisation and competition, also within this extremely important sector, are essential to the dynamic nature of the European economy and its capacity to grow and create jobs.
I believe that it would be a mistake to think that it is possible to set in stone the situation regarding the provision of services of general interest within the context of a framework directive or within new legislation.
It is not easy to define these sectors, which are sectors that are forever evolving: what today is a public service, may tomorrow be a sector in which providing products and services is completely assured by the market.
It would be a mistake to enshrine this and set it in stone.
I believe that, as is stated in Article 19 of the report, the current provisions for the internal market and competition ensure, in itself, that in this and other sectors, public measures, where necessary, are adopted within the context of the rules already laid down by the Treaties, guaranteeing that the economy providing public services is competitive and dynamic.
Otherwise, there would be stagnation and the European economy would be in jeopardy.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I support all those who believe, as I do, that services of general interest are, first and foremost, committed to the common good.
We understand a European social model to mean that the public must be guaranteed these services, and that is why they are not primarily a political task for the Commission, but a matter for local and regional authorities.
The task of the Commission is to ensure that such services are facilitated and secured in local communities; it must defend services of general interest in the GATS negotiations, where it must ensure that local communities have room to manoeuvre, so that the public may be guaranteed these services in the interests of social justice, solidarity and territorial cohesion.
It is for the Commission to set up the framework in such a way that services of general interest are protected.
   The next item is the report (A5-0471/2003) by Mrs Almeida Garrett on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs on the communication from the Commission: ‘The operating framework for the European regulatory agencies’ (COM(2002) 718 – 2003/2089(INI)).
   Mr President, the legislation on European agencies, our opinion on which is contained in the report by Mrs Almeida Garrett, is a subject that goes to the heart of the debate on the future of Europe, that is to say, the fight against European bureaucracy.
Now, of all times, when Europe finds itself in a crisis from which we have to extricate ourselves together, it is important that we ask ourselves how the various European institutions, including the existing and future agencies, can be embedded in the democratic structure of Europe: a democratic, transparent and efficient Europe.
I should just like to reiterate that 2004 is a decisive year for Europe.
It is a year in which it is vitally important to win back the confidence of the European electorate.
This electorate looks at us and sees the European system as unwieldy and bureaucratic.
Incidentally, the Heads of State or Government, who are fairly often found wanting, bear a large part of the responsibility for this.
Citizens, who mainly see quarrelling between Heads of State or Government over the distribution of power and money, are naturally increasingly unable to grasp what this European cooperation actually means.
It is not for nothing that we speak of a democratic deficit in the European Union that has to be filled.
Europe is too slow-moving, frequently inefficient and incomprehensible to its citizens, and is thus achieving too little.
This has to change, particularly with a view to the enlargement of the EU by ten new Member States on 1 May.
That is why we must make Europe more efficient, more democratic.
We must root out sluggish bureaucracy.
In the first instance, this will of course be carried out by means of proposals in the European Constitution, which will hopefully become reality very soon.
However, it will also take place in the case of subjects such as today’s – the creation of a framework for European agencies – which are not dealt with in the European Constitution.
The focus is on the performance of essential tasks that are financed with European funds.
I should like to mention a number of things that I believe to be essential within this framework.
Firstly, direct scrutiny by the European Commission and political accountability to the Council and Parliament must be guaranteed when the European agencies are set up, and it goes without saying that those agencies must have a management that, on pain of dismissal, presents all problems of a genuinely political nature directly to the politically accountable Commissioner.
I am sure we all remember the Eurostat case.
Secondly, the confusing situation we find ourselves in at the moment, where we have no less than twelve different structures, must be replaced by a uniform structure that can be monitored and is comprehensible to all.
Thirdly, the seat of an agency must be subject to criteria such as efficiency and cost-benefit analyses.
That means no quarrelling over Parma ham and Swedish models.
This approach applies not only to new, but also to existing agencies.
Only then will we tackle bureaucracy seriously.
We give our full support to the report by Mrs Almeida Garrett.
   Mr President, at the Brussels Summit in December 2003, the Heads of State or Government agreed to domiciles for ten new agencies, including an agency for IT security.
In the Øresund area, universities and business enterprises on both the Danish and Swedish sides formed a consortium and put forward proposals as to how good conditions could in practice be created for locating precisely this IT security agency in the area.
The Øresund region has a sound infrastructure, good international transport connections, very extensive IT facilities and strong environments for IT research and development.
The universities would make facilities available so that the agency’s workers could have close contact with the research environments, and there was a desire to create buildings able to fulfil the agency’s demands.
In short, here was an offer, in terms of location, that could guarantee a rapid start to the agency in an area easily able to attract qualified labour.
I know there were other attractive environments in the offing in the Netherlands and Germany.
What emerged from the efforts concerned, however?
They were a waste of energy. The EU’s Heads of State or Government agreed that this agency should be situated in a town in Greece.
I have nothing negative to say about Greece, but the decision-making process simply cannot be taken seriously.
It is neither transparent nor comprehensible to the public.
I am therefore very pleased with the report we are debating today, for it lays down a list of important and clear principles about the way in which decisions concerning agencies should be made in the future, about their operational frameworks and about how they should be placed in relation to the EU’s institutions, and I wish to congratulate Mrs Garrett on the good outcome.
The decision concerning a new agency must be transparent and based on analyses of advantages and disadvantages.
It must be the basis of a strong professionalism, and setting up an agency must not be a short cut to increasing administrative expenses.
It is important for the Commission to have ongoing responsibility and for Parliament to have the role of supervisory power and not be governed by the agencies.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party’s amendments are to emphasise this, and I very much hope that there will be broad support for these proposals.
   The next item is the Commission’s statement on the prospects for the Doha Round following the meeting of the WTO General Councilon 15 December 2003.
   Mr President, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to make a few comments of an agricultural nature in relation to what my fellow-Commissioner Mr Lamy has already said.
You have heard about the steps that the Commission has taken to relaunch the negotiations, and I am sure you were disappointed to learn that the members of the WTO, as long ago as December, were unable to resume negotiations on the development agenda.
What went on in the run-up to the Geneva meeting on 15 December gave me the impression that this failure had to do, among other things, with the nature of the proceedings.
The WTO members did not negotiate directly with one another, but everything was done through the mediation of the chairman of the WTO’s General Council, and this way of going about things was certainly not particularly conducive to agreement.
I became all the more convinced of this when, shortly afterwards, in the margins of the FAO Conference in Rome, I met many ministers who also regretted the absence of any direct contact, which they said they would have expected.
I have come to the conclusion that, if there is to be agreement, there is in any case an absolute need for more dialogue and for more intensive efforts among the members of the WTO.
As Mr Lamy has already said, we will, for our part, be doing everything possible to ensure that 2004 is not a wasted year.
We will be playing a particularly active part in this.
As regards the subject matter of the negotiations, I have to say that we cannot accept any and every framework for negotiation modalities at any price.
We see it as a fundamental condition that such a framework should reflect the spirit and content of the Doha Declaration.
Among other things, one primary requirement is that there should be tighter restrictions on ‘amber box’ measures than on ‘blue box’ measures, which distort trade to a lesser extent.
Secondly, when considering export competition, all forms of export subsidy must be tackled in parallel.
You will be aware that we have gone on the offensive in the debate about export subsidies, by proposing that all forms of export subsidy for a range of products important to developing countries be allowed to expire.
We are still waiting for a response to this offer.
At the same time, we cannot but note the continuing lack of willingness to make comparable commitments in respect of other forms of export subsidy; as far as I am aware, for example, the Canadian Wheat Board was compensated for its latest losses by the Canadian Government.
Another example is Argentina, which uses differentiated export duties on soya beans and soya bean flour as a means of indirectly subsidising the building of its largest soya mill.
The USA continues to use supplies of food aid as a means of reducing its surpluses.
From the very outset, we have made it plain that all measures to deal with export competition must be dealt with simultaneously and that they must all exercise discipline to the same degree.
This is something on which we will continue to work.
   Once a pepper trader, always a pepper trader, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel!
   – Mr President, I have already had the opportunity in a committee meeting to express my disappointment to Commissioner Lamy with the Commission’s new proposals and, ultimately, with the Council’s position confirming these.
Given his robust remarks the day after the talks collapsed in Cancún, I was actually expecting the Commission to be thinking more along the lines of proposing a thorough overhaul of the international trading system rather than adopting a new tactical position.
In fact, it is not strategic change that we are discussing today but rather a tactical repositioning.
As regards the Singapore issues in particular, Commissioner Lamy is reporting greater flexibility on the part of the Commission, the kind of flexibility that emerged right at the end of the Cancún process, too late in the day in my opinion.
But is flexibility still the issue today?
All the same, I must remind you that the Doha Declaration required a unanimous and explicit agreement on the negotiating arrangements for these issues.
In fact we know that, as things currently stand, there is no chance of such an agreement.
The G90 countries, which are the poorest, have restated their opposition to opening negotiations on the Singapore issues.
I think it is clear that these countries have nothing to gain for their development from such negotiations: their priorities lie elsewhere, which is understandable.
Both technically and in terms of human resources, these countries are ill-equipped to play an effective role in such negotiations, which would only place greater strain on a timetable that everyone recognises is already very tight.
I think that by abandoning the Singapore issues for the time being, or at least putting them on the backburner, the European Union would send out a powerful and meaningful signal to the G90, showing them that we are sensitive to their concerns.
This attitude might even be a smart strategic move because it would put the European Union in a more positive position on agriculture: we would have more room for manoeuvre.
As for the rest, on agriculture, the World Trade Organisation is not, in my opinion, an appropriate forum in which to deal with everyone’s rights and obligations.
I think it is essential and urgent to relaunch a process of dialogue within a body like the FAO, where we can have a calm discussion on food safety and the protection and development of rural areas.
In particular, I think that an urgent file like the cotton one, which was tabled in Cancún, should be given top priority by the European Union, and I would be grateful if the Commissioners could take this into account.
   Mr President, it is common knowledge that the most recent ministerial conference, in Cancún, sadly ended in failure.
It is good, therefore, that the European Commission now wants to take renewed action to get the current negotiations started again.
The proposed development round must not fail; it must be brought to a successful conclusion.
After all, a great deal is at stake.
There is the potential risk of the World Trade Organization and the multilateral trading system becoming completely undermined.
Bilateral and regional trade agreements are not a viable alternative in an increasingly globalised world, and in a system that has contributed to stable and sustained economic growth for almost 55 years now.
Therefore, it is high time that the welcome discussions on the subject matter were complemented with improvements in WTO working methods.
Negotiating and taking decisions by consensus in a forum with 148 members requires procedures that are up-to-date, simple and efficient, but at present that is precisely what the WTO’s procedures are not.
It remains my deep-rooted conviction that the WTO is more necessary than ever, because, particularly as far as the European Union is concerned, further liberalisation of world trade and the removal of barriers to trade are the key to increased economic growth and employment.
– Ladies and gentlemen, before beginning the vote, I give the floor to Mr Zappalà for a proposal on an issue that we did not resolve at the beginning of yesterday’s sitting, that is when to vote on his report: on Thursday here in Strasbourg, or during the part-session in Brussels, taking into consideration, however, the fact that, according to our agenda, the debate on this issue is in any event planned for Thursday morning.
   . Mr President, we – and therefore I personally as rapporteur – agree with the request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists to keep, if possible, the debate on Thursday morning at 10 a.m. and to postpone the vote – which was conclusive at first reading – until the next session, that is to the part-session at the end of the month in Brussels.
   – Mr President, I regret having reacted too slowly.
I wish to remove my name from the Breyer report in view of the decision by the majority in this House to support nuclear power stations in the course of construction within and outside the EU, which is diametrically opposed to my own position.
I would therefore ask you to have it recorded in the Minutes that I wish to resign as rapporteur for this report.
   Mr Breyer, a rapporteur usually makes this explanation before the final vote, but I can see that we have perhaps proceeded too quickly in the vote.
Your explanation will, however, be recorded in the Minutes.
   With regard to Amendment No 22, we believe it is extremely important to take measures against environmental offences at sea.
We welcome increased European cooperation between the national coastguards when it comes to common operations, planning and the development of competences.
We do not therefore believe that there is any need to develop a new, parallel organisation at European level.
We look forward to the work of the European Maritime Safety Agency.
   . This report forms part of the package of proposals on maritime safety, put together following the disaster of the oil tanker.
It should be noted that maritime pollution by oil tankers does not occur only as the result of accidents; it is also caused by illegal discharges.
For this reason, the proposal seeks to incorporate into Community law the existing international rules governing discharges – such as the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) – and to provide guidance concerning the nature of the penalties to be imposed.
We must recall, however, that this battle will not be won through further legislation alone; this legislation must be effectively implemented and monitored, which requires the appropriate means.
I reject the proposal to create a European coast guard (Amendment No 6), not only because of the issues of sovereignty that it raises, but also because it is not the best solution for ensuring compliance with laws and monitoring and nor does it respond to the fundamental issue of resources.
This proposal consequently contains broader ideas than simply combating pollution.
What is needed is effective cooperation and exchanges of information between the various national coast guards and to ensure that each Member State provides the appropriate funding of resources for monitoring and combating maritime pollution – and here the Community budget could make a significant contribution.
   Mr President, with reference to Mr Poignant's report, I voted against the notion that the EU flag should appear on all EU vessels.
The diversity of the European Union is something to celebrate and not to eliminate.
I look forward to the day when an independent Scotland will have its flag on its vessels and in many other places, choosing if and when it is appropriate to have the EU flag alongside.
I do not believe that this is one of the occasions when that is either appropriate, necessary or desirable.
   . When, in the fifties and sixties of the last century, nuclear fission was promoted as an inexhaustible source of energy for the future, scarcely a thought was given to the waste.
The radioactivity of that material takes a long time to diminish and can last for tens of thousands of years at a lower level.
This insoluble problem of waste should be a compelling reason to refrain from any further use of nuclear fission.
Instead, pressure is mounting to increase underground storage capacity for this hazardous material, for example in the underground salt domes in the Dutch province of Drenthe.
In June 2003, I asked the European Commission for clarification on the subject of plans to make it compulsory for Member States of the EU to use geological disposal sites for the permanent disposal of the most hazardous forms of radioactive waste from 2018.
In reply, I was told that a study on the evaluation of the functioning of geological containment systems had shown that all the European countries have a suitable subsoil of suitable clay, salt or crystalline rock strata.
In addition, the possibility now seems to be left open of regarding this waste as a commodity that must be allowed in to all Member States of the EU without an import licence by virtue of the free movement of goods.
Since Parliament does not have the authority to prohibit this, the only remaining way of contesting imports is via the Court of Justice of the EC.
As far as I am concerned, this is reason enough to vote against this whole directive.
   I chose to vote in favour of Amendment No 29 by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, designed to clarify and tighten up the wording on protecting the general public when radioactive material is handled.
Moreover, I also voted in favour of Amendment No 30 on removing obstacles in the energy market in the interests of fairer competition between nuclear energy and other energy sources.
   . The question before us is whether the 77/270/Euratom Decision, which empowers the Commission to issue Euratom loans for the purpose of contributing to the financing of nuclear power stations, must be adapted to suit the circumstances of certain third countries about to join the EU, in which such investments are clearly of considerable significance.
There does not appear to be any place for technical nuclear considerations in this proposal for an amendment.
Whether or not the principle of these loans is acceptable is another matter.
This is a question, however, which would arise regardless of the amendment currently before us.
It should be noted that the mechanism of loans was introduced in 1977 and at the time covered only Member States.
It was amended in 1994, when the question emerged of the EU’s contributing towards encouraging safety improvements in nuclear installations in third countries, in particular Soviet-designed reactors in former Eastern Bloc countries.
   . Euro-optimists often declare that there was an enormous increase in the powers of the European Parliament in the nineties.
This is true as regards the number of subjects where codecision applies, but not as regards final decisions.
In a normal parliamentary democracy, the parliament has the right of initiative and also the last word on legislation, budget and the forming of coalitions.
This proposal clearly reveals the democratic deficit within the European Union once more, now that the increase in the ceiling for Euratom loans, from EUR 4 000 million to EUR 6 000 million, appears not to fall within the competence of Parliament, but only of the Council.
The most positive element in this proposal is the extension of action to improve nuclear safety from just the Member States of the EU to Russia, Ukraine and Armenia.
A difference of opinion remains over the form this action should take.
Some want nuclear power stations that are more modern; others want these closed down for good.
I agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Breyer, that the purpose of loans for the financing of nuclear power stations should no longer be to expand nuclear power, but to abolish it.
The vote in the specialist committee has practically reversed the direction of this report, and, as a result, I, like the rapporteur herself, can no longer support it.
   . I agree with the proposal for a Decision currently before us.
I also feel that the increase in appropriations must be directed primarily towards improving safety in existing reactors.
Unlike the rapporteur, however, I feel that this should not exclude financing projects aimed at securing or improving existing equipment.
Such is the case of the Euratom loan under active development for the completion of a reactor designed and built in Romania by Canadian, French, Italian and US companies – Cernavoda 2.
I am therefore opposed to such restrictive measures aimed solely at decommissioning facilities.
Like all European citizens, I am concerned about the safety of installations – especially following the socio-political changes in Eastern Europe after November 1989 – and about current decommissioning programmes.
Support for this proposal for a Decision arises from these concerns and from the idea that economic and social cohesion in Europe must also contribute more actively towards revitalising the economies of many of the countries where these installations are located, to which energy safety and sufficiency will certainly contribute a great deal.
   I voted in favour of Amendment No 19 by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (which was voted down by 235 votes, with 71 votes in favour and 11 abstentions).
This amendment emphasises that inhabitants of potentially affected areas in neighbouring countries must have the same rights as people in the country in which the installation is situated, for example in the event of public consultation when loans are to be given from the Community budget.
It is a matter of urgency that the Espoo Convention should be applied in practical terms.
   The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Commission statement on the prospects for the Doha Development Round after the World Trade Organisation General Council meeting of 15 December 2003.(1)
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Lamy and Commissioner Fischler, I would like to pick up on two brief comments that the two Commissioners made this morning.
Commissioner Lamy remarked that we were, so to speak, passing from the technical stage to the political stage of the negotiating process, since officials had, in December, come to a sort of agreement as to how negotiations were to be proceeded with, although it is still not yet clear how the political negotiators can actually put that into an active working calendar.
The second comment that I found very interesting was from Commissioner Fischler, who said what we would do, and added that it would not be at any price.
That is, of course, an allusion to the European agenda and to the issue of how our thinking can have any influence in the context of the WTO negotiations.
What, though – if I may make so bold as to ask the two Commissioners – does that actually mean in concrete terms?
Next year is an election year and a difficult one; you two will still be here in its first half, then things will get critical, and then – so to speak – you will no longer be there.
We do not know who will be.
The situation is similar on the American side – Bob Zoellick will not be coming back again either – and nor is the geostrategic situation straightforward; look at the way things are shaping up in India, look at China or at Brazil.
So I ask you both: what do you now expect to happen, and how are you preparing yourselves for it? What is in your calendars for January, February, and March, and when do you think the political stage will begin?
Now for my second question. Where is the pain barrier?
Where do we really think it is? What is the ‘not at any price’ issue?
The Singapore issues?
I think not.
Agriculture?
Perhaps, but I have seen the draft working document on the market organisation for sugar. Will you, Commissioner, produce a final draft by the end of your term of office?
You see, where is our pain barrier? If we know a bit more about that, I believe we might perhaps be able to be a bit more proactive in steering the process that you all and we all want.
In relation to that, please allow me to put a final question to the two Commissioners: what do you now, really, think of Bob Zoellick’s latest venture? I heard brief indications that you take a positive view of it, but could you go into more detail about just how positive?
   . – Mr President, in my turn I should like to thank the speakers from the European People’s Party, European Socialist and Liberal Groups, who expressed their support for the proposals that Mr Fischler and I have developed and for the paper that we have tabled both in the Council and here in this House.
Our main objectives in these negotiations remain the same: firstly, an additional phase of market opening; secondly, better rules to govern multilateral trade and, finally, better integration of developing countries, which so far have had only a very unequal share in the benefits of increased international trade.
If we try to translate all of this into an answer to your questions – what needs to be done, what has to be our objective for 2004 – then it is quite straightforward.
Our objective for 2004 is to achieve before the summer what could not be done in Cancún; in other words, it is to complete two thirds of the negotiating process.
That is our political objective for 2004.
Well then, you will say, given what you said in your introduction to the debate on how the work is progressing in Geneva, such an objective will no doubt require energy and acceleration.
The current work rate and the pressure in the Geneva boiler will have to be increased and, like others, we intend to stoke up the Geneva boiler to get things moving.
With this in mind – I have said this and I will say it again in response to Mrs Mann’s question – the letter that my American counterpart has circulated in recent days and on which he commented in the press yesterday is good news, because it gives the lie to a theory that was gaining currency and according to which 2004, an election year in the United States, was going to be a lost year.
Well, it is not! 2004 may very well not be a lost year and it is important that two of the major players in world trade, the United States and Europe, support this idea.
To achieve this we are of course going to have to get moving and we are going to work, as we have started doing since our mandate was renewed, with the G20, the G90, the United States and Japan, to mention just the main players of the moment, within a system of variable geometry that will enable us to put forward our own position in the best conditions.
As Mr Fischler rightly said, in our efforts to work on this process and drive it forward, if we are going to raise the temperature, we are going to need you and the contacts that you maintain with your colleagues in each of the major blocks that I have just mentioned.
That is what I had to say in response to the support expressed by a large majority during this debate.
I will now respond briefly to a few criticisms.
Mr Lannoye reproaches us, basically, in two respects: firstly, we did not redraft our mandate, we only repositioned it and, secondly, within this mandate traces of the so-called Singapore issues survive.
Yes, Mr Lannoye is right that we did not redraft our mandate and that we repositioned it.
And if there is a lesson to learn from what has happened between Cancún and now, we should bear in mind that no one around the WTO table has asked to renegotiate the programme of negotiations that was adopted in Doha.
It is this programme that is on the table and it is this programme that needs to be negotiated.
As for the Singapore issues, it is true that we have adopted a more flexible position.
We see our priorities as facilitating trade and introducing greater transparency into public procurement, for reasons that the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance should understand, being so keen on transparency.
In a number of cases this would actually be very beneficial to facilitating trade, in particular for small and medium-sized companies, which often, alas, do not have the resources to pay for the trouble-shooters that the major multinational groups can afford to employ to speed up decisions and ensure a smooth passage through procedures, customs and other networks.
To Mrs Figueiredo and Mr Désir, I will simply say once again that their fears about public services are unfounded.
My mandate on this point is clear and completely unambiguous.
I have never strayed from it and what is more I have no intention of doing so.
I will now turn to two specific points in response to comments made by Mrs Ferrer and Mrs Corbey.
Mrs Ferrer, on the textiles sector, we are prepared to reduce our textiles tariffs and therefore what remains of our industrial protection, but obviously on one condition, and that is that others do the same, which is part of the negotiations.
Mrs Corbey was enquiring about where we were on access to medicines: we are working on this in the two arenas where this work is now being followed up.
The first of these is Geneva, where we need to transpose the terms of the August agreement into the TRIPS Agreement, and we are working hard on this.
It is not as straightforward as it would seem, because the balance that was struck in August between the various different parties and the various different requirements needs to be reflected faithfully in a text that will now be a legal text and, clearly, this requires a little work.
We are also working on this within the European Union, because we want, as it were in anticipation, to amend our own provision on obligatory licensing in European legislation to bring it into line with the new WTO agreement and possibly allow easier access in a number of developing countries.
We are going to do so by tabling a proposal for a recommendation in the Council of Ministers because, pending the entry into force of the European legislation on patents, which has been adopted but will only take effect in a number of years, the only way of implementing this agreement on access to medicines is to amend existing national laws one by one.
We are therefore going to have the Council adopt a recommendation, if it agrees, and we have every reason to think that this will be the case, to ensure that the necessary amendments are made to each of the national laws, pending of course an update to the European provisions, which, I would remind you, will only come into force in a few years’ time.
Those are the answers that I wanted to give at this stage and I would like to thank you for your attention.
   The next item is the report (Α5-0355/2003) by Mr De Rossa, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on Petition 461/2000 concerning the protection and conservation of Great Apes and other species endangered by the illegal trade in bushmeat (2003/2078(ΙΝΙ)).
   Mr President, I support the ideas behind the proposals in Mr De Rossa's excellent report and congratulate him on it.
One of the issues we need to address is the definition of bushmeat.
It is insufficiently precise.
We know or believe that we are all talking about the same thing: primarily, endangered species, in particular the great apes.
There is, however, a delicacy trade, which is for the consumption of bushmeat outside Africa.
It is clearly enormously difficult, both in Africa and in South America, to prevent people who are starving or who have extremely limited amounts of food from 'poaching' in their neighbouring jungle.
However, there are species both in South America and in Africa that can be managed and could form the basis of an organised trade, with the appropriate safeguards.
My concern is that there is a large market in Europe for bushmeat.
Every year several thousands of pounds in weight of illegally-imported bushmeat is seized at London Heathrow airport alone, most of it in an appalling condition.
There is a reasonably large number of residents and citizens from the European Union, and from African and South American countries who, perhaps legitimately, want to consume this if it can be provided on a sustainable basis.
This demand will not go away any more than the demand of Mr De Rossa's Irish compatriots for Guinness will go away, wherever they are based.
The risk is that we will drive it underground even further than has been the case.
One of the options that the Commission needs to look at most earnestly is the proper management of the trade, which would involve extensive and, unfortunately, expensive, surveys of animal populations, control of selective killing and, as far as the export trade is concerned, proper regulation for public health.
As Mr Corrie said, driven underground, the implications of this trade for public health are appalling.
It is a scandal that, in the interests of land management, American multi-millionaires can shoot elephants that need to be culled, whilst people of African origin are not allowed to buy and consume bushmeat in a managed trade.
I thank Mr De Rossa for his assurance that this report does not and cannot refer to deer and elk management in Europe.
I would also point out that any references to high-powered rifles are unnecessary.
There are approximately 20 million AK-47s in Africa, and any control we have over rifles in the European Union will make no difference.
However, like other colleagues, I urge the Commission to take action soon.
   Mr President, I congratulate Mr De Rossa on his report on the protection and conservation of great apes and other species endangered by the illegal trade in bushmeat.
This report, as we have been told, arose from a petition signed by 1.9 million people EU-wide, which led the Committee on Petitions to produce its report.
This was not, may I say, without resistance from certain political groups in this House.
The Christian Democrats, many of whose press releases extolling the virtues of the De Rossa Report are today littering the press centre in Strasbourg, initially voted against the report being prepared.
We in the animal welfare and conservation movements welcome the late conversion of British Conservatives to the side of animal welfare in this regard.
The same is true of the Green and Liberal Groups who to begin with also voted against the report being prepared.
In the interests of public health, public safety and the protection of endangered species, we will be supporting the demands for the EU to use both carrot and stick to encourage conservation of these endangered species in their indigenous habitats, to enable local communities to find alternative food sources and to prevent the illegal importation of bushmeat into the EU.
Mr Corrie's mention of the recent seizure in Amsterdam of 2 000 monkey noses indicates all too well the extent of the trade and the suffering and devastation occasioned to these animals.
We will not be supporting any of the three amendments, which we believe are misconceived and – deliberately or not – mischievous.
Mr De Rossa's report is concerned with the illegal hunting of endangered species and in no way poses a threat to hunting in the European Union, as the EDD Group amendment claims.
Apart from Gibraltar, where safeguarding the apes might be a welcome way of deflecting a Spanish threat, Europe has no great apes.
Equally, the ELDR Group amendment is a contradiction in terms: there is no such thing as a sustainable level of hunting for critically endangered species.
   Mr Ford has the floor for a personal statement in accordance with Rule 122 of the Rules of Procedure.
   Mr President, on a point of order, it was suggested by both Mrs Lambert and more indirectly by Mr Parish that I misled the House when I claimed that the PPE-DE, ELDR and Verts/ALE Groups had tried to block the De Rossa report from appearing on the agenda.
While I accept Mrs Lambert's personal enthusiasm for this report and the fact that she proposed that it be drawn up, my criticism was of her Group's attitude and that of the other Groups.
The matter was raised by the Chairman of the Committee on Petitions at a meeting of the Conference of Committee Chairs some time last autumn.
They were opposed to the Petitions Committee using the Rules of Procedure to produce this report.
The matter was referred to the meeting of the Chairs of the Political Groups, where initially the only vote in favour of the report was that of Mr Barón Crespo from the PSE Group.
It took considerable heavy lobbying of the other Groups to persuade their chairmen to change their minds and allow this report to be produced on the important subject we have in front of us today.
   .
Mr President, the magnitude of the Bam earthquake and the degree of devastation that it caused prompted an appeal from the Iranian authorities for international assistance and a massive international and European response within hours of the disaster occurring.
The toll has now risen to 30 000 dead, with a similar number of people injured, 45 000 homeless, and 85% of Bam destroyed.
The Commission has been active in providing emergency humanitarian assistance in coordinating the efforts of search-and-rescue teams from EU Member States and from the EEA, candidate and accession countries.
On Saturday 27 December 2003, the Commission, through its humanitarian aid office ECHO, adopted a primary emergency decision for EUR 2.3 million to address the most urgent needs arising from the earthquake.
EUR 1 452 129 were granted to the Red Cross family – the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Finnish Red Cross and the German Red Cross – to support the relief efforts of the Iranian Red Crescent Society with the provision of food parcels, tents, blankets, heaters, kitchen sets and hygienic kits, and to address health needs through the establishment of a field hospital and basic health units.
Another EUR 813 577 were allocated to the and for health care and related activities, and finally EUR 34 294 were provided to to set up a satellite-based communication network to facilitate communication and coordination between the relief agencies working in the disaster region.
Alongside the humanitarian aid response, the EU Civil Protection Monitoring and Information Centre, hosted by the Commission, had initiated, after agreement from the Iranian authorities, the dispatch of urgent response teams.
Immediately after the earthquake, in the morning of 26 December, the EU Civil Protection Monitoring and Information Centre offered assistance to Iran and distributed an advance warning to its 30 Contact Points in countries participating in the Civil Protection Cooperation Mechanism.
On 26 December, the first teams left their respective countries and by 27 December, the EU coordination of the search and rescue efforts, headed by the Italian civil protection unit, was operational in Bam.
In total, 18 countries participated in this joint effort with assistance ranging from search and rescue teams – sniffer dogs, firefighters and other specialists – to the provision of relief items – field hospitals and other equipment.
As the search-and-rescue phase of the emergency response came to an end, the attention shifted to ensuring that the basic humanitarian needs of the survivors of the earthquake are covered in the next few months.
On 8 January 2004, both the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs launched appeals to assist in the relief and recovery response in Bam.
Following a first assessment mission which took place between 29 and 31 December, ECHO dispatched a second experts’ mission to Bam between 5 and 8 January to review the situation, assess further needs and coordinate with the other agencies present on the ground.
As a result of this second assessment, a number of sectors stand out as priority areas for intervention: health; sanitation and hygiene; psychosocial support and tracing; and a focus on vulnerable groups, notably children and the elderly.
On the basis of its own assessments and of the UN and Red Cross Appeals, the Commission is considering taking a second decision in favour of the victims of the Bam earthquake in the next few weeks.
By responding as we did, we were able to use the first EUR 2.3 million to cover all the requests that we had at the time and can now consider new requests.
It is extremely important that the international community be able to do something that goes beyond the very immediate assistance required in situations such as this.
   – The next item is the report (A5-0412/2003) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the tuna fleet and industry: situation and future prospects in the EU and worldwide (2003/2017(INI)).
Before I give you the floor, Mr Varela, I have to tell you that, in accordance with the agenda drawn up by the Conference of Presidents, at 5 p.m. precisely we are going to interrupt the debate to give the floor to the representative of the Commission to make an announcement on services in the internal market.
As the timing of this agenda is precise and this announcement has to be made at 5 p.m. on the dot, we will interrupt the debate on Mr Varela’s report, which will be resumed after the Commission’s announcement.
   – Thank you, Mr Varela.
I have obviously taken careful note of your protests in response to the announcement that this debate will be interrupted.
I must also reassure you: the time that you took to express your legitimate protests was not included in your speaking time, so no problem there.
Moreover, since Commissioner Bolkestein has not yet arrived, I have the pleasure of giving the floor to Commissioner Fischler so that he can respond to your comments straight away.
   Madam President, I hope you will not penalise my speaking time if I add my protest to that of Mr Varela.
As Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, I am fed up with the Committee's items being kicked around on the agenda from one day to the next.
It was on the agenda for this morning's debate and here we are now, with half the members of the Committee who have asked to speak in the debate having to come back this evening.
What way is this to organise diaries?
Firstly, I congratulate the rapporteur on this excellent own-initiative report.
It was Mr Varela's idea that the Fisheries Committee should conduct in-depth investigations into some of the major species of fish, and what could be more appropriate than starting with tuna, a species of global importance now worth in excess of USD 2 billion per year.
World production of canned tuna is over two million tonnes a year, while the trade in fresh tuna is also burgeoning.
We held a special hearing in our Committee on this issue, with many industry experts giving evidence.
In addition, the Sustainable Development Intergroup organised a seminar in Brussels last November entitled 'Tuna Fleet and Industry: Prospects for the Future', at which we had a wide range of international speakers.
I wish to concentrate on one important aspect of the report, namely the AIDCP – or Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Program – to which the EU is a signatory, as is the United States and most of the tuna-producing nations of Central and South America.
It is the most reliable method for ensuring that tuna is dolphin safe.
I am grateful to Mr Varela for highlighting this in his report in a very positive way.
He said in his report, 'the system for protecting dolphins in purse-seine fisheries established by the AIDCP, ... is far removed from other private certification schemes which have hitherto been introduced.'
I thoroughly endorse that analysis.
One of these private certification schemes, promoted by the Californian NGO Earth Island, has dominated the canned tuna market for some years.
It is estimated that over 97% of all canned tuna in Europe carries their 'dolphin safe' label.
However, their 'dolphin safe' label is not turtle safe or shark safe.
The method of fishing supported by Earth Island, in its current form, causes the death of countless turtles, sharks and other species and also kills thousands of young yellowfin tuna, discarded dead into the sea because they are below marketable weight.
I very much endorse the support that Mr Varela's report has given to the AIDCP label and hope the Commission will push for this label to be used exclusively on canned tuna in the EU.
   Madam President, Mr Varela's report is on a very important and interesting subject – that of the tuna industry.
I would also like to thank him for taking on board many of the Verts/ALE Group's suggestions.
Many lessons can be learned from the way in which tuna fishing is managed.
For instance, regional tuna management bodies such as ICAT have made great progress in combating fishing by vessels flying flags of convenience.
Another example comes from the Pacific Ocean, where the regional body, the IATTC, has succeeded in dramatically reducing certain types of by-catch, namely dolphins.
Finally, several tuna bodies are in the throes of establishing limits on the capacity of the fishing fleets that are allowed to be involved in the fishery.
The initiatives mentioned in Mr Varela's report are very good ones, but the report does not get rid of the remaining problems, especially the overfishing of several species such as bigeye and bluefin tuna, as well as the unacceptable amount of by-catch involving a wide number of species taken via so-called FAD fishing – the favoured method used by EU vessels.
I believe it is essential that the EU clean up these aspects of its fisheries if it is to be committed to a sustainable fisheries policy.
   . – It is a fact that tuna is the canning industry’s most important product, not only in this Community, but also worldwide.
A number of countries belonging to this Community have a traditionally strong position in the tuna sector and are vulnerable to changes in the market.
It is clear, not only from the Committee on Fisheries’ hearing, but also from what my colleague Mr Varela has said, that the time has come to act.
Third countries, particularly those in Asia, have recently sought to secure for themselves a major chunk of the tuna market, which is a lucrative one.
I see one explanation for the success of our non-European competitors as being the fact that they have an advantage in terms of costs over the owners of ships belonging to the Community fleet.
European shipowners have to comply with Community regulations on hygiene, supervision of fishing activity, production conditions, protection of the environment, and social security for their workers.
Important and right though that is, it costs money.
In order to prevent shipowners from abandoning the Community flag for the sake of competitive advantage, I call for defensive action.
Firstly, there is a need for coordination of the Community policy measures that affect the tuna fleet and the canning industry; secondly, additional fisheries agreements are needed; thirdly, if third countries want to sell their products on the EU market, compliance with health and hygiene regulations must be an absolute requirement; and, fourthly, duties on canned tuna must be maintained until such time as import and trade restrictions are lifted.
What this boils down to is that the EU’s strategy must be a coordinated one and conceived at international level.
   he next item is Question Time (B5-0002/2004). The following questions are addressed to the Commission.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your reply.
You are right, of course: it is indeed the Member States that are primarily responsible here.
As a member of the board of the European Senior Citizens Union (ESCU), I have focussed very intensively on these issues recently, and it has emerged – for our organisation now has members in twenty European states – that there is a growing debate in all the European countries about the situation in homes for the elderly.
Our question is this: would it not be possible to produce some kind of recommendation on how contracts should be concluded with these homes?
We are aware of homes where residents are very often treated with very little respect, are even confined to cots against their will, are prevented from going out, are served their evening meal so early that they very soon feel hungry again but have no chance of getting anything to eat after 8 or 9 p.m., and where if they soil themselves with or without an incontinence pad, they are often left to lie in their own filth for hours at a time, or are treated in an unfriendly manner by staff, are abused verbally and even subjected to violence.
I believe that guidelines for contracts for homes are essential.
   You know that this is Question Time.
It is not a time for statements or debates, but we have listened carefully to Mrs Flemming.
I do not know whether the Commissioner wishes to respond in any way.
   .
As I said, the Commission does not have the facility to make this sort of intervention.
It is not justified by any legal basis.
I think, however, that it is important that, in future, Article 25 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, especially the reference to a dignified life for the elderly, will also constitute a basis for the associations of the elderly to which Mrs Flemming referred, so that they can take recourse to the courts and so that the European Union and, of course, the national authorities, have the facility to intervene in certain cases.
The Member States were supposed to bring the Directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector into force by the end of October 2003.
On 5 December 2003 the Commission announced that it was initiating proceedings against 11 Member States for delays in bringing the directive into force.
The majority of e-mails are now spam.
What other concrete measures does the Commission propose to take to ensure that the objectives of the directive are implemented? The reliability of e-mail is impaired and its development has stagnated.
How will the Commission ensure that the Member States also take the most urgent measures to put pressure on service providers (for example) so that the basic requirement of electronic communications – their free flow – may be guaranteed?
   – Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his very detailed and, in my opinion, very good and positive reply.
I wish, however, to ask a further question.
Recently, those responsible for creating and spreading a virus have used other people’s computers to send out spam.
This is known as the Trojan Horse principle.
Although, let us say, 60% of computers might be protected, there are always some which have inadequate protection, and the hackers and crackers can use them as bases and platforms for spreading spam.
Has the Commission considered how one might respond to this very international problem of a virus and innocent people’s computers being used to turn spam into a problem on a large scale?
   . – This ‘Trojan Horse’ case, which Mr Paasilinna mentions, is one of the nastiest ways of abusing the Internet to cause trouble for people and restrict their ability to work.
This is one issue we intend to deal with in our communication, which is to be published very soon, and also at a seminar to be held by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development in Brussels in February. I hope that Mr Paasilinna will be able to attend.
At the same time, obviously, as we are now establishing a Network Security Agency, a report on which Mr Paasilinna has already presented here in Parliament, this problem will also feature as part of that whole process.
We are prepared to give special attention to this Trojan Horse problem and the way it creates spam. Innocent people unknowingly become perpetrators of an illegal activity that also contravenes this directive.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I share your view that the issue addressed by Mr Paasilinna is an important one.
I hope that the European Network and Information Security Agency will also be able to make an assessment of spam and that we shall be able to obtain different assessments of the spam programs.
When the Commissioner sent an e-mail to a number of Finnish MEPs last week, Parliament’s spam program labelled it as ‘suspected spam’, not however with the label ‘suspected high’, but ‘suspected low’.
We need an assessment of the way in which the spam programs operate if the protection is to be effective.
I also hope that we shall together be able to develop tools for revealing the false identities.
There are not only Trojan horses, but also many false identities on the Internet.
   .
Firstly, I thank Mrs Doyle for the question.
The Drinking Water Directive of 1998 sets quality standards for a range of chemical parameters, including fluoride.
The parametric value for fluoride in the directive is based on available scientific evidence and is in line with the values recommended by the World Health Organization.
Secondly, there is general agreement in the scientific community that fluoride in drinking water may have positive or negative effects depending on the concentration.
The maximum permitted value of 1.5 mg/litre maintains a good balance between positive and negative effects, according to the World Health Organization.
The Commission feels supported in this assessment by the most recent documents of the World Health Organization from 2003, that is, in a new draft edition of the World Health Organization's 'Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality'.
These documents maintain the same value for fluoride.
At the same time, the issue of artificial fluoridisation of drinking water is the responsibility of Member States and, indeed, the approaches vary from country to country.
In some countries it is banned and in others it is left to the local authorities to decide.
However, in any case the maximum permitted value has to be respected.
Thirdly, in order to assemble most recent knowledge and experience, the Commission organised a seminar on drinking water in October 2003.
It brought together experts from across the European Union, including those from new Member States and from the World Health Organization, and addressed the issue of fluorides and fluoridisation.
For fluoride values it has been recognised that the current value of 1.5 mg/litre reflects current scientific knowledge.
Finally, following a request from the Commission, the Scientific Committee on Toxicity, Ecotoxicity and the Environment evaluated a study concerning the quality of drinking water in selected European cities.
In its evaluation of 2003 it referred, in line with the scientific position adopted by the World Health Organization, to both the protective and detrimental effects of fluoride, but did not suggest making a change to the value for fluoride in the directive.
   .
The honourable Member's question asks the Commission to comment on progress achieved on the implementation of the Tampere objectives concerning the development of a common immigration and asylum policy.
The question is very timely since we are coming to the end of the first phase of the development of these policies, as detailed in the Tampere agenda.
Moreover, the five-year deadline set out in the Amsterdam Treaty for the realisation of certain objectives, notably with respect to asylum policy, will be reached on 1 May 2004.
The annual parliamentary debate on the development of an area of freedom, security and justice, which will take place during the February part-session, will be the first opportunity to discuss with Parliament the assessment of our policies in these fields.
In June 2004, the Commission intends to present to the European Parliament and to the Council a communication which will evaluate the progress made in implementing the Tampere objectives.
This communication will include an evaluation of all aspects concerning immigration, asylum, the integration of immigrants in our societies and the development of relations with third countries.
I hope that this communication will also be able to include some guidelines for what could, in the near future, become a 'Tampere II' agenda.
   .
The honourable Member is perfectly correct: there was funding for this and for the rearing of greyhounds before 1992.
That ceased, as I said earlier, in 1993 for a number of reasons, partly due to concerns at EU level and in the Commission relating to animal welfare considerations.
I repeat that this is a competence issue.
It is not within the competence of the Commission or the European Union to engage in inquiries in Member States relating to issues that are strictly outside the competence of the European Union.
To seek to try and make a competence for the EU for such an endeavour merely because there was funding prior to 1992 – which has now ceased – is impossible to achieve.
That means that there is very little that can be done.
Nonetheless, as I have indicated, in response to enquiries from the Commission, the authorities in both Ireland and Spain, and the major animal welfare organisation in Spain, have indicated that the situation has considerably improved, not least, in Spain, as a result of the introduction of legislation in the areas of the autonomous regions and also because of the greater vigilance of the police authorities in prosecuting infringements.
   .
I would like to assure the honourable Member that I will have my services investigate, and prepare a proper response to, his supplementary question relating to ramorum dieback.
I will then write to him in due course.
The Commission will be aware of the importance of surveillance and networking in the areas of cancer, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, EU funding for which is due to come to an end with the changes in the Health Action Programme.
There will, therefore, be a gap where tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are concerned until the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control is established in 2005, and an unquantifiable gap where cancer is concerned.
What steps has the Commission been able to take to ensure there are no gaps in the surveillance of these important disease areas?
   Like the Commissioner I think surveillance of these diseases is fundamentally important and that is why I am concerned that there should not be a gap.
As rapporteur for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, I know we are not going to have this up and running before 2005 at the most optimistic estimate, so it is the gap between now and then that I am concerned about.
Of course, the centre will not deal with cancer as it is not a communicable disease.
It will deal with the other two mentioned.
I know the Commissioner has been looking for solutions to cancer, because he has discussed that with our committee in the past.
Nevertheless, I ask him to look very carefully at the organisations who have been doing the surveillance – particularly on tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS – and see how they can be supported over the coming two years.
We are faced with a double problem in this area: one, as the Commissioner mentioned, is the exponential rise in cases in Eastern Europe, and the second is the fearsome rise we are now seeing, here and across the Atlantic, in a number of newly-diagnosed cases which are multi-drug resistant.
Potentially, there is thus a dual crisis attacking us from both sides.
   .
As I indicated earlier to Mr Bowis, I am aware of these concerns and can only stress that responsibility for this entire issue rests with Member States.
We keep a close watch on this, using monitoring and surveillance mechanisms.
It will be the sort of issue to which I will be turning my mind during the upcoming discussions on this year's budget over the coming weeks, or perhaps months.
   .
As you know, a number of measures are available under European law to deal with such situations.
I do not want to pre-empt the outcome of the discussions that will take place on 22 January, but there are a number of measures, including temporary emergency measures, applicable to the next import campaign.
I am sure you are aware of the kinds of measures that are available.
They are quite powerful, it is within the competence of Community law to impose them, and these are the kinds of issues that will be considered in the event that the discussion discloses a need to put these measures in place.
That is as far as I can go at this stage; I would rather not pre-empt those discussions.
   We have been and continue to be very active in dealing with the consequences of Chernobyl and other environmental disasters, but I should like to ask the Commissioner what more we can do in order to prevent another environmental disaster occurring when something goes wrong with pesticides.
Could he approach the Ukraine authorities on these issues, since we shall be raising them in Parliament at the next meeting of the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Cooperation Committee that is to take place next month? What more can he do in terms of contacting the Ukraine Government and looking again at how the Tacis Programme can contribute to that?
After the Chernobyl experience we have to prompt Ukraine to do something.
The Commissioner knows as well as I do how that country functions.
This will not be its top priority. We must tell Ukraine that dealing with these kinds of methods is a top priority for the EU.
   .
I totally agree with the honourable Member that obsolete pesticides are a real and serious problem, not just in Ukraine; they are a common problem in all too many post-Soviet regions, as well as in some acceding and candidate countries.
The estimate is that in Ukraine there are perhaps up to 20 000 tonnes of these pesticides in 5000 locations and, as the honourable Member knows, they can affect human health because of the contamination of groundwaters, soil, food and even air.
The honourable Member mentioned Chernobyl: I was there recently.
We have dedicated a lot of time and a great deal of money to that extraordinarily difficult and dangerous environmental issue.
There we are working with the government of Ukraine, which wishes to take that as a priority.
It has not been easy even in those circumstances.
What is more difficult for us, is to insist on our priorities through a programme such as Tacis, in which the partner country is supposed to take ownership of the programme we are helping to support.
I can assure the honourable Member that we will continue to raise this issue and other environmental issues in the relevant subcommittee of the partnership and cooperation agreement.
We will raise this issue during those meetings and if the government in Ukraine says it would like us to focus some of our spending on this issue, we would be delighted to look at that.
But the figures involved are very substantial.
It is reckoned that it would cost at least EUR 100 million for the elimination of the problem I described earlier, and that is why, in our judgment, it is probably more helpful to turn to the global environmental facility in order to secure an objective which the honourable Member is quite right to highlight.
   – Mr President, how does the Commissioner rate the talks that began yesterday between the United States and Latin America? Will they strengthen or weaken the Community objectives referred to in Mrs Kinnock’s question, and what is the EU’s response to the US initiative?
   Thank you very much, Commissioner Bolkestein.
We should be particularly grateful if you would inform us immediately of the outcome.
   Madam President, my question is also about the short declaration or short announcement about taking legal proceedings against the Council.
I should like to ask the Commissioner: what is the best that the Commission expects; that is to say, does it expect to win the case?
What would the consequences be?
Would it be able in some way to intervene in the decisions taken by the Council?
What does the Commission mean when it says that it is exclusively procedural elements that the challenge will concentrate on?
   The next item is a recommendation at second reading (A5-0455/2003) by Mr Nobilia, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the Council common position with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on detergents (1095/3/2003 – C5-0521/2003 – 2002/0216(COD))
   Madam President, when I wrote my report on HIV/AIDS two years ago, I was not sure what the outcome would be. However, I am delighted that the EU, the Commission and this Parliament have done quite a lot, as many speakers, including the Commissioner, have said.
However, I want you to focus on an African woman who is suffering and dying from HIV/AIDS, TB or malaria. If she were to watch CNN what does she see and hear?
She sees the conflicts in Iraq, Congo, Afghanistan, Burundi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and so on. She sees loss of life, billions of euro wasted, including the EUR 75 billion that President Bush has pledged for Iraq's reconstruction.
This is essential, but it is a lot of money in relation to the US commitment of EUR 15 billion over 5 years for HIV/AIDS, of which 10 000 people are dying every day.
So, this lady sees terrorism in Istanbul, New York and Saudi Arabia. She sees a natural disaster in Iran – 20 000 people dead, a town flattened – and she says to herself 'I have TB, and yet I do not have ten dollars or ten euro to cure it.
I am dying'.
How does she feel when she sees all these billions of euro that we spend to renovate buildings that have been destroyed and which are then destroyed again? The pledges – which are very worthy indeed – for the reconstruction of Iraq made by countries like the United States amount to EUR 75 billion.
What is their contribution to the fight against HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria?
That is where the European Union has been tremendous, very generous and is showing the way for the rest of the world. I also look to the oil-rich countries.
What are they doing? How much are they contributing?
If not, why not?
What about Japan and others?
If we are to address this issue we have to be serious and put it into context, because the people who are suffering are poor, sick, oppressed, not free to work and live in harsh conditions.
They have no water or electricity, they have no tools to till their land, and nor are they near the sea. What chance do they have?
That is why it is important to EU aid and to go back to the basics of life such as water and access to energy, because these people are already spending their whole day looking for water and firewood to cook their next meal.
I know the Commissioner is committed.
He is brilliant. I know this Parliament is behind him.
Let us go for it and make sure that this year and beyond we can achieve what we set out to do.
   Madam President, NEPAD and its implementation agency, the African Union, offer, as all of us would agree, no quick fix for the problems of Africa.
Fulfilling the promises will not be easy and Africa and, indeed, outsiders such as ourselves, will have to be in this for the long haul.
As the report points out, NEPAD was initially and consistently intellectually scarred by inadequate consultation, particularly at grassroots level – it was leader-led. We hope that we will ensure that, as far as the African Union in its future work is concerned, there will be far more consultation at grassroots level with civil society.
Perhaps the result of this, as far as NEPAD is concerned, for instance in relation to our last debate, is the modest reference in NEPAD to any kind of social sector issue.
There is hardly any mention of HIV/AIDS at all, and this has to be a very glaring and serious contradiction in NEPAD's proposals for action.
As the Commissioner said, we now move on to working with the African Union, which will now be given the task of working through the policies and implementing them.
How will the Commission support efforts to build the kind of coherence that will be necessary now between NEPAD and the AU's strategy?
Is it of concern for instance that the peer group review mechanism is somehow now being increasingly institutionalised and separated off as a kind of separate secretariat? Should this not be of some concern to us?
The Commissioner talked quite rightly about the importance of the peace facility.
Does the Commission intend to offer commensurate funds for the other work – the self-led development work – of the AU on democracy, human rights and good governance?
Will we be offering similar support for that work, which has to go hand in hand with the work that will need to take place on conflict resolution and peace-building?
As the report says, it is important that the AU is the legitimate political and mandated institution at this stage.
Peace and governance cannot be dealt with through declarations such as NEPAD.
What we need now, as the last speaker said, is much better focus and action.
   Madam President, Commissioner, Mrs Prets, I have listened quite carefully to what our Commissioner has said.
I am sorry, but I did not really hear the answer to the clear and precise questions contained in this report.
In paragraph 45, if I have understood it correctly, there is a question which is addressed directly to you, Commissioner, and that is whether or not you intend to send, on behalf of the Commission, a communication to the Council and to Parliament, which will relate specifically to a UNESCO convention on cultural diversity.
If I have understood you correctly, you spoke about this question at length but I did not learn whether or not Parliament can expect a communication from you. If the answer is yes, can you tell me on what date, during the course of this year, you intend to send that communication?
   – Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to address one particular issue where there has so far been no protection of cultural diversity in the way this Parliament would wish, and where this situation is likely to continue. I am referring to the concentration of electronic media, especially television, which, as we know, is the key medium influencing public opinion.
Protecting media diversity is also an important element in protecting cultural diversity and cultural identity.
We cannot leave the task of affording this protection to the European judicial system, gratifying though today’s judgment by the Italian constitutional court may be.
My earnest expectation of the international legal instrument that we hope for is that it will establish conditions which genuinely help to promote diversity in the media.
Commissioner, you have been talking about battles and wars, and we have a major battle on our hands here. Without wishing to play down your achievements in other areas, we have been left with no troops on this battlefield so far, and that creates a rather bitter after-taste.
Diversity of opinion and pluralism in the media are valuable assets and there are many positive examples of them in Europe, despite the growing threats facing us. That is why Parliament has repeatedly, but sadly unsuccessfully, called for a directive to restrict media concentration for years.
I would like to reiterate this call today.
My group will therefore also be supporting a supplementary amendment by Mrs Fraisse, which sets out the arguments for this and which deserves the support of this House.
I hope that it will have the Commission’s support as well.
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   I do not like to irritate colleagues by interrupting them, but I must appeal for your support.
There are 40 speakers still to speak in this debate and the vote is due to take place at noon.
We will not be finished in time if speaking times are not respected.
   – Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you are inheriting a European Union that is in quite a pitiful state, which has, throughout 2003, shown itself to be fundamentally incapable of responding to the major external and internal challenges faced by the people of Europe.
Under these circumstances, it would have been quite premature, to say the least, to give this Europe of 25 – which is what it is – a constitution, this being the symbol of a people’s political and democratic maturity.
We are far from reaching that point.
You said just now, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that we were the elected representatives of the people.
We are not; we are the elected representatives of the European peoples, until there is evidence to the contrary.
So, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, make more speed with less haste.
The top priority is not what Mr Poettering is loudly demanding, which is all that his supporters can see.
The people of Europe do not have the same priorities as the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, and they do not care about the political leanings of the Commissioners.
The people of Europe do not need a constitution, which is a matter for institutions.
They need growth; they need jobs.
I think that you could make your Presidency a great deal more useful by taking the Union down that road, rather than getting lost in the maze of this supposed constitution.
In order to restore growth and employment, there needs to be a change of policy.
The policy followed since the Maastricht Treaty has failed.
Europe, and specifically the euro zone, is dropping a growth point every year solely due to the restrictive, Malthusian and ultimately somewhat sadistic policy of the European Central Bank, which means that we now have a largely overvalued currency.
Are we going to accept the European economy being mortgaged for much longer by the ghosts of those whom General de Gaulle would have called ‘the gnomes of Frankfurt’?
The greatest danger for Europe, Mr President, for the Lisbon process and for growth and employment, I am sorry to say, is my former compatriot, Mr Trichet.
Your Presidency will be judged not on the Constitution, you can be sure, but on your ability to make the European currency work for the European economy.
   – Mr President, we can fully endorse two remarks about the draft Constitution and the Intergovernmental Conference made by the President-in-Office of the Council.
You spoke, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, of the excellent work done by the Convention. Mr Cohn-Bendit mocked your comments.
I will take them seriously and at face value.
Your words indicate that you will not allow your colleagues at the IGC to destroy that excellent work and again leave it in tatters.
We know that the IGC will not adopt the draft text exactly as it stands.
Nevertheless, the draft Constitution is more than just a starting point – it is balanced, fair, and contains all the key elements for a solution.
In a Union of states and citizens, Mr Poettering, the double majority system forms part of that essential factor: balance.
That is why it is included in the draft Constitution, and not to give any Member State an edge.
Your second comment, Mr President-in-Office, was that you want to move ahead swiftly.
You want to report back in March and we fully support that aim.
On this point, Mr Poettering, I agree with you for once.
The rumours and prognostications about a two-tier or two-speed system, about centres of gravity and so forth must stop, and the best way to do that is by providing a European Constitution, and fast.
Mr President-in-Office, you expressed your conviction that the European Union needs a Constitution.
Obviously, we share that view.
However, we do not need any old Constitution; we need the Convention’s proposed text.
What is more, we need it now, not just in two or three years’ time.
The world and the new challenges it brings is not going to wait for Europe.
If I may, I would also like to address Mr Poettering. Mr Poettering, you called for the results of the elections to be taken into account when the next President of the Commission is appointed.
I am very happy to hear you speak out so clearly in favour of a Commission President from the ranks of the social democrats.
Perhaps I could also say a few words about Mr Poettering’s speech.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats wants a Commission President from within its ranks.
That is all very well.
In that case, however, Mr Poettering needs to name names before the election.
He cannot expect the citizens of Europe to buy a pig in a poke.
   – Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, an exciting six months lie ahead of you, with enlargement, the Constitution and the Spring Summit.
However, I think there is more for you to do.
As President-in-Office of the Council, you are going to have to decide what course to take with many policies and to shape the Council’s work.
I hope that the Christmas period, the presidency handover and the start of a new year have been used as an opportunity to take stock, have given you insight, and that you are ready to move away from a veto-happy intergovernmental two-speed Europe towards a stronger community-focused Europe; from failure to respect Community law – notably the Stability and Growth Pact – to active implementation of Community rules and rulings – we welcome the Commission’s lawsuit; from the nationalisation of European policies towards more Europe-focused domestic policy; away from a culture of blaming the EU to a willingness to share responsibilities; from the end of the moratorium on human embryo research to an agreement on the limits; away from the system of dodging issues and procrastinating towards taking decisions about the directives on the agenda (I am thinking of the Transparency Directive, the Directive on competition in public services, the Takeovers Directive, President-in-Office); away from continuing the new populist debate on the Statute of Members to a decision.
You still have 30 hours to reply to the European Parliament’s request for a timetable.
Move away from the negative atmosphere that often prevails between the Council, Commission and Parliament towards establishing discussions and public relations which are citizen-friendly, optimistic, honest, which make use of the opportunities offered by enlargement, the Constitution, growth and employment, stability, the internal market, competition and subsidiarity.
I ask you to make this about-turn, and in doing so, give our priorities a new direction.
   – Mr President, Taoiseach, first let me say a few words about Lisbon before I go into the question of external relations.
I agree with you and wish you well in your attempt to revitalise the Lisbon Agenda.
At the same time, however, I think we need to be aware that Lisbon is not only about economic reform. It also involves investing more in training and further training for individuals.
If we expect the European workforce to be more mobile, we must also provide them with a certain amount of stability and social security in return.
This is the only way that people will be willing to contribute to the social side of this process of economic modernisation.
Let me come on to the subject of external relations, however.
My colleague Mr van den Berg has already referred to the critical situation in Ethiopia and Eritrea.
We could add Kashmir, another place where the European Union is being asked to support what appears to be limited between India and Pakistan.
However, I particularly want to focus on the Middle East.
I think that it is up to your Presidency, Taoiseach, to seek to do more in order to ensure the European Union has a profile in the Middle East.
Unfortunately over the last six months, a great number of opportunities in the area have been missed.
In view of this, I would urge you to try everything in order for the association agreement with Syria, which is already almost ready to be signed, might still be concluded.
I understand that the Commission has put in some very good work, but the Council or certain Council members have protested and vetoed it.
Whatever the particulars may be, I think we need this kind of agreement with Syria so that we can put pressure on her to negotiate with Israel and to further the peace process.
I think it is essential that we actually take advantage of the modest signs of an improved relationship between Israel and Syria.
More generally speaking, however, rather than simply ignoring this trouble spot, the European Union needs to do more on both sides to drive the peace process forward.
Just a little while ago, we did see the Geneva plan, which also caused a certain amount of positive unease in Israel because those in favour of peace now also have something on which to build.
To close, let me also add that in a long, very inflammatory piece for newspaper, the former Israeli ambassador to Germany, Avi Primor, called upon the European Union to do more to establish peace in Palestine and Israel.
I also ask you, Taoiseach, to do more to involve the European Union in this very important peace process.
   . I wish to draw the attention of the presidency to the Euratom Treaty.
This Treaty has been part of the EC since 1957.
After 50 years this Treaty promoting nuclear energy is obsolete.
However it, together with any new constitutional treaty, will be the Treaty of the EU.
Many citizens will not accept this as the constitution of the EU and if referenda are held, as they must be in some states, I believe there will be no majority for a constitution promoting nuclear technology.
I would like to thank you particularly Mr Ahern, President-in-Office of the Council, for joining with Austria and proposing a new convention on Euratom to review this treaty.
I wish you success, as I am sure that the future of this new constitution depends on this happening.
I regret that the Convention avoided this issue, and particularly regret that the delegate from the Verts/ALE Group, Johannes Voggenhuber, neglected to make progress on it, being drawn instead by a grand design for a new constitution.
However, it is not too late: Austria and Ireland have led the way where others must follow.
I do not know whether Sir Robert Atkins wishes to make his traditional point – which I would fully support – at this juncture, but if so he may!
   – Mr President, since you invite me – and I have been provoked by colleagues – what is the point in running an assembly which indicates that votes are due to take place at 12 noon, but which then start at 12.40 p.m.? Surely we should be able to manage our affairs efficiently.
Would you please carry that concern back to the Presidency of Parliament.
   . – Mr President, on this issue of the liberalisation of the water market, we have a contradiction in the French text.
The French version is written in such a way that it seems that Amendment No 48 says that the water market needs to be liberalised without taking into account regional characteristics, while the English version says the opposite.
I would like to point out that we worked first of all in English.
Those who wish to reject the liberalisation of the water market therefore vote for the original text, if they do not accept Amendment No 103.
They first have to vote on Amendment No 103, which rejects the liberalisation of the water market, and if Amendment No 103 is not passed, there remains the original text of Amendment No 48, the first part of which also rejects liberalisation.
   – Mr President, now that we have voted on all the amendments to item 51, I would like to return to Amendment No 36.
Our group has asked that this be voted on in two parts; we have just voted only on the first.
I therefore ask you to proceed with the vote on the second half of Amendment No 36, in accordance with the request that we submitted.
   – Mr President, I rise to ask again whether you have finished checking the split vote on Amendment No 36.
You were going to check it and announce the result.
My group asked for a separate vote on Amendment No 36.
You have voted only on the first part. I would like you to vote on Part 2 now.
   Mr President, as we seem to be having a bit of a breather, I should like to ask Mr Corbett whether he feels that the voting procedure we have undertaken is in conformity with the new Rules of Procedure we drew up for this House to try and simplify voting.
The amendments relating to Mr Nobilia's report, drawn up on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, were voted in blocks.
However, we are now having a very contentious, long vote on a report drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which I believe is not in conformity with the Rules of Procedure.
Now you are asking us to delay the final vote.
Under which Rule are you doing that, Mr President?
   There are provisions in the Rules of Procedure for a delay.
That is why I asked if there were any objections.
I will not give the floor to Mr Corbett because I will not have him chairing the plenary from the floor.
Of course we have complied with the Rules of Procedure, otherwise I would not have proceeded.
   . Mr President, this report arose from a petition to the European Parliament signed by 1.9 million citizens of Europe.
The organisation which organised that petition, the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, is represented in the gallery today and I want to thank it very much for the effort it has put in to bringing this issue before the House.
   – Mr President, we are not being difficult about the final vote on Mr Herzog’s report, but I do ask you to have the vote now, because many Members are already leaving.
   Mr President, Mrs Sandbæk, the rapporteur, has agreed to change 'working' to 'being exploited', meaning that the wording would now be: 'this must extend to women being exploited'.
   . Mr President, I would just like to table an oral amendment to Mrs Boudjenah’s amendment inserting the word ‘Notes’ at the beginning: ‘Notes that the Action Plan for Africa announced by the G8 in 2002 has still not been reflected by precise commitments; calls on the G8 and the EU swiftly to help to make the necessary resources available so as to help achieve the aims set by NEPAD’.
   – Mr President, I would just like to say that I voted in favour of Mr De Rossa’s report out of my conviction that apes and other exotic species are among our planet’s valuable resources and that any modern and highly-developed system of protection for nature and the environment should protect and maintain these resources for the sake of future generations.
I regard Mr De Rossa’s report as an excellent piece of work towards this end, one that will contribute to the protection and maintenance of endangered species.
It also draws attention to the need to protect such species and raises popular awareness of that need.
It was good that Amendment No 2 was adopted; I had hoped that the two other amendments would be as well.
That has not happened, but, as what we have here is in any case a workable solution, I have voted in favour of it.
   . This topic would not have found its way onto the agenda had it not been for a petition signed by nearly 2 million people and had it not been for the Committee on Petitions, which took the decision, a year ago, to draft a report on the subject.
The 'bush meat' phenomenon is already enjoying wide public attention in Great Britain, but not yet elsewhere.
Despite this, it is important for development cooperation, public health and the environment that awareness of this phenomenon should increase in Europe and that a policy on it should actually be adopted.
The population in the developing countries is growing fast, while scope for trade and transport is also increasing.
In the past, small groups of people used to hunt wild animals living in the jungle for their own meat consumption.
These days, this meat of monkeys, reptiles and snakes is not only consumed by poor local residents, but is also sold in African towns and even exported to Europe as a delicacy for the rich.
The commercial hunt of animals and the felling of tropical forests result in the rapid extinction of animal species, including gorillas and chimpanzees.
Scarcely-controllable animal diseases, such as Ebola, are spread among people.
Development cooperation on the part of the EU takes no account of this destruction or of the environment in general.
I support proposals for eco-tourism, protection, education and legislation, even though they probably leave something to be desired.
   NEPAD is without doubt a development project conceived and adopted by the African states, but it should not be looked upon as a project that will emancipate the African people.
Indeed, it is increasingly denounced, like the Cotonou Agreement, the WTO and the IMF’s structural adjustment policies, by sectors of civil society such as the Addis Ababa African Social Forum and the People’s Forum held in Siby in Mali in 2003.
In fact, it is part of a neo-liberal logic, the actual consequences of which run counter to the objectives laid down.
There can be no appropriation of development at either national or regional level while the Washington Consensus, imposed on the current African leaders to later be taken over, provides for the private appropriation of the most profitable economic heritage by the multinationals.
Thus, the social rights and freedoms acquired over the last three decades of independence are being dismantled through the revision of national labour and investment codes.
The fact that NEPAD consulted the multinationals and the G8 rather than the African people says a lot about its idea of democracy.
As a result, we cannot vote for a resolution that merely criticises the lack of consultation while concealing the fundamental, harmful logic underpinning NEPAD.
   – As the report states, it is necessary to arrive at a legal framework under international law for the right to cultural diversity.
In addition – something that is very important from the point of view of the independence and regionalist movements such as the one I represent in this Parliament, the Lega Nord – the report quite rightly underlines the need for vigilance concerning the treatment of minority populations and languages, especially including indigenous languages, within the context of an enlarged Europe.
With regard to the protection of the languages of minority populations, the Member States are invited, where appropriate, to pay particular attention to the conservation of monuments, buildings and everyday implements, which form the material history of these cultures.
There is a need, however, for a much broader and more thorough measure to protect everything that makes up the immense cultural heritage of minority languages and peoples: literature, art, folklore, books and manuscripts, which are in danger of disappearing.
Within Padania, for instance, there is an immense linguistic cultural heritage, ranging from Piedmontese to the Venetian language, as mentioned by Mr Gobbo, to Lombard, Ladin and a host of endangered minority languages. For them, it is vital that the devolution policy sponsored by the current Italian Government should be adopted.
   . The EU is doing a great deal in order to involve a young generation in projects intended to link European unity and ideas about progress.
These projects may end up verging on being propaganda rather than education.
In channelling money to cultural organisations that propagate 'the European idea' by pursuing a general European interest, the EU’s objective is to create a more uniform European elite.
In the worst-case scenario, the EU will eventually evolve into a power centre, with the power ending up in the hands of a Europe-wide English-speaking elite, putting anyone who does not speak this language at home or has an insufficient command of it at a disadvantage at work, and in terms of their ability to participate, and have a say, in politics.
Deviating national and regional customs are then treated as a form of handicap.
That is why it is positive that we should now finally set to defending cultural diversity against commerce and centralistic governance.
I completely share the view of Mrs Prets, the rapporteur, that cultural services and products, and certainly the diversity of opinions, are not consumer goods capable of simply being handed over to the market.
I support her ambition to exclude everything that pertains to this from trade liberalisation by WTO/GATT and to have it protected by a convention to be concluded in the framework of UNESCO.
   . As well as providing an excellent discussion of the importance and the richness of cultural diversity, the report expressly calls for the rule of unanimity to be applied.
This is not a blocking tactic, a charge all too frequently levelled, but the best guarantee of obtaining the consent of States and of the citizens.
Another reason for us to be satisfied is the most compelling case the report makes for the need for the principle of subsidiarity to be respected and for ‘the right for the Member State, the regions and sub-state entities where appropriate to define, implement and adapt cultural policies’ before emphasising that ‘services and cultural products and education are not merchandise… and must therefore be made subject to special conditions… [which] must take account of the fact that the market cannot be the measure of all things, and must guarantee in particular diversity of opinion and pluralism’.
The Members of the delegation to the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities have no alternative proposal.
We support the concept of public service and reject the liberalisation of these sectors under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
It is regrettable and worrying that these guidelines should not have been extended to all services of general interest in the vote on the Herzog report, but we give our unreserved support to the resolution on preserving and promoting cultural diversity in association with UNESCO.
   . – Following on from Mr Cappato’s explanation of vote, I must underline the importance of the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The OSCE promotes security in all ways other than direct armed intervention, and therefore makes every effort to promote respect for cultural and linguistic diversity.
Two institutions operate within the OSCE to achieve this: the High Commissioner on National Minorities and the Representative on Freedom of the Media, who have continually been directing their attention to the subject of languages.
Recently, at their meeting in Maastricht in December 2003, the foreign ministers of the OSCE countries adopted a decision on tolerance – Decision 4/03. Article 10 refers to the High Commissioner on National Minorities and his recommendations on education and languages, including in radio and television broadcasting.
The decision also refers to the recommendations on this subject by the Representative on Freedom of the Media, the text of which can be found at www.osce.org. In 2002 and 2003 he carried out a thorough study on the media in multilingual societies, taking five countries as examples: Luxembourg, Switzerland, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Moldova and Serbia-Montenegro.
On 13 and 14 September the OSCE is organising a conference on racism and xenophobia, to be held in Brussels, during which I hope the subject of linguistic diversity will be addressed.
   .
The Commission is required to provide us with annual reports on the current situation as regards equal opportunities for women and men in the European Union.
Today, we are to state our position on the annual report for 2002, a good practice that permits us to assess how things stand when it comes to implementing the fine European directives and programmes that are meant to guarantee equal treatment and equal opportunities to women and men.
We all know that, where this is concerned, not all that glisters is gold in the Member States or in the accession countries, and that this House should and must denounce this is not a matter of dispute.
There are, however, some passages in this otherwise astonishingly sensible motion for a resolution from the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities that have to be modified.
Various Members of this House have objected to the requirement that Member States and accession countries should, by 2010 provide good and affordable childcare facilities for at least 90% of children between three years of age and school age and for 33% of children under the age of three.
They wonder whether that is either desirable or realistic, that is to say, affordable.
   . On average, women in the EU earn 84% of what a man does, and the average unemployment rate for women in 2001 was 2.3% higher than for men.
In the Explanatory Statement, the rapporteur demonstrates incisively that the many fine words about equal opportunities for men and women are, in practice, leading to little action, partly owing to a lack of measurable results.
No clear objectives were set beforehand, and the assessment criteria laid down by the European Commission in its Framework Strategy for the period 2001-2005 do not reappear in its Annual Report for 2002.
It is thus unclear what has been done or not been done, and what the results are.
Furthermore, the Commission and the Council are working independently of each other.
During the Finnish Presidency in late 1999, the Council established nine indicators with regard to women in responsible and decision-making jobs, to which were then added French indicators for the reconciliation of work and family life, Belgian indicators for unequal pay and Danish indicators for domestic violence against women.
These are all nice things for ministers to tell their grass-roots support back home.
No further mention of them is to be found in the annual reports, and the underlying documents remained confidential.
It is a shame that the motion for a resolution adopted unanimously in the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities lacks the firmness of the clear Explanatory Statement.
I fear that, once again, little will change there.
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   The next item is the Council and Commission statements on preparations for the 60th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.The debate is closed.The vote will take place on 10 February 2004.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0445/2003) by Mr Moraes, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Communication from the Commission on immigration, integration and employment (COM(2003) 336 – 2003/2147(INI)).
   Mr President, in my country, too, there is a group of people that is very concerned about these practices, and they want to put an end to them.
They take it to the extent that they adopt these dogs and pay EUR 150 to do so.
In Spain, there is a refuge as an intermediate point.
The Council must ultimately go knocking on the door of the Member State that is accused of this, however, because we are indeed talking about mistreatment; it is not just a case of the transportation of these dogs.
I think that the Council must take a position on this and make clear that animal rights apply throughout the EU.
These dogs, which later become pets in my country, deserve a fair chance, respect and good treatment.
Will the Presidency establish an investigation in collaboration with the Commission and Euratom into recent findings by researchers at Dundee University in Scotland and the British Government's Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters (CERRIE) suggesting that plutonium pollution from Sellafield is endangering the health of people in Britain and Ireland?
   Is the Minister aware that even the authors of this report acknowledge that levels are so low as to be insignificant to health; that levels are a thousand times less than other radioactive substances naturally present in teeth; that most of the highest results were recorded over 250 miles from Sellafield; that this material is more likely to be fallout from weapons testing, which has been present throughout the Northern Hemisphere for some years; that respected scientific and academic opinion in Northern Ireland – for which I was the minister responsible for a couple of years – as well as in his own country, contradicts many of the assertions of the Irish anti-Sellafield lobby; and that when all is said and done, this is little more than political scaremongering designed to wreck thousands of the jobs of my constituents in north-west England and to damage the livelihoods of those many communities dependent upon this vital and valuable recycling operation?
   I would like to ask the President-in-Office if he would agree that the original question tabled is actually factually incorrect when it talks about endangering the health of people in Britain and Ireland.
In the report Melanie Johnson quoted from – and as Mr Atkins has just commented – the authors actually state that there is no health risk whatsoever: there is no correlation whatsoever here with the original question.
In fact, some of the highest readings taken were 260 miles away from Sellafield and some of the lowest were 50 miles away from Sellafield.
It seems ironic that these comments are being made when the UK department's own report stated that the levels were a thousand times smaller than those of other radioactive substances present as a result of natural sources.
Would the President-in-Office not agree that the question was factually incorrect and put purely for scaremongering reasons, as Sir Robert Atkins mentioned?
   My position has been traduced.
I am asking for experts to assess the implications.
I am not saying that I am the expert.
Can we please have a civil debate on Sellafield for once in this Parliament?
Let us protect our people.
That is the bottom line I am asking for.
   Mr Ortuondo, I would remind you that this is a time for supplementary questions and not a time for political statements.
   Mr President, I would like to supplement Mr Ortuondo’s question, and remind him that this is not a decision by the Spanish Government, but that it is the Spanish Constitution itself which prevents an autonomous community from holding a referendum unilaterally and requires that any referendum be called by the King, on the proposal of the President of the Government, following authorisation from the Congress of Deputies.
That is what our Constitution says.
I believe that the question Mr Ortuondo should have asked – although you probably would not answer it either – is whether a person failing to comply with a law can be subject to penalty, which is what the Spanish authority has said or, in this case, the reform of the Spanish Penal Code.
   Ladies and gentlemen – in this case, Mr Oreja – I do not believe that this is a supplementary question and, naturally, the President-in-Office of the Council is not obliged to reply, but he has the floor if he wishes to say anything.
   Mr MacCormick, the Mr President-in-Office of the Council’s reply was very clear: it does not leave room for supplementary questions.
In any event, you have the floor, and I hope you will use it with your usual wisdom.
   I wanted to suggest to Mr Roche – and it is a great pleasure to see him here after many exchanges at the Convention – that the issue Mr Ortuondo Larrea raised, and with which we are dealing here, is a profound one.
It is about the role and place of countries within Member States.
The Irish presidency, not least because of its interest in the problems of Northern Ireland, but for other reasons as well, ought to give its mind and invite its colleagues to give their minds to the issue of the adequate and improved representation of countries of that kind.
   Mr Ortuondo, since you will most probably not make a point of order – I do not know if you wish to make a personal statement – you may speak for fifteen seconds and I would ask you not to cause any further personal statements, please.
We must not spoil Question Time with other debates which should take place in the relevant setting, in this case in Spain.
   . The Commission recently made a proposal to amend Regulation (EC) No 1655/2000 concerning the Financial Instrument for the Environment – LIFE – mainly in two aspects.
The first concerns only comitology.
However, the second provides for the extension of the LIFE regime for a further two years to bridge the gap between the current regime and the new Financial Perspectives for 2007 onwards.
On 22 December 2003 the Council held an exchange of views on this second aspect and on the options for financing the EU's environmental policies from 2007 onwards.
In addition, the Council adopted conclusions on biodiversity in which it looked forward to the submission of the forthcoming Commission communication on financing Natura 2000.
When received, this will provide a further opportunity for discussions on this very important issue.
   Mr President, I wish to thank the Irish Presidency for the clarity with which it has attempted to answer my question.
I must, however, insist on an issue that I believe to be crucial: I should like to know whether the Council will give due consideration to the conclusions of the working party appointed by the Commission itself, which suggested that the costs of maintaining this ‘Natura’ network would exceed EUR 3.4 billion per year.
I should also like to know whether the Council thinks that our financial perspectives will match the commitments given by the European institutions?
This is the very specific issue that I would like the Council to clarify.
   . In conformity with the common position concerning restrictive measures against Zimbabwe, the Council has kept the situation in Zimbabwe under review.
On 28 November 2003 the presidency, on behalf of the European Union, issued a statement on the current situation in Zimbabwe, expressing its continued concern regarding the climate of tension in Zimbabwe and calling on its government to respect the internationally-guaranteed rights of all Zimbabwean people.
The question of Zimbabwe was raised in the EU-Africa dialogue during the ministerial troika meeting in Rome on 10 November 2003, where the European Union again reaffirmed its readiness to engage in dialogue with the government in Harare on the basis of established benchmarks.
An identical message was passed directly to Zimbabwe and other SADC countries during the meeting of the EU-SADC senior officials in Brussels, held on 12 and 13 November 2003, and was again transmitted to South Africa during the political dialogue meeting in Pretoria on 8 December 2003.
The common position, as adopted on 18 February 2002, expresses the Council's serious concern about the situation in Zimbabwe, in particular the recent escalation in violence and intimidation of political opponents and the harassment of the independent press.
When reviewed in 2003, the common position noted that there has been further degradation in the situation in Zimbabwe, where serious violations of human rights and of the freedom of opinion, of association and of peaceful assembly continue to occur.
As already noted, the European Union has remained extremely concerned about the further degradation of the situation in Zimbabwe since then.
The common position is up for review on 18 February 2004.
In this context, preparatory work on recommendations to be submitted to the Council has begun within the relevant Council departments.
These recommendations will be submitted to the Council for discussion at that time.
   . My colleagues and I appreciate Mrs Kinnock's continued keen interest in this particular matter.
Discussions are ongoing.
It would be premature at this stage for us to say where those discussions will lead.
There will, however, be a review of the list and there may be some extension to it.
   I should like to ask a very brief supplementary question to Mrs Kinnock's question.
One aspect of her campaigning – which is increasingly affecting Member States, including the United Kingdom and possibly Ireland as well – is that with the escalation of violence an increasing number of refugees and asylum seekers are coming to the European Union.
What is the Irish presidency's view of this, given the increase in numbers and that these people clearly have asylum claims and are in distress, but are also arriving in great numbers? Does the President-in-Office have a view on this, given the new presidency, the escalation of violence and the inevitable increase in numbers of refugees and asylum seekers from Zimbabwe to EU Member States?
   Mr President-in-Office, could I press you a little further on this? You briefly alluded to the issue of weapons of mass destruction, which, rather surprisingly, on 6 January 2004, President Assad effectively admitted to possessing.
Could you tell me what kind of mandate you will give the Commission to incorporate clauses that are specifically salient and relevant to the issue of Syria's biological and chemical weapons stock, and whether the Syrians will be encouraged strongly within these clauses to effectively dismantle them and avoid any proliferation of such dangerous weapons?
   . The precise details in that regard will have to be considered by the Council, but there is a specific reference to countering the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.
That is in accordance with the decisions taken in the External Relations Council in November 2003.
You can rest assured that the presidency and the Council have in mind the positive elements of this particular agreement in the context of the region and in the context of weapons of mass destruction in general.
   . I thank Mr De Rossa and I very much recognise the importance of securing an agreement on proposals to improve the rights of workers.
I also understand precisely where Mr De Rossa is coming from in this particular regard.
The point he is making is that one tries to raise everybody's position upward, rather than trying to create a downward movement.
I accept the sincerity of his cause and I think he also understands the views of the presidency in that regard.
   Thank you, President-in-Office, for your full reply.
Are you aware that whilst the Council is clearly divided on this issue, this House is also divided? There are different views, as my good friend Mr De Rossa is also aware.
The fact that here you have a UK Conservative MEP speaking in support of the UK Labour Government and against the opinions of UK Labour MEPs shows that this issue is sensitive and rather complicated.
I welcome your comment that you are going to reflect, but I urge you to reflect also on the phrases that you have put into this excellent document – the programme of your presidency – which I particularly welcome.
On page 16 you mention the key challenges you are committed to pursuing: encouraging greater adaptability and flexibility on the part of workers and companies and removing disincentives to employment.
My own view is that the directive, as drafted, would have done exactly the opposite and cut across the possibility of achieving the Lisbon agenda.
Can I have your reassurance that the fulfilment of the Lisbon agenda will indeed colour your entire presidency, as I am confident it will? Good luck, Sir!
   I should like to join my colleagues in welcoming the President-in-Office, Mr Roche, to the House and wishing him luck for the next six months.
Mr Bushill-Matthews, Mr De Rossa and myself work on the same committee, so we know some of the difficulties here.
But is the presidency aware of the different definitions of agency workers in different Member States, and how this creates a difficulty as regards drawing up harmonised regulations or directives, the purpose of which is to protect workers and actually to improve their position within employment?
Secondly, with regard to Mr Bushill-Matthews' comments on the Lisbon agenda, individual workers should have the freedom of choice, because in some situations temporary agency workers actually earn more money and have more flexibility than they would if they were in contract-based employment.
Under Article 4(1)(d) of Council Directive 2003/86/EC(1) on the right to family reunification a Member State may, where a child is aged over 12 years, before authorising entry and residence under the directive, verify whether he or she meets the necessary conditions.
Since the children in question come from less developed areas and are unable to cope with the demands of the verification procedure, does the Council not consider that in practice it undermines the right to reunification?
   Mr President, the President-in-Office does not need to be that brief.
This is the last question and we have half an hour at our disposal.
I am not asking him to comment on something foreign, I am asking him to talk to us about a directive which the Council approved, on which the President of the European Parliament has taken steps in connection with referral to the Court of Justice, on which non-governmental organisations have taken steps and which makes provision for children of 12 years of age and upwards – just think if it were our daughter, or your daughter, or the daughter of an honourable Member or the daughter of someone who works here – to pass examinations in order to be united with their family.
We cannot deal with this matter with this sort of technocracy and without a sensitive reply by the President-in-Office of the Council and I call for a material response.
   That concludes Question Time to the Council(2).
   The next item is the report (A5-0419/2003) by Hubert Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council, in view of the European Council of Thessaloniki, on the development of a common policy on illegal immigration, smuggling and trafficking of human beings, external borders and the return of illegal residents (COM(2003) 323 – 2003/2156(INI)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0479/2003) by Rodi Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the development of the services sector for job creation (2003/2132(INI)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0448/2003) by Anne-Karin Glase, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the implementation of Directive 96/71/EC in the Member States (COM(2003) 458 – 2003/2168(INI)).
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Glase is right to state in her report that the Posting of Workers Directive may well have been in place since 1996, but that, in practice, workers have no legal certainty in the workplace and that their employment relationships are often unfair.
I know from my conversations over the past years on the largest building site in the centre of Berlin that the people we are dealing with here are the working poor.
Building workers from the United Kingdom, Portugal and many other European States have built a railway station and office buildings for businesses and the government without having a regulated working day, on unequal pay in comparison to their German fellow-workers, not to mention not having sickness and accident insurance.
Is it the case, then, that the Posting of Workers Directive is the wrong instrument, or is it just used wrongly?
The Glase Report gives that question a clear answer: the Directive is the proper instrument for guaranteeing equal pay for equal work at the same place of work, but the way in which the Member States apply it is atrocious.
I believe that this is primarily the result of the lack of effective sanctions.
Even if it is found that a Portuguese company’s workers do not enjoy the same pay and conditions as those of the German firm next door, and this is confirmed by the Labour Office’s inspections, nothing happens.
In a matter of a few weeks, the company is back in Portugal, where the imposition of a fine in Germany is of interest to nobody.
This is where businesses make a net profit by circumventing the law, and so fines must be enforced on a Europe-wide basis; the Council decision to this effect is long overdue.
We thank the rapporteur for adding her support to this amendment.
It must no longer pay to circumvent the rules; black sheep must be branded.
Only thus can the public lose their fear of eastward enlargement and of the social dumping that they believe will result from it.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission (O-0076/2003 – B5-0417/2003), by Stephen Hughes, Proinsias de Rossa and Jan Andersson on behalf of the PSE Group, on harassment at the workplace.
   Mr President, I would like to make a few remarks in response to Mr Hughes' observations.
I would agree, as I hope all sides of the House would agree, that harassment is a serious problem wherever it occurs.
It may only occur on some occasions, in some companies, with some people, but whenever it does occur it is a serious problem for those people and must be deplored and indeed addressed.
By harassment at the 'workplace' we do not just mean at the traditional workplace, between employee and employee, or employer and employee, but also at places such as schools, between pupils and teachers, where cases of harassment and bullying are increasingly common.
However, in all those circumstances I fundamentally disagree with Mr Hughes on his key point that wherever there is a problem the solution always has to be legislation, and that wherever there has to be legislation the solution is always legislation at EU level.
We need better management and we need to pay closer attention to the issue, but that does not mean we need a legalistic approach.
We need a commonsense approach rather than EU law.
I agree with the Commissioner and think she is right to reject the criticism that was made of her and should continue to do so.
It is true, as Mr Hughes said, that some officials in DG-Employment take a different view.
There are many people and, I hope, an increasingly large group of people who will take a different view.
Finally, and perhaps in a lighter vein, Mr Hughes talks about psychological harassment at the workplace.
I face constant psychological harassment at my workplace, which is the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, mainly because I constantly have to address reports by Mr Hughes.
I suspect that legislation is not going to stop that from occurring!
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there have indeed been many initiatives, including in the Member States, aimed at stopping harassment and taking preventive action against it.
I still recall – as I think we all can – the initiative launched in Germany 30 years ago, which aimed to humanise the working environment and our recent discussion of a communication from the Commission on modernising the organisation of work.
We also remember how the Belgian Presidency took an initiative to improve the quality of work, but all that was not enough.
I can understand you when you say, Commissioner, that the Member States assess and evaluate these things differently, but we cannot fail to see that all industrialised nations have the same problem.
I agree with Mr Andersson when he says that this is not about the 8% of workers investigated by Eurofound in Dublin – amounting in any case to 12 million employees – but, unfortunately, about the way in which this phenomenon is on the increase and the figures are rising.
The fact that people are working under greater pressure in many sectors, including the services sector, makes harassment a bigger and more difficult problem.
I therefore agree with all my fellow-members of the Group of the Party of European Socialists on the need for a legal framework.
Necessary though they are – I am in agreement with that – awareness campaigns are not enough!
Commissioner, we know how bold you are when it comes to dealing with the inertia of certain Member States.
We know that it will be more difficult to submit legislation on this than on such things as a ban on asbestos or protection against noise.
We know, too, that many major companies have their own rules already – I know that Volkswagen does, and so do others.
There are many of them, but most have nothing yet, and the majority of employers have not yet recognised how many euros they are losing as a result of time lost because workers are off sick, because of reduced motivation, because people become resigned to their lot, because they become less enthusiastic about work or lose their enthusiasm altogether – all of this caused by harassment.
The fact is that if employers were to acknowledge this, we would not be having these problems.
Since we do, though, we need to create a legal framework, and the protection of workers from occupational hazards is Europe’s responsibility.
The task is ours, and we should get on with it.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I firstly wish sincerely to thank Mr Hughes and Mr Andersson for raising this issue.
I believe that the moral and psycho-social working environment, indeed the spirit of the workplace, are fundamental values that are deeply undervalued in the perhaps unduly soulless societies that our European welfare states have become.
I believe it is completely inexcusable for employees to be harassed in their workplaces and not to be seen as employees and as the human beings they are, and to be fully valued as such.
How we behave towards each other is a question of decency.
It is also, ultimately, a question of civilisation and a question of how we see each other as people.
I wish to thank you for being so positive in emphasising this important matter of the working environment.
I believe, as previous debaters have said – and we are agreed about this here in the House – that this is an extremely important and undervalued area.
Moving on, now, to your request, Mr Andersson and Mr Hughes, you seriously doubt that there is sufficient protection in national legislation. Are we certain of that?
We can in fact have confidence that Swedish legislation, followed by Belgian legislation, can set a sound and healthy pattern in the rest of Europe. Let us not rule out that way, because it has still not been tried in very many countries.
Hand on heart, is it really the case that, as a result of European legislation, this issue would be dealt with closer to workplaces and employees?
Would European legislation make for a more effective solution to the problem? I am afraid that we would be distancing the whole problem and, instead of finding a solution to it, removing it too far from our workplaces.
Let us try the route of national legislation in this area.
(1)
   Mr President, on a point of order, yesterday some colleagues will recall that during the vote on the Herzog report I suggested that the President look at Rule 130a.
We had a mass of amendments to vote on.
Before that, we had voted on amendments to a report drawn up on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy.
To make voting easier, however, these amendments had been arranged in blocks.
Rule 130a states quite clearly that where there is a mass of amendments, the committee involved should try to sort them out before they are put to the vote in plenary.
I would like the Bureau to have a proper look at Rule 130a so that Parliament's services can be instructed to ensure that the committees observe that Rule.
   Mr President, just to build on my colleague Mr Provan's point of order, I should like to draw the attention of all colleagues here to the fact that 215 amendments have been tabled on the Zappalà report, which we shall be debating shortly.
To pick up on Mr Provan's point, under Rule 130a it is the responsibility of all of us here, between now and the vote, to simplify the voting procedure.
I am sure the Mr Zappalà would agree with that.
We should take note of that lesson and ensure that when this is voted in plenary in February we have a much-simplified voting list.
   – Thank you for that contribution, Mr Harbour.
   –The next item is the report (A5-0470/2003) by Mr Zappalà, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the recognition of professional qualifications (COM(2002) 119 – C5-0113/2002 – 2002/0061(COD)).
   . Mr President, Commissioner, the proposed directive is intended to replace 15 existing directives on the recognition of professional qualifications.
The Commission has chosen a horizontal approach that carries the danger that all professional qualifications will be lumped together.
That should not happen.
Qualification dumping should be prevented on consumer protection grounds alone.
We must ensure that training is of a high quality.
The Committee is also concerned that cross-border service provision is to be facilitated by lowering the requirements for the standard of qualification of the service provider.
Under the Commission’s proposal, any supplier who is lawfully established in a Member State will be allowed to provide services in another Member State on a temporary basis for 16 weeks in a year, without needing any authorisation or being subject to any controls.
We were unable to agree to that.
Service providers have to fulfil their duty both to the recipient of the service and to the authorities of the host Member State.
That is the only way that control and protection mechanisms can have any effect.
Especially sensitive activities must be subject to controls.
The citizen cannot assess the quality of doctors or tax consultants for themselves, for example.
He relies on the existence of the familiar tried and tested systems of training, qualification and authorisation.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs would also like to be sure that persons who, because of national regulations, are highly qualified professionals are not disadvantaged by comparison with those who have a low level of qualification but the same job title.
It is, however, essential that the wording of the legislation does not call freedom of movement into question.
We therefore welcome the fact that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and its rapporteur Mr Zappalà, whom I congratulate on his balanced report, have found a compromise between a horizontal and a sectoral approach, ensuring that professional organisations were able to contribute their expertise in the transposition of the directive.
   . Mr President, on Tuesday this week in the United Kingdom a Dr Harold Shipman committed suicide.
He was not just a statistic; he was a health professional who was serving 15 life sentences for the murder of 215 of his patients.
Therefore, Commissioner, when we are looking at professional qualifications and seeking ways of facilitating professional mobility, as we should, we are not just talking about job opportunity or filling vacancies, or even individual professional freedom.
We should be talking about the protection of vulnerable individuals: simple procedures, yes; riskier procedures, no.
In Britain, if you go to your doctor's surgery, you expect the nice new doctor from Italy or Lithuania or wherever to be qualified, and you assume that the proper checks have been made as to his or her integrity and experience and to ensure that the name does not figure on any blacklist for professional or other malpractice.
The same applies to your dentist, your nurse, your pharmacist and to other professions, too, such as the architect who has built your house.
Hence, we were horrified to realise that the original proposal would have allowed any professional to go to any other EU country and practise there for 16 weeks without any authorisation, checks or vetting.
Dr Shipman could have come to a surgery near you.
Having talked to British and European professional organisations, I therefore raised this in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, which asked me to produce an opinion.
This was adopted unanimously.
It struck out the 16-week provision, it added Article 152 as a legal basis for the directive, and it called for the setting up of a European database of professionals who have been struck off in one Member State, so that they cannot practise in another.
These and most of our other amendments, I am happy to say, have been accepted by Mr Zappalà and the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
We are grateful to them.
More importantly, patients and our constituents in every Member State will be grateful if these safeguards are maintained.
Thank you, Commissioner.The debate is closed.The vote will take place on 29 January 2004.
   – Madam President, unlike the previous speaker, I will mainly be focusing on the directive for which Mrs Kauppi is the rapporteur.
Tax avoidance and evasion is widely practised and there is a strong cross-border dimension to it.
Cigarette smuggling, VAT carousels and undeclared bank accounts are only a few examples of the repertoire of those who do not want to give Caesar what belongs to him.
In the European Union, but also, for example, in Switzerland and the Balkans, we have to look carefully for joint efforts to put effective monitoring in place particularly for taxpayers who are active in various Member States.
The options provided in this directive for joint monitoring by two or more Member States are therefore of major importance.
We are particularly referring, therefore, to the improved cooperation between the fiscal authorities of each of the Member States.
This is wholly in keeping with the national prerogative of legislating on tax and collecting it.
Fiscal legislation is a national responsibility and should remain so, tax being more closely interrelated with social structure and culture within each of the Member States.
Against this backdrop, it is extremely odd that the discussion should not revolve around an effective approach to tax fraud but around the question of what legal basis this directive should have.
This Parliament has rightly accepted Article 95 as a basis in comparable cases in order for the codecision procedure to apply.
This is not about the content of tax legislation but about an implementing provision with regard to administrative cooperation, which is necessary in the internal market.
What Mrs Kauppi predicted in her explanatory statement to her report has meanwhile come to pass: the Council has recently submitted a formal proposal to amend the legal basis.
I would call this a knee-jerk response; the Council has once again rejected codecision without any clear arguments.
Now that Parliament's position was confirmed on 2 September, this proposal too risks ending up before the Court of Justice.
This would lead to unnecessary effort and expense and, above all, possibly long delays for the improved cooperation between the fiscal authorities, which is so desperately needed.
I challenge the Council to jump over its own shadow.
Back to basics: more effective controls of taxpayers who are active across the border.
Tax-evaders move on from one base to another very quickly.
The traditional exchange of information cannot possibly keep up.
If a joint team of control officials from the relevant countries can establish that tax legislation has been misused and abused, a tit-for-tat approach is possible.
The accession of ten new Member States will undoubtedly increase the need for transnational control teams.
The open borders to countries with a still vulnerable administrative apparatus will, unfortunately, attract bounty hunters who have as few scruples in tax matters as they do in anything else.
The sooner the tax authorities can fight this as one, the better.
   .
Mr President. The oral amendment aims to replace the first word in paragraph 1 – 'Welcomes' – with the word 'Notes', also adding the following from the end of Amendment No 11: 'believes that the fight against illegal immigration and trafficking in people must not give rise to a repressive policy aimed at immigrants in regular circumstances, but should, rather, target traffickers and employers who exploit those circumstances'.
   . Mr President, on paragraph 3 I have agreed a compromise amendment with the PSE and ELDR Groups, as well as my own Group, to add the following after the words 'the retail investor': 'when the different regulatory authorities at European level recommend it is appropriate'.
   . With regard to paragraph 27, I agree with the Socialist and Liberal Groups that we should replace the words 'high capital' with 'appropriate capital' and take out the last few words: 'as has happened during the various crises, including in the case of the LTCM crisis.'
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   .
The VVD delegation, which attaches importance to European action in the areas of immigration and employment opportunities, will be voting in favour of the Moraes Report.
It will not, however, be voting in favour of all the amendments that have been tabled, some of which violate the subsidiarity principle, one example of this being European interference in local elections.
(2)
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0478/2003) by Mrs Mercedes Echerer, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on a Community framework for collective management societies in the field of copyright and associated rights (2002/2274(INI)).
   . Mr President, after this most interesting debate there is very little that I can add to what I said earlier.
No questions have been addressed to the Commission and no amendments have been brought to the notice of the Commission – even though Mr Manders mentioned one.
There is therefore nothing for me to comment on.
I shall end by saying that in the forthcoming Commission communication on the management of copyright and related rights in the internal market, the Commission will take due cognisance and notice of the remarks made this afternoon by Mr Karas, Mr Harbour and others.
   Mr President, African countries have made solemn commitments to democracy and the protection of human rights on numerous occasions: under the NEPAD agreement and the ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement, to name but two.
However, the chaos and the oppression of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe has led to no satisfactory response from Zimbabwe's neighbours, who seem deaf to the cries of anguish from the oppressed people of that country.
Not only have southern African countries been unwilling to exert pressure on Mr Mugabe, they have also allowed him to dictate the terms of Africa's relationship with Europe, and that is worse.
The European Union's relationship with both the African Union and the Southern African Development Community has been damaged by African states' insistence that banned Zimbabweans should be included in meetings in Europe.
The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly has also been severely disrupted.
This not only undermines the founding principles of NEPAD and the ACP-EU relationship, but also means that major problems burdening Africa – external debt, AIDS, food security, conflict prevention, good governance and human rights – cannot be properly addressed.
Conditions in Zimbabwe are now spiralling out of control.
There are terrible shortages, and oppression is increasingly widespread and brutal.
A once prosperous country has been ruined and destroyed.
African states' refusal to take the initiative on Zimbabwe means that it is even more critical that EU sanctions against the ZANU-PF regime be strengthened.
This House has already called for them to be extended on six separate occasions.
To date, the Council has failed to heed these calls.
The EU travel ban against the Mugabe regime has regularly been breached in its first year and subsequently weakened to facilitate the entry of banned Zimbabweans into Europe.
The resolution before us today calls for renewal of EU measures when they expire on 20 February and the introduction of tough new sanctions.
It calls for the right of residence in Europe of those subject to the travel ban to be rescinded, for members of their families to be barred from employment and educational institutions in the European Union, for high-profile economic links with Zimbabwe that have given the regime international prestige to be curtailed, for those providing financial backing to the ZANU-PF regime to be identified, and for measures to be imposed against them.
Yet again this House calls on the Council to respond to its clearly expressed wish: real, effective actions against the ZANU-PF regime in Zimbabwe now.
   – Mr President, on Monday, 5 January 2004, the ran a trenchant essay entitled ‘Teargas for Haiti’ by the German author Hans Christoph Buch.
What does that have to do with the tragic situation in Zimbabwe under its President, Robert Mugabe, our topic of debate?
Well, Buch’s essay is an open letter to the current President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, an old acquaintance of the author.
Buch derides Mbeki’s stance on President Aristide’s regime in Haiti and President Mugabe’s in Zimbabwe.
Let me quote: ‘Why did you not speak up for human rights to be respected in Haiti, and why do your protests against the ongoing violation of human rights in Zimbabwe sound so muted?’
Just like Buch, this resolution explicitly addresses South Africa’s attitude to the ever-worsening situation in Zimbabwe.
Council and Commission, let your voices be heard!
Buch, forthrightly, asks Mbeki, ‘Or do you want to leave South Africa the option of the road already taken by Mugabe – the white minority as scapegoat for your own failures?’ It is this clear stance that I demand of the European Union in the forthcoming consultation with the African Union.
   Mr President, Burundi has been plagued by violence and tension between the Tutsi minority and the Hutu majority for many years.
Democratic elections were held in 1993, which gave some hope for the resolution of this bloody conflict.
However, this progress was short lived, as the newly elected Head of State was assassinated and this triggered yet another massacre.
Since this period, Burundi has lurched from crisis to crisis, with many thousands of people losing their lives in the process.
A ceasefire was brokered by Nelson Mandela in 2002 but later collapsed.
A second power sharing deal was signed in 2003, which finally brought three of the main rebel groups into government, although, regrettably, fighting and abuse of human rights continues in several areas.
Only the National Liberation Forces rejected this deal and this group has been linked to the death of the Irish Archbishop, Michael Courtney, who was the Vatican's envoy to Burundi.
Archbishop Courtney was heavily involved in the peace process and played a significant role in bringing about this recent progress.
Unfortunately, he paid a high price for his noble and unselfish involvement in the Burundi conflict when he was murdered by rebel groups on 29 December 2003.
This was senseless and a terrible tragedy for his family, friends and colleagues from the church.
As Mr Ford also pointed out, Michael Courtney made a valuable contribution to the current peace process in Burundi and I would hope there will be a full inquiry into his death which will bring those responsible for his death to justice.
Perhaps the tragedy of his death will intensify regional and international pressure on the FNL to sign up to the peace agreement following their long-overdue talks with the government, so that no more lives are needlessly lost and so that peace is finally restored to Burundi.
   Mr President, Commissioner, naturally, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party strongly condemns the murder of the Irishman, Archbishop Courtney, and demands that the authorities immediately carry out an extensive investigation to find out who murdered him.
The people responsible must be held accountable and punished.
The important work for peace done by Archbishop Courtney must not, of course, die with him, but must live on.
We also extend our condolences to his family and relatives and to the Irish people.
Perhaps what happened may lead to the Irish Presidency intensifying its work to support the peace process in Burundi.
It is unclear who murdered Archbishop Courtney.
The rebel movement, the FNL, has denied all involvement, but nor does it support the peace process.
We would, however, call upon them to lay down their weapons and support the peace process, and we would also express our pleasure at their having in actual fact agreed to meet Burundi’s President and engage in talks with him.
Perhaps that will lead in time to support for the peace process and negotiations.
Burundi is a tragic country in every respect, with extensive destitution in social and humanitarian terms, a good deal of violence, especially against women, and acts of considerable cruelty involving a disregard for human rights.
The peace process is very fragile.
Many people are guilty of extremely serious war crimes.
We strongly oppose any move to grant these people any kind of general exemption from punishment.
Burundi should instead implement what was decided in the Arusha Agreement and ratify the charter of the International Criminal Court, or ICC.
The wounds in Burundi following 300 000 or more murders will never heal if justice is not seen to be done and the murderers not held accountable.
People must be given the opportunity to move forwards, and the national process of reconciliation must continue.
We support the setting-up of a UN peacekeeping operation and hope that the EU may do all it can to help in supporting the peace process.
We have high expectations of the donors’ conference later this year.
   – Mr President, we are shocked by the murder of Archbishop Courtney, whom, in the five years that he was here in Strasbourg, we knew as a diplomat, pastor and also as a personal friend.
I simply have to say that he was one of the truly great ecclesiastical figures in the tradition of the great Irish churchmen of the Middle Ages, who was always actively committed to the cause of peace and humanity; it was he who made it possible for us, here in Strasbourg, to join together in a service once a month, something he started along with a few of us in this House.
I can still remember how Archbishop Courtney took his leave of us when he went to Burundi to actively involve himself in the peace process there.
As soon as his aircraft landed there, it was shot at; there were rockets to welcome him.
He then, in peril of his own life, spent five years participating in the peace process, drawing on the wide experience he had gained from his missions in trouble spots on four continents.
He was meant to go to Cuba this week to take up office as papal Nuncio there and help human rights and freedom of religion to prevail.
His mysterious, brutal and deliberate murder put a stop to that.
We should honour his memory.
He would certainly not, though, want his murder to be the only reason for us to focus on Burundi and thereby forget that murder is a daily occurrence in that country.
In recent years, over 200 000 people have been murdered there, not because of what we term ethnic conflicts, but because of a deliberate policy of genocide, and the fact that the situation in nearby Rwanda is even worse, and that in its neighbours Uganda and the Congo no better, should not hide from us the fact that we have a special obligation to this region, tormented as it is by ethnic killings that know no borders.
Europe does have obligations here, and our respect for Archbishop Courtney and for his legacy demands that we take appropriate action.
   – Mr President, I am happy to be able to express to this House the congratulations of the Dutch Platform on Haiti on this joint draft resolution.
At the same time, as a Christian and a co-signatory of the petition, I put into practice the wise Biblical saying: ‘let other lips praise you’.
In contacts with workers in the field, I always ask what practical help the European Union can give.
I gladly endorse the suggestions that committed experts on Haiti have made to the Council and the Commission: firstly, that there should be support for local food production programmes and improvement in health care; secondly, careful observation of the human rights situation on the ground by the European delegation in Port-au-Prince, with careful reports on it sent to Parliament; and finally, the encouragement of constructive dialogue between government, opposition and civil society in accordance with paragraph 3 of the draft resolution.
The attacks this week on various radio stations in Haiti, which are the source of information for the country’s people, underline once again the urgent need for European action in Haiti.
   . – Mr President, I wish to table another oral amendment.
Have no fear: it does not take up any new issues.
I have noted that one of the amendments has been incorrectly translated, and I do not think it accurately reflects the opinion of the Committee.
The text of item 8, which I have also forwarded to you, should properly read as follows: 'considers that, in the area of collective exercise of rights, the enlargement of the European Union means that there is a need for suitable measures and that action may be required'.
I think Members need have no qualms about voting for this.
15 amendments could be accepted in their entirety:
29, 34, 52, 66, 67, 70, 94, 143, 146, 150, 152, 165, 192, 195 and 196.
67 amendments could be at least accepted partially, or in spirit, or with adaptations:
5, 8, 9, 12, 24, 26, 31, 32, 39, 40, 46, 47, 48, 51, 53, 54, 55, 58, 62, 63, 65, 68, 71, 73, 80, 81, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 93, 95, 96, 97, 101, 102, 103, 106, 110, 114, 116, 136, 137, 138, 139, 141, 142, 144, 151, 154, 159, 160, 161, 162, 164, 181, 184, 185, 189, 190, 193, 194, 198, 199, 200 and 207.
110 amendments had to be rejected:
2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 30, 33, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 49, 50, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 64, 69, 72, 75, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 85, 92, 98, 100, 104, 107, 108, 109, 112, 113, 115, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 140, 145, 147, 148, 149, 153, 155, 156, 157, 158, 163, 166, 167, 168, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 186, 187, 188, 191, 197, 201, 202, 203, 205, 206, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214 and 215.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 15 January 2004.(1)
   – Mr President, I would like to question you on the information that you gave to Parliament on 12 January.
On the basis of Rule 7(4), of our Rules of Procedure, you referred the letter that you had received regarding the mandate of Mr Michel Raymond to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Under the current circumstances, when the issue of a statute for Members of the European Parliament is putting this House and its privileges under the spotlight, at a time when the Committee on Budgetary Control is hunting down any hint of fraud, misappropriation or dishonesty regarding the European Union budget, I think that your decision is extremely controversial.
The fact is that Mr Michel Raymond has been convicted, now that the French Supreme Court of Appeal has handed down its final judgment, of fraud relating to the European Union budget.
The matter was, perfectly legitimately, referred to you by the national authorities, and I am told that you did not wish to just ‘take note’, as the Act of 1976 invites you to do, of the disqualification of Mr Michel Raymond, fearing that there would be a long drawn-out appeal before the European Court of First Instance, which has in fact been lodged by Mr Le Pen.
Quite simply, in the case of Jean-Marie Le Pen, which has some aspects in common with the case that we are now addressing, the European Union Court of First Instance ruled very clearly on 10 April 2003, including an interpretation of the Act of 1976 and Rule 7(4), of our Rules of Procedure, on which you based your decision.
In its Judgment of 10 April 2003, the Court states that the verification powers possessed by Parliament when it has to ‘take note’ apply ‘upstream of the disqualification’, and therefore of the vacancy of the seat. Rule 7 of the Rules of Procedure provides for the President of Parliament to refer the matter to the competent committee where ‘the competent authorities of the Member States initiate a procedure which might lead to the disqualification of a Member of the European Parliament from holding office’ I therefore think, Mr President, that it was your responsibility, according to the Act of 1976, our Rules of Procedure and the case law of the Court of First Instance, to take note of the disqualification of Mr Michel Raymond and not to refer it to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
   I should like to welcome to the official gallery a Libyan delegation currently visiting the European Parliament.
I am pleased to inform you that today our interparliamentary relations with Libya take a positive step forward.
The delegation, from the General People's Congress of Libya, is led by Mr Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim, Vice-President of that Congress.
Mr Ibrahim, I welcome you and your colleagues, and underline the importance we attach to your visit in the present circumstances.
The recent measures taken by Libya are a cause for some hope.
We now need to build on that hope together.
We thank you for being here.
   Mr President, the resolution proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs sets 1 May as the date for a positive conclusion to the work of the IGC.
I want to explain the reasons why: immediately afterwards the electoral campaign will begin and, before it begins, the Constitution must have been finalised, first and foremost so as to get the electors to go out and vote – otherwise they will be deluded and will not vote – and therefore submit it to their judgment, which is our democratic duty, our basic law.
For the sake of clarity may I add, taking up the points made by Mr Duff and Mrs Frassoni, that for us the draft Constitution is the only thing on the table.
The eighty-two points referred to by the former Italian President-in-Office of the Council, or the 45 amendments now being referred to, have been examined closely by us: they contain many points which are confusing and ambiguous and take many steps backwards.
There is no consensus on them – at least not in the European Parliament – and I ask you, Mr President, to give that serious consideration.
   – Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, most of my colleagues have talked about the wonderful Europe, or about the Europe that should become a little more wonderful.
I am going to talk about the despicable, vile, revolting Europe, the Europe that Mr de Villepin talked about in Moscow two days ago, the Europe that says nothing about an open war in Chechnya.
Ten days ago, having had enough of this silence, I started a hunger strike, not to ask for the moon, not out of deadly desires or anorexia, as Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne said.
I think that it is our Europe that has deadly desires, the Europe that is doing nothing about Chechnya.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to ask you, and the Commission, one small thing.
We have Article 14(3) of the EC Treaty, which allows the European Union to create blacklists of people who cannot enter European Union territory.
However, it also allows the creation of white lists, in other words lists enabling people, in this case, Chechens, to move around and live in European Union territory in order to highlight their people’s cause, the cause of a people who have suffered genocide.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, if, during your Presidency, with the help of Mr Vitorino, you could get this reform adopted, I would be very grateful.
   Mr Dupuis, your political point is important, but we are discussing the draft Constitutional Treaty.
   – Mr President, the Irish presidency has the chance to deliver on the great promise – made to the public ten years ago – that the European Union would become deeper before it was enlarged.
We in this House advocate that this constitution be brought to completion, before 1 May if at all possible, but at any rate hand in hand with enlargement and prior to the European elections.
I would also be interested to know what is still left for you to negotiate, and I urge you to stick as closely as possible to the Convention text.
Mr Berlusconi never told us what the 82 topics were on which agreement was reached in Naples; perhaps they could be made public some time.
I believe that the voting in the Council – this dual majority – must remain fundamental, as it is meant to facilitate decisions instead of more blockages.
That is what your benchmark should be, and if the constitution does not come to pass, we face the threat of a two-speed Europe, which is what we do not want.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to do as the Commissioner did and note that his area is one of the most important for European consumers.
We have a number of current issues that, in actual fact, have a very great deal of bearing upon consumers: those of competition within the car sector, the decision concerning Microsoft and intellectual property rights.
We know that, in October 2002, the new regulation, with exemptions for sales and service, came into force within the motor vehicle sector.
Our intention was that it should increase competition and give consumers more.
Unfortunately, it has had quite the opposite effect in the country I know best, namely Finland.
Qualitative selection criteria have become quantitative, and the number of repair workshops for all the large makes of car has declined by several dozen.
In Lapland, in northernmost Europe, repairs of particular makes of car can only be obtained in the county government seat of Rovaniemi.
At the service station in medium-sized Muonio, five makes could be serviced on 1 October 2002.
Now, no such services can be provided.
What does the Commission intend to do about this matter?
Where Microsoft is concerned, we heard yesterday that the Commission is close to reaching a decision on Microsoft, Media Player and the abuse of a dominant position.
We again call upon the Commission to finish its investigation as quickly as possible and to take decisions that guarantee a genuine market and freedom of choice for consumers.
As emerged from the parliamentary question to Commissioner Monti in December 2002, we expect you to look seriously at this issue so that all new businesses are given a genuine opportunity to operate and so that certain standards do not become standards that reduce competition and the free flow of information.
Intellectual property rights, together with the monopoly and the standards that sometimes come about mean that much of the right to competition is rendered ineffective.
That too is something I hope you will look at, so that there is no repeat of the situation we experienced in my own country when the Market Court had to find Gramex (the Copyright Society of Performing Artists and Phonogram Producers) guilty of abusing its dominant position.
When shall we see a decision concerning Microsoft?
There have been many speeches about services of general economic interest, particularly from Mr Herzog, who as we all know is the rapporteur on this fundamental issue, and from Mr Rapkay and Mr Doorn, who particularly highlighted State aid in the new Member States, and from a few others.
With regard to services of general economic interest, we have obviously very closely followed the Herzog report and the European Parliament resolution of 14 January on the Commission Green Paper on services of general interest.
With regard to follow up on the Green Paper, there still needs to be a debate within the Commission on the nature of the proposal to be put forward.
With regard to the funding of services of general economic interest, I would like to respond quickly to Parliament’s demand that legal security for enterprises be increased.
Soon, following on from the Altmark judgment, I will propose a package to the Commission based mainly on three texts: firstly, a communication from the Commission specifying under what conditions public service compensation could constitute State aid; secondly, a Commission decision applying to small public services and hospitals, to obviate an obligation of notification under certain circumstances; and thirdly, a Community framework for State aid in the form of public service compensation, more for large public services.
I will not go into further detail, because I still have to present these three texts to my fellow-Commissioners.
Mrs Thors mentioned the car block exemption regulation, a subject which was also touched on by Mr Doorn.
We are, of course, permanently monitoring the effects of the new block exemption regulation.
Many questions were asked about the impact of the new rules; it is far too early, however, to draw a final conclusion, especially because, as Parliament will recall, the centrepiece of this structural change will only enter into force on 1 October 2005, when the location clause for dealers is abolished.
In the meantime, we are closely monitoring compliance with the new block exemption regulation by all agents in this complex market.
Initial trends indicate greater price convergence and we believe the process is fully under control.
Mrs Thors referred to the situation in Lapland; we are always interested in learning of any situation that may present particular problems.
Mrs Thors also touched upon an entirely different but not uninteresting specific case: that of Microsoft.
She urged us to reach a prompt conclusion on that matter.
What I can say in this context is that we are indeed nearing an end to this case.
It is fair to say that we have investigated this case thoroughly and carefully.
As you may recall, we sent three statements of objections to Microsoft.
In November 2003 the Commission listened to Microsoft and interested third parties at a hearing in Brussels.
This was the final step in our procedure and it should therefore come as no surprise that the Commission has reached a draft decision.
I cannot, of course, go into any more details on this at present, as the Commission has a duty to keep its investigations confidential.
However, I hope for the moment that this answers the point on Microsoft made by Mrs Thors.
I often talk to Mr Turmes, who has had to leave, about issues of competition in the energy markets, of the importance of which we are all aware.
I would like to respond to his comments referring to the E.ON-Ruhrgas case.
He said that we want to give more power to the national competition authorities.
That is the case in Regulation 1/2003 as it deals with Articles 81 and 82 of the Treaty.
However, it is not the case with regard to monitoring of mergers.
The case concerned was one of monitoring of mergers.
I agree with Mr Doorn that cartels and mergers are very different phenomena requiring the attention of a competition authority.
We have worked hard on state aid cases concerning the enlargement countries, and will do so even more intensely and directly after 1 May 2004.
I should like to thank Mr Santos very much for his support of our reforms, including in the field of state aid.
Finally, I should like to thank Mr Gasòliba i Böhm again for his very generous words.
We are going to issue a communication on the modernisation-related relationships between the national courts and the European Commission, and we are also supporting an effort – instigated in particular by Sir Christopher Bellamy – on initiatives for national judges in the area of competition policy.
   Catalonia and the Kingdom of Spain have been experiencing a real political storm in the last few days.
The reason I am discussing it is that it has affected our institution.
Indeed, our President, Mr Cox, deferred the meeting that he was supposed to have only yesterday with the new President of the Catalonian Parliament, Mr Ernest Benach.
The reason for all this is that on Monday, the Madrid daily newspaper ABC revealed that my Secretary General, Josep Lluís Carod-Rovira, who had just taken up the role of Prime Minister of Catalonia, had secretly – but not so secretly that ABC was unable to reveal it – met with leaders of the terrorist organisation ETA.
With his characteristic courage and sense of honour, Mr Carod acknowledged the meeting, stating that it took place at the request of ETA, from which he hoped to procure a truce announcement.
Since Monday, the anathemas have been pouring out from Madrid in an election-driven battle of indignation.
Mr Carod has stepped down as Prime Minister, courageously heading up the list of candidates in Barcelona for the elections to the Cortès to take place on 14 March.
Like a good democrat, he is letting the citizens judge his actions.
In my view, there is no doubt about the verdict, which is the only one that counts, and I condemn the fact that the President of our institution refused to meet or deferred his meeting with the President of the Catalonian Parliament.
   – I wish to raise a matter which, unfortunately, has been pending since August 2003.
Five Community nationals, citizens of the European Union, are being held by the Pakistani authorities.
The Greek-owned ship, the sank in Karachi harbour and, unfortunately, the cook is still being held, as are people from the salvage company who went there after the accident.
All so that the Karachi port authorities can haggle with the insurance company over the insurance premiums which they should receive for the damage, which was indeed caused.
I raised the matter with the President of the European Parliament before Christmas.
He was sympathetic but, unfortunately, the matter is still pending.
What I am requesting is that the President of the European Parliament intervene again, perhaps calling on the ambassador to Pakistan or even asking Commissioner Patten to tell us what demarches have been taken by the European Union.
The Italian Presidency and the Commission had mobilised and we must not allow anyone to haggle over insurance premiums with citizens of the European Union as hostages.
   – The next item is the report (Α5-0003/2004) by Mr Piétrasanta, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the state of progress of the Galileo programme (COM(2002) 518 – 2003/2041(INI)).
   . – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the course of this legislature a number of reports about Galileo have been made to the European Parliament in turn by Mrs Langenhagen, who is here today, Mr Glante, Mr Dhaene and myself.
They were always presented positively, but nevertheless had to overcome many obstacles to get our European project adopted.
It was criticised as duplicating the American GPS, but that made me think of the fable of the blind man and the paralytic.
Were we expected to call on the United States to be our eyes and show us the way to go? The cost was said to be ruinous, although it is about the same as building a little more than 100 km of high-speed railway line.
Our wisdom finally carried the day and, concerned to implement the European Union’s strategy for employment, economic reform, research, and social cohesion decided by the Lisbon European Council in March 2002, we adopted Galileo.
I have now been working for nearly a year on this report to bring us up to date on this project and on the integration of EGNOS into Galileo.
However, the fear of a delay in implementation was such that we have been overtaken, and happily so, by the project being put in place and I am now in a position to present the excellent results that we achieved in 2003 and to make a number of recommendations for operational implementation in order to ensure that Galileo really does go into service by 2008 at the latest.
I am therefore taking account here of two Commission communications.
The first is concerned with the state of progress following the Council decision of 26 March 2002, which saw the informal adoption of the regulation creating the joint undertaking on 21 May 2002, and the second the integration of EGNOS into Galileo.
The communication covers the following aspects: the creation of joint undertakings, which has now been done, the system’s security – on our recommendation the supervisory authority was created at the same time as the security centre; its role is vital because it ensures that Galileo will remain a project geared to its users’ wishes; I believe Parliament should be more closely involved with this committee in a way that remains to be decided – service definition and frequency planning, the reservation of frequencies.
The problem of the overlay of signals on the fifth service (or PRS) with the US army’s M signal has also been settled.
The Commission and the United States have found a compromise.
The Galileo signal will surround the US signal and will no longer be overlaid.
Relations with third countries have been normalised.
There are no problems with the Russian Glonass system.
There is some cohabitation, or at least consultation, for the American GPS.
And countries are joining us, like China, with whom a promising agreement, especially in the field of research, was initialled in Beijing on 18 September 2003.
By way of reminder, Galileo is merely a giant clock consisting of around 30 satellites capable of determining a position in time and space very accurately.
Unlike GPS and Glonass, it must remain a purely civilian project.
The services it will provide are very important, especially in the environmental field.
As a tool for protecting nature, it will help to track pollution by dangerous substances, track icebergs, and map the oceans and sea levels.
It will help to monitor the atmosphere, the ionosphere, radio communications, space science and even to predict earthquakes or monitor endangered species.
It will be possible to pinpoint dangerous substances such as nuclear waste at any time.
We have not forgotten space pollution either, since we shall have to ensure that any new object launched into space can be neutralised.
There will be many other developments in transport and communications.
I would like to stress Galileo’s fundamental contribution as a spearhead for our European space policy, integrating more closely the roles of the Union and the ESA.
And in the European Research Area, a large amount of funding is provided in the sixth research and development framework programme by the European Space Agency’s ARTES programme and the private partners.
With a large part of the funding coming from the public purse, the results of the research and the intellectual property will belong to all the European Union’s citizens.
So far as EGNOS is concerned, I propose that it be integrated into Galileo, through the good offices of the joint undertaking, because this satellite radio navigation system can only be based on our global system.
Galileo is a very important achievement of our legislature.
It was proposed and supported by the Council and the Commission, and I want to pay tribute to Mrs de Palacio in transport and energy, to the Director-General Mr Lamoureux and also to Mr Busquin for their energy and determination in bringing it about.
I also want to thank all my fellow Members for the constant interest they have shown in Galileo, especially those on the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism and the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Galileo is a fine European Union project.
First and foremost, it will help to implement our policy of sustainable development with the ethics essential to an action of such breadth.
Our Parliament can be proud to have been a driving force in the dynamic that our Assembly has shown and which will help to make the European Union more independent; it is a step towards a decision full of political significance and one very much called for by our draft Constitution.
   . Mr President, I would like once again to thank the European Parliament for its support for the Commission in relation to moving ahead with the Galileo project.
The Piétrasanta report is further evidence of this since it decisively approves the action we have carried out throughout this time and encourages us to move forward.
I would like to thank you once again for your support and I would also like to thank Mr Piétrasanta in particular for his work.
I would like to point out that at the moment, as you well know, the Galileo joint undertaking is fully operational and has been since the summer of 2003.
Its two main tasks are, on the one hand, to select the future Galileo concessionaire we have four offers on the table which were received in December 2003 following the publication of an invitation to tender for concession last year and these four offers demonstrate the real interest of four consortiums in taking charge of this project and, therefore, clear interest in the private sector in the Galileo project.
The second element we are working on is the monitoring of the work carried out by the European Space Agency on validation in orbit.
A first experimental satellite will be launched before the end of 2005 and a second satellite will be ready to launch during the first half of 2006, because we must begin to transmit test signals, in order to guarantee that we maintain the signals which were granted us originally by the corresponding international body.
With regard to relations with third States, which Mr Piétrasanta referred to a moment ago, what we are seeing is huge interest and this confirms once again that both the Commission and Parliament, which have never doubted the Galileo project, were right and those countries which had concerns or doubts and which for some time have had difficulties promoting the Galileo project, had no justifiable reason for it.
We have in fact signed an agreement with China, the negotiation with India is at a very advanced stage, Brazil also wants to participate in the Galileo project, not to mention cooperation with Russia and, of course, the United States.
With the United States, we have resolved practically all the compatibility problems with the GPS system by means of cooperation between systems which allows us to enhance and improve the signal and the corresponding services.
In this regard, at the last meeting we held at the end of last year, practically all the issues were resolved, there is just one issue to be resolved on open signals and we are very close to resolving it and we hope that tomorrow and the next day, at our meeting in Washington, we can finally resolve the matter.
I would therefore like to thank the honourable Member for his report, and Parliament for the very clear support it has given this Commission initiative throughout all this time, since we have had to fight hard and at times overcome complex difficulties, but I would like to say that it is moving in the right direction.
As I said a moment ago, with regard to these three projects: ‘Single Sky’ is under way, Galileo is well and truly launched, and ‘maritime safety’, which we has gone from nothing to a whole package which protects and supports us, not just in the European Union but at international level.
Mr President, if I could only mention three, then these would be the three tasks which we will have achieved – and I say ‘we’ because we have achieved it amongst all of us – a team, a Commission team, and I would like once again to thank the services I have referred to, from the Director-General to all the people responsible who have acted and worked throughout this time but of course with the invaluable cooperation of this Parliament, which has given us support systematically and, of course in the end as well, the cooperation of the Council.
If the Council is not there, then the system does not work; the Community triangle, once again.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, we have just heard the USA declare that they want to make a massive commitment to space and again invest a great deal of money in it: settlements on the moon, a mission to Mars – pictures of which we see almost daily; this, I believe, is where Galileo is a very important and good sign for Europe’s economic and technological future.
I am also looking ahead to this year’s European elections.
People are always asking us in what ways Europe is benefiting them, and Galileo enables us to give them an example of how European forces can combine – for only together can we achieve such objectives – in the spheres of business and technology, in a useful way that benefits the future of the Europe in which we share.
The problems have been described, and it is now urgently necessary that we make headway on the problems with implementation, including the ones that involve the Americans.
A large number of obstacles have been overcome.
Parliament has been constant in its support for the Commission, the Council has played its part, and now is the time to decide on the tenders.
We have to waste no time in installing the system, so that we can work with it, and we have to create the right framework conditions, especially in the structures.
This is where I wish to address a point that I see as important.
When deciding on the future structures of Galileo, which we will be debating in this House, it is necessary that these should be effective, but it is equally necessary that Parliament should retain its share of responsibility and not allow this dossier to be taken out of its hands.
Although I would ask that, when we come to discuss this, we should perhaps get more support from the Commission, I think that we have, together, demonstrated that Europe, the European Parliament, is united in its pursuit of this objective.
Commissioner, this House has always been behind you, so in this matter too, we should make common cause in seeing to it that responsibility remains with Parliament.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to extend special congratulations to Mr Piétrasanta, for he and I worked well together in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy; he was a sympathetic and agreeable colleague and was open to all his fellow-Members’ suggestions, misgivings and questions.
In the course of our deliberations on this report, we had interesting hearings with experts, whom we were able to ask about their reports, and who had interesting things to say about Galileo’s future uses.
Even though some of us had to allow ourselves a slight smile at some of the statements and prognoses, I see Galileo as a model for the future and believe that it will yield returns on what is invested in it, something that is apparent from the fact that there have already been four responses to the invitation to tender.
I can remember how, some two years or so ago, things looked very different and there was often doubt as to whether industry would get on board financially.
Now we are about to open the documents and announce the result. That is something I cannot but welcome.
In fact, Mr Piétrasanta’s report contains everything that matters.
There is one further thing I want to mention, on which I tabled amendments in the committee and will be tabling another for the plenary; I ask your indulgence, but it is one that matters especially to me.
I refer to the rescue and aid services that are to be implemented.
Although COSPAS-SARSAT is well-known, there is also the IMMARSAT-E system, which is preferable to COSPAS-SARSAT in many respects, such as its rapid response times, more precise positioning, permanent availability, 100% compatibility with Galileo, and coverage of the whole of the earth’s surface.
This system is important to people in trouble at sea, as such information is highly detailed and help can arrive at very short notice.
I think this is something to which we should give some thought; a number of organisations – some of them military, like NATO – and Member States are already fitting this system into their Transall transport aircraft, helicopters and naval vessels.
I think it would also be helpful to private individuals, and the two systems can certainly exist alongside each other.
I hope that we will implement this tomorrow and that Members will support the one amendment of mine that is still to be voted on.
Thank you all, and I wish you, Mr Piétrasanta, all the best for the future; something lies in store for you and we will miss you.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, when we have something to say, we prefer to do so without delay.
For that reason, I would really have liked us to have discussed the state of play on Galileo some time ago, and would also have liked to see more regular follow-up.
The 2002 Commission communication has now, in 2004, been rendered obsolete by developments in the programme.
We cannot carry on being so slow in the way we handle current information, for I fear that any delay in Galileo’s development will make for serious problems if it is to be launched, as planned, in 2008.
Negotiations on the award of concessions must be completed without delay.
Galileo is still running on schedule, but we have to ensure that it stays on it, albeit without detriment to the necessary care in examining the tenders submitted.
We have to press on with the procedure and, of course, get the maximum use out of Galileo.
Only then will we be able to be convincing on the international stage.
In this respect, the signing of the EU’s agreement with China on the latter’s involvement in Galileo was a very important step, and others must follow.
The fact that the Council has now mandated the Commission to start negotiating with Israel and India in February shows that we are making good progress by way of bilateral agreements, but it is also of great importance, as has been described in relation to the USA, that we should find a shared basis for cooperation.
In this regard, making Galileo interoperable with GPS is a challenge we have to deal with, and both sides must make greater efforts.
Recently, there have been major forward advances across the board, and I would like it if future developments were to justify the great confidence placed in Galileo around the world.
Let me close by saying this: Commissioner de Palacio, you are right. Galileo is the third pillar in your personal recipe for success.
We wish you a great deal more success in Washington, but also elsewhere, and Mr Piétrasanta also takes our best wishes with him as he embarks on his further career in politics.
   I would like to begin by expressing my delight at the maturity of this Galileo dossier, which will remain one of the great achievements of this legislature and an example of what the Commission and Parliament can do together, to the general incredulity and despite the resistance of many Member States.
I believe this work does us all credit and I would like to pay tribute to Mrs Loyola de Palacio.
I believe this Galileo is something with a real future for Europe, firstly because of its many potential applications in a large number of services that will benefit our fellow citizens, secondly because it maintains our competence, and especially our independence, in space matters, and lastly because it will provide work for our launchers, which we know are a weak sector in a world where launchers are very exposed to competition.
Two problems remain, however, I believe.
First, there is the problem of funding for the operational phase.
I still do not understand in what way and how the private sector will be able to involve itself in the infrastructure competitively with a GPS that will provide its services free of charge.
From this point of view it will therefore either ask for guaranteed resources or it will seek something in return.
I think we must be very careful here.
I have always thought that infrastructure should be public and that services should be paid for by those that use them.
But I will wait and see what the funding plan will be, which I think should be settled as quickly as possible.
Then in the matter of international cooperation – and on this point I agree with Mr Cappato to some extent – I think it is good that China is interested, but not at any price.
Firstly, let us make sure that China does not demand that satellites be launched by its own launchers at the expense of Ariane, which needs an institutional market, and secondly, let us ensure that China, which is not a democratic state, does not use it for military purposes, which would be contrary to our essential values and in particular the respect for human rights which we know not to be the Chinese Government’s greatest virtue.
   – Mr President, my thanks go to my colleague, Mr Piétrasanta, for the work he has done just as he is about to retire.
Galileo will bring a good deal of direct benefits, such as the EGNOS navigation system, due to make its appearance this spring.
It will provide industry with economic benefits and will bring to the navigation sector the competition it has long needed.
We would be able to combine the use of the GPS system, Galileo and the Glonass system.
I wish now, however, to stress the importance of Galileo’s later potential applications, especially in trans-European satellite-based broadband communication systems.
When used in combination with a global positioning function it will make possible many new options in the economy which now we can only dream of.
Economically speaking, it is the most effective way to bring broadband within the reach of all Europeans regardless of where they live and without discrimination.
Broadband can give the telecommunications industry the extra boost it needs to compete globally.
Finally, although I have mainly mentioned here the economic potential for supporting the Lisbon strategy, I would also like to emphasise the massive benefits Galileo will have for search and rescue services and transport.
   – Mr President, I agree with Mr Harbour; Captain Zappalà and Captain Berger have indeed ‘steered us into a safe harbour’ after we were forced to pass through what were sometimes very choppy seas during this conciliation process.
Let me also say that I am very satisfied with the outcome that we have reached, although – like everyone else – we would obviously have liked to achieve more.
Nonetheless, we have achieved a great deal, and as a Social Democrat, I must also make the point that we have also obtained the endorsement of both the Commission and the Council.
It is very positive, in my view, that we have managed to establish these criteria – as regards sustainability, environmental and social award criteria, and, for example, the special provisions for people with disabilities – and ultimately managed to secure the approval of the Commission and the Council.
I think we can proceed very satisfactorily on this basis.
Yes, we would have liked to achieve more in this area, but we have at least established these criteria as a means of exercising control in the contract award procedures.
We have thus ensured that it will not always be the cheapest tender that is awarded the contract, but the most favourable.
As Mr Zappalà has said very clearly, the most favourable is not necessarily the cheapest, for quality is important as well.
We have achieved something more in this context, something I felt was very important and have repeatedly mentioned.
By ensuring that the public sector has the option of deciding for itself which criteria, if any, it wishes to apply to the contract award procedure, we have strengthened the hand of local authorities.
In this way, a certain measure of freedom has been maintained for the public sector in the regions and at local level, which these authorities need to be able to implement their own economic policies, and I think that this is a positive achievement.
I would like to thank Mrs Berger again for her very good work.
We have secured a positive outcome and we can vote for it with a clear conscience, even though, as I said, it would have been good to have achieved more.
   Mr President, I should like to thank all those involved in the conciliation.
As Mr Zappalà pointed out, we were not always in agreement, but we did eventually reach a decision.
These two directives are a step forward – not a huge step, as Mrs Schörling said, but at least some progress has been made.
Comparing what was there originally with what we have today shows considerable progress.
But why is this?
We have talked tonight about the huge market involved in the whole area of public procurement.
The Commissioner himself mentioned the huge figures involved.
But too often when we talk about that market and about public procurement we talk purely about an economic market.
These two directives change all that: social and environmental criteria have now been introduced.
This means that the tendering authority does not have to accept the lowest tender.
Tendering authorities can also take into account recent case-law and I am glad that the Commissioner highlighted the 4 December judgment.
We also have the July court decision on the Altmark bus case and, as Mrs Thors pointed out, the Helsinki bus case.
This Parliament has added a social dimension to economic legislation.
We must never forget that while we strive for a competitive economy by 2010, this has to be accompanied by social progress.
That is why I will support tomorrow's vote: even though I voted against this conciliation I will actually now vote in favour.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0006/2004) by Mrs Corbey, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste (PE-CONS 3697/03 – C5-0629/2003 – 2001/0291(COD)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0486/2003) by Mrs Avilés Perea, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on adopting the decision to grant discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the 2001 financial year
Section VII – Committee of the Regions (SEC(2002) 405 – C5-0247/2002 – 2002/2107(DEC)).
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by expressing my warm thanks to Mrs Avilés Perea, who mastered her difficult task as rapporteur with great diligence and thoroughness.
The Committee of the Regions is the newest EU institution, and it is also a small one.
In terms of its composition, it is extremely heterogeneous, at least as regards the political status and rank of its members in their home states.
Could this be why we had so many difficulties with the 2001 discharge? Shortcomings and even irregularities were drawn to the attention of the Committee on Budgetary Control as it was about to vote last spring on the resolution giving discharge to the Committee of the Regions for 2001.
The rapporteur, Mrs Avilés Perea, put on the brakes and recommended the postponement of the discharge and an audit of the practices being undertaken in the COR, preferably by the European Court of Auditors – a recommendation which the plenary took up.
In the meantime, the rapporteur and the committee have carried out detailed work and are now proposing that discharge be granted to the Committee of the Regions for 2001.
Yet this does not mean that the dubious incidents in the COR are forgiven and forgotten.
They are likely to come to light again in the context of the 2002 discharge, especially as the Court of Auditors proposes to undertake a more detailed audit, something it felt unable to do in 2001.
Mrs Avilés Perea’s report takes account of a number of recommendations by OLAF and makes clear demands of the COR.
There are no indications of personal enrichment or the loss of financial resources.
The incorrect calculation of travel allowances has now been regulated through recoveries, although in future, the maintenance of presence lists and the calculation of members’ allowances must be carried out scrupulously and be verifiable.
Payment procedures must be in line with the financial regulations.
There must be respect for the institutional role of the Internal Auditor.
The President of the Committee of the Regions has announced the implementation of an action plan to improve administration and management, and this includes rules on dealing with whistleblowers.
Whether or not there are to be disciplinary proceedings is something for the COR itself to decide.
Overall, the Committee on Budgetary Control is very concerned about the extent to which an amateurish improvisatory approach has prevailed in the administration to date.
We will monitor the improvements which have been called for, and which have been pledged, benevolently but with close attention so that the 2001 discharge is right and proper, thus encouraging the COR to keep to the rules in future.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is permissible, in the context of Mrs Avilés Perea’s report, to pay tribute to one’s own committee for once.
I believe that we were very prompt in our response as soon as justified doubts arose – to which previous speakers have already made reference – about the way in which the Committee of the Regions managed public funds.
I think it is important to make this point for once in this House.
We have a Committee on Budgetary Control, and it is sensitive and flexible enough to exercise its responsibility within a matter of hours.
I do not believe that any problems were caused by the decision to postpone discharge for the Committee of the Regions as a result of the concerns addressed to us.
Indeed, I believe it showed that occasionally, there are small institutions within the European Union – so-called small institutions, although our taxpayers would probably take a different view – which might have a budget of EUR 30 million, where the members turn up once every few months and perhaps deliver an important speech before a plenary, and where otherwise, there is a great temptation to indulge in petty empire-building within the European Community.
I am most grateful to the President and his staff at the Committee of the Regions for having drawn the right conclusions from our comments, but I think it will be a lesson for us in other cases as well.
I endorse the comments made by the previous speakers, and will gladly vote for Mrs Avilés Perea’s report.
   The next item is the report (A5-0004/2004) by Mr Casaca, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the action taken by the Commission on the observations contained in the resolution accompanying the decision giving discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Union for the 2001 financial year (COM(2003) 651 – C5-0536/2003 – 2003/2200(DEC)).
   – Mr President, since it is already after 10 p.m., I will get straight to the point without any preliminaries.
We Social Democrats have repeatedly said, over these past months, that the priority for us – over and above the media’s one-day wonders such as calls for resignations – is the issue of how to bring about structural changes in the Commission and in relations between the Commission and OLAF.
In my view, this position remains fundamental to our policies.
Of course we can discuss the Commissioners’ individual political responsibility – I have no objection to that – but in light of all that we have learned from the Eurostat affair, we have to recognise first and foremost that we must put the Commissioners in a position to exercise this political responsibility in the first place.
After all, what we encountered in this particular instance were hair-raising conditions as regards responsibilities, structures and information processes.
One thing I am pleased about, although I do not endorse it politically: I am pleased to see that it establishes clarity.
Admittedly, there is the amendment proposed by the Liberals – I can assure Mr Mulder that I would be happy to talk about this – which, as it were, flies the flag for political responsibility.
At the same time, however, I welcome the clarity with which the Liberals propose a deletion, namely of the very paragraph in the Casaca report which calls for the directorates-general to answer to the Commissioners at long last.
That is a clear alternative.
Structural changes are needed so that we do not face the problem, every five years, of which Commissioner we call upon to resign, while the apparatus is allowed to carry on blithely as before.
That is not the alternative that we Social Democrats want to see, to put it bluntly.
That does not mean that all that glitters in the Commission is gold, however. Frankly, the opposite has generally been true.
The things we have witnessed there: we have been presented, to great fanfare, with a proposal which now finally states in writing that the officials must inform the Commissioners about any landmines that might be lying around. Well, that is wonderful, I must say.
I was under the impression that this was already standard administrative practice.
If we have to put this in writing from the outset, what does that say about conditions in place?
That is one thing that has absolutely astounded me – although perhaps I should not have been too surprised. I think we really have to say that there must be an end to the Commission always coming up with too little too late.
We are fed up with it; Mr Bayona de Perogordo has already mentioned the 2002 discharge.
By then, if you do not mind, you have to come up with the goods.
As I have said before, if you fail to do so, we can look forward to some entertaining days together between now and the end of your term in office!
   Mr President, today, we know a lot more about what happened in Eurostat than we did when the decision was taken to grant discharge for 2001.
It is very possible that the decision would have been otherwise if we had known what we know today.
There is no doubt that what took place that year were serious offences against the Financial Regulation: secret accounts, embezzlement and obvious conflicts of interest.
Mr Casaca’s report is not bad.
It is critical, but what is missing is a conclusion.
We think it fair that the Commissioner responsible for Eurostat should have taken the political consequences and resigned.
In many ways, this scandal resembles those that caused the Santer Commission to resign.
A systematic and organised misuse of EU funds has taken place, and there has been a failure to intervene in time.
Mr Solbes Mira says that he was not informed until April 2003, but we all know that there had been many warning signs before that date in auditors’ reports and in the press, as well as warnings by Parliament.
When Mr Prodi began his term of office, he was very clear about political responsibility.
The Commissioners were responsible for what happened within their Directorates-General.
That proud watchword, issued at the beginning of the term of office, proved to have little substance when it came to the Eurostat affair.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, never before, in my seventeen years of membership of the Committee on Budgetary Control, has a follow-up report on a discharge which has already been granted left so many fundamental questions unanswered.
They relate to openness, to the provision of prompt and comprehensive information from the Commission to Parliament and within the Commission itself, and to the assumption of responsibility by the Commissioners for abuses that have arisen.
It seems that the shadow of the past is catching up with us.
The rapporteur, Mr Casaca, has worked hard to produce this painstaking report.
I would like to thank him in particular, as well as the committee as a whole for its outstanding work.
The main issue in this report is to investigate and address the improper practices in and around the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat), such as slush funds, cronyism, violations of the financial regulations, lax treatment of the mobility rules, and various other things.
If the Commission had taken seriously Parliament’s warnings about Eurostat in its reports of February and March and investigated what was going on, and had informed Parliament accordingly, the discharge would have been postponed from April to October.
This would not have been serious, but would have given the Commission enough time to adopt the measures that it is now trying to rush through with astonishing speed.
Yet again, the bottom line is that what we have is an information shortfall.
What, too, about political responsibility? So far, not one Commissioner has admitted any responsibility.
Admittedly, some errors have been acknowledged, but a clear admission has yet to come.
That is regrettable, in my view.
Claiming ignorance is no defence against responsibility.
We are therefore pushing for this supposed ignorance to be removed by ensuring that the Commissioners finally close the yawning information gap between the officials, even to the highest ranks, and the Commissioners themselves.
As early as 1999, the Commission equipped itself with rules on this issue.
It is apparent that they still only exist on paper, unless what Commissioner Schreyer has just told us becomes reality.
I would be delighted if that were to occur.
OLAF, too, cannot serve as an excuse for the Commission’s inaction. The duty to exercise proper and thorough supervision lies, after all, with the Commission.
Are the internal audit reports produced by the directorates-general being disregarded and the valuable audits carried out by the internal audit service being ignored by the Commissioners? What also concerns us deeply is the way in which the whistleblowers have been treated.
They have drawn attention to numerous abuses.
The current rules do not guarantee them protection. Faced with all this harsh criticism, why has the committee not proposed the dismissal of the entire Commission or individual Commissioners?
This is my response: it is of no benefit to Europe if the irregularities continue at Eurostat.
They must be cleared up – and that means now, by this Commission. We want to support the action plan and cooperate so that there is no repetition of these incidents in future.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we see what the Commission is offering by way of lessons learned from the Eurostat affair, cynicism would seem to be the only appropriate response.
On this issue, Commissioner, you are disavowing your own President. As early as September last year, and again on 18 November, President Prodi announced to this House that he would submit an action plan before the year’s end.
In December, we were fobbed off until January, and now it is the end of January and we are still waiting for the proposals which have been announced and which are primarily intended to achieve a rapid improvement in the OLAF Regulation.
Yet the Commission knows perfectly well that this is a race against time, and I can tell the Commissioner that time is precisely what we do not have.
It is not possible to have two readings on 10 February.
How do you see this working? Action is needed.
This House has tabled appropriate proposals for your attention.
I have the impression that it is the same old story in the Commission: Who is Commissioner, under which Director-General? I say this in all clarity.
Yet the differences of opinion could be addressed relatively quickly.
We need clear priorities for OLAF.
It was your institution that said that OLAF had failed in the Eurostat affair.
I say that in all clarity as well. We need priorities.
We need a priority as regards protecting the subjects of the investigations, and I think we also need some amendments to the financial regulations.
The responsibility of the authorising Directors-General is a case in point.
It is right that the Directors-General should bear full responsibility for what happens in their directorate-general, but it is also true, especially in light of the Eurostat experience, that control is better than trust.
You have not upheld this principle so far, and I think it is high time you did.
I would remind you of that, Commissioner.
Ultimately, that will be the key benchmark against which your work is measured at the end of this Prodi Commission’s term in office.
   The next item is the oral question (B5-0003/2004) to the Commission, on the White Paper on European Space Policy.
   Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Bodrato on the quality of his report and I would like to include Commissioner Busquin in those congratulations since, in the course of this legislature, which is drawing to a close, he has been absolutely crucial in the European Union becoming a space power.
I do not believe the intergovernmental level is enough today and, in a world where competition in space matters is growing, we must underpin the development of space and the European Union’s space autonomy with a strong political power, which is embodied by the European Union.
I believe that is the essence of what has happened during this legislature.
Personally, I am glad about it.
Another thing that has happened is that we have launched an ambitious programme, the Galileo programme, in which a number of countries in the world are interested, China in particular.
I would like to raise a number of points about the White Paper and Mr Bodrato’s resolution.
The first point is about the budget.
I believe it is absolutely essential for us to be very ambitious about space and in particular that our ambitions about space should be part of an industrial policy.
An independent space programme is not simply a matter of sending devices into Europe’s space, it is also about mastering the basic technologies and their civilian applications, of which there are a great number.
The second point is about the link between the military and civilian.
I think we should tie in our thinking, that of Commissioner Busquin and the DG for Research, with what is happening in the common foreign and security policy, because it is well known that the Americans and all the existing space powers, including the Russians and the Chinese, have devoted a large part of their space developments to military applications.
The third point concerns enlargement.
I think a number of the countries that are going to be joining Europe are not necessarily going to feel interested in Ariane or in space developments whose spin-offs today benefit mainly France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany, but not necessarily Lithuania, Cyprus or Malta.
It is therefore very important that we send those countries a message.
That is why I have tabled an amendment to the effect that we should bring astronauts from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe into the corps of European astronauts and that we should plan a manned flight with one such astronaut very soon in order to involve them in the conquest of space and its magic and so that they will support it.
My final point is about US strategy.
I do not know whether it is an opportunist strategy on Mr Bush’s part in the run-up to the election campaign.
At any rate I am glad that Europe is in on it, but it must not for all that neglect the establishment of Soyuz in Kourou or neglect its independence in space matters.
That is what I wanted to say to you, ladies and gentlemen.
   The next item is the oral question (B5-0004/2004) to the Commission on the Communication on 'The future of the textiles and clothing sector in the enlarged European Union'.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0480/2003) by Mr Laschet, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on relations between the European Union and the United Nations (2003/2049(INI)).
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is really too much!
On the very day on which we are discussing this report and when we will be receiving Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General and Sakharov Prize-winner in 2003, Parliament has received depressing news from the Jurassic Park of dictatorships: we are being prevented from receiving Oswaldo Payá, to whom we awarded the Sakharov Prize for 2002.
This authoritarian ban by Fidel Castro’s communist regime in Cuba, which brings to mind the worst excesses of the Nazis and the Stalinists in the twentieth century, draws attention to an important part of this report, which states that, as regards the United Nations and its reform, the European Union and others must succeed in placing human rights, democracy and fundamental freedoms at the top of the world agenda, with all the consequences suggested in paragraph 19.
Oswaldo Payá’s situation is a scandal, as is the hostile gesture the Cuban regime has directed at this Parliament.
It would be even more scandalous if nothing were said publicly about these scandals.
We are sure that, through Kofi Annan, Parliament will send a powerful message to Cuba and that, in the form of a permanent open invitation to Oswaldo Payá, we will continue to express our active solidarity with the winner of the Sakharov Prize 2002 and with all Cuban democrats.
I wish lastly to express my appreciation of some of the rapporteur’s amendments, namely Amendment No 8, which draws attention to the importance of the Convention on human cloning and to the Costa Rican initiative, which we must support.
   Mr President, in 1945 the Charter of the United Nations stood for equal rights for all nations, large and small, as the best guarantee to maintain international peace and security.
Its first Article proclaimed the principle of self-determination of peoples.
20 years later, in 1966, the first Article of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political rights reaffirmed that all peoples have the right to self-determination.
Unfortunately, the draft Constitutional Treaty of the European Union contains no recognition whatsoever of the right to self-determination for the peoples of the stateless nations of Europe.
I should like to remind you that under Article 103 of the United Nations Charter, in the event of a conflict between the obligations of countries as members of the United Nations and their obligations under any other international agreement, the Charter shall prevail.
Let me finish by quoting you an enlightening statement given by Mr Annan as he presented his Millennium report in April 2000: 'the best way to prevent conflict is to promote political arrangements in which all groups are fairly represented'.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me thank Mr Laschet, the rapporteur, for his excellent report, which should receive the support of the vast majority of people in plenary today.
Many speakers have emphasised how important it is that the global community should take joint action, failing which many problems will remain insuperable.
I would like to remind you of the importance of environmental pollution and the fight to eradicate poverty in particular.
These are subjects that can only be tackled together, and Amendment No 7, which has been submitted by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, stresses the importance of the water supply.
I would, however, like to mention one subject that has not, so far, been discussed in very great detail, and one to which I urge Commissioner Patten to give his particular attention.
This subject is a common approach to human rights in the field of modern medicine and biotechnology.
A few months ago, Parliament approved a very good report produced by Robert Evans of the Socialist Group, on combating illegal trade in human organs.
Yet when we look at developing countries and newly industrialising countries, there is a great deal to be done in this area, and I think this is another task on which the EU and the UN must cooperate.
What is more, Parliament has often underlined its opposition to human cloning and its desire that the UN should intervene in this area too.
We are following the debate in the UN Committees with great interest – and let me emphasise once again, Commissioner Patten, that the European Parliament supports the Costa Rican initiative, which also has the backing of over 60 other members of the UN.
This is expressly stated once again in Amendment No 8.
While Kofi Annan is with us, I think we should reiterate the importance of this new task for the UN, for new developments demand new responses.
   Mr President, let me begin with three personal recollections.
I was privileged to address the UN working group in Geneva on indigenous peoples and thus witnessed how it forms a world parliament for some of the most oppressed minorities anywhere in our world.
I was privileged also to represent Parliament in East Timor, where I witnessed at first hand Sergio Vieira de Mello’s successful efforts in rebuilding a whole country – a talent so tragically lost to us.
This is why I attend meetings of United Nations associations in my East of England constituency, where the role and ideals of the UN are cherished at a very local level.
The United Nations inspires me and all of us here in Europe.
It is why Europe rightly champions UN policies: the 0.7% target in the Millennium Goals within EU development policy, and Europe providing over half of all support to the UN High Commission for Refugees, which stands up for fundamental rights as a bulwark against the racism and xenophobia now sweeping our continent.
This is why we back UN reform that will secure greater efficiency and also inject new vision.
Other policies championed by the EU are the UN convention on disability, the move beyond the Global Compact towards a binding treaty on corporate accountability and the idea of an economic security council to oversee the Bretton Woods institutions.
Finally, I am concerned that some of the proposals for changes in the veto system, the composition of the Security Council, or suggestions for an EU mandate prejudge the outcome of the Intergovernmental Conference and may not carry support in all of our countries.
Despite these concerns, where we have differences in Europe, most notably recently over Iraq, these concern how best to uphold the authority of the UN.
That authority is once again reaffirmed in Mr Laschet’s report and in our vote here this morning.
   Mr President, today is an excellent time to be debating the very good report by Mr Laschet on the relations between the European Union and the UN as, at the same time, we are receiving Kofi Annan, not just as a person, but as an institution, as a symbol of an irreplaceable need for the UN.
The report we are debating is in essence a single proposal on relations between the European Union and the UN, but it is a strategic proposal for the UN itself at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
The UN, despite generally expressing the need for a peaceful world at its inception, reflecting the balances at the end of the Second World War, is in need of some adjustment.
Today circumstances are different and must be expressed.
However, until they are expressed effectively, the UN is irreplaceable.
Many consider that the UN is the refuge of small countries which have no other way of expressing their opinions.
However, the Iraqi crisis and its impasses show that the superpowers have equal need of it.
Attempts at new international balances such as the enlarged G8 or the messianic crusading perception of the various superpowers of their role lead nowhere.
Proposing a strategy for the UN and the European Union, however, we note that we ourselves have serious gaps which we need to plug.
We recently experienced the lack of agreement in the UN Security Council.
The enlarged European Union, with the 25 members, will have the possibility to be expressed by many more members of the Security Council, in that it will have the possibility to be expressed by three different geographical areas of the UN.
This possibility, in conjunction with the presence, which I hope will come about, of a minister of foreign affairs at the UN, will provide many more possibilities.
If the new distribution does in fact result in the European Union's gaining a place on the Security Council, without other countries losing their place, this will allow it, from that position, to support policies for peace, cooperation, security, democracy and all the claims of mankind, which are objectives which we must attain.
   Mr President, I welcome Mr Laschet’s report, comprehensive and ambitious though it is.
It comes at a sensitive time for both the European Union and the United Nations.
I want to refer in particular to the UN Development Programme.
The report made in 2002 on the subject of Arab human development was described by magazine as the most important publication of the year, and more than a million people downloaded it from the UNDP website.
It had particular relevance for the EU since it was the impetus for the recent Commission communication – for which I am currently rapporteur – on reinvigorating human rights and democratisation with Mediterranean partners.
Last year’s UNDP Arab human development report stated that – subject to fieldwork surveys – the appetite for democracy in the Arab world was, at 60%, the highest of any region in the world.
Compare that, for example, with Eastern Europe, where the figure was 30%.
The Arab world also logged the highest rejection of authoritarian rule – the figure in this regard was 80% – and was indeed the third highest in favour of gender equality in higher education.
So the perception that many have that the Arab world is not ready for democracy is undermined by the United Nations’ own reports.
I hope, therefore, that the Council and Commission can, as it were, put our money where our mouth is, and redirect some of the enormous funds available for good governance, the development of civil society, democracy and the rule of law, which, in the external field – the responsibility of Commissioners Patten and Nielson – amounts to EUR 1.9 billion a year.
By contrast, the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights – a rather smaller fund aimed at the ex-Soviet Bloc – which I had the honour to set up a few years ago, amounts to only EUR 106 million.
That is an indication of the distortion in spending which we need to address, and in particular the priorities with which I hope the European Parliament will play some part in helping the Commission in the coming years.
   Mr President, I wish sincerely to thank Mr Laschet for a well-written and important report that is politically well balanced and forward-looking.
I shall concentrate on four points.
The first concerns Amendment No 6 by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and myself.
It has also been supported by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
The European Parliament ‘[c]onsiders that the elaboration of the common foreign and security policy towards the UN should be characterised by the participation and joint influence of all the European Union’s Member States’.
If we have a common foreign and security policy, it cannot be devised solely by the major powers: Germany, France and perhaps also Great Britain.
All the Member States must feel they are participating in this area.
The smaller Member States must not be confronted by a , with a common foreign and security policy having come about because the larger countries have already adopted positions.
Otherwise, there is no common foreign and security policy.
Regarding paragraph 19, I would, secondly, emphasise the value of depriving countries that systematically infringe human rights of their right to vote in the UN Commission on Human Rights until such breaches cease.
This must be pursued in a UN context.
The third point I wish to emphasise concerns the UN Security Council.
The EU should make better use of the two votes that EU Member States, namely Great Britain and France, now already, in actual fact, possess in the Security Council.
We must not therefore weaken the EU’s current 40% representation in the UN Security Council.
I should now like to address Mr Patten regarding Amendment No 8, also supported by the PPE-DE Group and the PSE Group.
We support Costa Rica’s initiative and the UN General Assembly’s decision to work on a corresponding convention in 2004 on banning human cloning.
– Thank you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
The debate is closed.The vote will take place at 10.30 a.m.(1)
   – The Laschet report on the relations between the European Union and the UN has been tabled with great ceremony and to underline its importance it has been linked with the award of the Sakharov Prize to Kofi Annan.
It actually seeks to establish a ‘Stateless diplomacy’ supported by a network of organisations over which national democracies have little control.
The declared intentions (in essence, a commitment to multilateralism, respect for human rights, peacekeeping and nature conservation) appear to be excellent.
But how is democratic control to be exerted?
In fact, the Laschet report seeks primarily to limit the Member States’ scope for action at the UN and to replace them with the European Union, controlled by the European Parliament, which is taking advantage of this to raise its status.
This is tantamount to saying, however, that we prefer ‘democracies that are low on substance’, like the European democracy, to really meaningful national democracies.
In particular, the Laschet report welcomes the reforms that the European Constitution would bring if it were adopted, including specifically legal personality for the Union and a European minister for foreign affairs, which would enable this programme to become a reality.
That is one further reason to reject both the Constitution and the Laschet report.
   The UN peace missions in East Timor, Sierra Leone and Liberia, together with the reconstruction of Afghanistan, as well as the humanitarian work for children and the fight against hunger and diseases all indicate that the UN continues to play an essential role in establishing peace and security.
I therefore join Kofi Annan in his call for a radical reform of the UN.
At present, this organisation is far too bureaucratic and not in tune with the geopolitical realities of the 21st century.
The EU which, together with its Member States, accounts for nearly 50% of the UN budget, should take the lead in this reform.
It is essential in this respect that the EU should be able to speak with one voice in the Security Council.
All credit to the EU for continuing to encourage the UN to face up to its responsibilities with regard to conflict prevention and maintaining the peace.
It should not, however, be mere lip service.
For hazardous operations in Africa, we are forced to call upon badly equipped and unmotivated troops from Bangladesh, Pakistan or India.
Sometimes, this creates more problems than it solves.
Why can the EU as such not deploy more troops under the UN flag with a UN mandate? I therefore call for a European Union which decisively takes the lead in the reform of the United Nations, not only with fine declarations and symbolic contributions, but, above all, with concrete commitments and actual solidarity at the coalface.
   – Mr President, I have been told by those of my colleagues who understand Italian that, on paragraph 35 of the UN report, you said ‘, which apparently means ‘rejected’.
That paragraph was, however, adopted by an overwhelming majority of the House, including the Socialists, and we ask you to amend your lists accordingly.
   Mr President, it was made clear during yesterday’s debate that there are certain parts of this report, which expressly refer to OLAF, which are being removed from it on the recommendation of the Legal Services since they are not admissible, and these parts are therefore not being voted on.
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   – Mr President, given the late hour, the fact that we are behind schedule and the difficulty that Members are going to have negotiating the traffic to reach the airport, there is a danger that there will not be enough of us left to vote on the last reports on the agenda.
In agreement with the rapporteur, Mr Zappalà, our group proposes that the vote on this report be postponed and that it be put to the vote as the first item of voting time on the Wednesday of the next Strasbourg part-session.
   Mr President, I know that many Members have very important commitments back in their constituencies and regions, and maybe even more important appointments back at the airport.
However, we have been waiting for a number of reports, especially the Zappalà report, to come to the floor of this House for a reasonable period of time now.
We all have our voting lists in front of us, we were sent here to vote on these issues, so can we now get on with it? It seems that we are putting things off for no reason whatsoever.
   – Mr President, when I was a law student, my tutors, among them my father, taught me the fundamental distinction that German philosophy draws between – the world as it should be – and – the world as it really is.
This morning, in adopting this resolution on relations between the European Union and the United Nations, it is quite possible that Parliament has indeed perceived the world as it should be.
Unfortunately, there is no doubt that the resolution does not take sufficient account of the world as it really is, for better or for worse.
In particular, it would be a loss to the world and Europe if we were, without any guarantees, to relinquish the United Kingdom’s status as a permanent member and even more so if we were to relinquish that of France.
That is why I voted against.
   – The Laschet report purports to be a plea for multilateralism in international relations.
It considers that the UN should take centre stage in achieving this objective, with the European Union playing an enhanced role within it.
But the method advocated to achieve these high-minded wishes is flawed.
For the report, a more effective UN means an enlarged Security Council, minor restrictions on the right to veto decisions and more means of intervention, including the military option.
As with Europe, an attempt is being made to embroil us in an institutional debate so that we forget the underlying problem: the fact that it is free competition above all else that determines the European Union’s policy; the fact that the major powers assume the right to decide unilaterally what merits or does not merit economic or military intervention on the part of the UN.
The fight against terrorism is thus seen as a top priority, whereas the fight against the greenhouse effect, AIDS or poverty is mere formality.
The UN imposed sanctions on Iraq, but is leaving the Palestinians, Chechens and so many others to their own devices.
Finally, this report is written as if the European Constitution had been ratified and claims that a European minister for foreign affairs will be able to represent a European consensus on international issues.
This is irresponsible.
For all of these reasons, we voted against the report.
   We have voted in favour of the proposal to amend Council Regulation (EC) No 1734/94 on financial and technical cooperation with the Occupied Territories (West Bank and Gaza), but we believe that matters must be carefully followed up with a view to making it clear that appropriated EU funds will not be used for purposes other than those intended, for example for propaganda activities not designed to promote peace.
   – Mr President, it is part of the European Parliament’s legislative activities in the Community to undertake the difficult and sensitive role of controller of the executive authority in all of its forms.
When carrying out its tasks, it has to assess the gravity of the lapses that inevitably occur at any time and in any place as a result of human nature; it has to be conscientious in exercising control but must do so without stifling initiatives and, above all, it should act in the general interest and avoid taking sides.
Unfortunately, the European Parliament has not managed to comply with these rules, neither in the Eurostat affair nor in respect of the Committee of the Regions.
That is why I voted against.
   Mr President, I would like to explain why our group, the Group of the European Peoples’ Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, has abstained on Amendment No 1 in Mr Casaca’s report.
The word ‘abstention’ is reminiscent of certain expressions commonly used in surveys such as ‘do not know, no comment’ and, in this case, we believe that we Members of this Parliament do not yet know either the magnitude of the facts, in relation to Eurostat, or the possible responsibilities stemming from them.
And ‘no comment’, in the sense that OLAF, a body responsible for combating fraud, has not provided this Parliament or any of its committees with adequate information in this regard, which could provide a detailed and complete picture of the situation.
Under these circumstances, a vote in favour of the amendment would imply that we had full knowledge of the facts and that as a result we were passing judgment in terms of certain responsibilities.
A vote against would also mean having knowledge of the facts and drawing a line under the issue as if it had already finished, without clarifying responsibilities.
It was therefore better to await any news which may arrive from OLAF.
I cannot end without saying that we believe Parliament has shown incoherence this morning, and the majority has rejected the individual responsibility of Commissioners, immediately after an individualised reference, which, in our opinion, is unfair, since it is untimely, partial and hasty.
We trust that OLAF will soon provide the information we need in order to issue a reasoned judgment.
   We believe that what is termed the Eurostat affair has revealed that reforms are required within the Commission regarding the control and monitoring of the EU authorities’ activities.
We believe, however, that to demand Commissioner Solbes’ resignation would be too far-reaching and not very constructive.
The Commission has acknowledged that mistakes have been made and, in our opinion, it is now up to the Commission, together with other institutions, to find models for a more effective and more transparent system of internal control.
If the Commission does not present a better system, a debate can begin about not granting discharge for 2002.
   . This report concentrates mainly on the Eurostat case and the irregularities that have been detected since 1999.
Let us not forget that Eurostat has been reaping the consequences of the Commission’s policy of outsourcing services, which has led to irregularities, fraud, nepotism and cronyism.
It is also true that services carried out by private firms have been of a lower quality than the Commission’s internal services.
We welcome the proposals to keep Eurostat services in-house and to review current contracts.
As for relations between Eurostat and National Statistics Services, we must not overlook issues of data protection regarding information passed between administrations.
The recent case undermines the credibility of the Commission’s administrative reform and shows the way in which internal information structures become corrupted, in which the prevailing culture of secrecy has given rise to ‘financial envelope systems’ in Eurostat and in which the information and communication systems within the Commission have managed to remain oblique.
Consequently, we regret the fact that the President of the Commission did not propose structural changes to relations between Commissioners and directorates-general, that he did not reach any conclusions regarding the Commissioners’ political responsibilities and that he did not condemn Mr Solbes Mira, the Commissioner responsible for Eurostat, for not acting sooner, in the face of mounting evidence of irregular financial management.
   I chose to vote in favour of Amendments Nos 13 to 17 and, in that way, went against the line taken by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
The reason for this is that these amendments are keenly critical of the serious irregularities at Eurostat.
I also voted in favour of Amendment No 21 which regrets the fact that Commissioner Solbes Mira, the Commissioner directly responsible for Eurostat’s administration, did not act sooner in response to the unsatisfactory state of affairs and that he did not accept political responsibility.
I also supported Amendment No 1, expressing the view that the accountability of the Commission would be strengthened in the future if the Commissioners accepted that they had individual political responsibility for their departments.
The report as such was constructive, however, and I therefore voted for it in the final vote.
The report was adopted by 467 votes in favour, with 11 votes against and 9 abstentions.
   We have today voted in favour of the present resolution on EU space policy, just as we previously supported the own-initiative report on the Commission’s Green Paper on European space policy on 9 October 2003 and the report on Europe and space on 17 January 2002.
We would however emphasise that the EU’s commitment to the area of space policy should be based upon the agreement between the EC and the European Space Agency (ESA) from 2003 and be limited to the competence the EU now has in the area of space research.
We reject an increased EU competence planned to be included in the treaty for establishing a European Constitution.
European industrial cooperation in the area of space should mainly be conducted on an intergovernmental basis in accordance with the Convention for the establishment of a European Space Agency.
   That concludes the vote.(2)
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 29 January 2004.(1)
   The final draft agenda as drawn up pursuant to Rules 110 and 110a of the Rules of Procedure by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday, 5 February 2004 has been distributed.
I have not received any requests for changes to the agenda for Monday.
   Mr President, as rapporteur for the own-initiative report on Directive 93/104/EC on the organisation of working time, I would request that the vote take place on Wednesday rather than tomorrow, since negotiations are being held between various parliamentary groups and they asked me a moment ago if we could do this.
If possible, therefore, we would like to be able to continue working tomorrow and vote on the report on Wednesday.
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   I shall indeed enquire into the matter and report back to you, Mr Bradbourn.
   Mr President, I would like to protest at the leniency shown by President Musharraf of Pakistan to the television confession of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan.
This House has criticised Pakistan's exports of nuclear technology in the past and received condemnation from its government for doing so.
It is extraordinary that the sale of such dangerous WMD know-how to regimes as brutal as North Korea results in a presidential pardon and the right to keep the illegally acquired payments.
It smacks of a public scapegoating exercise in the face of embarrassing evidence of official covert support by the government.
Secondly, I would like to send my condolences to the people of Moscow for the recent atrocious suicide bomb attack on their metro, which resulted in at least 39 deaths and 150 casualties, with everything pointing to Chechen terrorists organised by a Saudi al-Qa'ida follower.
I ask those in this House who proclaim the glory of the Chechen freedom fighters how they account for the murder of innocent Muscovites?
   Mr President, in a few days’ time it will be the 20th anniversary of the adoption by the European Parliament of the Draft Treaty Establishing the European Union, created and proposed by Altiero Spinelli.
The Conference of Presidents called on the political groups to look into the possibilities for celebrating both this anniversary and the 25th anniversary of the death of Jean Monnet, one of the greatest creators of European integration.
I would, however, like to draw your attention, Mr President, to the dissimilar nature of these two anniversaries.
Celebrating the anniversary of the Spinelli draft means not so much paying homage to Altiero Spinelli himself, as appreciating the far-sightedness of the European Parliament that, 20 years ago, drew up and proposed the first treaty of a constitutional nature, something which it makes sense to stress today in the light of our renewed commitment to ensure that Europe is in fact finally given a Constitution.
   As you correctly observed, Mr Napolitano, your suggestion was discussed by the Conference of Presidents.
It was decided that, in the last parliamentary session in May, we should observe a number of those anniversaries.
However, with regard to the specific observation you made about the Spinelli report and the leadership of the European Parliament, I will be happy to mark that day by making a declaration on behalf of this House, in line with your preference and your suggestion to the Conference of Presidents.
   Mr President, 25 years ago, the Islamic Republic of Iran was founded, leading to the violent infringement of human rights and, in particular, the violation of women’s rights.
The question is, whether we are now seeing the start of a similar development in occupied Iraq.
On 29 December, a number of rulings concerning divorces, marriages and children etc. were replaced by Sharia law in the otherwise secular state of Iraq.
Now, I hear that the leader of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraqis under violent attack from Islamic groups.
Her name is Yamha Mohammed.
I should very much like to ask you to protest, on behalf of Parliament, against the attacks on women’s rights that are now gathering speed in Iraq, and also to protest to the occupying forces, that is to say the alliance of so-called volunteers, against this development.
   I did not wish to interrupt you, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, because of the personal nature of the attack you mentioned and for which, I am sure, you have the complete sympathy of Members of the House.
I shall ask Parliament's security services to draw up a report on this for us and for the Bureau to see what general lessons we could learn as regards some of your suggestions.
We are also in ongoing discussions with the Belgian authorities regarding security in Brussels.
I would add that, so far, these have not resulted in a satisfactory or sufficient response as regards the requirements of this House.
   Mr President, I would like to draw attention to the complete disarray regarding free movement of citizens from the new Member States.
It now seems – but it is by no means certain – that, with a mere 11 weeks to go until 1 May, 13 Member States will take advantage of the facility to put obstacles in the way of free movement.
This has led to a spotlight on the two remaining states – Ireland and the United Kingdom – and to hysterical press reactions about being swamped by benefit tourists.
I hold no brief for the way the British press is reacting, nor for the rather uncertain reaction of the United Kingdom Government, but I believe that the original decision to allow full free movement was and is economically, politically and morally right.
Commission forecasts show that maybe every year there would have been one mobile worker from the East for every 1000 inhabitants in the West, if it had been shared among all states.
There may have been some justification for special measures in border areas, but the way this panic has spread and infected most Member States is shameful.
It treats the new Member State citizens as second class, contrary to all the promises they were given, and it displays – as on so many other issues such as Iraq, the Constitution and the budget – a depressing lack of EU solidarity.
Could you at least raise this with the Commission and Member States in the Council to try and make the transitional periods as brief as possible?
   – Mr President, both I and my colleague Mr Claeys put ourselves electronically on the speakers’ list this morning for one minute each and it now appears that we are not on it.
   – Mr President, in preparation for the Chinese president’s visit to France, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, has come to Brussels to ask for the lifting of the arms embargo on China.
The fact is that France is dreaming about concluding lucrative contracts with Beijing, which will push up its arms industry’s turnover, and so the Chinese president received an imperial welcome in France.
Nothing was said about human rights; Tibet is being oppressed, but it would appear that the French president does not even know where it is.
When you have the opportunity to sell some of your friend Monsieur Dassault’s Mirage jet fighters, you prefer not to think about a few boring old monks.
Jacques Chirac, who can wax so lyrical about tolerance in his own country, evidently did not have the time to read the reports of the various human rights organisations, which, year in and year out, detail the Chinese offences: censorship, arbitrary arrests, overcrowded prisons, re-education camps and the absence of free expression of opinion.
Jacques Chirac even managed to describe the forthcoming referendum in Taiwan as an act of aggression against China.
That the European Union has no option but to do business with China is something we have to be able to accept, but supplying weapons is a completely different matter.
We are therefore in full agreement with Mr Watson’s statement that this arms embargo is one of the last means available to the European Union, whereby it can force the Communist dictatorship in China to respect human rights.
   The next item is the report (A5-0040/2004) by Giorgos Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the role and methods of credit rating agencies (2003/2081(INI)).
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0026/2004) by Mr Cercas, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the organisation of working time (revision of Directive 93/104/EEC) (2003/2165(INI)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0013/2004) by Colette Flesch, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the work of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in 2003 (2003/2007(INI)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0015/2004) by Hans Modrow, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the reform of state-owned enterprises in developing countries with focus on public utilities: the need to assess all the options (COM(2003) 326 – 2003/2158(INI))
and
the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on European Community cooperation with third countries: the Commission’s approach to future support for the development of the business sector (COM(2003) 267 – 2003/2158(INI).
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   Mr President, I welcome our Commissioner, Mr Byrne. I am deeply concerned about some of the issues that have been raised in this meeting today.
Is this a matter of public health or public safety, or is it just a trade issue?
I strongly believe that this is a matter of public health. I should like to ask the Commissioner how long it took him to decide to ban chicken from coming into the European Union?
Is chicken that is still in transit coming into the European Union, or has that also been stopped? We heard from Mr Parish that there is a problem of cooked and chilled meats coming in.
Why has it not been decided to ban all meats coming in? It is said that the flu virus is killed at 70 degrees – given an absolutely perfect situation – but we do not know how these products are cooked.
Can you, Commissioner, guarantee the safety of children in my constituency? For example, schools in Bedford are using Thai chicken to prepare meals for the pupils.
Can we totally guarantee their safety?
I have three direct questions for you, Commissioner.
What are you doing to ensure the safety of meat coming into this country? How many qualified inspectors do we have today on our borders, checking the safety and quality of products coming into the European Union?
You were asked what you were going to do about labelling. Can we guarantee the consumer that labelling will show the country of origin of production?
It is particularly important that you look at this, Commissioner.
This is not just about trade, it is about health.
Mr Nicholson mentioned feathers. Have you stopped the import of feathers as of today?
   – Mr President, on a point of order, I have asked the Commissioner about the rumour of the FMD outbreak in 26 towns in Vietnam that are also plagued by avian influenza.
I have not had an answer to this question from the Commissioner.
I should like to know whether the Commissioner has any information on this.
   Mr President, the Commissioner has been very elaborate in his answer, but he has avoided answering one essential question.
Under heading 1a in the 2003 and 2004 budgets this Parliament and the Council have twice provided for extra funds to be set aside for research into better vaccines and testing methods.
The Commission was at liberty to decline that wish of Parliament.
In the light of present developments, is the Commission prepared to investigate the possibility of using funds from heading 1a for research into vaccines and testing methods and inform this House as soon as possible of the outcome of these deliberations? It is urgent that we do something, and the Commission should not ignore the resolutions of this Parliament in this respect, nor the budget itself.
   . I know that Mr Mulder is interested in this matter and that he has had direct contact with my cabinet about it as recently as in the last few days.
The items he mentions as requiring financing are being financed.
The question is: under what heading will they be dealt with? If it is believed to be necessary to transfer from one budget heading to another and that this is the best way of dealing with it, then this can be done.
This matter is under review.
However, it is important to emphasise that the items he mentions as requiring financing are not being under-financed. They are being financed.
Whatever refinement may be necessary in the future can be dealt with at that time.
   – It will be at the start of this afternoon’s sitting, at 3 p.m.
   The next item is the report (Α5-0038/2004) by Mr Bowis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
   The next item is the report (Α5-0022/2004) by Mr Garot, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on trends in agricultural incomes in the European Union.
   – Mr President, Mr Garot has produced a good report, and it is to his credit that he has brought the price of produce back to the centre of the debate.
Decoupling has facilitated the removal of the twofold price distortions brought about by payments, which tended to keep prices down and thus gave customers the opportunity to get their hands on cheap raw materials, in that the linking of grants to production – which was itself unequally distributed – meant that between 75% and 80% of this State aid was claimed by between 20% and 25% of farms.
Now, even though decoupling is in place – and it was the right step to take – it does not automatically follow that different power relations have come into being; rather, what matters is that prices should be actively negotiated.
This is not just about the distributing chains, but also about the cooperatives, some of them managed by farmers, which pursue their price and market policies in decision-making bodies, and it is about better payments for raw materials – agricultural raw materials.
You have also made it clear that we now have to talk about modulation and about different ways of distributing these funds.
Modulation must link the practice of some large and rationalised farming enterprises receiving from the state a premium amounting to EUR 100 000 per worker, to the number of employees and also to the type of production.
From this, quality criteria must be developed, in order that state funds do not contribute to the accumulation of assets and give the wrong stimuli to production, but instead, enable the continuation of rural production methods in Europe.
   Mr President, I would like to join in the general praise for Mr Garot’s wonderful report, which is as timely as it is necessary.
Mr President, Mr Garot’s rigorous analysis provides data confirming our concern at the danger posed by the reform of the CAP if its negative impact on agricultural incomes is not neutralised.
I very much regret the seriously misguided and inconsistent way in which certain Members, on the one hand, heap great praise on the report because it is good, but, on the other, say that they are not going to support it.
Mr President, the fundamental objective of the CAP is to guarantee a fair standard of living for the agricultural population.
Europe needs multifunctional and viable agriculture, but this means that we must protect the European model, create a system of crisis management, guarantee employment and increase the resources dedicated to the second pillar.
All of this is proposed by Mr Garot in this wonderful report.
Especially worthy of note are paragraph 7 – which the Commission should apply – which points out that the costs of production are tending to increase while aid is tending to decrease; paragraph 17, which relates to guaranteeing employment; and paragraphs 24 and 25 relating to the second pillar.
Finally, Mr President, the Commission must take account of the view expressed by Mr Garot in paragraph 25 on cofinancing, as a demand which may hinder rural development, with a view to making this cofinancing requirement more flexible in the reform in the CAP.
– Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, do I take it that you are seeking the floor for a procedural motion?
   – Mr President, we have had an important debate on agricultural policy, but without Commissioner Fischler.
His absence has been the subject of criticism, and it is also regrettable.
The Commission is having a meeting on medium-term financial planning, and fairness requires that I, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, make it plain to the House that we think it important that Commissioner Fischler should be present at that meeting.
We do, though, regret that the two commitments have overlapped, it is something that we strenuously tried to avoid, but without success.
It is thus that we find ourselves in the unfortunate position of having to have this debate without Commissioner Fischler.
   Thank you Mrs Lulling.
Thanks to you, the European Parliament is now well informed.
Under Rule 110a(4) of the Rules of Procedure, which you know by heart, you are entitled to two minutes.
   – Very well, Mr Katiforis.
Your proposal related therefore to Amendment No 8.
Firstly, we have two others to put to the vote.
When we arrive at Amendment No 8, I shall ask, in accordance with the procedure, if any Members are opposed to your oral amendment being taken into account.
I see that Mr Gollnisch is aching to say something.
If it is not genuinely about a procedural motion, I shall switch off his microphone immediately.
   – Mr Gollnisch, I had warned you.
I do not see to which rule of procedure you are referring.
This is not a procedural motion; it is a political remark, and you do not have the floor.
– Mrs Stihler, as this is a report that falls under Rule 110 (b) of the Rules of Procedure, the explanations of vote can in theory only be given in writing.
Having, however, made the mistake of giving the floor to Mr Fatuzzo, who was in the same position as yourself, I am happy to give it to you.
   Mr President, with regard to the Kindermann report, many of my constituents are concerned about the unnecessary killing of dolphins and porpoises in Europe's seas.
It is time for us to act swiftly.
That is why the Kindermann report is so important.
I am certain that these measures will make a real difference: a general restriction on the length of driftnets in the Baltic Sea from 1 July 2004, a further reduction in driftnet fishing by 1 January 2007; the compulsory use of acoustic deterrent devices and the introduction of a comprehensive system for monitoring the levels of dolphins and porpoises.
These policies show why it is important to have a common fisheries policy and if these measures become part of that policy, we will then have the full force of the law across the 25 Member States.
That shows just how important the EU and its enlargement into Eastern Europe are for all of us concerned about the environment.
   In the vision that I had, Mr President, Mr Pannella was condemned to go on strike about a hunger strike, that is to say he was condemned to eat, to eat and get fatter and fatter.
Then Mr Pannella said to me: ‘Please wake up Mr Fatuzzo, for you it is a dream, you were dreaming, but for me it is a nightmare!’
I therefore had to vote in favour of the report so as to protect poor Mr Pannella.
   Mr President, one of the reasons why we abstained in the vote on this motion for a resolution was because we did not find the slightest mention in it of the grave discrimination contained in the Slovenian legislation on compensation – legislation that penalises refugees and their children for the terrible events that took place in the post-war period in these countries.
Today, 10 February, is the second time that a day of remembrance has been celebrated in our country.
On behalf, too, of a Member here today, the MEP Mr Gobbo, I would like to mention the flight of 350 000 of our compatriots that were driven out of their countries and, above all, the sacrifice and the tragedy of the more than 10 000 people thrown – in many case when still alive – into caves and ditches in these countries: a tragedy affecting the Istrian, Giuliano-Dalmatian and Fiumano peoples and which is still present in the lived experience and the suffering of these lands; a tragedy that Europe too should remember and commemorate.
It is another holocaust that calls to mind the tragedies of totalitarianism of the last century.
   Mr President, Mr Katiforis presents a report on the role and methods of rating agencies. Also in this case, when I closed my eyes, I saw Mr Katiforis who was running and running and was breathless.
‘Where are you running?’
I asked him. He said ‘I am running so that I arrive to present my report before the collapse of Parmalat in Italy.
Fatuzzo, you know Mr Mennea. Tell him to get the rating report because he will certainly run faster than me, being a Moscow Olympic runner, and he will, therefore, get to present it and get it adopted before Parmalat collapses’.
I am sorry to say that this was a dream that has not been realised: Mr Katiforis did not manage to get to present his report and have it adopted before the sad event of the Parmalat Bond collapse.
   Knowing that I was to vote on the activities of public utilities in developing countries – and I said I would vote in favour – many pensioners that were listening to me in Milan, last Saturday, urged me to discuss the possibility of ensuring that, in European Union interventions in developing countries on issues of public services, pension systems in the said countries are improved, given that we are not managing to give more to pensioners in Italy and in Europe, nor, in particular, to do our best to ensure that widows have 100% of the pensions of their late spouses and that all those that work have 120% of their final salaries.
   .
I voted in favour of this resolution.
Ever since the Gothenburg Summit the EU has been proposing ‘sustainable development’, which is the only guarantee of human development that deems respect for the environment as an essential prerequisite for rapid progress.
I therefore consider it to be extremely important that we proceed responsibly – as in the question before us today – towards implementing and transposing directives that lay down this intention in law.
Concepts such as ‘cross-compliance’ in the technical conditions of operating licences, sharing best practices and defining best available techniques (BATs), are just some of the ways in which we can ensure the integrated prevention and reduction of pollution resulting from a wide range of industrial and agricultural activities, and in which we can reach a higher level of environmental protection.
Within the framework of the 1996 Directive under consideration, a system of permits for new installations is established, which forces operators to adopt pollution prevention measures.
It also urges all installations to comply with the same rules from 2007 onwards.
I agree with the rapporteur when she stresses the importance of forcing Member States to present their plans for assessing transposition (also by 2007) as soon as possible.
For this purpose, a ‘Guidance Document’ clarifying the definition of ‘installation’ and other key terms would be most helpful …
   .
The report drawn up by Mr Lage addresses the important question of the credibility of scientific opinions used in fisheries management, given the frequent differences of opinion between scientists and fishermen regarding the current state of fisheries resources.
EU measures based on scientific advice can have a devastating impact on fishing communities.
It is in this light that we see the importance of this issue and the need to improve the quality of this advice.
Mr Lage’s warning therefore gives the Community the opportunity to base the common fisheries policy on more accurate, more timely advice, thereby leading to a stronger scientific basis than has thus far been detected.
It is unacceptable that we continue to see the ‘Commission’s apparent unwillingness’, as Mr Lage puts it, to have regard to all the scientific advice available.
This only serves to increase suspicion of bias in their decisions, which tend to overlook fishing communities that are already completely unprotected.
My vote in favour of this report is, therefore, also an expression of solidarity with Portuguese fishermen, who have been so severely affected by the Commission’s – and in particular Commissioner Fischler’s – Fisheries Policy.
(1)
   We shall now continue the item which was interrupted, which is the debate on the report (A5-0022/2004) by Mr Garot, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the development of agricultural incomes in the European Union (2002/2258(INI)).
   Mr President, a sincere thank-you to Mr Garot for a constructive report that is very good at depicting today’s agricultural economy.
Agricultural economics is a very important subject for the development of thriving rural areas.
Thriving rural areas are entirely dependent upon the existence of profitable farms.
In a Europe in which 50% of farmers are over 55 years of age and only eight per cent under 35, a whole new attitude to agriculture’s entrepreneurs is required.
If I were now asked to give advice to people who had recently started up a farm, I would reply that they should make their financial calculations without reference to funding by society and not rely upon the good will of politicians.
The report contains a number of points I cannot support.
For example, it talks about ensuring ‘a fair standard of living for the agricultural community and stabilis[ing] incomes with a view to maintaining farming activity throughout the European Union’.
A second point emphasises the importance of ‘maintain[ing] the level of public support for agriculture’ and the significance of creating ‘conditions that will guarantee employment’ and so forth.
If these sentences, worded as they are, were read out to today’s farmers, they would leave them cold.
In a country like Sweden, these words do not correspond to reality.
Only 0.5 per cent of the population are now farmers.
Restructuring is taking place incredibly quickly.
The mid-term review has meant that everything has stopped, apart from the running down of agriculture.
That is not of course something that can be blamed solely upon the European Community.
A lot of the blame lies, for example, with the Swedish Government.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0018/2004) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on agriculture and agricultural research in the framework of CAP reform (2003/2052(INI)).
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0024/2004) by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing measures for the recovery of the Northern hake stock (COM(2003) 374 – C5-0314/2003 – 2003/0137(CNS)).
   Mr President, for a minute I wondered whether Mr van Dam had come to the wrong debate, but I am glad that he turned his attention to Northern hake.
I congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
Mr Souchet is one of the most hard-working members of the Committee on Fisheries and his expertise in this area has earned him the accolade of being appointed rapporteur on the recovery of southern hake, a report which is currently in the pipeline.
During our deliberations in committee, it was repeatedly stated that the advice we received from ICES – the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas – in respect of stocks of Northern hake was at odds with the advice of fishermen.
Indeed, the fishermen claimed that hake stocks were not in a state of terminal decline, as stated by the scientists.
Once again, this divergence of opinion has demonstrated the need for fishermen and scientists to work together in the preparation of management strategies.
It is also clear that the Commission must be prepared to listen to the advice of fishermen as well as to the dire warnings of scientists.
In this respect, I am delighted that plans for the creation of Regional Advisory Councils, which Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna mentioned, will bring together fishermen and scientists.
These plans are well under way and constitute an essential part of the CFP reform package.
Had an RAC been in place in this instance, I do not think we would have had the original recommendations for drastic cuts in hake TACs combined with severe effort limitation targets which the Commission proposed and which have shocked the members of the Committee on Fisheries.
Cuts as proposed would have devastated the sector and caused widespread socio-economic hardship.
I am glad that the Commission has revised these proposals in the wake of strong representations from the sector.
We all support sustainable fishing.
We all have an interest in seeing the long-term recovery of Northern hake.
However, we also have a duty to sustain the livelihood of fishermen and to protect fishing communities.
A balance therefore has to be struck which links best practice to achievable socio-economic goals.
So, despite what Mrs McKenna said, I believe that Mr Souchet has sought to achieve that balance and I commend his report to the House.
   . Mr President, I wish to make three comments.
The first concerns the amounts necessary to meet the aspirations of everyone who wants to see a successful Europe in the future – whether that ceiling should be 1% of GNI, or 1.24%, or somewhere in between – and to remind everyone that today is the start of what will probably be a 12-month process.
Even though Mr Prodi has made a statement, if we go by past practices I do not expect a conclusion on this for at least a year.
In December Mr Colom i Naval, who is the rapporteur on the financial perspectives, presented a working document in the Committee on Budgets on the appraisal of the financial perspectives from their inception in 1988 to 2002.
Over those 15 years, the average budget implementation is, remarkably, 1% of GDP.
The Council could say that is sufficient, but to get an average of 1% over those years means we have to spend above 1% in certain years.
In fact, we spent up to the figure mentioned by Mr Prodi – 1.15% – in 1993.
My point is that this type of flexibility is needed if we are to continue to have a decent average.
If that average has to be 1%, then there will be years when we will have to exceed 1% quite significantly.
I am still not sure whether the Council's figure of 1% includes the EDF.
I do not think it does, but that would therefore make it 1.03% at best.
I want to make a comment to those Member States which criticised the Stability Pact for being too rigid.
They should also see that if there is a case for flexibility in the Stability Pact, then we do not need rigidity in the European Union budget by sticking at 1%, as some Member States propose.
That has been shown in Category 4, where, without the flexibility instrument, we could not have financed the actions in Kosovo, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq or in other areas.
We need that flexibility in the budget.
Speaking in a personal capacity, we could manage within the 1% if those same Member States had not already agreed that agricultural expenditure should be set in concrete up to 2013.
I quote from the Commission's document: 'A ceiling around 1% of GNI would fail to meet the European Councilcommitments on agricultural payments, would undermine the phasing-in of cohesion policy in the ten new Member States and would jeopardise existing levels of other policies.'
It goes on to say: 'Alternatively, cuts would be needed across the board and existing agreements would have to be reopened, including the amounts decided at the Brussels European Council of October 2002.'
I hope the Council takes cognisance of that fact.
My second comment is specifically to the Council.
To get an agreement on the new financial perspectives needs an interinstitutional agreement.
I just want to remind the Council that we are one of those institutions, and it will need Parliament's agreement to get an interinstitutional agreement.
We do not care if we do not get it: we will just go back to Article 272 of the Treaty and will still manage the budget without the Council's say-so.
That is not a threat, it is just a comment to the Council, which it should bear in mind as we go through this procedure.
My last point is that for almost the past 15 years – all the time I have been in this Parliament and on the Committee on Budgets – the rapporteur for the financial perspectives has been Mr Colom i Naval.
This will probably be his last plenary session – I am breaking news here.
He will be offered the job of head of the Court of Auditors in the Catalan Government, and no doubt will be taking it up very shortly.
I want to pay tribute to his unceasing work; he knows more about this subject than anyone else – dare I say, boringly so!
He can quote the interinstitutional agreement chapter and verse, but I have been glad of it on many occasions.
I want to thank him for all his work over those 15 years, and also wish him well for his new post.
I hope I express the whole of Parliament's wish in that sentiment.
   Mr Wynn, thank you for your contribution and your announcement in respect of the future of our colleague, Mr Colom i Naval.
On behalf of the House I should like to congratulate Mr Colom i Naval on the nomination.
We wish him well, but express regret that as a result of his taking up this appointment we shall lose him before the end of this legislature.
   Mr Colom i Naval, in the light of the announcement by Mr Wynn, I do not know whether this will be your last speech in this House, but in any event, you have four minutes!
   . – Mr President, I will say a few words and then Commissioner Schreyer will reply to some of the more technical questions.
There has been one general criticism running through this debate – a debate for which I am sincerely grateful, because Parliament has genuinely exercised its institutional pride on the issue of the budget and has given us precious advice – criticism made by some important Members of Parliament, beginning with Mr Wynn: a lack of ambition, as Mr Fiori also pointed out, and the assertion that an excess of realism leads to weakness.
So, I should like to point out that the structure of the budget we are presenting indicates a radical change with the past – not only quantitatively but also qualitatively; it constitutes an ambitious project that will give rise to serious problems and a fierce debate when the time comes for it to be adopted.
I ask you to consider just a few figures: I have spoken about sustainable development; I did not want to provide analytical data because I believe that we need to consider such data together at some length, but in relation to the Lisbon process funds will increase by 62.8% – from EUR 47 billion in 2006 to EUR 76 billion in 2013 – allowing for a 32% increase in cohesion funds, 300% for funds earmarked for education and training, 200% for research funds, 400% for funds earmarked for competitiveness and networks.
We have made choices that are coherent, precise and dramatically different from those of Lisbon: we have placed, within the context of an extremely ambitious draft budget, appropriations for the area of justice, which is one of the major areas of the Union – it was not by chance that I referred to it as one of the Union’s three lines of action – that is to say funds are to increase by almost 200% from EUR 1 billion in 2006 to EUR 3.6 billion in 2013.
These, I repeat, are radical changes.
Finally, the international situation: funds are to increase by almost 40% from EUR 11 billion in 2006 to EUR 15.7 billion in 2013.
So then, we have made some stark choices – which I hope will be accepted – in keeping precisely in line with the objectives.
We did not, ladies and gentlemen, begin building from the roof, but from the foundations, studying the new objectives and analysing what had been decided in previous years with the decisions taken at Lisbon and subsequent decisions.
On this basis we have constructed a coherent budget so that Europe can relaunch itself, re-establish a united policy on justice and internal affairs and re-establish its voice in the world.
There are three areas on which we have consolidated and focused our attention, and therefore this is a response which I consider ambitious; realistic and ambitious.
I say realistic because it is clear that genuine situations, temperaments and even political trends cannot be ignored.
I assure you that the procession of the six ambassadors who brought me the 1% letter resembled more than anything a funeral cortege, and it is clear that this makes no sense in a Europe that must react, that must go forward, that has enormous responsibilities for everyone.
So, we have taken a major gamble: stark choices, extremely radical choices, as the detailed line by line analysis of the budget will show.
In conclusion, a final observation: why have we started so early, Mr Fiori? Out of respect for those who are to come after us.
The timeframes are extremely long.
When, at the end of our term of office, we hand over the whole project with its roadmap, when our work is completed, they will need – so it has been said – about twelve months, possibly more: going on past experience, 18 months will be needed to fine-tune the finished product; that means the beginning of 2006, January/February 2006.
Care must be taken to provide enough time to learn the procedures, prepare the financing procedures and organise the financing structure, which is only just adequate, so that the objectives we have set ourselves can be met.
The work we have carried out is wide-ranging but absolutely essential.
It is clear that none of the decisions taken today will become operative under this term, we are well aware of that.
It will be the new Parliament that will decide but, if we do not place the new Parliament in the position to decide, it will not be possible to make payments at the beginning of 2007.
We have worked on this, Mr Fiori, because I can assure you of one thing: we never attempt to perform tasks that are not useful or are unnecessary.
This has involved an enormous amount of work and perhaps we would willingly have avoided it had it not been for the benefit of the Union.
   The next item is Question Time, but we will begin with a point of order from Mr Dupuis, who may address the House briefly.
   I would like to thank the Commissioner for her reply and ask a question arising from it.
In light of the recent investigation by the Commission into the arrangements of Ryanair at Charleroi Airport, is it not now the case that regional airports in Europe are unsure how state aid rules are going to apply in the future and that this in itself is going to impinge on legitimate commercial decisions they would like to take, as well as on their future development?
   . I believe that, on the contrary, the Commission’s solution and response in the case of Ryanair in Charleroi – which relates to the State aid given by Charleroi airport rather than to Ryanair, and that is the problem – opens up new possibilities for the promotion and development of regional airports, which are a driving force for regional development, and for the operation of the so-called ‘budget airlines’ from those airports.
I believe that the decision taken by the Commission is balanced.
It has given the green light to most of the aid received by Ryanair throughout this time.
Though it is true that limits have been imposed, in terms of time and above all in terms of the availability of this aid for any other company which is willing to carry out this type of activity, for the sake of equal treatment of all airlines operating in Europe and of transparency in these types of operation.
I repeat, however, that I believe the decision on Charleroi favours regional airports and budget airlines.
We must remember that in the case of Charleroi we have not acted on our own initiative, because the Commission had received complaints and because, as the honourable Member knows, the Commission is obliged to deal with them.
In fact, there have been complaints in relation to other airports in various countries of Europe.
We will deal with them in the coming months, when all the facts of each case are clarified.
I believe that we are thereby helping to clarify the situation, because there are a series of other regional airports which, thanks to the response in the case of Charleroi, are going to be able to provide airlines with similar conditions, which allow them to expand and carry out their activities.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it has emerged that railway companies are now competing with the cheap tickets offered by the airlines. How do you intend to proceed with regard to the state aid that is currently being paid to the railways?
Will restrictions on the options apply here as well?
In Austria, for example, 7% of the budget is spent on the railways. That amounts to around EUR 500 per citizen in subsidies to the railways, which are now competing directly with the privately-owned low-cost airlines.
This means that there is unfair competition between the cheap tickets offered by the airlines and those offered by the railways.
I would be very pleased if you took similar action against the railways.
Would the Commission please detail how or if it plans to issue information and/or advice to Member States on the free movement of labour from accession countries after 1 May 2004?
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in recent weeks, Slovakia has set income tax and corporation tax at a flat rate of 19%.
As a result, many firms in Austria are now planning to open plants in Slovakia, which means that they will of course be employing their workforce in Slovakia as well.
Does the Commission have any studies indicating how many workers from the current European Union are likely to migrate to these attractive tax regions as industry is relocated? Will the balance be maintained, or will there even be a clear out-migration of workers from the Member States in the first two years, especially since the opportunity to move from the new Member States to the current EU will only exist thereafter?
Thank you.
How successful does the Commission judge that the Union's five-year strategy has been – it runs out during 2004 – given the flood of heroin and other drugs on our streets?
   . The EU drugs strategy 2000-2004 provides a framework for a balanced and integrated approach on all drug-related activities in the European Union.
It has also been endorsed by the new Member States and the candidate countries who have, in the meantime, set up national drug strategies and improved their capacities for taking action against drugs with the support of the Phare Programme.
The Union also has a number of drug action plans involving certain regions either producing or serving as transit countries for drugs, such as Latin America, Central Asia and the Balkans.
Research shows that a link between a particular drug policy line and the drug situation is difficult to establish.
The availability and careful evaluation of relevant and reliable information are undoubtedly key elements in developing an evidence-based drug policy.
The work of the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction and the work of Europol in this area form part of the basis for the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the mid-term evaluation of the EU Action Plan on Drugs.
This mid-term evaluation was a first step in a larger process.
By the end of this year we will have the final evaluation.
Without wanting to pre-empt the results of the final evaluation, the following developments on the EU drugs market can already be observed.
Heroin seizures have increased since 2001.
Our assessment is that street prices are generally stable or even decreasing.
The number of heroin addicts seems to be relatively stable in the European Union, although there are marked differences between the Member States.
Cannabis remains the most widely-used illicit drug and its use is still increasing in many Member States.
The use of synthetic drugs such as ecstasy and the use of cocaine seem to be increasing in certain population groups, although the use of these drugs among the general population remains low.
   . Thank you for recognising that to a certain extent I am like the Pope: I have no legions at all!
Indeed you are right, Mr Newton Dunn, the main responsibility in this area lies with the Member States.
But there is a lot we can do, both in internal policy and external policy.
When it comes to internal policy, one has to recognise that for years now Europol has been playing a very important coordinating role in detecting the main transit routes.
When we have detected the transit routes, we try to cooperate with such countries in order to prevent the entry into the European Union of those drugs.
We have made some progress in the Balkan region thanks to cooperation with the countries in the area.
Thanks to the support of the Cards Programme, we have been developing specific law enforcement capabilities in those countries to fight against drug trafficking.
I am less positive in my assessment as regards Afghanistan.
The figures I have at my disposal demonstrate that the poppies are growing and increasing, and it is quite clear that in Afghanistan the political situation is not stable enough to guarantee close cooperation as far as law enforcement is concerned in order to tackle the issue of drugs trafficking.
I believe this issue – and I know my colleague Commissioner Patten shares this view – will be at the top of the agenda in our negotiations with the Afghan authorities in the near future.
   Mr President, I wish to address a number of subjects I think are related to the drugs issue.
One concerns the Lisbon Strategy.
How does the Commissioner view increased drug use and increased drug misuse in the EU in the light of the fact that, by 2010, the EU is supposed to have the strongest economy in the world, with the highest growth and an ecologically sustainable economy? Is it, as it were, good for the labour market that ever more people are giving themselves over to drug misuse?
I also wish to put a follow-up question concerning the projected European Corps of Border Guards. What would be its role when it comes to seizing drugs?
   We shall proceed to the second part of this Question Time, during which Commissioner Barnier will reply.
At the end of December 2003, the Spanish Government submitted an application for funding for the project to divert water from the River Ebro to Spain's eastern seaboard.
Is the Commission aware that on 14 January 2004, Elvira Rodriguez, the Spanish Minister for the Environment, announced that work on the project would begin in February 2004? What is the Commission's opinion on that decision and what stance will it adopt with respect to it, bearing in mind that it has not taken any decision as regards the viability of the project?
   . – Mr President, Mr Ferrández Lezaun’s question reminds me of the debate that we had recently with Mrs Wallström in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on this major dossier of the Ebro.
The Spanish authorities have requested Community financing from the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds for the project to divert water from the River Ebro.
The eligibility dates of the expenditure for the various sub-projects are 29 December 2003 and 1 January 2002 respectively.
The Spanish authorities do not therefore need to wait for the Commission to give its decision before starting these projects, given that beginning the work will in no way prejudice the Commission’s decision on whether to grant Community financing.
In other words, it is one thing to start the project and it is quite another to receive confirmation of Community financing.
If, then, after investigating this project as part of an overall process of reflection on the Ebro – as I said the other day before the Committee on the Environment – the Commission were to decide not to support particular parts of the overall project, the Member State alone would have to bear the cost of the expenditure incurred.
That is my answer to the question.
   I would like to thank the Commissioner in particular for the clarity with which he has replied, just as he did at the meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy in response to a similar question from Mr Ferrández.
I hope that, following this second reply, Mr Ferrández will be fully aware of how things are proceeding here – of what the Commission and the Spanish Government are really doing: in other words, it should be made very clear that the Spanish Government is not doing anything illegal by beginning work at certain points of what will be the Ebro diversion.
I am particularly grateful to the Commissioner for his clarity because ideas are sometimes communicated which lead to confusion amongst the Spanish citizens and I hope that all the doubts which Mr Ferrández is constantly raising have finally been cleared up.
   I would remind the honourable Members that they take the floor especially to put questions.
Since 15 seconds remain, you may ask a question if you wish, Mrs Avilés.
   We would like Mr Barnier to tell us how long it will take the Commission finally to respond to this demand, which is of genuine concern to the Spanish people, and in Aragón in particular.
   In fact, Mr Barnier was right to say that there was no explicit question; I thought it could be understood as a question, but in any event a bit of help never does any harm.
That is why this dialogue is always positive.
Mr Ortuondo Larrea has a supplementary question.
   Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mr Barnier.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 41 to 44 will be replied to in writing(1).
We will begin with the 20 minutes for Mr Liikanen.
   – Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his very detailed response.
Although I gather that he very much appreciates the input of non-governmental organisations, I notice in my dealings with those organisations that there is still some doubt as to their actual influence.
I note what the Commissioner is now stating in this connection.
The preparations for the 2005 Tunis Summit are fully underway.
I should like to invite the Commissioner to continue his dialogue with the non-governmental organisations.
As the Commissioner is aware, we in the European Parliament have a meeting planned with a number of organisations as early as the beginning of March.
He has been invited to this but is, unfortunately, unable to attend in person.
I should like to invite his Cabinet, or members of his Cabinet, or of his staff, to attend this meeting, which will be held in this House on 1 March.
   . Firstly, I thank Mr Harbour for his active participation in the World Summit and also the participation of the other Members of the European Parliament.
It was very helpful and supportive.
I am ready to look for all possible ways to improve our cooperation in an informal context and also in the preparation for the Tunis Summit in 2005.
I should like to say to Mr Staes that whenever I receive an invitation to the European Parliament I always come, if possible.
   We shall take the last question from Commissioner Liikanen.
More than 50 000 people die and 1.7 million are injured every year in the EU in road accidents.
This situation is unacceptable.
Road safety can be improved by building safer vehicles which also operate more safely.
Information technology can be used to achieve that goal.
Can the Commission say what stage has been reached with the e-safety programme and what progress has been made in that programme to improve road safety in Europe?
   Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen, for an absolutely excellent and very interesting answer.
We see that a very great deal indeed is happening in this area.
In the future EU, that is to say an EU with 25 Member States, upwards of 50 000 people will die each year on our roads.
That is equivalent to a medium-sized Swedish town being wiped out every year.
We cannot go on like this.
We have high hopes of IT technology and the eSafety programme.
It is a very important piece of work that is going on, and it appears to be at an advanced stage.
I also hope that Parliament will express its opinion on the report mentioned by Mr Liikanen.
The industry has made great progress, but there are big differences between one EU country and another in terms of IT sophistication.
Applications such as these require installations both in cars and in the environment.
I should like to hear Commissioner Liikanen’s assessment of progress in the various Member States and also in the candidate countries.
   Mr President, the issue addressed by Mrs Hedkvist Petersen is a very major one, namely that of our in actual fact needing cooperation between different sectors.
We need not only safe cars, but also different types of infrastructure that operate together.
We have made certain progress in cooperation, for example the common telephone number 112, which makes things easier in the event of road accidents.
It is quite clear that, in this area, we need more pressure from above to organise the cooperation between industry, infrastructure authorities and insurance companies.
We hope that the work on eSafety will be of help, and perhaps we could also get the Member States to devote more attention to this sector.
In our first action programme, eEurope 2002, we had a special approach to e-transport, but it was not, unfortunately, able to create sufficient interest among the Member States.
One positive thing is that, last autumn, we had a big world conference in Madrid with approximately 7 000 participants.
The Member States too showed more interest on that occasion.
The Hungarian Government issued invitations to an eSafety Conference in Budapest in May 2004 where we hope for participation not only from IT ministers but also from transport ministers and the authorities responsible for transport infrastructure.
If technology and infrastructure are not coordinated, we shall not be able to obtain any practical results.
   Thank you very much for your replies, Mr Liikanen.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 49 and 50 will be replied to in writing(2).
We shall proceed to today’s final section: 20 minutes of questions to Commissioner Verheugen.
   . Mr Gahler, I do not think it is the Commission’s task to give its views on why a future Member State deems it necessary to undertake legislative amendments.
It is our task to be vigilant in ensuring that the legal provisions in the Member States are in line with the acquis.
That is what we have done.
   . Mr Posselt, the regular assessment report on the progress made by Romania, which was published in late 2003, contains a thorough assessment of Romania’s progress in the restitution of assets.
In the general conclusions it is stated that the legal framework for restitution is now fully functional.
There is one notable exception: restitutions of churches.
This is an incredibly sensitive issue in Romania. The sensitive nature of the problem, together with the problems within and between certain denominations has resulted in a blocking of the planned legislation.
The law in Romania applies equally to all Romanian citizens.
The Commission is not aware of any special provisions for the German minority.
Your question, Mr Posselt, indicates that you may be better informed than the Commission.
If there is something the Commission does not know about, I would be grateful if you could let me know.
Consequently, I am unable to answer your question as to whether this model could be transferred to other candidate countries.
It is hard for me to assess a law we do not know about.
The selection of the general model for asset restitutions in Romania is a sovereign matter for Romania, and the sole responsibility of that state.
As you know, the European Union has no legal authority in this area.
Nevertheless, the regular Commission report does highlight the fact that the progress made in actual restitutions varies greatly depending on the value of the assets to be returned.
There has been real progress in restitutions of agricultural and forested land, but the transfer of buildings has only just started.
Only 3% of the properties in question had been returned by the end of 2003.
I would classify that as fairly slow implementation of the relevant legislation.
   – Commissioner, firstly I do believe that it is the Commission’s role – and one you fully appreciate – to ensure that the relevant legislation is actually enforced. In essence, that justice and administration in the candidate countries really do work within a reasonable time.
This is why you were right to address the 3% question.
Secondly, I believe – during the previous question time, you did state that you are still responsible for minority issues, including in candidate countries – that the Romanian and Hungarian legislation seeks to treat all citizens equally.
You know that there have been considerable problems with the Czech legislation, for which there is of course an official explanation.
Announcements were made by Mr Mareš and others regarding initiatives intended to improve the situation. Do you know whether anything is being done?
Are there perhaps plans to apply these models, or at least to make another move towards reconciliation? There was a lot of talk nine months ago but since then no more has been heard.
   . Mr Posselt, I apologise.
I came prepared for questions on Romania. I am not prepared for incredibly tricky technical questions about the Czech Republic.
I will ask my services to investigate the matter thoroughly and to contact the relevant Czech authorities, and I will give you an answer in writing.
   . Mrs Schroedter, in the Maltese Constitution all fundamental rights and citizen’s rights are recognised.
The right of Maltese citizens to vote in general elections depends on their nationality, age, and place of residence.
A short while ago, a Maltese citizen lodged a complaint because one party was disputing his right to vote, and the Constitutional Court found that these requirements do not violate the fundamental rights of Maltese citizens.
The European Commission has nothing to add to the Maltese Constitutional Court’s decision.
I would, however, point out that, according to the Maltese Constitutional Court’s definition, the notion of residence does not require a physical presence in the country, and in fact temporary absences from the country are both included and permitted.
If a political party in Malta disputes a citizen’s right to vote, the relevant Maltese court has to consider the case and the ruling of the Maltese Constitutional Court has to be taken into account.
The right to question the electoral roll and election results is an integral part of all transparent democratic systems.
It is certainly not the Commission’s place to intervene in the operation of the Maltese legal system.
The Commission would also remind you that the recently adopted law on the European elections in Malta states that all Maltese citizens living in any of the 25 Member States have an active and passive right to vote in the elections for the European Parliament in Malta.
This was possible because the Maltese Constitution covers general elections, but not European elections.
This is an interesting development, and the Commission has taken good note.
It shows that Malta’s increased participation in international organisations is having a very constructive influence on domestic developments.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, you have not addressed the real question, namely the request from the Maltese Labour Party to strike 1 684 citizens off the electoral register for the European elections because they currently live in the European Union, and do not work in Malta.
This is the heart of the matter, and you have not addressed this in any way.
We are talking about the European elections.
That is the issue at stake, and yet the same thing happens every time.
Once again, in this case, 1 684 citizens will be struck off the electoral register.
My question related to this particular case.
Please could you give a more detailed response?
   C I will, Mrs Schroedter, although very reluctantly, because the European Commission really has no say in what any political party in Malta does or does not do.
You are wrong to say that anyone is being struck off the electoral register.
In this case, a party has used its right to apply for names to be struck off.
This is possible under Maltese law, as I explained, and the decision is taken using an objective legal procedure.
As I see it, it is none of our business whether the Maltese system is particularly pleasant.
What is important is establishing whether or not the general free and equal voting rights are guaranteed in Malta. They are.
It is certainly not the Commission’s place, however, to pass judgment on the actions of each and every party and I am not going to do so.
   . Mr Howitt, to clarify the situation in which we currently find ourselves, let me start by pointing out that Turkey is not a member of the European Union and that we have not even begun accession negotiations with Turkey.
This means we have very little opportunity for influencing Turkey, particularly via legal instruments.
For this reason, I would refer you to my earlier response to the question from Baroness Ludford, Mrs Lambert and you on the same subject and repeat that any negative consequences of the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline agreement signed by Turkey or the implementation of that agreement will be assessed according to the Copenhagen political criteria.
That is all the Commission can do in this case.
Our role is to assess whether Turkey has met the political criteria necessary for beginning accession talks.
Obviously, this will also include assessing whether or not Turkey is fully respecting human rights.
The Commission report to be presented in autumn this year will examine this question, of course.
The Commission is aware that a number of non-governmental organisations filed complaints with the Court of First Instance in January 2004.
The Commission has not yet been officially notified of the details of these complaints.
If asked to do so by the Court, the Commission will submit its comments in line with the relevant procedures.
   . Mr Howitt, I can promise you that in the final and conclusive report on whether Turkey meets the political pre-accession requirements we will carefully consider this matter.
The Commission will investigate this question, as it has investigated all other human rights issues in Turkey.
The Commission will draw together all information available from its own sources, from Member States, from human rights organisations and international monitoring bodies and also from all public information sources.
Obviously, the Commission will also ask all those involved to provide relevant information, and will then assess all the data it has gathered.
If necessary, missions will be sent out to get a first-hand impression of the situation on the ground.
We attach a great deal of importance to ensuring that our assessments are based on sound, reliable information, and will ensure that applies here.
   Does the Commission share the view that the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline is a project of great importance both for the future of European energy supplies and for the economic development of Turkey and other countries in the region?
   C. To be honest, Mr Van Orden, I have no idea whether the European Commission as an institution has a view on this.
However, I can tell you that no attentive newspaper reader can fail to be aware of what is at stake.
I am very happy, therefore, to give you my personal opinion, which is that this is a project of considerable strategic significance, with a huge influence on eastern Mediterranean politics, and implications for many other countries, and is therefore a project which merits a great deal of international attention.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, I think it is important to check, in the Thyssen Krupp affair in Terni, whether any infringements have occurred under Community law; whether there is State aid that undermines the German group’s choices of location; whether – as asserted by Mr Angelilli – there is an abuse of a dominant position; whether contracts with the Italian Government or the European institutions have been broken; whether, in other words, commitments given in respect of facilities or funding granted have been observed.
In my view, this is the task of the European institutions, but I also think that that task should stop there.
I do not think it is the task of the European Commission, the European Institutions or the Italian Government to criticise the decisions of companies operating in Europe to relocate.
There is outcry at the scandalous possibility that certain products are to be transferred to India, China or South America.
Personally, I consider that that is part of the rules of the game which certain countries in the European Union – primarily Italy – have taken advantage of for many years: placing at the disposal of the international economy its own assets, for example the availability of labour.
This is not intended to be disrespectful to the 450 employees of Thyssen Krupp in Terni who risk losing their jobs; it means also remembering the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who may find work in China and in India; it means also making provision – I refer to Terni which has already absorbed 10 000 surplus jobs in the iron and steel sector in recent years – so that in Italy and Europe, in areas of excellence, it is possible and necessary to produce something else for export to European and international markets.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would make the point that Italy and Europe need the confidence of investors to invest in Terni, just like anywhere else.
To imagine that politicians can criticise in this way the choices made by investors would not be to render a good service, nor would it serve any real useful purpose for employment.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission (O-0003/2004), by Philip Bushill-Matthews and Bartho Pronk on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, on demographic trends in the EU.
   . Mr President, Mr Bushill-Matthews and Mr Pronk, on behalf of the PPE-DE group, have submitted a series of questions to which I shall reply.
Of course, I too hope that the answer to the last three questions will be yes, which means very close cooperation and decisiveness by the Commission and, more importantly, the Member States.
Your first question concerns what the Commission intends to do in order to achieve the objectives of the Lisbon Summit, as far as demographic trends are concerned.
The demographic problem is, at the moment, at the epicentre of our three basic policies, economic policy, especially public finances, the policy on employment and the policy on social cohesion.
The question of ageing is now, as you will see, the basic element in the general orientations of economic policy and the guidelines of the strategy for employment, with specific targets.
I particularly want to tell you that this year, in the spring 2004 report, we have set three priorities, one of which is the promotion of active ageing, which essentially means the extension of professional life.
We have three categories of action.
One relates to abolishing economic disincentives, which essentially discourage workers from delaying their retirement.
In many countries, the regime which exists today is that it is more profitable to retire than to remain in work, because you earn less.
So there is the serious question of disincentives.
The second is the promotion of access to training for all workers, but especially elderly workers, and here we have set specific quantitative targets.
The third is improving the quality of work.
The Commission, within these frameworks of efforts to put demographic ageing at the centre of its policies, is proposing to extend the open method of coordination to modernising the care system and the social protection system.
Here we have a particular problem, which concerns the increased burden both from the economic point of view and from the workload point of view and, hence, from the point of view of serving very old people since, due to the changes in our society, it would appear that the health systems cannot play the role which they played in the past.
Your second question concerns flexibility in retirement rules and is particularly topical.
As you yourself said, we have set specific targets.
We have set the Lisbon targets, to increase the employment rate of the elderly to 50%, and the Barcelona targets, to increase the average age at which workers leave the job market by five years by 2010.
These targets are being monitored by the Commission.
Every year, as you know, we publish indicators and tables and it is clear that the Member States are not making efforts to the same degree to give us results.
At the moment, we are examining, together with the social protection and employment committees, how social systems obstruct or favour easy retirement.
The final report is at your disposal, it will be submitted again in 2004, and we can see what the problems are in each system as regards incentives to retire, disability benefits, unemployment benefits, older workers and dependents' pensions, and how the logic of incentives rather than the logic of integrating these people into the job market has also distorted the job market, as well as efforts by people themselves to enter the job market.
We believe that this report, which will be submitted to the European Council, is also an important tool in the hands of the Member States.
I must of course tell you that the European Commission has constantly recommended the introduction of flexible retirement systems since 1980 and the response has not been as we expected.
As far as your third question on the results of the Wim Kok committee is concerned, we consider that they are extremely important, mainly because they go into detailed recommendations for each Member State.
We have already included the Kok report in the strategy on employment and our recommendations for all the countries will take account of this report.
I think that it is interesting that, in cooperation with both Mr Kok and the ministries of employment and social partners, we are presenting the conclusions of the committee to the Member States in an effort to achieve greater publicity and galvanise not just the governments but also the social partners into implementing them.
On behalf of the European Parliament, I welcome you, Mr Uribe, President of the Republic of Colombia, to this House today.This is the second occasion during our parliamentary term – the fifth mandate of the European Parliament – on which a President of Colombia has addressed the plenary sitting of our House.
President Pastrana spoke here in October 1999, and today he is part of your official delegation, Mr President.Mr President, even as the European Union enlarges to the east and to include two new Mediterranean island Member States, we in this Parliament fully believe that EU relations with Latin America must continue to be strengthened.
It is in that context in particular that we welcome you and your delegation here today.
We believe that an important step in this regard is the recent conclusion of a political dialogue and cooperation agreement last December with the Andean Community and therefore also with Colombia.Mr President, we know that yours is a state that suffers extremely high emigration, poverty, extraordinary security challenges including assassinations and kidnappings, and the extraordinary challenges of organised crime and narco-terrorism.
In Colombia you have paid a high price in violence and political instability.This Parliament supports all efforts aimed at reforming and bringing peace to Colombia, however there are fields which still need further action.
This Parliament believes that in addition to military and security dimensions the prevailing conflict also demands political, social and economic responses.
We consider it essential, as has been the experience on our old continent, to develop a fully-functioning democratic state, with full and strong democratic institutions respecting human rights and the rule of law.
In this House we believe that exceptions in respect of human rights are not acceptable.As you know, the European Parliament has demanded the release of all kidnapped persons held by armed groups in Colombia.
Today again, Mr President, I return to this point and make in our House a special appeal to you to do your utmost to obtain the freedom of hostages, not least Mrs Ingrid Betancourt, who has now been in captivity for almost two years.Mr President, I invite you to address the House.
   – Mr President, on the scoreboard covering both the first and second half of 2003, the Commission demonstrates that it has made progress, and the European Council too, at Thessaloniki, has provided fresh impulses to stimulate progress in this area of policy.
I should like to extend my congratulations to both.
The Council of Ministers is being pointed out as being the main culprit for leaving a number of asylum and immigration dossiers untouched.
According to the Commission, Member States must abandon their reservations before the five-year period specified in the Treaty of Amsterdam has lapsed, by which time, according to the Commission, these measures should be adopted.
Although this is correct, a five-year period for measures in this area was very short indeed.
Widely supported legislation established over a longer period of time is more useful than swift measures that are subsequently not implemented due to political unwillingness.
The European arrest warrant is a case in point.
I was surprised at the Commission proposals with regard to the admission of immigrants to the European Union.
Surely that was not one of the obligations enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam? It is a topic that requires another extensive debate.
Partly as a result of incidents of this nature, I am not in favour of fully implementing the vote by qualified majority in the Council about European action in the fields of justice and home affairs.
These matters should be considered on an individual basis.
Finally, I noticed that the Commission wishes to increase the budget for justice and home affairs considerably so as to be able to take measures in the area of illegal immigration and organised crime.
Could Commissioner Vitorino elaborate on this?
   – Mr President, it is unfortunate that at present, the area of freedom, security and justice is raising more questions than certainties.
With the accession of ten new Member States in a few weeks' time, this is a worrying matter.
Fortress Europe is, unfortunately, nothing but a political fantasy of the Left.
In recent years, there has been much talk of common immigration and asylum policy, and of cooperation in terms of criminal justice and police, but little concrete has come out of this so far.
In fact, the word ‘regress’ has been mentioned in certain areas.
The guarantee of fundamental rights springs to mind.
At the moment, a great deal of attention is being paid to the way in which the future Member States deal with this, with good reason, while in Belgium, the freedom of speech, freedom of the press and the freedom of association is being curbed.
The fight against so-called racism is being misused in order to gag Flanders' most significant opposition party and to nip in the bud any criticism of the failing integration policy.
In a few weeks' time, when all other parties start their election campaigns, the has to contend before a court of law with a government body falling within the Prime Minister's direct remit in order to defend its right to exist.
We are right to worry when in Russia a candidate for the presidency disappears.
Soon, in Belgium, the so-called heart of the European Union, an entire party is at risk of disappearing, one that comprises some fifty MPs and which, according to the latest surveys, is backed by 20% of the electorate.
This is all done under the auspices of a Prime Minister who aspires to become President of the Commission.
You will appreciate that this kind of Europe will not enjoy the approval of the majority of its citizens.
   Mr President, I shall restrict my remarks to the area of legal migration, a subject touched on by both Mr McDowell and Commissioner Vitorino and picked up by several colleagues here.
I agree with much of what Mrs Kaufmann said earlier in her reference to Kofi Annan's speech to the European Parliament a few days ago.
Mr McDowell spoke earlier on about family reunification and allowing in migrants for purposes of study and training.
But that is only part of the issue concerning legal migration.
Commissioner Vitorino on the other hand has tried over the last few years to push forward a more imaginative agenda with a wider framework.
I believe very strongly that without a system of legal migration into the European Union – something like the green card system that the United States has in place – we will continue to face the challenge of illegal immigration with all its problems.
We will continue to face the difficult problems of trafficking gangs and all the crime associated with that, to say nothing of the continuing shortage of labour in key industries, both skilled and unskilled.
Unless I have missed a key point, I do not believe there is an alternative to planned legal migration.
But I am also absolutely convinced that this must be done in a manner that is positive both for EU countries and for the countries of origin.
It is not acceptable just to take skilled workers from less-developed countries, nor is it acceptable for rich EU countries to say they will take migrants to do those unpleasant, dirty jobs that they do not want to do.
This is why I urge the Commissioner and the Council to press on with this very difficult work in an important area – a structured programme for planned migration for a European Union of 25 countries and more.
   – Mr President, despite the many measures which the European Union has taken, ranging from Europol's competences to issuing a European arrest warrant, I notice that on the ground, few, if any, results are being achieved in the area of freedom, security and justice.
Statistics show that crime is on the rise in various Member States.
Moreover, crime is increasingly being characterised by growing aggression, which increases the public perception of the lack of security.
It is, unfortunately, no longer exceptional for innocent citizens to be killed or seriously injured during assaults.
Certainly now with enlargement around the corner, anxious citizens are right to question whether the European Union can offer sufficient guarantees in order to safeguard their security.
It is the very same citizens who have to stand by and watch inadequate police action being taken to tackle this increasingly insolent criminal behaviour.
It is of the utmost importance that the Commission should propose measures in order to alleviate this particularly painful shortcoming.
After all, it is the government's principal task to guarantee the security of their citizens under all circumstances.
Since the EU’s external borders are due to be considerably extended, it is very much a question of whether the new Member States can sufficiently act as buffers against unwanted and illegal immigration.
It is an ever more burning issue within the EU as a result of which integration policy, which has to be adopted, is being undermined.
In fact, what are we waiting for before we implement a global action plan with the intention of removing all illegal immigrants from the EU's territory? For as long as we have no firm grip on illegal immigration, there will be no real area of freedom, security and justice.
   Mr President, I had asked to take the floor before Mr McDowell spoke on the Council’s behalf, as I would like to ask him to clarify his position with regard to a prominent subject in today’s debate, namely the idea that the next parliamentary term should also be opened with a Tampere II, and, accordingly, with a reaction, a counterbalance on the part of the Council.
I gather from his response that he is also in favour of this suggestion, to which the Commissioner immediately agreed.
I agree with the presidency that the Irish Presidency’s priority until the end of this parliamentary term is to resolve as many outstanding issues as possible.
I endorse and support this clear priority, but it would also be valuable if the presidency and the Council could give a clear signal to the next presidency, namely the Luxembourg Presidency, that Tampere II is in a position to go ahead.
I should therefore be interested to know, as far as possible, what Mr McDowell’s exact thoughts are on the matter.
   . Mr President, that represents my view entirely.
The Tampere II agenda must be set in progress.
I would love to be in a position to apply my mind to that process, but unfortunately the amount of work I have to do in closing out items is huge.
I wish the Netherlands and the Luxembourg presidencies every good luck and good fortune in establishing a new forward-looking perspective, to create a new and challenging agenda under the broad rubric of Tampere II.
   The next item is the joint debate on the oral questions by the PSE, Verts/ALE, ELDR and GUE/NGL political groups, to the Council (B5 0008/2004) and to the Commission (B5 0013/2004), on nuclear disarmament: Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of 2005 – EU work for the third NPT preparatory committee (New York, 26 April to 7 May 2004).
   Mr President, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is an agreement by 189 nations to eliminate nuclear weapons.
However, 34 years after it entered into force, we are in a situation where the United States is willing to launch pre-emptive nuclear strikes, where the UK refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons in Iraq, where research and development and the testing of nuclear weapons continue, where nuclear weapons are still considered a vital part of Nato defence planning, where new generations of battlefield nuclear weapons are developed and where the nuclearisation of space is well under way.
In the last review conference in 2000 the 13-step plan was agreed as a way of implementing the NPT and it renewed the unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear states to eliminate their weapons.
The PrepCom in New York is the last chance to implement this programme before the next review conference in 2005.
Unless we take a strong stand now, the NPT is in danger of becoming meaningless – full of good intentions, but resulting in little political action.
The European Union has a duty to take a leading role in this and to ensure that real action is taken.
Nuclear weapons make the world more insecure and dangerous.
The International Court of Justice ruled in 1996 that their use, or even their threatened use, was unlawful, which makes the strengthening of the NPT all the more urgent.
We are talking here about real, existing weapons of mass destruction and destroying them in the most effective way by enforcing international agreements.
We are asking the presidency, the Council and the Commission what exactly is being done in preparation for the PrepCom in New York.
What progress has been made, for example, on the 13 practical steps and on nuclear-free zones? My country, Wales, declared itself nuclear-free in 1982.
What is being done to support the pioneering work of the mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in mobilising cities throughout the world to work for the total abolition of nuclear weapons? This must be the goal of all of us.
   Mr President, the NPT is not only a non-proliferation treaty.
It is also the only binding international agreement for nuclear disarmament.
Non-nuclear powers undertake not to acquire nuclear weapons, and the nuclear powers promise to get rid of their existing ones.
These commitments may be found in Article 6 of the Treaty, under which the parties undertake to conduct serious negotiations with a view to getting rid of all nuclear weapons.
This undertaking has been signed by all the nuclear powers.
At the previous quinquennial meeting, the nuclear states undertook totally to abolish their nuclear arsenals.
Above all, a unanimous decision was taken concerning a 13-point action programme for implementing complete nuclear disarmament.
What the EU must do at the forthcoming meeting is, of course, to demand that these commitments be met.
Ireland has for a long time played an active role in the work for nuclear disarmament, for example in conjunction with my own country, Sweden.
Will the Council demand, then, that these commitments be complied with? The nuclear powers have certainly reduced their strategic nuclear arsenals.
The United States has instead developed what are termed mini nuclear weapons, intended to be used directly in war, together with nuclear weapons known as bunker buster weapons that penetrate thick rock.
These developments undoubtedly breach Article 6 of the NPT Treaty.
Moreover, the United States has revised its nuclear weapons policy so as to be able to use its nuclear weapons, and not only in war but also for so-called preventive purposes.
This amounts to a serious breach of international law.
To engage in war for preventive reasons is a breach of the UN Charter and a return to the law of the jungle, that is to say the right of the strong, applicable before the advent of the United Nations, to intervene for their own purposes.
It is naturally important for the European Parliament to demand in its resolution that the parties that have signed the NPT should fulfil their commitments.
They must embark upon serious nuclear disarmament and call a halt to any development of new nuclear weapons.
In what way will the Commission and the Council give impetus to these demands at the next NPT meeting?
   – Mr President, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mr El Baradei, recently stated that the risk of a nuclear conflict has never been greater than today.
While Iraq was brought under control, the rest of the world changed into a kind of supermarket of private proliferation, a supermarket in which all countries and, possibly, even terrorists with nuclear ambitions, can seize their chances.
Despite recent successes with regard to Libya and Iran, there is little cause for optimism.
The US, Russia and France have all made a start on preparing a new generation of nuclear weapons.
As tension mounts between it and the US, Saudi Arabia is now also choosing the nuclear option.
For years, the father of Pakistan’s atomic bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who was trained in Europe, passed on nuclear information to dictators and possibly even terrorists.
On account of this combination of commercially-minded nuclear experts, immoral businesses and state-owned institutions, the threshold for a nuclear war of destruction has been lowered.
Today, everyone is agreed that the monitoring system must be updated and tightened up.
The capacity of the International Atomic Energy Agency must, as a matter of urgency, be reinforced if effective control is to be made possible, but the European Union should have the courage to take political, diplomatic and economic action against countries that ignore, or evade, monitoring in the field of nuclear proliferation.
Not only do we have to tighten up where monitoring is concerned, we must also be prepared to enforce it collectively.
I therefore welcome the Council's and Commission's pledge to commit to the further, full implementation of the NPT and to work for ambitious results during the next Prepcom and the Review Conference in 2005.
   – Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, when I listen to you both speaking on behalf of the Council and Commission, I should be reassured, but I am not, because we have been living, ever since Hiroshima, under the threat of an atomic war, and this threat is increasing rather than decreasing.
We should stop paying lip service to non-proliferation and monitoring.
Indeed, hypocrisy is quite clearly spreading in this case; after all, since the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the number of countries with nuclear material has risen continually.
It appears that this has happened with the help of countries of our own Union which have never been punished and never been called to account.
How did Israel manage to develop an atom bomb? First with the help of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany; everyone has helped create this bomb, and we are now complaining that Israel remains outside of the zone because, of course, the United States does not want to force that country to accept non-proliferation.
As a result, the Arabs are also continually itching to get hold of nuclear weapons.
We notice that all the monitoring that is in place was unable to prevent Mr Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, from doing his own thing, and getting away with it, for thirty years.
Meanwhile, the material has increasingly become more readily available or available on the black market.
Over the course of five years, one and a half kilos of fission material has disappeared from Georgia.
The implosion of the Soviet Union has thrown open a market, a black market, in nuclear material.
I hope that you will vote for enforceable measures and will take a stand against fine statements that send our people to sleep, because they are wide awake.
   . – Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists wishes to table an oral amendment to paragraph 12.
The amendment reads as follows in English:
'Calls for the revision, with a view to the phasing-out, as soon as possible, of the individual opt-out proved for in Article 18(1)(b) of Directive 93/104/EC; in the meantime, calls on the Commission to identify practical ways of tackling potential or actual abuses of the opt-out provision, including seeking views on how best to strengthen the voluntary nature of the opt-out.'
Mr President, some groups also wish to divide up this oral amendment. The first part would finish at ‘Directive 93/104/EC’ and the second part would then begin with ‘in the meantime’ and continue to the end.
   Mr President, I, on behalf of the ELDR Group, and the PPE-DE Group jointly tabled an amendment.
Is it in order that PPE-DE Group can do a complete U-turn and table an oral amendment that is the opposite of its original amendment? At the same time, the Group seems to be are disagreeing completely with its Conservative colleagues – and the shadow rapporteur was a Conservative.
What state has my amendment …
   Excuse me, I am sorry to interrupt you.
We will not have the debate again, but you have a good procedural question.
I will deal with it.
If 32 Members object to the oral amendment, it falls.
   Mr President, surely, as it aims to delete the text, Amendment No 26S should be taken before you take the oral amendment?
   Mr President, I am pleased to announce the presence in the gallery of a delegation of regional representatives from the Lombardia, including my daughter Elisabetta Fatuzzo who, knowing that I was due to speak on the report on agricultural incomes within the European Union, pointed out to me that once there were fruit trees that produced apples, pears, cherries, beautifully sweet cherries, and there were wheat fields and vegetables.
When will we again have the pleasure of harvesting this produce near our homes like we used to? When will we again be able, like Adam, to receive apples plucked by Eve directly from the tree?
   Thank you Mr Fatuzzo.
We welcome your group of visitors from Lombardia, and your daughter, Elisabetta.
   . – In the Garot report on trends in agricultural incomes in the European Union, the European Parliament is by implication beginning to complain about the future consequences of the Fischler reform, even though it agreed to it itself.
It was in fact Parliament which, in order to please the Commission, assented to plunging agriculture into the world market, decoupling aid from production and aligning product prices downwards.
Reading the Garot report, it is hard to believe that.
The Parliament is now realising that preserving farmers’ incomes and maintaining the presence of a healthy agriculture in all the countries of Europe require remunerative prices based on production costs and adequate external protection (paragraph 12).
We were more consistent when we rejected the Fischler reform, proposing at the ‘rebuilding an agricultural policy in Europe’ colloquium an agricultural model that was internally less subject to public intervention schemes, which, without export subsidies, was protected from the outside, so that remunerative domestic prices compatible with a sustainable management of nature would be set spontaneously.
That is the only way to really safeguard Europe’s agricultural future.
   . – I voted in favour of Mr Garot’s excellent report and I want to take this opportunity to congratulate him on his work on European agriculture.
Mr Garot has managed to strike a good balance between those who would like to disengage Europe from agriculture in favour of the world market and those who consider the European budget a ‘milch cow’ making the richest farmers even richer.
   . – I abstained during the vote on Mr Garot's report, despite the fact that it backs development and reform in the direction of agricultural policy with decoupled premiums and strengthened rural policy.
The report does not, however, take sufficient account of the restrictions that govern the funding of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Even the financial leeway available impacts on the policy to be adopted.
I should particularly like to draw your attention to paragraph 25, in which cofinancing for agricultural and rural policy is rejected.
In my view, compulsory cofinancing is precisely one of the key instruments that can help adopt a common agricultural policy in the future.
   . The People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy is particularly delighted at the fact that the compromise amendments that have been agreed upon are fully in keeping with the European Commission’s initiative to launch a Europass, an Internet system that should promote the comparability of degrees and qualifications in the EU.
The compromise contains a time-based points system, with quality points being awarded to each training course.
This system guarantees that in the assessment of a training course, not the length of time, but the quality, is of importance.
In addition, in a compromise, the rights and duties have been tightened up of those professions that involve extra care duty to protect the consumer, by means of compulsory registration and insurance in the case of a temporary provision of services in another Member State.
For women too, the same rights remain valid for access to the labour market.
A discriminating provision providing for the possibility of retaining a qualification only if work had not been interrupted for two out of the last five years, has been deleted.
The directive is of vital importance in enhancing mobility on the labour market and is an essential precondition for achieving the Lisbon objective.
A transparent system of qualifications will become more important, particularly in the light of enlargement, which will result in a further increase in intra-Community migration.
   . – I am glad that Mr Zappalà’s report on the recognition of professional qualifications in the European Union has been adopted today.
With enlargement imminent, the free movement of workers, in particular of doctors, dentists, nurses, veterinary surgeons, midwives, pharmacists and architects, in the EU requires a simplified and harmonised system of professional qualifications.
It seemed to me important to preserve what we already have and therefore to maintain high standards of qualification, especially for doctors, in a ‘European’ spirit that respects personalised values.
That is why I voted against Amendment No 155.
It would in fact have been preferable to have a supple and flexible mechanism that takes account of developments in university degree courses when setting the number of years’ training for specialists.
Finally, I voted against Amendment No 156, which does not clarify the scope of automatic recognition of professional qualifications and does not leave Member States free to recognise specialisms in the medical profession.
On these points I am looking for a strong signal from the Council, for it to pay greater heed to professional associations, of doctors in particular, for the greater benefit, in the end, let us not forget, of the patients.
   I note your point and the record will show that.
However, I dispute your point.
I will ask the services to communicate with you on the matter.
The oral amendment would have fallen had it received 32 objections.
That did not happen and so it became the precedent on which we voted.
I will ask the services to give you an explanation, even if you should remain unhappy with its contents.
   Mr President, I welcome the Cercas report and congratulate the rapporteur on a very balanced approach.
In the UK, 4 million people – or 16% of the workforce – currently work more than 40 hours per week.
At the beginning of the 1990s the figure was 3.3 million people, or 15% of the workforce.
It beggars belief that more people voluntarily want to work in excess of 40 hours a week now than was the case at the time of the introduction of this directive.
This calls into question the use of the individual opt-out and whether genuine free choice of workers, as laid out in the directive, is being respected.
Long hours damage workers' health through stress and burnout; they affect the productivity of industry and harm family life.
No one should be forced to work more than 40 hours.
I support flexibility, but there must be genuine free choice, and I am not convinced that free choice currently exists.
   I had a dream, Mr President.
I dreamt that Mr Berlusconi, President of the Italian Government, had a halo and so I can call him San Berlusconi.
San Berlusconi said to me, ‘I know that tomorrow you are to vote on the Cercas report concerning working time and it seeks to prevent those who are exempt under the minimum working time directive from working too much.
Look at me: I work all day, from six in the morning until two the following morning.
See how young I am, how active I am, how alert and satisfied I am at work!
My advice to you therefore is to vote against this Cercas report so that everyone can work as much as me and be as satisfied and as young as I am’.
At that moment I woke up and realised it was a dream.
I felt free therefore to vote according to my conscience and so, in fact, I voted in favour of the Cercas report, even though San Berlusconi advised me to vote against.
   Mr Fatuzzo, I thank you for bringing some Mediterranean colour to these otherwise modest debates after our votes.
You referred to looking young: as we know from the references that you have made, there are many ways to look young, of which working hard may be only one.
   . – The aim of the Cercas report was to take a hard look at the directive setting the maximum weekly working hours in the countries of the European Union.
They are set at 48 hours measured over a period of four months.
However, the directive allows for derogations extending the period of measurement by annualising it, at the same time allowing the rule to be disregarded altogether if employees ‘opt out voluntarily’.
The report’s explanatory statement acknowledges that such exceptions are becoming the rule in Europe.
In the United Kingdom in particular, the ‘individual opt-out clause’ has apparently been signed by one third of employees, four million of whom are already working more than 48 hours a week.
The resolution therefore asked the Commission why it had not undertaken the review of the directive that should have been made in 2003.
Calling for an improvement in the working conditions and health of employees, women in particular, it sought as far as possible to limit cases in which the 48-hour week was exceeded and in particular to do away with the ‘individual opt-out’ which is obviously being abused.
Once again, the vast majority of Members have shown their contempt for social questions and their sole concern for profit by voting for amendments that do away with any desire to limit working hours.
That is why we voted against the amended resolution.
   . The Working Time Directive of 1993 protects employees against working weeks in excess of 48 hours, daily rest times of less than 11 hours and holidays shorter than 4 weeks.
These are all minimum provisions and could easily be tightened up.
This is, above all, necessary to prevent governments of EU Member States from considering these European minimum provisions as normal and adjusting their national legislation accordingly, as the Dutch Minister De Geus appears to want to do.
In practice, the directive is being undermined by a concession made at the time to the – then Conservative – British Government.
The opt-out clause means that individual British employees, when signing their contract of employment, are asked to waive their rights.
People who are not prepared to do this often have to make way for people who are.
An additional problem is that hours on call for fire fighters and medical staff are often not included in their working hours.
Since this has now been changed by a judgment of the Court of Justice, these people are brought within the scope of the opt-out clause.
This makes it possible to get people to work for excessively long periods of time.
By a narrow majority, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has chosen in favour of an infringement procedure against the British Government and of abolishing the individual opt-out.
Today, this proposal has been scuppered by a Conservative majority
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   Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Sandbæk stated that she wanted to knock down the wall.
This is an old story: there is a Europe – that of Mrs Sandbæk – which 60 years ago, for substantially the same reasons, wanted to knock down the Maginot Line.
Reference has been made to the Berlin Wall.
That infamous wall was constructed and supported by those who today want to knock down the Israeli wall.
That is what is happening, have no doubt, even if this evening, Mr Cohn-Bendit, you have said some reasonable things.
It is such a rare occurrence that I will not waste time – yours and mine – responding to your remarks.
I repeat: my compliments for saying something reasonable!
Mr Roche, the thing which interests me most at the moment is a news item that continues to elude us: our fellow MEP, or better, the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mrs de Palacio Vallelersundi, will in the next few hours submit to the Presidency of the Council of the European Union a proposal, discussed again yesterday in Toledo, made specifically by or put forward by Shimon Perez, with the full and total support of the Minister for Palestinian Affairs, Nabil Sha’ath.
I would ask her to take note of it because only and the have done so.
It is the news item of today: the Minister for Palestinian Affairs gives his backing to the procedure for Israel’s accession to the European Union so that the Palestinian State may do likewise when it becomes a reality, in the context of a federation of both States, and not that shameful ragbag of a nation State that we are offering the Palestinians in 3004: a small sovereign State, crafted out of lies, thieves, corrupt and violent individuals.
I hope, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that you listen to Mrs de Palacio Vallelersundi’s proposal: the proposals that we have been making in this chamber for the last 20 years – to change the historical context – and the proposals yet to be written, roadmap or no roadmap, are a waste of time, suicidal and not worthy of being proposed.
Consequently, I hope the argument that Israel must become a member of the European Union, supported by a large number of Members, is pursued with the utmost conviction because that is a contribution we can make in response to the events of 1939 in Europe and also in favour of the Palestinians, on whom you want to bestow instead a Middle East that is fascist, Nazi, communist and undemocratic.
   – Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, fear is a bad counsellor.
I can understand Israel’s desire to protect itself, but the wall is inappropriate in this case.
A UN report last September condemned the wall as illegal and charged Israel with unlawful annexation.
You, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, are of the opinion that the hearings and decisions of the International Court of Justice will disturb the peace process.
I do not share this view.
Like Mr Cohn-Bendit, I believe it would be useful to verify to what extent international law is being violated here, and that we should not make an exception for Israel, nor, in this context, for Palestine when it makes mistakes.
At present, we are talking about approximately 21 000 people who live in the area between the wall and Israel and who are being cut off from social amenities, schools and jobs.
This will lead to renewed hatred and a new generation of refugees.
How do you explain – I am a member of the Palestine delegation – to a group of people in Qalqilya, which was once known as the West Bank’s fruit basket and which is located near a small loophole in the wall, that everything is being closed off on three sides? That they are being cut off from two major water sources and from all the farms that should provide for the area?
The town, with 40 000 inhabitants, is accessible via one single Israeli checkpoint.
As I see it, something of this nature should be brought before the court. I share the view of all those who have said that the conflict between Israel and Palestine should be solved, but tolerating a wall and waiting until the conflict is over is not the right way to go about it.
   – The next item on the agenda is the statement by the Commission on corporate governance and financial supervision in the Parmalat case.
Commissioner Bolkestein, speaking for the Commission, has the floor.
   Mr President, the Parmalat financial scandal is a direct result of the monetarisation of the economy.
This monetarisation is clearly excessive because the production and trade that meet the people’s material needs are drowned in the speculative waters of international high finance.
Meanwhile the informal economy flourishes, along with the criminalisation of the economy, in which shady dealing becomes increasingly prominent, to the detriment of social and economic development.
This scandal is a further example of the pernicious effects of market deregulation and the unbridled movement of capital.
Parmalat made use of every trick in the book: front organisations in tax havens, the benefits of special offshore regulations, hedge funds and forged documents and bills.
This is how financial holes were concealed and tracks were covered, using complex structures and involving many subsidiaries, in order to carry out operations in the area of bonds and financial derivatives, with the assistance of international banks, cover-ups on the part of international auditing firms and rating agencies giving positive assessments.
Thousands of jobs were put at risk, in the thirty-plus countries in which Parmalat operated, creating enormous difficulties for the thousands of milk producers who depended on the company.
This is no isolated case, however.
In the past few years alone, a number of financial scandals have taken place – Enron, WorldCom and Merck, in the United States; Crédit Lyonnais, Vivendi, Ahold, Kirch, Marconi and Equitable Life in EU Member States – which have had a devastating social and economic impact.
Since this is a question of economic models, what is needed is greater stringency and tighter controls on financial derivatives, replacing mechanisms that are a product of, and whose raison d’être is, speculation.
International efforts need to be stepped up to put an end to tax havens and to limit offshore operations.
Financial instruments are needed to monitor the movement of capital, such as introducing effective taxation of stock market profits.
What is most urgently required, however, is a return to the core values of production and labour.
However considerable the problems of shareholders are – and they undoubtedly are serious – priority must be given to protecting jobs and to safeguarding workers’ rights and to ensuring their right to information, consultation and participation.
In the case of Parmalat, compensation should be immediately considered for those milk producers affected.
I should like to highlight the negative contribution of the EU in terms of monetarisation, and, specifically, the Financial Services Action Plan, which encourages the deregulation, liberalisation and integration of capital markets together with the dismantling of prudential rules and control mechanisms.
It worries me, Commissioner, that you say that hasty and poorly thought through legislation may exacerbate, rather than solve, problems of regulation illustrated by large-scale cases, such as Enron and Parmalat.
In spite of your ideological concerns and your reluctance to take risks, we cannot ignore the evidence staring us in the face, or the urgent need to address these problems effectively.
   Mr President, as we have heard, the Parmalat case was a catastrophe for its employees, for investors, for savers, for its creditors, for its customers and indeed for the financial markets.
It is our duty as legislators and policy-makers to see how we should respond to that and to see what we can do to try and prevent that kind of catastrophe from occurring again.
How can we ensure that the whistle is blown on this type of criminal conduct before it reaches the catastrophic and disastrous proportions that it reached at Parmalat, before it goes on for years, as it apparently did at Parmalat? I appeal to the House to ensure that our response is proportionate, is measured, and looks at the facts of what happened in a dispassionate way, that we have a thorough analysis of what happened, of what went wrong – if anything – with the regulatory system, and of how we can improve the legal and regulatory framework to try to prevent a Parmalat from happening again.
We can be proud of the fact that this process started before Parmalat happened because, as people have said, there have been scandals throughout the world.
Enron is the biggest, but there are others throughout the European Union.
Few people were foolish enough to say 'well, Enron happened in the USA and we do not have any problems in the European Union'.
If they said that they are obviously feeling rather foolish about it now, but that was not the general response here and in the Member States to the Enron crisis.
We looked at what happened and responded to it.
That will help us because we have prepared the ground to try to tackle a similarly disastrous event within the European Union itself.
As many people have mentioned, we need to look at the role played by the professionals – the bankers, the auditors, the ratings agencies – that were involved with Parmalat, to see if in the future there is some way of ensuring that they are not taken in, that they are able to assist savers and investors in detecting this kind of fraud, and that they are properly regulated; and to examine whether further regulation would ensure that they are better able to detect this kind of fraud.
But we should not make the mistake of trying to turn auditors and lawyers and ratings agencies into policemen, because that simply would not work.
We need also to accept that the kind of obvious criminal and fraudulent conduct that we saw in the Parmalat case is something that can never be eliminated completely.
No matter how effective and wide-ranging our system of regulation, you are always going to get fraudsters and criminals who will break the rules.
We must focus on better enforcement of the rules and regulations that we have.
In many ways, that is a question for Member States.
They need to devote many more resources to their police forces, particularly those specifically dealing with financial crime.
That is one of the biggest lessons we can learn from Parmalat.
We do not necessarily need to introduce a whole range of new regulation, which may in the end just prove to be a burden on those many market participants who are completely honest.
We need more cooperation between our national regulators, not a single European Union regulator.
The Member States should devote more resources to fighting financial crime and having a large, effective police force to fulfil that task in the future.
   Mr President, there are some cases where Europe is really needed, when swiftness of action is especially important and crucial in order to establish whether our institutions are really in a position to interpret the needs of citizens.
This must be done in a visible and decisive manner.
Of course, we are not the United States, Commissioner Bolkestein; our capacity for action is more limited, since it is restricted by national rivalries and various rights of veto, especially in those sectors that we are currently dealing with.
We believe, however, that there is room for manoeuvre in the case of Parmalatand the Commission must use this.
Basically, we need to move in three directions, which have, moreover, already been mentioned.
Firstly, the Commission must put forward proposals on the behaviour of companies when they operate in tax havens to hide their dirty money.
We believe that EU legislation can be put in place to attempt to curb and prevent this, because this was indeed one of the fundamental causes of the events at Parmalat. This, Commissioner Bolkestein, goes far beyond a proposal on money laundering.
I am afraid that, in order to genuinely be on the side of consumers and savers, especially in such a politically sensitive period, the Commission should formulate a proposal that visibly supports them and that – I repeat – goes far beyond the proposals that have been presented today.
Secondly, I would be pleased if Commissioner Bolkestein put forward a proposal to ensure that EU countries controlling these tax havens, that have access to them or that have particularly lax legislation in place on this issue, can be persuaded in some way to change course.
Thirdly – as my colleague, Mr Jonckheer, has already said – what does Commissioner Bolkestein think of presenting the position of the European Union on these issues to the World Trade Organisation?
In September 2001, the Eritrean Government banned independent newspapers.
Ten journalists, including Dawit Isaac, were imprisoned.
Dawit Isaac is both a Swedish and an Eritrean citizen and was one of the founders of Setit, Eritrea's first private newspaper.
The government in Eritrea refuses to say where Dawit and the others are.
According to the Eritrean Government, he is being held in custody for reasons of national security.
Dawit Isaac has not yet been allowed to meet representatives of the Swedish authorities and there is growing concern that he is not alive.
In what way is the Council prepared to exert pressure on the Eritrean Government to ensure that the fate of Dawit Isaac, an EU citizen, is clarified and his family and Swedish authorities are allowed to meet him?
   . 'Yes' is the obvious answer.
Better business relations very frequently come after peace processes, rather than before them, but clearly anything that could contribute to the economic wellbeing of the particular area would be significant and important. There is no particular initiative in mind at the moment with regard to SME involvement in that part of the continent.
There are a number of areas that would be of significance during the course of the Irish presidency.
We do not have formal agendas but we are looking, for example, at a review of South African developments in the context of the tenth anniversary of freedom and at a review of EU developments, particularly enlargement. We will also be looking in terms of developments in the African Union and in the New Partnership for African Development.
The formation of the African Union and NEPAD is another important initiative.
There is no substitute for African states taking ownership.
Africa will have to take ownership but we in Europe have to support Africa in that. There is no substitute for African states taking ownership of the continent on the basis of a united approach.
Initiatives such as the African Union and NEPAD are of great importance.
One of the ambitions of the Irish presidency is to raise issues relating to Africa higher up the agenda of the European Union. It would not only be positive in itself for Europe to take a more active role and interest in Africa, but Europe also has some moral responsibilities in the matter.
   One problem which of course affects young people in particular is unemployment.
Unemployment gives rise to certain activities that are undesirable.
The President of Eurochambers, Dr Leitl, recently said that unemployment is quite unacceptable as a matter of principle among young adults in the 15-25 age group, and that they should have a choice – either work or study – so that they can integrate into society. Do you think this type of initiative could also be launched within the Youth programme?
   Question No 7 has been withdrawn.
A recent consumer survey organised by the Department of Agriculture and Food in Ireland reveals that most consumers want specific country of origin information in relation to all meat sales.
What is the Council's position on extending beef labelling regulations to the food service sector?
   I want to thank the President-in-Office for his comprehensive reply and also for his support for the principle of regional advisory committees.
I believe strongly that this new measure, which is included in the common fisheries policy for the first time, will be to the overall advantage of the fisheries sector in the years to come.
Does Minister Roche foresee, if it is successful, that this would become a more involved part of the common fisheries policy and would lead to fishermen and stakeholders having a statutory role in the development of the CFP in the future?
   .
I should like to thank Mr Ó Neachtain for that. The response to his supplementary question was implicit in my response to the original question.
The presidency indicated clearly last month that the regional advisory councils would provide an important forum for all stakeholders. There are issues to be resolved but I would agree with the general tenet that consulting stakeholders in the fishing sector is critically important,
The Irish presidency will be pushing forward the issue of how we communicate with citizens at all levels – corporate groups of citizens and private citizens at all levels. The type of development which Mr Ó Neachtain has actually been pushing for some time is very consistent with the central policy plank of the Irish presidency, and that is to improve, across the board, the relationship between the Community and the citizens of Europe, whether those citizens are involved in fishing or farming or any other enterprise.
   My question is simply this: can the Council assure us, in the context of the Cyprus negotiations, which I greatly welcome and support, that no deals on the opening of accession negotiations or accession itself are being made with Turkey behind the scenes?
   The European Parliament has previously expressed the view that it sees the Turkish presence in Northern Cyprus as an occupation. The European Community was born as a peace project, and our desire is to safeguard the heritage received from De Gasperi, Schuman, Monet and Adenauer.
Against that background, is it in line with the EU’s ideas of peace and the heritage from our founding fathers to give Turkey a starting date for negotiations concerning membership of the European Union at the same time as Turkey continues to be an occupying power in Northern Cyprus? In other words, can a country occupy another Member State of the European Union and, at the same time, be offered talks on membership?
   . I understand the passion in the question but I would make the point that I really cannot add anything further to the responses to this question which have already been supplied to the Member, both on this occasion and on the previous occasion.
   Mr President, I would like to thank the Council President for his very full and detailed reply.
I simply wish to add two critical comments or questions.
Firstly, we are constantly hearing the phrase 'standards before status'. I am told, however, by all the major investors in Kosovo that they will not be investing in Kosovo in the long term unless they have some idea of how status is likely to develop.
In other words, the 'standards before status' concept only functions to a limited extent because there is simply no certainty about Kosovo’s future. That is a problem for economic progress.
The second point I would like to raise in this context is that the Americans have announced that discussions on Kosovo's final status could open in 2005.
Should the EU not be preparing for these negotiations this year, in 2004, at the latest so that it is not presented with a ?
   . If I answered Mr Crowley's question in the affirmative it would not be very quiet.
However, he knows me well enough to know that I am bold enough to raise issues where they need to be discussed, even though they may sometimes cause discomfort. I do not want to create any false hopes, but I make the point that there are facilities, particularly within the context of the Vienna Convention, for the government of Cuba – which is primarily responsible for the wellbeing of its citizens – to raise this issue if it so wishes.
   – The next item is the report (A5-0021/2004) by Mr E. Mastorakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 establishing a European Maritime Safety Agency (COM(2003) 440 – C5-0393/2003 – 2003/0159(COD)).
   – The next item is the report (A5-0016/2004) by Mr U. Stockmann, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on intermodal loading units (COM(2003) 155 – C5-0167/2003 – 2003/0056(COD)).
   – Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, we welcome an integrated approach to transport in which adequate use is made of all the types of transport available.
If the problems of increasing traffic on the roads are to be solved, the European Union has to be pro-active in promoting intermodality.
Pro-active, above all, means that the authorities should use the market to deal with the questions raised, not that the authorities should saddle the market with difficult regulations and added costs. In this proposal, this line of approach has not been followed completely, and that is why, initially, I had my reservations about a number of sections of the Commission’s proposal and the rapporteur’s proposal.
However, now that the proposals have been adapted by means of amendments in the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, my greatest concerns have been lifted.
In their choice of loading units, the participants in the market have to be free to find the best possible solution for each type of goods and mode of transport.
At the same time, we should at all costs avoid a situation in which owners of intermodal loading units are faced with unnecessary obligations and high administrative and implementing costs.
I do not think it necessary to use tax benefits or subsidies upon purchase to support the introduction of the European intermodal loading unit.
The Commission has itself stated in its proposal that it does not want to make its use compulsory, but wants to leave its commissioning to the market. The introduction of subsidies and tax benefits runs counter to this idea.
Technical specifications in which the characteristics of the intermodal loading units are described must be examined critically.
Accordingly, it is important for the essential requirements that are prescribed not to contravene the international ISO standards.
This on account of the fact that considerable use is made of units which are manufactured in accordance with international standards and which are also used outside of the Union.
I am pleased that the rapporteur shares my concern in this matter, and that this is also being expressed in the text by means of an amendment. This also applies to adjusting the inspection period of the European intermodal loading units by equating them to those of the ISO container, which is frequently used in international traffic.
The introduction of new intermodal loading units, though, does not yet guarantee intermodality.
In addition to the current diversity, the poor quality of the rail services on offer constitutes an important barrier to the growth of intermodal transport.
Internal shipping should also be included more in the discussion.
As already stated, the improvement of transport requires quality legislation in which consideration is given to the scope of the market and which, by correct timing, can be introduced on time in an adequate and harmonised manner. That is, in fact, why I am of the opinion that the introduction of the digital tachograph should be shelved for one year so that legislation can meet the requirements to which I have referred, but lack of time has made it impossible to discuss this urgent matter with the Commission this week.
This House still finds it difficult to actually get something done about it.
   .
Mr President, the truth is that I tend to have plenty of work.
If I count up all the issues, directives and regulations over the years, I think I am right in saying that I win hands down.
In any case, I think that we all agree on the importance of what we are discussing today, the entry into force of the 2003 Protocol to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation of Oil Pollution Damage (IOPC). The funds for compensating victims of oil slicks are going to be increased to more than five times their current level, which is absolutely essential as it was clear from accidents such as the sinking of the and the that the funds available through IOPC were not sufficient.
The Protocol still needs to come into force and we therefore need to encourage the Member States of the Union to ratify it quickly.
We are convinced that it urgently needs to be applied, but unfortunately, the Member States are not taking the step forward.
In the proposal that it put forward in September, the Commission urged the Member States to ratify the Protocol before the end of 2003 and it is now 2004.
The common position adopted on 15 December set the deadline at June 2004 and the Commission made a declaration in this respect, indicating that we would have preferred it to have been ratified before the end of last year.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Parliament for its hard work on this issue, given that the Council only sent the Common Position to Parliament a few weeks ago. I of course want Parliament to take up the suggestions of the rapporteur, Mr Gil Robles, whom I thank not only for having conducted the debate on this report and coordinated it with all Members so quickly, but also for the clear manner in which he explains all the points and the importance of this document.
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   The next item is a report (A5-0035/2004) by Mr Brie, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on Afghanistan: challenges and prospects for the future [2003/2121(INI)].
   Madam President, Commissioner, very recently, a thought-provoking analysis of the political situation in Afghanistan appeared in the with the headline: ‘Afghanistan: The Gulf between Report and Reality’.
In it, the author, a widely travelled veteran Afghanistan journalist, turns the common Western image of Kabul and its environs on its head.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, you can be assured that the present report has prompted me to reflect on this a good deal.
I should like to summarise the article for you, therefore, and add a question about our strategy in Afghanistan.
I also hope to give the article to the Commissioner later on, and that he has time to peruse it.
This journalist, John Jennings, disproves the spectre of the Afghan countryside as an Oriental Wild West on the basis of his own observations.
With a few localised exceptions, he sees a safe, peaceful society; in short, no local warlords constantly making life unbearable for each other and the population.
On the contrary, he sees encouraging signs of reconstruction, and also the return of hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees from neighbouring Pakistan and Iran.
In the opinion of Jennings, that huge majority of ordinary Afghans living in areas not actively contested by Taliban remnants have it better today than at any time since 1978.
Interim President Karzai should have every interest in this.
To look at the scenario Jennings describes, however, the reverse seems to be true: with the help of ISAF and NATO, the technocrats in Kabul are seeking the military and political removal of the anti-Taliban groups in the provinces.
It is precisely that Pashtoon agenda that gives rise to the very real danger of a general revolt against a regime imposed from outside: an Afghan tradition.
In Jennings’s view, it would be much more beneficial to the future of Afghanistan as a nation state to construct carefully and gradually from the bottom up, and to achieve political consensus among the regional authorities, which do, after all, sanction a weak central authority.
Interfering with this fragile process would give the Taliban and their anti-Western Pakistani patrons a second chance.
This would mean an out-and-out defeat for the West in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
Paragraphs 12 and 13 of this report reveal that my colleague Mr Brie recognises the acute problem, this area of tension.
Unfortunately, he does not enter into a more in-depth exploration of this fundamental problem regarding Afghanistan’s future as a nation: this issue is subordinated.
We shall have to make do with that.
What are the views of the Council and the Commission in this regard? I should like to bring this article to the attention of Commissioner Patten, particularly given his plans to set off for Kabul in the near future.
I shall hand it to you later on.
After all, no small matter is involved: a fair, sensible international strategy towards a breeding ground for international terrorist networks.
   We will forward your comment to the President, Mr Ford.(1)
   We shall now proceed to the vote.
(1)
   .
Given the importance of the aims of the MEDIA programme, we broadly welcome the report and the extension until 2006 requested by the Commission.
Like the rapporteur, however, we regret that there is, as yet, no definitive report that evaluates the programme’s implementation.
We trust that Parliament will shortly be provided with this.
A high-quality, wide-ranging debate must be held regarding audiovisual policy at European level, before decisions can be made regarding the bases of any future programme.
It is, therefore, also important that all elements in the audiovisual sector – namely, operators, various networks and associations – as well as workers and representatives from the general public, will be invited to participate in this debate.
   .
As we all know, MEDIA PLUS and MEDIA-Training programmes constitute one of the pillars of Europe’s audiovisual policy.
These form the Community support mechanism for the audiovisual sector and replace the MEDIA I and MEDIA II programmes, which were launched, respectively, in 1991 and 1996.
Experience acquired in the previous programmes has helped considerably to improve the functioning of the current MEDIA instruments.
MEDIA-Training aims to support study on the application of the new technologies; economic, commercial and financial management; techniques for the financing, production and distribution of audiovisual programmes; techniques for the development of new audiovisual programme types and script-writing and storytelling techniques.
In addition to the establishment of a dedicated parliamentary committee, I also welcome the Commission’s intention to ensure, for 2006, that continuity is provided to operators and professionals who are involved in the MEDIA-Training programme, which would therefore be extended without any structural changes until 31 December, with increased funding.
Encouraged by the parliamentary committee’s unanimous approval for the proposals to establish a training programme for professionals in the European audiovisual programmes, I voted in favour.
   . I wish to confirm my support for this report authorising Austria and Luxembourg to sign the 2003 Protocol by 30 June 2004.
I believe that in response to the accident involving the there is a clear need to ensure that full and swift payments can be made to victims of future oil spills, notwithstanding our obligation to do everything possible to prevent such incidents from happening in the future.
I call on all Member States to sign, ratify or accede to the protocol as soon as possible.
   .
We voted in favour of this report, as we feel that the new supplementary fund will greatly help to ensure that victims of future oil spills will be paid in full and more swiftly.
This proposal arose following the Council’s decision authorising Member States to sign or ratify, in the interest of the European Community, the Protocol of 2003 to the International Convention on the Establishment of an International Fund for Compensation of Oil Pollution Damage, 1992.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) protocol increases the funding available to compensate the victims of oil spills.
The Member States have been called on to sign this protocol as soon as possible and, if possible, by 30 June 2004.
This decision follows the accident involving the in November 2002, when the Council adopted a firmer position on the need for additional compensation.
More recently, the European Council of 21 March 2003 confirmed the point of view expressed at various Council meetings, calling on Member States, ‘in terms of compensation for the victims of pollution, including environmental damage (...) to pursue within the forthcoming diplomatic conference at the IMO in May an increase in the current ceiling on compensation to EUR one billion’.
On 16 May 2003, the IMO adopted a new protocol to the existing oil pollution liability and compensation conventions.
This protocol establishes a supplementary fund, which multiplies the ceiling by five ...
   .
The proposal for a decision submitted for Parliament’s approval authorises Member States to accede to the Protocol on the International Maritime Organisation (IMO)’s supplementary fund, which increases the funding available to compensate victims of oil spills.
Member States are requested to sign this protocol as soon as possible.
The protocol establishes an International Fund for Compensation of Oil Pollution Damage, 1992, to ensure that victims of damage caused by oil spills from tankers will be paid compensation swiftly and in full.
By raising the compensation ceiling established in the existing international system, the Protocol plugs one of the most important gaps in international regulations in terms of liability for oil pollution, as the compensation ceiling set by the supplementary fund will be fixed.
There will probably be far fewer parties to the new fund than to the 1992 fund, since numerous States that were party to the 1992 Fund feel that there is no need for supplementary protection.
I believe that the new fund will greatly help to ensure the full and swift payment of victims of oil spills.
I voted in favour.
   . – At the end of yesterday’s debate, Commissioner Bolkestein neglected the two key problems: legal tax havens and the impact of fraud on employees and small savers.
It is good that he is introducing strict disclosure requirements in September, which will result in special operations and transactions being listed in the accounts and the use of special instruments being explained; that should have been done much sooner.
It is imperative that we have an accounting system that does not conceal the actual state of affairs and the reasons for it.
What I now find the most worrying is that European countries are offering companies the opportunity of bypassing rules laid down by other countries.
I had always thought that the problems of banking secrecy, letter-box companies and tax havens were confined to Luxembourg, Austria and the Swiss cantons Zug and Schwyz, but it now emerges that thousands of billions of Parmalat’s property was kept in the Netherlands with the help of 181 trust offices, five private companies and one foundation.
The favourable investment climate for foreign companies created by the Dutch government in the 1990s gives swindlers and tax evaders elbow-room.
I have not heard anything from the Dutch Commissioner about what action he is taking against this policy, which his party helped to promote.
I shall shortly be putting this on the agenda, therefore, in questions to the European Commission.
   . – There is a great difference between the reality within Afghanistan and the way it is regarded by outsiders.
It is a collection of isolated valleys, with different languages and cultures, that have little more in common than their Muslim religion, the oppression of women, and the fact that they were herded together into a single state in the 19th century in order to form a neutral buffer zone between the British and Russian spheres of influence.
Although Tajiks, Uzbeks and Baluchis also live in neighbouring countries, the issue of whether their languages should be prohibited within Afghanistan is being discussed as part of the establishment of the Afghan constitution.
The outside world is imposing a supreme president and a central army on the country with the task of achieving unity, whereas, in practice, the President and the army do not have any power outside the capital.
This kind of illusion of unity will induce the outside world to retain a permanent military presence in the struggle against peoples who have no desire for such unity.
The only possibility of a lasting peace seems to lie in a Swiss-style constitution consisting of cantons with a high degree of autonomy and different languages.
I welcome the indication the proposed text gives that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy is starting to understand something of this and is advocating decentralisation, a stronger parliament and an independent judicial system.
I can only support the proposal in the absence of the amendments by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats which seek to move away from these.
   I will ask the services to do what they can, Mr Gröner.(3)
   – Mr President, I just wanted to say that Mr Hans-Peter Martin has announced the withdrawal of the report on lobbying in industry because of his own personal interest.
This is not something that the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy welcomes; it has been done contrary to the intentions of the relevant committee and of the coordinator.
I just wanted to have it recorded in the minutes of the House that he personally withdrew this report contrary to the intentions of the relevant committee and contrary to the statement that he made.
   – Mr President, I just wanted to say that I hope – as I trust Mr Rübig does too – that this report can be discussed in plenary as soon as possible, as it certainly should be.
   The next item is the debate on the oral question (B5-0012/2004) by Mr Herzog, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on the European Commission's strategy on Services of General Interest (SGI).
   – Mr President, I believe that in this debate our problem is not so much to reopen all the discussions we have held time and time again on the meaning and the nature of services of general interest, but to deal with the issue of security and the framework, and more precisely that of the democratic security and the democratic framework, within the context of the debate on services of general interest.
Today’s speech, Commissioner Patten, has certainly been reassuring, but you will be aware that the same can be said of Commissioner Lamy’s speech, a month ago.
At that time we talked about discussion, about very rich consultation – three hundred contributions – we planned to carry out an analysis, we talked about options available to us, about the framework directive, the consensus within the Convention in favour of a European law.
And the Commission considered and considered …
As for me, I have the feeling that in this way we are holding a form of debate which almost found its rhythm until the White Paper in April, while Commissioner Monti, during this time, has been presenting his ‘packages’, in which he makes snap decisions on the issues and all of this without debate and without discussion.
I believe this is in unacceptable way of doing things, because the campaign for a democratic Europe, aimed at highlighting the added value of Community policies, is not going to be carried out by Mr Monti, but by us.
However, if Mr Monti wants to, let him, instead of us, wage the electoral campaign to defend the social Europe.
   Mr President, when I hear the discussion in this Chamber, I start to wonder what we are actually debating.
For two years, Parliament has been demanding more legal clarity, and Commissioner Monti wants to create legal clarity on key issues.
It is surely an illusion to believe that we can now suddenly enact the amendments envisaged in the Constitution on our own and bring competition law into line with the proposed article on the internal market.
The fact is, Mr Herzog, that we spent months discussing that, and you did not obtain a majority for your proposals.
You did not get majority support for the idea of rolling back sectoral liberalisation.
You did not obtain a majority for your renewed demands for a framework directive.
There was no majority behind your call for standardised European services of general interest.
Now you are touting these ideas all over again.
All I can say is that you either have no idea what Mr Monti is trying to do or you are seeking to overturn your defeat of four weeks ago.
I cannot conceive of any other reasons.
Mr Swoboda, as he said himself, is truly an expert on foreign affairs.
On matters of competition law, though – you would do better to keep a low profile Mr Swoboda – because you have not grasped the views of the House as reflected in the voting figures.
If we call for legal clarity, as we did, and Mr Monti presents a proposal – which takes full account of subsidiarity, Mrs Flautre – your objections leave me wondering what you actually want.
Mr Monti proposes that subsidies of less than EUR 15 million a year paid to businesses with an annual turnover of less than EUR 40 million should in future be the sole responsibility of the Member States.
If they no longer require approval, this surely means more freedom for the Member States.
This is the legal clarity we want.
I fail to understand the point of all the discussion here.
Approval need no longer be sought for the awarding of aid for housing construction and for hospitals.
I cannot fathom the debate here, because this is surely part of what we have been demanding.
For this reason, all I can say is that, if Mr Monti’s proposal as I understand it enters into force, it will do so on the basis of the EC Treaty in its present form, which empowers him to enact such legislation without submitting it to codecision.
He is acting to ensure that subsidiarity is strengthened, and he is acting to ensure that legal clarity will prevail in important areas by the end of the current legislative term of the European Parliament.
We do not want to give our blessing here to state aid for the likes of Electricité de France or Volkswagen, but grants to small and medium-sized businesses, including regional grants, are to fall within the ambit of the Member States in future, and Mr Monti intends to open up that possibility.
Before we spend another three years debating a White Paper and framework legislation, he is making things happen.
I can only heartily welcome the fact that greater legal clarity will finally prevail in these matters before the end of this parliamentary term.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by congratulating Commissioner Monti, because I believe he is looking after the rights of consumers and of the citizens of Europe, and they are entitled to obtain a decent quality of service and, more importantly, to obtain it at a reasonable price.
One of the fundamental defining characteristics of services of general interest is that they are subject to a transparent public tendering procedure.
I believe there is still a great deal of confusion here between liberalisation and privatisation.
I believe that liberalisation offers a fair framework for competition.
In Sweden, for example, we have seen that many towns and cities, often administered by one and the same political party, compete with each other in a bid to provide the best possible services and that a town or municipal administration offering the best deal to the public, to the consumer, is awarded the franchise to provide its services in other towns and cities too.
In public tendering procedures, it is possible to specify quite precisely what is wanted.
If, for example, a railway service is being put out to tender, a public authority can say that there will be three people at six in the morning, twelve at ten o’clock in the morning and three again at midnight.
Good and appropriate tender specifications can then be drawn up for the service from A to B. I am also in favour of public resources being used here, because we are all in favour of the social component of government activity.
We want to ensure that services of general interest are accessible to people who have no driving licence or who have financial problems, mobility problems or other disadvantages.
I have to say, though, that liberalisation and fair competition are one track, while privatisation is a second track.
I would ask that we try to avoid confusing the two and focus here on the systematic pursuit of the strategy of free competition.
In this context I should like to congratulate Commissioner Monti once again for organising his proposal along these very lines.
It goes without saying that city councils and public administrations which provide services of general interest will have to compete with our small and medium-sized enterprises.
This is why public bodies put services out to tender.
At the present time, two out of every three employees works for a small or medium-sized enterprise.
There are 18 million businesses here that can bid for a franchise to provide public services for the benefit of consumers.
The small and medium-sized businesses pay 80% of total tax revenue; in other words, they ultimately provide the money that enables us to afford these social services in the general public interest.
For this reason I believe that the term ‘social economy’, which was once in common use, is inappropriate, as is our German term , literally ‘subsistence provision’, which is commonly used to translate ‘services of general interest’.
What we want is the best service for our citizens.
That can only be provided in the framework of fair competition.
   The next item is the debate on the oral question (B5-0010/2004) by Mr Perry, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, to the Commission, on the implementation of Directive 73/239/EEC by the UK between 1978 and 2001.
   Mr President, I wish to begin by dealing with the allegation contained in Mr Perry's report that directives have not been implemented. That seems to have been accepted in this House.
However, that assertion and allegation have not been proven.
Mr Bolkestein has on many occasions – both to the committee and to this House – indicated that he could not look at past regimes: he could only rule if current law was compatible.
Some of us heard that, but others failed to hear it.
If there is alleged past failure, then the place to seek redress is in the national courts.
This has been played before the national courts on many occasions, and the judgments have gone against the plaintiffs.
Indeed, at the moment before the English High Court there is a case of alleged breach of statutory duty against Her Majesty's Treasury and the Secretary-of-State for the Department of Trade and Industry.
Yet Mr Perry calls for documents which the UK Government has sent to the Commission, whilst failing to recognise that those same documents may form part of its defence.
Any defence has to present its case before the relevant court.
Equally, I have learnt, from being a member of the Committee on Petitions, that one of the petitioners is about to bring a case before the Court of Justice.
Let me refer now to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001.
There is a degree of ignorance or naivety that appals me.
Parliamentarians do not have to refer to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 in order to gain access to documents.
There is an interinstitutional framework agreement for parliamentary access.
But, if anyone were to read that Regulation, he would see that the infringement proceedings are a particular exception under Article 4.
Let me just refer to something Mr Perry said.
All of us in public life must be consistent in the application of principle.
Mr Perry said that he finds it shaming that the UK Government was so secretive that it undertook the withdrawal of documents.
What does it have to hide? This morning I was in the STOA Panel discussing and voting on a study on inedibles in food product packaging.
Mr Perry voted for the suppression of a public document.
I fail to understand that.
We must be consistent in the application of principle.
The Commission has met its obligations.
If Parliament wants to go down the cul-de-sac to the Court of Justice, let Parliament prove itself foolish.
   – The ayatollahs on the Council of Guardians are doing everything they can to hold on to their religious, political and economic power.
Their exclusive power to interpret the Koran is constantly being abused for political ends.
They block everything that does not appeal to them or that could impinge on their own position of power.
They have now vetoed more than a third of the laws adopted by the parliament.
More than 2 500 reform-minded candidates have now been excluded from the elections, including around 80 sitting MPs.
Whilst large sectors of society, young people in particular, want modernisation and freedom, the hard core in power is clinging to medieval ideas and repressive practices.
The younger generation constitutes the vast majority of the population in Iran.
In addition, even many former revolutionaries have become disillusioned by the clergy’s abuse of power.
President Khatami himself calls the exclusion of candidates a threat to the nation and the system.
The conflict between reformers and conservative clergymen is increasingly coming to a head.
If nothing is done about it, it seems that it is only a matter of time before the situation boils over, with everything that entails.
The human rights and democratic situation in Iran is still extremely worrying.
Unless substantial improvements are made, the European Union will not be able to form a partnership.
It is highly debatable whether it is actually still advisable to continue to negotiate. What is Commissioner Patten’s opinion on this?
Does he still see prospects for partnership with Iran now that the situation is deteriorating so dramatically? Nor is the human rights dialogue with Iran of any great account, as I know from personal experience.
It will not make things any better if the parliamentary elections turn out to be a farce.
The European Union must not lend itself to a dialogue that is used as a pretext for not actually carrying out any reforms.
Iran is a potentially rich country with an ancient civilisation, and has the potential to play an extremely important, constructive role in the region.
It will not become a new civilisation, however, whilst the ayatollahs continue to abuse their unrestricted power, but will instead be doomed to remain an international pariah.
   Mr President, a clear signal from Tehran is always welcome, and yesterday President Khatami gave one personally.
In a speech on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic revolution, the Head of State levelled particularly sharp criticism at the exclusion of a whole host of reform-minded candidates from the parliamentary elections on 20 February.
President Khatami said – and my colleague Mr van den Bos has also said this – that elections are a symbol of democracy.
The President then warned that ‘if this [right] is restricted, it’s a threat to the nation and the system’.
His message to the conservative forces in the Islamic republic is unmistakable.
Their repressive actions are destabilising both State and society.
Public bitterness is already great and will only increase.
What is the lesson that the European Parliament should draw from these unfair elections for the Iranian parliament, the Majlis? If it turns out that the vast majority of the new Majlis consists of arch-conservative, even radical Islamists, we should not set any store by close relations.
‘A sheer waste of taxes,’ a German Iran specialist, who is also a voter, commented to me an hour ago.
I think that this is spot on.
   Mr President, surely no one can be in any doubt that the illusion of democracy in Iran is dead and that only a complete overhaul of the political system will one day enable democracy in Iran to flourish again.
At this juncture I should like to join with Mrs Sandbæk in calling for dialogue to take place with the opposition, and not with the religious hierarchy, with those who head the criminal regime that oppresses Iran.
Most urgently, the Mujahedin currently in Iraq should be removed from the terrorist list and should not be extradited to Iran.
It is through dialogue with those who genuinely want democracy, with secular forces, that we will be able to see the situation change towards democracy in this most important of countries, as all those here recognise.
   Mr President, the Islamic Council of Guardians operates as an unelected organisation consisting of Islamic theologians whose task it is, in accordance with Islamic principles, to preserve the heritage of the revolution of 25 years ago.
The issue is that of whether this Council of Guardians does not instead discredit religion in itself, the role of priests and theologians in society and what is, in this case, the entirely dominant religion, namely Shi’ite Islam.
These are the consequences for the Islamic revolution in Iran of the activities of the Council of Guardians, of the legislation they have promoted and of other legislation they have prevented.
We Europeans and members of the European Union must state that, if people have the right to vote, they should have the right to stand as candidates.
It is completely unacceptable for theologians to be able to prohibit people from both voting and standing as candidates.
   Mr President, over the past few weeks, three politicians from the Sam Rainsy party have been murdered.
Chea Vichea, a founder member of the party and president of the free trade unions, was shot on 22 January.
He is the latest victim in a long series of killings.
The absence of retribution for political assassinations is tantamount to an invitation to commit further atrocities. The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats utterly condemns these assassinations but also condemns the slowness of criminal investigations.
Cambodia needs vigorous political leadership.
Its leaders must enact reforms that put an end to the continual violations of human rights.
I also refer in this context to the country’s record on child prostitution and forced labour.
For some time now there has been an agreement between the Cambodian Government and the United Nations on the establishment of a war-crimes tribunal.
All that stands in the way of its creation is the ratification of the agreement by the Cambodian Parliament, and that must be done without delay.
We therefore call for a UN delegation to be sent to Cambodia.
We must help, and we want to help, so that a sustainable process of normalisation can take place.
   Mr President, in the killing fields of Cambodia the Khmer Rouge murdered millions of their own people, and now the country is struggling to find stability and equilibrium.
It is balanced between the King and the political parties, there is a degree of balance between the parties – sometimes more, sometimes less – and the country is also trying to maintain a balance between various outside influences.
A constant balancing act is, however, no recipe for long-term stability, which cannot be achieved unless the rule of law is firmly established. This is why paragraphs 4 and 6 of the resolution are of paramount importance.
Straightforward prosecution, by due process, of the murderers and assassins who are threatening the very existence of democracy, and above all the long-overdue creation, together with the United Nations, of a special criminal court with a view to enabling Cambodian and international lawyers to work together in order to ensure that those who have committed crimes against humanity can finally be brought to justice and duly punished: in this way, after a bloody and turbulent past, the country can at long last find stability, underpinned by the rule of law, which will enable it to become an important partner of our European Union.
(1)
   Mr President, I believe it is paragraph 5 of the resolution which states that observation of the elections did not take place because of the refusal of the Iranian authorities.
That requires correction in so far as the request was also made by Parliament.
It should therefore be worded in slightly more neutral terms, in that ‘the authorities’ should be replaced by ‘the Iranian side’.
May I request that correction.
It is merely a matter of factual clarification.
(2)
   – Mr President, I only wish to move amendments to recitals D and F. In D and again in paragraph 7, it should be political figures rather than opposition members, since three of the five assassination victims belonged to a governing party.
And then the date in recital F should be 7 January instead of 4 February.
These are technical rather than substantive amendments.
(3)
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 12 February 2004.(1)
   By letter of 24 February 2004, the President of the Catalonian Parliament informed us that Mr Joan Colom i Naval has been appointed a member of the Catalonian Court of Auditors.
Mr Colom i Naval, I congratulate you on this appointment and, pursuant to Rule 8(4) of the Rules of Procedure, inform the House that Mr Colom i Naval's mandate as a Member of the European Parliament – in long and good standing, I might add – officially terminates tomorrow, 26 February 2004.
So, Joan serves his last day here, and will carry from this House our respect and our best wishes.
By letter of 19 February 2004, the Belgian authorities informed me that Mrs Frédérique Ries has been appointed a member of the Belgian Government.
Again, let me – in this case in her absence – congratulate Mrs Ries on this appointment and note, pursuant to Rule 8(4), that her mandate as a Member of the European Parliament has terminated and that a vacancy exists as of 12 February 2004.
In the same letter, the Belgian authorities informed me that Mrs Ries had been replaced by Mrs Jacqueline Rousseaux with effect from 19 February 2004.
I welcome our new colleague and remind Members that credentials must be verified in line with the appropriate procedures.(1)
   The conference you mentioned, Mrs Banotti, adopted a declaration.
At the next Conference of Presidents, I propose to give a copy of that declaration to the Group leaders and also to give a brief account of my own sense of the meeting on HIV/AIDS, which indeed imposes a duty of care on this institution and on the European Community in general.
   I would ask the Commission to make note of Mr Lage's comment.
   That is a very good point.
The speech is certainly being translated into the languages of the current 15 Member States and I will ensure it is also translated into the languages of the accession countries.
I will also see if it is possible for our information services to distribute the speech through the mass media to reach a wider public than has thus far had access to it.
   – Mr President, I wish to bring to your attention a written statement by Mr Glyn Ford, a Member of this House, in which he urges the boycotting of the products of a company in the European Union.
I would also like this statement to be forwarded to the Council, the Commission and the Member States.
I would ask you to call upon the Legal Service to make a statement as to whether this is in any way permissible.
In Germany, my own country, it would be prohibited by law.
   Mr President, I want to alert Parliament and the Commission to the earthquake that occurred late last night in the Atlas mountains in Morocco and which has caused a considerable number of deaths there.
I am also speaking on behalf of my friend and colleague Mr Deprez when I point out that there are a lot of people in Brussels and in this Parliament whose families are in Morocco.
The Commission is very good at providing humanitarian assistance via ECHO, and this is an instance in which we should move as fast as we can.
   The next item is the Commission communication on its annual policy strategy for 2005.
   . Mr President, honourable Members, the Vice-President of the Commission has set out the Commission’s priorities for 2005, and, if the objectives and expectations of European policy are to be met, the necessary resources must be made available; 2005 will be the second year in which our Budget will cover a European Union of 25 Member States, and I very much hope that we will, at first reading, agree on a Budget for a European Union to which all the people of Cyprus will belong.
The Financial Perspective, which, last year, we adjusted to take account of enlargement, lays down the financial framework for the coming financial year.
The adjustment was made in accordance with the decisions taken in Copenhagen and in line with the amendments introduced by your House.
The decisions taken in Copenhagen, as set down in the accession treaties, set out the financial commitments made to the new Member States.
In addition, the Council has made decisions concerning the augmentation of pre-accession aid for Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey, which means that enlargement has left its unmistakeable stamp on the changes in the 2005 Budget in comparison with this year’s.
Whilst the enlargement of the EU is a great gain in political, economic and ecological terms, it also presents challenges to the new Member States, who must implement all the EU’s laws, and also to the Commission, which, as guardian of the treaties, must ensure that they do so, and that their integration over the coming years is successful.
To do this, there will have to be changes in the Commission’s personnel.
As long ago as 2002, the Commission presented the overall development plan, according to which a total of 3 900 new posts are necessary.
It is planned that there will be 700 additional posts in 2005, and we will be asking the budgetary authority to approve them.
Let me also take this opportunity to follow my fellow-Commissioner Mrs Loyola de Palacio in extending very warm thanks to the budgetary authority, and most especially to Parliament.
You have been very supportive of the Commission over the past years, and we continue to count on your support, which will enable the new Commission, too, to cope with the demands made upon it, and the tasks it has to perform, as an institution.
For 2005, the Financial Perspective plans a framework of EUR 114 billion, with upper limits for the financial commitments that we are capable of taking on in internal and external policies, as well as in administrative expenditure, that are lower than provided for in the programmes; the reason for this is that prices have needed less adjustment because of exchange rate fluctuations.
We will therefore have very little room for manoeuvre next year.
The Secretaries-General of the institutions will, over the coming days, be presenting a report on how we are going to manage with this tight budget.
Even though funds for new initiatives, in both the internal and external policy spheres, are very limited, the Commission is nevertheless proposing, for 2005, new initiatives and increased resources in line with our priorities, for example, in transport and energy, for the preparation of a European air traffic management system; in the area of industrial policy, for the establishment of agency for the testing of chemical substances; in justice and internal affairs, for the further development of the Schengen Information System, whilst, in the field of research, there is a need for more funding for the decontamination of nuclear research facilities.
Those are just a few examples.
In foreign policy, we need to do what we have undertaken to do in the various areas – our commitments to combat Aids, action measures in Kosovo, and cooperation with non-governmental organisations in strengthening democracy.
We are at present reckoning on a financial commitment to Iraq still being needed in 2005, so we will again have to have recourse to the flexibility instrument if we are to be able to perform the tasks that the European Union has taken on.
As the Vice-President has already explained, the discussions on the 2005 Budget will relate to all institutions in the new framework or with changes in their composition.
It will be a new experience for the Council to adopt a Budget for 25 Member States.
Although there will be a newly-elected Parliament as early as first reading, it is a very good thing that, in the person of Mr Garriga Polledo, we have appointed a principal rapporteur who is very experienced and who will ensure continuity in the debates.
There will be a change of Commission between the first and second readings of the 2005 Budget.
In purely institutional terms, we will see many new faces in the 2005 Budget procedure.
On 16 March, we will be having a trialogue to discuss the priorities for the 2005 Budget, and I am confident that we – having succeeded in doing so in earlier years – will be able without delay to come to an agreement about them, so that the European Budget for 2005 can, once more, be a good one.
   . Let me start with many thanks to Mr Garriga Polledo for his assurance of continued support for the Commission.
I think we really have to stress the fact that enlarging by adding ten new Member States is no trifling matter, and the public expect the European institutions to apply the law even-handedly from the word go.
Doing that also requires the necessary complement of personnel, not least, of course, where languages are involved, and we have to guarantee that those positions will be filled.
I will answer your last question as to what the 2005 Budget will be like by saying that we have of course not got as far as a draft Budget, but it is already plain that the Council has already decided on certain increases.
What this means is that there are more or less external factors that we have to take on board, and our consequent decisions have to respond to this reality.
I would see it as a very bad sign if, just before enlargement, we were to start questioning the decisions taken in Copenhagen.
Nobody wants to do that, and we will of course take that into account in the preliminary draft Budget.
I can assure the rapporteur, Mr Garriga Polledo, that the preliminary draft Budget for 2005 will be submitted in due time.
   – Madam Vice-President of the Commission, Commissioner, whilst I can endorse your priorities wholeheartedly, I wonder if you, Madam Vice-President, do not also think that there is a particular motto under which we can march into 2005, and that it is ‘Growth and Employment’? Do you not agree that we all share in responsibility for the fact that this Europe of ours has not, over recent years, seen sufficient growth and enough job creation, and that this is a very important task for the new Commission?
Now that there has been talk at this tripartite summit of a super-Commissioner or Commission Vice-President with responsibilities for economic reform, do you not also think that, if there is to be such a person, he or she should primarily have responsibility for growth and employment, since we will find it difficult to advance the European ideal if we fail to prioritise these two things?
Let me now turn to something originally mentioned by Mrs Flemming: the Roma and Sinti.
In the enlarged Europe, after Bulgaria and Romania have joined it, there will be 8 million Roma and Sinti, living in social conditions that are extremely difficult, and more difficult than in many Member States.
Are you willing, at this early stage, to prepare the forthcoming Budget in such a way that there will be more financial support for the integration of Roma and Sinti in our society – even though it is more than just money that is needed? If not, we will face conflicts flagrantly contradicting the ideal of unifying Europe.
   . Mr President, let me start with Mr Swoboda’s question on the position of the Sinti and Roma in the European Union, and reiterate that, in all the negotiations on enlargement conducted by the Council and the Commission, very particular attention has been given to the issue of how minorities are treated.
We have examined this question with particular care, and it is quite clear that enlargement will greatly strengthen these minorities in their rights and, above all, protect them.
In consequence, I believe that these minorities will themselves welcome the enlargement of the European Union.
As far as the financial and social dimension is concerned, the new Member States will have access to the Social Funds, which share in funding special programmes vital to the integration of minorities.
In 2005, the new Member States will be able to draw on a total of EUR 900 million from the European Social Fund, and I believe it important that we should ensure that some of this money is applied for this purpose.
Turning to the security issues, this is an area in which the Council has taken more and more decisions; in no other area has the Council adopted so many new resolutions over recent years as in the area of justice and internal affairs, and it goes without saying that these must also be backed up by funding.
In 2005, for example, it is planned that more funding should be made available for the Schengen Information System than had previously been planned, increasing the amount by an additional EUR 4 million.
If I may mention just a couple of courses of action, proposals have been made for funding the conversion of the European Police College into a European institution for training senior police officers, and the network of national training institutes is to be built up.
I would also point out that, over recent years, we have also greatly increased the number of staff working in this area.
If I may quantify this, in 1999, there were 82 posts allocated to this area, whereas next year there will be over 300 of them, the object being to create the area of freedom, security and justice in Europe that we all need.
   Mr President, in this magical world of the European Union, we never let reality intrude on our dreams, and from one summit to the next we go on regaling each other with fascinating fairy tales, such as the Lisbon Strategy or the European Constitution.
In actual fact, the European Union, and particularly Euroland, is the Sick Man of the global economy.
Only yesterday, we learned that Euroland had seen its external balance of trade fall by 58% in 2003, a drop that was entirely ascribable to the decline in its industrial exports.
In all aspects of the game, Commissioner – growth, employment, investment and competitiveness – Euroland is being outplayed by all the other economic and monetary areas, including Japan now.
But Mr Solbes and Mr Trichet, in their respective domains, continue to strut the stage regardless and, like Diafoirus the physician and his son in Molière’s , to fob us off with their wrong diagnoses: ‘The diagnoses are the thing, I tell you’, says Diafoirus Solbes. ‘The diagnoses, I tell you’, replies Diafoirus Trichet.
Have no doubt, gentlemen: with this medicine of yours, Europe will soon be a picture of health as she lies in her coffin.
I am glad to say, however, that the Stability Pact is dead and buried, and its demise came at the hands of those who had wanted it but then changed their minds, as they are entitled to do, namely France and Germany.
So there is no point, Mr Bigliardo – and I see he is not even here – in penning a tardy hagiography and, for some rather incomprehensible reasons, venting your spleen in aggressive tirades against France.
The zeal of the convert, no doubt.
As for you, Mr Solbes, it seems to me that you would do very well to use your few remaining months in office to put away your wooden sword, which has not served you very well, and to withdraw the action you brought against the Council before the European Court of Justice, which is essentially the sort of thing that could lead to a veritable war of secession in Europe.
You would do better to ask yourself some questions about the euro, as the Italian President of the Council did.
It is the euro that is obstructing the recovery of Euroland, because it has become the passive adjustment variable of the real monetary and commercial challenge to the United States and Asia.
This point can be satisfactorily proved by comparing, even on the basis of the Lisbon objectives, the performances of the Euroland countries with those of their non-Euroland partners within the Union.
So for pity’s sake, gentlemen, since we are coming to the end of this legislative term, open your eyes, rub the scales from them and face up to reality!
   Mr President, Commissioner Solbes Mira, Commissioner Reding, I too am tired of always hearing the refrain or mantra of the Lisbon objectives.
One reason is because we repeat them in an attempt to convince ourselves that we will succeed in doing things in Europe that we are not capable of.
We are discussing public budgets, we are discussing the role that European public administration and public administrations in individual States can play in promoting the economies of research and innovation.
We are doing this at a time when the European Union Financial Perspective provides for a budget in which agricultural expenditure will still take up between 40% and 50% of the resources.
Does the Commission think that spending on agriculture will achieve the Lisbon objectives? If it does not have the courage to discuss this, in terms of the European Union’s budget, then it will be very difficult to make use of a lever as important as European expenditure – to benefit technological innovation and scientific research.
While discussing the Stability and Growth Pact we have seen major governments – in countries that are essential for the European Union and even more so for the eurozone – hold discussions to arrive at a deficit equal to 4 or 5% of the public budget.
I ask myself if it would not be possible for countries such as France and Germany – where public spending is equal to or greater than 50% of GDP – to find the necessary funds in these extremely substantial resources to make infrastructure investments and to develop scientific research and training, in particular, at university level.
Another major European country provides us with an example.
Unlike Mr Abitbol, I do not believe that the United Kingdom’s better economic performance results from the fact that the British have kept the pound and have not adopted the euro.
The UK provides an important example in which a committee – not the Blair government but a government committee – indicates that 80 000 civil service jobs might be cut, in order to make savings of EUR 20 billion – in other words 1.5% of the United Kingdom’s GDP – which would be earmarked for schools, health and security.
Resources need to be found from within public budgets, and we need to have the courage to take such costly political decisions.
Two further points are the European Union’s prospects and economic growth.
We have read – for the moment just in newspapers – the text drawn up by Commissioner Lamy’s committee of experts – this is not yet about what Commissioner Lamy says – which calls for international trade to be linked to national values in Europe.
This means putting the European Union on the road towards protectionism.
Is this how we want to grow economically?
Finally, Mr President, Commissioner Solbes Mira, Commissioner Reding, I would like to focus on the issue of immigration.
Just a month ago the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Anna, came here to urge Europe to adopt a more open policy, first and foremost in the interest of Europe itself and its economy.
How does Europe respond? It responds by closing the borders of the Europe of Fifteen to workers from the enlarged Europe.
Workers from the ten countries that will join the European Union will be second-class workers; we will have workers who are from the Community but who are nevertheless illegal.
This is, for example, the response as regards immigration.
Even from this point of view, rather than accepting the challenge of enlargement, Europe closes in.
The Europe that closes in is not moving towards Lisbon but towards economic growth that is increasingly insignificant compared to the growth enjoyed by the United States and now also by Japan.
Europe is, however, choosing its own destiny.
   – Mr President, contemplation of the economic situation in which the European Union finds itself leads us to the conclusion that the summit ahead of us has three main tasks. Firstly, the summit must ensure there is an increase in investment; secondly, it must ensure that there is an increase in investment, and thirdly, it must ensure that money is better invested.
Both in the private and public sectors, we are lagging behind the USA; in the public sector we are behind them by 1%.
I absolutely fail to grasp how, in view of this economic state of affairs, Members of this House can manage to come up with two recommendations for us, one being that we should deal with the crisis by leaving more muck in the air, which is what Mr Langen’s proposal in part amounts to; the other, that we carry on stubbornly wrecking the economy with austerity measures, rather than giving it the kick-start that it needs.
Bad textbooks on economic policy are legion, but never yet have I found one so bad that it would recommend these courses of action in a phase of the economic cycle such as the one that we are now in.
Quite the opposite is the case: the situation we are now in demands that we take the action outlined by Mr De Rossa, adopting a dynamic attitude towards the necessary balance between stability on the one hand and efficiency on the other.
I am eager to see what the Commission will do with the slogan ‘Dynamic action, balance between stability and efficiency’.
We look forward to your proposals, Commissioner Solbes, and hope that we will have a productive debate.
   The next item is the oral question (B5-0011/2004) by Mr Costa, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, to the Council, concerning the failure to consult the European Parliament in connection with the TEN Quick Start projects.
   – Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, a new Eurobarometer poll was conducted a few days ago.
What attracted particular attention was the extremely low level of participation in June’s elections to the European Parliament.
In some countries, scarcely more than 20% of the public say they are interested in these elections, and in virtually none of them do over 50%.
There is absolutely no cause for surprise at these figures. The fact is that the European public hear the same old thing year in and year out, that everything bad comes from Brussels, and the good things are all home-made.
The game here is ‘passing the buck’, and the Council is particularly good at it. It keeps quiet about the fact that it, as a rule, is part of Brussels, and, when it has the opportunity to play Santa Claus, as it is now, for example, doing with the TENs, the Council likes to be seen dispensing blessings in what is, of course, a solo performance.
Who cares about the fact that the Treaty speaks in terms of codecision in these matters, with Council and Parliament jointly taking decisions on the trans-European transport network?
Their Eminences of the Council want to be the only ones to dole out largesse and to make promises; none of the glory must rub off on anyone else, certainly not on Parliament.
We are not prepared to play along with this charade of disinformation; we are not prepared to do so as a matter of principle, and we are certainly not prepared to do so with 13 June in the offing.
The resolution we have submitted is intended to press that point home.
Most of all, we demand a clear message to the European public, that not only bad things come out of Europe, and that the European Parliament and its members share responsibility for much that the public see as important, and which, it is to be hoped, benefits them in practice.
   – Mr President, I have a lot of trust in the Council, especially in Mr Roche, and understood his speech to mean that he is in favour of Parliament being fully entitled to take decisions in all the areas to which we have referred.
Judging by what I hear my fellow-MEPs saying, they are less trusting.
I would ask the President-in-Office of the Council – and this is my first point – to say, here and now, loud and clear, whether he acknowledges Parliament’s full decision-making rights in all these matters, be they the ‘Quick Start’ list or any other list.
My second point is that the committee, when it was under Mr Costa’s chairmanship, agreed that this House is not so irresponsible that anyone can, by hook or by crook, add on his or her pet projects; on the contrary, the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism added a limited number of projects for which there was a rational justification.
If I may mention just two of them, out of – I think – about six, which enhance Europe’s cohesion and unity, not only in and around the new Member States, but also in and around the future accession countries in the Balkans, we were talking in terms of lines running across Austria from Prague via Linz, and another running from the North via Vienna to Graz and then on to Croatia – in other words, lines that make a great deal of sense.
I really do think that this House has, over the past months, shown itself to be responsible, in that not even in the run-up to an election does it add on one project after another indiscriminately.
Parliament’s right to share in decisions must, however, be guaranteed in full.
It would be a good thing if the President-in-Office’s ambivalent answer today could become a clear and unequivocal statement to the effect that the Council does indeed acknowledge Parliament’s power of codecision, because this House demonstrates a high degree of responsibility and comes up with a few extra ideas for these important investment projects.
After all, the Council and its Presidency ought to have an interest in getting a few more good ideas, and you will get them from this House’s Committee on Transport.
   – Mr President, speaking personally, I wish to repudiate the attacks made on Mrs de Palacio.
Not in any way did she attempt to exert negative influence on the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism; on the contrary, she offered help in bringing the trans-European networks dossier to a conclusion, and that was very valuable.
What I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council, though, is whether he has nothing to say to us. Are our questions so unimportant that he is unwilling to give us an answer?
   The next item is the oral question (B5-0063/2004) by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, to the Council, concerning the Olympic truce.
   . Mr President, I particularly want to thank Mrs Prets for the question.
The European Council of December 2003 expressed its support for the idea of an Olympic truce and welcomed the relevant resolution which was agreed unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly.
It is in fact no coincidence that 2004 is both the year of the Olympics and the European Year of Education through Sport.
The Council recalls to the Parliament that the educational values of sport were already acknowledged by the Nice European Council in December 2000, thus confirming previous declarations, particularly Declaration 29 attached to the Amsterdam Treaty.
This defines sport as something which forges the identity of people.
The Council's resolution of 17 December 1999 also presented sporting activities as having a pedagogical value which contributes to the strengthening of civil society.
One of the aims of the European Year of Education through Sport, as set out in the European Parliament and Council decision of February 2003, is to take advantage of the values conveyed through sport to develop knowledge and skill, particularly amongst young people.
Sport allows young people in particular not only to develop physical prowess and readiness for physical effort, but also provides social skills such as team work, solidarity, tolerance and, of course, fair play.
The Council confirms its commitment to these aims and values, as, I am sure, does the Parliament.
I should point out that it does not come within the Council's competence to undertake the specific actions proposed by the honourable Member.
However, at its meeting of 29 January 2004 to launch the European Year of Education through Sport, the troika of education and sports ministers stressed the importance of the Olympic truce.
The ministers supported the truce for its message of peace, tolerance and friendship; its unique place in the lives of citizens and its positive role in the promotion of friendship and the breaking down of social and cultural barriers.
The troika ministers also strongly recommended that joint actions bring together the goals of the European Year of Education through Sport and those of the Olympic truce during 2004.
On a personal level, on behalf of the presidency, like to wish the Greek nation, and all the athletes who go to Greece to compete, peaceful and successful Olympic Games.
I hope that these Games, as Mrs Prets has said, take place in an atmosphere of tolerance and peace.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0062/2004) by Mr Kuckelkorn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the 2005 budget: guidelines for Sections II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII(A) and VIII(B) and on the European Parliament's preliminary draft estimates (Section I).
   Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Kuckelkorn, who is known for his rigour, as those of us who have worked with him in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Budgets are well aware, particularly when negotiating the issue of European Agencies over a long period of time.
At the moment the usual advocates of budgetary rigour and saving are more necessary and more realistic than ever, because now there is a reduction in the ceiling for heading 5 and I would find it difficult to name any rapporteur who was more notorious than Mr Kuckelkorn for their rigour to carry out these cuts.
Furthermore, I am genuinely curious to see the report of the General Secretaries of the institutions on the estimates of the administrative needs for 2005.
I believe it is going to be a very fortunate and beneficial year for everybody since the Secretaries of the various institutions are going to have to reconcile enlargement and its administrative requirements with the restriction we are going to be faced with next year of the reduction of EUR 140 million in heading 5.
By the way, this rigour which is being asked of the other institutions must also be applied to the Commission and to the European Parliament itself.
Our group, Mr Kuckelkorn, believes it is perfectly possible to remain next year within the 20% limit for the European Parliament’s budget, particularly after the Council, as a result of the opposition, above all, of the German Government, has blocked the reform of the Members’ Statute.
Our group has presented and defended amendments in the Committee on Budgets in particular on the issue of multilingualism and its implementation.
We tried this in the 2004 budget and we would be very happy to find now that we have an interlocutor open to dialogue on the possible initiatives our group is presenting.
At the moment the report, voted on in the Committee on Budgets, supports it.
We entirely agree with the rest of the measures in Mr Kuckelkorn’s report and we are finally left with the issue of the funding of the political parties.
My group would have liked – and we were one vote away from achieving it in the Committee on Budgets – that committee to express its support for including this funding of European political parties within Parliament’s limit of 20%.
What we did not want with this amendment we are presenting was to have to negotiate the funding of the political parties year after year, which would be the case if we were funding outside the limit of 20%.
Funding them within the 20% limit would prevent this situation and would ensure a quick negotiation by means of a transfer.
We should remember that the code of conduct necessary for this transfer to political parties is due to be finalised very soon.
Nevertheless, because of the opposition of other political groups, and particularly yours, Mr Kuckelkorn, this has not been possible and therefore the compromise solution proposed in the amendment of the Greens/ALE Group seems to us to be acceptable as the only way to avoid jeopardising this transfer, which must be carried out in 2004, in this budgetary year.
Furthermore, with this compromise, with this amendment from the Greens, we would prevent the budgetary restriction of heading 5 from jeopardising the functioning of the political parties during next September, as they themselves warn, which may be faced with serious operating problems of an administrative nature if this transfer does not take place.
I am pleased that Mr Kuckelkorn is prepared to take this compromise into account – to vote for this amendment – and, if this is the case, Mr President, I believe that the rest of the vote on the report by Mr Kuckelkorn will be practically unanimous because, on the rest of the major issues, we fully share his thinking.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0081/2004) by Mr Gröner, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council – Follow-up to the White Paper on a New Impetus for European Youth – Proposed common objectives for the participation and information of young people, in response to the Council Resolution of 27 June 2002 regarding the framework of European cooperation in the youth field.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0080/2004) by Mr Graça Moura, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the role of schools and learning at school in giving the greatest number of people access to culture.
   . Mr President, Mr Graça Moura, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, and above all its rapporteur, Mr Vasco Graça Moura, for a clear-sighted report which stresses the interface between schools and culture.
I should like to broaden the scope of the discussion so as to include, as well as schools in the strict sense of the word, the school of life which is the family.
That is where it all starts, and later it continues at school.
I am very happy to see, Mr President, that as always Parliament not only supports what the Commission is doing but also adds to the new ideas being developed by the Commission, thereby helping it to forge ahead.
You are right in saying that we cannot build Europe solely on the basis of the economy and finance.
Europe is constructed on the basis of men and women, and therefore of cultures.
I agree with you in recognising that education systems ought to guarantee that, by the time they complete their secondary education, students possess the knowledge and skills which are necessary for them to prepare to assume their roles as citizens in Europe.
I say ‘ought to’ because the reality is somewhat different, as we are all well aware.
Even though students sometimes learn about their own regional or national roots, they are still a very long way off from learning about the roots of others, the roots of their neighbours.
During a previous debate on the subject of youth, I gave you a figure.
It referred to the Comenius programme, which links together schools in the European Union, so as to enable young people to participate in joint projects, thereby learning about the cultures of neighbouring countries.
Well, despite the fact that two million students took part in this programme, that represents only one per cent of the population of our schools.
We are therefore still a long way from achieving our aims.
We are doing the right thing, but we are not doing enough, and we need to be aware of this.
Our education programmes are therefore trying to respond to the desire of both the rapporteur and the Committee on Culture, and to the need which lies behind that desire, i.e. that our young people should learn about the real world in which they live.
In this context, our cultural programmes prove to be valuable instruments for making Europeans aware of cultural diversity.
Once again, however, this is not enough to reach all our citizens, or even the great majority of them.
In the world of cinema, there is the MEDIA programme, which also helps to make people aware of cultural diversity through the medium of film, and which is obtaining good results.
I would also ask you to remember the first major pan-European cultural event, Cinedays, the aim of which was above all to teach young people about cultural diversity through the cinema.
There again, it was a good thing but it was not enough.
I should therefore like to say to you that I shall need all your support in order to reinforce this aspect in the financial perspective and in the new programmes which I intend to submit to you shortly.
We are already doing this, though our efforts are a mere drop in the ocean.
In saying that, I am thinking about the Culture 2000 Programme and the RESEO project, which brings together the educational services of the major European opera companies with one aim in mind, to enable children and young people to discover opera through its cultural roots.
I am also thinking about the CLIOH's Workshop, which is setting up cooperation between many European universities with a view to producing teaching material on European history.
Yes, these things exist, but there must be a willingness at national level to make them an obligatory component of history syllabuses and of cultural education.
I should also like to take this opportunity to announce that an initiative has been launched with a view to carrying out a major study to produce an inventory of best practices in bringing together culture and education in Member States, candidate countries and third countries in the European Economic Area.
The next Parliament will have the results of that study at the beginning of 2005.
We are not, therefore, content just to sit and complain.
We are making progress, even though we know that that progress is very limited.
Mr Graça Moura, you will understand, in these circumstances, that your report comes just at the right moment and is grist to our mill inasmuch as it gives us ideas, it supports our actions, and it points us in the right direction, which will be very useful at a time when, as you know, education and culture are increasingly regarded as major elements in the construction of European citizenship.
Finally, Mr President, I should like to say a big thank you to Parliament and to its rapporteur, for this important contribution towards the future of our young citizens.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0017/2004) by Mrs Frahm, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on persistent organic pollutants and amending Directives 79/117/EEC and 96/59/EC.
   . Mr President, I would like to thank the European Parliament and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Frahm, for the intensive work that has been done on the report on the Commission proposal for a regulation on persistent organic pollutants.
I am grateful for the support given by the Parliament and the rapporteur to the rapid handling of this legislative proposal.
I am also very pleased about the effective cooperation between the Parliament and the Council, which makes a first reading agreement possible.
A prompt adoption of this regulation should enable the Community to ratify the Stockholm Convention at the time of its entry into force in May 2004.
Furthermore, the regulation will allow those Member States which have not yet ratified the Convention to do so promptly.
Most importantly, the regulation will ensure that the European Union as a whole can meet its international obligations relating to persistent organic pollutants.
These substances persist in the environment for decades, accumulate in living organisms and travel over borders far from their sources.
Most of these substances are known carcinogens, or are otherwise toxic.
It is evident that global action is essential to tackle the risks posed by these substances.
However, I would like to draw the attention of the Parliament to an important issue raised in the draft report, namely the legal basis of the regulation.
The Commission is proposing that the regulation be based on Article 175(1) – environment – and Article 95(1) – internal market.
In the draft report, it is proposed that the regulation should be based on a single legal basis, namely Article 175(1).
While the Commission can otherwise fully support the compromise reached between the rapporteur and the Council, the Commission cannot accept the change of the legal basis.
The legal basis as proposed by the Commission is justified by the fact that the provisions of Articles 3 and 4 in the proposed regulation – concerning production, the placing on the market and use of intentionally produced POPs – are relevant to the functioning of the internal market.
Furthermore, these particular rules are meant to be transferred to the future REACH regulation on chemicals, which is based on Article 95(1) only.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0056/2004) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1177/2002 concerning a temporary defensive mechanism to shipbuilding.
   Mr President, excuse me for laughing but we are not alone anymore, Mr Monti!
I can see two other Members arriving!
I thought we could have been alone, but another time maybe!
   You are no longer my favourite Commissioner, Mr Monti, but you can change that if you give me the right answer tonight!
(1)
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0053/2004) by Mr Belder, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy with a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on EU-Russia relations.
   . – Mr President, the intent of this proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on EU-Russia relations is clear – a partnership that is truly worthy of the name.
Accordingly, a strengthening of these mutual relations rather than growing mutual separation is what is required.
Looked at in a matter-of-fact way, that is also what our many common interests require.
In all fairness, however, relations between the EU and the Russian Federation are anything but ideal, and for this both parties are to blame.
That is, therefore, the angle of this proposal for a recommendation: European self-criticism and criticism levelled at Moscow.
In the autumn of last year, that is the very course on which this House’s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy embarked.
To our satisfaction, we can conclude today that the Commission, according to its communication of 10 February, is more or less on the same wavelength, and so, apparently, is the Council.
Incidentally, the Council should, in the view of this House, aspire to achieve more transparency in such an important and comprehensive area of policy as relations with Russia.
This current European consensus with regard to Russia is undisputed, but what matters is its concrete implementation, and that is where Europe's self-criticism comes in.
Differing positions have been adopted on Kaliningrad, Chechnya and the Yukos affair.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that is why I cannot wait to hear about new agreements for new consistent policy.
Yesterday, the press once again confronted me with confusing accounts from a prominent European statesman.
A second point of important self-criticism is broached in Recital S and paragraph 2 of the proposal for a recommendation.
The EU-Russia partnership is based on common values of respect for democratic principles and human rights.
Parliament has expressly advised the Council and the Commission to apply this guiding principle consistently to all areas of cooperation with the Kremlin.
In any event, the situation in Chechnya is completely at odds with the principle of the EU-Russia partnership.
This is a wholly depressing situation of rampant violence and lawlessness at the expense of, in the main, a defenceless civilian population.
At the same time, the Chechen tragedy is a problem that is avoided in international politics, as the title of a thorough recent study aptly suggests.
In paragraph 13, this House recommends the Council in all seriousness to emphatically refute this shameful analysis.
In the final analysis, the internal and external effects of the Chechen impasse affect the European Union's values and interests just as much.
To start with, the Council should lodge a vigorous protest with President Putin against the disappearances, tortures or, worse, the killings of Chechen citizens who had the courage to lodge complaints with the European Court for Human Rights.
Talking of disappearances in the Chechen region, I would refer to the continuing uncertainty surrounding the fate of my compatriot Arjan Erkel.
I fully subscribe to the amendment tabled as No 25, which I will quote: ‘reiterates its deep concern once again about the fact that to date, no political solution has been found in the case of Arjan Erkel and regrets the fact that no progress whatsoever has been made in the direction of a solution, insists therefore on a determined political move on the part of the federal and local authorities in Russia, the Commission and the Council to ensure that Mr Erkel is released safe and well’.
Much more so than Chechnya, there is another obstacle to the EU-Russia partnership that is receiving political and public attention: the extension of the partnership and cooperation agreements to include all new EU Member States from 1 May 2004.
Parliament is supporting the Council unconditionally in its position, according to which it will not enter into any negotiations with the Russians in this respect.
Could the Council perhaps tell us whether a provisional solution to this difference is in the offing? Good neighbourly relations and, above all, good partnership, should be accompanied by Russian foreign policy that reinforces stability on the continent.
If anything, though, the failure to sign or ratify the border agreements between Russia and its Baltic neighbours, Estonia and Latvia, has a destabilising effect, as do, and to an even greater degree, Russia's unfulfilled obligations to withdraw its troops from Transnistria and Georgia at long last.
The present proposal for a recommendation urges the Council to stand firm on these sensitive security issues.
I could mention many other areas of concern with regard to the development of the EU-Russia partnership, as is evident from a careful scrutiny of the proposal for a recommendation, but I would add that it was certainly not our intention to draft a catalogue of complaints.
The intention is quite simply to define the mutual frictions, to facilitate and maintain debate on them and join together in seeking a solution.
It is logical in this connection that the European Union should set out its priorities unambiguously and repeatedly and should indicate its so-called red lines during negotiations.
This practical approach is reflected in the Commission communication.
This gives me, as rapporteur, real satisfaction.
The relatively considerable attention received to date in the Russian media by the proposal for a recommendation gives ample reason to rejoice.
It appears that our message is well received by the Russian Federation, to whom it is also addressed.
I am indebted to you, the MEPs concerned, for this response.
I found your thoughts and contributions indispensable.
I would repeat this praise for the excellent assistance from the secretariat of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy in the person of Mr Dag Sourander.
Together with him and my personal assistant, Henk-Jan van Schothorst, we have, over the past few months, poured over these complicated EU-Russia relations with much dedication, because this House sets great store by a partnership that functions right across the board.
   Mr President, Mr Gahrton has prepared a sound report on the countries of the South Caucasus.
I entirely share his view that it is in the interests of Europe and the EU to associate the region more closely with Europe.
There are positive signs but, as Mr Gahrton himself said, there are quite a few threatening clouds.
In Azerbaijan, matters are heading in the wrong direction.
A year ago, I met with the new, recently elected President, Ilham Aliev. In response to direct questions on electoral fraud that had by then already taken place, he flatly denied any such occurrences and referred to his own, and Azerbaijan’s, role in the Council of Europe.
Following the autumn elections, we know Aliev’s game.
Freedom of expression is crushed, and opponents are thrown into prison.
If Azerbaijan is to become a genuine partner of the EU, the country must be fully democratised.
A humanitarian disaster is taking place in the refugee camps, in which those driven out of Nagorno-Karabakh live in extreme poverty.
I have myself visited a refugee camp, and I wish in particular to address Mr Patten and say that the EU has a big responsibility when it comes both to money and to putting pressure on the parties involved in the conflict.
I think that Mr Gahrton’s report shows that we need a stronger EU in the international arena, especially if we are to be able to take vigorous action in the area immediately surrounding the EU.
   The President of Parliament is looking into the matter.(1)
   We now continue with the vote.
   The services will ensure that all language versions correspond.
'Recommends the Council to demand that Russia immediately sign and ratify the already negotiated border agreements with the accession states Estonia and Latvia.'
   The original certainly says 'society' so we shall stay with that.
- Recommendation: MacCormick (A5-0036/2004)
- Nuclear disarmament (B5-0101/2004)
   .
Like the majority, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities deplores the fact that, despite repeated requests, the Commission has not presented a clear, relevant and meaningful account of the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. We approve, however, of calling on the Commission to refrain from interfering in areas that are better dealt with by levels of government closer to citizens.
The EDD Group also supports monitoring subsidiarity in a way that involves national parliaments at an early stage in the legislative procedure. In which case, however, the Hunting, Fishing, Nature and Traditions (CPNT) members of the EDD Group cannot accept the idea that the fate of an objection officially brought by the national parliaments against a Commission proposal should be subject to the latter’s willingness to retain, amend or withdraw the text in question.
Yet that is the solution recommended by this report, which is based on the protocol annexed to the draft constitution.
That draft fell on the delimitation of competences and sought only to increase the Community institutions’ scope for intervention. The Members of this House from the CPNT will oppose this if it should see the light of day, just as they are opposing it today in the context of this report.
- Report: Bigliardo (A5-0044/2004)
   I voted in favour of Mr Bigliardo's excellent report, which provided an examination of the immediate reasons why Europe's economy is ‘on the brink of stagnation’ without losing sight of the importance of investment in the future of healthy public finances. Indeed, Europe's economy is faced with a marked decline in investment in both the public and private sectors.
On the other hand, geopolitical events such as the war in Iraq or the SARS outbreak have had a particularly adverse effect on economic confidence and growth in Europe.
Furthermore, the appreciation of the euro against the dollar is also a brake on Europe's competitiveness.
It is against this difficult background that the effects of the recent more flexible approach to the Stability and Growth Pact need to be seen.
As the report quite rightly says, Portugal was the first of the Eurozone countries to have the excessive deficit procedures initiated against it, because of the breach committed in 2001. Subsequently, the Portuguese Government elected in 2002 has fully committed itself, at the cost of various sacrifices and unpopular measures, to complying with the Stability and Growth Pact.
Last week, Portugal's Prime Minister announced that the country had in 2003, as in 2002, complied with the budget deficit limit of 2.8%.
I did not associate myself with the amendments tabled by the Union for Europe of the Nations Group because they solely reflected issues of special interest to France, which are quite distinct from Portugal's view.
   This explanation of vote is intended solely to highlight what we see as a reversal of priorities as regards the budget, something that this report might be said to illustrate very fully indeed.
First and foremost, it is only possible to discern the limits of budgetary restrictions once we look at how they operate and can be improved, and, almost importantly, how to deal with both existing and new requirements.
By way of illustration, we wish to underscore the fact that for us multilingualism issues are not technical ones but rather of vital political importance.
Similarly, the creation of a parliamentary assembly for the WTO is one which we have great reservations about, and not just for budgetary reasons.
We will be referring on other occasions to the many other questions contained in this report.
   The report emphasises certain aspects that must be taken into consideration, in particular the need for those Member States whose GDP is lower than the EU average to focus more on their educational budgets and to insist on the need for pupils to learn two languages.
There are, however, a number of contradictions in the report, and it advocates a federalist view that we do not share.
Indeed we fear that there is a dangerous trend towards differential financing for schools according to whether or not they provide programmes encouraging a ‘European identity’, which is yet another way of introducing arbitrary pressures into the financing of education, and a thinly veiled means of interfering in national curricula and educational systems.
We need to pay more attention to recognising and raising awareness of the history of each country, not to rewrite history and restrict ourselves to the ‘European dimension’.
   That concludes the explanations of vote(1).
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 26 February 2004.
   Mr President, I wanted to thank you for what you said about the occasion of 8 March and I believe that – as Mrs Gröner mentioned – we are all concerned about how important the presence of women will be in the next Parliament and about how difficult it will be to keep the presence of women at an acceptable level.
This is why I would like to suggest to you, Mr President, that the Parliament services carry out a very simple study into what women have achieved in parliamentary work during this term.
I am sure that, even though women are still a minority in this Parliament, they have given a much greater contribution to the work of Parliament than their percentage would suggest.
Therefore, persuading women to vote for women by starting with the work that women have carried out could be a very convincing argument.
I therefore urge you to make your services carry out a study that puts together attendance, the number of reports and what has been done in Parliament: it will become clear that women are doing much more work than their percentage of representation would suggest.
I believe that this argument is much more convincing than so many others in calling for a greater presence of women in the next Parliament.
   Mr President, I should like to take the opportunity sincerely to congratulate the women on their international day of action.
I should also like, however, to sound a note of warning to the women here in Parliament: stop focusing so much upon whether there should be more men or women in Parliament, and try to consider the millions of women who are grossly underpaid for doing the same work or work of the same value.
That is something I think should be a key issue for us.
In 1976, we adopted a directive, but the equal pay there should be is still not forthcoming.
That is perhaps a more important perspective than that of whether there should be one or two more women.
I also think it is a good day that has been chosen for the international day of action, namely my birthday.
   Thank you for that contribution, Freddy, and happy birthday!
   Mr President, today, on International Women’s Day, I wish not only to draw attention to the entire issue of discrimination against women, but also to raise the issue of women who are victims of war.
Today, we must remember the suffering of women who are victims of war, in Iraq, in Palestine, and in so many other countries.
I hope that we use this day to remind people of the need to eradicate war and to contribute to ending these conflicts, such as the illegal occupation of Iraq, the humiliation of the Palestinian people and of women who are suffering on a daily basis as a result of this unjust war.
I also wish to remind you that the World Social Forum has called on us all to take part, on 20 March, in the demonstrations against the war, to safeguard peace, on the first anniversary of the war waged against Iraq by the United States, the United Kingdom and their allies and to call for an end of the occupation of Iraq, to call for peace.
   – Mr President, exactly 38 years ago, in this very House, which was then known as the Assembly, I delivered my first report on women – and men, of course.
It was report No 69, and it had to do with maternity protection.
At that time I was the youngest Member of Parliament and, including me, there were only two women Members.
Today I am, unfortunately, the oldest woman in the House, yet this does enable me to make a fair assessment of the progress we have made since then, and of the contribution of the policy of equal treatment and opportunity between men and women, particularly since 1975.
Instead of moaning incessantly, as though we were at the Wailing Wall, we would be better advised to enter headlong into the debate.
Over the course of the fifteen years that I have spent here, the Commission would have been better off submitting the legislative proposals that we have repeatedly called for.
As regards the 1986 Directive on equal treatment of self-employed workers, for example, including those working in agriculture, I draw your attention to our demands for a Directive on the status of spouses, which is so important to the millions of invisible workers, mostly self-employed women working in agriculture.
Nothing has been done.
I also draw your attention to the own-initiative report in which I called for a framework directive on the entitlement to share pension rights in the event of divorce, a major issue for all women.
Sadly, nothing has happened, which is something that I regret, because it is a waste of time to have mature debates and eloquent speeches on 8 March if we do not submit legislative proposals that will genuinely advance the policy and the equal treatment of men and women.
As one of the few men in the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, I think it is only right to thank you, Mr President, for this initiative.
Unlike my fellow MEP, Mrs Eriksson, I have the greatest confidence that the work you are now getting under way will also lead to a result.
It is not necessarily the case that everyone in this Parliament is just talking for talking’s sake.
Enlargement is constructive, necessary and incredibly important historically.
Naturally, we must not, however, turn away from the problem addressed by Mrs Gröner.
There are, in actual fact, more grey suits in this House.
That is a concern, and it is something we must be able to acknowledge.
To Mr Blak, I should like to say: you are of course a Socialist and might reasonably be expected to be alert to structures.
That is what, as Socialists, you teach each other to be.
I am a Liberal, but even I am able to see structures, and there are structures in this House.
Clearly, it is significant if more women come into this House to take decisions.
That is something I believe Mr Blak can also appreciate.
   The Minutes of the sitting of Thursday, 26 February 2004 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
   The final draft agenda as drawn up pursuant to Rules 110 and 110a of the Rules of Procedure by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday, 4 March 2004 has been distributed.
The following changes have been proposed:
As regards the reports by Mr Obiols i Germà and Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra respectively on political dialogue and cooperation agreements with Central America (A5-0120/2004) and the Andean Community (A5-0119/2004), I have received a request from the PPE-DE Group for these reports to be held over to a later part-session.
   Mr President, I would like to say that it would be desirable for these debates on agreements for political dialogue and cooperation with the countries of Central America and the Andean Community to take place in the presence of the Commissioner responsible, Mr Patten, who has expressed his interest in being present.
Therefore, Mr President, on behalf of my group, and I hope with the agreement of Mr Obiols i Germà, I would request that these debates be postponed until one of Parliament’s future sittings which Mr Patten can attend.
I should like to remind the House that 80 reports are expected to be on the agenda for the March II part-session and 85 reports for the April part-session.
As regards the report by Mr Kronberger (A5-0047/2004) on the quality of ambient air, I have received a request from the PSE Group to hold over the vote to a later part-session.
   . – Mr President, we would like, if at all possible to get this report dealt with before the end of this Parliamentary term by using a first reading agreement, which would mean that we would have to hold the debate this week but defer the vote until April, in order to be able to negotiate agreement with the Council.
When it comes to the vote, there will be, at most, a very narrow majority.
It may be that the decision, be it favourable or unfavourable, will be taken by a very small number of votes, and then, in any case, at least 50% of MEPs – to be fairly precise about it – will be less than happy.
I would ask that we should debate the report tomorrow but defer the vote to April, by which time we will have been able to discuss matters with the Council.
Preparations have, in essence, been made for this, so we may yet be able to conclude a first reading agreement.
   – Mr President, I do not believe there was any need for further deliberation.
There was in committee when we asked for an expert opinion, or rather, a cost-benefit analysis, on this report to be drawn up, something that you, Mr Kronberger, opposed.
Now that it has been produced, and makes perfectly clear in what direction policy must go, I cannot see any reason to hold over the vote rather than have it today or this week, quite simply because we already have far too many reports to deal with in the other Strasbourg sittings.
If Mr Kronberger joins us, he will be on the right side.
I do ask, though, that the vote should take place.
   – Thank you Mr President.
We do not want to discuss the substance of the report; we have already had a debate about it in committee.
Although we did indeed get the expert opinion to which Mr Florenz referred, it did not back up his arguments but those of my group and also Mr Kronberger’s approach.
It makes sense to hold over the vote.
We are at the end of a parliamentary term and want, if possible, to come to an agreement at first reading, so that we will not have to start from the beginning again when the House reconvenes, going through first reading again and then debating the common position.
Having the vote itself at the next sitting will not take up much time, and so I ask you, Mr President, to put it to the vote.
This is what my group will be asking for and thereby supporting Mr Kronberger in having just the debate this week.
   Mr President, I should like to draw this House’s attention to the Commission’s refusal to follow up, within the framework of interinstitutional accords, a request for information regarding the possible award of EUR 230 million Euratom funding to the Cernavoda nuclear complex.
As a rapporteur on the liberalisation of the electricity market, I feel politically responsible for ensuring fair competition in this market.
I asked the Commission to provide us, as it is required to do by the Espoo convention, with the environmental impact study, along with the report on public participation.
The Commission has not submitted the documents concerned to our committee within the established time frame.
This is confirmation, if further confirmation were needed, of the Commission’s blatant lack of transparency when it comes to the nuclear issue.
I should therefore like to request your support, Mr President, in compelling the Commission to comply with the right to information, as provided for in the interinstitutional accords.
   Mr President, I wanted to draw this House’s attention to an event that is stirring up feeling in the hearts and minds of Italians.
There is a terrorist – called Cesare Battisti – condemned in Italy for four murders by a judgment that has the force of ‘resjudicata’.
On 7 April, the French judiciary will have to decide whether or not to grant extradition of this terrorist to Italy.
I have a great deal of respect for the judiciary but I believe that it would be a serious error not to grant extradition.
It would be an attack on Europe, it would show that Europe is not a reality.
It has been proven that terrorism has links in France, Italy and Spain.
Young terrorists in Italy have struck more than once in recent years and are trained by Italian terrorists that are in jail.
Not granting extradition would mean giving a negative signal to these people.
I hope that everyone in this Parliament supports this call – even the left, given that today an important representative from the Italian left has spoken in very strong terms to call for the extradition of this terrorist.
   Mr Whitehead, as you will know, the report was requested by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy. The report was sent to that committee.
As regards its wider publication, I note the point you make.
This was not a decision of the Presidency of Parliament.
I note your concern regarding the procedures; I will seek advice as to whether they have been breached and will come back to you on the matter – and only on that matter.
I will check whether due process has been followed.
If it has, I will not try to interpose.
   Mr President, I am speaking for Maurizio Puddu, who is the President of the Italian Association for Victims of Terrorism and who signed a letter sent to some newspapers yesterday as ‘European citizen’.
The letter was addressed to Mrs Barbara Spinelli.
‘Cesare Battisti’s release by the French judicial authorities is baffling us, and I can assure you that it is also baffling the majority of Italian citizens, whatever their political stance.
For us, murder and violence can never be defended.
For us, the fact that terrorists maimed and murdered for ideological reasons, as they claim to do, does not make it any better, if anything it makes it worse.
They and their friends will always find a thousand and one words to evade and falsify the past and continue to insult the memory of the dead.
We call on the French – those of the great historical tradition that we so loved – to respect our law, which in this case has the natural right to respect human life on its side, which cannot be confused with any State reason.’
I also made this speech on behalf of Mrs Napoletano.
   Mr President, at Dundrennan, in my constituency in the south-west of Scotland, there is a firing range where depleted uranium shells are used for practice.
I receive many letters of complaint and concern about this.
One recently drew my attention to the fact that over the years nearly 29 tonnes of depleted uranium have been deposited in the waters off south-west Scotland, therefore also affecting the Irish Sea.
I have been asked to draw this to the attention of Mrs Wallström and shall certainly be writing to her about it too.
I am glad she is here today and that the Irish presidency is also present.
It is a matter of serious concern that this dangerous substance is being fired in considerable quantities into waters which drain tidally into the Irish Sea, affecting at least two EU Member States, in probable violation of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by the Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, 1972, as extended by recent protocols.
   Mr President, the dramatic fall from power of President Aristide in Haiti and the undemocratic and increasingly repressive measures by President Chávez of Venezuela to thwart the will of his people to hold a recall referendum represent a worrying trend in Latin America, as Aristide becomes the sixth democratically elected leader in that region to be ousted from power since 1999.
We cannot be complacent about Latin America and take the huge achievement of spreading democracy there for granted.
The EU must work closely with the US to stabilise this process.
Mr Aristide took refuge in Africa, another continent sadly ravaged by civil wars, dictatorships and failed states.
This House will welcome the announcement that the EU-inspired African Union, still in its infancy since being founded in 2002, will shortly have its first Pan-African Parliament meeting in Addis Ababa and plans somewhat ambitiously to set up a security council with a standing army to prevent future conflicts on that continent.
Will you, Mr President, send this Parliament's greetings and best wishes?
   – Mr President, I am sorry to trouble you and the Members of this House again with an issue with which they are all too familiar – that of Chechnya.
It would appear that there is no limit to the appalling nature of Russian policy in Chechnya. Seventeen members of the family of Umar Khanbiev, the Chechen Health Minister – who was received by our president, Mrs Fontaine, and by a number of group presidents and Members of this House – have been arrested, following speeches he had made, in this House and in various other forums, in favour of a political solution.
I feel that Mr Putin, the President of a so-called democracy, has reacted in an absolutely disgraceful manner.
I hope, Mr President, that you can meet Mr Khanbiev tomorrow, when he comes to Parliament.
I also hope that the numerous Members of this House who have already met him will wish to express their solidarity to him in person, tomorrow and on Wednesday.
I feel that Parliament must persevere with the brave and laudable positions that it has already adopted on Chechnya.
We cannot let Russia do what it is doing in Chechnya.
It is totally unacceptable.
   – Mr President, we will, this week, be meeting survivors of the war in Congo that has already claimed 3 500 000 victims.
While the international community remains completely indifferent, that country has for years endured a conflict that is still continuing.
I rejoice that peace is – apparently – underway, and hope that those involved will experience this in the same way, because at the moment, the conflict in Kivu is, to all intents and purposes, still very definitely ongoing.
For women, in particular, the situation remains bleak.
I have heard dreadful accounts of children as young as 10 and grandmothers aged 70, and of women whose ages range between the two, mothers and others, who have become the victims of systematic rape as some kind of weapon of war.
I think we should do more to prevent this kind of violence from being trivialised, to condemn it and help the victims.
After all, justice will never prevail if the source of life is killed.
   On International Women’s Day the President cannot refuse any request.
So please take a seat, Mrs Wallström.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0055/2004) by Mrs Junker, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on population and development: ten years after the international conference on population and development (Cairo-1994).
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank Mrs Junker for her work on this report.
This is a very important issue and Mrs Junker deserves our congratulations.
I have three concerns; firstly, it is quite clear – and you have just reminded us, Commissioner – that the countries committed to Cairo have not met their obligations: 45% in the year 2000 is inadequate; secondly, Mr Bush’s reluctance to grant any more money to people dealing with issues of this nature; and thirdly, enlargement, as certain EU countries do not wish to offer women sufficient help with birth control, which was one of the issues at stake in Cairo.
We must not forget that what we had before Cairo, in 1994, was management and control of the population; since then, we have had the concept of birth control and control of our own bodies, which is substantially different.
In view of these three concerns, what I propose – and have proposed to the Commission – is a framework agreement.
We must coordinate our efforts.
If I have understood you rightly, Commissioner, your only wish is to support this report and these projects.
Should we not, however, be just a little more assertive and proactive? In other words, should we not take the measures that are needed to actually achieve the Cairo objectives?
I said I have three concerns, but I could add a fourth. NGOs are very anxious to see how universal access to care, of which Mrs Junker has just reminded us, is going to work within the balance of public and private finance.
If this balance is not maintained and if public space – in other words, universal access to care and to birth control resources – is not guaranteed, then we will be in even deeper trouble.
I therefore feel that the EU should make clear commitments in this regard.
   Madam President, Mr Mantovani is stuck in traffic and has asked me to put forward his position as shadow rapporteur, something that I am happy to do.
The Cairo Action Programme has pursued important objectives as regards development policy. These are objectives that should, if achieved, improve living conditions in developing countries.
Although it deals with an undoubtedly commendable initiative and with an issue that is very complex to deal with, this report does, in my opinion, overlook the principal objective set ten years ago at the Cairo Conference.
As shadow rapporteur for our group, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I do not believe that the urgent issues that we consider to be equally important have been dealt with adequately.
These concern the population change in developing countries, that is to say the issues linked to education and access to training, nutritional problems, hygiene problems, economic growth and emigration.
Instead, as is largely clear from the document presented by the rapporteur, Mrs Junker, the report focuses almost exclusively on issues concerning reproduction and sexual education, issues that are indeed very important but that do not necessarily have to be separated from a wider context and dealt with in a sterile manner, especially if these statements are not fully in line with the Cairo conclusions.
Too many issues were indeed forgotten, issues that were, at the time, instead seen as key aspects of the structural population change in developing countries in future years.
In my opinion, this report – which, I remind you, was adopted with 11 votes in favour and seven against in committee – needs to be reconsidered and must, above all, be brought back in line with what was established at the aforementioned Conference.
In order to be consistent with the Action Plan’s objectives, I believe in particular that Recital R b, which stresses the importance and central nature of the family as an element of cohesion and unity in society, must be accepted.
Furthermore, I hope, as was strongly suggested by our group, that paragraphs 6, 10, 11, 17, 23 and 26 might be rewritten so that they are more balanced.
Moreover, if it is not reworded we cannot accept paragraph 20, which promotes outright abortion without considering national legal frameworks, and it does it specifically through information campaigns in developing countries for safe abortions.
There is no doubt that sovereignty must be respected in this sensitive area, as must the ethics of each country, especially in such sensitive issues such as reproductive health and rights concerning reproduction.
This is the position of the draftsman, the shadow rapporteur of the PPE-DE, Mr Mantovani.
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I only have one minute.
I want to use part of this to give my support to the amendments tabled by Mrs Frassoni specifically concerning the campaign against female genital mutilation.
This is a campaign that this Parliament has given a great deal of support to, indeed it started it with the help of the Commission, and I must say that there have already been major successes in the African and Arab worlds.
Furthermore, I would like our admiration for the Arab and African women to be recorded in at least part of the report. These women are fighting for their rights in their countries, in much more difficult conditions than here, as you can imagine.
Today, ten million women have taken to the streets in Mogadishu to fight against female genital mutilation.
Across the Arab and African world, extremely courageous women are standing up for their rights.
I would like this Parliament to give them a sign of its great support and extremely high regard for them.
   The next item is a recommendation at second reading (A5-0090/2004) by Mr Santini, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Council common position with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council directive on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States and amending Regulation (EEC) No 1612/68 on the repeal of Directives 64/221/EEC, 68/360/EEC, 72/194/EEC, 73/148/EEC, 75/34/EEC, 75/35/EEC, 90/364/EEC, 90/365/EEC and 93/96/EEC.
   The next item is a report (A5-0095/2004) by Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Framework Decision laying down minimum provisions on the constituent elements of criminal acts and penalties in the field of drug trafficking.
   Madam President, Mr Oostlander and I have a similar view of the appalling and extensive damage caused by drugs in Europe.
Many politicians appear to have given up on the so-called soft drugs.
I wonder what Mr Evans really meant.
Many of our fellow MEPs in this House peddle a treacherous policy which, in my opinion, will only lead to more drug misusers, increased crime and greater scope for the huge drugs syndicates.
A clear and consistent policy is the only thing that will help.
Misusers must be given treatment, but use must be punished.
It is a chimera to believe that a bit of liberalism on drugs will keep young people away from harder drugs.
Certainly, this directive may be said to be a step in the right direction but, at the same time, we must bear in mind that the Fourteen have arranged for significant concessions to be made to the Netherlands where, as Mr Oostlander says, coffee shops can continue to proliferate.
Drug tourism to Amsterdam is allowed to continue, and the Netherlands can go on exporting drug misuse to other countries.
That is unacceptable.
Of course we must have freedom of movement, but it must not be used for drugs and crime.
   Mr Evans, we are unhappy that the Socialist group supports the Council’s response.
We are unhappy about an issue of method, because the European Parliament’s key requests were not taken into consideration, and we are unhappy due to an issue of substance because this decision contains no guarantee that the application will be limited to international trafficking.
It talks about production and it talks about sales.
There is no problem if it refers to international trafficking because this is banned in all countries of the European Union.
The Commission’s demand to apply judicial cooperation instruments is a demand that introduces virtual harmonisation, not just as regards trafficking, but also as regards, for example, the definition of categories of banned drugs, which therefore prevents the possibility of national reforms on drugs within national legislation.
What, for example, is self-cultivation, that is to say, the cultivation of plants? It is production and can thus fall under this decision, since there is no type of guarantee that the aim is to combat trafficking, which is already amply punished in all of our laws.
Another issue is that this has disastrous and catastrophic consequences in Afghanistan and elsewhere, such as the financing of terrorism that these laws allow.
   The next item is the report by Mr von Boetticher (A5-0093/2004), on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing a European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders.
   The next item is the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos (A5-0071/2004) on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the amendments to the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure following the adoption of the Regulation governing the statute and the financing of political parties at European level.
   Madam President, I am sure that Mr Corbett did not intend to misrepresent my position, but he accidentally did.
I strongly agree that the Bureau should decide it; but when the Bureau sits to decide these matters, it should have among it representatives of other parties.
That is what I said and I think that is correct.
   I declare the annual session 2003-2004 of the European Parliament closed.
   I declare open the 2004-2005 annual session of the European Parliament.
   The next item is the report (A5-0449/2003) by Mrs Paulsen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on official feed and food controls [COM(2003) 52 – C5-0032/2003 – 2003/0030(COD)].
   – Mr President, I would like to mention that I have only just received the amendments in my own language – and there are 229 of them.
I would therefore like to ask for more time so that I, and everyone else, can work through them, and to ask you to postpone the vote until tomorrow.
   Mrs Klass, this is not the right time to make this request, not least because any request of this type will be put to the vote and submitted for decision in plenary.
Such requests cannot be made at every stage in our work.
You will, therefore, be able to put forward this request before the vote.
   Since you too, Mrs Paulson, referred to the hope that the vote will have a positive outcome, I would repeat that, as regards whether or not to decide on the vote – referring to the speech made before by Mrs Klass – there will, if necessary, be a vote in plenary to decide whether or not to accept the adjournment of this vote.
   The next item is the report (A5-0468/2003) by Mrs Fourtou, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of intellectual property rights [COM(2003) 46 – C5-0055/2003 – 2003/0024(COD)].
   Thank you, Mrs Fourtou; if I am allowed, I will also add my personal congratulations, given that you spoke about an early conciliation.
Myself and the other two Vice-Presidents of the Conciliation Committees will therefore have less to do.
   Mr President, Mrs Fourtou tackled a very complex issue.
In order to achieve framework legislation, I believe that a lot of work will have to be done in this Parliament’s next parliamentary term.
I must congratulate my colleague Mrs Fourtou because I believe that she has put together the best of the possible compromises.
As with any compromise, however, I did unfortunately find some shortcomings in this report.
For example, even providing for potentially effective instruments to combat activities such as peer to peer or fair sharing, does not allow for the content provider to be fully protected, a situation which risks seriously compromising the reliability of any library.
The report is directed solely at crimes committed on a commercial scale and not more generally at infringements of intellectual property rights regardless of how or by whom they are committed.
A lot of attention clearly needs to be given to this point in order to find a point of balance.
This was a long task that lasted many months.
I do, however, remember that, from the outset, the objective in terms of protecting copyright was to combat and stop the phenomenon which, alongside counterfeiting and piracy, allows material protected by copyright to be used illegally to the detriment of the work of all content providers who are legitimately building up the value chain for the use of audiovisual products.
Particularly in future, we need to reflect further on the issue of the amount of private use that has increased exponentially thanks to the impetus provided by digital technology via broadband or any other advanced technological platform.
This will cause a significant and quantifiable commercial prejudice for all the content providers that base their operating model on the legal distribution of content, subject to contractual agreement with the parties entitled.
In this area, too, we need to consider the consequences of the new legislation on telecommunications.
In fact, not only does the wording of the proposal for a directive lose sight of some important aims, but it does not even constitute an effective deterrent against infringement because, in the long process in which the various proposals were made, the possibility disappeared of compensating for the two-foldprejudice in the form of loss of profit and loss suffered.
I confirm that, in the short term, to obtain an effective instrument, we need to give maximum support to the rapporteur, Mrs Fourtou, and that, in future, we must do a lot of work in this area.
I have two final remarks, one relating to Recital 22.
This states that prohibitory measures can be taken against intermediaries whose services are used by third parties only to infringe industrial property rights and not, as provided for in Articles 10 and 15, intellectual property rights.
Such a discrepancy between the text of the regulation and that of the Recital is not without importance, because it signifies an intention to support an interpretation whereby the term intellectual property contained in the text of the articles actually refers only to cases of intellectual property.
I therefore call on Mrs Fourtou to table an oral amendment in which ‘industrial property right’ is replaced by ‘intellectual property right’.
In this regard, I am thinking about Italian producers protected by geographical indications, who, in a situation of this type, could not obtain an injunction in other European countries against, for example, traders, carriers or advertisers who sell, transport and publicise counterfeit Italian products.
A final comment on Article 16.
I think that it is really important that the final phrase of Recital 23a is reintroduced as a final paragraph of this article.
In the absence of such regulatory specification, you might think in many countries that if – after the person in possession of counterfeit goods in good faith has paid compensation – the judge waived the prohibition of the sale, and exclusion from the commercial chain, of these products, they would be authorised for any commercial use.
If we think, for example, about the whole medical field, this becomes totally unacceptable.
   Mr President, representing, as I do, a constituency which is associated with such products as Scotch whisky, Highland shortbread and Borders knitwear, I am fully aware of and sensitive to the points many have made about the evils of counterfeiting and piracy, which extend much more widely than just to products of the kind I have mentioned.
I, therefore, strongly support the idea of introducing a directive of this kind.
However, I do not agree entirely with Mr Byrne when he claims that a balance has been struck.
That is not what we hear from the Generic Medicines Association, which is very fearful that extension of this set of remedies to patent law will damage its interests and thus the interests of the health services of Europe and beyond.
A balance has not been struck.
Patents must be excluded, and the point about the commercial scale must be extended to the whole of the directive, not just to some parts of it.
Finally, I say with great personal sympathy for Mrs Fourtou that this case shows up a gap in our rules about declaration of interests.
The issue of familial interests needs to be included.
I say that without any personal discourtesy.
   – Mr President, it is important that the common position clearly focuses on commercial activity and the work of professional criminals. Copying on a small-scale for personal use will then be left alone.
We have no need or means to interfere when it is a matter of copying by private citizens.
In the information society the invasion of people’s privacy is a most dangerous and mostly ignored problem.
The counterfeiting of food products has risen by 75% and that of CDs by 15 000%, which is almost half of all musical recordings.
Approximately 20 000 jobs are lost each year.
It is important, however, that a distinction is made between conscious and unconscious infringement of copyright. This is also important because it safeguards product development in small companies by guaranteeing some sort of protection in the sea of patent legislation.
I am happy that there will therefore no longer be interference in criminal law, an area which lies within the competence of the Member States. The different practices and laws that exist in the Member States would make it an especially awkward task.
After all, the same package deals with patents and copyright.
Piracy, the result of commercial crime, takes away jobs.
Nevertheless, we should not interfere in the private lives of the innocent.
Let us make additional improvements to the next directive.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Directive on enforcement that we are discussing today is completely superfluous.
After all, there is already a directive in force regarding the harmonisation of copyright, and, besides, there is the Directive on e-commerce, which regulates, among other things, the rights and obligations of service providers.
This new Directive threatens to cause disruption on account of the obligation to monitor what users are doing.
The present compromise explicitly stipulates that previous directives remain fully in force, therefore, and that is the way it should be: why else do we make legislation here? We do not want a US-style situation in which legislation is made according to the misconceptions of the day.
This new Directive on enforcement officially declares people making illegal copies to be thieves, but everyone has known for a long time that pirating of software, CDs and DVDs is a punishable offence.
We certainly do not need a new directive to do this, and especially not one that fails to define the scope of intellectual property rights.
We in Europe have different criminal justice systems with different penalties, and we cannot harmonise legal systems with a single directive, particularly without a proper debate in this Parliament.
I can say that I am pleased that the compromise now restricts the scope of the directive to piracy for commercial purposes, as copying for personal use must continue to be permitted.
Nevertheless, I shall be voting against the Directive.
   The next item is the third report (A5-0118/2004) by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Commission communication on simplifying and improving the regulatory environment [COM(2001) 726 – C5-0108/2002 – 2002/2052(COS)].
   Mr President, I will take as a starting point the final words of the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, who quite rightly said that the proposal under discussion and the whole of his report is not against the Commission but, if anything, seeks to harmonise – and I believe that, on this occasion, this term is more apposite than ever before – and regulate better law-making.
As the coordinator of the parliamentary committee that reached an agreement on simplification of legislation (this interinstitutional agreement), I must say something about the importance of the debate that went on in my committee, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the report by Mr Medina Ortega.
This debate began before we worked on the interinstitutional agreement and continued afterwards.
The report which we are talking about was, therefore, a prerequisite for, and a consequence of, this interinstitutional agreement, which, had it been followed – please confirm this to me, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen – by the European Constitution, we would, I believe, have had a parliamentary term characterised by this strong connection and this desire to take into account the three institutions (Commission, Council and Parliament) around which Europe really revolves: the European Community.
I agree that the interinstitutional agreement is of course not everything: an agreement that prepares for a completely different role for Parliament, it is an agreement that must move forward.
This is why, quite rightly, the rapporteur states that, in improving community legislation, it is necessary to go beyond the interinstitutional agreement.
The interinstitutional agreement is, therefore, a condition, above all of the right to be consulted automatically – as Mr Medina Ortega rightly states in his report – in the areas of coregulation and self-regulation, that is to say a condition of Parliament’s right to be immediately informed by the Commission and to once and for all suspend the application of any voluntary agreement that it has not accepted.
I believe that these are the two points that give shape to this report and on which there could be a further agreement in the next parliamentary term, in order to lay the foundations for a balanced relationship between the three institutions that represent Europe.
– The debate is closed.The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
   Mr Sakellariou, I would prefer you not to make such a request.
Mr Liikanen cannot help it if his flight has landed late.
He arrived at the airport on time, but his plane was delayed because of weather conditions, so it may be another ten minutes before he arrives.
We must, however, avoid a situation in which instead of starting at 12 noon as scheduled, voting does not start until 12.15 or even 12.20.
You are well aware that it is very irritating for honourable Members if voting starts late.
I would suggest that we should give the floor to the first authors of the questions, as they are familiar with the subject, before the Commissioner joins us, and the Commissioner also knows what they wish to say. We can then continue once the Commissioner is with us, and he will be in a position to answer immediately.
That is my suggestion.
   We have a request then, an official request.
Do you wish to pursue your request, Mr Sakellariou? We have a speaker in favour of that request.
So what I wish to ask now is whether anyone is opposed to our suspending the sitting, anyone who is in favour of our continuing this debate even if the Commissioner may not arrive for five or ten minutes?
Does anyone wish to speak against the request?
It seems not.
We need to vote on this then: could I please have a show of hands from those supporting Mr Sakellariou's request that we should suspend the sitting for ten minutes until the Commissioner arrives?
Those against please? Are there any abstentions?
   – Mr President, only a small proportion of Israeli exports come from the settlements. The figure is definitely under 5%.
All the attention paid to this issue reflects the strong anti-Israeli sentiments of certain speakers. It is important to set the debate in context and bear in mind that the Oslo accords provide for unified customs arrangements.
The real question, therefore, is whether certain products are to be identified in a particular way. The Israelis seem ready to accept this.
Negotiations leading to an arrangement of this type will certainly resolve this problem, which is actually a relatively minor one.
Regarding the establishment of a special category, I believe that 60 years after the liberation of Europe, we must still guard against imposing a new yellow Star of David, even if it is only to apply to goods.
   Mr President, in my opinion, the whole of this debate goes against the history, culture and identity of the European left wing. Why are we talking about such an issue, for what reason?
We are not talking about something in order to contribute to the peace or to bring the sides to the table, but rather we are talking about a legal loophole with no repercussions, not even economic. What will this lead to?
What should we do tomorrow morning with the new labels?
Do you think, then, that tomorrow morning there will really be a major violation of international law on this matter? Or, should we then talk about the violation of international law in the form of the claims made by Abu Ali in our institution a few days ago, when he defined Hamas as a normal and general political force, rather than as a factor contributing to international terrorism?
That constitutes a violation of international law and not a debate on subjects of this nature. Furthermore, the hard-fought-for settlements that have been brought to the table so often in this discussion about associated products are not helping to put an end to peace, that much is certain.
It is certainly terrorism that prevents the parties from coming to the negotiating table.
Now we are talking about something serious.
I say to everyone: let us contribute to peace.
I say to the Commission: let us not make absurd allegations when discussing this, when we still have to clarify the issue of funds allocated for humanitarian aid: where did they really go? I believe that when we start to discuss legal matters in this House, the dialogue ends; or we hide behind legal pretexts.
So then, let us avoid this.
   Mr President, Commissioner Liikanen, ladies and gentlemen, I must admit that not just in Mr Turchi’s speech, with which we certainly agree, but also in the speeches by Mrs Morgantini and Mr Laschet, I detect a different mood from what we have seen to date.
The Commissioner’s speech is a speech that I would say, automatically to some extent, confirms the Commission’s position.
I fear that the Commission would have said the same if we had been discussing the situation in Vietnam, and would have done so on the basis of its usual course of action, that is to say one whereby, instead of monitoring rights and the law, it would have monitored and protected relations with Vietnamese power, murderous as this was.
Today, however, it seems to me that the Commission’s tone is to some extent justified by the very reasons stated by Mrs Morgantini and others.
The desire to narrow the focus within the framework of a complex situation that is slipping from our graspis, I believe, an error of method.
What I detect is not a love of the truth, but passion of the kind exhibited by the French Communist Member, who speaks about the wall of shame.
There are many scandals which your party, which has been silent up until 2004, should denounce.
Ladies and gentlemen, at the end of this parliamentary term, the real problem – and I am winding up here – is the fact that we continue to forget that the historic reasons that allowed us to make the progress that we have made in Europe to date have their origin in the statement – excellently summarised in the Ventotene Manifesto by Altiero Spinelli – according to which the self-contained nation state cannot produce democracy, freedom, progress or truth.
It is by imagining that it can that we continue, for example, mistakenly to posit the national State of Palestine as the problem we have to resolve on behalf of the Palestinians and the Israelis.
I believe that Israel too is lacking in imagination, strength and rigour in this area.
The Israeli parties too are like yours; they are European.
I would like to conclude by saying: let us hope, at the end of this parliamentary term, that the federalist ideals and the federalist method will very quickly prevail,with the accession to the European Union of Israel and of a Palestinian state of the kind you want to see: one founded on freedom and not on the abuse of power.
   Mr President, quite right, I made a totally ridiculous remark and I would like to correct it immediately.
I had thought and imagined that Mrs Morgantini could speak like Mrs Napoletano.
I apologise, Mrs Napoletano, and let us attribute to Mrs Morgantini what she said.
She continues to portray the war, from which we want to pull out, from a point of view that I do not agree with.
   The next item is the vote.(1)
   . – Mr President, the first amended budget for 2004, which is to be voted on shortly, relates to the accession of the new Member States on 1 May this year.
The Committee on Budgets has already approved this budget unanimously and, in principle, Parliament as a whole rubberstamped everything as long ago as December last year.
For legal reasons, we now have to make this official, which can be done presently.
I should like to point out that the observers in the Committee on Budgets have played a very active and constructive role in drawing up the budget with regard to the new countries, and we as the Committee on Budgets have increased certain payment appropriations.
Some people in the Council always think that Parliament is too generous when it comes to money and has, so to speak, a hole in its pocket.
I should like to draw your attention to the fact that with the enlargement through the accession of ten new countries, the percentage of the gross national income that is spent on the European budget is 0.98%, the lowest percentage since 1990.
This leads me to think that Parliament is good with money.
If you will be voting ‘yes’ – and I hope that you will do so in large numbers – then nothing will stop us financially from including all new Member States in the European Union on 1 May of this year.
   Mr President, I simply wanted to recall that since 1996, with the Nassuer report, this Parliament has rejected all the Council proposals concerning Europol, because the Council does not agree to communitarise Europol and to finance it with the Community budget.
This has led to Europol not being subject to any control, whether democratic or jurisdictional.
Given that the Council is not here and that the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs is calling, as it has already done, for the Council proposal to be rejected in accordance with Rule 68(3) of the Rules of Procedure, I ask that we immediately proceed to vote on the proposal.
   Mr Turco, I take note of your suggestion.
   Mr Cappato, the issue to which you refer – the passenger name records system and data exchange with the United States – will be expressly dealt with under the Boogerd-Quaak report on Wednesday of the next part-session.
   Mr President, I would simply like to tell the House that, in agreement with Mr Turco, there is a correction to the explanatory statement.
   Mr President, we are voting on the Paulsen report today.
It was only this morning that the amendments to this report became available in all languages.
I regard this as a very important report and there are a great many amendments.
I am not in a position to adopt a clear position on this report today, and I therefore request that the vote should be postponed until tomorrow.
   Mr President, we have been in a position to discuss Mrs Paulsen's report since last week.
The Council has not given us any indication that it still thinks there is any room for manoeuvre. I therefore see no reason for postponing the vote today.
We are well prepared and we also want to vote today.
   What is the opinion of the chairman of the committee, Mrs Jackson?
   Mr President, I should like to comment on what Mr MacCormick said.
The European Ombudsman has asked the Commission to carry out an investigation for the purpose of clarifying these financial declarations.
I would ask the Commission to reply to the European Ombudsman, for matters are as Mr MacCormick described.
There are things that are extremely unclear, and these must be clarified when the new Parliament meets.
I would ask the Commission to reply to the Ombudsman’s enquiry about the same issue.
   Mr MacCormick, you have raised a valid question, which I will bring to the attention of the Bureau, irrespective of what the Commission or other institutions may choose to do.
   Mr President, I wish to point out a linguistic problem with Amendment No 83 before the vote.
The English version says ‘seizure of the infringing goods’. The Italian version says‘seizure of the contentious goods’.
Therefore the English version refers to goods which are illegal, and the Italian version refers to those which could be illegal.
I do not feel we should add, in the hasty way with which we have been forced to act by the procedure followed, a further restriction to measures which already appear restrictive enough.
The same goes for ‘judicial authorities’, which in English means judges who pass judgment, whereas in Italian, it can also refer to investigating judges.
We should therefore clarify whether we are also conferring powers of investigating judges, which I hope is not the case, or only powers of adjudicating judges.
All these issues, without the rush, which we would have had to ...
   Mr President, I too would like to say, in relation to Amendment No 53, that the English version is the valid text.
‘Parasitic copies’ is therefore the correct wording.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council intends to establish a border protection agency.
This House has developed an alternative model, but we all know that the Council will disregard it.
Above all, I would like to draw the attention of the members of the Committee on Budgets to the fact that this agency, in addition to the 27 staff working there, is also to be controlled by 27 members of the Management Board and also by an Executive Board consisting of five members.
The Commission and the Council really are creating a bureaucratic monster here!
I wish to ask the Committee on Budgets, before it approves the funding for this agency, to enter into a further in-depth discussion with the Council.
No matter how much we support progress in this field, we simply cannot work like this in Europe.
I hope the Committee on Budgets will back us on this.
   . Mr President, there is an arrangement with the Socialist Party that Recital G should be deleted and that it should be part of a package including Amendment No 7.
Now that Amendment No 7 has been approved, the deletion of Recital G should be approved.
   . I voted in favour of this report, which proposes, without amendments, the approval of a Commission proposal intended to codify Council Decision 78/774/EEC, concerning the activities of certain third countries in the field of cargo shipping.
This Council decision aims to establish a set of information systems that will enable the various European institutions to be kept informed about activities of the fleets of third countries whose practices could be harmful to the maritime interests of Member States, and, most importantly, about the extent to which these fleets may adversely affect the competitiveness of those of Member States taking part in international maritime trade.
These systems must also facilitate the provision and consultation of information at intra-Community level.
So as not to destroy the substance of the acts to be codified, the Commission’s proposal is limited to compiling them and putting them together in one document, subject only to the formal amendments required by the actual codification process.
This process should also serve as clarification, given that Council Decision 78/774/EEC has been substantially amended several times.
   . This report approves the Commission’s proposal for a Regulation, which aims to prepare the countries of the Western Balkans for future accession, by familiarising them with the policies and working methods of the EU.
More specifically, all natural and legal persons from the Member States covered by Regulation (EC) No 2666/2000 are permitted to take part in tenders organised under the pre-accession Community assistance programmes.
This proposal thus gives added impetus to the stabilisation and association process.
These measures address what was approved at the Thessaloniki European Council.
I therefore voted in favour of this report.
   . In December, Parliament approved the budget for 2004 – both the Community budget for the EU of 15, and, in collaboration with the Council, indicative values for enlargement to ten new Member States.
The focus was, therefore, on a Community budget for 25, even though enlargement does not actually take place until May.
The aim of this Draft Amending Budget is to establish fixed amounts for the EU of 25.
The issue here is not merely technical, yet nor is it primarily procedural.
The key issue is the content of the first budget of an EU enlarged to include countries in which average incomes per head are substantially lower than the current EU average; a budget with payment spending raised to the level of inflation; the lowest budget, in real terms, since 1987; a budget that is not only incapable of contributing towards economic and social cohesion, but also institutionalises discrimination towards the new Member States; a budget that sets a bad example of Parliament’s role as a budgetary authority, as, year after year, it accepts cuts and redeployments, which, in spite of worthy protests, tally with the objectives of the ‘Charter of the six’.
This budget does not augur well for the 2007/2013 financial framework.
It is characterised by political aims that are dominated by the obsession with competitiveness, and in which social issues are replaced by military and security issues.
It would be difficult for a budget to be any more explicit.
   . The forest fires last summer in Portugal left a trail of death and devastation – 11% of forests and 5% of Portuguese territory caught fire.
This clearly illustrates the need to fund forest fire prevention measures that will preserve the EU’s rich and extensive forest heritage, particularly in southern Member States and the Mediterranean fringe, which are affected by such fires every year.
Appropriate measures are also required, however, at Community level.
The new forest protection programme, Forest Focus, which was approved last year and which runs until 2006, includes measures for combating forest pollution.
Measures required for preventing forest fires, however, are consigned to rural development, thereby undermining the continuity of measures funded thus far.
It should not be forgotten that, in various resolutions, Parliament has asked for increased funds for the forest protection programme and for fire prevention measures to be included.
We therefore regret that, when the reference amounts for the programme were being adapted, the opportunity was not taken to consider the needs of enlargement, in order to adjust aims and increase appropriations.
In spite of the large increase in the forest area of the EU, only EUR 4 million for the ten new Member States has been added to the already paltry EUR 61 million for this period ...
   The European political parties, or rather the manna from heaven that ought to fund them, amount to a rather sorry sight.
This is how I understand Mrs Voynet’s declaration of her faith in Europe by the creation of a European Green Party. She also expressed her concern that Europe is not sufficiently loved by its citizens.
I doubt that this self-interested love demonstrated by the Greens, and by all the other political parties developing the necessary structures to be able to emerge, will actually strengthen the democracy of the European Union.
The report of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has been cobbled together in a makeshift manner. It is a legal monster born of Regulation (EC) No 2004/2003, which, after numerous setbacks, was adopted on 4 November 2003.
The regulation is currently the subject of an appeal before the Court of Justice, which I filed together with several of my fellow Members, thus showing that the delegation of the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities is equally determined to oppose this new resolution.
Further, we see the new politico-financial responsibilities devolved to the Bureau of the European Parliament as a cause for concern.
The Bureau will be sitting in judgment upon itself. There is also likely to be extra work, in the very short –term, for the Court of Auditors and for OLAF.
   Mr President, I believe Mrs Frassoni made a comment about voting on Amendment No 4.
A number of votes were taken en bloc.
If I am correct, I think the point she made was that temporary committees would no longer have the same status as they have had in the past: Parliament would not be able to set up temporary committees.
Mr Corbett, am I right on this point?
   I do not want to encourage a debate here, but Mr Corbett, please make a brief response.
   Mr President, I can allay the fears of colleagues: Mrs Frassoni was mixing up committees of inquiry and temporary committees.
I will take the matter up bilaterally with her.
   Mr President, on my own and Mrs Boogerd-Quaak’s behalf, I would state that we voted against the Fourtou report in the final vote.
Certainly, it is important that measures be taken to combat piracy, but the regulations as amended go much further.
In particular, extending the regulations to include patents would be a mistake.
We can also concur with Mr Schnellhardt’s criticism of the procedure, a criticism that can also apply where this point is concerned.
For example, the group had extremely few opportunities to discuss this matter before we faced having to make a final decision.
There is also justification for observing that more than 50 leading experts on intellectual property law in Europe appealed to Parliament to look more carefully at the matter, something we have not, however, done.
The legal basis can also be questioned, since the procedure is now at issue.
Pursuant to Article 95 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Community has not usually approved such procedures.
I wish therefore to observe that we have obtained regulations that may damage small enterprises and that are not limited to combating piracy, which is what is important.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I did not vote for the amendments to the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure on the financing of political parties; not because I am not in agreement with all this, but because it is the logical consequence of the fact that back in June last year my colleagues and I voted against the Leinen report.
Implementing the regulation in this way amounts to discrimination against the smaller party groupings in this House, which although they are active at European level nevertheless are not represented in any group.
Financial support is given to large party groupings but not to smaller ones, thus creating a huge gap in terms of democratic deficit between these two kinds of grouping.
We all know that parties and their organisations are dependent on financial contributions.
This creates an uneven playing field between the parties at European level, and I cannot vote for that.
   Thank you, Mr Turmes.
As you know, Mr MacCormick has already raised this question in a different way.
For our part, I will put the question of interests, including family interest, to our Bureau.
I will then be guided by its wisdom.
This issue has certainly been the subject of much discussion within the House.
I am not referring to this particular rapporteur nor to today’s report, but to the principle.
This is a problem that we must address.
   We have chosen to vote against the compromise on the harmonisation of the Member States’ legislation on intellectual property rights, mainly because of the amendments to Article 9 that have been tabled.
If the proposals for amending Article 9 are adopted, this will lead to conflict with Swedish legal tradition, especially the principle of the free sifting of evidence.
We believe that, if such large alterations are to be made to legislation and thus to Swedish legal tradition, the changes should be well thought through and well worked out, and not arrived at in a hurry as these have been.
We are not therefore opposed to altering the legislation, but we do not believe that the changes are satisfactory in their current form.
   . Due to the increase in the external land, sea and air borders that will need to be monitored after enlargement takes place in May 2004, the European Union needs an effective system for managing its external borders, in particular to combat international terrorism and organised crime, illegal immigration, trafficking in arms, drugs and human beings and to combat crime at sea.
For this reason, I support the establishment of a European Agency for the Management of Operational Co-operation at the External Borders.
It was, incidentally, in this context, that I suggested – and plenary adopted this suggestion last November – a proposal to the effect that, when the next financial perspective is negotiated, Community programmes should be put in place to support defence re-fitting, in particular, a programme exclusively dedicated to developing equipment to protect the EU’s external borders.
Nevertheless, given the intergovernmental nature of border control and in light of the experience that each of the Member States has acquired in performing this task, I believe that each Member State should be represented on the Agency’s Management Board to ensure that it can benefit from the skills and knowledge acquired ‘on the ground’ by each country at its own borders.
Since the report did not see fit to take up this concern, however, I felt obliged to vote against it.
   . Since the 1990s, the Council has launched several actions to reconcile work and family life, making this a highly topical issue, and 2004 has consequently been declared International Year of the Family
Mrs Bastos’s report argues that everyone should be able to choose whether to work or to stay at home and, if they decide to work, they must be able to reconcile working life with the needs of the family, whether in terms of children or the elderly, who are increasingly part of the family setup.
I could not agree more with this principle and I therefore welcome not only Mrs Bastos’s request that the European Commission evaluate the state of policies for reconciling family life, working life and private life, both in the current Member States and in the candidate countries, but also the emphasis she gives to measures to be implemented to support the family.
These include financial assistance for childcare and education, vouchers for the recruitment of home helps for families with disabled children and vouchers to help low-income families with three children or more.
   .– I should like to take this opportunity to express my agreement with Mrs Junker's original report.
Unfortunately, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats has tabled a list of amendments which are not acceptable to my group.
In Europe, it goes without saying that women are entitled to good sexual and reproductive health, and it is totally beyond me why the Group of the European People’s Party does not want people in the developing countries to be given the same.
Moreover, President Bush's conservative administration, by reintroducing the Mexico City policy and continuing to make false accusations that abortion would be the UNFPA’s (The United Nations Population Fund) main objective, does rather complicate the work in the field of sexual and reproductive health care, and this should very definitely be denounced. Finally, I very much question the Group of the European People’s Party’s viewpoint that the family deserves all protection.
What about the young girls and women who have been raped in war situations or otherwise? Or what about the women and girls who are forced, by their environment, and particularly by members of their family, to suffer sexual mutilation?
Should we leave them to their own devices? My group does not think so, and has therefore voted against all these amendments.
   That will be corrected.(1)
   The next item is the report (A5-0107/2004) by Mr Andreasen on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the Guantanamo detainees' right to a fair trial (2003/2229(INI)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0112/2004) by Mr Lagendijk on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the proposal for a Council regulation on the establishment of European Partnerships in the framework of the Stabilisation and Association Process (COM(2003)684 – C5-0574/2003 – 2003/0267(CNS)).
   Thank you, Commissioner Verheugen.
   – Mr President, Commissioner Verheugen has won me over.
I will be voting in favour.
I trust him to do the right thing, and hope that he will do so.
   Mr President, Commissioner, having listened to Commissioner Reding briefly, I am lost for words because it seems to me that this subject is very important.
One may be a qualified teacher, but what can you do without resources, without money, especially at European level? The Council of Ministers occasionally shows greater generosity towards European projects, but it is difficult for it to do so because, as we know, with subsidiarity education normally remains a national matter.
However that may be, if I am speaking on my own behalf and not as a Member of the European Parliament, if I am speaking as a former history teacher, I recognise that while money is indeed important for education there is something even more important.
As Mrs Reding would say, education is also about training and the mind.
Everyone here today, including those in the public gallery, was once a child and went to school and we can all remember good teachers.
We forget the bad teachers and remember the good ones.
What is a good teacher? It is someone who loves his subject, who also loves his pupils and also, of necessity, their families.
This report by rapporteurs Pack, Prets and Iivari is very important and I pay tribute to their work.
It is not the end of the story, however.
The end of the story would be that the generations that come after us should perhaps be able to achieve something that goes beyond what our regional and national systems can give.
From our point of view as Members of Parliament, members of an EU institution, there is room for culture and education at European level.
I hope that this report will be well received by the Council of Ministers and that teachers and pupils will thus be able to expand their minds a little.
Culture and education are neither regional nor national nor European, they are all three at once.
   – Mr President, the legal package before us aims at creating a legal basis for certain cultural, educational and youth action programmes.
The purpose of these is to provide institutions and organisations in this area with financial support.
The European Parliament’s budget has been used, in accordance with the A-30 lines, to support certain institutions, and NGOs that function on a voluntary basis in particular, which have promoted European activity and strengthened European identity.
Over the years grants for organisations have become established to the extent that their allocation has been something that former recipients of aid have taken for granted.
Selecting which organisations and institutions should receive financial support seems to have been a remarkably arbitrary process.
New operators have said that inclusion has been very difficult, as the selection criteria have been vague.
The choice seems to have been influenced more by the fact that the organisations selected have had strong advocates on the relevant parliamentary committees than by the quality of their operation being superior to that of others.
This detail received attention when the Financial Regulation was being reviewed, with appropriations earmarked in the budget headings finally being cut or cancelled.
The legal package now under discussion will create a legal basis for grants to organisations active in the fields of education, culture and youth work.
The aim must be for the forms of financial assistance from the European Union to be transparent and properly justified.
This means that grants to organisations that are repeated and taken for granted should be few in number or they should not exist at all.
Organisations and institutions have to demonstrate clearly that they are centres of excellence and better than others in the field.
Funding must be based on applications assessed impartially and fairly. Financing has to be channelled in a way that clearly defines those targets the achievement of which the EU supports, and any recipient of aid must produce a credible report on the use of funds.
I wish to thank the rapporteurs, Ulpu Iivari, Doris Pack and Christa Prets for their excellent reports.
   The next item is the Commission Communication on the new generation of Community education and training programmes 2007 – 2013 and on ‘Active Citizenship’.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, let me start by thanking you for keeping to the timetable.
It is good to see the new programme already up and running, and I would like to put three short questions to you.
Since you want to increase and extend everything – Leonardo, for example, from 45 000 participants to 150 000, 10% primary schoolchildren rather than 1.5%, a leap from 2 000 to 50 000 in adult education, and more of the same besides – how much can we expect in the Budget?
We used to get 0.8%; if we want improved performance and higher quality, that will have to be paid for somehow.
Also, in what sort of stages is this objective to be achieved? How is it proposed to achieve it by 2012 or 2010, and who will then bear the additional expenditure if – as I am given to understand – many countries are no longer prepared to contribute more than 1% to the European budget?
Mrs Gröner gave voice to the fear that it would be detrimental to young people if youth, culture and media were to be lumped together in one package.
I can tell her that she can rely on me not to allow that.
When we present the actual programmes in July, you will see that young people will not have been forgotten.
We always say that they are the future of this Europe of ours, and that is indeed the case.
The only thing is our deeds have to back up what we say.
Is the Commission aware that there is profound concern in Scotland concerning perceived abuses by the Norwegian state of a dominant position in the fish-farming industry? Will the Commission, in this light, indicate what steps it is taking and has taken to prevent abuse by Norwegian state-controlled and other interests and by the Nutreco Group of the Netherlands (the management policies of whose aquacultural interests are believed to be determined in Stavanger), particularly in respect of feeding materials?
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will give a very direct answer to that question. The Commission is prepared to conduct an in-depth investigation of the alleged abuse of a dominant position in the European Union’s fish production as and when evidence of such abuse is produced.
As long ago as 1992, we ruled to prohibit a price cartel operated by Norwegian, Scottish and Irish salmon breeders.
We are liasing on a regular basis with the Norwegian authorities as regards observation of the markets referred to in the question.
As I have said, I am prepared to examine the available information in depth and, if need be, to set in motion other investigations into this matter.
   Commissioner, I join Mr MacCormick in thanking you for your direct answer.
He and I have been passing information week after week to you and your colleagues but have found there to be a rather roundabout relationship between you for aquaculture, Mr Monti for competition policy and Mr Lamy for trade, which makes life very difficult.
Can I ask the three of you to join forces and work in a joined-up way, in order to prosecute this particular problem with the utmost urgency?
The life is being squeezed out of our constituents in Scotland.
   . Mr MacCormick, I share your view that the situation is unsatisfactory but, nevertheless, there is no empty field, as I said.
Firstly, there is the European Convention on Human Rights, which deals with fair trial rules, and which has been subscribed to by all Member States and all acceding states.
Secondly, there are some specific procedural rules in the framework decision on the European arrest warrant as such and, thirdly, I am fully supportive of the idea of the Charter of Fundamental Rights being legally binding, with constitutional status.
As soon as we resolve the minor matters of the weighting of votes, it will come into force, I am sure.
   As the author is not present, Question No 30 lapses.
What position will the Commission adopt with regard to the concerns, expressed by the Galician fisheries sector to Commissioner Fischler during his working visit to Vigo, that it would be appropriate for the Agency to take on duties relating to research and the improvement of the scientific principles governing the state of fishery resources and to consider the possible introduction of a system for the exchange of fishing quotas between Community enterprises? According to the Galician proposal, this would make its responsibilities similar to those of other agencies, such as the ones dealing with the internal market or the promotion of social dialogue.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 13 December 2003, the European Council gave the go-ahead for the establishment of a Community Fisheries Control Agency, on which, at the end of this month, the Commission will submit a proposal in which we will define this new authority’s tasks.
The most important of these will be the coordination of the joint deployment of the control services in the Member States.
The checks are to be carried out by, among others, multinational teams, with the inspection strategies to be used, such as benchmarking and common priorities, laid down by the Commission.
We will also be involving experts from the Member States in the setting-up of the agency and consulting the various interest groups.
We expect a study to be produced in September on the operational aspects of this agency, and its results will be discussed by the Council when making its decision.
On the occasion of my most recent visit to Vigo, the Galician fisheries sector suggested potential sites for this agency; I will of course examine these suggestions in detail, and they will also be considered in the studies to which I have referred.
Provided that the Council accepts our proposal, it will then be possible to appoint the board of management and the executive director, and then this enterprise will be, in a sense, up and running.
   Commissioner, I was aware, as you would expect, of your visit to Vigo, my birthplace, and I know that the city’s fishing sector, one of the largest in Galicia, in the Spanish State and in Europe, has just issued a set of suggestions concerning the duties and competences of this Agency, which I believe deserve a concrete answer from you.
Furthermore, I believe that you should promote an open dialogue with the sector before defining the Agency’s regulations and I believe that this institution could provide the much-needed link between those working in the industry and the scientific institutions.
In any event, I wish to ask you expressly whether the Commission has already received the proposal from the Spanish State to ensure that the Agency’s headquarters are established in Vigo and when you think it will be definitively established there.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the Commission is of course aware of the presence of Spanish fishing vessels in the waters off the Azores, there does appear to be a certain misunderstanding here on the part of the Portuguese authorities as regards the applicability of Regulation 1954/2003.
Article 5 of this Regulation, which governs the conditions under which fish may be caught in the waters around the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands, states that the Member States can reserve to local vessels the catching of fish within 110 miles of the coast.
That has been the case ever since 14 November 2003, when this legal provision entered into force.
It is for the Member States to ensure that these regulations are complied with.
It follows that the presence of Spanish vessels in the waters around the Azores outside the 100 nautical-mile limit does not justify any emergency measures of the kind suggested by Mr Casaca, as these ships are complying with the rules on access.
I would remind you, in this context, of the Commission’s statement on the occasion of Regulation 1954/2003’s adoption by the Council, when we also announced a ban on trawling off the Azores, with the intention of preventing damage to the vulnerable ecosystems on the sea bed.
On 3 February this year, we submitted to the Council a proposal for a regulation on this subject.
The Commission is also engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the Member States concerned with the intention of ensuring that any friction in the implementation of the new rules is minimised as far as possible.
   Mr President, I am sure this is an oversight, Commissioner, but you did not refer to Article 15 of this Regulation, which is very specific as regards revoking the system that currently preserves Azorean waters.
The date referred to is 1 August or, alternatively, the date of the entry into force of the set of implementing regulations on the fishing effort, which has not yet entered into force.
This article cannot be revoked on anyone’s whim.
The Council, the only legal authority to have delivered an opinion on the matter to date, as stated in the Minutes of the Council meeting of 19 February, has stated unequivocally that this date must be respected.
I wish to ask you, Commissioner, by what right do you think you can revoke an article for which no other interpretation is possible and which protects the territorial waters of the Azores until 31 July?
   . Mr President, for a start, I can assure Mr Casaca that we have consulted our legal services, whose view of these things is precisely that which I have put to you, and no other.
What we have decided, in principle, is that, on the one hand, a new boundary of 100 nautical miles has been laid down, whilst, on the other, the fisheries protection zone has been extended to cover more species of fish, instead of protecting only tuna fishing as was formerly the case.
So, even if you rely on Article 15, I cannot help you.
The Spanish action in the case to which you refer was quite proper.
   . I regret, Mr Patakis, that I have to correct you on this.
This is very far from being the same situation as in Spain, nor is it very astute of you, as a Greek MEP, to argue along these lines, as, in 1998, when these things were laid down, Greece’s national guaranteed quota was – as you quite rightly said – 419.5 thousand tonnes, corresponding to 23.6% of the total for the EU.
If you compare that with the number of trees that you have, which make up only 20% of the overall total, and with the surface in hectares, which amounts to only 18.8% of that in the EU, there would actually be justification for transferring part of your guaranteed amount to Spain, rather than in the direction in which you have called for it to go.
   . Mr President, Mr Howitt, ladies and gentlemen, in the Commission Communication of 29 September last year, we put forward three possible options, one of which is based on a quota system.
As a thorough impact analysis has shown that implementing the ‘Everything But Arms’ agreement with the help of an ordered system of rights to supply the market would have a similar effect to what is being done already, we decided instead to consider the ‘fixed quotas’ option as a variant of the status quo, so all the options continue to be open to discussion.
I would also remind you, though, that the ‘Everything But Arms’ initiative is the part of the EC’s general preference system that envisages the complete liberalisation of sugar imports from the least developed countries by 2009.
Until then, the sugar trade would normally continue on the same basis as trade in other agricultural produce.
The least developed countries’reference to flexibility in terms of quantity and negotiated quantitative restrictions could raise questions about compatibility with WTO rules if they were to be seen as a sort of voluntary limitation of exports.
As you will be able to gather from what I have said, we really will not, in our deliberations, lose sight of the situation of the least developed countries, and will be taking it very seriously.
On 3 March, representatives and ministers from the least developed countries presented a new initiative in relation to our rules on the duty-free preferential access of their sugar to the Community market, and I discussed it with them.
We will examine this proposal with great care, as we do all contributions to our preparations for the reform of the common market organisation for sugar.
The initiative aims, over an extended period, to broaden the access that is at present limited.
As we work on these proposals in preparation for their presentation this summer, we will take due account of all contributions received.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, I share Mrs Isler Béguin’s concern.
Air contamination is indeed a crucial issue as far as people’s health is concerned, and an epidemiological investigation such as this is definitely needed. This would also lend much support to giving priority to science’s Sixth Framework Programme and improving the standard, quality and coverage of environmental research.
In your reply you mentioned the Clean Air for Europe programme: CAFE.
Will this programme concentrate just on the quality of the air outdoors and pollution, or could the investigation at the same time include a survey of the quality of the air indoors and especially passive smoking? I am very worried that the investigation will restrict itself to the quality of the air outdoors and rather narrowly to the contamination of this type of air.
Might one consider it applying to clean air in all its forms, including that to be found indoors? Could passive smoking in particular come within the scope of the survey in this programme?
The Commission considers that the project for the Lada-Velilla power line, to cross the Redes national park and biosphere reserve, will not be carried out in its current form.
Will the Commission ensure compulsory examination of a complete route for this power line which would go round the protected nature reserves forming part of the Natura 2000 network, safeguard the areas where bears live and hence respect Community legislation?
Has the Commission already received the environmental impact study which the Spanish authorities, at the meeting of 4 December, promised to forward before the end of January?
If not, does not the Commission consider that the matter should be referred to the Court of Justice (a reasoned opinion was issued in April 2003) so that central government and the Community of Castille and Leon, who are already confronting each other about this project in the Spanish courts, may finally reach agreement on finding a route for the power line which ensures respect for the environment?
   Mr President, Commissioner, the population is concerned about the Spanish Government’s lack of transparency and also about the lack of reliable information from this Commission, which says one thing and then reforms and does another. I am just going to focus on three questions: will the Commission continue the infringement procedure rather than closing the case, as the Spanish authorities hope with its promise to modify just 30 km of the 90 km route planned, arguing that it is a new project?
Will the Commission consult the Court of Justice of the European Communities at the next infringement meeting without further delay, if there are no new elements a year after the notification of the reasoned opinion and after four years of investigation of this infringement case? If the regions of Asturias and Castilla y León present it with a new project which respects all natural areas and which conform to Community legislation, would the Commission be prepared to cofinance such a project, in order to prevent the economic losses which the region of Asturias could face by dismantling the existing pylons?
   . The case in question concerns the part of the project that will not now be implemented.
That part of the project will be replaced by a new one once the full procedure of identifying impacts and exploring alternatives has been completed.
That means that it would, in any case, be a new project and that the old procedure may have to be discontinued.
In that case, should the Commission consider that the new project does not comply with European Community law, a new procedure would be initiated afresh.
The Spanish authorities provided information on these developments in February 2004.
The infringement covers only the non-implemented part of the project.
We cannot take that case to court as it stands.
   I wish to thank Commissioner Wallström for her detailed, informative reply and to assure her that I am aware of the serious concern with which she has always treated this matter.
Indeed, in her reply, she referred to the action plan, the climate strategy and the Sixth Framework Programme.
I should like to compliment her on her interest in pursuing the whole matter.
I hope that the situation will continue to be monitored and will continue to improve.
This issue is one of major international concern, but I know that it could not be in better hands that those of the Commissioner.
   I am alarmed to hear the Commissioner's conclusions because it certainly does not seem that the trophy hunting to which I referred is being done with the aim of conservation at all.
I logged on to a website this afternoon, which would have given me the opportunity to go to Tanzania.
It offers the 'discerning sportsman' the ultimate hunting experience: large buffalo, lion, water buck, very rare East African sitatunga, leopards, antelopes, etc.
My information is that in the last six years British people have been abroad and shot at least 40 African elephants, 32 leopards, 18 polar bears, six hippos – I could go on.
Worldwide, this is something like over 3 800 African elephants, over 2 600 rare leopards and 9 000 bears.
These are not being slaughtered in the interests of conservation, or with any reference to conversation in the areas.
It is trophy hunting: people who go out and shoot big game and come home proudly but sickeningly with a trophy of the head of a rare animal.
Would the Commissioner think again, and would she agree to meet me to go through some of these statistics, to see some of the evidence and to put in place a ban on the import of CITES-listed animals into the European Union?
   It beggars belief that, in a so-called civilised society in the 21st century, there is still trophy hunting.
It is horrific!
It goes back to colonial times when the British came back from the colonised countries and hung their trophies on the wall.
We should have got past this stage.
It is ridiculous.
I agree with Mr Evans about CITES-listed species.
There should be a ban on them.
It is not acceptable.
Apart from that, it is clear that there are illegal imports of trophies into the European Union; surely there must be some way of ensuring that this does not happen.
The European Union puts huge resources and effort into keeping out so-called illegal immigrants, yet it cannot stop the illegal import of trophies.
We should get our priorities right.
Let people in, not these trophies.
   The next item is the report (A5-0047/2004) by Mr Kronberger on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on arsenic, cadmium, mercury, nickel and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in ambient air (COM(2003) 423 – C5-0331/2003 – 2003/0164(COD)).
   Mr President, this report illustrates the need for Parliament to put in place a systematic approach to impact assessment.
In this instance, the rapporteur Mr Kronberger with, as he admits, slim support by two votes from the members of the committee, is proposing to change non-mandatory target values to mandatory limit values for arsenic, cadmium, nickel and benzopyrene.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy informally sought – and this was the first time it was carried out – a cost-benefit analysis.
There is no mechanism yet within Parliament for this.
The trouble is that it is inevitably incomplete, given the time pressures within which we had to operate.
It concludes, and Mr Kronberger has drawn comfort from this, that some of the proposed limit values are achievable – 'feasible' in his words.
That is a technical assessment.
When the study comes to look at the costs of reaching the target, as the Commissioner said, things are not so rosy.
In the study drawn up for Parliament, the precise costs of reaching the limit values that Mr Kronberger wants are not analysed in any systematic way.
The study itself says that, for arsenic, some plants might be able to comply but some could not and that 'a more detailed analysis of the reasons why compliance by the other plants will be impossible seems to be justified'.
The rapporteur, faced with the impossible, prefers to ignore this stark verdict.
In the case of the application of limit values to cadmium, the study again draws attention to the lack of detailed information on the impact of what Mr Kronberger proposes.
In the case of limit values for nickel, the study notes that applying limit values on the Kronberger lines would require investments beyond best available techniques.
What Mr Kronberger now has to demonstrate is how far what the Commission proposes constitutes a proven danger to human health, how this danger is inadequately dealt with through the provisions of the IPPC Directive and why therefore it is worth pursuing his idea for mandatory limit values irrespective of the cost.
In my view, he has completely failed to demonstrate that and all we have is the bald observation in his explanatory statement that 'no limit value can be set below which these substances constitute no risk to human health'.
There is no way in which he is capable of going in the direction of what the Commission is proposing.
If Parliament is unwise enough, in a first reading compromise or in a second reading – which might be a long way ahead – to endorse what Mr Kronberger wants, then it will only have itself to blame if the Council, or perhaps the Commission, carries out the real, extensive cost-benefit analysis that Mr Kronberger does not have.
Arriving at a point where cost-benefit analyses are on our agenda is not a sign of obstructionism, it is a sign that Parliament is at long last moving from seeing itself as a pressure group for the environment and evolving into a responsible part of the legislative process.
But with the Kronberger report as it is, we clearly have a long way to go.
Mr Kronberger and the Commissioner have mentioned the possibility of a first reading agreement.
I cannot see how on earth there can be a first reading agreement between Mr Kronberger's approach and that which, I imagine, the Council has endorsed.
I would like to think we could have a first reading agreement, but somebody has got to move and I hope it is Parliament.
   – Mr President, Mr Kronberger's report receives unqualified support from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
Limit values are needed, for example for arsenic.
This is a real problem in my country.
The town of Coevorden near the German border has made the decision to incinerate virtually all the old railway sleepers in Europe, thus releasing the arsenic from them into the ambient air.
That is completely wrong and that is why we need strict limit values.
If these cannot be put in place straight away because the political majority is not in favour, that is extremely regrettable, but these heavy metals are carcinogenic and their use has to be curbed.
If that is to be done via target values as a short-term measure, then that receives my reluctant agreement.
However, in the longer term, limit values definitely have to be introduced on the basis of one extra cancer case in one million cases.
We adopted exactly the same guiding principle for the drinking water directive, which was accepted by the Commission, the body that had proposed the principle, the Council and Parliament.
Why do we not do the same in the case of arsenic, cadmium, mercury and nickel? That would be the way forward towards a possible compromise.
   Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, I will not repeat what my fellow Member, Mr Lavarra has already said – because I fully agree with his report on olive oil – but I wanted to say a few things about the question of tobacco.
I also wanted to point out to the Commissioner that not only is there a problem concerning the depressed areas of the Mediterranean, a problem regarding monoculture where it is difficult to recover and convert the land, but also and above all a problem of social cohesion, in addition to the problem of ancillary activities and consequently the loss of thousands of jobs which endangers precisely the social stability of this reality.
Therefore, while the issue of agriculture – in particular the CAP issue – also must be considered from a political viewpoint – just as we want Europe to do with respect to all the decisive issues for its development – it must be said that we have to make an effort, Commissioner, more of an effort to salvage something with regard to Mediterranean crops, since too much is done in favour of mainland agriculture, for France and Germany.
It is a problem.
No one says it, perhaps no one is brave enough, but someone has to say it and so I am defending Mediterranean crops; the health-conscious approach which is being propounded here is totally hypocritical: if we no longer use Kentucky tobacco, which is a healthy leaf, we will go and get our tobacco from Turkey, where the leaves are not healthy because they are contaminated by pesticides.
As a consequence, citizens’ health will be put at risk and the States will not ban smoking, as they will continue to receive excise duties.
   Mr President, I join my fellow Members in their criticisms of the Commission’s proposal for tobacco, but I will also try to explain why I am rejecting it with regard to the reasons set out in its favour.
One female Member even referred to savings for the Community agriculture budget but it will have quite the opposite effect, since European manufacturers will have to buy tobacco from third countries leading to increased costs, lower employment and larger deficits of the Community trade budget.
The conversion idea, already rejected by many, including here, and which I do not support either, might be a possible solution for other crops, but certainly is not for tobacco.
There are no suitable, economical alternatives because tobacco is grown on small holdings.
The possible crops are Mediterranean ones, which are already ring-fenced by Community production quotas and bans.
In support of tobacco, though, is its highly cost-effective production.
An hour’s work on tobacco costs the Community budget EUR 5.7.
To give a comparison with other crops, durum wheat costs EUR 21.4 and corn costs EUR 12.8.
The fight against cancer really is an untenable reason.
Indeed, the possible elimination of European tobacco in order to contribute to the fight against cancer is totally irrelevant.
Moreover, already today, as has been pointed out, 80% of the tobacco consumed in Europe is imported.
On the other hand, the Commission has been more sensible with regard to olive oil.
The proposal it has tabled in this regard is undoubtedly acceptable, especially if it is perfected by maintaining the commitment to give the Member States broad leeway to decide the extent of decoupling, which in any case is already acceptable as the 60/40 ratio determined by the committee.
And the States must be given other opportunities to intervene in terms of quality too.
   Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.(1)
The Commission can accept the following amendments wholly or partly and subject to rewording: 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 15, 20, 21 (1st part), 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35, 38, 40, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51 (1st part), 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 62 (1st and 3rd part), 63, 65, 66, 68 (2nd part), 70 (1st part), 71, 75 and 79.
With regard to Amendment No 76, the Commission considers that the use of penal sanctions would be an important strengthening of controls on food and feed operators.
The Commission refutes the Parliament's and Council's view that Article 55(2) and (3) relate to the third pillar.
On the other hand it notes that this issue has already been submitted to the Court of Justice for determination (in another case).
In these circumstances and taking into account the overall political context of this procedure, the Commission is prepared to withdraw Article 55(2) and (3) of this current proposal awaiting the Court's determination of this issue and reserves the right to propose again measures providing for criminal sanctions in this field.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 4, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 21 (2nd part), 22, 30, 34, 37, 39, 41, 47, 51 (2nd part), 53, 54, 59, 61, 62 (2nd part), 64, 67, 68 (1st part), 69, 70 (2nd part), 72, 73, 74, 77 or 78.
   The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the preparation of the European Council in Brussels, 25 and 26 March 2004 – follow up to the IGC.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am fully aware of the importance of this debate on the future of Europe.
I would, however, like to take this opportunity to refer to an emergency very close to our hearts as Radical Members, and for which my colleague, Mr Dupuis, has been on hunger strike for over 30 days.
We consider it to be an emergency for Europe’s present, one which unfortunately, was not an emergency for Europe’s recent past.
I would like to turn once more, Mr President—in—Office of the Council, Commissioners, to the Chechen question.
This debate is certainly important for the future and for the institutions, but if we let the present go by, the horrors of the present, we will lose credibility when we want to construct a different future.
Well, Mr President, Mr President—in—Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, as everyone knows – but no one reacted – over the course of recent weeks, the Russian authorities organised, using the puppet government in Chechnya as a cover, a series of about 30 arrests of relatives of Umar Khambiev, Chechen Minister for Health and emissary of President-elect, Aslan Maskhadov.
His brother Magomed Minister for Defence, gave himself up to avoid further bloodshed.
Starting on 29 February, in dramatic raids, dozens of masked armed men from Russian forces and Chechen militia surrounded villages, entered houses, hit, insulted and threatened to kill members of the Khambiev family to the last; they abducted and took away those members of the Khambiev family that they managed to find there.
There has been no further news of them.
Seven hundred men arrived in armoured vehicles in Benoi, the village of birth of the Khambievs, and having beaten the inhabitants and destroyed everything they could destroy, they kidnapped seven people and demanded that Umar and Magomed surrender.
Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what is happening in Europe – and Parliament has repeatedly spoken out in this regard, from a humanitarian and at times even political point of view – must form part of our political present.
Concern has already been expressed even by the US administration.
In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, we are calling for the Red Cross to be authorised to visit the Khambiev family and the Minister for Defence, Mr Khambiev.
These Geneva Conventions should be observed, Mr President.
We are going to put a question to the Council straightaway, but I think it is our duty to at least react to these methods.
Not just with radical non-violence but also by means of European political presence and compliance with the Geneva Conventions.
We achieved this even for Saddam Hussein, who received a visit from the Red Cross; it is inconceivable that we cannot even achieve this in this case.
   – Mr President, in seeking solutions to the EU’s institutional reforms and the problems that have resulted from the failure of the Intergovernmental Conference, we must keep our minds on the internal market and maintaining and improving the competitiveness of our economy.
The implementation of internal market legislation at national level is an absolute precondition for achieving the Lisbon objectives.
An increase in the implementation deficit will cause EU markets to splinter and erode the benefits of the internal market.
An accusing finger cannot just be pointed at the inertia of the Member States in the implementation of the Lisbon objectives.
The work of the Competitiveness Council has to be made more effective and it must return to a fundamental question: what impact will each drafted law have on the EU’s competitiveness? It is also time for some spring-cleaning in the Commission.
At present the Commissioners are very torn on their directives.
The drafting of the chemicals package was a good example of this.
EU competitiveness will not improve with laws like these.
On the contrary, it will become seriously endangered.
Next autumn a Competitiveness Council Commissioners’ portfolio is to be established in the Commission. Its task will specifically be to finalise the Lisbon objectives and coordinate and harmonise the work of the Commissioners for Industry, the Environment and Employment.
Competitiveness and a healthy Europe are not a Utopian dream.
New magic remedies are not required.
The medication exists: it was discovered in the spring of 2000 in Lisbon.
Countries just have to do what they said they would.
   Mr President, I want to express my admiration for what I thought was a stylish and rather teasing address from Mr Roche on whether there has really been considerable movement on the IGC issues.
We have been reading about the Spanish and Polish Governments possibly shifting their positions, with similar reports about the German Government.
The UK press is now saying that Mr Blair and Mr Berlusconi are writing joint letters together – there's friendship for you! – and now we understand that Mr Blair is travelling to Dublin tomorrow for talks with the Taoiseach.
As Mr Napoletano said earlier in the debate, it is all very frustrating and unclear for those of us who are outside.
All this underlines the importance of restating the demand for democratic legitimacy, something which was conceded by Vice-President Kinnock in the course of his address.
I see that as coming through the process of a referendum.
Mr Barón Crespo told us that 51% of UK citizens want this Constitution.
I might doubt that but, unlike his Labour allies, I am very happy to have the matter tested in a referendum.
I can tell you, Mr President, that more than 80% of people in my country agree.
   . – Mr President. I want to add to the remarks made by Mr Roche in what has been a very interesting debate.
Perhaps it is most appropriate for me to begin by thanking Mr Brok for reminding the House about the basic reality that the healthy divisions in modern Europe are on issues and – contrary to what is represented in some parts of politics and the press – not between big and small.
This is a fundamental point, and understanding it means understanding that it is the equitable inclusion and representative rights of countries of large, medium and small size which makes this a Union and makes the Union a stable, developing, 50-year success, in place of centuries of grand diplomacy by grand governments, which ended repeatedly in terrible grief and war.
On an occasion like this it is as well to remind ourselves of those basics, as Mr Brok did.
Secondly, there were interesting references to the Lisbon strategy which, we must recall, was unanimously agreed by Member States to secure the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010.
There can never have been a more devout aspiration.
It is interesting to heed what Mr Wurtz, Mr Collins, Mr Ferber, Mr Karas and Mrs Doyle had to say on the issue.
Since we are all engaged in supporting the Lisbon strategy – maybe with differing degrees of enthusiasm – success in achieving such a knowledge-based, dynamic and competitive economy is not going to be propelled by hesitancy in the further development of the single market, by false economies with reduced public and private sector investment, or by a ceiling on the financial perspectives which disables European Union engagement in research and development, regional development and efforts to combat poverty and under-development throughout the world.
I should like to offer a quick comment on the points made by Mr Poettering and Mr Barón Crespo, with a degree of elegant nuance from both gentlemen, on the fact that it would be wise to take account of the results of the European Parliament elections in the nomination of the President of the Commission in future.
No-one seriously democratic could turn their back on such an idea, but nevertheless it is necessary to be careful because, if the impression was ever given that partisan reasons determined the appointment, that would reverberate over five years in Parliament, in the Commission, in the Council and more widely.
The consequences would be divisive, destabilising and disadvantageous for the Union.
Neither real democratic accountability nor legitimacy would be served by such a prospect and I am certain that nobody advocates taking proper account of the result of the elections is in any sense advocating partisan predetermination of the political alignment of the President of the Commission.
I would like to mention what I consider to be the curiosity of the debate.
It was a remark from Mr Bonde, who called on the presidency to use the Brussels European Council to require a process for national decision-making on the constitution.
That was somewhat paradoxical from an honourable Member, whom I think of as an evangelist for European fragmentation, especially since, if the advice he offered was followed, it would constitute the most massive act of superordinate centralisation in the history of the Union.
I am certain he will forgive me if I say, as a great enthusiast for subsidiarity, that not for the first time I have to disagree with him on his proposal.
A final point, which I cannot resist making – Mr Evans will not be surprised by this.
I did not in any sense concede the case for democratic legitimacy.
Indeed, as I am sure Mr Evans will acknowledge, it is a fundamental belief of mine.
Taking a completely detached view of internal United Kingdom affairs, which befits a Commissioner, I have got a certain divergence from him on the issue of a referendum on the constitution for a basic and simple reason.
As I understand it, in the United Kingdom referenda take place when a proposal is made for a change in the system of government, whether it involves devolution or the decision to have elected mayors, or in relation to a number of comparable issues.
The proposed constitution does not change the system of government in the United Kingdom.
I also recall that the only precedent for the party of which Mr Evans is a distinguished representative providing a referendum was on the acute question of Sunday opening of public houses in Wales.
For Mr Evans and me that is a fundamental issue of democratic rights and good governance but it does not bear comparison with the European constitution.
   – Mr President, while welcoming Commissioner Kinnock to the House I respectfully request a full explanation for Commissioner Prodi's absence from the House this morning.
   On behalf of Parliament, Mr Brok, I should like to thank you and the other rapporteurs for the work that has been done by your committee in leading this issue so consistently through the entire mandate and now bringing it towards a successful conclusion.
   With regard to the rapporteur's question regarding voting, ten co-rapporteurs will speak in today's debate; the spokesmen for the groups will speak; there will contributions from the Council and the Commission; 37 colleagues will also contribute.
This is not surprising, given the nature of the issue at hand.
However, when we break for the vote at midday, we shall not have concluded the speaking list and so the votes on these reports will be held over until tomorrow.
   Mr President, who longs for a Europe that is divided into two opposing camps?
Who begrudges the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe their personal and national freedom? Their liberation was late in coming; it took until 1989, and our continent will acclaim it on 1 May, the day of the EU's eastward enlargement, of which all those involved are firm advocates, whilst, at the same time, bearing a heavy responsibility.
Now that the usefulness of a greatly expanding European Union is the subject of a public debate, politicians in the East and the West need, first of all, to work towards the consolidation and creation of solid constitutional states.
This creates a national sense of public responsibility, the very foundation for Europe-wide cooperation.
Only a few decades ago, a major authority on Central and Eastern Europe, Mr Hugh Seton-Watson, referred to that region as the sick heart of Europe, for which may the enlarged EU soon show itself to be an effective medicine.
This requires a considerable mutual effort, a sincere attending to each other's needs.
It is precisely this involvement that I have noticed among grassroots support.
My group and I wish to continue on that entirely Christian course.
   Mr President, regardless of whether there is an error in the text of Amendment No 1 presented by my Group, I would like to make it perfectly clear that the objective of this amendment is to establish a delegation within the EU-Chile Mixed Parliamentary Committee independent of the Delegation for Relations with Mercosur.
   .
The report before us dovetails with the Prets report.
It is a further draft resolution in the field of youth, education and training, which, in common with the previous report, enjoyed the support of all committee members.
In this case, education and training – also questions that are worthy of attention – are brought to the fore.
The Council reached a unanimous agreement, after acting on Parliament’s opinion.
The amendments to the Commission’s proposal tabled by the Council resulted in a clearer, more consistent text.
The budget available to the programme has been increased.
I welcome the rapporteur’s remarks, and I therefore voted in favour.
I voted in favour of the package of amendments, which have given substance to the common position.
   .I congratulate the rapporteurs, Ms Pack and Ms Prets, for their thorough work on the important issues of European policy in the areas of youth, education and training.
These reports dovetail nicely with yesterday’s Commission communication on 'The new generation of education and training programmes' setting out future programmes intended to replace the current Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, Tempus, Youth, Culture 2000 and Media Plus from 2007.
I fully agree with Commissioner Reding on the need to reinforce and restructure programmes which are clearer to the citizens of an enlarged European Union.
These new programmes will also enable institutions in the fields of education, training and culture to improve cooperation.
They also coincide with the Irish presidency plans as outlined in the Culture Committee in January.
They will contribute to achieving the Lisbon objective, namely of making Europe the most competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010.
In a Union which will have nearly 500 million inhabitants in 2007, the new programmes will form part of a new approach, building bridges between cultures and individuals.
   We have chosen to abstain in the vote on the Prets/Pack/Iivari reports.
The reason for this is that we consider that issues of culture and education should be dealt with at national level where the decisions are taken as close to the citizens as possible.
We object on principle to the Pack report’s choosing a small number of schools to receive a large proportion of the total education grant from the EU.
We think there are many other good schools that should be taken into consideration.
For the EU to become more effective and efficient in relation to the big cross-border issues, the politics of everyday issues such as schools, the arts and youth issues must be left to the Member States.
These issues must be considered at a level that is closer to the citizens.
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   . Mr President, this legislative period is drawing to a close, as is the process for the accession of ten states to the European Union.
I was very interested in Estonia even before I became this Parliament’s rapporteur for its accession, and I have visited it regularly for 11 years.
I am therefore firmly convinced that we are not just being polite when we say in the report that ‘the European Parliament stresses the determination and continuity in efforts made by the Estonian authorities in carrying out the preparations for accession throughout the whole period of transition’.
I can see – now he has just gone out – I could see former foreign minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves in the House and I would like to thank him on behalf of all our other Estonian colleagues, for that determination, which was shown by all political camps in Estonia.
Impressive personalities, like – among others – the former President Lennart Meri, or Mart Laar, who was twice Prime Minister, have done much in the past to point the country towards Europe.
I am convinced that with the EU’s support the country’s dynamism, which is seen especially in Tallinn, will also accelerate economic and social development in other, more remote parts.
In relation to Russia, Mr Brok has already said something about the border treaties, and I would like to add that it must also be clear that the EU’s Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Russia applies equally to all the new Members.
I am looking for clear answers from the Council of Ministers when on 5 March Russian minister Sergei Ivanov repeats the USSR’s – and sadly also today’s Russia’s – propaganda lie in ‘’ – that is, that the USSR did not invade the Baltic countries, but was summoned to their aid.
Such propaganda and fairy tales should no longer be spread here, and the European Union must make that clear to Russia.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, we look at Hungary with the respect and esteem due to a people that hopes to find within our Union not only respect for its national independence and identity but also the collective security and economic prosperity that it was denied by the communist dictatorship, which subjugated it together with so many others for almost 40 years.
We must, however, recognise that the historical step of enlargement raises legitimate questions and fears on both sides in view of the challenge of reuniting two worlds which have, unfortunately, in recent decades reached very different stages of development.
These will inevitably accentuate the differences between wealthier and less prosperous regions and will lead to an increase in the population living in the less disadvantaged regions.
It is true that we have to accept that.
It is also true, however, that the step to be taken in May 2004 is of the greatest political significance, in that it powerfully demonstrates the vitality of all the countries of Europe involved in enlargement when they are faced with the challenge that history has set for them.
My hope is, Mr President, that from that moment onwards we shall all – current and new Member States alike – have the opportunity to work together and exercise our joint responsibility in the development of the European Union.
This joint responsibility implies maintaining and even strengthening the principle of economic and social cohesion.
From this viewpoint, we see enlargement as a contract providing mutual benefits for both the new countries of the Union and the current ones whose income levels still justify the assignment of Community development aid.
In this respect, we thoroughly welcome the draft financial perspective for 2007-2013 that the Commission has just put before this Parliament.
It also implies strengthening the quality of democracy in the European institutions, where it is essential to achieve greater democratic transparency and supervision, along with greater and more effective participation by the national parliaments in the building of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, Hungary is one of those countries whose performance in preparing to join the European Union has been outstanding.
It has been my duty to accompany this development closely.
It is true that there are still a few problems that Hungary will have to overcome, but we are aware of its government’s determination to fulfil the commitments it has made in good time.
Rather than highlighting them now, I think it would be more appropriate to underline this country’s success in recent years in meeting the challenges that it has faced and resolved to overcome.
Hungary, like all the other acceding countries, will at last be taking its well-deserved place as a European Union Member State.
As rapporteur for that country, I therefore call on you all to support the Brok report, which embodies years of effort and hard work and ushers in a new era in the life of the European Union.
   Mr President, allow me for once not to talk about the large or small problems which Poland still needs to resolve in order to again take its rightful place in Europe.
For someone like me who lived through – albeit in the privileged position of foreign correspondent – the hard years of the communist dictatorship and who then went back to cover Poland as rapporteur, this is an important, and I would even go so far as to say, an emotional moment.
I would never have imagined in those years that Poland and the other former communist countries would have been restored to democracy and free and effective economic development in such a short space of time.
I believe that this is the last time that I will talk about Poland in this Chamber and I would like to send my thanks to all those who, both here and there, in Brussels and in Warsaw – I can see Commissioner Verheugen here – have contributed to healing this wound in our continent.
In addition, I hope that the Poles will fully appreciate the grandeur of the European dream.
Nevertheless, I would also like to briefly mention another country: Romania.
Mr Podestà is going to talk about this country shortly, in greater depth.
Romania still has a long way to go, but it is doing all it can to come into line with Europe and prepare itself.
We criticised Romania for its delays; it reacted by trying to put its house in order.
Now of course it needs to be watched, spurred on and monitored, but it should also be encouraged, and this is why the reprobative tone which Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne used in her report was excessive.
We therefore support the amendments tabled by Mr Podestà which move precisely in this direction, that is, constructive criticism.
   . Mr President, as rapporteur of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, I should first of all like to congratulate Bulgaria on the progress made: 26 chapters have been completed, six others are still open, but much more remains to be done about the prospects for investment; this will involve establishing a transparent and unambiguous business climate, so that businesses know that their investments are safe and cannot be lost as a result of corruption.
As regards the nuclear power station at Kozloduy, I should like to say the following. If it transpires from the inspection carried out in November 2003, that all the recommendations of the Atomic Question Group have been carried out, the Commission can consider postponing the closure of Kozloduy 3 and 4 for a little while longer.
If, however, this is not the case, the Commission needs to adhere to the agreed time schedule for the closure of units 3 and 4.
There is far more concern within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy with regard to Romania.
Despite all the Romanian Government's efforts, we have to conclude that, to this day, that country has no functioning market economy.
In practice, much more is yet to be done in order to eradicate corruption and implement structural reforms in a tangible and consistent manner.
Romania's route to the European Union is difficult on account of the late start to privatisation, the late reform of state-owned businesses and the fact that its investment climate still leaves a great deal to be desired.
Romania’s lack of appeal to foreign investors is another reason why the rule of law should, as a matter of urgency, be further developed in the area of Romania's economy.
It is necessary to create a culture in which responsibility is accepted and laws applied.
We therefore very much welcome the proposal in the Brok committee's report for a re-orientation exercise and, at the same time, for more attention to be given to problems relating to the rule of law.
There is also a need for core sectors such as energy, mining and transport to be restructured.
All in all, Romania still has a huge effort to make.
   . Mr President, this is the last time that I, as rapporteur of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, together with Mr Ettl, can pass judgment on the preparations of the candidate Member States in the social field.
I have to say that all those countries have made unbelievable efforts to make progress in the social sphere on various fronts.
They have a number of trump cards which they can play and about which far too little is known, certainly in our countries, where people often think that the new Member States are still at an early stage of development.
Needless to say, that is not the case.
For example, the population is very well educated: 88% of 20 to 24-year-olds have at least attended higher education.
That is more than in the 15 current Member States, where this figure is 74%.
Moreover, the population in the ten new countries is younger than in the 15 current Member States.
The phenomenon of an ageing population will therefore take a little longer to make its presence felt.
In short, those countries have great potential in terms of human resources.
Utilising this potential to the full should be high on the agenda.
At present, human resources are still deployed insufficiently.
Unemployment in the acceding countries is high and opportunities for employment low.
Of the population of working age, 14.3% are unemployed, as against 8% in the European Union.
Unemployment among young people under the age of 25 has taken on tragic proportions: at 32%, it is twice that of the European Union.
An extreme case is Poland, where youth unemployment is 41%.
Moreover, in seven of the ten candidate Member States, youth unemployment in 2003 rose compared to the year before.
It is therefore obvious that those countries, in accordance with the European employment strategy, should develop active and sustainable employment policy.
Lifelong learning should keep workers deployable within the changing labour market.
The number of people between 25 and 65 who attended courses in 2002 is 5% compared to 8% in the European Union and there is also the risk of a brain drain of highly-qualified staff.
Another point is health and safety at work.
Some countries prefer to provide higher wages at the expense of health and safety provisions on the shop floor.
Purchasing power and pre-tax income are far below the EU average, but they have increased – even considerably – while they fell in our countries.
This amounts to a simply outstanding achievement.
A big problem, however, is that wages remain too low to enable people to escape poverty.
Poverty in the ten countries concerned affects 40% of the working population.
Social security should be developed more effectively.
Social partners should be organised more effectively because at the moment, they still have insufficient organisational power to be able to really organise social negotiations in the countries concerned.
   Mr President, in the minute I have available, I would like to talk about Romania and the Nicholson report.
This report began in committee with an approach that was appropriate right to the end and with which I and the rest of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy were satisfied.
We must send out a message that is resolute but, at the same time, full of hope to the people and the government of Romania.
Romania must proceed with greater earnestness and with greater rigour on the road of reforms, but it must get on the accession train, the European Union train.
We cannot send out a message of gloom that excludes Romania from this prospect.
It is important that our family extends to Romania, a country that needs the European Union and that needs and, in certain sectors, also wants democracy despite the existing problems.
Let us, therefore, adopt this new version of the Nicholson report with conviction, hoping that it encourages the structural reforms that are necessary for Romania’s entry into the European Union in 2007.
   – Mr President, the European Parliament agrees totally with the political assessment of the Commission and of the Commissioner with responsibility for enlargement, Günter Verheugen, that a failure to reach agreement on Cyprus could pose a serious obstacle to Turkey’s ambitions to become a member of the European Union.
Parliament maintains that the Cyprus question thus amounts to a major stumbling block in Turkey’s path to accession and a political test of its European resolve.
Parliament hopes that the Turkish political authorities fully understand its significance.
I should like to cite a very important sentence in paragraph 63.
‘[It is] hard to imagine that Turkey could join the Union when it refuses to recognise a Union Member State, has military forces occupying part of that state’s territory, is boycotting that state’s ships, and is barring that state from its airspace.’
I will now speak in English because the Irish presidency is not paying attention to what has been said.
What I was saying concerning paragraph 63 is that we find it very peculiar that Turkey could be a member of the European Union in a situation where it is partly occupying an EU Member State.
This is a question about the EU's credibility in the quest for peace.
We cannot tolerate the European Parliament accepting a country that is occupying a Member State of the European Union.
   – Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, today is the last time that this House will be able to discuss the process by which the ten new Member States are acceding to the European Union.
There remain only 51 days before the historic date of 1 May 2004, on which the European Union will grow to become a Union of 25 Member States.
This particular enlargement of the European Union will be accomplished on Workers’ Day, a date symbolising our need to face up to the challenge of giving the Union of 25 states economic and social cohesion.
It is no less significant that, the internal policy of the enlarged Europe being a work of peace, we are developing it into a real, outward-looking common European peace policy.
I have made Cyprus my concern ever since I entered this House in 1984, a time when few thought its accession a realistic prospect.
Then, a few years later, Parliament forcefully urged that a solution to the Cyprus problem should not be made a precondition for its accession.
I well remember such former Members of this House as Mrs Pauline Green, Mr Jan Willem Bertens, and Mr Yannos Kranindiotis; we believed that the accession process would be the catalyst that would bring about unification.
There is now a substantial chance of the 30-year-long division of Cyprus being brought to an end even before 1 May.
Not merely is it to be hoped, it is also to be expected, that the negotiating parties will indeed seize this opportunity, which may well be the last for a long time, and I hope and trust that Turkey will stand by its recent indications of willingness to work towards a solution.
We must bring about a united Cyprus, in which all Cypriots can live together in peace, and which can play a full part as a Member State of the EU.
   The next item is the report (A5-0110/2004), by Philip Charles Bradbourn on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision amending the amended proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Decision No 1692/96/EC on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network (renewed referral).
   Mr President, all those involved behind the scenes are working very hard under the guidance of the rapporteur in order to complete this dossier before the end of this mandate.
Given the importance of this matter and the amount of time that has already lapsed, time is of the essence.
In a few months' time, the number of interested parties will grow to 25, which can further delay decision-making, certainly if the project list in the annex is extended.
I am pleased that various MEPs appear to be settling for an optimisation of the projects already included.
This being the case, the only addition will be Seine-Nord, for which there is already considerable support.
What we are apprehensive about is additional obligations being imposed in respect of the environmental impact reports.
This obligation is already in place in most Member States, and duplicating it would delay the implementation of projects even further than they already have been.
It is already bad enough that the financing holds up the projects for some time.
In short, let us arrive at an agreement with the Council soon, essentially on the basis of the Commission proposals.
   . – The presidency will be submitting an assessment of the prospects for progress in the Intergovernmental Conference to the European Council in March, as agreed at the European Council in December 2003.
However, it is not for the presidency, speaking on behalf of the Council, to express an opinion on the issues raised in the honourable Member's question.
The Council has neither discussed nor taken a view on the question of a two-speed Europe.
It is not on the agenda.
   Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to ask you a supplementary question on behalf of Mr Nogueira and then, if you will allow me, to ask one on my own behalf.
   Mr Ortuondo, you will only be able to act as substitute for Mr Nogueira, because in accordance with the Rules of Procedure there are other Members who wish to put supplementary questions.
Please restrict yourself to speaking as a questioner.
   – Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, although I do not completely share the concern expressed by Mr Nogueira and Mr Ortuondo, it would be good if it could be made clear in Parliament regarding what importance should be attached to these summits held by just a few Member States.
The fact is that three countries convened at this meeting held on the eighteenth of last month and, apparently, some details concerning the Constitution were also discussed there.
Information has been openly passed around regarding these voting procedures, the weighting of votes in the Council, and the appointment of Commissioners, and it would be good if we heard from you how Ireland, as the country holding the Presidency, dealt with these issues.
Were they dealt with, did any concrete proposals to the Council emerge from this summit of the big three, and what are the future intentions with regard to this matter?
   . – The supplementary question goes rather beyond the question from Mr Martínez Martínez.
If Mr Ortuondo Larrea wants to table a question on a specific issue he may have in mind, I will answer it.
   Of course, I understand that the Council has not had the opportunity to obtain information.
I must, however, also point out to the Council that there was plenty of time to obtain it.
We are, in fact, talking about disclosure procedures, that is to say about access to documents and about procedures that make these documents public.
We have provided you with all the details of the documents in question, and it seems to me very strange that there was no time to read them.
It is, for example, very clear from these documents that, as we know, Northwest has a cooperation agreement with KLM and that there is therefore a huge overlap between airline reservation databases, including those relating to air traffic internal to the European Union.
You said that the issue is the Commission’s responsibility.
This is not the truth, because the international agreements are commissioned by the Council; it is the Council that gave the European Commission the mandate to determine adequacy finding of privacy protection in the United States.
Political responsibility therefore falls to the Council.
Is the Council therefore considering including this point in the current negotiations or is it of a different opinion?
   Mr President, I am utterly amazed at the President-in-Office's answer.
At the moment, the Council is discussing a European agreement with the United States, whereby the Article 31 Committee, which is competent in this area, has given, or as good as given, the green light on behalf of the Council, to the conclusion of an agreement with the United States.
The annex to this agreement also refers to CAPS II (Computer Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System II).
It is therefore highly unlikely that the Council is unaware of what is going on, and Mr Cappato's question is in my view very plain: he has asked whether this is not a case of illegality and of violation of our regulations.
The Council cannot say that this is a matter for the data protection authorities alone, which have themselves indicated that this is illegal.
Action is indeed needed.
The Council is right to say that this should be done at national level, but it too has a task to perform here.
The Council has, to some extent, passed this task on to the European Commission, being apparently unfamiliar with the facts involved, and – what is worse – has not informed the national parliaments.
I therefore ask the Council to ensure that this is still done.
   . – I am aware of Ms McKenna's views on arms embargoes, which are not a million miles away from my own.
The Council has taken account of the European Parliament's resolution and will continue to do so.
   . – When you address the issue of the specific measures that I have mentioned, you are addressing the symptom and not the cause.
The cause, of course, is poverty, criminality and a breakdown in civil society.
The cause is also the extraordinary transition that countries go through when one system that seemed secure has diminished and another is being put in place.
You are right, Mr Evans: if you look at all the Union policies in the broad sense, that is exactly the approach that the Union is adopting.
It is adopting a holistic approach.
In the Balkans, which you mentioned, there is a very specific Union policy, which is well-informed and well-focused.
It gives people, particularly Member States and their governments, the prospect of closer union with the European Union and indicates very clearly that we have certain standards that they have to set.
So on the one hand we are encouraging them and on the other hand we are discouraging certain actions.
We are taking a holistic approach.
I agree with Mr Evans.
   . – I should like to thank Mr Sacrédeus for his comments.
The points that he mentioned were touched on in my original response and fleshed out in the supplementaries.
This is an issue that requires a very wide range of responses.
I take issue with Mr Sacrédeus at only one stage: unfortunately, the women and the children who are the victims in this particular case are exploited from birth.
They are exploited because of the conditions that exist in their states.
They are also exploited by being exported like products to the rich West.
It is something that all countries have to take responsibility for.
I am proud of the work that the European Union is doing in this regard because it is a model for the rest of the world – I have no point of disagreement with Mr Sacrédeus on that.
On 1 May 2004, the number of official languages of the Union will pass from 11 to 20, and this will involve a modification of Council Regulation 1/1958.
Gaeilge, while a Treaty language under Article 314, is not listed under secondary legislation as an official language.
Can the Council confirm that the procedure for granting the status of official language to Gaeilge is for an application to this effect to be made by the Irish Government, and can the Council outline the procedure that would follow such an application? Finally, will the Council state whether there are factors which would prevent such an application from being successful?
   Mr President, is it in order for me to put a supplementary question to the President-in-Office following the questions raised by Ms Ahern and Mrs Morgantini?
   Mr Beazley, I have applied the Rules of the House that allow for two speakers, of different groups, in addition to the Member formulating the question.
I have followed the Rules of Procedure.
   I know that.
I am not aware that Ms Ahern or Mrs Morgantini are members of the PPE-DE Group.
   I am sorry, Mr Beazley.
You can be sure that I am following the Rules of Procedure.
   .
I thank the President-in-Office for his answer.
I would also like to ask a supplementary question.
Would he agree that there are already an increasing number of Irish people who speak the language and that the number of people being educated through Gaeilge in Ireland has increased dramatically, particularly over the last 20 years? Would he agree that the European Union, as well as the institutions within the European Union, should encourage and support this development and also that these further developments would strengthen the case for the Irish language to become a working language of the European Union and the institutions of the European Union?
   Yes, Mr Beazley, but after Mr Paisley, who had requested the floor first.
   . – In answer, Dr Paisley, I am of course aware of the extraordinary and unique work that has been done on the Scotch-Irish language.
I am aware of the board, and in fact I receive correspondence regularly from the board; it is a great joy to receive a Christmas card in the language from the board.
The lesser-used languages – whether we are talking about the language of Ulster or, for example, the Cornish language – are a matter which has concerned the Union.
However, support for the languages is not purely a matter for the Presidency-in-Office.
In the case of the Irish language a specific and unique measure was made in 1973.
Maybe it should have been made for the other lesser-used languages that have been mentioned here.
To answer Dr Paisley directly, I am aware of the blossoming of interest in a language which had one stage virtually disappeared.
   I should like to put a question to the President-in-Office that has been already answered in part.
I support the drift of the question from Mr Paisley that all minority languages should be given equality of esteem.
The Breton language exists in Brittany.
I had the honour of representing Cornwall and Plymouth in this House for ten years.
Speaking as an Englishman, I find it sad that the Cornish language died out in the 18th century.
It may not be within your, power, President-in-Office, to fully answer Mr Paisley's question, but I support what you said about the importance of the Irish language.
Could you reconfirm that you would give equal weight to other minority languages – by which I mean cultures – throughout the whole of the European Union, including the ten new Member States?
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   Given the bug you have picked up, Mr Clegg, I am sure that no one would be offended if you wished to go home to have an early night and a hot drink.
   Mr President, the European aviation industry is in full swing and is experiencing exciting times.
Since 11 September 2001, there has not been a dull moment.
Before I comment on the content of the reports, I should like to tell the House how satisfied I am that we have received a European approval for the merger of Air France and KLM and that the competent American authority has also given its stamp of approval.
This is important for the industry, particularly in terms of strengthening the European aviation industry, because there is more to come.
Even more is yet to be done to ensure that the industry has a sound economic basis.
With regard to the report by my colleague Mr Clegg, who has now left the House, I should like to stress the value of the amendment in the light of increasing competition.
Many international competitors of European aviation companies operate unaffected by government measures, and this enables them to compete with European aviation companies in improper ways.
It is good to stand up to this sort of practice.
As far as the report by Mr Dhaene is concerned, I find it extremely agreeable if someone can indicate so specifically and realistically why he is not writing an own-initiative report at the moment.
I think this bears witness to much class and I expect him to organise another bicycle trip; perhaps that is when the next round of discussions can be held.
Finally, as for Mr Nicholson's report, I am pleased that we were able to work together so intensively at a very early stage, across the political divide, to achieve a realistic result which is also in keeping with the ICAC (International Civil Aviation Conference) agreements that refer to a system of international premiums.
Within this framework for European aviation, distortion of competition is virtually ruled out.
The special exemption to which attention was drawn this evening is, of course, extremely important for ultra-light aircraft, government aircraft and historic aeroplanes.
I am delighted with the progress and I also think it is very positive that Mr Nicholson has made every effort, right until the end, to ensure that we have a sound product here before us.
   The next item is the report (A5-0116/2004) by Bill Miller, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of Regions – Internal Market Strategy: Priorities 2003 – 2006.
   . Mr President, this afternoon, Commissioner Bolkestein presented here in Strasbourg his latest book on Europe's borders.
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend this presentation, Commissioner, but I should like to congratulate you on it all the same.
This evening, I should like to consider the limits to the Commissioner's urge for liberalisation, which appear to be non-existent.
First of all, I should like to extend warm thanks to Mr Miller for the good working relationship.
It is not his fault that the vote in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has produced a somewhat distorted report.
As I understand it, Mr Harbour is taking on the blame for this.
As rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I am naturally very disappointed that only three of my amendments have been adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
My group has re-submitted the other amendments and we hope that the Christian Democrats and Liberals will be supporting those tomorrow with their Socialist hats on.
As far as the urge for liberalisation is concerned, I can put Mr Bolkestein's mind at rest.
Unlike some of my colleagues here on the left, I am not by definition against liberalisation, but I am opposed to market fundamentalism and to pushing through liberalisation at all costs, if the conditions and public guarantees are not yet in place by a long way and liberalisation is loss-making on all fronts, except for the private monopolies and their adherents who can seize on their chances in this.
It is high time that we in Europe put a brake on liberalisation of that kind and that a framework directive was put in place for services of general interest, thus providing a counterweight for the dominance of the competition rules.
I can see the Commissioner hesitating in that respect, and he is palming us off with one excuse after the other.
One final remark about the new directive on the internal market for services: that really seems to me to be a case of extreme madness, because it undermines everything that we have laid down in Europe in the area of subsidiarity and the precedence of the rules of the country where the services are performed.
The new proposal for a directive is throwing the existing regulation into utter confusion and threatens drastically to restrict the Member States' policy room to determine conditions on the basis of general interest, monitoring the quality of society and the environment and guaranteeing fundamental rights.
In my view, some elements are even inconsistent with the corresponding guiding principles in the Treaty.
It is beyond me why you want to get this through Parliament before your departure, and I am pleased that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has in any case decided not to proceed too hastily in this matter.
In the Miller report, my group urges that no final decisions should yet be taken, about this new directive among other things, until such time as the discussion about the legal framework for services of general interest is complete.
This does not strike me as being unreasonable.
   Mr President, in supporting Mr Miller's general line about this report and in particular his points about water, I want to draw special attention to Amendment No 13.
It would be a very illiberal doctrine to say that liberalisation should be pursued in an inflexible way, insensitive to local realities.
We ought to look at, for example, the case of remoter parts of the European Union.
We should therefore, for example, welcome the flexibility in relation to local transport services indicated by the recent Altmark judgment.
Unfortunately, however, the Commission has said that this cannot possibly apply to ferries.
Buses are not ferries – indeed they are not – but transport is transport, by sea and by land.
Mr Miller mentioned the problem of Railtrack in the United Kingdom.
Split the ownership of the rails from the ownership of the trains and you get a crazy situation.
In Scotland it seems that we are about to split the ownership of the ships from the ownership of the companies that sail them.
Railtrack by sea!
This is liberalisation pursued in an extreme and inflexible way.
Mr Bolkestein is a frequent and always welcome visitor to Scotland.
I hope that on his next visit to the Hebrides he does not have to travel under an assumed name to hide his responsibility for the fiasco which is about to be wished upon us!
   Mr President, Mr Bolkestein offers to visit Skye.
He is very wise!
It is the only island of the Hebrides now joined to the mainland by a bridge and does not depend upon the services of ferries subject to public service obligations.
   The next item is the second report (A5-0122/2004) by Olle Schmidt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards value added tax on services provided in the postal sector.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, you have just heard that the rapporteur, Mr Olle Schmidt from the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, and I are not going to give up.
In the run-up to the elections, we face opposition from populists, among others, to our efforts to get this House to say loud and clear what proposals it has to make in respect of the Commission’s proposal for VAT on services in the postal sector.
It is for that reason that we have resubmitted our amendments to the Commission proposal.
Simply rejecting this proposal out of hand, which is what Mr Goebbels, and others who speak for the Group of the Party of European Socialists, have been trying to do for almost a year now, is too primitive an approach.
To be sure, it plays well with the public to proclaim your opposition to VAT on postage stamps, but we are well aware that, as various postal services have been liberalised, there will, in the long term, be no getting away from the need to treat postal services and private service providers equally in order to avoid competition in this sector being distorted.
So it makes more sense to us to tell the Council of Ministers, and the Commission too, what we want done to prevent postage stamps going up in price.
This is what our amendments are aiming at.
In the first place, we want to defer the entry into force of this directive until 2007, in order to give the postal services enough time to implement it without difficulty.
Apart from that, we would like to allow those Member States that have a greatly reduced VAT rate – Luxembourg has been one since January 2003; ours is 3% – to apply it to postal services too.
That is a tangible and positive policy; simply saying ‘no’ or adopting some similarly populist approach does no service either to the postal service or to those who use it.
I therefore hope that the majority in this House will vote to approve the sensible proposal that I, on behalf of my group, have joined with the rapporteur in bringing forward.
   Mr President, I think that the VAT exemption should be lifted.
I do not share the Commissioner’s views on liberalisation, but I am not convinced by Mr Goebbels’ arguments.
I think that there is already an internal market for postal services, except for private use.
Mail to private individuals, for example, only represents 10% of the turnover of the French postal service.
The remainder is mired in competition, and there are inequalities in that competition.
Contrary to what Mr Schmidt said, I think that the traditional public operators are particularly penalised by the inappropriate taxation system and by being unable to deduct VAT from their purchases.
The reasons are not only purely financial; it is about being able to develop.
I would also like to add that there is a tax on salaries to compensate for the so-called privilege of VAT exemption .
It would be paradoxical to claim to want to defend public service companies while allowing them to be strangled.
I think that the correct solution in these circumstances is to keep the Schmidt and Lulling amendments, which are a further step to the left, with obligatory reduced and super-reduced rates for services that are part of the universal service.
   Mr President, first of all, I should like to express my appreciation for Mr Schmidt's work.
Having to submit an amended report twice in order to gain sufficient support struck me as being no mean feat.
I hope that the amendments by Mr Schmidt and Mrs Lulling will be supported in the plenary tomorrow.
In the European Union, the postal market will be liberalised by no later than the beginning of 2009.
You may, or may not, like that, but, now that the decision is before us, it is important to ensure that this does not result in chaos, with the public no longer being able to receive or send mail.
The equal treatment of public and private providers of postal services in terms of VAT basis and the VAT rate is therefore of major importance.
In addition, with a view to the free postal market, provision must be made for equal opportunities within the internal market.
That is why I shall be supporting the amendments tabled by Mr Schmidt and Mrs Lulling.
   . – The Commission hopes for the support of Parliament for its proposal and is ready to take into account a number of significant amendments proposed by Members of Parliament.
The Commission's position as regards the amendments is as follows: the Commission considers that any study of the postal sector, and particularly those carried out under Directive 97/67/EC, should take into account the impact of VAT in the sector.
The Commission undertakes to take into account the spirit of Amendment No 5.
In view of a possible compromise with Parliament and with regard to Amendments Nos 4 and 11, the Commission could accept a delay until 1 January 2007 in the entry into force for the actual implementation of the directive in order to allow operators enough time to adapt their systems.
In view of a possible compromise with Parliament, which has stressed the need to protect consumers from price increases on standard postal services, and with regard to Amendments Nos 6, 9 and 10, the Commission could agree to widening the proposed scope of postal services that may qualify for a reduced rate so as to include standard postal services relating to items of up to 10 kg in weight.
With regard to Amendments Nos 1 and 7, recent events have once again shown that Member States are very much attached to the optional nature of reduced rates, and the Commission cannot, therefore, undertake to amend its proposal in this sense.
However, these amendments would indicate in no uncertain terms that this Parliament considers price stability of postal services of paramount importance and certainly sends a political signal to Member States to make use of the option which the proposal includes.
With regard to Amendments Nos 3 and 8, the Commission considers reduced rates under 5% to be temporary measures which should not be applied to new categories of goods or services.
As regards Amendment No 2, endorsing a reimbursement mechanism for charitable organisations, the Commission would like to repeat its view that nothing in the Sixth Directive prevents Member States from introducing such a mechanism outside the VAT system.
However, it would not be appropriate, nor in keeping with the subsidiarity principle, to amend its proposal to advise Member States how they should spend their tax receipts.
Lastly, as regards Amendment No 13, the Commission considers the issues posed by philatelic stamps are no different from those existing today.
Under current legislation, stamps are only exempt when sold at face value.
They are taxable in all other cases.
Since this different tax liability is not causing problems today, it should not cause problems once the proposal is approved.
   The next item is the report (A5-0115/2004) by Godelieve Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of the Agreement on Scientific and Technical Cooperation between the European Community and the State of Israel.
   . – Mr President, no questions have been put to the Commission and I have nothing to add to the debate.
On behalf of my colleague, Mr Busquin, I would simply like to thank the rapporteur and the other Members who have taken part in this debate.
I have the impression that the majority of Parliament will support this proposal, for which – again on behalf of my colleague, Mr Busquin – I should like to express gratitude.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0124/2004) by the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position of the Council with a view to adopting a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on Interoperable Delivery of pan-European eGovernment Services to Public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens (IDABC) (rapporteur: Imelda Mary Read).
   . Mr President, I am delighted to present this report on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on IDABC.
I have been the rapporteur on several previous occasions and have had the pleasure of seeing the IDABC programme grow.
We have seen improvements in the effectiveness of cross-border cooperation between public administrations and what is now being proposed is that this be extended to businesses and to citizens.
The journal that the Commission publishes on IDABC often mentions the IDABC way and it is important to emphasise that the IDABC way is about eMethodology: not only about the projects, but looking at the way in which those projects are developed.
IDABC is a means to an end, a means to interactive government services at a pan-European level and it is absolutely logical to want to extend this now to businesses and to citizens.
I have submitted just three amendments after discussions with the Commission.
They are technical amendments, which will give legal clarification to the original text. I shall spend a couple of minutes talking about why this is so important.
It is about giving value in terms of quality of services. It is about encouraging citizens to be better informed in voicing their own praises and their own criticisms of those services.
It is about economies of scale and sharing common services. It is true that IDABC has been a driver of modernisation of public services and a contributor, as it will continue to be, to eGovernment in the candidate countries.
It is also important that one of the achievements of IDABC is that it can give our citizens practical, very workmanlike examples of how the European Union, the Commission, Parliament, the Council have worked together to bring citizen-friendly benefits from the European Union to the Member States.
I commend the report to you.
I particularly thank my colleagues at the Commission who continue to work so hard and so effectively on this.
I also thank the Council presidency, which took its time, but did so because it wanted to put down constructive and progressive amendments that were born of its own experience of the implementation of IDABC at Member State level.
   Madam President, on behalf of the Swedish MEPs, I wish to convey our condolences to our Spanish fellow MEPs and Commissioner Solbes Mira and to condemn the terrible deed committed in Madrid today.
Alongside our debate on the annual changes, the modernisation of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, which is linked to these annual changes, is also taking place.
This means that we shall presumably have to debate this annex again in the autumn.
It will then be called Annex X instead.
I rather think that the Commission should have been cautious and not made any changes this year until we had completed the modernisation, in which the principles are partly changed and laid down.
That is my personal view.
Annex IIA is based upon certain principles governing what may be entered by the Member States.
The Member States cannot enter whatever they think is appropriate in Annex IIA.
The benefits concerned must not be universal ones, but require something in the way of a means test.
Family benefits definitely do not have their place there.
To Mr Schmidt and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, I wish to point out that the Swedish child allowance is universal.
That also applies to the supplement for families with more than one child, to study grants and to the sum guaranteed for the parental benefit.
This means that they do not have their place in Annex IIA.
This may be considered right or wrong, but everyone must no doubt agree that the annexes have to be based upon certain principles.
Nor, probably, should a question mark be placed over the housing allowance for families with children, but that is the only benefit that could possibly be discussed.
I therefore reject Mr Schmidt’s proposal.
It is unacceptable to ignore all the principles upon which we have jointly agreed.
Mr Schmidt says that we have such different systems – which is true – but he also says that we could live with these different systems, that they do not affect freedom of movement and that we do not need these regulations.
On that point, I do not at all agree with him.
We naturally need regulations governing people who move across the borders and who are to receive social benefits.
Were we drastically to change this system by, for example, saying that no family allowances might be transferred, it would have a harmful effect upon freedom of movement.
   Madam President, please allow me firstly, as a Spaniard, to thank all the honourable Members who have expressed their solidarity.
Allow me also to express my deepest disdain for this vermin in human form and above all affection and solidarity with the families suffering today; solidarity and affection in their pain and suffering.
As Commissioner Solbes said, we must carry on, although it is not easy.
We are debating the Commission’s proposal to update Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 with regard to specific benefits and non-contributory payments.
The proposal is mainly aimed at incorporating the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, specifying the special and non-contributory nature of certain benefits, and also reflects the changes which have taken place in the different national legislations.
I believe that the crux of the debate is whether or not to include in Annex IIa the benefits laid down in national legislations and the consequences of that inclusion in the said annex, in other words, their non-exportability or, where relevant, their exportability.
Of the various amendments presented, I agree with Nos 1, 2 and 3, both because of the characteristics or nature of the benefits in question, or because of the conditions for receiving them, or the difficulty or impossibility of controlling them.
Naturally, Amendments Nos 4, 5, 7 and 8, which relate to benefits whose exportable nature was mentioned a while ago, are dealing with benefits which sometimes have equivalents in the Member States, suited, furthermore, to living conditions.
In any event, I believe this should be studied.
I cannot agree with Amendments Nos 9 to 12; firstly because they involve family benefits in all cases.
The general criterion of the regulation is that family benefits are exported; anything else would be discrimination, and would hinder the free movement of persons, and within the context of that free movement, would prevent families from travelling with their rucksacks of social protection on their backs.
Finally, Madam President, I would like to draw attention to making present or future health care in certain Member States conditional upon payment of certain contributions from pensions.
Naturally I am referring to the new paragraph 1 of Article 33 of the Regulation.
This means that the incomes of a very significant number of pensioners would be reduced.
In the case of Spaniards residing in other Member States, their pensions would be reduced while, if they lived in Spain, they would receive 100% of them, since health care is a right which we could describe as automatic.
We would therefore be faced with a clear case of discrimination and hindering of the free movement of persons.
– The debate is closed.The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
   The next item is the report (A5-0098/2004) by Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on Health care and care for the elderly
   Thank you, Mrs Lynne.
I am sure that the corrections that you asked for will certainly be made by the services.
   You are absolutely right, Mr Karas.
That is why I do not want to have a debate this morning.
It is all just rumour and scaremongering.
   – Mr President, you have announced that these goings-on will be investigated.
I would also ask that this investigation should consider the claim by German magazine journalists that they have in their possession all the lists of the secretarial assistance allowances paid by the House in 2002.
I would like to know how lists relating to the 2002 secretarial assistance allowances can end up in the hands of journalists and what conclusions you draw from this.
   Mr President, I would like to propose an oral amendment to Amendment No 22 to include the words 'in addition to the North Sea and the Irish Sea'.
I have spoken to Mr Bradbourn, the rapporteur, and he can accept this amendment if the House accepts it.
   Mr President, we approved an amendment by the Group of the Party of European Socialists outside of the text.
What Mrs Gillig is doing here with the help of her friends is unacceptable.
We tabled the amendment last night, we had reached a compromise among ourselves, and now I notice that Mrs Gillig is taking the floor.
   I am sorry, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
The Rules of Procedure are very clear: if 32 or more Members object to an oral amendment, then it cannot be accepted.
(1)
   Mr President, we are going to vote on a resolution in paragraph 4 of which we state our support for and solidarity with the victims of terrorism and their families.
By a fatal and terrible coincidence, on the very day on which we are calling for a European Day to commemorate these victims, the murderous terrorist group ETA has caused the condemnable massacre of more than 138 people and hundreds of injured at various points in Madrid.
In my capacity as chairman of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and also on behalf of the spokesmen of the groups who have offered me their support, I would like to table an oral amendment to paragraph 4 of this resolution referring to the date of the European Day, changing it from 11 September to 11 March.
   I suggest that we accept Mr Hernández Mollar's oral amendment.
   Mr President, I believe that reflecting for a moment on an issue of such importance will do no harm.
Despite all our genuine and heartfelt sympathy for the tragedy that has happened, in dedicating a day to terrorism and to the victims of terrorism, it is one thing to explicitly link the date of 11 March to that of 11 September, but it is another thing entirely to replace 11 September with the date 11 March.
This seems a rather unwise decision, also in terms of the attempt to make it a world day.
The events of 11 September led to a universal political outcry across the world, and I feel it would be dangerous to today replace this date and track the current terrorist situation: this could be a rather unwise gesture.
I do not know if we can defer this decision or if we can symbolically add the date 11 March to 11 September. Replacing the latter, though, seems to me to be a dangerous choice.
   – Mr President, as the author of this motion for a resolution I beg the House to be patient.
I am not going to argue, but now that this debate has been opened I should like to clarify a few doubts that have been raised here and which I myself have also entertained, to tell the truth.
That is why I referred to the speech by the President of the European Parliament at the opening of today’s sitting.
I think he is sufficiently objective and independent for us to identify with his words.
Secondly, again as the author of the motion, I wish to recall that, even though 11 September was the favourite date in the vote in committee, not everyone in the committee voted for it.
Now it is to our advantage if there is also a greater consensus in this House on the choice of a date for commemoration.
I appeal to the House to find common ground, at least on our motion.
Afterwards, of course, the decision will be up to the Council.
   Notwithstanding what Mr Cappato said – and I respect the way in which he made his point – I hope that the House will accept that today we are making a gesture of solidarity.
It is only a recommendation.
I hope that we can move forward on that basis.
   – Mr President, as Baroness Nicholson has announced that the first sentence is to be deleted, the Group of the Party of European Socialists wishes to withdraw Amendment No 2.
   Mr President, I would prefer to keep Amendment No 13.
   Amendment No 2 has been withdrawn, but as we have just heard, Amendment No 13 stands.
   – Mr President, yesterday evening, we asked Parliament’s services to regard Amendment No 12, which the Group of the Party of European Socialists tabled in an attempt to bring about equal treatment, as an addition.
We are not opposed to equal treatment, except where it takes precedence over the reduction of administrative burdens for businesses, as the two are completely unrelated.
No doubt this is a ruse to remove this reduction from the text.
I look forward to hearing whether Mr Miller is going to see this as complementary.
If that is not possible, then I see it as a ruse to delete from the text the reduction of administrative burdens on businesses, which the Socialists, possibly, do not want it to include.
   . Mr President, I am not in the business of helping out the Liberals.
Paragraph 33 is poor.
Even if this were added to it, it would not sufficiently improve the paragraph to make it a good one.
Consequently, I would rather vote against paragraph 33 and vote on the amendment.
   – Mr President, what we have just seen in the voting is an example of anti-social conduct on the part of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
We had come to a number of agreements with them as regards the tabling of oral amendments – it is very important to note that this was done on the basis of reciprocity.
As soon as their amendments, which did not propose anything major, were approved, the members of the Socialist group got up to go.
What I object to is people putting their brains into neutral, which is what Mrs Gillig, the rapporteur, has done in being perfectly ready to support things that will have an utterly adverse effect on frontier workers, even though she is a spokesperson for the Socialists, and, moreover, the Socialist group has followed her in doing so.
I am grateful to the Liberal Group and to the D66 delegation for the support they gave this oral amendment.
More was not possible; perhaps we will get another chance.
I might add that what is true of the Socialists is also true of the Greens.
We will get another chance when it comes to the Regulation itself.
The game is not yet over, but I would like to denounce this anti-social, stupid and cowardly behaviour here before you.
People have been let down by this who should not have been.
   Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I take it that you are not very happy.
   .– According to Article 23 of the Act of Accession, the European Union can make any amendments to the Act’s provisions on the common agricultural policy that may prove necessary as a result of changes in Community regulations.
In other words, the Treaties of Accession, ratified by the ten countries that are to join the European Union on 1 May 2004, may be amended in the agricultural sphere by decisions made by the Fifteen.
The result of this adaptation is that the situation, which already discriminates against the enlargement countries in agriculture, is made even worse for them.
It should be noted that direct payments to farmers in the enlargement countries were already going to be phased in over time, starting at only 25% of the current Member States’ direct payments in the first year.
Now they are also to be subject to the financial discipline mechanisms, which means that they may suffer yet further cuts in agricultural payments.
In addition, the new direct payments for energy crops and nuts introduced with the CAP reforms will be covered by the same gradual phasing-in arrangements. These countries will no longer have the opportunity for derogation with regard to the single farm payment, which implies greater discrimination and has already led to objections from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia and Estonia.
This is just one more …
   .– The Commission has proposed adaptations to the Acts of Accession of the 10 new Member States in order to take account of last year’s reforms of the common agricultural policy, particularly the introduction of the Single Farm Payment.
In fact, as the rapporteur has emphasised, in their current form the CAP reform texts take no account of the results of the accession negotiations or indeed of enlargement itself.
It is well known that the observer members are dissatisfied with the proposal because the farmers in their Member States will be given different treatment at first, with direct payments for certain products only being made gradually over 10 years.
Despite the observers’ dissatisfaction on a number of issues, however, the Commission’s proposal was accepted without amendment by the rapporteur, and his position was adopted unanimously by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
This decision also reflects the fact that the Council has already reached agreement on this matter.
I voted for it.
   . The issue of improving means of communication is a strategic factor for developing the economy of ‘Padania’.
This is why the voted in favour of the trans-‘Padania’ rail link and Corridor 5 that would put ‘Padania’ at the centre of a route stretching from Lisbon to Ukraine.
   .
The problem of improving means of communication, either by road or rail, is a strategic element of Europe’s economic development.
Within this context, the implementation of Corridor 5 and the trans-‘Padania’ high-speed rail link is a response that is needed more than ever and that is very useful as regards the problem of congestion and inefficiency of public and private transport in the Veneto; this inefficiency must be blamed on the lack of interest that the Roman authorities have shown for years towards a balanced development of our region of Veneto and of the North-East in general.
The Berlusconi government, spurred on in this matter by the , has quite rightly taken steps in Europe in order to obtain the go-ahead and the necessary funding to implement Corridor 5, which will place ‘Padania’ at the centre of an economic and commercial route stretching from Lisbon to Ukraine; in particular it will be possible to encourage and develop foreign trade with the Eastern markets.
All this is detrimental to alternative projects that provided for taking Corridor 5 beyond the Alps, thus cutting off our regions and our businesses from the Eastern markets.
   .
I congratulate Mrs Gillig on her uncomplicated but effective report on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community and Regulation (EEC) No 574/72 laying down the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, which I support because of the need felt by the citizens for social security schemes to be better coordinated between Member States.
This is an attempt to remove the remaining obstacles to the mobility of workers in the EU.
   . At the first reading, on 15 December 2003, when I was rapporteur on this report, I came to the conclusion that privatisation of postal services had great disadvantages in terms of quality, punctuality of service, the prices charged to the consumers, and working conditions for the staff.
There are now, moreover, added disadvantages, in that those who post letters are going to have to pay yet another new tax, and so I was happy that a majority in the House shared my concern and rejected the report.
Lamentably, the state-owned French postal service has jeopardized the former good result by putting pressure on the French Left. believes its interests to be served by welcoming the tax, which it will be able to claim back from the State.
To my surprise, my colleague Philippe Herzog defended this position yesterday afternoon, and, today, the French MEPs from the Group of the Party of European Socialists have prevented this report from being rejected again.
Tomorrow, my group, despite its sympathy for the special situation in one particular country, will stick with the original rejection that I advocated.
The damage, though, has been done.
Yet again, Europe’s citizens are having imposed on them a tax that does not relate to their income or wealth.
   Paragraph 63 of the resolution on the progress made in 2003 in creating an area of freedom, security and justice takes issue with a sovereign decision by the French Parliament: the legislation it has adopted concerning respect for the principle of secularity in French public educational establishments.
This position constitutes inadmissible interference by the European Parliament in an area that is strictly a national competence.
This blatant interference is compounded by an error of judgement, since the legislation in question is aimed at protecting fundamental rights, particularly those of women, and not at undermining them.
This attitude on the part of the European Parliament does not augur well for the future when the Charter of Fundamental Rights will be in force.
This legal instrument is in danger of being to the detriment of nations keen to protect the freedom of their people.
   .
This resolution calls on the European Parliament to take stock of the development of the ‘area of freedom, security and justice’ in 2003.
The radical Members of the believe that the text adopted should have been much more critical of the Commission, the Council and the Member States, in particular, by condemning the unbalanced way in which the institutions that hold the power of initiative and decision-making power in such sectors have acted and are acting.
Indeed, the energy and timing with which these institutions have proposed and adopted measures aimed at strengthening the instruments for repressive measures in the areas of combating terrorism, cooperating in criminal matters, harmonising sanctions and combating illegal immigration, has not been matched by a strengthening of the rights of citizens, of the EU or otherwise.
By way of example, one need only refer to the fact the Commission has not yet adopted the announced framework decision on procedural safeguards.
Furthermore, with the freezing of the European Constitution, the structural problems, which the European Parliament has been criticising for years, remain unsolved.
For example, the absence or the failing of democratic and legal control at European and national level of measures and organisations developed at European Union level
   I abstained from voting on the Brok report, although I obviously support completely the enlargement of the European Union to include the ten Member States whose membership will become effective on 1 May 2004.
I have problems with two paragraphs of the resolution, however.
Paragraph 63 states that the absence of an agreement on the reunification of Cyprus could constitute a ‘serious obstacle to Turkey’s European ambitions’.
That is all well and good.
It needs to be added, however, that there are many other problems that are just as serious.
Otherwise, Turkey will say tomorrow that it had been promised membership if it favoured an agreement that brought the secession of the north of the island to an end.
Moreover, paragraph 64 states that, if Cyprus is reunified, the European Union would be ready immediately to ‘accept Turkish as an official language’.
This is completely the wrong moment for such a move.
The Turkish Cypriots are few in number, and their situation is comparable with that of the Gaelic—speaking Irish, whose language has not been made official. Why go any further for Cyprus’s Turkish minority?
Do the translation services need to be overburdened at this time? There is no reason for giving such pledges in advance to Turkey.
   . In two months’ time, the EU will be gaining ten new Member States.
Although last year’s decisions make enlargement a certainty, the Brok Report lists 148 areas of concern, and the addition of still more such areas is proposed in the form of amendments, some of them tabled by myself.
It would appear from the texts that some Members of this House are primarily concerned about the failed privatisations, the sluggish tempo at which all barriers to the free market are being removed, and what they see as the excessively high level of public expenditure.
I disagree with them very strongly.
In reality, these countries have already given in to many unreasonable and unwise demands, which means that their problems can only get worse in the future.
The price they have had to pay for accession to the EU will prevent them from meeting their people’s expectations, which will constitute a threat to democracy.
Others are more concerned about the desperate situation of the millions of Roma, about the marginalisation of the Russian minority in the Baltic states, the continuing discrimination against homosexuals, the introduction of electoral laws intended to exclude smaller political movements and the serious lack of concern for the environment.
I endorse these criticisms and will continue to do so even after these countries’ accessions.
   . The admission of Romania to the EU in 2007 is quite rightly giving rise to misgivings and disquiet, but sometimes for the wrong reasons.
Yesterday, I heard the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats use the argument that, in Romania, too few businesses had been privatised over recent years.
There were at least as many reasons to seriously criticise Romania when it was under its former right-wing government as there are now that the present one, which calls itself left-wing, is in power.
Children begging and sniffing glue, poor people without any right to medical care, decaying buildings and public amenities, a democratic deficit, corruption and the collapse of public services are as much a fact of life now as they were then.
I have even recently received the complaint from a Romanian party, the Socialist Workers’ Party, which now has to call itself the Socialist Alliance Party in order to remain legal, which started by gaining 4.6% of votes in elections in the 1990s, but was later, in the official results, given 3.9%, thus falling below the 4% threshold and remaining outside the parliament.
It is doubtful whether Romania has ever met the Copenhagen criteria for a democratic state where the rule of law prevails, or that it will do so within a reasonable period of time.
That can be a good reason not to put its accession on a faster track than that of Turkey, where too, much is amiss.
   As Liberals, we always put the individual at the heart of all political decisions.
In her report, Mrs Jöns addresses the subjects of health care and health services which, in different ways, have a big effect upon individuals in their daily lives.
She addresses many important aspects of health care and the health services, which we too, of course, consider to be of great importance to the population of Europe.
We nonetheless believe that responsibility for health care and health services must remain as close to the user as possible.
In order to obtain the best adapted health care and health services, we believe that responsibility must lie at national, rather than EU, level.
We have therefore chosen to vote against this report.
   That concludes the explanations of vote(2).
   Mr President, on a point of order under Rule 181 of the Rules of Procedure, I tabled a written declaration under Rule 51 calling for a boycott of Ferrero SpA.
This was initially distributed, but on 9 March I received a letter from President Cox stating that in his view it was inadmissible and he was therefore withdrawing it from circulation.
Search as I may through the Rules of Procedure, I can find no rule allowing the President to act in such an arbitrary manner and no rule is quoted in his letter.
I therefore request that the matter be referred to the committee responsible.
There is a long tradition of political campaigning through boycotts: Barclays over South Africa, Nestlé over breast milk substitutes and Shell over both Brent Spar and Kabinda.
I find it staggering that the European Parliament forces us to be gagged in this way, without the appropriate committee being consulted.
I therefore ask that you refer the matter to the appropriate committee for urgent consideration.
   Thank you, Mr Ford.
Your comment will, of course, be taken into consideration and noted in the Minutes.(3)
   Mr President, in a true democracy a struggle for political power and ideas is healthy and gives people their own choice of government and political leaders. However, the results of an election can never be made certain before polling, preventing people from dismissing an unpopular regime.
President Kuchma's belated interest, shortly before his term of office expires, in transforming Ukraine's system from an executive presidential to a parliamentary majority one, with an appointed executive prime minister, raises suspicions that this is a political manoeuvre designed to perpetuate his hold on power when he is trailing far behind opposition leader Mr Ushanka in the polls.
The first constitutional amendment vote in this direction on 24 December was strongly criticised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe because it used a show of hands. Some deputies were even photographed with both hands in the air, which is clearly against the Ukraine parliament's own rules of procedure and a violation of Article 3 of the Council of Europe's Statute, to which Ukraine has made a binding commitment and whose violation could jeopardise Ukraine's membership.
The PACE also criticised the behaviour of the opposition, which protested by blocking all the parliament's work.
On 3 February, and under international pressure, the constitutional bill was amended, which we must welcome as an improvement, to maintain a directly elected president – albeit a weakened presidency – and introduce lifetime security of tenure for judges in order to carry support from the socialist block of Mr Maroz, which has also declared that it will only support the final reading of the bill if substantial reforms are made to democratise the parliament via a proportional representation system. Once again, the government invoked questionable emergency parliamentary procedures to accelerate the voting and bypass national or parliamentary debate.
I would also like to remind the Ukraine Government that under their constitution, normally a constitutional change requires a confirmatory referendum by the people.
Like the rest of this House, I am also concerned about measures which might stifle open and free debate in Ukraine.
Certainly pressure on the opposition media is commonplace.
The case cited in the resolution of the paper is a bad one, in my view, as it was understandably and rightly prosecuted for publishing three extremely anti-Semitic articles. The government also claims that the end of Radio Liberty broadcasts was entirely due to commercial considerations rather than political reasons of pressure on the opposition.
In defence of Mr Kuchma, the United States allegations of breaking United Nations sanctions last year by exporting the Kolchuha radar system to Iraq have not been proven, as no such radar system has ever been found during the weapons of mass destruction search in Iraq.
Ukraine is now at a crossroads between a western-style democratic future with EU aspirations, which we in the European Parliament support in principle, and reverting to a semi-democratic authoritarian type of system. The choice is Ukraine's to make.
We strongly believe the former is preferable for the future prosperity and freedom of its people and that wonderful country.
   Thank you very much, Commissioner Solbes Mira.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at the end of the debates.
   Mr President, Venezuela is currently suffering a crisis which is leading to a social polarisation with unpredictable consequences, and has cost the lives of a number of people.
This Parliament’s position, during the long Venezuelan crisis, has clearly expressed the need to find a peaceful solution, a solution through dialogue, a constitutional solution and a solution achieved through essentially electoral means. This solution was enshrined in an agreement between representatives of the government and of the Democratic Coordinator by means of a recall referendum, which is the constitutional mechanism laid down in Venezuela’s Magna Carta, which allows the popular support for the President of the Republic to be revalidated.
The recent decision of the National Electoral Council not to validate a significant number of signatures collected in order to call the referendum does not, in our opinion, respect either the spirit or the letter of those agreements and has been the catalyst for the recent events in that country.
We believe it is clear, Mr President, that citizens cannot be deprived of exercising their legitimate rights and that the National Electoral Council is obliged to facilitate and guarantee the exercise of the popular will.
This Parliament, therefore, by means of this compromise Resolution, signed by three political groups, must call firstly for calm and moderation.
It must call on the government to guarantee the rights of all citizens, including the right to peaceful demonstration. It calls on the National Electoral Council to accept and adopt without delay the recommendations of the mission of the Carter Centre and of the mission of the Organisation of American States.
It reiterates its support for the agreements reached between the government and the Democratic Coordinator.
It expresses its concern at the failure to comply with them and calls on the government to guarantee their implementation as soon as possible.
Mr President, it is also necessary to call for a redoubling of the European Union's efforts, with the aim of ensuring that these agreements between the government and the Democratic Coordinator are complied with. I believe that the most desirable thing, as a result of these agreements, would be for a recall referendum to take place soon, which is the European Union's desire, expressed by means of various statements by the Council of Ministers of the European Union on the initiative of the Commission, and for a mission of European Union electoral observers to be appointed to accompany this process of ratifying and holding the recall referendum, which is the institutionally established mechanism.
   Mr President, the people of Venezuela took the country into their own hands and elected Mr Chavez as president. Apparently, this was not to the liking of the United States, the local plutocracy or the European Union, which is maintaining an indulgent silence.
They even went as far as organising a coup d’état in order to oust President Chavez and his government, but they failed thanks to the decisive intervention of the people of Venezuela themselves.
A new attack is unfolding at this time.
The opposition has made a huge effort to collect signatures, but I wonder where it submitted the petition, which was a failure in that most of the signatures proved to be forged.
And now the opposition is crying that it has been discriminated against.
The time when the imperialists imposed dictatorships everywhere has passed.
The people of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, of the whole of Latin America are stepping up their fight for democracy and social change. To all these peoples we express our solidarity and undivided support.
(1)
(2)
   – I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 11 March 2004.
   – Mr Schulz, I do not wish to hide anything from any appropriate authority, but as President, I do not want the details and facts behind the allegation to be hidden from me.
If there is something worth looking at, then by all means let us look at it.
The first duty, in terms of collegiality, is to provide the detail.
Unlike you, I have not had the benefit of seeing the allegations. I would like to see the meat, not just the allegations.
   – Thank you, Mrs Banotti.(1)
   – I take note of your point, Mrs Berès.
You have indeed raised this matter before.
I believe I was correct, in procedural terms, to refer the matter to the appropriate committee.
As I said, it has been discussed on several occasions.
I have offered no direction and have not sought in any way to influence the outcome of the work of that committee.
I feel that the advice given to me follows the due process; it does not seek unduly to protect any Member of this House.
If there are any further submissions on this matter from you or colleagues, I will refer them to the attention of the relevant committee.(1)
   Mr President, I appeal to the House and to the President to take every action possible in order to try to bring to an end the human rights abuses in Iran.
The Iranian regime has been perpetrating severe human rights abuses for far too long.
I appeal to the President to express the protest of this House to the Iranian regime and call upon it to bring to an end these human rights abuses as soon as possible. There was a major gathering of Europe's Iranian community in Brussels on 21 March, and there were heartfelt calls from Iranian exiles for a change to the approach of the regime in Iran.
Every MEP in this House should back Europe's Iranian community in demanding human rights and in demanding justice for Iranians.
   – Mr President, on the night of 19 March, 23 young people died in a terrible bus accident in Konginkangas in central Finland.
This collision between a bus and a juggernaut is the worst road traffic accident in the history of our country.
A committee of inquiry has been set up by the government to investigate the causes of the accident.
Was the extremely slippery road surface to blame, or rolls of paper loaded too loosely onto the vehicle; or was the accident that took the lives of 23 young people due to something else? I hope that, in the future, Parliament too will be able to benefit from this committee’s investigation.
At the same time, I would ask you when, in two weeks’ time, you visit Finland, to offer Parliament’s condolences to our people for this terrible accident.
   Mr President, I wish to condemn the arrest, by the armed forces of Colombia, of Rubiel Vargas, a member of the Executive Committee of the Columbian Communist Youth and correspondent of the independent news agency Ancol.
This arrest comes two months after the arrest of Gabriel Becerra, Secretary-General of the Communist Youth and representative of the social and political front of Colombia, on 23 January.
Luz Perly Córdoba, a trade unionist from the agricultural movement Campesina de Arauca, was arrested on 18 February and the communist Marίa Lucero Henao was murdered, together with her husband, by soldiers on 6 February.
This is just a small sample of the persecutions suffered by communists and grass-roots fighters in general in Colombia.
It illustrates just how hypocritical President Uribe was when he spoke of national reconciliation a few weeks ago, during the official reception which you and the few Members present in the House afforded him.
   Mr President, a dispute has arisen in Italy, to be specific in my region, the Trentino-Alto Adige/South Tyrol, regarding the ethno-linguistic census organised under the region’s statute of special autonomy and assiduously carried out by the German-speaking administration.
This census runs counter to the principle of free movement as well as to Directive 95/46/EC on the protection of personal data and in particular to Article 8 protecting the ethnic origin of citizens.
Whilst possible infringement proceedings are underway against the Italian State, it seems that Commissioner Bolkestein directly agreed to a solution with the Governor of the Province of Bolzano, as the President himself announced after returning from a trip to Brussels.
Considering that the Italian Government, which is responsible for this kind of negotiation, has already made an official protest, I would be pleased to know from Commissioner Bolkestein what the tenor of this meeting was: if it is true that a solution was agreed to or if the issue was simply discussed.
   – I see that Commissioner Bolkestein is here.
He may choose to respond to your question at some other moment and in a different way, but it is not appropriate to put the question directly to him at this time.
   Mr President, I am addressing you on behalf of our fellow MEP, Mr Eurig Wyn, who is currently in Turkey as an observer for the local elections.
He has asked me to inform you and our fellow MEPs of the fact that he has been denied access to the premises where the elections are taking place in various places in Eastern Turkey.
I think he will be enlarging on this experience, which should be added to the reports of violence during these recent elections in Turkey, which has even resulted in deaths.
This underlines once again that Turkey is failing to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria.
   Madam President, regarding the matter raised by Mr Heaton-Harris, six Belgian police officers assembled at 7.10 a.m. last Friday at a journalist’s private residence and removed lists of addresses and telephone numbers, business cards and four telephones and subsequently emptied his office at an international press centre of, among other things, 17 boxes of documents.
His requests for permission to telephone his wife, employer and lawyer were all refused.
The policemen also removed copies of private accounts.
We are now in a situation in which OLAF is interested in seeing accounts belonging to journalists who write about fraud, but has still not requisitioned bank statements from those who have been perpetrating fraud.
I should like to ask the President to see to it that we obtain a full explanation of, and report on, OLAF’s role in this matter, including too the Commission’s role in the decision to go to the Belgian police.
I would also ask the President to ensure that we obtain a guarantee that the EU institutions will in future respect the freedom of the press and, especially, the important principle according to which journalists’ sources are respected.
It is necessary in this connection to get the government in Belgium, where there is no law concerning the protection of sources, to guarantee that they will not intervene in the institutions when journalists write about scandals.
   Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in this debate, I would like to ask you to give special attention to Article 17 of the Transparency Directive, which deals with the dissemination of what is termed price-sensitive information.
The compromise proposal, as adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, creates, in my view, another problem.
Indeed, the amendment refers to officially designated mechanisms for the central storage of regulated information.
Needless to say, I have nothing against a central storage facility for price-sensitive information, but I wonder whether such facilities should be officially designated on a national basis.
In my opinion, this will open the floodgates to creating, or retaining, monopolies in the field of the dissemination of information.
As I see it, the forming of monopolies is completely at odds with the directive's objective, particularly the removal of national barriers in terms of transparency requirements and the improvement of efficiency, openness and integrity of the European capital market.
   Madam President, first of all I would like to thank our rapporteur Mrs Villiers, who has demonstrated remarkable patience in the light of certain positions and changes of direction during this long procedurewhich has finally ended in the compromise on which we must vote tomorrow.
As our rapporteur has rightly said, this compromise has failed to achieve its basic aim.
Specifically, the directive should set down Community rules applicable in all the Member States, in order to create equal conditions for the various actors and to allow banks and other financial institutions to enter into competition with stock markets and offer their customers the ability to internalise.
As you know, France, Italy, Spain and Belgium do not currently authorise these sales outside of stock markets.
The factor that brought France and Italy around to the common position was that financial institutions have to make their quotes public before the transaction and must keep to a fixed price.
As you know, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden and Finland rejected this common position.
I would also like to state that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs rejected it, by adopting Mrs Villiers’ report in February.
At least the compromise reached continues to partially respect Parliament’s opinion by limiting the price transparency obligation to sales of securities that are smaller in volume than the standard market size.
To summarise, the compromise that has been submitted to us is a poor compromise, but, with a heavy heart, I will nevertheless vote in favour of it for two reasons.
Firstly, because of the risk of going back to the common position – which is even worse and would damage the financial sector even more – and, secondly, to avoid having to go into conciliation with a new Parliament that is less well-informed in this field.
In particular, I deplore the position of the socialists and above all of their coordinator, Mr Goebbels, who have done nothing to ensure that the position championed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is adopted at second reading, when this would have been much more beneficial for consumers and for investment firms.
   – Madam President, the proposal for a directive on transparency requirements is a very important part of the Financial Services Action Plan and is meant to harmonise the transparency requirements for securities and for those who issue them.
In implementing the directive, not only the Commission, but also, of course, the national supervisors, will have a major role.
If we are to have an internal market, the information on offer to purchasers of securities must be comparable and reliable, and issuers of securities must not be put at any disadvantage.
We must therefore be guided by the principles enumerated in Recital 26a.
A well-developed capital market needs credibility, which itself demands an increasing degree of transparency, all of which, taken together, enable national economies to compete better.
It is no coincidence that those Member States that have high levels of share capitalisation, and whose stock exchanges enjoy high levels of turnover in relation to the gross national product, also enjoy more growth and have less unemployment.
So it is that in Finland and the Netherlands – as you, Commissioner, know better than any of us – stock exchange turnover has multiplied since 1995; ten times over in one and six times over in the other.
A study recently published in Austria demonstrates that there is also a significant positive correlation between share capitalisation and stock trading on the one hand and, on the other, the amount spent in a national economy on research and development.
In all these complex economic interactions, confidence and information play a major role.
In Austria, for example, the stock exchange legislation requires the most important companies, which are quoted on the Stock Exchange, to report on a quarterly basis, and so it is possible and practical, given the current state of the internal market, for there to be an upgrading to quarterly reporting at national level without any further obligations being imposed.
Congratulations to Mr Skinner!
   – Madam President, the intention behind the draft directive on stock exchange transparency is to improve protection for investors, to foster greater confidence among them and to cut capital expenditure.
It is also meant to promote investment in Europe’s financial markets.
I support it insofar as it aims to do these things, but it has been necessary, on a number of occasions, to adjust its course.
Most of my amendments were accepted, and Mr Skinner was amenable to compromise, so we were able to improve the Commission draft at crucial points.
One of them, to take an example, was Article 6, which dealt with quarterly reports.
If they are to function properly, financial markets need reliable information on companies, but what investors value is the quality of the information rather than the frequency with which it is supplied.
Neither in terms of costs nor of resources are small- and medium-sized enterprises able to cope with quarterly reporting.
I am pleased to say that we have together been able to delete Article 6.
A second example is the medium whereby issuers disseminate information.
In Article 17, the Commission insisted that company information should be published only on the Internet and that notifications should be sent out only by email.
We can see from the example of this House how we are constantly deluged with emails, and the appalling amount of junk data that we have; are investors supposed to work their way through that sort of thing in order to get at the quality information?
I think it would be utterly impossible. We have improved matters by including print media, which are the form of publication used by companies quoted on stock exchanges.
Not only have we been able to ensure the inclusion of such print media in Article 17, but we have also succeeded in deleting the clause that imposed exclusive use of the Internet.
I am glad that we have been able to do this.
Mr Skinner’s report is a balanced one and we in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs quite rightly adopted it by a large majority.
I have advised my group, that of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, to give it overall support.
   – The next item is a motion for a resolution (B5-0156/2004) by the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the protection of air passengers’ personal data.
   Commissioner Bolkestein, we will never agree on the balance between security and freedom if we do not first agree on the fact that this balance must be put into practice in respect of the law.
Commissioner Bolkestein, for 13 months the law of 15 countries of the European Union and even Community regulations have been violated every day.
You have not dealt with this.
We should not have gone into negotiations such as these in the position of weakness of a party willing to give up respect for and enforcement of its own law.
Of course, today we are in a weak position because we were already in a weak position when we entered negotiations.
The US security authorities can in no way demand that airlines illegally transfer personal data.
This is only possible because you, Commissioner, all of you, the European Commission, the Member States and the majority of those guaranteeing privacy accepted all of this.
There could have been an alternative solution: a solution, for example, that provided for the preparation by the US security authorities of simple visa mechanisms, on the basis of which the individual would provide personal data, not to the airline company for commercial purposes, but to the security authorities.
You did not want to implement this solution because, just as the United States is doing, you are preparing to allow data that is collected for commercial purposes to be used for security purposes.
This is contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights.
Combating terrorism by tolerating illegality for 13 months is a true picture of what this Europe is doing; and ‘Mr Terrorism’ has been appointed on the same basis.
Europol and Eurojust do not provide for any democratic control, or for any control by the Court of Justice.
This is no way to build an antiterrorist Europe!
   – The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0135/2004) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the protection of the financial interests of the Communities and fight against fraud – Annual Report 2002 (COM(2003) 445 – C5-0593/2003 – 2003/2248(INI)).
   – Mr President, Mr Bösch, ladies and gentlemen, from the very outset, it was a matter of fundamental concern to the Commission under President Prodi that the administration of Europe’s finances should undergo extensive reform and that they should be protected against fraud.
The decisive action we have taken has achieved a great deal.
In carrying out our reforms, we have been guided by the report produced by the Group of Wise Men, which your House appointed at the end of the previous Commission’s term of office.
The clear apportionment of responsibility has been central.
It is those who administer Europe’s funds who bear full responsibility for the proper handling of them.
Centralised financial control has been done away with, a course of action that was long overdue.
The division between financial control and policy management was a relic of a time when Europe still had a very small budget.
Now, at last, we have the sort of structure that is taken for granted in the Member States, with individual ministries being responsible for the proper spending of their budgets.
What happened in Eurostat during the nineties, with accounts being set up and administered outside the Budget, forcefully reminded everyone of the old system’s deficiencies.
The Commission has, however, retained a central internal audit office, the importance of which was underlined when, as long ago as the summer of the year 2000, it was placed under the Vice-President of the Commission.
OLAF was established as an important and new anti-fraud body, intended to be fully independent in uncovering, by way of administrative investigations, fraud and irregularities within the institutions and in the external sphere. Where will you find the like of it in the Member States?
In this, the European Union is ahead of the field, and it is of course encouraging that some of the new Member States are taking OLAF’s structure as a model.
As well as establishing and extending OLAF, the Commission has introduced a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach to combating fraud; we have promoted the development of a culture of prevention not only by faultproofing legislation, but also by drawing up ethical standards for the Commission’s staff and detailed provisions to protect whistle-blowers.
In combating fraud, we have stepped up operational cooperation with the Member States.
What makes this essential is the fact that it is the Member States who administer some 80% of the expenditure from the Community budget.
In this respect, OLAF is developing a true platform of services for the Member States.
The anti-fraud report for 2002 – which is what we are discussing today – shows that the Member States have made greater efforts to safeguard the EU’s finances than they did in the past.
It was in 2002 that the Convention on the protection of the European Communities' financial interests at last entered into force.
Even so, as Mr Bösch’s report shows, there is still more to be done.
As one would expect of him, Mr Bösch has produced a comprehensive report dealing with a whole range of issues related to fraud prevention, and from various angles.
I would like to turn my attention to one aspect to which you, Mr Bösch, have just referred, and that is the issue of export refunds.
It is true to say that export refunds demand a high degree of vigilance, as it always involves more than one country, so it follows that this is an area in which monitoring must always be very consistent.
According to the Directorate-General of my fellow-Commissioner Mr Fischler, though, the high volume of live cattle exported to Lebanon is also attributable to the steps that the European Union has taken to monitor the exports of live cattle in general.
At the beginning of this decade, the main players left in this field were Lebanon and Egypt.
During the BSE crisis, Egypt stopped importing live cattle from the European Union and instead started importing them from Australia.
This explains the current high volume exported to Lebanon.
I did of course ask whether the number of cattle exported there bore any relation to Lebanese consumer habits, and the DG Agriculture Policy again confirmed that these figures had of course to be considered in the light of the fact that the Lebanese eat practically no pigmeat and so it was only natural that more beef should be consumed than other varieties of meat.
I want to assure you, though, that I fully share your particular concerns about the protection of animals.
In 2003, the Commission enacted new regulations on the export of live animals and tightened up those already in force.
Today, the DG Agriculture has again confirmed to me that very tight controls are carried out both in the countries of origin and in the countries to which they are exported.
I would like to emphasise that Mr Bösch’s report, as is usual, takes a highly critical line, and so we are all the more pleased that the report expresses appreciation for the actions taken by the Commission.
This is not the only reason for the Commission to be grateful to the rapporteur; on the contrary, many of the steps taken by the Commission in recent years to combat fraud originated in demands and suggestions made, in particular, by the Committee for Budgetary Control.
The improvements and reforms at OLAF are among them.
Here too, it was the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, who was particularly insistent on changes being made.
We now propose to amend the OLAF Regulation by improving the flow of information between OLAF and the Commission, by providing better procedural safeguards for those under investigation, and by giving a greater role to OLAF’s Supervisory Committee, to certain of whose functions you have just, again, referred.
Alongside this, communications within the Commission on the subject of suspected fraud have been improved, notably between the political level and the services.
These, too, had been brought to our attention by Parliament.
We – and by ‘we’ I mean Parliament too – have achieved a fundamental reform of the Financial Regulation.
The new Financial Regulation not only reinforces budgetary principles, but also contains important instruments for combating fraud, and for exclusion of parties from tenders where details given by them are false.
Very recently, has described this as exemplary.
Administrative reform is largely complete.
We have, in the shape of OLAF, an effective and powerful instrument for combating fraud, but we must, of course, be constantly working to improve it.
What we still need to do, though, is to set up a European Public Prosecutor’s Office; fraud that is detrimental to the European Budget must be punishable under criminal law.
The Committee on Budgetary Control – particularly its chairman and the rapporteur, Mr Bösch – have been arguing in favour of this for years.
Recently, we have joined together in campaigning – and very successfully too – for the Convention to incorporate in the draft Constitution the proposal for the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office to protect our financial interests.
It is, fortunately, probable that an Intergovernmental Conference will, before the end of the Irish presidency’s six months, adopt a resolution on the draft Constitution.
I would reiterate, though, that we have not yet got over all the hurdles, and I see it as absolutely necessary that all those who have worked towards the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor’s Office, should continue to be vigilant, lest it fall victim to some compromise or other.
Right up to the Intergovernmental Conference, which will be in June, we will need to keep a very watchful eye on this.
   – Thank you, Mr President; in 2002, EUR 1.8 billion went astray as a result of fraud and irregularities, which amounts, approximately, to an increase of a cool 36% over the previous year, and the greatest increases are to be found in the areas of own resources and structural policy.
That may be interesting, but there is nothing new about it.
It all adds up to a sorry story, Commissioner, and you cannot put a positive spin on it.
It could be said that fraud is continuing regardless.
A 36% rate of increase may well be desirable in other areas, but it is nothing more or less than a disaster in the anti-fraud field.
It actually reveals that you have nothing to show for the four and a half years that you have served as a Commissioner.
Let us remind ourselves how the Prodi Commission took office in the autumn of 1999 grandiosely committing itself to, and demanding, zero tolerance for fraud and irregularities.
Everything was to be different after the fall of the Santer Commission – and what happened? One might say that one scandal gave way to another.
Let me remind you of the way you froze out the chief accountant after she said that the whole reform was not going as smoothly as you had told the outside world it was.
You changed the Financial Regulation, but without, in my view, making it more transparent or any clearer; instead, you did it by way of a jungle of regulations that nobody, at the end of the day, knows their way around.
Indeed, your cardinal error, in my view, was to do away with the independent position of Financial Controller, and to replace it with an internal audit service, one that is neither independent nor – it would appear – very appealing, in view of the fact that you will, in April, be losing its director, who is also making good his escape.
An accounting system has come to light that is described quite rightly in the press as being ‘as full of holes as a Swiss cheese’ and ‘as open as a bank vault’.
Finally, we have the Eurostat affair, with its secret accounts and losses acknowledged as totalling at least EUR 8 million.
I do not mean it as praise, Commissioner, when I call that a fantastic result; only a cynic could congratulate you on it.
As always, though, you are unaware of any wrongdoing.
All the Commissioners responsible are simply wriggling out of it and hiding themselves in the regulatory jungle that they themselves have created.
That none of this encourages any confidence on the part of the European public is evidently a matter of no concern to you; it would appear that the prevalent attitude is still that one can be more free and easy with Europe’s money than with that of the Member States.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Bösch, this report places due emphasis on the scandal of export refunds for live cattle intended for Lebanon, in 2002.
It should be noted that this scandal is only the latest in a long line of scandals.
Commissioner, you have mentioned here the reports provided by your colleague Commissioner Fischler on this matter.
I would, perhaps, ask you to take a look at the 2001 press in order to see, in great detail, the whole scandal of the export refunds for Jordan – which had also taken place as regards other countries – with the sole purpose of breaching UN sanctions on Iraq.
This has gone on for a number of years, involving various countries, and if the Commission has been unable to see what has been happening, I honestly think that this is because it did not wish to understand.
After all, detailed reports have even appeared in the press.
What I would like to say, however, is that we are not only dealing with the scandal of breaking the Iraq embargo with EU funds.
This is one of many, such as the scandal of the holding group set up by the Naples Camorra – involving large dairy companies from France, Belgium and Germany – to adulterate butter with beef tallow and oils.
This was also heavily financed by the Community budget, with export subsidies and disposal subsidies.
The problem is that Commissioner Fischler, whose name has not been mentioned here – though his name ought to be the first to come up in these circumstances – cannot ignore the scale of these successive scandals concerning the agriculture budget. We have yet to receive any clarification whatsoever of the amount of money spent by the Community budget on disposing butter adulterated by this Camorra holding group between 1995 and 2000, and there has been a similar silence concerning the amount of money recovered.
We still do not know which companies were involved, nor why the Commission has not imposed any sanction against any of them, not even sanctions relating to the functioning of milk quota mechanisms.
We must discover why it is that the Commission treats the major agriculture and food companies with such indulgence and impunity, yet imposes harsh penalties on small-scale farmers or dairies for the slightest administrative lapse.
These are the important questions that require answers.
   – Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report.
The European Anti-fraud Office (OLAF) was set up under great pressure from Parliament to replace the former UCLAF.
Its task obviously has to be clarified, but at the same time we must ensure that the European Union does not start to become a Community reminiscent of a police state.
At this stage our group does not support point 39, which goes too far in its outline of OLAF’s future role.
We still wish to keep our options open, and for that reason we have drafted Amendment No 8.
This gives attention to the following: the competence of the OLAF Supervisory Committee in relation to the Director’s discretionary powers, the matter of where the secretariat is to be physically located, and the rights of the people whose actions OLAF is investigating.
We should remember that it would be a very alarming situation if OLAF were to investigate an unfounded report.
As points 1 and 2 imply that poor administration and fraud are due to the fact that the same Commissioner is responsible for both the budget and financial control, we cannot accept this conclusion, which oversimplifies the matter.
At the same time we do not wish to belittle the determination and firmness with which the Commission has pushed for administrative reforms.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (Α5-0160/2004), on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on promoting gender equality in development cooperation (Rapporteur: Mrs Zrihen).
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (Α5-0196/2004), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (Rapporteur: Mr Pérez Álvarez).
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0161/2004) by Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the common position adopted by the Council on 6 February 2004 with a view to the adoption of a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Community action programme to promote organisations active at European level in the field of equality between men and women.
   The next item is the report (A5-0155/2004) by Mrs Prets, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the proposal for a Council directive implementing the principle of equal treatment between women and men in the access to and supply of goods and services.
   Mr President, the Commissioner said that he could not accept our Amendments Nos 35 and 36.
He is doubtlessly aware that there is an ‘insurance’ directive, specifically devoted to insurance, and that Article 18 of this directive requires that insurers calculate sufficiently prudent premiums taking account of future commitments.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if the Commission has checked, with the legal service, whether the proposals before us are compatible with the ‘insurance’ directive.
   . – Mr President, as far as these arguments are concerned, I should like to say that the objective of the directive is to apply the principle of equal treatment of men and women.
The use of gender-based actuarial factors is not compatible with the principle of equal treatment and, consequently, must be abolished within the framework of the directive.
That is why the present directive is based on Article 13 of the Treaty, in a bid to combat gender-based discrimination.
The objective of the directive is not to legislate to regulate the operating terms of the internal market and, as such, Article 95 is not a suitable legal basis.
The Commission can accept the following amendments: 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 71, 72, 73, 74, 77, 78, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 111, 112, 114, 115, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 157, 158 and 164 to 209.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 22, 28, 30, 31, 43, 50, 51, 59, 67, 68, 69, 70, 75, 76, 79, 89, 91, 92, 93, 98, 105, 109, 110, 113, 116, 117, 127, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 138, 156, 159, 160, 161, 162 or 163.
(1)
   Mr President, in supporting the political dialogue with the Andean Community, let us recall that only a month ago Colombian President Uribe was in this Chamber championing his so-called democratic security policy.
However, this is a policy that is not democratic, with violent intimidation leading to the withdrawal of candidates in 100 municipalities at last October's elections.
It cannot bring the much-needed security that the Colombian people deserve.
Uribe's policies for mass arbitrary arrest have shot prison numbers up by more than 10 000 in the last year.
The countryside is flooded with military personnel, and orders have gone out to kill people in groups of four or less in a sickening attempt to reduce the number of recorded massacres without any real diminution in the grisly death toll afflicting the country.
Indeed, evidence from the Colombian Commission of Jurists, backed up by the University of Bogota, shows that there has been no reduction in deaths at all.
Of course, we also condemn the murderous and brutal activities of the guerrillas, but two-thirds of the human rights abuses are perpetrated by the Colombian military or their paramilitary allies, which Uribe is now cynically seeking to legalise.
That is why we should use the political dialogue to maintain Europe's opposition to the military solution represented by Plan Colombia, to condemn human rights abuses on all sides in the Colombian tragedy, to insist that Colombia abide by all the commitments made in the London Declaration of 2003 and to act as advocates for grassroots projects, such as the EU-funded peace laboratories, which truly point the way to a just and lasting peace for Colombia.
   Mr President, I would like to concentrate on the threat posed by the Commission's proposals in terms of the privatisation of the independent meat inspectorate in the United Kingdom.
This issue has been raised, not only by the Consumers' Association, but also by the UK trade union Unison, which represents meat inspectors.
The feeling is that the Commission's proposal would allow privatisation through the back door by placing the responsibility for hygiene in abattoirs on the meat plants themselves.
Therefore the independence of meat inspectors would be compromised, as those paying their wages would then be the companies they are in charge of inspecting.
Consumer protection should be our Number One priority and no consumer should be put at risk of consuming unsafe meat.
Just last week we saw the issue of chicken on sale which, according to the Consumers' Association, had incorrect sell-by dates on the packets.
On top of this we have the backdrop of BSE, the tragedy of foot-and-mouth, and E.coli scares.
In fact, the situation that happened many years ago to which Mr Bowe referred involved the butchers my family used in Wishaw in Scotland.
There has never been such a need to reassure consumers that the meat they are consuming is safe to eat.
It is in the interest of the consumer, but it should also be in the interest of the industry.
When visiting a meat plant some months ago I was reassured that the quality of meat was of the highest standard and that the meat inspectors played an important role in securing quality and safety.
We should not put at risk the independence of the meat inspectorate.
There are 1200 independent meat inspectors in the United Kingdom and I hope they will be able to continue the work that reassures us as consumers that the meat we eat is safe.
   Mr President, this is part of the health package put together with the food law legislation, and I salute Mr Schnellhardt for what he has done over many years in this regard.
I support him in his urge that we should limit the degree to which the annexes here can be altered by comitology.
The devil is in the details.
We do not want the disease to be in the details as well.
We have cause for concern in all circumstances where food of animal origin is being packaged and identified.
The Commissioner knows from my own correspondence with him of the difficulties we have had in the East Midlands with the Denby scandal and others where meat was wrongly identified and sold when it should not have been.
The extension of inspection by ancillary staff in the case of red meat causes us special concern.
We do not want to see this extended to fattening pigs and calves.
The Commissioner said that this is perfectly safe and it has worked very well with white meat.
I am not so sure it has, and if he sees the Consumers' Association survey of the conditions in which chicken is being packaged and sold, he will see that there is room for doubt and concern even here.
It is not a reflection on the hard work and dedication of the staff who are employed in slaughterhouses.
It is only to establish that they are not put under intolerable pressure and that every possible safety means is employed.
I personally salute Unison, the trade union, for campaigning on this issue.
On this and this alone I believe that we have reason to go beyond the common position for safety's sake.
   The next item is the report (A5-0197/2004) by Albert Jan Maat, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the protection of animals during transport and related operations and amending Directives 64/432/EEC and 93/119/EEC.
   – Mr President, I have always held that the degree of civilisation of a people can also be measured by how much they respect animals.
In this regard, I should like to thank Mr Maat for his excellent report, which is a move in this direction, and for the improvements made in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which, in relation to the Commission proposal, help to give a more civilised image of our continent in the field of protecting animal rights.
Of course, it is not just a matter of image – of projecting a more humane image outside the confines of the European Union – but it is also, and I might say above all, a matter of substance.
Some aspects of the problem involve animal health, as has already been mentioned.
Let me underline a few of them.
First of all, the maximum length of time spent on the road: given that livestock should be moved as little as possible, it would be appropriate to limit transport to eight hours or 500 km per day at most.
That would apply both to slaughter animals and to those intended for fattening.
As regards the transport of animals for breeding, shows and competitions, however, transport for more than eight hours should require the use of special vehicles.
What does ‘special’ mean? It means that these vehicles should be fitted with equipment to measure the temperature and humidity in the livestock compartment, and there should be a forced ventilation system that operates when the vehicle is stationary.
Finally, in addition to the quite reasonable requirement of special training for drivers of vehicles intended for the transport of livestock, because we know that inappropriate driving inevitably causes the animals serious and unnecessary damage and suffering, I should also like to underline the need for an official veterinarian to be present while the animals are being loaded. This is to ensure that the rules for transport – the fitness of the animals to travel, and the minimum space allowances – are observed.
For this reason we particularly support Amendments Nos 121, 122, 123 and 124.
   Mrs Lulling, never before have European statistics been presented so elegantly in this House!
   Thirty-two Members support Mr Evans' proposal.
Does anyone wish to speak against it?
   My abstention in this vote is based on the opinion that I have always expressed on the agreement reached on 19 and 20 June 2000 at the Santa Maria da Feira European Council which, in my opinion, can only lead to deadlock.
The continued difficulties with Switzerland, despite the conclusion of the agreement that is being submitted to us here, and the difficult pursuit of negotiations with the other third countries, back me up in this assessment and in my vote today.
   The draft legislative resolution presented in the report renders meaningless the agreement reached at the Santa Maria de Feira European Council in June 2000.
This agreement makes the entry into force of the directive dependent upon the application of equivalent measures by Switzerland as well as by a number of other countries and dependent territories.
Since this condition has not been fulfilled, I voted against the resolution.
   The radical Members abstained in the vote on the Lehne report concerning the request for defence of the immunity of Mr Pannella because, even though we do not question the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market’s statement of its opinion, we believe that we should not be complacent about the need to affirm at every appropriate stage, Parliament’s prerogatives vis-à-vis Member States.
Indeed, it seems neither appropriate nor useful to be able to take action to limit the personal freedom of a Member of the European Parliament, even if on the basis of a judgment that has the force of without Parliament being informed of this and thus being able, if necessary, to take the necessary steps to express its opinion on reviewing the limits on its Members’ prerogatives.
Although in this case Parliament’s decision might appear to be justified – and we must also consider that the measures to restrict Mr Pannella’s freedom have meanwhile been dropped – we must not in any way interpret this as a precedent, should a similar case arise in the future.
   The June Movement has voted in favour of Amendment No 39.
We did not want to see the clause on education removed but, in our judgment, the ability of the Member States to take further steps is a consideration that must weigh more heavily than our position that the EU must not interfere in issues of education.
   Despite the efforts by Mr Maat, a Member of the European Parliament, to improve the Council position, I feel that the rejection of almost all of the amendments seeking to further strengthen the protection of animals during transportation justified my vote against the report.
Unfortunately, we have not achieved what I feel is correct and respectful transportation of animals.
   . I voted against the Maat report and the majority of the amendments because I am against any excessive regulation that only spurs on the bureaucrats.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
   . The Commission has asked for 50% more money for the budget, but the richest Member States want to restrict expenditure to 1% of GNP.
Some of the money needed for solidarity with the poorest regions within the current EU and the future enlargement regions can be found by actually putting a stop to persistent fraud.
The Commission's annual report for 2002 reports irregularities and fraud cases amounting to EUR 2.12 billion, only EUR 80.6 million of which could be claimed back.
In that selfsame year, OLAF, the anti-fraud office, completed 652 inquiries, involving a total loss of EUR 937 million.
The Eurostat fraud has been excluded from these inquiries, and the Commission has not learnt from past experience that it is preferable for the responsibility for budget and accounts on the one hand and financial inspection and fraud control on the other hand not to be in the hands of one and the same Commissioner.
Deceit is probably involved in the enormous subsidies – to the tune of EUR 52 million – paid for the export of live cattle to Lebanon.
OLAF is accusing journalists of having paid money in order to be able to publish secret fraud information, but cannot substantiate these accusations.
External advisory offices, in which former officials are involved, have received EUR 115 million.
Consequently, the theme of the 2004 elections will once again have to be the fight against the European Fraud Union.
   . This annual report follows up Article 280 of the Treaty, relating to the policy of preventing and fighting fraud in the EU.
Firstly, it is regrettable that the Eurostat affair was not included, which highlighted the risks inherent in the Commission’s outsourcing policy and the fact that outsourcing should only be used as a last resort.
Secondly, the report shows that the number of cases of fraud and irregularities reported in 2002 has risen by 13% to over EUR two billion, most of these under the Structural Funds.
It should be noted that the year in question was an unusual year due to the conclusion of the programmes for the period 1994-1999.
Germany and the Netherlands accounted for almost two-thirds of irregularities, and for 55% of fraud and irregularities in traditional own resources, namely unpaid customs duties and unpaid duties on goods moving within the EU.
It is therefore essential that we implement measures effectively to coordinate the fight against smuggling, particularly of tobacco and alcohol.
Lastly, I agree with the rapporteur on the need for a Commissioner to be exclusively responsible for budgetary control and that the European Central Bank should report all cases of fraud since 1999 to OLAF.
   That concludes the explanations of vote(1).
(2)
   Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, last Monday 22 March, there took place in Athens the inaugural session of this Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, of whose future importance in relations on both sides of the Mediterranean President Cox just reminded us.
This session marked the culmination of the efforts made immediately after 11 September 2001 to reach, on both sides of the Mediterranean, a better mutual understanding and to dispel the spectre of war between civilisations, which is a potential consequence of the downward spiral of blood and vengeance into which the barbaric supporters of indiscriminate terrorism are attempting to drag us.
Still reeling from the shock of the images of 11 March in Madrid, it was on the morning of 22 March that we learned, President Cox, of the assassination of Sheikh Yassin, with all the consequences this could have.
This gave us another reason to reiterate, in the presence of the official delegations from Israel and Palestine, the urgent need to find a fair and lasting solution to the conflict in which they are embroiled and to emphasise how important it is for the European Council, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to launch that strategic partnership for a common future with the Middle East on the subject of which you have just addressed us.
Let us be aware on our side of the Mediterranean that our future and that of our children and grandchildren will depend on the way in which we have been able to extend to Africa in general and to the Middle East in particular, that area of peace and stability that our founding fathers were able to establish on our continent.
Let us therefore resolve to have more influence in the negotiations in progress within the Quartet, since we well know – as you said, Commissioner Patten – that Europe can and must now play a decisive role there.
Whether or not we wanted it to be, the United States is considered, rightly or wrongly, to have taken Israel’s side.
Russia does not have the same interests as ourselves, stemming from our geographical proximity to the region, and the United Nations does not have our means to act.
If we Europeans were finally to speak with the powerful voice expected of us, there is no doubt it would be heard.
I am sure that the will to do so exists in our Parliament, as this debate will once again prove, quite simply because it reflects the will of a very large majority of our fellow European citizens.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, can we begin to hope that this will might finally manifest itself other than through pious wishes?
   The next item is the report (Α5-0133/2004) by Mrs Keppelhoff, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on requirements for feed hygiene.
   Mr President, I apologise to Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert for having missed her remarks.
A mass meeting of the railway workers who have recently been dismissed is taking place outside, and that was where I was.
I am sorry that we were unable to reach a full compromise agreement on the central issue here – the only one which I have time to address.
Like Mr Parish, I have listened to, and paid reasonable attention to, the fears that we have not really made a market or tested out a market in terms of the provision of insurance.
Nevertheless, I believe that at the last meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, with reasonable compromises on both sides, we arrived at a position where a 12-month study could lead – and I believe will lead – to a proper assessment of how insurance provision is made. I know that pushes the Commission further than in an ideal world it would like to go.
However, given that the vast majority of Member States and the Council take this view or a stronger one in terms of the proposals, if we are to achieve any kind of agreement at first reading here there has to be an indication – perhaps there already has been – that we will follow that line.
I am not personally in favour of a system that shifts to one of voluntarism on an ad hoc basis state by state, nor is my Group.
We know all our lessons from the history of food problems.
The provision of food and feed over the years since we first began to introduce a general food and feed law suggests that we need to have measures that apply right across the Community.
It is no good saying that anyone can opt out of those measures.
I hope the rapporteur will see that after a proper study and a reasonable length of time – and to me that means 12 months – we will arrive at that position.
I hope, for its part, the Commission can also accept that.
   The next item is the report (Α5-0147/2004) by Mrs Thors, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food.
– Thank you very much, Commissioner.The debate is closed.The vote will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12 noon.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0172/2004) by Mr Goodwill, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on certain fluorinated greenhouse gases (COM(2003) 492 – C5-0397/2003 – 2003/0189(COD)).
   . Mr President, I should like to thank the European Parliament and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr Goodwill, for the work done on this report on the Commission's proposal for a regulation on certain fluorinated gases.
I am grateful for the constructive approach shown by Parliament and the rapporteur to a number of elements in this highly technical legislative proposal.
They know that this proposal can help the European Union to meet its Kyoto commitments.
Fluorinated gases, as defined in the Kyoto Protocol, accounted for 65 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent, that is, 2% of the total EU greenhouse gas emissions in 1995, but are forecast to increase to 98 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent – from 2% to 4% – in 2010 under business as usual.
For example, in the refrigeration and air conditioning sectors there is a strong upward trend in the use of fluorinated gases due to the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances.
Our proposal addresses these rising trends.
This proposed regulation, by introducing cost-effective mitigation measures, could reduce projected emissions by around 23 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2010 and obtain even greater reductions later.
   . Mr President, we are all familiar with the principle of substitution, the substitution of a more environmentally friendly or more healthy product for another one which is environmentally damaging or damaging to health.
In many ways the use of fluorinated gases has already exhibited the principle of substitution, given that many applications that were previously used with CFCs have been substituted with HFCs.
As we know, CFCs are much more environmentally damaging than HFCs, being ozone-depleting gases which we have very successfully grappled with under the auspices of the Montreal Protocol.
HFCs are greenhouse gases like CO2 and, as the Commissioner said, whatever action we take on control of fluorinated gases, it cannot be at the expense of the action we need to take to control CO2.
HFCs are a drop in the ocean in relation to CO2.
First of all I would like to make a point about the legal base.
There has been much discussion about this, but I am firmly of the opinion that Article 95, the single market, is the correct legal base.
If we were to use Article 175 it would make marketing of products containing these gases almost impossible across the whole of the European Union.
Whilst I understand the situation, for example, in Austria, where they have gone further, in the interests of the single market we should maintain the legal base.
There are a number of applications of HFCs, from air conditioning to air-sole trainers and to aerosol fake snow, for example, which we had a little bit of fun about in the press at Christmas.
But this proposal is primarily about containment, not banning.
In fact there are a number of applications where no alternative is possible, for example fire protection and the use of sulphur hexafluoride in switch gear.
If we were to go along with one of the proposals that the Verts/ALE Group made, the lights would go out all over Europe!
With regard to vehicle air conditioning – and it is one side-effect of global warming that more people have air conditioning in their cars – the proposal was to replace HFC134a, with a global warming potential of 1300, with the more environmentally benign HFC152a, with a global warming potential of 140.
I can see people in the gallery already nodding off, and that is why Parliament decided that we should take a bold step to actually phase out the use of HFCs in air conditioning and substitute them with the new developing technology involving CO2.
Under the Commission's proposal there was a very complex quota system which looked as if it should start in 2009.
In practice, however, as 20% of the vehicle fleets of most manufacturers are not fitted with air conditioning, these manufacturers would have met the first step of the quota system without doing anything.
So actually the Commission's proposal would have started in 2010.
The quota system is complex and would only have worked very well with a company that had a range of products which fitted conveniently into these 20% steps.
Most manufacturers do not have a product line-up that fits in quite that way.
And of course there was a massive loophole in the whole system, a loophole big enough to drive a Rolls Royce through, in that manufacturers could as an alternative pay a 200 euro fine for not complying with the directive.
I suspect the manufacturers of some large expensive cars would do that rather than spend money on re-engineering.
We also have the fact that HFC152a is flammable, which may cause some problems with regard to safety.
That was not the final solution, and we think that using CO2, maybe a little bit later, would be a much more effective compromise.
That is why I am very pleased that the PSE Group has prevailed on me and made me see sense and that we have Compromise Amendment No 112, which says that, based on type-approval, we should phase out the use of HFCs and substitute with CO2 from 2012, with a two-year exemption, or two-year delay at least, for some of the smaller manufacturers – what we call the Porsche exemption –, moving towards CO2, which is a much better goal, not only environmentally, but politically too.
We also need some changes to the first line of Annex 2, which I am sure the sessional services will take care of if the compromise amendment goes through, substituting '50' for the global warming potential and putting type-approval in.
Not all air conditioning systems are mobile: some of them are in stationary applications such as buildings like this one.
This monstrous waste of taxpayers' money is cooled using HFCs!
In the case of buildings, it is important that we control leakage, and inspection and control of leakages are included in the Commission's proposal, which we support.
But we should also reward good practice by reducing the number of inspections where leakage is not occurring, as well as stepping up the number of inspections where we have leaks.
Finally, I would like to thank Mr Lange and Mrs Corbey for making me see sense, and Mr Davies for finally coming round to our way of thinking.
It has been a very interesting journey and I just hope that the people in the gallery do not think we spend all our time talking about these boring technical subjects.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for his good cooperation, as well, of course, as the other Members of this House who are present here today.
I think we have ended up looking in the right direction, especially as regards the issue of air-conditioning in cars, about which something has to be done, and, for the benefit of, among others, our visitors, let me say that what was agreed in Kyoto is binding in law within the European Union.
What the decisions of 2002 and of 10 March this year mean is that this is binding in the European Union whether Russia ratifies or not, so we too have to do something about this.
I think the facts are there for all to see.
The first fact is that more and more cars have air-conditioning; it is fitted in 80% of all new vehicles, and every year these units discharge between about 8% and 10% of the gases that damage the climate.
The second fact is that alternatives of various kinds are in the process of development.
I think it is perfectly clear that we have to go down the road of seeking out the safest alternatives possible with the absolute minimum of global warming potential.
Thirdly, that alternative is in fact a CO2-based air conditioning unit with a global warming potential 1 300 times less than at present.
Fourthly, I believe that we have to adopt the same approach to the type approval of new cars as we do to everything else, as construction, involving the energies of engineers, plays a part in that, and we have to demand, as soon as possible, new air conditioning systems.
Fifthly, CO2-based air conditioning systems are European technologies and European products, which, I think, also makes it apparent that, if we move on down this road, from f-gases to CO2-based air conditioning systems, the air-conditioning system of the future will indeed no longer be a climate-killer; on the contrary, the air conditioning unit of the future can also be a hit where European jobs are concerned.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0193/2004) by Mrs Paulsen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on a European environment and health strategy.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Wallström is wrong to say that she is implementing the Århus Convention; the reality of it is that her draft directive on access to courts goes much further than does Århus.
Århus merely requires open access to administrative or, alternatively, judicial review proceedings; Commissioner Wallström seeks to lay down binding provisions on access to the courts in all the Member States, with all environmental organisations to be empowered to object to administrative decisions and to appeal against them, with provision also for interim legal protection.
This is to apply to the whole body of environmental law, in other words, to the whole defined in the Community as having to do with the protection or improvement of the environment, including human health and the protection or rational use of natural resources.
The examples listed are, among others, water protection, noise protection, soil protection, atmospheric pollution, town and country planning, and biotechnologies.
Environmental organisations are thus given a general right to contest and monitor the application of the law.
That amounts to nothing more and nothing less than a system change in the implementation and control of the law as it stands in most of Europe’s Member States, with private bodies, in their guise as representatives of the public, being given the right to supervise the authorities.
Our legal system knows nothing of the monitoring of law by any such body separate from the courts and from the competent authorities, and with good reason.
Environmental associations are, at the end of the day, interest groups like any others, lacking democratic legitimacy and not bound by law and statute.
Introducing and making binding such a dramatic extension of class action will have a massive effect on the economy and cannot under any circumstances be reconciled with the Lisbon objectives.
It is for that reason that the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has limited itself to saying that Århus must be implemented, but to a minimum standard, and if Member States want to go beyond that, then that is their decision.
That is where the matter should rest, and so I can only hope, Commissioner Wallström, that the Council will firmly put a stop to your initiative.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are faced with two related proposals which must both fit in with the philosophy of the Århus Convention and only with that philosophy.
The question of whether or not to comply with the provisions of the Århus Convention is not on the agenda.
What we have to look at is how to act so that our governments and the Community institutions can implement this agreement.
The Århus Convention is undoubtedly a real advance, as it plays a part in establishing what has become essential transparency, and we are called upon here to present methods of providing the public with access to justice.
If this Convention is to be effective, however, it must bear the stamp of modernity and set in motion greater participation among all those who contribute to improving the environment in Europe.
That is why we should include a precise reference to the concept of sustainable development.
It would be inconsistent to try to make do with an overly restrictive definition of environmental law, and thus to exclude whole sectors of activity that, nevertheless, play an active part in achieving our environmental objectives.
I am thinking in particular here of professional groups.
With regard, more particularly, to the proposal for a directive, insofar as the Århus Convention will be implemented, the first question is whether the directive is really necessary.
This is a valid question and, if there is a directive, it must correspond to the spirit of the Convention.
In this case, it must also respect the principle of subsidiarity: this, I may add, is also the basis of our amendments.
This is because it is the Member States which will have to implement the requirements of the Århus Convention, and this must occur in accordance with the law in force in each of our countries and with the legal traditions applicable there.
I would under no circumstances support amendments aiming to impose one Member State's legal practices on all the others.
On the other hand, we must anticipate possible cross-border cases, and we must specify the conceivable procedures for appeals.
If these points are not taken on board, then, for reasons of legal consistency, we will probably choose to do without this directive.
   Mr President, in all the years that Parliament and the Council have been adopting legislation together, it has very rarely happened that a proposal put forward by the European Commission is rejected on account of the principle of subsidiarity.
I, and with me a large number of fellow MEPs, find that the proposal now being discussed – and I am talking about access to justice, the Schörling report – should suffer this fate.
This is because it is extremely unusual for the European Commission to submit a proposal to implement the Aarhus Convention in European Community law by way of a directive when all Member States and nine of the ten accession countries have signed this Convention, and some have even ratified it.
The instrument of a directive to force Member States to include the Aarhus Convention in their national legislation is therefore disproportionate.
Furthermore, this proposal is based on Article 175, although it is in actual fact about the harmonisation of the Member States’ legal systems.
This definitely cannot be done on the basis of Article 175.
The wording of the proposal is also different from the wording of the Aarhus Convention, and this will naturally cause major interpretation problems.
I am naturally in favour of the Aarhus Convention, but I cannot but conclude that the Member States should introduce it themselves.
They have undertaken to do so.
The Commission’s present proposal is therefore both technically incorrect and superfluous.
In conclusion, I would like to say that my group has very serious objections to this proposal.
We have therefore submitted an amendment to reject the proposal, and I call on fellow MEPs to support this.
An amendment of this kind in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy was rejected with a majority of one vote, and that was not surprising, since just before the meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy it was still being assumed that I would not declare this amendment acceptable.
Nobody had therefore prepared for the vote properly.
I think that we should be given the opportunity to do this again tomorrow.
   Mrs Thors, did you request the floor for a clarification?
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0139/2004), by Mr Manders, on behalf of the European Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee of a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on environmental liability with regard to the prevention and remedying of environmental damage.
   . Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Manders.
This is the first time I have had an offer of a date through the European Parliament plenary, or at least an invitation to a drink.
Thank you for that, Mr Manders, and thank you for your good work on the environmental liability file!
You are absolutely right that we have been waiting a long time for this to come true.
I also want to thank Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee under the chairmanship of Vice-President Imbeni, because the positive spirit which animated Parliament's delegation throughout this conciliation enabled us to find a satisfactory overall compromise: the joint text before you today, which has been approved by the Conciliation Committee.
Thanks to this new directive, a comprehensive framework whereby environmental damage would be prevented or remedied through a system of environmental liability will be put in place for the first time.
This new system will be a valuable benefit for the citizens and the environment of an enlarged Union.
I am very pleased with the result that has been achieved by the co-legislators.
We all wanted this directive to be an ambitious and workable piece of legislation, and finding a balanced compromise in such a technically complex and politically sensitive subject was certainly not easy.
I think that the text before you will constitute a significant step forward towards better environmental protection in Europe.
The contribution of this new directive to the conservation of biological diversity in Europe, through its application to protected species and natural habitats, is just one example of the many gains made possible by this directive.
Thank you again, Mr Manders.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0177/2004) by Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the management of waste from the extractive industries.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to mention the definition of waste.
This proposal does not contain a specific definition of waste from the extractive industries, but instead reproduces the general definition of waste from the Waste Framework Directive, 75/442/EEC.
This does not prevent such waste being reused for a beneficial purpose, for instance in construction materials.
It is important to make this clear.
I should like to give the Commission’s reaction to important amendments.
The Commission can accept Amendment No 32 fully, and Amendment No 26 in part or in principle.
The amendments concerning the scope of the proposal are of course of particular importance.
Amendment No 15 concerning Article 2.3 proposes that material such as unpolluted topsoil and waste from prospecting be covered by the limited requirements pursuant to this Article.
The Commission can support this course of action, as it increases legal certainty and also improves environmental safeguards.
We also support the amendment to the effect that disposal facilities for inert waste should also be covered by the provisions on serious accidents.
Amendment No 15 proposes that the limited requirements of Article 2.3 should include non-hazardous waste.
That part of Amendment No 15 would have a significant impact on the overall effectiveness of the proposal, and the Commission cannot accept that.
For different reasons, the Commission cannot support the amendments that introduce certain measures for exhausted mine voids that have been allowed to fill up with water.
We think that this issue should be resolved under the Water Framework Directive.
It is necessary to manage the great burden from the past presented by closed and abandoned disposal facilities.
The Commission has proposed an exchange of information on methods for charting and rehabilitating these facilities.
Amendment No 71 would make this information obligatory at EU level.
Drawing up inventories to identify the worst sources of pollution is a major step on the way to solving this problem.
The Commission can support this strategy.
Decisions on the rehabilitation itself should, however, rest with the Member States.
Another issue is the requirement for financial guarantees to cover the costs if operators can no longer be held responsible.
The Commission can support the clarifications in Amendments Nos 66 and 67, but cannot accept the part of Amendment No 66 that stipulates that these procedures be approved by the Commission, as this falls within the Member States’ competence.
Nor can we accept amendments concerning the form of these guarantees, as the text should retain its present flexibility.
A transitional period has been granted for disposal facilities granted a permit before the entry into force of this Directive.
Amendment No 74 contains an attempt to introduce certain requirements during that period, including by referring to the Water Framework Directive.
The Commission thinks this unnecessary, as the provisions of EU water legislation and also the general requirements of the Waste Framework Directive apply.
In addition, the rationale behind the transitional period should not be undermined.
Amendments Nos 29 and 35 underline the need for appropriate management of the closure and after-closure of disposal facilities.
A number of amendments also propose making reference to EU standards for evaluating environmentally friendly management.
Amendments Nos 32 and 57 establish a direct link to the objectives of the Water Framework Directive, and Amendment No 46 establishes a direct link toprotected areas.
Finally, Amendment No 7 also explains the role of this Directive in EUdevelopment aid.
The Commission supports these amendments, which have the same objectives as the Commission proposal and which increase consistency with other important EU legislation.
I am going to leave a complete list, giving the Commission’s opinions on the amendments, with the Secretariat(1), and I should like to express my thanks for this initial debate on this important proposal, which will raise the profile of both these problems and our proposed solutions.
As many Members have said, action is needed, as these problems are much more common than we think, as are the recurrent accidents in Europe and around the world.
The problem must be tackled.
The Commission can accept the following amendments wholly or partly and subject to rewording: 5, 6, 10, 18, 19, 25, 26, 27, 28, 90, 31, 32, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 52, 56, 58, 62, 64, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 82, 85, 86, 95, 96, 97, 98, 106, 109 and 119.
With regard to Amendment No 10, the Commission would accept the possibility for stricter national rules provided that they are compatible with the general rules of the Treaty.
The explicit reference in the amendment to banning the export of horses for production or slaughter would require a specific legal examination in this regard.
The Commission would support Amendments Nos 28, 73 and 95 on the use of a satellite navigation system provided that the measure only applies to vehicles carrying out long journeys.
With regard to Amendments Nos 9 and 16 in relation to the scope of the regulation, the Commission could accept an exemption for transport of less than 50 km (vs. the amendment's 100 km) but not for animals transported for sporting events or shows if for commercial purposes.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 29, 33, 34, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 53, 54, 55, 57, 59, 60, 61, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89 to 94, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 122, 123 or 124.
The Commission can accept the following amendments: 1, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17 and 20 to 91.
The Commission can accept the following amendments subject to rewording: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18 and 19.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment: 7.
The Commission position on the 112 amendments is as follows: it accepts 10 amendments in full – 8, 9, 12, 14, 18, 29, 35, 46, 50 and 78; it accepts 19 amendments in principle – 3, 7, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 24, 30, 31, 32, 40, 52, 77, 81, 82, 95, 102 and 107; it accepts 9 amendments in part – 33, 34, 41, 52, 53, 63, 70, 93 and 111; it rejects 74 amendments in full – 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 10, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 36, 37, 38, 39, 42, 43, 44, 47, 48, 49, 51, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 79, 80, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110 and 112.
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   I take note of that for the opening of tomorrow's sitting, Mrs Kinnock.
   Mr President, the Taoiseach says that he believes that the principle of the dual-majority system is now accepted.
But it seems to me that it is not yet accepted in practice because one sees the various ministers trying to supplement the dual-majority formula with further qualifying clauses which would permit a specified number of Member States to form a blocking minority.
My strong advice to the presidency would be to reject such superfluous complications.
It would be far better to achieve a simple formula, say 55/55, which dispenses with the need for a third key.
Europe cannot be built upon mathematical equations, but on political trust.
   –Mr President, we all were deeply affected by the attack in Madrid, and I am very pleased that the European Council of last 25 March responded to it by anticipating the solidarity clause.
Indeed, this principle of solidarity, above and beyond any procedures that can be discussed, must have unanimous support from us.
In addition, the Council has set 17 June as the deadline for the end of the negotiations on the draft of the European Constitution.
This decision is less simple than it seems, because compromises on some essential points have still not yet been reached.
Its intention, it seems, is above all to exert pressure on the recalcitrant countries.
This decision also seems to have very little respect for universal suffrage.
Indeed, whether the agreement will be announced after the European elections or whether it is achieved a fortnight before does not change much.
In any case, the result is that there will be no time to organise a concrete debate.
Once again, Mr President, this method speaks volumes about the sort of Europe that this Constitution heralds.
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, Europe is moving forward with its responses and, after the drama in Madrid, after the one in New York, we have made, and are continuing to make progress in the fight against terrorism.
After New York we had a long and difficult negotiation on the European arrest warrant.
We had consolidated the advances concerning Europol and Eurojust.
Behind the scenes, though, implementation is so slow and so heartbreaking for our fellow countrymen that it is necessary to find other means to force the hands of the Heads of State or Government.
Indeed, having given their agreement to the Council, they then forget to implement the subject of the agreement in their own countries.
Take the European warrant; it is not right that so many States have not yet ratified this essential tool as we wanted them to do after New York.
Today, after Madrid, Mr de Vries, a former Member of this House, has been appointed coordinator.
Everyone is delighted, because everyone knows his determination in these matters, everyone knows his determination to work to establish a European prosecutor.
If, though, he has neither the necessary resources or a clear mandate, we shall be left powerless.
It was under the pressure of events that a coordinator was appointed, even though, in fact, there is an underlying idea, an intuition, one that inspired many of us within the Convention itself: the idea that, with regard to matters where the Heads of State or Government are entitled to their say and must be able to cooperate actively with the tools of a European vision, tools that are in the hands of a Commission, better coordination between various European authorities is needed.
What we have done for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, we understand that, in a way, we shall have to do in the field of justice, security, and freedom.
In fact, this coordinator is a foretaste of what must one day, doubtless, be implemented.
Today, though, he has no relation, no link with the Commission.
I believe that it is necessary to reflect on this if we want to be effective in coordinating the resources of the fight against terrorism.
In this spirit, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have in your hands the future of the European Constitution, because you now have a defined mandate with a somewhat difficult schedule, one that is certainly welcome in so far as it provides Greater Europe, which will be finally reunited on 1 May, with a Constitution in the short term, but that is, all the same, somewhat problematic in view of the elections to the European Parliament.
Put simply, what I want to do is to draw your attention to the elements that this House regards as essential.
There is, as others before me have said, the question of Parliament's budgetary powers.
Beyond this, though, I see a risk of backing down with regard to what was enacted in the Convention: I want to speak about the prospect of a European prosecutor, I want to speak about qualified majority voting where it was possible to get it, in the fiscal and social area, even though this is not enough.
I see a risk of backing down in the field of increased cooperation and linking clauses.
I see a risk that the revision of the Constitution may not be dealt with.
This would be very serious.
Finally, Mr President, you have a very serious problem where the composition of the Commission is concerned.
I know the tendency: it is to give one commissioner per Member State.
I again want to draw your attention, however, to a proposal that is on the table, that of not specifying the number of commissioners in the Constitution, and leaving to the President of the Commission, with the European Council, the freedom to define the balance of the composition of the Commission, by simply imposing a limit of one commissioner per Member State at the most.
Perhaps, for a certain time, this will lead to a Commission of 25 that will have to get organised, but at least we would leave ...
   . Where the Italian Presidency failed to lay down the European Constitution, the Irish appear to be succeeding.
We now have, unexpectedly, a unique opportunity of involving all Europeans in this process.
We must give the voters clarity before they cast their votes between 10 and 13 May.
The Council will therefore need to issue the text ahead of time in May, which is quite feasible.
How decisive, however, is the Council?
How strong, for example, is the will to actually get an effective grip on terrorism? Although the new terrorism coordinator, Mr de Vries, is undoubtedly the right man for the job, he has an impossible task if national security services decline to cooperate.
We also wanted definite decisions from the Council about giving the European economy a shot in the arm by stimulating innovation, making the labour market more flexible and abolishing unnecessary rules.
We received another clear decision: a committee is being set up.
When will the Council at last take responsibility? I doubt as yet whether the report by the Kok committee for economic growth can make a difference.
In the final analysis, it is the countries themselves that have to carry out structural reforms.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Oleg Viktorovich Morozov, the leader of the delegation from the Russian Federation State Duma to the European Union-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee and Vice-President of the Duma, and Alexandr Nikolaevich Belousov and Gennady Alexandrovich Gorbunov, members of the Federation Council, who are all in the official gallery.
The delegation is in Strasbourg for a number of meetings with our delegation to the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.
I offer them our greetings and appreciation for being here.
   – Mr Schulz, this is a subject on which I believe the House has given its appraisal.
To a great extent we agree with your position.
The President is aware of it, since he spoke to you about it at the beginning of this session, and so I am sure steps will be taken in this direction.
   Mr President, I am speaking to ask the Presidency to communicate with the honourable Member Mr Hans-Peter Martin and ask him to submit to the same procedure that Mr Schulz and other German colleagues have agreed to submit to with regard to the accusations made against them, particularly in the Austrian press.
   – Mr Barón Crespo, all these requests will be scrupulously passed on to Pat Cox.
   – Mr President, I would like to unreservedly endorse what was said by the previous speakers.
Yesterday, in this House, we held a press conference in which all the political groups took part.
We wrote a joint open letter to a specific newspaper in Germany and set out our view of the allegations.
Only if each specific allegation is specifically refuted will we all jointly be able to restore the popular and public confidence in this House; what is at stake is the standing of every single one of its Members, the standing and integrity of the European Parliament itself.
I therefore ask that each allegation should indeed be examined specifically, as Mr Schulz has proposed.
   – Mr President, as a representative of the European Parliament, I have the honour of participating in a government conference.
As the chairman of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, I have been holding frequent discussions – in the Council, in the Commission and in the embassies, with representatives of other countries, some of which are candidates for accession.
May I ask for your support and protection, to ensure that Mr Martin cannot portray this activity in the exercise of my mandate as a disadvantage to the public?
   – Ladies and gentlemen, I shall bring all the observations that have been made to the attention of Pat Cox.
I personally agree with a great many of them, and I am sure a clarification will be given.
   . Mr President, I would like to make a statement in relation to the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council to establish a new financial services committee organisational structure.
In particular I wish to bring to the attention of the House the contents of a letter which was sent by the President-in-Office of Ecofin, Minister Charlie McCreevy TD, on 24 March to the Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Mrs Randzio-Plath.
The contents of the letter are as follows:
'Concerning the proposal for a directive to establish a new financial services committee organisational structure, presented by the Commission on 5 November 2003, I would like to clarify a few points which have been raised during the contacts between the Council and the European Parliament.
When in March 2001 the Stockholm European Council took the decision to apply the Lamfalussy approach in the securities sector, the following passage was included in the Presidency Conclusions: ‘The European Council notes that, within the framework of the comitology decision of 28 June 1999, the Commission has committed itself, in order to find a balanced solution for those cases of implementing measures in the field of securities markets acknowledged in the light of the discussions to be particularly sensitive, to avoid going against predominant views which might emerge within the Council as to the appropriateness of such measures.
This commitment shall not constitute a precedent.’
'The Council, noting that this commitment on behalf of the Commission does not constitute a precedent, and taking into account the function of the Lamfalussy approach in the securities sector, will not ask the Commission to make a similar undertaking within the framework of the extension of the Lamfalussy approach to the banking and the insurance sectors.
'Concerning the question of interinstitutional balance, you will recall the statement of the representatives of the governments of the Member States meeting within Council on 9 December 2002, wherein they decided that they would draw the attention of their Heads of State and Government to the importance of a revision of Article 202 of the EC Treaty and invited them to consider this question in the preparation of the Intergovernmental Conference.
We now have on the table of the Intergovernmental Conference a draft Constitutional Treaty which regulates the delegation to the Commission of the power to enact delegated regulations.
The Treaty is not agreed yet, but I can affirm to you that the representatives of the governments of the Member States meeting within the Council favour the idea of a balanced legislative system in accordance with the principles set out in Part I, Article 35, of the draft Treaty.'
   . – Mr President, I refer to Article 69(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
This report on ‘the new policy for the neighbouring states’ involves reorganising the lending facilities of the European Investment Bank.
In consultation with the majority of the coordinators, I would like to request that the plenary should vote on the individual amendments, but should postpone the vote on the draft legislative resolution, so that we again have an opportunity to negotiate with the Commission and the Council on our amendments and so that the views of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy can also be taken into account, to the effect that the negotiations should impose new priorities in connection with Russia and the new Independent States.
   . Mr President, the Commission believes that there is a good basis for agreement between Parliament, the Council and the Commission on this amended regulation on development cooperation with South Africa.
Amendment No 3 is the only obstacle to approval by the Commission and – I should note – by the Council.
   . – Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his explanation.
In these circumstances, we can withdraw Amendment No 3 and can also announce that Amendment No 2 will be replaced by Amendment No 4.
   – Mr President, I am one of the victims of Mr Hans-Peter Martin’s libels, and I am no longer prepared to put up with this sort of thing.
I accordingly request – and wish to have it on the record – that Mr Hans-Peter Martin’s parliamentary immunity be suspended.
I will be bringing criminal proceedings against this Member for libel, defamation, insulting language, damage and all other offences that may be considered relevant.
I therefore ask that his parliamentary immunity be suspended, so that the proceedings can be brought.
   .
It should be noted that what is known as the Lamfalussy process for adopting legislation on the financial markets was accepted by the European Parliament, which meant that the basic political choices involved in the process would be taken by codecision and that the technical measures for implementing them would be adopted by the Commission.
The main aim of this process is to speed up the implementation of the financial services action plan, in order to create a single market, as an integrated capitals market, by 2005.
This process would benefit the main market operators because it would give them substantial influence over lawmaking and would liberalise the movement of capital and financial instruments in order to feed speculators’ greed.
The European Parliament accepted this process because it agreed with its aims, thereby placing its legislative power in the hands of others.
We cannot, therefore, complain or call this process a simple comitology procedure.
By establishing a new organisational structure for committees responsible for financial services, the European Commission is attempting to apply the Lamfalussy process to the banking sector, to insurance and to collective investment undertakings.
The European Parliament is once again critical, but once again approves the process because, once again, it agrees with the stated aims.
This is a good lesson for those who are such vocal advocates of codecision.
   .
The background to producing this Association Agreement – the aim of which is to improve EU-Central America relations – is that, having concluded association agreements with the countries of Central America and the Andean Community which are identical to those already concluded with Mexico and Chile and to those currently being negotiated with Mercosur, we wish to establish a basis for an overall interregional agreement that will facilitate the creation of an EU-Latin-American Association, including a Free Trade Area.
The intention is thus to increase the EU’s influence in that region, providing a counterbalance to the powerful influence that the United States already exerts there by focusing its interests, firstly on creating a US-Central America Free Trade Area and then on establishing what is known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Whilst I am aware of these developments, I do believe that competition is always a good thing and that all relations that can be established with these countries will be mutually beneficial, both for the Member States involved and the EU as a whole, and for the balance of socio-economic and geostrategic relations in the intercontinental context.
I therefore voted in favour of this report.
   .
The views I expressed in my explanation of vote on the Obiols i Germà report also hold true for this report, in other words: the context in which this Association Agreement has been produced consists of laying the foundations for a global interregional agreement that will help to create an EU-Latin America Association, including a Free Trade Area, thereby increasing the EU’s influence in that region and acting as a counterbalance to the influence that the US has or wishes to have there.
Unless this association is established, the interests of the countries in that region will become polarised, firstly on creating a US-Central America Free Trade Area and then on setting up what is being called the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
We should, therefore, promote relations with those countries that are mutually beneficial, both to the countries and Member States involved and to the EU as a whole and also to the balance of intercontinental socio-economic and geo-strategic relations.
I have therefore voted in favour of this report.
   .
In relation to Amendment No 1 of the report on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC, Euratom) N° 2728/94 establishing a Guarantee Fund for external actions (COM (2003) 604), I would like explicitly to emphasise that ‘new’ atomic power stations also includes those that are to be ‘completed’ (such as Cernavoda in Romania).
I would like to make it clear once again that a ‘new’ atomic power station is also to be understood as meaning the ‘completion’ of an existing one.
   .
This report proposes to amend Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2728/94 establishing a Guarantee Fund for external actions, in light of the accession of new Member States on 1 May 2004.
The Guarantee Fund covers guaranteed loans granted to third countries and the guarantees for these loans.
With ten countries soon to join the EU, in 2004, the Fund will be affected by the fact that various countries have benefited from European Investment Bank (EIB) loans, guaranteed by the EU budget, which means that these will be covered by the target amount from the moment they join the Union.
The guarantees will remain in place, but the associated credit risk will now be transferred to the Union budget.
This proposal for an amendment establishes rules to address all of these situations and to ensure an ordered transfer of these responsibilities from the Fund to the budget.
In terms of the financial implications, this is an exceptional and inevitable financial operation, because it is linked to the process of enlargement, and I have consequently voted in favour.
   .
In order to meet its international commitments, the European Union must formally approve the decision on the conclusion of the Århus Convention.
The aim of the Convention adopted at the Ministerial Conference ‘Environment for Europe’, which took place at Aarhus, Denmark, on 25 June 1998, is to facilitate access to information on the environment and improve public participation in decisions that could have consequences for the environment, to which we could add a ‘third pillar’: access to justice in environmental matters.
The Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, of 16 June 1972, stated that everyone has the right to live ‘in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being’ (...).
In the Maastricht Treaty itself, the Union gave a commitment to consider environmental protection in all its policies.
This measure complies, therefore, with Article 175(4) of the EC Treaty, which explicitly stipulates that the Member States must ensure that environmental policy is implemented and this also constitutes a further important step towards the desired sustainability of development in the EU.
   . I am pleased to support this report, which recognises that Cedefop's achievements to date demonstrate its ability to make a valuable contribution to the development of the Community's vocational training policy.
The Agency, created in 1975, provides excellent services for the European Commission, the European Union Member States and the social partners, as well as for the associated countries of Norway and Iceland.
Cedefop provides policy makers, researchers and practitioners with information to promote a clearer understanding of developments in vocational training and thus enable them to take informed decisions for future action.
I believe the proposed amendments will improve the efficiency of Cedefop's administrative procedures, and am particularly glad to see that they will lead to a balanced representation of men and women by addressing this issue in the whole chain of the nomination and election procedure.
   . The radical Members of the Lista Bonino are greatly satisfied with the adoption today by the European Parliament of the resolution prepared by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak on the transfer of passenger data to the US authorities.
Indeed, the resolution deems wrong the Commission’s decision, which considered ‘adequate’ the US system that regulates the issue of privacy associated with handling passenger data collected in European territory. It also claims that the Commission exceeded its powers and calls on it to withdraw its decision.
Furthermore, the resolution states that Parliament could decide to ask the Court of Justice for an opinion on the legality of the draft international agreement with the United States.
We believe that today, in spite of strong pressure from the Commission, national governments and the United States, the European Parliament has boldly and fully accepted its role as representative of the European citizens and defender of their rights and freedoms, democracy and the rule of law.
(1)
   The next item is the report (A5-0206/2004) by Mr Baltas, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the application by Croatia for accession to the European Union.
   – Mr President, Mr Baltas has made a very balanced recommendation to the Council with regard to Croatia's application for accession to the EU.
It names quite categorically the main areas of persistent concern from the point of view of the EU, which are good neighbourliness, the refugee issue and cooperation with the International Yugoslavia Tribunal.
In addition, the rapporteur has not lost sight of Zagreb's major difficulties with these objectives and its efforts towards achieving them.
He quite rightly mentions the indispensable contribution of Croatia's neighbouring countries to a climate of mutual trust and security in the region, something that Mrs Pack also pointed out.
In summary, Mr Baltas' report is, in my view, 'terribly' good, and I use the word 'terribly' for a reason that you will understand.
All the more interesting were for me the rather critical reactions to the draft recommendation by a number of Croatian academic participants.
Across the board, their comment was that 'the European Union is on each occasion asking a great deal from us, but what exactly does the average Croatian citizen stand to gain?' There is no shortage of daily concerns for them – I would mention employment, education, health care and housing – but these are not addressed in Mr Baltas’ report, thorough though it otherwise is.
Not for nothing does he ask the Council, in paragraph 1, point(s), for greater assistance for Croatia in its persisting difficulties on the road to Europe.
This request is given an added twist by a surprising result of a poll in Croatia this week.
No less than 82% of the interviewees are opposed to Croatia’s eventual accession to the European Union.
Let us hope that this is only a snapshot in time, and one that will soon fade away.
All in all, Prime Minister Sanader's pro-European course is under pressure, so what he needs is actual back-up from Brussels.
On the other hand, Zagreb is clearly keen on integration into the Euro-Atlantic community.
It is therefore up to the European institutions to offer Croatia a close transatlantic relationship.
   – Mr President, I would like first of all to express my pleasure that things have now got moving in connection with Croatia’s application for membership of the European Union and that there are definite prospects for the opening of negotiations.
I can only agree with what Mrs Pack has said and confirm the great efforts Croatia is making to come closer to the European Union.
I have followed developments in Croatia since 1995, first as a delegation chairman and then as chairman of the EU-Slovenia Joint Parliamentary Committee, and have found that steadily increasing efforts have been made in the right direction.
Of course, things moved very hesitantly and with great difficulty in the early stages, but eventually they gained momentum.
The new government under Ivo Sanader has really advanced by leaps and bounds, especially in policy towards minorities and the coexistence of ethnic groups.
I say that as a representative of a minority.
The approach taken by the new government, and by the prime minister in particular, calls for our utmost admiration.
It could be considered an example for other countries wishing to join the EU and be held up as exemplary in terms of a new intake and new opening between majority populations and minorities of any kind.
Positive considerations have also prevailed as a result of international arbitration in the border disputes or differences of opinion over the border in the Piran Bay.
I believe that is the right way when both states have legitimate interests and this question need not therefore be a stumbling block any longer.
I would therefore like to thank Mr Baltas for this good report and I hope that the Commission will do what it can to get negotiations started.
   The next item is the report (A5-0207/2004) by Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the situation as regards fundamental rights in the European Union (2003).
   Mr President, I would like to start by echoing the point made by Minister Roche in his introduction that it is to the European Union's enormous credit that we can produce this critical self-appraisal, this report on human rights within the EU.
It is very easy to criticise other parts of the world; it is more difficult, and to our credit, that we are prepared to look within the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the governments working together to make a more democratic institution – not by any stretch of the imagination a super-state that needs to be feared, as we might read in the papers.
As Commissioner Vitorino quite rightly said, there are many positive points that we can take on board from this; and we can build on good practice from one country to another.
I also agreed both with him and with Minister Roche when they spoke of the need to develop a modern interpretation of the Geneva Convention on refugees.
The situation today is different from the post-war era of 1951, but the challenges may be similar, even if the practicalities will be different.
We all need to cooperate if we are to implement its principles.
Nothing could be more important for an EU of 25 countries than to have a common European policy on immigration and, alongside but separate, a common European policy for asylum.
The rapporteur has referred to the need for this and I commend her on her work.
As she says, it must not be based on the lowest common denominator; rather, a system that will gain the most respect and be the least subject to criticism will be based on the highest possible standards, will respect families, and will respect human rights.
   Mr President, I too share many of the views and proposals put forward by Mrs Boumediene-Thiery.
To be brief, I should like to confine myself to the worries associated with the ultra-security-conscious approach that has just been confirmed by the last European Council.
Following the American model, this positioning is dangerous and menacing; more to the point, it does not get to the roots of terrorism.
Under the guise of fighting this curse, the legislation piling up in each of our countries is already giving rise to new infringements of human rights.
I am thinking, for example, of the so-called preventative measures concerning the issue of visas in Germany, of the measures authorising the quasi-deportation of twenty-six thousand people in the Netherlands, of the measures in France that have brought about an increase in expulsions of more than a third in comparison with the start of 2003.
The European position is getting further and further away from the universal principles of asylum and solidarity.
Have not the Heads of State just flouted these principles by authorising de facto, as from 2005, the keeping of systematic records on all people living in Europe? The same attitude prevails in the draft directives aimed at harmonising asylum policy.
Should we not therefore be worried, as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has just made clear, about the concept of safe third countries to which refugees can be passed on without any certainty about their safety? Finally, the same can be said of the European charters, which our Parliament has fortunately just rejected.
On the contrary, the future of human rights in Europe will involve a genuine policy of welcome, equality of rights, including the right for everyone to vote and to be elected in all elections, and complete respect for the freedom of expression, including freedom of association.
   – Mr President, it is true that this report on the situation as regards fundamental rights in the European Union is in danger of becoming almost a routine appointment.
So as not to repeat what has already been said on other occasions or by other Members, I shall therefore focus my speech on three topics in particular. The first, inevitably, is the family.
Speaking not only for myself but also on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I strongly reject paragraphs 102 and 103, which yet again call repeatedly for legal recognition of cohabiting couples, even same-sex ones.
We also reject Amendment No 157, which adds to this demand the right even to be able to adopt children normally.
It seems that some people will never learn the old lesson that on this issue it is pointless to attempt to go against the European Treaty, which clearly attributes to the Member States the power, the competence and the sovereignty to decide on this sensitive issue themselves.
A second topic that I should like to address is that of press freedom and pluralism, which only yesterday was the subject of a heated debate in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs.
Once again, in language quite unsuitable for this House, paragraph 63 says that in Italy the notion of pluralism is trampled underfoot with the greatest cynicism.
Come on, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, that is a sentence for an electoral manifesto, not for a debate in the European Parliament!
We therefore strongly reject Amendments Nos 84, 85 and 86, which reiterate this misunderstanding and in the end put Italy in the firing line all by itself, as if all media problems were concentrated in our country.
They start, it is true, with assumptions we can all share, such as the criteria of pluralism, freedom and access to the press for all, but then they reach conclusions so restricted to the individual case of Italy that they end up discrediting all their noble assumptions as well.
You just have to read the report by Reporters Without Borders, who certainly did not get together within the Italian Prime Minister’s organisation but are, as you know, an organisation of left-wing journalists.
They carried out some research in Italy in April 2003, which they later published, in which they arrive at very different conclusions from those that characterise yesterday’s unbelievable report from the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, with its even more unbelievable amendments.
For example, there is a conflict of interests in Italy, it is true, but it is being resolved these days – I might say right now as we speak – in the Italian Parliament, the only forum where this issue can be discussed seriously.
A reform bill is on the point of being passed, a reform that the Italian left never had the courage or even the ability to propose during their seven years in government.
Reporters Without Borders say that the press in Italy – I am quoting them directly: I am not making this up – is ‘free and pluralistic, although weakened by the hegemony of television’.
In contrast to what happened yesterday in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, they do not talk about censorship or media tyranny.
On the political orientation of television news broadcasts, both public and private, they write that they are ‘substantially balanced’; the only explicit criticism is the distancing from the screen of public figures like Mr Biagi, Mr Santoro and Mr Luttazzi, whom – I assure you if you do not know them – nobody in Italy misses, except perhaps the political bosses who pay them.
A final word, this time, after so many negatives, to recommend the adoption of Amendment No 199, tabled by Mr Borghezio and myself, on the compensation due to Italian military detainees for the forced labour they did in Germany between 1943 and 1945.
Only the Italians have not been compensated.
We call on Germany to compensate those Italian citizens who worked hard against their will in factories and labour camps, even though it is now really very late.
I should like to tell Mr Schroeder to do so quickly, because the youngest of them is 80 years old, and 10% of them die each year that passes.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the hypocrisy of the talk about fundamental rights in this House can hardly be surpassed, especially when it comes from the Right.
When the Council and governments initiate more and more new surveillance programmes, plunging thousands of migrants into sheer despair with their Fortress Europe policy, leaving them stuck at borders, allowing them to drown at sea, and the few that make it are then interned in the EU only to be removed again as soon as possible, the European Parliament, which claims to be the guardian of fundamental and human rights, actually applauds.
Unfortunately, the reality looks rather different to all those who are deprived of their most elementary civil rights.
State, police and racist violence are everyday occurrences in the European Union’s capitalist society.
The blatant justification of torture in Germany by numerous politicians and representatives of the judiciary and police in 2003 is a specific example of this.
Unfortunately, when my draft resolution condemning this justification of torture was rejected in the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, this was brought about by those groups that are now defending their political friends.
   Mr President, we did not ask for this debate simply in order to tell the World Bank what it should do.
We also need to know the position of the Council, in which 15 Member States – all playing a very important role in World Bank decision-making – are represented.
We want to ask the Council what position it is going to take on this extractive industry report and whether or not it intends to coordinate the position of the Member States in this respect.
In the Mr Roche's interesting remarks I did not hear the answer to this question; the very reason we asked for this debate.
We are convinced that we must have parliamentary scrutiny of what the World Bank does, and also that we, as a European Union institution, need to know what our Member States do when they are in the World Bank.
So the World Bank is not something outside this institution or outside your institution, Mr Roche.
Mr Vitorino said very clearly that he thought, and that the Commission thought, that the most important recommendation had to be supported.
I repeat: I would like to know what the position of the Council is, if any, and if there is any intention of having any kind of discussion on this point.
We think that discussion of this issue in the Council is absolutely crucial for two reasons.
Firstly, because the conclusions of the report say very clearly that investing in the oil, mining and gas sectors does not in itself reduce poverty.
Sometimes, as you heard in the report, it is detrimental, and this is also of importance to the European Union.
Secondly, we are convinced that if the World Bank's objective is to reduce poverty and alleviate the exclusion of indigenous populations and poor people, we cannot continue to support a method of financing a project that is detrimental from this point of view.
So please, Mr Roche, tell us what you are going to do.
   The next item is the report (A5-0060/2004) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the protocol amending the fourth protocol laying down the fishery conditions included in the agreement on fisheries between the European Economic Community, on the one hand, and the Danish Government and the Local Government of Greenland, on the other.
   Madam President, although I support the first four amendments, I reject Amendment No 5.
I believe that amendment was originally lost in committee but has been re-tabled.
My reason for rejecting the amendment is quite simply that it undermines the principle of relative stability.
That principle is at the heart of the Scottish and British position on fisheries policy and, I believe, that of other northern states.
Any measures which threaten this principle, or put it at risk, I cannot support.
The concept of relative stability is vital to the Scottish fleet, as it guarantees historical rights, and Amendment No 5 puts that at risk.
Amendment No 5 also transfers competence to the Commission over quota swaps, which, I believe, is against the basic CFP regulation.
Competence should rest with the Member State, allowing new entrants to existing fisheries, leading to pressures to reallocate currently guaranteed quota shares.
It also ignores the basic differences between southern fisheries agreements, where fishing licences are at stake, and northern agreements where quotas are at stake.
I find it interesting that some people want the Commission to have more responsibility over fisheries, yet when it comes to certain proposals over which the Commission has responsibility, they want to reject it outright.
Amendment No 5 is dangerous to northern fishing interests, it goes against the CFP regulation and risks reducing the amount of Greenland quotas that can be used in exchange for quotas for Norway on which the United Kingdom industry relies heavily.
I am sorry to disagree with the rapporteur on this occasion.
   . In 2003, a new Protocol was agreed with Greenland, covering the period from 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2006, within the scope of the mid-term review of the Fourth Protocol, which lays down conditions provided for in the Fisheries Agreement between Greenland and the European Community.
This review introduces a range of adjustments, but does not alter the level of financial compensation, which remains at EUR 42 820 000 per year.
The review does, however, make a clearer distinction between amounts set aside to compensate fisheries possibilities and support for structural reform.
We welcome the increase in halibut quotas, which means that national fleets may now catch 800 tonnes of Greenland halibut.
It should be noted, however, that, at the time of the decision, Portugal was excluded from this agreement, despite its historical fishing rights in the area.
Given the extent to which quotas are under-used, we must ensure that the principle of good financial management is applied, in other words, that the fisheries possibilities offered by the international fisheries agreements are used effectively, without undermining the principle of relative stability.
The report and the Commission proposal open up the possibility of redistributing quotas that are not fully used in a given year.
We feel, however, that the wording of Amendment No 5 is more acceptable, and that this Amendment should, accordingly, be approved in plenary.
   The next item is the report (A5-0211/2004) by Mr Schmitt, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the initiative of the Kingdom of Spain with a view to the adoption of a Council directive on the obligation of carriers to communicate passenger data.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0205/2004) by Mr Coelho, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 on the gradual abolition of checks at common borders as regards access to the Schengen Information System by the services in the Member States responsible for issuing registration certificates for vehicles.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0144/2004) by Mr Marinho, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament entitled ‘Towards more accessible, equitable and managed asylum systems’.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0143/2004) by Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on budgetisation of the European Development Fund (EDF).
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0125/2004) by Mrs Maes, on behalf of the European Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee on a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the safety of third countries’ aircraft using Community airports.
   The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0217/2004), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the common position of the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 95/93 on common rules for the allocation of slots at Community airports (Rapporteur: Mr Stockmann).
   Thank you very much, Mr Jarzembowski.
The next sitting will take place tomorrow, Thursday(1).
   Thank you very much, Mrs Gebhardt.
I will communicate your request to the President of Parliament.(1)
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0204/2004) by Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the 2003 regular report of the Commission on Turkey's progress towards accession.
   – Mr President, while we consider Turkey’s possible accession to the European Union, the Copenhagen criteria have to be seen in their entirety.
Arie Oostlander’s excellent report underlines this in a neutral way.
It is, I think, an impartial appraisal, neither negative nor positive with regard to Turkey’s possible accession.
It depends on Turkey itself whether it meets the political criteria for candidate countries, and how quickly.
Whereas, the European Union has to decide if it can absorb a possible enlargement, which is to say if the Union’s economy and own structures will tolerate it.
Both points of view have to be taken fully into consideration, and no external pressure can or should be allowed to change them.
I believe I at least speak on behalf of my group’s Finnish delegation when I say that many factors indicate that Turkey may now be on the right path, with accession dimly visible at its end.
Membership was not promised in Helsinki in 1999, but Turkey was granted candidate status, which obviously raises expectations in that country considerably.
Today we had better leave any closer assessment of the Union’s capacity for absorption: ten new countries will stretch the Union’s finances to the limit for years to come.
While at the same time most net contributor countries wish to reduce the budget framework in the Union, Turkey itself has a long way to go to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria.
I will mention just two points.
Before we can be absolutely sure that representative democracy commands the armed forces in Turkey in all situations, and not the other way round, one cannot even think of full membership.
Secondly, it is a fundamental requirement of accession that freedom of religion be established, so that all religions, which only function as religious communities, have the freedom and genuine right to found and build proper churches, just as the EU countries gladly allow non-European religions to do by way of tradition.
We should congratulate Commissioner Verheugen here, as well as Kofi Annan and the other negotiators, on the fact that the Cyprus problem, which now is even a legal barrier to Turkish accession at present, is being solved.
We all hope it will now quickly end with the referendum that has been decided on.
In the long term, however, I believe that if the barriers to Turkey’s accession went away or were removed, it would be in the interests of the Union.
My Amendment No 1 and Mr Elles’s Amendment No 16 are, to my mind, fully in compliance with the criteria and are not in any way an attempt to thwart Turkey’s aspiration to accession.
I do, however, think that Amendment No 41 will mean Turkey will be pushed out of accession negotiations.
   Mr President, we have now reached the point in the debate on Turkey on which there is, fortunately, general unanimity about the remaining issues.
These issues need to be tackled firmly, and implementation – the word has been dropped repeatedly – is necessary more than ever.
Despite this, the current Oostlander report contains three weaknesses, and I believe that these ought to be eliminated first.
First of all, let us consider paragraph 8, according to which Turkey's current position in relation to the Cyprus conflict reflects the political power of the army.
We surely cannot take this seriously.
What has just happened in Cyprus now is that the army has endorsed the course of events according to the government.
That is an example of reform and not of stagnation.
We ought to remove this section from the report, something that Amendment No 10 makes possible.
Secondly, again in the light of recent events, surely Mr Oostlander cannot be serious when he states that the Greek Cypriots have demonstrated their firm commitment to the Annan plan?
They will need to prove this in the next few weeks.
I believe, then, that a change is needed on that score too.
Finally, the third weakness; I would be strongly in favour of lowering the voting threshold during the elections and have tabled an amendment to that effect.
This is something Parliament wants, and we need to convey it to the Turks, because, as I see it, it would be preferable for the Turkish parliament to have a higher level of multiformity than it does at present, where a voting threshold of 10% is possible.
The main problem of the Oostlander report, however, lies in paragraph 7.
The rapporteur has recognised, or perhaps had to recognise, that, if the current reforms take place, the Member States will inevitably decide in December to start the negotiations.
What does paragraph 7 say on this? According to Mr Oostlander's interpretation, negotiations are inevitable, but we will not enter into real negotiations.
In particular, the 31 chapters of the will not form the subject of negotiations, although these negotiations have taken place with all other candidate Member States.
What is being proposed in paragraph 7 is that we complete all the political criteria first.
That sounds good, but what does it mean in practice?
Let me give an example; the same paragraph states that the programme should contain the drafting of a new Constitution.
Mr Oostlander is in favour of this, and so am I. If this is done in a proper manner, it will, I think, take between two and three years; we need only look at how long the European Union is taking.
To take another example, Mr Oostlander has repeatedly stated that the change in mentality that we want is a lengthy process.
Does he really believe that this should all be completed before we can discuss the chapters? Surely not.
Does Parliament think, and does, for example, the Group of the Party of the European Socialists really believe, that we should enter negotiations with Turkey with one arm tied behind our backs, because there are 31 chapters of the that we are not allowed to discuss? My view, expressed in Amendment No 9, is different.
I am in favour of doing two things after December.
Firstly, we ought to continue to underline the importance of the political criteria, if necessary by means of a special monitoring system, because that is important, now and in future, but at the same time, we should start the so-called normal negotiations.
In my opinion, we cannot say to Turkey in December that we will start negotiations and follow Mr Oostlander's interpretation in this.
This interpretation is now enshrined in paragraph 7 and it allows us only to do the groundwork for many years before we can enter the actual negotiations.
Paragraph 7 is now an imprecise – I would almost say diplomatic – compromise that covers a multitude of sins.
The alternative is a clear, but balanced, position by Parliament, and to that Turkey is entitled.
   Mr President, entirely consistent with his previous report, Mr Oostlander has once again presented to this House a crystal-clear report on Turkey's very uphill journey in the direction of the European Union.
The rapporteur is right to state, in paragraph 32, that Turkey still has a different concept of the secular state from that which is usual in the European Union.
Mr Oostlander also mentions state control over the main religion and discrimination against others.
I should like to substitute the word state control for promotion, because under the wings of the Presidium for Religious Matters, which falls directly within Prime Minister Erdogan’s remit, the Turkish Republic provides the main religion – Sunni Islam – with generous social development opportunities.
You only need to visit the Christian churches in Turkey.
To this day, although they fall within the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923, they have to do without the status of legal personality.
To put it succinctly, Commissioner, there is a great deal to be done, but I do not need to tell you that.
I also endorse paragraph 10 in the report, in which Mr Oostlander stands up for the independence and the quality of higher education and scientific institutions in Turkey.
A very topical request, given Mr Erdogan’s continuous attempts at reform, no less, to make the country's academic level subordinate to, and I quote 'the Cabinet's Islamist, conservative, political concepts’.
This urgent warning, issued by a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences a month or so ago, was published in the .
This is another tell-tale sign for Brussels with regard to the actual state of affairs in Ankara.
   Mr President, I welcome this timely report by Mr Oostlander.
It contains a number of valuable recommendations.
On Monday I returned from Turkey, where, with other politicians and trade unionists, I had the opportunity to observe the local elections.
Paragraph 1 of the recommendations of this report refers to the 'oft-stated commitment' by the Turkish authorities 'to democracy and Europe'.
I cannot share the same confidence.
Whilst seeking to observe elections in the primary school of Vali Unal Erkan in Diyarbakir, we were shouted at, threateningly, by the local chief of police and prevented from entering the polling station.
This was not an isolated incident.
In polling stations in other parts of the country, members of the governing Turkish party were standing by, watching ballot papers being filled in by Kurdish electors.
The military were present outside many polling stations within the Kurdish area.
Speakers of the Kurdish language – spoken by 20 million people in Turkey – continue to face persecution.
Kurdish-medium schools are banned, the only concession being the belated effort now to allow a few schoolrooms to be open to teach Kurdish as a foreign language for a few hours a week.
How can we then say, in paragraph 8, that we have confidence that the AKP government will safeguard democratic values? As the report emphasises, the prohibition of political parties such as Hadep/Dehap continues, which is why I would urge colleagues to support Amendment No 11 by Mr Lagendijk on the crucial issue of abolishing the 10% threshold for political parties.
Until these fundamental matters are addressed and the Turkish Government respects our own Charter of Fundamental Rights, many of us will have grave misgivings before supporting their accession to the European Union.
   – Mr President, congratulations to Mr Oostlander on his splendid report.
The European Council decided in Helsinki in 1999 that Turkey is a candidate country.
That decision is still in force and, therefore, Turkey is to be treated as a candidate country in line with all the other candidate countries.
The biggest requirement of a candidate country is, as Mr Oostlander said, that it fulfil the Copenhagen Criteria.
It is to be a society based on the rule of law with democratic stability and respect for human rights and for minorities, it is to have a well-functioning market economy, and so on.
Turkey does not at present meet all these conditions, but it is on the way to doing so.
We have seen much progress, and we must not, therefore, here and now reject the possibility of Turkey's becoming a member of the EU.
There is no doubt that it is precisely the EU's demands that have contributed significantly to the democratic progress that has taken place in Turkey, and a signal from the European Parliament that Turkey cannot become a member of the EU, or that Turkey must be given special status would undoubtedly put a stop to this positive development.
On the basis of the Commission's papers, the Heads of Government are now, in December, to take a decision on accession negotiations with Turkey within a more precise time-scale and on more precise conditions.
With Mr Oostlander’s thorough, balanced and comprehensive report, the European Parliament must, however, here and now send a signal to the European Council that Turkey is to be treated like all previous candidate countries.
This is something we owe to our Turkish neighbours, and we must tell the Turks that they are well on the way and that they should continue along the path upon which they have embarked, for the benefit of Turkey, the EU and stability and growth in our part of the world.
   Madam President, I too should like to congratulate Mr Oostlander, who managed to produce a report that was approved by both the advocates and the opponents of Turkish accession in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
This is no mean feat and is due to the very reasonable and balanced line of argument he follows from beginning to end – well, almost from beginning to end, but more of that in a moment.
I should like to say that Mrs Stenzel speaks with the voice of wisdom when she points out that we are not seeing the whole picture if we only assess Turkey’s progress but do not examine the state of readiness of the European Union, in its various fields of political activity, to receive Turkey, and this is no trifling matter.
The point I should like to pick up, Mr Oostlander, is that of secularism.
Paragraph 32 of your report seems to me to proceed from a slightly jaundiced view of the secularism which is perhaps the most valuable part of the legacy of Kemal Atatürk.
The separation of church and state is not an archaic formula but a recipe for the future of our Union.
The fact that the government of a country whose people are mainly Muslim is trying to put this separation into practice is, I believe, an asset for which Turkey deserves credit, not an obstacle to progress.
   Madam President, what have we been able to observe since 1963? Progress, of course, but at the present time it is easier to list the points of divergence than the advances that have been made.
The constitution, adopted under a military regime, is not a basis on which the rule of law and fundamental rights and freedoms can be guaranteed.
Another matter that needs to be raised is the recognition of the genocide perpetrated against the Armenian population.
Let us not forget that the European Parliament affirmed this in a resolution adopted on 18 June 1987 and has subsequently repeated it on several occasions.
Turkey continues to deny the atrocities committed by the authorities of that time, and the European Parliament has already voiced its concern about the circulars from the Turkish Ministry of National Education enjoining primary and secondary schools to take part in a revisionist campaign to deny the oppression of minorities in the course of Turkish history, especially with regard to the Armenian community.
It is hard to see how a country that will not face up to its history and its errors can join the European Union.
We therefore expect Turkey to exercise its memory, and we shall reiterate this at every opportunity.
   Mr President, I beg leave to speak under Rule 146 of our Rules of Procedure.
The debate on Turkey has taken up the entire morning, which has meant that the scheduled debate on the European Capitals of Culture could not take place.
We are not disputing the fact that Turkey is a matter of prime importance.
Nevertheless, this is the fourth time since I became chairman of the Committee on Culture that the discussion of cultural matters has been postponed, either to the late evening or to a Thursday afternoon, despite the importance of the subject.
The first consequence of this situation is that we cannot vote on this draft, even though it is on the agenda.
The second consequence is that, since we are now preparing for the election campaign, everyone will have left by the time we come to deal with this afternoon’s business.
I therefore ask that the debate be rescheduled for 20 April, the Tuesday of the next part-session in Strasbourg. This request has the approval of my own group – the PPE-DE – and the Verts/ALE Group.
I apologise for not having had the time to consult the other groups, since we have only known about this for half an hour.
   Mr President, I agree with Mr Tannock’s request to add to the agenda the debate on the report adopted in the Working Group yesterday on funding to the Palestinian Authority.
(1)
   Mr President, I would ask you to apply Rule 68(3) of the Rules of Procedure in this case, which lays down that, in the event of an initiative being rejected, it should be referred back to committee.
I am making this request because yesterday in this House Commissioner Vitorino announced two substantial amendments to the initiative, which I believe should be subject to further analysis in committee and, furthermore, this is laid down as an ordinary procedure in the Rule I have mentioned.
   .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am now somewhat surprised at the remarks by Mrs Terrón i Cusí, who yesterday evening said something else entirely.
I am against a referral and I would like to ask you to allow the vote on the legislative proposal.
   Mr President, the chairman has already spoken about the adequacy of the responses given by the Commission.
I will not give my opinion, I will just point out that it has confirmed its defensive position and unwillingness to enter into dialogue with the citizens, whom we merely represent.
It does not, therefore, want to understand this message that we are continuing to send out: ‘Be reasonable and negotiate.’
I merely want to ask, in line with the Rules of Procedure, that is to say with Rule 68(3), that the proposal for a legislative resolution is not voted upon and that this text is referred back to committee.
Then, in the time that this parliamentary term allows, we will tackle the issue as soon as possible.
   . Conservative MEPs opposed the confirmation of returning Commissioners from the former disgraced Commission in our election to the European Parliament in 1999.
We do not doubt the ability of Stavros Dimas as Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs but cannot participate in confirming the appointment of the whole Commission as we are currently obliged to do and therefore we have abstained in the vote.
   The injustices committed against our fishermen are compounded by the injustice done to our oyster farmers and shellfish breeders in the Thau Basin and Bacarès Pond in the Aude .
They are effectively footing the bill for the massive pollution caused during the summer by the thousands upon thousands of camper vans parked there by tourists from Northern Europe, who daily empty their waste water, infested with phosphates and even pathogenic bacteria, into the ponds of the Languedoc and Catalan regions.
For the Mediterranean and for our fishermen, oyster farmers and shellfish breeders, Europe means restriction and pollution without compensation.
   .– In 2003, the Council approved conclusions on a strategy for the sustainable development of European aquaculture, the main objectives of which are to create employment and to make quality products available within the context of environmentally balanced production, particularly through the redirection of FIFG public aid towards measures in the fields of training, monitoring, research into new species and the promotion of clean aquaculture techniques.
While in general I support the proposal that the Commission has now submitted to Parliament, there are, however, two important proposals that the rapporteur succeeded in including in the report and which helped to confirm the way I would vote.
One relates to the reduction of the six-month period (proposed by the Commission) for harvesting to be suspended because of toxic algal contamination before shellfish farmers are awarded compensation.
The second is the fact that this review of the regulation has been used to include an amendment, unrelated to aquaculture, for a 20% increase in the maximum amounts of individual aid payments to fishermen, and removal of the requirement for them to have permanently ceased their activity when recovery plans or emergency measures are adopted.
Since both were approved, I voted for this report.
   .
This report proposes that the EP’s Rules of Procedure should be amended to take account of the arrangements for multilingualism currently in force in order to address the difficulties that are expected to arise as a consequence of enlargement, in terms of recruiting a sufficient number of interpreters for certain languages.
The solutions proposed are to be welcomed and confirm the obligation for multilingualism established by the Treaties, although it is stipulated that this obligation can only be ‘relaxed’ with the explicit or implicit support of the Members concerned (with regard to some committee or delegation meetings): Article 117(3)(a): ‘At committee and delegation meetings away from the usual places of work interpretation shall be provided from and into the languages of those members who have confirmed that they will attend the meeting.
By way of exception, these arrangements may be made more flexible by agreement with the members of the committee or delegation’.
It is only because of its provisional nature – it will expire in December 2006 – that we can accept the insertion of a provision setting out that: ‘Exceptionally, in applying Rule 117, account shall be taken, with regard to the official languages of the countries which will accede to the European Union on 1 May 2004, as of that date and until 31 December 2006, of the availability in real terms and sufficient numbers of the requisite interpreters and translators’.
For these reasons, I have voted in favour.
   , . I share the criticism made repeatedly by the Portuguese Government on the unevenness and inequality created by this fisheries agreement on the agreements concluded with the ‘countries of the South’.
The criticism centres, more specifically, on the disparity between the real fishing opportunities and the level of financial compensation, on the fact that fitting out a vessel is not included in the costs inherent in the workings of the agreement and on the fact that unused quotas cannot be transferred between Member States.
I therefore welcome the results that have been achieved and the commitment given by the Council to ensure that the relationship between the EU and Greenland, after 2006, based on a broader partnership for sustainable development, includes a specific fisheries agreement, negotiated in accordance with the general rules and the principles that underpin these agreements.
I voted in favour of the report, since the fundamental political issue concerns the transfer of unused fishing opportunities between Member States, in order to streamline their use and since the report proposes that the Commission can do this by adopting the necessary measures to ensure that the Community fleet makes the planned catches without jeopardising the principle of relative stability between Member States.
   . Mr van den Bos (ELDR, D'66) has declared that he has voted against joint resolution Nos B5-0165/2004 B5-0182/2004 B5-0183/2004, in which the Council is once again urged to reconsider the association agreement with Israel.
Now that Prime Minister Sharon himself calls for withdrawal from the occupied territories and dismantling of settlements, the EU must support fresh policy in this direction.
A boycott of Israel would further restrict the already minor impact of Europe on that country and seriously hamper communication.
Additionally, Mr Van den Bos considers the text under No 40 unbalanced, because it does not condemn the terrorist attack on Ashdod, while the assassination of the Hamas leader been condemned.
   . For 20 years now the Commission’s political strategy in the area of fisheries and with regard to our fishermen has been clear; place limits on our boats, on our nets and on our catch.
The justification appears to make sense; fishery resources, such as cod, are dwindling, so in order for stocks to be saved and for a sustainable recovery to take place, our fishermen have to reduce their fishing effort immediately.
This has given rise to the measures that we have seen, which place restrictions on net size, on driftnets, on boat power, on building new boats and on total allowable catches (TAC), all of which forms part of the Multi-Annual Guidance Programme (MAGP).
Unfortunately, while our fishermen are hamstrung and their vessels in a state of disrepair, factory ships from Japan, Russia and elsewhere are plundering the fishery resource in French waters.
In the waters off Sète and the coast of Languedoc-Roussillon, vessels smaller than 12 metres have been refused permission to modernise, on the grounds that this would breach the kWh limit, thereby jeopardising their safety.
Meanwhile, France is buying more than EUR 2 billion worth of fish and seafood that Brussels bans us from fishing.
   , . By submitting a request, on 21 February 2003, to join the European Union, this country that was part of the former Yugoslavia became the first country from the Western Balkans to choose to align its destiny with that of the European Union, reinforcing the idea that the European project is still a mobilising factor, even beyond the round of enlargement that will take place on 1 May.
Given the political and post-war situation in the region, I fully share the rapporteur’s opinion that Croatia can become the driving force for progress in the Western Balkans.
With its economic strength and the progress it has made on establishing democracy, Croatia’s success can certainly serve as a model and an incentive for the other countries that make up the Western Balkans, in view of their own eventual accession to the EU.
This would, therefore, be the most desirable scenario for ensuring stability and prosperity in the region.
If Croatia wishes to have the opportunity to join the Union reasonably quickly, it must nevertheless first solve certain problems relating to the definition of its land and sea borders, which concern Slovenia and Italy.
The European Union cannot allow such problems within its borders.
The rapporteur refers to these problems and calls for a rapid solution to be found.
I voted in favour of this report.
   .– The Oostlander report assessing ‘Turkey’s progress towards accession’ is compelled to make negative assessments of each area, yet falls short of reaching a negative overall conclusion.
If we do not wish to redirect Turkey towards privileged partner status, as I proposed in my intervention during the debate, then what is the solution?
The Oostlander report tentatively moves in an unexpected direction, namely the internal reform of the policies and institutions of the EU itself (see item G and paragraph 36).
This idea is worthy of consideration, particularly as it ties in with a suggestion we ourselves have made in the past, that a variable-geometry Europe would more readily welcome Turkey as a partner, as it would establish free relations between sovereign countries, and would avoid the explosive situation of being subject to a supranational decision-making system in which Turkey would carry very considerable weight.
Unfortunately, the Oostlander report, having made several steps in this direction, then takes a wrong turn, by proposing, as a solution to all problems, the strengthening of the supranational system by the adoption of the draft Constitution currently on the table.
The federalists are going round in circles.
   . I remain opposed to integrating the EDF into the EU’s budget, given that States will not agree to contribute an amount that is at least equivalent to current voluntary contributions towards the EU’s development policy, all of which will be on top of the current ceiling of 1.24% of joint GNP.
   I am aware of the text of the Council statement, Mr Dehousse.
If I may take the liberty of making a comment, even if as President I usually only preside, I found it very strange, amongst other things, that, in an official European Council document, the last two paragraphs were dedicated to an internal matter of accommodation.
I feel that we – as Parliament – should in some way point out to the Council that we found this truly strange.
   Mr President, I welcome the Baltas report as a cautious step towards Croatian membership of the EU, and I must say that we had got even further on this matter, since, with the Brok report, this House clearly argued for candidate status and for Croatia’s accession in the next wave.
I would like to say that we should continue down this route.
Although, through no fault of its own, Croatia is in a different league from the Member States that will be joining us on 1 May, it is, in many respects, as ready for accession as some of them are, and I believe that we should give immense support to Croatia so that it is present in the next wave of enlargement.
   Mr President, I acknowledge that Mr Bourlanges is one of the most learned Members of this House.
Consequently, I am stunned by his bold declaration that Turkey is not a European country.
To say that, Mr Bourlanges, would be like saying that Byzantium is and has never been European.
Go on pilgrimage to Ravenna and then we can speak about it.
This issue has nothing to do with the past, however, and everything to do with the future.
The question is whether or not we want Turkey to be part of European integration.
It is not history that will take us forward, but our own will and that of our peoples.
I share the concerns held by Mr Bourlanges and others.
I am one of those hoping for serious debates to take place, including in this House, so that we can take decisions based on careful consideration.
I would say, however, that those who have expressed their views have done so prematurely, and at a time when any reservations we may have about Turkey, be they well-founded or otherwise, undermine the difficult task to which the EU is committed, alongside the UN, that of finding a solution to the Cyprus question.
This is not the right time, therefore, to be discussing such matters and less still to be taking decisions, which is why I unreservedly endorse the proposal before us.
   Mr President, I voted against the Oostlander report even though it includes many good ideas.
I would, however, like to clearly associate myself with the line taken by my colleague Mr Bourlanges.
We want a strong Turkey as a good partner, but we also want a stable European Union that is capable of action.
Those who turn Turkey into a full Member State of the European Union, destabilise the European Union.
Those, however, who only lead Turkey to believe that they really have a chance of being a candidate, are ultimately destabilising Turkey because they are, so to speak, luring the Turks in with unattainable promises and then letting them down by imposing ever tighter criteria.
This is a game I am not prepared to play.
I am in favour of an honest policy on Turkey, which says that there are limits to everything, even to a Europe that can be integrated.
Turkey must be our closest partner and as far as Byzantium is concerned, you can say that Saint Augustine came from today’s Algeria, and he was one of the fathers of the West, but even so, I would not incorporate the current Algeria or the future Algeria – even a democratic Algeria – into the European Union.
The European Union is not the amalgamation of all democratic countries in the world that fulfil the Copenhagen criteria, but rather all European States that fulfil the Copenhagen criteria and wish to join.
   That concludes the vote.(4)
(5)
   Mr President, on a point of order, there was no announcement just now, but as the written declaration on the rights of deaf-blind people has reached the required number of signatures, namely, 320, I would just like to thank everyone here for signing that resolution, of which I was co-author.
It is great news for deaf-blind people.
We are not asking for more rights for deaf-blind people in the European Union, but for the same rights as other European citizens have.
   We congratulate you, Mrs Lynne, and we are all very pleased with this important news that the declaration has now received the necessary number of signatures.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0176/2004) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the communication from the Commission: Towards a thematic strategy on the prevention and recycling of waste.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, having only two minutes available to me, I would like to start by saying that I wholeheartedly endorse the arguments that Mrs Rothe has put forward over the last five minutes.
I will, however, make some observations by way of adding nuances.
The need to protect the climate and the environment means that renewable energies, which will reduce our dependence on oil and gas, are the form of energy for the twenty-first century; without them, though, even with the development strategy, billions of the world’s people will have no future.
It is of course a good thing that they will also enable us to create jobs in Europe.
I have heard this week that Mr Kerry, the Democrat candidate for the American presidency, has announced that the USA, too, intends to derive 20% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, and this represents a gigantic boom for European industry, as we are the leaders in renewable energy technology, and this will benefit European industry too.
If the EU is to create security for investment in the energy sector and in others, then it needs long-term climate protection goals, with renewable sources producing at least 60% of energy by 2050 and at least 20% by 2020.
Today, we have less of a problem with renewable energies themselves – in which we are ahead of the field – than with a strategy for efficiency, in which we lag behind China.
Yesterday, in the Council, the possibility of coming to an early agreement on the Eco-Design Directive evaporated, as we are no longer able to make ‘win-win’ directives of that sort palatable to the Council, or perhaps also because there is too much lobbying on the part of industry.
The resolution, which is supported by all the political groups, also makes it plain that the European Investment Bank must play a higher-profile role.
As things stand today, not even 10% of its loans are made to support renewable energies; as they are the energies of the future, that is another area in which political pressure needs to be exerted.
   Mr Posselt has the floor for a point of order.
   Thank you very much, Mr Posselt.
We take very good note of your commitment to parliamentary work and to the electors.
To end this debate, I have received 5 motions for resolutions in accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure(1).
The vote will take place in a few minutes time.(2)
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 1 April 2004.
   The final draft agenda as drawn up pursuant to Rules 110 and 110a of the Rules of Procedure by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday, 15 April 2004 has been distributed.
Are there any comments?(1)
   Thank you for your comments, Mr Podestà.
You will be aware from our meeting of the Conference of Presidents last week – which you attended – that I have asked the services to undertake to review your very detailed correspondence with me regarding the Rules of Procedure and their application.
Since my arrival here today – a journey which always takes some time, in spite of early departure – I have not had the opportunity to see a note on this matter that has been prepared for the meeting of the relevant committee this evening.
I am not in a position at this moment to give a ruling on admissibility.
However, the initial advice I have received – before the services have had an opportunity to study your lengthy letter to me in depth – seems to suggest that the report may be admissible, although there are elements that need to be looked at carefully.
We have asked the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs to meet this evening to consider the issues raised by the Rules-related observations you have made, and to consider around 350 amendments.
I want to make it perfectly clear that under the Rules we do not have time this week to take a report with that number of amendments.
That is why I for one want the committee to meet and consider the issue.
If I have understood correctly, you have asked for a referral back to committee and therefore a removal of this item from the agenda.
If that is indeed your request then I will take one speaker for and one against and we would then have a vote.
However, Mr Podestà, if you are prepared to wait for the committee to meet this evening to consider the question as it relates to the Rules and admissibility, and to consider the question of the number of amendments, then we could proceed to invite our colleagues on the committee to discuss those issues later today.
Mr Podestà, do you now wish to make a request to refer back, or are you satisfied that this should be dealt with today in committee?
   I agree with you, Mr President.
I believe that it is appropriate for the committee to consider the issue, but above all – and I am also saying this on behalf of my colleague Mr Gemelli – for replies to be given based on your assessment, Mr President, on the strength of the details that the services will provide you with.
   Mr Fiori, I thought that we were simply inviting the committee to look again at the Boogerd-Quaak report.
If, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, you insist formally to refer the report back to committee, I can take one speaker for and one against and we could have a vote.
   Mr Fiori, I have been looking at Rule 144 on referral back to committee.
Let me explain that you are within your rights to move a referral back to committee, but I should have been notified 24 hours in advance.
That was not the case, so you have forfeited that right today.
If you wish, you have the right to move referral back when we come to vote on the report, if indeed we get there this week, and if the committee prepares the way tonight.
So you do not lose the opportunity to refer the report back, but you have forfeited it at this particular time.
The committee will meet at 7 p.m. this evening and will hopefully bring some light, as well as some heat, to the matter when we return to it.
I have received a request from the GUE/NGL Group to include on Tuesday's agenda the report (A5-0274/2004) by Mrs Eriksson, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the consequences of the sex industry in the European Union.
– I have received a request from the PPE-DE Group for a Commission statement on Eurostat, with motions for resolution, to be included in the joint debate on the 2002 discharges.
   – Mr President, we have, over many weeks and months, been devoting our attention to Eurostat, and you will be well aware that a substantial number of us here in this House even wanted to go as far as to state that it had no confidence in the Commission.
Although I have always been opposed to a vote of no confidence in the Commission, this House does have a legitimate interest in hearing what the Commission has to say on the subject and how it assesses what went on at Eurostat.
Our listening to the Commission’s statement, and our discussion of it, is a sign of fairness, openness and transparency.
As you know, we will have debates on Cyprus and transatlantic relations that day.
Those debates may run over into Question Time.
I should like to signal that, because Cyprus needs a space on our agenda.
Indeed, apart from the Middle East there are many transatlantic issues that also need their space.
So I point out to you that exceptionally, on this occasion – and I extend my apologies to Mr Posselt in advance, as well as to Mr Puerta, our Vice-President who keeps telling us not to do these things – we may run over into Question Time.(3)
   On April 14 2004 I received a letter from Mr Gargani, in his role as chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market in which, at the request of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, he informed me that the Legal Affairs Committee recommends the introduction before the European Court of Justice of a request for an opinion in order for the Court to examine whether the object of an agreement between the European Union and the United States for the treatment and transfer of data – PNR – is compatible with the Treaty, and to establish whether the content of the agreement could put at risk the fundamental right to data protection accorded by the Treaty and by various European directives.
As you know, the House will discuss the Boogerd-Quaak report on the EC-USA agreement on PNR issues tomorrow evening.
I do not wish to have that debate now.
The reason I wish to consult the House at this moment is that our Rules of Procedure are clear: if I follow the advice of the Legal Affairs Committee, I act as a kind of postman through whom the request passes to the Court of Justice.
It seems to me, given the issues involved, that it would be useful for me to benefit from the advice and guidance of the House.
Therefore, under the Rules of Procedure, I had thought it better to pause for thought and to raise the matter at the opening of business today to hear a brief statement from the Commission and from the Groups, and then to ask the Groups tomorrow at midday to advise me as to whether to proceed in bringing the matter before the Court.
I ask Commissioner Bolkestein, who has been waiting here patiently as we arranged our business, to give a brief announcement concerning this aspect of the matter.
   I thank all colleagues who have contributed to that exchange of views.
A number of you have remarked how several different committees and resolutions over recent weeks and months have indicated the probability of going to the Court of Justice, of which I have been aware as I have keenly followed the issue.
However, the event which triggered the referral to the Court was the letter of last Wednesday afternoon, which I received from Mr Gargani on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
This is the first time I have had the duty and opportunity, as President, to look into the question.
In light of the exchange of views, I propose that we proceed to the debate in substance tomorrow.
We will hear what Commissioner Patten has to say, along with the opinions of different colleagues.
In the light of all the available information, the vote will take place at noon on Wednesday.
That brings us to within 24 hours of our ultimate deadline in terms of our right to refer to the Court, so we are still working within the time limits that apply here.
Because of the volume of business this week, we have added an extra sitting tonight.
I suggest that those colleagues who wish to make a 'one-minute speech' submit what they wanted to say in writing, and I will try to follow up on their comments.
For anyone who insists on speaking, the Rules provide that the item can be taken later in the sitting.
I therefore propose to take the item at the end of business this evening, rather than at this stage.(1)
   The next item is the report (A5-0227/2004) by Johannes Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on respect for and promotion of the values on which the Union is based.
   – Mr President, exactly seven years have passed, and still neither the Council nor the Commission have proved themselves capable of devising a procedure to implement Article 7, an article once trumpeted abroad, at the time of the Treaty of Amsterdam, as a vital policy innovation in the EU Treaty.
The lack of definite procedural rules, though, means that the paper asserting the values of the EU has to be patient.
Without such a procedure, the whole article remains a paper tiger.
Such a situation is not exactly calculated to make the European Union more credible in the eyes of its citizens; you are all aware to what a depth that credibility has fallen in all our Member States.
Putting it politely, I have to say that I am disturbed by the Commission communication that this report takes as its starting point.
It is extremely disturbing that the Commission quite obviously does not want to impose penalties on Member States in the event of serious breaches of the Treaties.
It evidently wants to fool us into believing that everything in our garden is lovely and is going to stay that way.
What else can it mean when the Commission, on page 14 of its communication, states bluntly – and I quote – that ‘it will not be necessary to apply penalties pursuant to Article 7(3) of the Union Treaty and Article 309 of the EC Treaty’? Such an absolution of responsibility would markedly diminish our own high expectations of our shared values and, ultimately, the standard of protection for fundamental rights and values in the EU.
It also reminds one of the oft-used repressive phrase to the effect that what is not allowed cannot happen.
Even more serious is the Commission’s ostrich-like and nonchalant attitude to the protection of fundamental rights in time of war, and this is where the real scandal lies.
The real scandal is the way in which the Commission virtually serves up fundamental rights in the EU in time of war on a silver platter.
Let me quote from page 8 of the Commission communication: ‘On the contrary, a serious breach presupposes that the danger should have become a concrete fact.’
Purely hypothetically, the adoption of a law abrogating procedural safeguards in time of war would be a clear risk.
Actually using such a law, on the other hand, would be a serious breach.
That really is something to be savoured; the Commission regards a law, in a Member State, abrogating fundamental rights, as no more than a clear risk rather than as a serious breach, without even mentioning the possibility of penalties.
No, this is not on.
This represents a point beyond which Parliament cannot allow the Commission to persist in going against the flow of fundamental rights, and so I am glad that Parliament has taken the initiative, in the shape of the Voggenhuber report, so that now, seven years after Amsterdam, something is at last being done.
In relation to this, I have proposed a number of amendments aimed at making the draft text more precise.
In particular, these relate to the obligation placed on the EU by the Convention’s draft constitutional treaty, in its Article 3(4) in Part I and in Article 193(1) in Part III, to abide by international law, and I think that the Iraq war, which was contrary to international law, and all the misery inflicted on that country by the occupying forces, is evidence of the need for further tightening up of the report’s motion for a resolution.
   – Mr President, Mr Voggenhuber has just laid stress on the principle of openness, and I would just like to make a few brief observations on it.
Let me say, while we are on this subject, that I well recall the arbitrary treatment meted out to my own country, Austria, in relation to what we are talking about.
The Austrian Socialists, who have for some time now been calling themselves Social Democrats, were fully involved in the underhand manoeuvres that were going on at the time.
I also have very precise recollections of a telephone call from the then Austrian Chancellor, Viktor Klima, a Socialist, who was fully in the know and told me that all he demanded of me was that nothing should get out.
Never again must principles of this sort be applied in this fashion, whether in party politics or in affairs of State, for without transparency there is no democracy.
It is precisely for this reason that tracing the course of these events and making them accessible to the public is so very important.
   Mr President, for more than one and a half years, this Parliament has been working on the Commission proposal for the harmonisation of provisions on consumer credit.
That is, in our view, far too long, not least because the positions of the advisory committee were largely determined as early as before the summer of 2003.
It very much looks as if the European Commission, which proposes maximum harmonisation, has wrongly evaluated the political feasibility of this.
My group, on the other hand, endorses minimum harmonisation of consumer credit provisions, so that the acquired rights in the Member States remain in place.
One of the acquired rights in my country, the Netherlands, is that consumers are allowed to run up a short-term debt with a bank on their current account without any extensive contracts.
We call this being ‘in the red’.
It is being proposed, with good reason, to delete paragraph 2c of Article 3 by means of Amendment No 52.
I should like to hear from the Commissioner whether he will be adopting this amendment.
Can existing practice of current-account credit remain in place under the new directive without any extra administrative steps?
Secondly, I should like to draw attention to the Commission proposal on unfair trade practices.
Article 4 of this proposal states that traders need only meet the requirements that apply in their home countries.
Consumers will find that incomprehensible; they want the protection that they enjoy in their own countries.
This article constitutes a huge stumbling block in terms of effective consumer protection.
Traders simply need to comply with the requirements applicable in the country where they introduce their products onto the market.
Our group has for that reason tabled Amendment No 95 to address this problem.
I hope that this will meet with approval from the House.
I should like to hear from the Commissioner here whether this amendment could also be adopted.
   Mr President, research carried out in the UK on consumer credit awareness has demonstrated very clearly that consumers need clear, consistent information to be able to make informed comparisons of the products on offer.
It is true that, owing to innovation and evolution, many of today's products offer the consumer more choice and flexibility, but many are difficult for consumers to understand: 56% of consumers in the UK did not understand the terms used in credit agreements, 77% find the language in advertising confusing and while 68% are aware that lenders do not calculate APR in the same way, they do not know how the system works and find it difficult to price one loan against another, which makes it difficult for them to shop around for the best deals.
More importantly, it also means that credit providers are under less pressure to keep their prices and offers competitive.
If this is the case in just one Member State, imagine what the situation is like across 25.
This is why the directive must provide maximum levels of consumer protection as regards advertising, information and rules on the calculation of APR and a high level of consumer protection and redress.
I would like to pinpoint two areas that the Commission should look at more seriously.
Firstly, joint and several liability.
In the UK, Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act provides for remedies and redress.
I understand what the Commissioner is saying: Member States can go further.
However, I do not want this directive to be used as an excuse for credit providers to opt out of the very high consumer protection that is already offered in other Member States.
Cooperatives and credit unions were also mentioned.
I am delighted that the rapporteur has taken on board the amendment drafted by Mr Crowley and myself.
It is true that credit unions provide a very important service in that they not only offer affordable loans, but also help the poorer elements of the community – the deprived and people on low income – to stay out of the clutches of loan sharks.
I fear that if the regulations proposed in this directive were to be applied those consumers in poorer areas would end up with no credit unions and no option but to turn to loan sharks.
The PSE voting list tomorrow will reflect our desire not only to see the opening-up of a consumer credit market in this area but also to achieve the highest possible level of consumer protection for consumers right across Europe.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the short time available, I want to speak only on the Gebhardt report.
I appreciate the efforts that the rapporteur and the Commission have made in their desire to do the right thing in terms of cross-border cooperation.
Although the usefulness of this is not a matter of doubt, I do wonder whether the proposal put before us by the Irish presidency really does represent an acceptable position and whether we might be creating a bureaucratic monster.
Firstly, I think it is quite wrong that we should now, for the first time in the history of the European Union’s lawmaking, be seeking to interfere in the Member States’ right to organise the way in which they, within their own borders, transpose regulations and directives.
In this instance, we prescribe that Member States may not transfer certain functions to private bodies, but that these functions must be performed by the authorities, and so that is precisely what we are doing – tampering with matters that are for the Member States to organise – which may well mean that the whole Regulation contravenes the Treaty.
My second worry is about the bureaucratic monstrosity of decision-making in the event of dispute.
This I can describe only as real-life satire.
The situation is that the Member State delegating the function has to consent to the Member State that accepts it entrusting the performance of the tasks to a private body.
If neither that, nor the re-examination of the criteria by mutual agreement, is possible, a comitology procedure is set in motion, in which the decision rests with the Commission, so people travel to Brussels from 25 national capitals in order to decide whether or not the matter can, under the directive or a regulation, be referred to private bodies.
I see that is quite disproportionate to the matter in hand.
We should respect the Member States’ exercise of their powers and acknowledge the efficient way in which they perform their functions.
I therefore propose that we should stick to what was decided by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
The Council will do likewise when it has come to its senses.
Earlier on, Mrs Thyssen pointed out that we have no reason to give way on this; it is the Council that must give way to us, and then this can be adopted quickly, in one reading, but on the basis of the motion for a resolution produced by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market rather than on the compromise proposed by the Irish presidency.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0260/2004) by Mr Robert William Sturdy, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on maximum residue levels of pesticides in products of plant and animal origin (COM(2003) 117 – C5-0108/2003 – 2003/0052(COD)).
   Mr President, I should also like to congratulate Mr Sturdy on his report.
We have made a good few improvements: we have stronger rules for residue and we have better definitions of good agricultural practices.
It was interesting to hear what the Commission said in relation to modern agriculture that these residues are an unavoidable factor.
However, looking at what has been proposed, we are saying that priority should be given to non-chemical crop management, which everybody should welcome.
With regard to aggregate MRLs, if, for example, there are two or three different pesticides, but they are all below the MRLs, the combination should say that they should not be on the market.
That is the same logic that we have been pushing for years in relation to drinking water.
We are glad to see that this has now been accepted.
There are lots of pesticides, but no proper analysis is available.
If there is no valid lab analysis and no detection methods available then the pesticides have to be taken off the market.
Authorisation must be withdrawn on these.
If new scientific evidence reveals a risk, the same should apply.
Some of the amendments we tabled in committee asked for zero tolerance for imported products.
These were rejected as the majority thought it was necessary to give specific MRLs for imported products that are not grown in the EU, such as tropical fruits.
We have tabled this amendment again.
I say to Mr Sturdy that the purpose of this amendment from Mr Lannoye is not about stopping imports but about protecting consumers.
With regard to the amendment asking for temporary MRLs to be set at the lowest level of those suggested, it was not voted on in committee because it was supposed to be included in the compromise.
We have tabled some amendments again.
We hope we can get support for them because they would improve the overall end result.
   – The next item is the report (Α5-0253/2004) by Mrs Ghilardotti, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament: Modernising company law and enhancing corporate governance in the European Union – a plan to move forward (CΟΜ(2003) 284 – C5-0378/2003 – 2003/2150(ΙΝΙ)).
   – The next item is the report (Α5-0192/2004) by Mr Radwan, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on a legal framework for a single payment area (2003/2101(ΙΝΙ)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0171/2004) by Mrs Thors, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on establishing a framework for the setting of Eco-design requirements for Energy-Using Products and amending Council Directive 92/42/EEC.
   The next item is the report (A5-0154/2004) by Mr de Roo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending the Directive establishing a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading within the Community, in respect of the Kyoto Protocol's project mechanisms.
   . Madam President, I should like to start by thanking my fellow shadow rapporteurs: Mr Davies of the Liberals, Mr Bowe of the Socialists, Mrs Garcia-Orcoyen Tormo of the Christian Democrats and Mr Blokland of the EDD Group.
I am indebted to them for the unanimity and support.
I would thank the Irish Presidency for its constructive way of negotiating.
I also wish to thank the Commission, which has cooperated well, although it is not formally obliged to do so.
I am also indebted to Commissioner Wallström.
We have reached an agreement at first reading.
I will list nine points.
In my view, the result is sound.
Point 1: this linking directive enters into effect as soon as 2005.
Companies can start now; they are given legal certainty now.
Point 2: this linking directive is independent of the coming into force of the Kyoto Protocol, as is the law on emission trading.
For us in Europe, Kyoto is starting to take effect now.
We will not wait until Russia ratifies Kyoto.
One hundred and twenty countries, two-thirds of the world population, have already ratified Kyoto.
Point 3: energy companies and large firms can now earn emission allowance by investing in the switch from Chinese coal-fired power stations to gas, in making coal-fired power stations more effective, in solar power stations in Indonesia, in wind farms on the coastlines of developing countries or in retrieving spent gas from rubbish tips.
There are many more possible ways to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
Point 4: we have followed the Kyoto Protocol in deciding that the construction of nuclear power stations is not permitted.
Point 5: carbon sinks are out of the question because – or so this House sees it – growing trees are only an interim solution.
Trees fall over or burn down.
Even if trees die a natural death, they expel all the carbon absorbed.
Biomass or bio-fuels, however, are very much an option.
Governments can also gain experience with sinks.
Point 6: large hydro-electric power stations are only possible if the criteria of the World Commission on Dams are observed.
Although hydropower actually helps in the fight against climate change, ecological and social criteria should also be taken into consideration.
On this score too, we are stricter than the Kyoto Protocol.
Point 7: the agreement that the Member States have to make half of their Kyoto efforts in their own countries and half abroad, has been re-confirmed.
Agreements only to commit industry to the ceiling make no sense, because this leads to governments, at least some governments, making 50% of their investments abroad, with industry making a further 25% of the countries' investments abroad.
Ultimately, only 25% will be invested at home and 75% abroad.
By acting in this way, we would put our ecological credibility on the line.
Point 8: outside Europe, there is a great deal of interest in our system of emission trading and in this linking directive.
Fifteen states in the United States and four provinces in Australia intend to set up comparable emission trading systems.
The Commission will be examining whether they can plug into our European system.
The same applies to Canada and, hopefully in future, also to Japan.
In that way, a start is being made on the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol before it enters into effect officially.
Point 9: we will need to extend the scope of the emission trading system to include aviation and subsequently also road transport.
This is preferable to opting in favour of domestic Joint Implementation Projects, as is being suggested by some.
Finally, the French Government and French industry have no faith in this linking directive. Neither has Greenpeace.
This is old-fashioned dogmatism.
I am pleased that all political groups, the Council of Ministers and the Commission have more insight and are prepared to support this compromise.
Climate change is deteriorating by the day; we must act in unison.
For climate change, it makes no difference where the greenhouse gas is produced.
Armed with this linking directive, we will now enter upon the worldwide struggle to solve the climate issue.
   Madam President, there are more than 63 of us who, as Members of the European Parliament, have tabled a motion of censure on the Commission, not because we lack confidence in all the Commissioners but because it is the only means we have of attributing responsibility for the Eurostat scandal.
We ask the Commission to attribute responsibility itself and, if it will not do so, we are obliged to table our motion of censure covering everyone.
There are 67 signatures, 60 of which were verified a couple of hours ago.
There are two further signatures verified by the services, and there are two that the services are declining to verify and in connection with which we have delivered written confirmations.
There should now, therefore, in any case be 64 signatures with the services, and the Bureau thus has no other choice than to note that a motion of censure has been tabled with 63 signatures, in other words the necessary number of signatures.
It must therefore be placed on the agenda within 24 hours, and there must be a vote within 48 hours.
I hope that the President is in a position to note that the 63 signatures have now been obtained and that the services are not interpreting the Rules of Procedure properly by trying to get people to withdraw their signatures.
   The next item is a report (A5-0265/2004) by Mr Blokland, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on batteries and accumulators and spent batteries and accumulators.
   The next item is a report (A5-0261/2004) by Mr Wijkman, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on Integrated Product Policy – Building on Environmental Life-Cycle Thinking.
   – Madam President, Commissioner Wallström, I strongly support Mr Wijkman.
If we really want to enforce sustainable production, we must think in life cycles and not in individual products.
That is why, Commissioner Wallström, we also need a structural framework for the building site.
If you look at it now, what we have is a building site with the various building blocks scattered on the ground. We have EMAS, we have eco-labels, and for batteries we have decided on eco-labels again.
Then we have limits, then for cars we have enhanced environment-friendly vehicles.
We have the public procurement system, but nothing dovetails.
Consequently, businessmen and consumers are of course not exactly clear how this integrated production is supposed to benefit them; that is why I can only strongly support Mr Wijkman.
We need a framework for the building site so that these building blocks will fit together and a sensible structure will result.
Only then, I believe, will we be able to persuade manufacturers to change their production methods and finally have environmentally friendly, sustainable production.
   The next item is a recommendation for second reading (A5-0234/2004) by Mrs Lambert, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council regulation on the coordination of social security systems.
   . I would like to draw Parliament's attention to the situation of Mordechai Vanunu, who is being released from an Israeli jail this week after 18 years' imprisonment for revealing details of Israeli nuclear weapons programmes.
He is now subject to emergency regulations, which constitutes a cruel and unusual punishment, even though he has served his sentence – incidentally for revealing details of the kind of weapons that the US is seeking to discover in Iraq.
The emergency regulations prevent him from leaving the country for six months or from being in contact with any foreign person – even by email or phone – otherwise he will be rearrested.
He cannot talk to journalists and he is also barred from going within 100 metres of foreign embassies.
This should be condemned by Parliament as contrary to the rule of law.
The Commission can accept the following amendments: 5, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 24, 25, 39, 42, 43, 46, 50, 51, 63, 64, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, 75, 78, 86, 100, 102, 103, 104, 110, 112, 114, 117, 124, 126, 127, 128, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 145, 147, 149, 174, 191, 199 and 201.
The Commission can accept the following amendments subject to rewording: 2, 3, 9, 11, 14, 18, 20, 26, 29, 34, 35, 37, 38, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 61, 66, 73, 79, 81, 87, 91, 92, 101, 105, 107, 108, 109, 118, 121, 140, 144, 146, 148, 150, 151, 156, 159, 162, 165, 168, 176, 179, 180, 184, 185, 186, 187, 192, 194, 197, 198 and 205.
The Commission can accept the following amendments in part, subject to rewording: 1, 6, 7, 23, 36, 40, 62, 65, 84, 95, 130, 131, 155, 164, 166, 167, 169, 172, 177, 188 and 195.
The Commission can accept the following amendments in part: 17, 27, 59, 142 and 158.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 4, 10, 19, 21, 22, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 41, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 52, 76, 77, 80, 82, 83, 85, 88, 89, 90, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 106, 111, 113, 115, 116, 119, 120, 122, 123, 125, 129, 132, 138, 141, 143, 152, 153, 154, 157, 160, 161, 163, 170, 171, 173, 175, 178, 181, 182, 183, 189, 190, 193, 196, 200, 202, 203, 204 or 206.
Ghilardotti report
The Commission can accept the following amendments: 1, 5, 10, 19, 23, 41, 59, 60, 62, 68, 71, 88, 90, 96, 104, 107, 108, 109, 111 and 112 (total: 20).
The Commission can accept the following amendments in part or subject to changes: 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 17, 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 47, 61, 65, 67, 69, 72, 73, 76, 80, 84, 85, 87, 89, 92, 98, 99, 100, 103, 105 and 106 (total: 45).
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 3, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 26, 30, 32, 35, 36, 43, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 64, 66, 70, 74, 75, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 83, 86, 91, 93, 94, 95, 97, 101, 102 or 110 (Total: 47).
The Commission can accept the following amendments: 1, 5, 6, 8, 9 (only if 12 is also adopted), 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 76, 77 and 78.
The Commission can accept the following amendments subject to rewording: 2, 3, 4, 43, 74 and 75.
The Commission can accept the following amendments as part of the compromise package: 7, 15, 23 (if reworded), 25, 36, 38, 46, 47, 48, 59 and 65.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 10, 11, 14, 21, 26, 27, 31, 35, 49, 55, 56, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72 or 73.
The Commission can accept the following amendments with redrafting: 5, 10, 13, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26 and 35.
The Commission can accept the following amendments in principle: 6, 7, 8, 9 and 73.
The Commission can accept the following amendments in part: 17, 20, 47, 48, 59, 60, 63, 65, 66 and 69.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 27-34, 36-46, 42-46, 49-58, 61-62, 64, 67-68, 70-72 and 74-81.
The Commission can accept the following amendments: 4, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 21, 24, 31, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 78, 79, 80 and 81 – 26 amendments altogether.
Amendments Nos 10, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23, 27, 28, 29, 35, 40, 42, 43, 44, 48 and 53 can be accepted in principle and/or in part – 16 amendments altogether.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 15, 18, 19, 25, 26, 30, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 45, 49, 54, 55, 63, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77 and 82 – 40 amendments altogether.
(1)
–The Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has already approved Mrs Hazan's report on this subject.
   Mr Bonde, I wish to inform you that the services of Parliament are currently verifying the signatures, because, as you know, in the process of sending the signatures, some were added and others withdrawn.
As soon as this verification process is completed this morning, the President of Parliament will be informed in order to take a decision on the matter.
   – The next item is the report (Α5-0257/2004) by Mr Sterckx, on behalf of the Temporary Committee on improving safety at sea, on improving safety at sea.
(2003/2235(INI).
   . – Mr President, it all started in November 2001 when the sank and tens of thousands of tonnes of oil ended up in the sea off the Galician, Spanish and French coasts, with residues of it staining even the British and Belgian coasts.
It was a true European tragedy and once again, a tragedy that we needed like a hole in the head.
The European Parliament appointed Dirk Sterckx as rapporteur, but due to circumstances in his own country, he has asked me to replace him.
I shall therefore replace him on behalf of the Liberals and say a few words.
Parliament is deeply disappointed, because after the disaster involving the , we had already worked with the Commission constructively in order to tighten up policy.
The upshot was two packages, but another disaster had to happen first.
In September 2003, Parliament approved an initial report by Mr Sterckx, which gave a detailed account of events and made a few recommendations.
Its salient points were: first of all, tightening up the regime of ports of refuge and the request to organise a compensation system and secondly, the setting up of a temporary committee.
The Temporary Committee on improving safety at sea (MARE) was set up in November 2003 and its brief was firstly, to look into recent shipping disasters, particularly the and the ; secondly, to analyse the social and economic implications; thirdly, to evaluate existing European and international rules; fourthly, to examine how the recommendations from the first resolution have been acted upon and finally, to formulate additional proposals, if necessary.
After six months of hard work, we now have a balanced report.
It was not always easy to take a rational view of the situation, but fortunately, everyone pulled together and has adopted a constructive stance so far.
As such, approval of this report will hopefully constitute an important step in the direction of a safer sea, because that was the key motivation behind the work of these past six months.
Maritime safety is in everyone's interests, because another or sinking off any coast does not bear thinking about.
On behalf of Mr Sterckx, I should in any case like to thank Mr Jarzembowski, chairman of the MARE Committee, the people who we interviewed, including the master of the , who received a delegation of the committee, all coordinators and all fellow MEPs.
Mr Sterckx deeply regrets that local issues prevent him from being here today.
Let me now turn to the report.
Firstly, the clearing of the wreck. According to the Spanish authorities, 43 000 tonnes of crude oil have been recovered.
Repsol, the company that will be removing the remaining oil from the wreck, states that the wreck holds another 14 000 tonnes.
As indicated in the report, there are therefore still 20 000 tonnes unaccounted for that still constitute a threat.
The cleared oil is being stored somewhere but is yet to be processed.
Secondly, the meeting with the master has exposed the contrasting statements, on the one hand, by the Spanish authorities who claimed that right at the outset 10 000 tonnes of oil ended up in the sea, and, on the other, by the master that on the first day, only 2 000 to 3 000 tonnes were lost via one of both openings.
Moreover, the master's treatment does not exactly inspire people to work in shipping.
It is quite a responsibility and it is very tough when you are personally put under pressure in this manner.
This also applies to a huge number of colleagues of his.
In this respect, the is not alone, unfortunately; witness what has happened to other crew members in shipping disasters.
We are still awaiting a report on the by the flag state, the Bahamas.
That is unfortunate and actually very unsportsmanlike when you consider the efforts we have all made to contribute to the activities.
I should like to comment on another few proposals.
First of all, compliance with existing law remains a priority.
We must first and foremost apply what already exists.
We are delighted to be able to conclude that the Member States have caught up with regard to the directive on port state control and the classification bureaus.
That is why we would suggest updating the text of paragraph 7 and rejecting the second part, because evidently, that issue has been resolved.
A sound compromise has been reached in the committee on the European coastguard service.
I have noticed that the final section of the compromise creates confusion and is at odds with our request for an independent decision-making and command structure at Member State level capable of enforcing the necessary decisions.
The visit by the Englishman, Robert Middleton, to our committee was very instructive.
I would therefore suggest removing the contradiction in Amendment No 26 and bringing paragraph 13 into line with paragraph 10.
I would like to finish off by saying something about labelling and tracing of loading units containing dangerous goods.
This aspect has been included in the report, but I think that a quick scan from the Commission is required to indicate the level of transmitters we would need to deploy.
We would probably need passive, but possibly also active, transmitters for heavy cargo.
I would like to ask Mrs Palacio to look into this matter again.
There are very simple, cheap transmitters, which can be attached to any cargo.
These could be introduced tomorrow; the market is ready for them.
I think, though, that it is important to look into these matters at greater length.
I am looking forward to your response.
   Mr President, the Sterckx report is a positive one, for which special thanks are due to the rapporteur.
For this reason, we voted for it in committee.
It is still not what we wanted, however, and we therefore hope that the amendments we have tabled will be adopted.
The report should be firmer and more unequivocal in condemning the behaviour and the culpable omissions of the Spanish Government and the Galician authorities with regard to the disaster, and also in criticising the lack of European Union institutional, technical and economic resources for avoiding and responding to accidents at sea.
The report should highlight the indifference and the neglect displayed by the Commission and by many Member States in the face of calls for effective measures to improve safety at sea and to help countries affected by disasters.
It should also call, as a matter of urgency, for the International Maritime Organisation to recognise the culpability of the institutional system and of those capitalist companies – which I would brand as guilty – which govern maritime traffic, as well as demanding the measures needed to protect both life and maritime and coastal resources.
In any case, given the temptation for those with vested interests to forget the disaster, we need to stress that the is not a historical issue, but that it can teach us lessons for the future, especially for Galicia, which of all the countries in the world has suffered the greatest number of such accidents over the last thirty years.
The reaction of civil society in Galicia meant that the disaster became a political issue there, and for the European Union also, giving rise to a democratic movement that was intensified by the democratic struggle for peace and against the war in Iraq.
This set in train the events that led to a democratic change of government in Spain, which was of momentous importance for everyone, including the European Union.
I remember the date very well: it was 13 November, the day on which my third grandson was born.
Nevertheless, the threat of accidents like the disaster is still hanging over us.
This is very much the time for the European Union to spell out its willingness to make good the impact of a disaster which affected 2 000 kilometres of our coastline, from the Minho to Brittany.
There is a particular need to support and strengthen the Galicia Plan, which is an undertaking on the part of the state to remedy the consequences of the disaster, an undertaking which the European Union and the new Spanish Government must fulfil without prevaricating, and which they must treat as an urgent priority.
   Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the interpreters for their patience and kindness for the unforgivable suffering I have imposed on everybody since my first speech in September 1999.
At that time I announced that I would speak neither French nor Spanish in plenary while the Basque language did not enjoy full recognition in the Basque country.
Now, five years on, the rights of Basque speakers are still being ignored.
I would therefore ask – in the English language, of course – my French and Spanish colleagues to act immediately.
I join with other speakers in their positive response to the important work produced by the committee, chaired by Mr Jarzembowski, and to the excellent work of the rapporteur, Mr Sterckx.
The Commissioner said that a new report on the future of maritime safety will soon be presented.
I hope that this time the Commission will emphasise the need for immediate and accurate information in the event of maritime disasters. That was not the case with the , where the interests of the public and in particular of the victims in Galicia and the northern part of the Iberian Peninsula, including the Basque country, were completely ignored.
Castelão is a universal reference for all peoples subject to the oppression of states that deny their existence.
'Thank you, Galicians' will probably my last words in this Parliament because I will not be able to stand for re-election next June.
I will be the only Member of this Parliament who will not have that possibility because our political party has been outlawed by the Kingdom of Spain.
Thank you all the same. .
   Mr President, Commissioner, I am sorry that Mr Sterckx is not present in the House, and I am sure that he has pressing reasons for this, but I would like Mr Vermeer to pass on to him that this committee is making progress as a result of the disaster and that, as of this moment, we have an excellent Commission proposal and an excellent report by Mr Sterckx on safety at sea.
Is Parliament really asking Mr Sterckx for an own-initiative report on safety at sea in this situation? This would not be very logical.
Everyone is aware that what Parliament is asking for is an investigatory committee on the , precisely in order to clarify what has happened and to avoid repetition, in order to establish that seriously damaged vessels should not be sent to the open seas to sink, but that ports of refuge should be provided.
This committee should have made it very clear that this should not be repeated, that we cannot get away with pollution and that not everything can be resolved through commercial relations and political dependencies.
None of this appears in Mr Sterckx’s report.
The experts have been ignored, not to say scoffed at, and I am sorry that Mr Sterckx has reneged on the pact that he made with the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats in order to have, at this time, the President of the House that we have.
I must, however, give Mr Sterckx some bad news: in his investiture report, the President of the Spanish Government has decided to create a monitoring committee on the .
We will be able to continue clarifying and providing information in spite of the European Parliament.
   The next item is the report (A5-0220/2004) by Mr Cocilovo, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 1999/62/EC on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are standing at an historical turning point.
With the agreement between Parliament and the Council in the Sommer report on toll systems, the comprehensive toll has for the first time been made administratively and technically possible.
An agreement tomorrow on the railway package will also make possible an improvement through better harmonisation of European railways.
The only thing that is not yet present is the political will for fairness, for fair competition between road and rail.
Here, we have extreme differences in the working conditions.
It is a scandal that the Irish Government has not even put the Markov report on the agenda.
This is a matter of life and death, not just the ordinary rest and driving times on the road.
Secondly, the ‘polluter pays’ principle must also be complied with; Mr Jarzembowski, and all the others who keep saying that there are no figures, please note: accidents, EUR 19 billion; noise damage, EUR 11 billion; air pollution, EUR 62 billion; climate change, EUR 35 billion – EUR 134 billion in damage done by goods vehicles in Europe.
Who pays for this? This loss is paid for by those who sit up there in the public gallery, the European man in the street, and so long as you are not prepared to pass on the costs in full and therefore also to put money in the alternatives, the shameful political fight will continue against justice on the roads of Europe.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0216/2004) by Mr Markov, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on minimum conditions for the implementation of Directive 2002/15/EC and Council Regulations (EEC) Nos 3820/85 and 3821/85 concerning social legislation relating to road transport activities [COM(2003) 628 – C5-0601/2003 – 2003/0255(COD)].
   – Mr President, the monitor is still giving the wrong information.
My name is Elisabeth Schroedter, and I am the rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as already stated, in the context of the procedure of enhanced cooperation with the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism for this important dossier.
I will take this opportunity to thank the rapporteur for his constructive collaboration.
It is all the more disappointing that – as already mentioned – the Committee of the Regions has thrown out the Committee on Social Affairs’ main improvements, which had to do with the tolerance of excesses.
The committee, that is to say, has proposed that excesses of up to 20% should be tolerated.
What does that mean in concrete terms? It means quite specifically that the 56-hour driving times that are already permitted per week can be increased by a further 20%, in other words, that a further 11 hours can be added.
In my opinion, this is physical irresponsibility with regard to the drivers, and, secondly, it puts every road user at enormous risk.
So I think that this matter will really be improved only if we agree, here in the plenary, to reduce this tolerance.
   The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0249/2004), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the common position of the Council with a view to adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on minimum safety requirements for tunnels in the Trans-European Road Network [5238/1/2004 – C5-0118/2004 – 2002/0309(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mr Rack).
   Pursuant to Rule 34 of the Rules of Procedure, I have received a motion of censure on the Commission, signed by 65 Members, concerning the Commission's role in the Eurostat affair.
This motion meets the basic requirements of Rule 34 and so will be forwarded to the Commission.
I propose that the debate on this motion of censure be scheduled for tomorrow, 21 April at 9 p.m.
Rule 34 stipulates that the vote on the motion cannot take place until at least 48 hours after the start of the debate.
This means that the vote will be taken during the May part-session, at a time to be indicated on the agenda for that part-session, in agreement with the Groups, when we prepare the details of that part-session.
I do want to have an extended debate on this, but I see that some colleagues wish to speak.(1)
   Mr President, further to the statement you have just made, I must point out that if I am not mistaken there are three issues arising under the same item in the order of business.
Firstly, there is Mrs Stauner’s report.
Next there is the decision, proposed by the Group of the European People’s Party; to request a Commission statement on the Eurostat case, with a resolution.
Lastly, there is a proposal for a motion of censure tabled by part of the PPE.
I am not sure if the whole PPE Group supports this proposal.
It would be appropriate to check.
There are therefore three issues relating to the same item in the order of business.
In the interests of rationalising Parliament’s workload, it would be best to discuss these issues jointly or to delete the Eurostat case.
I should like to raise another very important matter too, Mr President.
Pursuant to Rule 34 of the Rules of Procedure, I would ask you to state which Treaties are applicable to consideration of a motion of censure.
Currently we are working in a Parliament composed of Members representing fifteen Member States.
When Parliament votes on 3 May, however, it will be composed of Members from twenty-five Member States and the enlarged Commission will be in place.
I believe this is an important constitutional matter.
I am not thinking only of the new Commissioners, who will be welcomed with a motion of censure.
I feel strongly that it is important to deal with this matter before moving on to consider the motion of censure and vote on it.
   The earliest moment when this motion could have been announced is now.
The earliest the debate can take place is 24 hours after it has been announced.
The earliest valid time to vote, according to the Rules of Procedure, is 48 hours after the start of the debate.
We will not be in Strasbourg 48 hours after the debate, so those who have tabled the motion can contemplate whatever they will after the debate and we can discuss that outcome at the Conference of Presidents.
   Mr President, on a point of order, I have been informed that you have deleted two names from the request for the motion of censure.
They are the names of two Members from my Group – Mr Mussa and Mr Turchi – who unfortunately are not here today.
I watched them sign the paper in this Chamber, and would like to know why those signatures have been deleted.
   May I say to my fellow Member that only Hans Peter Martin, and no one else, can verify signatures.
That is the one thing, but I seriously wanted ...
   The next item is the vote.
We have 37 reports and 1 252 amendments to vote on today.
This combination of reports and amendments is the largest single voting session we have had in the last five years, so I will need your fullest cooperation.
   . Mr President, just a brief word, because we are already running very late, to mention that Eurocontrol is the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation and that the effect of this report is to approve the ratification by the Community of the Protocol on accession to the revised Eurocontrol convention.
This ratification will enable the Community to contribute to policy making and to strengthen the synergies between the two organisations.
It will also strengthen Eurocontrol’s ability to launch development programmes and to implement new air traffic control technologies that will ensure the creation of the Single European Sky.
The entire air sector should benefit from this.
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the enlargement of the European Union now imminent, I would like to stress how valuable membership of Eurocontrol by the accession countries that have not yet joined it will be for everybody in improving air safety.
I hope that these new Member States will rapidly integrate the process of the Single European Sky so as to allow the airspace to be properly managed over the entire territory of the unified Union.
That is why we must encourage the countries that will be joining the European Union on 1 May and that are not yet members of Eurocontrol to take the steps necessary for accession as quickly as possible.
   . Mr President, the rejection of the proposal concerning the first phase of the establishment of the visa information system is a matter of great regret to the Commission.
It means delaying the creation of the final system that will have to be in place before the end of this year.
Pursuant to the framework agreement, Mr Vitorino will inform the College of Commissioners of this result.
He will also provide ongoing information on follow up to this matter.
   In that case the matter is automatically referred back to committee under Rule 68(3) of the Rules of Procedure.
   Mr President, I would like to refer to what happened with the Schmidt report during the previous sitting: it does not make any sense at all to refer the report back to the committee.
We do not have two months, because we are at the end of the parliamentary term, and I call on this House to vote on my report, which includes a legislative resolution from this Parliament and rejects the Commission's initiative.
   . Mr President, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs recommends the appointment of Mr José Manuel Gonzáles-Páramo as a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
We have no doubts about his personal integrity and professional competence.
In this context, however, we should like to point out that it would be a good thing if the European Central Bank were to sit down with this Parliament in future and reflect on the future role of the system of central banks.
This is truly a vital requirement, not least with regard to the future selection of candidates.
We also believe there is a need to examine whether it would not be appropriate to introduce a procedure whereby we ratify future appointments rather than merely deliver a consultative opinion.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have just come to an understanding on a few more points with a view to making the voting procedure easier for you.
By agreement with my honourable colleagues, I should therefore like to propose that, beginning with the Committee’s Amendment No 10, we consolidate the votes into four blocks.
I have already indicated to the Bureau how these blocks can be arranged so that we can deal with the whole proposal fairly quickly, and I should like to ask your permission, Mr President, to present a brief oral proposal for a compromise before the vote on Article 3(2)(a) and before the vote on Article 16.
   Mr President, as this matter was agreed just prior to the vote I want to be quite clear about the separate vote, because the complete voting list was only available this morning.
We would like to check that there is to be a separate vote on Amendments Nos 38 and 39 as a block and on Amendments Nos 80, 102, 122, 127 and 128.
If that is what the rapporteur has given you, then I am happy to go along with that division.
   Mrs McCarthy, I understand that Amendments Nos 38, 39 and 102 have been withdrawn.
On the other amendments mentioned, it seems that the rapporteur agrees with you.
   . Mr President, we are dealing here with the applicability of the Directive to agreements relating to small amounts of credit or those covering particularly large amounts.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has tabled an amendment proposing that the coverage threshold for microcredits be drawn at EUR 500.
I should like to combine this amendment with Amendment No 175, tabled by the Group of the European Socialists with a view to setting an upper limit of EUR 100 000.
That would be a sensible joint solution.
If it secures a large majority, there is a good chance that it will serve as the basis for further deliberations within the Council.
   Mr President, I object on the basis that we reserve the right to vote on an amendment that allows us to have no lower threshold.
This combination means that there would be a minimum threshold of 500 combining with a Socialist upper threshold.
We do not want a lower threshold, so we cannot accept this compromise.
   Mr President, Amendment No 206 is not rendered redundant by the adoption of the previous amendment.
Therefore, we need to vote on Amendment No 206.
   I shall ask the rapporteur for advice on this.
After the adoption of Amendment No 64 I was advised that Amendment No 206 would fall.
Rapporteur, what is your opinion?
   . Mr President, the Commission proposed a ban on doorstep negotiation of credit agreements.
The committee called for this ban to be completely scrapped.
We approved that motion. So there is no longer any scope for a reduced ban as proposed in Amendment No 206.
It is therefore correct that Amendment No 206 should fall.
   I will follow the advice of the rapporteur.
I will come back to Mrs McCarthy and her colleagues with an explanation later.
   The Commission is proposing a revision of the European Investment Bank's external lending mandate, under which loans are guaranteed from the EU budget, so as to take account of the new Neighbourhood Policy against the background of the enlarged European Union, as part of its proposals for the 2007-2013 policy and financial framework.
If the overall ceiling for credits opened, equivalent to EUR 20 260, is taken into account, it will soon be seen that the report accompanying this legislative proposal does little to further the geopolitical considerations and objectives which it is supposed to be inspired by, and in particular the creation of a pan-European-Mediterranean free trade area, in which the European Union has great political, economic and military influence at regional level.
The Neighbourhood Policy gives particular priority to Russia, for which the rapporteur proposes an increase of EUR 500 million in the provisional allocation, and to the Mediterranean shore countries.
These loans would obviously serve the European Union's policy of regional influence, interest and interference – an objective that we reject.
But more worrying still is the fact that this Neighbourhood Policy appears to be to the detriment of the European Union's cooperation and development policy, especially in relation to the ACP (Africa, Caribbean and Pacific) countries, Latin America and Asia.
   This proposal relates to the accession of the European Community to the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, Eurocontrol.
In accordance with Rules 86 and 97 of our Rules of Procedure, Parliament is required to give a favourable opinion on this agreement, as the relevant negotiations were concluded on 8 October 2002 with the signing of the protocol in question.
In accordance with the accession protocol, as is the case with other international organisations, the Community and the Member States will participate in the work of Eurocontrol with voting rights allocated according to whether an issue falls within an area of Community competence or that of the Member States.
The Council and Parliament recently adopted the regulation on the Single European Sky, one of the provisions of which was Community membership of Eurocontrol, so that Parliament has already indirectly expressed its views on this matter.
The relationship between the Community and Eurocontrol may bring certain benefits in terms of air traffic capacity, safety and efficiency, to be achieved by initiating programmes for developing and implementing new air traffic control technologies, and I accordingly voted in favour of the report.
   Mr President, I think it is important to point out that it was not I alone but all the members of the Austrian People’s Party in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats who ultimately rejected the de Roo report.
We have difficulties with the nuclear issue in Amendment No 38.
The wording is simply too vague for our liking, and I am a little surprised that Alexander de Roo does not also recognise that the right to bank credits leaves the door open for credits issued before 2012 in respect of nuclear projects to be used after that date.
This means that operators could meet their environmental requirements by means of credits from a nuclear project conducted in the period from 2008 to 2012.
Our support for the total exclusion of nuclear projects is absolutely solid, and this is why we were unable to accept the de Roo report at the end of the day.
   . In the Dutch press, the impression has been created that Mr Doorn, the acting leader of the CDA Party, has found a way of saving the country EUR 10 billion a year.
While a superficial reading of this will lead one to assume that he will use this sum to reduce EU tax payments, Mr Doorn does not offer a solution to the problem of the EU’s waste of 20% of its budget annually on prestige projects, on pumping money around rich Member States and fraud.
His only concern is to liberate businesses from what he considers to be stifling bureaucracy.
Above all, he wants fewer rules that are intended to protect employment and the environment and, consequently, fewer costs for entrepreneurs.
That is in keeping with the ambition of Mr Zalm, the Dutch Finance Minister, who wants to reduce the administrative burden for businesses from EUR 17 billion to EUR 14 billion annually and reckons that half of this is attributable to European rules.
According to Mr Zalm's calculation, the sum involved therefore is not EUR 10 billion but only EUR 1.5 billion.
While I support an expansion of the options to be able to assess the negative impact of European regulations at the earliest possible stage, I do have a feeling that Mr Doorn will be wanting to put a stop to entirely different rules from those I have in mind.
   . I congratulate Mr Mantovani on his excellent and timely report on the Communication from the Commission on Equal Opportunities for people with disabilities: A European Action Plan.
I wholeheartedly endorse this report, particularly as regards the need to give continuity to actions aimed at combating discrimination against people with disabilities.
I also strongly agree with Mr Mantovani’s call for a timetable for the submission of a directive to combat discrimination based on those areas not covered by Directive 200/78/EC.
   . I should first like to point out that this report is a follow-up to the European Year of People with Disabilities 2003 and related issues.
It calls for non-discrimination and the promotion of human rights to be the main focus of the European Union’s strategy.
According to the report, the positive results obtained should be incorporated into the European Union’s policies.
The report regrets the absence of legislative proposals, and calls for a timetable for submitting a directive in this regard.
It calls for stronger measures to combat discrimination and to promote respect for human rights and opportunities for people with disabilities.
It also expresses support for a United Nations convention and calls on Member States to promote such a convention.
The report calls for organisations representing persons with disabilities to play a more active role in the decision-making process.
It advocates the use of the European Social Fund and Structural Funds for persons with disabilities.
According to the report, it is vital that disabled people should have greater accessibility to information technologies and to the built environment, including access to services.
It also calls for a specific action programme, with effect from the 2005 budget.
For all of these reasons I am voting in favour of Mr Mantovani’s report, which contains excellent observations and suggestions.
   . We fully support the right to free movement of persons, as one of the fundamental freedoms of the internal market.
That is also why we have chosen to vote in favour of Mrs Lambert’s report.
It is natural that the EU, in order to realise its vision of the free movement of workers and other citizens who can support themselves, lay down stipulations for EU citizens moving from one country to another.
A significant risk when the EU becomes involved in areas that should chiefly be dealt with by the Member States, however, is that the body of legislation doubles.
When Member States want to protect their benefit systems, they resort to discriminatory transitional arrangements because the detailed EU rules do not permit permanent measures that are completely reasonable.
Pensions and other benefits that have been accrued can be taken along without problems when citizens move to another EU country, whereas social security benefits (for example child allowances and housing benefit) that are not accrued individually should not in principle be paid out to persons resident in another country.
In the context of the EU-25 that is now being formed, Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, the Social Charter, should be revised in order that it better suits the new requirements.
   . I voted against the de Roo report.
I am, of course, in favour of a scheme for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading, in order to make it easier for our economies to adapt to the constraints imposed by the objectives set out in the Kyoto protocol.
I feel, however, that Parliament wants to introduce an overly bureaucratic system and pointless obstacles.
This is all the more regrettable because the Kyoto protocol has not yet entered into force and, as a result of this, the United States, Russia and China will gain a competitive advantage over their European competitors.
   . At the end of each legislative period, rapporteurs try to bring the negotiations with the Council to an end promptly, so that, following the elections, there is no need for another discussion with uncertain outcome.
Before a public debate becomes possible, serious differences of opinion have already been cleared out of the way.
In this case, industry is pleased that, thanks to the energy displayed by the Green rapporteur, CO2 emission allowance trading can start as early as 2005 instead of 2008.
That is in keeping with the Liberal view that a reduction in emission is too expensive at home and it is therefore preferable for this to be done in countries where this is more cost-effective.
The expected advantages are that at world level, results are achieved more quickly and that in their industrialisation processes, developing countries are encouraged to make use of environmental technology developed in Europe straight away.
This is traded off against the fact that no measures are taken at home, countries in eastern Europe sell their rights in order to reconstruct their industries and countries in the developing world may not be able to start the industrialisation process for a long while yet.
However, on a positive note, at least 50% of reduction must be achieved within the EU.
The advantage of this proposal is that production forests, which are intended to be felled or which can burn down, can no longer be fraudulently entered in accounts as carbon pits for taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it into oxygen.
   Mr President, allow me to explain my abstention on the Cocilovo report.
The rapporteur took great pains to support a new approach and to pursue it boldly.
I should have welcomed an even bolder line and particularly a more receptive attitude to the amendments tabled in committee and here in plenary by the various political groupings – I myself was among those who tabled them – with a view to taking more account of the needs of people in sensitive areas.
This boldness was lacking at the first reading.
I hope this will have been rectified by the time we next deal with the proposal. I am confident that this is the right approach, but it must be pursued more consistently and more boldly.
   The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mr Deprez’ report (A5-0267/2004).
We think it important further to develop the Refugee Fund and to coordinate efforts at EU level, as well as to lay down sensible procedures and such like.
We are nonetheless aware of the fact that the Council decision is covered by Title IV of the Treaty establishing the EU and does not apply to Denmark, cf. the Protocol on Denmark’s Position.
   .
Mr Voggenhuber has been arguing on behalf of the Group of the Greens for an EU Constitution for years.
Meanwhile, such a constitution is in preparation, in which free competition pure and simple, more and more arms and the undemocratic authority of the Council are permanently established.
This constitution, and also Article 7 of the present Treaty on European Union, allow measures against Member States that cease to be democracies and seriously and persistently breach the rule of law of the constitutional state.
That is important for the undemocratic Spain under the recently defeated Aznar Government and the potential future Member States of Romania and Turkey.
Neither these provisions nor the Commission’s communication on them make clear whether they also cover a serious failure to act against violations of human rights.
I appreciate the fact that, in his resolution, Mr Voggenhuber wishes to give it an interpretation based on openness, equality, plurality of opinions and confidence that the Union is not going to engage in permanent monitoring of the Member States.
I also agree with him that Parliament must play an important role in the event of suspensions and this must not be left to the power politics of the Council.
What disturbs me, however, is the idealistic sauce being poured over his resolution.
The real values of the EU, alas, are the market, currency, free competition and armaments, rather than democracy, human rights, the environment, peace and solidarity.
   Mr President, I take the floor for just one minute to thank the Commissioner, Mr Barnier, not just for the comments that he addressed to me, which moved me deeply, but also for the cooperation that he has been able to establish with the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and with Parliament as a whole over these years.
Thanks to him, the dialogue, the cooperation, the shared commitment and the alliance – as has sometimes been said – between the Commission and Parliament in the field of institutional affairs, have not remained pure rhetoric but have become a working reality.
We are sure that our friend the minister Michel Barnier will be able to worthily occupy the position that Robert Schuman once held, of interpreting the Europeanist traditions of France, that great founding Member of the European Community.
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   The next item is the report (A5-0268/2004) by Terence Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and to the European Parliament on 'Building our common future – policy challenges and budgetary means of the enlarged Union 2007-2013'.
   The next item is the report (A5-0272/2004) by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the Commission Communication: the Third report on economic and social cohesion.
   Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, in the third report on economic and social cohesion, the right path has been chosen, leading to a reformed European cohesion policy with a new architecture and targeted interventions.
The fact that 78% of the financial resources for the reduction of disparities and the improvement of competitiveness factors have been earmarked for the least advanced regions shows that this is a move in the right direction – away from the scattergun approach to support funding towards the targeted use of resources.
Equally right is the decision to accord equal treatment to the regions that are subject to the statistical effect in the framework of the new convergence objective.
We particularly welcome this proposal, provided that it also guarantees adequate funding as envisaged in the communication from the Commission for the period after 2006.
For the sake of fair treatment of the areas subject to the statistical effect in relation to the traditional Objective 1 regions, there must be no further budget cuts or dilution of support.
I therefore wish to refer at this point to last September’s parliamentary resolution based on the Mastorakis report.
The resolution not only emphasised the need to pay special attention to the level of support given to those regions suffering from the statistical effects of enlargement but also stressed that the Commission should focus the same attention on the administration of aid to these regions.
Parliament voted by a large majority in favour of aid under Article 87(3)(a) of the EC Treaty, and that should be taken into account.
We therefore expect the Directorate-General for Competition, even before presenting the drafts for the regulation on the structural funds, to present its proposal for guidelines on regionally targeted aid, which should take due account of the parliamentary vote, for we must beware of narrowly focusing aid and support measures on the acceding countries, which would ultimately subsidise tax dumping in those countries and would only lead to job losses in the existing EU Member States as companies moved their production facilities from the West to the new Member States in the East.
It would be unacceptable to invest European resources if a one-sided aid regime meant that the only return was the relocation of existing jobs.
    Thank you, Mr President.
I would like to congratulate you once again on your report, Mr Hatzidakis.
You must be aware that we are 99% in agreement with you.
In particular, I must thank you for keeping your word and ensuring that ageing will be taken into account somehow in connection with the development of funds.
It has yet to be determined exactly how this will be achieved.
I see Mr Pomes Ruiz is at your side.
This issue is mentioned in the latter’s report also.
It appears, therefore, that you are both fully aware of what ageing and low population density can entail.
Ladies and gentlemen, there can be no cohesion without development.
There can be no development without a productive population.
There cannot be a productive population if there is low population density and ageing.
Ageing is not a territorial problem.
It is a horizontal problem affecting all regions of Europe.
It affects all Member States too, and will become ever more significant in the years to come.
It is a major contributory factor to lack of development in regions where this is the case.
I therefore call on the Group of the Party of European Socialists to withdraw Amendment No 8, as this amendment could make it difficult for ageing to be taken into account as a negative factor as far as development is concerned.
   . – The report acknowledges enormous disparities between regions, which will inevitably worsen as a result of this round of enlargement, that strengthening economic and social cohesion is an obligation under the Single Act, and that structural investments in the cohesion regions benefit the Union’s other economies.
It does, however, deem 0.41% to be an acceptable minimum level for the allocation.
The report insists on retaining the 'expenditure target' system and on the N+2 rule, it issues warnings about industrial restructuring and relocation; it states that companies that have benefited from Community aid should not be entitled to receive new funds when they relocate, and that State aid should not be an incentive for companies to relocate.
It also calls for more effective monitoring of the ways in which the Funds are used and for a more focused strategy with regard to industrial restructuring and its social impact.
It confirms support for regions that have suffered as a result of the ‘statistical effect’, it has adopted amendments that we tabled to eliminate the expression ‘temporary phasing-out’ and to provide phasing-out support for current Objective 1 regions; it calls for the special status of the outermost regions to be preserved and for specific programmes to be kept on, even if they are no longer in Objective 1 regions.
It has adopted our proposal for regions that suffer permanent handicaps.
It seeks to ensure specific proposals and suitable funding for employment as well as support for small and micro-businesses and for training, particularly for adults.
We insist that the ‘statistical effect’ should be extended to the Cohesion Fund.
   The next item is the report (A5-0269/2004) by Mr Garriga Polledo, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the 2005 Budget: the Commission's Annual Policy Strategy report (APS).
   Mr President, Commissioner Schreyer, ‘gender budgeting’ must become more than a mere linguistic monstrosity.
I ask and urge you to ensure that the principle of gender equality permeates this budget.
Gender mainstreaming must be put into practice and must be made quantifiable in terms of euros.
In the European Community, more women are victims of violence within the family than are victims of terrorism.
For this reason, we call for 2006 to be declared the European Year against Violence.
We want the Beijing +10 review to be used as a means of fleshing out the Beijing Platform for Action, and we want the results of the World Conference on Women to be implemented by a European Conference, for example, which would develop additional strategies.
We also call for a European Gender Institute, which would compile reliable data as a basis for our political decisions.
We expect the Commission to apply gender mainstreaming in all areas of political activity, and the 2005 budget, the first in the greater European Union, should provide us with the main indicators of its application.
   The next item is the report (A5-0236/2004) by Mr Wilfried Kuckelkorn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the estimates of revenue and expenditure of Parliament for the financial year 2005.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament's preliminary estimates for 2005 have been deliberated in detail by the Committee on Budgets and the groups have reached agreement, by an overwhelming majority, on the report before you.
I would like to extend my warm thanks to everyone involved for this good cooperation.
I will therefore only focus on a few specific aspects here.
The 2005 estimates are based on the following key parameters: full 12 months of enlargement-related expenditure with nine new languages, and of course, if the outcome of this week's referendum in Cyprus is positive, a tenth new language will be added; 44 working weeks, of which three constituency weeks, 12 ordinary part-sessions and six additional part-sessions; a 2.7% salary adjustment, and a 7% standard abatement for posts.
Due to the specific situation arising in the drafting of the estimates for 2005 this year, with the forthcoming enlargement on 1 May and the European elections in June, a number of issues and uncertainties are still outstanding which cannot be resolved until shortly before the first reading in September this year.
Political priorities: the priority is to satisfy the needs relating to enlargement despite the financial constraints in Heading 5 in 2005.
I view the main objective for 2005 as achieving sound financial management and budgetary rigour and providing value for money for the European taxpayer.
The estimates for the 2005 budget, taking into account the budgetary constraints and uncertainties, must therefore be based on sound assumptions and real needs.
The general framework: the preliminary draft estimates have been set at 20% of Heading 5, namely EUR 1 272 million.
Of this figure, an amount of EUR 1 007.6 million is foreseen for standard operational expenditure and EUR 173.4 million for enlargement-related needs.
In light of the positive experiences with capital injections and accelerated repayment of buildings, which have produced major savings in recent years, it would seem sensible to use a part of the appropriations available in the budget for an advance payment for the D4 and D5 buildings in 2005.
Expenditure related to Members and political groups: no appropriations, on the line or in the reserve, are foreseen for a Member's Statute, but chapter 102 (Reserve for the Member's Statute) is maintained with a token entry (p.m.).
This House should continue to support the adoption of a Statute for Members' assistants.
Furthermore, the level of the Secretariat allowance should be assessed, and a Code of Conduct governing the use of the Secretariat allowance should be produced.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me turn now to one of the four amendments which have been tabled.
Unfortunately, my fellow Member, Mr Balfe, whom I greatly respect, is not here.
I would therefore ask our fellow Members in the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats (PPE-DE Group) to bring their influence to bear on him once more so that he withdraws his amendment.
The reason is that there are still a number of financial issues to be clarified.
We can reach a consensus on the matter itself, but it is ultimately inopportune to take a decision based on a report which does not show all the appropriations.
That is the reason why I would ask you to bring your influence to bear so that this particular amendment is withdrawn tomorrow.
   Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, Commissioner Schreyer, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by expressing my warm thanks to the rapporteur who dealt with the issue of Parliament's preliminary estimates for 2005 with his customary flair.
I wish to thank him particularly for his efforts, from the outset, to achieve a consensus across the groups.
It is very important that on the one hand, we jointly contribute to ensuring that in terms of its administration, the European Parliament is able to master the challenges of enlargement fully.
After all, we are the institution which is most affected, because all the languages must be available from 1 May and we have very different working methods from the Commission, the Council, the Court of Justice or the Court of Auditors.
On the other hand, we must also make a contribution to strengthening the European Parliament itself, and the public's 'ownership' of it, on a long-term basis.
To this end, the rapporteur has put forward a number of sound proposals – he has just outlined the various points – and I would like to thank him particularly for that.
Mr Kuckelkorn, as regards Mr Balfe, I would point out that the amendment concerned was not tabled by the group, which is why the group is unable to take any action here.
The amendment comes from at least 32 Members – I am not sure of the precise number of signatures – who have tabled this motion.
That is permissible under the Rules of Procedure and I would ask you to respect that.
Let me, however, also make it clear that I am one of the Members who has opposed Mr Balfe's proposals most vigorously.
Let me be blunt: it is not the European Parliament's task, faced with a situation in which healthcare in some Member States – I shall phrase it very carefully – is not entirely satisfactory and legal restrictions apply, to solve problems in this area for a few specific and privileged Members at the European taxpayer's expense.
I say this quite frankly, and I have said the same thing to Mr Balfe himself.
At the moment, we are being bombarded with e-mails explaining why we should definitely vote in favour of this amendment. Members from three Member States are involved.
What these Members should be doing, quite simply, is helping to ensure that the health system in their own countries functions effectively, then they would not need any over-provision at European level.
Let me be blunt about that too.
I hope, Mr Kuckelkorn, that after the European elections – I am assuming that the voters will be merciful and draw the line at number 30 on your party list so we still have the pleasure of your company, whereas I am in a position where I can be rather more confident – we will be able to adopt this budget jointly, for it is extremely important that in our capacity as the representatives of Europe's citizens, we address this task very seriously and thus help ensure that Europe does not drift away from its citizens.
That is this Parliament's honourable task.
We are committed to it, and we intend to remain committed to it after 13 June as well.
   . Mr President, the Commission would like to thank Parliament for the opportunity to clarify once more the actions that it has taken after being informed in May 2003 about the serious events at Eurostat and at some of its contractors, most of which had occurred – as investigations have shown – in the period up to 1999.
As soon as the Commission had evidence of the problems in Eurostat, it took action.
The Director-General and all the directors were moved to advisory posts while the Commission conducted a thorough investigation into who was directly involved.
The Commission launched an Internal Audit Service examination of Eurostat contracts and grants.
Following the reports by the IAS and the special task force, contractual relations between Eurostat and other Commission departments and certain organisations were brought to an end.
OLAF (European Anti-fraud Office) was encouraged to conclude, as soon as possible, outstanding enquiries there.
The Commission was determined to rectify and strengthen its relevant rules and practices, and to fully implement the staff and financial reform begun in 2000.
As the House will know, on 25 September 2003 Commission President Prodi presented his action plan to a meeting of the Conference of Presidents, enlarged to include members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
This action plan had three basic components: first, thorough restructuring of the Eurostat Directorate-General; second, consolidation of the reform regarding relations between Commissioners, their private offices and services, and centre-periphery relations in the area of control and audits; third, revision of OLAF's legal framework, with the presentation of new legislative proposals.
Mr Prodi provided further clarification of his undertakings when, in November 2003, he presented the Commission's legislative and work programme for 2004 to the European Parliament.
In the meantime, the Commission has further discussed matters concerning this case with Parliament and its bodies and has expanded on its plans.
One main forum for these discussions involved the Committee on Budgetary Control when the follow-up to the 2001 discharge was dealt with and when information was provided on the Commission reforms.
However, the continuing concern of the Committee on Budgets as to the progress of the reform has been of considerable help, most recently at its meeting in early April this year.
The Commission welcomed the efforts made by the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, to help ensure better understanding of the causes for concern.
The work undertaken by Mrs Avilés Perea, Mr Casaca, Mr Bösch and other members of the committee helped the Commission to implement suggestions that have improved our action.
On 1 October 2003, with these proposals in mind, the Commission adopted the new Eurostat establishment plan.
That plan was put into operation, as planned, on 1 November.
On 21 January 2004, the Commission was informed of the action plan for Eurostat's activities in 2004, put in place at Mr Solbes' initiative.
On 9 February 2004, the Commission adopted the communication providing a progress report on its financial and administrative reform, which includes a specific section on the measures that the President had presented on 18 November 2003, as well as proposals for two regulations amending the legal framework of OLAF.
The Commission acknowledges the careful and thorough monitoring work undertaken by Parliament and its bodies in the discharge process, and in its other monitoring activities, with regard to the Eurostat case.
It is grateful for the concern and commitment that the Committee on Budgetary Control continues to demonstrate in relation to the implementation of the Commission reform.
Both are essential.
With comprehensive modernisation of structures, systems, internal controls and management and personnel policy now in place, the Commission will continue to review actions taken and improvements made, so as to maximise the safeguards against any repetition of the practices detected in Eurostat or any similar conduct.
We are being aided by the sustained and shared commitment of Parliament to that end and we are grateful for that support.
   Ladies and gentlemen, I must now make the following point with regard to the agenda. The Commission's statement on Croatia is due to start at 6 p.m.
I propose that I call the two speakers at the top of the list as well – which means that we will overrun slightly – in the hope, and with the request, that these Members will be brief so that we can then proceed according to the agenda and deal with Croatia.
The timetabling has been extremely tight recently and we are having to improvise a great deal.
I would ask for the indulgence of the three Commissioners who are now present so that we can overrun slightly and take the two speakers on the list.
Then we will pause for Croatia.
   Before we discuss the two Commissioners' statements on Croatia in line with the agenda, I have a motion from President Pat Cox to read out. He pointed out on Monday that the inclusion of additional items on Wednesday's agenda could have an impact on the time available for Question Time.
Parliament has now included additional items, namely statements on the situation in the Middle East and a debate about the vote of non-confidence, on the agenda.
Under these circumstances, and having spoken with the Council, I propose that in agreement with the groups, we cancel tomorrow's Question Time with questions to the Council.
In other words, the agenda would now continue with the debate about Croatia. Question Time with questions to the Commission would then take place at 6.30 p.m.
   Many thanks, Commissioner Verheugen, for providing such a precise analysis for the benefit of the delegation from Croatia.
In line with the system, I have now noted down four requests to speak.
I draw your attention to Rule 38, which states that after a statement by the Commission, Members ‘may put brief and concise questions’.
Please note that in this instance, ‘concise’ means one minute.
   Mr President, I welcome the prospect of Croatia's accession, not only in itself, but also, as Commissioner Verheugen said, as a practical demonstration of the EU's commitment to the eventual accession of other Balkan countries.
I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he has received assurances from Croatia that it will help other countries in the region qualify for EU membership.
I note in Commissioner Patten's report on the assessment by Carla Del Ponte that Croatia is complying in full with ICTY and doing all it can to find General Gotovina.
Until recently we could not be sure that such efforts were genuinely being made.
Is it the understanding of the Commissioner that the UK and the Netherlands will now ratify the Stabilisation and Association Agreement?
The UK Minister for Europe has now declared himself convinced of the efforts to find General Gotovina.
Previously this was not the case and he pointed out, for instance, that General Gotovina's lawyer knew how to find him, but nobody else did.
This is very important, because if we do not carry on the search for General Gotovina, how can we push for the capture of Radavan Karadzic and General Mladic?
   Mr President, as there is so little time, two very short questions.
First, the reservation of the British and Dutch Governments up to now has already been referred to.
I know how convincing Mr Patten and Mr Verheugen can be, so I assume that the people in The Hague and in London also listen to them.
May I assume for the time being that negotiations with Croatia will not start as long as the Stabilisation and Association Agreement has not been ratified? To be certain, I would like to put this question to the Commission.
Second, I am pleased that the chief prosecutor, Mrs Del Ponte, is positive now, but it seems to me important that she also remains so in the future.
Is the Commission willing to recommend that this very specific tribunal, the chief prosecutor herself, continues to be involved in the future with monitoring Croatia's cooperation with this tribunal?
   . Mr President, on the question of cooperation with the Tribunal, I would confirm again that the judgment on whether Croatia is cooperating fully in this regard can only be made by the Tribunal itself.
We are not in a position to make a judgment from our own knowledge and experience, and as Mr Patten has just said, we have agreed that the International Criminal Tribunal will be the referee on this issue and we do have a clear picture at present.
Should this clear picture change in future as a result of statements by the Tribunal, this would impact on the process that we are initiating with Croatia today.
That is understood, and that is why I reiterate that this cooperation with the Tribunal must be viewed as satisfactory not only on one occasion but of course on an ongoing basis.
On Mrs Pack's question, all I can say is that to my knowledge, the European Council plans to deal with this issue in June.
However, that is a matter for the Irish Presidency.
The Commission will not intervene in any way.
We have timed the presentation of our report so that the Council has enough time to prepare itself before reaching a decision at the European Council meeting in June.
In my experience, the European Council is always grateful for guidance and advice from the European Parliament.
That is not meant at all ironically.
Such guidance from the European Parliament would undoubtedly be helpful.
   The next item is Question Time (B5-0071/2004). The following questions are addressed to the Commission.
   Commissioner de Palacio, first of all my thanks for the information provided.
Could the Commission, though, let us know how this control of the application of these minimum standards takes place and to what extent counter-measures are being adopted where these minimum standards are not being observed?
   Thank you, Commissioner de Palacio.
Furthermore, I am glad to see this Iberian brotherliness in relation to the electricity market.
This is always good news for Europe.
   .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the final high-level meeting of the European Union Multistakeholder Forum on corporate social responsibility will be held on 29 June 2004, when it will approve its final report on its work and on its conclusions and submit it to the European Commission.
The Forum's report is expected to contain three main sections.
A confirmation of the principles agreed at international and European level, an analysis of the factors which hamper and the factors which contribute to the success of corporate social responsibility and a series of recommendations on corporate social responsibility for the attention of the members of the Forum or the institutions of the European Union and other agencies.
The report will be based on the results of discussions and the knowledge acquired from a series of round table events held between January 2003 and March 2004 in order to analyse some 50 multilateral case studies.
As stated in the Commission communication on corporate social responsibility in June 2002 and in the interim review of the social political agenda in March 2003, the Commission will evaluate the results of the Forum and will issue a new communication a few months after the submission of the Forum's report.
The European Parliament has been involved in the Multistakeholder Forum procedure since the outset, with the MEP Richard Howitt acting as observer.
Consequently, he will be invited to the high-level meeting on 29 June and will receive a copy of the Forum's report as soon as it has been approved and submitted to the Commission.
The new communication on corporate social responsibility will be addressed to the institutions of the European Union.
I therefore expect the dialogue on this matter to continue and to bear fruit.
   . First of all, with the Forum, the Commission wagered on the willingness and ability of the various sides to cooperate in a constructive manner and to develop a joint approach to European corporate social responsibility and, of course, the Commission will endeavour to make the maximum possible use of the results of the Forum's discussions and report.
It is very positive that all the agencies invited to take part in the Forum accepted the invitation and that significant progress has been made and that everyone has agreed, as you said, for the process to continue.
Of course, the Commission sees the Forum not as an advisory committee or as an opportunity for friendly professional discussion, but as a challenging experiment and as an excellent opportunity for the various interested parties to develop a joint approach to this issue.
The Forum's objective is to give credibility to this entire process.
The Commission is therefore waiting for the specific results and, moreover, for a roadmap to be drawn up with the action which needs to be taken not only by the European Commission, but also by the members of the Forum themselves, either alone or jointly with others. A study is due to be submitted in about October 2004.
The Canadian group Bombardier has recently announced its intention to close seven of its European production plants: those at Amadora (Portugal), Derby Pride Park, Doncaster and Wakefield (UK), Ammendorf (Germany), Kalmar (Sweden) and Pratteln (Switzerland).
Such closures are part of the company's restructuring plan, which involves the dismissal over the next two years of 6 600 workers in various parts of the world, though principally (86% of the total) in Europe.
In Portugal, closure of the Bombardier factory in Amadora will put nearly 400 people out of work and will also affect jobs at, and the economic viability of, various related companies.
At a time when Europe is preparing to launch vital railway projects, strategic intervention is called for in order to ensure that Bombardier and other, similar companies continue to operate in EU countries, thereby safeguarding jobs and furthering technological development.
What action is the Commission proposing to take in this area?
Is the Commission not concerned at the serious implications which closure of the Bombardier plant in Portugal will have?
   Commissioner, I am sorry to say that you have taken refuge in broader issues to the extent that you have almost glossed over the behaviour of the multinational as regards the industrial restructuring it is carrying out.
You call it industrial restructuring, but I would call it a ‘process of industrial cannibalism’: in other words, bought companies as going concerns, absorbed them and then closed down some of these industrial units in various European countries – so far in six, including my own country, Portugal.
I believe, however, that behaviour of this kind is unfair.
The Commission and the European institutions must, of course, concern themselves with ensuring freedom of competition – this is one of our golden rules – but legislation must also be enacted against the behaviour of multinationals or companies undertaking restructuring operations that sometimes border on the criminal because they will destroy the extremely important industrial legacy of knowledge, skills and know-how, as happened at , in Portugal.
Rules must also be drafted to protect against the practice of relocation itself.
We are entering a new phase and the Commission must have an industrial policy and protect its industry, without indulging in protectionism.
   Mr President, I wish to start by providing some background to this case.
In a memorandum dated 17 March, the executive board of informed the workers in its factory in Amadora, Portugal, about the restructuring of the group, in particular involving the termination of 5 680 positions in various European countries by the end of 2005.
In Portugal, 400 direct jobs will be lost, not counting the indirect jobs that depend on .
The Portuguese Government has made every possible effort to keep this factory in the country and above all to ensure that jobs are not lost.
Investment in the railways and in high-speed trains has been planned and yet the Amadora factory announced its definitive closure for the end of May, citing a lack of orders for rolling stock. The situation facing Portuguese workers is of enormous concern and the following questions, therefore, must be asked: is the rolling stock industry crucial to the European Union or not?
Is the Commission or is it not willing to adopt measures, specifically under its transport policy, which will not only save this sector, but also stimulate its development? These measures must not only ensure that jobs are preserved in this sector but also prevent Europe from becoming dependent on other countries.
   Mr President, I have expressly put a question to Mrs Schreyer about the future financing of Info-Points and Carrefour offices.
However, even though she has only one other question to answer, she does not want to have a debate on my question.
I have contacted our services to ask them why.
They tell me that they have been in touch with the Commission and the reason is that this is not the responsibility of Commissioner Schreyer but of Mr Prodi.
The problem is that Mr Prodi never comes here to answer questions, so I will simply receive a written reply.
I would really like to question what the Commission says about whose responsibility this is.
The Info-Points problem is caused by the new Financial Regulation, which is the responsibility of Mrs Schreyer, and the solution will have to be found in the next budget, which is also the responsibility of Mrs Schreyer.
Therefore, it seems to me that this is only a way of avoiding a sensitive debate.
That is not acceptable, and I would ask the President of Parliament to look into this.
I would be very happy if Mrs Schreyer would comment on this.
   Thank you, Commissioner.
I understand the point you are making in terms of preparatory action, but I wondered whether you could comment on whether actual budgetary provision will be covered under the action taken in the 2005 budgets.
Pilot schemes, as you say, are being carried out and I was interested not so much in assessments but in whether proper provision within the budgets for preparatory action will be included.
   Thank you very much, Commissioner Schreyer.
At the Barcelona European Council in March 2002, the Commission was requested to carry out a study on the consequences of Basel II for small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Because of problems with the invitation to tender, there were delays last year.
The Commission gave an assurance in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that the results would be submitted by the end of 2003.
The results have still not been made known (March 2004).
Why have the results of the SME study not yet been officially made known?
Have they already been submitted to the Commission?
If so, why is the Commission holding off publication?
What are the results?
When will the proposal for a directive on Basel II be submitted? What are the critical issues on which there is still no agreement on the Basel Committee?
   Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, I would also like to thank Mr Karas, because the Basel II agenda is naturally very important for us and the study by PricewaterhouseCoopers is an important basis for the amendments that we can still make to the Basel II rules.
For us in this House, however, it is especially important to find out how the introduction of Basel II will impact on our small- and medium-sized businesses in particular and which tasks still have to be addressed by the finance ministers and others in order to ensure the successful introduction of Basel II.
I think that here, the Commission should demonstrate, with some form of best-practice/benchmark impact analysis, how the successful introduction of Basel II can be guaranteed.
   . Mr Paasilinna is unhappy.
In return may I say that I am also unhappy.
However, the Commission cannot lift a finger if it does not conform with the Treaty, if its action is not based on the Treaty or if it is not supported by the Treaty.
The Articles that I mentioned concern activities carried out under the economic aspects of the Treaty and not purveyors of information to citizens.
Therefore while the plurality of the media is obviously an important subject, it is not covered by the current Treaty.
If Mr Paasilinna wants to call that an old-fashioned approach, so be it.
However, I cannot step beyond the bounds of the Treaty.
Perhaps the Intergovernmental Conference will result in a new Treaty which offers more scope in this area than the present one.
   Thank you very much, Mr Bolkestein, for your excellent cooperation this evening and throughout the legislature.
The Commission replied in writing to two oral questions relating to Cuba – the Havana Biennial (H-0733/03(1)) and the visit by Patriarch Bartholomeos (H-0045/04(2)). The answers given are unsatisfactory and contain statements which I find disrespectful.
In reply to the first question the Commission states that it was incorrect to say the EU had withdrawn its funding for the Biennial, when this is not what I said. I referred to the assistance that was being provided, without specifying that this was financial assistance.
More serious is the claim that it was misleading to say the EU had decided to freeze cultural relations with Cuba.
The Commission's answer to the second question, concerning the visit by the Orthodox Patriarch, reiterates that there were no such EU sanctions – letting it be understood that it was Cuba that was the sanctioning power.
Moreover, it also talks of the insults made by high representatives of the Cuban Government against European Heads of State on 26 July 2003.
How would the Commission describe the cultural measures established by the European Council in respect of Cuba in response to the events of the past year? Which European Heads of State were insulted on 26 July?
   – Mr Nielson, a public debate was held in Greece a very short time ago about possibly inviting Fidel Castro to Greece within the framework of the Olympic Games.
Fidel Castro himself has stated that, were he to receive such an invitation from the Greek Government, he would accept it.
I ask you, Commissioner, to tell me if, first, the European Commission would encourage the Greek Government to invite the President of Cuba to Athens during the Olympic Games and, secondly, if the European Commission sees such an invitation as a positive action.
   . I do not intend to get involved in the issue of participation in the Olympic Games in Greece.
I wonder, however, what discipline Mr Castro would be participating in!
Given EC concerns with how IMF programmes can conflict with the EC’s overall objective of poverty eradication, can the Commission clarify EC policy on linking disbursement of EC budget support to compliance with an IMF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF)? In particular would the EC continue to disburse budget support if a country were off track solely on non-core elements of an IMF PRGF e.g. a condition to privatise a state body?
Would the EC continue to disburse budget support if a country were off track on an IMF PRGF programme where the EC judged the IMF’s programme to be overly restrictive and to prevent the country from maximising poverty reduction spending?’
   I would have liked the Commissioner to be much more willing to disburse budgetary support to a country despite it not being on track as regards certain non-core elements of the IMF/PRGF and where IMF programmes are judged to be too restrictive.
The Commission has expressed concern over recent years about the IMF's macro-economic framework for low income countries.
From your answer, Commissioner, I did not get the impression that you were saying you would continue to disburse budgetary support.
You seemed to say that it would only be in very exceptional circumstances.
How exceptional would those circumstances have to be before you would continue to disburse budgetary support?
   – The next item is the resumption of the joint debate on the Commission statement on Eurostat and discharge for 2002.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am deputising here for Mrs Rühle, the real rapporteur, who unfortunately cannot present her report herself.
I would like to concur with the words of Mr Mulder and I too would like to thank Mrs Schreyer for the dedication she has shown over the past five years and for the candour with which she has entered into the debate.
Although we belong to the same political family, we have not always agreed with each other.
We sometimes held different views, but I have always very much appreciated the way in which we have been able to cooperate with all of Parliament.
I would expressly like to thank you for that, Mrs Schreyer.
Just a few days before enlargement, we are debating here the implementation of the budget of the European Coal and Steel Community for the budget year ending on 23 July 2002.
Let us say it frankly and freely: the ECSC was the first concrete cooperation in Europe between partners who had fought bloody wars against each other three times in the sixty years before.
Wars that caused great personal suffering and millions of unnecessary deaths.
The stories of my own grandfather who, as a young newly married man, slaved in the trenches of the IJzer near Ypres in the 1914-1918 war and the stories in our family about what happened to him always made a very strong impression on me.
They made me a confirmed pacifist, a confirmed supporter of the Flemish Movement and a confirmed European.
The cooperation between France and Germany started with cooperation in the field of the two large industrial sectors of the time, coal and steel, and was later expanded to economic cooperation and a European agricultural policy.
All in all, this cooperation has ensured that we here in the European Union have lived in peace for sixty years.
I think that this point should be made once again most emphatically, especially in the run up to the campaign for the European elections of 10 and 13 June.
Mrs Rühle’s report, that is before us today, is not controversial. Nor have any amendments been submitted.
The report rightly expresses respect for the virtues of all those who instituted and shaped the ECSC and, therefore, made a very concrete contribution to the unification of Europe.
The ECSC is now in liquidation, after operating for fifty years.
The Rühle report clearly indicates what measures the Commission and the Court of Auditors will still have to take in the coming months and years.
Commissioner, Parliament is counting on this being done with the utmost scrupulousness and that will also be evident from the vote tomorrow afternoon.
   Mr Kuhne, I agree with what you are saying, and so, although, as President, I am not supposed to do this, I have nonetheless – this being my last session in this House – added to your own some of the speaking time we have gained.
Otherwise, though, you should keep to your speaking time.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, three comments.
First and foremost, an observation for you, Mrs Theato.
Mr Kuhne said that he only shared half of your journey in this Parliament.
I have been with you for both halves.
The first half as a political group assistant, the second as Member of Parliament.
We have exchanged glances many times in the committee meetings, with me often trying to attract your attention to be allowed to speak.
I thank you for the way you chaired our committee and with all our fellow committee members I say: we wish you well for the future.
My second comment concerns the van Hulten report.
Mr van Hulten has, in my opinion, produced an excellent report.
He has rightly paid a lot of attention to following up my report on the discharges that were adopted last year.
My report also focused a lot of attention on the seat of Parliament, our travelling popular theatre, and the fact that we have to work at three different locations.
I think this is indefensible.
The PPE-DE has submitted a number of amendments to scrap those paragraphs.
I hope that we, together with the other groups, succeed in not allowing these amendments to be adopted.
There is also a paragraph on relations with local residents.
I really do want to emphasise that this is of the utmost importance.
We go to Brussels, we do not live on an island there.
There is far too little contact between Members of Parliament and civil servants and the local residents.
There needs to be a much more constructive dialogue with the residents of Leopoldswijk.
Finally, the Eurostat affair.
I am a bit surprised that we have to have a special debate about this.
We are debating a compromise resolution tomorrow, which will probably include all the texts that we as Parliament have already adopted.
I share Mr Mulder’s view on political accountability.
Mr Kuhne says: we need greater intercultural understanding.
I think that, after the new Parliament has been elected, we must explicitly ask the Commissioners in the hearings what they understand by political accountability, so that we never go through what we went through with Mr Solbes in recent years again.
   Mr President, I was quite taken by surprise to see Commissioner Fischler here this afternoon, and I was also pleased to see him, for I thought: now, Mr Prodi has finally stood aside, since Mr Fischler is appearing in this House.
That was not, however, the case, of course.
It is difficult, not to say impossible, to comment on the approval procedure for the 2002 accounts in the space of one minute.
This year again, I see, however, that there are many shortcomings in the Commission’s financial administration, that an unreasonable proportion of taxpayers’ money has, this year again, been used without the necessary guidance and control and that a very large amount of money has disappeared through fraud, misappropriation and downright theft.
The big issue at the moment is, of course, Eurostat, for which the Commission does not wish to accept responsibility and which, as has been further proved today, the majority in this House wishes to sweep under the carpet.
This year again, we are receiving assurances that everything is on the right track, but we know that that is not the case.
We can only sit and wait for the next scandal and watch those responsible protect each other and fire their critics.
This House bears a heavy responsibility by closing its eyes and voting in favour of approving accounts that should not be approved.
I recommend voting in favour of Mr van Hulten’s report but not in favour of the report on the Commission.
If you will permit a final word of thanks, I would take this opportunity to thank Mrs Theato for her excellent chairmanship of the committee.
Over the last five years, I have often felt I was spending more time with Mrs Theato than with my wife, and only rarely in the Chamber, so it will be really odd to have to do without her after the forthcoming elections.
   Mr President, expecting Parliament to discharge the 2002 budget in the face of all the evidence of fraud, corruption and mismanagement endemic in the European Union is akin to our being asked to accept the Enron accounts as a true and correct record.
The European Court of Auditors rejects the EU's accounts on an annual basis and has done so for the last nine years.
There comes a time when we have to stop routinely nodding things through like clockwork monkeys in a tired charade of parliamentary scrutiny.
The EU has no money of its own, but is spending taxpayers' money from all the Member States. We have a moral duty to those taxpayers to see that their money is spent wisely, not frittered away in a seemingly endless stream of abuses that line the pockets of unscrupulous civil servants and their cronies.
I ask Members to set an example and vote against formal discharge.
As for the Eurostat affair, it is high time that Mr Brüner, Director-General of OLAF, resigned for having instigated the arrest of the investigative journalist Hans-Martin Tillack on baseless grounds.
The Ombudsman accused Mr Brüner of maladministration in November 2003, yet he has not had the grace to resign.
Meanwhile, Messrs Franchet and Byk, accused of massive fraud, have been allowed the privilege of stating their case at length to OLAF.
However, Hans-Martin Tillack – innocent until proven guilty – has still not been heard by OLAF.
Mr Brüner should go!
   Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Mr van Hulten – even if he is not present – not just for his five years in Parliament but also because, at the beginning, I did not believe in his policy of adding into the discharge report a whole raft of considerations that went a little further than his mandate allowed but which, in light of the inertia of governments and also, let us be truthful, our inertia, were in fact welcome.
I congratulate him and I genuinely hope that, in particular, the paragraphs on our Parliament’s prerogatives on choosing our place of work are adopted and will, so to speak, form this outgoing Parliament’s political testament for the next Parliament in order that this issue of location can finally be dealt with in a sensible manner.
We are launching into investment projects for new buildings in Brussels; it is time that all this moving around stops once and for all and, from this point of view, we must pay tribute to Mr van Hulten and to his work.
As far as the Commission discharge is concerned, we Radical Members will vote in favour of it, but we will also give much thought to the vote that there will be on the issue.
I would like to say to the Commissioner, Mrs Schreyer, that, of course, our disappointment and our feeling of frustration stem from many factors but, in particular, from the OLAF issue.
It is unthinkable that, for four years, people and officials have been subject to a type of inquisition regime and the final result of a series of inquiries that should have been concluded a long time ago is not yet known.
Therefore, for this and many other reasons, and also to urge the Commission and stress the fact that it must be accountable to this and the new Parliament, we believe that it is important that, alongside this discharge, there should also be a far-reaching resolution on the issue.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of the life of a Parliament, we should to some extent be mindful of our own failings.
If we, on our last day in the job, so to speak, table a no-confidence motion in a Commission from which the main man has already departed – that being Mr Solbes Mira, who was responsible for Eurostat – then I have to tell the House that we risk making ourselves look ridiculous.
If our Chairman – who is now leaving us – achieved anything of merit, it was to take our little Committee on Budgetary Control and make people take it seriously.
So I warn you against coming up with more idiocies of this sort.
Secondly, Commissioner, we should be rather wary of congratulating ourselves.
Looking at what the Commission managed to achieve throughout the whole Eurostat business – to which Members have already referred – I have to say that the end result was modest in the extreme.
What made it that was that you, for months on end, simply ignored the reports and resolutions that this House had produced on the subject.
This House may be at the end of its term, but we can still tell you that what we expect of any future Commission is another way of going about things.
I hope that we will, in future, see that in another shape.
That is our responsibility and the Commission's as well.
   Mr President, last year this Parliament had only just granted the Commission discharge for 2001 when the Eurostat affair came to light.
That confirmed the position taken up by my group that postponement of the discharge was necessary.
It became apparent today that the Commission is still refusing to take responsibility for the fraud at Eurostat.
That is typical of the arrogance and contemptuous attitude of the Commission toward Parliament and the citizens, whose tax revenues this is ultimately about.
A second example of bad policy concerns the poor organisation of the system for reclaiming sums wrongfully paid out.
It is really shocking that the Commission is still paying out money to Member States as cool as you like, when they know that in 15% of the cases the control and management systems are not up to scratch. When is the Commission going to stop doing this and suspend part of the payment?
When will the Commission have a complete and reliable debtors’ register in the accounts? Up to now it has been wasting its time.
I am asking the Commission to promise that, before 1 May, in other words within 14 days, they will present Parliament with an assessment of the support for problem areas, regardless of whether all the Member States have fulfilled their duty to provide information.
Then it will immediately become clear which Member States require special attention and we can get the members of our national parliaments to put pressure on their governments.
There is a very great deal wrong in these problem areas.
The validity of the distribution is open to dispute and the list of indicators in fact give the Member States .
Farmers working in similar circumstances do not receive equal subsidies and so on and so forth.
There is plenty for you and your successors to do to put this right.
Finally, I am asking for a clear response from the Commissioner to the suggestion to create a separate Directorate-General for accounting and combating fraud with effect from 2005, to bring to an end once and for all the merging of responsibilities in the present Directorate-General for the Budget.
   Mr Mulder, whom I wish to address first of all, to praise you for your work, for the honesty with which you have looked at the matters before you, I must congratulate you and yet at the same time say that I fail to understand why your political group, perhaps in line with what Mr Heaton-Harris said, decided to withdraw the issue of Eurostat from your report.
The Eurostat issue is by no means over and done with and we clearly still have a great deal to see, learn and do about this matter.
I feel sure that the next Parliament will see this through to the very end, because the matter does not only involve Eurostat – it has many other strands too, because many other Commission departments were involved.
This Parliament, I feel certain, will ensure that the serious mistakes and anomalies detected in that institution will be corrected.
It is something else altogether, however, to pursue an electoral agenda and, as Mr Heaton-Harris has reminded us: elections will take place in two months and, as a result, some people are attempting, when it is neither the time nor the place to do so, to indulge in demagogy in order to gain an advantage in the elections.
We have no truck with this and we do not need to waste parliamentary time on nonsense of this kind.
   Mr President, there is a difference between blame and responsibility.
It is perfectly possible to have responsibility without being to blame.
With our motion of censure, we do not wish to apportion blame for the Eurostat scandal to Mr Solbes or any other Commissioner.
We merely insist that the Commission itself apportion responsibility.
The person responsible can then explain what he has done to apportion blame and to prevent any repetition.
We can then take note of any explanation.
It is as simple as that.
We have no desire to see particular heads on a plate.
It is, however, completely unacceptable for the Commissioner who has formal responsibility to come to us and say, ‘I am not responsible, because I did not know what was happening.’
The implication of Mr Solbes’ answer to us is that all the Commissioners will be free from responsibility and will instruct their colleagues not to bring anything near their desks.
I should like to see who dares vote in favour of that logic.
My group does not recognise the EU’s accounts for the year in which chief accounting officer Marta Andreasen was suspended.
In 1997, the recognised accountancy firm, Lloyd, estimated annual fraud at eight billion euros.
Since then, we have seen fewer cases, but there are larger amounts involved.
The figures may be much worse, since there is no supervisory authority with a complete overview.
The Court of Auditors cannot obtain all the documents, the Ombudsman is not entitled to see everything and the Committee on Budgetary Control only receives superficial information.
As a Member of this Parliament for 25 years, I have requested basic information concerning the use of EU funds and never obtained serious answers, for example about the distribution of agricultural aid or the number of working parties and their participants.
There is only one language that the top officials in the Commission’s numerous fiefdoms understand.
If we refuse to approve the accounts, Mr Prodi and his colleagues will have the opportunity to put their own house in order.
At present, they are merely prisoners of bad habits going back decades.
We should free them, reject the accounts and say where political accountability lies.
   The next item is the report (A5-0271/2004) by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of an Agreement between the European Community and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of PNR data by Air Carriers to the United States Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (COM(2004) 190 – C5-0162/2004 – 2004/0064(CNS)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0230/2004) by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the risks of violation, in the EU and especially in Italy, of freedom of expression and information (Article 11(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights)
The President has received a letter from Mr Ribeiro e Castro, expressing doubts as to whether this debate is permissible.
I shall therefore give Mr Ribeiro e Castro the floor for two minutes in order that he may explain this.
   Under the Rules of Procedure, Mr Ribeiro e Castro, you ought only to have had one minute, but the two you were allotted you owe to my generosity.
Speaking for two and a half minutes is not actually acceptable.
Turning to the matter in hand, there is in the Rules of Procedure a provision according to which motions of this kind on non-admissibility have to be received 24 hours in advance.
This deadline has not been met, and even if it had been, the President has, quite apart from any other consideration, ruled that the substance of your motion must be rejected, and I am of one mind with him on this.
The debate will now proceed.
   Mr Tajani, you will be in the Minutes in any case by virtue of having spoken.
I will, of course, also forward your request to the President, but that does not alter the fact that we are now proceeding with the debate.
   – Mr President, despite appearances – that is, the almost 200 amendments I tabled in committee – I am actually not passionate about this debate at all; on the contrary, I find it somehow depressing, because right from the start the subject of the debate has not really been pluralism and freedom of information in Europe but simply an utterly ideological and specious attack.
I find it depressing that a certain part of the Italian Left, blinded by their need to indict the Italian Prime Minister and thus the whole government – which, I am pleased to recall, was democratically elected by a majority – should concoct and consent to an inquisitorial report like this, devoted to the situation ‘especially in Italy’, as it says in the title, with the sole purpose of discrediting Italy itself.
I will not accept the unscrupulousness or the pretence at morality of this kind of constant anti-Italian crusade, which is also supported by certain Members of the European Left who first attracted attention for having insulted Italy during the Italian Presidency and then attracted even more attention for falsifying signatures in the attendance register, as suspected by their own party colleagues.
I will not accept moral lessons from those who have still not had the courage to condemn the Commission properly for the disgraceful Eurostat scandal.
In conclusion, I should be pleased if this Italian and European Left could find the time and, especially, the courage to devote an equally detailed report to the conflict of interests of Mr Prodi, who is President of the European Commission in his spare moments and Ulivo leader in Italy full-time, and who, to further his political fight with Italy, has, despite our efforts, only succeeded in weakening and damaging the image of the European Commission itself.
   Mrs Angelilli, I think it is worth saying that there are no documented instances of any Member of this House, or of any observer, signing themselves in with a false signature.
I owe it to the Members here present to say that.
   – I am taking the floor for a personal reason, Mr President.
I heard Mrs Angelilli refer in her speech to certain Members, whose names she did not give, and she stated that these persons falsified signatures in the European Parliament register.
I should like you, Mr President, to make her say to whom she was referring – their full names – and to ask her to provide evidence for the statement made in this Chamber.
This is not acceptable.
Mr Cox has already had occasion to state quite clearly what the position is and what the rights are of the Members who work in this Chamber.
This cannot be accepted, Mr President.
I call on Mrs Angelilli to name names.
   The next item is the report (A5-0229/2004) by Mrs Angelilli on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a Council regulation laying down the requirement for the competent authorities of the Member States to stamp systematically the travel documents of third-country nationals when they cross the external borders of the Member States and amending the convention implementing the Schengen agreement and the common manual to this end (COM(2003) 664 – C5-0580/2003 – 2003/0258(CNS)).
   The next item is the report (A5-0248/2004) by Mr Ceyhun on behalf of the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the proposal for a Council regulation on the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction – (recast) (COM(2003) 808 – C5-0060/2004 – 2003/0311(CNS))
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   The next item is the Commission statement on the outcome of the trial against Leyla Zanay and others in Ankara.
   Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission for its statement.
Probably uniquely in this House, I actually knew Leyla Zana before she was tried and convicted.
I first met her in the late 1980s.
She is, to put it mildly, a controversial figure.
Nonetheless the action that she took is perfectly within the realms of democratic expression.
After all, all she did was to say something in the Kurdish language within her Parliament.
Mrs Ahern and others sometimes choose to use the Irish language within this Parliament.
Indeed my Quaestor colleague, Mrs Banotti, did so in her opening speech.
However, I do not think even the worst enemies of Fine Gael would wish Mrs Banotti to be locked up for 15 years for that.
There has been complete over-reaction from the very beginning.
The way in which the trial was conducted was unacceptable and it was thanks to the intervention of the Council of Europe that a retrial was held.
It is a great disappointment to me and my group that the Turkish judicial authorities did not show themselves to have sufficient flexibility to use this opportunity of having a retrial that would effectively have exonerated Mrs Zana.
She has been the victim of what is in effect a struggle between a reactionary judiciary and a state that is trying to reform.
I welcome the packages of reforms that have been adopted and I also welcome the fact that the state security courts are to be abolished.
This is not before time.
Some people are indeed working hard for democracy in Turkey, and the AKP deputy Faruk Ünsal spoke out against this particular verdict.
I hope that in passing in what I think will be a unanimous resolution, supported right across the House, that we can send a message, not to the Turkish Government but to the Turkish judiciary, to be realistic, to get up to date and, for a change, to support their government in trying to restore respect for the Turkish judiciary within Turkey.
   – Mr President, Commissioner Nielson, ladies and gentlemen, we are deeply disappointed by the decision in the case of Leyla Zana.
I, too, am far from agreeing with all her views; to judge by her latest letter – which I have here – to, among others, Javier Solana and President Prodi, her assessment of Öçalan and of the PKK’s successor organisations is perhaps somewhat naive, rather exaggerated or understated, depending on your chosen way of putting it, but – as has already been said – none of these things are reasons for someone to be locked up for many years and their sentence confirmed in the teeth of rulings by European courts.
I entirely agree with the Commissioner that this shows that there is still a great discrepancy between a parliamentary decision in favour of reforms, and those reforms being implemented.
That is not to be taken as criticism of the government, which, as I see it, has, in so far as it has been able to do so, made quite plain its interest in a different decision on Leyla Zana being reached.
We really do, though, have to urge, beg, or urgently petition the government to really put its whole weight behind the reforms in order to push them through, especially in the justice system, for I do think we will have major problems if the government proposes the right things, if the parliament backs them up, but the necessary democratic practices are not in place in the administration or in the law courts to make them happen.
This government, too, when decisions are taken in December, is sure to have the charge laid at its door that too little has been done by way of implementation and that too little effort is being made to bring Turkey’s administration and its justice system up to modern European standards.
   Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission for its extremely strong and clear statement on the unfortunate Zana case.
During the recent Joint Parliamentary Committee meeting in Turkey, we brought up the issue of the Leyla Zana trial, as we always do.
Justice Minister Cicek promised us that in the next package of constitutional reforms, which I think is to be published this week, the State Security Courts would be scrapped.
This is, of course, first-class news because these courts do not contribute to justice; they do not contribute to security.
The Turkish Government fully appreciates the political importance of the Zana case for the European Parliament.
As a strong Turkophile, let me be quite clear that, if Leyla Zana and her colleagues are not released soon, it will be impossible for Turkey's closest friends to argue that accession negotiations should be opened from December.
No country can seriously contemplate European membership with nearly six thousand prisoners of conscience, no matter how controversial those people prove to be.
   Thank you, Mr Goebbels, for the words that you have just addressed to our fellow Member, Mrs Randzio-Plath, who has worked so hard within this Parliament and in the service of Europe.
Thank you, Mrs Randzio-Plath.
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   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two things I want to say.
We spent a great deal of time yesterday considering the Boogerd-Quaak report on the media, which has been a matter of some controversy.
I would like to say that we regard the refusal by the President of Parliament to permit the amendments as lacking any legal justification and we are therefore contesting his decision. We will also be considering legal action to test whether the rights of Members of this House can be set aside by sweeping aside all the amendments, as was done in this instance.
It is because we regard this as a very serious course of action that our group will not be taking part in today’s vote on the Boogerd-Quaak report on the media, thereby recording our protest and our inability to accept this decision.
There is a second matter that I would like to address, and it has to do with what Mr Barón Crespo said in the plenary yesterday.
The first question that has to be dealt with has to do with the background to Mr Barón Crespo’s assertion that documents had disappeared from the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, for, if that is indeed the case, then it follows that it could affect all the procedural issues connected with the Boogerd-Quaak report.
I would, however, ask Mr Barón Crespo to withdraw the allegations he made in the plenary yesterday, which are, unfortunately, not recorded in the Minutes.
Yesterday, I heard the remarks that Mr Barón Crespo addressed to Mr Tajani, and they are recorded on the House’s official tapes, but not in the Minutes.
Yesterday, Mr Barón Crespo said to Mr Tajani, for whom we all have high regard: ‘, which, when translated, means ‘shut up, you wretch!’
I think it unworthy for one Member of this House to describe another in these terms, and I ask Mr Barón Crespo to withdraw this remark.
Something else was said, and I regret that.
I had never thought I would have to say something like this in this House.
There is, though, something that binds us together no matter what disputes we may have with each other, and that is our mutual respect.
That is something that our group, at any rate, stands for, and such language should not be used to anyone.
I will add that Mr Barón Crespo also said something that I will read out, which was taken down for me from the tape.
I am reading it in Spanish, a language that I, unfortunately, do not speak, and so I apologise if I am not getting it quite right: ‘’ Translated, that means: ‘I would ask the wild boar running loose in this Chamber to calm themselves!’
Such, ladies and gentlemen, is not the language that should be used here in the European Parliament, and I ask Mr Barón Crespo to put right the remarks he made yesterday.
   Mr Poettering, we had a full debate on this issue yesterday.
I do not intend to allow another wide-ranging discussion.
In terms of the substance of your remark, I would remind you that the President put an alternative proposal to the House that would have allowed amendments to be voted on, and that was defeated by the House.
Consequently I am in a position today where we have a ruling from the President and a vote by this House on how we are going to conduct the voting on the Boogerd-Quaak report.
I do not intend to vary from that, so no matter how many points of order are made, we will stick to that position.
   Thank you for your clarification, Mr Barón Crespo, but I am not sure that it was as useful as I would have liked it to have been!
We have over 600 votes to get through this morning.
We could have a lot of fun; we could spend the next 30 or 40 minutes playing games on this, or we can get on with the vote.
I will give the floor to Mr Podestà because he was named and therefore has the right to make a personal statement, but I will not take a series of points of order.
   . Mr President, I am indeed aware of the letter which Mr Barón Crespo sent to the President's office concerning his unfortunate and malicious statements of yesterday, and confirming them in exactly the same terms as in his speech.
On the other hand, Mr President, and according to the explanations given by the secretariat of my committee, and of which the Presidency is directly aware from the note which was sent to it, it is absolutely clear that all, absolutely all, the documents were available in the Committee on Freedoms at the start of the day on the 20th.
Documents which, moreover, are public and which, besides being available in the documentation department, are also available on the Internet.
Therefore, Mr President, I would emphasise that no political group – including the Group of the Party of European Socialists – nor any member of the Committee on Freedoms made any comment or statement on the matter, neither during the course of voting on the amendments nor at the start of the same.
Furthermore, Mr President, at the end of the sitting I was congratulated by all the political groups for the way in which the work had been carried out.
In conclusion, Mr President, and in Spanish, Mr Barón Crespo has lied, manipulated the truth and insulted us, in addition to casting doubt on the good name of the Members of this House, of the officials and also the assistants of the political groups.
   The President has not responded to the request of the chairman of my group to have the verbatim Minutes of yesterday's sitting revised.
As he himself has just admitted, Mr Barón Crespo spoke to a fellow Member yesterday, saying, ' [be quiet, wretch]'.
Mr President, this is not only an arrogant expression, it also shows contempt for an opponent which is incompatible with the democratic spirit.
   Mr Galeote Quecedo, you were as helpful as a wet Friday in November.
Because of your contribution, which was not on the subject you said it would be on, I now have no choice but to give the floor to everyone else who asked to speak on this subject!
   This would be an appropriate time – since they are used to robust exchanges of views – to welcome the Australian delegation to this House.
They are here for the 27th EP-Australia Interparliamentary meeting in Strasbourg in June.
The European Parliament and the Australian Parliament have had direct political contact since 1981 and we look forward to continuing our interesting and successful dialogue.
   Mr President, quite simply, extremely objectively and in order to get out of this row between old accomplices – which is more like a mafia row than a parliamentary one – I would, with respect, like to hope that, faced with this situation and this debate, the President of Parliament might wish to honour us with his Presidency in this House.
I believe that this does not in any way detract from your well-known, excellent ability to preside, Mr Martin, but I think that President Cox could come himself, with his authority – and I would also say with his clarity – and preside over this sitting.
   Mr President, I would like to intervene briefly in accordance with Rule 144 of the Rules of Procedure.
Indeed, a motion requesting referral back to committee has been proposed and as you know, in this case, there can be one speaker in favour and one against.
   Mr Gollnisch, the request has not yet been formally made.
I will take that formal request when we get to the vote on the report.
To respond to Mr Pannella's point, I should like to point out that the President is present.
I am happy to resume my own responsibilities, but if the President wishes to speak, he is welcome.
   Thank you, Mr Rübig, it was indeed a remarkable achievement to get this through in four months.
   Mr President, as I stated earlier, I have a very short oral amendment to Amendment 5 that is acceptable not only to the rapporteur but also certainly to the PSE, ELDR and Green Groups.
After the phrase 'facilitating the access of unemployed young people to their first job', we would like to add 'and also the employment/continuance in employment of older people'.
   Mr President, I just wish out point out, so that Members are not in any way confused, that it is Amendment 1 – the first vote on this report – which ascertains whether or not Parliament is in favour of the theory of setting up a health scheme for former Members.
Those who are in favour will vote 'yes'; those who wish to abandon their former colleagues will vote 'no'.
   We will not reopen the debate.
I will give the floor to Mr Ribeiro e Castro who will formally move the request to refer the matter back to committee.
I would ask Mr Barón Crespo to restore order among his little wild boars so I can finish.
   Mr Gollnisch, in my view, Mr Santini moved the request and Mr Ribeiro e Castro spoke on it.
We will now move on to the vote.
   I have noted your very important point, Mr Balfe.
You are always looking after Members' interests!
   We will continue to vote on the paragraphs individually.
I could hear my good friend Mr Pannella shouting, but I did not know what he was trying to tell me.
As you have now clearly asked for the amendments to be voted individually, we will do that.
   Again, Mr Santini, in relation to citation 12, you are correct.
The modification you mention has already been taken care of by the services.
You should have been informed of this before the vote.
   I have had the privilege of being a Vice-President of this House for 15 years and a Member of the House for 20 years.
I will not be a Vice-President in the next Parliament.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank colleagues for their support and for giving me the privilege of chairing this House.
More importantly, in some ways, I should like to thank the services, who do an incredible amount of work behind the scenes and do not get the credit that they deserve.
   Mr President, even though Mr Cushnahan and I did not always agree, I would like, first of all, to thank him for his dedication.
He really did do a fine job, and achieved a great deal.
I would like to add an oral amendment to Amendment No 6, to which many of us would be able to agree if something were to be added to it, that being the words, ‘provided that the United Nations shall not have assumed political responsibility’.
The fact is that unilateral withdrawal of troops from Iraq at the present time, without the assumption of responsibilities by the United Nations, would certainly be highly problematic and could well plunge the country into chaos.
If that were agreed to, we could support the amendment as a whole.
That is my question to the proposer of the motion.
   Mr President, here too we find a similar lack of logic, and so I ask that, by analogy with paragraph 13, the following words, which I shall now read out, should be deleted: ‘including the completion of the transatlantic market’.
I also ask that the following be deleted: ‘aimed at achieving the free movement of goods, capital, service and persons’.
In this instance, too, I ask for Mr Brok's agreement to this.
   Mr President, let me put to you another suggestion, one that will, I think, represent an even better solution to this.
In Mr Elles' Amendment No 22, there is a paragraph 27a, which deals with the same point and incorporates what Mrs Mann is talking about.
I put it to you that we should get rid of the whole of paragraph 15 and insert Mr Elles' paragraph 27a in its place.
We will then have resolved the whole problem and could have the support of a broad majority for it.
   I see that you are in agreement, Mrs Mann.
   Mr President, as confirmed yesterday by the Irish Presidency during the debate on the De Keyser report, the Union is following the current repression of the mountain people of Vietnam with a great deal of concern.
With the agreement of the rapporteur, I would like to ask you, ladies and gentlemen, concerning Item 4 regarding the defence of the interests of indigenous populations and of minorities, to add these few words reflecting a situation that again came visibly to the fore just a week ago.
The text would read thus: ‘the defence of the interests of indigenous populations and of minorities such as the mountain people of Vietnam, victims of systematic repression.
It is with the agreement of the rapporteur that I would like to submit this to you.
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   Mr President, I would like to correct a small error that has slipped through into the text that we voted on in committee.
Chapter 1, paragraph 3, line 4 states: ‘agrees with the Commission's position that the general guidelines 2003-2005 remain valid...’.
In Parliament we are, however, as legislators, not obliged to say that we are in agreement with the Commission, but obliged to say what we ourselves want, as a Parliament.
With the agreement of all the political groups, I propose the following oral amendment: ‘the general guidelines 2003-2005 remain valid but must be focused even more on boosting economic growth resulting in job creation and productivity growth’.
   Mr President, it appears that being prudent in this House is penalised.
I wanted to speak after the vote on the Boogerd-Quaak report, and not before, to avoid joining the general free-for-all, for one reason: to place myself at the disposal of the Presidency.
I was on the Committee on Citizens’ Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and saw the people looking for the documents when they disappeared.
Mr Hernández Mollar is right in saying that he knew nothing and that no group got up.
On this committee all the groups and the chairman worked very reasonably together until, after our work, this row blew up.
Mr Barón is completely right, and he is not lying when he says that this is what happened.
I am at your disposal to clarify any point concerning this issue and, of course, it is untrue to say that Mr Barón lied.
I myself told him about the matter.
   . – This is a matter of confirming the decision to reject the proposal to establish a Visa Information System (VIS) in the context of the communitisation of Justice and Home Affairs, which removes central competences from the Member States.
I support the view rejecting this Commission initiative, partly because this proposal is remiss in defining the system and how it will operate, ‘including the categories of data to be entered into the system, the purposes for which they are to be entered and the criteria for their entry, the rules concerning the content of VIS records, the rights of access for authorities to enter, update and consult the data and rules on the protection of personal data and its control.’
Hence my vote.
   . – I fully support the reasons given by Carlos Coelho for rejecting the Commission proposal, which is pointless and actually lacks any content.
I voted for rejection of the proposal.
   . – It is deeply regrettable that a majority in Parliament has voted in favour of the liberalisation of international rail transport from 1 January 2006 and of national rail transport from 1 January 2007, the year 2010 having been set as a standing objective for all operators to prepare in an appropriate manner for the liberalisation of passenger transport services, in advance of current Commission initiatives to accelerate the opening-up of this sector to competition.
This is the corollary of the initiative that the Commission submitted on 24 January 2002, with the aim of accelerating the liberalisation of rail transport without first taking account of experience already gained, particularly in Great Britain.
Public services and rail safety have deteriorated there, because private companies only try to ensure maximum profits for themselves without fulfilling their obligations to maintain rail infrastructure and equipment.
   .Yesterday evening, I gave Mr Caudron the opportunity to make his final speech after 15 years as a Member of the European Parliament as he is due to retire shortly.
He presented our group's final position on the railway package, making it clear that this liberalisation proposal is suitable for a Europe quite different from the one the Confederal Group of the European United Left would like to see.
In 2000, the European Commission tried to force the Member States to privatise the whole of public transport.
Since this Parliament excluded significant portions of urban and regional transport from this attempt on 14 November 2001, the Commission has turned its attention to the railways.
It wants to liberalise not only international freight services but also domestic passenger services.
In the meantime, we have gained bad experiences of this in the Netherlands.
The move to sell shares in the state-run rail company Nederlandse Spoorwegen on the stock market appeared to lead to neglect of rolling stock and rail infrastructure, delays and industrial unrest and so has been stopped.
This was done not as a political choice but because staff, passengers and eventually politicians too learned the lessons.
The provision of train services by a competing company, since bought up by the international transport giant Connex-Vivendi, has also been terminated.
Similar plans for Europe are now being held up by the Council, but are still not off the agenda.
   . Having praised Mr Rocard for his excellent report, I would like to take this opportunity to mention the importance of that annual European scheme which puts a European city in the spotlight in the name of culture.
It remains necessary for Europe certainly and, above all, the nominated city, to provide themselves with the human and financial resources for the scheme.
Lille in 2004 gives us a perfect and remarkable illustration of this being done.
   . – Taking this action aimed at ensuring the transparency of diplomas and qualifications by means of appropriate instruments falls within the same process, designed to promote mobility, as the ECTS system, certificate supplements, the European CV and the Erasmus and Erasmus Mundus programmes.
The Europass, allocated rational resources and adequate information networks at European level, and with which the social partners will be associated, will be an effective tool for helping people communicate their qualifications and competences.
The two objectives of this decision, ‘to rationalise and to coordinate’, will only be achieved if all the Member States increase their efforts to implement these ‘Europass’-labelled documents quickly and effectively.
The Europass will make it possible to give European citizens the means for their mobility and should become the essential and ubiquitous document for all young Europeans.
In the light of the ambitions at stake, the meagre budget allocated to this project by the Commission may be cause for surprise.
Without impairing other programmes, we must nevertheless allocate ourselves the resources to match our ambition to ‘make Europe’s education and training systems a world quality reference by 2010’.
   Mr President, when I arrived in this Parliament, 18 years ago, in a situation very different from the one that is allowing me to speak now, and even before financial perspectives were discussed, there were already arguments about own resources and the Spanish Socialists were already fighting for idea of a citizens' graduated tax system.
Therefore, in the vote on the report by Mr Wynn, Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, I voted with the French Socialists and with the Spanish Socialists in favour of the idea that, before enlargement, the Committee on Budgets – and this Parliament also – should have promoted the idea that to finance this Union, this Community, the easiest thing is to do it on the basis that everyone must pay, under a tax system which the citizen understands and which is not based on the tax-paying capacity of the States, but on the incomes of each of our fellow citizens.
   . The members of the Venstre, or Liberal, group present in the European Parliament voted against Amendments Nos 17 and 18.
Basically, we think that the Commission’s proposal is too expensive.
It is too early, however, to tie ourselves to a percentage limit at a time when we do not know more about the political content of the future financial perspectives.
   Mr President, in 18 years I have also heard Mr Balfe speak on very many occasions and almost always I have held opinions on the subjects he has spoken about.
Today I have the opportunity to speak on an amendment to the Kuckelkorn report which he has presented, in which Mr Balfe once more asks that he be treated as a European official.
But he is not telling the whole truth.
He forgot to mention that European officials – a body from which I am proud to come – only have one social security system.
The honourable Members – amongst whom I now find myself – also only have one.
He is asking for another one, so if he wants to go on asking for privileges in addition to those provided by the laws and regulations of his own country, let him do so.
But since – as I hope and believe – he will not come back as an MEP in the next session, I urge Mr Balfe to prepare himself for an examination to become a European official and thereby obtain everything he has repeatedly been asking for.
   Your timing is impeccable, but I am a bit worried that you will try to become another Mr Fatuzzo.
   Mr President, I wish to give an explanation of vote to explain my extreme concern over the Eurostat scandal and the European Commission's failure to take responsibility.
Five years ago, almost to the day, the Santer Commission was forced to resign because it was 'difficult to find anyone with the slightest sense of responsibility'.
That caused the collapse of the previous Commission.
Nothing has changed, because no one has been prepared to take responsibility for Eurostat.
Despite the fact that EUR 5 million has gone missing; despite the fact that money has been channelled into bogus research by bogus companies, some of which it appears are owned by senior members of Eurostat; despite the fact that taxpayers' money appears to have been channelled into staff perks – such as a riding school and a volleyball team – we have seen no resignations from the Commission over this issue and no acceptance of responsibility.
Mr Solbes Mira's response seems to be just that he did not know what was happening.
This seems to be a charter for Commissioners just to tell their civil servants not to inform them of the dubious activities going on in their departments, so that, on the basis of the Commission's analysis, the Commissioner will get off scot-free.
We know that Mr Solbes Mira has resigned from the Commission but not over this issue, so there is still a complete failure on the part of the European Commission to take responsibility for this waste of taxpayers' money.
That is a matter of extreme concern to me and my British Conservative colleagues.
I hope that before our vote on the motion of censure in May the Commission will accept its responsibility and do something serious to take responsibility for Eurostat and to clean up the EU and stop the unacceptable waste and abuse of taxpayers' money.
   . I voted against the ‘Eurostat resolution’ to protest against the way Parliament acted in this affair.
At the root of the ‘scandal’ are accusations by certain newspapers regarding ‘misappropriation of funds’, ‘personal enrichment’ and ‘nepotism’ on the part of Eurostat managers.
Certain fellow Members in need of publicity demanded the heads of four Commissioners.
Even though the final report on the enquiry conducted by OLAF, promised for June 2003, is still not available, the resolution indicates that the ‘scandal’ is limited to breaches of procedures.
Procedures are important.
Our Union, however, is in the process of multiplying procedures to the point where there will soon be more inspectors than people being inspected.
Meanwhile, and on dubious grounds, the reputations and careers of many Eurostat officials have been destroyed.
More than 400 people have lost their jobs. Parliament is content with an innocuous and useless resolution.
   . In July 2003 the European Commission suspended the activities of the managers of the statistical office Eurostat as frauds which had been brought to light some time ago were still continuing.
At that point I immediately demanded transparent action.
Investigations by bodies dependent on the Commission are pointless as they have to keep their findings secret.
Fraud, embezzlement and nepotism will only be prevented in the future if public opinion is properly informed and able to form a view.
This could be done by a parliamentary inquiry.
At the end of September 2003 a secret report was submitted to members of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and still the European Commission acts as if it bore no responsibility in the matter.
The person first appointed to handle the matter, Commissioner Solbes, is now a Minister in the new Spanish Government.
All efforts are being made to prevent discussion of a motion of censure against the European Commission signed by me and others.
Malicious delay in placing this issue on the agenda means that this motion cannot be put to a vote this week.
After 1 May the number of signatories will fall to below 10% as a result of enlargement of this Parliament.
The chairman of the Green Group has called on his members to sink this initiative by withdrawing their signatures.
The problems of 1999 persist, but the Prodi Commission is now ignoring them.
   . The British Labour Members voted against paragraph 53.
We do not accept the criticisms and overall content of this paragraph.
Nonetheless, we voted in favour of the resolution with our reservation, due to the importance of this timely report.
   . Ownership of or control over newspapers, television and websites is becoming increasingly important in managing information and propaganda.
If all media become concentrated in the same hands then we will be going back to the days in the past when the media had less reach and often a monopoly was created involving the authorities, a powerful party, the Church or a regional publisher.
People only heard one opinion as to what was good or bad, and how society should develop.
Government and big business are still trying to achieve that.
In Spain recently the previous government tried to shift the blame for three major bomb attacks onto a separatist movement rather than an international movement because that would be better for them in the elections.
In Italy, the Prime Minister controls the commercial company MEDIASET as its owner and the State-run company RAI thanks to his role in government.
The Christian Democrat group shies away from criticising this situation and have attempted to keep this topic off the agenda by ignoring the problems, holding endless procedural debates and submitting enormous numbers of amendments.
They are abusing democracy in order to abolish democracy.
I support the rapporteur in her attempts to deal with cable monopolies as well and to push for statutory measures aimed at protecting freedom and diversity of opinion in the media.
   . I am appalled by the decision by the State Security Court in Ankara to reconfirm the fifteen-year prison sentences, first handed down in 1994, to Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak, Turkish MPs of Kurdish origin representing the Democracy Party (DEP), due to their activities in support of the fundamental rights of Kurdish people.
This was a disgraceful decision that brought to a close a new trial, begun on 28 March 2003, which was the result of a concerted international campaign to free Leyla Zana and her fellow MPs. The fresh trial had been prompted by the 2001 ruling handed down by the European Court of Human Rights, in Strasbourg, which noted the lack of independence and impartiality of the State Security Court, and breaches of the defendants’ rights, which were to occur again in this second trial.
The European Union is called on simply to condemn this decision and to request that Leyla Zana, Hatip Dicle, Orhan Dogan and Selim Sadak be freed from prison.
The verdict is an illustration of the current situation in Turkey, a country that wishes to accede to the European Union, but which has thousands of political prisoners, where the Kurdish people are denied the most basic rights and which continues its military occupation of part of Cyprus.
   That concludes the explanations of vote.(3)
(4)
   The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0182/2004) by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, on women in South-East Europe (2003/2128(INI)).
   Mr President, the mine is an economic weapon, which has effects that are both physical and psychological, the latter being increased because of the insidious nature of mines.
Easy to put in place and relatively cheap, mines are a recurring threat long after the end of fighting.
Although the Ottawa agreement banning anti-personnel mines has now entered into force, only future conflicts are affected.
The fight against the approximately 110 million mines across the world sadly remains a reality.
There are stocks that pose a threat of proliferation, and several Phare countries, such as the former Yugoslavia, the United States, China and Russia, should be encouraged to ratify this treaty.
Nor, unfortunately, has the time come to bring an end to the humanitarian action, carried out either by NGOs or the UN, to combat this scourge.
I also welcome the preparations for the Ottawa Conference.
Six years after the signing in Ottawa of a convention banning the use, stockpiling and production of anti-personnel mines, let us remember that it is said that, every year, there are still between 15 000 and 20 000 people in the world who are victims of such mines.
In particular, children continue to pay a heavy price for the spread of the poor man’s weapon, and children make up a quarter of the victims.
This is why it is our duty to continue the battle and, above all, to do everything possible to ensure that, finally, production of these mines comes to an end.
   Mr President, Commissioner Nielson, on the first anniversary of the mass imprisonments on political grounds, carried out by Castro, we Christian Democrats from Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic and Slovakia made a joint appeal in a letter addressed to the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.
We wished to draw attention to the fact that, on 18 March 2003 in the shadow of the Iraq war, Fidel Castro instituted a wave of repression in which 75 advocates of democracy were falsely imprisoned following summary trials.
They were each sentenced to between 15 and 27 years’ imprisonment.
A total of 1 456 years’ imprisonment was thus imposed upon these 75 constitutional activists.
Their fate must not be ignored by the surrounding world.
It is therefore a matter of extreme urgency that we in the European Parliament make this statement today.
As Members of the European Parliament, we believe that the judgments must be overturned inasmuch as the trials in Cuba were clearly conducted without legal rights for the accused, who were sentenced on exclusively political grounds.
We ask for these 75 human rights activists to be released, and for them to be so without delay.
Their so-called crime is that, in accordance with the Cuban Constitution, they collected approximately 10 000 signatures calling for a referendum on a more pluralistic and more democratic Cuba.
For that, they were given extremely long sentences.
The majority of those advocating democracy belong to the Christian and Christian Democratic human rights movement, Movimento Cristiano Liberación.
I, together with Mr Ribeiro e Castro and 206 other MEPs, took the initiative of inviting Sakharov prizewinnerOsvaldo Payà Sardiñas to visit us here in Europe.
Commissioner Nielson, let this invitation bear fruit by putting pressure on the Cuban regime to enable Osvaldo Payà Sardiñas to visit us.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one minute is not long to discuss the enormous problems facing the large and densely-populated country of Nigeria.
We were present as guests along with the ACP conference when Mr Obasanjo 'replaced' the military set-up with a democratic system.
Hope was strong and sincere.
But since then thousands of people have died in ethnic conflicts and all manner of violent clashes.
We were also in Kano, in the north, where a wonderful Islamic culture is flourishing and had the opportunity to compare this culture with that of other regions in the south.
But this astonishing diversity of tribes, ethnic groups and cultures risks being submerged in severe armed conflict.
Oil, which ought to be this large country's blessing, is in fact a curse because it is used mainly to buy arms and set up one power base against another.
Smaller groups, like the Ogoni people, are at risk of becoming the victims of all this.
I believe that we must take Nigeria seriously in the context of the ACP and that we must closely monitor what is happening in this large country, because it is a kind of Africa in miniature.
I hope that the recommendations contained in our resolutions, focusing mainly on the danger of intolerance, the danger of Sharia law in those countries, stoning women and so on, are taken to heart because there is a risk that the whole situation could degenerate further if we are not much more closely engaged in dialogue, but also with strong sanctions if the rules are flouted.
   Mr Rübig has the floor for a point of order.
   Mr President, may I make a request? I would like an investigation into whether, during the vote on the van Hulten report, it was noted by Mr Ferber and recorded in the Minutes, that a Member was not present, which that Member subsequently confirmed.
Is he entitled to call for a subsequent correction of the vote, which did not take place in the Chamber, which the Minutes indicate that he did?
   Thank you, Mr Rübig.
We take note of what you say, which will be dealt with in the appropriate manner.
   My request to you, Mr President, is that, when we sign ourselves into the central register tomorrow morning, we should be given ample protection from the media, who we expect to be there, and who are working for a certain Mr Martin.
Although we have nothing to hide, we do not want to be harassed.
Let me assure this House right now that I would not, until very recently, have thought it even possible that I could have been systematically spied on by a certain Mr Martin, using his buttonhole camera, since at least 2002.
I was not aware of being spied on.
Had I been aware of it, I would have given this Mr Martin a wide berth ever since 2002.
I am equally strong in my condemnation of certain German media, who are making use of a certain Mr Martin as what they call their principal witness and have thereby subjected me, among others, to a disgusting campaign of defamation in Germany.
Here in this House, I have always obeyed the rules as they were in force at the time.
   Mr President, I am sorry to have to say that I had expected more from Mr Martin's statement.
I thought he was going to explain why the Minutes state that he voted on many of the amendments to the van Hulten report, even though he was not in the Chamber at all.
It is an inexplicable phenomenon how someone can claim to have voted on innumerable amendments, even though he was outside.
We could all do the same thing, with interviews of one sort or another out there and, later on, the President's lists...
   We shall proceed to the vote(1).
(2)
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 22 April 2004.
   I should like to welcome to the House the former Prime Minister of Hungary, Mr Gyula Horn, under whose premiership the borders first opened in 1989.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to make a small request. On 1 May, we saw the final defeat of Hitler and Stalin, and the victory of Walesa, Havel, Delors and Kohl.
There are many, though, both in the acceding countries and in the original European Union, and in this House, who have played their part in bringing us to this moment.
I would therefore ask you, Mr President, to cause to be recorded in today’s Minutes the names of the ten rapporteurs for the ten countries.
I will read their names in the order of the countries’ accession: Schröder, Poos, Gahler, Queiró, Elisabeth Schroedter, Souladakis, Stenzel, Gawronski, Volcic, and Wiersma; also the three rapporteurs who have passed on their brief to others: Mrs Hoff, Mrs Carlsson and Mr Matella.
I ask you to honour them by having their names recorded.
   Thank you Mr Brok, the contribution by you and your colleagues will be recorded.(1)
   –The Minutes of the sitting of Thursday, 22 April 2004 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
   – Mr President, on a day like today, with its especially important debates on topics laden with emotion, I very much regret that we have to get back to something as banal as Minutes, but we have among us in this House a self-appointed hero, a courageous representative of the gutter press who is capable of anything.
Mr Hans-Peter Martin has now gone so far as to falsify the Minutes of the European Parliament.
Although Mr Martin had his voting on the van Hulten report corrected 13 times over, he was not even present for the vote.
These 13 instances, right up to the final vote, include no fewer than seven votes by roll call, in which the name of Martin is not to be found anywhere in the Minutes.
There were a total of 15 roll call votes on the van Hulten report, and this paragon of rectitude took part in none of them.
All that, therefore, now has to be struck out of the Minutes all over again.
In no document of this House is there room for deception and forgery.
While it is not for me to advise you, Mr President, I find it impossible to refrain from referring to Rule 124 of our Rules of Procedure and to the possibilities afforded by it.
   Thank you, Mr Cushnahan, for returning to the Minutes at the end of your remarks.
   – Mr President, I do indeed repudiate all these insinuations and these utterly shabby assertions.
Let me repeat that, at this vote too, on being called on to speak as the vote came to an end, what I said was that I had availed myself of my rights as a Member of this House.
How that is to be recorded in the Minutes is a matter for Parliament’s administration.
I have already told the House what the actual circumstances were.
As regards what Mrs Gebhardt has said, I would like to reiterate, for the Minutes, that I have received no summons from the court in question, neither have I had any sort of direct communication from them, and I can only say that I never made the assertions attributed to me by the Press.
That being so, I do not find it in the least difficult to refrain from repeating them, as I am in fact acquainted with Mrs Gebhardt’s circumstances, and have never said anything of the sort.
All this is part and parcel of a reaction that Members of this House may find understandable, but the public will certainly know what value to attach to it.
   Just to be clear on the ruling concerning the Minutes on this matter, a Member may indeed seek to clarify a vote if the recorded vote is some way mistaken, even though it is on the record.
A Member may not correct votes which were never cast in the first place.
In this instance the votes were roll-call votes, and there is no roll-call indication of your vote in this regard, Mr Martin.
It is thus not possible to correct a record which did not exist in the first place.
These corrections will be struck from the Minutes.
(1)
   .
Mr President, I could not agree more with Mrs Buitenweg.
As I understand it, this item will be discussed tomorrow, and I should like to draw your attention to the fact that not only will a speaker for and a speaker against be allowed to take the floor, but the rapporteur will also be given the chance to speak.
I have to say that I think it will be an extremely difficult job to convince a full House of people who have not followed the entire process to date, but I rely on the fact that the speaking time to which the rapporteur is entitled will be available to me tomorrow.
   Tomorrow the procedure will be as follows: I presume the Verts/ALE Group will sustain the objection made by Mrs Buitenweg.
We will invite one speaker for and one speaker against.
We will hear the rapporteur.
We will vote on procedure and then, depending on the result of that vote, we may or may not proceed to a substantive vote.
As regards the numbers voting, I will ask for a formal legal opinion to answer Baroness Ludford's question, although, in all probability, the number entitled to vote will be the larger number currently present.
(1)
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is for me both a great joy and a great honour, here today, to honour the memory of the great European Jean Monnet and to recall that it was the Italian anti-fascist and democratic Communist Altiero Spinelli who was behind the 14 February 1984 draft treaty founding the European Union, and the precursor of the draft constitution drafted by the European Convention, and which, as is well known, the European Parliament of the time approved by a remarkably large majority.
At that time, Altiero Spinelli made it expressly clear that it was above all the European Parliament that, being legitimised as a European institution by the direct suffrage of the citizens, had the vocation of pressing on with European integration and developing it further.
This message of Spinelli’s may well sound like a bequest, but I see it as still being valid today, and so, in the future too, it should guide this House’s actions as 25 States join in hammering out the co-existence of 450 million people in the European Union, and do so on a basis of solidarity, democratically and socially.
I am convinced that it is only thus that the unification of Europe, having been officially consummated on 1 May, can really succeed and have a future.
Altiero Spinelli was elected to the European Parliament in 1979, having stood as a candidate for the Italian Communist Party.
He sat as a member of what was at the time the Communist Group, which consisted almost exclusively of representatives of the Italian and French Communist Parties.
From July 1982, as chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, he was in charge of drawing up the draft Treaty.
Regarding myself as belonging very much to Spinelli’s tradition, I am sure you will not mind if I focus my recollections today on him as a man and as a politician.
My main reason for doing so is that Altiero Spinelli’s definitive abandonment of Stalinism occurred as early as 1937, and that he later unswervingly championed European unification with idealism, passion, energy and occasional visions in advance of his own time, whether as an advisor to De Gasperi, to Jean Monnet, to the Italian foreign minister Pietro Nenni, as a visiting professor and political scientist, as a member of the Commission or of Parliament.
His critics and opponents accused him of an occasional tendency to dream dreams and lose touch with reality, which, it has to be said, meant that he made not only friends in the ranks of his own group.
For me, Altiero Spinelli personifies the most recent aspects of our European heritage.
He learned from bitter experience that nationalism, fascism and war must be consigned to the past; that was what motivated his so passionate dedication to a united Europe.
For fighting against fascism, Altiero Spinelli endured many years in Mussolini’s jails.
That made it only logical that Spinelli should be among the prime movers behind the draft European manifesto at the European resistance conferences in Geneva in 1944.
Even before the end of the war, Spinelli returned to Northern Italy and participated in the armed resistance.
After the war, he was alongside such people as Henri Frenay, the leader of the French resistance movement , and Eugen Kogon, a German who survived Buchenwald, as a co-founder of the European movement.
For Altiero Spinelli, then, it was from the struggle against fascism that he acquired a sense of responsibility for Europe’s development as a peaceful and free democracy, and, right up to his death on 23 May 1986, he treasured his freedom, which had been bought at a great price, and maintained his firm faith in a peaceful and united Europe.
It is this anti-fascist heritage of which I believe we should always be mindful, and which, above all, should always guide our actions.
   Mr President, I believe that both Jean Monnet and Altiero Spinelli would be very proud of the events of 1 May.
Jean Monnet, a much respected founding father of the European Union, campaigned for the establishment of the European Economic Community because it would be a means to ensure that the continent of Europe would be at peace with itself, as opposed to engaging in war.
The artificial divide which has existed in Europe since the end of World War II has now come to an end and the peoples of east and west Europe have now come together freely as a community of 25 countries, working together with the common interests of promoting economic prosperity, democracy and the rule of law.
The vision of the founding fathers of Europe has been further realised as a direct consequence of the accession of ten new countries into the Union.
As a Community of 25 members, the Union is now in a much stronger position than ever to promote policies on the international stage with vigour and determination.
Also it is now 20 years since Altiero Spinelli drafted his report, which recommended that a constitutional Treaty be agreed for the European Union and one of the key elements of his report back in 1984 was to give a stronger role to the European Parliament.
Many of Altiero Spinelli's recommendations have been included in the Treaties which have been enacted over the last 18 years.
The European Parliament now has the power of codecision with governments of Europe in over 50 fields of legislative activity.
But we must be careful and remember that an extensive amount of work remains to be completed before a European Union Constitutional Treaty is agreed.
Intensive negotiations will continue under the Irish presidency between now and 17 June, with a view to finalising the provisions of this new Treaty.
It is then incumbent on those of us who support this Treaty, which will streamline how the EU does its business, to get out and positively promote its provisions to the people of Europe.
If agreement is reached for a new European Treaty then we will have to focus on the campaign to ratify the terms of this new Treaty across the 25 different Member States of the Union.
We must not underestimate the magnitude of this task.
We must be determined to win this battle so that we will have a Treaty which will govern the European Union for the next 25 years.
   Mr President, Madam Vice-President of the Commission, Mr President—in—Office of the Council, the Europe of Jean Monnet and Altiero Spinelli was not in Europe.
In Europe the peoples and the institutions were united: nazi Berlin, fascist Rome, Vichy Paris, and Spain and Portugal: they were united.
That Europe of Nations was not the Europe of the Ventotene Manifesto; it was just the Europe of the Holocaust The people of Europe were united in just one instance during Europe’s history: as the Jewish population of the whole of Europe, as different, homosexual or roma people, as the people of the Holocaust.
This is what Europe was.
And the cheerful Europe, the Europe of festivals, executions and of things I do not even want to continue to mention ... Europe then was in prison or had been murdered.
Our Europe was with Thomas Mann, with Albert Einstein, perhaps with Marlene Dietrich; it was with Don Luigi Sturzo, with Gaetano Salvemini, with Enrico Fermi.
Europe was outside Europe, and we lay claim to those roots only if we visualise a Europe founded on European reform and not on the counter-reform of Franz von Papen and Cardinal Pacelli; the Europe of the White Rose, the Europe of, precisely, reform, and not of the deception of communism, fascism, nationalism and Roman talibanism.
We need to say it clearly, Mr President!
You are about to celebrate something which has nothing to do with Spinelli’s idea; tomorrow you will approve a Europe of Nations that lies between social democracy and Gaullism.
Spinelli envisaged Europe in the Council, along the lines of the United States Senate, not in the actual project but in terms of the idea.
Until we reach that type of United States federalism and federalism of the United States of Europe, I think that we will find ourselves in a situation similar to the Paris of the Popular Front, based on red flags and trenches, which betrayed Spanish legality, making the Pyrenees a place of death for Madrid, while fascists and nazis were arriving in Spain to kill.
So I prefer to remember Salvador de Madariaga and many others: this is Altiero’s Europe.
I would like to make an appeal, Mr President: ensure that the Ventotene Manifesto is published together with the draft which we are discussing, not just in all our European languages but also in Arabic and Chinese, because today there is a great need there for that dream, that history and those role models.
   Mrs Maes, please take the flags down, you have made your point.
The Rules are very clear on this, so please respect them.
   – Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I wish to express my joy at having today been given the right for the first time to speak to this Parliament, the European Parliament, and to refer to an issue on which I have been engaged, the European Constitution.
I was a member of the drafting Convention and I know that this Constitution is the fruit of agreement between the representatives of states, parliaments and civil society.
It is not an editorial miracle, as many want and wanted what the Convention produced to be.
However, it is a text which promotes the cohesion and unity of Europe.
It promotes the principles and the values of Europe and it also promotes the vision of Jean Monnet and of the person we honoured today, Altiero Spinelli.
Those who oppose approval of the Constitution are, I think, doing the European question a disservice because, in seeking something better, they are undermining something good.
This Constitution, as I said, is the product of agreement; it is precisely what the European Union cultivates, a culture of cohesion and compromise.
Consequently, extremes and approaches based on ethnic criteria are mistaken.
I call for this Constitution to be adopted by the Intergovernmental Conference in 2004, so that 2004 can be christened the year of the European Constitution.
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have a two-fold historic responsibility; firstly, to give the Union a Constitution, a text that will enable it to function.
I should like to highlight, if I may, the inherent paradox in reaching agreement on a text after the elections, even though it will have been the main subject of debate.
If governments had wanted to assert their authority, to put it mildly, they could not have done so any better.
As we await the summit of 17 and 18 June, all we have, as things stand today, is a virtual Constitution.
We hope it will not turn out to be a minimalist one, but we will judge it when the time comes.
Your second historic responsibility is more important: that of setting in train the ratification process.
If we do not want this Constitution to be stillborn, it must be adopted.
Accordingly, Mr President, I should like to inform you of a proposal that came out of discussions in the , which I have had the honour of chairing since May 2003.
Governments must reach an agreement, both on a joint text, and on when it is to be ratified, or, in other words, the day – or rather the period of days, as with the European elections taking place from 10 to 13 June – when the Constitution is to be submitted for ratification in the twenty-five countries, following a joint transnational debate.
On this subject, I was very taken by the way Commissioner Vitorino put it: we must not simply juxtapose twenty-five national debates.
I suggest therefore that you set the date for 5 to 8 May 2005.
We will thus replace the 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two, which affected all of us, with the anniversary of something that we are adopting together.
On that day, which we could celebrate together as Constitution Day, and which could subsequently become a public holiday in the twenty-five countries of the EU, each country will ratify its constitutional treaty according to its own tradition and legal system, by means of a referendum or through parliamentary channels.
In France, I would, of course, advocate a referendum.
Answering the same question together on the same day, and adopting the same fundamental text, will truly make the European people sovereign in matters of common concern.
In response to the questions raised yesterday, I am advised by our legal service in very clear terms that all 788 Members of the House are entitled to vote.
   That has been duly noted, Mr Duhamel!
   – Mr President, I rise to speak in response to what my old schoolfriend Mr Duhamel has just said.
As is so often the case, what he said is nonsense; although he spoke in terms of a Left versus Right vote, I voted the same way as he did.
I still believe that I am on the Right and that he is on the Left!
   Mr President, I voted in favour of the motion of censure because I believe that this Commission has failed to deliver the reforms it was asked to get on with five years ago.
We have had fine words, a lot of wind and bluster from the Commissioner in charge of reforms, Mr Kinnock, but it seems that although the Commissioner can talk the talk he has failed to walk the walk.
I was elected on a manifesto commitment to fight fraud and maladminstration and it is very difficult to explain to my voters, the good people of Louth and Horncastle or of Derbyshire, why for ten years the accounts have not been signed off by the European Court of Auditors.
These problems are significant and typified by Eurostat and have failed to be addressed.
This motion of censure is not just about Eurostat but about the management culture that this exhibits, which goes unchecked.
Mr Solbes might well have gone, but the lack of political responsibility within the Commission remains.
This Commission deserves to be censured and future Commissioners need to know that they will be made politically responsible for the actions of those they direct.
   Mr President, I felt obliged to vote for the motion of censure because of the Commission's incompetence and lack of financial control as manifested in the whole Eurostat affair.
It is indeed bizarre that the only person detained in connection with this sorry episode is the journalist who exposed it.
I also took the opportunity to register my disapproval of the way the Commission has deliberately ignored the will of this House with regard to aid for hospitals in Belarus, which are woefully ill-equipped to treat the cancers – particularly in children – which have occurred as a direct result of the Chernobyl disaster.
Two years running we voted to allocate resources from underspent budget lines to buy this much-needed equipment.
So far not one penny has arrived.
My constituents in Scarborough and Whitby and I are appalled that money languishes in accounts in Brussels when children are dying of diseases that could be treated.
   Mr President, in 1999 Commissioner Kinnock was given the task of cleaning up the Commission's accounting and eliminating fraud.
He has failed spectacularly.
His main achievement has been to persecute the successive whistleblowers who have revealed the appalling debts of the Commission's failure.
So far the only person arrested in the Eurostat scandal has been the journalist who broke the story.
We get nothing but excuses and cover-ups.
How am I supposed to justify to my constituents in Leicestershire or Northamptonshire the fact that the admitted level of waste and fraud in the EU institutions at EUR 5 billion is as much as the UK's annual net budget contribution. I was elected on a Conservative Party manifesto to oppose fraud and maladministration.
I therefore had no alternative but to support this motion of censure and I am proud to have done so.
   – Mr President, the Members belonging to the and the may have voted for this motion of censure, but they are not fooled.
The Eurostat scandal has been known about ever since mid-2003, and it is astonishing that it is only now, with the European elections a month away, that Members of this House are waking up to it.
We have been barred from signing the motion of censure, even though certain signatories had no problem with it being signed by sympathisers with Communism and Trotskyism; we therefore suspect that this is an electoral subterfuge on their part.
If the motion of censure had been adopted, improbable though that is, the Commission’s term of office would in any case have ended in October, while it would still have been dealing with day-to-day business. Why did it not attack Commissioner Monti for his handling of competition policy in the Schneider and Alstom cases?
Why did it not draw attention to the other cases of fraud committed against the Community Budget, the diversion of funds and peddling of influence in the Blue Dragon case? By intervening now, those Members who signed the motion have attempted to carry out a minor internal political operation, which is, alas, far from being commensurate with the gravity of the situation.
   .– The Commission has stalled for time and Parliament has let it get away with it.
If the Commission refuses, both individually and collectively, to accept responsibility of its own free will and accord, then it is for our House to oblige it to do so.
No response to the plenary debate on the motion of censure, held on Wednesday 21 April, has been forthcoming, any more than to yet another resolution on 22 April 2004.
The fact of the situation is that the Commission is neither listening to Parliament’s demands nor responding to them.
The reason why there is opposition to this motion is that its opponents are happy that the Commission should be irresponsible.
It follows that the failure of this motion sends a very poor message to the citizens of the twenty-five Member States.
Although the European Parliament is authorised to exercise the power of democratic control, a majority of its Members has explicitly declined to do so.
   .
The is in favour of the motion of censure against the Commission, on the understanding that it is demonstrated that the Commission has failed to take responsibility in the Eurostat case.
The responses to Parliament’s questions were not all conclusive, nor were individual responsibilities assigned.
According to the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, past affairs, such as the Cresson case, as a result of which the Commission stood down, are well and truly behind us, or, if they occur, will at least be dealt with more correctly.
However, the Eurostat case has demonstrated that there is still no culture of accountability.
The Commission ought to consider this rather than levelling criticism at MEPs who wish to clarify what happened in the Eurostat scandal.
When voters in various Member States opt out and no longer wish to take part in the European Parliament elections, then that is mainly attributable to the attitude taken by the Commission in matters such as the Eurostat case.
What the electorate demands of the European institutions, and rightly so, is more transparency, more accountability and more democratic legitimacy.
   .
In July 2003, the Commission laid off Eurostat’s management in response to the persistence of the fraud cases that had been known about for a long time.
I immediately demanded that the facts be published.
It is pointless to ask institutions dependent on the Commission to institute an inquiry if they subsequently have to keep their findings secret.
Only when public opinion is well informed and can help pass judgment can fraud, self-enrichment and nepotism be prevented in future.
Investigation by Parliament makes that possible.
Even though a secret report was submitted to the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control at the end of September 2003, the Commission can still act as if it does not carry any responsibility.
The person primarily responsible, Commissioner Solbes, has meanwhile become minister in the new Spanish Government.
There is no evidence to show that the problems that forced the previous Commission to step down before the elections five years ago have well and truly ended.
To illustrate the seriousness of the situation and to ensure that the next Commission will be required to address the problems, I am voting in favour of the motion of censure today.
The fact that the Greens, previously in opposition, turned against this in the previous meeting, with the aim to prove their administrative reliability, makes it no less necessary to continue the fight against fraud.
   .
Our group has, with conviction, supported the motion that was rejected a moment ago.
It is now immediately obvious to the electorate which Members wish to expose the mismanagement and deception on the part of the present Commission and which Members wish to cover it up or are not interested in it.
The mealy-mouthed and abortive reform, the accounting system’s obsolescence and vulnerability to fraud and the Eurostat affair are just three examples that speak volumes.
They illustrate that what the Committee of Wise Men concluded back in 1999 also applies to this Commission, namely that there is hardly anyone within the Commission who is willing to accept any responsibility.
It makes a mockery of democracy in Europe and is a denial of Parliament's rights when members of the Commission do not act, but do not step down either.
If the Commission rebuffs Parliament when it performs its primary task of budgetary control, we have no choice but to send it packing.
If we failed to do so, we would not be taking ourselves seriously, or the citizens who have voted for us.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the so-called European Constitution is merely window-dressing, to conceal to the citizens what is going on in the EU and how their interests are being trifled with.
The motion of no-confidence was a means of bringing the curtain down on the Prodi Commission’s faltering performance and marks the beginning of an open culture in which everyone takes their responsibility seriously.
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   I did not give you the floor for a point of order, Mrs Duthu, but simply because yesterday when we opened the proceedings, given the solemnity of the meeting, the MEPs who intended to speak, as usual, for one minute on matters of interest to them, did not have the chance to do so.
   I can tell you, Mrs Frassoni, that the President has already contacted the person who – unfortunately – was directly concerned, expressing all our solidarity on his and on Parliament’s behalf.
   Mr President, I also want to thank the presidency, and Mr Roche in particular, for the way in which he has handled our dealings together.
I also enjoyed it very much.
I must say that sometimes I find it difficult to attack him because he is so nice and so it is difficult to say how much I disagree with the Irish presidency. I thank him very much and it was a pleasure for my Group too to work with the Irish presidency.
I have very little time so I just want to concentrate on the question of Cyprus.
We all share the sadness at the disappointing result of the referendum.
I understand and I respect the response of the Greek Cypriots.
I want to believe that they want a solution and that they are not happy with the status quo.
But now it is time for them and for us to act.
We have to act quickly and positively to ensure that agreement can still be reached this year.
The Greek Cypriots should tell us their ideas to ensure that enlargement is completed and the rest of the European Union must assist and remind them that this business cannot remain unfinished.
I have two small suggestions.
The first is for the Commission and the Council.
To say that EUR 289 million have been earmarked is quite good, but how much time elapses between earmarking and spending? I became very worried when I heard Commissioner Nielson talking about legal problems and complications.
Could the Commission and the Council give us a timetable for committing this money and solving the European Union's formal problems with northern Cyprus?
The Government of the Republic of Cyprus has a problem with the implementation of the law governing the European elections in Cyprus.
In order to be able to vote, Greek Cypriots, Turkish Cypriots, Latin Maronites and Armenians have to be registered on the electoral roll for the European elections.
Unfortunately, the Cypriot Parliament took a decision requiring all Cypriots to register themselves on the electoral roll.
As a result of this procedure, only 503 out of an estimated 80 000 Turkish Cypriots are eligible to vote.
This is too few.
If the Cypriot Parliament decided to include on the electoral roll all persons who have either an ID card or a passport issued by the Republic of Cyprus, 40 000 Turkish Cypriots could vote.
I have two requests to the Government of Cyprus.
Firstly, people from both communities who are in possession of an ID card or a passport from the Republic of Cyprus should automatically be entitled to vote.
Secondly, the Government of Cyprus should re-open the electoral roll over the next three weeks and make a public announcement in both communities and in both languages to ensure that those able to vote in the European elections do so.
   Naturally I hope, Mr Gawlowski, that you will come and take the floor on many other occasions in this Chamber, but the next time the President – who will be someone else – will certainly be a bit stricter than me and will cut you off earlier.
   Thank you, Mrs Berés, your view, together with Mr Tomczak’s, will be forwarded to Parliament’s President.
   Madam President, I should briefly like to return to a point made, so powerfully and yet with such charm, by my group Chairman, Mrs Frassoni, which was that Turkish Cypriots need to be given the opportunity to take part in the European elections.
On the assumption that it is listening, I should like the Council’s comments as I take this one step further and ask whether, if the Turkish-Cypriots are unable to vote, you do not think that consideration should be given to leaving unoccupied two of the six Cypriot seats that are specifically intended for defending the interests of the Turkish-Cypriots.
Secondly, in the discussion about the present enlargement, the question is often asked: 'where do we stop?' Where does Europe end?
That is a point for Commissioner Nielson. So far, the European Commission has taken a very pragmatic line on this.
In addition to Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, the Balkans have, in principle, been given a 'yes', without a timeframe.
The Ukraine and Belarus have not received any answer, whether ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
According to the newspapers, though, the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, stated in Dublin last weekend that the book is closed for the Ukraine and Belarus.
They can never become members of the European Union.
Is this a change in the Commission's position? Did the Commission establish the European Union's ultimate borders in its spare time this weekend, or is this a misunderstanding?
The third point relates to an old discussion, namely whether it is possible both to enlarge and to deepen.
In other words, how does enlargement affect the chances of establishing a common foreign policy? Some, including some of us, are of the opinion that this is less likely after enlargement, because there are now 25 countries, which reduces the chance of unanimity.
Others, on the other hand, are pleased, because they want anything but foreign policy.
As I see it – and I am prepared to uphold this view here – the lesson we learnt in Iraq is that we never want Europe to be so divided again.
I think that the chances of adopting a European foreign policy have increased, and, contrary to popular belief, I do not expect the new Member States to be Trojan horses.
In my opinion, it is possible to enlarge and deepen, which means common foreign policy is a possibility, even after enlargement.
   On 1 May, when celebrations marking EU expansion were taking place throughout the whole of Europe, Lithuania also celebrated the Day of Workers’ Solidarity.
To the people of the new member countries EU membership means more social justice, more civilized working conditions, and better salaries.
We must not create a new Iron Curtain, fencing ourselves off from our new neighbours, the Ukraine, Moldova and, of course, Russia, countries which are actually old neighbours as far as the new Member States are concerned.
Let us not take away those countries’ hopes that one day they will themselves become members of the European Union.
Belarus must not be left beyond the neighbourhood’s boundaries.
Lithuania, which has a five hundred and fifty kilometre external border with this State, is very concerned that economic reforms and democratic change should take place in this country.
If nothing is done in this State, however, then everything will carry on as before for many years to come.
Some of the new member countries have already lived with their neighbours in one union.
We understand the mentality and customs of our neighbours and are ready to help export the values of the European Union to our new neighbours.
   – Mr Lepper, I have to cut off your microphone.
I very much regret that.
Let me remind you that speakers who do not have the speaking time that they would wish may submit in writing the speech they would have liked to give.
This document will be made available to them to publicise as a speech made in the plenary session of the European Parliament.
   Ladies and gentlemen, the European workforce is expensive.
Sometimes this is referred to as a negative aspect, as a factor that hinders competitiveness, yet this is a good thing.
This provides a decent standard of living for the workforce, for those who are no longer or not yet employed, and for those also who have to be absent from work temporarily.
Price is, of course, an important factor in competitiveness, but it is only one of the factors, the other one being quality.
This is why we were happy to see the Lisbon Strategy in 2000 state that the future of the European economic and social system will stand or fall on success or failure in making Europe the most competitive, knowledge-based economy by 2010.
The key to this, however, is education, training, life-long learning and furthermore, research and development.
We are now in the year 2004.
In the research and development race the gap in favour of the United States has opened even wider.
The harmonisation of the education and training policies of the European states is at a very low level, and the life-long learning concept is not spreading at the speed it should.
As a result of all this it looks as if the US is coming out of recession, in the Far East the dynamic growth of the economy based on cheap labour is continuing, whilst Europe continues to stagnate.
The European social system is, therefore, a value that we must maintain, yet the European economy is less and less able to produce the financial resources for this.
It would not be good for us to remain helpless in the face of this situation, without knowing what to do, but it would be even worse if, despite being able to see the way out, we did very little of what was needed.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Hungarian nation had a poet with fire in his heart, Sándor Petőfi, who roused the nation to action during the days of the 1848 revolution with these words: ‘Today is the right time, but tomorrow may be too late’.
In the next five years it will certainly not be the right time for Europe, but perhaps it will not be too late either.
Let us leave this as a legacy to our successors convening on 19 July: it will depend on their wisdom, determination and ability to cooperate whether the unfavourable processes can be reversed or the European social system will remain just a congenial experiment that is doomed to end in failure because of lack of economic support.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has entered an historic new phase with a total population of over 450 million inhabitants.
Our Union, now enlarged to twenty-five countries, has greater political, geographical and economic substance.
We have begun to share our common interests, both in the area of the economy and the internal market, and in terms of the responsibilities that we face as regards the threats to stability and security, which are not confined to borders.
I refer to terrorism, organised crime, illegal immigration, drug trafficking and trafficking in human beings.
The question of terrorism is an alarming problem that we currently face and should be given maximum priority.
This is a threat to security, to our democracies and to the foundations of our civilisation; more specifically respect for human dignity, liberty, democracy, equality, respect for the law and respect for human rights are under threat.
The European Union must do all that it can to protect its citizens, to tighten border controls and to improve security as regards travel documents, by introducing biometric data and by establishing visa systems and the Schengen Information System (SIS-II).
Nevertheless, I should once again like to highlight at this juncture that, if security is to be strengthened, this must always be in compliance with the other two components of our European area, which are freedom and justice.
1 May also saw great change in the area of Justice and Home Affairs.
A new institutional framework is now in force: in the area of visas, asylum and immigration, codecision with Parliament will enter into force, as will qualified majority voting in the Council.
Parliament’s role will, hopefully, result in greater efficiency in addressing the repeated delays on the Council’s part, which many speakers, including Mr von Boetticher, have highlighted here.
Commissioner Vitorino, who is here today, deserves praise for his excellent work in this area and his positive attitude towards working together with Parliament.
It is my wish that the excellent work that he has done here helps him to rise to even higher responsibilities in our Community of Europe.
   The cordial atmosphere in the Chamber is plain to see.
I can also testify to the outstanding cooperation Parliament has always enjoyed with Commissioner Vitorino and I add my congratulations to those offered by everyone else.
I should like to say, very briefly, that it has been a pleasure and also a great honour to chair this sitting of Parliament, which has been attended by the representatives of the citizens of 25 countries.
The debate is now closed.
The next sitting will take place tomorrow, Wednesday 5 May from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.
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   . Mr President, I share Mrs Ludford's view.
I will not repeat what she said.
I only want to draw your attention to the fact that yesterday, I wrote a letter to Mr Gargani, the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, to remind him of the debate held in that committee on 6 April, in which we decided to set the Court procedure in motion.
In that debate, however, another procedure was discussed, in the event that neither the Council nor the Commission would take Parliament's opinion into consideration.
Last night, there was insufficient time to discuss this letter, but the chairman promised me to take note of it and deal with it effectively.
To be on the safe side, I shall also e-mail it to you.
If the Council goes ahead and signs all the same, then I think we should start a different procedure.
I wanted to draw your attention to that.
   Mr President, at last night's meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, the chairman, Mr Gargani, and the committee agreed that they wished to stand by the substance of the committee's recommendation to you of 15 April that action should be taken against the Commission for failure to act as regards answering the questions concerning Lloyd's.
   Thank you Mr Perry.
I shall write to Mr Gargani today and copy that correspondence to you.
   Thank you for the precision you bring to the matter, Mr Goebbels.
This is now our fifth directly-elected mandate.
It is coming to a close, and I am informed by the services that this has been the precedent we have always followed.
However, in the light of your point on the wording of Rule 185, I believe that I should correspond with the Council and the Commission and suggest to them that, subject to our Rules, it would indeed be in order for them to answer the questions you mention.
We should set a new precedent for the future in this regard, and I shall do so.(2)
   Thank you for that valedictory statement, Mrs Banotti.
I could not have insisted on the speaking time rule on that occasion!
   Mr President, as a supporter of enlargement to the whole of Europe, I was deeply disappointed by the statement from President Prodi which gave the green light for eventual Turkish and Balkan countries' membership but excluded Ukraine permanently.
This position in my view contravenes Article 49 of the Treaty, of which he is the guardian, unless of course he regards Ukraine as not being a European country.
I hope that the new Commissioners will be more positive in their attitude towards Ukraine's aspirations.
I welcome in particular today Mr Kyprianou's nomination as the Commissioner from Cyprus, a Commonwealth country.
I call upon the new Commission to cease to vilify the Greek Cypriot people post-referendum.
I too am in favour of ending the isolation of the Turkish-occupied northern community, but, before this happens, surely the handing over of EU aid money – and I call upon Mr Talat in particular – is inappropriate for as long as they are offering sanctuary to wanted fugitives from justice, particularly from the United Kingdom.
Can the Commission look into this matter urgently?
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the implementation of Basel II will be on the agenda in the next parliamentary term.
This deals with credit rating and collateral needed for small and family-run businesses and is of course a very important issue in the enlargement phase.
Since Europe is shaped by small and family-run businesses, in which two-thirds of employees work and by which 80% of taxes are paid, I would be interested to know what the Commission plans to do, in order to implement Basel II as smoothly and as well as possible, so that our companies will have a chance, in the future, to ensure wealth and job security.
   . – I will reply very briefly because I also have to reply on the Basel II issue, which was raised a moment ago. Basel II is an extremely important issue, and we worked on it precisely so as to make amendments to the initial proposals, as they were devastating for small and medium-sized enterprises.
We were asked by the Council to amend these proposals further and we were especially asked to look in depth at all the implications for small and medium-sized enterprises.
With the Council’s agreement, we commissioned an in-depth study from PricewaterhouseCoopers; the study is now nearly done and we will hand it to the Council for further discussion in a few weeks.
The subject is not closed, then; it is still open and being debated.
On the question of communications, the experiment we carried out was so that communications could be coordinated better throughout the Commission.
I believe the improvements that we made have worked, and I think you can actually see that in the more integrated way in which we have been able to function.
Of course, I am not prejudging the future organisation of communications: that will depend entirely on how the new President organises the whole work of the Commission.
I do see a need, however – and here I go back to what you said, Mr Vila Abelló – for much more incisive work on communications: until now, in fact, our communications have always gone through national media and so they have reached the people indirectly, and sometimes with major problems of distortion.
   . Mr President, I should very briefly like to answer Mrs Kinnock’s first point.
I have the same impression that she expressed, because yesterday evening I was in Dakar, where I attended a meeting with the least advanced countries, and we spoke with them about enlargement.
You are right, Mrs Kinnock; there is a certain degree of anxiety in developing countries as regards EU enlargement.
It is, indeed, one of the characteristics of developing countries that they are anxious about many things, but there is particular anxiety about enlargement.
I feel that we must put it across to them that enlargement is good news for them, and we have attempted to do this with a certain number of them.
It is good news because the enlarged EU has more weight and is potentially stronger; because the enlarged EU has opened up markets to them with 70 million new consumers, whereas, until now, those new markets had been less open to them than ours; because the enlarged EU represents a rosy future for them, especially in terms of trade.
I feel that these are strong arguments.
The idea nevertheless persists in many quarters outside the EU that the EU is incapable of accomplishing enlargement at the same time as attending to other matters.
I believe that they are wrong, and that the past has shown this to be a fallacious viewpoint.
To conclude, we have a good case, certainly as regards the developing countries, and especially the ACP countries.
There are, therefore, many points on which we can reassure them.
On the second point, Mrs Kinnock, I am sure that the Commission as a whole will take this request and this wish on board, which will be passed on to the relevant person at the appropriate time.
   . I would like to address the concern that was expressed by Mrs Kinnock as to whether, in view of the current situation, the Commission is still providing enough resources to combat poverty in developing countries.
I can inform her that the funds that are to be provided within the framework of the development policy to combat poverty will, for the first time, exceed the magic threshold of EUR 1 billion in the draft budget for 2005, in line with the Commission proposal.
I believe that this shows that this Commission feels extremely committed to the aim of combating poverty.
   – While greeting all of the commissioners, especially those new ones, I have a question for Mr Romano Prodi.
Mr President of the Commission, in its next term will the Commission, which you lead so well, consider some sort of more permanent European integration strategy for the Königsberg – Kaliningrad question? In your opinion, would it not be of value to Europe, and allow a better understanding of this region's historical position and problems, if it were proposed that the Culture Commissioners organise an international academic conference on the contribution of the two figures – Immanuel Kant and Mikhail Kalinin – to European culture?
   Mr President, 25 years ago I was working here illegally, doing manual labour.
I was a second-class citizen.
Now I am here as a Member of the European Parliament.
I represent a country that has joined Europe.
Nonetheless, many of my fellow countrymen and women still feel like second-class citizens within the Union.
This is because they cannot legally take up work in it.
I would like to ask the Commission what it plans to do to shorten the periods in which restrictions on taking up work apply.
This would enable the citizens of my region of Europe to become first-class citizens.
I would also like to say that it would be most unfortunate for the Union to distance itself from Ukraine.
Ukraine is a part of Europe.
It shares our cultural heritage.
If you travel to Lvov or Chernovtsy, you will feel as if you were in Vienna, Budapest or Bratislava.
I would like to make this appeal: let us not turn our backs on Ukraine!
   Mr President, you have given 15 years of tireless service to this House and on behalf of the ELDR Group I would like to pay tribute to the leadership and the vision that you have shown during your term of office.
You have proven an outstanding President of our House, raising our profile, ensuring that our voice is heard in the Council and beyond.
Through your eloquence and your judicious use of the well-crafted sound bite you have communicated the practical benefits of our work to our citizens.
I am proud that the first Liberal President of this House in 22 years should be one of its most successful.
I would like to highlight briefly two achievements.
Your energetic campaigning for enlargement and the determination you have shown in reforming this House will go down to your great credit.
As my predecessor as leader of the ELDR Group, you demonstrated our commitment to enlargement by involving MPs from the candidate countries in our work.
You continued with your energetic campaign for a 'yes' vote in the candidate countries and in bringing observer MEPs here to our Chamber in 2002.
You have brought this Parliament closer to reforms than ever before and I have no doubt that as a result of your work we will succeed in reforming this House.
We are sure that you will still have much to contribute to Europe in whatever you do in the months and the years ahead.
We say today 'au revoir' with a vote of thanks and our best wishes for the future.
   Mr Cohn-Bendit, I am grateful for your advice.
What you are requesting has, however, already been decided.
It was concluded this morning.
Thank you.
   – Mr President, towards the end of your speech you thanked the Group Presidents, but I should also like to remind you of the existence of the Non-attached Members – even though you are well aware of them.
Many Non-attached Members will have asked to speak, and so I shall use the fact that I, together with Mrs Garaud, have represented you over the years in the Conference of Presidents. I shall use this opportunity for the last time to take the floor, not of course as a group, as I naturally respect the nature of this group of the Non-attached, of which we have spoken on so many occasions.
Unfortunately the problems of my group – problems, let us say, of organisation in this Parliament – have not been resolved, although I am not holding it against you personally, Mr President, of course. Let us say that the group is composed of a few dozen Members and so the next Parliament will need to look at it more carefully.
Speaking for myself, Mr President, and I believe for Mrs Garaud as well, I should like to join in the expressions of admiration and recognition for the role you have played, especially in defence of this Parliament, for the way in which you have run the House, regardless of individual circumstances or the political judgment that each of us might make of your actions.
I too felt I must pay you my respects in this way and offer you my very best wishes for your political and personal future.
   The next item is the verification of the credentials of the new Members of the European Parliament.(1)
   Thank you, Mrs Theato, you have our best wishes.
   Mr President, although I am sure that I, together with the sessional services for my group, prepared the voting list correctly, questions have been asked about it.
I would therefore like to ask you to clarify again for all Members that we will vote on the report, as Mrs Theato said in relation to the corrected versions for various languages.
It should once again be stressed that we are to vote on the texts of the report.
   I can confirm, as Mrs Theato outlined, that it will be an electronic secret ballot.
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Proposal for a decision: the Commission in its new form (B5-0227/2004)
   . – In principle it is right to take a critical view if Commissioners are continually changing.
We cannot, however, accept any procedure whereby Finland, after the departure of Erkki Liikanen, would be accorded a status inferior to that of other countries that have already changed their Commissioner.
This is also a matter of what is lawful, which is to say compliance with the Treaty. Under the Treaty the post of Commissioner may only remain unfilled by a unanimous decision of the Council.
Mr Borrell, I congratulate you on your election and I would invite you to take your rightful place on the presidential chair.
   Mr Watson, you may rest assured that the Presidency will ensure that the rights of all the groups are fully respected.
   Mr Gollnisch, please rest assured that I will do so.(1)
   – Just one question, Mr President: is there a minimum number that have to have a cross against them for the voting paper to be valid? Again, is there a minimum number of names that have to have a cross put against them in order for the voting paper to be valid, or is it valid if you put a cross by 2, 3, 4 or 8 – or indeed any other number?
   Mr Friedrich, there is no minimum number of boxes to tick.
   Mrs Gill, I am grateful for your suggestion, but nobody has requested the floor in relation to it.
I shall communicate your views to the political groups so that they may consider the matter.
But now, we have already begun the vote and it is too late to deal with your request.
We shall proceed to the vote(2).
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   – Mr President, yesterday, you addressed us prior to your election, and your own words were that we must do away with all the grey areas that do damage to this Parliament.
There is one decision that many Members find incomprehensible, and that is the quaestors’ decision on 26 May, which has meant that over two hundred former Members of this House have drawn a daily subsistence allowance for yesterday.
I would ask you to have this matter investigated, and also to consider whether this allowance can be withheld, as it has led to the taxpayer yet again having to cough up between EUR 50 000 and EUR 100 000.
   Thank you very much, Mr Martin.
We will examine your comment and the appropriate measures will be taken if necessary.
   The next item is the joint debate on the Report of the European Council and the Commission Statement – European Councils of 17, 18 and 29 June 2004 – and the Council Statement – Six months of the Irish Presidency.
   . – Mr President, the , Mr Ahern, has already answered all the questions.
I will have to speak in a few minutes to comment on the beginning of the Dutch Presidency, and so I shall really confine myself to thanking the Irish Prime Minister and all the Members of Parliament.
I should just like to take up a thought, a suggestion made by Mr Goebbels, who invited us to examine the Stability Pact and its reforms.
I can tell you that the Commission, encouraged by the Court’s decision, has already started work and on 3 September we shall be presenting the results of our considerations, so that a thorough debate on the subject can begin.
For the rest, the debate has been very one-sided with few voices raised against the Constitution, and the feeling that Europe is becoming a civil power, as Mrs Sbarbati put it, is widely shared in this Parliament.
Thank you all for your attention.
Finally, I must just say to Mr Poettering that it may be true that being in the middle of the photograph is important, but it may equally be true that having one on one side and one on the other, embracing the States of the Union, may have an even stronger political meaning.
   Prime Minister, there is no doubt that the thorniest issue you will face during your European Presidency will be Turkey’s membership application.
Not only because your Cabinet appears divided over that issue; you will meet with very heavy pressure to assess Turkey not on the basis of meeting the Copenhagen criteria, but merely on the basis of the progress it has made to date.
As you talked about a strict application of the criteria laid down in 2002, I can now only hope that you will put your money where your mouth is.
It is, in any case, clear that Turkey failed to meet the prescribed criteria yesterday, fails to meet them today and will fail to meet them in December too.
You spoke a moment ago about the people of Europe whom this is all about.
Well, it should be possible for those people to have their say about an essential, fundamental issue such as the accession of a non-European country to the European Union.
A country that, in some 20 years, will not only boast the largest surface area within this Union, but also the highest population.
A country whose accession would constitute a financial and social drain and would set in motion a new and massive wave of immigration.
Are you convinced that this is backed by democratic support? It also remains to be seen whether we should give much credence to a Turkish Prime Minister who claims he will respect the lay state and democracy but who, a few years ago, was still making statements along the lines of ‘the mosques are our barracks, the minarets our bayonets, the domes our helmets and the believers our soldiers’.
Indeed, we should think very carefully about how consistent this is with our European values.
The European Constitution will prompt a referendum in various Member States.
If we want to avoid the people in Europe turning away from the European Union even more, we must keep this referendum linked to the issue of the Turkish application.
   Mr President, during this Netherlands Presidency, all 25 Union partners are for the first time responsible for the success of these six months of cooperation, six crucial first months.
As President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Balkenende can, and must, provide considerable impetus in vital areas.
In so doing, the Council itself will need to develop and apply new and effective working methods.
This is necessary so as to ensure that the progress of the Union of 25 is not at a snail’s pace.
In the same spirit, the Council needs to approve the European Parliament’s new statute rather than standing in its way.
Democratic transparency is what the public expects from us, and rightly so.
I should like to hear from Mr Balkenende how he intends to give the necessary signals in terms of approach and communication.
From my own experience as a national member of parliament, I know how capable he is of forceful policy and of perseverance in his policy, even if that is unpopular or even controversial.
That is why we can rely on his political vision and his ability to do what is needed.
His speech yesterday in Berlin, in which he paid tribute to Count Klaus von Stauffenberg, was another illustration of this.
The President-in-Office of the Council was right to make an actual link between the civil and moral courage and conviction of Stauffenberg and his sympathisers and the chance of reconciliation which Europe was given following liberation.
It is in the same spirit that we must now also do what is needed following the liberating enlargement to 25 Union partners.
What is to be done? Europe must be more visible.
Rather than deny that its public image is that of a complex Moloch, it is important to change it in a concrete manner.
Europe should, together, dare to address the big questions of this time, which directly affect each citizen. These range from a coherent and humane asylum policy that immediately tackles human trafficking, to a united stand against worldwide terrorism.
This requires concrete action and the exchange of information and signals for citizens’ safety, and one clear line must be adopted in tackling criminals and their networks, including in relation to the drugs trade, across the national borders.
In the context of credibility, I agree that no fresh requirements should be added in respect of candidate Member States such as Turkey.
Instead, we must hold firm to the requirements already laid down in the Copenhagen framework and not yield to any pressure regarding these.
If we Christian Democrats want to ensure that the community of values is not a pious platitude but an item on the daily agenda, we must specify what lines common and concrete policies must take.
Also in terms of the economy, the document by Mr Kok, our ex-Prime Minister, would be ambiguous; I therefore expect clear proposals of their own from the Council and the Commission and essential action points in order to give the Lisbon agenda a shot in the arm.
There is every reason to ask a great deal from this Presidency in those areas.
Mr Balkenende has been graced with a huge opportunity and with much energy and decisiveness, and of those to whom much is given, much may be expected.
Mr Balkenende knows that, in terms of decisiveness, he can count on the complete confidence and support of MEPs, myself included.
We have every confidence in the personal vision, attention and decisiveness of this President-in-Office of the Council, and we wish him every success.
   Mr President, on behalf of the Dutch and European Social Democrats, I warmly welcome the Netherlands Presidency in the European Parliament.
Your European Affairs Minister has asked us, above all, to lead the political debate.
As European Socialists, we gladly take on this challenge.
You spoke about modernisation, competition with the US and Asia, and about achieving the Lisbon objectives.
We Socialists fear that, with those enticing words, you intend to do something quite different in fact, namely to press Europe into the conservative corner.
While a few years ago, enormous efforts were being made to combat unemployment by reducing working hours and introducing job sharing, there is now all of a sudden talk of extending the working hours and you mention shorter holidays. What is so modern about that?
Whereas we used to concern ourselves with job quality, care for the workplace, the prevention of illnesses and accidents at the workplace with a European-wide regulation, you now talk about deregulation.
Have, along with this, the objectives of higher labour participation and lower absenteeism through illness disappeared? We used to talk about more flexibility within the labour market with greater legal protection; you are now talking about deregulating that protection.
It therefore seems that your objective of abolishing the administrative burden is more of an excuse for abolishing certain social and administrative achievements.
At the same time, you fail to address the European tendering rules that are throttling the small and medium-size companies.
Whereas we used to talk about investing 3% of the GDP per Member State in research and education, areas where, incidentally, the Netherlands has so far been lagging behind badly, you now only talk about the Stability Pact, economising and holding firm to the deficit of 3% maximum, without making resources and scope available for holding just as firm to 3% investment in research and education.
This is something I would have liked to have seen fought out before the Court of Justice.
In all fairness, the Kok report on ‘work, work, work’ would take this really seriously.
Whereas in 2000, we used to talk about high-quality public provisions not only in infrastructure, you now talk about liberalising and privatising the service sector, which involves electricity, health care and public transport.
Are you actually prepared to stop those disastrous proposals by Mr Bolkestein to liberalise the services? After all, they would enable Poles to offer their services in the Netherlands at Polish prices without being subject to prices current in our country, and this would, in fact, lead to social dumping.
To the Social Democrats, it appears that the Lisbon agenda is being used to your advantage to adopt a hard conservative economic agenda, under the guise of modernisation.
In our opinion, you are turning back the clock and refusing to create jobs that require brains and to commit to quality, research, education and high-quality public services.
We fear that, as a result, unemployment will increase in Europe, that the weaker members of society will pick up the tab of the cost-cutting measures and that you, with your candidate Mr Barroso, are not going about things the right way if we want to win the fight against Asia and the US.
We are throwing down the gauntlet before the debate. Although we warmly welcome you and your Presidency, we are still struggling to accept your political choices, and we are looking forward to the debate under your Presidency.
   Mr President, the Dutch Government is calling for priority to be given to economic growth and to the fight against terrorism.
It embraces the now outmoded illusions of the Lisbon Summit in 2000, which assumed that before 2010, Europe would be able to beat the United States and Japan in a competitive battle by making things as bad here as they already are over there.
It has meanwhile transpired that the resources for education for the benefit of the expected knowledge economy are insufficient.
The drawbacks of Lisbon may have become more visible by now, but the much touted benefits have not.
The same is true of the Stability Pact.
Without acting contrary to democracy, the 3% standard is becoming increasingly unfeasible.
The Netherlands is increasingly being seen as the Goody Two-Shoes of the European Union and NATO due to its requirement of stricter compliance with the Stability Pact, its contracting-out of public transport to international companies, its introduction of longer working hours, Commissioner Bolkestein’s pressure for a service directive and its continuing military involvement in the American protectorate of Iraq, which is drawing the terrorist threat closer to Europe.
I sometimes hear other Member States remark that it would be good if the Netherlands left the European Union, because that country has become the motor behind the lamentable aspiration for restricting public expenditure and disposing of public provisions.
That aspiration involves exchanging hallmarks of European civilisation for America’s tough and ruthless system.
If Mr Balkenende wants to transform the whole of Europe in this way, he will bring about major social conflict, because public opinion is heading in a different direction.
Although the Lisbon Summit has decided to dispose of public services, this Parliament subsequently decided, at my proposal and by a large majority, to dispense with this requirement concerning public transport.
Instead of striving for unbridled economic growth at the expense of social security, public services and the environment, it is preferable to keep taxes to an adequate level and seek a redistribution of national and European income for the benefit of the weakest and of useful community tasks, and also for the benefit of integrating immigrants and removing poverty and despair in the world, which are still providing a continuous breeding ground for terrorism.
   Mr President, I should like to wish the Netherlands Presidency every success with its priorities.
The Presidency is working under the motto ‘realism and ambition’, and that is something that appeals to me greatly, because, over the past few years, we have witnessed a growing trend of ever more fresh priorities being added to the agenda, and while solemn declarations are made at every Council summit, in reality they often turn out to be hollow phrases and no action is taken at all.
Public disappointment and scepticism should therefore come as no surprise, and no manner of promotion campaign can do anything about that.
It is therefore time we rolled up our sleeves, and that also applies to the Lisbon agenda, because, a moment ago, I heard a number of speakers on the Left of the political spectrum, and, ironically, to the right of me, saying that this Lisbon agenda is not social.
However, in my opinion, the interpretation of this Lisbon agenda is extremely social.
We are faced with 9% unemployment in Europe and with unemployment among young people, some of whom will never get a job.
It is high time we implemented this agenda, and I would actually like to point out that we can learn an awful lot from the ten new countries in the European Union, because although they have carried out many difficult and painful reforms over the past 15 years, they have, in the process, managed to accomplish greater economic growth, from which everyone stands to gain.
I therefore find it incomprehensible and also irresponsible that some parties try to undermine the Lisbon strategy.
Finally, agreements should also be made about EU funding.
It is a well-known fact that the Dutch Government is in favour of drastic financial cutbacks, and I should like to find out from you how this fits in with the ambitions which you mentioned in the motto, because, in addition to an effective treasury, at the moment, what Europe needs more than anything else is vision, decisive action and political leadership, and I look forward to a successful Presidency.
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   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is important to note that our group has two candidates for the office of Quaestor, namely Mr James Nicholson and Mrs Godelieve Quisthoudt-Rowohl.
Neither the Bureau nor the chairman of the group are supporting any other candidates.
   . Mr President, my dear José, I warmly congratulate you on your election.
I wish you and the institution you preside over every success.
   Mr President, dear Mr Barroso, my group submitted three questions about greater openness and better control.
You visited our group and acknowledged officials’ lack of accountability.
We now hope that you personally will answer our questions frankly.
We want a President who himself dares to answer the crucial questions from the most critical group on such a pre-arranged occasion. We want a President who dares, and is able, to answer the questions himself and who dares to accept responsibility for the organisation as a whole.
We have, for example, asked for an internal list of the more than 1 350 working parties in the Commission, which are all funded by European taxpayers. Who are the members of these?
Who go to the meetings? Who have their travel expenses refunded?
Why cannot we know these facts? Why, in the new accounting system too, will no one be in a position to reveal whether the same people have their travel expenses paid for more than one meeting in the same week?
I am not saying that this happens. I am merely saying that we cannot check up on whether it is happening.
We want a Commission President who is prepared to make all the information and vouchers available to the Ombudsman, the Court of Auditors and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Mr Barroso, we are prepared to be pleasantly surprised, but I am obliged to say that we were given many more pledges by Mr Prodi when he took office than we have so far been given by yourself, and he, for his part, delivered the goods.
Agendas and minutes from the Commission’s meetings can now be read by everyone on the Internet.
It took Mr Prodi a whole legislative period to fulfil that pledge, but he kept his word.
The Commission’s telephone directory is also available on the Net, provisionally and as an experiment.
Now, we must go further and have full scrutiny of the legislative process.
We want to know what the Commission is proposing in the Council’s working parties.
We want to know what is going on in the Commission itself.
We also think that you should inaugurate a new era by providing courageous whistleblowers such as Paul van Buitenen, Marta Andreasen and Dorte Schmidt-Brown with full restitution of their civil rights.
By pricking their bubble, whistleblowers woke the bureaucrats out of their dream.
In yourself, I hope to see a President who is everything but the bureaucrats’ dream, and I am able to offer my group’s critical opposition.
I hope that we see a President who dares to make available a list of the committees that get ideas on everything from rules governing the size of strawberries to a common criminal law.
   – Mr President, Mr Barroso, ladies and gentlemen, if Figo’s Portugal was unable to take the European Cup, will Barroso’s Portugal take the European Commission, given that Mr Wurtz and Mr Cohn-Bendit are not Greeks? Having said that, I am personally pleased for you, even if you have very limited room for manoeuvre on the question of Turkey, for example, which the Prodi Commission has settled for you: you have inherited accession.
So far as the financial perspectives are concerned, you are limited not only by the 1.27% ceiling or the 1% ceiling.
As for the budget rationing pact, in view of the judgment handed down by the Court of Justice there is little likelihood that you will be able to release its stranglehold and rid us of this Malthusian device that is the source of all the social wrongs of cuts in investment in railways, hospitals (in Portugal in particular), universities, and so on.
You have inherited the dismantling of the common agricultural policy, and as a Portuguese person you are aware of the consequences of that initiative, especially in the sugar beet and sugar sectors: your country will be one of the casualties.
Will you be able to stand up to Hong Kong in the WTO’s Doha talks, to pressure from the Pacific nations, the group of 15, New Zealand, Australia, the group of 20, or 23 with Brazil, will you be able to withstand the pressure from the UK and US? Will you really be able to tell Mr Bush’s or Mr Kerry’s negotiators that the Americans must abandon their own subsidies first?
Pascal Lamy could not do it in Cancun or Seattle, and I do not know whether your commissioner will be able to do it either.
In spite of all I have just said, because you are a man from a great country and from a people with a great history, like the men and women of Portugal watching the pilots leave the mouth of the Tagus on their way to conquer new stars – and even though I fear your institutional caravel will go round in circles in Brussels’ pond, or quagmire, of false economic ideologies  – I will wish Captain Barroso, the Commission and his 24 crewmen a fair wind.
I will allow myself one observation, however.
Your predecessor came from the daisy, you are a child of the carnation revolution; the 450 million Europeans would not want to usher in chrysanthemums.
   Mr President, congratulations on your election.
Mr Barroso, please give the Catalans a chance to vote 'yes' to the European Constitution.
The Catalan people have not been recognised by Spain.
Our language is not official in the Spanish state, and that state does not recognise our right to self-determination.
We are European autonomists: we want the same degree of autonomy for the Catalan countries as Portugal has within Europe.
While we wait for our rights to be recognised, however, we would be able to vote in favour of the European Constitution if the Catalan language were to be officially recognised.
If it is not, how can we vote in favour of a text that does not recognise the stateless nations - the Catalan countries, in our case - nor gives official status to a language such as Catalan, which is spoken by 10 million people? We would like to see a Europe made up of all its real people, a Europe which is equal as regards rights, including national rights for stateless nations, a Europe which is fully democratic or, as we say in Catalan: ...
   I would like to point out to the House that the honourable Member has exercised his right laid down in Rule 138 of the Rules of Procedure to speak in the official language of his choice.
English is an official language, and he has chosen to use it interspersed with phrases in Catalan, which could not be translated and understood by the rest of the House, and they will not therefore be recorded in the Minutes.
   The results and the low turnout in the recent elections to the European Parliament demonstrated that there is enormous dissatisfaction with, and alienation from, the Community policies and moves towards integration enshrined in the European Constitution.
No one wants to admit that a policy of indifference continues to be pursued in the face of the worsening economic and social situation, turning a blind eye to high levels of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion and an increase in social inequity, and a deaf ear to the protests of workers threatened by relocation and restructuring by multinationals.
We cannot ignore the situation in the Middle East, in Iraq and in Palestine, and the consequences of an absurd, illegal and unjust war, nor can we maintain a policy of following in the wake of the Bush administration's American imperialism or maintain an ambiguous attitude towards Sharon and his state terrorism.
We cannot accept that the candidate for the position of President of the Commission, Dr Durão Barroso, should be telling us to expect more of the same, despite the fact that we now have ten more Member States in a difficult economic and social situation, which means that we should be giving priority to social issues, and to an in-depth review of our economic and social policies, paying particular attention to the new Financial Perspectives and to a significant strengthening of them.
The formula that he is proposing continues to be based on the Lisbon strategy, but the only decisions taken there that have elicited a positive response have been liberalisation and privatisation.
It is unacceptable that in the name of so-called competitiveness emphasis should be placed on flexible and precarious working arrangements, on reducing wage costs and on wage moderation, on attacking public services, in short on the neo-liberal agenda of economic and financial groups, instead of focusing on living and working conditions, on sustainable development, on greater economic, social and territorial cohesion, on high-quality jobs combined with full rights, and on restoring public and social investment, particularly in the railways, health services, the environment, education and research.
This requires a review of economic and monetary policies, a halt to liberalisation, and a review of the Stability Pact, failing which we cannot fight poverty and ensure social inclusion and a high quality of life for the entire population.
This implies revisiting the Commission's mandate within the World Trade Organisation to defend fair trade, food sovereignty, European industry and jobs in particularly vulnerable areas, and in particular sensitive traditional sectors such as textiles, glass-making, the extractive industries and shipbuilding, which involves giving dignity to workers, adopting measures to promote equal rights and opportunities, and placing welfare, social progress, stronger democracy, cooperation and peace at the heart of decision-making on Community policies.
That is why we shall be voting against Dr Durão Barroso tomorrow, which will also represent a vote against the policies that he has presented to us here.
   Ladies and gentlemen, coming under a crossfire of questions from our political group, Mr Barosso proved himself to be an experienced and business-like politician and we decided to support his candidacy, in particular, because Mr Barosso referred to the European Union as a union of nations.
Mr Barosso, however, diplomatically avoided answering a question on his attitude towards future relations with Russia.
I should like to emphasise that it is an important international goal to obtain international recognition and condemnation of the occupation of the Baltic States, including Latvia, in particular from Russia as heir to the USSR.
Undoubtedly, this would make relations between the European Union and Russia, and also with the European Commission, less hypocritical – to talk about vodka and caviar in the evening, but the following morning, to realise that Russia has banned imports of food from the European Union.
The admission of reality would make a good foundation for truly constructive cooperation in the future.
When talking about economic aspects, I shall emphasise that when drawing up the budget a larger proportion of resources should be targeted at developing the economy of the new Member States – also by means of the Structural Funds, as the differences between the old and new Member States are still too great.
Both tax levers, which are within the competency of the Member States, and Structural Funds for the infrastructure, elimination of poverty and support for economic development, should be used to speed up development.
Mr Barosso, we place great hope on your creative approach towards these important questions.
Thank you.
   First of all, I would like to say well done Portugal, congratulations on your football team.
There is no doubt that your players were the best in Euro 2004.
Nevertheless, they did not win.
Unfortunately, at this point you are not the best player in the political game, but you are going to win.
We know that the world is not fair.
   Dr Durão Barroso, just as in other speeches you have made to this House, your message today was one of fresh hope.
In your address you managed to touch upon issues such as terrorism, environmental degradation, an ageing population, regional and social asymmetry, the problem of long-term unemployment, the alienation of the public from the European project and issues relating to the approval of the Constitutional Treaty and the Lisbon strategy.
You also referred, by omission, to the feebleness of our Common Foreign and Security Policy, and were also wise enough to mention the serious problems we are going to have to confront as regards the diversity and complexity of a Europe of 25, and before long one of 27 or 28.
It is against this background that it is essential to nurture the idea that it is possible, in the face of all these challenges, to achieve consensus, to establish dialogue and to build bridges, and to do so without dogmatism or prejudice, while making available to everyone, rich or poor, large or small, new or old, the option of helping us to define relevant parameters and objectives for Europe.
I would quite simply say that we need a Delors-style Commission, a Commission with leadership and ambition, but also an effective Commission.
Dr Durão Barroso, weak people do not go down in history – they never have done.
I know your qualities, I know what you are capable of, and I know your determination, your common sense and your moderation.
Combined with your youth and your love of parliamentary debate, I am convinced that your term of office will usher in a new era in Europe, and a new partnership between Parliament and the Commission that is vital if Europe is to move forward, to carry on building and to assert itself.
I therefore have a question for you: I would like you to tell us in greater detail about your ideas for a relationship between a strong Commission and a European Parliament that we also wish to see becoming ever stronger.
   – Sorry, Mr President, for the confusion, but there are a lot of new people in the new Parliament.
Congratulations to you on your election as Vice-President and on promptly serving as President in this important debate today.
Mr Barroso, I want to focus on one subject, that being foreign and security policy.
The chairman of my group has already tabled a number of questions for you, and that was one of them.
We take the view that the European Commission of the future can make an important contribution to the further development of a strong European foreign policy with its own emphases.
It is possible by combining the powers available to the Commission with those of the Council, and then the High Representative and the President of the Commission can of course play an important part in that.
We want a more ambitious European Union.
Security policy is an important component of that, and so, as we see it, it can never be a mere copy of the American model, which we would describe as military supremacy.
In our understanding of these things, the European countries represent another tradition, and we advocate a broad-based security policy with a preference for civilian means, with military means always the option of last resort, and then only on the basis of decisions by the European Union.
In the context of a broader security policy, we want to advocate development, support to developing countries, fair trade and tackling not only insecurity, but also its causes.
We see conflict prevention as being as much a key concept as multilateralism.
On that basis, the EU must dare make its own choices, whether in relation to Kyoto, to the International Criminal Court, or to dealing with the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
If at all possible, this must take place in cooperation with the United States, and we do not underestimate the value of real cooperation, but, when there is no other choice, we must act alone.
I now come to what might be called the heart of the debate and to what is still a live issue for us in the Group of the Party of European Socialists; the President-designate of the Commission has not been able to convince us that he too is thinking in terms of a similar autonomous role for the European Union.
The overwhelming majority of the Socialist Group was opposed to the war in Iraq.
It subsequently appeared that the resolution to wage it was founded upon errors or incomplete information concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or Iraq’s links with Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and we can still read a lot about that from day to day in the newspapers and elsewhere.
Nor was there any UN mandate, and we saw that as an important point.
It has since become apparent that an immense amount of pain was involved in bringing Iraq to heel.
We have also said what needed to be said about that over the past six months.
Mr Barroso, as Prime Minister of Portugal, played a major role by organising and hosting a summit in the Azores, thus giving the impression that he identified himself with the Americans’ approach, which we regard as unilateralist.
At no time since has he distanced himself from this.
The question is whether he, on being faced with the same decision, would react in the same way, and whether that is his essential and fundamental conviction.
This whole issue weighs heavily on the Group of the Party of European Socialists and will play an important part in the deliberations that we are going to conclude tonight.
In dialogue with the Socialist Group, Mr Barroso drew attention to other European prime ministers who had also supported the American policy; it is of course relevant when assessing a candidate that politicians once pursued a policy, but his former fellow-prime ministers are not standing as president of the European Commission.
I hope he will understand that we want a President who can at least empathise with us in our views of the security policy for the European Union.
   Mr Prime Minister, no one has called you that yet!
It is not easy to know how to address you: candidate, President-designate, Mr Barroso... your designation makes the status of your presence itself something of a problem and a cause of some embarrassment.
You said to us: ‘appoint me this week and you will have my programme next year.’
It is always difficult for a Member of Parliament to adjust.
However, I appreciated your reference to voters who did not go to the ballot box.
You in fact told us that although we represent 450 million people, we were elected by 150 million voters, while another 200 million stayed at home. What can they be thinking of today, after 50 years – although they have not all lived 50 years?
What does Europe mean to them? It is a promise kept: we have created peace and democracy; the market has been achieved; some of them have the euro in their pockets.
Your problem and ours today is to give meaning to the future.
I believe – as do others too – that the social issue is central.
You mentioned it among many others.
But if you do not give that question priority by feeding into it all the matters we have raised in our groups: public services, tax harmonisation, social rights, etc., there will not only be injustice, inequality and unemployment, but, more than that, our fellow citizens who have benefited from the achievements of the last 50 years will abandon the very idea of Europe.
You have the duty to write a new page of our history.
I confess I am still unsatisfied.
   My dear Dr José Manuel Barroso, I would like to wish you a warm welcome in our own language and in a cordial spirit that reflects the many years during which you and Portugal's Socialists have been adversaries.
Your personal qualities are not of course at issue here.
I know you well enough to say that you have the qualities needed to be President of the Commission and I am also sufficiently independently minded to say that quite openly.
Nor is there any doubt about our pleasure in seeing one of our fellow countrymen occupying this post.
Firstly, because other Portuguese citizens, such as Commissioner António Vitorino, could be in this position, and, secondly, because our shared duty in this House – our duty and yours – is to represent the common interests of Europe's citizens.
What is at issue right now is your political programme for Europe, and where that is concerned, let us be clear that we differed with you as Prime Minister of Portugal on three fundamental and far-reaching issues: firstly, the war in Iraq; secondly the review of the Stability and Growth Pact; and thirdly the downgrading of the social dimension of the Lisbon agenda.
I would accordingly like to ask you very directly in what way your programme as President of the Commission differs in these three areas from your practice as Prime Minister, in such a way as to justify our taking a different view of your programme now than we did of your actions then.
   – Mr President, Mr Barroso, we all know that the EU faces enormous challenges over this five-year term.
We now need leadership and skill, more than anything, and I know that Mr Barroso represents these very things – leadership and skill.
Above all, his election also highlights, in the proper manner, the result of the EU elections within the context of the EU’s democratic system.
He also represents the small Member States and the peripheral regions, which is an excellent outward sign.
We nevertheless have to remember that our work – which is in the limelight – must be of an international nature, and not party- or institution-based.
We must also continue the process of bringing the Union closer to its citizens.
Above all else, the new Commission must make an effort to ensure that economic prosperity is increased, that new jobs are created and that competitiveness is improved, in accordance with the Lisbon Strategy.
It is especially important today to raise the issue of the security of our citizens, and to make that part of the work of the Commission too.
We need a strong, but above all, a functional Europe.
With the election of Mr Barroso, this Parliament is showing the citizens of Europe that democracy work in an enlarged EU, and that together, the institutions of the Union will be able to move forward.
Mr Barroso, the Finnish press has described the role of President of the European Commission as the hardest job in Europe or perhaps the entire world.
This I am sure is true, but I know that you will carry it out with honour, and I wish you every success and hope you will have patience and new ideas when facing the tough challenges that lie ahead.
I am sure that tomorrow this House will give you its fullest support.
   – Mr President, I think that the proposed President of the Commission is very much aware that the next Commission faces major challenges, not the least of which is enlargement by the addition of ten new countries and the need to integrate them into the EU.
There are those who fear that this might lead to it being diluted.
That really does not have to be the case; the Constitution, as worked out by us in the Convention, aims to avoid that very thing, for example by reinforcing the Community method.
It is above all the Commission that has to prove the value of the Constitution we await, for it plays a quite central role in it.
It is the guardian of the Treaties; it has to defend Europe’s general interest.
I myself have always said in the Convention, and everyone has heard me say it, that the Commission, in its present form, is too large to be able to function in a truly collegial way.
On the other hand, I believe that, if the Commission really does want to function with 25 members, it can do so only with a strong Presidency that uses all the prerogatives given to it by the Treaty.
Although I was glad to hear that you plan to do this in the composition of the Commission from the word go, I do think that the Council will exercise overall control over this and that Parliament, too, the authority of which you emphasised from the word go, will defend the independence of the Commission and the full authority of its President.
You should also stress this in relation to the financial package.
I do indeed think that, in wanting to make enlargement real, we must play up solidarity between the EU’s countries and within the EU for all it is worth.
This cannot be done if we want to remain within too tight-fisted a framework; for example, the 1% limit is an impossible framework within which to really realise enlargement in the form of integration.
Take it from me, Mr President: I see the adoption of the Constitution as one of the priorities for the years ahead, one that we have to work on together.
It also strikes me as important that the Commission, the new Commission, should, for a period, anticipate this constitution and the way in which transition to it may be simplified.
In this, I am thinking primarily in terms of justice, internal security, and also of foreign policy, where we must indeed speak with one voice and to which the appointment of the Foreign Minister must contribute.
I think it will be a help to you that it is now certain that this will be Javier Solana, and it seems to me important that there should be very good cooperation from the very outset.
With your permission, Mr Barroso, to conclude I will speak in a language which you understand better than my mother tongue in order to say this to you.
If some people here have referred to you as being the second choice, remember that Jacques Delors was also a second choice, but that he was one of the best presidents we have had; that is what I wish for you.
   The debated is suspended.
It will resume tomorrow at 9 a.m.(1)
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   – Mr President, on behalf of the independent Slovak members of the people’s party, the HZDS, I can assure Mr Barroso, that, as realists, we support his development plans, and particularly in science, research and education, a limiting factor, however, in the progress of the European Union is the rationalisation of the common agricultural policy, which is a highly challenging area in terms of budget.
The current common agricultural policy and the reforms to it are, alas, common only in name, since, for example, the common agricultural policy gives support to the original Member States of the EU in the form of direct payments several times greater than the amounts given to the new Member States.
As a result, up to a third of the market for food products in the new Member States is accounted for by products from the 15 original Member States, despite the fact that the new Member States were, until recently, net exporters of foodstuffs.
This common agricultural policy, by promoting lower levels of activity and production, significantly worsens the prospects for all of us as regards remaining competitive vis-à-vis third countries.
The new agricultural policy of the United States in particular is almost aggressively focused on development and expansion.
At the same time, the US is already producing food at half the cost.
After the next meeting of the WTO our position will be distinctly worse.
We are therefore prepared, Mr Barroso, to support the kind of agricultural policy that, rather than provoking administrative battles within the European Union, will enable us to concentrate our efforts on growing competitively-priced food, our own common European Union food.
   Madam President, President-designate Barroso, I note that Mr Barroso declared his support for the Lisbon Strategy.
He stated that it is supported on three pillars economic, social, and environmental.
I note too that Mr Barroso failed to mention the reasons why the Lisbon Strategy has not yet been satisfactorily implemented.
A number of politicians and economists believe one of the main reasons for this failure is that implementation of the strategy requires unpopular political decisions to be taken.
Are you prepared to take the necessary unpopular political decisions, Mr Barroso? I would also like to ask how you intend to persuade the Member States to take such decisions.
I hope you will provide a detailed response, as rather too many general statements have been made in the House today.
Turning to a second issue, you said that one cannot have more Europe for less money, Mr Barroso.
As a representative of Poland, I fully agree with you on this.
Nonetheless, we are all aware that several Member States are strongly opposed to increasing the Union’s budget.
Indeed, they actually advocate cutting it.
I should like to enquire how you intend to act on your slogan ‘More Europe’, Mr Barroso.
How do you plan to go about influencing those particular Member States and convincing them to agree to increase the Commission’s resources? Only then will it be possible to make economic and social cohesion a reality, and bridge the income gap between old and new Member States.
My third concern is the recent infringement of the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact.
This caused alarm in certain Member States.
They felt others were infringing jointly agreed rules in order to promote their own interests.
It also undermined confidence in the European institutions.
I should like to ask you, Mr Barroso, whether you are prepared to insist on compliance with fiscal policy within the European Union.
I should also like you to state which instruments you plan to use for that purpose.
In particular, do you intend to modify the Stability and Growth Pact Mr Barroso, and if so, how?
   (Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Barroso, whilst listening to you, I was pleased that you referred to the significance of the justice and security package.
Therefore I should like to address current issues related to European security.
Mr Barroso, you will have to give due consideration to the fact that the European security policy has, unfortunately, been too slow in meeting its objectives.
Europe's real military and crisis management capabilities are still insufficient.
It is important that you realise this.
There is no need to convince you that twenty-first century asymmetric and transnational threats are not just illusions, but a reality.
Despite what we may hear here about the coalition forces involved in operations in Iraq, one must remember that until such time as Europe's military capabilities and security instruments have reached the necessary level of effectiveness, it is important to maintain the existing EuroAtlantic link, by improving Europe's cooperation with NATO.
Countries still need to be encouraged to allocate adequate resources for European security needs.
An effective exchange of information and trust among countries must be ensured, which would guarantee timely European counter-terrorism operations.
Thank you for your attention.
I wish you every success.
   Madam President, Mr Barroso, I have just come from the Swedish Parliament where, in the last ten years, every other politician has been a woman.
Here in Parliament, there are all too few women, less than a third.
The Commission and other EU institutions have so far had far too few women.
Half of the electorate are women who, in many cases, are also doubtful as to what the EU can offer them.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists here in Parliament always looks nowadays at the proportion of women.
I turn now to my question.
If you are elected, Mr Barroso, how many women will there be in the Commission? What policy on gender equality will you pursue?
Will women be included in the partnership you talked about? In one speech, you talked about having ‘more women in the Commission’.
That is much too vague and woolly. How many women do you aim to have in the Commission?
   – Mr Barroso, you have not convinced us.
On Iraq, for example, you say that you want to turn the page and look to the future.
That is easy to say; in that case, why have you not withdrawn your troops from Iraq?
Why is it that we do not, today, have a clear plan put forward by you? We know perfectly well that it was your commitment to this war and your close links across the Atlantic that gave you the edge over other centrist candidates such as Mr Verhofstadt, for example.
How are you going to change your image?
Mr Poettering supported you by telling us, yesterday: ‘Mr Barroso does not change; he was the same when he was leader of the opposition, the same when he was a minister’.
So, no doubt, you will not change if you become President of the Commission, and that is what frightens us.
You are a clever man who can rise to an occasion, but you are not –unfortunately – a man of convictions, although it is convictions, along with actions, that are needed if the citizens of Europe are to regain trust in Europe and in its institutions.
Today, your actions do not speak in your favour.
   Mr Barroso, our group chairman, Mr Schulz, stated here yesterday that we have asked a few questions in the group, that we have received a response from you to some, but that a whole host of questions remain unanswered.
One of those questions is certainly that in connection with the Stability and Growth Pact.
What do you intend to do to achieve more growth in Europe? We are lagging behind in terms of growth, and if there is no growth, then there are also insufficient jobs.
We do, of course, have the Stability Pact, which is an important instrument for the Union’s economic policy, but this Stability Pact should also become a real growth pact, and must be complemented by one.
It is not simply by telling us that you will interpret this Stability Pact with the future in mind that we can develop towards a real growth pact.
Are you thus prepared, in the assessment of the Member States’ expenditure, to give specific consideration to expenses in the areas of growth and employment promotion ?
   Mr President, Mr Barroso, ladies and gentlemen, in my one-minute contribution, I should like to concentrate on just one aspect, namely social cohesion in the enlarged Europe.
The elections for the European Parliament in the new Member States and the decidedly low turnout indicated that considerable scepticism prevails in that part of Europe towards the European Union, and often indeed towards the European concept itself.
This scepticism is born of a certain feeling of inequality, a feeling of second-class membership, which is seen in the long transitional periods towards the free movement of people and agricultural subsidies.
Mr Barroso, I should like to hear you give a clear reassurance that, when you become President of the European Commission, you will advocate the principle of equal treatment between old and new Member States and you will fight for the gradual removal of all inequalities, including social inequalities, in the enlarged Europe.
(2)
   – Mr President, I should like to table a motion on a point of order.
The European Parliament has a Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality.
A well-known Italian daily and the British newspapers today are reporting a statement by our fellow Member Godfrey Bloom according to which we women can cook but we do not clean behind the refrigerator.
I must point out that there are women who fight and are killed for their rights, women who are hidden under burkas, and women in the European Union who still do not get equal treatment in the economy.
I know the British have a sense of humour about themselves, but I am from Naples and I can say that we women do know how to cook and clean the refrigerator and even be politicians, while perhaps Godfrey Bloom does not know either how to clean the refrigerator or how to be a politician.
   I thank Mrs Mussolini for her defence of women’s rights, but I would like to point out that that was not a point of order.
   Mr President, I wish to make a short statement.
My comments have been misrepresented in the press.
I would particularly like to say that it is my first visit here and it is disgraceful that something so undemocratic can take place: somebody has misquoted from the press with no prior engagement with me and no prior notice.
Mrs Mussolini has not even had the courtesy to come to see me about what was purportedly written in the English press.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we have the great responsibility of deciding who is to be the President of the European Commission.
Our group, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, welcomes the unanimous proposal by the Council that José Manuel Durão Barroso be appointed President of the European Commission.
Our group also welcomes the Council’s decision, also unanimous, to re-appoint Javier Solana to the position of High Representative, in which position he has done good work, and, in two and a half years, by which time it is to be hoped that the Constitution will have entered into force, to make him the European Union’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.
He will then need our support and our trust, and we welcome this decision too.
Those of us who have had the privilege of working with José Manuel Durão Barroso in the past – and I am one of them – can say unequivocally that he possesses the qualifications for the task of President of the European Commission.
Even if you have not yet come to this conclusion, I have to tell you for my own part that that way he presented himself to the groups – all of them – yesterday and this morning here in the European Parliament, very definitely convinced me that Mr Barroso is the right person and suited to the office of President of the European Commission.
Nor have I ever heard anyone in this Chamber question his suitability as a person.
He knows what he is talking about, he is competent, and he can also communicate his convictions, something that is important to the European Union.
I have also been impressed by his desire for close cooperation with Parliament, and what our expression of confidence in him today signifies is that, once he has taken up office we will follow him critically – but, of course, in a positive way – but we in this House will exercise control over the Commission.
The candidate has presented himself as a bridge-builder and as an honest broker, thus demonstrating his desire to help achieve consensus.
This European continent is so complex that neither one side nor the other can take decisions alone, rule alone, or cause its will to prevail.
Europe has a future only if we, together, take the road of consensus and compromise.
That is what José Manuel Durão Barroso is willing to do, and that is another reason why we in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats are of one mind in believing that we should entrust him with the task and the responsibility that go with the office of President of the European Commission.
   Before communicating the result of the election of the President-designate of the Commission, we will wait a few minutes for Mr Barroso to arrive.
   – Mr President, we all know that Mr Barroso has long been familiar with the institutions and their rules.
We also know that he is not arrogant.
It follows that there must be a certain degree of trust here.
As there cannot be a lack of courtesy at work here, there must be a misunderstanding.
Even though I think we can still have confidence in him, it strikes me as impossible that we cannot find out within three minutes where he is in order to dispel the misunderstanding.
That is all.
   I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.(1)
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 22 July 2004.
   Mr Stevenson, you will have the opportunity to speak at the appropriate time, when you are given the floor, during the appropriate debate, when all Members may speak for one minute.
Now is not the moment to do so.(1)
   Mr President, I must now touch upon an issue which affects thousands of Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, Hungarians and citizens of the other new Member States who have recently worked legally in Northern Ireland.
Whereas on the one hand they have met with the hospitality of the citizens of that country, on the other they have experienced ruthless exploitation by the large German and international retail chain Lidl.
This company has deliberately not paid its employees the money owing to them, either in full – I have statements that this has occurred – or in part.
The payment of wages to these foreign workers has frequently been delayed, and there have been problems with cashing cheques issued by the company.
The retail chain Lidl does this deliberately, as these people, who are mainly young, have to return to their own countries after the holidays, and will not be in a position to claim the money owing to them.
This smacks of nineteenth century capitalism.
I therefore ask you, Mr President, and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, to take action in this matter to ensure that this company does not become another example of the division of Europe into a superior West and an inferior East, and to ensure that Europe does not become associated with exploitation.
   – Mr President, following the perfectly successful organisation of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, my country, Greece, will host the greatest sporting event in the world for people with disabilities, the Paralympic Games, from 17 to 28 September, to be attended by 145 countries, 4 000 athletes, 2 000 assistants and 3 000 members of the press are to attend.
For the first time in history, we have the same organising committee for both the Olympic and the Paralympic Games, resulting in accurate planning and savings.
Similarly, for the first time in the history of the Paralympic Games, the Greek Government decided some time ago to contribute the sum of EUR 55.8 million, thereby exempting every country, rich and poor alike, from the need to pay the fee required in order for their athletes to participate.
Even before the first Paralympic Games were held in 1960, they were distinguished ...
   – Mr President, I certainly do not often speak on behalf of farmers, but my region in the northeast of England has suffered the worst weather and the worst harvest in 40 years.
At a meeting there last week, farmers merely asked that the arable area payments that they are entitled to be made somewhat earlier.
Contrary to some popular conception in the UK, farmers in Yorkshire are certainly not whingers.
They just want a reasonable payment, made more quickly and on a regional basis.
It is a restrained request.
I hope that this Parliament will push the Commission to be sympathetic when the British Government requests it in due course.
   – Mr President, when you took up the role of President of this Parliament in July, you named an open and visible European Parliament as one of your key issues, and the Dutch Labour Party delegation wholeheartedly supports you in this.
In fact, we have a practical suggestion to make as to how this first step may be taken.
For a number of years now, members of the European public have not been able to simply stroll into the meetings that are public.
Since security measures have been stepped up, understandably so, Parliament is no longer freely accessible.
This has, of course, meant that the gap between the public and the politicians has become problematic and wider.
One of the solutions would be to transmit the meetings via Parliament’s website.
This already happens with the plenary meetings, and this could simply be extended to include the meetings of the different parliamentary committees.
It would enable the citizens in all Member States to follow our work in the committees in an effective, inexpensive and democratic manner.
Today, our delegation will be submitting a proposal to you for making this openness a priority for your Presidential term.
Mrs Corbey, in particular, in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, has passed you something you can pick up and run with; today, we, on behalf of all our fellow MEPs, are counting on your support for this proposal, and that is how, via the website, we can bring the European citizen closer to our work in the committees.
   – I should like, at this point, to bring to the attention of the Members of this House and to your attention, Mr President, the reality of relocations by multinationals.
Last year, following the relocation of the multinational C[amp]J Clark, in Portugal, which had laid off hundreds and hundreds of workers in Castelo de Paiva and previously in Arouca, Parliament passed a resolution on companies that received financial support, as in this case, and then relocated.
They and the Commission are thus responsible for a range of measures that must be taken to put an end to this practice and defend the rights of the workers and regions affected.
Moreover, where companies fail to meet their obligations they can be asked to return any Community funds awarded.
What is, in fact, happening is that right now the very same multinational, C[amp]J Clark, a British firm, is relocating its last factory in Portugal – , in Vila Nova de Gaia – laying off several hundred more workers.
I should like to ask you, Mr President, to urge the Commission to comply with Parliament’s resolution.
   Mr President, I should like to return to the issue of hostages taken in Iraq.
Needless to say, I join in the condemnations that you expressed, but is there nothing else we could do? More than 300 people in this House have signed a petition for the release, which is indeed a very good thing, and this international pressure, including this petition – for there have, of course, been other initiatives – has already resulted in an internal debate among the radical movements in Iraq.
This is, in actual fact, an unexpected result and quite something.
There are now guilty innocents and innocent innocents.
I should like to go one step further: it goes without saying that hostage taking as a method should simply be done away with.
Could this Parliament not send a letter to all national parliaments of our 25 Member States and urge them to submit a similar petition, a similar appeal as democratically elected bodies, symbols of respect for the individual, to call for the immediate release of all hostages in Iraq?
   – Mr President, last month in the city of Neka in Iran a 16 year-old girl accused of offences against chastity was publicly hanged from a crane.
After sentencing her to death, the judge said that she had undressed in the court because she took her veil off.
He insisted upon placing the rope around her neck himself.
There are three more children aged 16 currently under sentence of death in Iran.
The regime is waiting until they are 18 to carry out public executions.
This is the utmost act of barbarism by a mullah regime that is taking the cultured and civilised people of Iran back to the stone ages.
It has executed 120 000 people since it came to power.
I hope that on behalf of all the Members of this House, Mr President, you will express our outrage to the Iranian ambassador to the EU.
The execution of children, and indeed the death penalty, is something that we will not tolerate.
   We are once again discussing here the issue of forest fires, just as we did last year, when, at our instigation, we discussed the consequences of the devastating summer fires, which, in Portugal alone, were responsible for the deaths of over 20 people and for burning 400 000 hectares of forest, covering almost 5% of Portuguese territory and causing more than EUR 100 million worth of damage.
Sadly, little has been learnt and this year forest fires have tragically hit my country again, with more than 100 000 hectares of forest burnt.
Worst hit has been the Serra Algarvia region, where many families, whose incomes depended on forest products, have been plunged into serious poverty.
Given the importance of preserving forest heritage, due to its environmental, economic, social and cultural importance, and given the extent of this disaster, what is essential is not only European solidarity and assistance, but also significant investment, Community investment, in reforestation, in research, in coordination, in the area of civil protection, and in funding aerial means of combating forest fires.
We therefore urge, once again, that our proposals and Parliament’s proposals be complied with, thereby strengthening the element of fire prevention and the relevant funding within the scope of the ‘Forest Focus’ programme, in accordance with the previous Regulation 2158/92.
We are aware, however, that if we are to solve this problem, we must change the common agricultural policy in order to combat human and economic abandonment of rural areas, since it is the main cause of an agriculture and forestry policy that encourages people to abandon the countryside and prevents these forest areas from surviving economically.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I am grateful for your speech and for the solidarity that you have shown.
This summer’s fires, in the case of Portugal, devastated more than 100 000 hectares, in addition to last year’s disaster.
The Algarve was the worst hit area, with 40% of its total area burnt.
What we are witnessing is a veritable environmental, economic and human tragedy that has become a public catastrophe.
It is therefore a matter of urgency that we hold a debate on fire prevention measures, backed by real investment.
Otherwise, in a few generations’ time, there may be no forests.
The Mediterranean forest is part of the common heritage of the people of Europe and must therefore be preserved.
Some of the cork trees burnt were over two hundred years old and most were between one hundred and two hundred years old.
Some EUR 80 million of damage was caused and replacing these trees would take approximately one hundred years.
The tendency these days is to channel more funds into addressing the consequences of natural disasters than into preventing them.
We do not have an unlimited capacity to repair damage and prevention requires political courage and coherent regional development.
I ask the Commission to show that courage in the face of this tragedy and to table here a restructuring and reorganisation of the Structural Funds, so that these people can see on the horizon at least the possibility of rebuilding their livelihoods to pass on to their grandchildren.
   Mr President, I am well aware that Mrs Wallström knows she has given us a political reply with data and statistics, and she is perfectly aware that, today, European Union aid in the field of forest fires simply consists of money allocated in an arbitrary manner.
There is no complex strategy, though it is a complex interdisciplinary problem requiring cooperation amongst institutions.
It is the job, moreover, of us politicians to solve complex and difficult problems.
To this end, I believe we must create a model for the management of risks, for management and cooperation, because we are faced with issues ranging from judicial procedures, because there is a lot of terrorism, to the issues of policing, the civil population and the local authorities.
We must create models, as was done for Agenda 21.
The European Union is capable of doing this.
Above all, I am concerned, however, about the need for shared effective technological development, because, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the European Commission must do what the countries or the regions cannot do.
The problem of technological development is extremely important, in terms, for example, of the transfer of military technology, the development of the GIS and many other things that are being applied in some regions very successfully and which require technology shared amongst the 25 countries, amongst all the regions and amongst all the local authorities, because it is clear that, without that technological progress, all we can hope for is human effort and a lot of good will, but little success.
   Mr President, there is no question that the people mainly responsible for forest fires are the people who cause them.
In 96% of cases, the causes are attributable to man, and that is why the Spanish Government has announced a series of measures, including stiffer penalties for this crime and a ban on building in the areas in question.
Neither must we forget other causes, as has already been pointed out.
The change in the socio-economic structures of rural areas seems to be the most fundamental one, but also the lack of success of European forest and rural development policy.
The majority of fires start in forests which are uncared-for, as a result of the abandonment of traditional agricultural activity, the ageing of the population and the demographic crisis.
The EAGGF funds or the rural development policy cannot, however, carry the whole burden of this serious problem, Mrs Wallström.
The serious environmental consequences of forest fires make European action necessary.
The difficulties you are aware of in the application of the Solidarity Fund should be alleviated through the creation of a specific rapid intervention mechanism in the event of these disasters of a smaller scale and involving lesser sums than those provided for by the Solidarity Fund.
Furthermore, and at the same time, European forest policy should be reoriented, recognising the special nature of southern forests and creating a specific plan for their protection and for the complete environmental recovery of the burnt areas.
I will end by saying something – and I hope it is not taken the wrong way: I believe that party politics should be left out of this debate and that we should seek consensus amongst all of us.
Otherwise – in Galicia it rains and in Andalusia it does not – certain Members should perhaps start to ask themselves what the EUR 820 million Commissioner Wallström has mentioned has been spent on.
   Mr President, it looks like the 35th ICAO Meeting will be a memorable one.
Twenty-one delegations have tabled proposals that are likely to do aviation no good as regards emission levels.
They are proposing the abolition of the individual initiative of countries or regions to take measures to restrict emissions and its replacement by a more legislative initiative from the ICAO.
This is a contradiction in terms, because we will never manage to agree on issues such as these in the ICAO.
The Community is striving towards sustainable development both ecologically and economically, something of which I have for years been wholeheartedly in favour.
In that light, we should have the courage to face up to reality.
Aviation and the environment are not compatible.
In this House, we are making every effort to change this on all kinds of fronts, and we must, above all, continue to do this, in principle with our partners in other parts of the world, but if this proves impossible, without them.
At present, aviation enjoys improper benefits compared to other transport modes, and this should change.
Maintaining tax benefits and leaving certain social costs uncovered does nothing to help our cause.
However, we must make sure that we do not act against our own interests.
Our measures should not result in European companies having to give up the fight.
Rules are fine, provided that they apply to all players.
This is, however, not a licence for stagnation.
That is why I am also of the opinion that the proposed changes to ICAO resolution A33-7 must be taken off the agenda.
Sustainable policy requires courage and foresight, and these proposals are lacking in both.
It is up to the European Community to demonstrate that transport and the environment are less incompatible than the amendments would suggest.
   Mr President, it is self-evident that things went badly wrong for the waste ship in south-western Turkey.
It is also clear that this disaster could have been avoided.
Now, more than 300 million litres of water have been polluted, and the clearing operation will require huge investments.
It is much more important, however, to look for ways to avoid situations like this in future.
This particularly applies to the implementation and enforcement of the Basel Convention and the European Regulation for the movement of waste, on the review of which I have, as rapporteur, been working hard for more than a year now.
The current Regulation clearly stipulates that Member States need to take back their cargo if it is refused for good reason.
In November last year, the European Parliament proposed to extend the grounds for refusal.
I would take this opportunity of calling on the Commission to adopt these proposals by this House.
The carried hazardous waste, and, as it is extremely unusual for a ship to set sail without authorisation from the receiving country, it appears that Spain acted in contravention of the rules.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission to take additional enforcement measures, and, if need be, legal action.
   – Mr President, the shipwreck of the , carrying toxic waste without a consignee between Spain, Algeria and Turkey, and another ecological disaster, which will even have repercussions on the food chain, via fish, confirm what we too have been saying in the European Parliament for years now: that toxic waste management and pollution of the marine environment cannot be addressed solely as crimes, because everything still takes second place to safeguarding and increasing the profits of big business, which controls the sources of energy and production, and of shipowners, who control the means of transport.
Who, after this accident, which has been waiting to happen for years, given that the ship was moored in the port of Iskenderun for four years, would now dare to claim, as crowing reports and expert opinions have claimed from time to time, that 80% of accidents are due to human error? We have always denounced such claims as mistaken, unscientific and suspicious, because they endeavour to conceal the fact that toxic and nuclear waste are transported unchecked from large, monopoly-owned factories with the backing of governments, state authorities and shipping companies, while at the same time revealing the adverse consequences of an old fleet and poor surveys.
The sole purpose of initiatives to date, including those of the European Union, has been to prevent a public outcry by concealing who is responsible and promoting the interests of big business.
I think that the baton for action needs to be passed to the grass-roots movement, so that it can overturn this policy, introduce strict measures governing the transportation of toxic and nuclear waste and, on a more general note, protect human life, the sea, public health and the environment.
Please note that yesterday evening the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs unanimously adopted the report by Mr Bourlanges.
   Thank you very much, Mrs Belohorská.
The Presidency takes note of all your comments and they will be analysed by the working group responsible for ensuring that this Parliament operates in a correct and fair manner.
   – Mr President, since 1 May of this year, Belarus shares its borders with the European Union.
It is a well-known fact that this geographical closeness does not exactly run parallel to political like-mindedness.
A week ago to the day, the Belarusian President Lukashenko highlighted this chasm by issuing a decree to legitimise and consolidate his authoritarian presidency via the ballot box even after 2006.
In just over one month, on 17 October, this constitutional change could be a .
This predictable development does nothing to simplify relations between Brussels and Minsk.
Since Belarus constitutes an important passage for energy and other supplies of goods from Russia to EU Member States, Lukashenko and his repressive regime are in a strong position.
Incidentally, over the years, it has appeared immune to direct international efforts towards gradual democratisation and reform.
Lukashenko's undeniable ambition to stay in power will, if anything, reinforce this trend in time to come.
What impact can the European institutions have in Belarus? Indeed, is not the present leaders’ self-imposed political isolation from the West complete?
Despite this, we do not need to leave Belarusian society at the mercy of Lukashenko’s unbridled thirst for power.
This undoubtedly difficult path is pointed out in a German study published this summer.
Change in Belarus can only be successful in the medium term by promoting that country’s own initiatives from the bottom up.
There is indeed a glimmer of light here, because despite the grave circumstances of the past few years, to date, some 2 500 registered civil organisations have managed to hold their own.
This was definitely made easier by long-term contact with foreign partners.
With hundreds of initiatives, Germany is in the lead here.
How does the Commission view this way out of the political impasse between the European Union and Belarus? It is certainly a long-term effort involving many risks.
What is inspiring, though, is the honourable object, the general well-being of the Belarussian population, with the active involvement of civil society and, if possible, both local and regional authorities.
I would like to ask the Commission once again whether it considers this a viable option and if so, what practical action it intends to initiate.
   –Mr President, today I, a parliament member from Lithuania, have the opportunity and pleasure to address you in my native language, Lithuanian.
However, such an opportunity – to speak one's own language freely – is denied to Lithuania's closest neighbours, now neighbours of the European Union – 10 million Belorussians.
There is a nation quite close to the geographical centre of Europe, which is not allowed to speak its native language in either schools or universities.
Even more – it is denied freedom of speech and liberty of conscience.
I speak of an imprisoned nation at the centre of Europe, in a country which is ruled by Europe's last dictator, who on 17 October by means of a fictitious referendum plans to extend his dictatorship for life, and who sees Hitler's regime as one of the best in Europe.
We believe that the European Union's continued policy with regard to eastern neighbours has to be expressed not only in the condemnation of this regime, with general declarations, which do not have more concrete consequences, but also in concrete support for those democratic opposition forces, which are spreading the ideas of democracy and pluralism by non-violent means, so that the Belorussian nation might live in a country which recognises human rights and freedom.
This is why my colleague Mr Szymañski and I move to endorse a draft resolution submitted in the name of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group and in this context call for the Sacharov Prize to be awarded to those who will decide the future of Belarus - the opposition youth movement ‘Zubr’, as a symbol of all forces disobeying the regime and determining the future of a free Belarus.
Thank you for your attention.
   The next item is the stocktaking of the follow-up to the Commission's annual policy strategy for 2005.(1)
Mr Pannella has the floor for a point of order.
   – Mr President, I take the floor pursuant to Rules 166 and 150 to say that, in my view, we are about to commit a very serious and inexplicable act.
As Members of the new Parliament, we are being asked to decide upon our times, places and methods of work for 2005.
Obviously, to decide on all that, we would need a draft proposal and the opportunity to discuss it and to table amendments.
Now, however, without any debate or discussion, without mentioning Strasbourg or our places of work, we find ourselves having to ratify a timetable drawn up by the last Parliament back in April, when there were different majorities and different historical situations in Europe, and which in fact excludes the ten new Member States and their Members.
I therefore believe, Mr President, that the Rules of Procedure have not been observed.
   The Presidency does not believe it appropriate to open a debate on this subject.
A decision has already been made on this issue.
There has never been a debate in this Parliament on the calendar of part-sessions.
It has been dealt with by the Bureau and consequently the Presidency does not believe it appropriate to accept the point of order tabled by Mr Pannella.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the calendar of part-sessions for 2005, to which no amendments have been tabled.
   I am sorry, Mr Dover, but it has been a vote without debate and in this case explanations of vote should have been presented in writing in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
I would ask you to respect them.
We will try to ensure that you can do so next time.
   . As the United Kingdom Conservatives spokesman on the Budgets Committee I wish to explain why we voted against the two Draft Amending Budget Reports Nos 7/2004 and 8/2004 today.
The United Kingdom Conservative Members of the European Parliament are totally opposed to any suggestion, or proposal, that the British rebate should be reduced.
Why should Britain suffer for its economic success over the last 20 years?
We shall now continue with the debate on the stocktaking of the follow–up to the Commission's Annual Policy Strategy for 2005.
   Thank you, Mr Daul, for the work you do.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, now that a new Commission is taking office, it would be appropriate to wish it every success.
Unfortunately, President Barroso’s Commission has not even made a start and there are already evident signs of disharmony in its ranks.
Various Commissioners have put all their differences of opinion on display in the media.
Accordingly, the new Italian Commissioner for Justice was immediately met with disapproving comments when he mooted, with regard to asylum policy, the idea that the time had come to take the bull by the horns and set up reception camps for refugees on the Union’s external borders.
Anyone who is aware of the harrowing asylum issues in Italy, with the constant stream of boat refugees on the island of Lampedusa, realises that the Commissioner did not float these proposals light-heartedly.
Nevertheless, the new Belgian Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, who already has some experience when it comes to insulting the Italians, considered it necessary to dissociate himself from his colleague straightaway.
In fact, it is this self-same Louis Michel who openly declared in the Belgian media that he intends to continue to combine his job as European Commissioner with active political membership of his own party in Belgium, where he claims he would like to return to active campaigning as an ordinary member.
In this, he does not exactly show a great deal of respect for his new office.
Turkey’s accession seems to be another contentious issue.
Depending on the political sensitivities of the Member States from which they come, some Commissioners are in favour, and others against.
There is no hope of unanimity in this area either.
However, with regard to this tricky issue, I should like to urge the new Commission at this point in time to take into consideration the reluctance on the part of the majority of the European population to allow an Islamic and non-European country to join the European Union.
If not, this Commission is at risk of losing its democratic legitimacy before it has properly started.
(1)
   The next item is the Council’s presentation of the draft General Budget for 2005.
   Madam President, as Mrs Guy-Quint stated a moment ago, there is always something predictable about debates such as today’s.
The Commission decides on a preliminary draft budget, the Council compiles a draft budget and without knowing the figures, it can be taken as read that the Council will be making cutbacks in agricultural spending, and in all other budget categories, for that matter.
A large proportion of agricultural spending is laid down by law.
I have always taken the view that the Commission is better equipped to determine precise spending than the Council, and that is why I think it is a good tradition on the part of Parliament to take the Commission more seriously than the Council in this area.
In any event, we need to wait and see what, exactly, the letter of amendment at the end of October will contain.
We in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe hope – and Parliament’s position on the 2005 Budget already partly reflects this – that two trial projects will be maintained.
The first one concerns the possibility, in future, of reaching assurances against infectious animal diseases which can break out at some point in the future and will impact heavily on the agricultural budget.
The second one must culminate in a system of quality assessment for European agricultural products.
After all, it is difficult to justify farmers in Europe being increasingly obliged to compete with farmers elsewhere in the world, while farmers elsewhere in the world need not observe the same standards.
A great deal can be said about the many budget categories.
With regard to the structural funds, it is, in my view, of essential importance for the effect of the n+2 rule to be analysed very carefully and to be checked in relation to the estimates.
If it transpires at this point that there are still large surpluses, it can be checked whether or not it is possible to make cutbacks.
Without observing the order of the chapters of the budget, I should also like to say something about Category 5.
In my view, by apportioning the highest rise to the Council itself, the Council has indeed been a little too generous where its own interests are concerned.
It is, however, a good tradition for the Council and Parliament not to criticise each other’s budgets and to leave them intact.
I do think, though, that for a few years now, a new element has crept into the Council’s budget, namely spending for the common foreign and security policy.
I wonder whether that is actually an administrative item of expenditure on the part of the Council.
I do not think so.
In my view, it is clearly a political activity which should be assessed as such, and Parliament should have more say in this, rather than merely receiving information, as it does at present.
One final point: Parliament has initiated many trial projects on which the Commission should have reported at the beginning of September.
That has not yet happened.
Commissioner Schreyer could perhaps state the exact date when the list with the results of the trial projects and the preparatory actions will be produced.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, most of the members of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group are concerned at the proposals to permanently cut payments to the EU in relation to the Member States’ gross national products.
Although this complies with the Financial Perspective for 2000-2006, it is not in line with the EU’s general philosophy.
It means the enlarging European Union is limiting the extent to which its funds can be redistributed, in relative terms.
In so doing, it is limiting its opportunities for development, assuming funds are still used with the same efficiency.
Yet at the same time, by making reference to the Lisbon Strategy, for example, the EU continues to aspire to a growing role in the global economic race.
In our opinion this is not a coherent policy, as it effectively consists of stepping on the accelerator and the brake at the same time.
In view of our Danish colleague’s reservations, the entire UEN Group rejects the Council’s proposed payment cuts, and calls for an increase, not a decrease, in payments as a percentage of GDP in the Financial Perspective for 2007-2013.
The reduction in payments proposed by the Council under Heading 2 is greater than that under Heading 1.
In general this demonstrates the Council’s pessimism, or even distrust, concerning the Member States’ ability to make use of funds, especially the new Member States.
This also means a change in terms of ratios, to the disadvantage of development funds.
The reductions in payments proposed by the Council under Headings 1 and 2 are of a plainly mechanical nature, and the fact that they are all round figures is worthy of attention.
In this connection, the UEN Group supports the inclusion of the figures proposed by the Commission.
Turning to a third and more minor point, with regard to the growing importance of the EU’s neighbours, and with this morning’s debate on Belarus very much in mind, the UEN Group is opposed to limiting expenditure on the TACIS and MEDA programmes, while at the same time insisting that the way in which these funds are spent must be monitored closely.
In order to promote both the values upon which the EU is based and our own safety, we should support trends conducive to building the rule of law in neighbouring countries.
Little will be achieved by cutting funding for these aims.
   Mr President, esteemed Parliament, in its 15-member form, the European Union had already begun to benefit from its relationship with the new Member States.
Whereas the advanced countries of the European Union had a deficit of USD 10 billion in foreign trade with the eastern European countries in 1990, there is now a surplus of about USD 40 billion.
The European Fifteen have now not only invaded the markets to a considerable extent but also taken over companies in the less advanced countries, thus producing not inconsiderable amounts of revenue.
The new Member States of the European Union therefore now justifiably expect a welcoming hand and not the construction of barriers to the movement of labour, nor administrative barriers to the provision of post-accession aid and certainly not a reduction in budgetary resources in the field of structural operations and equalisation of regional disparities.
   Mr President, Commissioner, the European Budget stands at EUR 105 billion, which is less than the EUR 117 billion of Spain’s, less than half Germany’s, and one-twentieth of the USA’s.
How, then, are you going to manage after Turkey’s accession, and what are you going to do about funding for the countries of the East?
There are two solutions available to you: the first is to dismantle the CAP after 2013 in order to recover the best part of 44% of agricultural funds, a development that has been in the pipeline ever since the CAP was refashioned.
The second, given that it is inevitable that the budget will double, is to create a European tax to fund it.
It will be the European Constitution that will make these two solutions possible.
With codecision, we will be able to calmly do away with the CAP, and, in due course, with our small farmers.
In any case, simple majority means we could end up with a European budget of double the size and the imposition of a European business tax, or even a European income tax.
As I expect to have to pay it, I would like to savour these last moments of not being pestered by the taxman.
   Mr President, Dr Brüner, the Director General of OLAF, which is responsible for investigating European Union fraud and corruption, told the Committee on Budgetary Control at its last meeting that it was not his job to snoop.
His annual report said not a word about the EU's own accounting system, which has been shown to be structurally fraudulent and lacks financial cohesion.
It can never comply with even the minimum standards required by the EU itself of companies all over Europe.
Dr Brüner failed to address any of the critically important issues of institutionalised malpractice identified in this organisation by experienced accountants.
Basic financial records are not being kept; double-entry bookkeeping is still not the norm; cash and bank balances are still not being reconciled, nor are budgets and expenses; advances are recorded as expenditure, which is fraudulent; loans which disappear are written off, which is both a loss of public funds and tax fraud; and records of assets and liabilities in past years are changed retrospectively, which is also fraudulent.
I put it to Dr Brüner at that meeting: 'If you are not investigating this disgraceful situation, then who is?' and I got no answer.
I now put that question to this Parliament and to the Commission: who is responsible for what is being done to end the European Union's structural and institutional fraud and corruption?
   . It gives me pleasure to reply to Mr Harbour.
Let me deal first with the question of safety.
In markets where the repair market has been liberalised, as in the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy or the Netherlands, there have been no incidences of casualties attributable to the fact that third party providers have supplied some spare parts.
The safety record in liberalised markets is as good – or, if you like, as bad – but no different from the safety record in markets where there is protection of the design.
Secondly, believe it or not, there are 90 directives, concerned with the safety of pedestrians, which apply to all cars and parts of cars, and therefore also to parts supplied by third party suppliers.
The third point is that there is a so-called 'extended impact assessment' attached to the proposal, which deals with safety – it runs to 50 pages.
I can assure Members of this House, particularly Mr Harbour, that it is a very thorough impact assessment.
He and other Members of Parliament that express an interest will receive it, together with the proposal.
The extended impact assessment deals with the issue very thoroughly, but in order to still fears and apprehensions which exist, not only here but also at the Commission, I have said that, now that the proposal has been adopted, I shall see to it that a further study is carried out into the safety aspects, so that we all can rest assured that the matter is being looked at.
The extended impact assessment is a very thorough job and I have held extensive consultations with stakeholders, particularly with the car industry itself.
Members of this House will be able to read the extended impact assessment and form their own opinions.
I look forward to a discussion on this proposal in Parliament, even though I personally will not take part, but will be replaced by my successor, Charlie McCreevy from Ireland.
   The next item is Question Time (B6-0007/2004).
The following questions are addressed to the Commission.
   Thank you very much for that reply and for the information about Eurostat's work.
The collection of information might seem like a very dry subject, but the problem at the moment is that, without such information, no proper research can take place into why people die very suddenly, particularly young people.
As a result research is not carried out.
In the case of cot deaths 20 years ago, we changed the classification and then more research was done.
My follow-up question is more a request to the Commission - to whoever is responsible for Eurostat - that part of the training for those who certify death should look at the question of sudden unexplained deaths.
At the moment, people often put down heart failure, for example, and then it is not clear that the death is totally and utterly unexplained.
It is very important that training should focus on that particular issue.
I would also ask you to ask Eurostat to keep Members of the European Parliament informed in this area.
The WHO is going to revise its guidelines at its meeting in October.
I hope that, through cooperation with WHO, we will be kept informed about what changes are made and that we will see improvements in the kind of classification, which may lead to better research and the prevention of these unexplained deaths.
   – Commissioner, I noted with interest that, in your initial response, you noted, despite the steps that have been taken, that there is no adequate legal basis for doing more.
I therefore specifically ask you: for the last two and a half years, the European Parliament Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has been asking for a directive from the Commission in application of Article 152 of the founding Treaty.
Does the Commission intend, albeit two and a half years later, to promote such a Community directive?
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 27 and 28 will be taken together.
    Madam President, I still have a few additional questions.
Commissioner, although I am grateful for your openness and for the candour with which you have spoken, I still wonder what the compelling circumstances are for you to table this proposal in the dying days of your career as a Commissioner, when your mandate has only six weeks left to run? You have told Mr El Khadraoui that you have consulted all those involved and refer in this respect to your visit to the Antwerp port.
I live in Antwerp and if you ask me, the last time you visited the Antwerp port was when the debate about the previous directive, which was rejected by this Parliament, was in full swing.
I therefore see no signs of consultation about the new text.
Like Mr El Khadraoui, I would emphatically ask you what your timeframe is.
You have failed to give a response to this question so far.
Finally, Commissioner, surely you must realise that what you stated a moment ago with regard to the statute of the Belgian and Flemish dockworkers is nothing short of a declaration of war, and that you will certainly not solve the issue with this kind of approach.
   Questions Nos 29 and 30 will be replied to in writing.
   Madam President, the two other Commissioners each have only one question to answer, which will certainly not take 20 minutes.
I believe we could therefore follow a different procedure to that which we usually follow, as there is no point in taking 20 minutes for one question.
   Ladies and gentlemen, I am very sorry, but we will follow the usual procedure for Question Time.
We have further questions now for the other Commissioners.
I am afraid that you are mistaken, Mr Posselt, as we have a great many other questions, especially for Commissioner Dimas.
All I can do is to inform you that you will receive a written answer to your question.
I am very sorry that you have waited in the Chamber, but this was unavoidable.
   – Madam President, despite the fact that I am wasting valuable time, I should like publicly to congratulate Commissioner Lamy on the work which he has accomplished on the portfolio which he has managed to date as Commissioner.
My supplementary question concerns what general measures, reciprocal measures and measures to abolish non-trade barriers the Commission intends to take at both multilateral and bilateral level, as well as within the framework of trans-regional cooperation.
Reference was made to them, but there needs to be a transition from words to action, which is always difficult. I should therefore be grateful for further clarification from the Commissioner.
   The Commission is aware of Mr Rübig’s interest in issues relating to international trade and in particular to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
It is true that textiles and clothing issues affect SMEs more than multinationals, hence his sensitivity on the issue.
In my response to him, I shall add to my previous answer to the main questioner’s supplementary question by focusing on the only Singapore issue remaining, given that we had to let go – in any event for this round of negotiations and even if they do not leave the WTO’s table – of Singapore issues such as investment, competition, public procurement and public procurement transparency.
What remains, Mr Rübig, is a subject that is dear to you and that we decided in Geneva to negotiate formally this time, namely trade facilitation, which entails a complete review of some of the procedures, paperwork, authorisations, licences and administrative decisions that all too often still confront people as they take goods across borders.
The entire issue of trade facilitation is currently under negotiation and, of all the Singapore issues, this was probably the most important one to the SMEs.
I am therefore pleased that our schedule and Mr Rübig’s priorities have managed to coincide at this point.
This was not the case, once again, for investment, competition and public procurement transparency, but what was most important for SMEs, and therefore for textiles – leaving aside tariff negotiation of technical barriers – was trade facilitation and, in this regard, your wishes have been granted.
– Question No 32 by Mr Brian Crowley, which has been taken over by Mr Seán Ó Neachtain (H-0221/04).
Article 11 of Presidential Decree 164/19.07.04, bringing Greek legislation into line with Directive 1999/70/EC(1), stipulates that workers wishing to convert to open-ended contracts must have completed 24 months of previous service, have had their contracts renewed at least once and have an 'active contract' on 19 July 2004 (date of publication) or three months prior to that date.
This provision is in breach of Directive 1999/70/EC in that it applies only to those workers who complete the requisite period of previous employment midway through 2004. Both the extension of the deadline granted to Greece for transposition and the two-year delay in incorporating the directive into national law are, therefore, detrimental to workers' interests.
In a letter dated 13 February 2004, the Commission itself questioned the measures taken by the Greek Government to 'avoid abuse arising from the use of fixed-term contracts during the intervening period between the expiry of the deadline for transposition into national law and the entry into force of the Presidential Decree (81/2003). Will the Commission therefore say what measures it will take to eliminate the stipulated condition of an 'active contract', which is contrary to Directive 1999/70/EC?
   – Commissioner, if we assume that Greece, our common homeland, had applied the Community directive which we are discussing on time, even after the extension which it was granted in 2002, thousands of people would have ensured their contracts were converted to open-ended contracts under the provisions of the presidential decree to which you refer.
My question is this: Why should thousands of workers exposed to abuse by employers, be they public- or private-sector employers, pay for this two-year delay by the Greek authorities?
   . There are five Member States which have either transposed only certain parts of the directives or have failed to transpose them in full conformity.
For these Member States, as I said earlier, the Commission was quick to initiate infringement procedures.
In the case of the employment framework directive, a reasoned opinion - which is the second phase of the infringement procedure - was sent in July 2004 and we are expecting an answer within two months.
If no reply is forthcoming, the matter will be immediately referred to the European Court of Justice.
We will use all the enforcement measures at our disposal in order to persuade these Member States to move ahead with these very important directives.
   As the time allotted to Question Time has elapsed, Questions Nos 35 to 58 will be replied to in writing.
   – Mr President, Minister, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are reacting to a crisis that was sparked off and exploded in March 2003.
We are in September 2004, and this delayed reaction is not due to the fact that we did not know.
Let us just think of how few doors we have knocked on in all these months.
We have reacted late because of a political calculation that proved to be wrong, which was to focus everything on the Naivasha process, and therefore Khartoum thought it had to intervene elsewhere.
I am merely trying to draw attention to the fact that major tensions are exploding in eastern Sudan, and I should not like us to react in a year’s time once it has turned into an inextricable crisis.
It is a complex problem which, in my opinion, should be tackled as a whole.
In conclusion, with regard to security, there is the problem of a real atmosphere of impunity.
I should like to remind the Presidency and the Commission of the existence of an instrument, namely the International Criminal Court and in particular Article 7 of the Statute, on the basis of which the Security Council can ask the Prosecutor to initiate an investigation.
I mention this because, alongside the Commission on Human Rights, this is an instrument on which Europe has worked so hard that I believe it can and must be brought into play in this particular crisis.
    Mr President, the President of the United States has described the violence in Sudan as genocide and he is undoubtedly not far from the truth.
The number of people killed in and around Darfur is currently estimated at 50 000, and more than a million people are on the run.
The Arab militiamen who are responsible for these atrocities are given free play by the Islamic Government, which has a crushing responsibility for the events that are now unfolding.
According to Mr Pronk, the UN special envoy in Sudan, the Sudanese Government is cooperating in good faith, but, and I quote ‘the agreements on the ground are not yet applied in Darfur’.
The question is what should actually happen in order for there to be clear condemnation of the Islamic regime in Sudan.
The Commission is similarly grappling with this politically correct diffidence.
So far, the Council and the Commission have been extremely reserved, not to mention lukewarm, in their reactions to the events in Sudan.
It is therefore time that bold sanctions were taken, such as for example an oil embargo, together with all other necessary measures, in order to put a stop to the violence in Sudan.
    Mr President, 50 000 have been killed in the last 18 months, there are a million refugees and the Government in Sudan, a dictatorship dating back to 1989, is still in government.
A government which nods diplomatically in agreement with the international community and politely listens to its requests, but meanwhile accepts the Janjaweed militiamen in its own army, while the killing and raping continues as before.
It is apparent that this government is prepared to conclude real peace agreements only if there is a real threat, and the willingness to realise this threat is being illustrated.
In southern Sudan, we saw that the oil boycott threat worked with this government.
Last week in the European Parliament, Mrs Van Ardenne stated that she considers the oil boycott as one of the measures to put the government under pressure.
In the Security Council, Europe, together with the African Union and the United States, must continually and unanimously press home that either the Sudanese Government must observe the agreements with Kofi Annan or else that a specific oil boycott will be introduced which is irrevocably proclaimed via the Security Council.
The question that many are left with is: will these remain just words, and does the Sudanese Government meanwhile have little to fear, or are we prepared to actually see this matter through via the Security Council? I truly hope that there is strength in unity in this respect.
   Mr President, making a speech is always easier when you can say that you agree with the previous speakers, in this case, the Presidency and the Commission.
Almost everything has already been said on the subject of terrorism, following 11 September, 11 March and now the Beslan tragedy.
This is no longer merely a case of terrorism, it is a new reality that I would call hyper-terrorism, in which not only civilians, but also children are used as a terrible means of achieving aims.
In the circumstances, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what can be said is very simple.
First and foremost, we must insist that institutions and governments act firmly.
We cannot accept, under any circumstances, any neutrality from an institution or State in the face of an act of hyper-terrorism of this nature.
It is not only governments that must work together; we must demand that all governments and institutions work together in the fight against terrorism and hyper-terrorism.
The firmness that we demand, as has been mentioned, must never, however, be at the expense of what makes us strong and what we strive for, which is democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
This is an area in which we must not make any concessions.
We do not want to establish police states anywhere, not even in those States with the greatest justification for so doing, because if we were to go down that road we would lose, as has already been said, all of our moral strength.
What we need, in addition to firmness, is, therefore, closer cooperation and, at the moment, we feel that there is room for improvement in this area, firstly as regards intelligence, but also as regards the flow of money that is behind terrorism.
The questions of who is funding this flow, and how the money is circulating around the world must be investigated in much greater depth than has until now been the case.
The European institutions are alive to the problem.
I applaud the work done in the Commission, in particular by Mr Vitorino, and this work should be carried on even more thoroughly.
I shall finish, Mr President, by saying that in our view terrorism has always been a struggle against democracy, freedom and the rule of law, which are the very cornerstones of our European Union.
This is one of the main reasons why we should combat it together.
   Mr President, Abdel Rahman al-Rashid, the director of the Al-Arabiya television station, wrote a remarkable opinion piece in the 5 September issue of the British .
Those who took children hostage in Beslan, he wrote, were Muslims, just as were the hostage-takers in Iraq, those who commit acts of violence in Darfur in the Sudan, Bin Laden and the suicide bombers who blow up buses, cars, schools, homes and other buildings all over the world.
We cannot clear our name, he went on to say, until we acknowledge the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic activity, a virtual monopoly operated by Muslim men and women, end of quote.
Courageous Muslims such as Mr al-Rashid must be supported in saying such things.
Above all, we must become aware that a global war is being waged on Europe and on the West in general, a war waged by Muslim fundamentalism against our European democratic values and lifestyle, and I am, alas, less than convinced that the European Union is in the forefront of the fight against terrorism, as Mr Bot has just said.
Far more than is at present the case, there needs to be cooperation with the United States, with NATO and with such countries as Russia.
Member States must work together more effectively in exchanging information and must adapt their legislation better with a view to combating international terrorism, or else things will go from bad to worse.
   – Mr President, I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Bot, what has happened to him in the space of a week.
A week ago, Mr Bot, you asked the Russian authorities a very simple question as to how it had been possible for this tragedy to occur.
A very simple question, and one that you were right to ask, but you are wrong today in your desire to see it buried. Why is this so?
After all, it is the question being asked by all the families in Beslan; it is the question being asked by all those families as they grieve. What happened?
What has come to pass?
How can you not see that, in this tragedy, the Russian powers-that-be have deployed all the calculating cynicism of which they are capable – manipulation, disinformation, poisonings – and the best journalists, experts on Chechen issues, found themselves being prevented from reaching the scene. How are these facts to be denied?
How can one not put these questions to the Russian authorities?
How, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, can you cooperate in the fight against international terrorism with a power that first denied that there was any connection with the conflict in Chechnya, with a power that then condemned the independent and moderate President Maskhadov, putting a price on his head? Now this same power has proclaimed an international war on the global scourge of terrorism, finally asking all states to refrain from interfering in its internal affairs.
Who is that power, inconsistent and manipulative, with which you seek to cooperate in saving democracy, the rule of law, and our code of values? Think about it, Mr Bot.
   Mr President, the image of children running away from an explosion, only to be shot in the back, is too repugnant for words.
Above all, our feelings of sympathy are for the victims, those left behind and the whole of Russian society.
Different though our opinions may be about a conflict such as that in Chechnya, there can never be any justification for atrocities of this kind, nor should anyone attempt to find one.
We as politicians owe it to the public to make every effort to prevent this from happening again.
It is ever more frequently apparent that terror knows no boundaries and is a threat to every open society.
In addressing this terror, we in the European Union will therefore, more than ever, need to join forces with countries such as the United States and Russia, while, within the Union too, we have an awful lot to learn in this area of cooperation.
Many plans have been forged under the guidance of EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator, Mr de Vries, during this and the previous presidency, but it is just as important to monitor the implementation of plans that have already been adopted.
In the extra Justice and Home Affairs Council in the wake of the attacks in New York of September 2001, it was agreed that, from now on, all relevant information about terrorist threats would be exchanged within the EU.
A few days before the attacks in Madrid, it transpired that this exchange is still very inadequate.
We can no longer afford this.
Have fine words meanwhile been translated into action? In fact, the need for identical implementation also applies to terrorist organisations that have been included on the European list.
Indeed, in our Union, which lacks internal borders, these organisations are banned in some countries, but not in many others.
The discussion about an effective and identical implementation of the plans should be held at a higher level, and it would be useful if the coordinator, Mr de Vries, were to send his progress reports directly to this House too.
After all, we show no real understanding for, and sympathy with, the victims of New York, Madrid and Beslan, unless ambitious words are turned into concrete action.
   – Mr President, although it is the total horror, the complete and utter condemnation of the mad events in Beslan, that unites us all, I would urge you not to narrow the facts in Beslan and Chechnya down to a simplistic analysis of the fight against international terrorism.
There is a great deal more going on.
In Chechnya, a messy war is being fought.
Just read the reports by Amnesty International, or the report by our committee, of which I too was a member and to which Mr Paasilinna referred, or just look at what is happening in Chechnya.
A military solution is not possible.
What we need to establish is dialogue, a dialogue that should involve all parties, all parties within Chechnya, not only the clan around Mr Kadirov, but all clans in Chechnya, a dialogue including the rebels.
Mrs Thatcher once stated that she would never talk with terrorists, and yet it is thanks to Mr John Hume that the British and Irish Governments sat around the negotiating table, along with the IRA and the Protestant terrorist gangs.
This proved to be the solution for peace in Ireland, and this is also the solution for peace in Chechnya.
They should enter into talks with all parties, and Europe should play an important role in this, just as the United States did in Northern Ireland.
We must try to unite the parties and try to persuade them to work together.
That is what the Chechens are asking us, because the Chechens essentially want peace.
   Mr President, words fail me in the face of the tragedy that has befallen children and adults in Ossetia, but words must be found.
Words must be found and action taken to avoid further need for tears.
There is no such thing as good or bad terrorism, as all kinds of terrorism are bad.
There is no such thing as terrorism in the name of God, as every kind of terrorism is the work of the devil.
That said, the film on Chechnya we have been watching for years is not a black and white film, with a good sheriff pitted against the bad guys.
In this film the sheriff has also shot people in the back in the past, as in Chechnya there really are two kinds of terrorism.
There is the kind currently being discussed at length, both in this House and elsewhere, and there is the other kind no one talks about, namely state terrorism.
The fact that the EU is putting forward its views on this issue is to be welcomed.
These views should be those of the entire EU, and this fact should be noted by Russia, which in the past has preferred to talk with selected Member States such as Germany and France, as demonstrated by the recent summit in Sochi.
If we act together, Mr President, as a single EU, it will be easier for us to exert influence on Russia and to fight for human rights, both in Chechnya and elsewhere.
   – Mr President, a particularly painful tragedy took place in North Ossetia, where the brutality on one side met with a lack of responsibility on the other.
It is reminiscent of the tragedy in the Moscow theatre and brings many things to mind.
Today when the Russian authorities declare that they will fight terrorism anywhere, that may seem new and positive, perhaps it opens the door to combined efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, to stop acts of terror in Quatar and elsewhere.
When the Russian authorities condemn double standards, there springs the hope that Russian terrorists will also be persecuted, for example those who on the night of 31 July 1991 killed seven Lithuanian border guards in cold blood.
The criminals are known; members of a unit of the terrorist 'Black Berets', they live in Russia protected and supported by its authorities, who refuse to cooperate with Vilnius in the pursuit of justice.
While talking so much about the war on terrorism, Russia's leaders have shown more than one example of double standards and hypocrisy.
The European Union could urge them to change this behaviour.
Here is a quote, an excerpt from the shadow cabinet's statement at the beginning of the Beslan crisis.
Quote: 'We categorically condemn this act of terrorism and unite with the United Nations Security Council in encouraging the release of the hostages.
At the same time we deeply regret that the United Nations Security Council has never condemned and has not expressed sympathy for the deaths of 42 000 Chechen children, killed in Chechnya as a result of the Russian authorities' orders'.
Unquote.
At that moment the children of Beslan were suffering, but were still alive.
The 42 000 other children were no longer alive, were no longer suffering.
For them that anachronistic colonial war was long over.
When will it end however? Those who say, 'first victory, then peace', are wrong.
That is a dead end.
It is time for a different way of thinking – peace is victory.
Peace, which would save thousands of lives, which would mean that children no longer die because of the stupidity and brutality of adults, cannot be shameful.
General de Gaulle did not disgrace France when he ended the Algerian War.
Thank you for your attention.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like all of you, I heard the President-in-Office of the Council speak to us of good and bad news, and I felt that he dwelled too much on the good news at the expense of the bad.
I would like to thank Commissioner Patten for having, with his customary subtlety and frankness, invited us to cross the somewhat simplistic gulfs between Atlanticism and anti-Americanism, between unilateralism and multilateralism.
That is indeed what we must do.
Today, though, nearly two years after the onset of this crisis, we have to say that we are facing failure, as none of the aims that were set have been fulfilled, and I am not talking about weapons of mass destruction.
There is no evidence of the region being stable, democracy has not proved infectious, Iraq is not a safe place, and the fight against terrorism has got nowhere.
On the contrary, I would even say that military action on its own has led, in Iraq, to a growth in terrorism of all kinds.
All of that is worthy of condemnation and of serious thought.
We can take no pleasure in this failure, on the contrary: we have to act, to learn our lessons and try to be effective tomorrow.
Today, though, what should galvanise us, what should be a priority for this House, is of course the issue of the hostages taken in Iraq – Italians, French, in short, Europeans – along with those accompanying them, whether Iraqis or Syrians.
We must move to liberate these hostages, for liberty is a precious good, and because it is not just any professions that are under attack; these are journalists, humanitarian activists, workers for NGOs, in short, people who take risks.
As Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra said, I believe that it is for all their sakes that this House must speak out today, on the basis of the principles of unity and solidarity, in favour of these hostages being released.
At the same time, this will not mean that we will have finished with Iraq; we have to ask ourselves other questions if we are to be able to take the different political road to which Mr D'Alema referred.
I will limit myself to setting out a few of them.
We must therefore call for a change in the nature of the multinational forces.
I believe it is now time to put this force, for all practical purposes, under the aegis of the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
All of us, together, must concern ourselves with the democratic process.
We know that elections are planned for early 2005, but, right now, it has to be said that they are not guaranteed and it is absolutely vital that they should be held under free and fair conditions.
Finally, I believe that it is now time to call an international conference in support of the political transition and to facilitate the restructuring of Iraq.
Finally – and this will be the last I shall say at this stage – I believe that we must be more insistent than we have been, more perhaps than the Council has been, on respect for human rights by all the parties on the ground.
Commissioner Patten said it, as did Mr D'Alema, and it is indeed the case that we are confronted by intolerable images of war depicting an utterly hopeless confrontation.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have to get back to Iraq.
We have to consider what is happening now in the aftermath of the conflict.
Let me repeat, however, that the priority is for the whole of this House to get behind the efforts to free the hostages, and I call upon all of us, on every side, to accept a resolution to that end, which will proclaim that we speak with one voice.
I would like to conclude by addressing a few words to Commissioner Patten.
Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to tell him what a great honour and privilege it has been to work with him.
I would like to ask him, as he rides off into the sunset, not to sing the song 'I am a poor, lonesome cowboy', but to seize the opportunity to put in the occasional mean tango!
   . I voted in favour of the report by Mr Morillon on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol defining, for the period 3 December 2003 to 2 December 2007, the fishing opportunities and the financial compensation provided for by the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Government of Mauritius on fishing in the waters of Mauritius, because I feel that it is crucial to coordinate the protection of the EU’s interests in the area of fishing with the management of maritime resources and with the development of the populations that depend on fishing.
The EU must make an accurate assessment of the sustainability of fishing agreements with third countries, given that specific measures have taken on greater importance in the correct implementation of Community actions aimed at developing local communities, especially coastal communities that rely on traditional fishing.
Community tuna shipowners will also be protected, through measures imposing greater control over fishing activities aimed at combating illegal fishing.
Those measures will make a contribution towards ensuring responsible fishing in the Indian Ocean.
   . I voted in favour of the report by Mr Morillion on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol defining for the period 1 January 2004 to 31 December 2006 the tuna fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Democratic Republic of Madagascar on fishing off Madagascar, because I am in favour of responsible and sustainable fishing.
This Protocol sets fishing opportunities for the Community tuna fleet and promotes the development of cooperation based on respect for the laws and regulations under Malagasy national fisheries policy.
The new Protocol’s global cost is identical to that of the previous Protocol.
This agreement is equally crucial to the Malagasy economy, providing an important source of currency and creating jobs for local seamen, as well as in the processing industry and surveillance activities.
   . We welcome this report in view of its social and economic importance to the Republic of Cape Verde and to those countries whose fleets are involved – the Spanish, Portuguese and French fleets – amounting to 117 vessels.
The report focuses mainly on tuna, but also covers demersal species.
The extension of the current fisheries agreement for a further year – until 30 June 2005 – will enable tuna shipowners to pursue their fisheries activities in the exclusive economic zone of Cape Verde, including the two Portuguese pole-and-line vessels and the ten Portuguese surface longliners.
The Portuguese fleet is, furthermore, allowed to catch up to 630 gross registered tonnes (GRT) by bottom trawling.
These fishing opportunities appear miniscule, however, in view of the traditional and historical relations between Portugal and Cape Verde, but this is also a reflection of the fisheries policies of a CFP that has gradually led to the destruction of distant water fishing fleets, as in the case of the Portuguese fleet.
   Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Patten for the work he has done.
I wish him all the best – drive carefully, Commissioner!
   Mr President, my observations are, above all, inspired by my role as member of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
I realise that although the EU’s role is modest for the time being, it can nevertheless help determine the quality of democracy in future.
My questions are concrete and I should say beforehand that I welcome the proposal by the President-in-Office of the Council to perhaps send a fact-finding mission to Iraq later on this year.
My first question is about spending EU funding in Iraq itself.
It appears to me that for practical considerations, it has been decided to spend these monies mainly via the existing, traditional channels in a bid to make the greatest possible impact.
However, as a result of this, it looks as if minorities, and I am particularly referring to the Assyrian minority, which accounts for 10% of the population and mainly consists of Christians, are at risk of falling by the wayside.
That would be harrowing, because they also suffered the effects of Saddam Hussein’s arabisation programme, and are now also suffering repression in the Kurdish region.
Could the Commission, and also the Council, say a little more about how the funds will be spent, particularly where this minority and other small minorities are concerned?
My second point concerns the draft constitution, in which Arabic and Kurdish are recognised as official languages.
Assyrian, however, is not, despite the fact that more than 10% of the population speak it.
What role can the European Union play on this score in order to guarantee the positions of minorities and also in respect of minority languages in the new Iraq and Iraqi society?
   Mr President, I would like to intervene on behalf of Mr Pannella of the Italian Radicals, who is in Italy, to make a point of order regarding the calendar.
I am informed that Mr Pannella was refused the right to amend the calendar by the Presidency in the same way that I was two years ago, as it threatened the twelve Strasbourg part-sessions, albeit within the letter of the Treaties.
In Parliament's verbatim report it fails to register your statement that 'no amendments were submitted'.
In fact, of course, none were permitted.
Can you ensure that the verbatim report accurately reflects what you actually stated, which is now being taped for verification purposes?
   Thank you, Mr Tannock. Your comment will appear in the Minutes, which will be corrected to reflect precisely what happened.
   – Mr President, I am surely not the only one who feels a little strange when reading the communications and listening to the declarations that were made a moment ago.
Although the intention is, reportedly, to strengthen the Pact, nearly all speakers have referred to its being weakened or relaxed.
While it is apparently not the intention to touch the 3% standard specified in the Treaty, my gut feeling is that it is precisely this budget standard that is proving difficult to deal with.
Furthermore, the enforcement of the Pact needs to be stepped up, but there is a great deal of wishful thinking about the greater impact of what is referred to as peer pressure, which certainly did not work for the big countries, and there is little in the way of more power for the Commission or of a decision-making alternative in the Council, which would lead to truly better enforcement.
The advantage of the announcement is, though, that it was made now and that an open debate will follow suit, and we have plenty of cause for this.
In the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, this has already been the topic of an extensive debate, and we want to contribute our might with an open mind, but we will not change our guiding principle.
Consequently, we have never said that the Stability and Growth Pact is stupid.
On the contrary, we found it to be a valuable instrument, and still do.
The fact that more harmonisation is sought with other economic policy instruments, as well as fine-tuning in certain areas, an optimisation of the debt ratio, economic realism, all of these are open to discussion.
What is unacceptable to us, however, is that the Stability and Growth Pact should be adapted to please a few governments.
The Pact should prompt discipline, it should be a big stick to keep us on the right track.
That means that the Pact must be geared to long-term challenges of our social market economy, and should not be thrown off course by short-term sirens.
   – Mr President, when President Prodi, two years ago, described the Stability Pact as too inflexible, he was met with sneers.
Mr Zalm, you were one of the harshest critics, because anyone who wanted to change the Stability Pact was considered a softie.
As was often the case, you took visible delight in tarring all critics with the same brush, because they were all useless. May I ask you something?
Is it not the case, though, that what is now acceptable to you, what you read out a moment ago, very much resembles what those self-same critics of the Stability Pact stated two years ago? Two examples: my group has always argued for more attention being paid to the public debt and somewhat less attention to the annual budget shortage.
We have always said that there are situations conceivable in respect of which a Member State should not be penalised for exceeding the 3%, for example in the case of slow growth over a long period of time.
Finally, I applaud the fact that the Council and Commission now appear to be willing to be more flexible in their interpretation of the Stability Pact.
Mr Zalm, I would urge you, though, to display the same level of honesty and flexibility, and refrain from saying that you will be clarifying and improving the statute.
Instead, I would prefer you to say that you are finally taking the constructive criticism of the Green and Left Members of this House seriously and are therefore updating the Pact.
Mr Zalm, there comes a time for everyone when they have to admit that they are wrong.
This is the time for you to do so.
   Mr President, I should like to join in congratulating Mr Almunia, who has made a valiant attempt to breathe new life into the stranded Growth and Stability Pact.
I should also like to congratulate, and thank, Mr Zalm, Chairman of the Ecofin Council, for the fact that, indeed, he has not remained stuck in the past, and like Mr Lagendijk, I would not like to be the one to resolve past issues either.
What I do hope, though, is that he does not only act out of self-interest and on the basis of tactical considerations, but that, in terms of substance, he is now also convinced that it is important economically speaking to place more emphasis on the growth element of the Pact.
I would also like to note that my group very much appreciates the fact that you have indicated a wish to continue the debate with our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I think it is important for us in the European Parliament to be involved in this too.
As far as content is concerned, clearly, my group is positive about the direction that the Commission document is taking.
We have always called for a better balance to be struck between the objectives for growth and stability.
We would like to put a stop to the conflict of, on the one hand, ambitious Lisbon objectives and, on the other hand, budget standards that have been set too low over a longer recession period in order to be able to invest in renewed economic growth.
It is absurd that, for example, in Portugal, expenditure for research and development and education is being cut rather than increased and that Greece is being punished – another example of a country exceeding its budget – in connection with those splendid Olympic Games which we all thoroughly enjoyed.
Even in my own country, I can give the example of the discussion with local governments about the way in which they are permitted to fund investments out of the reserves.
That would be positive for growth if it were not for the fact that they would be faced with an investment ban if the budget shortage of 3% were exceeded, which is absurd at this stage.
My group therefore supports a Growth Pact that is formulated more precisely.
I should like to bring you two elements at this stage.
First of all, I am keen to hear your views about the golden rule.
As you know, in the United Kingdom, of all places, a country outside the eurozone, a very strong appeal is being made to draw the distinction between current budget spending and investment spending.
Your objection had always been that those boundaries cannot be clearly marked.
My appeal would not be to leave this also to the resourcefulness of the national finance ministers individually, but, in fact, to find out whether we cannot extract common standards from the Lisbon objectives, the broad economic guidelines, and hopefully soon also the opinion of Wim Kok’s high-level group.
My argument is that we would then be able to transform those many fine commitments of Lisbon and of subsequent summits into real investment and growth plans.
Secondly, I would propose to implement this in multi-annual plans complying with the deadline of 2010 or later.
What do you think of the idea of writing off that growth and those growth investments over several years, so that they are not included in the 3% standard on an annual basis?
I would like to hear from you whether you are prepared to conduct discussions of this kind in the Ecofin Council, and I hope that, in doing so, we can get the pact back on its two feet, which it needs, namely stability and growth.
   Mr President, Mr Zalm, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the French contingent in our Group feels that the Stability and Growth Pact is one of the pillars of the European economy and currency.
We want it to be implemented in practice, so that we can keep control of public spending, combat excessive deficit and ensure sound management of Member States’ public finances.
This is precisely why we support the Commission’s proposal and why we are pleased with the Council of Ministers’ positive reaction.
Taking on board what has been learnt from experience, the Commission’s proposal consists, purely and simply, of making the rules of the Pact fully and intelligently enforceable, without changing the two main criteria: deficit percentage and debt percentage.
The communication of 3 September builds on principles of which we approve: enabling the Commission to issue early warnings, placing the emphasis on the level of debt, establishing budget surpluses during times of economic growth to allow room for manoeuvre in times of economic slowdown – the squirrel strategy – being responsive to exceptional circumstances – a concept that the Council of Ministers should incorporate thoroughly – and, finally, coordinating the main objectives of economic policy with the decisions made in national parliaments.
This proposal therefore places greater importance on economic developments and makes strenuous efforts to avoid the risks to which dogmatism is in danger of exposing business and jobs.
If France can make a major contribution to growth in Europe this year, for example, it is clearly because the Pact has not been applied to it like a hatchet.
We also welcome the appointment of a permanent chairman of the Eurogroup in the shape of Mr Juncker, which is a step in the right direction.
In the future, budgetary policy will make a greater contribution to growth and will, accordingly, play a decisive role in achieving the Lisbon objectives, which determine the prospects for competitiveness and prosperity in the EU.
   Mr President, on a point or order and so that it may appear in the Minutes, I would like to congratulate the interpreters on the translation into Spanish of Mr Joan i Marí’s speech, which was perfect.
The third and last part in the Swedish of the Moomins.
I think we must all work enormously hard to get this new treaty through.
In 2005, our task as Members of the European Parliament is precisely that described by Mr Méndez de Vigo, Mr Leinen, Mr Duff, Mr Voogenhuber and Mr Corbett, so we must try to push this treaty through.
It is in our interests.
   . Mr President, your predecessor was kind enough to point out that the Council is entitled to speak for longer.
I consider it not so much a right as a duty to be able to comment on a number of really important remarks.
I cannot guarantee that I will be finished in five minutes.
I would remind you, Mr President, that I still have some minutes left over.
I will of course abide by your rules.
In my view, a number of your Members have made very crucial remarks about whose responsibility it is, and to what extent, to bring these ratification processes to a successful conclusion.
Mr Corbett, Mr Vigo, Mr Stubb and many others have pointed out that there is, of course, a joint responsibility for the success of the process after 29 October when the ratification is signed.
   I asked the Council to remain within these time constraints, given that there is another debate to follow this one in the Council’s presence and that the Bureau was notified of your time constraints, Mr Nicolaï.
Nevertheless, we are certain that Parliament will benefit from any time that you spend beyond that limit and from the time you spend giving answers in Question Time, which follows.
   . Mr President, I will of course comply with your rules.
In my view, a number of your Members have made very crucial remarks about whose responsibility it is, and to what extent, to successfully complete these ratification processes.
Mr Corbett, Mr Vigo, Mr Stubb and many others have said, there is, of course, a joint responsibility for the success of the process after 29 October, when the ratification is signed, albeit because we all rely on each other.
We all rely on the success of all 25 ratification processes for this Treaty to enter into force.
Where we can – and I am specifically saying this on behalf of the Council, we will actually do this in the Council as well – where we can, we must support and strengthen each other in this, and also learn from each other.
It would be unfortunate, as Mr Voggenhuber pointed out in his critical remarks, if we were to blame each other and pass the buck to one another, because I consider it, in fact, important and valuable, as many in this House have said, that the three institutions carry a responsibility in this.
It is my conviction that, so far, the Commission has played a very constructive, positive role in communicating Europe and informing the public about the Treaty, and it would, in fact, be wrong to put the ball in their court, because I see the Member States and Members of this House as also having a very considerable responsibility in this area.
Many of you raised the point about the coordination in time of the different referendums.
Many fine words have been spoken about how good it would be to have these referendums take place at a symbolic moment within a limited timeframe.
I hope that you will agree with me that, although we might like the idea, we will not actually entertain it, because these are matters specifically related to constitutional legislation and should remain in the national sphere.
I assume that this House, in terms of subsidiarity and the question as to which government layer would need to deal with what area, would not like to meddle in this anyway.
What is very important, though, is that the different Member States examine when and how harmonisation could be possible, and that is exactly what we at the Council and the Council’s Secretariat are doing.
We are publishing the national schedules, thus allowing governments and parliaments nationally to take these into consideration when drawing up their own schedules so as to see whether dates can be organised close together.
This has nothing to do with whether you believe in a European approach to this issue or not, as some of you suggested.
It has everything to do with constitutional law and it also concerns precisely the sensitivities which many of you have mentioned that referendums are at risk of becoming a national plaything.
Many Members have given voice to this concern.
That is precisely why the Council is convinced that it is good to give national parliaments and national governments some leeway in choosing a sensible date for such a referendum.
This could be connected to all kinds of things, including other elections, or other current issues, in the country in question.
I think that the ratification by 25 countries benefits from those countries having a good look at each other, but that those national responsibilities should remain intact at the same time.
Talking of referendums, further to Mrs Kaufmann’s and Mr Schlyter’s remarks, I would point out that at present, nine Member States have decided to hold a referendum, eleven Member States have decided against it and five countries are still undecided.
What is crucial is the way in which we, the different institutions, the different governments, enter into these ratification procedures, the way in which we enter into discussion with public opinion, and the way in which we will tackle the referendums in those countries where referendums will be held.
I think that to start with, Mr Méndez de Vigo emphatically stated that we should be in favour, and I also considered this as an appeal to the Member States and governments.
We as governments and Council will be signing that Treaty and are in favour of it.
We are not impartial towards that Treaty.
It is important to us for this Treaty to be adopted and ratified.
It is important because anyone who reads this Treaty will see that, however you look at it, Europe will, thanks to the new Treaty, become much more democratic.
Simply consider the enormous widening of responsibilities of this House; finally, it is a fully-fledged European Parliament.
Or consider the level of decisiveness, which will visibly improve with the new Treaty, again an example of decision-making by majority.
Consider transparency, clarity, which will improve with this Treaty.
Another point that is very important when I listen to all your remarks is that even the Eurosceptics are, in my opinion, pleased with this Treaty.
Why? Because it stipulates, in detail and effectively, this very subsidiarity, those questions of who decides on what.
As a result, Europe becomes more democratic not only at European level, but also nationally, because national parliaments can stand up and can argue that something could be done more effectively at national level and is not a matter for Europe.
I do not think that there is a conflict – as a number of you mentioned – between devoting all our attention to those in favour, or working on the opponents, or, as the question has been raised, giving factual information as against preliminary information.
In my view, Mr Crowley, among others, is right to say that the two are not mutually exclusive by any means.
I am also looking in the direction of the Commission, because it had already hinted at this fact, with good reason.
Factual information is a way of despatching the myths, the lies as they were referred to here.
Using factual information, we can illustrate why this Treaty means progress for everyone in Europe.
Finally, I should like to comment on the meeting that is to be held in Amsterdam on 5 October, involving the European Affairs Ministers, to deal specifically with communicating Europe and also with ratification and with those referendums that are scheduled.
I am delighted with what Mr Barrot had to say about this.
It is also gratifying that Mr Vitorino will be attending that meeting, and I welcome his statement that what we discuss at it should impact on the Commission’s further plans and in turn, needless to say, also on the decision-making in the European Council on 5 November.
I am also thrilled that the President of your House, Mr Borrell Fontelles has already confirmed that he will be attending that meeting, because as I said earlier, without the three institutions, we are unable to bring this to a successful conclusion.
This meeting should be a meeting about communicating Europe, but one that also reveals how it is possible to communicate about Europe.
It will not be a platform for reading out written-down statements, the media will be present, and I hope that we can demonstrate that Europe benefits from debate.
What is helpful in that connection is the fact that your previous President, Mr Pat Cox, was prepared to act as moderator during this meeting.
The principle underlying this meeting, and undoubtedly the entire further procedure where this Treaty’s ratification is concerned, is that it benefits the public and that we take the public seriously.
   Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Ladies and gentlemen, this debate is now closed.
Voting on the resolution relating to this debate will take place on 14 October.
The next item is questions to the Council.
I now give the floor to Mr Nicolaï to answer the first question by Mrs Ludford on fair trials for European citizens and European residents.
   . Mr President, I regret to say, on behalf of the Council, that I cannot dispel Mrs Ludford’s sense of disappointment, but I do hope that I have clearly expressed our concern and that I have stated that we, where we are able to do so, are discharging our responsibilities and taking the action described in my first intervention.
   Mr President, the Council is not aware of the practice of caging, as described in this question, being carried out in any Member State.
Having said that, the Council would remind the House that it is fully committed to respect for human rights and to fighting every kind of discrimination on the basis of age or handicap.
At the same time, too, the Council wishes to point out that all Member States, including the Czech Republic, have signed the European Convention on Human Rights, which includes, as you will be aware, in its Article 3, provisions on the combating of cruel or inhumane treatment, and that they have also ratified the Convention on Children’s Rights and the Convention against Torture.
The Convention on Children’s Rights contains specific provisions on discrimination on the grounds of disability – Article 2 – and on mentally and physically handicapped children, in its Article 23.
The Council will remain constantly committed to respect for human rights and to the outlawing of any form of discrimination.
   . Mr President, Mrs Stihler will also be aware that the Council’s options and powers are of course limited, but there are, fortunately, other channels and other bodies that can deal with situations of this kind; subject to these limitations, the Council is, of course, always alert, and she will also be aware of the ways in which it can exert influence and become involved should information come to its attention.
   I would like to add to Mrs Isler Béguin’s question by asking whether the Council is really in a position to try to defend the Kyoto Protocol in its relations with third countries, when I still do not know the Council’s true position on that Protocol.
How much harmonisation is there amongst the Member States’ policies on the implementation of the Kyoto Treaty and what position will the Member States’ take on 28 September when the International Civil Aviation Organisation considers an amendment which would turn the ICAO regulation on its head in terms of emissions from aeroplanes on international flights?
Given the lack of a real debate on European issues during the recent European Parliament elections, will the Dutch Presidency state what new initiatives it wishes to promote to highlight the positive role played by the European Union in the lives of the citizens of the 25 EU Member States?
   . Mr President, I will quite willingly reiterate the undertaking I have already given that we shall continue to carry the torch that was indeed lit by my predecessor Dick Roche, Minister for European Affairs during the Irish Presidency, for at least the next four presidencies, and that this torch shall continue to burn.
   The next item is two oral questions to the Commission on the Dutch boat belonging to the ‘Women on Waves’ association:
- oral question (B6-0010/2004) by Ilda Figueiredo, Francis Wurtz, Eva-Britt Svensson, Miguel Portas and Sérgio Ribeiro, on the ban on entry into Portugal of ‘Women on Waves’ boat.
- oral question (B6-0011/2004) by Lissy Gröner, Edite Estrela, Jamila Madeira, Emanuel Vasconcelos Jardim Fernandes, Hiltrud Breyer, Jillian Evans, Raül Romeva Rueda, Maria Carlshamre and Claire Gibault, on the banning by the Portuguese Government of the Dutch boat belonging to the ‘Women on Waves’ association.
   Mr President, as the last speaker said a moment ago, a debate on ‘Women on Waves’ soon changes into a debate on abortion, about a woman’s right to choose.
This happens, of course, in the debate in this House, but also in the media, where the discussion about the reproductive rights of women, which are not recognised in all EU countries, is once again cranked up.
This is exactly what the ‘Women on Waves’ association wants.
Consequently, any politician who speaks for or against this organisation and wants to enter into the fundamental debate about abortion, does complete justice to the objectives of this women’s organisation.
I myself can be brief about this.
I fully support this House’s position, as set out in Mrs Van Lancker’s report, which is that, although a termination should not be decided upon lightly, women should, have the right to decide in favour of a safe, lawful termination.
That is what was said by the majority in this Parliament, as indeed it is what is said by ‘Women on Waves’.Portugal, however, has refused to allow the ship access to the port, which is bizarre.
‘Women on Waves’ is not engaging in illegal activities in Portuguese waters; what it is doing is providing information about a topic which is not to the government’s liking.
This may well be the thin end of the wedge.
Indeed, it is only a matter of time before Greenpeaceis refused entry to ports if it says something not to the government’s liking, and that we cannot accept.
The Portuguese used the argument that the ship is a threat to public health.
Is the European Commission of the same mind? Mr Bot has already stated that refusing a ship entry on those grounds is not justifiable.
Does the European Commission share his opinion? Access should not, however, be denied on the grounds of public order either.
Information activities are not violent.
They take place in the privacy of the ship in the spirit of dialogue and respect, so the government’s tough response is unfounded.
The ship has now crossed the border again, just as some 10 000 Portuguese women do every year in search of the treatment they need.
   .
Mr President, the Commission has been following developments in this situation.
According to the information available to the Commission, 'Women on Waves', together with other persons and organisations, appealed against the refusal of entry of the vessel into Portugal.
On 6 September 2004 the administrative and fiscal court of Coimbra adopted a decision on the appeal which has been the subject of a further appeal by 'Women on Waves'.
The Commission would recall the principles of Community law in connection with the free movement of persons.
European citizens are entitled to have access to the territory of other Member States in accordance with the various rights to freedom recognised by the EC Treaty, subject to the conditions and limitations provided for by that Treaty and its implementing provisions.
Member States can restrict this fundamental right enshrined by Article 18 of the EC Treaty solely when this is justified on grounds of public policy, public security or public health.
Where a Member State adopts a measure refusing entry to its territory based on one of these grounds, it must respect the general principles of Community law.
It must respect fundamental rights, including the right to freedom of expression, and in particular the proportionality principle, as well as the provisions of Council Directive 64/221/EEC of 25 February 1964 on the coordination of special measures justified on grounds of public policy, public security and public health, as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
When decisions are taken on grounds of public policy or public security, the conduct of the persons in question must pose a real and sufficiently serious threat to the fundamental interests of society.
Only the diseases or disabilities referred to in the annex to Directive 64/221/EEC can justify refusals to enter Member States on grounds of public health.
Under Directive 64/221/EEC, decisions refusing entry or ordering expulsion from the territory must be notified to the person concerned, informing him or her of the grounds of public policy, public security or public health upon which the decision has been taken.
The person concerned must be able to lodge a complaint against this decision.
It is for the Portuguese national courts to rule on the validity of the decision, while respecting the general principles of Community law and the provisions of Directive 64/221/EEC.
The Commission has not yet received a complaint about this incident from the representatives of the 'Women on Waves' organisation.
However, it intends to contact the Portuguese authorities to obtain more detailed information on the facts related by the honourable Members.
   Mr President, this is the third time the boat has put out to sea.
As you know, it has already sailed to Ireland and Poland.
According to the agenda, the boat is Dutch.
That is incorrect, although it does sail under the Dutch flag.
The boat is an initiative by a handful of Dutch women, and in view of that, I am amazed that it features here on the agenda.
We are not going to discuss boats by Greenpeace or other organisations.
I set great store by a debate on ethical questions, such as abortion and women’s rights, and indeed applaud it, but the discussion is specifically about this boat and what happens on it.
I think that what happens on this boat is unfortunate.
Attempts are being made to change the law in Portugal, but in a democratic culture, this is hardly the way to persuade another country to do this.
Interference of this kind from abroad in respect of Dutch legislation in the areas of drugs or euthanasia, for example, could equally meet with the same wave of protest in the Netherlands.
We should enter into a debate with each other in a different manner, not like this.
I also consider this action to be irresponsible.
Given that the boat sailed to Ireland without permission, it did not even comply with Dutch legislation, which is already very lenient in this respect.
Following the trip to Poland, a heated debate arose about the use of the non-approved abortion pill, and there are now discussions about the aftercare that cannot be provided.
‘Women on Waves’ has now published on the Internet a way to induce a termination yourself using over-the-counter medication, and this is accompanied by a word of caution about the gigantic risks that this entails.
The boat then leaves again a few moments later.
I do not think this the right way to go about things, not even to promote what you want to promote.
Countries think differently about matters such as abortion.
We must enter into a debate with each other about this.
I am all in favour of that.
We may be a community of values, but not in this respect.
   Mr President, I should like to address the Commission about European citizens’, and particularly women’s, right to information.
Since this right aims to enhance and share knowledge for the benefit of women’s health and sexual rights, it is perfectly compatible with the Lisbon strategy.
It was not the intention of the ‘Women on Waves’ ship to export the Dutch achievements in the area of abortion to Portugal, but rather to give Portuguese women and men objective information about their sexual rights.
It is up to them what they do with this information.
Two years ago, by means of a resolution following a report by Mrs Van Lancker, this House called on governments to provide objective, scientific and clear information about sexual and reproductive health.
This also included the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and the risks of dangerous terminations performed under inadequate circumstances.
By foiling the activities of ‘Women on Waves’ which aims to provide information, the Portuguese Government has not given evidence of having taken this House’s resolution seriously.
Although the ship has now left Portugal, ‘Women on Waves’ has indicated its intention of returning in time for the forthcoming elections in Portugal.
This could provide the Portuguese Government with a good second chance to act upon this Parliament’s resolution and to demonstrate that it does not want to deny its citizens the right to information.
Commissioner Wallström, can the Commission ensure that best practice in the area of providing information about women’s reproductive and sexual rights will again be put more firmly on the map, and will it take concrete steps in this respect, for example in the form of organising a conference on this topic in Lisbon?
   Mr President, I could not agree more with Mr Graça Moura.
It is beyond me as well why we here in the European Parliament are debating an issue between Portugal and an action group sailing under the Dutch flag.
The case is to be judged by a court, and it does not fall within this Parliament’s remit.
The whole issue would therefore seem to be resolved, were it not for the fact that this case is not only judicial in nature, but also moral.
Since when does the attack on legislation of another Member State fall under the scope of the free movement of persons, goods and services? That is precisely what is happening here with ‘Women on Waves’.
In Last Saturday’s , this organisation urged people to back the fight for free abortion in Portugal.
That is quite different from providing a service, and in doing so, this organisation is showing its true colours.
That is indeed something completely different from providing information on board the .
I would note in this connection that the Dutch Public Health Inspectorate is launching an inquiry in order to assess whether the activities by ‘Women on Waves’ are permitted.
Progressive activism is testing the boundaries of the law. is not automatically accepted in the Netherlands either.
At the time, only a narrow majority was in favour of a statutory regulation to make possible.
Even to this day, a large minority is having great difficulty accepting this abortion legislation, coming from the standpoint that life is worth protecting.
The Netherlands need not show the way in this matter.
I should like to address the questions that my fellow Members have put to the Commission.
They state that the Commission should take steps on the basis of Community law.
Article 28 of Community law stipulates that there should be free movement of goods and services.
Article 30 of the same Community law stipulates that free movement of goods should not apply when common decency, public order, safety and public health need to be protected.
It follows that Portugal has every right to refuse an action ship access, even if a Portuguese organisation has invited that ship to be there.
It is therefore quite a privilege for the EU Member States to still have the right to adopt their own policies.
In that light, it is a sign of little respect if attempts are made, via European legislation, to prove that the progressive line is right.
The Portuguese Government should be praised for considering the unborn life worthy of protection.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in June of last year I witnessed the entry into Polish territorial waters of the , a Dutch vessel housing an abortion clinic belonging to the organisation ‘Women on Waves’.
We of the League of Polish Families, an organisation defending the life of unborn children, decided that we would not allow this monstrous provocation to occur.
For two weeks I saw how the organisation ‘Women on Waves’ repeatedly mocked Polish law by violating a large number of regulations, for example by entering the port of Władysławowo without the consent of the port authority.
This posed a navigational risk to other seafaring vessels in the port.
A further instance in which laws were broken was the import of drugs prohibited in Poland.
I would also like to stress that the hygiene and sanitary conditions on the ship were appalling.
If ‘Women on Waves’ wish to enter Polish ports again in the future, we will not allow this to happen.
   I wish to join other colleagues in showing solidarity with the Portuguese Government for its decision not to allow the ship ‘Women on Waves’ in Portugal.
I show my solidarity and congratulate the Portuguese Government for its courage and, why not, also its moral courage when taking this decision.
It is not easy in today’s world with, pressures being exerted from every quarter, that one makes a bold stand and adheres steadfastly to the decision taken more so when knowing that one would not necessarily be popular by taking such a decision.
I must say that I do not agree that the abortion issue should be raised in this Parliament for any reason except to put pressure on one country or another.
I do not agree as all of us are aware that this Parliament has no power to decide or to legislate on abortion.
In the same manner the Commission has no jurisdiction concerning abortion.
This is a matter that should be decided at a national level in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity and every country should decide according to its circumstances and according to how its society looks upon such a sensitive issue.
This means that, by raising this issue here when we know that this Parliament has no jurisdiction, all we are doing is mixing people up and creating total confusion, when, in fact, this is a clear issue and upon which there is no place for confusion.
This confusion has even caused a number of countries, including Malta, my country, to seek clarification regarding this issue in the context of negotiations by negotiating a specific protocol regarding the abortion issue.
The same was done by Ireland, and, if I am not mistaken, even Poland, not because there was any legal doubt about this issue but so that there would be certainty and all would have their minds at rest.
Therefore whilst again congratulating the Portuguese Government that set an example to others, I appeal that we should not muddle people’s minds regarding this issue by entering into matters that do not concern us.
   The next item is oral question (B6-0012/2004) on the EU strategic objectives for the 13th meeting of the CITES Convention.
   I thank Mr Doyle for elucidating the question and for making a contribution on behalf of his group, even though it meant running slightly over time.
   .
Mr President, the next conference of the parties to the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species – CITES – has a very full agenda.
However, I am pleased to inform you that preparations in Council have proceeded smoothly and we have already reached a consensus.
In doing so, our position on some high-profile issues has evolved.
For example, we are now leaning in favour of the proposal to outlaw commercial trade in the Irrawaddy dolphin.
CITES has been in force for nearly 30 years and has proved a very effective tool in reducing the threats to wild fauna and flora posed by unsustainable international trade.
Since its entry into force, other agreements relating to biodiversity have been adopted, most notably the Convention on Biological Diversity.
One of the Community's strategic objectives is to achieve greater synergies between these agreements, thereby contributing to a significant reduction in the rate of loss of biological diversity by 2010, as endorsed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
The Community also believes that CITES should remain a vehicle for the sustainable use of wild fauna and flora.
Increased protection is often required to safeguard the conservation status of some species in trade, but we must also acknowledge the efforts of those countries that have already implemented effective conservation measures.
For this reason, we have to consider seriously the proposals for easing trade restrictions on some species, such as the Christmas orchid from Colombia, black and white rhinos, the leopard, and so on.
CITES is a science-based convention, as has already been underlined, and sets out detailed criteria for determining the level of protection that should apply to individual species.
The Community supports this science-based approach and therefore is hesitant about the proposals concerning the African lion and endemic reptiles.
Finally, the Community wishes to maximise the efficiency of CITES by minimising unnecessary administrative burdens.
While we must avoid illegal or unsustainable trade, we should also ensure that parties' resources are directed towards issues of real conservation concern.
   Mr President, I am a little surprised that we are to debate lion hunting in this Parliament.
That is not something I ever thought would happen to me in an assembly with which I would otherwise have thought I was more or less in agreement.
Lion hunting was, in fact, what was wanted, as a split vote was requested, and we are in actual fact still short of an explanation from the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats as to its wishes in connection with a species 90% of which has disappeared over the last decade.
A second, and probably just as important, question is one to the Commission as to why it has gone easy on the demand for the protection of freshwater turtles.
The IUCN regards them as threatened, but millions of them are killed each year.
They are used for food and for natural medicine, and this, of course, quite obviously threatens these species’ long-term prospects for survival.
If I have been informed correctly, there is nonetheless a proposal by the Commission that nothing special should be done to have them protected, and that is a matter in connection with which we should basically very much like an answer.
   Mr President, I would like to say to the Commission and Parliament that I fully support what CITES is doing.
However, I question why the CITES conference is to be held in Bangkok.
In Thailand there is still a lot of illegal trading in orang-utans, monkeys and leopards.
So if the conference is to be held there, we need to question the Thai Government about this problem.
I have seen examples of 50 illegally imported young orang-utans found hidden in cramped cages in private Thai zoos.
In my constituency there is an organisation called Monkey World Ape Rescue Centre which wants to get a particular chimpanzee called Naree out of Thailand, but the Thai Government has not been helpful in this regard.
If the conference is held in Thailand, it is very important for both this Parliament and the Commission to raise these issues with the Thai Government.
We cannot allow this to happen.
We have to highlight it. This is an opportunity to do so.
While I welcome CITES and everything it is trying to do, the fact that the conference is to be held in Thailand will give us an opportunity to raise these issues with the Thai Government, so as to help stop such things happening.
Otherwise this trade might seem to be acceptable because the CITES conference is being held there.
(1)
(2)
   Mr President, I propose adding the following to the end of paragraph 8:
   I can confirm what Mr Salafranca has just said; the text which has been tabled is the one which Mr Salafranca has just read out.
A mistake has therefore been made by the services concerned.
I see that other Members have asked to speak.
I cannot see any problem with including what you say.
   Mr President, I was referring precisely to the request to repatriate the body of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, provided for in the motion for a resolution.
From what you said, you appear to me to understand that it is unnecessary to table an oral amendment.
Since three other people have been abducted this morning, however, I feel that the text should be brought up to date with today’s events.
I would therefore like to request the floor to table an oral amendment in this regard, before we vote on paragraph two.
   You will be able to speak when the time comes, Mr Tajani.
I have made a note of this.
   Mr President, all the points raised by Mr Salafranca are correct.
However, I would like to add another point. Paragraph three has been submitted in a previous version, whereas it should be replaced with the following wording: ‘asks the Council Presidency, the High Representative and the Commission to support the initiatives which the interested Member States are taking in this regard’.
Paragraph three must therefore be amended as well.
Ladies and gentlemen, I understand that it is annoying, but I assure you that we tabled the correct version of the text.
I know that Mr Tajani will ask to table an oral amendment and I can already foresee that we will agree.
   Mr President, I should like to ask whether paragraph 1, upon which we are about to vote, was originally tabled in English.
The French and English versions differ, and I presume that the text should be based on the English original, which says ‘the determination of the Iraqi Government’, and not, as in the French version, ‘the determination of the legitimate Iraqi Government’.
   Mr President, an issue has arisen overnight concerning paragraph 5 of our resolution.
The original paragraph 5 referred to an 'Australian proposal to list the Great White Shark in CITES Appendix II with a zero quota'.
That was correct on going to print, when all the Groups in this House agreed to the resolution.
However, the Australians have now withdrawn the reference to a zero quota on legal and scientific grounds, as I mentioned when I moved the question and as the Commissioner has confirmed.
It would be very untidy of us as a parliament to vote on a contradictory text in light of this most recent information.
We should not be supporting a reference to a zero quota, which is no longer the Australian position.
May I remind colleagues who support the zero quota – and I know many do – that withdrawal of this section of paragraph 5 today, that is, all the words after 'Appendix II', would not preclude another party to the conference re-tabling the zero quota request, if they wished to do so.
I feel we cannot welcome an Australian proposal which is no longer an Australian proposal on this particular issue.
However, we can welcome the first sentence 'to list the Great White Shark in CITES Appendix II'.
I need your guidance, as I know it is late procedurally, Mr President, but we need to be sure that what we do and vote on today makes sense and is factually correct.
   Mrs Doyle, I must consider your intervention to be an oral amendment.
In order to make it clear to the other Members, could you please state very clearly the text you wish to put to the vote?
   Mr President, my point is purely procedural.
I am not making any statement in relation to zero quotas or otherwise.
I would like to amend paragraph 5 of our text: 'welcomes the Australian proposal to list the great white shark in CITES Appendix II'.
The rest of the text would have to be deleted because the Australians have removed it from their proposal, although that will not preclude others retabling it at the Conference of the Parties, if necessary.
   .
British Conservatives recognise that climate change is one of the greatest challenges to be faced by our generation and those that will follow us.
Whilst we cannot predict with certainty the extent to which temperatures will rise, we can be certain that the risk of abrupt climate change exists.
If we are serious about tackling man-made climate change then we must be serious about reducing global aviation emissions, which are expected to double by 2020.
That is why we support action to include aviation in a global emissions trading scheme.
If the global authorities will not act, then the EU must be free to introduce its own scheme.
We have severe reservations as to the effectiveness of fuel and emissions taxes.
These would have a negligible effect on demand for most air travel, but would have a disproportionate effect on the budget airline sector.
It is unlikely that the proceeds of such taxes would be used to mitigate the effect of the emissions, leaving such schemes as nothing more than revenue-raising exercises.
Nor do we believe that the Commission needs a seat on the ICAO Assembly.
   .
Aviation has long been a privileged industry.
Old international agreements prevent the taxes imposed on transport on the ground from being levied on aviation.
At the time, that was a way of affording a new, up-and-coming, yet economically still weak form of international transport a chance of survival.
Since then, this situation has been turned on its head.
Air traffic is growing exponentially, the old airline companies are being elbowed out by cut-price operators, noise pollution is making those living in the vicinity of the ever growing airports ill, global warming is continuing and international rail traffic is being competed out of the market.
Society must now be protected against this increasing growth in aviation, and this will certainly not happen as long as aviation retains an artificial competitive edge.
In order to limit the environmental damage, to pay for the costs of pollution caused by aviation and protect other modes of transport, normal taxes should be imposed on air traffic.
That is why any decision taken at world level and leading to the maintenance of the ban on taxes or prejudicing the reduction in pollution is unacceptable.
It is astonishing that, on 1 September in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, the largest group opposed, as it is doing now, a resolution intended to put a stop to the United States’ attempts at giving aviation permanently preferential treatment.
   .
I abstained on the motion for a European Parliament resolution on the 35th session of the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) Assembly of 28 September to 8 October 2004.
By voting this way, I wished to express my opinion that Parliament must not meddle in the affairs of the ICAO Assembly before the session gets underway and, what is more, must not adopt positions on matters that, as far as I can tell, are simply proposals for amending a resolution that is to be debated at that Assembly.
In spite of the fact that this issue is worthy of our attention, the actual text approved by a majority in Parliament provides the basis for our position, given that it acknowledges (No 3) that the Commission should have a seat at the ICAO Assembly.
In any event, if it does not have that seat, Parliament has no reason to meddle in this matter.
   .
I voted in favour of Parliament’s resolution on the situation in Belarus, although I feel that in resolutions such as these there is always a thin line between, on the one hand, the need – the legitimate need – to put international pressure on States and governments that violate democratic principles and the rule of law, and, on the other, interference in a country’s internal affairs, which is a much more delicate issue.
In view of the fact that Belarus is covered by the European Neighbourhood Policy, which is aimed at increased cooperation with the EU and that serious breaches have taken place of the rights, freedoms and safeguards that are an integral part of the democratic rule of law, the EU and, more specifically, Parliament – in conjunction with the United Nations Committee on Human Rights – must take initiatives such as this one that are geared towards encouraging democratic progress in Belarus and free and fair elections on 17 October.
   . I voted in favour of the motion for a resolution further to the Council and Commission statements pursuant to Rule 103(2) of the Rules of Procedure on behalf of the Committee on Development on the Darfur region in the Sudan, and the reports presented to us by the Members of this House who were in Parliament’s delegation to the region between 2 and 7 September.
Accordingly, whatever the reasons behind the genuine ethnic cleansing that is taking place in Darfur, we have an obligation to condemn acts against civilians that have already led to over 30 000 dead, 1 million persons displaced in Sudan and more than 200 000 refugees in Chad.
We must also condemn the Sudanese Government politically, not only for supporting attacks on civilians and violating the ceasefire agreement, but also for pursuing a policy of underdevelopment and economic marginalisation in the areas affected by the conflict.
This is what I wished to express through my vote.
   .
I totally support the European Parliament in condemning in the strongest terms the abductions of hostages in Iraq and in demanding their immediate release.
I support paragraphs 2 and 3 of the resolution to this effect.
However, I cannot vote for this joint resolution as a whole as it seeks to justify the illegal and unjust war and the occupation of Iraq.
   .
The European Parliamentary Labour Party welcomes this resolution, in particular its emphasis on maximising the European Union's involvement and in seeking the unconditional, safe return of French, Italian and other hostages.
We accept the gravity of the security situation in Iraq but believe it unhelpful to use the wording 'a majority of the Iraqi population' in Amendment 1.
A transfer of coalition troops or, indeed, a complete withdrawal is unrealistic and risks worsening an already bad situation.
Whilst we accept that the House is divided on the legal questions, we appeal for unity in looking forward, not back, working together for peace, reconciliation and reconstruction in a democratic Iraq.
   .
I voted in favour of Parliament’s resolution on Iraq, because I feel that Europe should set a firm example in condemning terrorist attacks against civilians, the police, soldiers from the multinational force and civilian hostages.
Parliament must use all of its political influence and weight to obtain the hostages’ immediate release.
We must also support the interim government’s plans to press ahead with preparations for free and democratic elections in January 2005, which will enable Iraqis to proceed along the road towards democracy and towards dismantling the terrorist networks operating in their country.
Parliament must, therefore, not waver in the face of the complex nature of these times.
We must remain firm within our societies, our alliances must remain solid and loyal and, most importantly, our actions must form part of a concerted struggle for the peace, stability and prosperity to which Iraq and the Iraqi people are unquestionably entitled.
(4)
   Mr Van Orden, the representation of the Council is decided by the Council and you can see it here.
It is perhaps not very extensive, but it is what the Council has decided and Parliament cannot therefore tell the Council how it should be represented in the House’s sittings, although your comment is undoubtedly very valid.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in Myanmar, a country that lives under a repressive, violent and enormously cruel regime, is known to us all.
Even so, whereas incidents concerning the incarceration of Aung San Suu Kyi and the impossibility for the LND, the party which won the elections, to exert its political power are well known, less well known are other extremely serious facts concerning the conscription of child soldiers, the forced labour of a large part of the population and, something which the women in our Parliament, and I believe all civilised people, appreciate as particularly sensitive, the abuse inflicted upon women from ethnic minorities.
There is substantial documentation at the United Nations which I think should also be examined more thoroughly by this Parliament.
In this situation, we feel that the EU should accept the request of the ASEAN countries, which have already admitted Myanmar to their forum, to have it attend the next ASEM summit, which sees the European Union engaged in a dialogue of cooperation and political exchange with Asian countries.
I think that the Foreign Ministers, at an informal meeting, have unexpectedly – if I may say so – already gestured their agreement that it should attend.
I think that the European Council must adopt a different stance to resolve a situation whereby European citizens cannot see their Heads of State or Government sitting side by side with the representatives of such a bloodthirsty country, with such a violent and repressive regime.
We therefore ask the European Council to adopt a different position which, through the ASEAN countries, can convince Myanmar to bring about change.
   Mr President, I consider it an affront to democracy and humanity that Burma will be represented at the ASEM Meeting in Hanoi in October.
As the previous speaker, Mr Schmidt, has said, the three necessary conditions for Burma's attendance at the meeting have not been met: the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other National League for Democracy leaders, their freedom to participate freely in the National Convention, and the modification of procedure of the National Convention.
Meanwhile, according to Amnesty International, there have been thousands of reported cases of rape being used as a political weapon to subdue ethnic minorities.
As recently as last week, it was reported that the Women's League of Burma maintains that such rape is prevalent in many areas and that victims are frequently under the age of 18 and even under the age of 12 in at least one case.
It is well known that the Burmese military is also believed to have a higher percentage of child soldiers than any other military in the world.
I strongly oppose Burma's participation in the forthcoming meeting and I hope that the invitation to Burma will be withdrawn until democracy is restored and Aung San Suu Kyi set free.
    Mr President, the summit in Hanoi will be taking place on 8 and 9 October, and it is, of course, good to see that it is being held, because the dialogue between Asia and Europe is of major importance.
There are, however, a few observations to be made in respect of the summit.
Burma has already been mentioned, and I will return to it presently.
First of all, I have to say that, although holding the summit in Vietnam is naturally a showcase for the reforms achieved in that country, it nevertheless has to be noted that there is still a yawning chasm between the dream of an effective and honest trading environment and reality.
I have taken a stand in this House before – in October 2001 and also a year ago – for Mr Bin Vinh Trinh in Vietnam, for example.
After a long-term stay abroad, he had made investments in his home country, and these were taken away from him under false pretences.
His possessions were confiscated and he was imprisoned.
Tragic though this was for him and his family, above all, it sent a negative message to potential investors in Vietnam.
In my view, it is time the Vietnamese Government made a gesture in this respect.
Secondly, human rights are a topic of discussion also in other countries in the region, and remain so.
Thailand is a case in point.
It is true that the Dutch and the Thai Governments have just signed an extradition agreement for the exchange of the Dutch prisoners who have been behind bars for a long time.
This is a welcome step forward, but in the case of the prisoner, Machiel Kuijt, with which I am particularly concerned, it was agreed that he would appear before the court of cassation before 1 July.
That still has not happened, and I hope that the Thai Government will deliver on its promise.
Incidentally, the Commission has made a positive contribution in this area.
It would be good if the Council could do the same.
Finally, Burma has been mentioned.
No other Asian country is struggling with human rights and democracy as much as Burma.
Moreover, its problems are historical.
Naturally, the liberals propose a dialogue in principle, provided it is a dialogue in which both parties participate seriously.
If not, there is no point whatsoever in sitting around the negotiating table.
In my view, the other Asian countries, particularly the ASEAN countries, which are so insistent that Burma should take part in those talks, also have a responsibility to ensure finally that Burma is taking this kind of dialogue seriously.
   Mr President, at the end of 2002 I was travelling in Burma and saw that Burma was a police state.
The Burmese authorities have not cooperated with the UN special envoys, and the latest attack on Aung San Su Kyi and the NDL is a further setback.
The world must not forget about the rest of the country, which is suffering from serious oppression.
Discrimination against different ethnic groups, the confiscation of property, and the existence of political prisoners, forced labour, political rape and child soldiers have been well documented, as well as the burning down of villages.
Fifty per cent of the national budget goes to the military.
Money comes from foreign business and investment.
The brutal military dictatorship is the root cause of the problems ravaging Burma.
Sanctions that would bite have never been strictly applied.
Burma has not met any of the three criteria set by the EU in April.
All members of the Committee on Development who have spoken in the debate feel strongly that the EU should not participate in the ASEM Summit in Hanoi with Burma.
Instead, the EU should increase and toughen sanctions against the regime leaders and should impose sanctions on the European corporations that do business with the Burmese regime, and specifically the French oil company Total.
The EU should urge countries such as the USA, Australia and Japan to do likewise.
EU members should ask the United Nations Security Council to impose marked targeted sanctions against the Burmese military regime, since it massively violates human rights, sends refugees into neighbouring countries, and sponsors the production of drugs and crime.
It would be a shame if at the ASEM Summit the EU allowed Burma to be dismissed as a minor issue in its overall relations with Asia.
    Mr President,after a string of violent conflicts in the states of former Yugoslavia between 1992 and 2001, everyone hoped that the survivors would co-exist peacefully.
Unfortunately in Vojvodina, where citizens were subjected to bombing in what fell short of an ethnic war, non-Serbs are once again being tormented by those around them. Today, we will once again express our horror at the situation and call for peace and reconciliation.
However, we will not solve this problem merely by committing our condemnations and moral indignation to paper.
If that is the only thing we do, then I fear that we will have to repeat pertinent resolutions of this kind again and again, because they are not being heard by the people who matter.
Violence and intimidation by ordinary citizens are evident wherever there is a predominant feeling that many of their own people are shut out by state borders, while many others who used to be considered to be the occupiers, are left behind in the people’s own country.
In Serbian public opinion, the prevalent view is that, in terms of government, the Serbian inhabitants of the north and east of Bosnia and of the north of Kosovo are wrongfully cut off from the home country, and that for that reason, the areas that are recognised as Serbian territory should be made completely Serbian.
Anyone who opposes this view is considered an enemy and is tarred with the same brush as the former Turkish and German occupiers.
Political parties identifying with this feeling, shared by many members of the public, can count on a lot of votes, because they have the nerve to do what the public want.
On the map of 1856, which is displayed on the second floor of this building, anyone can see how ethnically divided Vojvodina was between Hungarians, Croats, Germans, Slovaks, Romanians and Serbs at the time.
Since the 1918 division, when it became part of Serbia, it has continually become more Serbian and other groups have moved away or have been driven out.
Since 1989, the autonomy for the large Hungarian-speaking minority has also been driven back considerably.
The recent riots are part and parcel of this long-term development.
Without clear and broadly based agreements on linguistic rights, autonomy and administrative borders, it is difficult to avoid future outbursts of ethnic hatred in and around Serbia.
We should therefore do more than merely adopt this resolution, although it is a step in the right direction.
    Mr President, in the province of Vojvodina, harassment and physical aggression against non-Serbs, including children, are once again the order of the day.
Members of the Hungarian minority are pestered on a daily basis, tombstones are damaged and violated, vandalism and anti-Semitic propaganda have become everyday fare.
Everything seems to suggest that within this province with its different minorities, the Serbs are once again turning more insolent and more radical.
Since the autumn of last year, we have been inundated with alarming reports about ever worsening violent incidents.
A recent report by the Hungarian Human Rights Foundation gives a 19-page long, humiliating chronology of the ethnic violence in the province of Vojvodina.
With this renewed violence, everything seems to suggest that the Serbs want to displace the frustrations that the loss of the province of Kosovo has caused them.
Fellow Members, I do not only want to point the finger at the Serbs here.
The sad experiences from the recent past should have taught us that conflicts in so-called multi-cultural or multi-ethnic societies are rooted in recent history, and that we should therefore look for a balanced political solution, whereby consideration is given to the complaints of all those involved, as well as to the conflict’s historical background.
We should therefore firmly condemn all violence, but we should be careful not to lay the blame on one party alone.
   Mr President, why are we talking about the Maldives today? We are talking about the Maldives because we have ignored it for 23 years.
We have let it be.
We have not looked at the living conditions or quality of life of the people in that country.
They have been living under a dictatorship.
There have been no elections.
The President runs the country as his private property.
Though it is classified under the GNP criteria as having a living standard in excess of $3 000 per capita, 50% of the people live for less than a dollar a day.
But if you were to go there, Mr President, you would have to pay $300 a night to stay in one of those rooms!
Where does the money go? Who collects it and where is it banked?
Certainly not for the benefit of the people of the Maldives.
Moreover, recently, on 16 August, 200 people were detained without charge or arrest. Eight MPs were detained, MPs who had been tasked with drafting constitutional amendments for increased representation in parliament, including a former candidate for the role of Speaker, former Secretary-General of SAARC Mr Ibrahim Zaki, who has been nominated by some of us for the Sakharov Prize.
Others have been held in prison without charge.
Habeas corpus has been suspended and human rights have been abused.
If the government of the Maldives wants to engage with the European Union, it should first restore the fundamental rights of those people it has imprisoned.
Then we can talk.
We do not want to hurt a small archipelago of 1 200 islands.
We want to help them.
The only way to help them is to ensure that European travellers visiting the Maldives also have access to fair travel so that they do not feel compelled to live in a country which is abusing its own citizens.
    Mr President, Mr Deva made us in the Committee on Development aware a few weeks ago of the tyranny – for there are no other words to describe the situation – which is governing the heavenly Maldives and where in August, a corrupt ruler, motivated by sharia law, once again imprisoned without trial a number of members of the opposition.
The Maldives are also those islands situated in the Indian Ocean where the many dollars which rich western tourists leave behind in the luxurious temples of five-star tourism only end up in the pockets of a small , while the majority of the population, a proportion of whom work as slaves in order to be at the beck and call of those western tourists, have to survive on less than USD 1 per month.
This corrupt regime of President Gayoom has survived for many years and continues to vegetate thanks to our travel agents and thanks to glossy magazines extolling to newly-weds the virtues of the palm trees and the white sandy beaches of the archipelago.
Wisely, these brochures keep silent about the rest.
They do not mention the poverty, the tortures or the political prisoners.
This is an outright disgrace.
This is why this Parliament must bring pressure to bear on the tourism industry, and the European Union should, if necessary, consider a tourism embargo against the Maldives should it transpire that the man who, as an unenlightened potentate, treats his subjects as slaves, cannot be brought to reason in any other way.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 16 September (1).
   Mr President, I wish to thank you personally for your efforts and assistance in trying to secure the release of my constituent from Liverpool, Ken Bigley, who was taken hostage in Iraq.
On Friday we received the very tragic news that he had been executed.
I should be grateful, Mr President, if you would send our sympathy and condolences to his family on behalf of the Members of this Parliament.
This request is also being made on behalf of the other Members of the European Parliamentary Labour Party.
   Thank you very much, Mrs McCarthy.
I must tell you that that letter has been sent, and that I have previously sent my condolences to the family and to the British people.
The letter of condolence that I have sent to the Bigley family says that we all feel affected by this brutal murder.
We had previously called on the kidnappers to free Mr Bigley, but that call – like so many from every part of the world – was in vain.
Now all we can do is mourn his death and express our condolences to his family.
So, that letter has been sent.
I thank you for suggesting we should do so.
   Mr President, I rise on the issue of human rights abuses in Colombia.
I have been approached by the FrontLine organisation, which is an international foundation for the protection of human rights defenders.
It concentrates on defending human rights defenders who engage in peaceful actions in relation to human rights in their country.
In February this year a number of trade unionists – members of a peasant farmers' association – were arrested.
They have not yet been charged and there is no evidence of any possible serious charges against them.
Up to 30 trade unionists have been assassinated in Colombia this year alone.
It is a situation which the European Union has addressed from time to time, but there is serious concern amongst human rights defenders, both in Colombia and in Europe, that the European Union is allowing this issue to slide off the agenda.
I shall forward to you the letter from the FrontLine organisation urging you to demand that the Colombian authorities release immediately the members of Fensuagro in the absence of any valid legal charges, and ensure that lawful trade union organisations can operate free from intimidation.
   Thank you very much, Mr De Rossa.
That will be done, in response to the issue you have raised.
   – Mr President, I believe it is only right and proper that this Parliament should formally express its shock and outrage at the number of victims of the terrorist attack in Taba last week.
I believe we should send a message of solidarity and profound condolence to the families of the victims, amongst whom I should like to remember especially the two young Italian women, Jessica and Sabrina, whose only crime was to allow themselves a holiday that they had been really looking forward to after a year’s work.
   Mr President, I would like to remind the House that next week, from 17 to 24 October, is One World Week.
This is an opportunity for us all to take action and to do something about poverty and injustice in the world.
One practical way in which we can help is by buying Fair Trade products. Parliament has started to buy Fair Trade products.
In Strasbourg we now receive Fair Trade tea, though in Brussels we still get Liptons tea.
Perhaps the Quaestors could take up this issue of why we are getting Fair Trade tea in one case but not in another, and consider what more we can do in this House with regard to buying Fair Trade produce.
It would set a good example to other public administrations.
I hope that you will support this initiative.
   Thank you very much, Mrs McAvan, for your very pertinent reminder.
   – Mr President, I should like to bring an extremely serious event to Parliament’s attention.
On Thursday, 7 October, the FBI, acting on federal orders, asked Rack Space, a US service provider, to hand over to them the hardware of two servers hosting all of Indymedia’s material, in other words the material from dozens of locations in this international network, which works with non-profit-making groups and associations.
All the material was handed over without Indymedia even being able to find out the reasons for this action, which was a real act of censorship.
I believe the European Parliament should always stand up for anyone’s area of freedom of expression and debate.
I therefore call for the clampdown on Indymedia to be lifted and for the reasons behind it to be queried, at least.
      Mr President, there is no getting away from the fact that the way in which the outgoing European Commission acted towards the EU’s new members was exceptionally unjust.
All of the previous EU enlargements were carried out in accordance with the principle that the same conditions which applied to the countries that were already part of the EU should apply to the new members.
This was the case not only for countries such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland, which had national incomes as low as that of Poland, but which had market economies and were thus in a position to take rapid advantage of EU mechanisms.
It was also the case for East Germany, which, like Poland, had to undergo political transformation.
From the day of its entry to the EU, the German Democratic Republic received agricultural subsidies equivalent to 100% of those paid to farmers in West Germany, as well as production limits that equalled consumption.
The conditions upon which Poland and the other Eastern Bloc countries were accepted were much worse, as well as being unjust.
This injustice will continue to serve as a calling card for the work of your Commission, Mr Prodi.
The EU monitors democracy in various countries outside the EU which do not have the slightest chance of ever joining it, and yet it lacked the courage to examine whether the referendums on EU accession were carried out in a democratic manner, and whether equal media time was available to both supporters and opponents of accession.
Unfortunately neither equality nor democracy were in evidence, and yet the EU preferred to ignore this fact.
This is another injustice that characterises the outgoing Commission’s term of office, and there are further causes for dissatisfaction with the work carried out by the Commission under your presidency.
The draft Constitution was presented during this time, and the Commission’s support for this draft means that the EU is fast heading towards becoming a single state.
There is talk of the principle of subsidiarity, but at the same time Member States are being deprived of competences in matters they could perfectly well regulate themselves.
Little by little, plans are being drawn up for the creation of an EU army, a single foreign policy, a common currency, common legislation and a common jurisdiction.
The Commission is gradually becoming a European government, and yet there is no consensus that this should happen.
   Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, I still remember my first meeting with Mr Prodi, the then Prime Minister of Italy, in Rome six years ago.
This meeting took place during an official visit by Mr Buzek, who was Prime Minister of Poland at the time and is now a Member of the European Parliament.
I accompanied Mr Buzek as Minister for European Affairs.
Even after so many years, I still have warm memories of your friendliness and openness towards my country, Mr Prodi, and would like to thank you for this.
You have presided over the European Commission during a historic period, which included the fifth and largest enlargement in the history of the EU.
You have made history and will go down in history.
Since enlargement the EU has become more European and more representative of our continent, and we hope that given time we will also be able to compete more effectively with America and Asia.
Yet your term of office was not only one of great change, but also one that raised a great many questions which your Portuguese successor will have to deal with.
You have left us with high levels of unemployment in the EU and the idea of a two-speed Europe, that is to say, of a superior and an inferior Europe.
Following in the footsteps of Jacques Delors is not an easy task, although following in those of Jacques Santer is much easier, as his strides were not and are not giant ones.
In conclusion, however, today we are sitting in a Parliament that represents 25 countries and not 15, and the credit for this is yours, Mr Prodi.
   Mr President, in actual fact, it is not really necessary to take stock of the activities of the current Prodi Commission, although much could be said about it.
I think that we could easily fill a whole sitting with the Eurostat issue alone, for example.
However, that will be unnecessary because last week, the Prodi Commission pronounced what I regard as a damning final verdict about itself with its own advice about Turkey’s possible accession to the European Union.
Indeed, in doing so, the Commission performed the ultimate anti-European act.
The EU’s previous enlargement to include countries of former eastern Europe is open to criticism as regards its timescale or some of the modalities involved, but nobody challenges the principle that those eastern European countries belong to the common European civilisation.
This favourable response to Turkey, however, a country that is not European, whether in geographical, political, cultural, historical or religious terms, is worse than a mistake.
It is a crime against the true European idea.
   Mr President, I wish to begin with some congratulatory remarks.
One of your key aims was successful enlargement of the European Union.
In May this year the EU welcomed ten new Member States in the largest expansion since its creation.
This was a historic moment in the post-Cold War history of our continent and it is only right to acknowledge your role in attaining this political milestone.
I also wish to say that the Commission has developed some, at least, of the more liberal economic strategies that your successor has now pledged to advance.
The Lisbon Strategy was embarked upon under your watch but, sadly, too little progress has been made and Mr Wim Kok’s report to the Council in November will probably reveal this.
However, the positive remarks about the Commission end there.
For the past five years the Commission has become fatally addicted to constitutional change.
When you spoke to Parliament in 2000, setting out your priorities as President, you said: ‘Europe’s citizens are disenchanted and anxious.
They have lost faith in the European institutions’.
I am afraid that the intervening period has brought us the Constitutional Convention, the IGC and what may eventually be an EU Constitution.
It is clear from the turnout in this year’s European elections that this process has failed to inspire.
Indeed, it has reinforced the perception across Europe that institutions like the Commission are too self-serving.
In that 2000 speech you also said that a simple benchmark of whether the EU had delivered would be a higher turnout in the 2004 European Parliamentary elections.
One of the key reasons for your goal not being reached has been this obsession with constitutional change, which means very little to our constituents.
At the same time – and it saddens me to say this, particularly as Vice-President Kinnock is sitting alongside you in the Chamber – too little progress has been made on the reform of the Commission.
I regret to say that all this was inevitable, because over the past 12 months the Commission has been rudderless.
I make no apology for saying that this is in large measure due to your decision to spend a significant amount of your time attacking Mr Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, and constructing alliances to challenge him.
These activities have undermined the impartiality of the office of the President of the Commission and have ensured that the Commission has come to be seen as something of a lame duck.
All presidents are entitled to their political opinions, but I regret to say that your political interventions have been …
   Madam President, Mr Solana said that we could not continue to give money.
Something had to happen.
What the EU will, in actual fact, do is of course a matter for speculation.
The fact is, the EU has not done much other than make payments and adopt statements.
I would very much recommend that, firstly, attention be given to the proposal from Mr Romeva i Rueda about cancelling the cooperation agreement so that there are at least some minimum consequences of continually breaching the agreements.
Secondly, I wish to support what was said just now about giving the Geneva Agreement a much clearer status on this road map.
It might then be seen where the road is heading and an appeal finally made for more cogent discussion of the subject.
It seems, in fact, that a terrorist is being defined as someone who kills himself.
Anyone who has military helicopters and missiles is not however a terrorist, but a soldier, and it is immaterial whether very many more civilians are killed by these means than by suicide bombs.
It cannot help that we continue to engage in double-speak in this connection.
We must talk to Israel in the same way that we talk to other grown-up states and demand that a democratic nation be alert to these matters.
The way things are now heading, we are not going to have two viable states.
We shall have no viable states because Israel will die in the process, and it is therefore vital for both Israel and Palestine that we begin also to speak to the Israelis as if they could tolerate being talked to as grown-up people.
   Madam President, unlike the previous speaker I refuse to condemn so forcefully the government of Israel or the Israeli defence force in its operation on 29 September in Gaza to prevent Hamas – an organisation banned by both the US and the EU – from launching Qassam rockets which recently killed two Israeli children and wounded ten civilians in Sderot.
No government anywhere can tolerate civilian fatalities killed by a deadly and implacable enemy without reserving the right to retaliate with all the means at its disposal, and the Palestinian Authority has clearly not reined in its terrorists.
For years Hamas rockets were fortunately more like fire-crackers than bombs, but since the start of 2004, 149 high-explosive rockets have been launched from Gaza.
The BBC, not renowned as a friend of Israel, has reported that 15 out of 16 of the Palestinian men killed by the IDF were known terrorist militants.
All of us have a common enemy in fighting international Islamist terrorism.
Last week in Taba innocent Israeli holidaymakers were killed by a bomb attack which has all the hallmarks of al-Qa’ida.
It must also be emphasised that Israel took great care during the operation in Gaza to provide medical and humanitarian support for all the casualties, as well as innocent Palestinian civilians.
Prime Minister Sharon, in spite of fierce Likud opposition, is pressing ahead with withdrawal of settlements from Gaza as a way of kick-starting the roadmap for peace in the Middle East again and bringing about a two-state solution.
But I call on the Palestinian Authority to crack down on Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, otherwise Israel will be very reluctant to withdraw from the West Bank, which poses a much bigger challenge and is ultimately a much bigger prize.
   Well, Mr Patten, I can only hope for your sake that the doctor uses the right hold, and I propose that we now embark on the debate.
   Madam President, when I visited Tbilisi with Parliament’s delegation to Georgia and the South Caucasus, I was struck not only by the sheer decency and friendliness of the people of Georgia, but also by how much there is to change in that country in such a difficult situation.
The sheer lawlessness and the need for stronger law and order; the need for the Russian troops to fulfil their promise and withdraw; the need above all for tolerance between neighbouring peoples in the South Caucasus, to adopt the EU model – the way of learning to live in peace and tolerance and respecting each other, which they have to do.
We all agree that it is clearly strongly in our interests to help the Georgian peoples because they are our neighbours and we share a future.
I wish to pay a strong tribute to my friend, Mr Patten, who I see has left to see the doctor already.
He has been a great success as a Commissioner.
We owe him a great vote of thanks and I am sorry we are losing him.
      Madam President, Mr Solana, I am genuinely delighted at the statements made by Mr Solana and Mr Patten on Georgia.
The head of the Georgian state was elected on 4 January 2004, when President Saakashvili received a democratic mandate unprecedented in our part of the world.
He has important tasks ahead of him, which involve reform of the state and not merely the restoration of Georgia’s territorial integrity.
President Saakashvili’s mandate is also a time of great hope for the entire Georgian people.
As a representative of Poland, I am well aware of the immense difficulty involved in sustaining such hope, yet hope is necessary to carry out reforms as important as those which await Georgia.
I was particularly interested in Mr Patten’s comments on placing the issue of support for Georgia and President Saakashvili’s ambitions on the agenda for bilateral talks with Russia.
I believe we should adopt a very determined approach during these talks, as Russia’s position is key to solving Georgia’s problems in the near future.
It is also crucial to resolving a situation which, as can be seen from our motion for a resolution, we all agree is at stalemate, despite all the efforts of the international community.
We would like the pressure exerted by Russia to be reduced somewhat, and for cooperation with separatists both ...
   The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the future of the area of freedom, security and justice, which will also be put to the vote tomorrow in the report by Mr Bourlanges.
I give the floor to Mr Donner to speak for ten minutes on behalf of the Council.
   . Thank you, Mr President.
I would also like to thank you for the invitation to the presidency to exchange ideas with you about the multi-annual programme on Justice and Home Affairs.
Not only have contacts already been established, but there is also a satisfying level of interest in the subject; for example, Mr Bourlanges and Mr Gargani attended the informal meeting of Justice and Home Affairs ministers on 30 September and 1 October, which was entirely devoted to the multi-annual programme.
The presidency has, of course, read the report that Mr Bourlanges has, as rapporteur, drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.
As I have already told the Council, this preparation offers the opportunity of distancing ourselves somewhat from current concerns and of considering the medium term.
The Presidency believes that the core questions are: ‘What should we in the European Union be capable of in five years’ time?’ or ‘What should the area of freedom, security and justice look like at that time in order to meet the then requirements of our citizens?’
The latter is crucial. The Area does indeed exist for the citizens and not the other way round.
Thinking back to the discussions that have been held in the Council and to Mr Bourlanges’ report, it is evident that the Council and the European Parliament are, by and large, giving their attention to the same items.
Accordingly, I can report to you that the proposals for political guidelines currently being submitted for discussion by the presidency deal with a considerable number of items mentioned in the resolution.
It is indeed important that we can, in that way, give due consideration to this resolution when we reach the final stages.
I do not want to run ahead of this discussion.
To date, only an informal meeting has taken place.
I would, though, in this connection refer to such matters as the extension of the scope of the codecision procedure, civil rights, training police and judicial authorities, mutual recognition and, linked to this, common minimum standards, contingency plans, reinforcement of Europol and Eurojust and also the items concerning immigration, combating illegal immigration, asylum, repatriation and border control.
Those items are also addressed within the meaning mentioned in the resolution.
Needless to say, preventing and fighting terrorism is also an item on the agenda.
At the same time, although – as I also said in the Council’s introduction – terrorism is at present an acute threat, cooperation in the framework of the area of freedom, security and justice cannot be based on that.
It will instead need to be founded on the positive interests and added value that it brings with it.
With regard to the resolution, I should like to mention one more point, namely the proposed extension of jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
The presidency has deliberately not adopted this item, the reason being that with the already increased workload as a result of enlargement, it would be irresponsible to burden the Court now immediately with the jurisdiction across the board of Justice and Home Affairs.
As you all know, preliminary rulings at present take more than two years.
By accepting the decisions in the field of asylum and possibly also in the field of criminal cases, preliminary rulings can be sought about the interpretation of Community directives in current policy matters.
It is unacceptable that in those procedures, two-year timeframes should apply to legal proceedings where these involve people being detained for that time.
The Constitutional Treaty allows for these eventualities by insisting, in Article III-369, on the prompt handling of cases involving detained persons or aliens in custody.
It follows that the presidency is of the view that additional measures will be needed to enable the Court to implement this provision.
This necessity has also been mentioned in the draft conclusions.
It is therefore not a question of whether or not extending the Court’s jurisdiction is rejected but rather about making a different choice with regard to the priorities.
Incidentally, I have read with much interest what the resolution specifies about the decision-making by qualified majority in the fields in which this is already provided for in previous treaties.
There are proposals that go in a direction that is certainly backed by the Netherlands and the Dutch Presidency, and I hope that it will be possible for the Justice and Home Affairs Council, and possibly the European Council at a later stage, to make an important step in that direction.
The discussions about the draft conclusions will be held in the next few weeks.
The intention is for the Council, composed of the Justice and Home Affairs ministers, to reach a political agreement on 26 October on the whole package, upon which it will be possible for the European Council to finalise matters on 5 November.
Perhaps I might be permitted to end my introductory speech at this point.
   Thank you very much for your brevity, Mr Vitorino, but please allow me to say that only time will tell whether this is to be your last speech in this House or whether it was simply the last one before the one you deliver on your return one day to this House.
I now give the floor to Mr Bourlanges, chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, for five minutes.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, freedom is a criterion that should always be taken into consideration when making important decisions of any kind.
After all, it is thanks to a thirst for freedom that the European Union exists today, as freedom provided a basis for its creation.
It is thanks to the thirst for freedom of seven of the new Member States, which for half a century were subject in turn to German and Communist domination, were able to join these institutions and become fully fledged members of the European Union.
The two main threats to freedom today are terrorism, and immigration, in that order.
These threats, may also be perceived as a challenge. We must rise to it, find a way forward, and deal with the issue of immigration once and for all.
Rising levels of crime represent the next obvious threat to freedom.
I would also like to draw particular attention to the threat to freedom posed by the intrusion of the state into areas of life to which it should not have access, namely areas of private life.
This is an extremely serious problem, because it really is a major threat to freedom.
New technologies also pose a great threat, as they make it possible to monitor citizens to a much greater degree than has previously been possible.
The challenge facing the European institutions and all Europeans is to strike a balance between the desire for a peaceful and safe life and the wish to live in freedom.
I would like to ask whether some of the members of the Commission who voted against Mr Buttiglione were not by any chance guided by religious criteria, thus violating the extremely serious issue of religious freedom.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the European Commission judged in its recommendation about Turkey that that country does not sufficiently respect the political criteria of Copenhagen.
A very novel and original concept was thus concocted by way of a criterion for accession to our area of freedom, security and justice.
So it is that torture is allowed these days, provided that it is not carried out systematically.
It follows that in the Commission’s opinion, there is no longer a fundamental human rights problem in Turkey.
According to the recommendation, Turkey respects priority being given to international law, the rights of the Kurdish minority are finally respected – albeit only verbally – and the Turks finally enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms. What happens now, though?
On the very same day on which the Commission qualifies Turkey as a constitutional state, the Austrian newspaper reports that 14% of the asylum applications from Turkey are recognised, and as Reinhard Müller stated only two days ago in the , refugees are people who have fled their countries of origin out of reasonable fear of persecution.
It follows that these asylum applications are either justified and human rights are still being violated in Turkey, or Erdogan is right in his cynical claim before the Council last week that organisations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are indeed linked to international terrorism.
   I shall now give the floor to Mr Donner, President-in-Office of the Council, given that pursuant to the Council Rules of Procedure he has the right to the floor whenever he requests it.
Before I give him the floor, however, I should like to point out to the Dutch Presidency that, in the sittings in which the Council speaks and makes statements, the Presidency’s agenda must be set in such a way that it can attend all debates.
This is because debates with Parliament are not mere formalities, but are a crucial element in the relationship between the Council and Parliament.
Mr Donner has the floor.
   Mr Donner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as a matter of institutional courtesy, the Bureau naturally does not set fixed time limits for the Council or the Commission, but time must be allocated on the basis of fair access to the floor.
This is at least how it was allocated to the Members of this House.
The Council was scheduled to speak for five minutes at the end of the debate.
I am well aware that you are speaking in the middle, not at the end of the debate, but please allow me to draw your attention to the fact that we are now coming up to twelve minutes.
I should therefore request that you be somewhat brief, so that the Members of this House have some time to speak.
Thank you very much.
   In that case, I apologise most humbly for hearing this much-anticipated end.
Let us therefore return to the agenda.
I give the floor to Mrs Kudrycka.
I should also like to say a few words to Mr Vitorino.
Thank you very much for your excellent work.
I wish you all the best for the future.
I can say, on behalf of my political group, that you will be missed here, genuinely missed.
Thank you very much.
      I should like to turn to the issue of asylum policy in the context of the new Member States.
The European Union’s enlargement in 2004 was accompanied by a significant rise in applications for asylum in the new Member States.
According to the predictions of the UN High Commissioner for refugees, who recently paid a study visit to Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, numbers will continue to rise at the present rate in these countries for at least the next few years.
For example, following the escalation of the conflict in the North Caucasus, Poland is currently accepting the largest number of Chechen refugees.
Since mid-September their number has risen by several hundred per cent.
Every day, around 50 Chechen citizens cross Poland’s eastern border.
Most of them are mothers with children, and a great many are unaccompanied children.
Work on a common asylum policy needs to be stepped up, and measures should and must be taken to set up a joint funding mechanism based on solidarity between Member States, as well as an organisational mechanism for the integration of persons granted refugee status.
An integrated system for border management and the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders also need to be created rapidly.
The Agency should commence its activities as soon as possible in order to establish common standards for protection of the European Union’s external borders.
The most suitable place for the Agency to be located is Poland, as Poland has the longest land border in the European Union.
    That concludes the debate on the report.
I would like to invite Mr Vittorino to take the floor.
    The next item is the report (A6-0013/2004) by Mrs Gill on Draft amending budget No 9 of the European Union for the financial year 2004.
   Mr President, I speak on behalf of Mr Ferber, who is unable to be with us this evening, and also in my capacity as PPE-DE Group shadow rapporteur to Mrs Gill.
The committee has been disappointed at the perceived inability to control the budget for the body in question, although I accept that it was only introduced this year.
I was delighted when an institutional administrative cooperation agreement was signed in June between the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
This was designed firstly to ensure that this body took advantage of the experience gained in other institutions in the administrative and financial fields through the transfer of know-how; secondly to enable it immediately to take its place as an institution by exercising its functions and prerogatives; and, finally, to ensure compliance with the golden rule of good financial management through the introduction of economies of scale.
We have not seen enough of the latter, which is why the PPE-DE Group abstained when it came to the vote on this particular supplementary and amending budget.
We did not want to cause any disruption to the process and passage of the budget, but what we did – and Mrs Gill will bear this out – was to urge extreme caution for 2005.
This will be a matter for another rapporteur, I know, but given that the EUR 1.2 million initially required rose to 1.9 million, as the Commissioner has just said, and 2.8 million is being requested for next year, I would urge the greatest of caution, because we expect better financial management than this.
We have no grumbles or gripes about what this organisation does – it is badly needed – but we do have our concerns about how it does it.
(1)
   Mr President, I rise to speak on statements made in France by one of the Members of this House, Mr Gollnisch.
I would like to give two or three examples of remarks which he has recently made; ‘there is not a serious historian alive today who adheres completely to the conclusions of the Nuremberg trial’, ‘as to the existence of the gas chambers, that is up to the historians to determine’, and ‘I question the number of victims of the Holocaust’.
Such comments cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, and I would ask you, Mr President, to refer the matter to the Bureau.
These comments, made by a Member of Parliament, are an attack on the values which formed a basis for the construction of both the EU itself and the Charter of Fundamental Rights, as included in the Constitutional Treaty.
I should like to say from the outset that if a debate were to be held on parliamentary immunity as a result of the legal proceedings which cannot fail to be instigated, I would be in favour of waiving this immunity.
   – Mr President, I have a request to make of you.
Yesterday, the Conference of Presidents, which both Mr Watson and I attended, decided to ask the President of Parliament, Mr Borrell, to forward to the President-designate of the Commission, Mr Barroso, the letters from the various committees of this House containing the outcomes of the hearings, so that he could take note of them and draw his own conclusions from them.
I read in yesterday’s evening newspapers and in yesterday evening’s press agency reports that Mr Barroso, even though these letters are not yet in his possession, is already making statements about the outcomes of the hearings, to the effect that he is not interested in what the letters contain, regards – in as many words – his own Commission as perfectly suitable, and is unwilling to make any changes.
I would ask you, Mr President, to ensure that Mr Barroso is given to understand that my group is no longer prepared to be on the receiving end of this sort of talk.
If Mr Barroso wants the Socialist Group in the European Parliament to have any confidence in him, he will have to take a different approach to this House.
The fact is that this is not just about Mr Buttiglione, but now also about Mr Barroso himself.
I would ask you, Mr President, to see to it that Mr Barroso, when he receives these letters, also receives along with them the message that we expect a different attitude from the President-designate of the Commission.
   Ladies and gentlemen, the Bureau has been examining the issue raised by Mr Poignant since yesterday evening, and the President’s thoughts on the matter are very similar to those which you have just expressed.
Mr Schulz’s remark will naturally be forwarded to the relevant bodies.
   Before opening the debate, I have a statement to make.
I have received from Mr Matsakis a letter and a legal opinion concerning the request from the public prosecutor of the Republic of Cyprus to waive his parliamentary immunity, which was noted by the European Parliament on 13 October 2004.
In his letter, Mr Matsakis challenges the public prosecutor’s authority to make such a request.
Pursuant to Rule 6(3), the letter has been forwarded to the Committee on Legal Affairs, the only committee competent to deal with such matters, to verify the public prosecutor’s authority to make the request.
   The next item is oral questions to the Council and the Commission on the function of the Community’s Generalised System of Preferences for the ten-year period from 2006 to 2015.
I hope that the Commission will join us as soon as possible, and in the meantime I should like to begin by giving the floor to Mrs Morgantini, the author of the question.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European preferential system is certainly, post-enlargement, the most important and most generous system in the world by far.
It follows that any change to the system has crucial implications for everyone concerned.
The livelihoods of many producers in developing countries, but also in Europe, depend on it.
I share the Commission’s view that the system should be simplified and should focus more on the countries in greatest need of it in order to be able to compete within the global market.
What is important is that the system should become more flexible so that there can be systematic investigation of whether some sectors in beneficiary countries still really need the system in order to be competitive.
If a country is guilty of unfair trading practices, of violating the WTO rules or human rights, a temporary suspension should always be possible.
In short, I support the Commission’s objectives with regard to the GSP, but like Mrs Martens, I have my doubts whether the proposed reforms will reach far enough in order to achieve the planned objectives.
It is, for example, unclear why the number of beneficiary countries is not subject to a thorough review, so that countries that are in the Top 20 in terms of world trade no longer walk away with preferences that are, in fact, intended for the poorest.
It is also very much the question, Commissioner, whether the proposed reform is in keeping with the WTO’s current Doha round, at the end of which the poorest countries are to be awarded full quota-free and tariff-free imports.
I can understand Commissioner Lamy when he states that prompt action is needed, but like the Council, I should like to insist on thorough consultation with the European Parliament and on all parties involved being given the time to adapt.
It appears from the resolution on which we will be voting today that there is broad consensus about this revision.
I therefore hope that the Commission will be making every effort to take Parliament’s opinion, which is unanimous, into consideration.
   Mr President, the European Union is a community of values and we would like to put this across to the different regions in the world.
In the West, we have basic services, such as water, education and care, and we want these to be available elsewhere too.
International trade plays an important part in this.
Trade revenue can help increase the level of investments in basic services, but, in developing countries, particularly on the African continent, world trade plays far too small a role.
The African continent accounts for only a 2% share in it.
The European Union can, and must, change this.
It is of the utmost importance that we, as the world’s largest trading bloc, should open up our markets to products from the least developed countries and, by way of positive sanctions, give development in the poorest countries an opportunity.
As has been said before, the present system of trade preferences has, in practice, worked to only a limited extent, particularly socially speaking.
Only Sri Lanka and Moldavia have benefited from it, and, as Mr Sturdy stated a moment ago, the complexity of the rules and limited capacity have meant that even Sri Lanka has, in fact, made too little use of the potential.
That is why it is a good thing that we are moving towards a GSP+ system, one that is far simpler and involves fewer countries, but yields major benefits gradually and new products, which also creates real incentives.
Indeed, if we really want fundamental working standards, to name but one major aspect, to be adhered to in practice in those countries and to be given a chance in them, we must actively focus our efforts.
We resist the lobbying that would result in an enormous patchwork quilt of goals and countries, from which a huge number of people draw benefit, but where the poorest countries lose out.
Commissioner Lamy should be praised for the excellent work he is making of the EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement) regulation, and we must carry on in the same vein.
If the Caribbean Sea area and the Pacific Ocean experience special problems, which they do, we should try to use EPAs as a targeted and generous solution to them.
We should adopt a harder line with regard to the new upcoming superpowers China, Brazil and India and impose stricter requirements where fundamental working standards are concerned.
Finally, we should not pursue fair trade alone, but also, with regard to the protection of our own employees, fair competition.
With regard to the rules of origin, I would request the Commission to focus on benefits for the least developed countries and agree to relax rules of origin, and to regional and developmental cumulation.
Finally, if we want to encourage the regional economy, we must be open-handed in this respect too.
An incentive of this kind, which is hugely concentrated, could really help the African continent to take a step forward.
   Thank you, Mr Lamy.
At the close of this debate, I have received six draft resolutions.(1)
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
   – Mr President, the Commission replied to Mr Staes' written question last January, relating to the taking of measures against doping, that it had no plans to harmonise this particular sector of sport.
Doping, however, has become a scourge the world over.
Anyone watching the Olympic Games in Athens understood that in the best possible way.
Major records and distinctions are no longer the objective of the athletes alone, but also of a global industry which has grown up around sport.
The financial interests of the huge multinationals, the companies which sponsor professional sport, are only served when the performance of the athletes is outstanding.
As a result, a social model is developing, whereby doping is also spreading to amateur athletes, especially young athletes.
It is unacceptable for gymnasia, for example, to supply doping substances which are directly harmful to health.
That is why we maintain that efforts must continue to wipe out the organisations which supply banned substances to athletes, so that we too do not end up like the USA, where laboratories are 'set up' to produce false champions.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the direction in which we need to move.
   We will now proceed to the vote.(1)
(2)
   My oral amendment to paragraph 1a is as follows: ‘Requests the Georgian Government to define its commitment, which appears to be a precondition for achieving a peaceful solution of conflicts and national unification based on consent, towards the autonomy of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.’
(3)
   . With this proposal before us, the Commission’s aim is to please Parliament and the Council, which had been demanding an evaluation report on the implementation of Regulations (EC) Nos 2702/1999 and 2826/2000 on measures to provide information on, and to promote, agricultural products in third countries and in the internal market.
The Commission has proposed a series of amendments to the regulations, however, and this raises some concerns for us.
These information and promotion measures, which will complement national and private actions, are of the utmost importance, not least for countries such as Portugal, which makes high-quality agricultural products such as cheeses, spirits, fruits and olives.
These measures are all the more necessary at a time when the agricultural sector is being subjected to increasing liberalisation around the world, whilst the Community budget in the sector has been reduced in the last two years from EUR 72 million to EUR 60 million.
Added to this is the low implementation rate, which in 2003 was less than 44%.
The causes are simple: low Community cofinancing (no more than 50%), the complex nature and administrative costs of managing these programmes and the shorter list of products covered.
Factors such as these particularly affect countries such as Portugal.
Whilst the proposed amendments offer a degree of flexibility, they do not provide an effective response to the problems of implementation, nor do they consolidate the existing appropriations.
   . I voted in favour of Report A6-0008/2004 because I feel that the EU’s actions should be aimed at promoting European products ever more effectively, whilst respecting their diversity as regards production conditions and methods of processing, conserving and use.
The European Union has been carrying out and cofinancing activities to promote agricultural products by means of a coherent policy that is divided into two regulations: one relating to promotion in third countries and the other to promotion in the internal market.
Community policy must represent added value in relation to national and private initiatives, and must consolidate or strengthen the activities of Member States and private companies aimed at promoting exports.
The need for an active policy to promote exports is acknowledged by our main trading partners, which have adopted effective policies to this end, with adequate financial support, so as to be in a position to maintain or increase their share of the world market.
It is essential that the EU play a visible and effective role in promoting exports.
   The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against Mr Leinen’s motion for a resolution (B6-0067/2004).
We think it should be up to the Member States themselves to set the dates for holding national referendums.
Over and above this, we do not think it is the Council’s task to develop best practice in terms of parliamentary scrutiny and referendum campaigning.
Instead, this is a national concern.
   .I vote against a European Parliament resolution on the procedures of ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe and a communication strategy for the said Treaty No B6-0067|2004.
Ratification process is the excusive responsibility of Member States.
European Union institutions by interfering in this process severely violate the subsidiary principle.
   The funerals are taking place in Dronero, in Piedmont, of Jessica and Sabrina Rinaldo, who died in Egypt at the hands of terrorists: two fresh-faced young women, two veritable angels, two daisies torn from the green pastures of our Piedmont, from the hearts of their parents, honest working people like themselves, mown down by the barbarity of an Islamic terrorism that has respect for no one, least of all for two innocent, defenceless young women.
I humbly request that the President of the European Parliament arrange for a message of solidarity to be sent to the relatives of these young victims.
   The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Bourlanges report (A6-0010/2004) on the future of the area of freedom, security and justice.
We are nonetheless aware that the proposal concerns an area covered by Title IV of the Treaty establishing the European Community and does not therefore apply to Denmark, cf. the protocol on Denmark's position.
   . I voted in favour of the Joint Motion for a Resolution on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee, ‘Developing countries, international trade and sustainable development: the function of the Community’s generalised system of preferences (GSP) for the ten-year period from 2006 to 2015’, because I feel that all necessary efforts to simplify and improve Community actions in developing countries must be properly supported and funded by Parliament.
I feel it is crucial that we meet the global objective of simplifying the graduation mechanism, yet I am concerned that the Commission’s proposal disregards certain development and poverty indicators, which may lead to discrimination against big yet poor exporters.
I regret that the Commission did not follow up Parliament’s recommendation that the current functioning and impact of the current GSP should be subject to a thorough assessment.
I should like to conclude by saying that further clarification is required as regards the consequences of changes to the GSP, so that Parliament is in a position to carry out a better-informed and more definitive assessment.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 14 October 2004.
   . ) Mr President, I would like to draw your attention to the discrimination to which the employees of the new Member States working in the European Union institutions are subjected.
The employees of the new Member States are discriminated against in many areas.
The first area is the amendment of the Staff Regulation, the legislation on public servants.
The second includes the fact that new categories have been created, and the lower categories are applied to the delegates of the new Member States.
The third area of discrimination is that all the secretarial staff from the new Member States have been employed in the lowest category.
The fourth area of discrimination is that the employees of the old Member States were suddenly elevated to a higher category before May 2004.
There is discrimination also in the area of benefits as well as in the area of examinations in people’s mother tongue.
Mr President, please look into the issue of discrimination because those concerned want to turn to the European Court of Justice.
Thank you for your attention.
   Mr President, in the last Parliament MEPs voted overwhelmingly in support of the EU appointing an Aids ambassador/envoy.
The EU continues to do much to combat the rise of Aids and to provide information on preventive health programmes and support for access to anti-viral treatment for all.
However, EU programmes need tighter coordination to ensure that EU Aids initiatives are producing optimal results.
I believe the appointment of an EU Aids ambassador would enhance the international effort to combat the spread of this tragic disease.
The total number of Aids sufferers worldwide has now reached 40 million and continues to rise.
It makes sense to have a coordinated EU policy on combating Aids, under the responsibility of a single Aids ambassador/envoy, and I urge Parliament and the Commission to move forward with this proposal and add impetus to the effort to put Aids on the top of the EU development agenda.
      Mr President, I should like to receive a response on the conflict between the state-owned enterprise Polska Żegluga Morska (Polish Steamship Company) and the Polish Treasury Minister taken in the context of the rules in force throughout the European Union.
The Ministry of the Treasury has attempted to dismiss the director of the state-owned enterprise Polska Żegluga Morska, contrary to the independent decisions of the enterprise’s self-governing bodies, and has also announced that all state-owned enterprises in Poland are to be transformed into State Treasury companies.
In addition, the state-owned enterprise’s director and self-governing bodies were refused the right to appeal to an independent court to have the Ministry’s decisions verified.
Do the Ministry’s actions not constitute a violation of the principle of non-discrimination against forms of economic activity, in this case discrimination against state-owned enterprises in relation to other possible forms of economic activity? Furthermore, was the Ministry’s refusal to acknowledge the right of the director and the state-owned enterprise’s self-governing bodies to appeal to a court not a violation of Article 6(2) of the Treaty on European Union and of the 1950 European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms?
I thank you.
   – Mr President, a meeting of the PPE-DE Group in the Committee of the Regions was held in Athens on 15 October at the initiative of the Mayor of Athens, Mrs Bakogiannis, on the subject of 'Cities' Safety and Security Policies'.
The Greek Prime Minister, Mr Karamanlis, referred in his welcoming speech, among other things, to the need to further promote the civil protection of the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is the primary responsibility of us, the members of the European Parliament, the institution with democratic credentials , to impart material content to the Community action plan which expires in December 2004, because the institutional to date is insignificant.
My call to the honourable Members of this House is that we invigorate, that we promote the civil protection within the European Union.
      Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Mr Buttiglione, who has recently become the target of a chauvinistic attack by the Left of this House and by all Left-wing extremists.
Mr Buttiglione, there are still people who share your sensible views.
I would ask you not to lose faith and to be truthful, as the truth cannot be suppressed, particularly in the European Parliament, which by all accounts wishes to be the leading institution in the building of a structure of truth, honesty, reliability and human rights.
I would therefore ask whether condemning someone for honestly and publicly expressing beliefs that do not harm anyone does not constitute a violation of human rights. Mr Buttiglione, a great many, and indeed I am sure the majority, of the Members of this House stand shoulder to shoulder with you.
Our hearts and souls tell us you will be an outstanding Commissioner.
   Mr President, during Commission Question Time at the last part-session 34 questions were tabled by MEPs but only eight received answers, which is a new record.
This is because the Commissioners took on average nearly ten minutes for each answer.
Would you please ask the incoming Commission – assuming that there is one – to voluntarily submit to the sensible rules of this House, whereby speaking time is measured and limited? This may permit Members to ask more questions and, I hope, receive more answers.
   – In 1957 Albert Camus wrote that the downtrodden and shackled Hungary has done more for freedom and justice in the past twenty years than any other nation in the world.
I would like to draw the President’s and my colleagues’ attention to the fact that, nowadays, all of Hungary remembers the October Revolution of 1956 when a tiny nation battled against the oppression of the mighty Soviet Union.
It was with their blood that the unknown but, since then, recognised heroes painted the two words, ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’ onto the skies of Europe.
There were heroes and there were traitors.
During the Communist dictatorship and under state socialism, the nation paid a heavy price for this desire for freedom.
Several thousand Hungarians were executed or sentenced to death, several hundred thousand disappeared in the Soviet Union and some tens of thousands were banished to labour camps and jails.
Some further tens of thousands were resettled outside the borders of Hungary, and several millions were deprived of their wealth.
Even with the hindsight of 48 years, we are proud of the fact that we, Hungarians, were the first to defy the Soviet dictatorship and protest against the Communist tyranny and occupation.
The fact that we can be here with you as a free and independent member of the European Union family is largely due to the self-sacrifice of many thousands of heroes of the Hungarian Revolution who gave their lives for freedom.
      Mr President, I wanted to protest at discrimination against Catholics.
Pursuant to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the exercise of the rights and freedoms set out in this Convention should be guaranteed without discrimination of any kind.
It is for this reason that I should like to protest strongly both at Mr Barroso’s attitude towards Catholics and at the European Commission’s funding of the exhibition held in a tent on the Place Schuman in Brussels.
Taken in conjunction, these are a clear manifestation of discrimination against Catholics, being not only an attack on their feelings, but above all a corrupting influence on young people in their promotion of human beings without values desiring nothing but provocation and financial success. Is the juxtaposition of images of the Pope deep in prayer with those of copulating men supposed to be a symbol of Europe’s diversity?
Is it not rather a sign of dehumanisation and degradation, and a threat to civilisation? Do the European Commission and those aspiring to the highest posts within this institution wish to build a better future on the ruins of all that is sacred, thus depriving Europeans of goodness and beauty?
Should sexual contacts not be ...
   Mr President, it was two years ago that, on the night of 26 and 27 October, the ferry sank off the coast of Senegal.
Officially, this tragedy claimed the lives of 1863 people, the most of whose bodies, to this day, lie unidentified at the bottom of the sea.
Surviving relatives, including the relatives of the Dutch victims Roel and Lisette Arendshorst, have made repeated appeals to both the Senegalese President Wade and European politicians to take action in order to recover the victims of .
In principle, President Wade responded favourably to this here in this House a year ago.
On various occasions in this House, we have also asked the Commission to take action.
I would therefore make a fresh appeal to the Commission, the Council and President Wade of Senegal.
The relatives of the victims are entitled to take leave of their loved ones in a dignified manner.
They are asking for a final resting place where they can grieve, and alongside this, they are also enquiring about the possibility of identifying the victims.
Mr President, I am directly appealing to your respect for the values mentioned in the European Constitution.
Respect for human dignity requires support from the European Union ...
   Mr President, there is an issue I should like to bring to the attention of the House.
Nearly six months have passed since the enlargement of the European Union to include ten new Member States.
Since then, the new Member States and the old Member States are supposed to constitute a single common structure.
Integration is supposed to be apparent in many key areas, yet we are experiencing marked delays in the full integration of the new Member States.
This is why I believe that serious thought should be given to revising transitional periods, so that obstacles are not placed in the way of the development of the new Member States, and so that their full integration with the other Member States can be accelerated.
This applies primarily to transitional periods relating to the free movement of persons and the free movement of services.
These two areas are crucial for genuine European integration and for developing the entrepreneurship necessary for the development of national economies.
We must not stand idly by as service providers from the new Member States are faced with worse conditions and greater difficulties on the European market than those from the old Member States.
With regard to the free movement of persons, it is also apparent that the countries that opened their labour markets after 1 May, such as Great Britain and Sweden, are not experiencing ...
   I have received 22 requests.
We are clearly not going to be able to satisfy all of them, otherwise we would far exceed the half an hour set aside for these purposes.
I am going to allow two more people to speak in the order in which we have received the requests visually and I would apologise to the other 20 honourable Members.
   Mr President, I should like to remind you that, this weekend, presidential and legislative elections took place in Tunisia.
When election results go as expected, they do not make big news.
Nevertheless, like other Members of this House, I believe I have some information of a constitutional nature.
We remember the constitutional coup that enabled President Ben Ali to stand for a fourth time, yet we also know that the Constitution contains a number of severe constraints that prevent and restrain his capacity to stand.
We also have consistent information on the conditions under which these elections were held, not least from the point of view of media access, which was characterised by a total absence of pluralism.
One candidate, the only one in the presidential elections to have enjoyed a modicum of independence – a great deal of independence if one compares him with Mr Ben Ali – was not allowed to publish and distribute his official election manifesto.
We also know that the Tunisian Human Rights League, a body that Parliament trusts and is happy to deal with, was prevented from properly monitoring these elections.
   Mr President, thank you.
I have a personal question for you.
On Saturday, 16 October, I sent you an urgent message in connection with the arrest of Leyla Zana’s husband when they returned home from the celebration during the plenary meeting in Brussels.
I asked you to contact the Turkish authorities immediately to inquire about this arrest, which I, along with many other Members of this House, saw as an outright provocation, it being clear to everyone that this arrest is linked to Leyla Zana’s appearance in the European Parliament.
So far, I have not received a response to this.
You will be aware that, last Friday, legal proceedings were commenced against Leyla Zana, this being the third time she has faced them.
I would therefore ask the European Parliament, as in the past, to pay the necessary attention to this and if possible, to send a delegation to monitor proceedings, because in my view, this is very important in the context of the continuing discussion about accession negotiations with Turkey.
   Mr President, in 1993, the European Parliament adopted a resolution commemorating the victims of National Socialism.
Last year, ten years after that event, an exhibition was also mounted on the subject in this House.
The German public, too, are outraged by the remarks attributed to Mr Gollnisch; perhaps we should call upon him and the not to claim that he did not say these things, but rather to make a statement in which he would clearly dissociate himself from historical nihilism, making explicit his condemnation of fascism, his acceptance that the Holocaust happened, and that the historical research available on the subject is factual.
I do believe that opposition to fascism, to anti-Semitism and to racism has always been one of this House’s values, and one that we should continue to uphold in the future.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, 25 October, is the day we in the Basque Country are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Guernica Statute.
Twenty-five years ago today we Basques went to the ballot box in that Spanish Autonomous Community in order to endorse and approve this Statute by a majority as a legal and political framework stemming from the Spanish Constitution, and it has given us Basques the greatest degree of self-government there has ever been in that region.
I can assure you that the Guernica Statute is the best framework for creating trust, well-being, development and freedom in the Basque Country.
And, unlike those people who want to jeopardise these 25 years of democratic success, we believe that the Statute must be the basis for continuing to create democratic co-existence for the next generation of Basques.
It is, therefore, more necessary today than ever to proclaim the validity of the Guernica Statute and to this end I would call on the Presidency of the European Parliament to send our congratulations to the Presidency of the Basque Parliament on the occasion of this anniversary.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0014/2004) by Mr Lipietz, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the 2003 Annual Report of the European Central Bank (2004/2144(INI)).
   Mr President, Mr Lipietz, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to highlight, on behalf of both the European Central Bank and my colleagues in the Governing Council, the extent to which we share your desire to maintain the fruitful relations that our institutions have developed in recent years, as referred to by the rapporteur just now.
I am delighted to pursue this dialogue, from the ECB’s side, in this spirit of frankness and cooperation.
I have the honour, as has just been mentioned, of presenting to you today the 2003 annual report, which is one of the main instruments available to the ECB to present monetary policy, and the activities that fall within its competence, to Europe’s citizens and to you, the representatives of Europe’s citizens.
The ECB attaches the highest importance to regular dialogue with the European public and with its elected representatives.
   Mr President, let me promptly ask Mr Trichet a question to which he does not have to give me an answer, although I would be interested to know how he feels about it. How, Mr Trichet, did you feel this morning when you read in the the damning assessment of the Lisbon strategy by Mr Prodi, who is still President of the Commission and may perhaps continue to be such for a little longer?
Did the question present itself to you, too, as to what we in Europe have done wrong? Might it not have something to do with the lamentable fact that we in Europe, represented by spokesmen, some of whom we have already been able to hear here today, have got ourselves stuck in an ideological fight to the death about what the European Central Bank’s primary purpose is meant to be, rather than taking a more pragmatic approach?
I would just ask my conservative friend Mr Lauk to re-read to himself the speech he has just delivered, this time with reference to American conditions; it would then, probably, become clear – even to him – that price stability and economic growth are always something of which a central bank must not lose sight if its actions are to be effective.
The same is of course true of the other crucial question about inflation that you, the new President, must ask yourself.
It was apparent from your speech that there are certain areas in which we appear already to be moving back from deflation towards inflation.
What the Greek Government has pulled off, with the more or less active collaboration, or in any case, negligence, of Eurostat, could perhaps become a problem in other countries.
So I really do ask you, in the interests of all those in the euro zone who believe in the euro – and, being an Austrian, I include myself – to be much more critical, and much more vigilant, than your predecessor.
If I may mention a third area that I am keen to bring to your attention, I think we have, both in your own field and in the collection of data, really serious problems with transparency.
I share the view that more transparency would be a good thing.
The President allocated me two minutes and thirty seconds, and I would like to make full use of them.
   Mr President, first of all, I should like to congratulate Mr Trichet on the presentation of his first annual report on behalf of the European Central Bank.
I have read this report with more than the average level of interest.
As rapporteur on the annual report for 2002, I was, above all, interested to see how the aspirations expressed by Parliament in a resolution of July 2003 had been taken on board.
This brief and pithy resolution contained not only political but also practical wishes.
In the first paragraph of last year’s resolution about the annual report 2003, Parliament asked the ECB to set up a working party to investigate the need for introducing the EUR 1 note.
Personally, I cannot see the need for such a note, but I would like the Bank to investigate this in view of confidence in the currency.
On page 101 of your annual report, you indicate that the Executive Council will revisit this issue in the autumn of 2004.
My first question to you, Mr Trichet, is why you did not, in accordance with Parliament’s resolution, set up a working party.
Also, now that the autumn of 2004 is upon us, I would very much like to hear from you what position the Executive Council has adopted with regard to the EUR 1 note.
   Because we have run over the time allotted for this debate I am unable to give the floor to Mr Trichet to answer some of the very interesting questions that have been asked.
I would ask you, Mr Trichet, to reply in writing to those Members who have asked questions, with a copy to the President of Parliament.
   That concludes the debate.
The vote will be tomorrow at 12.30.
   Mr President, the last speaker but one, who spoke on previous points of order, was celebrating the fact that it was the 25th anniversary of the approval of the Statute of Autonomy of the Basque Country, and on the occasion of this anniversary, he has proposed that this Parliament congratulate the Basque Parliament on this day, 25 October, 25 years after the approval of that Statute.
I would like to point out that he forgot to mention that, following a quarter of a century with this Statute in place, 37 transfers remain outstanding and we are talking about an Organic Law of the Spanish State which has not been fully complied with.
   Mr President, I would like to congratulate the Basque Parliament on what happened 25 years ago, regardless of the course that Statute has taken, which I believe has been highly satisfactory.
But Mr Ortuondo’s speech strikes me as somewhat grotesque, since what he suggests would be like not congratulating the French on the French Revolution because some of the subsequent laws have not been complied with.
   The next item is the Commission statement on restructuring of the automobile sector.
I shall give the floor straight away to Mr Rehn, to speak on behalf of the Commission.
   Has Europe failed as an industrial location? In order to save EUR 500 million, the American General Motors group is seeking to cut up to 12 000 jobs in the EU.
Our motor industry is a key industry; two million people work in it, with ten million in firms supplying it.
If it is now being manoeuvred into a crisis, the only thing I want to point out is that in Germany, since 1990, a hundred thousand new jobs have been created in this sector – or has Germany failed as an industrial location? At Opel, in Rüsselsheim, 4 500 jobs are to be cut back.
The people affected live in my electoral district, and I have met them.
Fear is in the air.
After all, they have worked for years already, helping to reduce the costs of the Olympia model.
Now that negotiations are in progress about shorter working times and wage renunciations, about doing away with night shifts and reductions in staffing levels, the consequences for the firm’s management have to be discussed.
At Adam Opel AG, there have been six chairmen of the board in five years, trends have been missed, and ranges that are insufficiently innovative or attractive have failed to attract customers, quality has been sacrificed for the sake of short-term cost reduction, thus gambling with the firm’s good reputation, and these things amount to serious errors on the part of the management.
Now that the attempt is being made to use the restructuring of the motor industry as a pretext for making co-determination an empty concept, that is what I call provocation.
Workers’ participation has, particularly when times are hard, resulted in consensus, has secured industrial peace and has always been to the benefit of both sides.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats can only hope that the management and the workers’ representatives can get together and hammer out an agreement on their future in Europe.
In my experience, workers are always willing to accept austerity measures if these keep their jobs safe in the long term.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, both for myself and on behalf of my group, I wish to express our solidarity with Opel’s workers throughout Europe, but I particularly want to support the workers in Bochum who went on strike.
We believe this to be an appropriate response to the management’s contemptuous attitude, for how else, other than as enormous and profound contempt can one describe it when a company plans mass redundancies, but those at the top do not think it necessary to communicate these plans to the workforce at their highly productive sites, who, instead, have to read of their fate in the newspapers?
My colleagues have already said what needs to be said about the management’s mistakes; let us talk about the work that has to be done in this field in the future, including by the Commission.
If the Commission is elected – which, as things stand today, I do not think it will be – Mr Verheugen, as early as next week, will have to take on the task as part of the Lisbon strategy.
I do not know if we are actually prepared, politically speaking, for what lies ahead of us.
I share Mr Bullmann’s misgivings.
I believe that we are a long way from having forward-looking concepts for the motor – or mobility – industry, where a lot of opportunities for innovation have been missed in recent decades.
Mr Rehn spoke about research and development policy.
I very much hope that the new energy crisis really will move European research policy towards enabling us, to have, at some point in the foreseeable future, 1-litre cars, that is to say, the cars of the future, built in German and European factories.
There are lead markets to be opened up, and we have quite a few possibilities there, but only if we abandon the false outlook we have had to date, of ever-bigger, ever-faster cars at ever-higher prices.
Being from Lower Saxony myself, I would like to address one particular problem affecting the motor industry there, and in Germany and Europe as well.
In recent years, the Commission, represented by Commissioner Bolkestein, has repeatedly attacked the VW Act, under which Volkswagen operates.
It so happens that the Volkswagen Group is a living example of an innovative business culture.
What the future of co-determination will be like, we see – thanks to the VW Act, at VW, with its jobshares, its wage renunciation, its 5 000 times 5 000.
These are ideas from which other businesses could well learn, but this ongoing attack on the VW Act, which, in our view, does not constitute an infringement of internal market rules, is also an attack on this exemplary business culture.
   Mr President, we Social Democrats advocate a single strategy for all GM’s sites in Europe.
In our concern for social responsibility, we always risk being pushed into a corner, and sometimes we allow that to happen, but there are points here that have to do with the economy in the traditional sense of the word.
Despite that, there are a number of mistakes on the part of the management to be added to the list, to which it had been alerted by the workers’ representatives on various occasions, one such mistake being the fact that, unlike Volkswagen and the Japanese, Opel does not sell its cars outside Europe, in the USA, for example.
I am not talking here about the top-of-the-range European models that are sold there.
A further mistake was that materials were bought in cheaply, with the resultant expense of remedial work at weekends.
New work patterns were introduced abruptly, and the group became over-centralised.
It is necessary to draw attention to these points, particularly now – and I very much agree with Mr Mann on this – that representatives of industry associations and the ideologues retained by them are hard at work dismantling the types of co-determination that we in Europe introduced as part of our social model, and pronouncing them unsuited to the modern world.
That being so, I agree with much of what you, Mr Mann, had to say, but why did your group, with its majority in this House, refuse to table a resolution? Perhaps they did not want the substance of what you said to be adopted in this House this week.
That is a point that must be addressed head-on, for much of what you have said we Social Democrats can agree with.
It is only embarrassing that your party colleague in Bochum should raise the question of whether the crisis might have been resolved if the regional or local promoters of trade and industry had been able to do something different.
Those are narrow-minded answers – what we need now is something different!
   Mr President, as a number of colleagues have said, this is nothing new.
The car industry is probably one of the most competitive manufacturing industries of any that we deal with.
There are over ten major manufacturers producing cars in Europe and spending billions on research and development.
It is a competitive market.
There will inevitably be changes.
I want to remind colleagues that three years ago one of GM's major plants in the United Kingdom was closed.
I will read a headline from today's which I picked up on the plane on my way here this morning: 'Car output near record levels'.
It is likely that in the United Kingdom this year we will produce a record number of cars.
That record was last broken in 1972.
The message to the many people who are facing uncertainty in Rüsselsheim, Bochum and Trollhättan – and I have been to some of those plants – is that there is life after restructuring.
That is why the United Kingdom car industry is doing relatively well.
I am not complacent about it, but it is a fact.
We should be reflecting on why General Motors tells us that it needs to save EUR 500 million a year in costs to make itself competitive.
I am sure it can justify those figures.
We need to work together.
That is the message that needs to go out.
It is impossible to achieve record levels of car output in the United Kingdom with, in many plants, quality and productivity levels that are the best in Europe, without working between managers and the workforce and with dealers and customers.
As mentioned in Mr Rehn's statement this afternoon, we must encourage the Commission to look at the competitive conditions.
We do not want an industrial plan for the car industry.
We do not want the Commission or politicians telling car companies what to do.
We are in a competitive market.
But that EUR 500 million will go into the cleaner, safer cars that Europe's consumers want.
That is the change that is needed.
   Mr President, I firstly want to correct Mr Sjöstedt, who said that he is the only car worker here now in this House.
That is really not the case.
The member of my cabinet, Mrs Asenius, is a former worker on the assembly line at a car factory in Gothenburg, and I myself worked in the summers and on Saturdays as a spare parts salesman, all of which gives us, I hope, some kind of practical experience of car industry issues.
   We are appalled by the restructuring just announced by GM Europe aimed at cutting 12 000 jobs in the short term in all of its European factories and at reducing structural costs by around USD 600 million per year.
A few months ago, the General Motors Group, of North America, was said to be planning drastically to reduce its workforce and to make cuts in Opel, Vauxhall and Saab’s European factories.
As stated in the motion that was recently approved by the workers at Opel Azambuja, in Portugal, GM’s consolidation measures cannot be allowed to continue to damage the workforce.
It is the workers who have met the conditions of what is known as the 2001 ‘Olympia Agreement’, while the Board of GM Europe has been carrying out its obligations in a piecemeal and incompetent fashion, by doing business in a confrontational and contemptuous manner.
In so doing, they have shown their ignorance of the European car market.
GM Europe’s economic success cannot depend solely on importing American brands and American strategies.
It is essential that production be maintained in various countries in Europe.
We therefore wish to show our solidarity with and support for the GM Europe factory workers in their fight against redundancies, against the closure of factories and against the violation of collective working agreements.
Their rights must be defended.
     Mr President, the facts are as follows: since the beginning of the year, the price of a barrel of oil has increased by 65%, going over the magic figure of USD 50.
According to the predictions of certain analysts and economists, in the next few months the price may rise to USD 70 or 80 per barrel.
The results of such an increase include a massive rise in costs in all areas, in particular in transport, agriculture and the areas to which reference has already been made today.
A further slow-down in economic growth has ensued too.
This can be estimated using the following simple formula: if the price of a barrel increases by USD 5, economic growth will fall by 0.3%.
The increase has also resulted in a strengthening of the dollar against the euro and the other currencies of the European Union, as well as in disequilibria in the balance of payments of the major importing countries and, finally, in the European Union becoming less competitive and moving further away from the goals of the Lisbon strategy.
Polish farmers were delighted to receive their first payments from the Union.
Unfortunately, they are already aware that these payments will mainly be used not to develop farms, but to cover the cost of increases in fuel and fertiliser prices.
The world did not anticipate these price rises, and the European Union did not anticipate them either when it planned its long-term policy consisting of programmes for the replacement of natural fuels by alternative and renewable fuels.
Rapid measures should be taken to amend and accelerate the 2000 programme in the same way that America has done in the case of biofuels, with the country now using 10% biofuels in petrol and producing 70 million tonnes of them every year.
A further example is that of the German economy and the production of electricity.
Particular encouragement should be given to the production of biofuels, an increase in which would be the simplest and quickest way to limit imports.
That would improve the European Union’s balance of payments both by increasing the number of jobs in rural areas, by accelerating the development of the much-feted multifunctional agriculture and also by raising profitability in agriculture, making it independent of the suffocating support system of subsidies.
Now is the time for us to make a rapid change of policy to one that makes us independent of price rises, oil imports and excessive greenhouse gas emissions, and now is the time for us to choose the path of environmental protection.
   Mr President, what I have noted today in this House, in particular, is the absence of the Commissioner responsible for the two sectors – agriculture and fisheries – who should be taking the initiative to propose measures to alleviate the negative impact of the rise in oil prices on two sectors which are unquestionably his responsibility.
These are two strategic sectors in terms of maintaining jobs and of the Union’s food supply.
As Commissioner Almunia has acknowledged, both sectors have difficulties passing the rise on through their prices, something which Mr Fischler appears not yet to have understood.
I believe that it is our duty – and the Commission's duty – to act diligently in crisis situations.
In this respect, I would like to say to Commissioner Almunia that we do not want to return to the scenario of 2000, when the Commission decided to declare the State aid received by those professionals illegal and demand that it be returned.
Such a situation would damage the credibility of the institutions, not just the Community institutions, but national institutions as well.
In this regard, I agree with the Commissioner on the need to adopt a mechanism capable of responding to the situation at Community level, since it is endangering two of our most sensitive production sectors.
I do not think it is asking too much to wait for a month if that allows us to create an appropriate Community framework capable of establishing the scope and duration of any measures adopted by either the European Union or the different Member States, this being the only way, we believe, to prevent any problems of distortions of competition which could arise if each Member State adopts them individually.
   I would like to comment on the subject from the viewpoint of the countries with poor energy sources.
The increase in the price of oil has resulted in general price rises in our country too.
As a consequence, economic growth has slowed down, the budget situation has become uncertain and agricultural competitiveness has deteriorated because, unfortunately, the agriculture of countries with poor energy sources consumes a lot of energy, and employment and social achievements thus become jeopardised.
Living costs increase and poverty deepens.
It is a sad picture.
The unreasonably high oil price endangers global economic growth, and I can only emphasise what Commissioner Almunia said, that the main reason for price increases, namely international speculation, must be dealt with.
A combined European effort is needed not only for this, but also for turning the dream of a welcoming Europe into a reality, despite the problems.
In a collective effort, the institutions of the European Union must therefore help prevent crises brought about by price increases.
They need to increase the proportion of renewable energy so that they become more independent of the oil market.
Furthermore, they must help create an observation system that analyses the oil price movements and determines the strategic level of oil reserves.
All this is planned for the future by László Kovács, Commissioner-designate, whose expertise has been called into question by some people in this House.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the price of oil is still lower now than it was at the beginning of the eighties, but that has not taught us to conserve.
Fuel prices seem to follow fluctuations in the exchange rate of the US dollar, at present the currency of a country at war.
Why do we not quote these prices in euros, as Mr Karlsson proposed in his report? Unfortunately, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats overturned the report on emergency supplies in this House a little under a year ago.
Perhaps the present energy problems in the United States and Europe have woken us up.
The unstable situation in Africa, the Middle East and Russia has resulted in problems in the supply of oil.
Not only ourselves, but the United States, Japan, China and India all compete for Russian oil.
We must ensure that we have a steady fuel supply.
Member States should prepare for long periods of high prices by introducing interim fiscal solutions, stockpiling supplies, which we need, exploiting new sources of energy, and reduced and more efficient consumption.
When Mr Karlsson’s report was overturned, Parliament called on the Commission to draft a new proposal on the matter.
When does the Commission intend to put this proposal forward? It is obviously necessary for us to reduce our dependence on oil and develop new energy sources.
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   The next item is the statement by Mr Barroso, President-elect of the European Commission.
   The representatives of the political groups and the other scheduled speakers are now going to speak.
I must inform you all that this debate must end by noon because that is when Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands will come into the Chamber.
The Chairman will therefore have to strictly monitor adherence to speaking times.
I am warning you of this so that the speakers can bear it in mind and so that the Chairman does not have to resort to turning off microphones.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Barroso, I shall speak in French so that there is no translator between us and that you understand completely what our group wishes to say to you.
Mr Barroso, you are a rather strange orchestra conductor.
After auditioning some of your musicians, we found a pianist on the oboe and violinists playing the drums and, following these auditions, we told you that the music did not sound right.
At which point you told us, ‘no problem – if a Commissioner here or there has a conflict of interests, he will be a part-time Commissioner and I, Barroso, will take care of things.
If a Commissioner is not very familiar with the agriculture dossiers, that is no problem, she will go on a course to catch up and she will take a written exam.
If a Commissioner for the environment is not too familiar with his dossiers, that is no problem, Mr Barroso is here.
If a Commissioner for energy does not know the technical aspects of the dossiers, that is no problem, there are night classes and he can go and catch up.
If a Commissioner for taxation is not too familiar with his dossiers, that is no problem, Mr Barroso is here’.
Mr Barroso, that is your first mistake.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall not be supporting Mr Barroso, as I mentioned before during my first speech in this House, because he represents anti-European powers and anti-European interests, and he is the sole representative of a contradiction, full of conflicts of interest, and of a Commission that I consider anti-European in its very essence.
Let us not forget that, amongst other things, Mr Barroso has openly supported US intervention in Iraq.
I therefore hold him jointly responsible for the stand that certain European countries have taken alongside the United States, a stand that has caused serious harm and damage to the whole of our continent.
To defend our Europe and our interests as Europeans, the Commission and its President should be adopting a very different stand.
I call on my fellow Members not to vote for the Barroso Commission.
Thank you.
   – Mr Barroso, I voted for you in July because I believe that you have the potential to be a good President of the Commission. I also voted for you because you made three pledges, namely that there would be more women in this Commission – you have delivered on this; that there would not be any super-Commissioners – you have delivered on this too; and that you would remove Commissioners from their departments, take away their portfolios or discharge them entirely if they did not have the confidence of Parliament.
These pledges will once again determine how we vote tomorrow.
I would therefore ask you, Mr Barroso, to take this very seriously.
I am pleased that you wish to steer a very definite liberal economic course with your Commission.
I am also pleased that you are making human rights a matter for decision at the highest level, but Parliament is the assembly that represents the people of Europe.
Take the vote seriously; discharge Commissioners who do not have the confidence of Parliament!
That is right for Europe and right for democracy.
   Mr President, this House has heard some home truths.
Commissioner-designate Buttiglione has reminded us all of the meaning of marriage and the family, and of the role these institutions play in society, a role sanctified by time and by the experience of generations.
We fully support everything Mr Buttiglione has said on these issues.
His critics assume the moral high ground, and this is wrong.
It is actually Mr Buttiglione who holds this moral high ground.
Unfortunately, however, we will not be able to give him our support in terms of votes, as we are to vote on the Commission as a whole, and this Commission contains 25 Commissioners.
Our support for one of these Commissioners must not be allowed to outweigh our opposition to the remaining 24.
The way in which the Commission is appointed is exceptionally undemocratic.
As a general rule, those nominated by governments as potential Commissioners have no chance of gaining support from voters in their own countries, and have met with public disapproval precisely as a result of their activities to date.
This was certainly how the Polish Commissioner-designate, Mrs Hübner, was chosen, and our opinion of her is a negative one.
I am sure the same is true of the Commissioners-designate from the other post-Communist countries.
In view of the outgoing Commission’s attitude to Poland, and the unfair conditions upon which we were admitted into the EU, which differed greatly from those granted to the German Democratic Republic, there is every reason for us to have the gravest reservations about the European Commission as an institution.
We cannot support it.
I apologise to Mr Buttiglione.
Our vote against this Commission is not directed at him personally.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate sparked off in this House by the extreme Left is a debate Europe could well do without.
What Europe and the Barroso Commission do need to do here and now is get down to work to solve the problems faced by millions of citizens of our continent in both the new and old Member States.
This ideological debate, initiated without any sense of shame by the extreme Left in this House, is an extremely dangerous precedent.
If the Barroso Commission is actually rejected it will be a sign that Catholics are prohibited from practising their faith in Europe.
This is something we cannot agree to.
      Madam President, in July this House endorsed Mr Barroso’s candidature as President of the Commission.
Three months have passed since that time, and neither Mr Barroso nor this House have changed in any way.
Mr Barroso does not select the Commissioners-designate.
That is the job of the Member States’ governments.
Yet although the governments sometimes put forward controversial candidates, it is unfortunately not the governments, but Mr Barroso himself who has to swallow the bitter pill today.
I should like to make it clear, however, that we do not object to the vast majority of the members of Mr Barroso’s team.
I believe Mr Barroso will honour the promise he made today before this House, namely that he will change the make-up of his Commission during his term of office, if the situation so requires.
To use a metaphor, Mr Barroso’s blank cheque of confidence should be renewed, but we must also pay close attention to what he does with this cheque.
Mr Barroso, I wish you luck.
   – Mr Barroso, your idea of a Europe with limited sovereignty, subordinate to the United States, is something we have already discussed over the past few days while examining your programme.
This morning, however, we have come across a further quality of yours: arrogance.
For you, Parliament does not count or, rather, it counts for very little.
That was apparent when you arrived late and did not even apologise, unlike Mr Prodi, who arrived late but did apologise.
Yours is a mediocre Commission on account of its hyperliberalism, on account of all the privatisation, and for the fact that it does not condemn the war.
It contains some mediocre Commissioners and, in Mr Buttiglione, a terrible, medieval Commissioner who damages Italy’s image and stands for a return to the past, to the most reactionary Middle Ages, riven with racial, sexual and gender discrimination.
For these reasons we shall be voting against your Commission.
   Madam President, both Dutch Members of the Independence and Democracy Group are very disgruntled about the fuss that has been created following statements by the candidate Commissioner Mr Buttiglione, and that is putting it mildly.
This is a case of discrimination on the basis of religious conviction, and that is something of which the European Parliament should not be guilty.
What is described as tolerance means tolerating only what progressive Europe wants to hear.
Mr Buttiglione has never called for the rights of women and homosexuals to be jeopardised.
He has merely given his personal opinion in response to a specific question.
That is constitutionally acceptable.
However, a conscious attempt has been made to find a stick to beat a dog.
It appears that a minister from the Berlusconi Cabinet is unacceptable from the very start.
By rousing popular feeling in this manner, the European Parliament wants, indirectly, to have an impact on individual Commissioners.
As Dutch Members of the Independence and Democracy Group, we see the present proposal for the composition of the new European Commission as a reason to vote in favour of it.
   – Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is incredible that this morning’s debate has not focused on the new Commission’s commitments and the current emergencies, which arouse such strong feelings among the citizens whom we represent.
We have not talked about immigration policies, the fight against terrorism, the reform of the Structural Funds or the reform of the Stability Pact.
The stage of our little European theatre has been taken over by a thoroughly ideological and calculated attack on the Commission-designate and in particular on the Commissioner-designate Mr Buttiglione, who is guilty of having personal opinions and religious beliefs.
The apologies which the Commissioner-designate did in fact offer were not enough; even the changes which the President-designate did in fact make were not enough: people want to settle a score at all costs.
That is unacceptable.
Voting down the Commission tomorrow – let us not pretend otherwise – would lead to an institutional crisis that we really do not need right now.
Just two days away from the signing of the Constitutional Treaty in Rome, which ought to be a solemn, historic moment, we really cannot allow ourselves a pathetic act of weakness that would be totally out of keeping with the expectations of Europe’s citizens and of the world as a whole. What would be quite clear to them yet again would be the total lack of any political or institutional substance in the Community institutions.
   Madam President, President Barroso, in Europe there are 50 million poor people, small farmers are under threat, necessary investment is not being undertaken due to the austerity pact, and in the meantime what are we talking about? Mr Buttiglione!
It is true that this philosopher has behaved in a rather dubious fashion.
He has quoted Kant, Hegel and Carl Schmitt, but, tellingly, he has not quoted Socrates, who, himself, had a somewhat modern sexuality.
Clearly, this is a case of discrimination.
When President Borrell, however, contemptuously suggested that Mr Buttiglione should take care of agriculture, what was he trying to say?
That because pigs were rarely homosexual, they would not be a source of embarrassment to Mr Buttiglione? When it comes to agriculture, incidentally, I shall not speak about Mrs Fischer, her interests in a sugar multinational, nor her family pig farms businesses that relocated to Russia.
The composition of your Commission is perhaps more balanced than it might appear.
The competition Commissioner, for example, is from a background of unbridled capitalism.
She will have her victims but Mr Buttiglione will pray for her.
You are therefore inventing the compassionate capitalism Commission.
There are contradictions, it is true, but we know from Chairman Mao that a distinction must be made between antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions, and you are a Maoist!
This is also why Cohn-Bendit says: turn the spotlight on the Barroso Commission!
Ultimately, however, we know that we end up with Deng Xiaoping, so it matters little whether Barroso is white like pale capitalism, or black like Mr Buttiglione.
What matters is that he catches mice.
   Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, I should like to point out that in our Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs we attempted to evaluate Mr Buttiglione’s personal suitability for managing the portfolio of fundamental rights, of legal cooperation and of asylum and immigration.
In each of those fields, Mr Buttiglione proved problematic.
During his hearing before the Civil Liberties Committee, Mr Buttiglione showed that he was completely out of step with what we are constructing in our committee.
This was the case not only as regards fundamental rights, but also the right to asylum, the European arrest warrant and judicial assistance in criminal matters.
The Civil Liberties Committee could scarcely decide in favour of awarding this portfolio to Mr Buttiglione.
Mr Barroso, as guardian of the Treaties you must defend Parliament’s rights.
We therefore call on you to take our opinions on board.
We feel that it would be unthinkable for you to force this through.
The adjustments that you have suggested are unacceptable, not to say humiliating, for the Commissioners concerned.
Parliament carries out its duties, all of its duties.
We are the representatives of the people and this is not an institutional crisis at all.
This is democracy in action.
   – Madam President, Mr Barroso, I should like to rebut one assertion very strongly: our rejection of Mr Buttiglione has nothing to do with any desire on our part for a return to the days when people with certain views were banned from becoming civil servants; neither does it have anything to do with any desire to undermine citizens’ freedoms.
The subjective freedom of religion is something that we would always defend as a constitutional right, but Mr Buttiglione has cast himself in the role of , an in the new Commission.
He is acting on behalf of Mr Berlusconi to attack an enlightened Europe and, faced with such an attack, Mr Barroso, this Parliament has to defend itself.
However, it is not just Mr Buttiglione whom we need to debate today.
Let us take, for example, the Commissioners-designate Mr Kovács and Mr Dimas.
As a Member of the Greens, and I do not want us to ignore what we have learned, 20 years since the first report of the Club of Rome and ten years, more than ten years, since the first conference on climate change in Rio, about the ecological ...
   . – According to the proposals in the Constitutional Treaty accepted by the 25 governments, the Commission’s future president will be able to choose, in the case of each country, from three government-designated candidates.
Nevertheless, this year not a single government has bothered, or rather was brave enough, to nominate several candidates.
The elected president of the Commission had no opportunity to choose.
He could select only from the few options put forward by Member States.
Governments made their nominations in many ways: some sent to the Commission those they wanted to get rid of.
However, there were wise governments, and fortunately, those that proposed their most talented politicians were in the majority, thus helping along the collective European issue.
In the opinion of our group, those who have done particularly well were: Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Dalia Grybauskaite, Charlie McCreevy and those who gave a particularly weak performance were Ingrida Udre, László Kovács or Neelie Kroes.
It takes someone on the ball to forge a unified team from this motley crew: a European government that is able to halt the Commission’s loss of prestige that has been going on for years.
President José Manuel Barroso has proved already as Prime Minister that he is strong and a true leader.
I am sure that he will be capable of getting together a good Commission.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats will judge the work of the currently forming Commission according to what extent it will be able to create more unity, more cohesion and more competitiveness in the Union: to bring it closer to the citizens, to improve citizens’ standard of living and security, to help the joining up of the new Member States and to promote minority rights.
He who seeks to indulge in short-term political personal interest threatens the stability of the Union’s institutions and plunges the big plan of the newly united Europe into crisis.
If we were to look at our personal considerations, we would not support more candidates either.
However, we are looking at the issues of a common Europe.
The stake is high and I hope that the European Parliament will not fail.
   – Madam President, this is the first time such a political crisis has come about following the hearing of the Commissioners, especially in the Commission as a whole.
This is an institutional confrontation between the three Community institutions, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
The crisis in question, of course, was started by the Council itself but I think that you, Mr Barroso, with your stand today and with what has been promised, will perpetuate this crisis, without having understood that, if the Commission continues on this course, you will end up becoming a punch bag between the European Parliament and the Council.
I should also like to say that this crisis is not present only in Buttiglione's policies and communications; it is also present in the poor performance of numerous Commissioners, such as those in charge of competition, agriculture and taxation, who were unable to convince the members of their committees of their perspectives and political commitments.
      Mr President of the Commission, on behalf of the Polish delegation in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I should like to pay tribute to the way in which you are performing your duties.
We are paying close attention to your initial actions, and in our opinion these actions are convincing and demonstrate the will of the strong leader we need.
We believe that under your Presidency the European Commission should place particular emphasis on three points.
These are completing enlargement, standing by the principles of solidarity and cohesion, and developing the EU’s eastern dimension.
The first challenge will be to involve the new Member States in all aspects of EU policy.
Enlargement of the institutions has now taken place, but a great deal more work and time is needed for the new Member States to achieve full rights and equal treatment.
Only then will it be possible to regard enlargement as being complete in the real sense of the word, and not merely in the institutional sense.
The second task is to close the economic gap and to ensure social and economic cohesion within the EU, in the name of the principle of solidarity.
Your most immediate challenge will be to convince the Council of the need to ensure the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective does provide for a correlation between the EU’s increasing number of tasks and competences and the funds necessary to implement them.
‘You cannot have more Europe for less money’, as you said before this House in July, and we expect you to remain true to these words.
The current enlargement is very cheap, but attempts should not be made to make it even cheaper, thus depriving the EU’s poorest countries of the chance to overcome the development gap, a chance that was given to other countries.
Your Commission’s goal should be to implement the Prodi Commission’s proposal for a budget based on 1.24% of gross domestic product.
We also expect you to keep the promises you made to the House in this regard.
The third issue is that of the EU’s eastern dimension and its new neighbourhood policy.
We need a policy that is generous but not permissive, and one that is demanding and effective.
We hope you will have confidence in us, and we intend to vote in favour of your Commission, including Mr Buttiglione.
I thank you.
   – Mr President of the Commission, you said that the Commissioner-designate Mr Buttiglione had been successful in one hearing and had failed in another.
I fear that this is a further example of your not listening carefully to Parliament, because the letter from the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs also definitely contained critical remarks.
Personally, I very much regret the fact that Mr Buttiglione would not, or could not, take the opportunity of a second hearing in the Legal Affairs Committee, but he did clearly emphasise to that committee that his religious views were not in fact simply private views but principles that he wanted to guide his political actions.
He would want to assess proposals that ran counter to his personal convictions and proposals from other Commissioners on the basis of his private ideas.
Personally I am in no doubt that this goes beyond any definition of what private views are.
I should also like to say that I am still waiting for an apology for the attacks on the Commissioner-designate Mr Špidla.
   Madam President, we are not persecuting Mr Buttiglione, but trying to save European citizens from being led on justice issues by someone so eminently unsuitable.
It is not only that he is prepared to implement his reactionary prejudices against women and gay people in public policy – and what signal is he sending to his eight female colleagues? – he also has a very poor record on asylum and immigration, security and the rule of law.
You gave us a list of initiatives the Commission would take, but they are already in progress, or should be priorities in any case.
Mr Barroso, you say that it is impossible to change the portfolio at this stage.
You are thereby showing complete contempt for this Parliament, since it is precisely what it has asked for.
You need to stand up to the Council.
I backed you in July because I thought you would be independent.
I understand that Mr Blair is personally phoning around British Labour MEPs to try and twist their arms so that they do not vote against.
He would be better using taxpayers' money on his phone bill telling his mate, Mr Berlusconi, to switch his candidate.
   Madam President, when we elected you in July as the Commission’s future president, we Socialists asked you some hard questions.
Nowadays, there are fewer questions, there are more disillusioned, embittered statements and these statements are based on experience.
There is nothing wrong with what you say, or with what you said today.
For you know exactly what needs to be said in this House and with imposing self-assurance you listed the encyclopaedia of European values and fundamental rights.
There is, nevertheless, a problem with your decisions, the harmony between words and deeds.
When allocating the portfolios you wanted to please Europe’s most conservative elements.
So far you have not shown very much of the promised flexibility and tolerance and there is no guarantee that your deputy Commissioner-designate will not turn against the results achieved so far in Europe.
We prepared for the birth of the first Commission of the 25 like a celebration.
You have one day left to replace the tension and distress with the joy of celebration.
We too have a conscience, not only Mr Buttiglione.
The responsibility is yours.
      Mr President of the Commission, in its capacity as guardian of the Treaties, one of the tasks of your Commission will be to continue the process of EU enlargement.
This process involves an assessment of whether a candidate country respects human rights and whether it is transparent and free from corruption.
I have serious doubts as to whether your Commission will be able to carry out this task well.
I therefore feel bound to ask whether a Commissioner who has clearly shown that he does not understand, or does not wish to understand, the European system of human rights of which we are so proud, can be entrusted with carrying out an assessment of the extent to which human rights are respected in Romania, Bulgaria, and maybe even in Turkey. I have a second question to put to you too, Mr Barroso.
The formation of your Commission is also a lesson in European democracy, and a lesson that citizens throughout the European Union are observing closely.
What kind of a message are you currently sending out to citizens? Why, that the opinion of the European Parliament need not be taken into account.
Is this a positive message? Does it bring the European Union closer to its citizens?
Is it the right kind of message to send out two days before the European Constitution is signed? Mr Barroso, please listen to what the European Parliament has to say, rather than fighting against it.
   – Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention for a moment before I give the floor to Mr Barroso.
The formal sitting with the Queen of the Netherlands at 12 noon means that we will not be able to finish our debate, despite our efforts to be strict about time.
The last three speakers will therefore take the floor after the formal sitting with the Queen of the Netherlands and after that we will begin the votes.
I would crave your indulgence for this.
Mr Barroso has the floor.
   We now continue with the debate on the statement by Mr Barroso, President–elect of the Commission, presenting the College of Commissioners and their programme.
   Mr President, we all know that the Commission is made up of a President and 24 Commissioners, from different political backgrounds and with different personal beliefs, yet it has the legitimacy of having been proposed by democratically-elected governments.
It therefore comes as no surprise that each of us appraises each of these Commissioners differently.
That appraisal cannot, however, be based on their personal convictions or religious beliefs.
If this were one day the case, this House would no longer be a Parliament but a court of opinion with a morbid taste for censure.
Our appraisal must be based on the Commissioners’ skills, and at this point one should remember that in the hearings an 80% majority was in favour.
At this time, what we must do is decide how Parliament will behave towards a Commission led by a strong President with a clear mission to ensure that the European project and the balance between the Member States will be safeguarded.
We have seen in this debate that President Barroso was attentive to what the Members of this House were saying, and acted accordingly.
He has made commitments to this House, not least in the area of non-discrimination, and has received a letter from each of the Commissioners, and this makes him worthy of Parliament’s confidence.
What remains to be seen is whether Parliament is attentive to President Barroso’s message and also acts accordingly.
It is understandable to vote against a Commission if one is not 100% in agreement with it.
It is not understandable to vote against a Commission of 25 people if one disagrees with the religious beliefs of one of its members; that is intolerant.
Mr Buttiglione was sincere when he expressed his beliefs, and I believe that he was sincere when he said that he would not mix his personal beliefs with his duties.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must judge the Commission and its Commissioners by their acts.
Consequently, to put a Commission in an untenable position before it has taken up its duties, due to the religious beliefs of one of its members, is tantamount to prejudice.
We will be carrying out our duties responsibly, however, if we assess it during the course of its mandate.
Lastly, Mr President of the Commission, I do not know how tomorrow’s vote will go, but, coming from Portugal, I can tell you that you can count on our vote, and I hope that the Commission is not rejected because of 12 votes from the Portuguese left of this House.
   Mr President, Commission President Barroso, half of Europe’s citizens are women: women who have been told that, in marriage, they are to be provided for and subordinated and that single mothers are worse mothers.
Those are not the EU’s values, and they are unacceptable.
The same values and rights also apply to the EU’s homosexuals.
According to the UN and the EU, human rights are also women’s rights.
In the same way, the Lisbon strategy affirms women’s right to employment and to equal wages for work of equal value.
These are facts and not just words, as you said in your introduction.
The EU and the Commission must respect women for the sake of the EU and in the interests of an equal Europe with gender equality.
You have not listened today, either, to ourselves as elected representatives of the people.
More is the pity, Mr Barroso.
   – Mr President, Mr Barroso has presented the Commission as a single whole, a collegiate body, which is quite right, and he ties his political approach to that.
The President of the Commission has accepted the governments’ nominations, but he has put his trust in his Commissioners because he, and he alone, is the guarantor of the programme: if Mr Barroso is the conductor of the orchestra, as Mr Cohn-Bendit says, it is he who must tune the instruments and tell us whether the musicians know how to play.
Cultural arguments external to this Parliament and cultural intolerances that are foreign to this Parliament’s democracy must not be brought into this Chamber.
A moralistic Europe, secularly fundamentalist in a way that Catholic culture never succeeded in being, is not part of the dream of Alcide De Gasperi or Robert Schuman, our forefathers, because it is an intolerant Europe.
Tomorrow’s vote will be a vote for the truth, ladies and gentlemen.
Those who have no regard for the people, those who have no political or social tolerance, those who have no regard for the institutions, will vote ‘No’.
Those who believe in a liberal, tolerant, even-handed, persuasive and institutional Europe, in which the relationship between Parliament and government is one of democratic control and not control by bureaucrats or the unions, will vote for Mr Barroso in order to strengthen the balance among the twenty-five countries.
In an interview released in Italy a few days ago, Jacques Delors said that the Commission is a collegiate body and does not provide for individual personalities.
We, who always refer to what Mr Delors says, can on this occasion play our parliamentary role correctly by approving both the Commission as a whole and the commitment that its President has made before this House today.
   Mr President, with your permission, I would like to raise a point of order.
In his opening statement in the debate earlier on, Martin Schulz, Chairman of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, was being very condescending towards Her Royal Highness, Queen ....
   – Mrs Kauppi, this is not a procedural matter.
   It is clear that the amendments voted for or rejected have completely reversed the meaning of my report, since our Parliament believes it is not desirable for living beings to appear on the future notes of the European Union, that our difficulties are caused by excessively short working times in Europe and that, contrary to Article 2 of the Treaty, the Central Bank need not concern itself with sustainable growth.
I would therefore urge that you vote ‘no’ to this report and if it is, unfortunately, adopted, which would send an immense signal about the future of Europe, I wish my name to be removed from the text.
   . I voted in favour of Mr Gargani’s report (A6-0012/2004) on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on pollution caused by certain dangerous substances discharged into the aquatic environment of the Community.
I feel that the work begun by the Commission to simplify and clarify Community legislation is essential.
I believe that this work is also highly valuable because it preserves in full the content of the codified acts; all it does is bring them together.
It is crucial that Community legislation be made more accessible and easier for ordinary citizens to understand, as this will offer them new opportunities and the chance to enjoy the specific rights accorded to them.
   . I voted in favour of Mr Gargani’s report (A6-0011/2004) on the proposal for a Council directive introducing minimum Community measures for the control of certain diseases affecting bivalve molluscs (Codified version).
I feel that the work begun by the Commission to simplify and clarify Community legislation is essential.
I feel that this work is also highly valuable because it preserves in full the content of the codified acts; all it does is bring them together.
The aim of the proposal before us is to codify Council Directive 95/70/EC of 22 December 1995, establishing minimum Community measures for controlling diseases affecting bivalve molluscs.
The new directive will replace all of the legislation incorporated therein.
It is crucial that Community legislation be made more accessible and easier for ordinary citizens to understand, as this will offer them new opportunities and the chance to enjoy the specific rights accorded to them.
   . I voted in favour of Mr Brok’s report (A6-0023/2004) Partnership and Cooperation Agreements – on the proposals for Council and Commission Decisions on the conclusion of the Protocols to the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, on the other part, to take account of the accession of the Czech Republic, the Republic of Estonia, the Republic of Cyprus, the Republic of Latvia, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Hungary, the Republic of Malta, the Republic of Poland, the Republic of Slovenia and the Slovak Republic to the European Union.
These Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCAs) are ‘mixed’ agreements that entered in force before the last EU enlargement.
The aforementioned agreements therefore require the addition of a protocol enabling the accession of ten new Member States to them.
The Council has authorised the Commission to begin negotiations with these countries, on behalf of the Community and its Member States, with the aim of concluding protocols for the Partnership and Cooperation Agreements.
   . I voted in favour of the report by Mrs Morgantini (A6-0018/2004) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 2130/2001 on operations to aid uprooted people in Asian and Latin American developing countries.
I feel that the work being done by the European Community to help uprooted people of Asian and Latin American developing countries is crucial.
Regulation (EC) No 2130/2001, of 29 October 2001, provides assistance to some of the most vulnerable groups in the world – those forced to flee their homes due to armed conflict.
This Regulation expires on 31 December 2004, and states that extending it depends on the possibilities for ‘integrating this Regulation within a single framework Regulation for Asia and Latin America’.
This inconvenience may be averted by reducing the period of validity to two years – 2005 and 2006.
I feel that this amendment is essential for the Community’s work with these communities to continue.
   Mr President, in my opinion, the way in which Martin Schulz, Chairman of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, set out to criticise the Dutch Presidency for not being present at the debate earlier on was most inappropriate.
The fact that he directed his remarks at Her Royal Highness, Queen Beatrix, was most inappropriate on a day when we were having a ceremonial debate in the presence of Queen Beatrix.
It is not appropriate for him to attempt, for political reasons, to attack the Dutch ...
   – Mrs Kauppi, excuse me for interrupting you, but what you are saying is not procedural.
    We will now move on to the next item, which is a joint debate on two reports on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the draft general budget for 2005.
Firstly, the report (A6-0021/2004) by Mr Garriga Polledo on the draft general budget for 2005 (Section III);
and the report (A6-0020/2004) by Mrs Elisabet Jensen on the draft general budget for 2005 (Sections I, II, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII).
There is a long list of speakers for the debate on these items, and I should like to ask the rapporteur, Mr Garriga Polledo, to take the floor.
   . Mr President, I should like to echo the words of thanks, not only to Commissioner Schreyer, but also to our rapporteur, Mr Garriga.
There were times when he enabled me to keep my good temper.
The Committee on Budgets has wanted to simplify matters on a number of scores, which has been at the expense of some amendments tabled by us on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Indeed, the Committee on Budgets has divided all the proposed amendments, that is to say, it has voted on the amendments pertaining to agencies and subsequently on everything related to Lisbon, the information strategy and pilot projects.
That means that in this vote takes as its starting point the obligations and payments for 2004.
That is not straightforward, because no consideration has been given to the fact that ten new Member States have joined and that for those ten new Member States new activities need to be developed.
For example, Bilbao has been given additional tasks relating to small and medium-sized enterprises, and it is not easy to keep these within the budget of 2004.
We at the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs are therefore not happy with the failure to adopt some of our changes to certain items.
We do hope that the amendments tabled by the members of the Socialist Group in the area of social affairs, including our own amendments, will as yet be adopted.
Indeed, I would very much like to be able to join with Mr Ferber, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, in once again raising a glass to our future successful cooperation.
With regard to the technical bureau and information that the employees’ organisations have tabled by way of a proposal, we hope to reach agreement again.
I would like to thank Mr Ferber, as well as the rapporteur, at this stage for the way in which they are meeting us halfway.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Environment Committee is a committee with significant legislative powers, but it is also a committee with a very small budget, and the only financial instrument for the environment, the LIFE Programme, has had its funding cut yet again in the 2005 budget compared with 2004.
We are actually very thrifty.
Expenditure under the environment heading is not even 0.25% of the European budget, that is, less than a quarter of 1%.
In addition, it is our impression that the Environment DG has insufficient staff to implement the policies that we want.
The same applies, incidentally, to the Health and Consumer Protection DG. And when we hear the word ‘health’ of course we all immediately think ‘tobacco’.
That is clear.
We spend more than EUR 950 million on subsidies to tobacco growers. That is more than five and a half times as much as the entire environment budget.
However, we allocate only EUR 14 million to developing alternatives for tobacco growers.
This has to change!
   . Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that this debate on the future of the European Union is happening today, for the future is always about money and where it is invested, and I believe that we are going the right way about investing in the Lisbon agenda, having allocated EUR 92 million to preparatory measures and pilot projects, and EUR 49 million to the financial environment, concentrating on the economic divide in the border regions.
I believe that it is the latest developments – the crisis in the motor industry, the rise in energy prices – that demonstrate the necessity of our gearing the European Budget up for growth, and appropriate communication also has a part to play in this.
Over the next five years, we will be devoting much attention to the theme of information policy.
We have to do a much better job of explaining Europe.
In the run-up to the elections, we could see that there were various elements strategically ganging up on the European Union and on democracy in Europe.
I believe that we have the task of explaining to the public what goes on in this place and how important Europe’s position in the world will be for us in the future.
It is for that reason, too, that we are committed to the infopoints, to the campaign for Europe’s future, to the Carrefours, to Prince, to all these important things, in order to bring Europe closer to its citizens and to explain it.
We all see the ‘Intelligent Energy for Europe’ programme as being very important too.
With energy prices in mind, I hope that we will add more in future.
In this House, we should even now be starting to get our technical infrastructure, whether it be information and communication technology or the Internet and television up to the very latest state of the art and trying to become the most modern parliament in the world.
   . – Mr President, Commissioner Schreyer, speaking as rapporteur for the Committee on Culture and Education, I would like to start by stressing that our Budget policy over the coming years should reflect our identity as a continent of art, culture and cultural diversity, in which we, as Europeans, take such pride.
For that reason, it is not fortuitous that all the members of the Culture Committee took the view that we had to reject the Council’s reduction in funds for cultural policy, for there can be no credible cultural policy in a Europe of 25 Member States if the funds for it are cut in 2005, the first year in which there is a single Budget for all of them.
For that reason members of the Culture Committee, from whatever political groups they came, demanded above all the restoration of the Commission’s Budget estimates for town twinning and information policy, in order to gain the public’s acceptance, as also for the youth programmes.
These in particular are the areas affecting the public.
We should do something to show that, in the cultural field too, we are prepared to take up the cudgels for this wonderful Europe of ours.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, how can the views of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs be summed up in sixty seconds? It is very simple.
First of all, we wanted to re-establish what the Council had taken away: I am referring in particular to the budget lines relating to the information relays or the Jean Monnet action programme.
It was, however, when we came to the Prince programme in particular that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs had to pinch itself to see if it had really understood the figures before its eyes.
We were amazed to discover that the Commission had divided the sum for 2004 by three at a time when we are about to enter the decisive stage in the public debate on the Constitution.
Was it really possible that it had escaped the Commission’s attention that a debate on the Constitutional Treaty was going to start on 18 June? The Council, however, had no such excuse, since the Council knew in the summer that a draft Constitution was on the table and that it was essential that it be debated.
That is why our committee is not content simply with re-establishing this budget line, but wishes to multiply the figure proposed by the Commission by five, raising it to seven and a half million.
Democracy does not have a price but it does have a cost, and I hope that the Council will finally understand that.
As my fellow Members have done, I would like to end by congratulating our Commissioner, Mrs Schreyer, on the excellent work she has done over the last five years with this Parliament, and on another more personal note, I would like to express my hope, my dear Michaele, that tomorrow, on the turn of a vote, your mandate will be extended by a few weeks.
   .   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two particularly important reasons why we believe the EU budget for 2005 to be unsatisfactory and why we will vote against it.
The first is of a formal and political nature.
The draft budget for 2005 was drawn up at a time when it was assumed that Poland and nine other countries would become EU Member States, yet the draft was not discussed or drawn up with these countries.
In Polish politics there is a principle according to which ‘nothing about us without us’ should ever be done.
A failure to hold consultations demonstrates a lack of equality and a lack of respect for one’s partner.
The second reason relates to substance.
There are two issues upon which the EU should focus.
These are firstly, the enlargement to include ten new countries, and, secondly, the slow-down in economic growth within the EU, particularly in comparison with South-Eastern Asia and the United States.
The new Member States are characterised by low levels of wealth, backward economic structures, a lack of capital and extremely high levels of unemployment.
The acceptance of these countries into the European Union should act as a catalyst for a change in EU economic policy to ensure that the backwardness I referred to is eliminated as quickly as possible.
The draft 2005 budget is not a good response to this challenge, as it only represents 1.03% of countries’ GDP, and the amount by which budget expenditure will grow will not be much greater than the contributions paid in by the new Member States.
As in previous years, a budget surplus can be anticipated, because it is likely that not all the money in the Structural Funds will be spent.
This will mean that the new Member States, instead of receiving more from the budget than they pay in, will become net payers.
I called for the 2004 budget surplus of EUR 5470 million to be earmarked for a fund to modernise the new Member States, but this did not happen.
The Structural Funds will be increased, but only by a small amount.
This is too slow a tempo, in view of the fact that consumption levels in the new Member States are often ten times lower than those in the old Member States.
A little over EUR 1.4 billion is to be earmarked for direct aid to farmers in the new Member States.
In a situation such as that in Poland, where the EU imposed significant restrictions on the majority of producers, aid cannot compensate for these losses.
If it wishes to overcome its problems, the EU must understand that investment in the new Member States would be the most effective form of investment.
If there is not such investment, the whole of the EU will face increasing economic and social problems, which is not what we want.
I thank you.
   .   Thank you, Mr President.
I should like to add my voice to those thanking Mrs Schreyer for her many years of work on the EU budget.
I should also like to say on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group that in principle we accept the strategy whereby Parliament reinstates the budget figures suggested by the Commission and reduced by the Council.
The majority of the members of the UEN Group would of course gladly see a more striking increase in these figures, in particular those under Heading 2, but as a Polish pop song says, ‘when you don’t have what you love, you should love what you have’.
We welcome the increase in funding for implementation of the Lisbon Strategy and for information policy.
At the same time, however, we would like to stress that funding for information campaigns relating to the referendums on the Constitutional Treaty must not be spent merely on propaganda for the Treaty.
An equal amount must be spent on critical media coverage.
We must respect public opinion in our countries, and public opinion is very divided on this issue.
We welcome the reinstatement of funding for programmes under the budget line covering TACIS and MEDA, which are of particular interest to our group.
We are, however, concerned at the ambiguous position adopted by the Committee on Budgets with regard to our amendment.
This amendment relates to a ban on the provision of Community aid to projects in third countries that could result in the carrying out of forced abortions, sterilisation or female circumcision.
It is an amendment aimed at protecting human rights.
In order to ensure that the right to choose is a genuine right, and not a mere mockery of the phrase, we call for this House to vote in favour of our amendment, Amendment No 5.
This does not, of course, change the fact that in principle the UEN Group supports the draft 2005 budget in the version put forward by the Committee on Budgets, and will vote in favour of this draft at its first reading.
At the same time, however, we hope that in future years the EU budget will be increased in order to allow the EU to achieve the ambitious tasks it has set itself.
We have in mind in particular the rapid development, or development demands, of the new Member States, given that the development of these countries, and the acceleration of their development, will be to the benefit of the EU as a whole.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about dividing up the cake but less has been said about how the size of the cake was arrived at.
It is worth remembering that approximately 90% of the budgetary resources comes from the base of gross national income and from resources derived from income from Value Added Tax, and that these resources are closely related to the pace of economic growth.
Yesterday the President of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, stated that 2003 was accompanied by sluggish growth of just 0.5% of GDP.
He also stated that, at present, the world economy is recording its strongest growth in the last 30 years, and that the European Union should be exploiting this positive global environment.
The draft budget plan totally fails to respond to these realities, however.
In 2004, a provisional growth of 7.9% in the amounts of commitments paid is expected in relation to 2003.
This is based on the latest figures, taking into account trends in July or August.
In comparison with this, and in spite of the advised favourable growth environment, the draft European Union budget allows for an increase of just 5.4% compared to 2003, which means that the year on year growth in funds paid out should be 30% lower than in 2004.
Moreover, unlike the budget for 2004, the EU budget for 2005 now has to reflect a full year’s membership of the ten new Member States.
From this point of view, the starting-point parameters as set by the Council and in principle accepted by the Commission are, from the developmental point of view, both cosy and restrictive, and will present considerable problems in the implementation of the basic structural, regional and solidarity policies of the EU.
Thank you.
   Mr President, I should like to express my emphatic agreement with the broad thrust of what was said by the previous speaker but one, Mr Wohlin.
I believe that in continuing to waste billions, the EU, which was meant to act as a shield for Europe, is – to put it mildly – committing an extremely serious error.
Yet the budget is also full of clever little hidden nooks and crannies, a fact known by few better than by most of those now listening to this debate.
I should like to single out just two of these.
Firstly, the measures planned in relation to the implementation of the Statute for Political Parties, a great many aspects of which must be described as problematic in terms of democratic politics.
This is equivalent to acting by stealth, and, to quote Professor von Arnim, a researcher into political parties, to an undercover source of funding that may be turned on at any time at the taxpayer’s cost.
If we continue in this manner there will be adverse consequences for the European project.
The same is true of the increase in secretarial allowances for Members of this House, a proposal which is currently only being cleverly held in reserve, but which has nonetheless again been established as a goal.
It is of course necessary for us to be able to carry out our work here well, but not in such a way that beneficiaries can make easy money and party officials can receive a great deal of money on repeated occasions without contributing anything to the Parliament, a phenomenon which has been proven to occur.
   Mr President, Mrs Schreyer, the task faced firstly by the Committee on Budgets, and today by this House as a whole, in setting out a position on the draft budget for 2005 is an extremely difficult one.
On the one hand, our room for manoeuvre is extremely limited.
This is normal towards the end of a Financial Perspective, when new tasks appear for which no provision was made earlier, and funds are eaten up by these tasks.
I am not referring to enlargement or cohesion, but primarily to aid for Iraq, new tasks in the field of security and defence policy and the ever-increasing number of agencies.
On the other hand, the newly-formed Parliament urgently needs to reassert its priorities and make good on its electoral promises.
It must also stand by the position assumed by this House in the past, namely to exert democratic control over the flow of funds within the European Union.
On this occasion, Parliament’s traditional strategy, whereby the Commission proposals are reinstated in place of the Council’s traditional and extremely mechanical cuts, has proved inadequate in the face of such a challenge.
The votes held in the Committee on Budgets have revealed an offensive strategy endorsed by Mr Garriga, according to which Parliament expresses itself clearly and creates room for manoeuvre before the second round, or the second reading, in order to defend its traditional priorities.
These priorities include those mentioned many times in today’s debate, such as the Lisbon Strategy, information policy, development aid for rural areas, which does not necessarily mean the creation of jobs in agriculture, and the fight against terrorism.
This time the priorities did not leave much room for new initiatives by the new Member States, something that needs to change in future years.
It should be stressed that this strategy gained the strong support of various forces within the Committee on Budgets.
The real test of whether inter-party solidarity of this kind can be sustained during the remaining rounds of the 2005 budget battle will, however, come during the vote on Thursday.
As an MEP from Gdansk, the birthplace of the Solidarity Movement, I await this vote with hope, and the reason for this is obvious.
The strong position the House has adopted this time will have a far-reaching impact on future annual budgets, but above all on the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective.
With regard to very many words of thanks addressed to Mrs Schreyer again today, there will presently be a further occasion to thank her during our last joint meeting of the Committee on Budgets, which will begin shortly.
Many thanks.
   Mr President, Commissioner, it has already been said that the European Union has set itself the goal of becoming the world’s most economically competitive region by 2010.
This, however, presupposes the elimination of the far-reaching differences between the Member States and within regions in the Member States.
If the Gothenburg Strategy is to be taken seriously, this involves not merely economic issues, but also the attainment of a balanced relationship between economic development, social development and environmental development, whilst adhering to the principle of equality.
After all, the European Union is not merely a project to create an internal market, but also a project based on solidarity!
I therefore find it entirely incomprehensible that despite the increased number of tasks incumbent upon the enlarged European Union, a fact referred to in many wise speeches by all kinds of government representatives, funding is now to be limited to 1% of gross domestic product, with the budget at an even lower level.
This means that there is no chance at all of us ever putting this idea into practice.
I should therefore also like to say to the Council that this kind of behaviour is opportunistic.
You make grand proclamations, but when it comes to actually implementing these policies, you backtrack.
This is in no way acceptable!
Furthermore, if we now agree to these proposals, we will already have prejudiced the outcome of the 2007-2013 Budget debate.
Once we have chosen to go down this road, it is unlikely that we will ever have an opportunity to say that enough is enough, and that we no longer wish to go along with such a policy.
We must therefore respond to this Council proposal with a categorical ‘no’, in order to provide ourselves with the opportunity to achieve a sensible relationship between the Member States with regard to development in various policy areas.
Thought must be given to what we want to achieve and which policies we wish to implement before money is made available, rather than the other way round.
   In relation to the Budget, Mr President, we are concerned about the positions of the new prospective Commissioner for the Budget, Mrs Grybauskaite, who is apparently announcing the death of the common agricultural policy; that is a warning for the French farmers.
Our Parliament's Committee on Budgets is, however, partly responsible, since it practises a form of clientelism which leads to a dramatic increase in the Community budget of 11.72% in payment appropriations compared to 2004.
This is particularly shocking at a time when France, in order to comply with the 3% deficit imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact, is having to tighten its belt and raise taxes.
The irresponsibility of our Parliament will lead to an increase in France's contribution to the Community budget of more than a billion euros.
EUR 17 billion in total, equivalent to 110 billion francs.
The French taxpayer, who is already subject to some of the highest taxes in Europe, will not appreciate this, just as they do not appreciate that France finances Turkey’s pre-accession to the European Union to the tune of EUR 47 million.
Europe risks becoming a financial bottomless pit, and we do not want to fall into it.
   Ladies and gentlemen, much has already been said on the strategy adopted this year by this House with regard to the 2005 Budget.
It has also been said that the decentralised agencies play an important role for us in negotiations with the Council.
Once again, I should like to make it very clear to everyone that we are not opposed to the agencies; indeed quite the opposite is true, as we believe that most of them make an outstanding contribution to our common European concern.
Yet we must be aware of the fact that in recent years the rate at which agencies are established has accelerated considerably.
Whereas in 1990 there were only three agencies, in 1995 six and in 2000 seven, and there will be 23 as soon as 2005.
We have always supported the Commission’s intention to concentrate on its core competencies and transfer certain areas to the agencies, but we want this to occur in a focused manner and under extremely strict political and budgetary control.
The Council is always in favour of creating new agencies, and since the Member States have been represented on agencies’ management boards this has been particularly true, above all in the case of agencies which implement European legislation.
In the preliminary draft budget for 2005 EUR 281 303 million is earmarked for agencies, EUR 53.7 million more than in the 2004 financial year.
We must, however, bear in mind that all but four agencies are funded under Heading 3, internal policies, where very little money remains.
We are therefore left with only two options; either we provide the funding earmarked for the agencies without complaint, and cut funding in other priority budget lines in order to find the money to do so; or we negotiate with the Council in order to increase funding under Heading 3 by the missing EUR 54 million.
The latter is exactly what we want to happen.
I should now like to address Mrs Schreyer once again, and to thank her, as have all the previous speakers.
All the men who have spoken before this House know how to pay compliments much better than I am able to, yet, as you are aware, my thanks are sincere, as Mrs Schreyer has persuaded her fellow Commissioners to put forward proposals which are genuinely forward-looking.
In fact, they are so forward-looking that I do not believe that it will be possible to implement them during my time as a Member of this House. You are aware of the proposals to which I am referring, which include the general correction mechanism and the own resources report, with the ‘window to the future’ of an income system intended to undergo successive amendments.
This was an extremely courageous feat, and one which none of your predecessors achieved, in any case not the two men who were your immediate predecessors.
I would like to offer you my heartfelt thanks for this.
Mrs Schreyer, women can do it!
    Thank you, Mrs Xenogiannakopoulou.
As that was the final speaker, the debate is now closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
The sitting is now adjourned, and will resume at 6 p.m. with Question Time.
I thank you.
It is now clear that, despite the EU Foreign Ministers' agreement to accept Burma's (Myanmar) participation at the ASEM Summit, there has been no improvement in the human rights situation in that country and that Aung San Suu Kyi has not been freed.
EU Foreign Ministers have consequently declared they will step up measures against the Burmese military leadership.
What specific measures have been planned or put in place to ensure that the Burmese regime will now release Aung San Suu Kyi and fulfil the other demands made at the Gymnich meeting in Tullamore, Ireland? How does the Commission intend to implement these measures and the proposal to strengthen European aid to the people of Burma?
   Can I tempt my right honourable friend to agree that this House was right, and the foreign ministers were wrong, over the decision to permit Burma to attend the ASEM Summit?
I should also like to ask him whether he would agree that banning the senior generals and others from entering the EU is only as successful as the policies of individual Member States.
We have not seen a very effective policy on Zimbabwe, for instance.
Lastly, I ask the Commissioner to concur that although Aung San Suu Kyi – whose house arrest is unreasonable – is a crucial player in the Burma affair, we must accept that many others are also languishing in prison, including many members of the Burmese parliament.
   Commissioner, although I do of course agree with you that military operations are excluded from funding under the EU budget, my question relates to the police operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
According to reports I have received, there have been long delays in the arrival of equipment in the country, with six to eight months passing between the requirements being determined and the equipment actually arriving.
The European Union has decided that it wishes to provide itself with instruments to ensure that crises, especially those in neighbouring countries, are overcome rapidly.
Yet we are surely failing to achieve our aims if equipment arrives only when the crisis is already over.
I should therefore like to urge the Commission – perhaps jointly with this House – to re-examine this procedure.
   The next item is the second part of Question Time, during which the Commissioners present at this sitting will answer questions.
I should like to welcome Commissioner Verheugen and to begin with Question No 37 by Mr Ferber, on EU membership for Turkey and its consequences for the population.
   Madam President, Commissioner, my question was, in fact, whether the Commission intends in future to send investigation teams to Turkey as soon as there are complaints about incidents of torture in that country.
I think that the Commissioner will have to agree with me that Turkey is a very special candidate Member State.
Today, there was an article in the German newspaper stating that in Germany alone, more than 11 000 refugees have arrived since the beginning of 2003 asking for asylum on political grounds.
How is this possible? Either Turkey is democratic – and political refugees do not exist – or there is a real problem.
With the strategic decision of the European Commission to begin official negotiations with Turkey regarding its membership, and in view of contradictory reports on the subject, what impact will the potential accession of Turkey in 2014-2015 have on the funds for the ten newly admitted Member States, particularly in the context of the common agricultural policy as well as on regional policy?
   . Mr Czarnecki, one can, at present, do no more than speculate on this issue.
The Financial Perspective put forward by the Prodi Commission, which covers the period until 2013, does not earmark any funds for a potential accession by Turkey.
This means that it is impossible to comment on the way in which the potential costs of such an accession might be distributed.
There is no way in which detailed comments can be made on this issue at present, as Turkey cannot be expected to join the EU for another 12 to 15 years.
During this period both the European Union and Turkey will experience economic developments which are as yet unknown to us, the budget of the European Union may undergo far-reaching changes of which we are unaware, and expenditure on related policies may also change.
As a basic principle, it will be possible for any matters which require regulation to be regulated under the Accession Treaty, including matters relating to costs.
Turkey’s accession will not cost more than the Member States and the Community budget are prepared to spend at that point in time.
    Thank you, Madam President.
Mr Verheugen, I should like to take this opportunity to thank you for your personal contribution to the recent EU enlargement, involving my country, Poland, amongst others.
I should also like to thank you for providing us with an extremely important piece of information, namely that Turkey may join the EU in 2019, but no earlier.
I have an additional question to put to you, Mr Verheugen.
Do you believe that EU funding will tend to be used mostly to eliminate differences between Turkish regions and European regions or mostly to support Turkish agriculture?
   . Mr Czarnecki, firstly I should like to extend my sincere thanks for the compliment.
As in the case of Poland, the elimination of regional disparities will of course also be an important factor if Turkey ever joins the EU.
At present, however, it is still entirely impossible to comment on the financial implications this will have.
I should merely like to point out that there is an upper ceiling for resource transfers into the new Member States, as well as into the old ones, which is set at 4% of gross national product.
This means that the transfer of unlimited quantities of money is impossible.
In fact this 4% ceiling has never been reached for the large Member States such as Spain, Italy or Poland, and it never will be.
It is therefore reasonably safe to assume that, when the time comes, it will not be a question of comparing Turkey with Estonia or Lithuania, but rather with Spain or Poland, and this means figures of a very different order.
   Thank you, Commissioner.
Following the summer holidays I received a huge number of enquiries from people living in my electoral district relating to this issue, in particular with regard to the extremely slow progress of border controls at the borders between Bulgaria and Romania and between Bulgaria and Turkey, with such controls often being halted entirely for hours at a time and the delays lasting for up to twelve hours.
The issue of corruption was also raised in a great many of these complaints.
As these complaints have raised the specific issues of border controls and corruption, I should like to ask you for your views on both of these.
Five Greek regions have been included in the Community action to address the effects of enlargement in regions of the Member States having borders with applicant countries.
Given that the Commission itself has taken the view that Macedonia (Western, Central and Eastern) and Thrace are in by far the most difficult position, according to the criteria of income, the strength of the labour market, infrastructures and human resources, will the Commission give its assessment so far of the use of Community financial resources for these regions?
Which direction will Community action take after 2006 in view of the expected accession of Bulgaria and Romania and the beginning of EU-Turkey accession negotiations (it should be noted that Greece has borders with all three applicant countries)?
What provision has been made for transborder infrastructures with a view to promoting the integration of the area?
Madam President, in conclusion I should like congratulate Commissioner Verheugen most warmly on the significant contribution he has made to the enlargement of the European Union.
   Question No 44 will be answered in writing.
In the spring of 2004, Advocate-General Phillipe Leger of the Court of Justice declared the Swedish State monopoly on pharmacies to be contrary to EU competition principles.
Final judgment in the Hanner case is expected during the year but, usually, the Court of Justice adheres to the opinion of the Advocate-General.
In the light of this opinion concerning pharmacies, what is the Commission's view of the future for the Swedish State monopoly on the sale of alcoholic beverages, Systembolaget?
   . – Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, even though the Court of Justice may adhere to the opinion of the Advocate-General, it should be emphasised that such an opinion is not legally binding either on the Commission or on any other party.
That is also true for the opinion that Advocate-General Léger issued on 25 May 2004 in case C-438/02 Åklagaren versus Krister Hanner, regarding the compatibility of Apoteket, the monopoly that exists in Sweden for the distribution of medicinal products, with certain Treaty provisions on the free movement of goods and the right of establishment (Articles 28, 31 and 43).
With regard to Systembolaget, the distribution system for alcoholic beverages in Sweden, the Court of Justice has already made a pronouncement on that monopoly’s compatibility with Article 31 of the Treaty, in its ruling of 23 October 1997 on the Franzén case.
The article states that the structure and activity of State monopolies must be organised so as to ensure that no discrimination regarding the conditions under which goods are procured and marketed exists between nationals of Member States, so that trade in goods from another Member State shall not suffer any disadvantage in law or in fact compared with a domestic product.
Having thoroughly examined the Systembolaget system with regard to points of sale, choice of products and promotional activities, the Court decided that the monopoly sales structure of Systembolaget was compatible with Article 31 of the Treaty.
In the current state of affairs, the Franzén ruling provides the Commission with a guideline from a legal point of view in the context of assessing the compatibility of Systembolaget with EU rules.
   Madam President, I thank the Commission for that answer, which I think was an extremely good one.
The reason for the question is that not only the issue of pharmacies but also that of the Swedish state monopoly on the sale of alcoholic beverages, Systembolaget, is mentioned in the Advocate-General’s opinion.
I interpret the answer as saying that the Commission does not today believe that there are any problems with Systembolaget and considers that its activity is compatible with the EU’s regulations, a position I think is a wise one.
   . – May I just thank Mrs Sbarbati very much for her kind words?
Thank you.
   Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the issue of state aid is raised every time there is a natural disaster.
As a result of the EU’s enlargement, Objective 1 or 2 areas in border regions are now bordered by other areas which have been deprived of this status.
Do you believe it possible that temporary exceptions relating to state aid could be put in place for these border regions in future?
   Madam President, I thank the Commissioner for his response.
I should nevertheless like to point out – and I have investigated this for myself – that 75 cl of ink-jet printer ink is more expensive than a bottle of champagne.
That is surely absurd.
I very much have the impression that this is a case of tied selling, whereby printers are sold at bargain prices and ink is very much overpriced.
For the time being, I content myself with the Commissioner’s response, but I should like to note that this inquiry should be completed urgently, because this is not benefiting the consumer.
   Thank you, Commissioner Monti.
I will now bring the questions to you to a close, so that Questions No 49 and 50 will be answered in writing.
We will now move on to the next group of issues.
   My question is about the Commission's position on the fact that the law of the Russian Federation on additional guarantees and compensations for military servicemen etc., in its versions of 21 January 1993, 21 July 1993 etc. …
   I regret that I have to interrupt you, Mr Landsbergis.
What I have heard so far does not appear to relate to the question, and you can only put supplementary and specific questions on this point.
The extent of foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and the best advice to offer to expectant women remains controversial.
A recent study by Dr Raja Mukherjee, London, claims that drinking any amount of alcohol can be damaging and that one in every 100 babies born is damaged by their mother drinking while pregnant but that many cases go unrecognised. Studies in the US, South Africa and Scandinavia suggest that one in 300 infants is affected by FAS.
Affected children can suffer problems with memory, attention span, hyperactivity, physical abnormalities and a diminished IQ. There is a need for further research into FAS.
However, heavy alcohol consumption is known to be damaging to the unborn child and some EU governments recommend a limit of one to two units of alcohol per week for pregnant mothers-to-be.
In the light of this does the Commission have any plans to introduce EU legislation requiring alcoholic beverages to carry warning labels about the potential for damage to unborn children?
Will the Commission confirm that the mental health sector will receive increased emphasis in the 2005 Work Programme? Will it further confirm that human rights and humane treatment are fundamental to good mental health practice in the European Union?
Will it welcome the announcements in Hungary and Slovenia that caged beds are to be abolished, and will it continue to protest against their continued use in the Czech Republic and Slovakia? In this connection, will it also salute Dr Jan Pfeiffer, named as one of Time Magazine's 2004 European Heroes for his campaign for a humane mental health system, without such beds, in the Czech Republic?
   Madam President, unfortunately I was chairing my group meeting when my question came up.
I should like to apologise to the Commissioner and to the House for not being here to take the question myself.
This is the last opportunity that I will have to thank Commissioner Byrne for all his help and great leadership over many crises over the last five years.
I wish him well. It will not be retirement for him, but a new phase in his life.
   . I should like to respond very briefly to my old friend, Mr Crowley, and thank him very much for his kind words.
We have worked together and I now look forward to a deep friendship in the future.
   Thank you, Mr Crowley.
What you have said will be recorded in the Minutes.
I would now like to conclude Question Time.
Questions No 56 to 93 will be answered in writing.
   The next item is the debate on the Council and Commission statements on the preparation of the Brussels European Council on 4 and 5 November.
Minister Nicolaï has the floor first on behalf of the Council.
   .   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union’s communications strategy has just been drawn up.
Everyone agrees that this strategy has been and remains unsatisfactory and even inappropriate.
Mr Verheugen was one of several speakers to say so today.
Both within EU Member States and beyond the EU, the only viewpoint put forward is that of a single centralist approach to the building of Europe’s common future.
Many of the Members of this House are actually sceptical about this model of integration, which after all is only one of many possible models.
For example, a significant number of Members are opposed to Turkey being accepted into the EU, and the arguments they put forward are rational ones.
As we search for a way in which the EU can communicate more effectively with its citizens, I would emphasise the importance of not disregarding attitudes and ideas which are as yet held by a minority, but which are becoming increasingly widespread and are equally valid.
This is the only way in which democracy and pluralism will gain respect in this House, in the EU Member States and in the candidate countries.
I thank you.
   .   Thank you, Mr President.
This House has heard a great deal about the Lisbon strategy, and we would of course like it to succeed.
For this to happen, however, we cannot treat it like some kind of magic formula that will solve all our problems by itself.
Mr Verheugen has said Europe must be competitive, and we agree that it must be competitive in relation to other regions of the world.
At the same time, however, it has been said that we need to build a European social model, which I take to mean an over-supportive welfare state, or a state that robs citizens of initiative by providing them with everything the state believes they need.
Clearly, a choice has to be made.
Either we opt for a social model and an over-supportive welfare state, or for competitiveness in relation to America.
If no such choice is made, we will not be in a position to build Europe’s economic success.
By way of example, Mr Nicolaï’s announcement that consultations will be held with employers, employees and trade unions are a step too far.
It is quite sufficient for employers and employees to take part.
If it turns out that trade unions need to take part as well as employees, I do not believe agreement will ever be reached.
As regards the common legal area, we need to be aware that this must not extend beyond the legal framework laid down in the European Treaties that have been signed to date.
If it were to do so, it would amount to a violation of the Treaties and thus to an attack on the EU’s cohesion.
It should also be emphasised that foreign policy needs to be based on aspects common to us all, or in other words on positive values.
Policy is extremely important in this field, for example in the case of Darfur.
I thank you.
      Mr President, Mr Nicolaï, Commissioner, at the EU summit in November the German Chancellor will put forward proposals for the full liberalisation of the EU energy market by 2007, as well as for the creation of a European system for monitoring financial markets and for the harmonisation of the principles of financial transactions in the 25 Member States.
Another of Mr Schröder’s proposals is the consolidation of the European armaments market.
In this context, I should like to quote the French proverb ‘grasp all, lose all’.
It might be better to have fewer plans, but for those plans to be more realistic.
What is genuinely disturbing, however, is Mr Schröder’s proposal to harmonise the corporate tax base in the EU.
This project, details of which were revealed in an article in yesterday’s edition of the German business daily , is supposed to be completed in 2006, and will result in tax bands being implemented in the EU, following the example of the VAT system.
Does this really have anything to do with competitiveness, one of the European Union’s watchwords?
It certainly does not. Instead, it fits in with the latest proposals put forward by the French Finance Minister, Mr Sarkozy, the implementation of which would be a particular blow to the economies of the new Member States.
We will not agree to this.
   Mr President, public opinion and the people of Europe expect three things from the European Council.
The first is that the Council make clear progress in the fight against terrorism.
The Madrid attacks reminded us of how urgent it is to make significant progress, especially in the fields of cooperation between police forces, the organisation of Europol and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
The second thing we expect is that you do not go back on the protection of fundamental rights, whether this be in connection with exchanges of data, which must be subject to strict legal controls, or whether, above all, it be in connection with asylum and immigration, which cannot be subject to solutions that ignore human rights.
Thirdly and finally – and while being very pleased that the Dutch Presidency is actually going down this road – we expect you to cross an important threshold by making the whole of Title IV of the Treaty establishing the European Community subject to codecision, which is a guarantee of democracy, and to qualified majority voting, which is a guarantee of efficiency.
   Mr President, Mr Verheugen, the Lisbon strategy is crucial, yet today it has been acknowledged that inadequate progress has been made with it.
It is important to remember that the provisions and goals of the Lisbon strategy disregarded the EU’s enlargement and did not take full advantage of it as a catalyst for development.
It is also likely that too many priorities were set.
At present, we note a lack of progress with the implementation of the strategy.
Key economic reforms have been neglected too, and this has resulted in a slow-down in growth.
At the same time, certain governments are attempting to share their problems with others, for example by proposing tax harmonisation or initiatives to support European giants instead of the small and medium-sized enterprises that are far more important.
The end result of all this can only be that we all lose this race.
How can the situation be rectified? First and foremost, the priorities of the Lisbon strategy should be reduced to an absolute minimum, and priorities relating to economic growth should be placed at the top of the agenda.
Which priorities would this involve? Firstly, completion of the single market.
This encompasses aspects such as the market for services and the discrepancy between governments’ declarations and their actions, as in the case of the quota limitations imposed on Polish service providers on the German market, and the fact that the situation has in fact deteriorated since 1 May 2004.
Secondly, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, above all by simplifying legislation.
Thirdly, modernisation of the labour market as employees must be mobile in order to win the fight to be competitive.
We should therefore work on the assumption that as of 1 May 2006, two years after enlargement, there will be no restrictions on the movement of persons within the European Union.
Fourthly, the Seventh EU Framework Programme should abolish the existing preference given to research institutions from the old Member States over those from the new Member States.
Fifthly, one of the instruments used to increase the EU’s competitiveness should be an effectively implemented cohesion policy, which takes into account the additional catalyst for development provided by the new Member States.
In addition, the role of the European Commission should be stepped up to include the task of holding governments to account for the effectiveness of their actions.
And last but not least, the European Parliament should not only be kept informed of decisions relating to the Lisbon strategy, but should also have an influence on such decisions, as this would facilitate the building of consensus at national level.
I thank you.
   Having taken two minutes to consider the matter, I would like to state that what Mr Mote is asking for is of course contrary to the laws of the European Union.
I say this in order that the Minutes may record that Mr Mote made an illegal demand in this House.
   This is a free country, Mr Nicolaï.
You cannot be compelled to remain here.
Although we are glad to see you here, you are of course also discharging your duties if you want to be informed of what is said here even though you cannot be present.
   I have been notified by the French authorities that, with effect from 22 October, Mrs Simonot has been replaced by Mr Le Rachinel.
I welcome our new Member and would point out that Rule 3(5) of the Rules of Procedure states that a Member shall take his seat in Parliament and on its bodies and shall enjoy all the rights attaching thereto until such time as his credentials have been verified or a ruling has been given on any dispute.
   The next item is the speech by Mr Barroso, President-elect of the European Commission.
   Thank you, Mr Barroso.
We remain in politically uncharted territory, since this is a situation we could never have foreseen.
The Treaties clearly lay down that the new Commission must commence its duties on 1 November and that beforehand the European Parliament must give its opinion on a proposal.
But Parliament clearly cannot give its opinion if there is no proposal.
Mr Barroso tells us that there is no proposal.
I believe it would be good to know the Council’s position, since, if there is no proposal, the Council must also give its opinion.
   That is not a point of order.
Mr Pannella, you do not have the floor.
Mr Schulz has the floor.
   Mr Rogalski has the floor on a point of order.
Mr Kilroy-Silk, please be quiet and sit down.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the decision we have to take today is one of great importance for the European Union and for its future.
We have had lively discussions and vigorous disagreements over the last few weeks.
My group’s resolution, taken unanimously yesterday evening, was preceded by hard, tough debates and serious disagreements, even in our own ranks.
We had disagreements because our decision would involve passing judgment on our Social Democrat friends in the Commission.
After lengthy discussions yesterday evening, which involved them – and let me tell them that they were the outstanding members of the proposed Commission – our solidarity with these friends from our group meant that the decision was not, for us, an easy one.
The decision we took yesterday evening is that we, despite everything, cannot have confidence in the Commission that you, Mr Barroso, would have proposed, or intended to propose, this morning.
Rather than revisit the debate, which was a lively one, I want to tell you that, having recognised – this morning, yesterday evening and during the course of yesterday – that this proposal would not gain a majority, you came to the right conclusion by acceding to Parliament’s wishes.
On behalf of my group, let me say that this was the right course of action.
What you are doing this morning opens up the way to a shared future for all of us, both the Commission and the broad majority in the European Parliament.
I was pleased to hear Mr Poettering say that he supported this development, and I can tell him that it is never too late to join those who said that the European Parliament also needs to be strengthened when debates are cut short, when they are reduced to a presentation, on the basis that the European Parliament talks sense only when it agrees with the Commission.
So, welcome to the club, Mr Poettering.
Those who want a strong Commission, enabled to work by the broad support for it in the European Parliament, are those who want one strong institution – the Commission – supported by another strong institution – Parliament – to be capable of dealing with the real challenges of the years to come.
If you strengthen such a Commission, then you are for Europe.
If you seek to make it dependent on the votes of that gentleman, whose three or four votes just might help the Commission get a majority, then you are weakening Europe.
That is why a broad majority is necessary.
In the last few weeks, Mr Barroso, we have had various proposals to put to you.
My group expects you, in your future considerations, to bear in mind the proposals that this House put to you at the end of the hearings.
Speaking on behalf of my group, I can tell you that we also expect your considerations to be influenced by what the Socialist Group in the European Parliament has told you, for one thing is clear, and that is that you will need my group’s support for your future Commission too.
While offering you cooperation, we also urge you to take seriously the advice that the Socialist Group in this House has given you.
On 22 July, you had 413 votes, some of them from members of my group.
Many in my group did not vote for you on that occasion, but what you got then was a great vote of confidence.
Over the last three months, you have been gambling with some of your credit, but, with your decision today, you have won some of it back.
We in the European Parliament’s Socialist Group are ready for constructive collaboration, and that is the road you have chosen today – something we have sometimes missed over the last few weeks.
If we are to achieve something in the next few weeks, I ask you not to bring back the same Commission that you would have presented to us today, as otherwise we could have voted on it today.
I ask you to bring us a new proposal, one offering the possibility of broader support for the Commission.
Mr Kilroy-Silk, if you continue to disrupt the sitting, I shall expel you from the Chamber.
Mr Watson, I am very happy that you did not have to vote contrary to the way you spoke.
That would not have been good.
We know from the feminists that when a woman says 'No', it means no.
From you, we have learned that when the Liberals say 'No', it can mean yes, and this is wrong.
And so, Mr President, I ask you to listen to this House in future.
If you listen carefully, you will get a large majority for a Commission.
That is something you need to know.
As Mr Poettering discovered today, the strongest group does not always add up to a majority in this House.
This is a democratic learning process, one that we have all been fortunate to be able to undergo in these days.
      Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, there is an anecdote told in my country according to which an outstanding Polish politician is one who never agrees to a compromise, whereas a good American statesman is one who can always find a compromise.
If this anecdote were to be translated, taken seriously, and adapted for the European Parliament, Mr Barroso would have a successful career ahead of him in America, and many outstanding politicians and speakers in this House would triumph over the political scene in my country.
In response to Mr Barroso’s critics, I should like to remind them that it is the governments of the Member States who decide on the appointment of Commissioners.
Mr Barroso’s room for manoeuvre is limited, and we should be clear about the fact that it will remain limited until there is a change in the way the Commission is appointed.
If this House wishes to say that the governments of the Member States play too large a role in this process, it should say so clearly.
I do not share this opinion, however, as I do not believe the role governments play is too large.
If the Commission is to have the support of the Member States, the Member States’ governments must have a major part to play in its appointment, even if this sometimes prolongs the decision-making process.
We have great respect for all those speakers who have expressed their reservations concerning individual Commissioners-designate, as many of us also had doubts about a number of them.
The voting procedure is what it is, however, and we vote on the Commission as a whole, without being able to vote on individual Commissioners, something that has both positive and negative sides.
The ball is now back in the court of the President of the Commission and the EU Member States, but this decision-making process should not be allowed to drag on, as Europe needs a new Commission, just as Europe needs a strong European Parliament.
Indeed this House is now proving its strength, and I am sure we are all aware of this, both those who would vote in favour of Mr Barroso and his Commission and those who would vote against.
It is to be hoped that the heated dispute we are witnessing and involved in will not cause a permanent rift in this House.
Even when we have fundamental differences of opinion, we should remember the aspects that unite us and not only those that may divide us.
Finally, I should like to express my respect for Mr Barroso.
You do not have an easy life, and you have embarked upon a difficult mission.
This makes it even more important for me to tell you, at this difficult time, that I value your efforts and the strength of character you have demonstrated.
I believe that before long we will be able to congratulate you on your political success.
Many thanks.
   Mr President, on a point of order; Mr Barroso showed his disdain for Parliament yesterday by turning up late and not apologising.
He has now demonstrated his incompetence by having no proposals to put before Parliament today.
Any self-respecting Parliament would now vote no confidence in the ...
   Mrs Mussolini, that is not a point of order.
Mr Nicolaï, President-in-Office of the Council, has the floor.
   Mr President, on a point of order under Rule 172 I have a correction to make to yesterday's Minutes.
In Item 3 there is some confusion over a name.
The second name in section 2 – 'From Members' – should be Wojciech Wierzejski, not 'Wojciechowski Janusz Czesław'.
The first name was confused with the surname.
I ask that the Minutes be corrected in this regard.
   Of course, Mr Giertych, I duly note your comment, and we shall naturally make the required changes.
   As everyone will have noticed, a number of events have taken place this morning, but the agenda, as planned, remains unchanged.
We shall therefore resume the debates at 3 p.m. today, as provided for in the agenda.
      Many thanks, Mr President.
I was about to say Minister, as I remember you from your days as French Minister for European Integration.
I have an objection and an important observation to make relating to yesterday’s Minutes, and in particular to the one-minute speeches.
My speech on the ‘golden share’ and the dispute between the European Commission and the German and Polish Governments has been attributed to an entirely different Member, namely to Mr Jałowiecki from the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
I would therefore ask for this to be corrected, as it was definitely not Mr Jałowiecki who spoke, but me.
I also have an objection regarding the list of speakers who gave one-minute speeches, as my name does not appear in it at all.
I am a modest person and do not believe such an omission would be detrimental to me in any way.
Nevertheless, I would like the relevant corrections to be made for the sake of accuracy.
   The next item is the joint debate on the EU-India Summit, with the Council and Commission statements on EU-India relations, then Mr Menéndez del Valle’s report on the same subject.
   . Mr President, in his first statement in July, Mr Barroso said that we have to choose one priority, and that priority must be employment.
This does not seem to have transmitted itself to this particular committee, which recommends upgrading EU-India relations by outsourcing and insourcing.
I am sorry the rapporteur did not have the time to tell us how much insourcing there has been, but there has been a great deal of outsourcing.
In Britain alone, most of the banks, the insurance companies and even the National Health Service have outsourced.
My point concerns 3SE, which was set up by the EU and the Indian Government.
On its website it goes a little further.
According to the website, the value of outsourcing is in increased working days.
It invites employers to harness the time difference of three-and-a-half to five-and-a-half hours to pack in hours.
So there are no Commission hang-ups then about the working-time directive, as long it is the poor exploited workers of India who are involved!
The rapporteur tells us that we must help Delhi fight against poverty, but would he just tell his own organisation what it is doing to help?
Mr Barroso, as I said at the outset, says that he wants to boost employment in the EU.
This report does just the opposite.
   Mr President, over the past few weeks, and with the EU-India Summit in the offing – it is taking place in The Hague at the beginning of November – the Dutch Human Rights ambassador has declared that the violation of the rights of 260 million outcaste Dalits is an international human rights problem.
Despite democracy and law in the world’s largest democracy, practice is proving somewhat different.
Even though Indian law prohibits caste discrimination, it is still a fact of life.
I would call for this problem to be explicitly put on the agenda in our bilateral and multilateral trade talks and in context of the broad EU-India partnership that we have, which has been rightly championed.
In my view, positive support could help give the partnership a boost to such an extent that social isolation, child labour, exploitation and unfair trading are all addressed in one fell swoop.
In this respect, a positive agenda is being drafted, where the problems of the Dalits are being addressed and as a result of which their situation can be actively improved.
That is the platform where it should happen, but it is precisely this kind of international trade problem, linked to a real international legal problem of 260 million people, that calls for a common approach, not only in India but also in other countries.
I hope we have the courage to interpret this broader partnership in that way where this is concerned too.
   .
Mr President, dear colleagues, if we just look at a map, we would see immediately that the expansion of the European Union offered Belarus a unique opportunity, if that opportunity itself is not only theoretical.
Both of these ‘ifs’ are the particularly fragile props, on which we can only imagine Belarus as a bridge between the European Union and Russia.
The Belorussian bridge would be needed by all three sides, and profitable for Belarus itself.
However, first there has to exist a democratic, independent Belorussian state.
At present Belarus is a semi-dependent protectorate, ruled by an autocratic dictator, supported by Russia.
Those who believe that everything in Belarus, including the elections, depends only on Mr Lukashenko, are wrong.
When we criticise only the rulers of Belarus, we are departing from reality.
Since 1997 a Russia-Belarus union has formed, which is expanding in the direction of ever greater state amalgamation.
And so Russia's responsibility must not be ignored.
For instance Mr Lukashenko appointed General Ushopchik, a man wanted by the Court of Lithuania for the murder of unarmed civilians during the events in Vilnius in 1991, a Vice-Minister in today's Belorussian Government.
We hope that Lukashenko made this political provocation without instruction from Moscow's advisers.
But as for his friendship with the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, including arms trading, it is doubtful whether this could have been achieved without Moscow's approval.
It seems that the present situation is useful to Russia.
Were it not useful to Russia, the situation there would have changed long ago and the country would not be run by Lukashenko.
But the protectorate is given to none other than Lukashenko.
Not only to the country, but to the regime.
The situation will change when Russia understands that this is not the most useful scenario for Russia either.
Meanwhile an information centre on a democratic Belarus could already be operating now in Brussels, if the European Union were to help found it.
   Mr President, on 17 October, the Belarussian voters went to the polls to vote in a referendum on a change to their constitution and to elect their Members of Parliament.
The turn-out was huge, and the constitutional change was approved by 77% of the electorate.
We should be very pleased about this awakening of democratic awareness and about the broad popular turn-out.
A number of people, such as the Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, believe themselves, however, authorised to take Belarus to task.
Some of the accusations voiced have been hypocritical and demagogic, especially those made by governments that, before lecturing others, should put their own houses in order.
Will the German people be consulted about the European Constitution?
No. Mr Chirac will reach a decision on behalf of France concerning Turkey’s accession to Europe and do so against the obvious will of the French people.
These accusations are, moreover, ill-considered. Rather than demonise a nation that has only been independent for 12 years, we should be very pleased about the progress it has accomplished on the road to democracy and not interfere in such an arrogant and moralistic way in its internal affairs.
   Mr President, dear colleagues. Ten days ago in Belarus steps were taken which have distanced the country even more from democratic Europe.
And Belarus has already been a neighbour of the EU for half a year.
It is one thing for us to be more or less tolerant of a regime turning into an autocracy because it is far away, it is something altogether different, when a state, whose borders are barely thirty kilometres from Vilnius, one of the capitals of the EU States, is becoming unpredictable.
Ties with Russia, where anti-European moods are spreading, and where some of the gains of democracy are being removed, are becoming stronger and this has a certain influence on Minsk.
While supporting the position of the Council, I also believe that in the time left before the 2006 presidential elections it is necessary to adjust in principle EU policy on Belarus, to adapt it to new conditions.
It is doubtful whether measures, which partially support the efforts of Belarus' rulers to isolate themselves, the country and its inhabitants, are effective.
Generally speaking in the age of television, computers and information, self-isolation can only be successful over a historically short period of time.
We must draw Belorussians into true cooperation with the European Union, offer the hope of being a fully entitled democratic part of Europe.
Lithuania and Belarus' other neighbours have specific plans.
These include the broadcasting of a free radio programme, the publishing of an opposition newspaper and the foundation of a European University of the Humanities in exile.
Additional EU funding is needed in order to implement these ideas.
Note that after 17 October, not double, but ten times more resources are needed for the creation of a civil society in Belarus.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with Commissioner Verheugen that, in contrast to the situation in the neighbouring country of Belarus, the presidential elections in Ukraine will involve a genuinely exciting neck-and-neck race between two strong personalities.
It really is a decision for the Ukrainian people.
Yet, as many other Members of this House have noted before me, we await this weekend and this electoral process with concern, as it is becoming apparent that the campaign is being fought on unfair terms, and with no holds barred.
President Kuchma is cracking the whip for his preferred candidate, and forcing state officials and television channels into line to support him.
We support Mr Wiersma in his call for an end to be put to this and for a fair electoral process to be given a chance.
I concur with the Presidency’s demands and share its regret that local election observers could not be deployed, as during the last elections this proved to be a key factor in ensuring that the public viewed the elections as democratic.
An extremely high turnout has made clear the country’s potential as a democracy , and it is therefore crucial that measures are taken to prevent any undesirable developments, as well as to ensure that these elections are conducted in a genuinely democratic fashion.
I have confidence in the people of Ukraine, but I also call on the Presidency and the Commission to ensure that support for democratic structures and, above all, for civil society is accorded a central role in the action plan, and is given higher priority than economic development, as the development of democracy in Ukraine still stands on shaky ground, and must be consolidated.
   .   Mr President, Mr Nicolaï, Commissioner, the first-round election campaign in Ukraine is drawing to a close.
Several international organisations have voiced a great many reservations about the way the campaign was conducted, a fact noted in key comments by previous speakers.
It cannot be said that the situation in Ukraine is similar to that in Belarus.
That would be a step too far.
There is, however, something both countries have in common, namely Russia’s strategic interest.
In the course of the electoral campaign in Ukraine, this interest was very apparent at the Sochi summit on 26 July of this year and during President Putin’s later visit.
We know Russia is interested in maintaining a particular political configuration in Ukraine.
The candidate who represents this configuration is the current President, Mr Yanukovich.
He enjoys far superior access to the media and more opportunities to communicate with his voters.
It is important for us to hold talks on issues relating to Ukraine with Russia, a key partner in such matters, and these talks should be placed on the agenda both of meetings held in the framework of the PCA and those held during the EU-Russia summit.
In addition, I should like to make a few comments on Mr Verheugen’s statement.
It is true that Ukraine does not yet fully meet the criteria of a democratic state, but we know that membership of the EU is the best incentive for it to fulfil these criteria.
   . Mr President, I can only add that we will also discuss this with Russia at the next summit on 11 November.
   . Mr President, I am obliged to the honourable Member for his comment.
As you know, our second report is not ready, but I can tell you that we are closely monitoring the situation.
I would also draw your attention to the Council’s conclusions of 11 October, in which the Council welcomed Serbia’s pledges for a dialogue with all ethnic groups.
To Mr Szent-Iványi and the President, I should like to add that I personally do have the impression that the situation has quietened down somewhat since the elections at the beginning of October.
   . Mr President, thank you.
At their informal meeting in early September, the EU’s Foreign Affairs Ministers adopted a twin-track approach with regard to Serbia and Montenegro which will entail one blanket stabilisation and association agreement with two differently negotiated protocols on trade, customs and other sectoral areas of policy, which clearly fall within the remit of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro. That was a positive gesture towards Serbia and Montenegro.
At the same time, the Foreign Affairs Ministers decided in favour of enforcing political conditions, including compliance with all international obligations, including those in respect of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, or ICTY.
The European Union would therefore ask all countries of the Western Balkans to cooperate with the ICTY as a token of their willingness to meet their international obligations and respect the principle of rule of law, the latter being one of the cornerstones on which the Union is founded in accordance with Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union.
The leaders of those countries have promised to cooperate with the ICTY on several occasions, including during the Forum of the Western Balkans on 9 December 2003, which brought the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the European Union and of the region together.
Moreover, the competent political leaders in Serbia and Montenegro, including the Presidents of the Union of States and of the two republics, as well as the Foreign Affairs Minister of Serbia and Montenegro have clearly spoken in favour of cooperation with the ICTY.
   . Mr President, freedom of religion is one of the priority areas in the revised accession partnership for Turkey that was adopted by the Council on 15 May 2003.
In line with that priority, Turkey must create conditions corresponding to those in the EU Member States, so as to ensure that non-Muslim religious communities can function.
This also comprises the use of ownership rights in accordance with Protocol No 1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
The Council is fully aware that non-Muslim religious communities, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate, continue to experience problems.
Although some progress has been made in this area, various problems, particularly the problem of the legal position of non-Muslim religious communities and the registration of ownership, have not so far been resolved.
Comprehensive new legislation is still being drafted.
Meanwhile, the government is trying to find solutions to most of the critical problems.
In this context, the situation concerning the reopening of the Halki School of Theology also remains shrouded in uncertainty for the time being.
The Council is closely following developments with regard to freedom of religion in Turkey against the background of the Copenhagen political criteria for accession.
The Union will continue to raise this issue with Turkey within the bodies of the association agreement and in the context of the political dialogue, as well as at any other suitable opportunity.
It is, however, clear that preventing or handling specific incidents, such as the protests mentioned by the honourable Member, fall within the exclusive remit of the Turkish authorities.
As the honourable Member knows, the Commission accepted its recommendations concerning Turkey’s progress on the road to accession on 6 October and has recommended opening negotiations with Turkey under certain conditions.
In order to guarantee the permanence and irreversibility of the political criteria, the Commission would recommend a cooperation strategy in order to strengthen and support Turkey’s reform process, particularly with regard to the sustained compliance with the political criteria of Copenhagen.
The pace of the reforms will determine progress during the negotiations.
With specific reference to the Armenian and Syrian minorities, the report outlines an update of the situation, which is mainly reflected in the educational systems, schoolbooks and language teaching.
   Mr President, I also wish to thank the Council for its answer to the question.
My follow-up question concerns the Turkish penal code which has, of course, recently been changed.
A look at this new code reveals an Article 305 which still states that talking about the Armenian genocide in the media is a crime punishable by a prison sentence.
This means, of course, that it is still directly prohibited to mention this historical fact, namely that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were murdered in the last century in what is now Turkey.
Will the Council broach the subject of this Article 305 in its contacts with Turkey? How do you view its content?
   . Mr President, thank you.
Can non-Dutch-speakers understand me too? The Council wishes to inform the honourable Member of the fact that the European Union has reacted very promptly, and predominantly via Echo, to the recent flooding in Bangladesh and Northern Indian States of Assam and Bihar, and aid has been granted to the tune of EUR 4 million.
The Council would ask her to approach the Commission, which will be able to provide her with extensive information about the topic, particularly in terms of technical and financial assistance.
   May I thank the Council for its very brief response, though I had been hoping for a little more.
The floods in Bangladesh, and I have seen them, come nearly every year, but this year have caused some USD 2.2 billion damage.
This is a huge amount of flood damage: the European Union has very kindly sent EUR 4 million in aid.
I know that the Netherlands, with its long experience of beating back floodwaters at home, already supports considerable projects in Bangladesh, but I wonder what more can be done in the future.
Some 36 million people have been flooded, which is more than the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark and Ireland put together.
Flooding in the Low Countries of Europe is not permitted to get out of hand: the Dutch Government has made great efforts to fight back.
They do a great deal already in Bangladesh, but I wondered if we could know a bit more of what the plans are for the future.
   . Mr President, as far as Romania and Bulgaria are concerned, the Council would like to point out to the honourable Member that the accession negotiations with Bulgaria about Chapter 24, Justice and Home Affairs, were provisionally completed in October 2003 and that a supervisory process has been set in motion.
Negotiations with Romania about Chapter 24 are still underway.
In order to join the European Union, the Member States need to meet the criteria of Copenhagen in which, among others, reference is made to stable institutions that guarantee democracy, rule of law, human rights and respect for, and protection of, minorities.
Given the importance that is attached to respect for the rule of law, it is obvious that the utmost importance is attached to effective, non-discriminatory law enforcement in Bulgaria and Romania, with efficient mechanisms for lodging complaints about corruption.
Both countries need to accept, and implement, a timeframe for legislation, as well as other measures aimed at developing the institutional and operational capacity of the law enforcement bodies and the judiciary.
Anti-corruption legislation forms part of this.
To date, the Bulgarian and Romanian authorities have taken a number of specific anti-corruption measures, the implementation of which is being monitored by both the Council and the Commission, which will continue to monitor it until the date of entry.
They will, in particular, be monitored by those bodies that have been established pursuant to the Europa Agreement, namely the Association Council, the Association Committee and the subcommittees.
The future European agency for external border control that is expected to be operational by 1 May 2005 will draw up, and develop, a common core curriculum for training border patrols and will provide training at European level for instructors for the Member States’ national border patrols.
Finally, in connection with the delays at the Turkish-Greek border, the Council would remind you of the decision of 29 April 2004 establishing minimum signposts at external border checkpoints.
The use of these signposts is compulsory at airports.
At checkpoints of their land and sea borders, Member States are entitled to guide the vehicles in separate lanes.
These separate lanes are intended to simplify the control procedures and avoid unnecessary delays.
This separation may also be deviated from when traffic flows at border checkpoints are temporarily disrupted.
   . Mr President, thank you once again, and thank you for the question.
As you know, it was during its meeting in Copenhagen in June 1993 that the European Council laid down the criteria for EU membership.
They include, among other things, political criteria requiring a candidate Member State to possess stable institutions, guaranteeing, as I said a moment ago, democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for, and protection of, minorities.
In December of this year, the European Council will, on the basis of the Commission’s report and recommendations of 6 October 2004, decide whether negotiations with Turkey can be opened.
Further to Mr Papadimoulis’ previous question, we have already made reference to the Commission’s recommendations and the conditions under which it advises to open negotiations.
I think I have already clarified this in a response to the three questions combined.
On the eve of, and after, the football match between the European Champions, Greece, and Albania in Tirana on 4 September 2004, Fatos Nano, the Prime Minister of Albania, made unprecedented remarks stoking fanaticism and influencing passions among Greeks and Albanians, while on 9 September he condemned Greeks for their 'racism and xenophobia'. These remarks were made despite the fact that it is well known that at least 1.5 million Albanians have arrived in Greece (legally or illegally), live and work in that country and send valuable foreign exchange back home to Albania.
In the meantime, members of the Greek ethnic minority in Dervitsani in Northern Epirus have complained that their houses were fired at by Albanians after the end of the football game in question and for days afterwards.
Is Mr Nano's behaviour that of a democratic leader of a democratic country which seeks closer ties with, and economic aid from, the EU?
   . Mr President, thank you.
The Council would remind the honourable Member of the statements about Albania made by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union on 14 September 2004, and the Council would emphasise that it never comments on public statements such as those to which this question refers.
Thank you.
   The question is about strengthening cooperation between police agencies and coastguard services.
After 9/11 in the United States, the Americans discovered there was a lack of cooperation between the FBI and the CIA.
What is the presidency doing, or what proposals does it have, to improve the quality of between different agencies within Member States and across borders? As the President–in–Office knows well – although I do not think he is listening to me – the problem is trust between the agencies.
We do not trust each other, and therefore there is no cooperation.
President–in–Office, what are you proposing to do about improving trust between these agencies?
The World Bank and the IMF have been involved in helping to mobilise the resources required if the developing countries are to meet the Millennium Development Goals agreed by the international community in 2000.
They agree that prudent debt write-off is useful and necessary if certain countries are to reach the agreed development goals, but they have reservations about 100% debt relief.
They have mobilised more than USD 53 million in debt-service relief.
What is the Council doing to tackle the debt burden of poor countries? Does it consider that it would be useful for the European Commission to establish a Debt Department along the lines of the one established recently by the World Bank?
   Mr President, I should just like to point out that the clock says it is 6.56 p.m.
The agenda says Question Time finishes at 7 p.m.
Therefore, surely, Question Time cannot be closed?
   – Mr President, number 20, which is the fourth question in line, is my question.
I think I am the last.
Given the earlier procedure and what you too have said, could you perhaps allow a minor extension of 2 to 3 minutes for my question? Thank you for your understanding.
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   Mr President, as chairman of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, I should like it confirmed – for the record – that all the letters of assessment on the Commissioners–designate have been forwarded to Mr Barroso, President–designate of the Commission.
   Mr Chichester, I note your request.
You will certainly be given an appropriate confirmation.
   Mr Martínez, as you yourself have mentioned, the predominant responsibility for reacting to this issue lies with Mr Prodi and the Commission and I have no doubt that appropriate reactions will be given, in accordance with the political sensibilities of those primarily involved.
   The next item is oral question B6-0019/04 by Mrs Záborská, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, to the Commission, on women and poverty.
   The next item is oral question B6-0018/04 by Karl-Heinz Florenz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, to the Commission, on the environmental effects of high-intensity active naval sonars.
   . Mr President, in connection with the vote on the other institutions, I have to say that there is an equalisation amendment, Amendment No 436, that has been tabled so that the expenditure might be balanced in the light of other amendments to Parliament’s Budget.
The figures in Budget item 209, which constitute the provisional amount for covering the institution’s property investments, will therefore be adjusted so that they reflect the result of the vote we have today.
If Parliament decides to follow my recommendations to amend the overall level of Parliament’s Budget – Amendment No 370 – which would reduce the Budget by EUR 40 million, the amount of budget item 209, which is the amount of the institution’s property investments, will be adjusted accordingly.
   Mr President, we may initially have voted on an amount, but, even if the amount was not adopted, we can still vote on the comment.
That then has nothing to do with the amount, and so what Mr Garriga Polledo has said applies.
   Mr President, in that case, the second part of Amendment No 210 was also a comment and it seems to me that that also had a majority at that time.
   . Yes, Mr President, returning to the irritating issue of our exceeding the margin for Category 3, it seems that we have finally identified that we have exceeded the margin for Category 3 by a sum of EUR 580 000.
I would therefore request a meeting with the coordinators so that they may give me a mandate to reduce this EUR 580 000 in some line and thereby prevent the margin from being exceeded.
This is what I propose: a mandate to allow me to cut EUR 580 000 from one of the lines on which we have voted for amendments.
   Mr President, now that we have voted on the figures, I have a small amendment to the text on which we are to vote, namely to paragraph 20 in which the amounts are to be amended on the basis of the result of the vote concerning Euroscola.
The following is to be added to paragraph 20:
'Has to decided to enter EUR 500 000 against item 2727, Organisation and reception of groups of visitors, Euroscola programme and invitations to opinion multipliers from third countries.'
Over and above this addition to paragraph 20, paragraph 18 is to be deleted from the text.
These are the changes that result from our vote on the figures.
   – I will therefore put Amendment No 3 to the vote as an addition which has the support of the rapporteur.
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   .I would like to declare that I voted in favour of budget heading 04 04 09 which supports the costs of the Platform of European Social NGOs, because of the important role played by associations in the voluntary sector in Europe.
I regret the fact, however, that the heading for pilot projects in the field of disability, which I supported, was not adopted.
   .
I voted in favour of the report by Mr Fazakas (A6-0015/2004) on the nomination of a Member of the Court of Auditors, because I welcome Mr Kazamias’s nomination for this important EU body, because of his track record and because of his answers to the questions put to him by the Commission.
   .
India is a large, federal, parliamentary democracy embracing different languages and cultures.
Because of this, India is considered by some as a kind of EU for South Asia and also as a buffer against the mistrusted Islamic world.
Part of this Parliament therefore wants to bring about an alliance and close, mutually beneficial economic cooperation, without further attention being paid to the major problems that remain unresolved as regards human rights and the threat of war.
Indian society is still – contrary to current legislation – divided into castes, with some 150 million people being outcastes and thus considered by others as untouchables.
Mainly in rural areas, they remain condemned to the dirtiest and worst paid jobs.
Previous governments, based on Hindu nationalism, abandoned efforts to combat discrimination against them.
They have also failed to resolve the issue of Kashmir, where the majority of the population is Muslim and has seen itself as under occupation for over half a century.
Nor have other minorities seen their problems resolved.
I denounce the emphasis that the EU is currently placing on commercial interests at the expense of peaceful coexistence and human rights.
International solidarity with the disadvantaged and their organisations in India will remain a major priority in the years to come.
   We have voted in favour of paragraphs 1 and 2 because the use of high-intensity naval sonars is a cross-border issue.
Cooperation within the framework of the EU is therefore justified.
We have voted against Amendment No 1 for two reasons.
Firstly, it is difficult to define in which areas sensitive marine species exist.
Secondly, the sounds associated with high-intensity naval sonars extend over large areas.
We have abstained from voting on the resolution as a whole, partly because we are critical of Amendment No 1 and partly because we question whether the Commission is the right body to carry out a study of what effect high-intensity naval sonars have on the marine environment.
   The next item is the debates on cases of breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law – Duration: one hour maximum (Rule 50 of the EP Rules of Procedure)
   Mr President, the Socialist Group, to which I belong, urges that the production of, and trade in, cluster bombs be frozen until such time as the problems surrounding these weapons have been solved.
Personally, I would prefer to see a ban on cluster bombs, but the cluster munitions coalition, which comprises a reasonably large group of NGOs and probably has a realistic idea of the state of play with regard to negotiations about a protocol at international level, has argued in favour of a temporary moratorium because that appears to be the most likely course of action.
In the final analysis, as we have seen over the past few days, that is what politics is about, namely the threat to create a real power base by means of a majority.
Needless to say, if this is to succeed –and here we can count on the broad support of this Parliament – it does require commitment on the part of the Council, the Commission and the Member States.
We need a new protocol that addresses all the humanitarian problems associated with cluster munitions, such as have once again been raised quite specifically during a hearing of the Committee on Development.
We have seen how a good deal of those munitions end up in precisely the world’s poorest countries, from Afghanistan to the Falkland Islands, and also closer to home, in Serbia and Montenegro.
To this day, 78 countries have some 400 million anti-personnel mines and anti-vehicle mines in stock, which demonstrates that a vast quantity is still available even in our Fifteen Member States; indeed, they are still being manufactured in ten of them.
It is obvious that international agreements are the only means left of tackling this.
We need a protocol, so tough and intensive negotiations are required, and this is where Europe can speak with one voice.
Speaking with one voice is something of which we are very much in favour.
The Red Cross and the UN are on our side.
Actually, this is where I would like to ask the Members belonging to the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats to take a step closer to us.
I cannot imagine that we do not have any common ground here; we may well not have any where Mr Buttiglione is concerned, but on cluster bombs we should be able to see eye to eye.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, cluster bombs are weapons of a particularly insidious kind.
When launched, a bomb of this kind can disintegrate into anything up to 8 000 bomblets, which then lie spread across areas of up to 240 000 square metres – about 50 football pitches – and work in much the same way as land mines, threatening civilians, children and women just as much as military personnel.
This is clearly in breach of Article 51 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Convention.
For that reason, 18 months ago, on 10 February 2003, the European Parliament called for a moratorium on the manufacture and use of such cluster munitions and cluster bombs, and for them to be banned outright in the long term.
This makes it a political scandal that these weapons are still being produced in the European Union – in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, and Belgium.
So what we are doing is adopting a pious resolution to the effect that this sort of thing is a violation of human rights and has to stop, and then we go on producing the things.
At national level, our governments are doing nothing about this.
That is hypocrisy, and that is why it is absolutely necessary that this House should again make its voice heard in opposition to the production of such weapons in the European Union and against the trade in them.
It is perverse thinking for the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats to acknowledge, in item 1 of their resolution, the devastating effects of these weapons, and then, in item 3, to express understanding for the military use of them, on the grounds that the armed forces would otherwise deploy even worse weaponry.
I think the ethical stance of the Christian members of the conservative group must make such a position untenable, so I call upon them to withdraw this item from their resolution; it really does undermine the case.
   Mr President, the first time I gave any serious attention to cluster bombs was in 1999, when NATO was waging a war of aggression on Yugoslavia, in which cluster bombs were deployed.
In Germany, this war was supported by all the political groupings apart from the PDS, particularly by the Social Democrats and the Greens, and the consequences are still tangible.
It is reported that between 30 000 and 50 000 stray cluster bombs are still to this day contaminating whole tracts of land in Kosovo.
We have to speak plainly here: most of the firms making profits from cluster bombs are European, the German firm of Rheinmetall being one example.
It is evident that large-scale bombardments with cluster bombs are regarded as part of waging war.
The Americans and the British used 13 000 such projectiles in their war on Iraq, and so the only right response is an outright ban on cluster bombs.
If we are to have that, we must be outspoken in our criticism of the weapons industry and of the armed forces that use these weapons.
   Mr President, today, this Parliament once again intends to express its indignation at what is happening in Iran – the sustained discrimination against women, the torture, the censorship, the imprisonment of people who are not punishable according to European standards, the executions and, in particular, the killing of children.
Although the aggressive and ultra-conservative Iranian Government is supported by only a minority of the population, it has little reason to worry about Europe’s solidarity with the Iranian people.
The justified condemnations from Europe are overtaken by a practice of a completely different nature.
Last week, the French press office AFP reported that the EU’s three largest Member States have forged a mutually advantageous agreement with Iran.
In exchange for a restriction on Iranian developments in the area of atomic energy and possibly nuclear weapons, the Iranian democratic opposition in exile would remain on the list of terrorist organisations.
In no way do we have a problem with these exiles, but the Iranian regime does.
Applying the designation of ‘terrorist’ to organisations should not be something to be bartered with.
While the neighbouring countries Iraq and Afghanistan are handled extremely roughly, why is everyone acting as if this government in Iran has eternal life?
   . Mr President, I wish to add a point to the wise words just spoken by Mr Posselt and by the vast majority of those who spoke before, a point that I feel is extremely important.
I refer to the overwhelmingly urgent need to remove the name of the ‘People’s Mujahedeen’ from the list of terrorist organisations.
We finally have documentary proof, issued by Agence France Presse, that the term 'terrorist organisation' exists solely as a negotiating tool with Iran, as a bargaining chip with the Iranian authorities, that this has no basis in verifiable fact, that it is an affront to justice, that it is an affront to truth and that it is an affront to all those people involved in the struggle for peace and freedom in the noble country of Iran.
This, then, is the appeal that I should like to make to the European institutions and to all of you, ladies and gentlemen: it is essential that the ‘People’s Mujahedeen’ be removed immediately from the list of terrorist organisations.
   Yes, Mr Casaca, you had requested the floor.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, you may ask a question or make a comment, but you must be very brief.
   Mr President, nearly 200 people, including five British nationals, have been released since the prison was created.
This means that all these people were held against their will for up to two years, without being told why.
They were tortured, denied access to family, friends or legal representation, and in the end they were not charged with any crime.
How can any civilised democratic society not only justify but also condone this? If a country like Iran, for instance, did this to an American citizen, I am sure George Bush would be the first to condemn it.
One of my constituents, Moazzam Begg, who is detained in Guantanamo Bay, wrote a letter to his family which got through uncensored.
It details a string of abuses.
This, along with other evidence from former prisoners and people who have worked there, paints a disturbing picture of what is going on.
There must be an immediate independent investigation into the allegations.
All the detainees at Guantanamo Bay have been held in unacceptable legal limbo for far too long.
... 'welcomes clarification from the Iranian authorities concerning the case of the 13-year-old Zhila Izadi, allegedly sentenced to death by stoning, and the sentencing of her 15-year-old brother, Bakhtiar, to 250 lashes, that both have been unconditionally released without further pursuit of their case'.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 28 October 2004.
   I would like to inform you that, in accordance with the second paragraph of Rule 127(4) of the Rules of Procedure, a plenary sitting will be held on Tuesday 21 December in Brussels in order to examine the report by the President-in-Office of the European Council, Mr Balkenende.
   – Mr President, with the special sitting on 21 December, you have given us something of an early Christmas present.
Do you think that the expenditure on this sitting will be justified in terms of what comes out of it? Will we get more information from this sitting than we will be able to get from the media?
   That is a good question to put to Mr Balkenende; it would be appropriate to put that question to the President-in-Office of the Council, since it is for him that we will be meeting.
I believe it is proper at the end of each Presidency for the President-in-Office of the Council to come to Parliament to give us a final assessment of that Presidency.
If we do not do so now, we will have to do it late in January, and that would interfere with the dynamic of the next Presidency.
Mr Balkenende is prepared to come on the 21 December, during the Christmas period, and I do not think it would be polite of us to tell him that we have better ideas and we do not want him to come.
I hope that the meeting on the 21 December will be of sufficient interest to merit the work and the cost of arranging it.
   Mr President, two weeks ago I visited Israel and the West Bank.
Almost exactly two weeks ago today I was standing in a place in Tel Aviv called Carmel Market, looking at the tragic aftermath of a suicide bomb.
To witness for myself the horror that Israeli citizens have to live with every day was profoundly moving and deeply upsetting.
The prosaic and everyday nature of the scene of bustling shoppers and market stalls contrasted brutally with the clear-up operation that was taking place, with human remains being scraped off the canopies of the market stalls.
I hope that all MEPs will join me in condemning those who send 16-year old children, strapped with explosives, to blow themselves up together with innocent shoppers who have just popped out to buy something from the local cheese shop.
I also hope that everyone in this House will join me in expressing our profound hope that we have reached a turning point in the Middle East, and that we have reached a point where the path of peace and dialogue will start to displace that of the bomb and the bullet.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to draw Parliament’s attention to a shortcoming, a problem. On 16 September, we adopted a resolution on the harassment of national minorities in Vojvodina.
Parliament decided that the delegation for relations with Serbia and Montenegro would send a fact-finding mission to Vojvodina, in Serbia.
Two months have already passed since then.
I do not understand.
There is a danger – as mentioned in our resolution – that incidents will multiply and that the harassment of national minorities will spiral out of control.
The delegation for relations with Serbia has not found five Members to send on the fact-finding mission.
This beggars belief.
Parliament’s good name is at stake; this is a case of non-compliance with a European Parliament resolution.
I ask you, Mr President, to look into why the delegation for relations with Serbia has sabotaged Parliament’s resolution.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to return to a matter I believe to be of great significance.
As we see it, and further to the legal opinions we have in our possession, the European Parliament has allowed a situation to arise whereby the European Commission has acted without legal authority since 1 November.
In other words, it has been acting illegally.
This means that all legal, formal and other administrative decisions taken by the European Commission may be appealed against and overturned.
Such a state of affairs must not be allowed to continue.
Mr President, I believe it is necessary to establish interim legislative measures, which would serve to provide a legal definition of the measures to be taken by Parliament when it is unable to appoint a Commission.
   Mr President, I want to speak on two matters.
Firstly I would like to associate myself entirely with the remarks of my colleague from Northern Ireland, Mr Nicholson, with regard to the atrocious situation that has befallen Annetta Flanigan, a lady who has given selfless service to Afghanistan.
Doubtless all our thoughts are with her family at this very difficult time.
Secondly, I want to dissociate myself from any eulogy to so-called President Arafat.
He was an unrepentant terrorist who introduced to the world the horror of the human suicide bomber.
He found common cause with other terrorist organisations throughout the world, including, in my country, the Provisional IRA, which has for years maintained fraternal relationships with its fellow murderers in the PLO.
I therefore dissociate myself, on behalf of the victims in my country, from the eulogy to a confederate of world terrorism.
   Mr President, 14 November is World Diabetes Day.
To mark this, I would ask MEP colleagues to follow up in their own countries the question of job discrimination against diabetics.
All EU countries operate blanket exclusions against people with diabetes in certain posts, but the range of excluded occupations varies widely.
For instance, Belgium and the UK bar diabetics from being police officers, but Hungary and Portugal do not.
Italy bars them from being ambulance drivers, but the UK, Portugal and Greece do not.
In the UK they cannot be air traffic controllers, whereas in Greece and Portugal they can.
In a European Union with a common market and the freedom of movement of workers, this makes absolutely no sense.
I will be putting questions to the Commission on this, but I must point out to my colleagues how illogical the situation is.
Some of these bans date back 40 years or so and they do not take account of modern treatments.
This kind of blanket discrimination must be abolished.
   Mr President, I should like again to warmly thank you for accepting the flower box, which symbolises European nature and biodiversity.
The flower box is a gift from the European habitat forum, which represents millions of Europeans.
Through you, we would also like to make Members aware that we now have an attractive green patch in Brussels, namely at ground-floor level very near the post office.
It is the intention that we look after it together, but also to ensure that the Natura 2000 network receives sufficient financial resources to protect European biodiversity, because that is desperately needed.
I would invite all Members of this House to walk past the flower box and contemplate the importance of nature and Natura 2000.
   Mr President, on 8 October the Territorial Association of East Prussia (held its annual meeting.
Twenty-one territorial associations are active in Germany, and they are openly anti-Polish and anti-Czech.
Under an act passed in Germany in 1953, every German evicted from territories that belonged to the Reich or the Habsburg Monarchy before 1914 is to be considered a displaced person, with the status of displaced person being hereditary.
The territorial associations call for the annulment of the legislative acts signed to end World War II.
This is exactly what the Nazis did when they on the Treaty of Versailles.
The charter of the Territorial Association of East Prussia demands that part of Poland’s territory be seized, and the Polish Government is regarded as an interim government.
Yet the German Government grants subsidies to these associations, and their meetings, at which recordings of Waffen SS marches are sold, have been attended by Chancellor Schröder and Mr Stoiber, the President of Bavaria.
How can Germany, an EU Member State, support revisionist organisations and allow them to operate legally, whilst these organisations call to war? The German beast is stirring again, and the spectre of Hitler is hanging over Europe.
I appeal to the European Parliament to look into this matter.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on Sunday 7 November, Sébastien Briard died when he was run over by a train carrying highly radioactive nuclear waste.
This tragedy has left all ecologists and anti-nuclear protesters grief-stricken.
My thoughts today are with his family and his loved ones, with his friends and with those committed to protecting our planet.
He believed in a better world.
This terrible accident did not happen by chance.
It is the direct consequence of the stifling of democratic debate and of the power of the pro-nuclear lobby, particularly in my country.
It also demonstrates that transporting radioactive materials, by rail or by road, is certainly not exempt from accidents, which may lead to major disasters.
It was while highlighting this danger that Sébastien died on a Lorraine railway line, on which hundreds of carriages of this kind are transported.
Let us honour his memory and his non-violent protest in this House.
Let us spare a thought for him.
   Mr President, in your opening remarks you mentioned anniversaries.
Before we gather again in Strasbourg there will be another anniversary.
On 3 December, it will be 20 years since the Bhopal disaster in India.
The death toll from that tragedy – more than 20 000 – is still rising at the rate of one every day.
Over 120 000 people were injured, and the survivors and the children born since then are still suffering appalling injuries, symptoms and disabilities.
However, for the last 13 years, Dow Chemicals – the American owners of the Union Carbide factory – have ignored a summons to face charges of culpable homicide in the Indian courts.
Compensation has been pitiful, responsibility accepted negligible.
I hope you, Mr President, and colleagues here in this Parliament will support all measures to get justice and real help for the victims.
      Ladies and gentlemen, our warnings concerning the dangerous road the EU is going down are being borne out.
We are witnessing the formation of a new totalitarian system, which holds in contempt natural rights, the rights of nations, the rights of families and every individual’s right to life.
Dreams of a Europe of solidarity, democracy, freedom, and assistance for the less able are fading.
Ladies and gentlemen, your EU has not been a success.
The reality is one of chaos and moral relativism, economic crisis, unemployment, growing social discontent, the law of the jungle behind a democratic front and a division into superior and inferior states.
A new super-state is being founded on falsehood and fantastic ideology, the origins of which can be traced back to previous totalitarian systems.
This was bound to happen, once God was rejected and His place usurped.
We Poles have no desire for such a Europe, and we hereby appeal to all other nations: wake up, all you people of good faith, especially those of you who declare your Christianity!
They are spitting in your face, and you are silently submitting to corrupt compromises.
You sacrificed Professor Buttiglione, and you agreed to a dictatorial Constitution.
We do not agree to such a diktat and such barbarism.
We wish to help minorities that are lost and have been hurt, but we will not submit to their pernicious domination.
The nations of Europe have a right to freedom, to truth, to God and to the Cross.
That is our Europe!
      Mr President, the recent record rise in the euro/dollar exchange rate has caused concern in the minority of EU Member States that belong to Euroland, or in other words in the 12 of the 25 Member States which are in the euro zone.
To a certain extent, the situation is of course beneficial to exporters in some of the countries of the ‘new’ EU.
It is less beneficial, however, to the countries of the ‘old’ EU, and it demonstrates the European Central Bank’s helplessness and failure to take action.
The reaction of the Frankfurt-based ECB to what is happening with the euro has in principle always been the same, namely a complete lack of reaction.
I therefore propose that this House hold a debate on the role of the Central Bank.
Mr Trichet, the ECB President, recently appeared before one of Parliament’s committees, and I hope a debate on the practical role of the Bank will also take place in this House.
   As a lawyer of minority rights who is committed to Romania’s accession, I would like to draw your attention to an increasing democratic deficit.
General elections will be held in Romania on 28 November.
On 25 October, one of the Hungarian minority organisations was deprived of its right to run in the elections based on a discriminatory Election Act, the involvement of the police, and the intimidation of certain people.
All of the methods that were employed are incongruous with the concept of European pluralism and democracy.
The same organisation, the Hungarian Civic Union, was discriminatively excluded even from local authority elections in July.
The European Commission’s Annual Report disapproved of this, and at that time the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats set up a committee to investigate the case.
The discriminatory regulations of the Election Act, the discriminatory action on part of the authorities and the exclusion from elections harshly violates the European standard of democracy and pluralism as well as the Copenhagen Criteria, which provide the basis for a stable constitutional state and a working democracy.
A working democracy is indeed a condition for membership within the Union.
   Mr President, I would thank you particularly for the words of support and solidarity that you addressed to the Netherlands a moment ago on behalf of the European Parliament.
As you know, on 2 November, the Dutch filmmaker and critical columnist, Theo Van Gogh, was brutally murdered by an Islamic extremist.
In reaction to this, various attacks have ensued on mosques and Islamic schools in the Netherlands.
So far, the European Union has failed to condemn these acts of terrorism emphatically as something that affects the whole of Europe.
There is much speculation as to what the reasons could be.
Apparently, the Council does not have the courage to hold a debate about Islamic extremism at this moment in time, or the events are being regarded as an exclusively Dutch matter.
I do not know whether those speculations are true, but a condemnation from the whole of the EU would be very welcome indeed.
We should not avoid a debate about Islam in Europe, even if it were to unite all moderate forces, religious or otherwise, in order to isolate and fight extremism and racism.
After all, the events in the Netherlands could occur anywhere in Europe, and the Netherlands and its citizens could really do with the EU’s solidarity and support.
      Mr President, I should like to draw your attention to the violation of EU citizens’ consumer rights in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and to ask for action to be taken on this matter.
The fact is that Slovak and Czech establishments and businesses apply a dual-pricing system for tourists who visit their countries.
Both Polish citizens and citizens of other EU Member States are discriminated against in restaurants, hotels and museums.
The very same services used by local citizens are offered to foreigners at two or three times the price.
In practice, this is done by showing a higher price for entry to a museum in the English language price list than in the price list written in the local language.
The use of different price lists for citizens and foreigners is a violation of the basic consumer rights guaranteed within the EU, as all citizens of the 25 EU Member States are EU citizens, along with Czechs and Slovaks, and they are entitled to the same rights and responsibilities within the EU.
I therefore call on you, Mr President, as well as on the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection and on the Slovak and Czech Governments, to take action on this matter.
There is no time to lose.
The winter tourist season is fast approaching, when tens of thousands of tourists will visit Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
      Mr President, I should like to protest at insults suffered by the governments of the Member States at the hands of the European Parliament.
The Polish nation has had first-hand experience of the two most recent totalitarian regimes, namely Nazi fascism and Communism.
My nation and my homeland had no time at all to recover.
It was destroyed not only materially, but also intellectually and spiritually.
In view of the threat that such totalitarianism could return, I should like to protest against certain comments by Members of this House, especially those by Mr Schulz concerning the Member States’ governments, which he called servants.
Our nation and homeland are what is most sacred to us, after God and the family.
That is where our most important values are enshrined.
Current trends in the European Union promote a world in which people live without homelands and without religion, and where patriotism, culture and language have become almost completely devalued.
All this being promoted in the name of some sort of soulless common state with a single government.
Europe will only be able to develop if it is a Europe of homelands.
Consequently, the democratically elected governments of the Member States should be respected, by this House in particular.
A Europe without Christian roots, without religion and without homelands, based merely on Mammon, is not a place where human beings can thrive.
It is simply heading towards destructive totalitarianism.
   The next item is the joint debate on the Council statement on the lifting of the embargo on the sale of arms to China and Mr Romeva i Rueda’s report on the Council’s Fifth Annual Report according to Operative Provision 8 of the European Code of Conduct on Arms Exports.
I now give the floor to Mr Nicolaï, on behalf of the Council.
   Thank you Mr Patten, this is an important issue and we must move on to the debate.
Nevertheless, I cannot resist saying that you are somewhat like Frank Sinatra: we never grow tired of your goodbyes.
   The next item is Council and Commission statements on the ALTHEA mission in Bosnia Herzegovina.
I give the floor again to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Nicolaï.
   . Mr President, speaking on behalf of my group, I would like to highlight the very fortunate fact that we all agree on how important it is, not only for the European Union, but also for Bosnia, that we have taken over this mandate.
If it should turn out to be the case that this is the keystone to which you, Mr Nicolaï, referred, I would like us to take another step forward, politically speaking, by expressly calling on the Bosnian Government to invite us to undertake this mission.
We have every basis in law for doing this, provided by SFOR, that is, by the military intervention that made this advance, this stabilisation, possible after ten years.
As we talk about how we see Bosnia’s future prospects in Europe, should we not strive to achieve what we achieved in Macedonia, with the Government asking us to be present in this window of transition? I believe that would be a triumph.
Having concluded what is known as a SOFA – a status of forces agreement – with other states that have asked us for help, why should we not conclude one with Bosnia and Herzegovina too?
Secondly, we need these regular reports, and I hope that we will, tomorrow, make that a binding requirement.
This House is committed, for we have all been committed for years.
We are talking not only in terms of military intervention.
Next year will see the tenth anniversary of the attack on Srebrenica, and the anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords, and I believe we are obliged to make this clear.
I hope that we will do as Commissioner Patten wishes and give close attention to Bosnia’s future.
   . Mr President, in the light of what is happening today, it is difficult to assert that European intervention in the Western Balkans was a resounding success.
In order to bring stability to what a German publication eloquently called the ‘restless Balkans’, help was needed from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The bottom line is that NATO is not there for nothing.
I am still to some degree reassured by the fact that NATO is still there, and still, too, involved in the European ALTHEA mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The fact is that this whole operation, which we call ‘European’, is founded upon trans-Atlantic cooperation on the basis of the ‘Berlin Plus’ accord between the European Union and NATO.
What brings me to this conclusion is the letter of 9 November from the Dutch Presidency to the parliament of the Netherlands.
If anything, the ALTHEA mission is something for Europe to be modest about.
Moreover, I am convinced that it also puts another big question mark against the idea that a European security and defence policy is useful and necessary.
Such an ambition for power can only eventually weaken or undermine NATO, and then, Mr Nicolaï, to use a Dutch expression, all of us in Europe are far from home.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have just a few comments to make on the central issue.
The first is that, as Chairman of the Delegation for relations with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro (including Kosovo), I am delighted that the military mission – which is still necessary – is now in European hands and backing up the EU’s great financial and civilian commitment under the leadership of Commissioner Patten.
The second is that this changeover from SFOR to EUFOR is being welcomed in Bosnia and Herzegovina too. It does indeed highlight how closely intertwined are Bosnia and Herzegovina’s destiny and our own.
The success of our mission – political, economic and military – is the litmus test for our foreign and security policy.
Thirdly, EUFOR’s tasks should be clearly set out.
It should not involve itself unnecessarily in states’ prosecution of their own criminals.
In these countries, the police and the justice systems have now become capable of pursuing ordinary criminals and imprisoning them.
Apprehending war criminals such as Mladic and Karadzic should also still be a matter for the remaining NATO contingent, and, in particular, for the Serbs of Republika Srpska.
Even though neither has so far demonstrated any enthusiasm for doing this, and Republika Srpska has even obstructed it, EUFOR should have other tasks to perform.
Fourthly, how will cooperation between the police mission and EUFOR be organised?
My fifth point has to do with an issue that has started to worry me in recent years, and that is whether the EUFOR troops have been advised about the problems with trafficking in women and forced prostitution. Is there an ethical context, and where, when and by whom are offences to be punished?
Bosnia-Herzegovina is not just a transit country, but also – not least because of the international presence – a destination.
The sixth thing I want to say is that EUFOR is the right name.
Why, then, call it ALTHEA, after a mythological woman associated with blood, retaliation and vengeance, and who ends up taking her own life?
What did the person who thought up this name have in mind? They could have done with a bit of sensitivity.
One might have expected something else in an area where we are working to counteract revenge and the settling of scores.
Moreover, EUFOR is the name by which the mission is already being welcomed on great big posters in Sarajevo, so let us leave it at that and chuck ALTHEA out with the junk where it belongs!
   Mr President-in-Office of the Council, not only did I make a speech, I also asked two questions.
I asked you in what way soldiers have been prepared for this difficult task, particularly with regard to trafficking in women and forced prostitution, and I asked you how and where soldiers are sentenced or called to account, should the need arise.
Secondly, I asked you whether you are considering phasing out the name ALTHEA, which is a terrible word and has caused problems in the region.
These were two important questions, and I should like to receive an answer.
   . I cannot add very much.
I tried to explain in relation to the first question and also to Mr von Wogau's question.
With regard to the second question, it is a tradition that we choose Greek, Roman or Latin figures as names for operations and activities.
I suppose that it was chosen for this reason.
   Mr President, like Mrs Pack I asked some specific questions.
One of these was similar to hers and concerned assurances as to the non-use of prostitutes who are the victims of trafficking.
This is not a trivial point, it is really important.
Secondly, I asked whether the Bosnia and Herzegovina Human Rights Ombudsman would have jurisdiction over EUFOR activities with a view to avoiding the kind of criticisms levelled at SFOR regarding arbitrary arrests and the ill treatment of detainees.
These were very specific questions and I would be very grateful for an answer from the presidency.
   – Mr President, I apologise for interrupting before we start the debate on Mrs Rothe's important report, but as my motion is pertinent, I am asking for the floor now.
I have certain information, which I would be most grateful if you could check, that the plenary service known as the Tabling Office has tabled or intends to table an arbitrary amendments provision to Mrs Rothe's report.
When I found out, I shrieked and, as the walls have ears here, the service may already know and may already have made the necessary change.
If it has not, I repeat, if it has not made the change, please inform the Deputy Secretary General, Mr Rømer, that he must make the change and remind him that, when we voted for the creation of the Tabling Office under the previous presidency, we made it clear that the Tabling Office has no political jurisdiction whatsoever.
If you saw the amendments provision which I have here, I am certain that its tabling on the part of the Tabling Office conceals a political expediency which I also denounce.
To close, I repeat that, if it has not already made the change and does not intend to do so, the matter of the Tabling Office will be raised by me at the Conference of Presidents of the political groups.
   . Mr President, this is the first concrete expression of the European Union's appreciation that the Turkish North Cypriots voted strongly for the Annan plan.
It is the first, but it is behind schedule and it is a small sum of money: far too small for the Commission's list of glamorous priority projects that Commissioner Patten, whom it is very nice to see still here, read out earlier.
As a result of a lack of generosity, the money will be spent in such a circumscribed fashion that it will only apply to 15% of the territory of North Cyprus, excluding many villages that voted en bloc for the Annan plan.
I would like to say that I deplore the sluggish progress on this question in the Council.
Worst of all, the financial regulation has been split from the trade regulation, which is by far the most important part of the package.
Will the Minister commit the presidency to produce a result on the trade question within three months?
   Mr President, we also wish to express confidence in the Reconstruction Agency’s being able to help improve the economic and social situation in the Turkish-occupied zone in northern Cyprus.
It is important to remember the background to the current situation in the northern part of Cyprus.
The background is the Turkish invasion that took place in 1974 and that meant that the population in the northern part of Cyprus now finds itself in an economic and social situation clearly worse than that which existed before July 1974.
In that connection, I have to emphasise that, as others have already pointed out, the efforts at development are to take place in cooperation with the government of the Republic of Cyprus.
What must not happen is for the EU now to go in and provide aid as a thank you to those who voted in favour of the Koffi Annan plan and to forget those who voted against the plan.
There are motives that, in my opinion, have not been properly examined in this Parliament, and I remember the discussion with Mr Verheugen, during the last sitting, of the whole issue of the Koffi Annan plan.
This was clearly unjust and clearly unacceptable to the Greek Cypriot population, and it was consequently rejected by a huge majority.
No doubt all of us want to see the situation improve, and an essential prerequisite for this is, of course, an end to the military occupation of northern Cyprus.
As long as Turkey has occupied part of another European country’s territory, we cannot conduct negotiations, such as may be decided upon in this House in December, with the Turkish Government about Turkish accession to the EU.
Any negotiation must always be conducted with the involvement of the Greek Cypriot population and with an appreciation of their interests.
It is the Greek Cypriot population that have been the losers since 1974.
It is they who have been victims and they must not be punished through the efforts that we in the EU now put in to normalising the situation.
   Mr President, I was somewhat surprised to hear Commissioner Patten say that the Annan plan remains a sound basis for a possible reunification of Cyprus.
We should not overlook the fact that in April of this year, a referendum was held about this plan, and that a large majority of the Greek Cypriots voted it out.
When a referendum is held, the outcome should be respected.
The financial support to that part of the island that is occupied by the Turks was intended to be conditional on the Annan plan being rubber-stamped by referendum, which did not happen.
Pledging EUR 259 million to the northern part of Cyprus is tantamount to recognition of the military occupation of that area by more than 35 000 Turkish soldiers.
It appears that the European Union has no problems with the fact that a candidate country is occupying part of the territory of an existing Member State.
Not only are we about to start accession negotiations with Turkey, but the occupation of Northern Cyprus is now also being rewarded financially, and this is absurd.
   Mr President, until 1974 the city of Famagusta was the centre of economic, social and cultural prosperity for both Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
Since the Turkish invasion 30 years ago, the city has remained sealed off by Turkish troops and inaccessible to its local inhabitants.
It has gradually become a ghost city, with empty streets and derelict buildings.
Amendment 11 aims to help bring this dead city back to life for the benefit of the many thousands of local inhabitants.
The resurrection of the city of Famagusta will also act as a catalyst for the establishment of better and closer relations between the two communities in Cyprus, thus greatly increasing the chances of a speedy, peaceful reunification settlement.
   – Mr President, I wish to emphasise that Greek Cypriots are in favour of financial support for Turkish Cypriots and that we hope to see the standard of living of Turkish Cypriots raised to our standard of living as soon as possible.
However, it is the way in which this support will be given that I wish to discuss.
That is the matter I wish to address.
I have been fighting on this front for many years, not just recently.
That is why the report by Commissioner Patten is an insult to my intelligence, when it appears that he does not understand where this support will come from; from heading 3, which relates to countries in the European Union, or from heading 7, which relates to candidate countries.
There is a big difference; it is not the projects which will be implemented in occupied Cyprus which are important, it is Cyprus itself.
However, the Commissioner refuses to understand this state of affairs, which is perfectly clear to us, and I am sorry that he makes this distinction.
   . Mr President, it is almost seven years ago that the renowned protocol was drawn up in Kyoto, and thanks to Russia’s ratifications, it is, at last, set to enter into effect very soon.
That is good news, not only for those – like you, Mrs Wallström – who have fought for this protocol, but also for those who experience the effects of climate change on a daily basis.
In any event, it deserves heartfelt congratulations.
Kyoto is a step in the right direction, towards a better environment, but we have a long way to go yet.
I would therefore like to call on the Council and Commission, together with the European Parliament, to demonstrate that the EU not only wants to have a strong economy but also a strong environmental policy.
This protocol still leaves a great deal to be desired; for example, aircraft emissions should be added to it, and the support base could also be further widened.
Mrs Wallström, your new portfolio might prove useful in this respect.
The EU can commit to this too.
Involving more countries in this protocol also means better control of worldwide emissions.
At present, 55% of the emissions of Annex 1 countries are covered.
Let us work hard on the remaining 45%.
   . Mr President, I shall be very brief.
I thank Members of Parliament for their contributions and I agree with most of the remarks that were made.
It is important to be aware that Parliament, the Commission and Council share almost the same views on this important issue.
We indeed have to fight against scepticism, we have to look beyond 2012 and perhaps we do not agree with everybody in the world.
But at least we agree on the main paths of the whole discussion here in Parliament with the Commission and the Council.
It is very important that we continue the steps we have already taken.
   The next item is the report (A6-0027/2004) by Mrs Corbey on the draft European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste.
   . Mr President, in 2001 a total of 65 million tonnes of packaging waste was generated in the 15 old Member States of the European Union.
That corresponds to around 17% of municipal solid waste and 3% of the total waste generation by weight.
Of these 65 million tonnes, 34 million tonnes – 53% – were recycled, and 60% was recovered or incinerated with energy recovery.
Our information gives good reason to assume that in 2002 not a single target out of the 75 different targets applying to Member States was missed.
This is a success many would not have believed in even a few years ago.
Therefore the Community has built on this success and adopted new and higher targets earlier this year.
The new Member States started later in setting up their own recycling schemes.
They have nevertheless made significant progress towards fulfilling their target under the old packaging directive at the end of the transition periods agreed in the Accession Treaty.
For procedural reasons, a deadline for the targets of the revised packaging directive could not be set within that directive and this proposal was therefore necessary.
The Commission believes that setting this deadline for the new Member States is a matter in which Parliament needs to be fully involved.
We therefore consider that the appropriate legal procedure is codecision on the basis of Article 95.
We can also understand, however, that the new Member States want to have legal security as soon as possible.
They should be able to transpose the targets of the revision directive and the deadline under the present proposal at the same time.
The deadline therefore needs to be agreed before the transposition deadline for targets expires in August 2005 and I hope that the efforts made to reach an agreement at first reading will be successful.
The Commission has proposed a deadline of 2012 for all new Member States.
This should allow discussion in Parliament and Council to start from an equal basis.
However, I can also accept limited postponement for some of the countries concerned.
I am also aware that many Members of Parliament wish to extend possibilities for Member States to encourage re-use systems.
This is an important subject and the Commission agreed to study options during the last revision of the packaging directive.
However, getting the right balance between encouraging re-use and preserving the internal market is also not easy.
I think, therefore, that we should wait for the outcome of the two ongoing studies and discuss this issue on the basis of a report that the Commission will present to Parliament and the Council in 2005.
However, if Parliament wishes to point out the importance of re-use in a recital, as suggested in Amendment 4, that is acceptable to the Commission.
The Commission can accept Amendments 1, 2 and 3 in full, and Amendment 4 in principle.
   Before I call on Commissioner Wallström to speak, I shall remind Members who have intended to make use of unofficial Union languages that this institution has a profound respect for their decision but, at the same time, according to a Bureau decision of 27 October last, speeches made in these languages cannot be translated and, consequently, cannot be Minuted.
Members are therefore free to choose whether to make use of the Union’s minority languages.
At the same time let us remember that in the Constitution we have written , ‘united in diversity’.
   Mr President, the Cuban political system is unique in the world.
We, as a parliament, absolutely condemn the human rights situation in the country and the lack of free speech.
However, that is not to say that the situation is all bad.
On a recent visit to the country we found that schools, where there is a ratio of 15 pupils to one teacher, are the envy of Europe.
The humanitarian work of educating doctors to transform health services in developing countries is not a case of talking about solidarity with Africa, but acting on solidarity with Africa.
Today, however, relations between the EU and Cuba are at an all-time low.
There has been no high-level contact between the governments of the EU and Cuba for over a year.
The situation came about as a result of the EU pursuing sanctions against Cuba for a crackdown on dissidents in 2003.
The sanctions came in the form of an invitation to Cuban dissidents to attend Member States' national day celebrations, alongside government representatives in Cuba.
This action clearly infuriated the Cubans.
They were the ones who cut off contact.
My appeal tonight is that we should be consistent in our approach to human rights.
By all means condemn human rights violations in Cuba, but do the same in China.
If you are to impose these kinds of sanctions on Cuba, then impose them on China as well.
I feel that the EU strategy relating to Cuba is to spread an incredible degree of naivety.
Did we really think that we could shift the human rights agenda in Cuba by inviting a few dissidents to a party when 40 years of US embargo have failed? We need to adopt alternative strategies to push the human rights agenda.
The current method is not working.
Mr White argued for the freeing of all dissidents in Cuba. What about Spain?
Do you want to free all dissidents in Spain as well? I will not be lectured to by the Spanish PPE on visiting Cuba when the deputy leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Ancram, was swanning around Havana last week.
It is time that you and Mr Tannock got over losing the elections.
Get over it and stop imposing your stupid obsessions on the rest of the European Parliament!
   The next item is the debate on the Report by the European Council and the Commission Statement on the European Council in Brussels on 4 and 5 November 2004.
   . Mr President, allow me to congratulate Prime Minister Balkenende on the dynamic manner in which he has dealt with the shocking assassination of Theo van Gogh and the subsequent riots.
In these difficult circumstances, leadership is indispensable.
Without solidarity and unanimity in tackling those who threaten the rule of law, we would not achieve our goals.
What is positive is that this need also appears to exist in society.
I wish you God’s blessing in your work, particularly in bringing, and keeping, together the different ethnic groups.
During the last meeting of the European Heads of Government, Mr Kok presented his report on the Lisbon strategy, a report to which we in this House were very much looking forward.
The conclusions and recommendations are not new.
What new is that an advisor consulted by the Council has put the ball back in the Member States’ court.
Those Member States must make a start on structural reforms, which they have apparently not yet done.
No choices were made from the excess of objectives.
However, it remains to be seen whether reducing the number of objectives would be sufficient.
I doubt it.
More should be done, but that implies that there is a will.
Which Member State will be the first to stick its neck out?
Since 2001, we in this House have had many a debate on the question why this strategy has not had the desired effect.
This Parliament has restricted powers in the process of Lisbon, and in the open coordination method, it is in any event difficult to make the Union’s role concrete.
Environmental policy and social policy are under pressure.
Despite this, we will need to adopt a sustainability strategy if we want to maintain our level of prosperity and welfare for future generations in the longer term.
The parties are largely agreed on the analysis.
Which Member State, though, will take the actual first step? My question, therefore, to Mr Balkenende is what we can expect from the Dutch Presidency in the next six weeks in terms of follow-up.
After all, the Netherlands has always been a great champion of reforms in order to make the Lisbon process a success.
      Mr President, Mr Balkenende, ladies and gentlemen, in Communist times the authorities said the ideology was good and the people were bad because they did not wish to put it into practice.
Upon reading this motion for a resolution, I found a statement to the effect that the Lisbon strategy is good, but that the bad Member States, who do not wish to put it into practice, are the ‘chief obstacle to faster progress’.
This sounds worryingly familiar, and I must concur with the comments made by Mrs Lambert and Mrs Zimmer on the issue.
With regard to paragraph 4 of the motion for a resolution, the reference made by its authors to investment in people, research and innovation might lead one to fear that this will, unfortunately, be implemented by favouring the old Member States over Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, as is the case in the provisions of the draft EU budget for 2007-2013.
Fine words can, and alas sometimes are, put into practice in a way that is far from fine.
After those words of criticism, I should like to commend the Council for having finally recognised the importance of the demographic factor, and the authors of the resolution for having asked the Council that ‘action to deal with the consequences of the ageing of the population of Europe be considered a policy priority’.
   Mr President, at present, the Netherlands is in despair, because we are more than ever compelled to reconsider the questions, not only of the balance between freedom and tolerance, but also of how to set boundaries in order to guarantee safety.
I wholly concur with Mr Blokland’s congratulations addressed to Prime Minister Balkenende on the way in which he is taking charge, and giving direction in channelling the feeling of our population towards a more tolerant society in which people respect one another.
Respect for those values is also something which we in this House will need to defend at all times.
Tolerance, however, goes hand in hand with setting and demarcating boundaries.
I welcome the way in which the Hague agenda is building on Tampere.
My congratulations on the way in which agreement has been reached.
I do share the views of Mr Oreja, who stated a moment ago that what matters now is to take concrete action, and to give priorities to concrete action points in the short term.
The President of the Council may be able to elaborate on this.
I would in any case like to mention one of my personal priorities, one I have mentioned before.
It is unacceptable to me that, following the attacks in New York and Madrid, we hear the Justice and Home Affairs Council say that we will now automatically start exchanging information about possible attacks without delay.
It is inconceivable that this has not happened to date, that the urgency has sunk to that level again, while we noticed once again that there may be international links in the case of the political assassination and subsequent events in the Netherlands.
I would also like to make a brief comment about the Lisbon strategy.
It is the only way, according to Mr Balkenende, and he is right.
It is the only way, and we will need to continue on this path.
What matters is the way in which we negotiate it.
Not with the ‘super-Commissioner’, as proposed in the past by Chancellor Schröder of Germany, but by learning from each other.
Does he think it possible that innovation councils chaired by himself would make for a more effective way of exchanging good examples? Does he also think it possible that national parliaments might be called to account much more emphatically with regard to delivering on their share in responsibility for this?
Finally, communication in Europe is also an important item.
Indeed, Mr Balkenende, it is essential that the statute should come into being, for as long as we do not have one, we will have a negative image at every election.
I thank you.
I am interested to see how far you will take this point.
   Mr President, this debate represents a really crucial stage in the development of the European Union.
We have put such emphasis on the Lisbon Strategy and, like Mrs Lambert, I welcome the Council's recognition that there has to be a real balance between the economic, social and environmental dimensions.
But the cultural dimension also needs to be addressed more effectively, especially if we are to celebrate our diversity, as the Minister said earlier.
I also welcome the emphasis that was put on communication in this meeting.
Within the European Free Alliance parties we have different positions on the Constitution, but we all agree with the urgency of improving the relationship and communication between the EU and the peoples of Europe.
There is no more effective way of doing that than by using people's own languages and this is why I take the opportunity presented by the Bureau Decision of 13 October to allow the use of other languages in this Chamber.
I conclude by saying this in Welsh, even though there is no official interpretation.
      Mr President, I should like to thank the Council for having turned its attention to Ukraine, the EU’s largest neighbour to the East.
This is a country of 50 million inhabitants that covers an area greater than France.
At present presidential elections are taking place in Ukraine.
The Council is to be commended for highlighting the irregularities that occurred during the first round of voting, but I do not believe it has gone far enough in highlighting what is really happening in Ukraine.
A civil society is coming into being in that country.
There is no sign at all of anything of the kind happening in Russia or Belarus at present.
Tens of thousands of people are demonstrating every day in Ukraine, with the aim of making their country democratic and honest, and of ensuring that links are built between Ukraine and the European Union.
I do not believe it is enough merely to reprimand the current Ukrainian authorities for their failure to enforce democratic electoral rules.
It is essential to boost the hopes of the people of Ukraine and open the door to their European ambitions.
   Mr President, it is perhaps a sign that I am speaking on the Lisbon strategy when the member of the Commission with responsibility for development aid is present.
Although there is no argument about the fact that the goal of making Europe the world’s most competitive region is the right one, we have to look to see who, in Europe, is responsible for what, and I can tell Mr Balkenende that it is when I look at the Council that I find it intolerable that, every month and every year, heads of government and ministers of the economy meet together, agree upon exalted objectives, make Europe responsible for meeting the goals of the Lisbon strategy, then go home and fail to do their homework when they get there.
Indeed, they go even further and stand in the way of those things that Europe has to contribute.
Take, for example, the European patent: that would be a step ahead as part of a European initiative.
Think of the moves towards deregulation, and how the French President and the German Chancellor delayed them for end-users.
What Europe achieves is frustrated in the Council, and what ought to be done by the nation states does not get done.
The bottom line is that it is Europe that fails to make a success of the Lisbon strategy.
I am grateful for the Kok report; what we now urgently need – as the Lisbon strategy is the right one – is an orientation for it.
The goal, although perhaps too ambitiously defined, is the right one.
With Member States like ours in Europe, we can now be happy that the gap between us and America is not widening.
We have to put forward a concept for this in Europe, one that compares the nation states, providing a transparent view of which European government is failing to implement this strategy and which is good at it, in order, by way of this transparency in the political process, to make the public aware that we cannot do this other than together.
Apart from that, I hope that the presence of the Commissioner with responsibility for development aid is not an indication of the direction in which Europe will be drifting in future.
   Mr President, the words of the Prime Minister about the situation in the Netherlands were loud and clear, and Members of this House have also said a great deal since.
I nevertheless regret that the Council has not made use of the European Council of 4 and 5 November to forcefully distance itself from the appalling events in the Netherlands.
It was, in my view, the ideal platform for us, including as a Union, to take a hard line against radical Muslims with a fundamentalist interpretation of the Koran.
Unfortunately, European cooperation in the fight against terrorism is currently typified by the well-known sacred cows of the Member States.
The declaration that was adopted following the attacks in Madrid, the appointment of Gijs de Vries or the Hague Programme, all of them are of little consequence if Member States do not translate fine words into action.
This is where decisiveness, on the part of Europe and of the Member States, is an absolute must.
    Thank you, Mr Nielson.
On behalf of Parliament, I should also like to thank you for your work.
I have received six motions for resolutions to wind up the debate, and a vote will take place on these at 12.30 p.m. today.
The debate on the Council and Commission statements is now closed, and I should like to thank all speakers, as well as Mr Balkenende and Mr Nielson.
The sitting will resume at 12 noon, when we will examine the issue of ..., when there will be a formal sitting on South Africa.
   The European Council of 5 November was the first since the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was signed in Rome on 29 October.
It is therefore important that we highlight our opposition to this Treaty and our criticisms of economic, monetary and competition policy.
The Treaty contains a profoundly neoliberal slant, to the detriment of social policy, and a narrow outlook on social rights and fundamental freedoms, with the emphasis placed on centralism and federalism in their various forms.
As highlighted in the motion for a resolution tabled by the Group of the European United Left, the conception of a European security policy in the Treaty contains a major military dimension, and provides for close cooperation with NATO and an increase in Member States’ military efforts.
As regards the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy, we strongly criticise the Kok report on the interim review of the Lisbon Strategy, particularly in view of its emphasis on ‘competitiveness’, on further increasing the flexibility of labour markets, on structural reforms in the internal market and on the liberalisation and privatisation policies, despite the disastrous impact that those policies have already had.
We strongly believe that the Stability and Growth Pact must be revoked and replaced with a Growth and Employment Pact, as stated in our Group’s motion for a resolution.
   . I voted in favour of the reports by Mr Gauzes on taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments (Andorra and Liechtenstein), because I believe that by promoting the internal market and fair competition, it does not harm the general public’s freedom, and by means of these and other mechanisms, helps in the fight against money laundering.
   . I voted in favour of the report on the ARGO programme, firstly because border management is one of the most important issues involved in implementing a genuine area of freedom within the EU, secondly because the resources of the programme have been under-implemented whilst the Member States should be paying closer attention to these issues, and lastly because Portugal has been advocating simplifying the programme in recent years.
   . On behalf of the VVD delegation in the European Parliament, Mr Manders has voted against Mrs Corbey’s Amendment No 4 to the Packaging Directive, because that amendment does not call for examining the manner in which packaging material is reused which is best suited to the Internal Market.
By doing this, the VVD delegation in the European Parliament is not voting against the environment, but it fails to see how this amendment offers any additional environmental benefit, it being unclear, in the case of single-use packaging being refilled, what costs are incurred for such things as extra transport, use of cleaning products and the associated water pollution.
Moreover, 80% to 90% of single-use packaging is already at present being recycled successfully.
Furthermore, extra environmental measures may not lead to a disruption in the Internal Market, as did the deposit system for single-use packaging in Germany.
This system, which is still before the Court of Justice awaiting a final ruling, has, since its introduction, resulted in some EUR 0.5 billion worth of damage to the customer, industry, and has, last not least, dealt a devastating blow to employment.
   . I voted in favour of the report by Mrs Corbey (A6-0027/2004) on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste.
On 31 December 1994, Directive 94/62/EC on packaging and packaging waste entered into force.
At the time when the proposal for the revised packaging directive was submitted to Parliament and the Council, accession negotiations with ten countries were ongoing.
The new Member States have now acceded to the EU as of 1 May 2004.
At the time of the adoption of the revised packaging directive, however, the transition periods for the original directive were not yet finalised for all acceding States.
Furthermore, information on the conditions for further increasing the recovery and recycling targets in the acceding States was insufficient.
The revised packaging directive does not therefore contain specific proposals for the acceding States in its operational part.
The current proposal lays down a deadline of 31 December 2012 by which the ten new Member States must fulfil the targets for recovery and recycling of packaging waste.
I feel that this entire report is crucial because it fosters systems of reusing packaging with the aim of ensuring
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, permit me first of all to congratulate you on your Presidency.
In particular, I notice that your English is perfect.
Next, I shall explain why I voted in favour of the Samuelson report, which establishes the European Agency for Reconstruction.
A few days ago, I was in Venice, at the theatre of La Fenice, at a performance of the opera , with my dear colleague, Mr Karl von Wogau.
Near us in the audience there sat a very old lady from Serbia, and I asked her how I should vote on this report, which provides among other things for the reconstruction of Serbia.
She answered, ‘You must vote for it, of course.
It is a good thing to reconstruct what was destroyed in our country by Communism and by Milosević, but you who have a Prime Minister, Mr Berlusconi, who has even reconstructed his face, could you also reconstruct the faces of us old people, as that would give us so much pleasure?’
   Mr President, a few days ago, I was wondering whether the appropriations intended for the Turkish Cypriot community, which amount to EUR 114 million in 2005 and EUR 139 million in 2006, would go, at least in part, to the pensioners living in the Turkish part of Cyprus.
While I was pondering this, I closed my eyes and, in my reverie, I clearly saw Mrs Mechtild Rothe, who said to me in reply: ‘But what are these doubts of yours, Mr Fatuzzo? Most of this money will go above all to the old and the pensioners on the island.’
How could I thus not vote for this document?
   . –I am voting in favour of the reports by Mrs Rothe and Mr Samuelsen because I believe that the Turkish Cypriot community in Cyprus needs economic and development aid with the objective of reuniting the island.
However, I am obliged to justify my vote because there are certain ambiguities, which have already been touched on in public.
The first ambiguity concerns Amendment No 3, Article 1, point 5 of the Samuelsen report and the other concerns paragraph 5 of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets attached to the Rothe report.
I voted in favour on the basis of the following criteria: first, that the final decision by the European Council will not leave any grey areas, nor will the sovereign and other rights of the Republic of Cyprus be eroded and that assistance to the Turkish Cypriots will not sow seeds of division but will result in the reunification of Cyprus.
Secondly, that the decision by the Committee on Budgets of the European Parliament will state that financing for Turkish Cypriots will be provided under heading 3, from which money is paid to Member States, and not from heading 7 or 4 relating to candidate countries and external aid.
   . After 40 years of separation and 30 years of Turkey’s military presence in the North, there was finally an opportunity at the beginning of this year to reunite Cyprus as a federal state.
The solution essentially provided guaranteed self-governance for the Greek-speakers and Turkish-speakers each in their own part of the country, based on the successful model with which Belgium managed to solve the tension between the Flemish and the Walloons.
Unfortunately, the Greek-speaking majority, in a referendum, rejected this peace solution, which had been presented by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
No solution differing greatly from this one will ever receive the approval of both population groups separately.
I have sympathy for the Greeks and Greek Cypriots who would prefer Turkey to resign itself to a minority position in an overwhelmingly Greek-speaking country, as was the case between 1960 and 1964, but that remains impossible.
The division will therefore continue to be in place for the time being.
I welcome the fact that the European Commission has looked for ways to prevent the Turkish-speaking minority, who wanted peace and conciliation and voted in favour of the peace plan in the referendum, from being penalised for the fact that it was impossible on 1 May to include their area in the EU.
As long as the present situation persists …
   The delegation chose to vote against paragraph 25.
We wholeheartedly support the Code of Conduct, but are opposed to talking at this stage about legally binding provisions and full harmonisation of the Member States’ arms export control policy.
We prefer political decisions in this area and want the Member States to be allowed to retain the ultimate right of decision.
We also believe that the issue of a special tax on the arms trade (paragraph 40) does not belong in this report.
The notion that the more weapons that are sold, the more the victims benefit is also contradictory.
We cannot support this proposal without further information and preparation.
   Mr President, Althea is a practical test for the European Union’s ability to guarantee, through its foreign and security policy, stability on its own continent, and it is with a great deal of excitement that we await this mission, which can be a success only if it, once and for all, puts a face and a name to our policy on South-Eastern Europe.
This is a region in which there is great confusion, combined with great mistrust of the multifarious international organisations, which are opaque and appear to be monitored by nobody.
For example, Paddy Ashdown, the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, appears, like them, to function completely in isolation.
Althea is a unique opportunity to take real action as a European Union – initially in terms of security policy, and eventually, it is to be hoped, politically too – and to have this action democratically monitored, as it needs to be, by the European Parliament, so that intergovernmental organisations, which are inscrutable and distant from the people, can give place, once and for all, to orderly and transparent monitoring by a European Parliament that takes its foreign and security policy responsibilities seriously.
   .
I voted in favour of the motion for a resolution on Climate Change B6-0129/2004.
I feel that the Kyoto Protocol is only a first initiative taken by the international community in the fight against climate change.
This does not mean that other measures aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions taken at national level should be accorded lower priority; on the contrary, they should be seen as complementary.
The EU must take a leading role in the negotiations at the COP-10 Conference in Buenos Aires.
COP-10 offers a good opportunity not only to build on the decisions taken at previous Conferences of Parties, and in particular in Bonn, Marrakesh, New Delhi and Milan, on implementing the Kyoto Protocol, but also to start a wide-ranging debate on the main issues for the second commitment period with a view to attaining the EU objective of the average global temperature increase peaking at less than 2°C above pre-industrialised levels; reiterates its position that in the long term the principle of equal rights for every world citizen must be applied.
   Mr President, a few days ago, I was leaving Genoa, where I had met the local official of the Pensioners’ Party in that city, Mauro Rossi. Greeting him and my beloved, beautiful home city of Genoa – a city which, since it is now dinner time, I remember with pleasure, most of all for its famous trenette with pesto – I asked Mr Rossi for advice on how to vote on this report on Cuba.
‘It is easy, Mr Fatuzzo’ he told me. ‘The text of the resolution reads well.
But you must ask the European Parliament, as the representative of the Pensioners’ Party, to send you to Havana to speak to Fidel Castro and offer him a good pension.
Fidel Castro will not relinquish power because he is not sure of getting a good, fair pension.
Make them send you, and persuade him to leave work; it is right that he should enjoy a good pension like everyone else.
In my opinion, that would solve the Cuban problem,’ Mr Rossi told me, and I agree with him.
   This motion for a resolution outside legislative procedures contains a number of sensible views in various areas, but also a number of views with which we cannot agree, for example when it comes to the demand for a ‘coherent and comprehensive European asylum and immigration policy’ (paragraph 11).
In the same way, many of the amendments tabled are issues for the national parliaments to deal with.
We have chosen to abstain in the votes on most of the amendments to the joint motion for a resolution, as well as in the vote on the draft resolution as a whole.
We have also voted against Amendment No 2 by the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, since we do not believe in the idea of founding a European School for Judges within the EU.
   The next item is the debate on the Statement by Mr Barroso, President-elect of the Commission.
   Mr Barroso, let me start by congratulating you on a much-improved Commission, one that is yours not least through our cooperation, and for that you can be truly grateful to us.
I believe that this is a triumph for you personally, but also for the Commission, for this House and – most important of all – for the people, for the voters in this Europe of ours.
The fact is that quite a few voters have said to me – and, I am sure, to other Members too, ‘Now I know why I voted in the elections for the European Parliament’.
I hope the reason why all those people who tell me that turned up to vote was because it had dawned on them that actually turning up to vote, and the way they voted, makes a difference.
I believe that means that it is not just a victory for individuals, but a victory for us together, and I also believe that both the Commission and Parliament have come out of this process stronger.
Secondly, Mr Poettering, let me turn briefly to the business with Mr Buttiglione, around which so many myths have gathered.
One of your vice-chairmen said at a discussion in Vienna that it was quite extraordinary that a Communist could become a member of the European Commission, whereas a Catholic could not, and that, precisely, is what I find extremely problematic in view of the myths that are being generated.
We all know and respect many of the Presidents of the Commission who were Catholics, and I take it as read that former Commissions – and certainly this one, although I have not checked – included or include many Catholics and persons of other faiths.
That is perfectly acceptable, but that is not what it was all about.
What it was about was whether Mr Buttiglione was suitable for the office to which there were plans to appoint him.
There is something else I have to tell you, Mr Poettering, because you had a lot to say about tolerance and because I can thoroughly agree with much of what was in your speech: when the same Member attended the hearings of Mr Kovács and used the same argument with reference to him – a man who helped to bring down the Communist regime, who played an active part in bringing about a single and shared Europe – there were those in your group who regarded it as disgraceful that one of their party colleagues should take such a line.
That Member is not here, but I hope that, today or tomorrow, when we give our broad support to this Commission, a stop will be put to underhand moves of this kind, and we will be able to cooperate constructively with the new Commission.
I also hope that is what your approval of the Commission means.
Let me consider two more points of substance, the first of which has to do with the social dimension.
Mr Schulz has already gone into detail about it: at these elections, we have seen how many citizens – by no means all of whom voted for us, although most did – are affected by a high level of unemployment and by the renewed increase in poverty on this continent; this means that there is an obligation on this Commission to do everything possible to create more jobs and also put social security systems on a sustainable footing.
That is not an argument against reforms, but we are profoundly sceptical about much of what is to be found in, for example, the Working Times Directive or in the Services Directive.
The problem is not that there is more competition, but it is problematic when competitiveness is won at the price of worsening social benefits or deteriorating working conditions.
My final comment must be that cooperation with the United States of America is of particular importance.
The United States of America is getting a new administration, which is in part the same as the old one.
They are getting a new Secretary of State.
Our Commissioner with responsibility for foreign relations will have to work together a great deal with Condoleezza Rice, but let me recall what you, Mr President, said at the outset of your Presidency, that we wanted to work together with America as equals, and what we expect of your Commission is not some kind of anti-American policy, which would be foolish, but we do expect an independent policy, one that can enable us to be proud of it as Europeans and to work confidently together with America, correcting it where it makes mistakes and telling it so, frankly, honestly and clearly.
Such are our expectations of your Commission, and I hope you will be able to meet them.
   Mr President, what happened during the last plenary part-session was important for the European Parliament.
Forced by the democratic will of the Chamber, Mr Barroso had to withdraw his proposal.
That was important in strengthening the European institutions and Europe itself as a political entity.
The danger of a Commission not supported by this Parliament forced Mr Barroso to make new proposals and that was a good day for our institution.
The most visible problem was supposed to be Mr Buttiglione's controversial statement during the hearing, but that was merely symptomatic.
In the past we have had several Commissioners with the same opinions and nothing happened.
In fact, the problem was that the majority of Parliament thought that the Commission should be a better one, more in accordance with real European needs and with European institutions and more sensitive to European peoples and stateless nations.
The members of the European Free Alliance, part of the Verts/ALE Group, are convinced that your new proposal is not substantially different from the old one.
Mr Barroso, when you asked for more time three weeks ago in Strasbourg, we hoped you would bring us a better proposal.
But we have seen that you are in a way a prisoner of the will of the Member States.
You are not free to build a Commission based on the general interests of Europe, as distinct from the interests of each Member State.
We parliamentarians have no freedom to choose the Commission and each of its members on our own.
For that reason, Mr Barroso, we cannot back your proposal.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Law and Justice (PiS) delegation within the Union for Europe of the Nations Group was faced with a serious dilemma.
On the one hand, we supported Mr Barroso and we are not ashamed of this.
We believe we were right to do so, as he is a guarantee that this Commission will achieve good results and be a good European Commission.
We also believe it is in the interest of many Member States, especially those whose economies are weaker, for us to have a strong Commission, and we hope Mr Barroso’s Commission will be a strong Commission serving the idea of European solidarity.
On the other hand, however, we were confronted with an extremely worrying precedent, namely that under the influence of the extreme Left in this House, and of ideological prejudices held by Members of this House, Mr Buttiglione’s, nomination was withdrawn.
We believe he would have been a good Commissioner.
In fact, Mr Buttiglione is no longer a member of this Commission.
By way of contrast, this House was ready to overlook the totalitarian past of certain Commissioners and their membership of the criminal Communist Party.
In our opinion, this means that double moral standards are currently being applied.
The standards applied to European citizens who hold conservative views, notably Catholics, are not those applied to Communists, people who worked to promote a criminal ideology and the subjugation of their own countries.
For the members of the Law and Justice (PiS) delegation within the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, however, the principle of Member States’ sovereignty is of paramount importance.
We recognise that the European Commission as it stands has been negotiated by sovereign states and the sovereign governments of sovereign European nations, and we therefore reject this House’s right to question the decisions of the Member States.
We cannot, however, vote against this Commission, because we believe, and this is a point I should like to stress, that the House has no right to question the decisions of the Member States’ governments.
For the reasons I mentioned earlier, however, we will at the same time be unable to vote in favour of this Commission, despite our great respect for Mr Barroso and many of his Commissioners.
Without wishing to stand in the way of the Commission’s election, we intend to abstain from voting, whilst wishing Mr Barroso and his Commission the best of luck in their work for Europe.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I address myself to you, Mr President of the Commission, by paraphrasing the first of Cicero’s speeches against Catiline in the Senate: Do you wish to abuse our patience for the next five years? You continue to say that you will rely on the support of Parliament and then, by sleight of hand, you present us with a team that does not answer the questions posed by this institution in any way whatever.
There was a Dutch Commissioner criticised for her conflict of interest and there still is; there was a Hungarian Commissioner who was inadequate for Energy and who has been promoted to Taxation; there was an Italian Commissioner for Justice who has been rightly removed and another Commissioner, an Italian again, for Justice, to emphasise that the government of that country – whose Prime Minister has notorious judicial problems – needs to be protected by your Commission.
You know, President Barroso, that in the matter of justice the conduct of the Italian Government, of which Minister Frattini is still part, has provoked a joint strike of magistrates and lawyers.
Finally, let Parliament be the judge of how the Commissioners have replied in their hearings and I assure you that the letter of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on Commissioner Frattini is by no means a pass with full marks.
An answer please – how long do you want to abuse our patience?
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Independence and Democracy Group was and still is opposed to the European Commission, both the outgoing Commission and the Commission-designate, as it is a non-democratic and non-transparent body that retains vast decision-making powers for itself.
We therefore observed the Commissioners-designate who took part in hearings before the individual parliamentary committees very closely.
There was one of these 25 Commissioners-designate whose abilities were unquestionable, and who, as a lawyer, political scientist and experienced statesman, met the necessary criteria in every respect.
Yet Mr Buttiglione fell victim to blatant discrimination in this House because of his Catholic beliefs, even though these beliefs would have had no bearing, as he assured us, on the quality of his work.
I therefore fully concur with the view held by Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, Archbishop of Munich.
The Archbishop pointed out that not one of the founding fathers of the uniting Europe would have any chance of becoming a Commissioner in today’s European Union.
It follows from my previous statements that the way in which the EU currently operates is a travesty of the ideas of Jean Monnet, Alcide de Gasperi, Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer.
   Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, the Council had taken you hostage. Tomorrow, Parliament will free you, and it is time it did so, for there is work awaiting you.
Your task has not been easy, faced with the inertia of the Council, which is more concerned about defending national interests than about presenting a vision of Europe.
Mr Barroso, the events of these last few weeks will, I hope, have brought you closer to the European Parliament.
Admittedly, we have regrets.
We regret that the Dutch Government did not accept our recommendation of a change of portfolio for Mrs Kroes.
Her task will not be easy, for all her decisions will be subjected to debate.
We regret that you have been required to keep Mr Kovács.
I have the gravest doubts as to his ability, given his origins, to deal with tax issues.
That being said, we appreciate the withdrawal of Mrs Udre, and bravo Mr Frattini for his very commendable performance.
We were already able to gauge his interest in a more efficient EU.
We shall therefore put our confidence in your Commission, Mr Barroso, for you have shown responsibility.
Let us look at the future, then.
Our Parliament has spoken, and it intends to play its role alongside yourselves.
It will be your partner for, as I have already said to you, Europe will only make progress by means of a strong Commission and a strong Parliament working in tandem.
We are in fact only too aware of the paralysis due to the Council.
Your task is a huge one, involving a vote in favour of the Constitution, together with the issues of employment, competitiveness and support for our SMEs and our self-employed.
What we expect from you is a genuine industrial policy conducive to supporting growth.
Above all, however, priority should be given to defending the interests of Europeans.
What I took from your speech was your desire to create an EU that speaks to young people and to their generation, an EU that, as I myself see it, should pave the way for their future through professional training and through language learning accessible to everyone.
Two major challenges await you: the ageing of the population and the demographic downturn.
If you have the required will and the required ambition, President Barroso, you will be able to count on us.
What we ask of you is that you lead a visionary team for Europe.
   Mr President, even though Social Democrats predominated in the previous Commission, they supported the neo-liberal policy that came out of Lisbon 2000.
The new Commission is dominated by Christian Democrats and Liberals, who quite openly proclaim their intention of implementing the right-wing political programme contained in the draft Constitution.
Quite apart from the change in the Commission’s political complexion, it is apparent that some of the candidates have a history of giving priority to their private business activities over and above any kind of public interest.
Mrs Kroes, if she gets the competition portfolio, will have to monitor whether others are doing what she herself has done for decades, namely giving preferential treatment to one business rather than another, concluding secret deals and enabling a clique of friends to profit from them.
When asked in her hearing about the award of subsidies to criminal friends, she gave the same explanation that the Dutch parliament had unanimously rejected back in 1997.
Moreover, she has now for the first time admitted that, ten years ago, she sent a secret letter with the aim of enabling an associated business to get a share in a transaction conducted by the Dutch export consortium she chaired.
The Dutch Government claims that only President Barroso can reject her, while he puts the ball back in their court.
It would be a good thing if this House could reject contentious candidates by voting for one candidate at a time.
   Mr Kilroy-Silk, you can be glad that I did not interrupt you while you were speaking. Nobody in this House has to listen to insults, not even when they come from the United Kingdom’s Mr Kilroy-Silk.
   Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, I am rather disappointed, for, as I listened to the debate, I heard Mr Watson say that a rooster would crow for you, but what has come out is only a very small egg. Why is this so?
It is because Mr Poettering does not actually want Mr Kovács.
Mr Schulz does not actually want the Commissioner for competition.
Other groups criticise other Commissioners, and I ask myself in what ways this Commission is an improvement.
My view is that you may well have leapt out with the fury of a lion, but you have ended up as the Council’s bedside rug.
It is for that reason that I reject your Commission.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Swedish party, the June List, intended voting against Mr Barroso’s first proposal for two reasons.
Firstly, we believed he had negotiated with the governments in order to obtain an extremely federalist Commission.
Secondly, we believed he had shown very poor judgment in proposing Mr Buttiglione as the person responsible for female equality and the rights of homosexuals.
We did not, however, have any objection to Mr Buttiglione’s being appointed to another Commission post.
Obviously, there must be no discrimination against Catholics or those holding other religious positions.
Now, this latter mistake has been rectified, but the new proposal is even more federalist than the first.
It reflects the will of the political elite instead of that of the people.
The June List has obtained its mandate from voters opposed to the continued centralisation and bureaucratisation of the European project.
We shall therefore vote against Mr Barroso’s proposal.
Thank you for giving me the floor.
   Mr President, in July my United Kingdom Conservative colleagues were prepared to support you, Mr Barroso, and, despite reservations, your Commission team.
You have demonstrated clearly your pro-reform views both as Prime Minister in Portugal and also in your prospectus for the EU, especially on the Lisbon Agenda.
However, we remained concerned that the objectivity in the process of judgment of your Commission team was corrupted here by left-wing politicians in this House.
We have great reservations about Mr Kovács in particular.
We were very sad to see the loss of a good man in Mr Buttiglione.
In addition, the goodness of Mr Kovács is as yet far from proven.
The inconsistency in our failure to give at least an indicative vote on that candidate, when we have given one Mr Buttiglione, is a matter of some concern.
However, Mr Barroso, we wish to give you our support in the work that you have to do.
We welcome you as incoming Commission President.
The complications of the ratification process must, however, provide us with a serious lesson for the future.
We on this side of the House are always willing to learn.
It seems to me that Socialists and Liberals never seem to learn; they may well gloat, but they do not learn.
Finally, Mr Kilroy-Silk, who spoke earlier, patently has not even found his way to the classroom of his kindergarten.
   Mr President, what are we going to vote on tomorrow? On two things: firstly, and in accordance with Article 214, on a list of Commissioners drawn up by the Council of Ministers of the European Union.
There is little to say about this list. It could have been better, and it could have been worse.
I do not believe there is reason for contesting it.
We are also going to vote, however, on the way in which, in application of Article 217, the President of the Commission has assumed his obligations in terms of organising tasks, and here we clearly see that things have not been done in a satisfactory way.
They were not done in a satisfactory way to begin with.
It is absurd to appoint a representative of the Berlusconi government to the freedom portfolio. It is absurd to appoint to the competition portfolio someone who, whatever her merits, will not be in a position to exercise her powers in full.
One point emerges from these two considerations: either Mr Barroso is responsible for these choices, in which case that is a serious matter because he has made bad choices; or he has allowed these choices to be imposed upon him by the governments, which would be even worse.
   Madam President, Mr President-elect of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, you are aware of the deep attachment of the Italian delegation of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats towards the Barroso Commission.
Therefore, since I consider this affair to be a story with a happy ending, I shall limit myself to some expressions of gratitude, albeit with some questions.
My first and most heartfelt thanks is to you.
You said you wanted to do what was necessary and sufficient to obtain the approval of Parliament.
I have genuinely failed to understand why it has been necessary to replace Commissioner Buttiglione, but at any rate Italy has kept the justice portfolio and has an excellent Commissioner and Vice-President of the Commission.
For me, that is more than sufficient.
Many thanks are due to our friends in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe: they have truly provided an interpretation for the bewildered Italian parliamentarians who have been debating the subject of conflict of interest for years.
Thanks to the ineffable way in which they have fought their battle for the prerogatives of Parliament, we now know that conflict of interest is defended in this way, or rather is fought in this way: by pretending that there is no interest.
When you evoke the monster Berlusconi from those benches, we know that it may be written Berlusconi but it is pronounced Kroes.
Thanks also go to our friends in the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
I have not quite understood why their opposition to the Barroso Commission should all of a sudden have disappeared.
However, I believe that perhaps it is linked to the lack of action against the Hungarian Commissioner.
For this I should above all thank the valiant leader of the Socialist group, but I shall not do so, because every time that someone from my side of the house speaks of the honourable Mr Shulz, he gets promoted to a higher office.
I shall limit myself to asking one final question: does the concept of necessary and sufficient as expressed by you perhaps consist of depriving a Commissioner-designate of his freedom of expression and of thought? You said that democracy is half plus one, but perhaps democracy in this Parliament equals the whole minus one – the most wretched and most Catholic Mr Buttiglione.
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I very much want, first of all, to thank those MEPs who, in the last part-session, refused to place their confidence in the Commission proposed by you, Mr Barroso, for it in no way corresponded to the values of tolerance, solidarity and transparency that should characterise the European Union.
Since then, you have made a clever strategic withdrawal, but in no respect have you abandoned those values of yours that you also put into practice in Portugal, in both the social and foreign policy spheres.
You now want to make a political victory out of this tactical manoeuvre.
This seems to me to imply a lack of respect for ourselves as MEPs.
You have made some slight modifications, voluntarily or otherwise. We take due note of these, but in no way are they enough.
Mr Buttiglione was the scapegoat.
By sacrificing him, you thought you had succeeded in making us forget the rest of the Commission.
You erected a smokescreen which cannot make us accept, in particular, a competition Commissioner who, in the kind of phrase already used, you will find is a fly in the ointment until the end of your term of office.
With regard to what you are proposing to us, I know that you have not gone back on your intentions and that, to mention just two areas, the social dimension and public services are not really your Commission’s priorities.
You are asking us, however, to think again and to accord you a majority such as no other President of the Commission before you has been able to enjoy.
That would be an incredible turnaround, Mr Barroso, but also an incredible instance of your turning your back on us as MEPs.
Parliament’s new, pride-inducing legitimacy as something more than a simple recording chamber or rump parliament cannot now be called into question by clever presentation and a certain talent for oratory.
There is always a link between a programme and the personalities who implement it.
That is why, as a French socialist, I can only express defiance regarding the Commission you are proposing to us.
In order to remain faithful to my values, consistent in my choices and concerned to see Parliament respected, I shall not vote in favour of your Commission.
   Mr President-elect of the Commission, the reshuffle you have carried out following the resounding failure of many designated Commissioners is both late and insufficient.
President Barroso, you have tried until the very last to ignore the will of Parliament.
When you were forced to do so, you made as few changes to your team as possible, forgetting, for example, to replace Mrs Kroes at competition, despite the blatant and serious conflict of interest in which she finds herself.
In that sense I should like to reassure Mr Mauro from the PPE-DE Group.
I, a Liberal, shall be voting against your Commission precisely because you have not replaced the Liberal Mrs Kroes.
Neither does the replacement of Mr Buttiglione by Mr Frattini appear satisfactory to us, despite the indubitable professional capabilities that we recognise in Commissioner Frattini.
However, it is precisely these professional capabilities, which he has put at the disposal of the Prime Minister of Italy to draw up a law on conflict of interest in a truly partisan way, that make us uneasy.
I shall therefore vote against the Barroso Commission, through lack of confidence, in the sincere hope that I may be able to change my mind in future.
   Mr President-elect of the Commission, the replacement of Commissioner Buttiglione is certainly a step forward but it is a goodwill gesture which, in our judgement, is still not enough.
We are still somewhat baffled by the decision to appoint Mrs Kroes to the Competition portfolio, even though you know that that office will clearly result in a situation where a conflict of interest may arise.
In an executive, and I can tell you this from the painful experience of the Italian Government, conflicts of interest give rise to the worst sort of politics.
Finally, there is still some opposition to some of the fundamental political choices that you presented to us in July: I refer to the ambiguity on the subjects of war and peace, to the excessive emphasis that you place on the market and on competitiveness, and to the acceleration that you wish to impose on the processes of liberalisation.
I allude to some of the political choices that we would equate, if I may say so, Mr President, clearly with the right.
For these reasons, Mr Barroso, you will not have our vote of confidence tomorrow.
   Madam President, I shall try to finish what I have to say before the roof collapses.
Mr Barroso, you persuaded me to vote for you this summer, and, now that the gun smoke is clearing and I can now inspect the battlefield, I have to say that I was right to give you my vote back then.
I said at the time that I thought that a President of the Commission had to be a leader and a democrat at the same time.
To be both is a tremendous balancing act and you have skilfully negotiated the tightrope.
The witch-hunt by the Greens against Mrs Kroes demands a response.
If you take their thinking to its logical conclusion, it would follow that a doctor could not be responsible for public health, a former trade union leader could not handle social policy, a woman could not deal with emancipation, and a Green could not head up environmental policy.
If ever I need a referee, I prefer to choose someone who can play football.
Moreover, nobody is bound by so stringent a code of conduct as a Commissioner, and that too is institutional reform.
Mr Barroso, your Commission has outstanding ambitions in the field of economic regeneration and the combating of discrimination.
Like my group, I expect more democratisation as well.
To sum up, the European Commission, as an institution, has, in fact, been held up in its work of submitting proposals for legislation since last Christmas, and I think it has slept for long enough now.
President Barroso, get on with waking up Sleeping Beauty and go in to bat.
Tomorrow, I think, this House will put you in a position to do so.
   – Madam President, the changes Mr Barroso promised to make were the result of the strong stand taken by the European Parliament.
However, we still have concerns about important issues and we are calling for clear guarantees and commitments from Mr Barroso's Commission.
We are not giving you a .
We are particularly concerned and are seeking guarantees about the functioning of competition policy and the safeguarding of efficient controls in cases of conflict of interests.
We are calling for the honouring of commitments regarding civil liberties and the abolition of discrimination and we shall be watching the European Commission closely in this sector.
We are calling for the strengthening of the agreement on institutional relations with the European Parliament and, above all, Mr Barroso, we are calling for you to focus on sustainable development, employment, solidarity and cohesion and to strengthen the role of Europe as a force for peace and cooperation when you present your Commission's programme statements.
Madam President, Mr Barroso, with a sense of responsibility towards the citizens of Europe, we shall judge severely.
We shall control the political initiatives, the political acts and actions of the European Commission and the honouring of your commitments on a daily basis.
I repeat, we are not giving you .
   Madam President, President Barroso, our Italian delegation believes that you have missed the historic opportunity that this Parliament offered you: to present us with a Commission equal to the challenges the Union has to confront.
Mr Buttiglione was not the only problem in your feeble team: you have not done enough to have our full confidence, which, out of a sense of responsibility, we will not give you.
There remains, in fact, the serious question of conflict of interest in the most important portfolio – Competition – previously held masterfully by Mario Monti.
To Mr Mauro and the other group leaders we say: we made no concessions to Mr Buttiglione, we have condemned the effrontery of the Italian Government for demanding the Justice appointment, and we appreciate the preparation and the courtesy of Mr Frattini, without underestimating what remained unsaid.
However, we should have wished for equal rigour and strictness in the case of conflict of interest and the other heavy burdens hobbling your Commission, in which some Commissioners will be impeded from fully carrying out their mandate.
   Madam President, this is no way to treat a Commissioner who distinguished himself by opening the Iron Curtain.
I have to tell the House that I find that absolutely outrageous.
The Commission that we are meant to approve tomorrow still has black marks against it.
You, Mr Barroso, are under pressure from governments, but do not underestimate Parliament’s vigilance.
My group and I will be in the forefront when it comes to getting rid of failures in your entourage.
We will take you at your word; you undertook to get rid of members of your Commission who turned out not to be up to the job for some reason or another, and that is a promise you must keep if you are not to fail in the same way as Mr Santer did.
Anyone reading reports of what has gone on over recent weeks will know that this freely-elected Parliament has notched up some points; our commitment to Europe and its citizens has become more visible than ever before.
The peoples of what are now 25 Member States will in future be able to take a benevolent view of us, and, let us hope, of the Barroso Commission as well.
   Madam President, it has already been said time and again that this House has helped Europe to gain a better Commission.
This is especially true in the case of the Commissioner responsible for justice and home affairs, a portfolio which is after all of particular importance to the public.
As coordinator for my group within the Committee on Legal Affairs, I can confirm that we were extremely impressed by the high level of competence demonstrated by Mr Frattini, Commissioner-designate and Vice-President, on various issues, including those of a highly complex legal nature.
He has at any rate a much better understanding of what this House expects of a Commissioner.
We also believe that Mr Frattini is capable of putting his past as a minister of the Berlusconi government behind him, even though it surprises us somewhat that he was able to remain a minister in Berlusconi governments for so long whilst holding the view he put forward during the hearing, demonstrating a very strong commitment to fundamental rights and the principle of the rule of law.
In view of this, how was it possible for the government to adopt so many laws which were questionable from the point of view of the rule of law, and which the Italian and European courts now have to apply? We must therefore assume in his favour that, as foreign minister, he was always abroad when these laws were adopted.
   Madam President, Mr Barroso, ladies and gentlemen, the Barroso Commission and the European Parliament have been strengthened.
It is, however, a sad fact that certain Members have, improperly and wrongly, allowed their view of the Commission as a whole and of the challenges facing us to be obscured by differing views on individual Commissioners.
The Commission and Parliament form a channel of communication, and we need each other.
We need a strong Commission which shows initiative and which is dynamic and competent.
We need a strong European Parliament; without Europe’s citizens, or their representatives, nothing should and nothing can be decided in the EU, as we must bring the European Union closer to its citizens, as well as making it more transparent and democratic.
We must do everything in our power to ensure that EU policies can finally be made on the basis of the Constitution, internally, as is the case in the outside world, instead of their being based primarily on national and party politics; I say this thinking back to the comments made by Mr Schulz.
Let us turn the public into participants, and declare our goals, motives and successes.
I expect of you, Mr Barroso, that you give the Lisbon and Barcelona processes practical expression and make them operational, and that you do both these things in a way people find easy to comprehend.
I also expect you to eliminate obstacles within Europe and to drive forward the common foreign and security policy, as well as to ensuring that the Stability and Growth Pact remains strong, carrying out subsidiarity tests before presenting proposals, putting forward a clear and comprehensible justification for the added value of European regulations, and reaching an agreement with the Council that the 12 stars are to be visible anywhere the EU has invested euros.
This is the only way in which a European awareness can be created and the distance reduced.
Around 500 Members and myself look forward to a self-confident, successful and fair cooperation.
I wish you all the best.
   Madam President, Mr Barroso, three weeks ago the Commission of which you are President was a good one.
Your guidelines were positive and your stance was firm and clear.
The aims you put forward were both beneficial to Europe as a whole and fair to the cohesion countries.
It remains a good Commission today for precisely the same reasons.
The majority of its Members were and still are worthy of our approval, because it has avoided any split between super-Commissioners and second-class Commissioners, because it is closely aligned with our ideological values, and because, overall, it is closer to the opinions of the majority of Europe’s citizens.
Madam President, Mr President-designate, the Europe I believe in is a Europe of freedom, diversity, security, prosperity and solidarity.
Those should be our guiding principles and indeed those were the values that you promised to defend, Mr Durão Barroso.
Europe must remember that without security there is no freedom, without competitiveness there is no lasting social model and without subsidiarity there is no unity in diversity, but a fusion of separate entities, which is something we do not want.
Lastly, the Barroso Commission has our support because it represents an opportunity to restore transatlantic ties.
Europe is not defined by opposition to any country, particularly not by opposition – and certainly not by submission – to our main ally, but I believe that this is clear for all to see.
Before I finish, a word to Mr Durão Barroso, who was a good Prime Minister of Portugal.
I do not ask you to be our Commissioner, nor do I want you to be our Commissioner.
I ask you to be the President of the Commission who never forgets the concerns of the citizens and of the Member States, regardless of their economic, demographic or geographical dimensions, and I trust that doing so will inspire you as you carry out your new and important duties.
Good luck, Mr Durão Barroso.
Thank you very much.
   Ladies and gentlemen, before I give the floor to Mr Nicolaï, on behalf of the Council, I would like to inform you that I have received seven motions for resolutions to wind up the debate.
The vote on these motions for resolutions will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
I shall now give the floor to Mr Nicolaï, on behalf of the Council.
Thank you very much, Mr Nicolaï.Mr Barroso has the floor.
   Thank you very much, Mr Barroso.
Mr Kilroy-Silk has the floor for a point of order.
   Mr Kilroy-Silk, you must respect speaking times like everybody else and, furthermore, what you have said is not a point of order.
   Mr President, Mr Kilroy-Silk's remarks on the Commission were correct, especially so in the case of Mr Mandelson, whose name is a by-word for sleaze in the United Kingdom.
Your remarks accusing Mr Kilroy-Silk of slander demonstrate the anti-democratic nature of this Parliament and of all EU institutions if such a further example ...
   Thank you very much, Mr Toubon.
We shall verify what you say and make corrections where necessary.
   I should like to begin with Question No 1 by Mr Papadimoulis, which deals with the execution of the arrest warrant for Kenan Akin.
I shall now give the floor to Mr Nicolaï to answer the question on behalf of the Council.
   – Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the European Parliament called in its motion, following these incidents, for all the necessary measures to be taken so that the people responsible for these murders and for the shooting of unarmed demonstrators would be brought to justice.
I do not know what Interpol does or does not do, but does the Council intend to do something in order to respond to what the European Parliament itself called for in its resolution?
Why does the Council have to wait until as late as April 2005 before it takes and implements a decision to move to qualified majority voting and codecision in matters of asylum, immigration and border controls, as specified in the Treaty of Nice? What is stopping earlier implementation?
   I would like to coax the President-in-Office out of his reluctance to make a further comment.
It is quite clear that immigration and asylum can only work if there is coordination between the 25 Member States.
Does the President-in-Office believe that the national administrations now support European action in a way that they simply did not a year ago? In particular, does he believe that on 1 April, Ireland and the United Kingdom will sign up to a joint approach to tackling these problems?
   . The Council has started to review the impact and efficiency of the measures adopted on 5 June 2003 in the light of the objectives of the common position on Cuba.
The objectives pursued through the common position remain valid, in particular that of facilitating peaceful change and respect for human rights in Cuba through dialogue with the Cuban authorities and with all sectors of Cuban society.
The review is still ongoing and I am therefore unable to give any information at this stage on possible conclusions.
   If I understand correctly, Mr Purvis, that was a comment and not a point of order.
I have taken note of it.
What information does the Council have on the case of Abdelkadar Bouchama, an Algerian citizen who was detained on 18 May 1994, some ten years ago, and has since disappeared?
In the light of this case and on the basis of the Association Agreement with Algeria, will the Council take steps to ensure that the Algerian government's human rights commission is at last filled with independent members, including NGO representatives, with a broad mandate?
   . Madam President, the Council is well aware of the specific case referred to by the honourable Member, namely that of Mr Abdelkadar Bouchama, whose family has heard nothing from him since he was arrested on 18 May 1994.
This case, along with those of many dozens of what are termed ‘disappeared persons’ kidnapped in the course of the conflict that has had the country in its grip since 1992, is one of some 7000 files on disappearances still under consideration by the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights.
In September 2003, President Bouteflika set up an ad hoc committee to look into disappearances.
As this committee is not empowered to conduct investigations, it has not as yet been able to finally clear up these disappearances.
Judging that the state was "responsible but not guilty", Mr Farouk Ksentini declared a general amnesty for all members of the security forces concerned, as had previously been done in South Africa.
Financial compensation has recently been offered to the families of disappeared persons, provided that they withdrew their accusations.
The Council has regularly put disappearances on the agenda for discussion and expects to do so again for the forthcoming meetings within the framework of political dialogue with Algeria.
This is an issue to which we are giving our attention.
In this context, the pending ratification of the Association Agreement constitutes an important development in the EU’s relations with Algeria.
When the agreement enters into force, it will enable the European Union to bring more focused pressure to bear on Algeria in connection with respect for human rights in general, and, more specifically, with regard to disappearances.
   . Madam President, we in the Council cannot put forward individual cases in the way that has been suggested.
I expect the next Ministerial troika with Algeria to be held in 2005 – in other words, next year – and I am sure this will be an opportunity for the European Union and Algeria to discuss the issue of human rights, when these cases will be able to be considered as well.
   Mr Ortuondo Larrea, I intended to take one more question, and then Question Time will be concluded.
Will the Council explain how it drew up the list of Burmese state-owned enterprises identified in Council Common Position 2004/730/CFSP(2)? In particular, will the Council explain why Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), Myanmar Timber Enterprise, and Myanmar Post and Telecoms have been left off the list; and why no EU joint venture companies were listed?
How does the Council propose to ensure that EU corporate involvement in Burma's important energy sector will be blocked?
How it propose to monitor and update its list by including other relevant companies?
Does it intend to identify those European companies already involved in contracts or agreements, and does it intend to seek to influence those companies to withdraw from such contracts or agreements once their current contractual obligations so allow? In view of the Commission's statement in response to question H-0339/04(3) does the Council propose to achieve the utmost compliance from Member States with the common position?
   The next sitting will take place tomorrow, Thursday 18 November, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
   Mr President, I have risen to make a personal statement in accordance with Rule 145 of the Rules of Procedure.
I was astonished at the accusations levelled at me by the President of the Commission during a debate held yesterday in this House, accusations in which I was not named, but from which it was plain that it was myself they were intended for.
Mr Barroso said that he had been surprised to hear certain members of a parliamentary group voice sharp criticism of a Commissioner, in this case the Commissioner for competition, when the same group had called strongly for the Commissioner in question to remain in that post.
During these comments it was obvious that it was me he had in mind, as he even turned to face us while speaking.
I should like to note that Mr Watson has formally denied having said anything of the kind.
He simply pointed out that the letter signed by Mrs Berès had been intended to show that the committee in question and members of this committee who belonged to the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe approved the appointment of Mrs Kroes.
I believe that this is a crucial issue, as what right does the President of the Commission have to challenge not the substance of a Member’s arguments, but his rights and legitimacy? He has spoken of the unique relations that exist between Parliament and the Commission Presidency.
What gives him the right to restrict a Member’s freedom of action?
Is Mr Barroso in charge of inter-group discipline?
Is it to be the case, merely because he has held conversations, and conversations he has interpreted wrongly, that the freedom of action of each Member of this House is to be restricted? This is unacceptable, and I should like to ask that Mr Barroso provide a clear explanation of his statements before the vote at noon.
   Mr Bourlanges, I note your personal statement, which will be followed up in the appropriate manner, in accordance with our Rules of Procedure.
   The next item is the report (A6-0030/2004) by Mr De Rossa, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual report of the European Ombudsman for the year 2003.
(1)
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, times are changing.
The notion of ‘all power to the imagination’ has been replaced today by ‘all power to hypocrisy’, and it is very clear what is happening.
We showed that the majority of the Members of this House did not agree with the chairmen of Parliament’s largest groups, including the Chairman of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, the Chairman of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and even, at one point, the Chairman of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
A majority of Members believed that we should be more vocal in our criticism of Mr Barroso’s proposals than the chairmen wanted to be.
This has been the truth of the matter over the past few months.
Yet we have now suddenly discovered that all our criticisms of this Commission were only of limited value.
Mr Barroso delivered a strong and forceful speech to this House in July in which he told us that he would not obey the wishes of Mr Chirac or Mr Schröder.
Now, however, he is telling us that he will obey the wishes of Harry Potter, alias Mr Balkenende; this is a compliment to Mr Balkenende, by the way, as I am a big fan of Harry Potter.
Yet why does the Dutch Prime Minister receive a thumbs-up with regard to Mrs Kroes, whereas Mr Schröder was refused a super-commissioner?
The independence of these great democrats is truly astonishing.
Mr Poettering himself said in a television interview that the presence in the Commission of Mrs Kroes, who has so many scandals behind her, would not be tolerated.
Yet today no one is interested in discussing the problem, which nonetheless remains a problem, that we now have a Commissioner responsible for competition who is unable to stand for the independence of the Commission as she is the product of her history.
Seen in such a context, the situation really is unthinkable, and I should like to say to those many Members of this House who are critical of the sections of the Commission that have remained unchanged that by voting ‘yes’, and by giving Mr Barroso a blank cheque in doing so, you will undermine your criticism.
We are well aware that Mr Barroso will gain a majority, but why on earth should he be given a majority which will allow him to walk all over us when it comes to policy-making? To all of you who consider yourselves politicians today – and I am addressing all those who are still wondering whether they should vote for, vote against or abstain – I should like to say that I am aware that the rest of you are followers, not leaders, and indeed the majority of the PPE-DE Group would have voted in favour of the Commission last time.
When one is a follower, one remains so from beginning to end; my remarks are therefore not directed at you, but at those who did not wish to hand Mr Barroso a blank cheque.
I ask you to think it over, to vote no or to abstain, in order to prove that we take a critical stance and that Mr Barroso has made another poor job of his proposals.
   Mr Toubon, during the vote there are no points of order and I am not going to give you the floor.
Points of order will be taken at the end of the vote.
I would ask you not to disrupt the sitting.
   Mr Toubon, please sit down or leave.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Buttiglione circus has closed its doors, and pro-European order will prevail henceforth in Strasbourg.
Mr Buttiglione, a free man of Catholic faith, has been replaced by Mr Frattini, a model freemason.
Mrs Udre, a Latvian accused of being a Eurosceptic by one of her fellow citizens, has also been replaced.
Yet neither Mr Kovács, the former Stalinist found by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy to be entirely incompetent, nor Mrs Fischer Boel and Mrs Kroes, who have attracted criticism over potential conflicts of interest, have been replaced.
It appears to me that a moral can be drawn from the Buttiglione affair, and that this affair has claimed three victims.
The moral is that to be a European Commissioner, one must be Euro-compatible, that is to say politically, mentally and even religiously correct, as well as being an aficionado of tolerance, of the principle of non-discrimination and, above all, of human rights, the latter-day bible of right-thinking people.
Any kind of deviation will from now on be harshly punished.
Let us now turn to the victims, the first of which is the future European Constitution.
The European Parliament has flouted both Article II-70, on freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and Article II-71, on freedom of expression and opinion, and in some ways Mr Buttiglione is the first secular martyr of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The second victim is Italy, which gave in to the European Parliament when the latter forced Mr Berlusconi to replace the Commissioner he had appointed, and whose competence and honesty had not been challenged by anyone before his hearing.
The third and final victim is the European Commission and its President, Mr Barroso, as both have emerged weakened from this trial of strength with Parliament.
No, Mr Barroso, you were neither held hostage to the extreme right nor were you its victim, as you wrongly claimed; you fell victim to your own errors of judgment.
You realised a little too late that we were heading for a confrontation, and that this House intended to make you capitulate in order to reaffirm its authority the Council and the Commission.
As for us European right-wingers, proud of our beliefs and relying on the support of the people, we will defend our fellow citizens from both the European super-state and the accession of Turkey by voting against the investiture of your Commission.
I should like to make one final point.
Mr President, you yourself have admitted that you interfered in French affairs by lending the Portuguese Government’s support to Mr Chirac during the 2002 presidential elections.
Mr Chirac, who everyone knows is unfamiliar with both Europe’s geography and its history, recently said that we are all children of Byzantium.
It is hard to think of a more sinister omen, since the children of Byzantium, busy discussing the sex of angels with their parents and their councillors, were overwhelmed by the Islamic army of Sultan Mehmet II on 29 May 1453 after a month-and-a-half-long siege.
In a symbolic and barbaric gesture, the Sultan dipped his hand in the blood of the dead Christians and daubed this blood on the wall of the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, which became and has remained Istanbul’s main mosque.
   Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement on my own behalf and on behalf of my group.
Mr Farage’s assertion is unworthy of this European Parliament.
At no time has Mr Barrot ever committed a criminal offence – at no time whatever!
Although Mr Barrot belongs to another institution, I have known him for many years, and so I take this opportunity to say, on behalf of our group, that Mr Barrot is an extraordinary person; he is honourable, he is credible, and we have complete confidence in him.
Mr President, I ask that it be investigated whether the insulting utterances that Mr Farage has come out with in this debate, could result in prosecution under criminal law.
I most firmly repudiate these utterances and wish to express our wholehearted confidence in Mr Barrot.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what Mr Poettering has just said is true of my own group as well.
We have been forthrightly critical of some candidates, but the critical onslaught that is customary in political debates must never result in people’s integrity being damaged, or in their being condemned in advance.
So let me say, right now and very clearly, that, no matter what criticisms we have had to make in this matter, there can be no doubt about the human and personal integrity of the candidates.
I want Mr Barrot to know that, even though he is from a political family other than our own, his political integrity, in particular, is beyond any doubt.
I absolutely endorse what the honourable Member said, and would say that what has been said about the English Member applies likewise to Mr Le Pen.
   Mr President, I believe that our time would be well spent in giving the floor to the group chairmen to state their opinions on this incident.
The idea of politics we must stand for is one which incorporates ethical considerations.
Although I personally believe that anything goes in political debate, I do not believe that slander is acceptable.
I should therefore like to say that, although Mr Barroso may be my political adversary, I respect him as a person, and would like to say, on behalf of our group, that we do not in any way agree with the slander to which he has been subjected.
   Mr Farage, you will speak when I give you the floor.
I would ask you to use your speech to reflect on what you have said.
You have the right to request that your words do not appear in the Minutes.
If they do appear, you will have to be prepared to accept any legal consequences which may result from them.
   Mr Barroso, Commissioners, the European Parliament has just expressed its confidence in you and I congratulate you.
This brings to an end an important episode in the history of European parliamentary democracy.
Europe needs a strong Commission and a credible Parliament and this is more the case today than it was yesterday.
Whatever our differences of opinion, I believe we can take pleasure from the fact that our debate has reached the citizens of Europe.
I would like to say, Mr Barroso, that Parliament, like you, wants a new partnership between our two institutions based on mutual respect and mutual trust, so that the European Union can become increasingly democratic, legitimate and effective.
   .
I and my UK Conservative colleagues have abstained in the vote on the Barroso Commission because, whilst broadly supporting the President-designate, we have a major issue with the Commission as a whole.
We recognise that Mr Barroso has the qualities needed to fulfil his duties and that he broadly shares our views on the Lisbon Strategy and on transatlantic relations and we also recognise that his Commission, on balance, shares his approach.
We regard this as a positive and are thus, in principle, supportive.
However, for us there are significant problems with, in particular, the debate over the withdrawal of Mr Buttiglione as candidate Commissioner whilst at the same time retaining at least one other Commissioner-designate who was the subject of serious criticism at his previous committee hearing.
I consider that this is a blatant example of discrimination.
We find this unacceptable, as we do the pledges given by Commissioners-designate to endeavour to implement provisions of the Constitution prior to its formal adoption.
This we regard as anti-democratic.
Given these conflicting aspects of the Commission proposed by Mr Barroso, we have, with regret, decided that we have no alternative but to abstain.
   I voted against the appointment of Mr Barroso as President of the Commission last July, as in my opinion he was not the candidate European citizens were entitled to expect.
His position of support for the attack on Iraq, an attack which violated all the rules of international law, was also unacceptable.
During the October part-session I made known my opposition to the first Barroso Commission, which was in no way acceptable.
If Mr Barroso had not climbed down at the very last moment in order to avoid a crushing personal defeat, I would of course have voted against this Commission.
Mr Barroso has, however, made minor changes to the original line-up he tried to impose on us.
Today I remain strongly opposed to the fact that Mrs Kroes holds the portfolio for competition, as her presence brings with it the significant risk that conflicts of interest might occur.
It is crucial, however, that a new Commission finally be able to get down to work.
I have therefore voted in favour of this Commission, although I did so reluctantly.
In common with many of my fellow Members, I am now eagerly waiting for Mr Barroso to set out his political agenda.
I will be looking very carefully to see if this agenda is one that gives an important place to the social issues that citizens expect to see tackled there.
In accordance with Rule 163 of the Rules of Procedure, …
   . I did not vote against the Commission proposed by Mr Durão Barroso – by abstaining I helped to ensure it was not brought down – for three crucial reasons:
1.
The President of the Commission attempted to satisfy the demands made by Parliament, in general, and by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, in particular, by making significant changes.
2.
Despite the fact that, to my mind, this is not the Commission that Europe needs and the fact that its bias is strongly neoliberal, the current proposal is substantially better than the one before.
3.
There are, however, some problematical cases in which Commissioners-designate are not suited to the portfolio that they have been assigned, and this may lead to serious conflicts of interest.
   Despite the fact that pressure brought to bear on Mr Barroso by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament resulted in a climb-down on his part after he had presented his first Commission in October, I do not believe that the changes he has since made are anywhere near substantial enough to allow me to lend him my support.
This is why I have voted against the investiture of the Commission he has put forward.
In contrast to the majority of members of the Socialist Group, my ‘no’ to the minimally reshuffled Barroso Commission, as well as that of my delegation as a whole, is an indication of my refusal to hand a blank cheque to a Commission which does not share my values of tolerance, pluralism and freedoms and which has made clear its free-market and conservative leanings.
It will now be necessary for us to remain on our guard, given that Mrs Kroes will be responsible for competition and Mrs Fischer Boel for agriculture, meaning that there is a serious risk that conflicts of interest might arise within the European Commission, and given that Mr Frattini, Mr Berlusconi’s ambassador for justice and freedom, will also be a member of this Commission.
   In addition to the universal figures of Vasco da Gama and Magellan, Portugal’s notable politicians included Pombal, the Lusitanian Richelieu.
Until Black Wednesday in October 2004, there was also yourself, President Barroso.
Like Pombal, you tried to resist the petty dignitaries of this Parliament and the cartoon tigresses of this Coliseum-style Assembly.
Whereas there was a pervasive silence when Théo Van Gogh had his throat slit in a manner reminiscent of Rembrandt's painting, Abraham's Sacrifice,Mr Buttiglione deserved support.
That is why, although we do not agree with the unbridled euroliberalism of the budget austerity pact or with the Turco-Europeanism that you will be obliged to apply, we decided to support your resistance on this point of freedom.
Since then, French political inquisitors have been the factor that has forced you to give way.
I would distinguish between the man and the institution and wish the former good luck as he commands the European caravel, even if it is heading towards a burned-out star, given that the adventure of the twenty-first century is no longer to organise 500 million Europeans, but six billion people across the planet.
   . In light of the reasons – strictly political reasons – why we voted against Mr Durão Barroso’s nomination for President of the Commission in July and in light of the selections and the hearings of those who were selected that led to the composition of the Commission, which will result in political choices that are against what we stand for and that we fight against, we voted against the Commission.
In the proposed line-up, nothing has changed, let alone improved, as regards the political conditions that led to our vote in July.
We also voted this way for reasons that we made clear in the explanation of vote on the Joint Resolution on this issue.
We reaffirm our defence of and struggle for alternative political options that attach importance to social, regional and environmental strands, the objective of economic and social cohesion that is always left out.
   Mr Barroso, Commissioners, you have also had the vote of Mr Fatuzzo of the Pensioners’ Party, within the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
I would like to call on President Barroso – who I am told is 48 years old and therefore very young – precisely because of his youth, to take seriously – as I am sure he will and as young people usually do – the fate and the problems of old people throughout Europe.
Large numbers of the elderly, in fact, are in very difficult financial situations, since many of them have pensions which are hardly sufficient to pay for a glass of water and a slice of bread.
In my opinion, coming to the aid of needy elderly people throughout Europe is one of the goals which we would be very happy to see achieved over these next five years.
   Mr President, my delegation voted in favour of this Commission because all along we believed this was a matter of competence of the Commissioners.
We were not happy with the original proposal, although we feel that if Mr Barroso had handled matters better we could have avoided the problems that arose.
However, we recognise the difficulties he faced with certain governments.
We still have reservations about this Commission and we will be looking to call it to account in the future.
We will also hold the Commission to account on the promises President Barroso has made to Parliament today, not least in relation to human rights.
I have this morning written to President Borrell, drawing his attention to the disgraceful incidents that took place last night and on Tuesday night in football matches between England and Spain, where there was racist abuse of black English players.
I would like the Commission to take an initiative, along the lines of President Barroso's commitment, to deal with the problem of racism in football.
   We have voted in favour of this report since it mainly gives an account of the European Ombudsman’s annual report for 2003.
We object to the fact that the report refers both to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and to the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.We do not support these parts of the report in spite of the fact that we are voting for the report.
   Thank you, Mr Martin, this will obviously be passed on to the President but, having been an eminent vice-president yourself, you know just how difficult these matters are.
   Very briefly and by way of exception, before Commissioner Figel’ speaks, I should like to congratulate him warmly on his election today, and to say that I am delighted that he is to be the first Commissioner to speak to this House today in this topical and urgent debate.
The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Tibet (the case of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche).
   Mr President, the case of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was raised with me by several of my constituents in Scotland, including Iain Thom and Naomi Ness of the University of Edinburgh Tibet Society.
On 3 December 2002, Tenzin Delek Rinpoche was condemned to death after being convicted of trumped-up and politically-motivated charges in a court in Tibetan China.
He was framed for a crime he did not commit, and this is backed up by independent research by Human Rights Watch.
He remains in Chinese custody, waiting to die, and his current whereabouts are unknown.
However, Tenzin Delek has always maintained his innocence.
He is quoted as saying: 'I have been wrongly accused.
I have always said that we should not so much as raise a hand against another.'
Indeed, his moderate and peaceful way of dealing with the problems that the Tibetans face and with the repression in Tibet, his work as an active lama to foster Tibetan Buddhism, and his practical work in Tibetan communities have earned him many supporters.
He is a symbol of Tibetan identity and a champion of the Tibetan cause.
He is no friend of the Chinese authorities.
The arrest, detention and sham trial of Tenzin Delek mark the culmination of a clampdown on his activities and on those of his associates who, even now, face severe penalties if they dare advocate on his behalf.
The paradoxical silence that followed the death sentence on Tenzin Delek, who is such a popular figure, is attributed by Human Rights Watch to a campaign of intimidation and terror executed by the Chinese authorities.
International human rights organisations have also expressed acute concern that he was tortured while being detained – a likelihood rather than a suspicion.
Human Rights Watch also reports that he was denied the most basic of rights under international law: the right to a fair hearing.
The Chinese authorities, claiming that state secrets were involved, still refuse to disclose what actually happened in court.
In short, his trial was a sham.
Regrettably, the case of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche must be placed in the context of a catalogue of the human rights abuses perpetrated by the Chinese authorities against the Tibetan people both in the Tibet Autonomous Region and Tibetan China.
The systematic repression of all things Tibetan just about sums up Chinese policy on the matter.
The European Parliament must send a clear message to China that this policy is unacceptable and it must do all it can to ensure the protection of human rights and the cultural, political, environmental and religious identity of the Tibetan people.
The miscarriage of justice suffered by Tenzin Delek must be put right.
I would therefore ask all Members to support this resolution.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the sentence from the Sichuan court ought not to have attracted the attention of the international press, since this is only one in a long line of death sentences imposed by the Beijing regime during the course of the long history of repression by the Chinese police of the Tibetan domestic struggle.
One of the many – too many – ugly stories of common, ordinary, everyday violation of human rights.
However, this was not how this story went.
Tenzin Delek Rinpoche is an emblem: he is an important lama of Lithang county in Kardze, arrested in 2002 just after an attack in Chengdu.
The procedures during the trial were clearly far from complying with international standards and the suspension of the death sentence is due to expire in two weeks’ time.
Tenzin is a Buddhist monk who is very popular among Tibetans for his unshakable loyalty to the Dalai Lama, which he has openly professed on many occasions, and for always having refused to recognise the Panchen Lama chosen by Beijing in 1995.
He is therefore a symbol that China wishes to eliminate and destroy.
Europe should, especially within the framework of the forthcoming bilateral summit, forcefully demand that the death sentence imposed on Tenzin be lifted and, in more general terms, call for a moratorium on executions.
Let us raise our voices, Commissioner Figel’, to prevent the umpteenth bloody, unjust, gory insult to Tibet and the Tibetans.
   Mr President, the political dialogue which the European Union is having with the Eritrean authorities locally is being dominated by the worrying situation in terms of religious freedom.
That was the Dutch Government’s response on 6 May of this year to broadly-based parliamentary questions on religious freedom in Eritrea.
The draft resolution does not do justice to this important communication by the Presidency-in-Office of the Council, and I very much regret that.
Let us remind ourselves of the key facts.
Firstly, general freedom of religion is enshrined in the Eritrean constitution.
Secondly, a government decree of May 2002, however, prescribes the registration of all religious groups.
Thirdly, this registration does not apply, though, to four of those religious groups, namely the Orthodox Christians, Muslims, Catholics and members of the Evangelical Church of Eritrea.
Fourthly, many small Protestant churches were for years refused registration, their prayer houses being officially closed.
Fifthly, according to a recent report of the US Administration, probably more than 200 members of non-registered groups are currently being detained.
Sixthly, the Eritrean police is forcing members of non-registered churches to sign statements in which they renounce their religious convictions.
Mr President, Commissioner, there is no shred of religious freedom in Eritrea.
That is why I hope that the European Union will continue to pull out all the stops, preferably in tandem with the US Administration, which has given evidence of equal involvement in the case of serious violations of religious freedom in Eritrea.
Indeed, this is an excellent opportunity to give shape to trans-Atlantic cooperation in a bid to uphold western values, which is desperately needed in the European Union of 2004.
   . Mr President, Eritrea is a small country in Eastern Africa with four and a half million people, which only secured its independence in 1993 from Ethiopia after a bitter 30-year struggle.
It then, foolishly, rapidly went on to fight another conflict, first with Yemen over fishing grounds around the Hanish Islands, and then in 1998, with Ethiopia again over disputed border territory.
The latter dispute was only resolved in June 2000 after the loss of some 70 000 lives.
To date, Ethiopia refuses to accept the award of the village of Badme to Eritrea by the International Border Commission, and there is a 4 200-strong UN peace mission at the border, although their work is made difficult by Ethiopia's failure to permit demarcation and Eritrea's restrictions on UN actions.
Eritrea is a very poor country and alone in Africa – the other exception being the Democratic Republic of Congo – in postponing indefinitely the elections promised by President Afeworki's so-called transitional government under the 1997 Constitution and originally scheduled for December 2001.
With this has come press censorship and imprisonment of journalists, including recently a Swedish citizen.
The ruling People's Front for Democracy – a bit of a misnomer, I must say – remains the only legal party.
However, a new party formed by exiles is the People's Liberation Front Democratic Party and this was established in 2002.
Amnesty International describes the human rights abuses as appalling and catalogues the regular torture of political prisoners, including the Asmara-11 group of former parliamentarians.
Recently, prisoners have been allegedly executed at the Adi Abeto military prison and the government of Sudan – itself a government not known for respect for human rights – now accuses Eritrea of aiding the Darfur rebels and their groupings.
This country is in a tragic mess and my Group, the PPE-DE, calls upon the new Barroso Commission, confirmed in office today, to demonstrate its commitment to democracy and human rights in Africa by invoking the procedures under Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement and to see what further actions need to be taken to restore the rule of law and freedom to this country.
   Mr President, we propose the inclusion in this resolution of item 20 of the excellent report tabled yesterday by Mr Romeva i Rueda, on the lifting of the arms embargo on China.
If you will allow me, I would like to read out the text of this item; ‘calls on the Council and the Member States to maintain the EU embargo on trade in arms with the People’s Republic of China and not to weaken the existing national limitations on such arms sales; considers that this embargo should be maintained until such time as the EU has adopted a legally binding Code of Conduct on Arms Exports and the People’s Republic of China has taken concrete steps towards improving the human rights situation in that country, inter alia by ratifying the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and by fully respecting the rights of minorities’.
That is the original wording, which met with general approval, and so we propose that it be included at this point.
   Before voting on Mr Mann’s oral amendment, does anybody object to the presentation of the amendment?
(2)
(3)
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 18 November 2004.
      At the last part-session, we were told by Mr Farage that there were good reasons why the French Commissioner should not in fact become a member of the Commission.
This House ridiculed Mr Farage’s comments and accused him of being misinformed.
It has now become apparent that his information was correct, and that the vote took place at a time when everyone was sure that this Commissioner was beyond reproach.
To put it another way, the vote took place when this House was in possession of false information.
Parliament must reopen the debate on this issue, and I should like to lend my whole-hearted support to Mr Farage’s proposal.
   – Mr President, I speak on behalf of the Italian Socialist Party.
The peaceful orange revolution currently under way in Kiev has a great deal in common with the ‘rose revolution’ which brought President Saakashvili to power in Georgia exactly one year ago. He was then democratically elected by a huge majority in January 2004.
Mr Saakashvili, whom I was able to meet in Tbilisi a few days ago, is leading Georgia towards a path of renewal, growth and development, within a healthy, pluralist context of democracy.
Back in November 2003, however, the people’s verdict had been overturned through the vote-rigging arranged by ex-President Eduard Shevardnadze, who was then driven out by a popular uprising, which, apart from anything else, took place without bloodshed.
Today the story is being repeated and, as all the international observers, including those from Europe, have confirmed, the Ukrainian people’s decision has been blatantly altered and misrepresented through obvious, flagrant irregularities.
Today the Ukrainian Parliament, the Rada, has passed a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister Yanukovich.
Although this action in itself is not binding from a legal point of view, it does have a great intrinsic symbolic and political value and confirms the success of the popular pressure that has been exerted in recent days.
We must not allow Europe to remain deaf and dumb to all this.
Let Europe make its voice heard in that country, which lies so close to our borders, so that the tensions there do not degenerate into civil war or an escalation of violence, and so that all those young people can at last be heard. The young citizens who courageously and proudly wave orange flags or Georgian flags demand and hope for a future of peace, justice, the rule of law, democracy and freedom – a new, different page of history.
Let us here in Parliament raise a cry of solidarity with the demonstrators in Kiev: today we are all Ukrainians.
   – Mr President, as a Lithuanian as well as a representative of the Lithuanian nation, whose president, together with the Polish President Mr Kwaśniewski and Mr Solana, is today in Kiev, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that events in Ukraine and the success of the peaceful revolution will have important consequences not only for Ukraine, its nation and not only for the further development of the European Union, but also for the nearest of Ukraine’s neighbours – Belarus.
It is, therefore, very important for everyone now to show solidarity.
Our support for democracy today in Ukraine also sends out a signal to the dictator of Belarus.
I am sure that the close attention and hope with which the Belarus nation is observing the development of events in Ukraine is matched by attention and fear in the gaze of Mr Lukashenko.
Therefore, let Ukraine’s success today also be the prelude to success for democracy tomorrow in Belarus.
Thank you for you attention.
   – Mr President, the debate on the financial perspectives is of strategic importance to the future of Europe.
It concerns the European Union's capacity to respond to the needs of its peoples and the challenges of the twenty-first century.
The proposals submitted by the previous European Commission are, in our view, a good and balanced basis for discussion.
However, the restrictive, accountant's approach taken by certain governments and the proclamation of 1% as a dogmatic objective are unacceptable at this stage of the negotiations.
We are truly worried by the Council's apparent inability to respond effectively to the need to safeguard the development and redistributive character of the Community budget; this is something that, unfortunately, we noted once again during the budgetary procedure for 2005.
The question of reliability arises when we call on the peoples of Europe to ratify the European Constitution, when we talk about speeding up the Lisbon strategy and we are not ready to make corresponding commitments about the financial resources for implementing these objectives.
This is deceiving the citizens of the European Union.
The Community budget which met the needs of the European Union of the 15 Member States cannot efficiently meet the needs of the Union of 25 Member States today or of 27 tomorrow.
We, as the European Parliament, want there to be an agreement in good time, during 2005, on the financial perspectives which will guarantee the necessary and adequate financing for the policies of the European Union.
We shall be working in this direction and we call on the Council too to stand up to its responsibilities.
However, we wish to make clear that only a good and efficient agreement will be politically acceptable, an agreement which will efficiently safeguard development, employment, cohesion and solidarity for all citizens and all regions of the Union.
   – Mr President, four points should in my view take priority in this crucial debate: 1) the financial perspectives should be converted to the Lisbon parameters and objectives: the chapter on representativeness is the most important innovation introduced by the Commission proposal and should be strongly supported by Parliament; 2) the financing of the agricultural policy no longer reflects the new requirements of the European Union, even though the Commission has been unable to depart from the guidelines on this topic laid down by the Council; 3) it is important to provide for a transitional stage so as not to penalise those regions which, because of the so-called statistical effect, can no longer enjoy the support put aside for their development within the European Structural Funds, as will happen to certain regions in southern Italy; 4) we believe that the question of reforming the system of Member States’ contributions to the Union budget should not be put off indefinitely.
In conclusion, we take a positive view of the Prodi package, particularly because of the new philosophy on which it is based, focusing on the creation of a competitive and growing Union, and, in our view, the own-resource ceiling cannot be brought down to below 1.27% if we want to achieve all our pre-established objectives.
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I have risen to speak as a representative of the largest of the new Member States, Poland, in this debate involving questions to the Council on the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective.
I should like to draw attention to this point, as it has mainly been representatives of the old Member States who have spoken so far in the debate, and this is an important distinction to make, as the views of the old and the new Member States on the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective differ greatly.
In my opinion, one of the most important priorities for this Perspective should be to consolidate economic growth in the ten new Member States, which is currently experiencing an upturn, as this will facilitate cohesion and equality within the EU as a whole.
Integration has taken place on a legal and institutional level.
This process must, however, be accompanied by one in which the ten poorest countries together with the two due to join the EU in the near future catch up with the developed part of Europe.
Without a gradual reduction in the development gap between the rich and the poor, the integration of the EU as a whole will run up against major opposition.
There is also a danger of a two-speed Europe becoming a permanent arrangement.
This is why we are in favour of the Prodi Commission’s proposal.
The latter sets the EU’s budgetary commitments at an average of 1.27% of the EU’s GDP, whilst being opposed to the position of the six largest net payers, who wish to limit the level of these commitments to 1% of GDP.
Only if the EU’s budget is greater than it has been to date will there be a realistic chance of significantly increasing funding under the Structural and Cohesion Funds, which would in turn make it possible to implement measures that effectively promote development in the new Member States.
This is all the more necessary in view of the planned generosity towards regions in the old EU Member States which as a result of the ‘statistical effect’ will rise above the threshold of 75% of the EU’s average GDP as of 2007.
Given the restriction that has existed since the mid-1990s, namely that countries benefiting from the Structural and Cohesion Funds cannot receive funding exceeding 4% of their GDP, or in other words more than around EUR 17 billion per year for the ten new Member States overall, we are not calling for anything out of the ordinary.
I should like to draw these issues to the attention of the Council representatives taking part in this debate, as they are related to the implementation of one of the enlarged EU’s most important priorities, namely reducing the development gap between the old and the new Member States.
   Mr President, it is important that we in this House should, today, seize the opportunity to have this opening debate.
I am delighted that Mr Nicolaï from the Council has indicated that we will be doing this more frequently in future and that we will, every month, have the opportunity to put our fingers on the pulse.
Nevertheless, this new Parliament has set very clear priorities with a view to pursuing the cohesion policy, because that proved effective in the past and because it has narrowed the gap between the differences between us in Europe.
Alongside this, new initiatives, including the Lisbon agenda, have been taken.
We are still not performing well, though.
The Kok report has shown quite emphatically that we cannot afford to rest on our laurels, but need to invest.
We need to do this at European level with renewed dynamism and right across Europe.
There are also new challenges ahead.
Today, for example, we were discussing the issue of Ukraine, and the new neighbourhood policy needs fleshing out; it needs investments.
Those are new challenges and this House wants to meet them head on.
My message is that we should draw lessons from what has happened in 1999, particularly in terms of regional policy.
The first year, 1999, was not a productive year because the discussions we held were too tentative and too protracted.
We must avoid 2007 being another tentative year, especially since the key objectives, if anything, require acceleration.
We will therefore need to muster perseverance as a group.
It is precisely the linking of instruments, a more integral approach to matters such as research, that opens up opportunities.
That is the sort of attitude that the electorate expects of us.
Fresh policy and new perspectives cannot be achieved with 1%.
We will need more than that.
      We are preparing the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective at an exceptionally difficult time.
Parliament and the Commission are both new, and the EU has only been functioning with 25 Member States for seven months.
There is also the prospect of further enlargements, and of course the Lisbon Strategy to take into account.
The temporary committee’s timetable and working methods should include an examination of the positions and priorities of the Prodi Commission and the previous Parliament.
An assessment of the current enlargement should also be carried out, and plans made for future enlargements.
These are tasks to be tackled by the new European Commission, with the Member States playing a major role.
The latter’s proposals must be studied thoroughly, and it is for the next Presidency to ensure that this is the case.
The new Financial Perspective contains plans for several years, and maybe for as long as a decade or more.
It is possible, and indeed certain, that conditions within the EU and beyond will have changed.
After all, this is a long time, especially in the twenty-first century.
It would therefore be a good idea for there to be a review of the new Financial Perspective after it has been in operation for three years, and for it to be adjusted as necessary.
It should not be forgotten that in 2009 there will be a new Parliament and a new European Commission, and provision should be made now for those key EU institutions to have the right to put forward proposals and make certain amendments.
The fundamental decisions on the new Financial Perspective for 2007-2013, however, are a matter for the Member States and the Council.
Europe cannot be reduced to mere percentages, and in particular not to 1% of GDP.
   . Mr President, further to your kind words, I would like to preface my speech with the remark that unfortunately, given today’s previous planning in your Parliament, I have a commitment as a result of which I should have left by 7 p.m.
With your permission therefore, I will leave after I have read out my speech.
   Thank you, Mr Nicolaï, both for your statement and for the time you have shared with us.
   . Mr President, I should like to make reference to the statement issued by the parties after the 14th EU-Russia Summit, and in particular to the section concerning the implementation of elements on which both sides agree.
The elements in question relate, of course, to the common spaces.
It is my opinion that both the Presidency and the Commission have given way on this issue in the face of Russia’s disapproval, expressed on a number of occasions before the summit, of the position taken by this House and by the Members of this House.
I refer to the view that the PCA should be treated as one package in negotiations with Russia.
In a certain sense, this has meant that our votes on this issue have been disregarded.
I should like to say one more thing with reference to discussions on Ukraine.
The country with which we are negotiating a road map for implementation of the PCA and the country actively interfering in the electoral process in Ukraine are one and the same country.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, Ukraine is being born in front of our very eyes and those of Russia.
Russia and ourselves take different views, and that is why the Summit has communicated so little on the issue.
Instead, there are Europe’s open evaluations.
There is extraordinary development in Ukraine.
A nation of citizens, such as Russian manifestly is not, is being born.
It is Ukraine’s hour now.
According to our documents, however, Russia has great responsibility, – in my view, the greatest.
Ukraine’s chairman of Parliament made a start by announcing that Ukraine has only two alternatives – either the division of the state or bloodshed.
It looks like the Russian President would be in favour of completely restarting the election process, so that the opposition leader could be eliminated.
If the resigning president of Ukraine is going to listen to such advice and announce a decree to organise not just the second round but completely new elections, Russia will be responsible for the consequences.
This would become a provocation for hundreds of thousands of people, who could lose patience leading to a loss of peaceful civil order.
If they were to occupy the presidential palace, as happened in Georgia, they could be met by the gunshots of a foreign army.
The European Parliament or the European Commission – I am directing my comments to Mrs Ferrero Valdner here – could officially ask the Russian Government, or at least its representatives, if the reports by the Moscow press about Russian special armed forces being brought into Kiev dressed in Ukrainian uniforms are correct.
Extreme as the situation appears, it is difficult to understand the sympathy expressed for the Russian president – who got involved so unnecessarily – as if he cannot lose.
Fourteen years ago, we in Lithuania were similarly aware of the majority in the West feeling sorry for Mikhail Gorbachev.
That had a bad effect on the Kremlin, and Gorbachev lost a lot more influence.
A politics designed to restore the Russian empire has now already been defeated in Ukraine, even though President Putin remains a force in the world.
He has two alternatives – either acknowledge the Ukrainians’ right to have their government and democratic state or spill blood and be left with blood on his hands like Gorbachev.
President Putin’s friends should speak directly with him, not via Mr Kuchma, and unanimously advise him to choose the first option.
Thank you.
      Mr President, I should like to inform you that the salami producer Igloomeat SA Sokołów Polska has asked to be deleted from Appendix 12 to the Treaty of Accession.
There is documentary evidence that Igloomeat SA met the requirements arising under Council Directive No 77/99/EEC relating to the processing of meat on 13 February 2004.
It therefore applied to be included in the list of establishments exporting products to the EU Member States, but Igloomeat’s management has not yet received any decision.
I should therefore like to ask you, Mr President, to call on the European Commission to take action in this particular case, and to highlight the failure of EU institutions to act promptly, thus making it difficult for businesses from the new EU Member States to operate on EU markets.
   Mr President, I would like to raise the situation of one of my constituents, John Packwood from the Isle of Wight, who, as a result of an international arrest warrant taken out against him by the Moroccan authorities, is currently being held in prison in Madrid.
Mr Packwood, along with three colleagues, delivered a privately-owned boat from the UK to Morocco back in 1997.
The boat was fully searched on its arrival, given a clean bill of health and the four men went home.
A full ten weeks later several tons of cocaine were found on board the vessel.
Interpol interviewed the men and was completely satisfied that they were not implicated in any criminal activity.
The first the men knew of the international arrest warrant was last month – over seven years later – when John Packwood was arrested as he passed through Malaga airport.
He is now in prison in Madrid and that is completely unacceptable.
I would ask the President of Parliament to intervene with the Moroccan authorities to raise these concerns and ask that these arrest warrants be lifted.
The international NGO, Fair Trials Abroad, has agreed that this appears to be a blatant abuse of the international arrest warrant, since it is quite clear that the men could not have been involved in any smuggling operation.
   Mr President, on 17 November many Members of this House will have seen the appalling abuse of international football players at an international match between Spain and England, held in Spain.
That appalling abuse was not just an isolated incident; we have seen it at international football matches and in football matches across the European Union.
This is not just about abuse of people in their workplace, the football stadium; it has a symbolism and a resonance beyond that.
We believe – and many of my fellow MEPs believe – that UEFA, the body that regulates football, is not sufficiently serious about stamping out racial abuse in football.
Football is the game of Europe, it is Europe’s most prominent spectator sport.
In the United States, the major spectator sports are family occasions.
That is not the case in the European Union.
We call on UEFA and FIFA to bring in rules to stamp out and kick out racism in football right across Europe, making it the family game that we all want to see.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to ask Parliament to call on the European Commission to abolish or temporarily suspend customs duties on aluminium imported from Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States into the new Member States of the EU, in particular Poland.
These customs duties were introduced after the recent enlargement of the EU and set at 6%.
The result has been a significant fall in the competitiveness of many Central and Eastern European businesses.
In Poland, for example, these customs duties directly affect businesses employing 5 000 people, as well as many thousands of businesses associated with the aluminium industry.
A great deal is heard in this House about those who have benefited from the EU enlargement, but it is worth remembering that there are also those who have little reason to rejoice, and through no fault of their own.
Instead of being selfish, we must help those who are suffering as a result of the fact that the European Union underwent enlargement on 1 May.
   – The next item is the Commission Statement on World Aids Day.
   . Mr President, it truly is an honour for me to stand for the first time before plenary, although I would be even happier were I here on a more pleasant subject.
Unfortunately, I am appearing here for the first time so that we can debate and I can speak to you on a very important and worrying subject, by which I mean the continuing threat to our society from the scourge of HIV/AIDS.
Today in particular, on 1 December, which has been designated 'World AIDS Day', I think it is important that we exchange views and a few thoughts as to how this scourge can be combated.
Today has been designated 'World AIDS Day' in order to mark, on the one hand, the progress which has been made in combating this scourge.
However, more specifically, it gives us the opportunity to focus on the challenges we face and to intensify our collective efforts and consider and ask ourselves if we are doing enough.
Over recent years, most of our attention has focused on the tragic situation in sub-Saharan Africa and in developing countries in general.
However, HIV/AIDS is causing very deep and constantly increasing concern here in Europe and our neighbouring countries.
It is something which affects us all, here and now.
The subject of this year's global campaign against AIDS was women, girls, HIV and AIDS.
This was also the subject of the annual AIDS campaign coordinated by UNAIDS.
This subject is exceptionally topical.
Recent epidemiological data show that, over the last two years, the number of women affected by the HIV virus increased throughout the world.
While the largest increase, in the order of 58%, was in the area of eastern Asia, it is worth noting that the second largest increase was in Eastern Europe and central Asia, where it reached 48%.
Allow me to give you some statistics which were published just last week and which are particularly worrying: approximately 40 million people throughout the world are carriers of the HIV virus and almost half of them are women.
In the European Union, the number of cases of HIV increased by 75% between 1996 and 2003, with the largest increase in the Baltic States.
In Europe, the country which has been hardest hit by the epidemic is the Russian Federation, where it is calculated that over 800 000 people are HIV positive, 80% of whom are young people under 30 years of age.
According to UNAIDS estimates, over 500 000 people in the European Union are carriers of the virus.
It is clear without any doubt from these statistics that the tragic problem of HIV/AIDS is spreading more and more quickly and now has not only arrived at our door, but has also entered our house.
The European Commission is addressing the matter both inside and outside the European Union.
Together with the Member States, we are the biggest donor to the Global Fund which is the main financing mechanism for combating the epidemic throughout the world.
Similarly, we are intensifying our cooperation with neighbouring countries, in full recognition of the fact that they are in a particularly difficult situation.
In September, the European Commission issued a paper entitled ‘Co-ordinated and integrated approach to combat HIV/AIDS within the European Union and its neighbourhoods’.
Τhis paper summarises the current evaluation of the situation and the problem.
It also offers a compendium of best practices for combating the recent wave of the epidemic and highlights the Commission's short-term proposals for addressing the situation.
The Commission's main commitments are to the prevention of new cases of contamination with HIV, the reduction of repercussions from the epidemic, access to antiretroviral treatment at more affordable prices, the inclusion of young people, the development of epidemiological monitoring of HIV/AIDS, more intensive research and the participation of civil society.
However, I should also like to draw your attention to certain basic aspects of efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.
Prevention is still the main weapon in the fight against the spread of the virus.
We badly need an information campaign throughout Europe.
It is important for us to bear in mind that the information campaigns of the 1980s did not address today's young people and, consequently, there is an acute need today to implement new efforts, so that we can send the message to precisely these people.
Planning has already started and a conference is due to be held next week with the Member States, the international organisations and representatives of civil society on this subject.
As the target of a general campaign will be the general public and young people, there is a clear need for other partners to plan and implement specialised campaigns targeted at vulnerable groups, in keeping always with the particular requirements of each group.
I should like to stress that the impression that the transmission of HIV is limited to these vulnerable groups is totally unfounded.
On the contrary, HIV/AIDS is a subject which concerns us all: women, men, girls and boys, and it is a subject which concerns us here and now.
It is calculated that a large percentage of people with the HIV virus living in the European Union do not know they have it.
As a result, the risk of the virus spreading is increasing and, naturally, these people cannot benefit from the treatment available.
Generally speaking, access to antiretroviral treatment at affordable prices would appear to be fairly good within the European Union.
Nonetheless, certain Member States have expressed their concern about the future: if, or rather when, the number of cases of HIV spirals and the cost of treatment remains high.
This is one of the main issues being addressed by the European Commission and it has raised it – and continues to discuss it with the Member States and the pharmaceutical industry – in the aim of finding effective ways of overcoming these problems.
However, we must not underestimate the economic consequences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which are huge.
The cost of antiretroviral treatment is just one aspect of these economic consequences.
At macro-economic level, HIV/AIDS results in increased health care and social security costs.
It causes a drop in manpower numbers and a fall in productivity, which increase labour costs.
The cumulative result is an adverse impact on investments, production and per capita income.
In brief, the HIV/AIDS epidemic represents a very serious threat to global health, development and security.
However, over and above the economic aspect, HIV/AIDS is also a problem with respect to human rights.
The stigma and adverse discrimination are subjects which concern Europe, as much as any other part of the planet, and they cannot be overlooked.
The psychological aspect of HIV/AIDS and the isolation which it causes must be addressed with the same decisiveness.
If these aspects are disregarded, the effectiveness of the aforementioned efforts of prevention and medical care will be jeopardised.
The subject of HIV/AIDS can no longer be a taboo subject.
It is of the utmost importance that the subject be discussed openly and that the social stigma cease at long last.
Only thus will it be addressed effectively.
Open discussion is an integral part of the information campaign which, in turn, will contribute most towards prevention.
All of us, especially the institutions of the European Union, the European Parliament, the European Commission and, above all, the Member States, need to recognise and accept the new worrying increase in the HIV/AIDS problem.
Let us stop deluding ourselves, believing that it is under control or at least contained; on the contrary, we need to step up our efforts to combat it, to the extent required for them to be effective.
I am optimistic that, together, we can achieve this.
   . Mr President, today Ukraine has dominated our discussions, and in Ukraine people are dying, not as a result of the political crisis, but because of the AIDS crisis.
Ten years ago, 183 people were registered as having HIV/AIDS there, today, in 2004, it is 68 000.
That is the scale of this problem within our own continent.
Across the world nearly 40 million people have HIV and, as the Commissioner said, we must take action to prevent and solve these problems.
The focus this year has been very much on women and children.
As the Commissioner said, women account for some 57% of those who are HIV positive in sub-Saharan Africa, and over 60% of those with HIV aged between 15 and 24.
Finding vaccines appropriate to them before the onset of sexual activity is fundamental.
The figures are appalling for orphans too.
There are 15 million orphans in the world, 12.3 million of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.
There are 1.8 million already in Nigeria, and there will be 1.5 million in South Africa by 2010.
And so it goes on.
We have to take action along the lines of our resolution; we have to take action on HIV/AIDS and on conditions, disorders and diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis C, mental illness and depression.
We have to find more palliative care for those dying of AIDS, in particular in the developing countries.
We have to protect our health workers from the dangers of AIDS from needlestick injuries – witness the exhibition in this Parliament today.
I welcome the Commissioner’s statement.
I also welcome the work done in this field by Pavel Telicka during his time as a Commissioner.
We urge Commissioner Kyprianou and his colleague Commissioner Michel to put shoulders to the wheel and to close the door on the epidemic faced by Europe and the rest of the world.
   . Mr President, I too would like to thank the Commission for its explanation, although I hope that Commissioner Kyprianou will, before long, be able to come here with more news, more hard facts and more specific intentions on the part of the Commission.
I should, above all, like to thank Human Aids for the fact that during this year’s World AIDS Day, it will be focusing on women and girls and HIV/AIDS.
There are sound reasons for doing so.
The figures speak for themselves.
AIDS is increasingly taking on a feminine face; the number of women infected with HIV/AIDS is rising at a terrifying rate.
So who are those women? Are they women displaying serious risk behaviour, or are they women who have been sexually active with too many partners?
Not at all. In most cases, they are ordinary, often young, women who are very vulnerable on account of their sex.
They are often married, they are very often faithful to their partners and are mothers of children.
It may be useful to inform the Vatican of the fact that 88% of the Ugandan girls and women who are HIV positive are married and have not had partners other than the man with whom they share their lives.
These women are vulnerable on account of the social inequality and the lack of access to education and healthcare, as well as on account of the fact that they do not have their own incomes and are often incapable of negotiating about their own sexuality.
For those women, the ABC prevention method – Abstinence, Being faithful and Condoms– is anything but sufficient.
In order to combat AIDS effectively, we need more than simply ABC.
We need the whole alphabet.
To begin with, I should like to add the letter M for microbicides and the letter V for vaccines, because these open up promising prospects for women who may finally gain control over their own prevention methods.
In my view, it is crucial for the European Union to invest more in research and development into those new products.
I should also like to add the letter E for empowerment, because the fight against AIDS is simply impossible without reinforcing the rights of women and without combating violence against them.
Commissioner, I am therefore very much looking forward to the global action plan which the Commission will be presenting to us in the spring of 2005, because a global approach is indeed what we need.
It is, of course, not enough that well-meaning Commissioners such as yourself or Commissioner Michel should be committed to the fight against AIDS.
This issue must also be dealt with by the Commissioners for Equal Opportunities, External Trade, Justice and also naturally by the Commissioner for the Budget.
I hope that the European Union will continue to take the lead in order to mobilise more financial resources for the fight against HIV/AIDS, but also to improve cooperation among the Member States on the basis of a coherent multiannual plan.
I regret that the Dutch Presidency is not present here today, because I would like to pay tribute to the courage with which it has put this matter on the agenda.
I also think that Europe should do more to increase the financial commitments.
By 2008, we should be able to treble our financial commitments, in my view.
Finally, it appears to me essential that women be personally involved in drawing up a global plan of this kind – especially women and girls who live with HIV/AIDS, for they are not only its victims, but also vital partners in working out a sound policy.
I therefore hope that the Commission will include them in its stakeholders’ platform for the compilation of this global plan.
   I should like to thank the Commission for its sound statement.
Millions of people in the South suffer from HIV/AIDS and, weakened by HIV, they often fall victim to other diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis.
Millions of children with no parents wear themselves out cultivating the food they need.
Many of them have no access to medicines, and almost none of them have medicines adapted for children.
Exemptions from the TRIPS agreement permit the export of generic medicines, but the EU countries have been slow in implementing such exemptions, a dilatoriness that leads to suffering and that, each day that passes, increases the suffering and the number of deaths.
Now, the Commission and the Council have the opportunity to show that this wait is to be brought to an end.
Better access to medicines must, however, be combined with increased knowledge of HIV and increased provision of information about the disease, together with an ambitious aid policy and fair trade so that the countries concerned can afford economic development that increases trade.
   Mr Commissioner, today World AIDS Day and your statement on this subject was, in my opinion, very good, but it was still just a statement.
I hope that it will be followed by practical measures on your part that will help to alleviate the situation.
Today’s AIDS Day calls on us to be aware of the kind of decisions that we have to take as politicians.
AIDS is a disease that spreads regardless of borders and therefore today’s decision that health should be a matter for individual states is not a good one.
AIDS cannot be seen, it cannot be noticed, it cannot be felt.
It is a disease that crosses borders and pays no attention to customs officials. A disease that began amongst risk groups – among homosexuals and then haemophiliacs, then blood donors and drug addicts.
Now we also see that a large number of women are infected.
What was not said, however, is that 5 to 5.5 million of the 40 million are children and young people.
These are alarming figures.
It has been said today that it is transmitted through sex.
I am talking about love.
Perhaps this is why women so often become victims.
On this occasion I would also like to mention some people who have not been mentioned today.
These are the health workers, people who are ready and willing to risk their lives.
They are volunteers.
Are we aware, however, that these health workers are likely to be the first victims of the health reforms being prepared in the European Union? This is a poor way of thanking them for their work.
   Mr President, of the 40 million people suffering from AIDS, 70% live in Africa.
The Millennium Objectives are a central ambition to focus on basic health carewhere it is needed.
Europe spends too little of its development cooperation budget on basic health care, which should be linked to good nutrition, access to clean drinking water and basic education.
Commissioner Michel has stated that he will make a new announcement in which Europe’s priorities in terms of development cooperation will be specified.
Commissioner, I do hope that the words you spoke a moment ago will also find expression in this new announcement.
According to the UN, of the 45 million people at risk of infection, 27 million would, if we had a specific campaign, be preventable cases.
We have a great deal of experience in campaigns of that kind globally.
It does, however, require an enormous effort and we should therefore focus our minds in that respect.
It has been stated before that we here in Europe can encourage our Member States to say to the pharmaceutical industry that it can make cheaper products.
To the developing countries, we could say that we will provide them with a waiver, as a result of which the TRIPS agreements will not prevent them from manufacturing within the cheap market.
Finally, the Vatican spoke a few days ago through Javier Cardinal Lozano Barragán, President of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care, about immunity, moral deficit and pathology of the mind as causes of AIDS that have to be combated with correct sexual practices.
I regard this as a discriminating and stigmatising remark and believe that Commissioner Kyprianou was right to say that we should not stigmatise AIDS patients in that way.
I am pleased that in principle, the Commissioner has given the Vatican a clear response with this.
   Mr President, I should like to raise two points regarding the tragic situation in certain developing countries.
Firstly, our attention should not solely be focused on the important question of medicine or some future vaccine.
It should also be focused on restoring or setting up proximity-based health services, in other words those located as close as possible to communities.
Those services have, unfortunately, been badly affected in recent years by structural adjustment plans undertaken in those countries, especially in Africa.
We must also offer all our support to local initiatives launched by civil society and to networks, on the ground, of local representatives and authorities, associations, carers and mediators from the societies in question, who have been working together to combat AIDS, with some success.
Secondly, the growing rate of infection among women is not simply down to their fragile nature or to bad luck.
It is also the result of violence of all kinds – particularly sexual – against women in various regions of the world, and of the blatant discrimination to which they are subjected.
Such violence has nothing to do with cultural characteristics, which is the erroneous explanation that is sometimes given.
It must be referred to by name and combated as such.
These two aspects show, therefore, that AIDS is as much a social problem as it is a medical problem.
Let us not forget that.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate my colleague Mr Seeber on his maiden speech in this House.
I believe that today’s debate makes it clear once again that our analyses are right, that the figures are dramatic and that there is support for the declarations of intent, but that the measures taken are insufficient, that there has been no about-turn in opinions, and that the situation is losing none of its drama.
I can do no other than underline everything that has been said.
Aids is a disease of our times and a mirror of what has gone wrong in our society.
Where Aids is concerned, we cannot merely tell people to live differently, to avoid doing certain things, and to be more responsible.
It is clear that Aids is closely linked to poverty.
Those affected by Aids are mostly those who live on less than one dollar a day and suffer from hunger.
Aids today is a disease which affects above all the weak, children, young people and women.
Aids is also an expression of a lack of prevention, education, sex education, employment and of inequality in the world.
There is therefore no one solution and no one treatment.
We must continue the prevention measures already taken, and it is therefore important that we regard Aids as forming part of our health and development policy, our education, family and employment policy and the overall view we take of our responsibilities.
I call upon this House to not shirk this global responsibility and to ensure that we are number one in the world in the research against Aids.
   Mr President, today, the European Parliament is observing International AIDS Day.
It is important for us to give those affected our full support and for us to take extremely seriously our share of responsibility for public health.
For the first time since HIV/AIDS was discovered, more women than men are now infected.
In certain areas, young women are up to two and a half times more vulnerable to infection than young men of the same age.
In certain countries, nearly 60% of the people infected are women.
Many women and girls are especially vulnerable to infection because of other people’s – that is to say, men’s – behaviour in terms of risk and because of the discrimination widely practised in the world between men and women when it comes to views of sexuality and sexual rights.
The consequences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic are far greater for women and children than for men and boys.
This year, the UN body, UNAIDS has therefore selected its theme, ‘Women, Girls, HIV and AIDS’.
When relatives become sick or die, it is mainly women and girls who have to take care of their own families.
When the health care systems are over-stretched or when they collapse as a result of HIV/AIDS, it is women and girls who have to compensate for the fact by providing increased care and attention in the home.
Nor are women given the same access as men to health care and to medicines that retard the progress of the disease.
Old, traditional views, such as the view that men have a right to sex, also mean that many married women cannot protect themselves against infection introduced by their husbands after they have been unfaithful.
It is therefore outrageous that, in today’s edition of the newspaper , the Vatican calls AIDS a moral disease of the immune system.
I think that laying the blame on those who are ill is both inhumane and unchristian.
Gender equality, together with sexual and reproductive health and rights, need to be common objectives for every country in the world and, above all, a responsibility for all men.
Women must be strengthened in their negotiating position when it comes to condom use and, without exception, given increased rights and better conditions of life.
We are all losers now, but tests are now beginning in Sweden on a new medicine to combat HIV.
If this works, it will create a sensation throughout the world.
A preventive vaccine is no doubt what we all dream of, so let us hope for a positive result.
   – The next item is the report (A6-0028/2004) by Carlos Coelho, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Commission proposal for a Council regulation on standards for security features and biometrics in EU citizens’ passports.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I am delighted that you are still here at this late hour.
I should firstly like to thank Mr Coelho for his report on the Council’s proposal to include biometric data in identity documents, which from a liberal point of view was on the whole balanced and justifiably critical.
I believe that Mr Coelho, in his report, made reference, without hesitation and with the necessary clarity, to the issues that remain unclear, whether these issues involved the guarantee of data protection or the remaining uncertainties with regard to the technical procedures for storing the data on the identity documents.
Further to Mr Coelho’s comments, I wonder why it has not again been clarified as to which costs will be incurred by the inclusion of biometric data in identity documents, before the Council presses forward and takes a decision?
The question must also be asked as to whether this is financially responsible.
I am, however, seriously annoyed, as the lack of clarity over some of the contents leaves me no option but to ask myself how much attention the Council really pays to such a serious issue.
I am not necessarily talking about technical issues.
In this connection, I have to ask myself – and this is something that was referred to by Mr Cashman – how the Council defines its relationship with Parliament.
After the relevant committee issued its opinion on the proposal, the Council presented us with an amended proposal, with amendments which were clearly more than merely editorial or cosmetic changes.
The original Council proposal provided, as mentioned by Mr Frattini, for the mandatory integration of a biometric feature in EU citizens’ identity documents, with the way in which this was to be implemented being at the Member States’ discretion.
The new proposal we have before us is quite different.
This gives rise to two questions, to which I would ask the Council to respond; why have these amendments been made after the relevant committee had discussed the proposal? The Commissioner’s answer implied that the subsidiarity principle was being circumvented here, as a number of Member States had no interest in implementing the proposal.
The other question – and I know that my time is nearly up, but I have one more question I should like answered – is: what kind of way is this to act? Parliament is being threatened with ...
   Sorry Mr Alvaro, but please put your question to the Commission in writing.
   Mr President, I should like to add to the criticism expressed in this House.
I consider the report a democratic scandal.
I turn firstly to its substance.
What is, of course, at issue is whether it is fair to introduce biometric data, which in this case means fingerprints, into people’s passports.
Yes, says the Council, and the report submissively concurs, of course, irrespective of the fact that these demands are synonymous with a huge extension of the police surveillance that the EU has been developing in recent years.
The scandal consists in the fact that neither the report nor the Council’s decision contains any serious discussion of the relationship between ends and means.
A number of significant encroachments upon people’s rights are to be introduced without the remotest evidence that these encroachments are of any use at all in achieving the objective.
On the contrary, all the competent and expert bodies have been united in stating that there is simply no point in demanding biometric information in passports.
The operation was successful, but the patient died, as we say in Denmark.
In recent days, this scandal has taken on the character of a farce.
The consultation of Parliament, ostensibly based upon Article 67 of the EC Treaty, is clearly inadequate, and a future Council decision would therefore be invalid.
I adhere to the minority opinion, issued by myself and a number of fellow MEPs.
   I now call on the Commissioner to reply to these questions, but I would like to remind him that we are in injury time – there are two more debates on the agenda tonight and it is almost 10 p.m. already.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0033/2004) by Edith Mastenbroek, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a multiannual Community programme on promoting safer use of the Internet and new online technologies.
   I should like to thank the Commissioner and all colleagues for their cooperation in respecting the time limits.
I should also like to take this opportunity to wish Ms Mastenbroek all the best for her forthcoming marriage.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be tomorrow at 11 a.m.
   The next item is the debate on the annual report of the Court of Auditors for 2003.
The first person to speak will be the President of the Court of Auditors, Mr Fabra Vallés, whom we welcome to this House.
   Before giving the floor to the representative of the Commission, on behalf of which Mr Kallas will speak, I would like to thank the President of the Court of Auditors on behalf of the European Parliament for the work he has done over recent years.
We may have the pleasure of seeing him here again, since he may be transferred to other similar duties, but if not, this would be his last appearance and I do not want to miss this opportunity to tell him that it has been a pleasure for this Parliament to work with him and with the institution he presides over, which is of crucial importance to this Parliament when carrying out its control duties.
Thank you very much, Mr Fabra.
Mr Kallas has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
   . In the name of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I would like to express my gratitude that on 15 November we were able to hold our plenary session in parallel with the hearings of the Barroso Commission.
The 2003 Annual Report of the European Court of Auditors was presented at this session.
This is one of the most important functions of the European Parliament, and it marked the beginning of the discharge procedure.
President Fabra Vallés offered a comprehensive evaluation for the fiscal year 2003.
I would like to express our appreciation for the Court of Auditors’ fair, professional and balanced report.
As you know, our committee introduced the reform of the discharge procedure this year.
The complicated, impersonal written queries have been replaced by oral hearings of the commissioners, thus creating open, vibrant and meaningful floors for discussion.
A fruitful dialogue has developed between Parliament, the Commission and the Court of Auditors.
I would like to thank the Commission’s, and especially Mr Sim Kallas’ positive attitude and cooperative approach.
In conclusion, the integration of the European Court of Auditors in the discharge procedure and the emphasis on the role of the rapporteur was overall well-received, as Mr Terence Wynn will talk about later in detail.
   Mr President, the Court of Auditors is a charade: the misappropriation of public funds starts with its paymasters, and that is why it is impossible for the Court to be effective.
The few honest, experienced and professional accountants ever allowed near the heart of the Commission’s treasury function have all spoken out about institutionalised malpractice.
The accounting system is not secure, changes in the financial records are untraceable, and the new system will be little better.
The new regulations which are supposed to strengthen controls actually increase the risk of fraud.
The Court and OLAF focus on problems after public funds leave here, and that takes the heat off the Commission, which is where the real problems lie.
Why else has the treasury not been subject to an independent audit for more than 14 years? It is a scandal!
   Mr President, I, too, should like to praise the work carried out by the Court of Auditors over the past few years and to mention, in particular, that its annual report for 2003 states that the services of the Commission, and in particular OLAF, did not follow up various cases of fraud involving the Community’s agriculture budget.
This is indeed the most worrying aspect of this situation, all the more so given that the most significant case that we debated in this House during the last legislature was that of , which began in October 1999 when OLAF was alerted by the Italian police to fraud, the cost of which to the Community budget was put by the Italian police at EUR 100 million.
It was with the greatest surprise that I heard this newly installed Commission say in November 2004 that there was no firm allegation of any loss to the Community budget.
This is utterly incredible and demonstrates the seriousness of this unresolved problem of large-scale fraud in the large-scale food industry in Europe, as I have said countless times in this House.
It is this problem, more than any minor formal irregularity, to which I should like to draw the attention of this House, of the Commission and, especially, of Mr Kallas, who is attending this debate with us.
   . Mr President, it is clear that the human rights situation in Colombia is far from perfect, and it is also clear that the European Parliament must contribute to the cause of peace and to promoting human rights and the recommendations of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
These recommendations are often addressed not just to the Colombian Government, but also to the armed parties, such as the paramilitaries, the FARC and the ELN; organisations which appear on the European Union’s list of terrorist organisations.
It is in fact the FARC who have been responsible for more than 6 000 kidnaps and more than 300 murders over recent years and also for anti-personnel mines, which regrettably kill an average of two people every day in Colombia, of which 40% are civilians; and of that 40%, half are children.
President Uribe has implemented a democratic security policy which has promoted a whole series of improvements.
Over recent years, there has been a 26% reduction in kidnaps, and the murder rate is the lowest for 18 years, but very many mayors are being threatened.
We must not forget that President Uribe has been one of the few Heads of State to come to this Parliament, to appear in plenary and who, furthermore, has appeared before the committee in order hold a frank dialogue with Members on the human rights situation in his country.
This dialogue has been continued by the Vice-President, who comes every year to speak with non-governmental organisations and to inform them of the progress being made by the Government in this field.
Mr President, I would like to say that only through ignorance and bad faith could we fail to recognise the progress made over recent years as a result of the Colombian Government’s policy.
It is clear that our Parliament must support the cause of human rights, that the Government can and must do more, but it is also clear that the perpetrators of extortion, of murder, of blackmail and those who are producing the victims are the terrorist organisations – the FARC and the ELN – and we must be relentless in our pursuit of these organisations, who are the real perpetrators of wilful violations of human rights in that country.
   Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, how do we stand in terms of promoting peace in Colombia? The previous legislature had criticised what was known as the ‘Colombia Plan’ and had proposed far-reaching social reforms.
The Commission, the Council and Parliament had declared themselves ready to play the role of facilitators in the negotiations, initiated by President Pastrana, between the government and the guerrillas.
The obstacles faced by this declaration were, firstly, the abandonment of this policy by the Colombian authorities and, secondly, the FARC’s scandalous practice of taking hostages, illustrated by the case of Ingrid Betancourt.
The field has therefore been abandoned to the extremists on both sides: on the one hand, the FARC and, on the other hand, President Uribe’s administration which, by proposing to put civilians into uniform and to accord immunity and funding to the paramilitaries, has dangerously jeopardised the constitutional state.
What, then, is to be done? There is only one solution left to us: to support civil society’s efforts to promote peace, as expressed for example through the Civil Society Permanent Assembly for Peace.
Let us remember that this form of coordination had resulted in the collection of ten million signatures for peace.
The Assembly now proposes a broad humanitarian agreement involving, for example, exchanges of prisoners but, above all, respect by the two sides for international humanitarian law.
From this point of view, I approve the statement by Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner.
We call upon the Colombian Government to respect the constitutional state and humanitarian law.
We expect the guerrillas to release the hostages as a sign of their desire to return to the negotiating table.
We shall fund the peace laboratories and the support for civil society in Colombia.
The best way in which Europe can help promote peace in Colombia is to support initiatives of this type and the local authorities in Colombia that follow these up.
      Mr President, I should like to comment briefly on two aspects, one relating to stylistic matters and the other to legal matters, and both concerning the first two lines of paragraph 11.
I should like to read out these first two lines in the original English version, and then explain which changes I am proposing.
The lines read as follows: ‘Calls on the Commission, the Council and the Member States in the event of the satisfactory outcome of the present situation to speed up the ratification of the Action Plan for Ukraine’.
I propose that the word ‘event’ in the first line be replaced by the word ‘anticipation’, and that the word ‘ratification’ in the second line be replaced by the word ‘adoption’.
After these amendments, the two lines would read as follows:
   Mr President, there is some confusion here.
It is actually the group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe that tabled this oral amendment in accordance with Rule 4.
I shall read it out in English.
‘Whereas announcements were made on 29 November by President Leonid Kuchma that he would support a new election,’
(1)
(2)
   .
I voted in favour of the report by Mr Mulderbecause I feel that Structural Funds payments to Member States must be made as promptly as possible.
Given the reality of budgetary execution, the need for the amendment before us is clear and therefore justified.
   .
I voted in favour of the report by Mr Gauzès (A6-0039/2004) on taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments (San Marino).
The agreement that has been concluded will enable the adoption of measures equivalent to those to be applied by the EU to tax effectively savings income in the form of payments made in one State and intended for recipients residing in another State.
This instrument should permit effective taxation, which is necessary to combat damaging tax competition and help improve the functioning of the single market.
We appreciate the efforts made by the Republic of San Marino to establish fiscal transparency and genuine judicial cooperation, which enable fraud and money laundering to be combated.
It should be pointed out, nonetheless, that the Republic of San Marino, which has chosen to base part of its prosperity on the development of financial services, must continue to respect the rules of the game and increase its cooperation in the fight against money laundering.
   Mr President, I welcome the proposals in the Mastenbroek report.
As cross-border traffic and abuse of content on the Internet grows, Europe needs to step up its efforts to protect children from harmful and offensive content.
It needs to act on the explosion of Internet paedophilia websites.
However, more needs to be done by Europe not only as regards reporting and closing down sites but also in assisting law enforcement agencies to track and prosecute offenders and to identify the victims.
I want to see the EU continuing its support for projects on identification of victims of Internet child abuse.
Children who are the subject of abusing images carry their feelings of pain, guilt and suffering for the rest of their lives.
Their images are on the net being traded by paedophiles on a daily basis.
Out of a suspected 60 000 individuals portrayed in current abuse images, only 250 identifications have been recorded.
New technologies, such as photo-messaging and digital cameras, make it easier for child abuse images to be produced and shared on the Internet.
Let us hope that today’s report opens up new channels for action at EU level so that we can tackle and close down the criminal and offensive material and prevent the abuse of children.
   Following the ‘Safer Internet Action Plan (1998-2004)’,here we are, faced with a new programme: ‘Safer Internet Plus’.
The difference consists of a few more restrictions upon freedom of expression and slightly more targeting of what is called racist content.
Not only illegal content, but also ‘unwanted’ and ‘harmful’ content are prohibited.
Filtering software, codes of conduct, self-regulation, the denunciation of others ...
Long live censorship! We reject a document along these lines, for we are committed to freedom of expression and condemn documents that crush freedom.
The law of Jean-Claude Gayssot, a Communist, is the prime example of such a document.
Moreover, we would point out that the basis of the Internet is electronic mail and, contrary to certain totalitarians, we are committed to freedom of correspondence, even electronic correspondence.
What must be condemned are barbaric, paedophile or violent forms of behaviour and their perpetrators and not the media they make use of.
It is society, with its increasingly decayed morals, trivialising all sorts of deviant behaviour, that must be changed.
It is our governments’ complacency regarding all these wayward tendencies that must be combated, rather than freedom of thought and the freedom to express oneself via the Internet or from other platforms.
These freedoms are now flouted in France, and this in accordance with the dogma of political correctness.
   Mr President, I should merely like to provide a short explanation with regard to the vote on the Coelho report, namely that in the final vote I wanted to vote against, but voted in favour.
This does not alter the result in any way.
Thank you.
   .
I voted in favour of the report by Mr Coelho (A6-0028/2004) on EU citizens’ passports.
The present proposal aims to render passports more secure by introducing legally binding harmonised security features for EU citizens' passports and by introducing biometric identifiers into the passport.
The introduction of biometric identifiers will make it substantially more difficult to forge passports, because they will ensure that a person presenting a passport is in fact the one to whom it was originally issued.
The use of biometrics is a tricky question from the point of view of data protection.
Necessary safeguards must be put in place, in order to ensure full compliance with the data protection directive.
Personal data must, indeed, be appropriate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the aims for which it is gathered and for which it is subsequently to be used.
Nevertheless, we feel that the report strikes the right balance between the security that must be guaranteed and the freedom that we must all enjoy.
- Financial perspectives (B6-0189/2004)
   The June List has chosen to vote against the resolution because we do not under any circumstances wish to work in the service of ‘Parliament’s priorities’.
All the debates, especially the negotiations prior to the 2005 budget, have clearly shown that a prevailing parliamentary majority would like to see a considerable increase in EU expenditure and, thus, also considerably increased membership fees for Sweden.
Instead, we support the Swedish Government and the other five countries that, in a joint statement, have made it clear that the EU budget, when it comes both to payments and commitments, should not exceed one per cent of the EU’s joint gross domestic income.
Parliament should also be free to review all expenditure, including agricultural subsidies, so as to be able to prioritise support for the ten new Member States.
The June List believes that a strict expenditure framework and a flexibility instrument within the framework of a one per cent budget would release a lot of creativity and provide a stimulus for new savings.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 2 December 2004.
With regard to Wednesday’s agenda, in relation to the report by Mr Moscovici on Romania’s progress towards accession (A6-0061/2004), the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has presented a request that we postpone this report until a future sitting.
   . If I might put it quite briefly, Mrs Frassoni, we are not, this week, voting on Romania’s accession, but on the report, which has a number of favourable things to say, and a number of negative ones too.
We believe that we have to show Romania – right now, at a time when things are at a critical point – the way it has to go in the coming weeks, months, and perhaps years if it is to be able to accede.
That is why we are in favour of the debate and, ultimately, the vote on Romania happening this week.
So, speaking on behalf of my group, I want to express opposition to this contribution being deferred.
Also in relation to the Wednesday sitting, there is a proposed change to the agenda.
The Socialist Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe have both presented requests that we postpone the report by Mr Coelho on the establishment of uniform models for visas and residents’ permits for third-country nationals (A6-0029/2004) until a future part-session.
   . Mr President, I was actually waiting for Mr Watson, but now I will do it myself.
I think a mistake has been made here, as the Coelho report that is on the agenda is not meant to be there yet; what should be there is the report dealing with the combating of cross-border vehicle crime.
I therefore ask that the report currently on the agenda be deferred and replaced on the agenda by Mr Coelho’s report on tackling vehicle crime with cross-border implications.
Also for the Wednesday sitting, there is a proposed change to the agenda.
The Socialist Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance have both presented requests that we include in the vote at midday the report by Mr Coelho, on the initiative of the Kingdom of the Netherlands for adoption of a Council Decision on tackling vehicle crime with cross-border implications, approved in accordance with Rule 43(1) of the Rules of Procedure (A6-0052/2004).
   . Mr President, I did actually think – and framed my request accordingly – that the Coelho report on vehicle crime with cross-border implications was to be dealt with rather than the report listed.
That was what I requested, and, as I understand it, Mr Coelho has no objection in principle to this report being discussed.
   – Mr President, I too am in full agreement on this point.
If you decide to send a letter to the Cambodian authorities, however, I should like to ask you to underline this episode in particular but also to refer to the overall situation.
As we all know, the Cambodian monarch has abdicated in protest at the general political situation and members of the Sam Rainsy party and the opposition have been threatened with death and with being expelled from Parliament.
I therefore fully agree with your initiative to send a letter, in which I ask you to express our extreme concern not just about this incident but about the overall state of legality and human rights.
   I am very happy to communicate that and other concerns, but I cannot write a letter analysing the specific political situation of a country and go into all the details which would be impossible to analyse without a debate and vote in Parliament.
There is a very specific issue which could be included in a letter, expressing an concern about that issue, but I do not believe I should go as far as to analyse the overall political situation in Cambodia without a prior debate and resolution by Parliament.
If there are no objections, therefore, my letter will be restricted to expressing concern about the issue raised by Mrs Napoletano, and I would invite you to debate the political situation in Cambodia in accordance with the appropriate parliamentary procedures, if you so wish.
I trust that you understand this, Mr Pannella.
   – Mr President, a month has now passed since I drew Parliament’s attention to the fact that on 16 September we adopted a resolution stating that a fact-finding mission would be sent to Vojvodina to report on acts of violence against national minorities.
Why does it take four and a half months to send a fact-finding mission? In the meantime the acts of violence continue.
It shows incompetence and a lack of credibility on our part to wait four and a half months to investigate acts of violence against national minorities and to let four months go by without implementing the resolution that we adopted.
It is the credibility of the European Parliament that is at stake.
We need a general re-examination of the procedure by which Parliament monitors violations of human rights.
   Mr President, many of us have protested against the opening of a new gold mine in Rosia Montana, Romania.
The mining project would destroy the landscape, polluting the rivers and waters of the whole region with cyanide, from Romania through Hungary to the Black Sea.
The Romanian Government has the responsibility of stopping this awful project; however, the Canadian owners of the mining company should be mentioned as well.
I cannot believe that a European company would be allowed to demolish a whole city in Canada, with its houses, churches and cemeteries.
I ask the Canadian Government and the public to show the same respect to us Europeans.
Environmental pollution should not be exported.
Sharing the same planet means a common responsibility for us Europeans and for Canadians.
   Mr President, I would like to bring to Parliament's attention – not for the first time, perhaps – the discrimination against many university students from the 10 new accession states who are studying in the 15 old Member States.
An example – and I have received complaints from these students – is that 19 medical students currently studying at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin, Ireland, have been asked to continue to pay non-EU resident fees – many thousands of pounds every year – although Cyprus became a Member State of the European Union on 1 May.
This is very unfair, Mr President, and I ask you to intervene so that there is no unfair discrimination between university students from the 25 current Member States of the European Union.
   Mr President, I would like to remind you and the whole of Parliament that in just three months’ time it will have been one year since the worst terrorist attack in Europe of recent decades.
I am referring to the attack in Madrid on 11 March 2004.
The work of the Committee of Enquiry on 11-M is coming to an end.
It has done a fantastic job and some of its conclusions are clear: it reliably and unequivocally confirms that Islamic radicalism was solely and exclusively responsible for that attack; the President, Mr Rodríguez Zapatero, has today proposed an international pact against radical Islamic terrorism, and to this end it is essential that there be a dialogue between Europe and the moderate Islamic world; it also indicates the importance of preventing international terrorism, and that the Government of Mr Aznar was seriously at fault, both in terms of lack of preparedness and by manipulating public opinion between 11 and 14 March 2004, for purely party-political reasons.
   Mr President, between 25 September and 19 October 1915, 61 000 British troops were killed, captured or wounded at the Battle of Loos.
At least 8 000 died, their bodies lost in the blood-soaked quagmire of the battlefield, a field which became a mass grave.
That field is in Auchy-les-Mines in northern France.
A few weeks ago that field was dug up by bulldozers to create a municipal rubbish dump.
Since the bulldozers moved in it has become impossible to move around the field without treading on fragments of human bones and remains, shreds of military uniform and military equipment.
The bodies of these thousands of brave men are being reburied underneath household and building waste.
I call on you, Mr President, to write to the authorities in Auchy-les-Mines to express our strongest condemnation of the desecration of the graves of these soldiers – men who gave their lives selflessly to preserve our freedom and democracy in this continent.
It is disgraceful that their resting place has been treated in this way.
   Mr President, I had hoped in this speech to welcome a political breakthrough in Northern Ireland and to hail an irreversible abandonment by the IRA of its dirty war and its means of war.
Sadly, however, as so often in the past, while Sinn Fein IRA has talked the talk, it has failed to walk the walk.
Today, although mouthing commitment to democracy, it clings to the weapons of terror.
Thus it continues to exclude itself from democratic government in Northern Ireland.
It prefers the click of the rifle to the click of the camera.
Camera shy, but terror proud.
Make no mistake, it is Sinn Fein IRA alone that has once again let the people of Northern Ireland down.
Democrats choose the camera shot, Sinn Fein chooses the rifle shot.
The challenge now is to let democrats move on without them.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 13 December is a sad day, as it is the anniversary of the imposition of martial law in Poland, a measure that was intended to halt the widespread move towards democracy.
I wanted to take this opportunity to say that this House has already heard on several occasions that Mr Kovács is becoming the hero of Europe’s transformation.
Such statements have been made in particular by Mr Schulz.
I enjoy listening to Mr Schulz’s speeches, but only for his use of German, not for their actual content.
I should therefore like to repeat that it was not Mr Kovács who was the hero, but the Polish workers in Lublin, in Świdnik, and then in Gdansk in 1981.
I would be extremely grateful if the authentic historical facts were respected.
   Mr President, the presidential election in Ukraine has been, as regards democratic politics, rich in scandals, and now another one has come to light.
It became a matter of certainty on Saturday that Mr Yushchenko, a candidate for the presidency, had been poisoned.
After examining him many times over, doctors established beyond doubt that he had been poisoned with dioxin, and the rumour persists that the dioxin with which he was poisoned was administered orally, quite possibly during a meal with the secret services.
I therefore call on all European institutions and delegations to make an issue of this use of dioxin as a weapon, to take consequent action in Ukraine, and to press for the matter to be investigated without delay, without regard to the possible high rank of the persons involved.
   – Mr President, I visited Tunisia on 10 December on the invitation of two associations, the Tunisian Human Rights League and the National Council for Liberties in Tunisia, to join in their celebrations of the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I regret to inform you that Mr Ben Ali’s security staff prevented the National Council for Liberties in Tunisia from holding its annual general meeting, in the process not hesitating to hit, beat up, and throw to the ground several militants from this association.
In the light of this, I believe that it is important to convey to the Council and the Commission that it is absolutely essential to implement the guidelines for the protection of defenders of human rights, because quite obviously Mr Ben Ali continues to hold all of those who represent civil society in Tunisia in total contempt.
   – Mr President, an important hearing was to be held around this time in a case that relates to events dating back to 1944, concerning the situation of Italian military and also civilian detainees.
The Federal Republic of Germany, instead of at last taking a positive approach to this legitimate request for moral rather than material reparation, is adopting legal delaying tactics and even taking the Italian Republic to court.
I am asking for intervention in this situation to bring this page in history to a close, as it is still an open wound left over from the Second World War.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Eurlings on Turkey’s progress towards accession (A6-0063/2004).
Mr Eurlings has the floor.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am able to start my speech by saying something positive: Mr Eurlings’ report is in every respect more nuanced than Mr Poettering’s speech.
Let me say on behalf of those of my colleagues who have worked with him in the Committee on Foreign Affairs that the rapporteur has taken a great deal of trouble to achieve a broad consensus, and in that he has succeeded.
I see the outcome of the vote in the Committee on Foreign Affairs as having showed that the line he took in this report – with the addition of elements contributed by our group – has resulted in a broad consensus which can also serve as the basis for a similarly broad consensus here in the plenary, and in that there are three significant points on which our group vigorously dissociates itself from what Mr Poettering has said today.
Firstly, why is it so simple for Mr Poettering to float his theory that the EU would undergo a change in its nature if Turkey were to join it? If Turkey were to join the EU as it is, it would have to make itself subject to the EU’s as a whole.
If Turkey joins the EU, then, because we all want the Constitution, it would have to make it the basis of its internal policies as soon as it has been ratified.
The European Charter of Fundamental Rights will then become constitutional law and binding in a Member State, namely Turkey.
It will then be demonstrated that the values defined in that Charter, which are the fundamental values of our Union, can be accepted by a country of whose population 99% or 98% are Muslims.
If we succeed in integrating Turkey into the European Union, then it will effectively demolish the Islamic fundamentalists’ theory that Western – that is, our – values and Islam are mutually exclusive, for it would then provide the proof that the fundamental values for which we contend are fundamental values for all people, whether they be Jews, Muslims, Christians or unbelievers.
It is this advance, Mr Poettering, pure and simple, that compels us to commence these negotiations.
There is a second point that we should not underestimate, that being the reforms that Turkey has pushed through in recent years, which were set in motion by Erdoğan, and which are – let me say so plainly – markedly more progressive than all the trifling reforms tackled by previous governments, whether conservative or social democrat.
Nine years ago – it was 15 December 1995 – I was one of the three rapporteurs on customs union with Turkey, at a time when Mrs Çiller was that country’s prime minister, about which I will say no more at this point.
At that time, she said to us, ‘For heaven’s sake, let us have this customs union, or you will be driving us into the arms of the Islamists.’
Nine months later, she formed a coalition with – as we know – Mr Erbakan.
That is in the past; the credibility gap has been forgotten.
Erdoğan has indeed set in motion more reforms than his predecessors in government.
The only thing is that they are not enough, but all those people we have been talking to in Turkey, as Mr Eurlings can confirm – all those campaigners for human rights, for women’s rights, all the democratic organisations, all the pro-democracy associations, both the employers’ organisations and the trade unions – all have been telling us that the prospect of accession to the European Union has changed their country, that the prospect of accession to this Union will make their country a normal parliamentary democracy.
All this will not be accomplished as soon as tomorrow morning.
If it happens, accession will come at some point at the end of the next decade, but the opportunity, the prospect, of seeing this great country become a normal Western democracy is a peace dividend that we must not cast aside.
Let me ask you, Mr Poettering, what will happen if you reject the Turks? What will happen if the reform process is cut short?
Is this a risk you can take?
That is the question I put to you.
Tell us what would happen in a privileged partnership if the reform process were to be halted in its tracks? That is what we need to hear from you, but you have nothing to say on the subject!
This is what we have to say, and it is our third argument: if we succeed in making Turkey democratic and stable, if Western values succeed in putting down roots in its society, if we give the Turks the chance to become what they want to be, in other words, people in Europe, accepting European values for themselves, then we will be creating a European Union that will be making a reality of its peace process, its potential for peace and for the stabilisation of democracy in a region that more than ever needs democracy, human rights, social security and peace.
It is these very things that we in the European Union should be exporting to Turkey – if all goes well!
That it will is not a given.
Nobody can say at the outset of this process whether it will really be successful, but it would be negligent not to try, and so, Mr Eurlings, we, as a group, will be voting in favour of your report.
      Ladies and gentlemen, the question has been phrased incorrectly.
It is not a matter of whether Turkey does or does not already meet the EU’s requirements.
It is a matter of whether we want a Muslim Turkey in a Europe that was built on Christian values.
There has been talk in this House of the progress made by Turkey.
As a psychologist, I believe the fate of every single person is important, but I know that not everything that is important for people can be measured.
The emotions and feelings of Europe’s citizens are also important, and most of the latter are opposed to Turkey joining the EU.
I have been observing Muslims in Brussels for 20 years, and I would not want such a large country to have any influence on the fate of my country, Poland, within the framework of the European Union.
In 50 years our worlds may be ready to meet, but no earlier.
We should provide assistance to Muslims in their own countries, and help bring about the rapid creation of a state of Palestine, as that nation has suffered greatly at the hands of Israel.
This is something I am in favour of, and something that urgently needs to be implemented.
We have no commitments towards Turkey.
We should not act in a hypocritical manner, and we should not be afraid to say ‘no’ to Turkey...
   – The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0056/2004), by Mrs Novak, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a single Community framework for the transparency of qualifications and competences, the Europass system.
I shall straightaway give the floor to our rapporteur, Mrs Novak.
   . Mr President, Commissioner Figel, ladies and gentlemen.
The intention behind the introduction of Europass is the formation of a single framework of European Union documents to achieve greater transparency of qualifications and competences of citizens.
It would also be a contribution to the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy and at the same time it would help to improve the quality of education in Europe.
The Europass documents are: the Europass curriculum vitae, the Europass mobility pass, which records periods of education abroad, the Europass diploma supplement, which contains information about the holder's achievements at a university level, the Europass language pass, which shows language knowledge, and the Europass certificate supplement, which shows the qualifications and competence defined by a vocational training certificate.
Citizens are free to use individual Europass documents or the entire dossier of documents.
In future years it will be possible to add new documents, particularly in the field of information technology.
The European Parliament gave its opinion on the legislative proposal at first reading under the codecision procedure on 21 April 2004 and 14 amendments were tabled, almost all of which were taken up.
The European Council reached a political agreement on the draft at its meeting on 27 and 28 May.
After the draft document had been discussed in the Committee on Culture and Education it was unanimously decided (with one abstention) to accept Europass with immediate effect at the plenary session of the European Parliament.
As the rapporteur, I support the Europass proposal and I am in favour of its rapid entry into force. Assuring that the advantages and benefits of the use of this document is in the interests of the citizens of the European Union, as well as the Commission and the Netherlands Presidency.
The proposed date of entry into force is 1 January 2005.
The early introduction of the proposed Europass will also enable the early establishment of all the procedures for its realisation.
According to the proposal, each Member State is responsible for implementation at a national level.
To that end each Member State will establish a national Europass Centre, responsible for coordinating activities in this area.
A European network of national Europass Centres will also be established.
Their activities will be coordinated by the Commission.
It will be the task of national Europass Centres to coordinate, in cooperation with the appropriate state bodies, activities related to the availability and issue of Europass documents, to establish and manage a national information system, to encourage the use of Europass, to ensure, in cooperation with the appropriate state bodies, that relevant guidelines and information about Europass are available to every citizen, to provide information about possibilities for study in Europe and about the structure of educational and training systems, to manage all activities connected to this at a national level with the financial support of the Community, and to participate in the European network of National Centres.
The National Centre functions as an executive body at the national level.
The Commission and the Member States will ensure that both at Community level and at a national level appropriate actions are taken to introduce Europass and to keep citizens, education and training providers, social partners and enterprises informed about it.
The Commission will also report regularly to Parliament and the Council as to the implementation of such actions.
The first report and evaluation will be three years after the document comes into effect.
The report period thereafter will be every four years.
Given that education is the basis of the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, Europass documents will greatly improve the mobility of European citizens in the field of education and employment and will allow closer cooperation between the peoples of Europe.
   Mr President, Commissioner, with the Europass we have created a supplementary instrument that can help us in the pursuit of many aims, including the implementation of the Lisbon strategy, which we have been discussing extensively.
We know that this aim has slipped down the list of priorities and that we should present it in a far more progressive manner than is currently the case.
As for this Europass, although it is a ‘soft’ form of evidence of qualifications and competence with no binding force, it is still very important and helps young and mobile people on training courses who spend training periods abroad to obtain a transparent and comprehensible summarised record of their achievements, qualifications and acquired skills with more or less full comparability throughout the EU.
This, at last, is a sign of the transparency we are always invoking.
At the same time, the Europass is intended to give future employers within the European Union an overview of a young person’s experience and qualifications.
The extended collection of documents, which, as you know, comprises a curriculum vitae, a mobility pass and other papers, is a standardised supplementary instrument.
This new framework, which guarantees that new documents in the field of information technology, for example, can be incorporated into the Europass portfolio in future, is very important, because education is always full of innovations, and the Europass will have to accommodate them.
I am very grateful for this flexibility.
I should also like to refer to the value of periods spent in other countries, and I believe that the documents should not only record dates and technical details but should also include explicit and retraceable references to intercultural learning experiences and social integration.
The EU stands for openness and mobility.
It encourages and demands mobility.
For this reason, I proposed that people be issued with an introductory guide to mobility.
This proposal, unfortunately, has been watered down by the addition of the phrase ‘where appropriate’.
May I ask that issuing such a guide be deemed appropriate in very many cases, because that, to me, would be a real sign of government being taken to the people. Moreover, I believe that the national Europass agencies should be integrated into existing agencies and that these should be developed with a view to pooling the experience, activities and networks of existing institutions.
We should also launch an information campaign.
The first of January will soon be here, and there is still a widespread lack of awareness.
There is therefore an urgent need to mobilise in the cause of mobility.
   .
Thank you very much, Mr President.
I would like to respond to several points.
Of course I should begin by expressing my thanks for the support given to the concept and to the process itself.
EUROPASS is a good initiative and I am convinced that it will bear fruit.
Our actual approach has a deadline of next year but as early as tomorrow morning I am travelling to Maastricht, which is hosting a large conference of ministers of education and vocational training.
This will be followed by a conference with our economic and social partners, the aim of which is to promote still further the Copenhagen process, which is a constituent part of the Lisbon Strategy.
In January, under the Luxembourg Presidency, we want to launch a campaign to apply EUROPASS in the individual Member States.
The current network of so-called experts and consultants for EUROPASS correspondents will be changed to a network of national centres for EUROPASS.
Our agencies in the various countries will be required to prepare for the transition to national EUROPASS centres.
I believe that the resources which the Commission has earmarked for the years 2005 and 2006, although modest, have been directed precisely towards support for the concept of EUROPASS.
The sum of EUR 2 million per annum will not only help us to visualise this possibility but will increase its effect in that it will start to be used as a credible document for the transparency of qualifications within the European Union.
As Mr Beazley said, the single market does indeed demand much greater opportunities for the movement of labour and also for the movement of students, those people who are in the process of gaining qualifications.
I am sure that this further step taken towards the recognition of qualifications other than the regulated ones should not take as long as some of the processes did in the past in building up compatibility in the single market area.
I would also like to add to what Mrs Prets said, namely that support for intercultural dialogue will increase and that anyone who can find their feet in a broader cultural environment and who masters the language and culture of a particular country will have the same comparative advantage.
The enlarged European Union needs all of this to become a reality.
I think I have said enough.
I would like to thank you once more for allowing me the opportunity to participate in this discussion and I would like to wish you and all of us every success.
Thank you very much, .
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to comment briefly on several points in the order in which they were mentioned by Mr Barroso.
I will start with economic issues.
The Lisbon strategy is a splendid idea, but it has to be remembered that if Europe is to compete with the rest of the world, its economy must be soundly based on freedom.
Much has been said in this House about the need for a knowledge-based economy and for an economy based on social values, and rightly so.
Nonetheless, unless Europe’s economy is based on freedom, it will be unable to compete successfully with the rest of the world.
Mr Poettering seemed to be of the same mind, and I endorse the views he expressed.
Mr Farage took the words out of my mouth, and there was sound common sense in what he said too.
We must say yes to economic freedom, and it must have priority over everything else.
You referred to the environment, Mr Barroso.
It certainly is crucially important to protect the environment.
We must say yes to environmental protection, but no to ideological .
It is not acceptable to be hemmed in by screens when driving through some beautiful German countryside, yet this is what happens to me twice a week.
The screens have not been installed for the benefit of human inhabitants, but to prevent any possible disturbance to animals.
As a result, I am prevented from admiring the landscape, and that is not acceptable.
The wind generators one cannot fail to notice when travelling through the beautiful countryside in the Black Forest area are a similar case.
These useless loss-making monsters are actually subsidised by the German Government and the European Union.
Quite simply, they are detrimental to the environment.
It is important to bear in mind the visual aspect of the environment and not to equate environmental issues with the defence of all conceivable animal rights.
As regards social issues, it must be remembered that there is more to them than democracy and tolerance.
Moral values also have an important role to play.
I am bound to say, Mr Barroso, that you gave in to pressure from the Left when you undertook your reshuffle to come up with a new Commission-designate.
Your actions do not bode well for the future of moral values in Europe.
Turning to foreign policy, its scope has to be broader than Turkey and North Africa, Mr Barroso.
I am well aware that citizens of the old Union holiday in those countries.
I also realise that citizens of the old Union meet people from those countries as they go about their daily lives back in Europe.
It must be understood, however, that foreign policy also involves what lies beyond the Union’s eastern border.
Until recently, that was deemed to be the single huge area of Russia.
That is not the case.
There are countries other than Russia across that border, and I have in mind Ukraine in particular.
Ukraine is a free nation and wishes to remain one.
You spoke of showing solidarity with Africa, Mr Barroso.
Subsidies are not the best way of doing so, as they are mere drops in the ocean.
The best way of demonstrating solidarity is by withdrawing subsidies from European agriculture.
African countries would then be able to compete and build a better future for themselves.
Mr Barroso, it is essential to be guided by moral principles and common sense if weare to come up with something more than empty phrases.
I trust you will bear this in mind.
   Mr President, Mr Barroso, a moment ago, the President of our party, Mr Schulz, presented the vision and a list of practical proposals, and I should like today, as President of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament during your Presidency, to propose ten practical points to you.
Firstly, and as you yourself said, Europe needs the Lisbon strategy to become a reality.
It must be practical, and it must be focused.
We propose to you a five-year programme in which Europe’s development of the Lisbon strategy is placed within a time frame as specific as the one devised when we duly created the internal market in 1992.
Secondly, we need a new European multiannual growth strategy with stronger coordination of the national governments’ public investment programmes.
By doing things simultaneously, we achieve a far greater impact.
Thirdly, we need a Commission proposal that can strengthen companies’ social responsibility, especially in the light of outsourcing and the major problems involved in European conversion.
Fourthly, we need to strengthen gender equality in the work place.
Fifthly, we need to double the sustainable energy objectives for 2020 from 6 % to 12%.
If we act single-mindedly, we can actually do this.
Sixthly, we need the Commission’s programme genuinely to give higher priority to research, development and training within the financial estimates.
Seventhly, we need a European Agency for Fundamental Rights.
Eighthly, we need a charter for services of general interest that can establish the principles governing citizens’ rights in the modern welfare state.
Ninthly, Mr Barroso, we need a list of common principles governing ‘best practice’ when it comes to the exchange of information about the integration of immigrants into our society.
Tenthly, and finally, we need, as you yourself said, to show more solidarity.
We need the Commission to present an ambitious plan to the European Council by June 2005 to increase EU aid to developing countries, a plan to ensure that, in 2009, we make an overall contribution of 0.5% of GDP and that we establish a ‘road map’ to achieve 0.7% in 2015.
Mr Barroso, I have very quickly mentioned a number of the important points I believe are fundamental to the success of the Commission’s work.
We need good speakers, but we also need practical action.
When I listen to your contribution in this House today, I see that such ambition is present.
We shall assess your work on the basis of the practical action taken.
I look forward to sensible cooperation in people’s best interests.
   Thank you, Mr President.
Mr President of the Commission, you have a very important role and ultimately, as this discussion shows, it is difficult to build but easy to criticise.
I assure you that the debate following the introduction of your programme will be far more dramatic than todays, when it is our task to present to you our aims and our dreams.
First and foremost, I would urge you to address the future in your programmes, by which I mean concern for the next generation, for young people and education.
I would also urge you to give priority to the past and show concern for the generation which is ageing, concern for older people.
The first experimental and very clear aim will be the Constitutional Agreement mentioned by my colleague, Mrs Bobošíková.
I am convinced that you will be able to assure the European Community that this is a modern document which simplifies all the previous historically outmoded rules of the game.
For the first time, you are President of the Commission of the enlarged Community.
I would ask you to make use of the potential offered by the ten new Member States in the shape of their Commissioners so that you too can tear down that virtual frontier that exists between the old and the new Europe.
A momentous period lies ahead of you; the fulfilment of your aims, the fulfilment of the trust we placed in you when we voted for you, but, of course, this also applies to us as our assistance will be required in all of this.
I cannot speak for all the Members, but I can say that those of us who are here for Slovakia and for my political party are always ready to engage in constructive discussion and to participate in your programme.
I will vote for it and I assure you that I will monitor the area of healthcare very closely and carefully.
The free movement of people is nothing more than an empty phrase if it is not accompanied by matching health cover provision.
I will keep my fingers crossed for you, Mr President, and I believe that in January you will succeed in putting together a programme that is in line with our goals.
Thank you.
   Mr Barroso, it has fallen to you to lead a changed Union.
The changes have come about because of the accession of ten new Member States and because of the new eastern border.
This House believes you have every intention of fulfilling the incoming Commission’s historic mission.
Nonetheless, if the Commission’s actions are characterised by inertia, and if its strategic political approach fails to take these two new parameters into account, the mission will not be accomplished, Mr President of the Commission.
This mission consists of bringing together a Europe torn asunder at Yalta.
It involves creating a new eastern dimension for the European Union.
The first objective has to be the reunification of Europe, and ensuring that theoretical enlargement is consolidated through greater cohesion and economic solidarity should be one of the main and ongoing objectives of the Barroso Commission.
It must be an objective in its own right, and not secondary to the Lisbon strategy and subsumed within it.
In addition, good governance of the new Union calls for cohesion to be achieved by levelling out differences in economic development.
According to your statement to the House, Mr Barroso, one cannot have more Europe for less money.
You must therefore stand firm against the selfish attitudes of net contributors and of those Member States no longer eligible for cohesion funding following their economic success.
The new Constitution requires greater political solidarity, and it is impossible to ensure credible consolidation of the Union on the basis of this new Constitution whilst simultaneously refusing or indeed reducing economic solidarity.
Such a policy would be inconsistent and therefore ineffective.
I appeal to you, Mr Barroso, to defend the original budget proposal put forward by the Commission.
I urge you to hold an in-depth discussion with Commissioner Grybauskaitė.
As we understand it, in Parliament she adopted a position contrary to yours.
The second objective must be the new eastern dimension.
The Union is a community of values, and we ought to be delighted that these values are spreading beyond our borders.
We should be exporting democracy and human rights.
On the one hand, the Commission’s eastern policy should be firmer, more demanding and speedier, and on the other, it should be more open and generous to fledgling democracies.
It needs to be a diverse policy, and one that imposes conditions.
It should encourage democratic choice, as in Ukraine.
Ukraine needs action, not merely words.
Its European aspirations should be welcomed, and it should be offered something more than the old action plan prepared before the great democratic transformation.
It should be offered an Association Agreement.
The new eastern policy calls for new instruments.
The Union is in danger of allowing itself to be led by old objectives.
New challenges call for new approaches.
We trust you will foster the latter, Mr Barroso.
   Mr President, pursuant to Rule 166 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, I should like to enquire on what legal basis the miniature national flags were removed from the seats occupied by Polish Members from the League of Polish Families? Is there any legal basis for removing someone else’s property, and on whose orders were the flags removed?
We insist they be returned immediately.
As far as we are concerned, they are holy. In addition, I fail to see how they could be detrimental to the European Parliament.
   .
Mr President, in accordance with the Rules, I had asked to make a comment about this report, and I am sorry I was not called before the vote.
I rise not because this is a controversial report for this Parliament – on the contrary, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs adopted it overwhelmingly; and I am glad that Parliament has done so too, because it is about fairness and ensuring equality of opportunity between all 25 Member States.
All this report does is to permit the 10 new Member States to take advantage of an experimental scheme for applying reduced rates of VAT to labour-intensive services, which 9 of the previous 15 had been doing since 1999.
The scheme was unexpectedly carried forward and therefore was not included in the enlargement negotiations.
I am very pleased that this vote has carried today.
However, this a controversial matter in the Council.
Indeed, unanimity is required even for this report to be implemented by the Council.
I regret to say that my own Member State, the UK, is one of those which has 'reservations' about this; and some members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs feared that perhaps the UK or others might torpedo this report.
But, more than that, this Parliament has, since the start of the experiment, wholeheartedly supported the principle.
I hope that this vote today will encourage the Council to ensure fairness across all 25 Member States for the remaining time of the current experiment; and I also say, with the full support of the chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Mrs Berès, that we should be pressing the Council to make this a permanent feature of our hopes of achieving the Lisbon Strategy.
I hope Parliament will support that.
   .– The full, harmonious integration of the ten new Member States requires the adaptation of all protocols previously confined to the 15 Member States, and it also requires that this adaptation should take place as soon as possible.
   .– The full, harmonious integration of the ten new Member States requires the adaptation of all protocols previously confined to the 15 Member States, and it also requires that this adaptation should take place as soon as possible.
   .– I recognise that the Member States that joined the Community on 1 May 2004 deserve at least the same treatment from its institutions as that granted to the older Member States.
I therefore voted for the proposed amendment, since it aims at preventing a situation of inequality from arising as regards the limit of the financial contributions to be made under Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999, in that it is preferable to apply the third indent of the second subparagraph of Article 47(2) to the new Member States.
   .– I voted for the report because I believe it is essential that our legal instruments should be amended following the Council decision of June 2004, so that the process may take its course and achieve all its objectives, which will only be possible – and truly effective – with the amendments suggested here by the Council.
   .
I welcome this report fulfilling the European Parliament's requirement to verify the credentials of its Members, (under the terms of Article 12 of the Act concerning the election of the representatives of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage, as amended by the Council decision of 25 June/22 September 2002) working on an EU and Member State level.
This report highlights the need to update the current provisions of the Rules of Procedure, making them more compatible with the new provisions of the 1976 Act.
In particular, this report emphasises the need to combat certain loopholes arising in the transition from one parliament to the next.
For example, dual parliamentary mandate issues.
   We believe that the European Convention should be granted discharge for 2003, because there are no reasons for bringing the economic report into question.
We nonetheless oppose the Convention’s lack of representativeness and undemocratic working methods.
Among the Convention’s just over one hundred members, women, young people and critics of the EU were seriously under-represented.
The Convention cannot therefore claim to represent the citizens of Europe.
What is more, the Convention’s President, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, and his Praesidium designed policy as they themselves saw fit.
Proposals were introduced that have no basis in the working groups or in plenary.
No votes took place in plenary, and Giscard himself decided how the majorities looked.
We share the analysis made by Gisela Stuart, a British member of the Convention’s Praesidium, in her book ‘The Making of Europe's Constitution’ (Fabian Society, 2003).
In her view, the work of the Convention was shaped by an unaccountable political elite that had already decided the final outcome from the outset.
   . Given that this expenditure was validated by the Court of Auditors, which felt that it had obtained reasonable assurance that the accounts for the financial year ended 31 December 2003 were reliable and that the underlying transactions were, on the whole, legal and regular, I am voting in favour of this recommendation.
   . I voted in favour of the proposal for a decision before us, which falls within the scope of the Commission’s communication of March 2003 entitled ‘Wider Europe – Neighbourhood: a new framework for relations with our eastern and southern neighbours’, which laid down a strategy for creating a ‘circle of friends’ – an area of shared values, stability and prosperity, and one in which it is possible to achieve deeper economic integration.
I welcome the approach that the decision is to cover the activity of the EIB’s loans until the end of January 2007, earmarked for areas such as the environment, transport, telecommunications and energy infrastructure.
A further reason to welcome this proposal is that it is duly consistent with the EU-Russia Summit held in the Hague on 25 November 2004, aimed at promoting strategic partnerships and deepening what are referred to as the ‘Four Common Spaces’, namely, a common economic space; a common space of freedom, security and justice; a common space in the field of external security; and a common space of research, education and culture.
   . On the proposal for a Council regulation concerning Community financial contributions to the International Fund for Ireland (2005-2006).
This fund still has major importance in rebuilding areas devastated by the instability caused by decades of terrorism.
Its objectives continue to be pressing objectives and at this historic time of negotiations on lasting peace, the EU must show solidarity with the Irish people.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, this year’s mobilisation of the flexibility instrument is closely connected with the success of the Budget consultations and the agreement that we concluded – as we indeed needed to – between the institutions.
Let me say, Mr President-in-Office, in retrospect, how good it is that at that time, in 1999, Parliament secured this flexibility instrument following laborious negotiations, for it has been very much to the benefit of the Council’s priorities when implementing past years’ Budgets.
Let me once again remind you that the flexibility instrument, the annual upper limit of which the May 1999 agreement set at EUR 200 million, is intended to deal with unforeseen eventualities, and also that heading 24 of the Interinstitutional Agreement states that, as a rule, this flexibility instrument should not be applied for one and the same purpose in two successive financial years.
Before this flexibility instrument is made use of, there does of course have to be a motion to that effect, and there has to be examination of whether new unforeseen measures are to be funded within a heading or, where this is impossible, by shifts between one heading and another, which is to be followed by discussion of whether the flexibility instrument is to be applied.
We go through this procedure almost every year, and what we have actually learned from the experience is that the interpretation put on this flexibility has sometimes placed it under some considerable strain.
I would draw attention to this year’s result, which is that we have EUR 185 million at our disposal, EUR 45 million for the Peace II programme, EUR 40 million for the agencies – which are obviously among the Council’s really important priorities and are always threatening to displace important programmes in heading III, which yield added value for Europe – and EUR 100 million for the reconstruction of Iraq.
It is with specific reference to this that I want to point out that, in the current 2004 Budget, out of a total of EUR 90 million for Iraq, EUR 74 million have – as I recall – already been funded in 2004 with the aid of the flexibility instrument.
That manifestly borders on the indefensible.
As a rule, that should not be done.
For that reason, I believe we would be very well advised, in the debate on the new Financial Perspective and the flexibility it calls for, to draw on the experience we have had of the use of the flexibility instrument over the past years.
Let me take this opportunity to say that we are talking here, overall, in terms of payments from the 2005 Budget of EUR 106.3 billion and EUR 200 million allowed for flexibility.
What is interesting about this year is that, for the first time, not only does heading IV – foreign policy – benefit from the use of the flexibility instrument, but also headings II and III necessarily benefit from what we have negotiated.
The ultimate result of this, and what might be called an additional result, is that the Agreement has also made it possible – in a sort of legal/budgetary emergency operation – to incorporate EUR 120 million worth of funding for Northern Cyprus under heading VII and to add EUR 10 million to the funding for the common foreign and security policy, bringing it up to EUR 62.5 million.
Mr President, please allow me to make a final comment: our experience and the virtually annual debate on the use of the flexibility instrument must surely make it clear to both the Council and to Parliament, as they debate the new Financial Perspective, that the longer we set the Financial Perspectives for – be it 2007 to 2013 or whatever – and the longer the period for which the amounts are laid down, the more likely it is that we will need more flexibility to deal with the unexpected in coming years and will have to demand this of the Council in the negotiations on the Financial Perspectives.
   .
Mr President, my group has submitted a motion to reject the 2005 budget and I should like to explain the reasons for this initiative.
My group has never argued in favour of a rash increase in the Union’s budget.
We are committed to the rigorous management of public funds and, above all, we do not consider the budget to be the only instrument available to the Union to realise its ambitions.
In this respect, we wish to highlight, for example, the need for a fundamental reorientation of the missions and operation of the European Central Bank.
It remains true, however, that the Union’s budget reflects a political will.
The stated objectives must be matched by sufficient financial resources, otherwise the EU’s very credibility is at risk.
Following the increasing pressure being exerted to reduce public expenditure at all cost in accordance with the spirit of the Stability and Growth Pact, we have already had, in 2004, the lowest budget relative to gross national revenue since 1987.
Year after year, Parliament has criticised this restrictive tendency, along with the laborious budgetary gymnastics that accompany it; such as the increasing numbers of transfers and amending budgets; the reduction in essential appropriations, such as those intended for developing countries, to be able to finance new demands, for example the contribution to financing for the reconstruction of countries severely affected by war, such as the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq; and the misuse of the flexibility instrument .
Every year, Parliament criticises this trend and we have again just heard Mr Ferber, Mrs Guy-Quint and Mrs Trüpel echo this dissatisfaction.
I propose quite simply that this should be reflected, this year, not only in words, but also in clear and visible action.
In fact, for the 2005 budget, the compromise reached by the consultations held on 25 November, namely EUR 106.3 billion – in other words, not 1.05%, Mrs Guy-Quint, but 1.005% of gross national revenue – is less than the Commission’s preliminary draft, 109 billion, which was itself less than the Parliament’s request in first reading, 111 billion, a request in turn less than the commitments made by the Council, the Commission and Parliament as part of the financial perspectives jointly set in 2000, which set the budget at 114 billion.
To indicate that we finally wish to put an end to this systematically restrictive and short-sighted policy on the part of the Council is the first reason for submitting our motion to reject the 2005 budget.
The second reason for our decision is that next year will be the first full year of the Union of 25.
The success of this enlargement assumes, in our view, that we provide a budget sufficient to take on the unavoidable costs of interdependence associated with this great project, whilst ensuring that this does not involve abandoning regions or populations in difficulty in the old Member States.
I should add that the new efforts, the need for which is accepted by everyone, to support employment, education, training, research and the environment require commensurate funding, unless it is considered that such new efforts are to be limited to just a few profitable niches and a privileged elite.
Successful enlargement without bringing the populations of the new and old Member States into competition with one another – that is the second reason why we tabled our motion to reject a poor draft budget.
Finally, 2005 will be the decisive year in the attempt to reach agreement between the 25 on the financial perspectives for 2007-2013.
As has already been stated several times, a heavy millstone is currently weighing these negotiations down: the need of the six countries which are net contributors to the Union’s budget to have this limited in the future to 1% or 0.9% of gross national revenue. The Commission has drawn attention, quite rightly, to the fact that this would actually mean a swingeing cut of more than EUR 9 billion in the 2007 budget in relation to the preceding financial year.
Where would such drastic reductions fall? On the great works announced with grand pomp and ceremony?
On the Structural Funds?
A little bit everywhere? Are we going to be ready for action when faced with such irresponsible perspectives?
If we were to accept without a fight a 2005 budget set at 1% of gross national revenue, would we not be, in some ways, falling in line with the mindset of the Letter of the Six? The third reason why we tabled our motion to reject the 2005 budget was to adopt a combative stance in Parliament before it is too late, on the eve of the decisive negotiations on the financial perspectives for the years to come.
   .
Mr President, in EU countries about one fortieth of tax revenue is spent by EU institutions.
In Britain, we are told that this is a small price to pay for the privilege of trading with our neighbours and for the prosperity the EU has brought us.
However, we are beginning to recognise, as kindly confirmed by ex-Commissioner Kinnock, that we do not need to be in the EU to trade and cooperate with EU countries and that our prosperity might well be higher if we were not in the EU.
They also tell us that the EU budget is small in comparison with national budgets.
However, national budgets pay for some useful things, such as defence, education, health care and pensions.
The EU budget pays for subsidies to agriculture – subsidies that agriculture would function better without.
It pays for regional projects that would otherwise not have been considered worthwhile.
It pays for poorly targeted overseas development aid.
It pays for auditors to find out that 93% of reported spending was unsafe or riddled with errors.
It pays for this Parliament.
Let us stop arguing about how much should be spent on this or that project or initiative in vain pursuit of the Lisbon Agenda.
Let us look at the broader picture.
As the last speaker has just said, several countries with their own budget problems want a limit of one per cent of GNI.
The Commission rightly points out that it must be much larger if the expectations of the new accession countries are to be fulfilled.
How much larger – two per cent, four per cent? If the EU were genuinely concentrating on the ideals it keeps proclaiming – peace, prosperity, strong economies – it would be acting very differently.
It would not be looking at these various projects: it would be opening its markets properly, internally and externally; it would cease killing off our businesses with thousands of ill-judged prescriptive rules, and its budget could be a small fraction of one per cent of GDP.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, work on the Union’s 2005 budget is almost at an end.
The Commission proposed a budget amounting to EUR 109 billion, the Council proposed a figure of EUR 105 billion and Parliament proposed EUR 111 billion.
The final figure is EUR 106 billion.
The rapporteurs must of course be thanked for their work, but the question arises as to whether this amounts to success and an appropriate compromise.
In fact that is not the most crucial issue at stake.
What is much more important is that the outcome is below expectations.
I can see other Members of this House share my view.
The policy of cuts won the day, despite enlargement of the Union to take in ten new Member States.
Wishful thinking prevailed, namely that it is possible to have a larger Union for less money.
The agreed level of expenditure may impact on the Financial Perspective for 2007-2013, and this is even more worrying.
The Union for Europe of the Nations Group’s attitude to the 2005 budget is that it is something that cannot currently be opposed, but we see no reason for rejoicing.
This is also an opportunity for broader reflection.
George Kennan observed in the past that Soviet expansion came about because of an inability to solve internal problems.
I trust the same will not be true of the European Union.
Unfortunately, there are some worrying similarities regarding two issues, the first of which is economic policy.
To date, the Union has pursued a policy of cohesion and economic solidarity, helping the less-developed countries so as to promote the development of the Member States as a whole.
At present, the concept of cohesion and economic solidarity is being written out of Union agreements.
Weakening cohesion policy or doing away with it altogether may lead to differences becoming even more entrenched in the future.
This is especially likely if the Lisbon strategy comes to mean giving up on economic policy, that is, achieving the highest possible quality at the lowest possible cost, to the benefit of social policy in the more developed countries.
I refer to protecting jobs in those countries burdened with excessively high social costs.
The second question I would like to refer to is that Europe is unable to define its own identity.
Events concerning Mr Buttiglione and the failure to integrate Islamic communities in Western Europe, as referred to recently in , are both relevant examplesas is the question of the text of the preambleto the Constitution.
At the same time, we are continuing to debate enlargement to include Turkey, without taking any account of the fundamental issues dividing the Union from Turkey.
The former include social, economic, political and cultural problems.
The response to the conflict between the theory of universal standards and particular ones has been to do away with standards of all kinds.
Those determined to go to any lengths to achieve a federal Europe without borders, lacking ideological identity and cohesion policy, are acting to the detriment of the Union.
They are working slowly but more surely against it than those who currently wish to harm the Union with extremist language.
There can only be one conclusion, namely that in future, the Union must come up with a broader ideological identity and make more resources available, so as to implement cohesion and solidarity policy effectively.
   (SK) Thank you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to pick up on my colleague Mr Roszkowski’s words and present a few facts and figures.
For the year 2005 the Commission has come up with a draft level of payments of EUR 109 billion, in its first reading the Council has come up with EUR 105 billion, and Parliament has calculated payments at EUR 111 billion.
This creates an impression of competent activity.
In the second round the Council has come to us with a draft level of payments again at EUR 105.3 billion while Parliament proposes EUR 106.3 billion, which is about 5 billion less than in the first round.
It is totally obvious who is taking the lead in this game of budgetary ping-pong, but it is also clear that the budgetary procedures are still not precisely defined.
If the proposed level of payments is passed by Parliament it will represent an increase of 6.5% compared to 2004.
In comparison with the projected level of inflation in the Eurozone, this is a modest rise, but when set alongside the need to finance the political goals and priorities of the European Union there seem to be fewer reasons for optimism.
As long as the quality criterion for the budgetary process of the European Union is the bringing together of the levels of contributions and payments, it is rather a reason for pessimism.
A couple of days ago, the European Parliament approved the annual report of the Court of Auditors for the financial year 2003.
In the parliamentary discussion about this report there was agreement about one of the key conclusions, namely that the draw-down level of credit payments or the implementation of the payments was rather low and for a long period has hovered between 80 and 90%.
In this respect the draft budget for the year 2005 does not bring any turnaround as it suggests an implementation level for payments of 90%.
As far as the structural funds are concerned, the levers for implementing budgetary resources in the form of the payments are in the hands of the governments of the EU Member States.
It is therefore an important role of Parliament to use its political instruments and to gain the support of the media in exerting appropriate pressure on the governments and the Council in order to make fuller and more effective use of the disposable resources to finance the common policies of the European Union.
If this does not happen, the parliamentary budgetary procedure will continue to be more a test of the loyality of Members of the European Parliament to the governments of their home countries rather than a test of the effectiveness and competitiveness of the budgetary process and the use of European Union resources.
Thank you.
   We will now hear the other speakers on today’s list, with Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra to speak first. I would like to apologise to him for a small error in the order of speaking, which we managed to put right with his help and that of Mr Lewandowski.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, difficult negotiations have concluded with a creditable result.
For this we should thank the rapporteurs, Mr Garriga Polledo and Mrs Jensen, all the political groups and the new Commissioner, who has given us valuable help and whose good wishes I gladly reciprocate.
The agreement can be seen as satisfactory to Parliament because it brings with it many positive outcomes.
It has been a difficult passage, but we have got through it, and have obtained funding for reconstruction in Iraq, the maintenance of traditional geographical policies, funds for SMEs, information and research as well as resources for the agencies.
Also entered in the budget are resources for the structural funds and pilot projects, some of which are very interesting, such as Erasmus for apprentices and the pilot projects on conflict prevention and on small arms reduction.
We cannot, however, pronounce ourselves satisfied with the way in which the chapter on payment appropriations was concluded.
I am well aware that this is not the fault of either Parliament or the Commission, which in fact helped us and pressed as hard as it could.
However, the stone-cold inflexibility with which the Council stuck by the 1% is worthy of a better cause and does not augur well either for negotiations on the Financial Perspective or for the next budget, for which I hope that it will be possible to achieve more ambitious and gratifying goals, as Mrs Guy-Quint also said.
We have gone a little beyond the 1% mark.
It was right to give this signal, as Parliament will not accept a Financial Perspective which forces the Union to forsake its own tasks and duties, which are enshrined in the treaties.
Peculiar ideas are circulating and sometimes a kind of psychological bullying is also used towards the new Member States to make them maintain the so-called rigorous line.
Ladies and gentlemen, rigour consists in transparent, effective and efficient administration, but it does not mean refusing to act with the leadership expected by European citizens.
Article 158 of the Treaty affirms that economic and social cohesion policy is one of Europe’s main tasks.
Anyone thinking of pared-down budgets, of reducing and concentrating the structural funds on certain areas only, of renationalising the cohesion policy and depriving the Lisbon strategy of the requisite resources should be aware right now that they will be met with the firm opposition of this Parliament.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, investment conditions in the countries of the European Union are favourable at the present time.
We have low interest rates, there are no inflationary pressures, and we have sufficient reserves.
If we compare the economy of the European Union with the economy of the United States, however, we have to say that investors achieve a greater profit and a quicker return on their investment in the United States with the same level of investment.
The European Union must therefore orientate itself towards structural reforms at all levels and in all its institutions.
It is not appropriate to measure the effectiveness of the financial resources invested in particular areas and industries only on the basis of their scale.
In the absence of feedback enabling us to evaluate quantitative indicators, we must integrate and advance the measurement of quality and the measurement of added value.
This also goes for science and research, as Herr Wurtz has said today.
The Member States must be engaged in this process.
Each one of them should draft their own Lisbon Strategy, their own financial perspectives and base their revenues and costs on them.
We all know that the main battleground for the Lisbon targets is the implementation of reforms at a national level.
I mention all of this because when we talk about the annual budgets, financial perspectives and the Lisbon Strategy, we always talk about collective pots.
We have finally reached a compromise in our discussions on the budget for 2005.
I believe that we can approve the budget collectively.
I would like to thank all the members of the Budgetary Committee for their constructive approach.
We all know that the 2005 budget is a transitional budget.
The drafting of new financial perspectives lies ahead of us.
With the help of these we will have a chance of making a better start on the Lisbon Strategy, which would then take on a different quality.
   I should like first of all to thank our rapporteur, Mr Garriga Polledo, even though he cannot be here, since it is clearly a mammoth task to examine the budget.
Last year, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, the budget passed through the symbolic barrier of EUR 100 billion.
This year, there is a feeling that the novelty has worn off.
We have reached the end of two great budgetary cycles and the end, perhaps, of two political worlds.
First of all, clearly, we have reached the end of the Prodi cycle, of the planning for 2000-2006 and already, with a temporary Commission, we have been and are still working on the 2007-2013 cycle.
At the same time, however, we have also reached the end of the cycle of European budgetary modesty.
The European budget, in fact, even at EUR 106 billion, is less than Spain’s (EUR 117 billion for Spain).
Everyone realises that, with the arrival of Turkey, it is not just EUR 277 million which will have to be added, at pre-accession stage, but EUR 33 billion every year.
Ten years from now, consequently, the European budget will have doubled and the question of European taxation will have to be addressed.
We shall no longer be talking about 1% or 1.24% of gross national revenue.
We shall then have reached the end of two political worlds.
First of all, the world of Parliament-Council relations, since, in 2009, the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure will have disappeared and the anti-farming majority in this Parliament will rule against the agricultural world and the rural world.
This will at the same time be the end of a second world, which is already happening now, since, in the 2005 budget, the agricultural appropriations have been cut by a billion euro and, subsequently, these appropriations are to be plundered in order to finance other things on the pretext of rural development.
However, the disappearance from villages of post offices, railway stations, public revenue offices and public services clearly shows where we are heading.
This is why I would have liked us, with the assistance of our rapporteur and the assistance of our colleagues, to be able, in the 2006 budget, to create a European public holiday in honour of rural mayors in order to pay homage to the work of the 90 000 rural mayors of the villages of Europe.
Otherwise, our 2005 budget already belongs to the cosy little world of a Europe with worldwide ambitions and a provincial budget.
   Mr Martinez, I did not realise myself that we were looking at all these things together in this budget discussion.
Perhaps Mr Dombrovskis will say something different.
   The citizens of Europe are the judges of our actions.
I believe that this budget compromise allows us to confidently look them in the eye, as it provides us with the means to reach our goals.
But will the resources described in budget 2005 be sufficient for the long term? We understand that a state budget deficit makes governments try to minimise expenditure.
However, if expenditure falls below a certain level, it becomes pointless: if goals remain dreams, then every euro spent will just be thrown down the drain.
The current budget is not like this yet, but we should put a lot more effort into certain areas in order for our enterprises to be competitive on a worldwide scale and in order to help cohesion countries to catch up with other states sooner.
We must pay attention to the fact that this compromise, which I support, expends a lot less money than what was planned at the 1990 budgetary cycle.
The question arises now at the time of planning a new cycle: what is the point in setting goals for the distant future, or giving numbers for several years ahead, if we do not fulfil them? We, who lived under Soviet domination, lived and experienced what it meant to construct five-year plans from gratuitous numbers.
I would like to see the Union avoiding these pitfalls, I have faith it will, and I support next year’s budget.
   –The next item is the oral question to the Commission by Mr Borrell Fontelles, on behalf of the Temporary Committee on Policy Challenges and Budgetary Means of the Enlarged Union, on the preparation of the next financial framework.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, I am speaking today in my capacity as my group’s coordinator in the Committee on Regional Development, which has the second largest individual budget to deal with, as the budget for cohesion and structural policy, with a 35% share, is second only in size to the budget for agriculture.
Alongside the tasks we have to perform in dealing with the Financial Perspective, the specialist committees and most especially the Committee on Regional Development have the task of preparing the relevant Regulations for each Fund for the new financial period of 2007 to 2013.
I see the anchoring of this cohesion and structural policy, including in our Constitution, on the basis of the Lisbon and Copenhagen conclusions, as creating very modern political approaches to the implementation of a European policy for the public’s benefit.
What we in the Committee on Regional Development need for our work is a reliable statement and foundation, and both I and my group believe that only the Prodi proposal can fulfil that role.
I will permit myself the aside that I get the impression that regional policy appears to be used by everyone as a sort of piggy bank.
The Council does it by attempting to get a percentage accepted while a majority of its members want to make cuts because agriculture has already ground to a halt.
Having seen the way you, Commissioner, deal with the Committee on Budgets and the temporary committee on the political challenges and Budget resources for the enlarged EU between 2007 and 2013, I can say that the Commission does too, calling ever more frequently for a Financial Perspective.
I get the impression that the second half of that sentence is missing: ‘whether that Perspective be good or bad’.
That is something we cannot afford.
The attempt is made ever more frequently to use structural policy measures to fund other things; the example I would give is the way in which the funding of Natura 2000 is being removed from the environmental sector and moved to structural policy.
Let me also say, though, that regional policy was necessary in the old EU of 15 Member States, and it is necessary in the new one, with its 25.
We need efficiency, but we cannot afford it to happen that drastic cuts in this area punish a large part of the population for something that we all wanted and that the European Union always has made tangible and accessible to millions of citizens.
Commissioner, you said that the newspapers report only failures.
In Germany, we have a saying to the effect that there is no smoke without fire.
That is why debates about 1.05% or 1.06% are not helpful.
Let me remind you that the European Union has always worked well when the Commission has strengthened Parliament and vice versa.
We can negotiate well together, whether the Council is on the same side or our opponent.
   The debate will now be suspended and will resume at 9 p.m.
   The next item is Question Time, with questions to the Commission (B6-136/2004).
In the context of emission trading, administrative charges amounting to several hundred thousand euros are sometimes imposed in Germany in connection with applications for CO licences. On what basis are such charges calculated?
Are the charges the same throughout the EU and, if not, how does the Commission intend to level out the differences? Is the Commission in general of the view that such charges should be imposed?
What is the estimated total level of charges imposed on emitters of CO?
   Commissioner, emission trading certificates are a very important aspect of the European Union's meeting its Kyoto objectives.
It seems to me very unsatisfactory that you are not able to inform the Member of the current state of play as regards each individual Member State.
Will the Commission, in moving towards a review in 2005, survey the 25 Member States to establish what is the existing practice and ensure that a level playing field is created post-2005?
   .
The Commission will continue monitoring what is going on in individual Member States.
Various Member States such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany have already put in place large-scale education and awareness programmes.
The Commission does not have more resources than Member States.
It is a matter primarily for Member States to ensure that the point you have validly raised is more widely known, along with the problems that arise from unlicensed and illegal copying.
I am informed that the black market value of illegal CDs and DVDs is three times that of cannabis, and the profit margins are eight-fold.
Therefore it is a much more profitable activity, with lower risks of being caught and lower penalties.
It is thus in the interests of the Member States to ensure that awareness measures are in place in an effort to stop this activity.
   .
First of all I would like to say that the question of the seat of the European Parliament is covered by Protocol No 8 on the establishment of the seats of the institutions, specific organisations and services of the European Communities such as Europol, and is annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The question of the location of the institutions has had a very high priority and concerns a high level of decision-making, relating not only to the location of our institutions in Brussels and Strasbourg, but also to Luxembourg.
This concerns a very high-level political decision.
For the Commission the total cost of missions of officials to Strasbourg amounted to EUR 1.7 million in 2003.
This includes all the costs of missions, including those of Commission officials and members of Commissioners' offices.
So this is not a large amount of money.
A slightly higher amount is forecast for the future.
You asked about all the costs for the Union.
We do not have a very precise overview of all costs, but we know that for the European Parliament the costs are much higher.
According to the March 2004 report by Mr van Hulten, MEP, the total cost of having part-sessions in both Brussels and Strasbourg amounts to about EUR 200 million annually.
Mr van Hulten favoured Brussels as the single seat of Parliament and he was supported by Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control.
The Commission is not in a position to judge the functioning of the European Parliament.
   . That is your opinion.
As I said, the location of the European institutions was decided in 1957 and it has continued to be a very high level of political decision-making.
The Commission is ready to discuss all these issues.
It is very difficult to estimate the costs to the environment, but the amount of money in our budget for 2003 was EUR 1.7 million.
   Madam President, Commissioner, do you agree with me that Strasbourg is the seat of Parliament, that it is only by way of a concession in order to reduce bureaucracy in its cooperation with the other European institutions that it migrates to Brussels, and that its principal seat is here in Strasbourg? Do you also agree with me that the figure of EUR 200 million that you have given for annual expenditure refers not to the extra costs, but to the total costs of running this House?
   . The location of European institutions cannot be considered only from the viewpoint of the costs involved.
This is a very important political matter.
In his report, Mr van Hulten put these costs at about EUR 200 million, most of which were incurred as a result of travel between Brussels and Strasbourg and vice versa.
I do not have more precise figures, but the overall costs of Parliament, as can been seen in the budget, are higher.
   . This is a political question and I have no comments on it.
This was decided in 1957.
I can assure you that the Commission has no intention of proposing any changes on this complicated matter.
Does the Commission think that paragraph 50 of Parliament's report (A5-0393/03), in which it notes that ‘the current Director’s appointment will come to an end in March 2005; [Parliament] calls on the Commission to advertise the post of Director in the Official Journal in spring 2004, so that Parliament’s relevant committee can hear the suitable candidates in autumn 2004 on the basis of a proposal from the Supervisory Committee’ has been ignored?
If not, why not? If so, why?
For reasons of transparency, can the Commission indicate in detail the steps and decisions taken since the adoption of the report regarding the appointment of the successor to Mr Brüner?
Does the Commission plan to advertise the post of Director of OLAF?
   . I am very happy to reply to this question, because immediately after I was designated as the Commissioner responsible for several areas, including OLAF, I was approached and asked how to go ahead with various projects and proposals on the future of OLAF, including possible management decisions.
Several different options were proposed.
One was to fill this post through an open competition.
I promised that I would express my opinion after the formalities were over.
The formalities were completed on 22 November and immediately after the new Commission started we made the decision to advertise this post and fill it through an open competition.
Today we received the final opinion of the legal services about some nuances concerning the announcement.
A few days ago I received the first version of the job description, so the post will be advertised very soon.
There will then be an open competition.
   In the absence of the Member who put it, Question 37 lapses.
   . Madam President, there is a hierarchy of directives, and the directive concerned with television is the Television without Frontiers Directive.
The Treaty is also important, and the Amsterdam Protocol is very clear on the matter.
That is why, in order to emphasise legal certainty, the Commission published its communication on state aid to public television in 2001, and why it expressly included the option for Member States of affording the Internet, among other things, the same treatment as public television, provided the Internet is part of the public sector and subject to the same obligations.
   .
I would like to assure the honourable Member that I remember his letter of 25 November 2003 on the subject very well.
Now that I am responsible not only for the Television without Frontiers Directive but also for the new media in general, I will certainly put even more weight on this question than I did before.
The answer to the honourable Member's question is that the study on the policy models will start at the beginning of 2005 and will finish roughly one year later, between the beginning and middle of 2006.
As for the Contact Committee, its work is continuing and the results will be published on the web in early 2005.
   . Madam President, I would like to say to Mr Ebner that the Television without Frontiers Directive lays down the principle that television advertising and teleshopping must be kept separate from other parts of the programme by optical and acoustic means.
The Directive also states that surreptitious advertising and teleshopping are prohibited.
As I have already said in answer to previous questions, the Directive is being reviewed, and the public consultation held in 2003 allowed the various parties concerned to express their views.
Some operators are in fact in favour of making the rule on advertising more flexible to take account of changing technology by allowing split screens, for example, or the marketing of equipment that would enable viewers to avoid advertising messages.
However, in 2003 there was a consensus that advertising should be clearly identified so as to avoid misleading the public.
That consultation did not identify any development in Europe of product placement advertising practices that would violate the terms of the Directive.
That is why this point was clarified in the Commission’s 2003 interpretative communication on certain aspects of the provisions on televised advertising.
I am of course prepared to go over all these matters again in connection with a possible revision of the Directive, which I intend to present in 2005.
   Thank you, Madam President.
I am glad to hear the Commissioner say that she will give priority to consumer protection in this case if there is to be a change of opinion in 2005.
The fact is that existing practice has not been particularly satisfactory, with approaches having been taken that do not protect the consumer, and something must be done about that.
Does the Commissioner agree that, under the terms of the Privacy and Electronic Communication (Directive 2002/58/EC(1)) Regulations 2003 Restrictions on the processing of location data, paragraph 14, where a person agrees to become the subject of a passive location service, before every single attempt by the locator to locate the locatee, the locatee must be informed that the locator wishes to determine their location, and permission to pass on that information must be sought and obtained before the locator can be so advised?
   Madam President, Commissioner, I should like to have practical proposals for measures.
Recently, OLAF revealed that economic aid for Lesotho did not get through and that the resources were thus not used for the purpose intended.
I want to hear more practical proposals from the Commissioner.
   The debate will now resume, with a continuation of the discussion on the preparation of the next Financial Perspective.
Mr Silva Peneda has the floor for two minutes.
   Mr President, this question of the European Union’s financial framework is crucial.
It is crucial because the European Union must rise to formidable challenges: bringing the enlargement process to a successful conclusion, achieving the aim of cohesion, the symbol of our policy of solidarity, without forgetting the less favoured regions of the old Union of 15, meeting commitments under the common agricultural policy and Natura 2000 and, above all, achieving the Lisbon objectives in the realms of competitiveness, research, employment, training, environmental policy and public health while giving due consideration to the ageing of our population.
This last point has not been addressed this afternoon, even though an ageing population clearly has economic and social implications for our future.
Faced by these challenges and by the explosive growth in Chinese competition, how does the Commission intend to position itself? At a time when the Commission and the Council are preparing to open the gates of Europe once again, can we continue to operate with a budget that has not developed since the 1990s, even though the European Union has subsequently taken on many new Member States and been accorded wider powers under a series of new treaties?
Mrs Grybauskaitė, we are not reassured.
Questions need to be asked about the Commission’s desire to make tangible proposals.
Arm yourself with the support of Parliament and do what you can to influence the one-per-centers, to bring home to them, as Mr Barroso said, that more Europe cannot be achieved without more money.
Even allowing for the agreement on the CAP, we already know that it will be impossible to fund the Union’s regional policy between now and 2013 if we adhere to the one-per-cent ceiling.
Europe is on the move; it has been enlarged, it is ambitious, but are you sure, Mrs Grybauskaitė, that you have the means to fulfil its ambition? What we are asking you to do is tell us what resources are needed to finance our objectives.
And you know that they will have to be increased.
Be prepared, Commissioner, to defend the key positions vigorously.
You must be aware that this would be a bad time to disappoint not only Parliament, but all the people of Europe too.
   We feel that the Commission’s proposal for the next Financial Perspectives is clearly not sufficient to address the current social, economic and environmental challenges, the need for economic and social cohesion – which has increased with enlargement – and the high levels of unemployment and poverty in the EU.
Quantitatively, what is being proposed is actually an average of 1.09% of Community GNI, which is less than Agenda 2000 (1.10%) and previous benchmarks; qualitatively, the priorities are ‘competitiveness’, ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ and ‘security and defence’ at the expense of development, cooperation and cohesion.
One might ask in this debate whether Barroso reinforces and exacerbates Prodi, given that statements from Commissioners pave the way towards negotiating, or renegotiating, below the already inadequate package, in line with the signatories of the ‘Letter of the six’, who intend to impose a ceiling of 1% of Community GNI on the budget, something to which we have always been opposed.
We therefore wish to make it clear that we reject the Financial Perspectives, of which the average annual spending falls between the Commission’s proposal and the ceiling of the ‘Letter of the six’, which I mentioned earlier, and is moving ever closer to that ceiling.
Lastly, we support the idea of retaining the seven-year financial framework, given that, even in this area, the tendency is to ‘negotiate’ downwards.
   The next item is the report (A6-0051/2004) by Mrs Lambert on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on asylum procedure and protection in regions of origin [2004/2121(INI)].
The debate is open.
Mrs Lambert has the floor.
   Thank you very much.
That concludes the list of speakers.
I understand the Commissioner does not wish to take the floor.
The debate is therefore closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
   The next item is the report (A6-0067/2004) by Mr Catania on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the European Union drugs strategy (2005-2012) [2004/2221(INI)].
I should like to give the floor to Mr Catania, the rapporteur.
   .
Mr President, Mr Catania, as you know, the new drugs strategy for the period from 2005 to 2012 that is to be endorsed by the European Council is the first anti-drugs strategy for the enlarged Union.
It is based on an assessment of the previous strategy, which the Commission carried out back in October.
The European approach, which favours a balance between demand-reduction and supply-reduction measures, therefore covers 25 countries.
This strategy clearly addresses the need to enhance coordination within the Union as well as to raise the profile of EU efforts in other countries.
The principal aims laid down in the strategy will be translated into specific actions in the two successive four-year action plans, which, as you are aware, will be proposed by the Commission at the start of 2005 and the start of 2009 respectively.
The Commission intends to adopt its proposal for an action plan in February 2005.
It believes that Parliament’s contribution in an area such as the drugs issue is essential as a means of bringing European policy closer to the people.
What we need, in other words, is a shared European political strategy.
Rest assured that the Commission will not falter in its commitment to this approach.
   Mr President, in the sixties, rebellious and critical young people discovered the drugs that had previously been used only behind closed doors by the well-heeled in society .
They saw the use of soft drugs as part of their fight for freedom.
Since then, policy in a number of states has been aimed at isolating, criminalising, penalising and eliminating drug users.
This repressive approach has not prevented the use of drugs from spreading.
The alternative to this approach is not to become indifferent and consequently to resign oneself to the damage which drugs do to the health of the users and the nuisance they cause for others, as also do alcohol and nicotine.
We should not shy away from the conflict with the dealers, who make a good living from other people’s problems.
In his report, my colleague, Mr Giusto Catania, has shown the right way to reduce the problems as much as possible.
He endorses the practice, developed in the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland and parts of Germany, of tolerance, prevention and provision of aid to users and of distinguishing between the addictive tendencies of different types of drugs.
I am aware that this approach meets with emotional objections among those who laboured under the illusion of being able to stamp out drugs by penalising the users, but that has only resulted in resistance to the lack of freedom.
That is why broad support is needed for the alternative.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0049/2004), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the Council common position for adopting a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on maximum residue levels of pesticides in or on food and feed of plant and animal origin and amending Council Directive 91/414/EEC [9262/1/2004 – C6-0110/2004 – 2003/0052(COD)] (Rapporteur: Robert Sturdy).
I should like to give the floor to Mr Sturdy, the rapporteur.
   The next item is the Commission and Council statements on the preparation of the European Council (17 December 2004).
   Mr President, I have never made use of this Rule before, but I would ask to be allowed the following clarification.
I would never defend a corrupt regime, whether headed by socialists or by anyone else, and this is something I should like to stress at this point.
Rather than defending anyone, I merely appealed to Mr Basescu.
I made no reference to any corrupt politician, in any country, and I should like, here and now, to say that any person who is corrupt should be punished and should not head a government.
It is however equally unacceptable for people to come under general suspicion merely because they belong to a certain political family.
   It is clear that Mr Schulz has spoken pursuant to Rule 145 of the Rules of Procedure, which allows Members to speak for three minutes in response to personal comments made during the debate.
   ... make use of a Rule of which others have also availed themselves, and I have no doubts as to this being the case.
Despite any claims to the contrary by Mr Cohn-Bendit, I am not connected in any way to this matter, and I disapprove of his having used bogus arguments which bear no relation to the truth.
   Mr President, I want to make my point of order just as Mr Schulz made his.
Last month you refused a point of order from me because I did not mention the number of the Rule.
On this occasion, Mr Schulz was allowed to make a point of order without mentioning a Rule number.
Could you say what the rules are and why there is one rule for him and another for me?
   I believe that you are invoking Rule 145.
   Mr Knapman, please behave properly.
If you wish to speak, please tell me which Rule you wish to invoke.
If you tell me that you wish to speak on the basis of no particular Rule, you do not have the right to take the floor.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the request by a number of members of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats for a secret vote on the Eurlings report speaks volumes about the impudent manner in which the advocates of Turkey’s accession to the EU – including the governments of the Member States in London, Berlin, Rome, but also the Belgian Government in Brussels – slavishly implement Washington’s agenda and bring pressure to bear on members of parliament and politicians, against the will of the large majority of the people, to push through a decision which will have dramatic historic and social implications for Europe.
Indeed, quite a few members of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats wish to vote against the Eurlings report because they are squarely opposed to Turkey joining, but dare to do so only when the way they vote is concealed from the general public.
For fear of possible criticism, though, and of all the consequences that this entails for their careers in their own countries, where their governments, haughtily laughing off popular opinion, want to give Ankara the go-ahead the day after tomorrow, they will not do so if the vote is public and not secret.
The same may apply to quite a few Members of the Socialist Group.
I would remind you of the valiant positions taken up in France on the Turkey issue by Robert Badinter, Hubert Védrine and the former Socialist Education Minister, Claude Allègre, all of whom have cautioned us about the disastrous consequences of Turkey’s possible accession.
It is indicative of the lack of democratic openness with which this issue has been addressed for years now.
In Helsinki, only three minutes were taken to discuss the question as to whether Turkey should obtain candidate status.
That is what is reported by the former European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Mr Bolkestein, who was the only person with the courage to tell Mr Prodi that he refused to approve the positive Commission recommendation of 6 October.
Three minutes to decide whether we move the hotbeds of conflict in the Caucasus and the Middle East to Europe’s boundaries.
Three minutes to decide whether tomorrow, we will again offer millions of immigrants the opportunity to flood our continent.
Three minutes to decide whether we allow a country, where human rights in general and women’s rights in particular are violated on a large scale, entry into our Union as a so-called model secular state and straight away give them the largest number of votes in the Council.
Three minutes to give the go-ahead to a country that refuses to recognise another Member State and occupies part of that Member State with 30 000 troops after having committed untold crimes against humanity.
Three minutes to give the go-ahead to a country where the state’s denial of the Armenian genocide is organised by the Ministry of Education, while nobody in Europe utters a word about this.
I ask you, Europe, where are your grand principles?
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, certain speeches on Ukraine – Mr Schulz’s in particular – have left me with a curious impression.
After listening to certain Members of this House over the past weeks, one could be forgiven for thinking that the European Union took consistent steps to establish, support and guide the democracy movement in Ukraine.
It would be a fine thing if this had been the case, yet in actual fact it appeared on occasion as though the EU’s high representatives were almost afraid of so much movement and so much lively and animated democracy, even during the mass demonstrations.
I believe that lessons must be learnt from these experiences in Ukraine, and not only by the Members of this House, but also by the diplomats of the European Union and of the nation states.
Europe’s security is also dependent on the situation in its neighbouring countries.
This is something I have heard very frequently in recent weeks, yet it is not only our security and our well-being that is always at stake.
If we are serious about the European values that we often invoke, the authoritarian and dictatorial systems around us must not be tolerated or accepted, regardless of our own interests.
At a time of so many changes for the better in Ukraine, which we may have helped a little towards the end, even though we did far too little, we must be aware how problematic is the situation of the Belarussian people and their freedom, and we must also discuss Russia.
It must not be said that President Putin and Russia are the same thing, as Russia has the ‘Memorial’ movement and a very strong freedom movement, and this is something that must influence our diplomatic relations with Russia and our policy towards it.
   –  Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Barroso, we all refer frequently to a European identity.
Mr Barroso, you in particular have spoken a great deal about it before this House.
It has to be said, however, that a European identity must be built first and foremost on common security and on the common economic area.
There can be no question of a European identity if solidarity is lacking, and this lack manifests itself every time financial decisions are taken.
I would remind you that you referred to Parliament’s key role in the drawing up of financial perspectives.
I wonder what will become of financial solidarity and the foundation for the building of a European identity if Parliament’s proposal is cut from EUR 111 billion to EUR 106 billion?
If we wish to build a European identity in the shape of a common area of security or a common economic area, we must be clear where the boundaries lie for EU enlargement.
Given that Turkey’s accession has been proposed, and that someone might well shortly propose the accession of Morocco, whilst overlooking Ukraine, it is likely to become impossible to speak of a European identity, as there will be no such identity.
   Mr President, there can be no doubt that the Council summit of 17 December will go down as a memorable date in the history of the construction of Europe.
I should, however, like to tell the President-in-Office of the Council that our fellow citizens are concerned about these future enlargements, and above all about the continuing lack of responses to the crucial question of where Europe’s borders lie.
We are of course in favour of Bulgaria’s and Romania’s accession to the EU, although these countries still need assisting in their efforts, and we are also in favour of Croatia’s accession, as it will send a strong signal to the Balkans.
Yet the situation is entirely different with regard to Turkey, a country which does not recognise the Republic of Cyprus, a Member State of the European Union which it has occupied for 30 years.
Turkey punishes anyone who refers to the Armenian genocide, and 97% of its territory is outside Europe, which means that it has no right to join the European Union.
This is why we hope that the Council will agree to the idea of a privileged partnership put forward by France.
Turkey’s integration into the EU would be tantamount to rejecting a political Europe straightaway, before it has even come into being, and to perpetuating the image of a Europe subject to blackmail and pressure.
Would this be a sensible course of action?
Moving on to another, equally important, issue, I welcomed Mr Barroso’s hard-hitting remarks on the EU’s Financial Perspective.
Nevertheless, I remain concerned with regard to Europe’s future.
Without the necessary resources, the EU cannot seek to strengthen social cohesion or to support competitiveness, employment, research and environmental policy, and it will also be unable to give due consideration to the ageing of the population – in other words to adhere to the Lisbon strategy – or to continue the fight against terrorism, drugs and crime.
If we continue to operate with outmoded budgets, we will be unable to confront the challenges which await us, for example the explosive growth in Chinese competition.
The Council should therefore abandon its calls for a European budget set at 1%, as otherwise Europe will no longer be able to guarantee the funding of its regional policy, which is close to the hearts of EU citizens.
We expect the Council to take into account the priorities I mentioned previously, and then to allocate the resources necessary to achieve our goals.
We should not forget that Europe cannot be built without the contribution of every individual and every European citizen.
Europe should export its values to the rest of the world, but it should also respect the men and women who enable it to exist.
Unfortunately, I fear that the decisions taken on 17 December will be incomprehensible to many of our fellow citizens.
   Mr President, Mr Nicolaï, the Dutch Presidency has nearly come to an end.
It was, of course, not the easiest of times to lead Europe, but we had no choice.
It already had a late start, following the recess; then there was the handicap of a newly-elected Parliament that was starting to find its feet, and that was followed by the Commission which came about in fits and starts.
Under this not terribly lucky star, the Netherlands still tried to set to work.
That is why I think that the Netherlands should count its blessings, because despite the short period of time, an awful lot got done, for example, with regard to the Hague Programme for internal security, the security of our citizens.
In that respect, Minister Donner, who is so often under fire in the Netherlands, has, together with his colleagues, done an excellent job.
Mr Eurlings has already said a few things about Turkey; I do not propose to repeat them.
Something I do have difficulty with and which I think merits a comment is the acceptance of Romania and Bulgaria acceding.
I think that we need to let the Council, the summit, know that the matter, particularly in relation to Romania, is certainly not done and dusted, because in that country, human rights, women’s rights and children’s rights are still being violated and corruption is still rampant.
In any event, all things being equal, I do not think it is all that certain that Parliament will say ‘yes’ to it.
With the same thing in mind, I should also like to make a remark about Croatia.
It appears that there is much more reserve with regard to that country, and I would like to ask the Dutch Presidency whether that attitude would not stifle any initiatives.
Finally, I turn to the Lisbon agenda, the ambitions of which should, of course, be measured against the funding that is being set aside for this purpose.
In my view, at the summit, the 1% club should in any event ensure that the requirements for Lisbon and the question as to how social cohesion can be best achieved with the ten new Member States are examined more effectively.
Ambitions and funding should tally with each other.
   Mr President, this has been a difficult year.
It started for me with a letter bomb exploding in my office.
Since then we have had the Madrid bombings.
I would hope that at this time of the year our thoughts are with the victims and their families.
Outside the European Union there was the tragedy of Beslan, and then today's bus siege in Greece.
All this reinforces the fact that the security of our citizens has to be an absolute priority for the EU but, as a number of colleagues have already pointed out, that needs real action.
Far too often cooperation among our police, judicial and intelligence services is cooperation in name only.
Even a short conversation with anybody who works for Europol would reinforce that.
Member States have to deliver on their promises.
We need action, not words.
The same applies to the economic agenda.
Member States have to be called to account by the presidency for the things they have promised to do.
In particular, we have to get much more investment into people.
We particularly need to deliver on the active labour market policies that Mr Wim Kok has reported on in the past.
Too many people in the European Union are inactive.
We are far too prepared to pay people to be on the scrap heap.
We need much more proactive policies to make work pay, and that includes more childcare and more education and training.
We cannot simply write people off as being unemployable.
Sound finances are the basis of a good economy and therefore we are right to review the budget.
As my colleague Mrs Dührkop Dührkop said, it must not be some sort of mathematical exercise. We have to look at what we do.
What is the added value in doing something at European level?
What is the best way of getting value for money for our citizens? At the same time, we always have to remember that solidarity is the cornerstone of the European Union.
You remove that cornerstone and you undermine the very foundations of the Union.
That is why this debate on finances is vital to the future of the European Union.
   – Mr President, I did not actually want to speak about Turkey yet again, for everything that there is to say about it has already been said, but Mrs Sommer has prompted me to speak.
Everyone presents surveys that serve their purpose.
I know of surveys carried out in Germany which show that people have nothing against Turkey becoming a member of the EU.
I can only say that I would warn people against over-dramatising and exaggerating the situation, as you have just done.
It is completely mistaken and inappropriate to tie Europe’s existence and the survival of the European Union to Turkey’s accession.
Let ten years pass and wait until the negotiations are over, and maybe then Turkey will become the thirtieth member of a great Union with 500 million inhabitants.
So please let us remain calm; let us keep a cool head and let there be less drama and emotion in this debate.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I too actually wanted to talk about an enlarged Europe.
I wanted to congratulate you on holding a series of conferences on European identity.
That was a very good and necessary thing to do.
We have to ask ourselves what it is that holds 450 million Europeans together, what it is that unites us all, from Estonia to Portugal, from Scotland to Greece, and, as we all know, the answer is: European values.
It is also the positive objectives the European Union has set itself: the commitment to peace, to freedom and to justice.
These are the things that unite us in Europe.
Over the next two years in particular, during the process of ratifying the Constitution, it is especially important to convey these things and not to lose ourselves in points of detail.
I am therefore especially glad that, at the summit on Friday, under Points 66 and 67 of the Conclusions, you asked the Commission to put these matters at the forefront of its communication strategy.
I think that we can win the people over in this way – Commissioner Wallström is also doing good work in this regard – and so I would like to encourage you to decide in favour of this, as it is indeed necessary.
In this context, I also think that Points 69 and 52, in which we affirm human rights, are very positive.
As it has already been agreed that there should be a European Human Rights Agency, it must now be set up.
Europe needs this instrument, and our values are important not only for our identity within the Union, but also for our authority in the world at large. I therefore wish not only to congratulate you, but also to encourage you to push forward with these issues.
   Mr President, I rise because in ten years of service in this House I cannot recall an instance similar to that regarding today's vote on the Eurlings report …
   Mr Cohn-Bendit, you may ask the honourable Members to calm down, but I must remind you that you are speaking on a point of order.
So please restrict yourself to that.
   Mr President, we are familiar with Rule 162, and we also see from the voting list that 147 Members are apparently invoking Rule 162 to justify holding a secret ballot on various tabled amendments and in the final vote.
I would therefore like to make my group's position on Rule 162 clear: the Socialist Group in the European Parliament would prefer a vote by roll call, for we believe that Europe's citizens have a right to know how Members of the European Parliament are voting on this key issue.
In our view, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats in this House is incapable of adhering to a coherent and unified line.
Most of the 147 signatures come from this group, and I would like to thank the former Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Dehaene, for informing the Members of this group in unequivocal terms that while this solution may be acceptable from a legal perspective, politically it is completely unacceptable.
   It is becoming clear that the point of order relates to the application of Rule 162 on secret ballots, in accordance with the request made.
   Mr President, firstly, this is one Rule that I did not draft.
Secondly, let me underline – before you make your ruling – the significance of the word 'may'.
Rule 162(2) of the Rules of Procedure says that voting 'may' also take place by secret ballot, if requested by at least one-fifth of the Members.
It does not say 'shall'.
The previous paragraph says 'shall' concerning voting on nominations of individuals.
There is a clear difference between the two cases of 'may' and 'shall'…
   – Mr President, I do not intend to take your job from you or to give you advice.
However, even if a request for a vote by roll call has been made, under Rule 162(3) of the Rules of Procedure the request for a secret ballot shall take priority over the request for a vote by roll call.
   Mr President, all that I am asking is for you to implement the provisions of Rule 162(3), under which one fifth of Members of Parliament may call for a secret ballot.
I should like to remind Mr Cohn-Bendit, the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, and you, Mr President, that the aim of this is to safeguard our utmost priority, namely freedom of conscience and expression.
The debate, Mr President …
   Mr President, I invoke the same article as Mr Wurtz.
The right to a secret ballot is a traditional minority right which I defend, although I make no secret of the fact that I am voting against Turkey's accession.
   Mr President, I should like to propose an oral amendment to Amendment No 71, as it mentions certain facts with which not everyone is familiar.
On behalf of my group, I should like to suggest replacing the phrase ‘the re-opening to pilgrims of the Armenian National Mausoleum in northern Anatolia’ – in which the word ‘mausoleum’ is an inaccurate translation – with the phrase ‘the re-opening to pilgrims of the ruined Armenian churches of Ani, near Kars in Eastern Anatolia’.
None of our Armenian friends were aware of this place or of its opening to pilgrims.
The same can be said for the second oral amendment I would like to propose.
There is doubt as to whether Turkish historians are in fact keen to carry out research into the genocide, and I therefore propose removing the reference to ‘Turkish historians’ in the plural, and merely including the name of the head of their school, or ‘Halil Berktay’, the Turkish historian who has done a great deal to further our knowledge of the Armenian genocide.
Ladies and gentlemen, many of you have said that you were unfamiliar with this name, and that the amendment was out of place, but you should now be aware that it is a reference to Halil Berktay.
The rest is to remain unchanged, as these were merely clarifications.
   Mr President, in order not to be tiresome, I will simply say that my arguments are the same as those I put forward in defence of oral Amendment No 28.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the opening of accession negotiations with Turkey.
This is a matter of principle for me.
The European Union, founded in Rome in 1957, has always defined itself in Christian and democratic terms, based on Greek philosophy, Roman law and Christian faith.
As a result of today's profoundly misguided decision by the European Parliament, we are abandoning this spirit of Rome.
The former French President, Giscard d'Estaing, is quite right: it would indeed be the end of the EU as we know it.
May God protect the West's Christian civilisation.
   . – On behalf of the CSU Members of the European Parliament, I would like to clarify our position in relation to the possible opening of accession negotiations with Turkey once more.
Today's vote has shown that the 'privileged partnership' model is endorsed by many of our fellow Members from all EU Member States and all political groups.
This refutes the arguments, in particular, of those who claim that the CDU and the CSU are isolated on this issue in Europe.
I hope that the European Council will also take this into account at its deliberations on Friday.
We continue to take the view that the European Union's record of success would be massively jeopardised by Turkish accession.
Anyone wanting Europe to degenerate into a free-trade area will achieve their objective through Turkey's accession.
If, on the other hand, we want a strong Europe with the capacity to act, the special relationship established by a privileged partnership is the appropriate means by which to fulfil this aim.
The European Council, at its meeting on Friday, must be mindful of this responsibility.
   . – I voted in favour of the report by Mr Εurlings on Turkey's progress towards accession to the European Union, because it is the product of compromise between the various political groups in the European Parliament.
However, I am in no way bound by the phrase in paragraph 38 concerning use of the Annan plan as a basis for efforts to settle the Cyprus question, in that this plan was rejected by 76% of Greek Cypriots and 67% of all Cypriots.
As Article 38 rightly says, a solution can be found on the basis of the principles upon which the EU is founded.
I also have reservations about the exact content of paragraph 39, which I consider to be incompatible with the report by Mrs Mechtild Rothe, which the European Parliament voted in favour of about a month ago (see: Rothe report, Amendment No 2, Recital 4a (new) (4a) page 6/15).
   . Since the Atatürk revolution in 1923, Turkey has been a typically European country, albeit of the old-fashioned, authoritarian kind, which we no longer want in Europe these days.
The army’s power is immense; there are political prisoners; parties and newspapers are often banned and an electoral threshold of 10% keeps even most legal parties outside of parliament.
Kurds, Armenians and Assyrians are given the choice between leaving the country or adapting to the language, the culture and religion of the Turkish majority.
Turkey must change a great deal before we can welcome it, not only in its legislation but also in daily life.
After more than 40 years, it is now proposed to open negotiations shortly with a view to full membership of the EU.
That is also what the millions of Europeans of Turkish origin want.
A decision as to whether Turkey may join will be made not before, but during, the negotiations.
There is the risk that the Turkish Government may consider that after three or five years’ negotiations, Turkey deserves EU membership, without the problems of democracy, human rights and ethnic minorities having been resolved by then, with the potential for conflicts and an eventual rift.
The Copenhagen criteria must not be replaced by Ankara criteria.
   .
I supported the Eurlings report and should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work.
I will say this in public since we were unable to demonstrate our position in another way on account of the unfortunate secret ballot.
My vote in favour of opening negotiations certainly does not mean that I cannot wait for them to start.
My group rightly believes that it is actually too soon, and I share that view.
At the same time, though, we would like to remain realistic, because after all, the train was put in motion in 1999 and in 2002.
Moreover, we expect that the European Council will give the negotiations the green light.
What matters to us in the ballot is that the Union should retain its credibility and that we send a clear message about the conditions under which these open-ended negotiations are to proceed.
The conditions in the report are strict, but fair.
We support them wholeheartedly, and that is why I have voted in favour.
   . I supported, spoke in favour and voted in favour of Jean Denise Lambert’s report on asylum procedure and protection in regions of origin (2004/2121(INI)) on Asylum.
The overwhelming majority of the report was positive and in line with my own party policy.
However I have strong reservations about point 19 when it states ‘Considers that a decisive common foreign and security policy committing the EU as a matter of priority to the resolution of long terms conflicts and conflict prevention…’
Sinn Féin believes that the EU through its member states must play a greater role in conflict prevention and resolution and in promoting dialogue and negotiation as an alternative to military intervention.
However we are wary of the moves within the EU towards the development of a common foreign and security policy as this would undermine national sovereignty.
The most appropriate vehicle for dealing with such issues is through member state cooperation and under the auspices of the United Nations.
The EU should play a more pro-active role on conflict resolution and prevention within this context.
   . I supported, spoke in favour and voted in favour of Jean Denise Lambert's report on asylum procedure and protection in regions of origin (2004/2121(INI)) on Asylum.
The overwhelming majority of the report was positive and in line with my own party policy.
However I have strong reservations about point 19 when it states 'Considers that a decisive common foreign and security policy committing the EU as a matter of priority to the resolution of long terms conflicts and conflict prevention.........'
Sinn Féin believes that the EU through its member states must play a greater role in conflict prevention and resolution and in promoting dialogue and negotiation as an alternative to military intervention.
However we are wary of the moves within the EU towards the development of a common foreign and security policy as this would undermine national sovereignty.
The most appropriate vehicle for dealing with such issues is through member state cooperation and under the auspices of the United Nations.
The EU should play a more pro-active role on conflict resolution and prevention within this context.
   . The European Parliamentary Labour Party voted for the Catania report on the EU drugs strategy because we believe it provides a comprehensive approach to tackling the harm done by particular drugs to individuals and to the spiral of crime, violence and trafficking caused by the trade in particular substances.
It addresses harm reduction, addiction and crime.
On Amendment 2 concerning the issue of the distribution of particular substances under controlled circumstances, the EPLP voted against both parts because we do not believe this amendment enhances the report or is in line with the UK Government's drugs strategy, which the EPLP fully supports.
   Thank you, Mr Kristovskis, for this personal statement.
The parliamentary services will investigate the matter you have raised and ascertain whether it is appropriate to launch an inquiry.
   – The next item is the report (A6-0065/2004) by Mr Van Orden on Bulgaria's progress towards accession(COM(2004)0657 – C6-0150/2004 – 2004/2183(INI)).
   . I would like to congratulate Mr van Orden on his outstanding report, which I believe is the fruit of much hard work, and I would like to thank the Commission’s excellent work done with regard to candidate countries.
Technically, Bulgaria has completed all the accession negotiation chapters and is clearly headed towards becoming a full member of the European Union in January 2007.
According to the report, Bulgaria continues to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria and the measures taken to successfully implement them have been effective.
However, this report also emphasises that there are still deficiencies that will inevitably have to be dealt with.
We believe that Bulgaria is on track for accession and will continue to make efforts to complete successfully the reforms it committed itself to in the near future.
These mainly include judicial reform and further increased efforts to counter organised crime and corruption.
The report welcomes positive changes implemented in the field of minority rights, as a result of which the so-called legislation on anti-discrimination was adopted on January 1, 2004.
The report also emphasises the importance of the legislature’s practical extension, as discrimination against Romany people remains widespread there.
The report acknowledges Bulgaria meeting the economic criteria and notes that it is a functioning market economy and at the time of accession will be able to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union.
The European Parliament and the Socialist Group will continue the monitoring system while ensuring that operations are run efficiently and obligations are fulfilled.
Based on Bulgaria’s reform efforts and progress, the Socialist Group hopes that Bulgaria will sign and ratify the accession treaty as soon as possible and will become a member of the European Union in 2007.
   –  Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope Mr Posselt will praise me as well shortly.
I am not overly keen on the black-and-white film presented by the European Commission entitled ‘Romania the bad and Bulgaria the good’.
Black-and-white films are not popular either in politics or in real life.
Not everything is as bad in Romania and as good in Bulgaria as would appear from the picture painted by the European Commission’s amateur artists.
It is true that Bulgaria has made progress and that it should join the European Union on 1 January 2007.
At the same time, however, Bulgaria has not done many of the things it should have done.
I should like to refer to a number of specific points.
Firstly, what use is there in Bulgarian legislation complying with EU legislation, if implementation of this legislation continues to lag behind? Secondly, trade in human beings, in particular in women and children, is still a serious problem.
As a third point, the adoption system and its lack of transparency, as well as the situation in Bulgarian orphanages and special schools, continue to be a cause for concern.
Fourthly, there are also concerns with regard to the situation of adults in psychiatric hospitals, and this is included in Parliament’s motion for a resolution.
As a fifth point, the continuing lack of reform of the judicial system, which lags a long way behind European standards, is an Achilles’ heel for Sofia.
The sixth point I should like to refer to is the widespread corruption, which is a thorn in Bulgaria’s side as it enters the EU, given that it affects various areas and levels of government and is apparent at every turn.
During the past few weeks I have visited Bulgaria twice, and my remarks are by no means merely quotes from reports, but reflect what is plain for everyone to see.
The seventh point is organised crime.
The Bulgarian Government is acting like the choir in a Chinese opera, where the choir sings ‘let’s run away, let’s run away’ for three acts, but stays in the same place the whole time.
The Bulgarian Government constantly repeats that it is taking measures to fight the mafia, but it would appear that it is mainly conducting a war of words.
The mafia continues to be a serious problem.
At the same time, however, the EU also sometimes takes measures that the Bulgarian public finds incomprehensible.
For example, it recently demanded that a power plant in Kozloduj be shut down, even though enormous amounts of Bulgarian taxpayers’ money had been spent on modernising it in recent years.
In conclusion, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, despite these reservations we should welcome the fact that our European family is to be joined by a nation with a history dating back over 1300 years.
Bulgaria’s history is longer than many of the present EU Member States.
I should like to bid Bulgaria welcome to somewhere it should have been for many years.
I am sure Bulgaria will feel at home in the EU which is a Union of homelands.
   The next item is the report (A6-0061/2004) by Mr Moscovici, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on Romania’s progress towards accession [2004/2184(INI)].
I should like to invite Mr Moscovici to take the floor, and to inform him that he may speak for five minutes.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all to thank Mr Moscovici for tabling a report that is both balanced and in-depth.
The Commission has always warmly welcomed the European Parliament’s constructive engagement in the process of Romania’s accession to the European Union.
I should also like to thank the Council for its productive cooperation.
   . Mr President, the Committee on Budgets would like to point out that the financial pre-accession aid granted to Romania in 2004 has amounted to EUR 825 million, which comes from the national PHARE programme and the SAPARD and ISPA instruments.
I would also like to point out that the total volume of this aid is approximately equivalent to 1.4% of the country’s GDP.
As in the case of Bulgaria, the Committee on Budgets is pleased about the establishment in spring 2004 of the new funding framework for the accession of Romania.
It is also pleased that, as for Bulgaria, the Commission has proposed restricting this package of aid to a period of three years in order that it may be adapted to the future political needs stemming from the new financial perspectives that are going to be approved.
All of the financial aid will depend on these new financial perspectives, but from 2009.
Unlike what happened in the case of the report on Bulgaria, in this case the Committee on Budgets wishes to stress the need to make sustained efforts to enhance Romania’s administrative capacity with regard to the essential fields of customs, VAT and statistics on gross domestic product.
This means having appropriate capacity to collect and control VAT and customs duties, and to calculate gross domestic product credibly, precisely and exhaustively, in accordance with the SEC 95 rules.
   . Mr President, as a former ship’s captain, the newly-elected President of Romania, Traian Basescu, knows a thing or two about choppy waters, which gives him a considerable edge, for the ship of state of his native country, where he will be taking the helm, is currently facing rough seas.
Moreover, Basescu will be the first to admit this frankly.
In an interview with the of 26 November, Basescu, who is at present the mayor of Bucharest, gave this explanation of why he is striving to turn his country round politically: ‘The problem is corruption which, in this country, has been elevated to a form of government’.
The report by Mr Moscovici is just as clear about Bucharest’s failings as it makes its way to Brussels, and we sincerely appreciate the way in which he has done this, quite rightly tracing Romania’s shortcomings in terms of all the accession criteria, including the political conditions.
In the discussion of previous reports of this House about Romania as a candidate country, I asked for attention to be paid to violations of the freedom of the press.
Unfortunately, this report mentions these violations again in Paragraph 8.
It is as plain as day that there is physical aggression against investigative journalists, and that the government exerts pressure on financially weak media.
In his recent book ‘Threatened journalists, beaten journalists’, the author and journalist Malin Bot confirmed this depressing image.
The book is an outright indictment of the prevailing press restraint in Romania.
Mr Basescu and his political sympathisers therefore have their work cut out.
Incidentally, in our regions, in Western Europe, we should take note of what Malin Bot has to say about the dubious role of Western publishers who have bought up many Romanian papers, and who, in his words, ‘do not come to Romania to defend democracy, but simply to make money’.
I hope that a new Romanian Government takes the European accession criteria entirely seriously from the word go.
In the final analysis, it is not fair to blame them for the commitments that have not been complied with by the Nastase government.
This list is long and weighty.
Moreover, time goes on; it is fortunate, with the desired accession date of 1 January 2007 in mind, that the incoming President Basescu realises this all too well.
That is why he deserves all our attention and support in this undoubtedly difficult period.
This House expects the Commission to strictly enforce the security mechanism agreed upon with Bucharest.
To finish off, I should like to draw Bucharest’s attention to one paragraph in the Moscovici report: ‘calls on it to speed up the restitution of property and adopt legislation on the restitution of churches’.
At the same time, I would ask the Council and Commission to closely monitor the implementation of this long drawn-out issue.
The Dutch Presidency has already made a pledge to that effect to its own parliament.
In a fine review in a German quality newspaper yesterday, I read a razor-sharp satire on the political degeneration of Romania under post-Communist rule.
The author aptly parodied the title of Prime Minister Nastase’s campaign document entitled: ‘From Karl Marx to Coca-Cola’, claiming that a document entitled ‘From Karl Marx to Al Capone’ would be just as truthful.
We very much hope that Romania, under President Basescu, will break this persistent political spell.
The surprising outcome of the second round of the presidential elections appears to be an encouraging sign of this.
   It is perhaps Romania that has the worst legacy of all the former communist countries.
Ceaucescu and his associates destroyed the country, ruined its economy, fragmented its society and intimidated its citizens.
The last fifteen years are far from being a success story as the postponement of reforms wasted several valuable years.
I therefore hope that the newly-elected leaders, President and Government of Romania will set about facing the challenges before them with redoubled effort.
There are two tasks that I especially would like to mention.
The first one, where there are considerable deficiencies, is the social integration of the Romanian Romany minority comprising of over two million people, who are in a very difficult situation.
The second one is giving a higher priority to environmental issues, since the state of the environment in Romania is far behind that of the other candidate countries.
Regulations not only have to be adopted, but they have to be implemented as well.
Let me remind you of the very dangerous mining project of Rosia Montana, threatening us with severe environmental disaster.
The road that leads to the completion of negotiations is long and rugged, and I congratulate Romania’s leadership on their success.
From now on it should focus on adopting the .
I hope Romania will fulfil the obligations and will become a member state in 2007.
This is in our interest and in Romania’s interest.
I therefore think that Mr Basescu’s demand that two chapters should be reopened for negotiations is highly risky.
It jeopardises Romania’s accession in 2007, and delay is not in the interest of either Romania, or the European Union.
Romania has made great sacrifices in order to be able to work towards becoming a member of the Union.
I firmly believe that it is in our best interest that Romania joins as soon as 2007, and Romania must realise that several obligations simply must be fulfilled on the way.
This is why I find this topic so crucial and ask the Commissioner and the Commission to continuously monitor Romania’s progress in this matter, as it is not only in our best interest but also in the interest of Romanian citizens.
   Romania’s citizens have a place in the European Union, there is no question about it.
One of the reasons why we mutually need each other is because through accession, the underlying principles of the Union, decentralisation and local self-government may help improve prospects for the future of the Hungarian minority there, including one and a half million people.
The question is about fulfilling commitments: will Romania be able to adopt the that all Member States are obliged to fulfil? The Union seems to be more lenient towards Romania than it was towards those countries that joined in May.
Mr Moscovici’s report critically examines how Romania has met the criteria so far.
I would like to compliment him on his skill at compromise, as he included several of my proposed amendments into his report, making his arguments firmer.
The report examines areas of severe deficit: the independence of judicial proceedings, the discriminatory legislation on election rights and the return of ecclesiastical goods.
Let me take this even a step further and point out some of Romania’s deficiencies in fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria, highlighted by the election-related abuse on November 28.
As a Hungarian delegate, I feel obligated to list the temporary exemptions in the field of environmental protection that Romania asked for.
Hungarians are apprehensive about these exemptions, as they would have a direct effect on the quality of water in Hungary and thus have requested that the Hungarian Government reopened chapters of environmental protection, which have just recently been closed.
It is exactly because of the uncertainties of such commitments that I would like to emphasise how important it is to monitor strictly the period between signing the accession treaty and the actual time of accession.
If necessary, the processes of the two candidate countries should be separated and they should receive individual performance-based evaluation.
Regular progress checks are very important, and Parliament must also take part in this process, so that by the time Romania joins the Union, we can feel reassured and confident as to their preparedness.
I belong to those who most sincerely hope that our doubts will be scattered by Romania’s positive performance in the near future.
   The debate is closed.
The vote will be at 11.30 a.m. tomorrow.
   . The Council would refer the honourable Member to the answer it gave to question H-0399/04, by Ryszard Czarnecki, during Question Time on 17 November 2004, in which it suggested that the honourable Member should put his question to the Commission.
   – Mr President, Mr Nicolaï, I should like to inform you that I put my question to the European Commission, but regrettably I did not receive a satisfactory answer.
With your permission, I should like to make known my dissatisfaction at the alarming muddle that exists with regard to this issue, as well as the bureaucratic hurdles, which may well be intentional.
It is no easy task to identify exactly which body is competent to take decisions regarding aluminium imports from Russia and the countries belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Poland has repeatedly applied to the European Commission for these customs duties to be reduced, yet unfortunately its applications have been rejected without adducing any clear or material reasons.
This is why, Mr Nicolaï, I am appealing to you and asking you to take action on this issue, so as to help both Polish entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs from other countries.
   I would like to point out that there are more than a hundred Euroregions in Europe and that, in fact, through the impetus of INTERREG, the Community initiative which is right now going also to become an objective, they are of particular interest.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council whether he believes that Euroregions such as the Pyrenees-Mediterranean are fundamental, both in terms of promoting the disappearance of the borders which represent barriers to economic and social development, and in terms of giving substance to the principle of territorial cohesion, which is now enshrined in the European Constitution, which has been signed by the 25 representatives of the Governments of the Member States, and which therefore deserves every possible support from the Union?
   . The Council would like to inform the honourable Member that the implementation of the IDABC Programme falls within the remit of the Commission, which is assisted in this by the pan-European eGovernment Services Committee.
The Council would also like to remind the honourable Member that the IDABC Programme decision will only enter into force on 1 January 2005 and thus the implementation of the programme as such has not yet started.
The Council invites the honourable Member to refer this matter to the Commission for more details regarding the preparation of the programme.
The Council is aware of two studies launched by the Commission under the IDA Programme.
One study aims to establish the needs and benefits to businesses and citizens of pan-European eGovernment Services in order to reinforce a properly oriented approach to the delivery of a pan-European service.
The second one aims to identify future infrastructure services needed to support the pan-European eGovernment Services.
Likewise, in the preparation of the IDABC Programme, the Council also acknowledges the organisation of by Commission of a conference due to take place in Brussels on 17 and 18 February 2005, which will focus on the requirements for pan-European eGovernment Services for citizens and businesses and on the factors needed to implement them.
   . Apart from these major actions, the IDA Unit is preparing to launch the programme fully during the first half of 2005.
To that end, anticipated activities are being analysed and formats for work programme entries, project implementation plans, etc. are being developed.
A tragic event recently took place in Sweden when a truck-driver who had just left the ferry in Trelleborg severely under the influence of alcohol drove against the flow of traffic and five people in two oncoming vehicles were killed.
Different approaches to alcohol and different blood-alcohol level limits in different European countries make it more difficult to deal with drink-drivers and to prosecute them, especially in the case of cross-border traffic.
In 2001, on a proposal from the Commission, the Council decided to recommend that all Member States introduce a maximum blood-alcohol level of 0.2 promille for professional drivers.
The recommendation was adopted instead of a directive on a common upper limit for drivers.
Which countries have introduced that upper limit to date? Is the Council of Ministers re-evaluating its recommendation and what is the outcome of the follow-up at Community level provided for in that recommendation?
The EU's aspiration to transform itself into the most competitive economy in the world (Lisbon Agenda) calls for a significant increase in funding for European research policy.
Research spending is strategic for the EU in the sense that it constitutes investment in its survival in a fiercely competitive international environment.
However, the declared intention of developing an ambitious European research policy is difficult to reconcile with the restrictions imposed by the Stability and Development Pact (SDP), which prohibits Member States' public expenditure from overshooting a budget deficit of 3% of GDP.
If the Member States are to have an incentive to set aside 1% of GDP for public funding of research policy, that percentage should not be included in calculating the ceiling of 3% of GDP laid down by the SDP.
Does the Council agree that public spending on research constitutes top priority strategic expenditure for the EU and, as such, can justifiably be excluded from the criteria under the Pact? The argument that such a decision will pave the way for a host of other exceptions (e.g. military spending) is not tenable since the strengthening of research is an established European strategic goal which has no analogy with any other national or European objectives
   – Mr President, I might have agreed with everything Mr Nicolaï said if I did not believe that we cannot achieve the Lisbon objectives unless research makes a great deal of progress.
Thus, if the reply concerned any other subject, I would agree with you.
However, I regret that I must disagree because research is the cornerstone of Lisbon.
   . Only two EU Member States have already reached the Lisbon goal of 3% of GDP spent on R[amp]D – Finland and Sweden.
They have achieved this by running budgetary surpluses.
It is clearly possible to fund research while respecting the Pact.
That is an important point.
Second, even Germany and France with their well-known budgetary problems have already achieved rates of 2.5% and 2.2% respectively.
Again, it appears that the Pact is not the factor limiting investment in research.
It would appear to be a matter of national priorities.
   That brings us to the end of Question Time.
We are also coming the end of the Dutch Presidency.
I believe that this is the last time that you will be with us for questions to the Council, Mr Nikolaï, and I should like to offer you my best wishes and thanks for your work with Parliament during your Presidency.
I wish you every success at the end of this period, particularly during the next few days, which, I have no doubt, will be extremely demanding.
Questions Nos 12 to 31 will be answered in writing.
   Firstly, I must inform you that, following the invitations for the presentation of the candidatures for the post of European Ombudsman, the deadline for which was 30 September of this year, four candidatures have been presented, of which two will be put forward, namely, those of Mr Nikiforos Diamandouros and Mr Giuseppe Fortunato.
The candidates appeared before the competent committee on 29 November and the election will take place on 11 January next year, according to the procedure laid down in our Rules of Procedure.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr McMillan-Scott on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 976/1999 laying down the requirements for the implementation of Community operations, other than those of development cooperation,which, within the framework of Community cooperation policy, contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms in third countries.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to say that Mrs Ferrero-Waldner is the right person in the right place.
This cannot be said of all her colleagues, but that is no fault of hers.
The European Parliament’s role is becoming ever more important within the EU institutions, and its authority is becoming ever greater amongst the public in the Member States.
After 25 years as a directly-elected body, Parliament’s importance is now at its height.
Yet we should not derive satisfaction from the strengthening of Parliament’s role as a result of battles of competence or procedure within the European Union.
To a greater extent than previously, the European Parliament’s role must be to promote democracy in the world and to provide information on values and standards.
These values and standards ensure that, although our societies and political systems are not ideal, there are fewer wars and more dialogue on our continent, less violence and more compromise, and less institutional aggression and more international and institutional cooperation.
This is not a matter of promoting European values.
It is a matter of informing people about a style of politics based on a search for the common good and on widening participation in government at every level.
This is the role of both the European Union and the European Parliament today.
Is EUR 100 million too much to spend on promoting democracy in the world? It is undoubtedly not enough, yet even a sum five times greater would still be much cheaper than going to the expense of repairing the effects of a lack of democracy.
It would cost a great deal more to provide assistance to the victims of civil and international wars that break out because politicians in many countries do not understand the meaning of democracy.
They only know it as a notion found in foreign language phrase books.
If more than EUR 100 million were to be granted, it would of course be necessary to monitor both our own institutions and the organisations receiving the funding.
In conclusion, I should like to offer my sincere thanks to Mr McMillan-Scott, the rapporteur, for his work.
I hope the House will continue to work together on this issue, regardless of political divisions, and that it will work towards the goals referred to by Mrs Ferrero-Waldner and the rapporteur.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Papadimoulis on the proposal for a Council decision amending Decision 1999/847/EC as regards the extension of the Community action programme in the field of civil protection.
   Mr President, I am a severe critic of the damage the EU has done to Britain and a passionate advocate of Britain's withdrawal from it.
The European Union destroys jobs – as Tony Blair said in his 1983 election address.
It has also passed legislation that has led to the closure of hundreds of local abattoirs.
However, this toothless Parliament passes resolutions that are then ignored by both the Council and the Commission.
The decisions made by this Parliament on the transportation of animals have been repeatedly ignored and horrendous suffering continues.
Over 3 million animals every year endure journeys lasting 30 hours or more in unacceptable conditions and many die in transit.
Were this not bad enough, even more suffering is now being planned by the European Union under the REACH Directive, and we will see millions more animals moved around for live testing.
To those in the outside world – the real world – who are as appalled as I am by all this, I have a simple message.
I wish the European Union would interfere and legislate less, for if the European Union is the answer it must surely have been a very stupid question.
   The next item is the report by Sérgio Ribeiro (A6-0037/2004), on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 850/98 as regards the protection of deep-water coral reefs from the effects of trawling in certain areas of the Atlantic Ocean (COM (2004) 0058 – C5 – 0074/2004 – 2004/0020 (CNS)).
   . – Mr President, I should like to address a special welcome to the Commissioner on the occasion of his first speech and to offer him our best wishes for the extremely important and difficult job that he has to do.
I should also like to tell him, however, that I find it quite incomprehensible in this report that, after the mistake was made to liberalise bottom trawling and bottom gill nets a year ago in Regulation (EC) No 1954/2003, this mistake is not being corrected in respect of bottom gill nets.
Having read the documents produced by the Commission, which are quite specific in indicating that bottom gill nets are extraordinarily harmful and damaging to the environment, we are at a loss to understand why the Commission wants to impose this practice in the Autonomous Region of the Azores, where it has never been allowed.
That is a backward step in nature conservation imposed by the Commission and by the European institutions, which makes no sense at all and is totally unacceptable.
Commissioner, I ask you to think this matter over more carefully.
   If there are no objections, Mr Garriga Polledo’s technical amendments are accepted.
      Mr President, this is a point of order under the same Rule under which you allowed Mr Schulz to speak.
I should like to note that this is a clear violation of the Rules of Procedure, as well as of the principles of good taste.
Mr Schulz appears not to understand that the spirit and ethical and moral principles exist alongside the law.
I should like to remind Mr Schulz of this fact.
(2)
   Mr President, if the Socialist Group has been able to say what it thinks about this procedure under Rule 152, then other groups should also be allowed to do so.
We are very disappointed that the PSE Group has withdrawn its name from the joint text, even though it was negotiated by two of their vice-chairmen.
We also hope that the PSE Group realises that by voting against the compromise it is taking the risk that Parliament will not have a position on the new Commission's strategic policy objectives.
Does the PSE Group really want this to happen and spoil the reputation of the European Parliament?
   I think the House has been enlightened by the positions expressed by Mr Schulz and Mrs Ek.
     Many thanks, Mr President.
I should like to explain that I voted in favour of Amendment No 127 in Section III on funding for World Youth Day, because this does not form part of an official state visit.
Instead it is a meeting of young European Christians with the most noble of goals.
If it were not for Mr Schulz’s ideological obstinacy, he would be able to see how much Europe could benefit from a meeting between its young people and the Holy Father.
If it were not for Mr Schulz’s ideological obstinacy and reluctance to take an honest approach to the issue, he would not have confused it with an official visit by a head of state, namely the Pope’s visit to the Federal Republic of Germany.
   The budget resolution states that the European Parliament regrets the Council’s comprehensive reduction in payments in the agricultural sphere.
We, Mr Andersson, Mrs Hedh, Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, Mrs Segelström and Mrs Westlund, do not agree with this.
We see no reason for wanting, in the agricultural sphere, to increase payments further in relation to the Council’s proposal.
   We chose to vote in favour of Mr Garriga Polledo’s and Mrs Jensen’s report in spite of paragraph 2, which regrets the Council’s reduction in payments to agriculture.
That is a paragraph we cannot support.
   The Danish Liberal Party’s Members of the European Parliament – Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, Mr Busk and Mrs Jensen – voted against Amendment No 3, tabled by the Independence and Democracy Group.
The Liberal Party is in favour of reforming the payment of travel expenses in such a way that all reasonable and necessary travel expenses are refunded.
That is not something that will be guaranteed by this amendment.
   . – The subject of the Commission’s proposal, which the rapporteur endorses, is to maintain until the end of 2006 a legal basis and a financial framework for operations to protect and promote human rights and democratic principles in developing countries and other third countries.
I voted for it because I consider that to do so would be both extremely useful and thoroughly justified at a time when very important questions regarding the Community’s foreign policy are at stake.
   .
I wish to offer my wholehearted support for the Commission’s proposal amending Regulation (EC) No 850/98, of 30 March, as regards the protection of deep-water coral reefs from the effects of trawling in certain areas of the Atlantic Ocean (COM (2004)58 F).
I applaud the Commission for tabling this proposal, because in so doing the Commission is keeping its promise to propose an amendment to the technical measures in force in the Community aimed at banning the use of bottom trawl gear up to at least 200 miles around the outermost regions of the Azores, Madeira and the Canaries, with the aim of protecting ecosystems in some of the most sensitive areas located at the ‘seamounts’ outside 100 miles.
The deep-water habitats that the Commission’s proposal is targeting were until recently protected from trawling (use of bottom trawl or similar towed nets operating in contact with the bottom of the sea), due to the special access regime laid down in accession negotiations.
This regime ceased to apply in August 2004, and so it was essential to guarantee the continuity of the protection of these areas as part of Community legislation.
   Mr President, as a substitute member of the Delegation to EU-Bulgaria Joint Parliamentary Committee, I want to congratulate Mr Van Orden on his report and to note the very positive progress Bulgaria has made towards membership of the European Union.
We hope they will be members in a few years' time.
I want to enter one caveat: there is still serious evidence about the lack of professionalism of the Bulgarian judiciary and of its lack of independence.
I would urge the Bulgarian Government to address those issues within the next year so that they can become members in 2007.
   I should like to welcome the delegation from the Assembly of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, chaired by Mr Zaid bin Al-Muhsin Al-Hussein.
The importance we attach to this visit, which is the first to the Chamber of the European Parliament since 1995, should be emphasised.
This visit comes at a very significant moment, especially in view of the fact that Saudi Arabia will be holding its first local elections in February 2005.
This visit constitutes a new stage in the deepening of relations between the Saudi people and the European Union.
   Just two brief points, Mr President, the first of which has to do with the vote on Turkey.
During the vote on Turkey – on the Eurlings report – I voted in favour of Mr Langen’s Amendment No 16.
That has not, however, been recorded; perhaps the machine was not working.
I would ask you to correct that.
Secondly, we voted yesterday on the EU-Russia summit. In so doing, we said that all sectors of Chechen society should be integrated into the peace process.
I have learned today that the family of President Maskhadov, whose election took place under OSCE supervision, has been abducted and interned by the Russian secret services. They include his siblings, who are between 69 and 75 years of age.
I would ask that you have this information verified and, if it proves to be accurate, protest to the Russian authorities about this.
   Your comments have been noted, Mr Posselt.
If there are no further comments, the Minutes are approved.
   . – Mr President, a legacy of colonial Southern Rhodesia is that much of the Zimbabwean farmland is in the hands of a small group of farmers of European origin.
My group supports the wishes of the black majority of the population for the return of most of the land to them.
Unfortunately, that wish is being seriously abused by Robert Mugabe, the man once popular as the leader of the successful war of liberation against the colonial occupiers and the racist minority Government of Ian Smith.
It was not until the electorate had almost lost its trust in him that he made the long-promised land reform a priority.
For Mugabe, the expropriation of large farms is now principally an instrument to reward his old following of freedom fighters at last after decades of delay.
Still more, it forms part of a campaign to eliminate political opponents by means of slurs, intimidation and coercion.
If Europe isolates this regime, it must do so not on the basis of old colonial interests and old colonial arrogance, but because we want to help every country in the world promote human rights and democracy.
That is what this is all about.
   . – Mr President, Mrs Grybauskaitė, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in the Great Lakes and in particular in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is an ulcer, a volcano in the heart of Africa that is, sadly, always liable to erupt.
Following a conflict that, during its six years, claimed three million lives, but that continues to claim 31 000 lives every month, according to the International Rescue Committee, the signs are that the situation remains unstable and unfortunately extremely unpredictable.
The ACP-EU joint parliamentary assembly recently met in The Hague.
Our meeting opened, curiously, with the good news of the Dar-es-Salam Conference and of the commitment made there by all Heads of Government to end the conflict.
By Thursday, however, when we ended the meeting, our joint Chairman, Glenys Kinnock, had brought us the sad news that the Rwandan army had crossed the border into the Democratic Republic of Congo.
We must therefore be more effective in this area in order to stabilise the region.
Mr Posselt’s comparison with the Thirty Years’ War was most apt and I hope that he is right, because if so the conflict will come to an end and those regions of the African continent will be as prosperous, stable and modern as Germany is today.
This is what we strive for.
The African continent must be stabilised in open and democratic societies.
What must we do in this House? We must acknowledge that we are not doing enough as regards the militias of the former government of Rwanda.
They are a source of instability and an excuse for permanent instability in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and we must take stronger action to disarm them.
We must make it clear that any invasion is unacceptable and that respect for a country’s borders is a principle that must be applied by all countries in the region.
We must complete the democratic transformation of the Democratic Republic of Congo and do what we can to stabilise the country; the Congolese army must be reunified, for example.
We must strengthen the resources available to the United Nations’ mission in order to guarantee genuine peace and stability in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo and to succeed in creating conditions on the ground that do not take us backwards; in other words, conditions that lead all sides to honour the 2003 peace agreements, that lead all sides to honour agreements undertaken in Tanzania on 20 November of this year and that lead all sides duly to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions.
   .   Amongst the many examples of violation of human rights and democratic principles in Africa, the involvement of children in armed conflicts stands out as an extremely serious problem.
I wonder whether any debate, even one held in this House, can help to counter poverty in developing countries.
Over 5 billion people in such countries live on one or two dollars a day, and a bloody children’s war is being fought in Congo, where over 300 000 children are fighting in military interventions which have killed more than 3 million people in recent years.
Does such destruction of childhood through enforced labour, recruitment to the armed forces and sexual exploitation not demonstrate lack of responsibility and failure on the part of the various humanitarian and international organisations?
In order to take measures to prevent tragedies of this kind, it is necessary to begin by identifying their causes.
The most fundamental of these is the long-term and wide-ranging exploitation of developing countries by a number of world powers, including European countries.
The latter profit from such exploitation while the looted colonies are left even poorer.
Congo is devastated, having become the victim of exploiters for whom the country’s abundant natural resources are more important than human lives.
I believe that a person’s level of civilisation should be measured in terms of how responsible their attitude is to the weakest, and the same is true for those in power.
Yet the weakest among us should not be provided with aid that is merely a sham, and takes the form of moral devastation, contraception and abortion.
Much more is needed.
Comprehensive care should be provided, and development facilitated.
In addition, malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, which are prevalent in the country, should be treated, and family units helped to develop soundly.
I also believe that instead of sending armed forces and instructors to Iraq, we should take steps to ensure that peace finally prevails in Congo.
   Mr President, while Dow Chemicals and the Indian Government argue over who is to blame for the Bhopal disaster, the people continue to suffer and die from their two-decade legacy.
More than 7 000 people died within days, but inaction has seen 15 000 further deaths which could have been avoided.
Even today, 20 years on, neither side seems to care about the suffering, only about their reputations.
As many as 100 000 people are suffering chronic and debilitating illnesses, with 10 to 15 people a month continuing to die.
The survivors still wait for justice: compensation and medical assistance in many cases.
The plant site, which continues to pollute, will cost an estimated GBP 15 million to decommission, compared with Dow's yearly sales of GBP 16 billion and India's GDP of GBP 320 billion.
The Indian Government has also yet to spend USD 330 million of the original compensation given to them by Union Carbide.
The pollution in the water supply in nearby slums is also 500 times above the maximum recommended WHO levels.
How can the international community, a multinational company and one of the world's main countries, stand by and watch this happen? Just now it should not be about who is to blame, but who is going to stop the suffering.
Bhopal resident, Abdul Jabbar Khan, who runs the Bhopal Women Gas Victims' Industrial Association, said in the Guardian newspaper in the UK: 'In New York after 9/11 there was compensation, punishment and clean-up in just a few months.
In Bhopal, after 20 years, we have nothing.'
   . Mr President, I am glad to be able to speak immediately after Mr Bowis, who has impressed upon us where we have got to 20 years after 3 December 1984, when gas from a 35-tonne cocktail of highly toxic substances caused 7 000 people to die when their hearts and lungs failed.
To this day, some 25 000 have gone down in history as the victims of the biggest chemical accident ever recorded, and some 500 000 are still crippled as a consequence of it.
What, though, was done for the victims? Research has shown that, 15 years ago, compensation to the tune of USD 470 million was agreed on by Union Carbide and the Indian Government.
So far, the 100 000 officially registered as victims have received USD 300 each.
There are 2 500 houses for widows along with seven hospitals, and many facilities have been built, but what has happened to the rest of the money, some USD 400 million? I have to tell Mrs Gill that we really do have to ask who is to blame for that.
The ground is still contaminated.
The ground water is heavily contaminated with mercury, and that is not going to go away.
Toxic residues are stored in the open air.
Small wonder, then, that we end up with the situation that Mr Bowis has described, with chronic illnesses, brain damage, and children born with deformities.
If there is to be any substantial improvement in medical provision for the victims, then the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Singh, will have to intervene, and the government should comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling and finally release the funds and enable full compensation to be paid out.
Many chemical companies still have production operations in India and in other parts of the world where labour and environmental standards are far below those that apply in the European Union or the USA.
As the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs’ rapporteur on the REACH programme, I can do no other than reiterate the demand made in the working paper: if there is to be comparability, we need rules made by the European Union, and, in the same way, rules laid down as standards by the WTO.
Those whose desire for increased profits leads them to allow the minimum environmental requirements without exception are accepting the likelihood of a second Bhopal one day, and that is something that none of us can afford.
   Thank you for your comment, Mr Rübig.
   I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned, and I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2005.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0070/2004) by Mr Corbett and Mr Méndez de Vigo, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe 2004/2129(INI).
   Mr Schmit has the floor on behalf of the Council, and I would like to thank him in particular for being here, and also express our condolences to him and the people of Luxembourg, who are in national mourning following the death of the Grand Duchess.
   Mr President, a blank cheque is a cheque on which the recipient writes the amount concerned.
A cheque of this kind can be issued in an emergency, if the signatory knows the recipient very well.
Why, however, recommend to the electorate that it endorse an agreement that is to be given substance by leaders we cannot possibly know at present? We do not know whether the most important and most sensitive issues are to be decided unanimously or by qualified majority voting.
The future unelected prime ministers will themselves be able to determine how they will make decisions, instead of giving the electorate the last word.
Nor do we know the content of important articles in which decisions are left to the Court of Justice.
In one place, a pledge is given on matters relating to countries’ social systems; elsewhere, our welfare systems can be voted away on the basis of a majority decision or a judgment.
In one place, the status of the national church is maintained; elsewhere, the precedence taken by the Danish Constitution in matters relating to the national church is removed.
In one place, national identity is guaranteed; elsewhere, the Constitution has to give way if it is in conflict with a decision by officials in Brussels.
In Article III-375, the Danish Supreme Court loses the right to decide the limits placed upon the EU authorities.
In many places, there is freedom of choice as to whether a binding decision or voluntary coordination is to be used.
Thus, we do not know what we are supposed to endorse.
It is therefore wisest not to endorse anything until the amount is stated on the cheque, together with the identity of the recipient, and until we are also given the right to cancel the cheque.
In that way, we shall at least know what we are voting on and how we can overturn a decision.
Constitutions are for states.
Between states, agreements are made, that is to say treaties.
I want to see a Europe of democracies that solves practical problems by focusing upon cross-border issues, or matters that we cannot solve ourselves.
In that way, we should not be losing anything in terms of democracy, but should have everything to gain in terms of cooperation.
We should then have a democratic bonus instead of a growing democratic deficit that might end up with the collapse of democracy.
As the well-known poet Ebbe Kløverdal Reich pointed out, democracy without a is simply the exercise of power.
Government that provides no opportunity for adjusting a country’s course at the date of the next election is not democracy, but oligarchy.
Europe deserves better, and that is the title of the alternative statement that I recommend be adopted instead of Mr Corbett’s and Mr Méndez De Vigo’s report.
   – Mr President, as a French socialist and as a European socialist, I shall be voting tomorrow, with emotion and pride, in favour of the report by the two Members of this House.
I shall therefore turn my speech into a tribute – a tribute to Altiero Spinelli, who drew up the first European Constitution in this democratically-elected House.
I never forget that he was a veteran of the young communists and I turn to my fellow socialists and say to them ‘never forget where you have come from’.
He was an old anti-fascist militant, an old federalist, and I pay tribute to those Members of Parliament who voted for this draft during the sitting of 14 February 1984.
Mr Poettering voted in favour, Mr Hänsch voted in favour, Mr Wurtz voted against and Mr Vergès voted against.
They will do so again, loyal as they are.
If you re-read the text on which we shall vote tomorrow, you will notice that it takes up a number of elements of that old text.
Let me give you some examples.
Article 3 of the Spinelli report enshrines the principle of European citizenship; Article 4, respect for fundamental rights; Article 6, legal personality; Article 9, the Union’s objective of full employment; Article 34 speaks of European laws; Article 44 mentions sanctions; Article 82 of Part 4, which is Part 3 today, speaks of ratification, and I could go on.
What I am trying to say is that tomorrow’s vote forms part of the context of this long history, and that this Constitution has not simply fallen out of the sky; it is part of a major historical movement.
The seam was first mined over 50 years ago and yielded the raw material of reconciliation.
The single currency, the euro, which is more than ten years old, was Germany’s currency of reconciliation.
Let us therefore view this Constitution as a hand proffered to the peoples who have joined us again, now that the dark night of totalitarianism is over.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if you gave the Constitution, or whatever you ultimately call it, to a cartoonist in any country of Europe who respects the principles of democracy, of national sovereignty, of the values of the historic and cultural heritage, he would draw it like a mincer from which various parts of various animals, from sheep to cows, come out in the form of minced meat.
But people are not animals and it is a crime to treat them like minced meat.
Fascism did it with weapons and some people appear to envy its intentions, and 65 years later certain other weapons such as money and propaganda are being used for the same reason.
We therefore say no to the canning of the peoples of Europe, no to the law of the jungle which throttles the weak, no to the imposition of underhand approaches and people and no to efforts to turn citizens into docile robots in the hands of multinationals and banks.
We say yes to the right of opinion and rejection, yes to the Europe of sovereign nations, yes to Christianity and human rights, yes to the pride and dignity of the peoples.
'I recognise you by the fierce edge of your sword.
I recognise you by the look which measures the earth with force.’
And force used on the spirit is worse than force against the body.
There is still time for resistance.
We have time to reverse globalisation and the new order of things. '.
   – Mr President, I speak on behalf of the new Italian Socialist Party.
We feel that we must warmly welcome the new European Constitution.
The Member States are transferring a growing proportion of their sovereignty to benefit an ambitious global idea, whereby 25 countries tread a common path together, side by side.
It is 21 years since this Chamber, by a large majority, adopted the plan to reform the European Union that had been drawn up by the Italian Member Altiero Spinelli.
It was a complex and daring plan, which was clearly designed to create a more integrated Community.
Since then, little by little, the nations of the old continent have continued to add to and to develop the reasons for uniting within this international framework, which has undergone remarkable modifications and changes.
The Constitution, signed on 29 October in Rome, just as in 1957, is a fundamental achievement in that context.
Half a century later, Europe’s road has come back to the place where it all began: an exciting new challenge involving us all in creating and building the Europe of tomorrow.
   I declare the session adjourned until 3 p.m.
   Ladies and gentlemen, before the two votes which will take place today at noon, I should like to give the floor for one minute to Mr McMillan-Scott, Chairman of the Delegation for Observation of the Palestinian Presidential Elections and Vice-President of the Parliament.
   . Mr President, I am grateful for the opportunity to address colleagues before, hopefully, my report is voted through plenary.
The PEACE programme is of much more than purely financial importance to Northern Ireland and the border counties of the Republic of Ireland.
It is the most visible contribution so far by the European Union to building a stable society in Northern Ireland and, to that extent, it has enormous symbolic value as well.
It is a fine example of the European Union offering assistance without interfering in the local political process.
On behalf of the people of Northern Ireland, I thank those who have worked so hard to ensure that this report was able to go through its parliamentary stages at speed.
I am grateful to the chairman and the secretariat of the Committee on Regional Development for addressing the proposal as a priority once it was received from the Commission.
I am also very grateful to the Committee on Budgets for its efficient handling of the budgetary question, which has enabled us to vote today.
Whilst I am also grateful to the Council and the Commission, I regret that the British and Irish governments did not ask for a higher sum of money.
The amount allocated falls somewhat short of initial expectations.
However, I am pleased that the PEACE programme is being extended and would be grateful for strong support for this symbol of EU commitment to all the people of Northern Ireland.
Recommendation: Nicholson (A6-0001/2005)
   .
I congratulate Mr Nicholson on his excellent work on the recommendation concerning the extension of the duration of the PEACE programme.
The PEACE programme, which was started in 1995, is aimed at fostering peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and in border areas of the Republic of Ireland.
Following the success of the PEACE I programme, the Berlin European Council of 1999 decided to extend the programme for a further five years, in order to provide continuity to the projects that had been set up.
I endorse the rapporteur’s position that in this region of Europe, which has endured over 30 years of violence, all energies should be channelled into making it possible to maintain social inclusion, economic development and employment, urban and rural regeneration and cross-border cooperation.
It is therefore essential to extend the implementation of the PEACE programme by two years, until the end of 2006, coinciding with the programming period for the Structural Funds and with a proposal to extend the annual Community contribution to the International Fund for Ireland for the same period.
The wider aim, therefore, is to align the measures financed by these two instruments with interventions carried out in the region under EU cohesion policy.
   .
I voted in favour of Mr Nicholson’s report on the PEACE programme for Northern Ireland, because I feel that it is extremely important for the EU to show solidarity with the Irish peace process.
Our solidarity should be channelled into benefiting the wide range of sectors, groups and communities worst affected by the violence, and into fostering inter-community projects.
Financial management through locally-based partnership structures and sectorally specialised non-governmental organisations will help to strengthen the ties of peace and reconciliation that are crucial to stabilisation in Northern Ireland.
I also consider essential the objective of financial consistency that has been set out as a result of the extension of the implementation of the PEACE programme for a further two years, given that it constitutes a step towards aligning the actions financed by this instrument and by the International Fund for Ireland with interventions carried out in the region under the EU cohesion policy.
   We are therefore continuing with the debate on the report by Mr Corbett and Mr Méndez de Vigo on the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.
   – Mr President, tomorrow's vote is of historic importance.
The significant progress being made with the European Constitution and the advantages which derive from its positive provisions have already been presented both in the full report by my honourable friends Mr Corbett and Mr Méndez de Vigo and today in this Chamber.
As, therefore, almost all the issues have been exhausted, I shall confine myself to one vital problem.
A new marathon starts from tomorrow for ratification by the Member States.
But what will happen if there is some problem with ratification by some Member State? The Constitution does not contain a specific provision to deal with this eventuality.
Nonetheless, the declarations relating to the provisions of the Constitution state that, if two years after signature of the Constitution, 4/5 of the Member States have ratified the Constitution in question and one or more Member States are facing difficulties in connection with ratification, the matter will be submitted to the European Council.
Do you, however, think that this arrangement is satisfactory? I believe that there should be a much clearer provision.
Unfortunately, however, this arrangement also emerged from the series of compromises which were necessary in order for us to get where we are today.
Therefore, it is not enough for us to talk and to support the ratification of the Constitution unreservedly.
All the governments and all of us need to work to avoid such an unfortunate development if we want to enter a new era for our continent.
   Mr President, listening to Mr Frattini, I was thinking of the motto of the famous Belgian poet, Henri Michaux, about never despairing but allowing a solution to bubble up unbidden.
I do believe that we must pay tribute to the Commission for not having despaired but for having reopened a necessary and useful debate.
President Schmit, you should stay, for this is very much your area.
We are, indeed, very keen to see the Commission’s move bear fruit.
You failed on a previous attempt in this area, in spite of the Commission’s initiative and in spite of Parliament’s commitment.
It was the Council that was unable to bring about an agreement.
The question I put to you, Mr Frattini – yes, it is to you that I am speaking – is this: what objective information do you have that leads you to think – and the question is, in truth, also addressed to Mr Schmit – that the blocks placed by the Council on the previous initiative are likely to be removed today, a prospect about which we are, on the face of it, delighted, albeit – it has to be said – slightly sceptical.
   Commissioner, I am, of course, like my fellow MEP Mr Bourlanges, delighted that the Commission and the European Parliament are continuing with their common efforts to open legal immigration channels.
I should like, however, to put three questions to you, Commissioner.
The first is similar to Mr Bourlanges’ question: what practical legislative measures are you considering taking, and what will you do to stop the Council blocking such measures, as in the case of your first attempt in 2001? The second question concerns your proposed sectoral legislation for legal immigration.
Does not this approach endanger migrants’ rights by creating different regimes for each group? Thirdly and finally, what measures will you adopt in order to link this immigration policy to a policy of European integration?
   Mr Frattini, we have decided to divide the questions into three, by group.
Do you wish, therefore, to respond now to the statements made by the three speakers?
   Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for the Green Paper.
Since action was urgently required, and still is, I am delighted with it.
I have only just received the Green Paper, and so I have not had the chance to read the whole document, only the first few pages.
I was immediately struck by something on page 5, where as regards the form of future European legislation with a view to the planned harmonisation, three proposals have been made.
At least, the impression is created that three options are still open, namely the horizontal approach, the sectoral approach and the so-called common fast track procedure.
Is it not, though, the case that, thanks to years of indecision on the part of the Council, we have tacitly already decided in favour of the sectoral approach? I think that the Peillon report about admitting third-country scientists and researchers is a case in point.
That is backed by the Council, and that may explain your optimism to some extent.
   Mr President, I thank the Commission for its initiative, which is extremely welcome.
Let me try to put a new twist on things.
There are tens of millions of Europeans living outside Europe who have benefited from the immigration policy of other countries – not only the United States, but also Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and many others.
These people – or a very interesting sample of them – met for the first time during the Greek presidency in June 2003 in Thessaloniki.
Some of the most remarkably successful Italians, Greeks, Czechs, Romanians and others living around the world came to tell us about their experiences.
Their experience, as European citizens, of being integrated into those countries could be extremely helpful to you, Commissioner.
I was involved in this and I would be happy to help your staff plan a meeting with these people.
I do not believe that any of us here feel that the relatives we have in third countries have harmed those countries, nor do the host countries feel that they have harmed them.
So for us as Europeans to fear the notion of legal migration so greatly goes against our personal experiences.
Let us hear the experiences of these people.
Their experiences might even enable us to make it easier for our own citizens – identifying as they will with them – to understand the benefits of legal migration to Europe.
      I have an observation to make, or rather a question to ask of Commissioner Frattini.
I am not familiar with the Green Paper, but I would like this document to contain provisions to ensure that in future Europe will not be suspected or accused, as has sometimes been the case with the United States, of causing a ‘brain drain’ from poor countries.
We need to make sure that people who come to European universities or scientific institutes to study or train do not remain here for whatever reasons, whether working or not, as this represents a loss for their own countries.
The countries affected are frequently poor countries, whose development depends to a large extent on the education of such an elite.
A policy must be developed which ensures that on the one hand it is possible to work here for a certain length of time, but that on the other hand instruments also exist which would not so much force people to return as encourage them to do so, in order to put the knowledge and experience they have gained to use in developing their own cultures and societies.
   That concludes the item on the Commission communication on the Green Paper on admission for employment.
I should like to thank Commissioner Frattini and the speakers.
Mr Ortuondo Larrea has asked to be given the floor in order to make a personal statement.
   The next item is Question Time, with questions to the Commission (B6-0001/2005).
   . Honourable Members, I am responding to this question on behalf of my colleague, Mr Michel, who is unable to be here this afternoon, as he must attend the donors' conference on the tsunami disaster.
On this issue, the approach of the Commission is twofold.
Firstly, on the one hand, we support the initiatives and programmes of the ILO.
Secondly, we reinforce the capacity of the countries in the region to implement the relevant Cotonou provisions and different Economic Community of West African States protocols and initiatives in the area of child protection.
The International Labour Organisation, through its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour, launched in 2000 a new initiative called 'Combating Trafficking in Children for Labour Exploitation in West and Central Africa'.
In 2003 a 'West Africa Cocoa/Commercial Agricultural Programme to Combat Hazardous and Exploitative Child Labour' was added, focusing in particular on cocoa farming.
The Commission has a strategic partnership with the ILO, in which the fight against child labour is a priority.
In that context, a programme of EUR 15 million under the ACP funds is currently under consideration.
The objectives would be, , firstly, to establish a sustainable mechanism to prevent children from carrying out all sorts of labour in the agricultural and other sectors.
Secondly, to strengthen the capacity of national and community-level agencies and organisations in planning, initiating, implementing and evaluating action to prevent and progressively eliminate child labour.
Thirdly, to remove all children involved in work in the cocoa sector, to prevent children at risk from entering such work, and to improve the income-earning capacity of adult family members, particularly women, through social protection schemes.
ECOWAS is active as a regional organisation in the fight against child labour.
In addition to the Cotonou provisions on trade and labour standards, the ECOWAS Heads of State have adopted a declaration and a plan of action to fight child exploitation, and ECOWAS has recently set up a child unit in its secretariat.
The 9th EDF Regional Indicative Programme will provide capacity-building to this new unit within ECOWAS, with a view to promoting the effectiveness of its work.
   . The Commission believes that the framework of the Cotonou Agreement between the EU and the 77 ACP countries gives real opportunities to address the human and social aspects of this practice, as well as the corruption element that may be linked to it, through political dialogue and support for good governance in ACP countries.
Moreover, it considers that poverty and the lack of local opportunities are amongst the main reasons for exploitative child labour and child trafficking.
The poverty- reduction approach through EU development cooperation is a sound basis for tackling the problem as it gives priority to equitable growth and to better access to education.
Finally, the Cotonou Agreement represents an important step forward in promoting CLS in bilateral agreements.
Article 50 includes a specific provision on trade and labour standards, which reaffirms the commitments of the Parties to international CLS as defined by the relevant ILO Conventions.
   . I will certainly bring Mr Harbour's comments to Mr Michel's attention.
   Madam President, Commissioner, the situation is more dramatic than might be supposed from the Commissioner’s reply.
Since 1 May, Russia has been playing games and not accepting goods from Poland in retaliation for the refusal by certain countries, such as the Baltic countries, to accept Russian imports because they failed to meet the sanitary requirements laid down by the EU.
Member States do not, however, have the power to take independent decisions on veterinary matters relating to imports of products from third countries.
I would ask you to take urgent action on this matter.
   . I certainly agree with the honourable Member that the opportunities for job creation from an opening-up of the services market throughout Europe are immense.
Various studies have been initiated, and there are great opportunities for job creation.
Given that services account for well over 60% of the Union's GDP, it is clear that any improvement in the services area is going to lead to an increase in wealth and jobs for people in the Union.
I agree with the honourable Member that many anti-competitive practices exist in lots of Member States that prevent the real opening-up of the services market.
The services directive is attempting to open up the services area to the benefit of everybody in Europe.
But having said that, and in reply to the earlier question from Mr De Rossa, I am also conscious of the specific concerns expressed by Members.
Hopefully, during the parliamentary process and other processes we will be able to tease these concerns out further.
   . The country of origin approach which lies at the heart of the Services Directive will allow for the circumstances Mr Crowley has outlined.
As I said in my reply, it will allow companies to operate in another Member State without having to go through a multitude of further tests.
That is the basis of the country of origin principle as it would apply to the circumstances outlined.
   I too wish to welcome Commissioner McCreevy.
When it comes to the Services Directive, it is clear that not everyone has understood why it is needed.
I therefore think it would be appropriate, and shall also ask the Commissioner if it might not be appropriate, to produce a list of examples clearly showing how companies have, in practical terms, been prevented from contributing to economic development.
One example is the case of a French company that wishes to produce gravestones being prevented from doing so by Germans and exposed to threats of fines.
Can the Commissioner come back with a full and practical list of the host of problems we have seen in SOLVIT and in other contexts – problems to which companies are exposed and that prevent economic development?
   Madam President, I know how hard it is to chair these sessions, but I wonder what relevance that supplementary had to Mr Mitchell's original question? Mrs Cederschiöld seemed to have jumped back to the previous question.
I know my colleague Mr De Rossa had a genuine supplementary on the previous question and was refused the floor!
   Mr Martin, it is evident that the whole House takes a great deal of interest in this matter.
A great many Members had asked to speak, and there is no way for me to know in advance what Members’ supplementary questions will relate to when I give them the floor.
Perhaps you should discuss the matter again with Mrs Cederschiöld.
The second part of Question Time has already overrun in any case, which means that Questions Nos 31 to 33 can no longer be taken, and will instead be answered in writing.
We shall now proceed to the next set of questions.
In its campaign entitled 'Would you leave it to chance? – We don't' the Commission is sending out the message that Europe has a substantial amount of money available for development cooperation.
The statement by Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner in this campaign says that the world must become a better place, but this evidently means primarily for Europeans and that development cooperation must in the first instance bring stability to our 'immediate neighbourhood'.
Combating poverty has been relegated to a secondary role.
Can the Commission say whether this approach, which is primarily designed to make Europe more secure rather than providing permanent solutions to third world development, is compatible with the development agenda of the developing countries and consistent with Article 177 of the Treaty and the UN Millennium goals?
   Madam President, I am pleased with the Commissioner’s response, because I have to say that I was a little shocked when I read her statement of 2 December.
Indeed, one could have been forgiven for thinking that the objectives that she listed did not agree with the millennium objectives.
Commissioner, this issue has been discussed in the Committee on Budgetary Control before.
In this respect too, you have encroached upon the area of development cooperation.
Mr Michel is the Commissioner for Development and I think that good agreements will need to be made, also in terms of statements made, to prevent what you said from being misinterpreted in the broader context of the millennium objectives.
I should like to ask you to consult with Mr Michel very carefully on this score.
   . First I should like to point out that I have already answered, in principle, the question of the media.
I clearly pointed out the Commission's opinion for the time being.
However, with regard to projects and money I can give you some examples: the EU's support for civil society is to be strengthened; the EU's TACIS programme – which amounts to EUR 10 million for Belarus in 2005 and 2006 – will focus on support for civil society, independent media – exactly what you wanted us to focus on; higher education cooperation including exchanges of students and professors; and alleviation of the consequences of the Chernobyl catastrophe.
The provision of information to the general public with regard to the European Union and the European Neighbourhood Policy will also be strengthened.
In addition, the Tempus Programme will finance exchanges of young Belarusian university students abroad, curriculum development on European studies and capacity-building in local universities.
As I said, Belarus is indeed eligible under the New Neighbourhood programmes.
It will therefore benefit from the European Neighbourhood Policy instrument as of 2007.
Finally, the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights – the EIDHR – will have a more active role in Belarus in the years to come.
In 2005-2006 Belarusian applicants will be able to apply for support under two campaigns: 'fostering a culture of human rights' and 'promoting democratic processes'.
      I should like to know whether the European Commission is aware that these much-needed educational programmes are under the control of the Belarussian authorities, and therefore cannot be regarded as true support for the process of democratisation in Belarus.
I should also like to ask whether, in the light of the Commissioner’s comments, a sum of money will be earmarked under the EIDHR (European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights) programme to support independent initiatives in Belarus, bearing in mind that over recent years not a single euro from the fund has yet been set aside for this purpose.
   Questions Nos 38 to 41 will be answered in writing. Questions Nos 39 and 40 lapse, as they are already on the agenda for this part-session.
   – Madam President, Commissioner, I think there has been another mistake here or something has escaped you.
Last December, the and newspapers reported extensively on telephone tapping; they even had special diagrams of a device which perpetrates this crime, in or out of inverted commas. This device exists somewhere in Milan or southern Italy.
I wonder, therefore, how is it that you too have not yet found out about it, so that you can make the relevant observations today.
   . Mr Martin, you are absolutely correct and this is certainly the right path to take.
As you are probably aware, in Italy it falls on the one hand to the Minister for Justice and, on the other, to the judiciary’s self-governing body to take action against judges who commit illegal acts.
I have naturally passed this request on to the Italian Minister for Justice.
What is the Commission's view on reactions to the Commission's annual report on Migration (July 2004), including the view of experts such as SOLIDAR (Katrin Hugendubel) and the Social Platform of NGOs that it is difficult to establish 'best practice' on integration policy when the contexts of each EU Member State are so different?
   I am well aware of the legal framework in which the European anti-terrorism policy can operate as far as the Commission is concerned and you described it very well.
If, however, we do not wish to demonstrate collective hypocrisy, we need to say how things stand.
And the way they stand is that we have major conferences, with all the Heads of Government present, and afterwards they have a press conference, set out a decision and following this decision nothing happens.
The Commission itself admitted as much on 8 June 2004.
The question is, therefore: what is the Commission going to do in political terms to put the policy into practice?
   . I do not think that we can or should create new bodies; I think that on the one hand the Commission should give strategic, or rather political direction to this sector and, on the other hand, the sector should have the chance to find different ways to use Europol, which as we all know is trying to extend its duties and its remit.
The Commission intends to encourage this progression, this expansion of Europol’s duties.
This is undoubtedly one of the sectors where work can be done.
   Mrs Sbarbati, the Rules of Procedure lay down quite clear rules for the holding of Question Time.
A great many Members asked to speak on a certain topic earlier, and I could not give the floor to everyone.
In my opinion, the main problem is that many Members spend a long time asking supplementary questions, and do not abide by the 30-second time limit, which of course means that we are often delayed.
I will, however, bear your comments in mind.
I should like to extend my sincere thanks to everyone, and especially to Commissioner Frattini again for being prepared to remain so long in the Chamber with us for Question Time.
Questions Nos 46 to 76 will be answered in writing.
   . Mr President, Mr Juncker's speech was made with all the passion that a civil servant is likely to raise.
Mr Juncker, you say that the Stability and Growth Pact will be your top priority, but your past statements serve to illustrate only the inconsistencies.
Whilst I acknowledge that you played a key role in negotiating the pact's original rules, you recently said that the credibility of the pact had been buried and that the pact was dead.
Is that still your opinion?
You also said that you have a window of opportunity to cut a quick deal on the EU budget, including the British rebate of some EUR 4 billion a year.
Is that so, Mr Juncker? The rebate took to negotiate.
If your comments are true and you can cut a deal by June, then Mr Blair must have agreed in principle to surrender the rebate. Is that the case?
With whom in the British Government precisely are you negotiating? Will the British electorate know about this at the time of the British general election, probably in May?
Finally, the UK Independence Party, and in particular my colleague Mr Farage, has drawn attention to the criminal activities of more than one Commissioner.
More details will follow shortly and regularly.
Are you to be tainted by association with them, or will you be expressing your concerns and the pressing need for change?
   – Mr President, the tsunami tragedy should be no less significant to the world’s leaders and to Europe than 11 September.
The Asian tsunami should act as a turning point for the most pressing of the world’s priorities – that of preventing and combating hunger and disease.
I therefore wish to ask four questions.
Firstly, do you believe that the EUR 450 million announced for reconstruction might undermine programmes already planned for Asia (as is the case of EUR 150 million of the EUR 450 million announced)? Secondly, do you intend to back the cancellation of the debt of countries affected by the tsunami or do you advocate just a moratorium?
Thirdly, will they be treated the same as Iraq, or worse than Iraq?
Lastly, Commissioner Michel proposed to the last Council a more ambitious target than 0.7% for development. Will you reconsider this proposal, or will it be jettisoned for good?
   My dear Mr Juncker, Luxembourg’s presidencies of the EU are usually among the best, perhaps because a small country knows that it cannot monopolise the agenda but that it must be of service to everyone.
I am sure that you will continue that tradition, and would also call upon you and the Council to treat supporters and opponents of the Constitution exactly the same.
Our buildings here are full of expressions of commitment to a ‘yes’ vote: ‘yes’ signs, badges and balloons, their presence decided upon – and paid for out of our common budget – before Parliament has voted.
It will not, however, be until this afternoon that we know the result, and it is certain that there will be votes both in favour of, and against, the Constitution.
Those in favour cannot steal taxpayers’ contributions to promote a definite view.
Referendums belong to us all, and voters are entitled to balanced information, not propaganda paid for through taxes.
On Monday evening, Parliament’s Sessional Services decided to send some millions of euros to the supranational EU parties, which are all in favour of the EU Constitution.
More than 150 Members of the European Parliament will not have a share of these resources.
That is contrary to the principle of equality and thus illegal.
I would call upon you to raise the matter in the Council so that the regulation relating to parties is either abolished or supplemented by arrangements for those who do not wish to belong to a supranational party but wish to engage in corresponding European information-providing activities, for example concerning the Constitution.
How will you guarantee that EU resources used by the campaigners for a ‘yes’ vote can be used equally well by the campaigners for a ‘no’ vote? May I finally call upon you to intimate that you will respect the outcome of the referendums, whether they be ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
   Mr President, I would like to wish Prime Minister Juncker a positive and productive presidency and am very pleased to see a small, successful, independent country leading the European Union.
Luxembourg is one of the six Member States that is smaller than my own country, Wales, and an example of what an independent Wales could achieve.
The priorities paper tries to maintain the essential balance between economic, social and environmental policies.
I would like to mention the continuing campaign against discrimination, in the hope that real progress will be made on the European Gender Institute and on the recast equality directive.
There is no better example of the failure of policies on equality than the pay gap between men and women.
Thirty years after legislation was passed on this issue, a report published this week by the GMB trade union in the UK shows that, in Anglesey in my constituency, full-time pay for women is as low as 59% of that for men.
This is a scandal which must be addressed and I hope equality issues will be given priority.
   Thank you, Mr President.
I wish the Luxembourg presidency every success.
It will be in the interests of us all.
You are the second country to hold the presidency of the enlarged twenty-five.
You are a founding state of the European Union and you are also an example of how a small country can set the tempo and dictate the conditions to the big countries.
The President of the European Commission, Mr Barroso, drew attention in his speech today to the increased financial pressure on the new Member States, referring to the backward regions.
I should like to point out that these ten Member States also have great wealth.
Many of these regions have been deprived of tens and hundreds of young ambitious people, scientists, doctors, who have left in the last fifteen years for the old Europe and they are contributing to their successful economies.
I should like to point out to the Luxembourg presidency that we do not wish to be just the recipients of charity.
I see this as an opportunity for you actively to involve the new ten.
Following ratification of the Constitutional Treaty, Europe will build new institutions.
I invite you to take steps to ensure that the east of the European Union is given the right to host an important European institution.
I am convinced that this idea could be a success.
Evidence of this faith is the fact that the Bush – Putin meeting is to take place in my little country, Slovakia.
   The next item is the Council and Commission Statements on the consequences of the tsunami disaster of 26 December 2004.
   The debate is interrupted for voting time and will resume at 3 p.m.
   . Mr President, on behalf of the 25 Heads of State or Government who signed the Constitutional Treaty on 29 October 2004, I should like to express my delight at the fact that the European Parliament has approved this Treaty by a very large majority.
This is an important moment in the history of this House, and an important moment on Europe’s path towards the ratification of this new Constitution.
I would like to call on the national parliaments and the public to make known their views on this ratification in referendums wherever possible.
   Mr President, while the vote on Article 6 was being taken, I was addressed by a member of the Convention and mistakenly cast a ‘no’ vote.
I would like to make it clear that I am in favour of Article 6, am voting in favour of it, and am happy to see the Constitutional Treaty adopted.
   – Mr President, thank you for allowing me to speak to explain my vote after the sitting was suspended by the President.
I confirm that I voted for the report by Mr Manuel Medina Ortega on civil liability in motor vehicle accidents, which unfortunately occur all over Europe.
I should like to request that, in his next reports on this topic, Mr Medina Ortega, a lawyer, should think of protecting the elderly. When the elderly are injured in road accidents, they do not receive compensation because they cannot earn an income on account of their age.
I believe the fact that they are elderly does not mean they do not have a right to compensation for any injuries they sustain.
   – Mr President, while I was voting for the Constitution for Europe – and I was pleased to vote in favour of it – I dozed off; I do not know why: perhaps it was the calm way in which Mr Borrell Fontelles conducts voting.
As I was dozing off I saw you, Mr Onesta, telling me that I must vote for the Constitution, and when I asked, ‘Why must I vote for it?’ you replied, ‘You represent the pensioners, after all!’
We have to realise that this Constitution, which incorporates the Charter of Fundamental Rights, gives the elderly the right to be seen as deserving the same rights as the young, the same rights as workers.
While declaring that I voted for the Constitution, I would also express the hope there will not be any discrimination of any kind against the elderly in Europe.
   Mr President, when I voted in favour of the Corbett report, it was not because I thought the Constitution was the end of the story.
At the same time, however, I did not think it was the result of chance.
What firstly crossed my mind were the lengthy struggles that preceded the 1949 European Convention on Human Rights and the 1961 European Social Charter, with the latter being backed by all the trade unions.
These have now borne fruit in the shape of Part Two of the Constitutional Treaty, which contains the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Above all, however, my thoughts turned to the real father of the Constitution, Altiero Spinelli, whose name is not mentioned nearly enough.
Spinelli, a member of the Communist Youth who was put under house arrest for ten years by Mussolini, anticipated today’s text right from the European Parliament’s first term as a directly-elected body.
Another name to cross my mind was that of Mr Duhamel, who during the last parliamentary term prompted us to hold a public Convention in order to draft this Constitutional Treaty.
I therefore came to the conclusion that, as a left-winger, I could lend my support to this draft Constitutional Treaty today without any qualms, as it will open a promising page in the history of the EU.
   Mr President, I would like to say that I think there is something very unusual about the way in which statements of vote are being dealt with in this instance.
The report on which we have just voted states that: ‘the greatest advances brought by the Constitution are to be found in the specific area of common security policy’.
That is the principal reason why I reject this Constitutional Treaty for the EU.
Its Article I-41, paragraph 3 states that ‘the Member States are obliged to progressively improve their military capacities’, which means that the EU’s Member States are obliged to rearm.
When we turn to foreign and military policy, we find that the Constitutional Treaty evidently aims to equip the European Union to wage global war.
Article I-41, paragraph 1, states that the Treaty is intended to secure operational capacity drawing on military assets, so that the Treaty makes rearmament an obligation.
An armaments agency is to be set up to monitor all this and to implement appropriate measures to strengthen the industrial and technological basis of the defence sector.
I think there is a whole array of other points demonstrating why the Constitutional Treaty, which militarises the European Union, must be rejected.
That is what I wanted this statement of vote to make clear.
   The EU could operate perfectly well with one Commissioner per country.
Now that the European Council has, however, decided to reduce the number of Commissioners from 2014, it is important that we stick to the principle of fair rotation between the Member States.
   Mr President, please would you look at Rule 166 and tell me whether you have applied this Rule in response to the points of order, following your decision to tell your staff to assault ours, causing them bodily injury.
The Rule stipulates that 'A Member may be allowed to speak to draw the attention of the President to any failure to respect Parliament's Rules of Procedure'.
We have done that.
'A request to raise a point of order shall take precedence over all other requests to speak'.
We have done that – at least, for once, you got something right!
Paragraph 4 states that 'The President shall take an immediate decision on points of order'.
We ask – although I know you are not important in the pecking order – to take a decision on these very important points of order; probably the most important points of order you will ever get in your life!
   Mr President, Rule 166 states very clearly that you are required to give us a response to complaints such as those already made by my colleagues, Mr Batten and Mr Knapman, concerning violence used against our members of staff by your members of staff.
What steps are you taking or proposing to take to hold to account those who have used violence apparently in your name? We want to know what steps you are going to take or have already taken – it says so in Rule 166 – and we need that answer now, not tomorrow.
   Mr President, I too would like to speak on behalf of the Group of the Greens in thanking all those who have made donations or pledged them, but I also want, in my capacity as chairman of the delegation for relations with Iran, to emphasise my concern that the events of a year ago may repeat themselves, for, on 26 December 2003, an Iranian village was destroyed by an earthquake.
Massive amounts of aid were promised, but the money never arrived.
Terrible anniversaries like these stick in our minds, and in everyone else’s.
The credibility of this House and of the European Union depends on three things being done.
Firstly, the other areas must not be neglected; secondly, when remitting debt or allocating donations, it must be ensured that they are not misappropriated and used for military purposes; and, thirdly, I want to take this opportunity to reiterate that we need – and as part of the European security strategy – the capacity for humanitarian and civilian intervention.
We have already decided to set up the European Civilian Peace Corps, and it is in our Constitution.
Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, we should take up Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner’s proposals by preventing deficits and doing away with those that occur.
   Mr President, the world was shocked by the massive undersea earthquake, which took place on 26 December 2004.
I believe that the inability of the European Union to react to the tragedy with the same single-mindedness as the United States, which sent its Secretary of State, is a clear indication of the urgent need for an EU foreign minister.
I do not share the view of some colleagues.
The EU's delay in responding at an appropriate level was deeply shocking and is unacceptable; senior EU leaders were not visible.
However, I welcome the response, as now set out by the Commission President.
The current figure for loss of life is over 150 000, and it is feared that the effects of the tsunami, through diseases like cholera and malaria, will claim more victims.
However, we must not take for granted the great outpouring of support from the public, who were way ahead of the politicians.
We must now prepare for the time when donations turn from a flood to a trickle, once the glare of the media is turned away from Asia.
I would like to make two suggestions.
One is that we should somehow try to legislate, or to get Member States to legislate, for the 0.7% of GNP contribution, as required by our commitment to the United Nations.
I do not think it satisfactory, even in the motion recently adopted by this House, to express the that this will happen by 2015.
What happened in South-East Asia indicates how urgent this is, and the Commission should now be trying to work for some sort of a treaty base to compel Member States to meet this commitment of 0.7%.
Secondly, implementing a coordinated and sustained effort by donor governments gives rise for concern.
Some time ago, a EUR 2.5 billion commitment to Honduras for reconstruction after Hurricane Mitch was barely delivered on to the extent of one-third of that commitment: this is totally unacceptable.
This House is not going to accept that once the glare of publicity leaves South-East Asia, the commitments we make now will not be met.
   – Mr President, the tsunami means that we must rethink our whole development policy.
The fight against poverty must become a core commitment so that today’s interdependent world may be governed by criteria of equality and justice.
With the tsunami, all of us, rich or poor, are in the same boat.
I do not think it is enough to reprogramme what has already been allocated or even to buy fishing boats in Europe and give them to fishermen in the affected areas.
We have to move on urgently from words to deeds, cancelling the debts of all poor countries, opening our markets to trade with those countries, allocating 0.39% of Europe’s GIP to development aid by 2006 – in line with the moral commitment we accepted at Monterey – and, lastly, establishing a levy on international transactions to finance development and thus to meet the Millennium Objectives.
   . Mr President, on 22 and 23 February, the US President, George W. Bush, will visit Europe, where, after a visit to Brussels, he will be received in Mainz by the German Chancellor.
I am delighted that protests will be held on the occasion of this war criminal’s visit, and I myself will be addressing the demonstration in Mainz.
The fact that transatlantic relations are now so good surprises some people, but this is merely down to the fact that the EU’s policies do not differ in any fundamental way from the line followed by the US Government.
The debate on the EU Constitutional Treaty made it apparent that EU Heads of State or Government want the EU, too, to become a global and even military player.
Two examples of this are the militarisation of the EU, with the inclusion of an express commitment to rearmament in the new EU Treaty, and the fact that economic and monetary policy is based on neoliberal principles.
As I see it, a form of transatlantic relations whereby the EU becomes a world power, mostly working together with the USA, but sometimes competing with it, is the stuff of nightmares.
   Mr President, there is a simple reason for this.
Canada has already been mentioned several times, but I believe that this report and the resolution should really concentrate on Europe and the USA.
If the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commission wish to make repeated references to Canada, however – and such references are indeed sensible and necessary – I would ask them not to forget Mexico.
As Chairman of the Delegation to the EU-Mexico Joint Parliamentary Committee, this is a matter of some importance to me.
If we are going to discuss NAFTA, then we should discuss NAFTA as a whole.
I would ask you to bear this in mind.
   . Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, no one can have a good conscience about asking the developing countries to keep on repaying their debts, as they have already paid these debts back seven times over, and yet their liabilities are four times greater than they were to begin with.
I should therefore like to contradict you on one point, Mr Potočnik; you quoted absolute per capita figures, yet such figures are not the decisive factor.
Every inhabitant of Brandenburg, my home, is in debt to the tune of EUR 16 000, but our national economy is structured in such a way that we can cope with it.
The national economies of the developing countries cannot cope with such debt, however.
In my opinion, therefore, the main issue at stake is not whether we grant a debt deferment, debt reduction, debt moratorium or suchlike, but whether debts are cancelled, as these countries need the money that at present they spend almost exclusively on interest – not even on repayment – to tackle their economic, social and environmental problems.
We would be helping them to help themselves.
Anyone who thinks that this would cripple the rich industrial nations should take note of the fact that the Iraq war costs the USA USD 150 million every day.
President Bush has asked Congress for a further USD 80 billion, and yet Pakistan’s debts run to a mere USD 11 billion.
A comparison of these figures makes it obvious that the debt could be cancelled entirely, and this must be our goal.
Furthermore, it is often said – and I have heard it said again in this House today – that debt is offset by development aid.
I am sorry, but if the political will is there, and if we genuinely wish to help these countries, the poorest countries’ debt must be cancelled entirely.
In addition, the rich countries must finally adhere to their voluntary commitment of spending 0.7% of GDP on development aid.
Such an example should really be set for these countries and for the European Union.
   . Ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has undertaken to reach the Millennium Development Goals by 2015, which is both an ambitious and essential undertaking.
The external debt burden of developing countries is an insurmountable problem.
It makes it impossible to reduce the proportion of the population living in utter poverty.
Having understood this, the European Union has already earmarked USD one million for debt relief.
The HIPC Initiative encompassed 42 of the world's poorest countries.
The amount of debt to be written off for 26 of these countries will be 50% or USD 25 billion.
Other financial instruments will also be used.
These and other measures, however, are still insufficient to decrease the external debt burden of poor countries.
Therefore new opportunities and focused measures must be sought.
A broader spectrum of countries should be given the opportunity of qualifying for debt relief, similar to Iraq.
Debt Relief International should be more closely involved, and a real opportunity to escape from economic stagnation should be provided, moving purposefully towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals.
   That concludes the debate.
Six motions for resolutions have been tabled pursuant to Rule 103(2) of the Rules of Procedure(1).
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
   The next item is Question Time, with questions to the Council (B6-0001/2005).
Currently the European Union's 25 members spend about £120 billion a year investing in research and development.
Compared with more than £210 billion spent by the United States, this makes EU investment seem minimal.
This imbalance is one of the factors contributing to a 'brain drain' of scientific talent from Europe to the US.
The Kok report noted that nearly three-quarters of the world's leading IT companies were from the US.
What action is the Council prepared to take to improve Europe's knowledge economy?
   I would like to thank the President-in-Office for an extremely comprehensive reply to my question.
He referred to the Kok report, as I do in my question, but the report further recommended – as he will probably be aware – establishing a European research council, rather on the lines of the National Science Foundation in America.
This would be an independent body, run by scientists and academics and providing grants for science, engineering and social sciences.
It is something which might need funding of about EUR 2 billion a year.
Will the Council be considering this at the meeting to which he referred in March?
Does he personally think it is a good idea? And, if so, will he put his personal commitment behind it to persuade his colleagues in the 24 other countries that this is an idea worth pursuing.
   In accordance with Article 53 of the Treaty on European Union, Article 314 of the Treaty establishing the European Community and Article 225 of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community, there are at present 21 official source languages in which the founding treaties are written, each of these languages being deemed equally authentic.
In accordance with Article 290 of the EC Treaty, the Council, acting unanimously, determines the rules governing the languages of the Community, without prejudice to the provisions contained in the Statute of the Court of Justice.
In application of these rules, there are at present 20 official languages and working languages of the EU institutions.
The Official Journal of the European Union is published in all 20 official languages.
In theory, the linguistic rules are adapted within the framework of the enlargement negotiations.
There is no legal obstacle to the accession of a new Member State’s entailing the addition of more than one new official language.
On 23 November 2004, Ireland presented the Council with a proposal aimed at modifying Regulation No 1/58 with a view to adding the Irish language, which is one of the 21 languages referred to in paragraph 1, to the 20 official languages referred to in paragraph 2.
On 13 December 2004, the Spanish Government presented the Council with a request aimed at granting official recognition in the EU to the following languages:
Please excuse my poor pronunciation.
To this end, the Spanish Government proposed making certain changes to Regulation No 1/58.
   You are entirely right, Mr Martin, and I share your views on the matter.
After your many years of experience in this House, however, you will of course be aware that other items were delayed considerably. This resulted once again in an extremely short Question Time, as the President-in-Office of the Council must now hurry straight off to his next meeting.
I will, however, take a note of your comments, and raise the matter with the Bureau as requested.
I should like to give the floor to Mr Ryan, who also wishes to speak on this issue.
   This is the second time this has happened to me and the third time it has happened to my colleague Mr Aylward.
If Question Time starts late, then it should continue for a certain specific amount of time.
This is not happening, and it is not good enough.
   The next item isthe oral question to the Commission (O-0082/2004 - B6-0137/2004) by Stephen Hughes, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the dismissal of Commission language teachers.
      Mr President, losing one’s job is one of the most traumatic events a person can experience in a lifetime, and I should like to tell the teachers concerned that I understand their position.
The way in which these people were dismissed is reprehensible, and the Commission should apologise for the manner of their dismissal.
I repeat, the Commission should apologise for the manner of their dismissal.
From a legal point of view, however, the Commission had every right to dismiss them, and it did so not for its own satisfaction or to attract our criticism.
The money saved will make it possible to create more jobs, as it cannot be denied that the EU is an over-generous employer.
Outside the confines of the European institutions in Belgium an average of EUR 30 per hour would be paid for the same work, or in other words four times less than the figures quoted here.
We wronged these people by dismissing them in such a tactless fashion, and they deserved compensation for this.
It would be fair to ask, however, whether feeling guilty is sufficient reason to overturn a Commission decision.
I thank you.
   Mr President, in an effort to respond to the substantiated accusations and to the questions of parliamentarians and workers, the Commission has put forward as a first argument that it did not breach any agreement on the dismissal of 43 teachers, because the agreement did not contain a clause stating that it would employ the teachers for life.
This response by the Commission truly illustrates that there are no arguments and exposes it irreparably vis-à-vis the employees.
In other words, it has announced, before plenary in the European Parliament, that the jobs of all the employees in the European Union services are insecure.
The dismissal of 43 language teachers after 15 to 30 years' service constitutes an unacceptable action by the Commission.
It is an example of the social insensitivity which characterises its more general anti-grass roots policy.
   Mr President, I have some good advice to give to our new Commissioner, Mr Potočnik, and that is not to read out everything that your officials write down for you. That way, you will fare much better.
The second thing I have to say is that what the Commission has done here is inexcusable.
Commissioner Potočnik, we have been in politics long enough to know what it means when, four days before the European elections, you present your partner in the trialogue with a .
The intention, to put it bluntly, was to take us for a ride.
Commissioner, we will be examining what savings you have actually made with your ‘sound management’.
Let me call my principal witness, Vice-President Loyola de Palacio, and quote what she wrote to her fellow Vice-President Neil Kinnock on 29 June 2004:
   – Mr President, one minute is not enough for me to tell Mr Potočnik about the concerns that his report to Parliament raises.
We are not in court here, Mr Potočnik; we are in the European Parliament.
I will make just two comments about the culture that your report expresses. First, if your arguments prevailed in every country in Europe, we would have neither the Lisbon Charter nor even probably the Human Rights Charter.
We would have a return to an industrial relations system based on rules that are unacceptable to all the political groups in Parliament, as I have heard.
The second remark I would like to make to you is this: you should realise that a decision like the one you insist on making sends a terrible message to Parliament, namely that a rule is coming into force in Europe, in Parliament and in the European institutions that was typical of peoples’ democracies during the Soviet era throughout the twentieth century, that is to say: ‘give little and expect little’. The signs are there already in the structures and relations concerning translations, and these are the results.
   Mr President, with your permission and having discussed this with Mrs Hassi, who tabled this amendment, and indeed my colleague Mrs Corbey of the PSE Group, I would like colleagues to consider a very brief oral amendment.
After 'believes that', I would like to insert 'for industrialised countries' and then continue with 'medium term reductions of the order' and so on.
I would appreciate colleagues' support for that brief oral amendment, which focuses the amendment on industrialised countries and not the entire world.
(1)
   Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I am pleased to inform you and Members of Parliament that as far as financial matters are concerned, we are ahead of the resolution on which we are now voting.
What needs to be done to mobilise EUR 100 million of emergency aid to Asia has already been done in cooperation with Council.
Therefore, I am asking for a technical adjustment – an optimistic and positive one – to paragraph 16, to reflect the progress made.
'Calls on the EU and the Member States to fully deliver their pledges of at least EUR 1.5 billion announced by Commissioner Barroso in Jakarta and to do so in full in the form of a donation.'
(2)
(3)
(4)
   We take good note of what you have said and we are grateful for the information, Mr Posselt.
The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Tibet: the case of Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche(1).
   – Mr President, 26 January will be the second anniversary of the execution of the monk Lobsang Dhondup.
This execution called forth both protests from around the world and a resolution from this House, which Beijing ignored.
In January 2003, we made efforts to prevent the execution of his spiritual leader, Lama Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, and did likewise in November 2004, when the two-year stay of execution expired.
Yesterday, in a conversation here in Strasbourg, the Chinese Embassy assured me of the high probability of the death sentence being commuted to life imprisonment.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats regards that statement as a triumph for the many initiatives taken by this House and others.
We have never ceased from speaking out and winning support from parliaments and human rights organisations.
Again and again, we have urged the Council and the Commission to press a change of course on those in power in China.
Our demands are still on the agenda.
A new trial is to examine charges of sabotage and involvement in bomb attacks.
This trial must be in accordance with the rule of law and monitored by international observers.
In essence, unfortunately, little has changed as regards human rights in China.
Bishop Julius Jia Zhiguo, who belongs to the underground church, was recently arrested.
It follows that the arms embargo must be maintained.
The possibility of his being pardoned opens up a way ahead, and I hope that we will be able to go down it.
What we are aiming for, and will continue to aim for, is the recognition of minority rights and the acknowledgement of the right to religious practice.
One essential step in that direction would be the stepping up of dialogue with the representatives of the Dalai Lama.
   – Mr President, speaking on behalf of my group, I would like again to make it clear that, at the beginning of this twenty-first century, our Constitution is an unequivocal expression of the importance to us of the rule of law and of the rights of citizens.
These two things – as well as human rights – are important to us, and not to us alone.
They matter to everyone throughout the world, and so our group emphatically reiterates its demand for the rule of law, and our demand that the Chinese Government promptly commute the death sentence passed on Tenzin Deleg Rinpoche, and not only the sentence passed on him, but also the sentences passed on all those others in China upon whom the death penalty has been imposed.
On behalf of my group, I also demand that capital punishment be done away with, including in China, for it is unworthy of a civilised people.
. – The next item is the debate on seven motions for a resolution on torture in Iran(2).
   – Mr President, even though Iran is one of the largest countries on earth, it still has a government whose actions we view with concern.
I am delighted to learn of the efforts being made to foster dialogue with it, and of the pressure that the European Union is exerting in connection with the state of human rights there.
During the fourth dialogue on human rights between the EU and Iran, held on 14 and 15 June 2004 in Teheran, Iran undertook to improve human rights, and that is a good thing, but we can also see that there is an urgent need that something be done about this, for international organisations estimate that every year still sees between 300 and 400 executions carried out, with some 80 people being flogged and an unknown number stoned to death – all this despite, as you have heard, these things no longer, officially, being in the Iranian penal code.
What shows how much contempt a government can have for its own people is the relevant article – no.
119 – from the former Iranian penal code, according to which the stones used at a stoning must not be so large that the condemned person dies from the impact of one or two of them, nor so small that they cannot be described as stones.
Such a thing is torture, legitimised by the state with the intention of causing death, and it has yet to be demonstrated that it is no longer carried out today, at this stage in the twenty-first century.
Reference has also been made to the human rights of juveniles; although death sentences are pronounced on them, the sentence is not carried out until they are 18.
That means that minors aged 14 and over can spend up to four years in what are called ‘education camps’, waiting to be executed, instead of being able to have a proper education and a future to look forward to.
We have just heard what the UN has had to say on the situation in Iran.
I am very glad that the letter sent by the President of this Parliament, Josep Borrell, to the Iranian ambassador has helped to get a stoning, due to be carried out at the end of last year, delayed and the sentence commuted.
Let us continue to exert this sort of pressure, for only in that way will we, in the eyes of the world, do justice to our own objectives.
   . Mr President, last month, Mrs Maryam Rajavi, leader of the main opposition party in Iran, visited the European Parliament and addressed 150 MEPs.
She drew attention to the injustice that is still being done to the Iranian people because the Mujaheddin, who fight for a democratic constitutional state on European lines, still feature on our list of terrorist organisations.
It is from that European list that the regime of fundamentalist religious fanatics derives the right to execute political prisoners who can be linked with it.
The regime has devoted much negative attention to Mrs Rajavi’s visit.
Those who wish to continue to kill and torture opponents unhindered, have every reason to demonise and isolate the democratic opposition that has been driven into exile.
It is high time for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Foreign Affairs to reconsider the list of terrorist organisations and in doing so, help to end the violation of human rights in Iran.
I consider the full acceptance of the proposed resolution, including Paragraph 9, as an appeal to that effect.
That is vital in order to achieve a democratic constitutional state in Iran.
The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on the trafficking of women and children in Cambodia(3).
   Mr President, the end of paragraph 7 should be amended to read 'insists that adult consensual sexual activity in private is covered by the concept of privacy and calls for the immediate release of all persons held for such activity'.
   Mr President, I wish to propose an oral amendment to section 8, the last third of which I move should read as follows: ‘in expecting action by Iran to address also other concerns of the EU regarding the fight against terrorism, the respect for human rights and Iran’s approach to the Middle East peace process’, and I ask you to accept this proposal.
   Mr President, I believe that what we have voted on, and regrettably has been rejected, is the paragraph amended by Mrs Prets; it is not the amendment, but the paragraph as amended.
   Ladies and gentlemen, we will have to change the agenda, because, as I expect you already know, the President of Ukraine, Mr Yuschenko, cannot be with us today as planned, due to the weather conditions seriously affecting the whole of central Europe which have prevented him from taking off this morning.
   Mr President, as colleagues realise, this resolution largely deals with the results of the very happy election in Palestine on 9 January when 28 colleagues observed the elections, chaired by myself and with Mrs Napoletano as deputy chairman.
The resolution we are voting on not only deals with the approval of the election itself, but also the follow-up we expect the various organisations and institutions to take.
Paragraph 15 is inappropriate in this context.
It deals with the internal procedures in the European Parliament.
I have discussed with Mrs Napoletano and others the necessity to delete paragraph 15.
My invitation to the House is to delete paragraph 15.
   This amendment would affect the text as follows.
Firstly, there would be a specific reference to the estimated number of victims who died at Auschwitz, some one and a half million persons.
Secondly, the amendment provides for a reference to the 15 000 Russian prisoners who died there.
I ask you to support this amendment.
   Mr President, he is speaking on the wrong paragraph.
He should be speaking on paragraph 5, indent 2, which is the wording in Polish of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.
Mr Sonik has just spoken on recital A, but he is supposed to be speaking on paragraph 5, indent 2.
   Mr Sonik, there has been some confusion.
What you must present now is your oral amendment to paragraph 5, indent 2, but you have presented something else.
So please now present your oral amendment to paragraph 5, indent 2.
   That is the case.
I apologise for the mistake.
The amendment does indeed concern the inclusion in the resolution of a reference to the National Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum at Oświęcim as a special Holocaust education and remembrance centre, along with the Holocaust Centre in Berlin.
   Mr President, could we have some clarity on this subject? There are two separate amendments here.
The first – the oral amendment from the PPE-DE Group that Mr Sonik moved – is to the change the wording, which, in English, would now read: ‘a combined total of up to 1.5 million Jews, Roma, Poles, Russians and prisoners of various other nationalities and homosexuals’.
Could we please vote on that first, before we come to the separate issue, that Mr Schulz has just spoken on, of Amendment 1 by the UEN Group to replace, in English, the phrase ‘Hitler’s Nazi death camps’ with ‘German Nazi death camps’.
Two separate votes are required here.
With respect, the confusion has arisen not least owing to the services, which have put it all on the same line: recital A, oral amendment from the PPE-DE Group, and the amendment from the UEN Group, about which Mr Schulz spoke.
Could we have two separate votes, please, first on Mr Sonik’s oral amendment, and second on the UEN-Schulz-Poettering package?
   Yes, Mrs Ludford, we have three things: the amendment by Mr Sonik, the amendment just proposed by Mr Schulz and Amendment No 1 by the UEN Group.
   Mr President, I believe that there is nothing left to add.
If you would put Mr Sonik’s oral amendment and my own oral amendment to the vote – incidentally, the aim of my oral amendment was to supplement the original text and to ensure that the amendment tabled by the Union for Europe of the Nations Group was rejected once and for all – we would have precisely what we want, namely a text that is in keeping with the dignity of this day.
   Mr President, I should like to voice a strong protest against what Mr Cohn-Bendit has just said.
It seems to me that his statements were based on a misunderstanding, as he said that some of the content of our amendment, tabled by myself personally, was unacceptable.
I cannot think what he meant, as my amendment concerned one single word.
I proposed replacing the word ‘Hitler’s’ with the word ‘German’.
The Union for Europe of the Nations Group has not tabled any other amendments.
One may or may not be in favour of the amendment, but I wish to protest against deeming it unacceptable, because I do not consider that to be the case.
I must make it quite clear that my amendment only concerned the inclusion of the word ‘German’.
The reason for this is that in recent days the people of Poland have been very upset by references to Polish concentration camps and Polish gas chambers in leading European newspapers.
Such references are quite simply incorrect and deeply offensive to the Polish nation.
That was the one and only reason for my amendment.
   Mr President, I can clear up Mr Cohn-Bendit’s confusion.
As I understand it, Amendment 1, by the UEN Group, just consists of the words ‘the German’ instead of ‘Hitler’s’.
Amendment 1/rev. was withdrawn because it was not accepted by the services.
I think Mr Cohn-Bendit is referring to that – if I may say so, a bunch of men is creating a great deal of confusion here by the failure to attend to detail – Amendment 1/rev. was withdrawn and, therefore, the question of deleting words like ‘homosexuals’ is no longer on our agenda.
We are dealing with the oral amendment by the PPE-DE Group and then the amendment by the UEN Group – which Mr Schulz seems to be amending again – but not the rest of the revised amendment by the UEN Group, to which I think Mr Cohn-Bendit is referring.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that everyone in this House agrees that all those who took part in this crime – whether they were German, Austrian or of other nationalities – should be condemned, and this is conveyed by the phrase ‘Nazi Germany’.
The key point is the responsibility of all those involved, and it is to this responsibility that we must draw people’s attention.
I therefore ask that a vote now be held and that Members consider the matter once again.
It is not a question of whether it was Germans or non-Germans who were involved; what matters is that we refer to all those associated with the criminal regime of Nazi Germany.
This is the gist of Mr Schulz’s amendment, to which Mr Poettering has lent his support.
   Mr President, I only wish to say that Baroness Ludford was right and that her interpretation was correct.
However, you did not allow me to speak.
It is obvious that there are some mental reservations and discrimination in this House.
Mr Cohn-Bendit did not know what he was talking about, as he was referring to an amendment which had not been tabled.
I would like our group to be respected in the same way as the other groups, otherwise the racists are the people who speak out of turn.
   Mrs Muscardini, at this point we are no longer debating the fundamental ideas.
We are voting on amendments.
Let us therefore continue with the procedure.
   Dare one talk in terms of a thaw? There is certainly a desire to believe that relations between Israelis and Palestinians are becoming warmer.
The signs are there: to begin with, the success of the Palestinian elections, and then the coming to power of Mahmoud Abbas.
The man who, in 1993, orchestrated the Oslo Accords has campaigned on the subject of the demilitarisation of the Intifada.
This amounts to more than just speeches; it is a conviction that has been constantly reaffirmed.
We have also seen the spectacular actions taken by the Palestinian security forces against the terrorists and those forces’ deployment throughout the Gaza Strip, the Israeli moratorium on targeted executions, the re-establishment of diplomatic relations and, today, the announcement by Ariel Sharon of a meeting in two weeks’ time with Mahmoud Abbas.
Nor must we forget the support of the United States which, with this second administration of President Bush’s that has resolved to bring the process to a conclusion before 2009, is clearer and easier to interpret.
A window of opportunity therefore exists in which the European Union is committing itself more firmly than ever, as evidenced by this election observation mission, the largest ever delegated by the EU.
That is what is pointed out in our resolution, which I have voted in favour of, as, at my request, the unacceptable part of paragraph 12, which condemned the indiscriminate terrorist violence from both sides, has been rejected.
   There are just a few hundred of them now, in the cold and the snow of Auschwitz: the survivors of the survivors, the last sentinels.
They are still there, still standing to tell of what was the absolute evil, indeed the quintessence of evil.
Upon them is the gaze of the world and of the inhabitants of this century, 60 years after the Holocaust.
My heart and spirit are in Auschwitz today, with them and all the others, those who did not return.
As this era, that of the last witnesses, draws to an end, it is our absolute duty to consider how this memory is to be passed on without them.
We owe them truth.
To them first of all, but also to our children and to future generations, because those who would insensitively deny the Holocaust or, worse, attempt to trivialise it, have not waited for the survivors to disappear before trying to demean this most singular of memories.
What we are requesting, and what we are fighting for, is to have the Holocaust taught in our schools, with knowledge serving as a barrier against racism.
Auschwitz was at the heart of Europe 60 years ago.
That past must not disappear from sight, ever.
   Mr President, the Prime Minister of Pakistan having visited this House this week, I should like to remind everyone that the parliaments in Pakistan have repeatedly demanded that democracy be implemented, and called on President Musharraf to separate his civilian and military functions.
He promised not to appear again in public in military uniform as of 1 January 2005, yet nothing has changed and he continues to do so.
I believe that this House has always supported democracy and opposed dictatorships.
We should therefore support the parliaments in Pakistan in their calls for more democracy, and, during our contacts with the Pakistani authorities, urge that President Musharraf keep the promises he has made.
   A lot of blood was shed in the battle to achieve the right to freedom of speech, which is sacred to all democrats of Europe.
This especially applies to those European nations that have only recently fought for and gained their freedom of speech after having been freed from communist dictatorship.
It was this right that Hungarian revolutionaries sacrificed their blood and their lives for in 1956, and a very valid and extraordinary historical and emotional political cause is needed to infringe this sacred right.
A worthy cause, not unlike many of the recent proposals advocating a ban on the use of the much-hated Nazi symbol, the swastika, in homage to the victims of Nazi atrocities and guided by responsibility towards future generations.
Unfortunately, the history of the reunited Europe includes another evil totalitarian dictatorship, red Communism, which, during its short 20th-century reign, was also responsible for the systematic murder of millions of innocent people.
Therefore, if the Union wishes to propose a ban on the swastika, I suggest adding the symbols of the hated and bloody communist dictatorship as well.
Such a ban has existed in Hungary for over ten years.
No more Nazism in Europe, no more communism in Europe!
   Ladies and gentlemen, communities of nations cannot be built upon lies and a false interpretation of history.
If we dispense with historical truth, we may well heighten the threat posed to some by the new ideology of death and contempt for the individual.
Allow me to remind Europe and the world that the Second World War was started by the Germans, who were possessed by hideous convictions on racism and death.
Six million Poles died in that war.
On the territories occupied by them, and notably in Poland, the Nazis created numerous death camps where torture and forced labour also took place.
Auschwitz was the largest of these camps, and it was conceived in order to eliminate the flower of the Polish nation.
Some four million people of different nationalities, including Jews, Poles, Roma, Russians and others, died in that place of unspeakable suffering.
Every one of the lives lost there is of equal value.
It would be unworthy of us to play dirty games on the graves of millions of our innocent brothers and sisters.
We must not demean ourselves by seeking advantage from their deaths.
Above all, we are duty bound to remember, honour and pray for the victims murdered by the Nazis.
Let humble reflection on the tragedy of Auschwitz cleanse the guilty and be a warning to today’s world.
We must learn from the truth about Auschwitz.
As long as we continue to allow the innocent to be slaughtered in today’s society, we will have failed to grasp that truth.
I am referring also to the slaughter of unborn children.
Every individual’s life is sacred.
We need to learn from the example of love and reconciliation shown by the holy martyrs of Auschwitz; Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish monk, and Edith Stein, a Jewish nun.
Saint Maximilian, Saint Edith, Sister Benedicta of the Cross, pray for us.
   Mr President, I am sorry that Mr Borrell is not in the Chair.
After the Barrot affair, I know there is a great desire to stop discussing any difficulties there may be with this Commission but, given that I got that one right, I would like to think that Mr Borrell will take the letter that I hand-delivered to him a couple of weeks ago rather more seriously.
There are very grave doubts about the hearing of Commissioner Kallas, who, as you know, is in charge of the anti-fraud drive within the European Union.
He gave an incorrect date, there was a mistranslation of a question and, in my view, he gave some very misleading information to this Parliament.
I have written to Mr Kallas asking for some correct answers, and Mr Borrell received a copy of that letter.
So, through you, I am asking Mr Borrell to ensure that we get some correct answers from Commissioner Kallas, for, if Mr Borrell does not do that, then this Parliament and the whole hearings process will fall further into disrepute.
   Mr President, for 16 years now the family of Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane has campaigned for a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding his murder.
Clear evidence has emerged that the police, the British army and intelligence services all colluded in his murder.
Former Canadian Supreme Court judge Peter Cory recommended a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Mr Finucane’s murder and identified the basic requirements for a public enquiry.
One of these was that the tribunal should have full power to subpoena witnesses and documents, together with all the powers usually exercised by a commissioner in a public enquiry.
However, the British Government has recently published a draft inquiries bill.
This bill is a wholesale departure from both Irish and British Government agreements and the Cory recommendations.
It gives a British Government minister the power to determine whether an inquiry sits in private and what material is withheld.
These provisions attack the very independence essential to any inquiry.
The British Government is continuing to hide the truth of Mr Finucane’s murder for its own political reasons.
The European Parliament must make clear to the British Government that in order to comply with Article 2, any tribunal must as a minimum have the characteristics identified by Judge Cory.
Today I raise this matter and put the British Government on notice that it cannot hide the truth from the Finucane family or the European Parliament for much longer.
   Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to draw your attention to certain statements made by Mr Buttiglione, the Minister for European Affairs in the Italian Government.
These statements were detrimental to the image of the European Parliament, and were made in January, when Mr Buttiglione gave an address at the University of Lublin during an official visit to Poland.
The address was subsequently printed in , the leading Polish daily, under the striking title of ‘The humiliation of a Christian’.
Mr Buttiglione complained that the European Parliament did not endorse his candidature for Commissioner because of his views on homosexuality.
He failed to mention his opinions on the role of women, single mothers or asylum policy.
He levelled accusations at us, alleging that a powerful Brussels lobby wishes to impose on all Member States the recognition of same-sex marriages and the active promotion of a homosexual lifestyle by all countries.
I shall spare you his other accusations and come to my conclusion, which is the following.
Mr Buttiglione states that it is essential to reform the European Parliament so as to avoid future injustices of the kind perpetrated against him.
There is a threatening ring to such a statement on limiting the rights granted to Parliament by the Treaties, made by someone who is a Minister for European Affairs and failed candidate for Commissioner.
I leave you to make your own ethical and political assessment of the statement, ladies and gentlemen.
   On the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, the world, and notably Europe, chooses to forget Hitler’s words when he told his followers that their first task was to wipe Poland off the face of the earth.
The aim was to do so by brute force, and they were to be brutal and show no mercy.
The Nazis sent people to Auschwitz simply because they were Jews, Poles, Roma or Russians.
The innocent were slaughtered on the streets in the name of a hideous ideology.
Whole nations were exterminated, and sadly the atrocities continued after the end of fascism.
People are still being killed every day.
There are many doctors engaged in ending the lives of thousands of patients, including newborn infants.
The killing of unborn children is widespread, and some 50 million of them die every year.
Millions more children are starving to death, and many are the victims of sexual exploitation.
In the course of adapting itself to the EU, Poland was transformed into a market economy.
The economy was ruined, which led to unemployment, poverty and the collapse of health care.
This will result in the gradual extermination of the Polish nation.
At the same time, history is being falsified in a slanderous manner, and it is being implied that the Polish people took part in the Holocaust.
Poland survived two totalitarian regimes, and this is why it has taken it upon itself to sound a warning against what the Holy Father has termed the civilisation of death.
Beware of the cult of money, and of perceiving the market as the only purpose of life, as this is bound to result in the annihilation of Western civilisation.
   Mr President, a major debate on the economic future of the European Union is currently under way.
I would therefore like to take this opportunity to make a strong protest and appeal to all upright Members of the European Parliament and of national governments in Europe who claim to long for a great and strong European Union based on the principles of honesty, social justice and solidarity.
Moves towards a 20% cut in the current European budget will inevitably mean that future development of the Union will be at the expense of its smaller and less-developed members.
The latter actually need considerable investment, particularly for infrastructure, so as to have equal opportunities for development.
I therefore believe that a policy of this nature runs counter to all the ideals that are supposed to underpin the European Union.
It creates social inequality and injustice and transfers costs to the poorest countries.
This is unfair, and I call for a review as a mater of urgency.
After all, we cannot have more Europe for less money, and richer countries cannot change policies following the admission of poorer ones, when they had previously promised them substantial resources.
   Mr President, euthanasia was first legalised in the Netherlands, and sick newborn babies are being killed there completely irresponsibly.
The authorities are quite indifferent to this.
Infanticide takes place at the Academic Hospital in Groningen, and hospital representatives have admitted that euthanasia was practised there on four children in 2003.
According to the Dutch Ministry of Justice, some 30 children have been killed in this way since 1997.
The Dutch authorities have failed to react.
Practising euthanasia on sick newborn babies amounts to murder and is on a par with the actions of the Nazis, who eliminated the sick from society.
It is an infringement of the most fundamental human right, the right to life.
Killing sick children by administering a lethal dose of sedatives is an act of unspeakable barbarism.
Europe has gone as far as protecting even the rights of animals, yet at the same time defenceless newborn children are being killed.
I move that the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs should take up the matter, and that Parliament should hold a debate on practising euthanasia on children.
   Mrs Sinnott, the Presidency would beg your forgiveness because we did not notice that you were asking for the floor for an oral amendment.
Please understand that there was great confusion in the Chamber at that point and I did not see you.
Please forgive me.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 27 January.
   Thank you very much, Mr Poettering.
In any event, all’s well that ends well.
Regardless of the details of the process, tomorrow the three institutions will be present and I would like to make it very clear that the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission have always agreed on the need for that to be the case.
If there has been any difficulty, in no way has it been caused by them.
   Mr President, I am not sure whether I have misunderstood something.
You said that matters requiring the presence of the Council must be completed by 6.00 p.m.
Does that also apply to Question Time? Question Time with the Council is scheduled for Wednesday, and the Council will naturally need to be present then.
   Mr President, every professional criminal organisation in Europe must have jumped for joy at the European Central Bank's recent decision to double its printing of 500-euro banknotes.
This year alone, 190 million more of the highest-value banknotes in the world will hit our streets, and a suitcase full of these is worth seven times as much as a suitcase filled with 100-dollar bills.
In today's electronic world, banks do not need large denomination notes: they are of value only to criminals. Why else did 10% of all the euros issued at its launch suddenly disappear into Russia?
Why is it still the currency of choice for the Russian mafia?
Why did Hussein invoice Iraq's secret oil sales in euros when he was trying to avoid sanctions? Last year, the number of counterfeit 500-euro notes rose by ...
      Many thanks.
In view of the disastrous state of the health service in Poland and the hunger strikes staged by health workers, I should firstly like to ask that health services no longer be viewed in market terms, and that medical services be excluded from the services directive.
I would also like to put forward a proposal concerning the need for public funding for health services, and in particular for hospitals, as the latter are already in debt to the tune of over PLN 6 billion in Poland.
Following liberal amendments to the Civil Code, debt collectors have seized PLN 2 billion, with the result that employees have not received their wages.
The seizure of these meagre wages represents a violation of moral principles and of social justice.
It is also a violation of many items of legislation, including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I should like to ask whether the Commission intends to introduce a regulation making it possible for financial support ...
   Mr President, recently the impression has been created that certain antagonisms and divisions from the past are being revived, something which we hoped would never be repeated and never burden relations between nations in the united Europe.
By marking 10 February as a day of remembrance for the tragic events after the Second World War, the Italian Republic is commemorating the suffering of its compatriots, and it has every right to do so.
Yet here, democratic Italy should not forget the suffering which the Fascist regime inflicted on other nations, including Slovenia.
I would like to take this opportunity to support the appeal of democratic circles on both sides of the border that we should move beyond this trauma from our semi-distant history, by telling the whole truth.
The truth, no matter how grievous, is the only way to prevent similar things in the future.
It is also the only basis for coexistence and reconciliation.
And if the conciliatory meeting of the presidents of three neighbouring countries can contribute to this, then I also welcome it.
Moving beyond the revival of nationalist prejudices is to the essence of the European idea.
It is also one of the foundations and reasons behind European cohesion and integration.
      Mr President, in September 2004 the Russian Federation set limits on imports of food products from Poland.
Polish companies exporting meat and dairy products were also obliged to undergo special inspections by Russian veterinary and plant health agencies.
Out of a total of 74 dairy companies inspected, only two were authorised to export products to Russia.
In spite of the fact that nearly four months have passed since the inspections were completed, Russia has still not provided Poland with a list of companies that passed the inspections and are permitted to export products.
This is proof that Polish companies are being discriminated against on the Russian market.
In January, Poland was assured that the European Commission would intervene to speed up procedures for allowing Polish companies into the Russian market.
I should like to ask what measures the Commission has taken in this connection, what the outcome of those measures has been and when the discriminatory practices applied by the Russian Federation will cease.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of UEFA, the Union of European Football Associations.
At today’s sitting, I should like to express my wholehearted support for UEFA’s latest project, the aim of which is to ensure that rich and poor clubs in both the old and the new EU, and indeed in all of Europe, enjoy the same opportunities.
The project involves a progressive introduction of quotas for club-trained players, with a minimum of two players in one year’s time, and eventually of four players.
This is intended to force clubs to work with young players, and to prevent rich clubs from merely buying up talented players.
There will also be quotas for players from the country in which the club is based, which are intended to promote national football.
In practice, these quotas will also deter attempts by the richest clubs to build up football armies of hired ‘galácticos’ or superstars.
UEFA’s proposals comply with the principle of solidarity, upon which the European Union is founded.
It is worth sacrificing another of the EU’s principles that is in any case frequently violated, namely the principle of free movement of workers, for the sake of this principle of solidarity.
   Mr President, this week sees the third anniversary of Ingrid Betancourt’s abduction by Colombia’s FARC guerrillas.
It was 23 February 2002 when Ingrid Betancourt, mouthpiece for my Colombian sister party and a presidential candidate, was abducted while she was on the way to seek a negotiated solution to the conflict between the government and FARC.
The Colombian Government must stop having recourse to military means.
It must instead sign a humanitarian agreement with FARC in line with the Geneva Convention so that Ingrid and 3 000 other prisoners can be released.
I should be very grateful if you could act on Parliament’s behalf and convey our concern about the breaches of human rights in Colombia.
   Mr President, I should have liked to have taken advantage of the presence of Commissioner Barroso, who will join us later, to question him about the recent statements to the press by the Commissioner for Regional Policy.
Mrs Hübner stated, in fact, that, in her view, it was necessary to facilitate relocation within Europe so that European companies might reduce their costs.
At a time when we are in the middle of debating the EU’s political priorities for 2005, can Mr Barroso tell us whether he supports this approach?
According to the latest figures from Eurostat, the highest rates of unemployment in the EU are in the new Member States.
Seen in this light, of course, the strategy proposed by Mrs Hübner is perfectly understandable.
What she said illustrates the reality of an enlargement that has taken place without any new budgetary resources.
What the Commissioner is proposing to us is that we rob Peter to pay Paul.
Might Mr Barroso be in favour of institutionalising social and fiscal dumping within the EU?
   Thank you, Mr President.
In view of the forthcoming anniversary of the end of the Second World War, I should like to alert this House to fresh attempts that have been made to falsify and manipulate history for short-term political goals.
Evidence of this can be seen in recent statements made by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the infamous Yalta Conference.
The latter divided the European continent into two spheres of influence, in so doing subjecting many of the nations of Central and Eastern Europe, whose representatives are sitting in this House today, to nearly half a century’s oppression under an inhuman totalitarian system.
The root cause of this was the German-Soviet Pact of August 1939, and responsibility for starting the Second World War rests not only with Germany, but also with Russia, as the heir to the Soviet Union.
Yet while Germany has demonstrated its desire to face up to its tragic past, Russia still lacks the courage to do so.
I hope the European Parliament will support this motion for a resolution, which, , condemns the Yalta Agreement.
This would be a symbolic gesture of reparation towards the nations from behind the former Iron Curtain.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to draw your attention to the case of Mrs Aissata Bint-Karamoko and, above all, request the European Parliament’s support for her.
Mrs Karamoko applied for refugee status in France three years ago.
She is now seven months pregnant and suffering from hepatitis, and is at present in hospital here in this very city of Strasbourg.
Yet the French Government is behaving unacceptably by attempting to return Mrs Karamoko to her country of origin, Mauritania, in so doing violating her fundamental right to obtain treatment within the European Union.
In the name of respect for human rights and in accordance with our Charter of Fundamental Rights, I should like us to inform the French Government that it must respect human and fundamental rights by allowing Mrs Karamoko to obtain treatment here in France and, above all, to give birth in the best conditions.
      Mr President, I hope that this House has recovered from its infatuation with Ukraine’s ‘Orange Revolution’, and that the time has now come to look facts in the face.
Yushchenko’s ‘Our Ukraine’ coalition has tabled a vetting bill, one of the provisions of which states that anyone who criticises the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or the UPA for short, will be prevented from holding a public position.
The UPA has become a symbol of patriotism, yet during the Second World War it gained notoriety for murdering Poles, Jews and Russians.
This vetting provision is an attack against national minorities in Ukraine, the majority of whom are Poles.
These Poles are critical of the UPA because they believe it to be a criminal organisation.
The proposal is supported, however, by the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists and its paramilitary wing, the UNA, some of the members of which fought as mercenaries in Chechnya.
The Nationalists have made contact with Germany’s neo-fascist National Democratic Party, invoking their brotherhood in arms during the Second World War.
National minorities in Ukraine are in danger, they are afraid and they are calling for help.
   Thank you, Mr President.
Together with several other Members, Mr Cashman advised in a letter to Mr Barroso, and I quote: ‘… that in Slovenia politicians are obviously publicly encouraging discrimination against minorities …’, end of quote, and proposed that the Commission should launch an investigation into this together with the Slovenian Government.
As a liberal Member from Slovenia I wish to draw the attention of Parliament additionally to the fact that the current Slovenian government has also expressly refused to implement the decision of the Constitutional Court of Slovenia, whereby homes in Slovenia taken illegally from them in 1992 should be returned to 18 305 citizens of the former Yugoslavia.
This is not therefore simply a case of discrimination against minorities, but also a violation of the fundamental principles of a state ruled by law.
   Mr Herrero-Tejedor has the floor for a point of order.
   Rule 27 B.
   Did you say Rule 27 B?
   Mr Herrero, Rule 27 B relates to the work of delegations.
What does that have to do with personal statements?
   I simply asked you which Rule you are invoking and you mentioned a Rule that has nothing to do with the issue we are talking about.
Mr Herrero-Tejedor, I am not responsible for your words, you are.
I imagine you are referring to Rule 145.
Is that the case, Mr Tejedor?
   It is Rule 145, Mr Borrell Fontell.
   I simply wished to say to Mr Medina that, in fact, Mr Berlusconi has a control over the media in Italy which my party and myself in particular have severely criticised.
And I would therefore ask that the same yardstick be used in relation to Spain.
With regard to the point about the People’s Party controlling the whole of the private media, does that mean that it also controlled all of Mr Polanco’s media, Mr Medina? Are you trying to make fools of the honourable Members?
Goodness gracious me!
   Mr Herrero-Tejedor, I have given you the floor in order to avoid pointless arguments, but I must tell you that Rule 145 relates to accusations made against a Member on a personal level.
That was not the case in any way, but despite that, the Presidency has given you the floor in order not to give you the impression that our interpretation of the Rules of Procedure is biased.
   Mr President, I do not have the rule book in front of me but I simply want to add a clarification to the statement on Northern Ireland made by Mr Allister who criticised President McAleese of the Irish Republic for remarks she made concerning the Protestant community in Northern Ireland.
I want to point out that President McAleese apologised fulsomely and without reservation within hours of making the remarks.
She had not intended the interpretation which has been made and I would appreciate it if this could be noted in the record of the House.
   The next item is the debate on the Commission’s legislative and work programme (2005), a debate which began in Brussels on 26 January 2005.
Mr Barroso has the floor.
   Madam President, may I say to Mr Barroso that he devoted his speech today to three splendid aims: prosperity, solidarity and security.
That naturally arouses great expectations among us Members, and I have to say, Mr Barroso, that my reaction was similar to that of Mr Swoboda, for what you went on to say about the directive on services under these headings actually turned out to be rather insubstantial.
If you really want us to achieve prosperity, solidarity and security for our citizens, you will have to deal a great deal more thoroughly with this directive on services than you seemed to indicate today.
If you are serious about your partnership with us, and indeed with all the institutions, you will have to go much further yet.
Moreover, we must not forget something that is even more important, Mr Barroso, and that is our partnership with the people of the European Union, with all of its 450 million inhabitants.
It is for them, and for no one else, that we make our policies.
   Thank you, Mr President.
The Commission has drawn up an extensive and ambitious programme.
It has drawn up priority tasks which I agree with and support.
I am also pleased by the ambition, energy and of course the enthusiasm of the Commission President.
Yet if we want Europe to be effective, if we want Europe to be closer to its citizens and if we wish to achieve the objectives, then we must act much more effectively than hitherto ourselves.
An important part of the European Union’s effectiveness is its administrative systems, its public administration.
You mention them in the strategic objectives on page four, Mr President.
This is very pleasing.
Yet at the same time I recall that the Prodi Commission began the reform of public administration in the European Union.
Former Commissioner Kinnock was responsible for this.
While I am unaware of how the whole thing ended, if indeed it was ever started, the fact remains that the citizens of the European Union see this as a great bureaucratic apparatus, removed from the people, an apparatus which costs a great deal and which requires an extremely large amount of administration for every trifling thing, not to mention major projects.
So all of us together, not just those of us here in the European Parliament, but also our electorates, justifiably expect the new Commission to find, within the framework of the priority tasks you have set out, the energy, time and will to deal with its own administrative system, with its own bureaucracy.
In this regard I anticipate very clear answers.
And one more thing!
Good legislation is fine, but what is more important is that we actually put good legislation into practice.
Thank you very much!
   Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, my comments will be addressed primarily to Mr Schulz.
Mr Schulz, following our conversation about the resolution on Auschwitz, you have completely altered your views and have thereby won my utmost respect.
Thank you.
Now, however, I should like to respond to your critical comments regarding the Pope.
 Ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the matter of the budget and the funding earmarked for the meeting of young people with the Pope in Cologne, I should like to make it clear that if anyone else managed to bring together so many young people for a good cause, I would certainly vote in favour of providing funding for the meeting.
I would do so whether the person in question was Mr Schulz or the chairman of any group or party, and I would do so regardless of whether that person was a Socialist, a Green, a Catholic or an adherent of any other political movement or religion.
If the event concerned promoted social and psychological unity and the creation of a common Europe, then it would deserve genuine respect.
I believe that Mr Schulz will acknowledge that this is the case, and indeed I can see him nodding in agreement.
I should like to thank him for that.
I should also like to remind Members from the ten new Member States, and not only those from the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, but also those who are Socialists, Greens, Communists or non-attached Members, that it is thanks to the Pope and his actions that we are able to discuss a common Europe together today.
If it were not for him, we would still be unable to hold such a meeting, and I should like to remind Mr Schulz that this was mainly the Pope’s doing, and that Mr Kovács only played a small part at most.
If Members are not aware of this fact, or have forgotten it, I should like to remind them most strongly of it, and encourage them to vote in favour of this grant, which will allow the meeting to be held in an appropriate fashion and ensure it will be a great success.
I thank you.
   Mr President, whether gathered against the backdrop of the Swiss mountains or the Brazilian coast, I am convinced that all participants in the Davos and Porto Alegre conferences were united in the one goal of tackling poverty and economic development.
It is therefore particularly pleasing to see that in Davos and in Porto Alegre, the crucial importance of liberalising world trade was recognised.
Economic growth is the cornerstone of development in developing countries, whether we are dealing with climate change or guaranteeing good education.
It follows on from this that I cannot emphasise strongly enough the need for the forthcoming Doha round to be a success, and the crucial role that the Commission and the Member States have to play in this.
Whoever is serious about aid to the developing countries should not be blind to what goes wrong at home.
Europe’s tariff barriers are, to my mind, an example of how things should not be done.
Alongside positive points, there are also a few negative points to be identified.
The pleas for extra tax on international financial transactions, the famous Tobin tax, strike me as eccentric, as does the extra tax for multinational companies.
I see no good in such measures.
They put the cart before the horse.
Those who strive towards freer world trade should not impose new rules at the same time.
Finally, I am surprised at those who promote unconditional debt cancellation for the developing countries.
My group finds it simply unacceptable that this should be done without conditions being imposed.
We believe that countries actively and successfully pursuing democracy and good governance should be able to count on support, but debt relief should not be granted without a commitment to that.
The liberal priorities are freer world trade and the emphasis on economic development.
That is the way to fight poverty and is, at the same time, the basis for an effective and affordable social safety net.
It also allows us to pursue a more environmentally-friendly policy as a result.
The question is: will we all go down together in apathetic solidarity, or will we opt for dynamism, innovation and progress? I welcome the leadership of the Commission President to opt for the latter.
That, President Barroso, is a political role and we specifically want you to act politically.
I consider your position in the Portuguese elections to be very justifiable, and your absence would, moreover, have been construed as complete disloyalty to your Portuguese heritage.
I find your involvement very valid and I only regret that it did not benefit your Party more.
   Mr President, this evening, we are once again discussing the magic word ‘mutual recognition’ as the cornerstone of European judicial cooperation.
It does, of course, presuppose that the Member States work together effectively, that they can look beyond their own borders and know how things are done elsewhere, that they are also agreed on a number of basic standards, for example in terms of law of criminal procedure and, above all, build on the trust in each other and on the reasons why they can indeed trust in each other.
Mr Costa’s proposal is of particular importance for building confidence in efficiency and sound administration of justice, whereas the main thrust of Mr Di Pietro’s report is to improve cooperation in terms of information.
My group gives its wholehearted support to both reports and I would like to thank you warmly for all the work you have done on these and the pleasant cooperation, but much more is needed than these small steps forward.
There is a host of new proposals in the making, and they all constitute small steps forward, on paper anyway, for in my experience, Member States very often put the brakes on.
To them, the idea of mutual recognition mainly appears to be a way of not having to change anything at national level.
We all tend to be interested only in our own patch, and others have to respect the decisions that are made about it.
I can tell you that my group is not afraid of looking further afield, although we are a little hesitant about this enormous host of new rules, for such quantities often affect transparency, the defences of people who are forever being faced with changes, and also the clarity of what we are doing here.
I can say that my group is in favour of a European Public Prosecutor’s office; we are in favour of a European criminal code, of Europe-wide rights for suspects and for victims, of the sharing of information and, above all, in favour of a hefty investment in the in-depth training of all police and judicial officers in European cooperation.
The fact is that, ultimately, it is on the workfloor, rather than here, that this will need to be put into practice.
I hope that we can all join forces in a major effort, including a financial injection, in order to ensure that everyone is well-informed about this.
   Mr President, in the explanatory note to its proposal, the Commission states that recent tragic paedophile cases have brought to light major dysfunctions in the exchange of information about convictions among the Member States.
Commissioner Frattini mentioned the Fourniret case a moment ago.
A French paedophile, having been convicted in his own country, was able to go about his business undisturbed in Belgium, because the French authorities had not thought it necessary to provide the relevant authorities with information about him.
The proposal that is now being debated is far too long in coming.
It is, after all, a supplement to the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters, which dates back to 1959.
Moreover, the proposal is inadequate and does not offer an answer to a large number of problems.
The Member States must update their criminal records and make them available more quickly.
They must also provide information requested by other Member States more promptly and use standard forms to do it.
Those are a few steps in the right direction, but this is all, of course, in anticipation of the introduction of a fully-fledged, automated system of data exchange.
The Commission must set about this at the earliest opportunity, certainly when it claims that the system will not be in place for another few years – itself a bad omen.
There are, of course, a huge number of legal implications, and these will need to be discussed at length.
Once this House has voted on the present proposal, we must certainly not create the impression that the problems relating to the exchange of information have been resolved.
The Commission has used an apt example to illustrate that this is clearly not the case.
Member States are not required to inform the state where convicts live when that is not the state of their nationality.
In other words, these measures will enable Fourniret, whom I have already mentioned, to slip through the net once again.
      Mr President, both the Tampere Programme, and later the Hague Programme, identified the mutual recognition of judgments in criminal cases as one of the European Union’s goals in the field of criminal law.
Effective judicial cooperation based on mutual trust is required to achieve this goal, as a lack of such cooperation can mean that criminals hide in other countries in order to evade responsibility for their crimes.
This in turn leads to a rise in feelings of impunity, which results in increased crime levels in Europe.
It is for this reason that my political group welcomes the Costa report, which contains recommendations to the European Commission relating to the establishment of a quality charter for criminal justice, as the fundamental rights granted to defendants, victims and barristers by the proposed charter may at the same time be used as criteria for a mutual assessment of the quality of justice.
Although a specific legal basis for such an assessment will not be provided until the Constitutional Treaty is in force, I believe that a general legal basis can already be found in the Treaty of Maastricht.
In my opinion, it would therefore be a good idea for the European Commission to comply with the report’s recommendations by starting to develop the criteria and methods to be used in carrying out such assessments.
This task will be complicated somewhat by the fact that allowance must be made for the varying legal systems which are in place in the different Member States and which are based on different legal traditions and cultures, as well as for the different judicial systems.
The methods for carrying out such assessments should also ensure that credible conclusions are reached based on reliable analyses.
It is worth noting that mutual assessments of justice should also be backed up by other measures, such as those that ensure the independence of the judiciary from political influence is not only respected, but also enhanced.
I thank you.
   Mr President, I have no difficulty with the sensible exchange of information about criminal convictions between Member States, but only the politically blind could fail to recognise the proposals in the Costa report as part of the harmonisation process that is under way in the criminal justice system across Europe.
That, of course, is in anticipation of the EU Constitution, within which that harmonisation has a key role to play.
I for one am opposed to a criminal justice system established on the continental model, with its inherent assault upon the essential building blocks of our distinctive and historic British common law system, which include not least trial by jury, habeas corpus, and the separation of the judiciary from the investigative process.
This Costa report, despite its plausible verbiage, is part of that process of harmonisation aimed at creating a single criminal justice system.
That is not serving the interests of the British nation in my view and therefore I will oppose that report.
   Mr President, the common legal area is based upon mutual recognition.
In recognising each other’s judgments, we must be able to rely upon the quality of the legal systems, rely upon equal treatment, rely upon effective due process and rely upon fair trials with counsel and, if need be, interpretation.
Let us compete on an upward trajectory where legal quality is concerned.
Thank you, Mr Costa, for a constructive report.
I turn now to the exchange of information, which is a more sensitive area.
Mr Di Pietro has improved the proposal, but I should like to emphasise three points.
Firstly, data protection will have to be of the same quality within the sphere of combating crime as it is within the internal market before data is exchanged.
Secondly, the European Data Protection Supervisor must express his or her opinions on sensitive issues.
Thirdly: in addition to the Member States’ being informed of how the information is used, the individual too must be told what information has been given out.
We have been given a Commissioner who, I know, listens and who understands these issues.
I hope that Commissioner Frattini will include these three elements in the future when it comes to increasing data protection in order to ensure that we obtain the same quality of data protection in the sphere of combating crime as we already have in the internal market.
In this connection, I really pin a lot of hope on Commissioner Frattini’s further efforts.
I wish to thank him for the efforts he has already made in the area of data storage and believe that these will also bear fruit in the area of data exchange.
   The next item is the report by Mr Jonathan Evans (A6-24/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission’s XXXIIIrd Report on Competition Policy – 2003 (2004/2139(INI)).
   The next item is the report by Mrs in 't Veld on State aid in the form of public service compensation.
   Thank you Mr President.
Let me start by congratulating Mrs in 't Veld on her report, which I see as representing another step towards the abandonment, by the members of this Union, of the attempt at squeezing everyone into one size, which, in the long run, does not fit anyone.
Instead we are moving towards the principle of subsidiarity, which involves us in recognising the needs of the countries and regions and of localities.
I think that whoever believes in balance, recognises that the market economy has several advantages, although we must, at the same time, recognise that intolerable shortcomings keep occurring, and those who are entrusted with power and leadership do not budge.
Without any doubt, there are cases of abuses, but there are several other cases, where, if properly regulated, State aid will be the social soul that arrives where the cold calculations of the market's reasoning do not.
The ultimate success of this Europe and of its Member States cannot be measured only through the economy’s statistics.
A healthy economy must be the means whereby we are led towards the real ultimate purpose, that of giving our families a decent life and dignified work in a better environment.
Obviously, every type of aid that is given must be given within an agreed framework that takes into account the realities of different countries.
Planning this framework must involve everyone, and here I emphasise ‘everyone’ – the social partners, trade unions, the consumers and the private sector, and, while we are on the subject of consumers, it would be appropriate to also remember the minorities among consumers and the taxpayers.
I will give an example: an amendment I tabled, and that I am pleased to note was accepted in this report, makes it easier to supply aid from the air, as well through sea routes between islands.
Let me give you an example why this is so.
Currently, in order for the citizens of the island of Gozo to cross over to the main island of my country, Malta, using a 12-minute helicopter trip, the market economy requires them to pay much more than they would pay for an airline ticket for a trip between London and Brussels.
Imagine how such a region can develop without some aid from the State.
We must move even further forward than we have done to date.
I only have to look at the shipyards in my country, which the government is trying to close down, while blaming European Union regulations for the need to do so.
Despite the demonisation of the shipyard workers, these sectors and enterprises have a huge load of work and a large commitment to give in terms of an era of greater technical capacity.
Other large countries of the European Union hid behind the military in order to give subsidies to this sector.
We cannot do that.
There are those who say that these subsidies go against the laws of the European Union.
I say: then let us change the laws.
   Mr President, I agree with those who say that the Commission’s proposals are a first step and that Mrs in ‘t Veld’s report is a first step as well as a sound report.
The legal uncertainty is too great at present for the local players.
At the moment, we are leaving it up to the Court of Justice to decide what exactly should be done about state aid.
While that is a first step, we see it as too insubstantial.
Exempting compensation paid to hospitals and social housing is a first step, but we think that others should be added to the list. Commissioner, we would add care homes and employment agencies, which should be exempt from notification.
As for the fourth criterion in the Altmark judgment, that is totally unacceptable to us and also not feasible in practical terms.
After all, what is the definition of the average well-run private undertaking? What if there is no private equivalent?
Does making reference to the average private undertaking not oversimplify the task assigned to the public service? Pretending to be a well-run private undertaking can also impact on redundancies and cause social upsets.
I would therefore ask for this criterion to be deleted.
   Your concerns will be noted in the record, Mrs Kauppi.
I understand why you spoke in English rather than Finnish.
It is a serious matter and we shall look into it.
   – Mr President, the chairman of the Committee on Fisheries will let you know how much we appreciate this request for urgent procedure.
We have followed what Commissioner Borg has done since the tragedy took place and have supported him.
On a practical level, we shall hold an extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Fisheries at 5.30 p.m. in order to decide whether each measure, as Mr Swoboda said, is in the meeting’s best interests.
In principle, however, and I believe that this reflects the opinion of most Members, I am entirely in favour of the urgent procedure.
   Mr President, this report provides a host of proposals to do away with the deficit that was created when the Lisbon strategy was carried out.
I would specifically like to express my appreciation for paragraph 7 of the report, which underlines the important role that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) actually play in the creation of jobs and prosperity in general.
It is of major importance that a climate be created which encourages the entrepreneurial spirit among young people, a climate in which the administrative burden and the tax burden are substantially reduced and in which SMEs have easier access to risk capital.
Another conclusion is that the report does not breathe a word about the Commission’s Green Paper on economic immigration.
That is just as well, certainly in view of the current level of unemployment.
The Commission’s plea to admit and stimulate new immigration is blinkered, counterproductive, but also totally misplaced, even though the Commission refers to the Lisbon objectives to table that proposal.
   Mr President, Mr Rasmussen said that reforms are not possible without economic growth.
The reverse is also true: economic growth in Europe is not possible without reforms.
Particularly in Germany and France, which are major states with an excessively high government activity rate, high taxes and overly complex social systems, reforms are a prerequisite for economic growth.
We are today discussing the Goebbels and Karas reports, in which the difficulties we face with a common monetary policy combined with decentralised budgetary and finance policies become apparent.
The Stability and Growth Pact was created as a linking mechanism and as a prerequisite.
The political intention to reform the Stability and Growth Pact will shake the very foundations of the Maastricht Treaty and of European monetary union.
The budget policy rules are among the cornerstones of Economic and Monetary Union.
The citizens of Europe were given an undertaking that state borrowing would be reduced, an undertaking that after just six years is being reneged upon.
The objective of these rules is to maintain credibility and trust regardless of the government in power at any given time. There is, however, a serious design flaw in the Stability and Growth Pact, one on which you, Commissioner, have repeatedly failed to comment.
Where the monitoring procedure is concerned, the Commission has too few powers and responsibilities.
The guilty parties are sitting in judgment on themselves, which does not bode well.
If the ECOFIN Council does not apply the rules to itself, the Commission is powerless.
If there is no will to apply budgetary discipline, reforms will not help either.
This is not just a question of rules, but also of political will.
The Commission wants to introduce new rules for economically good times.
There may be some justification for that, but it is naïve.
If the existing means of bringing pressure to bear do not work, how can we expect this to work voluntarily when the economic situation is favourable?
The Social Democrats and the Communists have failed to understand the changes that the euro has brought about.
Before the euro existed, the market punished highly indebted states in an open and easily understandable way, by means of high interest rates for government borrowing, high inflation rates and devaluation.
As recently as 1992 there were differences of six percentage points.
Just listen, please!
You know I am right.
Six percentage points!
That difference no longer exists.
There are no longer market forces that compel states to adhere to financial discipline.
Unless the ECB tackles this problem by means of a system of differentiated assessment of state loans, the euro will not remain stable in the long run.
   The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading on the common position adopted by the Council on 21 October 2004 with a view to adopting a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Decision No 1419/1999/EC establishing a Community action for the European Capital of Culture event for the years 2005 to 2019.
   . – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the idea of a capital of culture is perhaps the best idea within the framework of the European Union.
It is the idea of a famous actress and Greek Minister for Culture who, in her Oscar-winning song 'Never on Sunday', made Piraeus the cultural capital of the world during the 1960s.
I believe culture is the primary product in Europe, taking precedence over the economy, the army and diplomacy.
Come and make history with the proposal which I am going to make to you, Commissioner.
Let us make the 'dead city' of Ammohostos next year's capital of culture, the only dead city on our continent, our continent of grand civilisations, of the Mycenaean civilisation, of the Minoan civilisation, of the Roman civilisation.
Ammohostos has been a dead city for 30 years and is the only dead city in the world.
Come and let us make it the capital of culture, come and let us breathe life into a city which barbarity has deprived of life.
Come and let us make it the capital of culture and win where all the plans have lost including, a few months ago, the Annan plan.
If we make Ammohostos the capital of culture, you will see a Greek Cypriot student marching in procession with a Turkish Cypriot student and we shall all be proud.
We shall be proud because we shall bring peace and we shall bring life to the most beautiful city in the Mediterranean.
It is a good idea: for us to take decisions where diplomacy cannot, for us to take decisions where denial is particularly distressing.
Come and let us give real meaning to this initiative.
It is an important matter; Mr Figel opens up this city and the main square will one day be renamed Jean Figel Square.
Try to help us do honour to this idea.
   Thank you very much, Commissioner.
This item is therefore dealt with and the vote will take place at 12 noon.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Ries on the European Environment and Health Action Plan.
   . Mr President, I should first of all like to thank and congratulate Mrs Ries.
She has done important work in fleshing out the Environment and Health Action Plan more effectively.
The action programme itself is disappointing.
Whilst I do, of course, recognise the need for research, an action programme also requires strong measures to tackle health problems, and those measures are lacking.
In recent weeks, our discussions have centred around dangerous substances and the conditions under which they can, or must, be removed from the market.
Softening agents in toys are the most prominent, but there are also other substances at issue.
Although our group accepted the text as approved in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, we did actually want a stricter approach.
If a substance is dangerous, it should be removed from the market without delay and without waiting for safe alternatives.
A second subject of discussion was smoking.
Tobacco smoke has a devastating effect on the health of passive smokers.
We would therefore call for active policy to ban smoking in public places.
We urge all Member States to draw inspiration from the Irish and Italian examples.
The environment and health report is topical.
Air pollution, in particular, is an important problem in Europe.
According to calculations and studies commissioned by the Commission, every year, more than 300 000 people die prematurely in Europe as a result of air pollution.
In the Netherlands, the figure is 13 000.
Little imagination is required to assume that deaths occur more frequently among people living near motorways and industrial areas than in people living in leafy and exclusive residential areas.
Over the past 20 years, Europe has, of course, taken measures that have brought about major reductions in emissions.
The use of catalytic converters in cars has been successful, but too little effort has been made to date, and the statistics are alarming.
What is to be done? First of all, we should, of course, better observe existing legislation, but more can, and must, be done.
Where, for example, are the soot filters in cars? Also, we should question whether the limits and limit values in legislation are adequate.
In the report ‘Signals 2004’, the European Environment Agency noted that there is increasing evidence to suggest that dust and ozone concentrations impact on health below current health protection values.
A European approach is required to protect the environment, health and the consumer.
In the framework of the Lisbon process, ambitious environmental policy is an incentive for technological development and for boosting European competitiveness.
If we do not commit to environmental quality, then not only do we do public health, but also European industry, a huge disservice.
At the Detroit car show last month, a zero-emission passenger car was launched, the like of which we have not seen at European car shows.
Over here, we remain stuck in the question as to who should pay for soot filters.
I prefer an ambitious Europe with adequate measures to protect public health, and we should make those soot filters compulsory without delay.
That is vital.
   Your request is accepted.
We shall interrupt the debate to proceed to the votes.
The debate will continue after the oral question on the financing of nature protection policy, so the debate on this item will resume at 4.00 p.m. and the first speaker will be Mrs Breyer.
   Thank you Mr President, I would just like to briefly give all the Members of Parliament some information.
Statistics are a boring matter, but business people in your countries will now have to write many new reports, if you vote for this.
I say this in advance, so that you can tell them what Parliament has done to make many of those statistical reports unnecessary.
Business people will have to compile new statistical reports and most likely you and many of your voters will have questions.
Therefore I simply wanted to let you know what Parliament has done in cooperation with the Council and the Commission in order to reduce that statistical load.
We vote with you for the introduction of so-called European sample schemes, where only some companies present reports; small countries, whose GDP is less than 1% of the European Union's GDP, will not be required to supply some of the indices at all; moreover, we shall give governments the opportunity to use administrative resources, that is, social insurance registers, and then companies will not be required to write additional reports.
It is also anticipated that the European Commission and Member States will have to prepare a method of evaluating whether it is worthwhile introducing new statistical reports and whether these would be of value to European business and the people of Europe.
Thank you.
   . Mr President, just for technical information with a view to giving consistency and coherence in the final document: if Amendments 19 and 21 are adopted, the other paragraphs which deal with the same issue should be brought into line.
This has been discussed with representatives from other groups and is a technical rather than a political matter.
   Mr President, to add to what Ms in 't Veld said, that Amendment 20 should have added at the end: 'or by way of an official act that, depending upon the legislation in the Member States, may take the form of one or more legislative or regulatory act or a contract'.
That is part of the arrangement that Ms in 't Veld is referring to.
Following on from that are oral amendments to Modifications 10 and 17 and recital Q.
   Mr President, to be completely clear, it means that we have oral amendments on recitals Q and paragraph 19 of this document.
They were not written amendments and they completely follow the text proposed in the Purvis amendments.
These have to be introduced on recital Q and paragraph 19.
   Mr President, concerning this problem, I tabled an amendment referring to 'public authority provide'.
I notice that other amendments - in particular Amendment 3 by the PSE Group - make a distinction between 'run' and 'monitor'.
In my intention, 'provide' is a verb 'monitor' or 'run'.
So I put an oral amendment to all the amendments referring to the tendering process.
Where Amendment 29 by the Green Group, Amendments 32, 33 and 27 state 'to provide' a public service.
It should read 'to provide (run or monitor)'.
Provide is to run or monitor.
   Mr President, here we had to vote on one of the compromises of this set of four so this is a bit confusing.
I assume that we have now voted on Mr Purvis's oral compromise amendment?
   In fact, it was the rapporteur's oral amendment that there were no objections to.
We will get to that when we come to Amendment 19.
   Mr President, no, because it deals with this paragraph 19 it should come before the other votes.
   – Mr President, there is no objection over the substance, but I should not like there to be any confusion over the facts.
This oral amendment is tabled four times: it relates to Amendment 20, Amendment 19, Amendment 21 and Amendment 15.
In order to avoid any ambiguity, I would suggest, Mr President, that, each time we vote on these amendments, you indicate that they are amendments that form part of Mr Purvis’s oral amendment.
I feel that this would clear up any potential confusion.
Mr Purvis’s oral amendment relates to four amendments.
If you would be kind enough to remind us of Mr Purvis’s oral amendment at each vote, I believe that it would be clearer for the House.
   Mr President, I think that will be complicated.
The point here is that there are paragraphs where no amendments have been tabled, but they would be equally concerned because after the amendments had been tabled I think we all discovered when we went through the amendments that there were more paragraphs concerned with the same issue.
Now we can simply vote on the amendments, but then there will be a certain inconsistency in the document.
What Mr Savary is suggesting will not work because it is not about the amendments - it is about the paragraphs to which no amendments have been tabled.
If, when voting on Amendment 19 and Amendment 21 plenary twice adopts a principle or rejects it, then it will apply equally to those paragraphs. That is what I am saying.
   Mr President, I do not wish to complicate matters, but Mrs in 't Veld is asking us to vote once and for all on Mr Purvis’ amendment.
You will not know where it will be in the text, but it will be there.
Quite frankly, as there are four crucial amendments, Amendments 20, 19, 21 and 15, I would prefer it if we were asked each time whether we were adopting them subject to the oral amendment by Mr Purvis.
I think that would be clearer.
I understand what Mrs in 't Veld is saying, but I would like her to tell me exactly where she is going to put Mr Purvis’ amendment, as she has said that it appears throughout the text.
I think this is confused and I do not want us to make a mistake with this vote, because, as you said yourself, this is a sensitive text.
   Mr President, I hope I can help you.
I agree with Mr Savary that it should be applied to those four amendments, but I also agree with Mrs in't Veld that wherever else in the report there are inconsistencies as a result of passing those amendments, then appropriate adjustments should be made by sessional services.
If that is acceptable then we can go ahead.
   Mr Savary, I can assure you that appropriate adjustments will be made.
I will indicate when the oral amendment applies.
I now propose to put the oral amendment to the vote.
   . Mr President, I am amazed by the way Mr Klinz is acting.
He claims that his amendment was accepted.
If that were the case, he should have made a complaint to the secretariat of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which normally does a good job.
Otherwise, he had every right to table an amendment, which he did not do.
Having listened to him, it is a new report that he is proposing to us, and I invite my fellow Members to reject this oral amendment, which is not an oral amendment, but a novel.
   We have to stand by the decision of the House, which was to not accept the oral amendment.
I apologise to Mr Klinz if there was a fault on the part of the secretariat, but Mrs Berès is absolutely right that the position was clear in committee.
   . Mr President, as rapporteur, I have to say that a large proportion of my report has been ‘mutilated’ by a rightwing majority in this House, which has voted contrary to Article 4 of the Treaty, which requires coordination of economic policies.
You have voted against the efforts of the President-in-Office, Mr Juncker, to make the Stability Pact into something decent, in other words a Stability and Growth Pact.
I therefore invite my friends to vote against my report.
   We, Mrs Segelström, Mr Andersson, Mrs Hedh, Mrs Hedkvist Petersen and Mrs Westlund voted in favour of the report but wish now to indicate our differing position on one issue.
We cannot support paragraph 1 f, indent 2, which recommends to the Council that it go some way towards harmonising national legislation governing the gathering and assessment of evidence.
The principle of the free sifting of evidence is basic to the Swedish criminal law of procedure.
Quite a few other Member States have rules to the effect that certain evidence is not permitted.
It is thus extremely important to us Swedish Social Democrats that our national system be kept intact.
What is more, it is doubtful whether there is any legal basis at all, be it in current treaties or in the forthcoming Constitution, for harmonisation in this respect.
   The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mr Costa’s report on the quality of criminal justice and the harmonisation of criminal law in the Member States (A6-0036/2005).
We are, however, aware of the fact that the proposal concerns an area covered by Title IV of the Treaty establishing the European Community and does not, therefore, apply to Denmark, cf. the Protocol on Denmark’s Position.
   We completely support the view that cultural diversity is a fundamental right.
The EU is, and must remain, a mosaic of minorities and cultures.
As Liberals, we always put the individual at the centre of all political decisions.
We therefore believe that it is of the greatest importance to strengthen the policy of international cooperation and solidarity with respect to cultural issues and to establish in international law that every city, state or group of states is entitled freely to determine its cultural policy.
We therefore believe that the issue of capitals of culture is not an issue in which the EU should become involved.
The matter of cultural capitals is one that individual cities and states should cooperate on and decide about without the EU’s interference.
In view of this, we choose to vote against Mrs Prets’s report (A6-0017/2005) - the ‘European Capital of Culture’ event for the years 2005 to 2019.
   . Although some very good ideas were expressed, it was particularly important for the European Parliamentary Labour Party that the impact on social housing and health services was taken into account.
This is why it was very important for the Purvis compromises to be included in the various articles mentioned during the vote.
   Sometimes, one is forced, as an MEP, to make a choice between two bad alternatives and choose the least bad.
In this case, I voted in favour of Amendments 9 and 22, although I did not agree with everything they said.
In spite of everything, they were better than the original wordings and would thus, if accepted, improve the report as a whole.
   We have voted in favour of the report on public finances in EMU – 2004 and also in favour of Amendment 7 about distinguishing between loans for investments and current expenditure.
It is our view, however, that the ability to provide loans for public investments and thus exceed the ceiling for budget deficits should be reserved for those countries that fulfil the national debt criterion.
   The next item is an oral question to the Commission on the policy for financing nature protection and especially Natura 2000.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there can be no doubt that the protection of biodiversity is a priority policy for the Commission and that the successful application of the Natura 2000 framework is the cornerstone of the European Union's efforts to achieve this objective.
Securing adequate financing for Natura 2000, as Mr Florenz stressed, is therefore one of our top priorities, and I fully endorse the objectives and priorities of the European Parliament.
I should also like to point out that this priority is shared by many of my colleagues in the Commission, who have agreed to adjust the Regional, Agricultural and other Funds in order to include Natura 2000 in financing.
The Member States have a legal obligation and are committed to effective management of Natura 2000 areas.
Safeguarding the financial resources for such management comes within the jurisdiction of the Member States but, precisely because of the specialised character of Natura 2000, the Commission helps by providing Community cofinancing.
Use of these Community resources is the responsibility of the Member States but, for our part, we are prepared to offer all possible help in order to facilitate access to them.
If, therefore, it is found that management of these areas is not being adequately supported, the Commission is prepared to refer the Member State in question to the Court of Justice.
Bearing this in mind, the Commission, as Mr Florenz said, adopted a communication on financing for Natura 2000 on 15 July 2004.
It examined all the possible permutations, including the creation of a separate fund, and concluded that the most efficient approach is to incorporate financing for Natura 2000 in existing Community funds.
The new Structural Fund regulations, which are currently being discussed in the Council, will be applied by the Member States and the regions on a decentralised basis.
Consequently, there is no facility to determine a specific sum within any one fund.
For the time being also, we cannot know what sums it will be possible to make available each year for cofinancing of Natura 2000 areas during the period from 2007 to 2013.
This is because, on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity, it is incumbent upon each Member State to decide on the requirements of these areas when preparing their national programmes.
In all events, the Commission has the means to safeguard priority for Natura 2000 within these national programmes.
I shall come back to this point at the end of my intervention.
To start with, a few comments on the new regulations being debated. As regards the regulation on the European Regional Development Fund, I must say that it contains a reference to cofinancing for Natura 2000 and for biodiversity, which are included in the objectives of convergence and competitiveness.
There are also cofinancing facilities under the Cohesion Fund and European Social Fund regulations, especially in order to strengthen management capacities in relation to Natura 2000.
Natura 2000 is also included – and this is important – in the second land management axis in the new rural development regulation, which will account for 25% of its total.
The Commission is proposing a total of EUR 22 billion for land management during the period from 2007 to 2013.
It is necessary – and here, Mr Florenz, I need the support of the European Parliament – for this sum to be secured and, if possible, increased.
The support of the European Parliament on this issue is therefore of prime importance.
The new regulations contain mechanisms which allow the Commission, as I said earlier, to provide guidance and to control to some degree the content of the programmes submitted by the Member States.
Immediately after the adoption of the proposed regulations for the Structural Funds, which will possibly happen towards the end of spring, the Commission will define its specific priorities for financing all the funds in detail in one set of strategic guidelines.
As is standard practice, consultations will be held on the content of the guidelines with the participation of all the interested services, including the Environment DG.
Care will be taken during these consultations to ensure that cofinancing for Natura 2000 is included as a priority.
Once the strategic guidelines have been issued, the Member States will need to prepare national strategic frameworks during the second half of 2005 or in early 2006, together with operational programmes, which they will submit to the Commission.
All the interested Commission services will be included in the consultations held on the content of these programmes.
Of course, suitable action will be taken on the part of the Environment DG to safeguard the priority of Natura 2000 actions.
In particular, as far as national rural development programmes are concerned, which Mr Florenz said earlier would be in a competitive relationship, every programme submitted will be examined in detail in order to ensure that account is taken both of the Community legislative framework and the priorities of policy on issues such as biodiversity, Natura 2000 area management, climate change, the application of ideas on water resources and other issues.
If, of course, it is found that a national programme does not include adequate financial coverage for all this, the Commission services always have the right to reject it.
This is another safeguard to ensure that Natura 2000 maintains its priority in the Member States' programmes, although it is not an absolute guarantee.
It is therefore the main obligation of everyone interested in financing Natura 2000 to exert pressure so that the Member States not only propose ambitious objectives in their national and operational programmes, but also safeguard permanent and continuing action to prepare valid Natura 2000 programmes.
Thank you for your attention.
   . Mr President, we are all pleased that the Commission has dealt with the issues of the Natura 2000 Network, which relates to the LIFE Programme, for which I am shadow rapporteur.
Nevertheless, I believe we are finding the situation very frustrating because the issue has been dealt with without taking account of the concepts which are essential to sustainability and, furthermore, we have made the old mistake of seeing Natura 2000 as a crystallised territory, with no life or activity.
Since the first declaration of protected areas, Natura 2000, rather than bringing society pleasure, has become a problem.
Nowhere wants to be declared a protected area, because there is no parallel support policy.
It has become a constant battle.
There has been no education about the exploitation of natural resources, nor of the true added value of the Natura Network, which generates and awakens enthusiasm.
Furthermore, there has been hidden expropriation, since the use of land is much more restricted than before and, in many cases, the value of the land is reduced.
It has therefore become a burden.
So what is the problem with the document we are dealing with? Firstly, it does not recognise typologies.
We cannot introduce the concept of Natura 2000 without looking at the great families of biodiversity, because each of them requires a different financial instrument.
For example, how are the marine funds, which do not appear, to be managed by means of rural development? A separate Natura will have to be created.
Neither are rivers treated as significant, while I believe they should be treated as an essential project.
Neither is there any proper distinction between the different forest areas.
There should at least have been an indication of an intention to produce a diversified policy.
Finally, I would like to say that, if we did not introduce Natura into the market economy, we will not have achieved anything, because nature means life, economy and sustainability.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your answer, but we are not satisfied with it.
I am not satisfied with it, because, if you will allow me to be particularly direct and straightforward, at the end of the day the question we might ask ourselves today, following your proposals, is whether the European Union really wants to preserve its biodiversity.
If so, it is like a cathedral, we need to provide the resources to manage the Natura 2000 network.
Without money, without a budget that is actually set aside for this expenditure, I do not think it is worth us deluding ourselves.
Commissioner, we are all well aware, and most of my fellow Members in this room know this from their experience on the ground that if it is not clearly stated that funds can be obtained in the regions through the Rural Development Fund, the ERDF Structural Fund or the ESF, then all the money will go to everything but Natura 2000.
Natura 2000 will be in direct competition with all the other projects.
Of course, agriculturally there will be possibilities for integration, which will be the proof that Natura 2000 has been integrated.
But we are not deluding ourselves, Commissioner.
We really need to go further.
And because we have absolutely no confidence in this proposal, as rapporteur for Life+, I am proposing, as the Council and the Commission have not decided on the 3 billion euros per year needed for management, that in Life+ we should include a Life section, which was formerly ‘Nature’: Life management Natura 2000.
We are waiting for all the guarantees that the Natura 2000 network can be put in place, because, Commissioner, both here and on the ground, we have fought hard for it.
On the ground, we only wanted …
Natura 2000 is an important step in protecting and developing biodiversity in the nature reserves of the European Union.
The policy must be guaranteed by mainstreaming Natura 2000 and integrating it into the main EU funding programmes.
The financing regulations for these programmes need to reflect this integrated approach.
Regulations for the 2007-2013 financial perspective now need to be strengthened for the integrated approach to work.
      Mr President, I should like to start by thanking Mr Florenz, Chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, for having initiated this debate on Natura 2000.
In comparison to other European countries, Poland can boast of significant achievements in the field of environmental protection.
The designation of protected areas is a Polish tradition that goes back to the 19th century, with such areas now covering 32% of the country, up from 9% just 20 years ago.
Yet Poland is concerned at the fact that whilst the concept of the Natura 2000 network in Europe has evolved, this has not been backed up by an appropriate guarantee of funding for the creation and maintenance of this network.
The country has therefore put its name to the declaration submitted by a majority of EU Member States in October and December, in which they express their disappointment at the European Commission’s proposal concerning the cofinancing of the Natura 2000 network.
No clear details are provided regarding the principles according to which funding can be obtained for protection measures for Natura 2000 sites between 2007 and 2013, and this will undoubtedly mean shortfalls in funding for the Natura 2000 network.
It will then be impossible to implement many much-needed protection measures.
The majority of areas designated as Natura 2000 sites in Poland will not be covered by the funds indicated, for example, land that is part of national forests, or swamps, natural grasslands, dunes, moorlands and scrublands that are not used for agricultural purposes.
In the context of the European Commission’s letter of 6 January 2005 to Poland, which suggested that consideration be given to the possibility of extending the list of Natura 2000 sites in the country, a guarantee of separate funding for the establishment of the Natura 2000 network has taken on even greater significance for Poland and other countries.
Poland therefore expects that in the course of work on the new Financial Perspective, appropriate levels of funding will be safeguarded for the establishment of the Natura 2000 network.
I would suggest that the LIFE+ Regulation also contains separate provisions for LIFE+ and for Natura 2000.
   Mr President, I should firstly like to thank the Commissioner for his answer.
With a single exception, we are all agreed that Natura 2000 is incredibly important, and we are also all agreed that the money must be obtained.
I do not know if everyone is aware of how much money is involved – at least EUR 6 billion per year.
This means that at least EUR 3 billion must be obtained from Natura 2000.
This could not ever possibly be obtained using just one fund.
Irrespective of ways and means, we must have this project integrated into the other funds, and that is something on which we agree.
We shall support the Commission in this matter, and I must also say that the green movements, Bird Life etc are in favour of our having the funding of Natura 2000 integrated.
The problem is that I could not glean from the Commissioner’s answer how he is to ensure that this will in actual fact happen.
Mr Florenz provided an engaging description of the conflicts that will arise.
If it has not been ensured that the money is earmarked and tied, nothing will come of matters.
Purely for the sake of funding, we therefore need a clearer answer from the Commission than we have received so far.
Allow me also to say, however, that it is not only an issue of obtaining enough money.
It is also an issue of getting the whole of our rural districts policy in tune with the natural environment, so that agriculture is carried on, and development pursued, in these areas in ways that respect the vulnerable natural environment instead of, as now, in ways that include driving large road systems through vulnerable areas.
I have seen how, in Poland, exemptions are granted for brutal pannage in an extremely vulnerable and very rich, but therefore fragile, natural environment.
We therefore need also to take account of the way in which we develop rural districts and to ensure that Natura 2000 is incorporated and that there is enough money.
If the money cannot be found within the existing funds mentioned, allow me to point out that we have just obtained a majority in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in favour also of beginning to examine the first pillar, where almost all of the EU’s money is, of course, to be found.
There are such large sums allocated to direct agricultural aid that it is time we began to look at this aid.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Natura 2000 is one of the major issues that often allow doubts to persist about European construction.
Our fellow citizens share our ambition of protecting biodiversity and see that we are producing texts, but when it comes to obtaining funds, Europe does not deliver the goods.
Our fellow citizens accept the idea of sustainable development, thinking that it is possible to reconcile protecting the earth with economic development and employment, but when they need the channels and resources to do this, Europe does not deliver the goods.
We therefore need to find some new instruments for maintaining Natura 2000.
I would like to make three demands: first of all, we need a specific fund, because objectively there is a contradiction between expectations for funds to promote economic development, rural development, and sustaining the land in accordance with Natura 2000.
We therefore need a specific fund, which is the first demand.
My second demand: the implementation of Natura 2000 needs to be favoured in the criteria for all European funds.
I will give you an example to illustrate the contradiction.
In the current ERDF regulation that you are in the process of negotiating, the areas are limited to wooded or cultivated areas.
Natura 2000 needs natural, untouched land that is not wooded or cultivated, in other words wetlands.
Thirdly, we need an instrument for innovation, so that practices on the ground are more in line with what we could provide for in the future.
Therefore in Life + we need a specific instrument and we need to maintain two pillars: a general environmental pillar and a pillar for Life Nature, as we had before.
As you have understood, Commissioner, as they stand, we do not think that the Commission’s proposals will convince our fellow citizens on the ground.
We believe that protecting biodiversity is a step forward, which is compatible with the development of rural areas and the economic future of our country.
We therefore now need proof of this conviction, in the form of three billion euros at least from the Structural Funds.
   I would like to thank Mr Florenz for giving us the opportunity to discuss this important topic.
It is in all our interests that Natura 2000 should become a workable system.
This is why we questioned your colleagues during the sitting of the parliamentary committee and that is why we ask you too what assurances and what guarantees you can give us to ensure that the entire network will be financially viable.
Unfortunately, we have learned that the answers received from the Commission have been meaningless and that they could not promise any kind of solid guarantees behind the attractive facade of an integrated approach.
But there is a need for guarantees.
I have come from Hungary, where the government has been able to contravene the earlier agreement made with the European Union, and redirect 8 billion Forints from agricultural-environment protection into direct subsidies for farming.
Because of this and similar reasons, farmers are demonstrating with their tractors in the capital of my country even as we speak.
In Hungary there is a saying that if someone burns their mouth once with hot water, then later they will blow on cold water too.
This is how we feel now the empty responses of the Commission and the stance of some Member States have burned us and are forcing us to be more careful.
Therefore, I, together with my fellow representatives, ask the Council and likewise the Commission to create a separate budget item serving the goals of Natura 2000, that is within the financial projections in preparation, in parallel with the significant upgrading of the LIFE+ programme and within the farm budget – to which I would immediately add that we can only imagine this together with real increases in the farm budget earmarked for this purpose – or on the other hand, with steps being taken to create a completely separate fund.
I further ask the representatives of the Commission to take into account the accession of Romania, Bulgaria and also Croatia – which has not been considered in the draft in its current form.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to join previous speakers in congratulating the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.
I see this as a very important debate, and as one that shows that pressure must be brought to bear by this House to ensure that a separate instrument is created to finance Natura 2000.
One of the previous speakers said that Natura 2000 is seen in some quarters as a programme for annoying the public.
In a great many other quarters, however, it is viewed as providing real assistance in the struggle to protect biodiversity.
I believe that it is our task to support those who view it in this way, and, in common with many of my fellow Members, I am therefore in favour of there being a separate financial instrument in future.
I also believe that it is not entirely accurate to say that it is not the amount of funding made available that matters.
Many of the NGOs working in this field have told us that the Commission’s estimate of an annual cost of EUR 6.1 billion can only be considered an absolute minimum.
We will therefore have the task of ensuring that not only a separate instrument, but also sufficient funding, is made available.
I can see the attraction in an integrated approach, but I share Mrs Haug’s views, who said that the situation is similar to what we have seen in the case of policies on women’s issues; for years anyone who did not wish to give any consideration to women’s issues said that there was no need to do so because of gender mainstreaming. Everybody then waited for progressive policies on women’s issues and equal opportunities to miraculously appear.
If an integrated approach is to be adopted, then what is needed is a dual strategy; integration into existing funds, but a separate financial instrument in future.
   Mr President, Commissioner, in Germany we have a rule that is no less clear for being unwritten, namely that he who places an order foots the bill, and indeed it is a well-known fact that very little happens in this EU of ours without money.
The European Union ordered, or rather instigated, the establishment of the Natura 2000 network throughout Europe.
Yet the EU has still not provided a precise definition of what kind of measures must be taken, what kind of regulations must be adopted or what kind of arrangements must be made with regard to the sites that have been designated, and indeed this fact was pointed out a short time ago by Commissioner Dimas.
The annual cost of Natura 2000 has now been estimated by the Commission to be EUR 6.1 billion.
This is a great deal of money, yet at the same time it is very little for all 25 Member States, depending on the final scope of the programme.
At present management plans for SACs have to be drawn up on a national and regional basis, and it is not hard to see that each area will have varying requirements when it comes to a field as complex as environmental protection, and that different measures will therefore need to be put in place.
Questions still remain, such as the instances in which greater expenditure will become necessary, and whether there should be changes to land use, given that this would mean a shortfall in income and financial losses for agricultural undertakings.
The Commission is now proposing that money spent on these commitments should come from existing EU funds.
This is a source of some concern to me, and it would mean that a struggle for funding of the kind referred to by Mr Florenz would be inevitable.
A separate financial instrument must be created that allows compensation to be granted in every instance where restrictions have been imposed as a result of Natura 2000 sites being designated.
That, Mrs Haug, is what the farmers are calling for.
It is intolerable that an increase in funding for SAC compensation should occur at the expense of agricultural and environmental measures or of other rural development programmes.
Sufficient funding must be provided by the European Union for any additional tasks and costly obligations it imposes.
This would then safeguard the substance of Natura 2000.
   Mr President, Commissioner, this question by Mr Florenz is appropriate because the Natura 2000 Network is the most important initiative undertaken by the European Union in the field of protecting natural areas and the Member States have understood this.
My country, which represents 16% of the European Union’s territory, contains 40% of the entire Natura 2000 Network: 25% of Spanish territory is included in it.
Natura 2000, however, has a cost that has not so far been calculated precisely.
The EUR 6 100 million calculated by the Commission could be very far from accurate, because this figure does not take sufficient account of the spending on compensation which could have been paid to landowners and farmers who, in reality, are deprived of the use of their land and the rights over it.
Furthermore, we should remember that, as well as for managing natural resources, we should compensate them for loss of revenue, as laid down in Article 17 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, included in the European Constitution.
The Natura 2000 Network is a Community initiative, and the European Union must therefore take responsibility not just for the cost of managing the areas, but also for the loss of revenue for the farmers.
Commissioner Wallström’s proposal to fund part of this cost by means of the rural development policy indicates that the Commission is not taking the Natura 2000 Network seriously or that it undervalues rural development, or both.
The Member States must choose between these two objectives; one always at the expense of the other.
If the proposal being presented on the new European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, with a funding of EUR 11 000 million per year, is accepted, we would have to deduct 20% of that sum in order to fund a substantial proportion of the cost of Natura 2000.
Furthermore, the reform of the CAP in September 2003 extended the list of actions to be funded from rural development, adding to it improving quality, food safety and the welfare of livestock.
The Natura 2000 Network is therefore very important and requires an instrument for funding, either exclusively or by improving the sum for rural development.
   Mr President, the question asked by my colleague, Mr Florenz, is a legitimate one.
There is a political gulf between the priorities set for the Community and the lack of clarity regarding financing.
It is worthy of you, Commissioner Dimas, that you should express a wish, as you did at the start of this debate, to safeguard the financing of Natura 2000.
In addition, we also need effective tools to make your wish a reality.
We need a special fund.
A key challenge for the European Union is to protect the diversity of nature in the area we all share.
Diversity is an all-important issue and for that reason it does not need to be justified separately here.
Every Member State has committed itself to this by drawing up a list of its conservation areas in accordance with the Habitats Directive.
From the point of view of nature conservation policy, the Natura 2000 network is unique, because it protects the environment of approximately 200 habitat types and 700 species, and will soon cover more than 17% of the EU’s territory.
The Natura 2000 network requires considerable input on the part of the Member States.
The areas must not see any significant reduction in the natural resources which qualify them for inclusion in the Natura network.
The authorities must likewise draft an appraisal of the environmental impact in all projects and plans that may have an effect on the natural worth of the areas concerned.
As this wide-ranging impact of the Natura 2000 network on all current and planned conservation area activity will demand a good deal in the way of resources and financial investment from the EU Member States, we really must ensure that sufficient, comprehensive funding is assigned at EU level to the administration of the Natura 2000 network by means of a separate financial instrument.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, historically many habitats which elsewhere in Europe have vanished have survived in the new Member States.
This is why priority was given at the national policy level to setting up the Natura2000 network.
Today, now that the inventory of territories to be protected and their importance for preserving biological diversity are fully understood, the resources for maintaining them may be lacking.
The Commission has announced that it supports funding Natura 2000 from the Rural Development Funds and the Structural Funds.
It has not, however, planned to create a specific financial instrument designed for the network.
I believe that particularly in the new Member States, where there is intense competition at the local project level to obtain resources from Structural Funds and the rural support funds, the European Union nature protection network does not have much prospect of obtaining match funding: this state of affairs should not be permitted.
First, we ought to create a new, unified environmental funding instrument.
Second, we should welcome proposals to supplement the activities supported in the draft regulation with the following – allocating funding for the management of those habitats which will not find support within the framework of the Structural Funds and the Rural Development Funds, allocating funding for pilot projects in the field of environmental technologies, planning preparatory measures for future allocation of money from the Structural Funds.
Only in such a way will accessible sources of funds complement each other in order to maintain Natura 2000, and will we achieve what we intended when creating the Natura 2000 programme.
   Mr President, Commissioner, there can be no one who does not believe that nature and the environment need to be protected, and Natura 2000 is an outstanding idea and a positive initiative.
When it comes down to brass tacks, however, and the time comes to provide money for initiatives of this kind and to get them off the ground, a large number of those who had previously expressed their enthusiasm beat a pretty hasty retreat.
The number of people who put themselves out in any way, or who are at least willing to do so, is small.
A number of teething problems have been experienced with regard to the implementation of Natura 2000 that could potentially have been avoided.
For example, the Netherlands has taken the opportunity to ban hunting in many parts of the country, using Natura 2000 as a pretext.
I believe that this has given rise to a great deal of opposition, and in fact Commissioner Wallström stated clearly during the previous parliamentary term that Natura 2000 is entirely compatible with hunting.
It is also important that knowledge be shared and that uncertainties over application be resolved.
I am firmly convinced that the officials in Mr Dimas’ DG have done splendid work in the past, yet no matter how much effort is expended, work of this kind cannot be carried out unless the groundwork has been laid.
Natura 2000 must not be implemented at the expense of landowners or agriculture, and compensation must be granted instead of depriving people of what is due to them.
Natura 2000 must not be implemented at the expense of the common agricultural policy or rural development.
Natura 2000 sites cover 15% of the old EU, and funding measures for the remaining 85% – not including cities and built-up areas – come under rural development and agriculture.
No further reductions should be made to this large area, and I therefore believe that separate and ample funding would be the best solution.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Natura 2000 is an extremely ambitious programme that has been in existence for a great many years.
It sometimes imposes restrictions upon landowners, yet this is the first time that the Commission has turned its attention to financing for the programme at European level.
The Commission is proposing that the programme be cofinanced, and I support this proposal.
At the same time, however, it is proposing that the money should come from the Rural Development and Structural Funds, and there are a number of reasons for thinking that the primary source of funding is intended to be rural development, as no separate fund exists for Natura 2000.
As rapporteur for rural development, I must stress the need for a guarantee that either a new fund will be created to finance Natura 2000, or that new provisions will be made to allocate more money to rural development.
Another point I should like to stress is that as a result of the decisions taken by Brussels to cap the agriculture budget until 2013, and following CAP reform, which moved modulation funds from the first to the second pillar – or in other words to cofinancing for rural development – it is inevitable that landowners and farmers will receive compensation for their efforts from this pillar.
Something else that is quite clear is that there can be no question of the budget available being any less than that proposed by the previous Prodi Commission.
It is impossible to have more Europe for less money when there are 25 Member States, and I am entirely opposed to property being encroached upon without appropriate compensation being granted.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, today’s debate focuses on the question: ‘How does the European Commission, when applying its integrated approach, intend to ensure that the aims of Natura 2000 are met in practice?’ No satisfactory answer has so far been put forward, since neither the European Rural Development Fund nor the Structural Funds enable all the aims of Natura 2000 to be met, or cover all the necessary cofinancing requirements.
Therefore, I consider it important that an opportunity be given to use the Life+ Programme to cover the deficit.
I believe the present proposal should be amended to include an opportunity to make available EU cofinancing for the protection and restoration of habitats of European importance that lie outside agricultural or forested areas.
This is why Natura 2000 should be added to the Life+ regulation as a separately funded activity; also, it would be expedient in the case of Life+ to direct most of the funding for projects through the Member States.
Here the actual contribution of each Member State to the EU Natura 2000 network should be taken into account, including the area of designated bird and nature protection areas.
One current problem is that neither the Structural Funds nor the Rural Development Fund take this Member State contribution to the Natura 2000 network into account, but rather, give preference to projects in more densely populated areas.
Coming from Estonia, I can testify that one of Estonia’s unique assets is the existence of relatively extensive natural areas.
Estonia’s projects encompass 16% of the country’s land area.
The preservation of these areas is simpler and cheaper at the moment than the restoration of former natural areas in Central Europe.
It is not, therefore, logical that a fund to support nature protection activities uses population density, but not the current preservation status of natural resources, as a criterion for funding.
   . Madam President, thank you very much for that constructive debate.
The Commission is fully aware of the importance of securing adequate Community cofinancing for Natura 2000, for which the lists have been approved for five of the six regions, with few gaps in the lists.
All the new Member States have submitted their lists.
The integration approach as proposed is consistent with the intention of Article 8 of the Habitats Directive, which calls for cofinancing from existing funds.
It also builds on existing practice, which is that the rural development and structural funds are already the most important sources of Community funding for the network.
It is estimated that EUR 500 million is spent each year from rural development funds in support of agri-environment measures for Natura 2000 sites.
The Commission has taken note of the concerns with regard to the great limitations of the rural development and structural funds.
In response to this, the latest proposals recognise the need to expand the funding opportunities for Natura 2000 compared with the existing situation.
In both the rural development and structural fund regulations, funding for Natura 2000 is made more explicit and its scope extended.
Of particular significance is the extension of funding for forestry areas in the new rural development regulation.
The importance of this cannot be underestimated since forestry areas represent 30% of the Natura 2000 network.
The Commission will ensure that the integration of Natura 2000 into existing funds is made more effective by including it as a priority in the strategic guidelines that will be issued to Member States when they commence the preparation of their structural fund programmes.
In its negotiations with the Member States on the content of these programmes, the Commission will seek to ensure that the allocations for Natura 2000 match this declared Community priority.
The Commission will also have to approve the national and operational programmes presented to it.
In respect to the proposal for LIFE+, I wish to stress that it is intended to continue to support Natura 2000.
The Member States have the flexibility to set their own priorities and decide the amounts provided for Natura 2000.
It may, therefore, be the case that Natura 2000 will attract a far higher percentage of the LIFE resources than is presently the case.
Designating a precise amount for Natura 2000 in LIFE+ also risks giving the impression that it would be a dedicated fund capable of covering all the needs of the network.
Our proposal is in line with the general principle of integration and simplification of all the other Commission proposals in the context of the Financial Perspectives.
There are now ongoing discussions in the Council and in Parliament on the Commission draft regulation for LIFE+.
If the European Parliament makes a proposal for an amendment during the legislative process, I will of course be prepared to examine it seriously.
In conclusion, the Commission proposals, without offering explicit guarantees, are still able to cover the financial needs for the Natura 2000 network.
I encourage you, therefore, to give your support to the various Commission proposals currently before Parliament.
I welcome your interest in Natura 2000 and look forward to working with Parliament to ensure its effective implementation as a current central pillar of Community biodiversity policy.
Thank you very much for your attention.
   Madam President, this is a debate, or it should be.
If we are simply going to read speeches to each other, we might as well exchange our views by post.
I asked Commissioner Dimas one question: is the Natura network of sites complete, or is the Commission still taking Member States to court for failing to designate those sites? There is no point in us talking about funding for sites if the Commission does not know what the sites are.
   The next item is the report (A6-0008/2005) by Mrs Ries, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the Environment and Health Action Plan 2004-2010 (2004/2132(INI)).
   I should like to point out to Mrs de Brún and to the other Members of the House that interpretation can only be provided for speeches made in an official language of the European Union.
   .   We believe that the European Environment Action Plan for 2004-2010 has significant shortcomings, and that it does not deal with the root of the problems.
The fact that the warnings issued by many experts have been ignored for years is not only a result of ignorance and thoughtlessness, but also of the activities of wealthy and influential interest groups that profit from other people’s misfortune.
Risk analyses have already demonstrated that a clear risk exists, so research similar to the National Children’s Study is not what is needed in many Member States.
That would amount to no more than another risk analysis.
What are actually needed are immediate corrective measures that both reduce and, ideally, eliminate sources of harmful emissions, as such measures would genuinely make it possible to protect people’s health and save their lives.
An effective monitoring system is also required, comprising regional screening panels and local prevention programmes.
The Action Plan should focus more on protection of the environment, including the local environment, and on the setting up of a European Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Like its American prototype, this Agency’s remit would be to offer a service to citizens of EU Member States by making use of scientific advances, providing reliable information and reacting to public health threats.
In my opinion, the European Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry should come under the umbrella of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and work together with the European Environment Agency.
I thank you.
   Madam President, if we are ill, health is our most desired object.
If we are well, it is hopefully one of our most valued.
In Ireland we have a saying that illustrates the priority we give to health.
If someone fails an exam or dents his car bumper or something like that, we put the calamity in perspective by saying 'at least we have our health'.
I want to congratulate Mrs Ries: she has not minced her words.
The health of people, especially of children, is being put at risk in our countries in Europe and the health action plan in its present form is not equipped truly to protect us.
Mrs Ries has also strongly continued the important process of naming and shaming toxic chemicals and seeking their eradication.
I would like to support her in this and, if anything, express the hope that we can soon add to the list more chemicals such as antimony, dioxins, and fluorosilic acid.
I would like to mention that the last toxic chemical, fluorosilic acid, which is used to fluoridate water supplies in my country, has the invidious effect of making other toxic substances, such as lead, mercury and aluminium, exponentially more dangerous.
It is a chemical usher that leeches these other poisons into the water and then transfers them to body tissue and bone.
I am glad that mercury, which is probably the most neurotoxic pollutant of them all, comes under scrutiny in Mrs Ries' report.
I would also extend the awareness of the dangers of mercury to include the fact that it is used as a convenient industrial preservative that needs to be replaced.
I am also especially concerned that the action plan should be improved to include truly efficient and responsive health monitoring systems.
Another saying we have at home is 'at least no one died', but this is no longer true: people are dying.
   The next item is the report (A6-0016/2005) by Mr Grosch, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on driving licences.
   . Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to begin my speech by thanking Mr Grosch for his fine leadership of this project under difficult circumstances.
As a representative of a new Member State, this situation with driving licences actually came as a big surprise to me since in Latvia, my country, we started issuing plastic licences of the size of a credit card two years after regaining independence.
Speaking personally, ten years of using my first plastic licence have already expired, and I replaced it last year with a new one displaying the European Union symbol.
Because of this it is relatively difficult for me to understand why the representatives of some states find it politically impossible to say that paper licences should be replaced with plastic licences.
If Latvia was able to do this then in my view other states can do it too.
And if we have a common internal market and free movement of the labour force, it is difficult to understand why we cannot adopt a unified system for obtaining driving licences, health requirements and similar matters, since any European Union driver may cause problematic traffic situations in any other European Union state.
It also seems to me that on the issue of microchips and their use, both the Commission and Parliament could have been stricter and could have retained an obligation to introduce them in the foreseeable future.
I very much hope that tomorrow we will vote in favour of this commendable draft directive at first reading.
   Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, we have to hold Question Time now.
I must therefore adjourn the debate at this point. It will be resumed this evening at 9.00 p.m.
On the EU internal market, there is unequal treatment of Polish companies and workers, who encounter unjustified barriers in carrying out their activities.
Does the Commission know of examples of discrimination or of regulations which contravene the treaties (the Treaty of Accession, Annex XII, Freedom of movement for persons, paragraph 13, and in particular the transitional regulations on the freedom of movement of persons) found in the national laws of the EU Member States of Austria, the Netherlands and Italy, which allow such practices, or is it aware of any breaches by Germany of Article 49, first paragraph, of the Treaty establishing the European Community and Article 1 of Directive 96/71/EC(1) relating to the posting of temporary workers through temporary employment agencies? What steps has the Commission taken or does it intend to take to address these?
     ( Many thanks, Mr President, thank you, Commissioner.
I should like to inform the Commissioner that according to the reports to which Poland has access, which include government reports, three EU Member States still have in place legislation that makes no allowance for enlargement of the EU that took place on 1 May 2004.
Under this legislation, rules that were in force before that date continue to be applied to entrepreneurs from the new Member States.
At the same time, seven other Member States employ practices that do not comply with principles such as the free movement of persons and services and the freedom of establishment on the common EU market for companies from the new Member States, including Poland.
I would be more than happy to provide the Commissioner with relevant examples.
I thank you.
   In the light of the question from our Polish colleague, I would like to ask Commissioner McCreevy whether he would agree with me that this is exactly the sort of problem that will be fully addressed by the proposal for a directive on the internal market for services.
Perhaps he could take the opportunity to confirm something I read in an independent report this week: this directive will apparently reduce prices, raise output across the European Union, create 600 000 new jobs and increase the trade in services.
Will the Commissioner therefore finally confirm his unequivocal support for this directive and his willingness to work with us in Parliament for its speedy and smooth transition?
   As the honourable Member knows, that comes under Commissioner Mandelson's portfolio, so I cannot give a detailed answer to the supplementary question.
However, I can promise that I will duly inform my colleague and, if he thinks it appropriate, then he will certainly start an investigation into the matter.
As the author is not present, Question 44 will not be taken.
   . In answer to Mr John Purvis, I would first like to say that we do of course pay a great deal of attention to these problems of road accidents and that all of these problems, as we saw earlier when looking at the report on driving licences, are very important.
Having said that, neither the Commission, nor the Member State that is most affected, the United Kingdom, have statistics to directly prove a risk associated with driving on the left or the right.
In general, the number of accidents involving continental drivers in the United Kingdom and vice-versa is too low for us to draw statistical lessons from it or draw any conclusions.
This is my answer to Mr Purvis
   Mrs Schierhuber, we have a deadline.
In other words, 2005 is the half-way point in the programme of ten years that the Union set itself to halve the number of deaths.
Obviously this is going to be the year of general evaluation.
At the moment we are in the process of collecting all the data, so that in the second phase we can step up our measures in order to achieve this ambitious but essential objective of halving the number of deaths on the Union’s roads.
Thank you for sharing this concern, which everyone should be aware of.
In its proposal for a directive on port services (COM(2004)0654/final), the Commission provides its clearest definition to date of the term and application of 'self-handling'.
Despite this, major organisations, such as the European Transport Workers' Federation and the European Sea Ports Organisation, are concerned about the likelihood of social unrest in ports, the discouragement of potential investors and the ensuing decline in competitiveness.
What is the Commission's response to the concerns of the trade unions and how does it intend to ensure that workers already registered with trade unions will not suffer any discrimination, resulting ultimately in a reduction in their employment prospects and income?
Furthermore, how does the Commission respond to the charge by the above trade union organisations that the 'self-handling' provision is incompatible with ILO Convention 137 on cargo handling in docks?
   – Allow me to insist, Commissioner.
I am here, opposite you.
Apart from the reactions of the trades union, in December 2004, when the Commission presented its proposal to the Council, several Member States voiced negative criticism.
Of them, France, Germany, England, Sweden and Belgium criticised the Commission for failing to hold adequate consultations on the matter, for failing to investigate the consequences of application.
Taking account of the negative prehistory, when the Commission tabled a proposal which was thrown out by the European Parliament, do you intend to re-examine the content of the proposal or do you propose to proceed despite the reactions?
   Mr Papastamkos, it is true that it is a priority.
We have enlarged Europe and with the imminent prospects of enlargement with Romania and Bulgaria, the neighbourhood policy is beginning to take shape.
I therefore think that in this new context we shall have to give priority to those corridors and transport routes to which you have drawn our attention.
I would also like to say that I am expecting much from Mrs Loyola de Palacio’s report; she is obviously putting a lot of thought into it and I am sure she will be consulting all the Member States.
   Mr Guardans Cambó, the Commission is ensuring that the Member States implement the in the area of rail transport.
By now, the Member States should have transposed the directives relating to the ‘railway infrastructure package’ and the directives on railway interoperability.
So far as the opening up of the rail freight market is concerned, the Member States ought to have transposed the ‘infrastructure package’ directives, in particular Directive 2001/12, by 15 March 2003.
The Commission brought infringement proceedings for non-communication of transposition measures, or at least some of them, against Germany, the United Kingdom, Greece and Luxembourg.
The Court of Justice found against those countries in October-November 2004.
Infringement proceedings for incomplete or incorrect transposition have been brought against the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.
The Commission will continue to ensure that the Member States fully comply with their obligations to transpose Community law.
It will do that in particular for the directive to which you refer, which must be transposed by 31 December 2005.
The Commission is following the actual implementation of the new regulatory framework for railway infrastructure access very closely through a working group made up of the Member States and market participants’ representatives, who are invited to exchange their analyses and experience of the development of the competitive market with the Commission.
There are also other bodies whose task is to observe and evaluate non-discriminatory access to the market, such as the regulatory and consultative committee set up by Directive 2001/12 on the development of the Community’s railways, which I have already mentioned, and a large number of working groups, such as the railway regulators’ working group or those of the authorities that issue railway licences and safety certificates.
May I say to you, Mr Guardans Cambó, that I for my part believe this is a very important question because it is essential that we have a strong rail transport industry if we are to avoid Europe always having to use road transport; that would be harmful both to the environment and, by creating bottlenecks, to the European mobility we need if Europe is to be competitive; it would also be detrimental to the comfort of its citizens.
   Mr Guardans Cambó, I can tell you that I fully share your concern.
We must see to it that there are indeed no more or less hidden barriers to this opening up of the rail market.
You mention safety certificates in particular.
There is clearly a need for an independent authority that is able to issue safety certificates on a completely objective basis.
You also refer to a number of Member States which I know well.
Let me assure you that I ask just as much of them, and you will see that presently.
   Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, I do not intend to delay the taking of decisions.
I believe the technical documents will be available in the next few months and then of course the Commission will have to shoulder its responsibilities and make proposals.
I would like to thank you in advance for your support because this is an area where, as you know, some Member States will always have reasons for rejecting certain measures even though we know they will cut the number of road deaths in Europe.
   What we must do is draw up rules for the road that will apply along the length of the major routes, rather as we have done for air and rail transport.
So far as possible, we are in fact going to demand that the same rules be applied for Trans-European networks.
As you know, we are touching here on problems that come under the third package of Justice and Home Affairs measures.
It is the whole problem of sanctions; it is the whole problem of controls and offences.
Clearly, all this now needs to be harmonised; it will no doubt be rather difficult to achieve, but it is necessary.
In any case, so far as Trans-European networks are concerned, we are very definite that we want this improvement.
We are thinking of presenting a proposal for a directive on greater security and safety in Trans-European transport networks before the end of 2005.
Could the Commission explain the lengthy delay in tabling the ‘Regulation on the rights of passengers with reduced mobility when travelling by air’, which was originally scheduled for submission in the first quarter of 2004? Will the Commission undertake to defend a final version of the Regulation which does not contain an opt-out clause for airlines?
   In its communication, the Commission gave an undertaking, in accordance with the White Paper, that during 2005 it would examine the need for legislation to extend the rules on the protection of passengers with reduced mobility to other modes of transport, in particular shipping and international coach transport.
Having said that, Mr Howitt, you have clearly understood, so far as rail transport is concerned, that the third railway package contains a legislative proposal introducing minimum rules for assistance to persons with reduced mobility.
I know that Parliament feels strongly about this third railway package and that it does not want the package’s various measures to be broken up.
I believe this is very important and that the measure concerning persons with reduced mobility will be added to those that came into force on 17 February 2005, that is last Thursday, on denied boarding, cancellation and major delays to a flight.
All this has shown Europe’s citizens that the Union, its Parliament, its Council and its Commission are also there to make everyone’s daily life easier and to make things safer for everyone.
In any case, I thank you for having underlined the importance that should be attached to persons with reduced mobility.
   Questions 53 and 54 will be answered in writing.
   How can the Commissioner justify bringing forward these proposed changes at a time when there has been a major review of the common agricultural policy? In my country, Ireland, where we have just introduced full decoupling from 1 January 2005, Irish farmers feel that they face a very uncertain future as regards their income.
Furthermore, would she consider postponing decisions until people have had an opportunity to find their feet under the new system?
   . One of the reasons why this discussion is on the table now is that the Court of Auditors has pointed out the difficulties of maintaining the present situation.
Things have changed over the last few decades, and those areas that were less-favoured areas 20 or 25 years ago may no longer be fulfilling the same criteria.
That is why things are going to be changed.
   Just to refer to the Commissioner's response to Mr Aylward's original question with regard to the transferability of sugar quotas.
The reason we are discussing this now is because the issue is part of a Commission proposal, and not because it is something that Member States were looking for.
The difficulty and danger is that once you transfer the right and entitlement to a quota, then all production stops and sugar production is amalgamated into big multinational interests, rather than into individual national interests as at present.
These ensure a solid product growth that allows competition and ensures the diversity of supply and production afterwards.
   As the time allocated to Commission Question Time is at an end, Questions 59 to 103 will be answered in writing(5).
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0015/2005) on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on ship-source pollution and on the introduction of sanctions for infringements (Rapporteur: Mrs Corien Wortmann-Kool).
   The next item is the report (A6-0055/2004), by Mrs Renate Sommer, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on harmonised River Traffic Information Services on inland waterways in the Community.
   The next item is the report (A6-0057/2004) by Mr Robert Evans, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the recognition of seafarers’ certificates issued by the Member States and amending Directive 2001/25/EC.
   The next item is the report (A6-0022/2005) by Mrs Elspeth Attwooll, on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing a Community Fisheries Control Agency and amending Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 establishing a control system applicable to the Common Fisheries Policy.
   The next item is the oral question (O-0005/2005 - B6-0010/2005) to the Commission on the International Plan of Action on by-catch reduction.
The Commission can accept the following amendments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 44, 45, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 53, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 72, 75, 77, 78, 79 and 83.
The Commission can accept in principle the following amendments: 48, 52, 55, 60 and 86.
The Commission can accept in part the following amendments: 19, 28, 40, 42, 54, 57 and 84.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 39, 43, 66, 67, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 80, 81, 82, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126 and 127.
The Commission can accept the following amendments, subject to rewording: 9, 10, 17, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 and 37.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23.
The Commission can accept the following amendments, subject to rewording: 1, 3, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 19, 24, 26, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65 and 66.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29 and 30.
The Commission can accept the following amendments, subject to rewording: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 and 32.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
   Ladies and gentlemen, most of you have probably already heard the news I am about to give you.
It is my sad duty to inform Parliament of the death of our much-loved colleague Mr Imbeni.
Mr Imbeni was a Member of this House and served as Vice-President for ten years, between 1994 and 2004.
He was a committed parliamentarian, and I had the honour of working with him in COSAC.
Throughout his parliamentary career, Mr Imbeni was always eager to share his values and his European ideals with fellow Members.
He threw himself into his daily work, gaining the respect of his colleagues for his approach to conciliation and for his contribution to the many working groups in which he took part.
Mr Imbeni was also involved in the Mediterranean Forum and in COSAC, where, as I just mentioned, I was privileged to work alongside him.
The House is proud to have had him as a Member.
Mr Imbeni’s work as Vice-President for a whole decade deserves particular recognition.
We remember his wealth of knowledge, his generosity and his friendly smile.
This was how he earned the respect of political friend and foe alike.
Mr Imbeni served as Mayor of Bologna for many years, and he made a point of remaining in touch with his electorate and the citizens.
I have sent a telegram to Mr Imbeni’s family, expressing condolences on behalf of the whole House.
I trust you will now join me in observing a minute’s silence in memory of Mr Imbeni.
   – Mr President, if in the past Braudel, the important French historian, highlighted in his work the political and economic importance of the Mediterranean to Europe, international and regional developments over recent years are making the Mediterranean an area of strategic importance to the future of the European Union.
It is true that Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, as shaped in Barcelona in 1995, has become embroiled in the Arab-Israeli conflict and has not brought about the expected results.
Today, the European Union should, alongside the implementation of the roadmap for Palestine, take the initiative, within the framework of the Quartet, to design a roadmap for peace between Israel and Syria.
We now need a holistic approach to peace, democracy, security and stability in the Middle East.
Syria, like Israel, should respect the decisions of the UN Security Council on Lebanon and withdraw its troops.
At the same time, we need to re-evaluate the Barcelona Process within the new framework of the European neighbourhood strategy we have designed, in order to avoid overlapping policies and initiatives.
May I close by saying that the European Commission and the Council are being called on to follow up the initiative of the former President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, who in 2002 created the initiative for dialogue between the peoples and the cultures of the Euro-Mediterranean area, and the relevant proposals which the Committee of Wise Men took at that time.
   Mr President, three years ago we were wondering what to do with Iraq.
Some countries joined the coalition, some did not.
The price we all paid was enormous.
Let us support democracy using our European soft means.
Let us support democracy in Palestine by guiding Hamas towards participation in fair elections.
Let us disarm it in our soft way.
How should we do this? Not via non-transparent budgetary support.
We should fund ambitious and specific projects that directly counter Hamas' demagogic propaganda.
Let us directly finance 200 doctors in the West Bank and let us equip and maintain 100 primary schools in the same area with our full support, clearly acting under the European flag.
This would be a 'soft' way to disarm Hamas.
There is another Soviet style authoritarian regime in our Mediterranean neighbourhood.
We do not need to send troops, and we do not need to sign an association agreement with that regime.
Let us stick with Resolution 1559.
Let us call for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Lebanon.
Let us call for the free and fair elections in Lebanon that Arab street, Beirut, is calling for today.
But let us also separate Syria from Hizbollah, its terrorist companion, with no artificial distinctions between military and social links.
We should put Hizbollah on the European list of terrorist organisations immediately.
   The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on human rights (Geneva, 14 March to 22 April 2005).
   An excellent report, which reflects the criticism of the current state of human rights in the world.
The report also includes documents guaranteeing citizens their rights.
I am surprised that the priorities do not include the undignified position of women and the failure to guarantee their rights.
Our problem is, however, that we sometimes notice failures to observe human rights elsewhere in the world but we do not notice them in our own environs.
We assuage our consciences with the fact that we have instruments of justice, by means of which citizens can insist upon their rights.
We tend to forget that Lady Justice is sometimes lazy and it takes her a long time to make decisions.
Basic human rights include political rights.
Political ethics are lacking if we fail to acknowledge such rights for our political rivals.
Mr President, I am talking about the undignified position of the non-attached members in this Parliament.
We are able to work, thank you, but we are not included in your Hontov system.
This seems to be solely for the elite, or is it just one of those documents which subscribes to the principle of winner takes all? Mr President, I was very aggrieved when the President of the European Parliament did not have a seat at the table for the negotiations with President Bush.
I was very pleased that the situation was rectified, because it was not just matter of the personal position of Mr Borrell, it was a matter of the position of the President of the European Parliament.
I therefore ask that you do not see my contribution as relating to individual people but to our voters, who are entitled to respect.
   Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention to the violation of human rights in Belarus, one of the countries that shares borders with the European Union.
According to a report on human rights violations in 2004, published on the Internet by the independent Belarussian civil initiative Charter 97, approximately 1 500 people were detained or arrested for political reasons in Belarus last year.
Approximately 20 newspapers were closed, and three opposition politicians were sentenced to several years’ imprisonment.
The political regime of President Lukashenko exerts control over the media and violates basic human rights, civil rights and political freedoms.
The Belarussian people are denied the right to independent information as well as the right of political parties to conduct their affairs freely and the right to freedom of assembly.
In February of this year, Belarus was also the scene of protests relating to economic issues.
Everything indicates that the situation in that country will become more critical as a result of the presidential elections that must take place no later than September 2006.
Lukashenko will run for the third time in these elections.
It should be remembered that the referendum held last year, which did not comply with any democratic principles, allowed him to hold this position for life.
On the other hand, the civilian population in Belarus is rousing itself, above all under the influence of the democratic breakthrough in Ukraine.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am saying this as a representative from Central Europe, and as a former leader of Solidarity, the trade union that began a peaceful revolution in Poland 25 years ago, guided by the idea of human rights.
The European Parliament must not resign itself to the creation of a new curtain on the borders of the European Union, this time separating a democratic Europe in which citizens can develop freely from an authoritarian Europe in which political regimes violate basic human rights.
We must remember that the flag of the European Union has become a symbol of freedom and hope for a better world in Belarus.
We must bear in mind those young people who on St Valentine’s Day distributed light-blue ribbons with gold stars on the streets of cities in Belarus.
The heart of Europe now beats in Minsk, and the fate of democracy on the European continent is being decided there.
   Mr President, a debate about Europe’s commitment to worldwide respect for human rights in a UN context would not be complete without it being stated that one in five people, mainly women, still have no access to food, water, health care or basic education.
I consider this to be a worldwide violation of human rights.
The Millennium Goals are the concrete objectives to which Heads of Government across the world have committed themselves in a UN context in a bid to improve that situation.
Five years after this ambitious plan, we have to conclude that those objectives are a long way from being met.
By 2015, all children, and girls in particular, should be attending school.
That, in practice, appears to be an empty shell.
The right to development is being denied to many.
It is now up to the EU finally to deliver on those Millennium Goals in the spirit of putting your money where your mouth is.
Most Member States are a long way off the 7% mark of development cooperation.
The European Union is still a long way from meeting its pledge to spend 20% of the development budget on basic education and basic health care.
When we come to set down the financial perspectives for 2007-2013 – which involve billions – it is these that we should make into the real human rights issues.
If those objectives are met, 500 new people can escape from extreme poverty, more than three hundred million people can live without hunger, thirty million children can be saved from premature death, two million fewer mothers will die in child birth, one hundred million more girls and young women will be able to attend school.
That is respect for human rights.
   Mr President, someone once described the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva as the annual human rights circus.
After all, in recent years, it has turned out several times that the show has been run by countries that are known for violating human rights.
By concluding strategic alliances, they stand by each other and even manage to give each other pats on the back.
It is high time the make-up of the UNCHR, as well as its voting procedures, were subjected to a thorough overhaul.
If not, it is at risk of being sunk by its own lack of credibility.
The European Union also carries a major responsibility in this.
It must work towards more coherence and more consistency in its human rights policy.
The EU should finally play a pioneering role, so that the 61st session does not end up being an unnecessary ceremony, but an efficient and credible consultation producing fair, and above all, concrete, results.
   Mr President, I would simply like to say that I am occupying a seat on the committee chairmen’s bench to which I am not entitled, because I am no longer a committee chairman, while Mr Jean-Marie Cavada, who is the Chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, is sitting up in the gods.
I hope that the officials will correct this situation, so that I can sit in a place more suited to my humble station and Mr Cavada can occupy a position appropriate to the dignity of his office.
   Mr President, honourable Members, the Commission declares that, with a view to ensuring that business operators in the European Union are not placed at a competitive disadvantage to business operators outside of it, it will involve business representatives and trade federations in the legislative process that will lead to the adoption of provisions allowing the amendment of the Community Customs Code.
This will include those where provisions resulting from international agreements may be granted by publishing relevant documents and draft legal texts for meetings of the Customs Code Committee on the Europa website, so that traders and trade federations can make their views known to the Commission and the committee before a decision is taken.
Secondly, the Commission will hold regular consultations on specific issues with a trade contact group that is already established and is made up of representative European trade federations.
Thirdly, representative trade experts will be involved in committee proceedings in accordance with Article 9 of the rules for the committee procedures.
   Thank you, Mr Yushchenko.
In your address you have restated how history has decreed that the creation of an independent Ukraine should be linked to the creation of a strong political Europe.
We stood shoulder to shoulder at a critical juncture, and you have made it clear that you wish to continue our association in the future.
You can be confident that the European Parliament will support your stated desire to create a Ukraine based on political freedom, economic progress and social cohesion, which are the three distinguishing features of European society.
   . Mr President, on several occasions there have been lengthy discussions with both the Dutch and the Luxembourg presidencies and an informal trialogue to reach an informal agreement within the procedure under Article 251 of the Treaty.
I am a little surprised, therefore, that the ALDE Group, having been involved in this, have asked for a split vote.
If we do not vote in accordance with the block compromise we would be unpicking everything that had been agreed, or the basis of the agreement, in the compromise.
So I urge people to go for the block compromise and support the first two parts in its entirety.
   . Mr President, I have a purely technical point concerning Amendment 13.
All language versions of this should be made to conform with the Spanish original so that, for example, in English it will read: 'investigate and develop technical control and inspection solutions'.
   – Mr President, further to the statements made in the course of this morning’s debate by the various parliamentary groups, and having contacted all of the them, I should like to propose the adoption of a new paragraph 18(a).
I shall now read the proposed text in Spanish: ‘Calls on the Council to adopt the decision to organise a Euro-Mediterranean Summit of Heads of State or Government to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Barcelona Process. Highlights, in this connection, the importance of the parliamentary dimension of the process and calls on the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly due to meet in Cairo from 12 to 15 March 2005 to convene an extraordinary meeting of the Euro-Mediterranean Assembly so as to be involved in celebrating the tenth anniversary’.
   – Mr President, I merely wanted to make a comment concerning the presentation of the oral amendment tabled by Mr Morillon.
It has just been voted on and we support it.
I should like to point out that in view of the agreement that seems to have been reached between all the political groups, the last part of paragraph 9 should become a separate paragraph.
I have in mind the reference to sending an electoral observation mission to Lebanon.
Mr Morillon did not take this into account when tabling his amendment and I think it is important.
   – Mr President, as far as the Wortmann-Kool report is concerned, I should like to report that we New Democracy MEPs voted in favour of the amendment tabled by vice-chairman Mr Varvitsiotis supporting the compatibility of Community law with the MARPOL international convention on questions of culpability in relation to sanctions for accidental pollution.
We believe that in both territorial and international waters what applies in the MARPOL convention should also apply in Community law and this concerns equal treatment for ships under the law and efficient management of pollution at global level, because shipping is a global activity and must be governed by international conventions.
Regional measures, wherever they have been applied, have been unproductive and are confusing.
Similarly, we New Democracy MEPs also supported Amendment 37 which, on the one hand, calls on us to impose a regime of cooperation between the national authorities, because numerous accidents are caused by a lack of cooperation and inadequate exchange of know-how and, on the other hand, stipulates the need for a cost-benefit study to be carried out on the new measures and the new policies which the European Union wishes to apply for the development of maritime transport within the framework of efficient management of waters and their protection from pollution.
   Mr President, I will be very brief.
I want to give an explanation of vote on behalf of the European Parliamentary Labour Party as to why it abstained on the amended proposal and then voted for the legislative resolution.
Our explanation of vote is very simple.
We believe that joint deployment plans are important for the effectiveness of the agency's work.
That is why we voted for those amendments.
Amendment 36 to 43 clarify the rule of the agency in implementing these joint deployment plans and they also give an appropriate role to Regional Advisory Councils.
   . – I congratulate Mrs Attwooll on the important and timely report she has produced on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing a Community Fisheries Control Agency and amending Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy.
I give it my full support, particularly since the proposed changes seek to clarify the role of the agency as a facilitator, particularly in the context of the formulation of joint deployment plans, which involve a pooling by Member States of their control and inspection resources, as well as the nature of the functions performed by the Fisheries Monitoring Centre.
The establishment of the agency deserves our full support, since its role will be that of a facilitator of fisheries plans to be drawn up by Member States for the inspection and control of their resources.
It will be a support body for the implementation of the new common fisheries policy, which will help to create more uniform and effective control and inspection procedures.
For it to function effectively, however, an operational organising structure needs to be set up to act as a facilitator of the whole procedure.
   . Brussels loves agencies.
There are agencies for everything, from the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen to the European Food Safety Agency in Parma, via the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work in Bilbao.
Now there will also be a Community Fisheries Control Agency, in other words a real European Fisheries Ministry.
This FBI of the sea will have the task of coordinating the control and inspection activities of Member States in the fisheries sector.
It will be the strong arm of a control system which has been, until now, somewhat modest. Parliament wanted such a control system both in Community waters and in international waters.
Multinational inspection teams will therefore be created, at sea and on land.
The agency will be able to charter and operate surveillance vessels, which it will place at the disposal of observers.
Yet who will those observers be? They will be inspectors from other countries, unfamiliar with national regulations, and this constitutes a refusal to acknowledge each Member State’s own competence.
They will therefore be able to inspect, without necessarily finding infringements, without necessarily improving control.
Thus, in the territorial waters of sovereign states, it will no longer be a matter of simply reinforcing Community sovereignty but also of strengthening foreign sovereignty.
   .
UK Conservatives abstained on the vote on the creation of a centralised Fisheries Control Agency in Vigo in Spain for the following reasons: Firstly, the policy of centralising fisheries control is politically part of the integrationist agenda of the European Commission which as Conservatives we oppose.
Secondly, we accept that in the event of a Conservative government withdrawing from the CFP and returning fisheries management to local and national control many UK vessels will nevertheless continue to fish in EU waters out with the UK 200 mile limit.
In these circumstances, and accepting the fact that the Commission policy to create an EU Fisheries Control Agency in Vigo is a , it will be in British interest to a working relationship with this new body.
We therefore felt it was appropriate rather than opposing outright the proposal to abstain in this vote.
   . I am supporting this report because of the amendment to Paragraph 6 of the original, discussed in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.
I understand the need to use the 'precautionary principle' to protect consumers from the possible long-term dangers of the phthalate family of chemicals including DEHP, but I represent a factory in Quedgeley, in Gloucestersire, Gambro, which has received the Queen's Award to Industry and has 120 employees.
This factory uses DEHP for devices that help control blood clotting.
People in such circumstances have to worry about the next 25 minutes rather than the next 25 years.
In those circumstances, the exception that allows DEHP and other phthalates to be used 'where such a restriction would have a negative impact on medical treatment' is entirely appropriate.
On that basis I will vote for the amended Ries report.
   The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Council and the Commission statements on the 61st Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (Geneva, 14 March – 25 April 2005).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in one year, nine months and eight days’ time Moldova’s neighbour, Romania, will become a member of the European Union.
When discussing the political situation in Moldova, we should therefore remember that we are talking about democracy or the lack thereof in a country that will soon be a neighbour of the Union.
If it is said when discussing Iraq and Iran that they will be neighbours of the European Union following Turkey’s entry into the Union in around 20 years, we should take an even greater interest in the Union’s present neighbours, such as Ukraine and Belarus, or Moldova, which will be our neighbour in the near future.
The elections that will take place in Moldova in 11 days will not be entirely credible if there continues to be no fair election campaign preceding them.
At present there is no such campaign, and no sign of there being one.
Yet elections without campaigns are like a fish out of water, and we must therefore judge the Moldovan authorities not only on whether they observe procedures on the day of the elections, but also on whether they ensure that a normal campaign takes place.
At the same time, we should not forget that the elections in this country have an international context, whether we like it or not.
   Mr President, Moldova is a small landlocked country, the poorest in Europe, whose importance to the EU will rise as our frontiers will border it by 2007.
It is also the location of a frozen conflict in its breakaway territory of Transnistria, under Russian military protection since 1991, following a bloody secessionist conflict.
This territory is a haven for gansterism, smuggling and money laundering and corrupts the local authorities around the Odessa oblast in Ukraine.
President Voronin, whom I met a year ago, in spite of being a Communist and ethnically Russian, is committed to EU and NATO approximation for his country after a row with President Putin, who failed to withdraw Russian troops by 2002 from Transnistria, as agreed.
I have no doubt that the parliamentary elections on 6 March, although far from perfect in terms of media bias in the run-up and the monopoly of administrative resources, will not be subject to the kind of fraud seen under Prime Minister Yanukovych in neighbouring Ukraine, which sparked off the famous Orange Revolution.
The European Parliament, the parliamentary assemblies of the Council of Europe and NATO, as well as OSCE/ODIHR presence in Moldova, with Romanian and Ukrainian help, will prevent such a scenario.
The new parliament must help Romania, Ukraine, Russia, the USA and the EU get together with the Moldovan Government to solve the Transnistria problem.
Reassurances of strong safeguards for Slav minorities must be given, probably along with a form of devolved government to the territory, which, after all, has never been part of historic Bessarabia or been Romanian speaking and which Stalin annexed cruelly to create Moldova 60 years ago.
I personally would start by advocating tightening of the sanctions against Tiraspol by asking President Yushchenko of Ukraine, who was here this morning, to further demonstrate his independence from Moscow by preventing Mr Smirnov and his 16 cronies from travelling to Ukraine as the EU has already done with the visa ban.
I would also ask the Council to bring in a policy to prevent any aircraft landing in EU territory having taken off from Tiraspol military airport, thus ensuring they all fly out of Chisinau, where they can be openly inspected for smuggling, including arms trafficking.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Schmit, the President of Ukraine has summed it up very aptly today. The principle that his country associates with Europe is democracy – and the democrats in the Republic of Moldova are looking to us as well.
What they want from us is not only a commitment to them as Europeans, but also a clear signal over and above the neighbourhood strategy.
That is why I believe that – especially in the light of events in its neighbour, Ukraine – we must offer Moldova a clearer perspective.
With the Thessaloniki strategy, the EU mapped out a course for the countries of the Western Balkans.
What about the countries that are only now shrugging off the shackles of the past? Ukraine has set a precedent.
It is to be hoped that the Republic of Moldova will follow suit on 6 March, and even Belarus will in future have no option but to embark on the path towards democracy.
What we need now is a Thessaloniki strategy for these three countries.
It is an anachronism that the Republic of Moldova is the only country in the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe to have no prospect of accession to the European Union.
It would be splendid if, very soon, this House could welcome a democratically elected President from the Republic of Moldova who is genuinely committed to democratic politics.
At the moment, that is not the case, as I saw for myself during my visit to Chisinau ten days ago.
If, though, there is to be a European Republic of Moldova, the election on 6 March must be democratic.
We appeal to our European friends in the Republic of Moldova to go and vote, to vote for democracy, and to make the Republic of Moldova freer, more democratic and more European so that this House can very soon bid their country welcome.
   – Mr President, the predominantly Romanian-speaking area that used to be referred to as Bessarabia, and is currently known as Moldova, alternated between being Romanian and Russian.
It would never have existed as a state had it not been for the pact between Stalin and Hitler that redrew the Soviet Union’s western borders on the eve of the Second World War.
Both in the Romanian-speaking sector to the west of the Dniestr and in the Slavic sector to the east, there is shared nostalgia for the kind of society that existed in the days of the Soviet Union.
All those circumstances are not the ideal foundation for democracy, tolerance, transparency and pluriformity.
They can result in the different peoples seeking a regime whose authoritarianism is directed against those perceived as being opponents.
One cannot therefore exclude the possibility the elections being as flawed as were last year’s in Ukraine and Belarus.
That is why it is important for us now to express our desire that Europe’s poorest country should have normal parliamentarian democracy, with equal rights and opportunities for all parties taking part in the elections on 6 March.
   –Thank you Mr President.
As we know, on 6 March Parliamentary elections will take place in Moldova, which I hope to be able to observe as a member of the European Parliament's delegation of election observers.
However, today I would also like to express my concern about the pre-election situation in Moldova.
The situation in Moldova is complicated above all because to this day the Transnistria problem remains unresolved.
Neither the international community nor even the European Union have yet been able to persuade Russia to keep its 1999 Istanbul Commitments and withdraw its army from Transnistria.
Transnistria has become a region involved in money laundering, and the manufacturing and illegal export of arms.
This in turn, either directly or indirectly, serves organised crime and international terrorism.
Today, Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner expressed concern about the environment of the forthcoming elections, about the influence which some have been trying to exert from outside for some time.
Yesterday Moldova's Prime Minister Tarlev spoke about this at a press conference in Brussels and today the world's news agencies are speaking about it.
In conclusion I would like to express the hope, that the European Union and international community will not be impotent and that the European Union will not only observe the elections and monitor the situation, but will take concrete steps to help Moldova's democratic forces and will not allow the situation in that country to become unstable.
Thank you.
   At the end of the debate, I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 103(2) of the Rules of Procedure(1).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
   . – Mr President, I should like to say to Mr Barón Crespo and Mrs Morgantini that I believe President Lula’s initiative is very important and very relevant.
My colleagues, my fellow-Commissioner Mr Michel, who is dealing with this specific issue, sends his apologies and naturally I am happy to take this question on his behalf.
The Commission endorses the fundamental standpoint that prompted the Quartet to consider new sources of funding.
In order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, we need a significant increase in financial resources, especially ODA – official development assistance.
This must go beyond the increase that was agreed in Monterrey and the associated commitment to development financing.
However, as the World Bank notes in its report to the Committee on Development, the simplest and most effective way of increasing the available resources is to provide a greater proportion of funding for development assistance from national budgets.
The European Union has already adopted this course in fulfilment of the commitments undertaken in Barcelona in 2002 and will pursue it further, possibly at an accelerated pace.
We intend to make practical proposals which will be presented by my colleague Louis Michel to the Commission for discussion before they are forwarded to the Council, notably in the context of the Commission Communication, now being prepared, which follows up the Monterrey Conference, and in relation to a consolidated project for the Millennium Summit +5 review conference in September 2005.
My personal view is that the current innovative proposals, such as the Global Marshall Plan Initiative, are very interesting and we will, of course, take part in the discussions within the various bodies.
However, they should not serve as a pretext for putting the Monterrey commitments on the back-burner or downgrading them.
On the contrary, these commitments must be reaffirmed and new ones must be made.
   . Thank you, Mr. President, for the floor.
Commissioner, President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I will speak in my own language – Polish.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have the noble goal of helping poor countries.
Yet sometimes merely giving money has no effect.
As a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and hence a representative of education, which the Commissioner mentioned earlier, I would like to draw your attention to one issue.
The research I have carried out to date indicates that only a little over 30% of those who come from poor countries to study at leading European, American or other universities return to their countries of origin, whether they are here to gain master’s or doctoral degrees.
We are helping one or two people individually, but this is no help at all to the poor country.
What needs to happen is for these people to return as technological experts in agriculture, education or any other field, in order to become the elite and the driving force of the economy.
This is one way to reduce hunger and poverty.
With regard to the matter we are discussing here, I once had the opportunity to exchange a few words with Commissioner Michel, and I believe that we agree that it would be useful to put forward a proposal, and if possible to implement it, whereby a certain amount of money would be earmarked in the budget to help those returning to poor countries to adapt, or rather re-adapt, to poverty during the transitional period before they find a suitable job that is in keeping with their skills.
This would be a great help, and in some ways an extension of the scholarships and financial assistance we offer for them to come here and study in our countries.
In other words, ladies and gentlemen, we do not really need these Ph.D.s from Mali or the Congo, as we have our own, yet they are very much needed in their own countries.
I am therefore very much in favour of this proposal.
If necessary, I will draft it properly, including data, and submit it to the Committee on Development as a proposal for the Commission.
I would like everyone here present and the Commissioner to devote their attention to this now.
I thank you.
   . Mr President, the initiative that was taken on 20 September 2004 in New York, with Lula and Annan playing the leading parts, contains good ideas about aid, trade debts, cancellation and new forms of financing.
However, back in 2000, the world leaders signed a declaration in which they committed themselves to meeting the Millennium Goals by 2015 or thereabouts.
Now in 2005, the world can see that, in Africa, a goal such as ‘everyone to school’ is not moving any closer but has edged further away.
Similarly, the financing pledge of 0.7% of the national budget has not been fulfilled by a long shot.
A declaration of this kind in 2004 may then seem a little like ‘management by declaration’; unless, with that declaration added to Jeffrey Sachs’ report and the massive wave of sympathy and funds that have been freed up by the tsunami disaster, new political will is organised.
That, to my mind, should be done straight away, and not by setting up a new world fund, but by fully concentrating all existing aid sources – the World Health Fund, the European Development Fund, the activities of the IMF and the World Bank – from both north and south on the MDGs – the Millennium Development Goals.
Firm agreements, tight control and coordination are what is needed.
Europe, being the world’s largest donor, can take the lead.
At the same time, all European Member States should be able to achieve 0.5% of the national budget for development cooperation by 2010 and 0.7% by 2015.
The EU itself should set aside 10% from its own financial multi-annual perspectives, channelled via a single development budget, with the MDGs being the legally binding instruments.
Debt relief for poor countries would also form part of this, thereby making room for water, education and basic amenities; hence also the need for the IMF to revalue the gold reserves.
This also involves fair trade and an immediate end to export subsidies, while also looking for new sources, not with the intention to forget the 0.7, but to think about new sources that would be interesting.
It is also a good idea to impose taxes on the negative side of globalisation, such as ‘flash capital’ or the arms trade.
Now is the time to act.
I think that the presidency is in good hands and is keen to move in that direction along with Mr Michel and the other Commissioners.
It will be primarily by the multi-annual financial perspectives that the value of all our declarations will be able to be judged.
   Ladies and gentlemen.
Today, while we are discussing poverty in the world, I should like to draw attention to the central thrust of World Poverty Day, which we are commemorating on 17 October.
In those places where people are condemned to live in poverty, human rights are being violated.
It is our sacred duty to unite in an effort to ensure that they are respected.
The voices of the poorest should be heard everywhere where men and women take decisions on the future of humanity.
Poverty today represents the greatest obstacle to women’s involvement in all aspects of life.
International institutions, like the World Bank, for example, challenge us not to forget the fact that the first stage on the long road towards the liberation of women is the struggle against their poverty.
The participation of women in determining the indicators for poverty is a basic prerequisite in this respect.
The question arises as to whether we know how to develop the talents of poor people and to facilitate their access to fundamental rights.
In order to measure and quantify poverty, we need precisely defined indicators.
The traditional indicators have been roundly criticised by the American economist Gary Becker in his works on human capital and the economic approach to life.
Becker in particular measured the effect of the gender gap in the field of income and the economic value of family life in all its forms.
All this economic research shows that one third of the economic activities mainly undertaken by women are not subject to any form of evaluation or monitoring.
There are simply no indicators or instruments for measuring them.
Would it not be useful to take inspiration from the words of Gary Becker to define today a policy for a higher position in society for women?
   At the end of the debate, I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 108(5) of the Rules of Procedure(1).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
   Hunger and poverty are no longer only a humanitarian issue.
According to the recommendations of the UN High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, hunger and poverty along with the HIV epidemic and environmental degradation, constitute a threat to world security, over and above the traditional threats facing Humanity at present (eg terrorism).
These threats are interrelated, and a threat to one is a threat to all.
The World Bank estimates that the September 11 attacks increased the number of people living in poverty by 10 million.
Poverty, as measured by per capita GDP, is strongly related with the outbreak of civil wars: 12% probability when less than 1000USD and 2.5% when it reaches 4000USD.
Meeting the Millennium Development Goals and decisions taken in Johannesburg and Monterrey is the right direction.
Reducing trade barriers, increasing development assistance and providing debt relief are obligations of the developed countries.
It is true that not all Member States, particularly the newcomers, including my own, can meet the obligation of contributing the 0.7% of their national income.
I urge the Council to take a collective decision on this issue so that every M.S presents a multiannual programme by which it commits itself to reach the 0.7% target and in the meantime the remaining to be complimented through the EU Budget.
   Mr President, our textile and clothing industry is in bad shape.
Since the end of the 1980s, French companies have been making workers redundant or closing down altogether, and more and more businesses are relocating to low-wage countries.
Since the 1960s, the textile and clothing sector in France has lost two-thirds of its workforce, which is about 20 000 jobs per year, and today we are suffering 2 000 job losses a month.
In my own region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais, historically an important textile-producing area, towns such as Elesmes, Roubaix and Tourcoing have witnessed the closure of their businesses.
The social situation is already serious and yet it is going to get worse in future.
Until now, quotas have made it possible to limit imports of textiles from third countries, but on 1 January 2005 the door was opened to imports on a massive scale from China.
France and Europe now need to define a strategy to defend their textile industry.
We must as a matter of urgency request the WTO to provide safeguard clauses.
Indeed, this option is available to Member States if a sudden increase in imports is observed, to the major detriment of a local industry, and this is indeed the case in France and Europe today.
Since the quotas expired on 1 January, imports have soared, and the flood from China is destroying whole sections of what remains of our textile industry.
Imports of trousers made in China between 1 January 2005 and 2 February 2005 increased by 792% compared to the same period in 2004.
Imports of pullovers increased by 613%.
Before it is too late, and regardless of the opinion of Guillaume Sarkozy, President of the French textile industry union and a fierce advocate for the delocalisation of businesses, we must not wait to see our internal market flooded before we demand a return to customs barriers and safeguard clauses.
The extremist advocates of liberalisation who drafted Article 314 of the Constitutional Treaty, announcing the opening of our borders to world trade and the lowering of customs barriers, are promising us major general industrial and social decline, of which the textiles issue is an unpleasant foretaste.
   – Mr President, the liberalisation of the markets for the profitability of big business and within the framework of the WTO included, among other things, the abolition of textile import quotas in Europe.
Thus, companies and handicrafts either moved to countries with lower labour costs or closed.
In both cases, those who lost most were the workers in the sector, who know the road to unemployment.
In Greece, entire towns have literally died.
WTO analysts estimate that, over coming years, China's share will exceed 50% internationally, while in the European Union approximately 325 000 jobs will be lost.
This is a choice of the European Union which, although it appears contradictory, is in the interests of the European monopolies, so that they can penetrate China's huge market in profitable sectors and exploit cheaper labour costs.
All that is maintained about controls, research and innovation, about a more competitive European textile industry, does not help and does not concern the small professionals who will be wiped out; it concerns the monopoly groups, which will increase their profits.
Let the workers and the small professionals draw their own conclusions about the policy of the European Union, which destroys the many that are weak and strengthens the few that are rich.
Let them join forces with the consistent class movement in order to change this policy.
   – Mr President, the abolition as of 1 January 2005 of all duties and quotas and of textile import restrictions is a development of huge economic, social and political importance to the countries of the European Union and to my country, Greece.
This development has already created the first adverse consequences in Greece, with uncontrolled imports of Chinese products, which hit not only the textile and clothing sector, but also consumer safety, with poor quality, cheap products.
The experts at the WTO and the OECD may see advantages in the full liberalisation of the textile and clothing trade, but European and Greek businessmen and workers do not.
The textile and clothing industry manufacturing base is shrinking.
Industries and handicrafts close daily in Greece, while others relocate to neighbouring Balkan countries.
At the same time, unemployment is constantly rising.
One typical example is that, in December 2004 alone, 12 small and medium-sized businesses closed in Greece, leaving over 650 workers unemployed.
In the face of this dramatic development and taking account of the data of the WTO, which forecasts that China will control 50% of the world textile market in the next two years, I fear that the European Commission is merely monitoring developments.
While the United States, Turkey and Argentina recently decided to use safety measures and impose quotas on certain categories of Chinese products, at the moment we are still waiting for the European Commission to submit guidelines.
This is a question I wish to put to the Commissioner, in the absence of Mr Mandelson.
   – Since 1 January, the volume of licensed textile imports from China in several textile categories has been up to seven times higher than in the corresponding period in 2004.
For several items, import licences in the last two months have already exceeded the total imports of the same items for the whole of 2004.
Prices for almost all products have dropped sharply, sometimes to less than half their previous levels.
In view of the possibility that exists for the Commission to use the safeguard measures provided for in China’s protocol of accession, I would ask you, Commissioner, to clarify some matters: first, what are the consequences of the fact that the Commission has not yet begun to produce customs data on textile imports; secondly, what are the consequences of the fact that the guidelines that the Commission should have prepared and made available in 2004 are still to be drawn up; and lastly, how sure can European producers be that the Commission is technically and politically able to act before it is too late?
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by the Textile High Level Group contains indications for seven different measures to bolster competitiveness in the sector.
The group also recommended that a system should be set up to monitor Chinese imports from 1 January 2005.
Unfortunately, however, the same group was unable to issue guidelines on the mark of origin because of internal differences of opinion.
Today, in fact, there was an article in a major Italian daily by Commissioner Mandelson about the ‘Made in Italy’ mark, according to which the Union has a duty to inform consumers so that they can distinguish a shirt produced in China from one made in Italy. I agree, and I would add that strict labelling rules fulfil that duty.
Therefore, with regard to the system to monitor Chinese imports, first of all I would like to know what the results of monitoring have been in the almost two months since the restrictions were removed.
Secondly, regarding labelling of origin, I would ask the Commission and then the Council whether they intend to adopt measures soon that will make it compulsory to label goods with their origin, and I would point out that such a measure is strongly demanded by textile manufacturers in Italy and elsewhere.
   The next item is Question Time (B6-0009/2005).
We shall be taking a series of questions to the Council.
   . Madam President, the European Council of 16 and 17 December 2004 noted with satisfaction the progress made by Croatia in preparation for the opening of accession negotiations.
It invited the Commission to present to the Council a proposal for a framework for negotiations with Croatia, taking full account of the experience of the fifth enlargement.
It requested the Council to agree on that framework with a view to opening the accession negotiations on 17 March 2005, provided that Croatia cooperates fully with ICTY.
The Commission transmitted the framework for negotiations on 31 January.
Technical discussions were opened within the Working Group on Enlargement on 1 February, in order to adopt a common position with a view to opening the accession negotiations on 17 March.
Let me remind you, in this context, that the conclusions of the European Council of 17 December 2004 very explicitly requested Croatia to demonstrate full cooperation with ICTY.
In addition, the Council, following consultation with the European Parliament, decided in December 2004 to give Croatia access to the pre-accession financial instruments – PHARE, ISPA and SAPARD – from 2005 in order to help that country to prepare for accession.
A sum has been allocated for this purpose as part of the current financial perspectives.
At the same time, the continuity of activities promoting cooperation with the Western Balkans covered by the CARDS programme is ensured.
   Madam President, I wish to inform you that, next week, our EU-Croatia Joint Parliamentary Committee will be meeting in Zagreb.
If the Council takes the view that the opening of negotiations should be conditional upon General Gotovina being arrested, then its opinion conflicts with that of the European Parliament, which has never made this a condition.
I have the Brussels Presidency Conclusions here, and they – in paragraph 15 – clearly urge Croatia to take steps to cooperate, stating also that, once the indictee is located, he must be transferred to The Hague as soon as possible.
That is something we all support, but it cannot be a condition for accession negotiations, which we expect to open on 17 March.
   . Mr Posselt, you are quite right to emphasise that Mr Gotovina's arrest is not a precondition.
The issue referred to in the conclusions is real cooperation with the tribunal, and it is therefore on the basis of that cooperation that we will decide whether negotiations can be opened.
   Madam President, the assurances provided by the President-in-Office of the Council are very gratifying and are welcomed by the House.
I would simply ask you to inform Commissioner Rehn that, while the General's arrest is not a condition, good cooperation is absolutely essential.
He sent out a rather different signal.
Perhaps someone could also inform him that if he actually has any evidence of General Gotovina's whereabouts, wherever in the world that may be, he should kindly inform the relevant authorities instead of engaging in public polemics.
The Israeli nuclear physicist, Mordechai Vanunu, was released by the Israeli authorities in April 2004 after eighteen years in prison, eleven and a half of which were spent in solitary confinement.
Unfortunately, since the day he was released, Mr Vanunu has been held hostage by his country's government.
He has been deprived of the right to travel and of freedom of speech.
Recently, in November, he was re-arrested by the police on totally unfounded charges.
Does the Council intend to make any recommendation to the government of Israel to restore the democratic rights of this person who has been persecuted to excess?
   President-in-Office of the Council, will you remind the Israelis, when you discuss this issue with them, that Mr Mordechai Vanunu was illegally taken from European soil. Effectively, he was kidnapped and taken to Israel to face trial.
The offences for which he was charged took place 20 years ago, and the notion that he still has secrets that could do Israel some harm 20 years later is clearly ludicrous.
Will you encourage the Israeli Government to stop their persecution of this individual, allow him to leave Israel and, if he so desires, to live in the European Union?
The Commissioner for External Relations announced that she intends to propose to the College of Commissioners that a standing rapid response force be set up at European level to intervene in the event of natural disasters and humanitarian crises all over the world.
This standing force will consist of 5 000 national experts preselected by the Member States who shall be placed under a central coordinating authority after undergoing training.
According to the Commissioner, this force could become operational from 2007.
In the conclusions of the extraordinary summit of the General Affairs and External Relations Council of 7 January 2005, the Council calls upon the Commission and its own competent bodies to examine the potential for developing an EU rapid response capability and also calls upon the Commission to submit proposals for a strategy for strengthening prevention, early warning and preparation measures for dealing with disasters, which recent events have proved necessary.
Does the Council not believe that the Commissioner's proposal provides a sound basis for attaining its objectives, as set out in its conclusions? Why do they make no reference to the specific proposal of Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner?
   . At its meeting on 31 January 2005, the Council adopted an action plan providing for measures that are currently being drawn up.
In the action plan, the Council invited the Commission and the Secretary-General and High Representative to present appropriate proposals, within their own fields of competence, on the creation of a European Union rapid response capability enabling us to deal with future disasters.
The Secretary-General has agreed to present his proposals to the Council as soon as possible and by 31 March 2005 at the latest.
   – Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the Commissioner for external relations who formulated this specific proposal was here five minutes ago, opposite you.
My question is: how does the Council view the Commissioner's specific proposal: in a positive or negative light? Does the Council believe that a specific step should be taken or will this too be referred to a committee and be eternally postponed, while we wait for the next major humanitarian disaster because we have no money?
   Mr Speroni, you know that, besides the issue of social rights, Europe has been trying to introduce an environmental dimension into the debate in the WTO – without much success, I have to admit, because of the opposition of a number of developing countries.
Be that as it may, in the ILO and in our dealings with the WTO, this debate must be, and is being, further pursued.
So I cannot say that these elements are an integral part of the question.
Nevertheless, we shall continue to devote special attention to them.
   Mr President-in-Office of the Council, my question to you has to do with tax competition, which, in my view, is now a given in Europe, and an integral element of the internal market.
One of the major problems we face is that small and medium-sized enterprises often lose sight of which tax regulations apply to them.
As regards value added tax, for example, we have more than 100 different regulations.
Will any initiatives now be launched in order to make taxation more transparent for the layman?
   Mr President-in-Office, I am grateful to Robert Evans for tabling this question.
I am interested in whether you believe that the existence of tax havens makes it more difficult to track down and freeze the funds of organisations that are considered terrorist organisations; and also whether their existence makes it more difficult, for example, for the world's poorer countries, to access money that may well have been siphoned off by some of the less reputable regimes for the benefit of those in power.
   This relates to quite a different matter, namely the use of various financial channels to fund such things as terrorist activities.
You will be aware that the OECD has a body called the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering, the FATF, whose activities include the investigation of such issues.
I also believe that there are lists which show whether countries, and territories too, adhere to the rules, particularly as regards money laundering.
In short, this is a very important issue, and the European Union is very actively engaged in efforts to ensure that the fight against money laundering is waged effectively in all Member States as well as in neighbouring countries and autonomous territories.
   Madam President, the Council is firmly resolved to ensure that the measures adopted to help the tsunami victims are not taken at the expense of aid assigned to Africa, as it clearly stated in the conclusions adopted on 7 January.
Paragraph 15 of those conclusions states that, ‘in this context, solidarity in facing this disaster must not lead us to forget the general issue of development, humanitarian aid and the Millennium Goals, especially in Africa, nor to reduce the resources needed for that purpose.
In this connection, it is important to ensure that resources released in the context of recent events are indeed additional to development commitments already made.
The Council will come back to the implementation of commitments regularly’.
At its meeting on 31 January, the Council went on to adopt a new series of measures in the form of an action plan designed to serve as a framework for all the initiatives that have been and will be taken by the Union and its Member States in response to the earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean.
This operational action plan, which will be monitored by the competent Council bodies, also re-emphasises, in its introduction, the importance of ensuring that the resources committed in the wake of the recent earthquake do not prejudice any funds previously committed to development, particularly in Africa, in pursuit of the Millennium Goals.
It also contains a raft of specific practical measures designed to guarantee that this political commitment will be honoured; to this end, the fulfilment of financial pledges made in response to the disaster will be monitored.
These funds were pledged in addition to the financial resources allocated under the development policy of the European Union, of which Africa is the main beneficiary.
A framework decision concerning the storage of traffic data is currently being drafted within the EU.
The issue has been raised previously and, each time, the Article 29 Group (the EU's data protection authority whose task is to ensure compliance with the rules on the protection of personal data) has delivered strongly critical opinions.
The current draft proposes that the EU should introduce a common rule stipulating that data from 'publicly available communications services' should be stored for 12-36 months 'for the purpose ofprevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of crime and criminal offences including terrorism'.
The proposal is not confined to telephony; it also covers data traffic, i.e. information concerning websites visited and addresses to which e-mail has been sent.
Furthermore, the proposal is not simply concerned with the investigation of crime but also with prevention; everyone is to be treated as a suspect.
Naturally, the Article 29 Group has also sharply criticised this proposal.
Their opinion states that the proposal is not only contrary to the rule that information may not be used for a purpose other than for which it is retained, it is also as a whole contrary to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights which states that 'Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.'
Will the Council take measures in response to the Article 29 Group's criticism?
   Madam President, in its declaration on combating terrorism of 25 March 2004, the European Council instructed the Council of the EU to examine proposals for establishing rules on the retention by service providers of data on communications traffic.
The declaration calls for the adoption of an instrument on the retention of data on communications traffic by June 2005.
In April 2004, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Ireland and France presented a proposal for a framework decision on the subject.
The Council asked the European Parliament for an opinion on the proposal, which it has begun to examine.
On 2 December 2004, the Council held a debate on the matter.
A number of points were raised, but they will have to be examined in greater detail before the instrument can be properly finalised.
The Council particularly emphasised the need to pay special attention to the proportionality of the proposed measure in terms of its cost, whether it adequately safeguards privacy, especially as regards personal data protection, and its effectiveness.
These deliberations are continuing within the Council’s preparatory bodies, and there is no doubt that the criticisms made by the Article 29 Group will be taken into account and will be one of the items on the negotiating agenda.
More recently, the Commission has expressed the view that some aspects of the draft framework decision relating to the harmonisation of data categories and data retention periods fall within the competence of the Community, which should be reflected in a directive based on Article 95 of the EC Treaty.
The Council awaits the presentation of a proposal from the Commission for its consideration.
   – The fact is that what we have here is not, of course, an isolated case.
There is, in fact, a wide range of areas in which the limits set by the European Convention on Human Rights, which makes a number of demands in terms of data protection, are being substantially exceeded.
As the questioner puts it, it is of course the ultimate crime, moreover, to use this information contrary to the interests of suspects.
The mere fact of storing the information, however, constitutes an infringement of the requirements under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
We may therefore expect the Council to adopt a basic position on these problems without wrapping them up in waffle about matters being taken into consideration.
This is a most fundamental issue.
   When all is said and done, I can only repeat that this issue is being discussed from the very angle indicated by the honourable Member and that no final decision has been taken.
I believe there is a very real concern to safeguard privacy and to comply with Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention, and full account will undoubtedly be taken of this concern when the provision is re-examined.
   Questions 10 to 40 will be answered in writing.(1)
   – The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0027/2005) by Mrs Bresso, on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC and European Parliament and Council Directives 97/7/EC, 98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC and European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) No 0000/2004 (‘Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’).
   – The next item is the report (A6-0029/2005) by Mr Jiří Maštálka on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on promoting health and safety at the workplace.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, previous speakers have explained the situation clearly and set out what needs to be done to resolve this most critical situation.
I have to bite my tongue and avoid referring back to some of the demands made concerning the REACH regulations, which will come into force in eleven years' time, undermining the competitiveness of Italian and European industry, which now seems to be facing very different and more immediate competitive challenges.
Like you, I have long union experience behind me, on which I should like to draw to make two observations.
Firstly, exactly one year ago, on 10 February 2004, we were discussing here in Parliament the case of Terni, the steel industry and the wider crisis in European steel-making.
On that very day we were informed that the dispute was being resolved at ministerial level and that negotiations were being started which were ultimately to lead to the June agreement which, today, ThyssenKrupp has once again torn up.
Why was such an agreement possible at that time? In my view, for one fundamental reason only: because ThyssenKrupp had been isolated, both nationally and on a European level.
The exceptional mobilisation of the workers and citizens of Terni and Umbria, as previously referred to, played a leading part in that political process.
The Terni plant is not a mere factory; it is an integral part of the town.
Today, the same situation is being played out once again.
Today, as before, we are seeing an attack not only on a professional body, a production capability, a tradition, but on the dignity of the entire population of a town.
This must be the starting point for the renewal of a powerful unity which will again leave ThyssenKrupp in an isolated position.
A second comment also drawn from my union background: why has ThyssenKrupp chosen today to take two apparently contradictory initiatives? It has sent us the letter describing the problems in detail, while simultaneously laying off, or threatening to lay off, a further 600 workers, for more or less plausible reasons.
In my view, the company is afraid of being isolated again by this Parliament.
That explains the importance of the agenda on which we shall be voting tomorrow.
Commissioner, I appreciated your speech and the pointers you gave, notwithstanding the Commission’s limited powers, of which we are perfectly well aware.
However, the Commission can perhaps do something politically, possibly at the most senior level, as it did last year, thereby making a significant contribution to the isolation of ThyssenKrupp.
   The next item is the oral question (B6-0012/2005) by Mr Ransdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, to the Commission, on the doubling of EU budgetary resources for research.
   – Mr President, I too should like to thank the Commissioner for emphasising that, in line with the Lisbon objectives, Europe should be competing on the basis of knowledge and not on the basis of poor wages or environmental destruction.
Of course, knowledge is now to be understood in the broad sense of the word, and if we look at the proposals for the Seventh Framework Programme in the context of the Sixth – and also going back to the Fifth Framework Programme – we can see that socioeconomic research played an important part at that time and contributed to an analysis and understanding of the interaction between advanced technologies and social development.
Separating scientific and sociological research when drafting the Seventh Framework Programme has, however, in actual fact put sociological research into budgetary competition with technological research in relation to the IST programme.
This tends to marginalise the relevance of socioeconomic research, and, in future, technological research should therefore be developed in tandem with the development of society’s needs, values and expectations.
Socioeconomic research in the information society is a precondition for our achieving this objective.
      Mr President, Commissioner, research and innovation are the basic tools for implementing the Lisbon strategy.
The Seventh Framework Programme has presented us with a unique opportunity to move towards this goal by improving the way we exploit the intellectual potential of the European Union’s 450 million citizens, including its almost 80 million new citizens in the new Member States.
The Seventh Framework Programme should accelerate European integration, and it should provide not only for a much-needed and significant rise in funding, but also for measures under which this funding will be put to effective use.
This will only be possible if entirely new and innovative methods are devised for implementing European policy on science.
The main priority should be to alter the criteria according to which funds are distributed, as this will make it possible to establish centres of expertise at institutions where the researchers are based.
Students from Central and Eastern Europe do not wish to be treated as an afterthought, or sometimes merely as the odd ones out, in ‘Centres of Excellence’ programmes, as is the case under the current Sixth Framework Programme.
Two questions come to mind in this connection.
The first is whether the concept of ‘excellence’ is not being misused here as a strange kind of curse, which can later be invoked to justify an unequal distribution of funds.
We should not strive for excellence only with regard to gaining and spending funds.
The second question that arises concerns the kind of objective criteria for the distribution of funds provided for in the Seventh Framework Programme.
I thank you.
   The next item is the report under Rule 134 of the Rules of Procedure on a specific action for transfers of vessels to countries hit by the tsunami in 2004 (COM(2005)0036 – C6-0036/2005 –2005/0005(CNS)).
   – Mr President, well-intentioned initiatives can sometimes have the wrong consequences.
This week, the FAO has written to this House to say that, firstly, we were mentioned seven times in the Commission’s proposal, about which it itself was not consulted even once.
Secondly, it informs us that no governments are currently asking for European boats, and, thirdly, that the vessels and the industrial fish sector on the Atlantic coast are in every respect different from the traditional canoes and catamarans of Sri Lanka and India.
A fourth point is that local boatyards must do the repair work, for that is what they are good at, and that provides the people there with money, work and the wherewithal to earn a living.
Our money would buy something like 2500 boats in place of the 200 referred to here.
Fifthly, we must prevent our vessels from further interfering in the already gravely ravaged fishing grounds and local fishing communities.
The only conclusion to be drawn from this is: help the local fishermen in the boatyards, but do not send ships, or else, no matter how good our intentions, we will be inflicting another tsunami on the coasts of Asia.
I am disappointed that the Commission is willing to accept only 3 of this House’s 22 amendments, which, let me add, I was happy to support.
All this, along with the FAO letter and the reports from the NGOs on the ground, leads me to vote against the report.
   – Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, as I understand it, Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra proposes removing the word 'deplore' as part of a deal that maintains the support for the Brazilian initiative in this paragraph.
The Socialist Group accepts that proposal.
I have just spoken to the President of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and I appeal to other groups to support it because it will enable this report to be agreed in full.
   – To be quite clear, I want to ask Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra whether he is in fact proposing that we remind the Presidency of his request to continue its efforts in support of the Brazilian initiative concerning discrimination based on orientation and sexual identity by seeking other countries’ support for a resolution on this problem. Is that it?
Does he want to repeat the terms? In fact, if we delete the first part, we will have to restate what it is about in the second part.
   – Mr President, I should like to point out, on behalf of the Socialist Group and my colleague, Mrs Valenciano Martínez-Orozco, that we believe there may be an error on the voting list concerning Amendment 15, tabled by the PPE-DE Group.
This amendment mentions the recent declaration of the Donors Conference for Colombia held in Cartagena.
Also involved are the identical Amendments 4, 19 and 23, tabled by the Socialist and ALDE Groups.
These concern support for the recommendations of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Colombia.
These are clearly not mutually exclusive.
It would be quite wrong for Amendments 4, 19 and 23 to fall if Amendment 15 is adopted, as the voting list suggests.
The services have advised me that this problem can be resolved by voting on the PSE and ALDE amendments as recital Ia (new), rather than as amendments to recital I. I ask for your support on this, Mr President.
In conclusion, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is established in Bogota by agreement with the Colombian Government.
It is actually funded by the European Union.
I hope the entire House will reaffirm its support for the work of the Office by supporting the PPE-DE amendments and the PSE/ALDE amendments.
Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra agrees that it should be voted separately, although he advises his Group to vote against.
I regret that, but I am grateful for his support in the technical matters concerning these amendments.
   – Mr President, concerning Amendment No 15, I would like it to be considered as a supplement.
In that case, we could vote in favour, if not we will vote against.
   – Yes, Mr President, for Amendment No 21 we would like it to be a supplement.
In that case, we could vote for it, if not we will vote against.
   . – The aim of the proposal for a directive on unfair commercial practices is to increase harmonisation of rules on unfair commercial practices that harm consumers’ financial interests.
The directive is to help improve the functioning of the internal market and strengthen consumer protection.
The proposal bans unfair commercial practices.
We wholeheartedly support the completion of the internal market and effective consumer protection.
The reason that we are unable to support the proposal for a directive in its current form is that it threatens to result in Sweden being unable in the long run to retain its ban on TV advertising aimed at children.
We do not want to be instrumental in weakening the existing rules on advertising aimed at children and have therefore chosen to abstain in the final vote on the Bresso report in its entirety.
   – Mr President, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance shares the universal concern that it should be ensured that the viability of the fishing communities in the regions affected by the tsunami be secured, but it has to be said, ladies and gentlemen, that the present regulation is a bad idea and a poor proposal.
We have had advice from the WWF and from the NGOs on the ground, and I have also sought an opinion from the FAO.
It is evident that the boats that we want to send there are completely inappropriate, being different in terms of structure; the fishing techniques used are different, and, without adaptation, aid can be counter-productive in its effects.
The operational maintenance of the boats we are willing to donate will also bring problems in its train.
Let me add to that the fact that the FAO confirmed to me that most of the fishing grounds in that area have been over-fished and that we have to take into account the limited biological capacities that exist there.
It is a matter of absolute necessity that fishing techniques be adapted accordingly.
As if that were not enough, ladies and gentlemen, the FAO also stresses that the affected countries do not wish to import vessels, whether old or new.
The Indonesian and Sri Lankan Governments have themselves told the FAO that they have no desire for such action.
The authorities and the fishing community would far rather receive support in building boats for themselves, adapted to local traditions and methods of fishing.
The FAO has confirmed that there is ample technical capacity in the area to build these vessels there.
In short, this sort of support is unwanted and inappropriate.
The Commission has even stated that it will accept only 3 of the 21 amendments we have passed, and so, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a very large majority of my group has voted against this proposal for a regulation.
   – Mr President, thank you for this opportunity to give a very brief statement about my vote on the transfer of vessels to countries hit by the tsunami.
I completely agree with Mr Evans.
I think that the region needs real help, not some symbolic gesture from the European Union.
I was very disappointed with the answers we received from the Commission as regards our criticism and amendments.
Right up until the last minute I was undecided whether I would vote for or against, but in the end I voted against.
This statement explains my decision.
   – Mr President, with this resolution on human rights we have looked at the situation in a very large number of countries of the world, which are mentioned in the United Nations report.
There are so many, it would be impossible for me to list them all.
What is worse, a recital to the resolution that was adopted expresses concern that not enough of them are mentioned.
This disturbing list of countries does not include any Member States of the European Union.
That really is a problem, ladies and gentlemen, because I think we ought to put our own house in order first, the Kingdom of Belgium for example, where we have recently witnessed the sorry spectacle of an unbelievable legal action brought by an agency directly dependent on Prime Minister Verhofstadt and financed by him.
I am referring to the ‘Centre for Equal Opportunities’, the director of which is a Dominican by the name of Johan Leman, a new kind of Torquemada, who, following scandalous proceedings, brought about the prohibition of the Vlaams Blok, a perfectly legal and peaceful party, simply because of its beliefs.
It is an absolute scandal, but it has never been mentioned in this House other than by members of the political grouping in question.
Finally, what should we say about the situation in many European countries, including France? France, where ‘thought crime’ is hunted down in many fields; where making reference to the crimes of communism during the second world war is banned on the pretext of revisionism; where criticism of immigration policy is banned on the pretext of combating racism; where mentioning a legitimate national preference is banned on the pretext of fighting xenophobia; where, only recently, on the outrageous initiative of Mr Perben, stating a preference for the natural family over homosexual or lesbian partnerships is banned on the pretext of fighting homophobia; that is the scandal our Parliament should be concerned about.
   . I am very much in favour of the work of the UNHCR in Geneva, but I do think sometimes we should proceed a little more carefully, engaging in real versus resolutionary politics.
The European Union had a human rights dialogue with North Korea modelled on our human rights dialogue with China.
This was suspended in 2003 when the EU sponsored in Geneva a highly critical human rights resolution on North Korea without even informing our interlocutors in advance.
At a recent meeting I attended in Geneva on the issue of human rights in North Korea, in the presence of the special rapporteur for North Korea, we were told we must have a new resolution next month because there was no dialogue, something we lost with the initial resolution.
It might have been worth considering whether a real ongoing dialogue might do more to assist improving human rights than merely passing resolutions.
   . On behalf of the European Parliamentary Labour Party, can I stress that we strongly support human rights and the call for free elections in Zimbabwe.
That is why we specifically support, in today's resolution, condemnation of the failure of the EU's resolution on Zimbabwe at the UNCHR last year, calling for the EU once again to co-sponsor a resolution condemning human rights abuses in Zimbabwe in Geneva this year.
Today we voted against EPP amendment 12 for the technical reason that it simply duplicates these political positions, which were already contained in Parliament's text.
   . – I shall be voting against the Commission’s legislative work programme, presented by Mr Barroso, for the following reasons.
It says nothing about the withdrawal of the directive on services or of the country of origin principle.
It gives no precise commitment for a framework directive on public services.
There is no upward fiscal and social harmonisation, and the anti-social trends of the draft ‘working hours directive’ are maintained.
It calls for flexibility, for structural reforms to take account of ageing, which will call retirement schemes and labour law into question.
Its industrial policy is weak, containing no sectoral plans for sectors such as textiles, nor a strategy to prevent relocation.
It lacks ambition in development aid, especially with the creation of a tax on capital movements.
It is clear that this programme does not make for the creation of a genuinely social Europe, but will instead pose a threat to the present European social model.
It confirms the ultraliberal tendencies of the Barroso Commission.
   .
I congratulate Mr Maštálka on his important report on promoting health and safety at the workplace, to which I offer my support, particularly as regards the need to strengthen the system of prevention as a key means of increasing safety at work and of reducing the number of work-related accidents.
It is now fundamental for the Commission to examine the state of Member States’ preventive systems in greater detail and to come forward with proposals, in cooperation with the competent national authorities, for framing coherent national prevention policies based on an overall EU strategy.
To this end, it is essential to improve the statistical system for accidents at work, since the absence of reliable and compatible statistics makes it difficult to devise Community policies and promote them in an effective way.
Health and safety at work represents one of the Community’s most important policies, and safe and healthy organisations have a very positive knock-on effect on the economy and on competitiveness in a society.
   – Mr President, first of all I would like to apologise to the services, who do a great deal of work, most of it unthanked and unrecognised.
I know that they work long through the night.
I approached them yesterday in relation to a ruling on paragraph 89 of the Commission's legislative proposals.
I have to apologise because I believed that another colleague would raise this at the time and I expected a ruling on the admissibility of that paragraph from you.
Therefore, I should like to ask if such a ruling has been made.
If so, was it made in conjunction with paragraph 88? In any event, is what we voted on today legally admissible?
   Mr Cashman, I have to tell you that the matter has in fact been examined and that paragraph 89 was considered admissible.
   – Mr President, I am sorry to raise this again but, given that this issue was raised, I thought, as indicated in the voting list, that the matter had been referred to the authorities for a ruling.
We expected – perhaps wrongly – that the ruling would be made prior to the vote being taken.
Mr President, are you telling me that the ruling was that paragraph 89, as written, was in any event admissible?
   Yes, certainly, Mr Tajani, we shall immediately communicate your suggestion to the President's office, since I believe it is very appropriate and we will tell the President that the House wishes to send a message of support and solidarity to the Holy Father at this time.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Togo(1).
   . Mr President, as the honourable Members know, the Commission is following the situation in Togo very closely.
Incidentally, EU aid to the country has been suspended since 1992, and the unconstitutional seizure of power, described as an hereditary dictatorship, has called into question any hope of normalising relations with the country that we might have had at the end of last year.
The European Union has responded firmly by condemning what must be considered a and by calling for a return to the constitutional order and respect for the principles of the rule of law.
Mr Louis Michel has voiced a very firm position on behalf of the Commission.
Everything we are doing and saying is therefore in support of the action taken by the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union, which have been exemplary in their handling of the Togo crisis.
The actions of the international community have already begun to have an effect, since on 18 February Mr Gnassingbé agreed to hold presidential elections within the time laid down by the constitution.
However, we must also condemn the breaches of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the days following the takeover.
Demonstrations were banned and many radio and television stations were closed.
The first demonstration was put down violently, pressure was put on journalists and arbitrary arrests were reported.
It was because of international pressure that the Togolese Government started to backtrack.
The right to demonstrate was restored on 18 February and some radio stations were able to resume broadcasting from 21 February.
So far as cooperation is concerned, Mr President, and in particular the ninth EDF, the Commission is therefore sticking to the conclusions of the consultations contained in the Council decision of 15 November 2004.
There will be no new cooperation measures until free and transparent elections have been held, and obviously that now also means presidential elections, which are part of the process of returning to the rule of law.
There will therefore be no resumption of EU aid outside that framework.
The Council decision of 15 November last also provided for a partial resumption of cooperation.
All the projects concerned are suspended until the situation is clarified.
So far as the money remaining from previous project-funding EDFs is concerned, the Commission intends to organise support for the presidential and legislative elections should the government express a desire to hold them soundly and transparently and if the time available allows.
Regarding the proposal for targeted sanctions, in its statement of 20 February the European Union indicated that it reserves the right to take measures to support the action taken by the Economic Community of West African States.
In general, the Commission supports Parliament’s draft resolution, which is in line with the proposal and position adopted by the European Union and backed by the Commission.
   – The situation we are seeing in Togo today calls for the strongest condemnation from our Parliament of the that brought Fauré Gnassingbé to power in that country.
I am therefore very pleased about the Council’s statements and the European Parliament’s response today through this resolution.
Just as we showed our solidarity with the protagonists of the ‘orange’ revolution in Ukraine a few weeks ago, we must today give our support to the Togolese demonstrators who are refusing to accept this and are being harshly repressed for doing so.
There have already been several deaths in the demonstrations taking place in Lomé.
It is all absolutely unbearable and intolerable.
Europe must bring all its weight to bear in rejecting this hereditary dictatorship, which is backed by certain Mafia financial networks, calling first of all for the resignation of Fauré Gnassingbé and then for the drawing up of a new constitution.
That is the only way to guarantee the holding of free and transparent elections, to ensure the return to democracy of a country that has been bled dry and reduced to poverty by General Eyadéma’s dictatorship and to enable the European Union to resume its cooperation with Togo, which has been suspended since 1993 and which the Togolese people greatly need.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Nepal(1).
   – Mr President, in January 1990 Nepal celebrated the Year of Tourism.
A magnificent parade involving tens of thousands of participants and several hundred thousand spectators demonstrated the full extent of the cultural wealth of the country, with its sherpas, monks, temple dancers, sadhus, mahouts, mandala artists and mountaineers.
I took part in this parade with the organisation Friends of Nepal.
We marched through Kathmandu and past King Birendra, who enjoyed the highest respect of 95-98% of the Nepalese people, both as a person and as a champion of the constitutional monarchy.
This makes the contrast with King Gyanendra, seven years later, appear all the starker.
He has dismissed yet another prime minister, and dozens of politicians, human rights activists and journalists have been taken into custody or placed under house arrest.
He now intends to rule as an autocrat for three years.
The question that needs to be asked is why not one prime minister in recent years has managed to hold free elections, and the answer is that agreement has never been reached between the various parties, not to mention with the Maoists.
The main reason, however, is the lack of security in the country.
People are living in fear, and by no means only in western Nepal.
Two thirds of the country is now under the control of Maoist rebels, and inadequately-trained police officers fall victim time and time again to lethal attacks.
The civil war has claimed 10 000 lives so far and shows no sign of coming to an end, with tourism, the country's main source of income, having been brought almost to a standstill.
I am afraid that the Maoists will gain further supporters following the coup of 1 February.
The state of emergency will be used to place further restrictions on human rights, and it is for this reason that it is a cause of great concern to us in the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
By way of example, key places of refuge for Tibetans who have been forced to leave their homeland have been closed, including the Tibetan Refugee Welfare Office.
For the past 15 years, this Office has supported the work of the UNHCR refugee centre in Kathmandu, with which I myself am familiar, and at present around 1 000 asylum seekers are living there.
In addition, the Office of the Representative of the Dalai Lama, which was established in 1959, has been closed.
The situation is becoming increasingly desperate.
Commissioner, I welcome the initiatives taken by the European Union, as well as those taken by India and the USA, one example of these being that the King has been called upon to end the state of emergency within 100 days.
A representative of the European Commission who was present at the meeting of our SAARC Delegation this morning said that a number of funding programmes would be suspended, in order to strengthen democracy by means of economic pressure.
Fortunately, however, development aid will continue to be granted, and targeted at the poorer sections of the population and local human rights organisations and NGOs.
I would be delighted if the issue of human rights violations in Nepal were to appear on the agenda of the session of the UN Commission on Human Rights to be held in Geneva.
Nepalese democracy is only 15 years old; it is still fragile, and must be protected rather than destroyed.
   – Mr President, I would like to welcome to the Chamber Mr Desmond de Silva QC, who is assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Deputy Special Prosecutor for the Special Court in Sierra Leone for war crimes.
He is here to listen to our debate on Sierra Leone.
   .   Many thanks.
The events of recent weeks have left the European Parliament with no choice but to hold a debate on human rights violations in Nepal, a problem that has been escalating for many years.
The Kingdom of Nepal, which is situated between India and China, is becoming ever more dependent on China, as that country is both its main trading partner and the main source of inspiration for the Maoist guerrilla movement.
The latter is engaged in a struggle to overthrow the constitutional monarchy, and its aim is to establish a Communist state.
The civil war in Nepal has already claimed over 12 000 victims, and the political situation is Byzantine in its complexity, although the information blackout means that we are not familiar with all the details.
After the Prime Minister was dismissed, the King and the Nepalese army seized power and suspended basic constitutional rights such as the right of association, the freedom of speech, the right to information, privacy and property and the ban on illegal detentions.
The King has prohibited criticism of the security services on the radio, on television and on the Internet.
Censorship and persecution are part of everyday life.
The Nepalese Government also disregards the rights of refugees, as it has closed the Office of the Representative of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Refugees Welfare Office, which provided assistance to Tibetans persecuted for their faith.
Every year 2 500 people flee from Chinese-occupied Tibet because they wish to practice their religion freely and to study in their native language.
An ever-greater number of Tibetans are choosing to leave the country because they feel increasingly threatened.
The Nepalese Government, however, acts in violation of national and international law by handing Tibetans over to China.
These Tibetans are imprisoned and subjected to unbelievably cruel abuse after having been deported to China.
Both the Government and the Maoist rebels have been accused by international humanitarian organisations of committing atrocities against the civil population.
The debate this House is holding today will make it possible to identify the roots of the conflict.
These can be found in an insane totalitarian, Communist and atheist ideology that denies the existence of God and treats human beings as objects, as well as trampling on their dignity and violating their rights.
Nepal has a population of 23 million, and every second person is illiterate, whilst society is still governed by a caste system.
What are needed are improved living conditions and education, not a civil war aimed at establishing a destructive Communist system.
The only options available to us are to increase awareness of the conflict and to use diplomatic channels, such as this European Parliament resolution, to insist that the Nepalese Government puts an end to the illegal arrests and other corrupt practices.
We must also demand that the Nepalese Government protects human rights activists, journalists and political leaders from such practices.
Public pressure has already resulted in a decline in persecution once before.
Consideration should be given to the question of whether EU aid is in fact used to foster development and for humanitarian purposes, and there is also a need for action.
Finally, I should like to quote the Holy Father John XXIII, who wrote that a threat to the family is a threat to the state, and that similarly, a threat to social order in one state is a threat to international order.
I thank you.
      Thank you, Mr President.
Ladies and gentlemen, the previous speakers have spoken very knowledgably on the internal situation in Nepal, the lack of democracy in the country and its history.
I should like to highlight a further point, namely the lack of media freedom, which has become particularly acute since 1 February 2005.
We know for certain that censorship is taking place and that journalists are being dismissed and arrested, often without their families being informed.
The Government has also barred private radio stations from broadcasting, and 800 journalists have lost their jobs as a result.
As many Nepalese citizens cannot read, the closure of these radio stations means that they no longer have any access to news or to any radio stations other than the BBC.
As if this were not enough, editorial offices have been ransacked and documents censored.
This is a brief snapshot of the present situation in Nepal, and we must not remain unmoved by it.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on The Special Court for Sierra Leone: the Charles Taylor case(1)
   – The impassioned speech by the previous speaker and the motion for a resolution before us, along with its justifications, which has been endorsed by all political groups in this House, are proof that action is urgently needed.
Those of us who live in prosperous countries have no idea of what is happening in many African states.
Immediately upon achieving so-called freedom after centuries of exploitation as colonies, many countries suffered another tyranny of the worst kind, for example in the case of Liberia under Charles Taylor.
We cannot remain indifferent to the catalogue of crimes of which a Special Court in Sierra Leone found Charles Taylor guilty in 2003, and we must do everything in our power to ensure the handover to the courts of this criminal, who, whilst in exile, is persisting in his attempts to destabilise Liberia and its neighbouring countries.
I support all the initiatives that this House has called for, yet it is with concern that I note that neither the UN, the UN Security Council, nor any of us yet possess anywhere near the authority for which world peace cries out.
International law and human rights require that all people of good will overcome their indifference, and that all possible means be used to find fairer and more peaceful solutions.
I should like to thank everyone in this House who has worked on this motion for a resolution.
   – Mr President, Charles Taylor, as President of Liberia, was guilty of serious crimes against humanity and of acts of war.
He actively supported armed opposition groups in Sierra Leone in their committing of such atrocities as murders, mutilations, rapes and the conscription of child soldiers.
Under his rule, Liberia bore the brunt of violence and the misuse of power, all of which resulted in great human suffering that must not be allowed to go unpunished.
Nigeria must be induced to surrender Charles Taylor to the court in Sierra Leone, thus doing the right thing by the innumerable victims and survivors in Liberia and elsewhere, and bringing peace to West Africa.
The European Union is working for peace, security, stability, respect for human rights and democratic principles.
We cannot turn a blind eye to the fact that Charles Taylor remains at liberty in Nigeria, from where he is still in a position to manipulate the peace process in the region.
Not only is Nigeria under a moral obligation to hand Charles Taylor over to the tribunal, but it is also subject to an obligation under international law.
Among other things, the international legal order, in the shape of the Geneva conventions, stipulates that war crimes must be punished at all times.
This rule of international law ensures that states refrain from offering protection to this sort of malefactor.
Nigeria will need to extradite Charles Taylor to the tribunal in Sierra Leone, in order that he may be judged by it.
   . – Mr President, Africa has for too long been torn by civil strife, hunger, economic mismanagement and blatant corruption.
It is now, at last, beginning to get its own house in order with regional blocs and continent-wide supranational institutions committed to observing international human rights law, such as Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) and the African Union.
Charles Taylor, as a former warlord, ruled Liberia brutally between 1997 and 2003 as a bloody dictator, sanctioning rape and summary executions at the end of that country's 14 years of civil war, but he was forced into exile as part of a peace-making deal mediated by Nigeria.
During Taylor's reign, ECOWAS imposed sanctions on Liberia because of the abuses he perpetrated.
In power, he supported the Revolutionary United Front in neighbouring Sierra Leone, which, in alliance with renegade soldiers, overthrew President Kabbah in 1997, having wreaked havoc in the country since 1991, with tens of thousands of civilians brutally slaughtered, and which made use of child soldiers.
The War Crimes Tribunal in Freetown, Sierra Leone, is a hybrid mix of national and international justice, accepted by all parties and with UN backing, and aims to be a model for other war courts not mandated by Chapter 7 UN resolutions.
Taylor was indicted for war crimes by this court in 2003, but Nigeria is refusing to extradite him, claiming he has sovereign immunity and benefits from the asylum deal they agreed to.
A children's rights group called FOCUS is now calling for his surrender to the court in Sierra Leone, directly blaming Taylor for the limb amputation of thousands of women and children in Sierra Leone, as well as for ordering bloody, cross-border raids into neighbouring Guinea.
We now know that sovereign immunity no longer applies for war crimes, but the group has also pointed out that Taylor has breached the terms of his asylum by interfering in Liberian politics ahead of the elections scheduled there for October and by financing parties sympathetic to him with money he obtained corruptly through the diamond trade when in power as President.
He presumably hopes that, with a change of government, he will be allowed back.
President Obasanjo of Nigeria is currently Chairman of the African Union, and his country must set an example to the international community, and end impunity for bloody tyrants, by handing Taylor over.
   . – Mr President, Charles Taylor, the former warlord president of Liberia, is alleged to have been responsible for gross human rights violations, including thousands of killings, widespread torture, massive forced displacement of populations and the breakdown of social and economic structures, over the ten year period of his rule over Liberia.
In July 2003, Taylor fled the country and accepted the Nigerian Government's offer of asylum.
In March 2003, Charles Taylor was indicted by the prosecutor of the Special Court of Sierra Leone on 17 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes, including murder, mutilation, rape, sexual slavery and the recruitment of child soldiers.
It is an insult to international law and an affront to human dignity that this alleged mass murderer continues to be given refuge by Nigeria.
The Nigerian Government not only has a duty to humanity, but also has the obligation under the Geneva Convention, which it has ratified, immediately to surrender the infamous Charles Taylor to the jurisdiction of the Special Court of Sierra Leone, so that he can be tried, and if found guilty and punished accordingly.
If it fails to do so, it should and will face the justifiably serious consequences from both the EU, and the international community in general.
We should ask ourselves one question: why has it taken 14 years of rule by Taylor in Liberia, with him having already carried out all his terrors, before we decided to take some decisive action?
   We shall therefore treat this request as if it were presented by a political group and we shall vote on this joint motion for a resolution by roll call, with the oral amendment by Mr Deva incorporated.
   – Mr President, I obviously have no objections to this decision.
I should like to state, however, that this morning we agreed with Commissioner Potočnik to request that a Conference of Presidents open to all Members be held at 2.30 p.m. on 6 April – and I would ask that this be entered in the Minutes – in order to present the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development.
We would further ask that Commission President Barroso, Commissioner Reding and Commissioner Potočnik be present on this occasion to outline the Seventh Framework Programme to the House, and I would ask that the Conference of Presidents take a decision on this matter.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 24 February 2005.
   Mr President, is there any reason why the Commission cannot deal with both the Services Directive and software patents at 6 p.m. tomorrow? This would allow us to keep the serious and ongoing issue of the health workers detained in Libya on the agenda for Wednesday.
   – Mr President, we could go along with that suggestion.
If Commissioner McCreevy were to make a short statement on both matters, we in the groups could then decide where our priorities lay.
I would support this as an alternative compromise.
   Mr President, we do not agree with this proposal.
In fact, we want there to be a debate involving clarification of the Commission’s position on the directive on liberalisation of services.
That is very important.
Regarding the patentability of computer software, we consider that Parliament’s work should be done in the normal way.
There will necessarily be a debate within our Parliament, but as part of the second reading procedure, since we have just adopted a joint position.
We do not, therefore, want there to be any confusion between the two debates, and we prefer to give all the time needed to the debate following the Commission statement on the directive on liberalisation of services.
   Very well, Mr Posselt, you may rest assured that we shall do that.
I believe we should vote on an amendment to the agenda to the effect that tomorrow, from 6.00 p.m. to 6.45 p.m., the Commission should make a statement on the two items proposed, that is to say, on services in the internal market and on the Directive on the patentability of computer software, for which there are currently more requests in favour.
   Mr Harbour, please sit down.
You do not have the floor.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Socialist Group in the European Parliament have requested that the whole of Wednesday morning be dedicated to the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy and that the debate be extended until 12.30 p.m.
The agenda could be presented as follows: from 9.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m., mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy.
At 12.30 p.m., the vote.
From 3.00 p.m. to 5.30 p.m., Council and Commission Statements, firstly on the preparation of the Brussels European Council, and secondly on the health workers detained in Libya.
   Mr President, could you explain again? You are keeping the statement on the Lisbon strategy between the hours of 9 a.m. and 12.30 p.m.
The votes will take place at 12.30 p.m., but at what time will the debate on the health workers detained in Libya take place?
   Pursuant to Rule 144 of the Rules of Procedure, we shall proceed to the one-minute speeches on matters of political importance.
   – Mr President, you have paid tribute to the name and the story of Nicola Calipari, a high-ranking Italian State and SISMI intelligence officer, who was in Baghdad for the fourth time with the task of rescuing a hostage from the hands of armed terrorist groups who have murdered Iraqis.
Thank you for doing so, but I should also like to say that it might perhaps be time for Parliament to stop being unintentionally racist.
The fact is that we consider the death of a westerner to be an event of worldwide significance, but we remain silent while Iraqi men and women are continually being slaughtered for the sake of ideologies like Saddam Hussein’s and other comparable ideas, just as we have also stayed silent about the mass graves in Katyn for the last fifty years.
That is an absolute disgrace!
   Thank you very much, Mr Harbour.
You will appreciate that changes to the agenda always create conflict and controversy; I must deal with the requests made by the political groups via their spokespeople.
   For Croatia to become an associate member, it has pushed through far-reaching reforms in the last few years in order to meet the European Union’s political, economic and legal requirements, the so-called Copenhagen criteria.The Council has recognised these efforts, thanks to which in December last year Croatia won the status of associate member, and a date was set for the start of accession talks.
However, disputes surrounding the handover of General Gotovina have created uncertainty as to whether Croatia can really begin the negotiations.
During the talks in Zagreb last week, our committee should have satisfied itself that the Croatian Government is responding to the Council Decision of 17 December and is wholeheartedly cooperating with the International Tribunal.
Above all, I ask the members of the Council that they accept as wholehearted cooperation the fact that 625 of the Hague Prosecutor’s 626 demands have been met.
It is not fitting for the history of European Union enlargement that the destiny of a thousand-year-old European nation should be tied to a single man.
   – As you mentioned, Mr President, yesterday, 6 March, a demonstration in Istanbul to mark International Women’s Day was brutally put down by the Turkish police and dozens of people were detained.
Unfortunately, this act of violence is not an isolated incident.
On 26 February, an activist of the EMEP, the Turkish Labour Party, was shot.
I wish to express my solidarity with your words, Mr President, and would ask you to condemn such acts to the Turkish authorities and demand that the perpetrators be held to account.
   Thank you very much, Mr Ribeiro e Castro.
In fact, tomorrow at 7.30 p.m. I shall receive the Cuban Minister for Foreign Affairs.
You may rest assured that I take very good note of your request and I shall communicate it to the Minister.
   Mr President, a few days ago doctors at the World Health Organization warned that the world faces the very grave possibility of the virus known as bird flu triggering a human flu pandemic.
The mortality rate for the virus is currently around 72%.
Should the virus spread among humans, this flu could kill literally millions of people.
The World Health Organization advises that stockpiling vaccines is just one of the measures governments can implement to combat the spread of the virus.
Italy and France reportedly plan to stockpile two million doses of a vaccine each, while the UK has decided against this owing to the difficulty of designing an effective anti-viral drug in advance against a mutative virus.
Klaus Stöhr, head of the World Health Organization’s Global Influenza Programme, voiced his concerns in November last year.
It is now time to ask whether the European Union is doing enough to prepare itself for a potential pandemic, and if not, why not?
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on my own behalf and on behalf of the ‘Green Initiative’ Association, I should like to alert Members to the potential destruction of the environment along the Lower Oder between the cities of Szczecin and Schwedt, on the Polish-German border.
There are plans to reconstruct the channel at this point, or in other words to widen and deepen it.
The work is more than likely to damage and destroy the International Lower Oder Valley Park.
Having seen the plans, I am convinced that this reconstructed channel will destroy the local peat bogs, as well as disrupting water flow and destroying natural breeding grounds for birds.
I am certain that in this day and age and in this House there will surely be no lack of people willing to fight to protect the environment from destruction.
   Mr President, like Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, I wish to condemn in this House the fact that 157 teachers in the Basque Country, 157 workers with more than 15 years professional and educational experience, may lose their jobs for linguistic reasons, because they do not speak a particular language.
The Basque Government, headed by Mr Ibarretxe, wishes to discriminate against, to marginalise and to expel these Basque teachers from the administration.
This is a scandalous case of linguistic and educational apartheid, which is contrary to the Spanish Constitution, to the Gernika Statute, to the European Constitutional Treaty and to the Charter on Human Rights, since the right to work is a human right and these teachers are going to be deprived of that right by means of a nationalist decree despite their professional and educational experience.
What the Basque Government is doing, ladies and gentlemen, does not conform to educational or academic criteria, but to the ideological, political, xenophobic and exclusive criteria of the Ibarretxe Plan.
The Europe of freedoms, solidarity and equality must therefore ensure that regrettable cases such as this do not arise again in any part of our European Union.
   Thank you very much, Mrs Gomes.
You will have noted that in the Presidency’s initial statement I referred to this issue and to the press release I have issued on behalf of all of you.
   Mr President, as has already been mentioned, this week we celebrate International Women’s Day, but I also hope that during this week Parliament will take time to help raise awareness of an illness that affects more than 14 million women across Europe: endometriosis.
This week is also Endometriosis Awareness Week.
I know we get fed up with weeks for this and weeks for that, but this horrible disease is too little talked about and too often dismissed.
The average time for diagnosing it is going up: it now stands at nine years.
It affects 14 million women across Europe.
For this disease there is still no known cause and no cure.
It wrecks lives and families.
If nothing else makes us think, perhaps the fact that over EUR 30 billion is lost to our economy every year might make us think.
There will be a written declaration on this open later this week.
I hope colleagues will take the opportunity to sign it and support raising awareness of this horrible disease.
   Thank you, Mr Bowis.
I have taken good note of your request.
We shall deal with it.
   Mr President, thank you; another incident has occurred in Turkey to which I should like to draw attention.
It has been reported in the press that the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Gül, has been critical of the European Commission’s representative, Mr Kretschmer, and has, in fact treated with contempt the criticisms he has made in recent days.
Speaking as one who voted in favour of the commencement of negotiations with Turkey and is still committed to them, I believe that it is quite improper for Mr Gül to heap contempt on someone such as Mr Kretschmer, who is very calm and level-headed.
Let it be known to the Commission that we are right behind Mr Kretschmer in the justified criticisms he has levelled at Turkey.
Notwithstanding our support for the commencement of negotiations with Turkey, Mr Gül’s recent actions are unacceptable.
   Mr President, further to what was said earlier by Mr Harbour, I would like to take this opportunity to make it quite plain that I think the House was very wise earlier to decide that we would be discussing both the Software Patent Directive and the Services Directive tomorrow evening.
I also want to make it clear, in my capacity as rapporteur on the Services Directive, that I see it as unacceptable for that directive to be used to exclude other, equally important, legislation from the European Parliament.
As that is something I am neither able nor willing to accept, our group has abstained.
   In Leeuwarden, Friesland, a strike is underway involving 30 workers of the company Atoglas who are protesting against the plan by its French parent company, Total Fina Elf, to close it down.
Atoglas is a successful and innovative company, for which independent experts have predicted a profitable future.
The works council is completely behind this statement and wants to avoid closure, but the French management want to close the company down all the same.
It is beyond me that Total Fina Elf should remain deaf to the works council’s arguments.
Total Fina presents itself as a socially responsible enterprise.
The least it should do is to listen to what the works council has to say.
It is also beyond me that Total Fina should remain blind to the innovation that is taking place in Friesland, and, as the European Constitution specifically states that regional coherence and solidarity between the Member States is a common goal, we can also expect French companies to have an eye for regional development in the Netherlands.
The strikers in Friesland are making an appeal to this European goal and to Total Fina to keep Atoglas open.
I would urge my fellow MEPs to support the strikers in Friesland.
   Mr President, Voltaire, the philosopher of the Enlightenment, once stated that although he may disagree with what you think, he would fight tooth and nail to defend your right to say it.
Unfortunately, we who think we uphold human rights across the world sometimes overlook the fact that we should put our own House in order.
God knows that I, with my political ideas, do not see eye to eye with the Mayor of London or the French comedian Dieudonné, but I will never ever stop them from saying what they have said in the recent past.
Wherever we may be on the political spectrum, though, we should join forces in expressing our indignation about the way in which the Torquemadas of the University of Lyon have sacrificed a Member of this House, Mr Gollnisch, on the altar of political correctness, simply on account of an indiscretion of opinion.
Even though your opinion may be diametrically opposed to his, he has never misused his professorship or his status as an expert on Japan for the sake of political advantage and, outside the university, he should be entitled to say what he likes.
What happened in Lyon today is a disgrace.
   Although I have raised the issue of European prisoners in Thailand a number of times, the plight of the Dutch prisoners compels me to raise the issue again.
Not only is Rien Parlevliet seriously ill, and Li Yang and Eddy Tang, both from Rotterdam, are in a bad way, but I should also, and particularly, like to again highlight the cause of Machiel Kuijt.
In April 1997, he was arrested, acquitted, suddenly condemned to lifelong imprisonment in further appeal six and a half years later and is now awaiting the Court of Cassation’s verdict.
In January 2004, on the occasion of the Dutch royal visit to Thailand, it was promised that the verdict would be delivered before the summer, since which time we have heard nothing from the Supreme Court.
We are being taken for a ride by the Thai legal authorities and this humiliation should not persist any longer.
Although consular affairs are within the remit of the Member States, I ask myself in all honesty whether the EU can allow the fundamental rights of its citizens to be flouted to this extent.
It is a good thing that the Commission follows these matters, but the Council and High Representative also have a role to play in this.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0032/2005) by Alain Lipietz, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Report on the activities of the European Investment Bank (2003) [2004/2187(INI)].
   Mr President, I too wish to dissociate myself from the remarks made by Mr Martin.
Point 21 of this resolution does not in any way indicate dissatisfaction on our part with the EIB’s transparency.
Moreover, the facts to which Mr Martin refers – the riots and the uproar that people tried to create last year in response to a report about the Investment Bank – appeared to be fabricated.
In this speech, my primary aim is to emphasise the relationship between the EIB’s activities and the Lisbon strategy.
I think that as a variant to the title of the Kok II report ‘Jobs, jobs, jobs,’ the slogan ‘Investments, investments, investments’ should be one of the key phrases for the Lisbon strategy.
The EIB plays a crucial role in this.
I would, for example, mention the EUR 7.1 billion that was invested in 2004 within the context of the Innovation initiative.
These investments are exactly what we need, namely investments in research and development, in education and training, and in ICT developments.
In the memo that was presented to the ECOFIN Council on 2 February, I noticed that an innovative approach had been adopted with regard to the financial instruments as well.
This memo contains a list of ideas which have partly been implemented but are partly still in development.
Those ideas intend to guarantee that a number of options at the EIB’s disposal can be deployed and can be used as effectively as possible for microcredits, for small and medium-sized enterprises, for precisely those innovative investments that are needed.
I would particularly like to make a point of mentioning -technology, assessment centres, and cooperation between different activities under the research framework programme.
I also hope that the ECOFIN ministers will establish a connection between investing and the way in which they deal with spending and investments in the Stability and Growth Pact.
I also hope that this discussion will be continued.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Investment Bank must and should cooperate closely with the European Central Bank and the European Commission, but at the same time its priorities need to be clear.
If genuine integration is to take place in the EU, and not only political integration, but also practical and logistical integration, then funding must be provided for the Trans-European Networks.
If the European economy is to develop, then the European Investment Bank must step up its support for the SME sector, for the social economy sector and for what are known as local services, as this is particularly important from a demographic point of view.
It is absolutely crucial for there to be a level playing field when it comes to granting loans.
Certain Member States receive a relatively small volume of loans and their SME sector should receive more.
To this end, the European Investment Bank must improve its administrative procedures and increase access for local funding partners and SMEs.
It is essential that all EU-related institutions, in particular financial institutions, be transparent.
Unfortunately, however, it has come to our notice that there are conflicts of interest between those at the helm of the EIB.
I refer you to paragraph 21 of the motion for a resolution, for example.
This is extremely bad news.
Conflicts of this kind must not be allowed to continue, as they convey a negative image of the EIB.
I thank you.
   I thank you, Mr Maystadt, and your institution for the work that it does.
   Mr President, I refer to Rule 145 of the Rules of Procedure as they stand.
A lady Member has addressed me directly, and I do not know whether she or I have been misinterpreted.
I wanted, in any case, to reiterate, for the sake of clarity, that what I said related specifically to Article 21 of this report, which expresses precisely these concerns.
If, then, representatives of the two main parties in this House – forming a sort of Great Coalition – tell us that everything is all right, it must consequently be all right for someone who does not belong to that Great Coalition to say that things are not all right, and that brings me to my second point.
An honourable Member made reference to my absence from the vote on this report.
This has to do with the fact that I sit on three committees, the meetings of which clash with regrettable frequency, and I can hardly be in three places at one and the same time.
On a point of information, and for the sake of what is termed objectivity, let me point out that Ewald Nowotny – to whom the honourable gentleman referred – was one of the main sources of information for this critical report, so it is an unfortunate fact that we will have to carry on grappling with all these problems if we are to achieve the clarity and transparency that we do not as yet have.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0012/2005) from the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the Council common position for adopting a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on conditions for access to the natural gas transmission networks (Rapporteur: Esko Seppänen).
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission (B6-0018/2005) by Mechtild Rothe, Reino Paasilinna and Hannes Swoboda, on behalf of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, and by Dimitrios Papadimoulis, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on alternative forms of energy, the oral question to the Commission (B6-0157/2005) by Rebecca Harms and Claude Turmes, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, on alternative forms of energy and the oral question to the Commission (B6-0158/2005) by Lena Ek, on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, on alternative forms of energy.
   Mr President, people in Iraq are dying in the war for oil.
The European economy is slowing down as a result of high and volatile oil prices.
Third World countries are crumbling under debts created by oil imports. Is everyone a loser?
No, there are some winners: six of the ‘Seven Sisters’ – including Exxon, Total, Shell, BP, – have earned scandalous amounts of money over the past two to three years.
Today, in the EU, they have no obligation whatsoever as regards either research or even mixing in some renewables with what they sell to motorists.
When will this change, Commissioner?
   Mr President, about three months ago, on 10 and 11 December, I, on behalf of this House, took part in the trilateral energy conference of the Nordic Council, the Baltic Assembly and the Benelux Interparliamentary Consultative Council, which was concerned with the promotion of renewable energy, as well as with the future of nuclear sources.
An outstanding document, entitled ‘Sustainable and Secure Energy Supplies’ was presented which will also be discussed at the end of this month in the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
The parliamentary delegations at the conference once again established that we failed to complete the tasks laid down in Gothenburg and Lisbon.
We are unable to increase the renewable energy percentage from 6% to 12%.
Given that fossil energy sources are finite, we must work towards intensifying research programmes.
That is what we in this House will also be doing next Wednesday when we discuss the Locatelli report.
The combination of private and public means is the perfect formula for the Lisbon agenda.
The need for new investment variants and new forms – public private partnership, if you like – is also at issue.
Within the priorities of this Parliament and on a voluntary basis – except for ‘stealth taxes’ on energy, which are unacceptable – but within these pre-conditions, Commissioner Piebalgs can certainly enter into dialogue without any problem.
The European investments in hydrogen technology, for example, as argued by the High Level Group, are necessary.
We realise that the oil companies have a lot of freedom at the moment.
They are significant partners and they are already doing a great deal, but it is impossible to get them to cross this line on a voluntary basis.
I would like to find out from the Commissioner how he tackles the discussions he referred to in practice.
   Mr President, those of us who remained silent while Mr Swoboda was making his contribution to the debate would have been grateful if he had kept his remarks to himself, or perhaps made them afterwards.
It is a discourtesy to Members of this House to interrupt others’ speaking time.
    The next item is the report (A6-0038/2005) by Ingo Schmitt, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on a Community Air Traffic Controller Licence [COM(2004)0473 C6-0076/2004 2004/0146(COD)].
   . Mr President, this part-session includes discussion of a directive stating that air controllers will have to speak and understand English to a satisfactory level in all Member States.
English is already the language of air control.
One of the entry requirements to train at Eurocontrol is a good knowledge of English, the international language of aviation.
These proposals lessen the requirement to speak English across air traffic control.
Amendment 17 says: ‘Member States require level 5 of the ICAO proficiency test in English and/or the local language’.
‘Or’ means ‘or’ in any language.
That threatens safety.
The report contains phrases such as: ‘the right of Member States to develop national endorsements should only apply in exceptional cases’.
That is not English, it is EU gobbledegook.
World airlines fear the EU’s costly desire to switch air control from radar to Galileo, but the EU’s air control agenda is not really about airways, it is about EU control and control for the sake of it.
    The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0003/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Council common position for adopting a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community and Regulation (EEC) No 574/72 laying down the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 [(12062/3/2004 C6-0189/2004 2003/0184(COD)] (rapporteur: Proinsias De Rossa).
   . Mr President, in his article in the current issue of Parliament’s magazine, Mr De Rossa stated that his resolution was carried unanimously in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
But the record shows that one Member voted against.
That was me, and I intend to do so again this week with my UKIP colleagues.
Let me explain.
At the centre of Mr De Rossa’s report is a stand-off between the Commission and the Council over the exportability of five benefits, three from the United Kingdom.
Mr De Rossa suggests that the report should be adopted without delay, so that Regulation 1408/71 can be tidied up.
Then he proposes that the European Court of Justice resolve the dispute over the five benefits.
We believe that the decision on the United Kingdom benefit should be left to Her Majesty’s Government, which does not want them to be exportable.
Indeed, the Council’s previously stated common position upholds that of Her Majesty’s Government.
We therefore deplore the Commission’s change of mind.
We believe that it should be for each Member State to define the basis on which its benefits are to be paid and to whom.
We absolutely oppose the notion that the deadlock should be resolved by the European Court of Justice.
Benefits are part of taxation systems.
They are dual systems: taking from and giving back.
To interfere in either is to interfere in the taxation system as a whole.
Since the EU likes to keep up the pretence that it has no competence for issues of taxation, it should not therefore interfere at all in the benefits system.
To return, finally, to Mr De Rossa’s article, it is noted that Finland and Sweden also contest the listing of two allowances.
We respect their stance.
The article shows that the Commission has exempted the Irish carers’ allowance, as the Irish Government wished.
It is wrong and iniquitous that the United Kingdom carers’ allowance has not been exempted.
As regards the three United Kingdom benefits, let me say unequivocally that Her Majesty’s elected government should be treated like its Irish counterparts in that respect and that should be the end of the matter.
    I declare the 2004/2005 session of the European Parliament closed.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with Commissioner Verheugen that the realisation of the Lisbon strategy will, over the coming five years, be the most important of the Commission’s projects.
I also share the view – taken not only by the Commission, but also by all the European institutions and all the Member States of the European Union – that the project is complete in itself, and that, in order for it to succeed, all alike must play their parts in it.
I want to join in thanking the members of the ad hoc committee – my colleagues Mr Désir and Mr Goebbels, as well as Mr Klaus-Heiner Lehne – and of my own group, for all of them did very intensive work and made a very constructive contribution to the broad and consensual text that we have before us today.
We spent a long time discussing what we should emphasise when talking about the achievement of the Lisbon goals.
What I hear said today echoes in a positive way the messages we sent out from our debate.
I agree that Lisbon will fail if people come to feel that it aims to recast the European social model, and if possible to downgrade it, but if, as a project, it enhances Europe’s prosperity by making it a more competitive continent, while at the same time maintaining the social framework conditions that can make it possible for every person in this Union to live decently, by creating jobs and social security for young and old: if that is what Lisbon leads them to feel, then it is a project that the people will accept.
It is on that that its success depends – on whether a project gains popular acceptance or not.
For forty or fifty years, the whole point of the European Union was that it kept the peace in Europe, achieving a balance between the poor and the rich, bringing a divided continent together and overcoming division.
All these things we have achieved.
For as long as it was a success, the people regarded Europe as their project, but that period of history is coming to its end and people are asking more and more what the point of Europe is.
For more and more of them, this is a very personal question.
People want to know, not only about Europe’s values, but also about the European Union’s economic benefits, and the European Union is of economic benefit in that, being an integrated Europe and an internal market with the capacity to unleash its own economic and social power, it is this continent’s organised answer to the challenge of globalisation; making social and economic sense of it is precisely what the Lisbon strategy is about, and that is what made it a good start and a good decision.
The fact that we have been engaged in this process for a number of years now, and are not satisfied, must not prompt us to give up; instead we must muster our courage and press on.
I think the text we will be adopting today shows that a broad majority in this House will join the other institutions – the Commission and, I hope, the Council, as well as the individual Member States – in their efforts, for what both Commissioner Verheugen and the President of the Commission have said today is crucial: it is not we alone, nor the institutions of the EU alone, but, above all, the Member States must pull their weight.
I am very much in agreement with Commissioner Verheugen’s view, and would like to make that clear on behalf of my group.
I was also delighted to see the President of the Commission smile with pleasure when Commissioner Verheugen pointed out the connection between the Financial Perspective and the Lisbon process.
If this project is going to succeed, it will not do so on the basis of ever more tasks with ever fewer financial resources; that will not work.
Those who want this project to succeed while leaving the resources unchanged must not be left without an answer when they want to reallocate them for the benefit of the Lisbon goals.
People may say that we are capping; fair enough, but if an upper limit is imposed when no more money is available, a qualitative decision will have to be taken as to which investments under the Lisbon strategy will have to be stopped, and to the detriment of which other tasks.
So far, the Council and the Member States have maintained a dignified silence as to what these might be, but, at some point, they will have to be put to the test.
I expect from the Commission the sort of commitment we have heard today from Commissioner Verheugen and from the President of the Commission.
Let the Heads of State or Government be told that the point of the Financial Perspective must be none other than to help achieve the Lisbon objectives, where these are taken seriously.
This connection is, in our view, important, as are their three points: better regulation, the strengthening of small and medium-sized enterprises and a pro-active industrial policy to secure both industrial jobs and the environmental standards and quality of our products, thereby making us better able to compete in export markets.
Yes, we, the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, are all in favour of that, for all these things, above all else, create one thing, and that is work, which, in its turn, creates social security.
That, for us, is the starting point.
I am grateful to all those on the ad hoc committee who helped to bring about a broad majority in this House on this crucial issue.
As we see it, one thing is clear: if this House adopts resolutions that bear the stamp of the Right, the Left will have no part in them.
If this House adopts resolutions reflecting what we Social Democrats think, then they will enjoy our support.
   Mr President, we Greens do not want to write blank cheques, whether to the Commission under Mr Barroso or to this Parliament, for the fact is that we fear that, when the fog of Lisbon has cleared, we will, in the social and environmental spheres, be faced with realities that do not reflect the integration of the three pillars.
As we have made clear in our amendments, there must be no blank cheque for Mr Bolkestein.
Until such time as the Commission – and here I am also appealing to the Members of this House – withdraws the proposal, it can veto a progressive vote at first reading stage, and we are weakening ourselves and making this House to some extent ridiculous if we do not right now insist on the Commission withdrawing this proposal and thus enabling this House to know on what basis our debates are being conducted.
This we have set out in our second amendment.
   I should like to welcome to Parliament Mr Hrusovsky, President of the National Council of the Slovak Republic, who is now present in the distinguished visitors’ gallery.
His visit demonstrates the great value that Parliament attaches to dialogue with national parliaments.
I wish Mr Hrusovsky and his delegation an enjoyable and successful visit.
   Just five years ago, the EU set out to make itself a rival to the United States of America within ten years.
Now we hear the half-time whistle, but I suspect Mr Barroso is not a man to listen to whistle-blowers.
We are asked to consider a mid-term review, but there seems little to review.
The unemployment rate is high and rising and 101 000 regulations and directives are bleeding the life out of the wealth creators.
Growth is worse.
Mrs Figueiredo said in her report yesterday that 22 million jobs need to be created in the EU in the next five years.
You do not have to be Hayek to know that cannot be done.
It is interesting to see the panic setting in amongst the federalists at last; the cracks are really showing.
Mr Barroso is a rampant free marketeer, according to the people over there, while his ideas went out with the Ark according to Mr Mandelson, from the right.
In Britain, at least, people are waking up.
I quote from this morning’s : ‘Peers tell Brussels to give back cash from EU budget’.
We have paid in GBP 180 billion and got back GBP 105 billion.
Where has the GBP 75 billion gone?
Mr Barroso, you try and keep bleeding the British taxpayer at this rate, because worse is better and on that basis this corrupt institution is doing very well indeed.
   Mr President, President Barroso, Commissioner Verheugen, I would like to say how pleased I am today at the positive reception given to our draft resolution on the Lisbon Process.
I regard it, in fact, as a hand outstretched in cooperation and I see it as a manifestation of the fact that people have been listening.
Although we have had fierce discussions along the way, after each fierce discussion a conclusion must be drawn, and the conclusion being drawn today is that now is the time for action.
I would like to say that I was delighted to hear Mr Juncker’s recent comments, when he said that we should now end the debate concerning what comes first and establish that in Europe things happen at the same time; that we improve our competitiveness, carry out social reforms – including in the labour market – and implement environmental reforms all at the same time.
I should like to say that we in Scandinavia have shown that it can be done, and that is indeed partly what we understand by the European dimension.
We are not aiming for just any kind of combination, however.
We need reforms, and we need investment.
President of the Commission, I feel today that the greatest investment of all that we need is investment in human beings over the coming five years.
The Commission and Mr Špidla talk of flexibility; we of the Group of the European Socialists in the European Parliament have nothing against flexibility.
It depends on the type of flexibility we are talking about.
I myself feel that we can create a reform that says that people must be able to move from an old job to a new job while maintaining social security and in the constant assurance of becoming more skilled, better qualified and more education-minded.
If we do this, we will have an opportunity to bring about a new deal in which we say to people: ‘We shall safeguard your security in the twenty-first century in a new labour market with new jobs’.
We shall commit ourselves to creating 1 500 new jobs in Europe each time we lose 1 000 jobs to Asia, India or the developing world.
In other words, we shall say that we are here to create new jobs that can take the place of the old ones, and we shall ensure that people are able to take those new jobs.
May I end by urgently saying to the Luxembourg Presidency and to the Commission that we need greater demand in Europe and that we need macroeconomic coordination of investments, for I can assure you that, without major economic growth, there will be no popular understanding for reforms, and without reforms we can have no sustainable economic growth.
If we can agree on this in the Luxembourg Presidency’s proposal to the European Council, we shall have come a very, very long way.
I want to wish you the best of luck with your work during the Luxembourg Presidency.
I think great efforts are being made to secure balance, and we want to be there all the time, as Mr Schulz said today, to secure that balance that is the European identity.
   Mr President, one of my first speeches when I became a Member of this Parliament five years ago was on the first Lisbon Strategy in April 2000.
I was dismayed that the completion of the internal market was ranked well down the priorities in that original paper and there was only one page devoted to it in a voluminous document.
I thank you, President Barroso, and your team, for elevating the internal market to the top of the agenda where it ought to be.
If we do not complete the internal market, we will never have the basis for creating the jobs, growth, social and environmental policies we all want.
It is absolutely clear that the next phase of the internal market has to be in services; we all know that.
Last week I said publicly to you, President Barroso, that I thought you were wobbling over this proposal.
You were not here last night to hear Mr McCreevy make his barnstorming speech.
It showed how important this directive is and I thank him very much for that.
I can assure you that this side of the House will work with you to get the measure through, because it is the most important measure for the internal market since the 1992 programme and it is crucial for jobs and employment.
Small- and medium-sized companies are already benefiting from it.
I was delighted to hear that Commissioner Verheugen is going to bring forward a comprehensive programme for modernising and enhancing the conditions for small businesses.
That was a weakness in the proposal.
I am delighted it is going to be remedied, because if every small- and medium-sized company across Europe creates one more job over the next five years, we will have met that job creation goal.
That willonly be achieved when we have business-friendly policies and an environment in which people want to go out and start businesses, whether in services or in manufacturing and technical innovation.
That is the key to delivery of this Lisbon Agenda.
We stand ready, President Barroso, to work with you to achieve those goals.
   Madam President, I would say to President Barroso that it is true the first five years of Lisbon have delivered little and most Member States, which bear the ultimate responsibility for implementing the Lisbon Agenda, have been very slow to take ownership.
It is also true that focusing on the economic agenda does not mean that we are downgrading other agendas, be this the environment or the social agenda.
I would say to Commissioner Kroes that competition is the objective, not the problem.
We cannot have a race to the back of the queue as Member States scurry to avoid attracting outside investment for fear of getting a rap on the knuckles from Brussels.
Two high-profile examples from Ireland – Intel and Ryanair – have been highly instructive in demonstrating how unreasonably applied competition policy can militate against competition.
I would urge Commissioner Kovács, in relation to taxation, that ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ and above all ‘don’t break it’!
Member States must be given the flexibility they require to implement the solutions they need to achieve their Lisbon objectives, hopefully by stimulating employment through a reduction in direct taxation, especially a reduction in labour taxes.
I would underline to Commissioner Potočnik that it is absolutely imperative that Community funding for research be substantially increased under the Seventh Framework Programme.
Fundamental research is essential, but equally we must facilitate the application of research and development in European businesses and foster innovation.
I would say to Commissioner McCreevy that facilitating the free movement of services is the missing key needed to unlock the potential of the European workforce and galvanise the European economy.
As you mentioned yesterday, Commissioner, it is always easier to find reasons not to do something.
Services contribute 70% of European GDP, and I urge you to proceed with the Services Directive.
It is particularly important for our new Member States, which have been denied the advantage of free movement of people, goods and services for so long.
Please single out health services, consider the benchmark of good regulation, and deal with this specific area in a more appropriate way.
Finally, a word to the College of Commissioners in general.
Could we please have less regulation; better regulation; simpler regulation; thoroughly vetted regulation; risk-assessed regulation.
We need to Lisbon-proof REACH, the Services Directive and the Nutritional and Health Claims Regulation.
We are always an action plan away from action.
Commissioner Barroso and colleagues, please go for it!
   Mr President, I have an oral amendment.
I would like the second half of paragraph 11 to read as follows: ‘stresses that inclusion of the EDF in the budget of the European Union should be accompanied by reinforcement of the political role of the JPA in monitoring the funds committed to the framework of the ACP-EU partnership’.
   Mr President, the Socialist Group in the European Parliament wishes to withdraw Amendment 32 in favour of Amendment 27 by Mr Méndez De Vigo and Mr Lehne, as the two amendments have the same aim.
We would therefore ask Members to vote in favour of Amendment 27 instead.
   Amendment 32 is therefore withdrawn in favour of Amendment 27, upon which we will vote presently.
   I agree with you entirely, Mr Désir, that the words ‘on liberalisation’ have been included in the French version by mistake.
I should like to make this clear, and also to note that Amendment 29 falls.
Although the texts will in any case be checked later, the amendment falls because one of the two parts of Amendment 5 has been adopted.
   In my opinion, the fact that the first part of Amendment 5 by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has been adopted does not mean that Amendment 29 should fall.
   The amendments relate to the same words, Mr Désir, ‘new initiative’ and ‘initiative’.
Amendment 29 falls, but your correction was relevant and an account of the whole matter will be given to the House.
   I should like to thank my co-rapporteur, Mr Lehne, for having moved this oral amendment, and I should like to join him in asking the House to vote in favour of it.
   Mr President, a request has been made to hold a separate vote on the second part of Amendment 30, which seeks to delete two words.
The Socialist Group in the European Parliament wishes to withdraw this part, and I hope that this will make it possible for us all to vote in favour of a more sustainable transport policy.
   I will therefore put Amendment 30, which now has only one part, to the vote.
   We have voted in favour of the report in its entirety because, in many areas, it contains important improvements on the Commission’s original proposal (for example, the elimination of the requirement of a double transformation process etc.).
We have objections, however, to Amendment 31 (Article 13, paragraph 1), since we believe that the scheme of generalised tariff preferences is an instrument for reducing global poverty and is not to be used to protect our European textile industry.
   The generalised system of preferences for customs duties is over 30 years old.
The idea upon which it is based goes back even further, to the UNCTAD of 1963, which introduced the idea of compensatory differences, or what would today be called ‘positive discrimination in the field of customs duties’.
It would appear that poor countries, such as Peru or Colombia, have benefited from being able to send us their asparagus or prawns without having to pay customs duties, even if some trade deflection has come about due to a lack of clarity over the rules of origin.
When looked at more closely, the GSP has something in common with the entire GATT and WTO system; it owes its existence to a redundant theory, namely that customs duties should be reduced with the aim of ultimately abolishing them.
A more innovative idea would be to introduce a system for deducting customs duties.
The exporter would be granted a customs credit in the importing country equivalent to the customs duties that had been imposed and that would be deductible on purchases made in the importing country.
Funding for these customs credits could be raised on a forward stock market.
The problem of economic and social inequality would be resolved, and a balance would be achieved in global trade.
   The resolution concerning the Lisbon Strategy contains much that is commendable.
Nonetheless, I should like to have seen even greater emphasis on the importance of policy integration; that is to say the fact that growth initiatives must take place in forms in which careful consideration is given to the social and environmental consequences.
These three dimensions of development must be mutually supportive.
The idea of ‘growth first – we can deal with the rest afterwards’ is wrong and represents an unfortunate return to the debate that took place prior to the EU’s adoption of its sustainability strategy in Gothenburg in 2001.
The EU faces a number of difficult challenges in the area of the environment. The risk of irreversible climate change is particularly serious.
To address this problem we need to rethink our energy and transport systems in Europe, and this is something that must primarily take place through substantial investment in innovation and the development of new technology.
Such investment would stimulate growth and create new job opportunities.
At the same time, European countries would develop top-level expertise in an area in which the entire world is crying out for new solutions.
Neither the Commission’s proposal nor Parliament’s resolution puts sufficient emphasis on these aspects.
It is my hope that the European Council will pay far more attention to these issues in its sitting on 22 March.
    The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the preparation of the European Council (Brussels, 22-23 March 2005).
   – Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission for agreeing to complete openness concerning 3 000 working groups.
For the first time, we can now see the list of the groups.
It can be found on the Commission’s website or, even easier, can be downloaded from my website at bonde.com.
Mrs Wallström, the Vice-President of the Commission, yesterday agreed that we can also have the names of the participants.
Thank you.
Now, we shall soon see whether those advising the Commission on smoking are from the tobacco industry or from groups working to combat cancer.
I would also like to thank the Commission for agreeing that in future we can find out about all the contributions from the Commission to the Council of Ministers and its working groups.
Eighty-five per cent of all legislation is finally completed in 300 working groups and in Coreper.
Until now, we have been excluded from the majority of this legislation.
Now, we have been promised the greatest reform in openness to date.
I am as happy as a little boy on Christmas Day, because I have been working towards such openness for many years.
Thank you.
It is almost too good to be true.
Now it is your turn over in the Council.
My dear Council of Ministers, can the Luxembourg Presidency not ask that the 300 working groups dealing with legislation be laid open to Parliament? It is humiliating that elected representatives must always beg for the documents in a corridor or from a lobbyist or from a student at one of the permanent representations, or from the ambassador or from the actual minister.
When we sit on the committees and deal with the draft legislation, officially we have only the original draft from the Commission, while the Council’s working group is sitting looking at edition 17 – which we cannot legally obtain.
Officials and trainees sit behind us at the committee meetings with the latest edition of the draft legislation, but what about the members of the committee themselves? We have the electorate’s vote, but we lack the confidence of the Council of Ministers.
Now we will get the Commission’s new drafts while the legislation is being discussed.
When will we have the opportunity to thank you in the Council for what would be the most natural thing of all? In democracies, those exercising power are responsible to the elected representatives; in democracies, there is nobody above or equal to the electorate and their directly elected representatives.
Thank you, Mr President, especially if the Council will give us a little more to say thank you for.
    Mr Vanhecke, I would ask you to keep to the subject of our debate.
    I regret to say that despite my request, Mr Vanhecke, what you said did not relate to the subject of our debate.
I should nevertheless like to thank you for your intervention.
   Mr President, before I move on to the Stability and Growth Pact, I would like to make a comment or two about the financial situation in general.
I am a little disappointed to see that Mr Barroso, the President of the Commission, seems to have disappeared, because he is going to hear a comment from a representative of the United Kingdom, which is the second biggest contributor to European Union funds.
To date, we have contributed some GBP 180 billion.
We have received back around GBP 105 billion by way of subsidies of one form or another.
Well, we believe that very soon there is to be a general election in the United Kingdom, and I think the voters are going to want to know what has happened to that GBP 75 billion deficit in our contributions.
Is there going to be an answer from our current Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer? Is there going to be an answer from this House?
When we remind them that the European Court of Auditors has, for the tenth year running, refused to sign the books because billions of pounds have gone missing, they might well put two and two together as regards what has happened to our 75 billion.
Have we got a Stability and Growth Pact or not? The Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, recently said to reporters in Brussels: ‘I am beginning to seriously consider the option of not changing the Pact at all’.
He added: ‘We are not excluding the scenario of leaving the Pact as it is; that is now a distinct possibility.
I have no goal of replacing a Pact that does not work well with one that seems to function but goes wrong later’.
Previously he had said that the Pact was dead.
So what about this Stability and Growth Pact? Is it not ludicrous that countries that run up a deficit of over 3% are then fined enormous sums of money, making their position worse?
Of course the Stability Pact is wrong.
It is useless! Dump it!
   The next item is Question Time (B6-0019/2005).
We will be taking a series of questions to the Council.
   Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, UN Resolution 1244 has absolutely nothing to say about the future status of Kosovo.
This resolution is already five years old.
Now that the Americans have announced their intention of resolving the status issue this year, the question arises as to whether the EU wants to take an independent initiative on this or passively await what others will come up with.
Unemployment in Kosovo is running at 70%, and people will invest in the place only as and when its long-term future is sorted out.
I would therefore like to know whether the Council is planning some kind of active preparation for this decision, which is evidently due this year?
   – Madam President, I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council what the Council intends to do to protect minorities, given that the violently expelled Serbs and Roma have not yet returned home.
I also wish to ask how the Council believes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Serbia and Montenegro will be protected at the imminent negotiations, as expressly stated in UN Resolution 1244 which, as you said, the Council continues to support.
   Question No 2 lapses. Question No 3 has been withdrawn.
The assassination of the former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, has raised fears at international level that Lebanon and the surrounding region may be destabilised.
Statements by Condoleezza Rice reveal that the USA's view is that Syria is responsible for the assassination. For its part, Syria, which has been described by the US President as a country forming part of the 'axis of evil', condemned the attack, claiming that it had no connection with the assassination of Rafik Hariri.
What initiatives will the Council take to prevent any unilateral US action against Syria?
Article 19 of the Treaty on European Union provides for coordination between Member States which are also members of the UN Security Council. What do those Member States propose to do in this respect?
   . Madam President, I would point out to the honourable Member that, under Article 5 of Regulation No 551/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March 2004 on the organisation and use of the airspace in the single European sky, the Council has no authority with regard to the creation of a functional airspace block, such as the one to which the Member referred in his question.
   We did notice, Mr Posselt, but two other Members were even quicker off the mark than you were, and, as I can allow only two questions, I gave the floor to them.
What action will the Council take on the Justice and Home Affairs report for the Council on hooliganism in football and football information centres? (13 January 2005)
   . Indeed, the Presidency attaches considerable importance to these phenomena that occur in stadia, and which are due to hooliganism, but also to racism.
In cooperation with UEFA and the national football federations, we must be firmly committed to combating these phenomena, which are damaging the reputation of a sport that, in other respects, is very worthwhile and popular.
   I thank the President for this response and should like, at the same time, to give expression to a certain level of astonishment about the fact that there is talk of a war between two factions.
As far as I can judge, this is about the terrorist activities of the Lord’s Resistance Army, backed by the Sudanese Government and at the expense of the people of Northern Uganda.
I wonder whether it would not be opportune to include in the political dialogue with Sudan, and not only in the political dialogue with Uganda, the issue of the Lord's Resistance Army and the massive scale on which human rights are being violated.
Secondly, what initiatives does the Council intend to take in order to counter the absence of any punishment in this conflict, more particularly with regard to the complaint that has been lodged with the International Criminal Court in The Hague?
On 22 February 2005 George Bush, President of the United States, made an official visit to Brussels, attending the summit meeting of the 25.
How does the Council view the development of transatlantic relations and future prospects in this connection? At the summit meeting, questions of vital importance to the EU were considered, such as the peace process in the Middle East, relations with Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon and wider Mediterranean policy issues.
Can the Council now discern any convergence between the US and EU foreign policy approach to the Middle East in general? Did the question of the Kyoto Protocol elicit a favourable American response and, if so, what form did this take?
Does the Council consider that, given the fact that the European Parliament is one of the pillars of the budgetary authority, it is necessary, before a final decision is taken on the allocation and spending of the USD 1.2 billion in funds deriving from the agreement between the European Commission and Philip Morris with respect to the fight against cigarette smuggling, to a initiate a round of consultations between the Council and the EP?
Do any, or all, of the 25 Member States ever report to the Council about the activities of their secret services, such as MI6 in the UK, in the fight against international organised crime? If so, which and how often?
   . The Council has not been informed of any activities carried out by the secret services of the Member States in the fight against organised crime.
Indeed, no provision in Title VI of the Treaty on European Union requires the Member States to provide the Council with such data.
Is the Council aware that the Special EU Programmes Body, which oversees EU expenditure in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland under the Peace II Programme, is exempt from the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (UK) and the Freedom of Information Acts 1997 and 2003 (Ireland) and, in consequence, as a public body is above the law prevailing in both jurisdictions on freedom of information? Is the Council satisfied with this situation, particularly since a promised Code of Practice on access to information for Implementation Bodies acting under SEUPB has never materialised.
Given the allocations of EU funds involved, what steps will the Council take to rectify this wholly unsatisfactory situation?
   . The Council would remind the honourable Member that, on the matter of the freedom of information system applicable to the Special EU Programmes Body that oversees the Peace I and Peace II programmes in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and also other Community initiatives, this falls within the competence of the said Member States.
The Council would also draw the honourable Member's attention to the fact that it is the Commission's responsibility to ensure that Council Regulation No 1260/99 of 21 June 1999 laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds, as amended by the Council on 24 January 2005 to extend the duration of the Peace programme, is properly implemented, in view of the fact that responsibility for managing these funds is split between the European Commission and the governments of the Member States, on the basis of a close partnership.
   Surely it is a matter of concern to the Council when two Member States combine to exclude an EU monitoring body from their indigenous freedom of information legislation and so exempt it from provisions on providing the public with information that is available from all internal governmental bodies in those states.
In particular, should it not be a matter of concern for the Council that those two states have indulged in five years of default in terms of producing a voluntary code of practice for those implementation bodies under the SEUPB?
Since 2001 a civil protection mechanism for the rendering of assistance(1) in the 25 Member States, Bulgaria, Romania, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway has been in operation.
At a meeting of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA) I recommended the introduction of such cooperation arrangements and the creation of an early warning system in the Mediterranean as part of the Barcelona process. It was decided that the question of natural disasters and civil protection would be placed on the agenda of the EMPA plenary of 12-15 March 2005 in Cairo.
Does the Council support my recommendation and what follow-up measures does it intend to take in response to potential dangers in the Mediterranean area with a view to reassuring the public and assessing existing preventive mechanisms, the state of readiness for emergencies and the standard of public information and participation, so that all relevant measures can be implemented as part of Euro-Mediterranean partnership arrangements? What is its assessment of the civil protection pilot project being funded under the MEDA programme?
   – Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you very much for your answer, which is satisfactory.
I should like, nonetheless, to remind you that, of course, the early warning system is very important because, today, 70 million people are living on the shores of the Mediterranean, not counting tourists. In other words, we do not want a repeat of the disaster in South-East Asia.
Furthermore, we have numerous fires, numerous earthquakes and other natural disasters.
Consequently, what I should like to hear from you, in addition to what you have already said, which is highly satisfactory, is whether we really are prepared to make available the sum needed, because this sum will be much larger than the sum we already have for the bridge programme or the sum of around EUR 12 million budgeted for the early warning system.
We are talking about several million euros more and I should like to know if the European Union has decided to make these sums available.
   Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you said yourself that Croatia should seek to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal.
I would be interested to know whether any evidence is available, for example from Europol or Interpol, to suggest that the general in question is in fact still in Croatia.
   . I do not actually have any information, either from Europol and I would add that Europol is not an investigative body, as you know or from Interpol, but reports sent to us by the prosecutor of the Hague tribunal show that, in any event, the person in question, General Ante Gotovina, did pass through Croatia.
Is he still there? That is a question I cannot answer.
   The next item is the report (A6-0046/2005) by Mrs Locatelli, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on Science and technology – Guidelines for future European Union policy to support research (2004/2150(INI)).
   .   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, neither investment in science and research nor the Lisbon Strategy as a whole are goals in themselves.
This means that a great deal of care should be taken when drafting resolutions on science and technology.
I should like to thank Mrs Locatelli and express my admiration for the effort she has put into preparing this report.
It is clear that, on its own, the announcement that a European Research Area is to be established will change little.
The announcement will need to be backed up by appropriate funding for science and research, which means that no cuts should be made to the EU budget.
The funds will also need to be used in a rational manner, and this is a point I should particularly like to stress.
There are a number of issues I would like to touch upon very briefly.
Firstly, effective methods must be developed to identify talented young people and appropriate systems put in place to provide scholarships.
Secondly, accreditation standards for Higher Education institutions ought to be implemented according to the guidelines adopted in Berlin in 2003.
Thirdly, a simpler system should be introduced for awarding academic promotion, whilst ensuring that the criteria for granting grades and qualifications continue to be transparent.
Fourthly, more extensive use should be made of private sector funding, both for applied and basic scientific research and for research in the humanities, as mentioned by the Commissioner.
Mrs Locatelli said that life would be made easier for small and medium-sized enterprises.
That may well be the case, but how can measures aimed at introducing software patents be reconciled with such a statement? Someone once said that knowledge is power, yet given the state of the world today, it must unfortunately be added that ignorance does not mean a lack of power.
I thank you.
   Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent report; it is now up to you, Commissioner Potočnik, and your fellow Commissioners to ensure that the research priorities are implemented.
I should like to focus on just one of these priorities, which in all probability will be absent from tomorrow’s report, namely defence research.
After consulting the rest of my group, I have withdrawn an amendment on this matter in view of the confusion it could have caused, in connection with the Council.
Why have I decided to speak out in favour of defence research? Our future Constitution provides for the development of the common foreign and security policy, which means that we will need to carry out research in this field, some of which will be secret.
We must therefore be capable of copying the Americans by adopting a ‘black box’ approach to individual projects.
Yet we should step up transatlantic research cooperation in other fields where research lies in the interests of humanity as a whole.
This will give rise to a research dialogue between equals that would be appropriate in the case of a number of other countries, as well as the USA.
   Mrs Mastenbroek, late-night sittings have never been broadcast over the Internet in the past, as resources are limited in this respect.
There has not yet been a single instance of a late-night sitting being broadcast, and so at present this is the rule rather than an exception.
If we are to discuss anything, it should therefore be whether this rule should be changed on a permanent basis.
   The next item is the report (A6-0049/2005) by Mrs Margrete Auken, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on financing Natura 2000.
   Mr President, before we start this debate, I should like to ask briefly, obviously without wishing to detract from Commissioner Frattini’s qualities, whether you know why the Commissioner for the environment is not here to take part in this very important debate on Natura 2000.
I can only deplore this and find it unacceptable.
   I am afraid I noticed you too late during the previous debate, Mrs Brepoels.
As you are next on the list of speakers, Commissioner, you can, if you so wish, answer Mrs Brepoels’ question now.
   . – ‘Natura 2000’ is an ecological network to protect designated natural habitats, animal and plant species of communal significance.
The European Parliament owes it to the citizens of the Union that we stop the decline of biodiversity in Europe.
To reach this goal, however – as with any other large-scale enterprise – money is needed.
All the Member States, the Council, and the Commission were in agreement when they created the bird and habitat protection Directive.
Equally unanimous was our decision to build up a European network for nature protection.
Therefore let us now undertake to carry out our decision, and with our joint resources create the material conditions for it too!
In the People’s Party and the Environmental Protection Committee we heartily welcomed the European Commission’s Recommendation for financial support for the ’Natura 2000’ network.
The integrated approach in this case would be financed by the Regional Development Fund, the Structural Funds, and also the supplemented LIFE+ fund, however it is workable.
This could be workable, insofar as [1] the funds just named would handle nature protection goals as a real priority, [2] appropriate guarantees would be built into the provisions of the various financial instruments, [3] due to the greater number of tasks, these funds would be supplied with extra money.
Therefore we take it as given that the individual Member States will take part appropriately in financing this, and that the danger of their being knocked out by other, more economically competitive, projects will not threaten programmes targeted at safeguarding biodiversity.
The Commission’s answers to our questions, however, have strengthened our misgivings in connection with the effectiveness of the integrated approach.
Because of this, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats believes we must review this financial solution and consider a financial instrument created specially for this purpose.
I would like to thank Mrs. Margaret Auken for her work, compiling an in-depth and expert report and for giving us her fullest cooperation.
Our recommendations for compromise amendments bear witness that with common interests every party group and specialist committee moves in the same direction.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, I, too, find it regrettable that Commissioner Dimas is not here, but I would like to thank Commissioner Frattini for agreeing to be present for a debate that does not really fall within his competence.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate, on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, our rapporteur, Mrs Auken, most sincerely on the quality of her report and also, I would like to say, for her tenacity in defending our common objectives.
Tomorrow's vote, as I am sure we all appreciate, is crucial.
Natura 2000 is the main tool for protecting biodiversity and endangered species in the EU.
Despite the slow pace taken by certain Member States, the local administrations and players have set to work.
Today, Natura 2000 covers more than 18 000 sites, 64 million hectares and nearly 15% of the landmass of Europe.
With regard to the issue of financing, yes, we must guarantee the viability of the financing, of the co-financing, of Natura 2000 by turning, as the Commission proposes, to existing sector financing instruments: the CAP Rural Development Fund and the Structural Funds.
The integrated approach is certainly the most logical one in this regard, and we must now follow this logical path to its end and ensure that it is made compulsory to include Natura 2000 in the funds in question.
This is also the main criticism being levelled at you, Commissioner, by the players on the ground and which is supported by no fewer than 15 Member States and the European Parliament: as Natura 2000 is by definition a concrete example of local governance, it is clear that, if local councillors and officials are not compelled to clearly promote the conservation of habitats and species in special areas, the money will be used for completely different things, for example road construction or the implementation of social or economic development projects.
This is what is said in the important point 8 of our resolution, which our group strongly supports.
Finally, we are also in favour of point 5, which calls on the Commission to make a commitment to amend the new financial instrument LIFE + to include a specific item on 'nature conservation' and also to guarantee a minimum amount for Natura 2000 in the next financial perspectives, an amount which, as for other European policies, must match up to our ambitions.
Those ambitions are clear: for all of us to endeavour to protect the environment.
Mr President, I have a point of order that relates to the French translation and is important for tomorrow's vote in plenary. If I am not mistaken, and I do not think I am, the French translation is incomplete.
I am referring to point 5, which is a crucial point, as I have just said, since it relates to financing and to the level of that financing.
I think that the English translation, which is the other text that I have here, must refer to this matter, because it is seven lines longer than the French translation and those seven lines make specific reference to what I have just mentioned, in particular the proposed minimum amount of EUR 21.35 billion.
I therefore think that we will need to point out tomorrow that seven lines are missing at the end of the French text.
We also need to be told which language version is authentic.
   Many thanks for pointing this out, Mrs Ries.
Your comment has been noted, and we will ensure that the French version is also complete.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, I, too, would like to start by congratulating Mrs Auken on her excellent report which raises the real issues of Natura 2000.
In contrast, I am quite stunned but I am not holding it against you, Commissioner by the text that you read to us giving the Commission's position.
Indeed, I have the impression that Mr Dimas has sent you into battle and is washing his hands of it, because, when it comes down to it, we have not learned anything new that the Commissioner did not reveal to us two weeks ago.
The issue being raised which is the subject of Mrs Auken's report is the financing of Natura 2000.
In your explanation, though, the Commission has once again failed to state that it will guarantee the financing of Natura 2000 for seven years.
Our fellow Member is right to ask about the figure.
These are not fantasy figures, produced by NGOs that may have taken certain liberties.
No, the figure comes from the Commission, which has estimated the costs of managing Natura 2000 as at least EUR 6.1 billion per year.
I really do not understand why you cannot assure the European Parliament that the Commission will fully guarantee three billion per year of EU funding.
The proposal you are putting forward does not guarantee that.
Thus, we are no further forward today than we were two weeks ago, and we would like to have a response from the Commission.
   .   Many thanks, Mr President.
Ladies and gentlemen, there can be no doubt that the Natura 2000 programme is a cornerstone of the European Union’s efforts to protect biodiversity.
The debate initiated by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in this House on the impact of the programme and how it should be financed is therefore extremely important.
The benefits derived by the public from this programme are indisputable.
The most significant come under the heading of public health, yet it should not be forgotten that tourism has also been boosted and job opportunities created.
It is estimated that 125 000 jobs have been created in the 15 old Member States alone.
For a number of years, however, it has been apparent that developments in the Natura 2000 network in Europe have not been backed up by appropriate funding for the creation and maintenance of this network.
Admittedly, the European Commission has announced that it will adopt a strategic approach to financing the programme.
What worries me, however, is that the proposal to cofinance the Natura 2000 network from various sources, for example the Rural Development Fund, the Structural Funds and LIFE+, the financial instrument for the environment, will make it impossible for the network to be implemented in a comprehensive, coherent and timely fashion.
The fact that potential beneficiaries will need to apply for money from various funds will undoubtedly make it harder to obtain funding for specific protection measures.
It will also become more difficult to monitor the implementation of the network at national level.
According to the criteria currently used, certain areas do not qualify for funding under the various structural instruments.
The latter have a number of different aims, which frequently relate to various types of land use, and sometimes even to specific regions.
Separate funding is therefore needed to ensure that the Natura 2000 network can be established.
If this money is not safeguarded, there may be gaps in the network’s funding during the next Financial Perspective, which covers the period from 2007 to 2013, and this could mean that a large number of protective measures are not implemented.
As an example, in my country, Poland, most of the land that is covered by the Natura 2000 programme does not qualify for the above-mentioned funds, either because the land is part of the national forests, or because it is not used for agriculture.
It is for this reason that I hope that appropriate funding will be earmarked to support the establishment of the Natura 2000 network during work on the next Financial Perspective.
I thank you.
   – Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Auken on her excellent work, especially since she has incorporated nearly all of the proposals made by the Committee on Regional Development.
Commissioner, we are concerned about the funding for Natura 2000.
We agree with the strategic approach, but we also want to ensure adequate funding for Natura 2000, and we fear that if environmental projects have to compete for funding against other projects of greater socio-economic interest, they may well come off badly, especially when – as you yourself have said – the budget available is limited.
We are definitely in favour of paragraph 5, because this opens the way for providing appropriate funding for Natura 2000 using a specific instrument within LIFE+, or of course, by increasing the Structural Funds and rural development funding to include a separate section for Natura 2000.
We therefore ask the Commission to take this report into consideration since it covers all the factors which provide stability and genuinely guarantee appropriate levels of funding for Natura 2000.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, no one would argue with the fact that Natura 2000 is an extremely ambitious programme with demanding targets.
It does a great deal to protect nature and the environment, and is also highly regarded by the public.
The land we value so highly was developed and cultivated and is now maintained by European farmers, forestry workers and landowners, and safeguarding this land is also a key goal of Natura 2000.
Appropriate funding must be guaranteed if we are to achieve these ambitious goals.
Although Natura 2000 has been in existence for a number of years, and even though landowners have had to tolerate certain restrictions for a great many years, this is the first time that thought has been given to appropriate financing at European level.
The Commission is proposing that the Natura 2000 network be cofinanced under the Rural Development Fund and the Structural Funds.
As rapporteur for rural development, I must stress the need for a guarantee that Natura 2000 really will be financed under both funds, which will mean that we will need a larger budget for rural development.
The property rights of our farmers and landowners must not be encroached upon without a guarantee of full financial compensation.
Unless we safeguard funding in the long term, levels of uncertainty will continue to rise.
Commissioner, as a result of the decisions taken at Brussels, which included a cap on the agriculture budget until 2013, and following CAP reform, which moved funding for modulation from the first to the second pillar – or in other words to cofinancing for rural development – the priority must be to ensure that landowners and farmers in particular get compensation for their efforts.
We farmers have declared our support for sustainable agriculture.
More Europe cannot be achieved with less money, especially not now there are 25 Member States.
   It is evident that the funding of the Natura 2000 network is still very precarious.
As you have already heard, we have no problem as such with the integrated approach, as long as the Commission provides firm guarantees or guidelines, which are currently lacking, and, if I have understood the Commissioner correctly, will be lacking for some time.
Funding, though, is a very important matter; this House has done its level best and has made every effort to convince the Commission that playing Pontius Pilate is all too easy an option.
Putting things into practice is a different matter altogether, though.
When we return home on Friday and a local government, farmer, environmental association or, indeed, our neighbour asks what we have agreed on, what it means to them in concrete terms and how things should progress from here on, we will be unable to give a reply.
Yet, it is important to create a solid social support base to set up the Natura 2000 network. Since the procedure for the implementation of the Bird and Habitat Directives was carried out without input from the public, we are still – in my country at least – waiting for its publication, because it is a very sensitive issue politically speaking.
If we want to give Natura 2000 a fighting chance and not again give people the impression that the matter is being decided from the top down, it is important to inform them as soon, and as accurately, as possible about the implications of this decision.
To the public, it really makes no difference whether the funds are sourced from a special fund, a structural fund or a rural development fund.
What they do want to know is whether, and by whom, they will be compensated if certain things are no longer allowed or if their land has been reduced in value.
Questions such as ‘Am I allowed to build a house?’ and, in the case of agricultural land, ‘what about the fertiliser issue?’ will most certainly surface.
It therefore follows that the Commission must communicate in plain terms as quickly as possible.
There is too much uncertainty, which certainly does not benefit the environment.
   – Mr President, I would simply like to say that it is now extremely clear to me how wrong it is that it is not Mr Dimas who is here.
We have simply heard someone reel off the options that exist within the existing sources of funding – something with which we were already very familiar.
That was already established at the outset.
What we drew attention to is the fact that if no commitments are introduced, matters will not work.
All our previous experience shows that such opportunities are not utilised.
It is rather disappointing that the Commission stands here giving us a lecture on the options that currently exist instead of answering the questions put in the course of the debate.
I am well aware that Mr Frattini is not in a position to do that, but to send a Commissioner who is not responsible for this area and who can therefore only make general comments is not the right way to treat Parliament.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission by Joseph Daul and Jean-Claude Fruteau, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the forthcoming reform of the common organisation of the markets in sugar (B6-0013/2005).
   . Mr President, the Commissioner spoke of the need for reform, and I agree with her; the common market organisation for sugar has itself been corrupted by the sugar industry, which was geared to consumption plus privileged access for sugar from the ACP countries.
A situation then developed in which C sugar, too, was, in effect, dumped on the global market, and in which the quantity of sugar arriving from the ACP countries was re-exported, which cost the budget another EUR 1.5 billion.
You say, though, that you want to cut the quantity by 1.8 million tonnes.
If we include the C sugar, the cut will have to be by between 4 and 5 million tonnes, which will end up on the global market.
It follows that you must reduce quantity rather than price.
We can accept a reduction in price, but, if you are proposing 33% without allocating a quota to the least-developed countries – something that does not go against the rules that we have, but simply prevents them from becoming transit countries – then this 33% is not enough, for, even under these conditions, the multinationals will use these countries as transit routes through which to dump their sugar back in the European Union.
It follows that you will have to cut the price again to make that less appealing, so it would be better if you were to describe this as liberalisation, without beating about the bush.
If you want to maintain a market organisation, you have to get to grips with what matters – the quantities rather than the prices.
I am strongly opposed to bonuses being paid for the reduction in quantity that I regard as perversion and for which the sugar industry itself bears responsibility.
It makes no sense, and does not benefit the farmers, for these 1.3 or 1.5 billion to be paid out as bonuses – they are swallowed up and do not benefit the farms.
Instead, what matters is that the sugar business should be arranged in such a way that the cultivation of sugar makes money.
That does not happen with C sugar, and that is why C sugar must no longer be allowed on the global market.
Farmers can do with it whatever they like – anything, that is, other than dumping it on the global market.
That is something we have to lay down, and what we have to do with the EUR 1.3 billion that are not going to be used as a bonus is to put them in a fund for the development of the rural economy and for diversification in the least-developed countries and in the ACP countries, in order to enable their economies to develop.
Nor does it make any sense whatsoever to compensate these countries, for if they are compensated for no longer making any money out of sugar, from what are they meant to fund their economic development? We put money into these countries, and we have to put it to work – not by paying it as compensation, but by initiating economic development, by making them dependent on things other than sugar, enabling them to earn money by supplying sugar to the European Union with the preferences and quotas that they have, whilst at the same time enabling them to provide for themselves and promoting rural development in the artisanal and technical spheres.
It would be a forward-looking strategy if we were to use the market organisation for sugar as a means to come up with a development strategy and to consider the fundamentals of the shape global trade should take.
Liberalising tendencies are present in all our political groups; that much is apparent from the amendments, including those from my own group, and you, Commissioner Fischer Boel, are – perhaps without even wanting to – making concessions to those tendencies by having to take the next step in five years’ time, when you will, in essence, be doing away with the organisation of the markets in sugar.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposed reform of the common organisation of the market in sugar runs counter to the aims of the common agricultural policy, namely ensuring a dignified standard of living for farmers and the sustainable development of agriculture, and it also contradicts the Lisbon Strategy.
The proposal to reduce both the A and B quotas is unacceptable.
Its impact will be strongest in the new Member States, particularly in Poland, where the sector has already been cut drastically in recent years, and only 43 out of the original 78 sugar processing plants remain.
There has been no investment in modernisation.
Instead, workers are being condemned to unemployment, and consumers are paying more for their sugar, not less.
There is a real threat that sugar production will be concentrated in just a few plants due to the transfer of quotas between Member States.
As a result, sugar would be produced in the regions where farming is most expensive.
It is also incorrect to claim that importing more sugar from the poorest countries into the Union will improve the financial situation of those countries.
On the contrary, only speculators and trading companies will profit.
EU taxpayers and farmers, including those from Poland, will be the ones who pay for this.
Poland will become an importer of sugar, whereas previously it was one of the main producers.
The Commission’s proposal for reform of the sugar market will result in a monopoly by the large undertakings that are already absorbing their competitors.
This is all to be promoted by quota cuts and by the so-called transitional reduction in prices, lowered to dumping levels.
It appears that the common agricultural policy is only common for a select few, and that is dangerous.
Thank you.
   I support the motion for a resolution, but at this stage I reject those amendments that run counter to the spirit of the motion, in particular those tabled by Mr van den Berg, Mrs Kinnock, Mrs Segelström, Mr Andersson, Mrs Westlund, Mrs Hedh, and Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, because on the pretext of on the one hand helping European consumers and on the other hand of helping the African, Caribbean and Pacific States and the least-developed countries, it poses a threat to EU sugar beet and sugar cane producers, and in particular, to producers in the European Union’s outermost regions, as it does not take the specific circumstances of those regions properly into consideration.
   The next item is the report (A6-0039/2005) by Mrs Aubert, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the European action plan for organic food and farming [2004/2202(INI)].
   Thank you very much, especially for being so concise.
I anticipate that the Commissioner will have a further opportunity to comment on the various interventions at the end of proceedings.
As the time allowed has elapsed, I shall now suspend the debate.
The debate will resume at approximately 12.15 p.m., after the formal part of our sitting, and it will be followed by the concluding remarks.
Thank you.
   Ladies and gentlemen, we shall resume the debate on the Aubert Report for about a quarter of an hour, so that we can close it and vote on it during this morning’s voting time.
   Mr Bowis, your comment will be passed on.
Moreover, I should also like to have silence during debates here in the House, particularly when the Commissioner is speaking, because I can assure you that that does not always happen.
   Mr President, paragraph 7, in the English version, presents a linguistic problem.
I would therefore ask that the word ‘’ be replaced by ‘’ and that the word ‘’ be added, so that the second part of paragraph 7 would read: ‘This really is just about the English version and this linguistic difficulty.
   I have an oral amendment to Amendment 5 to add, after ‘business and industry’, ‘e.g. by involving the technology platforms’.
   Mr President, there is something I just wanted to ask Mr Rübig.
I apologise for intervening, but last night, we agreed, indirectly and informally, that, on the last part, the European People’s Party and the Liberals would not vote for the deletion of the whole paragraph, and that we, in return, would vote in favour of the Conservatives’ and Liberals’ amendment.
Perhaps Mr Rübig would say something about that?
   Mr President, we agree with Mrs Erika Mann and her group.
   To sum up then, Amendment No 5 by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats adds the words ‘in addition to representatives of the world of business and industry’, no longer asks for the deletion of the end of Paragraph 21, and is supplemented by Mr Prodi’s oral amendment.
   I voted in favour of the report by Mr Garriga Polledo (A6-0047/2005) on draft amending budget No 1/2005 of the European Union for the financial year 2005, because I accept the modifications made to the organisational structure of the Commission’s services following the appointment of the new Commission and the distribution of portfolios amongst the new Commissioners, which made changes essential.
That being the case, these changes should be incorporated into the amending budget in the most transparent and efficient way possible.
I welcome the neutral impact of these changes on the budget.
   Mr President, if I had been given the chance to speak in the debate on International Women’s Day and Beijing + 10, I would have said that it was actually a shame that violence against women is a long-running issue in this House, although thankfully it is less prevalent than other important problems that affect far more women – untold millions of them, in fact, who have for years been waiting for solutions called for, I might add, by overwhelming majorities in this House.
Let me take as an example the splitting of pensions entitlements acquired during marriage, so that a woman who wholly or partly gave up work in order to devote herself to her family duties is not left without social security after divorce.
We therefore need a framework directive to put a stop to divorce tourism in the EU.
I also recall our 1996 report on the status of spouses who help out in small businesses and in agriculture.
Ten years ago, we were demanding the lifting of directive 86 on the equal treatment of self-employed men and women and the spouses who help them out.
Nothing has happened!
If I may now turn to the battered wives, let me add that men get beaten up too.
Since 2003, Luxembourg has had a law that has already helped a great deal; its law on domestic violence bars violent men from the home, so that, if the man turns violent, it is he who has to leave the shared home, rather than the woman and her children having to flee to a refuge for battered women or to her family.
It would be appropriate if the Commission were to recommend to all the Member States that they adopt a law along those lines if they have not already done so.
There would then be no need for Beijing + 10!
   . On this World Women’s Day 2005, I would like to focus attention on all women who go about performing their duties in a perfectly normal way.
I would like to make their primary concerns – provision for families, for children, and also for older people – matters of political interest.
We talk a lot about gender mainstreaming; I would ask that we also give thought to family mainstreaming when taking policy decisions that affect society.
In future, when taking policy decisions, we have to examine the effect they will have on families; state programmes for encouraging women to return to work, in particular, must in future be guided by the principle of family mainstreaming.
Work and society must fit the family rather than the other way round.
Agricultural statistics, for example, still take insufficient account of the work done by farmers’ wives.
On commercial farms, women work for around 63 hours a week.
Agricultural statistics first deduct around 50% under the heading of provision for the family.
Farmers’ wives do unpaid work at home, on the farm and for the family in exactly the same way as all women work in addition to the time they spend doing a job, but statistics take no account of what they do; it is still not taken seriously by society, and is not recognised as an economic factor.
Generally speaking, the services performed by women must be fully taken into account in calculating the gross national product.
   – Violence against women comes in many different forms: physical or psychological violence, rape, domestic slavery, the sex trade and prostitution, etc.
They are ubiquitous and constantly on the increase.
In our so-called ‘civilised’ countries which pride themselves on their respect for human rights and the rights of citizens, did you know that in France, six women die every month as a result of domestic violence, with almost no public reaction? Did you know that, in 2002, this violence was covered by an amnesty, while there is no amnesty for the mistreatment of animals?
Surely women are not considered as being less worthy of protection. Only a few days ago, police violently beat women who were demonstrating peacefully in Istanbul.
That has to stop.
We need to tackle the factors which, as in the case of women in Islam, contribute directly or indirectly to their subjugation.
It is intolerable that, in our countries and throughout the world, archaic and inhumane practices such as excision, honour crimes, stoning and decapitation should be accepted.
This day devoted to women must not just be a symbolic event; it must be an opportunity for true awareness of women's rights in France and throughout the world.
   – I voted against the joint resolution on the planned egg trade, which is little more than a flight of fancy.
On the basis of a rumour circulated by the gutter press, disproved by an official report of the competent authorities in the UK, Parliament has cloaked itself in the lofty principles of human dignity, while at the same time refusing to deal with the underlying issue, namely that of whether we should or should not encourage well-supervised scientific research into embryonic stem cells.
I believe this research is essential for the fight against genetic disorders and against the scourges of modern life such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
Regenerative medicine in Europe is beginning to lag behind the US and Asia.
Parliament makes itself look foolish by tackling the subject of egg cell donations solely from the standpoint of the much-needed protection of women against involuntary exploitation.
   Hiroshima was devastated by an atomic bomb sixty years ago this summer.
Including the effects of radiation poisoning, the five-year death total was over two hundred thousand, almost two thirds of the city's population.
In May the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) comes up for another five-year review by those countries that are party to it.
The treaty regime is weaker than it has been since its entry into force in 1970.
If this vital security instrument is to continue to be effective, it is highly important that the central bargain be revived by the NPT nuclear weapon states, led by Washington, at the review conference.
1962 saw predictions of as many as 25 to 30 nuclear weapons states with such weapons integrated into their arsenals by the end of the 1970s.
This could have resulted in over forty such nations today, leaving nuclear weapons vulnerable to the hands of terrorists.
But it did not happen.
Today there are only two more states with nuclear weapon programmes than there were in 1970...
   We abstained from voting on asking the Commission to defend the proposal that the EU budget should amount to significantly more than one per cent of GDP.
We wish to prioritise the Lisbon Strategy, of which research is an important part.
It is, however, too early in the current situation to commit ourselves to a particular level for the EU budget.
   With reference to Paragraph 44; the world’s most important environmental problem is global warming.
The EU has signed up to the Kyoto Protocol, the main aim of which is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The expansion of nuclear power constitutes one of the most important means of reducing these.
I therefore wish to support EU research into nuclear power in all its aspects.
I do not, however, support the EU’s defence research.
This is something about which countries must decide individually or about which they must reach agreements with each other.
   I and my British Conservative colleagues are voting for this report but with one important proviso.
Nothing in any of our votes should be taken to mean that we support an increase in the overall EU budget.
We do support the creation of a budget entry sufficient to support LIFE funding for nature protection and biodiversity which we do not feel will be adequately protected or financed under the Commission's present plans.
It is vital that, now we have created the Natura 2000 network, we are prepared to find the money to continue to finance it where necessary.
   – I voted against the Auken report as I believe we cannot compromise future financial prospects by determining the expenditure for a single area of environmental policy in advance.
   The preservation of biodiversity and the reversal of desertification are essential in ensuring sustainable development.
Healthy ecosystems provide important social and economic resources.
The Natura 2000 network, based on sites protected under the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive, is contributing towards achieving this objective.
In its proposal for the financial perspective for 2007-2013, the Commission intends that the annual cost of managing the Natura 2000 network, EUR 6.1 billion per year, should be financed from existing funds.
Although the objective of reversing the loss of biodiversity is being pursued, no attempt is being made to combat its causes: we need a change in the production model based on profit maximisation, of which one example is the release of GMOs into the environment.
Similarly, the necessary financing is not provided for, as this objective has to ‘compete’ with other economic and social objectives.
We therefore consider that the appropriations for rural development, which are intended to compensate farmers’ additional costs, and those for the Structural Funds should be proportionately increased if the costs of managing Natura 2000 are to be found from these funds.
It is also essential to increase funding for the LIFE programme and/or to establish a programme dedicated to this network so as to ensure that its objectives are met.
   . Protection of our natural environment can be achieved only by a real partnership between nature protection agencies and farmers, and so the Commission’s financial proposal must not jeopardise cooperation between them.
It is farmers, across the length and breadth of Europe, who both ensure that nature is accessible to all and produce healthy food.
Our farmers are in no doubt about what is required of them; they farm in accordance with best practice.
It is for that reason that there must be certainty about the additional requirements prescribed for FFH areas by the European Union, also being adequately funded by it: ‘he who places the order pays the bill!’
It is not acceptable that the funding of Natura 2000 should be to the detriment of other agricultural and environmental measures or of other rural development programmes.
Many issues have yet to be resolved.
Precisely what actions are ultimately to be taken in the certified areas is to be decided at regional level in the first instance.
It is important that funding for these actions should be in place.
Those resources intended only for the management and organisation of the Natura 2000 areas must be kept to a minimum.
We have to take care that there is no build-up of additional bureaucracy.
Rather than putting money into management, bureaucracy and administration, the projects that are funded must be efficient, must help the environment and achieve tangible results.
   We support a radical reform of the sugar market within the EU with a view as soon as possible to liberalising this market and giving sugar-producing countries outside the EU the ability to compete on fair conditions.
Given that all the amendments to Parliament’s draft resolution tabled by Mr van den Berg and others with this aim in view were defeated, the resolution will not take the issue of the EU’s sugar market down this route.
We have therefore voted against the draft resolution.
   The motion for a resolution before us on the common organisation of the market in sugar was ultimately the result of a compromise which guarantees key national interests pending, in particular, the reduction in the size of the sugar beet market now underway in Portugal.
What is even more serious here is that, if this were not the case, the damage would be felt by an outermost region like the Azores, which is already suffering from various constraints on its economic development.
   On behalf of the EPLP I would like to outline why we will not be voting in favour of the Fruteau/Daul resolution.
This resolution follows an oral question from the Agriculture committee, ands aims to give a de facto EP position on sugar ahead of the Commission's legislative proposals.
The Development, Trade, Budgets, Consumers and the Environment Committees are all concerned by this complex issue.
We need reform in the sugar sector not only due to WTO pressures but also because we need a competitive EU food industry, to maintain jobs and a viable industry.
We need a proper single market in sugar which this resolution does not address.
We need to help the least-developed countries by allowing them access to EU markets, but this needs to be discussed fully not determined by an oral resolution.
We need to support the Commission in their efforts to bring this complex sector into line with other CAP reforms not argue to retain the status quo.
   . Mr President, speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I wish to thank all those – including you, Commissioner Kallas – who have supported our request for a debate on a country whose citizens need us alongside them more than ever.
Forty-six years ago today, in Lhasa, Chinese troops crushed the Tibetans’ peaceful protests against the armed occupation of their country, killing 87 000 of them, and arresting thousands of others.
To date, over a million Tibetans have died as a result of hunger, torture and execution, and over three-quarters of their shrines, temples and monasteries have been systematically destroyed.
While 10 March is a day of mourning, it is also a day of resistance to enforced silence, to the violation of human rights, to the suppression of cultural, religious and human identity.
Today, as every year, Tibetan flags are being hoisted all around the world, in 2 000 cities and municipalities in the European Union, over 650 of them in Germany – my own country – alone.
The day after tomorrow, in Berlin, we will be joining thousands of campaigners for human rights, including an increasing number of young people and political office-holders, remembering the victims before the Brandenburg Gate.
This House has adopted significant resolutions that have given the Tibetans courage, among them the outstanding Romeva Report on arms exports, in which the Council was urged to maintain the embargo on the sale of armaments to China – an appeal backed up by our joint resolution on the Geneva Human Rights Convention.
The day after tomorrow, the 3 000 delegates to the Chinese People’s Congress will be assembling in Beijing.
They will be adopting an anti-secession law, intended to back up a possible military strike against Taiwan.
To endorse such a confrontation, even if only indirectly, is a fatal and irreparable error, as we, Commissioner, have pointed out time and time again, calling at the same time for the continuation of dialogue between representatives of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities.
It is not enough to announce, immediately before important state visits, that talks are in progress, only for them, again and again, to prove fruitless.
In his message on the occasion of the anniversary of the popular uprising, His Holiness the Dalai Lama declares his determination to find a solution that both takes account of Chinese interests and enables the Tibetan people to live in peace, freedom and dignity.
Our Parliament’s Tibet Intergroup, composed of representatives from all the political families, will continue to campaign for human rights campaigners, NGOs, members of other national parliaments to be heard in this House again and again.
In terms of our solidarity with the Tibetan people and their justified claims, there is no more appropriate day than today, 10 March.
And so, to those of us who join in showing our colours in cities, towns and parliaments, ‘Tashi delek’ – good fortune.
   The next item is the debate on the six motions for resolutions on Belarus(1).
   The next item is the debate on the six motions for resolutions on Cambodia(1).
   Mr President, Commissioner, the people of Cambodia have suffered extensively for many decades from the catastrophic effects of a totalitarian government and high-level official corruption.
At present, those in the country who have fought endlessly for justice and reform are once again under severe government-led persecution.
They include the three opposition leaders, Sam Rainsy, Chea Poch and Cheam Channy, whose parliamentary immunity was recently lifted for obvious political reasons and using dubious and groundless proceedings.
In passing this resolution we, the representatives of the European people, want to convey a strong and clear message to the autocratic rulers in Phnom Penh and to those who support them that the friends of Cambodia will not turn a blind eye to the ongoing attempts to eliminate the democratic opposition in that country.
They will continue to support wholeheartedly those pluralistic political forces that are fighting for reform, democracy, freedom of expression and social justice.
   The next item is the debate on the six motions for resolutions on Saudi Arabia(1).
   Yes, it is clearly from six political groups, Mr Posselt, and that includes the PPE-DE Group.
   Mr President, with the agreement of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance I should like to amend the wording of the new paragraph 2a to read: '... calls on the Saudi Arabian Government to lift restrictions on women's free movement (including the to drive) - there is a change of word there -, on employment opportunities, on their legal personality and on their representation in judicial process'.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 10 March 2005.
   I would like to begin by welcoming Monsignor Rallo, the Vatican’s special envoy to the Council of Europe, to the diplomatic gallery on behalf of the European Parliament.
   – Mr President, the fact is, then, that Syngenta has been bringing genetically-modified maize into Europe for several years – whether mistakenly or deliberately cannot be determined.
The American authorities knew of this some time before reporting it to us; they allowed the matter to drag out, and it is only now that the Commission has been informed.
I would very much like the Commission to tell us to what extent we can expect these procedures to be properly monitored in future.
That is something that should be explained to us.
   Mr President, this is a worthwhile initiative, but we in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats think it would be preferable to have a discussion with the Commission, within Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, so as to follow the usual procedures and give that committee the responsibility for dealing with this issue.
If I may say so, doing so would be entirely with the agreement of the Chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, Mr Florenz.
   We shall proceed to the vote on the proposal of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, to include a Commission statement on illegal imports of BT 10 maize into the European Union.
   Mr President, the closeness of the result and Mrs Grossetête’s statement lead me to assume that, once the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has dealt with this issue, it will come before the House as a whole.
   Of course.
A point of order.
I am not going to ask you which Rule you are invoking, because I have not asked Mr Swoboda either, but please tell me what it consists of.
   Does anybody wish to speak in favour? Mr Salafranca.
   When Parliament voted on the Budget, it voted against the proposal to set aside EUR 1.5 million for the Youth World Event.
By all accounts, the Commission now intends to grant that amount after all.
Having already written to you on this very subject, I should like you to ascertain from the Commission whether that is the case, what criteria the Commission is applying and why the Commission is unwilling to accept Parliament’s decision.
   – I wish to express my concern regarding the guidelines for applying the safeguard clause to the textiles and clothing sector announced by the Commission on 6 April.
Quite apart from the delay in drawing them up, these guidelines contain constraints and procedures that may complicate and hold back the activation of the clause, thereby preventing us from providing the much-needed immediate response to a situation so serious that thousands of companies and jobs are at risk.
The Commission appears to have confirmed that it wants these guidelines to block, rather than facilitate, the application of those safeguard measures, as Commissioner Ferrero Waldner made clear in the debate in this House.
We wonder what the consequences of this will be.
In light of the reported sharp rise in requests for export to the EU, measures to defend the present and future of this important sector should have been taken long ago, such as implementing, at the earliest opportunity, the safeguard clauses provided for in the trade agreements.
   Mr President, in the course of International Women’s Day on 8 March in Istanbul, there was a violent demonstration in which the police used force to disperse the women.
At the same time, a European delegation was present in Turkey.
I think it ought to have packed its bags immediately.
Sometimes, actions speak louder than words.
I voted in favour of Turkey’s admission.
I want the Commission to be appropriately firm in ensuring that Turkey complies with the rules we would impose.
   I shall take note of your comments, Mr Beglitis.
Parliament’s services will study it and we shall take any necessary action.
Mr De Rossa.
   Mr President, I wish to protest at the decision of Mr Berretta, the chief executive officer of Eutelsat, to discontinue the contract for New Tang Dynasty Television, a US-based global channel that is the only free uncensored Chinese-language broadcaster to reach mainland China, much to the anger of the Communist government there.
This termination allegedly followed commercial threats by the People’s Republic of China to withdraw the Beijing 2008 Olympic TV broadcasting contracts.
The EU, although understandably eager to trade with China, must not compromise on its commitment to fundamental human rights, which include freedom of expression and conscience and access to a free media.
The matter is currently before the French courts, but I am sure that this House will join me in asking the President of this Parliament to write to Eutelsat demanding a full explanation of why it is breaking its own charter committed to upholding media freedom.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the whole world has heard that President Mugabe’s ZANU-PF Party won the parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe with an overwhelming majority, but no one is labouring under any illusions, because it is common knowledge that those elections were far from free and fair.
They involved intimidation and terror by Mugabe’s followers, as well as electoral fraud on a massive scale.
Nevertheless, the observers of the Southern African Development Community claimed that the elections had been free and that the outcome fully reflected the will of Zimbabwe’s people.
Meanwhile, that country is inching closer to the abyss.
It is high time we had a new policy, one that will remind the African countries of their responsibilities.
The South African President’s ‘silent diplomacy’ amounts to complicity with Mugabe’s regime.
The British newspaper is right in saying that, as long as the African leaders and Mbeki refuse to take action against Zimbabwe, their own pledges of democracy and good governance in exchange for European funds are completely meaningless.
If those countries continue to protect Mugabe, the EU should stop giving them money.
   Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing older than yesterday’s news, as the saying goes.
In practice, however, this House could make do with one newspaper for a whole year.
This is the length of time that has passed since the election of the new Parliament, and yet we continue to tell our visitors – some 200 000 of whom have visited Parliament’s buildings here in Strasbourg and in Brussels in the space of a year – that Mr Cox is the President of Parliament.
The leaflets that contain this information, along with the former composition of Parliament’s governing bodies and the number of seats previously held by the various groups, have been out of date for a long time.
I should therefore like to ask how much longer we will continue to drag our heels in this fashion, given that we want the European public not only to respect our decisions, but also to comply with them.
I believe that we should all be ashamed of distributing such outdated materials to tens of thousands of people.
   Mr President, I would like to bring to your attention the fact that, on 19 January, a court in Athens sentenced the Austrian caricaturist and artist Gerhard Haderer to six months in jail, a charge of blasphemy having been brought against him by the Greek Orthodox Church in respect of his book ‘The Life of Jesus’.
The sentence has not yet been enforced, as Mr Haderer has appealed against it.
His appeal is to be heard on 13 April, or in other words the day after tomorrow.
I regard this as an assault on the free expression of opinion and as an attack on art, and I ask the Greek authorities to look into this matter and to examine whether their laws are in conflict with European fundamental rights as regards free expression of opinion and the freedom of art.
As the Austrian authorities have already halted proceedings against Mr Haderer, and as the European Court of Human Rights has ruled that nobody may be prosecuted in one Member State for an action in respect of which proceedings have already been concluded in another, the European arrest warrant must not be applied in this instance, and the Austrian authorities should inform the Greek courts immediately of what their investigations have brought to light.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, earlier the President asked us to observe a minute’s silence in memory of Pope John Paul II.
Taking my cue from this significant occasion, I should like to call upon the European Parliament to work together with the Apostolic See to organise a conference on employment, to be held before the end of the year.
The issue of employment, which is a major problem faced by Europe, the European Union and the whole world, was very dear to the heart of the Polish Pope, who believed that help should always be given to unemployed people.
I believe that this issue is one that could unite both believers and non-believers, and by believers I mean both Catholics and those of other faiths.
It is for this reason that I am calling upon the European Parliament to hold a conference of this kind this year in conjunction with the Apostolic See.
I believe that this would also be a fitting tribute to such a great man.
      Mr President, I should like to draw the attention of the House to the current state of affairs regarding the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.
This Treaty, which was signed in October 2004, is currently awaiting ratification before it enters into force.
The question that therefore arises is as follows: what obligations are incumbent upon a state that has signed the Treaty but not yet ratified it? The answer to this question can be found in international law, in particular the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Article 18 of this Convention states that a state in this position is obliged to refrain from acts which would hinder or preclude the entry into force of the agreement in question, or which would defeat the agreement’s object and purpose.
What this means is that governments are obliged under international law to take all steps necessary to ensure that the European Constitution is ratified.
It therefore follows that neither states nor governments should in any way support or tolerate anti-Constitution campaigns.
As the Latin saying goes, ‘’, that is, ‘agreements must be honoured’.
   Mr President, I want the European Parliament to speak up for the thousands, indeed millions, of textile workers who see their work threatened by the abolition of quotas within the framework of the WTO.
The United States did not tie itself in the same knots as the European Commission when it came to instituting the procedure to safeguard itself against Chinese textile products.
The European Commission tells us to wait.
According to the Euratex organisation, we shall lose 1 350 jobs per day in the textile sector unless the decision is made to safeguard it.
How many unemployed will the Commission have to have on its conscience before it finally deigns to respond?
   Mr President, we never talk about children's rights, almost as if such children do not exist, but they do.
Children who experience sexual abuse, children who experience other kinds of abuse, be they child soldiers or starving children, and children who do not go to school.
Commissioner Frattini knows all these problems well and it seems to me that you could arrange with the Commission for this question, that is the question of children's rights, to be debated in a plenary session.
   Mr de Grandes, are you requesting the floor on a point of order?
   Mr President, I am speaking pursuant to Rule 145 of the Rules of Procedure, as a result of personal comments.
   Rule 145 has been invoked previously by other Members and I have pointed out that this Rule relates to issues of a personal nature.
Frankly, I do not believe there has been any personal accusation against you.
   Mr de Grandes, I do not wish my personal circumstances to lead to my interpreting the Rules of Procedure in a biased fashion, because that would be regrettable, and I do not believe that to be the case, Mr de Grandes.
I am going to give you the floor.
This is the second time this has happened; I will have to send a circular to all Members clearly indicating the scope of Rule 145.
You have the floor in order to respond, and I shall read the Rule, to ‘remarks that have been made about his person’; and Rule 145 says that the speaker, in this case you, ‘may not speak on substantive matters but shall confine his observations to rebutting any remarks that have been made about his person’.
That is what Rule 145 says.
You have invoked it and I would ask that you comply with it.
   – Madam President, establishing a European area of freedom, security and justice is a historic task, and the period currently under review is a historic period, since in 2004 the EU became a union of 25 Member States, and in this new political environment, security and justice must be able to embark on a path of further development.
In this EU of 25 Member States, the terms ‘outside’ and ‘inside’ have a different meaning, and this new world not only needs new regulations; it also needs new institutions, ones that do not just function in formal terms, but that really know those 25 Member States, including the domestic problems and fault lines of the ten new ones.
This is why we are keen to ensure that the new institutions, the European Border Control Agency and the European Human Rights Agency, are really able to work substantively and effectively.
The EU is in fact caught in the middle of conflicting interests and expectations on the part of citizens: as Commissioner Frattini rightly points out, the citizens of Europe want more security and more freedom.
However, we all know that we need more solidarity too, even though the EU is sometimes more tight-fisted about making gestures of solidarity than about keeping a firm grip on security.
We understand that since September 11 and Madrid, we can expect to find ourselves compelled to take action against terrorism.
We also understand that there may sometimes be a temptation to override the values of freedom or solidarity, but we must not allow ourselves to do so.
For the sake of those who are looking to the EU as their new homeland, we must not let this happen.
We welcome the increased differentiation in immigration policy, and we are pleased about the questions raised in the Green Paper.
But please, when answering these questions, let us review the situation of the EU labour market with a critical eye, including the existing labour market supply in the new Member States.
   – The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Buitenweg on procedural rights in criminal proceedings throughout the European Union.
Mr Frattini has the floor again.
   – The next item is the joint debate on two recommendations for second reading on road transport by Helmuth Markov: ‘Social legislation relating to road transport activities’ and ‘Harmonisation of certain social legislation relating to road transport’.
The rapporteur, Mr Markov, has the floor.
   . Mr President, I wish to express my warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Markov, who has already led us through the negotiations in a very constructive way.
It is, actually, all very straightforward, Commissioner: drivers who have had a good night’s sleep are very good for safety on the roads, whilst exhausted drivers are a safety risk, or, to put it very simply, excessive tiredness is fatal.
It is, then, for the sake of the drivers, of road safety and of competitiveness that we need proper driving times and rest periods that are capable of being monitored.
Otherwise, the whole thing makes no sense.
We are agreed, then, that we need rest periods totalling 12 hours a day, of which 9 are to be taken in one go.
It must be possible to check records covering the past 28 days in roadside checks.
In any one week, drivers must not spend more than 56 hours at the wheel, and in a fortnight, they must stop after 90.
We also need a realistic date for digital tachographs.
The Regulation must also include a new category covering light commercial vehicles under 3.5 tonnes.
Let me add, Commissioner, that we are not talking here about the delivery of pizzas, for a pizza, if it is transported – as the Committee on Transport and Tourism has suggested – for over 60 kilometres, will be cold and inedible!
So we are not talking here about pizza delivery drivers, but about light commercial vehicles, which, at present, are allowed to do anything they like, including travelling at extremely high speeds, seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day, with no ban on driving on Sundays or at night, and without being checked up on – the consequence of which is an increasing number of accidents.
The only figures I can quote are the German ones: between 1991 and 2001, accidents involving small vans and resulting in personal injury rose by 103%.
In Germany in 2001, accidents caused by the drivers of small vans resulted in the deaths of 206 road users (an increase of 44% over 1991), serious injury to 2 548 road users (an increase of 66%) and minor injuries to 13 939.
Figures provided by the road traffic police seem to indicate over-tiredness as one of the most frequent causes of such accidents, as a relatively large number of accidents involving light commercial vehicles happen in the evening or at night.
The Council must stop pleading ignorance of the problem, come back down to earth and face reality.
Let me repeat that this is not about the 60-kilometre radius, or about the post and service industries.
Good rules and regulations are needed to deal with this problem.
If it is accepted, in principle, that over-tiredness kills and injures, then responsible rules are needed.
That is what the Committee wanted, and I hope that the Commission will, sooner or later, be able to come round to its way of thinking.
   Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I would like to thank Mr Markov for the work that has been done and the compromises that have been found in several problematical areas.
Likewise, I would also like to thank you, Commissioner, for your thorough commentary.
The social rights of employees, safe road travel and corporate interests – those are the main aspects which this proposal has dealt with.
I do not think, however, that the Committee on Transport and Tourism’s version is now balanced in all these aspects.
We know that the new European Union Member States are also, unfortunately, peripheral states, and therefore they are already less competitive in objective terms in the business of road haulage, since they are located far from the most concentrated areas of the market.
Unfortunately, the draft contains proposals which further adversely affect opportunities for these road hauliers, such as the extension of the compulsory daily rest period or even the cumulation of such periods; also, the opportunity for drivers to take reduced weekly rest periods outside the depot is being withdrawn and there is a proposal prohibiting the payment of a bonus to hauliers for distance covered even if this does not pose a threat to traffic safety.
All these proposals, in my opinion, are designed not to combat so-called ‘wage dumping’, as it is expressed in the justification, or ‘social dumping’, as it is currently known, carried out by businessmen in the new Member States, but in fact in order to preserve the existing division of the market.
These concerns regarding drivers’ wages and social protection may lead to drivers from the new Member States avoiding wage dumping overall, because, if they become unemployed, they will not receive any pay at all.
Article 11 of the directive currently also lays down a guarantee for participants in a collective agreement between social partners already in force.
Builders in Latvia and a few other new Member States, and perhaps now also hauliers, know how ‘easy’ it is to operate in such a situation, if we do not try to balance out interests when we vote for this legislation.
I am also not convinced that extending the scope of this legislation to vehicles with a weight under three and a half tonnes if these are operating within a radius exceeding 60 kilometres will help to attain social objectives and traffic safety objectives.
This puts an extra financial and technical burden on those vehicles which, according to the statistics, are not the most dangerous.
In addition, it will create a reason for express companies to enter into agreements with self-employed drivers, which in turn will worsen social protection for these people and will in fact have only adverse consequences for safety on the roads, too.
   Thank you very much, Mr Rack.
The Presidency entirely shares your concerns about the night sittings.
Mr de Grandes has the floor.
      Mr President, the President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, has assured us on a number of occasions, speaking both before this House and elsewhere, that he aims to reduce the number of EU regulations by as much as 25%, as there are a great many such regulations and a large number of them are unnecessary.
The Members of this House have always applauded such statements, as many of us are aware that we are faced with EU legislation that is developing imperialistic tendencies and attempting to regulate everything under the sun.
Yet the irony is that whenever the relevant specialist committees, for example the Committee on Transport and Tourism, are presented with individual drafts, those very same Members unfailingly fall back into the regulatory rut by voting to increase the number of regulations for which there is no rational justification.
The regulation we are currently debating, on the harmonisation of social legislation, is a clear example of this way of thinking and acting, and there are a number of points I should like to make in this regard.
Firstly, I believe that there is no justification for the fact that no differentiation whatsoever has been made between aspects of road traffic legislation and of employment legislation.
Different types of legislation are not mixed up in this way in other areas of public life, yet in this case no distinction has been made between employment legislation and other legislation.
Secondly, the principle of subsidiarity has been grossly violated.
Thirdly, and this is a crucial point, the regulations provide for an entire system of checks which amounts to nothing more than bloated machinery, and which will be practically impossible to implement.
The Members of this House have made it quite clear that it would be enormously difficult to put such a system into practice.
Fourthly, the level of detail in the regulations, in particular with regard to work and rest periods and how they are to be divided up and separated, is a terrifying vision of bureaucracy that leaves almost no room for manoeuvre.
Given all these factors, I believe that this is exactly the kind of regulation the European Union could manage very well without.
It is a perfect example of the 25% of regulations referred to by Mr Barroso.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Navarro (A6-0055/2005) on short sea shipping.
   Mr Navarro, this was your first report, but I can assure you that it is the last on which you will speak for so long.
The next item is the speeches on behalf of the groups.
Mr Jarzembowski has the floor on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
   . – Mr President, the continent of Europe and my country, Greece, have something in common. They are both peninsulars, with sea on three sides and land on one.
There are thousands of miles of coastline and thousands of large and small ports.
We, as Greeks, have been very familiar with this means of transport for 3 000 years: the first cargo recorded in maritime history was the golden fleece carried by the Argonauts 5 500 years ago.
Maritime transport is the most environmentally friendly.
We do not drill through mountains, we do not cut down trees and one vessel can carry a great deal of cargo and a great many passengers.
We have a large volume of work: approximately 40% of traffic in Europe, according to the report. In other words, there are large profits to be made, profits for shipowners and profits for operators.
However, we also have particularly high unemployment, with unemployed seafarers in Poland, Portugal and Greece.
So we have very rich maritime transport, but we also have unemployed seafarers.
In Piraeus, once the biggest port in Europe, one in two people walking along the street is an unemployed seafarer.
So we need to find a way to introduce a measure so that every ship which calls at a European port employs a number of European seafarers. We do not want ships working in Europe with non-European seafarers while European seafarers are out of work.
Another issue to which we need to turn our attention is safety.
The Commission issued a directive several years ago.
A civil servant, obviously serving certain interests, failed to pass it on.
There was a shipwreck in the Aegean and 82 people drowned, precisely because the crew had not been trained as provided for in the directive, which had not arrived. So what do we need?
We need better safety on board, we need to be strict about human life and, above all, we need to secure work for European seafarers, for reasons of equality and democracy; work which they are losing, even though, I repeat, the benefit and profit to shipowners is from European citizens.
That is what justice means and I would like the Commissioner to find a way for the work of European seafarers to be secured and not to disappear.
   Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank Mr Navarro for his fine report and excellent cooperation.
The report on short sea shipping is an important one because it is a new step in our search of means of keeping freight off the roads and of promoting more environmentally friendly modes of transport.
Indeed, if we do nothing, our roads will clog up.
Short sea shipping can play a positive and important role in an intermodal transport system if flanking measures are taken at different levels.
For example, in my view, we should not develop short sea shipping randomly, but we should carefully analyse the routes that need to be developed, in particular the ‘motorways of the sea’, in order to achieve the largest possible, positive impact.
The development not only of new ports but also of new transport movements in the hinterland necessitate a strategic environmental impact report on the planned routes.
We must therefore avoid new or even bigger bottlenecks being created.
Finally, we must at the same time make progress on the issue of emissions.
Ships pollute to some degree.
Road transport has been subjected to strict standards where pollution is concerned, but marine fuels are lagging behind somewhat, and so I am pleased that, coincidentally, the Hassi report, which aims to significantly reduce the sulphur content in marine fuels, certainly in the most sensitive zones, is also being voted on this week.
   Thank you very much, Commissioner.
That concludes the item, which will be voted on tomorrow at 12 noon.
   The next item is the debate on the European Council report and the Commission Statement on the meeting of the European Council (Brussels, 22 and 23 March 2005).
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Juncker, will take the floor first on behalf of the Council.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for once there is also some good news for the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the conclusions of a European Council.
It does not happen often, and perhaps that is why President Barroso said that the Greens are outside the system or anti-system.
I do not believe that, and I hope to use the years and months that are left before the end of the parliamentary term to change his mind.
I also say that because we are not particularly pleased to note that the Commission held back precisely on the four points in this summit that we considered relatively positive, because it had taken a different position.
The points are these: reform of the Stability Pact; precise target figures for the Kyoto Protocol, which the Commission unfortunately decided not to mention; redressing the balance of the Lisbon Strategy in terms of environmental and social sustainability, albeit still in a vague and imprecise way; and a kind of new-found understanding of reality with regard to the Bolkestein directive – although it is very hard to admit, even here in Parliament, that a directive on services of general interest needs to be drawn up before the Bolkestein directive is approved.
Even we believe that the reform of the Stability Pact has been a good thing and that it is now much more able to take account of the general economic situation and specific national situations.
Of course, these positive aspects are strongly counterbalanced by the fact that the rules on the quality of spending are still too vague.
For instance, choosing to invest up to EUR 700 million a year in building the international experimental thermonuclear reactor when even the most optimistic commentators do not expect that it can be used before 2050 – if ever – means not recognising the urgent need to implement the Kyoto Protocol or the potential of renewable forms of energy, and not investing in the latter sector.
We see that as a serious mistake.
In addition, unfortunately, we have to recognise that during the European Council no account whatsoever was taken of the fact that a healthy macroeconomic environment must include taxation reform, so that the tax burden that today falls on employment is shifted onto environmental degradation, helping to make regular employment more attractive.
That is what Jacques Delors was saying in 1992, and we have not made any progress at all since then.
President Barroso, Commissioner Verheugen, I think we should really learn something from the sad story of Italy’s economy and its Government, which came to power promising a new economic miracle by cutting taxes and environmental rules, and today the country is bottom of the table for growth and competitiveness in Europe.
We believe, President Barroso, that the European Union needs to make itself seen and heard, partly to win the Constitution referendum in France and to convince citizens that European added value really exists, so that the Commission’s initiative in the framework of the Lisbon Strategy can result in new legislation.
We are not happy with the fact that the Commission is content to play a coordinating role.
We do not think that is enough, because it means that for French voters and others the only message coming out of Europe is that of the Bolkestein directive, the patentability of software and policies in the economic and social fields.
That is not what we want.
We believe that we need to move in a different direction and, above all, we call on the Presidency and on President Barroso to take more notice of what we – and also the Commission – have called ‘the ecoefficiency revolution’.
The ecoefficiency industry and companies of this kind are growing at a rate of 5% a year at the moment, and we believe we should be investing much more in this sector and taking it more seriously.
Lastly, I agree with everything Mr Watson said, with just one exception: my group and I do not believe that hurrying and pushing and fighting with our backs to the wall for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania will help us to convince the Bulgarians, Romanians or Europeans of the feasibility of the project.
   . Mr President, after all that Mr Juncker said a month ago in this House and elsewhere to the effect that the Stability and Growth Pact was dead or at best needed to stagger on as it was, we now hear from the European Council that it lives again.
Lazarus indeed strikes once more.
But it is not living, it is fudging.
In a year’s time this rotten pact will have to be fudged or dumped, as I suggested last time.
The meeting, however, was remarkable for something which it did not discuss: the UK’s budget rebate.
Mr Chirac at least commented on it after the meeting, saying to reporters that it could no longer be justified, that it was from the past.
Mr Barroso echoed those statements.
Perhaps you would like to justify the fact that the UK would pay into the EU 14 times more than France without the rebate, and, even with it, two-and-a-half times the French contribution. Mr Barroso also said that 70% of Commission spending was on agriculture when the rebate was agreed, whereas new proposals would reduce it to one-third.
In fact, the proposals are that three-quarters of future spending will go to agriculture in poor regions.
That is where the Commission’s priorities lie.
That is of no comfort to the UK, rebate or no.
Our Foreign Secretary said that the Commission’s proposal could mean a 35% hike in the budget, but he said our rebate remains a veto.
We have an election in the UK on 5 May.
I would advise you not to try to join the flight from London to Brussels the following day.
You would be caught up with party officials and government ministers, of whatever colour, as they rush over here to seek a compromise.
It will be a milestone on the way to Britain’s exit.
Worse is better because, in monetary terms, the EU will then be 14 times as bad for the UK as for France.
Heaven knows, even with Mr Chirac’s desperate efforts, current polls show that the EU is becoming less popular in France every day.
   The rules are the same for everybody, Mrs Muscardini.
   Mr President, it cannot be denied that the past European Council was actually dominated by an external factor, that being the referendums on the European Constitution that are due to be held in various European countries.
It is in the context of those referendums that we should see the decision to review the services directive.
It is, in fact, very much open to question whether this Bolkestein directive will actually be re-examined or amended once the referendums are over.
It is, after all, a fact that European decisions are taken over the heads of the public almost as a matter of routine, and that there was, in the past, more than one occasion when such old-fashioned concepts as truth and democracy were not taken entirely seriously.
As far as the Bolkestein directive is concerned, we have to say that it has ambiguity written all over it.
Even European law specialists hold fundamentally different views about how this matter can, or will, actually be fleshed out in reality.
It is a fact that the very broad definition of the concept ‘service’, coupled with the country of origin principle, will lead to drastic changes to states’ – and in some cases federal states’ – powers and responsibilities.
Moreover, the proposal undeniably impacts on states’ powers and responsibilities in terms of social security, health care and education – all areas to which, in my modest opinion, the principle of subsidiarity should strictly apply.
According to Mr Bolkestein, only the rules of the country of origin apply to the service providers.
It is a complete mystery to me how it is possible to avoid distortion of competition or even social dumping with those rules, and I also wonder whether this is of real benefit to the European consumer.
Allow me also to be particularly sceptical about the hundreds of thousands of new jobs that this directive is supposed to create in Europe.
Along with everyone else, I am still waiting for the millions of jobs that those self-same economists promised us would be created when the euro was introduced.
I would reiterate that I have no faith whatsoever in the Council’s promise to make subtle changes to the Bolkestein directive.
I have no faith in the sudden conversion to the ‘own people first’ principle of so many Left-wing politicians who are anxious about the outcome of the referendums on the European Constitution.
As in the case with Turkey, EU policy is often a string of deceit and shameless lies, and I fear that, with the Bolkestein directive, we are getting more of the same today.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is surprising how impending elections can sometimes make politicians change tack and even get them to deny their own principles.
For example, I take some malicious delight in the truly sad soap opera that is being played out in Europe in response to the Bolkestein directive.
After all, before 1 May 2004, we did not hear anybody complain about the liberalisation of services, because the Dutch commissioner’s plans simply fitted in with the European logic that service providers too should be able to work freely in the EU.
In order to accommodate President Chirac, though, and to ensure that he does not suffer a humiliating defeat in the referendum on 29 May, it is now reported that the directive – having, of course, been approved by the socialists Mr Lamy and Mr Busquin – will be amended again, if not rewritten.
Now it turns out that the directive is being put on ice for the time being so as not to give the French ‘no’ camp any more trump cards.
The European Left have discovered that social dumping puts the jobs of their own people at risk.
It has also rediscovered the importance of upholding national and sovereign interests.
The French Left, again faithful to the traditions of the pre-war , has rediscovered the ‘own people first’ principle, which it formerly abominated, and rejects the directive’s country of origin principle.
It remains to be seen, of course, whether this hypocrisy will be enough to prevent the ‘no’ camp from enjoying a landslide victory on 29 May.
Contrary to what the luminaries in the Commission may think, the electorate is not stupid.
A similar scenario is unfolding in Germany; today’s reports that the Social Democrat Chancellor, anxious as he is about the elections taking place next month in North Rhine-Westphalia, wants to impose stringent measures in order to avoid cheap labour from Eastern Europe taking jobs from the Germans.
Who would ever have thought this former internationalist Marxist capable of such a thing? We can do no other than congratulate him.
   Mr President, I see that Mr Watson is not present in the House, and that is something I regret.
I must clearly dissociate myself from Mr Watson’s criticism of Mr Juncker, President of the European Union.
It is not of course Mr Juncker’s fault that France now has a government so unpopular that it is in no position to convince the French population to vote in favour of the Treaty.
The truth is, of course, that Mr Juncker himself, via the European Council held in March of this year, has ensured that the rest of us are in a position to explain to the French population that we now have a sensibly designed Stability and Growth Pact, that the balances in the Lisbon process have been retained and that we are now in a position to tackle the next step, as pointed out by Mr Almunia, Economic and Financial Affairs Commissioner, who said that, by using the two instruments, together with macroeconomic initiatives, we are in actual fact in a position to create more, and new, jobs in Europe.
I should like to say to Mr Watson, to the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and to others, irrespective of whether or not they are present in the House, that what is at issue here is a responsibility shared by them and ourselves, as well as by the President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, by the whole of the Commission and by Mr Juncker and the Council.
We must show the French population that this European Union has one main task right now, and that is to help create more, new and better jobs.
France cannot create more, new and better jobs alone.
France and the French people need a new Constitutional Treaty, and this new European structure, together with the political approach now set out by the March European Council and, hopefully, continued by the June European Council, provide us with some sound arguments for making further progress with our work on Europe.
Europe is not a matter of daily spectacle and major revolutions.
It is a matter of hard, sensible and purposeful work, and that is something on which I should like to compliment Mr Juncker today.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our debates are often repetitive, and so I should like to start with a news item that I read yesterday which I found quite striking.
A few days ago, in Huang-Kan-Tun in southern China, there was a popular uprising, which unfortunately also led to two deaths because of brutal repression by the police.
It was an uprising by the whole population of that village against a recently established chemical plant, which in a short time had caused very severe air, water and soil pollution.
What do I mean by this news item? I mean that new environmental, ecological, health and social demands are now emerging in these new economic powers too, as a result of industrial growth.
That clearly shows us our role in the future international division of labour: designing and selling technologies to enable those countries to grow without repeating our past mistakes, such as pollution and social oppression.
In view of all that, I think the summit has had a positive outcome, because it has genuinely reinvigorated the Lisbon Strategy on the basis of the interdependence of the three pillars; it has revitalised the European Union’s global role as a leader in the field of sustainable development; and it has put forward a protocol for Kyoto 2 that is highly ambitious and important precisely in this context.
What I think is good above all is the political reform of the management of the Lisbon Strategy according to the principle that everyone must play their own part to the full – the Member States, the Community, local communities, the European Union, and so on.
Parliament too must play its own part, as has been clearly stated.
We shall do so better, Mr President, if, as you hoped, the collaboration that has been occurring recently among the institutions on the task that concerns us – drawing up advanced legislation – continues.
I think that one of the main areas where this challenge will lie will be the REACH directive.
I am sure that the desired collaboration will take place in the coming months in order to achieve this result.
   Mr President, on behalf of the Conference of Committee Chairmen, I would like to inform you, before the vote on the calendar for our 2006 part-sessions, that we have very great concerns about this draft calendar.
According to this calendar, the distribution of committee meeting weeks and the number of working days for committees will, in 2006, be at the lowest level since 1994, which was a non-election year.
Despite the increase in parliamentary work and the increase in the number of Members, the number of committees and the number of amendments, we all know that, since 1994, Parliament’s competences have increased in the field of codecision and that the order of the Strasbourg and Brussels part-sessions and constituency weeks will not allow the parliamentary committees to respect the time periods laid down in the code on multilingualism for the adoption and presentation of reports for part-sessions.
A clear example: for the part-session of 11 and 12 October 2006, the reports will have to be adopted by the parliamentary committees in July at the latest.
Do we want a Parliament that fulfils its legislative duties in a dynamic manner? With this calendar, this would appear not to be the case.
In terms of method, moreover, I would simply like to warn all the honourable Members that we are going to have enormous problems in 2006, because we have respected the dates of the European school holidays.
   Mr President, I wanted to propose an oral amendment to Mr Alvaro’s amendment, namely to also add that we should no longer work on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
That way, money could be sent to our homes.
   Mr Goebbels, the Presidency appreciates your ironic comments, but you have interrupted the voting procedure.
   Can the Council confirm the modification resulting from the amendment announced by Mr Lewandowski?
   I would like to make it clear that, if my interpretation is correct, that means that paragraph 1 of the motion for a resolution, rather than saying ‘Regrets that the Council has not agreed’ should say ‘Is pleased that the Council has agreed to adopt the joint declaration’.
   – Mr President, I think what Mr Poettering just said is most helpful.
We can indeed, as a result of the very tense and obviously very lively discussions that have taken place, especially yesterday evening in the PPE-DE Group, agree on how to proceed.
The President-in-Office has announced that the Council now accepts the draft.
For Mr Cohn-Bendit's benefit: the first point of the draft due to be voted on, as it now stands, says that the European Parliament regrets the fact that the Joint Declaration contained in the annex to this draft report, according to which the three institutions must reach agreement on the financial repercussions of the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, has not materialised.
That has now been replaced – and I would also propose this as an oral amendment – by our welcoming the fact, as the President-in-Office said, that agreement has been reached, because this means that all Parliament's prerogatives vis-à-vis the Council have been respected and we can therefore vote in favour.
   – Mr President, on Rule 5 (3) of the Rules of Procedure in connection with the Van Orden report, I welcome the fact that the trilogue was successful and that Bulgaria and Romania did not become hostage to a tug of war between the Council and Parliament.
As regards Amendment 5, I find it outrageous that the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is turning individual support from individual members of our group for this Amendment 5 to the Van Orden report into a proposal tabled on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
I see a certain political manipulation in this and would like to expressly emphasise that this proposal has been individually supported by my national delegation.
I thank our group and our chairman for respecting and admitting the different stances with respect to the Kozloduj nuclear power station.
   – The intervention on a point of order was made because an amendment to the Van Orden report on Bulgaria – on which we are about to vote – has been moved in the name of the PPE-DE Group, whereas this amendment was supported only by individual members of our group, including my delegation.
I wanted to point that out before the report was put to the vote.
   Mr Salafranca, I hope that your point of order is more intelligible.
   Mr President, at the request of the rapporteur, Mr Van Orden, we would like to add the word ‘illegal’ before the word ‘logging’ in the last line of this amendment.
   Mr President, in accordance with Article 170(4) of the Rules of Procedure, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance calls for a postponement of the vote on assentfor Bulgaria.
I shall explain it very simply.
We have two different situations: Bulgaria and Romania.
With regard to Bulgaria, we believe that there are still issues to resolve and that, since we are talking about a 2007 accession, we do not think it useful to vote today.
The Verts/ALE Group in the European Parliament solemnly declares that it is in favour of accession, that it does not wish to vote against, but that, as regards assent, it can only say yes or no or not take part in the vote.
As we do not wish to vote no, however, and as we state that, given the nuclear energy situation in Bulgaria, for instance, we cannot vote yes today, we simply ask for the vote on assent to be postponed.
We also ask that firstly, according to the clauses of the agreement with the Commission, a progress report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs be drafted to allow a vote on assent to take place at the beginning of 2006, one year prior to accession.
   – Mr President, I should like to speak out against this proposal on behalf of my group.
It must have escaped Mr Cohn-Bendit that it is this very debate that we have had – and in very great depth –with the Council and the Commission over recent weeks.
What we have achieved, as Mr Wiersma's proposal shows and with the assent of this Parliament, is this: according to the assurances of the Commission and the Council – I should like to mention both and also to thank Commission Rehn, we shall be fully involved in further consultations and in the possible application of the clause which should allow this accession to be postponed.
I should like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to Mr Lagendijk.
Mr Cohn-Bendit, if you had spoken with him more closely, you would have realised how much hard work we, and Mr Brok, have put into this, thereby reaching a positive result.
That is why I wish to vote against this motion.
   Mr Nassauer will take the floor to speak against.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I know of nobody of any standing in this House who would not be in favour of us welcoming Bulgaria and Romania into the European Union.
I do, however, know of a great many Members who – for the reasons Mr Cohn-Bendit has spelled out – are loath to take a decision on this matter today.
Delaying today’s decision would therefore be an eminently sensible move, as it would allow us to indicate that although we are still very much in favour of Bulgaria and Romania joining the EU, we wish to wait for the Commission’s next progress report before we actually take a final decision on the matter.
This would be one way of addressing many of the concerns that have been voiced, without giving rise to doubts about our basic willingness and determination to welcome these countries into the EU.
I therefore have every sympathy with Mr Cohn-Bendit’s views.
   Mr President, I move the same revised amendment as I proposed earlier on Mr Van Orden’s report.
This is the same text that I want to put into the recommendation.
   – Mr President, I thought that you had understood the point of order I presented previously to call for the withdrawal of Amendments 2 to this favourable opinion and to the favourable opinion by Mr Moscovici.
   Alright, Mr Salafranca, it has been withdrawn and there is no need to vote on it.
   Mr President, this is the same text that we adopted in the Van Orden recommendation and report.
We will be repeating the same text in the two votes on the Moscovici report and recommendation.
   Mr Voggenhuber will take the floor to speak in favour of the proposal.
   Mr President, would it be possible for the secretariat to remind Mr Cohn-Bendit that it was the European Parliament that recommended 2007 as the entry date for Romania, and therefore now is the time to activate that recommendation?
   Mr President, I should merely like to point out that it is customary for voting time to end at 1.30 p.m., as we all, of course, have guests and must attend to the public’s needs.
   My apologies, Mr President.
I have risen to speak on the basis of Rule 160, as the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has requested that the vote on a number of amendments be taken by roll call.
We had, however, agreed that we would go along with the compromise reached with the other groups.
The Socialist Group in the European Parliament will therefore vote against these amendments, even though we do agree on certain points of substance.
   . 'The ALDE group tabled an amendment to the 2006 calendar which would have ended all plenary sessions at lunchtime on Thursdays and started the Brussels sessions at 10.30 on the Wednesday.
The purpose of this was to ease Members' travel from Strasbourg and to suppress the fag-end Thursday afternoon sessions.
Unfortunately, this amendment was deemed inadmissible by the authorities.'
   . I and my British Conservative colleagues have long supported attempts to ensure that the European Parliament has only one official seat, and that it should be in Brussels.
The costs to the taxpayer of the Strasbourg seat is estimated at around £150 million per annum.
This is a gross waste of public funds.
British taxpayers deserve to have value for money.
Our proposal to delete Strasbourg days does not imply that we wish to reduce our hours of work but to carry out our work where it is most effective and cost efficient, namely in Brussels.
The costs of having to support parliamentary operations in both Strasbourg and Brussels have now become indefensible, and we will continue to campaign to have Parliament sit only in Brussels in future.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I offer a welcome to the citizens of Bulgaria, who with this vote see the culmination of their desire to join the European Union.
In addition to congratulating the citizens and their current government, which has achieved this result, I should like to recall the major commitment made by previous administrations, particularly the government of Ivan Kostov, which started negotiations with the European Union in the early, most difficult days.
Lastly, I hope that the pensioners of Bulgaria, together with the younger generation, can build a better world together with all of us in the European Union.
   .
I voted in favour of Amendment 5 on the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant on behalf of the delegation from the Austrian People’s Party, and not on behalf of the European People’s Party.
   .
Owing to the lack of progress under its previous socialist Government, Romania is still finding it very difficult to be ready in time for EU accession in 2007.
The situation in the areas of corruption and administrative and legal stability in particular is a cause of major concern.
It seems entirely possible to me that in due course there will have to be a year’s delay.
The European Parliament has been placed in the impossible position of pronouncing judgment 20 months before accession.
At the moment however we can see that the new government is putting the required reforms into practice on schedule and also that the European Commission, as recently in the case of Croatia, takes a strict line in its assessment of candidate members.
I am therefore prepared to give both the Romanian Government and the European Commission the benefit of the doubt.
I hope that progress continues as at present, because only in that case will I be able to continue giving my support to the accession of Romania in 2007.
   .
It was with grave misgivings that I voted for the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, because the reports about corruption in Romania in particular give me no reassurance about the suitability of this country for membership of the European Union.
The way in which the Council decided on the financing of accession for these two countries, only recognising the budgetary authority of the European Parliament at the last moment, also detracts from the need to decide on the accession of these countries 20 months in advance.
It is the geopolitical benefits of the accession of these countries that are the deciding factor for me however.
In addition, the European Union has held out the prospect of membership for many years and fundamental changes have been made in the legislation.
It is unclear what negative reactions a refusal of membership of the European Union would provoke.
The accession treaties also contain safeguard clauses that can be used to postpone accession.
All this has brought me to a cautious ‘yes’.
   . Contrary to what was asserted, in France, by supporters of the European Constitution, Mr Chirac did not obtain the withdrawal of the Bolkestein directive in Brussels on 23 March.
In its official record, the European Council declares that the directive will not be withdrawn, indeed pointing out that it must remain on the European agenda, since the Growth and Jobs Strategy implies the opening up of the services market.
This lie is not, however, the first to be uttered by the hypocrites of the yes camp.
Mr Bolkestein himself pointed it out: until this year, neither Mr Chirac nor Mr Raffarin had voiced the least reserve on his directive, which was approved by the French Commissioners, the socialist Pascal Lamy and the Chirac supporter Michel Barnier.
Mr Bolkestein, with good reason, did nothing but carry out a decision taken in 2005 during the Lisbon Summit, where France was represented by Mr Chirac and Mr Jospin.
This directive is, however, only an outline of what awaits us if the European Constitution is adopted.
Articles 144, 145 and 148 of the text are clear.
Did you like the Bolkestein directive? You will love the European Constitution.
By voting no on 29 May, the people of France will be defending their jobs and their social rights.
   . In the 1990s we thought we could solve the problems in former Yugoslavia by setting up protectorates, sending external administrators and soldiers there and forcing refugees to return to areas where there was now a different ethnic majority.
This American model leads to stagnation.
It forces the people there back into the role of under-age children.
They are going to bide their time until these foreign busybodies have left.
The alternative to this stagnation is that we seek a peaceful, democratic way from the bottom up by taking seriously how the people in Kosovo, Montenegro, the separate entities in Bosnia or the two large language areas in Macedonia itself for example see their future and what they want to call themselves.
States and population groups that opposed each other in the 1990s still reject domination by their neighbours but they do want to cooperate with open borders.
An early start to the negotiations on accession to the European Union, starting with Croatia and Macedonia, can contribute to this.
Europe must now without prejudice seek the real solutions together with all concerned.
   . Mr President, Bosnia-Herzegovina is a time bomb waiting to go off!
Clear language on the part of EUFOR, the European Union’s military mission in that country.
Nearly ten years after Dayton the former warring parties are continuing their ethnic struggle unabated in the political arena.
By no means did the ad hoc delegation of this Parliament gain a comforting picture of the present situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina in Sarajevo and Mostar last week, but it was certainly a realistic one.
This underlines once more the usefulness of the EUFOR mission locally.
You might expect a conciliatory contribution from the religious communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Representatives of Council, Commission and EUFOR reported the opposite.
I would like to urge Council and Commission to keep reminding the church authorities and the of their great responsibility in this regard.
The recent arrest of Bosnians in Chechnya is an ominous sign.
It illustrates the danger of religious extremism for which EUFOR sources were seeking our attention.
A moving part of the visit of the ad hoc delegation to Sarajevo was an inspection of minefields.
Council and Commission, only the clearance of these fields of death can make the transition to a peaceful existence possible.
So please invest extra in the future of Bosnia-Herzegovina in this way!
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of myself and the Europe of the Nations Group I would like to express our recognition to the honourable Member Mr Kuhne for his well-executed report on the European Security Strategy.
This includes the extension of the concept of security in line with the current situation, offers a reasonable opinion concerning current events in the field of European security, and points out deficiencies.
I will deal with just one aspect.
I think that in his report Mr Kuhne has demonstrated in a wholly justified fashion to the European Parliament the need to promote participation in implementing the European Security Strategy.
Fulfilling this objective is a comparatively complex task for European Members of Parliament, and, of course, also for the European institutions.
We must, however, admit that we do not have the requisite security of information and specialist back-up within the European Parliament to be able to discuss thoroughly and with a solid grounding the activities of the relevant Directorate-General within the Commission and of the Council in implementing the European Security Strategy, not to mention the possibility of more or less understanding measures taken by national governments, with their mutually reciprocal actions, in implementing security and defence measures.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must acknowledge that that is a serious problem.
In fact, there are various problems relating to aspects of joint security in the European Union.
At the basis of them are shortages of a financial nature, as well as of the development of military capabilities, a lack of security of information and deficiencies of other kinds.
During the past months, during which I have been a European Member of Parliament for the first time, I have had the opportunity to gradually understand how security policy in Europe is formed, and who the most important players are.
Therefore it seems to me that I am fully justified in saying that the report is of a sufficiently high quality.
Since 70% of European Union citizens support the need for a single European defence policy, we should agree that monitoring the implementation of the European Security Strategy ought to be one of the priorities for the widening of the scope of the European Parliament’s activities.
The threats of the 21st century – trans-national terrorism, the unlawful proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts and Islamic fundamentalism – impose a duty on everyone to understand our global challenges, and the European Parliament must play an active part in preventing them.
   Mr President, the Union’s common foreign and security policy may not be a virtual policy, as sceptics maintain, but it certainly looks far better on paper than it does in practice.
If, like the authors of the draft resolution, we look to public opinion surveys for the will to implement this policy, its future seems distinctly uncertain.
If the 60% of Union citizens that support the common foreign policy is in future reduced to 45%, and the 70% support for the common defence policy is reduced to say 47%, should we suddenly abandon this notion? We should guard against relying on public opinion surveys.
The House is divided on the issue of the degree of support for the idea of a common security policy and a common foreign policy.
We need to face up to that fact.
Nonetheless, we are all of one mind on a number of issues.
The first is that Islamic terrorism is a real threat.
The second is that military action cannot be the first course of action when it comes to dealing with certain problems.
The third is that we must follow the joint EUFOR activities in Bosnia-Herzegovina carefully.
True, the Union did previously undertake the Concordia mission in Macedonia, but that was relatively minor, as were the police activities we were involved in, for example in Bosnia-Herzegovina or, more recently, in Africa
Finally, we can speak with one voice when it comes to insisting that the Council complies with Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union concerning consultation on the main foreign policy actions for the coming year.
It is not a question of the Council deigning to provide the information.
It is actually bound to do so.
   Mr President, we have received a document describing European policy in the area of security, which is the most difficult policy for any country or international organisation to tackle.
This document will constitute a basis or a point of reference when it comes to establishing how best to consolidate the policies of Member States, and to ensure that foreign policy is more effective.
We would do well to remember that the costliest way of conducting foreign policy is not to have one.
The Union is failing to take advantage of the opportunities open to it in many areas, precisely because it lacks policies.
Allow me to mention another plain truism, and now I am addressing in particular those who have been pontificating on militarisation in the House for some time.
Defence capacity is a of an effective policy.
Military capacity is essential.
We would also do well to remember that the principles drafted concerning the safeguarding of our security in the broadest sense can constitute an excellent starting point for dialogue with our American partner, and a basis for the creation of a new kind of transatlantic relationship.
On the one side there would be the United States, uncertain as to the difference between leadership and hegemony, and on the other the European Union which is just starting to develop its role in this particular area.
We shall need to bring patience and creativity to this process, but expertise will also be required.
In this connection, I believe that Mr Kuhne’s report represents a good commitment for all the European institutions, helping them to consider European security.
In addition, it is significant that Mr Kuhne’s report is being debated at the same time as the annual report on the European Union’s foreign policy.
This represents good input and a fine contribution by Parliament, helping to ensure that we can at long last speak of a real European policy rather than a virtual one.
   – The next item is questions to the Council (B6-0163/2005).
   . Let me answer Mr Evans.
On 10 March 2005, in anticipation of the annual spring meeting of the European Council, the Council, within the context of the environment, adopted a contribution to the deliberations made regarding the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy.
Generally speaking, the Council is emphasising the need to take action from 2005, in particular to confront climate change and to promote eco-innovation, in addition to the efficient use of energy and resources.
It has, in particular, asked the Spring European Council to recommend sustainable consumption and production methods of which eco-efficient innovations are a contributory part, with a view to disassociating economic growth from the use of resources and degradation of the environment.
It has, moreover, invited calls for the Commission to draw up a European initiative in 2005 in favour of energy efficiency, in addition to a Green Paper comprising a list of significantmeasures.
In substance, the Council has first of all recommended the implementation, as a matter of urgency and in its entirety, of a course of action promoting eco-technologies – ETAP – to guarantee the prospect of a fair and competitive market for eco-innovations.
Secondly, it has advocated the vigorous promotion of eco-innovations and eco-technologies in all sectors of the economy, particularly in the energy and transport sectors.
Finally, it has recommended alleviation measures intended to reduce the long-term risks and costs connected to climate change, resulting in an economy that emits low levels of carbon. This will be achieved, in particular, by reinforcing the deployment and development of high yield renewable energy technologies and of new fuels.
   I turn to the Minister.
I believe that Mr Bushill-Matthews is on to something here, but we are both Conservatives!
   . I think, Mr Posselt, that you are jumping ahead a little, as we have not yet entered into negotiations with Turkey.
We, and in particular the Commission, are, so to speak, in dialogue with Turkey to ensure that the reform processes to which it committed itself are followed through.
I can assure you that, when the time comes after 3 October, if we enter into negotiations with Turkey, Parliament will of course be kept informed of the progress of those negotiations.
   . The European Council of June 2000 established that all the countries of the Western Balkans were potential candidates for EU membership.
Subsequently, in June 2003, the European Council reiterated its determination to fully and effectively support the European perspective of the Western Balkan countries, which will become an integral part of the EU, once they meet the established criteria.
It is therefore essentially up to the countries concerned – I think that the debate we have had on the Western Balkans has adequately demonstrated this – to set the pace at which they come closer to the EU by aligning with the and by meeting the criteria established by the Copenhagen European Council.
On 16 March 2005, the Council reaffirmed the European Union’s commitment to the accession of Croatia and adopted the framework for negotiations with that country.
It also referred to the importance of full cooperation with the ICTY on the part of all the countries of the Western Balkans.
That is an essential requirement for closer relations with the EU and I think that, in the previous debate, I did emphasise this once again.
In that regard, after deliberation by the Council and in the absence of a common agreement, the opening of accession negotiations with Croatia has been postponed.
The bilateral intergovernmental conference will be convened by common agreement as soon as the Council has established that Croatia is cooperating fully with the ICTY, and you will be aware that, to enable the Council to take this decision with full knowledge of the facts, we have set up a group chaired by the Presidency, and involving the next two Presidencies as well as the Commission and the High Representative.
The first meeting with the Croatian Government will take place on 26 April, to discuss precisely this aspect of cooperation with the Hague Tribunal.
   Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me start by publicly expressing our satisfaction at the steps taken by the President of the European Parliament and one of Parliament’s Vice-Presidents, Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca, specifically, to secure the release of the French journalist, Mrs Aubenas, and her colleague, Mr Al-Saadi, who have been held hostage for exactly 100 days today.
This is an occasion for me to remind you that, in Iraq, a number of journalists and other press employees have been victims of kidnappings, which is rare during a war, and there have been several dozen kidnappings.
I would like to insist, on the strength of both my experience and my new functions, that the Council should submit a request for a joint investigation, before the people take to the streets to demand it, as happened in Italy for Mr Calibari.
It is something that is both moral and technically feasible.
   . If I understand you correctly, Mr Medina Ortega, it is a process between the Latin-American countries, in other words between the countries of Mercosur and those of the Andean Community.
I think that the European Union does indeed have the aim of encouraging all forms of regional integration, the wider the better.
I think this is an approach that can only be encouraged.
And if these countries succeed in further improving their cooperation, or even integration, I think that it must also be taken into account in the relations they have with the European Union.
   . Mr President, I am standing in for my colleague, Mrs Flautre, with whom I have been following this matter for five years.
I think that Mr Désir’s speech set out the real problem.
I said to former Commissioner Monti years ago that the day would come when the Competition Directorate-General’s main task would be not so much to refuse aid as to see whether that aid was properly used.
What authorises a country to award State aid in apparent violation of Article 87 of the Treaty? It is the fact that Europe considers it to be in its interest because, if this aid were refused, jobs would be lost that could not be replaced.
A source of expertise, and of work in the interests of the EU’s objectives, of its citizens and of its consumers would disappear.
In their great wisdom, the Competition DG and the Commission granted this aid to Alstom a year ago.
It was not a case of bowing to pressure from the French Government.
It was a case of expressing an opinion on the fact that, in the condition in which Alstom was proposing to continue, yes, it was worthwhile for a state to grant it aid.
It was good for the whole of Europe.
Well, if this assessment was right a year ago, it is right today.
However, Alstom is in the process of proving that, when it asked for this State aid, it was not trying at all to maintain the supply of clean technologies in Europe, it was not trying to contribute to the objective of full employment in Europe.
It was simply trying to obtain State aid according to the principle of the privatisation of profit and the nationalisation of loss.
This is something that neither the left nor the right in Europe can accept.
I therefore believe that we have here a key example on which the Commission should base its policy.
If the fairly extensive list of authorisations for granting State aid – there are a dozen cases in Article 87, which is also retained in the Constitution – really forms the basis, so to speak, of industrial policy in Europe, this is the time to prove it.
The Commission must say whether the aid granted a year ago simply served to bail out the Alstom group’s shareholders or whether it really served the interests of the people of Europe, their future, and in particular compliance with the Kyoto Protocol.
   The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission on fiscal and environmental dumping, by Mr Ford, on behalf of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and by Mr Watson, on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (B6-0172/2005),
- by Mr Jonckheer, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (B6-0229/2005).
   . Mr President, I rise on behalf of my Group to add my concern to that expressed by previous speakers about this terrible situation in relation to an innovative and, frankly, quite remarkable company in the constituency that Mr Ford and I represent.
Innovia Films is a profitable company, which has developed a process discovered in the United Kingdom in 1898.
I suspect that had that process been discovered in Scandinavia in 1998, it would have been viewed as best available technology, plastic packaging would have been banned and cellophane would have been used instead.
Sadly, for cellophane, it was discovered rather earlier.
However, I welcome the cross-party support that is being shown for the campaign to recognise the problems being caused by the policy of the Americans and to deal with this issue.
This morning we debated the outcome of the European Council meeting held to review the Lisbon Agenda.
In the resolution adopted by Parliament with cross-party support, we agreed that there has to be such a thing as industrial policy.
If there is industrial policy, then we have to look at how we can support companies like this one.
When I wrote to Commissioner Piebalgs on behalf of the company some while ago, in order to see whether any kind of support was available for that company, he replied that there are programmes that support new and innovative systems, but this case would not be eligible for such support.
I wonder if we should not be looking again at our industrial policy.
The letter from Commissioner Mandelson to Mel Dando, one of the trade union officers involved, looks at the problems that we have encountered with the policy at the plant in Kansas, as regards declaring a tax holiday and suspending environmental regulations.
Mr Mandelson points out that the measures, in the form of tax exemptions, appear to be subsidies but do not fall into the prohibited category.
He then goes on to point out that there are no provisions in the WTO agreements that cover environmental dumping and says that, therefore, these measures appear not to be in breach of current WTO rules.
My question to the Commission will be this: if there are no provisions in the WTO agreements that cover environmental dumping, why not?
What is the Commission doing to ensure that we have provisions to cover environmental dumping? This incident, affecting, as Mr Ford said, perhaps not a huge number of jobs when viewed on a European scale, but a very large number of jobs when viewed on the scale of a small industrial town like Bridgwater, is one that could be replicated right across the European Union if we found that the policy of different States in the United States of America in this area was about to rob us of jobs in this way.
This is the ugly face of capitalism.
We have here a buy-out of a company by a consortium dedicated to asset-stripping and to returning as much money as possible to the investors without looking at the general health of our society and our industries.
It is the kind of case on which the Commission should take action.
I hope that Commissioner Verheugen, the Commissioner here tonight, and Commissioner Mandelson will raise this case with the Americans and see what we can do to get action to save the plant in Bridgwater and to save potentially many other hundreds of thousands of jobs across the European Union that could be affected by this kind of development.
   . Mr President, in view of the fact that Commissioner Verheugen has stated that the Commission is investigating whether the subsidies are directly promoting exports – which would be illegal – I should like to ask him, on behalf of the Commission, to write to the company to ask it to defer its decision on the plant closure, which is due within 15 days, until that has been established.
   . I shall pass on that question to my colleague, Mr Mandelson, who is in charge of the file.
I should like to say to Mrs Mann that I take note of and fully accept the recommendations.
I will ensure that the issue is discussed at European-American business round tables and in other fora.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission on discrimination against workers and companies from the new Member States in the EU internal market by Mr Protasiewicz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats (B6-0173/2005).
      Mr President, I should like to start by warmly congratulating you on your election and on your first appearance as Vice-President.
Commissioner, the outcome of today’s debate could not come at a better time for the many business people and citizens who believe that everyone has equal rights in the enlarged EU, and who want to sell their most valuable asset, namely their own labour, in the old Member States.
Yet there are many people who no longer wish to work in the European Union.
These people have already attempted to do so, but have been treated unequally and come up against government and local authorities that commit violations of law.
These violations take the form of over-enthusiastic checks, frequently involving dogs and policemen, or arrests during which individuals’ hands are stamped and they are handcuffed.
This is an infringement of their personal rights.
These companies and individuals will never wish to work or provide services again in the old Member States.
Is this what the market for services and labour is to look like in the United Europe? As representatives of our constituents, we are duty bound to defend their rights in the EU.
I have not heard of a single instance of people being treated in this way in Poland, even though many thousands of foreign firms operate in the country, and a large part of industry and the majority of banks are controlled by foreign capital.
Polish organisations, business people, ministries and embassies are regularly informed of cases in which Polish firms and Polish citizens who provide services as subcontractors to European businesses have been discriminated against.
The case of the Apola company, which is based in Poznan, is a prime example of such discrimination, and one of the many that have come to my attention.
The company’s employees and representatives were intimidated, arrested and persecuted by the French police and authorities in the Gard region.
In many cases, such behaviour stems from the fact that the officials are human, or rather inhuman, and insufficiently acquainted with the rules.
We bear no general grudge against nations or governments in this respect, but the issue should be discussed in this House, and it is for this reason that today’s debate should be followed up by a resolution in which such violations of the law are condemned.
Finally, I should like to highlight one more instance of discrimination on the basis of nationality.
It relates to new requirements brought in by the European Commission, which only apply to Polish nurses and midwives.
The latter are now required to have worked for at least five out of seven years in order to obtain a certificate confirming their qualifications, without which they cannot work as nurses or midwives in the EU.
Citizens of all the other 24 Member States are only required to have worked for three out of five years.
As well as depriving these nurses and midwives of the chance to work and of their previous rights, these requirements, which are enshrined in European legislation, are an insult to their professional dignity.
I have been waiting for an answer from the Commission on this matter for several weeks, and several hundred thousand nurses and midwives are waiting for a response to the petition they submitted to the European Parliament.
      Ladies and gentlemen, reference has been made in this House on many previous occasions to problems relating to discrimination against workers and companies from the new Member States on the EU internal market.
I myself drew the House’s attention to the issue over seven months ago, yet I regret to say that nothing has changed since then.
It is for this reason that we have heard so many Members from the new Member States speak again today about blatant violations of EU legislation in this respect.
In addition to the so-called transitional periods that were imposed upon the 10 new Member States, the old Member States are placing an increasing number of legal and administrative obstacles in our way.
Such practices encroach upon the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services, both of which apply to any entity that is legally registered in the European Union and both of which are enshrined in the Treaty.
Evidence already exists of a great many instances in which discriminatory provisions, which again run counter to EU legislation, are to be found in the national legislation of the old Member States.
The fervent opposition voiced by countries such as France, Belgium and Germany during debates on the liberalisation of services, as detailed in the Bolkestein directive, is further evidence of attempts to discriminate against companies from the new Member States.
I find it quite astonishing that countries that agreed to the enlargement of the European Union and to integration with Central and Eastern European countries, knowing that the aim of such integration was to create a single and powerful socio-economic unit, are now standing in the way of efforts to achieve this aim.
This was not the kind of EU we voted in favour of in the referendums held before last year’s enlargement.
I would therefore call on the European Commission to take action and to make known its views on the issue, and also to take the appropriate steps to stop discriminatory practices against the new Member States.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Krahmer on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety on a proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the type-approval of motor vehicles with regard to their re-usability, recyclability and recoverability and amending Council Directive 70/156/EEC (COM(2004)0162 – C5-0126/2004 – 2004/0053(COD)) (A6-0004/2005)
     The next item is the oral question to the Commission (O-0036/2005 - B6-0168/2005) by Mr Sifunakis, on combating doping in sport.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, according to the Committee on Culture and Education the Athens Olympics demonstrated that doping in sport is a genuine threat.
Yet the only reason why so many cases of doping were detected at the last Olympic Games was that the International Olympic Committee, under the leadership of its new President, Jacques Rogge, finally took determined action to combat doping.
Political will frequently plays a large part in matters such as these.
We are all aware that the US Olympic Committee covered up cases of doping involving its competitors, especially its athletes, and that it continued to do so until quite recently.
We should have no illusions about the fact that the fight against doping involves not only thwarting the ambitions of certain competitors, trainers and campaigners, but also waging war on the huge drug industry and on powerful and well-funded lobbyists.
Strategies we can employ in this fight include severe penalties, for example the instant imposition of no-questions-asked and life-long competition bans, clear rules to ensure that no one is more equal than anyone else and new methods of detecting doping techniques that are becoming increasingly sophisticated, as pointed out by the previous speakers.
Like politics, sport will always be a dirty business, but there is undoubtedly room for it to clean up its act.
This is the idea behind the motion for a resolution, and I should like to thank the authors for ensuring that this is the case.
   The EU Constitution refers to sport both as an important educational tool and as a means of fostering social cohesion and a healthy lifestyle.
Doping puts the very essence of sport at risk, as it does away with the principle of equal chances and seriously violates the spirit of fair play; performance no longer reflects the quantity and quality of effort invested.
Doping is dangerous for the competitors themselves; the literature reports several hundred fatalities.
According to former IOC president Samaranch, doping is the death of sport.
Dangerous performance-enhancing substances have made their appearance in the field of leisure sports and gyms too.
Production, trade and consumption of these substances are now taking place on a massive scale; millions of people are affected and at risk.
Worldwide, the battle against doping is being waged at three levels: 1) prevention, information and education; 2) testing prior to, during and after competitions using the latest methods science has to offer; 3) imposing severe penalties or sanctions strong enough to act as a deterrent.
The EU can participate in the first two areas of this broad-based, concerted effort to combat doping, given that punishing crime is not within the scope of our competences.
Some countries have already passed legislation imposing severe penalties on doping akin to those for drug use.
For my part, I too recommend that we take an active role in cleaning up or, if you like, saving sport.
Let us take the message of our Constitution seriously and cooperate more closely than hitherto with the WADA.
At present, only 12 of the 25 EU countries have an accredited laboratory.
Let us help enable the other 13 to obtain these valuable technical facilities.
Let us set up a unified EU testing network to facilitate close cooperation, not only in the field of testing, but also in research in sports sciences.
Let us not forget that sports science is already intensively studying a new form of doping that could prove even more dangerous than previous forms, namely genetic doping.
I also recommend that the EU Ombudsman create a mechanism enabling European citizens to report any manufacture, trade or consumption of doping substances that they encounter.
     The next item is the oral question to the Commission (O-0037/2005 - B6-0169/2005) by Mr Sifunakis, on the draft UNESCO Convention on cultural diversity.
     Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of our debate today is culture, but we must ask ourselves what we mean by this term.
Does culture mean everything that surrounds a person and his or her entire way of life, or only cultural products, such as paintings, sculpture, architecture, music, and above all films, which have already been mentioned today? We should not forget that the role played by the state as a patron of culture has always been significant, but never crucial.
One cannot fail to mention the role of the Medici or the popes in connection with Italy’s magnificent Renaissance art, yet they were not responsible for the fact that Renaissance art in Italy reached its zenith at that time.
Similarly, the fact that the German princes acted as benefactors in the 18th and 19th centuries does not mean that they were responsible for the development of such marvellous music in that part of the world.
No one can claim credit for the fact that Chopin was born and worked in Poland.
Culture cannot be managed, and we should therefore not be fooled into thinking that any action we take will determine Europe’s success in this field.
We should not forget that the market also has an important role to play, which is why we have fond memories of the magnificent Italian films of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, whereas American cinema now holds sway.
Back then Italian or French films were hits, or even Polish films, which despite communism were really quite good, and today this distinction falls to American films.
The media obviously have a large part to play in this process, even though it is an unfortunate fact that they sometimes neglect their duty by becoming entirely commercialised.
We should not forget that statements to the effect that European films are almost unknown in America, and that American films are by far the most popular in Europe, are whinging plain and simple, and we should not overly concern ourselves with them.
After all, American art and culture are essentially versions of European art, although we should not turn our backs on Henry James, Ernest Hemingway or John Steinbeck for being American.
We should not lose hope, as after all the whole world is under the sway of European culture, even if this culture sometimes comes in an American edition.
   The next item is the joint debate on the report (A6-0051/2005) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing measures for the recovery of the Southern hake and Norway lobster stocks in the Cantabrian Sea and Western Iberian peninsula and amending Regulation (EC) No 850/98, and the report (A6-0050/2005) by Mr Morillon on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing measures for the recovery of the sole stocks in the Western Channel and the Bay of Biscay.
   Mr President, in connection with adopting this resolution, we reached agreement in the Committee on Foreign Affairs on using the name ‘the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia’ when referring to this country in contexts not concerning the actual debate about the future name.
I hope I can obtain Parliament’s support for sticking to this policy in the final resolution.
This means, in other words, that, if amendments are adopted today with reference to Macedonia and if these are not concerned with the issue of the name, the term used in the final version will be ‘the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia’.
We thus ensure that we shall vote on the substance of the resolution and that, irrespective of the outcome of the votes, the final result is clear to readers of the resolution.
We can do something about the actual issue of the name when we come to Amendment 6 and Amendment 25.
   Thank you very much, Mr Samuelsen, I think that these precise details are extremely useful on a subject that is still so sensitive.
   Mr President, I would like to endorse what Mr Samuelsen has said, and, if we agree to this demand, to ask my colleagues to vote ‘yes’ rather than ‘no’ to Amendments 16 and 20, which have to do with the content rather than the name.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, three amendments have been tabled on paragraph 32, which have been marked as being identical.
In actual fact, Amendment 13 differs from the other two by only one word.
Nevertheless, the difference is important, because it is one thing to talk about the whole of China, and quite something else to talk about China.
I therefore call for Amendment 13 to be put to the vote separately from Amendments 1 and 10.
   Before voting on Amendment 13 with the slight semantic difference emphasised by Mr Speroni, we shall first vote on Amendments 1 and 10, which are exactly identical.
   . Mr President, all Members have a copy of the update I have proposed, which involves the following substitution in paragraph 8:
‘… report of the High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change presented to the UN Secretary-General on 1 December 2004’ with ‘… report presented by the Secretary-General of the UN entitled “In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all” on 21 March 2005.
This simply involves an update.
As Mr Samuelsen raised the problem of names in connection with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia I would point out that this problem does not occur in the text to be voted on.
If it were to occur at all, it would be in the justification, but that is not what we are dealing with.
   Mrs Beer, please could you present the text of the amendment?
   .
I voted in favour of the report by Mr Krahmer on the proposal for a directive on the type-approval of motor vehicles with regard to their re-usability, recyclability and recoverability, for the following reasons:
Firstly, the directive attaches importance to the environment.
According to the proposal, at least 85% by mass of any vehicle should be re-usable and/or recyclable, and at least 95% by mass of any vehicle should be re-usable and/or recoverable.
Otherwise, the model in question cannot be placed on the market.
Secondly, the directive provides constructors and the type-approval authorities with a reasonable amount of time to carry out compliance checks on the 600 or so types on the market, a period that takes into account the car industry’s normal production cycles.
   .
I wish to congratulate Mr Krahmer on his important report on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the type-approval of motor vehicles with regard to their re-usability, recyclability and recoverability and amending Council Directive 70/156/EEC.
I support the report, in particular the guarantees provided by car manufacturers as regards the ‘re-usability’, ‘recyclability’ and ‘recoverability’ of their cars.
Following the Lisbon Strategy, the EU must not overlook environmental policy.
In this regard, one must agree that the manufacturer has a duty to prove that the vehicle concerned is environmentally friendly and to provide disposal firms with a detailed description of a recycling strategy.
Measures such as Member States appointing type-approval authorities to check whether cars are environmentally friendly, and the provision of a longer period in which to implement this directive, 54 months, will ensure that this directive will be properly transposed and that the car industry will be prepared for the entry into force of this Community initiative.
   I welcome the aim of these proposals to help reduce waste and provide information for consumers.
These proposals reinforce good practice already established in the UK where around 75% of the two million cars and vans reaching the end of their lives are traditionally recovered or re-used.
However, I have some reservations about the benefits of applying the design standard to existing vehicle types, in which case the economic and administrative burden may outweigh the environmental gain.
   We are in favour of Croatia, Serbia-Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Albania being more closely associated with the EU.
Once these countries fully comply with the Copenhagen criteria, they should become members.
That would be a natural development of the enlargement of the EU begun with the ten new members in May 2004.
We are opposed, however, to strengthening the EU’s foreign policy, which is in many respects the aim of the resolution.
   . The European Parliamentary Labour Party strongly supports the work being carried out tirelessly by Lord Ashdown, the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Of course, we would wish that the functions of the office of the High Representative are gradually incorporated into sovereign domestic institutions. However, in the interim period, It is vital that the High Representative retains the right to use the powers expressed in his mandate when the circumstances require it.
   .
When we adopt this report, among the various ideas of major importance, we must not overlook the importance of combating terrorism as one of the central planks of the EU’s common foreign and security policy.
Dialogue with third countries, international cooperation and the implementation of the 2004 EU/US Declaration are crucial factors in this regard.
Against this backdrop, it is essential that we share with our Atlantic allies an awareness of the serious nature of the threats hanging over the free world.
   To end this debate, I have received four motions for resolutions(1) which we will vote on this afternoon following the debates.
   The next item is the debate on the six motions for resolutions on Bangladesh(1).
   .
Mr President, when, in 1947, the enormous British colonial empire in South-Asia was divided on the basis of the regions’ predominant religion, the east of the province of Bengal was apportioned to the Muslim State of Pakistan.
It was an overpopulated and flood-prone area, which attracted the sympathy of the entire world, and, in 1971, it broke away from Pakistan, the faraway land in the west that had no interest whatsoever in helping to solve the problems of this eastern colony.
The new state could have made a good start had it, for example, followed the Dutch example of building sea walls and draining populated areas which flooded during storm tides; there would have been more space for the inhabitants and their food supply.
Instead, we witnessed in Bangladesh a grim, clan-based struggle between two parties that are fighting a feud while both denying each other’s right to exist.
In addition, the country has for some time been dominated by the sort of intolerant religious fanaticism that hardly existed in other parts of the Islamic world until 20 years ago.
This fanaticism leaves no room for religious minorities, including Ahmadiyya Muslims or Hindus.
Intimidation and violent attacks by government supporters go unpunished.
Paramilitary groups, which claiming to fight crime, commit acts of torture and murder.
Bangladesh is at risk of sliding into a spiral of self-destruction.
Widely supported though it has been, a statement denouncing intimidation, violence, torture, exemption from punishment and economic stagnation will do nothing to solve the problem; instead, it should be a starting point to determine how we in Europe can best deal with that unfortunate country in future.
That presupposes, at the very least, solidarity with the victims.
   – The state of Bangladesh was established in 1971 following a struggle for independence.
This predominantly Muslim country is attempting to find solutions to daunting problems in the face of a very high population density, natural disasters and poverty.
The resolution leads one to believe that very little progress has been made, and ignores the fact that successes have in fact been achieved; for example, the country produces enough food to feed its citizens.
It is a great shame that Bangladeshi government and opposition representatives could not have been asked in advance for their views on the resolution, which highlights the modest progress that has been made in a number of fields and emphasises the need to continue moving in the right direction.
The fact that they were not does not reflect well on the European Parliament.
Our attempts to boost democracy in the country are welcome, but it is a pity that we failed to mention any positive signs of democratic developments in the joint motion for a resolution.
Even though we disagree with a number of unproven statements in the resolution, we support the country’s progress towards democracy and hope it will continue, particularly with regard to preparations for the next parliamentary elections.
   .
Mr President, today is New Year’s Day in Bangladesh.
It is my heartfelt wish that the blessing of the Lord may rest upon that country’s leaders and its inhabitants for the New Year.
While there is room for improvement in Europe too, we also have a few suggestions for Bangladesh in terms of New Year’s resolutions.
Although it is regrettable that the constitution has since 1998 declared Islam the state religion, it does allow other religions to be professed, practised and propagated, so it is odd that it does not protect the ‘right to convert’.
Would it not be a sound resolve to better regulate the freedom of religion in the constitution and abolish state religion?
I should like to illustrate the need for this with a real-life example.
On Monday 4 April, reliable sources confirmed that Dulal Sarkar, a Christian, was killed on 8 March of this year.
He was the pastor of the Bangladesh Free Baptist Church in the village of Jalalpur in the south-western district of Khulna.
This man was simply doing his job and was not offending against the constitution in any way.
On his way home, he was attacked by ten armed Muslim extremists and subsequently beheaded.
These Muslim extremists are reported to have links with the Jamaat-e-Islami, a political party currently forming part of the government coalition.
Dulal Sarkar leaves behind his mother, his wife and five children, and at present, his wife and family are forced to move from house to house in an effort to avoid retaliatory action from Muslim extremists.
The draft resolution that we co-signed is therefore extremely clear.
We are indeed deeply concerned about growing Muslim fundamentalism with its paramilitary groups and the abuse of power by fundamentalist Muslim parties.
I am at the same time emphatically opposed to moderating amendments that have been tabled in respect of this unambiguous draft resolution.
I urge the Council and the Commission, in conjunction with the State Department referred to in citation 2(2), to fight these expressions of Muslim fundamentalism.
This can be done by applying the penalties referred to in cooperation agreements to violations of democratic principles, all of this in a bid to improve the plight of the Bengali citizens.
   The next item is the debate on the five motions for resolutions on humanitarian assistance to refugees from Western Sahara(1).
   . Mr President, the reason why we have again, today, been discussing humanitarian aid for refugees from the Western Sahara is that their homeland was not decolonised in the way planned by the United Nations as long ago as 1965, but has instead been occupied for over 30 years by its neighbour, Morocco.
At the beginning of March, a number of us MEPs visited the refugee camps, where the conditions are very difficult, and were able to inform ourselves about not only the political, but also the humanitarian, situation.
As we know that their most important food reserves will be exhausted by the end of next month, we call on ECHO and the Commission not only to provide immediate aid measures, but also to give the amounts that were laid down in 2002.
I believe that the change in ECHO’s policy, which now involves channelling aid through the World Food Programme, has brought problems in its train in so far as it now adds up to less aid for an increasing number of Saharan refugees and also less variety in the types of aid provided.
This House must play its part in securing for the people of the Sahara not only humanitarian aid, but also self-determination, to both of which they are entitled.
   The next item is the debate on the five motions for resolutions on Lampedusa(1).
   Mr Romagnoli, you have made your point of order, but unfortunately I cannot deal with it, for the simple reason that you should have raised this issue 24 hours before this debate.
The debate was arranged at the Conference of Presidents, no point of order was raised 24 hours before, so I cannot deal with your point of order.
   .
Mr President, for people who have had to leave their countries of origin as a result of oppression, war, disasters and poverty, the Mediterranean Sea is an important gate to Europe.
If Europe fails to do enough towards easing the problems in Asia and Africa, an increasing number of people will take the risk of entering Europe using dilapidated dinghies and neglected ships.
That is, of course, a problem for Europe and, above all, for the countries around the Mediterranean.
This additional burden does not justify the infringement of human rights.
These refugees are equally entitled to an individual assessment of their motives and the correct application of the 1951 Geneva Convention.
The same cannot be said for the hundreds of refugees who have been sent from the Italian island Lampedusa to Libya over the past few months, because that country does not recognise the Geneva Convention, and the agreements Italy has with Libya are not public.
Between arrival in Europe and possible return to the country of origin, European law should apply rather than the arbitrariness of a country with a non-transparent government.
Adoption of the two amendments tabled by the Liberals and Amendments 2 and 3 from the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left will make that possible and will stress that these refugees have the same rights as other refugees and cannot simply be moved on to Libya without Europe taking any responsibility.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 14 April 2005.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Coveney on the Annual Report on Human Rights in the World 2004 and the EU's policy on the matter [2004/2151(INI)] (A6-0086/2005).
Mr Almunia is present for this purpose, replacing Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, who is in Luxembourg.
   . Mr President, the 2004 human rights report has turned out to be an honest and balanced document, and I too should like to thank the rapporteur for his efforts.
Initially, though, it was to be feared that this report would be marred by the same lack of consistency and coherence as the human rights policy of the Council and the Member States that very often demand sanctions against poor countries from the south but turn a blind eye to serious human rights violations in more economically interesting countries.
It would have been unacceptable if Parliament had once again agreed to human rights being made subordinate to economic or commercial interests.
Thanks to the rapporteur’s openness and willingness to listen, however, the report as it stands does not evade the more delicate points.
All problems are tackled, irrespective of the size or economic interest of the countries involved.
It is high time, I think, that the Council and Member States followed the same course; if not, the European Union is at risk of rapidly losing its credibility as protector and guardian of human rights worldwide.
This was once again evident recently during the 61st meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where no resolutions were submitted on China, Russia or Iran.
There is, I believe, a clear need for better coordination, more circulation of information and less ambivalence.
I am pleased that the report takes note of positive developments, including in a number of developing countries, particularly in Africa, despite the major political and economic problems with which the black continent still has to contend.
The successful reconciliation process in Rwanda, Burundi and in other countries illustrates that progress is definitely possible.
Africa is at a turning point and the European Union must continue to support the fragile, early successes on that continent.
The Coveney Report is right to press for closer cooperation with the International Criminal Court in the fight to ensure that crimes do not go unpunished.
After all, democracy and reconciliation go hand in hand with justice.
Quite a few developing countries, however, are under enormous pressure from the United States to undermine the Criminal Court’s good work.
If the European Union and the Member States are really serious about the ICC, they must give those countries that refuse to bow to US threats economic and commercial compensation using all the means at their disposal.
The ICC has meanwhile launched inquiries into the situation in Congo and also Northern Uganda where the population continues to suffer at the hands of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and their terrorist activities.
Entire villages are being massacred and burnt down; children are abducted and used as soldiers or sex slaves, yet it would take only a small-scale, limited military effort to put the LRA out of action for good and to put a stop to the most serious human rights violations in the world.
Unfortunately for the population who have to experience the cruelties on a daily basis, Northern Uganda has no oil, coltan or other raw materials that might induce the international community to take an interest in it.
The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe has tabled a limited number of amendments, one of which stresses the need for enforcing the arms embargo against China until such time as the Chinese Government demonstrates that new anti-secession laws do not entail any aggression in respect of the Taiwanese population.
If this amendment is approved, my group will support the Coveney report with even more conviction.
   . Mr President, I can fully identify with the appeal in paragraph 22 of the Coveney Report.
The new Palestinian leadership must put a stop to terrorist acts directed against Israel.
The Council, the Commission and Parliament should also endorse this urgent appeal; if they do not, we might as well give up all hope of a resumption of the peace talks.
Meanwhile, the forthcoming Palestinian parliamentary elections present the European institutions with a serious and urgent problem, in the shape of participation by Hamas, the Islamic organisation that features on the EU’s terror list with good reason.
In fact, Hamas is expected to achieve good results in the ballot.
How do the Council and the Commission intend to respond to that? Israel’s Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, fears that, after the parliamentary elections, the European Union will no longer consider Hamas a terrorist movement, and he is prepared to continue talks about a peace deal only as and when the Palestinian militant groups are completely disarmed and dismantled.
If I remember rightly, the European Union made the same demands of the Palestinian Authority years ago.
What will the Council and the Commission say to the Israeli Prime Minister? Whatever the case may be, you cannot tell this House that the inclusion of political parties with a military arm, in other words terrorist units, would be of any benefit whatever to the democratisation process in the Middle East, a region in which I would urge you to act consistently.
A clear and principled European position of this kind will help the Israelis and Palestinians to reach a reasonable political settlement on human rights and human lives in that region.
   Mr President, for years, this House has – as is only right and proper – taken a sympathetic line on the cause of human rights worldwide.
When this report then establishes that Moldova’s competing parties did not have equal access to the media in the previous ballot result and could not count on impartial coverage about the campaign, I am pleased that the rapporteur is concerned about such values as free expression of opinion and an independent press.
In countries such as Algeria and Saudi Arabia, too, those values, according to this report, are trampled underfoot on a massive scale.
This report, though, is very selective – after all, you do not talk about rope in the house of a man who hanged himself.
Indeed, it could have occurred to the rapporteur that Belgium, which is, after all, the country in which this Parliament is based, suffers the same ailments as Moldova, Algeria and so many other countries.
In my country, VRT, the public broadcasting corporation, which is funded by all Flemish taxpayers, has, in totalitarian fashion, decreed that it will not invite the largest party in Flanders, the , to appear, which amounts, in effect, to censoring it.
So it is that Flanders’ only opposition party is formally denied access to the public broadcasting corporation and gagged in the best tradition of the former East Germany.
From now on, a politburo of left and far-left editors-in-chief, not unlike the Soviet Union’s former People’s Commissioners, will decide whether reports about my party can be broadcast; only those that depict the party in a bad light will be.
No greater obsequiousness and venal sycophancy in respect of the establishment has ever before been displayed in the EU by publicly-paid journalists.
The freedom of expression and the right to information from varied sources has become a joke in Belgium; this is completely at odds with the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and the principles enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I would urge all my fellow MEPs, irrespective of their party political allegiance, to sign the written declaration which we submitted today to lodge their concern about this of the media in my country and to denounce the totalitarian attitude of Belgian radio and television.
   Mr President, Mrs Flautre, who is generally scathing in her comments, has congratulated the rapporteur.
I would not dare do otherwise, therefore, and I thank him in my turn.
I would, however, like to say that the report on human rights is a virtually impossible exercise.
There are in fact at least three traps into which it can fall.
The first is for there to be no consistency between one human rights report and the next.
I would like to tell Mr Szymański we voted in favour of the right to reproductive health as a human right last year: I hope we will do the same this year.
The second trap is that of double standards.
I am, for example, amazed to find a whole paragraph on Morocco, which has made constructive efforts on human rights, but to find only one line on other countries that are blatantly violating human rights.
It is the law of the genre.
A third trap is perhaps lack of transparency.
We have in fact compromised in some areas, and as they stand some paragraphs suggest we have been less critical of great powers than we would have liked.
I will say no more about that; it is somewhat inevitable in an exercise like a human rights report.
More seriously, I would like to say that it is clear that there are some paragraphs which my party will not accept, paragraph 78 in particular, which condemns the Council for lifting sanctions against Cuba.
I would like to tell the Council that I welcome this act of openness.
I do not think that economic sanctions have ever helped democracy; on the contrary, they have served to completely harm and weaken nations.
There are therefore some paragraphs, some amendments to which my Group will be particularly sensitive and which will determine its vote at the end of the day.
That has, however, nothing to do with the qualities of the rapporteur, whom I thank once again.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as citizens of the new Member States we are fortunate enough to be able to say that we are no longer directly affected by the problem of human rights, which is a major issue and the subject of our debate today.
Human rights are no longer being violated in our countries in the way they were for 50 years, firstly during German occupation and then under a Communist regime.
Nevertheless, we cannot ignore the fact that human rights are still continually and grossly violated all over the world, and this is something of which we should be thoroughly ashamed.
The motives behind these violations are quite basic, yet they are intolerable and there should be no place for them in the world today.
One of these motives is religion, with Catholics being persecuted in a great many countries.
In modern-day China, for example, Catholics are deprived of any rights, and the same is true in a great many other countries.
The burning of churches and related events in Indonesia must surely still be fresh in your minds.
Another motive is nationality.
I find it astonishing that a country like China can persecute people it calls its own citizens, especially given that these people are not in fact Chinese citizens.
The people of Tibet are actually entitled to a country of their own.
I find it equally astonishing that the world can stand by and watch, and that there have even been calls to lift the embargo against China.
This embargo has no real effect, of course, but it testifies to our moral beliefs, and we should act in accordance with such beliefs in this instance.
As far as Chechnya is concerned, I find it incomprehensible that Russia can now be considered a political partner like any other, when this is a country that not only murdered a moderate Chechen politician, but also acted in a barbaric manner by refusing to give up his body, and said that he had been buried in an unmarked grave because he deserved nothing better.
Similar instances of countries acting like outlaws by persecuting their own citizens can be seen in Cuba and Belarus.
This was also what happened in Darfur, and yet the world does virtually nothing in response to events of this kind, although I am of course aware that these issues have been discussed in this House.
Persecution of this kind is equivalent to hunting Pygmies with the sole aim of treating them like common game, and it is an extremely serious problem.
In colonial times, countries took responsibility, to a greater or lesser degree, for ensuring that order prevailed in their colonies.
Today, however, we are frequently confronted with what amounts to conspiracies between entrepreneurs.
The latter corrupt local rulers in order to exploit the former colonies in a way that surpasses even the exploitation they suffered in colonial times.
These entrepreneurs are not subject to any kind of checks by their home countries.
In fact the opposite is true, as they have the backing of these countries.
In view of this, I would ask for an investigation to be opened into the following case, which has been covered by the press.
A case has been filed with the Paris Military Court regarding the complicity of French soldiers in the genocide and crimes against humanity committed in Rwanda in 1994.
Institutions such as the European Parliament have a duty to act as guardians of fundamental human rights, and to monitor the world’s largest countries in order to ensure that they are not collaborating in these gross violations of human rights.
   Mr Coveney’s report exudes strength, is balanced, and, if Europe wants to prove its reputation in the world as an exporter of human rights, it will do well to adopt this report in its entirety as its key asset in foreign policy and also for the coming conference in Geneva.
I should like to mention three points from it: first of all in my capacity of Vice-Chairman for the delegation in Central Asia.
The report is right to put its finger on the sore spot in a number of countries, Uzbekistan, in particular.
I know that the Uzbekistani Government claims there are no political prisoners, but you can also get politicians behind bars on a different charge, which has happened, and has not been resolved as yet.
This is, in fact, also evident from the Council of Europe’s report further to the most recent parliamentary elections in Uzbekistan.
The second point which illustrates that international pressure can be effective, is the situation in Kyrgyzstan.
What matters now is for that region to be taken seriously and monitoring to be continued.
The third point concerns the freedom of the press in Kazakhstan.
Only recently, Irina Petrushova was locked up on account of possible offences completely unrelated to her work, except that she happens to be the most prominent journalist for the opposition newspaper in Kazakhstan.
We in this House must continue to put countries like those under pressure, because we have a great deal in common with them; they can take a step forward and we can help them achieve this.
My final point concerns the situation in Iran and that country’s way of dealing with people who do not adhere to the main religion, in this case Islam.
It was found once again recently that Hamid Pourmand, a former army colonel, had been sentenced to death, his only offence being that he is a Christian.
For that reason, he should not have served in the army, although his religious conviction was known.
An appeal from this House, in this specific case where a death sentence is pending, is of the utmost importance.
I should once again like to congratulate Mr Coveney, and I hope that the Council and the Commission will take this report very seriously as an asset in our foreign policy in the field of human rights.
      Mr President, I should like to focus on the paragraph in the report that relates to Belarus, a country which, according to the report, increasingly resembles an island in the midst of Europe.
Members of the opposition have been kidnapped and murdered, elections rigged, demonstrators imprisoned and the press gagged.
On top of all of this, the authorities have recently banned citizens from studying abroad without their consent, and imposed restrictions on trips to work legally in other countries.
Polish citizens are also being given the opportunity to experience the ‘blessings’ of this kolkhoz-style Communism at first hand, as several of them have had their lorries and cars confiscated for transporting three cartons of cigarettes.
I find it quite astonishing that we can stand idly by, and even draft European principles of cross-border cooperation, when not a day passes without us hearing of fresh violations of human rights in a country that is a direct neighbour of the EU.
Only yesterday, more than 40 demonstrators were arrested for attempting to commemorate the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
The efforts of the Commission and the Council have merely served to hold back the process of transformation in Belarus, as nearly six months have passed since Parliament’s resolution on the matter, and precisely nothing has happened.
Projects intended to promote civil society have got stuck at the stage of analysis, discussion and ordered debates at countless seminars and summit meetings.
The Commission does not believe that funding radio stations to broadcast from neighbouring countries would provide added value.
In other words, it does not perceive any benefit in values such as freedom of the media, or in providing a source of information other than the Belarussian propaganda.
There is now talk of pursuing a common policy on Belarus with Russia.
In this connection, I would ask what kind of human rights we would be able to protect in Belarus by cooperating with Russia, and how we would be able to protect them.
Would this entail waiting until the hysterical dictator has wronged even more of his fellow citizens? Alternatively, should we leave it to the Americans to come up with a solution to problems in a country bordering the EU, merely because we are more interested in what is going on in Madagascar?
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, debates and speeches on the Roma, commonly known as gypsies in Polish, are something I have grown accustomed to since my election to the European Parliament. Who are the Roma, and what do we mean by this term?
Are they an ethnic group, as stated in the motion for a resolution, or a stateless nation? If we agree that they are an ethnic group, consisting of citizens of all the EU Member States, then the solution to these problems is relatively straightforward.
After all, each Member State has to ensure that its citizens enjoy the same rights and are treated equally, without being subjected to discrimination or xenophobia.
We should bear in mind, however, that as well as rights, citizens also have certain duties, towards both the country they live in and the other people who live there.
If we understand the Roma to be a stateless nation, then things start to look a great deal worse, if not hopeless.
We must ask ourselves who is to defend this nation, as the answer to this question would be a starting point from which we could find a solution to the problems.
The debate on this issue has recently become more heated because two new countries, Romania and Bulgaria, are in the process of joining the European Union.
Romania is generally considered to be the Roma’s main homeland, although they originally come from the distant land of India.
For over 600 years, the Roma have either not wanted to or not been able to assimilate into society in the countries in which they live.
Feelings of mutual animosity have become more pronounced during this time, rather than less so.
Even though many different measures have been taken to narrow the gap in development, education and standard of living that exists between the Roma and the rest of the population, this gap is in fact widening.
      Mr President, Mr Roszkowski and I requested that Parliament should commemorate and pay tribute to the officers that were brutally and deliberately murdered in Katyn in April 1940 in an act of terrorism by the Soviet NKVD, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs.
We received an answer from the President of Parliament saying that we must never forget dates and tragedies of this kind that are part of our history, and I am much obliged to him for this.
At the same time, however, he informed us that the Bureau had decided not to hold a minute’s silence for the victims of this crime, and I find this most regrettable.
Before I make a proposal to the House, I should therefore like to use ten seconds of my speaking time to pay tribute to the officers who died in Katyn and to their families.
Other Members may wish to join me in observing this silence.
Mr President, I propose that Parliament proclaim 5 March the day of the fight against all kinds of totalitarianism.
Stalin’s gang took this barbaric genocide decision on 5 March 1940.
   Mr President, most people know that 1 May is International Workers’ Day, but I wonder how many people know that tomorrow, 28 April, is International Workers’ Memorial Day? That is the day we remember those who have been killed in the workplace or by illnesses related to their work.
Health and safety at work has of course improved over the last few years in the European Union, partly due to the legislation we have adopted ourselves.
However, the ILO estimates that there is still one death globally every 15 seconds at work, that is 6 000 people dying every day, and it is said that work kills more people than war.
By remembering those who have died, we can do more to prevent accidents at work.
A local campaign in my constituency, organised by Herbert Styles, tried to persuade governments to do more by formally recognising International Workers’ Memorial Day.
That is why I am asking colleagues and our President, whose own country, Spain, recognises International Workers’ Memorial Day, to try to have that day formally recognised, so that we think about accidents at work.
   Mr President, as Chairman of the Delegation for relations with the countries of the South Caucasus, I very much hope that the European Parliament commemorates the 90th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.
They represent ninety years that have seen the Armenian people living haunted by the past and awaiting recognition of this genocide: recognition by the world as witness, as our European Parliament did in 1987, and recognition by the perpetrators as culprits.
This recognition is a long time coming, as we are dealing with the realm of pure emotions and extreme sensitivity.
I remain convinced, however, that this moment will come, and it is the responsibility of the Union to encourage it.
In the framework of accession negotiations with Turkey, the Union must help the Turkish people and authorities to begin their memorial work, as Germany did in seeking forgiveness from the Jewish people.
We must prevail upon Turkish society to recognise the Armenian genocide of 1919.
I am hopeful, particularly today thanks to the agreement by the Armenian authorities to participate in an intergovernmental committee with Turkey on the genocide.
I am truly convinced that Armenians and Turks will be able to find the road to reconciliation so that they may live together as good neighbours.
   Mr President, I should simply like to draw the attention of the House to a very serious matter: 40 Kurdish citizens have reached their 30th day on hunger strike because they are appealing to be allowed to stay in Belgium, on the grounds of a request for political asylum.
Some of these people are in an extremely serious condition.
I have sent an open letter to the Ministry of the Interior asking it to provide subsidiary protection which, partly through the third European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights of 15 December 1980, could allow these people to remain in Belgium for the time being, even without political asylum.
A delegation from Parliament will be going to the tomorrow at 9.30 to show their solidarity with these 40 Kurds who are risking their lives.
      Mr President, even when my home country, Poland, was under Communist rule, encouraging children to drink was frowned upon.
Those parents who gave alcohol to their underage children, either for the sake of a bit of peace and quiet or because they were oblivious of the consequences, came in for much criticism.
Most of the families involved were socially disadvantaged, and unaware of the harm caused by alcohol and other addictive substances.
The end result of addiction will always be a cycle of destruction and self-destruction that causes enormous physical and mental suffering.
This is true at any age, but particularly in the case of young people.
I therefore find it reprehensible and utterly disgusting that companies are producing various alcoholic drinks targeted at children, such as ‘alcopops’ that look like orangeade, or powdered alcohol in sachets.
During one of the meetings of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, we heard that the Commission tolerates such products in its role as guardian of the free market.
Yet the fact that our markets have been liberalised cannot be taken to mean that companies are free to encourage children or young people to get drunk.
We are therefore calling on the EU institutions, , to comply with EU legislation, and for strict penalties to be imposed on anyone who breaks the rules on underage drinking, or who breaches the ban on producing ingenious alcoholic drinks that are targeted at children and young people and intended to get them addicted to alcohol.
   Mr President, for the next few weeks, throughout Europe the attention of the media and also of various conferences will focus on what experience has been gained from the first year of the EU’s historic enlargement.
For the 100 million citizens of the ten new Member States, May 1 is not only associated with Labour Day, but also marks our return to and reuniting with Europe, and this is what we will celebrate in my home country, Hungary, on that day.
We came with enormous expectations, and I admit, the day we gained full membership rights to the EU was anticipated with a bit of scepticism.
This one-minute speech does not allow for any deliberation on what experience was gained during the first year following the enlargement.
On behalf of the 106 new representatives, however, I would like to take this festive moment to thank the long-standing members for their friendship, helpfulness, tolerance and solidarity.
Your help has greatly encouraged us to take an active and responsible part in our united work today in the interest of our countries, parties and in the interest of every citizen of the EU.
   Mr President, I must protest most strongly at the alarming censorship carried out by the European Parliament in preventing the screening of the film in the Press Room on 20 April.
I consider this to be an unacceptable act.
The very same film has, for months and months, been the subject of censorship enforced by means of terror by Islamic fundamentalists, to whom we owe the assassination of the film director, Theo van Gogh.
I call on the President of the European Parliament to lift this ban, which does no credit to our Parliament and which conflicts with the principle of freedom of expression. In particular, it conflicts with the principle of freedom of artistic expression, upon which, I believe, our coexistence and the legal order of the European Union are founded.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as representatives of the new EU Member States, we have been somewhat disturbed by the latest news on the Luxembourg Presidency’s proposals concerning the European Union’s budget for 2007-2013.
These proposals will place the new Member States, in particular the Czech Republic and Hungary, but also my country, Poland, at a disadvantage.
This is mainly a result of proposals to reduce the share of GDP paid into the EU budget by the Member States and to lower the aid ceiling to below 4% of GDP, which would be particularly unfair. I should like to make it very clear that this would amount to nothing less than unilateral amendments to the treaties on accession concluded with Poland and the other new Member States.
Is this all that remains of the much-vaunted European solidarity we heard about before the accession referendums in our countries?
Is this the best example we can set of European cohesion? These are the questions you should be asking yourselves, ladies and gentlemen, and the questions to which all of us in this House should provide an answer that is both honest and sincere.
   Dear colleagues, I still would like to come back to the history of the Romany Gypsies.
The present and its problems always have a connection to the past that we need to know.
In particular, when it is about human tragedies, which followed the greatest Jewish tragedy, that are, however, forgotten, since they are the tragedies of smaller nations, such as the genocide of the Romany or Chechen-Ingush people carried out during the Second World War, and the Chechen genocide last year was acknowledged by the European Parliament.
A week ago I visited a small exhibition in our Parliament that moved me.
It seems this has already been discussed here.
That was the former Romany concentration camp, Lety, in the present Czech Republic, at those times under Nazi occupation.
Few exhibits, but they cannot leave one untouched.
For example, that picture which is here – tens of small, lovely and merry children, obviously, black-haired and black-eyed, who are most probably condemned to death.
And in the former camp buildings there is neither a museum nor a memorial place to respect the sufferings, but a piggery.
Nobody would dare to treat the barracks of Auschwitz in this way; therefore, here we have unequal opportunities as well, even if we talk differently.
I ask my colleagues from the Czech Republic to do their best to change the present situation at Lety.
Thank you.
   Mr President, something is not quite right. How can it be possible?
I hear from Mr Agnoletto that a minority of Kurds are here in serious difficulties and are claiming asylum in Belgium. Is it not true, however, that the Kurds, like the surviving Armenians – if there are still any of them left – are a Turkish minority?
If they are being persecuted, how can the Union have begun Turkey’s accession process, in violation of the foundations of the Treaties? I call upon the Commission and the President to be vigilant and to suspend accession negotiations with Turkey.
   Mr President, I would like to raise an urgent matter concerning the operations of a Turkish-owned bank in the Netherlands known as Finansbank.
It has facilitated the laundering of up to EUR 30 million from a Turkish construction company located in the Republic of Ireland.
This money belonged to the 800 or so Turkish workers working for this company in Ireland.
The money was transferred without the knowledge of the workers concerned.
It was subsequently transferred by Finansbank to another company called Ryder Investments.
As far as I am concerned this is money laundering: the illegal transfer of money not belonging to Gama to another bank in the Netherlands and subsequently to another bank.
We have to investigate the operations of Finansbank, we have to investigate the operations of Gama, and we have to tell the Turkish authorities that companies incorporated in Turkey must comply with European law when they operate in the European Union.
I am in favour of the Turkish Republic joining the European Union, but this kind of activity will undermine its efforts to do so.
It is also important to recognise that Gama is currently in the process of seeking to dismiss the workers who blew the whistle on this scam.
Gama is, in my view, in breach of the anti-discrimination directives.
It is also in breach of the directives that oblige the company to inform the workers of its intentions.
I would appreciate it if the President would convey my comments to the Commission President.
I am happy that Commissioner Špidla is in the Chamber at the moment and I hope he has taken note of my remarks because they are serious: they are not made lightly.
These investigations have to be carried out.
    The next item is the report (A6-0085/2005) by Mr Cabrnoch on modernising social protection and developing good quality health care [2004/2189(INI)].
   Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Cabrnoch, the report reminds us that health care accounts for only 10% of an individual’s state of health.
The remaining 90% is determined by many other factors, such as social situation, the lack of jobs and feelings of insecurity amongst those with no means of making a living.
Even though the Member States are responsible for public health care, I therefore believe that the European Union should draw up a set of minimum social standards.
This would guarantee a minimum of social protection in all Member States, whilst still allowing the richer countries to provide better welfare and health care systems.
In my opinion, the European Union should have the right to be informed of the minimum levels of social benefits in the individual Member States.
In Poland this figure currently stands at EUR 100, although our dream is to achieve EUR 250.
The EU should also be informed of the situation with regard to health care.
Polish doctors earn EUR 400 a month at present, and rely on bribes to supplement their income.
   – Mr President, the Communist Party of Greece will be voting against the report misleadingly entitled 'Modernising social protection and developing good quality healthcare', because it contains reactionary assessments and objectives for further promoting the commercialisation of healthcare, swelling the private business groups which control the healthcare sectors and drug production and increasing their profits. This has painful consequences for public health and leeches the income of the grass-roots.
The patient is a customer.
Basically, there is no health policy.
Health and safety at work regulations are primitive.
On an annual basis, 40% of healthcare services provided are covered by workers' wages.
Health is increasingly being integrated into the more general anti-grass roots policy of the European Union.
Responsibility for the protection of health is being individualised and the healthcare services market is being fully liberalised, following the sweeping changes in industrial relations and in social insurance, such as the organisation of working times, the increase in the retirement age, the reduction in pensions and so on.
Healthcare should not be a commodity.
It should be a free, quality service provided on an equal footing to everyone by the state alone.
The pharmaceutical and biomedical technology sectors, production and marketing should belong to the state and should be controlled by society.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0092/2005) by Mr Hughes, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2062/94 establishing a European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (COM(2004)0050 – C6 0014/2004 – 2004/0014(CNS)).
   The next item is the report (A6-0087/2005) by Mrs van den Burg, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the current state of integration of EU financial markets (2005/2026(INI)).
   A few years ago, American financier George Soros deplored the billion-dollar losses of his companies carrying out financial operations, and urged the governments of the most powerful countries of the world to address the organisation and the introduction of clear rules and order in the world financial markets.
Operations on the world financial markets and, in particular, trade in derivatives recorded a literally explosive growth in recent years.
Their volumes and growth of dynamics exceed many times those of classical financial operations involving real production, services and consumption of products.
Any fluctuation in or, at worst, a collapse of even one part of these markets may have serious consequences for the world economy, not to speak of the fact that every negative development on financial markets has repercussions for personal finances and fates of ordinary citizens.
In this regard, I appreciate the presented material and good work of rapporteur Ieke van den Burg as another contribution to devising a conceptual solution in this field not only within the European Union, but with the ambition of an intercontinental approach.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0065/2005) by Henrik Lax, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 539/2001 as regards the reciprocity mechanism (COM(2004)0437 – C6-0097/2004 – 2004/0141(CNS)).
      Mr President, Commissioner, the concept of reciprocity is as old as the history of international relations.
It has its roots in the tradition of mutual respect and equal treatment for citizens of different countries.
Until 1 May 2004, this was an obvious principle for the old Member States and was not open to question.
After the 10 new Member States joined the EU, however, people’s attitudes towards this principle suddenly began to change.
They began to practice , which essentially means watering down one’s principles so that they correspond to reality, rather than changing reality so that it fits one’s principles.
In my opinion, the proposal for a Council Regulation amending the Regulation on the reciprocity mechanism is a further example of .
These amendments are unacceptable to Polish citizens for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Poles have always regarded the lack of reciprocity in visa arrangements with certain countries, in particular the United States, as unfair.
Secondly, they had every right to expect that when we joined the European Union, which is a community of nations, this community would take on some of the responsibility for defending Poland’s interests, in line with the principle of subsidiarity in its broadest sense.
Once again, however, their expectations were dashed, and the musketeers’ magnificent cry of ‘one for all and all for one’, something I am sure we have all heard before, was consigned to the realms of fiction.
This is another reason why I cannot vote in favour of this report, even though, or perhaps precisely because, I hold both Polish and American citizenship.
On a loosely related note, I cannot help but wonder what has happened to the integrity of the European Union’s policy.
I would ask the Commissioner and the President how the international European Community can be expected to wield any power on the international scene if we make such far-reaching concessions in a matter such as this, which appears to be quite straightforward.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0084/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Council common position for adopting a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement of 14 June 1985 on the gradual abolition of checks at common borders as regards access to the Schengen Information System by the services in the Member States responsible for issuing registration certificates for vehicles (14238/1/2004 – C6-0007/2005 – 2003/0198(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Coelho).
   . Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Coelho, for his report.
Our aim is to prevent and combat the illegal trade in stolen vehicles and improve the functioning of the internal market.
The proposal we are discussing today also offers a better use of the largest European database on stolen vehicles, the Schengen Information System.
The financial interests at stake are huge since annually millions of cars are registered and every 10 or 15 seconds a car is stolen, which has also been underlined by the rapporteur.
Since vehicle theft is one of the foremost crimes to affect citizens directly, our working together to reduce it will have an immeasurable impact on their security.
We propose that under certain conditions national vehicle registration authorities should be allowed to consult the SIS data registers on stolen vehicles and stolen vehicle documents, prior to registering a vehicle that is already registered in another Schengen state.
This information will make it more difficult to sell stolen vehicles in other Schengen states.
At the same time, it will increase victims’ chances of reclaiming their lost property.
This is an excellent way in which Europe can serve its citizens and promote concrete operational cooperation.
Our proposal will also make the law enforcement process more manageable by facilitating access to information.
I agree with the rapporteur that the current situation is far from transparent.
In view of the millions of cars that are presented for registration each year, authorities lack resources to check all cars in accordance with current requirements.
Our proposal will grant this access on the basis of a transparent and common set of rules and data protection principles.
Compliance with the rules will be monitored in a manner similar to other searches in the SIS.
Data protection considerations made us differentiate between access arrangements for public and for private vehicle registration bodies.
Finally, the Commission welcomes the amendments proposed by the European Parliament, in particular Amendment 3, which allows for a reporting system with a view to collecting reliable data.
Obviously when the SIS II is in place a systematic reporting system will be guaranteed by the Commission.
   The next item is the question by Karl-Heinz Florenz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, to the Commission, on the Commission’s strategy for the first Conference of the Parties on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) (O-0042/2005 – B6-0171/2005).
   . Mr President, I agree with almost everything Mrs Doyle said and I should like to say that, with the entry into force of the Stockholm Convention, twelve of the most dangerous substances in the world will gradually be abolished.
Nonetheless, if this Convention is to come up to our expectations, it must be applied correctly and must gather momentum by including new substances as time goes by.
Numerous important issues will be discussed and decided at the first conference of the parties, which will also lay the foundations for the future development of the Convention.
The general objective is to ensure that the decisions taken by the first conference will allow for the effective application and further development of the Convention.
Of course, if we are to succeed, the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee must first be set up, so that it can start examining new proposals for the addition of other organic pollutants to the list.
The Commission has already determined other substances; as Mrs Doyle said, they were confined to three and, as far as I know, this has not changed since.
In all events, the debate is continuing on the timetable and for submitting proposals and I believe and hope that the European Union will table good proposals during the first conference of the parties.
Secondly, and most importantly, greater progress is needed with the gradual abolition of the use and release into the environment of the twelve persistent organic pollutants on the current list, especially DDT, which you quite rightly said is still needed to combat malaria in certain developing countries.
However, the first conference must find ways to help limit the reliance on DDT, such as by promoting research into alternative means and providing technical and financial support.
Similarly, the first conference must set further measures in motion in a bid to restrict the risks from the use and availability of PCBs, on the one hand, and to reduce and prevent the release into the environment of derivative organic pollutants, especially chlorinated dioxins and furans, on the other.
The third basic objective of decisive importance for the first conference is to complete the institutional framework needed so that the Convention can be applied in practice.
In particular, substantial progress needs to be made in developing suitable compliance mechanisms and procedures.
With regard to point 9 of the resolution, I think that it is the Commission's duty to include Members of the European Parliament in this sort of delegation and may I say that, from my own personal experience, we have cooperated excellently in two instances, once in Buenos Aires and once at the conference on sustainable development in New York last week which was also attended by Members of the European Parliament, where we managed through exchanges not only of views, but also of advice, opinions and, in particular, political judgments on certain issues, to promote the issues to which these conferences were devoted.
At the same time, we succeeded, with the three institutions, in projecting a very good and united image of the European Union to the outside world, mainly by using press conferences at which we appeared together and seemed united and unified in our opinions, thereby improving the image of the European Union.
In other words, we had both positive material results and results from the point of view of communications.
That is why I consider, therefore, that the participation of Members of the European Parliament is essential; I always think that it is absolutely crucial and I also recommend it to my other colleagues in the European Commission.
   At the end of the debate, I have received a motion for a resolution pursuant to Rule 108(5) of the Rules of Procedure.(1)
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
   The next item is the report (A6-0061/2005) by Mrs Klaß on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the protection of groundwater against pollution.
   . – Groundwater is a unique natural resource of tremendous value, which is why it must be protected effectively.
In our opinion, we need clear criteria for examining the qualitative status of water and a common European denominator, so that these criteria are comparable.
We therefore support the need for the gradual elaboration of a common European policy for protecting groundwater, which will, however, also take account of the specific characteristics of each area.
We attach exceptional importance to the compromise amendment which we have signed together with other political groups on Article 6, in which we state our wish for intensive protection.
The scope of Article 6 must not be confined merely to indirect discharges to groundwater.
We also support the need for a list to be created by the Member States, which will include the pollutants which are of specific concern in a river basin district.
As there is no European definition of the best practice for farming, we call on the Member States to take additional measures to prevent pollution in this sector.
At the same time, farmers need to be supported in their effort to achieve a cleaner environment through rural development programmes, so that the objectives both of the Water Framework Directive and the Groundwater Directive can be achieved.
We also propose that the Member States list and conduct a midterm assessment of measures taken to prevent pollution.
In this way, prevention can be strengthened and irreversible consequences avoided.
The emphasis on prevention, the strict protection of groundwater and measures to prevent its deterioration are both necessary and an investment for future generations.
That is why I totally fail to understand those who say that they have no money to invest in the future, in the environment or in our children.
   . Mr President, in the eleven years I have been a Member of this House now, I have rarely come across a rapporteur who himself presented a minority view on a report.
In all honesty, I find it a bit strange that Mrs Klaß did exactly that.
Her point is that the amendments adopted in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety leave too much room for Member States’ own policy.
I can only stress at this point that I consider the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety to have done the right thing in adopting these amendments; after all, groundwater is mainly a national issue.
When the framework directive on water was discussed, it was acknowledged that groundwater should be treated separately.
Not least because of the subsidiarity principle, there can be no legal basis for this daughter directive other than Article 175(1).
Groundwater is an endangered natural resource; we do well to give it our attention by exchanging best practice and encouraging better protection, but this is not the place for rigid Europe-wide standards.
We already know that it is extremely difficult to measure the content of a substance in groundwater objectively for a region, never mind a Member State.
For example, the concentration level of chloride can vary between 20 mg/l and more than 10 000 mg/l within a 10 km radius.
Finally, I should like to briefly draw the Members’ attention to the issue surrounding the ban on dumping.
Amendment 43 is crucial in this respect.
Due to the way in which drinking water is extracted in some of the Member States, namely via infiltration of surface water, it is extremely important not to introduce an absolute dumping ban.
I would therefore ask you to vote against Amendment 43, while Amendment 103 of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe is acceptable.
I eagerly await the outcome of the forthcoming vote, although I cannot guarantee that I will be very pleased with it.
That will depend on which amendments this House adopts.
   Mr President, today sees us facing a major political challenge.
It is our duty to prevent natural resources from being polluted and exhausted, and, as groundwater accounts for 60% of drinking water in the Netherlands, this is sufficient reason to do all we can to prevent pollution. We must prescribe strict standards for the quality of our groundwater, but how strict should the threshold values be?
Should we impose them at European level or should we leave this up to the Member States? There is quite a bit of concern in the Netherlands about European regulations, which often have repercussions for farmers, builders and companies.
The quality of air, manure and the protection of the environment are all areas covered by directives with major consequences and difficult to explain to somebody who can see their building project grind to a complete halt because of abstract European rules.
‘This is yet another example of Brussels interfering’.
The Dutch Labour Party is clear in its own mind: we do not want common threshold values for our groundwater.
Major differences, brought about by natural circumstances, in the chemical composition of groundwater in the Member States make harmonised threshold values undesirable.
Threshold values that are too strict can lead to human activities being banned in certain areas.
The Dutch Labour Party does not say that the Netherlands should be behind lock and key, nor is there any political backing for rules that are all too obtrusive without there being any need for them.
That is why we are opposed to Amendments 111 and 112.
Rest assured, though, the Dutch Labour Part is as green as ever.
What we are in favour of, though, is an emphatic common conduct standard intended to prevent or limit the contribution of polluted substances in groundwater.
That means that each incidence of groundwater being polluted with a number of well-defined substances is inadmissible.
We also want the ‘polluter pays’ principle to be taken seriously.
My amendment to translate the costs of pollution by herbicides into a levy has received broad support, which I welcome, because many town councils consider manual weeding too expensive.
To date, the cost of pollution has not been included in chemical control.
If that were the case, the use of harmful substances would drop.
Finally, I should like to mention a few amendments related to nitrates and the manure issue.
It is beyond me that precisely at a time when various Member States put a lot of work into the nitrates directive, a message is being sent that this directive might be superfluous.
That is why we do not back those amendments, although we will be happy to support Amendment 110 tabled by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, groundwater is a basic and valuable resource which we need to protect.
Groundwater pollution affects rivers, lakes and valuable ecosystems, increases the cost of drinking water and threatens its secure supply.
The Commission proposal on the protection of groundwater needs to be improved, especially as cleaning up groundwater may take decades.
As far as prevention is concerned, our objective is to protect groundwater with preventive measures, not to try and simply improve the status of polluted water.
We need a proposal which protects from pollution with defined criteria and limits, while the Member States need to be forced to submit periodic reports on the status of their water and the effective measures which they have taken.
Amendment 94, which proposes preventing and limiting substances that are persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic and introduces a procedure for controls by the Member States, is a positive effort to improve the report.
According to the European Environment Agency, 87% of European groundwater does not meet the criteria for nitrates, while 10 out of 11 countries report a risk of water pollution from pesticides.
We need strict criteria for nitrates and pesticides and I therefore call on you to vote in favour of Amendments 101 and 102.
Another point is the ecosystems in groundwater.
The microscopic flora and fauna help to improve the quality of groundwater and the quality of drinking water.
Amendments 96 and 98 introduce groundwater protection zones, while Amendments 95 and 100 call for more research into groundwater ecosystems, which is why I call on you to vote for them.
   Mr President, the Nitrates Directive deals expressly with nitrates in groundwater.
Why, therefore, is it necessary for this groundwater directive also to deal with nitrates? It is wholly unsatisfactory to have two directives addressing the same issue with different approaches and mechanisms and, for the hapless farming community, dual enforcement.
Either the Nitrates Directive should be repealed or compliance with one should remove the other from the equation.
The combined effects of this directive and the Water Framework Directive will make the Nitrates Directive wholly superfluous.
Under this directive there is a requirement to put in place trend reversal measures once pollution levels reach 75 per cent of the decreed quality standard.
This is more demanding than the standards required under the Nitrates Directive in the nitrate-vulnerable zones.
Again, we have conflict, contradiction and dual standards.
We need cogent, slimmed-down regulation, not costly duplication.
    Mr President, groundwater can be polluted in a great many ways and the man in the street is unaware of most of them, hence the importance of measures concerning education and prevention.
Schools need to be targeted, and also the main users of water, who are intent on poisoning the environment as if they themselves were immortal.
It is crucially important for the Cohesion Fund to remain at the level initially proposed by the European Commission, as it is supporting the enormous task of protecting the waters of the new EU Member States.
We should not skimp on building infrastructure, sewage systems and treatment plants, because this is the only way of evening out the enormous differences between the various countries.
The natural environment of Central and Eastern Europe was abused by heavy industry working to meet the demand for armaments.
It is vital that the Member States meet the deadline for submitting data concerning the condition of groundwater, as such an overview is essential for precise and efficient monitoring in the future.
Parliament has raised the issue of the quantitative status of groundwater.
The draft directive sets out to deal exclusively with the chemical condition of water, with reference to Article 17 of the Water Framework Directive, so this is not the right time to introduce provisions concerning the quantitative status of water into the draft.
Amendment 7 and Amendment 10 should therefore be rejected.
Amendment 54 concerns new provisions for the protection of spas and medicinal water sources.
It should be supported, as to date EU legislation has not dealt with the protection of these special high-quality waters.
Provision does need to be made for them, and I would ask the Commissioner and the European Commission as a whole to pay particular attention to this matter.
   Mr President, I too should like to add my thanks to the rapporteur for her commitment.
Good though it was that she should be so committed from the start, the report now produced by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety appears to tend towards tightening up the Commission’s original proposal; Amendments 43, 103 and 94 to it certainly do.
I wonder how Parliament intends to deal with those.
Acceptance of those amendments will once again result in an increase in the burden and cost, particularly for European agriculture and horticulture – two areas that are self-evidently bound to benefit from clean water.
Although the proposal, fortunately, also leaves sufficient room for subsidiarity, it cannot be denied that when the budget for European agricultural policy is reduced and the markets become more deregulated, it will drive up still more the cost price for European agriculture and horticulture.
It is unacceptable that this House should on the one hand increase the burden and on the other hand deregulate the markets even further, it thereby puts the European countryside in an impossible position.
I would like to urge this House in any event not to make the Commission proposal any more stringent, and certainly to vote against Amendments 43 and 94.
I should also like to back Mrs Oomen-Ruijten’s Amendment 110, which would make the groundwater directive considerably more workable with regard to river policy in Europe.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I, too would like to join in thanking our rapporteur, Mrs Klaß, who was very cooperative in drafting this report.
One of Europe’s greatest treasures flows in our innumerable springs, streams and rivers, and so it is our responsibility to protect our water resources.
It is for that reason that the protection of groundwater must be among the Community’s foremost environmental priorities.
We also have to bear in mind the fact that it is much harder to remove impurities from polluted groundwater than from surface waters.
It is also often used to provide drinking water, and, if it is polluted, those pollutants can be a hazard to human health, which will in turn impose a burden on our healthcare systems.
By adopting the Water Framework Directive, we agreed that Europe’s waters should be of good chemical status by 2015.
These daughter directives which we are now to adopt must lay down procedures and parameters whereby this high quality standard may prevail throughout the Community.
Amendments 111 and 112 are intended to enact annexes stipulating the level of these parameters.
Were we not to lay down such values, this Water Framework Directive would be toothless and hard to apply.
We are not, however, trying to apply the same standards to everything in the Community, but rather to ensure a high standard of quality in groundwater for the good of the public, while very definitely taking account of local and regional differences, particularly geological conditions.
It is for that reason that we have tabled Amendment 91, which takes account of differing conditions throughout Europe.
What we need, though, is precise procedures and not the vague approaches that the Commission has proposed, if we are to be able to lay down these parameters.
I therefore reject the Commission’s proposals for this.
As for the demand for the revision and possible suspension of the Nitrates Directive, which is what is sought via Amendments 108 and 109, I am opposed to this principally on legal grounds.
What agriculture throughout Europe needs is not distorted competition, but a level playing field.
   The next item is the report (A6-0068/2005) by Mrs Handzlik, on behalf of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on the internal market in the new Member States: situation, opportunities and lessons to be learnt.
   .  Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking all those whose valuable remarks helped to improve the quality of my report.
Ladies and gentlemen, your interest in this issue, which has been apparent from the amendments you have tabled and the numerous debates and conversations that have taken place, has made it clear that the subject of my report is of great importance to many of you.
It is worth mentioning that this report did not simply involve data collection and the analysis of statistics; it also drew on my personal experience.
I have managed medium-sized enterprises for the last 15 years, and learnt at grass roots level what conditions are required for the sustainable growth and development of such enterprises.
The internal market must become a single economic entity and a driving force for the economy, and this will only happen when all the Member States fully implement the directives concerning the internal market and all the others aimed at improving its operation.
A situation in which certain countries move forward by transposing and implementing directives, whilst others drag their feet, is simply unacceptable.
The success of the internal market is closely bound up with cooperation between countries, and a concerted effort is the only way of achieving the results we all long for.
With this in mind, the European Council suggested a 1.5% limit for the transposition deficit of directives to apply to all Member States.
Research contained in the report concerning transposition of the directives by individual Member States, and in particular by the new ones, is surprisingly encouraging.
At the beginning of November 2004, the lowest deficit concerning transposition of directives was 2.1%.
This was actually recorded in the new Member States, and contrasts with the average for the Union as a whole, namely 5%.
Information returned a month later, at the end of November 2004, showed failure to comply in the new Member States had fallen to 1.8%, and the average for the whole Union had fallen to 3.6%.
The statistics quoted clearly indicate that the situation regarding transposition is improving.
This improvement came about after just one month of effort and commitment.
Only when all the countries have transposed and implemented the directives will it be possible to lift the remaining barriers to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital without delay, thus making the internal market a reality.
This is why I am making the following proposals.
Firstly, the special procedure introduced by the Commission for dealing with cases of infringement of Community provisions applicable to the new Member States that failed to undertake transposition should become standard for all, and apply to all Member States.
Secondly, the so-called Internal Market Scoreboard should be upgraded to become an official European Council document.
It should be recognised as the main point of reference regarding the status of transposition in conjunction with data on the state of transposition of directives made available by all the Member States and updated regularly.
Thirdly, the Scoreboard should be used to name and shame all Member States lagging behind in the transposition process.
Fourthly, proper financial support for the out-of-court conflict resolution instrument from SOLVIT must be ensured, as that method of dealing with problems has already proved a success.
In addition to transposition and implementation of directives, account should also be taken of the additional factors contributing to the development of the internal market, and consequently to the growth of the European economy.
In this connection, it is essential for the new Member States to invest more in research and development, as their investment is currently below the European average.
These new Member States should also create an environment that is more conducive to links between research institutions and business.
As a citizen and former entrepreneur from one of the new Member States I am also aware of the need to create a more effective system of education and training.
In addition, more information on how the Union works and on its legislation should be made available in the new Member States.
A survey of entrepreneurs confirmed this view.
In many of the new Member States, the education system is out of date.
Students are taught subjects and trades that are not appropriate to the needs of the market.
It is important to bear in mind that the better society is educated and informed, the better the quality of work provided will be.
Simplification of current Union legislation is called for too.
This will promote the development of businesses, trade and services, and stimulate the growth of the European economy.
The services directive is also essential to the proper functioning of the internal market.
In the context of the economies of both old and new Member States, a good services directive will amount to an opportunity to reduce unemployment and regional disparities.
It will lead to the creation of new jobs and to greater competitiveness, as well as to higher quality services and more opportunities for consumers to exercise their right to choose.
It is therefore best to rid ourselves of the emotions and fears generated by this directive from the outset.
What is actually needed is constructive action to ensure that the most appropriate version of this directive comes into force at the optimum moment for us all.
As I conclude, I should like to thank Mrs Kallenbach for her involvement and for the draft amendment she has tabled.
Nonetheless, I propose that her amendment be rejected, because discussion of the services directive is ongoing and we do not yet know what form the directive will eventually take.
Ladies and gentlemen, I trust that the solutions and suggestions I have proposed will meet with your approval.
   . Mr President, nearly a year has passed since the ten new Member States acceded to the European Union.
Since 1 May 2004, the European Union has been by far the biggest internal market in the world, with 25 countries and more than 450 million people.
Before May 2004, certain critics stated that the European Union was being enlarged at an excessively fast pace and without adequate preparation, that the candidate countries were still not ready and that everything would end in disaster and tears.
In the end, the cataclysm did not happen on 1 May 2004.
Enlargement was prepared properly and I should like to add that the new Member States demonstrated a positive stand, efficiency and dedication during preparations for their accession.
Today, almost 12 months since the enlargement of Europe, we find that the European Union, and the ten new Member States especially, have made particularly impressive progress.
There are numerous aspects and numerous instances of the development of the internal market in the new Member States that one could mention.
The Commission is sure that the delegation of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection which is visiting Poland could also cite numerous other such successes.
The Commission would like to thank the European Parliament for this important own initiative report.
We are particularly satisfied with the motion for a resolution by the European Parliament on the internal market in the new Member States.
Almost one year after the enlargement of the European Union, the report by Mrs Handzlik comments, we are satisfied to note, with a particularly penetrating eye, on the – to a large degree – positive image of the operation of the internal market in the new Member States.
The analysis and recommendations contained in the report summarise the achievements and the objectives which will ensure that the internal market operates as smoothly as possible.
Allow me to refer briefly to certain points of the report.
The proper transposition of Community legislation is prerequisite to the smooth operation of the internal market.
The Member States must perform their duties; some do so very well, others are lagging behind.
However, what is truly impressive in the new Member States is the targets which have been attained over the last two years.
In particular, the new Member States have done very well in transposing Community legislation into national law.
According to the most recent information, Lithuania is top of the league of the 25 Member States, with a transposition deficit of just 1%.
Certain old Member States have not done as well.
The Member States must address more seriously the 1.5% target, which was agreed at various meetings of the European Council.
They must also make a greater effort to ensure that directives on the internal market are transposed correctly and on time.
The conclusions of the resolution are absolutely in keeping with the Commission's position including, for example, on the need for more intensive administrative cooperation between the authorities of the Member States, as is already happening in the SOLVIT problem-solving network.
These procedures for resolving differences amicably satisfy the market players and make a positive contribution to the operation of the internal market in Europe.
It is clear that the new Member States are not confining themselves to pronouncements; on the contrary, they are particularly willing to improve their performance and to create the right conditions for the development of innovation, which is most encouraging.
This is precisely the approach that guarantees the success of the internal market.
We must not forget that the smooth operation of the internal market is one of the basic preconditions to the achievement of the Lisbon objectives.
However, I should like to add that the Commission will need, in turn, to do its job.
Instead of producing more and more legislation, we will now need to take advantage of the opportunity to focus on doing less but better work.
This includes the simplification of legislation, in close cooperation with the new Member States and with the old Member States, and providing better information and guidance in connection with consumer rights and the opportunities citizens have to work and establish in an enlarged Union.
In coming years, we must make the European Union a more attractive location for business activity and investment and the creation of a modern and successful internal market certainly constitutes an important first step towards achieving this objective.
We are relying on the support of the European Parliament to face this challenge.
To close, I should like to say this: we are optimistic and believe that the new Member States bring new momentum to the European Union and are a breath of fresh air which benefits us all.
   . Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, I should like to say something about this outstanding report by Mrs Handzlik, to whom I would also like to express my gratitude.
Along with the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, we visited the businesses in her Chamber of Commerce.
She must be a paragon of how people in the new Member States view the Internal Market and I think that her report also reflects this and draws on it.
I would like to congratulate her on this, and to say, in this connection, that the new Member States have sacrificed a great deal in order to be able to meet Europe’s conditions.
They tightened their belts for years and, as the report states, have in many cases, been even more efficient than many old Member States in introducing the .
It would therefore be appropriate for the Commission to be given more scope for imposing sanctions, thereby facilitating the enforced implementation of directives, because that will only stimulate, improve and optimise the free market even more.
The internal market has brought us economic prosperity, which, in turn, guarantees political stability, which leads to peace, and I think that was why it was decided at an early stage to add a large number of new Member States to the European Union.
I am pleased that Mrs Gebhardt has somewhat broadened the discussion on the Services Directive, because services are one of the key areas which have not been liberalised as yet.
I think it is necessary to have a good discussion so as to end up with an excellent result for this Services Directive.
I think that the debate thus far sends a very weak message to the new Member States.
Indeed, it would be detrimental if we gave the new Member States the idea that despite their many sacrifices, and despite the fact that the old Member States welcome new markets with open arms, we do not appreciate any extra competition.
We Liberals take the view that competition leads to innovation, which, in turn, leads to new jobs. It is impossible to keep the cheap workforces in Europe.
Unfortunately, we have to establish that they go off to China.
I therefore believe that innovative jobs with added value are beneficial to the market, and I hope that we, in that respect, can wrap up the Services Directive in a positive manner.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thank you, Mrs Handzlik, for your report, and for your efforts in identifying the challenges faced by the new Member States, in particular, in the process – as yet unfinished – of completing the internal market.
Cooperation with you has been good, and we owe you thanks for having taken on board a number of our suggestions, but, despite that, our group has nonetheless voted against this report in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection.
We have done this not out of some sort of opposition to an open and truly functioning European internal market – quite the contrary, in fact, for it is one of the most important conditions for the European Union to grow together.
Nor do we have any objection to many of the passages in the report, but we do have misgivings about some of its conclusions.
Almost a year ago, we rejoiced with the new Member States, for it was more than a matter of necessity for most of them that, after more than 60 years’ separation from it, they should regain the position in Europe to which their cultural history self-evidently entitled them.
Our group does, however, wish to express its opposition to the unhindered operation of what are termed market forces.
We have no desire to see unfair competition engaged in to the detriment of highly motivated and dedicated workers from the new Member States.
We do not want them to be fobbed off with the lowest wages that employers can get away with paying and to have inadequate access to support from trade unions and social partners.
We want quality standards and social factors to continue to be built in all 25 Member States, with the environment and consumers still being protected.
As we are at the moment particularly concerned with the Commission’s proposed services directive, we have again tabled an amendment on this subject, which expresses our implacable opposition to the country of origin principle.
While I am aware that this is contrary to the rapporteur’s thinking, I would nonetheless ask for your support.
   . Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Mrs Handzlik, the rapporteur, for her all-encompassing research, and I have to say that the report shows that, one year after they have become part of the European Union internal market, all in all the situation in the new Member States with regard to the adoption of legislation does not seem any worse than in the older Member States.
We can see an almost equal proportion of positive and negative examples in both the older and the new Member States.
Business people in the new Member States are still having difficulties in acquiring the operating mechanism of the internal market, particularly in sectors which are not harmonised.
In the harmonised spheres, however, the infrastructure for conformity assessment is not always accessible to them in their own countries for the products which they produce.
I could go on enumerating separate problems, but these cannot eclipse the achievements of the European Union’s internal market.
However, even relatively recently, we heard concerns being expressed in all the countries that were then still EU applicant countries that the free movement of goods might be disastrous for economies experiencing the shocks of a change of economic system.
Industry that was still weak would not be able to withstand the competition of powerful producers in EU Member States.
Certainly, many businesses in the new Member States that had not consolidated their position in the market went bankrupt as a result of competitive pressure from businesses in the older Member States, but business activity has of course not decreased.
Quite the contrary: the increase in competition has activated the market, and consumers have, of course, gained from this.
We can observe a surprising degree of similarity between the opinions of that time about the threats the European Union common market might pose to the new Member States and today’s debates about the possible threats posed by the European Union services directive to the older Member States.
The most striking similarity in these debates is the way consumers’ interests are being ignored. The consumer is not being listened to.
It is the opinion of businesses who are worried about a possible increase in competition that is being expressed.
The first amendment tabled on today’s agenda, to reject the country of origin principle for services in the internal market, is in point of fact equivalent to a proposal to reject the internal market.
The country of origin principle is the ruling principle in European Union internal market legislation, and the decisions of the European Court of Justice have confirmed this.
In those service sectors where competition currently exists, the market gains from additional competition and, of course, the consumer also gains.
Currently, even successful small and medium-sized enterprises in Member States are prevented from crossing the borders of their own countries in order to offer services in other Member States because of the high financial and bureaucratic costs.
The application of the country of origin principle to the provision of services would open up the European Union internal market to the most important service providers in the Member States, that is small and medium-sized enterprises.
Arguments about the threat to the European social model are completely rebutted by the directive adopted almost ten years ago concerning the placement of workers in the services sector.
Consumers wish to obtain goods and services of the highest possible quality and for the lowest possible price, but the best way to ensure this is a competitive market and the European Union internal ...
    Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mrs Handzlik for drafting such an interesting report on the situation of the internal market in the new Member States.
I should also like to share with you two thoughts on the report.
The average citizen of poorer societies assesses the internal market mainly in terms of the changes in the price of goods and services following accession to the Union.
Prices of many basic products and services increased dramatically, and there is no economic justification for this.
Mechanisms designed to ensure competitiveness and systems of consumer protection failed.
In Socialist times we were supposed to be cheered by the news that the price of locomotives was down even though the price of bread was up.
What grounds for optimism are there in the present situation? My second observation concerns the problem of market monopolies.
Many concerns have seen their profits double, not because of increased productivity, but also as a result of price policy.
There are a great many examples of this, notably fuel.
It seems to me that solutions are urgently called for.
The Union constitutes a large and attractive market.
This should be exploited with a view to regulating …
    Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must begin by thanking Mrs Handzlik, and congratulating her on having drafted such an interesting and important report.
Mrs Handzlik is a fellow member of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, and a compatriot of mine.
Her report is important for us not only because, if I am not mistaken, it is the first report drafted by a female Polish MEP, but also because it concerns a particularly important issue, one that is crucial to the economic development of the European Union.
I refer to the functioning of a truly common and free market for services within the European Union.
If we consider that services account for 70% of the Union’s GDP, the importance of this issue can be readily appreciated.
So too can the importance of developing the market for services within the EU.
At this time, when there is much debate on the Constitutional Treaty in a number of European countries, the subject of the services directive and of a truly free, open and competitive market for services in Europe constitutes one of the key issues in the debate.
There are strong misgivings about opening up the European market for services fully to cooperation.
Many fears have been expressed too concerning the possibility of businesses and service providers from the new Member States being able to operate within this market.
These views were reflected in some of what Mrs Kallenbach said just now.
I should simply like to refer to one important piece of news provided by none other than President Chirac in the course of the important debate currently under way in France.
President Chirac stated that as a result of enlargement, exports from France to new EU Member States in Eastern Europe had quadrupled.
This translates into something close to EUR 10 billion, and 130 000 new jobs in France.
Such then are the consequences of operating a truly broad and free European market.
There is no reason to fear enlargement or genuine competition within a market like this.
   Mr President, thank you, Mrs Handzlik, for presenting this report, which adds up to a really good piece of work.
Many thanks, too, for the frankness you have shown in cooperating with the other groups.
That, I think, is what our cooperation here in this House should be like.
I know that I will be disappointing Mrs Kallenbach when I say that our group will not be able to support her amendment.
As she said, we are fundamentally very much in favour of a services directive being drafted, and of the services market being opened up; we do not, however, want it to happen any old how, but in a truly socially acceptable manner.
We are able to support Mrs Handzlik’s report, which contains some very important statements.
In paragraph 5, for example, it is stated that the new Member States have implemented the mutual recognition principle in their legislation.
It is also stated that they have adopted the highest standards as guidelines to achieving harmonisation, which is a crucial objective of the internal market.
These things are what matter to the public in the European Union, and I think that is what we have to achieve.
The Committee came to an agreement that there would be no place in this report for the provisions to be worked out for the services directive, and that we would, instead, discuss these issues in the report on that directive, which is where they belong.
We have kept to that agreement, as has Mrs Handzlik, and I think that is only right and proper.
We Social Democrats have our own particular reason for endorsing this report, for, in paragraph 14, we agreed that, desirable though a market in services is, we do also take the view that efforts to that end must not prejudice social cohesion in the EU, and that consumers must enjoy a high level of protection.
Such is the task we in this House have set ourselves where the services directive is concerned, and we will continue to work at it in future.
For that reason, too, I congratulate Mrs Handzlik, and I congratulate this our Parliament on having produced this report on the current state of play in the new Member States, and on the imminent report on consumer protection.
At the same time, though, I do hope that this is the last time that we shall do so.
I hope that future reports will take as their subject the whole European Union, making no distinction between ‘old’ and ‘new’, but depicting it as a whole.
    Mr President, only a few short years ago most of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 were trapped in a different political system.
We differed from the rest of Europe in nearly every respect and had very little in common with it, other than being located on the same continent.
Even that was not always seen in a positive light.
Today we are debating details of our life together, the removal of barriers, and overcoming difficulties.
Mrs Handzlik’s excellent report identifies the problems faced by all the Member States, and ways of overcoming them.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for her efforts and for all the work she has put into drafting the report.
It is to be hoped that all 24 points will be implemented as quickly as possible.
Many successes have been recorded, but the bitter words uttered in the course of various debates, such as the debates on discrimination in the internal market or on the methods of reciprocity suggest that much still remains to be done.
Nothing is perfect, and there is always room for improvement.
It is also important to be aware that even the best of provisions are not an instant solution to problems.
Member States need to make the necessary efforts to implement provisions if they are to be effective.
The record on this varies considerably.
Attempts to circumvent directives or to burden the European Union with decisions detrimental to the interests of consumers are an everyday occurrence.
Sometimes we seem to be acting as if we had forgotten where we are heading and what the Constitutional Treaty states.
   . Mr President, honourable Members, I would like to thank you for your comments and questions which I will pass on to my colleague, Commissioner McCreevy.
Regarding the amendment tabled by Mrs Kallenbach on the proposed services directive, I would just like to say that we should not use this excellent report as a vehicle to intervene in the current work on the services proposal.
This weekend we will be celebrating the first year of the European Union of 25 Member States.
The adoption of this report is therefore very timely and it shows that there is good reason for optimism about the internal market.
We note that there is still some work ahead of us.
This will always be so but overall we see a very positive picture with the ten new Member States performing well, and in a number of cases outperforming the others.
The move from an internal market of 15 to an internal market of 25 is providing a new dynamic.
We should use this dynamic to move ahead in removing barriers and create further opportunities for our companies and our citizens.
I would again like to thank Mrs Handzlik for her excellent report.
   There is nobody here from the Council to reply, Mrs Doyle, so we will forward your comments to the Council.
I am sure it will be able to reply in due course.
   Mr. President, a very good remark that it is necessary to talk about smuggling into Trans-Dniester.
However, I believe that right here, at the edge of Europe, there is another source of smuggling, that is, the Kaliningrad region, from where large amounts of smuggled goods come into European Union countries.
So far, they come in very large quantities to Lithuania and Poland.
I really do not exclude the possibility, on which the experts also agree, that this contraband can also reach the old Member States of the European Union.
First of all, this is contraband of excise goods.
Therefore, our suggestion is to also include in paragraph 12 the Kaliningrad region as a particular risk, thus urging a stop to the flow of contraband from this territory into the countries of the European Union.
Thank you.
   . Mr President, this oral amendment is merely to ensure that there is consistency and accuracy in the section on Morocco.
I propose that the end of paragraph 13 should read: ‘notes that a moratorium on the death penalty exists in Morocco and calls on the Moroccan authorities to abolish the death penalty’.
   Mr President, with regard to the proposed reference to the Baker plan, you probably all know that it has disappeared from the new proposals by the United Nations Secretary-General.
That is why I tabled Amendment 3.
I will also request a split vote on Amendment 15 by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament to delete the reference to the Baker plan.
   I am advised that if we approve General Morillon’s oral amendment, it would remove the references to the Baker Plan from all amendments.
Is that correct, General Morillon?
   No, because we would then have to vote on Amendment 17, which itself relates essentially to the Baker plan.
If Amendment 17 is not adopted, this will relate to Amendment 15 by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
   . Mr President, as rapporteur, my advice on this particular section is not to accept an oral amendment in relation to the Baker Plan.
I think the PSE Group has a balanced amendment in this case – i.e. Amendment 15 – and my advice is to accept that one.
   Mr President, may I ask whether you were in the habit of addressing Ian Paisley as ‘Reverend’ in the days when he was a Member of this House, and whether the reverend gentleman would have been expected to stand when addressing the Chair?
   Mr Wieland, I am not sure I understand the point you are making.
Would you mind repeating it?
   . Mr President, I fear I am attempting the impossible here, but we will see how it goes.
I am proposing an oral amendment as a compromise amendment to Amendment 8.
If it were to be accepted paragraph 131 would read: ‘Recognises the impact of mass rape in making women and girls vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS; urges the EU to ensure that the provision of full medical attention be made available immediately to all women and girls who have been raped;’.
   Mr President, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that we intend to table an oral amendment to paragraph 17; we have already notified you of this.
   Mr President, we have an oral amendment to paragraph 17.
I will read the paragraph: ‘Urges Member States and candidate countries to introduce special scholarship and trainee programmes for disadvantaged Roma students’.
We propose inserting: ‘and for all other disadvantaged students’.
Mrs de Groen-Kouwenhoven wishes to move two oral amendments to insert new paragraphs after existing paragraphs 18 and 20.
The PSE Group proposes that the text of Amendment 4 be inserted at the end of existing paragraph 25, rather than forming a new paragraph.
Was that your point, Mr Purvis?
   That was my point, Mr President.
I agree with the rapporteur that the following text should be added to the end of paragraph 25: ‘Further asks the Commission to prioritise amendment or removal of any legislation that is detrimental to the smooth functioning of European financial markets’.
That would replace paragraph 26, which should be deleted.
   Are there are any objections to Mr Purvis’ oral amendment?
   . Mr President, there are two proposed additions to paragraph 25.
We have to vote first on Amendment 4 by the Verts/ALE Group and then on the oral amendment by Mr Purvis to take the original paragraph 26 also as an addition to paragraph 25.
   Mr President, I have an oral amendment to paragraph 38, which will also replace Amendment 1: ‘Considers that Member States have long and diverse traditions in consumer protection; notes that the [one word deleted] call from part of the financial services industry is for minimum harmonisation, whereas certain practitioners, notably the banking industry, advocate targeted harmonisation in order to achieve a true level playing field; therefore, urges the Commission to organise a discussion about the fundamental structure of the EU financial services market, bearing in mind consumer and practitioner interests and European global competitiveness;’.
If Amendment 15 is adopted, the PSE Group proposes that the amended text be inserted after paragraph 25.
   .
I voted in favour of Mr Coelho’s recommendation for a second reading on ‘access to the Schengen Information System by the services in the Member States responsible for issuing registration certificates for vehicles’, as it reflects the need to combat vehicle theft, in an EU in which internal border checks have been all but scrapped.
In light of the figure published by Europol that 1 149 114 cars were stolen in the EU in 2002 alone, I believe that the EU must, as a matter of urgency, take action to combat the trade in stolen vehicles.
   Mr President, I wish to make a statement concerning the vote on Mr Coveney’s report on human rights.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats definitely welcomes the Coveney Report as a whole and has therefore voted in favour of its adoption.
Like all Parliament’s reports on human rights, it does of course carry a political message, and Mr Coveney, for whom my Group has high regard, has managed to hold in balance the various political tendencies represented in this House.
For this reason, I am all the more astonished and perturbed by the attitude of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, which ended up abstaining from voting – despite having secured the acceptance of its two amendments on abortion – simply because its amendments relating to Cuba and Venezuela failed.
That is politically inept.
Acknowledging its importance, the PPE-DE Group voted in favour of the report as a whole.
I would, however, like to make it clear that we regard Amendments 8 and 9 with grave concern and have left it to our members to vote for or against them as a matter of conscience.
Why is this so? Firstly, because the amendments call for access to abortion, which is hardly likely to be any sort of bulwark against human rights abuses.
Their primary concern is with women who have been raped, even though rape is clearly condemned elsewhere in the report.
Secondly, these amendments indirectly imply that abortion is a human right.
Abortion, though, is nothing of the sort; on the contrary, it violates human rights.
Even the United Nations understands that to be the case.
Thirdly, Articles 8 and 9 go against the principle of subsidiarity.
The EU has no power to deal with this matter, which is reserved to national jurisdiction, and so most members of our group, having been free to decide in accordance with conscience, have rejected these articles. I, myself, was one of those who did so.
This is not the first time that the left-wing groups in this House have sought to misuse the human rights report in order to make abortion more freely available.
The mere fact that a majority wants to do this does not make it right. Nor is it binding, for the report as whole is not binding in its effects.
The PPE-DE Group has therefore deliberately left these questions to the consciences of its Members and taken a negative line on the substance of Amendments 8 and 9.
   I would not have asked for the floor if Mrs Stenzel had not attacked our group in such an unbecoming way, and one that is so extremely unworthy of a Member of this House.
There are two things I would like to say to her.
Where abortion is concerned, and in this debate, we respect the right of every Member to reach a decision in accordance with his or her conscience.
Rarely in parliamentary debate is that necessary, and rarely do political groups have to allow their members the freedom to decide in accordance with their conscience.
There are few such issues, but this is one of them.
Mrs Stenzel will not find it difficult, if she looks at the result of the vote, to see that the report would have been lost if our group had voted against it.
A ‘no’ from our group would have been enough to throw the report out.
There were certain key points in the report with which we did not agree, but we were quite satisfied with others.
It was because we wanted to help this report gain a majority, while also wanting our scepticism to be visible, that we abstained.
If she thinks that is bad form, then perhaps she should consider whether she is perhaps judging by the wrong criteria.
   Thank you, Mr Schulz.
I am not sure that your assumption is entirely correct.
   . Only seven out of the twenty-five EU Member States have a population that exceeds that of the Roma nation as a whole in the EU’s present and future territory.
They are a nation without a state, and are considered a minority wherever they are, even if there are towns in which they represent the majority.
If it is the case that many Roma people have become outsiders, unemployed as a result of poor education, and with an attitude that can easily provoke irritation in others, this is attributable to isolation and discrimination.
We have a long tradition of driving those people away from one state to another, and of refusing to grant them civil rights because they can be considered aliens on account of their forced moves.
In some cases, individuals are given the opportunity of integrating and being accepted by the majority, but the group as a whole is not.
There are problems not only in a number of new Member States that joined in 2004 and in the two countries that will be acceding in 2007, but also in such old Member States as Greece and Italy.
Since newcomers are refused shelter, schooling and an income, criminal activity represents these people’s only means of survival.
That should really improve after the 90% majority for this resolution.
   Discharges of substances dangerous for the environment constitute an important political issue.
We do not, however, believe that the EU needs to have a common strategy in terms of the Punta del Este Conference on Persistent Organic Pollutants.
Individual Member States should each determine their national negotiating policies themselves.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 28 April 2005.
   Mr President, do not misunderstand me, I am not against people going on holiday; it is just that, normally, we have to pay for it ourselves.
My simple request to all 25 Commissioners was for them to declare what free holidays they had received since they became Commissioners.
They point blank refused to answer the question, treating this Parliament with contempt.
When it leaked out that Mandelson and Barroso had enjoyed holidays on billionaires’ yachts, we were told not to worry: there was no conflict whatsoever.
Then it emerges that one of the Latsis-owned shipyards – the Lamda Shipyard – received a EUR 10 million grant, and then Mr Barroso resigns the shipping portfolio.
That resignation is too little, too late.
It is about time Parliament called the Commission to account, and I urge Members to vote to change the agenda to bring Mr Barroso here this very week.
   Mr President, I should like to support the proposal, and I recommend in this connection that an examination be made of Article 213 of the existing Treaties which states regarding members of the Commission: ‘When entering upon their duties they shall give a solemn undertaking that … they will respect’ – and I now move on a bit ‘ … in particular their duty to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance, after they have ceased to hold office, of certain appointments or benefits’.
Anyone who does not comply with this regulation in Article 213 can be dismissed or made to forfeit his or her pension rights or other similar benefits.
The Treaty’s position is that Commissioners must behave with integrity once they no longer hold office.
That does not mean that they do not also have to behave with integrity during their terms of office.
I would therefore recommend that we vote in favour of the proposal and be given a full report by the Commission on the way in which Commissioners are showered with gifts.
   Mr President, I find it astounding that people in this House who are elected to hold the executive to account should vote against the proposal.
   Mr President, further to Rule 154 of the Rules of Procedure in conjunction with what Rule 132 has to say about Rule 150, an objection has been raised to the Dombrovskis report, on which the Committee on Budgets voted even though a full voting Member raised an objection to oral amendments.
I do not believe that this report can be debated ...
   The Dombrovskis report has been put on the agenda for Wednesday evening, even though procedural errors were made when it went through the Committee on Budgets.
The fact of the matter is that substantial oral amendments were put, to which one member of the Committee objected, despite which the Committee moved to vote on the report.
You have already received a letter concerning this; having raised this objection at the last plenary sitting, I wish to repeat it now.
If you insist on holding this debate, I have to say that I regard it, and the previous vote, as unlawful and also contrary to the Rules of Procedure.
   Mr President, as the president of Intergroup responsible for traditional national minorities, I would like to inform MEP’s of our letter to President Josep Borrell, which asserts Intergroup’s full support for the legitimate request of our eleven Catalan colleagues, who petitioned to be able to use the Catalan language at the EP’s plenary sessions.
This is in accord with Spain’s constitution and with the appeal lodged by Spain to the European Council.
It does not involve any extra costs for the EP, as the representatives agreed to submit their claim the day before their speech at the plenary session.
Therefore, I would like to ask President Borrell, as a Catalan himself, to present at the Presidential Meeting this petition of Intergroup’s, which requests that the Catalan language be used by Catalan speakers at future plenary sessions.
   Mr President, I should like to draw the Members’ attention to the fact that the International Day against homophobia occurs on 17 May, which is next week.
I should like to urge this House and all Members to give this initiative their wholehearted support, for it is, unfortunately, still the case that not all homosexuals in Europe enjoy European basic rights.
Only last weekend in Amsterdam, the capital of tolerance and freedom, seven persons joined in beating up a man in the most cowardly fashion, his only crime being that he held hands with the person he loved.
At present, we remember all the victims who fell in the war in Europe, and these include many homosexuals who were persecuted and killed on account of their sexual preference – something that, even today, some countries do not acknowledge.
I would therefore like to urge all Members to include those people in their commemoration next week.
   Mr President, I wish to draw your attention to tomorrow’s vote in the Temporary Committee on the Financial Perspective for the 2007-2013 period.
As rapporteur for the funding and programming of rural development in this period, I ask you, Mr President, to lend your support to the justified expressions of concern in relation to, and demands for, adequate financial resources for the ongoing development of rural areas, so that their development in line with the requirements of Lisbon and Gothenburg may continue to be guaranteed in future.
      Mr President, I have drawn the Commission’s attention to the problems relating to soft fruit faced by the EU Member States, in particular Poland, on many occasions, both in writing and orally.
I addressed my concerns to the Commission on 28 October 2004, for example, and on 13 December I asked the President to take action with a view to ensuring protective measures were put in place.
I would like to thank him for having intervened in this matter.
I was delighted to hear, from the Commission representative who took part in the meeting of Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture on 19 April 2005, that a delegation would be sent to Poland to conduct an on-the-spot investigation into the problems, and indeed this trip has already taken place.
In view of the limited amount of time left before the first soft fruit is picked, I would urge the President to ensure that the delegation presents its proposed solutions before the harvest begins.
If it fails to do so, we will have to wait another year before intervening in the market for soft fruit, and Polish producers will suffer further losses.
I would point out that Poland produces 50% of all soft fruit grown in the EU, and I would ask the President once again to take action on this matter.
   Mr President, following the referendums on the European Constitution in the different Member States, we have to establish that in the debate on this Constitution, the arguments that are being put forward are not always correct.
For example, the April issue of , an information sheet issued in Belgium by the Commission, contained an article in which those opposed to the Constitution were accused of being populists who try to instil fear in people.
That is a widespread misconception, and one that is kept alive – whether deliberately or not – by certain pressure groups.
As it happens, current events show that things are slightly more complicated than people sometimes let on.
What are we to make of the speech by Mr Donner, the Dutch Justice Minister, in which he stated that the rejection of the Constitution would have the same consequences as the collapse of, and civil war in, former Yugoslavia? A week later, the Dutch Prime Minster, Mr Balkenende drew a link between rejection of the Constitution and Auschwitz.
On a French public radio station, a doctor claimed that victory for the ‘no’ camp would be a disaster for AIDS research.
That is reprehensible.
Within our own Parliament, a ‘rapid reaction force’ was set up to respond to incorrect information by those opposed to the Constitution; we should also respond to incorrect information disseminated by those in favour of it.
      The ceremonies taking place in Moscow today to mark the end of the Second World War were intended to serve as a symbol of global reconciliation and unity.
One cannot help feeling, however, that the Kremlin is attempting to use this occasion to rewrite history.
It has disputed the crimes committed in Katyn, where thousands of Polish officers were murdered, as well as the genocide committed in the labour camps and the illegal annexation of the Baltic States.
It was for this reason that the leaders of Lithuania, Estonia and Georgia boycotted the ceremony.
We must not forget that the Second World War began with an almost simultaneous attack on Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and that Hitler and Nazi Germany were not the only architects of the war, as the Soviet Union also acted as an accessory.
Finally, we must bear in mind that the end of the fascist occupation of Eastern Europe marked the beginning of Soviet domination.
If we fail to remember these facts, today’s ceremony in Russia may turn into a eulogy of Soviet imperialism instead of a celebration of the victory over fascism.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the number of Poles occupying top management posts in the Commission is a source of some concern to Polish MEPs.
Even though it was agreed that Poles would hold 17 of these posts, there is not yet a single Polish director-general, deputy director-general, director, chief advisor or head of unit.
Not a single one of these posts is occupied by a Pole, although the intention was that Poland would receive 17 of them.
Lithuania and Cyprus, which were meant to receive four and two posts respectively, are facing the same problem, taking the total to three countries.
Furthermore, there are still no Estonian, Latvian or Slovakian directors-general or deputy directors-general.
There has been public outrage in the new Member States over this situation, which beggars belief, and I would ask the President to intervene in the matter.
   Mr President, I am sure everyone here today will be aware that last Thursday there was a general election in Britain.
It was conducted under the first-past-the-post voting system, which is inherently unfair and is no longer defensible in the 21st century.
It produced some strange results: the Labour Party that now forms the government won 55% of the seats based on only 35% of the vote.
Thirty-nine per cent of the electorate could not be bothered to vote.
Britain now has a government put in place by only 21% of the electorate.
In 1999 the European Union forced Britain to adopt a form of proportional representation for the European parliamentary elections.
Since the European Commission is now the real government of Britain, perhaps it could do us a favour and force Britain to adopt a form of proportional representation for parliamentary elections.
Under a fair voting system, the UK Independence Party could gain representation in the British Parliament and use it eventually to bring about our desired goal: Britain’s unconditional withdrawal from the European Union.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to inform the House of the disastrous situation in which the Polish fishing industry has found itself as a result of the protective measures put in place by the European Union.
One can only assume that these measures are intended to wipe out Poland’s Baltic fisheries, and it is already an established fact that they led to a significant rise in unemployment in coastal regions after Poland joined the European Union.
We Poles have been forced to accept absurd catch limits that will do nothing whatsoever to help protect stocks.
There is no biological or economic justification for these limits, and it is my firm belief that they were arrived at on the basis of political considerations.
To date, the Commission has failed to propose any solutions that would allow Polish fishermen to catch up with their Western counterparts.
Most importantly, no proposals have been made regarding ways in which EU funds could be used to modernise the fishing fleet.
   The next item is the Commission Statement: Justice for the McCartney family.
I would like to inform you that the sisters of Robert McCartney are in the gallery, together with Mr Niall O'Neill.
We welcome them to our debate.
   . Mr President, the Commission wishes to reconfirm that it condemns Mr McCartney's murder outright.
It totally understands and expresses its admiration for the decisive action taken by the McCartney sisters in their quest for truth and justice and wholeheartedly supports their efforts.
Although the Commission, as of course the McCartney family understands, cannot intervene in judicial investigations and proceedings by the Member States, it wishes to take this opportunity today to pay homage to the courage, dignity and quest for truth and justice on the part of the McCartney family.
The Commission cannot but express its admiration for the strong and courageous stand taken by the McCartney sisters in their campaign for justice. It would like to express its solidarity with the McCartney family and is certain that, once the Irish judicial proceedings have been completed, the truth will out.
While there is no such thing as freedom without security, there is also no such thing as security without justice.
The rule of law is the cornerstone of democracy and fundamental freedoms and the McCartney sisters are fighting not for revenge, but for justice.
The Commission supports their case unreservedly.
   . Mr President, I wish to express the wholehearted support of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament for the McCartney family in their quest for justice, truth and peace.
The McCartney sisters joined us for a group meeting chaired by Martin Schulz, when we – as we shall continue to do – marvelled at their courage and uprightness.
We are very glad that Mr De Rossa and Mr Titley have taken up their cause, approaching it from two sides, which are, though, ultimately one and the same.
If I, not being Irish, address the subject, I do so not least to put it on record that we see this, not as an Irish problem, but as a problem for Europe as a whole.
When, as we are currently doing, we commemorate the end of the Second World War, we also recall that Europe is, for us, the answer to violence, whether or not politically motivated.
The fact is that the sort of acts we are talking about today are not political measures, but criminal activities, albeit wrapped up in a political cloak.
For all of us in this House, though, and for my group at any rate, Europe is about seeking to resolve conflicts, to discuss, and to negotiate; it is not about violence or about finding out who can be most violent.
John Hume, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, also attended our group meeting today, and he stressed how important it had always been for him to perceive and acknowledge the differences in this Europe of ours – not just the differences between two sides, but differences on the same side.
What has happened in this instance – the cold-blooded murder of a man simply because someone did not like him or perhaps because his opinions differed from their own – is not acceptable.
Even if a political grouping has definite objectives, it must nonetheless accept differing opinions, and so let me reiterate our wholehearted support for the McCartney family, for these courageous women, these courageous sisters, as they continue their struggle.
We will be alongside them until the day when peace and justice also prevail in Northern Ireland, and, with them, the European spirit among those who do not as yet accept it.
We will fight to the very end.
   . Mr President, I should like to join with my colleagues in welcoming the McCartney family to the Chamber to witness an unusual, unprecedented debate.
Anybody who hears the story of Robert McCartney and what happened to him cannot but be struck by the malicious intent of those who were there.
We can all, at times, excuse an occasional argument or even an accidental slap that might be given.
But this was the sequence of events that took place that night: Robert McCartney was specifically targeted and people were instructed to take him out and kill him; those same people were then instructed to ensure that no emergency services could assist him and told to clean up the bar, eliminating all signs of any involvement or any link to any individual through forensic evidence and so on.
We could have excused an accident or mishap, but that kind of premeditation and malicious intent cannot be excused.
The women of the McCartney family – Paula, Catherine, Donna, Gemma, Clare and Bridgeen – who are ordinary women in every aspect of their lives, have done something extraordinary.
Through their pain, sorrow and search for justice they have united people across countries and political divides, including those who have had no involvement in any form of politics but can empathise with the pain and suffering of a family.
It is now incumbent on those who have influence in Northern Ireland and those who have influence on these members of the IRA and other political organisations to give them up to the police service and the prosecution; to allow for justice to rule and prevail.
We speak about democracy on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.
We speak about justice and remembering victims.
There have been thousands of victims in the conflict of Northern Ireland.
Many of them from all communities have not received justice.
Now is the time for people to stand up and show their true democratic principles; to show that they believe in the rule of law; that they believe in justice and equality and parity of esteem for all people in all families.
It is up to us, in Parliament, to ensure that if this is not done at a political level in Northern Ireland, we can assist them on a legal level.
   Mr President, right at the outset I salute the superb courage of the McCartney family.
Intimidation and the capacity to impose its will through fear has always been as vital a weapon to the IRA as its guns and its bombs.
In exposing and standing up to the thuggery of Sinn Féin/IRA, the McCartney sisters have shown remarkable bravery.
This was a foul murder.
By a hand-signal indicating a knife should be used, a member of the IRA’s northern command gave the order to kill, and a key Sinn Féin member savagely wielded the knife and butchered this innocent man before multiple witnesses.
An IRA unit, led by the volunteer who had fetched and then disposed of the knife, then coordinated a clean-up operation to destroy forensic and real evidence, including the CCTV footage.
Then, in classic IRA style, the intimidation brigade swung into action to silence the witnesses.
Though the IRA and Sinn Féin claim to have expelled or suspended up to ten members linked to this murder, their duplicity and double-dealing is amply illustrated by the fact that, three months after this murder, this cut-throat psychopath remained publicly proclaimed as one of Sinn Féin’s official treasurers.
And the man who ordered the killing still struts the streets of Belfast in the company of the IRA’s chief of intelligence, Bobby Storey, and leading provisional IRA man, Eddy Copeland.
So much for the IRA’s supposed disciplinary action: it is a farce.
We are due to hear in this debate from one of Sinn Féin/IRA’s representatives in this House.
She and her partners are in a position to help this family by influencing Sinn Féin members, like Bob Fitzsimmons and Joe Fitzpatrick, and other people like Terry Davison, truthfully to tell the lawful authorities what they know of the horrific events in the alleyway.
I challenge her to do so, but instead I fear we will hear the usual Sinn Féin empty, pious, weasel words that reek of insincerity, with hypocrisy dripping from every syllable.
Sinn Féin/IRA could secure justice for the McCartney family but their priority is to protect their own.
Hence the IRA-enforced wall of silence.
Punitive and deterrent justice through the criminal courts is much the best option.
If Sinn Féin/IRA succeed in denying criminal justice to this family, then I endorse the call that the EU should help fund an action so that the killers and conspirators can be pursued at least through the civil courts.
But, given that the IRA has benefited to the tune of EUR 40 million from its Northern Bank robbery, it would be an odious scandal if state legal aid were available to anyone to defend such proceedings.
Finally, I would add that the EU fund should also be available to the many other victims of the IRA, who for years have been denied justice because of this same intimidation.
   Mr President, the sole purpose of this resolution is to achieve justice for the McCartney family – whom I welcome here this evening – by insisting that normal policing and judicial procedures be allowed to take their course in relation to the murder of their brother Robert.
It is claimed by Sinn Féin that the murder of Robert McCartney was not politically motivated.
That will not be known for certain until this matter is heard in a court of law.
It is a fact that the forensic clean-up of the murder scene, the intimidation of witnesses, the offer by the IRA to murder the murderers and the refusal to cooperate with the Police Service of Northern Ireland are politically motivated and cannot be separated from the murder itself.
It is also a fact that the so-called IRA is the most active and politically driven perpetrator of violence and intimidation in Northern Ireland, that it engages in widespread criminality in Northern Ireland, in the Republic of Ireland and also in Britain and does so to enforce its rule of law and to fund its activities.
Until that criminal activity is stopped definitively and the iron grip that the Republican movement exercises on various parts of Northern Ireland is ended, there is little possibility that ordinary citizens can hope to have their human rights vindicated.
The European Convention on Human Rights, echoed in the new European Constitution, enshrines the right to life, freedom from torture, no punishment without law, freedom of expression, the right to an effective legal remedy and the right to liberty, security and a fair trial.
They are all denied by the IRA, by word and by deed, on a regular basis.
Indeed, Sinn Féin, by its continued integral link with the IRA, is just as guilty, in spite of its claims.
By seeking to spread the blame to criminals generally for the monstrous murder of Robert McCartney, the GUE/NGL resolution and the amendment by the Verts/ALE Group naively allows Sinn Féin and the IRA to wash their hands of the known complicity of the members of the IRA before, during and after the murder and should not, therefore, be supported by this House.
I would urge the House to support the joint resolution.
   Mr President, I too welcome the McCartney family here this afternoon and offer them my support in their efforts to get justice in the appalling murder of Robert.
In my view the death of Robert McCartney was not in any way politically motivated.
The people who murdered him should be obliged to face judgment in the courts and to serve their sentences in prison.
The fact that most, if not all, of the people involved in this murder are either members or supporters of the IRA or Sinn Féin in no way excuses their actions.
Their failure to give themselves up for justice endangers the reputation of Sinn Féin and of its leadership.
Even more importantly, the failure of Sinn Féin’s leadership to ensure that justice is done in this case undermines the cause of Irish Republicanism.
Nobody should ever be allowed to use the cloak of Irish Republicanism to hide the murder of an innocent person when the motives have no political justification whatsoever.
Like the great majority of the people on the island of Ireland, I have always aspired to a united Ireland.
I have always thought of myself as an Irish Republican, as indeed do the McCartney family.
I am therefore sickened that anybody should expect that their republicanism can be used as an excuse for violent and despicable acts of murder, particularly in the case of Robert McCartney.
This is a view which I believe is shared by the vast majority of the Irish people.
The cause of Irish Republicanism must be completely separated from common criminality now and in the future.
The actions and statements of the Sinn Féin leadership over the last few months have failed to make any significant progress in getting justice for the McCartney family.
It is still not too late for the Sinn Féin leadership to rectify this failure, provided it has the commitment to do so.
As the leaders of the largest republican party in the six counties, and in particular after last week’s election, they have a duty to separate the cause of Irish Republicanism from the acts of common criminals.
They also have an obligation to the McCartney family, who have a right to expect justice for the murder of Robert.
This appalling saga has already gone on for far too long.
I commend this motion to the House.
   . Mr President, I would like to inform you that I shall report back to President Barroso about this discussion – President Barroso had the pleasure of meeting members of the McCartney family about a month ago – and I shall also inform Vice-President Frattini about the request for the possibility of funding to cover the judicial procedures expenses.
The Commission fully supports the peace and reconciliation process in the region, not least through the Peace Programme, which quite a few Members mentioned, which is worth around EUR 760 million for the period 2000-2006.
This includes funding for programmes in the McCartney sisters’ neighbourhood, such as an after-school club, a youth victim support programme and a community economic regeneration programme.
Once again, I would like to express my deep admiration for these brave people: the McCartney family.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0102/2005) from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the management of bathing water quality and repealing Directive 76/160/EEC (Rapporteur: Jules Maaten) (12884/1/2004 – C6-0006/2005 – 2002/0254(COD)).
   Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Maaten on his work.
I appeal to all Members, and to the Commission, to maintain the core of the proposal as it was tabled, that core being a high level of protection by means of high standards for good and even excellent bathing water.
The Commission has based its work on research by the World Health Organisation, but the Council, in its common position, is showing that it has a very cynical side.
The standards are high and bathing water locations facing the prospect of being closed down, but, because standards are being fiddled, they do not need to be.
We should bear in mind that this is about health standards, and that we cannot afford to fiddle those.
The European bathers simply want to know whether the water is safe for themselves and, above all, for their children.
Bathers are entitled to clarity, and what are they to make of a lake that contains bathing water of ‘sufficient’ quality? Is it safe or not?
That is why we will be voting against lowering the standards.
In any case, the Dutch Labour Party puts the bather first; we cannot see the point of extending the directive’s scope to include other forms of recreation.
The WHO standards are based on bathers and not on canoeists or sailing crew who accidentally go overboard.
We are in favour of practical and implementable legislation which is not unnecessarily complex.
   The next item is the Oral Question (B6-0237/05) by Karl-Heinz Florenz to the Commission, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the Commission’s strategy for the Second Meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention.
   Mr President, Parliament has worked with the Aarhus Convention since 2000, when we received the Commission’s version of the first pillar of the Convention: the right of the citizen to environmental information.
Our policy all along has been ambitious and one that advocates public participation.
We start from the position that nothing may restrict the rights of the citizen to access information and to be heard in matters concerning the environment.
This is essential in order for democracy to function in a world where environmental issues have an ever more central role.
Consequently, as the meeting in Almaty approaches, we will likewise work on the assumption that the matter at hand – the subject of biosafety – will be debated in the same spirit, with a respect for the rights of the citizen.
Accordingly, Parliament assumes that its delegation will be properly heard at the talks, as we have something to offer.
We want the decisions taken at the second meeting of the Parties to the Aarhus Convention to promote its implementation and development, and we want multilateral agreements on the environment, such as Kiev or Cartagena, which are important for the Aarhus Convention and the issue itself, to achieve a synergic impact between them.
The Kiev Protocol on Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers plays its part in helping to reduce pollution and promote sustainable development.
The purpose of applying the principles of Aarhus is to persuade public authorities and citizens to take individual and collective responsibility for environmental protection and improvement, so that the welfare of present and future generations can be ensured.
The Aarhus Convention is an important element in a functioning democracy.
For that reason, my political group does not think it is right that these wide-ranging rights of the citizen should be abused where an appeal is concerned, with the aim of slowing down projects on purpose or providing a forum for fund-raising campaigns organised by NGOs.
Neither can we accept that the legislative work done by political decision-makers should collapse amid the endless complaints of these organisations.
It is simply not appropriate to keep exercising the right to complain.
Such abuses also undermine the rights we set out to defend.
This is why we will look carefully in the future at how the Community applies the right to appeal.
   . Mr President, I welcome the fact that the European Community has ratified the Aarhus Convention.
It is a priority for us to provide a clean and safe environment for our citizens.
A good environmental policy goes together with proper information on environmental matters, including pollution, possible dangers and the effects of environmental accidents.
The European Union has already taken important steps to update existing legal provisions in order to meet the requirements of the Aarhus Convention.
Coming from a new Member State and as a former journalist, I totally agree with the importance of the Aarhus Convention.
Former Socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe had a certain level of environmental policy, but it was strictly understood as a state policy without any kind of public participation.
That is why people had such a negative feeling about the real state of play.
The lack of proper information or environmental NGOs led to degree of mistrust about actual environmental performance.
Even basic information on pollution was labelled a state secret.
To be frank, some multinational corporations are still tempted to follow this practice today.
In order to implement the Aarhus Convention effectively we need to look at all the details and content of each and every piece of legislation.
For example, the PSE Group, with our rapporteur Guido Sacconi, is very active on the new legislation on REACH and on the evaluation and authorisation of chemical substances.
As regards REACH, we urgently need strong legislation providing every possible piece of information to the public on the possible dangers and risks of every chemical substance.
The same applies to GMO products, pollution release, the transfer register directive, etc.
All this legislation must provide the public with the right of access to information that is of concern to it.
If we ratify the Aarhus Convention, we must put it into practice in our legislation day by day.
The forthcoming meeting to be held in Almaty, Kazakhstan, is very important.
When we talk about access to information, the public must be sufficiently involved and informed.
We should begin by looking at the discussion on the Convention, where the participation of the parliamentarians of this House is guaranteed, as they are the representatives of the European citizens.
   . Mr President, speaking on behalf of my group, I have to say that we agree with those earlier speakers in regarding the Aarhus Convention as a great leap forward in environmental policy.
The clear rules on the right of public participation provided for by the Convention create a situation in which members of the public, NGOs, and the authorities too, can make a better job of protecting the environment.
I might add that I do not believe for one moment that we in Europe would be making insoluble problems for ourselves if we were to combine these rights with access to the justice system.
When engaging in discussions with members of the public, I often find them more advanced than politicians give them credit for, and I do not worry much about their ability to reason in these matters.
I do, however, worry about how Almaty, for which we are currently preparing, will handle the topic that concerns many members of the European public, who can see it giving rise to problems in the future, the topic that Mr Florenz, the Chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, has just addressed: will genetically modified organisms be covered by the Aarhus Convention in future or not?
The Moldovan government is expressly calling for them to be and would like to see that clearly laid down in an annex to the Convention. How is it that it is an Eastern European country, an Eastern European government, that is pushing this issue forward?
I think the reason for this is perfectly clear: American agribusiness – and its European counterpart too – are currently trying to find tracts of land in Eastern Europe in which to experiment – without being observed, if at all possible – with the release of genetically modified organisms.
If we want the Aarhus Convention to be credible and to be taken seriously, then I believe that it must cover GMOs.
This will certainly be a central issue in Almaty.
I believe, moreover, that – as others have said – rights of participation in other areas need to be clearly regulated.
I would also be glad if you, Commissioner Dimas, were again to elaborate on the Commission’s thinking concerning the third part of the Convention – access to justice – and on what you plan to say about this in Almaty.
   The next item is the debate on the proposal for a recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council on film heritage and the competitiveness of related industrial activities (COM(2004)0171-C5-0133/2004-2004/0066(COD)) (Rapporteur: Gyula Hegyi (A6-0101/2005).
Mrs Reding, on behalf of the Commission, has the floor.
   The next – and last – item is the Commission statement on the state of negotiations between the European Union and Mercosur.
Mrs Reding, on behalf of the Commission, has the floor.
    The next item is the oral question to the Council (B6-0238/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on financing TEN-T and the oral question to the Commission (B6-0239/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on financing TEN-T.
   . Mr President, the trans-European networks present us with a glaring discrepancy between their general importance, which Mr Schmit has just underlined, and the extent to which they have been realised.
It is for this reason that we are running the risk, where the trans-European networks are concerned, of making permanent the trans-European nuisance that we have had for some years now.
Let me remind you that building the trans-European networks is a task given us by the Treaty of Maastricht.
They are not something that we simply came up with; they are a matter of obligation, an obligation into which we jointly entered.
Throughout the time that I have been working on them – starting with the Christopherson group, and most recently in the high-level representatives’ group under Karel Van Miert – the outcome has always been a great deal of hot air, but little of any real substance, and little in the way of projects.
Even in the days of the Christophersen group, we were told that the projects were all ready to go ahead, that they were a practical proposition, and that the excavators could start work tomorrow.
Not much actually happened, though.
I would also like to remind you that last year, in May 2004, the Council and this House specified completion dates for the projects.
If it turns out that these completion dates cannot be met, I would hope that the Council – and by that I mean not the Council as a whole, but the Member States – will say that that is not what they want, that they cannot go along with it, and that the projects cannot be completed.
It is at that point that we will have to abandon the projects.
So, in this matter, let us have more courage, more commitment and more honesty from the Council, and if what we have heard today – that the presidency, Parliament, and the Commission endorse the budget appropriations for the Financial Perspective – is a promise, then that is a statement with which we are very comfortable.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have, over the past few days, observed the 60th anniversary of 8 May 1945, but we also recall 1 May 2004, when the division of Europe came to an end.
Now, in Europe, what belongs together can grow together, and the TEN projects help to bring this about, but we also know that the 30 TEN projects are a wish-list drawn up in a spirit of national ambition.
The bridge over the Straits of Messina has nothing to do with European integration, but it is on the list.
We know that funding all 30 projects, which are due to be completed by 2020, will call for some EUR 600 billion.
We also know, though, that, if we presuppose a 20% share, the EU, under the present financial plan, will take 120 years to do that.
We do not have that much time.
Yes, it is a good thing that the Council has agreed on a Euro-vignette, but we know that the amount levied will not be enough to fund, for example, the tunnel through the Brenner Pass between Austria and Italy.
On the basis of the tolls that Austria collects, it would take 300 years for Austria to be able to fund its share of the Brenner tunnel.
That is why we need priorities; what we need is the sort of transport projects that will unite Europe.
This has prompted us to start an initiative transcending party and national boundaries.
We want absolute priority to be given to the joining-up of the European rail links between Berlin, Warsaw, Tallinn, Riga and Vilnius, and we want a rail link between Vienna and Venice to Ljubljana, Bratislava, Prague and Budapest.
If we complete these two projects, we will have reached all eight capitals of the new Member States, and Europe will then be able to grow together.
In any case, we would rather see these two projects fully realised by 2010 than have 30, 50 or 48 projects half-finished in 2020.
European integration is dependent on our setting priorities in this area.
    The next item is the report by Mrs Hennis-Plasschaert on enhancing port security (COM(2004)0393 – C6-0072/2004 – 2004/0031(COD)).
   Madam President, I shall be very brief, but I should first of all like to reassure both the rapporteur and, particularly, Mr Chichester.
We are well aware that there is a cost issue and, as regards the costs liable to be generated by these measures, we in fact plan to undertake the commitment to prepare a communication on the security of different transport methods, including the issue of their financing, in our 2005 work programme.
The concerns of your Parliament will be taken into consideration in this way.
This reference to financing is, moreover, included in a preamble.
I should also like to point out to those who fear that we are not taking specific national situations into consideration that this is a directive and not a regulation.
This enables us to take into consideration, by way of subsidiarity, a number of practical considerations that will make the fight for security more effective, when the directive is transposed by Member States.
Finally, I should like to say to Mr Piecyk that he is absolutely right and that we must also be concerned about safety throughout the transport chain.
I now return to you, Mrs Hennis-Plasschaert, to express my deepest thanks as, thanks to you, I believe that we will be in a position to gain time in the context of implementing these security rules.
I also thank your committee, the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
You have embraced this rather technical proposal and you have adopted a pragmatic and constructive approach in your handling of the dossier.
I am pleased to observe that there are a great many points on which Parliament, the Commission and the Council fundamentally agree, with regard to the measures to be taken.
The Commission can therefore subscribe to the compromise reached by Parliament in the context of negotiations with the Council and which is expressed, Madam President, in Amendments 13-75.
We can therefore endorse Amendments 13-75, but unfortunately not Amendments 1-12.
To conclude, I would like to express my wish for a decision to be taken in order that this directive can be speedily adopted.
As I said, the European Union cannot economise on preventative measures for the protection of its ports either with regard to its people and sectors of port activity or with regard to its international partners.
All of the above has, moreover, been extremely well put by a number of you.
Madam President, Mrs Hennis-Plasschaert, ladies and gentlemen, my services will pass on to you the detailed position of the Commission on each proposed amendment.
I thank you most heartily for your attention and for your altogether decisive contribution to the outcome of this project.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0105/2005) by Mr Cercas, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2003/88/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time (COM (2004) 0607 C6-0122/2004 2004/0209(COD)).
      Madam President, Mr Cercas, working time is an extremely sensitive issue.
The reasons for this include the scourge of unemployment and the economic problems faced by employers, particularly in the new Member States.
A few days ago I was astonished to find that people in Poland were able to go shopping in Ikea until 8 p.m. on 1 May, which was not only Labour Day, but also a Sunday.
Supermarkets frequently stay open until 10 p.m. on weekdays, and sometimes even round the clock.
The threat of job losses and the shaky state of our economies make it hard to know whether one should support employer or employee groups, the positions of which are inherently opposed.
It is for this reason that I regard Mr Cercas’ report and the amendments by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs as a sensible compromise, and one aimed at improving people’s overall wellbeing.
On-call time in the workplace should be regarded as working time, and employees should be paid a flat rate for on-call time outside the workplace.
There are certain issues that need to be regulated jointly in the EU, and working time is one of them.
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, while discussing some aspects of the organisation of working hours, first of all we have to talk about those cases where hired employees support their families from their jobs, and who comprise the majority of the labour market.
A high level of unemployment, in particular in some new Member States, the slow development of new workplaces, reduction of old workplaces in some sectors, for example, in the textile industry, and the fear of people, particularly in the provinces, that they will lose their jobs, enable employers to misuse the possibility of eliminating workplaces, or threatening dismissal if an employee refuses to work overtime.
Work exceeding 48 hours per week can worsen the conditions of employees in all sectors even more, in particular those working in the service sector, creating not only physical, but also moral discomfort, and causing undesirable effects for families and the education of children.
If the necessity for prolongation of the workweek is argued from the point of view of the fear that businesses in the European Union will move to China or other countries, then we should ask ourselves whether one of the essential motives of the establishment of the European Union – the welfare of its citizens – becomes just a catchword, and whether we should seek other means for economic development and competitive abilities.
On the other hand, the proposal of the European Parliament, in respect to employees having several work contracts and to summing up their working time according to each contract, deprives the citizens of those states where salaries are low, in such sectors as the health sector, which employs duty time, of the possibility of ensuring themselves an appropriate standard of living.
Therefore, when adopting the amending directive, I suggest refraining from the ‘opt-out’ introduction into all sectors and not to sum up the working time in respect to people voluntarily working according to several work contracts, and leave such decisions to the national level.
   Madam President, if we want to win the European public over to the European project, the EU must not become a self-service store where social and labour law are concerned.
It is because an welfare state is not an option that the opt-out clause must be done away with; this currently permits derogations from the maximum working week, and has already, in the United Kingdom, resulted in 700 000 employment contracts that disregard the 48-hour working week.
This is a good compromise, not least because, through the social partnership, it enables the trade unions to intervene.
Let me end by appealing to our friends in the Confederal Group of the European United Left. In the last Parliament, we voted on the Tobin tax, and would have won the vote if you had voted alongside us.
Watch out, or else your votes this Wednesday might enable the hardline conservatives to get what they want!
   Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, no to the 60-hour week, the opt-out must disappear.
It is without any hesitation whatsoever that I endorse the text presented by Mr Cercas.
I will support it first of all by referring to the good sense that demands that we work to live and not the reverse.
Good sense alone will tell us that, with the exception of jobs clearly demanded by those who carry them out, the reality of working 60 hours per week - or worse still, 63 hours with the authorisation granted in 1993 – as is the case in certain countries in the European Union, will pose problems in terms of adapting to one’s personal, family and social environment in the long run.
In the social field, as in that of politics, progress gives way to compromise.
The desire to extend the practice of 60 or 65 hours of working time is at odds with social progress.
In this regard, the opt-out must disappear.
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it goes without saying that the biggest challenge we face today in our parliamentary work is the abolition of the opt-out, which – let me tell Mr Davies – has nothing to do with subsidiarity but everything to do with lawlessness and a lack of rights.
However, if we abolish the opt-out, we must find a solution for stand-by times, an increasing number of countries are responding to the Court of Justice’s rulings by threatening to resort to the opt-out for sectors such as health care and care for the elderly.
It would be unacceptable to us, Commissioner, if stand-by and rest times were to be excluded from working time, for that is the time during which the workers are at their employers’ disposal, and what is more, exclusion of those hours would have major implications not only for the safety and health of workers, but also for patients in hospitals and the elderly in rest homes.
In my view, the solution presented in the Cercas report is an excellent one, treating periods of on-call duty as working time, in accordance with the Court judgments, while proposing that we allow the stand-by and rest times to be calculated differently by collective agreement.
I hope that the whole House will give Mr Cercas and his excellent report their backing, and let me say, Commissioner, that I hope that the Commission will change its position.
   Madam President, Commissioner, the 8-hour working day and the 48-hour working week were enshrined in one of the first conventions adopted by the International Labour Organisation, which was founded in 1919.
This was an acknowledgement of the fact that the health and safety of workers must be protected, and that they must be given time to rest and the chance to raise a family, or in other words to produce more workers.
The Commission’s proposal does away with all that, however, and cites hypocritical reasons for doing so.
The opt-out clause, which is a disgraceful practice, invalidates everything that the trade union movement has managed to achieve over the past centuries.
If the Cercas report makes provision for the abolishment of this clause, it deserves our support.
   Colleagues, we are in the middle of a debate and have approximately another eight minutes left, including the Commissioner’s statement.
Please take your conversation outside.
Those of you seated behind Mrs Klaß, please ask your colleagues to leave.
That includes Mr Rasmussen and others.
Could the huissiers please escort out of the Chamber those who are leaving the debate.
Please sit down and be quiet for another eight minutes or leave the Chamber.
   Madam President, if the Lisbon Strategy’s objectives are to be met, the social and employment situation in Europe needs to be improved.
The opt-out from the 48-hour week must finally be removed.
No country should be exempt from the rules governing working time and thus have a labour market in which employees are exposed to impossible and exhaustingly long working weeks.
The opt-out makes no contribution to a social Europe.
It opens the way to social dumping, whereby countries can pick and choose which rules they want to follow.
That is not the way forward for Europe.
We cannot and must not compete in terms of either low wages or long working days.
Europe’s populations must feel that the European Union has their interests at heart.
All studies clearly show that long working weeks are harmful to both safety and health.
A 48-hour working week which had better definitions of working time and recreational time and which called on companies to take account of workers’ family lives, would increase employees’ options.
By voting in favour of the committee’s report, we shall show the people of Europe that we want a social and just Europe.
   Madam President, Members of this Parliament were asked to vote here at 11.30 a.m.
It is not their fault that their time has been wasted: it is that of the Presidency.
It is not your fault, you are not responsible for every detail, but when is the Presidency going to start timetabling debates properly?
   Mr President, following President Karzai’s powerful speech, for which our President did not feel obliged to thank him, I would like to thank him for addressing this House.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I intervene only to point out to every Member of this Parliament – including the Member who has just spoken – that up until the fall of the Berlin Wall there were many nations without statehood in Europe, and that one day the right to self-determination will allow Padania to also become a nation with its own state.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I was going to take the floor to inform you that I had withdrawn Amendment 12; however, it lapses like Amendment 10, because they have in fact already been accepted by Parliament and the Commission.
On the other hand, I uphold Amendment 11, which refers to checks against drug trafficking, the counterfeiting of goods and above all against illegal immigration.
   .
I voted in favour of this report because I feel that the framework agreements in question form part, on a broader scale, of what should be the European policy on cooperation with its neighbouring countries, including these countries, whose recent past and future prospects justify support from, and close cooperation with, the Europe of 25.
   .
The fact that the EU has signed up to the International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) is a positive step towards striking the right balance between the interests of breeders and farmers in terms of reasonable protection of breeders’ property rights regarding new varieties of plants.
For this reason, and because I feel that Portuguese interests are thus protected, I shall be voting in favour.
   I have voted against all of the amendments contained in the Maaten report that sought over-regulation.
The public must be informed about the quality of bathing water, and its quality must be improved.
We must, however, have confidence in the intelligence and judgment of human beings, particularly as regards carrying out recreational activities.
   The resolution on the murder of Robert McCartney identifies the IRA as being responsible for the murder, in spite of the fact that the issue has still not been decided in court.
It is absurd for the European Parliament to set itself up as a judge on a sensitive issue that can affect the peace process in Northern Ireland.
We therefore choose to abstain from voting on the resolution.
   We have voted in favour of the resolution by the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left on the McCartney case.
We have abstained from voting on the resolution by the other groups.
This resolution contains many sound points, but its basis, in Article 1, is that the murder was a political one organised by the IRA.
That is probably not the case, and the police investigation is not complete.
This introduces an imbalance into the resolution as a whole.
   . We in UKIP strongly support the brave stand taken by the McCartney family to gain justice after the murder of their brother, Robert.
However, we cannot support the use of EU money in a civil court case in Northern Ireland.
   The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Council on the Council’s Strategy for the Seminar of Governmental Experts on Climate Change (B6-0234/2005),
and the oral question to the Commission on the Commission’s Strategy for the Seminar of Governmental experts on Climate Change (B6-0235/2005).
   Mr President, may I thank everyone, and especially Mr Schmit and Mr Dimas, for their contributions.
It is in itself extremely positive that you radiate a certain optimism regarding this difficult issue, both where the problem as a whole is concerned and, specifically, when it comes to your reading of Bush.
I wish I could be just as optimistic.
Just the other day, George W Bush gave a speech on energy and climate change that unfortunately did not show any real movement in the right direction.
I of course agree with you, however, that the dialogue with the United States is incredibly important because, without its active participation, the work on climate change can never be properly effective.
It is, of course, just as important to engage in dialogue – and dialogue of a strategic nature – with large developing countries such as China and India.
I saw the other day that China anticipates building 800 large coal-fired power stations over the next ten years.
The emissions from these will completely overshadow what we do in Europe.
The conclusion is, of course, that the developing countries need not go down precisely the same route in energy development as we have done.
They need not repeat our mistakes, and it is in the interests of all of us to offer them favourable conditions for investing in the best possible technology.
On this point, I am unfortunately compelled to note that the CDM, that is to say the Clean Development Mechanism, is not enough.
Instead, we must come up with something much more radical and ambitious.
The situation is serious, with the latest research reports in fact indicating that the climate system may be much more vulnerable than we had previously believed.
It will be much more difficult to stay within the two-degree increase in temperature established by the EU as an objective and to avoid dangerous climate change.
That is why the summit in Bonn is so important, for you will be able to lay a foundation for the period following 2012.
Our resolution indicates the need for short- and long-term emissions objectives.
We also think that such objectives need to be accompanied by far more ambitious programmes in terms both of the development of new energy sources and increased investment in energy efficiency.
There is a range of issues in this area to which we must return and in connection with which we must together devise practical objectives.
I wish the Commission and the Council good luck in Bonn and hope that you will come back with positive reports so that we can do this work in a way that is constructive for the future and, as Mr Florenz pointed out, accept our responsibility for future generations.
   Mr President, during the last hundred years, the world has experienced an increase in temperature of approximately 0.6 degrees.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has noted that this change mainly affects the world’s poor people.
I wish to emphasise this, because we in this House too often see global problems from a one-sided European perspective.
The reasons why it is mainly poor people who experience the effects of global climate change are many.
They partly have to do with the fact that these countries’ economies are often dominated by climate-sensitive industries, especially agriculture.
They also have few resources with which to adapt to, and protect themselves against, various changes, for example rising sea levels or reduced rainfall.
There are also too few resources for preventive healthcare.
It is thus difficult to eradicate the risk of climate-related diseases, such as malaria, from breaking out.
The world’s rich countries need to coordinate their common efforts in combating climate change and to work in particular with preventive measures.
My party believes that the EU should work on cross-border environmental issues.
Climate change is among these.
I thus support constructive and well thought-out proposals by the EU in this area.
At the same time, I wish to emphasise that the UN Climate Conventionhasbeen ratified by189 parties.
Thus, we cannot operate unilaterally through European institutions.
We need instead also to coordinate our measures within the frameworks of other international organisations and to be alert to the UN’s competent bodies and the World Energy Council (WEC).
   The next item is statements by the Council and the Commission on small arms, ahead of the United Nations Conference in July 2005.
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, we are all agreed that conventional weapons, and particularly small arms, still cause the largest number of victims worldwide.
They are fairly readily available on the market at relatively low cost, and are far too often an obstacle to sustainable development and reconstruction processes.
It is right that we should examine our own consciences, for in my own country, important arms exports have been set up to conflict areas in the past.
Commissioner Michel is well placed to give you a full account and his assessment.
Let me remind you of the supply of arms to Nepal or the Democratic Republic of Congo where, since August 1998, more than three million people have been killed.
The President-in-Office, Mr Schmit, talked about cutting off the arms supplies.
That is why the Tanzanian project and the construction of an arms factory deserve our undivided attention.
This project must be stopped.
I would repeat with great emphasis the political request made by fellow Members to the Presidency-in-Office to ensure that a political pledge is made that an international treaty on the trade in conventional weapons is drafted.
This treaty on arms trade should come about with the support of the 25 Member States without delay, if at all possible.
   The next item is the report (A6-0094/2005) by Mrs Berès, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the appointment of an Executive Board Member of the European Central Bank.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Berès, we in this House are in agreement as regards the qualities of Mr Padóa-Schioppa, who has left the ECB’s Executive Board. We are grateful to him for his work and for his cooperation with us.
Having endorsed his successor’s nomination, we are in agreement about his qualifications too; we take a favourable view of him, and wish him every success.
I would like to take this debate as a starting point, by saying that I agree with the Commissioner, that there must be nothing automatic about nominations being made by certain countries, and that it would have been a good thing if we had had several candidates for the seats available, and hence a competing array of qualities, principles, opinions and fundamental beliefs to choose from.
That this was not the case on this occasion is no discredit to Mr Bini Smaghi, but it is something we have to highlight.
Thirdly, it has to be said that the European Central Bank plays a very important role, and does it very well, by virtue of its independence, and also as the euro’s guardian and the driving force behind it.
We would urge Mr Bini Smaghi to join his fellow Executive Board members in upholding these principles.
In this respect, the changes to the Stability and Growth Pact will give the European Central Bank an even more important role, in cooperation with the Commission.
One thing I think we should do is to compare the two sets of statistics that we are given, in order to ensure that there are no discrepancies in the way countries are assessed; I am also thinking here of the ECB’s public statements and assessments as guardian of price stability, as regards the size of the Member States’ budgets, the things they spend their budgets on and the breakdown of their tax receipts.
What we need is a strong and independent Central Bank, enabling the euro to continue on its successful course.
   Mr President, it is to be hoped Mr Smaghi will bring some semblance of financial discipline to the ECB.
Recently, I questioned the fact that the ECB had decided to double its printing of EUR 500 banknotes this year – the highest value banknotes in the world and the Russian mafia’s currency of choice, each one worth seven times a USD 100 bill.
Last year, counterfeit EUR 500 notes rose by over 160%, and that is only the ones we know about.
The Commission’s reply to my questions would have stunned even a simpleton.
It said, ‘a strong demand for high-value notes could be met only by lower denominations and increasing printing costs’.
Can you imagine that as a serious answer from a central bank? The reply went on, ‘EUR 500 banknotes are widely used for hoarding purposes’ – surprise, surprise!
And finally, ‘there are no indications that high-denomination banknotes encourage illegal transactions’.
Which planet do they live on? The ECB must be out of its tiny collective mind to encourage the wider circulation of such banknotes, and I believe Mr Smaghi has much work to do.
   Mr President, I would simply like to say a couple of words repeating what I said in my first speech and which coincide with the vast majority of the speeches by the honourable Members.
We wish Mr Bini Smaghi every success, because success in his work as one of the members of the Executive Boards of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank will be a success for the single currency, it will be a success for the economic and monetary union and it will be a success for the progress, happiness and well-being of all the European citizens.
   Mr President, I thank Commissioner Frattini for his presentation.
The problem is, Commissioner, that there is a gap between your personal good faith, which I recognise, not to undermine privacy and data protection – and, indeed, the good faith of the Commission that, in the search for security, you will not forego that – and the reality of what is happening on the ground.
Your pledges are under great strain, not least from the culture in European law enforcement communities, which is, at times, somewhat cavalier about data protection.
In the context of the implementation of the principle of availability, of interoperability, of databases, of transfers to third countries – which become transfers to fourth countries – I do not see how you are going to be able to hold the line, because it is not happening at the moment.
We have been waiting for years for rules on data protection in the third pillar, which we were promised at the end of this year.
What can you do to create a climate of truly reinforced respect for strict data protection observances in this context of a huge pressure to dilute it, as we have just heard with regard to the PNR case?
   The next item is Question Time (B6-0236/2005). We will be taking a number of questions to the Commission.
Since the international quota system on textiles came to an end on 1 January 2005, and as a result of its cheaper labour and manufacturing costs, exports of certain Chinese clothing items to Europe have increased by more than 500%.
Does the Commission accept that excessive Chinese clothing imports are causing 'market disruption' and that thousands of textile jobs could be at risk unless China limits its exports? Will the Commission now invoke WTO rules and introduce an annual 7.5% limit on Chinese imports until 2008?
   . I am taking over this question on behalf of my colleague, Mr Mandelson.
As a member of the WTO, China has benefited from the elimination of textile quotas since 1 January 2005.
Import figures for the first months of 2005 show that Chinese exporters have availed themselves of the opportunities offered by the elimination of quotas.
Taking account of serious concerns voiced by European textile manufacturers, trade unions and some Member States, the Commission opened investigations on 29 April, covering a number of products, to determine whether market disruption and disorderly development of trade have taken place as defined under the relevant Community legislation in accordance with China’s protocol of accession to the WTO.
Following these investigations, the Commission may decide to open formal consultations with China.
In that case China will be under an obligation to limit exports to the Community to certain specific levels, with a growth rate of, in general, 7.5%.
Such measures may be effective for a period ending on 31 December, or for one year, depending on when the consultations have been requested.
They may be reapplied if need be.
   . I am taking this question on behalf of my colleague, Mr Barrot.
The Commission is at present studying the issue of airline insolvency.
It has launched a study on the functioning of the internal market for air transport, which covers as a distinct part the issue of bankruptcy.
In addition to providing the Commission with a database containing important information on relevant insolvencies in the EU air industry as of 1 January 2000, the consultant has been asked to consider the issue of passengers stranded due to bankruptcy.
It will conclude on the need or not for a protection mechanism for airline passengers and examine possible options.
The study is expected to produce its findings by the end of August 2005.
Based on these conclusions, and if it is effectively confirmed that a large number of citizens are faced with a lack of protection, the Commission will decide on possible future actions.
   . The honourable Member is right in highlighting this particular lacuna in the existing legislation.
As he will know, the Package Travel Directive covers travel as part of the total package.
However, as he has pointed out, in the specific instance where a consumer has purchased his or her flight separately from the package, it is not covered.
That means that the difficulties mentioned can arise.
That is why the Commission carried out a study in this particular area.
The first part of the consultancy is being done by Commissioner Barrot, and will cover the general review of regulations in this regard.
The second part will deal with the possibility of bankruptcies and what should be done when they occur.
I should also point out that DG Sanco is carrying out an ongoing review of the Package Travel Directive, which will also deal with this issue.
Since 2000 there have been 40 such bankruptcies, but the method of dealing with them varies between Member States.
Some Member States take it upon themselves to look after their stranded nationals.
Others have agreements with each other.
Therefore, it is necessary that we review this in its entirety.
Hopefully, we will have the consultancy study by this summer.
Commissioner Barrot will then propose some amendments, if he thinks necessary, on the basis of the study.
Why has the Commission, in accordance with the spirit and purpose behind Article I-5 of the Constitution for Europe, not yet considered the possibility of holding technical discussions, along the lines of the established European ‘conciliation’ procedure, with a three-member delegation designated by the Greek Government, regarding those provisions of the ‘primary shareholder’ law with which it disagrees before sending off a reasoned opinion in reply to the letter from the Greek Government of 6 April 2005?
   . In line with established practice in similar cases, the Commission would like to underline that it has been in contact with the Greek Government before sending its letter of formal notice and its reasoned opinion.
The national authorities, including members of the Greek Government, have thus had several opportunities to present their arguments in meetings with the Commission.
Article 15 of the Constitutional Treaty establishes the principle of sincere cooperation between the Union and Member States.
It requires the fulfilment on behalf of both parties of their task described in the Constitution in full mutual respect.
A procedure involving technical discussions between the Commission and a three-member delegation of a Member State government, as suggested by the honourable Member, is not foreseen therein.
   – Madam President, I wish to thank Commissioner McCreevy for the answer which he has given me and also to thank his colleagues.
I would like to say the following:
First, I conclude from his answer that Commissioner McCreevy and the Commission are always open to dialogue and that is a very, very positive point.
Secondly, as far as my reference to Article 1.5 of the Constitution is concerned, of course I too recognise that the Constitution has not yet been ratified; however, the Constitution introduces the principle of dialogue and cooperation which, I note, is something accepted by Mr McCreevy.
   . Mr Posselt is absolutely right about the risk of this becoming too narrow or too Brussels-centric, and that has been part of the problem until now.
We face a huge challenge in dealing with 20 official languages, and this is something that will remain a huge challenge for us.
In preparing this new communication strategy, we have been guided by the concept of ‘going local’, that is to say reaching out locally and regionally through our representation offices.
We have to equip those offices in such a way – and work and plan in such a way – that they can ‘go local’ and communicate with local media.
Our contacts with the national parliaments will also help.
We have to make sure that European affairs are anchored in local and national political traditions and party systems.
They will have to understand European affairs and how this affects the way they work and their tasks.
I agree with you that these are challenges.
We are already concentrating on trying to solve these two issues.
Citizens of Member States have a tendency to view the EU as far removed and abstract, despite the fact that the European Union has substantial influence on many areas of their daily lives.
According to the latest published Eurobarometer survey, which carried out its fieldwork in November 2004, approximately one third of Europeans have never even heard of the Constitution.
There is also a huge problem of misinformation.
As we have seen in France, discussions concerning the Constitution are often too closely associated with separate issues such as Turkey's accession to the EU.
How is the Commission providing clear communication to citizens on the Constitution? Will the Commission commit to doing more to dispel the myths currently circulating about the Constitution?
   Your list of ten points of action in terms of promoting information about the Constitution are very welcome.
It seems to me there is one omission: there is no provision for rebutting false information.
It is absolutely urgent that we establish across the whole of the European Union, using the network of Commission offices, a system whereby we can respond immediately when myths and lies are told about the European Union, and particularly about the content of the Constitution.
There is no point in responding 20 days or two months later, because then the myth has become stuck in reality.
You need to respond instantly.
   Commissioner, will the NGOs that misuse public funds – and I am thinking, in particular, of an NGO in Ireland whose job it is to work in the developing world, which put up ‘say no to NATO’ signs during the last Nice Treaty referendum – face any sort of sanctions or censure from the Commission, particularly if they are using public funds when they should be looking after Third World issues and development issues of that kind?
   Madam President, it seems as if Commissioner Wallström and quite a number of those who have taken part in the debate in this House are of the view that the press in the European Union and perhaps also radio and television have a strong bias against the draft Constitution.
I must ask whether that is Commissioner Wallström’s view, because my distinct impression is exactly the opposite, namely that there is a huge bias throughout Europe in favour of the ‘yes’ camp, which dominates the press.
What is curious is that the opposite is presented as being the case.
On 22 March 2005 the Greek Minister for the Environment, Mr Souflias, stated that the former Hellinikon Airport in Athens would not be converted in its entirety into a park for the capital because – according to him – Greek taxpayers could not be asked to pay for the construction and maintenance of such a park; this meant that at least 100 hectares would be developed.
The inhabitants of Athens have to contend with very poor air quality, since it is the EU capital with the lowest proportion of green space per inhabitant.
Has the Greek Government asked the Commission to co-fund the construction of this park? Do the other major cities of the European Union have parks?
A study carried out by the Kassel College of Higher Education in July 2004 on German regional aid (EU and German federal programmes) shows that up to 96% of the appropriations paid in subsidies have no lasting impact in economic terms owing to geographical relocations and the deadweight effect.
The current proposal for a regulation laying down general provisions (COM(2004)0492 final) seeks to prevent subsidies being paid for business relocation during the new programming period.
However, this scheme relates only to the 7-year period during which the subsidised investment has to remain in a given location.
How will it be possible for the relocation of a business before that period to be taken into account under this scheme? How would it be possible to prevent subsidies being used solely for relocation?
The Commission is proposing, for regions that have exceeded the 75% GDP criteria because of economic development (the ‘natural effect’ regions), that they be subject to a ‘phasing-in’ process (into the Competitiveness strand) as opposed to a ‘phasing-out’ process (from the Convergence strand) as is the case for similar regions under the current programming period.
The Commission's proposal is very restrictive for these regions, as their development needs are better addressed by the measures set out under the Convergence strand as opposed to the measures in the Competitiveness strand.
Would the Commission accept the proposal from the natural effect regions that they should be subject to a ‘phasing-out’ process from Convergence, without any additional financial resources other than those already provided for these regions in the Commission's proposal?
Greece has stopped submitting applications for payments since the beginning of the year until negotiations with the Commission concerning the changes to the system of monitoring contracts and the irregularities identified in projects during the period 2000-2004 are completed. At the same time, articles in the Greek press report that the Greek Finance Ministry is to undertake another review of the 3rd CSF, which is to be approved by the Commission.
What is the outcome of the negotiations between the Greek Government and the Commission concerning the irregularities which occurred during the four-year period from 2000 to 2004? Will any resources be lost?
If so, how much and from which programmes?
Which programmes is the Greek Government proposing for cuts and which does the Commission consider should be cut because of a low take-up rate of funding? What percentage of their resources will be transferred to other programmes?
   – I should like to thank the Commissioner, Mrs Hübner, for remembering the informal agreement reached in the autumn of 2003 with the then Greek government on a legislative arrangement which would cover the problems presented by the law on public works.
I also wish to thank her for the agreement, at the beginning of 2004, with the then Greek government, on the action plan to improve the Community Support Framework management system.
However, I should like, with my thanks, to ask her a question: what happened next as regards the question of implementing the action plan with the new government after March 2004? Can the Commissioner give me this information?
What lessons does the Commission draw from the difficulties faced by MG Rover in the UK?
   . Frankly, we are not flexible enough.
We have proposed in the future regulation, for example, setting up a kind of special reserve.
I cannot remember how big it was supposed to be, but it would be a certain percentage of the funds.
Then every Member State would have a reserve for cases like this and there would be no need to shift money between programmes or projects and become involved in a very complicated and bureaucratic process.
Unfortunately, in spite of the Rover case, there is no support among the Member States for such a reserve.
So we will be deprived of this kind of flexibility in the future.
At the same time, not only through the funds but also in general, we have embarked on a process that would allow us to contribute to the European structure in such a way as to ensure that future structures, based on new factors of production and growth, would be more flexible.
This would allow the industries to adjust in time and in an evolutionary manner, rather than leading to the kind of restructuring we are facing in the case of Rover.
This is a question of flexible structures, which we can usually achieve if we base industrial development on modern factors, such as research and development, and modern technology.
These structures are much more flexible than the old industry.
   Commissioner, I represent the West Midlands.
I started my working life in the Longbridge plant that you have been talking about.
I should first like to take the opportunity to thank you and your services very much for the prompt response that you referred to.
It has been much appreciated by my region and the support that we have given to the people immediately affected.
I should like to draw to your attention two points for you to reflect on.
First, I am also privileged to be a member of the ‘CARS 21’ Group, to which you referred earlier.
It is important that your services are also involved with Mr Verheugen in that.
Important regional issues are involved.
Secondly – and this is a lesson that I want to feed back to you from our experience in the West Midlands – restructuring the supply chain for industries, and particularly the SMEs, was something we started on.
We did not necessarily get a lot of support from you in the beginning, but it is a lesson I hope you will take for other major industries later.
   Questions Nos 42 to 46 will be answered in writing.
   Commissioner Wallström is always welcome to the stage, but she may understand that we are a little disappointed that the Commissioner designated – to whom we tabled this question – is not here to answer it.
Perhaps she could take a gentle message back asking him to turn up in future.
I am grateful for the off-the-cuff response she has given me today: it is voluminous and helpful.
However, she will understand – it is partly in the question – that patients feel the urgent need for more information about their condition, drugs and treatments.
Too often they go to the Internet and get information that may be misleading or may be dangerous.
Therefore, it is urgent that we have authorised and authenticated systems of information for patients.
Perhaps the Commissioner could take back the message that the penalty for Commissioner Verheugen is to speed up the process even more.
   . Mr Bowis, I will tell Mr Verheugen that you missed him.
I can say also that I understand the question very well, because once upon a time I was a minister for health and social affairs; so I know that this issue is very important.
I have only tried to put together the things that are now being prepared and in the pipeline.
I understand that there will also be a continuous dialogue between Parliament and the Commission to ensure that we get a good and reliable information system in place.
   Thank you for creating such a friendly atmosphere, Madam President.
Since being elected, this House has set up an Intergroup on SMEs, and I would like to invite the Commission to appoint the representative with responsibility for SMEs as a permanent member of it, in order to keep them up to date with what is going on.
We meet in Strasbourg on a Wednesday every other month.
I ask you to pass on this invitation to Commissioner Verheugen and to ask him, at the July part-session, to give us more concrete examples of what you have been saying today.
He may then be able to put things rather more in context.
    The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0119/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the recognition of professional qualifications (13781/2/2004 – C6-0008/2005 – 2002/0061(COD)) (Rapporteur: Stefano Zappalà).
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too am delighted that we managed to approve this important directive this week, after a period of 40 years during which the situation was made very much more complex by the general sectoral directives, to the extent that one could, as the saying goes no longer see the wood for the trees.
I consider this to be an important step in terms of simplification and an important step forward.
You yourself, Commissioner, stressed that it is an honourable compromise in which we have struck a balance between the operation of the internal market with the highest possible level of free movement of professionals on the one hand, and quality training and respect for consumer interests on the other.
I think that with this debate, we have shown that these can be reconciled.
An example of this is in paragraph 3 of Article 5, where we replaced disciplinary provisions with rules of conduct.
The fact that a destination Member State can continue to impose national rules in this respect is not a protectionist measure at all, but no more and no less than proof of this balance.
I should like to echo the hope Mrs Gebhardt expressed, that we may follow the same path for the services directive where we also need to find this desperately needed balance.
    The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0121/2005) by Mrs Herranz García on the simplification of the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables (2004/2193(INI)).
     Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the major EU enlargement in 2004 presented us with new challenges and new problems.
Although we have already spent a year working together, we have unfortunately not succeeded in putting right the mistakes made during the negotiations on the accession of the new Member States.
We all appreciate that decisions require time and thought, but we are also aware of a great many urgent matters that will brook no delay.
One such matter is the much-needed regulation of the fruit and vegetable market.
It is a matter of great importance to the new Member States that protective measures are put in place on the markets for soft fruit and apples.
European producers are facing enormous problems and suffering tragic consequences as a result of the influx of soft fruit such as strawberries, currants, raspberries and cherries, from China, Morocco and Serbia.
Polish producers and processors have been particularly hard hit, as Poland produces around 50% of all soft fruit in the European Union, as well as being a major apple producer.
Following a number of interventions on the matter by myself and other Members, I am delighted that the President of Parliament and Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture have turned their attention to this issue, with the latter having taken a very professional approach to the problem.
The end result of this has been that the Commission has also taken the matter seriously, and has sent a delegation to Poland to carry out on-the-spot investigations.
I hope this delegation will complete its work before the fruit-buying season starts, and that we will manage to provide the necessary assistance and take the necessary measures before it is too late.
Ladies and gentlemen, the report Mrs Herranz García has presented to the House merits particular attention, and the Commission should therefore draw the right conclusions from it and get down to work without delay.
If we were to put off dealing with this problem, we would merely be running away from much-needed solutions and making matters even worse for many farmers and European producers, as well as giving rise to misunderstanding and disquiet among the public.
    The next item is the report (A6-0096/2005) by Mr Wojciechowski, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1868/94 establishing a quota system in relation to the production of potato starch (COM(2004) 772 – C6-0014/2005 – 2004/0269(CNS)).
   , . – The issue of the production quotas of potato starch is very important for some of the new Member States of the EU, primarily for Lithuania and Poland.
The problem is that the Agreement on the Accession to the European Union has established a very small quota for Lithuania for the production of the potato starch – 1 211 tonnes per year, which constitutes only 0.06% of the quota of the European Union.
The quota for Lithuania, as you know, was established according to the reference period of the years 1998-2000, the period of the lowest production of potato starch in Lithuania, and it does not comply at all with the present requirements.
I would like to draw the attention of colleagues and members of the European Commission to the fact that this quota does not even ensure the minimal economically justified utilisation of the capacity of the factories of this industry in Lithuania.
The industry of the production of potato starch in Lithuania is composed of only two factories.
The total technological capacity of those two factories is 13 000 tonnes of potato starch per year.
Thus at present the Lithuanian factories operate using only 9% of their capacity.
If today’s quota remains the same for the next several years, that will mean the disruption of the industry of the production of potato starch in Lithuania.
The minimal, economically justified utilisation of the capacities of the factories would only be 4-5 thousand tonnes of potato starch per year; therefore, Lithuania requests increasing its quota to at least 4 855 tonnes per year, and that would comprise 0.25% of the quota for the European Union.
In this context I would like to emphasise that during recent years the potato starch production quota for the European Union has not been exhausted, and therefore Lithuania’s request to increase the quota from 0.06 to 0.25% of the general level of the potato starch production quota for the European Union definitely will not have an essential effect on the indicators of the internal market of the European Union.
However, the most important thing is that if the potato starch production quota for Lithuania is increased, that would secure social stability, workplaces and the infrastructure of two regions of the country that are closely related with the operation of those factories.
Of course, to destroy something is much easier than to build it, and the problem is that, upon disrupting this sector of industry in Lithuania, the after-effects would have to be compensated, including the financial ones, and all this is happening at a time when the forecast says that the consumption and demand of potato starch in Lithuania is growing and will continue to grow, and that within the cellulose and food industries it will increase up to 8 000 tonnes per year.
Hence, there is no doubt that the potato starch production quota for Lithuania should be increased.
    The next item is the oral question to the Commission (O-0045/2005 – B6-0231/2005) by Mr Pistelli, on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, on the situation in Sudan.
   Mr President, the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed leaders, like Musa Hilal, seem singularly immune to Western criticism.
Having burned the people of the Darfur region of Sudan into graves and refugee camps, they have created a militarised zone – a terror zone – that separates Sudan, north and south.
In all our peace initiatives, we must be constantly aware that, for the perpetrators of terror, peace is a threat that they will resist with all their might because peace will mean eventual conviction in the war crimes courts.
Agreements are for the honourable; the Janjaweed are not honourable.
They will not cooperate.
People are suffering.
We cannot wait for a cooperation that will not come.
We will have to supervent Hilal and those like him.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, EUR 400 million is a lot of money.
It will allow the EU to do a great deal to stabilise the situation in Sudan, but Mr Pistelli is right to ask how humanitarian aid for Sudan is actually being distributed.
The EU must not dole out money indiscriminately, without asking whether the authorities in Khartoum are ensuring that basic standards are met.
We are still waiting for a clear answer to the question of whether the rights of religious minorities in the country are observed.
The concern is that Christians are being persecuted, as they previously were in a number of other African countries.
This issue was raised by the European Union and by the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries during the Parliamentary Assembly.
Neither Sudan nor Africa said anything in reply, but I hope that the EU will not follow their example.
It would be a mistake for us to donate money without investigating the situation regarding human rights, and in particular that regarding the rights of religious minorities.
This issue should be and needs to be considered as part of the equation.
Present and future relations between the European Union and the African Union must be built on the basis of respect for human rights standards.
In my opinion, this is the main point to emerge from the current debate.
I share the reservations voiced earlier in this Chamber by Mrs Kinnock.
   Mr President, the UN is the international organisation best placed to bring about a lasting solution to the conflicts in Darfur.
It is important for the EU’s actions to take place within the framework of UN cooperation and for the EU’s efforts to be made in cooperation with institutions that have extensive experience and legitimacy such as the WHO or the UN World Food Programme.
I welcome the UN’s efforts in the Sudan conflict, such as the recent creation of the 10 000-man strong UN mission, UMIS.
I am also well disposed towards the proposal to increase the African Union’s presence in Darfur.
For my part, it has always been important that it should be the UN that, in the first place, acts in this conflict.
The UN should act in cooperation with the African Union.
Possible EU actions need to be focused upon humanitarian aid following consultation with the UN.
The UN plans to contribute aid totalling USD 1.5 billion during 2005.
That is the single largest UN appeal of this year.
It is important that the EU’s aid efforts be coordinated with those of the UN and that they take place in consultation with the UN.
In that way, the world’s total efforts in Sudan will achieve their maximum effect.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I made my first statement on the situation in Darfur on 14 September 2004, since when – as you said – there have been some crucial changes.
After 21 years of civil war and raging ethnic conflicts between north and south, a peace treaty has been signed between the government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.
For this country – the largest in Africa – this is a great opportunity.
What is vital now is that millions of refugees should be helped to return to living conditions worthy of human beings, to provide themselves with the basic necessities of life, which means not just food and drinking water, demining and the return of land to its owners, but most of all ensuring their physical security.
Although the European Union’s strategy, which involves supporting the Sudan to the tune of EUR 400 million, is the right response, it is necessary, above all, that the release of these resources be made conditional upon the implementation of the peace treaty and, in particular, on the improvement of the situation in the south-western province of Darfur.
A number of things have been happening in this province since our debate last September. The UN Security Council has handed over the grave violations of human rights in Darfur to the International Criminal Court.
The UN’s commission of inquiry into the war crimes in this province has unequivocally described them as no less serious in their cruelty than genocide.
The fly in the ointment, in terms of what is happening in Sudan, is that the situation in Darfur remains extremely precarious and is capable of dragging Sudan as a whole headlong into the abyss again.
It is alarming that the human rights activist Dr Mudawi has been arrested along with a colleague and his driver, and I can do no other than endorse the call for his immediate release.
A third element that is having a positive impact is the role played by the African Union, which has built up its forces to a significant degree, although the size of Darfur makes its 7 700 men no more than a drop in the ocean.
Both the EU and Nato should, though, be cautious about committing themselves militarily to peacemaking operations.
The European strategy, which is founded upon the secure supply of food and education, repatriation and the building-up of administrative and governmental capacities, whilst also planning demobilisation, disarmament and the training of security forces, is surely the right way to stabilise the situation in the long term.
   Mr President, before the Commissioner takes the floor, I think some more clarity is what is needed, because I have heard two dates for presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan, namely 10 and 18 June.
These are, as far as I am aware, obsolete.
As far as I know, the presidential elections will be held on 10 July.
Before the parliamentary debate starts, I think it would be useful, if the Council or the Commission …
   Mr Maat, that is not a point of order.
   Mr President, I am pleased that the Commission has cleared up the misunderstanding about the Council’s communication with regard to the election date: it is 10 July.
All credit to the Commission, therefore, which was better informed.
I should like to echo the words by the chairman of the Delegation for Central Asia who has already indicated that we should be careful not to compare the situation in Kyrgyzstan with that in Ukraine.
Time will tell whether the revolution is the same, or whether a number of leaders have brought another process in motion.
The situation in Kyrgyzstan is significantly different: its democracy is divided along ethnic and regional lines, which does not, in itself, make matters worse, nor does it alter the fact that the European Union would do well to invest in Central Asia.
At the moment, too little is being invested and the striking thing is that until recently, the two poorest countries, Mongolia –a country deserving credit for the absence of any problems in the areas of democracy and human rights – and Kyrgyzstan, were doing best of all.
Now that a revolution in Kyrgyzstan is underway, we should capitalise on it.
I am pleased with the 25 million from the Commission, but it does seem to be a pittance.
In the short term, the European Union should do as follows.
I call upon the Council and the Commission, together with Parliament, to invest in the elections by sending a solid observation delegation on 10 July and by supporting the OSCE, to ensure that the elections go well.
Indeed, elections that go well will instil trust in the people, also for subsequent parliamentary elections.
In addition, it is important for the European Union to invest more in education and economic cooperation, because it is too crazy for words that the lion’s share of foreign investments in education are currently being made by fundamentalist Islamic groupings.
That situation must end.
It is a challenge for Europe to invest more in Kyrgyzstan, particularly in the areas of education and economic cooperation.
The country also requires sound free trade agreements to this end.
I would like to add another critical note about that region.
I should like to find out from the Commission what it intends to do about increasing repression in Kazakhstan, including the recent closure of the biggest opposition newspaper and the imprisonment of its journalist Irina Petrusheva in Russia at the request of the authorities in Kazakhstan.
   Following the political upheaval in Kyrgyzstan, which is not entirely comparable with the developments in Ukraine and Georgia, the key causes of instability in the economic, social and other areas are still in place.
Of course the new government cannot resolve the accumulated problems by the presidential elections on 10 July, nor indeed for several months after that.
I myself experienced the revolution as a special envoy of the chairman-in-office of the OSCE, which in my opinion is working there quite successfully with the support of the European Union and the United Nations.
I am grateful to you for the attentive words in connection with the work of the OSCE, which is currently striving primarily for fair elections, improvement of security and political dialogue between the presidential candidates.
We know that there exist major differences between the north and south, and on this basis, although not only on this basis, political instability could arise before the actual elections.
And after 10 July there will of course be an urgent need for long-term assistance from the international community to implement reform in the political, economic and social spheres.
I am very pleased that today Commissioner Almunia has already pointed out the strategic aspect, followed by Mr Brok and other speakers.
I myself have advised several times of the need for the European Union to re-think its relationship with that area, which is not a part of the wider Europe but is closer to us than it might seem.
I think that in this relationship, as Mr Brok already stated, we also need to take into consideration the trans-Atlantic and Russian dimension.
In any case I am in favour of Parliament demonstrating its attention to Kyrgyzstan with a strong team of observers, and I would also like to assure you that the Kyrgyz parliament is eagerly anticipating the arrival of our parliamentary delegation.
   .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Amendment 54, which is part of Block 1, provides for the insertion into Annex 5 of additional tables, to be considered supplemental to table 22 in the Council’s common position: not alternative, but supplemental!
I have made this clarification because as it stands it is not clear, and so that it can be placed on record that it is an agreed position.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I asked a representative sample of the 20 million senior citizens from Italy, a large number of whom voted for me to be here as a Member of the European Parliament to represent them, how I should vote on the reduction in working time.
The sample replied: ‘Some people want to make us work all our lives, every year of our working lives, plus as many months, weeks, days and hours in the day as are possible and imaginable, and as if that were not enough, they also want us to collect our pensions for as few years and months as possible, and to collect the minimum amount possible.
The only thing we can hope for is at least to be able to work as little as possible during the working day.’
I have therefore voted in favour of the Cercas report and of the amendments reducing working time.
   . UKIP MEPs voted AGAINST Amendment 37 because the Working Time Directive is already operating and will continue.
We therefore aim to mitigate its worst aspects.
Currently it is possible to opt-out of the 48-hour week by way of either an individual, or a group, signing an agreement with the employer.
The European Commission wishes to retain the opt-outs, the CERCAS report eliminates them.
Amendment 37 was listed as, ‘Proposal to reject the Commission proposal’.
By voting against this amendment UKIP was seeking to restore the commission position, hence retaining opt-outs.
   .
At a time when the Constitutional Treaty requires the left to fight for a ‘yes’ vote, I believe that the amendments that the Cercas report has been able to impose on the Working Time Directive constitute a victory, given how strong the pressure from the right has been.
However, this victory cannot disguise the social backward step that remains in the text voted on today.
In particular:
1) the opt-out will stay in place for three years
2) the annualisation of working time will no longer be negotiated by the social partners.
This is therefore a backward step in a vital area, that of monitoring flexibility.
3) although periods of ‘non-productivity’ – for example, being on call – are still accounted for in the working time, exceptions could make it possible to calculate them specifically.
The Constitutional Treaty aims to introduce more social dialogue, but the current directive reduces it.
In addition, this directive affects one of the fundamental achievements of the battles of the last century: the reduction in working time, and the regulation of the working day.
That is why, while welcoming the efforts of Mr Cercas and of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament to push back the ultraliberalism with which the directive is stamped, I have abstained.
   .
My own region – the East of England – suffers the longest working hours in the U.K., with one-in-ten of people in transport working over 60 hours per week; the same numbers of machine operatives working more than 56 hours per week, of skilled tradespeople more than 53 hours per week; and of construction and storage workers more than 50 hours per week.
Just as it was right to bring in the minimum wage to combat the problem of poverty pay, it is now time to call time on excessive working hours, which see workers bullied and exploited, fuel stress and other health problems, and which damage family life.
That is why I fully support the end, with necessary safeguards, to the British opt-out from EU Working Time rules.
   . The Cercas report, which the MEPs have approved despite numerous gaps, calls for the deletion of the ‘opt-out’ clause that the Commission proposed to keep.
This clause, allowing certain Member States to push the legal working week beyond 48 hours, worsened social dumping in Europe. In a Europe without borders, French companies bound to the 35-hour week will not be able to compete with their competitors based in European countries that make use of the opt-out clause.
However, we do not have any illusions.
Adoption of Mr Cercas’s report is just a first step.
At first reading today, the European Parliament has forced back the European Commission because many MEPs are afraid of the French electorate expressing their displeasure on 29 May.
   . The Commission’s proposal to amend the Working Time Directive is, in practical terms, detrimental to millions of workers in Europe.
The opt-out remains in place, although it is proven that it leads to longer working weeks and affects workers’ health; it should be repealed as soon as possible, preferably in 2008, and I support Mr Cercas’ compromise to that end.
We regarded the extension of the reference period from four months to a year, with peaks of 65-hour weeks, as a feudal 19th century phenomenon, and that is why we must hold onto the four-month reference period.
Finally, the ruling by the European Court of Justice in respect of on-call duty must be adhered to.
The Commission is accommodating the wish of companies to become more flexible in a unilateral manner.
The maximum 48-hour working week as we know it is, in fact, already archaic.
The current working week is around 40 hours, with the large majority of workers wanting an even shorter working week.
That is why I would argue in favour of a European Working Times Standard to further redistribute the work and better reconcile work, family, care and education.
   . Further to the adoption of Amendment 10, the Dutch delegation of the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy thought it wise to vote against the amended Commission proposal on the organisation of working time.
According to the VVD delegation, the fact that Europe prescribes that the total on-call duty, including stand-by and rest times, should be considered working time, is an example of interference from Brussels which will only lose Europe even more support, at the very time when it needs even more of it.
   That concludes the explanations of vote.
The sitting will resume at 3 p.m. with the statements on the future of Europe sixty years after the Second World War.
   Mr President, it is of great importance that we should at this moment commemorate the end of the Second World War 60 years ago.
It is also a good thing that on this occasion, it is underlined once again that freedom and democracy should not be taken for granted, and have to be actively upheld.
The atrocities of National Socialism are a black page in Europe’s history and the previous speakers were right to point out that there is little, if anything, that can be added to that.
It is regrettable, though, that Western Europe is devoting so little attention to the historical fact that 60 years ago, the official go-ahead was given for handing over the Eastern European peoples to Soviet occupation, to dictatorial Communist regimes that were certainly a match for the Nazis in terms of horror and crime.
The Red Army was already at Warsaw in 1944, simply waiting until the Nazis had suppressed the uprising.
Sixty years ago, there was praise and honour everywhere in the West for Joseph Stalin, a tyrant who had by then already killed millions of people and who, with the connivance of the liberated West, would go on to kill many more millions, in and outside of Russia.
It is, in fact, high time that Russia should follow Germany in putting the past to rights.
Officially, countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were liberated by the Red Army.
Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Latvia’s President, pointed out that 1945 did not bring the Baltic States liberation of any kind, quite the contrary.
Let me quote her: ‘It meant slavery, it meant occupation, it meant submission and Stalinist terror’.
The European leaders who were in Moscow a few days ago hardly took the trouble to broach that reality, and what meant liberation for the Western Europeans 60 years ago, was another calvary for Eastern Europe, the difference being that the new dictatorships could count on the active support and sympathy of so many Western European politicians, media, intellectuals and many others, some of whom, in fact, appeared to be on the payroll of the Soviet secret services.
It is perhaps apt, 60 years down the line, to look at those issues.
Maybe Europe will not be able to fully put the past to rest unless a kind of Nuremberg Trial of Communism is held, not in an attempt to open up old wounds but with the intention never to forget, with the future of our children and grandchildren in mind.
I am shocked when a European Commissioner includes photos on his website on which he demonstrates his admiration for one such as Fidel Castro.
I am shocked when intellectuals and policy-makers continue to deny or play down the advent of Islamic extremism.
Jean-François Revel already spoke of – the totalitarian temptation.
If there is one lesson to be learnt from the atrocities of the Second World War, it is that totalitarianism should not be given another chance, wherever it may appear.
   Mr President, I believe that a peaceful and prosperous Europe must be based on the respect for human rights.
For this reason, I cannot vote for Mr Brok’s resolution.
A number of its assertions would create a legal basis for the violation of human rights and lead to huge injustices in my country, Latvia, as well as in neighbouring Estonia.
The motion for a resolution states that the countries of Eastern Europe were under Soviet occupation for many decades.
In the case of Latvia and Estonia, such an approach would have dangerous consequences for the more than half a million people who settled there during those decades.
Mr Toomas Ilves from Estonia recently explained in the what this assertion would mean: ‘hence, the protection of minorities in the Baltic states will become senseless’.
Moreover, two weeks ago, the Latvian Parliament approved further consideration of the declaration asking the European Parliament for exemption from the obligation to accept foreign citizens and their descendants who were moved to Latvia during the time of occupation.
My father was a naval officer in the Soviet army and participated in the defeat of Hitler’s army and of his local allies, Arājs, Cukurs and others, responsible for the liquidation of 80 000 Latvian Jews, including my father’s grandparents.
Moreover, my father was thrown out of the army, in accordance with Stalin’s orders, for being Jewish.
I will never accept that my father was an occupier, nor will I ever agree that my mother, a Russian Orthodox, who came to Riga from St Petersburg in 1950, should be subject to repatriation, as the draft Latvian declaration says.
The assertion made in this European Parliament resolution will encourage Latvian law-makers to accept this declaration in the very near future.
I do not want the Baltic states to become a second Balkans.
We parliamentarians are fully responsible for the words we are saying.
   The next item is a series of oral questions to the Council in accordance with Rule 109 of the Rules of Procedure (B6-0236/2005).
   Question No 1 has been withdrawn.
Is the Council aware that the United States of America's National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has stripped graduate teachers at American private universities of the protection of US labour law? The right to organise collectively into a trade union is a human right.
Is the Council willing to put pressure on the Bush administration to allow academic unions to organise to protect the quality of jobs, academic freedoms and the intellectual standards of US universities?
Do the provisions governing minorities in Serbia, particularly in Vojvodina, the Sandzhak of Novi Pazar and the Presevo valley, accord with European standards, and what is the Council's assessment of them in comparison with the standards which apply to Macedonia under the Ohrid Treaty?
   Mr President, as the Ohrid Agreement imposes very stringent conditions on Macedonia as regards the protection of minorities, I would ask that we avoid applying double standards, which I rather think we risk doing.
We are mainly concerned here with two areas: the Sandzak of Novi Pazar and Vojvodina, where the problems with minorities continue to be extremely serious, and it is these that I wish to bring to your attention.
What response has been given by the Council to the suggestion made by Commissioner Rehn at the January AFET meeting that, in a bid to overcome the current stalemate, the Commission was ready to consider adding Article 308 EC as a second legal basis of the regulations on aid and trade?
   .
I can simply say to you, Mrs Ludford, that your question comes just at the right moment, since in an hour and a half, myself, as the representative of the Presidency, and Commissioner Rehn, will travel to Cyprus to try to discuss the issues that you have just raised.
I believe that it is precisely the intention of the Presidency to resolve these issues as soon as possible, and to thus act in accordance with the political commitments undertaken by the Council in April.
   . The Commission’s proposals, which identify the measures to be taken with a view to speeding up the process of fulfilling the Millennium Development Goals, have been under discussion by a Council working group since 14 April 2005.
The Luxembourg Presidency intends to put every possible measure in place to ensure that during its meeting on 23 and 24 May, the Council will be in a position to outline the core elements of its renewed commitments.
Essentially, these commitments will aim to, firstly, lay down new intermediate objectives for increasing public aid budgets by the year 2010, whether individual or regarding the Union as a whole, in an effort to reach a global figure of 0.7% of GDP by 2015.
Secondly, they will aim to speed up reforms to improve the quality of aid, and thirdly, to reconsider the way in which the European Union, through its own model of sustainable development – by its internal and external policies – can influence development conditions.
That requires coherent policies to promote development, which is a fundamental factor in our approach to cooperation and development.
Fourthly, the commitments will aim to see Africa benefit from these new orientations as a priority issue, and seize the new opportunities offered by a partnership between the two continents.
The European Union is fully aware of the importance and urgency of the task.
In this context, during its meeting held on 22 and 23 March, the European Council called on the Commission and the Council to speed up their work, particularly with regard to the various components of the ‘development’ strand, so as to finalise the positions on the various issues and to allow the European Union to play an active role during future discussions with a view to the United Nations Summit being held in September 2005.
I have already announced this morning that the ECOFIN Council, after having considered potential new funding methods at its last meeting, will return to the issue during its informal meeting taking place this weekend.
   I would like to point out to the President-in-Office that this target of 0.7% was agreed 35 years ago and to date only five states, four of them EU states – four out of 25 EU states – have met this target of 0.7%.
By 2025, 2 billion more people will be on this planet, 90% of them born into the Third World.
What sort of world will we leave to the next generation? We have just spoken about the Second World War.
What are we building up for our children and grandchildren? What solid steps will the Council take to see to it that Member States meet their obligations?
   . I actually believe that there is a renewed desire to move clearly and resolutely towards the target of 0.7%.
I obviously agree with what the Member has just said: it is taking too long.
In actual fact, we have been discussing this target for more than 30 years.
It is now time to implement it, and it is true that the timescales that have been set are perhaps still excessively long.
My question during question time of 23 February 2005 asked the Council if it would remind the Israelis that Mr Mordechai Vanunu was illegally taken from European soil, in fact effectively kidnapped to face trial in Israel for alleged offences twenty years prior to the event, working on the ludicrous notion that he still held secrets that could be harmful to Israel.
During this question I requested the Council to encourage the Israeli Government to stop its persecution of this individual, allow him to leave Israel and, if he so desires, to live in the European Union.
However, it appears that the Israeli Government is continuing the persecution of Mr Vanunu. What action does the Council intend to take?
   .
Since my speech before Parliament in February, the Israeli Government has, to our great regret, taken the decision to extend the restrictions imposed on the release of Mordechai Vanunu last year by an additional 12 months.
A trial is taking place, moreover, in which Mr Vanunu is accused of having infringed these restrictions, and upon its conclusion he runs the risk of receiving another prison sentence.
It would appear that this is an extremely sensitive matter for the Israeli authorities.
It appears that they want to protect the security of the State of Israel in this way.
By taking the decision to extend the restrictions imposed on Mr Vanunu, the Israeli Government alleged that he still had information to disclose.
That said, nearly 20 years after the fact, it is also reasonable to acknowledge the fundamental rights of an individual who has spent 18 years in prison, such as the right to live in dignity, freely and peacefully.
We are therefore planning to pursue the dialogue with the Israeli authorities, in particular on the issue of respect for human rights, in the context of the political dialogue that we are conducting with them, and in implementing the Neighbourhood Policy in which the Israeli Government has pledged to cooperate, on security issues and issues of the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and, precisely, on respect for human rights.
   I thank the President-in-Office for his reply, which was as helpful as it could be in the circumstances.
However, it is clear to me that Israel has moved from protecting state security to persecuting this man.
I hope the Council really will keep up the pressure on Israel to release him.
Mordechai Vanunu has been elected rector of Glasgow University in my country, and we would very much like to see him able to come to the university and take up his role.
Therefore, I hope the Council will continue its pressure.
   Mr President, I wish to thank the Council for its answer to Mr Seppänen’s question.
I have two follow-up questions.
The first concerns whether the Council believes that the terminal storage of radioactive waste is an issue of common interest to the extent that the EU should try to obtain common solutions for different Member States as to, for example, how and where their waste is ultimately to be stored.
My second question concerns the Euratom Treaty.
One of the discussion points in connection with the negotiations concerning the new Constitution related, of course, to whether the Euratom Treaty should be allowed to continue, as the Constitution allows it to.
Does the Council believe that it would have become more difficult to conduct a supranational policy in this area if the Euratom Treaty had not existed as a legal basis?
   – Mr President, I should like, more specifically, to ask if you are monitoring progress in the reform of the Criminal Code, the directions in which it is going and the timetable for application. What specific demands do you have?
Have you set a timetable?
Will it be an important issue for you, before 3 October, when examining Turkey's criteria and obligations?
Member States have agreed two fundamental international instruments for the protection of children and their families.
One is Council Regulation (EC) No 1347/2000(1) concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and matters of parental responsibility.
The second is the 1996 Hague Convention which deals with issues of parental responsibility in relations between EU States and third countries.
As complementary instruments, it was intended that they both enter into force around the same time.
Member States were due to deposit their instruments of ratification before 1 January 2005.
Can the Council confirm that this is being blocked by the UK and Spain concerning the application of the Convention to Gibraltar? Will the Presidency outline the steps that it plans to take to address this problem, in the interests of providing a legal framework for cases of child abduction between the EU and third countries?
   .
The Council would like to point out to the Member that it considers that the Convention concerning Jurisdiction, Applicable Law, Recognition, Enforcement and Cooperation in respect of Parental Responsibility and Measures for the Protection of Children concluded at the Hague on 19 October 1996, is a valuable contribution to the protection of children at international level, and it is therefore to be hoped that these provisions will be applied without delay.
It was with this in mind that the Council took the decision, on 19 December 2002, to invite Member States to sign this Convention in the interests of the Community.
In respect of the ratification of this Convention, the Council should like to point out to the Member that there is general consensus on the expediency of ratifying it, and that another issue remains, which concerns Gibraltar.
The Council expects that every effort will be made by the two Member States in a position to find a solution on this issue, in order that the Convention may be ratified by Member States in the interests of the Community, if possible before the end of 2005.
If no compromise is reached on the budget for the period 2004-2007 during the Luxembourg Presidency, is there not a danger that the matter will drag on into early 2006? Is there not a likelihood of the British Presidency being unwilling to take up a final position on the matter?
   . In response to this question and to the suggestions that have been made, I can only repeat that the Luxembourg Presidency remains firmly resolved to reach a political agreement on the financial perspectives in June 2005.
It is, moreover, also the case for the great majority of Members of your Parliament.
No other scenario is therefore envisaged and the current Presidency has no doubt that, independently of the outcome, future Presidencies will earnestly assume the responsibilities that fall to them.
   . The European grouping of cross-border cooperation is the subject of a proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council submitted by the Commission on 14 July 2004.
This proposal for a regulation is in the process of being examined by one of the Council’s working groups, which primarily focuses on structural measures.
Following discussions held within this group from last summer onwards, on 19 April the Presidency presented a compromise text made accessible to the public that acts as a foundation for the work carried out by the group in charge of structural measures.
It is therefore impossible to say at this stage what the Council’s position will be when the debate is closed.
Obviously, as it is a regulation adopted in accordance with the codecision procedure, Parliament is party to the procedure.
      Thank you, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
I am of course familiar with this proposal for a regulation, but there are a number of questions I should like to put to the Council in order to learn its opinion.
Article 159(3) of the Treaty establishing the European Community provides for specific actions to be adopted outside the funds in order to implement the economic and social cohesion objectives set out in the Treaty.
I should therefore like to ask what kind of actions these are, outside what funds they are adopted, and whether any plans exist to set up new funds to this end? Furthermore, references to trans-national, inter-regional and cross-border cooperation are primarily to be found in the explanatory memorandum of the proposal for a regulation.
In the later articles, only cross-border cooperation is highlighted.
I should like to know whether this implies that such cooperation will be restricted, or whether the opportunities for cooperation that have existed to date under INTERREG IIIA will continue to be available.
   .
In actual fact, you are referring to the third subparagraph of Article 159 of the Treaty that allows for specific measures to be taken outside the funds that are the subject of the first subparagraph of this article, with a view to realising the treaty’s objective of economic and social cohesion.
It may refer to cross-border cooperation measures, or to other structural measures.
I am unable to provide you with any further information, since the task of the working group is precisely that of defining the other structural measures that may form the subject of these measures in the third subparagraph of Article 159.
   The European Union is carefully monitoring and applying the peace process in Burundi.
In this context, it welcomes the smooth running of the referendum on adopting a new Constitution, which was held in Burundi on 28 February of this year.
Adopting the Constitution was an essential step on the road to restoring peace and stability in Burundi and in the Great Lakes regions as a whole.
Throughout the ceasefire negotiations and the three-year transition period, the Union has remained in close contact with all sides in Burundi, whether by means of the presence of Mr Ajello, the European Union’s special envoy, or by means of a number of visits made by successive Presidencies of the European Union.
Our support was demonstrated by numerous declarations and steps carried out not only in Burundi itself, but also in adjacent states and in South Africa.
It was, moreover, South Africa that took the initiative on ceasefire negotiations, first under the aegis of President Mandela and then of Vice-President Zuma.
The European Union has contributed to financing the deployment of African troops in Burundi, before the African Union subsequently took over, and it is lending its support to the current United Nations mission in the country.
The European Union has pledged EUR 4.4 million to organising elections and, in collaboration with the regional initiative, it is applying pressure with a view to introducing an electoral timetable before the recently extended transition period runs out on 26 August.
The European Union’s contribution to the elections accounts for a third of the overall budget allocated to them.
We are also preparing an observation mission that will be present in Burundi for the legislative elections taking place on 4 July.
The national indicative programme signed in August 2003 within the framework of the 9th EDF allocates EUR 172 million to Burundi, primarily in the areas of rural development, budgetary assistance and good governance. These are all areas which, if they receive support, should contribute to maintaining long-term stability in the country after the elections have taken place.
   We have been told that Coreper discussed this issue today and it will be dealt with in the Legal Services of the Council and Parliament and then adopted at the 23 May Council meeting.
Can you assure us that when that final decision of the Council is taken, we will have access to full documentation before Parliament has to make its final decision? Can you promise that we will get all the information on this, and can you confirm that timetable?
   Mr President, I should like to say that I agree with Mr Martin that there are many privileges that we MEPs could do without.
Where the travel allowance is concerned, I should like in any case to have a view from the Council.
I can state that we Social Democrats pay back everything apart from the actual travel costs.
In my case, that amounted to EUR 6 300 over just six months.
We could use that money to do much more in the EU.
   .
The issue raised in this question is the subject of the proposal for a regulation presented by the Commission on 24 October 2004, which provides for specific measures in the field of agriculture for the most remote regions of the Union.
This proposal for a regulation has been discussed in a general manner by one of the working groups of the Council.
The Luxembourg Presidency is going to convene a new meeting of this group without delay, in order to speed up efforts – with a view to reaching an agreement at Council level - as soon as the Council receives the opinion of the European Parliament on the proposal for a regulation in question.
As regards the way in which the European Commission exercises its right of initiative laid down in the Treaties, it is not for the Council to express an opinion.
   On a point of order, I apologise to the President-in-Office and to you, Mr President, that I was not here for my question.
I was at another meeting at the Winston Churchill Building and by the time I got back here, the question had lapsed.
   That is noted, Mr Crowley.
In any event, I reiterate what I said earlier: I deem Question Time to have finished.
   The next item is the presentation by the Commission of the preliminary draft general budget – 2006 financial year.
   The next item is the report by Valdis Dombrovskis, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the estimates of revenue and expenditure of Parliament for the financial year 2006 (2005/2012(BUD)) (A6-0106/2005).
      Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have risen to speak on Parliament’s budgetary estimates for 2006 and the Dombrovskis report on these estimates.
The EU draft general budget for 2006 was presented a short while ago to the House, and so I should like to start with three comments on this draft.
Firstly, as a representative of Poland, which is a new Member State, I am alarmed at the extremely low level of payments provided for in this budget, namely 1.02% of EU GNI.
It should be noted in this connection that under the current Financial Perspective, the ceiling on payments for 2006 is 1.08% of GNI, or in other words EUR 7 billion more in absolute terms.
The second point I wish to make is that it is the European Commission that has proposed this level of payments, even though it was only recently that this very same institution advocated average annual payments of 1.14% of GNI in the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective.
In my opinion, it will not be an easy task to explain to EU citizens how it will be possible to fund all of the EU’s expenditure from a total of EUR 112 billion, with payments expected to reach around EUR 130 billion in 2007.
Thirdly, I find it puzzling that this budget provides for a significant increase, or more precisely a 6.2% increase, in expenditure on administration, whilst expenditure on external action has dropped by 2%, and expenditure on the pre-accession strategy has decreased by as much as 4% in relation to 2005.
Following on from my previous point, I should like to move on to the issue of Parliament’s budgetary expenditure in 2006.
This is expected to amount to 20% of total expenditure on administration, or in other words to EUR 1 342 million.
This represents an increase of 5.5% in relation to 2005.
It should be stressed that the main reason for this increase in funding is to ensure that funds are available to complete the EU’s enlargement to include 10 new Member States, and to enable preparations to be made and the necessary funds to be earmarked for Bulgaria and Romania’s accession in January 2007.
I would take this opportunity to note that only 78% of enlargement-related jobs for which provision was made in the 2004 and 2005 budgets will be filled by the end of 2005, which is extremely alarming.
In conclusion, I should like to congratulate Mr Dombrovskis on having drafted a comprehensive report on Parliament’s expenditure in 2006.
It covers not only issues relating to enlargement, but also those relating to the quality and efficiency of Parliament’s work, in particular the work done by Members on documents drafted in their own languages.
It also details the problems we face in bringing Parliament and the fruits of its labour closer to the citizens.
   . Mr President, I am responding to Mr Martin’s reservations relating to the legal aspects, not to the substance.
The set of oral amendments he mentioned was submitted the day before voting in the Committee on Budgets to its members and there were no reservations regarding these amendments.
After voting for several of them, Mr Martin started to raise reservations, but without clarifying on which Rules he was basing his reservations.
Therefore, I went ahead with the vote, having the unanimous support of the Committee on Budgets.
That is my clarification.
   The next item is the Oral Question to the Commission by Jo Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on institutional aspects of the European External Action Service (B6-233/05).
   The next item is the report by Javier Moreno Sánchez, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on the assessment of the Doha Round following the WTO agreement on 1 August 2004 (2004/2138(INI)) (A6-0095/2005).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is absolutely vital that we make headway in this round of negotiations, which are about reform and liberalisation.
The World Bank’s calculations, to which Mr Van Hecke has just referred, indicate that a successful conclusion to the Doha round could increase global incomes by up to EUR 500 billion per annum, and so success at Doha means war on poverty, it means large-scale and effective development aid and hence a chance of prosperity and social justice for everyone in the world.
It is a chance that we must seize for the sake of the people of Europe and people around the world.
I would like to take up the issue of public participation, which Mrs Mann and Mrs Lucas have just mentioned.
We still have a clear recollection of the images from the ‘Battle of Seattle’.
More and more people see everything that is summed up under the heading of ‘globalisation’ as a danger rather than an opportunity; in Europe, whole generations are completing their schooling without having been taught what underpins the social market economy and world trade, which leaves them open to misinformation and at the mercy of deceitful campaigns.
We watch our media reporting almost exclusively about the relocation of production, rather than on the creation of new jobs or increased prosperity, both of which we owe to world trade.
We see this making people more and more insecure, and we see radical groups like ‘Attac’, among others, using the funding they receive from the Community to work against the Community’s interests by misinforming and frightening people.
I would therefore ask the Commission – through you, Commissioner Mandelson – to devise a scheme whereby, in parallel with the negotiations, a campaign may be pro-actively mounted to win the public over to free and fair world trade, enabling people in Europe and around the world to be persuaded of the benefits of global trade and taking them with us as we go down this right and necessary road.
   Mr President, I would like to make a brief statement. Commissioner Mandelson misinterprets me in supposing that I do not want to address the poverty that is in the world.
What is the case is that my group and I are giving some thought as to how we can enable people living in poverty to have a share in our prosperity.
We also have some clear ideas as to how to go about this.
I hope that Commissioner Mandelson will join us in entering more deeply into debate and thus be enabled to interpret our thinking better.
   . The next item is the oral question to the Commission on the implementation of WTO rules by China (B6-0230/2005).
      Commissioner, as I see it there are three issues that require an appropriate and rapid response from the Commission.
The textile, clothing and footwear market provides us with an excellent example of how Chinese imports can destroy a market, and have a knock-on effect on other sectors.
The first issue that needs to be addressed is the length of time it takes the Commission to act, as well as the fact that the misguided decisions it takes are not only damaging, but unfortunately sometimes also irreversible.
The second issue relates to the liberalisation of the EU market, the consequences of which have included a sudden influx of subsidised imports, such as subsidised coal.
This has led to price competition that has given rise to so much concern and has eventually ruined the coal market.
This has made matters even worse for the mining industry, even though the efforts of the latter go towards meeting the EU’s energy needs.
The third and final issue relates to the preferential trade agreements concluded when the EU still had only 15 Member States.
It is time to revise the customs agreement and the preferential quotas, taking the interests of the enlarged EU into account, as at present the trade displacement effect does not always give rise to the relevant creation effect.
By way of example, agricultural and food products from the United States are still keeping goods from the 10 new Member States off the EU market.
    The next item is the report (A6-0111/2005) by Mr Herrero-Tejedor, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on the implementation of the European Union’s information and communication strategy (2004/2238(INI)).
   Mr President, information conveys what is happening objectively and is good for a democracy.
PR and propaganda are about selling something for which there is no demand.
The Commission was reasonably successful in maintaining the balance between information and propaganda but, unfortunately, the report is along the lines of more propaganda.
Naturally, there is always a desire to appear in a positive light, but EU institutions need to be classed in the same category as authorities that are obliged factually and correctly to describe rules, laws and the work they do.
I am therefore opposed to paragraph 5, according to which universities are to spread the EU’s values instead of critical thinking, analysis and knowledge.
I object to paragraph 9, which is all about pure product placement, something we usually try to restrict.
The calls for a European Parliament TV channel are unrealistic.
It is better to have fair conditions for public service television and tougher rules to combat media concentration.
   Mr President, I have a brief point to make arising from Rule 126 and those following it in our Rules of Procedure.
Yesterday – in some cases as late as after 11 a.m – meetings that had been scheduled weeks ago to happen between 3 p.m and 5.30 p.m were cancelled at short notice.
This was done at the President’s behest in consequence of the plenary debate due to be held at 3 p.m.
While I very definitely do see why yesterday’s debate was so important, I do not understand why I, as chairman of an intergroup, was informed as late as 11.10 a.m that it was due to be held, while other Members were notified between 8.30 a.m and 11 a.m.
Nor am I sympathetic when cancellations occur at such short notice and the President, who had given this instruction, was seen, at 4.15 p.m. in the courtyard within the tower, toasting a number of visitors, at a time when we were required to be in the plenary and were not allowed to gather in the intergroups, working parties and other bodies.
I regard this as unacceptable.
   Mr President, I wish to raise a point of order under Rule 130, 152 or 166 with regard to the delay which is being caused today by the debate.
I do not wish to delay this House for long, because delay is the problem.
However, how much longer are we to go on fixing times for votes, which today was to be noon and then became 12.10 p.m. and is now going to be 12.20 p.m.? This House should operate properly and within the Rules.
Today there is a strike at Strasbourg airport and many Members are unable to make proper travel arrangements.
The Cash Office tells me that upwards of 150 Members, each Strasbourg part-session, are losing half a day’s pay because they have to leave early to catch their only flight.
I ask that the Bureau of this Parliament consider bringing the votes forward on a Thursday so that we may vote in time to catch aeroplanes.
   Mr President, further to Rule 73 of our Rules of Procedure, I would again like to say that lawyers take the view – as indeed do I – that this report’s adoption by the committee was not lawful, and that we ought not to be permitted to vote on it now.
I have already made this point on several occasions.
Legal action will be taken.
While I take part in this vote, I do so under protest.
   . Mr President, I wish to clarify the situation.
The oral amendments contested by Mr Martin were submitted to the committee members one day before voting.
We had voted on several of them, when Mr Martin started to raise reservations on two occasions, without giving a clear Rule as a point of reference.
Therefore, I went ahead with the vote with the full support of my committee.
   A decision by the chairman of the Committee on Budgets has therefore been taken on the basis of Article 151, paragraph 3, and we shall now proceed to the vote.
   .
Ladies and gentlemen, the position of the rapporteurs and of the PPE-DE Group is that the amount of the reserves for Parliament’s estimated expenditure should be reduced by 20 million euro, that is, the amount of the joint general and buildings reserve should be reduced to 70 456 885 euro, as compared with the 90.5 million euro put forward by Parliament’s administration.
This reduction in expenditure complies with the policy of thrift, and the Budget Committee has backed it.
The Greens have tabled two amendments, and as rapporteur I would like to draw your attention to the following.
In the event that the first amendment by the Greens, concerning increasing the general reserve to 19.5 million euro, is adopted, and if at the same time the Greens’ second amendment concerning the withdrawal of 10 million euro from the buildings reserve is rejected, the 20% ceiling on European Parliament expenditure will be exceeded.
In order to prevent the ceiling of 20% of heading 5 being exceeded, I call on you to vote against the first and second amendments by the Greens.
   .
As we know, the Aarhus Convention entered into force on 30 October 2001 and 19 out of the 35 parties to the Convention are EU Member States.
These countries therefore have a special responsibility to create the mechanisms needed to implement it.
Accordingly, at the second meeting of the parties, due to take place in Almaty, Kazakhstan between 25 and 27 May 2005, measures must be taken that pursue the legislative work leading to the implementation of its proposals.
In common with the rights already enshrined in the Convention, it is also important to lay down precise provisions ensuring that the public is properly involved in the decision-making process concerning GMOs, and directives guaranteeing public involvement in international fora.
Those provisions and directives will act as an instrument, by means of which the parties can improve public participation, at regional and global level, in other conventions and treaties dealing with issues relating to the environment.
   We believe that the national parliaments should decide of their own accord upon their respective positions during the conference in Almaty on the Århus Convention.
The Member States need independently to determine their attitudes to participating in the decision-making process concerning GMOs and to establishing a funding system designed to guarantee funding on a predictable basis (paragraph 4).
Those countries that have not ratified the Århus Convention must, of course, take an independent decision as to whether or not they wish to do so.
In our view, the European Parliament should not be lecturing or advising them on this matter.
   First of all, I would like to thank Mr Elmar Brok, who prepared the draft resolution on this important issue.
The expanded European Union unifies Member States having different histories and past experiences, and they possess different approaches towards relations with Russia.
In this Parliament there are also members with different opinions on this matter, and therefore I would like to express my pleasure that we have succeeded in adopting the resolution on the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War by such an overwhelming majority of the votes.
There is not a single family in my country which would not be affected by the soviet occupation.
The second occupation.
Therefore, our resolution adopted today is also about every family in Lithuania.
Thank you, colleagues.
   Mr President, I voted for Mr Brok’s resolution.
However, bearing in mind that this is a very important step forward, the EU’s historic approach is still not fully balanced and the victims of communism still have a second-class status.
Therefore, for the future, we need to have a complete knowledge of the history of Yalta and its consequences.
This is also important for EU-Russia relations.
We should urge Russia to assess its own history – including the reoccupation and annexation of the Baltic States – and to apologise for the crimes the Russian Soviet totalitarians committed.
   Distinguished Mr President, I voted for the resolution ‘Future of Europe Sixty Years after the Second World War’ and I want to thank all of my colleagues who supported it.
This resolution is a huge moral satisfaction for all who experienced the sufferings of World War II and any violence after it.
Many of them no longer live and those who do are thankful that the European Parliament has not forgotten.
I thank on behalf of my father, Štefan Kányai, who experienced almost nine years of hell in a Russian gulag.
It will be a source of knowledge for young people, who, thank God, have not experienced a war, to learn a lesson from the past and build a free and peaceful future of Europe.
   .
The resolution adopted today by the majority of the Members of this House is not about the 60th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Fascism.
The actual aim of this resolution is to condemn the Soviet Union.
It is an attempt to airbrush out of the picture its decisive role in the defeat of Nazi Fascism in 1945; its defence of peace and its opposition to the brutality of imperialism; its role in the enormous advances in the standard of living of millions of workers; its solidarity with dozens of peoples seeking to gain their independence and sovereignty; and its contribution towards their release from the yoke of colonialism and towards the correlation of forces that took place after the end of World War II.
This Parliament resolution is an appalling and shameful exercise in revisionism.
Among many other serious problems, it is at the very least a distortion of history to say, as the resolution does, that ‘European integration’ helped to get rid of fascism in Portugal, when Portugal was a Member of NATO from the outset; when the fascist regime benefited from the connivance of the governments of many countries taking part in the so-called ‘European integration’; and when those countries supported the colonial war effort undertaken by the Portuguese fascist regime.
   Distinguished Mr President, I voted for the resolution ‘Future of Europe Sixty Years after the Second World War’ and I want to thank all of my colleagues who supported it.
This resolution is a huge moral satisfaction for all who experienced the sufferings of World War II and any violence after it.
Many of them no longer live and those who do are thankful that the European Parliament has not forgotten.
I thank on behalf of my father, Štefan Kányai, who experienced almost nine years of hell in a Russian gulag.
It will be a source of knowledge for young people, who, thank God, have not experienced a war, to learn a lesson from the past and build a free and peaceful future of Europe.
   . While the Resolution has many positive points, for which I voted in favour, there are significant omissions and false emphases.
The victory of 1945 would not have happened but for the steadfastness and courage of the United Kingdom and the British Empire fighting on alone and holding the German forces at bay for over a year after the fall of France.
The Soviet communists were, of course, allies of the Nazis for the first 20 months of the War.
After the War, the freedom of the West was guaranteed by the continuing engagement of US forces, through NATO, in the security of Europe.
The United Kingdom contributed disproportionately to the success of this enterprise.
And we should not underestimate the enormous contribution of certain key, resolute individuals - Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II - to the eventual collapse of Soviet tyranny.
The anniversary of the end of the War should not be used as another opportunity to eulogise the role of the EU, a Project with some profoundly undemocratic aspects and which is heading in the wrong direction.
The process of European integration is driven by a small political class and is certainly not ‘the result of a free decision by the people’.
   For 2007-2013, the European Commission proposes approximately EUR 1 000 billion in appropriations for seven years, that is, commitment appropriations to the tune of 1.24% of Europe’s GDP.
In terms of European budgetary expenditure from 2007 to 2013, our committee entered into a simple accounting debate about whether, over seven years, EUR 1 022 billion was to be expended, as desired by the European Commission, EUR 987 billion, as proposed by our rapporteur or EUR 977 billion, as desired by those countries that are the biggest contributors.
Instead of losing EUR 3 billion each year, France may lose EUR 5 billion or even EUR 7 billion.
At USD 2 500 billion per year, the United States’s annual budget is 20 times greater than Europe’s.
That says it all: Europe, with its global agenda and minuscule budget.
Seeing this, everyone appreciates that this distortion will be untenable.
As from 2014, two issues will arise: the explosion in the European budget and the advent of taxation.
These are the two areas on which our committee’s resolution is silent, leaving the taxpaying electorate to vote on the European Constitution while remaining oblivious to the budget.
   .
This report on the estimates of revenue and expenditure of Parliament for the financial year 2006 falls within the scope of consolidating the last enlargement and preparing for the forthcoming accession of Romania and Bulgaria.
Given that it proposes to make more efficient and streamlined use of budgetary appropriations, to make the next budget more comprehensive and better explained with a view to bringing Parliament closer to the citizens, and to enhance the quality and efficiency of its work, I have decided to vote in favour of this report.
   We Swedish Social Democrats have chosen to vote in favour of the report on the assessment of the Doha Round following the WTO agreement.
The general tenor of this report is constructive, because Parliament is giving its support to free and fair multilateral trading systems within the framework of sustainable development.
We cannot, however, support paragraphs 16 and 17.
The planned reform of agricultural policy is absolutely necessary because it is a first step on the way towards fair world trade.
We are opposed to all the attempts to make it more difficult for developing countries to sell their products within the EU.
Access by the developing countries to the EU’s market must be given priority over continued agricultural aid.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Togo.(1)
   . Mr President, the presidential elections held in Togo on 24 April of this year gave rise to bitter controversy, with accusations of vote-rigging and violence.
The Commission has associated itself with strong condemnations of the riots and violence against civilians that followed the announcement of the provisional results and which left a reported number of 50 dead and 300 injured.
The violence and the brutal repression by military forces also caused 23 000 Togolese to take refuge in neighbouring Benin and Ghana.
Given the very tight electoral timetable, under which elections had to take place within 60 days of President Eyadema’s death, the European Union could not send an electoral observation mission that would have met our usual standards of observation.
The European Union abstained from any pronouncement on the fairness and transparency of the vote.
Admittedly, many problems arose during the preparation of the elections, and irregularities were reported by the Ecowas electoral observation mission on election day.
Today, we believe that the utmost priority is the re-establishment of calm and stability and the prevention of any further violence.
In order to achieve this, we attach paramount importance to the fulfilment of the 22 commitments undertaken by the Government as a result of the consultations held under Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement.
These commitments include respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms, namely press and media freedom, as well as a true political dialogue with all political protagonists in Togo, with a view to preparing the next legislative elections.
We believe that the effective implementation of the 22 commitments, with close scrutiny from the European Union, as well as from the international community, will allow the country to progress towards national reconciliation and democratic development.
In conclusion, I would like to assure you and Mr Smith that we are not just watching, but we have decided that the conditions for the redemption of cooperation established by the Council decision of 14 November 2004 remain valid.
Such a resumption can only take place in the context of the fulfilment of the 22 commitments I just referred to.
More specifically, full resumption will not be possible until free, fair and transparent legislative elections, held in an electoral framework accepted by all parties, have taken place.
The Commission is ready to give its support to the holding of such elections, including the sending of a European Union electoral observation mission.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on violations of human rights and democracy in the Republic of Mari El in the Russian Federation.(1)
   . Mr President, when I speak about the troubles of the Mari El minority in Russia, it is not my aim to blame, once more, the Russian authorities.
Russia is not a member of our Community.
One can say that it has more than enough problems without my criticism.
The situation of the Russian minority in some European countries is also worrying - perhaps, sometime, we can discuss that as well.
However, this afternoon we are talking about a small Finno-Ugric nation somewhere in the huge Russia.
Around 750 000 Maris live in the Republic of Mari El inside the Russian Federation.
The autonomous Republic is named after them, but they happened to become a minority in their own land.
In a country with fair minority rights it is not a problem, but that is not the case in the small Republic of Mari El.
The Russian-speaking majority elected a Russian president against a Mari candidate, which can be understood.
However, the re-elected president seems to lead an undemocratic and brutal fight against his opposition and, through them, the whole Mari community.
Mari opposition newspapers can be printed only outside of the Republic.
Opposition journalists and intellectuals have been attacked frequently; some of them have been killed.
Minority language education is threatened by the local authorities.
We have to condemn those kinds of anti-democratic atrocities always, but in the case of a small nation, the attacks against the basic national institutions, such as schools and media, threaten the very existence of the nation.
That is why we condemn the violence against the Mari minority in Russia, and that is why we ask the Russian Government to show the same kind of attitude toward its minorities that the Russian Government would like to be provided for the Russian minorities elsewhere in Europe.
I believe this is the first time that the name of the Mari people has been mentioned in the European Parliament.
I welcome them here, both as a European and a Finno-Ugric brother from Hungary.
I wish them all the best.
They should know that a nation, small or big, inside or outside of Europe, deserves the same respect and the same rights.
I hope our Russian partners also understand that every minority – Russians out of Russia and non-Russians inside Russia – deserve the same rights to save their identity, culture and linguistic heritage.
   . Mr President, Czarist Russia was nicknamed the prison of nations, and the Soviet Union was called the gulag of nations.
Unfortunately, the collapse of Communism did not bring about freedom, nor did it grant rights to the small nations of Russia.
At a conference at the end of last week, Vladimir Kozlov, one of the leaders of today’s opposition, said that real ethnic cleansing is being carried out in the Republic of Mari, especially in administration, the overt goal of which is the elimination of the autonomous Mari Republic.
His statement is of no surprise, since the current president of the Republic of Mari is a Russian citizen, the Moscow-born Mr Leonid Markelov, who does not even speak the local language.
During his presidency, attacks against free press have become regular, opposition leaders and journalists have been assaulted, including the opposition candidate, Mihail Dolgov, a Mari national, who was brutally assaulted.
By the way, no judicial verdict has been reached in any of these cases yet.
Mari language schools are being closed down, and education in the Mari language is only allowed in the primary levels of elementary education.
Only Russian can be used in administration, all of this pointing to the fact that this minority’s rights are seriously restricted.
An agreement, called the action plan, was ceremoniously concluded between the EU and Russia the day before yesterday.
At last, we have an opportunity to provide direct assistance to those who live there, instead of just condemning Russia’s practice.
This plan allows us to cooperate in the field of minority rights, that is, to promote the use of minority languages, preservation of cultures, the publication of textbooks, to encourage exchange programmes, scientific and scholarship schemes, and to foster an independent media and education in the mother tongue.
This action plan also promotes strengthening an independent and unbiased judicial system.
We must, therefore, help Russia in order for the offenders to be brought to justice, so that order and safety may finally prevail in the Republic of Mari as well.
For this reason, I would like to ask the Commission and the Council to act firmly and provide specific programmes to protect the maltreated Mari minority based on the new agreement.
   Mr President, both Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, have always practised a homogenising policy: the notion of Russian authority dislikes diversity.
During its course of history, the Mari nation, for the most part, has successfully withstood assimilation, and has effectively fought to preserve its own language and identity.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the situation of Mari El, the Republic of Mari, was promising.
However, it did not last long, eight to nine years, perhaps, when a new anti-diversity policy was launched by Russia.
The Mari nation’s hope for enjoying equal rights with Russians was shattered.
The Mari language is excluded from the public sphere, education and the media and Mari activists are harassed, assaulted and forced to leave Mari El.
Although it would be absolutely necessary for the central authority to intervene, there is no sign of it at all.
Either ignorance or the tacit acceptance of anti-Mari campaigning prevails.
Pressure on Maris has considerably increased this past year.
This proposal’s goal is to send a multi-dimensional signal towards, firstly, Moscow as a reminder of its commitment to preserve the cultural diversity of its minorities instead of eliminating them.
Secondly, this signal would also be directed to the Russian elite living in Mari El to remind them that it is not possible to launch minority oppression unnoticed in the 21st century.
Thirdly, toward the Mari people to reassure them that the European public is attentively monitoring their hardships, and is ready to support their cause.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Burma/Myanmar.(1)
   Mr President, I would like to make an oral technical amendment.
There is some confusion in this resolution.
In the introduction, it is mentioned that presidential elections took place in the Republic of Mari El on 19 December 2004.
However, in Article 3 of the resolution, where the same presidential elections are mentioned, the date given is 4 February 2005.
In fact, that is the date when the Mari opposition leader was attacked.
I would suggest that in paragraph 3 we delete the date '4 February 2005' and replace it with the correct date of the presidential elections, 19 December 2004.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 12 May 2005.
   Ladies and gentlemen, I must begin by informing you that, within the context of our interparliamentary relations, a delegation from the Knesset chaired by Mrs Naomi Blumenthal, Chairperson of the Delegation for Relations with the European Parliament, is visiting the European Parliament.
I would like to welcome Mrs Blumenthal.
I hope that the meetings you have held with Members of the European Parliament have been fruitful, Mrs Blumenthal, and that, by means of better reciprocal information, they can contribute to highlighting the conditions necessary for a fair and lasting peace amongst all the parties involved in the conflict between the Israeli and Palestinian people.
   Thank you, Mr Mayor Oreja.
The applause following your comment demonstrates that this Parliament – of course – joins you in your condemnation of the attack this morning, in which, fortunately, nobody has been killed.
   There are a series of amendments to the agenda, in addition to those announced on 12 May.
These amendments, which appear in the corrigendum that has been distributed, are as follows:
The first debate of the afternoon will be the debate on the motion of censure against the Commission.
The report by Mr Leinen is therefore brought forward and we shall deal with it before the report by Mrs Malmström, and the report by Mr Skinner will be withdrawn from the agenda.
   Mr President, I would just like to point out that, while we agree that Mr Skinner’s report should be removed from the agenda, I do ask that care be taken in future to ensure that translation – particularly of draft legislation – is given absolute priority.
We have a major problem not only with translations, but also with interpreting, and often have problems with deadlines if reports of this kind cannot be translated and processed in good time.
I would ask, firstly, that this be noted, and, secondly, that the Skinner report should, if at all possible, go to the top of the list for the June partsession, so that we can consider it before the relevant Council meetings.
   Alright, Mr Swoboda, you are correct.
It will be included on the agenda for the next partsession.
The reason for its withdrawal, at the request of the rapporteur, is that it was not available in every language, as you have pointed out.
   Thank you very much, Mr Moraes.
The reason is quite simply the great complexity of working with 20 languages and the problems we sometimes face in having to produce translations into all of them properly and on time.
I regret that we also have to withdraw this report.
We shall deal with it during the next partsession.
Please understand that the only reason is the complexity of this Parliament’s work.
   Mr President, it is nice to hear that the rapporteur is said to have withdrawn his report.
In fact he found out about it last night at 9.15 p.m.!
Surely that is not usual in this House, but then perhaps we should expect anything.
Or perhaps it is truer that we have had to make way for the vote of censure today and therefore legislative business comes second in this regard.
It is clearly a problem for this House.
As we know, we have to move this legislation into an important phase; the next meeting of Ecofin can only be held on 7 June, so it will be a very close vote indeed.
I hope that your services will take that into account when you next consider moving legislative items on the agenda.
   I take note of your protest, Mrs Berès.
We will do everything we can to ensure that you do not have to protest again.
   We shall proceed to the debate on the first item, the motion of censure presented against the Commission.
I must inform you that this motion of censure, presented on 12 May and announced in plenary, has been amended with regard to the list of Members presenting it, due to the fact that certain new Members have signed it and other Members have withdrawn their signatures.
Nevertheless, the net result is that the number of signatures still exceeds the number required by the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure for the presentation of a motion of censure.
   . Mr President, I wish to say to Mr Barroso that it is nice to see everyone here today.
It has taken some time to organise this gettogether.
I am conscious that many of the Commissioners would much rather be in France campaigning for a ‘Yes’ vote.
However, they are here for a very simple reason: I wrote to all of them on 3 February asking what free holidays and hospitality they had received since becoming European Commissioners – but answers came there none!
Luckily, the newspaper has produced a series of revelations.
It informed us that Mr Barroso had enjoyed a cruise aboard a luxury yacht owned by Spiro Latsis, who has done business with the EU institutions for many years, and whose Lamda shipyards, just one month after this holiday, received the green light from the European Commission for a tenmillioneuro grant.
Just last week a Latsis company – the Aegean Motorways Group – was put on a shortlist of for the lucrative Athens to Thessaloniki motorway project.
I now see that even within the European Commission itself, the head of the Bureau of European Policy Advisers, Mr Sidjanski, also speaks for the Latsis Foundation.
Thank goodness for !
We also learned that Mr Mandelson enjoyed a holiday with the lobbyist Peter Brown, and that he also went on a luxury yacht owned by the Microsoft cofounder, Paul Allen.
Last November, at President Barroso’s inauguration, I asked of this Commission: ‘Would you buy a used car from them?’. I suppose I should have said ‘a luxury yacht’!
What fairminded person could think that the Commission should police itself in this regard? I have not accused Mr Barroso or any of the Commissioners of any wrongdoing, but it is a case of Caesar’s wife; it is a case that you have to be seen to be above suspicion.
However, Mr Barroso’s reaction was one of denial.
He stated in his letter – when it finally arrived – that ‘hospitality is a normal fact of private life’. He obviously has a better circle of friends than me, but no matter.
Was the relationship with Mr Latsis really purely personal? Was there really no conflict of interests?
If that is the case, perhaps Mr Barroso could tell me why he resigned the maritime portfolio shortly thereafter? I suggest that he did possibly feel compromised.
I hope that Mr Barroso will make some concessions today.
We all hope that he will.
However, he should remember that what we are asking for is full disclosure.
As long ago as 1961, President Kennedy introduced a code of this type into the White House.
It can be done and it should be done!
By ignoring my simple request and by maintaining that these free holidays do not constitute a conflict of interests, Mr Barroso has put himself in an unenviable position.
When in a hole, one should stop digging, and I therefore ask him to give us full disclosure.
However, none of this would have happened if it had not been for the bravery of 77 Members of this House.
These independently minded people have been subject to very unpleasant threats and bullying.
Mr President, with your permission and pursuant to Rule 141(4), I give way to my colleague, Mr Helmer, to put a question to me.
   Pursuant to Rule 141(4) of the Rules of Procedure, Mr Helmer may put a question to Mr Farage.
   Mr President, responsibility for today’s debate lies with those who did not allow us to have the debate last time.
When Mr Farage raised the matter, I asked for a list of all gifts in excess of EUR 100.
I have still not been given that list.
Last Sunday, I asked Eva Joly – the examining magistrate who has got business people and politicians into prison for corruption – about where the dividing line is between gifts and corruption.
‘EUR 120,’ she said.
Gifts of more than that amount do not belong in the public sphere.
I want to know who gets what from whom and I want to be able to check whether consideration is provided.
Matters got off to a good start with Barroso.
He gave us a list of 3 000 working parties, which had so far been kept secret. That list is now at Bonde.com.
We do not, however, know the names of the participants.
How many friends have been placed in the expert groups?
How many people have been appointed independently of the general appointment procedures? How many EU employees and consultants also receive salaries from elsewhere?
Openness is the best tool honest people in power have for defending themselves against pressure from their own friends.
The new Commission is not responsible for the sins and scandals of the past, but it could demonstrate a new approach.
Provide us with the names of all the experts.
Let us see who obtains what from the budget.
Let us see all the Commission’s contributions to the legislative process.
Sack the next person who lies, instead of sacking whistleblowers.
Give the Commission’s sacked accounts manager, Marta Andreasen another job.
Begin afresh with openness, democracy and proximity to the people.
You will lose some friends in the upper echelons, but you will gain in terms of people’s confidence in you and in terms of support for European cooperation.
Thank you, Mr President, even if I still do not have enough to express gratitude for.
   Mr Bonde, I regret that the switch by means of which I intended to cut you off did not work, and that you have therefore been able to speak without the permission of the Presidency.
I am very sorry.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Leinen on the revision of the Framework Agreement on relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission [2005/2076(ACI)] (A60147/2005).
   – The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Malmström (Α60135/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on EURussia relations (2004/2170(INI)).
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Gál, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on promotion and protection of fundamental rights [2005/2007(INI)] (A60144/2005).
      Mr President, vigorous protests have been voiced against offshoring on many occasions, both in this Chamber and elsewhere.
They are heard most frequently at times when businesses based in the old EU decide to move part of their production to the new Member States.
At the same time, however, the new Member States themselves are now starting to experience this problem.
The French company Thomson is relocating from Poland to China, and Vistula, a homegrown Polish manufacturer of brandname suits, is relocating to Ukraine.
This is only the thin end of the wedge, as the number of cases of this kind will continue to rise.
It is telling, however, that no one in Poland is demanding that rigid legal obstacles be put in place to stop this process, even though unemployment is currently very high, and neither is the phenomenon of offshoring being used as a bargaining chip in political disputes.
In fact, quite the reverse is true, as everyone agrees that entirely different measures should be taken to prevent offshoring.
First and foremost, these measures should involve reducing labour costs and increasing the competitiveness of goods that are produced.
I believe that the Polish approach merits closer inspection, and I would recommend it to any country that is proposing to introduce draconian measures to the detriment of entrepreneurs who have taken the guiding principle of the common European market seriously.
This applies particularly to France and Germany.
    The next item is the report (A60137/2005) by Mr Nassauer, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering, including terrorist financing (COM(2004)0448 – C60143/2004 – 2004/0137(COD)).
   . Mr President, Mr Nassauer’s report enables us to extend the fight against money laundering to terrorist financing by complying with the new international requirements.
Our work with the rapporteur was very constructive, for which I thank him quite particularly.
Parliament’s positions have been heard by the Council, which has made it possible to reach a compromise, particularly with regard to three essential points that we support.
For the legal professions, we did not want to go back on the experience of the previous directive.
That enables us to retain a balance between the obligations regarding verification and identification requirements and the preservation of the right to a fair hearing and of individual freedom.
We very much regret, nevertheless, that the threshold for cash payments was not reduced to EUR 10 000 and that the threshold for percentage share holdings remains at 10%.
Similarly, we think it would have been preferable for casino customers to be identified and their identity verified for a sum of EUR 1 000.
One problem remains, namely that of tax and banking havens, some of which are still active on European territory.
In this respect, we find it regrettable that the amendment put forward in committee by Mr Costa and Mr Peillon was not retained.
I would like to add that the issue of judicial and police cooperation remains central and decisive in the context of the fight against money laundering, even though it is not covered by this directive.
Currently, the Member States still create too many obstacles for this cooperation to operate satisfactorily and to be effective.
We find this regrettable.
    The next item is the report (A60132/2005) by Mrs KratsaTsagaropoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Decision 2001/51/EC establishing a Programme relating to the Community framework strategy on gender equality and Decision No 848/2004/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Community action programme to promote organisations active at European level in the field of equality between men and women (COM(2004)0551 – C60107/2004 – 2004/0194(COD)).
   .   Ladies and gentlemen, I would thank the House for this debate.
In spite of its brevity, I believe that we have heard a whole range of approaches to the issue.
There can be no question that achieving equal opportunities is a longterm task, and that we often forget how much progress has been made.
Incidentally, even though it is only a little over 100 years since women first attended Czech secondary schools in 1871, nowadays over 50% of university graduates are women.
In my opinion, we should take a longerterm view of matters, since it is quite obvious that we still have a great deal of work ahead of us.
I am in no doubt that British pilots are among the best in the world, and indeed the same applies to British Airways, which is why I am never afraid of flying with that airline.
Even though this is an extremely complex field, I am quite sure that it will be possible to find an appropriate solution that makes allowance for women’s legitimate demands.
As I said at the beginning of this debate, this programme is a technical extension of the present programme, or in other words of a programme aimed at supporting European organisations that are active in the field of equal opportunities, without any restrictions on the type, form or political affiliation of these organisations.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A60118/2005) by Mrs Britta Thomsen, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Decision 2000/819/EC on a multiannual programme for enterprise and entrepreneurship, and in particular for small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs) (20012005) (COM(2004)0781 – C60242/2004 – 2004/0272(COD)).
   . Madam President, it gives me special pleasure to be here as draftsman of the opinion on the Directive on Frontal Protection Systems, which Mrs Hedkvist Petersen has taken through Parliament so ably.
Reflecting on the recommendations made by my Committee, I realise that almost all of these were taken up, which is an unusual situation.
We worked together on this proposal for over a year, beginning in the last Parliament.
One of the things that triggered my interest was that the original proposal presented by your predecessor, Mr Liikanen, was significantly flawed.
I want to pay tribute to your team for having fundamentally reshaped it.
The flaw lay in the approach to the soft bull bar.
I would like to present you with a little souvenir, Commissioner, in the form of a sample which I took to committee meetings to convince colleagues the proposal needed to be fundamentally revised.
The original proposal would have seen such bull bars taken off the market.
The testing standards were unrealistic and there were no separate provisions, as Mrs Hedkvist Petersen pointed out, for a separate test enabling these bars to be made available on the aftermarket.
As you can see, Commissioner, this is a customdesigned soft bull bar far more resilient than the old type of bull bar.
It is thanks to you that these new bars can be kept on the market.
I also want to pay tribute to a small company in my constituency called Concept Mouldings, which employs 100 people making these bars and which you have kept in business.
I wish to thank you on their behalf.
I also want to thank you on behalf of other accessory manufacturers and on behalf of road users, who will now be able to benefit from these bars – though not too often, we hope, as we want to eliminate pedestrian collisions.
It is thanks to you that this type of resilient device will now be available on the market.
This overall proposal is an excellent example of how Parliament can make a real contribution to practical legislative improvements when it works together with a Commission that is open and sympathetic.
The bulk of the work was done by Mrs Hedkvist Petersen, with me simply acting as a catalyst, and I pay tribute to her persistence in working with your services, Commissioner, to secure a first reading agreement that I am delighted to support.
   The next item is the report (A60124/2005) by Mrs Karin Scheele, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the addition of vitamins and minerals and of certain other substances to foods (COM(2003)0671 – C50538/2003 – 2003/0262(COD)).
   . Madam President, first of all I would like to thank our rapporteur, Mrs Scheele, for the quality of this report on a very meaningful subject for the citizens of Europe.
The addition of vitamins and minerals to a very wide variety of foods is a response to a reality – this needs to be stated – much more than simply to a fashion, the reality of a general change in our eating habits.
For example, ironenriched breakfast cereals have in many cases replaced meat as the principal source of iron in children’s food, and that is just one example among many.
That is why we must, in my view, show flexibility on this subject.
Let us, therefore, say ‘yes’ to better labelling, but ‘no’ to protectionism and to certain derogations as proposed in Amendment 39.
‘No’, finally, to drawing up a positive list for the whole range of new substances.
I would like to finish, but I could have started with this, by asking Commissioner Kyprianou a question: when do you expect to implement the better regulation advocated by several members of the Commission, including you and Commissioner Verheugen? Let me explain.
Slicing legislation up like salami – fortifications, health and nutrition claims, food supplements, directives on labelling and more besides – brings nothing but restrictions to us as legislators.
Technical aspects are increasingly taking over from policy ones.
Therefore, particularly in the interests of SMEs and consumers who, if they are going to believe in Europe, need clear, transparent and effective legislation, I hope that the Commission will very soon adopt this overall, consistent approach that we need in the field of food sector legislation.
   – The next item is the report (A60128/2005) by Mrs Poli Bortone, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on nutrition and health claims made on foods (COM(2003)0424 – C50329/2003 – 2003/0165(COD)).
   . Madam President, for the Italian and the English booths: the match is now 33, with about ten minutes to go.
I knew that the chairman of the Committee on the Internal Market would be happy about that, not probably as a Liverpudlian but otherwise.
I have three points.
First, I will tell the Commission right off the bat that I am a federalist, but what the Commission is proposing here is simply going too far.
It is overregulation.
I wish to focus especially on Article 4, which is one of the most illiberal proposals to pass through this House.
It is not our job to tell the consumer what is good or what is bad.
That is up to the consumer himself or herself to decide.
I have quite a lot of faith in the individual to be able to make his or her own decisions on what food should or should not be eaten.
The key is to know the content and then you can make your own choice.
If we put in nutrient profiles, it might prevent the consumers from getting the right information.
My second point is that I believe diets themselves are more important than the nutrient profiles of individual foods.
Different people have different dietary needs, just as Mrs Niebler told us earlier.
My third and final point is that it is very important to have clear labels and better information.
However, I cannot support needless legislation or the assumption that people do not understand what is said on the label.
Therefore, I would argue very strongly that we should remove Article 4 from the original Commission proposal and we adopt Article 11 along the lines that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has suggested.
   Madam President, I too congratulate the rapporteur after her travails and the dedication she has shown to this task, from which she has emerged with more success than her predecessor in the last Parliament.
She said that we ought to talk to the consumer groups in Europe and see what they think.
Well, many of us have done so.
I have a letter here, on behalf of 28 consumer groups in all of the Member States, and what do they say? They ask us to vote for Article 4 and for a sensible version of Article 11.
I heard what Mrs Niebler said earlier on in the debate and I was astonished by it.
What in God’s name has all this to do with the Lisbon Process? I do not know about God – he has been around for a long time so he obviously has a healthy diet – but I know what I think and that is that the Lisbon Process, among other things, requires us to have wellinformed consumers who make real choices which increase the marketability of the products they buy.
Everybody benefits from that, it is a benign circle, and to have it denounced as though it is simply an instrument of the nanny state and so on, as we have heard in the course of this debate, is absolute rubbish.
I personally hope that we vote to retain Article 4.
We need to have some way of dealing with the misleading claims which are made, which balance one substance against another, and only tell you about the one for which the claim could be made.
The only way to do that is to have some effective template from which this can be made.
The Commission has worked long and hard on this.
I have many representatives of the food industry in my own constituency who have said that provided we just have that template within the Poli Bortone report, we do not then need it in Mrs Scheele’s proposals, we do not need it for fortification, but we should have it somewhere.
And so we should.
I cannot vote for this proposal tomorrow if the emasculation of Article 4 takes place.
   Madam President, ‘no added sugar’, ‘high in iron’, ‘low in cholesterol’ or else a current bestseller, ‘high in omega3s’, health claims nowadays adorn almost all packaging, and quite naturally influence our choices as consumers.
We therefore need to guide the consumer through this veritable jungle, and that is the aim of this excellent proposal for a regulation: first to ensure that the claims are accurate, as a minimum, and then to put an end to those that cause misunderstandings.
I will return to my example: high in omega3s.
In principle, this is very good, but obviously not for products too high in fat, sugar or salt.
The text refers to health and nutrition claims, not to advertising, as we heard here today.
No product will be banned, and neither will advertising.
Quite simply, the honest thing for these products would be to focus the advertising on pleasure, if manufacturers wish, and not on health.
That is why it is vital, tomorrow, that we reinstate nutritional benefit at the heart of the text, a criterion that is recognised by the WHO, in particular to combat the disease of this century, obesity, which affects 40% of children in Europe.
A criterion that will also ban any form of health claim for alcoholic drinks, which is the least we can do, you will agree.
In conclusion, if tomorrow we follow the excellent work of our rapporteur, Mrs Bortone, and change direction, it will prove that this Parliament truly cares about the interests of goodfaith manufacturers, I would say, and of European consumers.
   – The next item is the report (A60127/2005) by Mrs Agnes Schierhuber, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the financing of the common agricultural policy (COM(2004)0489 – C60166/2004 – 2004/0164(CNS)).
   . Madam President, I wish to thank Mrs Schierhuber and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their very good cooperation, which I appreciate very much.
I hope that it will be possible to reach a political compromise on this issue during the Luxembourg presidency.
On rural development, I would like to say to Mrs McGuinness that we share a common vision.
It is the future of agriculture and, as I used to say, it is also the life insurance for agriculture.
Concerning financing, if we look at the Commission proposal for the next financial period, approximately EUR 100 billion will be available for the next financial period, including the modulated money.
I think this will be sufficient.
However, I would be worried if the countries that support the 1% succeeded during the ongoing discussions on the financial framework, because then we would not have enough money to realise our vision of a common rural development policy.
Therefore, I can only encourage those who are really in favour of this policy to put pressure on Member States to finance it to the level we regard as necessary, in order to give rural development policy a proper future.
   – The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Commission by Pervenche Berès, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on possible stock exchange mergers and future architecture of financial markets in the EU (00069/2005 – B60240/2005).
   Mr President, in May of every year, we debate in this Chamber the EU’s economic policy guidelines.
Today, it looks like it would be more appropriate to talk about ethics rather than the economy.
There are many things in the Goebbels report with which I can identify.
I endorse the integration of social policy and concern being expressed about insufficient progress in the area of investments in order to comply with Kyoto.
This is where Mr Goebbels should have stopped, though.
I agree with Mrs Lambert that this report goes much too far in one particular area.
In Modification 12, the rapporteur argues in favour of more objective information about the controversial research into genetically modified organisms and about embryonic stem cell research.
I think we have better things to do than to promote controversial research.
To me, it is of the essence that, in stem cell research, the value of human life is central, and this is inconsistent with research on embryos that are destroyed in the process.
In previously adopted documents, this House has clearly spoken out about the place of stem cell research.
Consequently, the text of this resolution is not in line with those documents.
For example, on 10 March, this House adopted a resolution about the trade in human egg cells, and paragraph 15 of this resolution emphatically specifies that embryonic stem cell research can be left to the Member States, where that is permitted.
The Member State ‘can’ do this research, but does not need to.
That is a clear distinction that is lacking in this resolution.
I will withhold my support for this resolution if Mrs Van den Burg’s Modification 12 and Amendment 24 are adopted as they are.
   Mr President, several speakers have asked Mr Špidla about the Working Time Directive and the way he dealt with Parliament’s position in the last plenary.
I did not hear a response on that.
   Mrs van den Burg, we cannot turn the debate into a fresh debate.
I can only allow you to take the floor again if it concerns a point of order.
   . Mr President, in my capacity as rapporteur, I should simply like to remind the House what is at stake in this second reading of a draft regulation on statistics, the aim of which is to establish a European framework for the compiling and transmission of quarterly non-financial accounts by institutional sector.
This will be an important instrument for the conduct of monetary policy in the euro area – and I hope you are all committed to the single currency – and for the monitoring of Member States’ economic policies.
At the first reading last year, on 30 March 2004, the European Parliament proposed only one amendment, which was designed to clarify the fifth recital.
I should like to emphasise that these accounts of the European institutions will be integrated into the accounts for the relevant area, be it the eurozone or the whole European Union.
The Council, which has taken ages over this – more than a year – has also introduced an amendment, relating only to Article 2.
A common position was finally adopted on 8 March 2005, thanks to the Luxembourg presidency, which instilled a long-overdue sense of urgency.
It is nevertheless appalling that the Council has taken a year to present us with its common position on a draft regulation to which Parliament and the Council each made only one amendment.
Since the single currency has been in place for a number of years, the European Union should arm itself with instruments that enable it to collect, at less than yearly intervals, statistics covering all transactions in each of the major sectors.
The Council has adopted our amendment, and I urge the House to adopt the common position, as the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has unanimously recommended, so that this regulation can enter into force.
The scheduled date is the first of June 2005.
   Given the complete lack of respect you have shown during Mrs Lulling’s speech, I must call all the honourable Members to order.
Please be quiet.
Sit down and remained composed since we are going to vote and we must not have Members moving around in the aisles.
Otherwise, we will not know who is voting and who is not voting.
   Mr President, as I have to make an objection to the order of the vote regarding Article 3a and Article 4, I ask whether I should do so now or wait for the vote on Amendment 29.
   Mr President, I will not comment on the merits of this amendment, but I would just like to point out that to vote first on this new Article 3, dealing with Amendments 99 and 32, is perhaps acceptable from a formal point of view, but not from a substantive point of view, insofar as the new Article 3 is nothing but a new version, a ruse to reintroduce the contents of Article 4.
That is a fact, and so much so that if, for instance, you had the courage – or the misfortune – to read Amendment 99 and compare it with Amendment 88, you would see that they are identical, save for a small detail regarding the dates.
I therefore think it more appropriate to vote on the amendments to Article 4 as such, and only afterwards, and if required, to address those relating to the new Article 3, which seeks to replace Article 4 through the back door.
   . Mr President, in order to make it conform to recent events, I wish to propose an oral amendment to the first part of Amendment 7, which reads as follows: ‘reiterates its call for Russia to ratify the recently concluded border agreement with Estonia, and to sign and ratify the border agreement with Latvia without further delay’.
The rest is unchanged.
   Mr President, my oral amendment is as follows: ‘Calls for the conclusion of an agreement between the LUKOIL company, controlled by the Russian Government, and the Lithuanian Government on guarantees of compensation in the event of an environmental catastrophe at the D-6 oil drilling facility near the Curonian Peninsula, a UNESCO World Culture Heritage Site;’
   Mr President, the oral amendment concerns a change in paragraph 14 concerning one word.
Instead of ‘should’, it should read ‘can’.
I will read the text out for you: ‘Points out that the Member States and the Union institutions enjoy a special right to bring actions before the Court in the interests of the law and takes the view that Parliament , using that means, defend the rights of citizens in cases where fundamental rights might be affected by a Union act;’.
The PSE Group wants to take Amendment 6 as an addition to paragraph 5.
Are there any objections?
   Mr President, we do not want Amendment 6 to be an addition to paragraph 5, we want it to replace paragraph 5.
We would like to vote for that.
My Group will be voting for Amendment 6 to replace the text of paragraph 5.
I hope I have clarified the situation.
This will be for the prosperity of Europe.
   Mr President, if Mr Hökmark and the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats do not want this to be an addition, may I ask the House to vote against Mr Hökmark’s amendment.
   Mr President, I wish to notify the House that there is a mistake on the voting list as to where Amendment 24 splits.
We wanted to split the text so as to delete the word ‘biotechnology’.
So we end after ‘preventive healthcare’.
   Mr President, this is not really a point of order.
I just want to draw the House’s attention to Amendment 8, which calls for services of general interest to be excluded from the requirement of notification under state aid policy.
We actually adopted a report on this matter in February – as a matter of fact it was my own report – and this amendment would be exactly the opposite of the conclusions of that report, which was adopted with a solid majority.
   Thank you very much for your comments, Mrs in 't Veld, we take note of them.
   .
In view of the recent tragic events in Meath in Ireland in which five young people lost their lives in a school bus crash, there is an urgent need, amongst other measures, for quick progress on the fitting of safety belts and child restraints on all coaches, including school buses. This Directive should be approved and implemented as quickly as possible.
Any requests for temporary derogations must be kept to an absolute minimum and should be scrutinised thoroughly by the Commission. Implementation of this Directive should also be linked with full compliance with Directive 2003/23/EC which provides for the compulsory wearing of seatbelts on coaches, where fitted, from May 2006.
There must be no repeats of last Monday's accident.
   Mr President, I would have preferred to vote against Amendment 61, which concerned politically exposed persons.
I would have preferred the Commission’s original version, which says that only complex and substantial transactions in the market should fall under the politically exposed persons category.
The Commission’s original version on that point would have been much better than the compromise that was accepted.
   . I should like to congratulate Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou on her important report on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Decision 2001/51/EC establishing a Programme relating to the Community framework strategy on gender equality and Decision No 848/2004/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Community action programme to promote organisations active at European level in the field of equality between men and women.
I welcome this report, and in particular the reference to the need to extend these two programmes until 2006.
Although these programmes are expected to be amended in the future, it is vital at this time that the work done by Europe in this area is backed up by continued and extended action until the financial perspective for 2007-2013 has been adopted, especially now that the EU comprises 25 countries.
   . In view of the direction of action programmes and given the need to address the issue of adapting the timeframe for financing them to the adoption of the financial perspective for 2007-2013, I feel that my vote should reflect what is in the report, and I therefore support it.
   . I voted against the resolution on working conditions of mobile workers assigned to interoperable cross-border services.
This resolution welcomes a Council Directive that turns an agreement between social partners into legislation.
This agreement between the Community of European Railways (industry) and the European Transport Workers’ Federation (trade unions) is surplus to requirements as we already have a Working Time Directive (2003/88) that does a fine job of incorporating mobile workers in its remit.
Moreover, the CER only represents the railway companies that have national monopolies in the Member States.
The European Rail Freight Association, which represents smaller companies, was not recognised by the Commission as social partner, while the new Directive places impossible demands on these small railway companies.
For example, there is the requirement that a mobile worker must, after one night away from home, spend the next night at home at all costs.
That is over-regulation in itself, but also a barrier to new operators in the market that actually offer cross-border freight transport.
In short, the EU cannot use this directive if it wants to make a modal shift from transport by road to transport by rail and if it wants to make the EU more competitive in the framework of the Lisbon strategy.
That is why I have voted against.
   We support the report on the Social Policy Agenda for the period 2006-2010.
We interpret the wording concerning a legislative proposal ‘to guarantee a minimum income’ as referring to what we in Sweden call supplementary benefits and not to the introduction of a minimum wage system.
   . The delegation of the Dutch People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy considered it should vote against the Oomen-Ruijten report on the Social Policy Agenda for the period 2006-2010.
The report mentions a number of matters which should not be regulated at European level, such as the proposal for a legislative initiative for a European minimum wage.
In addition, the VVD cannot see the point of promoting a model for European education and training.
These are typical examples of unwanted interference from Brussels which undermines national sovereignty, something that is unacceptable to the VVD.
Similarly, the request to the Commission to set up a voluntary framework for transnational collective bargaining is superfluous.
Social partners already operate at European level and can settle these matters among themselves much more effectively.
The crowning touch is the abundance of new directives proposed in the report, many of which put a suffocating blanket over entrepreneurs, as a result of which they can no longer get round to running their businesses.
This could have a boomerang effect on employment, which should never be the intention of social policy, in my view.
For the VVD, the best social policy at European level is the creation of jobs.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 26 May 2005.
   15 years ago, the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize to the Burmese opposition leader, Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi.
In a few days time, she will reach her 60th birthday, that is to say, 15 years will have passed four times, but she is still under arrest.
She is the only Sakharov Prize winner who has not been able to receive her prize after more than 3 500 days in captivity.
I felt I should point this out, because it may have been forgotten.
It may also have been forgotten that, in 1990, her party, the National League for Democracy, received 80% of the votes in the parliamentary elections, 80%, but it could not take power because of the Burmese military regime.
And, despite the frequent and constant appeals from this Parliament, despite the European Union’s sanctions, despite the condemnation of several bodies of the United Nations, the Burmese regime is continuing its campaign of ethnic cleansing and systematic abuse of human rights.
Human Rights Watch recently accused that regime of the systematic violation of human rights, torture and executions.
I therefore believe it appropriate, on behalf of this Parliament, for us all to renew our call for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow political prisoners and express our complete condemnation of the abuses of the Burmese regime.
   Mr President, the agenda for Wednesday includes two important debates – one on the reform of the UN and the other on trans-Atlantic relations.
We also want to discuss the Council and Commission statements on Uzbekistan and then deal with a question on Philip Morris.
Very little time has been made available for this.
By way of deviation from our written motion – and in order to accommodate those Members who want at least some Question Time and then the written replies – I would like to ask that the debate be allowed to encroach upon half an hour of Question Time, leaving half an hour for questions to the Council, so that we – by which I mean both the larger and smaller groups – can have a rather more in-depth debate.
   Mr President, speaking on behalf of our group, I would like to ask for something that does not involve changing the agenda, but simply adding to the title.
On Wednesday morning, between 9 a.m. and noon, the Council and the Commission are due to make statements on the preparations for the European Council.
Having had the referenda, I think it would be appropriate for them to be mentioned, and so we ask that they should feature in the title, thus: ‘The future of the European Union following the referenda on the Constitution’.
This would make it clear that this is not ‘business as usual’, but that we are focussing our attention on this major issue.
It would be appropriate if we were to do this.
   Mr President, we would like to congratulate Mr Poettering, whom the weekend has brought to his senses.
Last Thursday, we ...
Yes, and you were against it!
We proposed that last Thursday.
Thank you, Mr Poettering, for sleeping on the issue and coming to the right conclusion.
   Mr President, on Wednesday, the global campaign, Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative was launched.
Aids, malaria and TB are generally known problems.
Less well known are Chagas disease, sleeping sickness and leishmaniasis.
Together with AIDS, TB and malaria, these diseases kill 14 million people each year, mainly in poor countries.
They claim more victims globally than traffic accidents, famine and terrorism combined.
Three billion dollars would be enough to fund the research needed to produce better treatments for these diseases.
The solutions are within reach if solidarity and human sympathy are mobilised.
For many, ‘tsunami’ was an unknown word six months ago but, when the devastating power behind that word became generally known, we were rapidly able to mobilise aid for those affected.
Now, attention is being paid to other less well-known diseases such as Chagas disease and leishmaniasis, which affect millions of people.
This time too, let us show how we can teach ourselves new concepts and take new initiatives to combat these afflictions.
   . – Mr President, I would like to use this platform to say that a month ago, Mr Hegyi, the Hungarian MEP, told you and all of us an untruth about the alleged impossibility for Hungarians to obtain citizenship in Latvia.
After what we had heard, several members from Latvia met with the Hungarian Association in Latvia.
Hungarians, just like other permanent residents of Latvia, have every right to obtain Latvian citizenship.
Many Hungarians have already done so, but the issue, as it turned out, was not about citizenship.
The biggest problem for those people who are by no means well-off is the impossibility of travelling to visit relatives in Hungary without visas, which cost quite a large sum of money.
For this very reason, Hungarians in Latvia had approached the Hungarian Government, asking it to issue them with special certificates for entering Hungary, such as those living in other countries already have.
Since their request was refused, Latvian citizenship becomes the only way in which to travel to Hungary without a considerable outlay on visas.
Mr Hegyi, I call upon you as a member of the Hungarian Socialist Party not to mislead Parliament, but to appeal to your party colleagues in the government and to propose that they stop requiring that their own Hungarian people have visas in order to enter Hungary.
   Mr President, on 28 April last year the President of France, Mr Jacques Chirac, said ‘If a country votes against the proposed Constitution, it must leave the European Union’.
I would like to ask, Mr President, whether you have yet received the French resignation.
   No, Mr Mote, I have not received it.
   Mr President, on September 16 the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the offences committed against minorities in the Serbian province of Vojvodina and, as a consequence of this, in late 2004, a delegation led by Mrs Doris Pack visited the province on a fact-finding mission.
Following objective and credible investigations, the delegation found that offences are indeed committed, but not in an organised manner.
Recently, however, I am sad to say, we have once again witnessed disturbing events in Vojvodina.
The greatest cause for concern is the fact that the recently appointed Serbian public prosecutor in Subotica has issued an indictment against József Kasza – president of the most important organisation of Vojvodina Hungarians, the VMSZ [Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians] – to investigate abuses of power allegedly committed by him nine years ago during his time as mayor.
Denunciations of this sort have been made against József Kasza several times in the past, but have never been proven.
The timing in the present case is no coincidence.
Kasza was the person who was most vociferous in condemning the violent acts committed against Vojvodina Hungarians and he cooperated closely with the European Parliament’s fact-finding delegation.
Mr President, I ask you and Mrs Doris Pack to take care that VMSZ president József Kasza does not become a political victim in a show trial.
   Mr President, I would like to correct what Mr Leichtfried has said.
I, too, am opposed to the transport of live animals for slaughter, but this statement makes no distinction between animals for slaughter and animals for breeding and production, the latter of which must be exported alive and really are economically significant to Europe’s farmers.
If we subscribe to the statement as it stands, something like half of Europe’s breeding cattle would be affected, and that would represent another major blow to Europe’s farmers, on top of the general economic stress.
   Mr President, I do not want to give the impression that I am anything other than an advocate of a peaceful and united Europe, but I do believe that, after the votes in France and the Netherlands, we cannot simply go on with business as usual.
Nor can it be said that over half Europe’s citizens have already cast their votes in favour.
To do so is simply wrong; in Germany, it was fewer than 600 members of parliament who voted in favour, while over 80 million citizens were not asked their opinion.
Last week, a major German daily newspaper polled its readership.
Of the almost 380 000 readers who took part, 96% were opposed to the Constitution.
I do not believe that the blame lies with the French and Dutch voters who voted against the Constitution, but rather with the Members of this House who voted to start accession negotiations with Turkey and in favour of the early accession of Romania and Bulgaria.
That is what we need to be talking about.
   Mr President, in the light of the Constitutional referenda, I would hope that at last, in this House, there might be some recognition that the EU project is seriously flawed and heading in the wrong direction.
However, that is not the point I want to draw attention to.
Another Member has already mentioned the G-8 summit, which is going to take place in Edinburgh, and also the Live-8 campaign, which is seeking debt relief, trade justice and increased aid for Africa.
However, financial measures alone cannot solve Africa’s problems.
If we are going to bring about real change for the better in Africa, this must be accompanied by action to ensure that good governance is practised, the rule of law upheld and human rights respected.
I look at the case of Zimbabwe, where in March Mugabe had another sham election and where, at this moment, he is involved in clearance of urban areas inhabited mainly by opposition supporters, whom he is ruthlessly suppressing.
The international community is doing nothing about this.
The Council said that it would review sanctions in the light of the elections that took place in Zimbabwe.
Nothing has happened.
I call upon the Council and the Commission to take robust action against Mugabe and similar dictators who are abusing the oppressed people of Africa.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Anne Laperrouze, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down guidelines for trans-European energy networks and repealing Decisions No 96/391/EC and No 1229/2003/EC (COM(2003)0742 – C5-0064/2004 – 2003/0297(COD)) (A6-0134/2005).
   . A possible solution for the assurance of security of the gas supply at the cross-country level has been on our minds for quite a time, as well as the solutions for the security and diversification of the supply to the Baltic region of the European Union.
The speaker has also noted this matter in her speech today.
Two projects have been included in the priority list of the guidelines under consideration, that is, the Northern Trans-European gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany and the Yamal-Europe transit gas pipeline route to Germany via Belarus and Poland.
The list of projects of general importance includes the Amber Project, a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany via the territories of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Naturally, the specific routes of pipelines result from particular agreements between the gas companies and the countries concerned; however, I would like to point out that the Northern Trans-European transit gas pipeline project partially disregards the interests and needs of all European Union states along the pipeline route that are concerned with the supply of gas.
The 2nd project of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline fails to meet the provisions for gas supply safety as it crosses the territory of Belarus, and we should remember the blocking of the gas supply via Belarus in February 2004.
We need an additional merger of the gas system of Eastern and Western Europe so as to ensure the safe provision of natural gas to consumers, to create a common and functioning gas market and satisfy the growing need of the European Union for natural gas in the mid- and long-term outlook; therefore, I propose to enter the Amber Pipeline from Russia to the European Union into the first appendix of the list of general significance projects, that is, the list of priority projects, as a possible alternative for Yamal II, while passing a new decision concerning the Council and European Parliament project.
Such a merger complies with the priorities set out in the Community guidelines in 2003 and indicated in the project under deliberation.
Such a gas pipeline route would also make a sound contribution to the settlement of security problems of the European Union and the Baltic region in particular.
   The next item is the report (A6-0130/2005) by Mrs Rothe, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on energy end-use efficiency and energy services (COM(2003)0739 – C5-0642/2003 – 2003/0300(COD)).
   Madam President, if I may come straight to the point, we are, today, saying a heartfelt ‘yes’ to a European approach for more efficient energy use, but I should like to start by congratulating Mrs Rothe and the Commission on the proposal and the report on energy efficiency.
The more efficient use of energy is in all our interests; we all stand to benefit from it.
Greater efficiency means a reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases, which, in turn, helps us meet our Kyoto obligations.
Consumers and governments save on their energy bills, and energy-efficient companies become more competitive.
Innovation is the key word here and I unreservedly endorse the top runner principle in Amendment 96.
Critics who view this proposal as needless interference from Brussels in their domestic affairs forget the unfortunate fact that, without external pressure, too little is done in order to make our energy consumption more efficient, but I think that Mr Piebalgs’ top down approach should be complemented by its opposite.
Amendment 45 challenges enterprises to come up with all kinds of proposals on more efficient energy consumption.
I wholeheartedly support the Commission in its endeavour to get Member State governments to lead by example.
Governments are ideally placed to make investments in energy efficiency that are unprofitable in the short term but that are recovered in the longer term.
Whether by purchasing clean and economical official cars, refuse lorries, electronic equipment or investing in energy-efficient buildings, governments are ideally placed to address this problem.
In this context, I also think that we as European institutions have an additional responsibility.
Not only should we impose obligations on the Member States, we must also accept the challenge to enhance our own energy efficiency.
I suggest that the European Commission, Parliament and the Council all compete against each other to find out which is the most energy-efficient institution.
The outcome could be presented to the public and press during next year’s Green Week, and, while I am on this subject, I should like to say that I think there is room for an improvement of over 30% in the new Parliament building.
   The next item is the report by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on protecting the Community’s financial interests and fight against fraud (2004/2198(INI)) (A6-0151/2005).
   . Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to thank Mr Bösch for the excellent report and also for the excellent cooperation.
There are two points of particular interest to which I should like to draw your attention this evening.
The first one is the responsibility of the Member States, which, let us not forget, manage 80% of all European aid, which gives us every right to ask more commitment of them, meaning, above all, extra efforts in reporting possible irregularities and cases of fraud.
It also means reinforcing systems for monitoring and managing the structural funds.
We have a long way to go in this respect.
It also means that extra efforts have to be made in the area of reimbursement of funds paid either in excess or in error, which amount to the tidy sum of EUR 3 billion.
In his speech, Mr Bösch made a point of explaining how this is possible, and Member States have to be galvanised into action, for they have not taken any responsibility to date.
It is in this respect disappointing that the Member States where the most significant irregularities are reported are also the very Member States with the lowest reimbursement rates.
Secondly, with regard to cigarette fraud, as Mr Mulder pointed out, Parliament is a driving force in addressing this issue, which, indeed, formed an important part of the enquiry committee on transit fraud.
Every container that disappears represents a value of EUR 1.5 million of income of the Member States and the EU, in other words the taxpayer.
Next Wednesday, we will be questioning the Council and the Commission about the agreement that was concluded with tobacco giant Philip Morris who, for the next 12 years, will be paying USD 1.25 billion into an EU account.
I congratulate the Commission and OLAF, the anti-fraud office, on the exemplary way they have worked together to bring this about.
We need more agreements of this kind with other tobacco giants.
As Mr Mulder pointed out, the past referenda taught us that people have doubts about the European Union.
Issues like these, including the Philip Morris issue, demonstrate at any rate that if Parliament, the Council and the Commission join forces, organised crime and mafia networks, which are, in fact, also used for other products like drugs, can certainly be tackled adequately.
Finally, if you, Mr Bösch, say that we should abolish export subsidies and for the reason that it is a scheme that is very susceptible to fraud, then you will know that you can rely on me as an ally.
We should indeed put the issue of export subsidies on the political agenda and keep it there.
   Mr President, I am also able to give my full support to Mr Bösch’s report, which is both constructive and perceptive.
Mr Bösch pointed out that we still have too much fraud, and that is a view I can only endorse.
I think there may be said to be two problems.
The way Mr Bösch expressed this was to say that EU money has a different value in the Member States than the Member States’ own money.
This is a problem that the former President of the Court of Auditors, Professor Friedmann, addressed years ago.
The way he put it was to say that we cannot continue to provide aid in this form.
Instead, we must give countries cheap loans, as in that way they will have to pay the money back and be careful about what they use it for.
The second problem is that EU legislation and administration is still not good enough.
There are still too many cases in which the money goes into the wrong pockets or in which we do not get value for money.
I was talking recently with a Danish expert who works for a private firm and for the EU in the former Yugoslavia, and he reported that the aid provided by the World Bank, the EBRD and the EIB is monitored quite differently.
In contrast, the EU lets things slide.
When the money is used, all is well.
This is something we need to have looked into so that we are as proficient as the World Bank and the other big banks in ensuring that the money is used correctly.
   Mr President, in 1999 I was elected to this Parliament as a non-party frontrunner of the Austrian social democrats.
At the time, I had an equally high opinion of both OLAF and our rapporteur, Mr Bösch.
Since then, both the voters and I have had to learn that neither of them are that good.
OLAF is the private army of the powers in Brussels.
Someone denounced reporter Hans-Martin Tillack, claiming he had paid money for confidential documents from inside the Commission. used the documents to publish a report about fraud in Brussels.
Every word of the article was true.
That was not the point, however.
Tillack still has not got the confiscated documents back.
It is not unusual for journalists to work with confidential official information.
Such information was also used in this report.
Everyone who works on a newspaper knows that it is almost good form for people who are exposed to claim that money was paid for confidential documents.
OLAF also asked the public prosecutors in Hamburg, where is published, for help; they refused.
No judge was found who was prepared to do his duty.
These EU investigators have been gradually expanding their powers for years now.
No one can stand in OLAF chief Heinz-Hermann Brüner’s way.
That is what European law now says, and the thoroughness with which Brussels always sorts everything out means that the Council has always immediately adjusted criminal law accordingly.
Now even fewer people in Europe are safe from Franz-Hermann Brüner!
Uncovering Mr Bösch’s part in all this will have to wait for another time.
I have quoted everything I have said today from today’s issue of the news magazine .
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Kallas, I would first of all like to offer my most sincere thanks to Mr Busuttil for the excellent work he has carried out as shadow rapporteur.
On the eve of our vote, I would like to speak about the way in which the work of OLAF has been judged within the Bösch report.
I felt that it was my responsibility to defend this fledgling European anti-fraud office, which up to now has never received any criticism from any judicial body, whether European or national. It is an organisation that has been the subject, however, of ruthless campaigns of slander and destabilisation, through worrying indirect attacks, in which even certain elements of this House are not uninvolved.
It is with great regret that I am forced to state that Mr Bösch’s report also appears to be inspired by unjust, exploitative and one-sided attitudes with regard to OLAF.
I believe, in particular, that it was premature and inappropriate to include the reference to a special report by the European Ombudsman against OLAF, which can only have been published in its final form with remarkably perfect timing.
In addition, this reference, which I consider to be unacceptable political meddling in a delicate ongoing investigation into suspected corruption, has been brought back to the attention of Parliament by means of an oral amendment, which would seek to ignore, however, two verdicts of the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice in favour of OLAF, which are by far more authoritative.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us leave it to the judicial bodies to pronounce on the investigations, and let us all ensure that OLAF never becomes, as some would wish, the Trojan horse of political battles and one-sided interests.
For my part, I will continue to fight and to ensure that OLAF is forever an effective and impartial instrument, acting in defence of the legality and the financial interests of the European Union.
I am convinced that Parliament will also become the spokesperson for such a battle.
The crisis that Europe is going through today in the eyes of the citizens calls on us all to behave with the utmost responsibility.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Bösch, I should firstly like to congratulate you, as others have already done.
Secondly, it is a pity that the Director of OLAF is not here today.
I am sure this is for reasons beyond his control.
I should nevertheless like to point out that, on the one hand, OLAF must pay very careful attention to this report and that, on the other, Parliament and our rapporteur must pay due respect to OLAF.
Such respect is essential for a body of democratic control such as ours.
I hope that OLAF has similar respect for its supervisory committee, given that under no circumstances must OLAF’s indispensable independence be confused with self-sufficiency, which would be extremely detrimental to the functioning of our institutions.
Turning to you, Commissioner, I should like to reiterate what we stated in point 28 of our report, namely that we await a Commission report by 31 October 2005, explaining fully what stage has been reached as regards the scandal of adulterated butter.
Despite the fact that it was clear six years ago to all of those involved in the investigation that action had to be taken, none of the actual perpetrators, nor their accomplices, were brought to justice, and their activities continued undisturbed.
I should therefore like to ask you, Commissioner, to declare to this House that you are ready to accede to our request by 31 October.
   Mr President, I would like to continue quoting from : ‘There is no one who can stand in Franz-Hermann Brüner’s way.
As the Commission’s decision establishing OLAF puts it, his Office “shall exercise the powers of investigation ... in complete independence” and it may “neither seek nor take instructions from the Commission, any government or any other institution or body”’.
That must sound like heaven to a German public prosecutor, who is bound by instructions from the Ministry of Justice.
That is a tradition that is taken for granted in many European countries.
This brings us to quite a big problem.
No one who is for Europe can be in favour of OLAF as it is, no one who is for Europe can be in favour of the EU as it is, especially when it uses an instrument like OLAF, where the well-tried principles of the rule of law are disregarded on a massive scale, especially the right to be heard and the right to information, when such proceedings are under way.
I urge Commissioner Kallas to do something about this.
   The next item is the report by Mrs Brepoels, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an infrastructure for spatial information in the Community (INSPIRE) (COM(2004)0516 – C6-0099/2004 – 2004/0175(COD)) (A6-0108/2005).
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Skinner, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on reinsurance and amending Council Directives 73/239/EEC and 92/49/EEC and Directives 98/78/EC e 2002/83/EC (COM(2004)0273 C6-0038/2004 2004/0097(COD)) (A6-0146/2005).
   The next item is the report (A6-0145/2005) by Mrs Schierhuber, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation on support for rural development by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD) (COM(2004)0490) – C6-0181/2004 – 2004/0161(CNS)).
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by warmly thanking our rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber.
She has done a great piece of work with this report, which seeks to strike a balance between many different interests, all of which have something to be said for them.
Sixty per cent of the population and 90% of the territory of the EU.
These two figures really do bring home the importance of rural development as the second pillar of the European Union’s agricultural policy.
The EU population can be content only if the rural population is content.
In the light of recent political developments and the failed referendum, we must not only be more aware of the need for acceptance of European policy, it must quite definitely be to the fore everywhere.
In view of the empty coffers and the fighting over distribution, I must also point out that, historically, the EU budget was an agricultural budget.
The policy areas that were added later must not be allowed to overshadow this historic core of Europe.
That is why there are also calls for rural development funds, which are part of agricultural funding, to remain primarily with farmers in projects related to farming.
I therefore expressly support Mrs Schierhuber’s proposed financial appropriations for all three main axes.
It is very important that the support available for very small enterprises should also be extended to medium-sized undertakings in rural areas.
We must also join the rapporteur in calling for Natura 2000, financing for which has still not been settled, not to be funded out of second pillar resources but out of additional money.
At this point I would like once again to extend my sincere thanks to Mrs Schierhuber and to everyone else who has worked so hard on this important report.
In the light of the above points, this report has earned our support.
   Mr President, what we need to do today, I believe, is to send a very clear signal to Europe’s countryside.
Whatever major changes may occur in the market, Europe must remain visible, tangible and recognisable.
What became apparent last week was that ‘market, market, market’, in other words money alone, does not bring Europe any closer or touch the hearts of the people.
There is more to it: a social dimension and a liveable countryside.
That is why it is such a splendid thing that this programme is so broad-based and that the Committee on the Regions, on which I had the privilege of sitting, has adopted amendments which making explicit provision for regional and local involvement and, at the same time, for an integrated approach.
Not only agriculture, but also natural landscape and tourist activities play their part in this development, and we must actively encourage new features, such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for the sake of business innovation.
Switching to different functions in the countryside will definitely have an impact in the sort of rural and urban areas that we have in the Netherlands, where plenty of proposals are ready to be tabled in order to make changes by engaging in reconstruction in rural areas.
These include achieving the Gothenburg and Lisbon objectives, maintaining strong agriculture, and, not least, all the innovation that is possible in processing right down the food chain.
I should like to endorse Mr Maat’s earlier suggestion that more flexibility be tolerated between the columns and also in the subsidy percentages.
Finally, Europe is currently being haunted by the spectre of renationalisation.
It is already rearing its head as a reaction to common European policy, but will be even more prominent in 2013 when the next financial battle will be fought.
I am opposed to it on the grounds that it leads to less Europe, less recognisability and less closeness to those people in the countryside, a large majority of whom, while looking to Europe, have said ‘no’ to the Constitution.
Not because that is not what they want, but because there is uncertainty in the policy, and that would be counterproductive.
   I can only congratulate Mrs Schierhuber on her work.
She has prepared an excellent report that would provide an excellent conceptual framework for the distribution of rural development resources, if there were actually any resources to distribute.
Compared with the Commission’s proposed allocation of 88 billion euros, the most recent negotiating framework, submitted by the Luxembourg Presidency, proposes a drastic reduction to a mere 73-75 billion euros for the period 2007-2013.
This reduction is a very major one for all Member States, but it is particularly disadvantageous to the new Member States, given that we believed this allocation would offset the discriminatory Copenhagen agreements, as indeed was also promised by Mrs Fischer Boel at her hearing.
I know that this does not depend on her.
In the light of the discriminatory direct payments system, this discriminatory payments system will mean that, over seven years, agricultural support per farmer in the old Member States will amount to 48 000 euros, while in the new Member States it will be just 14 000 euros per farmer.
In other words, farmers in the old Member States will receive three times more over seven years in direct payments and rural development funds than farmers in the new Member States.
If this reduction does indeed go ahead, please do not let it affect the resources going to the new Member States.
   –I should like to welcome our former colleague, Mr De Vries, who is following the debate from the Council benches.
   At this point I have the pleasure of welcoming our former colleague, Mr Gijs de Vries, whom I wish all the strength he needs for his great task.
Welcome to the European Parliament, Mr de Vries.
   Mr President, I wish to inform you that we have withdrawn Amendment 14 to recital Q.
   Amendment 1 has been put to the vote and has been adopted.
   Mr President, I should like to propose, in agreement with Mr Díaz de Mera García Consuegra, who is the author of this amendment, and being aware that the Socialist Group also has a similar oral amendment, that at the end, after the words ‘trafficking in drugs, arms and human beings’, it should read: ‘and financing through extortion, including the so-called revolutionary tax’.
   Mr President, I would simply like to say that we accept Baroness Ludford's amendment and we will not therefore present any other oral Amendment.
We believe that amendment to be perfect and we will support it.
   This amendment will therefore be inserted into Amendment 4, and that amendment, which has been modified twice, will be put to the vote.
   We support most aspects of Mr Bösch’s report on the fight against fraud.
The fact that the variety of tax rates on tobacco in the EU Member States leads to problems involving cigarette smuggling is a known fact, mentioned in paragraphs 33 and 36.
We agree with these statements, but we are opposed to further reductions in tobacco taxes.
Reduced prices for tobacco increase consumption and have a harmful effect on public health.
We believe there are better ways of getting to grips with the problems of smuggling.
Nor can we support the view that customs authorities should be equipped with mobile units or that the EU agency for the external borders should also conduct customs investigations.
   Thank you very much, Mr Barroso.
It is good news that you are happy with the proposal of the temporary committee.
Thank you for your positive assessment.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to say that the proposal on which we shall vote tomorrow proposes the internal redeployment of EUR 200 million from the trans-European energy networks to the Social Agenda, which is an essential factor in social inclusion, growth and competitiveness.
It should also be pointed out that the request to enhance the financial framework of the ‘Progress’ programme so as to pave the way for the effective implementation of the Lisbon Strategy and the Social Agenda represents a success for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
We now hope – and I repeat this request – that this desire to increase the appropriations does not fall on deaf ears in negotiations with the Council.
I should also like to mention, however, with some degree of concern, that social dialogue and the free movement of workers, specifically EURES, are not mentioned in this report.
I believe it is essential that the financial margin in line 1A should be able to bridge that gap.
Speaking on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on this issue, however, and in light of Europe’s crucial role in questions of social justice and cohesion, I should like to express my concern at the way in which the Luxembourg Presidency has addressed questions relating to the statistical effect and should therefore like to …
   . Both the current parliament and its predecessors have done a great deal to support the development of trans-European transport networks.
A smoothly functioning European infrastructure is one of the vital pillars of the Lisbon strategy and an important prerequisite for European economic, geographic and social cohesion.
Last year, 30 projects were selected – including the Marco Polo and Galileo programmes – that are to be given high priority and corresponding financial support by the Community.
These 30 priority investment programmes create a network encompassing and linking the fifteen old and ten new Member States; they put an end to bottlenecks, replace missing sections of infrastructure and pay special attention to trans-border sections, in other words, they make the system of European transport networks virtually complete.
In our experience, projects failed to get under way, or got under way only very slowly in past decades, due among other things to the reluctance of the Community to assist with funding.
Does the new Financial Perspective change this? Indeed it does.
The proposed allocations in the framework of the new Financial Perspective enable average Community funding of 15% and, in addition, other innovative forms of financing have been formulated.
This will enable a new type of financing system to evolve, that is more effective than earlier systems and requires smaller contributions from Member States, for the first time in the history of TENs funding.
In fact, Community funding will act as a catalyst.
It is the unanimous view of the temporary committee that the funds allocated should be regarded as the minimum required.
   . Mr President, I would like to start by extending, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, warm thanks to our rapporteur Mr Böge, who has had the courage to set out unambiguous priorities in his draft report, one – and an explicit one – being in the sphere of education and training, which are key factors in growth, social integration and competitiveness.
Nor has he limited himself to sounding off on the subject, for he has added almost a billion euros to this draft Budget for the great educational programmes Erasmus and Leonardo and for youth exchanges.
Although Mr Böge also put the case for an increase for culture, the amount of this falls lamentably short of the amount that is desirable as a matter of urgency.
Regrettable though this is in view of the frequent invocation of the soul of Europe, I would like, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, to ask the House to back these proposals tomorrow with a large majority.
Now that the Council has, in the referenda, been sent a clear signal from the public, I call upon it to get its priorities right by accepting what Parliament has proposed through its rapporteur and, in the European Budget, taking public participation particularly seriously, as well as education and culture.
Before the referenda, 72% of the public described themselves as inadequately or not at all informed.
It is for that reason that the Council must learn its lesson where the financial situation is concerned.
   Mr President, like many other Members, I should like to congratulate our honourable colleague Reimer Böge for the work that has been done and for his coordination of all this work.
I also believe it is fair to say, Mr Böge, that many other Members of this House have shown responsibility and diligence in arriving at the two-thirds majority to which you referred before.
I therefore invite you, ladies and gentlemen of the Council and the Commission, to listen very carefully to this appeal from our Parliament, because it contains positions that are judicious in two main respects.
Firstly, they are financially judicious, because, as has been partially explained in the course of this debate, they reflect an entirely satisfactory compromise on both the expenditure and the revenue side.
On the expenditure side, we have managed to make proposals with the potential to curb expenditure in a number of areas, while on the resources side, as a previous speaker indicated – I think it was a Council representative – there will be increases ranging from about 8 to 15% in the final analysis, depending on the items, if I recall the figure that was quoted a short time ago.
These, I repeat, are financially judicious positions.
Secondly, our positions are politically judicious too, on the one hand because the wishes expressed in this Financial Perspective are consistent with the Lisbon and Gothenburg objectives and on the other hand because those of our fellow citizens who want to take the trouble to fathom out the content of this Financial Perspective will find in it, I believe, a manifestation of our will to enhance our regions while improving our ability to master the challenges of the future.
This is why I am pleased with the positions adopted by Parliament on the Böge report and why I call on the Commission and the Council to take heed of it.
In addition, it is my fervent wish that we should be listened to by the Council on 17 and 18 June and that our views receive a favourable hearing.
It is absolutely essential that the Council’s conclusion on this matter should not be seen as a patched-up decision but rather as a giant step forward towards our vision of Europe.
   Mr President, the Soviet Union had a total of 10 economic plans.
The European Union, for its part, has already had four budgetary plans: the Delors I and Delors II packages, the Santer plan and now the Barroso plan for the period from 2007 to 2013.
The Soviet plans, however, were designed to build up the economy, whereas the European budgetary plans are balancing mechanisms in which flies’ eggs are weighed on spiders’ webs.
Our debate illustrates this: the 311-page Böge report is essentially all about whether 450 million Europeans will commit appropriations amounting to 1.24%, 1.06% or 1.7% of GDP, in other words whether we shall spend EUR 1 024 billion, 870 billion or 825 billion over the next seven years while the United States spends USD 20 000 billion, some 20 times as much as the EU, over the same period.
To put it another way, our divergences of some EUR 60 billion between Juncker and Barroso or between Chirac and Böge are equivalent to 0.3% of the US public expenditure estimates for the same period.
When we have more than 20 million unemployed and 50 million people living in poverty, it is obvious, and has been common knowledge since the time of Pericles, that the big issue is that of large loans for major investments, such as investments in our railways.
If Brussels had actually been building railway stations, for example, instead of constitutional castles in the air, the European Union would not have been shunted into the sidings.
   Thank you Mr Wynn.
I will pass on your warm remarks to Mrs Thatcher.
      Mr President, one of the comments Mr Böge made during the presentation of his first-rate report was that it was about a forward-looking Europe.
In my opinion, this is a splendid phrase.
It serves as a common ground for Parliament and the Commission, and highlights the distance between these two institutions and the Council, which at present is incapable of transcending national interests and finding the answer that Europe needs.
The European project is currently at crisis point.
The only response to this crisis has to be the good news that Europe is capable of looking to the future with hope, and that Europe itself can be the source of such hope.
The Böge report indicates, and rightly so, that there is no contradiction between the European Union’s policies of cohesion and solidarity and Europe’s economic competitiveness.
This is an important point, and I believe that it is equally important for the Financial Perspective to be a driving force behind European integration, rather than a factor widening the gap between the new and the old Member States, or between Eastern and Western Europe.
The countries that have rejoined Europe are particularly vulnerable, and this is something people need to understand.
   Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Böge for his high-quality work in the Committee.
Although we have already heard praise from many quarters for the balance of the work he has done, we – and I – take the view that the failure to put sufficient emphasis on some areas is precisely the problem.
I want to pick up right now on what Mr Geremek said.
Is the policy that we are now engaged in devising really sufficiently focussed on the future? What are we in fact doing for the European public, and what can they then do for Europe?
I feel at a deep level that, after the two failed referenda, we have to consider how, as a matter of policy, we can communicate better with the people of Europe.
I believe that our educational programmes, despite the boost that they have already given us, have not taken us as far as we have to go in terms of the Lisbon strategy; over the coming years, by means of the Financial Perspective, we must do everything possible to ensure that every schoolboy, every schoolgirl and every student can gain an education and study in another European country.
They will relate emotionally to Europe, to its diversity and to its opportunities, in a quite different way, and it is thus that we develop convinced Europeans from the ground upwards.
Those are the sort of networks we need.
The situation is exactly the same as regards cultural policy.
We are so proud of the fact that the Wall is no longer there and that we are a continent of diverse cultures.
The Budget estimate still falls short of what we spend on subsidising tobacco.
We need to be visibly proactive here, enabling town-twinning schemes to flourish, enabling artists to meet each other and enabling people to have a real experience of Europe’s cultural riches.
That is why the estimates contained in Mr Böge’s proposal do not go far enough.
Let us, together, be bold in trying to get the message across to people, not only to their minds, but also to their hearts.
   – After the fall of the Iron Curtain, we in the Czech Republic had to wait a disproportionately long 14 years before our citizens could decide in a referendum whether we wanted to join the European Union.
They said ‘yes’.
At that time, we agreed to humiliating conditions attached to accession, in which our highly efficient farming sector was granted only a quarter of the subsidies compared with our competitors in the old European Union countries, as well as conditions conflicting with the founding principles of the European Union – protection regulations preventing the free employment of our citizens in many of the old countries of the Union.
We also find that services may not be directly provided in the old Member States, and we recently discovered how tricky it will be for businesses that logically wish to relocate – still within the EU – to our country with its highly qualified and industrious workforce, which works 40 hours per week rather than 35 and which does not demand exorbitant wages.
Indeed, it has only taken a year for us to be disabused of many naïve ideas.
We want to believe at least in the basic promises that led our citizens to say ‘yes’ in the accession referendum.
The promises were about financial resources, which, they said, would provide funds for the development of the Czech Republic as they had done before in Portugal, Ireland and elsewhere.
It is therefore logical that we support the Commission’s proposal to maintain the 1.24%.
Let me make clear that we are not against cuts.
We are, alas, well aware that the cuts will only come at the expense of funds.
Nevertheless, the administration of the Union will not become any cheaper: on the contrary, the dream of a European foreign minister, the dream of embassies, the more than 3000 opaque regulatory and advisory bodies, and the all-penetrating regulations set out in twenty languages will make operating the Union more expensive.
We all know where there are huge amounts of money from which savings can be made.
The common agricultural policy, for example, pointlessly fritters away more than 40% of the budget, but is well known to be a politically untouchable entity, which Parliament, absurdly, is not even allowed to discuss.
Only the funds remain to be cut.
During the year, we have already learnt that the most frequently used magic word is ‘sustainable’, which is used without thinking to label all concepts.
If we really wish to create a sustainable budget, one that does not lead to further disillusion ...
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a convinced pro-European, but equally as an Italian Member who is also here to represent and defend the interests of her nation, I find the Juncker proposal, setting the paltry sum of 1.05% of GDP for the contributions of the Member States to the European budget, to be unacceptable.
In the case of Italy alone, which is a net contributor to the European Union, that means an annual cut of around EUR 8 billion, reducing the funds allocated to employment and justice to the bare bones, and cancelling almost half of the funds for research, innovation and trans-European networks, not to mention the Lisbon Strategy.
There are too many cuts and too many contradictions.
The so-called UK rebate also needs to be reviewed.
In actual fact, this exception, the privilege that sees Great Britain obtain a rebate of a substantial proportion of the contributions it makes, must be scrapped.
It is a provision sought by Mrs Thatcher – in 1984, if I am not mistaken – that was unfortunately, and inexplicably, reconfirmed during Mr Prodi’s presidency: a rebate that is mostly paid for by France and by Italy.
To conclude, the Juncker proposal is the umpteenth demonstration of the profound distance that exists between European bureaucracy and the real needs of the European people.
   Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Böge, has done a good job.
When introducing this report, he pointed out that the Budget leaves certain areas of policy and the economy chronically underfunded.
Rural development is threatening to become one of them.
In consequence of a Council decision, funding is tied up until 2013 in the first pillar, where, however, resources are inadequate for funding Romania and Bulgaria.
It is for this reason that the report proposes the introduction of cofinancing in the first pillar.
While our group wishes to support this cofinancing, our aim in doing so is to achieve better funding for matters covered by the second pillar.
The funds from Natura 2000 must be mobilised.
In the second pillar, rural development must be funded on an equal basis, that is to say with 75% from the European Union, and the proper economic development of rural areas must be guaranteed.
Far from this being a financial act of mercy, the overall health of our economic development is dependent on rural areas not being left behind.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when the voice of the citizens for a more social and more democratic Europe is growing, unfortunately the Council and the Junker Presidency are going backwards, with six countries holding a gun to the others' head.
They are calling, at any cost, for a compromise to the lowest common denominator.
They are abandoning the ambitious targets for the future of European unification.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left rejects the philosophy of an agreement 'at any cost' which also permeates the Böge report, because it results in less Europe and greater inequalities and has as its victims the weaker countries and the weaker social groups.
Europe and the Council should, at long last, understand that there cannot be more and a bigger European Union with less money.
The European United Left considers the Commission proposal to be a totally inadequate starting point for financing the objectives of cohesion and the social agenda following enlargement.
Any thought, therefore, of further reduction is incomprehensible as far as we are concerned.
In the name of the European United Left, I call for a fair division of the costs of enlargement.
Not for the poorer countries and regions to pay most.
For the unacceptable scandal of the British exemption to end.
We are all equal.
For the injustice against the 16 regions which are victim of the so-called statistical effect to be addressed fully and positively and for stronger support to be safeguarded during the transitional period of the regions which have not yet completed the convergence process themselves.
   Mr President, I would like to acknowledge Mr Böge’s determination to carry out this exercise in financial engineering and balancing on the first occasion in the history of the financial perspectives that the European Parliament has voluntarily set its direct ambitions even lower than the Commission’s proposal, which was already minimal.
Only the opportunity to facilitate a quick, balanced and fair agreement, which clears up any doubts and anxieties at this time, could justify this.
That is how we wish to interpret the Commission's conciliatory words and we would urge the Presidency-in-Office of the Council to do so.
Nevertheless, I am not pleased that Parliament should be demonstrating a minimalist tendency which began with the last Agenda 2000 and which has not helped to increase confidence amongst the European citizens.
I am referring to the risk of the budget returning to a renationalising tendency and of basing the Union’s objectives upon insufficient resources.
We regret the pressure represented by the initial proposal of six Member States, some of which were perfectly understandable given the current situation, but others are guilty of not sufficiently explaining the added value of each euro spent and the high economic and commercial return resulting from the Union's development.
We regret that the 1% has replaced the ideas by percentage, but, on the other hand, it has also relaunched the debate on the urgency of fundamentally reviewing the system of own resources.
What we do not agree with is the fact that the rapporteur applies it exclusively to the funding of the CAP, which is still trying to digest the last Brussels reform; let us not throw our farmers out with the bathwater.
We welcome the effort to maintain the share for the cohesion policy, and also the strengthening of the Union's social policies, growth and employment policies and also justice and foreign policies.
We would call on the rapporteur to extend the logical phasing out mechanism, which already acknowledges the regions affected by the amplifying effect of enlargement, and to apply it to the Cohesion Fund.
The European Parliament defended it in Agenda 2000 and we do not understand why, when the Presidency-in-Office of the Council is applying it, Parliament is not now doing so.
We also call on the rapporteur to accept Amendment 1, which combats the discrimination that would result from applying the competition and excellence policy in an exclusive manner.
   The report presented to the Parliament by Mr Böge is an excellent example of the common work of an enlarged [European Union] of 25 Member States.
I do regret that we take no pleasure in that.
Finding a decision concerning the Community funds that would be acceptable and apprehensible for all was a very complicated task; however, this successful decision proves that the enlarged European Union is viable and has a long-term vision of economic development.
Naturally, we could have come to that decision sooner and better had there been no attempts to oppose national and co-European interests, had there been no deviations in the technical particulars.
At times I got the impression that we had convened as a group of accountants instead of society’s leaders.
We have to understand that we need to develop a common European vision prior to commencing any financial planning, and this common European vision is being missed by both the citizens and the representatives of the society.
Therefore, any discussions about financial plans, annual plans that will specify this perspective, should commence with a discussion about that economic vision, which we all have to develop; only thereafter should we define the spheres, the type of financing and the means required.
That is what I miss in the work of the European Commission, and I do regret that today’s speech by the Commission President has been a complaint of a very tired person to Parliament about the problems of negotiations.
   Mr President, I fear that this very important debate on the Financial Perspective will breed frustration, because the Council is proposing something of a shoestring budget which does not match Europe’s ambitions.
Nevertheless, my thanks go to the rapporteur, Mr Böge, whose task was a difficult one and who managed to accommodate Members’ demands.
To come to the Financial Perspective, it continues to give a great deal of cause for concern and is unacceptable in some points.
Following the events of these past few weeks, there is a need to be able to respond to public expectations and not to let a chasm open up between political promises and the action that would serve to achieve the objectives of competitiveness, full employment, research and training and, above all, solidarity.
Yes, we are in favour of cohesion policy, provided it does not rule out support to the regions of the old 15-member Union that remain disadvantaged.
Allow me to explain my concern with regard to the Council.
The Member States must not be timid about Europe.
What can I say about the proposals regarding the common agricultural policy, the CAP, which is poised to become a national agricultural policy or NAP, an appropriate name, with the Council closing its eyes to the needs of farmers as renationalisation looms and a political symbol of Europe is set to disappear? The same concern surrounds regional policy, which our regions need so much, and our major trans-European projects.
We shall also be very vigilant with regard to the funding of Natura 2000.
If we are to finance our priorities, there will surely be a need to review the rules governing the calculation of the Union’s resources and to renegotiate the benefits granted during the last century, particularly the British rebate.
Mr Barroso has told us that he can count on the European Parliament.
Together, we shall perhaps succeed in persuading the Council that it really must make an effort to ensure that the EU budget is not the shoestring budget I dread.
   – Mr President, although I congratulate Mr Böge on the work he has done, I should like to add my voice to the voices of all my fellow Members who expressed the wish for decisions on the financial perspectives to be taken now because, apart from anything else, the impression should not be given that the institutional crisis in the European Union is deepening.
However, they must not, of course, be taken at the cost of the prospects of the European Union itself.
The decisions need to be taken at a satisfactory level for all the Member States.
In saying this, I cannot but add that I am sorry that the proposals by the Luxembourg Presidency operate, unfortunately, to a very large degree to the detriment of cohesion policies with the proposed reduction from 0.41% of Community GDP to 0.37%.
In all events, I should like to say that it is important that the Presidency at least try to limit the adverse repercussions of its proposals. How?
Firstly, with compensation mechanisms for the countries and regions which are disproportionately affected by the mechanism for distributing appropriations proposed by the Commission.
Secondly, by reallocating the appropriations lost due to the Ν+2 rule.
Similarly, I should like to say that we are, of course, opposed to the renationalisation and cofinancing of the common agricultural policy and, finally, to add, as there is talk on many sides of the savings which need to be made and of the fact that we cannot hand out additional appropriations, that the European Union budget corresponds in total to 2.5% of public spending in all the Member States.
At some point, words and deeds with respect to the European Union will need to coincide.
   The Böge report is good not only because it is a splendid piece of work, but also because it lends itself to being used as a pillar for negotiations, while at the same time being a practicable compromise in itself.
It enables the plans of the Union to be put into effect, but without placing an intolerable burden on the contributors.
It boldly proposes new solutions for new situations.
One such solution, that is often mentioned, is national top-ups, which, incidentally, has already been tried out on us, the new Member States.
It is in the interests of Hungary and of all the cohesion countries, that 0.41% of EU income is channelled into supporting convergence.
With this, we will be able to develop research and a knowledge-based society and promote road-network construction and job creation.
All of this will help to breathe life into the Lisbon dream.
But will anything actually come of it at all? The question for the moment is not so much how to reach agreement on concrete figures with the Council, but whether there will be a Council position at all, in other words, whether the European Council will reach agreement with itself?
If the Heads of Government spend their time next week merely bemoaning the outcome of the referenda on the Constitution and fail to decide on the basic principles of the financial framework aimed at serving the interests of the citizens of Europe, then, to the delight of the eurosceptics, the Union really will face a crisis.
Reaching a common position geared towards the interests of the new Europe of 450 million citizens will be a good thing for every Member State.
Aloofness and selfishness never lead anywhere.
The solution is not to turn away from the Union, but to embrace Europe even more.
Following the failure of the referenda, can we allow matters to be made worse by the failure of the financial plans for the period after 2007? Fellow Members of this House, let us support the Böge report, let there be at least one piece of solid ground in this situation in which collapse seems imminent and let the citizens of Europe see which institution represents their real interests.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this morning the European Parliament will vote on its position regarding the forthcoming Financial Perspective for 2007–2013.
This will be one of the most important and significant votes in this session of Parliament.
The European Parliament has basically supported the European Commission’s proposal, but has changed the structure of the Financial Perspective a little.
The European Development Fund has been removed from the framework of the Financial Perspective and a reserve of 24 billion euros has been created.
As a result, the amount of expenditure proposed by the European Parliament is apparently smaller – 1.07% of European Union gross national income – but, if the European Development Fund and the reserve are included, we would be close to the European Commission’s proposal.
In the European Parliament’s proposal the main decrease in expenditure relates to sub-programme 1.a, ‘Competitiveness for growth and employment’, and also to administrative expenditure by the EU institutions, channelling extra resources towards the European Parliament’s traditional priorities.
The European Parliament has acknowledged that the amount of expenditure allocated in the Commission’s proposal to sub-programme 1.b, ‘Cohesion for growth and employment’, is justified.
The total amount of resources channelled into the EU funds is 0.41% of European Union GNI.
Not only is the amount of resources channelled into the EU funds important, but also the principles for the distribution of these resources.
Various important questions are dealt with in the European Parliament’s position.
The first relates to the Commission’s proposal to set a ceiling of 4% of a Member State’s GNI on the amount of resources which may be received from European Union funds.
The European Parliament considers that the setting of a 4% ceiling is based on the experience of the past and that a flexible approach to the setting of ceilings is now needed.
It should be remembered that a set of small and economically relatively less developed states have joined the EU.
Secondly, the European Parliament considers that there should be a differentiation in the level of cofinancing from EU funds, depending on a Member State’s level of economic development.
This means that a higher percentage of cofinancing from EU funds could be allocated to less developed EU Member States.
   Mr President, I would like, as others have done, to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Böge on his work.
He has done an excellent job in very difficult circumstances.
I would also like to align myself with Mr Wynn’s rather than Mr Davies’ remarks about the British rebate, hardly surprisingly.
As one speaker has said, we are all equal but some are more equal than others.
But the idea in paragraph 51, indent 5 might give a sensible idea of how to proceed, bringing in national parliaments to make our own resources system more transparent.
I wish to raise one specific point which is of great importance.
The European Union is going through turbulent times.
We have no idea what our policies are going to be by 2013.
We have no idea now what our external policies will be, particularly in relation to enlargement.
We need a pause for reflection on the length of our commitment to this financial perspective.
It is best to go for a five-year period, which is the same as the mandates of the Commission and of the European Parliament, because looking too far in the future would be an abuse of the democratic process.
Of course, legislative proposals can be for a longer period, but five years would allow us to sort out our policies on expenditure and own resources.
Of course we need to go for an agreement.
I agree with Mr Dehaene that we should give the presidencies as much as encouragement as possible to find one.
But this Parliament should not sign up to any agreement at all.
As we heard very clearly from our rapporteur, we need one that will be in our interests and the interests of our electorate and that is what we hope will come out of the Council in a few days’ time.
The debate on the use of official EU languages within the institutions has not yet produced a reply to the question of how to devise a new system for the use of official languages and how to define working languages and the way in which they should be used.
This is needed in order to clarify the terms of the debate and to promote the linguistic, and thus cultural, heritage of the EU Member States.
Will the Commission say how it plans to deal with the question of official languages within the institutions and whether it intends to designate working languages (Council Regulation No 1/58 refers only to official languages (Article 1)), so as to ensure that the choice of one language over another is not left largely to the discretion of senior officials (see the answer to Question H-0159/05(1)) and thereby prevent unfair discrimination?
What proposals will it put forward in order to promote Italy's linguistic heritage following publication of the Eurydice report 'Key Data on Teaching Languages at School in Europe', bearing in mind that it funds the Eurydice network and that proposals are needed in response to the very worrying statistics on Italian language teaching in Europe contained in the report?
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, two pieces of information have followed one after the other in recent months. The first concerned dropping the Italian language from Commission press conferences, which was followed by the publication of the Eurydice report – funded by the European Community – in which it emerged that Italian is one of the least studied languages in the world.
These two facts would suggest, to a certain extent, that there is an intention to relegate the Italian language in importance.
I would like to discuss a number of points, Commissioner.
The fact is, we believe that considering only three languages to be official EU languages is inadequate, partly because six languages are spoken by at least 9% of the European population.
Commissioner, I call on you to examine the possibility of introducing at least six working languages, that is to say, the languages that are spoken by at least 9-10% of the European population, namely English, French, German, Spanish, Italian and Polish.
To what extent would the Commission support the Republic of Cyprus' participation in the Partnership for Peace and its association with NATO with a view to furthering mutual interests within the framework of the common European foreign and defence policy?
   . The European Union does not have competence in the issue covered in question 32, because it is purely and simply a bilateral issue between a Member State and a third party, namely NATO, which is an international organisation.
It is not for the Commission to pass comment on this matter, which lies outside of its remit.
That being said, the Commission hopes that both parties can reach a workable solution, which would undoubtedly contribute towards further increasing cooperation and strengthening relations between the EU and the North Atlantic Alliance.
The disturbing trend towards media concentration at national level is resulting in monopolies and the dominance of certain television stations and their production companies.
Given that the MEDIA programme also covers television stations and their production companies (which, it transpires, are neither independent nor small or medium-sized enterprises), will the Commission say to what extent this initiative compromises the fundamental principle of the MEDIA programme, which supports independent producers and SMEs?
Will the Commission carry out an assessment of the programme's impact on SMEs, particularly on independent television production companies, and of the practical benefits of using a limited budget to finance the operations of television stations?
   . The honourable Member has raised the issue of independent producers.
It is clear that, in the framework of audiovisual media productions, we need these independent producers.
They are the ones who create the most important audiovisual works, and they do so as part of the cultural and linguistic diversity that forms the true wealth of our continent.
That is why the conditions for access to subsidies under the MEDIA programme are very clear: it is only open to independent producers.
Subsidiaries of television stations, for example, cannot receive subsidies.
I would like to say that MEDIA+ defines very clear obligations, to return to the producers.
After seven years at the very most, all the systems will be reviewed so that we can provide even better support to independent producers.
Therefore, thanks to the revision of MEDIA, we are going to strengthen measures that aim to support this very important dimension of the European cultural industry.
   Madam President, I am grateful to the Commissioner for his response, and I am delighted with his all-out support for renewable sources of energy.
I think this marks an important U-turn.
While I think that the European Union has for far too long opted one-sidedly for nuclear energy and, above all, for nuclear fission, I am not certain whether I heard the Commissioner correctly when he said that 16% of our electricity supply would, in future, be derived from nuclear fusion.
This is how this figure came through in translation, and I am really amazed by it.
I should like to have this clarified.
What are the prospects for nuclear fusion and what is the timeframe involved?
   . The reference to 16% was in the context that nuclear fusion currently contributes 16% of the European Union’s energy supply.
We believe that when we talk about the future, we have to talk about three major principles.
Sustainability and ensuring that we do all in our power to be environmentally friendly should be part of our philosophy.
That philosophy underlines all our research programmes in the fields of environment, energy supplies and transport.
We believe that should be our guiding principle.
Is the Commission aware of the need for more research into deafness and hearing impairment in children, in terms of both the numbers affected and the treatments and care available and the effectiveness of diagnosis at birth or early infancy? Will the Commission include this issue in the 7th Framework Programme?
   Firstly, Mr Mitchell, I did not give you the floor; secondly, I had already indicated that we were running late, and thirdly, I would suggest that we should all spare a thought for our friends in the interpreters’ cabins, who have now worked long in excess of their usual hours.
That leaves me with no other option but to move to our last question, which is Question 46.
   That was an excellent, very helpful reply.
I would like to press the Commissioner a little further.
As he knows, thousands of babies are born in Europe with a permanent hearing impairment.
Some 50% of those are not diagnosed until they are 18 months old.
Some 25% are not diagnosed until they are nearly three years old.
As a result of that late diagnosis, permanent damage is caused to those young lives.
What we now know is that if you have a new-born hearing screening programme, you can give new hope to those children, real potential for them and my plea is that the Commissioner finds a slot within the seventh programme to develop that knowledge further.
   The next item is the report by Mr Moraes, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the protection of minorities and anti-discrimination policies in an enlarged Europe (A6-0140/2005).
   . Mr President, I was not, at the time, in favour of including Article 13 in the EC Treaty; not because I condone discrimination – quite the contrary – but because it is not desirable that this be regulated at European level.
It is up to the Member States to enact the right sort of regulations.
It does not surprise me that Mr Moraes, in his report, concludes that the Member States are dragging their heels when it comes to implementing this policy.
Tackling this at EU level does not seem to add any value.
Religious convictions are not a personal matter; they must be professed in a community and expressed in one’s attitude to life.
The way in which it is suggested in paragraph 22 that in the field of education, discrimination would be on grounds of religion, ignores the meaning of religious conviction for the identity of education.
Finally, I am grateful to Mrs in 't Veld for Amendment 4.
Discrimination against Christians should be fought with the same tenacity as other forms of discrimination.
   The next item is the report by Mr Gaubert on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on the links between legal and illegal migration and integration of migrants (A6-0136/2005).
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading by the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on the Council common position for adopting a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on controls of cash entering or leaving the Community (14843/1/2004 C6-0038/2005 2002/0132(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Peillon) (A6-0167/2005).
   The next item is the report by Mr Rosati on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 92/12/EEC on the general arrangements for products subject to excise duty and on the holding, movement and monitoring of such products (A6-0138/2005).
   The next item is the report by John Bowis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on patient mobility and healthcare developments in the European Union (2004/2148(INI)) (A6-0129/2005).
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too, of course, would like to thank Mr Bowis for his splendid report, which will enable us to counter, yet again, the widespread prejudice according to which Europe does not care about its citizens’ actual worries and needs.
While the public, without a doubt, fear unemployment, they also worry about not always getting the best possible treatment when ill and away from home.
Anywhere in Europe, anyone can have an accident, become ill and need medical help and treatment, and so it cannot be acceptable that only two thirds of Member States should have their own legislation on the protection of patients in place.
In my own country, for example, 90% of what patients are entitled to is founded upon widely-dispersed case law, none of which is summarised in a single, comprehensive and binding document.
It is past high time for current patients’ rights and minimum standards to be brought into line across the EU.
Everyone – irrespective of whether it is in Spain, Latvia or Poland that they fall ill – must have the same rights as they do in France, Finland or the Czech Republic, for example the right to expert advice that they can understand, the right to documentation relating to treatment and the right to see their patient records.
What we also need, though, is greater transparency in the reimbursement of costs.
Even though the ECJ has shed light on which of the costs incurred abroad are reimbursed, Regulation 1408/71 is still unequally applied.
The existing legislation on reimbursement of costs needs to be approximated, and there is an urgent need for a single legal framework on patient mobility.
The Internet health portal announced by the Commission also needs to be put in place as soon as possible to carry all the important information that is needed not only by patients and their families, but also by professionals – including such things as data on the fields in which hospitals and doctors specialise, as well as data enabling doctors’ performances to be evaluated and data on patient safety.
One might say that what we need is a Europe-wide ranking of the kind that exists here and there at national level.
If people are to make sound decisions on where and how they want to be treated, they have to be well informed, and one in every four Europeans already uses the Internet as a source of health information.
Let me conclude by pointing out that we must not limit Centres of Reference to the treatment of rare illnesses; they are also needed to deal with all the other conditions that require a particular combination of resources and expertise, such as cancer, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis.
In a Europe in which patients are mobile, there will be a need for more legal certainty, transparency and even greater quality.
Subsidiarity notwithstanding, this gives us our great opportunity to enable Europe itself to do much, much more for its citizens.
Let us follow where Mr Bowis’ report leads in working towards this end.
   The next item is the debate on the Council and Commission statements Preparation of the European Council, including the future of the Union after the referenda on the European Constitution (Brussels, 16-17 June 2005).
   Mr President, I congratulate the people of France and Holland on bringing deliverance to all those in Europe who value democracy and national liberty.
The situation that now exists challenges the democratic credentials of EU leaders.
You set the test for the survival of the Constitution: ratification by all 25 Member States.
You lost.
It is time to face up to it and bury the corpse that is the EU Constitution.
Your attempts to resuscitate it are as distasteful as they are ill-fated.
Mr Watson’s reference back to 1787 tempts me to go back a little further.
It is not the first time that Holland has saved Europe from political tyranny.
This very week in that most notable of years 1690, William, Prince of Orange, landed at Carrickfergus in my constituency and brought us in the United Kingdom the Glorious Revolution and the Williamite settlement, which to this day is the basis of freedom ...
   Mr President, there are 90 of us who, as MEPs, have signed a motion of censure on the Commission, because it was the only way we had ...
   Mr Bonde, I have cut you off because this is not the time to make statements.
If you have a point of order, please tell me which Rule you are invoking.
   Mr President, on a point of order, it is Article 100 of the Rules of Procedure, on interpretation of the rules.
   Are you invoking Rule 100 on interpretation of the Rules of Procedure? Please wait a moment.
   Mr President, there are 90 of us who, as MEPs, have signed a motion of censure ...
   Mr Bonde, you do not have the right to speak under Rule 100.
It does not refer to any point of order.
   Alright, Mr Bonde, explain to me the problem you have with Rule 100.
   Mr President, the problem is that there are 90 of us who, as MEPs, have signed a motion of censure on the Commission, because it was the only way we had of getting the President of the Commission to come here to Parliament and explain the connection between a gift of between EUR 20 000 and EUR 25 000 and a subsequent decision to provide EUR 10 million in regional aid to his friend.
Moreover, we wrote in our motion of censure that we would withdraw said motion if we were given a reasonable explanation.
We were given an explanation, but Parliament’s President has in the meantime decided that, contrary to the wish expressed in the motion itself, we must vote on the motion.
We are satisfied that, in future, motions of censure are to be accepted from the moment they are submitted with 74 signatures, whereupon they will automatically be put to the vote, but the motion was submitted under the old rules, and some of us will therefore choose to abstain from voting when the motion is put to the vote.
That does not mean that we are satisfied with the Commission’s answer, but we are pleased about the undertakings given during the debate, and we shall pursue the matter in the Committee on Budgetary Control and go on fighting for complete openness about gifts ...
   Thank you, Mr Bonde.
I note that that is in no way a point of order.
Please sit down.
Please do not indulge in parliamentary filibustering.
What you are raising is in no sense a point of order.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the vote in the temporary committee on 10 May, we had around 620 amendments to deal with and vote on.
On the basis of the 620 amendments in the temporary committee, I had tabled 44 compromise amendments to the committee, of which 41 were adopted.
I should like to ask you to take account of the following when you vote: because of the vote, there are three technical corrections that need to be made to ensure that the text and the table of figures are consistent.
Technical corrections need to be made to the figures in paragraph 50, indents seven and nine.
In the seventh indent, the figure of EUR 4.5 billion should be replaced by the figure EUR 4.7 billion. The figure of EUR 2.5 billion in the seventh indent should be replaced by the figure of EUR 2.7 billion.
In the ninth indent – and this is a further technical correction that is required – the figure of EUR 1.5 billion should be replaced by the figure of EUR 1.2 billion.
These are the technical corrections required to ensure that the text and table are consistent.
Then I should like to draw your attention to Amendment 6 to paragraph 31.
If the second part of Amendment 6 is adopted, I would ask you to accept it as an addition to paragraph 31.
This is the part of the amendment that reads, ‘considers that allocation of funding should fall under the ‘normal’ EU budget and thus under the discharge authority of the EP’.
That is all on this amendment.
Thirdly, having held further talks just now, I should like to ask my group, contrary to the voting list, to support Amendment 19 to paragraph 50, second indent, tabled by the Socialist Group.
This is after all only a slight nuance, which does not change my intention as rapporteur.
   Thank you, Mr Cavada.
Your requests will be duly dealt with by the Presidency.
   Ladies and gentlemen, there are two reports left: the Gaubert report and the Bowis report.
It is 1.15 p.m.
If you are in agreement, and only if you are in agreement, we could postpone the vote on these two reports until tomorrow.
   Today's vote on the Motion of Censure was a farce.
The Parliament voted, with a massive majority, to pat Mr Barroso on the back and tell him what a splendid job he is doing.
It tells him and the other Commissioners that they can accept any amount of hospitality, from anyone, without there being any question of being held to account.
The Motion was called only because of Barroso's refusal to come clean over hospitality, and the intransigence and blind obedience of the major political groups.
Well, despite the strong arm tactics and bullying we managed to have a debate, which is a small victory for transparency.
The silence of Mr. Barroso, on the very central and direct question on the Latsis Group and the EU relations, no doubt proves there are no longer business links between them.
However due to a re-interpretation of the rules we are forced into today's vote which was never our intention.
So be it.
The European Parliament may have confidence in Mr Barroso, but other recent votes out there in the real world suggest that the peoples of Europe have lost confidence in his project.
   .Governmental officials are required to keep their hands clean, whether they are employed by the European Union or by local communities.
They have to avoid conflicts of interest such as personally rewarding links with companies.
In Mr Barroso's case, being the President of the European Commission, doubts about such corporate links have arisen.
Therefore we signed a motion of censure with the explicit and exclusive goal to initiate a debate in the plenary session.
Although this debate has already taken place on the 25th of May, we have no reasons to be satisfied with Mr Barroso's replies yet.
We strongly believe that a majority of MEPs indeed has made it too easy for Mr Barroso to take the criticism seriously.
In the meantime we have received fresh information about Mr Barroso's corporate involvement.
Although this information has been insufficient yet for bringing this motion of censure to the vote, it might as well become sufficient later.
If we would have had the freedom to withdraw or postpone the motion of censure, we would have done so.
As it seems, though, that it is no longer possible to withdraw this motion, we have decided to abstain from voting today.
   The reason I voted in favour of the Böge report was because I believe it is necessary to demonstrate the EU’s ability to take action through its institutions after the failed referenda in France and the Netherlands.
As an equal to the Council, Parliament clearly formulated its political priorities in relation to the Financial Perspective.
Thanks to the rapporteur, a framework has been created with the utmost professionalism which provides real added value, and which sets out feasible and acceptable financial thresholds that will eventually be transformed into specific tools and programmes.
The fact that cohesion funding will be maintained at 4% of GDP is of great importance for the new Member States, as they stand to receive a substantial amount of funding for cohesion and structural measures.
At the same time, emphasis is laid on a fairer distribution of contributions by net payers, in keeping with the spirit of solidarity.
The Böge report represents an acceptable compromise between the generous proposal by the Commission and the inadequate proposal by the Council.
The challenge that the Council faces is to enable negotiations on the Financial Perspective to be concluded while Luxembourg still holds the presidency, and at any rate no later than by the end of this year, by means of its unanimous approval at the June summit.
   I am pleased with the position adopted by the European Parliament on the financial perspectives and I now only hope that the Council will do its duty and reach an agreement on the 17th.
But several of us have abstained on a matter of principle, and that is that we do not accept –– not even hypothetically –– any reopening of the 2002 agreement on the common agricultural policy.
We want it to remain closed until 2013, as has been agreed.
   . Natura 2000 finds that it has no budget!
The major omission from the financial perspective is, once again, nature conservation.
In the course of numerous debates, however, each Member of the European Parliament acknowledged that Natura 2000 was an integral part of European Union policy, that the first experiments in managing sites had produced very positive results and, better still, they had made it possible to lay the foundations for sustainable development in areas of important biological value.
The environment, having previously been kept in check, was turning out to be the trump card for new development based on a realisation of the importance of the natural heritage of our countries.
The report mentions the EUR 21 billion needed to continue to run Natura 2000 for 2007-2013 but there was not a single line of the budget that referred to this figure in the forecasts of expenditure.
An amendment adopted in plenary even managed to remove Natura 2000 from the funding for fishing.
This indicates that there is no policy in a position to contribute to the setting up of Natura 2000.
Does this mean that Natura 2000 will be nipped in the bud by the financial perspective?
The only remaining hope for nature conservation now rests with the LIFE+ fund.
The European Parliament will need to redeem itself by including a share for Natura 2000 in this financial instrument for the environment.
   .
It is because there is more to agriculture than the production of food that its maintenance in all the Member States is an important task for the European Union.
Economic and rural development benefit from it, and a healthy natural and cultural landscape is guaranteed.
Farmers must continue to be guaranteed financial support through the common agricultural policy, and the EU’s long-term financial planning must reflect this.
The accession of Bulgaria and Romania, which is scheduled for 2007, will make the financial situation more acute.
No provision is as yet being made for more funding to be allocated to the CAP in order to take account of this enlargement; on the contrary, the draft envisages a reduction in, or capping of, resources.
The accession would further reduce the funds set aside for farmers in the existing Member States, and so, should the CAP’s financial resources prove insufficient to meet the need, contributions would have to be sought from the individual Member States, which would be obliged to find the shortfall for their own farmers.
Far from adding up to the renationalisation of agricultural policy, this would mean that its funding would be secure in the long term.
If the benefits of the common agricultural policy are to be retained, it may in future be necessary to ask the Member States to bear their share of the costs, for it is not acceptable that farmers should foot the bill for the European Union’s enlargement, and that funds for other policies should be quarried from the agricultural budget.
   . As members of the Dutch Socialist Party, we have no fundamental objections to the possibility of the European Union having the maximum of 1.26% of the gross national product, as laid down in the treaties, at its disposal.
Money spent collectively on democracy, the environment, the provision of public services, social security and international solidarity is money well spent.
A society that omits to set aside resources for this purpose is permanently in crisis.
Although we have no sympathy whatsoever with those who want to reduce taxes by rolling back the state, we are critical of the EU on account of the way it spends money, which is sluiced around unnecessarily to regions in the richest Member States, with much of the agricultural funds ending up with the big farmers and in export subsidies, and the disaster fund suddenly being extended to include a terrorism fund.
The European Parliament costs a great deal of money unnecessarily, with vast amounts being reimbursed in expenses and on account of its permanent commuting between two cities.
Many of the cross-border issues for which the EU could be useful are not tackled, and many of the funds disappear into shadowy spending and fraud.
As long as this situation persists, we have little reason to actively oppose those who want to reduce spending to 1%, even if we condemn their often selfish views and arguments.
   For public health reasons, I have chosen today not to support Mr Rosati’s report on amending the directive on the general arrangements for products subject to excise duty, such as alcohol and tobacco.
Neither the Commission’s proposal nor the European Parliament’s report safeguard public health to the degree I believe is desirable.
Rightly used, and in conjunction with other measures, indicative guide levels can play an important role in establishing whether products are held for commercial purposes or for the personal use of private individuals.
With a view to limiting the harmful effects of alcohol and working to reduce total alcohol consumption, I believe that the guide levels should remain.
Special efforts should also be made to harmonise excise duty levels with the express objective of reducing the harm caused by tobacco and alcohol.
   The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the resolution on an area of freedom, security and justice.
We are, however, aware of the fact that parts of the resolution concern an area covered by Title IV of the EC Treaty and do not therefore apply to Denmark, cf. the protocol on Denmark’s position.
   . I voted against the Moraes report because of the unacceptability to me of Paragraphs 22 and 24.
I cannot accept the promotion of equal matrimonial and other rights for same sex couples.
I believe a Member State has the right to reject such partnerships as not equal to heterosexual relationships.
I strongly support the family unit being based on the natural order of complementary sex couples and I value the benefit to children which results.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in mid-June the offensive of the so-called ‘G4’ will be launched, which intends to put forward a proposal for a resolution to the General Assembly that will increase the number of permanent members to 11, thus leaving the other 180 members of the UN to compete for the non-permanent seats.
Approval of that proposal will increase the disparity among the Member States of the UN and will pose the problem of extending the right of veto, with the attendant risk of paralysing the Security Council.
At European level, Germany’s entry into the Council would conversely mean abandoning once and for all a project of a Europe endowed with a serious and effective foreign policy.
Italy, which has always been committed to the European Union having one single seat, is now leading the UFC group, which is opposed to the G4 proposal, hoping for the Council to be restructured on a regional basis.
It is only by means of this type of reform that the European Union would obtain the role that belongs to it at international level.
National egoisms need to be put to one side if we are to offer the European Union a credible political future.
   Mr President, the recent Brok report argued that the EU as a whole should play a major role within the UN.
The PPE-DE Group amendment to the report demanded that the EU should be guaranteed a seat in the UN Security Council.
That word ‘guaranteed’ is incompatible with the UN High-level Panel’s view that no change in the composition of the Security Council should be regarded as permanent in the future.
In both of the Panel’s proposed models for reform of the Security Council, the current permanent members would retain seats.
That is not what the Eurofanatics want to hear.
They want the EU to take over the seats of France and the UK.
However, even Mr Brok’s report conceded that an increased role for the EU was pending the entry into force of the new Constitutional Treaty.
The Constitution is dead; the EU has no legal personality; Europe is not a nation and the EU, therefore, has no place in the United Nations.
   A motion for a resolution(1) to wind up the debate has been tabled pursuant to Rule 103(2).
   . Mr President, as the Council only knows too well, the European Parliament remains opposed to its intention to abandon the arms embargo in respect of the People’s Republic of China on the basis of the human rights situation, see paragraph 7 of the joint draft resolution.
Although I support this position, it is too restricted because it completely overlooks the eroding military balance in the state of Taiwan as well as the general regional stability in East Asia.
These are geopolitical developments which give the US cause for concern about a possible European lifting of the arms embargo against Peking.
If, as appears to be the case, Brussels wants to give Washington sole and short-term responsibility for peace and security in the Far East, then a fresh crisis in transatlantic relations is looming in the distance in succession to Iraq.
I hope that at the EU-US Summit on 20 June, the Council will prove this sombre scenario wrong.
How can it do this? It can do it by joining with the Americans in taking responsibility, in taking real responsibility for geopolitical stability in Asia.
After all, as China’s key trading partner, the European Union ultimately owes it to itself to do this.
   . I will speak now as a member of the ALDE Group and as president of the Central Asia delegation.
Honourable Members, today I urge you to show your support for a general resolution condemning the particularly violent reprisals undertaken by Uzbek President Islam Karimov [against protesters] in Andijan.
The President ordered the shooting of people who merely wished for true democracy and real change.
In actual fact, this is a recurrence of the events at Tiananmen Square, and we must present a fair and adequate evaluation of these events.
The nations of Central Asia suffer continuous violations of human rights, and restrictions imposed on the activities of the opposition and mass media.
The development of a civil society in that region is insufficient.
Uzbekistan is a country with the most stringent authoritarian regime in the region.
The country lacks an independent and fair system of courts and freedoms of expression and religion; the activities of opposition parties and civil society are prohibited, the freedom of press is banned and reprisals and torture by the militia are widespread.
Although the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan raises some hopes for a long-term democratic process, the latest events in the Uzbek town of Andijan and the following reactions of neighbouring Central Asian republics are a matter of great concern to us.
The events in Andijan are the expression of the resistance of the Uzbek nation against oppression.
The European Parliament cannot stay aloof.
We need to know what has happened and what is happening now in order for adequate measures to be taken.
We demand an independent investigation of the events.
We urge America to renounce the deployment of its military forces in Uzbekistan, which requires huge payments that essentially contribute to the further strengthening of President Karimov’s regime.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen: the priorities of our Parliament should continue to target the prevention of violence and bloodshed.
We must spare no efforts in strengthening civil society and the freedom of speech.
   . Mr President, Mr Schmit, Mr Borg, ladies and gentlemen, on 13 May, insurgents and protesters were on the receiving end of brutal treatment from the Uzbek army.
The human rights organisation Human Rights Watch, having interviewed 50 witnesses, all of whose statements concurred, described the result as ‘a massacre’.
The extent of the shooting was so enormous and its character so random and disproportionate, that it would not be unreasonable to describe it as butchery.
I am in total agreement with the remarks of both the Council and the Commission, and certainly with Mr Borg when he says that we cannot continue as if nothing has happened, as if it were ‘business as usual’.
We in the European Union must give a strong message to this dictatorial and highly authoritarian regime, and so I agree with those Members who insist on more political pressure, on speeding up reforms, on stopping aid from passing via the government or parliament and allowing only grant aid via NGOs; this international enquiry must be mounted, otherwise we cannot simply continue the cooperation and partnership agreement we have concluded with Uzbekistan.
   Mr President, Uzbekistan is the most populated and culturally the richest of the five central Asian post-Soviet newly independent states.
Uzbekistan has no historic traditions of democracy or good governance, having been ruled in the distant past by Khanates, followed by Tsarists and Soviet Russia, only to find itself unexpectedly a sovereign state in 1991, following the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
Inevitably the then existing Uzbek nomenclatura filled the power vacuum; hence the composition of the current regime.
There can be no doubt that President Karimov has ruled in an authoritarian way and human rights abuses have been common, particularly against the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan, a close ally of the then Taliban in Afghanistan but now largely defeated or replaced by the nominally peaceful, although still fundamentalist, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which rather surprisingly has offices in the European Union to gather funds and recruit supporters.
During the recent debate on the Coveney human rights report, I tried to strike a balance between the stick of Uzbekistan-bashing and the carrot of more dialogue with the Uzbek President if he continues to cooperate with fighting international terrorism and delivers on his commitment to give independence to the judiciary, freedom to the press and punishment to those responsible for torture and human rights abuses. Sadly, no sooner had we adopted this report than the Andizhan tragedy occurred.
The full story is still very confused. Who were these 23 prisoners bounced out of prison by armed insurgents?
Who took civilian hostages to negotiate with the regional governor?
Who called the crowds out to protest? And who gave the orders for the troops to shoot innocent protestors?
I of course deeply regret Mr Karimov’s refusal of an international inquiry and so I call upon the OSCE to involve the little-known Moscow mechanism last used with Turkmenistan, also an authoritarian regime, to impose an international inquiry and to report with or without Uzbekistan’s consent.
This method, to my mind, is more likely to produce a result than any other.
    The next item is the oral questions (B6-0241/2005 and B6-0232/2005) to the Council and the Commission by Bart Staes, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on cooperation within the budgetary authority on the allocation and possible use of the monetary payments resulting from the agreement Commission – Member States/Philip Morris to combat fraud.
   Like my fellow Member, Mr Dombrovskis, I too have asked for an opportunity to speak briefly on behalf of the new Member States affected by this issue.
As everybody knows, Hungary is situated in the centre of Europe or, as we say, at the heart of Europe.
This means that it lies at the crossroads between north and south, east and west, a crossroads used not only for legitimately traded goods, but also for contraband, including cigarettes, drugs and alcohol.
Halting and curbing traffic in smuggled goods was an important task for our country even before accession; since accession, however, we have become rather like a bastion defending Europe.
For this reason, we were very pleased to hear about this exemplary and significant agreement that has been signed with Philip Morris International, thanks to the decisive action on the part of the European Commission and OLAF.
We think it is very important that it can be extended to the new Member States too, although the Commission has signed the agreement on behalf of only ten Member States.
This means that the advantages it brings in the fight against smuggling and fraud – namely professional, technical and financial support from the EU and OLAF – are now also accessible to us.
We were also pleased that, in recognition of our special situation, OLAF has taken up contact with the Hungarian authorities and is developing this mutually beneficial cooperation, that protects both European and Hungarian financial interests simultaneously.
   The honourable Member is aware that the European Council of 16 and 17 December 2004, while accepting that Turkey adequately met the Copenhagen political criteria so that negotiations for its accession could be opened, clearly indicated at the same time that the Commission would have to continue checking to ensure that the political reform process had been fully and effectively implemented.
The Commission is required to reflect on all subjects of concern featuring in its regular report and in its recommendation, including, of course, freedom of expression and respect for minorities, and to report back to the Council regularly.
During the EU-Turkey Association Council of 26 April this year, the Presidency underlined, on behalf of the Union, the absolute necessity for Turkey to complete the suspended reforms without delay, and to ensure full and effective implementation of those reforms, which clearly imply respect for all rights, particularly freedom of expression.
   Thank you for your answer.
I must, however, ask whether the Turkish Supreme Court’s judgment of 25 May is not cause for alarm, since it takes away children’s self-evident right to be educated in their own mother tongue and to develop against their own cultural background.
The judgment by the Supreme Court is a crime against human and democratic rights.
As well as infringing these rights, it also breaks up the teachers’ organisation, which thus loses the right to represent its 200 000 members.
It is a crime against the ILO Convention.
The Council should inform Turkey that the door that has been opened will be closed again if human rights are not respected.
   Madam President, I would like to start by asking whether the Luxembourg Presidency is going to put Croatia on the agenda for next week’s summit.
I would then like to ask what the thinking is behind it being possible – as I have now heard – for the negotiations with Croatia scheduled for 17 March to be put off the day before, while we are told that the principle of applies to the commencement of negotiations with Turkey on 3 October.
Why is unanimity required in order to begin negotiations with Croatia but in order to refrain from beginning them with Turkey? There is no logic to this whatsoever!
   The Council would like to thank the honourable Member, Mrs Hennicot, for her close monitoring of this matter, which concerns all of us, especially those of us who have children.
The Council attaches great importance to protecting young people from alcohol, as they are so vulnerable.
As the honourable Member pointed out, on 5 June 2001 the Council adopted a recommendation asking the Member States to curb the production of alcoholic drinks aimed at children and adolescents, and advertising targeted at young people for this type of drink.
Also on 5 June 2001, conclusions on a strategy to reduce the damage associated with alcohol were adopted by the Council.
In the conclusions, it invited the Commission to put forward proposals for a comprehensive Community strategy in this area which would complement national policies and fix a schedule for various measures.
Following this recommendation, the Council did not remain inactive.
However, as it proved difficult to clearly define alcopop-type products and to direct the measures able to be taken at their targets, it preferred to follow a more general policy in accordance with the aforementioned conclusions of 2001.
It was therefore confirmed that alcohol had an important place in the European Community’s health strategy and in the Community public health programme for 2003-2008, adopted by codecision with Parliament in September 2002.
This programme enabled projects to be put in place that are jointly funded by the Commission and the Member States and are designed to implement the 2001 recommendation and to prepare a Community prevention strategy on alcohol consumption.
A working party made up of experts from the Member States was also created for this purpose.
In June 2004, the Council adopted its conclusions entitled ‘Alcohol and young people’, in which it repeated the invitation issued to the Commission to report to it in 2005 on the implementation, by the Member States, of the measures proposed.
The conclusions also supported the work done by the Commission to develop a comprehensive strategy on alcohol consumption, stressing that, as part of that strategy, particular attention should be focused on the problem of alcohol consumption among young people.
Finally, at the Council meeting on 6 December 2004, this invitation to the Commission was repeated once again.
Between now and the end of 2005, the Commission will in principle be in a position to present, along with the evaluation report requested in the 2001 recommendation, a communication on a comprehensive strategy on alcohol consumption.
When this document is received, the Council will start work as quickly as possible.
It is understood that these initiatives in themselves will not be able to deal specifically with the problem of alcopops.
However, in the long term, they will enable us to establish a Community framework to better inform all citizens, especially young people, about the dangers of alcohol abuse.
It is reported that not all 25 Member States have ratified the Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 (14242/01) which would allow joint investigation Teams to be set up.
How many Member State parliaments have not yet ratified, and when does the Council expect the process to be completed so that the Union may begin to combat Organised Crime in a more serious and more effective manner?
   So far, 21 Member States have notified the Secretariat General of the Council that they have transposed the framework decision of 13 June 2002 on joint investigation teams.
These Member States can therefore create joint investigation teams in accordance with the framework decision.
Two Member States have also informed the Secretariat General of the Council that their draft legislation transposing this framework decision has already been submitted to their parliaments, or will be soon.
One Member State has informed the Council that it has partially transposed the framework decision.
   I am not very good at mathematics, but I make that 24, so one of the Member States you told me nothing about at all.
What are you doing about the one Member State that apparently is doing nothing about it?
   Question No 8 has been withdrawn.
   There are no crimes organised in this House, Mr Bushill-Matthews; we treat each other democratically, amicably and peacefully.
As regards the question that has been withdrawn, the rules are perfectly clear: if a question is withdrawn by the person who tabled it, it no longer exists, and so you are no longer in a position to put a supplementary question.
Whether Members should inform each other – even Members of other Groups – when this happens is an interesting question.
I would simply advise you to start by discussing this with Mr Martin.
If you have a question you would like to put now supplementary to Mr Newton Dunn’s, then I will allow it on the grounds that two supplementary questions are allowed to each question.
So please go ahead and ask the President-in-Office of the Council something else about organised crime.
   The Council is aware of the tragic situation of millions of children living in the majority of developing countries in general, and in Africa in particular, especially due to their vulnerability to famine, violence, infectious diseases and above all, of course, AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
The Council would like to point out that the eight Millennium Development Goals target children either directly or indirectly.
The Council does not believe that it will be possible to achieve these goals by 2015 without a coherent policy for children in the developing countries.
The Council has highlighted the need to focus specifically on children in implementing the European Union’s development policy, through a series of recent initiatives.
On 16 December 2004, the European Council confirmed the European Union’s firm commitment to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
During this session, the Council indicated its firm support for the European action plan to combat AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, through external action.
The Commission presented them at the end of April 2005.
Joint action between the European Union and the Member States, in cooperation with the main international organisations in the sector, including UNICEF, and with teachers and parents associations in the partner countries is planned.
The review process of the joint declaration of November 2000 on the European Union’s development policy is underway.
A communication from the Commission on the future development policy is expected at the end of June.
During the extended consultation process, several subjects were identified as possible priority themes, which definitely included child protection.
It should also be pointed out that at Community level, in 2004 Parliament and the Council adopted Decision 803/2004 adopting the Daphne II programme to prevent and eradicate violence, particularly against children.
In conclusion, children are a fundamental dimension of European Union development policy and the Council intends to highlight this priority, both in the context of preparing for the summit on the attainment of the Millennium Goals, which will take place in September 2005 in New York, and in the process of formulating the Union’s future development policy.
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to return in particular to one of the topics mentioned: the issue of AIDS and HIV.
On 2 December 2004, this House voted in favour of a very precise resolution and called for the involvement of the Commission and the Council, with the particular aim of amending the existing TRIPS rules, which are one of the fundamental factors preventing adults and children living in the southern countries of the world from having access to medicines.
As far as I am aware, nothing has been done in this specific area, that is, amending the TRIPS rules, and I should like to ask the reason for this, partly because the situation has lately become even more tragic with the TRIPS rules being adopted by the Indian Government.
   I think that, as I have already said, the Council has strongly supported the European action programme to combat AIDS and other diseases.
The Council has also expressed a desire to work on the matter of essential medication and has supported changes aimed at making some AIDS drugs accessible.
There is a problem with this at the WTO that has not been resolved.
We are among the largest donors to the fight against AIDS, as, without this money, we would not be in a position to better combat AIDS in the developing countries.
Europe has more or less fulfilled its commitments, unlike others.
   Question 9 by my colleague, Mrs McGuinness, is very close to my own, question 11, and again, we are not going to get to another question.
I find that very frustrating.
On many occasions we wait here and you do not get to our questions.
We talk about action plans for the Third World, especially with regard to children, but we never hear of any detailed plans or exact initiatives in this area.
I know it is very complicated and difficult, but very rarely do we hear any details of what is happening on the ground in these parts of the world and how we are tackling the serious problem of children with HIV and AIDS.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Othmar Karas, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1466/97 on the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies (COM(2005)0154 C6-0119/2005 2005/0064(SYN)) (A6-0168/2005)
and the report by Othmar Karas, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1467/97 on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure (COM(2005)0155 C6-0120/2005 2005/0061(CNS)) (A6-0158/2005)
   Mr President, at the European Summit of 22 March, it was decided to review the Stability Pact, and the Council agreed on a new kind of Stability Pact, one to which we hope the Member States will adhere this time around.
I have always said that stretching the Stability Pact is harmful to economic growth and monetary stability, while at the same time denting public confidence in the euro and therefore in Europe itself.
The fact that the change to the Stability Pact concerning the 3% limit is not being made public does nothing to improve confidence in the euro.
Although Member States will be permitted to exceed the 3% limit, the Council and the Commission have not, to date, explained how this new arrangement will be translated into practice.
If the 3% limit can be exceeded, does that mean that a new limit will be introduced? This is a pressing question, and I would like Commissioner Almunia to answer it.
   – Mr President, I should first like to offer the rapporteur, Othmar Karas, my warmest thanks. He has managed to formulate a contentious issue in a relatively short space of time in such a way that Parliament can support it with a large majority.
This was not an ideological debate, Mr Bullmann; it was an acknowledgment that the political will to keep to the 1996 Stability and Growth Pact was missing.
At the first serious general test, the two large states, France and Germany, failed totally, assisted at the time by Luxembourg and Greece.
This start prevented the Stability and Growth Pact from playing its proper part as originally planned.
In this respect, the current reform is, in all events, a second best solution, which uses the argument of flexibility in order to exclude future infringements of the rules.
In saying this, I am also voicing criticism of my own government in Germany.
Introducing the costs of European unification as a new criterion has thrown the door wide open to arbitrariness and means, in principle, that sanctions will no longer be possible in future, even with a 4% or 5% excess.
I consider this to be a definite mistake.
Given the powerful role of the Council and the inadequate role of Parliament in this matter, the Commission could only react defensively.
We have debated this often here in this Chamber. That is why I think it is a good thing that Mr Karas addresses precisely this point in his reports.
More competence for the Commission, a stop to the sinners standing in judgment and greater participation by the European Parliament – these are things we can agree on.
However, nobody will be able to say that this version of the Stability and Growth Pact is forward looking and will contribute towards the future stability of the euro.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, basically everything has been said, but not by everyone and, more to the point, not by me.
Firstly, I should like to offer the rapporteur, Othmar Karas, my warmest thanks. He has made the best of a bad job, and on that, I might perhaps be permitted to comment.
Today is the third time I have stood on this podium in order to speak on the Stability Pact.
In 1997, Parliament had to give its opinion on the introduction of the euro and the Stability Pact associated with it at the time.
We did so gladly, because we were convinced that the Stability Pact offered a basis of trust for the citizens.
This time, as the rapporteur rightly said, the European Parliament has only a minor role in the whole procedure.
Consultation means something different in my view.
Monetary questions are questions of trust and this trust is shaken by the watering down of the Pact.
The two so-called big countries – in what the rapporteur calls 'peer complicity' – set the entire watering down process in motion, as we have already heard here today.
Big gestures, big overtures obviously no longer convince the citizens of Europe.
The shattered remains of the Schröder and Eichel policy in Germany and the Chirac policy in France have drawn the euro into this completely negative discussion.
The report formulated by the rapporteur is a desperate attempt to rescue some of the philosophy behind stability.
We must stop exacerbating the crisis of confidence still further.
The best solution would be if Mr Barroso, and Mr Juncker on behalf of ECOFIN, were to withdraw all changes to the Stability Pact in the light of recent developments.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Dominique Vlasto, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on strengthening European competitiveness: the effects of industrial change on policy and the role of SMEs [2004/2154(INI)] (A6-0148/2005)
   The next item is the debate on the report by Adamos Adamou, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in extender oils and tyres (twenty-seventh amendment of Council Directive 76/769/EEC) (COM(2004)0098 - C5-0081/2004 - 2004/0036(COD)) (A6-0104/2005)
   Mr President, 20 years ago an eminent health pathologist warned that she had never examined a cancerous tumour that did not have chemicals from the benzene family in the active reproducing cancer cells.
Cancer has become the new Black Plague.
In the Middle Ages half the population of Europe was destroyed.
They did not know the source of the bubonic menace and were unable to halt it in its deadly tracks.
There is no excuse for us; we know where benzenes and other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons come from.
We make tyres with them, but we also create them when we burn waste.
The Irish Government is insisting that a network of waste incinerators, some for toxic waste, be created in my country, thus introducing an explosion of PAHs into our water, air, soil, plants and into the cells of Irish citizens where the benzenes and dioxins can wreak havoc.
Let us urgently concentrate on the substantial risk of PAHs from sources such as incinerators, especially when those incinerators will burn tyres containing PAHs.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to give my views on the questions raised by Mr Blokland and Mr Krahmer, both of whom address the same problem, that being whether there is any guarantee that the requirements applicable to aircraft tyres will be met by the year 2010.
The reply to Mr Blokland's question is in the negative; no tyre manufacturers have contacted me, nor would I have advised any of them to do so, for they would have received the same reply that I am giving you now. The Commission has examined the problem carefully.
We have received a formal statement from European tyre manufacturers to the effect that the technical requirements of this directive will also be met by the year 2010 for aircraft tyres.
That is therefore also my reply to Mr Krahmer, whose concerns about the safety of aircraft I fully and completely share.
I also think that, as far as the composition of tyres is concerned, tyre manufacturers are rather more qualified than pilots.
   The next item is the debate on the Oral Question to the Commission on the Regulation on the Community Patent and related legislation, by Giuseppe Gargani, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs (B6-0242/2005)
   . Mr President, the question of the Committee on Legal Affairs covers two aspects.
The first, I would say, is the linguistic aspect, which Commissioner McCreevy has referred to, and I would add that things cannot perhaps be simplified as much as my colleague, Mr Lehne, did in his speech.
Apart from the technological domination of one language that has almost a monopoly, the European Patent Convention recognised other languages, and other languages are also recognised in the European Union Office for Harmonisation of the Internal Market, based in Alicante.
I have the impression that it is possible that up to a particular level, certain languages may have a degree of recognition, in accordance with the use of patents in those languages and the operation of national patent offices.
I therefore believe that the issue must be clarified and that, as Mr Lehne has said, the Commission could undoubtedly help to find a formula to get us out of this .
With regard to the second aspect, relating to collective management companies, the fear may be that a Commission proposal, for example, taking the radical approach of the Bolkestein Directive of total liberalisation, could end up removing any possibility of effective protection of intellectual property rights.
At the moment, we have a series of national systems for protecting intellectual property and a simple liberalisation could lead to authors losing their protection, in other words, replacing the system consisting of a series of national markets relatively well protected by their national management bodies, with a system in which there is no type of protection, could put authors, designers and inventors in a difficult situation.
I would simply like, therefore, to call on the Commission, when drawing up this proposal, not to make the same mistake as the Bolkestein proposal, which, as we know, has today even been one of the elements used to argue against the approval of the European Constitution in the referenda, but rather to seek a system that links the need for harmonisation in this field with the protection of a basic service, the protection of intellectual property and of artistic and literary creation.
   – The next item is the report (A6-0112/2005) by Mrs Fraga Estévez, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation concerning management measures for the sustainable exploitation of fishery resources in the Mediterranean Sea and amending Regulations (EEC) No 2847/93 and (EC) No 973/2001 [COM(2003)0589 – C5-0480/2003 – 2003/0229(CNS)].
   . – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after long and arduous negotiations, begun not much less than two years ago, we have reached a compromise that only partially satisfies our Group.
We are delighted, for example, to see resurrected potential financial support for the biological standstill, even if the new European Fisheries Fund is not considering it.
Important matters remain on the table, however, which, in our opinion, are at odds with the interests of fishing in the Mediterranean.
A further example: we believe that, given the importance of the whitebait sector, that species can be put on sale on condition that it is caught with statutory gear.
That is why we have tabled Amendment 27, which we hope will be adopted.
We have stressed the specific character of Mediterranean fishing a number of times: it is essentially coastal and small scale, a type of fishing that is part of culture and which, in addition to passing down a centuries-old tradition from generation to generation, constitutes a vital source for the economy, particularly in an area – let us not forget – of extensive socioeconomic degradation.
We therefore believe that points 3 and 4 of Annex 2 must be taken out, the intention of which is to regulate and standardise the technical features of small-scale gear, which, precisely because it is linked to a specific type of fishing and to specific coastal zones, cannot by its very nature be the subject of regulatory enforcement.
We congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Fraga Estévez, and harbour the legitimate hope that this regulation may be a significant breakthrough towards a Mediterranean that is careful to preserve its fish fauna, but is also the source of livelihoods and employment for thousands of European fishermen, who, up to now, have only been required to observe bans and limits, whilst for the non-European fleets the Mediterranean has been a kind of free zone.
   – Mr President, I feel you have been unduly strict with us today.
I know this is Thursday but, as the secretariat will confirm, there is plenty of time left over from our groups' speaking time.
My group had nine minutes and I used only four.
Your comment that people have planes to catch is not applicable, because we have to be here until this afternoon.
There is voting at 5.30 p.m. and if some MEPs want to go home early ...
   The next item is the report (A6-0157/2005) by Mr Freitas, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion by the European Community of the Agreement on the International Dolphin Conservation Programme [COM(2004)0764 - C6-0245/2004 - 2004/0268(CNS)].
   . Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Freitas for this report, as well as for his interest, participation and input in the Committee on Fisheries.
I would also like to thank the President and the members of the committee for its expeditious examination of this proposed regulation.
This will enable the European Community to pass a clear signal to the AIDCP at its Annual Meeting beginning on 13 June 2005, that with the adoption by Parliament of this proposal from the Commission, the European Community is well on the road to completing the necessary internal procedures to becoming a full member of this organisation.
I am pleased to accept a number of amendments suggested by Mr Freitas, notably Amendments 2, 3, 5 and 6.
In particular, these amendments will increase the transparency and simplify the understanding of the content and reasoning behind the need for this Council decision, which will enable the Community to fulfil its international obligations to become a party to regional fisheries organisations where they exist and to defend Community interests in the global fisheries.
This will also enable the Community to be at the forefront of these organisations and enhance the leading role that it has constantly played in the operation of regional fisheries organisations.
I am not, however, in a position to accept the remaining proposed amendments, with the exception of Amendment 4, which I can accept provided that the phrase ‘and its certification scheme’ is deleted.
I will comment on the certification scheme later with respect to other amendments.
I find difficulty in accepting the other amendments for the following reasons.
This proposal relates to the approval of AIDCP, whereas Amendments 1, 9, and 11 focus heavily on a secondary issue of the AIDCP, namely, the tuna tracking and verification system, which is already EC law.
Amendment 10 requires that future changes to the tuna tracking and verification system regulation follow a certain process, in contradiction to the appropriate comitology provisions within the regulation.
This regulation is already in force and changes can be made to it as and when necessary.
Amendments 7, 8, and 12 relate to the issue of AIDCP certification and consumer information.
Again, such amendments are not helpful in this instance since the issue of whether the Community accepts AIDCP certification is still being considered by the Member States and, pending such a consultation, the Commission has not adopted any fixed position.
The inclusion of any reference to certification is premature and could prejudice the internal debate that still has to be concluded.
Furthermore, the issue of certification is not one of the objectives of the AIDCP, nor is it included in the general measures of the AIDCP Agreement, nor in the application of the AIDCP Programme itself.
This is a secondary commercial economic interest that is a consequence of the implementation of part of the AIDCP, and not a core element.
   The next item is the report (A6-0125/2005) by Mr Őry, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on social inclusion in the new Member States (2004/2210(INI)).
   . – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to start by thanking our colleague, Mr Őry, for his excellent report.
I would remind the House that the report he has drafted on social inclusion in the new EU Member States, which we are today discussing together, was approved by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs by a majority of 32 votes to 4.
The result of the vote is, then, a clear demonstration that we all, across the political spectrum, recognise and acknowledge the urgency of problems relating to social exclusion.
Nonetheless, we are not unfamiliar with this finding.
We all know that representatives of European governments and countries came to the same conclusions at the Lisbon summit in 2000, when the war on poverty and social exclusion was made one of the central topics and conditions for modernising the European social model.
Despite certain hesitations, this view was also confirmed at this year’s spring summit in Brussels.
Looking at the results achieved during the last five years, it is clear that the war on poverty and social exclusion is nowhere near over, and that considerable efforts and resolve will be needed even after 2010.
The European Commission has undertaken a truly difficult task in comparing the state of social exclusion in the 10 new Member States.
These countries differ not only from each other; fundamental differences also exist between the regions within them.
Although there is still room for elaborating and harmonising common indicators that would most faithfully reflect the actual situation in these countries and, at the same time, enable us to discover examples of new practices, this action by the European Commission is undoubtedly a step forward.
I would like to use this occasion to call on its representatives to cooperate as closely as possible in the future and to make use of the resources and knowledge of non-governmental organisations and social partners.
I would also like to mention the fact that although the report that we have before us today describes and endeavours to compare the situations in the 10 new Member States, we must not forget that the threat of poverty and social exclusion is faced by every EU Member State, albeit not to the same degree.
The opinion is often expressed that social partners, and in particular trade union organisations, should be closely involved in all measures in order to help solve the problem of social exclusion; indeed, the question of whether they should take over the functions of state and local authority has even been considered.
Such opinions are no more than an illusion, however, at least in the meantime.
The restructured trade unions in the new Member States are in a difficult situation; they are subject to pressure, they lack the necessary structures and they do not have effective tools available to them.
Mr Őry is well aware of this, as am I, since we have both worked in trade unions.
   The competent Italian authorities have communicated a request for the waiver of Mr Marco Pannella’s parliamentary immunity in view of criminal proceedings before the Rome District Court.
In accordance with Rule 6(2) of the Rules of Procedure, the request has already been referred to the Committee on Legal Affairs, which has competence in this area.
Whilst a debate on the communication in question is not planned, I believe that it is appropriate to give the floor, albeit very briefly, to Mr Pannella.
   Mr President, I asked to take the floor to raise a point of order, in accordance with Rule 6(2), to which you have referred.
I wished to inform you and the House that this request for waiver, of which you have notified us, must be reconciled with the fact that Parliament already turned down the request for waiver of immunity almost unanimously on 10 February 2004, hence a year and a half ago now.
We have established that the decision was duly communicated to the competent Italian authorities by both Parliament and the Italian delegation on 23 February 2004, and that it was published in the Official Journal of 22 April 2004.
This new request – which will once again waste our time – therefore demonstrates that, in addition to spaghetti in clam sauce, we also export ‘clam justice’ everywhere, which is not always palatable.
   Thank you, Mr Pannella.
The competent committee will certainly be able to give its opinion on the merits of the case.
   Mr Laschet, I do beg your pardon.
I certainly appreciate the merits of the matter but the procedure does not allow me to put to the vote again an amendment that has already been put to the vote and rejected.
   – Mr President, Mr Laschet is quite right.
Our group joined with the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats in voting for this paragraph to be deleted.
You said that the amendment failed; it was in fact adopted, and the paragraph was deleted.
You have come to the wrong conclusion.
The motion was carried, and this paragraph has therefore been deleted.
   Mr Leinen, I will confirm it – I am obviously always willing to double-check, inasmuch as nobody is infallible: it seems that the groups wished to vote, Members did not raise their hands, the vote was carried out and unfortunately I had to acknowledge the outcome of the vote.
No recount was requested and I cannot set a negative precedent on the voting procedures.
I am the first to regret this but I have to proceed with voting time.
   .– The reform of the Stability and Growth Pact proposed to us now is only marginal, but it is no less important as a consequence.
What is regrettable is that it will have taken eight years in order to realise that the rise in deficits did not come about solely on the basis of the disastrous and completely arbitrary figure of 3% of GDP, but also as a result of ‘relevant factors’: continually weak growth, ageing populations, the consequences of the botched enlargement of the EU or of unfettered globalisation, and so on.
It was about time.
That is not enough, however.
The Europe of Brussels has just spent the last ten years sacrificing millions of jobs in adhering to dogmatic quantified targets (3% of GDP for government deficits, 60% for government debt or, again, a maximum inflation rate fixed by the European Central Bank at 2%).
It must now make employment and the prosperity of its people its primary objective, to which all, absolutely all, other objectives must give way, whatever may be the views expressed on the matter by the Frankfurt Bank, the zealots of pure and perfect competition or those of completely unrestrained global free trade.
   Mr President, this report does not solve any problems whatever; it only serves to aggravate the ones that already exist.
It repeatedly pleads for new legal immigration, while most Member States do not know how to address the problems this already brings with it, such as the level of unemployment and crime among certain groups of immigrants, which is significantly higher than in the indigenous population.
Nor can we avoid the conclusion that large groups of immigrants deliberately choose not to integrate.
Even if we were to adopt a thousand reports like the Gaubert report, containing new repressive measures against Europeans who avail themselves of their right to free expression of opinion in order to voice their dissatisfaction with the situation, it would not make the slightest bit of difference.
This is talk for talk’s sake, and it will come as no surprise to you that I have voted against the Gaubert report.
   The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mr Gaubert’s report on legal and illegal migration and integration of migrants.
We are, however, aware of the fact that parts of the report concern an area covered by Title IV of the EC Treaty and do not therefore apply to Denmark, cf. the protocol on Denmark’s position.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last night I fell asleep thinking about how I should vote on the Bowis report on patient mobility in the European Union and I dreamt of the gorgeous Italian blonde, Elena, who was complimenting me precisely at dinner.
She was saying to me: ‘Well done, Carlo.
Your proposal to facilitate tourist travel in Europe for all pensioners has been approved.
Obviously, they will have to go round every hospital in Europe, but you cannot have it all in this world; you have to make do and therefore vote in favour of the report.’
Could I refuse to follow the advice of gorgeous blonde Elena? No, and consequently I have voted in favour.
   .– I have voted in favour of my fellow MEP’s, Mr Bowis’s, excellent report on patient mobility.
It is a document that points out a number of obvious facts: health care is a priority issue in the Europe of 25, since 10% of national GDPs is dedicated to it.
Health care is, in essence, a national policy, the great fabric of social cohesion, which is today faced with two major challenges: ensuring that every citizen has access to treatment and managing the explosion in health care budgets in the majority of the Member States, such as Belgium.
The specific nature of health care services justifies, in my opinion, removing health care from what is known as the Bolkestein Directive on services, as provided for by paragraph 4 of the resolution.
Health care policy must naturally be extended to European level.
That means that patient mobility must be promoted in the same way as that of citizen-tourists, students or businessmen.
That justifies the implementation on the ground of the European Health Insurance Card.
Launched in 2004 to replace the E111 form, this device is intended to allow citizens, in all cases, to assert their rights to health insurance in a simple and effective way.
   The resolution may be seen as the European Parliament’s wish list in the run-up to the forthcoming EU-US Summit on 20 June 2005 in Washington.
It contains a variety of proposals concerning the form to be taken by cooperation between the EU and the United States in a range of areas, including security policy, the environment, energy and the economy.
Quite a few of the demands are constructive, but we do not believe that the EU should represent 25 Member States in relation to the United States, including within the field of security policy.
We are therefore unable to support the resolution, either.
   .– On behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Mrs Annemie Neyts, coordinator of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, points out that the ALDE Group has voted against the amendments tabled by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and particularly against Amendments 8, 10 and 11 (climate change, new nuclear weapons and the Non-proliferation Treaty), in order to protest against the Greens’ habit of not joining in a common resolution and then of tabling amendments that have not even been debated during the negotiations on that common resolution in which the Greens played a part.
   . –I would just like to ask if there is any possibility – given that there are now so few of us left in the Chamber – of holding the vote on the report at the mini-plenary session scheduled to take place in two weeks time, rather than today?
   – In that case, Mr Őry, it would be more appropriate to request an adjournment at voting time.
Obviously, as I myself will be the President of the sitting then, I will not oppose it.
I believe, however, that it is more appropriate to request an adjournment at voting time.
   – Mr President, with all due respect to my colleague Mr Őry, I wish to express my strong opposition to that.
The item is on the agenda, and I think we should put it to the vote.
   The next item is the debate on five motions for a resolution on Bolivia.(1)
   – I am going to check this item of the Rules of Procedure, but, in the meantime, I will still give the floor to Mr Yañez-Barnuevo García.
   . – Mr President, Bolivia, of all countries, a country named after its liberator and first president Simon Bolivar, a man symbolic of Latin America as a whole, is in a state of ongoing crisis.
Arriving in the La Paz basin, one is immediately struck by the glaring discrepancy between the beauty of the country and the incredible depression that hangs over the people.
Someone once described Bolivia as ‘a beggar on a golden throne’, a throne at one time mainly founded upon ore, gold and other minerals, but now, increasingly, upon crude oil and natural gas.
In view of the obvious risk that the country could become helpless in the hands of political and economic powers, we are of course obliged to do what we can to help keep it stable.
Its neighbours include such major countries as Brazil, in respect of which my colleague Mr Deß has done such exemplary work by ensuring that measures are taken to ensure stability, particularly for agriculture, small-scale farmers and independent farms, along with the slow growth of a small business sector.
This is the approach we must take in Bolivia too, or else the country faces the threat of disintegration, with all the resultant consequences for the political map of Latin America.
It is for that reason that we must work with all the means at our disposal towards a peaceful transition by way of new elections monitored by the international community, but above all towards the country’s speedier recovery, which will involve strengthening small farmers and small and medium-sized businesses, failing which the country, long at the mercy of conglomerates and conspiracies, risks generating conflicts that would suck its neighbours, including Brazil – particularly its Mato Grosso state – into their maelstrom.
It is for that reason that this House needs to finalise a strategy for Latin America.
Our Christian Europe forged the two continents of North and South America; there may one day be a bitter price to pay for our present neglect of the latter.
   – The next item is the debate on six motions for a resolution on freedom of the press in Algeria.(1)
   – The next item is the debate on seven motions for a resolution on Azerbaijan.(1)
   . – Mr President, for 15 years, the collapse of the Soviet Union has resulted in major changes in Central Europe, while in the east, the authoritarian forms of government have remained virtually intact.
They have carried out privatisations and major cuts in the public sector, resulting in a large group of new poor people.
This led to anything but European-style parliamentary democracies.
The one-party states were replaced by small dictatorial profiteering cliques regarding themselves as answerable to nothing and nobody.
In Ukraine and Georgia, popular movements against such authoritarian leaders received support from the West, and rightly so.
In Belarus too, where such a revolution has not yet been successful, the opposition, though weak, can count on much external sympathy.
This is in contrast to former Soviet Republics, including Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, where America has now gained major military and economic footholds, but where there has, to date, been no such external support for popular uprisings.
The regimes’ opponents risk jail or the death penalty, and there is no chance of free elections.
In the coming weeks and months, Europe will need to manifest consistent solidarity with the opposition movements that focus their efforts on democratisation from the inside.
    –  Mr President, will Azerbaijan follow in the footsteps of Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan? If only it could!
The situation in this country is worrying. Not long ago a leader of the democratic opposition died in mysterious circumstances, following the death of another opposition leader earlier this year.
At the same time, however, even tragedies of this kind and other forms of persecution, such as the arrest of 29 opposition activists in mid-May, do not alter the course of history and cannot reverse its tide.
The 70 000-strong crowd of demonstrators last Saturday in Baku was well aware of this fact.
The fight for democracy in Azerbaijan is also a fight for stability, of which there is an urgent need in the country.
To put it bluntly, Azerbaijan is a major centre of Caspian Sea oil production, particularly since the opening of the USD 4 billion pipeline between Baku, Tbilisi and Ceyhan in Turkey, which will reduce Western dependence on Middle Eastern oil.
The pipeline’s target capacity is one million barrels of oil per day.
Five days ago, following the recent demonstration, the leader of the opposition party Musavat said that Azerbaijan deserved democracy and was out to get it.
He was speaking the truth, and the European Parliament should help ensure that this is what happens.
   . Mr President, the European Commission shares the concerns of the European Parliament and the international community on human rights and democratisation in Azerbaijan.
We are following the events in the country very closely, particularly as regards fundamental freedoms, the media and the right of expression and assembly.
We are also closely monitoring preparations for the November 2005 parliamentary elections and urging the Azerbaijani authorities to ensure that they are conducted in full compliance with OSCE commitments and other international standards for democratic elections.
Some Members have asked if we should send a team of observers to the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan.
In line with standard practice in the OSCE region, a European Union election observation mission will not be deployed for the elections in Azerbaijan.
Instead, support will be given to the OSCE/ODIHR election observation mission that is to be deployed.
The Commission will also consider whether, in line with recent actions and in connection with the elections in Ukraine, Moldova and Kyrgyzstan, financial support can be provided to the OSCE/ODIHR fund in order to widen participation in election observation missions, to enable more observers from central, eastern, south-eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union to participate.
All these issues and activities must be seen against the background of Azerbaijan’s inclusion in the European Neighbourhood Policy, as decided by the Council in June 2004.
At its meetings with the Azerbaijani authorities, the Commission has always stressed that the European Neighbourhood Policy necessarily implies sharing fundamental values such as democracy, respect of human rights and the holding of genuinely democratic elections.
As you know, on 25 April 2005 the General Affairs and External Relations Council decided to offer Azerbaijan the opportunity to develop an ENP Action Plan with the European Union and I hope that will be finalised before the end of this year.
Human rights, fundamental freedoms, genuinely democratic elections and democratisation will be amongst the main priorities of this document, which will provide overall guidance for future relations between Azerbaijan and the European Union.
Moreover, the Commission is assisting Azerbaijan with its institutional, legal and administrative reforms through the TACIS programme.
This whole range of issues is one of the two main priorities chosen for the TACIS National Action Programme 2004-2005.
Last but not least, the Commission is also providing financial support through its European initiative for democracy and human rights.
Five regional projects are currently being funded in the southern Caucasus for a total amount of over EUR 5 million.
The Commission will continue to use all the means at its disposal to pursue effective protection of human rights in Azerbaijan and to make sure that the democratisation of the country progresses smoothly in the near future.
   .
The reason why I voted in favour of the Öry report is its topicality regarding the issue of social inclusion in the 10 new Member States.
The rapporteur has given a detailed account of the basic challenges faced by the new Member States in fighting poverty and social exclusion.
It was mostly MEPs from the new Member States who presented arguments highlighting the seriousness of this topic during the debate.
Their speeches centred on the theme of poverty, which also involves the social inclusion of children, or in other words has an impact on the prospects of the new generation.
By way of example, statistics indicate that in my country, Slovakia, as many as 21% of citizens live below the poverty threshold, mostly in less-developed regions of the country.
This report provides a basis for addressing the tremendous challenge faced by the EU in achieving the ambitious Lisbon goals of employment growth, social cohesion and sustainable development.
The EU’s progress will depend on its approach to the fundamental rights of the EU citizens who are most at risk, and who mainly live in the 10 new Member States.
This approach should be guided by social inclusion and the fight against all forms of discrimination.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 9 June 2005.
   Having studied paragraph 2 of Rule 132 with the assistance and advice of the services of the House, I can see no reason to grant your request.
   The next item is the joint debate on the European Council report and Commission statement – European Council meeting (Brussels, 16-17 June 2005) and the Council statement – Work of the Luxembourg Presidency.
Both items will be debated jointly.
To this end, the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Juncker, will take the floor first.
   Thank you very much, Mrs Frassoni; addressing the President of Parliament does not excuse you from having to respect speaking time.
   I have often praised the Luxembourg Presidency.
You always do things well at a technical level, but today I must criticise you, Mr Juncker, for the summit’s decision to continue the ratification process with a document rejected by the French in a binding referendum.
What an insult to your French neighbours and Dutch friends from the Benelux countries!
What contempt for the law!
The Treaty of Nice is unambiguously clear: it may only be altered by a unanimous vote, and there is no such unanimity now that the Netherlands has said that it will not ratify the Constitution.
What a retreat from reality, too!
All reflective people know that that document would never survive a referendum in, for example, Great Britain.
The Constitution is dead.
One should bury the dead, and doing so cannot be deferred or postponed.
With all respect, even you cannot breathe life into a corpse by threatening to withdraw as Prime Minister if the Luxembourgers also politely reject a Constitution that, on the basis of population figures and with no proper exercise of democracy, would shift power from the electorate to officials.
You are wasting time.
Let us, rather, start afresh.
Let us bring the same number of proponents and opponents of the Constitution together and prepare a joint consultation document for new ground rules.
We shall be able to discuss this and elect a new Convention able to represent the electorate’s attitude to Europe’s future.
We shall then be able to obtain a practical, brief and easily understandable cooperation agreement able to be adopted in referenda on the same two days in all the EU countries.
If we devise an agreement that is better than the Treaty of Nice, most Europeans will naturally vote in favour of it.
If the watchwords are transparency, democracy and proximity to the people, we shall also be happy to do so.
A new opinion poll shows that 80% of Danes support the proposal to reverse the burden of proof in matters of transparency and that 79% want each country to be able to elect its own Commissioner.
There are only, respectively, 11% and 12% of Danes who are opposed to these proposals.
That is the type of support we should be seeking by means of a new treaty.
We should not be seeking a Constitution to take precedence over Luxembourg’s and other countries’ constitutions.
   Madam President, Mr Schmit, I do not know whether you can find space at the front there for all the flowers with which this House is bedecking you today.
I echo all the gratitude that has been expressed, and wish to add another bloom for the courage that this presidency, the government of Luxembourg, has displayed by organising the referendum and pressing on with the ratification process.
It may be, Mr Schmit, that the result of this decision will be that there will one day be only one founding state in a politically united Europe rather than six of them, and that country will be little Luxembourg.
It may be that this decision represents the victory of the idea of a politically united Europe over the vulgar idea of a common market, of the ideal of uniting people over the mere claim to be uniting markets, market forces and resources.
Today and tomorrow see two Europes meeting head-on in this Chamber.
The President-in-Office gave us a thoughtful speech, reminding us of the case for a political Europe.
Tomorrow we will hear someone who broadcasts abroad for all to hear the propaganda of a Europe of nationalism and national corridors of power, adducing also the Rumsfeld formula according to which Europe is divided into ‘old’ and ‘new’, and thereby taking us back to the 19th century, to a Europe characterised by balances of power, by struggles for might, by competition, nationalistic egoism and hegemonistic politics, to a Europe that is not ours.
I hope that the referenda will not be misinterpreted and will not be turned on their heads in such a way that their outcomes can be used against the public, but that they will be used in the manner in which they were intended, as a means of moving Europe forward.
   Mr President, when Mr Juncker came to this Parliament in January to set out his presidency’s priorities, the UK Independence Party reminded him that he had spoken about a window of opportunity to cut a quick deal on the EU budget, including the British rebate.
We pointed out that Mr Juncker was under the impression that he could revise in just six months arrangements that had taken five years to negotiate.
I do not know whether Mr Juncker was being naive or arrogant, but last week he counted the cost of it.
It has been suggested in the media that Mr Blair allowed the rebate to be discussed when such discussions were not necessary, thereby falling into a trap laid by President Chirac who wished to distract attention from the French ‘no’ vote.
In fact the rebate was always going to be discussed last week because Mr Juncker was determined it should be.
His window of opportunity was almost closed, the curtain rapidly falling across his presidency.
Mr Juncker is right about one thing: the EU is in profound crisis and for that we can look back in gratitude upon his six months at its helm.
I would also like to thank Mr Juncker for his verdict on the French and Dutch ‘no’ votes.
His quote, ‘I want to believe obstinately that neither the French or the Dutch have rejected the Constitutional Treaty’, will go down in history as being typical of the attitude of the EU’s political elite in the 21st century.
I come from Devon, where we are often referred to as simple country folk.
Despite – or perhaps because of – my simplistic outlook on life, I found the EU Constitution incredibly easy to understand.
It is abundantly clear that if you wish to see your country retain its independence, you have to vote ‘no’.
Clearly the French and the Dutch share a Devonian’s ability to understand it.
What part of the word ‘no’ does Mr Juncker not understand?
   Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Juncker and his dedicated political colleagues in his excellent diplomatic and civil service on the job they have done over the last six months.
He has demonstrated, yet again, that it is quality and vision that count in the construction of Europe.
I would also like to express my admiration for the new Member States, for their solidarity and forward-looking effort to avoid the breakdown of the budget negotiations.
As has been said repeatedly, they are not the cause of the problems of Europe.
They in fact give us far more and offer us far more in terms of a peaceful, secure and prosperous future than we can offer them.
I would also like to remind the House that 28 states – not 25 – participated in the Convention and that at least Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania should be included in any debate now about the future of Europe.
I believe that if they are going to be full members of this Union within a number of years then they have a right to participate in debating what kind of Europe we are going to have.
Today Mr Juncker gave us a master class in transparency, frankness and humanity.
This is the kind of politics that the people of Europe are crying out for and I would urge this House to insist that from tomorrow onwards all presidencies and all Commissioners meet with the standards set by Mr Juncker today.
My group leader, Mr Schulz, has launched a five-point European agenda which seeks to kick-start the process of re-establishing the self-confidence of Europeans.
I would like to ask Mr Juncker in the remaining days of his presidency, Mr Borrell and Mr Barroso, to support that initiative and demonstrate to the people of Europe that we have a future together.
We must ensure that we do not leave the people of Europe to the likes of Mr Bonde and his ilk in other parts of Europe.
It would be a betrayal of the sweat and blood of our parents and grandparents and the lessons that they learned from having a divided Europe; from having a Europe which is locked behind its own sovereign borders, unable to share power and unable to share a future together.
      I too should like to start with a few words of thanks.
I should like to thank the Luxembourg presidency for its work, which has been both highly professional and of first-rate quality.
I should also like to thank the President-in-Office of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker.
Although he comes from a small country, Mr Juncker is a great statesman and a great politician, and he has demonstrated quite clearly that small and medium-sized countries can also play a large role in Europe.
In order to do so, they must remain true to the ideas that underpinned the gradual construction of Europe after the Second World War.
I refer to such ideas as Europeanism, solidarity and the placing of European interests before individual, and often selfish, national interests.
It is my belief that Jean-Claude Juncker will always serve as a fine example, in particular for the new Member States, or in other words the small and medium-sized countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I should also like to congratulate the Luxembourg presidency on the solution which it put forward to the problems surrounding ratification of the European Constitution, and which enables those Member States that so desire to continue the ratification process.
I believe that the people of Luxembourg will vote ‘yes’ in the referendum to be held on 10 July.
I hope that politicians in other countries, including my own country, the Czech Republic, will be equally courageous and allow their citizens to take part in referenda.
I should like to raise one final issue that has not yet been touched upon, namely EU enlargement.
Accession treaties were signed with Bulgaria and Romania during the Luxembourg presidency.
In common with the majority of Members of this House, I supported this move, and despite the events in France and the Netherlands, I still believe that it was absolutely the right one.
Regardless of the problems we are facing, we should not ignore the fact that the unification of Europe is in the interests of Europe as a whole, and in the interests of our history.
Last year’s enlargement demonstrated that the problem does not lie with the new Member States, since they are acting with the utmost responsibility, whether with regard to ratification of the Constitution or to last weekend’s summit.
I believe that Romania and Bulgaria will act equally responsibly after they join in 2007 or 2008.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Gargani, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, on amending the Decision of 4 June 2003 on the adoption of the Statute for Members of the European Parliament (2005/2124(INI)) (A6-0189/2005).
   One of the Luxembourg Presidency’s successes was its achievement of agreement on the Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
It is because the Members’ Statute makes it possible to do away with many grey areas and inadequate rules and regulations that I see continued opposition to this compromise as making no sense whatever.
European regulations enable the public to get a better insight than do 25 or 27 sets of national rules and any number of compensation arrangements, some permitted and some not.
I am aware that there are unmistakeable defects in even this compromise.
One fundamental problem that remains is the rule on pensions in Article 14; what is needed is that Members pay their own share of contributions to the pension funds.
Although our amendment – No 1 – on this has now been lost, I am convinced that an opening still exists to find a solution at a lower level than that of the Statute and will continue to press the case for a solution of this kind, which must be supplementary to the Statute.
The Members’ Statute also, at last, paves the way for an Assistants’ Statute.
The House must now make all possible haste to complete the work on one successfully.
   Mr President, as an Irish speaker I welcome the decision to accord the status of official working language of the European Union to the Irish language.
I extend congratulations and heartfelt thanks to all of those involved in the status campaign to achieve the status of official working language of the European Union for the Irish language.
I ask the President of the Parliament to convey to the Council our satisfaction in this matter and would ask also that everything possible be done between now and 1 January 2007 to meet the needs that arise from this new status, and to ensure that the European Parliament and the other EU institutions will be able to provide the appropriate services in Irish.
   Mr President, in the north of the Netherlands province of Limburg, the environmental standards are already being exceeded considerably on account of such things as location and road network density.
This situation is made worse by the addition of the A74 motorway to the existing A73.
The A74 will attract many extra lorries, which are major polluters.
The government’s decision to map out the A74 in this area demonstrates that it is not taking the Dutch and European environmental standards seriously.
The volume of fine dust will increase dramatically.
How can we possibly carry on along these lines? We recently concluded that at this rate, Europe will no longer meet even the Kyoto standards.
This planned A74 is a motorway to hell.
If we want to make it to Kyoto, we will have to make a U-turn.
   – Τhe next item is the debate on the report by Michael Cashman, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (COM(2004)0391 – C6-0080/2004 – 2004/0127(COD)) (A6-0188/2005).
   . Mr President, my speech this evening is rather incidental, because it relates to the study of the legal basis for the proposed Regulation.
The rapporteur, at one point, believed that a modification should be proposed, specifically the derogation of Article 22 of the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, and presented Amendments 85 and 70.
In accordance with Article 22 of the Convention, foreigners should declare their entry to the competent authorities, either on entry or within three working days of entry, and the Member States should establish the conditions and exceptions in the field.
The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs raised the issue with the Committee on Legal Affairs and, having studied it, the latter came to the conclusion that that proposed amendment would make it necessary to review the legal basis and that Article 62(1) and Article 62(2) would not be sufficient, but that Article 62(3) of the Treaty would also be necessary, since Article 62(3) of the Treaty refers to the conditions in which third-country nationals can travel freely in the territory of the Member States for a period of no longer than three months.
That was the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
The rapporteur subsequently reached an agreement with the Committee in this regard and did not consider it necessary to continue with his amendment, and it is not therefore now necessary to change the legal basis.
In any event, perhaps the only value of this work is that we know that, in the case of the reference to the Schengen Agreements, not only will the reference to paragraphs 1 and 2 of Article 62 be necessary, but also the reference to paragraph 3.
   . Mr President, it is not mere courtesy that compels me to begin by offering my congratulations to the two architects of the achievement – and I use the term advisedly – that has paved the way for the agreement presented to us today on the basis, I must add, of an excellent proposal from the Commission.
My thanks go to those who are seated behind Mr Frattini today.
I wish to thank Mr Cashman, who, in the face of widespread scepticism, in which I initially shared, sought to reach agreement with the Council at first reading.
Congratulations, Michael!
But I also wish to extend my congratulations to the Luxembourg Presidency for showing the necessary drive and tenacity to stay on course while encouraging the essential compromises.
It is indeed a marvellous Little Big Land, this Grand Duchy of Luxembourg!
For my part, I had three particular concerns about this dossier.
The first was that, while guaranteeing the rights of the beneficiaries of freedom of movement under Community law, the instrument must also keep open the option of conducting the checks required for the identification at external borders of persons registered for refusal of admission and wanted persons.
The agreement reached on this point, which is reflected in the wording of Article 6(2), corresponds very precisely to the spirit of the amendment I had tabled myself but is an improvement on my proposal, and I am delighted with that.
It seemed to me – and this was my second concern – that, in cases where nationals of non-EU countries were refused entry to the territory of the Union, their rights ought to be clearly defined and made known to the parties concerned, but at the same time security requirements had to be rigorous.
The people of Europe do not want their external borders to be controlled by thugs, but neither do they want to have them controlled by blinded and limbless eunuchs.
The provision that is set out today in Article 11(13) is a good provision, and I am delighted about that – just as I am delighted, Mr President, by the confirmation of the exceptional nature of the reintroduction of checks at external borders and by the more prominent role assigned to the Commission and Parliament.
In view of these three grounds for satisfaction, it will give me pleasure to vote in favour of this report, and the entire Group will do likewise.
   Mr President, as the final Member speaking in this debate can I emphasise that I was not a shadow, but I have learned a great deal from the way Mr Cashman has achieved agreement on the most difficult of subjects, dealing with sensitive issues like the reintroduction of border checks, creating a balance between security post-9/11 and all the benefits of Schengen free movement and respecting the dignity of people, particularly from third countries, who want to enter the Union.
Doing all of that within a codecision procedure is a great achievement and we have learned a lot from the way that cooperation has taken place.
It is also a great success because Members like me have observed that reaching a compromise between security at border control on the one hand, and fairness on the other, is very difficult.
Therefore I commend in this report – the first time in a codecision report since the Article 13 directives went through this Parliament – the fact that we have an explicit reference to anti-discrimination and to the dignity of people while carrying out border checks.
There is a huge hidden minority of people that are harassed and victimised at borders.
Mr Cashman has understood this, he has put it explicitly in his report and he has created the balance that we all wanted to see.
   – The next item is the debate on the report by Bogdan Klich, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on Security Research (2004/2171(INI)) (A6-0103/2005).
   . – Τhe next item is the debate on the report by Catherine Trautmann, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the information society (2004/2204(INI)) (A6-0172/2005).
      Mr President, it was developments in information technology that broke the monopoly of Communist censorship in the 1980s, and helped bring democracy to our part of Europe.
We must now go one step further.
The next challenge awaiting us is the development of an information society, in which technology and communications are used to enforce human rights standards effectively at international, national and regional levels.
While building this information society, we must focus not only on the obvious tasks of promoting and constructing basic infrastructure, but also and above all, on education.
By this I mean firstly primary education, in order to ensure that no one feels scared of technological progress, and secondly education on media content, which would allow young people to take a critical and creative approach to all forms of media.
The information society entails free and unrestricted access to technology and information, and this is why I believe that software patents would mean certain death for such a society.
Grim dictatorships, motivated by the fear of certain ideas, still find ways of blocking access to information.
There is nothing new in this.
A law has been adopted in Cuba restricting Internet access to selected businesses and government offices, and banning the sale of computers to the public.
Only 6 000 of the 100 000 computers in Cuba are connected to international networks, and even these are kept under close control.
The Belarussian Government is also well aware of the potential role of the Internet in developing civil society and democracy, and it uses every means at its disposal to curb its growing popularity.
A new law has been drafted on the mass media. , this law provides for mandatory registration and makes it necessary for Internet-based publishers to obtain what is known as a publishing licence.
In reality, the latter will act as a powerful instrument of censorship.
A further characteristic feature of the situation in Belarus is the fact that the state is the only Internet provider, as there are no other operators in the country with access to external telecommunications services.
The Belarussian Ministry of Communications requires all Internet users to obtain authorisation for their modems at a cost of USD 20, even though the average monthly income per capita is USD 60.
There is no escaping the conclusion that this issue must also be a focus of our activities.
   – Τhe next item is the debate on the oral question to the Commission by Marcin Libicki, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the Lloyd's affair (O-0068/2005 – B6-0245/2005).
   . Mr President, I should say first of all that I come from a Lloyd’s background, although I am not a Name; I never have been and I have no financial interest in any way, shape or form.
My family has been associated with Lloyd’s for over 200 years in one form or another and I therefore understand the marketplace and how Lloyd’s functions.
I have no specific animus against Lloyd’s in any way, shape or form.
Indeed, arguably, I strongly support the organisation.
But equally I support the principle of this question, which dates back – as many colleagues now know – to 1997 in terms of the petition and far longer in terms of the substance.
This is about the fact that the question tabled by Roy Perry and now by the Committee on Petitions has not been answered properly.
It is a measure of that concern that there is unanimity in the Committee on Petitions, even though there may be disagreement about the substance on the fact that this question has not been responded to properly.
That is why there is a motion for a resolution attached to give power to the President of Parliament to instruct the Committee on Legal Affairs to take legal action against the Commission to answer that question, if – as I suspect is already the case this evening – this has not happened.
The cause for concern here is that it is a failure by the Commission to respond to the Committee on Petitions – now in total as opposed to an individual Member.
The issue itself continues, as the Commissioner and Members know.
People are still being made bankrupt and their health and their lives are still often in turmoil.
This petition needs to be closed, we need answers to the question.
My colleagues and I on the Committee on Petitions cannot agree to the petition being closed until we get the proper answers to these questions tabled now and also previously by my former colleague Roy Perry.
The Commission must answer the question properly to give at least a chance to those who have suffered at the hands of Lloyd’s in this sad affair the opportunity to be able to pursue their cases.
I have never been and will not be one who advises members of Lloyd’s – ‘Names’ – who have suffered financially to pursue a case with no expectation of success.
That way lies folly and further trouble.
However, I, along with colleagues who have investigated this matter, believe that it needs proper consideration.
That is why the question has been tabled in the terms it has.
This is no personal reflection on Commissioner McCreevy, but I am not satisfied that the Commission has given the proper answer.
Therefore, it must realise that further consequences will follow.
   – Τhe next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading by Othmar Karas, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Council common position for adoption of a Council regulation on amending Regulation (ΕC) No 1466/97 on the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies (09812/2005 – C6-0192/2005 – 2005/0064(SYN)) (A6-0204/2005).
   I would like to appear before you now to support the position of the mover, Mr Karas.
I consider several of the reservations and objections from the European Council to be superficial and insufficiently thought through or justified.
Due to lack of time, I would like to touch upon just two of the points contained in the Council’s comments on Article 6 paragraph 1 and Article 7 paragraph 2(a).
With regard to Article 6 paragraph 1, it is clear that there is a fundamental difference between reporting and monitoring the absolute value of the surplus or deficit in public finances, and the level of overall public finance debt as a percentage of the preset basis, for example, gross domestic product, which has a substantially higher information value from the viewpoint of maintaining budgetary prudence than absolute data on the level of deficit.
I therefore support the position of the European Parliament submitted by Mr Karas in this and other points.
Over and above the position of the European Parliament, I would like to question the wording of Article 7 paragraph 2(a) and how it has been amended by the European Council, where the deviation from the medium-term budget targets in connection with multi-pillar pensions reform has been permitted.
This may only be applied if the costs of pensions reform will demonstrably be addressed at the expense of lower final consumption or increased savings by citizens, and not the short- or medium-term coverage of pension deficits by one-off and unrepeatable receipts from privatisations, as it happens at present in several European Union countries.
      Mr President, Prime Minister Blair, ladies and gentlemen, there would appear to be no justification for the across-the-board criticism levelled at the United Kingdom following the failed European Council summit.
As a matter of fact, there are strong grounds for believing that the British Presidency has no intention of being influenced by the selfish national interests attributed to it.
Its stated priorities reveal that the EU’s goal will instead be solidarity between Member States, which represents a return to the ideas of Europe’s founding fathers.
The fact that the Presidency wishes to reform the EU’s ossified structures is cause for optimism.
This pragmatic and future-looking approach, which is of enormous value, could give a fresh impetus to the development of Europe’s nations and to cooperation between them, by supplanting the illusory idea of a superstate with a constitution, the latter being fortunately dead and buried.
As far as the British rebate is concerned, Prime Minister Blair recently said in an interview that the United Kingdom would be prepared to pay more, but only if the money went to poor countries rather than rich ones.
This way of thinking represents a major opportunity for Europe’s poorest regions, five of which are in Poland.
They include the Lubelski and Podkarpacki regions, which have huge infrastructure problems, but also huge potential in the form of major universities.
Sensible policies of this kind are just what these and many other European regions need.
One can but hope that all EU Member States will support the measures taken by a strong British Presidency, and I am sure that France and Germany will also back European solidarity.
After all, solidarity was the founding principle of the European Community, even though the current leaders of the two countries I mentioned appear to have forgotten this fact.
   Colleagues, it gives me great pleasure to welcome members of a delegation from the Parliament of Kuwait – led by Dr Nasser Jasem al-Sane – who have taken their seats in the distinguished visitors’ gallery as part of their first visit to the European Parliament.
The delegation’s visit is particularly timely, coming just one month after the Kuwaiti Parliament endorsed the request made by the Emir, Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah, to amend the electoral law in order to reflect more closely the Constitution by allowing women to secure the right to vote and to stand for election in national and local elections.
We in this Parliament welcome this historic vote and encourage the women of Kuwait to exercise their newly acquired rights in the general election scheduled for 2007.
   What a mess, Mr Blair!
You were, just a short while ago, surrounded by esteem and general respect and you managed to produce a by disappointing us before you even began.
It is deeply shocking on a moral level that the United Kingdom wants to shy away from the solidarity efforts to which all have consented in order to help the enlargement countries.
It is economically dishonest to claim that farmers are sucking Europe dry when total agricultural expenditure is no more than 1.3% of the European Union’s total public expenditure.
It is legally and politically abhorrent that you are arriving at a system in which you want to make the reform of a common policy dependent on the choice of a budgetary arbitration.
It was at the request of the United Kingdom that the Court of Justice said that it was the legal basis that should determine expenditure, not the other way round.
Finally, let me say, as a defeated Frenchman who is unhappy to have lost the referendum, that I do not think it is very magnanimous, or a very good example of fair play, to choose the moment when my country is on its knees to attack it.
You know, six months will not be too long to repair the damage you have done in three days.
   Mr President, I am French, but I come from Brittany, as distinct from Britain, and I even come from Cornouaille, the counterpart to Duchess Camilla’s Cornwall, so perhaps I can be forgiven.
The 100 Years’ War has already been mentioned.
You have even been told to do the Tour de France, even though it is an American who will win that.
Myself, I say to you, ‘Turn your Presidency into Austerlitz, not Waterloo.’
When Europe experiences a crisis, it always talks about its values.
The great crisis is war.
The great value is forgiveness.
It was forgiveness that made the treaties of the 1950s.
The other crisis, of the year 2000, was greater Europe.
It was the aftermath of the Cold War.
The great value was sharing.
And if we want to talk to the people about the British rebate, about this cheque, fine.
Let us talk about values first, and then define policies.
This is right in the case of employment, particularly for those who have none, as long as we do not damage employment law.
This sharing is true for those who have just joined the EU and those who are going to join.
They need our support.
It is true for the developing countries.
Bravo on cancelling the debt of poor countries.
It is true for the common agricultural policy, because, for my part, I am not very happy that about a quarter of French farmers are pocketing three-quarters of European money.
If you can bring some order to all that, I take my hat off to you.
There is not just the Duke of Bedford; we, too, have our little dukes, in this case.
However, you will not be able to do all that with 1%; it is not enough.
There is not enough in the bank account.
I therefore suggest that you travel to Paris.
Go to see Mr Chirac.
Buy him dinner.
You will see, you will be reconciled.
Both of you, however, and four other partners, make more of an effort, otherwise you will find that it is the ‘every man for himself’ attitude that will regain strength.
And that must not happen.
   Prime Minister, above all, I would like to express the determined support of our group for the action plan against human trafficking.
Mr Juncker reminded us yesterday that we were able to eradicate slavery and that we should be able to eradicate poverty.
We also emphasise that the elimination of sexual exploitation and violence against women should also be a top priority for the European Union.
We absolutely must eradicate this scourge that is unworthy of our society, and this aspect must form an integral part of the fight against illegal immigration.
The fight against organised crime and terrorism is also a priority.
We therefore support as rapid an implementation as possible of the European evidence warrant and of joint investigation teams, but we are still cautious with regard to the exchange of sensitive data, including biometric data.
The fragile balance between security and freedom must be maintained.
Our fellow citizens want a protective, generous Europe that shows solidarity.
If we keep this in mind at all times, we will be able to meet their expectations.
   Mr President, Prime Minister Blair, Europe today is better than ever.
I say that because a large proportion of the current debates concern the view of enlargement.
I am among those who believe that enlargement to include the 10 new Member States has made Europe safer and more stable and has created better preconditions for peace and prosperity than ever before.
For me, this is an argument for positively accepting continued enlargement and not an argument for trying now to close Europe’s borders.
One of the most important tasks for the new leadership in Europe will be that of firmly establishing and developing the view of how Europe can bring about increased security and greater prosperity by embracing those countries for which enlargement is now in the offing.
Prime Minister Blair, I believe that the problems we now face in the EU have to do with the fact that Europe is better than ever.
That also means that the European Union is a greater challenge than ever.
It is not a question, as is sometimes said, of a conflict between the old and the new Europe or between a free-trade Europe and political union.
The European Union is a political union and must fulfil its task on that basis.
It is a question, instead, of moving on from the old European Union of 6, 9, 12 or 15 Members to today’s EU of 25 Member States.
This requires respect for variation and diversity and also an ability to take advantage of the dynamism that exists throughout Europe.
It requires openness towards the new Member States.
It requires an ability to find the common denominators, to pin our hopes on the knowledge-based, instead of subsidy-based, society and to put our faith in the new enterprises instead of making agricultural aid an obstacle to the research and development we need.
I hope, on behalf of the Swedish Moderates, that you will lay the basis for the new leadership needed by the new Europe and the new European Union.
   Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr Blair, the European Union’s Heads of State or Government have prescribed a period of reflection, and you are participating in it by deferring the United Kingdom’s referendum.
It is because I know from my own experience that the enlargement issue played a particular part in the debate around the referenda in France and the Netherlands that I believe that the present period of reflection must include consideration of it.
What we have here is a new situation.
After adopting the Treaty of Nice, we discovered that it would not function adequately if we had 25 or 28 Member States, and so we summoned a convention and compiled a draft Constitution, which you, Mr Blair, support.
We know too, though, that there is no very great likelihood of this draft Constitution seeing the light of day in its present form.
That is what makes this situation new.
There is also a fourth criterion for accession, one that is of very considerable significance, and it is the one adopted in Copenhagen, which states that consideration must also be given to the Union’s own capacity to cope with further accessions.
In the absence not only of a constitution but also of any financial settlement, we have to ask ourselves the very serious question as to whether it really is well-advised to start accession negotiations with Turkey on 4 October.
We have to ask ourselves – that is, the European Union itself – whether we really are in a fit state to handle another enlargement.
Along with many of my friends, I take the view that this question has to be answered, and firmly, in the negative.
   Do not lose heart, Prime Minister, I am the last, though I hope I will not be the least.
Following a Luxembourg Presidency led with honour by Mr Juncker, you are taking on the Presidency at a very delicate moment for Europe.
At a time when the draft European Constitution, based on a careful rebalancing between politics and economics, appears to be stillborn, I hope, despite everything, that we will not bury its content too hastily.
The financing of the EU cannot be decided by a confrontation.
Enlargement must be financed fairly and reasonably.
Is it fair for the United Kingdom to be the only one of the 15 to have reduced its net financial contribution following enlargement, thus excusing itself from all efforts to reunify Europe? You have declared that the British rebate is not non-negotiable, and we take note of that.
Do not forget, though, that the CAP has already been reformed three times.
You will allow me to express my surprise at the UK’s reaction with regard to European farmers.
The United Kingdom is well placed to know the extent to which European solidarity expressed itself during the two major health crises that we underwent with BSE and foot-and-mouth disease, and to evaluate the costs borne by the European Union to deal with those two disasters.
The future of Europe depends on our ability to guarantee to 450 million Europeans that they will all be able to feed themselves at a reasonable price and completely safely.
We will not forget that you have declared that you do not want to reduce the EU to a huge, dehumanised market.
Your predecessor stated that he wanted an integrated, political Europe of solidarity.
May the UK Presidency share the same vision of our common future.
   Mr President, I just want to point out an error in the Swedish version.
What, in other language versions, is Article 23.2 is Article 12.7 in the Swedish version.
   Mr Gargani, thank you very much for your constructive words.
Thank you very much to everybody and in particular to the Luxembourg Presidency.
   Mr President, as we seem to be the only group to be holding fast to the compromise that we hammered out together, I have consulted at least some of the other groups and am now able to ask, on their behalf too, for the vote to be deferred in accordance with Rule 170 of our Rules of Procedure, irrespective of whether we will be voting at a later date.
Under Rule 170, therefore, I move that the vote be deferred.
   Mr President, whilst I can very well understand the general desire to get the vote over with, that cannot be done so quickly, as there are a whole range of different items to be voted on.
I have a procedural suggestion to make, that being that we vote on Amendments 1 to 21 in a single block, while we really do have to vote on the other items on a one-by-one basis.
   Mr President, having taken note of the result of negotiations between Parliament and the Council, we in the Austrian People’s Party delegation voted to adopt this Members’ Statute.
We find it regrettable that the Council should have dictated to Parliament conditions in respect of the Rothley report, one of which was that the cut in salary should be compensated for by the pension scheme being made non-contributory.
Every amendment that we have tabled here today would, from the Council’s point of view, have caused the Members’ Statute to fall.
It was high time, following 10 years of negotiations, that this House should endow itself with a Members’ Statute, and for there to be equal pay for equal work.
To this compromise we have agreed, even though there is without doubt room for improvement in many areas.
   Today, Parliament has voted on the long-debated Members’ Statute.
There are some doubtful features, but it overwhelmingly constitutes an improvement on current rules applicable to, for example, travel expenses, taxes and pensions.
Actual travel costs will be reimbursed, rather than a standard payment being made.
The Statute also means that all MEPs will receive the same level of salary from 2009.
That is especially important if our fellow MEPs from the new Member States are to receive reasonable salaries and if the earnings gap is to be reduced between those who earn least and those who earn most.
Quite a few constructive amendments were tabled before the vote, demanding, for example, a common statute for MEPs’ assistants and the opportunity for those MEPs who wish to do so to receive back only their actual expenses from as early as 2007.
We have for a long time supported developments towards a statute for assistants and the reimbursement of actual expenses.
That is something we shall continue to do in the future too.
In order to ensure that the Statute arrived at by compromise with the Council goes through, we have, however, chosen to vote today against all the amendments tabled in plenary and have voted in favour of the committee’s report.
Any change to the compromise would jeopardise the unity in the Council and, thus, the possibility of being able to agree at all on the Members’ Statute.
   . On 17 December 2003, our party, the Dutch Socialist Party, voted against the then draft for a Members’ Statute.
We were not opposed to a unified salary, but what was suggested at the time was far too high.
Moreover, we considered it important that it should be possible to make this salary liable to national taxes and that the reimbursement of travel expenses should be restricted to those actually incurred.
In our experience, on an annual basis, more than half can be recouped that way.
In the Dutch parliament, we asked the government to reject this document in the Council.
The proposal that was amended as a result, on which we are voting today, is still not entirely what we want.
Salaries must be below EUR 7 000 and we simply reject Article 9.3.
We realise that voting ‘no’ at this stage will not yield any further improvements.
Now that the maximum has been obtained, we consider this to be a victory in our long-term battle against inappropriate proposals.
Acceptance of this proposal represents a defeat for those who for years resisted this Statute, thinking it beneath their dignity, the salaries and reimbursements of travel expenses too low, and the financial monitoring too intrusive.
By voting against it, they will make it quite clear that they want, shamelessly, to line their own pockets.
   The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mr Cashman’s report on establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (A6-0188/2005).
We are, however, alert to the fact that the proposal concerns an area covered by Title IV of the EC Treaty and does not therefore apply to Denmark, cf. the protocol on Denmark’s position.
   . The attitudes shown by countries and by international institutions are always worth more than the words that they speak.
When it comes to conflicts, the victims know this better than anyone.
Consequently, as well as voting in favour, I should also like to state that I hope that these measures will prove effective, and for this to happen we need the commitment of each of the 25 Member States.
There is no national interest that comes before peace and human rights, and nor must there be.
   . The report by Mr Duchoň addresses areas of major importance to the future of economic activities in Europe.
It is vital that we protect the Community’s financial interests when combating fraud and other illegal activities with the potential to harm its financial interests.
I therefore feel that this report strengthens the existing measures for cooperation and exchange of information that are key to combating illegal activities of this nature.
I also wish to highlight the key role played by OLAF, a body that is at the Union’s disposal, in facilitating the exchange of information.
I therefore voted in favour of this report.
   . The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO) scientific council has adopted a 15-year rebuilding plan for Greenland halibut, which provides for a reduction of the total allowable catch (TAC) level of this species.
Already provisionally transposed into Community legislation, the plan is now waiting for binding permanent status.
Although I feel that the legislative proposal is consistent with the new common fisheries policy, I do not agree with some points in the version tabled by the Commission, which I feel would penalise Community fishermen.
I refer specifically to the reduction by 20 to a 5% margin of tolerance between the estimation of the quantities retained on board and that of the logbook figure.
As this level has not been adopted by NAFO I have always felt that adopting this measure would have a detrimental effect on Community fishermen.
I therefore welcome the removal of Article 8 and feel that Parliament has given the document a better balance and made it fairer.
   We oppose the EU Common Fisheries Policy.
We have, however, chosen to support this report because Parliament’s position is closer to the rebuilding plan adopted by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO) than is the Commission’s proposal.
   . The report by Mr Kristensen addresses an issue that is without doubt of key importance to Portugal.
I voted in favour of this report on fisheries-related issues in an area in which the Community vessels operating are almost entirely Portuguese or Spanish.
   . I was not able to support the resolution on the result of the European Council (Brussels 16 – 17 June 2005) as a result of its excessive formality and use of general officialese.
It is couched in complex bureaucratic language that is practically devoid of meaning.
The individual points made are not formulated in a clear and sensible manner which would provide comprehensible answers or ways out of the complex situation, in which Europe finds itself after the two unsuccessful referenda on the constitutional agreement and the failure to adopt the budget for the years 2007 - 2013.
There was no mention of basic principles relating to the internal market, such as the approach to the Directive on services.
It failed to mention the importance of a regional policy and the structural implements that are essential if the differences between the developed regions and those which are lagging behind are to be gradually removed.
The Lisbon Strategy is once again a series of empty phrases and there is no mention of how it should finally be put into practice.
If we want politics to be comprehensible to the citizens of Europe, we must change the bureaucratic rhetoric in our resolutions and word them in a language that is comprehensible to the people.
Only then will we be able to regain their trust.
   The report is aimed at developing a European Security Research Programme (ESRP), to be introduced in 2007.
We are not opposed on principle to joint research efforts at European level, but we object to the ESRP’s aim of contributing to an integrated European defence market.
We therefore choose to vote against the report as a whole.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 23 June 2005.
   The final version of the draft agenda for the present part-session as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 30 June pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
There are several proposed amendments that we shall consider day by day.
The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe has requested that the reports by Mr Lauk, on the 2004 Annual Report of the European Central Bank, and Mr Maaten, on the implementation of an information and communication strategy on the euro and economic and monetary union, be debated jointly.
   Mr President, the two items – the Lauk report on the European Central Bank, and the report on the communication strategy on the euro – were originally to be debated jointly.
That made sense, because President Trichet of the European Central Bank would have been present at the debate.
When, at a later stage, the two items were separated, it meant that President Trichet would be present only for the Lauk report and therefore would be unable to discuss the communication strategy on the euro with us.
That is a pity both for us and for President Trichet who, I understand, is keen to be part of that debate.
It makes more sense to have a joint debate on the two reports to enable President Trichet to participate on both reports, rather than on the annual report of the European Central Bank alone.
That is the reason for our request.
   . Mr President, allow me to reassure you and to reassure Mr Maaten: I feel very much part of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, and, therefore, it is not on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe that I will speak, but as the Chairman of the committee concerned with the two reports in question.
Basically, the request that we are going to examine to change the agenda is slightly paradoxical, because the entire strategy carried out by the rapporteurs and the Commission was aimed at having a joint debate on those two texts: the policy of the Central Bank and the information and communication strategy regarding the euro.
The agenda as it is envisaged, with the one report following the other, very much reflects this intention.
There is, however, something strange in all of this: how did the idea of holding two separate debates instead of one joint debate come about in our agenda? I hope that the plenary vote will allow things to be returned to normal as good sense would dictate.
During the sitting of 10 May, the report by Mr Busk, on the proposal for a regulation on exceptional market support measures, was referred back to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, pursuant to Rule 52.
That committee is now asking that it be referred back to committee, pursuant to Rules 52 and 168 of our Rules of Procedure.
Mr Karas and 38 other Members have requested that a Commission statement be added on the Situation in Bulgaria after the elections Progress made towards accession by Bulgaria and Romania with a view to the next progress report.
They call for progress towards their full and effective accession, naturally.
Furthermore, they request that a resolution be voted on in this regard.
   Allow me to provide some details in relation to what we have just voted on: motions for resolutions can be presented until 10 a.m. tomorrow Tuesday and amendments and joint motions for resolutions can be presented until 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like everyone else, I too am impressed with the wave of solidarity engendered across the whole of the Western world by the organisation of the Live 8 event.
By watching the concerts in Hyde Park, Versailles or Toronto, which they were able to do via 140 television channels, millions of people across the globe have sent a clear message that we should not turn our backs on Africa.
The question is, though, whether the proposed solution is the best one.
It remains to be seen whether the cancellation of Africa’s debt by the G8 is the best way of getting Africans to take responsibility for improving their lot.
We should also be critical towards quite a few African leaders and, as the brother of the South African President, Muletsi Mbeki, did in the , have the nerve to say out loud that Africa’s problem resides in the plundering of the continent, and is being inflicted by its own leaders.
As a Fleming, I know only too well that in the past, Belgian politicians nurtured Mobutu, who was a common thief, and also that the French Africa policy was often one of unscrupulous complicity with political figures who did not give a damn about the misery of their own people.
I cannot, therefore, agree with Bob Geldof when he says that we should not dwell on corruption too much.
Africa deserves our all-out support, but not when our money ends up in the pockets of corrupt politicians.
   – Mr President, the British Prime Minister, having barely taken over the Presidency of the Council, has said that he does not care about the 4% of the population who are farmers, who produce 2% of gross income.
However, not every European lives in Mayfair in London or on the Champs Elysées in Paris or on the Via Veneto in Rome.
There are a great many Europeans who live in the regions, in rural areas.
In my country, which was one of the first to join the European Union, the situation is tragic.
Factories are closing, people are shopping in neighbouring countries, unemployment has reached peak levels in Europe, we have two and a half million illegal immigrants, more than Italy, which has a population of 45 million; the situation is dramatic.
We are not begging.
We are asking that you secure the borders of Greece, the borders of Europe.
There are 40 to 50 illegal entries a day.
This has forced us to spend USD 5.2 billion on equipment.
If we had spent this money on agriculture, if we had spent it on factories, we would not today need to ask Mr Blair for money.
Save us, please, from the threats from Turkey.
   Mr President, a journalist, Mr Akbar Ganji, and a lawyer, Mr Nasser Zarafshan, are being detained in extremely critical conditions in Iran.
You are going to receive a precise update on the situation concerning them and I should like you, on behalf of Parliament, to contact the competent authorities in order to request their release on medical grounds.
All of the large humanitarian organisations are doing so, as is the Nobel Peace Prize.
It would therefore be a significant step for our Parliament, through your voice, to intervene in support of the release of these two intellectuals.
   Mr President, I wish to express my sincere gratitude – and, I am sure, all European parliamentarians from the Baltic States will join me – for your recent statement commemorating the 65th anniversary of the occupation of our three sovereign states in 1940 by the totalitarian Soviet Union.
The truth about that should be made known and remembered by everybody, and even recognised by some with a feeling of apology, as it was such a bloody and long-lasting tragedy.
The memory calls for justice.
Therefore, I am sure that a new special Nuremberg process or a special Hague Tribunal will also be established for Soviet war crimes and their perpetrators.
Let many among us here share this hope: the hope in the future of having a Russia of shared values.
   Mr President, I wish to ask you to raise urgently with the United Kingdom Government the issue of its failure to properly and fully carry out its obligations under the Euratom Treaty and European directives on nuclear safety.
Persistent failures at the BNFL Sellafield nuclear facility put at risk the health and wellbeing of those who work there, their surrounding communities and those living on the east coast of Ireland.
Recently, it was revealed that, over a period of eight months from August 2004 to April 2005, 83 000 litres of radioactive material containing 20 tonnes of uranium and plutonium leaked unnoticed from a broken pipe into a containment tank.
This is not an acceptable level of safety in an industry where safety failures can have catastrophic outcomes.
      Mr President, one of our colleagues and a fellow Member of the European Parliament, Dr Filip Adwent, has passed away.
He died together with his parents and daughter following an accident which occurred in unexplained circumstances.
I should like to take this opportunity today to share my memories of our dear colleague, who was a magnificent, honest and good-natured man, as well as a social activist and a patriot.
It is fitting that I should say these words before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, as this was the city of his birth and his home for 40 years.
I should like to express my sorrow at his death.
I should also like to say that Dr Filip Adwent was a fine example of a believer.
He had discovered the priceless evangelical jewel that is love for one’s homeland, and this love filled his life with new value and meaning.
He left the fine city of Strasbourg for Poland, motivated by a desire to serve the homeland of his ancestors, and disregarding not only the many objections, but also the distance separating the two countries and the affluent life he led here.
In the belief that life changes but never ends, let us pray that Mr Filip Adwent and those closest to him enjoy eternal life.
   Mr President, during the dramatic hours of the battle conducted by Luxembourg, in the course of the Summit, six new Member States – Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Hungary – proposed a compromise aimed at reducing the aid granted to them, in order to save the 2007-2013 budget.
It was neither a purely symbolic gesture, nor a sacrifice: as new Member States, it was in fact entirely in our interests for a budget to be adopted for that period.
Without that new budget, Europe as a whole would lose out, but the biggest losers would be the ten new Member States.
We continue to contribute to drafting a compromise for the budget.
The Budapest solution proposed by the Prime Minister of Hungary, Ferenc Gyurcsány, is working towards the same objective.
It is not a question of a new budget but of a kind of ‘lifebelt’, based on the proposal of the Luxembourg Presidency and intended to save this year’s budget.
If it is unable to reach a compromise, the Council will thus have to draft a three-year budget.
   Mr President, a written declaration on rheumatic diseases has been put out today for Members of this House to sign.
It is one that I urge you and all Members of this House to support.
The reason why I am doing this is that rheumatic diseases affect 50% of the European Union’s population, and 50% of those treated for them will become unemployed within ten years, accounting also for 450 million days of paid sick leave in Europe every year.
This adds up to a heavy burden on our social security and health systems and is also an obstacle to our achieving the essential Lisbon goals.
I therefore urge you to support this declaration, which calls for the Commission to acknowledge once and for all that rheumatic diseases are among the major diseases and should therefore be included in a special category in the Seventh Research Programme.
   The next item is the report (A6-0210/2005) by Mrs Wallis on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs on the request for defence of the immunity and privileges of Mr Bossi (2004/2101(IMM)).
   Mr President, we are dealing here with four cases referred to us by the Italian authorities concerning the immunity of Mr Umberto Bossi and whether this House should lift that immunity or not.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has considered these four cases over a long period of time and is now in a position to make recommendations to the House.
Parliamentary immunity is of course a matter for this Parliament, it is not for us as Members.
It is to protect the institution as we carry out its proper work and it is therefore a very serious matter.
With regard to Mr Bossi’s cases, I will approach them separately with reference to the name of the court from which they have been referred.
First of all, there is one case which I think provided us with very little difficulty or discussion.
That is referred from the Milan court. It refers to an incident where Mr Bossi actually used physical violence.
In that particular instance, we felt, as a committee, that this was not a proper instance for us to be, as it were, protecting immunity.
If a Member uses force or violence, then that is not something that is a proper carrying-out of the duties of this House and therefore we were unanimous that the immunity should be lifted in that case.
There then follow two other cases which are perhaps more difficult and more complicated to get to grips with.
They are referred respectively from the courts of Brescia and Bergamo.
Both these instances refer to speeches made by Mr Bossi on various occasions but speeches where, on one interpretation, he appears to be using inflammatory language which could be encouraging other citizens to act in a way that perhaps would not be appropriate.
Clearly, this House would wish to protect the freedom of expression of its Members when they are carrying out their duties and their right to speak freely as politicians, and in this respect we have to consider Rule 9 of our Rules of Procedure.
However, this must be viewed against the background of the fact that in both these cases, the Italian authorities – the parliamentary authorities – had come to the conclusion that in Italian terms Mr Bossi’s immunity should be waived.
However, the Legal Affairs Committee felt, taking everything into account, that it was right in these two cases to maintain Mr Bossi’s immunity.
These were rather difficult cases for us to consider, but that was the final recommendation of the committee.
All three cases involved prosecutions by the Italian authorities.
The fourth case, on the face of it, again seemed to be straightforward.
This involved civil proceedings between Mr Bossi and another Italian politician.
It appeared to be presented to us on the basis that it was the other politician who was taking proceedings against Mr Bossi on the basis of words that he had spoken.
On that basis, we were prepared to accept that the immunity should be maintained.
It was, however, pointed out to me over the weekend that in fact Mr Bossi was the plaintiff in this action and the action was introduced by the other party as a counterclaim.
I have a concern that in this instance, therefore, Mr Bossi does not come to us, as we would say under English law, with clean hands.
The result of the committee vote was that we should maintain the immunity, but perhaps, we should bear in mind the type of litigation here, where it appears that the plaintiff himself is trying to use the immunity of this House in a manner which may be questionable.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say, first of all, how very grateful I am to Mrs Wallis for her report.
Having said that, though, please permit me to say something quite fundamental.
The Committee on Legal Affairs discusses immunity issues .
As a rule, these are highly sensitive matters concerning individual Members personally.
As I think it would be wise for this House to dispense with public debates on these immunity issues, I shall say nothing about the substance of this case, but will limit myself to stating that my group endorses the position taken by the rapporteur in her report.
At the same time, I will point out that the same applies in the case of Mr Marchiani, on which Mr Speroni is the rapporteur, which we will be dealing with next; I am aware that, by doing so, I am contravening this House’s Rules of Procedure and so you are welcome to strike my intervention from the record.
I would also ask that this debate be conducted briskly and with dispatch, as Mr Trichet has already been waiting here for over an hour, and we do, I think, have more important things to do than going on in public about Members’ private affairs.
   The next item is the report (A6-0208/2005) by Mr Speroni on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs on the request for defence of the immunity and privileges of Mr Marchiani (2004/2105 (IMM)).
   The next item is the joint debate on the report by Mr Lauk on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (A6-0203/2005) on the 2004 Annual Report of the European Central Bank (2005/2048(INI))
and on the report by Mr Maaten on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (A6-0197/2005) on the implementation of an information and communication strategy on the euro and Economic and Monetary Union (2005/2078(INI)).
   . Mr Trichet, Commissioner Almunia, ladies and gentlemen, the story of the euro and of the European Central Bank is one of undoubted success.
Despite political upheavals, the euro is proving itself to be quite stable, is becoming more and more a major reserve currency, and, as we have heard, the EU’s new Member States are keen to introduce it at home without delay.
The ECB’s work has not exactly been made any easier by various economic developments in the eurozone and by political pressure, but it has nonetheless, from the very outset, maintained its independence and behaved in a professional manner.
I would encourage the European Central Bank to maintain its commitment to independence and continue to regard the defence of the euro’s stability as its primary function.
This, as you can see, is where there is a great gulf between the groups in this House, and Mr dos Santos and I are not of one mind.
One reason why the conditions under which the ECB operates are problematic is that the reform of the Stability Pact largely did away with the second pillar of the euro’s stability, leaving the ECB with principal responsibility for currency stability.
This House has proposed various ways of improving the implementation of the reform in practice, all of which the Council has disregarded, thereby indicating that, although the finance ministers may well not see the relaxation of the Pact as desirable, they do at any rate acquiesce in it with a degree of approval.
Why this should be so is explained not least by the fact that the big countries in the eurozone – Germany, France and Italy – have been breaching the terms of the Pact for years without being called to account for it.
Germany will be unable to comply with the Pact’s requirements over the next two years, and certainly not this year.
As we have just heard, Italy breached the Pact as early as 2003, and it, too, needs another two years to get back in the clear.
As I draw to my close, let me say that the ECB Board should avail itself of the option provided for by Article 10 of its statutes to take decisions by simple majority rather than seeking consensus at any price.
Consensus often represents no more than the lowest common denominator, and the Bank should not be satisfied with it.
I can well understand how, at a time of great political pressure such as the present, the ECB is unwilling to publish minutes, let alone records showing who voted for what, but I do hope that the day will come when the minutes can be published, along with indications of the way the votes went.
Last but not least, I would like to endorse what Mr Lauk said about the need for you to follow the US Federal Reserve’s example and publish a containing a detailed analysis of the ways in which individual countries’ economies develop.
Thank you, Mr Trichet.
You are always welcome in the European Parliament.The debate is closed.The vote will be on Tuesday.
   The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending for the twenty-second time Council Directive 76/769/EEC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to restrictions on the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations (phthalates in toys and childcare articles) (5467/1/2005 – C6-0092/2005 – 1999/0238(COD)) (Rapporteur: Antonios Trakatellis) (A6-0196/2005).
   .   Mr President, phthalates are added to products, especially those made of PVC, in order to make them more flexible.
The many products involved are used as packaging, cosmetics, bathing accessories and, unfortunately, toys.
These toys are squeaky, soft and particularly fun for small children to play with, which means that they often put them in their mouths.
Research has proven that phthalates can cause allergies as well as liver, kidney and lung damage.
They can also have a harmful effect on the endocrine glands, and are reprotoxic and carcinogenic.
The rules currently in place, which ban the use of phthalates at levels exceeding 0.1% by weight in childcare articles and toys, go some way towards protecting children.
They are an inadequate safeguard, however, particularly since the liberal economy and the laws of competition mean that legislative provisions are sometimes nothing but wishful thinking.
The need to inform and educate people about these threats is a major problem.
It would be preferable if products made from PVC were to be replaced by those made from wood, rubber, ceramics, leather or other natural materials.
We should remember that the uncompromising reaction of any organism, and of babies and small children in particular, to any such detrimental compromise, is disease.
   Mr President, phthalates are used for softening plastic in toys and can harm foetuses, cause liver damage and impair people’s reproductive ability.
That is why phthalates should be banned in all toys.
The directive is concerned with six different softeners divided into two groups.
It is proposed that there be a complete ban on the first group for children of all ages.
That is a tightening-up of the Danish rules, in which the ban only applies to toys intended for children under three years of age.
It is proposed that there be a ban on the second group of phthalates in connection with some, but not all, toys intended for children under three.
This would involve a relaxing of the Danish rules, which impose a complete ban on that group of substances in all toys intended for children under three.
The directive permits a limit value of 0.10%, compared with Denmark’s figure of half that amount: 0.05%.
There is no sense in distinguishing between children under and over three years of age, for it is difficult for the EU to monitor whether baby sister borrows her big brother’s toys.
In order to ensure a high level of protection, I have tabled two amendments involving a health guarantee so that we can be sure that there is a place for all the pioneering countries in the EU.
If the proposal is implemented without a health guarantee, some countries, such as Denmark, will have a lower level of protection in some areas than they have at present.
   The 2004 ‘Chemicals in Toys’ project, which lasted for eight months with the participation of consumer organisations from nine European countries and the support of the Danish Technological Institute, came to some disturbing findings.
The international research which measured the content of various chemicals in toys also produced something interesting.
Of the 83 toys sampled, in just 15 were there no traces whatsoever of these chemicals.
Among these 15 ‘clean’ toys, the majority, nine to be precise, were from a group of plastic toys that did not contain phthalates.
Perhaps this was a side-effect of the ban on the use of phthalates introduced at the end of 1999.
The industry has also replaced other chemicals in toys, since the regularity of the legislative direction could be approved on the basis of the precautionary principle.
   . Mr President, I shall try to respond to Members’ questions.
Firstly, in reply to Mr Schnellhardt, neither labelling nor fragrances is included in the final package.
I can confirm to Mrs Jørgensen that Amendments 22 and 23 are part of the compromise package.
For that reason, I urge Members to reject the two amendments.
In response to Mrs McAvan, the Commission is aware of the recent study she mentioned, published by the United States National Institute of Environmental Health Science on 8 June 2005.
We have, therefore, requested the opinion of the newly established Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly-Identified Health Risks.
This will allow us to decide the future of EU policy on phthalates use in medical devices.
I promise you that we will do that very quickly.
   The next item is the report by Riitta Myller, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on stimulating technologies for sustainable development: an environmental technologies action plan for the European Union (2004/2131(INI)) (A6-0141/2005).
   . Mr President, this is of course the case of the disappearing strategies and the debate has come about because we wonder where they are.
Under the Sixth Environmental Action Programme, all thematic strategies were supposed to come to the European Parliament and Council within three years.
Commissioner, the three years are up on 22 July.
In the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety we were given a splendid outline on 21 June of which strategies would be coming in which months, all of them by 5 December: one in December, two in November, one in September, two in July, three in June.
Five – on air, waste, sustainable use of resources, marine and aviation – would be with us before the summer.
Then we were told that we would be starting with air pollution and the marine environment by July.
Now we are into July and we have none of them.
There have been rumours in the media – which we always believe – of dark deeds in the Commission: ‘Barroso mugs Dimas’, we read in the headlines.
Then DG Environment confirmed that there had been no withdrawal, but that there was to be an orientation debate.
Well, I thought orientation took place before you started on the journey, but apparently the journey has been interrupted while we work out where we are trying to go.
If we are to assess compatibility with the Lisbon Agenda, I wonder why that was not done before.
The Commissioner has rightly drawn attention to the problem of air pollution.
There are some 370 000 premature and preventable deaths a year from outdoor and indoor, industrial, traffic, farming and dust pollution.
Of course there is a cost to be considered, but I think Parliament believes that we should be working on the strategy with the Commission and the Council now and that, at the very least, we need a stated timetable on when each of the thematic strategies is going to come to us.
   The next item is the report by Giles Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning measures to safeguard security of electricity supply and infrastructure investment (COM(2003)0740 – C5-0643/2003 – 2003/0301(COD)) (A6-0099/2005).
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions [11979/1/2004 – C6-0058/2005 – 2002/0047(COD)] (Rapporteur: Michel Rocard) (A6-0207/2005).
   Mr President, in 1991, Microsoft was a small company that had to compete against the bigger ones.
Then Bill Gates told us that industry would grind to a halt if all our old knowledge were subject to patents, with a handful of giants able to impose unlimited payments on newcomers.
Now that his firm is one of the giants, his lobbyists tell an entirely different story.
The campaign against software patents has been going on for a long time.
Their opponents persevere and have sound arguments.
I agree with the ‘Foundation for a free information infrastructure’, which claims that software patents put the freedom of software development at risk, and that software patents, by promoting monopolisation and pushing up prices, are detrimental to innovation.
That, in turn, impacts on software companies, Internet shops, schools and consumers.
Do we want to create a situation in which computers are in the hands of one, or a few, software providers?
Tomorrow, we need at least 367 votes to amend or reject the Council’s text.
I urge all those opposed to software patents to be present in force.
We will then choose open source and creativity rather than the concentration of power and monopolisation.
   Mr President, I wish, today, to address those who are not here – not all the 450 million Europeans, but those who are waiting outside this Chamber, and those who pestered us with -mails, faxes and telephone calls.
I think it is wonderful that they did so.
What we are seeing happening today and will see happening tomorrow is important in terms of what democracy will be like in the Europe of the future.
People are getting worked up about things that will affect them.
We have seen for ourselves how the multifarious arguments put forward in this House are often far more astute, far more detailed, and far more precise than what we ourselves are capable of coming up with amidst the deluge of other decisions that we have to take.
After five years in which Members moved 5 500 amendments and voted on 50 000 additional items, none of us can claim to have really got to the bottom of it all.
The input we received was good; it won me over.
I am persuaded that we will be doing democracy, small and medium-sized enterprises, even, indeed, economic prosperity a favour if we vote against these software patents.
As for those standing outside with their whistles and T-shirts, I would like to encourage them to stick at it, to publish the results of the vote, to show how each one of us actually voted.
That way we will see whose bidding the Members of this House have done: that of the parties with their resolutions, that of the lobbyists, or that of their own consciences.
The Commission can accept Amendments 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
provided the change is consistently applied: 14, 40, 72, 93, 114, 135, 158
15, 18, 21, 26-37, 43, 47, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 66, 75, 79, 90, 91, 92, 96, 100, 111, 112, 113, 117, 121, 132, 133, 134, 138, 142, 153, 154, 155, 161, 165, 176, 177, 178.
The Commission can accept in the context of a satisfactory and balanced global package Amendments 5, 25, 48, 50, 67, 68, 80, 82, 101, 103, 122, 124, 143, 145, 166, 168.
The Commission can accept subject to redrafting or recasting Amendments 4, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23 (repositioned in the text), 53, 85, 106, 127, 148, 171.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments 2, 3, 20, 24, 38, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45, 46, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 62, 64, 65, 69, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 81, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 89, 94, 95, 97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 109, 110, 115, 116, 118, 119, 120, 123, 125, 126, 128, 129, 130, 131, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152, 156, 157, 159, 160, 162, 163, 164, 167, 169, 170, 172, 173, 174, 175.
   – Madam President, I am basing my point of order on Articles 166, 75 and 83 of the Regulation and on Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union, as Articles 75 and 83 of the Regulation refer us to the wording of the treaties.
I shall be very brief.
Article 48 of the Treaty on European Union stipulates that amendments to that treaty will enter into force after ratification by all Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.
Since Article 48 refers to all Member States, it is clear that the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty by two of them – France and the Netherlands – and by many more if the people had been consulted, has reduced the Constitutional Treaty to nothing and, therefore, I am afraid – and with all respect due to President Ciampi as a person and to his office – has done the same for President Ciampi’s speech.
   . I voted for this report.
The proposal for a Council decision concerns the conclusion by the European Community of the Agreement on the Conservation of African-Eurasian Migratory Water-birds signed by the Community on 1 September 1997, in force since 1 November 1999.
It is one of Conservative of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.
It protects 235 species of birds which are ecologically dependent on wetlands in particular in Africa and Eurasia.
It requires coordinated measures for achieving and maintaining a favourable conservation status for migratory water-bird species using African-Eurasian flyways.
   – By voting for the gradual elimination of phthalates from toys, Parliament has finally stood firm against the intense lobbying by the manufacturers of toys and articles for children, upholding the principle of prudence and protecting human health.
Toys made of soft PVC are all the more dangerous as children are inclined to put any object within reach into their mouths. Banning phthalates was therefore vital for public health.
Today's vote is a success in those terms.
However, this decision should be the forerunner of other decisions, because toxic substances contained in soft PVC are not only present in toys but also in other everyday objects.
Parliament and the Council have rightly called for a study of other products made of soft PVC.
If the industries really want to be as responsible as they claim, they must stop using soft PVC not only in toys but also in other products (medical equipment, floor coverings and food packaging).
Alternatives have existed for many years, and there is nothing to prevent our turning to healthy products of natural origin.
   I have today chosen to abstain from voting on Mr Maaten’s report on a communication strategy on the euro and Economic and Monetary Union.
I share the rapporteur’s positive attitude towards the euro and believe that Sweden should participate in EMU.
What I do not, however, support is the Commission conducting an information campaign extolling the virtues of the euro.
Information campaigns conducted by the Commission are not the right route to go down in order to have more people well disposed towards the euro.
That is not what we should be using taxpayers’ money for.
   . We must do everything that we can to oppose the exploitation of children in the developing world.
This report links directly into the ‘Making Poverty History’ campaign as child exploitation is so often linked to poverty.
We must do all that we can to make trade fair, to support debt relief and to secure aid to the poorest.
I hope that Members will sign our written declaration on the millennium development goals which will deliver on this crucial agenda.
I also hope that the G8 leaders meeting in Scotland tomorrow will make further progress on ‘Making Poverty History’.
      Ladies and gentlemen, in listening to the debate so far I have been struck by the fact that we clearly all agree on one point, namely that the aim of cohesion policy is to ensure the balanced development of all the regions in the individual Member States.
As such, it complies with the principle of solidarity, which is one of the founding pillars of the European Union.
In my opinion, if we are to continue adhering to this principle following the recent enlargement, when 10 new Member States joined the EU, it is imperative that we adopt two key proposed amendments during tomorrow’s vote on the Structural Funds.
Firstly, we should agree to the funding of non-recoverable VAT under the Structural Funds, and in particular under the European Regional Development Fund.
Classing non-recoverable VAT as non-eligible expenditure would make it a great deal more difficult for many recipients to obtain funding.
My fear is that it might become entirely impossible to gain access to EU funding, in particular in the case of smaller applicants from the 10 new and less wealthy Member States.
Secondly, we should remove the automatic decommitment rule, or in other words the n+2 rule, from the guidelines for implementation of the Cohesion Fund, or at the very least provide for greater flexibility during the first few years of the programming period.
Major investment projects in the environment and transport sectors are financed under the Cohesion Fund, and rigorous application of the n+2 rule would pose a serious threat to this financing.
Once again, this is particularly true in the case of the 10 new Member States, which still lack experience in implementing the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
   The negotiations on these proposals have come at a time when intense debate is under way about the future of the European Union, about where we are heading and how we are going to move forward.
We are no longer just talking about the need for enlargement to be a success, but about what means the European Union has at its disposal to meet external challenges, or, as the representative of the Council said, ‘to deal with the challenges of the 21st century’.
The instruments of regional and cohesion policy must play a key role both in ‘digesting’ enlargement – to adapt Churchill’s expression – and in responding to the challenges.
There can be no question that the most important evaluation criteria must be efficiency and effectiveness.
But while laying great emphasis on these criteria, we must not allow a situation to arise where we adopt, or push through Parliament or elsewhere, regulations of a sort that could put Member States at a distinct disadvantage.
Now, in this phase, it has emerged that a good few proposals included in these reports ruin newly acceded countries’ chances of utilising these funds.
A good few speakers before me have already mentioned the N+2 rule, the VAT issue, and so on.
Moreover, these proposals are included in the reports in a way that changes previous practice, making the conditions less favourable, or ignoring possibilities that relate to improving the competitiveness of a particular region, or to other Lisbon objectives.
We therefore urge both Council and Commission representatives present here today to please ensure that any proposals they put to us later on, and any proposals they support and develop, provide equal opportunities and equal rights for all Member States as regards access to the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to thank Mr Casa for this very important report on the European Fisheries Fund, a sector that, unfortunately, has suffered recurrent crises due to excessive pressure on fish stocks and to the problems of organising a sustainable fish management policy which will help keep a human fabric and a dynamic business alive on our coastlines.
We therefore applaud everything which helps to achieve a more selective use of fishing equipment, a reduction in environmental impact, support for small and micro fishing enterprises and transparency in the policies adopted.
However, we very much deplore the fact that the Committee on Fisheries again wishes to subsidise the construction and modernisation of new boats, and indeed their export, although these subsidies were cancelled in 2002 because of their incompatibility with the aims of the policy and because of their pernicious effects.
The Funds should be much more focused on human problems, such as training, technical support, redeployment, the role of women, assistance in the event of socio-economic crises, improved knowledge of environments and ways of preserving and restoring them, etc.
These are the things which are vital for the future of fisheries and we hope that the Council will not give in to the temptation to satisfy certain national lobbies to the detriment of the wider interest.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to congratulate the rapporteurs for the fine work carried out.
Article 160 of the Treaty establishing the European Community stipulates that the European Regional Development Fund contributes to correcting the main regional imbalances existing within the Community, by participating in the development and the structural improvement of regions lagging behind in development, as well as in the restructuring of industrial regions in decline.
Regional policy therefore represents a chance and an opportunity that we must not waste and that must be managed in the best way possible.
I refer in particular to the southern regions of Italy, which come under the former Objective 1, now termed the ‘Convergence’ objective, which still have enormous problems and lag seriously behind in many sectors.
Regional policy can genuinely be very useful for those regions, even if a number of mistakes from the past need to be corrected.
At times we did not utilise all of the resources at our disposal and at other times we utilised them in the least appropriate manner.
Mr Fava’s report, with which I agree, seeks to adjust this perspective, by focusing on knowledge, research and development, therefore ...
   – Mr President, last year we said 'yes' to the new countries and 'yes' to their financing, but not for this financing to be at the expense of the financing of disadvantaged areas in the old countries.
Greece has three thousand islands which we all want to visit in July and August, but no one asks how they live the rest of the year, often with no oil, no doctors and no public transport.
We must therefore see that this 0.41% of the budget is not enough; it is less than inadequate for us to cover the outermost regions fairly.
We were told that Greece would get EUR 24 billion.
That is what the former Prime Minister, Mr Simitis, said.
Now the new Prime Minister, Mr Karamanlis, comes along and says that we shall get just over half of the fourth package.
These are ridiculous arrangements.
Countries cannot progress in this way.
The European Union cannot progress in this way.
The Member States must be encouraged to take up resources.
In 2003, we got EUR 2.6 billion, according to Mrs Hübner, and last year we got 1.4 billion.
This year, not a single euro has been entered and seven months have already passed.
This is money which is missing from the market, missing from farmers, missing from production and missing from productivity.
We must at last stop seeing people as numbers because, if we carry on like this, with Mr Blair's policy, you should know that, at your next meal, you will not be served tomatoes, you will be served microchips and, instead of getting fruit and vegetables, you will be getting CD-ROMs and floppy disks.
People live here, not robocops!
   Mr President, one year ago the European Union enlarged to include 10 new, and mostly poor, Member States.
Although we constantly hear references to balanced development from all quarters, in the majority of cases these are nothing but hot air.
Attempts are in fact now being made, ‘on the fly’ as it were, to change the principles currently governing the implementation of the main tools for funding regional development.
Why are different and harsher conditions being imposed on the new Member States than those that benefited the development of the 15 old Member States? Classing non-recoverable VAT as non-eligible expenditure and introducing the n+2 rule for the Cohesion Fund are obvious obstacles to the development of the new Member States.
Do measures of this kind show solidarity within Europe? The present principles should not now be changed, as otherwise the poor will not be able to afford to benefit from EU aid.
The new Member States must have the same development opportunities as those which were enjoyed by the 15 old Member States, and which they put to outstanding use.
It is time for the talk of a Europe of equal opportunities and balanced development to finally gain legislative force.
We should make changes for the better instead of for the worse, and we should not divide Europe into those who are better off and those who are worse off.
   Mr President, cohesion is the key to the social construction in the Europe of the 25, and, as we all share responsibility for this, the new Member States and poorer regions should be able to count on our solidarity.
The structural funds must allow the reconstruction in those new Member States to run as quickly and successfully as possible.
Europe must display solidarity.
We should not be caught up in self-interest, for that will not do the public in the 15 old Member States any good either, and, quite apart from aid from funds and structural funds, we should also provide access to our countries and ensure no regions are screened off.
I would now like to turn to the European Social Fund, in respect of which Mr Silva Peneda has done such an excellent job.
The ESF’s review, as currently proposed, is important. Why?
Funds are being set aside for the Lisbon objectives with a clear focus on the new countries, and this is something I wholeheartedly support.
In fact, this morning in the Netherlands, I enquired about our expectations surrounding the ESF.
The response that I received from the Netherlands will shock you: they were quite clear; they wanted nothing.
That comment is in sharp contrast with the opinion of local councils and social organisations in my country, which are opposed to the social exclusion of anyone.
It is therefore only fair that the ESF should provide for jobs and training for all those who are socially excluded, wherever the problems may occur.
In short, we should not use the funds, and particularly the ESF, to build new walls.
The large city issue is universal.
We must learn and innovate across Europe.
There is added value, even for the 15 old Member States.
Europe can play a stimulating role not only in directives, but also in this sense, because even the old 15 still have a thing or two to learn.
   Mr President, I should like to make two specific and brief comments in the two minutes that are allocated to me.
I should like to start by saying something about the ‘Objective 2’ regions, which should not be left out in the cold.
It is undoubtedly a good thing that the limited resources be mainly deployed in the area of the Lisbon objectives and that innovation policy be central to this.
Although that is, of course, to be welcomed, there is hardly any room, if any at all, for the so-called traditional projects which are, in fact, just as important to the local economy and employment.
Hence this appeal for a really decentralised policy, because it is invariably the regional policy makers who really know what measures are needed to boost the local economy with the future in mind.
Regional competitiveness and regional employment, for those are the issues at stake, currently account for some 17% of the resources of the structural funds.
Surely it cannot be the intention, Commissioner, and I would also say to the Council – not currently present – that the budgets in this area need to be reduced in absolute terms, simply because the current ‘Objective 2’ regions then have to suddenly pay the price for a lack of European solidarity
Secondly, as Mr van Nistelrooij and Mr Berend have already said, it is crucial that cofinancing from the private sector should remain an option.
Hence our express request to retain the purport of Amendment 52.
Finally, we unreservedly support Amendments 124 and 126 about VAT.
As has been said repeatedly on this platform, if the non-recoverable VAT is abolished as a cost qualifying for subsidy, this would mean a heavy blow to very many projects, for example in education.
I am sure the Commissioner will agree with me that we should avoid this at all costs.
   – I should like to join in the congratulations for Mr Casa on his outstanding work.
I also wish to commend the Commission, and the Commissioners attending this House today, on its positive proposal.
Yet I must also mention what, to my mind, are the major omissions in your proposal, namely the Natura 2000 network and its presence on the oceans, and the undertakings made by the Commission as regards the Convention for the protection of the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR Convention).
These are international commitments that should lead to compulsory expenditure on the Commission’s part.
Unfortunately, whilst the Commission’s proposal is a good one on many levels, there is a glaring gap in this area.
I should like to call on the Commission and the Council to plug that gap as soon as possible and to make their final decision on the matter.
     The next item is the report (A6-0175/2005) by Mrs Bozkurt, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on the role of women in Turkey in social, economic and political life (2004/2215(INI)).
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are quick to advise countries outside the Union on issues where we ourselves still might have much to do.
This report on women’s rights in Turkey points out that women constitute only 4.4% of the Turkish parliament.
The issue must be raised and the objective should be a change for the better.
We cannot, however, propose a mandatory quota system to try to increase women’s participation in Turkish politics without also calling on our own Member States to change their legislation in exactly the same way.
We cannot demand of Turkey more than what we ourselves are prepared to do.
Accordingly, the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe tabled Amendment 3.
I would like to appeal to our Turkish associates. Encourage women to participate more in politics; be bolder than the heads of many of the current Member States of the Union!
For example, the proportion of women in the national parliament in France is approximately 12%, and in Italy it is smaller still.
I have not heard the heads of either of these countries or the European Union express concern about the situation and the restricted participation of women in these countries.
It would be enough if action were taken there.
We should not conceal our own problems and point an accusing finger just at Turkey.
We should address the problem of low numbers of women in political life both in Turkey and the Union, and, indeed, in the selections the Union itself makes.
Finally, I wish to thank the rapporteur, who has done some excellent work.
At the same time I also wish to thank Commissioner Rehn, who has, to his credit, raised the issue of women’s rights in these membership negotiations.
   . Mr President, we in the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left endorse Mrs Bozkurt’s report and will also be voting in favour of it tomorrow.
The report makes it clear that there is still much to be done, in society and in the economic and political spheres, despite the improvements in the position of women in Turkey, as exemplified by such things as the legislation on honour killings and marital rape.
We, the GUE/NGL Group, see it as important that a political solution be found to the situation in South-Eastern Turkey and that the disadvantaged position of the Kurdish regions become a thing of the past.
It matters to us that women in backward rural areas should have more opportunities to work and be educated, and that projects to this end be supported.
That is why one of my contributions to the report is the clause calling on the Turkish Government to cooperate with mayors in these regions in drawing up and promoting targeted programmes on equal opportunities and rights for the women who live there.
An improvement in the position of women in Turkey will represent a great step forward for negotiations on that country’s accession.
   The next item is the report (A6-0176/2005) by Mrs Niebler, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the implementation of the principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women in matters of employment and occupation (COM(2004)0279 C6-0037/2004 2004/0084(COD)).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has, in the past, been an unfailing beacon of equality for women.
In the debate on Turkey, a lot was said about being a community of values, and about the value of equality in the European Union, one that I hope is not being eroded.
We regard the inclusion of occupational pensions in this report as indispensable, knowing as we do that women suffer discrimination on the grounds of their gender, for the firm has no idea whether they or their male colleagues will live longer.
Not only is discrimination in occupational pensions incompatible with Article 13 of the Treaty, but also with the principle of equality in the workplace.
I therefore expect the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality as a whole to support this proposal, and hope that they will do so.
I might add, moreover, that I think it improper of Mr Wuermeling and others in this House to make, in passing, sweepingly derogatory comments about the idea that the anti-discrimination directives should apply outside working life.
I expect you, Commissioner Špidla, to reiterate your clear and explicit backing for the anti-discrimination directives, not only in respect of discrimination at work but also outside the workplace.
Where women’s policy is concerned, one cannot say ‘stop’ one day and ‘go’ the next, but, rather, we must instead make it clear that it constitutes one of the values of the European Union.
Equal opportunity policy is not something one can back out of.
   .   As I see it, it has emerged quite clearly from the debate that the aim behind this proposal for a directive is to make technical improvements to the EU legislation currently in force, and not to introduce extensive and far-reaching changes.
It is for this reason that the Commission cannot accept the two key amendments to which Mrs Breyer referred, since that would clearly be at odds with the thinking behind the drafting of this directive.
The two issues she mentioned are of such enormous importance that I will be dealing with them in the course of my work, although at this moment in time I cannot give the House any exact dates.
What I can say, however, is that these are issues that we will debate in the very near future, and indeed I am quite sure that an opportunity to do so will present itself during next week’s debate on the Green Paper on demographic change.
How we reach our conclusion is still an open question, however, and it would be inappropriate to go into any more detail on the matter.
   The next item is the report (A6-0211/2005) by Mrs Wallis, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations (‘Rome II’) (COM(2003)0427 C5-0338/2003 2003/0168(COD)).
   – With regard to the report by Mrs Wallis (A6-0211/2005) on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations (Rome II) I should like to say, if I may, that, in order to ensure freedom of expression, together with a legal framework for protecting privacy and legal certainty for journalists and the media in the European Union, I voted:
a) in favour of Amendments 57 to Article 6 and 56 to Recital 12, and
b) against Amendment 10 to Recital 12(a) and Amendment 54 to Recital 26(a), both from paragraph 3.
   The next item is the Commission statement on ‘no-fly lists’/passenger name records.
   The next item is the oral question (B6-0329/2005) to the Commission by Mr Barón Crespo, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on rules of origin in preferential trade arrangements (COM(2005)0100 final).
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on the European Union and Iraq - A framework for engagement [2004/2168(INI)] (A6-0198/2005).
   Mr President, reports before this Parliament seldom contain jokes, but there is some humour, if unintentional, in this one.
Paragraph 43 suggests that the European Union ‘offers its expertise and assistance with a view to the drafting of the Iraqi Constitution’.
Iraqis might think that the European Union’s expertise and experience in this field leaves something to be desired.
Its last attempt produced a Constitution that was opaque and confused and ran to almost 500 pages.
On the other hand, the United States of America has a clear and concise Constitution that runs to just a few pages of paper, with only about 27 amendments needed over the past 200 years.
If the Iraqis need some help, they might prefer to ask the Americans to lend a hand.
If the EU becomes involved it might even offer to organise the constitutional referendum for the Iraqis, and that could lead to all kinds of unwanted problems.
   For some time now we have been hearing that we should not be referring to the past and that there is no need to talk about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq by the United States and its ad-hoc coalition and allies.
I am sorry, but I disagree deeply with this view, because the ad-hoc coalition created and led by the Americans invaded a sovereign state without any international or legally acceptable mandate.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Straw, history has shown us on numerous occasions that mankind could have avoided many of its mistakes if it had carefully analysed its errors and moral failures.
Unfortunately, we seem to be unable to learn from our own mistakes.
Mr. Dimitrakopoulos, not only am I able to pronounce your name, but I respect you as a colleague from the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Yet, I cannot support your resolution, even though I am aware of the amount of effort you have put into it, and I agree with Mrs De Keyser, that without the passage of our draft amendments, this resolution would have no authority whatsoever.
   Mr President, I welcome the emphasis of the rapporteur and of Amendment 12, by the PSE Group, in supporting the EU’s positive commitment to the social, economic and political reconstruction of Iraq, to the success of the January elections, to the doubling of international partners for Iraq, as represented at the Brussels Conference, and to our united condemnation of all violence, kidnappings and human rights abuses within Iraq.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party cannot support those amendments that seek to rekindle the divisions of the past.
In that context, I note that Amendment 3, by the Verts/ALE Group, seeks to delete this Parliament’s commitment to fighting both terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Everyone should vote against that amendment.
Finally, there is a link between this debate and the next on development.
Twenty years under Saddam Hussein left five million Iraqis suffering from chronic poverty, the fastest increase in child mortality of any country in the world, access to safe water for less than half the people in rural areas and 60% wholly dependent on food handouts.
Today the European Parliament reaffirms its commitment to the right for development for the Iraqi people, as well as their right to peace.
   – Mr President, what if, after these last few rather sad weeks for the European Union, it were now to bounce back, precisely on the issue of development, and prove that it is in the vanguard of the fight against poverty.
The European Union is on the right track with its twofold commitment: 0.7% of its wealth for development aid by 2015 and 50% of this increase for Africa.
I am delighted that the British Presidency is making Africa its central concern.
Tony Blair must also take advantage of his presidency of the G8 to obtain something other than declarations of intent from the rich: the only cheque that he must defend is the one promised at Monterrey.
Further progress is needed on debt cancellation, but a premium on democracy must be introduced and new sources of finance urgently sought: taxes on the movement of capital, on the arms trade, on CO2 emissions, it does not matter, all manner of things have been put forward.
We must reach conclusions now because, in the words of the slogan of the global campaign against poverty, after 2005 there will be no more excuses.
   Thank you very much, Mr Benn.
I am sorry that I have had to interrupt you.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting on one of the longestvoting sessions in our history with 972 amendments.
   Mr President, I am speaking to put forward a procedural motion with reference to Rule 152.
Yesterday afternoon during the debate in the Chamber we examined the entire package on regional policies.
Since the voting list sets out a different order, I propose that after the report by Mr Hatzidakis, my report on the Cohesion Fund and the report by Mr Casa should be put to the vote, so that the whole package is voted on in a single process using the same order adopted yesterday during the debate.
I believe that this is a fairer method and ask you to consider this proposal.
   Mr President, what we have always heard from the Commission is that it would be unwilling to submit a new proposal in the event of the Common Position being rejected, but let me remind the House of the Interinstitutional Agreement, which we concluded on 15 September 1999 with the former President, Mr Prodi, and in which the Commission undertook to take initiatives as and when Parliament calls upon it to do so.
I do not doubt that the House will call upon the Commission to submit a new proposal, and would remind the Commission that it is obliged to do so, and that that is what must happen.
   – Parliament is grateful to the Commission and, once again, thanks its rapporteur Mr Rocard for all the work done.
   . Mr President, I want to delete the word ‘ERDF’ in Amendment 39, tabled by the Socialist Group, and replace it with the word ‘funds’, in order to cover all the structural funds and, of course the Cohesion Fund.
   – We have an Olympic challenge, ladies and gentlemen: 972 amendments.
Whatever we fail to complete today will have to be done tomorrow under the presidency of our Greek colleague; it is bound to be something of a marathon.
Having said that, I would appeal to Members to keep up the pace.
   Mr President, since we have grouped all the Structural Funds together, it would be logical to vote now on the Casa report on the European Fisheries Fund.
   . Mr President, it is quite simple really: there are two dates in Articles 26 and 27 regarding the implementation of this regulation.
Those dates have already passed, so it would probably be a good idea to delete them.
I hope the House will consent to that.
   Mr President, thank you; the President of the House has already explained to us at length and with great thoroughness how impolite it is not to take the floor punctually during speaking time or to be absent from the vote.
This House has adopted a resolution to the effect that voting ends at 1.30 p.m.
As a matter of principle, we in this House hold to what we have agreed, rather than, on an basis, following what we hear from the President of the moment.
   – We wish the European team a rich haul of medals in 2012.
   Mr President, I would like to deal with a concern of another group: rather than talking about 300 million, or 315, or 400 million people suffering hunger in the world, we can say ‘more than 300 million’.
By doing this, I believe we will avoid giving a precise figure, as other Members wanted.
   – Madam President, I should like to express my satisfaction at the rejection of this common position, having failed to achieve anything better – in other words, having failed to be able to approve Mr Rocard's amendments one by one, which were intended to bring us back to the first reading by the European Parliament.
Like my fellow Members, I do not believe it perpetuates legal uncertainty, because a lot has happened in the last three years.
At first reading, the European Parliament adopted an unambiguous wording. Today it has just rejected the patentability of software programs.
I believe we should stick to that and revert to the wording of Article 52 of the Munich European Convention because, in reality, it was not so much a question of confirming the patentability of software programs but rather of an offensive aimed at making them patentable.
This offensive has been halted today in a major victory for European parliamentary democracy over the lobbies and over the Commission’s manoeuvring.
   . Today I voted against the Common Position on the Directive on Computer Implemented Inventions (CII) in view of the increased control and over-powering dominance it would give to large software companies and the consequential harmful effects that it would impose on small and medium sized enterprises.
I see the proposed legislation of making software patentable as a threat to an industry which requires creativity and innovation in order to thrive.
This directive would simply reduce competition hence leading to higher prices and lower quality for software consumers and non-technology businesses.
In my opinion, the anti-innovative behaviour that this directive would undoubtedly create would result in nothing but ruinous consequences to democracy, competition and employment.
   . I welcome today's rejection of the draft legislation on the patenting of software.
I joined this rejection after careful consideration and discussions on its implications with small and medium sized company directors from my constituency, which includes 1,500 technology companies with around 40,000 employees based around the hubs of Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire.
One small businessman told me that the proposed legislation was akin to patenting tomatoes in a recipe, so that no new recipe could ever be produced again which contained tomatoes.
Today's vote is a clear victory for creativity, entrepreneurship and common sense.
   .
I welcome the recommendations given in the report, in particular the acceptance of my opposition to arbitrary limits on maritime borders eligible for cross border cooperation, which would have left Norfolk and other parts of my constituency without the possibility to access funding, despite strong historical and cultural ties across the North Sea. My region has participated fully in inter-regional cooperation and Parliament's insistence that an independent strand is maintained for such cooperation is good for the East of England, Britain and all those who want to benefit by joint working and exchanges across European borders.
   .
I welcome the adoption of this interim report on the European Regional Development Fund, the European Social Fund and the European Cohesion Fund.
I am especially pleased that a new paragraph in Article 3 has been adopted, which states that regions affected by the statistical effect – such as the Algarve – must receive sufficient financial support to enable them to pursue the convergence process and that there should be no differential between them on the basis of population.
Those population-based criteria, which are contained in the Luxembourg Presidency’s negotiating package for the Financial Perspective 2007-2013, are devoid of any objective foundation.
They should therefore no longer act as a basis for unfair and disproportionate differentiations, and are little more than an afterthought in the history of solidarity between EU regions.
   . The Hatzidakis report sets out the European Parliament’s perspective on the future reform of structural funds.
The inclusion of ‘statistical effect’, the recognition of natural effect regions, the rejection of the 150 km limit for defining maritime regions, the emphasis on equality issues and the strengthening of environmental concerns should all be welcomed.
On Amendment 42 and original paragraph 13 the EPLP abstained due to the language of the text.
   . I welcome this report in general but am particularly pleased with the overwhelming support given to proposals to ensure non-discrimination and accessibility for 50 million disabled persons to goods and services, infrastructures, buildings and ICT funded by the new regulations for 2007-13.
The position adopted on Article 2 of the ERDF promoting social inclusion and recognising the need to remove barriers faced by disabled people in accessing goods and services in built up areas is particularly welcome.
   . The British Conservative party support the European Social Fund and in general the amendments made to the report by the rapporteur.
In particular, the initial block vote of 80 amendments contained positive modifications looking to promote women's participation in the labour market and promoting work-life balance.
However, Conservatives do not support amendment 58 which looked to specifically promote capacity-building and the networking activities of NGOs.
   . The Casa report reopens the CFP reforms negotiated in 2002.
The EPLP cannot back the report due to the report's inclusion of issues such as boat modernisation and renewal and joint ventures.
The use of public money to build new boats and therefore to increase capacity cannot be acceptable at a time when so many fish stocks are under threat.
If the European Parliament is serious about sustainability then it is a sad day that so many have backed this report.
   We voted in favour of the report on the mandate for the 2006 budget conciliation procedure before the Council’s first reading.
It constitutes a sound basis for the continued budget process.
We believe, however, that the structure of the EU budget must become more modern.
This requires, for example, reform of the common agricultural policy, with a reduction in the intervention prices in the agricultural markets, a reduction in direct aid and a gradual transition to national cofinancing.
A reduction in the amounts for the international fisheries agreements is also justified.
We also believe that cohesion policy should focus on the needs of the new Member States.
   I spoke in our plenary meeting in Luxembourg all those years ago in support of the first Live Aid event.
Today we have just seen the enormous upwelling of support again following Live 8 for Making Poverty History.
Yet politicians have failed to deliver, with almost a billion people in the world living on less than one euro a day.
Words are not enough; we need action.
The Globalisation Intergroup in Parliament, which I chair, has over 100 members.
We commit ourselves to pursuing fair trade and further aid here in Parliament.
This will require enormous resources.
We believe one source will be through promoting a capital transfer tax.
France and Belgium have already passed the necessary legislation and Italy is considering the same.
I call on all other Member States to look urgently to emulating them and, in doing so, to raise enough funds to provide basic housing, healthcare, sanitation and education for all those living on less than one euro a day.
   . I warmly welcome this resolution as a further step towards the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals, especially with regard to the G8 Summit currently being held in Gleneagles and the UK Presidency of the EU.
I particularly support the resolution's call on the UK to use its Presidency of the G8 to put poverty at the heart of the international as well as the European agenda, and for Member States to underline their commitment to the eradication of poverty by seizing the opportunities offered in the coming months.
Whilst focus on development policy must remain a key feature of the European Union after 2005, I strongly believe we must also be careful to maintain a balanced approach to the eradication of poverty, using Trade as central tool.
   . The 'Make Poverty History' campaign has placed the plight of the world's poorest at centre stage.
There is an opportunity, as the G8 begins its deliberations today in Scotland, to make real progress on Africa and climate change.
I hope the leaders will grasp this 'thistle' and make a real difference to those most in need.
   . Mr President, ten years ago, the presence of the Dutch armed forces gave the people of Srebrenica a false sense of security.
This place that was proclaimed a safe haven was an indefensible island in the middle of the much bigger Serbian Republic, which was, and still is, considered a safe haven by another section of the population.
By completely misjudging the situation, action was not taken in time to prevent the inevitable surrender from culminating in retaliation and even mass murder.
My group takes the view that the ultimate outcome would not have been much different had there been an EU centralised common foreign policy or a mandate that authorised Dutchbat to use more force and ensured support in the form of aerial bombardments.
If you want to guarantee the peaceful coexistence of the three nations in Bosnia, you have to look for solutions that are backed by all parties and not just by one or two that enjoy our favour.
Only a federative model that recognises diversity, along the lines of Belgium and Switzerland, can do justice to everyone.
We have to take as our starting point the reality that the North and East are very much oriented towards Serbia, and the South West towards Croatia, and that it is in those areas that most of the people live.
That is why Bosnia and Herzegovina need open borders with the neighbouring countries.
Any attempt to create a centralised, united state can only result in a permanent battle for power between the different sections of the population.
No one group should be able to dominate another; that is the lesson we should have learned from Srebrenica and from the chaotic implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we know that China, because of its influence over North Korea, holds the keys to peace in that region of the world.
However, the increasingly aggressive attitude of Communist China towards Taiwan constitutes a threat to this peace that is all the more serious because the leaders in Beijing have nuclear weapons. Ever since 1949, those leaders have never given up hope of annexing Taiwan, which has, thanks to the courage of its inhabitants, become one of the most dynamic economies in the Pacific and a model of democracy in a region where there are still many totalitarian regimes.
This aggression will not be appeased by the shady deals in which some European leaders are indulging, foremost among them being Mr Chirac, who has gone as far as inviting the Chinese Communist dictator to his chateau.
Only a firm, decisive attitude will bring the authorities in Beijing to make compromises and, in particular, to recognise the right of the Taiwanese to self-determination.
Until they do so, the Member States of the European Union must maintain the embargo on exporting arms to Communist China.
Were our governments to adopt a different policy, not only would they be betraying the values of freedom and democracy that they are always so proud of affirming, but they would also be seriously compromising the stability of the Far East.
   In the interests of ensuring that security is maintained and development continues in the Far East, I would like to call upon the governments of countries where disputes over territorial issues still persist to resolve these as soon as possible by means of bilateral negotiations.
In this day and age, the persistence of differences of opinion in connection with the Second World War is an indication that the region still needs to come to terms with its past history and work through it.
One issue relating to security in the region is the ‘anti-secession’ legislation passed by the Republic of China in March 2005.
I consider it important to maintain the in the region, and I support the peaceful resolution of the issue by means of dialogue between the parties, bearing in mind the ‘one China’ principle.
I would like to express my dismay regarding North Korea’s announcement in February 2005 that it possesses nuclear weapons, and that it is pulling out of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and suspending the six-party talks indefinitely.
I would like to make it clear that I still believe the multilateral, six-party talks provide the primary framework for resolving the issue, and that an agreement in principle reached on this basis is needed to ensure a Korean peninsula free from nuclear weapons.
I hope that North Korea will review its position as soon as possible, provide the appropriate international guarantees and return to the framework of the Treaty.
Fresh information concerning the unsatisfactory conservation and protection of the Parthenon friezes by the British Museum has been revealed in the UK press, refuting yet again the UK's argument that the friezes can be better protected in the British Museum.
What initiatives will the Council take to implement Parliament's resolution (3 November 1998) on the promotion of our common cultural heritage?
Will the Council offer its good offices to persuade the UK to accede to the request to return the marbles? Does it consider that an agreement to return the marbles would help enhance London's image in its bid to hold the Olympic Games in 2012?
   – Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I congratulate you on winning the 2012 Olympic Games and suppose that your government is interested in developing a spirit of ecumenicity with a view to organising these Olympic Games; I therefore wish to ask the Presidency if it intends to offer its good services by communicating with the British Government. so that it makes a decision on what the European Parliament has been calling for since 1998: for the Parthenon marbles to be returned within the next few years.
   I have heard the answer and am quite happy to forward evidence in my possession, through my office, to the relevant committee and, indeed, to the Presidency.
It surprises me somewhat that they do not have that information.
I can tell the House in very clear terms that there are disturbing allegations that EU Member States themselves have allowed their territory to be used as landing points for planes used in extraordinary renditions.
Member States that allow their territory to be used in this way and allow flights to leave in such circumstances are colluding in serious and persistent breaches.
What action does the Council plan to take to investigate these allegations and, if Member States are found to be responsible for such breaches, is the Council prepared to take action under Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union and suspend certain membership rights of those states?
Given the significant rise in attacks by the Burmese Army on Shan civilians and the severe abuses of human rights in Shan State (Burma), what concrete steps is the Council taking to put pressure on the Burmese authorities to end its brutality in the Shan province, and what measures are being taken to encourage the Thai authorities to face up to their responsibilities and provide vital protection and humanitarian assistance for refugees who are fleeing across the border into Thailand on a daily basis?
   . The Council has expressed its concerns regarding human rights in Burma at several meetings with Burmese leaders, most recently on 6 May, at a ministerial meeting with Burma held in the margins of the Asean Ministerial Conference in Kyoto.
At the EU-Asean ministerial meeting held in Jakarta in March, the Presidency met with a senior Burmese official to inform him of the European Union’s concerns and to encourage his authorities to attempt to initiate a dialogue with all the country’s political and ethnic groups in order to facilitate reconciliation and democracy in Burma.
On 17 June 2005, on the occasion of the 60th birthday of Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the Presidency made a declaration on behalf of the European Union in which it reiterated its concern at the current situation in Burma and the renewed tensions involving the nationalities, especially the Shan state and the Karen.
In that declaration it was pointed out that the European Union is committed to supporting national reconciliation and respect for human rights and democracy in Burma and a request was made to the state Peace and Development Council to enter into a genuine dialogue with the NLD and with ethnic representatives to find peaceful political solutions that take into account their legitimate concerns.
   .
On behalf of Simon Coveney who raised this issue, the question to the Council has to be: given what you have just outlined, how effective has all of this been and what other steps might be taken? I do not think anyone is satisfied that the actions so far have yielded any results.
   Without wishing to undermine the very serious question put by my good friend and colleague Claude Moraes, I notice that you welcome this particular agency.
I wondered if you could share with us your thoughts on how many agencies you believe the EU should have and whether you would agree with me that the EU generally needs fewer agencies and more action?
Is the Council aware of the exorbitant fees that some banks within the EU are charging for money transfers? For example, a constituent of mine was recently charged almost EUR 1 000 for transferring money from a bank in Spain to the UK.
Is the Council willing to consider regulating the fees that European bank customers can be charged for transferring money in the single market?
   I would like to bring to your attention a constituent who has just emailed me about outrageous FIFA charges for World Cup tickets for 2006.
It may interest you with regard to the London Olympics.
Apart from the price of the tickets, he was charged EUR 24 for the use of his MasterCard.
The tickets only cost EUR 149.
Is it not time to look, as my colleague said, at the fact that so much money can be made by those who do so little?
   . Madam President, I am happy to take questions 9, 10 and 11 together.
As the honourable Members are aware, the Council is committed to the fight against incitement to hatred in broadcasts.
Article 22(a) of the Television Without Frontiers Directive provides that Member States should ensure that broadcasts do not contain any incitement to hatred on grounds of race, sex, religion or nationality.
However, the directive does not apply to broadcasts intended exclusively for reception in third countries, nor to broadcasters not under the jurisdiction of a Member State.
Following the measures taken successfully by the French, Dutch and Spanish authorities on the basis of the directive, Al Manar is no longer broadcast by any EU-based satellite company and the Television Without Frontiers Directive no longer applies to it.
The Council discussed the issue of incitement to hatred in broadcasting from countries outside the European Union at its meeting on 23 May 2005 and took stock of work initiated to respond the problems posed by satellite broadcasting of non-EU channels in the European Union.
This followed a meeting of the presidents of national broadcasting regulatory authorities on 17 March 2005, which agreed to reinforce cooperation between the regulatory authorities and identified concrete measures to strengthen this cooperation, notably information exchange regarding channels authorised in Member States, establishing a contact point within each national authority.
In the Council, delegations took note of the measures and proposals outlined to combat incitement to hatred in broadcasts.
They recognise that consideration should be given to the means of combating more effectively the broadcasting of such material in the context of the revision of the Television Without Frontiers Directive, notably the adaptation of this instrument to the most recent technological developments.
   – Madam President, I would like to thank and congratulate the Spanish authorities, who have, in turn, just banned the television channel Al-Manar, which we are discussing here, from being broadcast via their satellite Hispasat.
Having said that, I would like to ask Mr Alexander two specific questions, because our information on latest developments seems to differ, as do our interpretations of certain articles in the Television Without Frontiers Directive.
France has therefore ordered Eutelsat to stop transmitting the signal.
Very good.
What of Globesat, which is a subsidiary of France Télécom and which has not, as far as I am aware, stopped providing the signal to other satellites that, in turn, transmit this signal beyond the borders of the European Union? Your answer appeared to me to be rather vague about the intentions of Nilesat and Arabsat, the Egyptian and Saudi satellites, which, by my reading of Article 2(4), are indeed covered by the provisions of the Television Without Frontiers Directive.
As you know, we have an association agreement with Egypt, so will this issue be raised? Has it already been?
We have a Council on 13 December: do you intend to discuss it then?
These are specific questions.
      Madam President, Mr Alexander, Spain did in fact resolve this problem only last week, but France has unfortunately not yet followed suit.
Mrs Ries is absolutely right in this respect.
This begs the question of whether a certain amount of pressure should not be brought to bear on the French authorities, and above all on the authorities of Saudi Arabia and Egypt, as Mr Tannock rightly said a short while ago.
In my opinion, this is also a task for the Council, and one that calls for a certain degree of diplomacy.
Mr Alexander, I wish you much success in your role as President-in-Office of the Council.
In view of the fact that Scotland will not be playing in the World Cup, Bertie Vogts should probably be sacked from his job as coach.
   . Following the declaration by the Heads of State and Government on 17 June on the ratification of the Constitutional Treaty, the Council has not taken a decision on what further steps, if any, might be taken on the preparations for the introduction of the European External Action Service.
Replying to me (question H-0377/05)(1) in the last session of Question Time, the Council was totally unable to answer my supplementary question but promised publicly to write to me with the answer.
How much longer must I wait before the answer will come?
   . Following the reply given by the Council representative to Question H-0377/05 during Council Question Time at the last European Parliament plenary session in Strasbourg on 8 June 2005, the honourable Member asked a supplementary question concerning the state of play as regards the transposition of Council Framework Decision No 2002/465/JHA of 13 June 2002 on joint investigation teams.
In reply to Question H-0377/05, the Council representative stated that 21 Member States had notified the General Secretariat of the Council that they had transposed the framework decision, but in two Member States the draft legislation transposing this decision had been, or would soon be, put before Parliament and that one Member State had announced that it had transposed the decision in part.
The supplementary question put by the honourable Member was aimed at finding out what the situation was in the 25th Member State.
On the basis of the information obtained, the Council can inform you that the 25th Member State – namely Italy – has informed the General Secretariat of the Council that the provisions implementing the Council Framework Decision of 13 June 2002 on joint investigation teams and the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 29 May 2000, are contained in draft law C2372, tabled by the government on 20 February 2002 and currently undergoing scrutiny in joint committees 2 – justice – and 3 – foreign affairs – of Italy’s Chamber of Deputies.
No estimate can be given for the moment of how long the Italian Parliament will take to approve this bill.
Considering the G8 meeting this week in Scotland, how does the Council plan to discuss its outcomes and any future actions required by the EU institutions?
   Before getting to the substance, I too should like to congratulate the President-in-Office, not just for the quality of his responses but for their speed.
He might be interested to note that I was speaking to a group of Scottish visitors just before coming back here for Question Time.
They asked me about the G8 and I told them that I had a question – No 16 – but there was no chance of reaching it, so I am very pleased that we have indeed reached it.
He is absolutely right to say that the G8 does not the European institutions, but it would be foolish of the EU institutions not to respond to the outcome of the G8 discussions.
He has already given a partial answer to this question, but will he go further and consider asking both the Commission and the Council Secretariat systematically to go through the G8 conclusions to see where follow-up action is required by the EU institutions?
   Can I say first say to the Minister that I have been very impressed with the British Government in its general handling of this issue, and I congratulate you.
I do not want to take from that by saying that Mr Blair really is not making sense when he says he is listening to the people on the subject of the Constitutional Treaty.
The people are not talking about the Constitutional Treaty.
We are talking about the Constitutional Treaty.
They are talking about the developing world.
Please continue to drive that agenda.
You have given great leadership on this issue.
Please do not drop the ball.
After the G8, after your Presidency here, we need that leadership very badly.
   . I am grateful to the honourable Member for his warm words of support for the leadership that Britain has offered both in the G8 and in the European Councils on this important matter.
We are definitely in agreement that the peoples of Europe care passionately about the issue of development.
I attended the rally that took place in Edinburgh, in my country of Scotland, at the weekend.
If, like me, you had been able to see in excess of 200 000 people gathered in that city, you would have been in no doubt whatsoever about the extent to which both the European Union and the Government of the United Kingdom are acting with the full support of people from right across Europe in pursuit of the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
However, it must be recognised, notwithstanding the level of public support for the action we have taken and, I hope, the further steps that we can take this week at Gleneagles, that the scale of the challenge we face is profound.
If you take, for example, the Millennium Development Goals, and in particular their aspirations for sub-Saharan Africa, the timescale set out by world leaders back in 2000 was 15 years for the achievement of those Millennium Development Goals.
At the present rate of progress in sub-Saharan Africa, some of these Millennium Development Goals will be met not in 15 years but in 150 years.
We are categorically of the view that this is too long to wait.
That is why we are so proud of the work that European Union institutions and European ministers of development – and, indeed, as reiterated in a decision by Ecofin when it met last month – have carried out in relation to advancing the cause of development in recent months and weeks and why we are determined to use the opportunities, not just of our Presidency of the European Union, but also the opportunities presented by the G8 this week, the Millennium Review Summit in September and the Doha talks in December, to try to continue to advance this vital and important agenda.
   . As the honourable Member is certainly aware, the Commission submitted an amended proposal regarding the revision of the organisation of the Working Time Directive on 31 May 2005 following adoption of Parliament’s opinion at first reading.
This proposal was discussed by the Council on 2 June.
However, owing to the short period of time left for examination, the Council was not in a position to assess all its implications.
The Council therefore instructed the Committee of Permanent Representatives to examine the amendment proposal with a view to the Council reaching an agreement as soon as possible.
The Standing Committee of Nurses of the EU (PCN) has called on EU Member States to create legislation, where it does not exist, on euthanasia and the roles and responsibilities of all healthcare workers, especially nurses.
The committee has maintained that there is medical practice taking place where life is being ended.
A report from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on the issue of assistance to patients at the end of life called for 'procedures and provisions clearly defining the responsibilities of medical and nursing staff and ensuring the traceability of all decisions and measures taken, thus facilitating effective monitoring’.
Does the Council agree with the concerns expressed by the PCN and will the Council make a statement on the matter?
   . The Community’s responsibilities in the field of public health are set out in Article 152 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.
In particular, Article 152(5) states that Community action in the field of public health shall fully respect the responsibilities of the Member States for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care.
The Council, therefore, has no competence as regards euthanasia.
   . With the greatest of respect to the questioner, I would reiterate the point I made in my initial answer, that the European Community does not have competence for the organisation and delivery of health services and medical care.
The present Treaty is quite clear on this point in relation to Article 152(5).
As such, the Council has no competence as regards euthanasia and so it cannot create legislation on this issue.
It cannot specify the roles and responsibilities of healthcare workers regarding euthanasia because Member States have the sole competence in this area.
It is therefore for Member States to ensure that they have procedures and provisions in place to define the roles and responsibilities of medical and nursing staff.
Member States are also responsible for monitoring these procedures.
   . The European Union has closely followed the evolution of the situation in Togo.
In a statement issued in the aftermath of the elections, the Presidency expressed its grave concern regarding the situation in Togo following the elections on 24 April and paid tribute to the people of Togo who took part in the ballot despite difficult conditions.
The Presidency also condemned the wave of violence and launched an urgent appeal to all the parties to restore calm.
In a declaration issued on 3 June, the European Union expressed its support for the initiatives taken by the African Union through its Peace and Security Council, in particular the appointment of a special envoy to facilitate dialogue between the Togolese parties and the decision to send an observer mission to monitor the political, security, social and humanitarian situation, as well as the human rights situation in the country.
The European Union also urged the Togolese authorities to carry out an impartial, exhaustive and credible investigation into the acts of violence against the civilian population.
The European Union raised the issue of Togo at the latest ministerial meetings with the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States, held on 11 April and 18 May respectively.
During those meetings it had the chance to discuss the complexities with regard to African mediation efforts and election monitoring.
The European Union declares that it is ready to support the national reconciliation process and it will continue to monitor the political situation in Togo closely, particularly in relation to the 22 engagements undertaken by the Togolese Government during the consultations under Article 96 of the Cotonou Agreement and reproduced in the Council Decision of 15 November 2004.
The next legislative elections in Togo figure among the election monitoring priorities established by the Commission for 2005.
The Commission will send an exploratory mission, which should report on the advisability of sending an election monitoring mission if a number of conditions are met: first, if a government is in place; second, if a consensus exists among the main political parties to respect the results of the elections: and, third, there is real progress on the 22 commitments.
   . In its conclusions on Cuba, which were adopted on 13 June 2005, the Council drew on the 1996 Common Position, the relevance and validity of which it reaffirms.
Consequently, the European Union aims to encourage a process of transition to pluralist democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and sustainable recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people.
This approach has never been called into question by any of the Member States.
The Council has taken a firm position, especially in relation to the human rights situation which, according to these conclusions, should be raised at every high-level visit.
This Council has also expressed regret at the lack of any further advance since the release of several political prisoners imprisoned in March 2003.
It has, in particular, condemned the action taken by the Cuban authorities to curb freedom of expression, assembly, and freedom of the press.
Furthermore, the Council has categorically condemned Cuba’s unacceptable attitude to foreign parliamentarians and journalists who attended the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, on 20 May 2005, and were either expelled or denied entry into Cuba.
Moreover, closer relations with the peaceful political opposition and with broader sectors of Cuban civil society through intense and regular dialogue decided at the end of January have produced satisfying results.
The Council decided to maintain this dialogue and indeed intensify it according to the agreed guidelines.
These meetings of representatives of the European Union and of the Member States with the peaceful opposition will continue to take place.
The Council has decided to reconsider its position in the context of evaluation of the common position in June 2006.
   The next item is the report by Mr Timothy Kirkhope, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, 1. on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Community, of the Agreement between the European Community and Switzerland concerning the criteria and mechanisms for establishing the State responsible for examining a request for asylum lodged in a Member State or in Switzerland [13049/2004 COM(2004)0593 C6-0240/2004 2004/0200(CNS)] and
2. on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Community, of the Agreement between the European Union, the European Community and the Swiss Confederation concerning the latter's association with the implementation, application and development of the Schengen Acquis [13054/2004 COM(2004)0593 C6-0241/2004 2004/0199(CNS)] (A6-0201/2005).
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as a Member whose electoral district is directly adjacent to Switzerland, I do of course share with Mr von Wogau a fundamental interest in good, and above all close, cooperation between the European Union and that country.
Although I do not wish to say anything about the legal basis, on which I can do no other than agree with Mr Kirkhope, Members of this House are getting the impression that cooperation between the Member States on the one hand and the European Union – with which Switzerland has been in negotiations – on the other is not all that our constituents have a right to expect.
I do believe, though, that, despite everything, this agreement adds up – bearing in mind the fact that the Agreement on the free movement of persons has to be added on 25 September – to an advance for those who live in our electoral district, for Schengen and Dublin are about closer and therefore better cooperation in the control of persons and are thus of benefit to internal security.
It is not only the Swiss who stand to gain from this; so do our fellow-citizens.
It is, though, because both the European Union and Switzerland must benefit from their mutual cooperation that I share the view that the Schengen Agreement and the Agreement on the free movement of persons must complement one another like two sides of a single coin.
Particularly in view of the ongoing problems with borders, which we will be discussing with our Swiss opposite numbers at the meeting of the SINEEA delegation in Fribourg next week, it is right and proper that the Commission should tell them that we have to regard Schengen as inseparable from the Agreement on the free movement of persons, and this, as Mr von Wogau so rightly said, should not, if at all possible, be seen as the end, but rather as the beginning, of a process by which the Swiss will come to agree to other closer cooperative relationships.
It is because I believe this to be in the interests of the people on the Upper Rhine that I regard Mr Kirkhope’s report as worthy of support, and, although it is not for me to give an opinion on the legal issues he has addressed, it has mine.
   The next item is the report by Gabriele Zimmer, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on the impact of the lending activities of the European Community in developing countries [2004/2213(INI)] (A6-0183/2005).
   The next item is the statement by the Commission on the implementation of the Community action plan FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade).
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Kauppi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on Clearing and Settlement in the European Union [2004/2185(INI)] (A6-0180/2005).
   . I am going to begin by refuting what my fellow Member, Mr Karas, said concerning disinformation.
I come from Hungary, one of the new Member States that was able to participate as an observer in the work of Parliament from the time the Accession Treaty was signed.
We would like the same to happen now, too.
Given that both Romania and Bulgaria signed the Treaty of Accession on 25 April, the road has been open for them too – in my view – from that day onwards.
The other comment I would like to make to my fellow Member, relates to ’how seriously we take ourselves’.
The Conference of Presidents – a body democratically elected by us in this House – decided on 9 June to send the letter of invitation to the representatives of the two countries in question.
I therefore think that we will be taking ourselves seriously if we keep our word regarding this letter, and actually welcome our new colleagues warmly to the Parliament from 26 September.
Aside from this, it is my opinion that on 25 October, when the monitoring report is issued, it would be a pleasure (for you too, I am sure,) if our fellow representatives were able to participate as observers in the work of the sitting.
After all, it is only by doing this that they will be able to take home first-hand news of areas where there are still shortcomings.
Only by being here with us will they be able to obtain first-hand information regarding their progress in eliminating the shortcomings mentioned by Commissioner Olli Rehn, on the legislative work under way all summer in Bulgaria, and on the implementation of existing legislation.
If they know what the problem is and how to solve it; if they know what proposals are being put forward (or reservations expressed) concerning them by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) or European Democrats or by the other side; if they are here and we are able to work together with them.
This is why I think we should welcome them, and I agree with what Commissioner Olli Rehn said regarding preparedness.
Eighteen months is indeed a long time.
We had less time, but the biggest reservation concerning these two countries continues to be that they are less advanced in terms of meeting the accession requirements than the ten countries that most recently acceded.
For this reason, I think that in their case eighteen months is not a long time.
By the time of their accession on 1 January 2007, they must learn how to do the work that we do here, taking each other’s words into account and taking each other seriously.
   There is no question that the accession process must not be allowed to come to a halt, given that all of us believe Romania’s accession is necessary as the only possible means of providing this people, who have suffered so many trials and tribulations, with reasonable prospects for the future at last.
It can provide a solution to many as yet unresolved problems; many Romanian children – both Roma and non-Roma – may be freed from the dangers of poverty as a result; environmental protection, including the issue of Rosia Montana (Verespatak) may – I hope – be resolved in a European manner.
Perhaps Romania’s Hungarian minority may even gain independence.
Parliament must play a key role in this process.
We must be rigorous in calling Romania to account, as problems are not solved by sweeping them under the carpet.
The Commission’s progress report in October provides the last chance to resolve any dilemmas that persist.
The issue is such a serious one and our task so laden with responsibility that we cannot allow it to become the subject of political jousting between parties.
The accession process must not be allowed to stall.
At the same time, accession is only really meaningful if every citizen of Romania gains from it – including the 1.7 million-member Hungarian minority.
For this to become a reality in everyday life, and not just a pretty catch-phrase, compliance with the accession commitments is crucial.
It is this that will bring the much-needed modernisation to Romania at every level.
This is why your responsibility is huge, Commissioner, when preparing the report, and so is ours as a Parliament, when it comes, we hope, to deciding once again on the report.
These are the really crucial issues.
As you said, Commissioner, ‘every day, every week, every month counts’.
   Mr President, our Parliament overwhelmingly approved the accessions of Romania and Bulgaria to full membership of the European Union during our plenary session in April.
The week before, our Parliament’s JPC delegation, chaired by my group colleague Mr Podestà, visited our Romanian parliamentary colleagues and met with the President, the Prime Minister and the Home Affairs and Justice Ministers.
On 9 June the Conference of Presidents sent the invitation to the Romanian and Bulgarian Parliaments to nominate their European Parliament observers and for them to take up their duties on 26 September.
Last week I was invited to return to Bucharest to address the appointed observers.
I regret the European Parliament appears just now not to have maintained a consistent common approach, and that my own Group at present may not be wholly associated with the joint motion for a resolution to be voted tomorrow.
I have had the privilege of belonging to the PPE Group for over 15 years.
It is a privilege I firmly intend to preserve.
I hope, even at this hour, we may come back to a common agreed position.
We have given our word, expressed in our name by the President of our Parliament to the observers, that they should take up their duties from 26 September.
If we were to go back on our word, what signal would that send to Romania; to those brave statesmen, politicians and public servants who are struggling to bring democracy, economic, administrative and legal reforms? They regard the prospect of EU membership as the guarantee that they will achieve their goal.
Let us remember the difficult history of these countries.
In Bucharest, before the Senate House, opposite the Royal Palace, there is a memorial inscribed with the words ‘Glorie martirilor nostri’ dated December 1989.
It commemorates the fact that over 1 000 young people, students and soldiers lost their lives demonstrating and defending the demands for freedom.
How should we honour their memory? This moment of uncertainty in the EU is a time for our Parliament to show courage and perseverance.
We have given our word.
We intend to abide by it and welcome the Romanian observers as promised on 26 September this year so that together we may work for a further successful enlargement of our European Union.
   – The next item is the report (A6-0131/2005) by Marie Anne Isler Béguin, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the Financial Instrument for the Environment (LIFE +) (COM(2004)0621 – C6-0127/2004 – 2004/0218(COD)).
   .
Mr President, before commenting on the characteristics of this project, I would like to express my thanks not just to Mrs Isler Béguin, but also to Mrs Lienemann, the other shadow rapporteurs and the officials and advisors who are working extremely hard to reach a consensus on this project.
We have achieved extraordinary consensus in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety: everybody has introduced their points of view and, although there are apparently not many amendments, a new spirit has been introduced and the LIFE programme has been enriched, in cooperation with the Commission.
How has it been enriched? In my opinion, we have introduced several new aspects.
Firstly, this project has placed great emphasis on the management of natural resources.
It is also of great educational importance in terms of teaching how to govern and manage the environment.
Furthermore, we have insisted on an institutional presence in the form of the municipalities and regions as local authorities that have to re-evaluate their resources.
In this regard, I would also like to stress another element: the introduction of landscapes deserving of respect that have not been integrated into the Natura 2000 list, such as certain rivers, but which may be important shared spaces.
There is another innovation: the concept has been introduced, and the idea strengthened, of international projects and cross-border projects.
Why? Because natural spaces are usually in border zones and in mountainous areas.
Rivers are a clear case in point: the logical thing would be to create a LIFE for rivers one day, because rivers cross many countries.
Furthermore, I must say something else: we have created a market spirit for Natura 2000.
We believe that, in this case, we must imitate United States policy by creating banks for wetlands and banks for natural areas, so that the Member States can compensate proprietors, creating, shall we say, an area of exchange of ownership for the Natura 2000 zone.
In this way, the companies and many others who also have to take initiatives on the ground may contribute economically to compensating, by means of the ‘polluter pays’ principle, for their passage through those protected territories.
They may do so through active and positive policies for the conservation of the natural environment, funded by private bodies and by institutions.
This is therefore not just another LIFE programme; it is a project based on a consensus which I believe has been guided by great common sense; I therefore congratulate everybody.
   Mr President, I should like, in my turn, to thank our rapporteur, Mrs Isler Béguin, for the quality of this collaborative work and her energetic commitment to this issue.
During the June part-session, our Parliament, in its resolution on policy challenges and budgetary means of the enlarged Union, sent out a very clear political signal for protecting the planet, nature and biodiversity.
It is essential to ensure the smooth operation of the Natura 2000 network, the core issue of this debate.
Mrs Lienemann has just reminded us of this.
The experts in the Commission have, moreover, calculated that Natura 2000 will need EUR 21 billion over seven years.
We are aware that the Fund for Rural Development and the Structural Funds are not going to meet all of these needs.
We therefore have to strengthen LIFE +, the specific financial instrument for the environment with which we have been equipped since 1992.
I should therefore like to address two main criticisms to the Commission, which I share with our rapporteur.
The first concerns the initial sum of EUR 300 million, which is, of course, hugely insufficient.
Behind this battle of figures, it is Europe’s desire to take up major challenges such as air quality, water quality, spatial planning and sustainable waste management that is at stake here.
The second criticism is as follows: I believe that the European Commission must not offload its responsibilities with regard to the environment.
The strategy of integrating the environment in all of the Union’s policies has its limits, Commissioner.
That is why the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe will support Amendments 42, 43 and 44.
The European Parliament will always support you in opposing this kind of environmental Europe, an environmental Europe that in certain respects is in decline, and in all respects is optional, and which is imposed by certain Member States that appear to have chosen to withdraw into themselves.
   Mr President, the G8 leaders in Scotland are exercised about the sustainability of our world.
If they travelled a little way to the Cairngorm Mountains and the Abernethy Forest Reserve, they would see one of Europe's Natura 2000 sites, covering 13 000 hectares of ancient Caledonian pinewood, moorland, lochs and mountains, which is the habitat for rare species such as the capercaillie and the black grouse.
The former, which was previously thought to be the bird most likely to become extinct in the United Kingdom within 15 years, is now doubling its numbers.
The reserve, with its osprey centre, attracts some 100 000 visitors a year and GBP 1.7 million a year and provides 87 jobs in a previously poor rural economy.
We are seeing such results all over Europe, from Scotland to Spain to Germany.
The Iberian lynx in Spain has been saved by Natura 2000.
In Brandenburg, where the great bustard population had fallen from 4 000 in the 1930s to a few hundred, 9 500 hectares of monoculture have transformed its prospects and also brought economic benefit to an economically depressed area.
We are talking about our European heritage, which we have a duty to protect.
LIFE + is the new financial instrument that, with the Structural Funds and Fund for Rural Development, will enable Natura 2000 to continue to succeed.
On 8 June, Parliament voted for ‘a significantly strengthened LIFE + programme’.
I know that the budget will not be easy this year, but we pick up the proposal for a ring-fenced amount of EUR 21 billion over seven years in that resolution of 8 June.
We suggest how LIFE + could be significantly strengthened.
LIFE III, with its three components of nature, environment and third countries, has been a success in all respects, but particularly perhaps in the Natura 2000 sites of LIFE Nature.
LIFE + will take this forward and this report will help that process.
I hope that the Commission will respond supportively, constructively and imaginatively.
      Mr President, the proposal to integrate existing environmental support programmes into a single financial instrument, LIFE +, is justified since it provides a guarantee that actions will not be duplicated.
It is also a sensible idea to harmonise and simplify principles and procedures.
The aim of the LIFE + programme is to safeguard funding for actions that will be ineligible for support under the EU’s other financial instruments.
Given the current challenges we need to address in the field of environmental protection, this approach is entirely justified.
The key problem we face with regard to the LIFE + programme, however, is fulfilling the tasks of co-financing, creating and implementing the Natura 2000 network.
The priorities set for the LIFE + programme give due consideration to issues relating to the protection of nature and biodiversity, including the Natura 2000 network.
At the same time, however, it is emphasised that co-financing for the Natura 2000 network is only to be provided on a complementary basis, which means that support is to be provided under the European Regional Development Fund and the Cohesion Fund.
I am concerned at the fact that whilst the concept of the Natura 2000 network in Europe has evolved, this has not been backed up by an appropriate guarantee of funding for the creation and maintenance of this network.
No clear details have been provided regarding the principles according to which funding can be obtained for protection measures for Natura 2000 sites between 2007 and 2013, and this will undoubtedly mean shortfalls in funding for the Natura 2000 network.
It will then be impossible to implement many much-needed protection measures.
For example, the majority of areas designated as Natura 2000 sites in Poland and other countries will not be covered by the funds indicated.
Such areas include land that is part of national forests, or peat bogs, swamps, natural grasslands, dunes, moorlands and scrublands that are not used for agricultural purposes.
In the context of the European Commission’s letter of 6 January 2005, which suggested that consideration be given to the possibility of extending the list of Natura 2000 sites in Poland, which could mean that up to 20% of the country would be covered by such sites, a guarantee of separate funding for the establishment of the Natura 2000 network has taken on even greater significance for Poland and other countries.
   Mr President, Commissioner Dimas, I do not envy you, Commissioner, your present position, for, on Monday, you had to account to the House for the deferment of the thematic strategies that the Commission had announced and on which it is now evidently unwilling to deliver, while today we are discussing LIFE +, the new financial instrument, and we are not exactly of one mind on that either.
This LIFE instrument, which first saw the light of day in 1992, is, however, something on which I very much want to congratulate the Commission, for in creating it, it fashioned a trailblazing programme for European environmental policy.
The important thing about it is that it was intended to implement the Birds Directive, the Habitats Directive and the Flora and Fauna Directive, and to provide the financial means whereby this could be done.
It was significant that the Commission opted for the integrated management approach, one that I too wholeheartedly endorse, for it is the remarkable thing about this programme and not to be found in any of the others.
We are now discussing the new proposal, which is to cover the period from 2007 to 2013, and is also intended to help achieve the objectives of the EU’s Sixth Environment Action Programme.
As a great deal is being said about Lisbon in this House, I would remind you that one of the objectives to be achieved by the ‘Lisbon Year’ of 2010 is to check the loss of biodiversity in Europe, and that, free-standing though this objective is, it also has socio-economic implications.
Speaking as one who comes from a region in which tourism plays a very major role, I can say that our capital consists principally in the biodiversity and natural wealth that our region possesses.
It is important that this new programme should continue to guarantee financial support for the Natura network.
Although there is no doubt that the Commission’s choice of the integrated approach in collaboration with the Regional Development Fund has been the right one, I would like to raise the objection that this involves us pursuing different objectives, resulting in a conflict the resolution of which is absolutely necessary if we are to strike the necessary balance between both aspects – rational regional development on the one hand and the protection of nature on the other.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I too welcome the Commission’s proposal for simplifying the funding and administration of the existing environmental programmes and, in LIFE +, combining them into one single financial instrument.
I, too, am all in favour of protecting the environment and of making whatever financial provision is necessary for it, and I would be happy if we were able today to make generous financial arrangements for the protection of nature.
I do believe, though that the failure of our financial planning for 2007-2013 means that it would be unrealistic to make specific financial demands today, and an illusion to believe that we can.
Right now, we do not know how much the overall European budget will add up to.
We all know that the whole house, the financial framework, must be standing before we can furnish the rooms.
We have given a very full description of the way in which the Structural Funds and rural development, on the one hand, compete against LIFE + on the other.
As things stand at present, we have to ask ourselves which measures it makes sense to promote through LIFE +, and which tasks should continue to be entrusted to the Member States. Should not, for example, the protection of forests remain a responsibility and task for the Member States?
Why, for that matter, should the acquisition of land be funded by LIFE + money? The assumption is being made here that the mere acquisition of a plot of land by an environmental organisation itself protects the environment, but what is at issue is not to whom the land belongs, but how it is managed; to put it another way, its management as a FFH area, a habitat for flora and fauna, has to be ensured and promoted, with the resultant tasks and costs being covered by LIFE +.
Proper management of areas of land is what protection of the environment is all about, and it ends up being much better value for money too.
I am strongly opposed to the institutional support of non-governmental organisations; LIFE + must not be used to underwrite such bodies’ administrative costs, but to fund projects that are of practical benefit to the environment.
   – Mr President, I would like to take my turn in congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Béguin, and the shadow rapporteurs for the excellent work which they have presented.
The need to finance LIFE + has a clear European dimension and value.
The deterioration in the environment and ever increasing environmental issues, often of a cross-border nature, make it necessary to change the pan-European and global approach.
In order to achieve this, it is necessary, together with investments in the environmental sector, for environmental actions under all programmes to be monitored both inside and outside the European Union, in order to ensure they function better and are more fully coordinated.
The concept of protection of nature and biodiversity needs to be introduced as a basic feature in thematic priorities for the financing of the LIFE + programme, as a basic line of approach and actions in the new financing tool.
This programme will need to be in a position to finance other actions, such as Natura 2000, which no other programme can cover.
Thus there will also be a commitment from other financing instruments to meet such requirements.
Commissioner, I believe that the increase which the European Parliament is calling for is the minimum required for the serious operation of LIFE +, which aims at basic aspects of environmental policy, which are information, awareness-raising among citizens and, most importantly, control of the application of this policy.
   Mr President, if you will allow me to briefly react, could I ask you, Commissioner, which side you are on? Did we not all agree to reduce the sum of EUR 21 billion to EUR 9 billion, which really is the minimum?
You say, however, that nothing has been agreed in the financial perspectives, while Mr Böge stated that Natura 2000 cost EUR 21 billion.
We need to have the guarantee that this EUR 21 billion will indeed be shared out across the budget. We believe that agriculture can take a third and that the Structural Funds can take another third.
It is therefore for the environment to take its third.
   – The next item is the report (A6-0193/2005) by Tokia Saïfi, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on textiles and clothing after 2005 (2004/2265 (INI)).
   –Mr Allister, Parliament, which, I believe, in its entirety supports the condemnation of terrorism that you have just made, also expresses every sympathy for the injured, since at present we still do not know whether there have been any fatalities.
Terrorism, since that is apparently what we are concerned with here, will always be met by Europeans who are prepared for terrorists and who refuse to yield.
We know that there were several major events in London yesterday, a happy event with London being chosen as the 2012 Olympic city, and the G8 taking place.
What has happened, therefore, is certainly no coincidence.
Let us then condemn these acts in the strongest possible terms.
   – The textile sector was the first sector of EU industry to feel the pain of changes in the global market.
New market participants have appeared on the textile market, above all China and India.
It is sad to hear statements by European Union officials that when China's membership of the WTO was negotiated ten years ago, no one imagined such growth in China.
Textiles and other sectors with problems show that this is not about a single European state's inability to manage its economy.
It is a problem for the majority of industrial sectors in the whole of Europe.
While having an industrial policy, the European Union only really predicts the general direction for growth and employment.
The sectors recommended for expansion are not identified; this is a matter for the Member States.
As a counterbalance to China, the rapporteur proposes to concentrate textile production in the Mediterranean region.
However, this will definitely not stop China, and Europe will have new competitors.
There is a need for an analysis and long-term development forecast of EU industrial sectors, taking into account the appearance of new market participants and the division of markets.
I therefore invite the European Parliament to urge the European Commission to prepare proposals to amend industrial policy, to forecast long-term industrial development up to 2030-2050 and to submit recommendations to industry about sectors of the future that should begin to be invested in now.
If we do not undertake such measures, a Chinese ‘tsunami’ will devastate industry in Europe.
   – We will now interrupt this debate, which will resume at 3 p.m.
   . Mr President, on behalf of the rapporteur and under Rule 53 of the Rules of Procedure, I would like to ask the Commission if it is now prepared to accept the amendments of this House.
   . Honourable Members, the Commission maintains its position as stated yesterday by my colleague Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, meaning that the consultation of the European Parliament is required.
   – Mr President, I should like to make a practical proposal: we were unable to vote on Mrs Saïfi’s report on the textile industry this morning and I know that it is scheduled to be put to the vote this afternoon.
I believe that, given the considerable implications of the textiles issues, not least for employment, we ought not to vote on such a matter rather hastily this afternoon.
I suggest postponing the vote to the next part-session.
   Mr President, I think Mr Wurtz has got it absolutely right; what matters is not that we have not yet brought the debate to a conclusion, for that is in order.
What matters is that, instead of holding the vote today, we should wait until the next part-session, which will be in September, and vote then.
I strongly support the motion.
   – Mr President, I very well understand the arguments put forward by my fellow Members: they are right that the textiles issue is a fundamental one.
I should simply like to remind you that the part-session in Strasbourg concludes on Thursday afternoons at around 5 p.m. and that Members should be in attendance.
Requesting such postponements means finally accepting that we do not work up to the end of our part-sessions as they are scheduled.
I genuinely regret that.
   . I'm voting today for my Report on the initiative by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg with a view to adopting a Council decision adjusting the basic salaries and allowances applicable to Europol staff because we have received some assurances that there will be a greater level of accountability and transparency in the way that Europol's activities are conducted.
Europol is extremely important to European citizens and to the European Parliament.
Its activities on issues such as drug trafficking, illegal trafficking of human beings and other organised crime is vital work which has increasing importance with the enlargement of the EU and potential further enlargements.
In voting for my Report, I have noted the EP Hearing with the new Director in June 2005 of Europol and the EP visit to Europol's Headquarters in April 2005.
It is important we support the work of Europol, but that, in turn, the Council understand the urgent need for accountability and transparency in Europol's core work.
At present we have not yet achieved this level of accountability.
   . I voted for this report.
Life + is the key instrument for the development, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and communication of community environmental policy and legislation.
It will notably support the implementation of the 6th Environment Action Programme.
We must ensure that a proper budget is established for Life + commensurate with its ambitious goals.
   . The massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia, ten years ago should never be forgotten.
In July 1995, the Bosnian Serb army took control of the small spa town which had been declared as a UN ‘safe area’.
Within five days 7 000 men and boys were brutally murdered.
This was the worst case of genocide in Europe since the Second World War.
A decade later and still the men who ordered the massacre are at large.
The EU must do all it can to put pressure on the relevant authorities to capture and put to trial those responsible for this atrocity.
   . The illegal and unsustainable exploitation of forests has a devastating effect on both mankind and nature.
In vulnerable regions such as the Amazon, Central Africa, South-East Asia and Russia more than half of the logging activities are illegal.
The government of Brazil announced last year that the destruction of the world's largest tropical forest, the Amazon, proceeds apace.
In the 12-month period ending last August, farming and logging, much of it illegal, destroyed 10,000 square miles of forest.
This was the biggest one-year loss since 1995, when the Amazon shrank by about 11,000 square miles.
Internationally the EU has committed itself to protect the last ancient forests and to fight the illegal exploitation and trade of timber through CITES, WSSD and CBD.
In May 2003 the European Commission published the Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade Action Plan.
I urge them to speed up implementation of this important initiative.
   . My intention was to abstain on the vote on the resolution as a whole on the Kauppi report.
   Mr President, I voted in favour of the resolution on the admission of observers from Bulgaria and Romania to the European Parliament.
I believe that that is an extremely important step forward towards the day marking the full membership of these, the last two ex-Communist states, which, in my opinion, ought to have been accepted with the other eight countries on 1 May 2004.
Within the Italian national anthem is the line ‘’, which – I will say it for the benefit of the interpreters – means ‘let us all join together for the coming battles’.
The terrible news that we received a short while ago from London prompts me to say that, if all of the European Member States remain united, we will be able to defend ourselves far better from the insane attacks against democracy, as is happening at this very moment in London.
   .
Mindful of the state of negotiations on Bulgaria’s prospective EU accession, of the difficulties that remain to be overcome and of the most recent accession processes, I feel that, although this process might take longer, the same conditions should be set for Bulgaria and its politicians as those set for other countries at the same stage.
I therefore welcome the decision adopted by the Conference of Presidents on 9 June to invite the parliaments of Bulgaria and Romania to appoint parliamentary observers and to welcome those representatives from 26 September 2005 until the countries formally join the EU.
   We shall continue with the debate on the report by Mrs Saïfi, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on textiles and clothing after 2005 [2004/2265(INI)] (A6-0193/2005).
   – Mr President, the recent EU-China agreement is a positive development and we must acknowledge the important contribution made by Commissioner Mandelson to the final outcome.
This agreement gives the European textile industry some breathing space but, more importantly, it allows for crucial strategic decisions to be taken even now as regards the regrouping and modernisation of the textile sector in Europe.
Today, international developments in competition are forcing companies into making progress in leaps and bounds, into technological modernisation, innovation, research, technology and lifelong learning.
That is why the European Union must develop the structural policies and Structural Funds for the textile industry, develop the Seventh Framework Programme for research and development, create a specific Community programme for the development of the textile and clothing sectors, dynamically develop the institutional possibilities offered by the WTO to overturn China's social and environmental dumping and combat the problem of child labour by taking, where necessary, specific defensive trade measures, by safeguarding and defending free and equal access to third country markets and pure competition for European products, by defending consumer rights, by combating piracy and imitations and protecting intellectual property rights and by taking initiatives for a new integrated cooperation agreement with China to replace the 1985 cooperation agreement, which has basically been overtaken by international developments.
I should like to take advantage of Commissioner Michel's presence here to finish by saying that the Commission will also need to step up its investigation into uncontrolled imports of Chinese shoes, which have created serious problems in European countries such as Greece.
      In view of the inroads China is making into the EU market, this report is too little, too late.
The future of 170 000 companies and 2.5 million workers in Europe is at stake, as well as a market worth EUR 185 billion.
One need look no further than the US for a good example of how not to take decisions on this matter.
Within two years of quotas being lifted in 2002, China had gained a 65% market share in the country.
The Chinese problem consists not only in cheap clothing imports, but also in unfair practices such as state subsidies, tax breaks, land distribution and subsidised energy and transport.
If we wish to stop China in its tracks and to keep jobs in Europe, we should convene an extraordinary WTO session to discuss how we can prevent global trade being dominated by a single supplier.
At the same time, we should launch the emergency procedure provided for in the guidelines for invoking the safeguard clauses, and set up a new programme to secure funding for regions where the sector provides jobs for workers who would otherwise be unemployed, and ensures that women are not forced into inferior jobs.
We should make funding available for restructuring under the new Financial Perspective, and for new solutions and the implementation of research results in the SME sector under the Seventh Framework Programme.
EU policies should be targeted at modernising industry, as otherwise the Electronic Proposal Tool will never be anything but a dead duck.
The governments of heavily industrialised Member States should be granted derogations from the ban on subsidies, and an impact assessment must be carried out for REACH in order to ensure that it does not act as a brake on the competitiveness of European industry.
A consolidated market should be set up under the EU-Mediterranean agreements, and a similar platform should be established in the Baltic region.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Duarte Freitas, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation laying down specific measures for agriculture in the outermost regions of the Union [COM(2004)0687 – C6-0201/2004 – 2004/0247(CNS)] (A6-0195/2005).
   – This is just to inform Mr Michel that he is very much mistaken as regards the ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Communities, which referred the decision on this case to the Portuguese judicial system.
I will be delighted to avail him of the relevant judgment of the Portuguese Supreme Court, which says exactly the opposite of what the Commission continues to allege.
It thus appears that the Commission is unaware of the reason of justice, which is absolutely clear and unequivocal.
   The next item is the debate on seven motions for resolutions concerning Zimbabwe(1).
   Mr President, the situation in Zimbabwe is going from bad to worse now.
The latest piece of brutality, known as Operation Drive Out Rubbish, involves knocking down whole areas of cities.
The UN estimates that more than 200 000 people are without roofs over their heads, and many of them are in danger of dying of cold now.
The violent and systematic persecution of Mugabe’s critics is developing into a humanitarian disaster.
According to the BBC, Methodist bishops have warned of genocide in the last day or two.
The responses from the surrounding world are still too feeble, and the sanctions adopted are scarcely being implemented properly.
The worst thing, however, is that the SADC countries, and South Africa in particular, are still protecting Mugabe and accepting the huge sufferings he is inflicting upon his people.
All this was aired recently in the hearing in the Committee on Development, but there were also proposals about what might be done.
First and foremost, the EU must put far greater pressure on both the UN and the SADC, especially South Africa, and so at long last comply with the responsibility it has by virtue of its own strength.
Over and above that, it can, in entirely practical terms, increase its support for civil society both within and outside Zimbabwe with a view to developing a human rights culture and producing more documentation about human rights violations.
It can increase support for the victims of torture and of organised violence both in Zimbabwe and in exile and it can provide proper legal aid in connection with obviously unjustified legal proceedings brought against human rights campaigners and those who support, or are believed to support, the opposition.
There can be support for a free press, with news sent from Britain and neighbouring countries, partly in the form of newspapers published there.
All this will cost a lot of money, however.
In short, we are pleased about the resolution, but we should like to take the opportunity to emphasise these practical opportunities for offering help, and we hope that the Commission will look sympathetically at them.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions concerning trafficking in children in Guatemala(1).
   . Mr President, in the previous debate, we concluded that Zimbabwe has now turned into a hell, but the same can said of Guatemala, which has, however, been in the grip of misery for much longer.
Since the in 1954, which removed from office a government that had intended to free the country from poverty and backwardness, hardly anything has gone right for Guatemala, and it has been under the constant rule of governments lacking even the least concern for the weakest groups in society or for human rights, and with a long tradition of using violence and other forms of intimidation against anyone who seeks to improve the situation.
The backwardness of the past 50 years is exemplified by the absence of any legislation criminalising child trafficking, by the falsification of government documents, the many homicides that go unpunished, the obstruction of human rights activists in their activities, the poverty in which 56% of the population live, and lack of almost any opportunity for the indigenous peoples to take part in political decision making.
Not only in Zimbabwe, but at least to the same extent in Guatemala, there is every reason for the European Union to help bring about sweeping changes.
It therefore follows that my group is firmly behind the proposed resolution.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions concerning human rights in Ethiopia(1).
   Mr President, the Saïfi Report was on the voting list for this evening rather than for midday.
It was, however, dropped at midday, and that after the voting was already over and many of us had already left the Chamber.
On re-reading the Rules of Procedure, it is quite clear to me that Article 170(4) states that the deferment of a vote may be moved before the vote takes place.
It follows that Mr Schulz could now move that the Saïfi Report be deferred, but the reason why he cannot do that is clear to see, for he is obviously not even here.
It is my view that we can no longer accept the Rules of Procedure being used in this way.
The report could have been voted on now, but the reason why it was not scheduled to be voted on this evening was that there would have been a clear majority in favour of voting on it, for those who are present now are the ones who work right up to the last minute.
What happened at noon today was the action of those who are too lazy to stick it out right through to the end of the sitting.
   Mr President, I would like to make a correction.
Mr Posselt is evidently unaware that the motion originated, not from Mr Schulz but from somebody else.
I might add that the vote went the way it did thanks to a majority far in excess of the number of Members present at the moment, and that makes it democratic.
   Mr President, I have to say, in support of the speech by my excellent fellow MEP, Mr Posselt that, from a certain point of view, we are very surprised at what has happened regarding the Saïfi report.
I should like us to evaluate the consequences for it is, at root, a sign addressed to all those who care about the Strasbourg seat.
Everyone knows that this seat is threatened.
Let us think again about this morning’s vote.
Independently of the issue raised by Mrs Saïfi’s report on an important subject, namely textiles, the debate on which ought not, in my opinion, to have been postponed for two months, given that it was an urgent matter, there is, in addition, the signal we have sent out by admitting that, as from 12.30 p.m. on Thursdays, it is impossible to do anything important in the Chamber of Parliament’s seat in Strasbourg, which I consider to be the main seat of the European Parliament.
Given that our activities begin on Tuesday mornings, the fact that they cease on Thursday mornings would suggest, not to put too fine a point upon it, that the Strasbourg Parliament, in Strasbourg, only sits, roughly speaking, two days per month.
That is a consequence of which I would ask all of my fellow Members to assess the significance, and that is why I am raising a formal protest on this subject.
   Mr President, I believe this has been agreed by all political groups.
In paragraph 17 of the resolution, we should like to delete the words ‘government of national unity’ and insert the words ‘transitional government’.
Could I also suggest that in paragraph 18 we also include the G8 governments.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 7 July 2005.
   The final version of the draft agenda for the present part-session as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 1 September, pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
No amendments have been proposed for Monday or Tuesday.
The agenda you have seen for Monday and Tuesday will therefore remain the same.
As a result of a debate that took place in the Conference of Presidents, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has requested that the report by Mr Brok, on the Council Decision on the conclusion of the Additional Protocol to the Agreement creating an association between the European Economic Community and Turkey as a result of the enlargement of the European Union, be added.
Given the complexity of the issue, I believe that somebody should explain this request.
Mrs Frassoni would like to do so.
   Mr President, last Thursday, in the Conference of Presidents, we had the opportunity to discuss this issue.
I know that we in the Socialist Group, like most of the other groups in this House as well, do not think it appropriate to hold this vote this week.
One reason for this is the ongoing discussion in the General Affairs Council, with particular reference to the outstanding issues in relation to Cyprus, which – along with a number of others – indicates that we should debate the whole package – that is to say, the adoption of the association agreement and all the other associated issues to do with our policy on Turkey – at the second part-session in September, along with the Commission’s negotiating mandate for 3 October.
We therefore take the view that Mrs Frassoni’s motion should be rejected.
   . Mr President, I would like, as rapporteur, to ask for your agreement to our inviting the Council to inform us how this protocol is to be implemented in view of the additional statement Turkey has made in relation to it, and to do so prior to any decision being taken by us and by 26 September at the latest.
   Mr President, the vote has been held, the result is clear, and we do of course respect it, but I would like to pick up on what Mrs Napoletano had to say.
Belarus is still an important issue, and we should discuss it at one of the forthcoming part-sessions – I would suggest the second September one.
We have just had a meeting of our group’s bureau that was attended by guests from Belarus.
The situation there is very threatening, and so I ask Members now to agree to this debate being held during the second September part-session.
This request is one that I make from the bottom of my heart and I make it to you all.
   Thank you, Mr Poettering.
I am sure that the Presidents of the political groups will take good note of your request and that they will take it into account when establishing the agenda of the next part-session.
   Following the news of the attempted bomb attack on the president of the Alliance of Vojvodina Hungarians, József Kasza, I went to visit the scene last week.
I was able to ascertain in person that the hand-grenade had indeed been intended for József Kasza.
I could only conclude, there in Subotica, that in Serbia-Montenegro’s northern province of Vojvodina, right on the border with the European Union, the series of attacks on national minorities has not come to an end.
In fact, the situation has worsened.
In documented cases of minority and human rights violations such as this, the European Parliament has a duty to consider the facts and not the self-justifying statements made by the relevant Serb politicians, who are implicated in these incidents.
And this approach is particularly warranted in the case of a country with which the EU is preparing to open Association negotiations in the autumn.
Making use of its budgetary power, the European Parliament also has a duty to use the Community support it provides to Serbia-Montenegro as an instrument to protect that minority.
It is also the duty of the European Parliament, by conducting monitoring activities of its own on a more regular basis, to speak up concerning the kind of country the Union is entering into closer relations with.
Last, the European Parliament also has a duty not to forget that, alongside József Kasza, there are some 300 000 people belonging to the Hungarian and other minorities in Vojvodina that need to be protected.
   On behalf of the nine languages of the ten new Member States, I would like to voice an objection, because once again discrimination is taking place against the new Member States.
In July of this year, the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) published a competition in which, for the first time, candidates from all 25 Member States would be able to take the tests at the same time.
Seven hundred new ‘public administrators’, as they are called in EU terminology, are to be recruited, but the language requirements include only the 11 languages of the 15 ‘old’ Member States.
This means that a Dutch person is able to take the test in Dutch, while Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian, Estonia, Latvian, Lithuanian and Maltese applicants cannot take the test in their mother tongue, but must take it in one of the 11 languages of the 15 ‘old’ Member States.
This is blatant discrimination and runs contrary to the spirit of the European Union.
Mr President, I ask you – and I have submitted my request to you in writing too – to take action against this discrimination without delay.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention to the case of Francisco Larrañaga, a Spanish and European Union citizen sentenced to death in the Philippines.
Regrettably, a few weeks ago the Philippine courts once again confirmed the death sentence on this citizen, and the clock is now ticking; we know that the trial was plagued with irregularities and that it is clear that Paco Larrañaga was not allowed a proper defence, since several witnesses have supported him, having seen him somewhere else on the same day and at the same time that the crime he is accused of was committed.
But the essential thing at the moment is to save the life of Mr Larrañaga and all the institutions must do their bit in relation to this just demand.
Ladies and gentlemen, a European Union citizen is going to be killed, and we cannot turn a blind eye to this violation of every citizen’s foremost right, the right to life.
I would therefore call upon the President of this Parliament to appeal urgently to the government of the Philippines and to the President of that country and call on them to ensure that she exercise her right to pardon Francisco Larrañaga so that this European and Spanish citizen is not executed.
   Thank you very much, Mr Iturgaiz, for drawing the Presidency’s attention to this citizen’s situation.
We shall look into the case and, if appropriate, we shall act in accordance with your suggestion.
   Mr President, last week marked the first anniversary of the Beslan massacre, which resulted in the deaths of 331 people, of which 186 were children.
Astonishingly, the self-confessed perpetrator of this crime, Shamil Basayev, was appointed deputy prime minister of the so-called Chechen government-in-exile on 25 August.
This man is a wanted war criminal and has close ties to Islamist terrorist groups like Al Qa’ida.
The so-called foreign minister, a Mr Osman Ferzaouli, who resides in Denmark as a political refugee, says this will result in Basayev being more responsible in future.
The culture minister, Akhmed Zakayev, resides in my city, London, also as a refugee, and in the past has denied any links with Mr Basayev.
Surely Russia will accuse the European Union of double standards when we rightly demand that they punish those guilty of atrocities in Chechnya whilst we in the EU are giving harbour to these individuals who support terrorist action.
The governments of Denmark and the United Kingdom should revoke the asylum status of Mr Ferzaouli and Mr Zakayev.
   Mr President, on 29 July, criminal indictments against subsidiaries of UBS, Deutsche Bank, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley were announced by prosecutors in Milan who are investigating the collapse of the giant Italian dairy company Parmalat.
Within 48 hours, a former member of the Citibank board fell to his death from his New York apartment and a former President of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, was found dead in his own swimming pool.
Mr Duisenberg, of course, enjoyed the support of Deutsche Bank in his fight for the presidency of the ECB.
Given the curious coincidence and timing of these unusual and unexpected deaths, this House might hope that Europol and the intelligence services will look closely at the surrounding circumstances.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I am myself from the Vorarlberg, one of the places affected, but am every bit as deeply affected by what is going on in Portugal and in the Southern States of the USA.
A committed European ought, after all, to look much further afield and go beyond what Members have already – and rightly – said.
We ought, actually, to be looking as far ahead as 2050.
Climate change is happening now.
That is not just what Klaus Töpfer, the head of the UN Environment Programme, says; it is also a matter of scientific observation.
Is it not high time for a master plan to be drawn up with all speed – one rather like the one that NASA drew up to address the anticipated climate change as long ago as the 1980s – which would list what we can expect to have to cope with in great detail and without taboos, not even the taboo against the evacuation of certain currently inhabited areas? Here in Europe, we will not be able to afford to rebuild – every year or every three years – the places we are still protecting.
It is high time that we really did look further ahead.
   – The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading by Jonas Sjöstedt on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the management of waste from extractive industries and amending Directive 2004/35/EC [16075/1/2004 C6-0128/2005 2003/0107(COD)].
   Madam President, I am shocked by the thoughtlessness with which the Commission has conducted its dialogue with the Churches and the non-confessional associations.
Firstly, it is true that the Commission says that it regularly forgot to invite the European Humanist Federation to this dialogue, but it took the liberty of inviting in its place the Church of Scientology, which is listed as a sect in various European countries.
On the basis of which criteria was this dialogue established? Are sects accepted from now on?
What subjects are debated? I call for complete transparency in this matter.
Beyond the issue of dialogue, furthermore, there is now the issue of funding.
Allow me to return to the World Youth Days.
On that issue, I cannot believe my eyes. This is truly John Paul II’s last miracle.
That is how a ‘no’ vote from Parliament on the funding of the World Youth Days was transformed into a ‘yes’, following a questionable legal ruse by the Commission.
That beats the wedding feast at Cana.
Yet who are they trying to kid? First I am told: ‘Do not worry, the Pope will pay for his own travel’.
Then, even more reassuringly: ‘Europe does not pay for the consecrated bread, but only for the milk of those taking part’.
That is how we have become the cash cow of the Vatican.
Yet on a more serious note, Madam President, I would point out to the Commission, with the full respect that I have for the young people who arrived in Cologne in search of spirituality and hope, that religion does not have a monopoly on this debate.
Secularism is asking itself exactly the same questions: they are the questions of our civilisation.
That is why I propose that the 2006 budget include funding for meetings held on the theme of ‘Secularism and humanism within a network of European towns’.
   Madam President, what the Commissioner has said in relation to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 is incorrect, and I speak as the rapporteur on that regulation.
Not only can the list of attendance be requested, but also minutes, agendas, decisions taken and any other material accumulated or discussed.
Any documents that are requested can be refused only under Article 4 – exceptions – and Article 9 – sensitive documents.
I should like to reassure the House that it is not only the list of attendance that can be accessed by Parliament and members of the public.
   Madam President, Commissioner, where this European list, and these European criteria, which will enable you to act promptly when something goes wrong, are concerned, you can count on our support.
Let us consider, though, the rules we do have: the directive on the safety of third-country aircraft using Community airports (SAFA) is only one year old and is yet to enter into force.
The agency is only three years old.
The proposals you are tabling now should have been dealt with at the time when the Commission incorporated a huge number of the items, many of which were rejected, often by the Member States.
You will therefore not meet with any resistance from us if you ask for a wider role to be given not only to the agency, but also to the European Union, in the person of the Commission.
It is at the moment politically incorrect to say that Member States should allow their national policies to be coordinated and controlled by the Commission and the European Aviation Agency, but it is in the public interest that we should continue to do so.
I think that Parliament will accept this view, but I hope that this time round, the Member States too will be somewhat more accommodating.
I hope that the Council will approve Mrs De Veyrac’s proposals by the end of this year so that we need not wait another seven years, as was the case with the SAFA directive, which was submitted in 1997 and was not approved until 2004.
This time round, such a thing would simply be unacceptable.
We must, as a matter of urgency, have this black list and all criteria in place by the end of this year.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0212/2005) by Mrs Etelka Barsi-Pataky on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy on the European programme of satellite radionavigation (COM(2004)0477 – C6-0087/0156(COD)).
   . Madam President, Commissioner, there is no doubting the fact that this Galileo project is of the utmost strategic importance and, as a public-private partnership of such great dimensions, unique in the EU.
I wish to thank the rapporteur for her efforts, not only on my own part but also on behalf of my group.
There is one point on which I would like to give her very strong backing, and that is her demand that the European Parliament, as the budgetary institution, should have a seat onthe Administrative Board.
Our institution’s budgetary role does indeed mean that we should be fully informed about the financial aspects of the Galileo project.
There are very practical considerations behind this, for third countries have acquired smaller holdings – China in particular, which bought a share in our project on 30 October 2003.
Having wanted to invest a total of 20 million in what is a 3.5 billion project, it gave notice of the intention to buy 5 million but paid only 2 million.
This amount – 0.06%, a thousandth, of the total – puts China in full possession of the know-how that Galileo has to offer and gives it unrestricted access to it.
I have conducted my own inquiries in Oberpfaffenhofen and seen how our know-how and intellectual property are not secure.
I ask you, Commissioner, to do everything in your power to prevent our technology from being sold off to others.
While we want third countries to be involved and markets to be conquered, we must also see to it that our intellectual property is protected.
Let me particularly draw your attention to an amendment – No 22 – tabled by my colleague Mrs Hall, which is aimed at ensuring that, at a later date, when commercial operations begin, the European Union gets its contribution repaid, in other words, that there is a real distribution of profits.
This debate is a significant one, and deserves to have more people observing it and listening to it.
That is something we cannot change.
I wish the rapporteur, Mrs Barsi-Pataky, every success in getting her report through.
   . –  Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Galileo Programme is both very ambitious and extremely challenging in scientific and technical terms, which is why it is so costly.
As well as attracting a great deal of interest, the programme has therefore also provoked a variety of opinions and reactions.
On the one hand, there are those who believe that the project makes Europe more competitive compared to the rest of the world, including the United States.
In most other respects we are lagging behind the latter, for example in scientific and technological fields, but Galileo is superior to its American counterpart, or in other words GPS, which was originally conceived as a military system.
What is more, at a time such as this, when the European Union is competing for public support against a background of debates on the fate of the Constitutional Treaty, this is an opportunity for us to develop a project that will enable the creation of thousands of new and much-needed jobs, to say nothing of its other benefits.
On the other hand, however, I entirely understand the concerns that have been voiced over the enormous financial costs of the Galileo Programme, and the risk that this money could be wasted.
It is not only members of my own group that have raised such concerns, and they are entirely legitimate, given that worrying examples of money being wasted in this way can be found in the day-to-day practices of the different Member States.
It stands to reason that the European Parliament must ensure that it has opportunities and instruments for monitoring, and that it must ensure that money is spent transparently and effectively.
Questions have also been asked over whether it is appropriate to exclude the Galileo Programme from funding cuts, in view of the debates being held on across-the-board cuts to the EU budget.
The Galileo Programme is currently moving out of the development and testing phase, which has been a success, and into the implementation phase.
Heeding calls for savings, and imposing arbitrary cuts in order to make savings at any price, would be akin to expecting a rocket carrier that originally consisted of three stages to carry an object into space, even if you remove one of its stages. The end result will be that we are left with nothing.
One final comment; I am delighted that the bodies responsible for such matters in the Czech Republic share my views on the future of the Galileo project, namely that it should be seen in terms of a wide variety of possible civilian applications.
I am also delighted that they are not only in favour of the system being built, but are also taking the relevant practical steps to implement it.
   Madam President, these days, we can see on a screen where we are and in what direction we should be heading to get to our intended destination.
It is to be hoped that this useful invention will be used to enhance our well-being rather than to wage war.
Were such a system not yet in existence, it would have been a good idea to examine at European level whether something like this were technically feasible and could be put into production.
There would then be a good reason for not farming this project out to accidental inventors and to entrepreneurs who hope to cash in on it, but instead making a joint effort and using Community funds in the process.
It is now too late in the day for this.
Europe can no longer be the first one.
Such a system, originating from outside the EU, is already in operation and has conquered the European market.
The Galileo plans add not much more than a competitive battle involving existing systems.
Community funds are now mainly used to subsidise enterprises in the electronics and aviation industries.
This will cost the European Union and its Member States increasingly more money to the detriment of more useful tasks.
That is why there are those in my group who have never supported this project.
   Madam President, first of all I must congratulate Mrs Barsi-Pataky on her report and particularly on her proposal to provide the Galileo programme with an ambitious Community budget, following on from what Commissioner Barrot defended.
I consider a package of EUR 1 billion for 2007-2013 to be justified for three main reasons.
Firstly, the nature of what is at stake: this programme involves nothing less than ensuring Europe’s independence in space, while at the same time offering a host of new services to professionals and to private individuals.
Secondly, with Galileo, the EU is fully committed to financing investments in the future.
Thirdly, this sustained budgetary commitment is justified by the expected return on the investment: according to various estimates, Galileo should be exceptionally profitable, with an expected cost-benefit ratio of 4.6.
For all these reasons, the EU must make an ambitious commitment to this programme, and I hope that the Council and particularly the UK Presidency, which talked a great deal a few months ago about the benefits of future spending, will go down this path.
As it is very late, I will not tell you about all the assets, which are real and important, that the town of Toulouse can bring as the headquarters of the Galileo concession.
    The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0249/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to the risks arising from physical agents (optical radiation) (19th individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC) (05571/6/2005 – C6-0129/2005 – 1992/0449(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Őry).
   – Mr President, I would like to remind the House that the minimum health and safety requirements applicable to the workplace are already defined as a European competence by the Single European Act, and that employers have been obliged, since as long ago as 1989, to carry out risk assessments, train workers and inform them, providing protective equipment when necessary and keeping documentation relating to these measures.
The specialised directive with which we are concerned today does no more than lay down the framework for these measures, and does so in a balanced and appropriate manner, including in those situations in which we cannot keep tabs on the source, and so I cannot for the life of me understand why the employers’ associations are opposed to such legal certainty.
After all, the only alternatives they have are to resort to simple actions such as the provision of notices or up-to-date information on health risks or else to run the risk of court rulings recognising occupational illnesses.
I cannot understand why they do not go for the cheaper option, and so I regard the CSU amendment as making for greater legal uncertainty and as detrimental particularly to small businesses.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by saying something about procedure.
We are dealing here with a piece of the European Parliament’s legal history, for it was in 1992 that the Commission came to a decision on the subject, and today finds us debating it at – and let me stress this – its reading.
When we vote on it, as we will do tomorrow, we will be bound by the rule that a majority is required to reject or amend it.
Speaking as someone who was not even an MEP at the time of its first reading, I have to say that I find it intolerable that neither the Commission nor the Council are similarly bound in the case of a proposal made at a time when most of us were not yet MEPs.
Even though the Rules of Procedure permit it, I was not able to table any amendments in the Committee.
That is why we should all press for such curiosities to be done away with.
It is also a reason why the CDU/CSU has tabled this motion for the directive to be rejected; we did so not because we reject justified measures in relation to unnatural optical radiation, but in order to call on the Commission to come up with a proposal that would be credible in terms of the Constitution and of Lisbon.
President Barroso and his colleagues always get carried away when analysing the reasons why the Constitution was rejected, and regularly invoke the Lisbon objectives.
If you put them on the spot on the subject of regulation and directives, the line they take is: ‘the sunshine directive? I was not in office at the time’.
At the same time, though, there is no shortage of officials in the Commission who quite simply ignore whatever their bosses say. Better regulation?
Of what interest is that to those to whom the protection of consumers is entrusted, those who are supposed to take action to deal with this? For them, it is ‘business as usual’.
In Germany, this is not an issue for only one end of the political spectrum; I would just like to remind Mrs Jöns of the President of the German Council of Cities.
This may have passed her by during the summer recess, but, in any case, the President of the German Council of Cities, who is also at the same time the Lord Mayor of Munich, and, as she will be aware, a member of the SPD, has held up the sunshine directive to ridicule.
We see, then, that there is in Germany a broad political consensus to the effect that we are in favour of rules that are practicable.
The compromise would take us closer to them.
The motion for rejection calls upon the Commission to come up with something better; if it is not passed, I call upon you to at least support the compromise motion.
    The next item is the report (A6-0199/2005) by Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Community Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS [COM(2004)0488 – C6-0092/2004 – 2004/0158(COD)].
   Mr President, I should like to respond briefly to what the last speaker said.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats is in favour of this programme.
If we want to achieve the Lisbon objectives, if we want jobs for everyone, we must help people to achieve this goal.
After all, people in employment are best placed to meet their own basic needs.
That is why it is so important that all those disadvantaged groups know that Europe exists and that it can provide them with support in finding jobs, in gaining extra qualifications, in changing working conditions, and so on, and it is for that reason that I congratulate Mrs Jöns on this report.
I should like to answer two questions.
I have just received a note to which I can now respond in my own language.
The first question is: how do you actually arrive at the amount mentioned in your amendment? The amount that was proposed at the time was EUR 854 million, which was still wishful thinking on the part of Mrs Jöns.
We then thought that such an amount was not attainable, but we subsequently joined forces and arrived at a final sum of EUR 858 million in Mr Böge’s report.
That is why we have increased the amount from EUR 854 million to 858 million, and I assume that everyone is agreed on this.
We have also changed the percentages.
We wanted to do the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality a favour by setting aside more funds for gender equality and we also wanted to put some money aside for working conditions.
I think that those issues are worthwhile and that they can redress the balance in PROGRESS to some extent.
Finally, it is because all those minor incidental programmes do not make life any easier that I am delighted with PROGRESS, which will enable us to channel our money, commitment and energy much more effectively.
I would therefore support everyone involved in this PROGRESS programme, and I hope that those two amendments tabled by our group will make it past the finishing line.
   Mr President, one of the fundamental principles of Community law is the equal treatment of women and men.
All the directives relating to this have made a decisive contribution in improving the position of women, who make up 52% of our population and thus constitute the majority.
Grateful though I am to Mrs Jöns for having reinforced this aspect of the PROGRESS programme, I do take the view that the amalgamation of the five areas of the social agenda is politically mistaken and must not be allowed to remain unchanged.
Gender equality should have a free-standing programme of its own.
There are six arguments in favour of this: firstly, the Constitutional Treaty reinforces equality policy; secondly the equality programme, like the budget for it, was formerly a matter for the Committee on Women’s Rights, and quite rightly too.
Thirdly, the awaited creation of the Gender Institute, gender mainstreaming and a relevant and free-standing equality programme will, in matters of equality policy, make the EU and this House of ours very visible to women; all women will see that Europe is actively working for them.
Fourthly, the Women’s Committee remains a driving force for the rights of our female citizens and will not agree to those rights being undermined by such things as the planned amalgamation, with effect from 2008, of the DAPHNE anti-violence programme with the programme against drugs, which amounts to an open assault upon women’s policy.
Fifthly, gender mainstreaming must be consistently applied in all PROGRESS’s pillars, whether in employment, social protection, working conditions or the fight against discrimination, for women are still subject to discrimination in many areas, and, sixthly, what is currently going on runs counter to the Barroso Commission’s commitment to putting equality high up the agenda.
Although PROGRESS puts women back on the social agenda, pigeonholing them under ‘social issues’, the solution to the equality problem is political in nature.
We women may have lost the first round, but Parliament’s amendments – and thanks again to Mrs Jöns – have prevented drastic cutbacks in the area of equality of opportunity.
Let me warn the Commission, though, that, if equality policy becomes even less visible and is taken even less seriously, then support on the part of women will diminish as well.
PROGRESS depends on them.
   Mr President, the European PROGRESS programme will henceforth encompass the former European Gender Equality programme in the form of a section on equal treatment of men and women.
I congratulate Mrs Jöns on her report.
Without doubt, the Lisbon challenges impose the need for an agenda to achieve a rationalised social policy in terms of spending and monitoring.
Yet, will the new European social policy enable women to gain full recognition for all the functions they perform? Will the value of their work be better recognised by integrating the policy of equality into that of employment?
Etymologists set us thinking.
The origin of the word economy, , house, and , rule, explains that economy is a desire to run a house efficiently.
In all domestic or professional spheres, in the market or non-market sector, women know how to make use of scarce resources and turn them into something else.
They know how to satisfy everyone’s needs and desires and to redistribute the outcome of what they produce.
Around 30% of women’s economic output is not even accounted for.
That earned the US economist, Gari Becker, a Nobel Prize.
In my country, behind the Iron Curtain, women did not expect to receive a pay slip, nor unemployment benefit to support those close to them.
They only worked to ensure their own survival and that of their family.
Lisbon wishes to fight against impoverishment in Europe and for greater social justice.
The clearly identified commercial criteria are widely debated here.
Let us make no mistake, a significant effort remains to be made to identify the work of women, the driving force behind the networks of solidarity, including the economic indicators of our nations’ accounts.
Solidarity in the economy calls on us to conduct politics in a different way and to establish relations between human beings based on public-spirited and socially aware behaviour that respects everyone’s differences.
    The next item is the report (A6-0202/2005) by Mr Weber, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on the application of Articles 4 and 5 of Directive 89/552/EEC ‘Television without frontiers’, as amended by Directive 97/36/EC, for the period 2001-2002 [2004/2236(INI)].
   . Mr President, I wish to propose an oral amendment concerning a small technical modification: the words 'at 2004 prices' should be deleted in Amendments 6, 7, 8 and 19.
   . – Speaking in my capacity as rapporteur, I would like to point out that the Commission proposal covers all the categories referred to in Article 13, including, that is to say, the groups discriminated against on the grounds of their ethnic origin.
The fact is, then, that PROGRESS will also give attention to the particular problems of the Roma.
I find it a shame that nothing was said in the Committee about whether or not there should be explicit reference to them, for otherwise we would have had the time to discuss this there.
Including a new group at this point creates problems, for we ought then, in fact, to keep on mentioning the other affected groups separately; so far, we have made specific reference only to people with disabilities.
We should leave it at that rather than starting to include individual groups; Article 13 should continue to apply.
I might add, by the way, that it was my group that, when we voted in June, stated that we would pay special attention in this programme to the problems faced by the Sinti and Roma.
In view of all this, I shall abstain from voting.
   – In light of the request made by various Members of this House, who would vote for the amendment if it were changed – although we believe that the current wording is more appropriate – I propose that our Amendment 9 should include the following sentence: ‘Notes that the scrapping of quotas in the clothing and textiles sector might have serious consequences for the least favoured regions and might lead to a reduction in regional GDP per inhabitant, a situation that requires a suitable response’.
   . The British Conservatives today abstained on this report.
While we welcome long-overdue moves to end the EU's EUR 1 billion-a-year tobacco regime, we feel that the reforms agreed in 2004 do not go far enough soon enough.
We strongly condemn the fact that tobacco-growing Member States were given the option of retaining up to 60% of the existing aid on tobacco as a coupled payment until 2010.
Most other CAP sectors have been fully decoupled and we see no reason why such a glaring exception was made for tobacco, a product that kills hundreds of thousands of EU citizens each year.
   We have chosen to support this report because the handling of waste from the mining industry is partly a cross-border environmental issue.
However, we are critical of using structural fund resources for drawing up inventories of closed waste facilities.
There is no good reason why taxpayers in other countries should pay for such measures.
Structural Fund resources should only be deployed in the case of poor Member States with unusually large needs in terms of drawing up inventories.
We have therefore voted against Amendment 8.
The principle should be that companies affected should be responsible for any costs that arise in implementing the proposed legislation.
    –  I should like to give a brief explanation of my vote on the Sjöstedt report on the management of waste from extractive industries.
In my opinion, mining would become significantly more expensive for the companies operating in this industry if we were to adopt the draft report.
This would result in a rise in the cost of constructing public networks, such as roads and railways, and all other public buildings in which aggregates are used.
There would also be a dramatic increase in state spending on the monitoring of materials that have been extracted but not yet used.
The end result of all this would be a heavier burden on taxpayers throughout the European Union, without anything positive being achieved.
It was for this reason that I voted against the majority of the amendments.
   The report on the EU programme for employment and social solidarity (PROGRESS) is all very well, but it is based on the false notion that the Commission can and should prepare general strategies and proposals for how these issues should be resolved for 25 very different countries.
Instead of the EU regulating matters from above, the Member States should learn from each other through healthy institutional competition.
No decisions have been taken about the programme’s financial framework because the EU’s long-term budget has been rejected by the European Council.
The attempt nonetheless to push through the PROGRESS programme, the cost of which will exceed EUR 1 billion between 2007 and 2013, shows a lack of respect for the Council’s decision.
   .
We voted in favour of the report on textiles and clothing after 2005.
We do not entirely agree with the proposal, and especially not with paragraph 11 where an agreement is sought on more categories of textiles than those that exist in the June agreement between the EU and China.
We believe that the quota system should be abolished in the longer term and that the EU should open up trade with the rest of the world.
   . I have abstained on this report, which does not lay down a pro-active strategy to cope with the seriousness of the situation.
I also wish to denounce the climb down of the committee, recorded yesterday in a meeting with the Chinese Government.
To derogate from the agreement on the new quotas that was signed only in July and that was in force from 2005 is unacceptable.
The commitments made must be respected, and the policy of fait accompli adopted by the large distributors cannot be endorsed, as it would thus put thousands of jobs at risk.
The committee has delayed bringing in the import controls needed to launch the safeguard clauses provided for in the WTO and it has not organised itself in order to lay down minimum social and environmental rules in international trade.
Today, it refuses to propose a ‘textile plan’ that is equal to the challenges: a shortage of funds for research and innovation, a lack of significant support for technological and social conversion or for training, and no revival of the Euro-Mediterranean area, with common customs duties.
Millions of jobs and a still promising industrial sector are being sacrificed by a negligent EU policy.
   We voted in favour of the report on the application of Articles 4 and 5 of the ‘TV without Frontiers’ directive.
It is important for us to show our support for possible ways of developing public service.
Public service is of great importance for democracy and diversity, and it is important for the EU to safeguard it.
We also view with concern the increasing media concentration within the EU.
It is on principle, however, that we are opposed to rules determining how large a portion of broadcasting time should be given over to European productions.
   The next item is the presentation by the Council of the draft general budget for the financial year 2006.
   On behalf of everyone here, I thank Mr Lewis, who, on behalf of the Council, has presented the draft general budget for 2006.
   The next item is a general debate on the European Union general budget for 2006.
   . – Mr President, Mr Lewis, Mrs Grybauskaitė, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Lewis for his presentation of the budget of the other EU institutions for 2006.
Clearly, the European Parliament and the Council have different approaches on certain issues regarding the drafting of the budget, but there are also various common threads.
Both institutions with budgetary decision-making powers endorse the principles of budgetary discipline and the rational use of EU taxpayers’ money.
The Council is proposing to reduce the administrative expenditure of the EU institutions by 120 million euro as compared with the institutions’ original requests.
It must be said, however, that in many cases this reduction has been implemented in an ill-considered manner, without thorough examination of the specific nature and problems of the institutions’ work.
For this reason, the European Parliament will be proposing a review of the reduction in the institutions’ expenditure, assessing each institution’s budget request and new tasks in 2006 on its individual merits.
It is important to ensure the requisite financing for one of the priorities of the EU budget for 2006, which is preparation for the next round of European Union enlargement, when Bulgaria and Romania will join.
I believe that the European Union institutions need to adopt a harmonised approach to the hiring of staff from the new Member States.
With regard to the European Parliament budget, we should note that tomorrow the European Parliament’s Presidium will adopt a decision on the European Parliament draft budget for 2006, which it will forward for consideration by the Committee on Budgets.
As the budget rapporteur, I believe that the Committee on Budgets will need additional information on various matters in order to be able to take each decision on its own merits, particularly in relation to the European Parliament’s information and communication policy.
Once again I would like to stress the principle that the level of joint expenditure in the European Parliament budget ought to be set in accordance with needs that have been established following careful evaluation.
Achieving a ceiling of 20% of joint administrative expenditure is not an end in itself.
Finally, I would like to add a few words about the European Union general budget for 2006.
The Council’s proposal to reduce payment appropriations for EU structural funds for 2006 by 150 million euro is incomprehensible.
Such an approach is indicative of the Council’s unwillingness to fully finance those commitments which the EU has undertaken within the framework of the existing financial perspective.
Bearing in mind the fact that 2006 is the last year of the current financial perspective, it is important to ensure a successful conclusion to existing programmes and to set a volume of commitment and payment appropriations for the 2006 budget that corresponds with the commitments which the European Union has undertaken.
   .
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you for the opportunity offered to me today to express my opinion concerning the first proposal by the Council, especially since as early as last June following the first reading we had a chance to exchange our views with Parliament and the Council, as well as with the representatives of political groups of the European Parliament.
I would like to share the idea held by most speakers that the 2006 budget is a special one, as it is the last of the current Financial Perspective drawn up by the Commission seeking to most comprehensively and realistically take into consideration the most pressing needs of the European Union, to complete all the important projects and to prepare well for the new financial period.
Therefore, in response to the proposal of the Council, I would like to immediately define three areas that in the Commission’s opinion are the most challenging.
Having first outlined the importance of the European budget for 2006, I should like to focus on three main areas in which the Commission thinks that the major concerns need to be addressed and resolved by all three institutions, including the budgetary authorities in particular.
Our main concerns relate to Heading 3, where we think that the reductions proposed by the Council are not justified and cannot be supported by the Commission, mainly because the requirements and the amounts proposed by the Commission were based on projects already committed and ongoing.
We think that such reductions will create many problems for the payment of bills for ongoing projects in the Community in 2006 for the Member States.
Furthermore, half of the proposed reductions in payment appropriations are concentrated on activities which represent only about 10% of the total budget.
Surprisingly, no justification is given for concentrating the reductions in this way.
In Heading 4 the reductions proposed by the Council will create at least three serious problems.
First of all, the reduction goes against the decisions taken by the General Affairs Council itself, especially regarding post-tsunami reconstruction in Asia and the renewed commitment to the Millennium Development Goals.
Second, in relation to recent developments in the world, we expect, and have already had indications, that Europe will be asked to assist in the disengagement process from Gaza.
The third problem concerns the negotiations on the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
All these three elements make it more difficult to accept or look favourably upon the Council's proposal.
The question of Heading 5 was raised and discussed at length at the 15 July meeting between the three institutions.
As promised, on Friday I sent to both budgetary authorities additional information on the progress of recruitment from EU-10 and EU-15.
By 31 July this year, 90% of the recruitment targets from new Member States had been fulfilled.
We believe that the proposed reductions forwarded by the Council are the result of a misunderstanding between us and may well derive from a technical error.
We very much expect that, before second reading, we will be able to engage in consultations with the Council in particular in an effort to resolve this issue.
The proposal on the table today means that for 2006 not only will we be unable to recruit from EU-10, but we will be stopping all recruitment in the Commission, as well as lacking the resources to pay salaries for existing staff levels.
Taking all this into account and in reply to Mrs Pittella's request that the Commission take as forceful an approach as possible to this proposal, let me say that we are committed to resolving all possible questions in cooperation with the budgetary authorities.
I call on all sides to show goodwill in this endeavour, as it will be greatly needed if we are to finalise the deal for this year.
   . (Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, on 15 June 2005 I had a chance to participate in the conciliation meeting of the European Parliament and the Council in Brussels, prior to which the European Parliament had passed a resolution clearly manifesting the position of this European Union institution and its priorities in the formation of the 2006 budget.
Despite the criticism then expressed by the European Parliament concerning insufficient appropriations for commitments and payments, on 15 July 2005 the ECOFIN Council decided to propose a reduction of allocations for payments by EUR 1.1 billion and commitment appropriations by EUR 478 million as compared to the Preliminary Draft Budget.
This proposal, in my opinion, clearly demonstrates that the Council virtually disregards the actual needs and commitments of the European Union.
I would like to remind you that the above resolution of the European Parliament stipulates that the Preliminary Draft Budget presented by the Commission is insufficient and fails from a budgetary viewpoint to reflect commonly agreed-upon political ambitions, in particular those related to the Lisbon Strategy and the need to support small and medium-seized enterprises.
We also invited the Council to enter into a serious and constructive dialogue with the European Parliament concerning the ways to fulfil these political commitments.
It is impossible to reach our policy goals, that is, growth of the economy and enhancement of competitiveness, without increased allocations for research, innovation and SMEs, which account for about 90 of all enterprises of the European Union.
We, the European Parliament, have stressed before and would like to point out once again the important external assistance programmes that could not be foreseen while considering the current financial perspective, for instance those related to Afghanistan and Iraq, and the recently proposed post-tsunami reconstruction package.
In the Preliminary Draft Budget, expenditure heading IV ‘External Actions’ was already insufficiently funded in our opinion.
And now the Council proposes a further reduction of allocations under this heading.
I would also like to draw your attention to other alarming reductions related to specific thematic and geographical measures.
I believe that the budget amounts and resources must be reconciled anew.
I would also like to emphasise the importance of the European Neighbourhood Policy including support to democratic developments in the neighbouring States.
I must reiterate that the accession of ten new Member States in 2004, which is only the beginning of a long-lasting cohesion process, is a new challenge to the cohesion policy, meaning that the implementation of the cohesion policy should focus on regions in order to avoid possible future conflicts between the new Member States and the less developed regions of the EU-15.
I would like to conclude by once again calling on the Council to be guided by the priorities established by the European Parliament in drafting the 2006 budget.
I strongly believe that there is no need to remind you that the European Parliament is the only European institution directly elected by EU citizens and in accordance with EU law has been assigned a mission in the formation and implementation of the European Union budget.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Lewis, when weighing up the draft budget for 2006, we cannot fail to notice that it is a transitional one, and that is what makes it so crucial in terms of the further priorities and ambitions that we share – or, at any rate, should share.
It is for that reason that I will be forthright in criticising the Council proposal on one score: it is far too cautious and envisages cuts that are massive when seen alongside those proposed by the Commission.
In order to make clear what I mean by calling this budget transitional, let us take a look at the Böge report and at what we expect of the Financial Perspective.
There is a major difference between us and the Council; it adds up to EUR 106 billion in the Financial Perspective.
We believe that, in order to make Europe truly fit for the future, we have to focus on quite specific target areas: research, education, youth, cultural interchange in an enlarged Europe, the environment and renewable energies – and I have recent events in New Orleans in mind when I say that.
A look at the budget figures in Parliament’s financial perspective and, now, in the Council draft for 2006 reveals that they diverge to a marked degree: the Financial Perspective makes EUR 10 billion available for research, but the Council a mere EUR 4 billion; there are EUR 2 billion for education, culture and young people, over against the Council’s mere EUR 0.8 billion for the same period.
For energy and transport, Parliament has proposed EUR 2.5 billion, but the Council no more than EUR 1.3 billion.
From that alone, it is apparent that the Council’s proposals for the 2006 financial year are timid, cautious and lacking virtually any concept of future direction.
As I see it, the draft budget for 2006 ought, instead, to be a sort of bridge extending into the years that are to come, from 2007 to 2013, and so putting forward such timid and paltry budget estimates as the Council has done is the wrong way to go about things.
The figures it has quoted to us bear no relation either to the pious utterance about Lisbon as a means of renewal or to the great economic potential that we have to rebuild.
If I may turn to the communications strategy, let me say that, especially after the failure of the referenda, it must surely be in our interest to do more in 2006, rather than to cut payments or make less use of the flexibility instrument.
I find it incomprehensible in political terms how, in the face of the many challenges we have to contend with across the globe, the Council can be so timid and cautious in its handling of the flexibility instrument, instead of demonstrating the European Union’s willingness to be a global player in meeting the needs of the world’s many crisis hotspots.
   Madam President, budgets are about priorities and for the Committee on Regional Development and the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, pride of place among these goes to the Millennium Objectives.
One in five people worldwide have no access to basic education or basic health care, and the chasm is growing every day despite all the pledges by Heads of Government.
Europe is the world’s largest donor and can make the difference.
That is why we are not asking for more funds in the first instance, but we are asking, within the EU’s aid budget, for priority to be given to the Millennium Objectives.
At least 35% of the budget should be spent on these, at least 20% of which should go to basic education and basic health care.
Within the various geographical budget lines, we have set aside 20% for those two sectors, and we will not hand this over to the Commission until they have shown us specific plans for basic education and basic health care in those regions.
In 2003, only 2.3% of the development budget was spent on education and 5.2% on health care.
That is unacceptable.
Today, with the help of the Committee on Budgets, we want to bring the Millennium Objectives closer.
‘Make poverty history’.
   Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Lewis, except when it comes to the foreign budget, agreeing on the 2006 budget really ought, of course, to be a simple matter, for there is plenty of room for the increases requested by the Commission within the ceiling of the financial perspectives.
The finance ministers have, however, almost ritually sat down together and slashed away at every possible area.
These have primarily been within foreign policy, but payments to structural funds and for internal policy have also to bear the brunt, and that is rather surprising in the light of the far better implementation we have seen in recent years of, for example, the structural fund programmes.
Research has been cut back, as have the funds for supporting other projects within the framework of the Lisbon process that EU Heads of State no doubt still want to keep going.
We in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe particularly regret the slashing of programmes for developing small and medium-sized businesses – programmes that, for example, help the banks make credit available to small businesses in the new Member States where, with limited resources, a large dispersal effect has been achieved, benefiting economic development.
We must also deeply regret savings within the transport area, including those in relation to the new agencies for aviation and maritime safety.
Clearly, nothing is too small to escape the axe.
Even the subsidy for the successful programme for developing medicines to combat rare diseases is at the receiving end.
Mr Lewis spoke of dialogue, and I do hope we can obtain dialogue and cooperation.
Unfortunately, we are likely to see a situation in which the budget has to be debated with no agreement on the framework for the 2007-2013 budget.
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first of all to comment on two points, echoing Mrs Jensen.
As permanent rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets for the Structural Funds, I would like to draw your attention to the reduction, for several consecutive years now, of the amount allocated to payment appropriations in Heading 2 dedicated to structural actions.
In the context of a crisis of confidence in a Europe that is apparently no longer able to offer its citizens a reformed economic model, a competitive model, a model that is fit to rise to the great challenges of the 21st century, the Heads of State or Government have thought it appropriate to reduce by EUR 150 million the amount of payment appropriations proposed by the Commission.
Well, this investment expenditure implemented by the Structural Funds is, as we know and as we keep saying, a major challenge for our European economy.
Europe needs more than ever to invest in infrastructures in order to maintain its competitiveness and its jobs, undoubtedly just as much in the new Member States as in the others.
This EUR 150 million reduction is therefore out of keeping with the findings made by our Assembly with regard to the new challenges confronting us.
I would also like to draw your attention to the major ecological risk to which the draft budget is exposing our continent, as the budget for the agencies as a whole is being maintained at its previous level, in particular that of the European Maritime Safety Agency which, in the wake of the and disasters, was entrusted with the highly important task of implementing better monitoring of discards and of chartering anti-pollution vessels in the event of an accident off our coasts.
The Council has inexplicably proposed reducing from 29 to …
   Madam President, first I would like to thank everyone for their amicable approach.
The Council’s 2006 draft budget is based on payment appropriations amounting to 1.01% of the EU’s Gross National Income, which is to say approximately a billion euros above the 1% limit.
This, moreover, was achieved by cutting expenditure by half a billion euros as a matter of course.
As the new Member States are only just starting to become involved in the EU budget, the Council’s proposal shows that the 1% ceiling for expenditure, as suggested by certain states, will be impossible to put into effect.
The 2006 budget will be the last to be drafted with reference to the current financial perspective.
Unless a new financial perspective is established, the institutions will find themselves in a situation in which there is no agreement between them, and that would lead to total economic uncertainty and stagnation in the EU.
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I simply wanted to say to you that I find this impromptu meeting, which is unusual in the budget procedure, to be peculiar. In my opinion, it makes little sense.
On behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I also wanted to express our disappointment faced with the sombre cuts made to programmes that Parliament feels very strongly about, such as PRINCE concerning information for European citizens, and in particular faced with the cuts that have been made in headings promoting new resources for SMEs.
Finally, in order to have a worthwhile European policy, human resources must first be given to the committee.
That is what is missing in the draft budget proposed to us and, on behalf of my committee, I wish to inform you of our utter disappointment.
   Madam President, if Europe wants to be accepted by its citizens, we have to be perceived to be working for them.
This is most evident in Category III, and it is there that the Council has made the most swingeing cuts.
If we want to make Europe the most competitive, knowledge-led and dynamic region in the world, we have to put aside more money in the budget for this.
Mr Böge’s report serves to show Parliament the way to go about this, with investment in education, research and youth, and consistent application of gender budgeting – from which, however, we are light-years away!
Plans, the Lisbon Strategy, the Youth Pact, ambitious action programmes in research, culture and the media – all these things you adopt and then slash the funding needed for their implementation.
If we want people to approve of our policies, we have to act in accordance with them.
I am grateful to Mr Pittella for laying bare the contradiction in what the Council is doing, and I call on the Commission to join this House in taking an approach that will equip us with a good budget that will come across clearly to the public.
   The next item is the joint debate on the report (A6-0255/2005) by Mr Salvador Garriga Polledo on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the Fourth Amending Budget for 2005 (Tsunami) (11220/2005 – C6 0239/2005 – 2005/2079(BUD)),
and the report (A6-0254/2005) by Mr Reimer Böge on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the use of the flexibility instrument (Tsunami) (SEK(2005)0548 – C6-0127/2005 – 2005/2083(ACI)).
   . Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am here today to talk about the amending budget for which we have been waiting for so long.
It relates to the activities that we committed to financing in order to support the reconstruction of the countries affected so seriously by the tsunami in December 2004.
Like you, I deplore the Council’s attitude.
The budgetary authority has taken all this time to release the promised funds.
In January, or even back in December, the EU promised EUR 350 million.
Nine months later, we are only just going to manage to donate EUR 170 million over 2005.
On 27 April, the Commission proposed a preliminary draft budget and called for the necessary mobilisation of the flexibility instrument to a level of EUR 98 million.
The Council, however, would not hear of this mobilisation.
You know, it is a terrible thing, this Council’s slogan is ‘Hands off my money!’
It is terrible that we have a budgetary authority that takes on responsibilities and commitments, but refuses to see them through.
We have therefore had to negotiate bitterly in Parliament over the last few months in a struggle to extract EUR 15 million from the flexibility fund.
That is why we have had to reallocate EUR 60 million from other humanitarian actions in order to reach a balance and to find the EUR 170 million.
I have to tell you that we consider this to be a scandal, because no poor country has become richer; quite the opposite, poverty is spreading in all these countries.
There is still EUR 70 million in the emergency reserve; let us hope that we will not need it at the end of the year.
Of course, we support this agreement because it is urgently needed by the populations and citizens affected by the tsunami.
But what a mockery!
Gentlemen of the Council, I would ask two things of you: first of all, do not make any more promises, because you are never able to keep them.
Secondly, I must tell you that you have notified us, but what good is the Council’s commitment with regard to the financial perspectives? I now turn to Mr Böge to say: let us take account of this event, of this problem, when negotiating the next financial perspectives.
Even where the Council has taken note of it, it does not keep its word or its commitments.
Yes, the European Union really is sick.
The citizens have noticed it, but in general the fault is with the Member States, who have forgotten that we need to build the European Union together, for the citizens of Europe, but also for the position and the generosity of Europe, because we have a duty towards all the countries of the world, and more particularly towards the people affected by the tsunami.
   I thank Commissioner Reding for her comprehensive reply.
I am encouraged by the measures that are already in place for dealing with this threat.
I believe it is the most devious and heinous threat that faces the world and especially the world economies.
Will the Commission take further action on the likely developments? This is an ever-changing situation and the inherent dangers are very great.
I should therefore like to know what planning will take place in future.
   . Let me reply briefly to the honourable Member by pointing out that the establishment of ENISA, the European Network and Information Security Agency, will provide a tool that will enable us to react very quickly to any emergencies or new developments which may occur.
In addition, the strategy for a secure information society, which I will present very soon and which will then certainly be discussed by the European Parliament, will be a second tool enabling us also to react at legislative level, if necessary, and if new technological developments and new abuses of those technological developments occur.
   As the author of the question is not present, Question No 40 lapses.
   – I should like to point out to the Commissioner that I read her interview with on 18 February 2005.
It was a truly surprising interview.
I should like all my honourable friends to hear part of this fantastic interview and I should like you to tell me at the end if you have changed or if today you will change anything about what you said.
I quote, because the text needs to go down in history: I believe, the Commissioner says, that the proposal of the Six is not possible and that we shall reach a percentage of over 1%.
We continue to support the Prodi proposal of 1.4% because all it does is to add up the financing for policies decided by the Council, such as agricultural policy, the accession of Bulgaria and Romania, the Lisbon Strategy, the trans-European networks and increased spending on research and development.
All these policies, like enlargement, were decided at the summit, not by the Commission.
If the Council does not want to pay, it must tell us where it will make cuts.
What will you change today, Commissioner?
   I welcome the Commissioner's general response and I also welcome the white paper, but I do not agree with her.
I think people need to be told that the European Union is an unprecedented success, compared with anything that went before at any time in history, following unprecedented consultation.
There are consultation groups and citizens' groups; if you had put a group outside Pilate's palace they still would have told you to free Barabas.
What we need is an 'L' plan, not a 'D' plan.
We need leadership to go out and tell people that 60 million people died in the first half of the last century and this project – this unprecedented successful project – is about ensuring it never happens again.
You cannot have prosperity without peace and stability.
   Madam President, Commissioner, I want to ask what is actually being done about the disinformation being disseminated about Europe and the European institutions. Is this disinformation being put about by European citizens, or does it originate from outside Europe?
Above all else, who is paying for it?
Would the best response to it not be to train journalists to counter it? Let us then endeavour, every year, to get a hundred young journalists to come to Brussels, with the best among them to receive an internationally recognised award.
I see it as a matter of absolute priority that Europe be communicated, and we MEPs in particular, being a House of over 700 specialists, are ready and willing to do it.
   Madam President, this is a point on which I would like to express my agreement with the Commissioner.
Of the 13 countries that have ratified, two have done so by means of referenda.
Those votes are of no less value than those of the countries that have withheld ratification.
The European Parliament is legitimated by reason of being directly and democratically elected.
The Commission derives its legitimacy from the European Parliament and from the governments elected by the national parliaments, and this entitles it to argue politically the case for objectives held by a majority of its own number.
I therefore want to ask you again whether it does not make sense for it to get involved in day-to-day political debate. If, for example, a manifestly false assertion is made in a given country, should a contrary position or correction on the part of the Commission not be communicated on the same day via national press conferences or by other means, so that such views cannot take root?
   . As you know, the Commission presented a proposal for a directive on 15 March 2001 to combat offences that damage the environment.
In particular, this proposal specifies that Member States shall ensure that certain activities are criminal offences, when committed intentionally or with serious negligence, as far as they breach the rules of Community law.
It particularly refers to the fraudulent cross-border transport of waste referred to by the honourable Member in his question.
On 27 January, however, the Council adopted, instead of this proposal for a directive, a framework decision based on Title VI of the Treaty on European Union.
This text criminalises a number of actions that damage the environment, committed either intentionally or by serious negligence, and makes them liable to criminal penalties.
This list of offences includes the unlawful disposal, treatment, storage, transport, export or import of waste, including hazardous waste, which causes or is likely to cause death or serious injury to any person.
The Member States had to adopt the measures necessary to comply with this framework decision before 27 January 2005.
The Commission is currently studying the national transposition measures notified to it by the Member States in order to provide the Council, as specified by the framework decision, with a report enabling it to check, no later than by 27 January 2006, the extent to which Member States have taken the measures necessary to comply with the framework decision.
That said, the Commission, which, with the support of the European Parliament, went to the Court of Justice of the European Communities to challenge the legal basis adopted by the Council, is waiting for the judgment to be delivered shortly, on 13 September I believe.
As Mr Staes mentioned, on 26 May 2005 the Advocate-General delivered conclusions that are very favourable to the Commission’s position, as Mr Ruiz-Jarabo Colomer suggests that the Court annul the relevant provisions of the framework decision of 27 January 2003.
If the Court follows its advocate-general, a new legal instrument, this time a Community one, will have to be adopted to protect the environment through criminal law, including to prevent the fraudulent cross-border transport of waste.
   Madam President, Commissioner, I am indebted to the Commissioner for his exhaustive and correct chronology of the facts, and I think that this question is very timely.
Indeed, if the Court of Justice pronounces its judgment on 13 September, the Commission will need to take prompt action to deal with something that is – in my view –a serious crime.
You, Commissioner, are responsible for justice and police matters.
This is a serious crime and represents a risk to the environment, very often also a risk to food safety and public health, and those engaged in it are also often criminals linked with the mafia – a term I use in its traditional sense.
I would therefore ask you, as Commissioner, to act as soon as judgment has been passed and that you ensure that we can create a sound legal framework for this.
   . Yes, of course, I fully share your point of view.
If, on 13 September, the Court supports the Commission’s opinion, which is shared by the European Parliament, the Commission will very quickly launch an initiative in this vein.
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in my view this is an idea that can be taken further.
As I said, it would be possible first of all to provide for the communication to the airlines of persons included on the no-fly list, to be provided suitably in advance of the aircraft’s departure, precisely to avoid cases such as those that have occurred of errors being discovered when the aeroplane is already in flight, with route diversions as a result.
Then there is the possibility of achieving a substantive dialogue on the criteria for inclusion on the no-fly list, to which there would obviously be restrictions connected with the national sovereignty of the United States, which to date has not agreed to make these factors known precisely.
We are talking exclusively about overflying the territory of the United States, not about flights from and to the United States.
What is the current state of affairs with regard to two key EU projects in the area of internal security proposed in my 1998 report, namely an EU police academy and common external border controls?
   . Indeed, as the honourable Member proposed in his 1998 report, it was precisely Parliament’s resolution on the effects of the enlargement of the European Union on cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs that resulted in the creation of a European police academy and of a Community service with regard to external border controls.
I think that we can now be very proud that these two proposals have already become a reality.
With regard to the first proposal, as you know, the European Police College (CEPOL) was established by the Council Decision of 22 December 2000, and I think we can say that it is now in a position to fulfil its role.
Two Council decisions in 2004 gave it legal personality and named Bramshill in the United Kingdom as its permanent headquarters.
A proposal presented by the Commission in October 2004 with the aim of improving the legal framework of the CEPOL is waiting for formal approval from the Council.
I think we can tell you that a political agreement has already been reached within the Council itself, in June 2005.
As Parliament’s reservations have all been resolved, I think that the decision will be formally approved in the course of September 2005.
The proposal relating to the setting up of a specialist European service for external border controls, too, has led to the establishment, by the Council Regulation of 26 October 2004, of a European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States.
This agency, based in Warsaw, has started work and already has a budget of more than EUR 6 million for 2005.
On 10 May 2005, the Commission presented to the Council an action plan, designed to be a tool for the implementation of the Hague Programme for the period 2005-2010.
At the same time, the Council proceeded to set up the European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union (Regulation (EC) No. 2007/2004).
Can the Commission say how operational cooperation will be organised between the Member States? Will the Agency organise joint operations to deport immigrants (Article 2 of Regulation (EC) No. 2007/2004) despite the declared opposition of the European Parliament?
Has the Agency decided, in accordance with Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No. 2007/2004, to set up branches in the Member States?
In which areas?
   . Of course, as you know, several of the provisions in the Protocol to the Europol Convention of November 2003, which has so far been ratified by 16 Member States, aim to improve Parliament’s involvement in the work of Europol: forwarding the reports on the activities of Europol and of the joint supervisory body and the five-year financing plan, consultation on any initiative by a Member State or by the Commission regarding Europol, and the possible appearance before Parliament of the Presidency of the Council, possibly accompanied by the director of Europol.
That is why the Commission urges the Member States to ratify the Protocol as soon as possible.
Europol’s participation in a supporting role in joint investigation teams is expressly provided for by the Protocol to the Europol Convention of 28 November 2002, which has not entered into force.
At the moment, it still needs to be ratified by five Member States.
Indeed, that Protocol cannot result in Europol being given operational powers until the Member States themselves have implemented the framework decision of 13 June 2002 on joint investigation teams.
On this point, the Commission shares Parliament’s opinion regarding the disappointing outcome of the instruments transposing the framework decision.
As it is a field that falls outside Community competence, unfortunately  may I say  the Commission does not have the right to institute infringement proceedings against the Member States that have not implemented this framework decision.
Nevertheless, Europol has participated in a number of cross-border investigations that do not fall within the precise framework of the joint investigation team and, at times, has coordinated some of them, such as Operation Ice–Breaker on 13 June 2005 targeting Internet child pornography, during which 153 searches were carried out simultaneously in 13 different countries.
Involvement in this investigation enabled it to strengthen its position.
Finally, in its 2002 communication on democratic control over Europol, the Commission supported the idea of a joint committee of national parliaments and the European Parliament responsible for discussing matters related to Europol.
It would be worth relaunching this idea.
In this regard, the Commission is quite willing to participate in this type of parliamentary meeting.
As you may know, two half-day meetings have been scheduled in Brussels in October, between the European Parliament and the national parliaments, specifically regarding parliamentary control of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
Four sub-topics are on the agenda: the European arrest warrant, Eurojust, Europol and the exchange of sensitive information.
   . Yes, I fully agree with you on that point.
I will do all I can to put political pressure on Member States to strengthen transparency and to try to make relations between Europol and the European Parliament and other European institutions more transparent.
   In terms of accountability, has the Commission sought a report from Europol on its apparent failure in detecting and impeding the progress of three international terrorists who fled as fugitives from justice in Colombia, before publicly appearing last month within the European Union, in Dublin? If the Commissioner is not in a position to provide me with the information today, will he undertake to write to me on that subject?
   As the author of the question is not present, Question No 51 lapses.
   Madam President, on a point of order, Mr Frattini has been answering questions for well over 20 minutes.
Should we not move on to the third part of Question Time?
   I am much obliged to the Commissioner for the detailed written reply to the question which has now been provided.
As the Commissioner has just said, the German visa decree of 26 October 2004 warrants further clarification, especially on the subjects of false statements by visa applicants and false documents.
Since the Commissioner has also stated very clearly that there is no scope for national provisions in the Common Consular Instructions on Visas, I should like to know whether the 2006 revised version will put an end to this once and for all.
   – I am very much obliged to the Commissioner for his clear statements on the ‘Volmer decree’, which simply was not in conformity with the law.
I should like to emphasise once more that this is not a matter for Germany alone, because many people entered the EU on a German visa and then moved on to other Member States.
Therefore, I wish to ask the minister to reiterate his assessment of the magnitude of this ‘incident’ and the extent of its adverse effect on Europe.
   I wish to thank Commissioner Frattini for this gratifying decision.
As you know, I come from Sweden which is one of those countries that have been very committed to this issue.
In the general debate about refugees we have had so far, we have not talked about this as an important solution.
I am therefore looking forward to reading the forthcoming proposals and would thank you again for your answer.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0228/2005) by Mr Becsey, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs,
1. on the proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC with a view to simplifying value added tax obligations (COM(2004)0728 – C6-0024/2005 – 2004/0261(CNS));
2. on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1798/2003 as regards the introduction of administrative cooperation arrangements in the context of the one-stop scheme and the refund procedure for value added tax (COM(2004)0728 – C6-0025/2005 – 2004/0262(CNS)).
   – Mr President, the regulation on the safety of medicinal products for paediatric use is a necessary and sensible alternative that puts an end to a long period of uncertainty surrounding medicinal products in the paediatric sector. The Commission’s proposal was well-balanced and was based on impact assessments.
A six-month extension of patent protection as an incentive for pharmaceutical manufacturers is reasonable. This period is based on the results of the impact study and is a clear, fair basis for calculation for all manufacturers.
I am pleased that a majority in Parliament supports this fixed period.
Variable patent protection is impracticable and entails a considerable administrative burden.
In addition, the duration of a patent must never be dependent on a product’s sales figures.
The international competitive situation of the research-oriented pharmaceutical industry demands that we take a look at Europe’s attractiveness as a research destination.
This is another reason why I see no material arguments in favour of the reduction in the fixed six-month period that is still under discussion.
   Mr President, it is beyond dispute that this proposal for a directive contains valid points, but, as other Members have said, I think that the price we are paying is too high. I have listened to everyone, but I think that, more than anything, this House should be able to strike a balance between the interests of patients, governments and the pharmaceutical industry.
I have to tell Mrs Grossetête that the difference between us and the United States is that we boast a sound social security system that should also balance its books. Those of you in this House who argue in favour of six months protection are also those who very often caution in their own countries that the social security budget must be kept under control, and that cuts must be made.
In order to keep this budget in balance, everyone must contribute, including the pharmaceutical industry. In our view, the six-month extension will lead to an unnecessary additional cost.
That is why I will continue to support the amendments tabled by Mrs Corbey.
   Mr President, terrorism is nothing new.
It is an ancient phenomenon that is used to disrupt a society and foment unrest and instability.
Unfortunately, various Member States are already familiar with acts of terror that date back before Islamic terrorism, to, for example, the 1970s and 1980s, when the fight against terror went hand in hand with opinions on data protection that were held at the time.
Today, we require new ways and techniques of tackling terrorism, with due respect shown for the freedom of individuals and guarantees of security for our society.
I therefore wonder if, in the light of how terrorism used to be traced and fought, we might not have got our ideas about privacy out of proportion.
I gather that many Members are reluctant to endorse far-reaching measures, but the restrictions and objections presented here in Parliament do not make it easy to work with data, and so I would ask Commissioner Frattini whether concrete measures can be identified that could boost confidence in the Commission and Council proposals.
I am thinking of data storage in closed computer systems that do not communicate via the Internet.
I would urge you to make clear and concrete pledges that will remove Parliament’s concerns.
   Mr President, when will Parliament's Bureau and its Presidency get a grip on the shambolic procedures that we use when it comes to voting? We were told that we would vote at 12 noon.
It has now gone 12.30 p.m.
How can we expect people outside to take us seriously if we cannot organise ourselves properly in here? The Presidency must do something.
   As you know, Sir Robert, I have every sympathy with your position.
I will certainly convey that to the Conference of Presidents, but the list of speakers is put forward by the groups.
We endorsed the agenda on Monday, but I take your point and we will try to improve in future.
   That point is noted.
There will be a meeting of the Maghreb delegation this afternoon at 3 p.m.
   Mr President, I have the impression that we did not vote for Amendment 15.
   It fell because Amendments 23 and 31 were adopted.
   .
I voted in favour of the Garriga-Polledo report.
Parliament made an undertaking to urgently respond to the rehabilitation and reconstruction needs in the wake of the devastating tsunami of 26 December 2004.
We must therefore provide ourselves with the resources needed to meet those challenges, whilst safeguarding ongoing development programmes and of course without jeopardising our other priorities.
In this regard, I welcome the mobilisation of the flexibility instrument for the financial year 2005, totalling EUR 15 million for the purpose of financing reconstruction and rehabilitation measures in countries affected by the tsunami, as it is an appropriate measure that is worthy of my support.
   I would like to thank the rapporteurs and all my colleagues who have voted to provide Slovakia with 5.6 million euro from the European Solidarity Fund to replant the forests destroyed by the gales in the High Tatras in November.
This is the culmination of the initiative of those Slovaks who set out to organise an exhibition on the Tatras in Strasbourg.
The European Parliament’s gesture is a display of solidarity with all those who know and love our alpine regions and who did not wait passively for the aid that Slovakia will be provided almost 10 months after this natural disaster.
Last summer, enthusiasts from 17 European countries re-planted the green belt on the sides of mountains, remedying the damage done to the woodlands estimated at 195 million euro.
Every day an average of 95 volunteers worked on the Water Forest Project organised by the Ľudia a voda (People and Water) NGO.
This interesting project, carried out under the auspices of a Government committee and of other institutions, could become a pilot project for other countries as well.
   . I and my British Conservative colleagues have abstained on this report regarding the surplus in 2004.
Conservatives believe that the EU budget must deliver value for money for the EU taxpayer.
We therefore feel that, in this instance, we are not prepared to criticise the Commission for this underspend.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to make a statement in relation to Mr Őry’s report, which I voted against, since I find it almost ridiculous that we want to regulate every detail of the public’s lives from the European level downwards.
I see the treatment of Europe’s citizens as children in every area of their lives as a profoundly Socialist approach.
I would rather that, instead of adopting a directive, we had mounted an information campaign, pointing out to the public the hazards presented by artificial and natural radiation.
People must continue to take responsibility for whether or not they expose themselves to natural radiation.
I regard it as positively cynical to waste this House’s valuable time on a debate on a sunshine directive, while leaving unnumbered thousands of people, many of them children, to die of hunger and thirst under the African sun.
It is to that that we need to find answers.
   . Labour MEPs support the principle of awarding incentives to pharmaceutical companies in order to stimulate the necessary research and development.
We therefore support the concept of extending the SPC, but question the Commission proposal for an automatic six-month extension.
We feel a variable length SPC extension would have been better and fairer, because the amount of incentive would better have reflected the costs of research.
Of the options on the table, we therefore supported the three- plus three-month extension.
We did not, however, support the option of a fixed four- or five- month SPC extension, because this risks being unfair to smaller companies.
   .
I welcome the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1798/2003 as regards the introduction of administrative cooperation arrangements in the context of the one-stop scheme and the refund procedure for VAT.
The aim of simplifying VAT is an admirable one.
I support the various amendments striving to establish better cooperation between taxable persons and tax administrations, also those that help to improve cooperation between Member States’ tax authorities.
The Rapporteur suggests to introduce a minimum limit of EUR 50.000 for exemption from VAT.
The suggestion concerns only first 3 years of the activity of a newly established SME.
This new lower bound of exemption contributes to SME's brisker economic performance, generating more employment across the EU, further realising the Lisbon objectives.
    The next item is the report (A6-0235/2005) by Mr Queiró, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on new prospects and new challenges for sustainable European tourism [2004/2229(INI)].
   – Thank you Mr President, I would like to speak about the cruise liners sector, for which reference was made in the opinion of Margie Sudre on behalf of the Committee on Regional Development.
Mr President, I shall not dwell on the importance of this sector for ports, maritime regions and islands in Europe, I think that the importance of this sector for tourism, employment and for the generation of economic activity is clear enough.
However it seems that this sector is not being recognised enough in the laws that we are enacting.
Indeed, instead of giving it due incentives sometimes we are almost encouraging it to leave Europe.
Let me explain – for example in the sector of taxation such as VAT and Excise, the rules which we have, are difficult to apply to the cruise liners industry and are creating serious difficulties.
I am referring both to the existing regulations as well as for the Commission’s new proposals regarding changes in the VAT regime.
For example, if you are on a cruise and you are served from the ship restaurant, you pay VAT according to the country from where you left – this means that passengers pay different VAT rates on a cruise, according to the country from which they boarded the ship, and the company which manages the ship has to administer different tax rates according to where the passengers have boarded the ship.
This is just one example, however, it is ironic that there is actually an incentive to avoid these problems.
If the ship makes use of a port of a country which is not a member of the European Union, then the entire voyage becomes automatically duty free, without taxes and without the administrative burden to collect taxes.
Therefore, instead of having incentives making it attractive for the cruise liners industry to stay in European ports, as we should have, we are almost encouraging it to leave Europe.
I have no doubt that this is not the policy of the European Union and this was not the intention of the legislator, however we must admit that these anomalies exist and we must remove them.
Thus my appeal to Commissioner Verheugen is, to address these anomalies, to give more attention to the cruise liner industry and to entice it to keep investing and growing in the countries of the European Union.
Thank you.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to extend warm thanks to Mr Queiró for including the ‘Iron Curtain Trail’ in his report.
The Iron Curtain divided Europe for decades, and the trail will remind future generations of how this continent was divided and of how that division was brought to an end.
The project already involves twelve EU Member States.
The German Parliament has already voted unanimously in favour of preserving the border that ran along 1 400 km through Germany and of opening it up to environmentally-friendly tourism.
This stretch of green runs from the Arctic in the north to the Black Sea in the south, numbers Mikhail Gorbachev among its patrons, and is a suitable means of promoting a European sense of identity.
I rejoice at the widespread support for it in this House and hope that the Member States will now waste no time in joining with the Commission to complete it.
It will be, in the truest sense of the word, an experience of European history, politics and culture.
   Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Queiró warmly on his wonderful report, and I would like to say to the Commissioner: ‘Günter, look at paragraph 28 of the report in which we call on the Commission to produce a tourism programme for senior citizens during the low season, to be known as ’Ulysses’.
This programme has existed in Spain for 20 years.
I am referring to the IMSERSO holidays.
Find out about them via your services, because they have been a spectacular success’.
A programme of this kind has five fundamental objectives.
The first is to improve the quality of life of our senior citizens on low incomes.
Many of them have not had the opportunity to travel, to see the sea and to visit other countries.
Secondly, such a programme must create employment for example in hotels, restaurants, transport facilities that have to shut or drastically reduce their staff in low seasons.
The third objective is to generate demand and growth in the European economy by means of greater activity and consumption.
The fourth involves promoting European citizenship, as in the case of the SOCRATES or ERASMUS programmes amongst young people.
The fifth objective has to do with all this not being an expense but rather an investment, because the Spanish experience demonstrates that the returns exceed the sum budgeted annually by the government by 1.8%.
That is only via taxes and social security returns and does not include indirect and inferred returns.
We named the programme ‘Ulysses’ after the great traveller from Ithaca, but if you like, Commissioner, if it would please you, we will call it the ‘Günter’ Programme.
   Mr President, I would like to support Mr Yáñez’s proposal and stress what I believe to be one of the most interesting contributions made in this report, the proposal to create the ‘Ulysses’ programme.
This is a very positive measure, not only because of what it means in terms of improving the quality of life of senior citizens, but also because of the benefits it may provide for areas of dense tourism, such as the Balearic Islands, the part of Spain from which I originate.
To be able to extend tourist activity beyond the high season means more and better employment for these areas, and diversifies the tourism on offer, since it enables them to receive not just sun and sand tourists but also cultural and environmental ones.
Mr Verheugen, it is very important that in line with the notion of sustainable tourism that is respectful of the land and of the environment and is described in this report, the Commission should promote actions obliging the authorities in tourist areas such as mine to ensure their actions comply with the principles laid out in the document we are discussing.
   – I should like to congratulate Mr Queiró on his excellent report.
I shall confine myself to some brief thoughts.
For years now we have all been aware of the important part played by tourism in developing local economies and creating jobs, especially for women and young people.
The European Conference on Tourism and Employment, organised by the Luxembourg Presidency in November 1997, showed ‘the pulling power that tourism exercises on young people and women, to whom it often offers a first job opportunity’. For that reason as well, we in the Union for Europe of the Nations Group fully support the call for the Commission and the Council, when adopting the structural policy instruments for 2007-2013, to provide for an integrated approach to tourism, ‘allowing the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the European Regional Development Fund actions to be coordinated’.
A further aspect that I must underline, which is something totally new, is the reference to itinerant tourism, represented particularly by camper vans and caravans. This is effectively a segment of the tourist industry that is active 365 days a year and contributes to employment growth in the sector.
In lean times, that is no bad thing! This segment therefore needs measures to encourage its development.
   I too am very pleased to have Mr Alexander here among us.
I would just like to point out to him that we are not at Westminster.
Could he wait until he is given the floor, for the time it takes to complete the translations for everyone? This is by no means ‘Question Time’.
That will come perhaps when we all have the same language in the European Union but, for the time being, everyone must have time to listen to your answers and to the questions posed.
Mr Rübig had a supplementary question.
   – I should be interested to hear whether the mode 4 commitments also entail the security risk being assessed according to uniform standards in future.
Will the Council be producing a definition of what is meant by ‘security risk’?
   As regards a single language, the key issue would be to know what language that would be.
Let us avoid that debate for the time being.
Mr Martin had a supplementary question.
   President-in-Office, to give effect to your mode 4 proposals, which I welcome, would the Council consider encouraging the Commission to create a database for the whole of the European Union that companies and countries from outside the EU could access, so they could identify potential skills shortfalls and opportunities to provide services? This would extend the benefits from such access to include poorer developing countries, as well as countries that already have good intelligence about what is going on in the European Union.
Does the UK Government strongly support the need for an EU 'Third pillar' data protection framework to safeguard individual privacy through for example purpose restrictions, when information is accessed by intelligence and law enforcement agencies on a cross-border basis, or does it regard the 25 national regimes as sufficient, as a Home Office Minister has suggested (House of Lords European Union Committee Report 'After Madrid: the EU's Response to terrorism', 5th report 2004 - 5, evidence page 128 - 141)?
   . The Presidency is waiting for the Commission to introduce its proposals for a framework decision laying down data protection rules in the third pillar.
As soon as the proposal is formally introduced, the Presidency will ensure that it is discussed by the appropriate Council body and forwarded to the European Parliament in accordance with Article 39 of the Treaty on European Union.
   – I agree with Mr Newton Dunn.
I, too, am disappointed with the non-answer the President-in-Office has just given us.
The British Presidency is very well aware of the difficulty of combating organised crime.
That is why we are anxiously waiting to see something done about it once and for all: after all, crime has become globalised, and so that is what the fight against international terrorism and international crime needs to be too.
   . On 23 June 2005, the United Kingdom's Prime Minister stated in this Chamber that, in the view of the Presidency, there is a strong case for increased Council transparency, but this is something we need to discuss with all Member States.
As the Presidency, we have not made any formal proposals at this time.
We are still considering measures and will be consulting with partners in due course, because, as I am sure the honourable Members will appreciate, this is not a matter that is entirely in the gift of the Presidency.
   Question No 4 is withdrawn
In statements made to the Turkish press on 27 June 2005, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Gül, expressly ruled out the possibility of the Turkish Government recognising the ecumenical nature of the Patriarchate and made it clear that the issue of the Halki School of Theology was being examined on the basis of current Turkish law, which meant that the School would not be re-opening.
In the light of the European Council's conclusions of December 2004 and the Commission's announcements of December 2004 concerning Turkey's progress, which contained an express reference to the religious rights of the non-Muslim communities, what is the Council's reaction to these statements by Mr Gül?
   . – The Council appreciates the keen interest that honourable Members are taking in the question of Croatia's preparations for accession.
As for the next steps, the Council reiterated on 13 June 2005 that the intergovernmental conference to launch accession negotiations with Croatia will be convened by common agreement, as soon as the Council has established that Croatia is cooperating fully with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia – ICTY.
As the Member is aware, a high-level task force has been set up with the specific objective of examining, in close contact with ICTY and the Croatian authorities, the measures taken and to be taken by Croatia with a view to reaching full cooperation with ICTY.
In this context, Croatia has presented an action plan.
In her letter to the Presidency, dated 7 June 2005, the ICTY Chief Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, noted that, by implementing its action plan, Croatia was on the road to full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal but that more time was required to determine whether these further efforts had produced tangible results.
   – Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I did not ask you what happened in May or June; I know that already. I asked you what the Council Presidency was planning for the coming weeks.
Specifically, will there be another General Council before 3 October to deal with the commencement of accession negotiations with Croatia?
Secondly, how does the Council propose to keep the democratically-elected European Parliament informed about the work of the task force? Is this task force actually working at all, or is it only being used to block the accession negotiations?
   – Mr President, in this House’s Rules of Procedure, Rule 166(2) states that ‘a request to raise a point of order shall take precedence over all other requests to speak’.
My request to speak is therefore perfectly justified.
I should like to make a request to speak regarding Rule 109 ‘Question Time’, paragraph 4 of which makes reference to Annex II.
Point 4 under ‘Supplementary questions’ in Annex II reads as follows: ‘Each Member may follow up the reply with a supplementary question to any question.
He may put in all two supplementary questions.’
I have the Italian version, too, which says the same.
If the official who has been constantly gesturing to me that I am not entitled to put a second supplementary question has this point checked by the competent authorities, he will find that I am indeed entitled to do so under the current Rules of Procedure, subject to your consent pursuant to point 6(a) of Annex II.
Following the appointment of a new Director of EUROPOL, the positive impression made at his appearance before MEPs on the Civil Liberties Committee in June 2005, and a positive visit by MEPs to the EUROPOL Headquarters in April 2005, can the Council give details of how it views the future cooperation between EUROPOL and the EU Institutions?
Does the Council believe that current accountability arrangements between EUROPOL and the EU institutions are fully transparent?
   . The Presidency was encouraged by Max-Peter Ratzel, the new director of Europol's positive meeting with the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs back in June.
We are working with both the European Parliament and Europol to improve the exchange of information between the two institutions.
The Presidency is fully committed to making the system of accountability as transparent as possible.
As Members of this House will know, Europol is directly funded by Member States and is directly accountable to Member States via the Europol management board and indeed the Council of Ministers.
However, the Presidency hopes that Mr Ratzel will soon return to the European Parliament for further discussions.
   In contrast to Mr Newton Dunn earlier, I am more than happy and satisfied with that answer.
Could the President-in-Office amplify or underline what Charles Clarke has been saying over the past couple of days, that in order fully to deal with terrorism, with cross-border crime – a far more difficult task than it at first seems to the general public – we must attempt to promote a Europol that functions to its true potential and operates as transparently as possible within the rules, within the new directive – which you have rightly said is an efficient and good addition to Europol – so that we can attack terrorism at its roots as well as organised crime?
   Mr Stevenson, I do not know whether we translate directly from Scottish, but we are probably obliged to go through another language that is spoken in the United Kingdom and that many people here speak.
   Does the President-in-Office agree with me that part of the problem is that different countries are proceeding with liberalisation at different rates? The United Kingdom will soon fully liberalise, along with Germany and the Netherlands, which means that 60% of the market will be liberalised.
Therefore, the key element will be the Commission's forthcoming report on the final steps towards full liberalisation in 2009, dealing with regulatory authorities, access arrangements, and also the differing treatment of VAT between the reserved and non-reserved sectors, which is a very sensitive issue and needs to be treated with due care.
Ten United Nations special rapporteurs on several human freedoms and rights issued a recent statement expressing concern about the ‘mass forced evictions in Zimbabwe and related human rights violations’ and raising questions about the negative effects on supplies of water and food, education and health care, including HIV/AIDS treatment.
Will the Council give an update of the situation in Zimbabwe following the extended visit of the United Nations Special Envoy, Mrs Anna Tibaijuka, who is also the Executive Director of the UN Human Settlements Programme?
   President-in-Office, it is absolutely disgraceful that up to 700 000 people have been displaced from their homes, their houses and businesses completely destroyed.
I understand that blood transfusion stocks are now almost non-existent.
The United Nations is organising an international appeal for humanitarian and other aid.
The international community has no option but to cooperate in helping these unfortunate people.
Is it not outrageous that a regime led by what can only be described as a tyrant, along with his cronies, can carry on with the ruination of a country and its people with total impunity?
The Myanmar authorities recently released 249 political ‘prisoners’ throughout the country, reportedly including two prominent journalists and a close aide of the still-detained National League for Democracy (NLD) leader Aung San Suu Kyi, which is welcomed.
Does the Council agree that the Myanmar authorities should lift the remaining constraints on all political leaders and resume political dialogue with all parties concerned?
Furthermore will the Council use its office to call on Myanmar's military government to remove all constraints, starting with the end of her house arrest, on Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner?
   . The European Union pointed out that the releases of political prisoners mentioned by the honourable Member were a welcome step towards national reconciliation in Burma.
The European Union has repeatedly called for the liberation of Aung San Suu Kyi, most recently on 17 June, ahead of her 60th birthday.
On that occasion, the European Union hoped that this would be the last birthday she spent deprived of her freedom and urged the State Peace and Development Council – SPDC – to release her, U Tin Oo and all the other political prisoners immediately.
The European Union is committed to supporting national reconciliation and respect for human rights and democracy in Burma and continues to call on the SPDC to enter into a genuine dialogue with the NLD and with ethnic representatives to find peaceful political solutions.
Like Ann Sang Suu Kyi, the European Union supports an approach to resolving the long-standing political problems in Burma based on dialogue and non-violence.
Consequently, the Union looks forward to the immediate and unconditional release of all remaining political detainees in order to enable all social and political forces to participate in that reconciliation process.
The European Union has shared the above concerns with the Burmese leadership on several occasions, most recently on 6 May at a ministerial meeting held in the margins of the ASEAN ministerial meeting in Kyoto.
At that meeting, the European Union handed over a list of political prisoners whose release was requested on urgent humanitarian grounds.
At the EU-ASEAN ministerial meeting and the ARF ministerial meeting on 28 and 29 July in Laos, the Union again voiced its concerns about the situation in Burma.
   I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his response and understanding that actions have been taken, words have been said.
Is the Minister aware that the Indonesian Foreign Minister has recently taken up this case in a big way and is planning to make a presentation during the UN General Summit which takes place later on this year? Could I urge the Council, and the President-in-Office in particular, to give support to the Indonesian Foreign Minister in ensuring the release of all political prisoners, in particular Aung San Suu Kyi?
   I wish to thank the President-in-Office for his reply and for the information.
However, I hope that he would agree with me that these atrocities in Darfur, where 180 000 people have been killed in two years and more than two million have been driven from their homes, need more urgent attention.
Would the President-in-Office not agree that the international community, including the European Union, should do more, because this has gone on for far too long?
   The next item is the report by Mrs Svensson (A6-0250/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on gender discrimination in health systems (2004/2218 (INI)).
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after the work of the committee, this report seems very confused.
It could be described as a patchwork quilt: it lacks any grand design or focus.
We must, however, have clear areas of focus.
The speech by the Commissioner just now was very welcome.
His conclusion that the gender dimension should be taken into account and the areas of focus which he mentioned were truly welcome.
The main issue that should be raised is the fact that 14 Member States of the Union have not implemented the screening programme to identify cancerous diseases.
It would save money and human life, and it is very important that these screening examinations are actually carried out in good time.
It was also very positive that the Commissioner suggested that mental health was a priority.
In many Member States mental health patients are clearly second-class citizens, and mental health illnesses are not seen as diseases in the same way as others.
Thirdly, I would also like to say how glad I was that the growth in alcohol consumption was something the Commissioner drew attention to in his speech.
Alcohol consumption has increased in almost all Member States, and deaths and alcohol-related illnesses have become common.
This has been a fatal trend, especially among the young.
There is therefore much to do with regard to this at Union and government level, and priorities must be set.
   Mr President, Mrs Svensson has written an extremely fascinating and complete report, which discusses many aspects that are related to women and health care.
I am not a doctor, but I gather that many comments in it put the finger on the sore spot.
I am impressed with the care that emanates from this report.
It shows a great deal of compassion for the individuals who cannot in any way stand up for themselves, certainly when that is the result of abuse, crime or addiction.
I wholeheartedly endorse the appeal for an accessible health care system.
Paragraph 21, however, is in sharp contrast with all the positive sections of this report.
Whilst the report devotes much attention to the well-being and health of adults, paragraph 21 fails to guarantee this for people at an earlier stage of their lives.
It appears that the rights of, and care for, adults are more important than those for people who have just started out in life.
To me, the life of every human being is just as valuable, whether they be very young or very old.
That is why I would like to call for the removal of those elements that draw a distinction between care in the different life stages.
In that way, the positive approach of this report can also benefit those people who cannot yet look after their own interests.
I hope that my fellow Members will be prepared to remove this blot on this otherwise excellent report.
   The next item is the report by Mrs Honeyball, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on options for developing the European schools system (2004/2237 (INI)) (A6-0200/2005).
   . Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for this communication.
The enlarged European Union needs visibility in its various geographical regions.
It is widely recognised in the European Union that there has to be visible action in the Mediterranean region to maintain people’s security and welfare and our continent’s steady and sustainable development.
The Northern Dimension is a later arrival in the sphere of EU activity.
It has been a part of Union policy, as decided by the Council, since the German Presidency in 1999.
As has been said here, however, commitment to this policy on the part of the Commission and the Member States has been very unsatisfactory, and it was very interesting and satisfying to hear the Commissioner’s assurance that there is to be a change with regard to this issue.
The EU’s most recent round of enlargement also raises the matter of the need for a new Eastern Dimension.
The Northern Dimension is an umbrella arrangement designed to try to give attention not only to the Union’s northern regions but also to its northern neighbouring regions, in the form, for example, of practical cooperation with the northwestern part of Russia and the Arctic regions.
The practical work of the Northern Dimension is based on partnerships in which the European Union and Russia, Norway and Iceland are participants.
Canada, too, is involved in many projects.
The practical work of the Northern dimension is based on partnerships, and the best example of this is the realisation of environmental partnerships and the way these have come about could serve as an example to all the other EU regional projects.
In short, the contribution of EUR 75 million by the partnership countries and the EU has meant we have been able to start or we have planned environmental projects worth EUR 2 billion.
This autumn a sewage works southwest of St Petersburg will be completed. It will have considerable importance for reducing the waste load in the Baltic Sea.
In the future we will have to develop a Northern Dimension policy, get new bodies and agencies involved in it, and provide support for the work of earlier partners.
As the Commissioner said, the Nordic Council of Ministers, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, and the Barents Euro-Arctic Regional Council are all important players in the Northern Dimension.
Most important of all, however, is the Commission’s own commitment and that of the Member States.
The Northern Dimension must be made a reality so that it can genuinely become a part of our common policy.
   The next item is the report (A6-0173/2005) by Mr Thierry Cornillet, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on tourism and development [2004/2212(INI)].
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0215/2005) by Mr Bowis, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on major and neglected diseases in developing countries [2005/2047(INI)].
   – I should like to propose an amendment, whereby the phrase ‘and creating a joint border civil protection corps’ in paragraph 9 of the Resolution be replaced with the phrase ‘and creating a European civil protection corps taking special account of the vulnerabilities of border zones’.
I should also like to point out that there is a small mistake in paragraph 17 of the Portuguese translation. The English version of paragraph 17 should therefore be taken as authentic.
   .
I should like to congratulate Mrs Svensson on her important report on gender discrimination in health systems, to which I give my full backing.
I particularly wish to highlight the need to ensure that both sexes can enjoy the benefits of treatment, but that they can also provide medical treatment and care on the basis of equal opportunities.
I should also like to point out the need to invest in health research with patients’ gender taken into account.
I therefore support the initiative to include research into the health situation of the sexes in the new health and consumer protection programme (2007-2013) and take it into account when planning the Seventh Framework Research Programme.
   .
As long ago as 1957, in the Treaties of Rome, the removal of inequalities between men and women was defined as an objective.
A certain amount has been achieved since then, particularly as a result of women’s health programmes in the 1990s, but much still remains to be done.
For example, the proportion of women working in healthcare may well generally be very high – it is over 78% in Austria – but it is small to the point of insignificance in senior management and other professions that enjoy high status and consequent high earnings.
This runs counter to what has been called the ‘feminisation of ageing’, as men form the majority of the population up to about the age of 45 and women thereafter.
This makes it essential that greater consideration be given to problems specific to women.
The establishment by some Member States of universal screening programmes for the early detection of breast cancer in women between the ages of 50 and 69 was another advance, and there is no doubt about the importance of doing this as the report suggests and urging the others to take the same course of action.
We should, however, be concerned about the fact that it is between the ages of 35 and 55 that breast cancer most frequently proves fatal, and so we must do more to promote awareness of the dangers among this age group and adapt the screening programmes accordingly.
   . I and my British Conservative colleagues Conservatives are largely supportive of this report that suggests much needed reform to an outdated system where the EU gives €127 million to European Schools.
However, it is essential that a budget ceiling is put in place for the EU's contributions; that Member States hosting the schools give a greater contribution towards the local costs; that there is a realistic contribution from parents of Category III children.
We also urge the Commission to make an appropriate response to the Advisory Board's recommendations to deliver value for money and to protect the interests of the EU taxpayer.
   Mr President, I fully endorse this excellent report by the rapporteur Mr Bowis, but I feel that little justice can be done to the topic of major neglected diseases in developing countries in just two minutes.
1.8 million people died in 2002 from tuberculosis alone; 2.2 billion are at risk of malaria, which is preventable and curable provided that sufficient ACT or the new combination therapy is made available; 39.4 million people are living with the HIV virus, and last year alone 3.1 million died from AIDS, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.
Only 700 000 of the 6 million who needed antiretrovirals could access that treatment.
The huge human, social and economic fall-out from this is incalculable.
60 million people, again in sub-Saharan Africa, are at risk from sleeping sickness via the tsetse fly.
2 500 million people – two-fifths of the world's population – are at risk from dengue, another mosquito-borne infection, which is now endemic in 100 countries, with no specific treatment or even a vaccine yet.
There is no specific treatment or vaccine available yet for the ravages of Ebola, which has hit the headlines in recent years in these parts and which has killed 1 200 since the virus was first discovered.
The list of neglected diseases continues.
We could also add, as our rapporteur does, the 121 million people living with depression.
Nearly 9% of men worldwide and nearly 10% of women have a depressive episode each year.
873 000 people commit suicide, and that is probably underestimated.
50 million live with epilepsy, over 80% of them in the developing world; 24 million live with schizophrenia; 37 million live with dementia, mainly Alzheimer's and, with an ageing population, this is increasing all the time.
In conclusion, we have listed the problems, but what are the causes? Lack of clean water, lack of sanitation, lack of essential drugs, the cost of essential drugs, drug resistance issues, ineffective pesticides and drugs, drug toxicity, but above all, the main cause is the lack of political will in the developed world to do something about it.
Our response to the SARS pandemic shows what we can do if we make communicable diseases a priority.
This led to the establishment of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control and, as our excellent rapporteur says, we urgently need the same dynamic approach to deal with the other major global diseases.
Mr Bowis led us in relation to the Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and he leads us here in this report.
Thank you, John, you have done an excellent job.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for a resolution on famine in Niger (1).
   The next item is the debate on seven motions for a resolution on breaches of human rights in China, in particular as regards freedom of religion(1).
   . Mr President, last week Tang Jaixuan, a former Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China, said to the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights that every country should promote and protect human rights in its own way, and that there should be no outside interference in this respect.
We simply cannot go along with this view.
Respect for fundamental human rights, including freedom of religion, is not an internal Chinese concern.
It is a concern for all those who are not egotists or opportunists.
We should bear in mind that freedom of religion is also possible in non-democratic countries.
Czechs, Jews and people from the Netherlands emigrated to Poland in the 16th century not because our country was a democracy, but because all religions could be practised in complete freedom in Poland.
We should also remember, however, that there were and still are political systems that only recognise religious leaders of different persuasions if they support the theory that all authority is God-given, even the cruellest.
China should respect not only freedom of religion, but also the independence of churches and religious associations.
Secular authorities cannot be allowed to influence decisions on who might become a Catholic bishop, the 15th Dalai Lama or the 12th Panchen Lama.
Tibetan monks cannot be compelled to attend ideological training.
The 87-year-old Gongola Lama has stated that on training courses of that nature, instructors indoctrinate the monks on the nature of love for the common Chinese fatherland, and mould them into subservience to the law.
They also teach the monks that the Dalai Lama is a danger.
Certain monks are forced to sign a document stating that they no longer recognise the spiritual and political leadership of the Dalai Lama.
World history is full of accounts of repression for religious motives.
It is worth remembering, however, that such repression proved ineffective, even under the cruellest of regimes.
It will prove ineffective in China as well.
It does not matter if a person has their work or property taken away, is imprisoned, expelled, crucified or gassed.
Neither the Pope nor the Dalai Lama can call up any so-called divisions, because the source of religious strength is not to be found in believers or in the clergy, but in the very nature of religion itself.
For most religions, death is not a tragic end but the start of a new life.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for a resolution on political prisoners in Syria(1).
   . Mr President, I would like to follow on from Mr Tannock’s conclusion.
When President Bashir Assad succeeded his father in office, he was the focus of a great deal of hope.
Syrian Christians who know him well tell me that he, as a member of the Alawi minority himself, has a very tolerant attitude towards other faith communities, not least the Christians.
It is all the more disappointing that the Baath regime’s brutal machinery of oppression is still operational, with the secret services at work in Lebanon, and the police in Syria itself.
I would like to emphasise that, as we have ties with Syria through the Mediterranean dialogue and the Mediterranean community, we have to apply particularly rigorous standards to it.
While we ought to support it in its desire to draw closer to the European Union, we cannot do so unless it upholds fundamental human rights and moves towards pluralism and democracy.
That such a thing can happen only step by step is obvious, but the process must be begun without delay, and we must send a clear message to that effect.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the partnership between Europe and the Mediterranean countries has already enabled significant progress to be made on the road to constructing a foundation of shared values: human rights, representative democracy, equality between men and women and social progress.
In this respect, the opening of an electoral process in Egypt which is, admittedly, imperfect and the regained sovereignty of Lebanon are cases in point.
Unfortunately, the recent events in Tunisia show us that it is difficult to progress along that road.
That is why questions must clearly be asked about the conditional nature of our partnerships.
If an Association Agreement concluded with a country is seriously breached, this should be able to bring about its suspension, even on a temporary basis.
In Syria, the arrival in power of President Al-Assad has given rise to a great deal of hope.
Conflicting political signs are, however, reaching us, allowing some confusions and uncertainties to remain as regards completing the ratification process for the Association Agreement.
In my role as Chairman of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries, I recently took a delegation from our Parliament to Syria.
During this visit and particularly in the presence of President Al-Assad himself, we laid a great deal of emphasis on the need to respect fundamental freedoms and on the need to secure the release of the two former parliamentarians, Mr Seif and Mr al-Homsi.
Their release is the subject of an item in the report on the visit, drafted by our Mashreq Delegation.
The release – I quote – ‘of the two imprisoned Syrian parliamentarians is a preliminary condition for the signing of the Association Agreement.’
The vote on this urgent resolution will act as a powerful message from our Parliament: respect for human rights and respect for fundamental freedoms are non-negotiable factors in our partnerships.
   Mr President, there is an oral amendment to recital E: when talking about ‘Riad al-Hamood, civil society activist’, it must be specified that ‘Kurdish’ precedes ‘civil society activist’.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 8 September 2005.
   Mr President, what you have just described is what came out of the Conference of Presidents and the subsequent discussions between the groups.
A matter of minutes ago, though, in this House, Mr Watson, Mr Poettering and I had a brief discussion, and we agree that what we would recommend is that we consider Uzbekistan in the October part-session and now proceed to debate the situation in Vojvodina (), whilst adjourning discussion of Tunisia.
   Mr President, our primary concern was to do a swap by taking Tunisia off the agenda and replacing it with Vojvodina, but, as we still see it as important that we should, in human rights matters such as these, achieve outcomes with which we can all agree, we propose to keep Tunisia on the agenda, while – as Mr Schulz said – debating Vojvodina instead of Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan will then be on the agenda for the next part-session, and we can be certain of getting a broad majority on that.
Let me say, for the benefit of the members of my own group, that the reasoning behind our motion was that we would thus ensure that Vojvodina is dealt with this week.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last but not least I would like to take my turn in welcoming our new colleagues from Romania and Bulgaria.
They will, I hope, restore to the French language and culture a little of the lustre it has lost here as successive enlargements have taken place, in particular with the accession of countries from Northern Europe and Central and Eastern Europe.
I am not forgetting notable exceptions such as our late fellow Member from Poland, Filip Adwent.
I welcome, in particular, our five colleagues and friends from the Romania Mare party in the great country of Romania and our Bulgarian colleague from the Attack party.
They have come as observers to the European Parliament at a time when Turkey, on 3 October 2005, will be starting its accession talks, even though its accession was one of the reasons why the Constitution was rejected, and without it having acknowledged the Republic of Cyprus and, furthermore, without it wanting to do so.
I believe that, with 10% of its population of Turkish origin, Bulgaria is particularly sensitive to this major event.
May our colleagues know that they can count on our support in the European Parliament to defend the Europe of our native lands in the face of destructive globalisation and the flood of migrants.
I note with interest the death knell that Mr Barroso, President of the European Commission, has just sounded to the defunct European Constitution.
As a rational democrat, he has learned lessons from the French and Dutch referenda and scrapped this freedom-annihilating text.
For once, law comes close to morality.
The people’s opinion is superior to that of the technocrats, in spite of the various kinds of pressure being exerted by the great professional consciences.
As regards the financial perspectives for 2007-2013, the Franco-British battle over the rebate and the CAP budget is in danger of continuing unless the Community budget is increased beyond 1% of GDP to meet the needs of the CEECs.
On that issue, we will denounce any withdrawal or climb-down from Mr Chirac and the French Government regarding the CAP.
As loyal allies of the Americans, the British have but two objectives during their six-month Presidency: to get Turkey’s accession under way and to ensure that the much-vaunted ‘Bolkestein’ Directive on services is adopted.
We will oppose them both.
Mr Chirac addressed the European Commission, quite shamelessly, to request its intervention in the Hewlett Packard affair, with its 1 240 compulsory redundancies.
He publicly humiliated himself and France along with him.
It is not up to the Commission, in fact, to intervene in the internal management of businesses.
It is only natural that methods of protecting French economic and social interests should be decided in Paris and not in Brussels and Geneva.
Only the 2007 French presidential election, coming in the wake of the bombshell events of 29 May 2005, will mark the genuine break with Euro-internationalism and the spirit of renunciation.
It is a break that all genuine Europeans are waiting for.
This will be the return to national ideas and to economic patriotism in the service of the people.
Having the formidable privilege of precedence, I believe I can be the most convincing spokesperson on this matter in France and in Europe.
   Thank you very much, Mrs Wallström.
Mrs Berès has requested the floor.
Please tell me which Rule of the Rules of Procedure you are invoking.
   Mr President, I would like to speak about the organisation of the agenda simply in order to draw your attention to our method of working.
I regret that a legislative text of absolutely crucial importance to the funding of our economy – which is, I repeat, a legislative text – should be included in today’s agenda only as from 7.30 p.m.
I believe that it should have been scheduled for another day and another time.
I understand the importance of these moments to pause for breath and to conduct political debates, but I believe that it is also important for our Parliament to treat its legislative work in a reasonable fashion.
   Mr President, I am taking the floor on behalf of Mr Pittella, from Italy, and Mrs Madeira, from Portugal, to ask the Presidency-in-Office of the Council, in the proposals on the financial perspective that it is to present, to reincorporate the criteria proposed by the Commission on the regions affected by the statistical effect, with regard to the need to support them without any shameful discrimination amongst them, since, as I said in this very House on 9 March, this is a question of dignity, of making European policy comprehensible, of making it egalitarian, balanced and democratic, faithful to its roots and to its ambitions.
   Mr President, one quarter of the Irish GDP is tied up in construction.
We could say that Ireland is a country under construction.
However, in many of the villages around the cities of my constituency, houses are being thrown up with no thought for utilities, for enough water or sewage, or for the important elements of social infrastructure.
Children spend their whole education in Portakabins.
Often there are no sports fields or crèches and few shops.
Rural villages quickly become dormitory towns with no sense of community. Is that alright with Europe?
Does it tally with rural development? I need answers for the people of Watergrass Hill, Glenville and other towns: the people who are struggling with life in shiny new clusters of houses with no soul.
   – Mr President, a man died.
He had been known as a merciless avenger by many, even though he had been seeking justice, not revenge.
He was motivated by the conviction that if people who had committed crimes can leave the past behind without any consequences, this past would return, poisoning both the present and the future.
Simon Wiesenthal died.
He was human and sometimes made mistakes.
But he could not come to terms with the fact that Europe, the new world building a collective future based on its common values, had already been united once in the past.
United in the assumption of racial superiority, in condemnation, ostracism and hatred.
A 96-year-old man passed away.
His legacy to us is the knowledge that contempt for another human being and taking human lives should never be allowed to unite Europe again.
Let us think of him when we work to ensure that the unity of the new Europe is based on equal treatment and equal opportunities.
In remembrance of him we ask the Committee that in paragraph 13 ...
   Mr President, in the presence of Commissioner McCreevy and his colleagues, I would like to put down a marker about the Commission's proposed reform of the sugar regime.
Contrary to received wisdom, global sugar consumption already outstrips demand.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization forecast world sugar consumption at 145 million tonnes for 2004 and 2005, with production at 143 million tonnes.
World sugar consumption next year is said to reach 149 million tonnes, with per capita consumption in China alone expected to increase from its current 10 kilograms to the EU level of 35 kilograms in the medium term.
In Brazil the consumption per capita is already 50 kilograms.
In addition the availability of irrigation water in developing countries and elsewhere is decreasing, and this will dictate a swing away from the cultivation of sugar cane, a water-intensive crop.
Factor in the inevitable impact on sugar cane consumption patterns by the projected increases in gasohol as oil prices rise and alternative biofuel technologies become mainstream.
Sugar may increasingly become a strategic commodity.
The world is facing a long-term surge in demand.
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen from Poland, it is more than merely symbolic that we should, today, not only be welcoming the observers from Bulgaria and Romania, but also remembering the great triumph of Solidarity 25 years ago.
I am glad that the Commission has had something to say about the Solidarity movement today.
One might think there were occasions of greater contemporary relevance and that the celebrations over the past weeks had paid sufficient tribute to history, but our debate today shows that the opposite is the case.
When I joined in the celebrations in Warsaw and Gdansk three weeks ago, it was again brought home to me just how relevant to our own time this groundbreaking historic event actually is.
The legendary strike by Solidarity that we are commemorating is part of our living heritage, and has lost none of its significance in 25 years.
It was the politically and socially oppressed and disadvantaged who, by their courage, succeeded in bringing to an end the totalitarian Communist regimes in Poland and, following on from that, in other countries in Central and Eastern Europe; their boundless desire for reform is on all our lips.
Above all, though, we revere the memory of the victims of these totalitarian regimes, remembering those who were oppressed, arrested, shot dead during protest strikes, condemned and executed after show trials.
One man – the priest, Father Jerzy Popiełuszko, can be taken as representative of all of them.
The years 1953, 1956, and 1968 are significant in the histories of East Germany, Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, but Solidarity gave impetus and reinforcement to the civil rights movements in Central and Eastern Europe, such as Charta 77, which campaigned for traditional, political human rights, the ‘Swords into Ploughshares’ peace campaign in the former East Germany, and the ‘Dunakör’ environmentalist movement in Hungary.
What all this adds up to is that, without Solidarity, the Berlin Wall would not have fallen.
I speak for this House when I say that debate mattered to those who supported the Solidarity movement in Poland – debate that involved our friends Adam Michnik and Jacek Kuroń, as well as Bronisław Geremek and Janusz Onyskiewicz, who are now Members of this House, and so we are very grateful to them for the way in which they, 25 years ago, laid the foundation stones of a Europe united in peace, freedom and democracy, a Europe guided by social and environmental principles.
    Mr President, Poland’s Solidarity movement came into being a quarter of a century ago.
This peaceful non-violent movement proved as effective as the movement led by the great Mahatma Ghandi a few decades earlier had been.
Ghandi’s movement eventually led to Indian independence, whilst Solidarity was instrumental in Poland regaining its sovereignty and Poles their freedom.
Solidarity was instrumental in much more besides.
It led to the peaceful revolution in Central and Eastern Europe.
Nine years after the so-called outbreak of Solidarity, Czechoslovakia underwent the Velvet Revolution, and the fall of the Berlin Wall followed.
The origins of these events can, however, be traced back to 1980 and to Gdansk, in Poland.
Solidarity was not just a trade union with 10 million members, representing almost 40% of the adult population of my country.
It was also a movement working for democratic freedoms, free elections, free media and freedom of religion.
I cannot be impartial, as I am a Pole, but even so, I firmly believe that Solidarity was a crucial turning point in our common European 20th century history.
Today, 25 years later, I should like to pay tribute to Solidarity as a Pole and as a European.
It was largely due to this movement that my country and neighbouring nations gained their freedom.
Our freedom is not all it could be.
We still have many economic and social problems to deal with, but the most important thing is that we do now enjoy real freedom and are in a position to put our own house in order.
I should like to thank the many millions of ordinary working people in my homeland whose efforts enabled us to be in this fortunate position.
Poland and the whole of Europe owe you a debt of gratitude.
We are all indebted to Solidarity.
   Mr President, today we are commemorating the 25th anniversary of Polish Solidarity and debating its message for Europe.
We remember the days and months when the Polish people could take no more and when Polish workers went on strike in Gdansk.
We remember the fight that set in motion so much more than simply the struggle for Polish freedom.
What it set in motion was the fight for the freedom of the whole of Eastern Europe.
The first stone to fall from the Berlin Wall fell not in Berlin but in Gdansk.
We often forget, however, that the strike and the solidarity in Gdansk were preceded by years of Polish revolt against Communism.
Many fought for freedom, doing so each independently and in different ways, but there was no combined force uniting all Poles around the same idea.
Only when a Polish pope was installed in the Vatican did the Poles realise that they were united by their spiritual inheritance and that there were forces that would take them forward to independence and autonomy.
And so it came to pass.
I myself was living at that time in Communist Yugoslavia and clearly remember the pictures from Gdansk.
I could not understand how anyone could actually believe it was possible to topple Communism.
When, almost two decades after Gdansk, the people of Serbia protested against Milosevic’s regime, they had learned something from Solidarity.
They had learned that totalitarian regimes do not go on forever, but can in actual fact come tumbling down.
They had also learned that democracy must always come about from within and that victory necessarily falls to a unified people fighting for its freedom.
The most important message for Europe had already been sent by Solidarity.
My fellow Member, Mr Sjöstedt from Sweden, who belongs to a party whose leader still calls himself a Communist, has just made a speech in which he paid tribute to Solidarity, a movement that fought specifically against Communism.
This too is a message sent by Solidarity to Europe: that Europe does not tolerate either Communist, or any other, dictatorships or, indeed, any systems of totalitarianism or enslavement.
The future of Europe lies in freedom, and that is something we all defend, and today most especially by expressing our respect for, and gratitude towards, the people of Poland and Eastern Europe who fought for a free Europe during the 1980s and 90s.
   Solidarity is not exclusively part of Poland’s heritage.
Solidarity, together with its values and ethos, should become part of the heritage of the whole of Europe and indeed of the whole of the world.
That is precisely why it is important for Solidarity to become a permanent feature of our European consciousness.
As stated in our resolutions, 25 years ago the workers of Gdańsk opened a new chapter in the European struggle for bread and freedom.
It was the workers of Poznań, where I come from, who actually launched the struggle 49 years ago.
On 28 June 1956 several dozen of them died at the hands of Communists.
They died because they demanded bread and freedom.
Fortunately neither their deaths, nor the deaths of the workers who died in December 1970, were in vain.
Solidarity has global significance because it was a peaceful movement but also a victorious one.
Solidarity's story inspires optimism and confidence, as it proved that even a Communist totalitarian regime could be brought down without the use of force.
It would be wonderful if Solidarity's methods and values became an effective way in which all people living under oppressive regimes could fight for freedom, dignity and human rights.
Solidarity demonstrated that it makes sense to hope for a better life, and that perseverance and belief in one's principles will bear fruit.
I am convinced that the European Union of 25 Member States would not exist today if Lech Wałęsa and his companions had not acted as they did 25 years ago.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0257/2005) by Mr Radwan, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to the taking up and pursuit of the business of credit institutions (COM(2004)0486 C6-0141/2004 2004/0155(COD)), and also on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to the capital adequacy of investment firms and credit institutions (COM(2004)0486 C6-0144/2004 2004/0159(COD)).
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the object of this draft directive is the implementation of Basel II in the European Union, thereby establishing a basis on which the financial markets may be made more stable.
Banking supervision can be made more efficient and greater weight attached to the risk element involved.
The directive will also impose minimum standards for high-risk businesses.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we have discussed Basel II in depth and worked our way through some 900 amendments, along with a whole array of compromise amendments that the rapporteur, Mr Radwan, drafted together with Mr Ettl and myself.
I would like at this point to express my gratitude for the high degree of trust in all this and for the constructive cooperation that we enjoyed.
In the ensuing troika discussions, the Council accepted many of Parliament’s amendments, and we managed to extract several concessions and compromises from it, with the effect that the technical substance of Basel II can be regarded as balanced.
Speaking as a Liberal, I am particularly glad that we have managed to come up with rules that are capable of ensuring fair competitive conditions between the various groups in the banking sector.
This is a package that the Liberals and Democrats can strongly endorse.
It does, however include two amendments on Islamic loans and mortgages, and one on energy companies, to which we cannot give our backing, for Basel II was not intended to be used as a means of putting in place special safeguards for certain sectors of industry or creating special conditions for them.
Despite that, we will, as a group, be voting in favour of the whole package.
It was our group that introduced the amendments relating to the trading book We see it as a very good thing that the good and fast work done by the Commission has now made it possible for these to be adopted in the course of the voting on Basel II, thus ensuring consistent implementation in this area.
Discussion of Basel II has of course touched on the subject of comitology, something about which all speakers have already had something to say.
The importance and usefulness of the comitology procedure is not a matter of dispute for any of us; it is a means whereby the rules implementing basic acts may be speedily enacted, but it is a procedure that must not be allowed to undermine Parliament’s prerogatives, for the enhancement of which the Constitutional Treaty makes provision.
Uncertain though the future of that Treaty may be, Parliament’s concerns still matter and are still relevant.
As was only to be expected, the troika negotiations on comitology proved to be particularly problematic.
Weeks of pressure on our part prompted the Council to create a working party called ‘Friends of the Presidency’, which Commissioner McCreevy mentioned, thereby acknowledging for the first time the need for a new inter-institutional agreement and for action to be taken.
We cannot, though, be satisfied with mere promises.
What we want is a definite date by which there will be a new inter-institutional agreement to reinforce our rights
To the Council, we propose 1 January 2008 as the date for the sunset clause, and now await its response, which we hope will turn out to be favourable.
   Mr President, for many small and medium-sized businesses, Basel II is a matter of life and death.
They worry a great deal about it; there has been a great deal of discussion about it.
I believe that they should have complete confidence in the rapporteur.
Even though his report has accomplished many things, there is one aspect I would like to mention in the short speaking time available to me, and that is that whether there really will be fair competition among sources of credit, and then perhaps also among those who apply for it, will be dependent on what is agreed in this House.
It is fortunate that we are only at first reading stage.
I do think, though, that Amendment 140, which is an attempt to introduce more transparency by calling on the credit institutions to provide the SMEs and other firms that have applied for loans with written clarification of how they arrived at their rating decisions, will be essential if the market is not to be even more distorted.
We will then have to wait and see what comes out at the other end – the right degree of transparency or excessive regulation.
It would be nice if we could lay down a timeframe for this, at least at second reading.
I would certainly be in favour of a sunset clause, about which everything has in any case already been said, and I hope that Mr Radwan’s report gets through in such a shape as to maintain the balance he is seeking.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe, Basel II has become a byword for the way in which it becomes more difficult to get credit the more problematic the situation one is in.
Had Basel II been accepted in its original form, that would of course be an extraordinarily bad sign for Europe’s present economic state, and so I want to express warm thanks to the rapporteur for our group, Mr Radwan, for the extraordinarily difficult job he has done in this regard.
I see this directive, in the form in which it is presented in his report for the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, as providing us with an excellent means of dispelling the fears of small and medium-sized businesses.
The second point I want to pick up is the same as that addressed by Mrs Berès.
It does not often happen that I agree with her, but on this occasion and in this matter I do.
It is astonishing that the American banking sector, from which this directive was originally derived, is now delaying its application to the smaller American banks.
Great believer in the trans-Atlantic relationship though I am, I do think we need to take care that economic harmonisation in Europe does not take us down different roads from those taken on the other side of the Atlantic.
We will be the strongest economic area in the world only if we make changes at the same pace as they do.
Let me conclude by expressing my agreement with what Mr Radwan had to say about comitology.
The right message to send to the many members of the European public who complain that it is not clear who decides what in Europe, is that it is here in the European Parliament that decisions of a political nature are taken, and that is why the sunset clause, which is to be in force for two years, enjoys my support.
In 2007, there will be three more directives that have gone through the Lamfalussy procedure: the directive on responsibilities in relation to prospectuses, the Market Abuse Directive and the one on financial conglomerates.
All three will be there, and all three, or so I believe, need to bring clarity and stability to the financial markets.
This is where the European Parliament can play its part, and so I welcome this directive in the form in which Mr Radwan has presented it.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to start by telling the Commission that this is where the work begins.
Mr Radwan may well have produced a splendid dossier, but what matters is that Commissioner Verheugen should give his attention to the question of how best to introduce this directive in Europe, how to prevent insolvencies and encourage company formations.
Commissioner Kovács’ homework is, in my view, to give some thought to how, in future, businesses may write off more minor items – the rates in America, for example, are substantially higher – and to how they are to handle the carrying forward and back of losses.
This is where the Commission should, with competition in mind, intervene creatively, for this Basel II project is, after all, meant to be about rationalisation and reform; it is meant to save costs rather than to bring a whole new wodge of them into play, and for that reason, here too, I recommend benchmarking and best practice.
   The next item is the report by Mr Doorn, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, on the proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on statutory audit of annual accounts and consolidated accounts and amending Council Directives 78/660/EEC and 83/349/EEC [COM(2004)0177 C6-0005/2004 2004/0065(COD)] (A6-0224/2005).
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that the Auditors Directive will help to restore the confidence in year-end results and the operation of the markets that has been shattered by various scandals over various years.
It might well give investors greater security – the security they once enjoyed – and make European businesses more competitive.
If one compares the main points from the opinion I drafted for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the final version that Mr Doorn, the rapporteur, presented us with after the troika negotiations, one sees that they overlap to a great degree, for example as regards rotation, the costs incurred by small and medium-sized businesses, and liability.
I welcome the proposal that the Commission should produce a study on the liability issue by the end of 2006, and I agree with what Mr Schwab had to say about this.
I would have liked to hear a more positive message in relation to two other important matters, those being the establishment of an audit committee and the provision of additional non-audit services.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs gave an enthusiastic welcome to the requirement that audit committees be set up and endorsed the Commission’s thinking.
Taken as a whole, Mr Doorn’s report is a step in the right direction, and I am grateful to him for the work he has done as rapporteur.
The vote we are about to hold is crucial to the successful completion of the fast-track procedure, and so the markets will soon get the signal they have been eagerly awaiting.
I am also glad that Mr Doorn, in his report, addresses the issue of comitology, although I would expect the date for the sunset clause to be 1 January rather than 1 April 2008.
It strikes me, though, that it will be difficult to accept the proposed approach to implementing International Standards on Auditing, known as IAS or ISA.
Here, too, Parliament must hold fast to its right of callback.
Although Mrs Wallis, my group’s shadow rapporteur on the lead Committee, recommends that we approve this report, I myself will be abstaining from voting by reason of the reservations I have already adduced.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Fraga Estévez, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of the protocol setting out the tuna fishing opportunities and financial contribution provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros on fishing off the Comoros for the period from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2010 [COM(2005)0187 C6-0154/2005 2005/0092(CNS)] (A6-0260/2005).
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the amended proposal for a Council directive on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status (14203/2004 – C6-0200/2004 – 2000/0238(CNS)) (A6-0222/2005).
   Mr President, Commissioner, I speak on behalf of all my people.
Firstly, on behalf of the wine growers from the Languedoc-Roussillon region who have been making wine for 2 000 years – since the days of the Roman Empire and not for a century like California – and who make wine like people make love, like people cultivate love for what is handsome and what is beautiful.
I also speak on behalf of all the wine growers from France, Spain, Rioja, Hungary, Tokay – the wine of kings, the king of wines – Italy, Greece and the entire Mediterranean area, where wine is part of civilisation, an art of the gods.
Yet you, with your agreement, you are reducing the wine that is the product of civilisation to an industrial product for marketing.
Your Munich Agreement of the wine industry changes the definition of wine and the nature of wine.
It is no longer a natural creation that is the fruit of the fermentation process, but a chemical product.
You accept the United States’ chemical – and not wine-making – practices.
You accept a Coca Cola-type of wine made with water plus ingredients, sugar, colourings and wood.
It is like the United States wanting to change Mrs Fischer Boel into an inauthentic, 7%-dilutable commissioner.
You can understand, therefore, why the United States does not want labels: because it obviously does not want the chemical substances to be included on them.
Soon, the REACH Directive will be applied to wine.
What is more, you are allowing the theft of 17 designations, on the pretext that they are semi-generic.
Champagne, why, that is insignificant; Chablis, that is not at all significant; Sauternes, even less so!
You are giving the rubber stamp to fraud and counterfeiting.
For five years, the United States will be able to use bogus châteaux and bogus Clos wines in exchange for the peace clause.
It is like what happened with the Uruguay Round negotiations, it is like what happened with oleaginous fruits: the thief agrees not to drag the cheated wine growers under the nose of the WTO policeman.
This had already been done before for the agreement with South Africa and, at the WTO, of course, the producers of Chilean, Australian and California wine, and of all the wines from the Pacific, are going to revolt and claim this precedent for themselves.
Commissioner, I come from a region that invented the great revolts in the 1950s.
Well, the wine growers from the Languedoc region will say ‘no’ to you.
They will revolt and they may, for that matter, come to the Commission in Brussels.
They have been able to rouse the whole of southern France, and they will have no difficulty in saying ‘no’ to you as violently as is necessary, because you are attacking them and you are attacking a civilisation.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am an MEP from the great Eastern France, a region that produces Burgundy, the wine of Alsace – Alsace, where we are today – and, of course, Champagne.
I have a duty, as an MEP who is, indeed, from the Champagne region, to inform you of the following observations, since the essence of today’s debate is the start of the agreement you spoke of, Commissioner, and which you obviously wish to finalise.
While we too wish for it to be finalised, it is for the reasons that I am going to expand on.
There is an economic necessity underpinning all of this.
The US market, as has been pointed out several times since it was mentioned earlier, is extremely important for Europeans.
In this age of globalisation, however, I would like to focus my remarks on issues related to quality.
At international level, UNESCO regularly acknowledges a number of our sites of interest and buildings among the world heritage sites.
Well, European wines, particularly those produced around the Mediterranean, as was pointed out earlier, have established their pedigree throughout the centuries and millennia.
In an age when, at every important moment, when a peace agreement is signed, when a family party is celebrated, etc., it is wine and, moreover, quality wine that is consumed, quality must be recognised.
Yet, what has been taking place for some decades now? We have been witnessing the spread of plantations throughout the world – in Chile, in Australia, in New Zealand – and, above all, and this is what is fuelling the debate this morning, an explosion of ‘Canada Dry’.
People are reproducing wines left, right and centre throughout the world, quoting denominations on the labels that allude to the vine and the region in which the wines were produced – Champagne, Bordeaux, Porto, etc. – and they are trying to make consumers believe that, in the bottle they are buying, they have a wine whose origin and quality matches what the labelling would suggest.
Commissioner, this agreement that you are going to finalise in the weeks and months to come must prevent consumers throughout the world from feeling cheated and deceived.
We live in an age where the volume of counterfeit products is multiplying; we can see this taking place in the case of clothing items, with Lacoste, in the case of watches, with Rolex, and also, unfortunately, in the case of medicines.
It is quite normal, natural and necessary that consumers throughout the world should be certain that a bottle of wine bearing the words ‘wine of Alsace’, ‘Burgundy’ ‘Champagne’ or ‘Port’ does indeed contain the wine in question.
The quality of our world heritage is at stake, as are the interests of all our European wine producers.
Long live European wine!
   Before I call the Commissioner, perhaps I might be permitted a personal comment.
I have been a Member of this House for some time, and rarely have I experienced such an interesting and committed debate, but it is one that I also regard as an example of Europeanisation and globalisation.
Only a few years ago, when we spoke in terms of ‘us’, each of us meant his or her own nation, and, even so, we had exactly the same problems with mutual recognition, designations of origin, certification, and mandatory labelling.
All these things we once fought long and hard to secure for Europe, and now it seems that we have to do the same again for a global market that has shrunk.
The American Professor Jeremy Rifkin is quite right to say that Europeans are best equipped, by reason of these laborious experiences of things that the world is now having to get to grips with, to deal with these problems, for we have been through them already and know how they need to be addressed.
Now, Commissioner, we are all agog to learn how you propose to sort out the problems with wine.
Everyone present – including the spectators – knows how important wine is to their own winegrowers.
How, then, Commissioner, are we to solve these problems?
Mr Zappalà, I give you the floor on the basis of Rule 131(4).
   Mr Geremek, simply out of courtesy to you, I am going to consider your speech to be a personal statement, but you cannot resume the debate at this stage.
I give the floor once again to the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, and ask him not to reopen the debate, as this is voting time.
   Mr President, I rise on a point of order under Rule 166.
You know as well as I do that, no matter what the colour of your politics in this place, there is one factor that uniquely unites nearly all of us: whether black, blue, yellow, red or green, we all try our best to represent the people who kindly gave us this job.
In my region, the East Midlands of the United Kingdom, in the last election voters experimented and tried a different colour.
Indoctrinated by old adverts and TV celebrity, they believed that, as we say in the UK, the future is bright, the future is orange.
A few months later and alas, one of our new representatives disappeared from the scene and from this Parliament.
There are many concerns for his safety: some believed he had been kidnapped, others that he was a relative of Lord Lucan.
I ran a competition in the East Midlands offering a bottle of champagne for the first confirmed sighting of my illustrious but missing colleague Mr Robert Kilroy-Silk.
Alas, to this day the champagne remains unclaimed, and so as an unclaimed prize, I believe I should give it to the man himself.
Here is the said bottle of champagne.
   The financial effect of the proposal to increase the fees payable to the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has not yet been established.
The proposal will in any case have consequences for budget headings 3 and 2 of the new financial perspective for 2007-2013.
We are, on principle, unfavourably disposed to the EMEA being strengthened as an authority and being given an increased budget.
We have therefore voted against this report.
   . The new protocol for the fisheries agreement with the Comoros will be in force between 2005 and 2010.
It differs little from the previous protocol (2001 to 2004), which has been extended for ten months.
The adoption of this agreement will make it possible to provide fishing opportunities to Member State fleets operating in these waters, including Portugal.
From the EU side, it is calculated that each EUR invested by the Community in the agreement generated an added value of EUR 5.7, an impressive return on investment.
The number of purse seiners remains the same (21 Spanish vessels, 18 French and 1 Italian), while the number of longliners decreases from 25 to 17 (12 from Spain and 5 from Portugal).
This is due to the low level of utilisation during the previous protocol, which demonstrates that the distant water fleet has become ever smaller, as evidenced by the negligible size of the Portuguese distant-water fleet.
This protocol increases contributions from shipowners by 40% from EUR 25 to EUR 35 per tonne, and cuts the Community’s contribution.
We find this unacceptable, as the Commission stated its intention to negotiate future protocols with other countries at the same rate for shipowners.
   We approve of the initiative taken by the Council concerning the retention of telecommunication data for the purpose of giving the law enforcement authorities better tools in the fight against serious crime and terrorism.
Experience in Sweden shows that telecommunication data has been important in many serious crime investigations.
We therefore support the Council’s proposal in principle.
The proposal presented by the Commission on 21 September 2005 concerning the retention of telecommunication data opens the way for a debate on combating crime.
The Commission’s proposal would give the European Parliament influence.
We therefore chose to abstain in today’s vote in anticipation of a new position being adopted.
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This report forms the framework for the European Union's common position on the sensitive question of dealing with the procedure for granting and withdrawing refugee status.
Despite the fact that the EPLP still have certain reservations concerning the Kreissl-Dörfler report, British Labour MEPs voted to support the report in the final vote.
We do so safe in the knowledge that any outstanding concerns or problems will be rectified by national governments in Council during the implementation stage of the new procedures.
We remain confident that a balance can be found in Council on the basis of some of the recommendations made under the consultation procedure in Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report.
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In general, we have to conclude that the report is in many areas a vast improvement on the Commission proposal.
During Mrs Liotard’s visit to the Italian refugee camp on the island of Lampedusa on 27 and 28 June 2005, she was able to see for herself how important it is for refugees to have specific rights.
If an EU Treaty can do something to improve the situation of those people, then we are in favour of such improvement.
We still have major misgivings about some sections of the Commission proposal, though, including, for example, the concept of ‘safe third countries’.
We have, unfortunately, been obliged to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea, so, despite these concerns, we will nevertheless vote in favour of the amended proposal, because it can vastly improve the position of asylum seekers, because Amnesty International was relatively positive about it, and because we hope that it will put an end to the disgraceful Lampedusas of Europe.
   . In my vote on the Kreissl-Dörfler Report, I would like to express my concerns around the concept of ‘super-safe’ countries, by which the EU States would be allowed to draw up a list of third countries, which are deemed so definitely safe so that refugees' status would be automatically denied.
It is vital in my view, having practiced asylum law in the past, that we do not erode completely individual assessment for asylum seekers and the Geneva Convention's ‘non-refoulement’ Principal (principal by which governments may not turn refugees away automatically without having their case heard or checking subjective or objective elements to genuine asylum cases).
   .
Having had many encounters with refugees from Kosovo, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Nepal, Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, I appreciate that these poor souls do not come to our continent for fun.
Each set of parents and every child have their own story to tell – a story of despair and fear.
This draft directive is disturbing and is the ultimate proof that the Home Affairs and Justice Ministers are playing their own games and refusing to consult with the European Parliament.
They went against the spirit of the Treaties in concluding what I believe to be an ill-considered political agreement without consulting the European Parliament.
I therefore endorse Amendment 182, according to which the European Parliament retains the right to bring a case before the Court of Justice in order to verify the proposal’s legitimacy and its reconcilability with the fundamental civil rights. I also support all amendments that intend to delete the concept of ‘safe third country’ from the proposal.
This notion is unacceptable in that it passes the buck from Member States to third countries and will inevitably lead to arbitrariness and political scheming.
Incidentally, who decides whether a country is (super)safe or not? Is Afghanistan safe after the war?
Are Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – two countries that are creaking under a totalitarian regime – safe countries? Some people in Belgium believe they are.
   The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mr Kreissl-Dörfler’s report on the amended proposal for a Council directive on minimum standards on procedures in Member States for granting and withdrawing refugee status (A6-0222/2005).
We are, however, aware of the fact that the proposal concerns an area covered by Title IV of the Treaty establishing the European Community and does not therefore apply to Denmark, cf. the protocol on Denmark’s position.
   Mr President, I have something to add to today’s Minutes, that being the fact that the written statement on rheumatic diseases has, today, already surpassed the two-thirds majority.
Three hundred and sixty-seven signatures had already been collected, and the figure reached 378 by noon today.
This written statement, of which I am the joint originator, calls on the Commission and the Council to include rheumatic diseases among the priorities for the EU’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research.
I ask that this sensational achievement be recorded in today’s minutes.
   – Mrs Stenzel, what you are saying does not pertain to observations on the Minutes of yesterday’s, that is the previous, sitting.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to express my sincere appreciation of both Mr Guellec’s and Mr Marques’s reports; I shall focus particularly on Mr Guellec’s.
One of the European Union’s basic aims concerns cohesion policy, especially since the latest enlargement and in view of the imminent future accession of Bulgaria and Romania.
The European Parliament has distinguished itself precisely on cohesion policy during this first part of the parliamentary term, since it has approved all the regulations on regional policy for the 2007-2013 programming period.
On the other hand, the constant, fruitful cooperation and dialogue with Commissioner Hübner, which I have personally experienced as rapporteur on the Cohesion Fund regulation, has led to a firm resolve on the part of the Commission and Parliament not to accept reductionist solutions.
A credible and effective cohesion policy cannot, indeed, exist without adequate financial instruments, and that is why we are hoping for a prompt decision on the financial perspective.
It is necessary to avoid having European aid concentrated in just a few areas, thus adding to the existing disparities within a single region.
Instead, measures must be adopted that are widespread, harmonious and thorough in less-developed areas, as Mr Guellec has rightly shown.
I also agree with the rapporteur on the importance of towns, especially small to medium-sized ones, as motors for territorial cohesion.
That is the point I tried to make by tabling amendments, which Parliament then adopted, to the regulation on the European Regional Development Fund, for which I was shadow rapporteur on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.
The amendments also emphasised the pivotal role of the urban dimension in developing the immediately adjacent rural fringes.
I also welcome Mr Guellec’s proposal of using specific territorial indicators alongside the usual parameter of GDP for measuring a region’s development.
I also believe that they should be used periodically to provide impact assessments on ongoing Community programmes.
Among all the positive effects that such working methods would bring about, I would mention the further transfer of responsibilities to local authorities and actors, who must increasingly be seen as leading players and promoters of development, and greater flexibility at the implementation stage of measures, leading to a more appreciable effect on the territories.
   Thank you, Mr Kilroy-Silk.
The speaking time allotted to you is nothing personal.
It is not my will, nor my responsibility.
I am just reading the list in front of me, as you very well know.
   Madam President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his statement.
We too are in favour of the scrapping of needless or redundant laws, but we do have some concerns, partly fed by the way President Barroso came out shooting from the hip in the on the subject of deregulation.
The main concern for me is the persistent rumour, just repeated by Mrs Lynne, that either now or in the near future the Commission will include the withdrawal of the directive on temporary agency work.
Will you agree with me, Commissioner, that if that happened it would be a major blow to attempts to balance flexibility and security and would damage the balanced pursuit of Lisbon? Can you assure us that the Commission is not considering the withdrawal of the directive on temporary agency workers?
   I did not say that vaccination was not useful.
I am simply saying, and I even stated specifically, that emergency vaccination was already possible if outbreaks of avian influenza were discovered.
We know, of course, that vaccination is a preventative measure but that it is not enough and that we must, at the same time, draw up a whole series of provisions that the draft directive aims to lay down.
That is why I think, Mr Maat, that the Commission is not at all reticent with regard to vaccination.
We also hope to develop this vaccination in view of all the scientific data that enable us to increase our knowledge of the disease, but the Commission would like to have a broader provision than simple vaccination to prevent the introduction of this disease into Europe.
   .
It is clear that this regulation includes an obligation for each Member State to set up an authority capable of investigating requests.
However, this regulation is too recent for me to be able to give you an assessment of its implementation today.
It goes without saying, Mrs Stihler, that we will ensure that these new provisions on passenger rights can indeed be implemented in practice; I can assure you that we will see to it that, as of 2006, we will be able to make an assessment that will enable us, where appropriate, Madam President, Mrs Stihler, to further strengthen, if need be, the measures taken.
I would stress, however, that we are in the early stages of a policy that aims to provide passengers with a guarantee of new rights.
You must, of course, give us some time to assess the implementation measures and, perhaps, to strengthen or correct them.
   Commissioner, like the questioner I too have received queries from my constituents.
This is an area that is extremely badly understood by the public.
It is one of the great benefits of Europe which we have recently brought to the public and we should publicise it much better.
I am not suggesting a new directive, but could the 25 Commission information offices in the 25 national capitals not put the details on their websites and print a one-page leaflet providing the public with real information on their rights, which may be obscured by the airlines?
   .
Thank you for your suggestion.
The charter is, of course, already displayed in airports, and it refers to a national body responsible for investigating complaints.
That said, you are right that we need to go further in informing consumers and in this field we need to develop much more specific communications that are much more accessible to all.
I would ask you to be forgiving, because these provisions are new, but I assure you that I personally am seeing to it that the provisions that I proposed and that Parliament and the Council have agreed to adopt will really be applied.
For this to happen, we must indeed inform people.
Thank you for your suggestion and thank you, too, to the author of the question, Mrs Stihler, for having given some specific examples.
It is on the basis of these examples that we will gradually create a body of case-law and also achieve better application of the texts.
   .
I would like to remind you that the blacklist concerned, which, I hope, will come into being early in 2006, will result in companies being banned from operating throughout the territory of the European Union.
It is, after all, a very rigorous measure, which means that it will probably have a very dissuasive effect, as companies that do not meet the security standards will know that they risk being put on the blacklist, in other words of being banned from flying over the whole of the European Union.
Recent events have shown that, up until now, there were bans issued by national civil aviation authorities that did not apply over the whole territory of the European Union.
That was obviously not very reassuring for the people of Europe.
However, this step that, I hope, we will take at the beginning of 2006, will give us a guarantee that unreliable companies will feature on the blacklist and will experience all the disadvantages of being banned from flying over the European Union.
   – I thank you, Commissioner, for your reply, but I want to ask you a specific question: on 5 October 2001, the Commissioner responsible at the time, Mr Barnier, announced the conditional continuation of cofinancing for the entire national land register in Greece.
Today, according to your announcements, on the basis of valid calculations, there is only funding of 2.5% of the overall cost of the project, which totals EUR 1.65 billion.
I ask you therefore: to what do we owe this huge reduction in the Community contribution? Why is the Commission refusing further funding, as Mr Barnier promised?
   – Madam President, I too join my voice – the voice of opposition against the previous Greek Government – with that of Mr Papadimoulis: his opposition stance is understandable, since he has referred to the year 2001.
The Commissioner is being called on to answer, to clarify why there is no provision for further funding for the land registry project, to clarify the negative aspects of this entire dossier from 2001 onwards.
Of course, I will not omit to say that I consider it important to fund precursor products supporting the land register, supporting the land registrations which will follow.
   .
I am planning to go to Greece on or around 20 October, when the Commission will certainly look into any potential irregularities, with the authorities.
I have not been informed of any irregularities with regard to this project, but the matter will certainly be investigated, just to be on the safe side.
According to Greek press reports, there exists a document from the Ministry of Economic Affairs addressed to the relevant Commission directorate-general which states that the Greek authorities admit that for 2005 the take-up target will be missed by 1 billion euros in the best-case scenario so that the planned take-up of 5 billion euros will not be achieved.
Does such a document exist? If so, what else does it say, who has signed it and what explanation does it give for the failure (foreseen by the Greek authorities themselves) to achieve the target they had set?
   .
I cannot say so with 100% certainty, but my feeling is that it is not so much co-financing problems as the national contribution to the funds which makes it difficult for the Greek projects to be finalised properly.
There have probably been a series of flaws, but I am not prepared today to give more information on the real reasons for the problems.
As I said, these are usually whole processes, but we have certainly not identified any one single factor responsible for the lack of financial means to co-finance the projects.
Is it true that, because of reductions in the budget originally planned for the period from 2007 to 2013, the Commission will be forced to cut back on the amounts initially intended for certain aid instruments? If so, which ones?
   Commissioner, will you look at the speech made yesterday by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer in which he lauded various achievements over recent years in developing parts of the United Kingdom? The one thing common to all the examples he gave was that they had all been part-financed by the European Regional Development Fund.
In that context, will you use that information in your negotiations with the Council to try to push up the amount of money available in the 2007-2013 financial perspective?
   Commissioner, your colleague Commissioner Grybauskaitė stated publicly that if the EU fails to reach an agreement on the financial perspective this year during the British Presidency, then the new Member States of the EU would be unable to receive the full level of assistance from the structural and cohesion funds as planned.
Do you agree with that prediction?
   .
It is no secret that this policy needs time to be launched.
We estimate that from the moment the decision on the budget is made we will need about 18 months to launch the new generation of cohesion programmes and projects.
Looking at it from this point of view, now is really the last moment for the decision to be made on the budget, as we are already short of time.
That is absolutely clear.
The problem is that once the decision is made and we complete all the other necessary procedures, then we have to negotiate the programmes – the national framework and the operational programmes – and then the Member States have to prepare themselves for the launch of the programmes and projects.
If we start the projects in January 2007 – which is now quite unlikely – then there is less time to absorb the money, so the amount of money will just depend on the decision, whenever it is made.
The decision will give the money, but how much time we will have to absorb the money is the worrying factor.
If the perspective is shortened because of the delayed decision on the Financial Perspective, then the Member States and regions – old and new – will have less time and there is a risk that some money will be lost.
It is in the case of this policy that the risk is highest.
   Questions Nos 45 and 46 will be answered in writing(1).
   Commissioner, thank you for your very precise answer.
I would simply like to stress that you have not denied the facts contained in my question and that it is precisely those facts that are particularly concerning.
Even if the Swiss Institute for Comparative Law’s study is just a preliminary study on all systems, it is quite clear that contracting all the economic aspects to a university centre with companies such as Stanley Leisure, Gala Group, London Clubs International or the Camelot Group on its administrative board is nevertheless, in my opinion, far from being as objective as it should be.
Will the European Commission address the issue of the lack of consumer protection in the insurance/pension area? The difficulties faced by thousands of EU citizens who invested in Equitable Life, only to find their pension greatly reduced, is a clear example of a failure of the EU to protect its citizens.
With moves to open up banking across borders, how does the European Commission intend to protect its citizens/consumers, given the experience with Equitable Life?
And where problems arise, who will pay compensation to injured parties? This is particularly important in light of efforts to reach agreement on and subsequently implement the proposed Services Directive (2004/0001 (COD)), where there are concerns about the country-of-origin principle and consumer protection.
   I thank you for your reply, Commissioner, but can you tell me how one is meant to have confidence in the single market if Equitable Life can get away with treating ordinary people in this way? This was not due to a fall in the stock market but to serial failure in regulation.
That is the allegation that has been made.
How can people across Europe be asked to take a single market seriously if the Commission washes its hands in this way?
   Since we are behind schedule, I shall have to stop the discussion of this topic here, and so Questions Nos 50 to 53 will be answered in writing(2).
   Commissioner, I do think that the Commission should also consider information from Parliament.
Karlsbad Wafers were produced and sold in Karlsbad and Marienbad. They were invented at the Tepl monastery.
They were being produced and sold worldwide back in the 19th and 20th centuries, and nowadays the best Karlsbad Wafers in the world are produced in Dillingen an der Donau by a company called Wetzel.
Take a look at me; you can tell that I know a thing or two about food, and I can confirm that they are the best Karlsbad Wafers.
I would therefore implore you to examine whether it is really possible to narrow down geographically a designation that is so international and European in nature.
Our European culture would be poorer as a result.
   I can provide confirmation from across the group divide that those wafers are indeed very good.
Perhaps Mr Posselt should bring one along for the Commissioner.
By letter of 19 October 2004, the Czech Republic applied for European designation protection to be granted for the product 'pravé olomoucke tvarůžky' ('genuine Olmützer Quargel') under Regulation (EEC) No 2081/92(4) ('designations of origin' regulation).
Olmützer Quargel is an acid curd cheese which originated in Austrian Moravia (cf.
'Handbuch der Käse', Dr Heinrich Mair-Waldburg (ed.)) and has been produced in Austria since about the end of the 19th century.
In Germany too, for instance, Olmützer Quargel has been produced, and marketed under that designation, since at least 1945, however.
As a result of the geopolitical changes after World War II, a large number of German-speaking cheesemakers emigrated from Czechoslovakia, as it then was, to Austria, further expanding production of 'Olmützer Quargel' there on the basis of the know-how they brought with them.
Designation protection for the product made in the Czech Republic would make it impossible to continue marketing the Olmützer Quargel traditionally made in Austria.
What scope does the Commission think there is for taking that into account as part of the protection arrangements under Regulation (EEC) No 2081/92?
   .
The Commission can confirm to the honourable Member that it has received an application from the Czech Republic to register 'pravé olomoucke tvarůžky' as a protected geographical indication.
As for what to do, whether the Commission takes a decision to follow up these ideas, or whether to just leave it as it is, the explanation is exactly the same, and to save time at this late stage I would simply suggest that there is a possibility to come back to this.
   Madam President, the Commissioner herself has said that the application by the Czech Republic concerns ‘genuine Olmützer Quargel’.
In my opinion, this is accurate.
This would also make it clear – particularly as ‘Olmützer Quargel’ is produced in other Member States, too, of course – that this is simply a generic designation.
This would not pose any problems from the point of view of Austria or Germany, the countries in which these producers from the former Czechoslovakia have settled, as the relevant distinction would be rendered by the term ‘genuine’ Olmützer Quargel.
On 11 May 2005, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the simplification of the common market organisation in fruit and vegetables, in which it urges the Commission to strengthen support for producer organisations and introduce import quotas for the soft fruit market.
This came after MEPs had repeatedly addressed the matter within the Committee on Agriculture and in letters to Commissioner Fischer Boel.
Unfortunately, there has as yet been no firm response from the Commission with regard to soft fruits.
In Poland, the situation in this market has been disastrous in 2005.
The buying-in price of strawberries, raspberries and currants has been considerably lower than production costs for the second year running.
Does the Commission intend to apply the solutions suggested by Parliament in its resolution of 11 May in time for the 2006 harvest?
    Commissioner, I should like to begin by thanking the Commission and you personally for taking such an interest in this problem, which is a very serious one for Poland.
My main concern is the length of the decision-making process.
We first drew attention to this problem back in 2004.
Unfortunately, another year has gone by and things got worse rather than better in 2005.
I have a question for you, Commissioner.
Will it be possible to resolve this problem before the start of the 2006 harvest?
   .
Work on the report started back in April 2005 and since then investigations have been carried out in the major countries concerned: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and the United Kingdom.
Two missions to Poland were undertaken during the harvest period.
The report is being prepared on the basis of the information collected during these missions, together with statistical data.
It will cover in detail the four major European sub-sectors: strawberries, blackcurrants, raspberries and cherries for processing.
Possible measures will be included in the Commission communication on the proposal for reform of the fruit and vegetable sector, scheduled to be discussed in the second part of 2006.
   Commissioner, I have to say that I find your answer utterly unsatisfactory.
For the period between 2005 and 2009, the Commission made transparency into one of its strategic objectives.
Commissioner Kallas stated very clearly in two speeches, one in Nottingham and one in Berlin, that money that is allocated via agriculture, among others, is the taxpayers’ money and that citizens ought to know where it ends up.
Mr Kallas states quite explicitly that Member States must make information concerning beneficiaries of European funds available to the public, so I see a contradiction between your statement here and what was said by your fellow-Commissioner Mr Kallas.
I would like to know, Commissioner, whether you will help ensure that Member States are required to make information of this kind available to the public, in accordance with Mr Kallas’ intention.
   .
I have always been in favour of transparency.
That is why we have been looking into ways of how to make Member States publish these figures.
At present I am not in a position to do that, but I am working in close cooperation with my colleague, Commissioner Kallas, to see what can be done.
Naturally, we cannot break the rules or breach legislation.
That would cause huge problems.
But we are looking into this matter and we are trying, via the link to our website, to show everyone that we want to see the Member States publish these figures.
   Madam President, Commissioner, does it not more closely reflect reality to say that there are both large and small farms, which developed by tradition? Is it not the case that these large farms are the same rural businesses that employ a very large workforce?
I should just like to point out that agriculture in my home Member State is structured on a small scale, yet, back in 1999, Austria was in favour of this modulation, this phasing-in schedule. Unfortunately, it did not win through, however, as first Germany and then the United Kingdom opposed it.
   Questions Nos 58 to 96 will be answered in writing(5).
   Madam President, on a point of order, did you expend the full 20 minutes on oral questions to Commissioner Fischer Boel?
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the train is the only mode of transport in Europe to be experiencing a worrying period of stagnation, despite the increase in trade.
The environmental emergency, the high cost of oil and congestion on the roads require a firm decision on rail transport, which is cleaner and safer and has good domestic infrastructures which can be integrated at European level.
To revitalise and modernise rail transport is a matter of priority for the future of the Union.
The Commission has made considerable efforts towards increased harmonisation and liberalisation of the markets, but it is the European Parliament which has had – and still has – a central role to play in this area by overcoming national self-interest.
The courageous proposal to open up even domestic passenger transport to full liberalisation is vital to complete the single market, relaunch community rail services and provide a better service to the population. In this context, the amendment on reciprocity, which I proposed and with which the Commission concurred, ensures that countries which opt to open up their markets prior to the set deadlines should be protected against unfair competition from rail companies operating in protected domestic markets.
I also believe that the regulations on passengers’ rights and their extension to domestic traffic are particularly important.
Payment of compensation for delays, damage and accidents, and the rights of disabled passengers provide an excellent basis to encourage our companies to adopt high quality standards and to be competitive with other modes of transport.
A shift to rail transport, ladies and gentlemen, is one of those challenges where the credibility and future of Europe are at stake.
For this reason, it is vital that Parliament takes a strong and clear stance on this package and does not hesitate to opt for a strategy of innovation.
   Mr President, as the Chairman responsible for Traffic in the Intergroup on Sustainable Development, I welcome each community-level law and programme that contributes to the development of railway networks and promotes environmentally friendly traffic.
With respect to the third rail package, we have to take note of the fact that the railway networks and their development greatly differ in the various member countries. Whereas in Western Europe the length of high speed tracks reaches 6 000 km, the railway networks in Eastern areas are mostly neglected and run-down.
This makes the issue of liberalisation, the opening up of national railway networks to the railway companies of other Member States a complicated one for the East-Central European observer. On the one hand, competition inevitably brings about better services and a more satisfying customer experience.
This makes the railway a more attractive option and reduces road congestion, which is a desirable outcome, to be supported for its positive environmental effects. On the other hand, however, Eastern railway companies have been underfinanced for decades.
Correcting development policy errors and concepts would take a long time and an enormous amount of money; not a task to be reasonably concluded by 2008 or 2012.
This creates the dangerous possibility that the railway companies of several Member States, including my own, may go bankrupt due to the unfair competition, which would put a severe social, financial and political burden on the respective governments. As a representative of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, I naturally stand for competition in this area.
I stand for competition that serves the interest of citizens and the environment at the same time.
However, in this case we would not be talking about fair competition but the prevalence of dominant companies. For this reason I cannot support the proposal of the Committee in its present form and I ask that it be reconsidered.
   Mr President, I would like to begin with stating that I fully agree with the tabling of the rail package and with the principle of liberalisation, since I believe that it leads to more efficient railways that will attract customers.
This is also significant for passenger services, to encourage passengers to leave the roads and travel by rail. Naturally, the expansion of economies of scale is also necessary.
That is all well. What I see as a problem, and I would like to commend it to the attention of Mr Jarzembowski, is the specific macroeconomic challenge the new Member States are faced with.
Namely, there is huge pressure on these states to introduce the euro, and a constant pressure from cofinancing sources to start our first three-year programme.
We have to participate in agricultural financing, as our own budgetary contribution is a prerequisite to receiving direct support.
This enormous pressure to enter the euro zone as soon as possible forces these governments to tackle the issue of budgetary consolidation.
That in turn makes them ignore the large national companies outside the national budget, such as the national railway companies.
Accordingly, I think that at this time it is impossible for us to accept the liberalisation schedule he proposes for new Member States, and especially cabotage.
I suggest that we establish a transition period that allows us time to prepare, to give a chance to our national railway company, especially considering the fact that the new Member States are very large ‘transit chunks’ and huge transit markets.
We must grant them equal opportunities!
This is the reason the accession contract contains transition periods up to 2007 for goods traffic. The public services sector is also underdeveloped.
I fear that we would be left with secondary railway lines operating at a loss, with all the main lines taken over by the large railway corporations. This is another reason why I ask that we consider the introduction of some kind of a transition period.
   The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
   The next item is the joint debate on the very important issue of Turkey, which includes the Council and Commission statements on the opening of negotiations with that country and the Recommendation by Mr Brok on the Additional Protocol to the Agreement establishing an Association between the European Economic Community and Turkey following the enlargement of the European Union [9617/2005 COM(2005)0191 C6-0194/2005 2005/0091(AVC)] (A6-0241/2005).
   Wait a moment please, Mr Schulz.
Mr Langen, you do not officially have the floor and I would therefore ask you not to speak.
Please calm down and be quiet.
   . Mr President, I would be most obliged to you if you were to use whatever influence you have on Mr Cohn-Bendit to induce him to take some time out to think and thereafter to withdraw the sweeping accusations of racism that he has aimed at those who are opposed to Turkish membership.
   Mr President, I would like to say, for Mr Brok’s benefit, that not all the arguments against Turkey are racist, but that those who can ride the wave of racism in their campaign against Turkey must, for that reason, give some thought to what arguments they use.
I stand by that.
If that touches a sore point for you, then that is your problem, and if it does not, then good for you.
   Mr Brok and Mr Cohn-Bendit, we must work in accordance with our Rules of Procedure.
I imagine that Mr Brok has spoken pursuant to Rule 145.
He has not said as much, but my interpretation is that he has requested the floor on the basis of that Rule, which stipulates that personal statements take place at the end of the debate in question.
You may speak, therefore, Mr Brok, if you wish, when we finish this debate.
   Mr President, I wish to raise a point of order.
I should like to call on Mr Cohn-Bendit to withdraw his remark, which seems extremely serious to me and which is not …
   Mr de Villiers, since you have not told me which Rule of the Rules of Procedure you are invoking, I have had to cut you off.
   Mr President, I am sorry to see, judging from what previous speakers have said, that talks between the SPD and the CDU on forming the Grand Coalition are not progressing so smoothly.
I find it extraordinary that those who have profited so much from European integration in terms of prosperity, security and liberal democracy should now refuse to extend those prizes towards Turkey.
However, I agree with Mr Poettering that it is important for us to accentuate the Union's capacity to absorb that country.
I wonder whether the President-in-Office could indicate whether he agrees with us that we need European settlement of the Constitution before Turkey and Croatia are able to accede.
Would he also agree that the Cyprus problem will remain intractable and the Balkans fractious and unstable should the Union refuse membership to Turkey? Would he say what steps the Presidency will take to promote efforts to open up financial and trade relations with Northern Cyprus once accession negotiations have been started successfully?
   Mr President, sooner or later, ambiguous politics face punishment from the electorate, and the dubious course steered by the Council and the Commission in their dealings with Turkey is no exception.
We have already had the first punishment: a Constitutional Treaty that has been torpedoed by two referendums.
A second, late electoral punishment is in the offing in the form of new referendums if it turns out that the so-called ‘open-ended negotiations’ with Turkey are to culminate in membership.
Why do the Member States not simply opt for a solid neighbourhood programme with Ankara? In the final analysis, even a fully-fledged Customs Union between the EU of 25 and Turkey is already throwing up a nigh insurmountable political obstacle in the shape of the deep divisions about the divided Cyprus.
Meanwhile, the prospect of negotiations with Turkey particularly saddens me on account of the position of the Christian church in that country, which is – and I emphasise this – without rights, and I am not even mentioning the serious cases of physical abuse of Turkish Protestants last month.
I am looking forward to initiatives on the part of the Council and the Commission as regards compliance with the Copenhagen political criteria, and Commissioner Rehn might remember that I called him to account on the same subject one year ago.
This morning, I heard a great deal about the so-called secular state in Turkey.
Members who mention this issue do not know the facts, and it is with those that we should start.
   Thank you, Mrs De Keyser, for that account of marriage.
It was a fine way of presenting matters.
   Mr President, the fact that the EU begins accession negotiations with Turkey on 3 October 2005 shows that we in the EU keep our promises.
Moreover, that is the way it should be in the EU, which is, and needs to be, a community founded on the rule of law.
Turkey is developing rapidly, as I have seen with my own eyes.
Turkey really is changing day by day.
This process of transformation is something that we must support and encourage.
Not everything is, however, as it should be in Turkey – far from it.
The customs agreement between the EU and Turkey has been signed, but Turkey will still not allow Cypriot ships to call at Turkish ports.
That is completely unacceptable.
What I am demanding of Mr Erdogan is crystal clear.
Turkey must treat the Cypriot ships as if they were Danish or French ships.
They must have access now.
The EU’s foreign ministers must make this indispensable demand of Turkey on Monday, 3 October 2005.
   Mr President, there are powerful arguments both for and against Turkey's proposed membership of the European Union.
However, I do not have time to rehearse them now.
For me the key argument is one of democratic accountability.
The accession of a new Member State as large as Turkey would dilute the influence of all other Member States and would, therefore, further compromise the self-determination of the people I represent in the UK's East Midlands.
For this key reason I oppose Turkish accession.
I urge our Turkish friends to consider the proposal of Germany's Angela Merkel for a privileged partnership.
This is not a second-best option; on the contrary, it would give Turkey most of the benefits of full membership with few of the costs.
It is, therefore, a better deal than full membership.
Indeed, privileged partnership is such an excellent deal that I wish it were available to my country, the United Kingdom.
It would be a much better option than full membership on current terms.
   Mrs Merkel is not proposing that the United Kingdom should benefit from it.
   Mr President, I call for the negotiations that are due to begin on 3 October purely and simply to be cancelled.
I call on the French Government to brandish France’s veto on the morning of 3 October and to leave the negotiating table.
If the negotiations begin on 3 October, the process will be difficult to reverse and Europe will be taking two risks: first, of disgracing itself by negotiating with a country that refuses to recognise one of the Member States of the European Union; second, that of disintegrating.
The European Union is unable today, I am afraid, to resolve its problems, in particular those related to delocalisation and immigration.
It would thus take on the burden of additional problems connected to delocalisation and immigration.
That is why I invite everyone to adopt a clear position, and I address Mr Cohn-Bendit, who has questioned the sceptics over the issue of Turkey.
I put to him the following question: Mr Cohn-Bendit, do you support the Turks who continue to deny the Armenian genocide?
   Your questions will be passed on to, respectively, Mr Cohn-Bendit and the French Government.
   Mr President, why is there such great indignation about the Turkish stance on Cyprus? It is because we are diverting attention from ourselves; it is because the way the Turks are putting us on the spot hurts.
The European Union was meant to take over peacekeeping operations on the island on 1 May 2004 – but we did not.
We kept none of our promises.
We have neither put an end to Northern Cyprus’ isolation, nor have we injected the EUR 259 million we promised for the reconstruction of the economy.
It is not just the case that Turkey has to recognise the Republic of Cyprus; we must, once and for all, acknowledge that the Turkish Cypriots who live on the island are people with equal rights.
Young North Cypriots are not even allowed to participate in international sporting events – still less are North Cypriots welcome as Members of the European Parliament, or as observers in it.
When we say, in the Ankara Agreement, that we want to open up all the ports and airports, then the port at Famagusta and Ercan airport must be among them, in accordance with the principle of equal rights for all – unless, that is, Turks are second-class human beings.
   If you wish to take the floor under Rule 145, you have a maximum of three minutes in which to speak.
   Mr President, Mr Cohn-Bendit accused those who are opposed to Turkey’s accession to the EU of riding a wave of racism and hostility to Islam.
I would like to make it abundantly clear that I believe that the Bosnian Muslims are Europeans, that the Muslim Albanians are Europeans, and that our Muslim fellow-citizens of the EU are Europeans, but that, to take one example, the Christian Ethiopians are not.
My misgivings are founded on the simple fact that Turkey is not a European state.
To maintain that that statement is an indication of racism and of hostility to Islam is a distortion of the facts and a deliberate slander that I wish to repudiate.
Mr Cohn-Bendit himself drew a subtle distinction between those who are self-evidently European and a shift towards Eurasia.
That was actually a very astute line for him to take, although he then threw his chance away by starting to deliberately and slanderously accuse those who take a critical view of the situation as racists, and that is something I repudiate!
   Mr Posselt, I am going to interrupt you.
This is not a personal statement but a continuation of the debate, which we cannot resume.
   Mr President, I would like to make a personal statement.
The Chairman of the Socialist Group in this House asserted during the debate that I had formerly advocated Turkey’s full membership of the European Union.
I would like to make it clear that I do not do so and never have.
I have obtained the minutes of the debate on 13 December 1995.
It is quite clear that the only subject of this debate was whether to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to customs union.
At that time, Mr Schulz and I were on opposing sides; I was campaigning for a ‘yes’ to the customs union, while he was against it.
What has been said today is a manifest distortion of the truth.
   Mr President, during the debate on our policy towards Turkey, I asked for permission to make a personal statement in response to a less than friendly comment directed at me by Mr Langen.
During our time in this House, though, Mr Langen and I have had so many rows, after which we have always buried the hatchet, that I can dispense with the personal statement.
   Mr President, I have a simple amendment to replace the words 'as soon as possible', in paragraph 6, with the words 'at an early stage in the negotiating process'.
   . Mr President, this amendment has been agreed, not only with the other groups, but also with the Council and the Commission, as a compromise, and it recurs in Amendment 785.
I shall read it out:
... 'without prejudice to the implementing measures already adopted, on expiry of a two-year period following the adoption of the directive and on 1 April 2008 at the latest, the application of its provisions requiring the adoption of technical rules, amendments and decisions in accordance with paragraph 2 shall be suspended.
Acting on a proposal from the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council may renew the provisions concerned in accordance with the procedures laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty and, to that end, they shall review them prior to the expiry of the period or date referred to above.'
   Mr President, this is the same amendment that we voted on before under Amendment 781, which I have already read out.
The next one corresponds to Amendment 778, the second oral amendment.
   Mr President, there is a connection between the rapporteur’s Amendment 14 and my group’s Amendment 50.
In Amendment 14, Category C has been deleted.
In our Amendment 50, that is about three years’ national professional experience of locomotive drivers in cross-border traffic, we were working on the premise that this Category C was still in force.
In agreement with the rapporteur, we will delete the reference to Category C, so that it can no longer give rise to anyone voting against Amendment 50.
   Mr President, we are about to vote on Amendment 5.
I am an advocate of long-term thinking, but the Swedish version is surely wrong in referring to the ‘financial framework 2007–2123’.
I suspect that it should be 2013.
   .The Commission has not answered my question as to whether, at the end of the Helsinki Summit in 1999, Mr Verheugen and Mr Solana had to convince Prime Minister Ecevit to give his assent to naming Turkey as a candidate country.
It is not clear whether the text submitted to the Turks at the time was the same as the one that had been accepted by the European Council in 1999.
I should like to know the truth.
I voted in favour of Turkey’s accession during the vote in December 2004, out of respect for those who campaign for human rights.
Since that vote, there has been no end to the provocations on the part of the Turks.
The brutal repression by the police during the demonstration of women on 8 March 2005, the denial of the Armenian genocide, the attitude towards the Kurdish people and the non-recognition of Cyprus lead me to vote against the start of the negotiations.
I question whether Turkey’s membership will not be the outcome of US pressure and of the economic motives of certain European governments.
We need to see acts on the part of the Turkish Government, proving its willingness to comply with the rules of the European Union.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when I was leaving Genoa airport to come to Strasbourg, a Genoese pensioner, Giacomo Bertone, came up to me and asked, ‘But is Turkey geographically part of Europe?’
I answered, ‘A small part of Turkey is in Europe, and a large part of Turkey is in Asia.’
‘Then you must say no to Turkey joining the European Union,’ he remarked, and then continued, ‘but if Turkey does join the European Union, will it at last put an end to Islamic terrorism?’ ‘No,’ I answered, ‘I really do not think so.
Quite the opposite, Islamic terrorists will attack not just Europe but Turkey too.’ Then he added, ‘Mr Fatuzzo, as the representative of the Pensioners’ Party you must vote against Turkey joining the European Union for those reasons, while remaining a good friend to the people of Turkey.’
That is what I have done, Mr President.
   – Mr President, today’s vote was a colossal shot across the bows of the Council on the issue of Turkey.
Opening negotiations with Turkey but not Croatia next Monday would give the EU public the impression that all 25 Members of the Council had collectively taken leave of their senses.
This not being a desirable scenario, there are certain things I would urge tomorrow’s meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives to do.
Firstly, to give the green light to Croatia, a European country that meets all the conditions.
Secondly, if you negotiate with Turkey, to do so only if the negotiating framework makes clear that the objective is a privileged partnership.
If this proves unattainable, I must appeal to the Member States to make use of unanimity and postpone negotiations with Turkey, as was done – unjustly – in the case of Croatia on 16 March – one day before negotiations were due to begin.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we voted ‘no’ to the resolution on Turkey because we believe that Turkey will be Islam’s Trojan horse in Europe.
We voted ‘no’ and we hope that at least one of the Member States will oppose the 3 October decision, because it would be an ill omen for the future of Europe.
I personally hope and wish that it will be my government that does so, the Government of Italy, a country that has historical roots that go all the way back to that great tradition of European and Christian opposition and resistance to the Islamic invasion, which is summed up in a single word: Lepanto.
Those who must decide on 3 October should remember Lepanto: no Islam in Europe; no Islam in Europe ever!
   .On Wednesday 28 September, in the debate on Turkey, the speeches and the clapometer were unequivocal.
It was a ‘no’ from all sides.
The speakers spoke of ‘Armenia’, ‘the violation of human rights’, ‘the light years separating two civilisations’, ‘the occupation in Cyprus of part of European territory by a foreign army …’ Even Mr Toubon, the French MEP and great devotee of President Chirac, had his say in opposing matters.
We heard a British MEP propose to the people of Turkey that they accept the status of a privileged partner, which is such an attractive prospect that he is demanding it for the United Kingdom.
However much Mr Cohn-Bendit shouted ‘racism’, Mr Rocard pleaded for Turkey’s accession amid disapproving silence.
In this House, the representatives of the people of Europe’s nations are repeating the ‘no’ uttered by Cervantes at Lepanto, by Lord Byron at Missolonghi, by the Greek children of the Catacombs who used to practice their religion in fear, by the paintings and poems of, respectively, Delacroix and Victor Hugo on the empire of massacres and kidnappings, and by the martyrs of ‘Midnight Express’.
   .
A week before the possible opening of negotiations with Turkey on EU membership, there is little cause for optimism.
Its development towards being a normal country in which all ethnic groups, all political opinions and all religious faiths are considered equal is stagnating.
Last week, a court banned a conference on the mass murder of the Armenian people in 1915, which had been denied for many years.
The large Kurdish community in the South-East still has no prospects of education, administration and media in their own language, of normal representation in the national parliament or of regional self-government.
Prominent forces in Turkey reject further concessions to European wishes and even hold out the threat of Turkey’s membership application being withdrawn.
Over the last few weeks, interest in the situation in Turkey seems to have shifted to the country’s relationship with Cyprus.
It is unacceptable that ships from southern Cyprus should still be barred from Turkish ports, while Turkey claims that it has observed all agreements since as long ago as 2004.
This does not augur well for other areas of discussion.
As an EU Member State, Cyprus has the right to veto negotiations and membership.
The disadvantaged groups within Turkey do not have such influence.
That is why this House should especially take their problems and interests to heart.
   .
Even as we speak, a battle is being fought out in Turkey between reformists and traditionalists.
The current Prime Minister and the Foreign Affairs Minister belong to the former group and deserve all our support.
The debate about the opening of the negotiations has recently been fed by political opportunism, many, as my group chairman, Mr Cohn-Bendit, has said, riding on a wave of latent racism.
It would be unfair to be stricter at present than the Heads of Government had agreed in December and it would also send the Turkish people the discouraging message that Europe does not actually want Turkey.
Those who make negotiations conditional upon the recognition of Cyprus overlook the fact that a swift recognition of Cyprus by Turkey would spell the end of Kofi Annan’s attempts to set up a fresh round of negotiations about the island’s division.
The EU must support the reformers, demand the correct implementation of the customs union and insist on the penal code being honed down further.
The opening of the negotiations will send Turkey further into the direction of a secular state where people, along with international law, are respected in full and in practice.
Religious minorities, Kurds and Alavites will be better off in a Turkey that forms part of the EU than in a Turkey that turns its back on our continent.
   . The motion on the opening of negotiations with Turkey is to be welcomed.
However, I hope that in these negotiations religious freedom will be highlighted.
The right for someone to freely express their religious belief is essential in any democratic society.
The First Step Forum, an NGO committed to religious freedom, will be visiting Turkey in the next few weeks.
I hope that the Commission will listen to the outcomes of the delegation's visit.
   . I welcome this report which if passed into legislation and properly enforced should prevent an Enron type scandal taking place in Europe and reduce the likelihood in Europe of future Parlamat type situations.
   . I voted in favour of the outstanding Jarzembowsi report, because I feel that, by promoting competition and the creation of a genuine internal market for rail transport, it constitutes a positive step towards revitalising rail transport.
It is essential that the downward trend in rail transport’s market share be reversed, and we must be resolute in our efforts to achieve this, by building an open, competition-based market.
As regards the Commission’s proposal to allow rail companies access to the infrastructure of all Member States for the purpose of operating international passenger transport services by 2010 at the latest, the rapporteur includes national services in the opening up of the market, so as to offset the inevitable reduction in the cost-effectiveness of international services and the enormous barrier that this presents to entering the market.
Moreover, within the context of opening up the networks to passenger rail transport, our proposal is to give the Member States the right to restrict the opening up of the market in certain cases in order to maintain the economic viability of a rail service of public interest.
I feel that the main gaps in the Commission’s proposal have been plugged and wish to restate my positive opinion and vote on this report.
   .
I voted against this proposal that European Member States should be obliged to open up all railway networks to private companies by 2012.
First of all, what we need is an extensive evaluation of the different Member States’ past experiences of railway liberalisation.
Both the Commission proposal and the Jarzembowski report are premature and lack a solid basis.
The proposed directive fails to provide binding agreements in relation to the quality of services, security or environmental requirements.
In addition, the same form of liberalisation of the rail network is imposed on all EU countries, which differ widely in terms of the position from which they would start and of the way in which their railways are used.
This makes it necessary to list the forms of rail liberalisation that have worked in the past and those that have not.
There is also the issue of whether Europe can indeed add value to the way in which Member States can, in future, make their national railways more efficient, more customer-friendly and more environmentally-friendly.
It may be the case that, once the situation in the different Member States has been assessed, we will have no choice but to admit that this subject should ideally be tackled at national level after all, because each situation is unique.
For the time being, I refuse to endorse the wild liberalisation plans that are now before us.
   .This September 2005 we are voting on a ‘railway package’.
However, for rail workers, passengers, public service and the train stations in our small rural towns, this is not a ‘gift package’.
It is all very well to worry about an international certificate for train drivers, to talk about competition between road and rail and to want European passengers’ rights.
In France, however, the TGV will reach Nice only in 2020, two years after a permanent space station has been built on the moon.
Train stations are closing or are falling into disrepair like in Sainte-Gabelle, not far from Toulouse, while the Paris-Bordeaux-Pau-Madrid line, together with the Paris-Montpellier-Perpignan-Barcelona line, still do not exist.
Thousands of kilometres of rail tracks are no longer maintained, forcing the TERs to travel at 80 km/h instead of at 120 km/h.
In Tarascon sur Ariège, the train station only opens at 3.00 p.m. for one train – the Tour de Carol-Toulouse – that departs at 2.50 p.m. …
Thus, when Europe’s rail system is deteriorating to the standard of UK railways, what is urgently needed is a massive rail plan in order to link up finally, in the next decade, the 25 European capitals with high-speed rail lines.
   . I voted for the Savary Report as a London MEP having had discussion with rail Trade Unionists as the report creates a system of certificates for train crews to show they meet professional, medial and linguistic standards for those train drivers working across borders.
With sufficient training such an advance would protect passengers in health and safety terms on rail journeys across EU countries.
   . Passenger rights are essential no matter which mode of transport is used.
The rights of rail passengers to compensation is a step forward and I welcome the Sterckx report.
However, in light of recent air passenger rights legislation and its application, there is a need to be clear what rights passengers have and the compensation which they are entitled to.
It is no use introducing legislation which is then not properly implemented.
If we are going to be true to our constituents we require well implemented rules.
   We Swedish Social Democrats have chosen to abstain on the issue of a stronger partnership for the outermost regions.
Many European regions have special needs and difficulties because they are very distant from commercial centres, are sparsely populated or have difficult terrains and climates.
The islands and groups of islands in the outermost regions face acknowledged difficulties, and we support EU policy in this area.
Partnership with the EU also involves obligations to fish carefully, protect our common environment and use EU subsidies responsibly.
We think that the Marques report goes too far in its demands for more subsidies for agriculture and fisheries.
We have therefore chosen to abstain from voting.
   Mr President, Council, Commission, fellow Members, ladies and gentlemen.
The UN summit made clear the need for cooperation in combating terrorism, climate change, international crime and weapons of mass destruction and in dealing with migration.
It made it clear that more, rather than less, cooperation is required.
The Peacebuilding Commission was given a lot of scope.
This is something that the European Parliament now has the opportunity to follow up.
Following the initiative taken by the Swedish Foreign Minister, involving 13 female foreign ministers and Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, we now have the peacebuilding work on which to adopt a position.
We must involve more women and, above all, have one woman for every man at all levels, with this equal representation enabling women and men to make better contributions. Why is this so important?
Well, because, in modern wars and conflicts, the great majority of the victims are innocent women and children.
In the transition from conflict to a sustainable peace, all resources and civil solutions are needed.
How do we now follow this up in the EU? When the Millennium Goal was debated, it became obvious that the donor countries must be more generous.
It was therefore with great delight that we learned at the weekend that debts were to be written off by 18 countries.
I regret that it is only Sweden and another four countries that provide aid amounting to 0.7%.
We must do better.
In the year 2000, Sweden reached the level of 1%.
Given how much we pour out here in the EU, we should easily be able to fill the glass.
   Mr President, Mr Lambsdorff, you know as well as I do that the Constitution has not yet progressed and has not been ratified.
The Council Secretariat now has an office in New York; the Commission has observer status at the United Nations, and we work extremely closely together.
Even so, there are at present no plans to amalgamate the two.
   The next item is questions to the Council (B6-0331/2005).
The counter-terrorism provisions adopted by certain Member States, under the guise of the fight against terrorism, means that the EU must now face the reality that one of the effects of the terrorist threat is that the hard-won liberties, which underpin the shared values and principles of the Union, are being challenged and undermined.
In the light of the bombings in Madrid on 11 March 2004 and in London on 7 July 2005, the EU is now facing a defining moment in its approach to combating this attack on the European way of life.
How does the Council, under the leadership of the UK Presidency, plan to work together to overcome national differences and the bureaucratic hurdles within the 25 EU Member States in order to develop a harmonised approach to combating terrorism which achieves a balance between providing security to EU citizens whilst simultaneously guaranteeing their human rights and civil liberties, regardless of religious beliefs or ethnic origins?
   . I really could not agree more with the honourable Member about the importance of these issues, not least following the attacks in Madrid, and in London on 7 July.
The Council has always endeavoured to strike a balance between providing security to European Union citizens while simultaneously guaranteeing their human rights and civil liberties, regardless of religious belief or ethnic origin.
On 13 June 2002, the Council adopted a framework decision on combating terrorism.
This framework decision approximates Member State legislation as regards acts of terrorism, offences relating to a terrorist group and offences linked to terrorist activities.
It is specifically mentioned in Article 1 of the framework decision that it 'shall not have the effect of altering the obligation to respect fundamental rights and fundamental legal principles as enshrined in Article 6 of the Treaty'.
It is in particular in defence of those rights that the Member States need to combat terrorism, which is the antithesis of human rights as we see it in democratic societies.
In his address to the European Parliament on 7 September, my colleague, the British Home Secretary Charles Clarke, emphasised the need to find a balance between civil liberties and the increase in security.
On that occasion the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Frattini, also stressed the need for a balance between law enforcement activities and the protection of fundamental rights.
   . On the basis of my inquiries since this question was tabled, I have some sympathy with the points raised by the honourable Member.
I can assure him that the structure and content of the Council's website undergoes continuous review and this process will be continued in parallel with the improvements to the Europa website, of which I spoke a moment or two ago.
I feel the only point of difference between us, in terms of the question that was put to me, is to suggest that in the first instance the public should visit the Council website, rather than the Europa website.
I think there is a genuine question as to how we ensure the kind of duplication, which has been all too common amongst the government websites of Member States, and ensure that the product offered to the citizenry of Europe better reflects the single access point that we wish the public to move towards.
That, most clearly, in terms of the public, is the Europa website.
The Commission has recently announced its action plan to improve communicating in Europe and I am sure that will have a direct bearing on the Europa site.
The EU institutions are required by Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001(1) on access to documents to keep a register of documents and to grant direct access to documents in electronic form.
Despite recent improvements, the Council Register is not organised in a user-friendly way.
Will the Council reorganise its Register and its website, perhaps in a way similar to the European Parliament’s Legislative Observatory and create special webpages for each meeting which allow citizens to trace all relevant agenda documents and follow the decision-making process through its various stages?
   I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I clearly do not have the unerring experience of fisheries questions that my colleague, Mr Farage, has just demonstrated.
I did serve, however, representing Cornwall and Plymouth.
Fishing in that part of the world relies totally on partnerships and agreements.
If there were no agreements – and I disagree with Mr Farage here – what happens is that a number of mavericks simply abuse the quantity of fish stocks present.
It seems to me an excellent idea that the European Union concludes these agreements, and I personally hope that they continue.
   . I shall resist the very considerable opportunity that has been presented to me to discuss the inconsistencies inherent in UKIP's position and simply say that I fully recognise, not least on the basis of the tireless work in Scotland of the honourable lady who asked the question, that fisheries partnership agreements can have a very important role to play.
It is a clear example of where working independently rather than in partnership offers no future either to Europe or, I would suggest, to fish stocks.
   Mr President, I am obliged to the President-in-Office for his very good, very specific answer.
I should just like to add that the Preševo Valley, that is to say, the Albanian-inhabited region of southern Serbia, has no parliamentary representation at all, whilst the Serbian minority in Kosovo is guaranteed seats, at least in theory: they have not yet been taken up.
Could the President-in-Office envisage, as part of a solution to the Kosovo issue, endeavours towards a bilateral settlement – so that borders do not have to be changed, because of course we do not want to change any borders – which gives the Albanians in Serbia the same rights as the Serbians in Kosovo?
   . With the greatest of respect to the questioner I do not believe, especially at this time of some sensitivity and anticipation, that it is right to anticipate Ambassador Eide's report in relation to Kosovo.
We only have to wait a little longer for that report, and it in the light of it will be better able to continue the discussion on the final status of Kosovo.
   Mr President, Mr Alexander, I would like to call to your attention the fact that there is a province in northern Serbia named Vojvodina that had the same status as Kosovo before 1989, whereas now it is practically a ‘territory on paper’ only, without a status.
No one knows why its status cannot be restored five years after the fall of Milosevic.
Since the large native Hungarian and Croatian minorities do not have a representation in the parliament of Belgrade, they are politically discriminated against in Vojvodina.
When saying that there are positive ethnic changes in Serbia, I wonder whether you are aware of the fact that members of a European nation, namely of the Hungarian nation are persecuted and assaulted only because they speak Hungarian, while the police refuses to record their complaints, there are more and more judges of a doubtful reputation from Kosovo and Krajina in the region, and now there are murders ...
   . We are aware of the issues raised by the honourable Member.
While freedom of religious belief is guaranteed in the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, and the European Commission's 2004 Regular Report on Turkey's progress towards accession noted that freedom to worship is largely unhampered, important issues in this area remain outstanding.
Under the revised accession partnership adopted in May 2003, Turkey is required inter alia to establish conditions for the functioning of non-Muslim religious communities which are in line with the practice of European Union Member States.
However, the Council notes that some Muslim and non-Muslim religious minorities and communities continue to experience difficulties connected with legal personality, property rights, training, residence rights and work permits for Turkish and non-Turkish clergy, schools and internal management.
The European Union is particularly worried by the continuous confiscation by the state of property belonging to non-Muslim religious foundations.
The European Union has urged Turkey to adopt promptly a law on foundations that fully complies with European standards and expects the Commission's comments on the draft law that were sent by Commissioner Rehn to the Turkish Foreign Minister Gül in June to be seriously considered.
The European Union has also urged Turkey to reopen the Halki Greek Orthodox Seminary.
As the honourable Member is well aware, on 16 and 17 December 2004 the European Council, when deciding that Turkey sufficiently fulfilled the Copenhagen political criteria to open accession negotiations, clearly stated that the Union would continue to monitor closely the progress of political reforms in Turkey.
The Council can therefore assure the honourable Member that it continues to follow developments in this area very closely indeed.
Following the unimpeded return of the convicted terrorist fugitives Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley to the Republic of Ireland from Colombia, and given the EU’s declared commitment to support the fight against international terrorism, what steps has the Council of Ministers taken to ensure that the Irish Government does not provide sanctuary for these international terrorists, and is it satisfied that Europol did everything possible to thwart their return?
   . With the greatest of respect to the questioner, I would suggest that the issue is not one of will, but one of locus, and given that the Council has received no request from either of the two governments involved, the Council does not have a direct locus in this matter.
   My question is Question No 32 on the list, but you have already answered by saying that it will be answered in writing.
I look forward to that reply.
I hope the Minister catches his plane.
I look forward to continuing this discussion.
    Mr President, the Internet has become one of the main sources of independent information in Belarus over the last few years.
The number of home computers and Internet connections is increasing.
In mid-2005, 2 million people in Belarus were connected to the Internet out of a population of 10 million.
Almost 450 000 individuals used Internet Cafés in Minsk in 2004.
At the same time, however, the state firm Beltelecom which is a subsidiary of the Ministry of Communications, continues to hold a monopoly over Internet connections.
Mr Lukashenko’s regime is doing its best to control use of the Internet by civil society.
It is also persecuting and oppressing individuals active in cyberspace, invoking undemocratic articles of the criminal code for the purpose.
The European Union should be exploiting the most modern means of communication as it strives to promote human rights in Belarus.
The role of the Internet in providing independent information should be the same as that of the radio in overthrowing dictatorships in the 20th century.
The Union must increase the funding devoted to exploiting those new forms of communication through the Internet and mobile telephony that could serve the interests of Belarussian civil society.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0256/2005) by Emilio Menéndez del Valle on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on EU-India relations: a strategic partnership [2004/2169(INI)].
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0227/2005) by Claude Turmes on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy on the share of renewable energy in the EU and proposals for concrete actions [2004/2153(INI)].
   . – Mr President, I, too, should like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Turmes, most sincerely for his outstanding report and for his excellent cooperation.
In spite of the few words of criticism from Mr Liese, I am very confident that this report will be adopted tomorrow with a large majority.
The current oil crisis, in particular, has made it increasingly clear that finite sources of energy must be replaced with constantly self-renewing sources.
The EU has recently launched a successful strategy for the expansion of renewable energies, which includes legal requirements for targets, for example for electricity from biofuels.
We have achieved market penetration and thus made an important contribution to the fight against climate change.
Creating 300 000 jobs and producing an annual turnover of approximately EUR 15 billion, this expansion has also made an important contribution to the Lisbon Strategy.
The efforts being made are insufficient, however.
As has also been noted already, the level of compliance with the biofuel targets is far from satisfactory, and the Commission has had to give a number of Member States strong reminders about meeting the electricity targets.
Obstacles to be removed include bureaucratic barriers, problems of grid capacity and inadequate support systems.
For I have not yet given up on one thing: the idea that we can meet the target of doubling the renewable-energy share of overall energy consumption to 12% by 2010.
There is one thing that remains very important to this end, however: closing the legislative gap in the field of heating and cooling.
This means that we need clear legal requirements with clear targets, in order to create incentives for the Member States to take appropriate action, and in order to exploit the considerable potential of biomass, solar thermal energy and geothermal energy in this field.
This is a very important message to the Commission, therefore: I urge you to take action in this field and table the appropriate legislation.
   Regrettably, the countries of the European Union do not possess significant natural sources of energy.
A few months ago, the institutions of the European Union addressed the issue of energy security in Europe.
According to one admittedly platonic statement, the dependency of European countries on external energy sources will increase from 50 to 70% in the next twenty years.
If we consider the implications of these facts, then the energy policy of the European Union appears markedly naïve, especially from the standpoint of securing an adequate level of energy self-sufficiency.
I certainly support measures in favour of increased energy efficiency, establishing the preconditions for an increase in the share of alternative and renewable energy sources, and energy conservation.
On the other hand, to have a realistic chance of meeting energy requirements, Europeans must overcome their phobia of nuclear energy and of established forms of energy production, operated, of course, in strict compliance with environmental and operational norms.
European institutions should also adopt a more far-sighted approach to the closure of existing energy installations.
In this context, I must criticise the decision, motivated largely by political considerations, to decommission prematurely the nuclear power plant at Jaslovské Bohunice, in spite of the fact that the plant meets operational safety requirements.
This will weaken the energy potential not of only Slovakia, but of the entire European Union, and will draw away resources that might have served, among other things, to finance programmes aimed at supporting alternative forms of energy.
   . Mr President, at the end of June I became aware of the fact that 35 thousand refugees are in deep trouble in Germany.
They had all arrived from Kosovo six years ago.
All of them are Roma.
It does not matter whether we call them Ashkalis or ‘Egyptians’.
In the first half of July, the chairmen of the fractions – except for the conservatives – urged the German Government in a letter to re-consider its decision.
Namely, Germany has decided to repatriate 35 thousand Roma to Kosovo.
To the very country where only six thousand Roma remained out of 150 thousand, and even this small group continues to live there in inhuman circumstances.
They live in refugee camps in their own land.
Severe lead pollution was detected in the refugee camp situated in northern Mitrovica, with lead levels six times higher than normal, resulting in many children being born with various impairments ever since.
The houses that had been used by Roma before the war are now illegally occupied by Albanians or other people, or have been demolished.
Germany has been thinking for six years about whether or not to grant refugee status to the Roma, and has now decided to send them back to Kosovo, to nothing.
Another approximately 70 thousand Roma are living mostly illegally in other European or Balkan states, such as the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Macedonia, Serbia, etc.
We have no mother country to take us in when we find ourselves in such a situation.
When I propounded this debate, I actually asked that Europe as a whole take a position in this matter, and not that ten MEPs discuss the issue of minorities after 11 p.m. here in the European Parliament.
We, the Members of the European Parliament, must exert an influence on Germany.
Deportation must be stopped and the problem of Kosovo must be tackled.
   – Mr President, while we have been sitting in this House today, the German television station ARD has been presenting the 2005 Media Prizes for Cultural Diversity and Integration in Europe.
The television prize in the information category was awarded to a report on forced deportations of asylum seekers and refugees at dawn.
This is a harsh reality for what are possibly soon to be thousands of Ashkali and Egyptians, who in principle belong to the Roma family of peoples, and other Kosovars, who have often been living in Germany or other European countries for more than ten years, and whose children were born and have become socially integrated there.
Sadly, in Kosovo they do not find even the most basic conditions for starting a new life.
Their houses have been destroyed; the unemployment rate stands at approximately 60%.
There is no free access to education, particularly for minorities.
I find this irresponsible.
I would appeal to the Commissioner to make every effort to prevent Member States carrying out forced returns, or for him to at least press for an increase in financial support.
This also applies to the unacceptable situation, which has already been mentioned, of approximately 700 Roma living in camps in northern Mitrovica, for whose resettlement there are insufficient resources.
This is a violation of fundamental human rights.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0225/2005) by Ari Vatanen on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the Commission communication ‘European Road Safety Action Programme: halving the number of road accident victims in the European Union by 2010: a shared responsibility’ [2004/2162(INI)].
   Mr President, I too should like to say thank you for, above all, the first part of Mr Vatanen’s introduction today.
I thought it was a quite brilliant description of the extent of the problem.
The problem is on a horribly huge scale, and it is appalling that we are not doing anything more serious about it.
Indeed, I have to say that the proposals produced by Mr Vatanen really have no bearing on the extent of the problem.
The larger and broader roads would be there for many more cars to drive faster on.
We can say with some certainty that the result would be more accidents when, instead, we should be limiting traffic.
I am delighted that the report mentions vulnerable road users and that the aim is to have no accidents at all.
The fact is, however, that this report would offer no protection at all to vulnerable road users unless we were to have the amendments adopted that would set fixed speed limits in Europe, namely a maximum of 130 km per hour on motorways and 30 km per hour in towns, and unless, at the same time, something serious were done to have these requirements complied with.
I think that the proposals, pathetic as they are, fall spectacularly short of dealing with the problems so splendidly described by Mr Vatanen.
   Mr President, I too wish to thank Mr Vatanen for this report and for a notable piece of work.
What we face is a serious problem, but I want to point out that we are on the right road in Europe.
We have a huge number of fatalities – far too many; indeed, no figure is acceptable – but the numbers are going down.
It is important for Europe to be a model in the global work to promote road safety, and that is something we can be.
We are a model where technical development is concerned.
If we obtain better cars in Europe and the rest of the world, we shall reduce the number of fatalities.
We must make use of constructive examples, such as the proposal we have in Amendment 5 whereby those purchasing haulage services would be urged to demand road safety from those selling the services.
Use can be made of legislation, for example in relation to alcohol and driving, for we know that no one should ever drive when drunk.
I do not, however, think that legislation should be used as a tool where speed is concerned, because the state of a road can vary a very great deal, and one road be in a different condition to another.
We need, then, not to take a uniform view of road safety.
In that way, we can set a good example to the rest of the world.
   The next item is the report by Mrs Caroline Lucas, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on prospects for trade relations between the EU and China (2005/2015(INI)) (A6-0262/2005).
   I was actually just about to make an announcement to that effect.
I still have about 50 minutes worth of speakers left on my list, which means, as that is a theoretical figure, that we have about an hour of debate left.
You will understand, seeing that it is quarter to twelve, that we cannot make the Members who will come to vote wait.
Officially, according to our agenda, we should close the debate at 11.50 a.m.
What I would suggest is that I give the floor to Mr Vanhecke, who is due to speak in his capacity as a non-attached Member, and then to do one circuit of representatives who wish to speak in a personal capacity.
We would therefore have Mr Rübig, for the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, Mr van den Berg, for the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, Mr Van Hecke  the other Mr Van Hecke  for the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Mrs Auken, for the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, Mr Farage for the Independence/Democracy Group, Mr Didžiokas for the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, and finally Mr Allister for the non-attached Members, which would take us 12 minutes.
That would then take us to noon or five past, which I think is reasonable.
The other speakers, I am afraid, will have to wait until this afternoon.
I already know that the rapporteur will shortly ask plenary for the vote to be postponed, so that the vote takes place not this afternoon but during our mini-session in Brussels.
It is plenary that will decide on that shortly.
That is what I can tell you.
If you agree, we will finish, as regards the speakers on behalf of the groups, with the non-attached Members, then one round of speeches, in other words 12 minutes, and we will then suspend the sitting for the votes, from noon.
   I have only two options, Mrs Mussolini: either I can follow the agenda as approved by plenary and suspend the sitting in exactly one minute, or, to allow as many speakers as possible to comment, I can take one circuit of speakers which will, in any case, include non-attached Members to the same extent, no more and no less, as the other groups.
I have no other option.
With regard to the Commission’s speaking time, it is unlimited.
It is only Members’ speaking time that is limited.
Therefore, as yours seems to be the only objection, I propose to continue by giving the floor to a non-attached Member, Mr Vanhecke.
   The final speaker on this report this morning is Mr Allister, who has 90 seconds available to him. I would also point out in passing to Mrs Mussolini, who is not listening to us, that the non-attached Members will have spoken for the same length of time as the Members of the other groups.
If discrimination does exist, it is positive discrimination as far as you are concerned.
   We shall suspend the debate on the report by Mrs Lucas until 3.00 p.m. and resume with the list of speakers as scheduled.
   . Mr President, as you know, we have just been discussing my report on EU-China trade relations, but the debate is not yet finished.
I propose that, while the rest of the debate takes place this afternoon, the actual vote be postponed until the Brussels part-session in two weeks' time.
This is an important report and there should be a full House here to vote on it, not just the 40 or 50 Members who might still be here at 5 p.m.
I am afraid that I myself will not be here at 5 p.m., as I have another engagement this evening.
The change to the agenda that shifted my report from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. this morning was made only very recently.
That is what caused this problem.
I formally move that we postpone the vote until the Brussels part-session in two weeks' time.
– Mrs Lucas, I believe that you are referring to Rule 170 of the Rules of Procedure.
I imagine that you are expressing an opinion on behalf of your political group, as you are entirely justified in doing.
Are there any objections to the request that Mrs Lucas has just made to postpone the vote on her report?
   I take the liberty of supporting Mrs Lucas’ request, because the resumption of the debate this afternoon is going to pose a problem for a number of my fellow Members who were scheduled to speak: some of them have an aeroplane to catch, others have appointments.
If we could, in fact, conclude the debate in Brussels or next month in Strasbourg and vote in the process, that would be helpful.
   After having heard Mr Goebbels declare himself in favour of a postponement of the vote on the report by Mrs Lucas, are there any speakers who wish to oppose such a postponement?
The vote on the report by Mrs Lucas is therefore postponed until the next part-session, on the understanding that the debate will resume at 3.00 p.m., since we must suspend it at present in order to make room for voting time.
   Mr President, on Monday, when the groups met to prepare this joint motion for a resolution, we had agreed on a text on paragraph 10.
Unfortunately, when this text was being transcribed, part of a sentence was missed out.
I take the liberty, therefore, of presenting it to you in the form of an oral amendment; I have the text in English.
'Asks the Commission to keep the regulatory status of hedge funds under review' with, as an addition: 'and examine ways in which added transparency could contribute to more stable oil markets'.
I believe that I have Mr Chichester’s consent to present this text.
   Mr President, we have the same technical problem with the sixth indent of paragraph 15.
We wish to add: 'Put forwards proposals for'.
The same procedure applies as for the other part.
   . Mr President, I am asking that the second part of paragraph 10 contain the following: ‘and requests that any such future action contribute to bringing to an end discrimination based on sex or caste, wherever it takes place’.
– (B6-0461/2005): Oil
   . The European Parliamentary Labour Party fully supports reform of the United Nations Security Council, in order that it better reflects today's world, and calls for further improvements in the way that the European Union speaks at the UN.
However, it is inappropriate to talk of an EU seat in paragraph 19, as the UN Charter does not allow for organisations such as the EU to become members.
   . Although I support the substance of this resolution, I could not support the second part of paragraph 19 which supports a separate seat for the EU in the UN Security Council.
This would undermine those countries which already have a seat on the UN Security Council and thus is not in the British national interest.
   . In light of the increasing number of road accidents in Europe this report is a timely initiative calling for the number of accidents and deaths on EU roads to be cut by half by 2010.
This laudable objective has my full support.
In particular I welcome the emphasis given in the report to the protection and safety of vulnerable road users, such as pedestrians and cyclists.
However, in attempting to raise standards across the EU attention should be paid to the situation in individual Member States, such as the UK, which have good working mechanisms in place: Concerted government-led campaigns have contributed to an attitude of zero-tolerance among the British public with regard to drink-driving.
It is therefore unclear that an EU wide harmonisation of speed limits and blood-alcohol limits would significantly benefit road-users in the UK at this time.
   – Mr President, several fellow Members have spoken about China’s entitlement to the advantages of WTO membership and globalisation. However, when enjoying those advantages, China must comply with the WTO rules and other international norms such as human rights and social rights.
The free flow of goods is important, but the free flow of thoughts is equally important. Free trade is important, but the freedom of people is just as important.
Several people have recently expressed their concern about the Hungarian Prime Minister, Mr Ferenc Gyurcsány, promising that more than one billion Chinese citizens can travel to Hungary without a visa. I would like to assure you that this is not the official Hungarian position, and it is not supported either by the Fidesz or the European People’s Party.
At the same time, I strongly appreciate that the report draws attention to the alarming situation of human rights in China, initiates the immediate elimination of child labour and hard labour and expects compliance with the fundamental social and labour norms. In this context, it is hard to interpret the statement of the Hungarian Prime Minister that the economic and social model of China should be followed in many respects.
European Union membership means that countries share the same common values and these common values – like freedom and respect for human rights – shall govern the common foreign and security policy. Maintaining visa requirements in the case of China serves the safety of European citizens.
These higher interests cannot be subordinated to the momentary vagaries of politicians.
   .
This conflict has cost 12 000 lives over the last decade, many of them civilians from among the most vulnerable sections of the population.
Amnesty International has reported that tens of thousands of children are abducted from schools by Maoist fighters to attend so-called political education and some, of course, are recruited as child soldiers.
The security forces are also guilty of violations of children's rights. The extrajudicial killings of young people and others must stop.
All abuses by the security forces must be properly investigated. All political prisoners must be released or tried under due process of law.
I welcome the Maoist ceasefire and I hope there will be an indefinite extension to this, but the King must reciprocate and he must also engage in constructive talks.
We in the EU must also play our part.
I call on the Council and the Member States to continue the suspension of military aid and call for all aid to be monitored and for certain sanctions to be imposed. This really is to put pressure on the King and the government to restore democracy in Nepal.
It is long overdue.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on the human rights situation in Tunisia.
   The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5 p.m. this afternoon.
   The next item is the debate on seven motions for resolutions on Vojvodina.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if we are talking about the situation of national minorities in Vojvodina here today, it is because we are concerned that the exemplary multi-ethnic coexistence in this part of Serbia could be lost.
When we were in Vojvodina at the start of this year we spoke with politicians and other people affected and also put forward proposals for how such regrettable events might be prevented and healed.
My written enquiries to government offices in Belgrade six months after our visit produced only evasive answers.
Something needs to be done both in the educational system and about the composition of the police and judiciary, however, if the situation is to improve.
One factor in the increasing incidence of atrocities may be large-scale immigration of Serbs from Kosovo and Croatian Krajina into parts of Vojvodina formerly dominated by national minorities.
All politicians in Vojvodina and Belgrade should therefore be anxious to condemn this, to urge their offices to show the utmost vigilance and to use the forthcoming talks with Serbia and Montenegro to ensure European funding is used to help the national minorities in particular to get their rights.
To this end, the European Parliament has increased resources for Serbia and Montenegro by EUR 8 million.
I would like to point out, however, Mr President, Commissioner, that the Hungarian Government also has a definite obligation to join with its neighbours, Serbia and Montenegro, in addressing these problems.
Let me say once again that I want to revive this Vojvodina, which is a model for the coexistence of national minorities; that is in Serbia’s interests and it is in the interests of the European Union.
   – Mr President, after one year I have to say it again: the passive government of Serbia and Montenegro remains responsible for inciting the strained relations, for the assaults suffered by Hungarians, the harassment, robbery, violation of cemeteries and the destruction and abuse of historical monuments of the Hungarian community.
I would like to send a message to the Serbian nation from here in Strasbourg, that it should not allow itself to be a pawn of the hatred against foreigners incited by the post-communist, nationalist elite.
This does not provide a solution – it only causes further suffering.
The Serbian nation should face its past, especially the organised genocide that took place in Vojvodina sixty years ago and had more than 40 thousand Hungarian victims.
The decision is in the hand of the Serbian nation.
Serbia has to decide whether to become a European democracy that is free from discrimination and fear, or the North Korea of Europe.
   The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 5 p.m.
   The next item is the vote on the motions for resolutions on violations of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 29 September 2005.
   The final version of the draft agenda for the present part-session as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 26 September pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
   Mr President, I have to say that I am now rather surprised.
Having considered this matter, our group has come to the conclusion that, if a member of the Commission makes a statement, this House is entitled to hear him, irrespective of the qualitative judgment that might be made about what he said.
We are insistent that this matter should be clarified, and so our group has decided that Commissioner McCreevy should clarify his position before this House.
I can tell Mr Schulz that it is for this reason that we are in favour of Commissioner McCreevy appearing, but I also ask that things should not be taken too far right now.
We do not regard this as an occasion for requiring the President of the Commission to appear before us; instead, we want to hear Commissioner McCreevy first.
If what he has to say to us proves to be unacceptable, then we can move on to call the President of the Commission before the House, but we support this only on the assumption that it will be Mr McCreevy who will be the first to explain himself to this House.
   I believe that, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, we should hear one opinion in favour of the motion presented by Mr Schulz and one opinion against.
Nevertheless, since the presidents of the different groups have requested the floor, I shall interpret the rules flexibly, but I would ask you ― Mr Cohn-Bendit, I would like you to listen to this request in particular ― to restrict yourselves to one minute and to speak extremely concisely.
   Mr President, now that we have a Grand Coalition, we want to make a bit of a crack in it.
We Greens endorse the Social Democrats’ demand that not only Commissioner McCreevy, but also Mr Barroso, should appear before this House.
This is not a circus, and, if Commissioner McCreevy can make that sort of statement at a time when the European Social Model is in place, then it is incumbent to the President of the Commission to say, on its behalf, what is acceptable and what is not.
   Mr President, if this is a sign of things to come from the influence of the events in Berlin on this House, then they will do us no good whatsoever.
Commissioner McCreevy is entitled to his opinions.
What he said in Sweden is perfectly normal.
My group would not support calling Commissioner McCreevy to this House.
If we are serious about making the European Union work, then we owe each other solidarity.
Solidarity involves allowing companies from the new Member States to bid successfully for work in the existing Member States and carry it out.
That is part of getting our economies working together properly.
That is the reason why my group will oppose calling Commissioner McCreevy to the House.
   Mr President, if I thoroughly support Mr Schulz’s request that Mr McCreevy and the President of the Commission be simultaneously invited to express their opinions, it is because Mr McCreevy can be relied on not to pull his punches.
I think he is used to saying bluntly what a number of his colleagues in the Commission dress up.
For example, Mr McCreevy declared at a conference in London that it must never be forgotten that the single market is far and away the project that goes furthest in terms of deregulating the European Union.
We therefore want to know whether, when Mr McCreevy expresses his opinion, he in fact says bluntly and without beating about the bush what Mr Barroso does not dare to say in public.
That is why I suggest that, on these issues, they both express their opinions in this Chamber.
   Ladies and gentlemen, we have a formal proposal from Mr Farage.
   Mr President, you seem to have forgotten that there is at least one group in this Parliament that is eurosceptic, that opposed the European Constitution and, for good measure, is rather bigger than the UEN Group.
Though not known for being shy in my criticism of this Commission, could I with your permission ask Mrs Sinnott to speak on behalf of our group to give our position?
   Mr President, two proposals have been tabled: one by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament to summon the President of the Commission before this House and one by Mr Poettering from the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) to give Commissioner McCreevy the right to repeat here what he said in Sweden.
That means, therefore, that two proposals should be put to the vote.
Commissioner McCreevy should be entitled, if the statements are false, to put these right here in Parliament.
I appeal to you, Mr President, to have both proposals put to the vote.
   Mr Poettering, are you proposing on behalf of the Group of the European Peoples’ Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats that Mr McCreevy appear or are you proposing that we vote if Mr McCreevy appears?
   Mr President, it is perfectly clear that, if the Socialist Group’s motion for both the President of the Commission and Commissioner McCreevy to be invited were to fail, we would then have to vote on whether to invite Commissioner McCreevy on his own.
That is how things stand as regards the vote.
   Mr President, I wonder whether there might not perhaps have been a misunderstanding.
While it is the case that there are specific examples of it, it is also clear that migration to Europe, being a general and fundamental problem, cannot be solved at the locations to which Mrs Buitenweg has referred.
It is for that reason that we opted for this all-embracing title and are inclined to stick with it.
   Mr President, I should also like to make it clear to Mr Swoboda, who wants to have a general debate, that such a debate will take place during the next part-session in Strasbourg, as immigration/migration is on the agenda with the report by Mrs Klamt.
   Mr Díaz de Mera García Consuegra, you have the floor on the basis of Rule 145.
   Mr President, I only wish to respond to Mr Barón by saying the following: before this afternoon, I had respect for Mr Barón, a lot of respect; having heard him, and having seen the great effort he has made to destroy that respect, he has succeeded: I no longer have any respect for him.
Another issue: for the sake of parliamentary courtesy, Mr President, I will not say that what Mr Barón has said about me makes him unworthy and indecent; I will say that he has used indecent and unworthy language, not that he is.
Finally, Mr President, in my country Mr Barón once said: ‘I am a State asset’.
He has proven that he is not in fact a State asset: he is an asset of various States.
When he speaks and behaves like that, that is what Mr Barón is.
Finally, I am proud to have dedicated part of my life to the security of all Spaniards.
Many sleepless nights.
Mr President, what a shame; what a shame that when people have no arguments they have to resort to insults; what a shame that when people have no arguments or ideas they have to use that kind of language.
Mr Barón has proven that, when it comes to this and other issues, he has no idea what he is talking about.
   Mr Barón Crespo, you too have the floor on a personal matter.
We are not going to start a debate on the matter; only on something that concerns you that you wish to clarify.
   Mr President, a careful look at the Minutes will reveal that I have not referred personally to Mr Díaz de Mera.
In any case, I shall not respond to the inappropriate comments he has made; I would simply like to point out to him that there is a correct place to raise his serious and unfounded criticisms of the Spanish Government, which is the Congress of Deputies, in Carrera de San Jerónimo, in Madrid — and I can give Mr Díaz de Mera the address — but our job here is to examine the European institutions, not the Spanish Government.
   Thank you, Mrs Gill, I am sure we all share those sentiments.
   I should just like to report that national parliaments meeting under COSAC on Monday resolved that the Council should meet in public, so you have support there too, Mr Farage.
   – I would like to talk about Kazakhstan.
Although this state is not in Europe, it is very important to the European Union, not in the least because of its oilfields.
Cooperation between the European Union and Kazakhstan in this area could greatly reduce the EU’s dependency on the supply of oil and gas from Russia.
The domination of any market by one country causes concern and is undesirable.
Presidential elections are scheduled to take place in Kazakhstan on 4 December of this year.
Moreover, this country aspires to take on the Chairmanship of the OSCE in 2009.
However, international human rights organisations report infringements of human rights and liberties there, as well as laws that do not conform to the standards of a democratic state, for example, the Law on Political Parties.
I call on the leaders of the European Parliament to send a delegation from the European Parliament to observe the elections and verify that these elections comply with international requirements and standards.
This would constitute a ‘litmus test’ for assessment of the results of these Presidential elections and for determination of whether to support Kazakhstan in its drive to take on the Chairmanship of the OSCE.
Thank you.
   Mr President, following on from the recent earthquake, I also wish to send my condolences.
However, can the President of Parliament use his good offices to persuade the Governments of both India and Pakistan to allow aid to cross unheeded over the line of control? I am delighted to hear that, so far, five families from Pakistan Kashmir and one from Indian-controlled Kashmir have been allowed to go home.
That is a step in the right direction.
However, I also understand that many individuals and organisations from the Indian side are being told that, because of the dispute that has been going on for over 50 years between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, they are not allowed to cross the border to give help to the victims.
I hope that old enmities will continue to be put behind them and for them to concentrate only on the provision of humanitarian aid.
   Mr President, last May’s Malmström report on Russia considers the final demarcation of all the borders between Russia and the new Member States as a precondition for the EU-Russia visa facilitation agreement.
At the latest London summit, Parliament’s position was clearly ignored.
Until now, Russia has refused to finalise a border with Latvia.
With regard to Estonia, the border treaty was signed in May and was duly ratified by the Estonian Parliament.
However, Mr Putin’s Government then made an unprecedented move: it denied the validity of its own signature on an international treaty.
This places a big question mark on the credibility of any further Russian commitment.
These issues were not even mentioned at the London Summit.
Sadly, today, we can observe the EU letting itself be split by the Kremlin rather than making the CFSP more reliable and coherent, as suggested by the Malmström report
   Mr President, after speaking I would like to hand over to you a two-euro coin.
This coin was minted in 2005, and it depicts the 15 old Member States – not only eurozone members, but also Britain, Sweden and Denmark, which are not members of the eurozone.
Now, a year on from their accession, I would like to see the ten new Member States being included in the map of Europe, even though we are not yet part of the eurozone either.
This would have a very important symbolic value, and I urge the European Central Bank and you, Mr President, to take steps to this end.
This is a tiny little symbolic step, but believe me, it is a very important one for us, the new Member States.
   I belong among those MEPs who can claim some familiarity with the issue of bioethics.
In 1998, MEP Mikolášik and I initiated a resolution of the Slovak Parliament dealing with the accession of Slovakia to the ‘Oviedo Protocol’ on the prohibition of cloning.
I have also been committed to the cause of making it a criminal offence in Slovakia to perform controversial research on embryos and embryonic stem cells.
I therefore added my signature to those of the group of MEPs who addressed Commission President Barroso with the demand that this controversial research not be financed from EU budgets.
We are speaking about the use of funds for specific programmes under the 7th Framework Programme for research and development.
I would like to thank President Barroso for his reply, which promises that the European Commission will pay close attention to this issue and that our concerns will be dealt with.
I would also like to assure the President of the Commission that the group of signatories to the letter will continue to follow developments in this area closely and to maintain their standpoint.
   Mr President, as you are well aware, the Presidency-in-Office of the Council has approved a statement, on behalf of the 25 Members, in which it expresses its concern about the situation of three political prisoners in Cuba who have been tortured by the Cuban regime: José Daniel Ferrer García, Víctor Rolando Arroyo and Félix Navarro, who were on hunger strike.
While I know that the President of Parliament, Mr Borrell, will attend the Ibero-American Summit in Salamanca and that the dictator Fidel Castro has not been excluded from appearing in that city in the flesh, I would like to ask Mr Borrell to communicate the European Union and our Parliament’s final position to the Cuban delegates: the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Cuba.
   Mr President, Mrs Kinnock is right.
Africa does not need more weapons.
The strategy shows that more needs to be done.
Development policy will never succeed if it is sabotaged by trade policy.
I also wish to caution against exaggerated confidence that foreign capital and companies will solve Africa’s problems.
We must support the development of locally owned industry whose profits stay in Africa.
It is important for them to be given complete freedom to choose the ways in which they wish to develop, free from pressure and the forced opening up of markets.
They must themselves decide what is in their interests.
A coherent strategy involving trade, development cooperation and support for democracy is required in order to give Africa that opportunity.
That also applies to our research policy.
I would ask you to support the demands for the Seventh Framework Programme for Research to be used to increase research into the quite forgotten tropical diseases which kill millions of people each year.
   The next item is the report by Mr Bono, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on education as the cornerstone of the Lisbon process (2004/2272 (INI)) (A6-0245/2005).
   The next item is the report by Mrs Novak, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on the proposal for a recommendation of the Council and of the European Parliament on further European cooperation in quality assurance in higher education (COM(2004)0642 – C6-0142/2004 – 2004/0239(COD)) (A6-0261/2005).
   . – While welcoming my colleague Novak’s report, I would like to draw your attention to Amendment 25, which proposes to delete the part of the Commission’s text urging ‘to accept the assessments made by all quality assurance and accreditation agencies listed in the European Register as a basis for decisions on licensing or funding higher-education institutions.’
I believe that this Commission's proposal is well-founded and particularly important, as it allows quality assessment of higher education to be linked to an institution’s funding.
This is particularly relevant for new European Union countries, including my own country Lithuania.
If we reject this proposal by the Commission, we would lose an especially important European vehicle, one which helps to ensure the quality of higher education throughout the European Union and to avoid squandering funds.
   The next item is the report by Mr Portas, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on integrating immigrants in Europe through schools and multilingual education [2004/2267(INI)] (A6-0243/2005).
   The next item is the report by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on new challenges for the circus as part of European culture [2004/2266(INI)] (A6-0237/2005).
   The next item is the report by Mrs Záborská, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on women and poverty in the European Union [2004/2217(INI)] (A6-0273/2005).
   Mr President, Commissioner, over 68 million people in the European Union – that is, 15% of its population – are at risk of poverty.
The situation is even worse in countries outside the EU of 25.
It follows that every possible EU instrument – whether the European Neighbourhood or Foreign Policies, development or finance policy – should be used to the utmost if we are to be able to alleviate poverty at home and abroad.
National plans of action must include specific measures to alleviate poverty and the Commission must monitor the way in which they are implemented.
It is of the utmost importance that more attention be paid to women both in the European Employment Guidelines and in the Lisbon Strategy.
The European Union’s development policy must do more to address poverty reduction, while, at the same time, international development policy must, as a matter of urgency, be analysed to ascertain to what extent groups at risk are either being helped or further marginalised.
The World Bank, the G-8, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organisation must show their hands and set out the specific effects that their policies have had on women and poverty in the past and what the effect of them is now.
One possible result of poverty outside the EU’s 25 Member States is an increase in illegal immigration, people-smuggling, and criminal activity, with an eventual increase in the trafficking of women.
We will therefore reiterate our long-standing demand that the Member States should, once and for all, legislate for a guaranteed minimum income.
   Mr President, most of us agree that the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality does yeoman work – well, at least in my view, as much as other committee.
While I recognise the basic direction behind this report and the difficulties some women face on remuneration, and I wholeheartedly support the need for better statistical information on this particular topic, I have to draw the House’s attention to the double standards that we employ.
Today you can buy this magazine in the Parliament’s shop: it is hardcore pornography.
Although an American publication, it depicts eastern European models, I suspect because of the poverty referred to by Mrs Záborská’s team.
It is the tip of the iceberg of exploitation and people trafficking, subjects highlighted by this very report.
Yet it is for sale here.
I find the hypocrisy of the European Parliament on this subject, like so many, many others, sadly predictable.
   Mr President, yesterday a motion was put forward to bring Commissioner McCreevy before Parliament.
The groups were asked to speak on the motion.
The IND/DEM Group was simply skipped.
I have observed this before.
In this case though, I was designated to speak on this very important issue for the Group and I seek to make that statement now.
The IND/DEM Group agrees with Mr Schulz that Commissioner McCreevy should be called before this House to account for his statements on the European social model. Mr McCreevy has of course always opposed that model.
He was Minister for Finance as Ireland ascended to wealth, and how did he choose to spend it? On our chaotic health system?
On our crumbling school buildings?
On a very excluding special needs education system?
On our housing crisis? Did he get patients off a two-year waiting list for minor operations?
Not our Charlie! He made sure that his friends in the horse racing business did not have to pay tax on six-figure-a-go stud fees.
I have had seven years to observe Charlie’s distaste for wasting taxpayers’ money on social services.
The other 719 Members may not yet know how Charlie operates and they deserve a chance to see what they are in for.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0272/2005) by Mr Beaupuy, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Development, on the urban dimension in the context of enlargement [2004/2258(INI)].
   Mr President, urban development quite properly does not fall within the direct remit of the European Union, though in nation states it is substantially influenced by regional and other policies from Europe.
Under Urban II in my constituency in Northern Ireland, we benefited from a very worthwhile programme in North Belfast.
However, with Urban II coming to an end, a similar need in highly deprived areas in East and South Belfast remains unmet.
These are some of the areas which featured most prominently in recent street disturbances and which show high levels of deprivation and neglect.
They need far-reaching and tangible help.
I note in terms of the future that the legislative proposal for regional policy from 2007 explicitly embraces an urban dimension and, within the competitiveness and employment objective for which my region will qualify, there is a commitment to concentrate on areas which have the most serious problems.
Thus, in terms of those deprived areas of Belfast that I have mentioned, I certainly will be looking for a meaningful programme of assistance.
    Madam President, it is high time that problems relating to cities and urban policy were given the priority they deserve in the context of the implementation of cohesion policy.
This is particularly desirable if we remember that approximately 80% of the population of the European Union live in towns or cities, as has been emphasised several times already in this House today.
Cities are crucial to regional development and also to attaining the Lisbon and Gothenburg objectives. It is cities and the areas surrounding them that generate growth and innovation plus economic, social and territorial cohesion.
It is also the case, however, that the most complex problems tend to be concentrated in the cities.
I have in mind social exclusion, spatial and ethnic segregation, violence, drugs, pollution, unemployment and illegal trading.
There are marked discrepancies between European Union countries regarding urban policy, particularly after the most recent enlargement and the accession of 10 new Member States.
These discrepancies are partly due to the different degree of economic development and partly also to the fact that certain new Member States do not have an urban policy in place at national or regional level.
It is particularly in the new Member States that complex urban problems have been noted, relating amongst other issues to management of the housing stock, inadequate infrastructure, transport, protection of the natural environment and waste disposal.
In addition, it is mainly in the new Member States that the most notable cases of problems caused by social exclusion or by living in neglected prefabricated slab housing estates can be found.
That is why effective action to regenerate post-industrial premises is vital for those countries.
The European Commission should waste no time in taking efficient action aimed at coordinating urban policy.
In particular, the Commission should prioritise the development of tools for urban development, the exchange of best practice and experience and joint projects that strengthen interregional and transnational cooperation.
Only then will it become possible for these cities that are new to the Union to become assets to it instead of liabilities, hence the importance of Mr Beaupuy’s report.
I support it and would like to thank him very much for his work.
   Madam President, I am standing in for Mr Casa, who is indisposed, and has asked me to make use of his speaking time.
In any case, we wish him a speedy recovery, so that he may be back on his feet as soon as possible and able to make use of his right to speak in this House.
On Mr Casa’s behalf, let me thank Mr Beaupuy for his fine report.
I think we are all aware that towns and cities have to be the focus of any future regional policy, being, so to speak, the epicentres of the problems with which our regional policies will have to deal.
We know that 80% of people live in conurbations, that more and more people are moving to towns and cities, and that the problems associated with that are becoming more acute.
The task of using our regional policy to keep the rural areas around our cities attractive, and to prevent this flow into the cities necessarily devolves upon Europe, so the European Union, in the period of time between 2007 and 2013, must not only come up with rational policies, not only for cities, but also for rural areas, particularly in mountainous and isolated regions, in order to be able to offer the people who live there proper conditions under which to work.
That should not mean, though, that we should neglect the towns and cities, for many of the problems that arise in them could be resolved with the help and support of the European Union, and so we should use benchmarking as a means of highlighting which solutions make sense for everyone.
I would also like to congratulate Mr Stubb on what he had to say.
All of us in Central Europe look northwards, if not exactly with admiration, at any rate with very warm sentiments, and are in fact glad that these states have managed to maintain the European social model.
I would go along entirely with what he had to say about our Socialist Members.
   The Urban dimension in regional policy is of course important, in Scotland we have our major cities Glasgow, Edinburgh and others and all have benefited from EU engagement with regional policy.
My overriding concern on all regional policy matters is that the overall budget is still to be agreed, and the disastrous policies of the UK government in particular would see regional policy suffer most from their planned cuts.
The Parliament has spoken with a strong voice in the Boge report, and we must ensure that this remains our view.
   The next item is the report (A6-0265/2005) by Mr Chmielewski, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures in the Baltic Sea, the Belts and the Sound and amending Regulation (EC) No 1434/98 (COM(2005)0086 – C6-0094/2005 – 2005/0014(CNS)).
   Mr Bushill-Matthews, your concern is quite justified, and the President has already written to the Council to criticise this state of affairs in emphatic and vigorous terms.
We expect the Council to maintain the arrangements that have been customary for years, indeed for decades.
It is absolutely unacceptable that these things should be dealt with in the manner that you describe, and we have already taken the matter up.
   Mr President, I have an oral amendment to paragraph 14 on death sentences for juvenile offenders.
In Iran, young people are being sentenced to death and executed merely for having sexual relationships or for being gay.
In the original wording, where we used the term ‘juvenile offenders’, it seems as if we agree with the Iranian Government that having sexual relationships is a crime.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following on from yesterday’s debate and from the Iranian response to our demand that Akbar Gandji be released at once and that guarantees be given that he is still alive, I wish to move an additional amendment
   Mr Swoboda, I asked that very question when we were preparing for the vote, and was told that we had to make some allowances, as the situation in Ethiopia was changing practically by the hour.
   Mr President, I abstained on the resolution on Iran, and many of my British Conservative colleagues voted against, as Amendment l – making a referral to the United Nations Security Council a requirement – was rejected.
This is very regrettable.
I also did not like the fact that paragraph 7 was included in the report.
That paragraph restricts the eventual options available to the West to prevent the development by Iran of a nuclear weapon.
I fully support the condemnation of Iran in the resolution for its brutal human rights track record, including the execution of minors for sexual chastity offences.
   .
The European Parliamentary Labour Party strongly supports the resolution on Iran, particularly the recognition given to the efforts of the EU3 to reach a diplomatic solution, the affirmation that the only way to resolve the problem is through diplomatic pressure, with Iran returning to talks based on the Paris agreement, and the importance of the resumption of the Human Rights dialogue with Iran.
However, it is unhelpful (in amendment 12) to use this resolution to criticise the review of the US security strategy at this stage, whilst the precise plans and intentions for the review remain unclear and as yet unpublished.
   We are voting against this resolution from the European Parliament.
We completely agree with the decision of 7 November 2000 by the EU committee of the Swedish Parliament, commenting on the issue of increased EU coordination within the education field.
The committee adopted a wording to the effect that care must be taken to ensure that the Member States’ exclusive responsibility for the organisation of education and for the content of education systems is fully respected.
The following day, the EU’s education ministers met and adopted, among other things, the appendix from the EU committee of the Swedish Parliament, presented by Sweden’s then education minister.
We see no reason to review the position it expresses.
   Mr President, I have seen quite a bit in my time, but the Portas report must be one of the most Utopian and dangerous ever to have been put before this House, and that is saying something.
In this report, the so-called multi-culturalism of the European countries is reinforced even further by encouraging second, third, or even fourth-generation immigrant children to develop their own language and culture on our territory and thus to make even less of an effort to integrate in our society or assimilate themselves to it.
That is complete madness and flies in the face of the democratic will of the large majority of our citizens.
It can only lead to even more problems, to the formation of even more ghettos, to apartheid and, ultimately and lamentably, to violence.
Echoing the new German Chancellor, Mrs Merkel, let me tell this House that a multi-cultural society is unworkable and that immigrants residing in Europe legally must be encouraged to adapt as much as they can.
   The June List chooses to vote against this report because it is another example of how, through own-initiative reports, the European Parliament wishes to provide the EU with new areas of competence.
According to the Treaty wording, the EU is not authorised to conduct a specific policy for towns, despite which Mr Beaupuy believes that the European Parliament must stand up for an urban policy at EU level.
The report is a typical example of the way in which, through new ‘models’, ‘tools’, ‘dialogues’, ‘working parties’, various aid programmes and, as time goes on, new institutions, the EU gives rise to bureaucracy and supranationalism.
   We voted in favour of Amendments 1, 3 and 5.
We are well disposed towards a guaranteed reasonable standard of living.
We are, however, opposed to introducing state-regulated minimum wages.
We interpret the concept of ‘guaranteed income’, which appears in the above-mentioned amendments, as signifying not a certain guaranteed minimum wage but, rather, a guaranteed reasonable standard of living.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 13 October 2005.
   Mr Liese has the floor to speak against.
   Mr President, I would like to oppose the motion from the Socialist Group in the European Parliament and argue in favour of a resolution.
The problem is that there are deadlines to be met in considering this issue.
If we do not come up with a position on this matter in October, the decision will be taken elsewhere; the European Patent Office is, for example, considering a controversial patent, and there are contradictory interpretations of the directive that this House adopted on the patenting of human genes or of human body parts.
If the House does not express its mind, the political message we will be sending is that we are not capable of making a contribution to the debate on this issue, even though it was this House that adopted the directive.
I therefore ask that Mr Schulz’s motion be rejected.
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   Mr President, I would like to bring to the attention of this House the findings of a visit I made to Romania to look in particular at the situation of babies and young adults with handicaps in institutional care.
This is an area where the European Union could perhaps be doing more to push the Romanian authorities to increase the pace of reform.
For example, last year 4600 babies were abandoned in maternity hospitals.
Some were reunited with their families but many remain there.
I lifted up a little boy of 18 months who had never been outside a maternity hospital.
This is not something we want to see.
We need emergency fostering in Romania and we need the European Union to push for that.
In relation to the institutional care of adults with handicaps, I visited an institution where 450 people were living in awful conditions, unacceptable to us here in the European Union.
Some progress is being made but more could be done if we put greater pressure on the Romanian authorities.
I would ask that we all do that.
   Mr President, I would like to express the shame I feel as a Member of the European Parliament as a result of Mr Barroso having recently appointed three people even more reactionary than Mr Buttiglione to occupy the Commission’s vacant positions in the European Group on Ethics and New Technologies.
I believe that this retrograde step is not just shameful in terms of its result, but also in view of the way the result has been achieved: since April, Mr Barroso has been consulting the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs — which is competent in this area and to which I belong ― entirely avoiding any debate and, furthermore, failing to comply with the applicable rules.
Furthermore, it should be stressed that many other Members, including Presidents of this Parliament, have expressed their opposition in this regard.
Appointing people who are even worse than Buttiglione for such a delicate matter, in which such good work is being done, will destroy the momentum and work against progress.
   Mr President, I wish to make just two short points concerning the avian flu situation.
Dr David Nabarro, UN coordinator for avian and human influenza, has stressed that, to prevent a pandemic of human infection, the global response to the bird flu epidemic must be intensified.
The United States has ordered approximately 100 million dollars’ worth of vaccine.
The United Nations, by contrast, has a total budget of around USD 7 million to control animal outbreaks of avian flu, but requires USD 175 million for an effective programme.
My second point is that, in addition to the evident problem of slow manufacturing processes, it appears unlikely that there will be enough flu shots available for all those who might need them.
However, it might be possible to contain an H5N1 outbreak at its source, if the surrounding population were immediately vaccinated.
I would like to raise the question of whether we in the European Union would be prepared to share the vaccines we already have in our possession with regions where an outbreak occurs, in an effort to contain it.
It should not just be a matter of having vaccines in case it affects our own citizens: if there is an outbreak, we should target it wherever it occurs and try to ensure that it does not spread.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, according to reports in the French newspapers and , the human rights situation in Cuba is going from bad to worse.
Marxism is becoming more barbaric the more the Marxist tyrant who introduced it is aware of his approaching end.
I would like to give you a few examples to illustrate my point: the journalist Mario Henrique Mayo, who in 2003 was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment, has made two suicide attempts after having used a razor blade to etch the words ‘innocent’ and ‘freedom’ on his own body.
On 4 October, the journalist Victor Arroyo who, for expressing an opinion that constituted an offence, was sentenced to 26 years in jail, ended his hunger strike at Cardinal Ortega’s request after having ended up in a delirium.
For 100 other political prisoners, there is not a single prospect of liberation; quite the opposite is the case.
The moderate opponent Manuel Cuesta Morua has been beaten up by a collection of regime supporters and has been at the receiving end of extreme racist abuse.
I hope that this House will present a united front in denouncing the human rights violations in Cuba.
It will send out a better message than that of a future European Commissioner who once, while smoking a Havana cigar, accepted a ride on a Harley Davidson with Fidel Castro, but has never breathed a word about it.
   Mr President, there is a very good Sunday newspaper in Britain called .
Yesterday's edition was of particular interest.
It reports that British economic growth forecasts for 2005 and 2006 are being revised downwards.
A survey from Morgan Stanley reveals that Europe's largest companies are planning to make 40% of their investments outside the European Union.
The reason for this is obvious.
It is the brake on enterprise and business exerted by the ever-growing bonds of regulation and red tape from the European Union.
A report from Open Europe and Oxford Economic Forecasting shows that the United Kingdom could increase its gross domestic product by 1.4% if it traded freely with the rest of the world, while maintaining a free trade agreement with the European Union.
In other words, leave the European Union, but trade freely with Europe and the world.
That, of course, is the policy of the United Kingdom Independence Party.
Common sense may eventually prevail.
   Mr President, a revolution broke out in Hungary on 23 October 1956.
The message of the revolution for posterity is threefold.
The events of 1956 were profoundly democratic.
The revolution involved the political participation of the entire society, it guaranteed equal human dignity for all, and proclaimed that suppressive dictatorial regimes cannot survive.
On the other hand, it attempted to lay the foundations of a completely new political system.
Thirdly, the revolution also had a message for Europe.
It entered on the agenda of Europe the possibility of liquidating Communist tyranny.
We, the Hungarian delegation of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, declare the period up to the end of 2006 a Hungarian season, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the great Hungarian revolution.
   – Mr President, Luxembourg, a founding Member State of the European Union, has never claimed the status of official EU language for its mother tongue, Luxemburgish.
With the most recent enlargement, the number of official languages has increased.
The Council of Ministers has just granted the status of official language to Irish, bringing to 21 the total number of official and working languages.
In its conclusions of June 2005, the Council also gave its verdict on languages – I quote – whose status is recognised by the Constitution of a Member State on all or part of its territory or the use of which as a national language is authorised by law.
With Luxemburgish having been our national language since 1984, I believe that the Council conclusions apply in this instance.
However, Luxemburgish deserves to be given more recognition, because many people are not aware of the fact that we have our own language, in defence of which we suffered fierce repression during the Nazi occupation.
I will be asking the European Parliament’s legal service to ascertain how this veiled recognition for the Luxemburgish language could be made public and visible in Community texts.
      Mr President, Lithuania has been a member of the European Union since 2004, which means that it should comply with the legal obligations arising under Community legislation.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
One of the fundamental rights of every human being is the right to property and the right to inherit property, in particular land.
The extent to which a country recognises this right is an indication of its level of democracy.
After 1939, private property, and in particular land, was confiscated in Lithuania in line with Soviet law.
After the country gained independence, the Lithuanian Constitutional Court ruled that all vacant and undeveloped land was to be returned in kind to the rightful owners or their heirs.
Unfortunately, the Lithuanian executive and autonomous local authorities pay little attention to the sacred right to property.
In defiance of court rulings, they have failed to return land that was seized many years ago.
This primarily affects Poles living in Lithuania, who constitute a sizeable national minority.
By acting in this way, Lithuania is not only violating the right to property, but also discriminating against national minorities, in this case the Polish minority.
It is time that the relevant parliamentary committees looked into this matter.
   Mr President, you reminded us that today is United Nations Day and that upholding human rights is a top priority.
Recently, the British Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, current President of the Justice and Home Affairs Council, said there can be no negotiation about the re-creation of the caliphate; no negotiation about the imposition of Sharia law; no negotiation about the suppression of equality between the sexes or about the ending of free speech.
He said that these values are fundamental to our civilisation and are simply not up for negotiation.
This raises the question of why, in Iraq, the British and Americans have encouraged the adoption of a constitution which enshrines Sharia law and will severely curb the freedom of many women.
We welcome the fact that over 70 women have been elected to the parliament in Afghanistan.
However, the editor of a women’s rights magazine – a male editor, by the way – has been jailed for anti-Islamic articles.
In both countries women face harassment, violent attacks, death threats and murder because they are women.
So I hope that this Parliament will hold governments like Britain’s to their promises on sex equality, on free speech and on avoiding the imposition of Sharia law in Iraq and Afghanistan.
   Mr President, in the course of the 20th century, Hungary wrote world history on two occasions, and played a role in world history twice.
First in 1956, and then in 1989-90, when the country released the German refugees in the Central European transition period.
The 1956 revolution was followed in Poland by the Solidarity movement and in 1968 by the Prague Spring.
1956 marked a Hungarian uprising against Soviet occupation, a fight for freedom, a fight for national independence, and at the same time a fight against Communist dictatorship.
Without the 1956 revolution there would not have been a negotiated revolution in 1989 or a peaceful regime change in Hungary, and Hungary would not be a member of the EU today.
In the words of Albert Camus: ‘Hungary conquered and in chains has done more for freedom and justice than any other people in the world in the past twenty years.’
   Mr President, I wonder whether it would be appropriate at this time to congratulate Mr Lech Kaczyński, the Polish Law and Justice Party and the Polish people on the election of President Kaczyński in Poland on Sunday.
I also take the opportunity to congratulate our own colleague in this House, Mr Michał Tomasz Kamiński, who I believe played a major role in both the successful parliamentary campaign and the successful presidential campaign in Poland.
I urge you to pass our congratulations on to President Kaczyński.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Doris Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an integrated action programme in the field of lifelong learning (COM(2004)0474 C6-0095/2004 2004/0153(COD)] (A6–0267/2005).
   .
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mrs Pack not only on her excellent report, but also on her personal commitment to promoting the mobility of young Europeans.
The Erasmus programme owes a great deal to her tenacity, and the budget increase that she is calling for fully reflects her commitment.
Furthermore, I should like to remind you of the speech made by Mr Barroso in Berlin and of the speeches made by all of the group leaders within Parliament as part of the 70 cents for culture campaign, all of whom promised an increase in the ‘culture’ budgets.
Three remarks need to be made on the subject of the reform as it is presented to us.
The internal market would be more competitive and businesses more mobile if young apprentices were better prepared for being mobile.
The protectionist instincts of many small-scale businesses would be thwarted by the practical experience that the Leonardo da Vinci programme gives to young people by allowing them to carry out work placements in other countries.
The budget estimate that has been made for 150 000 apprentices is insufficient.
The Erasmus programme is too elitist, as the sums allocated to the recipients are not enough to fund the total cost of their mobility.
The only people who are therefore eligible for this programme are students whose parents can pay the remaining sum, unless the Member States assume responsibility for doing so, which is not the case at present.
Finally, university students would be more mobile if the Council tackled the real problems, namely those relating to the transferability of grants, students’ status, their social security and the right to work, which are all issues that could be addressed, given that they were mentioned in the Commission Green Paper of 1996.
The Commissioner will perhaps be able to inform us as to how the work is progressing.
Mr President, culture is priceless, but it does come at a cost.
If we want to give Europe a soul, funding has to be granted.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats will be supporting Mrs Pack’s proposal.
   . – I welcome the Commission's efforts to integrate and simplify European educational programmes and would like to draw your attention to the amendments submitted by our rapporteur Doris Pack, which not only underline the necessity to ensure the continuity of life-long learning, but also the need for an increase in funding for European programmes, including Erasmus.
This would, above all, take into account the number of participants in this programme, which has increased and continues to grow.
In addition we cannot disagree with the proposal that the average grant be increased from 210 Euros to 300 Euros by 2007 at the end of the programme.
Given the EU's changed national linguistic diversity, we cannot disagree with the proposal to create more flexible opportunities to study at least two languages.
I also trust that you will take into account an amendment which I have submitted, stating that we would like the European Humanities University that was exiled from Belarus, but was reopened two weeks ago in Vilnius, to become a candidate for priority funding.
The Union for Europe of the Nations approves Doris Pack's report.
   – Mr President, the Erasmus, Leonardo, Comenius, Gruntwig and other programmes have been crowned with real success and are, perhaps, the most popular and publicly known programmes of the European Union.
They not only have contributed to the modernisation of education and training systems, but also are contributing more than anything else to the strengthening of exchanges between young people in particular, helping them to come into direct contact with the language, culture and education of other countries of Europe.
That is why it is extremely important for these programmes to be extended to as many more young and, more importantly, less privileged people as possible.
Pupil exchanges within the framework of the Comenius programme must cover at least one in fifteen pupils of the programme.
At the same time, the amount of Erasmus grants needs to be doubled, given that it has remained stagnant since 1993 and is too low to meet the needs, mainly, of less well-off students, as our rapporteur, Mrs Pack, has quite rightly called for.
It is therefore necessary for the budget to be increased, in order to respond to the aspirations of European citizens, and for us to put the ambitious objectives of the Lisbon Strategy into practice.
   Mr President, the EU’s educational programmes have been reoriented.
Erasmus, Comenius, Comenius Regio for secondary schools, Grundtvig and Leonardo are part of the integrated action programme called ‘Lifelong Learning’ ‘L L L’, which Mrs Prets will find easy to remember!
Although I congratulate Mrs Pack on her report, in which she attempts to strike a balance between the various sectoral sub-programmes rather than playing them off against each other, I have to say that the Committee on Culture’s proposal that only 23% of the lifelong learning programme be allocated to Leonardo, rather than the 25% as originally envisaged, is a cause of disquiet among trainees, chambers of crafts and stakeholders in vocational education.
If the present 45 000 work placements per annum are to become 70 000 or even – as the institution represented by the Commissioner has proposed – rather more than 100 000, a solid financial foundation will be needed.
Leonardo gives long-term support to vocational education, makes individuals more empowered and, as Mrs Pack pointed out, is fully in line with the objectives of the new Lisbon Strategy for growth and employment.
The first all-clear signal is that students’ work placements are no longer to be run through Leonardo, but through Erasmus, so there alone – in a vitally important area – we are saving some EUR 600 million.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are also to be more closely involved in Leonardo than they were before.
As I have pointed out in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and also in conversations with businesses and interested parties, the fact is that the Financial Perspective for 2007-2013 has not yet been adopted, and so it may well come to pass – and I can tell Commissioner Figeľ that I hope, for both our sakes, that it does – that there will be substantially more money available for Leonardo than was the case in the past.
The reason why these EU education programmes are so effective is, after all, because those involved take to them immediately, and because the programmes make language, culture and different educational values visible and can therefore persuade the public of the added value that a European orientation can provide.
   The next item is the report by Mrs Gröner, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on the proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council creating the ‘Youth in Action’ programme for the period 2007-2013 (COM(2004)0471 – C6 0096/2004 – 2004/0152(COD)) (A6-0263/2005).
   .
One of the very important points of this renewed programme, which was raised by colleague Gröner, is the fostering of tolerance in young people towards other cultures and other languages.
It is clear that the creation and promotion of a culture of tolerance among young people, as well as the encouragement of cooperation between the youth of different nations, is an important guarantee of the success of the entire European Union.
It is also clear that education and expansion of young people's horizons have a special role to play in the process of fostering a culture of tolerance.
Thus, the priority of learning and the accessibility of education regardless of race, nationality, gender, religion or social status must stand out in the whole philosophy of this programme's implementation.
It is particularly important that this programme becomes accessible to the young in countries neighbouring the European Union, especially those countries in the grip of autocratic regimes.
In this regard, the experience of Lithuania's youth of cooperating with young people in Belarus, particularly in an academic sense, may be a good example to the whole of Europe.
We thus acquire one of the most effective instruments in the expansion of democracy and the spreading of European values.
The Union for Europe of the Nations supports this report.
   Mr President, the 2000-2006 Youth programme resulted in a great number of developments.
In many cases it brought considerable progress in the lives of youth communities in Hungary.
However, the programme failed to achieve some of its objectives.
For instance, it failed to reach young people living in rural areas.
Disadvantaged youths living in small rural settlements have not been able to get involved in the programme easily.
Therefore we must ensure that starting from 2007 as many rural youths as possible are able to get involved in the programme.
It would be more helpful to youth communities of countries participating in the programme if the details, information material and some kind of a database were more accessible.
We know that some progress has already been made in this direction, but it would be important to make more of the successful projects accessible, so that youths and youth organisations can get to know them.
These projects will set their imagination in motion, and will help them acquire useful experience.
Another positive step forward is that settlement-level and local government youth work is relied on to an ever-increasing extent.
This is the right way forward, because the principle of subsidiarity must be implemented consistently in youth affairs.
It is important that local youth work becomes an integral part of international youth cooperation.
Please allow me to call your attention to the fact that the Hungarian Parliament concluded a cooperation agreement, a programme agreement with the Serbian Parliament involving a tolerance programme.
Within this programme tolerance camps will be organised for young people, which may contribute to the prevention of nationality-based or ethnically motivated incidents involving Hungarian and Serbian youths.
In the course of these events, young people will meet artists, politicians and sportspeople well-known in both countries.
They will create a virtual parliament where they can deal with human rights and minority issues.
I am certain that the Youth in Action programme will provide opportunities for youths in many countries to understand and get to know one another better, which will create a strong foundation for taking action against all forms of discrimination and will raise the tolerance levels of young people.
Congratulations, Mrs Gröner!
   Benjamin Disraeli said that almost everything great is created in youth.
This is hyperbole, but there will never be too much attention paid to the young, the Europe of tomorrow.
The youth programme for 2007-2013 is a step forward when compared with the current programme.
We welcome the fact that the programme is more specific in its inclusion of the EU's new neighbours: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the North Caucasus.
This will allow young people to become acquainted with European values and initiatives as well as enter into relations with partners from EU states.
It is very good that the programme will not only include young people aged 15-25, but will be open to those aged 13-30.
The simplified rules for the submission of projects means that we will see more initiatives and far more young people will take advantage of the fruits of the programme.
However, this also demands greater funding.
Lithuania's youth are taking an active part in the work of the current programme.
It is hoped that the implementation of the new programme will further foster reciprocal knowledge, understanding and tolerance and will reduce social isolation.
Thank you.
   The next item is the report by Mr Graça Moura, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on the proposal for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council creating the ‘Culture 2007’ programme (2007-2013) (COM(2004)0469 – C6-0094/2004 – 2004/0150(COD)) (A6-0269/2005).
    The next item is the report (A6-0278/2005) by Mrs Hieronymi, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the implementation of a programme of support for the European audiovisual sector (MEDIA 2007) [COM(2004)0470 C6-0093/2004 2004/0151(COD)].
   . Mr President, Commissioner, within her very comprehensive report, Mrs Hieronymi has emphasised the importance of the Media 2007 programme’s proposals.
The programme reuses the structure and the mechanisms of the current programmes, which have proved to have had a very positive impact on the audiovisual sector.
The overall objectives of the future programme have been successfully adapted to the structure of businesses in the sector and to their funding requirements as well as to the development of technology and of the market in a very competitive environment.
I will therefore simply highlight the fact that, with a funding package that represents 15% of the sum dedicated to promoting culture and European citizenship in the financial perspectives, the audiovisual sector and thus cultural diversity will be enhanced in a way that is advantageous.
In actual fact, by pointing out that this sector is not only of great political and cultural importance, but that it also has great social and economic potential, the Commission is proposing to allocate to Media 2007 a budget of EUR 1.055 billion over the period 2007-2013 to fund its actions and administrative costs.
The future Media 2007 programme would thus see the current budget for the MEDIA Plus and MEDIA Training programmes increase by more than 50%.
It is the first post-enlargement programme, and the increase in the budget should enable effective support to be provided to professionals in the new Member States, who still often have reduced investment capacities and reduced access to bank lending.
In its proposal, the Commission also recommends simplifying Community intervention with regard to administrative and financial procedures.
Taking into account the entire set of proposals designed to improve a programme that has already proved its worth, Media 2007 deserves to be positively received, even if the package of EUR 1.055 billion is only an indicative amount for the moment, until such time as the financial perspectives are adopted.
In view of the important funding requirements of a sector that, while fast expanding, is fragmented into numerous SMEs in the 27 countries concerned, it is clear that these financial perspectives are eagerly awaited.
The Committee on Budgets therefore supports this new programme, which takes account of enlargement and of the difficulties SMEs have in accessing Community actions and funding.
Improving this programme, which aims to put in place more flexible procedures thanks to the proportionality of requirements for recipient businesses, is also a crucial point.
Thus, Media 2007 should enable the film industry and the European audiovisual sector to continue to develop their activities by rising to the challenges of global competition.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Hieronymi on the quality of her report and to thank her for having integrated the greater part of the opinions and comments of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
I will therefore get on to the main point.
In order to maintain the lever effect that the MEDIA programme is acknowledged as having today in a more intensely competitive market, it is imperative that we continue to make sure that the programme is adaptable, that we continue to meet the expectations of professionals and, furthermore, that we continue to rise to the challenges represented by the arrival and the prodigious development of new formats, such as digital technology, or of new supports, such as mobile telephones.
To be still more effective, MEDIA should not therefore just be following technological developments, but anticipating them, if not encouraging them.
Thus, complementarity between MEDIA and other related programmes in the area of innovation and research is crucial and still needs to be enhanced.
MEDIA 2007 is the first post-enlargement programme.
Safeguarding the film productions of the new Member States on its own justifies an increase in European support, with care being taken, in particular, to establish proportionality in favour of these countries.
We also have to support the indirect costs linked to the private funding of production projects.
Such action would enable a large number of businesses to have increased access to bank loans, as the risks would be reduced.
This access to bank loans by SMEs is a crucial factor in the development of a strong audiovisual industry.
In this geopolitical and technological context, the budget of EUR 1.055 billion, as proposed by the Commission, is the minimum threshold for seven years and 27 countries.
While I welcome the initiatives taken on this matter for encouraging and facilitating national investments, which have become crucial to the success of MEDIA’s forthcoming objectives, I cannot agree to MEDIA being subjected to our whims when we debate the financial perspectives.
Those are the conditions that will mean that MEDIA, which has a crucial bearing on the Lisbon objectives being met, can enable one of the most promising sectors in terms of job creation and economic growth to be developed and enhanced.
   – The content of this programme and colleague Ruth Hieronymi's report entirely match the spirit of the Culture Convention adopted by the United Nations.
It is realistic to hope that a particularly important goal of the programme will be achieved with the implementation of this programme – the strengthening of the European audio and visual sectors in their difficult and thus far losing competitive battle with low quality products, which are particularly poor in content and which today continue to flood the European market.
Such low value cultural products do most damage to the new countries of the European Union, some of which are small.
I might include my own country Lithuania.
Such products not only destroy cultural consciousness, but also create the demand for a low value culture, which requires no intellectual effort.
I therefore ask you to approve the proposal I have submitted, which takes the needs of specific new small European Union countries and their societies into account, to support countries, which do not have the capacity to create audio visual products of sufficient quality through grants.
Thank you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Tuesday at 11.30 a.m.
   – The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0287/2005), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the Council common position for adopting a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on shipments of waste [15311/4/2004 – C6-0223/2005 – 2003/0139(COD)] (rapporteur: Johannes Blokland).
   I must agree with rapporteur Mr Blokland that, regarding the legal text in question, Article 175 provides the most appropriate legal basis.
The aim of the directive is primarily to protect the environment, rather than to facilitate trade in waste or to support ‘waste tourism’, whereby waste businesses export waste to countries with the most lenient legal regulations.
This directive is of special importance for smaller Member States and, in particular, for new Member States that often lack the resources and facilities for handling dangerous waste.
We must prevent them from becoming “dumpsites” for larger states.
What is needed is the harmonisation of rules governing the interstate transport of waste, because waste knows no borders, and in case of accidents or disasters it can be dangerous not only for the country of final destination, but also for the transit country.
It is equally important to require the consent of the country of destination and to apply a system of notification in writing.
I believe that we need strict, clear and transparent rules that will enable control and monitoring of the types and locations of waste.
The country of destination must be notified in writing of the transport of waste in sufficient time to be able to decide whether it will accept the waste or not.
   – The next item is the recommendation (A6-0301/2005), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the Council common position for adopting a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on certain fluorinated greenhouse gases [16056/5/2004 – C6-0221/2005 – 2003/0189A(COD)] (rapporteur: Avril Doyle); and
the recommendation (A6-0294/2005), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to emissions from air-conditioning systems in motor vehicles and amending Council Directive 70/156/EEC [16056/5/2004 – C6-0221/2005 – 2003/0189A(COD)] (rapporteur: Avril Doyle).
   .
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Doyle has done a splendid job and considerably helped our imminent and major improvement in the protection of the environment in Europe.
It has to be said, though, that it is becoming more and more difficult to get people to show any sympathy for environmental protection measures when Article 175, the legal basis for them, is transposed in different ways in different countries, thereby endangering the smooth functioning of the internal market.
The fact is that things are not the way the Council would like them to be; there are indeed differences between countries, and the internal market does get disrupted.
All I can do, then, is urge that we accept Articles 175 and 95 as a dual legal basis, which is necessary in this instance; in any other, I would be in favour of a single legal basis, although I would then have to argue the case for Article 95, which does not fit the bill exactly.
We in this House have always defended the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises, and it is particularly with regard to air-conditioning units that our objective gives rise to concern and criticism on their part.
While the goal – an ambitious one, and important in terms of environmental policy – of changing air-conditioning units over to non-fluorinated gases by 2011 is to be welcomed, it has to be said that it does create problems for small and medium-sized enterprises, and that is why, at first reading, this House adopted a derogation, according to which, if the number of units produced is less than 50 000 per annum, the new arrangements can be introduced two years later – that is, in 2013.
It is regrettable that the Council did not see fit to take this on board, but, as I regard it as necessary that flexibility in transposition be guaranteed if the changeover is to be successful, I have tabled an amendment, which enjoys support from all the groups.
What is this amendment about? The intention is simply to make it possible for small-volume manufacturers, after 1 January 2013, to be given type-approval for vehicles operating in accordance with the old regime.
We should give small businesses this opportunity, and not only the manufacturers of vehicles, but also the suppliers.
I therefore ask you to support this amendment.
   .
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Doyle for her excellent report.
While she has moved a reasoned proposal particularly where the legal basis is concerned, my group would like to see the Member States’ right to take additional measures made more explicit in the directive.
That is why we have tabled Amendment 45.
I hope that the rapporteur can endorse this in addition to the change to the legal basis.
As for the bans that are added to Annex 2, especially Amendments 34 to 36, I can tell you that I do not support them.
In time, I would like to see the use of fluorinated gases phased out in those applications, but we do not know whether the alternatives are actually more energy-efficient.
It is therefore too premature to impose a ban at present.
In future, a ban could be instituted when this directive is reviewed, but only if research were to prove that this is really more energy-efficient.
I would be interested to hear what view the Commission takes of these product bans.
The last thing I would like to say has to do with Amendment 19.
We have just discussed my own report on cross-border waste shipments.
Like many other substances, used fluorinated gases are waste substances that may be processed more effectively in a different country.
Fluorinated gases are therefore not as unusual as this amendment gives us to believe, and so we should not make an exception to the normal licensing procedure for waste shipments.
It would be very strange indeed if during tomorrow’s vote, we first demonstrated our allegiance to a more coherent approach to waste shipments, only to shoot this uniform approach to tatters the next day.
I would therefore ask the rapporteur, and the House, not to back Amendment 19.
   – In my contribution, I would like to express my appreciation for the fine and undoubtedly demanding job performed by the rapporteur Mrs Doyle in preparing and debating the legislative proposal in question.
I agree with her that we must do our utmost to protect the environment.
We must give serious consideration to the ominous progression of global warming and recognise our responsibility also for the fate of future generations.
To this end, we should strive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to a minimum.
If there are substitutes for fluorinated industrial gases that offer more advantages in terms of environmental protection, energy efficiency or health and safety, we should not hesitate to replace such gases with the more environmentally friendly substances.
Let me stress, however, that this should apply only in those cases where a substitute is available.
I believe that in the automotive industry, for instance, there will be no problem finding such substitutes by 2010.
I would like to point out, however, that there are also plans to ban the use of sulphur hexafluoride SF6, which would have negative consequences for the treatment of cancer, since this substance is used in radiotherapy and no substitute is available.
Should it be banned, many patients in Europe would lose a highly effective form of treatment.
   Mr President, fluorinated gases can destroy the ozone layer, and it is therefore important for all countries to be called on to make an extra effort to get rid of them.
A direct ban, as has been implemented in Denmark, would be best.
As Mrs Auken said, Danish industry has got used to the ban and is developing environmentally friendly alternatives.
However, neither the Commission’s nor Mrs Doyle’s proposal refers explicitly to this viable ban.
Mrs Doyle deserves praise for using the minimum provisions of Article 175 instead of the internal market’s total harmonisation.
We know that she has been under heavy pressure, but Mrs Doyle’s proposal is scarcely enough to preserve the Danish ban.
Together with Mr Blokland, I have therefore tabled Amendment 45, which specifies that all countries should be permitted to go further in protecting the ozone layer against fluorinated gases.
I want to be satisfied that we can keep our ban and thus the incentive to create sustainable alternatives.
We know that the Commission administers Article 175 very strictly and always wants to see uniform rules instead of supporting those countries that wish to lead the way.
The Commission represents total harmonisation rather than promotion of the environment, the hole in the ozone layer rather than the ozone layer itself and the past rather than our common future.
I would therefore call on all my fellow Members to support Amendment 45. It reads: ‘This Regulation shall not prevent Member States from maintaining or introducing stricter protective measures’.
   The next item is the debate on the statements by Mr Barroso and Mr McCreevy on the latest statements by Mr McCreevy on the Vaxholm case.
   . – Mr President, on Thursday our national leaders convene in London to discuss what sort of Europe we want to build.
A Europe that is open to the world, dynamic and competitive, or one which seeks to shelter its industry and workforce from globalisation? A Europe which can offer security, prosperity and opportunity to its citizens, or one which, enslaved to the precepts of the past, slides further into recession?
This debate is fundamental to Europeans; it must be conducted honestly, rationally and directly.
It is therefore disappointing that those who have brought Commissioner McCreevy and President Barroso here today seem more interested in stalling debate than furthering it, perhaps for the sake of a few more votes in the upcoming Swedish election.
They accuse the Commission of being off-centre.
Have they not noticed that the centre of opinion has shifted? Their political manoeuvring aims not only to derail the Services Directive; it is aimed at one of the fundamental pillars of the Treaty: the free movement of persons and freedom of establishment.
Mr McCreevy should not be made the scapegoat for their scepticism.
As Commissioner for the Internal Market, he has a duty to defend it against its detractors.
Nor should his comments be seen as an attack on the Swedish social model, which Liberals have defended for its ability to balance the brutality of the marketplace with a sizeable social safety net.
They should be seen as an attack on the Swedish Builders Federation’s hypocrisy, xenophobia and protectionism.
Laval bid in a fair and open competition for that contract, fulfilling public procurement criteria.
The company has a collective agreement with its workers, just as Swedish employers have with theirs.
What is more, when challenged by the unions over labour rates, Laval offered to raise its wages to the level agreed by the Swedish collective agreement.
However, that was not good enough for the union.
It demanded that the rates should be the Stockholm average, rather than the Swedish national average.
Finally, in a breathtaking lack of worker solidarity, that union prevented work from going ahead, which led to the company withdrawing from the contract and filing for bankruptcy.
Now Latvian workers are out of a job thanks to the Swedish trade unions.
Is that situation the fault of Laval, or is it the fault of a syndicate which puts protecting Swedish jobs ahead of the common market principles we have signed up to?
It is not by turning inwards and embracing protectionism that we will overcome sluggish economic growth and compete with China and India.
The British historian James Anthony Froude once wrote that the practical effect of a belief is the test of its soundness.
What better rebuke to the defenders of protectionism than this sorry affair? Perhaps we should not be surprised that Liberal economic and social thought is in the ascendant.
One reason is that more and more people are so painfully aware of the alternatives.
   . – Mr President, my group naturally supports the Socialist Group in the European Parliament in the dispute that has brought it into conflict with Mr McCreevy and with the Commission in general.
How could we, on the left, accept a concept of Europe founded on creating competition among workers and on organising social dumping? It is exactly this kind of policy that we have in mind when we say ‘no’ to liberal Europe.
What really grates is the fact that that brutal agitator, Mr McCreevy, and all those who share his opinions unfortunately can rely on rules in force in the EU in giving their support to a Latvian business claiming not to know about Sweden’s system of collective agreements and in applying more restrictive social standards.
The provision to which, in this case, the Latvian service provider and its promoters in Brussels are referring is called mutual recognition, which was introduced into Community law, via the case law of the Court of Justice, in 1979 for the free circulation of goods and was then expanded to incorporate services around 15 years ago.
This is a strategic choice.
Instead of legislating on upwards social harmonisation, the market and competition are being allowed to pull the social downwards: in Community jargon, this is what is known as better regulation.
Moreover, the Commission issued in 1999 a communication to Parliament and to the Council that was extremely explicit on this matter.
I quote: ‘The application of mutual recognition is fully consistent with the Single Market philosophy according to which the rules of the Member State of origin normally prevail, and the Member State of destination can only derogate from that rule under very strict conditions challenging the overriding requirements of general public importance, such as health care, consumer protection or the environment.’
With the most recent enlargement, this rule has become explosive: the more social disparities increase among Member States, the more they reveal the diabolical consequences of this rule.
From now on, everything will depend on what the Court considers to come under the ‘overriding requirements of general public importance’.
It is therefore not only a question of attacking Mr McCreevy’s zeal, but also of opposing the harmful provisions themselves of the .
From now on, let us consider this matter from the perspective of the forthcoming votes on the draft Bolkestein Directive, whatever Mr Poettering might have to say about it, and let us use this experience more generally to enhance our collective thoughts on the future of Europe.
   – Mr President, what was it really that Mr McCreevy said in Stockholm? He said that the Swedish Government is offending against the internal market and that he intended to take action against the Swedish Government when the case was dealt with by the Court.
He is saying the same thing today.
If that is not bringing the Swedish collective agreement model into question, then I do not know what, in fact, is.
Mr Watson, who is not in the Chamber, says that the Latvian company paid its employees under the Swedish collective agreement model, but that is untrue.
It paid just over half of the amount payable under the Swedish collective agreements in the Stockholm area, namely SEK 78 instead of SEK 140 per hour.
Mr McCreevy recommends that there should be 25 different collective agreements: one for each country.
That is a race to the bottom, not a race to the top.
So is the Swedish model less successful than other models? No.
If we look at the Lisbon process, we see that it is perhaps the most successful.
Is it more protectionist? No, Mr Poettering, Sweden has no transitional rules like Germany’s.
On the contrary, it is open to labour from around the EU coming in.
Is it discriminatory? The answer is no.
All companies are treated equally, irrespective of whether they are Swedish or Latvian.
Collective agreements are drawn up on the basis of the existing collective agreements.
You talked about Spain and Portugal, Mr Barroso.
Spain and Portugal have got themselves up to the same levels as other Member States.
What is it you are advocating now? Yes, a race to the bottom.
You should think carefully.
You have launched this debate on the social model by recommending that we have a race to the bottom by having different collective agreements in different countries, that is to say 25 different collective agreements.
This will not create a European social model.
I therefore advise you to launch the debate in some other way.
Otherwise, there will be a war regarding the debate on the social model.
   – Mr President, with all due respect to Commissioner McCreevy, I have to say that his claims that Swedish collective bargaining practice was contrary to the European Treaty and the freedom to provide services show that he has been led astray.
Not only has he pre-empted a court ruling, but he has also, and above all, put a question mark against the protection of workers as an element in the European internal market.
In the past, the freedom to provide services has always – not least in the Posting of Workers Directive – been seen as compatible with workers’ protection.
The freedom to provide services must continue, in future, to include protection for workers if ‘social Europe’ is to be something we actually want to establish rather than a mere form of words.
The reason why the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has stated that the Services Directive, which Commissioner McCreevy defends, is compatible neither with the Treaty nor with the Charter of Fundamental Rights is that it calls into question the protection of workers.
It was for that reason that we, in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, struck out those very parts of the Services Directive by which the protection of workers was eroded.
If Europe is to be competitive, it needs a social dimension.
Competitiveness also demands that working conditions be fair and that workers should enjoy equal rights.
As Commissioner for the Internal Market, Mr McCreevy is bound to pursue a policy of worker protection and not just one that defends one party’s interests.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, I am surprised that the European Parliament is spending its time and that of the President of the Commission and Commissioner McCreevy on political demagogy.
I am from Latvia, a country that long before its accession to the European Union considered all four basic freedoms of the European Union to be important and fulfilled them.
Many of those who have today expressed their indignation are political representatives of people who profiteered in my country and other new Member States, since it was possible to buy cheap property, cheap shares in businesses, because they could pay our workers 10 or more times less than theirs for the same work. Social model advocates – where were you then?
I am convinced that only competition which is based on the four fundamental values of the European Union will enable the companies and workers of the new Member States to escape their permanent poverty, and competition will also be the only chance to preserve, to some extent, the high social standards of the so-called ‘rich’ European Union Member States.
   – Mr President, what we have heard here this morning is, regrettably, vintage McCreevy.
Commissioner, you have to recognise that vintage McCreevy does not work at European level.
You have to build consensus here or you fail.
Commissioner, you have done it again: having given the Commission the ‘two fingers’ when you were an Irish minister, you have now outraged the Swedish population with a similar gesture towards their social partnership model as well as the European Parliament today.
You will not achieve market reform with those bulldozer tactics.
The Celtic Tiger, for which you claim credit in Ireland, has given us 150 000 children living in poverty in Ireland.
A man died last week because he could not have simple surgery in our hospital system.
Sweden spends EUR 200 per person as a proportion of GDP, compared to EUR 100 in Ireland, yet Sweden is the third most competitive economy in the world, compared to Ireland’s position at 26th.
We need a high-quality European social model which uses social infrastructure as a building block for a prosperous and fair society.
Setting Latvian workers against Swedish workers will destroy the Union, Commissioner.
That is the nub of the debate on the deeply flawed Services Directive.
Take note or fail.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission by Mr Karl-Heinz Florenz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the strategy against an influenza pandemic (O-0089/2005 – B6-0334/2005).
   That concludes voting time.
   . I voted in favour of this report, which I hope will continue, and extend, the opportunities which are available for all age-groups to take part in trans-national education programmes.
Many Scots have participated in EU programmes over the years, and it is important to build upon successful schemes.
In particular I welcome proposals to simplify procedures, and to decentralise administration. I note and welcome the fact that amendments from my group led to the inclusion of lesser-used languages, as well as inter-cultural dialogue.
   The E.U. has been involved in financing education and vocational programmes for a considerable period of time – this is an involvement I very much welcome. However, it is equally clear that there have been too many programmes, the administration has been cumbersome and the budget too low.
An integrated action programme for lifelong learning to bring under a single framework after 2006 – Socrates, Leonardo, Erasmus, Comenius, 'Grundtvig', Jean Monnet – is very welcome and should help address some of the existing shortcomings.
   .
I'm delighted to see that the Parliament continues to back the ERASMUS exchange programme, which is I believe one of the most vital ways the EU can demonstrate relevance to the people of Europe. I believe that this budget, almost uniquely amonst other budget lines, should be increased, at the expense of others if need be, and voted accordingly.
I took advantage of the ERASMUS programme myself as a student, and strongly believe it to be the most useful, long term, EU programme of all.
   Because the financial perspective for 2007-2013 has been rejected by the European Council, we think it too early now to debate the setting up of the ‘Active Youth’ programme. To express support in the present situation for a total appropriation to this programme of EUR 915 million (or EUR 1,128 million, depending on which proposal wins the vote) would be absurd.
The content of the programme may also be called into question. The rapporteur writes in her justification that it ‘will make an important contribution to the active citizenship of young people in society and thus enhance their feeling of being part of Europe, so that it is likely to deliver substantial European added value’.
We question whether the programme really would go any substantial way towards achieving this objective. International youth exchanges are a good thing but need to be provided for financially through the efforts of civil society or through the agency of the Member States.
We do not believe that the EU should contribute money from its budget in this area.
We have therefore voted against the report today, since we think that the financial perspective for 2007-2013 needs first to be clear.
   . It is very important to offer, to our young people, opportunities such as envisaged in this proposal.
Developing active citizenship, solidarity, and mutual understanding between peoples must be encouraged and I support proposals to increase the budget for "Youth in Action".
The involvement and active participation of young people in the proposed Youth Week is desirable, and I supported amendments by my Group which sought to underline this.
   I support programmes for voluntary service and youth in/for the world, especially involving cooperation with non-EU countries.
These create genuine solidarity with, and understanding of, the world around us. I cannot, however, vote in favour of the increase of EUR 200 million, proposed mainly because the share for Youth for Europe is being increased.
Youth for Europe is aimed at creating a new form of Euronationalism, something that history should have taught us to avoid. I am therefore abstaining from voting, since the proposal has negative as well as positive aspects.
   I am sorry, that is not a point of order.
I have cut off your microphone. You can make a point order if you wish, but please tell me the Rule.
Just simply asking the Commission to be on time is all very well but not very polite, especially when the Commissioner told you that he left the Commission meeting. We are not going to have a discussion about that.
   Mr Beazley, that was not a point of order. Nevertheless, I will pass on the message to the President of Parliament and he can tell the UK Presidency that we always appreciate its presence in the Chamber.
   – Mr President, I, too, am glad to be able to welcome observers from Romania and Bulgaria to this House today.
They, as representatives of their peoples, need to know that the Romanian and Bulgarian people must, of course, after 50 years of Communist tyranny and servitude, have the prospect of membership of the European Union, and that it is self-evident that they are part of Europe – in utter contrast to Turkey, in my opinion.
Neither Romania and Bulgaria, though, nor indeed the European Union, will be able to cope with an over-hasty enlargement. If we bear in mind that last year’s eastward enlargement, involving the accession of 10 states, stretched the European Union’s financial viability to the very limit, and that the accession of Bulgaria and Romania can be expected to entail costs amounting to some EUR 44 billion, then we will know just how knotty this problem is.
It is because of financial problems such as these and, above all, the ongoing predominance of the as yet incompletely resolved problems that both these countries have with such things as burgeoning corruption, organised crime, unemployment and poverty, but particularly the outstanding deficiencies in the monitoring and control of their borders that this project of continued enlargement really does need thorough preparation.
What the European public expect of the applicants for accession is demonstrable progress in fighting crime, in making themselves better locations for economic activity and in creating jobs.
Quite apart from that, the people in Romania and Bulgaria, too, have a right to see those problems resolved before any enlargement, particularly if it is to be a precipitate one.
    –  Ladies and gentlemen, if I may, I too should like to start by welcoming the observers from Romania and Bulgaria to the European Parliament.
The Czech Social Democrat Party, on behalf of which I am speaking, has always backed the accession of these two countries to the European Union, and one need look no further than the votes held in this House for proof of this.
I believe that my party will continue to back the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the European Union in 2007.
The reason for this is that we believe this accession to be the next step in a historical process, namely the gradual enlargement of an area of peace, prosperity and stability to cover the eastern parts of the European continent.
I believe the Commission report that we are debating here today to be extremely well-balanced, and I should like to thank the Commission for having drafted it. It gives details of the progress that both countries have made in the fields of human rights, civil liberties and the political system, without of course forgetting the unquestionable progress they have made in economic terms.
At the same time, however, it also highlights the problems that are still faced by both Romania and Bulgaria.
Previous speakers have already mentioned many of these problems, which include corruption, food safety and other agricultural issues, border protection and public administration.
The latter problem obviously also involves the capacity of these countries to absorb EU funds, to administer such funds in a democratic and transparent manner and to monitor their expenditure.
Further problems include the protection of minorities, for example the Roma minority, which has been the subject of much debate.
I am quite sure that it is still feasible for both Romania and Bulgaria to join the EU in January 2007, but there is one point I should like to stress, and I hope that the observers will take my recommendation, which is based on my experience of the Czech Republic’s accession to the EU, back with them to their own countries.
I believe that if the two countries are to succeed in joining the EU, cooperation must be established there between all European political parties, irrespective of whether they form part of ruling coalitions or are in opposition, and of whether they represent social democratic, liberal or conservative views.
If such cooperation can be achieved and efforts are made in this direction, then I am sure that in six months’ time, when this House holds a debate on the final report, we will come to the conclusion that it will be possible for the two countries to join in January 2007.
   .
Mrs McAvan, I have listened carefully to the example you have just given. The national bodies are there to intervene in the event of the airlines shirking their obligations.
I have said to you, and I will repeat what I said: we did not adopt this regulation for it not to be enforced. Consequently, we are going to look carefully with the national authorities at the practical conditions in which these complaints are dealt with.
As your example has clearly demonstrated, the national authorities have to fulfil the provisions laid down in the regulation precisely to avoid the need to resort to legal action to deal with airlines’ conduct.
The spirit underlying the resolution was a desire to avoid having constantly to resort to the law.
Thank you, Mrs McAvan, for having pointed out to us this one example, among others. It strengthens my determination to see this regulation enforced.
   – I welcome the Commissioner's reply.
Some airlines seem to be doing everything they can to avoid their obligations.
I, too, have had letters from constituents, one where the airline in a case of lost luggage said of course they would refund the items in the luggage, provided the customer could provide the original receipts.
As if we all keep receipts for everything we buy!
Another airline refused compensation for a flight cancelled because of the weather, even though a rival airline was able to fly ten minutes later on the same day, from the same airport and to the same destination.
There are numerous examples.
Please be vigorous in chasing them up.
   – Commissioner, I should like to thank you, first and foremost, for reiterating those principles, which are key principles.
The fact is that the Commission’s legal inquiry into the Gas Natural/Endesa merger could – although I do not think it will – find that that this merger does not have a Community dimension and that it would in turn have to be assessed by a national competition authority, under the auspices of the government concerned.
Against this backdrop, and in light of the Commission’s decision of 9 December to block the EDP/ENI/GDP merger, I wish to ask the Commission how it can stop a merger that has cross-border repercussions and considerable implications for competition at a time when the prevailing desire is for an integrated Iberian energy market and a more complete internal market in Europe’s energy sector.
   .
That is an interesting question. I can assure you that we are aware of the importance of that aspect.
It is one part of the inquiry into the energy sector. We are looking forward to the results and you will certainly be informed of the outcome.
   .
I repeat that I am trying to give a clear indication of the state of play to the honourable Members.
The decision has not yet been taken.
At this point, Gas Natural is of the opinion that it should be dealt with by the national competition authority in Spain. That depends not only on figures and on turnover but also on a number of other technical aspects, and at this stage I am unable to give you information about the final decision.
As soon as that information is available, I promise that you will be informed.
   Mr Masip Hidalgo, which point of order do you wish to raise now?
   – Madam President, I simply want to ask the Commissioner about this same issue again.
   – Madam President, Commissioner, my interest in the matter reflects the concerns of civil society.
Is it possible to estimate over time, in parallel to the ecological consequences, the economic and social consequences of failing to comply with the relevant Community legislation and to find a more effective compliance procedure than that of referring the Member States to the Court of Justice of the European Communities?
   .
I agree that it is best to prevent the creation of waste, and plastic bags create problems.
It is much better to have paper bags, for example.
Certain Member States have introduced paper bags and have banned the use of plastic bags.
The exchange of best experience is what we are doing, trying to get best experience from various Member States. We organise seminars and visits to Member States to inform them of what is happening elsewhere and how they can deal in the best possible way with the various environmental problems, giving them guidance and sometimes even financing for eligible projects.
   – The last comment was very interesting and one that I should like to follow up. The Environment Agency, which is the UK regulator, believes that there is a breach of the directive.
Could I just say to the Commissioner that it is not just a matter of storm overflows: it does not need unusually heavy rainfall to have these outflows; they happen on average once a week. Only one of the 57 outflows is screened and so I have to leave to your imagination the sewage solids that go into the river.
I am particularly worried about the run-up to the 2012 Olympics.
For water sports and for the image of London, this is a terrible situation, and the athletes’ village will overlook one of these overflows. I am amazed that the UK Government, as well as the Mayor of London, is content to put up with that situation.
   As the speaking time allotted to this subject is exhausted, Questions 53 to 59 will be answered in writing(2).
   – Commissioner, your comments about the activities of the Quartet and the offer to increase aid to Palestine are all very welcome.
However, I wonder if you would agree that the long-term security of Israel and the Middle East will be guaranteed by making Israel more integrated with its neighbours to ensure that trade and movement between the neighbours develop.
Will you use the Barcelona process to try to encourage Israel and its neighbours to see communication between them as a solution and not as a threat to their security?
   – Thank you, Commissioner, for that very good and exhaustive reply. I would like to put a supplementary question: you have already referred to one of the two problems specific to the region, namely energy and the minorities, which brings in its train expulsion, separation and much else.
What I would like to know is whether the Commission or the European institutions are still planning to hold a conference devoted specifically to the energy problems, and, secondly, whether you are giving specific attention to the issues relating to minorities, particularly in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia?
   – Madam President, if an honourable colleague has been unfortunately delayed and is not in the Chamber for his or her question, but then arrives three questions later – there are, after all, very few colleagues present – would you, in your personal capacity, please take question number 72?
   I cannot do that, as we have strict rules on Question Time and each Commissioner is allotted 20 minutes. I would have been quite happy to take the honourable Member’s question to which you refer, were it not for the fact that it is intended for Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, who is no longer here, and so your question will be one of those answered in writing.
Given the continued threat to salmon stocks in European waters, and given the action that several European Union Member States have taken to counteract the further depletion of this species in Europe's waters, notably by prohibiting or discouraging the use of driftnets, what is the European Commission's view of those Member States which continue to allow the use of driftnets in their waters, and what measures does it propose in order to put an end to this practice in European waters?
   – Mr President, I believe that the Commission is fulfilling its duty of applying the Community Directive and I must therefore congratulate Mr McCreevy on his explanation and on the way in which he has presented the issue to us.
I agree with Mrs Wallis that it was not the time to adopt a resolution on such a complicated issue, as this discussion illustrates, in which a series of data are being provided.
Nevertheless, I believe it to be a fundamental principle that nobody can stand in the way of human progress on the basis of theological principles which have little to do with current realities.
There are millions of people currently suffering from degenerative diseases as a result of a lack of progress in this area.
It appears that we are regressing to the Middle Ages and I believe that, in the 21st century, we must focus on the need for scientific progress and we must therefore oppose the patenting of biotechnological inventions, which relate, for example, to the connection of certain cells.
I believe that it is entirely contrary to the current ethical requirements of a human race which is moving forward, which is progressing and which is not going to allow people to continue suffering from degenerative diseases.
I therefore believe that the Commission has been absolutely right to present this report, which opens up possibilities, and I would like once again to congratulate Mr McCreevy on his explanation.
I hope that we can carry on studying this issue more calmly, but always thinking of the possibilities opening up for the future of human research.
    –  Mr President, research into the use of stem cells to treat various diseases is currently in vogue.
Using cells from embryos is unethical, whereas such considerations are irrelevant when adult stem cells are used.
Around 95% of research funding is spent on the former, although no benefits have been derived from them, whereas only 5% of funding is spent on the latter, which offer many advantages.
This begs the question of what is really going on here.
On 12 May, Professor Scolding, a neurophysiologist from the University of Bristol, gave an extremely interesting talk to Parliament’s Intergroup on Bioethics, during which he explained a great many facets of this issue.
Embryonic stem cells are carcinogenic and prone to genetic mutations, and problems can arise due to their being rejected.
They do not normally perform repair functions, and hence have to be forced to do so.
Furthermore, ethical considerations surround the use of such cells.
Adult stem cells taken from bone marrow, on the other hand, are intended to act in a healing capacity, and do not need to be forced to carry out tasks other than those for which they are adapted.
No problems are posed in terms of the rejection of such cells, since a patient’s own cells are not carcinogenic and do not cause genetic mutations.
What is more, the use of such cells is ethically unproblematic.
Professor Scolding is not the only one who knows about all these research findings, and in fact all experts in this field are familiar with them.
The question we should therefore be asking is why so much money is spent on research into embryonic stem cells, and so little on research into adult stem cells.
The answer is that no opportunities exist for the manufacture of drugs using the latter, since the cells themselves, which are harvested directly from the patient, are the drug.
Drug manufacturers would earn nothing in such instances.
In the case of embryonic stem cells, however, what counts is the fact that cell lines can be cultivated for various purposes and then sold, and this is why so much money is poured into research in this area.
Such are the consequences of patents on cells.
   The next item is the report by Mr Bill Newton Dunn, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council framework decision on the fight against organised crime [COM(2005)0006 C6-0061/2005 2005/0003(CNS)] (A6-0277/2005).
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Klamt, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on an EU approach to managing economic migration [COM(2004)0811 2005/2059(INI)] (A6-0286/2005).
   . – For centuries economic migration has played a particularly important role in the economic growth of admission countries.
Thus there can be no doubt as to the significance of the Green Paper ‘On an EU approach to managing economic migration’.
However, the document is contradictory.
It indicates that it is devoted to admission procedures for migrants from third countries, and not the movement of persons within the EU's internal market.
However, it is predicted that discussions on the results of the Green Paper will form the basis of a plan on how to react to the needs of the labour market.
Migrants will be admitted to the EU labour market; it is proposed that EU labour market services like the European Public Employment Services and the EURES job mobility portal will be used to facilitate their employment.
The Council Directive on the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents, which enters into force in 2006, provides that long-term migrants will be able to move to another Member State or settle in it for the purposes of studying, hired employment or self-employment or may even settle without engaging in any economic activity.
This means that long-term economic migrants will be able to work and offer services across practically the entire EU internal market.
At the same time, for the new EU Member States a transition period of seven years applies to the free movement of workers.
Parliament has been discussing the Services Directive for two years.
Yet neither free movement of persons, nor free movement of services has truly been realised in the EU itself.
Bearing in mind that the determination of the flow of economic migration is a matter for Member States, I propose that when they are devised, EU regulations on the admission of economic migrants should be confined to the minimum criteria for migrant admission, and should leave the Member State the right to make a final decision, all the more so because the EU does not have a common industrial policy.
Thank you.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although I hold Mrs Klamt in high regard, I am actually very glad that most Members do not share her views on this subject.
I am also pleased at the opinions expressed by the Committee on Development and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, as well as the fact that the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs has substantially changed the approach proposed by Mrs Klamt in her report.
Similarly, I am delighted at the fact that Commissioner Frattini has clearly set out a position supporting the way in which the Committee on Civil Liberties has acted on the report in question.
This method of consultation chosen by the Commissioner to develop the action plan is, in my opinion, highly significant.
I should, however, like to emphasise one point.
The Green Paper states that between now and 2030 Europe will need a further 20 million immigrant workers in order to maintain our current economic standards and to make up for the population decline. The nub of the question is this: will these 20 million immigrants be regular workers or not?
Do we want them to remain illegal or do we want to regularise their situations and incorporate them into a healthy labour market? That is the problem we have to face.
In my view, since the measures used so far to curb illegal immigration over the years have driven it underground, a residence permit for jobseekers and the right to vote are the best way to ensure that these 20 million workers will work in Europe legally.
    –  Mr President, in Pope John Paul II’s encyclical on human work, ‘Laborem exercens’, he said that everyone has the right to look for work wherever such work can be found and wherever pay is higher.
One can only hope that this right will be respected in the future.
I look forward to the day when we will have a common immigration policy, but is the European Union currently ready to accept immigrants from all over the world? Europe’s labour market is still not open to its new citizens, and the new Member States that will join the EU in the near future have high levels of unemployment.
Experience has taught us that immigrants from non-Christian countries integrate poorly into Europe, despite the best efforts of the countries receiving them.
This begs the question of whether it would not be preferable to hire workers from Eastern Europe to fill any vacancies, and to provide needy countries in the south with aid that is both effective and much more generous than to date.
At the same time, cooperation should be established with such countries within their own borders.
   The next item is the report by Mr Mario Mauro, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council determining the general rules for the granting of Community financial aid in the field of the trans-European transport networks and energy and amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 [COM(2004)0475 C6-0086/2004 2004/0154(COD)] (A6-0283/2005).
   . – Mr President, first of all, on behalf of my group, I should like to offer my thanks and sincere congratulations to Mr Mauro for his report. He has the broad support of our group.
Until 1 May 2004, the trans-European transport network of the 15 EU Member States consisted of 75 200 kilometres of roads and 78 000 kilometres of railways.
After 1 May 2004, this was extended by 14 500 kilometres of roads and 16 000 kilometres of railways.
The Commission’s initiative to reassess and increase the resources for the period 2007–2013 is therefore more than welcome.
To review what has happened to the old 14 priority networks from a somewhat critical perspective, too, it must be said that this is disappointing.
Not a great deal has happened in this regard.
At the same time, on the basis of this dispassionate analysis, we can also declare our support for the undertaking of the Heads of State or Government that is the Lisbon Strategy.
The report by Mr Böge on the financial perspective subscribes to this in full.
In contrast to many of the Heads of State or Government, we are declaring our support for what was agreed in Lisbon. We shall support the Commissioner on this path.
We have also learnt from past experience that sometimes all it takes is a certain critical mass of cofinancing from Brussels to kick-start one trans-European network or another.
We believe that the Commission’s views could signify this financial critical mass. For this reason, we shall gladly support the Mauro report when it comes to the vote.
    –  Mr President, the construction of trans-European transport and energy networks is of enormous significance for the EU, and in particular for the 10 new Member States.
Extending such networks will reinforce the cohesion of regions and countries, as well as boosting business cooperation and development and the consolidation of the single market.
Current needs far exceed the financial resources available, particularly in the new Member States.
One of the key challenges we face is therefore to ensure that these resources are spent sensibly.
Whether we succeed in doing so will depend to a large extent on the rapid development of plans for extending the networks over the next 30 years.
Timely decisions on planned network routes would reduce unnecessary costs incurred as a result of land acquisitions.
Local authorities would be able to block investment activities that would interfere with such routes, and to make provision for future projects in their development plans.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for his work on the report.
   The final item on today’s agenda is the debate on the report by Mrs Mojca Drčar Murko, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 95/2/EC on food additives other than colours and sweeteners and Directive 94/35/EC on sweeteners for use in foodstuffs [COM(2004)0650 C6-0139/2004 2004/0237(COD)] (A6-0191/2005).
   We shall begin with the joint debate on the budgetary procedure for the financial year 2006.
We shall examine
- the report by Mr Giovanni Pittella, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2006 (Section III, Commission) [C6-0299/2005 2005/2001(BUD)] (A6-0309/2005) and
- the report by Mr Valdis Dombrovskis, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2006 (Section I, European Parliament; Section II, Council; Section IV, Court of Justice; Section V, Court of Auditors; Section VI, European Economic and Social Committee; Section VII, Committee of the Regions; Section VIII (A), European Ombudsman; Section VIII (B), European Data Protection Supervisor) [C6-0300/2005 2005/2002(BUD)] (A6-0307/2005).
   Mr Pittella, thank you for your explanations and for adhering so strictly to your speaking time.
The advantage of the European Union is that we can be sure that we may have anything running through the rooms of the building but blood.
Thank you for your image, which reminds us of our current situation.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow the European Parliament is to vote on the European Union’s budget for 2006.
The significance of this vote will be greater than just the setting of an annual allocation of EU finances.
2006 is the last year of the existing Financial Perspective.
Therefore, the 2006 budget will also serve as a point of reference in taking decisions for the next Financial Perspective, that for 2007–2013.
With regard to the 2006 budget for the other EU institutions, the main priorities are EU enlargement and the effective and highly targeted use of EU budget resources.
The first priority is connected with the successful completion of the 2004 round of EU enlargement, by fully integrating representatives from the new EU Member States into the EU institutions, as well as preparations for the next round of EU enlargement, when Bulgaria and Romania will join.
We have an unacceptable situation where, despite more than a year having already passed since EU enlargement, many permanent staff posts set aside for the new Member States still remain vacant.
One of the problems to be emphasised in this connection is the excessive red-tape and slow procedures for taking on staff.
In order to ensure that the next round of EU enlargement is successful, it is proposed that support should be given to all the permanent staff posts requested by the other institutions in connection with enlargement, and also other additional expenditure connected with EU enlargement.
The second priority is effective and highly targeted use of EU budget resources.
This priority encompasses such matters as: focusing EU institutional expenditure on fundamental tasks; giving support to requests for new budget requests and permanent staff posts only after having assessed the possibility of redistributing resources and staff within the framework of the existing budget; giving support to new initiatives only after having assessed their impact on the budget and interinstitutional cooperation with a view to economical and effective use of budget resources.
Both institutions with budgetary decision-making powers – the European Parliament and the Council – endorse the principles of budgetary discipline and the rational use of EU taxpayers’ money.
The Council is proposing to reduce the administrative expenditure of the other institutions by 15 million euro as compared with the institutions’ original requests.
It must be said, however, that in many cases this reduction has been implemented in an ill-considered manner, without thorough examination of the specific nature and problems of the institutions’ work.
Following a careful review of the requests in the budget for the other institutions it is proposed to restore part of the reductions made by the European Council to the budget – a total amount of 7.5 million euro.
With regard to the European Parliament budget, firstly I should like to emphasise the issue of the ceiling on joint expenditure.
After a wide-ranging discussion within the Committee on Budgets, taking into account the experience of last year with inflated budget votes and the resulting failure to achieve Parliament’s budgeted expenditure, it is proposed to reduce Parliament’s budgeted expenditure by 20 million euro as compared with the administration’s requests.
I believe that the European Parliament budget ought to be set on the basis of needs that have been established following careful evaluation.
Achieving a ceiling of 20% of total administrative expenditure is not an end in itself.
Of course, the issue of the sum of over 200 million euro per year which is spent additionally in order to provide the European Parliament with a seat in Strasbourg is still a topical one.
The main problem is the maintenance of two European Parliament buildings in parallel, in Brussels and Strasbourg.
It must be acknowledged that this matter falls within the jurisdiction of the European Council.
Considerable attention has been paid in the European Parliament’s budget for 2006 to information and communication policy, to ensure that information is accessible and that the work of the European Parliament is better explained to EU citizens.
The European Parliament’s role as the representative of the EU Member States should be especially stressed in this connection.
Various measures have already been taken.
I can mention, for instance, the launch of the new European Parliament home page, where much more emphasis has been placed on current information about the work of the European Parliament in all the official EU languages.
It is proposed that in 2006 the European Parliament’s visitors’ programme should be improved, and that a special reserve should be established for information and communication.
Finally, I should like to return to the issue I emphasised at the beginning of my speech.
In view of the fact that 2006 is the final year of the current Financial Perspective, it is important for the total amount of commitment and payment appropriations for the 2006 budget to correspond with the commitments which the European Union has undertaken, including those connected with EU enlargement.
I fully agree with what Mr Pittella said, that in 2006 it is necessary to provide an adequate amount of payment appropriations, including for the Structural Funds.
The attitude adopted by the European Council in connection with the EU budget for 2005, where it artificially blocked the amount of payment appropriations, was unacceptable.
Now the unjustified nature of the European Council’s stance has become obvious.
The European Commission is preparing amendments to the 2005 budget, providing a larger sum of payment appropriations for the Structural Funds.
If the European Council tries once more to block the amount of payment appropriations for the 2006 budget, that will prove the Council’s unwillingness to fully finance those commitments which the EU has undertaken within the framework of the existing Financial Perspective.
It must be said that this indulging in empty promises without backing them up with deeds increases the alienation and scepticism that citizens feel towards the EU.
In conclusion, I would also like particularly to draw the attention of Commissioner Grybauskaitė to the poor quality of the Latvian translation of the budget prepared by the European Commission.
For example, budget lines 02030202 and 02030203, which deal with medicines for treating rare diseases.
The Commission’s Latvian translation talks about resources for treating orphans and medicines for orphans.
Therefore, the Commissioner should not be surprised: she is going to receive requests from Latvia’s orphans to fund their medicines, since that is what it actually says in the translation prepared by the European Commission.
Thank you for your attention.
   Thank you very much, Mr Dombrovskis.
Amongst all of us we will try to improve our multilingual communication procedures.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank Mr Pittella for his outstanding work throughout the 2006 budgetary procedure.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, for whose opinion I was the draftsperson, welcomes the fact that the Committee on Budgets has acknowledged and accepted the need to increase certain headings, and, moreover, to reinstate the amounts laid down in the preliminary draft budget with regard to the European Social Fund, the EQUAL programme, EURES, measures to fight and prevent social exclusion and the Leonardo programme.
Nonetheless, some of our suggestions fell by the wayside, some of which are very close to our hearts, and I should like to bring them to your attention.
For example, Europass is an instrument for promoting the transparency of qualifications, a key factor in achieving the Lisbon goals and was presented within a package along with the Leonardo programme.
We believe that the allocations to Europass should be increased, yet these aspects were not taken into account.
I should also like to draw your attention to the situation of the Bilbao agency, which, without any budgetary adjustment since 2004, either in terms of inflation, or in terms of meeting the needs of the enlargement, will soon be entirely unable to continue functioning.
Lastly, I should like to pay tribute to Mr Pitella’s efforts on behalf of the European Year of Workers’ Mobility; firstly in including it as a special annual event, given that it could not be envisaged as a pilot project; and secondly given its importance and, objectively speaking, its effectiveness in meeting the aims of making the European economy competitive.
   . – Firstly I would like to congratulate rapporteur Giovanni Pittella for his excellent report and would like to thank him for his constructive cooperation during the first reading of the budget in the European Parliament.
I am satisfied that we in the Budget Committee succeeded in making decisions on the most important priorities: the European Union's competitiveness and union’s improved funding, support for small and medium business, other measures for implementing the Lisbon Strategy, improvement in the security of citizens, consolidation of the recent expansion of the European Union and the growth of the European Union's role as a world partner.
These priorities ought to be the focus of our efforts in 2006.
If the Council approves the European Parliament's proposal on a flexible instrument, we will have sufficient funds to finance reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan and the necessary aid to carry out post-tsunami reconstruction work in several Asian countries.
2006 is an exceptional year from the budgetary point of view.
It is the last year of this financial period and the Council has been unable to reach a consensus on the new financial perspective.
Since preparations must be made for the next wave of European Union enlargement, I believe that the Council's behaviour is irresponsible, as enlargement is being discussed without an agreement on how it is to be funded.
Therefore, the European Parliament is being forced to consider very different alternatives, including worst case scenarios.
I trust that tomorrow the European Parliament will support the Budget Committee's most important proposals and we will be ready for the second conciliation meeting with the Council, which will take place in November.
   Mr President, Commissioner, like all of my fellow Members, I shall begin by paying tribute to the rapporteur, Mr Pittella, who had a tough job to do with regard to the Commission.
Mr Dombrovskis’ task was perhaps even more complicated, for he had a tough job to do within Parliament itself, there always being a difficult trial of strength between the Committee on Budgets and the Bureau, and I believe that he has thoroughly fulfilled this task, even if it was sometimes difficult to do so.
Since my colleague, Mrs Trüpel, has focused her speech on the general budget, I should like to focus mine on Parliament’s budget so as to put down a marker because, in my opinion, we are preparing to vote in favour of a rather absurd provision.
For the first time in its history, Parliament is abandoning the theoretical threshold of 20% administrative expenditure.
I am not abnormally attached to this figure but, nonetheless, I am going to make two or three remarks.
Firstly, I do not wish to let it be said in this Chamber that, at the end of the year, the Bureau might urgently contrive an injection of the capital that we were unable to use.
That is not the case.
What we are really talking about is a long term policy, in accordance with which our Parliament wanted systematically to inject capital in order to buy property.
Doing so has enabled taxpayers to make a saving of hundreds – and I mean hundreds – of millions of euros, because we bought our buildings at just the right time, instead of paying absolutely absurd rates of interest.
In its resolution, our Parliament says that we are giving up EUR 20 million.
On the other hand, it is also saying that it is ready to lay claim once again to this money from the Council if the money is required for buying property.
I am going to leave this Chamber in exactly four minutes to go and negotiate the sale of some new buildings for Parliament.
It is therefore already clear that we are going to need that money.
Consequently, I can picture the Council laughing when it sees our request for an amended budget arrive, in which we lay claim to what we are rather hastily giving back to the Council today in order to make an outward gesture.
Making an outward gesture is a very nice idea but, in truth, this EUR 20 million would enable us to inject capital and to make substantial savings.
EUR 20 million divided up among Europe’s citizens – I calculated how much that came to – is a good four cents that we are giving back to every citizen.
I believe that each citizen would be very pleased to receive these four cents.
However, we could have used those EUR 20 million to carry out another policy.
EUR 20 million is either too much or too little.
As it happens, this is a particularly exceptional example of a situation not making sense.
   Mr President, I find it very difficult to take seriously a debate about voluminous documents that only a real euro-nerd would be able to read, let alone understand.
Furthermore, what is the point of a debate about a 2006 budget which we all know will bear no relationship to the way the money will actually have been spent?
The European Court of Auditors has, for good reason, refused to sign off the EU’s accounts for the last 10 years and said, in its last report, that 95% of the EU’s budget was open to fraud.
Yet every year this House just shrugs its shoulders, sighs and looks the other way.
That is a shameful indictment of this institution and demonstrates how pitifully useless it really is.
Before we start debating ways to spend next year’s money, I believe we should sort out the mess that has been left behind in previous years.
Until the disgusting state of the EU’s finances has been sorted out, this House has no business debating further expenditure.
I call upon you all, in good conscience, to reject the 2006 budget.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is the last budget for the financial perspectives and it is still fixed at a mere EUR 111 billion, which, like everyone has said - Mrs Guy-Quint, Mrs Trüpel – is a derisory sum that in no way corresponds to the multiplicity of tasks to be carried out.
This obviously leads to a waste of energy on the part of the coordinators, such as Mr Garriga Polledo, on the part of Mr Lewandowski and on the part of
... our overall rapporteur, Giovanni Pittella, who conducted the debate with refined skill and sharp Italian subtlety.
Consequently, year in year out, the problems remain the same: farming is under budgeted, and there continues – on the model of Krushchev in the 1960s - to be a discrepancy between the ambition of the Lisbon Strategy to develop the knowledge-based economy and the paltry amount of resources available.
This means that Mr Pittella uses the introductory pages of his report to highlight just how pathetic the budget allocations of EUR 700 million for transport and EUR 650 million for education are.
Even then, we remain more than EUR 2 billion below the financial perspectives.
The cause is, of course, political but, above all, it is ideological: it is the rule according to which the budget has to be balanced in the short term, a foolishly mathematical rule that means that we do not have the resources to fulfil our ambitions.
We should be moving not only towards a balance of the Maastricht kind, but also towards a long-term balance in the economic cycle and even towards a social balance.
Hence, the obvious reason why the people of Europe are disappointed.
Hence, the specific reason why, among 900 amendments, I tabled my Amendment 146, which has been endorsed by nearly all of the groups and which proposes establishing a European Mayors’ Day in order to entrench Europe in local democracy, a grass roots Europe that is to some extent a Europe of the people, characterised by solidarity and firmly rooted in its villages and in everyday democracy.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what makes our discussion, at European level, of the 2006 budget so exciting is the fact that it is the last budget under the current Financial Perspective, and so, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we are determining what the fundamentals of the 2007 will be like in the absence of a Financial Perspective.
That is something of which I would like to take this opportunity to remind the House, lest we completely lose sight of that fact.
Here in this House, we will also have to embark on something of a rethinking process.
I take the line that we can no longer give more support across the board, but must concentrate on what really has to be done at European level and on the question of how much money can be made available for it.
To Mrs Koch-Mehrin I would say, further to her calculations of how much goes on research and how much on agriculture, that she should take a look at all public budgets, and then she will see what an infinitesimal amount expenditure on agriculture represents in comparison with what is spent on research.
The German Federal budget spends far more on research than it does on agriculture.
When the figures are added up, these all cancel each other out.
In this case, it is we who are responsible, and this budget must reflect that.
The Member States have more responsibilities where research is concerned, and that is why their budgets reflect that.
These calculations do not come out like that.
Let me make it perfectly clear, though, that if we require the Member States to keep to the stability criteria – which means making savings – that means that we in this House cannot go throwing money around all over the place.
Not all Europe’s problems need a line in the European Budget to deal with them.
Parliament will, in future, have to get used to making the sort of financial proposals that are the norm in national parliaments.
If we manage to learn that lesson from the 2006 budget, then we will have achieved a great deal.
      Mr President, the first reading of the European Union’s 2006 budget serves as evidence that the European Parliament, which is a symbol of diversity and provides a forum for all views, even those as radical as the ones we heard a few moments ago, is capable of reaching a compromise on complex budgetary issues.
Even though over 900 amendments were initially tabled, we have now agreed on a strategy that should be endorsed during tomorrow’s vote.
We have succeeded in reaching this compromise despite the fact that 2006 is a challenging year from a budgetary point of view, for reasons that have already been mentioned.
Expenditure has increased as a result of circumstances that could not have been foreseen at the start of the current Financial Perspective.
Much credit is due to the rapporteurs, Mr Pittella and Mr Dombrovskis, to the voluntary coordinators of the political groups, to the advisors of these groups and, of course, to the secretariat, headed by Mrs Fialho.
The European Parliament has thus adopted a position, both on the 2006 annual budget and on the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the EU governments acting through the Council.
We expect them to reach a position on the multi-annual financial perspective, and we also expect them to ensure that the conciliation meetings to be held in November on the 2006 budget will not be wasted opportunities.
A clear government mandate is required if these goals are to be achieved, and this will be a real test of the British Presidency.
The mandate for conciliation on the 2006 budget is a test that the Presidency will face in November of this year.
Parliament has already sketched out its strategy.
It is noteworthy that it includes confirmation of Parliament’s right to participate in 20% of administrative expenditure, while at the same time starting the search for ways in which Parliament itself could make savings.
We respect the Interinstitutional Agreement, and we are taking full advantage of its legal force.
We are also making good use of the flexibility instrument, in accordance with Commissioner Grybauskaitė’s understanding of this mechanism.
We are well aware that consensus on budgetary issues is the good news for which the European Union’s citizens are waiting.
   Mr President, first of all I, too, would like to congratulate Giovanni Pitella for his excellent work and wonderful report.
The current budget is hugely significant to Hungary and the other newly joined states.
On the one hand, because it represents a transition to the 2007-2013 financial plan which will be defined within the framework developed by the European Parliament and will hopefully be accepted as soon as possible, and on the other hand because the representatives of all Member States have participated as equal members in the creation of this budget, from the preliminary work to completion.
At long last, here we did not see the fifteen plus ten differentiation.
In light of yesterday’s debates I do not think I need to emphasise the significance of this fact.
Close cooperation was evident not only during Commission meetings, but also during conciliation sessions in the course of developing the 2006 budget and the 2007-2013 financial perspective.
For the first time we were able to say that the 25 Member States are equal parties, that there are no differences between them.
This is extremely important, as we can only build a common Europe if we work together.
The main figures of the 2006 budget in respect of Hungary have been known, they had already been determined through the Copenhagen Agreement.
However, we were able to effect certain changes in these figures within the framework of the Agreement through the amendment proposals in order to reach our common European values.
We are particularly pleased that following a Hungarian proposal we wish to ensure a larger allocation to Serbia, demonstrating that the EU does not only impose conditions, but also rewards their implementation.
   Mr President, I just want to propose that we change the word ‘mutation’ to ‘recombination’ in the amendment.
The PSE Group has indicated that it would be in favour of this.
This is essentially just a technical change, but, scientifically speaking, you cannot prevent mutation of H5N1, much as we would like to and powerful though we might think we are.
We might, however, have a chance of preventing recombination, so I would like to have the word ‘mutation’ changed please.
   Mr President, I would like to point out that I followed the rapporteur’s line on the Doyle report and regard Article 175 as the right legal basis, on the grounds that Austria and Denmark have already adopted wholesale bans on the use of these f-gases, and their experiences show that alternatives to them are, in principle, technically and economically workable and that these have a far less damaging effect on the environment.
If HFCs continue to be used in practically all new air-conditioning equipment, it is to be feared that these f-gases will become even more widespread, with a 5% increase to be reckoned with by 2010, which is not justifiable.
   . I voted in favour of the recommendation for second reading by Mrs Doyle on ‘Emissions from air conditioning systems in motor vehicles’, for the following reasons:
1.
It honours the commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere;
2.
Environmentally-friendly technologies must be used if we are to prevent climate change and the increasing numbers of natural disasters.
   . Labour MEPs strongly support the Doyle report which seeks to contain and ensure safe use and proper recovery of F-gases which contribute to global warming.
Cuts in F-gases will help Member States meet the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
However, we cannot support those amendments to the legislation which seek to impose bans on certain F-gases without a proper impact assessment.
The legislation provides for a review clause in article 10 and this is the proper mechanism to deal with any possible prohibitions.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted for the report by Mr Florenz, whom I congratulate, because his report aims at reducing environmentally harmful noise emissions.
In the resulting silence, governments will, I hope, be able to hear the voices of pensioners calling for higher pensions, for they have not been heard so far.
   . I and my British Conservative colleagues are broadly supportive of the TENs projects but have abstained on the final vote because of our concerns that the increased amounts being suggested are excessive and would breach Member States' financial contributions of 1% GNI.
   . I should like to congratulate Mr Mauro on his important and timely report on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council determining the general rules for the granting of Community financial aid in the field of the trans-European transport networks and energy and amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2236/95, which I wholeheartedly support.
I especially welcome the establishment of provisions promoting the investment required for the Lisbon goals to be achieved.
Europe must invest in transport and energy infrastructure.
Nevertheless, when minimum financing rates for this proposal are determined, the financial perspective for 2007-2013 must be taken into account.
   . The recommendations contained in this report should give a welcome boost to trans european networks in the field of energy and transport.
The proposal is for a 10% increase in the budget and allowing up to 50% of cross border projects to be financed through Community aid.
I welcome this.
   .
On behalf of the Danish Social Democratic delegation, Mr Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, Mr Henrik Dam Christensen, Mrs. Britta Thomsen, Mr Ole Christensen and Mr Dan Joergensen.
The delegation has voted in favour of the bloc vote on 28 amendments.
We are aware though, that amendment 15, point F includes the possibility for member states to use disqualification from and ineligibility for political and public office against convicted criminals.
We are against this particular point.
The Danish Social Democrats are aware, that the proposal concerns an issue within section IV in the TEU, on which Denmark has an opt-out.
– Motion for a resolution: RC-B6-0551/2005
   . In the vote today on the Joint Resolutions on patents for biotechnological inventions, I voted for those amendments making clear the need for a prohibition on the patenting of all human body parts, tissues and cells in their natural life state and their DNA sequences.
There are no circumstances in which the human body and parts thereof should become a commercial commodity.
Moreover, believing strongly in the protection of human life, including at its earliest stages, I am opposed to both destructive processes and scientific engineering which tinkers with the marvellous creation which is the human body.
   . Mr McCreevy made it clear last night when speaking on this subject that he does not intend to respect the Directive prohibiting any human cloning when he said that even though reproductive cloning was excluded under the directive he left the door open for the possibility of therapeutic cloning.
In doing this McCreevy is once again giving "the two finger".
This time to the Council of Minister and the Biopatents Directive.
"A. Council memorandum on the common position on the Biopatnents Directive states, at point 35, that:
'At (a) in paragraph 2, the Council replaced 'procedures for human reproductive cloning' with 'procedure for the cloning of human beings', since it thought the adjective 'reproductive' could be too restrictive.
It was understood that the words 'human being' referred to human being from embryonic state'.
It would seem that Mr McCreevy is anticipating is ignoring the EU's existing Directives and anticipating the now defunct Constitution.
   Mr President, I would like to call on the Commission to provide the House with an explanation, but the Commission is unfortunately absent.
Perhaps, though, your services might be so kind as to convey this to the Commission, which I would ask to do so in the course of this week.
The reason for this demand is Commissioner McCreevy’s statement in the course of yesterday evening’s debate on the patentability of human cloning, a statement that finds no support in law.
The Commission’s interpretation of this point is quite simply wrong and contradicts the protocol note of the Council of Ministers handed down by the Council when the directive was adopted.
In Article 35 of that protocol note, it is stated quite clearly that it is not only reproductive cloning that is barred from being patented.
The Commission, which is the guardian of the Treaties, cannot, in a speech by one of its members, give an interpretation that does not concur with the directive, that is false and that contradicts the Council’s protocol note.
It is, therefore, as a matter of real urgency that I ask your services to demand that the Commission rectify this, for if it does not there are sure to be consequences.
Knowing that many other Members present in the Chamber take a similar view, I really do ask that this be clarified, that the clarification be forwarded to Commissioner McCreevy’s office, and that he himself, this week, should correct this error.
   . – Mr Blair, in your speech here in June I could scarcely believe what I was hearing.
You said that the people were blowing the trumpets around the city walls, that unemployment was 20 million and that productivity rates were falling behind the US, and you pledged to peel back bureaucracy, which was music to eurosceptic ears.
Perhaps that is why you have chosen Hampton Court for the summit tomorrow: Henry VIII was, after all, the first English eurosceptic. So what has happened since?
Well, the Commission announced it was going to stop 68 new laws, and then yesterday we were told that a further 200 pieces of legislation would be repealed over the course of the next three years.
So it all looks rather encouraging.
However, the truth is that it is all window dressing; it is a game of smoke and mirrors and the clue was Commissioner Verheugen’s comment that better regulation is not deregulation.
The European Commission will not give up its power; there will be no real economic reforms.
Since 1497 the British Parliament has made 25 000 laws.
Since you became the European Council President, no fewer than 2 500 legislative instruments have been passed.
Unless you can find your way out of that maze at Hampton Court tomorrow, this will be your legacy and proof that Europe is not working!
   Mr President, Mr Alexander knows that I know that he is not very good at answering questions.
However, I shall have another go.
What is the UK Government planning to do about the institutionalised looting of public funds that has gone on in this place over decades? EUR 600 billion – according to the Court of Auditors itself – has been unaccounted for since the UK joined, and that is five times the contribution that we have made over that same period.
On Mr Blair’s desk in Downing Street, there is a letter recommending that the UK Government set a time limit to complete the basic reform of the EU’s accounting procedures so that they comply fully with international financial reporting standards.
Simultaneously, the UK should declare that failure to do so within that time limit should signal the UK invoking the Vienna Convention on Treaties.
Meanwhile, the UK’s GBP 1.25 million an hour should be diverted into an escrow account.
      Mr President, Mr Alexander, there can be no doubt that the European Union is in urgent need of honest debate, such as that which will take place at Hampton Court, and I believe that this summit was a good British idea.
I should like to make two points in response to the questions raised in the letter sent by Prime Minister Blair to his guests.
In order to create more jobs and growth in Europe, all we need to do is to deliver on the prosaic promises we made 50 years ago.
By this I mean equal access to an open labour and services market.
I propose that such issues should be dealt with first, before moving on to Europe’s hazy political future.
Is it possible for us to achieve more together? The answer to this question is a resounding yes, but our achievements will depend on the extent to which we believe in the European project.
This belief is inextricably linked to the existence of an open labour and services market to which everyone has equal access, and to the old Member States demonstrating solidarity with the new EU Member States in budgetary terms.
Reluctance to complete the common market or to adopt a budget based on solidarity will undermine belief in the European project in those countries where such belief is currently strongest, for example in countries such as Poland.
Please remind Mr Blair of this link, Mr Alexander, and ask him to keep it in mind and make it clear to other guests at Hampton Court, even though some might regard this as blackmail.
   The next item is questions to the Council (B6-0332/2005).
   Mr President, I rise on behalf of a colleague, Mr Kamall, who last month submitted to the Council Question H-0688/05 concerning China textile quotas.
He has not as yet received a reply in any form.
I wonder whether you could ask the Council of Ministers when he can expect a response.
In normal circumstances we expect a response the next day.
   . The European Union foreign ministers expressed a desire to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots at the April 2004 General Affairs Council.
At the Council’s request, the Commission produced two draft regulations to deliver on this commitment.
Perhaps some of the frustration of which the honourable Member speaks reflects the fact that it has not yet been possible to agree them.
However, I can assure Parliament that we will continue efforts to achieve agreement.
Clearly that will involve a number of Member States.
I can assure you that we are determined, if we can, to reach agreement to give expression to that decision of the General Affairs Council.
   – Mr President, I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Alexander, two brief questions.
Firstly, knowing that a referendum will be held in Montenegro in 2006 on its possible secession from the joint state of Serbia-Montenegro, to what extent will progress in negotiations on the stabilisation agreement affect this referendum in Montenegro?
Secondly, to what extent will negotiations on the stabilisation and association agreement be affected by the parallel negotiations due to start on the final status of Kosovo and, furthermore, does Mr Alexander believe that the position of Serbia on the question of Kosovo will affect the progress of negotiations on the stabilisation and association agreement?
   Mr President, I apologise for being late, as a result of which I missed some of the response by the President-in-Office, but, as we are discussing Serbia, let me tell you that I was in Kosovo last week – the Albanian part of Serbia’s northern province to be precise – where people are extremely worried about the fate of 2 500 people who are still missing.
Serbia is refusing help to recover those bodies.
Surely one of the conditions we in the European Union should attach to our continued support for Serbia should be that that country must cooperate with UNMIK and with the Albanian authorities in Kosovo in order to ensure that all those people who have lost relatives at least know where they are, where those bodies are and that those bodies are returned so that they can be given proper burial.
Can the President-in-Office promise that this will be one of the conditions for continued cooperation with Serbia?
With the end of the 2000-2006 planning period in view, what is the Council's assessment of the results achieved through the use of the Structural Funds and other financial instruments in terms of the social integration, education, training and vocational development of young people living in rural, island, mountain, sparsely populated and remote areas, and areas facing demographic problems?
Does the new plan for 2007-2013 include measures which target this group to promote their integration into their natural social environment and enable them to continue living there?
In light of recent shocks to the energy market such as the increase in oil prices and heightened public concern over the effects of climate change, what is the Council under the UK Presidency doing to ensure that the proposed directive on energy end-use efficiency and energy services (COM(2003)0739 – C5-0642/2003 – 2003/0300(COD)) takes into account the more rigorous measures to encourage energy saving supported by a strong majority in Parliament?
Does the European Court of Justice judgment on the appropriateness of Community law for imposing criminal penalties (Case C-176/03, 13 September 2005) encourage the Council in the direction of using the Community framework rather than the unsatisfactory intergovernmental one for law enforcement measures? Is the UK Presidency exploring positively the potential to use Article 42 TEU for this purpose?
How will it guard against fora like G5 and G8 and new Schengen developments further prejudicing transparent, democratic and comprehensive EU-wide cooperation?
Will it at least keep the European and national parliaments informed about the evolution of intergovernmental negotiations and future plans?
   . As repeatedly stated by the Court of Justice, the choice of legal basis for the adoption of legally binding instruments must rest on objective factors.
The judgment of the Court of Justice confirmed that the Community legislator may take measures relating to the criminal law of the Member States when that is necessary for the achievement of the Community policy in question.
The Court of Justice also reiterated that, as a general rule, criminal law matters did not fall within the scope of Community competence.
It did not decide about the scope of application of Title 6 of the Treaty on European Union as such, nor did it limit the scope of application of Title 6 beyond the very specific issue on which the Court of Justice ruled.
The use of Article 42 is not being considered at present.
The Council cannot and should not seek to prevent Member States from cooperating bilaterally or multilaterally on police and judicial matters, as long as they observe the obligations incumbent upon them under the Treaties.
Cooperation outside the framework of the Treaties is, by definition, not undertaken by the Council.
Neither the Council nor its Presidency can therefore provide information regarding such forms of cooperation for the European Parliament.
Information regarding cooperation on police or judicial matters under Title 6 is transmitted to the European Parliament on the basis of Article 39 of the Treaty.
As regards the information to national parliaments, this is solely a matter for the individual Member States, not the Council or its Presidency.
   President-in-Office, thank you for your reply, but there is considerable concern about the proliferation of fora for addressing security and border control issues.
A few months ago, the French Prime Minister, Mr de Villepin, talked about how Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy and France are moving forward in discussions on police cooperation, exchanges of intelligence, border controls, and internal security.
Then we have the Prüm Convention among seven Member States, which seems to go back to the Trevi system of the 1970s.
This is not only undemocratic and untransparent, but surely it also fails to provide the added value of really addressing terrorism and immigration challenges in common.
Surely this is not in the interests of the European Union as a whole?
   . I am certainly aware of the informal meetings that the honourable Member describes.
However, there is no more eloquent testimony to the approach that we have taken, whereby the whole of Europe is involved in these discussions, than the role that our Home Secretary, Mr Charles Clarke, has played both with this Parliament and, indeed, with other members of the relevant Council.
I also think – if you reflect upon the remarks made by our Prime Minister earlier today – it is clear that dealing with the issue of personal and physical security, not least in the light of the terrible incidents that took place in London on 7 July, remains one of the key priorities for our Presidency. Our ambition certainly includes taking forward that work as we anticipate the conclusion of our Presidency in the December European Council, which, of course, will involve all Member States.
Will the UK Presidency support José Manuel Barroso in his efforts to curb unnecessary and burdensome lawmaking initiatives from the European Commission?
Despite assurances from this Presidency that it would act to prevent superfluous lawmaking and to promote the principle of subsidiarity, we see the UK Presidency arguing for the addition of impractical legislation, such as the protection of workers from sunlight in the directive on optical radiation.
Will the Presidency seize the opportunity to help bring some sense to ‘joke’ EU lawmaking?
4.9 million people were infected with HIV in 2004, more than in any previous year.
As 75% of young people infected are women and girls, the increasing vulnerability of women is underlined along with the inherent need to expand current prevention options, particularly for women.
The European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership (EDCTP) was set up in February 2004, with one third of its budget to be funded by Member States (plus one third from the Commission, and one third from the private sector).
In the light of the rise in HIV infection rates and the creation of the EDCTP, can the Council provide information on what funding Member States have provided to the EDCTP, and as a result, which microbicide clinical trials are currently being funded by the EDCTP?
   I could not agree more with the honourable Member about the unfolding tragedy of HIV infection cases amongst women and girls.
As we know, the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership is a group of 14 Member States plus Norway from outside the European Union.
The initial investment to establish the partnership was provided by the European Commission with a EUR 200 million allocation over five years through the Sixth Research and Development Framework Programme which runs from 2002 to 2006.
The partnership has a total budget of EUR 600 million for the period from 2003 to 2007: in addition to the EUR 200 million provided by Community funding, EUR 200 million will come from Member States and a further EUR 200 million will be sought from industry, charities and private organisations.
It is the responsibility of each Member State to contribute in kind through their national research activities.
Various projects funded by public money in each Member State count towards the total EUR 200 million contribution.
The Council has identified a need for joined-up action between the Commission and Member States in partnership with the Clinical Trials Partnership to support the research and development of new tools to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, a fact underlined in the conclusions of the General Affairs Council on 24 May this year.
The partnership has identified a number of specific research topics and will issue calls for research proposals for these topics over a two- to three-year period.
Only one trial relating to HIV was funded last year, which will look into providing anti-retroviral drugs to children with HIV.
Calls for research proposals issued last month include a specific call for research on microbicides.
The title of this call for research is ‘Capacity building for the conduct of phase I, II and III trials of vaginal microbicides against sexual transmission of HIV’.
Applications will come in over the next few months and funding decisions will be made next year.
   Obviously, microbicides could revolutionise AIDS prevention throughout the world.
Current clinical trials are already showing positive results, but this requires funding.
As you are aware, Mr President-in-Office, the United Kingdom Department for International Development has been very supportive of research into microbicides.
Do you agree with me that support for clinical trials into microbicides is essential in tackling AIDS and, particularly in view of the priority the United Kingdom Presidency has attached to Africa, will the Presidency encourage other Member States to involve themselves with the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership?
On 29 August 2005, a Turkish Cypriot aeroplane flew direct from the illegal airport in the so-called 'Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus' to the capital of Azerbaijan, Baku.
This flight followed a direct flight on 27 July 2005 from Azerbaijan to the occupied territories.
These flights took place in breach of the principles of European and international civil aviation.
Bearing in mind the proposal for a Council decision (COM(2005)0060 final) on the conclusion of an agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Azerbaijan on certain aspects of air services, replacing Member States' bilateral agreements with the Republic of Azerbaijan, can the Council say how it will respond to the conduct of Azerbaijan, using the political means at its disposal?
   – Mr President, I thank the Minister for the very substantial reply which he has given me.
Would he nonetheless permit me to remark that he has given me technical answers to a purely political question.
Of course we all know that Azerbaijan needs to comply with the guidelines of the United Nations and the ICAO, but I want to know what the Council's view is of the fact that Azerbaijan continues to maintain flights to airports on the occupied territories of the Republic of Cyprus.
In response to the debate on the situation in the Middle East, held in the European Parliament on 7 September 2005, Douglas Alexander, speaking on behalf of the UK Presidency of the Council, repeated the 'clear view' of the Council on the Separation Barrier in East Jerusalem and assured Members that 'where [lt]the Council has[gt] concerns about Israeli actions on human rights, will raise – and raised those concerns with the Israeli Government.'
Mr Alexander also explained that the Council would be considering, in due course, which issues to raise at the EU-Israel Association Council, scheduled for the end of this year.
Could the Council outline the process by which the agenda for the EU-Israel Association Council is decided and, in the light of Israel's continued failure to comply with the ICJ opinion of 9 July 2004, could the Council offer any possible justification as to why the implementation of the opinion of the highest international court, which articulates erga omnes incumbent on all Member States, should not be at the top of the agenda?
The Council is moving ahead with the process of adopting the framework decision on the retention of data despite the reactions of Parliament concerning the legal basis and the lack of proportionality between the ends and the means, those of human rights organisations concerning respect for civil liberties and those of industry concerning the high cost. Does the Council share the views of officials that 'the cost is not a political problem'?
How will it safeguard human rights and deal with constitutional obstacles in various Member States to the general implementation of such a framework decision? What are the Council's views on UK Ministers' objections that a Europe-wide system is unnecessary as the need for security can be better served through 25 national systems?
   . After the terrorist attacks in London on 7 July 2005, the Council reiterated the urgent need for an EU instrument on retention of communications data, called for in the wake of the Madrid bombings, and made a commitment to agree to it by October 2005.
The draft framework decision tabled by four Member States in April 2004 does not aim at recording the content of any communication, but rather at the retention of so-called traffic data.
These data, such as the names of the persons connected with a phone call or the time of the communication, are necessary for law enforcement authorities effectively to investigate criminal offences and bring successful prosecutions in an age when criminals exploit the advantages of modern communications facilities.
The proposal for a directive on retention of traffic data, which the Commission adopted on 21 September 2005, and which the Council considered in October, also concerns traffic data and not the content of communications.
A decision has yet to be made on whether the framework decision or directive is the appropriate legal base for such rules by the Council on data retention.
In the meantime, work will continue on the substance, in consultation, of course, with the Commission and the European Parliament.
At its meeting on 2 July 2004, the Council stressed the need to give particular consideration to the proportionality of the measure in relation to costs, privacy and efficiency.
The Council aims at an instrument that balances law enforcement requirements with the right to privacy and costs, and which is compatible with Member States’ constitutions.
   . The thinking, as set out by our own Prime Minister earlier in the course of meetings, is to try and secure agreement on the way forward in the course of the UK Presidency.
That suggests December as the opportunity when, under the scenario that we would wish to see, under pillar one, as our Home Secretary Charles Clarke has proposed, we can see progress being made in relation to this instrument.
I hope that directly answers the question because we continue to seek to find a basis under pillar one rather than under pillar three, as the question implied.
   As the President-in-Office has just said, Charles Clarke made the welcome decision for the European Parliament to now give its views on this proposal.
As the Parliament is now in the process of putting its view, could I ask the President-in-Office to take the safeguard argument seriously? We accept the need for retention of data and we are looking at the timings now.
We are moving very much in the right direction, but we need concrete and collective safeguards.
Will he give an assurance that that aspect will be taken very seriously, because Parliament wants to see the Council treat that as a priority.
Rendered animal tallow (animal fat) is included in the Waste Incineration Directive 2000/76/EC(1) (WID), and after December this year it will have to be incinerated under very strict conditions.
Currently it is used as a fuel in steam boilers in rendering plants and in the production of biodiesel.
However, the conditions of the WID directive appear to preclude its use for these purposes.
Is this not inconsistent with the Commission's environmental policy of encouraging competitive and efficient alternative energy sources?
Under Regulation (EC) No 639/2003(2) the age of cows and heifers for which export refunds can be claimed was reduced from 36 to 30 months.
Previously, under Regulation (EC) No 615/1998(3), animals had been eligible for export refunds up to an age at export of 36 months.
This makes things more difficult for cattle breeders in mountain areas. Mountain breeders are tied to autumn calving in the alpine cycle.
Owing to the harsh conditions, mountain cattle breeds grazing on alpine pastures also develop more slowly, and biological factors mean that they cannot be mated until they are 24 months old.
Can the Council grant a derogation for alpine mountain cattle breeds as a matter of urgency, raising the export age for mountain cattle to the earlier limit of 36 months?
   .
Under the procedure laid down for Regulation (EC) No 639/2003, to which the honourable Member refers, the Commission is responsible for submitting to the management committee any proposal for modifying implementing measures relating to conditions governing the payment of export refunds.
The Council is requested to act only when a majority of delegations in the management committee has been unable to give an opinion on such a proposal.
The Commission has made no such proposal.
The European Council failed to agree in June on the new financial perspective for the period from 2007 to 2013.
One of the stumbling blocks to a consensus was the British rebate.
Will the country currently holding the presidency submit a proposal to the European Council that would serve to treat the Member States equally or in other words do away with the rebates granted to the United Kingdom and some other countries?
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in June this issue depended on just a few countries and, to a greater extent, on the country currently holding the presidency, the United Kingdom.
At the time, you effectively torpedoed the solution, which would have allowed us to arrive at a financial framework for the period 2007–2013.
Now that you yourself are drafting it, the question has arisen of whether it should form some sort of package, and I would like to ask this: is it possible that the joint financing of agriculture will be a part of this package, which would mean that Member States would start paying a portion of compulsory agricultural expenditure themselves?
   . Thank you, President-in-Office, and thank you for reaching question 17.
On the last two occasions, we unfortunately ran out of time and my question was not answered.
My question is a follow-up.
I believe that at the last Strasbourg part-session the Presidency decided unilaterally to change the system of answering questions so that the whole Council had to be involved.
I understand that President Borrell Fontelles has written formally, asking for a return to the system that has served this House well for 30 years.
I would urge you to do that.
There might not be many of us here, but those who do come very much value this opportunity and would not wish the answers to questions that cannot be answered on this occasion to be further delayed.
   Madam President, the draft resolution presented points out the most pressing problems in Azerbaijan which jeopardise the clean, democratic and pluralistic conduct of the parliamentary elections on 6 November.
It seems that the representatives of the government apparatus state one thing and do another.
In spite of the endeavours made so far by the South Caucasian delegation of the European Parliament, the public law dignitaries, Parliament and the government of Azerbaijan have a strange way of interpreting democracy, the rule of law, state and human rights.
The Head of State and his entourage are ruling autocratically.
As mentioned by the Commissioner, we must note that last week President Aliyev dismissed several highest-ranking government officials or ordered their arrest and detention on remand on charges of attempting to stage a .
Subsequently, at the peak of the campaign, several dozen opposition and civil rights activists were arrested.
All the signs point to the fact that the authority intends to defend its autocracy using its power, and tries to thwart the mass meetings of the opposition.
As Azerbaijan is part of the EU Neighbourhood Policy, it is in our interest to see a fundamental change in the current situation, and the upcoming elections constitute the best opportunity for change.
The European Parliament is interested in the establishment of a multi-party legislation process, ensuring equal opportunities for the opposition.
I believe that the proposal we have tabled is extremely important.
In this proposal, the European Parliament declares that international public opinion only accepts clean, free elections with equal opportunities.
This is not just a warning from the European Parliament to Azerbaijan, but also an important message to the entire South Caucasian region.
And Baku can prove itself on 6 November.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0280/2005) by Mrs Anneli Jäätteenmäki on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on the Barcelona Process revisited (2005/2058(INI)).
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like quickly to highlight three aspects of this process.
The first is the connection between the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the Neighbourhood Policy, which was raised by the Commissioner.
I believe this aspect must not lead us to focus solely on bilateral action plans, but should encourage us to create a geographical and political space that is both European and Mediterranean.
The principal means of all that is the political dimension, which has increased, it must be said, because the European Parliament has contributed to the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, and the civil societies have set up the civil forum. What is missing are the governments.
Where are the governments? I believe that to move forward with this process we need parliaments, societies and governments to engage somewhat more in dialogue, which in turn will enable us to create a more advanced human rights dimension.
Finally, the sociologist Edgard Morin is quite right when he points out that it is not cultures, religions and civilisations that engage in dialogue, but people, individuals, men and women. I believe that the most serious limitation in all the years of this very generous and intelligent process has been the failure to make our different societies relate to each other, and because of that, terrorism and immigration today threaten to widen the gulf even further.
I agree with our rapporteur when she says we must reinforce all the programmes and instruments that foster dialogue and understanding – and hence education, culture, training and information – between our societies.
In short, we support our rapporteur because her report moves in that direction, and because Euro-Mediterranean politics need less rhetoric and a great deal more substance.
   . Mr President, if this statement really was made in these terms, that is of course utterly unacceptable to anyone in this House and cannot be passed over in silence.
It is because this demands an appropriate response that I wish, on behalf of my group, to express my strong support for Mr Poettering’s idea that this should be put on the order of business for the next part-session.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0276/2005) by Mr Mavrommatis, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman for the year 2004 (2005/2136(INI)).
      Mr President, Mr Diamandouros, the Ombudsman’s home country of Greece won the European basketball championships a few weeks ago for the first time in over a decade.
I mention this because Parliament’s motion for a resolution states that the Ombudsman provided effective assistance in almost 70% of cases referred to him.
I can assure the Ombudsman that his fellow countrymen, who are the best basketball players in Europe, would tell him that a 70% success rate for two-or three-point field goals is unheard of, and I should like to congratulate him on his achievement.
I should also like to congratulate him on the increase in the number of complaints, since this is proof that people take his institution seriously and believe there is a genuine need for it.
I do not agree with the claim that only half of this increase is due to the 10 new Member States, as stated in the draft resolution.
The word ‘only’ in this sentence should be replaced by ‘as much as’, since the institution of the European Ombudsman is a very new concept for the citizens of the new Member States.
The Ombudsman should rest assured that in time he will be bombarded with our complaints.
   Thank you very much, Mr Swoboda.
We take good note of your request.
   Mr President, what I am about to do is not standard practice.
In the following heading, we have two amendments: one amendment tabled by the Committee on Budgets and another concerning orphan medicinal products, which was tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.
We have to vote in favour of the amendment tabled by the Committee on Budgets.
As far as the second amendment is concerned, it is calling for an additional EUR 1 million for orphan medicinal products, which the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products requires.
I should like to know if it would be possible for us to vote on Amendment 231, so that the Agency might be able to work this year with all of the resources it requires.
You will realise that, technically speaking, this is not correct procedure.
I entirely agree.
However, it turns out that, since the vote in the Committee on Budgets, we have received additional details.
If it were possible to vote in favour of Amendment 231, which would add EUR 1 million still available in the budget margin, this would enable us substantially to improve working conditions in such a very important area to us.
   If we have understood properly, you want us to vote first on Amendment 231 and then on Amendment 779.
   Mr President, we can also vote in favour of Amendment 779. However, I should like it if, in addition to Amendment 779, we were able to vote in favour of granting a further EUR 1 million to the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products for orphan medicinal products.
I should like to point out to you that, if anyone objects to this, we are obliged to accept his or her objection.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to avoid confusion during the vote, I propose we vote on Amendment 74 for the remarks and Amendment 223 for the amounts.
   Having taken note of this, we shall proceed to the vote on Amendment 292.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the ‘other institutions’ section of the 2006 budget, the following technical correction is necessary.
The date mentioned in Amendments 473 and 475 — 31 October 2005 — should be removed from the notes and added to the explanatory statements.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Dombrovskis has spoken in English instead of Polish.
I am aware that many Members understand English better than Polish, but all the languages have the same status and interpretation should therefore be available for all of them or for none of them.
   It has been a technical problem beyond the control of this House and Mr Dombrovskis has been kind enough to cooperate with his fellow Members.
   Mr President, today, at the first reading of the general budget, I voted against Amendments 543, 301, 344 and 345 on the grounds that they draw no distinction between breeding animals, production animals and animals for slaughter.
I speak not only for myself but also for Austria when I say that I am opposed to the export of live cattle for slaughter, but as there is no difference in valuation between breeding animals and animals for slaughter, the abolition of export subsidies amounts to the destruction of European production and of cattle farmers’ livelihoods.
Secondly, I voted in favour of Amendment 99 on the grounds that the Common Market Organisation for tobacco still exists and is in force.
   .
I hereby declare that I voted in favour of the amendment about CESI 446 concerning budget line 04030302.
   . British Conservative policy is firmly committed to ensuring that budgetary commitments should not exceed 1.0% of GNI contributions. We would like to see an EU that spends taxpayers' money wisely on initiatives that support the Lisbon objectives while eliminating fraud, mismanagement and wasteful spending such as tobacco subsidies.
For these reasons, we have voted against amendments or proposals that would breach the 1.0% ceiling without, in our view, contributing to the promotion of sustainable growth and jobs in Europe.
However, we do support projects that will encourage the development and supply of new-generation energy solutions.
   The Members of the European Parliament from Denmark’s Liberal Party voted against Amendment 7, tabled by Mr Bonde on behalf of the Independence and Democracy Group.
The Liberal Party is opposed to the export of live animals and has voted against budget line 05 02 13 04.
Mr Bonde’s proposal cannot, however, be implemented in practice and must be considered unrealistic and ill thought-out.
   .
I support the Pittella Report including Amendments 3004 [amp] 3005, which restore €12 million of the 2006 funding for PEACE 11 to the technical assistance/innovative actions budget-heading.
The Member States must ensure the budgetary flexibility required in no way endangers continued full funding of PEACE 11, as envisaged last year when funding for that programme was guaranteed into 2006.
The Socialist Group played a key role in securing €108 million for Ireland's Peace 11 programme for 2006, and continues to pledge its full support for the programme.
John Hume, a former member of the Socialist Group was the architect of the PEACE programme and its contribution to reconciliation has been enormous.
If we are to succeed in bringing communities together from both sides of the sectarian divide continued funding for the PEACE programme is crucial
We must also support the SDLP campaign for a PEACE 111 programme by earmarking €200 million in the 2007-2013 budget.
I hope Minister Noel Tracy takes this up urgently and all Member States ensure smooth administration of arrangements for finalising the PEACE 11 funding, and guarantee continuing funding for a PEACE 111 programme for 2007-2013.
   . I voted in favour of the scrapping of tobacco production subsidies.
I feel that tobacco production, a key component in the tobacco industry, should no longer be subsidised.
The harmful impact of tobacco use on public health (over 500 000 deaths per year due to illnesses linked to tobacco use), and in turn on the economies of the Member States and the EU, leads me to conclude that the EUR 100 000-plus spent on subsidies to these producers under the CAP is morally, politically and economically indefensible.
To my mind, tobacco production and the tobacco industry should not only lose our support but should gradually, but quickly, be eliminated.
Parliament must exert pressure on the Member States and the Commission to effect such a change, through the EU budget that it adopts.
Naturally, I am sensitive to the problem of the 3 500 jobs that depend on tobacco production in Portugal.
I therefore believe that efforts to convert this industry must be redoubled, in order to guarantee jobs and the economic survival of producers in Portugal and all of the European tobacco-producing countries.
In this regard, I support all of the financial backing that can be given to them, on the part of Community or national institutions.
To persevere with the policy of European subsidies, however, represents ...
   .
In the budget vote I voted for CAP reform, for cuts in Tobacco subsidies, for the end of the transport of lives animals over 8 hours, against cuts in the Northern Ireland peace programme and for assistance to ACP banana and sugar producers.
   .
I voted for Heading 3 of the Budget Vote today because I want to add no less than 200 million euros in payment appropriations to a range of budget headings for the Lisbon strategy which the Council reduced at first reading.
The main areas which would boost EU competitiveness include increases for programmes to support small and medium-sized companies, but above all for the 6th framework research programme.
The payments for education programmes are also increased, by 35 million euros for Socrates, 20 million euros for Leonardo da Vinci and 3 million euros for e-learning, which I fully support.
   The Members of the European Parliament from Denmark’s Liberal Party voted against Amendment 4, tabled by Mr Bonde on behalf of the Independence and Democracy Group.
The Liberal Party is in favour of reforming the reimbursement of travel expenses, so that all reasonable and necessary travel expenses are refunded.
Mr Bonde’s proposal is, however, absurd and could not be implemented in practice.
   . Whilst the Members of this House belonging to the SPD are in favour of a statement of travel expense that reflects the costs actually incurred, we will not agree to any amendment calling on the President to break the House rules.
   .
I welcome this report which rightly praises the ombudsman during 2004.
The Ombudsman has show diligence and forcefulness in dealing with complaints from the EU citizens regarding the activities of the EU institutions.
He is proving to be a true champion of citizens rights to fair and open treatment by the Institutions.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on human rights in Western Sahara(1).
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on human rights in Uzbekistan(1).
   .   Mr President, it is an unfortunate fact that the historic breakthrough which in Poland led to the formation of a democratic government in 1989, and which subsequently brought about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the entire Moscow-led Communist bloc, did not lead to the emergence of a democratic regime respectful of human rights in all the former Communist bloc countries.
The transformations we witnessed in Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary, during which systems based on respect for human rights were established, did not initially take place in Ukraine.
We are still awaiting such transformations in Belarus, and unfortunately there is no sign of them in Uzbekistan either.
The events of 13 May 2005 were a measure of sorts of the current conditions in Uzbekistan.
The attitude of the government, which refuses to allow foreign observers to investigate the causes of the many deaths, as well as intimidating journalists and preventing external monitoring, means that Parliament must take a firm stance on this issue.
It is for this reason that we are calling for investigations to be carried out into all these issues, and for democracy to be established in Uzbekistan.
   . Mr President, today’s resolution condemns the Uzbek Government’s denial of any transparency in connection with the investigation into the events of May 2005, and it stresses how important it is that there should be an independent international commission of inquiry, one that is in a position to bring the details to light without delay and to observe ongoing processes without interference.
Precisely how many people lost their lives on those May days in Andijan is something that the global public has until now been unable to find out.
Human rights organisations’ figures vary between 500 and 1 000, while the Uzbek Government gives the number of victims as 176.
Over and over again, President Karimov uses Islamism as a blunt instrument with which to put his political opponents – of whatever stripe – out of action.
That is why it is vital that we should press home our demands for the setting at liberty of those human rights activists, journalists and members of the political opposition who are still in prison.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on the case of Tenzin Delek Rinpoche(1).
   . Mr President, it is not our place to say whether Tenzin Delek Rinpoche is innocent or guilty.
However, it is our place to point out human rights violations when we see them.
There are real concerns about his detention, trial and sentencing, which were, I believe, miscarriages of justice.
In a news bulletin of 24 October, the Chinese Government said that it was an internal affair for China and that we had no right to interfere.
If it is a matter of human rights, we have every right to interfere; that is our job.
It is unclear whether he had full access to legal advice throughout the trial process.
The Chinese said that he had two lawyers.
My sources said that he had no defence counsel whatsoever.
My sources also said that he did not confess and he has never confessed to this alleged crime, despite the torture he allegedly suffered for several months before his trial.
When he was tried three years ago, there was international outcry, and at that time I understand that the Chinese Government promised a retrial in the Supreme Court.
That has not happened.
He must be given a fair trial in full accordance with international fair trial standards or released forthwith.
There is no other option.
   Mr President, on at least five occasions during this part-session, the earphones – and thus the interpretation service - for the whole of the row behind me where I normally sit have not worked.
Nor has the microphone worked, so that it has not been possible to complain about the situation to the President.
We have shown great flexibility during the votes and continued with these from the row concerned.
Next time, however, many important matters are to be dealt with, including REACH, so we need to ensure that the technology works.
Otherwise, the part-session may be interrupted in the most inopportune way.
I hope, therefore, that you can resolve this problem by next month.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 27 October 2005.
   The final version of the draft agenda for the present part-session and the November II part-session as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 10 November pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
A slight amendment has been proposed.
The Council has asked me to reverse the order of the two items scheduled for Wednesday morning.
The proposal is that we first hold the debate on the situation in Iraq, in the presence of Lord Bach, and then the joint debate on climate change.
This change to the agenda would allow Mrs Beckett, the Minister responsible for this issue, to be present in the House.
      Mr President, I should like to express my concern at the comments recently made by the EU Commissioner for Trade, Peter Mandelson, regarding the negotiations taking place under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation.
I believe that one of these comments, which he made during a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the EU Member States held in Luxembourg on 18 October 2005, had a particularly ominous ring to it.
Amongst other things, Commissioner Mandelson said at this meeting that the European Union must make concessions to other countries during the WTO negotiations, since on balance the European Union would gain more from exporting industrial goods than it would lose from reducing protection for agriculture.
What this may mean is that the Commissioner wishes to sacrifice the interests of EU agriculture during the December summit in Hong Kong, in favour of nebulous gains in other fields.
I believe that the Commissioner has clearly overstepped his authority with this comment.
If his ideas were put into practice, around 1.2 million jobs could be lost in the EU in the agricultural and related sectors.
I would call on the President of the European Parliament to bring these concerns to the attention of Mr Barroso, the President of the European Commission.
   Thank you very much, Mr Kuźmiuk.
I shall do so the very next time I have the opportunity to speak to him.
   – On 7 November, a 100-tonne metal structure supporting a concrete structure collapsed, killing six Portuguese workers and one worker from Galicia.
This workplace accident took place in the South of Spain, during the construction of a flyover of the Mediterranean motorway.
In Portugal, in my region of Oporto district, this tragedy was felt very deeply. It has left families without their father, husband or son, the man who guaranteed a livelihood for the family at a time of high unemployment in Northern Portugal.
I should therefore like to ask you, Mr President, to ensure that expressions of sympathy and solidarity with the families are backed by suitable financial support.
Furthermore, steps must be taken to improve safety at work, an issue that is as important in Spain as it is in other EU countries, so that tragedies of this nature can be prevented in the future.
   Thank you very much, Mrs Stihler.
I have sent two letters to the Pakistani authorities in relation to the issues you have mentioned.
   Mr President, I am very concerned about the fate of Mr Labouani, who was recently arrested in Damascus upon disembarking from the flight that had brought him back from a trip to Europe and the United States.
Mr Labouani is a symbolic figure in Syria.
He had been imprisoned following the ‘Damascus Spring’ in 2001.
He served his full sentence, namely three years in prison.
He had denounced the corruption taking place in relation to procurement procedures for the mobile telephone sector.
He founded a liberal, secular party.
I purposely said secular, for the opposition today in Syria often allies itself with the Muslim Brotherhood.
I saw Mr Labouani three weeks ago, when his flight was leaving for Washington.
I shared my concerns with him at that time about his freedom of speech and expression.
He replied that he was not afraid because he had right on his side.
Then, as soon as he returned, he was arrested.
Out of consideration for this kind of democratic opposition in Syria, I should therefore like our Parliament to stand behind Mr Labouani and you, Mr President, to write a letter, for example to the Syrian authorities, in order to draw attention to our concern and our disagreement.
   Thank you very much, Mrs De Keyser.
We shall do so as soon as we can examine the facts you refer to.
      Mr President, the history of Europe since World War II has been marked by singular events that have underpinned European unity, and that today form part of the moral and political foundations upon which the European Union is based.
These include the letter sent by the Polish bishops to their German counterparts in autumn 1965, in which the former addressed the German people, through the Roman Catholic bishops of Germany, with the famous sentence, ‘We forgive and we ask for forgiveness’.
It took real moral courage to write this sentence 20 years after the war, when the suffering that Poland had experienced under Nazi occupation was still fresh in people’s minds.
The letter helped bring about the reconciliation between Poland and Germany, and it was one of the factors that led to the conclusion of the historic treaty on the border between the two countries, which was signed five years later by Willy Brandt in Warsaw.
Speaking before the House today, I should like to pay homage to the Polish bishops.
I should also like to commemorate the author of the letter, the Archbishop of Wrocław Bolesław Kominek, who was a Silesian, a Polish patriot and a great European.
      Mr President, the head of the European Commission, Mr Barroso, has offered France immediate assistance to the tune of EUR 50 million to help repair the damage caused by the riots in the country, which have gone on for many days now.
The money is to be earmarked for the creation of new jobs.
While I believe that President Barroso means well, I find it regrettable that neither Poland nor Slovakia has ever received such extraordinary sums of money for job creation, despite having the highest levels of unemployment in the European Union.
Mr Barroso has announced that France could ultimately receive an extra EUR 1 billion for this purpose.
Should Poland and Slovakia, or the other new EU Member States, organise riots on a similar scale in order to ensure that they receive comparable funding for job creation? The other possibility, of course, is that this is yet another example of the way in which the European Union is divided into a first-class and better-off Europe, which receives more subsidies, and a second-class and worse-off Europe, which receives fewer.
The way I see it, President Barroso is effectively encouraging Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and the Baltic States to instigate such riots as a way of gaining additional funding from Brussels.
   In its Accession Treaty, the Slovak Republic made a commitment to decommissioning – and I stress the word ‘decommissioning’ – two reactors of the V1 nuclear power plant at Jaslovske Bohunice.
This will lead to a 19% drop in electricity production for the Slovak economy which will affect other sectors of the economy as well.
To help Slovakia in coping with this demanding task, the European Union promised to provide adequate financial assistance.
For the 2007-2013 budget period, the Commission proposed a contribution of EUR 237 million.
Decommissioning costs were calculated on the basis of data from 2000, according to which the actual costs were expected to reach EUR 750 million.
The EUR 237 million proposed by the Commission, in addition to the EUR 180 million that has already been paid, represents less than one third of the actual costs.
I would urge my esteemed colleagues to consider this matter carefully and to lend their support in voting for the sum of EUR 400 million proposed by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
   Mr President, there is an urgent need to guarantee constitutional rights to 18 305 citizens of the former Yugoslavia, who were unlawfully erased from the register of the inhabitants of the newly independent Slovenia in 1992.
I wish to report on the most unusual case of one of those ‘erased’ people, Mr Ali Berisha, a Roma from Kosovo, who came to Slovenia as a young man in 1985, and until 1991, was legally employed and had permanent residence there.
When he lost his rights of domicile in Slovenia, he settled in Germany, where he lived and worked for 12 years.
He married and had four children.
Owing to regularisation of the situation, the German authorities recently deported him to Kosovo, a country he left 20 years ago.
The family returned to Slovenia, from where the parents and four children are to be deported to Germany on 18 November.
I call on the Slovenian Government to restrain from executing the deportation decree on the Berisha family until such time as the Slovenian Court of Justice has ruled on the complaint.
   – On 15 May, a general election was held in Ethiopia.
One of the reasons why people cast their votes was that they trusted the international observers, which included the EU.
Since election day, massacres have taken place – on 8 June, for example – and yet the Ethiopian Prime Minister has been received by the G8 and took part in the Africa Commission.
Recently, on 1 November, there was dreadful violence and repression in Ethiopia and all opposition leaders were arrested.
At this very moment, there are tens of thousands of people in jail and dozens have died.
Even so, the Ethiopian Prime Minister has been received in Germany.
Mr President, on 13 July, Parliament adopted a very clear resolution on the situation in Ethiopia.
I call on you to write to the Ethiopian Government and European governments, drawing their attention to the fact that it is impossible to conduct ‘business as usual’ with a country that is under repression and in which elected opposition leaders are incarcerated.
   The next item is the report by Mihael Brejc, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the social dimension of globalisation (2005/2061(INI)) (A6-0308/2005).
   Mr President, thank you very much.
I should like to begin by saying that I much appreciated Commissioner Špidla’s speech in this Chamber today.
The greatest challenge we face in our common future is that of how we in Europe can help make globalisation a real opportunity for social progress in the developing countries.
I have just returned home from China, and let me tell you all that the Chinese are very concerned about the future of Europe.
I told those to whom I was talking in China that I too was very concerned.
I am concerned if we cannot stand united and work with the aim of making a contribution to the world that can maintain a balance.
I am concerned if we cannot stand united in the world in order to fight for social justice and social progress in the developing countries.
I am, moreover, concerned on behalf of India, Africa and China and on behalf of all the developing countries if we cannot stand together in order to keep to this objective, for if we cannot maintain the objective of greater social progress and justice, the whole world, including Europe, will lose out.
It is therefore crucial to strengthen basic workers’ rights, as agreed by the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalisation.
As draftsman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I entirely support this conclusion, and I know that my colleague Mr Christensen, who acted as PSE shadow rapporteur in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, also supports this conclusion.
I have focused on three main issues in my speech.
Firstly, we cannot promote greater flexibility without providing our workers and children and women with greater social protection in exchange.
Secondly, Europe must not compete in terms of social dumping. Europe must compete in terms of the best and not the worst.
Nor should Europe export social dumping. Thirdly, Europe must have a role as the world’s social conscience in relation to development, the environment and employees’ rights.
That is something I also know we agree with Mr Christensen about.
Tomorrow, I shall report on the views taken of the social growth programme of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
   Madam President, I am grateful to my friend Mr Mann for demonstrating that we are back in step once again.
The WTO’s sixth Ministerial Conference is due to be held in Hong Kong this December, and it will be yet another of the kind at which there will be no discussion of a ban on child labour, or of the abolition of forced labour, not to mention freedom of association or the right to set up trade unions.
The examples I have just given are core labour standards, and there can be no fair trade without them.
The Commission communication that we are discussing today sets out the things that the Community can do to make the globalisation process fairer for everyone, and, with that in mind, I would like to draw the House’s attention to a negotiating mandate for the 1999 WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle, which expressed the EU’s desire for a conference at ministerial level on the subjects of trade, employment and core labour standards.
At that time, the Commission – and it is the Members of the Commission that I would like to remind of this – undertook to hold such a conference in 2001.
If you, Members of the Commission, want to take action, then I suggest that you make a start by doing what you undertook to do years ago.
I expect of you no other than this, that you hold this conference at long last, for fair trade is more live an issue than ever, if – as you now should – you take the social dimension of globalisation seriously.
   – I am sorry for my colleague, however he is going to hear more about the socialist dimension, because that is what we want to see, that the people become the centre of attention.
In Malta, my fellow workers are going through disastrous changes.
Everyday they face a lack of work, and now, all of a sudden, we had the news that a factory employing eight hundred and fifty people to produce jeans is going to leave to start manufacturing outside the European Union.
This means that in a small country like ours, with the thrust of a knife, suddenly we have 0.5% of our workforce losing their jobs in one single day.
About two years ago these people had read in brochures that, if we entered the European Union, God willing, we would solve all the problems related to the challenge of globalisation, they promised them what they used to call a 'new spring'.
Maybe we were not so popular because we used to tell them the truth, that we had to work everyday in order to be competitive.
Now that we are members of the EU, though, we have to see that we put people before profits, that persons come before directives.
Some would say that this cannot be done because of our rules; in that case, Commissioner, we have to change the rules.
– The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission (O-0083/2005 B6-0333/2005) by Mr Chichester and Mrs Barsi-Pataky, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the digital switchover.
   .
Mr President, I believe that we have done well to instigate this debate, because what Mr Frattini has told us is slightly different from what was initially announced and because you will at least recognise that, if such mysteriously named places – black sites, salt mines containing ‘ghost prisoners’, etc. – do actually exist, then Article 6 of the Treaty and the Treaty itself would be given short shrift.
The debate is a first step.
I believe that you will be called on to take further steps as regards this issue.
Why? Because this is an extremely important issue.
It is a question of people who have allegedly been detained, without first having been tried, for an unspecified length of time and without any appeal whatsoever, and who are therefore in all likelihood subjected to torture and inhumane and degrading treatment.
We therefore have potential violations here of Articles 3, 5 and 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as potential violations of the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights.
The latest news is that two countries, one belonging to the European Union and the other in the process of joining the EU, are cited as having housed such centres.
I say ‘having’ housed, since these countries are today denying these acts of which they are accused and because the reports in question date back to 2002 and 2003.
What they are denying is taking place today could therefore be compatible with the facts presented in the reports, and particularly in the report by the Human Rights Watch, but the fact of recognising that the potential existence of such centres can constitute a violation of the Treaty on the European Union and Article 6 thereof calls for you to do more than just issue statements, Commissioner.
You say that you are leaving the matter in the hands of the Member States.
You say that you are going to examine closely the investigation expedited by the Council of Europe; I will tell you, by the way, that the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights has already decided to invite Mr Marty as soon as his work has been handed over.
You say that you are waiting to see what the United States itself decides on this issue and you have expressed your desire for investigations to be carried out at a technical level.
I, for my part, believe that all that is far from adequate.
Quite simply, Commissioner, you must expedite an investigation in order to shed light on this situation, which is detrimental to the foundations of the European Union and to its credibility on the international stage.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid that the denials referred to by Vice-President Frattini in relation to the countries involved are extremely formal and unconvincing.
In the top-secret CIA documents, which virtually the entire European press is currently discussing, the clandestine jails in Poland and Romania, referred to in the and , even have a name – ‘black sites’.
They are a sort of no-man’s land, beyond the law and beyond the right of habeas corpus.
If proven, these allegations are serious and present us with a difficult problem – the need to find the delicate balance between protecting citizens’ rights and combating terrorism.
I should like to underline a contradiction – the fact that shortly, in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Parliament will tackle the issue of data retention and will again attempt, with a great sense of responsibility, to find common legal and political ground to reconcile rights and emergency situations.
We need to protect the rights of citizens and to use all available means to combat terrorism, at the very time when we discover that European countries have become the CIA’s own back yard.
Mr Frattini, what is really serious is that we do not even have the right to be surprised.
Two years ago, as the current legal investigations – of which you are well aware – have shown, Community and non-Community citizens were kidnapped in European countries by the US secret services.
Once again, however, we appear to be turning a blind eye.
We have noted your final comment, namely that if the episodes we are discussing today were proven, they would constitute serious violations of Articles 6 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union.
That, I believe, is an important statement and one we would ask you to develop further, by launching an exhaustive and in-depth investigation into the events we have been discussing this evening.
   Mr President, we as Europeans must clarify whether CIA detention centres exist in Europe, how many there are and where they are located, etc.
As a citizen of the Balearic Islands I have a special interest in this.
The end does not justify the means.
We must defend our values.
We may be fighting terrorism, but we cannot do so with arms that are not democratic.
We understand why US organisations and institutions, including the CIA, are being closely protected, especially in Eastern Europe, where so much hope for change has been pinned on the United States.
However, not placing limits on the means we employ makes for a terrible contradiction, since democracy and transparency are fundamental to the maintenance of law and order and to democracy itself.
Human rights are applicable to all human beings, including terrorists and suspected terrorists.
I therefore call on the Commissioner to investigate this issue.
      Mr President, on 2 November an article by Dana Priest positing the existence of secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe was published in the .
I should like to make two points in this respect.
Such ‘secret CIA prisons’ operate outside of any judicial system.
I refer not only to that implemented by international institutions, but also to the US courts, civil and military alike.
This alone constitutes a violation of the fundamental democratic and liberal values upon which America, the European Union and the transatlantic alliance are founded.
There is a great deal of public opposition to secret CIA prisons and the interrogation methods used in detention centres for suspected terrorists.
This attitude is shared by many Republican politicians in the USA, as evidenced by Senator John McCain’s recent initiative to abolish the use of torture or methods akin to torture in such centres.
My second point relates to the possibility that secret CIA detention centres are located in EU Member States or in countries that will join the EU in the near future.
This state of affairs undermines the fundamental principles of the EU Treaties.
The European Union has every right to demand that its Member States, including my own country, Poland, take these accusations seriously, that they look into the matter again and that they investigate all the circumstances surrounding the landing in Poland of a CIA-owned Boeing carrying prisoners.
   .
Here we go again.
Another EU import tariff scheme has come unstuck: recently sugar, now bananas, and all for pan-EU harmony.
This scheme is hampered by the origins of Member States, many of whose former colonies produce bananas and whom they now rightly wish to assist.
Although complex, the three-tariff system helped, with the C quota reserved for ACP countries to export up to 750 000 tonnes annually to the EU at zero rate.
Hence the problem: because non-EU countries, especially Latin America, now want parity.
I suggest two solutions.
We can go to tariff only, as proposed for 2006.
In October 2004, EUR 230 per tonne was suggested, but that was too low for ACP and too high for dollar countries.
However a common tariff is set up, it will disadvantage ACP countries, causing loss of production and unemployment.
Already the Windward Isles report that 24 000 small producers have dropped to 7 000 under dollar-country pressure.
In many ACP countries bananas grow in terrain unsuitable for other crops, so unemployment grows massively.
Will these people migrate, some to Europe adding to our 20 million unemployed, or will they take to crops like cocaine that will grow on the former banana plantations?
I suggest an alternative solution based on the repeated statements that we are supposed to be in an EU which retains its individual Member State status.
Mr Barroso recently claimed that regulations might be cut.
Combine the two: ditch the banana import scheme and make individual Member States sort themselves out with their own arrangements.
After all, we are all grown-up democracies.
EU countries would buy on the open market or support their former colonies just as they wish, without repercussions on the world market.
The UK operated Commonwealth preference up to 1972 without great problems.
If that sounds a little nostalgic, well, why not? We owe these former colonies.
What is wrong with a little humanity in trying to maintain employment in the Third World? Rather that than the arid scratchings of the bureaucratic Brussels pen-pusher.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission on the ‘Reasons for the poor implementation of the Occupational Pensions Directive by Member States’, by Ieke van den Burg and Othmar Karas, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (O-0094/2005 B6-0338/2005).
   The next item is the presentation of the Court of Auditors’ annual report for 2004.
   .
Mr President, this debate is kick-starting the 2004 discharge procedure.
An initial cursory reading of the annual report tells us that the Commission has organised itself more effectively since the fall of the Santer Commission and since the start of the reform process.
The good news is that spending of the European budget has improved for the third year running.
The bad news is that, for the eleventh time in succession, the Court of Auditors has failed to issue a positive Statement of Assurance (DAS).
There is therefore no certainty about the reliability of the figures.
The reason is clear: the monitoring and control systems have either not yet been implemented, or they are ineffective, or the payments show up errors of significant importance.
We are talking about the agricultural and structural policy, as well as the internal and external policy, which involve more than 4/5 of the entire European budget of 105 billion.
A central problem in this connection is that 80 to 85% of the management and supervision is shared with the Member States.
The Finance Ministers refuse to accept their part of the responsibility in this respect, which is an absolute disgrace.
They want money from Brussels, but not the accountability that goes with it.
Once again, the annual report calls attention to the problem of export restitutions which account for EUR 3.6 billion, or 7.5% of the agricultural budget.
In terms of value, though, they account for 26% of the irregularities reported to the Commission.
The Member States should physically check 5% of the export restitution dossiers, but they fail miserably in that respect too.
I was pleased to see that point 4.30 and note 20 of the annual report contained the recommendation to have the inspection take place at the level of the final beneficiaries, and I quote: ‘such a reach would form a stronger and clearer chain in terms of accountability for CAP spending.’
That is why I would make another urgent plea to make the lists of final beneficiaries public.
That is precisely what Estonia, Denmark, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands did.
Flanders and Belgium, on the other hand, opted for mock transparency by lumping all the figures together, which made proper analysis impossible.
We can, however, learn a great deal from those tables in terms of anomalies in our agricultural policy.
For example, over the past five years, Philip Morris, the tobacco giant, has received EUR 6.5 million in the Netherlands for adding sugar to cigarettes.
Given the high sugar price at EU level, Philip Morris has been compensated for this.
Similarly, the KLM catering service received EUR 646 000, because it uses sugar, dairy products, vegetables and fruit on flights outside of the European Union.
They are considered as exports and are therefore eligible for export restitution aid.
Surely that is too crazy for words, but it is only the tip of the iceberg.
Europe, the European Union and the European agricultural policy will be acceptable to its citizens only if these excrescences are addressed.
I wish all rapporteurs in the discharge procedure, and particularly Mr Mulder, much success and I hope that in the next few months, we will be able to carry out our work effectively and issue sound discharge reports in the April part-session next year.
   The next item is the Commission Statement on the Legislative and Work Programme for 2006.
   Mr President, Mr Barroso, the Ceuta affair has come and gone, the Melilla affair has come and gone and now it is the suburbs that are on fire.
The worldwide media is asking questions and, as for us, what are we doing? Drafting a legislative programme.
To deal with what? Global warming, for example, which seems logical; when cars and schools are on fire, there is indeed a problem in terms of global warming and, therefore, in terms of respecting the Kyoto protocol.
Alongside Mrs Fischer-Boel, we could, moreover, do slightly more to destroy our agriculture, such as it is; Mr Mandelson would obtain an agreement in Hong Kong and, for our part, we would have slightly higher levels of unemployment.
Let us adopt a few more directives, and the mountain of legislation will end up rendering us quite powerless.
I would even go so far as to propose a title for Mr Barroso’s legislative programme: ‘Operation smoke and mirrors’, for the programme is a smoke screen, concealing nice ideas, but ones that only mask tragedies.
One final word, Mr Barroso: one Christmas day in the fifth century A.D., the Rhine froze over following a climate change.
Thousands of chariots of fire crossed the Rhine, and Rome was plundered.
Do you know what the Roman Senate was doing during that winter of 483? It was drafting a legislative programme.
– Mr Cohn-Bendit, please refrain from commenting.
   Mr President, even though I am somewhat taken aback by the Commission’s indulgence in this kind of denial, and the fact that it is – to all intents and purposes – completely ignoring the blatant warning emanating from the French and Dutch ‘no’ at the European referendums, 2006 will, above all, be the year of the definitive start of the accession negotiations between the Commission and Turkey, which is further proof not only of the Commission’s complete insensitivity to the democratic will of the majority of the Europeans, but also of its willingness to disregard own legal rules, the otherwise so sacred .
I am in any event curious to find out what tricks, lies and falsehoods will be peddled by the Commission, despite the prediction by the former Commissioner for Agriculture, Franz Fischler, that Turkey would, ultimately, be capable of being integrated into European agricultural policy after all, and that the costs would not be intolerable.
It will not stop us from reiterating that Turkey’s accession to the European Union is both untenable and undemocratic.
   Mr President, a year ago, President Barroso promised us during the Buttiglione case that he would make European fundamental rights a key priority. That is just as well, for that is also what the public expects.
Unfortunately, there is no trace of this promise in the work programme.
There may be a communication in 2006 about gender equality, which we welcome, but what about the other categories of discrimination?
What has become of horizontal anti-discrimination legislation? All citizens must be able to have their rights upheld before the court; if not, the EU anti-discrimination policy is not worth the paper it was written on.
Why, in fact, has the promised feasibility study into new Article 13 legislation not been included and what is the latest on the proposals requested by Parliament with regard to the free movement of married same-sex couples?
Will President Barroso’s Commission really promote fundamental rights? Will we get a real Union of values or will we not move beyond empty promises?
   Thank you, Mrs Gröner. I promise that, to the extent that it lies within the competence of the Bureau, we shall pass on this request immediately to the office of the Quaestors, in order to establish first of all whether this exhibition was officially authorised and to ascertain whether, given its contents, there are grounds for requesting its immediate removal.
   Mr President, I shall keep this very brief.
As what Mr Van Orden has described to the House is something that affects all the groups equally, I would like to give him my wholehearted backing and ask not only the Commission, but also the President of this House, to act at once to help secure these nurses and the Palestinian doctor their freedom at long last.
   Mr President, further to what Mrs Gröner has said, I would like to ask the Bureau not to exercise any kind of censorship, but rather to give us the opportunity to have a look at this exhibition – with which I am not familiar – and then take a majority decision tomorrow, as is customary in a democracy.
   As far as the last speech is concerned, I assure Mr Posselt that the Bureau has no intention whatever of exercising any form of censorship.
We merely have the duty of verifying, through the Quaestors, whether the practices and procedure for authorisations have been effectively complied with and if so, whether the initiative and the exhibition conform, in content, form and pictures, with the rules of Parliament and with the practices that we follow on every such occasion.
I imagine that the Quaestors will carry out this verification meticulously without transforming themselves into censors.
   .
Mr President, it is a special honour to present this report to you.
It is an own-initiative report, and, moreover, a very justified one in view of the fact that eel stocks in Europe have dwindled by 95%.
Even without a European constitution, we in the Committee on Fisheries can ensure that an own-initiative proposal such as the one before us now is translated into a directive.
I thank the Commission for having given this its prompt attention.
At the moment, a new directive has been tabled on the basis of this report and it shows that we in the Committee on Fisheries are given the opportunity to achieve decisive policy for European fisheries and to ensure that eel stocks remain steady, that the exports of glass eel to Central Asia are restricted and that control measures are put in place so that Member States can finally address this problem.
   We have voted against the three Daul reports.
True, they involve fewer alterations to existing regulations.
We wish, however, to emphasise our opposition on principle to common organisations of the markets in seeds, hops and wine.
The whole of the common agricultural policy is an absurd creation and must be abolished.
   . The adjustment of visa requirements for athletes taking part in the 2004 Athens Olympics to allow Greece to meet both its Schengen requirements and its obligations to respect the Olympic Charter proved a great success.
I am delighted to see this proposal to grant the same conditions to the athletes taking part in the 2006 winter olympics and the paralympics.
   . This report outlines the dramatic decline in European eel stocks.
This does not appear to be the result of over fishing but linked to environmental factors.
It is clearly important to know the precise cause be it pcbs, global warming or fish diseases.
We need this information not just so that action can be taken to protect eel stocks but because of the wider environmental concerns and problems this might highlight.
   Mr President, I have a request to give an oral explanation of vote on the Gargani report.
The criminal division of the French Court of Cassation, which more than ever is living up to its name, has committed what can only be described as an absolute abuse of authority.
The judgment delivered by the president, Mr Cotte, by the court reporter Mrs Caron, and by council members Mr Le Gall, Mr Pelletier, Mr Corneloup, Mrs Ponroy and Mrs Koering-Joulin, seriously and deliberately ignores Article 26 of the French constitution on parliamentary immunity by refusing to grant this immunity with regard to the illegal phone tapping committed against our former fellow Member Mr Marchiani.
It goes without saying that I make no comment on the background to the case.
By acting in this way, these judges have seriously and deliberately violated the Protocol of 8 April 1965 and the Act of 20 September 1976, both of which are international treaties that, in accordance with Article 55 of the French constitution, take precedence over Acts, even internal ones.
The judge’s shameless disregard for the law must be condemned as such and we hope that the unanimous resolution by Mr Gargani and the Committee on Legal Affairs will play a part in this.
   Mr President, I would like – if at all possible – to make an oral statement on the way I voted on the Brejc report.
It was we who created the political conditions that made globalisation possible in the first place; we did so by our constant dismantling of trade barriers, combined with the advance of communications technology and reduced transport costs.
Of all the goods transported around the world, one-third is accounted for by traffic between different workshops belonging to the same companies.
We have been zealous in using EU funds to support their transportation across Europe, which has had such adverse effects as damage to the environment and danger to people along the transit routes, and, while so doing, have culpably neglected small and medium-sized businesses, which are Europe’s real providers of work.
What I also regard as objectionable is that the Commission should set up a globalisation fund while seeking to curtail support for farmers, who are also affected by globalisation’s negative impact.
Globalisation will continue to have us by the throat for as long as we, by means of our support programmes, send far too much money up in smoke, make it inevitable that jobs will go elsewhere, fail to apply proper sanctions to those who refuse to play by the rules and turn a blind eye to its real causes.
It is for that reason that I voted against the Brejc report.
   Mr President, I shall be brief.
I voted against the Brejc report for the very reasons that some of my colleagues have outlined.
This House does not appear to read its own documents.
The common agricultural policy has been radically reformed, and this morning’s vote basically gives truth to the lie that if we reduced all EU agriculture subsidies the poor in Africa would be better off.
Nothing could be further from the truth, and I have therefore voted against this report.
   .
The People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) delegation felt that it had to vote against the amended Brejc report concerning the social dimension of globalisation.
One amendment adopted, tabled by the Confederal Group of the European United Left, urges the Commission and the Council to promote a social policy agenda at European level.
The VVD takes the view that social policy is something that falls within the remit of Member States.
The Dutch referendum on the Constitutional Treaty was further proof that interference from Brussels is not wanted.
Furthermore, an amendment by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has been adopted in which a case is made in favour of the EU promoting socially responsible entrepreneurship.
The VVD is convinced that this can be done far more effectively through the market, and EU action in this respect is totally unnecessary and, indeed, unwanted.
   . There are two possible approaches to the issue of globalisation.
One is that it is an avoidable (and unwanted) reality, that if the workers of the 19th century had been more successful in their protests there would not have been industrialisation (which would have been a good thing), and that technological innovation is inherently a bad thing.
The other, more realistic, approach is based on knowledge of history and an awareness of the responsibilities of each generation, and consists of making the most of the opportunities that globalisation brings.
Globalisation is neither a good nor a bad thing in itself; it is a reality that can be used to positive or detrimental effect.
In free and democratic societies such as ours, in which economic freedom prevails, the conditions are in place for globalisation to become an opportunity for worldwide growth and development; and not just an opportunity but a duty.
This is the spirit in which globalisation should be approached.
   . I fully support this report.
The impact of globalisation has positive and negative consequences.
We cannot forget the 20 million people unemployed in the EU at the moment, nor the fact that one in five children in the EU lives on the brink of poverty.
We have a responsibility in this House to deal with these issues.
   I believe that Mr Wojciechowski wishes to speak in response to personal comments.
      Mr President, I am absolutely outraged at an incident that occurred in connection with the exhibition.
I am deeply offended by the comments of both Members, and in particular by those of Mrs Gomes, who called myself and Mr Chruszcz ‘Nazis’ and ‘fascists’.
Such a thing should not be tolerated or permitted in this House.
My family was murdered by the Nazis in my home country, and I object to such comments being made in my direction.
I understand Mrs Gomes’ point of view, but I must insist that comments of this kind should not be made in Parliament, whether they are directed at myself or at any other Member.
This holds particularly true in situations like the exhibition.
There really should be no question of such a thing happening.
   Thank you, Mr Wojciechowski, you have spoken in accordance with Rule 122 and your comments will be recorded in the Minutes.
   Mr President, I have just a small point of order to raise. It has previously been the custom of this House that rapporteurs present the positions of their committees.
As Mr Sacconi is in fact the rapporteur for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, I would have been glad if what he said had reflected that committee’s attitude.
I would ask you in future to indicate from the Chair whether speeches are made in a personal capacity or in the capacity of rapporteur.
   .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that the environment and the protection of the consumer stand to gain if this REACH law is adopted is not a matter of doubt. If it is, then we will, within eleven years, be in possession of knowledge and information that we have not been able to collect before on some 30 000 substances used by European businesses.
That is what makes this such a crucial leap forward.
What brings it about is the fact that we will, in future, be transferring to businesses the responsibility for obtaining information and carrying out tests, along with the costs incurred in doing so.
Businesses will be responsible for the safe handling of the substances that they produce and with which they have dealings.
That is the crucial change over against the law as it was before, and I think it has to be mentioned that it involves considerable costs, for these tests cost money – up to EUR 200 000!
Businesses would in future be required to bear these costs themselves in the interests of the environment and consumer protection, and that means that we have to give some thought to what effect this would have on competitiveness.
Reference has already been made to the compromise that Mr Sacconi and I have been able to hammer out, and to which our respective groups have been good enough to give their approval.
It makes the requirement for data in the range between one and one hundred tonnes, which is of particular importance for small and medium-sized enterprises, more dependent on the potential risk from a substance, rather than only on the quantity in which it is produced.
That is a vitally important development for small and medium-sized producers and users; I am very pleased indeed that we have been able to achieve it, and it does of course have our unconditional backing.
We have tabled old amendments only against the possible eventuality of our not getting a majority for it.
It has to be said, though, that this compromise relates only to registration, which is the most important part of REACH, and certainly not to the whole thing.
Matters relating to authorisation and scope are still outstanding, and I hope we will manage to come to an agreement on them too.
   Mr President, I wanted to point out that Mrs Hassi was not presenting the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, but solely her own personal opinion, on which it was not possible for a majority to vote.
   . Mr President, let us review REACH calmly, being careful to avoid both naïve green optimism and industrial pessimism.
Chemistry is neither left-wing nor right-wing.
It is an indispensable element of the universe.
Certain chemical compounds are harmful to humans, whether they occur naturally or are man-made.
The most basic prudence demands a cautious approach to new chemical substances.
I prefer prudence to the precautionary principle, which is too frequently used to evade all responsibility.
According to the publications of organisations such as Greenpeace, the truly dangerous substances are already known, because they are condemned day in, day out.
Why, therefore, do we want to make REACH a cumbersome, bureaucratic system; why do we not concentrate on attacking the extremely worrying carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic and bioaccumulative substances? For all of these substances, the substitution principle is a necessity.
The compromises drawn up by Mr Sacconi safeguard this objective.
The flexibility condemned by some will still involve the responsibility of the European Chemicals Agency, whose powers will be extended.
It is not giving in to the industrial lobbies to want to take account of the legitimate interests of SMEs and to limit expensive and often useless tests.
Hence the need for the principle of ‘one substance, one registration’.
The language of chemistry is universal, and each chemical formula is unique.
Protection of the environment and protection of health remain prime objectives.
However, whatever the fear merchants may claim, the natural environment in Europe is constantly improving and, each year, the life expectancy of Europeans increases by, on average, three months.
Humans are, nevertheless, mortal.
It is therefore wrong to claim that a stricter REACH system will save thousands of lives and create, so to speak, immortality.
REACH is necessary, if only for the benefit of workers in the sector.
It is a matter of protecting not only their health but also their jobs.
The European chemical industry is the best in the world.
The preservation of a competitive European chemicals sector remains an honourable objective, even though we need to remind the industrial lobbies that cleaner production procedures and non-problematic products would constitute a real competitive advantage on the global market.
Faced with often extreme claims, our rapporteur, with the help of others, has been able to strike a balance between the imperatives of health, the environment and the economy.
Even those who will not vote for the compromises proposed by Mr Sacconi cannot fail to recognise that Europe is in the process of developing, on the subject of chemistry, the most progressive and most ambitious legislation in the world.
   Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Sacconi for his work on REACH and for the compromises that, with our help, he has brought about on the subjects of authorisation etc.
The attacks on REACH by Mr Nassauer, Mr Schulz, Mr Poettering and Mrs Ek are, however, a policy of appeasement of the German chemicals industry, which destroys the environment and public health and makes things impossible for workers and all small enterprises that want actually to know about the effects of the chemicals they are buying and about their consequences for us.
As long as four years ago, the European Parliament, through Mrs Schörling’s report, demanded that REACH be couched in stronger terms.
For a year, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has worked in an efficient and balanced way with a view to protecting public interests, health and the environment.
Now, the whole of Parliament appears to be hypnotised by the German chemical industry’s lobbying ploy, with Mr Nassauer as the first wielder of the magic wand.
How can you in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats defend the Nassauer compromise’s attack on small enterprises whereby data is not fully shared with them and whereby they have an extra five years in which to pay for information available to the large companies? How can you defend no longer having the registration fee dependent on volume and justify the lack of clarity there now is in connection with costs?
You should snap out of the spell you are under and vote in favour of the alternative compromise.
How can you in the Socialist Group in the European Parliament defend the way in which the testing of low volume chemicals has been hugely undermined? How can you defend woolly criteria according to which high volume chemicals too can be exempted from tests designed to detect cancer risks?
How are we to protect workers when we have no information and no clear requirements governing the working environment?
Stop being so bewitched and vote against Mr Nassauer and in favour of the alternative compromise.
As for you Liberals, you should break the spell and stand up for a liberal policy.
Allow consumers the opportunity and the knowledge to vote hazardous chemicals out of existence.
Vote against the Nassauer compromise and the way it undermines consumer protection.
It is in danger of making guinea pigs of us all by removing the explicit protection that exists against consumers being exposed to research chemicals.
Moreover, the compromise bases consumer protection on risk assessment being required to be carried out using available data, but it was precisely this lack of data that REACH was supposed to remedy.
That does not constitute your compromise.
I would therefore ask you to break the spell of the German chemical industry’s misleading siren calls concerning growth.
If REACH is undermined, all that will grow are cancerous tumours in our citizens.
It would take me an hour to list all the organisations that want to see REACH couched in stronger terms.
You should, emphatically, listen to them.
You will only be given the opportunity to vote in favour of a stronger REACH if you vote against the Nassauer compromise and in favour of the alternative proposal.
   Before I continue, I would like to point out that Rule 145 of the Rules of Procedure concerning personal statements enables Members whose names are mentioned in the speeches to request the floor, which would be granted to them at the end of the debate.
If everyone mentions Mr Nassauer’s name, it is clear that at the end of the debate he could ask to make dozens of personal statements.
   Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to pay tribute to the painstaking work undertaken by the rapporteur Mr Sacconi in preparing this report.
As a doctor, I am aware of the considerable rise in the incidence of serious diseases recorded over the last decade, much of which is due to the hazardous use of chemicals.
Often, however, problems arise from a failure on the part of manufacturers to provide information concerning the effects of chemicals.
It is important to realise that the REACH directive is not only about the conflict between the chemical industry and the environment, but also about the competition between large corporations and small to medium-sized enterprises in the chemical sector.
I welcome the fact that the REACH directive will ban some substances and have them replaced by less dangerous substitutes.
However, most of the chemical substances mentioned in the report will not be eliminated from the environment.
I hope that people will be directly informed, on the basis of tests, of the dangers they pose.
Needless to say, I am also thankful for the fact that people will be more careful when handling such substances.
I do, however, have one serious reservation regarding a kind of discrimination against the ten new Member States.
These states have been party to the discussions on the REACH directive for only one year, as a result of which their level of readiness is lower than that of the EU-15, which have been discussing the issue for three years.
The Slovak Republic supports and recommends the approval of the ‘one substance, one registration’ system because it contributes to reducing overall testing costs and eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy.
Since the objective of REACH is to reduce the risks posed by chemical substances while avoiding price increases in final products brought about by high testing costs, I believe that it would be appropriate also to standardise testing charges, due account being taken of the weaker economies of the new Member States.
   Mr President, many in my group have highlighted the enormous weaknesses in the Sacconi-Nassauer compromise in terms of health and the environment and of course I agree with them.
However, I want to focus on the additional weaknesses of that compromise from an animal welfare perspective.
Concerning data sharing, for example, the compromise provides far too many loopholes.
While groups of companies would be permitted to bring forward a single registration, separate registrations would still be allowed, making it much more likely that repeat animal tests will take place.
The proposal would allow data over ten years old to be freely shared, reducing if not eliminating the possibility that repeat tests would take place.
The compromise, by contrast, only allows data over 15 years old to be shared, again increasing the likelihood that repeat tests would be undertaken.
This is completely unacceptable since, as well as being extremely cruel, animal testing is crude and inefficient.
The problems of extrapolating test results from animals to people and from laboratory doses to real life are now well documented.
Just last week an article in the scientific journal described regulatory animal testing as being ‘stuck in a timewarp, largely based on wasteful and poorly predictive animal experiments’.
That is why I tabled amendments to Annexes V to VIII of REACH.
Many of these were adopted in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, a move that has already helped to increase the pressure on the Commission and industry to push for further work on non-animal tests.
However, if we are to seek a better approach we must not let this opportunity to force greater scrutiny of animal tests to pass us by.
We must challenge conventional assumptions about animal test methods and scrutinise test methods with as much rigour as we scrutinise other aspects of this proposed new chemicals policy, because exposing animal tests to scrutiny will prompt the kind of debate we cannot afford to ignore.
If we ignore it, then REACH and all future chemicals regulation will be tied to test methods that deserve only to be consigned to history.
Lord Bach said that the vote on REACH is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
I agree and that is why it is so important we get it right.
   – Mr President, when we come to vote on REACH, we do so at the end of a debate that has lasted almost two years and was, at its outset, conducted along strongly ideological lines.
I say that with reference not only to the previous Environment Commissioner’s inglorious sensationalism, but also to some of the views emanating from the Greens today.
They need to be told, gently, that there is more to politics than the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, that there is more to Parliament than the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, and that there is more to the European Union than Scandinavia.
I would like to say that I agree with Mrs Mann in so far as we, in this House, are working in Europe’s interest.
I assume that that is what my fellow Members from other countries are doing and would claim that for myself.
It has to be said, though, that ideology was initially introduced into the debate by the business world as much as by anyone else, for there were many in it who felt obliged to prophesy that REACH would be industry’s downfall, exaggerated though that certainly was.
The debate has since become more rational, and it was indeed necessary that it should.
In particular, I would like to thank Mr Nassauer and Mr Sacconi for having managed this difficult dossier really well.
It must be abundantly clear to us that most small and medium-sized businesses, in particular those at the end of the production chain, will be significantly overstretched if the legal requirements are not simplified, if they get no outside support – which will be expensive, if the means of implementation are not practicable, and if the Commission draft remains in its original form.
That is why we support ‘Objection!’, a European alliance of SMEs, which has taken an active part in the debate and demonstrated in practical terms what REACH will really mean at grass-roots level.
Even now, the legislation we pump out of Brussels has become so complex that it is often beyond the capacity of SMEs to handle it.
It follows, then, that if we do not succeed, in the course of implementing REACH, in making the information and assessment processes less complex, the existing transposition deficit will become all the greater, and that really is not in the interests of anyone in this House.
In moving over to an approach to registration that focuses more on risk, the compromise proposal accomplishes a necessary paradigm shift, and rightly too, for that is where the crucial weakness is to be found in the Commission’s draft.
The fact is that this would give cause to fear that requiring data without reference to risk would result in substances being lost to the market solely for reasons of cost.
Were that to happen, REACH would not only have failed to achieve an essential objective, but would also have weakened European industry’s capacity for innovation.
So let us get serious, let us have better regulation, let us be discerning in adopting REACH.
I might add that I believe that we should be conducting this debate in Brussels rather than in Strasbourg.
   Mr President, the draft REACH regulation would lose its bite if it were watered down in any way, shape or form.
The misguided compromise hammered out between Mr Schulz and Mr Poettering is nothing less than a wish come true for the German chemical industry.
Industry would win the day, while the environment and consumer protection would lose out.
The compromise would be the final nail in the coffin for this reform of chemicals policy.
We need a hard-hitting REACH and the equivalent of an MOT for chemicals, and we must not consent to companies being rewarded for their failure to provide information or for their lack of transparency.
Surely it cannot be right that of the 30 000 substances that the regulation was originally intended to cover, only 12 000 are left.
This would represent a complete abandonment of the fundamental principle underpinning REACH, namely that no substance may be marketed unless safety data is available.
One of the mainstays of REACH is the reversal of the burden of proof, yet there are those in this House who even want to do away with this idea.
I would call on Members to free themselves from the clutches of the German chemical industry, and to avoid setting yet another precedent that would mean that we would be treated in future as a carbon copy of the grand coalition in Berlin.
Without a hard-hitting REACH, people will become guinea pigs for untested chemicals, and the principle of flying blind, guided only by ignorance, would be enshrined in law.
Without REACH, the risk of cancer and the incidence of environmental illnesses will increase.
I would therefore call on you to voice your support for a hard-hitting REACH.
Industry must not be left to decide for itself what data it does and does not provide.
It is a curious fact that all those Members of the House who have claimed to be acting out of concern for small and medium-sized enterprises have tabled amendments that would make matters worse for these latter.
      As a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, and in particular as a doctor, I should like to voice my support for a hard-hitting version of the new REACH regulation on chemical substances.
During my time as a doctor, I have seen many cases of illness caused by chemical substances, and I am well aware of the fact that such substances have become so widespread that they are to be found in our children as well as in cleaning products.
A great many of them also still need to be tested in order to ascertain the effect they may have in the future on humans or on the environment.
In my opinion, the amendment seeking to ensure that industry would not have to provide information on small-volume substances undermines the very essence of REACH.
As rapporteur on the Framework Directive on Health and Safety at Work (89/391/EEC), I believe we must adopt a hard-hitting version of REACH if we are to implement this Directive in practice.
I am quite sure that we will not improve people’s health by means of a REACH that has lost its bite.
   Mr President, it is regrettable that powerful forces in this Parliament are working hard to ensure that chemicals legislation is as watered down as possible.
REACH is a cross-border issue affecting both the environment and the internal market.
EU measures are thus justified.
I believe that the requirements to provide information about chemical substances in lower volumes must be strengthened.
If that is not done, much of the point of REACH will be lost.
I also support a strong substitution principle.
Sweden has already introduced this, and to a large degree it is operating well.
I believe that consumers should be entitled to information about the chemicals present in goods.
That is a precondition of consumers being able to make active and informed choices.
It is also important for us to make it clear that it is industry, and not the authorities, that must be responsible for evaluating the registered chemicals and assessing the risks they may present.
There is no contradiction between a REACH couched in strong terms and an efficient market.
Taking a lead on this issue will mean a competitive advantage in the long term.
Hence, I shall vote against the compromise proposal devised by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe.
   Mr President, it is unacceptable that, in our relatively enlightened times, we permit a huge number of chemical substances in our environment, without having registered them and without being aware of their harmful effects.
It is unacceptable that we have no clear rules for replacing dangerous substances with less dangerous ones.
We are in a situation in which this Parliament is divided, and the whole complicated proposal constituted by REACH could collapse into nothing.
I belong to a party that would like to have seen action taken on the basis of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety’s position, as it stood before the compromises that have now been entered into.
We must note with regret that there is no majority in favour of the original proposal by the Committee on the Environment.
Negotiations regarding a compromise have, however, been conducted in a truly democratic way.
I do not believe that REACH is the last piece of legislation we shall adopt in this area because we are always acquiring new knowledge about the need to protect our planet’s environment.
The proposal now acceptable to Parliament’s large groups represents clear progress, however, and is far better than the present lack of clear legislation.
I am therefore able to support the compromise proposal.
   Mr President, very seldom in the history of this Parliament has there been such a high level of interest in our legislative work.
Quite rightly so, because this legislation, along with the other points mentioned in this debate, provides us with a tremendous opportunity to lead the world in the regulation and authorisations of chemicals, and to influence what goes on not only within the European Union, but also beyond our borders with other chemical producers across the world.
This is something that we need to take seriously because we really can have an impact.
That is why it is so important to support the Sacconi-Nassauer compromise and ensure the passage of this legislation through Parliament, so that we can improve human health and the environment across the world, while at the same time maintaining our own industrial competitiveness.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the forces opposing REACH demonstrate a sheer obstinacy that can be defined as anti-European.
They are the forces of the uncontrolled market, of deregulation and of profits that speculate with public health and the environment.
All these forces represent negative values that go against the underlying principles of a Europe harmonised in respect of social and environmental issues.
Frankly, we do not have a high regard for Mr Barroso’s conduct.
We think that a firm and decisive response to these forces is called for.
For this reason we did not share, and we strongly criticise, the bad compromises that have been reached: they run the risk of gravely weakening REACH, without even resisting the forces that would like to kill it off.
We are therefore – with the consent, in my view, of the vast majority who at this time are trying to ensure that this Parliament passes the best laws possible – retabling all the texts that are necessary for a strong REACH regulation, that is to say one that will be of genuine service to a modern Europe.
   Mr President, buried deep in the committee opinions attached to the Sacconi report we find a slim contribution from the Committee on Budgets showing funding forecasts for the proposed European Chemicals Agency.
Those forecasts appear as an admirably clear table covering the years 2006 to 2016 and allowing for EUR 78 million of taxpayers’ money over this period to support the Agency.
Curiously, this amount is spread very unevenly over the ten years in question with most of it, more than EUR 50 million, concentrated in 2014 and 2015.
Even curiouser, no one on the Budgets Committee, including the chairman, seems to know anything about these figures, even though they appear in the Budgets Committee’s opinion.
Why is this? And why is the Agency expected to use two-thirds of its ten-year budget in only two years of the next decade?
   Mr President, like most of the speakers before me, I very much welcome REACH, which should guarantee that the substances we use in daily life do not present risks to human health and the environment. The authorisation of a harmful substance must, in my view, be an essential stage in the regulation.
How is the product used? How can it be identified?
How can we prevent its use by an unsuspecting public? How, too, can we draw up a study plan with a view to the substitution of a dangerous substance?
REACH must also extend knowledge on chemicals by forming a European database and stimulate innovation by encouraging the substitution of substances of concern.
REACH will be a good regulation if, based on the knowledge and expertise of the chemical industries, it gives rise to new technologies, new substances and new businesses.
We will have succeeded if we adopt a proportionate, simple, effective system that is practicable for business.
We will have succeeded if, on Thursday, we adopt a balanced text that enables businesses to retain their leading position at a global level and that protects the health of people and the environment.
   Mr President, in exactly two days’ time, Parliament will have a golden opportunity to reconcile Europeans with Europe by adopting this ambitious REACH directive, which really will protect our health and our environment.
The choice is therefore simple: either we turn our backs on the concerns of the citizens by giving in to the wails of a certain industry or by voting in a traditional left-right split that is completely obsolete here, or the European Parliament transforms the draft produced by its Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety into a strong REACH project able to carry the hopes of the citizens and of the many innovators in the industry who have placed their bets on clean chemistry.
We therefore need an ambitious REACH, which will make it possible to stem the increase in the incidence of cancer and other diseases, as two million doctors in Europe are demanding, and which will also protect the millions of workers exposed every day.
With an extra-small registration system and an extra-large opt-out from the OSOR, in other words with the maximum opportunities to evade a system of ‘one substance – one registration’, how can you talk today, Mr Sacconi, Mr Verheugen, about an ambitious compromise? Myself, I call that a defeat.
I hope that, on Thursday, our Parliament will take the modern risk of combining health and sustainable employment instead of futilely continuing to set them up in opposition to each other.
I will conclude, if I may, Mr President, with a brief, friendly response to Mr Goebbels: I, as a liberal, do not feel particularly ‘green’ for making this choice, which is neither left-wing nor right-wing, but is a bet on the future.
   Mr President, I should first of all like to express my warm appreciation and thanks to Mr Sacconi who has, I think, done an excellent job.
The REACH proposal means that 30 000 substances must be tested.
As such, it is a source of innovation, but also of simplification.
Since 40 directives will be withdrawn when REACH enters into effect, it will benefit both the environment and innovation.
There are many fine amendments to make REACH more workable and less expensive, and to restrict the number of animal tests, but there are, unfortunately, still quite a few companies that are opposed to innovation and prefer to wallow in the unknown and do not feel like searching for safer and cleaner alternatives.
Quite frankly, I think it is rather disappointing that they receive a good deal of political support.
We all took up the challenge of Lisbon.
Innovation is at the heart of European industry’s strong competitive position.
Without continuing innovation to make products cleaner, safer and healthier, the European industry will end up losing out to China, India and the United States.
The Dutch Social Democrats cannot back the compromise that is now before us.
It represents a huge setback, if instead of 30 000 substances, only 8 000 are subjected to the full test regime of REACH, for then the uncertainty among consumers will remain, and the risk of allergies, cancer, and illnesses contracted at work will be perpetuated unnecessarily and potentially toxic substances will remain in the environment.
Last but not least, with this, an incentive for continuing innovation in European industry is also being thrown overboard.
   Mr President, just like other speakers, I welcome the fact that we are obtaining stricter legislation in this area.
It is curious – to put it mildly – that this area has been so relatively free from rules for such a long period.
We are aware of the risks presented by chemicals.
Each time we have come up against a serious problem, for example PCBs, DDT or CFCs – we have been taken completely by surprise.
A very great deal of harm has been caused.
We must therefore have a significantly more cautious approach.
Companies must obviously accept responsibility both for providing information and for replacing hazardous substances by less hazardous ones, when such exist.
I wish to emphasise that the substitution principle has operated well in Sweden for almost 15 years.
I believe that this principle needs to form part of the new legislation.
I hope that as many colleagues as possible, including in my own group, agree with me on this point.
The debate about REACH has been complicated.
It is said that the devil is in the detailsIn few areas is that more apposite than in this particular one.
There are masses of difficult details of which many Members do not have a good grasp, and this has made it that much more difficult to arrive at constructive solutions.
The eleventh-hour compromise reached on the subject of registration is not perfect.
It deviates in several respects from the line I myself would ideally have chosen.
In the light of the requirements and of what the alternative might be – that is to say, a policy in which the main responsibility for gathering information were imposed on the chemicals authority, I must, in spite of everything, take a positive view of the compromise.
I repeat that I am not satisfied, but the most important thing of all must, for all that, be for us to obtain a policy in this area that we can work with so that, step by step, we can put some order into the chemicals jungle.
I want finally to congratulate Mr Sacconi, who I think has done some excellent work over a very long period under complex conditions.
   Mr President, I should like to thank the House for the serious debate that has taken place.
I find it intolerable that an exhibition being held on Parliament’s premises should include an image of Mr Verheugen poisoning a child while Mr Barroso looks on, and I would call on the Conference of Presidents to remove this poster from Parliament without delay.
The Commission can accept in full all the amendments of the PPE-DE/PSE/ALDE compromise package on registration, including the amendment on OSOR; these are amendments 367 to 413 (inclusive).
The Commission can also accept in full the following amendments: 40, 73, 74, 79, 117, 119, 125, 128, 148, 158, 273, 276, 291, 292, 317 and 324.
The Commission can partially accept amendments 10, 322, 327, 333, 335, 336, 340, 345 and 347.
The Commission can accept in principle amendments 4, 8, 11, 14, 16, 18, 21, 26, 34, 36, 39, 50, 59, 60 61, 62, 63, 64, 67, 68, 72, 76, 78, 81, 83, 87, 97, 101, 102, 104, 105, 107, 108, 115, 116, 120, 121, 123, 124, 126, 139, 140, 145, 146, 147, 149, 159, 171, 172, 175, 176, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 193, 202, 203, 204, 205, 207, 208, 209, 211, 213, 215, 217, 220, 221, 235, 236, 248, 249, 259, 265, 270, 277, 278, 286, 293, 297, 299, 300, 301, 302, 306, 308, 310 and 323.
The Commission can accept in principle and in part amendments No. 19, 20, 41, 53, 65, 88, 89, 103, 122, 130, 132, 141, 142, 144, 157, 158, 161, 163, 180, 181, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 210, 285, 290 and 294.
The Commission cannot accept amendments 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 15, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 35, 37, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 52, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 66, 69, 70, 71, 75, 77, 80, 82, 84, 85, 86, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 106, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 118, 129, 131, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 143, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 160, 162, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 173, 174, 177, 178, 179, 182, 189, 206, 212, 214, 216, 218, 219, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255, 256, 257, 260, 261, 262, 263, 264, 266, 267, 268, 269, 271, 272, 274, 275, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 287, 288, 289, 295, 296, 298, 303, 304, 305, 307, 309, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 318, 319, 320, 321, 325, 326, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 334, 337, 338, 339, 341, 342, 343, 344, 346, 348, 350 and 351.
The Commission reserves its position on two linguistic amendments, namely amendments 127 and 165.
The Commission also reserves its position on all those amendments tabled on 9 November with the exception of those of the PPE-DE/PSE/ALDE compromise package as mentioned before.
These are amendments 352 to 366 (inclusive) and amendments 414 to 1038.
The Commission position will be made available after the vote on all those amendments which are adopted.
The Commission cannot accept any of the four amendments tabled to the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 67/548/EEC in order to adapt it to Regulation (EC) of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals.
These are Amendments 1 to 4.
    The next item is the oral question to the Council (O-0093/2005 – B6-0337/2005) by Mr Leinen and Mr Lewandowski, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the draft interinstitutional agreement on the operating framework for the European regulatory agencies.
      Mr President, the first European regulatory agencies were set up in the 1990s, in response to developments in EU policy, consecutive enlargements and the European Union’s resulting new technical and scientific needs.
The White Paper on European Governance states that the European regulatory agencies help to implement and apply Community principles effectively, and that the role they play and the checks they carry out are of considerable significance in political and institutional terms.
Nevertheless, there are currently 23 decentralised agencies, compared to 5 in 1995, and this steady rise in numbers is alarming in view of the fact that there is no common procedural framework.
Citizens find the proliferation of agency names, remits, structures and control mechanisms hard to grasp, and the situation is not conducive to legal certainty.
The 2004 annual report of the European Court of Auditors highlights the agencies’ shortcomings with regard to their adherence to budgetary principles, their recruitment of staff and their public procurement procedures.
In view of the fact that these agencies place an ever greater burden on the EU budget, a thorough analysis of the financial impact of each new agency’s activities should be mandatory.
In order to ensure that the EU of 25 Member States functions properly, more transparency and cohesion are needed in order to avoid the establishment of ever more diverse agencies, many of which would duplicate the responsibilities and activities of the relevant Commission services.
In this context, the draft agreement between the Commission, Parliament and the Council, setting out common guidelines and a framework for the establishment of new regulatory agencies, deserves our full support.
I find it impossible to understand why the Council has previously shown no sign of any political will to start negotiations on this agreement, although it is becoming apparent today that things may be changing.
   Madam President, I am glad that Question Time is being extended to 8 p.m. because it is all too easy for the time allotted to it to be reduced, as has happened so often in the past.
My point of order concerns my own question, No 69, which I tabled specifically because Mr Mandelson was scheduled to address the House and take questions this evening.
It is about the WTO, yet inexplicably it seems to have been listed as a general question.
Could you explain why?
   I have a question for Mr Mandelson on the same issue, so perhaps he might oblige and answer the question privately?
   That may well be one way of resolving the issue.
Failing that, I can only give you the same answer I have already given to Mr Martin.
In both the first and the second annual reports to the Council and the European Parliament (SEC(2004)0557 and SEC(2005)0839) on the activities of the Central Unit of Eurodac, the EU database on asylum-seekers, it was reported that this unit had registered a surprisingly high number of 'special searches'.
This is a category intended for the implementation of Article 18(2) et seq. of the Eurodac Regulation, i.e for data-protection purposes in order to safeguard the right of the data subject to access his or her own data.
However, these special searches have been made without the national supervisory authorities being able to confirm that these cases did indeed involve persons requesting access to their own data. What action has the Commission taken in order to find out the status of these special searches?
Has the Commission fulfilled its commitment to continue monitoring the application of the Eurodac Regulation in this respect? If so, what was the result?
   . First, I will pass on your concerns to Commissioner Frattini.
Second, the Commission has asked for further clarification from one Member State where a particularly high number of searches were noticed in a very short period of time.
You will understand that at this stage, without knowing the exact reasons for these numbers, I do not want to name and blame any particular Member States.
I repeat that, even if we are surprised by these numbers, there is no evidence at this stage that the Eurodac Regulation has been incorrectly applied.
   . President Ahtisaari has just started his work and is engaged in shuttle diplomacy in Belgrade, Pristina and with the international community.
Therefore, I would not like to jump the gun and predict the proposal of the UN envoy President Ahtisaari.
In my view it is better to let him work, let him consult with the different parties and then, when the time is right, try to achieve a solution with the necessary determination.
Therefore I do not think it wise to take a stand at this point on whether and in which format K-For should continue in Kosovo.
I want to say two things.
First of all it is necessary for there to be an international presence in the future too, as a security guarantee.
Second, we are starting our needs assessment work in regard to financing in Kosovo, so that we support the work of the international community and President Ahtisaari.
The FLEGT action programme to combat illegal logging focuses mainly on the legal aspects of logging, while largely neglecting sustainable forest management.
Yet legal logging in itself affords no guarantee whatsoever of sustainable development of the developing countries concerned, of any improvement in the social situation of local people or protection of biodiversity and the environment.
Does the Commission consider that, during the negotiations concerning partnerships under FLEGT, binding conditions should be agreed concerning development aspects (both social and environmental) in order to improve the living conditions of the local population, and is legality a basic precondition for access to the European market rather than an aim of FLEGT in its own right?
   . Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the EU action plan known as FLEGT – Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade – focuses solely on questions of legality and does not address the broader and more complex issues of the sustainable development of forestry.
There is a clear difference between the two: legal timber can be harvested in an unsustainable way, for example through authorised land clearance; and illegal timber can come from sustainable sources, as in the case of timber harvested under indigenous management systems which are sustainable but do not comply with formal legal requirements.
In most countries, however, forest law is based on principles of sustainable development.
Accordingly, improved governance and better implementation of the law will lead to more sustainable forest management.
The partnership agreements to be concluded as part of the FLEGT action plan will also be a means of bringing together the parties concerned in order to address the broader aspects of governance in the forestry sector and, where applicable, to support the implementation of regulatory legislative reforms.
The Commission hopes that these procedures will help to improve the quality and fairness of the law and governance in the partner States.
In turn, I trust you will understand that, despite the importance attached to it, the issue of legality in the FLEGT action plan is not an end in itself but rather a means of working together with the partner States to improve governance in the forestry sector.
That being said, the EU’s FLEGT action plan is an initiative aimed at bringing about change through the commitment of the parties.
It is therefore not a good idea to impose strict social and environmental conditions on potential partners; conditions that are too strict would be detrimental to their commitment to the partnership agreements.
It is also true that, even though the EU’s FLEGT action plan places the emphasis on governance and legality, the Union remains determined to encourage sustainable forest management in developing countries.
In the past ten years, the EU has earmarked more than EUR 700 million for sustainable forest management in Asia, Central Africa and South America.
   Madam President, Commissioner, I thank you for your response and some of your observations.
Obviously, cooperation with those partnership countries can be a good thing, but we all know that nothing will prevent possible partnership countries, including China, for example, from importing timber into Europe illegally via third countries anyway.
Greenpeace reported very recently that it has discovered illegal networks extending from Congo-Brazzaville to Italy, from Papua New Guinea to China and then on to Great Britain.
My question is therefore how the Commission, and the Commissioner in particular, intends to put a stop to practices of that kind?
There has been a call to increase donor countries' overseas development aid (ODA) to 0.7% of their respective GDP.
This would make it possible to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by the agreed deadline of 2015.
For this to happen, national ODA needs to be increased in the following phases: a 'substantial increase' by 2006, 0.5% of GDP by 2009 and 0.7% of GDP by 2015.
In many countries, however, this percentage is calculated taking debt relief into account, meaning that no additional funding is provided, even though this funding is crucial to the achievement of the MDGs.
What other elements are included in the calculation of 0.7% and how can a standard calculation basis be established? How can Member States be made legally accountable in this regard?
   Commissioner, I note that you take it as read that we will achieve the interim goal in 2006.
I would therefore ask when you will be able to submit a report on this issue, and what the consequences will be for those countries that do not achieve this goal, since if we do not achieve the first goal we will make only slow progress in achieving the second.
What additional projects, by which I mean EU cofinanced projects, do you intend to propose to help countries achieve these goals, and what will their main emphasis be?
   Questions Nos 43 to 45 will be answered in writing(1).
Trade is a matter of exclusive EU competence. It is, therefore, essential that MEPs, as elected representatives, are able to give EU trade policy full democratic scrutiny.
The use of an unelected secretive committee, such as the Article 133 Committee which reports to the Council of Ministers, to formulate trade policy erodes the legitimate authority of MEPs to act on behalf of their constituents.
With suggestions that even the strongest supporters of the WTO's NAMA, like the UK Government, are having trouble in proving that ‘free’ trade will actually satisfy their rhetoric on both poverty and sustainability, and with criticism from the European Ombudsmen concerning the transparency of trade discussions and negotiations, what plans does the Commission have to improve public access to the WTO negotiations? In particular, is the Commission going to conduct, and report on the findings of, full impact assessments in all areas of NAMA, including sensitive areas such as fisheries and forests?
   Madam President, I also wish to thank Mr Mandelson for advocating free trade and speaking up for those industries that benefit from free trade.
In specific connection with this matter, I should like to know why the anti-dumping investigation also extends to include sports shoes, which have been exempt from Regulation 467/98 and, overall, have been exempt from all import restrictions for many years.
The kind of impression given is that the Commission has panicked at having been put under this pressure by forces in the EU that fear free competition.
Can the Commissioner confirm that this is not the case?
   Questions Nos 49 to 53 will be answered in writing(2).
   Mr President, it is probable that another three new Member States – Croatia, Romania and Bulgaria – will join the EU before the decade is out.
Croatia has already done an enormous amount of groundwork, and accession negotiations with this country could be the fastest in the history of enlargement, provided that both parties are willing.
Romania and Bulgaria still have a great deal of catching up to do in terms of justice and minority issues, with the latter above all a priority for Romania.
Our task in spring will be to decide on a final date for accession, and we will take a critical but objective and open approach to this task.
Turkey does not belong to Europe and never will.
Our aim is to offer this country a privileged partnership, but even then it would still need to meet the criteria.
I would like to invite Mr Rehn to comment on the Law on Religious Foundations, for it is our distinct impression that minorities in Turkey, most of which are Christian, continue to face enormous discrimination.
There are three priority problems for us to tackle in South-East Europe.
The first of these is the democratisation of Serbia, the second is constitutional and treaty reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the third is the issue of Kosovo’s status and its future independence.
While on the subject, I should like to tell Mr Pahor that I am very much in favour of the Slovenian President’s initiative, which I believe is a step in the right direction.
It goes without saying that all these problems can only be resolved in a wider European context.
If I may, I should like to put a question to the Commissioner in this connection; what does the European Union mean to us? Does it mean nothing more than a group of nation states that use the prospect of enlargement as a foreign policy tool to stabilise neighbouring nation states, or do we genuinely want a strong federal Europe that is capable of acting and in a position to assert itself on the global stage?
Since I believe that the latter should be the case, I should like to make it clear that I have always been in favour of enlargement, and continue to be today.
Yet we need a clearly defined period of consolidation, as well as a clear idea of the future institutional basis for this European Union of ours and of its future borders.
I should like to point out to the Commissioner that the two latter issues are of key importance in my opinion, since this is a debate that we have sidestepped to date.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, Mrs De Veyrac, ladies and gentlemen.
First of all, I would like to congratulate Mrs De Veyrac very sincerely on her report and on the end result of her work. You have demonstrated in this case how real commitment can lead to agreement, and we expect that in the case of this dossier, which is vital for air safety, it will be possible to reach agreement at first reading – a very welcome outcome indeed.
This is all the more remarkable given that this result has been achieved in a very short period, just three months. We have not only managed to reach agreement on this here in this House, but also, and this is the most remarkable thing, agreement has also been reached between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, which is very rarely possible in such a short time.
On the other hand, this makes it all the more regrettable that such an important dossier is once again being debated just before midnight. The probable reason for that is that we are not just dealing with run-of-the mill resolutions, no matter how important they may be, but with a law that will probably ensure that many human lives are spared in the future.
With regard to its content, this report deals with and improves upon some very important provisions regarding increased safety in the air transport sector, and goes well beyond the Commission proposal.
The key points needed to ensure greater safety for Europe’s air passengers are a single common list based on harmonised criteria combined with a flight ban for the airlines on that list, and of course comprehensive passenger information. The possibility of integrating airlines from third countries is also very important.
I am also delighted that we have succeeded in taking account of the rights of airline employees in the regulation.
The importance of this has been demonstrated by the case of the FlyAir pilot dismissed because of whistle blowing.
We have shown that by means of a European law we can effectively safeguard the interests of the public.
I hope that this will serve as a model for further legislative proposals.
   Mr President, I believe that this is a good agreement.
It achieves most of what the committee wanted.
It is also a good-news story, as Mr Twigg and Mr Smith said.
It shows the strength of the EU acting together, acting to protect the consumer and, as has been emphasised by several people, acting with speed. Sometimes, however, there will still be differences between Member States.
Airlines use different aircraft and different crews to fly to particular parts of the world.
These variations will mean that standards vary.
Indeed, opinion as to safety itself can vary, but this report sets benchmark standards.
I hope and believe that this is not the end of the matter. I expect that some countries will want to go further and set higher standards and that this will push standards even higher to protect consumers.
More and more people are flying.
I am told that some 30 million people in the UK – half the population – fly at least once a year. With the increasing use of the internet, they may not be aware of the carrier that they are allocated.
They may book with company A and find that it is actually company B operating the flight. If company B is blacklisted for safety reasons, then, as Mr Jarzembowski said earlier on, they will have the possibility of not flying.
No one at all, I suggest, will board a plane if it has been blacklisted.
They will have the option and they will not take the option of getting on a plane that has been blacklisted. That will push up standards; it will improve things for consumers; it is a good-news story.
I congratulate the rapporteur. We should be talking about it and explaining it, but not at eleven o’clock at night!
   The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow.
   .
It is a generally acknowledged fact that, under political pressure from the European Union during the accession negotiations, Slovakia agreed to the early closure of its nuclear power plant at Jaslovske Bohunice, despite the fact that after upgrading all its security systems, the installation now meets all safety standards. This fact has been confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The costs of upgrading alone came to EUR 250 million.
On the other hand, the European Union has undertaken to cover some of the costs. For the 2007-2013 period, the Commission has proposed a financial contribution of EUR 237 million, but this falls far short of the total costs calculated from the latest studies submitted by the Slovak Government.
The Commission based its calculation of decommissioning costs and the resulting size of its contribution on outdated and rather questionable methods, taking into account only the decommissioning process itself.
Based on the latest studies the total direct costs amount to EUR 1.3 billion, the indirect costs EUR 1.8 billion, and losses due to the cessation of energy generation EUR 1.5 billion, assuming a lifespan for the installation continuing up to 2015.
The overall cost, including loss of output, thus reaches EUR 4.6 billion.
Taking account of these facts, the parliamentary Committee on Industry, Research and Energy has proposed in its revised report to increase the EU's financial contribution for 2007-2013 to EUR 400 million. This proposal also represents a positive compromise for the Government of the Slovak Republic, which had requested financial assistance of around EUR 700 million.
I am well aware of the complexity of the situation surrounding the EU's failure to agree on a budget for 2007-2013.
The pressure for budgetary cuts from most Member States is strong and often legitimate. At the same time, Slovakia cannot put the safety of its population in jeopardy, and it needs sufficient financial resources to go ahead with safe decommissioning at the earliest date.
At a time of mounting crisis in the energy sector, coupled with increasing electricity consumption, the decision to push ahead with the early closure of a safe nuclear installation was perhaps lacking in foresight.
It will result in Slovakia losing 19% of its production capacity and most probably becoming dependent on electricity imports in the near future. There are those within Europe, however, who clearly regard this as a satisfactory outcome.
Everyone has to pay for their mistakes, but this time we will all have to pay. I hope that in the future lessons will be learned from such absurd mistakes.
      Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the problem we face with regard to the Bohunice nuclear power station is that a new Member State committed itself to shutting down what amounts to a vitally important source of energy for the country.
This power station has by no means come to the end of its useful life.
What is more, a great deal of money has been spent on modernising it, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that it meets the standards for similar nuclear plants of the same age.
It is common knowledge that Slovakia was under a certain amount of international pressure to commit itself to shutting down Bohunice, but the then government took as its guiding principle the goal of joining the EU.
The government now wants to make good on its commitment, even though this would be detrimental to the Slovak economy and would mean that the country would have to import energy at a time when energy prices are constantly rising.
I believe that we should back the conclusion reached by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and vote in favour of the proposed increase in EU funding to accompany a safe decommissioning of the Bohunice power station, in order to ensure that the Slovak economy remains competitive.
The people of Slovakia should not feel that they have effectively lost out as a result of joining the European Union and of complying with tough requirements that many believe to be somewhat unjustified.
   The issue of financing early closure of the Bohunice nuclear power plant is a key priority not only for the nuclear sector, but also for the entire energy policy of the Slovak Republic.
Slovakia is ready to meet its commitment set out in Protocol No. 9 to the EU Accession Treaty, despite the fact that it has invested EUR 250 million into modernising and improving safety at the Bohunice plant. This is in addition to the fact that, like several other EU countries, Slovakia has no important natural energy resources of its own, and the decommissioning of two units of this plant will significantly undermine its energy self-sufficiency.
Public opinion in Slovakia is currently against decommissioning the Bohunice installation.
People in Slovakia are very aware of the consequences of the energy crisis and related increases in electricity prices.
As a result of this, any denial of the request for more financial resources from the European Union would play into the hands of the opponents of decommissioning.
Backed up by the study that served as the basis for the discussions with the Commission, Slovakia has requested EUR 702 million, as against the EUR 237 million proposed by the Commission.
The European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and Energy has approved a compromise of EUR 400 million.
I would like to take this opportunity to request that all of you display solidarity with my country, and lend your support to the proposal of the Committee on Industry.
   Mr President, allow me to return for a moment to a deplorable incident that took place yesterday regarding the anti-abortion exhibition organised by our Polish fellow Members from the Independence and Democracy Group.
Mrs Gomes and myself were not only jostled, not only almost hit, but also called ‘fascists’ and ‘Nazis’ by this group.
That is unacceptable.
I was not planning to complain to the President, since the exhibition has been cancelled and the scandalous images associating abortion with the Holocaust – something that is really most absurd – have been withdrawn.
However, since my fellow Member had the audacity to call us, in order to complain about having been called a ‘fascist’, I should like all the same to point out that we ourselves were called ‘Nazis’.
In this Chamber, that is particularly shocking.
   Thank you for that information, Mrs De Keyser.
As you were able to note, the exhibition has been withdrawn because the Rules of Procedure require that the debate take place here, in this Chamber, and not by means of an exhibition from outside.
As regards the events that you have just reported, I suggest that you refer the matter to the Bureau to see how it might usefully be followed up.
   The next item is the joint debate on the statements by the Council and the Commission on climate change, and the report (A6-0312/2005) by Mr Wijkman on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety on Winning the Battle Against Global Climate Change (2005/2049(INI)).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by making the observation that the Council Presidency left us waiting some 10 to 15 minutes for the beginning of this debate.
I would welcome at least an explanation and an apology; perhaps we will get one.
I wish to express my gratitude to Mr Wijkman for his dedication and hard work.
His was no easy task, and it is surely no secret that there have been debates within the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, although we have been able to satisfactorily resolve these issues.
The report we have in front of us is a good one, and there is one particular aspect of it that I would like to highlight.
In Germany, there has been since Monday an agreement on a new Great Coalition, aspects of which agreement have come in for justified criticism: there are some compromises that not everyone can go along with.
The chapters on the environment, energy and climate change are, however, perfectly respectable, and I believe that they will enable Europe, too, to make progress.
Much in the coalition agreement is identical with what the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has proposed in the Wijkman report, and that is an encouragement to the Commission to redouble its commitment to pursuing its objectives in such areas as air travel.
Where renewable energies are concerned, we – not only in the German Great Coalition but also in the amendments we have tabled to the Wijkman report – want a new priority to be given to heating, an area in which, for little expense, we can save a great deal of CO2, and it is for that reason that the Commission wanted to table a proposal for a directive on the subject.
There is, I think, one issue that neither the Great Coalition in Germany nor the Environment Committee have satisfactorily resolved, and that is nuclear energy.
I agree with Mrs Gutiérrez that nuclear energy is indispensable if we are to solve the climate problem.
I would, nevertheless, like to see the report gain a large and convincing majority, and let me conclude by emphasising what Mr Wijkman said about there being a security problem as well.
According to one study by the Pentagon, climate change will, in the long term, represent a greater danger to the human race than international terrorism.
That should make it clear to one and all, that now is the time for action.
   Mr President, the debate is just about over and the scientific jury is largely agreed on the impact of greenhouse gases on our climate.
Economic losses due to weather-related natural catastrophes have increased six-fold since the 1960s.
The earth’s temperature is rising at an alarming rate.
The EU 15 will not meet their current Kyoto targets on CO2 emissions reduction and nothing will be done about that.
At the COP 11/MOP 1 meeting in Montreal next month, the focus will be on post-Kyoto and on what happens beyond 2012.
Without genuine global cooperation, particularly from the world’s largest producer of greenhouse gases, the US, any agreement will be meaningless.
It is a huge challenge.
We await the Commission’s review of the operation of the emissions trading regime next June to keep the cynics and the ‘I told you so’s’ at bay and to maintain the credibility of the emissions trading scheme.
It is essential that we broaden its scope and set horizontal sectoral targets.
Too many sectors are excluded, which creates gaps and inefficiencies in the market, which risk pushing up the cost of doing business.
We are still only paying lip service to the whole area of energy efficiency, which has an enormous contribution to make.
We also need to focus on the development of substitute fuels and alternative technologies.
Public transport vehicles and captive fleets should use clean and alternative fuels to provide a stimulus for the market, for the private sector, and to kick start the process of installing a network of forecourt outlets.
We need excise regimes that favour bio-fuels and bio-flexi-fuels.
Why not legislate for all motor fuels to include a blend of fuel from renewable sources, for example 5% bio-ethanol mix in petrol, 2% bio-diesel mix in diesel vehicles, without any alteration necessary to the vehicles? We need some radical thinking and radical action.
If we are convinced that CO2 emissions need to be reduced dramatically, then we have to stop tinkering at the margins of renewable energy and to achieve genuine liberalisation for electricity markets.
Let us put our money where our mouth is, look at FP7 and invest in this area.
Mr Wijkman’s report makes it clear that living up to the Kyoto requirements is the first priority of the EU.
Whilst Kyoto is only a small step in the fight against climate change, we must throw our support behind it and urge those who have not signed up to do so immediately.
This morning I was glad to hear the Commission and the Council stress the importance of the next phase, because the real challenge is to set ambitious targets for the post-2012 period and to get all the major world actors involved.
I also want to support the amendments made by my colleagues in the GUE/NGL Group, particularly the assertion that the promotion of an unbridled free market has led to excess consumption, which in turn leads to increased emissions of greenhouse gases.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Beckett, I am glad that the Council Presidency is following our debate, and, before I say anything else, I would like to thank my good friend Mr Wijkman for the very ambitious report that he has put together on this subject.
The need for action is simply illustrated by the natural phenomena going on all around us, be it the fires raging through Southern Europe, the hurricanes in America or, indeed, the floods in the Austrian Tyrol, from which I come.
There is one mistake, though, that we cannot allow ourselves: we must be careful not to attribute everything to worldwide climate change or to say that such change is caused only by man-made CO2 emissions and is in some sense our own fault.
It is an unfortunate fact that effects occurring in nature are overlapping with those attributable to human agency; greater efforts must be made to research this area if it is to be possible in future to deliver reliable prognoses of climate development and, above all, to assess the effect of human activity.
It is also important, though, that long-term strategies should be in place to enable us to respond, and in order to give us the security to plan ahead.
It quite simply has to be brought home to business and industry where this road leads and what options will be available to them in the future.
That is of immense importance for Europe as a business location.
Let us also bear in mind the fact that the Community is currently responsible for only 14% of CO2 emissions, and so it is vitally important that not only the developing countries, but also, of course the USA – which is the principal source of emissions – should be brought on board.
The point in the report that needs to be underlined several times over is the one that says: ‘we need a global strategy’.
I have to say that I am not in agreement with my colleagues as regards nuclear energy, which I do not regard as an alternative to those technologies that produce CO2, since its long-term effects are too negative.
Most of all, we must not offer it to the developing countries as an alternative, quite simply because it cannot be safely used in them.
It is also important that we give more attention to transport and attempt in that area simply to make full use of the potential for CO2 reduction.
   Mr President, I rise on a point of order under Rule 132 about Commission Question Time last night.
Last night we had 90 minutes of questions but only 11 questions were answered, mainly because all the Commissioners gave long, rambling replies.
That was started by Commissioner Mandelson, who then overran, so that in the end there was only the opportunity for Commissioner Špidla to answer two questions.
When I raised this before, President Borrell wrote a letter to the Commission asking Commissioners to be crisper in their answers.
Nothing so far has happened.
I should like to ask you to send a further letter, with much more ferocity, saying that what we look for as Members are short answers, not long rambling speeches.
   Mr President, although it is now a bit late, I did indicate earlier.
It appears that the previous adoption of Amendment 5 makes this amendment superfluous.
Although I would very much like to know what the rapporteur thinks about this, I am assuming that this vote was unnecessary.
   . Mr President, I wish to add the following text to the end of paragraph 24 after the words ‘blending ratios’: ‘examining the environmental effectiveness of requiring 10% biofuel blends in transport fuels’.
   Mr President, I find there are problems with the versions in different languages.
In the German version, there is reference to ‘’ – two seats or bases, but that is nonsense, as, according to the Treaty, Parliament is based only in Strasbourg.
That was decided long ago.
The English version makes reference to ‘double location’, with Brussels as the second ‘location’; it is one we can happily do away with, but then the translation has to be right.
I therefore ask you to compare the two language versions with one another.
   As a Slovak MEP and member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, I naturally voted in favour of the proposal to increase support for decommissioning the two reactors at the Jaslovské Bohunice nuclear power plant.
The Slovak Government, whose representatives made the difficult decision on decommissioning in the accession negotiations, would have had some tough explaining to do if the vote in the European Parliament had turned out differently.
Left to its own devices, Slovakia would not be able to cope with a 19% drop in power generation, coupled with the high direct and indirect costs resulting from output reduction at the Bohunice plant.
I would therefore like to thank all of my colleagues in the European Parliament, who saw that the Slovak problem was a European problem, and who voted to provide financial assistance for the decommissioning of the Bohunice installation.
   I am pleased with the result of the vote on financial support for the decommissioning of the Bohunice V1 plant.
The reason for this is as follows: In the 1990s, the Bohunice V1 installation underwent full-scale reconstruction under the watchful eye of an international agency, at a cost of nearly EUR 300 million.
The plant is therefore clearly being decommissioned before time, as it is now capable of safely producing electricity at least until 2015.
The 1999 decision was political, dictated not by good sense but by biased reasoning.
The direct costs will amount to more than EUR 1.3 billion.
Fortunately, the plenary session at least agreed on a contribution of 400 million, but this represents only one-third of the amount needed.
Overall costs will be as high as EUR 5 billion, including critical elements such as the safe storage of radioactive waste, substantial losses in electricity generation, and so on.
Nuclear power plants produce around 57% of the electricity in Slovakia.
The decommissioning of the V1 plant will result in a shortfall of about seven terawatt-hours of electricity per year.
This is the equivalent of unscrewing every second light bulb in the country.
I thank everybody for their support.
   We chose to vote against Amendments 5 and 12 concerning an increase in the amount allocated for decommissioning the Bohunice V1 nuclear power plant, since we believe that the budgetary framework for 2007 to 2013 should not be exceeded.
Naturally, nuclear power plants must be decommissioned in the light of environmental and security considerations.
   .
The purpose of the proposed regulation is to provide finances for the decommissioning of the Bohunice VI nuclear power plant in Slovakia.
Slovakia has committed to the closure of Units 1 and 2 of the plant by 31 December 2006 and 31 December 2008 respectively.
The decommissioning process of the plant is an expensive one as it will last beyond 2006 and after the next financial perspective 2007-2013.
In light of this, the EU has agreed to extend pre-accession aid by providing financial support for decommissioning up until 2006.
Subsequently, an amendment was adopted to raise the budget from EURO 237 million to EURO 400 million.
Despite being largely in favour of raising the budget, I believe the new amount of EUR 400 million proposed by the amendment to be excessive and I welcome the alternative of seeking non-EU funding in order to raise the amount of money necessary for decommissioning to take place.
   .
I voted for this report.
Decommissioning is an important issues as there are some 50-60 nuclear power plants in the EU that will be decommissioned by 2025.
It goes without saying that nuclear power plants need to be shut down safely to protect people and the environment.
A lack of finance for this process could cause delay and potential safety risks.
All nuclear undertakings should have sufficient funds for decommissioning.
The Commission is anxious to come up with a common framework, and in the longer term, to harmonise the methods by which decommissioning is financed in the EU.
This report makes a contribution to that goal.
   .
No more must the EU promote nuclear power, as the Euratom Treaty specifies that it must.
When the EU, exceptionally, calls for the decommissioning of nuclear power station in order to protect human life and the environment, as it did in the case of the Slovak Bohunice V1 reactor, such demands are deserving of support, even if the distinction drawn by the Commission between the ‘good’ reactors in the West and the ‘dangerous’ ones in Eastern Europe is an untenable one.
The initially high level of support is appropriate to a purposeful start to the decommissioning process, as the Slovak Republic has accumulated funds amounting to only EUR 320 million.
The support is in line with undertakings given at the time of Slovakia’s accession to the EU.
Were it not for support from the EU, there would be cause for concern that the reactors at Bohunice V1 would continue in operation, which would entail serious security risks.
Without EU funding, it might well also not be possible to ensure that decommissioning measures would be taken promptly in order to protect human life and the environment.
The use of EU funds should, however, be limited to the decommissioning of the Bohunice V1 reactors and to the measures accompanying it.
An addition should be made to this effect to Article 2 of the Commission proposal, which should also specify the EU’s priorities for the use of such funds, including, , the maintenance of safety standards in the course of decommissioning and the achievement of the climate change goals through the promotion of renewable energies.
   Mr President, I would like to make a statement of vote in respect of the Wijkman report, which, in essence, I very much welcome.
It is unfortunate that the adoption of Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca’s amendment means that the derogation for nuclear energy is now deleted.
That I regard as false, since I do not regard nuclear energy as a realistic alternative for the future and believe that the risks associated with it are not yet manageable.
It is for that reason that I, along with my colleagues as a whole, have voted against the report.
We have nothing against it as such, but it could have been more clear in coming to the conclusion that nuclear energy is no alternative.
   Mr Posselt, the Quaestors are aware of what has happened and will provide the President with a report on it.
We will take the appropriate decisions on that basis.
   The next item is the debate on the Report of the European Council and the Commission Statement on the informal European Council at Hampton Court, to which Parliament was invited, as you know, represented by its President.
I would like to thank the British Presidency for the respect it showed the European Parliament.
   Thank you, Mr Barroso, the Presidency wishes to point out that the debate was on the European Council at Hampton Court and it is turning into a preliminary debate on the financial perspective.
But the Presidency is not going to tell the participants in the debate what they must discuss.
They may insist on the issue of the financial perspective if they wish, although it does not specifically appear on the agenda.
   Thank you very much, Mr Goebbels.
The debate is heating up, and this is positive in terms of ensuring that more Members become involved in it.
   Mr President, from the spin of today one would think that much had been achieved at Hampton Court, but as we have already heard, the verdict of the informed EU press was almost universally negative.
One press agency reported that many papers could not recall a more useless and shallow example of posturing with no outcome.
One paper talked of a bizarre show of relaxed leaders who dodged the most crucial issues facing Europe.
Another called it a summit of impasse with a facade of forced smiles.
The said in an article that the leaders attempted to answer the question of what impact globalisation would have on the European economy and concluded that we needed more research and development and, of course, more money.
In other words, they failed to answer the question.
The EU, the said, is the wrong institutional platform from which to deal with globalisation.
It has become too large and divided.
The appropriate political levels are national governments and the eurozone.
I suggest that the article in the comes close to the truth.
If individual Member States were to expend the same effort and energy addressing the issue of how, as nations, to compete in a global market as they did in preparing showcase summits, then I suspect we might all see much more product.
My biggest fear arising from the failure of the Hampton Court summit and a lacklustre British Presidency is that it will make my government over-eager to secure a face-saving deal on the budget in December and that, as a result, Mr Blair will concede far too much on the British rebate, just so it can be said that something was achieved by the British Presidency – that is to say something other than ensuring EU bankruptcy by opening the door to Turkish accession.
   Mr President, if I may say so, Mr President-in-Office, the Hampton Court Summit was the biggest embarrassment that any Presidency has ever come up with.
Far from making progress with the pressing problems of the Financial Perspective and the debate on the Constitution, these items were removed from the agenda.
Even its chosen theme of ‘Social Europe’ was one to which the Summit found itself unable to do justice.
There was no discussion of any of the policy instruments for a social Europe, whether minimum standards, labour legislation or the means whereby unemployment and social exclusion may be done away with.
What you have proposed, Mr Straw, is particularism, and does nothing to advance the cause of social Europe.
Instead of action, you offer only ideas; instead of pro-active measures to address globalisation, you have come up with knee-jerk responses like this idea for an anti-shock fund. Our aim, though, must not be the creation of a backward-looking Europe, but rather of a Europe that can face the future with confidence.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, I object in principle to the setting up of the so-called globalisation fund as a response to the challenges of globalisation.
This is simply sweeping the problem under the carpet, and indicative of the populism of politicians who are afraid to tell the citizens the truth that globalisation is, was and will be here to stay, and that while it may lead to some job losses it will also, and in particular, lead to fresh job opportunities being created.
There is much to be gained from globalisation, but only in a flexible free market environment in which working is worthwhile.
European policy is often at variance with this idea, inviting citizens to be passive and sometimes even rewarding laziness.
The EU’s share of world trade has dwindled over the past 10 years, while that of the United States, and in particular China and India, has skyrocketed.
This is how the free market rates the EU’s policies, and yet the leaders of the 25 once again react with redistribution policies, which might act as a sticking plaster for the present, but under no circumstances are they a long-term remedy for the future.
I am convinced that instead of wrangling over the protectionist globalisation fund, the EU Member States should as a matter of urgency reform their labour markets.
Putting off such reforms undermines public support for free market policies and creates a breeding ground for nationalism, xenophobia and racism.
   Mr President, I would like to raise a point of order, in accordance with Rule 65(c), if I remember correctly.
We have just been listening to the British Foreign Minister.
I would like, via your Presidency, to ask the Conference of Presidents the following question.
My colleague has just spoken for one minute.
Her Britannic Majesty’s Minister with responsibility for European affairs is with us.
How can the European Parliament allow itself to be limited to just one minute’s speaking time to respond to him? Could you perhaps speak to your colleagues in the Conference of Presidents, to decide what approach should be taken in future?
   Thank you Mr Beazley, I think we have understood your argument.
It is the political groups that divide up the speaking time.
If they want to give their main speakers 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour, they have the right to do so, and the opposite is also true.
The time taken by the Commission and the Council is not counted, but both of them, I have observed, are careful not to abuse this.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, we are today discussing the outcome of the informal meeting of the European Council at Hampton Court, and not the performance of the six-month British Presidency.
I am content with the outcome of Hampton Court.
The meeting clearly identified six areas that are crucial to Europe’s survival and success in the globalised world, which included science and research, investment in our universities, energy policy, global security and the common foreign and security policy.
Let us take a look at the energy situation, for example.
Europe is increasingly dependent, already to the tune of 65%, on one source and that source is in very unstable regions, either former Soviet territories or the Middle East.
We therefore need a common energy policy, and a common foreign and security policy, although first and foremost we need money to finance these common policies.
At this point, I should like to call on the British Presidency to channel all its efforts into achieving a fair and well-balanced deal at the December summit, not only for the new Member States but also for the old ones.
That would be the biggest achievement of the British Presidency, which will be under discussion on 20 December.
I believe that the outcome will be a positive one.
   Mr President, the Hampton Court Summit was to discuss how Europe could do better in the world.
People in Ethiopia voted in their masses in May under EU eyes, but the first results did not please the ruling party.
Suddenly, the observers were obstructed, media openness was suppressed and demonstrations were banned.
People were brutally repressed in June: over 40 were killed and 5 000 arrested.
Despite that, a few weeks later, Prime Minister Meles attended the Gleneagles Summit hosted by the British Presidency.
In September, several governments and the President of the Commission sent him messages of congratulation.
On 1 November, another bloodbath took place: 58 elected leaders, journalists and NGO members are in jail and, according to the Prime Minister, face the death penalty; dozens more were killed, hundreds wounded and thousands were arrested.
Yet, a few days later Mr Meles was officially wined and dined in Germany.
President-in-Office, why does the Council send contradictory signals instilling a sense of impunity in rulers who violate human rights and democratic principles, rulers who may then choose to go to war with neighbours to divert attention? Did you consider this at Hampton Court?
Can the President-in-Office say that Europe is doing enough and doing its best for human rights, democracy and development in Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa?
   .
Mr President, it is an honour to conclude this debate today on the discussions that took place at Hampton Court. It is a particular pleasure for me to be speaking alongside President Barroso.
The debate following the departure of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw was taken forward by Mr Pistelli, who spoke of the European Union being like a family.
Clearly, on the basis of our brief discussion this afternoon, it is a family within which, like any other family, there can be disagreements from time to time.
But I certainly concur with his view that there are challenges that we face in the weeks ahead.
A rather less lofty point was then made by Mr Hudghton.
As a fellow Scottish representative, a Member of Parliament representing a Scottish seat, I would happily spend all day debating with him why backward-looking nineteenth century nationalism offers no future to any part of Scotland, nor to any group within Scotland.
But I, unlike him, am aware that I speak today for the Presidency of the European Union rather than simply rehearsing domestic political disputes between our parties.
Mrs Bobošíková spoke of the opportunities provided by globalisation.
With that I certainly concur; that was a central focus of much of the constructive and useful discussion that took place at Hampton Court.
Mrs Sudre emphasised the need for agreement on future financing by the end of December.
As the Foreign Secretary made clear, we are working towards that aim.
Indeed, a number of other speakers addressed this continuing issue of the importance of reaching agreement. I will say a word about that in a moment.
Mr Zingaretti generously acknowledged the importance of Turkish accession. For that I am grateful.
It reflects the distinctive approach taken by Jack Straw as the Foreign Secretary, whereby – somewhat similar to future financing – questions were raised as to the strategy the Presidency was adopting.
I am glad to say that on the occasion of 3 October we secured the outcome for which so many of us had worked for so long: seeing the accession talks beginning both with Turkey and Croatia.
I hope that we achieve a similar outcome in relation to future financing.
Mr Davies, who has now left the Chamber, again emphasised the importance of future financing.
On the basis of the British motivation and indeed the British capacity to deliver the deal, what matters is not the will of one country – of the Presidency – but the willingness of all Member States to work together to find a consensus.
If what mattered was simply the motivation of the Presidency, we would have seen agreement reached in June rather a situation in which five Member States were unable to accept the Luxembourg proposals.
Mr Karas questioned the importance of enlargement in the face of enduring significant competitive challenges that we face, such as unemployment.
Surely the very point that he makes about enduring unemployment and the need for us to address those challenges, makes the case for Hampton Court.
It is necessary for Europe to have a clearer sense as to its future direction before we would be able to try and secure the consensus we want on the basis of the financing of the European Union.
Mr Tabajdi offered a qualified welcome to particular aspects of the work programme that was agreed at Hampton Court and Mr Sonik quoted to me the earlier remarks of my ministerial colleague, Lord Bach.
I am sorry to disappoint him: as regards future financing, there can be no guarantees that agreement can be reached.
What I can guarantee is that the British Presidency is earnest in our endeavours to try and reach that agreement, but critical days and critical discussions lie ahead.
It is important for all the relevant parties to recognise how significant the progress reached since June – where disunity rather than unity was the hallmark of the conclusion of the discussions – will need to be.
Mr Rouček said that he was content with the outcome of Hampton Court and argued for an honest, fair and well-balanced deal on future financing.
With that I would have no disagreement.
I disagree with many of the points that were raised by Mr Van Orden, who has now left the Chamber.
He ranged very widely indeed while claiming to speak for the people of East Anglia, before having his microphone switched off.
Suffice it to say that he did not have the chance during his speech to acknowledge the invaluable work that had been undertaken by the Commission in the course of the British Presidency on exactly that issue of better regulation.
Today I pay tribute to the personal commitment of President Barroso and indeed to Commissioner Verheugen in driving forward this agenda during the British Presidency.
Mrs Gomes raised important challenging points in relation to human rights, democracy and development within Africa.
Again, I would simply return to the progress that was made by European Union development ministers back in June, when we effectively agreed to double the level of overseas direct assistance provided by Member States from approximately USD 40 billion to USD 80 billion.
I would re-emphasise the commitment reached at Gleneagles between 6 and 8 July effectively to double the aid being provided to Africa.
I would reflect again on the very constructive and unified approach taken by European Union Member States at the Millennium Review Summit which took place in September of this year.
I should like to echo a point made earlier by Mr Davies, that those of us who are sincere and genuine in our commitment to help the developing world recognise that there is a continuing challenge that lies ahead of us in the remaining weeks of the British Presidency, which is to try and have an ambitious and balanced outcome to the Hong Kong ministerial meeting that will take place in December.
I can assure Members that this remains a continuing priority of the British Presidency.
   The next item is questions to the Council (B6-0339/2005).
   – Thank you Mr President.
I think it would be wrong if we keep on looking at this question strictly from the point of view of taxation, we must also look at it from the perspective of the free movement of persons and services, two of the essential freedoms of the European Union.
Let me give you as an example my own country – Malta.
To buy a ticket from Malta to Brussels it costs around 104 Euros if you get a good price, taxes and surcharges on it amount to 126 Euros, that means 121% of the price; between Malta and London 200% of the price, are taxes and other ‘charges’.
We must look at this seriously, it is not possible that travelling, especially from remote and isolated places, be considered in any way as a form of luxury.
We cannot go to ‘mainland Europe’ by car, what can we do then, swim?!
That means that we have to look at it from the perspective of freedom of movement.
   . I would first like to repeat to the honourable Member the point that I made at the beginning that it is not for me, representing the Presidency in the course of today and in the course of this debate, to speak in terms of the decision-making of those 20 Prime Ministers that she identifies.
I would however say that it rather ill befits her to suggest that there is a conflation between illegal immigration and human trafficking when the conference that I described on this important issue of human trafficking was entitled ‘Tackling human trafficking: policy and best practice in Europe’.
This was a matter which, as I said, was taken forward by the British Presidency and therefore the allegation that she seems to be levelling that there is somehow a profound and perpetual confusion between illegal immigration and human trafficking seems, not least on the basis of the title of the conference, to be refuted by the evidence.
   Would the President-in-Office agree that guidelines are precisely that – guidelines – and that if individuals can prove that what they are importing is for their own use then, even if they exceed the guidelines, they would not be outwith the law? Also, would he agree that the guidelines exist to ensure that the single market functions in this area and that, if we did not have the guidelines, the very objective that Mr Purvis wants might be undermined, because the guidelines are there to stop the abuses that the President-in-Office referred to?
In a period of merely two weeks, we have received inconsistent messages from two Ministers in the UK Government, the country currently holding the Presidency of the Council.
In his preface to the EU Annual Report on Human Rights 2005, published on 3 October, Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary of the UK, quoted Kofi Annan: 'we will not enjoy development without security, we will not enjoy security without development, and we will not enjoy either without respect for human rights.'
Mr Straw also said: 'it is essential that we continue not just to reaffirm these values, but to insist on their validity.'
However, on 26 September, the UK Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, was quoted in the New Statesman as believing that 'given a straight choice between security and the human rights convention ... [his] first responsibility is national security.'
Can the Council reconcile these seemingly contradictory statements? If not, which of them most closely represents the view of the Council: given a straight choice between security and human rights, which would be its priority?
   . I would suggest respectfully that the honourable Member is trying to tempt me into discussions as to the approaches or suggested approaches of one Member State or another, when my responsibility today is to speak on behalf of the Council.
I can assure him that from a Presidency point of view the statement that I shared with Parliament and which was agreed by Council Members on 13 July is a strong basis on which, as a united front, we can confront the threat of international terrorism.
Let us be very clear: the terrorists want to deny us not just life, through their vicious and unprecedented attacks on us, but also our way of life.
That is why I think the statement made by the Council on 13 July is such a strong reflection of pan-European sentiments as to how we should deal with these challenges.
The Swedish media reported on 14 October 2005 that the UK Defence Minister, John Reid, had publicly stated that the Member States should increase their respective funding for defence.
According to the same media, the Defence Minister asserted that a reasonable allocation for Member States' defence budgets is approximately 2.5% of GDP, which corresponds to the UK's defence budget.
Last year, Sweden's defence spending amounted to 1.7% of its GDP.
Is it the Presidency's collective view that Member States should endeavour to bring their defence spending into line with the UK's?
Does the Presidency consider that Member States such as Sweden, which spends less than 2% of its GDP on defence, should increase their defence budgets? Does the Presidency consider that this question should primarily be a common EU concern or that it should be entirely up to the Member States to judge what level of GDP it is appropriate to allocate to defence?
One of the Presidency's main priorities, as presented to Parliament on 23 June 2005, is to make progress on financing the EU and the 2007-2013 financial perspective.
Bearing in mind that a last minute agreement will compromise the timely planning and the sound implementation of the Community's multiannual programmes, will the Council say what progress has been made in discussions on this issue?
What measures does it intend to take to obtain an agreement before the end of the UK Presidency?
   . Mr President, the Presidency is fully aware of the importance of reaching an agreement on the new financial perspective by the end of the year and will do everything it can to facilitate this.
This has been something of a recurring theme of the discussions in the Chamber this afternoon.
To this end, the Council undertook a series of bilateral consultations with Member States during the summer and discussions on this issue resumed in the Council on 7 November.
They will continue, of course, at the General Affairs Council on Monday, 21 November.
The Presidency will continue to work towards an agreement, but until such time as it might be ready to submit to the Council an overall compromise proposal, it cannot comment on what such a proposal might or might not contain.
   . My colleague the Foreign Secretary indicated that this was the 47th appearance of a British Minister in the course of the Presidency before this Parliament.
I can assure the honourable Member that I will be back in my customary place in the course of the further plenary sessions of this Parliament.
Our Prime Minister has committed himself to coming back to speak to Parliament.
Whatever other criticisms or scepticism may be directed toward the British Presidency, a lack of discussion with the European Parliament is perhaps not one of the most forceful.
   Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, I will take advantage of this opportunity as I have drafted my own question on the same matter, Question No 17, which there may be no time to answer during this Question Time.
I would like to ask if it is possible that this compromise proposal will also include a cofinancing procedure for agriculture, in order for agreement to be reached on scrapping the United Kingdom’s special rebate?
   . I admire the opportunism of the honourable Member in seizing the chance of a supplementary to raise the issue he was going to bring up in Question 17.
I would simply, perhaps disappointingly, reiterate to him my earlier response to the effect that it really would not be appropriate, given the delicacy and importance of the issues that are being discussed and that will be taken forward in the course of our Presidency, to try and draw out a particular element of the potential package around which we hope to secure consensus in December.
   . Mr President, following the ongoing debate on transparency and openness in the Council and the exchange of views between the United Kingdom Presidency and Members of the European Parliament on this issue, a first discussion took place in COREPER, the Permanent Representatives´’ committee, on 19 October.
The Presidency is currently exploring, together with the incoming Austrian and Finnish Presidencies, a series of possible measures aimed at further increasing legislative transparency in the Council.
   I thank the President-in-Office.
Let me say what an enormous relief it is to have a few minutes of not debating REACH in endless groups around this Parliament – a few minutes only, I fear.
I see that Mr Kirkhope is not here, but I am conscious that he raised this issue in an earlier debate.
I should like to personally thank the President-in-Office for his efforts in this matter.
I recognise that he is doing what he can to promote the agenda.
I have here a copy of a letter from Mr Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of Denmark, stating that he supports a change in the rules of procedure.
I suspect that similar letters could be obtained from Estonia and Sweden to start off with.
We already know the British position.
That is four votes and you need only another nine.
I know the Council prefers to do things by consensus but in order to achieve something of real substance – a real change – should the Presidency not push this to a vote at the next General Affairs Council and name and shame Member States that do not support this position?
   . I defer to the honourable Member in terms of the detail of his historical understanding of this issue, reinforcing the longstanding interest that the Benn family has taken in this matter.
It might be of interest to the honourable Member to be aware that this is a matter in which I have been in discussion with Tony Benn’s son, because he is now one of the United Kingdom’s representatives on the Council of Development Ministers and therefore has a direct interest in the position that we take in that and other Councils.
I am glad to say that his observations reflect quite the weight of history that lies behind the important discussions that we are taking forward with Member States at the moment.
In answer to the earlier question, I would simply reiterate the point that our own Prime Minister made when he addressed the European Parliament early in the course of the British Presidency: it is that impulse that has driven us to take forward the discussions at COREPER and that we now anticipate we will take forward in the days ahead.
   Mr President-in-Office, I apologise to you and the Presidency itself for being late.
I spoke with Mr Hilary Benn on Sunday about this very matter when we were at Remembrance Day in Leeds.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office what the position is regarding what I was told by Mr Blair – and indeed what I was told today by Mr Straw – concerning how we go forward with this issue of openness and transparency in terms of the Council.
I was told by Mr Blair that it would be fine to go ahead as long as it was within the rules.
I was told by Mr Straw this afternoon that two options were being considered.
I would like to know whether those options are within the rules or whether we are looking at a change in the rules.
   . I am grateful to the honourable Member for reinforcing the contemporary nature of these discussions amongst British politicians.
I cannot claim to have spoken to Hilary Benn in quite as recent days as he has, but I can assure you that, when I meet him at Cabinet tomorrow morning, I will search out what he told you at the Remembrance Service in Leeds on Sunday.
In relation to the point he makes, however, he will have to wait just a little while longer because, before he re-entered the Chamber this afternoon, I was sharing with other colleagues the process that we are taking forward now: as he knows, there was a discussion at Coreper earlier in the course of the British Presidency.
It will not be discussed on 21 November at the General Affairs Council.
We have instead decided to set out an options paper which will be issued in the coming days of our Presidency and will then be discussed at the Antici before discussion at COREPER II.
COREPER I will also feed into this process.
If it would be of help to the honourable Member, I shall certainly ensure that he receives a copy of the options paper when it is issued.
In an answer to a previous question (H-0692/05(2)) concerning the conclusion of a fisheries agreement between the EU and Morocco, including the territories of the occupied Western Sahara, the Council says that 'it supports the UN process'.
As regards the UN, the Fourth Committee of the General Assembly adopted a resolution on 11 October concerning the right of non-self-governing territories to their own natural resources.
The resolution was supported by 137 members present, 22 of which are also members of the EU.
France and the UK abstained, while Denmark was not present.
On the basis of the Council's previous reference to support for the UN process, and in view of the resolution which was supported by the majority of EU Member States in the UN vote on 11 October, it could be concluded that the fisheries agreement negotiated between the EU and Morocco will not cover the territories of Western Sahara.
Can the Council confirm that the ports and waters of Western Sahara will not be covered by the fisheries agreement?
   . Mr President, I should like to refer the honourable Member to the Council’s reply to his question H-0692/05 of 28 September.
In my reply, I stated that Article 2 of the Fisheries Agreement initialled on 28 July 2005 indicates that it applies ‘to the Moroccan fisheries zone under the sovereignty or jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Morocco’.
This delimitation of the geographical scope of the agreement is identical to the delimitation in the previous agreement that expired in 1999 and does not in any way prejudice the issue of the status of Western Sahara.
The initialled agreement is now in the ratification process, which is expected to lead to its formal conclusion in the first quarter of 2006.
   Mr President-in-Office, I do not think that one can, as Mr Sjöstedt has just done, simply describe Morocco as an occupying power.
I would ask you whether the problem of the Western Sahara is not a relic of our own, European, colonial past, and whether we ought not to try to understand both sides – the Moroccans and the other factions – if we are to bring about a real compromise solution that takes account of Morocco’s interests too.
   Questions 16 to 36 will be answered in writing(3).
   The next item is the report (A6-0304/2005) by Mrs Scheele, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council introducing humane trapping standards for certain animal species (COM(2004)0532 C6-0100/2005 2004/0183(COD)).
   . – Commissioner, representatives of the Council and the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to thank Raül Romeva i Rueda, the rapporteur, for the work he has done in evaluating the European Union Code of Conduct on Arms Exports.
Since I was entrusted with the task of drafting the opinion of the Committee on Development on this issue, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the fact that we were able to agree on the inclusion in the report of the aspects which the Committee on Development considered most important.
On behalf of the Committee on Development I would like to express my conviction that the export of arms to poor, conflict-ridden states cannot be tolerated, since it fosters poverty and violations of human rights.
It is paradoxical for governments to talk about combating poverty and strengthening the rule of law, but at the same time to allow SALW trade to repressive regimes and states experiencing extreme military conflicts.
It has to be said that the impact of SALW trade is particularly detrimental for development policy in the Cotonou Agreement states.
We can see a similar view in the 2000 report.
For this reason, the Committee on Development calls on the Council and the Commission to formulate SALW guidelines precisely for developing countries; emphasises the need for disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration measures; repeats the need to draw up a package of new post-embargo instruments, and calls on the European Union Member States, the Council and the Commission to encourage the African Union and Africa’s regional bodies and to strengthen the arms control export requirements regionally and nationally in accordance with the standards of the European Union’s code.
The need to make the code of conduct on arms exports legally binding is emphasised.
The Committee on Development would also like to draw attention to the need for a trade agreement on weapons to be in an internationally legally binding form.
I hope that the opinion of the Committee on Development, which has been put forward for the first time, is an important contribution and reaffirms the truth that security is the primary precondition for development.
   – Mr President, let me start by saying a few words to Mr Batten.
It was interesting listening to this speech by a representative of a list of candidates that also includes two people who, in very quick succession, have been publicly found guilty of abusing the secretarial assistance allowance in recent weeks.
We should intensify our offensive against this band of hypocrites in this House and in our public-relations activities.
Now to come to the point. It does not make sense for various companies in three major EU Member States to work on the Unmanned Air Vehicle project, for example, in separate projects that have nothing to do with one another, and to duplicate earnings, as it were.
The European taxpayer does not deserve this.
Nor does it make sense for three major EU Member States to develop, separately from one other, electronic identification systems for infantrymen, and for there to be insufficient clarity as to whether troops from one and the same European battle group, for example, could identify each other in action if they came from different countries.
We should also bear in mind that even in 10 years’ time the armies in the EU will still have to use 23 different types of armoured vehicle.
We can all imagine the kind of compatibility and supply problems that would entail in operational conditions.
I should also like to warn against one illusion, however: a single European Defence Equipment Market cannot be achieved if enterprises operating under market conditions have to compete with those that are government-backed.
This is an aspect that has not yet been raised in today’s debate, and I should also like to suggest that it might make sense for Mr Wuermeling to take a closer look at this implication of the debate on Article 296 and draw conclusions from it for the future.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, we are seeking to make history by dismantling the established practices of Member States as regards the armaments trade.
The Green Paper on defence procurement and any future directive therefore require strong political backing, as they will need to penetrate the hermetically sealed environment of the European defence market.
The aim is no less than to impose far-reaching restrictions on derogations from the general rules of economic competition – Article 296 of the Treaty enables Member States to use and abuse the derogation system – and a number of national monopolies have been profiting from this at the citizens’ expense.
The defence market is practically sealed off behind purpose-built barriers and dominated by monopolies, and it is difficult to monitor it, since secrecy is maintained even where there is no security reason for doing so.
The lack of transparency when it comes to public procurement, fragmented research programmes and inadequate standardisation lead to low quality and poor interoperability, and in turn to ineffective national defence systems.
There is, therefore, ample justification for opening up the EUR 160 billion defence market, not least because most Member States are finding it hard to honour their obligations as regards NATO defence policy.
If the Commission’s proposal obtains the support of all 25 Member States, they should be expected to work together on innovative strategies, to cut costs and to create fresh opportunities for businesses, not only large corporations, but also small and medium-sized manufacturers and suppliers of logistics equipment.
The fundamental condition for the opening up of the defence market, however, both for myself and for a number of Members of this House, is to ensure that the EU Code of Conduct on Exports of Military Equipment is rigorously complied with.
My call for compliance with this Code was incorporated into the text of the report, with the aim of cracking down on the illicit export of arms from advanced democracies to developing countries.
This is an essential prerequisite and I call on the Commission to ensure that monitoring is made as easy as possible.
My view is based on the salutary experience of an armaments deal that took place in the Czech Republic 10 years ago.
I am deeply dismayed that the Council has failed to be present today.
   Mr President, I should just like to call the Bureau’s attention to one matter.
At the beginning of this week, I discovered my name on 18 amendments that I had not seen and that I had definitely not signed.
What is more, I did not share the views expressed in these amendments.
I hope that nothing similar will happen again because it caused a host of problems when I needed to explain that I did not support these amendments at all.
   Mr Andersson, your comment shall now appear in the Minutes and in the voting list, and you may therefore rest assured that the matter is clear.
   Granted, Mr Bonde.
   Mr President, the proposal is that the following be added at the end of Amendment 356: ‘highly-diffused inorganic substances or substances on which there is sufficient risk information, such as sodium chloride, sodium carbonate, potassium carbonate, calcium oxide, gold, silver, aluminium, magnesium, silicates, glasses and ceramic frits’.
In other words, it concerns substances on which information is already available.
   I note that the approach followed by ourselves in the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe with regard to enhancing the environmental aspect, clarifying the existing ambiguities and simplifying procedures for small undertakings has overwhelmingly carried the day.
We shall therefore be voting in favour of the proposal.
I should first and foremost like to thank Mr Sacconi for his extremely patient work, but also the Commission and the Presidency, which are unfortunately not represented in the Chamber.
We now have the opportunity to devise a very strong piece of legislation.
   With this vote and the compromise on registration, we are going to get a REACH couched in weak, indeed unduly weak, terms.
We have, however, obtained a good decision with regard to the granting of authorisations.
We would rather have a weak version of REACH than no REACH at all.
We shall therefore vote in favour of the proposal, but do so without enthusiasm.
   Since all the other groups are stating their views, we understand that this has been a complicated vote.
It has now, however, been stated that the only positive aspect of the proposal, that relating to the granting of authorisations, will be undermined in the Council.
It has also been undermined through certain exemptions during the vote.
As a result, a large majority of my group cannot accept REACH in its present form.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for kindly allowing me to take the floor.
It seemed almost impossible to speak in this fine Chamber during the debate on the highly important REACH provision.
The Union for Europe of the Nations Group has decided to vote in favour, because we are satisfied as regards the registration procedure and we wholly agree with the content of the regulation in connection with the OSOR principle.
We do, however, have some concerns with regard to the procedure for authorisation.
Nevertheless, we are generally in agreement regarding this project, and I should to thank the rapporteur, Mr Sacconi, for his commitment and for the work he has done.
   Mr Clark has the floor for a point of order.
   Mr President, the Commission takes note of the position taken by Parliament and will not hesitate to draw all the necessary conclusions from a possible rejection by your Assembly, taking account of the Council’s position as well.
The Commission will have to reflect on the best way to move forward in this area.
   No, Mr Baco, there has been a very clear majority of votes against.
We have therefore taken the correct decision.
   I understand that we have already approved it, Mr Wiersma.
   Today I voted against the amended proposal and legislative resolution on REACH because, as the votes progressed, amendments to ease the burden on SMEs were generally lost.
Thus, the balance shifted in favour of restrictions which are so burdensome that they have the potential to drive parts of our chemical industry out of the EU.
   Throughout the extensive voting the following principles were followed:
1) We supported the repatriation of authority to member states and within that general statement where possible we supported the interests of SMEs
2) We supported all reductions in the use of animal testing
   .
In the expectation of the second reading stage bringing us closer to a solution to the controversial areas of protection of intellectual property and the temporary approval of substances and imported items that will take into account the interests of all parties, I have today, in the final vote, voted in favour of the REACH draft.
   . The REACH vote is one of the most important before this House.
I would like to record my support on authorisation for block 1 and Amendments 232 and 214.
I am pleased that these amendments passed.
Public health is vital and we must decrease our exposure to dangerous chemicals.
Replacing chemicals which cause cancer and which affect human reproduction is essential.
   . Although it forms part of the broader discussion on the REACH regulation, the proposal for a directive before us addresses a subject on which wide-ranging agreement is easier to obtain.
Ensuring consumers are kept fully informed is a key factor in a genuine market in which there is real freedom of choice.
The objective here is to adapt the existing arrangements to the needs arising from the new regulation, whilst ensuring that consumers are protected.
Hence my vote in favour.
   – I would like to refer to the report on humane trapping standards presented by Mrs Scheele.
I, like most members of Parliament, voted to adopt the report.
Mr President, I ask that you call an electronic vote, because your conclusion on the voting did not reflect the will expressed by most of the voting MEPs.
Mr President, I ask that you rectify this error.
   . This report is Parliament's response to the Green Paper "Towards a European Defence Equipment Policy".
I welcome its proposals.
Through these measures the Commission intends to contribute to the gradual creation of a European Defence Equipment Market which is more transparent and open between Member States and which, whilst respecting the sector's specific nature, would increase economic efficiency.
I am pleased that the UK government has also welcomed the Green Paper as an important and timely initiative to open up a debate on the operation of defence equipment markets in Europe.
   . British Conservatives attach great importance to genuine improvements in the single market.
We might also support measures that really had the effect of "increasing economic efficiency as well as competitiveness" in the European defence market.
However, this report is driven by the idea of extending EU competence and elevating the European Commission to a controlling position in the European armaments industry.
Recitals F and G mistakenly blame market fragmentation for Europe's military weakness and lack of interoperability.
There is no evidence that costs would be reduced by a European defence market, certainly collaborative projects prove costly in both time overruns and money.
We object to the idea in Paragraph 9 that foresees defence procurement being covered by EU rather than national legislation.
The proposal in paragraphs 10 and 15 for a directive to supplant Article 296 would have serious national security implications.
Moreover, the promotion of a system of "European preference" for national defence purchases in paragraph 24 is a short-sighted idea that would do further damage to Europe's ailing militaries.
For these reasons and more, British Conservatives voted against this report.
   Mr Baco, the competent committee has recommended that the House reject the initiative.
We have voted and the House, by a very large majority, has voted against.
The initiative has therefore been rejected and the Commissioner has spoken on behalf of the Commission.
We have acted entirely in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
   – The next item is the report (A6-0318/2005) by Mrs Martens, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on a development strategy for Africa [2005/2142(INI)].
I understand that Members were very doubtful whether or not it was necessary to hold the debate and the vote today.
As far as the vote is concerned, our rules allow for it to be postponed.
On the other hand, there is nothing in our rules that allows us to postpone the debate, unless there is unanimity, but if anyone wishes the debate to take place, according to the rules, it must take place.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, Africa, the cradle of civilisation, is in need of development aid.
The EU’s fundamental desire to provide aid of this nature was enshrined as long ago as 1950 in one of the opening paragraphs of the Schuman declaration.
Ever since, it has been a familiar refrain in the EU, which has been accompanied by efforts undertaken, since the Year of Africa, by the world’s developed countries to address the same questions, namely decolonisation, immigration to Europe, the need to build and maintain infrastructure, to build wells, to introduce irrigation, education, efficient farming based on agricultural production, to reduce nomadic pastoralism and to implement the forest planting plan as a key factor in the fight against the increasing desertification of the Sahel.
In addition to such measures, the resolution before us builds on experience gained in other less-developed parts of the world by promoting the development of micro-loans based on the empowerment of women, the further development of education and health in conjunction with the UN and, as soon as possible, the achievement of the target of 0.7% of GNI earmarked by all developed countries for development aid to the world’s poorest countries; and this is something that we believe to be appropriate.
Conversely, the temporary liberalisation of economically underdeveloped countries, in particular with regard to services of public interest, and the privatisation of state enterprises, have always proved detrimental.
How can we recommend such measures? This reservation notwithstanding, I support the resolution.
   On behalf of the New Italian Socialist Party, I thank Mrs Martens for her work and the UK Presidency for its willingness to increase the EU’s commitment towards Africa.
I fully support the request to provide this strategy with adequate instruments and resources together with precise deadlines in order to be able to assess its progress.
I also agree that it is a priority to coordinate the policies of the various Member States so as to prevent actions from being duplicated.
It is important, however, that the EU finally assumes its due role at international level as a leader in the fight against poverty.
Africa, the region which concentrates the highest number of people living below the poverty line, the worst kinds of transmissible diseases, infant and maternal mortality and a lack of education and health structures, represents the principal challenge to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
Europe’s cooperation actions therefore need to be supported by a firm policy of international diplomacy that consistently promotes suitable economic and social policies within international organisations, primarily the UN, the IMF and the WTO.
This policy should also promote dialogue with all the recipient countries so that these countries can eventually play an active role in establishing their own strategies and in managing the programmes, with the full participation of civil society as a whole.
   The next item is the report (A6-0319/2005) by Mr Wijkman, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on the proposal for a Joint Declaration by the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission on the European Union Development Policy ‘the European Consensus’ (2004/2261(INI)).
   . – Mr President, before we start the debate I should like to ask you, on behalf of my group and in agreement with the other groups, to hold the debate but to postpone the vote.
We agreed, for a number of reasons, to do that and I would ask you to give us that opportunity before I start my speech.
   Mr Wijkman, your request, on behalf of your group, for the vote to be postponed is noted.
It will be put to Parliament when we come to the votes this afternoon.
The postponement will be agreed or refused at the time and you will be able to argue for it then, but your request is noted.
   – Mr President, I should just like to ask Mr Michel whether he can confirm that this matter excludes abortion?
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on access to humanitarian aid in Kashmir(1).
   . – Mr President, the horrifying images and tragic personal stories following the earthquake of 8 October might have left our television screens and the front pages of our newspapers, but let us not forget the need for urgent aid is just as great, particularly because of the onset of winter.
Already there have been 74 000 deaths and getting aid to those in need is a race against time.
The Pakistan Government has put the financial cost of the earthquake at USD 5 billion.
The EU has already contributed substantially, but we must do more, much more, and so should the rest of the international community.
But it is not just about money; it is about access; it is about helicopters and other equipment to reach inaccessible areas.
Access over the line of control between India-administered Kashmir and Pakistan-administered Kashmir is also of vital importance.
I am very pleased that India and Pakistan have opened the five crossing points for goods and I hope other crossing points will be opened as well, not just for goods: civilians should also be allowed to cross.
People with relatives and friends on the other side want to help.
They want to bring much-needed support and relief, and at present they are unable to do so.
Already, 950 Kashmiris on the Indian side and 2 000 on the Pakistani side have asked for permits.
I know it is difficult because of the long-standing dispute over Kashmir, but I hope that the applications can be processed quickly.
This human tragedy demands a compassionate response.
Let us hope that out of this terrible tragedy something good will come and that the survivors may be allowed to live in peace.
I hope that, at last, a just solution to this 58-year dispute over Kashmir can be found, involving both Pakistan and India but, above all, the Kashmiri people who have suffered enough already.
   Just before giving the floor to the next author, I should like simply to clarify the Rules of Procedure, as I believe I sensed surprise on the part of some Members that I am not giving the floor in the usual order, by inviting the largest groups to speak first.
The Rules of Procedure are as follows: when Members request to speak as author, their turn to speak depends on the order in which they arrived at Parliament’s Sessional Services.
Therefore, it would seem that Mrs Lynne was quicker than Mrs Stihler, who was quicker than Mr Elles, and so on.
On the other hand, we resume the usual order when speakers take the floor on behalf of their groups, with the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats speaking first, followed by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, and so on.
I thought I had better remind you of the Rules of Procedure because I believe I sensed a slight hesitation.
    –  Mr President, the region of Kashmir is divided between three countries, India, Pakistan and China, even though this is an oft-forgotten fact.
Earthquakes know no borders, however, and the recent disaster affected both India and Pakistan, uniting them in misfortune.
The scale of the tragedy can be gauged from the fact that it claimed the lives of an entire generation. The majority of its victims were children and young people, and virtually no schools have remained standing.
The EU has a moral and political obligation to provide charitable assistance and to help reconstruct the region in the future.
The USD 20 million donated by the World Bank, and the EU’s donation of less than EUR 4 million, represent only short-term aid for the victims of the disaster.
Thought should also be given to the more distant future, since the effects of this disaster will be felt for the next few decades.
Our debate on this issue should act as a reference point for the Commission and the Council.
I should like to conclude with one final observation.
According to my calculations, the EU’s financial aid for the victims of the tragedy in Kashmir amounts to 16 times less than the aid that is to be granted to France following the riots there.
I have to say that I find this truly absurd.
   The next item is the debate on five motions for resolutions on the Philippines (the sentencing to death of Francisco Larrañaga, an EU citizen)(1).
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Burma/Myanmar(1).
   – Ladies and gentlemen, Myanmar, that is Burma, is it not? Several years ago, this was more or less the reaction of one of my colleagues to the press report on the news of new natural gas deposits in the continental shelf of that South Asian country.
Myanmar is currently subject to EU and UN sanctions.
What is interesting is that in his report, which we have received, Sergio Vieira de Mello complains about the efforts of the military government to enshrine the role of the army in the newly drafted constitution.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have not misheard me; in 2005, one of the most fiercely criticised aspects of the situation in Myanmar is the role of the army in daily life and the imprisonment of hundreds of people on account of their political opinions.
Yet if any of you were to think that we could be talking about Turkey or Afghanistan, you would be mistaken.
Such things are criticised in Turkey as cautiously as though we were talking about the United States.
In the case of Myanmar, we refer to the violence as intolerable, and the same is true for the treatment of ethic minorities. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, we are lost for words.
Why not open accession talks with Myanmar and set up a free trade area and such like, as we are doing with Turkey?
Is that pie in the sky? If so, then we are nothing but a bunch of impostors, applying different standards to different countries.
Please do not take it amiss, but I shall not be voting for a resolution of this nature.
   Mr Elles, that was not the oral amendment passed on to me by the competent services.
I thought that you first had an initial amendment on paragraph 11, with a further series of oral amendments coming after that.
   – Mr President, yes, that related to the recitals.
Paragraph 11 should read 'five' crossing points instead of 'four', because that would bring us up to date with the facts as they are today.
   – Mr President, we are voting on a particularly sensitive matter.
We are suggesting that where the recital reads ‘the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Kashmir’, it should now read: ‘in the region of Kashmir, the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, Afghanistan and India’.
That is the text we would suggest and it is actually very similar to the PSE Group text which comes next.
   – Mr President, Mrs Gill said before she left that the PSE Group would back Mr Elles’ oral amendment because it was so similar to her own.
   Mr President, we were all trying to address the same issue concerning the mention of Kashmir.
We are trying to find a wording that will address the issue: whether to call it Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Indian-administered Kashmir, as I have suggested.
But I am quite happy to accept the PPE-DE Group’s oral amendment.
   In fact, I believe that the wording jointly proposed by Mr Elles, Mrs Stihler and Mrs Lynne is quite clear: we are talking about the North-West Frontier province of Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and, in particular, the region of Kashmir.
The wording does not say that Kashmir is in the country you mentioned.
I believe that this is quite clear.
   – Mr President, from the interpretation which came through, you were in fact reading out the Socialist amendment rather than the PPE-DE one.
I would like to be clear that we were voting on the PPE-DE amendment, then we will be happy on our side of the House and I think on the other side as well.
   – Mr President, I am very definitely opposed to the vote being adjourned.
I would also like to make it clear that Mr Wijkman was not speaking on behalf of this group, and have now done so.
Mrs Martens is herself in favour of her report being voted on.
What is scandalous, then, is not that 79 votes are enough to adopt it, but that the others are not present.
It is those who are present who will vote, and that is in order.
   – Mr President, I address the Assembly and I address Mr Posselt: in the minutes for the day, it will be seen that, on two occasions, Mr Wijkman said he was speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
Mr Posselt was perhaps not present.
We were here; we heard Mr Wijkman.
Given, therefore, that there is apparently a problem, I will only uphold the same position that we held previously: it is no longer a matter of 79 votes, but of 72 at the present time.
   I think that Mr Posselt was in the room when the rapporteur spoke.
I shall give him the floor straight away.
Mr Posselt, you are against postponing the vote, I believe.
   – Mr President, I simply wanted to confirm what was said by my colleague, Mr Posselt.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats wants the vote to take place.
   – Mr President, I do not want to speak in favour of voting today.
I just wanted to bring the attention of the House to the fact that we do not want to create a dustbin parliamentary period on Thursday afternoon as a result of saying that everything which seems to be more important than other things can be postponed to a future date.
I do not object; I do not hold strong views on the subject and I certainly do not want to upset my good friend Mr Martínez, but there is a danger that we could create inferior subjects and superior subjects.
   . The Development Strategy for Africa comes on the back of the UK's "Commission for Africa" initiative and is designed to introduce a single framework to manage relations between the EU and Africa.
This strategy is particularly important in the light of the EU's commitment to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
In that regard I feel the Communication could have been more dynamic and powerful.
The Commission have not convinced me with this report that they are yet in a position to mobilise funds and political support on the scale necessary to meet the MDGs.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 17 November 2005.
   . Mr President, the Commission has taken note of the request made.
However, Vice-President Frattini will be unable to take this item tomorrow as he must attend a meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council.
The Commission would, however, be willing to reply to the oral question at a subsequent part-session should Parliament decide to include it on the agenda.
   Mr President, I am much obliged to you for again allowing me to take the floor, since this House does not exist to listen to the Commission’s estimation of our thinking.
What we wanted to do in the first place was to resolve a point of order.
I refer to Rule 134, which deals with additions to the agenda, and I ask that one such be made in the shape of a statement by the Commission on the matter referred to earlier.
   Mr President, perhaps – and I am sure this is what Mr Watson would have said – we might come back to the Commissioner’s suggestion of the next part-session in December.
That would then be a compromise.
   Mr President, I am speaking under Rule 134.
The agenda does not include a resolution closing the debate on the oral question about criminal penalties in the field of the environment.
When the Court of Justice of the European Communities is giving the Community legislators new responsibilities which the Commission and the Council are beginning to take very seriously, it is rather surprising to find that Parliament has nothing to say or is reserving its position.
In view of this – and we are getting clear messages on the matter from the political groups – in order to guide the work in the Parliamentary committees on the dossiers in hand and also to initiate a dialogue with the Council in January, we really should as a matter of urgency, Mr President, amend the agenda to allow such a resolution to be tabled.
May I suggest that the political groups be so good as to plan the vote for the January session?
That would enable us to take account of the Commission’s and Council’s positions, since they will be dealing with this question on 14 January.
   The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the preparation of the Sixth World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference, which will take place in Hong Kong from 13 to 18 December of this year.
   Mr President, I wish to inform the President-in-Office and the Commissioner that I was very interested to read a paragraph in the conclusions adopted by the General Affairs Council last week that stated that there was strong commitment to the needs of developing countries, and in particular the LDCs, and that the Council supported an ambitious development programme in Hong Kong.
Almost simultaneously, a decision was being taken to make drastic changes to the sugar regime that has been in place in the European Union for many years.
Those drastic changes will have huge implications for the 18 sugar protocol countries in particular, as well as for LDCs.
Similarly, decisions that will destroy thousands of livelihoods in banana-dependent countries – our traditional suppliers – were also taken last week.
When you say these things in the Council, how can you simultaneously do the opposite? It was decided in the Agricultural Council to grant EUR 80 billion to European sugar farmers.
Contrast that with the paltry EUR 40 billion which is to be given – we hope, as currently it is still virtual money – to ACP countries.
They will in fact lose more in refining aid than we are preparing to give them to assist in their transition from this.
At that Council meeting, Commissioner Fischer Boel said she felt that this reform was going to strengthen her hand.
I really cannot believe that.
This morning Commissioner Mandelson and I were at a G90 meeting, where we heard the grievances of the ACP countries in particular.
If Commissioner Fischer Boel thinks that she has strengthened her hand to negotiate with developing countries after the decision that was taken on sugar last week, then I do not know exactly what planet she is living on.
What we felt at the G90 meeting this morning – and Commissioner Mandelson will confirm this – was a terrific sense of anger and, indeed, of betrayal.
I know the Commissioner is not responsible for distributing the aid that these countries need, but something has to be done in order to rebuild confidence in the very short time available to us between now and Hong Kong.
   Several speakers have already mentioned the huge significance of agricultural issues in view of the Doha Round.
The European Union cannot sacrifice agriculture for the sake of WTO negotiations, and that the European Union has already done a lot for developing countries – for instance, 85% of African food exports arrive in the European Union.
However, we must also add that the European Union must have an active approach to agricultural negotiations too, because it cannot restrict itself to a defensive position.
We must try to ensure that regulations concerning animal welfare, environmental protection and geographical origin protection are built into the WTO agricultural trade regulation system, as this is in the interest of both European farmers and European consumers.
Mr Peter Mandelson does not have an easy task when leading negotiations, as he must try to ensure that the results of the negotiations are favourable to all 25 Member States, and the various benefits given to our various Member States are kept in balance.
The Doha Round is a development round, and it would be unacceptable if the results were to benefit only those Member States with the most developed industry, and the less developed, poorer Member States relying mostly on agricultural activities would suffer, meaning that the rich would become richer and the poor would become poorer.
This would be particularly unacceptable now, when the British Presidency has made a proposal to reduce cohesion funds by 10%.
   The EU could be a massive force for good in the world in the Hong Kong talks, yet we still cannot speak with anything approaching one voice.
As we in Scotland saw just this summer when hundreds of thousands marched through the streets of Edinburgh in advance of the G8 summit in Scotland, the people of Europe expect action, not more warm words.
Sadly, it becomes clearer and clearer that where the EU could contribute so much, we will continue our schizophrenic policies which only cheapen the image of the EU in the eyes of the developing world.
   . Madam President, all three countries of former Indochina have been ravaged by war and now, sadly, they suffer from political oppression.
Over the past several years, they have begun to integrate themselves into the global economic community.
However, in Vietnam, for instance, citizens are still being persecuted for their religious beliefs and practices.
Whilst in theory the Vietnamese Constitution provides for freedom of religious belief, the country’s courts rarely interpret the laws to protect a person’s right to religious freedom.
At the same time as the Communist government cries ‘poor’ and seeks EU aid, its embassy in Canberra, for instance, allegedly spent almost one million Australian dollars celebrating 60 years of communist tyranny.
Recently the US State Department decided to keep the country on the ‘country of particular concern’ list, as Vietnam started a campaign against religious communities this summer.
Police and the military have destroyed ten houses of Catholics in Quang Ngai Province.
Moreover, local officials also oppressed in particular the Montagnard, or hill tribe people.
People in the Central Highlands are suffering badly as well as the Catholic Hmong people and the Mennonite followers in the country.
Vietnam still restricts the press and tightly oversees internet users.
Cambodia, which suffered enormously under blanket bombing during the war and indescribable, murderous Khmer Rouge brutality, is now sadly suffering increasing authoritarian rule by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has arrested and issued defamation suits against critics who accuse him of selling territory to Vietnam in recent border negotiations as a way, of course, of silencing the political opposition in Cambodia.
I call on Thailand not to extradite those who are seeking refuge on its territory.
In Laos, members of the Student Democracy Movement have been in jail since 1999.
There is total control of written and broadcast media and attempts to put a stop to the internet with problems of human trafficking and forced prostitution.
The Hmong people are living in constant fear of being attacked by Lao soldiers.
I welcome the presence of the Royal Family of Laos, who are here in the distinguished visitors’ gallery today.
   . Madam President, on 3 February 2005, the parliamentary immunity of Sam Rainsy and two members of his party, Chea Poch and Cheam Channy, was lifted in Cambodia.
Sam Rainsy has since lived in exile in France and Chea Poch has also escaped the country.
Cheam Channy was arrested on that same day by military police.
Recent arrests, not only of politicians, but also of journalists, trade union leaders and other members of civil society, bear witness to a worsening situation in terms of civil and political freedoms in that country.
I call on the Commission and the Council to continue to bring the plight of the members of Sam Rainsy’s party to the attention of the Cambodian authorities.
A country in which an opposition party is thwarted in its activities to this extent must be called to account in respect of its responsibilities.
I should also, though, like to urge the Commission and Council to mount an independent inquiry into the implementation of the Paris Peace Accord.
Next year, it will be 15 years since the Paris Accord called a halt to the political conflict in Cambodia. It provided, among other things, for a constitution containing basic principles, including human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Accord also put in place effective measures to prevent former policy and practices from ever returning to that country.
In Vietnam, there are positive reports about economic progress in that country, which is to be welcomed.
It is also positive that in November 2004, Vietnam provided the facilities for an EU seminar on the death penalty.
Nevertheless, in 2004, at least 82 people were executed and 115 sentenced to death, and the real numbers are probably higher, because Vietnam treats numerical data on the death penalty as a state secret.
In 2005, 24 actual executions have been reported so far, while 78 people have been sentenced to death.
In this connection, I would also like to mention the persecution of Vietnam’s Unified Buddhist Church, which is of direct concern to my colleague Marco Pannella.
I would call on the Commission and the Council to plead with the Vietnamese authorities for the total abolition of the death penalty, but in any event, in anticipation of this, the European Union must plead for the ban on executions and reducing the number of offences that lead to the death penalty.
In Laos, although no executions have been reported over the past 11 years, the death penalty is still in force and in 2005, at least seven people, including one woman, have been sentenced to death.
In general, I should like to ask the Council also to incorporate human rights in the broader framework of relations between Europe and the ASEAN countries, although it goes without saying that our relations with them have to do with more than just that.
We have economic and political relations; together, we fight terrorism, the drugs trade; there are scientific exchanges, and all kinds of other things.
In my view, we should be doing more with the ASEAN countries rather than less.
Not least in view of China and India arriving on the scene, Vietnam is the linchpin in our relations with Asia, but human rights should form an integral part of this.
I am pleased that the Commission and Council have also hammered this message home, and we must without a doubt continue down this path.
I wholly endorse my group’s policy in this matter.
   Madam President, is there really much point in our debating human rights in these countries unless the EU is prepared to act on the stipulation in its bilateral agreements with Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that respect for human rights is a condition for the continuance of EU aid? That stipulation continues to be breached on a daily basis, but we still pump in aid as if all was well.
All is very far from well.
I have time only to refer to abuses of religious freedom.
In Vietnam, persecution of Christians is rampant, being particularly dire in respect of minority Protestant Christian churches in Vietnam’s central highlands and the north.
The Reverend Quang and his associates have been relentlessly hounded by the Communist authorities.
When the President of the Vietnamese Committee on Human Rights addressed Parliament in December, he described Vietnam as a prison for its people, governed by a red mafia financed by the European taxpayer.
He may have overstated our generosity, but that was a stinging indictment of the EU’s attitude to countries such as this.
   Madam President, I rise on a point of order under the Rules of Procedure which concern the possibility for Members of the House to ask the President-in-Office whether he would give way.
I believe the Rule in question used to be Rule 46, though it may have changed.
The Minister gave a long and interesting speech, but he has not answered the question about an Olympic truce.
He said this it not within the competence of the EU Treaty, but we have British members of the Olympic Council.
Perhaps he might be able to confirm to the House that he would be delighted to speak with his colleagues, including Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, to suggest that we take the resolution of this House seriously and that we press for what we are calling for, which is 16 days of peace.
   Mr Beazley, you are wrong about the Rules of Procedure.
As you have already taken the floor to raise a point of order, despite not being on the list of speakers, I suggest that Mr Pearson may well wish to reply to your comment at the end of the debate.
   . Madam President, 2005 is the United Nations International Year of Sport and Physical Education.
One of the goals of the international year is to create the right conditions for more sports-based development programmes and projects.
Sports transcends all boundaries.
Ethnic, religious, social and national differences play no role in sport.
Sport can play a vital role in encouraging development and sports projects can contribute to reaching the Millennium Development Goals, especially under themes such as health, education, gender, environment, peace and human rights.
However, the scourge of AIDS is robbing many developing countries of their finest young people.
I ask you to consider the World AIDS Day tomorrow, 1 December.
There are 38 million adults and 2.3 million children living with HIV.
During 2005, some 4.9 million people became newly infected with the virus.
Around half of the people who become infected with HIV do so before they are 25 and are killed by AIDS before they are 35.
These people would be at the height of their sports careers if they were not ill or had they not died.
Africa itself is one of the centres of the best footballers in the world.
At the moment, it is the continent most affected by AIDS.
I would ask people to remain committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
   The fourth principle of the Olympic Charta, the most significant constitution of international sport, unambiguously states that sport constitutes a basic and inalienable human right.
Accordingly, a few European constitutions – such as the Greek, Portuguese or Swiss – directly grant the right to physical education and sport.
If the right to sport is granted by constitution, then the responsibility of the state in respect of sport, as well as its participation in and support of physical education and sport are unquestionable.
The Draft Constitution of the European Union, too, contains direct regulations concerning sport, declaring the importance of sport and acknowledging its significance in European societies.
However, as the ratification process has slowed down and is stalling, the inclusion of sport in the European Constitution – which would define the future of European sport – may be jeopardised.
Europe is the centre of international sport.
No other continent has such a significant participation in sports.
Public opinion polls indicate that 70% of European citizens come into daily contact with sport in some form.
There is not one family in Europe without at least one family member being affected.
Sport has a tremendous potential for bringing together and integrating cultures, nations and ethnic groups, as demonstrated by peaceful world competitions, Olympic games and world championships.
This is reflected in the fact that the UN and the European Union dedicated last year and this year to sport and education through sport.
It is unfortunate that in spite of the above, the importance of sport is not widely acknowledged within the European Union.
Sport is seldom mentioned in budgetary debates, if mentioned at all, as an individual budget item or heading.
Appropriate financial support has not been provided to enable the European Union to treat sport in the deserved manner.
I believe it is erroneous to take into account only the commercial aspects of sport.
The social role of sport far outweighs its commercial nature.
   Madam President, I welcome the Olympic truce movement and the Olympic Truce Foundation and believe that the European Union should be involved in its work.
I support this resolution.
The Olympics and other global sporting events should be a time when all enmities are put aside between sportsmen and women.
All participants should be free to participate.
The visit to Middlesbrough by the North Korean football team during the 1966 World Cup and their recent return was graphically portrayed in a documentary, .
Yet I have a warning: this should not be used by the unsavoury regimes around the world as an excuse to evade EU sanctions – smart or otherwise.
If Robert Mugabe is metamorphosed into the coach of the Zimbabwean bobsleigh team, he should not be allowed to travel to Turin.
If Khin Nyunt is transferred to chief administrator of the Burmese windsurfing squad to visit my own constituency in Weymouth in 2012, he should not be given a visa.
I would make an exception if either were to compete, as nothing undermines dictators around the world as effectively as the world’s laughter.
I also welcome the increasing role of the UN Taskforce for Sport for Development.
Djibril Diallo, the head of the taskforce, will be in Brussels on 10 and 11 January.
He will meet Commissioner Figeľ and the coordinators of the Committee on Culture and Education, and will address a meeting of the Sports Intergroup.
I hope we can build on this and that Members will participate.
   Mr President, in recent days my small country of Northern Ireland has lost its most prodigious sporting talent ever.
I refer, of course, to the death of George Best.
Regardless of his much-documented lifestyle off the field, on the soccer field he had a world stature.
His dazzling and electrifying skills put him in a league of his own.
In consequence, he was much loved and admired across the world.
Accordingly, it is fitting that the passing of such a sporting colossus should be noted in this international parliament.
I would therefore like to take this opportunity, I am sure on behalf of us all, to salute his sporting memory and to express condolences to his son, his aged father, his brother and his sisters.
   I am sure the entire House would share your sentiments and indeed the applause that has just been expressed for the life of George Best.
   Mr President, we recently received new information about the key figures in the notorious Russian Yukos trial of Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Lebedev.
Having observed their trial in Moscow last May, our colleague, Mr Horáček, concluded that this trial did not follow rules that could provide a fair verdict.
Both Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Lebedev have now been sent to serve their sentences thousands of kilometres away from their homes.
Yesterday, Mr Lebedev had to spend his 49th birthday in a prison situated beyond the Arctic Circle, isolated from his children and grandchildren, in conditions that are detrimental to his current state of health.
Last week, more than thirty MEPs signed a letter expressing the hope that both Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Lebedev could have a new and fair trial, and that the conditions of their detention could be normalised.
I would like to ask both the Commission and the Council to convince the Russian authorities of the need for a new and fair trial for both men.
Russia has yet to prove that it shares our European values.
   Mr President, Scotland is playing a full part in the UK Presidency of the Council of Ministers and, in recognition of this, Scotland’s seven MEPs, who come from four different political groups, have collectively been hosting a ‘Best of Scotland Week’ here in Parliament.
It has featured films from Scotland – with world-famous actors such as Ewan McGregor – and lectures by people like Alexander McCall Smith, the world-famous author of the series. There is a also display in the foyer of the work of John Bellany, Scotland’s greatest living artist.
But what would a celebration of Scotland be without good food and drink?
So tonight, to mark St Andrew’s Day, Scotland’s national day, we are hosting a reception in the restaurant, where Scottish beef will be available in the European Parliament for the first time in ten years.
Mr President, through you I should like to thank the whole House for its participation in the Best of Scotland Week.
We have had magnificent support from Members of Parliament, and I hope Members have enjoyed seeing just how good Scotland is and what great produce we have to offer the rest of the world.
   Well, as a fellow ‘Scott’, Mr Martin, I should like to endorse everything you said.
The unsteady walks of some of the Members of Parliament are I think a tribute to the whisky that you have been serving up.
My only regret is that you did not invite me to repeat my performance of the Ode to Joy on the bagpipes.
Perhaps there will be another occasion.
   Mr President, our Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety held talks with Parliament’s administration on 14 June to make an ecological review and see how we might operate more economically.
I took advantage of the occasion to ask about the occupancy rate of Parliament’s buildings.
I asked whether Parliament, the Commission and the Council discussed their accommodation needs with each other.
I asked whether there were any standard dimensions for offices, conference rooms, interpreting booths and other accommodation with a view to future building work.
Mr President, so far I have received no reply.
I hope you will see to it that I get one.
   I would like to call attention to the condition of a beautiful Hungarian river, the Rába.
Since 2003, the Austrian section of the river has been polluted by three leather factories using naphthalene sulfonate for tanning, and discharging it into the Rába at the end of the tanning process.
This makes the living water foam and it has quite a strong odour, thus having a negative effect on aquatic life and keeping tourists and sportspeople away from the river.
The problem has already elicited complaints from the population even on the Austrian side.
In Hungary it is constantly mentioned in the press, and the pollution is particularly damaging to the population living along the upper section of the Rába, an area of wild beauty attracting a significant level of fishing and water tourism.
As this is a cross-border problem, I ask my honourable Austrian colleagues to help speed up the process and help protect our common treasure, the river Rába, in our border areas, in the spirit of the traditional friendship between the two countries.
   Mr President, I wish to speak on the immoral behaviour of the company Irish Ferries.
I know my colleague, Mr De Rossa, will be speaking on this issue as well.
This week that company sacked 550 Irish and Welsh seafarers and took on Latvians at a much cheaper rate – less than half the minimum wage.
That is because Irish Ferries has a new flag of convenience – the Cyprus flag – which means that it can skirt around the minimum wage laws of Ireland.
This is bad for Irish workers and it is also bad for Latvian workers, because they are being exploited.
I hope that this is not the shape of things to come under the Services Directive.
The approach adopted by Irish Ferries has been positively Victorian.
It smuggled security men on board the ships to force the staff to accept this switchover.
Obviously there are serious safety issues here.
We clearly need to revisit the 1998 Manning Directive.
I should like to ask you, Mr President, to ensure that the Council puts this on the agenda for Monday’s Transport Council meeting.
This is something that my colleague, Mr De Rossa, is also very keen to see.
   There has been considerable confusion in Hungarian public opinion recently, because new Member States are still taking the European Commission and its criticism seriously.
We all know that an Excessive Deficit Procedure has been instituted against eleven states, including Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, Greece, for exceeding budget deficit criteria.
At the same time, Mr Almunia, Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, chooses to honour only Hungary with his continuous criticism.
It would be really good if the Commission could do away with this discrimination.
So far they have been trying to punish poor Portugal, and Mr Almunia is now criticising poor Hungary.
Why does he not criticise any of the large Member States? We ask the President of Parliament to ensure equal treatment, to put a stop to discrimination, and to act in this respect against the Commission.
   I completely agree with the honourable Members who have spoken before me, that although we cannot talk about a pandemic yet, we must take the threat seriously.
However, the threat posed by hysteria about a so far nonexistent virus is at least of the same magnitude.
According to expert estimates, poultry consumption in Hungary has fallen by at least 40%, to an extent that may actually bankrupt this sector.
This has occurred in spite of the fact that Hungarian scientists had prepared and successfully tested the vaccine against the current H5N1 virus.
In order to avoid hysteria and panic, our most important tasks are to introduce prevention measures effective at Member State level, to make comprehensive and cautious plans, and to act in a determined, considered and coordinated manner in the event of an epidemic.
In the spirit of a responsible attitude towards European citizens, the European Union must assume a high degree of solidarity.
The coordination of vaccine production capacities and the consolidation of vaccine distribution principles would give citizens of countries with no vaccine production capacity equal opportunities for obtaining the vaccine.
Let us not forget that among the 10 new Member States, Hungary is the only country with a vaccine production facility.
Therefore it is important that all assistance is given to the country where the first outbreak of the epidemic occurs, even if this country is outside of the European Union, and that action is not hindered by short-sighted national priorities.
There is a saying in my country – a friend in need is a friend indeed.
I hope we will succeed in avoiding the need, but if we do not, my wish is that the concept of ‘friendship and cooperation between nations’, one of the basic ideals of the European Union, may prove viable when put to test.
I would like to express my gratitude to both rapporteurs for tabling this important issue that does not affect the citizens of Europe only.
   Adopting a common strategy to face a possible crisis is extremely important for European industries and consumers.
The more the European Union takes on board the urgency of the situation, the more its citizens will sense that our interference in their daily lives is not merely bureaucratic, but tangible and effective.
It is therefore necessary to attain the maximum level of joint financing possible, that is to say 50% for the slaughter of animals infected with the virus and 50% for other expenses in the veterinary sector.
This sector in Italy produces a very high quality output and employs 80 000 workers.
Italy is one of the countries that have not only helped to develop the new vaccine against the H7N1 virus, but are equipping themselves best to face the risk of an epidemic: our Ministry has already provided for complete vaccination coverage if necessary, expanding the veterinary sector and putting in place a labelling system to show the provenance of each product.
These measures, which both protect consumers and ensure that consumption recovers, should be given proper recognition at a European level.
The Commission cannot take any action against a country protecting its own citizens: health must never come second to the laws of the market.
Amendments No: 31, 45, 49, 51, 53, 55, 58, 60, 62, 63, 65, 66, 71, 72, 84, 88, 89, 90, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 118
Amendments No: 7, 10, 11, 17, 22, 26, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 47, 59, 69, 74, 94, 99, 105, oral amendment on Recital 11b (new)
Amendments No: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 57, 61, 64, 67, 68, 70, 73, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 85, 86, 87, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107, 108, 109, 116, 117, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125
Amendments No: 2, 4(1), 4(2)
Amendments No: 1, 3, 4(3), 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Van Hecke, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on compulsory licensing of patents relating to the manufacture of pharmaceutical products for export to countries with public health problems (COM(2004)0737 C6-0168/2004 2004/0258(COD)) (A6-0242/2005).
   . Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Van Hecke’s amendment makes a tangible improvement to the Commission’s draft regulation to the benefit of developing countries, and for that he is of course to be thanked.
My group does, nevertheless, have a problem with the regulation.
While it is intended to incorporate and implement the 30 August resolution of the WTO General Council, it has, today, already become evident that the agreed system for the handling of patented medicines will not be workable in practice.
This has been confirmed by respected international organisations with experience of diseases – ‘Médecins sans Frontières’ and ‘Act Up’ for example – and proven by practical experience in such countries as Canada.
The compulsory licensing system is cumbersome – so much so as to make the provision of development aid and effective help in the fight against Aids epidemics impossible.
Even if the 30 August resolution softens the impact of the TRIPS Agreement on the health field, we still do not see the fundamental human right to health as being given priority.
It is for that reason that my group will find it difficult to vote in favour even of an improved development draft.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Duff, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on guidelines for the approval of the European Commission (2005/2024(INI)) (A6-0179/2005).
   The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Commission by Mrs Roure and Mrs Berger, on behalf of the Socialist Group in Parliament, by Mrs Buitenweg, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and by Mrs Wallis and Baroness Ludford, on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, on the imposition of criminal penalties in the event of an infringement of Community law (O-0085/2005/rev.2 B6-0336/2005).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the Council and the Member States argued before the Court, a teleological reading of the Treaties once again leads to the letter of them being overturned, not to say violated, especially Articles 135 and 280 of the EC Treaty and 29 of the EU Treaty, which clearly reserve criminal competence for the Member States.
Thus, without a treaty, without a mandate and against the wishes of the Member States and the Council, the Court of Justice and the Commission have agreed to use this judicial communitisation of criminal law to merge the pillars of competences within the Union.
That was one of the objectives of the Constitutional Treaty which, if I may remind those of our fellow Members who still refuse to accept the fact, has been rejected and has become null and void under international law.
The Commission has clearly lost no time in stepping into the breach this opened up.
On 23 November last, it added to criminal environmental law an initial list of nine new criminal competences it was unilaterally removing from the Member States.
This continued absorption of national competences is also reflected in the future European civil code, which is still being prepared, with no legal basis, by the Von Bar Group with a EUR 5 million subsidy from the European taxpayer.
Are the supranational institutions using some mysterious hegemonic principle that says the nations do not matter or are an obstacle to be overcome, to take their revenge for the referenda of 29 May and 1 June? These judicial shows of strength are distorting the model of Europe that our countries agreed to.
We are faced with what French Constitutional Council President Pierre Mazeaud feared at the start of the year: a serious defect of consent.
I therefore want to say, quietly but solemnly, that those in this House who fail to respond to these shows of strength are committing an act against their governments, against their parliaments, against their constitutions, against the European treaties themselves and against the nations and are paving the way for renewed insurrections, not only electoral ones, against a Europe that is emphatically no longer their own.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on applying the EC competition rules to maritime transport (2005/2033(INI)) (A6-0314/2005).
   . Mr President, the rapporteur has managed to secure a majority for her report in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Despite it being a majority, it is striking how many Members abstained from the vote; 20 voted in favour, 7 against and there were no fewer than 19 abstentions.
Needless to say, I was, despite the outcome, very disappointed about that.
I would therefore beg to differ with the previous speakers.
Article 81 of the Treaty stipulates that cooperatives that distort the market are not compatible with Community law.
Paragraph 3 of the same article formulates, however, a number of exceptions which must be met in order to allow those cooperatives to go ahead after all.
On that basis, a block exemption shall apply to the liner trade under Regulation 4056/1986.
The Commission has launched an inquiry into the question to what extent this block exemption is still admitted in 2005.
Are the conditions of Article 81 (3) still being met? The Commission has reached the conclusion that that is not the case and would thus like to review the rules.
The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe supports the Commission in this, and our Amendment 10, among others, is evidence of this.
In paragraph 9, the rapporteur flags that the four cumulative conditions of Article 81(3) are only partly being met.
At the same time, the rapporteur calls for the enforcement of a cooperative.
This raises some question marks, to put it mildly.
After all, if the conditions are only partly being met, we can quite clearly state that they are not being met, because the four conditions are really cumulative in nature.
The members of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Socialist Group in the European Parliament were concerned about the impact a possible review may have on the shipping companies of the SME sector. What businesses are we talking about then?
The likes of Pino Nedlloyd, Hapag Lloyd, APL, MYK? To include these businesses under the heading of SMEs is, to my mind, going too far.
Nevertheless, the Commission has taken this on board and commissioned a study, among other things, to clarify the impact on the so-called smaller businesses.
This study has now been published and what is the conclusion? The repeal of the regulation leads to lower transport prices and better service, and smaller shipping companies have not experienced any drawbacks.
This stands to reason, for the SME sector is mainly on the side of the consumers and shippers.
However, if Amendment 17 is anything to go by, both the Group of the European People’s Party and the Socialist Group in the European Parliament remain unconvinced.
I would like to call on my fellow Member to have another careful look at paragraph 1.
According to the text before us, the objective of the review is to maintain and extend the European line trade sector in the framework of the Lisbon Strategy.
This strikes me as a misconception.
The objective of this review, as indeed that of the Lisbon Strategy, is to create a competitive climate in which the sector can operate as efficiently and effectively as possible.
It has never been the intention to protect the sector on the basis of improper arguments.
Finally, I should like to ask my fellow Members to have another closer look at the amendments – namely Amendment 1 to 14 – that I have tabled together with the Group of the Greens; I probably did this against my better judgment, but I did it all the same.
In this respect, the Commission does deserve more support than it is currently getting.
Finally, unlike the rapporteur, Mrs Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou, I wholeheartedly endorse Commissioner McCreevy’s conclusions.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Toia, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on European Electronic Communications Regulation and Markets 2004 (2005/2052(INI)) (A6-0305/2005).
   – ‘The world is better with you!’ – announces the slogan of one of the large European mobile telephone service providers in Hungary.
But has the world actually become better in 2004, in the period reviewed by the report, and will it be better in the future as a result of the development of electronic communications? Whatever the case, we can say that the information/communication sector boosts the development of European economy and facilitates the creation of jobs.
It is also obvious that the expansion of new technologies – primarily that of mobile broadband – facilitates the integration of social groups inaccessible by traditional means into the information society.
Therefore these are indisputable advantages.
However, we must also ask the question: at what price? The answer is nowhere near as favourable as the effects mentioned above.
Complicated pricing models, strange fee constructions, a practice that oversteps the single market principle – roaming charges are only one example.
This is the current price of the advantages listed, of the better world.
I am not saying that this is an unaffordable price, as all of us, European consumers, are paying it month by month.
However, one of the most important objectives of our Parliament is to change the current situation, which is also our duty in the spirit of consumer protection.
Most importantly, we need transparency, and unambiguous and clear information for consumers.
We need true competition and a full implementation of the principle of the single and common market.
And last but not least, we need lower prices that reflect the true value of services.
Only when these objectives are attained will consumer protection be given the importance it deserves alongside economic considerations, and if this happens, then this report was worth preparing.
   . Mr President, it was I who applauded, and I did so because I wholeheartedly agreed with what Mrs Thyssen said.
First of all, let me pay tribute to the rapporteur, Mr Becsey, who has fought his way through this difficult subject matter and who has now become our VAT expert in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
We endorse his report and also what others have said about the VAT refund.
It really is vital that this should be introduced more quickly and in a simpler way for companies that operate transnationally; otherwise the internal market in Europe is a farce.
The other report is to do with the oral question that we have tabled and the deadlines within which certain matters must be dealt with.
I completely agree with Mrs Thyssen when she says that it is ridiculous that now, with only one month still to go, there is still uncertainty, particularly in the labour-intensive services sectors, who still do not know where they stand.
The Commissioner is beyond reproach in this; it is the Council that is the legal body with responsibility for this and it cannot manage to lay down a regulation.
I stand here as one who speaks up for those labour-intensive services.
Ideally, I would like to see them incorporated in Annex H, namely in the structural solution.
I hope that our appeal here in this House will, in any event, be the last nudge needed to secure an agreement, and that time will be found for this to be debated next year.
I, for one, am in favour of having this discussion on a much broader footing.
I think that the whole debate about the shift from indirect to direct taxation, something which your Prime Minister, Mr Verhofstadt, has once again made very explicit reference, has everything to do with the way in which we deal with those VAT rates in a structural manner.
That is why I join Mr Becsey in saying that I am not in favour of formulating a maximum rate in this interim period and that I am all for making the possibility of using those low rates structural.
If you want to bring about a shift from direct to indirect taxation, which can indeed be very advantageous, you also need to differentiate the rates.
Low rates apply on social grounds, employment grounds, and in order to regulate and prevent moonlighting.
Those are all elements that should be factored in.
Higher rates should, perhaps, apply to certain luxury or environmentally-polluting factors.
I think that this structural discussion should really be held next year, and I hope that this Commissioner can give the initial impetus for this.
I hope that the Member States will not each time hide behind the unanimity rule and the option they have to put up all kinds of blockades and to conclude underhand deals.
I follow Mrs Berès in what she said earlier when I say that I do not consider this to be good governance or good legislation.
   I would remind Mr Whittaker that worldwide surveys indicate that Europe is the most attractive region in the world as a whole.
Most of the world’s people would rather live in Europe, even preferring it to America.
It follows that the European system cannot be that bad!
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 4 May, only a few days before the referendum on the European Constitution, the EU Presidency announced an imminent agreement on reduced VAT rates for the catering sector in France, rates that would decrease from 19.6% to 5.5%.
In order to make people vote in favour of the Constitution, the French Government had boldly to confirm this promise throughout the entire campaign, a long-standing promise, in reality, since it had already featured in the programme of the Presidential candidate, Mr Chirac, in 2002, and even in 1995.
Likewise, in its draft finance act for 2006, the French Government, gambling on an agreement at EU level, announced and provided for a one-year renewal of the reduced VAT rate for renovation work.
It is clear that this two-faced promise fuels a permanent sense of uncertainty with regard to taxation, unsettling consumers and, above all, the professionals of the sectors concerned.
Now that our people have rejected the superstate, has the time therefore not come to tell Europeans the truth? Seeking to do everything and anything with 25 Member States, no matter what the cost, has crippling effects.
Has the time not come to envisage another kind of Europe: a ‘Variable-geometry’ and ‘Variable-geography’ Europe?
   Mr President, thank you Mr President.
I have the impression that here we are preaching to the converted for the simple reason that the Council is not here and the Commissioner is agreeing with the strong position which we are taking, even though he is saying that he does not think that the extension of the experiment is a good enough solution.
I think we should, at this moment, at the beginning of December, also consider that solution.
There is no doubt that the Council should take note of our position which is strongly in favour of the renewal of this facility which is strongly labour intensive and which seemed to be an experiment which succeeded and which created new jobs.
Apart from this, this experiment should also be widened and should be given as a possibility to new Member States.
The irony of all this is that while here we are speaking about having lower rates, to experiment with these low rates, there are some governments in other countries, including that of my country, Malta, which, since joining the European Union not only did not experiment with low tax rates, but increased VAT from fifteen to eighteen percent.
I also believe that the range of services should be widened and should apply also for other services such as environmental services and restaurants.
This experiment has proved successful, and in order to ensure our credibility with the people who elected us and whom we represent, the Commission and the Council should place greater value on one of the few experiments that have been truly successful.
   Mr President, I wish particularly to emphasise the need to reimburse non-profit organisations or charities for the VAT they pay.
I would ask Commissioner Kovács to reiterate his support for this idea, which he expressed at a conference of the European Charities Committee on VAT here in Brussels two months ago.
Charities like the Home Farm Trust – which supports 900 people with learning disabilities and has shops in Braintree, Colchester, Newmarket, Saffron Walden and Sudbury in my own constituency – cannot recover huge sums of money as they do not charge VAT, and provide their services heavily subsidised or for free.
Studies in Ireland and Denmark, as well as the UK, show that this eats up some 4% of charities’ total expenditure.
Given that charities almost invariably provide services at a local level, they are a prime case for subsidiarity and national decision-making on the VAT rates they pay.
This principle has already been accepted by the European Parliament in the Randzio-Plath report, and I call for the Commission’s support in the decisions to be taken before the end of this year.
Without it charities will lose millions of euros each year.
   I have been following the recent activities of the Slovak Interior Minister, Mr Palko, with great concern and disquiet.
These activities directly undermine the basic principles of democracy and civic freedoms in Slovakia.
The Interior Minister has interfered and continues to interfere with a legitimate trade union protest by Slovak police officers.
By dismissing the chairman of the Police Federation and demoting him to the rank of ordinary police officer, he has interfered not only with personal rights of a police representative, but has thereby threatened the constitutionally guaranteed rights of citizens, citizens’ associations and trade unions to freely express their opinions.
Our People’s Party – HZDS perceives Minister Palko’s threats of imposing disciplinary measures against the protesting police officers as a preposterous manifestation of the arrogance of power.
Esteemed colleagues, Mr Palko is a senior representative of a political party belonging to the European People's Party.
I would therefore urge the leadership of this group not to stick its head in the sand, but to investigate the matter closely.
On behalf of independent members of People’s Party – HZDS in Slovakia, I express our support for the call made by the European confederation of police EUROCOP to change the system of management of police forces in Slovakia, and convey our request that the matter be investigated by the European Commission.
   Mr President, I would just like to ask a formal question on procedure.
From what I understood from Commissioner Kovács, the Commission would be prepared to answer the question at the part-session in Strasbourg in two weeks’ time.
Have I understood that correctly? It is important and it is urgent that we receive a reasonable, rapid answer.
The people of Slovakia really need a clear answer from the Commission, so it is an urgent matter.
I would just like to ask you whether we can expect such a timescale – after all, it is two weeks we are talking about.
   Mr President, there has been a translation error, so it is the English version that is deemed authentic.
By voting in favour of Amendment 3, we are not deleting the part of the sentence in paragraph 13 that states that an exception in the field of services must be made of the health care, education and audiovisual sectors.
By voting in favour of Amendment 3, therefore, we are clearly saying that a distinction must be made between commercial and public services and that public services such as water, sanitation and energy must be neither dismantled nor weakened, and we stand by the fact that the education, health care and audiovisual sectors must also be made an exception of.
   Mr Désir, this means that the original English version is deemed authentic.
We shall check all the translations in order to bring them into line with this original.
   Mr President, I am afraid there has been a slight mix-up.
There is one point on which I agree with Mr Sturdy.
Paragraph 19 in fact mentions the agreement on investments, and this is an error, because this paragraph relates to the measures for accessing medicines and, therefore, it is definitely the agreement on intellectual property – the ADPIC Agreement in French and the TRIPS Agreement in English – that should be mentioned and not the TRIMS Agreement, the agreement on investments.
That is why we requested a separate vote in order to delete the part of the sentence relating to the agreement on investments.
I do not believe that this part of the sentence can be re-inserted at the beginning of the paragraph because this paragraph really has nothing to do with this agreement on investments.
   Mr President, in the interests of making the wording of paragraph 5, indent 2 clearer and less clumsy, I would like to replace: ‘undertake political reforms leading to democracy and the rule of law starting through a multiparty system and the right for all currents of opinions to express their views’, the ending of which is rather clumsy, with the following: ‘to draw up and implement as soon as possible all the necessary reforms required to democratise the country, guarantee the peaceful expression of political opposition and ensure a speedy holding of multiparty elections under international monitoring with a view to national reconciliation’.
   I voted in favour of the motion on the basis of my professional experience with Slovak-Polish cross-border cooperation within the framework of the Tatra Euroregion.
Several Euroregion initiatives have come into being naturally, as bottom-up initiatives.
The Euroregions of today are associations with legal personality and their own cross-border structures, and they have the best expertise in the field of sustainable regional development.
They have also become important instruments of cross-border cooperation, which is of fundamental importance for European cohesion, under the terms of the European Outline Convention On Transfrontier Cooperation Between Territorial Communities or Authorities.
In view of their knowledge of the problems facing border areas, it is vital that the Euroregions participate in the development of strategies for 2007-2013, and that they play a greater role in cooperating with national institutions in the management of EU programmes.
This report is an important initiative of the European Parliament, since our support for the Euroregions will speed up the fulfilment of one of the key EU objectives – elimination of regional disparities.
   Mr President, on behalf of my colleagues I wish to state that we voted in favour of this resolution on the WTO on the understanding that the reference in paragraph 6 to the CAP reform relates to the 2003 CAP reforms under Commissioner Fischler.
   .
I support this joint resolution on preparations for the WTO conference and hope it will facilitate international trade in playing a major role in the promotion of economic development and the alleviation of poverty.
I particularly support the Amendment calling for: the phasing-out by 2010 of all forms of export competition, including food aid, export subsidies and state-trading entities, by all industrialised countries in parallel.
It is crucial that a distinction should be made between commercial services and public services, and that public services such as water, sanitation and energy should not be dismantled or undermined in the GATS.
The Doha Round must succeed in order to strengthen the multilateral trade system to ensure the progress and harmonious development of the world economy.
Trade coupled with aid and debt relief is essential to the achievement of the 2015 Millennium Goals so concrete results with regard to the development aspects of the Doha Round need to be achieved during the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference.
   Mr President, I greatly regret the fact that Mrs de Palacio, on behalf of the Commission, has already stopped the Olympic truce from being enforced in the Suze Valley during the 2006 Winter Olympics.
Even the Piedmont region requested this truce in order to put a stop, during the Games, to the tensions and disturbances created by the popular opposition in relation to the works under way on the high-speed Lyon/Turin line.
Independence for the Suze Valley, free Piedmont!
   .
I welcome this resolution on the Olympic Truce in the context of the Turin Winter Olympics 2006.
The Truce is an essential symbol of the Olympic spirit and one that must be retained and respected.
   .I gladly voted in favour of the motion for a resolution on development and sport tabled and supported by my colleague, Mrs Martens, as sport is one of those disciplines bringing people together and moving them forward along the road to greater wisdom and progress.
This resolution should be the starting point for an ambitious EU sports policy, by relying on the Member States’ national sports federations, particularly at youth level.
   Mr President, to my mind, something essential is missing from Mr Duff’s report on guidelines for the approval of the European Commission.
Indeed, I would remind you of how, last year, Mr Buttiglione, the Italian candidate Commissioner, was positively crucified as a result of being briefed against in a scandalous manner.
In much the same way as in the Spanish Inquisition, the reason was not the policies that Commissioner Buttiglione might pursue, but the question as to whether, in his deepest and innermost belief system, he did not harbour opinions that fly in the face of this appalling political correctness.
Mr Buttiglione’s butchering was yet another step in the repression by our new Left-totalitarian priests.
If this House were honest and consistent with itself, then this report would state that European Commissioners are not allowed to think in ways that political correctness does not permit.
   Mr President, the Duff report reminds me of William Shakespeare’s immortal words ‘much ado about nothing’.
Independence, competence, European commitment, these are all fine qualities, but in practice, I notice that this House has no problem with accepting people such as Louis Michel, who, in his former capacity as the Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister, ran counter to the very notion of European cooperation by demonising Austria; Mr Michel, in respect of whom it is generally known that he regards the European code of conduct for weapons export as no more than a scrap of paper; Mr Michel who, in March, during a flying visit to Cuba, said that things were not that bad over there and that the human rights organisations should stop defying Mr Castro.
How fortunate that ethics and respect for human rights are not express criteria for the appointment to the post of Commissioner.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 1 December 2005.
   The final version of the draft agenda, as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 8 December 2005 pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
   Mr President, I have a request to make in relation to the agenda for Wednesday.
It has to do with the statements made by President Ahmadinejad of Iran.
I believe that the statements made by the President of Iran over recent days to be something on which either you, as President of this House, or the President of the Council should take up a position.
I find it unacceptable that a Head of State should come out with utterances, in more or less plain and frank language, questioning the right of a state, and of a whole people, to exist, and going so far as to incite a breach of the peace in the region and the opening of the door to violence in it.
Let me tell the House, on behalf of my group – and I do think that the applause shows that I am, perhaps exceptionally, speaking on behalf of all Members here – that anyone who argues along the lines adopted by the President of Iran with regard to Israel is offending against the fundamental laws and rules of the international community, and I think that a multinational parliament such as our own should repudiate what they say in the most forthright terms.
That is what we expect the Council to do on behalf of the Council of Heads of State and of Government!
   Mr President, it might have been lost in translation that what Mr Schulz was asking for was that the Council Presidency, in its Wednesday statement, should take a view on this issue and make it perfectly clear where the Council stands on it.
   Mr President, we want to endorse this request, for, if we are talking in terms of matters of urgency, this very definitely is one, a fact reinforced by the demonstrations to which Mr Watson has referred.
We see it as the fly in the ointment that developments in Hong Kong are not going the way we would wish or the way that the Government of the People’s Republic of China did, to some degree, promise that they would.
Our support for a justifiable cause is not something intended to be detrimental to China or to the People’s Republic, but rather something that we want to do for the people of Hong Kong as they attempt to build democracy.
China needs to understand that this attempt to build democracy in Hong Kong would also bring great benefits to China itself.
With this in mind, we endorse this request.
(1)
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a cement carrier, the , sank on 2 December off the port of La Spezia, in the Poets’ Gulf, which is a magnificent gulf in the Mediterranean.
The crew was rescued, and the SeaDarQ system indicated that around 90 000 litres of hydrocarbons had leaked out.
The safety operation will cost at least EUR 2 million and work will continue for some months.
The rescue services’ efforts and the professionalism shown were both excellent but, nonetheless, the urgent need for stricter controls has been highlighted since this ship was a rust bucket, which was registered with the Ukraine Register of Shipping and sailing with its documents in order.
The possibility of carrying out a post-incident technical investigation to ascertain the causes of the incident and those responsible should therefore be reviewed, and this case should also be considered within the Erika II policy package, so that it can genuinely be said that those responsible for carrying out the checks will themselves be checked.
      Mr President, the tasks that the EU has set itself include in particular the promotion of harmonised, balanced and sustainable development throughout the Community and the achievement of a high level of employment and social welfare, better quality of life and greater economic and social cohesion, together with increased solidarity between Member States.
Anyone reading this list could be forgiven for thinking that we will soon live to see another heaven on earth.
Yet the above-mentioned guiding principles bear no relation to the actual state of affairs, especially given the substantial cuts that have been made to the budget.
This is particularly true as regards the situation in Poland, where unemployment stands at 20% and Polish people have lost their jobs as a result of the removal of obstacles to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital.
Such unemployment leads to poverty, hunger and despair, which are made all the worse by proposals to extend the transition periods.
Such musings are truly paradoxical in the run-up to Christmas, particularly in view of the fact that Christian values are being rejected, along with the knowledge of the truth that sets us free.
I hope that this truth will be fulfilled, and that this Christmas and New Year will be filled with hope and love.
   Mr President, on my own behalf and on behalf of Mrs Madeira and Mr Pittella, I would call upon Mr Blair, represented on the Council’s bench, to put right the insult to our intelligence and to European democratic values of the discrimination in his financial proposal against the regions of the Algarve, Basilicata, Asturias, Murcia, Ceuta and Melilla compared to three German , three Greek regions and an Austrian region, which are suffering the same statistical effect, but which are being given better treatment.
On 20 December, in Brussels, we will speak to you once again.
Let us hope that, by then, this shameful and unacceptable discrimination has not materialised and that we will be able to congratulate him.
   – Portugal has been devastated by company relocations, which have raised unemployment to alarming levels, a phenomenon that affects women in particular.
On this occasion, the US multinational has just announced the closure of one of its units, the Linhó cable-making factory, which had employed 1 200 people and is now pressuring the remaining 300 to take redundancy.
This is happening at a time when , a multinational corporation, was making a profit on its operations in Portugal, and an overall profit of millions of euro.
Mr President, I should therefore like to call on the Council and the Commission, once again, to show solidarity with these workers and to take urgently-needed steps to prevent unemployment from becoming any worse and to put a stop to these brutal relocations of multinationals in various EU countries, not least in Portugal.
   Mr De Rossa, I am prepared to change the rules we have established.
I would like to remind you that I sent a letter to all of you some time ago now, explaining how I intended to manage this difficult point in our proceedings.
I did not receive any objections, but we can review the rules at any time, that is to say, if you feel there is any way to improve them, please believe me that I will be delighted to listen.
I have not given you the floor today, Mr De Rossa, because you have been lucky enough to speak during the two previous sittings, as you are very well aware, and I have taken the view that I should give priority to Members who have spoken previously.
   The next item is the report by Diana Wallis, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, on the request for defence of the immunity and privileges of Bruno Gollnisch (2005/2072(IMM)) (A6-0376/2005).
   .
Mr President, I use this time as rapporteur to report to the House the decision of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
I make no secret that this was a difficult case for the committee.
It was one where our colleague, Mr Gollnisch, came to us to ask us, as a Parliament, to give him the benefit of this Parliament’s immunity.
I should also like to thank him for his courtesy and cooperation with the committee’s inquiries.
Mr Gollnisch has found himself prosecuted under French law – the law of his home Member State – for words he used at a press conference which, it is alleged, form something like Holocaust denial.
The committee considered this matter over several meetings and finally came to the decision, by a large and persuasive majority, that it would not be appropriate in this case to give him the benefit of this House’s immunity.
The committee felt that the circumstances in which he had used the words complained of by the French prosecutor were not circumstances where it could be said fairly and squarely that he was only exercising his mandate as a Member of this House or carrying out his duties as a Member of this House.
That being the case, it was not within the remit of the committee to enquire any further, and the committee made its decision on that basis.
Therefore, we decline to give Mr Gollnisch the benefit of parliamentary immunity of this House, and that is the committee’s recommendation to the Presidency and to the House.
   .
Mr President, let me start by expressing profuse thanks to our rapporteur, Mrs Wallis.
There are various members of the Legal Affairs Committee who deal with immunity cases, but I believe that this case was a particularly difficult and delicate one, which demanded very careful consideration on the Committee’s part; nor do I believe, if I read the signs rightly, that this was particularly easy for her personally.
We, the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, supported the rapporteur’s conclusions.
We too believe that the immunity conferred by membership of this House should not apply in this case.
I would also like to add a personal observation.
What was once the Mauthausen concentration camp is situated on my home patch, which is also my electoral district.
If you still have any doubts about whether these concentration camps actually existed, I am more than willing to invite you to join me on a visit to it.
You will find people who survived it still living in the area; where I come from is also home to people who helped the few who managed to escape from it; one woman who did so is being honoured here today.
I would like these remarks to be taken as honouring her memory.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by Mrs Wallis on Mr Gollnisch’s request for defence of immunity is, both in its form and its content, truly scandalous.
It is scandalous because the legal rules and the settled case-law of our Rules of Procedure and of the Committee on Legal Affairs have never before been so warped and violated.
It is scandalous because the matter presented before the Committee on Legal Affairs was the subject of unprecedented politicisation and political pressure on the part of Mr Gollnisch’s political opponents.
It has taken no less than four draft reports, all differing each time in their conclusions and reasoning, to come up with the report presented before us today in plenary, which is not, I might add, the report of which the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs had voted in favour, as the reasons behind the decision proposed by Mrs Wallis have subsequently been amended.
The argument put forward by the report in support of the decision not to defend Mr Gollnisch’s immunity and privileges is that he was not using his freedom of expression in carrying out his duties when he spoke at the press conference held in his political premises in Lyon on 11 October 2004.
What hypocrisy and what lies!
The written invitation to Mr Gollnisch’s press conference mentioned, next to his name, his status as a Member of the European Parliament.
The majority of the press reports referred to his status as a Member of the European Parliament.
Moreover, the subjects successively addressed by Mr Gollnisch were connected with Europe, whether they were the issue of Turkey’s joining Europe, the ratification process of the European Constitutional Treaty or, furthermore, the so-called Rousso report mainly related to certain academics’ political opinions on the history of the Second World War in Europe.
The settled case-law of the Committee on Legal Affairs in relation to opinions voiced by Members of the European Parliament tends, in this case, towards the systematic protection of immunity.
Far more serious precedents involving prosecutions for libel, slander, uprisings against the police or even contempt of court have resulted in the immunity of a Member of the European Parliament being upheld.
Yet, this has not been the case for our colleague Mr Gollnisch, thus undermining the independence and the freedom of expression of all Members.
Make no mistake: if this report were to be adopted in plenary, the freedom of expression of all Members of the European Parliament would be restricted and subject to the discretion of others; a new interpretation of the waiver of immunity for opinions voiced by Members in the course of their duties would be adopted; and Europe’s oh so precious democracy and fundamental values would lose their hauteur.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted that it should at last be possible for us to voice our opinions on Mr Gollnisch’s immunity, as this series of postponements of our vote has lasted too long.
We have spent long enough evaluating the facts.
I will not repeat in this House these facts exactly as they stand, but I want to emphasise that it is entirely right to support Mrs Wallis’ report, which proposes waiving Mr Gollnisch’s immunity for several reasons.
The first, and by no means least important, reason is that Mr Gollnisch did not make the incriminating remarks as a Member of the European Parliament.
The immunity enjoyed by all Members of the European Parliament is designed to protect their freedom of expression in the exercise of their duties.
In this case, Mr Gollnisch was not exercising his parliamentary duties.
Immunity does not equal irresponsibility, just as freedom of expression cannot be used to justify intolerable behaviour.
The second reason is that, in the case in point, the values of the European Union that we, as Members of the European Parliament, are supposed to defend, have been scorned.
Far – very far – from these humanist values, Mr Gollnisch, who is a good pupil of Mr Le Pen, tried to rival his master in the provocation stakes with the remarks he made at that press conference.
We must therefore strongly condemn these remarks.
Finally, the third and final reason is that, in the arguments put forward by Mr Gollnisch, there is no indication whatsoever of Being unable to accept the consequences of his remarks, Mr Gollnisch claims to be a victim of petty political proceedings designed to remove him from the political scene.
That is a bit rich when viewed in the light of the extremely shocking remarks he made in, I am convinced, full knowledge of the blows he was dealing to our democracy.
   Mr President, Article 7 states that I cannot speak in the debate.
I do not intend to speak in the debate, but Article 7 allows me nonetheless to correct an inaccurate allegation.
The third subparagraph of Article 7(8) allows me to speak on the basis of Article 145, and Article 145 gives me three minutes in which to make a personal statement.
If you will allow me, Mr President, and without my speaking in the debate, the outcome of which is, in any case, a foregone conclusion, I should like, as provided for by Article 7, to speak for three minutes on the basis of Article 145 in order to voice my opinion on accusations directed at me personally.
Consequently, I am not speaking with reference to the content of the debate, but simply with reference to allegations made about me by some of the speakers.
Mrs Bachelot believed she could say – and this is a widespread opinion – that I had spoken in the heart of the university.
That is totally incorrect.
The remarks for which I have been criticised were made at a press conference organised in the context of my political duties, during which, as another speaker, Mrs Schenardi, said, I answered journalists’ questions, a point that is not seriously disputed.
If I do not have the right to give these kinds of answers, then journalists should not have the right to ask questions about the history of the Second World War.
That seems quite clear to me, and I did not say those words as an academic even though the academic authorities, by order of the French Government, tried to undermine my presumption of innocence and were condemned for doing so by the Council of State, our highest court.
Secondly, Mrs Berger suggested that I had denied the fact that the concentration camps, and particularly the Mauthausen camp, ever existed.
Mrs Berger, I have never denied the fact that the concentration camps existed, and certainly not the Mauthausen camp.
The existence of the gas chambers at Mauthausen was denied by Mr Lanzmann, the director of the film ‘Shoah’, and not by myself who, on the contrary, said loud and clear that they existed.
I believe that these two clarifications are, Mr President, extremely important.
As for any possible recantations and procrastinations by the Commission, I personally played no part whatsoever in this affair.
I will point out, as my colleague said, that the President of the French Republic, Mr Chirac, recently asserted that there could be no official historical truth.
I question how it is that I can be criticised for remarks that have just been repeated by the Head of State, the head of the judiciary, and how it is that I can have the legal proceedings against me justified on the basis of a communist law, the Gayssot law, which Mr Toubon described as a Stalinist law when it was adopted.
It will be interesting to see what Mr Toubon has to say on the subject of my immunity.
That is all I had to say to this Assembly.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators and repealing Directive 91/157/EEC (5694/5/2005 – C6-0268/2005 – 2003/0282(COD)) – Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. Rapporteur: Joahnnes Blokland (A6-0335/2005).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has wanted the ban on cadmium and the restriction on the use of this heavy material since 1988.
With each piece of legislation, such as those relating to end-of-life vehicles or to electric and electronic products, our Parliament has highlighted one basic principle: the use of cadmium must be prohibited, and this product must only remain in those instances where there is no alternative.
Ever since the beginning, that has been the substitution principle, the principle underpinning the draft REACH Directive, which mobilised us some time ago.
Like other sectors, the REACH Directive excludes batteries, on the grounds that a suitable directive must precisely enable us to gauge the work done by Parliament.
I therefore strongly urge us to apply the substitution principle to batteries containing cadmium.
Mr Blokland explained at length the difficulties he had in winning acceptance for an ambitious point of view, and his willingness to make compromises must be welcomed.
We support it.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that it should be possible for our Parliament to accept a basic principle.
If a technology exists on the market that can offer an alternative to nickel-cadmium batteries or to batteries containing cadmium – be they, for that matter, what are known as portable batteries or industrial batteries – then we must ban cadmium.
Mr Blokland tried to list what was already available on the market.
There are emerging technologies, particularly nickel-zinc technology for industrial batteries.
I therefore call on you to accept Amendment 4, tabled by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, which proposes that, in the event of an alternative technology for industrial batteries appearing on the market, a revision of the directive be got under way.
This seems to me to be the absolute minimum requirement if we are to remain faithful to our environmental ambition and, above all, to the desire to promote technological innovation in the European Union.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mr Blokland, and to underline the enormous significance that a directive on batteries and accumulators and spent batteries and accumulators holds for environmental protection.
There are many instances of metals similar to those used in batteries and accumulators being found during tests carried out on people living in environmentally sensitive areas and on the water sources in such areas.
By analysing the origin of these metals, it is possible to state conclusively that some of them come from batteries and accumulators that have been deposited in rubbish dumps.
Discarded batteries and accumulators take a very long time to decompose.
Several problems arise in this connection, such as the following.
People underestimate the need to collect batteries, and so they must be made more aware of it.
Legal and financial measures must be put in place to promote the collection of batteries, and we must foster a culture in which the public acquires the habit of doing so.
Issues relating to organisational matters and to the disposal of these pollutants are further problems.
A number of issues that have been raised will only be resolved over time, provided that battery collection schemes continue to be publicised and that improvements continue to be made to collection and disposal systems.
In particular, technical progress must be promoted in the field of battery production, in order to ensure that batteries are safe.
   Mr President, I very much welcome this legislation which, I think, will help clean up our environment.
However, I also want to comment on the three key issues that colleagues have commented on, the first of which concerns prohibitions and in particular compromise amendment 42.
The problem I have is that it still involves the idea of an automatic ban on nickel cadmium batteries after four years; the Commission is not asked to carry out an impact assessment to see what we should do.
I do not agree with an automatic ban.
If we are going to ban things, then we should do so in full knowledge.
We should also do things that are proportionate: there is cadmium in our atmosphere but less than 1% is caused by batteries – much more comes from pesticides and other uses – so we must have legislation that is proportionate to what we are trying to achieve.
We need a study on this issue before we move to any further legislation.
I will support the common position.
As regards the targets, I agree with what speakers have said about realistic targets.
There is no point pretending we can automatically run to big leaps forward when in fact only a handful of countries collect batteries at all.
We need to get targets down to a level that countries can meet at some point in the future and work out how to get there.
Someone pointed out that, after 9 years, Belgium has reached a level of 56% and Austria, after 14 years, still lies somewhere at around 40%.
Finally on the legal base issue, I shall be supporting the rapporteur and the Socialist Group on a legal base, but we have to bang heads together on this issue of Articles 175 and 95 because we have kept coming up against this issue in environmental legislation over the past few months.
We should be looking at this and having the legal experts from the three institutions talking about the legal base.
We do not want to see legislation on the environment that undermines higher standards in those Member States that choose to have them.
   Mr President, I would like to start by extending warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Blokland, for the work he has done.
Important though the protection of the environment is – as one who concerns myself with environmental policy, I have set it as my declared objective – we must find a way of balancing the environment against legitimate business interests.
My particular concern today is with the ban on nickel-cadmium batteries in power tools.
To ban them outright, whether now or after a transitional period of four years – which is what the rapporteur proposes – would be going too far.
As a substitute for that, I prefer to back the Common Position and Mr Krahmer’s Amendment 45, which make provision for a review of the derogation from the ban for nickel-cadmium batteries in power tools after four and seven and a half years respectively.
It would then be considered whether equivalent alternatives existed and whether a ban on nickel-cadmium batteries was reasonable and justified – which, as things stand at the moment, it is not.
While there are already, in many areas, technological alternatives to nickel-cadmium on the market, nickel-metal hybrids being one example, these alternatives cannot as yet be regarded as equivalent to nickel-cadmium, as demonstrated, , by various differences, for example the fact that the lifetime of nickel-cadmium batteries is longer than that of their nickel-metal hybrid counterparts, and they are less susceptible to faults and defects.
Nickel-cadmium batteries can be charged up more quickly and discharge themselves much more slowly when out of use. It is also worthy of note that nickel-metal hybrid batteries do not function when the temperature falls below 10° Celsius.
It is the desire for a consolidated market position that motivates manufacturers to develop more and more new technologies, but a ban at the present time or in four years’ time would be counterproductive, for they would have to change over their production methods to handle a type of technology that is not yet fully developed, while the research and development sector would not be able to come up with financial resources that this would demand.
A ban would therefore do nothing to foster innovation in the field of new technologies nor, consequently, anything to benefit the environment either, and we surely cannot want that.
I will close by expressing my support for Articles 95 and 175 as a dual legal basis.
   In some Member States, such as Hungary, the collection of spent batteries and accumulators may be a newly introduced activity, but at the same time, it is also a long-term environmental protection investment.
In order to enable the implementation of the law, collection targets must remain realistic both in terms of time and quantity.
Excessively ambitious targets (such as 50-60%) would lead to stipulations that cannot be implemented.
Switzerland’s consumer culture needed 12 years to reach the 60% level.
In our country, where carbon-zinc batteries still have a 40-50% market share due to poor consumer purchasing power, distributors would be unable to finance, and consumers would be unable to pay the cost of a too vigorously enforced collection.
This would not only lead to the liquidation of enterprises and job losses, but it would also boost the already thriving black market battery import, which presents an increasing environmental risk.
This means that a law that cannot be complied with would achieve the opposite of its objective.
What we need is regulations – even with a potential review within five years – that can ensure the achievement of environmental targets in the long term, and the preservation of jobs in the affected industry and distribution sectors for the next five or ten years.
    The next item is the report (A6-0334/2005) by Mrs Kauppi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2004/39/EC on markets in financial instruments, as regards certain deadlines [COM(2005)0253 – C6-0191/2005 – 2005/0111(COD)].
    The next item is the report (A6-0382/2005) by Mrs Fourtou, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the alleged abuse of the Valencian Land Law known as the LRAU and its effect on European citizens (Petitions 609/2003, 732/2003, 985/2002, 1112/2002, 107/2004 and others) [2004/2208(INI)].
   . – Mr President, as a member of the second European Parliament delegation which visited the Spanish authorities in Madrid and the regional and local authorities in the autonomous region of Valencia in June 2005 and met with groups of petitioners, I am obliged to state publicly that all the key players demonstrated an excellent willingness to cooperate with the MEPs and confirmed their understanding and concern for the legitimate, but not for the illegal claims of the citizens.
The rapporteur, Mrs Fourtou, has achieved a feat in drafting her report on behalf of the Committee on Petitions and has made masterly use of all her subtractive powers in order to retain the most fundamental elements which it makes sense to put forward in a report which the House is called to vote on, by adhering to the Rules of Procedure and her legal obligations and not exceeding them.
Unfortunately, when the Fourtou report was voted on in the Committee on Petitions, amendments were slipped into the text which touch on the principle of subsidiarity, together with complaints not accompanied by the relevant proof.
We therefore support the amendments by the rapporteur and her group deleting a number of details.
These amendments restore the dignity of the non-legislative text which, of course, has no repercussions.
Moreover, we too are trying in turn with our series of amendments to improve the unacceptably didactic and overbearing tone, especially of paragraphs 6 and 11, which are insulting to a Member State.
The amendment to paragraph 11 in particular highlights the more general problem of excessive urbanisation of the shores of the Mediterranean in general and stresses the general nature of environmental protection.
As for recital Ι, our amendment corrects the vague tone of the text and recalls the infringement proceedings already exercised in accordance with Article 226 of the Treaty and European legislation, as you mentioned Commissioner, and this is why we call on everyone voting in favour of the report to vote in favour of these amendments.
As to whether the honourable Members will vote in favour of the report, that is up to them.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0343/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Industry, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on energy end-use efficiency and energy services and repealing Council Directive 93/76/EEC (10721/3/2005 – C6-0298/2005 – 2003/0300(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Rothe).
   .
Mr President, of all Europe’s energy sources, energy efficiency is the most important, and the fastest and cheapest way to achieve our Kyoto targets; not only that, but it also gives us a chance to invest in Europe and create jobs, rather than handing over money to foreign countries or to the Arab world in return for oil and gas.
This directive not only brings the day closer when we can develop this potential, but also complements the opening-up of Europe’s gas and electricity markets.
Alongside competition in the production and sale of electricity and gas, this directive will make for more vigorous competition in relation to investments in energy-saving technologies, in what are called ‘negawatts’.
Particularly to small and medium-sized enterprises, this market is potentially worth billions.
What is good about this directive? One good thing in it is the concept of national action plans, the first of which has to be submitted by June 2007, after which the Commission will have six months in which to suggest any improvements that it thinks necessary.
After three years, an assessment or evaluation will be carried out, and the next plan will then be drawn up, which will incorporate the lessons learned, not only from the successes and failures of one national plan, but those learned from the successes and failures of 25 or 27 of them.
That means that we, in Europe, can really get serious about saving energy.
We should not, however, harbour any illusions about this: when debate turns to energy efficiency, it is often the case that people invoke a general consensus – one that I, however, do not believe actually exists.
The real reason why the big energy companies, like RWE and E.ON, fought this directive tooth and nail behind the scenes in the Commission, in this House and in the Council, right up to the very end, is that the prospect of a market in the saving of energy terrifies them.
It is for that reason that these companies, aided by their sympathisers in parliaments and governments, have seen to it that none of the targets are binding.
While I do regret this, I have not yet given up hope that all of them – particularly, in future, the members of the national parliaments – are capable of learning and will imitate the Danish model: a binding 1.7% is what we need in the other countries too.
   Firstly I would like to congratulate our rapporteur for the excellent work.
It is no mean achievement to work out around fifty compromises with the Council and the five different factions of Parliament.
In view of the forward-looking and very positive results, I would like to indicate that this draft is only the first step in enhancing energy consumption efficiency.
This is something that we should not forget when we start addressing the financing issues of the implementation.
In Hungary there are 800 000 prefabricated flats, where heating constitutes 54% of the household running costs.
The individual modernisation of these flats is an absolute necessity if we want to improve energy efficiency.
This would cost in excess of 40 000 euros per flat, with a payback period of 25 years.
In view of the low financing capacity of the population and local governments, the Hungarian state has started a large scale, long term refurbishment project of prefabricated flats.
Basically this means that the state advances the funds required for the modernisation work to the consumers, and the population repays them from their energy savings.
We spent 15 million euros on this project in 2004, and 32 million euros in 2005.
It will be very important to remember, when we work on the 2007-2013 budget of the European Union, that in order to reach the important energy efficiency targets stipulated in the currently debated draft, more than half a million, mostly modest households will need financial assistance from the European Union in Hungary only.
Thank you for your attention, on their behalf, too.
   The next item is the report by Pier Luigi Bersani, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on taxation of undertakings in the European Union: a common consolidated corporate tax base (2005/2120(INI)) (A6-0386/2005).
   .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I see the arrival, as a topic on our order of business, of the topic of the Europe-wide harmonisation of business taxation.
The co-existence side by side within the EU, of 25 different tax systems, with marked differences not only in terms of the tax rates levied, but also of the manner in which profit is calculated, has, over the past ten years, led to one result above all others, in that the share of business tax in the funding of public budgets is on the way down, and a growing proportion of the tax burden is placed on the person who earns ordinary wages for working for someone else, or on the consumer, the latter of which is the worst possible solution in terms of its impact on society and on economic growth.
It is in this way that big multinationals in particular are given every opportunity to minimise their tax burden.
Transfer pricing and the shifting of losses are just two of their favourite ways of making sure that profits appear in the accounts at the precise place where the taxman is least inclined to stick his hand in.
Quite apart from this sort of fiscal dumping, the co-existence of tax systems has prompted a competitive approach to cutting tax rates.
The average corporation tax rate, for example, fell by a total of 15 percentage points across the old EU from the end of the 1980s onwards.
One demonstration of the fact that these cuts are not by any means nominal is to be found in a long-term study by the University of Mannheim, according to which the amount of tax effectively paid by the 50 biggest European conglomerates fell from 36% in 1988 to a mere 31% in 2000, which means that billions of euros in public revenue have been given away and wasted.
Bizarrely enough, the European leader of the tax dumping pack – particularly where company taxes are concerned – is neither an Eastern European state nor Ireland, but the Federal Republic of Germany, supposedly a high-tax country, where a tax reform forced through by the former Schröder Government – which justified its action by reference to fiscal competition across Europe – brought corporation tax yield to an utter standstill.
Only the harmonisation of taxes across Europe can put a stop to this lunacy, which sees companies making enormous profits while taking less and less of a part in funding the community as a whole and people on average and low incomes – and, via taxes on consumption, even pensioners and the unemployed – ending up having to make good the shortfall.
I do not, however, believe that it is enough to harmonise the tax base.
What we need, as a matter of urgency, is a Europe-wide minimum tax rate for company profits of at least 40%, and on a broad tax base.
Tax dumping is omnipresent, and this is the only way to stop it in its tracks.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I welcome the Commission’s proposal and the proposal in the Bersani report for the introduction of a common base for company tax.
It leads to more transparency, which benefits our economy and employment.
It has to be said, though, the Marks [amp] Spencer dossier, to which reference has already been made, will, whether we like it or not, very quickly lead to the debate turning to tax harmonisation.
I would therefore like to draw Members’ attention to the amendments that I, together with some forty fellow Members, have tabled, not with a view to harmonising taxes, but in order to introduce a minimum company tax rate.
This amendment allows for fiscal competition between the Member States, but one that is fair, not least to enterprises.
It ensures that sufficient funds are raised to finance our social model and that sufficient funds are left for the government to finance such things as corporate infrastructure.
I would, in this connection, like to quote the Hungarian Social Affairs Minister, Kinga Göncz, who takes the view that ever-lower taxes do not fit in the European social model and imperil the social protection funds.
Despite the short-term benefits that they bring, it is possible that they will soon cause us to run out of the funds needed to guarantee prosperity and to implement the social model, and this is something we want to avoid.
We already have minimum capital gains tax, and we want minimum corporate tax tomorrow.
    The next item is the report (A6-0366/2005) by Mrs Roure, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and the Council on the European Year of Equal Opportunities for All (2007) – Towards a Just Society [COM(2005)0225 – C6-0178/2005 – 2005/0107(COD)].
   The key message of the European Parliament in response to the proposal of the Commission is to fight against all forms of discrimination, and this is why I am particularly pleased to congratulate Mrs Martine Roure on this report.
I would like to emphasise that the equality of opportunities – as the first human right formulated by the European Union – is a horizontal area stretching across all sectors.
Therefore the enforcement of equal opportunities cannot be of utmost priority for Parliament only, but also for the EU, and for all government bodies of the Member States.
I particularly welcome that President Borrell has set up the high-level Committee on Equal Opportunities, and I am proud to work as one of its members.
I would like to call attention to a recently published important work of the Committee, which mentions the benefits arising from applying the principles of diversity when a workplace interviews and employs its workforce.
Workplaces that implement such a policy, companies that take into account cultural diversity are more competitive in the long term, and in some cases also experience increased efficiency in the short or medium term.
Therefore equal opportunities are not an obstacle to the increase of economic competitiveness, but act as a strengthening factor.
I would also like to stress the individual responsibility of Member States in preparing for the Year of Equal Opportunities, and would like to propose a number of initiatives myself.
I have organised the first public Parliamentary hearing in Hungary, which will take place next week, when participating citizens will talk about their personal experiences to illustrate the discrimination they have suffered.
A blind girl who has not been admitted to university because of her blindness, and a young Roma man will talk about their lives.
I would like to make this customary in Hungary, and to introduce in my country the personal hearings that we experience here.
   If we approve this, the consequence will be that it will be debated on Wednesday evening, with an opportunity to table amendments tomorrow – which is Wednesday – until 10 in the morning, and the vote on the report itself would be on Thursday.
We have now heard one intervention in favour of that, and now is the opportunity for someone to speak against it.
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   .
Having successfully reached this culmination point of the budget cycle, we can conclude that a constructive approach, realism and political responsibility have prevailed in the budget negotiations.
It is due to prudent and inevitable compromise that we are near our goal today – an EU Budget for 2006 that may play a decisive role not only concerning the financial possibilities of the coming year, but also in shaping the further financial fate of Europe.
The approval of the budget may, and I hope will, become a vitally important message to the European Union that its institutions are still operational and able to function constructively, to make important decisions together and to achieve positive results.
I consider the results of the 2006 EU Budget negotiations to be one of those optimal successes.
Mr President, regarding the positive outcome of the negotiations for 2006: overall, a successful result has been achieved and one with which Parliament can be satisfied and proud.
I would like to thank Mr Pittella, Mr Lewandowski – the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and all the rapporteurs involved in the process.
From the very beginning, the Commission strongly supported Parliament’s interpretation of the flexibility instrument which the Council, after hard negotiations, has now accepted.
Despite the Council’s refusal to go over EUR 200 million, now, with the final outcome, EUR 275 million has been made available under the flexibility instrument, creating essential room for manoeuvre in heading 4.
Turning to the co-decision programmes, you have achieved an important EUR 100 million over 6 programmes.
From the earliest stages, this was a strategy supported by the Commission in the process of negotiation, and now that agreement has been reached by both arms of the budgetary authority, the Commission will do its utmost to ensure implementation of the new amounts.
I would like also to thank Parliament, and in particular, Mr Pittella, for taking into account so many aspects of the Commission’s letter of executability of the amendments from the first reading.
I would now like to turn to the level of payment appropriations.
It is important that the payment appropriations in the budget can cover the incoming bills, and ensure that beneficiaries receive the payments they are expecting.
The level of payment appropriations agreed for 2006 is accompanied by the agreed declaration, so that, if necessary and on the basis of the most up-to-date information, this will allow for any additional appropriations needed to be made available as soon as possible.
In order to facilitate the deal between the two arms of the budgetary authority, the Commission has proposed Amending Letter 3, which is technically well founded, but the Commission will keep a close watch on the implementation of the 2006 budget and will not hesitate to use the budgetary tools at our disposal, if certain areas need to be reinforced.
In the first instance, appropriations can be transferred, and, notably, we can also call on the provisions of the declaration agreed at the trilogue, should an amending budget be required.
I would finally point out that the total payment appropriations figure on the table today represents an increase of almost 6% compared to the 2005 budget.
The budget agreed is optimal and fair, and it is necessary for Europe.
I wish Parliament a constructive debate and successful vote on Thursday.
   . I am pleased that an agreement concerning the EU Budget for 2006 has been reached.
Significant concessions were made by both the European Parliament and the Council, and thus, today we can expect that on 15 December the European Union budget for 2006 will be approved.
The European Parliament Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, of which I am a member, should be satisfied with the results of the agreement, as we have succeeded in achieving our main goals.
In 2006, allocations will be increased for codecision programmes, such as scientific research, SOCRATES, LIFE, small and medium-sized enterprises, youth programmes and European cultural organisations.
Growth, competitiveness and support for SMEs have always been and will continue to be the priority areas of the European People’s Party.
It is also very important that we have come to an agreement to use the flexibility instrument for external policies and new needs, allocating EUR 275 million to Iraq, reconstruction efforts in tsunami-affected countries and consequences of sugar reform in the ACP countries, of which EUR 40 million will go to the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The level of appropriations for 2006 was a very important subject of negotiation for the European Parliament, and the agreement reached on EUR 111.969 billion, or 1.01% of GNI, is within the limits of the Financial Perspective and therefore should be seen as a positive outcome of the negotiations.
Although at the first reading Parliament voted for significantly higher appropriations, the compromise reached with the Council 2006 provides a good foundation for agreement on the new Financial Perspective, as well as for negotiations on the EU Budget for 2007.
I congratulate my colleague and main rapporteur Giovanni Pittella, the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets Mr Lewandowski, the Commissioner and the Council for having reached this solid agreement.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Lewis, I wish to start by also thanking the rapporteurs, headed by Mr Pittella, for the constructive outcome we have now achieved following the negotiations.
I think it good that we were able to reach a conclusion concerning the 2006 Budget, even though there is no clarification of the financial perspective for 2007-2013.
It does show that, despite everything, the Council’s and Parliament’s positions on the 2006 Budget were not so far removed from each other, even though the negotiations were quite tough.
My group does not, then, wish to support the proposal to reject the 2006 Budget in protest against the British Presidency’s proposals concerning the financial perspective.
We too are angry that the British Presidency has proposed cutting back on aid to the poorest EU countries in order to give to the rich countries, but that is of course a debate to which we shall return later.
The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe is particularly pleased that increased appropriations to development and research programmes – over and above what has been agreed in the past, moreover – were successfully obtained.
We are delighted to have obtained more money from the flexibility instrument so that we can fund the post-tsunami reconstruction, together with reconstruction in Iran.
Regarding the size of the payments in 2006, which in fact remained at 1.01% of gross national income, it will of course be the actual level in 2006 that will determine the budget over the next few years, if it should turn out that we do not obtain an agreement on the financial perspective.
That is something we could, of course, easily live with.
We should then approve annual budgets with only the Treaty as a framework, and we should then see how things went.
My group wants a financial perspective, but not at any price.
      Mr President, the enlarged European Union’s second budget is in the process of becoming reality.
The broad consensus reached within Parliament means that the final vote should hold no surprises, and so I will start by saying some ‘thank yous’, for which I will otherwise run out of time.
I should like to thank the rapporteurs, Mr Pittella, Mr Dombrovskis, Mr Böge and Mr Garriga Polledo, the political group coordinators and our secretariat, headed by Maria Fialho.
Our partners in this undertaking, or in other words Mr Lewis and Commissioner Grybauskaitė, are both well aware of the fact that this year’s budget was a challenge, and that tensions ran high during the negotiations.
This does not diminish the mutual respect shared by the players in this EU institutional triangle, however.
Parliament had to fulfil its mission and the commitments it entered into upon being elected, and indeed it did so.
This was apparent from its endeavours to defend its priorities under the headings of internal and external policies, which was a far from easy task in the final year of a financial perspective.
I am delighted that we have managed to find extra funding for six of the programmes adopted under the codecision procedure.
It has also been necessary to mobilise the flexibility instrument, and even to exceed its annual ceiling.
All these decisions were taken in accordance with the Interinstitutional Agreement, which is proof of the value of this latter.
I am quite sure that it will be a long time before we forget the team spirit demonstrated by the members of Parliament’s delegation during these nerve-wracking negotiations.
This was an example of genuine unity in diversity, and a good sign for the future.
Yet our joy at having a proper annual budget for 2006 is tempered by the uncertainty that surrounds the multi-annual Financial Perspective.
By this I do not mean uncertainty on our part, since we have adopted a position and are now awaiting developments.
I can only hope that we will finally see signs this week that the European Union is overcoming the crisis in which it finds itself, by reaching an agreement on the most challenging issue of all, namely money.
I also hope that the agreement is not one that leaves poorer countries with their backs against the wall, since we are all aware that these countries need to be able to plan ahead in order to conduct sensible regional policies.
   Mr President, it is evident that good policy, of the kind that benefits the European public, results where the European Parliament possesses powers of codecision and that difficulties arise whenever the Council puts national interests first.
It is also apparent from the current debate that this House was very far-sighted in European agricultural policy and in initiating the reduction in export subsidies.
In Cancún, it was at the behest of the European Parliament that Mr Fischler and Mr Lamy proposed that these export subsidies be suspended outright.
We have also used the budget and codecision to foster rural development and to qualify the agricultural policy.
Certain governments – the British one in particular, which is now proposing cuts – should take good note of the fact that this rebate will nullify the House’s qualification, in part through budget policy, in this area, and put the brakes on a modern agricultural policy founded upon rural development, which will be particularly to the detriment of the new Member States of the European Union.
   I shall just clarify something with regard to what you were saying about Mr Onesta, because I too am a member of the Bureau.
The European Parliament is obviously not a property speculator, but endeavours to be a good administrator of the funds entrusted to it.
The desire to spend in appropriate conditions should therefore, in my opinion, be approved by a man who is as fond of budgetary rigour as you are.
   Mr President, some aspects of the funding of the so-called Common Foreign and Security Policy are highly dubious.
Money from wholly disparate budget rubrics is used to fund the EU’s operations, whether of a military or police nature, and the so-called flexibility instrument makes an additional EUR 40 million available for the CFSP.
What I would like to know is for what, precisely, these EUR 40 million are being used.
The EUPOL operation in Kinshasa is funded by the European Development Fund, that is to say by EUR 4.3 million of development aid.
The AMIS operation in the Sudan, which includes military training, is funded jointly by ten Member States, as well as by the fund called the African Peace Facility.
The EUPM mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina is part-funded from the Commission’s budget, and the ALTHEA operation in Bosnia by means of what is termed the ATHENA mechanism, in other words, in an undemocratic manner and without Parliamentary scrutiny.
Mr Brok is now proposing that there be an increase in this area, from EUR 100 million to EUR 300 million.
As you know that the Treaty of Nice prohibits the European Union from maintaining an independent military budget, perhaps you would refrain from these sorts of tricks!
   – Mr President, I am delighted, first of all because from now on the Council will negotiate CFSP issues with us at ambassador level, thereby upgrading Parliament's role in the shaping of the CFSP.
Secondly, I am delighted because an agreement was reached in time on the 2006 budget.
In this respect, the British Presidency took the right decision, given that no one would have tolerated two major impasses at the end of a Presidency and Mr Blair wanted to close the 2006 budget in good time so that he would have more room for manoeuvre when negotiating the financial perspectives.
Thirdly, payment appropriations for 2006 are 1.01, compared to 1 in 2005, while the British proposal makes provision for 0.98 for the seven-year period from 2007 to 2013.
We have a slight improvement compared with this year, we achieved more than the British Presidency is discounting for the next seven years, but we have no reason to celebrate.
We shall not achieve European integration with so little money.
I should like to reply to the minister by saying that we do not agree with what he said here today about the heading 3 financing needed and legal use of the flexibility instrument supposedly being 'exceptional events'.
I am afraid that the minister should not have said this in his intervention, because, on the contrary, we shall not achieve integration with less money, especially less necessary money.
To divide the Member States into net contributors and net recipients of appropriations, when we are not going to spend more than 1% on Europe, when we are not focusing our overall synergies from common European action, does not do us credit and certainly does not testify to our regard for European ideals.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is perfectly plain from the negotiations on the 2006 budget, and even more so from the debates on the financial perspective, that the way the Council is acting is reminiscent of someone who leaves a restaurant without settling the bill.
The Council orders more and more powers for the European Union, while being willing to pay less and less for them.
The Council sticks up for the Member States.
What the Member States want is for the EU to do more and more with the Common Foreign and Security Policy, to fight terrorism and crime, to subsidise agriculture, to organise policies for the protection of the environment and of consumers, for development aid and much else – the list is endless. It is getting longer, and, as we all know, that costs money – a lot of money.
So let me tell the Council that it is time the simple truth dawned on it that more powers cost more money, and fewer powers cost less money.
It is irresponsible of the Council to demand more powers while at the same time being less and less willing to spend money.
Reforming the way the money is spent would do us all some good.
      Mr President, I should like to take the opportunity of this debate on the 2006 budget to remind the House that the payments in this budget are set at a level that is as much as 0.07% of GNP lower than that foreseen in the 2000-2006 Financial Perspective.
They are also 0.02% lower than the payments planned for 2005, which is now drawing to a close.
This is certainly not good news, in particular for the new EU Member States.
This fundamental objection notwithstanding, I should like to thank all those who have helped ensure that the 2006 budgetary procedure will soon come to an end.
A total of two rounds of painstaking conciliation negotiations with the Council were needed to get this far, as well as the taking up of a firm position by both the negotiating group and Parliament as a whole.
This is a particularly important message to send out at a time when the debate on the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective is ongoing, and when the positions of the Council and Parliament on this matter are unfortunately very different.
The 2006 budget sets a figure of almost EUR 112 billion to cover payments, which is the equivalent of 1.01% of the EU’s GNP.
This is substantially higher than the level of payments proposed by the British Presidency for the individual years in the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective.
As I see it, this should be one of our key arguments in the debate on the level of payments for the 2007-2013 period, given that the European Union, far from wanting to abandon the funding of any of its present activities, is currently seeking to increase its involvement.
I should like to conclude by thanking the rapporteurs for having drafted the reports.
I should also like to express the hope that we will succeed in implementing this year’s budget in its entirety, so that late 2006 does not see us complaining that we have failed to adopt a rational approach to the expenditure of such a modest sum.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this week the European Parliament will adopt the European Union’s budget for 2006 at the second and final reading.
This will conclude the European Union’s budget procedure for 2006 and the existing Financial Perspective.
I am pleased that after lengthy debates with the European Council it has been possible to reach a compromise.
This was also important because the 2006 budget serves as a point of reference in taking decisions on the next Financial Perspective, that for 2007–2013.
I hope that this week the Member States’ governments at the European Council will also be able to agree on the Council’s position with regard to the Financial Perspective.
I call on the European Council, when debating this issue, also to take into account the opinion and ideas expressed in the European Parliament’s resolution.
The main priorities of the 2006 budget for the other EU institutions are enlargement and the effective and highly targeted use of EU budget resources.
The first priority is connected with the successful completion of the 2004 round of enlargement, as well as preparations for the next round of enlargement, when Bulgaria and Romania will join.
Unfortunately, once again it is necessary to point out that, although more than a year has passed since EU enlargement, many permanent staff posts set aside for the new Member States still remain vacant.
One of the problems to be emphasised in this connection is the excessive red-tape and slow procedures for taking on staff.
In accordance with the decision taken at first reading, the proposal at second reading is again to support all the permanent staff posts requested by the other institutions in connection with enlargement, and also other additional expenditure connected with enlargement, in order to ensure the success of the next round of EU enlargement.
The second priority is effective and highly targeted use of EU budget resources.
This priority encompasses such matters as: focusing EU institutional expenditure on fundamental tasks; giving support to new budget requests and permanent staff posts requests only after having assessed the possibility of redistributing resources and staff within the framework of the existing budget; giving support to new initiatives only after having assessed their impact on the budget and interinstitutional cooperation with a view to economical and effective use of budget resources.
Both institutions with budgetary decision-making powers – the European Parliament and the Council – endorse the principles of budgetary discipline and the rational use of EU taxpayers’ money.
At second reading the European Council proposed reverting to its initial position and reducing the administrative expenditure of the other institutions by 15 million euro as compared with the institutions’ original requests.
It must be said that in many cases this reduction was implemented in an ill-considered manner, without thorough examination of the specific nature and problems of the institutions’ work.
Nonetheless, during the conciliation meeting a compromise was reached whereby the European Council will not object to the amount of expenditure by the other institutions set by the European Parliament at first reading.
Therefore, the proposal at the European Parliament’s second reading is to retain the amount of expenditure fixed at the European Parliament’s first reading, restoring part of the reductions in expenditure made by the European Council – in total by 7.5 million euro.
To conclude, I should like to return to the issue of the Financial Perspective.
During the conciliation meeting on the EU budget for 2006 it could be seen that the European Council and particularly the UK Presidency focused excessively on just a single issue – the minimum possible figure for payment appropriations.
It only remains to hope that at this week’s European Council summit the Member States’ governments will be able to deal with EU issues within a wider perspective, and not reduce everything to just one question – the minimum possible figure for payment appropriations.
Particularly striking proof of this tendency is provided by the unacceptable proposal by the UK Presidency to find a compromise between the older Member States at the expense of the new Member States, by reducing by 10 per cent the amount of EU funds accessible to the new Member States.
We must remember that the Luxembourg Presidency had already proposed a significant reduction in the amount of resources to be directed towards the EU’s regional policy, in comparison with what the European Commission had announced.
Fortunately, this proposal by the UK has already been withdrawn.
It only remains to hope that the UK Presidency is serious about reaching a compromise this year on the Financial Perspective, and that its next proposal will be an improvement.
   – The next item is the continuation of the Commission statement on the Commission's legislative and work programme for 2006.
   Mr President, I wish to ask for clarification.
You stated that Amendments 1 and 2, which we voted on by roll call, had been rejected, but you also said that we needed a qualified majority.
I have counted the votes against, and 328 votes do not add up to a qualified majority.
I ask you to clarify which procedure we are now using.
   Amendments 1 and 2 were put to the vote by roll call.
309 Members voted in favour, but we need 367 votes in favour, under qualified majority, for them to be adopted.
   Mr President, I should like through you to ask Mr Pomés Ruiz why, of the eight or ten people he nominated, only one could be a woman.
   Your question speaks for itself, Mr Evans.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, under Rule 168 of the Rules of Procedure, I request that the Wallis report be referred back to the committee in question immediately, since the procedure followed is not complete.
Only the conclusions were put to the vote in committee, but not the arguments.
I call on my fellow Members to support this request, which constitutes significant evidence of transparency and internal democracy.
   Mr Romagnoli, you do not belong to a political group; you are a non-attached Member.
You are therefore not in a position to make that request.
It just shows how important it is to belong to a group, especially a large one!
   Mr President, I read in the Roure report that one of the messages to be sent out in the course of 2007, the European Year of Equal Opportunities, is that everyone is entitled to equal treatment.
The promotion of respect and tolerance is also high on the agenda.
Given the politically correct tenor of the report and given past experience, I will entertain few illusions about the Commission’s intention to make it clear, to Europe’s Islamic communities in particular, that violence against Jews and discrimination against women are unacceptable.
A study in 2002 showed, for example, that anti-Semitic behaviour is particularly rife among Muslims.
Since this is, of course, not in keeping with the politically correct image that we have, this report’s conclusions were confined to the waste paper basket.
The most prevalent and blatant cases of discrimination are covered up with the mantle of love.
No one has ever died of hypocrisy, of course.
   The EU has an important role to play in strengthening democracy and human rights in the countries in its immediate neighbourhood.
Enlargement contributes to this positive development.
We are therefore voting in favour of Mrs Malmström’s report.
We are, however, opposed to the attempt to use the EU’s Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument for strengthening and developing the common foreign and security policy.
Nor do we believe that the instruments should be used for extending the EU’s sphere of interest to areas that cannot be described as its neighbourhood.
   .
Draft amending budget No 8/2005, amended by the amending letter of 16 November 2005, is worrying because it cancels the original extra payment request of EUR 650 million for the Structural Funds – bearing in mind that EUR 380 million had already been obtained via transfers from other headings – and cuts the same amount from aid in respect of agricultural markets.
The alarming part is that the appropriations used and the few applications received from the new Member States fall way short of full use of the structural appropriations available.
Indeed, we are nearing the end of the current financial framework and the so-called N+2 rule will apply, whereby authorisation expenses are automatically cancelled when they are not implemented within two years.
The return of own resources to the Member States will rise to around EUR 3.9 billion, which will naturally benefit the main net contributors.
What we want to see is conditions put in place for complete, effective implementation of the Structural Funds.
These returns will once again make it possible to tackle the constraints imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact, thereby helping to reduce deficits in some countries.
   . In this vote I abstained on Amendment 11 because of London constituency concerns.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I consider that a grave injustice has been committed today in not upholding Mr Gollnisch’s immunity, since – and I will not go into the merits of what he said – he was speaking as a Member of the European Parliament.
We ought to be protected – and I deliberately say ‘we ought to be’ rather than ‘we are’ – when we speak as Members of this Parliament, regardless of what we say.
This would not be the first time that a Member had enjoyed protection when speaking, writing or intervening outside Parliament.
That has not applied in Mr Gollnisch’s case, however, probably not because of what he said but because of his political affiliation, which is disliked by someone who has forgotten that all of us in this House have equal dignity and equal rights.
   Mr President, I voted against the suspension of Mr Gollnisch’s parliamentary immunity, regarding as I do his prosecution as an undisguised attempt at character assassination waged against one who is a non-conformist both as a Member of this House and as an academic.
Free expression of opinion is guaranteed by Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 19 of the Charter of Human Rights and Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights – something that the majority in this House has evidently forgotten.
Mr Gollnisch addressed a political press conference in Lyons on 11 October 2004, and he did so, self-evidently, as a politician who is first and foremost a Member of the European Parliament.
One may well find the historical statements he made on that occasion reprehensible, but they were of course made in his capacity as a Member of the European Parliament, and as such he ought, under the terms of every law on the subject, to enjoy the protection of immunity.
   You have had one minute, Mr Gollnisch.
These explanations of vote are for one minute only.
One of the remarks you made and for which your immunity has been lifted was 'it is up to historians to discuss whether the gas chambers existed'.
That remark encourages me once again to go and visit the camp of Natzweiler-Struthof in the Vosges mountains, which I shall do in January.
This is not the , Mr Gollnisch.
It is the European Parliament.
The floor now goes to Mr Vanhecke.
   Mr President, I am, quite frankly, disgusted by the idea of this House, in the present circumstances, awarding the Sakharov Prize given the level of hypocrisy, because not only does lifting Mr Gollnisch’s parliamentary immunity bring shame on this House, it is also detrimental to democracy.
We need not even go into the detail of the matter, because anyone who calls himself a democrat must in the first place hold dear the right of free expression of opinion on the part of all those with whom they disagree.
This House has a habit of upholding parliamentary immunity; that Mr Gollnisch’s is now being lifted is something I find frightening.
Clearly, the world is not yet rid of the Robespierres, the Freislers, the Berias and their cowardly accomplices in this House.
   Mr President, I have voted against the Wallis report because it goes against the tradition that Parliament does not address the question of whether immunity should be lifted where opinions constituting an offence are expressed, or are alleged to have been expressed.
If we go down this road, we might as well abolish the concept of parliamentary immunity itself.
   I should like to point out that I find Mr Gollnisch’s remarks offensive.
   .Bizarrely, a crucial aspect of the affair of our colleague, Mr Gollnisch, which was nonetheless present in the first three drafts of Mrs Wallis’ report, has disappeared in the final version.
This point refers to .
This is the presumption that criminal proceedings are brought about with the intention of prejudicing the Member’s political activity.
One of the principles of the European Parliament is that immunity is not withdrawn when there is a suspicion that the motive behind the criminal proceedings is the intention to prejudice the Member’s political activity.
Well, evidence of such nevertheless abounds in this affair.
It is not a question here of simple guesswork.
The intrusion of political power in this matter is evident in the intervention of the then Minister for Justice, Mr Perben, who is a direct political opponent of Mr Gollnisch, given that Mr Perben is standing in the municipal elections in Lyon.
It is he who personally ordered the start of proceedings, even though the investigation had cleared Mr Gollnisch.
The Attorney General of Lyon acknowledged this in a communiqué issued at the time by the entire press corps.
It is therefore unclear why the rapporteur ultimately ruled out this .
It emerges, however, from the facts and the circumstances of this affair that the measures taken by the judicial authorities are aimed at hindering the political activity of this Member.
   I do not believe that the EU should interfere in the way in which a country conducts its detailed planning.
In this case, the Green politicians of the country concerned have, however, appealed to me to vote in favour of such intervention, since their democracy is under threat.
Building contractors are bribing politicians and not bothering about either legislation or democracy, and my colleagues believe that attention must be drawn to the problem outside the country if there is to be any reaction from the establishment.
I am therefore voting in favour of the opinion concerning the petition signed by 15 000 people and delivered to Parliament.
This does not, however, mean that I want the conclusions to become legislation applicable throughout the EU.
   – The next item is the report (A6-0365/2005) by Mr Alvaro, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the retention of data processed in connection with the provision of public electronic communication services and amending Directive 2002/58/EC [COM(2005)0438 – C6-0293/2005 – 2005/0182(COD)].
   The report by Mr Alvaro is of exceptional importance, and particularly today, when the entire population of Europe faces the daily fear of terrorist attacks.
The attacks in London and Madrid alarmed the population because they hit civilian targets and unsuspecting citizens on their way to work, school or hospital.
On the one hand, people are threatened by those who employ terrorism as a means of fighting against governments.
On the other hand, however, governments use people, or infringe upon their right to privacy, when combating terrorism.
We cannot allow people to be monitored in the manner of Big Brother-type TV shows.
People elect governments in order to free them from having to decide on day-to-day public affairs.
Governments, however, have no right to use people’s privacy as a public affair.
That is why I think the report should be amended, placing greater emphasis on the obligations of the state with respect to the implementation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which concerns the right to privacy, so that no part of the proposed directive may be in contradiction with this Convention.
   – Madam President, Mr Frattini, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the March European Council and the Justice and Home Affairs Council of April 2004 advocated the implementation of standards relating to the retention of data, given that modern telecommunications, with all of the benefits that they bring, can be used for the purposes of international crime, and, more seriously, terrorism.
Following these decisions, a framework decision was presented to us and was rejected by Parliament.
This was followed by the proposal before us, which, as Mr Cavada said, is a welcome one in that it takes account of Parliament’s prerogatives through a proposed new legal basis.
I must express my disappointment, however, that we were forced to work within a severely truncated timeframe.
We did our best in the circumstances.
The negotiations were difficult and the compromise that was reached is far from perfect, yet we did what we had to in order to reach a compromise at first reading.
Unlike some Members of this House, I welcome the decision on a period of retention of six months minimum to 24 months maximum.
We cannot run the risk of backsliding in our efforts to fight crime because data were eliminated too quickly or were not retained at all.
It is crucial in my view that data be stored securely and that there be no room for abuse; the rules on data protection, security and access must be strengthened.
Member States must establish appropriate penalties, in line with their national laws.
If we fail to implement these rules effectively, we will be endangering people’s human rights.
We need a clause ensuring that within three years we assess the system that we are currently adopting, and in this regard I welcome the calls for transparency and for the Commission’s eventual assessment to be made public.
I trust that this assessment, to be provided by Mr Frattini, helps us to make a rigorous assessment of the effectiveness of the adoption of these instruments.
      Madam President, there can be no doubt that regulations on data retention can help us a great deal in our fight against terrorism and dangerous crime.
The efforts of all those involved in achieving a consensus on this issue should therefore be acknowledged.
At the same time, however, I have serious doubts about the interpretation of Article X of the Directive.
The period of data retention may be extended to more than two years pursuant to this Article, provided that the appropriate procedure is followed.
Mr Clarke responded to a Polish journalist who had asked whether a data retention period of 15 years would be permissible by saying that a period of this duration would still be compatible with the directive, even in such extreme cases.
The draft amendments that have been tabled to the Polish Telecommunications Act by the governing party in the Polish Parliament do in fact provide for a retention period of 15 years.
As I see it, this is a test of sorts of the scope of the directive’s application.
I do not believe that a 15-year retention period is compatible with the concept behind the directive, the aim of which is to protect individuals’ right to privacy.
A retention period of this duration also blatantly violates the principle of proportionality, and means that the directive’s impact will not be commensurate with its goals.
Furthermore, there is a risk that procedures resembling those of a police state could be used, which would further the government’s short-term political goals while subjecting citizens to long-term and far-reaching surveillance.
There is every chance that data stored in such large quantities for such long periods could leak out.
This would provide criminal groups with even more opportunities to use it, which runs counter to the directive’s fundamental goal.
I should therefore like to receive a clear answer from the Commissioner, and also from the Council representative, to the question of whether the Commission regards a 15-year data retention period as acceptable in line with the procedure outlined in Article X.
I hope that Mr Clarke’s response to the Polish journalist was founded on a misinterpretation of the directive, although it may well be the case that he has made some sort of concession to the Polish Government on this matter in order to achieve a compromise at any cost.
Since we are adopting joint regulations, however, we have a right to call for them to be interpreted similarly by all of the EU institutions.
   Madam President, I would like to make it plain, for Mrs in 't Veld’s benefit, and in order to nip in the bud any potential legends on the subject, that the rapporteur was in Israel until the evening of the Wednesday prior to the crucial meeting of the Council.
It was on Wednesday that I had recourse to the telecommunications facilities and informed Mr Alvaro of our proposals by email.
As far as I know, Mrs Roure did likewise.
Mrs Kaufmann and Mrs Buitenweg were of the opinion that a deal had been done behind the backs of the smaller groups, but I would like to remind them that the European United Left and the Greens had already rejected the Committee’s compromise, and it is hardly productive to initiate negotiations with groups that are categorically opposed to a proposal; after all, they, as a matter of principle, will negotiate on all other matters with any group other than the Group of the European People’s Party.
So let them stop talking about ‘deals’ and accept the democratic majority opinion in this House.
   Madam President, the reason why the EU is accepted throughout the world as the voice of human rights is that, more than other institutions, it backs its words up with deeds.
The Commissioner was quite right to describe as a key point the clause that is making human rights an essential component in trade and cooperation agreements with third countries.
To date, 120 agreements of this kind have been concluded.
The Report on Human Rights lists the major successes that were achieved in 2005, including such things as tighter export controls on material capable of being misused for the purposes of torture, or the campaign against child abusers who use the Internet for their own purposes, and the campaign for the recognition of the International Criminal Court.
The report also, though, records such setbacks as the events in African countries – Sudan, Zimbabwe, Congo or Rwanda, for example – or in such Asian countries as Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Iran, and Burma.
As before, China comes in for particular criticism; its attitude towards the freedom of opinion, religion, and assembly is not acceptable; critical journalists and lawyers are harassed, human rights activists persecuted, the accused denied fair trials and subjected to torture.
Every year, it executes thousands of people.
The situation in Tibet remains a horror of tragic proportions.
The day after tomorrow, we will be having a debate in which we will be responding to the Chinese military interventions in a Tibetan monastery as a matter of topical and urgent importance.
The EU’s Member States must at last stir themselves into action, rather than always abstaining as they have done hitherto in Geneva.
China’s violations of human rights need to be on the agenda for the Human Rights Convention when it meets there.
Terrorism, alongside civil rights, was the priority for 2005, and wholly justifiably, yet the maintenance of the rule of law is an absolute necessity, and not least as regards the CIA’s transporting of prisoners across Europe, about which we will be having a debate tomorrow afternoon.
The absolute intolerability of any breach of the Human Rights Convention is but one of the messages from the report on human rights.
   – Madam President, 10 December was International Human Rights Day, and recent events, in particular, have made it clear that much remains to be done.
For example, the USA, too, should feel bound by minimum human rights standards and not circumvent them by means of secret prisons abroad.
Within the EU, too, however, human rights violations continue to occur, particularly in the form of domestic violence, honour killings, polygamy and widespread discrimination against women, which we indirectly tolerate if we accept these as part of Islam in Europe.
In Turkey itself, almost 80% of all women in rural areas are living in forced marriages. Discrimination against minorities and members of other religions continues.
Given that, in 2004, more applications for asylum were received throughout the EU from people of Turkish than of Iraqi nationality and that, even in 2005, Turkey remains the second most common country of origin of asylum seekers in Germany, for example, it can in no way be assumed that human rights have actually been implemented in Turkish society; and this in a country that is negotiating accession to the EU.
   Mr President, I should like to pre-empt certain criticisms and reassure Mr Coûteaux that the media will not engage in a systematic lynching of Tunisia.
On the contrary, we socialists believe that, with regard to a country that has undoubtedly made impressive advances in the socio-economic sphere, it is important to welcome a veritable democratic outcry on the part of the trade unions, the human-rights organisations, the judicial authorities and lawyers.
The momentum they have generated can surely lead to the realisation of freedom of expression, association and assembly.
This renewal is epitomised by the 18 October Movement and its intention to set up a permanent forum, with which the Socialist Group in the European Parliament wish to be associated.
It has often been said that the Barcelona process was a partial failure, and it is true that we were timorous.
Europe is struggling to propagate its ideal of democratic pluralism.
In this respect, Tunisia is a gift to us, almost a model.
The Tunisians are not calling for our help, but they do want more democracy.
Can we support these people who have been striving, and sometimes waging fierce struggles – as social struggles always are – to open up and relax a regime that tends to close in on itself, a regime which, in the name of the fight against terrorism, stigmatises all defenders of human rights and prevents judges, prosecutors and lawyers from holding meetings and forming associations? Can we fight to ensure that no socialist regime is able to invoke its membership of the Socialist International in order to trample on human rights?
I have only one request: that the issue of human rights and the rule of law in Tunisia play a key role in the deliberations of the Association Council which is due to meet in January 2006 and that no one beat about the bush.
   ( Tunisia is a critically important partner for the dialogue between Europe and the Arab world.
A fundamental premise of this cooperation is respect for human rights, as enshrined in the EU-Tunisia Agreement, which entered into force in 1998, and the European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plan inaugurated this year.
The Tunisian Government has always shown itself to be particularly open and willing to accept its commitments towards the international community in the field of human rights, democracy and governance, as shown by the recent establishment of the EU-Tunisia Human Rights Subcommittee and the country’s willingness to agree to organise the World Summit on the Information Society.
Tunisia is actively party to the six main United Nations treaties and, compared with other Arab countries, it makes a point of maintaining a secular state and of protecting its citizens’ social and economic rights.
Greater efforts are, of course, still needed to achieve a level of freedom worthy of a fully democratic country – episodes like those that have just occurred are proof of that – but we must in any event acknowledge the efforts and the progress made so far and assure Tunisia that it has our full support.
   As ever, the Commission never really answers the question because it was a 3½-year run of resources.
I have to say we are not just talking about Commission resources; we are talking about millions of pounds spent on lawyers’ fees by people involved in this action.
I have to ask the question again: does the Commission believe that is proportionate to the outcome of having achieved that one extra package will go to an operator other than Sky, with no guarantee that will be a free-to-air provider.
It may well be another cable operator and, potentially, that will have a cost to the consumer.
Will the Commission now, more importantly, allow this current agreement to run without interfering, so that we see whether it delivers for the public interest and allow the football clubs, particularly, to be able to have legal certainty in managing their own resources, especially when investing in community finance in their local areas?
   .
Mr President, I understand the message from honourable Members, but I strongly disagree that we have not answered the question; indeed, we have.
If the answer is not convenient for the honourable Member, that is something else, but I have answered and I will answer again.
The Premier League sells rights to its matches to media operators throughout the world, including a large number of EU countries.
Premier League football is very popular, for example, in Ireland, and the Premier League has changed its rights policies as regards Ireland as a result of the Commission’s intervention.
To put it plainly, there is a clear cross-border element, which the Commission was well placed to address when the case began in 2002. Whether there are a couple of lawyers or far more than a couple, that is up to them; we are willing and able to deal with this case and have had some success, for we have solved a problem in which competition was harmed.
   Madam Commissioner, please do not worry, what you have said is absolutely correct.
You have shown that you tell the truth and I am very sorry that a compatriot of mine has called your honour into question.
In the context of developing a European rail network and reshaping energy policy, and with freedom of movement in mind, what specific measures does the Commission intend to take in regard to infrastructure, services and cost in order to assist and facilitate journeys by people with special needs and by young families, particularly those with several children?
   – Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for all the information you have given and congratulations on the programme on which you have already decided.
I wanted to ask you, by way of a supplementary question, if children, young people and short people in general are included in the people who need special protection under the legislation proposed by the Commission.
At the meeting of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organisation held on 28 October 2005 in Chisinau in Moldova, Turkey, as a full member, once more vetoed an application by the Republic of Cyprus to attend with observer status.
It is also continuing to obstruct Cypriot accession to the International Export Control Regime.
In view of the specific undertakings given by Turkey within the negotiating framework, in particular paragraph 7, adopted by the Council of Ministers on 3 November in Luxembourg, what view does the Commission take of Turkey's continued refusal to meet EU conditions even after commencement of the negotiation accessions?
What measures will it take to ensure that Turkey complies fully with the Community acquis and European law in its dealings with an EU Member State?
Given the possible forthcoming division of Serbia and Montenegro, what is the Commission's view of the situation in the Sandzak of Novi Pazar, which is split between these two Republics?
   – Mr President, I am much obliged to the Commissioner for his very good, very detailed answer. Knowing the region as I do, I can say that his answer really was very precise.
I should like to put just two brief supplementary questions. Could the Commissioner envisage more intensive development of the local infrastructure?
I ask because the region is extremely isolated. Furthermore, can he envisage a cross-border Euro-region as a solution to achieve cooperation between the Sandžak people in Montenegro and Serbia?
   Questions Nos. 76 to 82 will be answered in writing(2).
In connection with the increasing signs from several Member States of the emergence of a black market in antiviral drugs against influenza, can the Commission indicate what steps it is taking against this irresponsible action by individuals and/or organised groups?
   Questions Nos 84 to 126 will be replied to in writing(3).
   – Mr President, I understand that you are applying the Rules of Procedure, and quite rightly so, but Commissioner Rehn has only been given 12 of the 20 minutes allocated to him for his replies.
I have the 76th question and you have prevented the Commissioner from replying to my question, which was the next question, even though you only allowed 12 of the 20 minutes to which he was entitled.
   I am afraid that that is not possible, Mr Matsis. It is gone 8.00 p.m. and the Commissioner is going to be late for an unavoidable commitment.
That, therefore, concludes Question Time.
   Madam President, in order not to repeat what other Members have said, I would like to stress a couple of collateral aspects.
Firstly, this directive responds to the profound imbalances in the transport system, within which road transport is progressively increasing its share and is in danger of collapse.
Meanwhile, there are certain other forms of transport that are losing share and volume, as in the case of goods by rail. I believe that railways are a more sustainable and less polluting means of transport than lorries, and that we must discriminate positively in their favour until they can manage by themselves.
Goods transport by rail is still subordinate to passenger transport by rail and its average speed is therefore not very competitive.
We must construct more sections of line exclusively for goods and, if we do that, we will enjoy clear economic and environmental benefits in the medium term.
The second aspect relates to the need to promote the interoperability of European toll systems.
There are stretches of our network in which, within little more than twenty-five kilometres, there are five motorway toll stations, which inevitably increases congestion.
We are still awaiting the proposed legislation in this regard from the Commission.
Let us hope that it does not take five years.
   The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday.
   .   Madam President, our group very much welcomes this own-initiative report, which is of great value.
It will allow Parliament to send an important political message to the Commission, as well as to the Member States, to industry and to the public.
Consumer protection organisations and consumer rights belong to the European Union’s key fundamental values. I am delighted that the fruits of many years of work in the 15 old Member States, which are now taken for granted in these countries, are also to be reaped by the 10 new Member States, in line with the principles of partnership and solidarity.
At the same time, however, the old Member States could learn a lot from the new Member States in this field. I would also call on the old Member States to ensure that consumer protection continues to be given its due priority.
Budgetary cuts, such as those planned in Thuringia, for example, send out the wrong message. We should be doing exactly the opposite, and ensuring that the voice of consumers is heard more clearly during our decision-making processes.
   .  Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to extend my wholehearted thanks to Mr Lehideux for his report. Unfortunately, it was all we could manage in the circumstances.
By this I mean that we have had to face facts, and to accept that only EUR 40 million will be available to the 18 Sugar Protocol countries as compensation in 2006. Although this compensation will at least be approved at first reading, which we can only hope will mean that it will be paid out in good time, we are all aware that it is nowhere near enough.
Our own sugar farmers, on the other hand, will receive extremely generous compensation, to the tune of over EUR 5 billion.
Hundreds of millions more were added at the last minute in order to reach an agreement, with money apparently no object.
While I do not begrudge our sugar farmers this compensation in the slightest, I would be willing to bet that our policies will directly contribute to the future political and social destabilisation of some of the ACP countries, most of which are small island states.
These countries are prepared to carry out reforms, to diversify and to modernise, but they will struggle to cope if the total subsidies they receive are cut by 36% in four years’ time.
I myself have visited Guyana and various other countries. Nearly two thirds of jobs in Guyana depend directly or indirectly on sugar.
It would be impossible for anyone to deal with cuts of this magnitude in only four years, and so no one should be surprised if the country becomes politically or socially unstable.
Such instability would be a direct result of our policy-making in this Chamber. I ask for my words to be taken down, so that no one can claim to be surprised when the inevitable happens.
Only 10% of jobs in Jamaica depend on sugar, but the crime rate there is already incredibly high, with 1 400 murders having been committed this year alone in a country that numbers two million inhabitants.
If this figure were extrapolated to Germany, it would mean over 50 000 murders, whereas the actual number is only around 300.
This is a good indication of the social situation in the country, and if we cause the unemployment rate to rise by a further 10%, then it should come as no surprise if Jamaica, too, becomes unstable.
      Madam President, this report is proof that qualified market access is urgently needed for products from developing countries.
By this I mean that these countries should be paid on our terms, so that they can develop their national economies.
The report also reveals that liberalisation, which follows the colonial principle whereby the former colonies supply us with cheap food while we then sell industrial products to them, is both disastrous and dangerous.
Liberalisation of this kind causes hunger and poverty, and it costs billions.
The necessary reduction in quantities could have been achieved equally well by administrative means, without any need for this money.
I would ask Mr Gahler to take a closer look at the figures; sugar beet farmers will receive only 10% of this billion-euro sum, with the rest channelled into the restructuring fund for the sugar industry.
This is absolutely scandalous, since an enormous amount could have been achieved with this money had it been spent on development aid, or on fostering economic development in the rural areas of these regions.
   .   Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one of the factors that influence businesses when they are deciding whether or not to invest in a particular region is the extent to which they will receive support in the form of State aid.
This aid therefore also contributes to economic growth and job creation in the region in question. It is entirely natural that most State aid is granted in the European Union’s neediest regions, since it helps to reduce regional disparities, similarly to the Structural Funds.
The priority should therefore be to use State aid in convergence regions, pursuant to Article 87(3)(a).
The same Article must also, however, apply to regions affected by the statistical effect, as demanded in the Third Progress Report on economic and social cohesion, and it must continue to apply until the end of the programming period in 2013.
The obligation to maintain investment within the relevant regions must remain in place for at least five years – I repeat, five years – after the investment. Seven years would have been preferable, but five years is the absolute minimum needed in order to prevent ‘investment hopping’ wherever possible.
This five-year period should be enforced in the case of both large companies and SMEs, in order to avoid State aid being used as an incentive to relocate jobs to other areas of the EU, and as a source of funding for large-scale redundancies and plant closures.
If State aid is used, monitored and analysed correctly, it can be a useful tool to boost growth and job creation.
   . –  Madam President, I should like to focus on merely two aspects of this complex and highly sensitive issue. The first of these is the relocation of businesses.
It goes without saying that no one in this European Union of ours wants businesses to relocate their operations with the sole purpose of qualifying for aid. There have already been cases in every Member State, however, where the regions were glad to have the opportunity to provide State aid for investments, with the support of the European Union.
What we need here are regulations that are not only clear and transparent, but also fair and guided by the principle of solidarity. This is what the report calls for, and I hope that the Commission will play its part in achieving such regulations.
The second aspect relates to the regions affected by the statistical effect, to which Mr Berend has already referred.
I fail to understand how it can be possible, given that Commissioner Hübner has always supported our decision to treat the statistical effect regions as Objective 1 regions for the entire 2007-2013 period – and this decision was backed by a large majority – for Mrs Kroes now to put forward an entirely different idea, namely that this period should be divided into two parts.
I hope that the Commission will start to realise that Parliament can also have good ideas now and again, and that it is entirely justified in wanting to provide support to the statistical effect regions.
   Ladies and gentlemen, the next item is the Council and Commission statements on the preparation for the European Council in Brussels on 15 and 16 December, including the Development Strategy.
To this end, we welcome the President of the Commission, Mr Barroso.
No member of the Council is here yet, unfortunately: they must be finishing off their preparation of the new British proposal.
   Thank you, Mr Schulz, the services of the House will verify the precise coordinates of the iceberg which sank the so that we can be sure that they were one zero three.
Mr President, there are many difficulties with the British Presidency’s proposals for the financial perspectives, which the chairman of my group, Mr Wurtz, and others have outlined here this morning.
Those include lower than previously proposed amounts for rural development, cohesion funds for the newest Member States, culture, youth and health and consumer protection.
I would plead in favour of one aspect, however: the funding for the EU programme to support peace in the north of Ireland.
That is necessary if we are to continue the valuable work of peace-building, tackling discrimination and promoting national reconciliation.
It is imperative that the opportunity for peace in Ireland is not squandered, which means that there is also an onus on the British Government to ensure political progress in Ireland in 2006.
   Six months ago many people in this Chamber and also in the new Member States looked with hope and sympathy to the new, dynamic British Presidency and its leader.
We heard about a vision of Europe’s competitiveness in the world and about an equalisation of socio-economic conditions in Europe.
In Luxembourg various new Member States also proposed reducing their requirements for funds, if the bigger states could not reach a compromise.
Unfortunately, this was the basis for the British proposal for the Financial Perspective, simultaneously reducing the amount of the budget and slightly reducing the ‘British rebate’.
Here the debate is not about the roads that have not been built or the jobs that have not been created in the new Europe.
Here the debate is about the fact that you have demonstrated to our people that the principle of solidarity is nothing but fine words.
We wanted to see that by 2013 our people would be living a little more like ‘first class’ Europe.
Our people in Latvia, my people, do not want to be merely a cheap workforce for your labour market and a cheap tourist destination for the tourists on your cut-price airlines.
Thank you.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate is important because it voices the discontent felt in Europe about a European summit which, given the way it has been structured, can only lead to predictable failure.
If that is the case, it will be impossible to use the resources effectively in the early years of the programming period, that is to say from 2007 onwards, and that will result in serious harm.
It is preferable, however, to run that risk rather than permanently jeopardise the design for a strong, united Europe by agreeing to accept the 1% mini Europe.
The 1% idea is indeed a dreadful solution that the European Parliament cannot accept.
Worse still, it is a dreadful solution that comes without a substantial reduction in the UK rebate.
In order to grow, Europe has to be competitive, and to be competitive it needs cohesion.
With a budget that cuts spending and sets a ceiling of around 1%, with a budget that only guarantees existing privileges, there will be no investment in either growth or competitiveness or cohesion, Mr President, and Europe will be betraying itself.
We do not want that kind of Europe; we do not recognise ourselves in such a Europe.
We shall do everything we can for Parliament to reject any agreement on that mini Europe, which is not the Europe that Parliament wants.
   Six months ago I called attention to the fact that the changes needed in the European Union should start with the elimination of the long-standing unfair discrimination still evident against new Member States.
We had to be disappointed.
Now, at the end of the year, not only did we fail to make any progress on the road taking Europe out of the crisis, but we actually started off in the wrong direction, in the opposite direction.
Mr Schulz, the iceberg is not ahead of us, but behind us.
We have already managed to successfully avoid it once.
The problem is that we are moving in reverse.
It is obvious that the outcome will still be certain shipwreck.
It has to be said that the budget proposal is not suited to serve as the foundation of the huge historical undertaking of European reunification.
It does not reduce the crisis of Europe, but increases it; it does not unite European Union Member States, but divides them.
It does not help new Member States, but humiliates them.
It does not make Europe more competitive, but pulls it back.
This budget proposal is a budget that slows us down and divides us.
A few years ago the new Member States of the European Union accepted the transitional disadvantages and differentiations in Copenhagen in the hope that they would be able to participate in the seven-year financial plan with full rights, without differentiation.
However, what we can now see is that the old Member States intend to solve their long-standing unsolved problems to the detriment of the new Member States.
This is unacceptable, humiliating and inadmissible.
This is not worthy of Europe.
The governments need to change their approach.
They should follow the European Parliament!
In spite of our differing interests, we already agreed on the budget in spring, and this House has more than 700 Members, while there are only 25 governments.
   It saddens me as a proud Scottish European that the UK has represented Scotland so badly during the Presidency, and everything I have heard in this debate confirms my view that the UK has lost friends and influence on our behalf by this wrongheaded stance on the budget.
The proposals announced today fail Scotland and they fail Europe also.
I have no doubt that they will be comprehensively rejected by other member states and with 11 of those states smaller than Scotland I am more convinced than ever that there is no substitute for independence in Europe.
      Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am well aware of the importance of the directive on data retention that has just been adopted.
From the point of view of security, I believe that adopting it is an essential step in the fight against terrorism and other serious crimes.
As one of the signatories to Amendment 41, however, I cannot consent to individual Member States offering different reimbursement to operators for any costs they have incurred as a result of retaining data, since this would violate the rules of the free market.
   . Following the vote on the Alvaro Report, I believe that Labour MEPs were successful in getting stronger safeguards concerning the security of communication data and in specifying penal and administrative sanctions for abusive use of retained data.
In representing London, the city with one of the highest numbers of Internet service providers in the EU, safeguards are important.
   The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the presumed use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners.
   . Mr President, the investigator for the Council of Europe, Dick Marty, has called allegations of illegal extraordinary renditions credible.
If he concludes that they are true, the question for us is what is the degree of complicity of EU governments?
They are all rattling off the denials, but this has not satisfied those who have expressed concern or deterred calls for parliamentary or judicial inquiries in a string of European countries.
No wonder the US is irritated by European governments’ attempts to evade responsibility and I am glad that the President-in-Office talked about taking that responsibility.
Secretary of State Rice pointedly said last week that the US has respected the sovereignty of other countries.
That means: ‘don’t rock the boat, guys – we are all in this together’.
A feasible scenario is that, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, understandably keen to offer help to the US in tracking down the perpetrators of that abominable crime, European governments offered intelligence help and facilities to their US ally.
However, as the years have gone by, they have got deeper into the mire of illegality.
Only by cleaning house and starting afresh on the basis of real respect for the rule of law can we convince our citizens that we are not sacrificing our principles.
The problem is that we are living in an Alice in Wonderland world. The President-in-Office said that Secretary of State Rice’s statements last week should be taken at face value.
However, if the US does not tolerate torture inside or outside the United States, why is it resisting the McCain amendment?
Why have we had so many twists and turns by the Bush administration, redefining torture so that it does not cover waterboarding, prolonged shackling or induced hypothermia? Secretary of State Rice’s statement begged more questions than it answered.
I welcome Mr Frattini’s statement that we have a duty to investigate.
I also welcome his offer of assistance to the Council of Europe.
This Parliament must avoid duplicating Dick Marty’s investigation.
However, we need a mechanism to draw all the threads together and that means a temporary committee.
Then we can assess, in the light of Article 7 of the Treaty on European Union, what evidence is produced.
I also welcome Mr Frattini’s statement that finding out the truth will strengthen our fight against terrorism by upholding our values.
I agree with Mr Poettering – that does not happen often – that this is not an anti-American project.
Helping save America and Europe from the disastrous policies of the Bush administration is a pro-American exercise.
   Mr President, I would like to start by saying that it is very important for a temporary committee to be set up, not only to confirm that the European Union is greatly concerned by respect for human rights, but also to find out the whole truth of this matter.
I am pleased to have heard Mr Alexander and Mr Frattini give the European Union’s point of view, but I must also say that I was surprised to hear Commissioner Frattini, and the representatives of the European Commission, faithfully repeat the rumours that two Eastern European countries, Poland and Romania, housed detention centres run by the US secret services.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say that, to my knowledge, Poland has had no detention camps, American or otherwise, where prisoners are illegally detained since 1989.
If they were to exist, I would want that fact to come out.
On the other hand, if they do not exist, I would like the opprobrium piled on my country without any evidence, by rumours, to be lifted at some point in the future.
I want the temporary committee to set to work in order to find out the whole truth in this matter, and I confidently await the day when it will tell that truth for my fellow Members to hear.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, this issue is a very important and fundamental one.
It must, of course, be said at the outset that, whatever criticisms we may have to make, the fight against terrorism is of immense importance and that Europe and America must cooperate closely in waging it.
I do not believe, however, that it can be won unless it is fought on the basis of the rule of law and of human rights.
It is now for us to determine whether these conditions have been complied with or disregarded, and the relevant evidence needs to be forthcoming as a matter of urgency.
If the West as a whole is not to risk losing its credibility, it is vital that any misdemeanours that have occurred are brought to light without delay and that salami tactics are dispensed with, or else we will be lumbered for months on end with the same sort of credibility problem that we had after Secretary of State Powell’s presentation to the United Nations on the Iraq war, and in other instances too.
It has to be clear to us that what is at stake is the credibility of the West as a whole, and it is in the interests of that that we must act promptly, together, and in a responsible manner, or else we will lose our capacities for action.
I think it is a good thing that – as Commissioner Frattini has made perfectly clear to the two committees that have dealt with this – the Council and the Commission are working with the Council of Europe, and at its specific request, to arrive at clarifications on which the temporary committee will be able to draw when, as I expect it will be, it is brought into being.
Whatever problems we may have, we have to see that these are not lines dividing Europe from America, but that debates are going on in both of them and that we have an ally in the shape of the US Senate, which voted, by 98 votes, to endorse Senator McCain’s motion that torture cannot be an instrument in the fight against terrorism.
That shows what the other great democracy on the other side of the Atlantic is capable of, and this gives us our starting point: what the democrats and the supporters of the rule of law, both in Europe and America, have in common, is not only the capacity to combat terrorism, but also the capacity to do so under credible conditions and while maintaining the rule of law.
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the allegations with which we are dealing are extremely serious ones.
If confirmed, they constitute a plain breach of the principles listed in Article 6 of the Treaty, namely freedom, democracy, protection of human rights and the fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.
Since the latest change to the Treaty, Article 7 offers the possibility of acting against a Member State on account of serious violations of these principles.
Such action may go as far as suspending certain of that Member State’s rights, including its right to vote.
It is precisely for that reason that we need to act with the greatest caution.
It would go too far to my mind if I were to commit to the mechanism of Article 7 being activated at this stage.
Needless to say, I too am highly indignant about the CIA’s suspected actions and I am extremely concerned that Member States may have feigned ignorance of them, but a sanction mechanism cannot be activated simply on the basis of indignation.
For the first time in history, Article 7 offers us the opportunity of penalising the misconduct of Member States.
This mechanism can be activated only when sufficient and conclusive elements have been collected.
I trust that this Parliament and its Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs will do this with great meticulousness.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while acknowledging the efforts made by both these countries, we are concerned by some of the points of criticism made in the Commission’s report.
We tabled amendments to the Van Orden report relating to the environment and human rights, but they were, unfortunately, rejected.
Turning to the deadline for the decommissioning of the nuclear power plant at Kozloduj, I would like to ask Commissioner Rehn what the Commission thinks about paragraph 29, which allows for greater flexibility with regard to the closing down of Blocks 3 and 4.
To what alternative sources of energy is it giving consideration?
This House has been involved in the deliberations on the use of the safeguard clauses; we will take a critical view of accession and will base our decision on the extent to which reforms have been implemented in the justice system, in the fight against corruption, in the protection of children and in the integration of the Roma.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, Romania and Bulgaria are among the twelve countries to which we extended an invitation after the Wall and the barbed wire were brought down.
Whatever other considerations we may now have in mind, we must not forget that they are among that number, and that it is for that reason that they form part of a package.
The Treaty has been concluded, but the treaties with these countries are equipped with safeguard clauses.
That is what makes it of the utmost importance that we should look to see how the timetable is adhered to, and how the Commission’s report is presented early next year.
It is on the basis of this report’s assessment and of our own conclusions that we will then have to take a decisions as to whether these safeguard clauses, which provide for a delay of one year, should actually be applied, and whether, as can be the case, they should apply to both countries, to neither of them, or to one of them.
Nothing has been decided, but we should be clear in our own minds about the need for the public not to get the impression that there is anything automatic about it, in other words, that if you start negotiations, you get in automatically on the date you want.
Hence the need for implementation in the areas mentioned by the Commissioner in his last report and in his letter – dated 9 November, I believe – to the governments of the two countries, and to which the President-in-Office made reference here today, namely corruption, organised crime, border security, food safety within the European single market, consequences for the internal market itself, the rule of law and the development of administration and the justice system.
The Commission, and Mr Moscovici and Mr Van Orden, with the reports they have presented today, deserve our gratitude for pointing out that this is not just about setting these things down in the form of laws.
What we need to do now is to exert the necessary pressure and provide the necessary support in order that these countries can meet the conditions, but accession is conditional upon their doing so, and whether or not they make the necessary progress is entirely in their own hands.
   Mr President, the Verts/ALE Group has tabled an amendment to paragraph 19 of the Bulgaria report.
Although the rapporteur welcomes practical measures taken to improve integration, key reforms to combat discrimination are still at the early stages.
Our amendment stresses that fact.
In other fields the situation is worsening.
The trafficking of children has doubled.
The good news is that 86 Bulgarian institutions recently started legal proceedings against Mr Siderov, leader of the neo-Nazi party Ataka.
He will be brought to court for his hate speeches against Roma, Jews and Turks.
This initiative deserves our support.
However, if MEPs are not cautious in expressing themselves, they run the risk of being exploited by parties like Ataka.
Mr Van Orden’s frequent use of the word ‘adapt’ made the rapporteur popular in Ataka circles.
I am going to show you the Ataka newspaper with a picture of Mr Van Orden and an article inside.
I think this is a sad day for Parliament.
    – As of 1 January 2007, Bulgaria and Romania will be EU Member States.
Some of the conditions laid down in the Treaty of Accession work to the advantage of these countries, whereas others are nothing short of discriminatory from the point of view of the first pillar.
After all, those of us from the new Member States have ample first-hand experience of such discrimination, an example of which is the establishment of the free movement of persons as an ideal from which the accession arrangements are far removed.
I am somewhat alarmed by the US administration’s efforts to establish or take control of military bases in the Balkans, and by the relentless pressure to exempt US citizens from the jurisdiction of the Hague-based International Criminal Court.
The end result of negotiations on this matter should in fact be that the common interests of the EU Member States, including the new Member States, are given clear priority.
The reports pass over this issue.
Conversely, I believe that it is high time that negotiations were opened on energy security.
It is particularly important that such security be guaranteed in terms of electricity supply to the region that may be affected by the decommissioning of several blocks of the Kozloduj power plant, as mentioned by Mr Horáček.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would call on you once again to help ensure that the new Member States’ accession to the European Union proceeds smoothly.
We should not allow these countries to endure continued hardship after 1 January 2007, confronted as they are by massive problems, caused by the pressure to privatise that has been exerted unscrupulously by external influences.
We should not forget that we are setting a precedent for negotiations with other Balkan states, and they should receive an appropriate welcome into the EU.
   Mr President, I first visited Romania for a skiing trip during the Christmas/New Year period in 1989.
The Romanian flags being waved then had holes where the symbol was cut out in the middle.
Sixteen years on, we have Mr Moscovici’s report which shows quite amazing achievements and huge progress.
I speak now as one who has been a Member of the EU-Romania Joint Parliamentary Committee since 1994 and who has visited many times, seeing the significant advances, particularly in the fields of freedom of expression, justice, minorities and children.
What we are talking about is reuniting the people of Europe. People who share a common culture, a common heritage, a common history and who have great linguistic links.
Romania is European in every sense; its mere name gives that away.
I look forward to the day when Romanian colleagues are in this Chamber as elected Members of this European Parliament.
      I too should like to take this opportunity to call on the Bulgarian and Romanian authorities to step up the pace of their work and to speed up their preparations for joining the European Union.
Examples of areas where efforts need to be intensified include the functioning of the judiciary, the fight against corruption and the integration of minorities, including the Roma minority.
A very accurate account of these weak points is given in the Van Orden and Moscovici reports.
To my mind, compliance with these requirements and with the others that have already been mentioned today is of crucial importance, and there are two reasons why this is the case.
Firstly, these requirements must be met in order to make it possible for Bulgaria and Romania to become full members of the EU as of 1 January 2007.
Secondly, and in my opinion equally importantly, they must be met so that both countries can continue to set a positive example to their neighbours, such as Macedonia or Serbia and Montenegro.
Both Bulgaria and Romania played a very positive role during the 1990s when war was raging in the Balkans, and acted as a stabilising force.
It is my firm belief that the two countries will continue to play such a role, and that they will set an example not only to their Balkan neighbours, but also to certain small-time politicians, most of whom hail from the old Member States, who are starting to lose heart and to cast doubt upon the very purpose of European enlargement.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I wish to thank the Members for their objective and informative debate and their well-chosen words.
It is also good that there was emphasis in the speeches on the fact that this is now about bringing to conclusion the latest, which is to say the fifth, round of enlargement.
This is an addition to the historic upheaval which started with the collapse of the Berlin Wall more than 15 years ago.
My opinion is that the Commission and the European Parliament, as well as the Presidency, with reference to Mr Alexander’s important speech, should consider Bulgaria’s and Romania’s preparations for membership very much in the same way and putting emphasis on the same things.
Reform of the judicial system in particular is absolutely essential.
It is essential for the legal protection of the citizens of Bulgaria and Romania, it is essential from the point of view of economic dynamics and foreign investment, and it is also essential for the implementation of EU legislation in these countries.
We have a responsibility for ensuring that we assess fairly and objectively whether these countries are ready in this respect to accede to the Union in 2007.
The same also applies to administrative reform, and especially the fight against corruption and criminality, and the elimination of problems in the area of agriculture and food safety.
The coming months will be decisive for both countries.
Both have a chance to join in 2007, but only if both do all they can to meet the requirements and take the challenge absolutely seriously.
I trust that there is nothing unclear about this, but, to be quite sure, I will repeat my message.
What is crucial now is not any charm offensive in the capitals of the EU countries, but purposeful, practical action to carry through reforms in the legal system and in administration, and very determined action to combat corruption and crime.
Come spring, I would not like to find myself in a situation where, on behalf of the Commission, I have to propose recourse to the safeguard clauses, but it needs to be said that they have not been entered in the accession treaties for fun.
This chance should be taken seriously in Bulgaria and Romania, and every endeavour should be made to achieve eligibility for membership, so that both countries can join in January 2007.
We will be completely objective in our assessment of how prepared these countries are in the light of hard facts.
The Commission will support the reforms in Bulgaria and Romania, follow developments and in due course present Parliament and the Council with an assessment of this progress.
It needs to be emphasised that we will need regular dialogue, as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Elmar Brok, as well as others, said.
I would suggest that we return to the matter during the spring, when we will have a more accurate idea of how Bulgaria and Romania have progressed in their efforts to achieve eligibility for membership at the beginning of 2007.
   A delegation from Austria, headed by Vice-Chancellor Gorbach, has arrived in the Chamber.
It will take part in political meetings ahead of the Austrian Presidency, which is due to begin on 1 January 2006.
   President-in-Office, thank you for that reply.
I understand that, as you said, no agreement was reached.
It is becoming very clear that a lot of Member States that are trying to get rid of the individual opt-out – which you are working to retain, as I am – are trying to get around the use of the opt-out, either by using autonomous workers as a way of opting out or by making sure that there are multiple contracts, i.e. two or three contracts for one employee, which makes the whole idea of the Working Time Directive seem ludicrous.
I should be grateful if you could say whether the Socialist Group of MEPs, including the Labour MEPs, might support us now on the retention of the individual opt-out?
   . I am sure that honourable Members as experienced as Mrs Lynne recognise that it is not my responsibility to answer on this occasion on behalf of individual Members of this Parliament or of any group within this Parliament.
My responsibility instead is to answer on behalf of the Presidency.
However, I can assure her that she is correct in her analysis, in recognising that one of the main outstanding issues is how to apply the directive: per contract or per worker.
This confusion has arisen out of the discovery that, as she suggested, some Member States were applying the limits in the Working Time Directive per contract, thereby allowing people to work much longer than 48 hours per week by having more than one contract.
We now need to consider further how to resolve this and seek to build on the significant progress that was made in the course of our Presidency, including last Thursday.
   – Madam President, I thank the Minister for his reply, but I should like to ask if any such measures will be included in future planning for development, job creation or mobility, which we are celebrating in 2006.
Preparations should have been made in 2005.
   It is not just a matter of energy efficiency, but of financial efficiency.
The EUR 300 million a year spent on bringing Parliament here for part-sessions amounts to EUR 2 billion over a financial perspective.
You mentioned the need to ratify any change to this system.
Seeing that the own-resources decision is likely to need national ratification, could not a few extra clauses that would save the European taxpayer an enormous amount of money be added at the same time?
   . There is an important gender perspective towards the policies that we should advocate for our welfare states, but it is right to recognise that there is, as I said in my introductory remarks to this question, a diversity of social models within Europe.
It is a matter of profound concern to me that 20 million fellow European citizens are out of work.
Upholding the European social model, as is often suggested, is of little comfort to those 20 million citizens.
The necessary practical steps must be taken to secure the economic reforms that will create the prosperity to provide further opportunity for those individuals.
The core insight that the surest means to tackle poverty is to provide somebody with a job – one of my main political convictions – must also be recognised.
   . I am reflecting both the spirit and the outcome of the discussion at Hampton Court of which I spoke earlier.
There was a clear recognition both of the challenges that Europe faces in the face of globalisation and that different courses have been set, in the face of those challenges, by individual Member States.
Bearing in mind the delay in the process of ratifying the European Constitution, Article 167 of which provides for a special status for the outermost regions in the context of state aid, is the Council planning to adopt transitional measures to guarantee this special treatment in the light of the distance separating these regions from the geographical nucleus of the internal market and other factors which place them at a disadvantage?
   . I stand by the answer I have just given in terms of European law.
In relation to the Canaries in particular, however, Parliament should be aware that the NUTS level 2 region of the Canaries will benefit from an additional envelope of EUR 100 million over the 2007-2013 period under the envisaged proposals.
Council Regulation (EC) No 27/2005 of 22 December 2004(1) concerning the size of fishery quotas in the Baltic and elsewhere includes provisions on sharing of quotas and closed seasons.
These quotas are valid for each calendar year and are therefore negotiated on an annual basis.
Given the lack of specific information on negotiations in the Council on these matters and in view of the approaching deadline for the final decisions, will the Council say what progress has been made in this area, particularly as regards changes in fishery quotas for 2006 compared to the current year?
   .
Fisheries quotas for the Baltic Sea for 2006 were jointly agreed by the European Community and Russia in September on the basis of scientific advice produced by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea in May.
The relevant details are set out in the Commission’s proposals to put such quotas into Community law.
This should be adopted at the Agriculture and Fisheries Council on 20 and 21 December 2005.
      Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Alexander for his answer.
I would have preferred, however, to receive a clearer response to the substance of my question, which related to the rules governing the sharing of quotas and closed seasons.
It is high time that the annual negotiations in this field were based on objective and convincing findings.
I do not believe that the advice to which Mr Alexander referred meets these criteria.
As we are all aware, the scope of research into fish stocks in the Baltic has so far been limited by an inadequate number of fishing surveys, and by what essentially amounts to a lack of consensus on the methodological basis for biomass assessments.
When Mr Alexander grows weary of airports, I should like to invite him to the Baltic.
We would be delighted to welcome him there.
   Madam President, unfortunately I have to say that I did not find Mr Alexander’s response very convincing.
The Council has done very little to encourage the EU Member States to ratify the Hague Convention on parental responsibility and measures for the protection of children, which regulates such issues.
We are all aware that only six Member States have ratified this Convention.
The other Member States have not yet done so, which means that such forms of punishment can still be used.
I should like to ask what action the Council has taken in this respect.
   On the wider package of the Constitutional Treaty as a whole, does the President-in-Office of the Council accept that the European Council was right, in the light of the fact that a majority of Member States have actually ratified this Constitutional Treaty? It was right not to declare the text dead, but to inaugurate a period of reflection – one which has been much more about the context than about the text.
Does he agree that in due course, once we are in a new context, we will have to return to the question of the text and what to do about it, if not in 2006, then in 2007?
   I wondered whether the Minister would like to make any comment on the possibility of British Conservative MEPs sitting on the same bench as Mrs Mussolini?
   – The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0338/2005), on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on machinery, and amending Directive 95/16/EC [5786/2/2005 – C6-0267/2005 – 2001/0004(COD)] (rapporteur: Andreas Schwab).
   – The next item is the report by Mrs Attwooll (A6-0341/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on women's networks: fishing, farming and diversification (2004/2263(INI)).
   – The next item is the report by Mrs Stihler (A6-0340/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing Community financial measures for the implementation of the common fisheries policy and in the area of the Law of the Sea [COM(2005)0117 – C6-0131/2005 – 2005/0045(CNS)].
   . Mr President, I would more or less follow on from Mrs Fraga’s last sentence.
I do not know why it is precisely the common policy with the least funds that is most besieged by requests of all kinds.
In this regard, although I am genuinely grateful for the work of the rapporteur ― as she knows ― I feel obliged to make a series of comments, or rather discrepancies, in relation to the text that has been approved in committee and on which we are going to vote tomorrow.
I am referring specifically to Amendments 6, 9, 11, 12 and 13, on which I shall comment briefly.
Within the context of this Regulation, and aware of the beneficial consequences of international agreements in the Community’s regions in terms of employment, I understand the Commission’s position on this issue.
Maintaining employment is a specific objective that nobody questions.
To set this objective without specifically mentioning the Community, as Mrs Stihler does, could be a mistake.
It is a laudable desire, but it does not fall within the scope of the CFP and furthermore it does not seem to me to be a realistic objective.
With regard to data collection for Natura 2000, proposed in Amendment 9, I believe that it should be financed by means of funds intended for the environment policy ― as I have always said ― and not by means of the CFP.
Those of us who deal with the CFP know that through this policy we are paying for other obligations laid down within other Community policies, as demonstrated by the increasing economic weight of development cooperation within the fisheries agreements.
Furthermore, when, in Amendment 12, Mrs Stihler proposes the criterion of providing value for money as a determining factor in fisheries agreements, I feel obliged to ask what kind of value for money she is referring to.
Value for money for the third country? Furthermore, Mrs Stihler, I believe that, if we work on the basis of this criterion of value for money, I do not know whether we will be able to implement the cooperation policy to which I have just referred, and to which you yourself refer.
I genuinely do not know whether or not you, as rapporteur, have given this criterion of value for money, which I find so difficult to understand, sufficient thought.
I accept the two amendments presented by Mr Guerreiro, as well as Amendment 17, presented by Mrs Stihler.
   – The next item is the report by Mr Morillon (A6-0385/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol setting out, for the period from 18 January 2005 to 17 January 2011, the fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for by the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Republic of Seychelles on fishing off Seychelles [COM(2005)0421 – C6-0321/2005 – 2005/0173(CNS)].
   Mr President, I must confess I rise to speak in this debate feeling a sense of anger, not least that it is 11.35 p.m. and many of us have missed our Christmas parties, but because we are here debating the eighth renewal of the fisheries agreement between the EU and the Seychelles, which would normally be considered a matter of simple routine.
This agreement, as other speakers have said, was due to enter into force on 18 January 2005.
EU fishing vessels have been fishing continuously in the Seychelles' waters since January 2005.
However, the Seychelles Government has not yet received a single euro, as we have heard.
We are taking their fish without paying them a cent.
We must remember that the Seychelles was one of the countries affected on 26 December last year by the tsunami.
As we know, it was the fishing communities that were hardest hit by that disaster.
Here we are, in the European Union, exacerbating the problem by allowing our distant-water European fleet to fish in their waters, yet a year later we still have not paid them one cent.
How is it possible that this protocol was not submitted to the European Parliament until mid-October 2005, 10 months after the commencement of the agreement and two weeks after the first payment was due? The second instalment under this agreement is due next month and yet we are here at 11.40 p.m. still debating the text of the protocol, all our amendments to which the Commissioner has rejected.
What are we doing here? Are we here simply to rubber-stamp a Commission proposal when there is not even the slightest hint of humility, of acknowledgement of this delay and acceptance of the Fisheries Committee’s amendments?
The Council says it is anxious that Parliament should deliver its opinion as soon as possible.
The new protocol was signed by the two parties on 23 September 2004, and yet the Council did not request that Parliament should be consulted until 14 October 2005, more than a year later.
I am well aware of all the internal procedural problems.
I am well aware that we have to seek 21 different translations of all these protocols, but we have been aware of these shortcomings for a long time.
Steps should have been taken to ensure that this process was speeded up.
This situation is intolerable.
It is grossly unfair to fish in the waters of the Seychelles or any other country while withholding payment from them.
We have to ensure that this never happens again.
   . Mr President, first of all, with regard to the four amendments that have been tabled, I repeat that, concerning acceptance or otherwise of Amendment 1, which is to a recital, it would not give any added value.
I undertake to discuss this with the president of the Committee on Fisheries and with the committee itself, in order to find some solution on a permanent basis, so that the situation can be resolved, hopefully, once and for all, and the Fisheries Committee will have sufficient time to make its necessary evaluation and give its advice on the proposed agreements accordingly.
Concerning Amendment 2, as stated in Article 7 of the Protocol, it is up to the coastal State, in agreement with the Community, to decide on the way the financial contribution will be used in support of its fisheries policy.
It is, therefore, the responsibility of the Seychelles authorities to identify the main priorities of their fisheries policy to be implemented with the assistance of the Fisheries Agreement.
Therefore, the scope of Amendment 2 would run against such a right exercised by the third country with which such agreements are negotiated, although we try to influence and have indications within the parameters of the agreement reached on the uses of the funds.
Certainly, the development of coastal populations living on fisheries is an area which we try to impress upon the States concerned and which should be given top priority.
On Amendment 3, we fully share the concern to keep the European Parliament informed of the various aspects of the implementation of the Protocol.
The Commission already complies with the transmission of such information in line with the current interinstitutional arrangements.
However, I will look at ways and means to improve this communication and discussion process with the European Parliament.
I cannot, however, commit myself here and now to accepting the amendment before I assess the full implications on the resources available at my DG, with the increased responsibilities that we have, without any increase in the number of people.
This task was a problem – we are speaking about some 30 agreements – and I need to carry out an assessment of what this would imply before I can give positive commitments.
I will certainly try to find ways and means whereby we can improve this process and hopefully have that included in future agreements; once we include it in one, it will become a standard feature in all agreements.
I need to underline that I must be certain that if we undertake commitments, we will be able physically to fulfil them.
The problem that we have faced so far lies in the length of the internal procedures, the consultations at an early stage with the Member States, and the translation requirements that have increased considerably – Mr Stevenson made reference to that.
We hope to find a solution in the short term and I will be discussing it with General Morillon in January, so that we can work out a solution which I hope will be acceptable to the Fisheries Committee and will not have a repeat of such occurrences, which are embarrassing to the Commission and leave the European Parliament without real time to effect its rightful functions.
   Written Declaration No 52/2005, by David Martin, Neil Parish, Peter Skinner, Terence Wynn and Robert Evans, on rising international concern over the farming of bear bile in China, has been signed by the majority of Members of this Parliament.
In accordance with Rule 116 of the Rules of Procedure, it will be forwarded to the institutions named therein and will be published, indicating the names of the signatories, together with the texts approved on 17 January 2006.
   Mr President, I am asking for the floor under Rule 145 on personal statements, which allows me to speak for up to three minutes; I will not take that much time.
Mr President, the verbatim report of Tuesday’s part-session has only just been made available to us, and it has brought to my attention a personal attack made against me by a man who, until then, I had believed was presiding over the sitting courteously and impartially.
I am referring to the vice-president of the sitting in question, who saw fit to interrupt me and to take sides regarding the background to my dispute with the French Government.
His reference to a historical fact – the tragedy of the Struthof camp – even shows that he is completely ignorant of the ins and outs of this tragedy, and of the most recent work of historians on this subject.
The president of the sitting also saw fit to make a comment following one of my colleagues’ speeches, even though it contained no personal attacks and no insulting comments.
In all of my considerable parliamentary experience, I have never seen a sitting president act as arrogantly as Mr McMillan Scott and I find it deeply regrettable.
   Mr President, I was indeed in the Chair when Mr Gollnisch made an explanation of vote.
He had his full time, I did cut him off and I did make a remark concerning the case that he had raised, in a personal capacity.
I suggest that the House might like to read what I said, because I think they will agree with me and not with Mr Gollnisch.
   .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would just like to concur with Mr Pittella and thank all those who have worked on producing the budget for 2006, and to agree with Mr Pittella’s statement that a fine result has been achieved and that the 2006 budget is one that serves the interests of the European Union.
I also have one technical correction, which concerns Amendment 193 of Part 11, in connection with the European Court of Justice.
Due to technical problems the notes are missing there, but the text of the note is as follows: ‘A 3.6 per cent reduction has been made in this part in connection with staff posts: five new staff posts in the IT sector (four B3 posts and one C1 post) and 16 staff posts for Romania and Bulgaria (ten A7 posts, two B3 posts and four C1 posts)’.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this really is a minimal adjustment, just to make it clearer that the letter of amendment is consistent with number two – the agreement made between Parliament and the Council – but it really is an adjustment to the form, which does not in the least affect the content.
   We shall carry on voting and we shall continue with the Schwab report.
But could somebody from the Secretariat please verify where the Council is.
   Let us say that it has been a rather sophisticated use of Rule 145.
   I would like to thank the Presidency-in-Office of the Council for its statement.
Before moving on to the signature of the budget, please allow me to point out that the budget that we have just approved for 2006, in terms of commitment appropriations, represents 1.09% of gross domestic product for the 25 countries of the Union.
In a few hours time, in Brussels, we shall examine a budget for 2007-2013 which proposes an average of 1.03% for 27 countries of the Union.
   . – () Before we proceed to the vote, I would like to propose two more or less technical amendments.
In paragraph 3 of my report, in the phrase ‘applicable to all three categories set out in Article 87(3)(a)’ at the end of the first line and the beginning of the second line, I would like to delete the word ‘three’, so that the text would then read ‘applicable to all categories set out in Article 87(3)(a)’.
I would also like to propose another amendment to the paragraph, or to Amendment 31, which is essentially of a technical nature as well, but I will probably do this when we vote on this paragraph.
   . – () In the last line, or in the last sentence of this paragraph, I would like to change the words ‘too brutal’ (‘príliš brutálne’ in Slovak) to the words ‘very significant’ (‘veľmi významné’).
So, the aim is to change the wording from ‘too brutal’ to ‘very significant’.
   Mr President, the ALDE Group would like to suggest an oral amendment to Amendment 9, so that it reads: ‘Whereas international terrorism poses one of the greatest threats to society within the EU and to those values’.
If that oral amendment were accepted, then we would support Amendment 9.
   Mr President, I should like to propose, through an oral amendment, a merger of Amendments 14, 12 and 5. This concerns the very important but also sensitive issue of adoption in Romania.
We want to propose to the Romanian Government that it settle a number of cases that are still pending, as a consequence of a moratorium on international adoption, proposed in the past by this Parliament.
It is an important oral amendment.
I will read it carefully so that everybody knows what we are voting for: ‘Notes with satisfaction the improvements made by Romanian authorities in the area of the protection of children and urges the Romanian Government to settle the cases of applications for international adoption made during the moratorium of June 2001, ensuring that all cases are examined in light of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Romanian law on the legal status of adoption, with the goal of allowing inter-country adoptions to take place, where justified and appropriate, in those special cases’.
   Mr President, I would just like to point out – not least for Mr Swoboda’s benefit – that this is not the last vote today.
I think it is a pity that he is departing so soon for his Christmas holidays and would be happy if he were to hang around for a bit longer.
- Rejection of draft EU budget 2006 (RC-B6-0642/2005)
   We Swedish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the agreement on the 2006 budget, reached between the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
The EU budget must primarily be used to create full employment in Europe and to help bring about sustainable social, economic and environmental development.
We particularly welcome the fact that our repeated demands for investment in the Lisbon Strategy, including more money for student exchange programmes and for the EU’s research and development programme, have been listened to.
The payments in the agricultural category are lower than those originally proposed, and we think that this is fair.
There is too much in the way of direct agricultural aid, and this leads to inefficient agriculture that damages the environment and widens the gap between rich and poor in the world.
We cannot, therefore, support wordings that regret the cutbacks in agricultural aid decided on by the Council.
   . The UKIP MEPs are voting for the rejection of the Draft General Budget, not because they support an increase in the budget, but on the principle that the UK should take its own decisions regarding funding priorities and not contribute to the EU budget.
   In the vote on the budget, the Social Democrats have voted in favour of block 1, involving a strengthening of central budget headings for research, development etc.
It must, however, be stated, that the Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament cannot support the EU’s contributing financially to the spread of nuclear power, either within or outside the Community.
   . The UKIP MEPs are voting for the rejection of the Draft General Budget, not because they support an increase in the budget, but on the principle that the UK should take its own decisions regarding funding priorities and not contribute to the EU budget.
   . British Conservatives support the general direction of the 2006 budget, particularly approving of increased support for the Lisbon objectives and maintaining the overall budget level at 1.01% GNI.
However, we urge more radical reform of the overall budget.
   Regarding letter of amendment No 1, the Danish Liberal Party does not believe that the destruction of foodstuffs is appropriate.
However, the problem is aid for production, not aid for destruction.
The amendment concerns the effects of the problem, but does not tackle its cause.
Regarding letter of amendment No 2, the Danish Liberal Party wishes to solve the problems of famine in developing countries, but believes that doing so requires a far more serious and coordinated effort than that indicated in this proposal.
Regarding letter of amendment No 3, the Danish Liberal Party is opposed to aid for the export of live animals, but the amendment will not solve this problem.
The wording is also fairly unclear.
Regarding letter of amendment No 6, the Danish Liberal Party supports reform of the reimbursement of travel expenses, so that all reasonable and necessary travel expenses are refunded.
Such reform has, however, already been decided on with the new Statute for Members.
Moreover, the amendment could not be implemented in practice.
Overall, Mr Bonde’s amendments have to be characterised as ill thought-out.
   Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur again for an excellent report, while also pointing out that I believe that an error has crept in to the vote, since we should have voted on Amendment 24, moved by Mrs Lichtenberger from the Group of the Greens/Free Democratic Alliance, which would have included the automatic 60% mark-up on the infrastructure charges.
Apart from that, I am well satisfied with the report.
   . UKIP fully recognises the desirability of improving conditions for handicapped people, particularly in some states on mainland Europe.
However, we reject the notion that improvements should be carried out under the competence of the Commission.
This should be the sole prerogative of democratic national states.
   . I voted enthusiastically for the Evans Report, because I believe it is a significant contribution to anti-discrimination policies for people with disabilities who want the freedom to fly without hindrance.
   . UKIP fully recognises the desirability of improving conditions for handicapped people, particularly in some states on mainland Europe.
However, we reject the notion that improvements should be carried out under the competence of the Commission.
   The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the report, because it is crucial to devise accompanying measures for the Sugar Protocol countries.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament must, however, express regret about the fact that the agreement on the 2006 budget, entered into between the budget authorities, does not make it possible to increase the aid to the Sugar Protocol countries, as the proposed level of support has to be regarded as inadequate.
   . I voted against this report because the Fisheries Agreements in practice merely export our own disastrous fisheries policy to the rest of the world.
The Common Fisheries Policy is untenable, illogical and has been an unmitigated disaster.
More so, in our Union of 25 it will collapse under the weight of its own contradictions.
We need to ensure that EU decision making is logical, the Common Fisheries Policy is not and puts those of us who are pro-European in the unenviable position of having to explain such an illogical and disastrous policy to our increasingly rightly sceptical electorate.
- Commission legislative programme (2006) (RC-B6-0636/2005)
   . I fully support this Resolution, especially Para 9 which stresses the need to take full account of the quality of public services in completing the internal market; calls for a framework directive on services of general interest; insists that the single market can only be developed in a context of fair competition, fighting social dumping and promoting cohesion; calls on the Commission to contribute to the fight against the ‘race to the bottom’ approach in all fields, including in relation to maritime re flagging.
We must listen to the 100,000 people who took to the streets in Ireland last week to express their anger at the 'Race to the Bottom' threatened by the actions of the Irish Ferries company and the Bolkenstein Directive.
100,000 people expressed their anger and made it clear they will not accept a European Union based on the lowest common denominator in social, employment, and public service provisions.
I call on Commissioner McCreevy as a matter of urgency to reintroduce Manning of Ferries Directive, unblock the Temporary/Agency Workers Directive and fundamentally amend the Bolkenstein Directive.
- Human rights in Tunisia (RC-B6-0646/2005)
   . In its initial draft, the European Commission planned to ban State aid to business in France as of 2007.
This draft, like that of the Bolkestein directive, is part of the implementation of a highly competitive internal market that was agreed during the Barcelona summit, where France was represented by Mr Chirac and Mr Jospin.
Mr Koterec’s report introduces a number of improvements: France will retain the option of granting State aid, but that aid will be considerably reduced.
European regional policy, which is largely paid for by French taxpayers, is therefore not content with being more and more stingy towards our regions (the French-speaking region of Hainaut has lost the structural funds under Objective 1 as a result).
By preventing France in future from having an independent industrial policy, it is compromising the very existence of hundreds of businesses, which, in the absence of targeted public aid, will either have to relocate their activities or to shut up shop.
That Europe, a Europe which manufactures unemployment and which is antisocial because it is antinational, was rejected by our fellow citizens on 29 May.
They want a different Europe, a Europe that, in respecting national sovereignties, will respect employment.
   . I wish to congratulate Mr Koterec on his outstanding report on the role of state aid as a tool of regional development.
I should like to take this opportunity to express my support for the rapporteur’s opinion that in the new programming period the ceilings of aid intensities applicable to the EU’s outermost regions should be exactly the same as those in force during the previous period (2000-2006).
I also endorse the rapporteur’s view that, in this connection, the status described in Article 87(3) of the European Community Treaty should automatically apply to the outermost regions, which is, after all, laid down in the Treaty approving a Constitution for Europe.
- EU development policy (RC-B6-0653/2005)
- The CIA and the illegal transportation of prisoners (RC-B6-0649/2005)
   .
I voted as I did on this resolution because, along with many concerned London constituents, I believe there should be an objective investigation of allegations, both of the alleged use of EU countries by the CIA for the transportation of prisoners, and the alleged use of European soil for the illegal detention of prisoners.
   . The first lesson from the affair around the CIA flights must be to close the US and NATO military bases such as Aviano in Italy, Ramstein in Germany and Kogalniceanu in Romania in the EU and the future member states.
After all, they are the infrastructure for the torture flights.
EU interior commissioner Franco Frattini plays things down, wherever this is possible, and pushes the responsibility back to the member states.
This is all the more dishonest, since the affair quite clearly also has an EU dimension.
The EU, in the security political arena and precisely as far as the so-called struggle against terrorism is concerned, has agreed on a close cooperation with NATO and the USA.
Agreements on secret service cooperation and on the unlimited transfer of information classified secret are part of the “Berlin plus agreement”, which allows the EU to take military action using NATO capacities.
In February 2003, there was agreed directly with the USA a close cooperation in the transport of suspects.
The scandalous behaviour in this sense is not only that of the US government, but the blame must also rest with the EU officials and the EU governments in the know.
   .
The presumed use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners should be condemned and investigated thoroughly.
I am pleased that the UK Government has stated categorically that it will cooperate fully with the Council of Europe investigation.
   .
I voted for the Moscovici report on Romania, but I believe that, on some key issues, the Romanian government must make accelerated progress - namely the widespread, institutionalised discrimination against the Roma, clearing up allegations of the use of alleged illegal detention sites and state corruption.
   The next item is five motions for resolutions on the human rights situation in Tibet and Hong Kong(1).
   Mr President, two months ago we adopted an urgent resolution in this House regarding Tenzin Delek Rinpoche and he still has not been released from detention.
Once again we are here, this time to seek to highlight the ‘patriotic education’ campaign conducted in Tibetan monasteries.
Last month five Tibetan monks were arrested in Drepung Monastery.
We hear they have also been tortured in detention.
But what is their crime? Their crime is that they refused to sign declarations denouncing His Holiness the Dalai Lama as a dangerous separatist.
Public education began as a tool of repression in 1996 in China, but it has escalated since 2005.
The Chinese Government is attempting to brainwash the people.
This is not public education, it is a suppression of human rights.
No doubt the Chinese will again say this is an internal matter for China, but the international community cannot sit idly by when peace-loving people are subjected to this kind of treatment.
We need to know in particular what happened to the young Tibetan monk Ngawang Jangchub, who died in October during a ‘patriotic education’ session.
The Chinese Government must listen to our calls for respect for human rights.
If it does not, the least we should do – and I mean the least we should do – is maintain our EU embargo on trade in arms.
Unlike one of the previous speakers, I would like to see the Dalai Lama coming here and addressing Parliament.
   . Mr President, it was at the beginning of October that the 28-year old monk Ngawang Jangchub died in his cell in the Drepung monastery.
His death resulted from his interrogation by cadres of the campaign for so-called ‘patriotic education’.
The object of this is that critics of the regime should be brought back into line by means of drastic physical and mental re-education measures.
Over 10 000 monks and nuns in Tibet have been obliged to undergo brainwashing since 1996, something that constitutes a flagrant breach of freedom of opinion and religion.
The intention is that threats, periods of detention, and torture should induce the inhabitants of monasteries to denounce the Dalai Lama, in writing as an enemy of the state and a separatist.
Mrs Lynn has already described how, on 23 November, Chinese security forces occupied the Drepung monastery near the capital, Lhasa.
When they arrested five senior monastics, 400 monks mounted a peaceful demonstration for their release.
The police and special units responded promptly to this by sealing the monastery off from the outside world for days on end.
Are human rights resolutions adopted by this House a matter of indifference to the Chinese? It is evidently not enough for them that the Commission, Commissioner Verheugen, and the Council should intervene.
Or are they no more than footnotes to the loudly-heralded dialogue between the EU and China? Speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, let me remind the House of our debate in October, on which occasion we demanded, as a matter of urgency, an improvement in the conditions under which the highly regarded Lama Tensin Delek Rinpoche were being held, which were putting his life at risk, in order to make it possible for him to receive a fair trial.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, has just published the results of his inspection of Chinese prisons, labour camps and police stations.
He confirms that torture is taking place, and that prisoners and persons regarded as suspect are being mistreated.
The effect of the Chinese system of re-education through work is that people can be sent, without a court having passed sentence upon them, to a camp for up to three years.
That is a manifest offence against their personal integrity and against the dignity of every human being.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is alarming to observe the changes in Russian society, with the grossest human rights abuses exemplified by the new law intended to make NGOs dependent on the state, the ongoing repressive measures directed against the former Yukos bosses Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, and by the state of war in Chechnya.
Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are being held, contrary to Russian law, in prison camps in Siberia, a long way from Moscow and north of the Arctic Circle, in temperatures of - 50°.
Lebedev is seriously ill.
Contact with their family members and lawyers has been made extremely difficult; they have no access to information and are not allowed newspapers.
Their defence counsel, Yevgeni Baro and Yuri Schmit, are themselves facing trial next week on a charge of defamation.
The Russian justice system’s denial of human rights is made all the worse by the ever-tighter restrictions placed on the freedom of the press.
We should be clear in our own minds as to what is going on here and call upon the Council and the Commission to use their influence on Russia to get human rights respected.
   , Mr President, my group welcomes this resolution, especially Recital I and paragraphs 8 to 13, which take the broader view of the issue that Mr Horáček and I wanted to see.
It is often the case in these debates that we take up the cudgels against small-time dictators and neglect to address the human rights situation in major states that are of strategic and economic importance to us.
I am glad that we are, today, spelling out how things stand in China and Russia, for if we do not, we run the risk of our economic dependency on them – for it is a regrettable fact that we are economically dependent on them in some areas – causing us to take a one-sided view of human rights or making us blind to the issues at stake.
For years on end, the German Government minimised the importance of such things as the war in Chechnya or the smothering of human rights in Russia, or even passed over them in silence, and when you see the position that the former German Chancellor, Mr Schröder, has now taken on, you can quickly understand why they did so.
We must take care that Gasprom, the partly state-owned Russian energy giant, does not start to play the sort of role once played by the United Fruit Company in Latin America.
While we must cooperate economically and politically, we must not mince words when telling what is really going on as regards human rights.
I am thinking here not only of the prisoners languishing under unspeakable conditions in Siberia, about whom Mr Horáček has had something to say, but also of the attempt at silencing independent organisations – NGOs, in other words – as successfully as the Russian media already have been.
I am very much obliged to Mr Deß for seeing to it that we end up using more renewable energies, for Europe’s dependency on Russian energy is bringing us to the point where we start keeping our mouths shut about things that must not be hushed up.
   . Mr President, if you look hard enough on the map of the Horn of Africa, you find a little island of stability called Djibouti.
All around it, the situation is precarious.
Somalia scarcely exists as a state any more; the domestic situation in Eritrea is highly critical, with the opposition suppressed, and in Ethiopia, the situation after the elections is exactly as the EU’s principal observer, Mrs Gomes, has described it.
Not only that, but Ethiopia is subject to the destabilising influence of Eritrea, which we know to be supporting guerrillas fighting in Ogaden, and the border conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia is still threatening to erupt into open warfare.
Today, here in this House, we are focusing on the domestic situation in post-election Ethiopia, and so the demand we have to make is no vague one: we must call upon the government to desist from deploying disproportionate force to suppress the opposition and the general population, and must release all political prisoners and journalists without delay.
I heard recently that three more had been arrested, so the most up-to-date state of affairs is that 15 journalists are in custody.
The International Red Cross must also be given access to the camps in which so very many people are being held.
The country’s prime minister has again said that he will not only put the political leaders on trial, but also the 3 000 other detainees with them, and that there would be no mercy whatever – not even a Christmas amnesty.
As the Ethiopian Government is quite clearly bent upon confrontation, we call on the European Union to give thought to the possibility of imposing – as we already do against other regimes – targeted sanctions against those in power in Ethiopia, which would, I believe, send out a clear signal.
If these people are no longer permitted to travel to Europe on shopping trips, perhaps it will also dawn on them that they can no longer count on our support, and that we have no confidence that they are leading their country in the right direction.
   Mr President, it was a request for a split vote on paragraph 14, but having discussed it with some of my colleagues from other groups, we can make it very simple.
It is a split vote on the word ‘address’.
If that falls, then we will be able to support the resolution.
It will then read: ‘Urges the Conference of Presidents to invite His Holiness the Dalai Lama to the European Parliament during 2006’.
I hope that split vote will go through so that we can support the resolution as a whole.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 15 December 2005.
   – Mr President, on behalf of the group of European Socialists, I wish to express our deep sorrow and disenchantment over the senseless deaths of eighteen civilians in the Pakistani village of Damadola as a result of bombing by American aircraft.
I would like to state here that I fully respect the efforts undertaken by the United States in the fight against global terrorism, as well as the joint actions of the US and EU in tracking down the masterminds and perpetrators of terrorist attacks against civilians.
On the other hand, there is nothing in our democratic societies that precludes us from expressing reservations about attacks that cause the deaths of civilians in any country, especially if the victims are women and children.
   Mr President, four years ago, the United States was transferring its first prisoners of the war against terrorism, hooded and chained, to the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay on its naval base in Cuba.
Around 500 people, from 35 countries, are still being held, without charge or sentence, deprived of the rights recognised by international law.
There are an increasing number of reports of torture and of poor treatment of the detainees in this centre.
In fact, the prisoners remain in a ‘lawless’ situation.
They are often put in isolation, sometimes for months on end, for having infringed the camp’s strict operational rules.
Several have attempted suicide.
The United States’ plan to have the detainees tried by military commissions will only heighten the injustice because these commissions are not independent and because they admit statements obtained through the use of force or torture.
In these conditions, is it not about time we lent our support to those in Europe who are calling for the closure of this centre?
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that we all want to reinvigorate the debate on European policy, but that does presuppose not only the political will, but also a comprehensive information and communications campaign extending throughout Europe and tailored to the various target groups.
Awareness is, after all, dependent on information.
There is no single reading and exercise book for all schools throughout the EU; with the support of the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture, the Austrian journalists Wolfgang Böhm and Otmar Lahodynsky have written one that could, with only a few amendments, be used in all the EU Member States.
I ask you, Mr President, to see to it that this book is published and made available in all the EU-Infopoints and EU information offices.
We have also produced an EU pocket quiz aimed at young people, with 40 questions and answers, and that, too, does not need much adaptation to make it suitable for all the EU’s Member States.
I ask you, Mr President, to do your part in getting these two publications included in Plan D and hence in making it possible for a single European reading book and an information campaign to be kicked off.
      Mr President, the recent dispute between Russia and Ukraine over natural gas supplies and the relentless rise in oil prices are indications of how vulnerable Europe is when it comes to supplies of these vital commodities.
Europe is becoming increasingly dependent on imports, which often come from regions that are highly unstable.
We already import 60% of our oil, for example, and this figure will rise in the future.
It is becoming apparent that no EU Member State, no matter how large, will be able to tackle such problems by itself in future.
I should therefore like to call once again on the European Commission and the European Council to speed up preparations for a proposal on a common energy policy, which should also tie in with the common foreign and security policy.
I do not believe that we can continue with the present situation, dependent as we are on the good will or otherwise of certain authoritarian or totalitarian regimes in our vicinity.
   Mr President, I agree with Mrs Flautre’s condemnation of the scandalous fact that Guantanamo Bay has now been in existence for four years.
Several dozen legal residents of the EU are still incarcerated there, including some of my constituents: Bisha al-Rawi, Jamil al-Banna and Omar Deghayes.
The EU needs to exert united and cohesive pressure on the United States, which it has never done before.
Citizens of future EU Member States are also incarcerated there.
I refer specifically to five Bosnian citizens and one legal resident who were abducted by United States agents in January 2002, in defiance of Bosnian court orders, and held incommunicado for two years.
I call on the Bosnian Prime Minister, Adnan Terzic, to press for their release and for the EU to encourage and support him.
Also in the context of the so-called war on terror, it is shameful that the British Government withheld from the British Parliament for six weeks a letter from Louise Arbour, the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, expressing deep concern at some of the proposals in the current anti-terrorism legislation going through the UK national parliament, despite a request that the letter be brought to the attention of the House of Lords.
Everyone must heed what the United Nations says.
   Mr President, to some people’s annoyance it would seem, there has been press freedom in Spain for a long time.
While some radio stations invent suicide bombers, therefore, others are busy providing serious information.
I am aware, thanks to COPE, that on 29 November of last year, the President of the Autonomous Community of La Rioja sent you a letter, Mr President, asking you to cooperate and actively to defend Spanish, in the knowledge that the Commission had cut the number of translators and interpreters in that language by 33%.
That letter was sent to President Zapatero, as well as Commissioner Almunia, but none of you have done anything to defend Spanish on this occasion.
I would therefore ask you, in order not to discriminate against the Spanish compared to the other citizens of the Union, to do something in support of the language you and I share, because you have been elected to this House on a Spanish list.
   Naturally I have been elected from a Spanish list.
I could have been elected from a list from any other country of the European Union, as you know.
But I do not believe, Mrs Herranz García, that Spanish has in any way been discredited in this Parliament.
If you know of any specific case that I must deal with, I would ask you to tell me about it, but I do not believe that anybody has noticed any undervaluing, insult or lack of consideration towards the Spanish language in the European Parliament.
   Thank you very much, Mrs Morgan, I shall communicate that to the Commission, which, incidentally, will present its new proposals for the Lisbon Strategy at the next Conference of Presidents.
That will be a good opportunity for the political groups to draw attention to the issue that you referred to in your speech.
   Mr President, the Groups of the European Parliament have debated the decision of the European Council of 16 December 2005.
The various political Groups rejected it, and their criticism is justified in many respects.
At the same time, I would very much like to warn the European Parliament not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
A great number of agreements have been reached on the rules of the utilization of funds, which are considered positive by the ten new Member States.
What we failed to agree on in the European Parliament is the issue of non-refundable VAT, the application of the n+3 rule for cohesion funds, that PPPs and the involvement of private resources have become possible and that assistance for housing refurbishments is becoming possible.
These are all very important issues for the new Member States, and it would be very important that the interests of new Member States are not damaged in the course of the Parliamentary Debate.
   Mr President, I wish to inform my colleagues of an unhappy event that happened to me over the festive season.
On New Year’s Eve, I was abducted in Nicosia by Turkish occupying forces and accused of trespassing over the Turkish army line of separation imposed on Cyprus after the Turkish invasion of 1974.
I was lucky to be arrested and not be killed: the orders given to Turkish guards are to shoot anybody seen near this line.
A number of innocent civilians have already died in this way over the last few years.
Subsequently, I spent three days in jail in Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus in atrocious conditions, and no permission was granted to the United Nations, my relatives or the European Parliament’s representative to visit me.
I was presented handcuffed on two occasions before a Turkish military court and on one occasion before an illegal civilian court in the Turkish-occupied sector of Nicosia.
I was eventually released on bail of over EUR 25 000 and am summoned to appear before the Turkish occupation courts on 20 January; otherwise a warrant for my arrest will be issued.
If found guilty, I face a three-year jail sentence.
   Mr President, I have to acknowledge that, as Mr Cashman has said, even in my own constituency of London we continue to see prejudice and homophobic crime.
Just recently a gay man was killed purely out of murderous prejudice.
A few years ago we had a hate-crazed bomber who specifically intended to kill gay customers of a bar.
Of course he killed others too.
But we are largely looking at private hate and prejudice.
What is so shocking about developments in some Member States is the crude official intolerance: the banning of Pride demonstrations, inflammatory language even by Prime Ministers, police failure to protect marches, and so on.
We need European legislation to outlaw hate crime on grounds not only of race – which we have still not achieved – but also of sexual orientation.
And we need to equalise the treatment of race, gender and sexual orientation in generalising the ban on discrimination not only in the workplace, but also in the receipt of services and in the supply of goods.
The patchwork that we have at the moment is not good enough.
I look also to Commissioner Frattini to lead the effort to greatly improve the generalised protection of both women and minorities.
   – Mr President, I am disappointed by Commissioner Frattini’s speech, for what he is doing is retreating and saying we will intervene only when rights are infringed, but if the core principles of the European Union are violated, we will do nothing – indirectly admittedly, but that is what you said, Commissioner!
The fact is that sexuality and sexual orientation are fundamental rights too, and they too are in the Treaty.
Where the violation of those rights is on an official footing, in Poland, for example, where these people are on the receiving end of enormously discriminatory utterances on the part of leading politicians, and persecuted and injured when they take part in these demonstrations, which is an offence against these young people’s human dignity, the Commission stands by and declines to intervene, on the grounds that European law has not been broken.
Your written answer to my question was couched in precisely those terms, and that, Commissioner Frattini, is just not on!
What is going on in Poland is a departure from the observance of the Copenhagen criteria and from the core principles of this European Union, and so we have to make it clear at European level that this is unacceptable and that changes must be made without delay.
   Mr President, I just wish to add a few brief words at this point in the debate, the length and depth of which has shown that, regrettably, homophobia is still a serious and current problem throughout Europe.
Your words, therefore, Commissioner Frattini, have not been very convincing, given their coldness and their lack of a full and proactive commitment to combating this scourge.
We need much more vigorous action on the part of the Commission and on the part of the Member States, the latter led by the Commission.
Homophobia is there, in customs and traditions, in language, everywhere.
Not just in the countries in which the incidents that have led to this debate have taken place, such as Poland, but also in countries such as my own, Spain, where much progress has been made on this issue, but in whose society, authorities and certain professions this homophobic attitude still exists, and we must continue actively to fight it.
I agree with the words of many fellow Members, in particular the very moving words of Michael Cashman.
   Mr President, on the basis of Rule 143(1), I wish to state that Mr Frattini is making out that we are all stupid because it was he who prepared the communication on the broader framework directive.
However, he did not bring forward a directive, as Parliament requested, because it seems there was no unanimity ...
   – Mrs Buitenweg, I am sorry, but Rule 143(1) has nothing to do with your request to take the floor.
It merely states that ‘the names of Members who ask leave to speak shall be entered in the list of speakers in the order in which their requests are received.’
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
   – The next item is the report by Mr Catania (A6-0411/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Commission's fourth report on citizenship of the Union (1 May 2001 – 30 April 2004) (2005/2060(INI))
   . Mr President, the Verts/ALE Group supports the principal ideas in Mr Catania’s report.
We consider that EU citizenship based on residence should be the ultimate goal to make the European Union a genuine political community.
Those residing legally and on a long-term basis in the EU have to be granted political rights irrespective of their original nationality.
The crucial reality of the enlarged EU is that amongst those covered by the term ‘third country national’ are half a million people who are not nationals of any state, being former citizens of a state which no longer exists: the USSR.
These people make up 20% of the population of Latvia and 9% of that of Estonia.
They are holders of non-citizen’s passports issued by those states, but for 15 years they have been deprived of their rights to political participation.
In my opinion, Latvian and Estonian non-citizens may be the first candidates to become EU ‘civic citizens’, the term Commissioner Frattini proposed just now – and I am very grateful to him for that proposal.
I believe that by adopting the Catania report Parliament will signal to the authorities of Latvia and Estonia that respect for equal rights is crucial for the EU.
   – The next item is the report by Mrs Prets (A6-0400/2005), on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on strategies to prevent the trafficking of women and children who are vulnerable to sexual exploitation (2004/2216(INI)).
   Mr President, Mr Frattini, it is gratifying that Parliament is today debating the trafficking of women and children.
When the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, for which I was draftsman, decided on the opinion I was to draft, there was not only a very large majority in favour of strongly condemning the odious trafficking of persons but also a desire to see human trafficking as an aspect of prostitution in the EU.
What was important to the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs was to set the target of halving the trade within ten years and to see considerable efforts made to ensure that we MEPs obtain a better basis for decision-making, better statistics and, of course, better cooperation between police, prosecutors and judges.
We believe – and I emphasise ‘believe’ – that up to one half of the victims of human trafficking may be children and minors.
It was therefore important for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs to emphasise that a minimum, inviolable age limit of 18 years must be set.
For me, it is also only natural that women and children who have been victims of human trafficking be given the right to stay or else help in returning to their own countries.
I also hope that, in the future, there will be cooperation with the tourist industry.
Administrative districts and municipalities that receive large groups of tourists must make it clear that they view the trafficking of women and children as unacceptable.
A concomitant of the decision about the tourist industry that we are to take here in Strasbourg are the rumours that thousands upon thousands of women are to be imported as prostitutes in advance of this summer’s football World Cup – a matter for protest on the part of the EU’s women Social Democrats.
I am pleased to be able to say that, in Sweden, both our EU minister and the minister responsible for gender equality have condemned any such development, as has the chairman of the Swedish Football Association.
I hope that all the speakers in this Chamber today are able to give their support to this protest against the trafficking of women.
Sport, prostitution and the trafficking of women do not go together.
In its ambition to draw attention to prostitution in the EU, the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs wished to go further than the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality is doing.
I intend to return to this issue on a later occasion, for example in connection with our debate on Mr Frattini’s communication.
We cannot, as Mrs Prets believes, bring the trafficking of persons to an end by providing information about it.
What is required is for courageous politicians, including EU politicians, to take responsibility for doing so.
   . Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to thank Mrs Prets for her report and would like to take it as an opportunity to highlight an issue that will be of particular concern to us this year.
Major sporting events also offer an opportunity to engage in the people-trafficking business, in which women are forced into prostitution.
In sport, there is a constant emphasis on fairness and consideration for others, but if, on the occasion of the football world cup, the football supporters are offered brothels like the ones in Berlin, that is when I shall waste no time in spoiling the game.
The trafficking in women and children, along with forced prostitution, must be banned, prosecuted and impeded, both nationally and at the European level.
Let all those who are unwilling to take action against it be shown the red card!
   I wish to express my thanks to Mrs Christa Prets for her report.
Trafficking in persons, in particular women and children, is one of the worst forms of crime organised by international criminal groups.
These groups mainly target people in lower-income categories on the pretext of employment as waitresses, barmaids, charwomen or au pairs.
Most of the women who are ensnared in this way come from regions with adverse economic and social conditions, and high unemployment.
Since trafficking in women is perpetrated internationally by well-organised supranational groups, combating this problem also requires coordination at the supranational level.
It is commendable that international institutions such as the UN, the Council of Europe and the European Union, are addressing this modern form of slavery belonging to the 20th and 21st centuries.
Their activities have led to the adoption of a number of conventions, the signatories to which have included Slovakia.
In my view, however, it is also important to monitor the actual implementation of these conventions.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission on the WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong by Enrique Barón Crespo on behalf of the Committee on International Trade (O-0108/2005 B6-0348/2005).
   .
Mr President, whilst the sixth ministerial WTO Conference may not have been a failure, the very modest progress made in Hong Kong does make 2006 a particularly difficult year for negotiations.
I should like to ask the Commission how it thinks it can galvanise the other partners into action.
The G20’s salami tactics, which Commissioner Mandelson criticises, have eventually resulted in the European Union ending up virtually empty-handed in terms of industrial products and services after all, while more than enough time was taken to thrash out an agreement to end the export subsidies in 2013.
The Commission should therefore pull out all the stops in order to hold onto the momentum of Hong Kong in 2006, so that an acceptable agreement can be reached in the area of industry and the services sector too.
I should also like to ask the Commission what efforts it intends to make in order to give what are termed non-trade issues a more prominent place on the agenda.
   Mr President, I thank the Commissioner.
I should like to begin with a few positives.
First of all – and I believe that no one has mentioned this – the fact that the final text tackles the US abuse of food aid and that the ‘safe box’ has been created is very important.
Secondly, it is important that the text reins in the worst excesses of the ‘blue box’.
The final text also contains quite hopeful language on the special products and on the special safeguard mechanisms.
Those are positives.
Aid for trade is also welcome, although I have reservations about the World Bank and the IMF being in charge of it, bearing in mind the emphasis on conditionalities for which they are so well known.
Like my colleague Mr van den Berg, I am very keen to know where the EUR 1 billion promised by President Barroso at Gleneagles is going to come from.
There are huge gaps in the budgetary promises that have been made.
When I chaired a press conference of the ACP Group in Hong Kong I got a real sense of their feeling of frustration and betrayal.
On sugar, bananas and cotton the WTO has done the ACP no favours.
Mr Mandelson, these countries are our natural allies, but unless we really prove that we have in place a Doha development mandate, and that we are honouring that mandate, then I believe that in the months ahead we will not be able to rely on our ACP colleagues.
Also, it is absolutely critical that we have new long-term substantial funding for the Sugar Protocol countries.
Realistically, can we, in the short time available, make progress on ending dumping, on confirmation of the developing countries’ rights to protect their farms, their infant industries and services? Will we put in place fair and equitable access for developing countries’ exports?
Those are essential.
It is a formidable list. Can you do it by 30 April, Commissioner?
   .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is little time for this debate and so also to prevent climate change.
Researchers are extremely worried about the rate at which climate change is progressing; they are worried about what sort of world their children, our children, will be living in.
They say that the human race has 10 years at most to bring emissions right down: or, as Chris Davies said, perhaps it is already too late.
At Montreal it was merely agreed that talks on future reductions would be started.
We all know that the United States of America is the troublemaker where protection of the climate is concerned.
The EU now has a major responsibility; our role as leaders must therefore be made clearer.
At the next conference on climate the presidency of the EU will be held by Finland, which took an extremely vague line at Montreal.
Now we need to pull our socks up.
Finland and Austria should work with the Commission to draft a clear EU proposal to other countries.
We need a programme for the EU’s own emissions reductions for the period 2020-2050.
Businesses also need one.
For them to invest wisely, they need to be able to calculate the value of their investments and the price of their emissions in the years to come.
   The next item is the report by Georg Jarzembowski, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on market access to port services (COM(2004) 0654 – C6 0147/2004 – 2004/0240(COD)) (A6-0410/2005).
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the draft ports directive that we are discussing at the moment is a classic product of the former European Commission.
When it submitted the draft in the spring of 2004, the European Commission carried out no research into its impact on the new European Union Member States, with the result that, for example, the Baltic states ports would under this directive be obliged to compete with Russia’s ports in a situation of unfair competition.
Therefore, however much the rapporteur tries to find a compromise on this draft directive, it is clear that doing so will be very difficult.
Unfortunately, it may be that the organisers of the violent demonstration and various supporters of that demonstration on the left wing of this Parliament will tomorrow celebrate a victory.
However, stage what events they will, I would like to say to those who espouse the relaxed social standards of the old Europe that without major reforms it will not be possible to maintain those standards after all.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we support the dock workers against this directive, which is wrong for employment, wrong for their right to safety and wrong for the economy itself, because it proposes competition based on dumping. It must therefore be rejected, as it was in 2003.
We need to think about the kind of collapse to which free-market policies are leading.
Dock work has a glorious, long-standing tradition, which has created rights and prosperity by linking trading activities with the towns that welcomed them.
Without this noble work, which the directive would wipe out for the sake of free-market policies, there would be no future for Europe.
The European social model is our chief resource, and this directive, just like the Bolkestein directive, is the negation of it.
That is why I believe that the workers are right and that this Parliament should endorse their demands by rejecting the directive before us.
   Mr President, I would be grateful if you could pass on to President Borrell our thanks for his very kind words yesterday in memory of our colleague, Phillip Whitehead.
I know I speak not only for the whole of my delegation but also for the whole European Parliament, because Phillip’s fair-minded and judicious approach to politics won him friends throughout this Chamber.
My delegation has placed at the entrance to the Chamber a book of condolence, in which we hope colleagues throughout Parliament will feel free to put their memories of Phillip.
We will be presenting this book of condolence to his family at his memorial service, which will take place at Derby Cathedral on 29 January.
My office will provide details to any Members who wish to attend.
   Thank you, Mr Titley.
I think that our colleagues and friends will have made a note of all these unfortunately very sad arrangements.
   That concludes the first voting session of 2006.
   The delegation to the European Parliament abstained on the Brok report because it considers the following points to be indispensable prerequisites for Croatia’s accession to the European Union:
1.
To call for the suspension of EU accession negotiations for so long as the Croatian authorities maintain their ban preventing Community citizens of Italian nationality from having access to the property market, in clear contradiction of the principles of the ;
2.
To call for full compensation for the property confiscated from the thousands of citizens of Italian origin expelled from Croatian territory since 1946, as a condition for Croatia’s accession;
3.
To call on the Croatian authorities to accept their responsibility, now historically proven and documented, for the deportations, atrocities, massacres and ethnic cleansing perpetrated against thousands of people of Italian origin by the Communist regime since 1946.
   . It is clear, and I hope uncontroversial, that the Maldives should be included in the list of countries eligible for aid in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster of 2004.
I was glad to support this move and hope that we can move as quickly as possible to provide useful practical aid to the country.
   . My party strongly supports measures which assist the upward harmonisation of human and civil rights for all citizens of Member States.
I strongly endorse those elements of the Catania report which sought to raise the issue of migrant workers' rights, particularly their civil and political rights to citizenship and electoral participation.
Sinn Féin strongly believes that migrant workers should have full access to civil and human rights and that Member States should have a fair and equality-focused process of naturalisation for those migrant workers who choose to avail themselves of such mechanisms.
I abstained in the final vote on Giusto Catania's report on the Commission's Fourth report on Citizenship of the Union (A6-0411/2005) on the basis that Sinn Féin policy regards issues of citizenship, elections and political participation as matters whose primary location should be within the governing institutions of the Member State.
   . I voted against the ALDE Group on paragraph 46 concerning criminalizing the clients who deliberately exploit persons in a situation of coercion.
Whereas the ALDE Group line was to vote ‘No’ to this I believe that people that deliberately buy women/girls who are forced into prostitution should be seen as committing a crime similar to the crime of buying stolen goods – that is, fencing.
And I think even the Member States that today are against criminalizing the buying of sex could introduce this as a criminal offence.
   That will be corrected, Mr Poignant.
   Mr Rübig, that has already been discussed at yesterday’s meeting of the Bureau.
Fifteen police officers were injured and 20 window panes smashed.
We discussed the security aspects and also how the damage may be made good.
   .
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Bartenstein, I would like to start with Ukraine, having been rather surprised that the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine, which is an annual event nearly caused us in Europe to treat it as a European gas crisis.
Ukraine, and later Moldova, found themselves in a situation that had been brought to the point of crisis, but Europe did not.
Europe was able, as it has been before, to rely on stable trading relations with Russia.
As I see it, what this situation has shown us was that we in the European Union cannot regard Ukraine as nothing more than a safe transit country, but must rather, by means of energy policy, help it to free itself from dependence on Russia and thereby improve its prospects for the future.
A great deal of change is needed here.
Quite apart from that, I see this whole debate as an object lesson in the weaknesses of European energy policy, which are more or less marked from one Member State to another.
A coordinated approach could, without a doubt, help to improve the situation in the Member States and across Europe.
We have now learned the real value of natural resources.
It has to be said that we right across Europe, are, to say the least, wasteful in our use of gas, and of oil too, and this was the subject of more vigorous debate at the time of the Iraq war.
For some considerable time, our squandering of these raw materials has been something we have not been able to get away with.
If we want to learn the right lessons from this, then we must, I believe, be much more consistent in doing as Commissioner Piebalgs suggested at the time he took office.
We have to pursue natural resource productivity and energy efficiency if we are to be less dependent on others; I would be dead against striving for a fully self-sufficient Europe, which would be a naive approach in terms of the overall debate, but we do have to work towards a Europe that makes adequate use of raw materials.
This is something we have been talking about for decades, for as long as there has been a Club of Rome, so let us at last come up with something of some practical use.
Let those who think that the use of nuclear power is the right response to the reduced – or indeed finite – supply of gas, just for once put forward a serious case for their chosen approach; how many reactors do they want to build over the next few years, and where? What do they propose to do with the waste that has been produced in Europe for decades?
A few weeks ago, we debated the report on the decommissioning of power reactors.
Right now, the whole business of nuclear waste disposal is a disaster area. If that is to be the shape of the future, then I urge them to make their case in clearer terms, but please can they spare us a debate on lifetime extension of the sort that is resuming even on the subject of the reactor at Ignalina?
If you really do want to do no more than extend the working life of superannuated technology, then you are increasing the risks inherent in energy production rather than delivering us from them.
   . Madam President, I should like to say to the Commissioner that when she first presented her proposals to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I applauded.
I realise that I was the only person who applauded in that committee, which put me at odds with many of my colleagues.
I applauded because I have wanted reform in this sector ever since I read the 1991 report by the Court of Auditors.
I have sought changes in the regime from a budget control point of view, from a budget point of view, from a development point of view, from a WTO point of view and from a consumer point of view, which puts me at odds with Mr Fruteau, for whom I have the greatest respect and whom I genuinely admire.
But quite frankly, we should not accept the call for ‘the introduction of modifications’.
What we need is a radical overhaul, as the Commissioner proposed.
We should not vote for lesser price cuts and increased compensation and less quota cuts than those proposed by the Commission.
We should not vote for structural or social cohesion policy instruments to be used to cushion sugar farmers.
All ACP producers were being offered the same.
Large amounts of CAP funds are already available to EU farmers.
Let us not forget that sugar producers, processors and refiners are not the poorest people on this planet.
I agree that we need to monitor imports from the less-developed countries in order to prevent fraud and guard against triangular trade, but quite honestly, we are talking about tiny amounts.
EU sugar production of 17 million tonnes will not be distorted; there will not be a market imbalance because of LDC imports.
Amendment 61, on the Everything But Arms Agreement, should be opposed.
What we are trying to do to the least developed countries is unacceptable.
We should follow the line that Mrs Kinnock has given, making sure that, whatever we do with these reforms, the developing world is not jeopardised.
   – Madam President, Commissioner, the common market for sugar had largely been working well since 1968, as borne out by the figures: we were producing 20 million, consuming 16 million and only exporting four million, as against Brazil’s figure of 13 million.
Free trade devotees tell us, however, that European sugar has created economic diabetes among the poor countries.
Accordingly, in order to eradicate poverty in the sugar cane world, sugar must be eradicated from the Europe of sugar beet.
This outlook has led to three Community regulations, along with a 36% price cut – and the accompanying drop in revenue – and the opening up of the market in 2009 to triangular trade in sugar via the Balkans or the least developed countries, to the benefit, of course, of the large operators.
The upshot of all this is clear to all.
Despite Mr Fruteau’s laudable efforts, we are set to become sugar importers, the European taxpayer will have to foot the bill for a series of indemnities to the ACP and, after 2015, Europe’s agri-food industry will be shoved aside.
Furthermore, given that by 2015 China and India are set to be huge agri-food importers, Brazil will be feeding Asia while Europe is out of the picture.
Just one question, Commissioner: why, 20 years on, do you dislike the small farmers of Europe ...
   Madam President, in November, the Council decided to reform the European sugar sector by reducing prices by 36% over four years, and paying compensation of more than EUR 7 billion to the European sugar sector.
It is important that some of this compensation should go not only to the farmers and industry, but also to the workers who are likely to lose their jobs as a result of the reforms.
They should not be overlooked, and I should like to hear the Commissioner commit to support for retraining them, thus allowing them to find appropriate employment.
I am behind the Council’s decision not to delay any longer free access for sugar from the least developed countries under ‘Everything But Arms’.
This is about people for whom, certainly when prices plummet, sugar exports are of vital importance.
We must deliver on our promises and open up our market in 2009; we have procrastinated long enough.
I regret the Council’s decision not to bite the bullet as far as abolishing C-sugar is concerned.
Since C-sugar distorts the world market price, it would be better for us to look for alternative end uses for possible surpluses, such as energy production.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if he can guarantee at this stage that C-sugar will be abolished.
I can understand why you have decided to introduce a 25% regulation in order to counter triangular trade, but can you confirm that this investigation, if it reaches beyond 25%, is intended only to counter triangular trade and not to flag other issues? Can you confirm that it will not have a delaying effect?
Commissioner Mandelson said yesterday that it is true that we need 200 million if we are to be serious about helping the ACP countries.
Mr Fruteau was right to say that 40 million is unacceptable.
It is unclear where that money is to be found.
It should be new and fresh funds.
Can you promise that the Commission will in any event make every effort to find those 200 million per year and that this will not be at the expense of Category 4 development budget? The fact is that that really would be funding the poorest countries from their own pocket, and that is the wrong type of solidarity.
   Mr Didžiokas, you are talking too quickly, and reading out your speeches too quickly, and you are not the only one.
The interpreters cannot keep up with you, and so time is wasted.
It will be of much greater benefit to what you want to convey if you speak either more slowly or without a prepared speech.
   The debate is suspended until 9 p.m.
   .
The Commission supports cooperation between Interpol and European Member States as well as EU bodies such as Europol.
At the same time, as pointed out in the 2004 Commission proposal for a Council common position on the transfer of certain data to Interpol, applicable data protection rules must be respected.
This was confirmed by the Council common position of 24 January 2005 on exchanging certain data with Interpol.
It notably concerns lost or stolen passports.
It underlined that the conditions of the exchange shall be agreed with Interpol in order to ensure – and I would like to stress the following – that the data exchanged will respect the data protection principles that lie at the heart of data exchange within the Union, particularly with regard to the exchange and automatic processing of such data.
I should add that the control of personal data by Interpol shall be ensured by the rules on the control of information and access to Interpol’s files.
In particular these rules establish a commission for the control of Interpol’s files and govern the composition, role and functions of that commission.
The current chairman of the commission is Mr Hustinx, who is currently also the EU data protection supervisor.
The conclusions of the last meeting (November 2005) of the Mediterranean countries' Environment Ministers portray an extremely alarming situation as regards the availability and management of water resources in the region.
In particular, 50% of the wetlands have disappeared, adversely affecting the flora and fauna throughout the region, while it is estimated that only 60% of the rural areas along the southern coast of the Mediterranean have access to safe drinking water.
In the light of this data and scientists' estimates that, in the future, 38% of the population of the Mediterranean will live in areas where water is in short supply, will the Commission take practical initiatives in the context of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation to deal with this phenomenon jointly with the partnership countries, taking as a model Directive 2000/60/EC(1) establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy? Given that under the SMAP (Short and Medium Priority Environmental Action Programme), water and waste management is a priority field, does the Commission have an assessment of the measures and programmes implemented in that field?
Does the Commission intend to implement new measures and initiatives under this programme?
   – Commissioner, thank you very much for the information you have given me in your reply as regards EU policy within the framework of the 25 countries and its cooperation with third countries in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, especially within the framework of the Mediterranean basin.
I wanted to ask if you currently have more detailed and more specific information available on the question of the guidelines which the European Commission will issue as regards public and private investment within the framework of Barcelona II, because the water sector is a very important sector for the quality of life and equal development which we want to achieve in the Mediterranean basin.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this afternoon, we discussed the security of energy supply with Commissioner Piebalgs.
What role does the Commissioner see in this Water Framework Directive for renewable energy, which, of course, represents a quite fundamental future strategy for the security of our energy supply?
Could the Commission outline what action it has taken in response to the resolution adopted by the European Parliament on 15 January 2004 on the implementation of Directive 96/71/EC(2) concerning the Posting of Workers in connection with the provision of services (P5_TA(2004)0030) which noted that the implementation, as intended by the Directive, of core labour standards in the free movement of services and the prevention of social dumping often fails to be achieved in practice, and, in particular, to point 10, which called on it to submit proposals to simplify and improve the existing Directive with a view to obtaining better implementation and application of the Directive in practice as well as better achieving the goals of the Directive, and point 14, which called on it to submit a second report to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of the Directive no later than by the end of 2004?
   Commissioner, could you just clarify for me, in your comments regarding the Vaxholm case, that you are not in a position to comment? Is the Commission not, in fact, permitted and indeed obliged to make a submission to the European Court of Justice with regard to its view on the issues at stake in that case?
Has it not in fact been asked by the Court to make such a submission?
   Mr De Rossa, although this is not strictly speaking a point of order, if Mr Špidla is able to answer this question in 15 seconds, I shall give him the floor.
   – Commissioner, your reply satisfies me completely.
I should like to ask you to comment on the question of small and medium-sized enterprises, by which I mean whether they will be taken into account by the Commission as a special group within European enterprises as a whole.
   .
The point raised by the honourable Member will form part of our thinking in whatever proposals are put forward by the end of 2006.
And, yes, I am very conscious of the importance of a universal service and particularly the importance of such a service to rural parts of Europe.
There is a risk that health care services will be excluded from the scope of the directive.
Patients would not be able to enjoy the same rights as users of other services (right of information on providers, requirement to conclude indemnity insurance).
Patients have already obtained the right to have health care costs in another Member State reimbursed thanks to the European Court of Justice, meaning that Article 23 would simply incorporate case law into national legislation, as well as providing patients with a higher level of certainty on account of the definition of hospital care.
What have the Member States done to incorporate the right of patients to have health care from another Member State reimbursed by their own social insurance systems? What does the Commission intend to do to safeguard these rights if Article 23 is not adopted?
   I wish particularly to thank the Commissioner for his excellent answer to Mrs Roithová’s question, and I wonder if the Commission might help bring about some understanding of these issues by producing basic data showing that this is an area in which genuine added value can be obtained.
By this I mean that cross-border care could constitute added value for people, that we could obtain better specialist health care and that patients could obtain better care of higher quality, sometimes at lower cost but, above all, in a more efficient way.
I am completely convinced that the Commission could come up with data which would help us.
I wonder what the Commission thinks about helping bring about a better debate on these issues.
   .
As usual, Mrs Cederschiöld makes a very compelling argument for her case.
However, as I said in reply to Mrs Roithová, there are differing views on this issue.
I await the outcome, in the first instance, of the vote in the European Parliament next month and the various amendments that have been proposed in this and other areas.
Certainly Mrs Cederschiöld makes some very compelling points, but there are other views also.
   .
The honourable Member’s question can be split into two parts.
The first issue is whether the Commission intends to clarify further the criteria governing the use of Article 296 of the Treaty.
The second, more specific issue is the Commission assessment on the rules to be applied to research, study and experiment contracts in the field of defence.
On the first issue, we recently outlined our proposals for future initiatives to improve cross-border competition in defence procurement.
Our communication of 6 December announced the adoption in 2006 of an interpretative communication on Article 296 in the field of defence procurement and the start of preparatory work on a possible defence procurement directive.
Those initiatives are based on the results of the consultation launched with the green paper of 2004.
The contribution of Parliament to this debate, voted on 17 November, explicitly supports the Commission in its initiative.
The interpretative communication will give guidance on how to use Article 296 of the Treaty, which allows Member States a derogation from internal market rules and from Directive 2004/18 when their essential security interests are at stake.
This provision has to be applied on a case-by-case basis and cannot be interpreted widely.
It is for the Member State that seeks to rely on this provision to provide evidence that the derogation is justified and proportionate to the objective pursued.
A possible directive would coordinate procedures for defence procurement in cases where the derogation under Article 296 is not applicable or where a Member State chooses not to take advantage of it.
It would provide new, more flexible procurement rules, better suited to the specific nature of the defence sector.
The adoption by the Commission of a possible proposal for such a directive is subject to the results of the impact assessment which will be carried out in 2006.
The Commission is not in a position to give an assessment of the facts described by the honourable Member in the second part of the question.
Article 296 of the Treaty has to be applied on a case-by-case basis and according to the specific circumstances of each case.
However, the principles that should be taken into account when establishing the rules to apply can be briefly outlined.
On the one hand, it is worth noting that public procurement in the field of research, study and experiment benefits, under certain conditions, from specific derogations within the existing directive and within the Government Procurement Agreement of the World Trade Organization.
Defence contracts of this kind can also benefit from derogations within the Code of Conduct set up by the European Defence Agency for the Article 296 area.
On the other hand, the question of government ownership of the share capital of potential contractors, and the consequences in terms of the rules to be applied, is not an issue to be addressed on the basis of Article 296: this is linked to the ‘in-house’ derogation, as established by the Court of Justice.
However, according to this case law, the derogation only applies in cases of 100% ownership.
   .
The honourable Member, Mrs Batzeli, reminds us of the advantages of having transparency in this particular area of public procurement.
However, as she will be aware, Article 296 allows considerable discretion on the part of Member States as to how they organise such activity.
Hopefully our recent communication of December 2005 and what we intend to do in cooperation with all stakeholders will open up that area even further.
   I believe it is important to have a single European market in the defence production and procurement sector, which is vital for the future of the European Union.
I believe that the Commission – in the past at least – has given an unreasonably generous and wide interpretation of Article 296.
Could you say whether you would narrow that interpretation in future? Most importantly, if you do not have it, will you do an estimate at Commission level of the costs of not having a single market in the defence sector, in terms of the costs of purchases from overseas that might have been purchased in-house and the costs of having a fragmented and divided defence market in Europe with batch production rather than mass production?
   Questions Nos 28 to 30 will be answered in writing.
How does the Commission assess developments in the Ukraine during the past 12 months, and what strategies has it drawn up for 2006 with a view to bringing this important and entirely European country closer to the EU?
   .
I am afraid it is too early to answer these questions.
Perhaps Mrs Ferrero-Waldner has something in mind, but as far as the Commission is concerned, we have not reached the point of being able to answer this question because, first, political and economic reforms are needed to get Ukraine closer to the European Union.
Then comes further and deeper cooperation.
On 27 November 2005 Velupillai Pirapaharan, leader of the LTTE, made 'an urgent and final appeal' to the newly elected President of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaske, to reinvigorate the peace process and 'satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamil people.'
Pirapaharan indicated that, if 'a reasonable political solution' was not offered soon, the LTTE would intensify its struggle for self-determination, possibly by violent means.
What is the Commission's response to the tone and content of Pirapaharan's Hero's Day speech?
Given the stalemate in the peace process since the LTTE withdrew in 2003, and the seemingly irreconcilable zero-sum perspectives of Rajapaske, (who campaigned with promises not to share power with the LTTE) and Pirapaharan, does the EU not feel it has an overwhelming responsibility, as a Tokyo co-chair and a key donor, to open an urgent dialogue with both parties before they return to violence, to find a solution which realises the Tamil right to self-determination within a united Sri Lanka?
   I thank the Commissioner for his detailed response.
I have one issue that I wish to raise, following on from today's mine attack which resulted in the deaths of two civilians and the injury of 12 soldiers.
That is the latest in a month of bloodshed.
Given that both sides have agreed, in principle, to review the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, is the EU, as co-chair of the peace process, planning on taking this opportunity to push for a human rights declaration signed by both the government and the LTTE in order to put the protection of fundamental human rights at the heart of the peace process?
What view does the Commission take of the outcome of the ASEAN summit held in December, particularly as regards the protection of human rights in ASEAN countries such as Myanmar (Burma)?
   .
The Commission follows with interest the attempts by institutions and individuals in ASEAN countries to establish a human rights mechanism.
The Commission supports those efforts and other human rights issues through various cooperation programmes in several ASEAN countries.
An EC-sponsored ASEAN-wide human rights conference will be held in Manila in 2006.
We are encouraged to note that for the first time an ASEAN summit called for the release of political prisoners in Myanmar.
ASEAN leaders also agreed to dispatch the foreign minister of Malaysia, the current chair of ASEAN, to assess the democratic process during a visit.
While those initiatives by ASEAN are positive, we should remain cautious about the prospects of immediate changes in Myanmar and especially about the release of Aung San Suu Kyi.
   .
Thank you for your proposal, which I will certainly forward to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
I think that the possibilities available to the European Union, which is not in the region, are more limited than those available to ASEAN, for instance.
I think ASEAN could do more, but your proposal is certainly worthy of consideration.
    The next item is the debate on the following reports by Mr Fruteau, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
    The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0381/2005) by Mrs Korhola, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the application of the provisions of the Århus Convention on access to information, public participation in decision-making and access to justice in environmental matters to Community institutions and bodies (06273/2/2005 – C6-0297/2005 – 2003/0242(COD)).
   Mr President, if the Århus Convention is to work as intended in the EU, it is crucial that the rules also guarantee certain environmental organisations’ access to testing by the courts.
The Council’s common position does not, however, give the NGOs such access.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has therefore, quite correctly, supported the Commission’s original proposal and re-introduced this element.
I regret that many members of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats are attempting to prevent the Århus Convention from being fairly implemented.
Have they learned nothing from the French and Dutch ‘no’ votes? If we are to increase understanding of, and support for, the EU project, grass-roots participation and control are hugely important.
Take a current example.
The European Parliament has decided to take proceedings against the Commission in the case of the brominated flame retardant BDE, on which the Commission has lifted the ban without having been given the right to do so by the legislator.
Moreover, the Danish Government has followed suit by taking similar legal proceedings.
The environmental organisations too need, however, to be able to take action when EU laws are broken.
Now, the chemicals industry has been at its tricks again, keeping the citizens at bay.
Individual citizens cannot have decisions in the environmental sphere tested because there is no individual interest.
However, NGOs take care of public interests within the environmental and health spheres, so they should have access, in the EU too, to testing by the courts.
What we have here, of course, is a case of David and Goliath.
The environmental organisations take care of public interests, while the chemicals industry, with huge sums of money behind it, can force decisions through the EU system.
We saw this with REACH.
Without transparency and grass-roots access to the Court of Justice, the EU is developing into an apology for a democracy.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this regulation must indeed ensure that all Community institutions apply the provisions of the Århus Convention, an agreement that intends to increase public involvement in environmental concerns.
Whatever some Members may claim, it is certainly not the intention to go beyond what is needed to enable the Community to be a party to the Århus Convention.
I am delighted that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety has firmed up the Council’s common position.
I am therefore completely behind the report and hope that it will be adopted in its entirety without the need for any amendments.
Given the increasing importance of Community environmental policy, the challenge for the regulation to comply with all provisions of the Århus Convention is significant, not least in terms of retaining some credibility in the eyes of the Member States and at international level.
In other words, the same obligations and rights should exist at EU level as they do at Member State level.
That certainly applies to the establishment of possible grounds for refusal of environmental information.
The main point of discussion has already been mentioned here, namely the transposal of the third pillar of the Convention, the one on access to justice.
Clearly, the general interest of the environment cannot only be upheld by people who have a direct or personal interest, as the Convention provides.
For that reason, the Commission wanted to restrict access to justice to environmental organisations that meet certain conditions.
The wish to remove anything or add additional conditions is not only unacceptable but also contravenes the Århus Convention.
I therefore sincerely hope that those Members who endorse open and transparent environmental policy in the EU will also approve the present report as it currently stands.
    The next item is the report (A6-0001/2006) by Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the management of waste from the extractive industries and amending Directive 2004/35/EC (PE-CONS 3665/2005 – C6-0405/2005 – 2003/0107(COD)).
    The next item is the report (A6-0415/2005) by Mr Maaten, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the management of bathing water quality and repealing Directive 76/160/EEC (03659/2005 – C6-0373/2005 – 2002/0254(COD)).
    The next item is the report (A6-0383/2005) by Mrs Ferreira, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the environmental aspects of sustainable development (2005/2051(INI)).
   Mr President, firstly, I should like to thank Mrs Ferreira for a splendid report, which unfortunately received a couple of nasty dents in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.
The report contains some fine objectives.
I shall not repeat them in this Chamber, but they are all important.
Whenever something is really about to happen, the EU’s good intentions often all but evaporate.
Unfortunately, there is reason for fearing that that will also happen where this matter is concerned, and I was not in any degree reassured to hear the Commissioner’s contribution, which contained very few practical elements.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has put forward three amendments: one calling for more ambitious targets in terms of reducing greenhouse gases, another calling for an end to dependence on nuclear energy and a practical one concerning the problems with waste that we have due to an inconsistent approach to drinks packaging.
Each year, Denmark alone has 400 to 600 million German beer and soft drink cans floating about the countryside or on their way through the waste incineration system because the Germans allow the Danes to avoid paying deposits on beer cans bought in Germany.
With a common European deposit system, the Danish countryside and environment would fare much better, as would the cows that at present suffer torture when they chew on some of the many German beer cans lying around the countryside.
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, it has been a lively morning.
Let us continue in that vein.
Like many other people, I am convinced that Europe would be better off if you were seated on the other side this morning, if you were President of the Commission rather than just the temporary President of the Council.
In the very limited time at your disposal, you cannot hope to perform any great exploits, but it is certainly possible to set the tone in areas such as energy and subsidiarity.
In the financial realm too, you can achieve something.
But please do not let yourself be led astray by those with a historically proven inability to handle money.
Do not believe that more money automatically brings better results.
The money is actually there. We do have EUR 112 billion.
The only question is what is done with it.
You said yourself, Chancellor, that the question was the most important thing.
You said yourself that trust had to be built up.
Do that!
Take real action!
Say who gets what, who pays for what, from the European pots of money.
How many euros have the influential banking and media mogul Christian Konrad and his friends already received in support payments for things like hunting grounds? How many euros do State Governor Erwin Pröll, his friends and his relative, the Minister of Agriculture, receive in direct subsidies?
Is it true that 427 influential farmers in Austria, almost all of whom are closely associated with your party, receive more than EUR 72 000 every year in direct subsidies? I could go on.
What about Danone and France? What about Müller dairy products and Germany?
What about the corporations governed by public law? Open the doors!
Create real transparency about who gets what. Open the Council meetings to scrutiny, so that we know how such decisions are reached.
While you are restoring trust, you should concern yourself with the government broadcasting corporation ORF. What is the editor-in-chief, Werner Mück, doing there now?
And what about the other retainers who keep appearing there? You have opportunities here; grasp them!
Transform yourself! Put an end to the age of secrecy in Austrian domestic politics.
Become a European enlightener! Many millions of European citizens will thank you for it.
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, may I bid the President of the Council a warm welcome to the European Parliament.
We Austrians are not the only ones who are pleased to see Wolfgang Schüssel taking over the presidency of the Council.
Your priorities and political principles, Chancellor, are ours too.
In the European Parliament, unlike national parliaments, we sit in a semicircle, because we need each other.
Thank you for urging the institutions to enter into a new spirit of cooperation in place of instinctive confrontation and dis-coordination and day-to-day political posturing.
Your speech made a refreshing change from what we have been hearing over the past few months.
This new approach, however, also demands mutual respect and willingness to engage in dialogue, trust each other and make compromises.
The book , in which you yourself wrote about the strategy of cooperation, contains the following quote from Kofi Annan: ‘We don’t need any more promises.
We need to start keeping the promises we already made’.
I see this as the essence of your speech.
That is why we say yes to efforts to strengthen small and medium-sized enterprises but no to a 70% reduction in the funding of the competitiveness and innovation programme for SMEs.
We say yes to education and must therefore say no to a 40% cut in that part of the budget.
We say yes to a transparent, accessible, democratic, parliamentary, socially responsible, stronger Europe, but this means that we must launch the debate on the political future of the Union and make our citizens stakeholders in Europe.
We say yes to the Services Directive.
Let us develop it into a showpiece of social market economics.
We say yes to an EU based on the Community principle.
Let us continue the development of the EU and bolster the common foreign and security policy.
We must be prepared to talk and listen, because there are many tasks to accomplish.
Let us get to work!
   Mr President, let me begin by welcoming the changeover to the Austrian presidency.
Perhaps we shall now have hard and fast policies in place of all the air bubbles we had during the British presidency.
Yet even so, Mr Schüssel, the programme for your presidency of the EU is alarming, especially in the field of foreign and military policy.
On the one hand, we are told that the next steps with regard to the Treaty on a Constitution for Europe must be openly discussed.
That is all very well, but the present constitutional treaty is dead.
All we need now, essentially, is a date for the burial.
On the other hand, some parts of the constitutional treaty which are needed for the pursuit of the Union’s military policy are simply being applied without ratification.
This programme for the domain of military policy poses particular problems for a neutral country.
Let me cite two examples: firstly, efforts are to be made to have the battle groups combat-ready by 1 January 2007; secondly, special priority is to be given to the so-called European Defence Agency.
Do not give the EU a military face, Mr Schüssel; let it have a civilian and civilised one.
   Mr President, Chancellor, Mr President of the Commission, we reject the December budget agreement because it by no means fulfils the objectives of a more dynamic and competitive EU and because it does not guarantee an EU with a larger role on the international stage.
Both you, Mr Barroso, and you, Mr Schüssel, have good advice on what we in the European Parliament should request and not request in the budget negotiations.
We should like first and foremost, however, to have a larger and more flexible framework, and both of you have of course shown today that we shall need such a framework.
Mr Schüssel, you are right in saying that it is time to draw a line under the more ideological opposition to an EU tax, for it is clear that, following enlargement, we are in a new situation.
Not only are there far more countries around the table, but there are bigger differences between us in terms of prosperity.
We must find a replacement for the present method of funding, which involves contributions from the national exchequers.
Each country attaches far too much importance to its net contribution, rather than looking at the bigger picture.
I agree that that is something we must draw a line under.
   Mr President, Mr Schüssel, in the , you supplied a vital piece of information: you pointed out that the Court of Justice should not use its judgments for the purposes of transferring powers to the Commission, and this outside the framework of the Treaties.
We congratulate you on your ability to make things clear.
In fact, the case law demonstrated by the ‘Marks [amp] Spencer’ judgment of 13 December 2005 shows that the Court of Justice has a teleological take on the Treaties that leads it to go beyond its rights.
We want our Assembly, taking its lead from your Presidency, to redefine the role of the Court of Justice and to limit the consequences of its decisions.
Mr Schüssel, if you want to reconcile the nations with Europe, then you should have only one aim: to use your authority to put the power back in the hands of the sovereign nations.
   – Mr President-in-Office of the Council, what I expect from your Presidency is progress over negotiations on the European Constitution.
I expect you finally to pluck up the courage to tell our citizens, loud and clear, that the text being foisted upon them by the politicians is impenetrable, iniquitous and, more importantly, does not in any way solve the crisis currently facing the European Union.
There is in fact a precedent for European integration, an important foundation on which Austria can base this announcement to our citizens.
Less than a hundred years ago, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a unique confederation with common ministries for foreign affairs, war and finance, as well as a High Court of Auditors.
It was made up of 21 European countries, in which the citizens spoke a number of languages, and it lasted for 51 years.
What was its undoing? Nobody had the courage to solve the kind of problems that such co-existence naturally brings.
Politicians believed that problems would simply disappear of their own accord over time; and we know what came of that.
I therefore hope, Mr President, that Austria will not take the same route as its predecessors, but will instead advocate that the European Constitution be recast in such a way that it is workable, concise, comprehensible and just.
   President-in-Office, President Chirac says he would like piecemeal reform.
Mr Sarkozy says he wants a concentrated constitution and a core group of the six larger Member States.
Mrs Merkel says she would like a social protocol.
Mr Juncker and Mr Verhofstadt want a renegotiation of the treaty.
Mr Bot says that the project is finished.
Prime Minister Blair maintains a profound silence on the whole question.
Which of your colleagues can be right?
   We wish Mrs Stenzel the best of luck in her new position in her country.
   – Mrs Korhola, we cannot reopen the debate on points that are scheduled for the vote.
Thank you, but I have to cut you off.
   Mr President, my colleague, Mr Markov, had very clearly requested that we proceed to an electronic count of the vote on Amendment 1.
I believe that the balance of power was the same as that for the vote on Amendment 3.
I should therefore like a scrutiny of the vote on Amendment 1.
   – Mr Wurtz, I cannot grant you what you want, simply because the balance of power on Amendment 1 was totally different.
   – Mr Costa, your request is quite clear.
Under Rule 168, we ask for one speaker in favour and one against.
   Mr President, we are well aware of what we are voting on, as we already were in 2003 when we rejected the proposal, and there is a large majority in this Chamber who will reject it again.
With the procedure you are now proposing, this majority in favour of rejection will, however, be hidden in an attempt to have the matter referred back to committee.
We should therefore take a vote in the Chamber on whether the proposals recommending rejection should be voted on before the procedural proposal.
It is completely insane that the Presidency should administer a procedure that can conceal the attitude of the majority in this Chamber.
   We seek a settlement with the Council on a new interinstitutional agreement on budget discipline and improvement of the budget procedure.
As our point of departure in the negotiations, we have the European Parliament’s resolution of 8 June 2005 on political challenges and budgetary resources of the enlarged European Union for 2007-2013.
We therefore support the European Parliament’s resolution on the European Council’s common position from 15 to 16 December 2005.
We cannot, however, support the wording on an improved European dimension to the EU’s agricultural policy.
We look forward to the overhaul of the EU’s income and expenditure in 2008 and hope that it will lead to a more modern structure for the EU budget and reduced expenditure on the common agricultural policy.
   . The British Conservative delegation supports the Böge report in its call for the rejection of the European Council's common position on the Financial Perspective 2007-2013 in its current form.
We support the report in its call for a firm commitment to undertake a review of the financial perspective with a clear role for the European Parliament, and we very strongly support the call for sufficient accompanying measures to ensure better implementation and control of expenditure of funds in the Member States.
We note with concern, however, the call for the Committee on Budgets to negotiate on the basis of the European Parliament's position of 8 June 2005 which, if agreed, would increase the commitment appropriations by EUR 112 474 billion over the period.
For this reason we have abstained on the final vote.
   . It may surprise people that UKIP has, for the first time ever, voted for a report that is overtly federalist in tone.
We do so because the adoption of this report kills the deal brokered by Tony Blair in December.
To us, a 63% increase in the UK's contribution to the EU is unacceptable.
The surrender of £7 billion of our rebate is unacceptable.
The current financial perspectives are a bad deal for Britain.
If this report is accepted, we fall back on Article 272 of the Treaty and annual negotiations of the budget.
Though we disagree strongly with the reasons behind this report, we are happy to play our part in re-opening a debate about how UK taxpayers' money is spent.
The more people are exposed to the workings of the EU, the less they like it.
   . The UK PSE Group will abstain on the final vote on the Böge report of 18.01.2006 for the following reasons:
1.
We are concerned about the reference to enhancing agricultural policy in paragraph 7 which is something we have been fighting against for a long time.
2.
The UK PSE Group is against the first sentence of paragraph 4 which states that the EP 'rejects the European Council's common position'.
First, we believe the UK Presidency had a difficult task on its hands trying to reach agreement on this sensitive and divisive issue.
Few believed the UK would be able to achieve the final compromise given the sometimes diametrically opposed positions taken by the 25 EU Member States on this issue.
In the second place, we think it is not the EP's role to reject the position of the Council: all we can do is take note of their position and decide upon our own position which may disagree with the Council's position but does not reject it.
3.
The UK PSE Group supports what the EP is trying to do in terms of improving accountability and the flexibility of the budget to respond to future challenges facing the EU given its role as a major global actor.
   – The European Council arrived at an agreement on the financial perspectives for 2007-2013, after hard bargaining as to who would give less and who would get more of the peoples' money, so that European monopolies would be able to benefit from it and improve their profitability and privileges.
At the same time, it laid the foundations for the new review of the CAP and for reducing agricultural spending, which will wipe out even more small and medium-sized holdings.
The peoples' money under the financial package is being used, enhanced by 110%, to reinforce the repressive policies and the strategy of the anti-grass roots Lisbon agenda, while resources for farmers are gradually being reduced.
We MEPs of the Communist Party of Greece reject the decisions on the financial perspectives for 2007-2013, because they are to the detriment of the peoples and their rights.
Nor, however, do we agree with the reasons for rejection expressed in the resolution by the European Parliament, because it comes under the philosophy of not contesting the anti-grass roots policy and militarisation of the ΕU, in that it calls for the 'competitiveness and security' of the EU to be strengthened, together with controls of spending in the Member States.
This philosophy favours capitalist restructurings, harsher exploitation of the workers and the strengthening of repressive and anti-democratic mechanisms.
   . Constituents across Scotland have contacted me seeking action on Equitable Life, not just words.
Today we have answered their pleas, and I am glad that Parliament has taken this decisive step when the London government has not.
People had their savings and pensions plans thrown into chaos when Equitable Life collapsed, and it is right that they continue to seek answers.
I look forward to working with the committee to get to the bottom of this issue.
   . The EU must maintain a clear and consistent position in defence of democracy, the rule of law and human rights, in relation to what ought to be, in the broadest sense, the Middle East peace process.
In this particular case, the steps that have been taken in Lebanon require our effective support both in word and in deed.
In practice, we need to work together on any leads that may uncover the truth behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
I therefore voted in favour of the report before us.
I should also like to mention the procedural issues raised by the rapporteur, which I feel are worthy of further attention.
   There are some 20 000 bathing sites in the European Union, and people have no idea of what dangerous bacteria lurk in their waters.
Swimmers swallow on average some 50 millilitres of water, and children sometimes swallow ten times that amount while splashing around, so the absence of any risk of contracting an illness must be guaranteed.
There are various agents that can cause illnesses ranging from nausea to skin eruptions, but also others that are potentially fatal.
It is all the more encouraging, then, that the European directive has been able to improve the quality of bathing water over recent years, but it has made drastic incursions into the capacity of smaller lakes, such as those in the Austrian Alps, to regulate themselves.
It follows that we can no longer rely solely on the provisions of the law, on prohibitions and investments, but must instead try to demand of the public that they cooperate actively and be aware of environmental issues.
   I have today chosen to vote in favour of the Conciliation Committee’s joint text for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the management of bathing water quality.
I do so on the basis that this is an issue to which subsidiarity applies, by which I mean that it should be dealt with at local or regional level in this case.
Bathing water is an issue that affects many Swedish municipalities that have a huge number of bathing beaches.
It is therefore important for the directive not to place a burden of increased bureaucracy on the municipalities.
My having, in spite of everything, voted in favour of this draft has to do with the fact that it is in many ways an improvement on the 1976 bathing water quality directive that applies today.
Firstly, it is simpler and, secondly, it contains improved health and environmental requirements.
A slimmer but more efficient EU needs to look at whether issues such as this should not be passed back to the Member States to be dealt with at national or local/regional level.
   I voted against some of Parliament’s amendments on the application of the Århus Convention.
I am obviously in favour of the public being as fully informed as possible.
Yet, I do not believe that this information should lead certain NGOs repeatedly to initiate legal proceedings, when the former are still not recognised as representative.
If the general interest is proven, then it must take precedence over often selfish considerations.
   We believe that the Århus Convention constitutes a valuable legal tool for guaranteeing public access to environmental information and public participation in decision-making processes.
The Convention has a constructive purpose, then.
We have voted against Amendment 25.
Purely as a matter of principle, we believe that lawsuits should be brought before national courts that apply current law.
   . In a society that is based on democratic values, I believe that each party should be accorded the same rights.
These also include equal, non-discriminatory access opportunities to justice for citizens, companies and NGOs.
Article 230(4) of the Treaty already provides for this and is therefore sufficient.
That is why I considered it appropriate to vote against Amendments 19, 22, 24 and 25.
   The tidal wave of ultraliberalism and unbridled free trade had, for 20 years, been breaking destructively over our coalmines and steelworks and over those industries of ours whose products included textiles, leather, machine tools, electrical goods and motor vehicles.
It laid waste our fishing ports, our farms - including our sheep, cattle and poultry farms - our vineyards in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, our banana plantations in the West Indies and our plantations in Réunion, leaving women and men, including our countries’ workers of both sexes, suddenly without social protection.
When the wave finally came to grief, it was in its encounter with the will of the French people, expressed in the referendum of 29 May 2005.
The people do not want to see our forms of social protection dismantled any further.
Nor do they want any longer to see preference given to the base exploitation of foreign ‘workers’ by the Bolkestein directive and its younger sister, the Directive on Port Services.
This Wednesday, 18 January 2006, the Front National’s MEPs have secured a parliamentary majority for refusing, for the second time, to allow European dockworkers, port pilots or any of our personnel responsible for stowage and other dock work to be sacrificed in Europe for the sole benefit of the multinationals that hold sway over maritime freight.
   , . I have voted in favour of rejecting the directive because we had only been given the option of voting for or against the original Commission proposal.
This proposal for a new Port Directive leaves a great deal to be desired in many areas.
Although Mr Jarzembowski had produced a substantial and sound package of amendment proposals, there was insufficient support for them.
As we have no choice but to carry on with the discussion on a European port policy in the broad sense of the word, I have urged the Commissioner to come up with a discussion document that we – it is to be hoped – get our teeth into.
   .
The most shocking thing about this House’s Joint Resolution on Afghanistan is that it contains not one word of criticism of the West’s military operations.
Instead, it endorses the NATO ‘International Security Assistance Force’ (ISAF) operation and the so-called ‘war on terror’ in the shape of ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ (OEF).
It is far from enough that the Greens should call merely for the separation of ISAF and OEF’s command structures, for, in their operations on the ground, ISAF and OEF are inseparable.
The extension of ISAF’s mission into southern Afghanistan, into what is more evidently a war zone, with the consequent deeper involvement in the war, will make matters worse.
The substantial European troop presence in Afghanistan will have the effect of relieving the pressure on the US troops and hence on the occupying forces in Iraq.
It is also necessary to close down the military bases that make an armed presence in Afghanistan possible in the first place, especially the German military base at Termez in Uzbekistan, through which pass all the troops sent to be stationed in Afghanistan.
What makes the collaboration with Uzbekistan such a scandal is the fact that the country is under the rule of an authoritarian regime, one that, in particular, bears responsibility for the Andijan massacre.
The closure of the forces bases in Afghanistan is also long overdue by reason of the latest offence against international law, the bombing of a village in Pakistan by CIA units.
   The June Movement has voted in favour of paragraph 45 of the report on the environmental aspects of sustainable development, but wants minimal directives to be used in introducing ecotaxes at Community level so that more far-reaching requirements might be laid down in the individual Member States.
Paragraph 45:
‘Supports the introduction of ecotaxes at Community level; stresses that, like the other market instruments, they are an essential tool for an effective pollution reduction policy; calls on the Commission to make proposals and the Member States to adopt the first European ecotax by 2009 at the latest;’
   The next item is the report by Johannes Voggenhuber and Andrew Duff, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the period of reflection: the structure, subjects and context for an assessment of the debate on the European Union (2005/2146(INI)) (A6-0414/2005).
   Mr Joan i Mari, I would ask you not to continue this speech, because the interpreters are under instruction not to translate from Catalan.
If you continue speaking in Catalan, the Members of this House will not be able to understand what you are saying.
   As I said to you, Mr Joan i Mari, your speech has not been translated by the interpreters and the text of the speech will not be reproduced in the verbatim report of proceedings.
   On behalf of Parliament, I would like to welcome Paavo Lipponen, President of the Finnish Parliament, and his delegation.
   The next item is Question Time (B6-0676/2005), with questions to the Council.
Before we begin Question Time, I would like first of all to make an announcement and secondly to inform you that, after it, Mr Winkler will be addressing you.
In agreement with the Council, we are introducing a new system for Question Time as of today.
Details of this system were given to all Members in a Notice to Members dated 9 December 2005.
Question Time will now be divided into two parts.
During the first part, the Minister responsible for General Affairs will deal with four high-priority questions, to be selected by the President.
During the second part, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, on this occasion, will deal with nine questions, specifically questions 5 to 14, which are all topics within his specific area of competence.
   . Madam President, as Mr Aylward will be aware, the European Council recently welcomed the positive results of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, which took place in Montreal from 28 November to 10 December 2005.
Under the Montreal Action Plan, future climate change discussions should now follow two parallel paths.
Firstly, the parties that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol will launch negotiations on the legally binding emissions targets for the developed countries in the second commitment period.
Secondly, all parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change, including the United States and the largest developing countries, have agreed to enter global discussions regarding long-term coordinated measures in relation to climate change.
All in all, the Kyoto Protocol has now achieved full functionality, and we believe that the path has been smoothed for progress within the United Nations framework.
   May I begin by welcoming Minister Winkler on his first official occasion at Parliament, wishing him and his Government colleagues well during their term of Presidency, and thanking him for his comprehensive reply.
I welcome the outcome of the Montreal negotiations, which were relatively successful in the end.
However, I would like to address a question to both the Council and the Commission, in relation to the decision which was made in Sydney on 12 January 2006 by the AP6 countries, namely, China, India, South Korea, Japan, the United States and Australia, when they decided that they represent 45% of the world’s population and account for almost half of the greenhouse gas emissions.
I wonder, because they are going it alone and there is no mandatory mechanism whereby they must adhere to certain principles, how we will provide leadership in the Council and the Commission to deal with that.
   Mr Aylward, although I have been very indulgent towards you on account of your friendly welcome to the Presidency of the Council, I must remind all Members that they have only 30 seconds for supplementary questions.
If we all overrun, we will unfortunately be able to deal with very few questions, so please be so kind as to stick to the time limit for supplementary questions.
   . Madam President, the EU's emissions trading system is one of the cornerstones of the fight against climate change.
It is the first international CO2 emissions trading system in the world, and covers around 12 000 plants, or getting on for half of all Europe's CO2 emissions.
It helps the Member States to reach their emissions targets.
No other system allows emissions to be reduced so cost-effectively.
The Council is well aware of the problems to which you alluded in implementing the EU emissions trading system during the pilot phase.
This initial period provided some valuable experience, which should help us with the future development of the system.
Building on these initial experiences, the directive already provides for a full review in 2006. This review will enable us to examine all the possible improvements and to implement them for the period post-2012.
   Madam President, Mr Winkler, I would like to thank you for your very detailed comments on this subject.
We are aware that this climate change agreement also entails costs for industry.
Despite that, what do you see as our options for improving the competitiveness of European industry so that it can continue to be successful on the international market? Do we have any options?
If so, what are they?
   Madam President, many thanks for this very detailed answer to my question on coordination on human rights and the fight against terrorism.
I have one supplementary question: what is the Presidency's position on the Council of Europe's investigations into suspicions of illegal CIA flights and secret detention centres?
   My supplementary is on the exact point that Mrs Stenzel has just made: will the President-in-Office speak to each of the other 24 Member States, in his capacity as President-in-Office, to encourage them to cooperate fully with the European Parliament’s temporary committee of inquiry into CIA flights?
   – Madam President, the Minister has just said two contradictory things to us: on the one hand, he made a general pronouncement that the infringement of human rights is condemnable and, on the other hand, he said that he refuses to take a position on the specific events which have caused an outcry in Greece and which relate to action by the British secret services.
This is not action by the CIA; it is action by a service in a Member State of the European Union.
That is why we consider that the pronouncement about protecting human rights is hypocritical.
What we want to point out is simply that all these incidents are the result of the application of the ‘anti-terrorist’ measures, the ultimate objective of which is not to combat so-called terrorism, but to terrorise the peoples as a whole.
   . Madam President, Mr Posselt and I already know each other from elsewhere.
I am, of course, very pleased to take on board your opinion and your suggestion.
I also take the view – as I have already said once today – that human rights and minority rights are indivisible.
   Madam President, Mr Winkler, in my question I also referred to the European neighbourhood policy.
I would just like to ask you about the Austrian Presidency's programme for strengthening the neighbourhood policy, particularly with regard to Ukraine.
I would like to know whether the EU has provided sufficient resources to ensure that it can play an equivalent role in Kosovo during and after the status process.
   I now have three supplementary questions before me. They are permitted under our new system.
We are now in the second part of questions to the Council, so Mr Rübig has the floor first for his supplementary question.
   Madam President, Mr Winkler, ladies and gentlemen, Christians in Turkey still have to deal with many difficulties.
What does the Presidency propose to do to improve their situation?
   Thank you for having the courage to talk to China.
I would just like to mention the position of the underground church and the detention of bishops and other religious figures, and also to echo Mr Rübig: have there been any new developments in Turkey regarding the law on religion?
   . Madam President, Mrs Segelström, you have asked a question to which there is really no answer.
Are we in the European Union doing enough for the suffering in many countries? This is a question that cannot really be answered in abstract terms.
We are doing our best.
However, I would like to point to some concrete initiatives connected with the Council's conclusions of last October, to which I have already referred, although I would add that most of these initiatives fall within the competency of the Commission.
For example, the Commission decided in December 2005 to provide EUR 1.5 million as part of the rapid reaction mechanism.
It remains to be seen whether that is enough or whether we can still do more.
   Madam President, Mr Winkler, ladies and gentlemen, what is your view on the proposal to hold a G24 conference to support the peace process during the first half of 2006?
   .
Madam President, I cannot say at the moment whether such a conference will be held in the first half of 2006: it will depend on the troika of the G24 group – led by Mexico – reaching agreement with the Colombian government.
Any such conference would certainly take place very close to the EU-Latin America summit in mid-May 2006 and to the presidential elections in Colombia at the end of May.
The EU-Latin America summit, by the way, takes place exactly in the middle of the two stages of the election, and it is therefore not certain whether the Colombian President will be present at this conference in Vienna.
   . Madam President, with regard to Mr Pafilis's question, I would refer to Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union.
Although I am sure he is familiar with this document, I would nevertheless like to quote an extract from it: 'The Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law, principles which are common to the Member States'.
These rights include freedom of expression, and it is not up to the Council of the European Union to interfere in the decision-making process of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly.
The question relates to the activities of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, on which I cannot comment.
   – Madam President, I could never have imagined that the Council would avoid answering directly on the question of the anti-communist memorandum.
It is known in every country in Europe, thousands of people from all political areas have condemned it, it is a new fascist text which equates Nazism with communism, it is disrespectful to millions of communist victims who sacrificed their lives to conquer fascism, it criminalises the political action and ideology of communists and, precisely – as you referred to Article 6 – it infringes fundamental democratic rights.
We demand that the Council take a position on this memorandum.
   Madam President, Mr Winkler, ladies and gentlemen, the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly is located very close to us here, and it naturally has a much better overview of political circumstances.
Do you think it would be possible for them, too, to initiate a debate on the European Constitutional Treaty, because the Treaty could, of course, also support the future stability of those countries?
   – The next item is the report by Charles Tannock, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on the European neighbourhood policy (2004/2166(INI) (A6-0399/2005).
   Mr President, I do not think it detracts in any way from Mr Tannock’s work when we conclude that this European neighbourhood policy, in fact, represents an enormous missed opportunity for the Commission, namely to ensure, as a matter of priority indeed, that our neighbouring country Turkey is included in that policy, occupying, as it should, first place and a very privileged one at that.
It should be clear by now that the majority of our European citizens are categorically opposed to Turkey’s fully-fledged EU accession, and that it would therefore be very undemocratic to simply ignore this emphatic non-approval.
I would like to remind you again that Turkey is not a European country, not in a geographical, historical, religious or in any other way.
Turkey is a neighbouring country, though, with which we want the best relations and which could have easily played an important, and most prominent, part in the European neighbourhood policy.
That is, therefore, a missed opportunity, and a mistake which will sooner or later cost us dearly.
I should like to add one more observation to the report’s considerations about our relations with the Maghreb countries.
I regret the omission of one very important aspect, that being the recent statement by the Moroccan Government calling for a re-immigration policy, for a return of a large section of the 2.5 million Moroccans who are currently based in Europe, the young people of whom, as you know, either face 40% unemployment or else end up being looked after by the state in another way.
That is an extremely important about-turn on the part of the Moroccan Government, and one that we Europeans should actively support, not least by our neighbourhood policy.
   – The next item is the report by Dominique Vlasto, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on implementing the European Charter for Small Enterprises (2005/2123(INI)) (A6-0405/2005).
   . – Mr President, firstly, I am obliged to Mrs Vlasto, who has demonstrated great commitment in her preparation of this report and has also brought out the key points very well.
Chancellor Schüssel of the Austrian Presidency, who was here this morning, was himself once the secretary-general of an organisation for small- and medium-sized enterprises, which is why he is so familiar with the problems and knows the importance of doing more in this field.
I am also very much obliged to Commissioner Verheugen, because the Charter report has, of course, considerably increased the focus on SMEs, and thus further increased the focus on efforts to promote this kind of enterprise.
I believe that it is also good to regard this preliminary study – that is, the detailed, in-depth study that is being carried out in all the Member States – as a preliminary study on the Lisbon process, so as to give the Lisbon process, too, corresponding relevance.
In this way, we know what needs to be done in the field of SMEs to show the non-governmental organisations, and ultimately also the Council and the Commission, where the strong and weak points lie.
I consider it extremely important that the three pillars we have created here – ‘macro-economic’, ‘micro-economic’ and ‘employment’ – show clearly that, in the final analysis, SMEs account for 80% of taxes.
A social Europe must keep the spotlight on this.
We must look at where taxes are ultimately coming from and then, in future, reduce this burden on the enterprises and particularly the workers concerned, so that they can earn larger profits and higher salaries.
At the same time, excise tax should make a corresponding contribution to tax revenue, because imports from low-wage countries represent a particularly great opportunity for us in this regard.
The final point I should like to make is that I do not understand the reasons for the cuts in the framework programme for competitiveness and innovation (CIP), which puts the spotlight on entrepreneurship.
In this connection, we should work with the Commission in the context of this proposal to restore the full amount that was given to the CIP programme under the original proposal.
   – Mr President, there are 25 million small enterprises employing almost 100 million people.
These small enterprises provide well over half of private jobs in the EU and are of great importance to regional, cultural and social development, including in rural areas.
They deserve to see their opportunities for innovation and competitive prospects discussed every year.
As my fellow Members have already pointed out, the importance of these enterprises was underlined today by Wolfgang Schüssel during his presentation of the programme of the Austrian Council Presidency, when he called for us to ‘wake the sleeping giant’.
I fully agree with him.
There has also been criticism of the Charter from many quarters, however, on the grounds that it contains too many non-binding appeals.
I, too, should like to see substantial measures at Community and, as Commissioner Verheugen said, Member State level.
At any event, the 10 lines for action in the Charter are important orientations for enhancing the exchange of best practice, promoting the setting-up of new enterprises and generally creating a positive environment.
This starts in school lessons, and we have to set the tone for it from primary level onwards.
Once again, Finland is a good example of this.
The Netherlands is exemplary with regard to the simplification of regulations, particularly on account of its standardised impact assessments.
We agree that work on dismantling the considerable bureaucratic and tax obstacles in the Member States must continue.
It is important that subsidies be fully exempt from corporation tax.
A very good report has been drawn up by Mr Bushill-Matthews in our advisory committee, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I am thinking in particular of the suggestion to draw up a Green Paper on the reduction of these barriers, and of the call for better access to the Structural Funds and to risk capital funds.
Personally, I consider it important that small enterprises promote their apprentices and other staff more through transnational exchanges within the framework of programmes such as the Leonardo da Vinci apprentice exchange programme.
This will increase mobility and at the same time create one of the preconditions for small- and micro-enterprises to work together very much better in future.
   Mr President, I am delighted that small enterprises are now at the heart of Europe's activities, firstly in Chancellor Schüssel's very encouraging remarks this morning, making this subject a top priority for the Austrian Presidency.
They are also at the heart of the debate in your comments, Commissioner, before the SME intergroup this afternoon and here this evening, affirming that the situation for SMEs is of great concern to the Commission and that we need to create better political conditions for SMEs in Europe.
Finally, they are at the heart of the debate in this evening's discussion.
In the current difficult economic climate, it is often small and craft enterprises that continue to create wealth and form the main source of employment, with local jobs that maintain social cohesion by nourishing the whole territory of the EU.
The European Union must be a staunch supporter of these small businesses, by increasing the power of the Charter as a specific assistance instrument and by going beyond good intentions, as called for in Mrs Vlasto's excellent report.
In order to ensure that these small businesses continue to be created and passed on, we need to reduce the administrative formalities in Europe and in the Member States; make it easier for them to access capital and European programmes, particularly on research; improve the dissemination of information on measures that help them; and encourage innovation and the fight against counterfeit goods.
To do all of that, however, we need ambitious funding, so let us hope that the good fairies who have been looking into the future of these small enterprises today – this sleeping giant, as Chancellor Schüssel put it – turn their wishes into reality by allocating the necessary funds to the various actions and that their good intentions are backed up by specific financial commitments.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Onesta, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the amendments to be made to the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure relating to standards of good conduct for Members of the European Parliament (A6-0413/2005).
   Thank you for your explanation, Mr Onesta, but I will have to have you removed from the Chamber, as that is what is laid down in our current Rules of Procedure, which are still in force.
   Mr President, I congratulate Mr Onesta on his report, which will, if passed, amend our Rules of Procedure to institute stronger and more flexible procedures to discipline Members who disrupt the proceedings of the House or its committees.
I am not entirely sure of the meaning of the new Rule 147(3)b, which suggests one penalty will be the forfeiture of entitlement to the daily subsistence allowance for a period of between two and ten days.
Does this mean the Member concerned cannot sign in for the specified number of days – that is, stay at home – or, rather differently, that when he or she does sign in they receive no subsistence allowance? Maybe the rapporteur can clarify his intention here?
I welcome Amendment 3 to Rule 9, paragraph 1b (new), laying down as it does a protection of Members' freedom of speech.
If this is passed and included in our rules I will immediately, if it comes into force next session, test its strength by retabling my written declaration on boycotting Ferrero-Rocher which, prior to this rule, was declared irreceivable by a former President of Parliament.
Freedom of speech is not limited by the wishes of Europe's multinational corporations.
   The next item is the report by Mrs Estrela, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on the future of the Lisbon Strategy from a gender perspective (2004/2219(INI)) (A6-0402/2005).
   – Allow me first and foremost to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Estrela, and to the shadow rapporteurs and other members of the Committee for Women’s Rights and Gender Equality for the work they have done in support of this own-initiative report.
The report by Mr Wim Kok has convinced us that the Lisbon Strategy requires thorough revision from a gender equality standpoint as well.
We must not forget the competencies of women and the special nature of their important role, and this applies in a context broader than the economies of the Member States.
Finding a proper work-life balance requires us to take account of the social mission of women in improving the demographic situation in Europe.
Under no circumstances should we overlook the formally unrecognised and still unpaid work that women are doing.
To this end, we should develop the relevant methodology, along with evaluation techniques and statistical reporting.
I am convinced that the social recognition and financial remuneration of this work will significantly enhance the economic situation and social status of women.
Let me remind you of one of the conclusions and objectives of the European Council formulated in March 2000 – full employment in Europe, in a new emerging society that is better attuned to the personal choices of women and men.
It is not enough to ensure that all people are employed.
Under the communist regimes there was one hundred percent employment and we know what economic standards were like then.
It is not enough for all citizens to be able to use computers and to apply the available information effectively.
The primary focus of the Lisbon Strategy is an economic one, but the strategy can succeed only if it contributes to the cultural advancement of Europe as well.
European cultural standards cannot be divorced from the issues of equal opportunity and gender equality.
Europe will be credible only if the women, men and children inhabiting it do not have to endure extreme poverty and social exclusion, and only if its citizens can in their everyday lives think critically, comprehend social phenomena and communicate well, that is, humanely, with each other.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission (O-0080/2005 – B6-0345/2005) by Mr Bowis, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on disability and development.
   – Mr Beazley, that is the decision of the President directing the proceedings in the House.
My decision is that the vote will be checked in order to satisfy everyone that that indeed was the result.
   Mr President, I refer to Rule 168 in conjunction with Rule 53 of the Rules of Procedure and would like in this connection to ask the Commission whether it is able to accept the amendments adopted by Parliament in this report, in particular Amendment 14, under which 50% of the restructuring funds, which total EUR 6 billion, will go to the producers.
This amendment was voted on by the Committee.
The amendment was tabled by Mr Goepel.
I would also like to ask the Commission to accept Amendments 10 and 11, which require an economic development plan to be submitted for the region when restructuring measures are to be introduced, such development plans to be notified by the Commission and the Member State in question.
   Mr President, I believe it will be helpful to answer this question by clarifying this point.
The Commission is able to agree to at least 10% of restructuring aid amounts being reserved for sugar-beet growers and machinery manufacturers.
This amount could be increased by the Member States, depending on their specific situation.
   Mr President, speaking on behalf of my group and further to Rule 168, I rise to request that this report be referred back to the Committee in order that we might negotiate with the Commission and the Council and get these two points accepted.
The Council stated in its decision that only 10% of these restructuring funds should go to producers – including those in the developing world – and that the remainder should go to the sugar industry without conditions imposed, thus enabling it to fund its decommissionings without having to take job losses and the needs of the region into consideration in any way whatever.
We would therefore like to see negotiations opened in what would be a hearing.
The only possibility left to us for getting the Council to negotiate is that we send the report back now and use the four weeks that are left to us between now and the next part-session to secure an increase for the producers.
   Mr President, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf is right in the sense that we tabled the amendment on the understanding that at least 50% of the restoration fund would be deployed.
Instead, the Commission has proposed a minimum of 10%, with each Member State being entitled to increase this amount without limit and at its own discretion, and so our group believes that this is no longer an issue.
I ask the House to reject this amendment.
   .
Mr President, I fully agree with what the representative of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats has just said: that was one of the things the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development was calling for.
As the Commissioner said two days ago, the Commission is willing to allow the Member States to increase the 10% level.
The question is therefore settled and for my part I am therefore against referring it back to committee.
   ). Mr President, I refer to Rule 138 concerning translations.
Amendment 1 tabled by the Independence and Democracy Group proposes an alternative draft resolution that heeds and respects our nations’ rejection of any super state and therefore of any constitution.
The translation of this amendment, the English version in particular, distorts the sense of the original in several places.
For example, where we refer to ‘the pursuit of European construction’, a politically neutral expression, the translation refers to ‘European integration’, an expression for the supranational process that we reject.
It is no doubt a Pavlovian reflex that has contaminated many offices in this building, still not accepting that a different Europe is possible.
I would therefore like to point out that only the original French version is authentic.
   Mr President, I wish, as chairman of the committee, to thank the rapporteurs for working through one of the most important issues to concern us in 2006 at a time when much is in flux, and, in my capacity as a German MEP, to give the services a series of corrections.
The German translation is sometimes misleading and sometimes wrong, with – to give just one example – the term ‘European papers’ translated as ‘Euro papers’.
It is not paper that we want to produce, but political substance.
I shall let you have a series of corrections.
   Mr President, my group does not agree that Amendment 2, tabled by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, lapses if our Amendment 24 is approved.
As we see it, they do not contradict one another but are mutually compatible, so that it is possible to vote in favour of both of them.
   .
Mr President, I agree that Amendment 2 does not fall.
We can have a separate vote on it.
   Mr President, I too have some qualms about the Onesta report, despite having voted for it.
I have great respect for the rapporteur, who is a truly nice man and has helped me on many occasions.
However, my concern is over how the rules will be interpreted by a partisan President of Parliament such as our current President, who does not seem to understand the concept of free speech and is very authoritarian in the way in which he deals with Members of the House.
At the solemn sitting in homage to the victims of terrorism held in this House in March 2005 he wisely counselled us not to use such terrible events to push political messages, and then did so himself.
Therefore, how will he police the new rules in this House?
   . I voted in favour of Mrs Vlasto's excellent report on implementing the European Charter for Small Enterprises, as those small enterprises are at the very heart of the creation of wealth and social progress for a very large number of our fellow European citizens.
I support the proposals that aim to give international collaboration between Chambers of Commerce an important role in terms of the competitiveness of small enterprises and the recognition of craft enterprises.
This report quite rightly emphasises that neither the European Commission nor some of the Member States have grasped the scale of the considerable challenge presented by the retirement of millions of people who run small enterprises.
Finally, we must make every effort to make the day-to-day running of this economic stratum, which is so vital for growth, employment and consumer satisfaction, simpler and more secure in legal, fiscal and social terms.
   . I wish to congratulate Mrs Vlasto on her important report on implementing the European Charter for Small Enterprises.
I lend my full backing to this report, and particularly welcome the idea of extending the Charter to cover a wider range of countries, not only EU candidate countries but also Mediterranean countries, which will help develop the European neighbourhood policy.
It is essential that specific, simplified measures and investment programmes be adopted, namely the creation and development of local funds of risk capital and ‘business angels’ financing programmes, which will pave the way for increased investment in innovation by local and regional small businesses.
   .
The reform of the EU sugar regime will require a great deal of restructuring by EU producers and farmers, as well as by farmers in the Sugar Protocol countries, whose livelihoods have been structured by trade with the EU for over 40 years.
Whilst necessary compensation and support schemes are available to EU farmers as part of a generous financial package, I regret that no new and fresh money has yet been agreed to help producers in the 18 ACP Sugar Protocol Countries.
I believe that the EU has a duty to provide adequate funds for restructuring assistance to these countries under the financial perspectives, above and beyond the 40 million euros committed so far for 2006.
I therefore voted in favour of an amendment to enshrine EU assistance to the ACP countries within the Direct Support proposal.
I believe the Commission proposals for the new financial perspective, allowing for an amount of 190 million euros per year to help ACP producers adjust to the sugar reform, are the basis for a more acceptable adjustment scheme for our ACP trading partners.
   .
The British Conservative delegation voted against this report because its main recommendations do not serve the interests of efficient UK sugar producers, nor would they, in our view, bring about the reduction in EU sugar production needed to avoid linear quota cuts in future.
It is unfair that our growers, who tend to produce more than 300 tonnes per year, should be punished for their efficiency by receiving only 50% compensation.
This figure is considerably lower than that proposed by both the Commission and Council.
Furthermore, the idea that Member States may retain an unspecified amount of their subsidies linked to production flies in the face of the recent CAP reform and would allow less efficient producers to maintain overall production at an unsustainable level.
However, we support the report's direction in terms of increasing the energy crops premium and increasing the maximum guaranteed area for such production so as to encourage the promotion of biofuels.
   .
I was glad to support this resolution and the work of my group colleague Bart Staes who I know has been working closely with the Chechen community.
The situation in Chechnya can be ameliorated by EU involvement, and this motion contains ideas which we must ensure are taken forward.
   Mr President, I would like to make a brief statement on how I voted on the Voggenhuber/Duff report.
It is a good report, the main gist of which is that Europe needs to move on, and that is important, because those, too, who voted ‘no’ in the referenda were not happy with the present state of Europe.
The report argues that popular support is essential, and that a variety of options are available, and that too is important since the referenda are a matter of fact, with the ‘no’ votes in the referenda in France and the Netherlands and the ‘yes’ votes in those in Spain and Luxembourg.
I am also very glad to see that the present text incorporates Amendment 18, which explicitly states that the objections of citizens in countries like France and the Netherlands must be met halfway.
That is clear as daylight; it is what makes this such a good report, the gist of which is that we must move on, that we must be bold enough to get out of this impasse, but that we must do so by way of the various options open to us; the period of reflection in which we now find ourselves, taking the public into consideration, including in the countries where things have gone wrong.
That strikes me as a healthy approach, and that is why we, in the CDA delegation, are enthusiastically supporting this course of action.
   .
The debate on the great European issues that has gone on over the last few months has been characterised more by emotion than by thought.
Whether we are talking about the Constitution, the services directive or Reach – to name but a few – the challenge before us is to simplify the language we use and the way we communicate, in order not to leave the field to the so-called populists.
Scarcely any other institution possesses so many structures and so many means for supporting communication, yet scarcely any other institution uses a language the complexity of which leaves it wide open to deliberate or involuntary misinterpretations.
All too often, the two things that fall by the wayside in any debate about Europe are common reference to what has been achieved and an explanation of the new in that context.
There are in essence two great schools of thought where the future of Europe is concerned.
One of the things that the Constitution did was to show how those who want more Europe and those who want less combine to bring Europe to a standstill – not in the way they think, but in the way they vote.
If these contradictions are made clearer and more readily comprehensible for the citizen’s benefit, a new and real European debate will be the result.
The Duff report goes in the right direction; all that is needed is action.
   I have voted in favour of paragraph 27, but I am not in sympathy with its second sentence.
Public opinion does not need to be reassured.
People can think for themselves and adopt their own view of the Constitution.
   .
The Constitution, which the voters in the Netherlands and France so overwhelmingly rejected, was a mixed bag.
Most of the electorate are all in favour of Council meetings being open to the public, of a subsidiarity test for national parliaments, or the tentative moves towards a citizens’ initiative in Article 47.
These things could have been brought in long ago, even without a constitution.
Far more contentious were the economic and military policy choices that this text was to set in stone, such as free unhindered competition being one of the EU’s main objectives, the constantly-extended liberalisation of services, or the constant upgrading of the Member States’ weapons systems.
The practice of tied sales, which involves good points being taken hostage by bad ones, is one that the two rapporteurs want to adopt, in the belief that approval is only a matter of time.
They even want to put a stop to the admission of new Member States until such time as the constitution has been approved.
My party, the Socialist Party, is the largest of the parties that, in the Netherlands, waged a successful campaign against this draft Constitutional Treaty.
After it was rejected by the voters, we tabled proposals in the Dutch Parliament for openness, a subsidiarity test and citizens’ initiative, similar to what Mr Brok recommended to this House on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the very same alternative that I had put forward in Amendment 6, the rejection of which represents a missed opportunity.
   .
I have voted against Amendment 26, 2nd part.
This should not be taken to indicate that I am against a Europe-wide consultative referendum.
In fact, I am very much in favour of that.
However, all the academic and practical experience of referenda indicates that they should not be held on the same day as elections to a representative assembly or parliament.
   .
The report, which this House has voted on today, by the British Conservative MEP Charles Tannock, reinforces once more the outlines of the EU’s neighbourhood policy, which is intended to pursue the EU’s geopolitical interests while being cloaked in rhetoric about human rights.
1.
The intention is that the EU’s neighbourhood policy should be a means towards creating a geopolitical sphere of influence for the European Union and its Member States, its efforts being aimed at the creation of ‘privileged partnerships’ for the neighbouring countries, including those of the South Caucasus.
2.
The report is quite frank about the geostrategic direction of the neighbourhood policy being towards securing the supply of raw materials for the EU.
‘Energy policy’ is to be an important theme in the EU’s neighbourhood policy, as the EU ‘is surrounded by the world’s most important reserves of oil and natural gas (Russia, the Caspian basin, the Middle East and North Africa)’.
It repeatedly emphasises the geostrategic significance of such transit countries as Georgia and Armenia.
4.
The plan is that the EU’s influence should be underpinned by bringing about regime change in Belarus and elsewhere.
All that is needed is to consider the different treatment meted out to Belarus and Uzbekistan, the latter of which tolerates the presence of EU Member States’ military bases, such as the German one in Termez, for it to become clear that the primary concern here is with the extension of the EU’s sphere of influence.
5.
In terms of military policy, too, the neighbouring countries are being locked in to the EU, the idea being that they should be able to take part in military interventions and participate in the military structures of the EU.
   We voted in favour of Amendment 19.
We interpret the concept ‘guaranteed minimum income’, which appears in the above-mentioned amendment, as involving a guaranteed reasonable standard of living, as we are well-disposed to the idea of a guaranteed reasonable standard of living but opposed to the introduction of state-regulated minimum wages.
   The next item is the debate on five motions for resolutions on Peru: extradition and trial of former President Alberto Fujimori(1).
   .
Mr President, Mr Alberto Fujimori, the ex-President of Peru, found refuge in Japan after his government was accused of a number of corruption and human rights abuse charges.
Numerous extradition attempts were turned down by Japan, but unexpectedly Mr Fujimori turned up in Chile recently as part of a strange attempt to return to political life in Peru.
Subsequently the Peruvian Attorney-General requested his extradition from Chile in order to face a total of 12 charges, including using a death squad to kill 25 people in two separate incidents.
We welcome and support the extradition of Mr Fujimori to Peru so that he may face the serious charges against him in a court of law and, if found guilty, be punished accordingly and appropriately.
At the same time, I cannot help querying in my mind why it is that, although we expect extradition from Chile to take place, we were not so demanding on extradition from Japan when it was repeatedly requested in the past.
   .
Mr President, the last two presidents of Peru, Fujimori and Toledo, presented themselves as miracle-workers and as saviours of the country.
Each of them thereby managed to win the voters over once, only thereafter to leave them disappointed.
Mr Fujimori himself makes no secret of his opposition to parliamentary democracy and ruled with disregard for the wishes of the electorate.
That is in itself a good enough reason to punish him and deny him a second chance of leadership; the attempt to get rid of him by reason of his Japanese background has far less to commend it.
It is reminiscent of the method that was used against the former Zambian President Nkomo, whose ancestry was used as an excuse to deny him the right, having been defeated once, to stand again.
Having committed his misdeeds, Fujimori fled first to Japan and then tried to come back by way of Chile, evidently under the illusion that the great mass of Peruvians wanted to be led by a dictator and that they would return him to power.
Now, throughout Latin America, presidents of a better sort are being elected.
Fujimori’s miscalculation offers an outstanding opportunity to make it clear that even former presidents can be punished for their abuses of power.
We are justified in insisting that he be put on trial in Peru.
   Mr President, in Latin America, dictators are gradually falling and democrats coming to power.
I am particularly pleased that the abilities of progressive Latin American women are beginning to be recognised and that they are being democratically elected as Heads of State.
Good luck, President Bachelet.
The challenge is now for these democrats, both men and women, to take up the fight against impunity and courageously to ensure not only that the truth comes to light but, above all, that justice is done in their respective countries.
Like Pinochet's arrest in London, Fujimori’s arrest in Chile is a clear sign that it is not only necessary, but also possible, to make progress towards such justice.
Everybody knows today that, under the Fujimori regime, there were many violations of human rights, and in fact that regime was an exemplary example – if you will forgive the repetition – of nothing other than institutionalised corruption across the board.
The extradition of Fujimori to Peru, where he must be tried with guarantees, is therefore desirable, though not sufficient.
The European Union, in line with its firm commitment to combating impunity, must recognise the important work of the organisations of victims of the Fujimori dictatorship and of human rights activists and support them in their work.
It is therefore desirable, for example, to support the National Coordinator of Human Rights’ initiative of 11 January 2006, urging the presidential candidates to sign up to an agreement on practical measures to support respect for human rights.
These measures include implementing the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee and of the Integral Plan of Reparations for the victims of the internal armed conflict, thereby strengthening the High Level Multisectoral Commission (CMAN).
   .
Mr President, speaking as a longstanding friend of Chile and Peru, the Fujimori extradition question is one of great interest to me.
These two countries have very long memories, stretching back to the War of the Pacific in the 19th century, in which Peru lost Arica and Tacna to Chile.
Thus it is that bilateral questions sometimes, regrettably, are coloured by the cloud of revanchism and regional rivalry.
This House must emphasise that this can play no part in the decision regarding the request for Fujimori’s extradition.
It is also clear that it has been a longstanding political objective of Mr Toledo’s present government of Peru to seek the return of former President Fujimori from Japan to face trial on charges of corruption and human rights violations during the long conflict with Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru.
Indeed, Mr Toledo’s officials raised this matter with me personally in Brussels last year during his state visit to Belgium.
They requested that the EU raise the matter with Japan, and I agree with the previous speaker that we have been somewhat neglectful of this issue.
It is also alleged that Mr Fujimori was elected President for the second time, in 2000, following a fraudulent vote.
Fujimori, as we all know, eventually fled into exile in Japan in November 2000 after his security chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, was exposed as having bribed a congressman.
Fujimori then rediscovered his Japanese nationality, something which under Peruvian law would have forbidden him from standing for public office, particularly as president, under Peru’s Constitution in 1990.
It is scandalous, therefore, that Japan went along with this fiction.
Although this is now a matter for the Chilean courts, extradition always has a political dimension between sovereign states, so I hope that the judges in Chile will accept that Mr Fujimori has a very serious case to answer before his people, whom he let down so badly in the past.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Egypt: violence against Sudanese refugees(1).
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Cambodia: political repression(1).
   Mr President, I wish, on behalf of my group, to move a correction to Recital F, which should refer, not to 462 Sudanese nationals, but to 650, that being the number of persons threatened with deportation.
We also wish to move, as part of the same amendment, that this change be made to paragraph 5 as well.
I have checked the French, Spanish and German versions, and the change has already been made in them.
I would ask you to request the services to examine all the language versions with this in view.
   Mr President, in this amendment the name of one of the members of parliament was omitted by us and I would appreciate it if it could be inserted.
It is the name of Chea Poch.
It would then read: ‘the judgment against Sam Rainsy and Chea Poch’.
   Mr President, my English is not as good as that of my colleague, Mr Tannock, but I think ‘defiling’ is the wrong word.
It is ‘defaming’, is it not? So can we make sure we have the correct wording in that oral amendment?
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 19 January 2006.
   Are there any comments? Mrs Frassoni has the floor.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my speech is going to be really simple, very brief and not at all exciting: I should like to say that the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance would like to add its signature to the resolution on Cuba.
   I imagine that all of the speakers are aware that there is an item coming up on our agenda specifically relating to the analysis of the situation in the Middle East, the result of the Palestinian elections and whether or not this report to which Mr Wurtz has referred should be published.
You have chosen to organise the debate by dividing it up in this way.
I imagine that you are aware that you are effectively changing the agenda and discussing points which we are due to discuss later.
   . Mr President, when, exactly one week ago, I was observing the Palestinian elections on behalf of this House, one giant banner, in particular, caught my eye.
It was in Ramallah, and it depicted Ayatollah Khomeini together with Hamas leaders Yassin and Rantisi.
The political message is crystal-clear.
Rather than striving towards settlement or peace with the Jewish state, we should tear out its page from history, for that is what Khomeini called for, and, according to the present Iranian President Ahmadinejad, those are words of wisdom.
Combined with the nuclear aspirations of the Mullahs’ regime in Teheran – the peaceful nature of which is very much a matter of doubt – this makes for a particularly touch challenge for the Western world, the EU, and the US.
The historian Dan Diner’s comment on the Palestinian parliamentary elections was that ‘with Hamas in Ramallah, Iran has moved much closer towards Israel’, and he was right.
According to recent reports from Teheran, many pro-Western Iranians consider this development to be the gradual victory of barbarism over civilisation.
I sincerely hope that the European institutions, far from sharing this sense of resignation, will make a firm stand for Israel’s right of existence and consequently for our own civilisation.
    Mr President, earlier today Mr Solana stated that the European Union needs to be a global actor.
Consolidation of the common foreign and security policy is therefore required and the constitutional crisis is certainly not helping matters.
Cohesion cannot, however, be achieved entirely through common institutions.
It is achieved mainly through common political will.
A great deal will therefore depend on the personal actions, good judgment and creativity shown by Mr Solana and Mrs Ferrero-Waldner in the course of this year.
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner has also promised a special communication the European Union’s energy security energy.
In addition, Mr Brok’s report refers to the need to draft a strategy for energy security.
In fact, these are only half-hearted solutions/stop-gap solutions.
What the European Union actually needs is for us to set ourselves the goal of creating a genuinely common policy on energy security.
Only then will it be possible to prevent situations like the one that arose two years ago, when Russian suppliers held Belarus to ransom or the one at the beginning of this month when Russia was blackmailing Ukraine.
Central European Member States were also affected.
Do we really want to be subjected to blackmail of this kind in the future and do we really want to freeze like people are freezing in Georgia right now? The only alternative is a common European Union energy policy.
Another point I would like to make is that our policy towards Russia should be modified.
There is scope for criticism of the lack of progress in certain areas.
Two of the latter are referred to in Mr Brok’s report, namely problems concerning human rights and arms reduction in the Kaliningrad region.
The list should actually be much longer, and include a common solution to regional conflicts, notably in Transnistria and the Southern Caucasus, along with the whole Kaliningrad package.
   Mr President, I thought my speaking time had been extended by one minute, but you many want to check this out while I am talking.
Mr High Representative, Commissioner, Mr President, at the beginning of this debate, we were given a breathtaking overview of the events of the past 30 days.
I should like to congratulate Mr Solana and Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner, as well as the presidency, for their unrelenting commitment to dealing with the disasters that have struck and all those painful events.
I should also like to join in congratulating the EU’s election observation missions in general and those who have been active in the Palestinian regions in particular, for their job must have been particularly difficult.
I think that we could draw two lessons from the summary which Mr Solana presented to us.
The first lesson is that the European Union can only be effective when united.
I was therefore delighted to hear the day before yesterday that the General Affairs Council had reached a unanimous decision in connection with the conditions under which further financial support could be granted to the Palestinian Authority.
I was also very pleased to hear that the four parties had held an emergency meeting that very evening.
Imagine the implications if one Head of Government had stated one thing, another Minister had said something else and a third Prime Minister had brought a different message altogether.
It is obvious that this would have been very pernicious, but that did not happen, and I hope that things are going to stay that way.
Needless to say, we need unanimity across all the dossiers.
Sufficient funds must also be made available.
I am not as confident as the Commissioner that provision will be made for this in the financial perspectives 2007-2013.
Like her, I would like to stress that sufficient flexibility must be displayed.
Finally, I agree that, insofar as the High Representative, the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council involve Parliament in their activities on a regular basis, they will be able to count on our continued support.
   Mr President, a common foreign policy might have prevented the energy crisis in Eastern Europe.
It might also have meant that Poland’s concerns about the construction of the Russo-German gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea were taken into account, and Poland’s interests recognised as being the interests of the whole of Europe.
The citizens of the European Union and indeed of the world expect us to have a common foreign policy and to defend the weak, with or without a European Constitution.
Israel cannot therefore be permitted to monopolise foreign policy in its part of the world.
Hamas will happily renounce terror and violence when a Palestinian State is created, thus reducing the terrorist threat in the world.
Like Mr Cohn-Bendit, I am against nuclear weapons, but I cannot understand why Israel is allowed to possess an atom bomb whereas Iran is not.
   Mr President, the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in the French and Dutch referendums (or referenda) has meant that the whole document is now no longer relevant.
It is proving very hard for some people to come to terms with the disappearance of a concept that has been promoted for so many years.
The common foreign and security policy was an important part of the aforementioned Treaty, but I would like to remind you it was rejected unequivocally.
We are therefore amazed to note that efforts are being made to refer to a document that is entirely meaningless and as good as dead.
Mr Brock’s report is an example of this approach.
It makes a laughing stock of the House and tramples the democratic principles advocated by the European Community underfoot.
The requisite period of reflection following the demise of this Treaty should not be devoted to getting specific chapters of the Constitution adopted through the back door.
The time should be used instead to reassess common action at an international level and to place greater emphasis on the importance of issues such as energy security and the threats posed by epidemics and terrorism.
   Mr President, I could almost feel my good friend Mr Solana’s pain when you outlined what happened in the first month of this year, imagining that if the rest of the year is going to be like the first month, then it is not going to be easy!
But I have another point to make.
I think that what you said in essence is that the world in 2006 will once again be confronted with a fundamental choice: the choice between pre-emptive wars or pre-emptive policies.
I am in no doubt that what you are saying and what is clear as a result of your experience, is that in 2006 we need pre-emptive policies.
The essence of the values of this European Union when it comes to foreign policy is pre-emptive policies.
When we look at the instruments which the Commissioner so nicely referred to, it is fair to say that yes, maybe it is the most difficult choice, but yes, it is also the choice which, in historical terms, has shown success.
We need to remember that at this difficult time.
I want to say to you, Mr Solana, that in Palestine right now there are so many who are taking the lead in the wrong direction and therefore the poor people in Palestine need to have a strong European voice.
What you said is correct: we need patience, we need wisdom and we need balance.
I was so happy to hear you say that we should not be those who just make Palestine bankrupt, because you and I know that there will be others who will ensure that this will not happen – Iran, Egypt and others.
This is not our case and therefore I trust you.
We will be on your side ensuring, together with the Commission and President-in-Office Winkler, that Europe will ensure open doors and dialogue and, hopefully, open doors once again over the next three months.
   Mr President, the implication of Mr Wurtz’s question to Mr Solana as to what had improved in the last two years is that decisive improvements in the state of the world are in some way within the power of the European Union to decide upon and bring into effect.
Those who wanted to see a multipolar world with the might of its only superpower reduced can hardly be surprised that this is the case.
What some Members have said tends to reflect their Eurocentric views and their disappointment at our place in this multipolar world.
I can do no other than bid them welcome to a world that has, alas, become no more pleasant for being multipolar and for being home to burgeoning new powers on a global and regional scale.
We Europeans are far from that badly off in this situation, and I join with those who have congratulated Mr Solana on reaching, with China and Russia, a joint decision on the issue of whether to make Iran’s nuclear ambitions a matter for the Security Council.
While I can only hope that that bears fruit, I am far from dissatisfied with the present approach.
   – In his opening remarks, Mr Solana alluded to certain events that took place last month and to certain challenges facing Europe, including the dispute over gas supplies from Russia, the elections in Palestine and the situation in the Middle East, the gloomy situation in Iraq, the crisis concerning Iran’s nuclear programme and the unresolved status of Kosovo.
All of these events and problems have one common thread: no European country, not even the very biggest, can handle such problems alone.
In other words, if we are to solve these problems we need to combine our strengths and to develop our common policies on foreign affairs, security and defence.
This is what politicians from many countries want, and, as previous speakers have said, what the people of Europe want, too.
Mr Brok’s report, on which we shall be voting tomorrow, refers to progress in the area of common foreign and defence policy, but also mentions a number of problems such as Parliament’s inadequate involvement in the process of drawing up foreign policy.
I should therefore like to call on the Council to abide by Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union and always to consult Parliament at the start of the year on its progress and plans, rather than simply presenting summaries from the previous year.
   The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Council on the EU’s position in relation to the government of Cuba, put by Graham Watson, Cecilia Malmström, Emma Bonino and Marco Pannella on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (O-0112/2005 – B6-0675/2005).
   Mr President, the fact that the human rights situation in that museum of Stalinism, the Communist dictatorship that is Cuba, has deteriorated still further, is of course a disgrace, but I should like to draw Parliament’s attention to our own European Commissioner, the Belgian European Commissioner Louis Michel, who is at least partly to blame for this.
It was Louis Michel who, not so long ago, following a congenial four-day visit to Havana, advised the European Council, in strong terms, not to consider imposing any diplomatic sanctions.
It was also Louis Michel who retorted to the human rights organisations that Fidel Castro’s regime should not be provoked.
Whilst, for example, Human Rights Watch urged the European Union not to normalise its economic relations with Cuba at least until political prisoners had been released and democratic reforms implemented, Mr Michel stated that he was in favour of an unconditional extension of the Cotonou Agreement to include Cuba.
The fact is, of course, that Louis Michel is on friendly terms with the Adolf Hitlers, the Stalins and the Maos of our time, for that is what Fidel Castro is like.
   The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Council on national management statements – Member States' accountability for the implementation of the European Union's budget, by Szabolcs Fazakas, Terence Wynn and Jan Mulder, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control (O-0102/2005 – B6-0347/2005).
   .
As President of the Committee on Budgetary Control and one of the representatives of the new Member States, I would like to express my gratitude for the opportunity of discussing the issue of national declarations with members of the Commission and Council.
I very much hope that as a result of this debate, we will not only receive a previously prepared statement from Mr Winkler, State Secretary, but also concrete answers to the questions submitted by Terence Wynn and ourselves.
We very much hope that we will have the answers, as the European Parliament is politically responsible to assure the citizens of the European Union of the lawful and proper utilisation of European Union funds.
In view of the fact that the European Court of Auditors is unable to issue a positive declaration of assurance (DAS) in the absence of national assurance declarations, a negative public opinion is beginning to emerge, namely that European Funds are used in a non-transparent manner, not always in compliance with the regulations.
This is why the report prepared by my colleague Terence Wynn, supported by the great majority of this Parliament and also confirmed by the Böge report on the financial perspective of the European Union, pressed for the introduction of the national assurance declaration in the course of the exemption procedure last year.
Additionally, we are delighted that this has also been included in the roadmap to an integrated internal control framework, announced by the European Commission, namely by Vice-President Siim Kallas.
This reform, involving Parliament, the Commission and the European Court of Auditors, is based on mutual trust and close cooperation, but in addition to this, we also need the support of the Council and the Presidency, because some Member States are still resisting the introduction of the national assurance declarations.
As a representative of Hungary, I would also like to call attention to the fact that new Member States have not only prepared themselves for the acceptance of the and the reception of structural funds, but were also aware that they had to set up their payment and control systems according to the principles of legitimacy, lawfulness and compliance with regulations.
Therefore it would not cause them any difficulty to comply with the expectations of the European Parliament and Commission, because by doing so they would serve a Europe that works more efficiently, as well as in a more regulated and transparent manner.
   . Mr President, this is indeed, first and foremost, a debate with the Council.
I have to say that I found the Minister’s performance a disappointing one; he has not really answered our question, and that at a time when confidence in the European Union is at an all time low.
Tomorrow, Commissioner Wallström will be presenting a White Paper on communication as a means of boosting confidence in the EU, but, in my view, a thousand white papers, or a thousand measures, will make no difference if the European Union fails to spend its funds wisely.
That is why I ask you, once again, why you are organising organised irresponsibility here. Why are you, the Council, getting Member States to spend 80% of the European funds instead of ensuring that the individual Member States and regions, where they are responsible for doing so, can say that the funds they are spending are being monitored properly and funds are being spent wisely?
I cannot fathom why the Council cannot do as Parliament requires in this respect. I think that you are creating an enormous difficulty for this House.
   Mr Titford, I would call you to order.
On two occasions you have accused the European institutions of crimes.
You have said ‘fraud’ and ‘corruption’ twice.
I would ask that, in the future, you bear in mind that, in this House, accusations against persons or institutions of crimes must be backed up by evidence.
Otherwise, you are abusing a Member of Parliament’s freedom to speak.
   Mr President, when this House discusses financial matters, it is not very often that I am much less forthright than those who have spoken before me.
Although this national responsibility is something I dare not even dream of, I have not forgotten, Mr Winkler, what your Chancellor – and mine – said, standing in this Chamber where you are now, regarding the issue of subsidies using EU funds.
Chancellor Schüssel's words, in his capacity as President of the Council, were: 'It is only right that such information should be published so that people know who has actually benefited'.
I will repeat that: 'It is only right that such information should be published'. So publish it!
In some Member States, where they are much more critical about many things, such as the United Kingdom, for example, that goes without saying.
Let Austria be a shining example to follow, and finally tell us what happens with the 80%!
Who gets what, how much and when?
My second request, which you might find rather easier: side with your own political group, namely with Mrs Gräßle. She is introducing reforms in the new Financial Regulation with which we will really be able to work, and with which you will very easily be able to ward off unjustified criticism – provided, that is, that you become more transparent.
   Mr President, I should like to make a point of order under Rule 145.
I am afraid that there seems to be a misunderstanding of exactly what we are here for.
I thought we were talking about the management directions and the reason we were asking for these directions to come in was because money was going missing.
As a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, my role has always been to look into where the money has been lost or misused and where mistakes have been made – the phrase that Mr Kallas has just used.
I was working entirely on the assumption that the reason we were calling for these declarations was that the Member States would look into where the waste and fraud had come and, maybe, even corruption.
It was under those terms that I was asking to express my opinions in my speech.
   Mr President, on a point of order under Rule 108, this was an oral question with six questions; I added a seventh question verbally this evening, and we have not had an answer to a single one of them.
Could the Presidency at least give us those answers in writing, please?
   The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Council on management measures for Mediterranean fishery resources, by Philippe Morillon, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries (O-0095/2005 – B6-0346/2005).
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Morillon, you want to know whether the European Community is honouring the obligations it has taken on in international bodies, given that the Council has not yet adopted the proposal for a Council Regulation on management measures for the sustainable exploitation of fishery resources in the Mediterranean Sea.
In February 2005, the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, to which the Community belongs as a contracting party, adopted binding recommendations to improve conservation and management measures for the Mediterranean.
These recommendations were incorporated in the Presidency's compromise proposal which was put to the 'Agriculture and Fisheries' Council at its meeting on 19 and 20 September last year.
However, the Presidency realised at that time that, as it was clear during the discussions that there was insufficient support, it was impossible for the Council to reach political agreement on the proposal for a regulation containing technical management measures for the Mediterranean, including the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean's recommendations.
The Council is continuing its discussions on the proposal regarding management measures for the Mediterranean in close consultation with the Commission, and the Presidency intends to put the subject on the agenda for the Council meeting in April.
   Mr President, the Polish media have announced that the European Union has decided against awarding a grant from the Cohesion Fund for the construction of the Racibórz Dolny flood prevention reservoir on the river Oder.
The residents of the Oder river basin have been deeply disappointed by this news, and have lost a good deal of faith in the European institutions.
In July 1997 there was disastrous flooding in the Oder river basin.
Fifty-four people died and material damage amounted to almost EUR 5 billion.
The Polish Government set about rebuilding the damaged areas immediately.
Although Poland faced enormous financial difficulties, the programme for the construction of flood prevention barriers is being completed consistently and effectively.
More than one thousand kilometres of flood prevention barriers have been rebuilt, and the flood plain has been increased by over 150 million square metres.
Throughout the programme my country cooperated closely with its neighbours, namely Germany and the Czech Republic.
Poland is fulfilling its accession obligations regarding implementation of the provisions of the Water Framework Directive in the cross-border Oder river basin region.
I should therefore like to enquire about the reasons why Poland was not awarded financial aid for this project and about the possibility of Cohesion Fund money being made available quickly for this purpose.
   I would like to thank you all for offering your sympathy and condolences on the tragic event that shocked Slovakia’s public two weeks ago.
As you all know, on 19 January a Slovak military plane crashed with 43 soldiers and military personnel on board.
Unfortunately, only one person survived the disaster.
The plane was flying from Priština, Kosovo, where Slovak soldiers together with other troops of the international community have been participating in the NATO peace mission.
For Slovakia, 23 January was a day of national mourning.
I would like to thank the EP President for his decision on that day to order that the state flag of the Slovak Republic in front of the Parliament building fly at half mast.
These expressions of sympathy mean a great deal to the Slovak public.
It was not only the loss of outstanding military professionals, but also of young people at the beginning of their careers and of individual lives, of sons and husbands as well as fathers of 36 bereaved orphans.
May they rest in peace.
   Mr President, there have been reports recently in the British press about a conference held in Salzburg hosted by the Austrian Presidency.
The purpose apparently was to discuss how Europe might re-engage with its citizens.
This event happened to coincide more or less with the 250th anniversary of the birth of the immortal and glorious Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Mozart was presented at this conference as some kind of proto-European federalist, because of nothing more than the fact that in his short career he travelled extensively in Europe.
However, what were Mozart’s political views, if any? On hearing the news of Britain’s relief of Gibraltar and the victory over the French navy at Trincomalee, he wrote to his father, Leopold: ‘Indeed, I have heard about England’s victories and I am greatly delighted too, for you know that I am out-and-out Englishman’.
Did the Austrian Presidency know that it was celebrating the birth of a self-proclaimed Englishman?
   The next item is the report (A6-0404/2005) by Mrs Maria Carlshamre, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on the current situation in combating violence against women and any future actions (2004/2220(INI).
   The next item is the report (A6-0401/2005) by Mrs Edite Estrela, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on equality between women and men in the European Union (2004/2159(INI).
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first to congratulate Mrs Estrela on her report and on the motion calling for a resolution on gender equality in the European Union.
Gender equality is not only a cornerstone of the European Union, but is also an area in which Europe has blazed a trail and has always been one step ahead of social developments.
The position of women in Europe has changed considerably thanks to Community-level action, first via legislation, and then via the structural funds and Community-wide inclusion of gender issues in all areas of policy.
The Member States made it clear on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the platform for action on women in Beijing, which was celebrated exactly a year ago, that the issue of gender equality receives their wholehearted support.
Although progress has undoubtedly been made in the area of gender equality, important tasks lie ahead for us.
The Commission points this out in the report on gender equality, which is tabled every year at the spring summit of Heads of State or Government leaders.
We must persevere and strengthen the legal bases.
The motion for a resolution clearly refers to this and emphatically points out that the promotion of equality rests on three pillars, which are as follows:
1. legislation ensuring equal treatment for men and women and the fundamental rights of all people, whilst safeguarding the effective implementation of such legislation;
2. incorporating gender equality questions into our policies, especially the Lisbon Strategy and policies aimed at social inclusion, backed up by the principles of good governance and political commitment at the highest level;
3. the implementation of special measures to support specific groups and objectives, such as access for women to decision-making positions and the integration of female immigrants and women from ethnic minorities.
The Commission has pursued this approach in the past and will continue to pursue it in the future.
Its commitment in the area of gender equality will be reaffirmed in the roadmap on gender equality, of which President Barroso and I gave notice a number of months ago and which the Commission intends to table in March.
This roadmap will set out tasks and measures intended to support equality between men and women for the period 2006 to 2010, and will detail how the Union intends to address these issues with its policies.
Most of the measures referred to in the motion for a resolution will be flagged as priorities in the roadmap, along with support for the economic independence of men and women, equal access to decision-making positions, compliance with the principle of equal treatment and the fight against domestic violence and human trafficking.
   . – Ladies and gentlemen, as both the Lisbon Strategy and Mrs Estrela’s report make clear, an integrated community is based on freedom, solidarity and equality, yet there continues to be inequality between men and women in a number of areas.
I wholeheartedly endorse calls for a narrowing of the pay gap between men and women and for European legislation to be implemented.
I must warn, however, that women are disadvantaged not only in terms of salary, but are also often the victims of discrimination; employers are often insensitive towards pregnant women, for example.
In the Czech Republic women have suffered what is referred to as silent discrimination.
Employers often assume that pregnant women are weak and defenceless.
Anti-discrimination laws intended to protect women have yet to be introduced in the Czech Republic.
In some countries there is silent discrimination against employees particularly on the grounds of age, maternity, health and disability.
The time has come for change.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the subject of the Estrela report lies at the heart of our concerns about the quality of European democracy and is also directly liked to our development objectives and, specifically, the Lisbon Strategy, which was the subject of the meeting between our Parliament and the national parliaments over recent days.
The report by Mrs Estrela is especially important and that is why I thank her for her initiative in drafting it, because it is the first report which refers to the gender equality situation in the Europe of the 25.
Despite its descriptive approach, it gives us useful information on this situation and the need to address inequalities.
We note that, despite the economic slowdown, employment among women is increasing.
The present average of 55.1% is an optimistic message that we can achieve the Lisbon objectives of 60% by 2010.
However, a deeper and more careful analysis gives us to understand that the position of women in the labour market is precarious, because unemployment is increasing at the expense of women, the share of part-time work is much greater among women than among men, wage differentials continue to exist in all sectors and certain categories, such as immigrants, are victims of particular forms of discrimination in the labour market.
Reconciling family life and work continues to constitute a major challenge, especially for women with small children.
The proposals in the Estrela report were, I believe, the subject of unanimity in our committee and I too maintain that a national strategy is needed with well coordinated objectives in the Member States which, on the one hand, promote mainstreaming in all policies and, on the other hand, apply the measures for the abolition of discrimination where it exists.
However, very good cooperation is also required between government agencies and social partners and non-governmental organisations, especially women's organisations and, on the part of the Commission, monitoring is needed of the application of the and a deeper approach to the issue, with a higher standard of analysis.
   The initiation reported by Mrs Estrela on equality between men and women in the EU has a crucial role in the horizontal way of handling equality matters.
The aim was common to present the second annual report on equality and the first to cover the enlarged EU of 25 Member States.
I am strongly convinced that measurable results could be worked out only with systematic work.
An important message of the initiation is that each year an annual report will be presented.
The report mentions the strategic guidelines of the equality policy.
I would like to emphasise two of the most relevant fields that should be ensured for all: decent work and equal pay for equal job.
My opinion is women hold the key to achieving the Lisbon Strategy’s overarching goal of creating more growth and jobs in the European Union.
The primary task an increase in affordable childcare, following the good example set by Sweden and Denmark.
It is focused by the PSE Group’s growth and investment strategy, agreed by social democratic governments across Europe.
Last but not least we could achieve the above-mentioned results only with the active participation of men in gender equality.
   The next item is the report (A6-0390/2005) by Mr Markus Ferber, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the application of the Postal Directive (Directive 97/67/EC) as amended by Directive 2002/39/EC (2005/2086(INI)).
   Mr Nattrass, for your information, your group may speak today for five minutes, divided up as follows: one minute for Mrs Krupa, one minute for Mr Bloom, a further one and a half minutes for Mrs Krupa and one and a half minutes for yourself, and not two and a half minutes.
If Mr Farage has ‘sold’ you five minutes, then he has sold you something that did not belong to him.
   The next item is the report (A6-0412/2005) by Mr Toubon, on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down rules on nominal quantities for pre-packed products, repealing Council Directives 75/106/EEC and 80/232/EEC, and amending Council Directive 76/211/EEC (COM(2004)0708 – C6 0160/2004 – 2004/0248(COD)).
   Mr President, Commissioner Verheugen, Mr Toubon, I wish to welcome the Commission’s proposal for deregulating packaging.
I hope that continued debate will bring our own approach closer to that of the Commission, so that it is the consumer and not the politicians who choose.
The rapporteur, Mr Toubon, has shown that he is ready and willing to accept my amendment rescuing Swedish milk packs, so that people can still have milk for their coffee at work.
There are still things to be done in terms of deregulating butter and pasta and of having less detailed regulation generally.
It would be bad for competition and for consumers if we were to make matters worse for small and medium-sized enterprises and to use political measures to give market shares to the big conglomerates.
Those of us who come from a small country cannot accept the report in that form.
We have had enough of debates about cucumbers and strawberries.
Let us avoid a debate about ‘milk-snatching’ and go on negotiating with a view to obtaining greater freedom for the consumer.
A lot remains to be done before this matter has been satisfactorily concluded.
   Mr President, my dear Margot, underlying your fine words is the fact that the EU’s propaganda department would like to have more money for additional propaganda.
More journalists are to be employed to tout their own virtues, and a fresh news agency is to be set up so that you can decide what the media are to write about the EU and so that you can provide each new item of news with an easily understood message, extolling the EU.
The Commission does not need a communication policy.
What it needs is transparency and democracy.
It should start by opening the accounts to parliamentary scrutiny.
Give the EU’s auditors access to all expenditure so that they can monitor this.
Publish the names of those who are paid to give good advice in the Commission’s secret working parties.
Open the drawer containing letters of formal notice, so that voters and elected representatives can see which aspects of our laws the Commission does not like.
Tell us who in the Commission is voting for what.
Are there, for example, Commissioners who have opposed Mrs Wallström’s communication plan or Mr Kallas’s Transparency Initiative.
It is better to have transparency, democracy and proximity to the people than to have more money for public relations.
   The next item is the joint debate on the reports by Mr Helmuth Markov, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism,
- on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on minimum conditions for the implementation of Council Regulations (EEC) Nos 3820/85 and 3821/85 concerning social legislation relating to road transport activities and repealing Directive 88/599/EEC (PE-CONS 3672/2/2005 – C6 0417/2005 – 2003/0255(COD)) (A6-0005/2006), and
- on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the harmonisation of certain social legislation relating to road transport and amending Council Regulations (EEC) No 3821/85 and (EC) No 2135/98 and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 3820/85 (PE-CONS 3671/3/2005 – C6 0416/2005 – 2001/0241(COD)) (A6-0006/2006)
   Mr President, we have come a long way.
Mrs Jensen has said what needed to be said.
The aim was to update, clarify, and, above all, simplify, the existing rules in the area of driving times and resting times, with a view to establishing fair competition among road hauliers, traffic safety and guaranteeing the social interests of the people who work in the road transport sector.
Previous documents appeared to overshoot this target completely.
Not enough consideration was given to the fact that what really mattered was not so much the rules on driving times and resting times as their enforcement and the different ways in which they were interpreted.
All credit to the rapporteur, Mr Markov.
His commitment and involvement were phenomenal and I should like to thank him for that.
Something which you will not hear me say often, but the fact that the agreement on which we are voting today can be seen as reasonably acceptable, even by Liberal standards, is mainly thanks to the Council’s persistence during the negotiations, and so I strongly disagree with what Mr Piecyk had to say.
In fact, the purpose and necessity of a number of provisions in the present agreement can still be called into question.
For example, the splitting up of the daily rest period into three hours and then nine strikes me as extremely restrictive.
Similarly, the weekend rest rule of 45 hours every two weeks certainly does not contribute to the flexibility that is so desperately needed in road transport.
It completely escapes me how such rigid provisions could in any way contribute to road safety or better working conditions.
The present agreement may, then be far from perfect, but, as I said earlier, it is acceptable.
At least the industry now knows where it stands.
Thank God, the daily rest period remained restricted to 11 hours.
The direct link with working times inspection has been removed.
The shorter weekly resting times can now simply be taken in the vehicle.
Very importantly, there is now finally clarity about when the digital tachograph is to be introduced.
In a nutshell, the proposal is not perfect, but acceptable, and I will be giving it the thumbs up.
   Mr President, the procedure advances far more quickly for texts relating to competition than for those relating to social standards – we are used to that.
The text submitted to us today has been around since 2001.
This is therefore the outcome of a long legislative procedure that ended with a difficult and improbable conciliation procedure, such was the resistance shown by the Member States.
I will vote in favour of this text, which puts in place minimum standards.
It must be pointed out that these standards constitute a significant step forward given that, in certain Member States, road transport workers were driving for as many as 70 or 74 hours and that driving times will from now on be limited to 56 hours; given that this is a text relating to social convergence, which does not prevent matters from being dealt with more satisfactorily in each of the Member States; and given that this is a text that I hope is ripe for improvement.
Nevertheless, I very much regret what Mr Jarzembowski said about Mr Piecyk.
He wanted to put a very unpleasant ideological slant on the matter.
I regret it because Mr Piecyk put his finger on a problem: the absence of simultaneous checks of driving time and working time.
Thus, a heavy goods vehicle could be kept moving non-stop by three underpaid drivers: the first drives, the second takes his rest break on the adjacent seat in the cab and the third takes his weekly rest break on the back seat, behind the driver.
That is the reality of the matter, and I believe that we have let a great social text slip by.
I regret that somewhat, but I will nevertheless be voting in favour.
   Mr President, while we regard the agreement on driving times and resting times that was concluded by the Council and Parliament last December as an acceptable one, it is not the most attractive solution.
The outcome of the conciliation was, at first, unacceptable to the rapporteur, but I did, in fact, regard it as an improvement on the outcome of the vote in this House’s plenary meeting.
It contains a readily workable break regulation – 11 hours instead of 12 hours of rest – and allows drivers to decide for themselves where to sleep rather than having Parliament deciding the matter for them.
Overall, I think the proposal is acceptable, even though it does contain elements about which I am unhappy.
It is far too detailed in places, and particularly the options for coach travel spread over several days are too restrictive.
I should like to ask Commissioner Barrot for his opinion on this, because this will really cause practical problems.
We finally have certainty about when the digital tachograph will be introduced, and I am pleased to see Commissioner Barrot again taking a very firm line on this.
Commissioner, you said there would be no period of grace after May 2006, and we will hold you to that, for we will not accept a situation in which those who have dutifully introduced the new digital tachograph will be monitored more strictly than lorry combinations that are not fitted with one.
I therefore hope that you will really take action.
   .
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Parliament for its excellent work and by once again thanking Mr Markov.
I should like to oppose what some MEPs have said and point out that our objective is to act in the interests of drivers and of industry by adopting social standards that will make our roads safer.
It is true that heavy goods vehicles are involved in only 6% of accidents, but 16% of these accidents are fatal.
Finally, we are going to allow the harmonisation of conditions of competition.
We therefore have here evidence of real progress.
I fully understood some speakers, such as Mr Piecyk, when they said they regretted the absence of a direct link with the Working Time Directive.
That is nonetheless what the Commission had proposed.
The Council unanimously rejected our proposal, I am afraid to say, but we are responding.
Thus, I have sent ten reasoned opinions for non-transposition, and we are in fact, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, going to monitor the application of these texts very carefully; we are going to see to it that the various instruments are as fully coordinated as possible.
I would point out that, among the Member States that received a reasoned opinion, Ireland has already put its situation in order.
If the other Member States do not do so, then the Commission will still have the option of bringing them before the Court.
I will now provide some more specific answers.
In response to Mr Markov and to Mrs Ayala, I will state that the study on the use of small lorries is under way, that we envisage a meeting taking place this year with all of the interested parties and, once again, that we are going to increase the coordination between these texts and the directive on drivers’ working time.
Mr Koch pointed out the problem of applying the legislation outside the Union’s borders.
We have committed ourselves to negotiating with a view to bringing the AETR in line with our legislation.
We also intend to protect the Union against social dumping and we intend also to apply the digital tachograph to AETR drivers and drivers from Russia, Turkey and the Balkans.
Mrs Griesbeck pointed out the rerouting of traffic via the Alsace region.
The new Eurovignette Directive, adopted by Parliament and the Council, will make it possible for the Member States to install tolls on these alternative routes.
– I will request that fellow Members keep their noise down when entering the Chamber so that we may hear the interesting replies from Mr Barrot.
Therefore, please return to your seats in silence.
   – Thank you for your courage, Mr Barrot.
You have, I might add, been warmly applauded on all sides of the Chamber.
   I should like to welcome to the official gallery Mr Norbert Lammert, who is the President of the Bundestag.
Mr Lammert has made his first visit this morning to the European Parliament since the last election of the Bundestag.
On behalf of this entire Chamber, I wish him a very warm welcome.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like simply to highlight some formal and substantive errors with regard to the translation of the Italian text.
For example, in the fourth line of paragraph 3, the Italian text reads ‘clearly recognise the State of Israel’, whereas the English text refers to the ‘State of Israel’s right to exist’.
I therefore call for this correction to be made, as I believe it is crucial.
The same goes for paragraph 10, in which ‘concrete and positive recommendations’ are mentioned, whereas the English text only mentions ‘concrete’, and not positive, recommendations.
   Mr President, in the joint resolution to which there are no amendments, there is a mistake of which the other political groups are aware, because point 3 states that the Council’s common position has been modified, but the Council’s common position has not been modified: the supplementary measures accompanying the Council’s common position have been modified.
In paragraph 3, therefore, rather than ‘the main objective of the changes made by the Council in January 2005’, it should say ‘the changes to the supplementary measures accompanying the Council's common position’.
   That goes without saying, Mr Wynn.
The Presidency’s role consists of making sure, as far as possible, that Parliament’s decisions are enforced and respected by the Council.
The request will therefore be sent to the Council.
   If we are to have a functioning European market for goods, it is important for the consumer’s interests too to be safeguarded.
The changes made by the European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection to the Commission’s draft legislation laying down rules on nominal quantities for pre-packed products would not, however, bring about such a situation.
The rapporteur has proposed rules for the packaging of, for example, butter, milk, pasta and rice.
I want European consumers to be able to choose between many products, and there is no intrinsic value in using regulations to dispense with today’s Swedish milk packs containing, for example, 300 ml of milk.
Consumers are at present able to decide for themselves what they wish to purchase by comparing prices.
We must legislate to improve basic conditions of competition and to increase consumer protection.
However, we must, in accordance with the Commission’s ambition, do away with unnecessary rules.
I voted therefore in favour of a slimmer but more focused EU, with no place for unnecessary regulation involving unnecessary costs for the food industry.
   . I will be voting in favour of the Brok report on common foreign and security policy.
We have seen the successive development in Europe of Industrial, Social and Economic and Monetary Union.
We now have a Union bigger than the US with 451 million citizens and an economy more powerful than that of the US.
Yet we still lack a single voice in the world.
What Europe is missing is a common foreign and security policy that would give us that voice.
Mr Brok’s report moves us in the right direction.
We will have many battles over the details of such a policy. But need one we do and have one we must.
   . The European Parliamentary Labour Party commends Mr Brok's report for its commitment to a strong CFSP, with an emphasis on conflict resolution, the fight against poverty and upholding human rights.
We thank the Rapporteur for his condolences in respect of the London bombings.
However, I also want to place on record our support for the trade and aid regulations for northern Cyprus, rather that the wording of Amendment 1, together with our longstanding opposition to military spending falling under the Community budget.
   We voted in favour of the report.
We interpret the concept of a ‘minimum income’, which appears in paragraph 4 f), as signifying a guaranteed reasonable standard of living, as we are well disposed towards a guaranteed reasonable standard of living but opposed to the introduction of state-regulated minimum wages.
   . There are many instances where an EU of 25 states does not make sense, and one-size-fits-all does not work any more – if it ever did.
There is no reason why I as a Scottish Member of this house should have a say over the Mediterranean, and I have accordingly abstained on this vote.
The EU needs to find new ways of working to ensure legitimacy of our decisions.
Continuing the notion that everyone is equally interested in everything is untenable and discredits the EU itself.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 2 February 2006.
   Mr Cohn-Bendit, excuse me but I believe that they are two completely different things: whether or not there is a resolution is one thing. The number of people speaking in the debate is quite another.
   Mr President, the point made by Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck is one that we, in the Conference of Presidents, have discussed in a wider context, and what I said there I shall also say here on behalf of my group.
We do believe that the adoption of a resolution at the present time is not advisable, whereas, by contrast, it is advisable to limit the speaking time in such a very important debate to one speaker from each group.
We therefore take the view that what was decided by the Conference of Presidents, what is set out here in the order of business, should stay the way it is.
   Mr President, that is something of which we have to take note.
The question arises of whether we can come back to Mr Cohn-Bendit’s proposal that, in view of the current situation and Mr Solana’s visit to these countries, we could adopt the resolution at the next part-session.
I see that as a reasonable compromise on which we might agree.
   The time for negotiations has passed, Mr Swoboda.
We have voted.
   Mrs Frassoni, I asked earlier whether anybody had any objection to the proposals being debated despite the fact that they had arrived late, and nobody expressed any opposition.
The vote cannot be invalidated.
   Mr President, I would never take the liberty of invalidating a vote.
I merely asked that Mr Swoboda’s request to postpone this resolution until the next part-session be put to the vote.
   We have already voted, Mr Voggenhuber.
We now have to see whether there is another proposal that can be put to the vote.
   I can tell Mr Poettering that I am opposed, and I also want to explain why.
This week, this whole House is going to have its hands full of this Services Directive, and I see no chance of a proper resolution and compromise in these three days.
That, after all, is why we proposed it last week!
That is why I think Mr Swoboda’s suggestion is a sensible one.
This House does indeed need a resolution on this issue, but it also needs to be given the chance to put a proper resolution together, and that is why we should start the debate now and then follow it up by voting on this resolution at the next part-session.
That would be the sensible thing to do.
All you will be able to adopt in these three days is banalities, and I believe that this issue deserves better than that.
   Mr President, I am in absolute agreement with what Mr Cohn-Bendit has said, but I would also like to say that I am rather irritated about much of what has been going on here.
I had, quite properly, spoken to a motion on the order of business, on which one can speak in favour or against; I spoke in favour of the motion and you reprimanded me for it, saying that we had asked for a debate, and I still cannot follow your reasoning.
We are now having a debate, and Mr Voggenhuber is complaining that that is not right either, on the grounds that only group chairmen are speaking.
Somehow or other, then, we have to get some structure behind what we are doing, and so I will now put it to you that if the motion from the Liberal Group was called for debate despite being received outside the specified timeframe, then there is no less justification for my colleague Mr Swoboda’s motion that, it having been decided that a resolution is to be drafted, we ask that the vote on it be deferred until the next mini-plenary in Brussels, which is the first possible opportunity to do so.
I would ask that we now have a vote, as the rules of procedure require, following one speaker in favour and one against.
   The Directive regulating the legal status of third country nationals residing legally in the European Union came into force on 23 January.
They will now be able to work, study or reside in another European Union Member State, as well.
We, the Socialists of the new Member States, have always supported the integration of those arriving from third countries.
However, we cannot accept a situation where they are in a more favourable position on the labour market than the labour force of the new Member States.
Post-enlargement labour market movement statistics do not justify the fear of social dumping. The Commission report, accepted on 8 February, states that the positive effect of labour force movement is a decisive factor.
However, the Austrian Presidency still supported the extension of restrictions.
The task of the European Parliament is to represent all European citizens.
Therefore I call upon all my colleagues in this House to engage in a process of joint thinking, so that we can eliminate this contradiction as soon as possible.
   Mr President, on 9 February the Italian Parliament passed an act that flagrantly interferes with the sovereignty of Slovenia and Croatia.
The act unilaterally concedes Italian citizenship to the descendants of the citizens of the two countries who have resided in the territories that Italy ceded to the former Yugoslavia under the provisions of the Peace Treaty of 1947 and the 1975 Treaty of Osimo.
This introduces a kind of reoccupation of the territories over which Italy, as a defeated power of the Berlin-Rome Axis, definitively lost its sovereignty.
Considering the entirety of the European peace arrangement after the Second World War, the said act represents a threat to peace and security in Europe.
Therefore, I wish to call upon the President of the Italian Republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, to make use of his veto and not to endorse the act.
   Mr President, I should like to draw attention to the fate of Anton Kuzniecov, a Russian citizen who came to Poland from Russia over 10 years ago and applied for political asylum.
Mr Kuzniecov left Russia when he was called up for military service.
He did so because of the persecution he had to endure on account of being a homosexual and a human rights activist.
The Polish authorities are refusing to grant him political asylum and intend to deport him to Russia.
Reports by organisations committed to the defence of human rights, such as the Council of Europe, confirm that homosexuals are subjected to repression in Russia.
If he is returned to Russia, Mr Kuzniecov will have to do his military service along with criminals in a penal battalion. believes that if this were to happen, Mr Kuzniecov’s life could be at risk, as he is a homosexual.
At present, Mr Kuzniecov is subject to humiliation and persecution in Poland, and is being treated insensitively by officials.
What is worse, he is liable to be immediately deported at any time.
Mr Kuzniecow wishes to start a new life in freedom where his rights will be respected.
In his eyes, the European Union still stands for human rights and a dignified existence.
The European Parliament cannot remain indifferent to his situation.
   Mr President, I should like to draw Members’ attention to the fact that, in recent days, there have been various cases of missionaries being murdered in Burundi and the Philippines.
Yesterday, in Angola, an 80-year-old missionary was murdered.
Obviously, the most moving case was that of Don Andrea, an Italian missionary murdered in Trabzon, Turkey.
I should like to pay tribute to this man and to his sacrifice, partly because he was caught up in a climate of tension between the Islamic world and Europe.
On his behalf, I should like to call on Members to support anyone seeking to break this circle of hate, partly because I am sure that there is a large majority of men and women of good will, be they Muslims or Christians, or indeed atheists and non-believers.
I should therefore like to remind Parliament, too, of Don Andrea’s message.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, many employees and citizens of the European Union do not understand the European Commission’s passivity in the face of the hostile TOB affecting the group and have been deeply shocked by the remarks made by Commissioner Neelie Kroes, who does not see any need for a defence strategy for European groups.
She is just happy that there are international groups in Europe.
Adopting this attitude means forgetting about our past, namely that Europe was founded on the European Coal and Steel Community.
It means disregarding any notion of an industrial policy and it means believing the remarks and the commitments of ’s boss, which he will clearly go back on in the long term.
Proof of this is the closure, in Ireland, of one of this group’s factories despite the commitments that had been made to the local authorities.
Finally, I should like to say that, in this industrial policy affair, it is clear that the group is basically aiming to take the group’s own funds, which are unquestionably the fruit of employees’ labour; it is also seeking to pave the way for long-term relocations and is thus threatening …
   – Mr President, I have some cheerful news.
In three days the state of Lithuania will celebrate its Independence Day.
This is on 16 February.
However, I fear that our state's national holiday will once more remain unmentioned, as it is not traditional to do so.
Therefore, I propose that at least during plenary sessions and plenary sittings the national holidays of those states, which celebrate them on those particular days, should be mentioned.
It would be possible to do this with various references in the session timetable; it may even be possible to indicate on this board that one state or another is celebrating its national holiday.
Of course, the chair of the sitting could also let Members know that one state or another is celebrating its national holiday.
This would certainly help us get to know one another and would bring the citizens of Europe closer to Europe's institutions.
Thank you.
   Mr President, on 20 October 2005, the Unesco General Conference adopted the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions by 148 votes in favour to two against with four abstentions.
This convention recognises the specific nature of cultural activities, goods and services that can under no circumstances be regarded as mere commodities.
Article 20 stipulates that the countries must pay heed to the convention when they subscribe to other international obligations, such as the agreements concluded in the context of the World Trade Organisation.
This convention must be ratified by 30 countries before it can enter into force.
To date, Canada is the only country to have ratified it.
The European Union, represented by its Commission, has played a major role in the adoption of the convention.
Ought not our President, together with the chairman of the Committee on Culture and Education, write a letter to the Council and to all the Heads of State or Government urging them to ratify the convention?
   Mr President, last year, the Alsace region was understandably incensed at the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in Herrlisheim.
Without a scrap of supporting evidence, the blame was attributed to a activist, a young, honest employee of the Forestry Commission and the sole support of his mother.
On the basis of a simple handwriting analysis that revealed that his noughts were slightly smaller than the other numbers, he was immediately remanded in custody.
It appears that the two perpetrators of this crime have now been arrested.
They have no connection whatsoever with Mr Lezeau, the innocent victim, yet neither he nor the have received any apologies.
The clearly had nothing whatsoever to do with this act, which it finds just as disgusting as the rest of the population does.
Prosecutor Schultz is responsible for a real legal scandal in Colmar.
   Mrs De Keyser, thank you for that information and your telephone call this weekend to tell me about it.
We shall be very happy to receive the President of the Palestinian Authority if he can come here.
   Ladies and gentlemen, the agreement between Germany and Russia to lay a gas pipeline along the bottom of the Baltic Sea has raised many questions.
It is reproached not only because of Germany's economic egoism, which tramples on the EU principle of declared solidarity and increases the threat of Russia exerting economic and political influence on EU countries.
A huge threat is also posed by a legacy from the Second World War chemical weapons that were buried at the bottom of the Baltic Sea 50 years ago.
The sea’s ecosystem is threatened by 292 000 tonnes of chemical weapons.
The Baltic Sea is not a lake in the German or Russian interior.
Its shores are home to the citizens of another six EU states, for whom the sea is the source for making a living and for recreation.
When the sea is used intensively for fishing and other economic activities, the laying of a gas pipeline and these chemical weapons become a concern for the international community.
In order to avoid an ecological catastrophe in the Baltic Sea, I urge you to encourage the Commission to carry out an exhaustive investigation into the possible effects of the gas pipeline, which is viewed as a private commercial project, on the ecology of the Baltic Sea.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Thijs Berman, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council directive laying down minimum rules for the protection of chickens kept for meat production (COM(2005)0221 C6-0190/2005 2005/0099(CNS)) (A6-0017/2006).
   Madam President, we are all clearly in favour of protecting chickens kept for meat production from the barbarity in the concentration camp-style farms.
Many a time in this very Chamber have I denounced the disgraceful industrial farms, in which up to 80 million male chicks have been burnt alive to heat up the farms.
I have denounced the way in which the chickens are slaughtered using electric stunning techniques.
In fact, the chickens are not completely stunned, with the result that they are plunged into hot water while they are still alive: they are boiled so that they can be plucked.
We therefore all agree that rules are needed.
However, when European farmers read the directive, what do they see? They see that the broiler chicken is subjected to two daily medical visits, which are carried out by a veterinary surgeon who must be at least three metres away from the chicken; the area in which the chickens are kept must be illuminated by a non-flickering light with an intensity of 50 lux, 20 lux or 100 lux – no one quite knows – measured at bird eye level; the inside temperature of the farm must not exceed the outside temperature measured in the shade by more than 3˚C; the chicken’s litter must be 5 cm deep; certificates are required for the purposes of keeping chickens and of castrating chicks that are less than ten days’ old; the chickens’ foot pads must be examined, and the stocking density of the chickens must be limited to 28, 30, 35 or 42 kilograms per square metre, although it is not specified whether this means one kilo liveweight or metabolic weight.
Meanwhile, thousands of chickens are being slaughtered in Nigeria, and avian influenza is going to strike down 1.1 billion African chickens.
All of this because we did not find the EUR 800 million that would have made it possible to administer to each African chicken the two necessary vaccines, at a cost of 40 cents per dose.
I could also try to add a touch of black humour here.
Faced with this deluge of precautions that are reserved for white chickens while black children are dying of leprosy, AIDS and tuberculosis, the little African child is going to end up saying: ‘when I grow up, I am not going to be a fireman, I am going to be a broiler chicken in Europe!
In the meantime, our Breton farms, for example, are relocating to Brazil – the leader in poultry farming – where not only are the chickens unprotected, but the children are too.
The latter are treated like slaves so that the Brazilian farms can be kept in operation, and that is without mentioning the banana plantations, in which little eight-year-olds fall asleep exhausted on cardboard boxes and come into contact with plant-care products that make them dizzy, all for just USD 2 a day.
Well, everyone has his or her own idea of what is most important.
Some people choose white chickens whereas I, for my part, choose African children and Asian children.
That is where foolishness leads you when you try to act virtuously and, with this directive, we are acting stupidly.
   Mr President, the farming of chickens for meat production is one of the most intensive of farming systems, involving major problems for the welfare and health of the animals.
Today sees us discussing for the first time minimum rules for the protection of broiler chickens; previously, there were only the general provisions of the directive on the protection of farmed animals.
This move on the part of the Commission is therefore to be welcomed, as is also Mr Berman’s report, and those who have been following the debate, with points of criticism and interventions flying off in all directions, have completed a difficult exercise.
One can take a positive view of Article 1 of the Commission proposal, according to which the Member States are at liberty to enact more stringent provisions, but those that the directive proposes are inadequate in certain respects, the issue most frequently discussed today has been that of how much stocking density can be allowed in terms of kilos of live weight per square metre.
The Commission claims to be taking as its basis the report that the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare produced in 2000, but that is not in fact the case, for this report explicitly states that the occupying density must not exceed 25 kg per square metre if more serious problems for the animals’ well-being are to be avoided.
Article 3 of the Commission proposal prescribes 30 kg per square metre live weight.
I endorse Amendment 53 from Mr Jørgensen, Mr Bowis and Mr Sacconi, which prescribes that chickens should be kept at a density of 25 kg per square metre, and that this density may be increased to a maximum of 30 kg per square metre if the owner complies with certain conditions.
The Commission can accept Amendments 1, 2, 7, 16, 20, 22, 24, 30, 32, 37, 39, 40, 41, 45, 55, 60 and 67.
Amendments 4, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 25, 26, 27, 28, 34, 35, 38, 56 and 57 can be accepted in part.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 15, 17, 21, 23, 29, 31, 33, 36, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66 or 68.
   The next item is the report by Gunnar Hökmark, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on State aid reform 2005-2009 (2005/2165(INI)) (A6-0009/2006).
   – Thank you, Mr President.
I too wish to join my colleagues in thanking Mr Hökmark for all the excellent work he has done to enable this report to be finalised today.
The subject of State aid is one on which there is definitely a lot of room for discussion.
This is because it directly concerns all 25 Member States.
It is good to ask where we want the reform to take us and to see what has led to the need for this kind of reform.
When the preliminary decisions taken by the Commission between February 2004 and the present day are examined thoroughly and compared with the Lisbon Strategy and the conclusions of the 2002 Barcelona European Summit, it is evident that it would be much more productive if State aid were more direct and designed to meet these same objectives.
Thus, I think that we should work towards having a system that is as simple as possible and, therefore, more effective and more transparent.
This will be an indispensable instrument because it will eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy that, until now, has not only led to more money being wasted but has prevented State aid from bringing about progress and made it less suited to the purpose for which it was intended.
We need better to protect the use of State aid so that funds are delivered to where they are needed and not, as previously used to happen, squandered to no good purpose.
We have to reach a position where the State has clear aims, involving the proportionality principle, concerning where it wants to use its aid.
We must not forget that these funds are subsidised by all taxpayers, so we want them to be used wisely and responsibly so that they are more productive and their effects still more keenly felt.
We must not forget companies that have logistical problems as a result of being based in disadvantaged regions, for example companies on an island such as Gozo.
Once again, I wish to thank our rapporteur for his work.
   The next item is the report (A6-0021/2006) by Mrs Edit Herczog, on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, on the effects of globalisation on the internal market (2004/2225(INI)).
   – The next item is the oral question to the Commission, on SOLVIT, by Mrs Arlene McCarthy, on behalf of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (0-0087/2005/rev. – B6-0001/2006).
   . Mr President, the Commission very much appreciates the interest expressed by the European Parliament in the EU problem-solving network SOLVIT.
SOLVIT is more than just a system, it is in many ways the starting point of a change in administrative culture, for the following reasons: firstly, with its ten-week deadline and pragmatic approach, SOLVIT cuts procedural red tape and puts citizens and businesses first; secondly, Member States are made directly responsible for solving internal market problems that arise between them and, thirdly, with its fully transparent way of working, SOLVIT delivers measurable results that make a real difference for citizens and businesses.
After three years of experience, the Commission can wholeheartedly recommend SOLVIT as an alternative, fast and effective way of handling complaints.
Therefore, more resources have been allocated to the Commission SOLVIT support team, which, since September, counts five full-time and four part-time staff.
One of the key policy objectives for SOLVIT is to integrate it as a standard instrument in the toolbox of all Commission case handlers dealing with the complaints of citizens and businesses.
We also wish to further increase awareness about the existence and the possibilities of SOLVIT within other EU institutions, such as the European Parliament, within national administrations and within organisations representing citizens and business interests.
There are currently two issues that need to be addressed to allow SOLVIT to reach its full potential: the need for Member States’ authorities to change administrative practices and habits, and ensuring that sufficient resources are available at national level to handle SOLVIT complaints and to engage in awareness-raising activities.
SOLVIT is a tool designed for problem solving.
The Commission believes that the SOLVIT working method can be developed in order to support administrative cooperation in many areas.
Inspired by the success of SOLVIT, we are currently developing an internal market information system, which is a more general tool aimed at supporting administrative cooperation between Member States across the internal market.
The profile of SOLVIT at the political level should be raised.
It is only with sufficient political commitment that administrations will be prepared to resort to faster and more informal methods for problem solving wherever possible.
It is only with a clear political will that sufficient staff will be allocated in national administrations to solve problems within deadlines and to get the word out to businesses and citizens.
Given its rate of success so far, the Commission believes that it will be possible to ensure more awareness-raising without having to provide a binding legal basis for SOLVIT.
The absence of such a binding legal basis has, to date, allowed a great deal of flexibility.
Moreover, over the past few years we have seen interesting spontaneous developments, such as the more structural resolution of problems by several SOLVIT centres, even though this is not part of the SOLVIT mandate as described in the Commission recommendation.
The Commission will continue to play an active role in the further development of SOLVIT.
A second annual report on the functioning and development of SOLVIT will be available in April 2006 and will allow the European Parliament to further monitor the situation.
   . Mr President, I very much welcome this question.
I would also like to welcome my friend and colleague, Mrs McCarthy, who is here for the first time as chairwoman of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection: this is the first of many future occasions when we will grapple with the issues.
I want to declare a special interest in SOLVIT.
My office was privileged to be one of the pilot users of the system, and my staff have been trained on it.
We have referred quite a number of complaints to it.
We have been extremely gratified by the results, and the people we have helped have also been pleased.
I would like to associate myself very fully indeed with the tone of this question, but I think that there are a number of points that flow from it, because the resources that it needs are not just at Commission level as you, Commissioner, pointed out.
We also have to get the Member States to put the resources in and gear up their activities.
I want to take this opportunity to thank publicly the very hard-working UK staff of SOLVIT in the Department of Trade and Industry who have been extremely helpful to my staff in pursuing a very wide range of complaints.
I am sure that other countries have had the same experience.
But, Commissioner, you need to put pressure on the Member States as well.
As you said, it is the change of culture that is going to be absolutely vital in this respect.
I also want to support very much what you said about the evolution of this type of combination of technology and process – using the technology to cut through the bureaucracy – because we hope and we are sure, in fact, that we will need this as the internal market for services develops.
I am increasingly certain that we will improve this with a substantial majority this week, but we want to get on with that.
There are new cooperative provisions in there, there will be new small businesses accessing the single market and all of them will need access to SOLVIT if we really are going to get the economic benefits that the single market promises.
   . – Mr President, the existence of the internal market opens up tremendous opportunities for the citizens.
However, this market often fails to operate as it should.
The law is often unclear and incoherent and problems concerning its interpretation arise constantly.
As a result, individuals and economic entities have to deal with many obstacles in the course of their activities.
The SOLVIT system can be very helpful in such cases.
The unquestionable advantage of the network is that it deals with complaints from both citizens and entrepreneurs, and that it is required to find solutions to any problem raised within a short period of time.
Another important feature is that SOLVIT is free of charge.
Also, according to official statistics, it resolves 75% of the cases it takes on.
SOLVIT is a type of instrument which allows the European Union to ascertain whether legislation adopted is being applied appropriately by Member States.
A further advantage of the network is that thanks to its negotiating skills, SOLVIT is able to find quicker and far cheaper solutions than the courts could to even the most complicated problems.
In order to guarantee high operating standards, SOLVIT has recently introduced a range of improvements to facilitate communication between networks and the individuals or entrepreneurs seeking solutions to their problems.
As a result, my constituency office has also been linked to the SOLVIT network.
This enables the citizens of my region to bring their problems to my assistants and seek help through us.
In view of the SOLVIT network’s success to date, I believe it should be developed further.
That is why I fully support the proposal to increase the human resources allocated substantially above the four officials currently assigned to it.
There can be no doubt that the concept of the operation of the European SOLVIT system as an instrument to resolve problems within the internal market is a worthy one and deserves strong support.
Nonetheless, as politicians responsible for law making, it is incumbent on us to make every effort to create clear, transparent and wise laws.
These laws should meet the citizens’ and entrepreneurs’ expectations.
They should also foster economic development and the creation of a genuine single market.
It is an inspired venture, close to the hearts of the founding fathers of the European Union.
Unfortunately, it has not yet been fully developed.
In the course of this parliamentary sitting we shall have a good opportunity to make up for lost time where the creation of a single market in services is concerned.
We must not give in to public pressure.
Instead, we must send out a clear signal that Parliament is determined to create a genuine single market where there will no longer be problems for the SOLVIT programme to resolve.
The European Commission’s draft Services Directive deserves our support.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, three years ago the European Commission introduced the SOLVIT network, dedicated to solving infringements of Internal Market law without legal proceedings.
EU companies and citizens can use SOLVIT to solve problems related to the movement of goods, social security, migration, recognition of qualifications, etc.
SOLVIT offers the complainant an opportunity to save time and avoid expensive judicial proceedings.
This is particularly relevant for citizens and small, and medium businesses.
One of the advantages of SOLVIT is the fact that any periods of prescription applied by courts are suspended.
Around 800 cases have been registered with the EU's SOLVIT, and of these 80% have been resolved.
In the first year of SOLVIT being operational, Lithuania dealt with 10 complaints.
Seven of these complaints were directed against Lithuania and three were directed by Lithuania against other states.
Citizens made 90% of complaints; the majority about freedom of movement for persons.
Lithuania is among those countries where all complaints are resolved on time, on average within 43 days.
This is despite the fact that there is only one member of staff working at SOLVIT in Lithuania.
However, there are areas of SOLVIT's activities, which may still be improved both in Lithuania and other countries.
The small number of SOLVIT cases being processed shows that not only citizens but even some state institutions know little about this system.
This is the main obstacle to solving internal market problems through SOLVIT.
We must let the public know about the opportunities SOLVIT offers and organise publicity campaigns for citizens and businesses.
I urge the European Commission to encourage national governments to strengthen SOLVIT's power with more human resources, and urge the Commission itself to support SOLVIT's work financially.
   . Mr President, I thank the honourable Members for their contributions.
Some practical suggestions and ideas were put forward, particularly by Mrs McCarthy, which I have taken up with my services.
SOLVIT is about making the single market work.
We often hear calls for more single market, more harmonisation.
That seems to many to be the answer to all problems.
I do not believe that more directives and more harmonisation are the only solutions.
Indeed, they may even be part of the problem.
If there is a practical problem with doing business across borders, it needs a practical solution.
Legal proceedings or regulation are rarely a practical solution, but SOLVIT is.
It allows the parties to the problem and the national administrations to communicate effectively and to find a solution in a matter of weeks.
Our businesses and consumers need an answer and a solution.
Systems such as SOLVIT contribute to that.
SOLVIT has been a success.
Hundreds of problems have been solved through it.
Some may not be impressed by these figures, but high numbers indicate that there are problems and that the single market is not working in some areas.
That is certainly not the case; the single market working, but it needs some assistance here and there through light-touch mechanisms.
That is what SOLVIT is.
We should not make it a victim of its own success by formalising it or making it heavy-handed.
Yes, we must raise awareness that SOLVIT is a way of solving problems.
Yes, Member States and the Commission must ensure it is properly resourced, but we should not turn it into something that it is not.
My recommendation for SOLVIT is the same as it is for many other issues: namely, keep it simple.
   The next item is the report by Michael Cashman, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the confiscation of automobiles by the Greek authorities (2005/2005(INI)) (A6-0394/2005).
   – Mr President, I wanted to ask if we will have a second chance to speak, as you gave the floor to Mr Cashman.
If that is the case, we too have something to say.
We want to ask the Commissioner why he is taking such a negative attitude.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Csaba Öry, on behalf of Parliament's Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the conciliation committee for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the minimum health and safety requirements regarding the exposure of workers to risks arising from physical agents (artificial optical radiation) (19th individual directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC) (PE-CONS 3668/2005 C6-0001/2006 1992/0449B(COD))(A6-0026/2006).
   . –Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the Council and Parliament, on the Commission’s behalf, for their endeavours in this area.
I also wish to express my appreciation for their rapid conclusion of an agreement on an issue as difficult as optical radiation.
This is the fourth and final part of the proposed Directive on the exposure of workers to risks arising from physical factors.
The adoption of this new Directive, the provisions of which are based on the latest scientific reports, will make it possible to guarantee greater safety and health protection for all workers exposed in the workplace to artificial optical radiation.
The Commission is pleased that this directive complies entirely with the in the area of protecting the health and safety of workers whilst ensuring the flexibility and proportionality required for businesses to be competitive.
The directive on which we have agreed forms part of moves to improve legislation which, on the one hand, ensures that businesses are not disproportionately or unnecessarily overloaded and, on the other hand, complies with Article 137 of the Treaty, on protecting workers’ health and safety.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that, come what may, the text is well balanced, meets the requirements for health and safety work and maintains the required balance in relation to business competitiveness.
   Mrs Berès, this is not a point of order.
I appreciate that you wish to talk about this issue, but if you have risen on a point of order, I am afraid that the Presidency must inform you that this is not one and that unfortunately I cannot allow you to carry on speaking.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have to recognise that this situation is escalating.
We have to realise that the strategy of President Ahmadinejad is a new one.
He is intent on a breach with the West, on building up an Islamic region and taking over its leadership.
We are seeing a mobilisation of national pride in Iran.
How should Europe respond to this?
I expect us to be guided by reason and make clear analyses.
I agree with Mr Schulz when he says that we have to abandon the ‘strategy of goal-based thinking’, that we need new dialogue partners, and that we must be active in prioritising diplomacy.
I would also say, however, in view of the difficult negotiations over recent days, that the military option has been discussed, and I ask those who have this in the back of their minds to think it through.
I expect them to define how they propose to deal with a military escalation, and tell us whether the way they do so will enable us to achieve our objectives, namely preventing Iran developing nuclear weapons and ensuring Israel’s existence.
I do not believe that it will.
For this reason, I would appeal once more to this House to take account, in today’s vote, of our argument – which we were unable to push through in negotiations – that we should now refrain from toying with any ideas of a military approach, and subsequently to put the emphasis on diplomacy – in spite of all the hate speeches by President Ahmadinejad.
The questions as to whether sanctions should be imposed, what sanctions are appropriate and whether world peace is at risk, are not for President Chirac to answer, the man who suddenly issued the threat of France using nuclear weapons; nor are they for Chancellor Merkel to answer.
The vital issue of world peace is to be decided by the United Nations and no one else, and we should not forestall them.
   – Mr President, the joint motion for a resolution is very problematic.
Paragraphs 4 and 7 support the escalating position of the EU-3.
This time, the EU-3 is greatly contributing to the escalation.
Jacques Chirac’s remark that he is prepared to use nuclear weapons against ‘terrorist’ states is scandalous.
The historical comparison drawn by Angela Merkel, too, is completely unacceptable.
It is not only Iran’s atomic energy programme that is dangerous; the nuclear weapons in the EU – France and the United Kingdom – and the USA should also be disarmed in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
The use of nuclear energy in itself is problematic.
Summoning Iran before the UN Security Council is the first step towards a military attack on Iran.
All military options must be ruled out; German SPD chairman Matthias Platzeck is absolutely right about this.
The war in Iraq is obviously a blueprint for the conflict with Iran.
The unspeakable comments by the Iranian President on Israel and the human rights violations in the country must not be exploited for the purposes of a policy of war against Iran.
   .
The European Parliamentary Labour Party supports the resolution on Iran, its condemnation of various remarks made by the President of Iran, and its serious concern regarding the present attitude of the Iranian authorities to the nuclear programme.
The EPLP also gives its strong support to the involvement and initiatives of the EU-3, the IAEA and the UN Security Council, confirming the need to pursue peaceful and diplomatic means to solve the crisis. The British Government's position is that military action remains inconceivable and is not on the agenda.
   – The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the situation in Belarus in the run-up to the presidential elections on 19 March.
   . – Mr President, 19 March marks the Belarus presidential election, in which there is still a chance that the country will assume its rightful place in the European family of democracies and conduct a free and fair election.
However, in reality, the chances are very small, as President Lukashenko, since his election in 1994, has turned his country into a self-isolated police state and a sham democracy.
The already poor human rights situation has deteriorated further since the passing of the anti-revolutionary law, aimed at suppressing protests, and many opposition leaders are jailed on spurious offences of corruption or, in some cases, simply made to disappear, presumably murdered.
Mr Lukashenko preaches a curious pan-Slavic, anti-Western nationalism, with an added cult of personality.
Independent polls give him around 55% support.
It is believed that he will do whatever is necessary to achieve the magic figure of 77%.
Registration for candidates is due by 21 February, and I salute the courage of the United Opposition candidate, Alexander Milinkevich, who will be restricted in his campaign to two 30-minute TV and radio interviews, whereas Mr Lukashenko will spend what he likes and appear as Head of State on the media daily, accusing his opponents of being thugs or Western mercenaries.
I call on Belarus to allow for the right for independent exit polls to be conducted to help verify the results, but this request is unlikely to be heeded.
Not surprisingly, this Parliament has not been invited to observe the elections, but the Conference of Presidents should authorise a budget for MEPs to attend via the OSCE.
Russia also needs to be reminded that, as it bankrolls the regime with very cheap gas at USD 50 per 1 000 m3, it should support democracy there, being a full member of the Council of Europe.
Lastly, I welcome, as Commissioner Borg mentioned, the TACIS EUR 2 million dedicated to free broadcasting in Belarus and supporting civil society.
   . – Ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the delegation to Belarus on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, I do not agree with the draft resolution, and I shall explain why.
One might be forgiven for thinking, from the debate in Parliament, that the opposition candidate could win the election in Belarus, but we know that Lukashenko will continue in office. What will happen next?
What sort of relations will we have with Belarus? We must remember that Belarus is not just Lukashenko and the people in positions of privilege, but a nation that has not had an entirely negative experience with the regime, as it undeniably enjoys certain social benefits, for example free education and health care.
We are well aware of how close relations are between Belarus and Moscow, and the importance of the development of this small country for its large neighbour.
It is no secret that both countries are preparing to draw closer than they have been before.
The European Union’s strategy towards Belarus is therefore, in the final analysis, also a strategy towards Russia.
   – Mr President, Belarus is a special country, the last dictatorship in Europe.
It is an impoverished country.
It is also impoverished in the sense that never in its history has it experienced freedom, unlike many, if not all, of its neighbours.
How can it now aspire to a freedom it has never known? It does not know to what it should aspire.
Belarusians do not ask for much and they are very patient.
If the elections on 19 March turn out to be rigged, the people will wait until they can have free elections at some future date.
Nonetheless, we should spare no effort right now to ensure that the elections on 19 March are free.
It is not good for one person to be in power for a long time.
Let Belarus choose freely between its incumbent president and Alexander Milinkevich.
   – Thank you, Mr President.
I think that, in spite of being a day too late, the European Parliament wants to send a message today, stating its affection for the people of Belarus.
It is a message addressed to a people who, as the facts make clear, is being denied the freedom to choose its leaders.
So far, it is of elections that we have spoken in this House.
I think that, for the sake of correctness, we have, rather, to refer to the forthcoming event as a vicious process of confirmation.
It should be noted that, during the last few months, the European Union has made huge progress in taking practical steps to benefit the people of Belarus.
On behalf of the Bureau of the Delegation for Relations with Belarus, I would thank the Council and the Commission, but there is more still to be done.
We now have to show strong support for the people of Belarus, especially its young people.
The authorities who want to curtail freedom know that young people are the main protagonists of change.
The authorities have even closed down RADA, which represents youngsters from Belarus in the European Youth Forum.
This is a most deplorable act.
We again extend our support to the people, and in particular the young people, of Belarus, and we promise to be with them at their moment of trial.
   Mr President, there are surely not very many people who believe that the presidential elections in Belarus on 19 March will live up to even the most elementary democratic ground rules.
We have every reason to expect the opposite to be the case.
President Lukashenko will do everything to defend his position and consolidate his dictatorship.
The opposition has been deprived of equal opportunities to send out its political messages, and the election campaign by the candidate for the united opposition, Mr Milinkevich, is shaping up to be a very difficult one.
We must do everything to support the democratic forces in Belarus in the run-up to the election.
I want, however, to make a special plea for Belarus not to be forgotten after the election.
I agree with Mr Winkler that long-term efforts will be required in order to bring about democracy in Belarus, and we must persist with those efforts after the election.
I would thank Commissioner Borg for his undertaking to pursue just such a strategy.
   – Besides bad news from Minsk, there is also good news from Vilnius.
Today, the Lithuanian Government registered the European Humanities University, which was recently exiled from Minsk and has renewed its activities in Vilnius.
This is the result of huge efforts by some Members of the European Parliament, together with representatives of the European Commission and Lithuanian diplomats.
The students of this university doubtless give real hope for the revival of Belarus.
At the same time we have received some bad news from Minsk.
The dictatorship is intensifying its repression of democratic civil youth organisations opposed to the regime.
The work of the Belarusian Union of Youth and Children's Public associations ‘RADA’ has been banned by a decision of the regime.
This youth organisation had already won international recognition and was developing relations between young people in Belarus and many European youth organisations.
I would, therefore, like to appeal to all of my colleagues and trust that they will endorse the demand for an end to the repression directed against the youth of Belarus and their organisations.
   Before we proceed to Question Time, I have an announcement to make.
I can inform that House that Written Statement No 69/2005, on the combating of racism in football(1), has been signed by a majority of Members of this House.
   Madam President, let me give you the score.
It is EP United 1, Racism 0.
More than half of our Members have signed Written Declaration 69 on combating racism in football.
I thank all Members who have signed.
This is a historic moment.
   Mrs Bozkurt, you will be aware that that was not a point of order, but this House has, of course, sent out an important message with this statement.
   . I should like to inform the honourable Member of Parliament that currently, with the sole exception of heavy goods vehicles, there is no harmonisation in the field of vehicle taxes at Community level.
While Directive 1999/62/EC established minimum annual vehicle tax rates for heavy goods vehicles, Member States are free to lay down national provisions for car taxation as they see fit.
A similar situation exists in the field of tolls and charges for road vehicles, the imposition of which is often related to, and justified by, the costs incurred by national authorities for the construction and upkeep of the road infrastructure.
Directive 1999/62/EC provides the framework for levying tolls and charges for heavy goods vehicles in a non-discriminatory and proportionate manner.
There is no such Community legislation for private vehicles.
However, national provisions introducing car taxes, tolls or charges have to be in line with the general principle of the EC Treaty and, in particular, should not give rise to border-crossing formalities in trade between Member States and should respect the non-discrimination principle.
The Commission is of the opinion that, if the imposition of toll charges for road vehicles is not conditional on a decision to reduce car taxes simultaneously, and if these measures do not include any direct or indirect discrimination based on the nationality of the road vehicle, they are not contrary to Article 12 of the EC treaty.
I would like to recall that the Commission gave a similar reply to an oral question during Question Time at Parliament’s December 2005 part-session.
According to the information available to the Commission, Germany is currently not pursuing the idea of introducing a toll for passenger cars.
If Germany were to introduce a toll, as referred to in the oral question, the Commission would of course examine those provisions in depth.
The political agreement reached by the Council Summit in December 2005 concerning the Financial Perspective for 2007-2013 reduced the Commission's original proposal for funding of the Trans-European Transport Networks from EUR 20 billion to EUR 7 billion.
Given the importance of the Trans-European Networks for the Lisbon Strategy and the operation of the internal market, does the Commission believe that it is possible, with the amount of EUR 7 billion, to implement the thirty priority projects scheduled for the near future? Does it share the view that this significant cut by two thirds of the original provision will hold back the transport sector more broadly defined, particularly since some of these projects are already encountering problems, and how does it intend to deal with this matter?
Does it have a progress assessment for the implementation of the priority projects and does it share the view that some of the priority projects will have to be revised and/or suspended owing to the reduction in financial provision?
   . Of course it is not unimportant for me to underline that the Commission is not underestimating the importance of these trans-European networks.
However, I am really not in a position today to give any signals at all on the ongoing discussions on the financial perspectives for the period up to 2013.
As I said in my initial response, it is a discussion that is going to take place in the interinstitutional areas that are always in these negotiations at this crucial time.
   Madam President, quite a few countries have stated that the European Investment Bank could provide loans of up to EUR 10 billion for research purposes or for research and innovation.
What thought has the Commission given to having the EIB develop new funding instruments in support of innovation?
   Madam President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for having drawn attention to the fact that research can be supported via structural funds resources.
I am very interested to know how this is to be managed and how coherence is to be ensured between various research efforts: those using structural funds resources, those made at national level and those made in the EU generally.
How can matters be managed in such a way that sensible projects take place? A second question concerns the amounts from the structural funds that one might imagine being set aside for research, compared with the amounts available under the Seventh Framework Programme?
The Council talks in terms of 60% of structural funds resources going to the Lisbon objectives.
   Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my question is prompted by the recurrent need, in regional policy, for people to be shown new examples of how to do it.
Since there are many methods of ‘best practice’, and since there is such a thing as the ‘innovation scoreboard’, would it not be possible for you, Commissioner, and your fellow-Commissioners Mrs Hübner, Mr Potočnik and Mrs Wallström, to put your heads together and consider how these tried and tested practices may be better got across to the European public, so that they may have incentives to step us this sort of cooperation in future?
   . We are all trying to attain one of the goals which the Member States agreed in Barcelona in 2002, i.e. to provide 3% of GDP for investment in research and development.
Pulling the strands together practically is crucial.
It is obvious that cooperation at EU level could show the best ways of using and investing the money.
That is happening with or without our investment.
This is the trend that is going on, because this is the only way in which we can truly deal with the challenges ahead of us.
By stimulating that at European Union level, however, we help this process go faster.
That is why I agree with you totally that our common endeavours are very important for Europe to benefit.
Today, approximately 5% of public money is spent through the Framework Programme at European Union level.
The rest is invested from the budgets of the Member States.
Private funding is even more important than public funding.
In the European Union, approximately 55% of private money is invested, compared to 45% of public money.
It is crucial that we try to stimulate not only the public but also the private sector.
It is crucial that companies work and invest in Europe.
That is why it is crucially important that these companies are stimulated via the creation of proper conditions, i.e. that tax incentives are there, state aid is supporting that, intellectual property rights are in place, public procurement goes in this direction, risk venture capital is provided, and we stimulate brain circulation and so on.
All these things matter.
Three per cent is a kind of indicator of whether we are doing things correctly.
Our horizontal policies which we are using across all our sectors are consistent and are those which are truly up to the challenges which we have to face today.
   Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one of today’s newspapers quotes Mr Jean-Claude Juncker as saying that the Financial Perspective, the Council’s offer should not be the last word.
He suggests that it would be possible to put forward some EUR 875 billion.
Do you believe that it is still possible to top up the seventh research framework programme?
   Commissioner, in order for scientific research programmes to succeed, it is very important that businesses participate in them, both by using scientific research inventions and by funding them.
Yesterday, in the European Economic and Social Committee, Mr Verheugen, who is a Member of the Commission for another area, presented his programmes to us as programmes to stimulate innovation.
My question would be as follows: do you cooperate and in general coordinate activities between two Members of the Commission and two types of programmes?
   I should like to know whether Commissioner Potočnik does not think that the project involving goodwill ambassadors might appear ridiculous.
Should it not be elected, representative parliamentarians who are ambassadors for the EU?
   . The Commission wishes to inform the honourable Member that EUR 7.6 million will be allocated to the Prince budget line for the 2006 budget, which is intended to finance actions as foreseen under Plan D to highlight the debate during the period of reflection decided by the June 2005 European Council.
This budget will be managed as follows: a call for a proposal of EUR 2 million will be launched in the following weeks to give support to pan-European projects aimed at creating the conditions for citizens’ debates on EU issues.
It will be aimed at supporting EU citizens’ networking and participation in the debate on Europe.
It will be aimed at collecting citizens’ opinions, especially through qualitative means and extensive scale and it will be aimed at providing analyses of citizens’ contributions as feedback for decision-makers.
In addition, EUR 850 000 will be allocated for setting up specific information products.
On a complementary basis, in order to stimulate the implementation of Plan D at a local level, EUR 4.5 million will be decentralised to the Commission’s representations in order to develop debates at regional and local levels and to improve synergy and coordination between national, regional and EU levels for the implementation of Plan D. This EUR 4.5 million will be executed either by calls for proposals or by procurement.
Finally, EUR 250 000 will be requested to develop a website especially devoted to the debate about Europe.
On a broader scale, the Commission has already expressed its disappointment about the recent agreement of the European Council to cut the global appropriations of the next Financial Perspective, Heading 3, in a situation where the debate on Europe is becoming truly crucial.
   Commissioner, given the Commission’s desire to control its own propaganda – as evidenced by Commissioner Wallström’s announcement recently of her proposal for a politically-controlled European news outlet, the EBS – what confidence can exist that any attempt will be made at striking a balance in terms of the distribution of funding between organisations and individuals promoting a pro-Constitution stance and those who promote an anti-Constitution stance?
   . On 1 May 2005 the Commission launched a new network of Europe Direct information relays.
Implanted locally all over the enlarged European Union, 393 new relays have taken over from former Info-Points Europe and Rural Information and Promotion Carrefours which targeted the public in urban and rural areas respectively.
The objectives of the new network have been streamlined in order to better meet the information needs of the public.
As regards the financial mechanisms put in place to support the network, they need to comply with the EC financial regulation.
The new relays were therefore selected on the basis of a call for proposals, following the decision from the Commission, C/2004/2869.
Each Europe Direct information relay benefits from an operating grant of a maximum of EUR 24 000 while the maximum grant for former IPEs and Carrefours was EUR 20 000.
Furthermore, Digicom is planning to launch a complementary call for proposals at the beginning of 2007 in order to open new relays in geographical areas insufficiently covered by the current network and taking into account future enlargement to Romania and Bulgaria.
Concerning the assessment of the impact of the networks, an internal assessment of the former information relays in 2003 revealed the real value of the relays as partners in the communication policy, especially at the local and regional level.
As for the new relays, starting from the second semester of 2006, an online monitoring system will be implemented in order to assess the activities of the information relays.
Finally, in the framework of the action plan on communicating Europe published in July 2005, the Commission intends to carry a feasibility study – action 6 of the action plan – to assess the desirability of progressively streamlining the Commission’s various information sources.
As stated in action 42 of the same action plan, an impact study on the communication of the relays’ activities is also scheduled to start at the end of 2006.
EuroNews offers daily coverage of topical European issues and is partly subsidised from the EU budget.
The fact that residents of Lithuania do not have access to such programmes places them at a disadvantage compared to the citizens of other Member States, especially as local mass media cannot afford contracting reporters in the European Union.
Does the Commission see any way of providing access for the residents of Lithuania to daily half-hour broadcasts of EuroNews on the national public broadcaster?
   . In 2005 the Commission signed a service contract with EuroNews to cover EU affairs in its news and magazines, under a strict editorial independence charter.
The contract covers the production and distribution costs of the EU programmes.
It was signed on the basis of the existing seven languages – German, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian – and state of distribution.
It does not contain any obligation for the channel to increase its geographical coverage or the number of languages.
Nevertheless, the contract provides that however much the coverage or the languages increased during the life of the contract, the EU programmes would be included.
One of the selection criteria was the capacity and the will of EuroNews to develop its geographical and language coverage.
Since the contract was signed, a window has been opened in Romania and in the Romanian language; agreements have been signed in India, China and elsewhere.
EuroNews is also diversifying the various distribution technologies through which it can be received: cable, DTT, mobile phones, etc.
However, distribution is a commercial matter over which only EuroNews has full command.
Obviously, the Commission is encouraging EuroNews to increase by all the means under its control its geographical distribution technologies and language coverage.
As far as Lithuania is concerned, at present only 49 000 households out of 1.33 million are able to receive EuroNews via cable or satellite.
EuroNews is a candidate to be distributed via digital terrestrial television, Lietuvos Telekomas, and hoping for a positive answer.
Moreover, negotiations are on course with the public channel, LRT, which would permit LRT to broadcast EuroNews programmes on their Hertzian base frequencies as often as they like.
A Lithuanian window, similar to the Romanian one, is also currently under discussion.
   I would just like to thank you for your answer.
I trust that in future the Commission will try to ensure that all those ‘Euro News’ opportunities exist in all countries where they are not broadcast, and in, let us say, neighbouring countries, as television is still the most popular information channel, especially where Europe is concerned.
   . We are trying to do the best we can, taking into account the contracts and the independence of EuroNews.
As the Commission knows, ACP countries which are party to the Sugar Protocol receive a guaranteed price for their raw sugar which is equivalent to the EU's minimum intervention price.
At the current moment, this price includes basic adjustment aid to traditional refineries, which amounts to 5.1% of the guaranteed price. This aid amounts to approximately EUR 35 million.
However, under the proposed reform of the EU sugar regime, this refining aid will no longer be paid from the EU budget, but instead will be passed on to the ACP in the form of a 5.1% price cut representing a loss in earnings of EUR 35 million for the ACP.
Could the Commission confirm that it will consider the possibility of a small adjustment to the compromise package on the CMO, due to be considered in the Council on 20 February and allow adjustment aid for the refining industry to continue to be paid from the EU budget?
   . To guarantee the price for Sugar Protocol countries, prices have always moved completely in line with EU institutional sugar prices, so there has never been a guarantee for a fixed price for the Sugar Protocol countries.
However, these Sugar Protocol countries will benefit from a lower cut in the prices until the 2008-2009 production year.
This will give these countries a period of three years to adapt to the new price support arrangements within the European Union.
During 2006-2007 and 2007-2008, the reference price for raw sugar will decrease by only 5%, while the producers of sugar beet in the European Union will see a decrease of 20% the first year, and 27.5% the following year.
The reason for this decrease of only 5% is due to the fact that refiners and therefore the ACP suppliers will be exempted from the restructuring levy.
They do not have to pay the levy at all.
However, refiners will lose the benefit of the refining aid which will be abolished in the context of the reform.
It is quite clear that the different conditions for the ACP countries after the introduction of a reform within the European Union has been discussed at length before finalising the political agreement in the Council.
It is quite clear and it has been from the very beginning that it was important to secure the period of the last six months of 2006, which is outside the next financial period.
Therefore the decision was taken to allocate EUR 40 million specifically for the period from 1 July until the end of this year.
For the period within the next financial perspective it has been quite clear that the Commission’s wish to allocate a significantly higher budget than the aforementioned EUR 40 million will be dependent on the ongoing discussions on the financial perspective for the next period.
But it is a significantly higher amount than that mentioned.
I can only say that within the Commission proposal, a budget of EUR 190 million a year was in the budget and I therefore hope that there will be an understanding also in this Parliament of the need to help these ACP countries, specifically in a transitional period.
   Thank you, Commissioner.
I am talking about the fact that the collateral damage from the effects of the reform of the sugar regime has been felt by the 18 protocol countries.
You say that they had EUR 40 million between 18 countries.
Three commissioners – you, Mr Mandelson and the President of the Commission – pledged EUR 190 million to the ACP countries.
I am now following that very closely.
We can see no place in the budget for that money; we can see no likelihood of anything like the amount you promised to them being included in the budget.
However hard this Parliament tries, it is very difficult in terms of the budgetary allocation that we have to make sure that we ring-fence the kind of money that we need.
Will you, Commissioner, urge the Council to agree that we should ring-fence the money in any unallocated money that we may find under Heading IV? Will you make it your business to protect the ACP sugar-producing countries at this time, when they are feeling so vulnerable?
   The next item is the report by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on risk and crisis management in the agricultural sector [2005/2053(INI)] (A6-0014/2006).
   The next item is the report by Mr Kindermann on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the implementation of a European Union forestry strategy [2005/2054(INI)] (A6-0015/2006).
   .
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank Mr Kindermann for his wise and balanced report, as he has put a great deal of commitment and empathy into achieving a compromise and drafting a balanced text.
We are in favour of the forest strategy, Commissioner, but against market regulation, and that is something we want to make quite clear.
We are in favour of subsidiarity in forestry policy and are convinced that we should continue to go down that path.
We certainly should pay much more attention to this sector.
If only 85% of the forested area in the European Union is managed, we must do our level best to bring the other 15% into the economic cycle; and if, as Mr Kindermann has indicated, only 60% of the wood grown is used, it is all the more important to draw attention to it: it is only if they are used that these forests can be protected.
Let me also say that the fairy tale of the dying forests of Europe we have been told for decades really was a fairy tale, a tale told more for political effect than for any other reason.
If there is growth of 450 thousand hectares a year, then the forests are certainly not dying, but expanding.
It thus only remains for me, Commissioner, to ask you to incorporate into your work as much as possible of what ultimately remains binding in the text following tomorrow's vote, and I am pleased that you have already agreed to do so at the end of your speech.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must first commend our rapporteur, Mr Kindermann, for his outstanding report.
It is crucial that the importance of forests in the EU be taken into account, in compliance with the subsidiarity principle, on account of the area that forests cover in the rural environment, their position in the rural economy as a complementary sector of activity to agriculture and their role in landscape planning, for example in preventing, and limiting the impact of, natural phenomena such as flooding and erosion.
There are several reasons why an EU forestry strategy would make it possible to establish sustainable development in forests.
Firstly, it would help mitigate climate change and would contribute to sustainable energy supplies, in particular biomass.
In this regard, I welcome the agreement reached at the Ecofin Council authorising the application of a reduced rate of VAT for the production of heat and refrigeration from wood.
In practice, such a reduction should encourage the development of this renewable energy source and of new outlets for the wood sector.
Furthermore, forestry activities also create wealth and jobs, whether this be …
   The next item is the report by Mrs McGuinness, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Decision on Community strategic guidelines for Rural Development (Programming period 2007 2013), [COM(2005)0304 C6-0349/2005 2005/0129(CNS)] (A6-0023/2006).
   .
Mrs McGuinnes has done an excellent job with this report.
I would like to thank her for the excellent cooperation, as in the report she had taken into account all the comments of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
I am extremely delighted that this report is in full agreement with the earlier report of Mrs Schierhuber.
I know that the issue of rural development is extremely important to the Commissioner.
We all talk about the fact that rural development has been the greatest loser of the seven-year budget.
It is shocking that while all of us – both the Commission and Parliament say that rural development, the second pillar, ought to be given more money, exactly the opposite is happening.
And this is why the report of Mrs McGuinnes is so important, because if there is no more money in the system, and in fact there is less money, then the system should at least be more flexible, and it should express the diversity of Member States better.
In this respect, this report is very good and very useful.
Incidentally, as an MEP from a new Member State, I deeply regret that the rural development fund of old Member States has been decreased by 15-20%, but the rural development fund of new Member States has only been increased marginally, to a very modest extent, even though everybody had said that they would be compensated by an increase for the long, protracted phasing-in period agreed in Copenhagen.
Well, there has been no compensation, and unfortunately, the rural development fund of old Member States has been drastically reduced, perhaps forcing them to apply modulation, but obviously, this is no consolation.
The issues raised by Mrs Schierhuber are very important: jobs should not only be created, but also preserved.
And in this respect it is very good that the McGuinnes report supports activity diversification.
In other words: we should not just give money to clear an apple orchard, but also to enable the farmer to plant a marketable crop in its place.
This is a very important issue in this report, because it facilitates the preservation of jobs.
The strengthening of quality products and of local products is also very important.
At this moment in time we still have an excessively market-profit-oriented view.
We would like to thank Mrs McGuinnes that the transitional regulations currently in place in new Member States will continue to remain in effect.
By the way, my experience as a future rapporteur for integration issues of new Member States (these issues will be debated in the second half of this year) is that these are very much required in the new Member States.
I support the report of Mrs McGuinnes.
   Mr President, in the European Parliament I represent Poland, which is home to six of the ten poorest regions in the Union.
Five of these regions are located in the eastern Poland.
They are characterised by a poorly developed infrastructure, a fragmented agricultural structure and high unemployment, some of which is hidden on peasant family farms.
The additional funds in excess of EUR 800 million earmarked in the 2007-2013 budget for eastern Poland are not a solution to the backwardness of this region.
The support we need must be at least equal to the aid given by the Union to marginal and sparsely-populated regions in the old Member States.
As well as financial assistance, eastern Poland, which includes the poorest Lubelszczyzna region, needs a stable agricultural policy and protection for its farmers.
It is high time that provision was made for its development.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 16 February 2006.
   . – Mr President, I would like to comment on what Mr Stevenson has just said.
The Socialist Group in the European Parliament in this House is grateful to you for taking the initiative in mooting these reforms, of which we are in favour.
In the Conference of Presidents, I too, got the impression that we were of one mind, and that we wanted to start by reflecting on this within our groups.
Mr Poettering made it clear that his own group needed to discuss this; I said the same on behalf of my own, and other Members did likewise.
We will discuss this within our groups, and our discussions will be wide-ranging and all-embracing, but I do want to make it plain – and I will have to ask the services to insert the relevant Rule into the Minutes – that the President, in moving towards these reforms, enjoys the full confidence of the Socialist Group.
   Mr Schulz, we shall look for the appropriate rule, but this is not a call for a vote of confidence in the President, not yet at least, so the Conference of Presidents will continue working, the groups will take part in the debate and the group chairmen will act as spokesmen for their groups’ positions.
I am sure that, together, we will make proposals that improve the functioning of our Parliament.
That, and nothing less than that, is everybody's intention, including, if you will allow me, Mr Stevenson, your President’s.
   . – Mr President, further to the proposed order of business, I have a request concerning Wednesday.
With the order of business as proposed, as I see it, when we come to the statement by the Council and the Commission on the preparation of the European Council and on the Lisbon Strategy, we find ourselves – much as we do with the debates between 3 o’clock and 7 o’clock on the Council statement on the informal meeting of foreign ministers, on the Brok Report, and on other reports – reaching the outer limit of what is feasible in terms of organisation.
I propose to elucidate that by reference to some figures on speaking times.
The speaking times for the Council statement on the summit and for both the Council’s and Commission’s statement and the ensuing debate, are shared out as follows: the Council gets 30 minutes speaking time, the Commission get 20 minutes, and the House as a whole gets 60.
What that means is that the two other institutions have about as much time in which to speak as all the Members and all the Groups put together.
The result is that, in a debate on this subject, the Group of the European People’s Party has 18 minutes at its disposal, my own group has 14, the Liberals have 7, and the Greens have four-and-a-half.
I have just told my group that this is going to spark off squabbles within the groups, since, if I were to get all my experts to speak, I would need more speaking time than has been made available to us.
The consequence of that is that groups will be reducing their speaking times to such an extent that people will end up speaking for no more than a minute each.
While that may help keep the peace within the groups, it will do nothing whatever for the quality of debate in this House.
It is because this does not make sense that we will continue to urge you to move further towards the reform that you have set in motion.
The simple fact is that we need more time for such debates.
What we also need, though, is for the institutions, under the circumstances under which we have to work, to reduce their speaking times somewhat, and this we ask them to do.
I am pretty sure that the Council and the Commission are well able to get the key points that they want to make across to us in less than 30 or 20 minutes, for the fact is that I have to get mine across in five, and I have not so far had the impression of having succeeded in this.
If I were to have 20 minutes in which to speak, it would be quite splendid – not only for me, but also for this House!
For now, though, I ask you and the services to get together with the two institutions by Wednesday – that is to say, with whichever of the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission is actually present – and reduce your speaking time so as to make more time available in which this House can have a debate.
Let me just read you the figures for the afternoon.
That afternoon, the time available for speaking to the reports amounts to 50 minutes each for the Council and the Commission, while Mr Brok, the rapporteur, gets five – which is quite utterly inadequate in view of the importance of his report – and all the Members put together get 90 minutes between them.
I put it to you, Mr President, that that is not reasonable.
I therefore ask that, in the first instance, you agree with the institutions on a reduction for Wednesday, and then, in the longer term, I ask that this House should organise our orders of business in such a way that we have a proper amount of time in which to debate important matters among ourselves.
   Mr Schulz, as you know, there are no rules on the speaking time allocated to the other institutions.
Nothing in the Rules of Procedure states how long they may speak, and they are normally given free rein, that is to say that they speak for as long as they see fit.
That is not the case for Members of Parliament, whose speaking time is very limited.
I believe that the Commission and the Council have duly noted Mr Schulz’s request.
I am sure that they will act accordingly.
Bear in mind that, in this item, there are three statements and their replies; in other words, we are talking about 50 minutes for those statements and replies.
In view of the time restraints, I am sure that the two institutions will limit themselves so that the Members have time to speak.
   Mr President, I do not entirely understand your reaction, particularly if we bear in mind the applause coming, for once, from all sides of the Assembly, following what was said by Mr Schultz, the chairman of this great party that is the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
In fact, we are calling for you to negotiate with a view to restricting the length of the speeches made by the Commission and the Council on the Lisbon Strategy.
They have already explained the Lisbon Strategy to us on three occasions; we are familiar with it.
They can each therefore easily limit themselves to 15 minutes’ speaking time in which to outline their views on the Lisbon Strategy, thus leaving us time for a debate.
People should not be treated like fools.
We are aware of the problems connected to the Lisbon Strategy: Mr Barroso has already enlarged on them three times in this Chamber, and I would be surprised if he had anything new to add this time around.
Fifteen minutes’ speaking time, therefore, for the institutions and the rest for Parliament seems legitimate to me.
   Mr President, I must inform you that, for several years, the company L.G. Philips has been axing jobs not only in the constituency of Dreux, but also in Aix-la-Chapelle, the Netherlands and Hungary.
All this is nothing new.
However, one should also be aware that, in 2001, this company was created to prevent the problems affecting the cathode-ray screen market from putting the holding company, Philips, at a disadvantage.
Behaviour such as this is extremely serious because it allows our large companies to shirk their economic, social and industrial responsibilities.
Promises were made to the workers employed by these three factories but, to date, these promises have come to nothing.
Furthermore, this liquidation reminds us of the events that took place in the Isère region with regard to HP and also reminds us that the large groups are doing as they please and are gradually dismantling Europe’s industrial policy.
   Mr President, this afternoon you mentioned International Women’s Day.
Last week was also Endometriosis Awareness Week.
Figures for this female disease are much the same as when I raised this matter in the House last year: up to 14 million women in Europe affected, up to EUR 30 billion in costs to the EU economy for lost days at work.
Endometriosis is a condition that is stagnating in misdiagnosis, ignorance and misunderstanding; it takes up to 11 years from onset to diagnosis.
I can promise you, and it gives me no pleasure, that I will speak in this House on every appropriate occasion until every woman and every health professional in Europe is aware of this disease, its symptoms, its effects and the treatment options.
   Mr President, there is almost no hope left that the presidential elections in Belarus next Sunday will be free and fair.
The atmosphere during the election campaign is dangerous.
The campaign has been marked by Aleksandr Kozulin, a presidential candidate, being heavily beaten by secret service men.
In addition, many activists are being arrested and threatened, to stop them supporting the democratic candidate Aleksandr Milinkievich.
In this context, statements were made by some EU office holders which I found disappointing.
After it became known that the European Parliament is planning to send an ad hoc delegation to Minsk, Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner stated that the members of that delegation will speak only for themselves.
Mr President, may I kindly ask you to remind the Commission that Members of this House are the only elected representatives of the EU citizens, in contrast to the Members of the European Commission.
Members of the European Parliament are entitled to speak of behalf of those who elected them and not only for themselves.
It is highly regrettable that the European Commission makes lamentable statements instead of expressing at least their moral support for the MEPs who are going to observe elections in Minsk, and instead of stating that in the event of any provocation by the Lukashenko regime against parliamentarians they are ready to take action in their defence.
   Mr President, as a Socialist and human rights activist, and simply as a militant opponent of the death penalty, I would like to express to all of you the anguish I feel for the family of Pablo Ibar, a Spanish citizen, whom the Florida courts sentenced to death for murder in 2000.
On 2 February, the Supreme Court of that State lifted the death sentence on the alleged accomplice in the murder, having ruled that there were errors in the previous trial and that the evidence against the convicted men was insubstantial.
Nevertheless, the hopes then raised were dashed on 9 March, when that same Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty for the European citizen, Pablo Ibar.
We in the Socialist Group in the European Parliament are calling upon the competent United States authorities to seek a resolution to this unjust and inhumane situation.
I would also ask you, Mr President, as well as the Chairman of the Delegation for Relations with the United States, to address the said authorities, on the one hand to reiterate our well-known complete rejection of the death penalty and, on the other, to ask that justice be done in the case of Pablo Ibar, who was unfairly convicted, as appears to be proved by the acquittal of the person who was originally convicted of being the accomplice in the same alleged crime.
   Mr President, I am glad that Commissioner Frattini is here to hear me address the next item.
In a recent statement, the Dutch Minister for Integration, Mrs Verdonk, announced a change in the return policy for homosexuals and Christian asylum seekers from Iran.
She said that since homosexuality and Christianity are not outlawed in Iran, asylum seekers can simply return home.
Whilst this may, strictly speaking, be true, in practice, homosexuals and Christians have good reason to fear for their safety.
It is a fact that homosexual activity carries the death penalty.
My question to Commissioner Frattini is whether the Commission intends to find out whether Dutch return policy is in line with the European minimum standards for asylum seekers as laid down by the directive that is required to be implemented by October of this year, and whether it is in line with international agreements.
   Madam President, the questions tabled are commendable for the way in which they address the issues of people-trafficking and prostitution.
I particularly – and wholeheartedly – endorse the demand for an inquiry into the relation between these issues and those about the course of affairs surrounding the football World Cup.
I thought Commissioner Frattini’s response was excellent.
I am delighted that the Commission is prepared to mount a comparative inquiry into the way in which Member States treat prostitution in legal and practical terms and into the impact of that policy.
I would ask Commissioner Frattini also to take into consideration the extent of transparency and controllability of prostitution, the extent of forced prostitution, opportunities for prostitutes to leave the profession and the demand for prostitution.
I would be interested to learn something of how the adverse effects of prostitution can be controlled most effectively.
I should like to conclude by saying that I am delighted with the tone of this debate.
   The next item is the report (A6-0013/2006) by Mr Hutchinson, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Development, on relocation in the context of regional development (2004/2254(INI)).
   Mr President, I welcome this report by Mr Hutchinson on relocation in the context of regional development.
It highlights the importance of EU cohesion policy as a means of alleviating disparities in regions that are lagging behind.
I come from a country that has benefited from the EU’s structural funds.
I therefore welcome this from an Irish point of view, but particularly for my own region – the west and north-west of Ireland.
Being a predominantly rural region – 70% of the people live in rural areas – it is more vulnerable than most to the effects of relocation.
Europe must protect regions like the west and north-west of Ireland, particularly as regards the settlement pattern, which can only be sustained by balanced regional development.
Europe must insist on infrastructure deficits being addressed, especially in areas like transport, energy and modern broadband communication.
These deficits inhibit regional competitiveness.
In this regard, I warmly welcome the European Commission’s approval last week of the Irish Government’s decision to spend EUR 170 million to extend the broadband network over 70 towns across the state.
Measures such as this will assist the competitiveness of regions, attract mobile investment and hopefully offset the tendencies for companies to set up in locations that are already congested.
This is the strongest defence against relocation and in favour of strengthening the regions that need that help most.
   Mr President, the European Parliament obviously does not want in the Hutchinson report to prohibit companies from relocating to other countries.
This would be restrictive and anti-democratic.
We, at least the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, know that a company needs to be competitive in order to survive and the individual Member States will need to have a fiscal and general economic environment that attracts investment in the individual Member States.
Nonetheless, it is not right for the European Union to encourage the continual relocation of companies with resources from the European budget.
That is why the Hutchinson report proposes, once again, that penalties should be imposed on companies which have received financial aid from the European Union and relocate their activities within seven years of the granting of the aid.
It also proposes that companies which received state aid, especially those which failed to comply with all the obligations connected with such aid, should not qualify for state aid for their new location and should be blocked from receipt of future Structural Fund aid.
The Hutchinson report also points out that we need to be even stricter with companies that relocate outside the European Union.
I think that the European Parliament's proposals are realistic and respond in a balanced manner to an existing problem.
I also wish to highlight the proposal made in the Hutchinson report in connection with the globalisation fund.
We welcome the proposal by the European Commission and believe that the globalisation fund will soon become a reality in order to address the negative consequences of this modern situation which offers opportunity to everyone but also contains risks which need to be addressed in an effective manner.
   The next item is the debate on an oral question to the Commission on the Fourth World Water Forum in Mexico City (16 to 22 March 2006) by Roberto Musacchio, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, Caroline Lucas and Alain Lipietz, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, Glyn Ford, Giovanni Berlinguer and Béatrice Patrie, on behalf of the PSE Group (O-0001/2006 – B6-0003/2006).
   The next item is the report by Dimitrios Papadimoulis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing a Rapid Response and Preparedness Instrument for major emergencies (COM(2005)0113 – C6- 0181/2005 – 2005/0052(CNS)) (A6-0027/2006).
   The violence of recent natural disasters reminds us how vulnerable our societies are to risks in nature: in 20 years, natural disasters have killed 1.5 million people worldwide.
In order to be effective, our handling of this problem must include looking ahead, by means of risk assessment, prevention, education and information for the public.
The EU has made prevention and emergency aid a top priority, by setting up ECHO in 1992, the Dipecho programme in 1996 and the EU Solidarity fund in 2002.
In 2005, it also decided to create a European coordination structure that could call on a European body of humanitarian aid volunteers.
The Commission proposes to set up a new rapid response and preparedness mechanism for major emergencies for the period 2007-2013, and we are of course delighted with that.
However, the legal basis for this mechanism should be amended to use Article 174, which involves codecision; and the preventative measures should be extended to cover civil protection in third countries and marine pollution.
Finally, the budget for this mechanism must ensure that emergency aid is as effective as possible, in terms of both flexibility and responsiveness, and must increase the visibility of Community solidarity within and outside the EU.
I am pleased to say that there are 52 amendments which the Commission can support fully, in part, or in principle.
These are amendments 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 73 and 75.
The Commission cannot accept amendments 2, 3, 4, 13, 14, 15, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 35, 42, 46, 53, 54, 63, 64, 65, 71, 72 and 74.
   – Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the Commission on deciding to eliminate mercury.
That decision is long overdue. We have known that mercury is dangerous for a long time.
I want to congratulate Mr Matsakis on an excellent report that goes further than the Commission, especially in identifying for the Commission one of the most dangerous uses of mercury today: thermerasol – mercury directly injected in commonly-used medications such as flu vaccines.
Since removing mercury from paediatric vaccines in California, cases of autism are continuing to increase.
However, for the first time in over 20 years the rate of increase has significantly slowed down. Commissioner, please ensure that, if there is an avian flu jab, it will be mercury-free.
There is one more source of mercury that I would ask you to eliminate.
The Irish Government pollutes the Irish water supply with hexafluorosilic acid, a waste product of the artificial fertiliser industry which, in addition to mercury, contains other toxins such as lead, arsenic, beryllium, vanadium, cadmium, radionuclides and silicone. Please tackle that.
   .
Mr President, the situation we have had to cope with since 1 January of this year is a paradoxical one.
On the one hand, the countries of the so-called old Fifteen are bound to ensure that long-term residents receive the same treatment as their own nationals as regards access to the labour market. On the other, many of these same countries are taking advantage of the provisions of the Treaty on Accession and maintaining the ban on free movement of workers where the new Ten are concerned.
This state of affairs is contrary to the provisions of the aforementioned Treaty on Accession, pursuant to which European Union citizens have priority over third country nationals regarding access to the labour market. The problem could have been resolved by doing away with the transitional periods for the employment of citizens of the new Member States in the labour markets of the old Union.
Unfortunately, only three Member States, namely Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom opened up their labour markets from 1 May 2004. Two other Member States, Spain and Portugal, have stated that they will do so from 1 May of this year.
Sadly, in most of the other Member States fear of the anticipated influx of cheap foreign labour and consequent loss of jobs has won the day. Mrs Schroedter mentioned this in the case of Germany.
Such fear is entirely groundless.
The European Commission’s statistics show that in most countries the number of citizens of the new Member States employed has remained fairly stable before and after enlargement. With the exception of Austria, the figure for workers from the 10 new Member States employed has not exceeded 1% of the economically active population.
In no Member State of the Union has it been the case that the influx of workers from the new Member States has ousted local workers from their jobs. The new arrivals have been taking completely new jobs or previously unfilled positions.
Mr President, we need to realise that the US economy will continue to outstrip ours in terms of competitiveness unless we increase the mobility of the labour force in Europe.
Unemployment in the EU currently stands at over 8% but even so, there is a shortage of workers in certain areas.
Meanwhile, not all Europeans can move freely in search of work.
Regrettably, it is very likely that the greater part of the Union’s labour market will remain closed to citizens of the new Member States for a further five years.
That is why it is essential for the European Commission to take action to eliminate the contradictions in Union legislation and to extend the free movement of workers.
   Mr President, I recall how almost two years ago now, a few days after the historic enlargement of the European Union, I took the floor in this House and called on the governments of the so-called old Union to be brave and to abandon transitional periods. I called on them to open up their labour markets to citizens of the new Member States.
Unfortunately, only three Member States were courageous enough to open up their labour markets at that time.
I refer to the United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden.
The remaining 12 Member States gave in to the fears or maybe even the pressures of their own public opinion and citizens and barricaded themselves against an influx of workers from the new Member States, especially from Central and Eastern Europe. What conclusions can be drawn after these two years?
Clearly, those who have benefited the most are the very same three countries that dared to open their labour markets.
The European Commission communication issued about a month ago, in February if I am not mistaken, makes it very clear that unemployment has not increased in countries that decided to open their labour markets. Social problems have not either.
What has happened is quite the opposite.
The economy has gathered additional pace, and income from taxation has increased.
Such are the benefits of the practical implementation of one of the fundamental principles of the Treaty.
It could even be deemed the most fundamental of them all. It is part of the foundations upon which the Union is built, and we should be striving to implement it across the 25 current Members of the European Union.
On the eve of the expiry of the first transitional period I am delighted that a couple more governments are reconsidering opening their labour markets.
It must however be pointed out that the way things stand, they still constitute a minority of the old Fifteen.
This is a serious problem, and I should like to send out the following appeal.
As we each take the floor in the near future to debate Parliament’s resolution, we should send out a clear call to the governments of Member States not simply to consider opening up their labour markets.
We should appeal to them to go ahead and open them fully to allow the free movement of workers.
   That concludes this item.
   I declare open the 2006-2007 session of the European Parliament.
   The next item is the report (A6-0036/2006) by Reino Paasilinna, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on a European information society for growth and employment (2005/2167(INI)).
   The next item is the report (A6-0031/2006) by Jean Louis Cottigny, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on restructuring and employment (2005/2188(INI)).
   – The next item is the report by Mrs Lissy Gröner and Mrs Amalia Sartori, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, on the establishment of a European Institute for Gender Equality (COM(2005)0081-C6-0083/2005-2005/0017(COD)) (A6-0043/2006).
   .
Mr President, equality between men and women is an oft-repeated mantra within the European Union.
Common sense tells us, however, that this is not at all a straightforward matter.
Men and women are referred to as such precisely because they are different.
They are equal in terms of dignity but they are different.
This is obvious in the world of sport mentioned earlier.
I have recently been attempting to discover how the European Commission understands this formula, especially as the formula is very often accompanied by the corollary in all areas.
So be it.
I therefore enquired if this equality stems from the law of nature or from statute law, and what can be done to enable men to bear children.
Commissioner Špidla replied that the principle of gender equality only applies to work and to access to goods and services.
That is contrary to fact.
After all, Article 23 in Chapter III of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union clearly refers to all areas.
If the European Commission is unable to resolve the problem in European law, I doubt the planned institute will manage to do so.
   – I am delighted with this report.
I believe that it is very important for the identity of the new modern Europe.
The equal opportunities problem is especially relevant in the states of Eastern Europe.
Indeed, it is no accident that Slovenia, Slovakia and Lithuania aspire to establish this institute in their countries.
Women in Eastern European states are still frequently regarded as homemakers and are not integrated into economic processes.
The European Parliament has its Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality.
In many European states there are ministries, departments and other institutions dedicated to gender equality.
That is why I believe it is logical to establish such an institution across the entire European Union.
I, therefore, endorse the efforts of rapporteurs L. Gröner and A. Sartori, together with their argument that an independent institute can operate much more effectively than one which is part of another agency.
I would like to stress that the institute is needed for men as well as women, and it is a shame that the majority of those speaking today were women.
   Emile Zola said that a woman is the axis around which civilisation revolves.
This institute should become the axis around which European gender equality issues and its implementation revolve.
To make the European Institute for Gender Equality a reality, all there needs to be is an understanding of the problem, political will and some funding.
It is considerably harder for the institute's work to change attitudes towards women, and to eradicate the discrimination they endure in many European countries.
The institute should employ not just any specialists, but people of both sexes who are passionate about its activities.
The influence of the European Parliament in the formation of the institute's team and constant parliamentary control are a necessity.
The institute should evaluate the situation in every area, in every country and present proposals.
On this basis, EU institutions would take effective measures and would demand the same of national governments.
The institute should begin its work in one of the new EU countries.
Vilnius offers not only what Lithuania can achieve through the implementation of equality, but also the opportunity to combine the experience of the leading Scandinavian countries with the potential of Central Europe, and indeed the whole of Europe.
   I will now suspend the sitting for a few minutes prior to President Köhler's address.
We will return to the votes immediately following the formal sitting.
   . Mr President, I would like to propose an oral amendment to Amendment 9, to remove the reference to civil society.
The rest of the amendment will remain unchanged.
   We, the Members of the European Parliament belonging to the Austrian People’s Party, are in favour of gender equality and also of politics playing an active role in this area.
We therefore believe that having this matter handled by the planned European Human Rights Agency would send the right message and wish to reiterate our agreement to issues of gender equality being seen as an important task for the Agency, as stated in the European Parliament's resolution of 26 May 2006 on the Kinga Gal report.
We are, however, opposed to the establishment of additional independent institutions, the ultimate result of which will be the existence of new and expensive bureaucracies, and, since the financial issues have been left quite unresolved, reject the planned unspecified financial obligations to the tune of some EUR 52 million.
   The EU has too many authorities and agencies.
In spite of that, I am voting in favour of this institute being set up.
Gender equality is a disaster, symbolised in particular by outdated rules governing parental leave, the complete lack of gender education, very poor legislation and the fact that 83% of top positions are occupied by men.
It may be worth spending a few million euros on trying to improve this situation a little with the help of an institute designed to supplement the one that already exists to combat discrimination against minorities.
It may actually make sense to have an institute to combat discrimination against the majority, who are women.
   .
The EPLP welcomes close coordination of Member States in negotiations inside the IMF.
It believes that, in the absence of full recognition of any EU representative bloc, with delegatory powers agreed by Member States, individual EU Member States should continue to represent themselves inside the IMF.
This is in line with many other international bodies such as the UN.
There are many key issues, such as development issues, which rely upon many voices at the table to get a point of view across.
Reducing the EU's voice to one may, in certain circumstances, have an explicit effect on the weight of international opinion.
   In the main, we Swedish Social Democrats support Mr Hutchinson’s report, but we take the following view of relocation.
We do not believe that EU resources should be used for moving production because, in practice, this means that unemployment is moved around and that employees in different regions are pitted against each other.
We do not, however, believe that all relocation is wrong as a matter of course.
It must be possible to relocate industries if these are to be developed.
An increased level of knowledge and skills in a region or country may give rise to a need for relocations if it is to be possible to develop the region.
   . The VVD delegation felt it should vote against the Hutchinson report on relocation in the context of regional development, because this report openly supports the Commission proposal to set up a globalisation fund, to which the VVD is strongly opposed, on the grounds that this form of state intervention runs counter to the internal market.
Social policy is a matter to be addressed by the Member States themselves.
What is more, there is already a European system that provides for the possibilities to retrain workers, in that the existing European structural funds give the Member States the financial leg room to (re)train their people.
The Hutchinson report also contains a number of unnecessary and interfering bureaucratic provisions that curtail the freedom of establishment and cause the internal market to lose its momentum.
   . – I voted in favour of the report on a European Information Society for growth and employment because I believe that access to information and communication technologies is a prerequisite for economic development and social progress.
The use of these technologies affects practically all of the technical, administrative, commercial, cultural, social and health sectors, among others.
It is imperative that all the inhabitants of the European Union have equal opportunities when it comes to accessing these technologies, and this at a cost that corresponds to standard market prices.
I welcome the idea of combating the digital divide, and it is worth pointing out just how much the European Union has missed out by not applying a coherent policy with regard to the licences of the third generation of mobile telephones – the UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecom System) – which were sold at auction by the Member States in appalling conditions given the possibilities that this technology offered in terms of political coherence.
This mistake cannot be repeated.
I wholeheartedly support the need to invest in research and innovation in these technologies, which are important catalysts of competitiveness, growth and employment.
   .
I support the main thrust of the Paasilinna report and I fully recognise the significant contribution that ICTs can make towards the realisation of the Lisbon goals.
However, I oppose the creation of a common consolidated corporate tax as I believe the principle of subsidiarity should apply and decisions in relation to taxation should be retained at national level.
   The next item is the oral question by Enrique Barón Crespo, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, to the Commission, on the state of the European footwear sector one year after liberalisation (O-0005/2006 B6-0007/2006).
   . – Mr President, I should like to express my sympathy to Commissioner Mandelson.
Commissioner, you have got an impossible job.
How can 25 countries have one single trade policy? One size does not fit all, whether it is trade policy or shoe sizes.
You have also got the problem that you yourself are a free trader, a globalist, a moderniser.
You recognise what is going on in the world, but you are battling against the revived economic nationalism that exists within this European Union.
You simply cannot do your job and you are overseeing a regime that is laced with protectionism and sheer hypocrisy as we, of course, subsidise our own agriculture and will keep export subsidies in place until 2013.
But, in line with what John Blundell, the Director-General of the IEA, said just the other day: do you recognise that the overwhelming majority of British businesses now want British withdrawal from the common commercial policy and for us to get back to running our own trade policy? Do you recognise that?
   I welcome the Commission’s diligence in listening to the demands of small and medium-sized European enterprises worried by the increase in imports from non-EU countries, and the latest proposal for compensatory anti-dumping duties on leather shoes, against China and Vietnam.
I believe, however, that the measures put forward are still totally inadequate given the severity of the issue.
The duties proposed are inadequate because they are too low and therefore ineffective.
The phasing-in period (six months) is inadequate, since it is a procedure that is too feeble for such a serious case of dumping.
The exclusion of non-professional sports shoes and children’s shoes (which can also include women’s shoes) is also unacceptable.
I would also point out that another fundamental request, which is the compulsory introduction of a label of origin for products entering the EU, has been dragging on for two years without the Member States being able to come to agreement.
It is also necessary to tackle the worrying increase in swap practices – in other words, anomalous movements of products with the aim of bypassing more stringent customs controls (imports from Belgium have increased by an amount of 17.8%, which is absolutely inexplicable).
The calls by the Commission to make innovative changes are reasonable and interesting, but they make sense only in a genuinely equitable and fair competitive environment, and the Commission has a duty to ensure that the international market is just that.
   I want to raise with the Commissioner the plight of a factory in my constituency – 'Dickies' in Midsomer Norton, near Radstock in Somerset – whose future and workforce are threatened by any adverse outcome from your services' current investigation of an anti-dumping complaint regarding protective footwear imported from China.
I have met with representatives of both management and the workforce, including trade union representatives from GMB, and they are united in stating that jobs and livelihoods are at stake should the Commission impose anti-dumping duties on this particular sector.
The imported footwear from China underpins the distribution and manufacturing sections in the Midsomer Norton plant.
Those who introduced the complaint do not manufacture generally in Europe, but source form other third countries rather than China.
I believe the investigation will find that no damage has been done to European industry by these imports from China and in fact the plants concerned, most of which have applied for market economy status, have not engaged in dumping.
Stop this threatened tax on protection, relieve people's understandable concerns and close the file as soon as possible.
   The next item is the report (A6-0049/2006) by Adeline Hazan, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on evaluation of the European arrest warrant (2005/2175(INI))
   . Mr President, I endorse this measure to fight terrorism more effectively.
In the 2002 debate, I argued that only offences for which a European, or international, definition existed should be put on the list.
The current list of offences is too broad, and that may result in legal uncertainty and discrimination.
Member States are therefore seizing every opportunity to apply the criterion of double criminality.
Mrs Hazan is right in urging the Council to ensure that this double criminality be abolished.
Initially, she even asked for the list of offences to be extended – a request that the Commission rejected.
Given the present indicators, this was not at all timely.
It is preferable to follow the developments in the next two years from a close range.
I expect that, if anything, an assessment will need to lead to the present list being cut back.
The list can only be extended whilst guaranteeing legal certainty if all specified offences are defined at European level.
It would, however, be undesirable, for criminal law to be harmonised surreptitiously on the back of this decision.
   I am slightly disappointed in the answer to the question.
Our policy on development aid focuses on good governance and respect for human rights and it certainly does not seem to be the case here.
If you look at the fact that we gave approximately EUR 900 million to Ethiopia between 2002 and 2005, we do not seem to be getting any respect for human rights in that country.
A lot of talking is going on, but there is very little action.
I would like to raise the specific case of Berhanu Nega, the elected Mayor of Addis Ababa.
What is happening to him and has that case been raised by the Council?
   Mr President, as pointed out in the question, EU companies are contributing to infrastructural projects in occupied territory.
These are projects clearly contrary to international law and international humanitarian legislation.
They include, for example, the tramline link with settlements and the new railway to Jerusalem crossing the occupied West Bank.
The French company Connex is involved in such construction projects.
What does the Council of Ministers think about the fact that EU companies are participating in these activities that are contrary to international law?
   – I am much obliged to the President-in-Office for her comprehensive answer.
I should like to put a supplementary question relating to the European Constitution.
Part II of the Constitution provides that the product of the work of the then Fundamental Rights Convention is intended, as it were, to supplement and also, to a certain extent, to reinforce the provisions of Article 6 of the present Treaty.
Can we envisage its implementation, as already addressed by the Commission and Parliament, by the Council, too, and could that improve the situation as a whole?
   . – Mr President, the state of emergency declared by the President of the Philippines on 24 February of this year was lifted – as you know – one week later, on Friday, 3 March.
Both the EU Presidency, which had come to an agreement beforehand with the local Heads of Mission in Manila, and the EU Troika, which was in Manila from 28 February to 4 March for the ASEAN Regional Forum Intersessional Support Group meeting on Confidence Building Measures and Preventive Diplomacy, verbally expressed the EU’s concern about the recent development at meetings in the Philippines Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 1 March.
In addition, they called for the rule of law, the right to due process and human rights to be fully respected, and for the prompt lifting of the state of emergency; which, as I have said, was then indeed lifted, on 3 March.
   My question, Question No 8, also deals with xenophobia.
Ministers go on here with very long replies.
Is it not possible, out of courtesy to Members, to take questions together when they relate to the same subject?
I come here every month to table questions but they are never reached.
We reach a very small number of questions, and answers are allowed to go on forever.
The very next question in my name addresses the issue of xenophobia and I do not know why it was not taken together with Question No 7.
   – Madam President, I have actually answered Questions Nos 7 and 8 by Sarah Ludford and Gay Mitchell together, but I of course welcome supplementary questions.
   The next item is questions to the Commission (B6-0013/2006).
The budget allocated by the Commission for the Trans Crime project is only sufficient for the EU-15.
Since most large-scale organised crime originates from outside the EU to the east and south-east, would it not be better to expand the project’s budget to allow for all 25 EU Member States to participate?
   .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the project currently under way will finish in April 2006, in a few weeks’ time; the next project has already started and will finish during the course of the year.
We can therefore confirm that this year we will have up-to-date statistics, both for the Member States who were members before 2004, and later, by the end of the year, for all the other Member States.
   . Throughout history governments and central banks have adopted different and radical measures.
For instance, in the United States interest rates were raised suddenly to 17% and the additional money supply was then really pressured down.
But, at this stage, the change of interest rate is quite modest in the Central Bank.
It is in accordance with the forecasts, economic considerations and outlooks.
We do not intervene in those policies.
In planning the new series of programmes (Culture 2010, Lifelong Learning 2007-2013, Education and Training 2010 and Youth in Action 2007-2013), what practical steps and what measures to simplify the procedure and eliminate bureaucracy will the Commission take to use the new opportunities for education and training which are designed to promote the full intellectual and scientific development of young people and to enable them to acquire the necessary resources and vocational qualifications while, at the same time, strengthening their sense of belonging to Europe, so that they can contribute to the economic, social and political life of the EU?
   . Thank you very much for the additional question.
I listened with great interest, if only via a broadcast, to the speech of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, as he talked enthusiastically about education, young people and the ERASMUS programme.
I think this is the proper attitude for a Head of State and European citizen who believes that through education and mobility we can achieve much more in the economic, social, cultural and political fields.
I therefore strongly believe that the new programmes for voluntary groups and young people in the field of education, as well as culture, should be enhanced in quantitative and qualitative terms, as they are of such importance both to individuals and to the Community as a whole.
The situation is now chiefly in the hands of the partners discussing the financial perspective, but I believe that we are passing a very timely message to the country holding the presidency, to Parliament, to the Commission and to the entire enlarged European Union.
I am particularly grateful for the ongoing support of this House in respect of EU educational programmes.
This is much needed .
   – Commissioner, in principle, it is good that the Commission is taking initiatives in the field of entrepreneurship, such as the CIP, and also here.
After all, jobs only arise where something is being offered for sale.
Does the Commissioner envisage any prospect of these initiatives being presented to a rather wider public, including as part of the Commission’s public-relations activities together with Commissioner Wallström?
   You are right, of course, Commissioner: Questions Nos 50 and 51 should be taken together, as the subjects are interconnected.
There are also very large numbers of Members who are interested in this subject.
First of all, however, I shall give the floor to the two authors for their supplementary questions.
   Mr Kallas, thank you for your reply.
Since option B clearly seems better than option A from many points of view, I wonder whether you are now able to rule out the idea of the Commission raising a costs issue?
Specifically, can you say that the issue of a slight increase in costs will not lead the Commission to block the option which of the two appears to be by far the better?
   Mr Kallas, if option A, to which reference has been made of the two under consideration, namely the option that provides for a transfer of sections, were adopted, would there be a risk that many families would have their children in different schools?
Given that, from the data disseminated within the , it appears that the demographic increases in some sections, such as the Italian section, will be greater over the next few years than that of many other nationalities, is this not a factor that should lead the Commission to choose option B from among the alternatives cited?
   Mr Kallas, I return to the same issue: criterion F, of those adopted in October, stipulates that if a section exists in more than one school then it must be located in schools on the outskirts and in central schools.
I would like to make it even clearer: if option A put forward by the were chosen, the Italian section would be the only one to be penalised by being located in two schools on the outskirts: Uccle and Laeken.
Do you not consider, Mr Kallas, that the aforesaid option A is discriminatory in respect of Italian pupils? I ask you therefore to make an undertaking on this point, by rejecting option A and adopting option B.
   This question is not the only one on the subject; there are also Questions Nos 55 and 56.
If the honourable Members are in agreement, we can take these questions together.
First of all, however, I should like to give the floor to the author of the question, Mr Medina Ortega, for a supplementary question.
   Mr Rehn, you have already partly answered my question, which deals with the problem of pending adoption cases; on the basis of calls made by the European Parliament in various resolutions, a group of experts has been set up to examine the suspended cases on an individual basis.
I would like to know if there is any news available on the timetable with which the requests are being dealt with and thus if we will have information on the results of the work achieved to date by this group.
   . We are in regular contact with the Romanian authorities, and as a response to the honourable Member I would say that the Romanian authorities are on track concerning the solution of pending petitions for adoption, filed before entry into force of the new law on 1 January 2005.
The Romanian authorities have established a working party which should finalise its work on 31 March, and the Commission is committed to a close follow-up on this issue.
We will report to the Council and Parliament on this issue in our comprehensive monitoring report which will be adopted, as scheduled, on 16 May.
Concerning the other elements of your question, the 82 000 children currently under social protection, residential care, foster care or placement in enlarged families are benefiting from a child protection structure in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and this is also the case for access to health care and education.
In light of the Commission’s Comprehensive Monitoring Report on the readiness of Romania to accede to the European Union in 2007, which notes the Commission’s concerns relating to Romania’s lack of progress in certain areas in the field of child protection, as well as in the disabled and mental health care system, could the Commission specify how much weight it attaches to these issues in its ongoing negotiations with the Romanian authorities?
Furthermore, does the Commission feel that sufficient progress has been made and will continue to be made to allow Romania to accede to the European Union in 2007?
   The next item is the report (A6-0028/2006) by Mrs Bauer, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on social protection and social inclusion (2005/2097(INI)).
   – Mr President, the first joint report by the European Commission on social protection and social inclusion is already an old text which was written in January 2005 and which needs to be examined together both with the conclusions of the Presidency of the European Council and the interim report on the Lisbon Strategy.
The Bauer report is a carefully constructed text and for that I congratulate its rapporteur.
It is divided methodically and presents all aspects of the urgent need for the central objective of the Lisbon Strategy to continue to be a drastic reduction in poverty and social exclusion by 2010.
The two rounds of the open method of coordination on social integration at the level of the 15 and, since 2004, the 25 Member States have demonstrated that the rationalisation of the open method of coordination needs to be safeguarded in social protection and in social integration.
Certainly, economic growth and increased employment are the means by which higher levels of social cohesion will be achieved, in conjunction with effective systems of education and training.
From this point of view, the Bauer reports reminds us that measures need to be taken which aim to prevent early departure from education and training and help students who graduate with poor qualifications in particular to move into school and the job market.
Particular mention is made of investment in education and lifelong learning, in that participation is stagnant, which is why private initiative is also called on to participate in this.
It is a very strong means of combating poverty and social exclusion.
Attention also needs to be paid to eliminating child poverty and that is why the rapporteur, Mrs Bauer, quite rightly emphasises that the intergenerational inheritance of poverty needs to be addressed by speeding up the Commission's work with a Children's Charter, the objective of which will be to uphold their rights.
   Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that today’s debate on the subject of social protection and social inclusion is highly pertinent, since although there was a 3% decline in the level of relative poverty in the years 1995–2000, the level of 15% is undoubtedly alarming.
I fear that, in view of the numbers and the current situation, it will not be possible to eliminate poverty and the social exclusion it produces by 2010.
These phenomena are the result of structural changes that accompany the social and economic development of our society.
There are changes on the labour market, technological changes in society, demographic changes, ethnic diversity, changes in the make-up of households and the redefinition of the roles of men and women.
Assistance must therefore be aimed primarily at the groups most under threat, the unemployed, single-parent families, the elderly, those living alone, families with a number of dependents, ethnic minorities and disabled people.
The fact that poverty often has an impact on children too is in my view extremely sad and alarming.
Of all the key political priorities for solving issues of poverty and social exclusion, I would emphasise education.
The issue is to ensure the right level of education, a smooth transition from educational institutions to the workplace and the integration of disadvantaged groups into the education system through the use of e-learning.
Education is not just school, it is a targeted system of lifelong learning.
The fulfilment of these and other priorities requires financial resources, however.
The new Member States in particular are not able to make sufficient use of the financial instrument for this area, which is the European Social Fund.
I therefore call on the new Member States, especially the Czech Republic, to do as much as they can to ease the bureaucratic burden on applicants in respect of the recently drafted programme documents for the period 2007–2013.
I would like to conclude by thanking Mrs Bauer for a fine report.
   – I would like to thank Mrs Bauer for her skilfully prepared report.
However, it would be better if we could see a system, showing which priorities need our attention first.
In my opinion, the most important priority is the child, as he/she is the beginning, and an adult is only the consequence of the upbringing of that child.
If children do not attend school, they will not have jobs to go to.
If children are constantly hungry, they will begin to beg and even steal.
If children experience violence or are sexually abused, once grown up, they will become violent themselves.
If children have no parents or are separated from them, then the street will be their home.
All the cases mentioned are a splendid pretext for the criminal world to give refuge to such children and to bring them up to be offenders.
Such children will not enter the job market, as they can only do those things which are unsuitable for the job market.
Therefore, the basic priority ought to be the eradication of the causes which make children unsuitable for the job market.
If we fail to eradicate the causes, then the other measures named in the report will only be a battle with the consequences.
   The next item is the report (A6-0058/2006) by Mr Grech, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the guidelines for the 2007 budget procedure – Sections II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII(A) and VIII(B) and on the European Parliament’s preliminary draft estimates (Section I) for the 2007 budget procedure
Section I – European Parliament
Section II – Council
Section IV – Court of Justice
Section V – Court of Auditors
Section VI – European Economic and Social Committee
Section VII – Committee of the Regions
Section VIII(A) – European Ombudsman
Section VIII(B) – European Data Protection Supervisor (2006/2021 (BUD)).
   . Mr President, first I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Grech, for his excellent proposal and the agreeable levels of cooperation we were able to achieve during discussion of the report.
Mr President, Parliament’s budget has to be dealt with effectively, responsibly and credibly.
This is conditional on several factors.
Firstly, we have to stop talking about an annual 20% increase or ceiling.
We should be talking about and implementing only a budget based on actual needs.
We must always consider our accountability to the taxpayer.
This will cultivate the credibility expected of Parliament.
One important example of this is information policy.
We should not embark on ambitious projects, such as our own television channels, but instead we should always ensure that the political groups are actively involved in all of Parliament’s fields of information.
We must also plan all the information we give out well beforehand in order to determine the costs of projects and the personnel needs involved.
The best example of the provision of information is visitor groups, and now we must really make haste to ensure that the EUR 5 million which was decided on last year is made use of as quickly as possible.
I would furthermore like to mention one amendment connected with Parliament’s day nursery.
This perhaps does not sound like a very politically important issue, but the issue of how we treat employees with children is very important from the point of view of the status of Parliament as an employer.
This is a question of equality more than anything else, and we cannot punish single parents and women who have children and who wish to work in Parliament.
For this reason, a nursery should be maintained as close to Parliament and public transport services as possible.
The proposal that has just been made to stop using the Eastman Nursery is obviously very alarming, and I hope that agreement can be reached on adopting this amendment.
   – Mr President, in a parliamentary democracy, people’s representatives can, must, should and may set an example.
If so many of us are now forced to require the people in our countries to make sacrifices, this can only function, in the spirit of democracy, if we, too, make sacrifices.
Reducing Parliament’s budget from EUR 1.2 or 1.3 billion to under EUR 1 billion is the way to achieve credibility.
To make a couple of suggestions, the many Members who have promised to claim only those travel expenses actually incurred from now on should pay back the surplus.
In 2004, just 37 Members accounted for a ludicrous EUR 234 000.
We know that EUR 26 million are squandered because of incorrect use of interpreting services.
The many minutes of needless silence here cost further millions, and so it goes on.
EUR 100 million a year have been spent on something or other, and so we look for something to enter it against.
Let us have an end to this.
We would have no problem at all in saving the EUR 300 million; and in so doing we would not only spare ourselves negative headlines in the international press, but also earn ourselves positive ones.
I am saying this as a pro-European.
You will wake up again tomorrow to read something you call scandalous, but no, it is what is happening here that is scandalous.
I am sorry, but Europe cannot progress unless savings are made right here, at the top, at long last.
   The next item is the report by Ingeborg Gräßle, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002 on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (COM(2005)0181 – C6-0234/2005 – 2005/0090(CNS)) (A6-0057/2006).
   . Mr President, as I take the floor in the debate on Mrs Gräßle’s report on the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Community, I should like to draw the attention of the House to the following issues.
Firstly, the European Commission believes that after three years’ operation of the Financial Regulation there is no need to change its structure or the fundamental principles and concepts it contains.
Secondly, the Commission does, however, propose a whole series of changes affecting fundamental budget principles and the validation of claims amongst other issues.
According to the proposal, the Community’s claims are to be dealt with by the Member States in the same way as national financial claims.
In addition, the proposal sets a five-year period for them to extinguish.
This is to apply to both public procurement and contracts.
These provisions incorporate the changes required to adjust to the new Community directive adopted in 2004 concerning public procurement and grants.
The aim is to simplify provisions on controls and guarantees.
The rapporteur proposes a whole series of amendments to the regulation amended by the European Commission.
The changes are intended to make implementation of the Union’s budget easier and to facilitate access to budget funds by the beneficiaries.
I support most of these amendments and earnestly hope that the Financial Regulation, as amended by the European Commission and Parliament, will enable funds set aside in the 2007-2013 Financial Perspective to be distributed in a more efficient and transparent manner than has been the case to date.
This will be particularly important for the new Member States who are due to receive several times more funding for 2007-2013 than they have in the past.
As I conclude, I should like to thank Mrs Gräßle for a good report.
   The revision of the Community’s ‘financial bible’ affects not only the institutional framework of the European Union but also its citizens.
The rapporteur, Mrs Grässle, has done an excellent job in dealing with the Commission’s draft, and we now have an excellent proposal before us.
I am going to focus on those points that I find most substantive.
We must clearly define the tasks and joint responsibilities of the Member States regarding management of the Community’s financial resources.
In respect of structural funds, and in the interest of transparency, reliability, efficiency and the good reputation of the European Union in the eyes of its citizens, we must put in place transparent and expeditious administrative procedures with clearly defined responsibilities for the individual actors.
The same applies to public procurement.
Ambiguities and unnecessary procedural delays often occur in this area as well.
As a former mayor, I have had negative personal experiences in this respect.
I believe that by approving this document we will contribute to the better functioning of the financial system in the European Union and thus make the activities of the EU easier for its citizens to comprehend.
   The next item is the report by Seán Ó Neachtain, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on more environmentally friendly fishing methods (2004/2199(INI)) (A6-0019/2006).
   Mr Martin, of what does your point of order consist?
   Mr President, I made the observation and expressed the wish that you should please try to get here on time.
Your predecessor Mr Cox saved the taxpayers hundreds of thousands of Euro by doing so.
The same applies to the committees.
This wastes EUR 12 million a year.
We cannot then say that we have no money for important social projects.
   Mr Martin, that is not a point of order.
I would like to remind you that the time you are wasting also costs the tax-payer money.
   Mr Winkler, forgive me, but there is usually no limit to the time that the Council and the Commission can speak, but this morning we have timetable problems due to the time we took up during the last debate.
I would ask you, if you can, to limit your speaking time as well so that the Members can speak.
I would be grateful.
   Mr President, the report from the high level group chaired by Wim Kok provides a realistic description of the state of the EU economy, which faces the threat of marginalisation in relation to the Asian and American markets.
The global market is benevolent towards economic entities that are efficient, competitive and which offer cheap, good quality products and services.
The direct involvement of Member States and parliaments in implementation programmes can be counted as one of the successes of activities aimed at pursuing the Lisbon Strategy.
Action related to the energy security programme may also create better, stable conditions for economic development.
The fact that a large group of people is taking part in the implementation of the strategy may also give rise to optimism.
The problem lies in the effectiveness of the actions and the resistance shown towards them.
These actions include the creation of an internal market, a labour market, the right conditions for restructuring and the creation of businesses and the growth of innovation, while simultaneously doing away with unemployment and increasing wages.
We need a consensus between political groups, trade unions and employers.
There are particularly significant obstacles to the process of restructuring, organising of the agricultural market and limiting agricultural production costs.
The lack of viability in some production sectors means that large numbers of holdings are facing liquidation and that there is an increase in unemployment and unused land.
This is why it is vital to take rapid action to establish an agricultural production system with a guaranteed market, such as bio-fuels and biomass.
We need a multi-annual programme to adapt farming to new market conditions.
The process of scrapping protectionism, which does not create but only decreases added value and increases social costs, faces large obstacles.
Finally, I would like to mention an optimistic quote from the German President, ‘We should make challenges into opportunities for success’.
I think this is something we can achieve.
   Mr President, each year in March, we hold debates in preparation for the spring summit, and since 2001, we have discussed why the Lisbon process fails to meet the prescribed goals.
To that question, the Kok report, back in 2004, gave an unambiguous response: the Member States must shoulder their responsibility and set down to the task of reforming their economies and their welfare state, thereby making room for sustainable growth and employment.
Now that economic growth is back on the cards, the necessary reforms are at risk of being shelved, but growth alone is insufficient to keep our social model intact.
Could the Commissioner indicate what the Commission intends to do to avert this danger and implement the conclusions of the Kok report? I hope that the period of reflection will also be discussed, for that is desperately needed.
It appears that Europe’s elite is unable to discuss the EU’s future without the excess baggage of a rejected constitution.
Nine months of reflection should be sufficient for a first follow-up.
   – We shall bear it in mind, Mrs Ludford.
   Mr President, it was specifically Rule 140 of the European Parliament’s Rules of Procedure to which I intended to refer.
This states that we are entitled to consult documents directly via Parliament’s internal computer system.
I should like you to review the agreement with the private company that is supposed to provide this service.
It is in both our democratic and economic interests to do so.
   . – Mr President, I ask that the vote on the legislative resolution be adjourned pursuant to Rule 53(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
   Mr President, I should like to table an amendment so as to clarify matters.
A fund designed to support workers affected by restructuring is going to be set up.
Mr Cottigny’s report refers to this as a growth adjustment fund, and I propose that, in order to avoid any confusion, we revert to the name used by the European Commission, that is to say a European globalisation adjustment fund.
   Mr President, my group would like to propose an oral amendment to this paragraph.
Our split vote concerns the deletion of the time-limit.
We would like instead to insert the words: ‘which should enter into force as soon as possible’.
This is to conform to the wording which will be proposed in the 2004 discharge report, in paragraph 55.
   Mr President, I wanted to take the floor initially to propose the withdrawal of Amendment 1, which has finally been rejected.
As regards Amendment 24, I should like to propose to our fellow Members from the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe that a word be changed via an oral amendment.
I should like to replace the term ‘education’ with ‘higher education’ because we are concerned here with cooperation between research, the private sector and higher education.
I believe I can say that I am tabling this oral amendment on behalf of Mr Lehne and Mr Lambsdorff, who is also in agreement.
   .I abstained from voting on the Grässle report aimed at reforming the Financial Regulation.
I believe that, instead of increasing the responsibility of the administrators, which would have meant having greater flexibility and clearer rules, Parliament is further adding to the complexity and bureaucracy.
All of that does not help to make Community action effective and does not result in the Union’s funds being administered better.
I do not know of any other public, and least of all private, entity in which 40% of the workforce is involved in financial management and management control.
The Union will soon have more auditors than auditees.
   . In voting for this resolution I am concerned that, in particular, the FIFA World Cup is producing a major and unacceptable increase in the trafficking of women.
In tackling those incidents, and in general, the Commission and others should ensure that the priority must be to tackle the gangs which force women into these situations, rather than 'softer options' of targeting often vulnerable women forced into sexual slavery.
   .I voted in favour of the joint motion for a resolution on the Fourth World Water Forum to be held in Mexico City from 16 to 22 March 2006 because I believe that water is one of the key elements of our fellow citizens’ well being and of world peace.
The European Union must rise to this global challenge, which consists of giving human beings access to this precious natural resource that is water.
We have a collective responsibility to monitor this issue, which affects the fundamental rights of human beings, animals and plants.
At the same time, I wonder whether the time has not come to examine whether the Union should reflect on an extensive European water policy in order to guarantee EU citizens, wherever they find themselves on EU territory, a sustainable and renewable supply of sufficient quality and quantity.
I believe that the Commission should anticipate submitting to the European Parliament and the European Council the report provided for in Article 18(1) of Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2000 establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy.
   In the report on restructuring and employment, the rapporteur, Mr Cottigny, adopts the same unfortunate attitude also present in the report on relocation in the context of regional development, which we voted on yesterday.
We voted against such economic protectionism yesterday and are doing the same today.
Once again, it is our firm view that it really is not for the state or the EU to tell companies how to engage in restructuring.
That being said, we obviously must not put our heads in the sand and pretend that the restructuring and relocation of companies does not in some cases affect people and basic social conditions in the area affected.
We support the demand for closer dialogue between the social partners where these issues are concerned, but we can counter the harmful effects of restructuring and relocation in ways other than that of preventing the private sector from developing.
Instead, we should invest our energies in improving the basic conditions in which a greater number of long-term jobs might be created by more companies.
   .This afternoon, I will be in the town of Le Syndicat in the department of Vosges.
An event is taking place there that symbolises the consequences of the policies laid down in Brussels.
The SEB group is going to close a production unit in the town, since competition from low-price Chinese imports has become intolerable.
More than 400 employees are out of a job, and that is without mentioning the subcontractors who are losing one of their main customers and who will also have to lay people off.
This is a labour market area that is devastated by unemployment.
Nevertheless, the SEB group is doing well.
Its profits are growing.
It is setting up overseas and buying up brands and so on, but it is closing down factories in France.
That is because, caught between bureaucratic and financial constraints – stemming directly or indirectly from Europe - and the unfettered global competition negotiated by the EU, it has no other option.
It is not SEB that has established the rules of the game; it is Brussels.
In an attempt to curb the logical outcome of European competition policies (restructuring, relocation and so on), the Cottigny report now proposes a list of bureaucratic measures that will not solve the problem, but rather will accentuate it and cause it to develop more quickly.
The entire rationale must be changed, starting with the cult of ‘free’ competition coupled with the proliferation of regulatory and fiscal constraints.
The job market would gain from this being done.
   . I voted for the Cottigny report on restructuring and employment.
I voted for paragraph 9, part 2, on the endowment of the globalisation and adjustment fund by businesses as this is a voluntary donation.
   – ( Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted in favour of Mrs Bauer’s report on social protection and social inclusion and I should like to ask a question to the European Council – that is, to the 25 Heads of State or Government – to which I hope they will reply: why are pensions constantly falling in value and increasingly proving inadequate for subsistence?
The reforms that the 25 Heads of State or Government are pushing through are designed to pay ever smaller pensions to our retired population.
In Italy alone, by 2050, young people will receive a pension of only one third of their final salary.
I want to send this DVD recording of my voice to the 27 Heads of State or Government, who I hope will clearly say what they intend to do.
Perhaps abolish the status of retired citizens or provide for the survival of those who have worked in the past but are now too old to do so.
   .I voted against the Grech report, because I do not agree with questioning the establishment of the European Parliament’s headquarters in Strasbourg and the establishment of Luxembourg as a place of work.
   . I am voting for the Grech report.
I voted for both parts of Article 47, because I believe there should be a statute for Members’ assistants by 2009.
   The next item is the statements from the Council and the Commission on the results of the informal Council of foreign ministers (10-11 March 2006).
   I agree with Mr Posselt's remarks, although it has come to my attention that the minister will be arriving shortly.
   Some of the issues that you have raised should be addressed to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, who is not here at the moment, whereas many of your other questions will be answered as part of the debate on the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA), which will take place in due course.
   . Mr President, due to the fact that speaking time for the Commission is tight for this debate and it would be impossible to report on such a wide scope of issues, covering all external affairs, all global issues, it was agreed that Mrs Ferrero-Waldner would deal with Iran and Palestine and the cartoon crisis when she speaks later this evening.
That is why I have concentrated on policies relating to the Western Balkans.
This is how the Commission’s contribution will be allocated, meaning that after the debate I will respond regarding the western Balkans and Mrs Ferrero-Waldner will respond on the other issues later this evening.
   – Mr President, Commissioner Rehn has described how things stand, so let us now discuss the Brok report, which has to do with enlargement, before we move on to doing everything else when Mrs Plassnik has got here.
I urge you to do it this way, or else we will be unfair to the Commissioner and the debate will not be in the proper order.
   I understand the unusual situation in which we find ourselves, but unfortunately, according to the agenda, the debate on the Brok report will take place after statements by the Council and the Commission.
   – Mr President, the problem is, of course, that certain Members who are down to speak on the Brok report are not there now and will be arriving only later on.
We can, of course, rearrange things somewhat.
Mrs Napoletano was ready to speak, and I am speaking now because I do mainly speak on the subject of the Balkans.
We can now, of course, simply combine the two, but some Members will be cross at not being able to speak to the Brok report because they were not there.
That is the problem!
   – Mr President, Mrs Plassnik, the reason why we suspended our sitting in order to wait for you was that there are things about which we are very concerned and which we wish to discuss with you.
At the time they began their presidency, the Austrians were planning Thessaloniki II, yet there is no word of it in the Salzburg statement; nor has anything more been heard about the prospect of Member State status for the Western Balkans.
The statement is a compromise, one, insubstantial though it is, that is given a critical hearing in the Balkans and was in no way a sign of encouragement, but at best invited misinterpretation.
That, at any rate, is the valuation I would place on the statement by Mr Brok, who also took part in Salzburg and who has, since Monday, been telling the German media about an end to the Balkans’ EU prospects and talking up what he calls a third way, a privileged partnership.
If Europe wants some credibility, we have to uphold the European prospect for the Balkans not only in words but also by our actions, and this is where I agree with Commissioner Rehn in what he has said.
Mr Brok, let me conclude by saying one thing, namely that a third way is precisely what the Libyan Head of State, Colonel Gaddafi, was looking for as long ago as the 1980s.
He, fortunately, failed miserably in this, and you will have the same experience.
   The next item is the report (A6-0025/2006) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on the Commission’s 2005 enlargement strategy paper (2005/2206(INI)).
   Mr President, I very much appreciate the references in Mr Brok’s report to the need to respect fundamental rights and freedoms, notably the rights of minorities in Turkey, Croatia and the western Balkan countries.
When debating the Turkish application to join the Union, I urged the Commission not to repeat the mistakes that were made in the case of the accession of my country, Latvia, in not using this process to promote the rights of minorities.
The European Free Alliance Group has called upon the European institutions to urge the Turkish Government to improve its policy on ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities.
Unfortunately, we do not see any progress here and, in particular, innocent citizens are still being killed in Kurdistan.
Two weeks ago the parents of Derwich Ferho, the prominent human rights defender and President of the Kurdish Institute based in Brussels, were killed.
Indications suggest that Turkish special forces were involved.
I am for further enlargement, but I am for enlargement based strictly on the Copenhagen criteria.
   – First of all, I would like to thank Mr Brok for his very constructive and logical report.
I am sure that if the European Union was able to formulate its position on all matters in this way, it would certainly be better supported and understood by its citizens.
I would like to speak about the section of the report which talks about Turkey.
I entirely agree that the European Union's expansion strategy has undoubtedly encouraged democratic, political and other reforms in Turkey and the other states mentioned in the resolution.
However, it is equally important to note that, and I quote, ‘while a political transition process is still underway in Turkey, in 2005 the pace of reforms has slowed and the implementation of reforms remains uneven’.
This is the exact reply I received yesterday from Commissioner Rehn to my verbal question on the implementation of the European Parliament's resolution on the start of negotiations with Turkey.
This is also indicated in the draft resolution we have debated today, that is, that the pace of reforms in Turkey in 2005 was not only insufficient, but it actually has slowed down.
This may be interpreted as Turkey's unpreparedness to carry out reforms which would bring it closer to the European Union, or perhaps even as an unwillingness to commit itself to the elementary obligations of possible membership.
I also share the regret expressed in Mr Brok's report and in the resolution over the unilateral declaration made by Turkey when signing the Additional Protocol to the Ankara Agreement.
I believe that it is necessary to remind Turkey that recognition of all European Union Member States is an indispensable component of the accession process.
True, what I am about to say is not in the report, but I am sure that the acts of genocide committed against the Armenian nation 90 years ago should be recognised by Turkey at the highest level, as this more than any other action would bear testimony to the fact that Turkey's position, even regarding these painful events of the past, is in tune with the spirit of the Copenhagen criteria.
   Mr President, the Brok report does not define anything concrete in respect of ethnic minorities.
The European Union often uses double or even triple standards when it requires and expects something completely different from two candidate states, while it hardly ever calls to account its own Member States in matters regarding ethnic minorities.
Following an armed insurrection, Albanians living in Macedonia were given administrative and even territorial autonomy of the widest extent, while in the case of Romania, the European Union does not press for territorial autonomy for the almost one million Hungarians living in Székely Land.
The European Union promises independence to Kosovo, but for Vojvodina, it does not even recommend the autonomy that had been stripped away by Milosevic.
Please support the Hungarian amendment proposals aimed at the preservation of the multi-ethnic character of Vojvodina, the protection of minorities and the widening of provincial autonomy.
Commissioner Olli Rehn knows very well that there is no solution without autonomy for Swedish-speaking Finns in Finland, and there cannot be a solution in the Balkans or for the Kurds living in Turkey, either.
   . Mr President, I fully understand the anger of Italy and Spain at what I would call German-French energy imperialism in Europe.
It is the German and French economies that pay the highest price for it.
Austria has electricity and gas prices that are 20% lower than those in Germany because it has lower grid costs and because it has more competition in its market than the German market has.
The answer to what has happened over the past weeks, Mrs Kroes and Mr Barroso, is not European champions.
European energy champions would squeeze out even more money from our major industry and consumers, and from us as citizens, and pass it on to the shareholders.
So the only answer is to have competitive markets, which have to be enforced by strong and independent regulators, strong competition authorities and full ownership unbundling.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not have a great to deal to add to what I said at the start.
I declared my support clearly, on behalf of the Council, for competition in the interests of consumers.
At the beginning of the debate, Mr Lehne requested that the Council deal with this issue. Mr Radwan made a similar appeal to the Council.
I can only say that, where an effort is required on the part of the Council, and where we have the competence, the authority, we shall of course take action, and we shall do so in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Treaties.
I should like to take this opportunity to engage, if I may, in a little self-promotion.
I should like to draw the House’s attention to an event that is being organised jointly by the Austrian and Finnish Council Presidencies, which may be of interest to those present.
On the occasion of the now traditional European Competition Day, Austria and Finland, the two Council presidencies for 2006, are holding an event entitled ‘Competition law and its surroundings – links and new trends’ in Vienna on 19 June 2006.
The main emphasis of this event will be on current trends in mergers and merger control.
Under the heading ‘Do mergers keep what they promise?’, the issue of the extent to which the Merger Regulation has brought in a new approach will be discussed on the basis of examples of a merger and the situation in an economy in transition.
We shall have the pleasure of welcoming Commissioner Kroes and also Martin Bartenstein, the Austrian Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Labour, to this event.
I can imagine that this will meet with some degree of interest.
   – It is a pity that no sooner than we take a step forward in the Barcelona Process, than something happens in the Middle East which sets back the development we would have made.
However I wish to remain focused on our theme and I wish to talk as a member of the Economic Commission of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.
I wish that both the Commission as well as the Council analyse a study which was done by the University of Manchester entitled ‘Sustainable Impact Assessment Study of the Euromed Free-Trade Area’.
We started to discuss this study in the Economic Commission of the Assembly and it gives a worrying picture of the impact of the European Union’s policy on the setting up of a free trade area in the Mediterranean.
It forecasts a rather negative effect on our partner countries in the Mediterranean who are supposed to benefit and not lose by the Barcelona Process.
Among the negative effects it mentions the possibility that in these countries there could be an increase in unemployment, a decrease in the level of wages, as well as a great impact on resources such as water and biodiversity and other environmental impacts.
Naturally the report is not telling us to halt or to dismantle the plan for the setting up of a free-trade area, but it is saying that we should take these negative effects seriously and we should take preventive measures now, before it is too late.
Therefore I wish to ask both the Commission as well as the Council to tell us what is their opinion about this study and what measures they intend to take to address any negative impact which could be brought about by the setting up of a free trade area in the Mediterranean.
For example there is the need, no doubt, that the European Union policy towards these countries should balance the commercial aspect with a more intensive cooperation in the financial, social and educational sector as well as in the environmental sector.
I conclude by appealing to both the Commission as well as to the Council to take a more active part in the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and also to reply to the questions put by the Members of Parliament.
   – The next item is statements by the Council and the Commission on the 62nd session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR, Geneva).
   .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that the motion for a resolution creating the Human Rights Council was adopted by such a resounding majority – 70 votes in favour, 4 against and 3 abstentions – would certainly give the impression that this Council will have a certain credibility.
There is no doubt that 9 May, election day for members of the Council, will be a landmark day in the emergence of the fledgling council.
On this point, I trust that candidate countries will submit their candidacies one month ahead of the vote, as the Union has requested they do.
The Council is set to meet for the first time in Geneva on 16 June, and I trust that we shall be attending the session in good numbers.
Whilst the Human Rights Council is undeniably a happy outcome of the last UN summit, it is also true that the big winner has in fact been multilateral architecture, with the creation, also in December 2005, of the Peacebuilding Committee, which is similarly set to meet soon.
The year 2006 is set to be a good one for multilateralism.
In both cases, the EU has shown its commitment to effective multilateralism.
It has also demonstrated leadership and its ability also to wield some influence in this UN reform.
I feel that we can continue down this path together.
   – The next item is the debate on the oral question by Mr Gargani to the Commission on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs on legal professions and general interest in the functioning of legal systems (O-0003/2006 – B6-0005/2006).
   – The next item is the statement by the Commission on preparations for the COP-MOP meeting on biological diversity and security (Curitiba, Brazil).
   . – Why do we need to preserve biological diversity? The answer is simple – because it is directly linked to us – people.
Man is a part of biological diversity; man affects living organisms which surround him and is affected by them himself.
However, every day, namely man destroys an unknown number of life form species, as his actions induce climate change, increase pollution of the environment and destroy the natural habitats of plants and animals.
Human activities, for which there is no analogy in nature, are usually disastrous from the point of view of biological diversity.
An assessment of available data held by various European states on the condition of bird and mammal populations and changes in their abundance shows that the long-term conservation of many of these species cannot be guaranteed without an urgent and determined change in biological protection strategy and policy.
The so-called simplified environmental protection strategy, which has previously been used, only tries to take into account the needs of those species most at risk of extinction.
Such strategy is no longer suitable.
I take a very positive view of the European Union's ambitious goal of halting the decline in biological diversity by 2010.
To realise this goal it is necessary to create a biological indicator system, which would help to assess the progress in the implementation of obligations undertaken under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
We must draw up national action plans and coordinate the collection, analysis and publication of data on an international scale.
Clearly this also requires financial investment.
Today is World Consumer Rights Day.
It is symbolic that today of all days we are discussing the conservation of biological diversity.
The ever growing promotion of consumerism, which as it has been affirmed, increases economic growth and the welfare of every person, increasingly harms the environment on a daily basis.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I simply ask that it be recorded in the Minutes that Mr Bossi, Mr Borghezio, Mr Speroni and Mr Salvini object to the entirely irregular procedure that has been followed with regard to the subject of the communication presented just now by the President.
We have not been informed of any meeting.
This decision by the Independence and Democracy Group is entirely unjustified and irregular, and therefore the communication presented this morning by the President must also be regarded as being based on an irregular and unjustified decision.
   (Mr President, I am interrupting to request a change to the Minutes.
I had omitted to sign the list of people present yesterday.
I was there, of course, as is clear from the minutes of the voting session, and, indeed, I contributed to the debate on the Cottigny report.
Thank you for noting that, Mr President.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the communication on my exclusion and that of other members of the Independence and Democracy Group, you replied that you were taking note of this matter and that it would be recorded in the Minutes.
I consider that to be an unsatisfactory reply, however.
Through the head of our delegation, Mr Borghezio, we pointed out some irregularities in the procedure of excluding Members from the group, and so I call on the presidency to verify whether they are in order.
If the presidency determines that everything is in order, then I shall consider myself no longer attached.
However, I should like the presidency to verify whether the correct procedures have been followed.
   The next item is the report (A6-0030/2006) by Mr Trakatellis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Programme of Community Action in the field of Health and Consumer Protection 2007-2013 – Health aspects [COM(2005)0115 – C6-0097/2005 – 2005/0042A(COD)].
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to congratulate my colleague, Mr Trakatellis, on his fine report.
In the Commission’s new Community action programme in the field of health and consumer protection for 2007–2013 the Commission has emphasised the European Union’s important role in reducing the number of illnesses, that is – and I would emphasise this – in the field of serious diseases.
Cardiovascular diseases, as we all know, are without a shadow of a doubt one of the main causes of death in Europe.
Each year two million European Union residents die as a direct result of these diseases.
The decisions taken by the Council during the Irish Presidency were – and continue to be – a good start in our efforts to prevent cardiovascular diseases.
I therefore believe, like many others of my colleagues here, that in this legislative document cardiovascular diseases ought definitely to be mentioned too.
We should call a spade a spade.
I would therefore like to call on my fellow Members to support Amendments 142 and 143, which make it clear what can be considered to be the main diseases in Europe, against which we must work together by putting in place prevention, screening and treatment.
Thank you, Mr President.
   – I warmly applaud the work that Mr Trakatellis, rapporteur and Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats member, has devoted to preparing this report, in which Parliament has had its say.
The citizens and healthcare professionals also welcome the new action plan before us in this debate.
Most importantly, according to the report, politicians and healthcare managers will work together to mark out the path for solving problems that cut across Member State borders.
The report paves the way for a modern strategy, especially as regards the coordination of activities, but unfortunately, after the Council radically amended the EU budget, this is not accompanied by adequate funding from European sources.
Much remains for the Union to do, and in particular those tasks that individual Member States are not capable of accomplishing themselves.
This is not only a matter of combating serious infectious diseases that cut across borders, such as AIDS and influenza, but also of combating the spread of drug addiction and lifestyle diseases.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control was set up for this very purpose, in conjunction with the national reference laboratories.
Budget cuts are not good news and are indicative of shortcomings in the priorities of the EU’s political elite and of some MEPs.
I should at this point like to highlight a further problem.
Modern medicine provides people with a longer, higher-quality life, but this comes at an ever-higher cost – some 60 to 90% of the public purse.
The higher the proportion of Community funding for healthcare services, the less responsibility individual citizens take for their health.
It is also the case that the more the state regulates, the further the law reduces personal responsibility on the part of individuals.
Evidence of this can be found in countries that experienced centrally run and completely regulated healthcare, in which decisions on patients’ health, prevention and treatment – and in turn on the cost of that treatment – were taken without the patient being involved.
Although specific reforms have been made, they have brought about a less effective system and more expensive services; old ideas and habits die hard among patients, doctors and politicians.
I should therefore like to say that programmes intended to help health service clients to be better informed, and to help system compatibility, should not under any circumstances be cut.
These resources pay for themselves many times over.
I have further qualms about the effectiveness of certain regulations – supposedly crucial to the protection of health and the environment – that we have foolishly adopted.
I fear that sometimes the aim is to please certain industrial pressure groups and not enough money is spent on the citizens’ health.
I therefore call on the Commission to devote a larger proportion of the budget to analysis based on empirical evidence.
In this way, our decision-making on regulations can be more responsible, and we can become aware of the true impact on public health, the economic cost, and in turn, the impact on the European economy.
For this reason I also support Amendment 64.
The Commission can accept Amendments 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 17, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 30, 34, 35, 36, 44, 51, 55, 59, 60, 61, 65, 66, 69, 70, 72, 78, 80, 84, 85, 86, 88, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 106, 108, 111, 113, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 126, 132, 135, 139, .
Amendments 16, 31, 32, 56, 57 and 90 can be accepted in part.
Amendments 10, 14, 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 39, 46, 50, 63, 67, 71, 73, 79, 81, 91, 110, 115, 116, 118 and 137 can be accepted subject to modifications.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments 5, 33, 47, 54, 58, 64, 68, 82, 83, 89, 95, 96, 98, 104, 105, 112, 128, 130, .
The Commission rejects mainly on grounds of split or resources Amendments 1, 2, 3, 15, 18, 19, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 48, 49, 52, 53, 62, 74, 75, 76, 77, 87, 92, 93, 94, 97, 107, 109, 114, 117, 121, 125, 127, 129, 131, 133, 134, 136, 138, 140 and .
(Amendments underlined are new amendments tabled by political groups on 8 March 2005.)
   I quite understand, Mr Rack, but I must point out that it is at the request of the rapporteur herself, who, as I understand it, cannot be here this afternoon, that we have decided to begin the debate on this report this morning.
We shall now hear from the draftsmen.
   The next item is voting time.
   That is noted, but disputes within political groups are not a subject for debate in plenary.
   I think that designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs are often helpful because, in contrast to the dominance of the WTO’s trademark giants in the global market, they boost and develop local production and trade.
I am, however, opposed to the EU’s deciding about compulsory labelling for these goods. That is a matter that, in the future too, should be voluntary.
   .
In a world of globalisation, standardisation and universal access to food, awareness of our origin, our tradition and ultimately also of our culture is a good and firm foundation on which we can build and further develop. European tradition and European origin are a unity in diversity.
And that diversity distinguishes Europe, its regions and especially its people.
The people have adapted to their regional conditions, which differ greatly.
They have given rise to traditional ways of life and traditional products. We associate quite particular ideas and expectations with traditional and geographical labels.
Today our products are traded all over the world.
However, that makes it necessary to regulate these products, which go out into the world rather as ‘ambassadors’ for a town or region. We must ensure that whatever is behind a good name continues to be good.
And we must ensure that there continues to be a link between the name of a product and its origin in a particular region.
All this must be regulated as simply as possible, but effectively.
This report serves that objective in every respect.
   We Swedish Social Democrats want to see an open EU in which solidarity is the rule and which welcomes new countries into membership on the basis of the Copenhagen criteria.
We therefore regret the fact that the report focuses too much on the EU’s own capacity for absorption, because it can give the impression that the European Parliament questions the EU’s ability to include more Member States.
The EU’s own capacity for absorption is ultimately dependent on the EU’s willingness to include more Member States.
We also view with concern the widespread inclination to exclude countries from membership on the basis of, for example, their economic situations.
   .
The European Parliamentary Labour Party supports a positive attitude towards future EU enlargement, in particular honouring commitments made to candidate and potential candidate countries. In this respect, it is inappropriate to propose other 'operational possibilities' in paragraph 10 of the resolution, as relations with neighbouring countries are clearly covered by the Accession Process and the European Neighbourhood Policy.
   Mr President, Commissioner, like many or almost all of the Members who have spoken before me, I, too, would again like to stress that it is not sensible to combine consumer protection and public health in a joint action programme.
We need two different action programmes, because a very large number of very different questions are discussed and dealt with here.
As regards consumer protection, I would like to say that it is very important – that is why I would also like to urge you to pay great attention, in Parliament’s motion, which I hope will be accepted as it stands, to the fact that we are especially supportive of consumer protection organisations in particular.
We have found that there is still some catching up to be done in the new Member States in particular, and we want to ensure that consumers there get the highest possible common standard of consumer protection, just like we do; there is still room for improvement here, too, it is not as if we were always the best.
This is a matter of great concern to us.
That is why we need to ensure that consumer protection organisations are well able to be effective on the public’s behalf. Citizens have repeatedly told us that consumer protection is what they want.
We want a Europe where the citizens, the people, are at the centre, a Europe where their rights to protection are respected.
For that reason, my Group is also particularly concerned that we should get harmonised consumer protection legislation in the field of services of general economic interest.
Where, if not in water, postal services, gas or electricity and other areas, is it important to have a minimum of harmonisation so that a high level of rights relating to access, safety, reliability, price, quality and choice is guaranteed and these forms of protection are as high as absolutely possible.
These are the things that concern our citizens, what they need and what they want.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on human rights in Moldova and in Transnistria in particular(1).
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Kazakhstan(1).
   . On 13 February, the well-known Kazakh politician and opposition leader A. Sarsenbayev was brutally murdered in Almaty, along with his driver and bodyguard. Not long ago, another opposition leader Z. Nurkadilov was found with three gunshot wounds after he accused the government of corruption and of being responsible for the killing of the freelance journalist Sharipzhanov.
The official version of the investigation suicide.
As one of the most advanced states in the region, Kazakhstan is trying to include itself among the democratic states of the world.
Moreover, it aims to chair the OSCE from 2009.
An organisation which has to ensure democracy and stability within the Community and beyond its borders.
An organisation which in December acknowledged that the presidential elections in Kazakhstan did not comply with international requirements.
We recognise that Kazakhstan's economy is growing rapidly.
Kazakhstan is a very important trade partner for the Community, but colleagues, we are not just an economic union, but also a union of values.
In foreign policy, we cannot pursue narrow economic interests and under no circumstances can we allow the violation of human rights.
President N. Nazarbayev openly admits that in the past there was no democracy in his country and says that we cannot expect it to appear overnight.
This is an attempt to assure us that there can be a controlled democracy in Kazakhstan, but essentially, it is a desire to justify an authoritarian regime from the Soviet period.
Mr President, we all know that democracy either exists or does not exist.
It cannot be controlled or partial.
   In reaffirming our support for the initiative, I must point out that, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, it is strictly forbidden to bring any incandescent or burning object into the Chamber, and so I kindly ask our fellow Member to extinguish it.
Thank you.
   Mr President, allow me to speak in my own language.
It worries me to hear a speech like the one that has just been made. I worry that, because the West and the United States have an interest in Kazakhstan – mainly because it is rich in minerals and an ally in the war against terrorism - its government might feel able to do certain things with impunity.
This is something we should be on our guard against.
Some time ago, Kazakhstan applied to become a member of the Council of Europe, and I went on a mission there.
It is true that, geographically, part of Kazakhstan is in Europe, but everybody knows that this country still has a lot to learn in terms of acquiring democratic credentials.
It is clear, moreover, that, in recent times, the political climate has deteriorated.
We know that, over a period of three months, two opposition politicians have been killed and that human rights are in one way or another being denied. We should not therefore allow Kazakhstan’s wealth and the fact that the country is an ally against terrorism to delude us into thinking that there need be no controls whatsoever on its conduct.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on impunity in Africa and in particular the case of Hissène Habré(1).
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 16 March 2006.
   Mr President, as you can imagine, the information you have given this House has provoked a lively response within our Group today.
One of the 200 members of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament is herself a victim of ETA terrorism, since her husband was murdered by ETA.
I hope you will agree to my asking my colleague Mrs Dührkop Dührkop to say a few words on behalf of our Group.
   Thank you to everybody for your reactions to ETA’s communiqué.
   Mr President, I also come from an island which had suffered almost 30 years of terrorism.
We have had a peace process in place for ten years or more.
I very much welcome the announcement today by the ETA organisation.
My criticism of it would be same criticism I have applied to the IRA in Ireland for very many years: that it was engaged in a useless, pointless, undemocratic way of seeking to pursue its objectives.
However, at the end of the day, as politicians, we have to find a way of achieving a democratic political solution to the problem.
It seems to me that the Spanish Government is to be congratulated in bringing about a situation in which a ceasefire has been announced.
It is a matter for all democrats – both in Spain and in Europe – to back the Spanish Government in taking the process forward, because if we allow organisations like ETA or the IRA to see a gap between democrats as to how peace can be built, then we will fail and they will win.
   Mr President, I had no intention of speaking following the heartfelt speech of my colleague, Mrs Dührkop, but following the speech by the Vice-President, Mr Vidal-Quadras, I just wished to say one thing, because I believe that all of us here are united in calling for European democrats to come together in order to support this process.
I just wish to say to Mr Vidal-Quadras Roca that I hope that his political party and his group will behave in the way that the Socialist Group in the European Parliament did when the People’s Party and the People's Party government were responsible for starting a negotiation process following a ceasefire that was similar to this one but which did not have the same content.
   Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to inform you that a delegation from the Danish Parliament, headed by its President, Mr Christian Mejdahl, is currently attending our sitting from the official gallery.
I have had the opportunity to hold a meeting with Mr Mejdahl and his delegation and now I would like to welcome them most warmly to our Chamber; I hope that your stay in Brussels and your visit to the European institutions are fruitful and positive.
   The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 16 March 2006 pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
   Mr Schulz, the agenda for the next sitting will be set by the next Conference of Presidents.
We take good note of the fact that you want this item to appear.
It will be discussed by the Conference of Presidents.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will be very brief; I refer to the Strasbourg part-session.
Specifically, I request an explanation of the statements by the Presidency during the Strasbourg part-session on the composition of the IND-DEM Group.
I would like to inform the Presidency that today the members of the delegation to which I belong and the members of the Polish delegation have been called to a meeting of the IND-DEM Group to be held at 2 p.m.
We would like to know, however, under what status we have been called, since the Presidency announced that the IND-DEM Group had excluded us, using a procedure that was totally incomprehensible and completely irregular.
I would just like to state that this meeting does nothing to resolve the irregularities committed by the leadership of the IND-DEM Group towards 11 Members forming the so-called minority within the group, who, perhaps not by chance, are also declaring that they are totally unconnected with the obscure events which have brought the leadership of the group to the attention of the European Court of Auditors.
   Thank you very much, Mr Poettering.
The plenum is sovereign and the appropriate action will be taken according to the support expressed, but the President must conform to the Rules of Procedure.
   Mr President, I do not have a special theme I would like to discuss with you: this still concerns Belarus.
We are now collecting 37 signatures.
I think we can proceed very early tomorrow morning with the request of our group chairmen.
I do not expect to submit a written statement on it, but the 37 signatures collected here during the sitting should be enough, and I look forward to receiving your confirmation.
   – I should like to alert my fellow esteemed colleagues who are currently calling for us to become involved as soon as possible in the situation in Belarus – some of whom are from Austria – to the fact that the EU imposed sanctions on Austria some time ago.
While Mrs Ferrero-Waldner calls for pressure to be put on Belarus, she was a member of the Schüssel Government that faced sanctions from the EU.
Please think carefully about the steps you are taking, so that you are not faced with the embarrassing prospect of having to ignore them in the future.
   Mr Cohn-Bendit, we are dealing with points of order; I would ask you not to get into the matter itself.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when I came into the Chamber just now – and I am only speaking because Mr Schulz addressed me – I thought, this is the first sitting since I have been Group Chairman in which I do not need to speak.
It has turned out differently – you made the announcement about ETA and I responded because others spoke.
When I spoke on the telephone with Mr Schulz, on his initiative, at five minutes to three or five minutes to two – I do not exactly remember – I certainly had no idea that there would be a debate on Belarus here today.
Please believe me, I am putting my cards on the table, when I say that if I had wanted to instigate such a debate I would have spoken not only to Mr Schulz, but also to Mr Watson, Mr Cohn-Bendit, Mrs Frassoni, Mr Wuertz, Mr Cawley, to everybody.
I came into the Chamber not knowing about this debate, heard my fellow Members’ reactions and thought I would show my good will by suggesting that we debate in the morning.
I still believe that is a good suggestion.
   Alright, let us adapt the Rules of Procedure, but we must respect them, because if we do not respect them today on the grounds that we think a Rule is nothing but an irritating bit of bureaucracy, then tomorrow others may take the same line and we will end up without any Rules at all.
So if a request is presented this afternoon signed by 37 Members or by a political group – as the Rules of Procedure stipulate – the debate on Belarus will take place tomorrow.
But please conform to the procedures laid down.
(1)
   Before giving the floor to the Members who are speaking on behalf of the groups, I would like to inform the House that the Foreign Affairs Minister of Peru, Mr Maúrtua de Romaña, is in the diplomatic gallery.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Peruvian Government for the wonderful way it helped us in holding the Latin America and Caribbean Conference in Lima, in June last year.
All of the Members of this House who took part in that Conference — in particular Vice-President dos Santos — talked about how well they were treated and about the excellent organisation.
Please pass on our thanks to the government of your country, Minister.
   .
In order to reduce the gulf between the European Union’s Lisbon targets and reality, the Commission’s programme of work for 2007 needs to be ambitious.
Action by the Commission ought to cover all spheres, and at the same time it should choose as its priorities those initiatives that are important not only in one specific sector but also for the overall development of the European Union.
In the Commission’s programme, the launching of the space programme and the regular evaluation of strategy were among the most important measures mentioned for the implementation of the Lisbon Strategy in 2007.
While not contesting the importance of these measures, I believe that specific measures to foster the development of small and medium-sized enterprises and the development of the services sector would offer broader support to the Lisbon process, but such measures were not included in the list.
Although the development of small and medium-sized enterprises appears among the priorities listed, this priority is not reflected at all in the list of principal actions.
It is the development of this sector, however, that can actually make the most rapid contribution to achieving the goals of employment and growth.
Although the development of the services sector is and remains one of the main instruments for implementing the Lisbon Strategy in the Commission’s strategy for 2007, no specific measures for the development of the services sector are mentioned.
We hope that it was not as a result of a deliberate move, but of a failure to coordinate the strategy established with operational measures, that the reform of the services sector was not included in the Commission’s policy strategy for 2006.
The adoption of the Services Directive in 2007 will also clear the way for new initiatives by the European Commission in sectors that have been identified for liberalisation of services.
The creation of one-stop agencies would be one specific move in this direction.
2007 will be decisive for debates about the future of the European Union.
One of the main criteria according to which the European public will judge the European Union’s viability and future prospects in 2007 will be the concrete results of action taken by the European Union’s institutions, including the Commission.
This specificity ought, however, to be already apparent in the setting out of priorities and tasks, by defining the measures planned for 2007 not only in terms of continuing work already begun but also in terms of achieving concrete results.
   Mr President, President Barroso’s quotation from Montesquieu prompted me to search the annual policy strategy for a clue as to what the Commission proposes to do with the Constitution.
There are no clues.
A policy strategy that fails to address the principal political blockage in front of the Union should be assessed fairly critically.
Without the Constitution, the Union will fail to have the capacity to act to fulfil the Commission’s ambitions for it.
Public opinion will remain sceptical about the European project and, without the support of public opinion, the Commission will lack the necessary clout inside the Council.
The classical function of the Commission would be to broker an agreement between the warring partners in a crisis.
I hope that Mr Barroso, when he addresses the parliamentary forum on 9 May, will be able to lay out a comprehensive Commission strategy towards finding a way out of the crisis.
For all the value we find in Plan D, the best way to boost trust through action will be to salvage the Constitution.
Perhaps it is now time for Plan B.
   – Mr President, Mr Barroso's intentions are certainly innocent.
However, I fear that you will not be able to implement them, precisely because you do not have the money.
There is no way, nor is your policy a policy which will allow Europe to flourish.
There is not one, not one European citizen who this year will be better off financially than last year.
Factories are leaving Europe for other countries.
Women buy handbags with French labels which are made in Morocco.
Your leather jacket is by a European designer, but it was made in Turkey.
What does this mean? It means increased unemployment.
It means increased redundancies.
It means that we are all becoming hostages to industry, which imposes policies like those in France, a policy which you did not rebut.
It therefore means a worse life.
It means increased prices.
Nothing of all that you have in mind can be creative unless we get off the hook of the Maastricht indicators.
Unless Maastricht is revised, Europe will develop into a poor neighbourhood.
   Mr President, when I spoke on the Commission’s policy strategy at the end of last year, I commented on the fact that we had no sense whatsoever of priorities in that strategy.
We have 62 priorities in this splendid new document.
I also see that we have now proceeded from ‘moving up a gear’ to ‘boosting trust through action’.
I am not sure whether Mrs Wallström is still there, and I do not know whether she is responsible for inventing these wonderful phrases, but we need a much more structured and practical strategy approach from the Commission than these gimmicky words.
I also observe in here, Mr Barroso, that you are going to ‘take delivery up to cruising speed’!
Well frankly, that means that at the moment things are proceeding at a walking pace.
We want some take-off from the Commission, not just cruising along.
The problem with your strategy is not that we are short of new ideas or new initiatives, but we are actually short of real delivery of the policies that are going to create the jobs and growth of which you are so fond.
Where is there a sense in here that you are putting some real resources and priorities into sorting out the problems of the internal market?
There is a little paragraph in here that you are going to streamline the regulatory approach, that is great, but where is it in your priority actions?
You used a great phrase – and I applaud you for it – about putting out the red carpet for small enterprises.
There is not one single priority action, President Barroso, that mentions small enterprises.
So, it is very welcome that we are having a debate about this, but we need better-quality material; we need material that is much more focused on real strategy and resource utilisation, rather than on these gimmicky words that Mrs Wallström appears to be giving you.
We want something with a real sense that you are putting priorities on delivering the real foundations of the European Union and making the internal market work better, and not just coming out with a whole set of uncosted priorities that look good on paper but in respect of which there is no idea as to whether they are really going to work in practice.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, today I should like to concentrate on some of Europe's priorities for 2007 from the perspective of European enlargement.
It can now be said that the 2004 enlargement has been a great success for Europe, from a political, security, economic and social point of view, and I am sure that 2007 will see that success continue.
In 2007, the first new Member States are set to enter the euro zone.
In this regard, I should like to challenge the Commission to be proactive in helping those countries to prepare for the arrival of the euro, and strictly to monitor compliance with entry requirements, the so-called Maastricht criteria.
I am convinced that meeting the criteria, whether of Maastricht or of the Stability and Growth Pact, is crucial to preserving the political, financial and community credibility of the single European currency.
In 2007, the new Member States of Central and Eastern Europe will also become part of the enlarged Schengen area.
The scrapping of internal border controls between Member States, enabling genuine freedom of movement within the Union should under no circumstances mean enabling freedom of movement for all manner of criminality, illegal migration, and so forth.
The fight against crime and violence in Europe, along with the launch of the second generation of the Schengen system should, to my mind, form part of the EU's clear and practical priorities for 2007.
Lastly, 2007 should also be the year of the next enlargement, with the accession to the Union of Romania and Bulgaria.
In this regard, I should like to call on the Commission to help these two countries to prepare for accession and to ensure that they fulfil their entry requirements in every respect.
Romania and Bulgaria must be as properly prepared for accession as were the 10 accession countries in 2004.
I believe that this is extremely important for the credibility of future enlargements and if the European public is to accept this process.
   I would like to inform Members that Mr Barroso, President of the Commission, is obliged to leave and has therefore requested permission to bring forward his speech in order to furnish some replies and clarifications.
I give him the floor now, and immediately after his speech we shall resume the debate.
   – The next item is the oral question to the Council (O-0007/2006 – B6-0009/2006) by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the security of energy supply.
   . Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner Piebalgs, ladies and gentlemen, for several months we have been in the middle of a new strategic debate.
We see the conflict with Iran, and the war in Iraq, but we also see conflict with OPEC countries where we would not have thought that such developments would occur.
We see that China is making strategic purchases on the energy markets; we see that Russia is moving away from a continuous, reliable policy; and we see that world markets are undergoing very dynamic developments.
We therefore need to stand by our goals, the goals of the Lisbon Agenda.
We want growth and employment.
Therefore, energy policy – and I should like to thank Commissioner Piebalgs for putting the focus on energy efficiency – is a top priority.
This could open up whole new areas of business to our small and medium-sized enterprises.
It creates jobs in craft trades, and small business cycles that give us energy security.
On the other hand, we must not forget the competitiveness of our energy industry.
In this respect, I call in particular on the Commission to look closely into the impact of the Kyoto Protocol post-2012 on our energy-intensive primary industries, such as the steel and aluminium industry and many other sectors, and on our generation of energy.
I think that we also need to look at the environmental aspects of sustainability, with particular reference to competitiveness.
I call on the Commission and Mr Barroso to make use of the various services of the Commission – be it with regard to communications strategy, taxation policy, external economic relations, foreign policy, competition policy or environmental policy – in taking on this important task, which is hugely significant for our future in Europe.
   . Mr President, the Heads of State or Government will meet tomorrow for an energy summit.
Will they discuss energy?
I fear they will not; tomorrow Mr Berlusconi will put on a big show, and Enel will announce that it is going to take over Suez.
In other words, it will be a show for the Italian elections, and Mr Villepin and President Chirac will use the whole affair to paint themselves once again as national heroes in a French government that is falling apart.
These are all just smoke bombs over the internal market.
What is the real issue in the EU's internal market? As it currently operates, it is the biggest economic mistake that Europe has ever experienced.
Enel fleeces Italian consumers, Endesa fleeces Spanish consumers, Suez fleeces Belgian consumers and E.ON fleeces German consumers.
And now we are supposed to be discussing whether we have national champions or – as Mr Barroso says – even bigger European champions that are even more dominant in their markets and put consumers and competitiveness in Europe at even greater risk.
No, that is not the question!
The real question is this: will we ultimately win through politically, and be able to regulate appropriately and independently and separate the networks from everything else?
Transport policy must be central to energy policy, and, until it is a central element, all of these documents are just paper tigers.
The most important contributions we have to make by means of our policies are long-term goals, renewable energy, efficiency and CO2 targets – otherwise there can be no security of investment.
What this debate is lacking, it seems to me, is a new methodology.
We have not so far managed to achieve good coordination at all levels.
In other words, we need new partnerships.
And what is Mr Barroso doing, going around like a bull in a china shop as usual? He is putting energy, an issue that divides European citizens more than any other, at the centre of the debate!
Is it even possible to act with less political sense that Mr Barroso is currently doing with regard to the press?
   This resolution is a very important and timely document, expressing the European Parliament's position on the changing situation in the European Union energy sector.
The resolution marks the beginning of the debate on the Green Paper for a safe, competitive and harmonious energy policy.
Alongside energy consumption efficiency, the variety of energy sources mentioned in the resolution is the fundamental factor in reducing European Union states' dependence on the supply of energy resources from third countries.
Significant attention is paid to the area of nuclear energy, as nuclear energy is an inseparable part of the European Union energy sector.
It is very important for Lithuania and other states, which have insufficient wind, solar and geothermal power or other alternatives to gases and oils.
It is right that initiative to develop nuclear energy should remain the prerogative of Member States.
Legislation must be laid down so that part of the funding allocated to agricultural policy is available for biomass growth, production and energy needs.
The principle of energy solidarity between Member States is extremely important.
It is important in talks with the wider world.
When planning energy sector projects, Member States should assess the consequences these will have on other countries.
Therefore, I believe we should focus on revising the annexes of the TEN-E.
The project list contains conflicting views of what I would call the political Northern Pipeline in the Baltic Sea.
Unfortunately, it fails to mention any of the projects which are important for the Baltic countries and Poland, such as the ‘Amber’ pipeline or electricity connections, allowing the isolated Baltic region to be quickly switched into the European area.
   The next item is the oral question to the Council by Margrietus van den Berg, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on the revision of the Cotonou Agreement and setting of the amount for the 10th EDF (O-0004/2006 B6-0006/2006).
   – Mr President, Mrs Kinnock, I shall try to answer your questions as fully as possible.
I fear that I shall not be able to answer all of them, partly because negotiations have not yet been concluded in all areas, and because the Council has not yet adopted a position on all these issues.
Nevertheless, I hope I can give you some clarification.
I would first like to refer to the agreement of the European Council of December 2005 on the budgetisation of the 10th European Development Fund and on the contribution key for the Member States, a process that was both difficult and drawn-out.
You are of course familiar with the agreement reached, which provides for the future development financing of the ACP states not within the general budget, but within the framework of the 10th European Development Fund.
You know the figures – the European Council agreed on an amount of EUR 22.6 billion.
That is the commitment that the European Union made to the ACP countries when the Cotonou Agreement was revised in February 2005.
In this context it is important to mention that as part of that process the ACP countries were given an undertaking that the aid effort would be maintained at the level of the ninth EDF, minus residual appropriations from previous development funds but adjusted for inflation and EU growth and taking account of the impact of enlargement to the ten new Member States.
The reason for this is clear: we did not want to reward the inefficiency implied in the non-implementation of appropriations.
This was a clear undertaking given to the ACP countries by the European Union.
The Commission’s original proposal – and I hope this will answer your question – was for EUR 24.9 billion, and was based in the ninth EDF including residual appropriations from earlier funds.
This was therefore right and was in accordance with the commitment made to the ACP countries to correct this Commission proposal.
In reality – and I believe that we should also acknowledge this fact – the commitment promised by the EU, that is to say the amount I have already mentioned, represents a considerable real increase in funding compared with the ninth EDF, which as we know has a budget of EUR 13.8 billion.
The average annual contribution is increased for all 15 old Member States on the basis of the new contribution key.
The 10 new Member States will be taking part in and contributing to an EDF for the first time.
This is entirely in accordance with the Council agreement of May 2005 significantly to increase public development aid by the year 2015.
You also asked about the contributions from Bulgaria and Romania.
Bulgaria and Romania’s planned accession in 2007 has already been anticipated in the calculation of the total volume of the 10th EDF and the individual contributions of the Member States on which the decision is based.
As we know, the new 10th EDF can only start to run as from the beginning of 2008.
That means that there will not be any additional funding for the 10th EDF when those countries actually accede to the EU.
This is totally in line with procedure followed for earlier rounds of enlargement.
The Council has also made available EUR 18 million for the new Cotonou member Timor-Leste from the ninth EDF, in order to cover EU development aid once Timor-Leste becomes an ACP State, and following the ratification of the Cotonou Agreement for 2007.
It is a logical consequence of this that Timor-Leste will receive no further support under the budget line for Asia, and as from 2008 will receive aid under the 10th EDF.
The Council is not at present in a position to give any information on the distribution of funds under the 10th EDF, as this will be discussed during the negotiations shortly about to start on the legal bases, that is to say on the finance protocol to the Cotonou Agreement and the internal financial agreements for the 10th EDF.
The Austrian Presidency’s objective is to reach agreement with the ACP countries on the finance protocol at the ACP-EU Council of Ministers on 1 and 2 June 2006, in which I shall be taking part.
There is one more point that I need to comment on, since you raised it, Mrs Kinnock, and that is how the overseas countries and territories and administration costs are to be dealt with.
These are issues that are still subject to agreement and negotiation.
The Commission proposal on the distribution of funds between the ACP partner countries is currently being discussed between the Commission and the Member States.
Support for ACP countries in implementing the regional economic partnership agreements – I think you also asked about that – is expected to come from the funds earmarked for regional cooperation in the 10th EDF.
The Council has also provided for support for the African Union to be continued under the 10th EDF.
Time is of the essence.
Back in January, during the Commission’s discussions with the Austrian Government, the Commissioner responsible, Louis Michel, pressed for swift action to ensure that the current programme under the ninth EDF flows seamlessly into the 10th EDF at the start of 2008.
As Mr Michel explained to us in very dramatic terms, this time there is only half as much time available as the last time, so we need to act very quickly.
In order to make sure that happens, in parallel with the negotiations on the 10th EDF that I have already described, the country programming process has also already started.
Following the adoption of the European Development Consensus and building on the Paris Declaration efforts are being made to achieve joint country development programmes, which are to include not only the European Commission’s country programmes but also those of the Member States.
We welcome this development and will continue to support it.
   Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I believe that what is at stake here is not so much the distribution of funds, legal issues, programmes and so on, but, unfortunately, the fact that funding has been cut.
All of us in this House are watching with concern how the revision of the Cotonou Agreement and the negotiations on the tenth European Development Fund are progressing.
The Council has made a firm commitment to make more money available for development aid.
This was announced amidst much backslapping at the summits held in July and December 2005.
The Commission calculated that the tenth EDF covering the period 2008-2013 would have a budget of just under EUR 25 billion.
I very much regret that contrary to these undertakings the Council has now only been able to agree on an amount of less than EUR 23 billion.
Apart from less money being made available, this would mean that with increasing public development aid and a fixed EDF budget, EU development aid would effectively be renationalised.
This would represent a backward step in all our efforts to improve coordination of EU development aid. That surely cannot be in our interest.
I do, however, welcome the fact that here in this House we have come up with a cross-party motion for a resolution aimed at resolving this deplorable situation.
I call on the Council to stand by its promises and to make available the urgently needed appropriations for EU development aid.
A difference of EUR 2 billion is not chicken-feed.
We are talking about eliminating poverty, about sustainable development and about gradual integration of the ACP countries into the world economy.
Mr President-in-Office, EUR 2 billion less would be a false economy.
   Mr President, the world faces huge challenges: poverty, climate change, serious diseases and armed conflicts.
If the Council wishes to demonstrate global responsibility, it must not be stingier and more tight-fisted than the Commission is and make cut-backs of more than EUR 2 billion.
We must substantially increase the EU’s overall aid to the world's poorest people so that we can honour our pledges.
It is important to remember that the Member States promised to achieve the UN target of increasing aid to 0.7% of EU GDP by 2015 and that it has a medium-term target of increasing it to 0.56% by 2010.
Development aid is all well and good, but other things, such as fair trade, are still more important.
If, at the same time, the EU maintains its exorbitant agricultural subsidies, continues to protect its own markets and, to top it all, cuts back on development aid, the result will be a deadly cocktail that hits the poorest first and then all of us.
It is, then, for the sake of our common future that we must honour the pledges we have given.
   The expansion and realisation of the Trans-European Network is almost a mainstay as we strive for the goals presented in the European Commission's 2001 White Paper, and as we translate the Lisbon Strategy into reality.
However, Trans-European Network projects have only been evaluated, if they were appropriately planned, funded and implemented.
Bearing in mind the proposal on the financial perspective for the period 2007-2013 made by the European Council in December, it becomes clear that there will obviously be financial difficulties when evaluating projects.
Therefore, I believe that the European Union ought to contribute more to realisation by encouraging the following measures: a more flexible approach to the use of Structural and Cohesion Funds when funding Trans-European Networks and the funding of the ‘Galileo’ programmes from the scientific research budget line.
Projects must also be prioritised, with priority given to such projects as for instance, the rail sector that has made most progress to date with its so-called cross-border rail corridors.
   – Mr President, this is the third time in this parliamentary term that I have taken the floor at a plenary session to protest at discrimination against Catholics.
This time I wish to speak about the blocking of Radio Maryja’s interactive Internet broadcasting, which is the only reliable source of information for Members of a Christian persuasion.
Our activities, like those of our electorate, are linked to these media, and the fact that reception of this station has been blocked therefore means that we have been deprived of any contact with our electorate for two months.
Requests and reminders to the information and telecommunications services have not yielded any results, which is why I feel obliged to speak in this Parliament with reference to Article 10 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
The current situation is a glaring contravention of the principles enshrined in the Convention.
We hope that we will be guaranteed our freedoms in the European Parliament, along with other minorities.
   Mr President, I would like to express my concern about the conditions in which the Russian authorities keep their prisoners.
Contrary to law, Mikhail Khodorkovsky of the Yukos Company has been sent 7000 kilometres away from his family.
His lawyer travelled to the Siberian detention camp – it took six hours by plane, thirteen hours by train and a couple of hours by car – to prepare an appeal to the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
She was allowed to meet her client only after 6.00 p.m.
After several evening meetings, Mr Khodorkovsky was suddenly transferred to a special isolation cell.
He is still there today.
The apparent reason was to prevent him from completing his appeal to the Court in Strasbourg.
I invite my colleagues to react to these arbitrary actions by the Russian authorities, who blatantly defy their own laws.
   – Last Sunday, the European Parliament awaited the Belarusian presidential elections which were due to take place.
True, the election campaign left little room for hope that the elections would be democratic, free and honest, as the campaign was conducted in an atmosphere of threats, opposition leader arrests and the suppression of the independent press.
Lukashenko's regime is responsible for all this, but some still hoped that at least the elections would be honest.
Unfortunately, instead of an election all we saw was a farce of an election – a rigged election, like those organised in the 1930s or 1950s in Eastern Europe, and in Lithuania during the Soviet occupation.
This is confirmed by the conclusions of the OSCE observer mission, but the ‘jeans revolution’ is not over.
Around 600 young people spent yet another night in tents on ‘October’ Square in Minsk, braving a temperature of minus 10 degrees.
Yesterday, 11 EU ambassadors visited them to demonstrate the European Union's solidarity.
Mr President, we must demand the organisation of fresh presidential elections in Belarus.
   Mr President, pursuant to the implementation of the Nitrates Directive, the agricultural sector in my constituency, as elsewhere, is being subjected to extensive capital expenditure for the purpose of radically increasing slurry storage capacity.
To assist, a UK Government scheme of grant aid was announced, with applications possible until the end of this month.
Then, unilaterally, the same department announced earlier this month that the scheme was closing, because the amount designated – a mere GBP 45 million – was already over-subscribed.
Farmers who in good faith were working to the stipulated deadline are quite clearly disadvantaged.
The justification for the aid, namely the necessity to undertake excessively expensive work, still exists.
The assistance, however, has now been withdrawn.
This is as unfair as the GBP 45 million was patently inadequate.
I therefore use this forum tonight to call on the UK Government to release sufficient funds to enable this essential work to be done, otherwise the implementation of the Nitrates Directive will be impossible.
   The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Morgantini, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on the development impact of Economic Partnership Agreements (2005/2162(INI)) (A6-0053/2006).
   Mr President, the purpose of the Cotonou Agreement and the Economic Partnership Agreements is to eradicate poverty and promote sustainable development.
That objective must under no circumstances go by the board.
The mentality or idea of reciprocity, based on a principle of equality, is therefore quite wrong.
The fact is, we are concerned here with two quite unequal partners, the EU and the ACP countries, so it is not the ACP countries that should be helping the EU countries, but the other way around.
That is something I am absolutely certain Mrs Morgantini agrees with me about.
Poor countries’ only export opportunities are in the fields of agriculture and raw materials and in relation to very labour-intensive products, such as textiles, which they should be allowed to export to ourselves in the EU without restriction.
The ACP countries also have extremely weak economies.
We cannot therefore demand that these countries just go ahead and open up 90% of their markets in return for the EU opening up its own markets as a kind of payment.
That is a view also expressed in Mrs Morgantini’s report.
I hope, then, that I am right in interpreting paragraph 17 of the report as saying that it is of course only the ACP countries that are entitled to introduce temporary import restrictions in relation to industries threatened by surges in imports.
It would be very unfortunate if we were entitled to prevent the ACP countries from selling us textiles and agricultural products just because we had not been skilful enough to adapt to the changed conditions of competition in a globalised world.
The fact is that we too were allowed to protect our own markets when our economies were still developing.
That being said, protecting markets is a very uncertain way of achieving growth and a healthy economy, and it should therefore be a limited, including time-limited, measure for developing countries too.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Morgantini report is an important attempt to restrict the damage caused by the EPAs.
Do you really believe that a free trade agreement is what is needed to reduce and eliminate hunger and poverty?
Consider Burundi: the theoretical abolition of tariffs, as envisaged by the EPAs, would result in a gain for the European Union of a trade share equal to USD 12.4 million, which Burundi would lose, and that is after having calculated the gain to local consumers.
This fact emerges from a study by the Economic Commission for Africa, a UN organisation, which also showed how that continent already has a rather high proportion of wealth owned by foreign residents, higher than any other region in the world: 39%.
The idea that a further expansion of free-market ideas can produce wealth in these areas is also refuted by the data on subsidies.
In Nigeria the cheapest meat is German and English and in Senegal 52 000 tonnes of onions exported in 2005 alone from the Netherlands placed farmers in very serious difficulties.
The EPAs were originally conceived within the framework of the Cotonou agreement, which enshrines the fight against poverty and the struggle for social development, but they have instead become something which promotes not social development but rather greater poverty.
   The next item is the report by Jo Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on European political parties (2005/2224(INI)) (A6-0042/2006).
   Mr President, the careers of the rapporteur, Jo Leinen, and of the political parties in Europe have followed a very similar pattern over these past decades: having started in a fairly lofty position, they are now plumbing the depths.
Only two per cent of the population of Germany still trust political parties.
These funding programmes, in the way they are actually being established now, surely cannot reverse this extreme loss of credibility.
What is the cause of this erosion? It is the fact that democracy has always been equated with political parties rather than people.
In short, sovereignty in our system does not lie with the people but with political parties, whose supremacy is to be consolidated, bolstered and inflated by these prehistoric plans that you are presenting to us.
They are doomed to failure; they will not bring Europe any further forward.
The future truly belongs to verifiable personalised elections with candidates whose real convictions are immediately discernible: candidates, in other words, who, unlike the rapporteur, do not engage in electoral campaigning within the SPD and, once they have secured a firm place on their party’s list, abandon the electoral campaign and start canvassing support for fanciful European political parties.
   Firstly, I would like to thank Mr Leinen for his very responsibly prepared report.
I would like to stress that support for the work of European political parties at EU institution level is particularly relevant now.
And this is why: some political scientists, in Lithuania at least, maintain that political parties have lost their ideological foundations and are becoming similar.
If this really were to happen, then party decisions, without an ideological base, would be unpredictable.
This would mean that it would no longer be clear to the voter what one party or another will do once they are in power.
And this would mean that it will no longer be important to voters which party they vote for and some will wonder whether it is worth participating in elections at all.
This is a particularly dangerous tendency; therefore, it is essential to strengthen Europe's local parties that each would have either left or right-wing ideology, which would become a landmark for parties of the left and right in different states, in every way possible, in a financial sense too.
I therefore propose that we endorse the report.
   Mr President, may I apologise to Commissioner Wallström for those Members who deliver their speeches but are not present for the debate.
That is certainly not the custom in this House.
I wish to apologise on behalf of my fellow Members.
   The next item is the report by Klaus-Heiner Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, on European contract law and the revision of the acquis: the way forward (2005/2022(INI)) (A6-0055/2006).
   Many thanks, Mr Krarup.
The request to amend the agenda was announced yesterday; I assume that this was discussed in the groups.
I announced the amendment of the agenda this morning, together with details of who had proposed the amendment, which groups were involved and the number of signatures received.
No protests were forthcoming from the House.
I am sure that the honourable Member will raise the matter in his group.
   The next item is the report (A6-0041/2006) by Mr Bushill-Matthews on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on demographic challenges and solidarity between the generations (2005/2147(INI)).
   – As a Member of the European Parliament elected in Lithuania, I find the demographic problem particularly relevant.
Namely because the number of inhabitants in Lithuania is constantly declining, not so much as a result of emigration, but rather as a result of rapid birth rate reduction, which has already led to the closure of a number of schools.
The steps taken by the Lithuanian Government to solve this problem are clearly insufficient and so the appearance of documents at European level is welcomed.
But the birth rate reduction is not just a problem for Lithuania, but for the whole of Europe, and while statistically our families have less than 1.5 children each, in Asian countries, including the European Union candidate Turkey, children are born like mushrooms after the rain.
What this could mean in the not too distant future is a theme worth contemplating.
We can and must overcome this demographic crisis through real actions and programmes. These should make it worthwhile for every family to have at least three children.
This is the precise spirit of the document presented, and once it is adopted, practical solutions should follow.
   The next item is the report (A6-0040/2006) by Mr Parish, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the promotion of crops for non-food purposes (2004/2259(INI)).
   . – Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by offering my sincere congratulations to Mr Parish on this balanced report, which my group expressly supports.
The development of non-food crops offers EU farmers the opportunity of developing new markets, and therefore support and research are vital in this field.
The use of renewable raw materials and renewable energy production both represent an enormous potential for European rural areas.
I hail from the rural German of Lower Saxony.
For us in Lower Saxony, in particular, bioenergy is vital as an alternative source of income for farmers and foresters.
In some fields, especially biogas, for which we have around 430 plants, we are already leading the field in Europe.
At this point, I should like to say that I also expressly welcome the Commission’s latest initiatives in this field: the Biomass Action Plan and the Commission Communication on Biofuels.
Parliament will renew its efforts with regard to the EU Strategy for Biofuels within the framework of an own-initiative report.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, too, will draw up an opinion on this.
As draftsman of this opinion, I shall be glad to be able to build upon the good work accomplished by my colleague Mr Parish.
   Mr President, on behalf of the new Member States, including Hungary, I would like to thank Mr Parish, who noticed that new Member States cannot receive financial assistance from EU sources for the cultivation of plants for energy purposes.
Therefore, the request expressed in the report, that the European Commission eliminate the obstacles to plant cultivation for energy purposes in new Member States and facilitate assistance from the European Union, has particular importance.
Another very positive element is that according to the report, assistance must be granted outside of the SAPS system, independently of the ‘phasing in’ related to direct payments.
The report of the European Parliament supports the interests of new Member States unequivocally, and therefore I ask Mrs Fischer Boel and the Commission to consider these proposals, because assistance for energy purposes is extremely important in the new Member States, too, in order to ensure jobs.
   Mr President, I rise on a point of order under Rule 151 on inadmissibility of amendments.
I would like you to rule that none of these amendments are admissible because at 10.45 a.m. this morning when we last checked, there was no voting list on the electronic system.
We therefore do not have a voting list and we will be voting on something we cannot see.
I would therefore respectfully ask you to move on to the next item of business and defer this until we have a proper voting list.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would much prefer to keep the original text because the word ‘frequently’ clearly changes the meaning.
I thank Mr Martínez Martínez for the amendment and I accept it.
   Mr President, I would like to propose a calculation justifying why I voted in favour of nuclear power.
If emissions in the EU are cut by approximately 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in the first phase of emissions trading, the market price in terms of emissions permits will be 2.5 billion a year at current prices.
A cautious estimate is that the price of electricity in the European wholesale electricity market could rise on average by EUR 10 per megawatt-hour as a result of emissions trading.
Since electricity consumption in the EU stands at approximately 3 000 terawatt-hours a year, the costs of emissions trading in the wholesale electricity market will be around EUR 30 billion a year.
One option which goes against the principle of the market would be to tax electricity.
I am not suggesting that, but I do propose a thought experiment.
If emissions trading were replaced with a tax on electricity and the revenue were used for genuine investment in emissions reduction, the 30 billion or so a year could be used as investment aid to build up a huge amount of capacity, which would remove the need for fossil fuels.
Nuclear power is an example of a form of emission-free energy which the electricity market does not support, and which in fact is not really needed either, unlike many other forms of energy.
If you imagine, however, that an investment of 3 billion would result in cuts of approximately 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide through the use of nuclear power, the 30 billion would in fact result in that annual cut in emissions through the construction of nuclear power plants, with the difference that the electricity produced could still be sold.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to explain why I voted in favour of Mr Leinen’s report on the regulation of European political parties and on their funding.
When, in Italy, I cry out ‘Pensioners, take a stand!’ all the pensioners fall in behind me, and young people do so together with the pensioners, because they believe in the Pensioners’ Party, of which I am the leader.
I am sure that, if I cried out ‘Pensioners, take a stand!’ in the 25 languages of the European Union, pensioners from the other 24 EU Member States would also support me because the European political party goes right to the heart of the population.
I am absolutely certain that we will create Europe when we have created the European parties, just as the Pensioners’ Party is creating the European Pensioners’ Party.
Pensioners, take a stand!
   . Today, nearly 85% of the members of this Parliament have agreed to an increase in subsidies that benefit their own political parties and to soften up the rules on how this money can be spent.
Moreover, the current budget of EUR 8.4 million that was spent last year on subsidies for European parties will be further increased, and those parties will be allowed to put these subsidies aside if they fail to spend them within the space of one year.
In many cases, politicians develop a logic all of their own, quite independently of their electorate.
That was the case in the failed proposal for a European Constitution and this is even more the case in subsidies of this kind.
Initially, funds voted by Parliament were used, illegally for cooperation at European level between political parties.
On 18 June 2003, I voted against legalisation of this abuse, and today, I am voting against a further expansion.
Whether national parties want to unite in European parties is up to them, but I cannot see why they should not fund some things themselves.
The fact that they are now demanding an increase in subsidies and more flexible rules that apply to those subsidies, creates the impression that politicians are more concerned about the interests of their own groups than those of their electorate.
   .On the occasion of the adoption of this report, which I supported, I would like to mention the recent developments in the field of bioenergy in Belgium.
In addition to microeconomic projects relating to the use of biofuels in farming, large-scale industrial projects are finally emerging in my country, and I am delighted.
As regards production, six major projects are currently under way, the two most important ones being situated in Ghent (biodiesel sector) and in Wanze (bioethanol sector).
What is more, the programme for tax exemption for biofuels, adopted by Belgium and approved by the European Commission, fixes, in the case of biodiesel, the ratio of the mixture with traditional diesel at 3.37% for 2006 and at 4.29% for 2007.
For bioethanol, the mixture has been fixed at 7%.
At this rate, we might even achieve the objective recommended in Directive 2003/30, namely that 5.75% of all fuel sold should be ‘green’ by 2010.
To this end, the Parish report calls for these targets to be made compulsory.
The utilisation for energy purposes of agricultural products, which is both a real opportunity for the future for our farmers and environmentally friendly, indeed deserves restrictive targets to be set, especially if they are reasonable.
   . I welcome in principle this report by my colleague Neil Parish on the promotion of crops for non-food purposes.
While these techniques will not solve our energy problems, they can make a small but significant contribution.
Fast-growing willows and poplars can be used, as I saw some years ago in Austria, to provide small-scale heat and electricity supply in remote, isolated areas.
Oil-seed rape and wheat can be used in the production of biofuels whether diesel or petrol and save on CO2 release.
Yet one warning: the schemes must be part of the solution, not the problem.
Where they make economic, environmental and energy sense, I will support them, when they merely maintain agricultural expenditure at the expense of common sense, I will not.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 23 March 2006.
   The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 30 March 2006 pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
The following amendments have been proposed:
The Socialist Group in the European Parliament proposes that the vote on the report by Mr Őry, scheduled for tomorrow, be moved to Wednesday.
   – Mr President, according to the original version of the order of business, the Őry report was put down for Wednesday, with the vote on it scheduled, accordingly, for the same day.
The Conference of Presidents has now decided – as recently as last Thursday – to bring the report forward to Tuesday, with the consequence that our group has not had the chance to have a final debate on it today, since we assumed, when sending out invitations to our members, that the vote would be on Wednesday and so we could have our final debate on Tuesday.
I would therefore be grateful if the House could agree on us debating it tomorrow, but waiting until Wednesday to vote on it.
The Socialist Group in the European Parliament proposes that the vote on the reports by Monica Frassoni (A6-0089/2006), Bert Doorn (A6-0082/2006), Arlene McCarthy (A6-0083/2006) and Giuseppe Gargani (A6-0080/2006) be postponed until a later part-session.
   – Mr President, although we can agree to the motion for a debate following a statement by the Commission, we do not want to frame a resolution right now; instead, we would like this issue, if at all possible, to be one of those addressed in the forthcoming report by Mr Eurlings.
I would just like to move that we should either slot it in at 3 p.m. on Thursday or begin earlier on Thursday, or else we will have even more problems with the voting on the two reports scheduled for that day, in that we will again be in the same situation of having to defer the vote, and all the rest of it, so we can either begin earlier on Thursday, or deal with this at 3 p.m. in order to have a proper vote on both reports.
– Ladies and gentlemen, I fear that there is one aspect of the decision we have taken that has not been made clear.
We have decided to begin the sitting at three and to deal with the issue of South-East Turkey, but it is not clear – in my view – whether or not this debate will end with a vote on a resolution.
   If my memory serves me right, this was the wording that was agreed by the Conference of Presidents.
It does not appear on the agenda like that and we will have to decide whether we are keeping it or changing it, as requested by Mr Poettering.
   Mr President, as Mr Poettering said a moment ago, there was some confusion as to the precise title and the way it was fleshed out.
We go along with Mr Poettering’s suggestion to give equal weight to both issues, namely the role of the Assyrian minority and the situation in Iraq’s prisons. The title should be totally unambiguous.
If, therefore, we discuss a change, or a proposal for a change, along the lines of ‘The situation in Iraq: the prisons and the situation of the Assyrian minority’, the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe can certainly lend its support to it.
   Mr Poettering’s proposal is specifically ‘The Assyrian community in Iraq and the situation of prisons in Iraq’, the two things.
(1)
   (Mr President, for several years now the European Parliament has been investigating the Lloyds case relating to the first non-life insurance directive and to the way in which this directive has, or rather has not been properly applied, especially in the last 20 years before the law was duly modified following the opening of an infringement procedure against the United Kingdom in 2001.
The intention of the last exchange of letters on the Lloyds case between us, Mr President, was to close the matter and assure the petitioners of the support of the European Parliament.
May I ask whether you have anything to add that might enable us to finalise this matter?
   Mr Libicki, as you know, I wrote to you about the Lloyd’s petitioners on 17 January 2006.
As I reminded you in that letter, Parliament’s most recent resolution on the subject – adopted in June 2005 – confirms its impression that there are substantive and reasonable grounds to believe that the first non-life insurance directive and its later, modified versions were not properly transposed and applied in the United Kingdom.
   Mr Leichtfried, I will be very happy to try to communicate your complaint to the Commission, in order to ensure that in the future replies do not consist merely of reduced photocopies of texts that everybody is aware of.
   Mr President, as you said just a moment ago, Charles Taylor, who is accused of war crimes, has been brought before the UN War Tribunal in Sierra Leone.
As Chief Observer of the European Union's election observation mission in Liberia, I have urged the newly elected President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to insist on extradition.
She agreed to this, provided that the Nigerian President and the African Union would lend their support.
The arrest and bringing before the law of Charles Taylor is a triumph for the new Liberia and for not only the African Union, but certainly also for the EU, both of which have passed this test with flying colours.
This reflects credit on the work we did there.
Since the arrest, a shadow has disappeared from over western Africa and the region has been given a chance of peace and a chance to develop democracy.
As Chief Observer of the election observation mission in Liberia, I warmly support the idea of the chairmen inviting her to speak here before the plenary, and I hope that in the meantime, the EU will continue to lend its strong support to the Millennium Objectives and democratisation in that country, for that is what the citizens over there deserve right now.
   Mr van den Berg, as I pointed out before, the President of Liberia will be invited and let us hope that she can come soon.
   Mr President, I wrote to you on 16 and 23 March of this year in my capacity as Chairman of the IND/DEM Group office, concerning the so-called reconstruction of the Independence and Democracy Group of which the Parliament authorities were informed by the Group’s leadership during the last plenary session.
In the view of the Polish delegation, the procedure leading to the exclusion of two national delegations, the Italian and the Polish, from the IND/DEM Group was unlawful.
May I ask when we can expect an answer to the above letters?
   Mr Piotrowski, just before the sitting began I held a meeting with Mr Bonde and Mr Farage; we discussed this issue and I am waiting for them to communicate to me their views about the situation and the measures to be taken in writing.
I hope that I will be able to communicate something to you about it at the beginning of tomorrow’s sitting.
   Mr President, it was exactly 1 500 days ago that Ingrid Betancourt and her colleague, Clara Rojas, were kidnapped by the FARC in Colombia, thus joining the excessively large group of 3 000 hostages, to say nothing of the thousands of missing persons in that country.
I am speaking today on behalf of the International Federation of the Ingrid Betancourt Committees which, in collaboration with her family, has three requests.
Firstly, actively to support the mediation efforts of the three countries consisting of France, Switzerland and Spain.
Secondly, to put strong pressure on the FARC, via the organisations that support it overseas and especially in countries that have not included it on their list of terrorist organisations, so that it responds positively to the proposal submitted by the group of the three countries, thereby demonstrating its genuine desire to reach a humanitarian agreement.
Thirdly and finally, to put strong pressure on the Colombian Government to comply with the Geneva Convention, which Colombia ratified.
This Convention does indeed stipulate that, in the event of an internal conflict, the government is obliged – in line with the commitment it made previously - to conclude humanitarian agreements in order to save as many human lives as possible.
   Mr Czarnecki, indeed a year has passed since the death of His Holiness Pope John Paul II.
At that time, I was on an official visit in Lithuania and I witnessed the great emotion felt by the Europeans of the countries of the East at the death of a person who had such a great impact on the process that led to the subsequent enlargement of the European Union.
   Mr President, I should like to express my displeasure with the final declaration of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly that was held on 27 March.
Whilst I can of course appreciate the importance of a dialogue between the north and south of the Mediterranean, I am not convinced that a dialogue of that kind serves any purpose if it results in a unilateral admission of guilt, in this case by Europe.
I do not think there is any other word for it when I read this final declaration.
First of all, the Danish cartoons are condemned with an obligatory brief sentence, or clause, about violence against those cartoons.
Although people are quite specific about those Danish cartoons, anything else is deliberately kept very vague and very general.
There is talk of promoting democracy, but there is no reference anywhere to the discrimination systematically meted out to Christians or other minority groups in the Muslim world.
We certainly do not have to go as far as Afghanistan to find examples of this.
In Turkey, for example, a change of religion must be notified to the government.
In that country, an Italian Catholic priest was recently murdered for what he represents.
In that country, it is made virtually impossible to restore Christian buildings.
I regret the fact that this has not been brought up for discussion.
   All suggestions must be treated with respect.
Are you suggesting that the European Parliament should investigate whether Italian politicians are agents of the KGB? Is that your proposal?
   Several European Union Member States have recently been hit by severe flooding.
Thousands of people in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and Austria are fighting heroically against the floods which threaten their homes, possessions and farms.
There were over 100 larger floods in Europe between 1998 and 2004.
The floods we experienced last year and this year have confirmed the necessity of joint action at European level.
In January 2006, the European Commission proposed a directive for flood management in Europe.
The aim of the directive is to mitigate the risks and effects of floods, and to boost joint action.
It is a European priority to adopt the directive as soon as possible, and to act jointly to protect ourselves from floods.
I ask President Borrell and urge the Council to take steps as soon as possible in order to develop a single European flood defence system.
   Mr President, I want to raise the case of a company in my constituency.
Hygrade – a subsidiary of the Danish company Tulip – is proposing to close two factories in Chard and Chippenham with the loss of 300 and 500 jobs respectively.
This will devastate those two market towns.
At the moment they are going through a consultation on the proposed closures, which is frankly farcical.
Already residents in new neighbouring housing in Chippenham have guarantees in their mortgages that the company will close.
In Chard, it is already planning to remove equipment.
I hope you will raise that point with the Commission.
At the same time, this is a company that is not facing bankruptcy but is making massive profits.
In the negotiations, it is offering people who have been loyal to it for as long as 22 years the minimum redundancy payment available.
It supplies its goods and services mainly to the Co-op and Tesco – they are food processing companies.
I hope that people will put pressure on those companies, which talk very often about fair trade, to ensure that the workers at the factories that supply them get a fair deal.
   Mr Ryan, I understand your concern fully and I am sure that the British Government will be sensitive to the issue that you are raising.
   Mr President, I am sorry I was not here earlier: it was Air France’s fault.
I would just like to mention that Air France has cancelled flights from London.
I want to raise the issue of the 84 Lisbon directives that have been approved by Parliament.
Seventy-six of them should have been enforced by now and fully implemented, but only 13 of those 84 Lisbon directives have been fully implemented by all Member States.
The directive on the common regulatory framework for electronic communications should have been fully implemented by 24 July 2003, but Belgium, Greece and Luxembourg have yet to notify the Commission of their implementation.
The Lisbon Strategy is in jeopardy through such lax behaviour by Member States.
However, I am encouraged to see that the Commission will open 50 cases against Member States that fail to implement the liberalisation of the energy markets.
It is about time we saw that happening.
   We have come to the end of the Members listed, but I thought I saw Mrs Hennicot-Schoepges timidly raising her hand.
I did not wish to deny you the floor, Mrs Hennicot-Schoepges.
   – What the Member who spoke before me, Mr Catania, omitted to say was that the complaint expressed most loudly and forcefully by the immigrants in the detention centres we visited related not to the conditions in the centres but to the fact that they had never intended coming to Malta.
They ended up in Malta against their wishes, and they want to move on to continental Europe.
This, moreover, is the tragedy.
‘Allow us to go to other countries in Europe,’ they told us one after the other.
I therefore say that it is good that, through this debate and by means of this resolution, this Parliament is showing its solidarity with the immigrants as well as with the people of Malta, the Maltese authorities and the Maltese forces of order, which are doing a very difficult job.
It is good that the political groups of this Parliament are showing that they are able to come together to demonstrate this solidarity and to ask both the Commission and the Council to take practical and urgent action.
What is this practical and urgent action? Firstly, that Member States should accept persons in Malta requesting asylum.
Secondly, that the Dublin II regulation be revised in such a way that the responsibilities of Member States are shared more fairly than they are at present when Malta, and other countries too, carry disproportionate burdens quite beyond their capabilities.
Thirdly, that the financial resources of the European Union be used also in urgent cases, as the Commissioner himself rightly said they should be.
There should, however, be an emergency clause in each of the four European funds that we shall have in the immigration sector as from next year, and not only in the fund for refugees.
Finally, Mr President, I should like to ask the Commission what has become of the initiative, promised last year, of joint patrols in the Mediterranean.
Mr President, Parliament is speaking.
We shall expect the Council and the Commission to take action.
Thank you.
   – Mr President, I thank you for the opportunity to address Parliament regarding this very important matter.
Unfortunately, Malta has been abandoned and left to fend for itself.
During these difficult times, which are being faced not only by the inhabitants of our country, the Maltese, but also by those who are in detention, we have felt that we have been swimming against the tide, that we have been left alone and that, in spite of all the fine words of solidarity, Europe has abandoned us.
What happened and, indeed, had to happen is that, as we had been requesting for a long time, a delegation came to Malta and saw for itself the awful conditions in which the detainees are being held.
These conditions are unfortunate, and nobody is happy with such a situation; but it is a question of resources.
Two thousand people entering Malta every year may not sound very many, but these two thousand are equivalent to eight hundred thousand persons entering Germany every year or four hundred thousand entering Italy.
Just imagine the influx of refugees into the smallest country and imagine what one of the countries without any resources has to go through.
We do, emphatically, need financial aid.
We also need solidarity – the solidarity whereby you come to our aid by taking refugees into your own countries in which they can be properly absorbed, as they cannot be in Malta, which is an island of just 300 square kilometres.
I would conclude by saying that we consider you as clear proof that solidarity does indeed exist when it comes to acknowledging the needs of a country whose surface area is small compared with the vast expanse of Europe.
Thank you.
   – The next item is the recommendation for second reading of the report by Anne Laperrouze, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the guidelines for trans-European energy networks and on the annulment of decision no 96/391/EC and decision no (10720/1/2005 – C6-0016/2006 – 2003/0297(COD)) (A6-0071/2006).
   Commissioner, first of all, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and say that I support the agreement being striven for, but once more would like to draw attention to the fact that today Member States, which are part of the Baltic region, are practically isolated from European energy systems.
Regrettably, the revision of the TEN-E annexes failed to take the geo-political situation into account.
The controversial North European Pipeline, which goes around the Baltic countries and Poland, remains on the list of priority projects, while projects which were put forward for inclusion on the priority project list, and which are particularly important for this region, like the ‘Amber’ gas pipeline and the ‘Yamal II’, able to cross Belarus, or additional synchronised electricity connections, have not been debated by the European Council.
This is not right.
In 2006, the European Commission must prepare a plan of priority connections, which would determine concrete measures for the integration of isolated energy markets.
Member States must show solidarity, taking common interests into account.
This is the only way to guarantee a secure supply of energy resources across the European Union.
   – The goals of the proposed decision, which we are debating today, are clear – to adapt the landmarks for the expanded 25-member European Union, to allow the funding of common importance projects to be determined, to bring about conditions for the creation of an internal gas and electricity market, and most importantly, to guarantee the security of power supplies by connecting Member State networks with one another and with those of neighbouring countries, the countries in the regions of South Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean Sea, Ukraine, etc.
During the first debate, the European Parliament already approved the Commission's proposals on the laying down of priority actions, the description of projects of European importance and the appointment of a European coordinator for complex projects.
However, the Council expressed a different position when, for example, it proposed the rejection of the European coordinator and other important provisions which we had already endorsed.
Instead of this, the Council only endorsed non-essential amendments laid out in Parliament's resolution, and while endorsing the creation of the Trans-European Network, the Council interprets it only as a simple combination of Member State networks and the coordination of European Union Member States' energy policy measures.
I consider this wholly insufficient.
The European Union energy market has more than 450 million consumers.
This market is the second largest in the world.
If the EU acted together, it would be able to defend and force others to respect its interests.
Bearing in mind the recently arisen crisis involving Ukraine and Russia and the declarations made at Hampton Court, I stress that we undoubtedly need a common European energy policy.
We need more than the 25 individual Member State policies.
The creation of the European network in turn is only possible if we improve and expand the linking of networks.
On the subject of common interests and priority projects, I would like to remind Parliament of the gas transit pipeline project ‘Amber’ and to debate its inclusion on the project list of landmark priority projects of European importance.
It should also be taken into account that the implementation of projects would improve the security of energy supplies for states in the Baltic region.
   The next item is the report (A6-0065/2006) by Mr Lipietz, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission report on competition policy 2004 (2005/2209(INI)).
   Mr President, I should like to make three points.
First, I welcome both the European Parliament report as changed and the Commission’s report on the guidelines for 2004.
Things are moving in the right direction and I should like to congratulate the whole team of DG Competition and the Commissioner, who is continuing Mr Monti’s work very well.
We are living in a mood of economic nationalism right now, and being the Competition Commissioner is not necessarily the easiest job in town.
The Commissioner is doing a good job.
My second point – and one that Mr Hökmark made as well – is that it is very important to take a broad approach.
To my mind, competition and the internal market are married; they go hand in hand.
Commissioner Kroes takes care of the competition part and Commissioner McCreevy takes care of the internal market side.
If today we were to define the four freedoms, I do not think, unfortunately, in the mood we are in, that we would get them.
Therefore, keep the four freedoms in mind; they are under attack, much like competition policy in general.
That brings me to my final point about the four key areas dealt with in the report itself.
The first is mergers: keep on fighting against the type of protectionist behaviour that you see, for example, from the Spanish Government in the Endesa case or from the Polish Government in the banking sector.
Secondly, on state aid: continue your vigorous control, kill all the national champions you can – they are bad for consumers and taxpayers.
I would urge you to read Mr Hökmark’s report on this issue.
The third is Article 81 on cartels: fight them.
They are all over the place; they try to hide; tease them out; keep the consumers happy.
Finally, on Article 82 on dominant positions: there is a sufficiently high profile case.
I am not entirely sure that all is clear on that case.
One can perhaps see both sides, but it is important to keep at it and, much like Mr Evans said, if we want a transatlantic market, let us keep it and let us watch out for American protectionism in the meantime.
   . Mr President, I shall not detain the House by taking up two valuable minutes but would like to commend to the House the very valuable work of Mr Hammerstein Mintz.
He has worked very closely with all of us, and on behalf of the PSE Group I would like to say that he has the full support of my group.
If you would allow me, I failed to thank my good colleague Mrs Cederschiöld with whom I worked very closely, as with others, on my report, and I thank the House for its patience.
   Mr President, there is a very simple method of implementing openness in the EU: reverse the procedure so that there is open access to all meetings and documents, unless the opposite is decided.
That is the way things are here in the European Parliament, and it is something from which the other institutions can learn.
Our committee meetings for the purpose of preparing legislation are open.
Why cannot the corresponding deliberations in the Council’s 300 half-secret working parties be opened? Our use of experts is a public matter.
Why will the Commission not say who are involved in the 3 000 secret working parties?
The proposal to reverse the procedure received 200 of a possible 220 signatures in the Convention.
No other proposals gathered so much support: all the elected representatives in the national parliaments, all but one of the Members of the European Parliament and 23 out of 28 governments.
The proposal does not even require a change to the Treaty.
It can be implemented by means of a simple change to the Rules of Procedure.
Both the Commission and the Council can adopt the proposal by a simple majority: 13 out of 25 Commissioners and 13 out of the 25 countries in the Council.
Come on now, Mr Barroso and Mr Schüssel, get matters under way so that people might feel respect for the necessary cross-border cooperation.
   Mr President, I would thank the rapporteurs for their constructive work.
I like Mr Voggenhuber’s proposal that we refuse to be accessories to an undemocratic piece of decision-making. Where is the Council?
Do they have problems keeping awake so late in the day? It is because they lock themselves in their rooms.
If they were to open these up, they would obtain enough oxygen to last them until the evening so that they might take part in these debates too. Why do they not open their doors?
Do not politicians welcome any chance to appear on television? Why, I wonder, is the Council passing up the opportunity to do so?
Like the entire population of Europe, I wonder what they are doing.
There is an easy way of remedying the situation: open the doors so that we can see what is happening.
I am relying on Mrs Wallström to lead the EU into the twenty-first century and wake the Council from its twentieth century sleep. I feel it is important for us to remind the Council that, if they do now open up their meetings, it must not be in order to get together formally for just an hour and then to take a four-hour working lunch, in which case openness would become a chimera.
We are also relying on the Council to eat quickly and to take their decisions openly and over an extended period.
   The next item is the report (A6-0051/2006) by Mr Papastamkos, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on the assessment of the Doha Round following the WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong [2005/2247(INI)].
   .
As representative of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I would like to point out that the report presented is more balanced than documents on a similar theme which have been debated previously.
However, regrettably, this report and frequently the talks themselves fail to devote sufficient attention to solving European Union services sector problems in trade, while the European Union services sector accounts for 70 per cent of the European Union's gross domestic product.
To emphasise this sector's importance and its importance for international trade services, I will just touch on two aspects.
This affects financial sectors in particular.
In developing countries, the lack of opportunity to take advantage of various progressive financial products, especially for small and medium business, where the largest proportion of these countries' populations are employed, hinders the modernisation of their economies and the transition of labour from agriculture to areas of higher productivity.
On the other hand, the institutions of the European Union cannot exploit the potential of the huge financial services industry.
We are very competitive in this area.
And we are encountering problems when trading with developing countries in agricultural products.
That is, in truth we must strive to change the structure of trade so that it is easier to work and so that a more modern economy is a more modern global economy.
That is, we ought to encourage trade in financial services, which would allow developing countries to modernise their economies and would in turn make the international trade structure more effective.
Of course, this means that we must discuss the introduction of standards covering the regulation of trade, company management and the regulation of financial services.
   . Mr President, when all else was gone and Jack sold the last cow from what had once been his family’s thriving farm, he at least got a handful of beans.
In the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference Commissioner Mandelson made significant concessions on European agriculture in exchange for, I suppose, the hope of concessions in non-agricultural market access from the other big economic powers but, as we know, they did not concede much.
In the exchange of agriculture for services, Irish sugar beet farmers have lost their crop, and we have now lost the last of our sugar factories, in Mallow, in my own constituency, which closed just two weeks ago.
Irish farmers are worried that beef and dairy will be sacrificed next, in an effort to get trade concessions in services.
Commissioner, when Mr Mandelson trades off the last Irish cow, what do you expect we will get? So far I cannot see that we have obtained very much.
   Mr President, Africa accounts for less than 2% of world trade, and yet, the development round remains stuck on inadequate concessions.
The US lags behind in terms of the agricultural reform act; the EU is unforthcoming about further restrictions of car-sensitive products and the restriction of ‘blue’ services, and the G20 remain behind in terms of the reduction of the industrial tariffs.
Africa and the least developed countries are at risk of being at the receiving end of this.
They deserve the permanent right to protect their own agriculture, because the livelihoods of seven in ten people in those countries depend on this sector, and they deserve liberal access to the growth markets of the EU, the US and the G20.
Two weeks ago, Pascal Lamy, the WTO’s Secretary-General, did not mince his words when he said that unless we persevere in Geneva at the end of this month, the round will end in failure.
This would cost Europe economic growth and jobs, and Africa would lose out in terms of economic development and would fail to achieve the Millennium Objectives in the areas of basic education and health care.
So let us combine Europe’s and Africa’s interests; I would urge Commissioner Mandelson to go as far as he can with scrapping and restricting agricultural subsidies, and to support the Europe of the 21st century and not to turn Africa and our citizens into prisoners of past choices!
   . Mr President, Commissioner Mandelson would have to be here to give you the latest information.
If the decision or format is changed, then we will also have to ensure that the provision – when it comes to the participation of MEPs – is changed thereafter in accordance with that.
We welcome the participation of Members of the European Parliament, which has always been very helpful and would, again, provide openness and good support.
   – Mr President, I am in favour of this being treated as an urgent matter.
It really is necessary for the Spanish fishermen, and in their interests, that they should be able to fish with effect from the beginning of the season on 1 May.
They have for years now had no opportunity to go about their fishing business, and a delay would not essentially change anything whatever about the current ratification process or the content of the treaties.
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   . Mr President, I agree with the assessment that Vice-President Verheugen has just made on the way in which we are implementing the revised Lisbon Strategy that we implemented last year.
On reading Mr García-Margallo’s report on the European economy and the broad economic policy guidelines, I note a considerable degree of agreement, and we also noted this agreement within the Commission, with the same objectives and the same process towards achieving them, at the last European Council.
I believe that this fundamental agreement amongst the three European institutions is crucial to the credibility of the process, the acceptance of the objectives of this strategy by all economic and social actors, and not just the European and national institutions, and is one of the conditions – which I believe to be essential – for achieving greater growth and employment in the European Union.
With regard to macroeconomic issues, I would like to refer to three points.
Firstly, it is clear that, as we have said on many occasions, and I believe that we agree with Parliament’s opinion, it was important to achieve greater synchronisation amongst the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy, in order to achieve more growth and more employment, and the application of the Stability and Growth Pact.
Over the last year, this has been achieved.
There is more coordination and a better relationship between them and I believe that we are achieving very positive results in practice.
The European economy is making better progress today towards fiscal consolidation than it was a year ago, as one of the necessary conditions for more solid growth and growth that is capable of generating employment.
The confidence of the economic actors is improving, the results of activity suggest that 2006 is going to offer better results than in 2005 and the perspectives opening up for the future are also positive.
Secondly, I entirely agree with what Mr García-Margallo’s report says with regard to the importance of paying more attention to the sustainability of public finances and, in particular, with regard to how to deal with the consequences of the ageing of the population.
A few weeks ago, the Commission and the Economic Policy Committee, which is made up of all of the Member States, published a report on the economic and budgetary consequences of the ageing of the population.
These consequences are significant, but that report also notes that, by acting on time and carrying out reforms, such as those included in many national Lisbon Strategy programmes and those which the different Member States are promoting by means of their initiatives, in particular Commissioner Špidla’s initiatives in the demographic field, results can be seen, and there are now European countries that are in a better position today than five years ago to deal with the consequences of the ageing of the population.
In October, the Commission is going to publish a report on this issue, which I hope will also be debated and monitored in Parliament.
A final point.
I am very pleased that, as well as a general analysis of the European economy and of the role of the Lisbon Strategy and of the different instruments included in the broad economic policy guidelines for the economy of twenty-five, Mr García-Margallo’s report makes a particular reference to the challenges and needs of the eurozone, in which the twelve countries that share the single currency, the euro, need mechanisms for coordination and special attention in order to obtain the best possible results from the economic and monetary union.
We would like to thank Mr García-Margallo for pointing this out in this report.
   . – European citizens do not like the political code words used by the experts.
Unfortunately, the ‘Lisbon process’ is starting to become a code phrase too, even though it represents our common future.
If the Member States of the Union are competitive, we will have more and better jobs.
If more people find jobs, poverty will be reduced.
Also, this would provide more resources for the reform of social systems, and to enable us to preserve our environment for our grandchildren.
I would like to strongly emphasise that work that is not accompanied by and founded on social security cannot produce significant economic results.
And if this is true, which it is, then we can welcome the decision of the Council and Commission, that Member States should assess the implementation of the Directives on employment and economic development in integrated Directives, evaluating the two issues in connection with one another.
We can see that the picture has become richer, especially through the fact that the European Commission has now assessed the action plans of 25 Member States.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has acknowledged and accepted that on the basis of the Interinstitutional Agreements, Parliament will not change the guidelines annually – and I believe that this will also serve the interests of the Member States – and it will only change them in the event of any problems arising on the employment market of the European Union.
At the same time, in the specifications of political aims – contained in the preamble – we considered it important to include in the parliamentary document the lessons learned from the first report prepared after the ten new Member States joined the European Union.
The committee agreed, almost unanimously, that Parliament should participate more actively in the verification of the implementation of the guidelines.
In this respect, we will contact the competent Commission official.
In my report I wished to complement the presentation of the Commission in respect of three important matters of principle; my colleagues, the members of the committee, have made a significant contribution to insure that these are presented clearly and comprehensively.
Primarily, we emphatically call attention to the improvement of the labour market opportunities of social groups with various disadvantages.
And, as mentioned by the Commissioners, this is also a precondition of further economic growth.
A huge reserve for increasing labour resources is firstly to increase the activity of women, secondly, to maintain the ageing or aged workforce on the labour market or to encourage their return, and thirdly, to help young people find jobs and enter the labour market.
However, we believe that the elimination of the disadvantages that keep away a part of the people from the labour market today is at least as important.
We also call attention to the anomaly that workers coming from third countries may have a more favourable position on the European labour market than citizens of new Member States.
We will have the opportunity to discuss this problem in connection with the ry report, but I would already like to say, on the basis of the news we have recently heard, that we welcome the Netherlands to the ‘club of the 6’ (as the seventh country, from 2007).
And finally, thirdly, we believe that without a long-term financial perspective it is not possible to provide adequate resources to Member States for the tasks that are specified as fundamental goals in the integrated guidelines either.
Polite words are fashionable here, but this is not politeness or force of habit: I would like to say a sincere thank you to my colleagues – irrespective of their party affiliation – and to the representatives of the various political groups for their help and contribution, and separately to Ana Mato Adrover, the co-rapporteur of the report.
There is hope that the phrase ‘unity through diversity’ will not be a slogan only, but also an opportunity.
   . Some time ago scientists established that there is no miracle drug which can help create jobs, solve all employment problems and encourage competitiveness, but rather there is a multitude of factors and we must simply find a good combination of these.
The problem is that this combination of factors differs from country to country and must take into account peculiarities of the national economy.
On the evidence of the unsuccessful experience of the International Monetary Fund in attempting to create a single universal model, it is doubtful whether we should try to create an economic strategy model on a European scale.
I believe that we must stress three basic points.
First of all, we ought to agree with Mr Garcia-Margallo's view that we must consolidate all economic policy documents; there are too many of them and they are repetitive.
Secondly, we must outline a mechanism of interaction between national and European level economic strategies.
And thirdly, this can be achieved by determining clear and concrete priorities which complement each other.
   – Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Verheugen said that the right place for the employment policy guidelines is at the heart of the Lisbon Strategy, and in that he was right.
The employment policy guidelines now not only serve as the formal basis for the national employment plans, but also make their influence felt on the shape and development of national labour markets, and so it is not a matter of indifference that the Council should simply walk off with the fourth pillar of the European employment policy, equality of opportunity for women in the labour market.
Women are hit much harder by unemployment than are men; it is they, still, who do most of the part-time jobs.
They still earn 15% less than men for comparable work, and they have fewer opportunities for promotion.
They still find it much harder to get back into the labour market, especially where there is no universal, freely accessible and all-day childcare.
Gender mainstreaming still needs to be backed up by pro-active measures to promote the interests of women, and so I really am very grateful to Mrs Kósáné Kovács for making it possible for us to agree on a compromise, at any rate in the recitals, in order to incorporate into the guidelines measurable indicators for the promotion of equality of opportunity.
I would also like to draw your attention to a second amendment.
We want Guideline No 22 to be deleted.
We believe that wages should be determined by the parties to a collective agreement, and must be kept out of political resolutions.
I cannot but note, to my considerable disquiet, that there seems to be in this House a tacit agreement between the two main groups to the effect that, in future, governmental policy decisions, in the shape of national employment plans, should ensure that overall wages trends be brought into line with the rise of productivity in the economic cycle.
I had thought that the planned economy with which we were familiar in the former East Germany had been banished from Europe once and for all, until I realised that the guidelines determine the support to be given by the European Social Fund.
It would be inconsistent for the ESF to determine wages; that is something that the two sides of industry are quite capable of doing, and should be left to them.
   . Mr President, the report on employment policies is over-laden with key phrases, the tone for which is set very early on: legislation, EC monitors and enforcement.
Then we have got the special importance of younger and older workers; then the EU without barriers – remove them, it says – with clear and measurable priorities; review the guidelines every three years, but Parliament must be more active between times; examine Member States’ national reform programmes.
Well, let us do that.
The French took a 35-hour working week, not a 48-hour week.
But when the Working Time Directive was given flesh last year, many of their workers protested at EU interference.
Port workers protested earlier this year at more EU interference.
French cities are now under siege due to new youth employment policies.
Who is going to tell Mr Chirac or Mr de Villepin that they are wrong, they are not conforming to guidelines? Of course you will not.
The French will govern themselves, as all of us should do, as grown-up democracies.
But most sinister of all in this report is Guideline 19: continual review of incentives and disincentives resulting from the tax and benefits systems.
Already a colleague has spoken this morning of a single fiscal policy.
Is this the start of EU harmonisation of tax policy across the Union – something they said would never happen? Ladies and gentlemen, your tax systems are under threat.
You have been warned!
   – Mr President, the European Union’s main problem is high unemployment.
If we are to get our 20 million unemployed back to earning their own living, a change of policy is needed, and in practice rather than in theory.
The guidelines constitute the main instrument for coordinating the economic policies of the Member States in the effective manner that is required, but, in practice, progress so far has been regrettably unsatisfactory.
The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe therefore calls for renewed efforts; what we expect to see from the Member States is sounder budget policies, real structural reforms on the labour market and in health and pensions, and markedly more investment in education and research.
At the European level, we call for the creation of a single tax base for the taxation of businesses, improvements in the VAT systems, for the adoption of the 14th companies directive, which will make it easier for companies to put themselves on an international footing; for further reductions in subsidies, the introduction of a Community patent and the consistent opening-up of the markets.
Only when we have put our houses in order in this way will we be able think about introducing EU-wide taxes, which is what Mr Bullmann is calling for.
Only if there is real change in policy will Europe be able to face the great challenges in an effective way.
   It was in 2003 that Mr García-Margallo y Marfil wrote his previous report on the economic guidelines and now, three years down the line, judging from the place which the environment occupies in economic policy, it seems that cooperation by means of the open-coordination method has failed to make the necessary impact.
It was decided at the Stockholm Summit that the attempt should be made to incorporate environmental policy and social policy into the economic policy guidelines, with the aim of establishing a sustainable and social market economy in the European Union.
Since, in my view, the environmental aspects of economic policy get a raw deal, I would call for the inclusion in the economic policy guidelines of clear and specific environmental objectives, in addition to references to the importance of the environment.
There should also be targets with regard to energy consumption and CO2 emission reductions.
Economic growth will need to go hand in hand with a responsible use of natural resources, and that is why I will support Mr Lipietz’s amendments.
   – Mr President, the task of those in this House, such as myself, who are both MEPs and authors, must surely be, in an avant-garde and constructive way, to use criticism as a way of waking up the great – who must, being thus awakened – respond to our criticisms in a practical way.
I see that Mr Karas is next on the list to speak; well, Othmar, here comes an easy ball for you.
The effect of what is happening now is that the EU mainstream rubs its eyes and says, ‘yes, we really do have a problem’, but I ask you to think forward to the move after this one.
The Prognos study is an impressive demonstration of the fact that we will not, of course, achieve full employment in the next couple of decades.
On the contrary, we will be moving towards what one of the journalists on the calls the ‘disposable American’, or, to put it in our terms, the ‘disposable European’.
It is to that that we will have to find solutions.
We have an enormous problem with the loss of the services that have provided jobs to replace the industrial jobs that are no longer there.
This is where we need to move ahead, this is where we need approaches that are good for more than just today.
Indeed so: one core issue, one potential starting point, is the reallocation of all these millions and billions that are still hidden away in the EU’s budget and being wasted on pointless things.
I am thinking, for example, of the way in which the most-subsidised sector of agriculture in France is the production of rice.
We also have a chance, in the current absence of a finalised Financial Perspective, to make more improvements here and of accomplishing even now what you will otherwise do only after another five or ten years, when it will, again, be almost too late.
   –Changes in the world economy, globalisation processes and their effects on the competitiveness of economic blocs and companies in branches of state economies – these are new challenges for the European Union, which is increasingly losing its competitiveness, and is not ready for the challenges of globalisation.
The EU is losing the competition war to the USA, China and India.
The EU should prepare for the challenges of globalisation by reforming itself from within.
We failed to adopt the Constitution, the financial perspective is deadlocked and less funds are being allocated to the trans-European Networks.
Without a common energy policy, the supply of energy resources, which form the basis of an economy's competitiveness, is threatened, as is security.
With the admission of the new candidates, Slovenia and Lithuania, the enlargement of the Euro zone would be one of the actions and decisions which would stimulate economic growth.
I would like to mention two important factors for increasing the EU's competitiveness – investment in information and innovations and the accelerated creation of a common energy policy.
These are inter-dependent factors – innovations allow leaders to emerge, while in this sector – energy, which determines competitiveness, innovations allow the creation of new sources of energy and the rational and economical use of existing ones.
While negotiations on the financial perspective for the period 2007-2013 are still under way, we ought to reconsider the funding priorities and increase the funding of science, research and the trans-European Networks.
On the subject of the competitiveness of the EU economy, I would like to mention one of the EU's most successful projects – the introduction of the common currency, the Euro, in 12 Member States.
With the enlargement of the Euro zone approaching, we can also see certain shortcomings: the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact are not being adhered to, there is considerable state debt and at various stages almost all of the Euro zone members have failed to satisfy the price stability index.
The experience of five years demonstrates the need to improve the Maastricht criteria themselves.
However, fundamentally, the Euro zone was and still is a political project, which has shown its use and it must go on to a new stage of enlargement.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0069/2006) by Mr Őry, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on transitional arrangements restricting the free movement of workers on EU labour markets [2006/2036(INI)].
   . Mr President, I am astonished that there should be a report on this at all.
I thought the EU was all about the free movement of goods, services and labour.
What do we find? When the ten new Member States joined in 2004, they did not get parity.
Only three Member States of the previous EU of 15 admitted their workers without restriction: Ireland, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
This becomes very odd when you consider that these are three of the most reluctant EU Member States.
Ireland rejected the Nice Treaty the first time and only accepted it later due to impressive gerrymandering in a second referendum.
Sweden only joined the EU after a bare 1% majority in its referendum.
As for the United Kingdom, you know all about us.
None of you exactly welcomed Prime Minister Blair last December, at the end of what you all considered to have been a rotten United Kingdom Presidency.
You were right.
You even threw out his seven-year budget – his precious rescue attempt – with an overwhelming vote on the Böge report.
So I am now in the very happy position of saying to you: do as the United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden have done.
Never mind transitional arrangements; obey your own rules; open your borders; take your share of, say, Polish workers – in the United Kingdom we have 250 000 of them, and they are not all plumbers.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too am opposed to second-class EU membership, and, yes, there must be freedom of movement for all workers in the EU, and as soon as possible, but there are reasons why the option was introduced of using the 2+3+2 rule to limit access to national labour markets, and it strikes me as pretty risky to attempt to draw from the experiences of three Member States conclusions that automatically apply to all the others.
I greatly respect Mr Őry, and will say to him quite frankly that I well understand why he, and many other Members of this House, endorses the Commission’s line, but perhaps I might also say that it was the Czech minister of labour, among others, who announced, as long ago as the end of last year, that even his own country was giving thought to the possibility of making transitional periods for worker mobility applicable to Romania and Bulgaria.
In contrast to the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ireland, Germany’s unemployment rate is running at 12% rather than a mere 5%.
We have a country with 18% unemployment right on our own doorstep.
I am sure it is understandable that that fact cannot do other than cause many workers to worry about their own jobs, and it is surely only right that a government should try to take that into account, particularly when one bears in mind the fact that Germany has already, in percentage terms, given the most work permits to citizens of the new Member States.
   – The free movement of persons and access to labour markets has undoubtedly become a sensitive political issue.
The rapporteur, Mr Őry, has handled this topic skilfully, without causing division among the Member States.
In his report, he focuses on the real effects of citizens from the new Member States entering the labour markets of the fifteen old Member States.
He supports the premise that it is not the Member States and their interactions that pose the real problem to European competitiveness, but rather external competitors such as India and China.
The report considers the following facts: firstly, workers from the new Member States nowhere exceed 2% of the host country population; secondly, internal migration within the old Member States is four times greater than internal migration from the new Member States and, thirdly, migration from third countries significantly exceeds total internal migration within the EU.
There is no doubt that, in addition to the German, Austrian and French attitudes to the transitional period, divergent opinions also exist among the new Member States, as the transitional period has gradually become a sensitive political issue there as well.
We adopted the transitional measures during the accession talks, as part of the deal.
As time goes by, however, this has become a sensitive issue in the politics of the old Member States, which are increasingly perceived as discriminatory.
Discussions over the Services Directive have already revealed absurd situations in connection with transitional periods and now, with regard to Directive 109, it also appears that a legal conflict has arisen with the preferential rules clause.
The fears generated by job insecurity and prejudice undoubtedly represent political capital that can be readily used.
Instead of propagating this myth, however, which in fact leads to a political impasse, it should be the responsibility of politicians to tell the truth.
   Mr President, I congratulate Mr Őry on producing an excellent report.
I should like to make three brief points, the first of which concerns paragraph 1.
As it came out of committee, it now calls on Member States to abolish the transitional measures in force. For many that has become the main focus of the report.
I know that the rapporteur has felt pressured to table a compromise saying that Member States should consider abolishing those measures and specifically mentioning the three Member States that did not introduce them in the first place.
Many in my group support the text as it now stands, feeling that we should be against any continuation of transitional measures.
However, in saying that, they are reading it alongside paragraph 14, which says that Member States that continue to use such measures should take all steps to ensure that they do not continue beyond 2009.
My second point concerns equal treatment.
The rapporteur and others here today have made the point forcefully that it is not just a question of making sure that A8 workers have the right to freedom of movement of labour, we have to ensure inspection and enforcement regimes grant them full equal treatment and prevent exploitation in the 15.
There have been serious breaches in both the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
My final point relates to Directive 2003/109/EC, referred to by the Commissioner.
It grants full access to the Member States’ labour markets for long-term resident third-country nationals.
Parliament’s Legal Service has said this poses no danger of creating a situation where third-country nationals have greater access than A8 citizens.
The Legal Service points out that Article 11 of the Directive says that Member States ‘may’ restrict equal treatment for third-country nationals in certain cases.
Saying that Member States ‘may’ is not the same as saying they ‘must’ or that they ‘will’.
The only way to guarantee equal treatment is to end transitional measures.
   We all know perfectly well that the free movement of workers is one of the four fundamental freedoms on which the whole idea of the European Community is based.
However, we also know that this freedom is only valid and fully established only for citizens of the fifteen old Member States, while citizens of the eight new Member States, which became members on 1 May 2004, are subject to the provisions of the transition period and this transition period may last as long as seven years in accordance with the 2+3+2 year formula.
As if this were not enough, according to certain EU directives, in some cases, long-term residents from third countries enjoy rights, which give them a more privileged status than citizens of the eight new Member States, to live and enter the labour market in fifteen EU Member States.
And this means that by demonstrating solidarity with workers from third countries, we are discriminating against workers from the new EU Member States.
As the first transition period ends on 30 April, we have a perfect opportunity to evaluate its consequences and effects on the economies of both the fifteen old Member States and the eight new Member States and to make appropriate decisions.
True, we lack statistical data on immigration in the heart of the Community.
It is difficult to come to objective conclusions, but today, it is already obvious that immigration from third countries greatly exceeds the flow of immigration at the heart of the EU, that is in the fifteen old Member States and the whole of the enlarged EU.
It is also obvious that the countries which opened their labour markets to citizens of the new countries have really only benefited, while the transition periods encourage illegal work, unfair working conditions, discrimination against and exploitation of migrant workers.
I am convinced that the European Parliament must encourage Member States to abolish the provisions of the transition period currently in force, as there are more than enough reasons to do this.
   – We shall look into it, Mr Heaton-Harris.
   – Mr President, in the sentence which starts with the phrase 'stresses the importance' and ends with the word 'subsidies', it is suggested that a word be added.
This sentence would therefore be reworded as follows: 'Stresses the importance, therefore, of achieving positive results in reducing and eliminating its domestic subsidies'.
In order not to create confusion and for reasons of grammatical and semantic consistency, it is proposed that this sentence be moved immediately after the sentence which ends with the words 'cotton farmers'.
   – Mr President, the MEPs belonging to the Free Democratic Party did participate in the vote on the report (No A6-0086/2006) on the guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States.
We did this out of a desire to express solidarity with our colleagues in promoting our group’s concerns, whilst nevertheless remaining convinced that employment policy is not a matter for the EU, and that this should be dealt with by the Member States rather than by us here in Strasbourg or in Brussels.
If the European Union wants to be successful, it must concentrate on its essential functions, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, which needs, in future, to be taken seriously and adhered to.
   Mr President, I would like to say a few words about Hammerstein Mintz’s report and voting behaviour.
I do support openness, but I am also in favour of a certain degree of realism.
It is perfectly obvious that the Council meetings should be open, but in points 14 and 15 this Parliament voted in favour of the meetings of COREPER, the Permanent Representatives – that is to say the ambassadors of the EU – being open, and those of the Conciliation Committee too.
We can certainly insist on this, but one would assume that the Council also has the right to insist that all our group meetings, preparatory meetings and all meetings of the Conference of Presidents should be open.
I therefore support openness, but I do not think that it is realistic to insist on openness on the part of COREPER.
   . I voted in favour of Mr Hammerstein Mintz's report on the openness of meetings of the Council when acting in its legislative capacity.
At a time like this, when it is becoming necessary to move towards a political Europe, it is increasingly difficult to understand why the European Council continues to meet behind closed doors when acting in its legislative capacity.
Besides the fact that this position is contrary to Article 1(2) of the Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty of 7 February 1992), which lays down the principle of open European decision-making, it also does not provide the openness that our fellow citizens expect from the running of the European institutions.
We will never be able to reduce the divide between the European structures and the people by acting this way.
Pending the ratification of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, the European Council must, as a matter of urgency, reform its own rules of procedure to anticipate this move towards greater openness in its deliberations when meeting in its legislative capacity, whilst maintaining privacy for exchanges between Heads of State or Government.
   . I congratulate Mr Cashman on this report and was pleased to support it today.
The problems many Members have had over access to documents have been an issue all across the House and it is only right that we should be starting to address it here.
I only hope we will see the aims of this report backed up by action.
   . – I voted in favour of the outstanding report by my colleague and friend Mr Papastamkos on the assessment of the Doha Round following the December 2005 WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong.
I feel that economies, and in particular western economies, should support the Doha development programme, which provides for a kind of open and fair trade that is designed to reduce poverty around the world by helping both developing and developed countries to move forward.
If we do not do this, there will be a high political price to pay, in particular through the rise of extremism.
I welcome the fact that these negotiations have recognised the ability of multilateralism and international trade to create wealth and, in turn, social progress.
We will all be able to see how a unified, strong political European Union can play a prominent role on the world stage in this fight against a situation in which national self-interest prevails over weakened international institutions.
   . I have supported this report in its intention to alleviate the costs for many of the poorest countries for healthcare and drugs.
Whilst I support the intention of Amendment 3 in alleviating these costs, the amendment is inappropriate as it provides for a blanket limit to all patient protection for products related to this field which could distort markets at a global level and potentially harm further development.
   The next item is the Commission communication on the amended proposal for a directive on services in the internal market and Communication on Directive 96/71/EC (posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services).
As everybody knows, this is the amended proposal for the so-called ‘Bolkestein Directive’ following its first reading in Parliament.
   Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, during the first debate on the Services Directive, a British Member said: ‘Fritz Bolkestein is well and alive and living mainly in France’.
My group wishes the former Commissioner, Mr Bolkestein, a very happy retirement.
Indeed, we hope that he will have a peaceful retirement, but his directive is well and truly dead.
Henceforth, we shall have a Gebhardt – McCreevy directive.
There are still, of course, the Bolkestein orphans.
On the extreme left and among certain well-known anti-Europeans, the Bolkestein Directive had become an obvious bogeyman, the symbol of an anti-social Europe.
These people have difficulty in accepting that the Bolkestein Directive is definitively dead and buried.
Others have the same problem, notably some enthusiasts of ultraliberalism, and here I am thinking of those who saw in the Commission’s original proposal a sort of master key providing access to a totally deregulated Europe.
I am thinking in particular of that French baron who tries to look modern by speaking American when he is speaking on behalf of big employers.
Happily, though, the European Parliament has done its job, and a qualified majority of Parliament has rewritten the text that was submitted at first reading on the Commission’s original proposal in order to make it a respectable instrument that encourages the free provision of services, while avoiding any form of social dumping.
The Commission has done well to broadly support the European Parliament’s position, even if we did observe a bit of shillyshallying last week.
President Barroso has taken his troops in hand.
We shall, of course, have to remain vigilant and we shall have to request some further information.
Nonetheless, the Austrian Presidency would likewise do well to ensure that the Council supports Parliament so that we may quickly arrive at the proper Services Directive that we hope and pray for.
   Madam President, I cannot help it, but when I see the name Winkler up there, I immediately think about Henry Winkler: remember the guy who was Fonzie in Happy Days? It is good to have an Austrian Minister as Fonzie, giving the thumbs up to better regulation!
We have three linked issues in this plenary session.
The first, which we dealt with yesterday, was to do with transparency and the openness of the Council; the second is this debate on better regulation and legislation, and the last one we have this evening is on citizenship.
I support all those initiatives; I think they are great; I think the work that the Secretary-General is doing in the Commission under Mr Ponzano is extremely good and I would like to recommend all four reports that have been put on the table today.
Having said that and given that we are talking about better regulation, when I started going through the reports, I got a bit uneasy.
I will just read you the language.
I think there is a communication problem here.
Mrs Frassoni drew up a great report, but paragraph 18, ‘Notes that the SOLVIT network has proved its effectiveness in the internal market as a complementary non-judicial mechanism which has increased voluntary cooperation among Member States ...’.
It is all true, but if you are sitting up there trying to listen to this, you are not necessarily going to understand what it means.
Mr Doorn, on better lawmaking, at paragraph 5, ‘is of the opinion that the Lamfalussy procedure is a useful mechanism; regards the convergence of supervisory practices as crucial; welcomes the work of the Level 3 committees in this respect and supports the call for an adequate toolbox;’ – great.
Then, the McCarthy report – which I think is the clearest one – states in paragraph 6, ‘requests that the Commission carry out both and impact assessments on legislation to assist in identifying whether key policy objectives have been met ...’, and the Gargani report has exactly the same.
What I am trying to say is that we need better regulation, better lawmaking, but it is to do with simplification and us understanding what we are deciding on and people understanding what we are trying to decide on.
That is what better regulation is all about; therefore, we need to use better language.
I cannot imagine how that sounded through the Finnish interpretation!
   Madam President, I congratulate all our rapporteurs in undertaking this gargantuan effort today and shall focus briefly on two points: Council transparency and Mr Doorn’s report on subsidiarity.
As we heard yesterday, a lack of Council transparency remains the elephant in the room; it remains the root cause of so much discontent with EU lawmaking in general.
Surely the Council can take more steps towards meaningfully meeting in public.
Right now only Havana and Pyong Yang operate in such an opaque fashion.
We should be doing better than that in the 21st century.
More substantively, turning to subsidiarity and especially paragraphs 25-29 of Mr Doorn’s report, I give my own country, Scotland, as an example of the missed opportunity that subsidiarity currently represents.
Scotland is currently part of a Member State not known for its enthusiastic EU engagement and yet our parliament in Edinburgh would represent an enthusiastic partner in better EU lawmaking.
Our parliament has total responsibility for health, the environment, justice, education, fishing, agriculture and many more areas, yet the EU view of subsidiarity too often stops at the Member State when, in fact, the more relevant partner may well be much more local.
I would associate myself with all of Mr Doorn’s recommendations on impact assessments, although I echo Mrs Wallis’ comments on political engagement and stress that such engagement must be as local as possible.
Then perhaps we will see subsidiarity starting to work for the betterment of EU legislation in the future.
   Madam President, further to the reports on better lawmaking that are the subject of today’s discussion, I should like to make a few observations about the role of impact assessments.
I gather from Mr Doorn that he is in favour of a random test being carried out by a panel of authoritative experts.
I wholeheartedly support the idea behind it.
Like him, I call for a truly independent committee, one that is not made up of representatives of the three institutions.
We have examples of this in the Netherlands, in the shape of the committee that monitors the environmental impact reports.
If you have had a few bruising encounters with such a panel, then you are bound to clean up your act the next time.
I would also like to add that legislation is always a learning process, but the explicit description of it as such in Recital J of the Doorn report is, in my view, far too negative.
We do what we can to adopt sound legislation.
We are bound to get it wrong the odd time, but to see this as an objective from the outset strikes me as taking things too far.
Is the Commission planning an EU-wide information campaign to ensure that organisations which will have to comply with the new directive on money-laundering and terrorist financing 2005/60/EC(1) (e.g. banks and legal firms) have sufficient information on new procedures?
   Commissioner, bearing in mind that the IRA is believed after its Northern Bank robbery to have exploited money-laundering opportunities in Bulgaria, what specific steps are being taken to ensure that the authorities and organisations there, and indeed in Romania, are ready and able to implement the legislative requirements on money laundering and terrorist financing?
The ‘first job contract’ that has been introduced in France allows businesses with more than 20 employees to take on a young person of under 26, with a two-year trial period during which s/he can be dismissed without reason. These employees would not benefit from the protective labour-law clauses requiring an employer to justify dismissal.
Article 2.2 of Directive 2000/78/EC(2) deems discrimination to have occurred ‘where one person is treated less favourably than another is’, inter alia on grounds of age.
Does the Commission think that the ‘first job contract’ complies with the principles of the directive? If not, what steps does it intend to take vis-à-vis the Member State concerned?
   . Commissioner, I think, in fact, that when the Commission receives notice of the First Employment Contract, it will be important that it can conduct a precise analysis of the conditions in which this law would authorise allowing the employment contract of young people under the age of 26 to be terminated during the first two years.
If, as you have said, directive 2000/78 allows differences in treatment, including on grounds of age, it is within the framework of positive actions, of actions proportionate to the desired objective.
Recently, a judgment was delivered by the Court of Justice – Mangold judgment of 22 November 2005 – concerning another piece of legislation, the German ‘Hartz 4’ law, which relates to provisions for older workers.
This judgment took the view that, in this case, the way of renewing fixed-term contracts exclusively for these older workers was not proportional to the desired objective.
I think that, in the case of the First Employment Contract, nobody believes that the measure in question is favourable to young people under the age of 26.
This is therefore clearly an act of discrimination towards them, which denies them the benefit of a number of elements of employment law.
I hope that the Commission will rely on Court of Justice case law in order to condemn this First Employment Contract.
   .
Mr Désir, you cited one particular case which is very important for assessing similar situations, since the Directive does in fact assume that each measure will be on the one hand proportionate and on the other hand legitimate in relation to its purpose.
In the case you mentioned relating to older workers, the Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that the purpose was legitimate but the measure was not proportionate and therefore the measure was rejected.
At this point in time, as I have said, due to the fact that the law has not yet been notified, we do not know what form it will take, and indeed I have even read reports in the media that its final form has still not been determined, so it is impossible for me, as a representative of the Commission, to provide further details.
   – Mr President, in EU Member States such as France, Germany, Spain and Italy, a full-blown labour market for trainees has developed.
Increasing numbers of regular workers are being replaced by unpaid or poorly paid trainees, or in Germany, for example, by state-financed ‘1 euro jobs’ – in which previously unemployed persons are entitled to earn EUR 1 per hour on top of their unemployment benefit – which are not liable to tax or social-security contributions.
To what extent is the Commission aware of this problem?
   . Council Regulation (EC) No 485/2005 to which the honourable Member refers extends the possibility of withdrawal of fishing vessels from the Community fishing fleet with public aid to vessels which can be transferred to the countries affected by the tsunami for the benefit of the fishing communities concerned.
This possibility is granted on an exceptional basis, under certain conditions and only during a limited period.
While several countries in the Indian Ocean whose fishing sectors were affected by the tsunami disaster enquired about the possibility of a transfer of vessels, only Sri Lanka submitted a formal request for vessels.
It concerned 120 vessels with an overall length of 9 to 12 metres.
The Commission informed Member States of the request and reminded them on several occasions of the obligation to report on the transfer of vessels.
Despite the unanimous adoption of the regulation by the Council, all 20 Member States which are engaged in maritime fisheries have now informed the Commission that they have not identified any possibility of transfers of vessels in response to the Sri Lankan request.
As the regulation sets a deadline of 30 June 2006, there are at present no more prospects of transfers of vessels under the scheme.
   . – Within the context of the EU’s development policy, the Union has earmarked funding for refugee camps for the Sahrawi people run by the Polisario Front in the Western Sahara region.
I should therefore like to ask, once again, whether, as part of its approach to the problem of Western Sahara, the Commission intends to ask the Polisario Front what it thinks of this agreement, given that it will have far-reaching implications for Western Sahara.
   . As I said in my previous response, the negotiations were conducted by the Commission with the representatives of the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco.
The authorisation that we had from the Council was to negotiate with Morocco.
The negotiations concluded with an agreement which entails that any fisheries carried out in waters within the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Morocco should benefit the communities directly adjacent to where the fisheries are carried out.
It is therefore the responsibility of the Kingdom of Morocco to see to it that any benefits deriving from fisheries carried out in waters adjacent to the Polisario Front area would go to the communities living there.
The European Council has reached an agreement on the financial perspective for the period 2007-2013. What impact will the latter have on development policies for the outermost regions?
Under the n+2 rule, one of the CSF criteria, funds earmarked for a particular programme must have been disbursed within two years.
Can the Commission indicate the amounts and programmes in respect of which the Greek Government has requested an exemption from the n+2 rule?
What stage has been reached by the Commission in considering these requests?
Is it possible, under the third CSF, to extend beyond 2006 the deadline for the signing of contracts? If so, under what conditions?
Is it possible for Community funding under the third CSF to be used after the end of 2008? If so, under what conditions?
   .
You may be aware that the before the end of last year the Greek authorities submitted to the Commission a list of requests for exemptions from the n+2 rule.
The total amount was more than EUR 655 million.
The intention was to cover an amount of EUR 342 million, potentially subject to the n+2 rule.
The request submitted relates to 12 operational programmes in Greece and also implies the intervention of three funds: the ERDF, the ESF and the agricultural fund.
The Commission has completed the processing of the Greek request concerning the application of the n+2 rule and reached the conclusion that what is left as the potential cut due to the n+2 rule is EUR 8 638 000, which is less than what was initially on the table.
We are still waiting for confirmation by the Greeks and, if they confirm this, this will be the amount the Commission effectively expects as the commitment.
The second part of your question concerns the eligibility period for the commitments and payments.
As you know, for the 2000-2006 programming period, the eligibility period ends on 31 December 2008.
Commitments are, theoretically – and I would like to stress that – possible during the entire eligibility period, which means 2008.
However, commitments should be made early enough to allow the final recipients to implement the operations and projects and to carry out the payments before the final eligibility date for the expenditure, which is the end of 2008.
We will close the expenditure for all the Member States under the current financial perspective on 31 December 2008, with the exception of programmes and measures which are covered by state aid.
According to the rules, this eligibility date is 30 April 2009.
I also want to inform you that, according to all our legal analyses and the information we have in the Commission, there could be no exceptions to these conditions – I mean the end of 2008 or April 2009 – as regards the final possible date of eligibility.
So the final date is the end of 2008 or April 2009, and that is the situation.
   Questions 48 to 59 will be answered in writing.
   . – Mr President, I am much obliged to the Commissioner for his precise answer.
However, if I may say so, he spoke so fast at the beginning that the German interpretation was practically incomprehensible.
I should like to query whether I have understood correctly, therefore, that the last two of these ten Member States, namely the Czech Republic and Hungary, are due to join in 2010? I should like to ask the Commissioner whether developments have really been finalised, or whether there are some of the ten Member States who have requested postponement beyond 2010.
   . Thank you for your response to my question.
The Maastricht criteria are being strictly applied to those countries which are applying for entry into the eurozone.
Lithuania cannot be accepted into the eurozone, even though it currently exceeds the inflation criteria by a mere 0.1%.
Lithuania complied with this condition over the past six years, as did others.
In the current eurozone, many members are infringing one or other of the Maastricht criteria.
For instance, some large countries for many years breached the conditions on budgetary deficit without receiving a red card, the same with inflation and other criteria.
Are the new Member States not being discriminated against here with these double standards?
   . Mr President, in general, for all of the Member States with derogations, which are not members of the eurozone, but with an obligation to join in the future, we carried out that assessment in October 2004 and we will repeat it in October 2006.
In the case of the two Member States that have made individual requests for that assessment — to which they have the right, according to the Treaty — that is, for Slovenia and Lithuania, we shall present our individual assessment for each of them on 16 May.
I cannot tell you the result of a report that will be adopted by the College of Commissioners on 16 May in advance.
If you wish, I shall come to Parliament on the afternoon of 16 May to explain the content of the report to you, but I cannot say anything before then.
   Commissioner, I wanted to ask about inflation.
As we are aware, inflation in the eleven countries, which were first to join the economic and monetary union and were ready to introduce the Euro, has surpassed the index for a significant period.
Only two countries did not exceed the index.
The others exceeded it for between 10 months and almost six years from the end of 1998 to the end of 2005.
My question: are we applying double standards to the new states and is the economic and monetary union a technical union or is it simply a political union.
   I would like to ask the Commissioner what level of discussions he has had with Member States of the eurozone in relation to their performance and their potential performance.
In the case of Ireland, for example, asset inflation, the price index for houses, went up 1.5% in February.
We have had double-digit inflation in housing for some time and it looks like we will continue to have that.
If there is a hard landing in the construction industry; it has implications for revenue; it has implications for unemployment payments and therefore revenue; it has implications for consumer confidence.
Have you had discussions with the Irish Government on this issue, and to what extent has the Commission considered the implications for a eurozone member of the possibility of a hard landing?
   The next item is the report (A6-0076/2006) by Mr Takkula on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing for the period 2007–2013 the programme ‘Citizens for Europe’ to promote active European citizenship (COM(2005)0116 – C6-0101/2005 – 2005/0041(COD)).
The Commission can agree to Amendments 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 15, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 28, 29, 31, 34, 39, 43, 46, 50(2), 51 and 61.
Amendments 12, 14, 16, 20, 27, 30, 32, 37, 41, 42, 44, 48 and 52 can be accepted in principle provided that they are redrafted.
Reserved position pending agreement on financial perspectives on Amendments 36, 45, 49 and 50(3).
The Commission cannot accept Amendments 8, 9, 11, 13, 23, 26, 33, 35, 38, 40, 47, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62 and 63.
   The next item is the report (A6-0061/2006) by Mrs Prets on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Community action for the European Capital of Culture event for the years 2007 to 2019 (COM(2005)0209 – C6-0157/2005 – 2005/0102(COD)).
   . I think that the Capital of Culture programme is as popular in the field of culture as Erasmus is in the area of education.
Both programmes are approximately 20 years old, and should we so wish, we could say much about the past and future of these programmes.
I am convinced that not only the Committee but also Parliament is keen to make sure that the Capital of Culture programme becomes even better and more popular, and I believe that we are heading in that direction.
I would only like to add that the fact that ten cities in Germany and eleven cities in Hungary are competing for the 2010 title reflects an interest, competitiveness and movement or dynamism in the field of culture and cultural heritage, which is good for the whole of Europe.
I would like to thank you all and to say that we are actually doing many of the things that Mr Sonik has mentioned in the field of information, consultancy and assistance.
We would also like to increase the value of the prize or financial aid to EUR 1.5 million.
All this, however, depends on the outcome of tomorrow’s voting and on the discussions about the Financial Perspective.
Having said that, I am convinced that this activity, this component of cultural cooperation, deserves significant support.
   . – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank our rapporteur, Mrs Doyle.
Her statement showed how vigorously she has fought, both in committee and in plenary, for this issue, which is of particular importance for Austria and Denmark, because we are the two Member States with stricter regulations in this area.
Above all, we have shown that it is possible to have stricter regulations without causing economic damage.
I therefore have to ask the Commission why it has once again tried, in its declaration, to pull the plug on European unity.
Environmental policy and popular satisfaction are united, and we in Europe are united.
The Commission's attitude therefore greatly surprises me, because we successfully concluded a conciliation procedure between the Council and Parliament.
The joint draft of the European Parliament and of the Council, which was approved by the Conciliation Committee on 31 January 2006, provides that Member States may retain national requirements stricter than those foreseen by the Regulation until the end of 2012.
The additional paragraph 3 in Article 9 gives the Member States, and in particular Austria and Denmark, the option of retaining their existing further-reaching bans on the placing on the market of fluorinated gases.
If such a safeguard clause was not introduced, the Member States would have to revoke the existing bans that go beyond those in Annex II to the regulation, or have them approved by the Commission.
Under Article 95(10) of the EC Treaty, harmonisation measures such as the regulation on these fluorinated greenhouse gases may include a safeguard clause temporarily authorising the Member States to take different measures.
This authorisation has to be granted pursuant to the process laid down in the regulation and in the form prescribed there.
Despite this, however, the Commission does not refer, in its declaration regarding Article 9(3), to the process laid down in the regulation, but repeats the wording of Article 95(4), according to which the stricter national provisions – which, moreover, are justified by recent scientific findings – must be notified to the Commission for approval.
I think that this clearly goes too far and does not correspond to what the Council and Parliament agreed.
   Mr President, I had actually intended to make a different speech but, having heard the debate in this House, I must thank Mrs Doyle for her splendid contribution.
I cannot, however, in any way see how her efforts might bear fruit, as the Commission is expressly saying that only those countries that have more stringent rules now may be given permission to stick to those rules.
There is nothing about countries being able to go further and no assurance of Denmark being able to go further.
When I think of the zeal with which Mrs Doyle’s proposal at second reading was fought against, I do not understand from where Mr Bonde, Mr Busk and the others derive their optimism.
There are no reassuring signals.
We are faced here with a proposal that is an affront to all constructive forces working in favour of the environment.
There is, in fact, such a thing as substitution.
Alternatives do exist.
We have efficient refrigerators in Denmark and Austria, yet the choice has been made to defer to the fluorinated gases industry instead of to the environment.
I cannot see anything in the Commission’s pronouncement that goes any way at all towards pledging anything more constructive.
It is therefore exclusively Mrs Doyle whom I shall thank for her splendid but, it has to be said, entirely fruitless efforts.
   The Council will be here tomorrow.
The Commissioner may respond today.
As far as I am aware, Commissioner Dimas will be here tomorrow.
Commissioner Figeľ, would you like to add anything?
   . Mr President, Mr Schüssel, Mr Barroso, my group has never advocated a thoughtless increase of the budget.
What is more, we do not believe that the budget is the only instrument available to the Union when it comes to facilitating healthy growth and balanced development.
Thus, it would undoubtedly be very helpful if the European Central Bank were to play a different role in this regard.
Nevertheless, the budget is always the expression of a political desire.
There is no point in us harbouring lofty ambitions if we reject the financial resources needed to fulfil them.
That is particularly true in the case of enlargement, which everyone knew, even before the start of the process, would entail legitimate costs, particularly in the context of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
That is why even Parliament’s original demands and the Böge report seemed to us to fall a long way short of the financial needs corresponding to the commitments made.
We therefore agreed with Parliament’s decision to reject the European Council’s cut-price compromise of last December.
You were right, Mr Barroso, to point out at the time the drastic cuts that a financial perspective such as this would entail and to call for resources for education, research, the trans-European networks, cooperation and so on.
From the point of view of these objectives, the 1.5% increase demanded by our negotiators was in itself extremely modest: 1.5% of 1.04% of the Union’s gross national income.
As far as the Council was concerned, however, that was still three times too much.
Under these circumstances, my group takes the view that our credibility depends on our rejecting this farce and that, consequently, we must shoulder our responsibilities.
   .
Mr President, I feel, having listened to what has been said this morning, that the European Parliament is once again indulging in its favourite sport and pastime, that of navel gazing. All we are really discussing are the minutiae of interinstitutional agreements – or perhaps at this stage one should say ‘disagreements’ – but are we addressing the real issues of the European Union budget?
Is anybody prepared to really talk about the fact that the auditors have refused to sign off the accounts for 11 years in a row? Does anybody here want to have a bet with me that it will not be 12 years in a row, or perhaps 13 or 14?
The whole thing is fatally flawed, is it not? We have a budget system that is overly complicated, but my question is: do we need a budget at all?
Well, Mr Blair, having collapsed in the negotiations, having been totally outwitted, outclassed and outplayed by President Chirac, has signed a really rather bad deal for the British taxpayer.
And now a majority of British people are asking: ‘why are we paying GBP 39 million a day into an organisation which cannot sign off its own accounts’?
Why should British taxpayers be helping to build a new underground system in Warsaw and new sewers in Budapest? Why are we paying all this money to a group of countries that sell us far more than we sell them?
Surely, to subsidise your economic competitors is the economics of the madhouse!
Nobody sensible would indulge in it.
So it will not be very long, Mr President, before the British are not going to be paying any money into the European Union.
I know that all of you have benefited for the last 30 years, but I apologise in advance.
There will be no British cheque coming to any of you within a few years, but we have enjoyed ourselves whilst we have been here.
   I would like to bring up two points: Europe has, and will continue to have, an urgent need for energy.
However, due to pressure on the part of the European Union and because of a weak national government, Slovakia will have to shut down two units of the nuclear power station at Jaslovské Bohunice by 2008.
Given the safety features of those units, they could very well remain in operation until at least 2015.
Slovakia will be receiving only a fraction of the money needed for the shutdown of these units from EU funds.
This year, two new automobile plants of Europe-wide significance are scheduled to come on stream in Slovakia.
As a result, the transport system will be struggling to meet the needs associated with delivering supplies and shipping finished products.
However, under the long-term financial perspective, the European Union is reducing the resources available for trans-European networks by EUR 20 billion.
This will do nothing to further the trust of Slovakia’s citizens in EU policy.
   Mr President, I warmly welcome the firm stance adopted in the European Council’s statement on Belarus, and also the position Chancellor Schüssel presented to the House.
The distinction made by the Council between the Belarusian authorities and Belarusian society is particularly significant.
This important distinction was proposed by the European Parliament as the basis of the Union’s strategy towards Belarus.
It is not enough, however, just to condemn the fraudulent elections and the use of force, and to call for those imprisoned to be released.
More and more targeted sanctions are needed.
The list of persons banned from entering the Union should be extended and bank accounts frozen.
The European Union and the European Commission in particular are not doing enough for Belarus and they are reacting too slowly.
The Union should be providing much stronger and more specific support to civil society in Belarus.
Belarus should be treated in the same way as Ukraine was in its time.
Firstly, we should call for the fraudulent elections to be held again.
Secondly, a sizeable solidarity fund managed by non-governmental organisations should be set up to support Belarus.
Thirdly, we should call for more than the token effort made to date to ensure that independent television and radio can actually be received in Belarus.
Belarusians themselves should be employed to provide the information broadcast.
Fourthly, the scope of certain Union programmes like the Erasmus student exchange programme should be broadened to include Belarus and its civil society.
Fifthly, and this is my last point, the Union and its Member States should arrange stronger diplomatic representation in Minsk.
   – Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I have just two brief observations to make.
Firstly, I am very glad that we succeeded yesterday evening in achieving agreement on the financial framework, so that we now have enough time to allow things to really take off in 2007, with all the programmes being implemented.
We are very confident that you, Mr President of the Commission, will very soon approve and review what the Member States have come up with by way of structural policy, so that we do not waste time.
Since we are talking about the summit, I have a second comment to make; I do not believe that competitiveness can be decreed from on high; it has to grow from the bottom up.
I would of course like to see all the things you, Mr President-in-Office, quite rightly set out this morning brought to life and implemented on a local basis.
It is quite plain to me, when I see how, in Germany today, it still takes between seven and eight weeks to set a business up, because people are sent from pillar to post, that it is on the ground that things have to happen.
I hope that the initiatives you have taken will help to achieve that, and I can tell Mr Schulz that people in Aachen, which is so close to the border, know perfectly well just how uncompetitive German legislation is even in North Rhine Westphalia.
   – Mr President, I want to raise a point of order.
Mr Farage does not appear to be in the Chamber.
Might it not be that the United Kingdom Independence Party are seated up in the gallery?
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if there is an alternative to Strasbourg, I am all in favour of discussing it; that is what I have always said, but using this as a way of doing so is absurd and unfair.
It must surely be plain to see that for as long as the Council, unanimously, insists on Strasbourg, we shall have twelve part-sessions in this place, and whether Mr Titley understands English or German or French, he should simply take a look at the treaties, something that might also sometimes be a salutary exercise for Mr Blair’s Government.
I therefore think that we should have another debate on Strasbourg, but not in this fashion.
What we should do this week is vote on our calendar.
By what, Mr Titley, do you justify your assertion that our orders of business here in Strasbourg are not full?
You should just try standing in for Mr Schulz in the Conference of Presidents and then you would know that what you claim is a bare-faced lie and bears no relation to the facts.
   .
Mr President, I would like to say a few brief words to Parliament, because I am very surprised at the behaviour exhibited by the Chairman of our Committee when yesterday evening he sent everyone an email relating to the vote on my report.
The report was unanimously adopted by the Committee, no one voted against it, and in my opinion this sort of attack by a Chairman against his own Committee is curious, to say the very least, if not extraordinary.
Accordingly, I do hope that Parliament will understand what this is really about and that it will not accept the two amendments tabled by the Chairman.
It would be a great mistake on Parliament’s part to adopt his Amendments 62 and 63, as they would undermine the notion of active remembrance which is contained in this programme.
Mr President, this course of action is, I think, insulting to our Committee.
   .
UKIP has voted against amendments 62 and 63 on the ‘Citizens for Europe programme’ because they believe that the proposed projects, for which they have every sympathy, should be organised and funded at national level.
   – Thank you, Mr President.
First of all, I wish to thank all those Members, amounting to 30% of Parliament, who, out of respect for my country, heard the speech given by the President of Malta.
However, I am today standing up to explain the vote in relation to the report on the Cultural Capital of Europe.
There was a misunderstanding yesterday.
I was supposed to speak but, for some reason, was not given the opportunity to do so.
In fact, what I wanted to say was that I abstained, as did my Maltese fellow Members from the Delegation of the Socialist Party, because, of the new Member States, our country was bottom of the list of countries that might be nominated and, of all the Member States including the two new countries set to join the Union, was next to the bottom of the same list.
I think it unfair that Malta should have been allocated a position in which at least twelve years have to elapse before it can be nominated.
Thank you.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the fact that Commission communication COM 2006 on the functioning of the transitional measures shows that the influx of workers from the EU-10 states into the states with open labour markets has not been at all great and, on the contrary, according to the experts, has had a positive effect by increasing output and improving the economy, and also in view of the fact that the transitional periods have clearly contributed to an increase in the numbers of illegal workers, I consider approval of the report by Mr Őry as a significant initiative which should help to open up labour markets fully in states throughout the European Union.
Only in this way can we fulfil all of the freedoms set out in the Treaty establishing the European Community, and give a boost to the entire EU economy.
I have therefore voted for the approval of this report.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the four European freedoms, that is to say the freedom of movement for goods, services, capital and above all persons, have always been among the things that people valued most highly about the European Union.
It is therefore incomprehensible, unjust and discriminatory that people from eight new Member States, including the Czech Republic, still do not enjoy the same rights in this respect as citizens from the other EU states.
The reasons for restricting this fundamental European freedom are entirely unfounded and nonsensical.
The examples of the United Kingdom, Sweden and Ireland show that labour markets are not under any threat.
I am pleased that other states are to open their labour markets as well, and I trust that they will be doing so very soon.
We need a Union in which all citizens share the same rights and the same obligations and not a Union where some are equal and others more equal, as in George Orwell’s .
I have therefore voted in favour of Mr Őry’s report.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, along with other MEPs from the Civic Democratic Party I have backed the report from my colleague Mr Őry on the free movement of workers.
We fully respect the right of individual Member State governments to decide on temporary restrictions in respect of the free movement of workers, within the context of the Accession Treaty.
We also appreciate the decision of Great Britain, Ireland and Sweden not to make use of this right and we welcome the decision from the governments of Finland, Spain, the Netherlands and Portugal to end these restrictions.
We are convinced that there are no objective reasons for restricting freedom of movement for workers within the European Union.
The political reasons for restricting this freedom, however, appear just as compelling to the old Member States as the free movement of workers is important to the new Member States.
We have therefore backed a call to all governments to scrap restrictions on the free movement of workers within the European Union.
   –  Our work in the immediate future must be characterised principally by persistence and insistence.
The Minsk regime hopes that, in time, the Belarus story will fade in importance in the international media.
They hope that Europeans will forget the agonies of this people, our brothers.
This must not happen, and we, as the European Parliament, have a duty to keep the memory of these events alive and to be the conscience that acts as a reminder even to the other European institutions so that no one forgets the cry of these people.
As I said during the last part-session, I am happy to note that attention is being given to my appeal to the effect that we should look after students sent away from their Universities because they took part in demonstrations and for whose education we have to provide in our country.
Moreover, we should go further.
I am also pleased that the proposal that assets be frozen has been accepted.
This is one of the proposals made by the Delegation for Relations with Belarus a long time ago, and I am sure that a look at the action plan we put forward more than a year ago would reveal more proposals.
Mr Milinkevich, we will never allow you to disappear.
   I support the position taken by Mr Winkler and Mrs Wallner and for my part would like to stress four points.
Firstly, as the elections in Belarus were unfair, then legally Lukashenko is not the President and cannot be afforded this title in any European Parliament documents.
Lukashenko should not be called President in this Chamber either.
Secondly, in order to fight the indoctrination of the Belarusian people being carried out by media, which is controlled by Lukashenko, television programmes have to be broadcasted continuously from Lithuania, Poland and even Ukraine to the whole territory of Belarus, not just part of it.
Television, not radio, has the greatest impact on people's consciousness.
Thirdly, we must use all means possible to strengthen the united Belarusian opposition.
And fourthly, we must constantly remind Russian President Putin that part of the reason why the Belarusian regime has not yet collapsed is that it is supported by Russia, and it is responsible for this.
   It gives me great pleasure to congratulate Ukraine for the fact that the elections, which took place on 26 March, were democratic, free, fair and satisfied international democratic standards.
This alone is a great victory for the people of Ukraine as they create a civil society, especially when one remembers the events of December 2004 which caused considerable concern and ended with democratic Presidential elections, and also the fact that over the past two years, Ukraine has achieved good results as it implements democratic reforms.
Now we can only hope that the coalition, in which the majority of citizens placed their trust during the elections, will be able to come to an agreement and form a coalition government to continue the democratic and market reforms which have already begun, and will consolidate democracy.
Soon after the elections Javier Solana stated that the EU intends to activate cooperation with Ukraine, to support political and economic reforms, which will guarantee the rule of law, and to consolidate market economy principles in the country, and I might also add, to support a more effective war on corruption and the shadow economy.
The EU, like the USA, supports and will continue to support Ukraine's aim to become a WTO Member and is striving to accelerate the country's admission to this organisation.
Ukraine must also carry out its own mission in the region.
By this I mean the solution of the Moldova-Transnistrian problem and in this task Ukraine deserves the support of the European Union.
According to the results of a sociological survey conducted last month in Ukraine, 42.9 per cent of Ukrainians support the country's membership in the EU, while US President Bush has stated that, and I quote, ‘the USA is prepared to support Ukraine during the process of integration into the EU and NATO’. And how will the European Union itself respond to this?
How will we respond to the expectations of the Ukrainian people and their elected representatives?
Are we, the European Parliament, ready to have a constructive debate on Ukraine's European integration, or simply the European perspective? I believe that once again the future will depend on the Ukrainian people's political will and determination, on their efforts, as no matter how we look at it, Ukraine is in Europe.
Article 49 of the Treaty on European Union states that all European countries have the right to become EU Members.
   The next item is the statement by the Council and the Commission on measures to enhance road safety (SAFETY) and security measures in the transport sector, including the financing thereof (SECURITY).
   .
Mr President, sharing, as I do, Mr Jarzembowski’s view, I think that the topic of traffic safety deserves a debate of its own and that we are keen to enlarge on it on a different occasion.
I would like to confine myself to the issue of funding safety.
Since the attacks of 9/11, safety in the transport sector has become an important area of concern, for Europe as much as for anyone else, and with good reason.
The port sector has been looked at, European legislation has changed safety at airports beyond all recognition, and I am glad to see that other measures are under way.
If we want to adopt sound safety policy, though, we should not only draft common safety guidelines which, needless to say, should apply everywhere in the same way, we must also be clear about who will be footing the bill for all of this.
We need common European rules for this, along with a level playing field, therefore.
We cannot have a situation where in one Member State, all of the costs are passed on to the passengers, while in another Member State, most of the costs are borne by the state.
A regulation in this respect is all the more urgent, because the costs involved in new safety measures continue to spiral out of all proportion.
Accordingly, since 2001, Brussels airport has doubled its safety supplement which it charges each of its passengers.
We have now also started to draft fresh legislation.
As already stated, though, an interinstitutional declaration was drafted on this very topic as long ago as 2002.
This was accompanied by the pledge that a solution for the problem of funding would be tabled shortly.
The Commission promised to present a communication on a strategy to tackle this problem by the end of 2005.
We are still waiting for this communication.
A while ago, rumour had it that we could expect this by the end of April, which turned out incorrect.
I would like to ask the Commissioner when we can expect this communication.
Indeed, under these circumstances, it is difficult for us, as co-legislators, to do our jobs properly.
We may be discussing the change to Regulation 2320, but we have no idea where we are headed in respect of an important component in the dossier.
I accept that it is difficult, Commissioner, but you should present a number of ideas at the earliest opportunity, allowing us to hold a thorough debate.
   . Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I will do my best to be brief.
The Austrian Presidency plans to deal with the question of the financing of security measures in the next Council working group, which takes place tomorrow, 6 April, and in particular to discuss the way forward with this dossier, especially as the Commission has now announced that it will not be presenting its study on the matter until the end of 2006.
In any case, close contact between Council Presidency, Commission and Parliament is essential in this matter, especially since we want to reach agreement with Parliament quickly.
I will gladly discuss in detail all questions of financing as the Council Presidency sees them, but there is no time for that today.
I have tried to report on road safety, on which the Council has focussed in the last few weeks and months, and to do so in close contact with the Commission, which has concentrated more on the financing of security in aviation, for example.
How difficult this question of financing is is shown by the fact that there are also different views in the European Parliament, as is evident from the Costa report and also from what you said, Mr Jarzembowski.
Of course I know as well as you do that we need clear rules, if only in order to have fair conditions of competition and for reasons of transparency.
I also believe that this really is about fighting terrorism, and that must be a national function, because if it is passed on to the airlines, the responsibility will again lie with the passenger, and I do not believe that is where it belongs.
The passenger has the right to adequate protection against threats, in one form or another.
That is why my clear position is that all this is a national function, and we have to face up to that.
   Thank you very much for a helpful reply.
Mr Sonik also wished to establish whether the Council was satisfied with the response by the Chinese side, however.
After all, this is not a new problem.
It is good that it is on the agenda at Troika and High Level meetings, but Mr Sonik was obviously hoping that stronger pressure could be exerted on the Chinese side to ensure implementation of these provisions.
   – I listened very carefully to Mr Winkler’s answer, but among the points he raised there is one I should like to focus on, namely the fact that this persecution is not only against Catholics but also against other religions.
I should like to ask whether the Council is aware of the Falun Gong report, according to which there is a death camp in the Sujiatun area of Liaoning province in which Falun Gong prisoners are massacred, and whether the Council intends to investigate this report of serious human rights violations in China.
   . I have never said – because it would be incorrect – that our efforts are concerned only with Catholics or only with Christians.
Freedom of religion is a human right that applies to all religions moving within the democratic framework.
Falun Gong is a special case, especially because we know, as you mentioned, that degradation and torture are used.
We are of course following this with great concern and are also raising it repeatedly.
You mentioned the re-education camps.
We have raised them as well, not only in connection with religious freedom but generally.
The Chinese side has known for many years that re-education camps have long been a thorn in the flesh of the European Union, because they certainly do not meet the normal international standards of human rights.
You can therefore be assured, honourable Member, that we are also seeking to end the suppression of the Falun Gong faith and its adherents.
   I am pleased that the previous speaker had information given to him.
When my flight was cancelled by Air France on Sunday night at Gatwick airport, there were no instructions, no rights given to us at all.
I understand that it is a question for Member States, but can you please use your good offices to try and ask the Member States to make sure that legislation is complied with. At the moment it is not.
If passengers are not even given any information about compensation, what can they do?
   . – A total of EUR 7.3 billion has been allocated to transport.
The honourable Member very rightly mentions that, in order to realise the priority trans-European networks, we also have to implement, rather than just think about, innovative funding models.
I am thinking here of participation by private financiers and investors.
There is no other way.
In addition, there is no doubt that we shall have to establish priorities and, after a few years, shall be able to determine that the projects that are ready for construction the quickest are also likely to have the best chances of being realised.
For this reason, it will be the overriding task of those with relevant responsibility in the Councils to ensure that those priority trans-European networks that have been identified as important to employment and economic development have the necessary, relevant approval and are thus ready for construction.
   . – I shall gladly discuss oral question H-0237/06 by Mr Jałowiecki, too.
As the honourable Member is no doubt aware, Parliament and the Council have adopted the Decision on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network. This assumes that the work on railway axis No 23 – the said Gdansk – Warsaw – Brno/Bratislava – Vienna axis – will be completed in the 2010–2015 period.
The Council Presidency is of the opinion that this railway axis is of paramount importance, as it contributes towards the establishment of commercial enterprises along the axis and promotes a shift to alternative modes of long-distance transport, but is also intended to take account of the mobility requirements of those making regional journeys.
In July of last year – 2005, that is – six European coordinators were appointed to advance the realisation of five priority transport axes and the introduction of the European Rail Traffic Management System.
Railway axis No 23 is not one of these initial priority projects, but at this stage the Presidency cannot anticipate a decision on which transport axes will be classified as priority projects in future and whether a second group of European coordinators will be used – my apologies for this.
The transport projects of railway axis No 23 form part of the National Reform Programmes (NRP) of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia; preliminary economic studies have already been conducted, and the design studies and environmental impact assessments have begun.
I should like to add that large-scale investment in the Vienna–Venice section, which was also mentioned in this question, is planned in Austria.
I would also reiterate that, as has been mentioned a number of times already today, a final decision on railway axis No 23 also depends on agreement on the Financial Perspective for 2007–2013, and on the mobilisation of private capital.
   . – Mr Rübig, I think that it is a good idea for the coordinator responsible, who must of course be well informed, to justify himself and be accountable to this House, too, to the responsible, interested MEPs.
I shall be glad to take up and pass on this suggestion.
   . – Mr Karas, I shall be very happy to do so.
The situation with the Brenner Base Tunnel, the heart of the Berlin–Palermo transit route, is as follows. The Commission has promised to cofinance the pilot tunnel to the tune of 50% – a large sum.
The investment volume for this pilot tunnel amounts to approximately EUR 450 million.
We are currently in phase 2, the preparatory stage, and, in the summer of this year, we shall start boring this pilot tunnel and do our utmost to implement phase 3 – the phase of constructing the Brenner Base Tunnel itself – in no more than two-and-a-half to three years, so as to guarantee its completion by 2015 at the latest, as envisaged by the international treaty between Italy and Austria.
As I have always said, if we are ambitious in our pursuit of these objectives, it is quite possible to save a couple of years, so that, in the best-case scenario, the heart of this transit route – the Brenner Base Tunnel – could be completed in 2013.
I should also like to emphasise here, however, that, if the countries concerned are in agreement and the Commission gives them maximum support – as Vice-President Barrot, who has also been enquiring about the situation on site, has just done – there will be progress to match.
I am also relying heavily on the Commission and the EU for the remaining cofinancing.
   Mrs President, on a point of order, every single month I find myself left out of Question Time, even though I am in the first 12 or 13 questions.
To take three questions together and only get through ten questions is really a reflection on this House.
Something has to be done about this.
I am sent here by people to ask questions.
There are 700 of us.
To get through that few questions is really quite an appalling reflection on the House and the system.
I would ask that this be communicated to the Bureau because something needs to be done about it.
   – The next item is the proposal for a Council regulation amending regulations (EEC) No 2771/75 and (EEC) No 2777/75, as regards the application of exceptional market support measures (avian sector) (COM(2006)0153 – C6-0111/2006 – 2006/0055(CNS)).
   The next item is the report by Mr Cornillet on behalf of the Committee on Development on the work of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in 2005 [2005/2104(INI)] (A6-0063/2006).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Cotonou Agreement of 2000 had the good intention of giving the ACP countries help from the EU in getting out of the gutter.
Even though, today, its continuation is probably a foregone conclusion, there are still a number of things wrong with it, and I shall sum some of them up.
There are still, among the ACP countries, six dictatorships, namely Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, Swaziland, Cuba and Eritrea.
It is a matter of fact that these countries’ dictators constitute an obstacle to their economic development.
The Joint Parliamentary Assembly, and its Political Affairs Committee in particular, must make it a priority to bring real democracy to these countries.
At the same time, the ACP countries also include a number of countries in which religious practices still prevail over the rule of law.
The humanitarian tragedy in Darfur is a direct consequence of this, among other things.
In some of them, women’s rights count for nothing and the mutilation of women – despite what has already been done to counteract it – is still a daily occurrence.
It was the Cotonou Agreement that first acknowledged that corruption was an obstacle to development.
It is still going on; it has not yet been stamped out, and constitutes a serious obstacle to the alleviation of the needs of the least well-off in these countries.
Let me close by quoting the Indian Nobel economics prizewinner Amartya Sen: ‘never yet has famine occurred in a democratic country’.
It follows, then, that, in addition to the principle of ‘aid for trade’, we also have to consider the idea of ‘aid for democracy’.
   The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly has done some great work in deepening our ties with ACP countries and affords them a crucial link to our deliberations, particularly as we come to finally address our trade policies, which all too often hinder rather than help development.
Scotland has been at the forefront of calls for change in 2005, with the Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh, the G8 summit in Gleneagles in the summer, and of course we were delighted to host the ACP-EU meeting in Edinburgh.
What we now need to see is our Member State governments putting our fine words into action, and making development policy not just a matter of doling out aid but of working with developing countries in fair trade, to all our betterment.
   The next item is the report by Mr van den Berg on behalf of the Committee on Development on aid effectiveness and corruption in developing countries [2005/2141(INI)] (A6-0048/2006).
   Mr President, Mr van den Berg’s report certainly gets my backing.
Corruption prevents aid from being as effective as it might be, so it is desirable that it should continue to be tackled, and this report offers concrete and rational instruments for reinforcing the machinery of control, resulting in an improved legal framework for combating corruption.
The legal framework is not, however, the only factor.
Rejection of corruption as a social phenomenon has just as much to do with the values that prevail in a society.
It is, then, civil society organisations, and religious leaders in particular, who need to be challenged as to their role in promoting good governance and in fighting corruption.
What is needed is for this debate to become more than merely theoretical.
In any case, both countries and aid organisations that give aid must be able to have confidence that their money is being used efficiently and for its intended purpose.
An expert whose opinion I sought about the van den Berg report told me, the day before yesterday, that it was an outstanding one, and that he hoped the Dutch Government would adopt it without amendment.
I could give Mr van den Berg no better compliment.
   Mr President, I note that we finished 20 minutes early today.
Perhaps I could make the suggestion that in future the President be given, or have at his disposal, the option to continue the debate on a catch-the-eye basis if we finish so early, so that we can make more efficient use of Parliament’s time.
   . Mr President, I note the points raised by Mrs Doyle.
On behalf of the Commission, I would like to reassure the House that the Commission undertakes to evaluate the pending infringement procedures with regard to the use of f-gases in Denmark and Austria, taking into account the spirit in which the final agreement was reached during conciliation.
This vote can therefore take place today.
   As I see that the rapporteur is happy with the statements by Commissioners Verheugen and Kyprianou, we can now proceed to the vote.
   We now come to the elections in Belarus, or White Russia.
With the House’s permission, I beg leave to extend a warm welcome to the candidate who took part in this election and fought for democracy in Belarus, Mr Milinkevich, who is seated in the gallery.
A very warm welcome to you!
As you can see, Mr Milinkevich, we all, from whatever party, want to see democracy in our Belarussian neighbour, and that is what we wish for it.
We wish you all the best at home.
   There was an agreement on Tuesday night by all the political groups to change one word in paragraph 8 from ‘integration’ to ‘perspective’, which brings it into line with the ENP Report, for which I was the rapporteur, and with Mr Brok’s report on enlargement.
Mysteriously, the sessional services, not realising perhaps the sensitivity of this, decided of their own volition to put the word ‘aspirations’ instead, without any consultation with the political groups.
Can we amend the joint text to the agreed word ‘perspective’?
   Mr President, I will be very brief.
We have just adopted resolutions on the elections in Belarus and Ukraine.
I think that our Parliament should include on its agenda a resolution on the presidential election in France, because the last election in 2002 led to pressure on public opinion and to violent demonstrations.
   – Mr President, speaking on behalf of the delegation of the Austrian People’s Party, I should like to make a statement of vote in relation to the Doyle report.
The Austrian delegation's support for it is expressly subject to the condition enunciated by Mrs Doyle and given on the basis of Commissioner Kyprianou’s statement.
We denounce in the strongest terms the unilateral statement made by the Commission once the compromise was reached between the Council and Parliament, and, in the light of the statements made today, we presume that, as a consequence of the new legislation, a halt will be called to the infringement proceedings against Denmark and Austria.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what I will say on the subject of the Doyle report is that it is very important to all of us that the Kyoto targets be achieved.
   . I will vote for this resolution.
On Boxing Day 2004 I was in Kiev as one of Parliament’s observers for the re-run presidential elections that saw the Orange revolution sweep all before it.
But its promise has not been properly fulfilled as former allies fall out and corruption is found within the ranks of those promising to sweep it away.
I can only hope that these new elections teach all of Ukraine’s politicians the lessons that must be learnt if Ukraine is to join Europe’s democratic nations in going forward in partnership.
   The next item is the debate on the six motions for resolutions on Darfur(1).
   . Mr President, when a mission from the Committee on Development visited Darfur in September 2004, we were shocked to see at first hand people sheltering under twigs because their village had been bombed.
We pushed hard at that time for a strengthening of the African Union monitoring mission, and in October 2004 it was indeed extended to include the protection of civilians who were under imminent threat.
The tragedy is that 18 months on, bombings, attacks and rapes are still taking place, despite the best efforts of the African Union both in the Abuja peace talks and on the ground in Darfur.
There are simply not enough African Union troops to be able to control the high level of violence that is taking place, particularly near the Chad border and in the corridor between Tawila and Graida.
That is why the UN must get involved in Darfur as a matter of urgency.
The UN needs to back the African Union during the remainder of its mandate and be prepared to take over in October 2006.
The Government of Sudan says that this is colonialism.
It is not.
It is a sad recognition that earlier initiatives to rein in the violence have largely failed.
Even the humanitarian effort in Darfur is now under threat, because access to the humanitarian agencies is being obstructed.
With over 3.5 million people dependent on food aid and medical aid, we cannot just stand by.
The violence has to stop.
   . Mr President, my contacts in touch with those on the ground in southern Sudan inform me that there is a situation developing right now that deserves our urgent attention.
While the government in Khartoum claims to keep peace agreements, which we know it does not, it funds the LRA – the Lord’s Resistance Army – from northern Uganda to continue the genocide for them.
The LRA lay siege to southern Sudanese villages: killing the adults, taking the children.
Young girls are abducted to become sex and labour slaves and they are also sold, traded and given as gifts to the LRA arms dealers.
Young boys are terrorised into virtual slavery as guards and soldiers.
The LRA is only a small force, but it is increasingly expanding because abducted young boys are being used as combatants.
It is planting season now in southern Sudan.
Civilians should be planting but they cannot, because of the LRA threat, which is again backed by their own government.
If nothing is planted, famine will result.
The situation is critical, they need our protection now.
We have to ask ourselves: if Russia and China can support the government, why cannot we support the suffering Sudanese people?
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Iraq: Assyrian community, situation in prisons in Iraq(1).
   – The humanitarian disaster in Iraq is the result of the aggression perpetrated by the United States and the ‘coalition of the willing'.
In case some of you are not aware to which countries this refers, the next in line are the United Kingdom and Poland, followed by a number of other countries.
Among other things, representatives from these countries have been training Iraqi policemen, and I am sure that they will have made use of this opportunity to urge the policemen to uphold international standards on treating prisoners.
I am also sure that the prisoners will have been informed under paragraph 9(b) of this resolution how to raise an objection in court effectively.
I believe that the other procedures to which the motion for a resolution correctly refers will also have been discussed with them.
Unfortunately, I have not yet seen policemen in Iraq protesting against the situation of prisoners or the mistreatment of minorities.
We must therefore take a firm line on these issues and adopt this motion for a resolution, in its amended form.
It would therefore, in turn, be opportune for the criteria contained in the resolution to serve as the basis for the guidelines for future negotiations on aid for today’s occupying force and the puppet regime.
I support the resolution.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on the case of Ayman Nour in Egypt.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 6 April 2006.
   Mr Cohn-Bendit, your mind is no simpler than the average mind in this Parliament and what you are proposing or suggesting must be taken into account.
It is assumed that the secretaries-general of the political groups attend the meetings of the political groups to communicate the opinion of the political groups.
We could now carry out a test to assess how representative the secretaries-general of the political groups are by putting the amendment to the agenda to a vote, but is that strictly necessary? We shall see ...
   – Mr President, the decision under discussion – about which Mr Wurtz has said everything that needed to be said – was taken because we wanted a debate, but we also, considering among other things Mr Abbas’ forthcoming visit here in Brussels or in Strasbourg, said that it is not proper for us, here today and considering a subject like this, which can potentially have such a great political impact, to come to decisions and put them in the form of a resolution, and that is why we will not be supporting this motion, perfectly plain though it is that the motion is a legitimate one to put to this plenary, which is the highest authority in this House.
On this point I wholeheartedly endorse the line taken by Mr Cohn-Bendit.
I would, though, like to impart to the House something that Mr Cohn-Bendit did not say. The Conference of Presidents is composed of ordinary Members – that is true, and Mr Cohn-Bendit is one of them – and the same Mr Cohn-Bendit, in the Conference of Presidents, welcomes the support of other group chairmen whenever they endorse his schemes – even when they are things that would not be likely to get a majority if voted on in this plenary.
   – Mr President, today we remember the accursed day of the Chernobyl accident.
We still do not know how many people died.
We do not know how many people we need to remember today.
Some talk of 4 000, Greenpeace talks of 93 000 and we still do not know what the exact figure will ultimately be.
People are still dying.
Caesium has an active cycle of 35 years.
Twenty years have gone by, meaning that cancer will be lodged in the human body for another 15 years.
Deaths from thyroid cancer have multiplied a hundredfold.
There have been a great many deaths from leukaemia and this evil will not stop and will continue for a great many years.
They are already preparing a new 'frame' to cover Chernobyl.
At some point they have poured 200 metres of concrete and there are still leaks.
So they are going to make a steel cover that will cost several billion euros, in a country in which pensions have been a mere EUR 20 a month for the last 100 years.
The fatal radioactive materials will be there for 100 000 years.
So that you understand how long we are talking about, Christ died just 2 000 years ago and Noah's flood was just 5 000 years ago.
So just imagine how many thousands of years it will be active.
What conclusion do we need to draw? That this is very, very dangerous yet, at the same time, the number of nuclear stations is multiplying.
The Commissioner said that Bulgaria has promised to close Kozludy.
Yes, this is a promise, but he did not tell us that Bulgaria is already building another nuclear station a few kilometres away, just 50 kilometres from the second largest city in Greece and less than 1 000 kilometres from Rome as the crow flies.
If, therefore, a similar incident occurs, you understand what damage and how many deaths we shall have in Europe.
All of us here – in one of the biggest parliaments in the world – must find the courage and vote and talk and argue against nuclear power.
We must call for nuclear disarmament.
Turkey is already building three nuclear stations and I do not want to say that Turkish and Bulgarian engineers are more inferior to Soviet engineers who, if nothing else, were the first in this field and still suffered the accident.
However, if some terrorist were to launch a missile at such a station, do you understand what the damage would be? The probable damage is huge compared to the economic benefit that nuclear stations can bring to the energy problem.
We need to weigh up the evil and take important initiatives.
I must also report the following sad fact: this year Greece does not have enough soldiers.
Do you know why? Because there were 3 500 miscarriages immediately after Chernobyl and we lost a lot of children who could have been in the army today.
We must therefore pay very careful attention to our future, to the future of our children and to the future of the next generations.
Democracy needs courage.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, even 20 years on, our minds still conjure up the horrors of the Chernobyl disaster; once again we see the incandescent gullet of the nuclear plant; once again we see the thousands of human lives snuffed out; once again we see children contaminated with huge doses of radiation.
What is more, we read with alarm about the number of people who, as a result of Chernobyl, still die before their time.
I was two months pregnant 20 years ago.
As has been well-documented, my country, the then Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, did not escape the nuclear fallout.
I would not want anybody to go through pregnancy with the gnawing, agonising fear of whether the child will be born healthy or a victim of the human errors, the propaganda lies and the arrogance of the regime.
I am pleased that the EU has invested hundreds of millions of euros into softening the impact of the nuclear disaster and I believe that it is in the interests of every citizen of the EU-25 to contribute towards the new safe sarcophagus over the Chernobyl plant and towards gradually getting life back on track in the area around Chernobyl, within the realms of what is feasible.
I travel to Ukraine and I see the endeavours of the people in this area.
Ladies and gentlemen, despite all the horrors and fear that the word Chernobyl arouses to this day, I believe that we must admit that the EU cannot do without nuclear energy.
As we are all aware, more than half of EU citizens are firmly opposed to the construction of new nuclear reactors.
It is also true, however, that Russia, China, India and the United States have given the green light to nuclear energy.
It also disturbs me greatly that in the last four years the price of gas has doubled, and that the EU has become a hostage to the Russian firm Gazprom, which, conscious of its power in the field of raw materials, recently clearly showed what it is capable of doing.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us be realistic and admit that most EU citizens will not obtain energy from biomass and wind farms, yet all citizens will want to switch lights on, heat their houses and manufacture goods; in short, they will want to live and use energy.
I am convinced that nuclear energy is vital if the EU is to maintain both economic efficiency and living standards.
In this regard, it would be opportune to tell the citizens openly that this will not be possible without new, modern and, as far as possible, the safest nuclear reactors.
I feel that Greenpeace stunts or wind farms cannot take on the competition from Asia and America, which is based on using nuclear energy.
I very much hope that this is clear not only to the Commission – which after all is well aware of the fact – but above all to Germany, which wants to decommission nuclear reactors within 15 years, even though it calls itself the industrial engine of Europe and a driving force for progress.
To conclude, I have a little nugget to offer opponents of nuclear energy, namely the latest report from Euronews.
A short time ago, Euronews experts asserted that atomic energy is the best way of reducing global warming.
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission by Mr Brok, Mr Moscovici and Mr Van Orden, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union (O-0034/2006 B6-0019/2006).
   .
Mr President, assuming that my time is limited, I will launch straight into what I have to say.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have lost count of the number of debates we have devoted to Romania and Bulgaria over the past 12 months.
The large number seems to testify to this House’s eagerness to show the EU’s citizens that we share their scepticism and concern about the enlargement.
This debate is ostensibly based on an oral question put to the Commission by the Committee on Foreign Affairs and comprising a number of questions along with direct and/or indirect suggestions.
The text of this oral question has found its way into the Romanian and Bulgarian press and into , and has been the cause of great concern in Romania and Bulgaria.
That is why we have taken the liberty of giving a quite clear response to it even before this debate, but I notice that Mr Brok has no interest in my reaction as he has now left the Chamber.
The response I would like to give to this oral question is twofold, in that I would like to cover both the substance and the procedure.
With regard to the procedure, I can only regret once more the fact that neither I nor the group had been consulted about the text.
We would have been able to make it clear that the designation of – and I quote – ‘a close monitoring system’ is something we emphatically reject, because for many Members of this House, it smacks too much of Romania and Bulgaria being under guardianship, and hence, of discrimination between the Member States, with which we want nothing to do.
I would add that neither Mr Brok, Mr Moscovici, nor Mr Van Orden have used the words ‘a close monitoring system’; they are only on paper.
In principle, I would repeat what I have said before on behalf of our group during the meeting behind closed doors of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
An overwhelming majority of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe takes the view that Romania and Bulgaria should be able to accede on 1 January 2007 and only if there were serious, fact-based shortcomings, would we agree to special safeguard measures being promulgated, which, in our view, cannot be decided upon until the autumn.
Finally, there is something I would ask my fellow MEPs to consider.
It is not a good thing, in the run-up to a debate, to make sceptical noises about the enlargement out of a desire to meet our citizens halfway in their concern, and then to say that we agree to the accession on 1 January 2007 after all.
We think that too much damage has already been done to the enlargement project.
We therefore hope that all of this will end well and that Commissioner Rehn will suggest the date of 1 January 2007 to his colleagues, so that we can give that a joyful welcome during the June debate.
Thank you for your attention.
   . Mr President, as a representative of two Dutch Protestant parties, I care deeply about the freedom of religion in the candidate countries Romania and Bulgaria, and particularly about the legal position of churches.
In the last quarter, Forum 18 News Service has published a number of reports on this topic which give me cause for great concern about how Bucharest and Sofia are implementing something that is one of the fundamental political Copenhagen criteria.
I should like to know, Commissioner, where you stand on the proposals that are being made in Romania and Bulgaria concerning the mandatory registration of religious societies, which is something to which my Dutch Government is, in line with international standards, opposed.
I do not, in the context of this debate, expect a comprehensive response from you, and so I will give you the Forum 18 documents in a moment.
I would be much obliged if you, in your reports in mid-May, could refer to this topic.
I would make the same request of you in respect of the long-drawn-out issue of the restitution of Hungarian church property illegally confiscated by Romania’s Communist government between 1945 and 1989.
According to the information available to me, this involves a total of 2 140 church properties, of which the churches are as yet in full possession of only 54.
It would not look very promising, Commissioner, if Romania were to join the EU with this burden from the past distorting its relations with its Hungarian minority.
   The next item is the report by José Ignacio Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on a stronger partnership between the European Union and Latin America (A6-0047/2006) (2005/2241(INI)).
   . Madam President, in recent years the EU has been very much preoccupied by, and highly focused on, our immediate vicinity, especially in the context of enlargement.
It is only natural that the new Member States and those states bordering the Union have been, and will continue to be, of the highest priority to us.
However, it is important not to forget the rest of the world.
Unfortunately, it still sometimes feels as though Latin America has ended up being somewhat neglected, and that is sad.
The course of development in Latin America is immensely exciting – if highly contradictory – involving economic growth, democratic stabilisation, reconciliation commissions and progress in terms of welfare.
Chile has its first woman president.
At the same time, a very large sector of the population continues to live below the poverty line.
There is great inequality, human rights are violated in many countries, and populists have taken over in Venezuela and Bolivia.
In Cuba, Fidel Castro has now been imprisoning opponents, persecuting dissidents and preventing his people from exercising fundamental rights such as free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and free elections for 47 years.
Parliament has debated Cuba on many occasions.
My group is very critical of the fact that the Council has adopted a softer line on the Castro regime and that not enough support is being given to the democratic opposition, the representatives of which have twice been awarded Parliament’s Sakharov prize.
A summit is to take place in Vienna in May between the EU and Latin America.
We hope, of course, that it will be a great success.
It is important to actually enter into the strategic partnership about which we in this Chamber have talked so many times and for which we have been calling for so long.
Such a partnership must be a broad one.
We have many areas in which to cooperate including not only politics, the economy, social and cultural issues and so on, but also environmental, research and security policies and, in particular, conflict resolution.
We also need to reform our trade policy in order to increase mutual exchange in this area.
Cooperation must take place on a long-term and regular basis.
Individual summits are important, but they are not enough.
As Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra wrote in his report, the parliamentary dimension could be strengthened by a joint assembly.
Contact with civil society, for example with students, is also important in order to strengthen cooperation and the sense of solidarity.
I would like to congratulate Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra on his report.
It was adopted unanimously by the Committee on Foreign Affairs and contains many positive and intelligent suggestions that we support.
The unanimity with which the report was adopted shows how important it is for the whole of Parliament, irrespective of political groups and despite the slightly differing views on individual development processes, to recognise that we really must deepen this cooperation.
The fact that we are so united on this issue is a strength.
We wish to see cooperation that is long-term and of high quality and to which priority is given.
Madam President, I believe that you will see the proof of this unity if you scan down the list of speakers a little, for it is not merely Spanish speakers who are taking part in this debate and engaging with this issue.
   Madam President, regrettably, in the last few years, particularly after the last wave of EU enlargement to the current 25 Member States, Latin America has ceased to be as much in focus politically as it was immediately after, say, the accession of Portugal and Spain in the 1980s and 1990s.
Let us hope, however, that the 12 May Summit will change all of this.
As ENP rapporteur I have had to recalibrate and accept that clearly our strategic EU interests have by necessity refocused on our Eastern European and Caucasus neighbours and our Euromed partners, as well as our strategic interests further afield in China and India.
Nevertheless, to neglect Latin America would be at our peril.
Not only do we share a common cultural heritage and fundamental Western values on democracy, human rights and the rule of law – as well as having a small piece of EU territory there in the form of French Guiana.
However, in the scramble for natural resources we must not for instance allow China to collar the Venezuelan oil supplies, for instance, or cease to support the efforts of President Uribe and his fight in Colombia against the FARC drug-dealing Marxist terrorists.
We face in the region a degree of potential instability now, with the rise of demi-gods such as Presidents Morales and Chavez in Bolivia and Venezuela respectively, who cosy up to the Castro Communist dictatorship of Cuba and reject Western concepts of freedom and democracy.
Haiti is also a country which also remains lawless and unstable at present.
Fortunately, the huge recent rise in oil and commodity prices has benefited much of the region, but we should celebrate the success of the Mexican and Chilean EU free trade agreements and look to extend these to a deal with Mercosur, because regional economic integration and multilateralism has to be the way ahead to prevent a breakdown in the fragile stability of the region.
Personally, I sincerely hope that we can eventually have a Euro-Latin American free trade area by 2010 as suggested, as the United States of America now seems to have lost all interest in the concept of a free trade area of the Americas and instead is doing bilateral deals with individual Latin American countries which I think in the longer term will undermine the regional integration which is so important for our Latin American friends.
   Madam President, to keep my speech short, I would like to congratulate Mr Salafranca, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner and Mr Winkler, for the Council, on this convergence of the three institutions, which they have described very brilliantly.
I believe that the key to Europe and Latin America’s relations — and we must not lose this overall picture — is the complementary nature of the two regions, which share values, ideals, history, culture and traditions and which represent more than 50 countries and more than a thousand million inhabitants.
Together they can be worth much more than the sum of their parts and they can tackle the problems and challenges of globalisation much more successfully.
If this is taken into account, the Vienna Summit can succeed.
That is the direction we must take.
Finally, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, let us not abandon the Andean countries just because one of them has cast the Andean Community aside: we cannot reward the country that has boycotted the Community, but rather we must reward those countries such as Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and – who knows? – Bolivia, that want to maintain an agreement with the European Union.
   The next item is the question for oral answer to the Council regarding the amendment of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities, submitted by Mr Gargani on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs (O-0002/2006 – B6-0004/2006).
   Mr President, on behalf of the residents of Warsaw, I would like to draw the House’s attention to the planned construction of express roads through urbanised areas of the Polish capital.
The project provides for transit roads that will take traffic through the middle of heavily populated residential estates.
Implementation of this plan will pose a threat to the health of hundreds of thousands of the city’s residents.
Particulate emissions will increase by over 10 times, even though acceptable air levels are already exceeded by 50%, or even by 120%.
Other health threats should not be forgotten, such as carbon monoxide, benzene, hydrocarbons and other chemicals.
The project is based on outdated land development plans, which do not take into account the growth of the city and the building of new residential estates.
It is for precisely this reason that the roads will run directly between residential housing blocks, and one of them will run through the Mazowiecki Landscape Park in the Wawer district.
I would add that this runs counter to the EU’s Natura 2000 programme.
I hope that there are people in the European Parliament who care about the good of the environment in Poland, and also about the health of thousands of citizens in Poland.
   –Over the past year and a half, 15 electronics and related companies have ended their manufacturing operations in Europe.
Last October, a request for the European Commission to initiate anti-dumping measures against China, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand was submitted by the Czech company ‘Tesla Ecimex’ and the Lithuanian company ‘Ekranas’, both of which manufacture cathode-ray tubes.
On 11 January this year, it was reported in the Official Journal of the European Union that an anti-dumping investigation had been launched.
However, ‘Tesla Ecimex’ has already ceased its activities.
In April ‘Ekranas’ stopped.
The companies are unable to compete with manufacturers in Southern Asia and Latin America, which receive state support through the implementation of policies favourable to business.
In Lithuania, 5 000 employees, including ones in ancillary companies, are losing their jobs.
Meanwhile, prospects for the electronics market and the sale of ‘Ekranas’ are positive.
I urge the Commission to apply anti-dumping measures more actively and do what it can to aid European manufacturers and honest competition.
   Mr President, in November 2005 the European Commission presented the new regional policy initiatives Jaspers, Jeremie and Jessica for the first time.
They are new aid instruments which are of particular importance for the new members of the European Union, and which are designed to facilitate funding absorption in the field of cohesion policy between 2007 and 2013.
The initiatives have met with a great deal of support from Parliament, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee, which for their part are trying to promote the aforementioned new funding opportunities for regional initiatives.
Yet there is no real evidence of a large-scale and effective information campaign, for which the Commission is responsible.
Despite the fact that six months have already passed since the first presentation, it is impossible to find a brochure or even any kind of publication on the subject, let alone in the national languages.
Those directly concerned, or in other words local governments and businesses, receive only perfunctory information.
There is a lack of widely available training on the subject.
The programmes are supposed to be launched on 1 January 2007, and so I am not sure what the Commission is waiting for.
It is high time that a professional and coordinated information campaign was started.
   The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the discharges for the implementation of the European Union general budget for the financial year 2004.
   , . – Today, I will perhaps attempt to answer Mr Stubb and Mr Jørgensen who asked why we are discussing this question so late and who we want to hide from – society or ourselves.
I would like to remind you that last year, also in April, we voted on the approval of the European Parliament Budget for 2003, where I was the principal rapporteur.
And I proposed that the European Parliament should abandon its work in Strasbourg.
Today, I am the shadow rapporteur and I would like to remind you, that last year Members of the European Parliament decided to retain three work places and to continue sessions in Strasbourg.
Each year, such work or its organisation costs the Community's citizens EUR 200 million.
Mr President, do we have the right to be surprised then that Strasbourg city authority is trying to obtain an unrealistically high price for buildings? I do not think so because we encouraged it to take such actions ourselves.
The retention of the European Parliament Headquarters in Strasbourg is condemned to continue losing money until we give it up.
It is nothing new that there are economic subjects or persons, who commit fraud or even become corrupt.
But often they are encouraged to behave in this way by a monopoly situation, illogical laws or political decisions.
We ourselves, my fellow Members of Parliament, decided to use the buildings in Strasbourg knowing that they will cost an unjustifiably huge amount of money and will mean losses for the city and its people, as we only use those buildings for a few days a month.
This is elementary economic logic.
Many times it has been calculated and argued that if another institution were to move into the European Parliament buildings, working all year long, then this would be of more benefit to the city economically and financially.
Therefore, we must accept that we all know this, but for some reason we do not want to change the situation.
I believe that the people of Strasbourg, like all the other citizens of the Community, have become the hostages of incorrect decisions we have made ourselves.
I support the proposal to postpone the approval of the European Parliament budget until we have examined how many more losses the people of Europe have experienced.
It is very important to ascertain whether there has been corruption or violations of laws and agreements, but it is far more important, honourable Members of Parliament, to finally make the decision to give up this unjustifiable, shameful waste of European people's money.
We have to work effectively in one place and we must use money where it is most needed.
   . Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have three points to make.
First of all, I should like to draw your attention to the amendments I have tabled in connection with the Mulder and Guidoni reports on the agency for reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia.
When we visited Kosovo with an delegation in February, we saw for ourselves the outstanding work that the reconstruction agency had carried out, and we should not simply disregard its expertise.
Hence the request, certainly at this crucial juncture when Kosovo is likely to gain independence this year, not to phase out this agency straight away, but to do it gradually and apply the expertise to other conflict areas in the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan.
Secondly, with regard to Parliament’s discharge, I should like to make a point of underlining Mr Ferber’s excellent input.
He has produced a sterling report.
His draft report was even better than the report that was ultimately voted on by COCOBU, but it has to be said that there are new revelations which need investigating.
This means that ultimately, we will need to vote against his report and against the granting of discharge.
I would like to make it absolutely clear that this does not detract from Mr Ferber’s work or from COCOBU’s observations, but is a clearly precautionary measure in order to give ourselves six months to find out what exactly happened and hopefully, we, along with the city of Strasbourg, the French Government, the administration of this House, and with everyone involved, will be able to draw the conclusions in complete transparency.
My third point concerns the Committee of the Regions.
I regret the fact that we did not, prior to the vote in committee, have a hearing with two auditors who would have attended at Mr Lundgren’s request and who would have put to us any irregularities and possible fraud.
Instead, there is now in Parliament’s secret chamber a chunky, confidential document that suggests that something may be amiss.
This too requires thorough investigation, and so I would ask not only my colleagues, but also this House as a whole, to vote against the Committee of the Regions’ discharge.
   .
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to continue the discussion regarding Parliament’s discharge.
Parliament’s budget for 2004 was EUR 1 231 million.
If Parliament had just one language and just one place of business, 60% of this expenditure would be saved.
Holding Parliament’s plenary part-sessions in Strasbourg costs more than EUR 200 million.
Of that, some EUR 10 million is spent on rent for the Salvador de Madariaga and Winston Churchill buildings.
Parliament receives 20% of all EU administrative expenditure for its own use.
That is such a lot of money that not all of it can be easily spent.
At the end of last year, there was an EUR 85 million surplus of cash remaining in Parliament’s budget, a surplus for which a use had to be quickly thought up.
The Bureau finally proposed the purchase of the Madariaga and Churchill buildings.
These were owned by SCI-Erasme, a Dutch pension fund, or its subsidiary.
Parliament, however, paid rent to the city of Strasbourg.
During the purchase negotiations, it emerged that for a quarter of a century the city had been charging Parliament more than it paid to Erasme.
The city of Strasbourg was therefore cashing in on the fact that Parliament had its premises in the city.
The city has refused to say how much extra money was generated in this way.
This situation is intolerable.
Our group supports a full and thorough investigation into this.
With that purpose in mind, we are prepared to reject Mr Ferber’s report and refer it back to the Committee for further deliberation.
Because of the new areas of confusion that have emerged, we ought to do the same with regard to the report on discharge for the Committee of the Regions drafted by Mr Lundgren.
   – Mr President, I should firstly like to thank my fellow Member, Mr Mulder, for all the painstaking work he has done, as well as thank the other rapporteurs.
It is, of course, regrettable that, this year again, we do not have a straightforward statement of assurance.
As is well known, the EU should ideally be a model for the Member States, especially for the new countries with new and untried administrations.
I doubt, however, whether we are being a particularly good model, given the major problem that exists of our not yet being able to present a straightforward statement of assurance.
I agree with Mr Mulder’s observation that it is unsatisfactory that the Member States are not prepared to issue statements concerning the supervision of the resources they have received.
We must ensure that this is done.
It is, of course, also the case that responsibility for the administration cannot lie with the Commission alone but that the Council and the Member States also bear some responsibility.
There are a number of situations or cases in which I am unable to recommend granting discharge, simply because we would then be granting this in the dark.
In some areas we are taking on tasks that, in reality, we cannot carry out.
Proof of that is the situation concerning Parliament’s accounts, as described today by Mr Ferber.
Yesterday we were certain that everything was in order and we were ready to grant discharge, but in the course of the night we knew better.
It is of course by pure chance that we are now in a situation in which we must ask for the discharge to be postponed because we simply do not know enough.
It is of course quite odd that, for 25 years, both Parliament’s administration and our audit department have overlooked – at least they say they have done so – an extremely dubious payment to the city of Strasbourg.
This is, of course, in reality a payment to a quite superfluous middleman, and if anyone in our administration would have us believe they did not know this, I have to say that I do not believe that the administration is so incompetent.
What is more, it has to be asked whether it really is possible to enter into such financial agreements without carefully evaluating the various options and offers.
No, of course it is not.
Someone has helped someone else obtain an illicit dollop of taxpayers’ money, and, if I know the system, no one will be held liable because, of course, no one knew anything.
As the Commission’s previous President, Mr Prodi, said about the Eurostat scandal: what one does not know about, one cannot be held liable for.
Do not, then, read through the contracts.
In that way you can always say that you did not know anything and so be free from liability.
As I say, we could have got away with granting discharge, but we are not going to grant it.
I am able to recommend that the granting of discharge be postponed, as proposed by Mr Ferber.
As for the other areas, our attitude is described in the report.
   Mr President, I congratulate Mr Mulder on his report, primarily because within this 2004 discharge he continues the momentum that we created in the 2003 discharge about national declarations.
The wording within those paragraphs is very significant, especially in paragraph 26, which mentions encouraging national parliaments to be involved in monitoring European Union funds.
I would hope that the Committee on Budgetary Control will pursue that and encourage our colleagues in national parliaments to have a real dialogue with us on this.
I say that because of what the Council’s attitude has always been towards this.
We have also to congratulate our colleagues on the trialogue who got the agreement within the interinstitutional agreement on the declarations – although they do not use that particular word.
However, I am informed – and perhaps Mr Kallas could confirm this – that five Member States have said that they will not comply with what has been agreed in the interinstitutional agreement.
Among those Member States I am told that Spain, Belgium, Germany, France and perhaps Italy have said that whatever it says in the IIA about giving annual statements, they will not be doing it.
It would help if we could have some clarification from the Commissioner on that.
   The next item is the report (A6-0106/2006) by Wolf Klinz, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on asset management (2006/2037(INI)).
   The next item is the report (A6-0073/2006) by Sophia in 't Veld, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on sectoral aspects of the State Aid Action Plan: aid for innovation (2006/2044(INI)).
   Thank you, Mr Tajani, and thank you also for informing us of this.
I am sure that the House will endorse what you have said.
   Thank you, Mrs Frassoni.
Mrs Frassoni has made reference to what emerged from the Bureau meeting last night, with which I am sure not all Members will be familiar.
Mrs Frassoni, I would recommend not only that you write to the President about this matter, but also that you inform your Secretaries-General and your Joint Chairman, and get this raised in the Conference of Presidents.
The matter you have raised was resolved by being voted on in the Bureau yesterday – albeit with a narrow result.
If you want to raise it again, I am sure you will have to do that via the Groups, who, I am sure, will take the matter up and write to the President.
   The next item is the report (A6-0072/2006) by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on Road safety: bringing eCall to citizens (2005/2211(INI)).
   – Madam President, Commissioner, we recently, in this plenary, discussed the mid-term review of the European Road Safety Action Programme, when we agreed that the chances of the targets we have set ourselves – namely halving the number of road traffic fatalities by 2010 – actually being achieved are relatively slight.
eCall can, however, help us to reduce this figure.
While we know full well that it is not itself a means towards the end of reducing accidents – something at which we have to do much better and in which we have to catch up and will have to continue to do so – it is, as a system, capable of bringing about a dramatic reduction in the harm resulting from accidents, and can also help to build a real broad alliance between the Commission, the Member States, the motor industry, telecoms companies, insurers and, of course, the emergency call services.
If we succeed in providing universal access to the emergency call services, then that will be a small contribution towards helping the injured and towards ensuring that fewer people are seriously injured or killed.
I do not want to argue about figures or about whether those under consideration are actually all accurate, which is a completely separate matter.
If we manage to reduce deaths, and the number of suffering human beings, by 7 000, then that is worth every effort.
On that assumption, this document will have a great deal of support from me – and, of course, from my group – and I would like to take this opportunity of extending warm thanks to the rapporteur and the Commission for the work they have done.
    Madam President, I should like to thank the Commission for its excellent initiative.
I also welcome Mr Titley’s report and commend him for his commitment to this whole undertaking.
As I see it, the eCall initiative is one of many measures aimed at implementing the action plan to reduce the number of road accident victims by 2010.
I believe that the speakers calling for the eCall scheme to be extrapolated from the total package of measures under consideration by the Commission and the European Parliament are mistaken.
The safety of drivers and passengers is an issue of major importance for the Union.
It is also very important for each individual Member State.
In my country, Poland, the average number of deaths in road accidents each year is approximately 5 600.
Any move to reduce the scale of the grief and suffering caused by such tragedies deserves wholehearted support.
Another positive element of this undertaking I should like to mention is the significant drop in the number of deaths and serious injuries it would entail.
In addition, the external costs of road transport borne by all citizens will be considerably reduced.
I welcome Commissioner Reding’s statement concerning integration of this scheme into the Galileo system.
It will enable us to benefit from the economies of scale achieved through development of the Galileo system.
I strongly support those parts of Mr Titley’s report dealing with issues pertaining to respect for the privacy of drivers and passengers.
Clearly, this venture should be dealt with as a complete package from the outset, as Mr Jarzębowski advocated earlier.
I should also like to draw Members’ attention to the cost aspect.
Parliament is, after all, considering a number of other measures in addition to the eCall scheme.
I could mention the introduction of the euro 5 standards.
The cumulative effect of all these measures on the cost of acquiring a motor vehicle could be significant.
I therefore wish to appeal to Parliament, the Commission, the Member States and the Council of Ministers to devise an appropriate information campaign that would succeed in winning over the citizens of the European Union.
It is not right to skimp on the installation of safety features such as eCall in motor vehicles.
There can be no justification for risking loss of life or serious damage to health in this way.
Nonetheless, it is incumbent on us to adopt solutions that will reduce costs to a minimum, especially costs to our citizens, because we do want them to purchase more and more new vehicles and replace older vehicles with new ones.
   – Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by congratulating Mr Titley on his initiative in drafting this report on a subject which brings Europe close to its citizens and by protecting the very valuable gift of life and health.
The eCall system proves that the European Union can give added value to the measures applied by the Member States to prevent and deal with accidents and their multi-dimensional consequences, especially when we think, as has been said, that this system could save approximately 2 500 lives a year, reduce the seriousness of injuries and help to save billions of euros in the overall cost of the consequences.
Several Member States signed the memorandum of understanding, as the rapporteur said, and I am delighted that my country, Greece, is one of them. However, cooperation must be extended to the whole of the European Union by 2009 if we are to have a single emergency number, with the facility to locate the scene of the accident.
However, if this ambitious but very humane plan is to be implemented, real support is needed – as my honourable friends have said – from the automotive industry, from citizens themselves and from government departments, so there is good cooperation as regards the cost of implementing this plan and cooperation with the rescue and emergency services and, of course, with all the systems, such as the Galileo system: this means that we can make use of all the technology and the achievements of the European Union, not only for economic reasons, in the broadest sense, but also on matters which affect citizens' lives.
   – Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that Europe and its citizens stand to gain from eCall.
While it is primarily intended to prevent deaths and reduce human suffering, its economic benefits and the increased efficiency of road infrastructure should not be overlooked.
It brings Europe added value in the field of road traffic safety, which, despite the single European internal market in transport, is still primarily – perhaps Mr Jarzembowski would like to take note of this – a matter for the Member States’ jurisdiction.
That is why this good own-initiative report of Mr Titley’s is aimed at calling on the Member States, firstly to sign the declaration of intent with respect to eCall as soon as possible, secondly to proceed with the technical implementation of the 112 emergency number and its specification, thirdly to inform the public about the advantages of the eCall system, fourthly to bring the debate on data protection considerations to a prompt conclusion, and, not least, and right now, to take into account the future new approach when modernising emergency call centres and emergency control units.
eCall will give us a foretaste of the possibilities that Galileo will open up to us, not the least of which will be that of creating a number of new jobs in a future-oriented sector, and that is one reason why it is worth our while being committed to this.
   One of the great challenges facing transport is to extend the use of intelligent transport systems as widely as possible.
One of these is the advanced GPS emergency call system.
This technology facilitates the first steps in the direction of intelligent vehicles, that is, safer vehicles, and thereby safer transport.
I can only congratulate Commissioner Reding, and we hope that we will use the intelligent systems in transport in more and more areas.
The GPS satellite positioning system enables calls for assistance even without human involvement.
However, Galileo, the European GPS system, already represents the next generation, and exceeds the functions provided by the currently used system by ensuring interaction.
The introduction of Galileo, the largest new virtual infrastructure of Europe, will start in 2010.
I proposed the harmonisation of the introduction of the emergency call system with that of the Galileo system, and the Committee on Transport and Tourism supported my proposal.
I address the same request to Parliament.
Naturally, this will be costly, like any new technology.
Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the system is introduced gradually, and the measures needed to speed up and encourage this process should also be developed.
Also, we cannot disregard the natural incentive that can be offered by insurance companies through lower insurance premiums offered to those who install this intelligent emergency call system in their vehicles.
The Transport Committee supported this proposal, too.
Finally, I think that it is imperative that we examine the experiences of our Member States following the introduction of the single European emergency call number, 112.
The lessons we can learn from these experiences will be very useful at the introduction of the intelligent emergency call system.
   .
Madam President, let me once again express my thanks to the rapporteur and in particular to the political groups of the European Parliament, who, together and almost unanimously, think that eCall represents an important advance that is in the interests of European citizens.
With this strong support from Parliament, the Commission will continue its efforts aimed at the introduction of the pan-European eCall by 2009.
In particular, we will pursue further signatures to the eCall Memorandum of Understanding, and we will follow the progress in implementing the appropriate emergency services infrastructure for 112.
By the way, I have launched 11 infringement procedures against Member States, because they have to implement it.
Parliament is right: let us implement it at once and in the right way so that it serves our citizens.
I will also work relentlessly with all other stakeholders whose commitment is necessary for implementing eCall, and I would like to inform Parliament that on 18 October 2005 I invited all the Member States to a high-level meeting to discuss progress and to obtain further commitment on the roadmap for the implementation of eCall as a pan-European in-vehicle emergency 112 call.
There were 21 Member States present as well as Norway and the representatives unanimously supported the realisation of the in-vehicle emergency call, as well as the roadmap prepared by the industry.
Since that meeting, my services have been in constant liaison with Member States, and several eCall conferences have been held at national level: in Helsinki, Lisbon, Budapest, Madrid and elsewhere.
Therefore, things are moving.
I am sure today’s action by Parliament will be very important in speeding this up.
We are also launching a Eurobarometer survey to collect citizens’ views on 112, on eCall and on other such issues.
You will get the results later this year as soon as they are available.
While I am speaking about all the stakeholders, I would like to briefly mention the insurance industry.
They said, and I quote, ‘there is a complete lack of any viable evidence to support the view that insurers will derive any benefit from eCall’.
I would like to remind the insurance industry that eCall is not about making money, it is about saving lives, and I hope that there will be a review of this position after the very important vote Parliament is going to take.
I would also like to say a word about standardisation.
Standardisation of the data transmission protocol and signalling are urgently needed to enable the design work and investments to go ahead and, here, commercial interest should not block the work of the standardisation organisations.
We now have a full consensus on the eCall specification and functionality, and I would like to urge all stakeholders, and especially the mobile network operators, to support the appropriate standardisation work in ETSI and CEN so that this work can be finalised as soon as possible.
I should like to say a very heartfelt ‘thank you’ to the rapporteur and to all Members from all the political groups who will help us, not only today but also tomorrow, to make eCall a very important European project.
It needs the support of all of the European stakeholders.
Today we have achieved an important milestone.
- The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 11 a.m.
   Road safety directly concerns all of the inhabitants of the European Union.
Increased mobility comes at a high cost: each year 1 300 000 accidents cause over 40 000 deaths and 1 700 000 injuries.
In particular, one out of two Italians uses his or her own car to get around.
Twenty-six million Italians leave their homes each day to go to work or to school.
Traffic costs the Italian economy more than EUR 4 billion each year, which equates to around an average EUR 200 per family.
Italians are abandoning public transport in droves; in 1991 it was used by 17% of the population, but in 2001 by 12.9%.
In Rome, there are seven cars for every 10 residents, which is absolutely the highest figure anywhere in Europe.
That is why our country is so aware of the problem of road safety and of reducing traffic jams caused by accidents.
Among the objectives the EU has set itself is that of halving the number of road accident victims by 2010.
Ecall could save as many as 2 500 lives each year, reduce the number of traffic jams and help improve the efficiency of road transport at European level by reducing external costs, which have been estimated at EUR 4 billion in Europe and are somewhere in the region of 2% of GDP in Italy.
   The next item is the report (A6-0074/2006) by Mr Mavrommatis, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on measures to promote multilingualism and language learning in the European Union: European Indicator of Language Competence (2005/2213(INI)).
   .
Mr President, I do not know whether you want me to read my oral amendments now or after paragraph 5, but I would like to have the opportunity to present two oral amendments.
   .
Mr President, I should like to add a new paragraph 5a to read: ‘Expects that the results of the review of unknown bank accounts related to Commission activities launched by the Commission in October 2005 will be made known completely to Parliament and be followed up’.
And paragraph 5b: ‘Expects that the accounts thereby established will be audited and the funds credited to the accounts will be entered in the general budget’.
   – Mr President, we would have preferred it to be sent straight back to the Committee, but since, as Mr Ferber has explained, this is not a substantively negative decision on the discharge, we too will vote against in order to make a broad consensus possible.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament, I too should like to stress that if we do deny Parliament its discharge, as Mr Ferber proposes, this will send the clear political message that we want to gain another six months in which to investigate this matter thoroughly, to go on a fact-finding mission, working through the details of the two buildings in Strasbourg with a fine–tooth comb.
Nor will this be a discussion about the seat, for that is not at issue.
What this is about is the need for us to know whether or not our money is well spent.
That is the whole idea behind the delay.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Poettering and Mr Swoboda said, our vote, which is along the same lines, obviously does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation that is going to be conducted.
It is just that, with the accusations being very serious, we must ensure that there is complete transparency so that we can then judge and assess matters with full knowledge of the facts.
   Mr President, on behalf of the UEN Group, I wish to support Mr Ferber’s proposal.
We have not drawn any conclusions at this stage but we want six more months to investigate this case thoroughly.
   .
Mr President, I wish to move an oral amendment which is a merger of the original Amendment 1 and the text as adopted in committee.
The paragraph would then read as follows: ‘Regards large companies as an essential component of the innovation system; considers, however, that State aid to large companies is appropriate for encouraging cooperation within innovation clusters and poles of excellence (large companies, SMEs and knowledge centres), provided that they meet the criteria of the ex ante rules.’
   .
Mr President, I would like to add two words to Amendment 2, namely ‘and SMEs’, so that the first line would read ‘Agrees that State aid should be allocated on the basis of criteria favouring innovative start-ups and SMEs’, etc.
   . Given that Bulgaria, Romania and Austria submitted requests for aid due to the damage caused by the floods between April and August 2005 and that on other occasions, I have supported the use of the Solidarity Fund to respond to such disasters, I must add my voice to the calls for solidarity with these countries.
The idea of solidarity, risk-sharing and mutual help lies at the heart of cases such as these, and deserves my support.
   .
I welcome this report on the UNESCO Convention.
The new Convention aims to facilitate the development and adoption of cultural policies and appropriate measures for the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions and also to encourage wider international cultural exchanges.
The Convention acknowledges that cultural diversity is strengthened by the free flow of ideas and reaffirms the importance of freedom of thought and the diversity of the media.
I welcome the fact that the Convention recognises the distinctive nature of cultural goods and services as transmitters of values and identity and it establishes that they transcend their commercial dimension legitimising thus domestic and international cultural policies.
   . The way in which the Commission handled its finances in 2004 gives me and Mr Belder sufficient reason to call for the granting of the discharge to be postponed.
First of all, it must be absolutely clear what the Commission intends to do about the problems surrounding the opening balance sheet.
In addition, it is undesirable that there should be any delay setting up, applying and enforcing the internal control standards.
Thirdly, the Commission must table a plan of approach that includes a target date for working towards a positive Statement of Assurance.
Fourthly, the amount of the advance payments left outstanding is high to an untenable degree.
It is not clear to us how, and when, the Commission would like to see this problem solved.
Finally, it defies belief that Greece, a Member State, still receives maximum agricultural subsidies even though it has not met the requirement of fully introducing the IACS for more than ten years.
   . My colleague Mr Blokland and I have voted against discharge being granted to the President of the European Parliament for the implementation of the budget in the year 2004.
The dislocation of Parliament in Strasbourg meets with incomprehension among the electorate, although Parliament itself is dealing with the consequences of a decision that was taken by the European Council.
We think that the rent paid in excess, which amounts to 10% of the annual rent, should be reclaimed from Strasbourg city council.
This is a for granting discharge.
   .
I voted not to grant discharge to Parliament’s budget, not because of any problem with the administration of Parliament itself, but because of the allegations that Parliament, and therefore the people of Europe, have been ripped off by the City of Strasbourg.
We have the absurdity of John Major’s deal in 1992 during the then British Presidency that gave Germany the recognition of Croatia and the consequent tens of thousands of deaths in the ensuing civil wars.
That gave Britain an opt-out from the Social Chapter threatening to deny, before the welcome arrival of Tony Blair’s Labour Government coming to the rescue, decent social standards to the people of Britain and condemned, at French insistence, Parliament to travel in perpetuity to Strasbourg, at a cost of EUR 400 million a year and the criminal inefficiencies entailed.
Now we learn on top of all that the City of Strasbourg may well have been using the decision to exploit its monopoly to defraud the people of Europe.
   . Since 1999, all Dutch Members have committed not to join the pension fund, because on the one hand, by joining the fund, those taking part are entitled to two pensions and on the other hand, the pension premium is largely, if not wholly in practice, paid by Parliament.
It is extremely vexatious that this House should be landed with the shortages that have already occurred on account of bad management in the Members’ pension funds.
In that way, the taxpayers end up picking up the tab for irresponsible behaviour on the part of the people who represent them, and whose main interest would appear to be in seeking excessive financial reward.
I consider even more vexing the fact that the Committee on Budgetary Control has largely deleted the just criticism of the account of what happened in connection with the pension fund, as included in the original version of the Ferber report.
In so doing, this Committee has failed miserably as a monitoring body, and it is for that reason that I shall not be voting in favour of this discharge.
   .
I contribute to this debate as someone who was partly responsible, as Parliament’s representative on the Council of Ministers’ Consultative Commission on Racism and Xenophobia from 1994 to 1999, for the establishment of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia.
I have no serious quarrel with Mr Guidoni’s report on this Monitoring Centre, but I wish to enter reservations about firstly the underfunding of this Centre compared to the raft of other centres with what I consider less importance to the people of Europe such as Translation or Training.
Secondly the commitment without additional funding to widen its remit to human rights, making its already difficult task virtually impossible.
I do not believe these events are unconnected with the politics of this institution.
Some are fellow travellers with racists and xenophobes, while others take the issue far too lightly.
I do not see how they can with the rising racism in football, whether in Italy, Spain or elsewhere, the electoral successes of the far right in France and Belgium, Italy and Denmark, plus the threatened breakthrough in 4 May local elections in Britain by our own version of Le Pen’s , the British National Party.
   .
The EPLP agrees with the general approach of the rapporteur to settle at a balance of regulatory and market needs.
The EPLP could not agree that the directive needs to be included as a ‘Lamfalussy’ type of directive, which was the suggestion of Amendment 6.
   .
I abstained on this report, because I believe the distinction implicitly made here between discovery and innovation both misunderstands the nature of scientific discovery and the economic consequences that follow.
If we are to compete in the world of high technology innovation and improve our post-innovative performance from its current lamentable levels compared to our competitors Europe must support innovation with public money where appropriate.
This report by Mrs in 't Veld does not accept that analysis limiting state aids, in my opinion, unreasonably.
I therefore could not support it.
   – Mr President, the Titley report is a positive step towards enhancing road safety.
The eCall system, which will help save human lives on Europe’s roads and reduce the severity of injuries, will have a very favourable cost-benefit ratio.
Our response to the growing volume of road traffic needs to be enhanced passive and active road safety.
As part of the world-renowned eSafety initiative, the eCall system is a priority item belonging to a programme covering, , advanced driver assistance systems, lane departure warning and the collision mitigation system.
The incorporation of the Galileo system is a further improvement to this state of the art technology which will benefit Europe’s transport.
The eCall system will serve the hundreds of millions of citizens who every year travel abroad by car.
Accordingly, I voted in favour of the report on making eCall available to citizens.
   .I firmly support the recommendations in the Titley report aimed at rolling out ‘Bringing eCall to citizens’ in the 25 Member States.
This arrangement is, in fact, a key element as far as improving road safety is concerned.
In the event of an accident, the response time – in terms both of making the accident scene safe and of helping the victims - is the most important requirement in terms of limiting the most tragic consequences.
There are more than 40 000 tragic deaths each year on the roads of the European Union.
This system, which would enable 2 500 lives to be saved each year, must quite clearly be promoted by the public authorities of all the countries and demanded by the citizens, who are increasingly calling for safer roads.
It is therefore regrettable that some Member States – such as France, in which road safety has nonetheless been declared an important national cause – should be late in implementing ‘Bringing eCall to citizens’.
Let us hope that the adoption of the Titley report and the publicity it will receive in the European Union will speed up the implementation by all of the Member States of this essential intelligent car system.
   It is important to give priority to road safety issues and to work to bring about a reduction in the number of fatalities on our roads.
There are thus good reasons for the Member States to consider introducing the in-vehicle emergency call service, eCall.
I do not, however, see any reason for the European Parliament and the other EU institutions to call on the Member States to sign the Memorandum of Understanding regarding eCall.
The Member States must adopt positions on this matter without political lectures from the EU institutions.
The introduction of eCall entails costs and technical harmonisation.
It must be up to the individual Member States to decide which road safety measures are most important and realistic and to be given priority.
I have thus chosen to vote against this report.
   .
This report introduces a new system whereby, through the use of digital and satellite technology, emergency services are called directly ‘on impact’ to a car crash.
The new system should be installed in all new cars from 2009, saving up to 2 500 lives a year across Europe.
A sensor in the car is activated by the impact of a collision and sends information on the location, speed and owner of the car through the pan-European emergency number 112 to the nearest police, fire and medical services.
I welcome this report as it will save those hundreds of car crash victims who find themselves trapped in their cars and unable to reach their mobile phones because of their injuries.
Although the smart car system will cost EUR 4 billion it will ultimately save EUR 26 billion across Europe in accident and congestion costs.
According to the Commission, the smart car system could reduce the numbers of fatalities on the roads by as much as 15%.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 27 April 2006.
   Mr Hans-Peter Martin has the floor for a point of order.
Would you please kindly tell me which Rule of the Rules of Procedure your point of order relates to.
   The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 11 May 2006 pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
The following amendments have been proposed.
Pursuant to Rule 168 of the Rules of Procedure, the Confederal Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left has requested the referral back to committee of the report by Mr Speroni on the request for waiver of the immunity of Tobias Pflüge, the vote on which is scheduled for tomorrow.
   – Mr President, my group, on the basis of Rule 168 of the Rules of Procedure, wishes to move that the Speroni report – which has to do with the lifting of the immunity of Mr Pflüger, a member of our group – should not be discussed, but should instead be sent back to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
I see this as being the appropriate decision to take, since the fact that the decision as to whether or not to lift immunity was taken by a mere eight members of the Committee on Legal Affairs shows us in a poor light, and that is something we should avoid.
Any one of us could end up having our immunity suspended, but it is intolerable that less than a third of the Members who actually work in the relevant committee should actually be present to vote on it, and so I ask that we should send the report back to the Committee rather than having a vote on it.
   – Mr President, like many other Members, I have had to consider this issue in the Conference of Presidents, but, not being a lawyer like Mr Lehne, I had imagined it would be rather more straightforward.
Now, though, the lawyers have spoken, and I have to concede that I did not understand what Mr Lehne said, but perhaps that is my fault.
I do not, right now, want to weigh up the pros and cons of Mrs Kaufmann’s and Mr Lehne’s arguments, but I do have a request to make; it is that we should stipulate that immunity matters no longer be dealt with by the Committee of Presidents, since I, as a group chairman, do not feel equal to dealing with such a complex process.
My sense of justice has led me to agree to this matter being referred back, since if, in a committee, only eight people vote and certain groups are not represented at all, I think it would be fairer and better to avoid a formal error and send the matter back.
If, though, sending it back results in one being committed, then that is something we will have to live with.
Having been shown where I was wrong, I think we should do as Mr Lehne suggests, but I would, at the same time, ask that immunity cases be in future considered only in the plenary.
   Mr President, a group submitted this request to amend the agenda armed with a very clear supporting argument.
Given that there were not enough Members present at the committee responsible - which implies that what Mr Lehne said, namely that all the groups are in agreement, cannot be true, since those who were not there were unable to say whether or not they agreed - it now falls to the plenary to decide to refer the matter back to the committee so that, in a month's time or even at the mini-session, if that were possible, we might vote on this subject.
Therefore, it is only a question of postponing the vote by two weeks.
Mr Lehne, you have already spoken.
This is the way things work in a Parliament: the person who speaks last is often right.
I therefore call on Parliament to support the proposal made by Mrs Kauffmann.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we in this House have a monitoring role, and so, just as we, as matter of course, expect the Commission to be present, so we also expect the Council to be here.
I am not talking here about the presidency, but about the Council as such.
In particular, I ask the General Secretariat of the Council, to advise the Council in such a way that its presence is assured, and it follows that we endorse what Mr Schulz had to say, as he was quite right to do.
   – Mr President, I think it is a splendid idea on Mr Watson’s part to put this matter on the order of business.
It is a disgrace that Taiwan, the only Chinese state with a democratic system, is not allowed even observer status at the World Health Organisation.
This House would be very well advised to discuss this issue and make it known to the whole world that we believe health to be a human right and that no country in the world should be barred from the deliberations of the World Health Organisation.
(1)
   – Mr President, political detainees in Russia are in a very bad position.
The case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky is a concrete example of how various means are used to break them down both mentally and physically.
Whilst Platon Lebedev received inadequate treatment for his serious illness north of the Arctic Circle, Khodorkovsky was attacked in his cell by night.
No precise evidence is available as to what happened.
That such a thing should occur is incomprehensible in view of the fact that the prisoners are under permanent observation.
This occurrence confirms the dire conditions in Russian prisons.
Russia’s holding the presidency of the Council of Europe offers an opportunity to approach it and call upon its government to agree to Khodorkovsky and Lebedev receiving the independent medical examination that has hitherto been denied them.
I call on the Council to bring influence to bear on Russia in order that the human rights of those it holds in prisons may be secured.
Mr President, a version of the envisaged North of Ireland Assembly has reconvened today in Belfast.
The Assembly and its power-sharing executive have been suspended by the British Government since 2002.
Sinn Féin is committed to seeing local ministers make local decisions.
At present, British ministers make all policy decisions in the North of Ireland, yet are not accountable to voters there.
It is time for Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party to move forward with the rest of us, on the basis of equality, to fully restore the North of Ireland Assembly and the power-sharing executive.
The recent sectarian killing of Catholic teenager Michael McIlveen shows that much change is still needed in our society.
Continued assistance and support at European level are also needed.
   ( Mr President, last Wednesday we received the sad news of the death of our colleague Rolandas Pavilionis.
We recently worked together in the Committee on Culture and Education.
His position was that of member and coordinator for the Union for Europe of the Nations Group.
We will all remember his commitment and his dedication to cultural matters, as well as the openness and kindness he showed to his colleagues.
His passing away is a great loss.
On behalf of my colleagues from the UEN Group, and also on behalf of all Polish MEPs, I would like to offer my condolences to his family.
   Thank you, Mrs Roure, and thank you to our visitors.
   Mr President, I wish briefly to take issue with what Mrs Krupa – who unfortunately has now left the Chamber – said a minute ago.
She made a statement comparing the European Union to the Soviet Union.
I must say that it is not a fair comparison.
I shall just relate one little anecdote.
Mr Prodi, the previous President of the Commission, went to Estonia before it joined the European Union.
He was asked why Estonia should join the European Union, since it was just like the Soviet Union.
He thought for a while and said that it was a valid point, but he could not exactly remember when Estonia applied for membership of the Soviet Union.
I think Mrs Krupa should always keep that in mind when she thinks about Poland’s role in the European Union: it is there because membership is in its interests and came about through a democratic process.
   – Mr President, the period of reflection expires in 2007 and I imagine that it is for this reason that the President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, presented the Commission's position last week.
However, it is with regret that I see that the Commission has insisted on retabling the question of the European Constitution, without there having as yet been any pan-European consultation with citizens.
During the same presentation, Mr Barroso also spoke about a citizens' agenda, with greater solidarity between citizens in future.
I wonder what measures will be used to strengthen this solidarity: globalisation, the Lisbon Strategy or liberalisations?
To close, I believe that it is our duty, as an institution, to dedicate at least one more sitting of the European Parliament before the cut-off date of 2007 to debate this most serious issue.
   – Mr President, I would like to say something today about the human rights situation in Romania, with specific reference to the MISA yoga school and the visa for its founder, Gregorian Bivolaru.
On 21 October 2005, the Swedish supreme court ruled that Mr Bivolaru, the founder of the MISA yoga school, should not be handed over to the Romanian justice system on the grounds that his personal beliefs meant that he could not expect a fair trial in Romania.
He was granted political asylum in December of the same year.
Proceedings in Romania against 39 persons associated with the MISA school of yoga have still not yet been concluded.
Freedom of religion and an independent justice system are fundamental to the European Union, and Romania’s accession in 2007 is conditional upon them.
Romania’s and Bulgaria’s accessions are, of course, on the order of business for tomorrow.
I think it important that this House should continue to keep a very close eye on the human rights situation in both the present and future Member States.
   Mr President, in Surinam, a country in South America, 25 000 people have been homeless since 7 May.
There are 175 villages largely under water, and tens of thousands of people have fled.
Surinam is one of the ACP countries, with which we in Europe deal through the Cotonou Agreement.
Poverty reduction and schooling are seriously at risk.
Last week, I asked the Commission to help via ECHO emergency aid.
I should like to ask you, on behalf of this House, to convey to the people of Surinam and their Parliament our sympathy with their suffering.
   The next item is the report (A6-0143/2006) by Mrs Kaufmann, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the outcome of the screening of legislative proposals pending before the Legislator [2005/2214(INI)].
   .
Mr President, I have two comments to make with regard to Mrs Kaufmann’s report, the general thrust of which I endorse.
First of all, I should like to draw your attention to the need for screening legislative proposals not only in respect of Better Regulation principles or the Lisbon agenda, but also with regard to subsidiarity.
I am aware that this is a concept to which this House is increasingly averse, but in no way does that alter the fact that European legislation must clearly add value over and above national legislation.
I take the view that fighting overregulation at European level plays an important role in the pursuit of a better and simpler approach to legislation at Community level.
My second comment concerns the role of national parliaments.
I am right behind Mr Barroso’s initiative to send new legislative proposals to the national parliaments, for Member States are capable of carefully screening for subsidiarity, something which will undoubtedly increase the support base for European legislation among Member States.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that Mrs Poli Bortone, with her report, is giving this House another dose of good sense and I rejoice in the hope that we will, tomorrow, get the green light and will at last be able to give consumer protection renewed impetus.
What is at issue today is the need for more honesty.
Do we want to allow consumers to have excessively fatty, over-sweetened or over-salted foods palmed off on them by businesses that are then allowed to get away with boasting about the health benefits? Nobody wants to ban the sale of chips, coca-cola or sweets, but we cannot allow these foods to be sold on the pretext that they contribute to health and wellness.
Nor are we talking in terms of bans on advertising, but only of new marketing rules.
What we need is minimum standards that ensure honesty in marketing.
Harmonised rules make for legal certainty and that is to the benefit of the businesses as much as of anyone else.
A survey revealed that 70% of consumers had confidence in the health-related claims made by manufacturers, and that is what makes this regulation a key piece of legislation, not only in terms of greater transparency in consumer protection, but also of improved health protection.
At present, over 200 million adults and 14 million children in the European Union are overweight or suffering from obesity.
There has been a dramatic increase in the incidence, especially among children, of diabetes II, which is attributable to nutritional factors.
It is because we are facing the possibility of obesity and lack of exercise dislodging smoking from its statistical position as the number one cause of death that we regard this compromise as a good one, and as a good package.
I would have liked to see more objectivity and greater honesty in this debate; in Germany alone, we are contending with nutrition-related problems that are costing us EUR 71 billion, and that makes clear that this is something we have to address.
I also hope that the German Federal Government will not act on Mrs Sommer’s suggestion and lodge an appeal; any government – not just the German one – that appealed against something after having agreed to it in the Council would make itself look ridiculous and lose credibility, and so I hope that tomorrow will see us achieving a milestone in our quest for more protection for consumers and for their health.
   Mr President, like my colleague, Mrs Sommer, I can only express my deep dissatisfaction faced with the common position that has been submitted to us for second reading.
We have here a typical example of a missed opportunity, particularly on the part of the Commission, to support the reasonable position adopted by Parliament at first reading, and this at a time when Mr Barroso constantly regales us with arguments in favour of more subsidiarity, less bureaucracy, and I could go on.
Seeking to impose nutrient profiles on consumers, without any scientific evidence, is as unacceptable as it is rash.
Mr Schnellhardt illustrated this point well.
As chairman of this Parliament's ‘wine’ intergroup, I have a duty to emphasise the disproportionate nature of the total ban on any claim appearing on alcoholic beverages of more than 1.2% volume.
Not only is wine the subject of specific Community regulations, but very credible scientific evidence exists to show that wine, when consumed in moderation, meaning two or three glasses per day for example, is good for a person’s health.
It is, among other things, effective in preventing cardiovascular diseases, cancer and dementia, a point that the Commissioner and his services magisterially overlook.
The compromise worked on by Mrs Sommer, whom I thank, is merely the lesser evil.
I can only lament the little understanding shown by the Council and the Commission regarding this matter, as well as the consequences of their obstinacy, particularly for employment.
In order to give the Council and the Commission one last chance to reconsider some incomprehensible positions that could compromise the conciliation procedure and the objectives set by the Lisbon Strategy, we, together with Mrs Klass, have tabled an amendment that excludes wine and beer from the scope of Article 4(3), so as not to harm sectors that have been part of our cultural and culinary heritage for thousands of years.
The Commission can accept Amendments 50 to 89.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments 1 to 49, 90 and 91.
The Commission can accept Amendments 1, 5, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 and 19.
   Make no mistake: eels were the trailblazers.
Long before we Europeans began to cooperate across borders, eels did so as part of their lifestyle.
They converge in the Sargasso Sea from throughout Europe in order to meet each other and produce offspring, irrespective of national borders.
In the last 40 years, however, eel stocks have declined by more than 75%.
The most rapid decline has taken place over the last 20 years.
It takes eels 20 years or more to reach sexual maturity, and it will be many years before we are able to fish for those eels being born today. This also means that it will be many years before we get to see the results of the measures, so it is time for all countries to help each other.
Eels have already taken more of a beating than they can tolerate.
Given that eels are a symbol of cross-border cooperation, it would be a symbolic failure for the whole of the EU and in terms of the whole future of the EU if we did not succeed in saving the eel.
   The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30.
   Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna has done an extremely thorough job, but we heard President Morales of Bolivia speak earlier this evening of 500 years of colonial plundering.
That period should be in the past.
We come now, however, to this illegal fishing agreement, which is a piece of pure neo-colonialism.
Western Sahara is occupied, yet no one acknowledges the hegemony exercised by Morocco. Only if the changes designed to exempt occupied areas from the agreement are approved can justice be done in practice to the European Parliament’s talk of human rights.
Do read SHERPA’s legal analysis.
They are experts on international agreements and they completely condemn the fisheries agreement.
The institutions’ legal services have been used to misinterpret the UN Charter in the interests of exploitation, but Parliament’s legal service recognises that the agreement is only legal if it benefits the Saharawi people.
In the previous agreements, Morocco showed not the slightest concern about the population.
This agreement contains nothing about compensation for the Saharawi people or about targeted aid as compensation.
Morocco has stolen Western Sahara, and anyone entering into fisheries agreements with Morocco becomes guilty of receiving stolen goods.
It is just like calling on a thief to go into someone’s kitchen and steal fish from the table, something that no one in this Chamber would do. Anyone who puts out their hand and presses the ‘yes’ button in support of this agreement, without exempting Western Sahara’s waters from it, is behaving just like a dealer in stolen goods, putting out their hand to receive payment for them.
   Mr President, yesterday evening you announced to Parliament that the Council was not going to be present after 7 p.m. tomorrow evening.
According to our agenda, after 9 p.m. tomorrow evening we are due to debate whether to grant a cent to the Energy Community Treaty and put an oral question to the Council with regard to this Treaty.
If the Council is unable, or unwilling, to be present to answer this oral question, I see little point in considering either the Treaty or the oral question.
I ask you, therefore, to gain an assurance from the Council that it will be present.
Otherwise I will move that we defer this item until the next part-session of Parliament.
   The first item on the agenda is the Commission’s statement on the Commission’s contributions to the June 2006 European Council: a plan for citizens, producing results for Europe, the discussion period and ‘Plan D’.
   .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, many thanks, Commissioner Wallström.
You are one of the really prominent people in the Commission who are speaking up not only for Plan D but also for the democratisation of Europe as a whole and for greater effectiveness in the Commission's activities.
You are – and I say this on behalf of our group – one of the personalities who can be described as an asset for progress in Europe.
Your speech once again made it clear that you, as the Vice-President of the Commission responsible for Plan D, are someone in whom we can trust and on whom we can rely.
What recognisable results have so far come out of this period of reflection, which, as Mr Méndez de Vigo said, is continually threatening to degenerate into a siesta?
What the citizens of Europe want is more transparency.
They want a better understanding of what happens in the institutions.
They want a clearer division of competences: who does what, where, when and on what legal basis? They want greater effectiveness in legislation and administration.
They want the subsidiarity principle to be strengthened.
Not everything has to be done in Brussels – some things can be done at home.
Not everything, though, can be solved at home, and those things should be regulated by Brussels.
That is a clear message.
The people therefore also want the EU to have a stronger presence in international politics.
They want the EU to be effective in fighting crime.
We know all of that, and it is up to us, the Council and the Commission to achieve it.
It is all in the Constitution, though.
We all know that we need the Constitution if we are to meet these demands from the public.
At the end of the period of reflection, it is now clearer than ever that it is not possible to meet the demands of the public on the basis of the Treaty of Nice.
It was not possible with 15 Member States – which is why Nice needed to be amended and replaced by the Constitution – and we will soon have 27 Member States and still do not have the Constitution.
How can it be possible now? The Commission is the guardian of the Treaties.
Without a shadow of a doubt, nobody should be fighting harder for the Constitution than the President of the Commission.
I should therefore like to thank you, Mrs Wallström, but I would also say one thing quite clearly to the President of the Commission: How can you go into an interparliamentary conference like the one last week, where the overwhelming majority of the national and European parliamentarians present spoke out in favour of the Constitution and the next President-in-Office of the Council Mr Vanhanen declared that, during his Presidency, Finland would symbolically ratify the Constitution, and then, as President of the Commission, raise doubts – and these doubts do exist – as to whether you yourself are prepared to say to the Heads of State or Government: if you do not join with me in implementing the Constitution, the expanded Europe will grind to a halt? I will give you an example: 25 ministers of labour, and representatives of the Commission and the European Parliament, were present at the last informal Council meeting in Luxembourg, at which the Services Directive was discussed.
After the initial two and a half hour long debate, each minister could speak for three minutes.
That is a long time in comparison with the European Parliament, but was out of all proportion to the matter on the agenda.
Europe cannot make any sensible policies in an elephantine body like the Ecofin: it is quite the opposite of good management, clear legislation and efficiency.
We are reaching the limits of the current structures.
If we want to make Europe more democratic, more transparent, more efficient – if we want to deliver to the people – we need to act, not talk.
That is why we need the Constitution.
As long as the Bureau of the Commission, and in particular the President, is sending messages that raise doubts about whether that institution is really determined to implement the Constitution, the opponents of the Constitution could well believe that we have given up.
No, those who support the Constitution are behind you, Mrs Wallström, and they are in the majority.
There are those in this Parliament who oppose the Constitution.
Those people now raising their voices are in a minority.
The overwhelming majority of this House are in favour of the Constitution.
The overwhelming majority of the Member States are in favour of the Constitution.
The overwhelming majority of the Commission are in favour of the Constitution.
We therefore all have opportunities, so let us fight together, and that goes for Mr Barroso too.
   Mr President, Commissioner Wallström, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission and a significant proportion of this Parliament have really distanced themselves from the citizens of Europe.
The people do not just want to understand better what is going on in the institutions – they want greater participation.
They want to be asked what they want, they want to make decisions, they want to be involved in the discussions on the future of Europe, and they want that to be taken into account.
I therefore have a rather different conception of the term 'listening' of which Mr Barroso is so fond.
Precisely in this respect we need to make changes, so that we can ultimately have a real discussion on the future of the European Union.
On his scores of trips, the President should not have just preached, but actually listened.
All of those involved could have heard, from many people, quite specific conceptions of what the European Union should look like in the future.
A few days after the European Social Forum in Athens, the European Commission held a press conference to present their initiative for a Citizens' Agenda.
However, if you expected any reference to the discussions during the European Social Forum, in which 35 000 people participated, you would have been disappointed.
The members of my group take this forum seriously, though, and both before and during the forum they were involved in the discussions regarding a European appeal – Europe gives the citizens their say – and regarding the Charter of Principles for a Different Europe.
This refutes all those insinuations that the Left within the European Union is not prepared to join in discussions on the future of the EU or on the Constitution.
I share the ideas used as starting points in both papers.
We need to have a truly democratic debate on the future of Europe and the path we are going to take, and this debate must be based on the assumption that the dignity of every person must be sacrosanct and must be respected and protected.
In my opinion, it is therefore quite grotesque for the President of the European Commission to state, as he did on 10 May 2006, that we must deliver results for Europe through a citizens' agenda.
Today we adopted our proposal for a citizens' agenda; the communication proposes 11 initiatives relating primarily to the internal market.
President Barroso is remaining particularly loyal to that topic.
He is sticking by his basic conviction that the objective of the European Union must be to remain competitive as a whole in the global market.
However, that will never result in a true social Europe of solidarity with social cohesion at the forefront, and that is what the citizens of Europe are so critical about.
That is the path they do not want to be taken down.
They want different priorities to be set, and I think it is time for this to be taken into account.
That is what we need to discuss within the European Union, in the context of the constitutional process and the discussion on Plan D.
   Mr President, I welcome the Commission’s Plan D. We need debates and I know from experience in my country that the more people are informed about the European Union, the more positive they tend to be with regard to it.
That is why people like Nigel Farage and UKIP have consistently opposed Plan D, the funding of it and its stimulation of debates about Europe.
They want people to rely on their ill-informed prejudices about Europe.
We must counter that.
We must stimulate the widest possible debate.
I think it is right for the debate on the future of Europe to be prolonged.
We need at least another year.
We need wider and deeper reflection.
It is right to say that so far the reflection has been less about the text and more about the context.
However, we also know that we will, in due course, have to address what to do about this text.
The debate will need more structuring and more focus, perhaps along the lines on which Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Stubb spoke just now.
We will have to address this issue.
It is far too simplistic to say, as Mr Farage and Mr Kirkhope did, that the people have spoken and they have spoken against the Constitution.
That is simply not true.
We have different answers across Europe.
A majority supports this Constitution, even in countries which held referendums.
If you add all the referendums together, more people voted ‘yes’ than voted ‘no’.
Overall, as Commission Wallström said, we will soon have 16 States in favour.
In fact, if you add Romania and Bulgaria, 18 ratifications will be in the bag by the end of next month.
That is going on.
It is a question of divergence, not opposition to the Constitution.
When we have divergence in this Union, we talk it through to find a solution to make it acceptable to everyone, recognising the majority trend and trying to find out what adjustments might be necessary to make the minority able to accept it as well.
We have a duty to the minority to talk it through and find a compromise, but we cannot ignore the will of the majority either.
   The next item is the report by Mr Rack on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing the second ‘Marco Polo’ programme for the granting of Community financial assistance to improve the environmental performance of the freight transport system (‘Marco Polo II’) (COM(2004)0478 C6-0088/2004 2004/0157(COD)) (A6-0408/2005).
   . Mr President, the agreement with the Council about the Marco Polo II Programme mainly translates into better access to this programme for smaller enterprises.
Since a huge number of those are active in the transport industry, that is a major advance, which is mainly attributable to projects being combined and a restriction of the financial and administrative burden.
The only fundamental observation I should like to make with regard to this programme is that there is no assessment of Marco Polo I. The lack of such an evaluation means that it is impossible to say whether Marco Polo II will have the desired effect, simply because the link between goal and resources used is unknown.
I am therefore pleased that an assessment will be carried out next year, the findings of which will, hopefully, reinforce the set-up and implementation of the programme.
I should like to finish off by thanking the rapporteur for the result achieved which I will certainly be backing.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, I, too, wish to thank the rapporteur for his considerable expertise and cooperative approach to the job.
Since he has set out in detail what Marco Polo is all about and has also evaluated it, I propose to focus on just a few aspects of it.
What is to be seen in a positive light is that the programme is markedly better funded and equipped than its predecessors, ranging from PACT 1 to Marco Polo 1, but it has to be said that its funding and equipment are not going to be equal to the challenge of modal shift, and that is why we need, first of all, to be vigilant in ensuring that the projects are, firstly, genuinely cross-border in nature, so as to ensure an added value for Europe, and, secondly, in ensuring that the reduction by half of the minimum threshold values for grants really does put SMEs in a stronger position and increase their share.
Thirdly, more inland waterway transport projects must be completed than have been in the past, and, fourthly, those national programmes that are either already in place or needed for the future must, at long last, be coordinated.
Fifthly, attention should be paid to reviewing the instruments’ sustainability, which will involve the Commission in evaluating which projects are still operational after a period of between six and ten years, with the Commission – sixthly – reviewing which of the rejected projects are completed even without support, so that the induced effects of future programmes may be minimised.
Mr Rack's report is, overall, uncontentious, and should be implemented as policy with the greatest possible speed; the added value of these measures will be immediately visible to the public, and that is something for which time is needed.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Rack report clearly highlights the challenges and expectations of European society faced with the unquestionable and continual increase in road traffic that we witness every day on so many roads and in so many cities of our continent, and goes so far as to predict the ‘imminent gridlock’ – to borrow the term used in the report – of road traffic.
It is therefore the duty of the legislator to promote alternative and more environmentally-friendly modes of transport and, above all, to better integrate intermodal transport and to make it as functional as possible, for the purposes of both safety and quality of life, while of course seeking to mitigate the demands of the economy.
In this regard, Mr Rack's excellent report presents timely proposals for the Marco Polo II programme, which I hope the budget allocation will make it possible to subsequently carry out.
The party that I represent, the , has always supported the idea of the so-called ‘motorways of the sea’, which Italy itself designed for the Mediterranean as far back as the first half of the last century; such motorways are rightly taken into consideration and relaunched in the Rack report as part of the Marco Polo II programme.
I clearly support – and I call on my fellow Members to do the same – Mr Rack’s amendments, which are aimed at revising the Marco Polo II programme for the purposes of reducing the administrative formalities required for intermodal transport.
I believe that this is an excellent report, which I hope will gain the support of Parliament as a whole.
   I wish to say thank you, and particularly of course to the rapporteur, Mr Rack, for the work done by the committee.
As many have said in this House, we must obtain a more environmentally friendly transport system in Europe.
We have a very great deal of environmental pollution.
At the same time, transport is extremely important for our regions and for companies out in the regions.
Combined transport will become extremely important in the future if transport systems are to operate throughout the territory of the EU.
The Marco Polo project also reveals the different conditions under which we live in the various regions of the EU.
In many regions, there are long distances to be travelled.
Companies in these regions are in many cases subcontractors for larger companies in more heavily populated areas.
They are very important for employment in those regions that are a long way away.
The Marco Polo project ought not, therefore, to lead to employment in the EU being relocated.
I have proceeded in the committee on the basis of this view and can now accept the compromise relating to Article 1 of the report to the effect that the Marco Polo project should create added value for the EU without damaging economic, social or territorial cohesion, as well as the future Article 2 to the effect that the project should not adversely affect production or employment.
   Mr President, I am pleased to express my gratitude to the Commission by thanking Vice-President Barrot.
I would like to thank him for this proposal, for this initiative and for his speech confirming the positive steps being taken.
I would like to express my appreciation to Mr Rack for his work, as we have received a document which could make a significant contribution to more effective use of the transport infrastructure by means of active support for intermodal solutions.
We are well aware that the European Union budget, including that for the period 2007-2013, will have much less funding available for transport than we would have wished to receive.
This means that it will be better all round if the solutions based on using the existing infrastructure are as good as possible.
I would also very much like to stress that this is a historical moment: an enlarged European Union, perhaps with two more members from 1 January 2007.
We therefore have the opportunity to involve the new Member States in shaping a new European transport and logistics system.
It is very important to maintain the role played hitherto by the railways in the new Member States.
Finally, I am pleased that we see an opportunity and a new role for small and medium-sized enterprises, and that we are moving in the direction of stabilising the transport and logistics systems.
   . Mr President, I will be brief.
First of all, I should like to thank Mr Rack and your Committee on Transport and Tourism, and also Parliament in general, for this work, which will allow the proposal to be adopted at first reading.
The Commission supports the compromise reached during the informal trialogue with the Council.
We accept the amendments adopted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which reflect the Council's position, and the new compromise amendments proposed by Mr Rack and supported by the various political groups.
They reflect the compromise from the informal trialogue with the Council.
Mr President, honourable Members, I have been struck by the level of agreement in the views expressed by the various speakers.
We are indeed quite determined to avoid the dangers and risks of a continual increase in road traffic on Europe's roads and motorways.
To achieve this, we need, particularly through the Marco Polo II programme, to actively promote all the alternative solutions: motorways of the sea, river navigation and a truly European rail network.
Like you, ladies and gentlemen, I regret that we do not have more funds, but, as one of you said, I think we need to make the best use of the funds we do have.
That is why I rather hope that, thanks to the promotional measures set out in Marco Polo II, we will be able to achieve positive results.
I would add that the same philosophy will inform our decisions regarding the programmes for the trans-European networks.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you once again for your work.
   Mr President, I wish to raise a point under Rule 151(3) of the Rules of Procedure.
I wonder whether you can help me.
Should you declare Amendments 8 and 16 of this Doorn report inadmissible, since the Treaty of Nice is the only treaty that is in force? There is no such thing as the ‘Constitutional Treaty’.
Although there are many here who wish to forget that, the French and Dutch voted ‘no’ in their referendums.
No treaty has replaced the Treaty of Nice.
These amendments should therefore be declared inadmissible.
   The Commission proposes removing customs duties for certain varieties of unpolished rice from India and Pakistan, a development we think is excellent. We Swedish Conservatives are therefore voting in favour of the proposal.
At the same time, retained quotas are proposed for a number of other varieties of rice from the United States and Thailand in accordance with the agreements concluded by the Commission with the individual countries.
We believe that all the customs duties on rice should be removed, since duties are to the detriment of the exporting country, consumers within the EU and general economic development.
   – Mr President, the report on the place of supply of services has to do with the taxation of services for persons who are not liable to tax, and resulting as it does from the Commission’s report – submitted as long as three years ago – on the amendment of the rules relating to the taxation of services rendered to taxpayers, it relates to the business-to-business sector.
There are a number of reasons why this House has not made any substantial amendments to it.
The first is that the Commission proposal constitutes a coherent framework for the amendments to the sixth Value Added Tax Directive, which were proposed all of three years ago.
Secondly, this framework achieves a good compromise between taxation at the place of consumption and European businesses’ ability to administer this tax.
Thirdly, the proposal is an important step towards the reform of the European VAT system in a changed environment. Fourthly, we hope that the Council will adopt this regulation together with the proposal for the establishment of a one-stop shop for businesses, which will make it possible for European businesses to have less bureaucracy to deal with.
   .
I voted today against the EC-Morocco Partnership Agreement on fisheries because I am not satisfied that all steps were taken in respect of this agreement, which could and should have been taken to protect the sovereignty and rights of Western Sahara.
Instead, intended ambiguity prevails so as to facilitate Morocco's abuse of Western Saharan waters and to avoid facing up to its illegal claim to the territory.
   . Following the report on the Partnership Agreement between the EU and the Kingdom of Morocco on fisheries resources, I should like to vote for the most appropriate regulation for the area’s environmental sustainability.
In this respect, the Agreement is crucial.
Both for the EU and for me personally, however, the issue of human rights is also crucial. That being the case, United Nations resolutions must always take precedence in this regard.
It is clear to me that the purpose of this Agreement is to cover sea areas and territories that are not under dispute and concerning which there are no sovereignty issues, and no others, because no state should be allowed to make use of resources that are not under its sovereignty or jurisdiction, to the detriment of the self-determination of other groups.
   . I voted against the EC-Morocco fishing deal because the people of Western Sahara are still under Moroccan occupation and have had no say over the agreement which allows fishing in their territorial waters.
I believe that the Saharawi people should have rights over their territorial waters. It is for this reason that the EC-Morocco fish agreement should not include the waters of Western Sahara, as the people have no power to opt in or out of the agreement.
I do not support an agreement on trade that violates the rights of other communities to determine the use of their own resources.
   .
Mr President, the plight of the people of the Western Sahara will not be improved by the exporting of our own disastrous fisheries policies to their territory, under illegal occupation by Morocco.
It is a poor show that the EU, usually a guardian of the rule of law, is in this case using technicalities and weasel words to justify making ourselves in effect complicit in an illegal occupation.
I voted against this poor report and am saddened that the House approved it.
   . Mr President, I congratulate my group colleague Mrs Frassoni on this excellent report, which while perhaps not the talk of the town nonetheless deals with a crucial area of the Union's competence.
It contains a number of sensible proposals to make our law making more effective in terms of how it actually affects our citizens, which at this time of increasing scepticism over the workings of the EU is often not paid sufficient attention, and I was pleased to support her today.
   .
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Doorn on this report as I believe subsidiarity, properly applied, could make the workings of the EU so much more transparent to the citizen.
Coming from Scotland, it saddens me that the Scottish Parliament is responsible for so many areas of life yet is effectively shut out of the EU deliberations as the definition of subsidiarity too often effectively stops at the member state capital.
I believe this report represents a step forward, but we in the EU still have our work to do.
   I am abstaining from voting.
There are certainly positive aspects to the report, for example its call for the Council to become more open, but it otherwise focuses too much on growth and reduced costs when it should instead highlight sustainable development and greater cost effectiveness.
Reducing costs is not an end in itself because it may lead to a constant undermining of public budgets. Cost-effectiveness is a better objective.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this recommendation is wrong. The decision is being deferred more and more.
Why do we not honestly say that both countries fail to satisfy the criteria? Much is only on paper and unfortunately the reality is different.
If we take a wrong decision and allow these two countries to join prematurely, we will pay for it.
Our trips to Romania and Bulgaria, talks with NGOs, members of parliament and government representatives from both countries in Sofia only last week have confirmed my opinion that, despite all their efforts, neither country is ready for accession yet – not in 2007, and not even in 2008!
Three examples from Sofia: crime, corruption, Kozloduj! 173 contract killings since 1990 – none of them have been cleared up.
Corruption – universal.
The Kozloduj nuclear power plant is dangerous and has still not been shut down.
I do not have time to go into the problems of minorities – the Roma – and the conditions in prisons, homes for the elderly and disabled and much more besides. If we persist with this wrong decision, it will have repercussions both internally and externally.
We will lose what credibility we still have with the Union’s citizens.
Countries like Croatia, which are making great efforts and in my opinion are further on in many respects, will be blocked.
Here, the liberals are supporting the liberal prime minister in Romania, the socialists the socialist prime minister in Bulgaria. We are not forced to stick to this wrong decision.
Corrections must be possible.
This self-deception is cowardly and dangerous.
   Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, reasonable accession agreements have been concluded for Bulgaria and Romania, and the Union was to have been enlarged to include these states from the first day of next year, but the deadline has again been thrown into doubt.
Allow me to make a few observations from my own experience, on the grounds that we were under the same sort of pressure that Bulgaria and Romania face today prior to our accession to the Union. We too were told that the Czech Republic was not fully prepared, that it had not yet sufficiently fulfilled this or that requirement.
The outcome is that we still do not enjoy the same conditions as the so-called old Member States.
Furthermore, I would venture to add that more than one member of the old Union of 15 might find it difficult to meet the conditions offered, for example, to the Czech Republic.
The requirements placed on Bulgaria and Romania are tougher still. By casting doubt over their accession date and by imposing unequal terms we are increasing insecurity and providing ammunition to those forces in both states that oppose EU accession.
In addition, we are creating for ourselves sharp internal divisions for the Union in the future, by which I do not mean to say, of course, that we should turn a blind eye to failures over tackling corruption in Bulgaria and Romania or to the issue of organised crime, any more than we should in other Member States. Yet it is not good for new states and their citizens to be joining the Union with the feeling that they are second-rate and unequal.
In connection with this, I feel that it should not be our aim to bring about a repeat of the situation in the Czech Republic, where a majority of people, according to a public opinion survey, now believe that equality and justice do not prevail in the Union and that the so-called old Member States continue to enjoy advantages that are denied to the new Member States, in the form of subsidies that are withheld from the latter. In the case of Bulgaria and Romania we are, at the very least, going down the same route.
I will give you one example of this.
The Kozloduj nuclear power station – already mentioned several times – is just as safe as many others in Europe, according to international experts. The Union, however, is obliging Bulgaria as a condition of entry to shut down part of its nuclear capacity, which will turn it from an exporter of electricity into an importer.
The question is who really benefits from this.
When all is said and done, we have raised the hopes of the inhabitants of Bulgaria and Romania regarding membership of the Union and we should therefore not treat them like hostages and quibble over their accession date. It is possible that we, as Member States with our own economic interests, might have more cause for regret than Bulgaria and Romania if the enlargement does not take place by 1 January.
   Pressure has been exerted from many quarters in today’s debate, and there has been much speculation about the observations to be made and, naturally, a good deal of nervousness in the countries concerned.
I am therefore pleased about today’s message from the Commission that we hope to be able to welcome our Romanian and Bulgarian friends into the Community at the beginning of next year.
The road leading up to that point has been, and remains, long and difficult.
Obviously, the consequences of the huge repression practised by the Communist dictatorships in Romania and Bulgaria and of the destitution caused there by them cannot be reversed with a wave of the hand.
These countries’ politicians and people have made enormous efforts and sacrifices with the clear aim of reforming and democratising their countries and leading them into the European Community.
A lot of work remains to be done, and we are painfully aware of the problems that exist: corruption, organised crime, the difficulties of integrating the Roma and the situation of orphans. We are all aware of the criteria too.
They are the same for everyone, and we are relying on the Commission to carry out an objective and professional assessment and evaluation.
We are also relying on you wholeheartedly to support and help Bulgaria and Romania tackle these difficulties so that we might make progress towards their becoming Members at the beginning of next year. We in the European Parliament will help out insofar as we are able to, and we are convinced that matters will progress well in the time that remains.
The Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe has for a long time advocated safety clauses for us all, new and old Member States alike.
We know that, in the present EU too, the Treaties are infringed and human rights violated, and it would be helpful to obtain clearer mechanisms for becoming aware of these developments and remedying them.
EU integration is like a tango.
It takes two for it to work.
The candidate countries must do their homework, but we too must do our own. We have internal problems in the EU with which we must get to grips, and that is something about which we talked this morning with Commissioner Wallström.
We must also dare to proclaim the significance of enlargement and explain to our people why it is so important for Romania and Bulgaria now to get together with us and for Romanians and Bulgarians to sit in this House and be allowed to speak from the benches instead of sitting in the public gallery and merely listening.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are sticking to January 2007 as the date for accession, but attaching to that date conditions that must be satisfied by October. It is a winding road the Commission is pursuing here.
It is clearly suffering under the burden of its own past mistakes.
We are eager to see, Commissioner, how you will explain to us in October that the hurdles you have erected here today have now been overcome. It was a great mistake to set 2007 as the date for accession when it was still unclear whether it could ever be met.
The Commission is now trying rather desperately to find a way out of this into which it has got itself.
Of course the proposal you have made today is sensible given the circumstances. That is why I am supporting it despite all its weaknesses.
I will confine myself to a few remarks about Romania, since I have been there with a CDU/CSU delegation.
Under the leadership of President Basescu and Prime Minister Popescu-Tariceanu, a determined and serious reform process has begun there, affecting home affairs, the judiciary and the fight against corruption. It has not been completed yet.
The conditions are not yet fully satisfied. The corruption trials have not yet been finally concluded, but they are seriously under way and it will take time.
I think it is important that we send this government a signal to continue determinedly down this road to reform. That is important.
Romania is a European-minded country through and through.
It will be a good ally for us in the European Union.
There is a German minority there whose rights are satisfactorily enshrined in law.
The law on minorities is an example to others.
That is why, Commissioner, I would urge you to encourage the government to continue its process of reform.
   – Mr President, I am pleased that both countries have joined the Decade Programme, and they are doing everything they can to ensure that the Roma are integrated as soon as possible. However, the monitoring report describes abuses committed by the police and law enforcement authorities, in both countries.
We must continue to monitor the problem areas mentioned.
Segregation in the education sector is already mentioned in the Bulgarian report, but I would very much like to see that this issue is given increased attention in the case of Romania, where the level of segregation is just as high.
According to reports of certain civil organisations, 80% of children classed as having learning difficulties are Roma.
Even as recently as a week ago, on 9 May, I received a report of abuses committed by the police.
The wounds inflicted on members of the Roma community by policemen of the Romanian authority can be seen on photographs.
This is the third case that I heard of within the last six months.
In spite of this, I voted for the accession of both countries.
However, the significant difference between the two countries is that while Bulgaria acknowledges the problems related to the Roma population, Romania would like to conceal and deny them.
I call upon the Romanian colleagues, the Commission and the Commissioner to ask the competent authorities to change this policy!
   Mr President, the fact that neither Bulgaria nor Romania have completely finished their homework should not come as a surprise to anyone, for it is a Herculean task. The two countries should not, though, become the victim of the Union’s internal problems or of a lack of solidarity.
I heard the Commissioner also mention ‘absorption capacity’.
I really do not know the criteria against which this would have to be verified.
Also, I think that the agreements that have been reached should actually be implemented. When our parliamentary committee visited Sofia, we saw for ourselves how much effort people are making in order to achieve the goal, and I think that we should support the reformers.
The Commissioner tells us that specific examples will be given of what precisely will be expected of those countries.
We really hope that they will be, that the criteria will be detailed and, above all, that those who are politically responsible in those countries will be backed in any way possible so that they can keep to the 1 January 2007 deadline.
The Commission should not hide behind the Council any longer.
It should come to us with a clear opinion.
   Mr President, I represent Poland, a recent member of the European Union. The memory of the large effort made by our country, the work of the citizens but also of the politicians and the civil service aimed at adapting to the exacting standards of the European Union, is still fresh in our minds.
That is why I can appreciate the tremendous effort made by Bulgaria and Romania to implement reforms in preparation for integration.
I therefore think that the European Commission should not delay the decision concerning the date of accession of both of these countries to the Community.
Maintaining 1 January 2007 as the date of accession will be a sign of solidarity and an acknowledgement of the hard work that has been done by these two countries. Maintaining this date is all the more important because a change may be interpreted as an attempt to block or even reject the application for accession of both these countries, especially as we have recently witnessed protectionist tendencies within the European Union, or in other words moves to prevent access to the benefits of a common market and truly free movement of persons and services.
I am aware that there are certain shortcomings which have been rightly pointed out by the European Commission in its report.
I do believe, however, that the best way of overcoming these shortcomings is for the European Union and the European Commission to put pressure on the Bulgarian and Romanian governments to dispel all doubts and to solve all problems within the next six months. Indeed, I am thoroughly convinced that a clear and stable prospect of joining the Union is the best motivation for Bulgaria and Romania to make an additional effort and meet all the accession criteria.
I am also convinced that, just as the enlargement of the European Union two years ago by 10 countries proved to be a political and economic success, the accession of Bulgaria and Romania on 1 January 2007 will prove to be equally successful.
   First of all, thank you very much, Commissioner, for your detailed and very reassuring remarks.
You have said the first data will be available in the autumn.
Is there also a further timetable that will allow us to see when the stricter rules, which from what you have said are certainly necessary in this area, will actually come into force? Could you tell me anything more about this timetable, which will be set after the autumn?
   Commissioner, again and again we are shocked when cases of child abuse come to light.
Sadly, the authorities often fail to act soon enough and, for want of cooperation, it can be months before the courts allow a child to be removed from the environment in which it was being abused.
What steps does the Commission plan to take so that cases of child abuse are recognised better in future and action can be taken more quickly?
   .
It is of course necessary to state that questions relating to the fight against child abuse fall within national jurisdictions.
The dragging out of these cases, the long waiting periods, poor detection rates and the like are all a matter for national bodies.
It is difficult for the EU to get involved in this area directly, although it is possible within the framework of the European Social Fund projects, or specialised projects, or within the framework of discussions and the exchange of information, and we are putting considerable effort into doing this.
I believe it is also very important to build on and continue developing initiatives, which mostly come under the authority of my colleague Mr Frattini, and which relate to the fight against people trafficking, domestic violence and so on. Even in this area the European Commission is striving in the first place to formulate at least an exchange of the defining data, in order to be able to compare the situation in different Member States, and on the basis of this to formulate specific approaches.
The basic principle still applies that social matters, which frequently include tragic and sensitive issues, fall within national jurisdictions, which means that if a case has not been resolved for a long time, it will be an issue much more for the domestic authorities than for the EU, although we should use such jurisdiction as we do have to the full.
   I wonder if the Commissioner would be helped in her information campaign if she were to tell us how much it would cost producers of organic food to reduce the ceiling from 0.9% to 0.1% on GMO content.
What would it cost the organic producers?
What would it cost their customers, and what would be the impact on availability of organic food for the customers? Can she give me those figures?
   I would also like to thank the Commissioner for her initiative to date and her efforts in this regard, but I would like to ask her if it is the intention of the Commission to reduce the roaming charges completely?
In the internal market procedure, why should there be a difference? We should have the same charges throughout Europe.
This would, I believe, be the remit of the Commission and I would expect that to be the intention.
   As you can see, getting rid of roaming charges is one of the Commission’s most popular initiatives.
I would like to return to the first question from Mrs Badia I Cutchet.
She asked about the legal basis of this regulation.
What will the legal basis be and how will you cooperate with DG Competition on this initiative?
   I would like to join in the praise for the tough stand the Commissioner has taken, but I want to reinforce what she said about not wanting to over-regulate.
Can she confirm that she has taken real notice of the European regulators, who have, I think, been fairly critical of her initial approach and are being very cautionary about what she is proposing to do?
Would she please confirm to me that she is not intending to impose regulation in the marketplace that would require operators to deliver services below cost, because that would mean low-income users of mobile phones subsidising the premium rates of customers such as MEPs?
   . Yes, we do that and we impress on our trading partners the need to correct this situation.
We believe that they are in a position to submit substantially revised offers concerning financial services by July this year. We will continue to insist on it but, as you know, trade negotiations are bilateral and plurilateral negotiations: we need to receive this offer from them and we are trying hard to put pressure on them to make such offers.
   . I can confirm what I already said.
We are working all the time with those countries so that they improve or strengthen the services offered, including financial services.
It is part of our negotiation strategy.
It is not that we are only taking a defensive position on agriculture; we are active in all areas that concern the trade negotiations. We firmly believe that trade concessions should be reciprocal.
   On the question of reducing the European Union’s dependence on gas and oil imports from Russia, I would ask you, Commissioner, to elaborate on two issues.
Firstly, is the EU in a position to counter the Russian pipeline monopoly in the transportation of oil and gas from Central Asia to Europe?
Secondly, is the European Union able to secure reciprocity and greater transparency on the part of Russia’s energy sector?
   The next item is the report (A6-0161/2006) by Mrs Roth-Behrendt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on rules for the prevention, control and eradication of certain transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (COM(2004)0775 – C6-0223/2004 – 2004/0270B(COD)).
   Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Pleštinská, for her excellent cooperation – which cannot be faulted – with the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and the impressive results.
I should also like to thank Commissioner Verheugen, however, as he has managed, by way of better regulation, to create a new instrument – namely European standardisation – to enable the objective to be achieved faster and more efficiently.
For example, we are currently addressing the issue of mobile TV: the problem of Nokia versus LG standardisation.
European standards should be created for this as quickly as possible to enable us to take the lead in the global market.
Another example is the allocation of frequencies in the linear-digital field.
If carried out quickly, efficiently and well, standardisation offers prospects of gaining market shares in this field.
A further example is mobile-telephone chargers: here, too, there is a lack of standardisation.
The need for action on this is tremendous, and dramatic progress could be achieved by means of economies of scale.
For this reason, I am also pleased that particular attention is being paid to small and medium-sized enterprises, and I believe that the next thing we need is a Green Paper on standardisation. This would enable our economy to achieve the Lisbon criteria significantly faster and more efficiently by means of standardisation that is accepted worldwide – one of the best examples of this being the GSM system.
A Green Paper in this field could give us the opportunity of demonstrating where our future opportunities lie.
This represents a challenge. Parliament is already pleased to note that its cooperation with the Commission on this is as constructive as ever.
   The next item is the report (A6-0162/2006) by Mr Rosati, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on public finances in the EMU (2005/2166(INI)).
   Thank you for telling us about these events, Mrs Schierhuber.
The Secretariat will immediately contact the security services and I would ask you to contact them yourself as well so that the appropriate measures can be taken to prevent these things from happening again.
   – Mr President, following on from Mrs Schierhuber’s statement, I would like to add that we, here in this European Parliament, are engaged – and rightly too – in enacting laws intended to prevent people from being mobbed and harassed at their places of work.
Since this House is our workplace, we should ensure that its Members are accorded the same protection that we demand for Europe’s workers.
   – Mr President, since my name has been mentioned, I would like, further to Rule 149 (1) of the Rules of Procedure, to simply say that I, too, have been questioned by a television crew, and, before misleading rumours arise, that it is indeed the case that I was using my car early yesterday morning in Kehl, but this is no cause for even more speculation.
Quite apart from that, I do – difficult though you, ladies and gentlemen, may find it to accept – believe in the existence of the fourth power, namely the press, the independence of which we should respect.
Of that I am all in favour.
   Mrs Schierhuber, I see that you are requesting the floor, but you will appreciate that we cannot turn plenary into a place for discussing all of the incidents that take place in Parliament.
I shall give you the floor for the last time, but from now on, when you wish to deal with an issue of this kind, please do so by means of the procedures laid down in the Rules of Procedure.
   – Mr President, Mr Martin was not travelling by car, but I can give the security services the name of the young lady.
He was on foot outside the hotel.
   I would ask the Secretary-General to call a meeting with the security services and that will give you the opportunity to speak as you see fit.
If Mr Martin has anything to add, he will also be invited to that meeting so that the appropriate measures can be taken and any repetition of this kind of event can be prevented, since this is not the first time it has happened.
   Mr Moreno, what you have said does not relate to a point of order and has nothing to do with the Minutes.
Speeches on the Minutes are intended to point out that the Minutes do not reflect what has been said, not to express an opinion about whether or not what has been said is relevant.
What you have said is not appropriate unless there is an error in the Minutes or unless they do not reflect exactly what has been said.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, The overwhelming majority on the Regional Affairs Committee welcomes the agreement that has been achieved on the Financial Perspective, even though regional and cohesion policy are, when compared with what Parliament proposed, losing out to the tune of EUR 40 billion, and even though it has not as yet been possible to get the Council to agree to the reuse of unused funds for cohesion policy.
The Regional Affairs Committee, though, is well aware of its responsibility to the 360 million voters who would like to get started on the programmes with which we seek to help the European Union’s poorest regions.
Final agreement on the Financial Perspective provides, at long last, the political, economic and financial stability for these proposals to be actually put into effect.
It is not just the people in the new Member States who are looking to the European Union for support.
It is because European structural and regional policies are up and running in every Member States that I ask that the proposal that Mr Böge has put forward should indeed get the backing of a majority in this House today.
I would like to take this opportunity of expressing my thanks to the House for the way in which the negotiations were conducted, and also to say ‘thank you’ for the additional EUR 300 million allocated to territorial cooperation and for the efforts made towards creating a single legal framework.
Such matters as the crediting of VAT, the N+2 rule and the options available for public/private financing will in future be dealt with in the same way in each Member State.
That is a triumph for this House and for its team in the negotiations, and warm thanks are therefore in order.
   . – Mr President, I too, speaking on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, would like to extend warm thanks to all Members concerned, and particularly to Mr Böge, the rapporteur, for the work they have put in, which has an effect on programmes in the fields of lifelong learning, youth, culture, media and the citizens’ Europe.
If you believe the pious utterances of politicians in every one of our 25 Member States, these programmes are part of the European Union’s most important field of action, but when it comes to making available the funding that young people need, the 25 governments keep out of sight and make swingeing cuts, particularly to important investments in our young people’s futures.
It is for that reason that I want to tell the Commission and this house how grateful the Culture Committee is to them for not merely talking but also acting and, in their proposals, sketching out appropriate dimensions for these programmes.
Let me give you just two examples to show why I am talking about the number of young people and not just about the financial aspects.
The first example is Erasmus – the student exchange – and both institutions suggested that 285 000 exchange students per annum is a workable figure, only for the 25 governments – in the person of the Council – to make a drastic cut of over 50% in that number and reduce it to 140 000.
The cut made to Leonardo – the training programme – was from 150 000 to 36 000.
It is for that reason that I am very appreciative of all those Members who helped to ensure that what emerged at the end of deliberations at least bore Parliament's stamp and that the sums of EUR 800 million for lifelong learning and EUR 300 million for other programmes achieved some sort of credibility in this area.
   .
Mr President, although it is thanks to the negotiating skills of Mr Böge and the other negotiators that Parliament has managed to both add real European value to the Council’s original proposals and considerably enhance the institutional framework, the present financial perspectives for 2007-2013 remain unequal to the challenge that the European Union is facing, even though Parliament, in the Böge report, has formulated a reasonable and reasoned proposal that is more realistic than that from the Commission.
Nevertheless, the Council’s tight-fistedness and short-sightedness, arising out of national considerations, have triumphed over Parliament’s and the Commission’s European ambition.
We will nevertheless be voting in favour of this Interinstitutional Agreement, since it is the only compromise possible under the current circumstances.
Indeed, the lack of financial perspectives in the next few years would plunge the Union into an even deeper crisis than the one it is already in.
Moreover, it would not be fair on the new Member States, for they need future prospects in order to continue their cohesion policy and to be fully integrated into the common market.
This does not alter the fact that the present level of resources is insufficient to meet Europe’s new challenges.
That is why the review clause and flexibility scheme were an absolute necessity, because the risk that sooner or later, we will run aground, is too great.
Parliament should be fully involved in this.
The most important conclusion we can draw, though, is that the current system of own resources has reached capacity levels.
There is a need for sweeping reform.
We must move away from the system of donations from national budgets, and return to real own resources as was the case at the start of European integration in respect of customs rights.
That is the only way of ensuring that the European general interest will prevail over the narrow-minded and short-sighted national interest.
This House must play a role – a driving role – in this and formulate proposals, and Mr Lamassoure’s studies and notes are a good place to start.
   Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, reaching the agreement on budgetary discipline has been a long haul.
In Parliament, we have done some thorough work, analysing what is needed and developing common political priorities.
We have done this in the course of more than a year under the expert leadership of our rapporteur, Mr Böge, whose efforts have been exemplary.
The EU Heads of State or Government lapsed, however, into unseemly bartering about income and expenditure, with refrains such as ‘We will not pay’, ‘Maximum of 1%’ and ‘We want our money back’.
The compromise we are debating today really is, therefore, a compromise.
It is not a particularly attractive one, and no one is fully satisfied with it.
Rather, it is the art of the possible.
The optimist in us will, however, emphasise that it is constructive that there is now a framework to facilitate the legislative work on the programmes for the Structural Funds, research and education.
What is more, the framework provides more resources for investment in education, research and transport and for aid to the EU’s poor regions, while expenditure on agricultural aid is cut back.
I therefore recommend voting in favour of the agreement.
We have ensured that administration of the EU budget will become less bureaucratic.
We have ensured that responsibility for administering EU resources has been placed squarely with the Member States.
We have ensured that the European Investment Bank is able to provide far more ambitious funding and that more young people are able to take part in educational exchange programmes.
We have also ensured that the EU budget for health and consumer protection was not subject to the swingeing cutbacks planned by the Heads of State or Government.
The framework is tight, however; so tight that it pinches.
Let me give an example.
The Commission proposed EUR 20 billion by way of investment in cross-border transport projects.
Parliament supported the Commission, but the result has only been EUR 7 billion.
How are we to obtain money for the 30 cross-border projects that have been adopted? I think that the Council owes us an answer regarding how the common projects can be made a reality.
   .
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of my group I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Böge, for the work he has done with regard to the matter now before us.
It is not his fault that the Council keelhauled the Commission and Parliament and bruised the political credibility of these institutions.
The biggest miscalculation was made by the Commission in its original proposal for economic guidelines.
It miscalculated the Council’s relative powers and created expectations that were far too great.
The report by Parliament’s temporary committee was produced on the basis of these expectations.
It was difficult for many Members to come to terms with Mr Böge’s sense of realism at the time.
While the Council was editing the Commission’s proposal, the Commission continued to create expectations that were too high.
President Barroso marketed the Commission’s view on the basis of total miscalculations.
He has lost face in this process, as has Parliament as a whole.
Parliament’s decision to reject the conclusions drawn by the Council in December 2005 at the time established a good basis for further talks.
The Council, however, showed the Commission and Parliament that the EU’s money came from the Member States.
The Commission and Parliament may in practice only be involved in decision-making relating to the EU’s expenditure: in the redistribution of cash within the framework dictated by the Council.
Postponing resolution of the problems until the mid-term review at the end of 2009 will not increase Parliament’s power in EU budgetary matters.
On the revenues side, we have failed to get rid of the unjustified UK special rebate.
On the expenditure side, the fact that the Council kept to a 1% level for payment appropriations undermined a budget which could have achieved European added value, as the Community budget would have been more than just the sum of the Member States’ contributions.
My group would have liked a more constructive budgetary framework for the period 2007–2013.
This we have not got, and we are voting against the adoption of Mr Böge’s report.
We have not achieved the sort of flexibility in the financial framework that would have been necessary for good financial management.
Instead, the Member States are putting more money in the budget for the militarisation of the EU.
The Council has cleverly exploited a situation in which the federalists in the Commission and Parliament will not be able to cope with a new EU-wide crisis.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, in the agreement, we are preparing to introduce a protective mechanism known as the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund, and to invest EUR 3.5 billion in it.
I am fundamentally opposed to this.
I strongly believe that in a further populist move, we are handing out fish where we should be learning how to catch fish ourselves.
The Globalisation Fund does not have the objective of creating new jobs in sectors with long-term opportunities.
It is seeking something entirely different.
It is seeking to support those who lose work as a consequence of companies escaping from the tight reins of the EU.
Instead of abolishing directives, opening up the market for services and labour and cutting taxes, we are currying favour with the citizens with a pipe dream of short-term social gain.
Does anybody in this Chamber really think that greater support for the unemployed would lead to the creation of new jobs? Furthermore, with the establishment of the Fund we are creating a completely false impression that it is possible to protect the EU from the rest of the world.
Ladies and gentlemen, just as we do not control the wind or the rain, we do not have the power to stop capital from running away to a place where it feels better.
We should keep that in mind.
   – The agreement reached for the financial framework for 2007-2013, including the interinstitutional agreement, is a bad agreement.
It is inadequate from a financial point of view and as regards its priorities and its instruments for addressing the challenges facing an enlarged Union.
It is an agreement that fails to respond to the increased needs of cohesion, and to attach priority to fighting the increased imbalance, inequality, unemployment and poverty in the EU.
It is a bad agreement for economic and social cohesion and for cohesion countries, insofar as it relegates the Community budget’s role of redistribution.
The Structural Fund has been reduced by EUR 28 million in relation to the Commission’s proposal, and from 0.41% of Community GNI in the current financial framework to 0.37% in the future framework, and that in an EU of 27.
It is an agreement that is EUR 100 billion down on Parliament’s original proposal.
Parliament also negotiated a compromise of just EUR 12 billion and then went on to accept as little as EUR 4 million, which has led to inappropriate priorities and for which we are paying in cuts to other budgetary headings.
It is also a bad agreement for countries like Portugal.
Against a backdrop of increased competition and facing a deep crisis due to aspects such as monetary and budgetary policy restrictions that have led to increased unemployment and a divergence from the EU since 2000, the country has suffered cuts of more than EUR 1 million per day and 15% of Community transfers in relation to the current financial framework, not to mention the injustice of cuts facing the Algarve region, victim of the so-called statistical effect.
Consequently, we have no choice but to reject this agreement.
   Mr President, in taking the floor in the debate on the reports by Mr Böge and Mr Sousa Pinto on budget procedure and the financial perspective for 2007-2013, I would like to draw your attention to the following matters.
First of all, in spite of the feeling of satisfaction due to the fact that the financial perspective for 2007-2013 has been approved, it should be stressed that the setting of the general level of payments at 1% of the European Union’s GNP merely serves to meet the expectations of the most developed countries within the Union, and does not deal with the challenges facing Europe in the 21st century.
It will be very difficult, if not impossible, to implement the enlargement of the Union, increase growth and achieve deeper integration with smaller financial means than we have hitherto had at our disposal.
Secondly, as a representative of a new Member State, namely Poland, I would like to express concern at the continued efforts to divide the financial resources foreseen in the financial perspective for 2007-2013 in such a way as to ensure that the stream of funding flowing into the old Member States is as generous as possible and continues for as long as possible.
Thirdly, I am convinced that a further enlargement of the European Union, and the accession of Romania and Bulgaria in particular, which will require additional financial resources of at least a dozen billion euros per annum, will not restrict the funding for regional policy and the common agricultural policy in the 10 countries which joined the European Union in 2004.
Finally, I hope that the work done on the draft regulations facilitating the spending of the funds foreseen in the financial perspective will be efficient enough to ensure that 2007 does not become a dead loss, especially in terms of regional development policy.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today’s vote at the European Parliament will adopt the interinstitutional agreement reached on the Financial Framework for the 2007-2013 period.
This will be one of the most significant and far-reaching votes in this part-session.
The interinstitutional agreement reached provides for a sum of EUR 864 billion for the next Financial Framework, or 1.05% of the European Union’s total national revenue.
This is significantly less than the amount originally supported by the European Parliament, and as a result it will be necessary to reduce the amount of funding available for strengthening EU competitiveness, for science and trans-European networks and for EU regional policy, as well as for other areas.
Unfortunately, at Council the tone of the debate was set by six countries whose only goal was to reduce the amount of expenditure in the EU Financial Framework to 1% of the European Union’s GNI.
The compromise reached, however, has various positive features.
Firstly, there is the flexible approach to setting a ceiling on amounts to be received from EU funds, as advocated by the European Parliament in its resolution.
As a result, Latvia and Estonia have been allocated additional resources from EU funds over and above the ceilings laid down, and Lithuania has been allocated additional resources in order to deal with programmes connected with the closure of the Ignalina nuclear power plant.
Secondly, there is the calculation of the ceilings, using each Member State’s individual economic growth forecast.
Thirdly, there is the agreement to allow the use of Structural Funds resources for accommodation projects.
The limit of 2% of total Structural Funds resources, which is identical for all the new Member States, is, however, difficult to understand.
For example, it is obvious that heating homes is a much more urgent issue in countries with a harsher climate, such as Estonia and Latvia, than in southern countries such as Cyprus and Malta.
Therefore, this unified approach is unjustified.
Fourthly, there is the gradual replacement of the n + 2 rule with the n + 3 rule.
Of course, the application of such a rule to the Cohesion Fund is still open to doubt.
This agreement, however, is extremely necessary, first and foremost for the new Member States, and for that reason the European Parliament displayed a flexible attitude to the total amount of EU funds.
   – Mr President, Mr Böge deserves warm congratulations on his contribution.
With him as coordinator, we were able to achieve continuation in the financial resources for programmes that expired this year and we gave guarantees for more comfortable margins for manoeuvre in what was until today a completely inflexible budget, so that the launching of new initiatives and the immediate response to emergencies are compatible with the perspectives.
The Böge report also helps to improve the quality of the implementation of the budget: internal control, the facility to transfer appropriations using the flexibility instrument and legislative flexibility.
Mainly, however, we secured the 2009 review with our full involvement in the review process.
In 2009 the question of the need for there to be a new own resources system will also be raised again intensely, in order to find the new financial 'fuel' to speed up the development of the Union's policies.
I refer in particular to the need to implement the Lisbon Strategy, especially the aspect of the Lisbon Strategy for which, at the level of research and innovation, much was promised by the prime ministers, but little was delivered to the citizens of Europe.
Where possible, Mr Böge reconciled our political priorities with the Union's financial requirements.
However, all together, with our systematic work in the Committee on Budgets, we basically achieved something else.
We managed, in the overriding 1% problem and with the help of all our colleagues, to overcome the Commission's set trend, which the Council has always favoured, thereby giving the European Union albeit one part of the original financial strength that it deserves.
   Mr President, the new financial perspective is a compromise.
Is it a good compromise? Some earlier proposals would doubtless have been better for Europe and its future.
Financially speaking, the European Union is not as strong as it could have been if we had managed to reach a consensus on a larger budget.
In Polish there is a saying that ‘if you do not get what you like, you have to like what you get’.
Today it seems that this compromise is a success.
However, we will only find out after 2013 whether it will be viewed as equally successful in the future.
At that point we will have to look at the level of cohesion in the European Union, the extent to which the European economy is competitive, the level of unemployment and the state of the education system and of scientific research.
It is difficult to reach a universal consensus with regard to basic budget priorities.
I am convinced that an important dimension of European solidarity is practical solidarity in the form of cohesion policy.
The quality of the implementation of this financial perspective will determine whether the European Union’s biggest enlargement to date, in 2004, will be fully exploited and completed.
I hope that this will indeed happen and that no one will have any doubts that the return of 10 countries to the European family was right and beneficial not only to those countries, but also to all Europeans.
Europe will be greater and more powerful at a relatively low price.
   . Mr President, I should like to add the following to the existing text of Amendment 10: ‘while fully respecting the Stability and Growth Pact’.
In other words, the new text of Amendment 10 would read: ‘Encourages the use of the cyclically adjusted deficit concept in national budgetary procedures in order to reduce cyclicality, while fully respecting the Stability and Growth Pact;’.
   – Mr President, one particular reason why I gave my support to the Böge report was that it represents a landmark success on the part of this House in establishing that the European Union is social and educational in character.
Whatever else may be said about it, we have succeeded, by negotiation, in getting EUR 800 million more for our young people, money that will make it possible for many young people within the European Union – we estimate that there will be hundreds of thousands more of them than last time – to get better education in another Member State and thereby protect themselves against unemployment.
   I voted in favour of the European Union’s financial perspective for the years 2007 to 2013 on the basis of the Böge report, and I did so having borne in mind the long, painful and arduous negotiations that have taken place since the first half of 2005.
I did so not because I believe that this is the best or the least worst budget but because it is the only budget possible and so as not to side with those who would not have hesitated to exacerbate the crisis that the European Union is undergoing by creating a budgetary crisis that neither our fellow citizens nor the new Member States that joined in 2004 would have understood.
I must point out that it is not the European Union that is in financial crisis but the Member States, some of which are on the verge of bankruptcy as a result of having spectacularly mismanaged their national public finances.
We really need to get over this issue of the UK rebate, which has been poisoning European relations for too long.
Lastly, I am delighted that this agreement, together with the 2008/2009 review clause, paves the way for the crucial reform of the European Union’s finances, which is becoming a crucial and urgent stage in European integration.
   .I voted in favour of the Böge report because the absence of an agreement on the financial perspective for the period 2007-2013 could undermine the European Union’s work as from next year.
I should like to pay tribute to Parliament’s negotiators led by Mr Böge, who obtained an extra EUR 4 billion for important initiatives in the fields of competitiveness, education, research and youth exchanges.
I deeply regret the fact that the Council did not agree to grant more resources to European farmers, particularly in the field of rural development, in which a sum amounting to EUR 20 billion less than that proposed by the Commission will be made available.
I should like to take advantage of this opportunity to remind the Council of its obligations to ensure that the principles of the 2003 CAP reform are respected.
I am completely opposed to the Council proposal on voluntary modulation, which transfers 20% of direct aid to rural development without the obligation of cofinancing.
A system of that kind is unacceptable, given that it could create an imbalance in the market and could constitute a first step towards the renationalisation of the CAP.
   .I was unable to resign myself to voting in favour of the amended financial perspective.
Even though Parliament’s negotiators succeeded in obtaining an extra EUR 2 billion over seven years, the difference between Europe’s ambition and the sad reality of the budget is striking.
Even though the needs identified for the trans-European networks come to EUR 18 billion, we allocate EUR 7.2 billion.
The needs identified for Galileo total EUR 2.5 billion, while the appropriations provided for total EUR 900 million.
The intelligent part of the CAP, rural development, has seen its appropriations halved.
Research, the Lisbon Strategy, social policy - in short, all of the key policies – have been curbed.
Europe will not make progress with an annual budget that represents scarcely a third of what the US allocates to its military budget alone.
   .
I welcome the Interinstitutional Agreement as providing financial stability for the 2007 to 2013 period.
I also welcome the fact that Parliament has been able to add around EUR 4 billion to the original settlement reached by the European Council.
This demonstrates Parliament's ability to negotiate effectively with other institutions.
   I voted against the Sousa Pinto and Böge reports, which reflect the way in which Europe has taken a back seat to acts of national self-interest, destroy any far-reaching political project and seriously threaten existing public policies, not least the CAP and the Structural Funds, both of which are tools for showing solidarity with the most vulnerable regions.
As regards agriculture, there will thus be a shortfall of EUR 30 billion until 2013 to honour the CAP reform, the negotiators having failed to account for the fact that two new Member States will be joining the Union in 2009.
Having been presented as a way forward for the European agricultural sector, rural development is, for its part, showing a 21% decrease in the appropriations that were allocated to it in comparison with the previous period and is paving the way for the abuse of our rural territories.
The Union’s Cohesion Policy is undergoing the same drastic cuts, recording a 10% decrease in the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, despite the fact that many European regions are lagging behind in terms of development, and thus instead required a substantial effort to be made regarding Community solidarity.
Directly affected, as they are, by this climb-down on the budget, the outermost regions will, moreover, be unable to rely on the development of new regional synergies, the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument having lost an extra EUR 6 billion.
   .
Europe's transport system is expected to see an increase of road freight by 2013 of more than 60%.
The results will be greater congestion and environmental degradation, more accidents and a loss of competitiveness of European industry, which must rely, for the management of its supply chains, on cost-efficient transportation.
In this situation, a greater reliance on intermodality is necessary.
In my own constituency of Munster, I have just learned that the port of Limerick is to lose substantial facilities through sale of important land.
This will cause an increase of heavy road traffic in the Limerick city area.
I see my vote today as a support for not only maintaining existing water-borne freight traffic, but also for moving it from road to water.
I know that there are no Marco Polo projects in Ireland, but I intend to urge the interested parties in Munster and Ireland to look for projects that are acceptable under Marco Polo.
   – The group of the Kommounistiko Komma Elladas in the European Parliament would point out that the drastic cut of 50% in the financial framework, from 740 to 400 million euros, and the criteria for the selection of projects for the implementation of the second Marco Polo programme for the period from 2007 to 2013 are designed to increase the profits of big business and will not mitigate – let alone resolve – the serious problems relating to the major traffic congestion which exists and is worsening in internal and international freight transport, resulting both in an increase in accidents and destructive consequences for the environment.
This choice forms part of the more general anti-grass roots policy of the ΕU, as applied to maritime cabotage in Regulation (EC) No 3577/92 on the responsibility of the Nea Dimokratia and Panellinio Socialistiko Kinima governments in our country, in collusion with shipowners, with painful consequences for workers in maritime and shore transport, professional artisans and small and medium-sized farm owners.
That is why the group of the Kommounistiko Komma Elladas in the European Parliament did not vote in favour of the report on the proposal for a regulation establishing the second Marco Polo programme.
   .
I voted in favour of this report which seeks to amend the EU’s current rules on controlling transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) in order to bring the EU into line with international agreements reducing BSE risks categories from 5 to 3.
TSEs are brain disorders in animals and include sub-categories such as BSE and other diseases.
The aim is to streamline the risk categories while improving EU animal health controls and maintaining consumer protection.
   . The People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) voted in favour of the Roth-Behrendt report today, even though it is not entirely satisfied with the compromise between Parliament and the Council.
In the compromise, steps are being taken to relax the ban on feeding non-ruminants animal meal, provided that animals are not fed animal meal originating from their own species.
In this respect, we would refer to the by-products regulation (1774/2002/EC) which lays down the ban on feeding animal by-products to animals of the same species for reasons of possible food safety risks.
While the VVD welcomes this development, we are dissatisfied with the fact that in the compromise, nothing is being said about imposing the same requirements on imported products.
Indeed, non-ruminant products from third countries need not meet any conditions in terms of feeding animal meal.
The VVD believes that third-country products should meet the same requirements, certainly where food safety is at stake.
Despite this, the VVD has voted in favour, because the compromise, in many ways, represents an improvement on the current situation.
Approval of the compromise means agreement at first reading, which means that these improvements can actually be carried out in the short term.
   I voted in favour of the excellent report by my colleague, Mrs Plestinska, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council on the financing of European standardisation.
The text proposed by the European Commission and adopted at first reading makes it possible to give a crucial legal basis to the financing of European standardisation.
Standardisation is one of the tools needed for applying Community policies, especially those concerned with the internal market and with increasing the competitiveness of businesses.
I am delighted that access to this financing has been extended beyond the traditional beneficiaries that are usually referred to as 'European standards organisations’ and will include more activities.
This is a significant show of support, particularly for those European standards that are in competition with other standards worldwide.
   I voted in favour of the excellent report by my fellow Member, Mr Rosati, on public finances in economic and monetary Union.
It was crucial to declare that the public finance situation is very worrying to say the least, with some Member States going bankrupt.
Furthermore, it must be noted that Community procedures, whether we are talking about the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) or the excessive deficit procedures (EDP), only partially resolve this tragic situation and are, indeed, ineffective in a context in which weak economic growth and social demands are compromising the European Union’s capacity to reform itself.
The absence of political will to bring some sense back to the crucial budgetary adjustments is reflected in a tragic increase in debt.
How long is this irresponsibility going to last? It has become impossible to comprehend how the leaders of the executives in the Member States concerned cannot understand, by using their common sense and by looking at the world's success stories, such as Canada and Demark, that healthy public finances are crucial to achieving higher growth and employment.
   The next item is the report (A6-0158/2006) by Mr Howitt, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on the Annual Report on Human Rights in the World 2005 and the EU’s Policy on the matter (2005/2203(INI)
   – It is clear that Europe is becoming more visible and more active when it comes to addressing the issue of human rights.
However, the amount of human rights breaches taking place around us which are being addressed, and whether Europe is showing its teeth, is debatable.
It is also very clear that many of the different institutions are giving the impression that they are acting alone.
I am not referring to the Council, the Commission and Parliament, but, for example, to the banking institution.
I think that Europe should use the power that it has.
There is compatibility, and I believe that there should be collaboration between tackling the problems of human rights on the one hand, and economic power or the power of the assistance that Europe should provide on the other.
I am aware that this is difficult.
Nevertheless, I would like to conclude by referring to paragraph 14 of number 90, which states: 'welcomes the choice of freedom of expression as a major human rights theme'.
I would like to mention this because in my country, Malta, two journalists, Daphne Caruana Galizia and Saviour Balzan, have just been the victims of arson attacks.
I would like to express my solidarity with Maltese journalists against these attacks, which are a direct attack on their fundamental human rights.
Thank you, Mr President.
   I welcome this report by my colleague Richard Howitt on Human Rights in the World 2005.
He is right to draw to our attention to the fact that while the EU is vigorous in promoting human rights, its efforts are largely confined to specialist and one-off representations.
There is, sadly, a general failure by the EU to address human rights concerns systematically and continuously with respect to third countries and to mainstream human rights policy with respect to the Union’s trade, development, and other external policies with such countries.
We need a common, consistent and transparent policy for dealing with abuses of human rights in third countries.
   – I would like to call upon my colleagues to consider their positions regarding the legal basis of the proposed regulation.
It is necessary to retain a dual legal system and thereby to ensure that the Committee on Foreign Affairs will in future play a role in the processes of development and economic cooperation.
If Article 179 provided the sole legal basis, this process would be exclusively in the hands of the Committee for Development, and our committee would lose its authority.
You have already spoken of human rights here, although these are in the AFET portfolio.
I would also like to draw attention to the fact that I have been informed that a dual legal basis would undermine the authority of the European Parliament.
This information is untrue, insofar as Article 25 of the Opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs of Parliament clearly states that if there is a dual system, then Articles 179 and 181a will implement a codecision process, thereby giving Parliament greater authority.
If we have a single legal basis relying on Article 179 alone there is a danger that programmes such as Erasmus Mondus or other educational programmes and student grants will disappear.
Article 179 is not able to cover the broad spectrum of development and economic cooperation.
For example, it would not cover sectoral cooperation in areas such as transport and energy.
Not all types of cooperation can be subsumed under the term ‘development cooperation’.
Furthermore, Article 179 applies only to developing countries, and the EU does not have its own definition of developing countries, which it has borrowed from the OECD.
Article 181a, on the other hand, speaks of third countries, which means its definition is less restrictive.
If Article 181 were dropped, some countries would be automatically excluded.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we pass this directive with a single legal basis, it means that Article 181 will no longer have a basis in the agreements and we will thereby be giving carte blanche to the Commission.
   .
Mr President, Commissioner, members of the Council, what we in the Committee on Regional Development, and I as co-rapporteur (Article 47) in particular, have committed ourselves to is concrete support for citizens on both sides of the EU’s external borders in the coming years.
As Mr Szymański has already said, agreement on the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument at first reading is now within reach.
The European border regions are offered the opportunity, in the coming years, partly with some EUR 700 million per annum in funds from the European Regional Development Fund, of carrying out concrete programmes that cover a wide spectrum, including public health, education, the economy and the environment at Europe’s external borders.
It is vitally important that we, in consultation with the Council, have reached agreement on how we go about this.
Specifically, we have managed to maintain the INTERREG method under regional policy.
In that connection, we have consulted the association of the European border regions and the newly formed network of external eastern border regions, called NEIGHBOUR, who claim they know how to use this method, for they have received and adopted workable suggestions.
Finally, we have also reached agreement on the transitional regulation, which means that preparatory measures can now be funded.
Should we fail to reach agreement on the external border with the regions and the nation state, we will take concrete action after 1 June 2010 to ensure that the funds can be spent in our own Member States on this side of the border and are not wasted.
A readily implementable Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Initiative (EMPI) will be before us from 2007 onwards.
In that connection, I would like to thank Mr Szymański and the Council for their unyielding commitment to reach agreement.
   .
Mr President, I am very pleased that Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner views the economic cooperation instrument as important, and I do not see anything wrong with it becoming a matter to which the codecision procedure is applied at some point, even if that is not yet the case today.
As the rapporteur of the Committee on International Trade on the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, I would like to say that we want to help candidate countries in cross-border activities related to establishing a market economy, non-governmental organisations, implementing WTO principles and all academic exchanges.
At the same time, we strongly demand that the Commission present annual reports to Parliament so that we may see what the funds have been earmarked for, and so that, in a few years’ time, we can avoid feeling disappointed that they have disappeared somewhere and we do not know if the aid really reached European Union candidate countries or not.
   Madam President, while I would like to express my admiration for the rapporteur, Mr Szymański, as well as for the other rapporteurs, I would also just like to highlight a few matters related to the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument.
We are talking today about an instrument that constitutes one of the tools for creating partnerships and neighbourly relations between the Union and third countries.
Yet are the funds which, as far as I know, amount to only 1.5% of Union spending, sufficient? Are we really going to be able, with this money, to promote the spread of democracy, respect for human rights and civil society building?
With this kind of approach, specific attention needs to be paid to ensuring that objective criteria are used to determine how the funds are distributed.
Implementing provisions will also be important.
We do not have a lot of time.
It is good that Russia is mentioned in paragraph nine of the explanatory statement.
It is a shame, however, that the same emphasis was not placed on Ukraine.
Finally, I would like to say that this financial instrument constitutes an opportunity for the European Union, which is home to barely 7% of the world’s population, to contribute to global stability and security and to poverty reduction.
It will be beneficial to us all and will constitute European added value.
   – Madam President, today's commitment by Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner that the Commission is prepared to submit a proposal for a separate financing instrument in favour of democracy and human rights is already a positive development.
We await the proposal from the European Commission, which will have its own legal basis.
However, this proposal by the European Commission must not be at the expense of the legislative competences of the European Parliament, especially its competences in the field of the budget, especially when we refer to matters connected with the foreign policy of the European Union.
European citizens, as we all know, are calling for the competences of the European Parliament to be strengthened, not weakened.
I wish to say and to point out to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner that the new financing programme for democracy and human rights which she submits – and this is a particularly important and sensitive point – will need to include financing for the rehabilitation centres for the victims of torture inside or outside the European Union.
So far the European Commission has been the main source of funding for these centres and, consequently, their continuing operation is a fundamental humanitarian responsibility.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, today is an important day for Europe.
We have finally adopted the financial perspective for 2007-2013, which is also good news for the candidate countries and for countries of the Western Balkans.
Those countries will now have a clearer idea of the resources available under the instrument for pre accession assistance (IPA).
I warmly welcome the establishment of the IPA.
I strongly believe that it will facilitate higher quality and more flexible individual policies during the pre-accession period, and will also make possible more cross-border and regional cooperation between countries that are preparing for accession and those already in the Union, something I consider very important.
In common with previous speakers, however, I would have welcomed a greater involvement by Parliament in the formulation and creation of individual strategies and in areas such as decision-making on suspending assistance.
   . In reply to Mr Corbett’s question, the normal procedure is for institutional questions to be dealt with last.
Of course, the regime that will eventually apply to the representation of new Member States in the bodies and institutions of the European Union very much depends on the debate on the future of the European Union and on the future of the Constitution.
However, that is still in the future and I cannot predict what will happen.
   . I disagree, Mr Rack.
Nothing has been shelved.
We all recognise that Croatia has made considerable progress, and we have rewarded this progress accordingly.
There is absolutely no reason to doubt that the negotiations will progress rapidly, and that the progress achieved will be honoured accordingly.
I also see no connection here with other past or future negotiations.
   . In general, the EU and the Council are monitoring the human rights situation in Iran very carefully and with growing concern.
At the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly, it was the European Union that tabled a resolution on human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran, thereby publicly expressing to the world its concerns regarding the situation in Iran.
I can assure the honourable Members that the European Union is using all the means at its disposal – publicly and confidentially, in declarations and démarches – to express these concerns regarding abuses of human rights in Iran, and it will continue to do so.
Regarding the case of Masouma Kaabi and her son, it has been reported that they were released on bail a few weeks ago.
The European Union is monitoring the situation and will take every available opportunity to discuss and express these very justifiable worries and concerns.
   I should firstly like to congratulate the Council on its success in having the 2007 internal market for the end user included in the final documents.
It will involve a lot more work now, but I think that it will be of corresponding benefit in terms of the Lisbon Strategy.
My question is: What actually is the situation where the Energy Community is concerned? May it be extended to further states, and which states are the main candidates?
   If further standardisation is required of what you rightly call this fragmented state of affairs where powers are concerned, the Commission will have to propose legal regulations.
When it comes to having a credible common external policy on energy, the Council is endeavouring to devise a common concept as a follow-up to the March decisions.
The High Representative has also been asked for proposals in connection with this common concept.
Mr Solana will also produce something in this context because this is a very important issue in the framework of the European Union’s overall external policy.
   In the January 2006 part-session of the European Parliament, the Austrian Federal Chancellor expressed his opinion on the possibility of introducing a direct source of funding for the European Union.
At that time, there was discussion of the financial perspective, which is funded mainly from contributions by the individual Member States, and the discussion therefore turned again to the subject of the European Union having its own direct source of funding for the budget.
When, in December 2005, the European Council reached an agreement on the Financial Perspective for 2007-2013 – with the Treaty now signed, the Interinstitutional Agreement has therefore now been successfully concluded – the Commission was given the task of undertaking a comprehensive examination of all aspects of EU expenditure, including expenditure under the common agricultural policy and system of own resources and taking account too of the United Kingdom’s rebate, the intention being that the Commission should produce a report on the subject in 2008 or 2009.
In a joint declaration by all three institutions on the new Interinstitutional Agreement, this method of proceeding was confirmed in April 2006.
I should like, however, to emphasise in this context that, on this issue too, we must proceed on the basis of the principle of unanimity, and this is of course a very difficult issue to resolve because not all Member States are in agreement, especially on the subject of what particular direct source of funding should be opted for.
I believe that, here in the European Parliament too, there are still very different views on this issue.
   The issue is not only being debated, but it is also being looked into more closely.
Moreover, it will remain an ongoing subject for discussion in Ecofin, because an evaluation has, above all, to be carried out.
The fact is that this has been agreed within the framework of the Financial Perspective.
We therefore hope that a process has now been begun here that can ultimately be brought to a successful conclusion.
   – These questions concern a uniform assessment basis for company taxation.
The Commission is currently working on the technical preparations for a proposal for a common consolidated corporate tax base.
These preparations are entrusted to a working group under the auspices of the Commission itself that was set up following the informal Ecofin Council in September 2004.
On 5 April of this year, the Commission presented the Council, the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee with a communication entitled ‘Progress to date and next steps towards a Common Consolidated Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB)’. This firstly reports on the progress made to date, as the title indicates, and secondly identifies the fields in which the Commission requires political support and direction for further technical work.
At the informal Ecofin Council held at the Presidency’s invitation in Vienna on 7 April, Ministers were presented with the Commission’s initial report on the state of technical preparations.
At the end of this informal Council, the Council President, Karl-Heinz Grasser, stated that the discussions had shown there to be clear majority in favour of this assessment basis.
In the Ministers’ estimation, this basis would result in cost savings for enterprises and a simplification of the national tax systems.
In addition, the Commissioner responsible for taxation, Commissioner Kovács, stated that, although it was no easy task to speak up for a harmonised corporate tax base, the Ministers had engaged in an informative exchange of views over lunch.
In future, the Commission will report regularly to the Council on the progress of the work.
The Presidency has put an initial exchange of views between Ministers concerning the Commission communication on the agenda for the Council to be held on 7 June of this year. His expectation is that the contributions that the working group I have already mentioned receives from the Commission and the Member States will make it possible for rapid progress to be made with technical preparations.
As Commissioner Kovács, the Commissioner responsible, stated at the last informal Council, the issue should appear on the agenda of the following Council Presidency, too – as envisaged in the annual programme.
This is an issue that cannot be resolved in the near future, therefore, but needs lengthy preparation.
   – The problem of unanimity now that there are 25 Member States is particularly acute in matters of taxation.
Member States who have only recently introduced a completely different tax system, for example a flat-tax system – that is, a single rate for company taxation, income tax and such like – have difficulty supporting a uniform assessment basis.
It is natural for these countries to object, as they are currently benefiting from tax competition.
In specific terms, there are four countries that object to introducing it too quickly or to making any changes at all.
In my view, the only remedy is to be found in the form of a constitution, which Europe needs – and the more countries that join the EU, the more imperative this becomes – so that we are able to take majority decisions in this field, too.
As we have also seen in the matter of the reduction in turnover tax, which was very difficult to resolve, unanimity in matters as difficult as taxation causes problems when it comes to taking decisions necessary for the economy and to creating growth and jobs – something that can also be seen in connection with the Lisbon process.
To do so requires a flexible decision-making process and a Council that is capable of action.
How does the Council justify the continuing existence of tax havens like Liechtenstein, Andorra and the Channel Islands? What action would the Presidency like to see to address these anomalies, which adversely affect all EU citizens?
   . – In connection with this question, I should like to point out that, on 3 June 2003, the Ecofin Council adopted the Directive on the taxation of savings. This Directive aims to ensure that cross-border savings income received by persons resident in the EU in the form of interest payments is either taxed in the Member State in which they are resident, or subject to a withholding tax in the Member State that is considered the source State.
In order to preclude distortions of competition with important financial centres outside the EU, the Directive also provides that the same or equivalent measures be applied by a series of territories and third countries.
These include 10 dependent and associated territories, such as the Isle of Man, and five European countries, namely Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Switzerland.
The measures laid down in the Directive and the agreements concluded with the third countries and territories have been applied by all 40 contracting parties concerned since 1 July 2005.
Extending the territorial scope of the Directive to other relevant financial centres is possible in principle.
On 1 December 1997, the Council adopted a Resolution on a code of conduct for business taxation, which deals with potentially harmful tax measures that affect, or may affect, in a significant way the location of business activity in the Community.
Sixty-six tax measures in the old Member States and thirty in the new Member States have been classified as harmful by the Code of Conduct Group and largely phased out.
The Code of Conduct Group is now focusing on its future work, on which the Council expects to receive a report in June.
   – I shall return to this question later.
One question relates to money laundering.
Naturally, it is important that uniform guidelines on money laundering be applied in all of the countries of an extended economic area – the FATF is an important body in this regard.
The Commission is also holding talks on this subject.
Will the Council provide an update on the implementation of the future economic and fiscal framework that was set out in the 2005 Spring Council?
   . – We are now shifting from taxation to the budget issue.
What we are concerned with here is Member States’ adherence to their budgets.
Following the debate at the 2005 Spring European Council, the Commission made proposals for amending Regulations 1466/97 and 1467/97, which form the legislative components of the Stability and Growth Pact.
The relevant amending Regulations were adopted on 27 June 2005 following a lengthy discussion process – in the course of which it was asserted that the old Stability and Growth Pact was dead.
Both regulations were adopted in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 252 of the Treaty, and Regulation 1056/2005 was adopted following an opinion from the European Parliament.
In addition, on 11 October 2005, the Ecofin Council established a revised Code of Conduct relating to the implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact and Guidelines on the content and format of the Stability and Convergence programmes.
All of these rules are publicly available, as is the information on the steps taken to date by the Council in connection with the revised Stability and Growth Pact.
The latter comprise the following legal acts: decisions in accordance with Article 104(6) EC on the existence of excessive deficit in Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom; recommendations on measures to correct these deficits under Article 104(7) EC; a decision establishing, in accordance with Article 104(8) EC, that the action taken by Hungary in response to the Council recommendations regarding the correction of its excessive deficit had proved to be inadequate; and also a Council Decision giving notice to Germany, in accordance with Article 104(9) EC, to take measures for the deficit reduction judged necessary in order to remedy the situation of excessive deficit.
In addition, the Council has delivered opinions on the updated stability and convergence programmes of all Member States, which had been drawn up for the first time in the context of the new regulatory framework for the amended Stability and Growth Pact.
In a nutshell, I can say that, in spite of the criticism that the Stability and Growth Pact was practically dead, the new Stability and Growth Pact has proved to be functional and alive.
This can also be seen in the significant fall in deficits in 2005 compared to 2004.
   . – I refer once again to my previous answer.
I have named all the countries concerned – Italy’s deficit being a prime example.
It must always be borne in mind in this connection, of course, that these countries – Italy in particular – have had elections this year, which naturally hinders an excessive deficit procedure such as this, because it means that political decisions are postponed for a while.
Italy has given assurances that it will now, with its new Government, take all the measures stipulated by the Council.
I have named all the countries giving cause for concern: Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom and, among the new Member States, Hungary in particular, with its 6% deficit.
Each Council meeting consistently works towards reducing the deficit, and this has borne fruit.
To reiterate, the 2005 financial year saw a general reduction in the deficit compared with the previous year.
   The next item is the report by James Elles, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the 2007 budget: the Commission's Annual Policy Strategy report (APS) [2006/2020(BUD)] (A6-0154/2006).
First on my list of speakers is Mrs Grybauskaitė, on behalf of the Commission, but, as I understand it, she would prefer the rapporteur to begin.
Are you prepared to begin, Mr Elles?
   Under Rule 142(5) Mr Elles did indeed have the right to speak first, so let me congratulate you, Commissioner, on your accurate knowledge of the Rules of this House.
   .
Mr President, at noon today we finished the preparations for the new financial perspective, while this evening we return to the routine of annual budgets.
However, the experience of this parliamentary term tells us that while procedures may be repeated, there is no such thing as a budget that may be repeated in its entirety, so there is no budgetary routine, as each of the budgets we have had up until now has had its specific characteristics.
2005 was the first year in an enlarged Europe, the 2006 budget was a bridge between the old and the new financial perspective, while 2007 and the 2007 budget will be the launch of a new generation of multiannual programmes, and that is the real characteristic of the 2007 budget.
Our rapporteur, Mr Elles, presented the priorities and gained the support of the majority of the Committee on Budgets for these priorities.
Knowing his powers of persuasion, he will obtain a parliamentary majority.
However, the real context for the debate on budget strategy for 2007 is no longer the Commission guidelines on strategy, but the figures presented for 2007 by the Commission, as they are clearly influenced by this new generation of programmes – as can very easily be seen in chapter 1a, in chapter 3a and in the chapter on foreign policy.
I also believe that an effective launch for the new generation of multiannual programmes is one of the basic ways of measuring the success of the 2007 budget, while respecting the priorities presented to us by Mr Elles.
If we can launch the programmes well, we can return to the annual routine, which will once again turn out to be not so routine after all.
   . It has been said that if you cannot change matters on the basis of principle, then at least take a principled attitude towards them.
It appears that many principled approaches were taken in the approval process for the 2007 budget proposal.
On 3 May the European Commission adopted a provisional Budget for 2007.
In doing so it took the first step towards establishing a budget for the first year of a seven-year period, but I hope that it will not be as painful each time over the years 2007 to 2013.
If the Commissioner regards the proposed budget as a minimalist budget, I will have to agree with her.
On the other hand, it is hard to see that this budget will make a fundamental contribution to supporting European competitiveness.
It is rather a conventional budget.
It is true, however, that the compromise we have achieved on the budgetary ceiling for the 2007-2013 financial framework will not leave the Commission much room for manoeuvre.
This can be seen by the data on the overall increase in payments compared with 2006.
The overall 3.9% growth in payments actually seems quite moderate.
If we take into account anticipated inflation of 2% in 2007, this leaves a mere 1.9% more in the real funding for the needs of European policy in that year.
And this at a time when 30 million Bulgarians and Romanians will be joining the European Union in January 2007.
There have been changes in the structure of the budget that I regard as positive.
Expenditure on natural resources and agriculture will only increase by 1.2%, while funds earmarked for competitiveness and the cohesion policy for growth and employment will grow by more than 12%.
However, the effective use of this funding will be a key issue.
Knowledge transfer within the economy should be supported with further cash earmarked for programmes on competitiveness and innovation, the development of trans-European networks and lifelong learning.
A new element is the globalisation fund of EUR 500 million to help workers made redundant as a result of industrial restructuring.
However, the effective use of this funding will again be an issue.
We can continue to debate questions to do with adding a little bit here and taking away a little bit there.
With its proposal the Commission has set a fairly strict, but not unrealistic level.
It will be difficult for the European Council to lower this budgetary hurdle, and for the European Parliament to raise it.
The budgetary compromise for 2007 should therefore remain very close to these levels.
   Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Elles for the Annual Policy Strategy report.
I would like to highlight three areas.
Speaking as rapporteur for the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, firstly, I would like to say that I support the rapporteur in urging the Commission and Member States to focus on areas that are the bases of healthy and thriving modern economies: research and development, innovation, knowledge, skills, telecommunications and energy.
Effective investment in those areas pays excellent dividends in the long run.
The EU cannot be short-sighted and still compete globally and reverse the brain-drain leading to slower economic growth than might otherwise be the case.
Secondly, I also back the rapporteur when he calls for Member States to implement existing and proposed legislation to help complete the single market.
The Lisbon Strategy has not been sufficiently prioritised, despite the fact that it seeks improvement in areas where citizens want progress, like creating growth in jobs.
As President Barroso told this House in his first address in July 2004, we must show our citizens that Europe can deliver what it promises.
Thirdly, speaking as a member of the Committee on Budgets, I have to say that I disagree with the emphasis the rapporteur has placed on our strategic partnership with the United States.
I believe the EU must build solid and constructive relations with all global players to an equal extent, especially since a very disappointing cut in funding in Heading 4 has been proposed by the Commissioner in the PDB.
That means that our traditional priorities and commitments are being reduced.
As well as that, there will be no extra money for new agreements that we have entered into, including an increasingly important strategic partnership with India.
Since resources are scarce, I ask the Commission to make sure that no money is wasted.
So can the Commission guarantee that the appropriate measures and mechanisms are being put in place, as Mr Virrankoski highlighted, to ensure effective implementation and full take-up? We do not want to return millions of euros to the Member States at the end of the year.
   Thank you very much for your words and your congratulations, Mr Deprez, but you should also offer your condolences to the rapporteur.
   – Mr President, we wish to initiate the financing of new priorities.
However, the amount of the preliminary draft budget, with payment appropriations which do not exceed 0.99%, unfortunately reflects the glaring inconsistency between the challenges in the sector of research, innovation and competitiveness and the narrow margins allowed by the budget.
Nonetheless, development and employment must be our main objective, the main contribution to the achievement of which must be the Lisbon Strategy, with policies which need to act complementarily and be adapted to the new dynamic environment which is the consequence of globalisation and interdependent economies.
I agree with the Elles proposals on ensuring the qualitative value of every last euro, especially in view of the new nature of the challenges, which we have met so far calmly and without vision.
I refer to the challenge of emerging economic behemoths, especially China and India.
However, the relaxed and 'flabby' stand being adopted by the Commission in the preliminary draft exacerbates our concerns about the reduction in the level of interventions.
The restrictive framework illustrates our inability to combine objectives and financing possibilities.
Unfortunately, Commissioner, 0.99% in payments for 2007 raises once again the tragedy of narrow margins for the realisation of our European vision.
I wonder if the next Presidency will, at long last, have the power to surmount and join us in our efforts to overcome this perpetual European financial Calvary.
I hope so, but I also doubt it.
   The next item is the report by Constanze Angela Krehl, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Development, on preparing for the assent procedure for the Community’s strategic guidelines for the period 2007-2013 (Cohesion Policy in Support of Growth and Jobs) [2006/2086(INI)] (A6-0175/2006).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Capoulas Santos’ report seems comprehensive, and I regard the link between the recitals and the articles calling on the Community institutions to pay the utmost attention to the agroforestry sector as systematic.
The report adequately summarises the way in which agroforestry production is closely connected with nature and, therefore, with its extremes and accidents.
Articles 2, 3, 9 and 12 outline the measures needed to restore the balance.
The common goal – as Mr Prodi also highlighted – is to design the Community strategy to cope with disasters, both by means of prevention measures and by planning the mechanisms for using the Solidarity Fund and the various State aid regimes.
As regards the development policies, I am in favour of the requested increase in cofinancing amounts.
I also welcome the articles highlighting the need for the activities aimed at raising awareness and training the parties involved to keep pace with research on the ground, and therefore documentation and mapping.
Lastly, I agree with the proposals for directives in Article 25 and subsequent articles, which are aimed at making better use of the relevant Community instruments.
   Mr President, I would ask that Amendment 7 to paragraph 1, in which a proposal has been made to add 'in particular in China, Belarus, Cuba and North Korea’, also include the words: ‘Colombia, Turkey and Tunisia’.
Paragraph 1 would therefore become the following: ‘is concerned at the high number of journalists being convicted worldwide, in particular in China, Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, Colombia, Turkey and Tunisia'.
   .
I voted for the Krehl report on the Community strategic guidelines on the basis that it goes some way in attempting to inject a more social and environmental side to the Commission's proposed strategic guidelines and because it supports sound partnership between all parties and the strengthening of civil society.
However, this vote should not imply acceptance of every word of the report.
I have grave concerns about the inclusion in Ms. Krehl's report of a call for the Commission to promote the use of Public-Private Partnerships and about the absence of a specific rejection of earmarking and the thinking behind that approach.
   .I voted in favour of the excellent report by my colleague, Mr Berend, on the proposal for a regulation, at first reading, of the European Parliament and of the Council on establishing the European Union Solidarity Fund.
It was becoming urgent to reform the Fund, which was created in 2002 and which has sole responsibility for dealing exclusively with natural disasters, in order to enlarge its scope, to simplify the way in which it is used from the point of view of emergencies and, lastly, to prevent misuse.
Not only the major climate, industrial and technological changes, but also terrorism, health risks and so on were making it crucial for the European Union to provide its citizens and the Member States with access to a tool that is capable of coping with a disaster that would render a Member State, on its own, powerless.
The reform of this Fund is a crucial safety element in today’s risk society.
   .I voted in favour of the report by my fellow Member, Mr Howitt, on Human Rights in the World 2005 and the EU’s policy on the matter.
At a time when the major victories in the field of human rights are being continually and insidiously undermined, the role of the European Union, as an emerging humanist civilisation, is vital.
As the representative of EU citizens, the European Parliament has a great and immense responsibility where human rights are concerned.
Firstly, within the Union itself by ensuring that the Member States ratify and implement the major international human rights treaties.
Secondly, the Union, as an area of peace and democracy, must remain the guarantor for human rights in the world by ensuring that our declarations based on our values are followed through in all European policies.
   .
I voted for my colleague Richard Howitt's report on Human Rights in the World.
In particular, I voted in favour of Amendment 12 on the violation of human rights in the Western Sahara, which was a free vote.
   .
I welcome this report which addresses the Commission's strategic priorities for 2007.
Establishing clear priorities has become increasingly important in the case of the external actions budget heading given the cuts amounting to around 20% in funds committed.
More than ever the trade dimension continues to impact on domestic political priorities in the budget.
If the Doha Round is successfully concluded, the conditional agreement on the definitive elimination of all forms of agricultural export subsidies by 2013 would translate into incremental yearly EC budget savings that are estimated to be around EUR 3 500-4 000 million per year, depending on internal and world market prices, as of 2013.
As rapporteur for a forthcoming report on trade-related assistance and draftsman for the annual strategic priorities, I have called for greater transparency in the funding of the so-called 'Barroso' billion, committed to support the trading capacity of developing countries.
This pledge should not involve cosmetic re-labelling of funds given to infrastructure.
The Commission must commit to producing an annual report on aid for trade to enable Parliament to scrutinise these funds and assure that they are truly additional.
   .
As with the Estrela report, I do not believe that there is practical or financial justification for creating an agency on drought and floods.
Other forms of environmental action on floods are urgently required.
   .
I voted for the Estrela report on the environmental aspects of natural disasters, but against the creation of a special agency on drought and floods.
I believe there is no justification for creating such an agency and no budget either.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased that we are discussing the coordination of solutions to natural disasters and cooperation on such matters.
I am naturally happy that the report proposes an information and education campaign and the prevention of such events.
I am sure that help will be targeted mainly at areas of high risk, and that it is necessary to protect the environment and safeguard natural resources.
I am convinced that such cooperation should be on a voluntary basis, and I am in favour of individual countries endeavouring to make major improvements to the coordination and communication of information.
However, I strongly believe that contributions to individual agencies and to the setting up of European units should be made on a voluntary basis and should not be mandatory.
Consequently, I did not support the adoption of point 31 and I abstained from the vote on this report.
   Mr President, I had the same problem yesterday as Mrs De Vits and I wanted to highlight it.
The bell does not work properly on our floor, and, when I arrived at the Chamber to take part in the vote, ten minutes late, the bulk of the roll-call votes had taken place.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Nepal(1).
   . – Ladies and gentlemen, southern Asia has long suffered from instability in a number of countries in the region.
Certain regions in the individual countries are in rebel hands and this is true of most of the territory of Afghanistan and Nepal.
Whilst in Afghanistan the countryside is in the hands of the chiefs of clans and tribes, 75% of Nepal is controlled by groups with which the official authorities have so far refused to negotiate.
After the king assumed absolute power, other political players also ran out of patience and in February 2006 people took to the streets.
Now that a new coalition government has been formed, there is vital work that needs to be done; for example, the constitution needs to be changed to include safeguards of democracy and, most importantly, the involvement of all stakeholders in resolving the situation.
According to the most recent reports, this is the current state of affairs.
Preparations for elections of course need to be speeded up.
An elected parliament should draw up a new constitution at the earliest opportunity, and our job is to support the process of democratisation, an integral part of which is freedom of the media and development of the country’s economy.
The resolution that we have proposed and supported will contribute in the search for a democratic path out of the current crisis, and I believe that the Commission has already earmarked appropriate funds to support the entire process.
   The next item is the debate on five motions for resolutions on Sri Lanka(1).
   The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance took the initiative of calling a debate on this issue because the Tamil Tigers had left the negotiating table.
The conflict concerned has claimed at least 60 000 lives, and millions of people have been compulsorily displaced.
This situation will never be resolved if both parties do not sit down at the negotiating table and remain there for as long as it takes to obtain a solution.
The fact that the Tamil Tigers have now left the negotiating table is destructive for all the parties.
They are in a minority and will never be able to achieve their aims through violence.
The path of negotiation where we can be of help is that which will lead to a successful outcome and on which both parties have some prospect of gain.
We must turn our attention to the Sri Lankan Government.
As recently as in May, at least 18 civilians were killed on Kayts Island, and there are witnesses to confirm that the Sri Lankan navy murdered innocent civilians – at least 13 of them – because they were unwilling to leave their homes.
Sri Lanka is responsible for a long list of human rights violations that it has never carefully investigated.
Now that the country has been elected to join the UN Human Rights Council, it is absurd that it does not itself fulfil fundamental requirements to investigate human rights violations and take measures to bring their perpetrators to justice.
If both parties get their act together and assume their responsibilities, we too can accept responsibility for helping with the peace process.
   .
Mr President, as in any conflict there are abuses on all sides, but the urgent resolution before the House this afternoon quite properly focuses on the appalling activities of a terrorist organisation, the LTTE.
The LTTE is interested in one thing and one thing only, and that is political power.
It does not represent all of the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.
It certainly does not speak for them.
Its murderous campaign has not improved their situation one iota.
On the contrary, the Tamils, like all the other people of Sri Lanka, continue to suffer casualties, economic hardship and disruptive lives because of the uncertain and dangerous security situation.
I hope it is not too late for the LTTE to pull back from the brink.
At the beginning of this year there had been optimism that the ceasefire agreement would be reinforced and that substantial progress towards peace would be achieved.
The failure of the LTTE to agree to a second round of Geneva negotiations and its resumption of a terrorist campaign have removed this hope.
It is imperative that the LTTE is held to account for its actions and that further international pressure is brought to bear on it at this time.
Unlike Mr Pflüger, I therefore urge the EU to add the LTTE to its list of proscribed terrorist organisations.
I do not see this as a hindrance to future negotiations, but as a major incentive for the LTTE to stop the violence.
At the same time, this ban must be backed by effective action by Member States to prevent funds and other support reaching the LTTE.
Human Rights Watch, a highly respected international NGO, has testified to the intimidation, extortion and physical violence that has been inflicted on Tamils living in Britain and other countries in order to suppress criticism and ensure a steady flow of income.
Every EU country where there is a Tamil community should establish special police taskforces to investigate and prosecute the agents of the LTTE, as well as freezing bank accounts linked to them.
This should be seen as another dimension to the war on terrorism.
For its part, the LTTE should immediately impose a ceasefire, give up its child soldiers, stop its suicide bombings, and agree to return to the conference table in a positive and constructive spirit.
That is the greatest service it could provide to the Tamils and all the people of Sri Lanka.
   .
Mr President, this joint resolution contains many points and I, like others, support some and have reservations about others.
We all condemn the violence taking place in Sri Lanka and we all bemoan the loss of life.
We have highlighted the points we have in common and, having worked on a joint resolution, I really regret the inflammatory remarks made a few minutes ago by Mr Van Orden, who seems to have made a ‘hit-and-run’ contribution and left the Chamber.
It shows a fundamental misunderstanding not just of the process in this House but also of the severity of the situation and of the way forward.
Mrs Lynne highlighted a couple of points that need to be re-emphasised, for instance, for a peace process to be successful, all parties have to be involved in it.
Perhaps we were wrong to talk in the resolution only of the LTTE and the government, when there are plenty of other organisations.
There have been too many unexplained deaths in Sri Lanka, whether it was that of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar or the Tamil MP Joseph Pararajasingham, both of whom I and others had met and both of whom had been present in this Chamber.
We hear about many deaths, but too many go unreported.
We must give full support to the peace process, but we must recognise, as Mr Pflüger and others have said, that unfortunately, in a civil conflict like this, a lot of people are involved.
We need them all around the table and we cannot apportion blame beforehand.
Paragraph 17 on prescription will have a serious and negative impact on the process.
   .
Mr President, my colleague, Mrs Lynne, asked for a new Human Rights Commission to be set up in Sri Lanka and I am very pleased to announce that the President yesterday did just that, in anticipation, I suppose, of our resolution in this Parliament.
The Human Rights Commission is now up and running.
I think it was Winston Churchill who said that ‘jaw-jaw is always better than war-war’.
What we have to do is continue talking.
There is no final military solution to this conflict, which has now raged in the country of my birth for over 25 years.
Thousands of people have died and, with no possibility of a military solution, we must negotiate and talk until a commonality of interest is found.
Who should do the talking? The European Union is a Co-Chair and I am led to believe that the Council has decided to ban the LTTE as a terrorist organisation.
But we must continue to talk and the EU and the Co-Chairs, including Norway, in consultation with India, now have the role of peacemakers.
We have to bring peace to the island.
The intransigence of the LTTE, which periodically talks peace and then goes back to war, has got to stop.
The international community is not going to be fooled anymore by this stop-go, stop-go process.
I would like to thank my colleagues in this Parliament for the cooperation and understanding they have shown in this matter.
   . – Mr President, as has already been said, there can be no easy solution to a conflict that has been going on for nearly 25 years.
What we are dealing with here is a sort of suppurating swelling that breaks out from time to time.
I agree with all those speakers who have said that it is no solution at all to have recourse to force of arms in order to win a particular dispute.
We should instead carry on talking.
The great question is: what is the best way to do this?
Norway has been acting as a mediator since 2002, and Mrs Gill and the other Member were quite right to point that out, but whether Europe can play a more significant role is a major issue.
Would it do any good if a major politician from Europe were to go to Sri Lanka to talk with the two sides and with other interested parties too? A delegation of us went there last year, and, at the time, the suggestion was made from various quarters that it might be useful if some greater power than Norway were to emerge as mediator.
I would be particularly appreciative if the Commission could let us know what it thinks of this suggestion.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, anti-personnel landmines are terrible weapons, especially when they hit a bus full of people, and it does not matter whether those people are soldiers or civilians.
This clearly brutal operation by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was swiftly followed by a disproportionate response, namely the bombing of land under their control.
We are now faced with a further round of violence and another opportunity to supply weapons, to criticise the Sri Lankan Government and to lay down very peculiar conditions for the Colombo Government to take part in the next possible round of peace talks.
Who is so interested in the possible deposits of oil and gas between the shores of the island and the federal state of Tamil Nadu? Sadly the motion for a resolution fails to answer this question.
Perhaps the next one will.
Right now, all we can do is support the resolution.
I would merely like to conclude with a question for Mr Schlyter, an advocate of ethnic rights.
How are those rights enforced among the Sinhalese in the northeast of the island?
   The next item is the debate on two motions for resolutions on Taiwan(1).
   Mr President, I need no lessons in politics from MEPs who have been reported as singing a Horst Wessel song in the past.
I have three points to make.
Firstly, this resolution is an abuse of our Rules of Procedure.
Rule 115 is not intended to be used in this way.
If it were, I would have attempted to raise the issue of the sadly mismanaged primary healthcare trust in west Gloucestershire closing two out of two local hospitals in Lydney and Cinderford.
We all know what this is about: it is an attempt to undermine by creeping resolution our one-China policy – a perfectly reasonable political position, which I do not happen to support.
Let us have an honest debate about it rather than hide within the Trojan Horse of supposed healthcare issues.
The resolution is a serious one: it is true that Parliament has previously supported Taiwanese observer status at the WHA – not the WHO.
Secondly, the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network comprises a series of 40 different institutions from amongst the almost 200 Member States of the WHO.
There is no universality, so there is no Taiwan gap.
In fact, a number of NGOs with Taiwanese membership are members of GOARN and, therefore, they have no shortage of information.
Thirdly, given the quarter to half a million Taiwanese immigrants in Shanghai alone who regularly travel between China and Taiwan, it is hard to imagine that the Chinese would take any risks of them bringing in diseases from Taiwan.
   – I am disappointed that at the end of this debate there has not been a unanimous position on this issue in Parliament.
I regret the fact that the legal issue relating to the formula in Article 3 is not the wording that enabled us to reach consensus.
In any event, I hope that this lack of consensus does not undermine what was said by the previous speaker Mr Pionior, with whom I agree completely.
There is a public health problem of the highest importance.
It is vital to ensure that Taiwan is brought completely into the world protection network, because it is not just the 20 million people who are at higher risk – we all face greater risks if the island remains outside our system.
This is our fundamental concern and I hope that the Commission is equal to the task of addressing it.
   Mr President, given that yesterday the Government of Sri Lanka announced the formation of a Human Rights Commission, could we make an oral correction to our joint resolution? Paragraph 11 of the resolution states: ‘Calls on the Commission and the Government of Sri Lanka to ensure the reactivation of Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission’.
We would like to replace that with the following: ‘Welcomes, therefore, the announcement of new members of Sri Lanka’s Human Rights Commission’.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 18 May 2006.
   Before I give the floor to the Prime Minister of Belgium, I must pay tribute to the victims of the terrible earthquake that has taken place in Indonesia, with almost 6 000 dead, 20 000 injured and between 100 000 and 200 000 people affected.
I have expressed our solidarity to the Indonesian Government and I am delighted that international aid – European aid in particular – is being mobilised quickly in order to help those affected by this latest tragedy.
   Mr President, just as Mr Schulz referred to Rule 34 of the Rules of Procedure, I believe that I, on the basis of that same Rule, am equally entitled, since all MEPs in this institution have the same rights, to say that I regard it as a downright disgrace that, to all intents and purposes, undue advantage is being taken – with your permission no less, since you are not intervening – in that a debate, that is, strictly speaking, not on the agenda, is being held where the largest party in Belgium, or at any rate in Flanders, is insulted and maligned, and associated with a murder incident.
This is something I refuse to accept.
I think that you, in your capacity as President, should step in when the Rules are being manifestly manipulated in this Chamber.
   Mr President, I speak with regard to Mr Schulz’s intervention.
Mr Schulz, please refrain from interfering in Poland’s domestic affairs, as we do not interfere in Germany’s domestic affairs.
   Do not use points of order to hold debates amongst yourselves.
Mr Schulz has referred to a Rule of the Rules of Procedure which allows Members to speak in order to draw attention to a human rights issue during the examination of a legislative proposal.
The subject is closed.
   Thank you very much, Mr Wurtz.
In future debates of this kind we shall consider a more consistent way to allow the chairmen of the political groups to speak.
For now, however, we must distribute the time in the manner we had planned.
   As you can see, Mr Verhofstadt, this is a pluralist parliament.
   Mr President, we are, today, debating with an honest advocate of a United States of Europe.
He does not hide his goal.
He does not deny the facts.
He has even written a courageous, self-critical Laeken Declaration containing a critique of the EU as it currently exists, and one with which most critics of the EU would concur.
Unfortunately, it was overlooked in the constitutional Convention, and that courage failed him when Belgium was to ratify the Constitution.
That was the end of his desire to get closer to the people through openness and democracy.
The views of the Belgians were not to be heard through a referendum.
The people of Belgium were not to be given the opportunity to vote ‘no’ to the Constitution, like the linguistic cousins of the Flemings in the Netherlands or those of the Walloons in France.
The United States of Europe – yes – but not by asking the people.
Take heart, Mr Verhofstadt.
Take your colleagues with you in burying this rejected Constitution.
Organise direct elections to a new convention.
Get proposals drawn up that can then be put to referendums in every country at the same time.
Until then, open up all meetings where laws are adopted.
Put every document on the Internet.
Allow the national parliaments to vote on the annual legislation programme.
Allow the Commissioners to appear in the European Committees of their national parliaments and thus to be in touch with their national democracies.
Promise that you will never again give Belgium's support to a law that has not first achieved a majority in either the Belgian Parliament or the European Parliament.
   Mr President, Mr Verhofstadt, I should like, while thanking Mr Verhofstadt for his excellent and determined speech, to look again at two aspects.
The first aspect is the time factor.
Mr Verhofstadt emphasised the problem of the Lisbon process.
We have no time to lose.
Five years for the Community patent is stupid.
Furthermore, I should like to say that the Heads of State or Government have a very great responsibility regarding the financial perspective with, for example, the research programme which has less money, in real terms, in 2007, 2008 and 2009 than in 2006.
There is surely a basic contradiction there between talk and reality.
I think that the method too – open coordination – has been shown to be inadequate.
The instruments of Community policy, therefore, are not supported in the budget.
Consequently, it is not possible to make a policy that is grounded in real circumstances.
The second aspect on which I should like to elaborate, very briefly, of course, is the social aspect.
We have spoken of the rejection of the Constitution.
It is true, and you quite rightly made reference to it, that the social aspect was there 50 years ago: there was hope of social improvement after the war.
Nowadays, people do not have that feeling.
Therefore, one priority would be, in the same way that the Europe of monetary unity was created from the European currency snake, to create a European social snake that would make it possible to realise tangible achievements in this field too.
   Mr President, Mr Verhofstadt, it is clear that we are building the future Europe for its citizens, and that they have to answer the question of what kind of Europe they want and within which borders.
We were supposed to come up with the answers during the period of reflection, but this period has not been a success.
There have been no national debates and no support from the European institutions, in particular the Council, which after the ‘no’ votes in France and the Netherlands adopted a wait-and-see attitude.
Europe has fallen into lethargy, and for that reason I would like to ask you, Mr Verhofstadt, at the June session of the Council, to ask the leaders of those countries which have postponed the ratification process what they intend to do now and what their plans are.
Please do not accept the answer that it is an internal affair, because it is not.
Ratification of an international treaty is an obligation for the countries that have signed it.
It is also a test of their credibility and of their capacity to cooperate in international relations.
Finally I would like to point out that in my country, Poland, where the ratification process was postponed, the latest public opinion surveys show that almost 80% of the Polish population supports Europe, and that people want a larger Europe, a Europe built on the principles of equality and a Europe that is not only prosperous, but that is just and democratic and that displays solidarity.
   – Madam President, Mrs Plassnik, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, firstly, we should like to say that terrorism is contemptuous of human beings and that the United States has been hit appallingly by terrorism.
That is a factor that must form the background to any criticism we make.
We must appreciate that this is terrorism directed against our values and our legal system and that it raises concerns about the danger in which it places us.
On the other hand, resistance to terrorism should not be to the detriment of our own values, for then terrorism will have won.
For this reason, there has been a broad international debate, which has also led to changes.
Following my visit, I am convinced that the situation and the images familiar to us from 2001 and 2002 no longer exist.
Nor do I believe that direct physical torture is taking place, as presumably it had been doing, although I obviously have no proof of this.
Moreover, the fact that great efforts are taking place within the United States, together with a debate designed to put an end to torture and the like is shown by, for example, the initiatives taken by Senator McCain.
What we have here, then, is not typical behaviour towards America on the part of Europe but a debate being conducted in all our societies.
On the other hand – and, on this matter, I agree completely with the Commissioner and Mrs Plassnik – human rights and international humanitarian law must be observed.
Although our system of values does in fact entail the risk of a prisoner reoffending after he has been released, we should be giving up our freedom if we were to abandon that same system of values. is one of the basic principles of our civilisation.
True enough: in the situation in which we now find ourselves, the risk is far smaller if prisoners who might otherwise join the ever growing ranks of new suicide bombers and so inspire further mobilisation are instead kept in prison.
On the basis purely of an assessment of the risks involved, releasing people is probably not the right road to go down.
As matters stand, however, people are kept in prison even if they are acquitted.
If a prisoner is deemed to have been 80%, but still not 100%, debriefed, he is kept in jail.
If a new concrete prison is built, this time devoid of windows, we have, to say the least, a problem.
Although what we have here is not a war in the classical sense of the word, we must try, via the International Court of Justice and other international arrangements, to get to grips with this issue.
I believe that too much is being expected of the Member States in this area.
   – Mr President, it is certain that had dear Mr Brok heard the last lecture of Chomsky, the greatest living philosopher, he would have written a different report.
Chomsky said that the United States of America is dying from a lack of democracy and there is indeed a lack of democracy and intercourse.
Allow me to prove it to you.
Any American citizen can come to anywhere in Europe without a visa.
Can any European citizen go to America without a visa? Let me reply by reminding you that, when MEPs went to America to check CIA flights, American congressmen did not receive them.
America has not signed the Kyoto Protocol and is poisoning the atmosphere.
It does not come under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in The Hague; it merely sends judges.
I ultimately refuse to accept Europe as the train whose steam engine is American and which has an American engine driver.
That is our big mistake.
We want a relationship on equal terms.
They do not allow us to have a European army.
We have ΝΑΤΟ with an American commander-in-chief.
Even our stock exchanges follow the Dow Jones index.
We do not have our own policy.
We have American hegemony.
We want a relationship on equal terms, not the suzerainty of the Americans, which is harming Europe's progress towards more democracy.
   Mr President, we read about this being Green Week, and the focus of this year’s Green Week is biodiversity loss.
Last year it was climate change, and both climate change and biodiversity loss are the two greatest environmental challenges facing us.
I rise to protest at the lack of time given to debate the issue of biodiversity loss during this part-session, as this is Green Week.
As parliamentarians we should have acknowledged Green Week and the biodiversity loss focus by having a debate on that issue.
We have the Birds Directive, the Habitats Directive, the common agricultural policy, the common fisheries policy, the structural funds, 18 000 Natura 2000 sites, plus a network, and yet we have no joined-up thinking in relation to this issue.
We have invasive alien species here, over 40% of the EU’s species – both flora and fauna – are under threat, and yet we have no debate on this issue during a designated Green Week.
I protest, and I would like you, Mr Vice-President, to pass on my protestations to the President of Parliament.
   Mr President, today the leader of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, Mr Schulz, insolently and arrogantly attacked members of the Polish Government and their right to take decisions that reflect the will of the majority of the Polish people.
Mr Schulz’s lack of respect for democracy does not surprise me, as his political champions have been Karl Marx and Rosa Luxembourg.
Mr Schulz, the most bloodthirsty form of totalitarianism emerged not in Poland, but in your country, where today neo-fascist organisations are growing in strength and taking to the streets.
I would therefore ask you to deal with these demonstrations, which pose a real threat to Europe, rather than condemning the Polish Prime Minister for merely upholding the will of the majority of Poles who support family values and who do not support hedonistic, pornographic parades by gay activists.
Poland has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe, and I do not believe that promoting homosexual relationships would help us.
Unless, of course, you know of some way in which they can breed of which we are not aware.
German domination of Europe is fortunately a thing of the past, so please, Mr Schulz, remember this once and for all, and keep your German aspirations well clear of Poland’s internal affairs.
   Last Sunday, I had an opportunity to be part of an ad hoc delegation from the European Parliament observing the presidential elections in Columbia.
Following changes in the Constitution some years ago, for the first time in Columbia's history, President Álvaro Uribe Vélez was elected to a second four year term.
The elections were, firstly, marked by the fact that only 45 per cent of Columbian citizens, who have the right to vote, used the opportunity to participate in the polls.
However, as an election observer, I can assure the European Parliament that with the exception of a few errors and infringements, no fundamental violations were observed and the elections were democratic, free and fair.
Mr President, I propose that the European Parliament congratulate the newly elected President of Columbia and also initiate greater aid for Columbia, above all, for the implementation of the Justice and Peace Law, which could solve the security problems in this country.
   The next item is the report (A6-0179/2006) by Mr Markov, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on trade and poverty: designing trade policies to maximise trade’s contribution to poverty relief (2006/2031(INI)).
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, of the Council common position for adopting a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on medicinal products for paediatric use and amending Regulation (EEC) No 1768/92, Directive 2001/20/EC, Directive 2001/83/EC and Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 [15763/3/2005 – C6-0087/2006 – 2004/0217(COD)].
Rapporteur: Erika Mann (A6-0171/2006).
   – Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to offer my congratulations to Mrs Grossetête for having achieved a consensus between all groups as well as with the Council and the Commission.
This is the culmination of a process which has, in my view, lasted six years.
Six years ago we discussed the problem and possible solutions with experts in Strasbourg for the first time, and now we are at the end of the legislative procedure.
I wish to thank the Commissioner and all those who have worked on this project, in particular however Mrs Roth-Behrendt, the shadow rapporteur of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, who contributed a great deal and who unfortunately cannot be here today.
I wish her a speedy recovery.
This proposal contributes to the solution of a serious problem.
I myself have worked as a doctor in a children’s clinic and I have found out what a drama it is for children, parents and doctors when many forms of medication necessary for the treatment of children are prohibited.
I myself have had problems, but not as many problems as other colleagues and other families.
In some of these families children have died, because medicinal products that lacked authorisation were not administered or because, for example, children suffering from HIV were given too weak a dosage, which caused the children to become resistant to the medication.
That is why it is so good that we now have this regulation.
I particularly welcome the fact that the Council and the Commission have taken up the proposal to impose the MICE programme on off-patent medicines.
At first reading I was not completely satisfied with the uniform period of six months.
Even so, it is vital to make a start, and if we see that the six months are not appropriate for all cases, then perhaps we shall have to make further amendments.
Now we just have to act quickly, and so I am very glad that Mrs Grossetête has persuaded the Council and the Commission to adopt Article 18. For if we had not managed this, then the first medicines would only have come onto the market on the basis of the incentive system in 2009 at the earliest.
Now we shall be able to recognise positive effects immediately after the regulation is adopted, and that is important, because we have to act quickly in order to improve children’s health.
   The next item is the report (A6-0180/2006) by Mr Chatzimarkakis, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (2007-2013) [COM(2005)0121 C6-0098/2005 2005/0050(COD)].
   Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP) is to contribute to the EU’s capacity for innovation and its competitiveness, with a particular focus on small and medium-sized enterprises, entirely in accordance with the goals of the Lisbon Strategy in terms of growth and jobs.
I am pleased that the programme contains a broad definition of innovation, so that this definition also includes non-technological innovation.
This ensures that the CIP also applies to enterprises in, for example, the adventure industry.
Adding value occurs at all stages of the value chain, which means that innovation in distribution, marketing or management is just as important as innovation in production.
In connection with the current debate about which direction Europe should take in its energy policy, it is a positive thing that we have been able to retain the environmental focus that has been a central element of the Intelligent Energy for Europe Programme.
One reason for this is that energy efficiency and renewable forms of energy are amongst the areas in which more innovation can make the biggest contribution to the competitiveness of the EU.
A substantial challenge in relation to the CIP is to achieve the necessary synergy effects in relation to other programmes.
I believe that it is essential to ensure sound coordination between the CIP, the Seventh Framework Programme for Research, the programme for Life-Long Learning and, especially, the Structural Funds.
Finally, I would like to emphasise the fact that I believe equality to be an important dimension within the CIP.
If we are to increase the number of entrepreneurs in Europe then we must get more women to take on the challenge.
We therefore have to remove the barriers that women face.
I hope that the Commission will focus on the gender-specific dimension in relation to entrepreneurship, and it pleases me a great deal that the programme will provide the opportunity for microfinance, since precisely this form of financing is of particular advantage to women.
   – The next item is the report by Mr Langen on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the enlargement of the euro zone [2006/2103(INI)] (A6-0191/2006).
   . Mr President, it is impossible to disagree with many conclusions expressed in the report.
What objections could be made to an obligation to rigorously observe the Treaty’s conditions? This is just as it should be, and personally I am in favour of this position.
If this approach had been consistently adopted, however, then the history of the euro zone’s creation would have been significantly different, and it is even possible that the number of states that are currently members of the euro zone would differ.
A third of the current members of the euro zone joined it whilst in breach of one or other of the criteria.
In reality, the admission criteria were only used as reference points, and political decisions were the real deciding force.
This is not surprising, since in many cases the economic foundation of the criteria is very questionable.
Thus, for example, the permissible inflation level was also set by reference to countries that are not in the euro zone and, most paradoxical of all, the best inflation indicators differ from the European Central Bank’s vision concerning the best level of price stability in the euro zone.
The demand for countries to achieve exchange rate stability together with the inflation indicators makes this criterion even more contradictory.
The European Central Bank does not even claim to bring this about in the euro zone.
Concerns expressed in the report concerning potential problems with the applicant countries following accession to the euro zone cannot be attributed to the small, flexible economies of, for example, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, which are also open economies and have since the beginning of the 1990s had experience of exchange rates fixed over the long term.
If Lithuania, with its trifling divergence from the inflation criterion, is not accepted into the euro zone, then that is obviously a political decision.
I would support the report if it were truly focused on the improvement of the admission criteria in the future.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Rather, what we can detect in the report is the theme of the notorious Polish plumber.
   The next item is the report by Mr Grech on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on Parliament’s estimates for 2007 [2006/2022(BUD)] (A6-0188/2006).
   The next item is the report by Mrs Hennicot-Schoepges on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education on the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue (2008) [(COM(2005)0467 C6-0311/2005 2005/0203 (COD)] (A6-0168/2006).
   .Mr President, the idea that 2008 should become the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue emerged in connection with the EU’s enlargement to include 10 new Member States, which have added cultural, linguistic and religious diversity to the Community.
This initiative is entirely appropriate to the challenges faced by Europe today, and it fully addresses the need for multi-level dialogue with a view to building mutual understanding based on respect and tolerance.
Unfortunately, this noble idea has not been backed up by an appropriate budget.
EUR 10 million divided by 27 countries, with no additional support from the Member States, will not pay for any high-profile or truly valuable cultural events.
We should, however, hope that with the appropriate use of other programmes intended to fund cultural actions, and by involving representatives of civil society, non-governmental and religious organisations, schools, universities and especially the media, we will be able to join forces to achieve the ambitious aims for 2008 despite the modest and nominal budget.
This would serve to make it a dialogue, rather than a money-saving cultural monologue.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Year of Intercultural Dialogue is intended to help to foster harmony in the multicultural societies of the EU Member States.
I would therefore have expected the proposal to place a major emphasis on involving the citizens in such dialogue.
The way in which the project budget has been structured, however, does not suggest that that is the case.
A total of EUR 10 million has been allocated, and structured on the basis of three types of action, according to level: points A) and B) at Community level together account for around EUR 7.5 million, or 75% of the budget, whereas point C) for actions at national level, provided they offer added European value, will only receive EUR 2.5 million.
The sums awarded per State amount to EUR 100 000, that is to say, only 1% of the project budget will be earmarked for each State.
The way in which the budget of this project has been structured would strongly indicate that the oft-proclaimed and highly ambitious ‘main aim of the project, to promote dialogue among all cultures and among everyone living in the European Union,’ will be difficult, if not impossible to fulfil.
The reason for this is simple – a lack of financial resources to establish wide-ranging dialogue between people at national and at bilateral and multilateral international levels.
Such contact could contribute most to the development of mutual respect, understanding and admiration on the basis of cultural understanding.
   The next item is the report by Mr Vidal-Quadras on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy on energy efficiency (Green Paper) [2005/2210(INI)] (A6-0160/2006).
   Mr President, the matter under discussion relates to the efficient use of energy which, once obtained from primary sources, may be converted into useful work or into another form of energy, or used inefficiently in open-ended systems.
Examples of these include the large industrial steam power plants, whose end efficiency is at best 30-40%, less 10% for power transmission costs.
How, then, can energy be more efficiently used to save these 20-30%? In the first place, we need to invest in upgrading heat insulation in buildings and in modernising the way heat is produced and supplied to them, as well as in waste heat recovery systems.
Secondly, we need to invest in the decommissioning of old, small-scale, outmoded local heating plants and to connect housing estates, particularly in the new Member States where such estates exist in large cities, to heating networks powered by modern, co-generating heat-and-power stations of optimum capacity.
This will enable the simultaneous generation of electricity for local consumers without transmission losses.
In order for these technologies to bear rapid fruit, however, financial priority will need to be accorded to access to EU funding for these projects, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at this late hour, I shall begin with a story about a driver who asks the price of a drop of petrol at a petrol station.
On hearing that a drop of petrol costs nothing, he asks for a full tank.
It is indeed the case that one can save a great deal drop by drop, perhaps even in financial terms.
We certainly have before us an array of measures and proposals that could help bring about greater energy efficiency.
My analogy was an attempt to illustrate that the potential solutions are all relative and clearly not simple.
In my opinion, the most important is to boost science and research.
I therefore believe that unless we back up our good intentions and rhetoric with adequate financial resources for research and development – and at the moment this is clearly not the case – our goal of raising energy efficiency may be no more than wishful thinking.
A case in point is the Galileo project.
Unless we provide this project with adequate funding, we will not achieve higher energy efficiency in future in an area such as transport, which is unquestionably one of the highest consumers of energy.
   The next item is the report by Mr Sonik on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs on prohibitions on certain sexual offenders [14207/2004 C6-0244/2004 2004/0818(CNS)] (A6-0068/2006).
   . To begin with, I would like to thank Mr Sonik for his well prepared report.
The Committee on Legal Affairs analysed the legal side of this report and, after submitting a few amendments, approved the report.
It was truly abnormal that a citizen convicted of abuse in one EU state, including sexual abuse against children, could again find work in children’s education institutions in another EU state, despite the fact that in its judgment the court had forbidden the citizen from doing so.
The report makes provision that information on such individuals will, in accordance with compulsory procedures, be passed to all EU states, which will add it to the appropriate register.
Therefore, such a child rapist will no longer be able to work in children’s education institutions and harm children again.
I would urge my colleagues to approve the report and trust that all EU states will ensure that this new rule is introduced as a matter of urgency.
After all, child welfare is the most important thing.
   The next item is the recommendation (A6-0165/2006) by Mrs Angelika Niebler on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality for second reading of the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the implementation of the principle of equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women in matters of employment and occupation (new version) (15623/7/2005 – C6 0089/2006 – 2004/0084(COD))
   Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Niebler for her excellent work.
The recast directive to simplify and modernise the issue incorporates the relevant points in this area.
Standardisation and definitions are clearly important but, most importantly, what we need now are sanctions.
To reconcile work and family life is one of the most urgent issues of the Europe of today and the Europe of the future.
There is today no country in the Union that reaches the reproductive levels necessary to avoid extinction.
Women want to work.
If forced to choose between working and having a family, an increasing number of women choose to work.
One of the most obvious forms of discrimination against women is the gender pay gap.
For more than 30 years we have had a directive dealing with this, but how much has the situation changed during that time? Not at all.
There has been no improvement in this area whatsoever.
Will the recast directive change this? It remains to be seen.
To put the issue of reconciling work and family life as a top priority, as Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner stated, is very good, but we desperately need sanctions.
Nothing less than the future of Europe is at stake.
   The next item is the report (A6-0148/2006) by Mrs Lívia Járóka on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality on the situation of Roma women in the European Union [2005/2164(INI)]
   The next item is the report (A6-0159/2006) by Mrs De Keyser, on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on the situation of women in armed conflicts and their role in reconstruction and the democratic process in post-conflict countries [2005/2215(INI)].
   – We have noted your comment, Mr Schulz.
   – Mr President, Mr Schulz, I did indeed compare your actions to the actions of Marx and Rosa Luxemburg, and unfortunately what you claim I said about homosexuals is untrue.
What I actually said is that the Polish Government – which I support on this – is opposed to pornographic homosexual parades, which is something very different, Mr Schulz.
I would ask you to refrain from twisting the truth in this House, because you have frequently misused your position as head of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament to slander the speeches of Members.
I ask you to stop doing this.
   Mr President, I would like to take the floor pursuant to Rule 145(1).
The minutes of yesterday’s sitting contain a statement by the Chairman of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, Mr Schulz, who said he was also speaking on behalf of the Chairmen of the other groups, Mr Wurtz, Mr Frassoni, Mr Watson and Mr Poettering.
His statement contained false assertions which he also ascribed to me as a member of the League of Polish Families.
It is untrue that the League of Polish Families, its Chairman and its Deputy Chairman, my son Roman Giertych, or indeed any other member of the party, expressed racist views or called for acts of violence against homosexuals and persons wanting to take part in the equality parade in Warsaw.
Mr Schulz and his colleagues have been misinformed.
His entire speech is offensive to myself personally, to my party and to Poland.
In particular, it is scandalous to compare the League of Polish Families with the German Nazis.
It was a democratically elected German Government which had a programme to exterminate homosexuals and other groups of people that it did not like.
Such views have never been, are not and will never be held in Poland.
   – Mr President, I have a request to make of you.
Item 9 is meant to be the vote on the Hughes report.
Mr Hughes is on his way back here from Luxembourg, where he has been performing his duties, and I would like to put to you the request – which the Chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs endorses – that we might take this vote at the end of voting time today.
   Mr President, under Rule 132 in connection with Rule 170 I rise to propose, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, that the votes on the Guantánamo motions be postponed for two weeks until the next part-session in Strasbourg.
The reason is that a delegation of four MEPs from different political parties has just returned from a visit to Guantánamo.
Unfortunately, they have not had an opportunity to contribute to the resolution before the House today.
My group believes that by proposing this short postponement, the Members concerned will have time to brief their groups on their visit and help produce an improved text calling for the closure of Guantánamo Bay that, hopefully, all groups can support.
This text will thus receive maximum support and will give credibility to Parliament in the build-up to the EU-US Summit at the end of June.
   – Mr President, I wish to endorse this motion.
Much as I agree with this resolution’s conclusion that what we are dealing with here is a violation of the rule of law and that this facility must be closed, there are a number of areas in which the arguments and justifications are no longer up to date.
I believe that, if we want to maximise our influence on the way this matter is resolved, we do need to be up to date and rally as broad as possible a majority in this House before the summit, in order to be able to bring the necessary influence to bear on it, and so I would ask the House to give Mr Coveney’s proposal its backing.
   . – Mr President, I have a suggestion to put to the House and to the Member who put that motion to it.
I could well, as rapporteur, recommend a ‘yes’ vote if they were agreeable to the motion comprising only those words up to and including ‘Convention’ and that the last sentence would be dropped.
If that is your message, Mr Brie, then I could recommend a ‘yes’.
Mr Brie says ‘yes’, so I will indeed recommend that we vote on the words up to and including ‘Convention’; the second part can therefore be regarded as withdrawn, and so we can all vote ‘yes’ to that.
   . – Mr President, at this point, the voting order suggests that we should vote on Amendment 18 first and then on paragraph 7, and do it in four parts.
What we need to do here is, first to vote on Amendment 18, which is compatible with the proposal for split votes, while keeping things in the right order.
I would, however, propose that we ignore the vote on Part 1, which is identical with 2, 3 and 4, apart from the difference that split votes have been proposed for 2, 3 and 4 and that Part 1 proposes that 2, 3 and 4 be voted on together.
I would also make so bold as to add something.
The proposal for a split vote on Parts 2, 3 and 4 refers only to the amendments to the English version and not to the versions in other languages.
I hope that makes sense.
   Mr President, this is very simple. I would like to add ‘and biodiesel’ after the word ‘bioethanol’ in Amendment 15.
   Mr President, I would like to clarify the content of Amendment 2.
It is not, as Mr Langen said, a criticism of the Commission.
We in our group have always said that we support the Commission in dealing with the Treaty and the protocols to the Treaty.
This amendment – which was tabled by the ALDE Group and which we are supporting – it is stated that we regret the negative recommendation issued to Lithuania.
This is not a criticism of the Commission.
We regret that it has been like it is and we have some critical remarks on the criteria in the text, which are supported by everyone.
   . Mr President, I should like to move an oral amendment.
I should like paragraph 1 of my report to read: ‘Welcomes the proposal to establish an EU institute for gender equality and urges the institute to focus intensively on the situation of women suffering multiple discrimination, including Roma women’.
   .
Mr President, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance has informed me that it will withdraw its amendments, with the exception of Amendment 10.
Consequently, I am asking my group and all my colleagues to support this amendment that concerns Kosovan women.
   Mr President, I should like to place on record that, when we started voting less than an hour ago, there were 621 Members voting in the Chamber; at the last roll call vote there were 405 – 216 Members have left the Chamber during voting time.
We have no confidence in this ridiculous voting system.
   .
I support the content of this report, however I do not feel that Amendment 21 proposed by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, which calls on the European Commission to identify measures to coordinate Member States' fiscal policy and taxation, has any place in a report which purports to encourage innovation and competitiveness; on the contrary it is only by fostering a greater sense of competitiveness between SMEs and other businesses across the EU in terms of their differing fiscal obligations and other variable market conditions that a truly competitive and innovative market will become a reality for all European businesses.
   – Mr President, regarding the vote on the issue of paediatric medicines, I should just like to point out that, after the six-month patent extension granted to the multinational drug companies at first reading, I feel that extending the transition period during which that additional protection certificate can be applied for from two years to five years is really going too far.
That is why I voted against Amendment 18, and also because the benefits to the paediatric population cannot be scientifically documented.
In addition, accepting that amendment might encourage research into paediatric indications for medicines produced for adult use, precisely going against one of the aims of the regulation.
   Mr President, in the same way as most of you, I too have been deeply shocked by the number of racially motivated murders that have taken place in some European countries recently.
These were examples of the most blatant and horrific manifestation of racism and xenophobia.
There are, however, other forms which are not so visible and yet which harm greater numbers of people.
I would like to believe that the actions planned in support of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, and above all intercultural dialogue itself, will manage to subdue the nationalistic mood right across the Union.
I consider 2008 to be the right time for this, in view of the fact that by then the European Union will have increased to 27 Member States.
It is, however, necessary to create initiatives based on the sort of practical and sustainable projects that will continue even after 2008.
For these reasons I regard the report we have just adopted as a step in the right direction.
   Mr President, my group colleague Mr Dillen will shortly be drawing your attention to a German study in the which shows a lack of willingness to adapt among many immigrants, a trend that is also reflected in many other polls; according to an Austrian study, for example, no fewer than 45% of Muslims are hostile towards the idea of integration.
Would it not be better, therefore, if official Europe were to send out a different message, which it could do by making 2008 the year of respect for European standards and values? With the past European capitulation to intimidation following the publication of the Danish cartoons still fresh in people’s minds, I hold out little hope, particularly if I remind myself of the opinion poll that was carried out in the United Kingdom for the , which shows that 40% of Muslims in Great Britain are in favour of introducing law
   Mr President, my colleagues and I have voted against this Hennicot-Schoepges report, because the so-called European Year of Intercultural Dialogue, an initiative that, by the way, is going to set us back EUR 10 million, is yet another example of how official Europe is blind to the reality actually experienced by the public.
This reality is that Europe accommodates an ever growing number of Muslims who not only refuse to adapt to common European values, but who also want to impose their own world view and their way of life on us.
For example, German public opinion no longer believes in a dialogue with a religion that refuses to accept basic values such as gender equality.
Germans have had enough of honour killings, large-scale violence in schools and burkas on the streets.
A recent opinion poll conducted by the showed that more than 71% of Germans think that Islam is intolerant; 91% of Germans equate Islam with violence against women.
Official Europe would do well to take those signals a little more seriously.
   .How can one have a cultural exchange with another if one does not know who one is? You recognise that ‘religious identity is an essential part of the identity for all of us, even those who are not religious’, but you refused to recognise our Christian roots in your Constitution which is, happily for us, dead and buried.
What are we talking about then? Amendment 9 speaks of ‘intercultural civility’, but that is a contradiction in terms, otherwise civility no longer means anything!
The addition of fine, high-flown words often just ends up meaning nothing.
The result of your approach is relativism and betrayal: you want to promote the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue at the Olympic Games in Beijing and thus serve as a spare wheel for a Communist dictatorship (Amendment 38)!
What a disgrace!
You are going to talk about intercultural dialogue with Tibet, no doubt? This initiative on its own disqualifies your proposal.
   I am voting in favour of the report because its main purpose – that of combating discrimination - is very positive and necessary.
I am, however, voting against an increase in the budget, as well as against Amendment 18, which is particularly unfortunate in its neo-colonial desire to export views and values.
   . I would congratulate my colleague, Erika Mann, on her report on EU-US economic relations.
Yet while doing so I would enter a reservation.
I have always taken the line that the deepening of the Union is as important, if not more important, than its widening.
Here there is the call for the creation of a free-trade area with the US by 2015.
I am not against it in principle.
It really depends on other developments.
I have not been fighting to protect a social dimension to the Union, vital for ordinary Europeans, to allow it to be sold out via the back door by the creation of a gigantic free trade area.
I have always told progressive and trade union opponents in the OG of NAFTA that they are missing the point.
They should not be opposing close economic integration with Mexico, Canada, which will inevitably accompany globalisation, but rather demand its democratisation through the creation of a NAFTA parliamentary assembly to promote a social dimension.
   .A free trade area is an area without barriers, customs barriers in particular.
It is a common market, almost like that of Europe.
The transatlantic free trade area, therefore, is a common market from Warsaw to San Francisco, from Helsinki to Patagonia and from Malta to the Canadian Great North.
While European public opinion imagines that the political debate is about the future of the European Constitution, the reality is quite simply, from 2010 to 2015, that is to say in five years, the building of a political and economic body made up of 45 nations out of the 193 that there are in the world.
On the quiet, Mrs Mann’s report signals a transition from European integration to a political integration comprising one quarter of the world.
This would mean a Parliament of 45 nations, a common trade tribunal and the beginnings of a common legislation.
After 90 years Paul Valéry’s prediction that ‘Europe aspires to be run by an American committee’ is coming true.
Farewell Europe, hello World!
Mrs Mann has made a double announcement: the death of the European idea and the birth of a world organisation.
   . I welcome the Langen Report, yet from a British perspective it fills me with dread.
Already, our failure to join the Single Currency area is costing us billions in inward investment and tens of thousands of jobs.
The 10 new Member States are already eager to join, as they voted for in the separate and unanimously positive referenda before accession.
It will be a sad day for Britain, its people and its economy when the likes of Slovenia and Lithuania, Estonia and Malta adopt the Euro, while Britain languishes on the sidelines adrift from the world's most successful currency, tossed to and fro by a Eurogroup making decisions vital to our economy, but independent of our input and indifferent to our interests.
   I voted in favour of Amendment 9 because I believe that Sweden should demand a derogation following Sweden’s referendum on the euro in 2003.
I believe, however, that it is up to Sweden to request the derogation.
The EU should not automatically regard Sweden’s ‘no’ vote as equivalent to an opt-out clause.
   . I believe that the thrust of paragraph 46 is misplaced given that the EU's institutions and its Member States have entered into agreements regarding the status of additional languages and their agreed use as working languages in these institutions, notably the Irish language.
Financial measures were put in place to finance these initiatives and they should be honoured accordingly.
   Those who vote against paragraph 4 (EUR 50 million for purchase of the buildings in Strasbourg and EUR 25 million for propaganda) are not affecting the budget, but are merely trying to conceal waste from the electorate.
I am, however, voting against the report because I do not want the money concerned to be wasted.
   Mr President, I am happy to concur with the previous speaker, who has already made some very valid points about the Markov report.
I should like to add that I too happen to take the view that the plea for the large-scale debt cancellation of developing world countries will bear little fruit, will offer little in the way of a solution and could even have the opposite effect, because the already restricted control on those developing countries, on the management of those developing countries by organisations such as the IMF and other international institutions would then become much more difficult, if not impossible.
I think that it is only the very corrupt, incapable and money-wasting African and other leaders who would benefit and who would become even richer.
I know that I risk setting myself up for finger wagging by the likes of Louis Michel, Bob Geldof and Bono, but I maintain – and that is the honest truth – that the huge tragedy in many developing countries, particularly in black Africa, is that they are being plundered and robbed by their own leaders; I think that that is the first conclusion we have to draw before we can start giving poor people real aid.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 1 June 2006.
   Following the Presidency-in-Office of the Council’s request to the Conference of Presidents, the latter decided, at its meeting on 8 June, to organise a plenary sitting.
I would emphasise that this will be a plenary sitting in the full sense of the word, not a Conference of Presidents open to all Members, which will take place on Tuesday of next week, 20 June, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
At that plenary sitting, the President-in-Office of the Council, Chancellor Schüssel, will report on the last meeting and on his Presidency, and I therefore hope that an appropriate number of Members will attend that sitting in order to hear this important statement.
The only item on the agenda will be the Council and Commission statements on the results of the European Council of 15 and 16 June 2006.
   Mr President, I believe that, when deciding on this sitting, the Conference of Presidents did not take account of the fact that the EU-ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly would be meeting in Vienna on the same day and that 78 Members of this House will not therefore be able to attend one of the two events: either the extraordinary sitting being scheduled or the plenary sitting of the Joint Assembly, which we are obliged to attend.
I find it regrettable, to say the least, that account has not been taken of this situation, because 78 is more than 10% of the Members of this House.
   Thank you, Mr Martínez.
The clash is regrettable, but it is not regrettable that no thought has been given to it, because, in fact, thought has been given to it.
   Mr Posselt, that is not a point of order, but rather an opinion.
It is a very respectable opinion, but it cannot be taken into account.
The Conference of Presidents, which is the body that schedules plenary sittings, has discussed the issue and has taken a decision.
I appreciate that there are all sorts of different opinions in this Chamber.
Those who wish to applaud it can do so, and those who want to reject it can reject it, but do not express your personal opinions in the form of points of order.
The Conference of Presidents has taken account of the clash that Mr Martínez has mentioned.
Sometimes we cannot harmonise all agendas.
The alternative would have been to schedule a Conference of Presidents open to all Members.
The effect would have been exactly the same, because the Members present in Vienna would still not have been able to take part.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
Despite the issues that have been raised, the plenary sitting will take place on 20 June at 11 a.m.
   The final version of the draft agenda for the June part-session as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 8 May 2006 pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
The following amendment has been proposed.
The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats has requested that no resolution on Bulgaria and Romania be voted on this week.
Mr Brok has the floor in order to explain this request.
   – Mr President, I am very surprised at the accusation that Mr Brok has laid at our door.
We cannot just renounce a right that we have earned through struggle.
We absolutely have to make a statement.
I am very surprised at this change.
Of course I must take note of it, becoming cleverer is also a good democratic right.
However, we stand by our opinion that there should be a resolution. As for the result of the vote, we shall have to see.
In any case, we believe that it certainly does make sense to state our opinion before a session of the Council, our opinion being that we are endeavouring to do everything we can to ensure that accession takes place on 1 January 2007.
(1)
   – Allow me to take this opportunity to express my profound concern over the efforts of the new Dutch political party, the Charity, Freedom and Diversity Party, which aims as part of its programme to legalise zoophilia and paedophilia.
I would like to join the majority of the Dutch public in their criticism of this initiative and to call on the Dutch Government, European Parliament and other relevant European institutions, including Interpol, to take the measures necessary to thwart criminal activities such as these which target children and teenagers.
These disgusting, perverted and criminal plans, which far exceed what is natural and dignified, or even the slightest suggestion that they might be implemented, must not be tolerated and must be unequivocally criminalised.
The human rights that we so often refer to in other circumstances are being seriously jeopardised by this type of child abuse.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 14 June this week is the 65th anniversary of a brutal criminal act and the most unimaginable violation of human rights in Europe.
In Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania over 30 000 completely innocent children, old people, women and men were treacherously herded into cattle trucks to be deported to the Siberian death camps.
I am proud of the Latvian people, which pulled through the painful years of occupation and always did everything they could to enable us to be proud of how we live today.
I do not want Europe’s sympathy; what I want is for European society to understand the misery caused by Soviet totalitarian Communism to Latvia and to Europe as a whole.
On 14 June, I and my colleagues Mr Kelam and Mr Landsbergis are presenting to the European Parliament a memorial plaque in memory of the victims of Soviet totalitarian Communism, dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the 1941 mass deportations in the Baltic States.
You are all most welcome to attend at this time of commemoration at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.
Mr Borrell, Parliament’s President, has also been officially invited to honour the deportees and to receive the plaque in their memory.
   – Last week, eastern Slovakia was hit by dangerous flooding in several river basins.
Floods such as these have become extremely common over the past few years – flash floods caused by heavy rain in a particular area.
The European Union is seeking to help deal with the aftermath of floods and other disasters through allocations from the Solidarity Fund; however, a limit has been imposed of approximately 0.6% of the affected country’s GDP or at EUR 3 billion, which in many instances is an excessive amount, despite the extensive losses.
I would be very much in favour of revising this limit downwards.
Floods are natural phenomena that need to be anticipated and the effects prevented.
I am pleased that in this session we are going to debate a flood assessment and management report shedding new light on how the implications of this global phenomenon ought to be tackled, especially with regard to prevention.
   Mr President, the 1945 Potsdam Conference decided the expatriation of the ethnic German population living in the territory of Hungary, Poland and the former Czechoslovakia.
Starting from 19 January 1946, 135 000 Germans had to leave Hungary – all of those who had stated in 1939 that their mother tongue was German.
Almost half of them came from my constituency, and had to leave their home at the end of May and the beginning of June 1946.
Sixty years later, we are now remembering these forced expatriations in soul-stirring and touching commemorative events held in various locations.
I would now like to pass on the central message given during these commemorations.
Today, our most important task is to guarantee that events like those that took place sixty years ago will never happen again.
One of the greatest human and political accomplishments of 21st-century Europe has been the creation of a common area of freedom and peace, where forced expatriations have been replaced by the free movement of people.
The most important result is peace between European Union Member States, which forms the basis of all further results.
   Forced prostitution is a serious problem for Europe.
I am disturbed by the article that appeared in the 8 July edition of the German magazine ‘Der Spiegel’.
Although the article recognised the violence and criminality of the environment surrounding prostitution, it made allegations about which I would like to hear a clear response from Commissioner Frattini, German Minister of Justice Zypries and Europol.
The article presented biased claims that an estimated 40 000 prostitutes from Eastern Europe have been brought to Germany cannot be confirmed.
Moreover, the tone of the article cast doubt on the fact that the World Cup has led to an increase in forced prostitution in Germany.
A Europol investigation, data from the European Council and the temporary brothel towns shown on German television can leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that a problem exists.
I encourage Commissioner Frattini to treat with the utmost seriousness the promise he made last Thursday – to ensure that a thorough overview of forced prostitution during the Football World Cup is prepared.
I therefore await precise information and if necessary the refuting of baseless claims.
   – Mr President, when I recently heard the Austrian Chancellor Mr Schüssel rightly say that one day all Member States of the European Union would vote on the European Constitution, the saying ‘better late than never’ came to mind.
I am hoping that what he meant were referendums, rather than voting by national parliaments.
I would note that in this House there are a number of Members who have been saying right from the start, or in other words for two years, that these referendums should be held on the same day.
Unfortunately, where accepting the Constitution is concerned, there can be no doubt that the visit to Poland of Commissioner Wallström, who is present in the Chamber today, has not helped, as she reiterated that she is unable to imagine a situation where the preamble to the Constitution would mention Christian values.
In my view compromise, which is the whole idea of the European Union, is not a word in the Commissioner’s vocabulary.
   Mr President, a member of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats called into question the democratic guarantees for a fair trial in Spain.
On the contrary, I believe that Spain should be seen as a model in terms of the defence of the rights of defendants, and that is something that cannot be said of certain other countries.
Specifically, as Mr Watson has said, we are very concerned about what is happening in Guantánamo, and I would like to take this opportunity to condemn the fact that Mr Emilio González, President Bush’s spokesman on immigration and citizenship, stated, in my city, Oviedo, of which I have been mayor, that Guantánamo is a model in terms of human rights; that is something that we cannot tolerate and I believe that the European Union cannot look the other way, as a previous generation did in the case of the holocaust.
   Mr President, in the report of 7 June by Dick Marty of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, it says among other things that in Poland there were secret prisons in which alleged terrorists were held on the orders of the CIA.
The author of the report, however, does not give any evidence to support this.
Poland is attacked as a committed ally of the United States, and indirectly for its adherence to traditional values and opposition to European uniformity.
The aim of basing these accusations on premises rather than evidence is to discredit Poland in the international arena.
Senator Marty spoke before Parliament’s Temporary Committee and yet the Committee’s draft report makes no mention of Poland, and its activity to date has not brought any new facts into the investigation.
   Mr President, I rise to make a plea on behalf of one of my constituents in the Shetland Isles in Scotland, against the inhumane actions of the United Kingdom Government.
Sakchai Makow is a new Scot and a new Shetlander.
He is originally from Thailand but grew up in the Shetlands.
He speaks little Thai and has no friends or family left in Thailand.
In 2004 he committed the serious crime of wilful fire-raising.
He went to jail, served his time, repaid his debt to society and was welcomed back into the Shetland community with open arms.
Following a dawn raid, in which he was snatched from his home in Shetland, he is now in a high-security English jail under threat of deportation.
This is largely because the United Kingdom Home Office is making a poorly-advised bid to crack down on alleged illegal immigrants with criminal records, mainly in order to look tough for the tabloid media, based in South-East England.
I consider that Sakchai Makow’s human rights have been infringed solely to play to an agenda which is unhealthy, undemocratic and, dare I say it, un-European.
I will be raising these breaches of human rights with the EU authorities and hope that you, Mr President, as a friend of Scotland and of human rights, will support us.
Sakchai is a new Scot and a new Shetlander.
A London-based minister should not be able to throw him out of the country just to look tough.
   Thank you very much, Mr Corbett.
I believe that you have made some very good suggestions.
We shall try to apply them, because they seem to make very good sense, as always.
I am sorry that I cannot carry on giving the floor to certain Members who have spoken during previous sittings, but we cannot keep the Commissioners waiting any longer.
   – The next item is the report by Michael Cashman, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year March 2004 – December 2005 [2005/2135(INI)] (A6-0178/2006).
   – Mr President, I congratulate my honourable friend Mr Cashman on the report which he is presenting to the European Parliament, because the exercise of the right to petition by European citizens must be considered a basic means of strengthening awareness of European nationality.
The Commissioner presented in great detail the views of the European Commission for the part of the report which concerns the Commission.
It is true that European citizens use both charges to the Commission – as the Commission's 22nd report on the control of the application of Community law shows – and petitions to the European Parliament as a means of strengthening their wish to see Community law applied.
On the one hand, we wish European citizens to be conscientious judges of the common ; on the other hand, however, we do not give them the possibility of having the same treatment both from the Commission and from Parliament's Committee on Petitions given that, as is clearly understandable from Mr Cashman's report, their officially elected representatives cannot check petitions from the first stage.
Transparency is also missing in the decisions of the European Commission, the presence of the Council is missing and we support the view expressed in the report that the method and procedure for receiving and examining petitions need to be changed, so that European citizens feel that their petition really is being examined without party political or other criteria by a secretariat which remains neutral and does not interfere in the work of the MEPs.
   . Mr President, I would like to welcome Mr Cashman’s report, which is as good as we expected it would be.
The European Union is facing a malaise in citizens’ confidence.
The strongest message was the rejection of the Constitution a year ago.
The message that citizens are sending is clear.
They demand more transparency and more openness from us.
They want politicians and institutions to show more interest in problems that affect citizens personally.
It is clear that various consultation exercises that have been undertaken at European level have had some effect: we are hearing the message now, but we should also listen.
In order to do that, more resources must be provided for the various bodies that have the most direct contact with citizens and, without excluding any other body, personally I would start with the Committee on Petitions.
As Mr Cashman’s report makes clear, the role of that committee is very significant in bringing citizens’ concerns and problems to the attention of European institutions.
But as well as Parliament providing more resources for the Committee on Petitions, other institutions, especially the Commission, must provide more resources for reducing delays in responding to citizens.
I therefore particularly support paragraphs 20 to 23 of the report and I hope that there can be a debate in all the political groups, as well as in the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents, on how to reinforce our work to assist citizens.
Parliament should give that high priority during the second half of the parliamentary term.
   – The next item is the oral question to the Commission on forced prostitution during the 2006 football World Cup by Anna Záborská, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality (O-0054/2006 – B6-0221/2006).
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Frattini, I am glad that you have adopted this initiative by the European Parliament against human trafficking and forced prostitution.
However, like the previous speaker, I am of the opinion that this must not be some passing fad. This must be the starting whistle for more projects going beyond the World Cup, not only for sports events, but for all big events in general.
Your speech was full of fine sentiments, but I find it regrettable that it took a great deal of external pressure to get the telephone hotline started, and even then with different numbers and limited availability.
When all is said and done, we need a hotline like this to be permanent.
It would also be important to have a European day against human trafficking.
I regard it as a serious omission in April that the justice ministers did not call for the immediate implementation of the EU directive on victim protection and of the European Convention against human trafficking.
That too must remain a central issue.
What are we offering these women apart from the hotline? Only by offering assistance that goes beyond the hotline can we contribute to helping affected women and children.
I am very pleased that this debate regarding the World Cup has also become a debate about prostitution in society, for we must become aware that the annual sex industry profits of USD 5 –7 billion exceed all military budgets.
This must be a rallying call for us to take action against the sexual exploitation of women and against all forced prostitution, but we also need more debate about best practice in comparison with other Member States.
There are good opportunities to do this.
We need officials with special responsibility for combating human trafficking and the like, and this is where we have to set a shining example.
   – Mr President, Commissioner Frattini, I wonder if you have ever opened a European newspaper and browsed the last page, for that is where you will often find small ads, complete with telephone numbers, for young ladies by the names of Lolita, Tina and Francesca, who are girls of Polish, Bulgarian and Ukrainian origin.
What is missing, though, is a general, multi-lingual helpline which Lolita can ring if she is forced into prostitution.
It is high time such a number was made readily available.
The World Cup has kicked off, as you may have noticed.
So has the systematic exploitation of women who are forced into prostitution, although this has not yet been given the attention it deserves.
Commissioner Frattini, I look to you, as a fair referee, to produce the red card and put an end to this major infringement, not in injury time, but right now.
I will shortly be travelling to Germany, where the World Cup is being played for, in order to campaign against racism in football, but you may rely upon it that I will also keep my ears to the ground so as to find out what is happening to tackle forced prostitution.
Commissioner Frattini, it is not enough to worry about the morals of the day.
What do you intend to do on a practical level in order to help the women and girls who are being humiliated, raped, exploited and abused during the World Cup? Your analyses bear out the impression that this is happening on a large scale.
If you come up with proper action to help these girls in a real sense, then you can rely on my support.
I wish you all the best!
   Ladies and gentlemen, my homeland, Estonia, has the shameful distinction of occupying third place in the European Union in terms of the number of prostitutes per 1 000 residents, and is only surpassed by Germany and Austria.
According to a television survey organised in March, viewers overwhelmingly considered the proliferation of prostitution to be Estonia’s number one image problem.
I feel that we have posed this question too timidly.
The difference between forced prostitution and prostitution is very small.
According to some figures, 95% of prostitution is forced prostitution.
Estonian data indicate that two-thirds of prostitutes have considered suicide.
80% suffer from chronic depression.
This does not give the impression that these individuals have freely chosen this occupation, but rather that they are slaves.
I have personally done all that I can to reduce the demand for prostitution.
I actively participated in the signature campaign organised by the women of the PSE.
In just a few hours in the small town of Pärnu, Estonia, we gathered hundreds of signatures against forced prostitution.
The population of Pärnu, from babies to the very elderly, is 40 000.
The same number of women were forcibly transported to Germany from Eastern Europe for the Football World Cup.
Commissioner Frattini – I call upon you to come before us after the World Cup and give us an overview of what exactly happened in Germany.
I would like an answer to the question of how, as you say, you plan to reduce the demand for prostitution in the European Union.
Are you able, and do you intend to go as far as Sweden, and demand that Member States punish those who purchase sex? This is what is actually needed in order to reduce demand.
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0146/2006), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the common position established by the Council (12062/1/2005 C6-0055/2006 2003/0210(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the protection of groundwater against pollution (Rapporteur: Mrs Klaß).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by expressing my thanks to Mrs Klass for her good work in connection with both readings of this draft directive.
I wish her well in maintaining her resilient stance.
We are largely in agreement in committee on the thrust of our aims, as you know, and we shall defend them resolutely against the Council and the Commission.
The groundwater directive is ultimately about prevention and rehabilitation, and I personally find the preventive approach more appealing.
It goes without saying that all the people of Europe should have access to groundwater of sufficiently high quality.
What should groundwater comprise apart from water? Nothing, in my view, apart from naturally occurring minerals and dissolved substances.
The quality of water is not the same throughout Europe.
On geological grounds alone, that could never be the case, nor is it desirable or necessary, but at the end of the day we want high-quality water with no adverse impact on public health to be available to all Europeans.
Up to 80% of drinking water is obtained from groundwater in various countries, such as Germany and Austria and much of southern England.
The availability of pure groundwater will be a determinant factor in future corporate location decisions.
Failure to protect water and to keep it clean from the outset means accepting a wide range of extra expenses and long-term contamination of water resources.
I believe the proposed directive is consistent with the Water Framework Directive and the Nitrates Directive, as is only right and proper.
For nitrates and pesticides, however, we have no need to make any further exceptions, since, as Mr Florenz also said, responsible farmers are able to live with the existing limits.
I support the draft directive.
   .
Mr President, I should like to put a supplementary question to the Commissioner.
Did I hear correctly just now that the Commission can accept Amendments 36 and 43? That is precisely what we have been discussing from such diametrically opposed positions here.
Perhaps the translation has confused the issue somewhat.
Could you explain what you said, Commissioner? I should be delighted if you could accept these amendments too, because they relate, of course, to the mutual compatibility of the directives.
What I heard seemed to be open to interpretation, and a few explanatory words would be welcome.
I am pleased to say that there are 28 amendments which the Commission can accept fully, in part, or in principle.
These are amendments: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 27, 30, 31, 36, 37, 38, 40, 43, and 47.
The amendments which the Commission cannot accept are numbers: 4, 12, 15, 18, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 41, 42, 44, 45 and 46.
   – The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A6-0081/2006) by Frieda Brepoels, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) (12064/2/2005 – C6-0054/2006 – 2004/0175(COD)).
   Mr President, many of the proposed amendments relate to basic issues in the common position.
Amendments 13 and 14 concern the implementing rules that will need to be approved under the comitology procedure.
These amendments avoid complicated procedures for approving rules and safeguard their uniform application in all the Member States.
The Commission is therefore in a position to accept the amendments in question in full.
Amendments 18 to 22 relate to public access to data and reflect the initial intention of the Commission's proposal.
These amendments are acceptable in full, with the exception of Amendment 21, which is acceptable in principle.
The intention of Amendment 21 is to replace the initial provision, on the basis of which free public access to information is safeguarded, and this is a position that the Commission can support.
Nonetheless, there are – as I said earlier – certain categories of data which it is financially difficult for information providers to provide free of charge.
Consequently, the final wording of this specific paragraph must cover these specific cases.
Amendments 23 to 27 relate to exchanges of information between public authorities and are acceptable in full, with the exception of Amendment 24, which is acceptable in part.
The first part of Amendment 24 is indeed of decisive importance, because is ensures that charges and licences will be made and issued by public information providers in keeping with the general obligation to exchange information.
The second part of Amendment 24 concerns the amount of the charges made, which does not necessarily apply in all cases.
Many of the other amendments restore the intentions of the initial proposal as regards less important issues or are amendments relating, for example, to the organisation of the coordinating structures in the Member States.
All these are acceptable to the Commission in full or in principle or in part, with the exception of Amendment 15, which relates to the participation of the interested parties in preparatory discussions for the adoption of implementing rules.
Amendment 15 is unacceptable, because it deletes a useful clarification contained in the Council text.
I shall subsequently forward a full list of the Commission's positions on Parliament's amendments(1) and I would like once again to thank the rapporteur on the excellent work she has done.
The Commission can accept the following amendments in their entirety: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35 and 36.
The following amendments are acceptable in part or in principle: 4, 8, 12, 21 and 24.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment 15.
   The next item is the report (A6-0182/2006) by Mr Seeber, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the assessment and management of floods [COM(2006)0015 C6-0020/2006 2006/0005(COD)].
   Mr President, first of all, my compliments to Mr Seeber.
I think he has presented an excellent report, the broad outlines of which we will endorse.
To millions of people in Europe, floods are a reality, and a scary one at that.
In recent years, the Danube, Rhine and Meuse have all burst their banks, with devastating effects.
An increasing number of people are faced with floods.
The development of water meadows has intensified and river basins have been shortened.
Water levels may well be rising as a result of climate change.
It is because most rivers are international that it is essential that this problem be tackled at international level.
Appreciative though I am of the Commission proposal, I do have two comments to make about it.
First of all, the way in which this issue is to be tackled internationally is left too vague.
The only stipulation is that problems must not be passed on.
That is in fact too little in my view, for the question is, of course: what is meant by ‘pass on’? That is why the Socialist Group in the European Parliament is asking for more flesh to be put on the idea of cooperation between Member States.
We should be guided by the river’s natural course, which, in the case of many rivers and in many places, no longer exists, of course.
The principle is clear, though: anyone who shortens or cuts off the river must compensate for it on their own territory, so that water is not rushed to countries that are downstream.
That is simply a question of good neighbourhood policy, and that is why I am asking you to support Amendment 82.
My second comment is about subsidiarity.
Europe should not concern itself with more than is strictly necessary.
There is every reason for this.
Democracy should be as close to the citizen as possible, and that is why the PSE Group is asking us in Amendment 81 to abandon the application of planning and report obligations to rivers that run within the territory of a Member State, provided that this Member State guarantees the level of protection that is described in the directive on high water levels.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a month ago, at the plenary part-session in May, against the backdrop of ever more frequent natural disasters, especially floods, we adopted at first reading the report on the new Solidarity Fund for the period from 2007 to 2013, for which I was the rapporteur.
During that debate, as has been the case today, the desire for European solidarity emerged loud and clear.
That fund, I firmly believe, will also make a vital contribution, in the event of direct damage, to ensuring that the Union can act in a more effective and targeted manner in areas in which the public expect the European Union to take action.
In the spring of this year came further evidence that floods do not stop at national borders in Europe.
At ever briefer intervals we have been paying the price for irresponsible building, inadequate precautions and a lack of overflow areas.
On this occasion, such defects were most glaring on the lower reaches of the Danube.
Yes, the problems are man-made to a great extent.
What is lacking is a binding legal framework as well as a certain degree of management for flood prevention and the will to implement what has already been agreed.
The report compiled by Mr Seeber provides a good basis for a European regulatory framework, provided – as you indeed re-emphasised, Commissioner – that the subsidiarity principle is strictly applied.
Important decisions such as the level of protection and the right choice of safeguards can only be taken by the Member States themselves.
To put it plainly, the Member States must be granted the right, even after the entry into force of this proposed directive, to continue presenting EU-relevant data and forwarding them to Brussels in the customary manner in order to avoid the creation of any new bureaucracy, which would serve no practical purpose.
The report in its present form is good and should therefore be adopted by a large majority.
I am pleased to say that there are 71 amendments which the Commission can accept fully, in part, or in principle.
It accepts 16 amendments in full: 1, 2, 3, 5, 13, 16, 18, 25, 28, 32, 39, 45, 54, 58, 62 and 66.
It accepts 55 amendments in principle or in part: 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 46, 48, 49, 52, 55, 56, 60, 61, 64, 67, 68, 69, 71, 73 , 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 90, 93 and 94.
It cannot accept 24 amendments: 14, 23, 27, 42, 43, 44, 47, 50, 51, 53, 57, 59, 63, 65, 70, 72, 75, 76, 81, 85, 89, 91, 92 and 95.
   – The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Commission (O-0049/2006 – B6-0307/2006) by Mr Queiró, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, on measures to promote tourism.
   Mr President, I should like to make it clear once more that Mr Sakalas is expressing a personal opinion here.
The Committee on Legal Affairs does not have two positions. It has a clear, unambiguous position rejecting this funding of embryonic stem cells.
I should ...
   – Mrs Breyer, I must point out that we cannot reopen the debate of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
Mr Sakalas clearly speaks on his own behalf.
   Mr President, I am much obliged to the Commissioner for his presentation, but I am particularly obliged, of course, to our rapporteur, Mr Buzek, with whom not only the shadow rapporteurs, but also the rapporteurs for the innovation framework programme enjoyed very close cooperation of an excellent standard.
This cooperation will also be important if it becomes apparent not only that Europe is still an inventive continent – a great many things in the world have originated here – but also that FP7 represents the correct response to global changes.
Let us make one thing clear: power and powerlessness in the face of globalisation have less and less to do with military aspects and arms, and more and more to do with knowledge, with dominance in and the ability to control certain production processes.
That is what we have to address, and for that FP7 is a very important building block.
Yet it can bring Europe forward only if we manage to turn invention into innovation – and of course Mr Buzek has cooperated very closely with us in this regard, on ensuring that our research and innovation framework programmes overlap, and on ensuring that more products, more services and more licences originate in Europe.
I am obliged to him for this.
I should also like to address a direct question to the Commissioner, however, on behalf of myself and my colleague Mr Manders.
As we know, there is a Eurobarometer survey that examines the ethical issue that Mr Goebbels has just mentioned, and ascertains the views of Europeans on embryonic stem cell research.
We know that the survey has been completed, but we do not know the results, as it appears that the survey has not yet been published.
Can you tell us why it has not been published, and what it reveals? Since we are to vote on this sensitive issue this week, it would be very good – a helpful pointer – for us MEPs if we knew the thoughts of the citizens of this continent.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, fellow rapporteurs, Mr Buzek, I should like to comment in particular on the energy research on which Europe is now to decide for many years hence.
Of course, this Parliament is not permitted to exert any real influence on the majority of the energy-research funds spent under the Euratom Treaty and may in fact influence only a minority of the funds spent under the Seventh Research Framework Programme.
Since Mr Chatzimarkakis has mentioned public opinion on research, I must say that the imbalance being decided on is inexcusable particularly as regards the question of what the public thinks.
It is certainly no longer in keeping with the times to spend the majority of energy-research funding on nuclear fusion, under Euratom, without democratic control.
Nuclear fusion will make no contribution to the Lisbon objectives.
I see Lisbon as our resolving to fight climate change efficiently and secure employment in the coming years.
How is it possible to combat climate change using a technology that even leading scientists say will make no contribution to energy supply in the next 40–50 years? Climate-protection objectives must be achieved by 2020 or we can forget Kyoto.
Nor will employment benefit from a technology that is restricted to a few very large research centres.
It is true that we are attempting to secure some of the funds under the Seventh Research Framework Programme for efficiency and renewable energy sources – there are some interesting amendments on this.
Nevertheless, even this amendment on the bundling of funds for efficiency and renewable energy will do nothing to redress the irresponsible imbalance in favour of nuclear research.
   Mr President, Commissioner, a common research policy for the European Union should produce the sort of scientific and economic added value that is not achievable through the efforts and actions of individual Member States and private companies.
An example of a good joint project is the financing of fusion energy research associated with the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
My view is therefore different from that of Mrs Harms before me.
This is a project which individual Member States should not try and implement alone.
It is one whose success will be by no means guaranteed within the next 50 years.
The research needed, however, should be completed.
Energy-guzzling humanity can ill afford not to examine this possibility.
The research is also bound to mean making the sort of discoveries that in English is known as ‘serendipity’.
Something will be discovered which one did not know one was looking for, but which was discovered as a by-product of fusion energy research proper.
In that respect, money for research will not be wasted, even if we never succeed in taming the actual fusion process so that more energy is produced using it than is needed to get the process started.
Third countries are also involved in ITER: the United States of America, Russia, Japan, and even China.
It is quite right to use the funds in the EU’s Research Framework Programme for this truly international project.
At the same time we need to do more research into renewable energy sources and make more use of them, and in this respect I am of the same opinion as the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to start by joining with those who have thanked and congratulated our rapporteur, Mr Buzek, and by saying how disappointed I am at this budget of EUR 54 billion or so over seven years, which we had hoped would be more ambitious, much more ambitious, in the interests of the Europe of excellence of which we are all dreaming.
In this regard, the creation of the European Research Council is absolutely essential.
As others have dwelt upon it at length before me, including Mr Brunetta, I will not go into the details now.
Another sensitive area for Europe is energy, and the various schemes thought up for moving on from the petroleum era, with a package of EUR 2 385 000 000, the budget retained by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, which gives priority to renewable energy.
Biofuels and biomass form part of the solution, which also needs to involve education to reduce consumption.
In the opinion of the majority of my group, this European desire to look beyond the long term and to go down the path of scientific freedom to help those who most need it goes through the continuity of European funding for embryonic stem cell research.
This research must be funded in the same way as research on stem cells from adults or from umbilical cord blood.
That is what Amendment 66 proposes.
The only real compromise from the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, which is supported by Mr Busquin, Mrs Gutiérrez, Mrs Locatelli and a whole series of speakers before me, as well as by myself and a large proportion of my group, relates to the danger of a deadline for the eligibility of lines, because it would be – as the Commissioner reminded us – a real bombshell for European researchers.
It is this freedom of choice that I am defending, the choice of healing in the face of death, of the hope provided by research on embryos for patients suffering from one of 6 000 rare diseases.
From time to time we need to dot the i's and cross the t's.
What we are talking about here, what we care about, is research and compassion, not fantasies of cloning out of , which is the impression one gets sometimes.
More than 70% of European citizens are asking us – are asking you, Commissioner – not to hinder such a promising area of research.
That figure comes from the Eurobarometer of 2005, and I agree with Mr Chatzimarkakis regarding the failure to publish the figures from 2006, which I know is not down to you.
What is the Presidency waiting for before it authorises the publication of these figures?
   Mr President, if we think that access to safe and cheap energy is an inalienable right and if we want everyone to be able to consume the energy necessary to his or her development, we cannot but concur with the objectives stated in the report by our fellow MEP, Mr Buzek.
We must give our full backing to ITER and to nuclear fusion.
It is a solution for the future that will guarantee the independence of our energy supply, access for all to electricity and the development of skilled jobs in industry.
Let us at the same time acknowledge that alternative sources of energy will not allow us to respond to demand and that fossil-based sources of energy just make pollution worse.
Faced with this reality, I am, however, surprised that it is being proposed to us that we reduce the funds allocated to Euratom.
We should, emphatically, be doing the opposite.
Moreover, only public control, as distinct from the single energy market, will enable us in complete safety to achieve the objectives set by Euratom.
If France has one of the least expensive energy supplies and is a developed nation, this is because of nuclear power and because the production and distribution of electricity has been a public monopoly.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, I consider that Parliament has done a very good job.
My warmest congratulations to our rapporteur, Mr Buzek.
I wish to comment on two amendments already approved by the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy:
Amendment 273: this amendment refers to the chapter entitled 'Research infrastructures' and seeks to support excellence in the convergence regions and outermost regions.
It quite simply suggests that, in the event of two equally excellent proposals for new research infrastructures, we need to consider which option will contribute more to the strengthening and expansion of the excellence of European research agencies.
The fact that, over the period from 2000 to 2006, 50% of public and private money in research went to just 30 of the 254 regions of the European Union bears witness to the fact that excellence is trapped.
Amendment 66 on embryonic stem cells.
I consider that this amendment is correct both from a philosophical point of view and from the point of view of protecting human rights and respect for human life.
In addition, I consider that it is the most correct of the four views on the table, because we cannot set restrictive dates.
This is to the detriment of research itself, in that it restricts it to stem cells either of inferior quality or of limited potential and will force our researchers to go to other countries outside the European Union which have stocks of stem cells of these specific dates. We cannot cite subsidiarity and exclude the financing of leading edge research sectors on the grounds that one or some of the Member States prohibit it because, if we take that to its logical conclusion, I would say that it is unfair for countries which prohibit stem cell research to make use of the results from countries which allow it because, in the final analysis, it is certain that adult stem cell research does not suffice for all applications.
   Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Buzek for his excellent work.
We have said what we would like to see regarding the Seventh Framework Programme.
We tabled as many as 1 700 amendments, so this would have been enough for an Eighth Framework Programme.
The Scientific Council is one of the most significant new additions to the Framework Programme, and it will be the first genuine pan-European research funding institution.
Its objective is top quality research and keeping scientists in work in the EU.
There is a real need for support for top-quality research.
There are 500 top-quality universities in the world, of which 200 are in Europe and another 200 in the United States, but only two European universities are in the top 20.
If we here in Europe can afford to spend time on trivialities, we should also be able to afford top-quality research.
We should also ensure that good use is made of the fruits of research.
The gulf between research, innovation and the launching of new products is too wide.
The Union’s research programme should also be used to remove obstacles to cooperation between Member States.
Article 169 of the Framework Programme also provides a tool for strategic cooperation between the Member States, and that is what we need.
It is intolerable that the research budget should have been cut by EUR 20 billion now that we are moving towards an information economy, for which we need research.
We will not become the world’s leading information economy in this way.
Our investment programme is lagging behind both the United States and Japan.
In the information and communications sector we have succeeded in creating a good number of commercial applications.
Information and communications account for 8% of European GDP and 6% of employment.
We have, however, put up obstacles such as intricate patent legislation, which is eroding our competitiveness.
A civilised Europe must boost its position with the help of research and product development and, for example, information and communications technology.
   Mr President, I should like even so – hard on the heels of what Mr Buzek has just said about the trialogue we are going to have – to condemn the Council’s absence from this debate.
The budget we are debating is the third European Union budget.
Research is a vital tool of the Lisbon Strategy, and, by putting forward the objective of 1 January, Parliament is committing itself to ensuring that the scientific and industrial community is respected.
The absence of the Council is a discouraging sign just when we are initiating a trialogue, which will have to take place quickly.
   Mr Busquin, the criticism has been received and will be addressed.
   . Mr President, I refer to Rule 131(4) of the Rules of Procedure.
Cross-border environmental problems can only be combated effectively through international cooperation.
Protecting the Alps is one of the most important tasks for all Member States, because the economic, social and ecological problems of the Alpine region can be felt beyond its borders throughout Europe.
The Convention on the Protection of the Alps was signed by the European Community on 7 November 1991 in Salzburg, and entered into force in 1998 following the Council Decision of 26 February 1996.
Recently, the European Community signed the protocols on soil protection, energy and tourism, and they now need to be ratified.
Unfortunately, the central protocol on transport has not yet been signed, and I would call on Italy in particular to do so.
   Mr President, most colleagues have this on their voting lists already.
There is one slight change: ‘whereas on 10 June 2006 the suicides of three detainees at Guantánamo Bay have raised further international concern the detention facilities’ – rather than ‘ the detention facilities’.
   Mr President, by agreement with the rapporteur, Mr Hughes, who cannot be in the House today, I would like to request referral back to the committee for further discussion.
The reason for this is what happened last time, when this issue was shifted to last on the agenda. This meant that the majorities that there would normally have been were not achieved, and a number of proposals therefore fell.
I therefore request that the matter be referred back to the committee so that we can achieve solid support for the whole proposal.
Thank you.
   Mr President, Labour MEPs support the regulation on groundwater, but we felt that some of the amendments in committee were overly prescriptive and also moved the groundwater directive away from provisions of the water framework directive.
I hope that in conciliation we can find some commonsense solution to this, so that we allow the action to be focused on areas where the biggest problems are, rather than spending time, money and energy on managing groundwater where that is not in fact going to be a problem for public health.
   .
I shall be voting against amendments 13, 14, 18, 19, 23 and 24 to ensure the sustainable financing of high-quality spatial data in the United Kingdom.
The amendments are incompatible with longstanding United Kingdom policy on information trading.
By undermining the sustainable financing of high-quality spatial data they undermine the very purpose of the INSPIRE infrastructure.
   We believe that, in the light of the principle of subsidiarity, an EU policy on floods is only justified in cases involving cross-border watercourses.
We therefore supported Amendment 81, which unfortunately fell in plenary.
   .
The British Conservative delegation has abstained on the motion on the situation of prisoners in Guantánamo because it suggests in paragraphs 2 and 3 that torture is commonplace in this facility, which our American allies totally reject.
Furthermore paragraph 8 explicitly asserts that the detainees are protected by the Geneva Convention, which in the case of illegal combatants not wearing uniforms, concealing their weapons and not subject to a military hierarchy, is disputed internationally by legal experts.
We do support the eventual closure of Guantánamo, which has become a serious international issue for the United States, but this can only occur when alternative facilities are found to detain some of the most dangerous individuals threatening Western free societies.
   Ladies and gentlemen, allow me on my behalf, and on behalf of you all, to welcome the members of the Chilean delegation of Senators and MPs headed by Mr JorgeTarud Daccarett, who are present in the diplomatic gallery and who will be participating in the 4th Meeting of the EU-Chile Joint Parliamentary Committee which takes place today in Strasbourg.
In the name of our institution I would like to extend a most cordial welcome to them.
As you must be aware, the EU and Chile have concluded an Association Agreement which envisages relations based on three footings: trade, cooperation and political dialogue.
It is thanks to this Agreement coming into force that we were able to set up the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
I firmly believe that the commencement of the 4th Meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee will signal a new and important period of ever closer cooperation between the two sides, which recognise the same democratic values and share a common approach to the principles of the rule of law.
   The next item is the report (A6-0176/2006) by Mr Adamou, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, on pandemic influenza preparedness and response planning in the European Community (2006/2062 (INI)).
   Mr President, I come from the Dél-Alföld region of Hungary, which has been severely affected by disaster.
In my native village, Szank, and in the surrounding area, 350 000 domestic poultry had to be destroyed in one week.
All regulations of the European Commission have been complied with, and the Veterinary Authority designated the affected areas.
The destruction of domestic poultry had actually started before the presence of bird flu was detected in laboratories.
This was the right thing to do, because rapid action prevented the spread of the virus.
It has been confirmed that the earlier strict anti-epidemic measures of the European Union had been correct.
We are not asking the European Commission for more money, but for a more flexible attitude in the course of the reconciliation of the 2007-2013 rural development programmes, so that appropriate funds can be ensured for the poultry sector, farm reconstruction and new animal stock.
   Mr President, I can see Mr Kyprianou leaving the Chamber, but he has not answered the question as to which countries will ultimately be withholding their solidarity.
Mr Bowis was right to list a few names, but I should like to find out from the Commissioner if he can confirm them.
It is of huge importance to me that we as MEPs do our jobs, but also that we can pass this expertise on to our colleagues in the national parliaments so that they can reprimand their governments when they fail to come up to the mark, and draw attention to the total lack of solidarity in this area.
I believe that that is also what European democracy is all about, namely to pass on what we do in Europe to the national and regional parliaments.
   The next item is statements by the Council and the Commission on the 17th EU-Russia Summit (26 May 2006).
The EBRD is in the process of funding the project Sakhalin II devised by Sakhalin Energy, whose main shareholder is the company Shell.
There are many areas where there is no scientific certainty regarding the impact of Sakhalin Energy's Sakhalin II project, for example the impact on wildlife from excessively noisy offshore geological surveys or constructions.
However, the company will not take the precautionary approach and delay its operations.
Given that the best science is not being applied by Shell, and recommendations are being ignored, how does the project comply with the EBRD's policy in support of the precautionary principle?
In Belgium the company Serverscheck has instituted legal proceedings against Google.
When the name Serverscheck is entered into the Google toolbar, the programme suggests following a link to an illegal pirated version of Serverscheck’s products.
The company wants Google to filter this suggestion. Google said that it could not take any account of an unregistered brand name.
Serverscheck is a trade name, which, according to the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property – signed by the 25 EU Member States – should guarantee the same level of protection.
What is the Commission’s stance on this case in which a company is not prepared to filter certain information that is harmful to both consumers and businesses, thus flouting a Convention that the 25 EU Member States have signed? Is Google abusing its monopoly by refusing to cooperate in this case and failing to take account of European legal regulations?
   – Madam President, Commissioner, thank you for the reply, although I note that you couched it in much more general terms in replying to the European Parliament than in the preliminary conclusion released on 12 April.
I should like to ask you when the Commission intends to table and present specific measures.
When will the study be finished and can you give us some figures for Greece or are they confidential?
   .
Every time you use a card for payment you bear a cost of up to 2.5%, which is equivalent to a consumption tax.
If the payment cards business becomes more competitive – and that is what we are pushing for – then every household could save up to several hundred euro per year.
Competitiveness, competitiveness, competitiveness: that’s it!
   The Commission certainly knows that it has traditionally taken a proactive approach and has adopted several decisions under Article 81 prohibiting restrictive agreements between the pharmaceutical companies and the wholesalers aimed at impeding parallel exports.
Earlier Commission prohibition decisions – for example Johnson [amp] Johnson in 1980 and Sandoz in 1987 – concerned agreed export bans.
The Sandoz prohibition decision was appealed against in the European Court of Justice, but the Court upheld the decision.
So we are aware of your point.
   I think Mr Harbour is trying to get me into trouble.
Every time we deal with the services directive it is always a risky business!
I shall be very happy to take up this issue with my colleague Mr McCreevy, who is in charge of the services directive.
I see it more from the consumer protection point of view, which is what I referred to earlier.
The reason for the exclusion of car hire from our directives is that it is considered to be a transport issue, therefore it has to be dealt with specifically under that legislation.
But I shall be very happy to take up this suggestion with my colleague and see how we can make sure that both consumers and the industry benefit from European legislation.
   . The undertakings made by the Mauritanian Government as regards respect for democratic principles when the consultations were opened under Article 96 were centred on the re-establishment of a properly-functioning democracy and the rule of law.
   Commissioner, I can tell you that I am altogether dissatisfied with the response given.
I regret that Mr Michel is not here because he is very well acquainted with the subject of Mauritania.
I believe that the Commission could have provided more information in view of the in August, given that it proposed to dispatch a European Union delegation for the purposes of monitoring the elections being held there.
I would remind you that a referendum is due to take place in that country at the end of June.
Consequently, are you able to tell us whether this delegation will have a short- or a long-term mission regarding the elections?
Can the European Commission make a comprehensive statement as to how much financial support the EU is giving to combat Aids in Africa and explain the nature of this support as well as listing the countries who are beneficiaries of this financial support?
   .
The European Community's efforts to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa are financed by the European Development Fund and the budget of the European Community.
Within the framework of national and regional programming, the EDF finances projects to fight AIDS and projects aimed at strengthening healthcare systems.
Since 2002, 15 national projects and three regional projects to fight AIDS and/or strengthen healthcare systems have been initiated in 13 countries and in the ACP region, representing a total commitment of EUR 244.6 million.
The EDF also supports the implementation of national poverty reduction plans and therefore, directly or indirectly, the fight against AIDS by providing general budget support.
Since 2002 the Commission has provided general budget support to 24 African countries with commitments representing around EUR 2.4 billion.
Already EUR 1.5 billion of that has been spent.
The European Community's budget has a thematic budget line to help combat poverty-related diseases – not only AIDS, but also malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries.
The budget line is based on Regulation 1568/2003.
Since 2002 the Commission has allocated on that line more than EUR 86.2 million to NGOs as a contribution to 25 projects combating HIV/AIDS being implemented in 16 African countries.
A total of EUR 9.42 million has also been allocated to two research projects: one in central Africa and the other in southern Africa.
A total of EUR 5 million has been allocated to large-scale awareness programmes, as well as to international partnerships, such as the International Partnership for Microbicides and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative.
A second budget line relating to health, reproductive and sexual rights in developing countries, based on Regulation 1567/2003, also contributes to the fight against AIDS.
EUR 73.95 million is available on this line for 2003-2006.
Since 2003, the Commission has been able to allocate on this line EUR 17.5 million for 10 projects for the fight against AIDS implemented in eight African countries.
The Commission's budget also finances projects to combat AIDS and strengthen healthcare systems in South Africa, on the basis of Regulation 1726.
Since 2002, three projects are being undertaken in South Africa for a total amount of EUR 55 million.
The EDF and EC budget are the two sources of EC contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The European Commission has contributed EUR 522 million to the Global Fund since the latter's creation in 2001, and this amount has been supplemented by contributions from EU Member States.
We are the leading donor to the GFFATM; 57% of the funds go to the fight against HIV/AIDS and 55% are allocated to African countries.
Moreover, the European Community is devoting increasing funds to research programmes targeting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.
For the period 2002-2006, the financing devoted to these three diseases, most of which funds go to HIV/AIDS, quadrupled, reaching EUR 400 million currently.
Half of those funds are managed by the European Community, DG Research, and the other half, to which is added EUR 400 million from EU Member States and the private sector, are funnelled through the European and developing countries' clinical trial partnership.
The Commission does not have any details on aid from the Member States to African countries in the fight against HIV/AIDS because this information has not been made available to us.
   The next item is the report (A6-0172/2006) by Mr Gargani, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, on the consequences of the judgment of the Court of 13 September 2005 (Case C-176/03 Commission v Council) [2006/2007(INI)].
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Gargani; Mr Lehne, who is standing in for him this evening; and Mr Cavada, for the joint work that the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Legal Affairs have done on this important dossier.
I think that one of the qualities of this decision, which recognises the value added by the Community, is the fundamental role that the European Parliament will be able to play in important issues such as the application of criminal sanctions under the codecision procedure.
As you know, the Commission adopted a communication on this subject last November.
We believe that the scope of this decision goes beyond the single issue of environmental protection.
I believe, in fact, that there is a broader issue and I generally agree with the content of the Gargani report.
I have to say that the Commission’s outlook is a little more ambitious in certain fields and in certain aspects.
For example, the report specifically says that the legislator must restrict the application of criminal sanctions to cases where the protection of citizens’ rights and freedoms or the protection of financial interests is at stake.
These are certainly extremely important interests that must be protected.
Nevertheless, we believe it would be possible to go a little further, although the Court’s decision places restrictions on the application of criminal sanctions at a European level, and I do believe such limits are necessary.
For instance, as Mr Lehne said just now, we need to think about a European criminal sanction when it is truly indispensable for ensuring that Community law is effective, while respecting the principle of the need for the criminal sanction and the principle of proportionality.
At the same time, I think that an absolute limitation of the fields involved would be dangerous and would restrict what the Court of Justice has stated.
We have put forward a proposal for a directive laying down criminal sanctions in the fight against counterfeiting.
You are aware how dangerous counterfeiting is for industry in European countries and for consumer health, apart from causing the exploitation of child labour to produce fake goods.
In view of that, how can anyone claim that sanctions at a European level are not needed in this area? This is just one example and, precisely because of that, I support the idea that Mrs Roure and Mr Cavada have expressed in their amendments regarding a rather more ambitious broadening of the structure adopted by the rapporteur.
To conclude, I should like to express my sincere gratitude because I have found in the report a restatement of the principle of the so-called ‘bridging clause’ – which is the possibility of moving from the principle of unanimity under the third pillar towards a codecision and qualified majority procedure, in other words a Community procedure under the first pillar – in the area of cooperation in criminal justice and cooperation in police and security matters.
That is something that the Commission had already said that it was hoping for and I think it is a positive sign that it has been reiterated in the Gargani report as well.
   . Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the consequences of the judgment of the European Court of Justice of 13 September 2005 relating to Community powers in the area of criminal law are so momentous that this judgment really marks a break in the development of Community law.
It can even be assumed that under certain circumstances this precedent might have a negative effect on the sovereignty of the Member States.
The condition for its application to Community norm-setting arising from the First Pillar of the EU will therefore be strict adherence to the principle of subsidiarity as established in Article 5 of the EC Treaty and in the Protocol on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
This principle is directly connected to the need for European lawmakers to see that the enactment of criminal sanctions under the First Pillar is an exception, restricted to cases where there is an unavoidable need to protect the rights and freedoms of citizens and the main interests of the EU.
It is also essential that the effects and overall impact of the criminal law norms passed on the basis of the First Pillar are thoroughly and painstakingly monitored and assessed.
Another area where the Commission is proposing criminal sanctions is the protection of intellectual property rights.
This area undoubtedly represents one of the main activities of the Community arising from Article 2 of the EC Treaty.
I think, and I will say it again, that this area is so important and so rapidly developing that it requires a specific conceptual and systematic approach.
I consider it essential to develop a well-rounded concept for protecting intellectual property rights, which will include among other things criminal law measures.
   Mr President, this issue shows up the most basic weakness in the whole EU structure.
All countries agree to be bound by the same body of EU law, which they then undertake to enforce upon themselves.
It must have been obvious from the start that some countries would apply EU law more vigorously than others.
So what we are now seeing is the beginning of attempts to harmonise criminal justice, notwithstanding Mr Gargani’s request for checks and limits.
The ECJ will have a wonderful time deciding whether national sentencing meets its criteria of being proportional and dissuasive.
Mr Gargani acknowledges that it will be hard to achieve uniform enforcement.
Indeed, do we really expect courts to behave in the same way in all 25 EU countries, including our new eastern European Member States and those who are yet to join? I fear that politicians will agree to progressively harmonise enforcement, but the peoples of our different countries will not.
   Mr President, Commissioner, on 13 September 2005, the Court of Justice of the European Communities granted the Community legislator the opportunity to take legal measures so as to guarantee the effectiveness of the rules decreed by the Court.
Everyone understood this to mean – at any rate, those in Vienna understood it to mean – that the Court had turned the principle of subsidiarity inside out like a sock in order to decide that, on the subject of Community law, there was no point in the Member States taking care to ensure that it was complied with since the Commission of Brussels was able to do so all by itself.
The Commission has obviously not failed to step into this breach: while, strictly speaking, this new legal power only concerns the environment, a Commission communication of November 2005 makes more widespread use of this power to incorporate other subjects, including the four freedoms, the CAP and fishing.
Mr Cavada, our draftsman, even extends this power to include discriminatory behaviour, which can cover all human activities and even the protection of the Union’s financial interests.
It is here that one can see the danger of this umpteenth show of strength by the judges of Luxembourg.
On 6 April 2006, scarcely two months ago, in fact, the European Court of First Instance ordered Mr Frattini – the Commission – to pay damages and interest to an official on the grounds of a serious and obvious violation of the requirement for impartiality.
Violation by whom? By OLAF, that is to say by the anti-fraud office, which is partly controlled by the Commission.
Thus, to grant legal powers to this Commission, on the subject of which the Court of Auditors, in its Special Report No 1 of 2005, notes that respect for the fundamental rights of persons subject to an inquiry is not guaranteed, means running the risk of creating, at the Berlaymont, a little centre in which people’s liberties are infringed, a kind of regulatory mini-Guantanamo.
The draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Mr Cavada, is, moreover, aware of the problem since he is calling for the judgment to be applied with prudence and he might have added: with jurisprudence, the prudence of the law and, in particular, of the law of the Treaties, which does not permit the powers of the third pillar to be transferred to the first pillar.
However, since 1962 and its Costa versus ENEL judgment, the Court has been imprudently and continuously carrying out a federal .
As the great British legal expert, Dicey, said: judges must be lions, but lions under the throne, being circumspect that they do not check or oppose any points of sovereignty.
Putting someone in prison is a matter for criminal law.
It is not a trivial matter.
   – Mr President, I am somewhat surprised at the Commission’s explanation of the Court’s ruling.
In 2002, I backed the Oomen-Ruijten report and also the appeal against the framework decision, but at the time, the Commission repeatedly impressed on us that the directive and appeal against the decision should not be seen as a first step towards harmonisation of criminal law in other areas.
It was on the basis of that guarantee alone that I was able to support the appeal against the framework decision at the time.
It now turns out that the Commission is giving the ruling an interpretation entirely of its own, would like to extend it still further, and is also seeking harmonisation in other areas.
This contradicts what we were told at the time.
Had I known in 2002 what I know now, I would have voted against the Oomen-Ruijten report.
The Gargani report does contain a few positive points, including paragraphs 8 and 13, but as long as paragraphs 4 and 5 are included, I, together with my group, have no choice but to vote against the motion for a resolution.
   The next item is the report (A6-0192/2006) by Mrs Roure, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council framework decision on the protection of personal data processed in the framework of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters [COM(2005)0475 C6-0436/2005 2005/0202(CNS)].
   . – Mr President, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats attaches great importance to common guarantees for the protection of privacy at Union level.
Not only will these nurture mutual trust between Member States with regard to the exchange of data, but will also benefit the prosecution of punishable offences and the willingness to exchange data for such prosecution.
You are completely right when you point at the availability of data, because it is important that we can make real progress in that respect with a view to public safety.
Before we can do this, this step must be taken to protect privacy.
Looking back at previous discussions, I, on behalf of my group, should like to pay the rapporteur a huge compliment, for Mrs Roure has compiled a balanced report and the realistic and measured manner in which she handled the discussions with the Commission was a demonstration of her expertise.
She backed us up all the way in a number of areas.
Accordingly, we did not go as far as to want to ban the exchange of information with third countries.
We came to the right decision together.
Secondly, we refused to follow – and will refuse to do so in future – those who want secret services to fall within this remit.
Thirdly, the rapporteur has not brought any pressure to bear on the Council either in order to stop the discussion of the reports on the Financial Information System (FIS) and the Second Generation Schengen Information System (SIS II) until this report has been completed.
In doing so, Mrs Roure has done a great job.
This is an even-handed report which strikes the right balance between protecting privacy on the one hand, and creating opportunities for the improved exchange of data on the other.
This is something we owe to our citizens, if we really want the Union to do what it can to safeguard our security.
Thank you once again, Mrs Roure, for your cooperation.
   – Mr Frattini, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has long been seeking a new legal framework for data protection under the third pillar, comparable with the rules in force in Community law.
We want to deliver the same level of protection, albeit taking account of the specific nature of police and legal work.
We have to acknowledge that there is currently insufficient protection.
The recent adoption of the proposed directive on retention of data was accompanied by a clear call for adequate guarantees to be adopted as part of this framework decision.
As rapporteur on three legislative measures on the creation of the Schengen II information system, I sought to introduce the amendments needed to ensure the adoption of this framework decision.
I also sent a letter to Mr Frattini, calling on the Commission to update the rules on data protection in the SIS II decision for the purposes of consistency.
It is, after all, extremely important that the new laws apply both to SIS II and to the VIS.
The resolution created by the judgment of the Court of Justice of 30 May, which overturned the decisions on the transfer of PNR data to the United States, will entail third pillar decisions, as Mr Frattini said last Monday.
All of this reinforces the idea that it is of vital, pressing importance to adopt a legal instrument that ensures personal data protection outside the first pillar.
Consequently, the adoption of this framework decision is both urgently needed and extremely important.
I should like to congratulate Mrs Roure on her report.
I support the amendments that she tabled and that were adopted in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Home Affairs.
These proposals clarify the principles and guarantees that we would like to see safeguarded.
I also support the rapporteur's request to postpone the vote on the final resolution until the next plenary session.
   The next item is the report (A6-0187/2006) by Mr Varvitsiotis, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the draft Council framework decision on the European enforcement order and the transfer of sentenced persons between Member States of the EU [07307/2005 C6-0139/2005 2005/0805(CNS)].
   The next item is the report (A6-0124/2006) by Mrs Brepoels, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction [COM(2005)0399 C6-0256/2005 2005/0166(COD)].
   The next item is the report (A6-0189/2006) by Mrs Ždanoka, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on a framework strategy for non-discrimination and equal opportunities for all [2005/2191(INI)].
   Mr President, Commissioner, the subjects discussed in Mrs Zdanoka’s report are important and commendable; however, as regards the content of the report, there are a number of questions and objections.
Firstly, I would like to ask why the report selectively highlights only two groups in society, namely migrating Roma and non-citizens, as groups which may be experiencing unfavourable conditions and which should be paid special attention to.
Yet refugees, asylum seekers and citizens of third countries who are arriving in Europe in increasing numbers are not mentioned as experiencing difficult conditions, and there is also no mention of their integration as being a matter of concern.
Secondly, I cannot agree with the proposition in point 11 of the report to the effect that migrating Roma and non-citizens should be initially involved in elections at all levels without first ensuring that these residents have been integrated into society. This idea runs contrary to the historic experience of Europe and European values.
I would also like to ask another question: were those Moslem youths who burned cars and vandalised shops in Paris last autumn not French citizens?
The majority of them were, but can we put our hands on our hearts and say that they were integrated into that society and shared its values? As a result, it seems to me that Mrs Zdanoka’s report puts the emphasis on the wrong aspects, and therefore is misdirected and biased.
   Mr President, the fight against discrimination must be fought daily; this is clear, not only from the report of Mrs Ždanoka, but also from our debate here in this House.
I would like to emphasise one of the issues mentioned in the report: the protection of the rights of national minorities.
The situation of national and ethnic minorities in both old and new Member States is rarely problem-free, and they are often facing direct, as well as indirect discrimination.
It is clear that the prohibition of discrimination is not sufficient to resolve this issue.
The creation of equal opportunities requires positive measures, as well, especially in order to combat indirect discrimination.
I am convinced that the Commission could encourage the Member States whose legislative environment does not allow them to change this situation.
New legal instruments are also required, as Mrs Ždanoka has pointed out, so that we can put an end to the unacceptable policy of double standards, because while the Copenhagen criteria regarding compliance with minority rights are applicable to candidate states, Member States do not have internal laws in this respect.
I think that this situation is truly untenable.
   Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Ždanoka, the rapporteur.
This is a particularly important report.
We have to clarify certain important concepts, because there are still many contradictions between the two European Union Directives.
There are further, numerous contradictions regarding the relationship between anti-discrimination and equal treatment, as well, because we do know that they mean different things.
My colleague Claude Moraes has already mentioned the need for positive action today.
But we have not yet clarified the concept of positive discrimination, that is, the relationship and connection between equal treatment and preferential treatment, because if we apply the same standards to unequal groups, this will only create further inequality.
Therefore we need positive actions, positive discrimination and preferential treatment, to enable us to counterbalance unequal opportunities in society.
Another extremely important point is that discrimination never affects individuals.
Those affected are not discriminated against because of their personality, but because they are old, they are women, they live with a disability, they belong to a sexual minority or to a traditional or new national minority.
Therefore efficient protection requires more than just the protection of individuals: we need to protect entire groups.
One of the greatest merits of this report is the protection of traditional historical minorities, which are entitled to political participation, autonomy and self-governance.
The European Union does not have a minority protection system in place at this time, even though one in seven European citizens belongs to a traditional national minority.
And finally, as regards the debate: the Roma and those without citizenship must be given increased protection, as a minority within minorities, and it is a shame that in several Member States there are several hundreds of thousands of people without citizenship.
This situation must be remedied, and Commissioner Špidla deserves our thanks for wishing to move forward in combating discrimination.
   Mr President, the report we are discussing this evening has significant implications for the citizens of the European Union, as it concerns the fight against all kinds of discrimination, which is something we still commonly encounter even now in the 21st century and in countries that are highly developed economically.
The social and economic consequences of discrimination against citizens are very serious.
This is why the fight against discrimination should be based on providing education in the broadest sense of the word at a very early age, and on effective information campaigns based on best practices.
The Commission’s decision to declare 2007 the European Year of Equal Opportunities is a step in the right direction in the fight against discrimination.
Let us hope that this will encourage protection of individual rights and an increased awareness of different forms of discrimination.
However, the funds earmarked for the Year of Equal Opportunities are not sufficient to achieve the expected results.
These actions should therefore also be continued in years to come.
Member States should aim to guarantee equality, in terms of social and political rights, for everyone living in the European Union.
Being different cannot be understood as being worse and therefore all citizens of the European Union should have the same right to a dignified life and equal opportunities for career development.
That is why I strongly support Mrs Ždanoka’s report and congratulate her on a well-prepared document.
   The next item is the debate on the Council and Commission statements on the preparations for the European Council to take place in Brussels on 15 and 16 June, including the next steps in the period of reflection, and on the oral question to the Commission on the next steps in the period of reflection, by Jo Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (O-0033/2006 – B6-0208/2006).
For this purpose, Mr Winkler is here, on behalf of the Council, as is Mr Barroso, President of the Commission, accompanied by Mrs Wallström, Vice-President of the Commission.
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start with a comment for the benefit of the President-in-Office of the Council.
The day before yesterday, this Parliament adopted an interim report on the Temporary Committee on the CIA.
The voting in my group was fairly consistent, that in the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats fairly inconsistent, but nevertheless a majority recognised that the EU is founded upon the rule of law – and I would ask the President-in-Office to convey that message to the Council in preparation for the meeting with George Bush.
The existence of the EU and its Member States is based on the philosophy of the rule of law.
The EU is a place where the rule of law prevails; Guantánamo and the CIA flights are places of lawlessness.
A community based on the rule of law such as the EU, which defends its values, must say a clear ‘no’ to the abuse of our institutions by the US secret services and an even more emphatic ‘no’ to the existence of legal vacuums such as Guantánamo.
I would ask the President-in-Office to convey that message at the Summit.
Mr Poettering has made reference to my legendary objectivity, for which I am most obliged to him.
He forgot to add that he was quick to join my criticism of the President of the Commission when he and Mrs Martens sent a joint letter with similar content to the Commission President.
To Mr Schüssel, too – all of them members of the PPE-DE Group.
It is not our problem if your own house is not in order, Mr Poettering.
The President of the Commission has merited praise today, therefore – if he says the right thing, we are on his side.
We say ‘yes’ to the need for this Constitution, and ‘yes’ to the reforms that the Constitution must bring in order to replace the inadequate Treaty of Nice.
The fact that he is now stating that in public rather than always leaving Commissioner Wallström in the lurch, that he is declaring his support for it in front of this Parliament, represents progress.
Bravo, you have done well, Mr President of the Commission.
That alone is insufficient, however – something else is needed, something that has also been mentioned today.
We need to ask those whose referendums are responsible for throwing out this Constitution what they are actually proposing, how we can surmount this obstacle.
The Governments of France and the Netherlands should also be obliged to suggest to the EU ways of resolving this dilemma.
I have a suggestion for France.
I am fairly sure that, if Mr Chirac were to announce that he would resign immediately if the people voted ‘yes’ to the Constitution, we would be assured of overwhelming majority support for the Constitution from the French.
One thing is clear, however: the EU’s crisis is also a crisis for some governments, and that is the reason time and again for the inability of the European Council to move forward on most points, as some governments do not want this Constitutional Treaty and others are hiding behind those who do not want it.
Incidentally, that is true of Denmark, Portugal and all those with a difference of opinion from the three present and future Council Presidencies.
The Prime Minister of Finland, Matti Vanhanen, is courageous in symbolically ratifying and declaring his support for the Constitution during the Finnish Council Presidency.
I think that it is good that Austrian Chancellor Schüssel has declared his support for this Constitution.
Although the proposal he has made for this referendum is not a new one and has already been discussed by the Convention, it does show that Austria wants this Constitution.
The German Government, which will then hold the third successive Council Presidency, has declared its firm support for this Constitution, which is a good sign.
Anyone who says that this Constitution is dead is mistaken.
The Council’s proposal, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, to demand a solemn declaration from leaders of whether they do indeed wish to further European integration, whether they really support the principles of deepening integration, whether they still support the spirit of the Treaties of Rome 50 years on, is a good idea.
The content is what makes the difference – it must state that the solemn declaration being made is one not of noble objectives, but of concrete action.
It could read, for example: yes, we want the Constitution – its content, in particular – to become reality.
After all, one thing is absolutely clear – and I say this on behalf of our group and of all its members: we want EU enlargement.
We welcome the draft conclusions on Romania and Bulgaria.
We know that the prospective accession of the Balkan States has a peacemaking effect there.
For this reason, we declare our belief in the necessity of enlargement.
Without the constitutional reforms and the associated division of powers, however; without the clarity of action or the democratising potential that the Constitution holds, this enlargement is impossible – unless we want to destroy Europe, which we do not.
For this reason, we are all required to continue to fight for this Constitution, so that Europe retains its basis in the rule of law and acquires the economic strength it needs to meet the challenges of the 21st century.
   .
Mr President, Mr Barroso, Mr Winkler, each of the main agenda items for the forthcoming European Council in its own way raises the issue of the meaning of European integration.
Such is the case with regard to the results of the famous period of reflection and to the common energy policy, and Europe’s action in the world does not escape attention either.
I shall begin by mentioning the period of reflection and its extension.
The first part of the Brussels Summit’s draft conclusion is dedicated to this and is charmingly entitled: ‘Europe listens’.
That is all well and good, but what is it listening to? The document elaborates on the measures to combat illegal immigration, which, I might add, are most unfortunately juxtaposed in the same sentence with trafficking in human beings, terrorism and organised crime.
It deals with the Union's intervention mechanisms in the event of a crisis.
It stresses the need, in future, to take the European Union’s absorption capacity more rigorously into account before embarking on the road to any further enlargement, and so forth.
These are so many issues that are, I agree, present in the debate with our fellow citizens.
Strangely enough, however, the issue that is at the heart of the crisis of confidence plaguing the Union, that is to say the social issue, is, for its part, completely sidelined in the European Council’s draft conclusion, which, in the course of one sentence, merely calls on the Commission to draft a report on the situation by next spring.
Saying that is not tantamount to sinking into crisisphilia, Mr Barroso.
I would point out that the Austrian Presidency itself put its finger on this issue as far back as January.
That is what we must discuss first in order to draw the necessary conclusions from it.
The public’s trust is not given as a matter of course.
It is won.
Let us turn now to the European energy policy.
Helping to address the 21st century energy challenge is, in fact, a European responsibility .
Unbridled competition and the race for profitability are, however, unacceptable in this context.
Preparing for the post-oil period, making far greater progress in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, developing the research effort with a view to increasing energy efficiency and diversity, transforming the way in which transport is organised and affirming the right to energy for all are eminently political tasks that, if they are to succeed, cannot be restricted by the short-sighted calculations of the market.
Finally, the same debate concerns Europe’s ambitions in terms of external policy.
Who can oppose the desire to provide ourselves, as the Commission is proposing, with operational instruments and rules able to increase the consistency, effectiveness and visibility of our external action? It is my conviction, however, that the fundamental reason for the weakness of Europe’s action in the world is neither technical nor institutional.
It is due to the tragic lack of political will and common vision at the European Council.
How else can we interpret, at this very moment, the staggering inertia of the 25 faced with the Israeli Government's irresponsible torpedoing of the initiative of the Palestinian President, in flagrant and continual breach of both the UN resolutions and the Quartet’s road map? All of that reinforces our idea that the famous period of reflection and Plan D will only be useful if they represent an opportunity to hold a trouble-free debate in the open on the structural changes to be promoted so that Europeans might once again see a reason to be positive about Europe in the world today.
   Mr President, we like to claim that the EU is a Union of values based on democracy and the rule of law.
Yet when the Danes voted against the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992, when the Irish voted against the Treaty of Nice in 2000, they were told to go away and try again.
So much for democracy!
When the French and Dutch voted against the Constitution last year, we ignored their verdict.
We are trying to revive a constitution which is dead in its own terms.
We are implementing large parts of it with no legal basis.
So much for the rule of law!
In our pigheaded determination to press on with the European project in defiance of public opinion, we show our brazen contempt for the voters and for democratic values.
The voters are starting to notice.
Amongst my East Midlands constituents I sense a growing concern and, indeed, anger against the European project.
So, press ahead with the EU Constitution if you must, but be warned: you are fuelling public resentment, which will blow the European construction apart.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, at the start of the Austrian Presidency, Chancellor Schüssel promised movement on the Constitution talks.
I therefore expect a clear message from the Council meeting that the text foisted on the citizens is incomprehensible, unfair and, most importantly, dead, and that the time has come to draw up a new document.
Given that Chancellor Schüssel is a politician who stands by his words, he should not accept the manipulative delaying tactics employed by Chancellor Merkel and President Chirac.
They want to leave the Constitution to mature ‘naturally’ for one more year, and then to come to a decision on it during the German and French Presidencies.
Austria is, from a historical perspective, in the best position to alter this process.
It has already travelled down the path of attempts at European integration.
Less than a hundred years ago, the Austro-Hungarian Empire united 21 European countries.
It only lasted for 51 years, however.
Why was that? Problems were not addressed and were left to mature ‘naturally’.
I feel that extending the period of reflection on the current Constitution shows disdain for the citizens and the campaign to resurrect it is simply throwing their money down the drain.
   – Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to make three brief comments.
First, I do wonder, when we hold our debates here in Strasbourg, whether we should really be setting up the Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna in competition to the Council of Europe, a tried and tested instrument that is able to take on this task not only for the EU Member States but far beyond our borders.
I can really only encourage you, as I have also said to Chancellor Schüssel in a debate, to make an active contribution to treating the European disease of 'agencyitis' effectively.
You could also send out a clear signal from your own country in that connection.
Secondly – and in this I almost completely agree with what Mr Rasmussen said before me – we obviously also need to defend our own values in the context of the enlargement negotiations.
I am rather worried that we are falling back into the mechanical behaviour that we have been experiencing here for the past 10 years and that we have criticised time and again in this forum.
Was it really necessary to negotiate a chapter with Turkey on Monday, despite the fact that some of the minimum conditions, specifically recognition of the Ankara Protocol, have not even been dealt with yet? I wonder whether we are perhaps once again sending out the wrong signals by setting in motion a train that, 10, 12 or however many years down the track, we will still not be able to stop.
The Austrian Presidency of the Council could have sent out a clearer signal in this regard, too.
Thirdly, the European Union is founded on the Member States.
There is no single European people – and this goes for Mrs Wallström, too, who is now not listening – but 25 national peoples, as we are seeing at the moment with the football.
And we have a European Union that is founded on the Member States and not on a majority of the population expressing their opinions in referendums.
That really does need to be taken into account, otherwise this project will ultimately founder.
   Mr President, we complain that, in spite of our successes and achievements during 50 years of European integration, the European Union has become stuck in a rut.
We complain that it lacks a clear vision, that there is no agreement on what direction to take and what to do in the future.
However, we should admit that these criticisms and reservations expressed by the citizens are related to the current functioning of EU politics rather than the Constitutional Treaty, whose significance has not been sufficiently explained to the public.
After all, the European Constitution is a fundamental document which will allow the Union to deal with new challenges.
We are all aware that the Union cannot develop further on the basis of the existing Treaties, and not because these Treaties are ‘too restrictive’ for 25 or more Member States.
These Treaties have a basic flaw in that they do not provide for the involvement of civil society either in shaping Union policies or in the decision-making process.
President Barroso, I would like to ask how many millions of signatures we would need to collect today, as part of a citizens’ initiative, in order for the Commission to hear the voice of the citizens.
At the moment you are not obliged to take account of their voice, but the Constitutional Treaty would give the citizens the opportunity to set up such an initiative and one million signatures would be enough.
I repeat, one million out of 457 million European Union citizens would be needed to set up such an initiative.
Does this mean nothing to opponents of the Constitutional Treaty who bandy democratic slogans about so enthusiastically?
President Barroso, it is with pleasure that I heard your declaration on the Constitution today.
However, these words must be backed up with actions and the most important task at the moment is to win back the trust of the citizens of Europe in the European project.
We have to do this in the old Union where Europe has become very commonplace because the citizens have had it for too long and also take advantage of pro-European feeling, or rather enthusiasm, in the new Member States.
In my country, Poland, 80% of citizens want more Europe and 60% want a Constitutional Treaty.
This is a good sign and I hope that during the European Summit these countries will make the right decisions, showing the way for Europe and the place of the Constitutional Treaty, so that we may overcome this impasse.
   Mr President, I would like to make three points.
The first point is that I think the speech made by Mr Barroso was excellent.
Right now we are getting involved in this vicious circle of Euro-pessimism and what we need is a heavy-duty injection of Euro-optimism.
We need to take a look at what we have achieved over the past 10 to 12 years and the results are overwhelming – everything from enlargement to justice and home affairs, CFSP, and, of course, the single currency.
Sometimes we have a tendency to lose perspective.
We must realise that the European Union is constant crisis management.
We go from one little crisis to another, but I think the bigger picture is a success story.
The second point I want to make is that right now I think we are facing a new generation of what I call ‘EU whingers’ or ‘EU whiners’.
They are people, usually ministers, who go into a closed room, have a discussion, clap each other on the back and say ‘great decision’.
Five minutes after that, they get into the blame game, go in front of their national media and say, ‘oh no, what an awful decision the EU has just made’.
You cannot talk negatively about the European Union six days a week and then go to church on Sunday and say that the EU is a great thing.
Perhaps this could be the reason why the UK Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett does not want to see much transparency, because then people would see that some of the British positions are actually pro-European.
The final point I want to make is that we need a constitutional treaty.
The problems are not going to go away and we have heard that in the debate today.
We need the Charter of Fundamental Rights; we need a legal personality; we need a foreign minister; we need more qualified-majority voting and we need more codecision.
So we need to fix it, and hopefully we can fix it before 2009.
Deepening and widening go hand in hand.
Nice is not enough.
   I should like to extend a warm welcome to Mr K.P. Sharma Oli, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nepal, who has taken his seat in the distinguished visitors’ gallery.
Mr Sharma Oli has held meetings with the chairmen of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Development, and this afternoon will participate in a meeting with Parliament’s SAARC Delegation, whose chairwoman, Mrs Gill, is sitting here today in a wonderful shade of green.
We are very pleased that Mr Sharma Oli has taken this opportunity to visit Parliament and to tell us about the most recent developments in Nepal.
We trust that this visit will further enhance and develop relations between the European Parliament and Nepal.
   . – Mr President, I must point out an error.
The amendment deleting Article 14, which was adopted in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, has not been included in the versions of the report for plenary, but the Tabling Office assured us that it would be inserted into the final version following the vote.
I just wanted to draw your attention to that.
   . – Mr President, the intention of the oral amendment is to replace the word 'commitments' by the word 'agreements' in Article 8d(5).
   Mr President, it is important for everyone to be made aware of the event that took place yesterday within the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats.
I could refrain from pointing it out and send a letter to Mr Poettering instead but, precisely because we are talking about discrimination, rights and equal opportunities, I am outraged as a woman, as an Italian woman …
   Mr President, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr Brok — who has been one of our political group's negotiators for this joint motion for a resolution — has asked me to table an oral amendment which has in principle been negotiated with the representatives of the other political groups.
This amendment would be inserted in paragraph 6, where it talks about ‘particular attention to the fight against organised crime’.
It would be followed by ‘in the case of Bulgaria’, because the purpose of the amendment is to respond to the report produced by the Commission in May, and it would be unfair to extend this demand to Romania when, according to the Commission, progress has been satisfactory in that regard.
That is the wording of the oral amendment, Mr President, and I hope that the House can accept it.
   Mr President, on a point of order, I would like to invoke Rule 35 with reference to this vote.
Under Rule 35(1), for all Commission proposals of a legislative nature, the committee responsible shall verify the legal basis.
Rule 35(4) says that the committee should have disputed the validity of the proceedings regarding the period of reflection and the ratification process. This is for two reasons.
First of all, under the EU’s own rules, any Member State rejecting the Constitutional Treaty has right of veto, and therefore it should be dead.
My second point – and the most important point to me – is that the European Constitution is unconstitutional in terms of the British Constitution in relation to Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and various other acts of ...
   – Mr Batten, I must cut you off there, because you are starting from a false premise: this is not a text of a legislative nature.
   Mr President, Mr Crowley has asked to retake the vote on the second section of Amendment 2.
If you look at the numbers on your counting device, there is difference of 100 people who did not vote between part 1 and part 2.
There was a total of approximately 630 votes for the first part, and only 545 for the second.
Every now and again, because the electronic vote closes far too quickly, people do not get the chance, if they listen to the interpretation, to respond.
I would ask you to allow a little more time for this.
   Mr President, in his book ‘The Constitution of Europe’, Joseph Weiler wrote extensively about how, in the past, the Court of Justice would systematically increase the field of competences of the European institutions without there being any democratic legitimacy for it and without the Court having been given a mandate by the Member States’ governments in this matter.
Thanks to this notorious judgment of 13 September 2005, criminal law is now, in fact, also set to become a European competence.
As a consequence, the Court of Justice is wiping the floor with the competence restrictions of the European treaties.
The Court of Justice looks very much like a kind of judicial Absurdistan peopled by other-worldly judges who are no longer answerable to anything or anybody.
People are then surprised when our citizens, when they get the opportunity, show their displeasure by, for example, voting out the European Constitution.
   The European Court of Justice’s judgment of 13 September 2005 constitutes a veritable legal revolution in what is usually called the Community legal system.
Indeed, this is the first time that the Court of Justice has pronounced on issues of competence in penal matters and that it has decided that, for the purpose of protecting the environment, the European Union can demand that the Member States provide for criminal sanctions in the case of serious offences.
In principle, penal legislation, just like the rules of criminal procedure, falls within the strict competence of the Member States.
Through this legal decision, a portion of the penal law of the Member States has just been brought within the competence of the Community and has been so without the formal agreement of the nations.
This also amounts to a harmonisation of penal law that the ‘no’ vote delivered by the French and the Dutch in their referendums on the Constitution had implicitly rejected.
There is worse to come, however.
There is a risk of such jurisprudence being extended to all Community spheres and, in particular, to that concerning would-be fundamental rights.
I am thinking of spheres such as the fight against supposed racism and discrimination of various kinds, data protection, the right to asylum or, indeed, policies on migration.
This development is not conducive to our freedoms, and it is most worrying.
   The British Conservatives abstained on the Gargani report, since while we greatly appreciated the attempt by the rapporteur to strike the appropriate note of caution when trying to identify the proper application of the Court’s judgment, we do not agree it is even necessary to consider whether or not there is a need to activate the clause. We believe that more time is needed to consider what, if any, steps should be taken on the specific and immediate ramifications of this judgment before seeking to use it as a pretext for usurping national competence in criminal justice matters.
   I am voting in favour of Mr Bonde’s proposal for an alternative resolution, because he criticises the fact that the European Court of Justice is trying to use environmental law as a springboard to enable the EU to assume power over large parts of criminal law.
I am not, however, categorically opposed to all types of rules under criminal law designed to combat cross-border environmental crimes.
These may sometimes be needed in order, for example, to deal with vessels out at sea that are ruining the environment.
   Mr President, when Mrs Ždanoka’s report was being discussed, it was important for me that the amendments tabled for point 11 did not go through, as they had nothing to do with non-discrimination, and I therefore voted with the majority.
   .
Mr President, I voted against this motion for a resolution because the German police took unprecedented action today against citizens of the Czech Republic.
The police refused entry into Germany for dozens of football fans who wanted to attend the 2006 football World Cup.
In my view, this runs counter to both the free movement of persons in the EU and the Treaty of Maastricht.
I believe that a number of my fellow Members will join me in asking the German Government to explain how it is possible that it can trample underfoot the basic principles of the EU's existence.
I have already submitted questions to the Commission and the Council in this connection.
   We have today voted in favour of Mr Leinen’s draft motion for a resolution on the next step during the period of reflection and analysis in relation to the future of Europe.
As we have previously pointed out, we do not, however, believe that the Charter on Fundamental Rights should be legally binding.
   .
I abstained in the final vote on the motion for a resolution on the future of Europe.
I consider this motion for a resolution to be superfluous and even counterproductive.
As a defender of the Constitutional Treaty, I expect all 25 Heads of State or Government to honour their signatures and submit the draft for ratification by their respective countries.
The people of France and the Netherlands voted ‘no’.
Before asking these Member States possibly to reconsider their votes, it is necessary that, after Finland, the other dilatory Member States express their opinions, beginning with the United Kingdom, Poland, Sweden, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark.
Europe’s future depends on the choices also of those countries.
The European Union cannot do without this debate.
   Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention to rural development.
It is important that we do not lose sight of rural spaces as a whole as an aid to economic development.
This means that in financial respects too we must ensure that sufficient means are available.
Unfortunately the so-called second pillar of rural development for the period 2007 to 2013 has been reduced by EUR 20 billion in comparison with the proposal by Parliament and the Commission, and that reduces possibilities of development.
That is why we must surely make use of the optional modulation system of 20%, I mean by redirecting funding from the first to the second pillar.
We also have to ensure, however, that we give our support to the international development of rural spaces.
In order to do this we need a fund that can be accessed on an international basis for rural development projects, in a similar way to the existing European one.
Only in this way will there be a chance to develop rural spaces as a whole.
   Mr President, the Lisbon Strategy’s objectives are mistaken.
We now have growth without jobs, so it is the wrong way to obtain more employment.
We are also aiming at the wrong goals.
With people now earning approximately EUR 12 000 per year, the link between increased income and greater happiness is ever more tenuous.
Instead, the result is increased stress, more environmental damage, wider social disparities and more injustice.
Sustainable development is not only about the environment.
Achieving it involves, rather, seeing the environment as being inseparably linked to social conditions.
Today, everyone is talking about sustainable development, and tomorrow we are to vote on the Seventh Framework Programme that allocates EUR 4 billion to research into nuclear power.
More money is also going to research into carbon-based energy and to research into other non-sustainable forms of energy.
Why is that the case? The UN Climate Panel has shown that we can only achieve the Kyoto objectives by halting the subsidies to fossil fuels.
People listening to us are amazed.
Why do we not take the relevant decisions? It is because the lobbyists from the big companies obtain their cherished short-term growth solutions, which are inimical to sustainable development.
We must listen more to our audience and less to our lobbyists.
Then, we shall obtain sustainable development.
   Mr President, I would like to support the statement made by Mr Gaubert, my colleague from the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, that this House has missed the opportunity to speak with one voice and to support the resolution he has drawn up.
This document highlights the kind of mechanisms that should be introduced in the European Union: constant monitoring of racist crimes, the introduction of a framework directive and the creation of an Agency for Fundamental Rights as soon as possible.
These should be priorities in our debate and in our resolution, rather than the slinging of mud at certain countries and cases, as seems to be happening here.
The European Union is trying to uphold the highest human rights standards.
That is the aim of the Agency for Fundamental Rights which is to be set up soon.
Already, a report is published annually by the Vienna-based European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia on the subject of racism and xenophobia in the European Union.
It is worth looking at the 2005 report.
Under point 5 on racist violence and crime there is an assessment of the situation in the 25 Member States.
What can we learn from this text? In four European countries, including Italy, Mrs Agnoletto, there is a lack of publicly accessible official data on incidents of racist crime and violence.
Amongst the new Member States, the report states, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia collect official data on racist violence and crime on a broader scale than other countries.
We lack a unified European system for registering these crimes, and this makes it difficult to carry out comparable analyses of this phenomenon.
Over 52 000 incidents of a racist nature have been registered in the United Kingdom, thanks to an efficient system for recording such statistics, 6 400 incidents have been registered in Germany, 1 565 in France and 209 in the Czech Republic.
This disproportion shows how important it is to introduce a unified monitoring system.
The majority of the 25 European Union Member States, we read, have transposed the Anti-Discrimination Directive into their own national contexts.
In July 2000 complaints were filed at the European Court of Justice against four countries, including Germany, Mr Schulz, for not fulfilling their obligations concerning the directives on racial equality.
My constituency in the north of Ireland has seen a number of violent attacks on communities from other Member States and from further afield, as well as a consistent level of homophobic violence.
We also experience ongoing sectarian attacks, such as the recent murder of a 15-year old Catholic boy, Michael McIlveen.
It is absolutely vital that the Council now adopt the 2001 Framework Decision on Combating Racism and Xenophobia.
I would echo calls for the Finnish Presidency to restart work on this with all urgency and, as we have heard today, for the Council to adopt the decisions without watering them down.
National governments and other institutions must respond adequately.
In the view of the Council Presidency, what are the prospects of EU accession negotiations with Croatia being separated not only de jure but also de facto from the negotiations with Turkey, in particular with regard to the opening and closing of individual chapters?
In October 2003 the Parliament overwhelmingly voted in favour of the report on Trafficking in human beings: prevention and control of trafficking in human organs and tissues (CNS/2003/0812).
Could the Austrian Presidency give more information concerning why the Council is yet to agree this?
   . The Council wishes to inform Mr Evans that it thinks it necessary to obtain further expert information on this issue, which has to do with how it is determined whether a piece of legislation is both necessary and called for from the point of view of society.
The Council has therefore suspended negotiation on the proposal until such time as this information is available.
   – Mr Winkler, the recurrent problem with the European Union in global political conflicts is that one or other of its Member States chooses to go its own way and tends to ally itself with the USA, thus going against European interests.
Can it be guaranteed that, in the conflict with Iran, the European Union will speak with one voice and that all its Member States will support it?
   . The answer I can give Mr Mölzer is a very brief one, and it consists of a firm ‘yes’.
I was present for all the debates in the Council, the last of which was only a few days ago, and I can tell you that all the Member States, without exception, are endeavouring to come to a common position on this matter, the need for which is being questioned by nobody, and that the European Union is very much united on this issue.
   . I can tell you, Mr Rack, that the return of illegal and other immigrants is an open question, and I cannot say whether it will be formally tied in to the economic partnership agreements; the Commission is engaged in negotiations on the subject.
That this is something that both the Council and the Member States would like to see is not, however, a matter of doubt, and it is of course something towards which the Commission is also working.
   I would like to ask the minister a question.
During the Austrian Presidency, the European Union took the decision to raise the visa fee to EUR 62.
This doubtless will not affect ‘new Russians’, but will reduce opportunities for ordinary Russian citizens, not to mention Ukrainians, Belarussians and residents of other non-EU states, to visit European Union states.
As it holds the EU Presidency, how does Austria view this step and what does it believe the consequences will be?
   President-in-Office, I am in the process of trying to get a visa for Russia.
It is an extremely cumbersome process: it takes 15 working days and it costs EUR 71.
For me, the most difficult regulation is that you have to have a passport photo in which you do not smile.
We cannot find any of those.
Nevertheless, my question – which is slightly dangerous, as I come from Finland, which has a border of 1 300 km with Russia – is: what is your educated guess about the timetable for a visa-free zone?
   Biomass is a most important form of energy, accounting for 65% of the renewable energy used in the EU.
However, the total percentage of renewable energy used in the EU has remained at 6% since 1990.
Therefore, does the Austrian Presidency agree that any realistic common energy policy should include the use of nuclear power?
   – It is well known that it is at present somewhat more expensive to produce biofuels than to use fossil fuels, and it was for that reason the alternative fuels were given favourable tax treatment, the consequence being that annual increases of some 26% are to be reckoned with.
Will the mandatory blending that the Commission is launching not have the result that the oil industry will have increasing recourse to suppliers of cheap crude oil such as Brazil and hence put our European farmers at an even greater disadvantage in the future?
   . I can, today, give only a report on the general mood as regards the specific requirements.
The main thing that came out of the Council’s general debate was that the environment ministers unanimously welcomed the proposal for a drastic reduction in the particulate limit values for private diesel vehicles to 5mg per kilometre, whilst the Commission’s 20% reduction in NOx limit values was regarded as inadequate.
Such is the present state of the debate, which we will continue in June.
A broad majority of the Member States has already expressed itself in favour of a second stage of reduction in NOx for Euro 6, that is to say, of taking a more ambitious approach to NOx reduction – which we see as having gone a very long way as regards particulate threshold values – along with a vision for even now guaranteeing industry the security to plan ahead even beyond Euro 5, which means, then, not adopting Euro 5 right now, irrespective of the details of the limit values, and then embarking on the next debate in two or three years’ time.
Over and above that, we must give industry a signal as to how things are to go in the future, and I see that – which is the approach we want to take – as a sensible thing to do.
   – Euro 5 is a big step in the right direction.
We also need to see how many percent by way of a reduction we can manage with and over what period of time.
Does anyone, at this early stage, have any idea about the timetable and the transitional periods?
   . As regards the timetable and the transitional periods, it is probably too early to give any indications concerning these, although I am involved in dialogue with most of the Member States.
The problem we had in the last general debate was that we were guided by the Commission’s specifications and used them as the basis for the evaluation, but we have not yet got to the point at which I can sum up for you the sense of the meeting as regards the percentage reductions and the periods of time over which they are being contemplated.
It is, however, my intention, over a period of years – over a decade, indeed – to sketch out a vision and to set out the approximate stages by which these things may be implemented in practice, while setting out even now the further steps whereby we are contemplating the implementing stage of Euro 6.
The clear message, then, is that, rather than wanting to complete Euro 5 with a mere compromise and then promptly starting again with something new, we want, over and above that, to put down an unmistakeable marker.
Can the European Council make a statement as to how much financial support the EU will be giving to support forestry programmes in Europe, in general, and to Ireland, in particular, for the financial period 2007-2013?
   .
On the subject of European forestry, we want, in June – that is, before the end of the Austrian Presidency – to put down a marker by opening a debate on the question of a forestry strategy for Europe, a subject on which we have as yet had no joint debates, but one that has now become all the more important to us since the decision on the promotion of rural development through the European Fund for Agriculture and Rural Development is making it possible for the Member States, between 2007 and 2013, to implement a development programme for rural areas that incorporates the protection of woodlands.
The intention is – and this is important – that this forestry measure should in particular enhance the competitiveness of forestry – as stated in Article 20 – and promote the management of wooded land.
I would remind the House that the funds made available for this purpose at national level will be – as specified in EU Regulation 1698/2005 – co-funded by the Community and the Member States.
The Community’s contribution towards the forestry strategy and support for forestry will amount to between something like 50% and 55%, with upper limits clearly set out in the annex to the regulation.
The total amount of aid to be granted for forestry programmes in Ireland for example in the 2007-2013 period, is being planned by the responsible authorities, who will submit to the European Union their plans for the allocation of national resources and for cofinancing by the European Union, for which provision has been made in legislation on rural development.
Bearing in mind Articles 2 and 6 of the EC Treaty, which stipulate that environmental protection is to be considered a horizontal objective, Regulation (EC) No 2152/2003(1) concerning monitoring of forests and environmental interactions in the Community, the Commission communication on a forestry strategy for the European Union (COM(1998)0649 final) and the European Parliament's resolutions on natural disasters regional aspects (2005/2193(INI)), environmental aspects (2005/2192(INI)) and agricultural aspects (2005/2195(INI)), and given that, according to United Nations figures, natural disasters in the European Union have claimed the lives of 65 000 people since 1980 and have had an economic cost amounting to EUR 124 200 million, what action has the Austrian Presidency taken to safeguard the sustainability of European forests?
   – Of course I am satisfied with your answer.
Nevertheless, given the environmental protection responsibility and Parliament's resolutions on natural disasters and the regional, environmental and agricultural scale thereof, describing in detail the tragedy most keenly felt in Mediterranean Europe, especially last year in Spain and in my country Portugal, which were attributable to the continued destruction of vast forest areas, and which led to a heavy cost in terms of human sustainability, of the depopulation of rural areas, of the growth and development of these areas, I should like to ask you, Mr Pröll, if there are any more …
   – Further to your reference to Natura 2000 as one of the possible sources for afforestation strategies, the problem we have had with this, over and over again, is that a very large number of landowners ended up with obligations, and some of them had no help whatever with discharging them.
Does the programme or the Financial Perspective make provision for financial facilities to meet this?
   . That, Mr Rack, is a matter that is not so much of direct relevance to the European Union as to the manner of implementation at nation state level, but it is important, in the forest strategy, Natura 2000, and all other measures that have an effect on property – which protective measures for animals and plants certainly do – that local landowners be involved in their design and practical implementation.
That is a task for those who have to put Natura 2000 into practice.
Lack of experience has meant that many mistakes have been made, and Natura 2000 in the broadest sense of the term has for that reason often got a bad name for itself, but, in those regions and countries in which it has been implemented well, not only with dialogue with landowners in devising the management plans but also with an appropriate range of direct payments on offer, the system has been effective.
One can point to a number of exemplary instances of this, but what is necessary is that the landowners be involved in the development of strategy and of management plans, and there must then be no doubt about what is on offer: if the environment is to be used, then, in the forest, appropriate compensation must be made for that.
Since 2001, the severe foaming of the water in the River Rába, which flows across the Austro-Hungarian border, caused by naphthaline sulphonate pollution, has been causing serious problems.
The source of the pollution is discharges of waste water in excess of limit values by the Austrian firm Boxmark at Jennersdorf and Feldbach and by the firm Schmidt at Wollsdorf.
These operations, which have been going on for five years, damaging the natural environment and local residents, have resulted in recurrent protests from Hungary (Austro-Hungarian Border Waters Committee, joint government meeting, representatives of civil society, etc.).
In five years, nothing has happened; Austria's Environmental Protection Minister has requested 'patience'.
How will Austria, in its capacity as holder of the Presidency of the Union, set an example for other Member States? How will it comply with its legal obligations relating to the quality of surface waters and with the Helsinki Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes?
   Mr President, Minister, I would like to thank you and the Austrian Government for what you have done, and for your promise that starting from 1 July, the polluted water from the Jennersdorf leather factory will no longer be discharged into the river Raab.
I think we agree that the Austrian-Hungarian border, as a green belt of a certain kind, should become a citadel of ecotourism.
Therefore I would like to ask you whether we may also be able to resolve the problem of the geothermal project at Fürstenfeld, which pollutes the river Lapincs (Lafnitz) via the river Feistritz.
   – The next item is the report by Paolo Costa (A6-0194/2006), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on common rules in the field of civil aviation security (COM(2005)0429 – C6-0290/2005 – 2005/0191(COD)).
   Mr President, I would like firstly to congratulate Mr Costa on this report, which puts its finger on those aspects that were left out of the first Regulation, which, as a result of the horrendous 11 September attack, was put together by the various institutions with laudable speed and capacity to respond.
It is the case, however, that, at that time, certain important aspects were left out of a negotiation which was carried out in response to what was a significant moment in terms of security.
It is also the case that Mr Costa, in these proposed amendments to the Regulation presented by the Commission, which is now established as a framework Regulation while the contributions made by means of commitology and the application of experience are assessed, has improved – I believe – those aspects that were most necessary: those which introduce the concern and interests of the parties involved, both from the point of view of the Member States and from the point of view of the airlines and airports, and also the aspects which have not yet been dealt with in relation to funding and which are so dear to Mr Costa’s heart, who has made great progress in relation to them.
We feel that there is a point in Mr Costa’s proposal, however, that, in his enthusiasm for improving this Regulation, has introduced some confusion: the package of clauses which relate to the application, which has been traditional and historical since 1987, of all of the legislation relating to safety in civil aviation applied to the Gibraltar airport.
There is an amendment that we have presented from various perspectives which, without in any way jeopardising the safety applied to the Gibraltar airport, does preserve and protect the problem of an historical dispute, which is now on the point of being resolved.
I would therefore ask Mr Costa not to add a further point of conflict to an agreement that has been under negotiation since December 2004 and which, with regard to the Gibraltar airport, will prevent that suspension and neutralisation.
We would therefore ask you to accept this amendment, which simply restores something which has been historical, without in anyway prejudicing the safety of civil aviation.
   Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the Chairman of our Committee on Transport and Tourism, Mr Costa, for his excellent report.
His draft introduces provisions that will undoubtedly serve to improve the security of civil aviation.
Nevertheless, there are still two points I wish to pick up.
Several of you have referred to the first of these, namely the funding issue.
We are speaking here of security, not of air safety.
In other words, it is not just a matter of protecting users of air transport but all people in Europe who could be the target of attacks in which aircraft are used, as was the case on September 11.
It seems unfair, as Mr Jarzembowski said, to burden aircraft passengers with the cost of these measures, especially since they are already overtaxed in a sector where new taxes are being invented all the time, as was the case only recently with the introduction of a tax on air tickets in some countries.
I therefore believe that it would be preferable not to make air travellers foot too much of the bill for these measures.
The other point I should like to raise concerns the obligation contained in Amendments 41 and 42, which would require Member States to consult and inform the Regulatory Committee before applying their own security measures.
Although I understand and respect the idea of transparency that underlies these amendments, I wonder about the practical applicability of such proposals.
If it is necessary to wait for the committee to be convened, informed and consulted every time an airport wants to deploy an additional security guard, I am not sure whether an obligation that took so long to fulfil would be conducive to aviation security.
It would certainly be preferable to strike a better balance between the need for transparency and the need to act quickly.
The Commission can agree to Amendments 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 37, 40, 46, 47, 48, 49, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 65, 66, 67, 68, 73, 77, 78, 82, 89 and 91.
The Commission can accept Amendments 9, 14, 18, 23, 25, 39, 42, 51, 64, 72, 79, 81 and 84 in principle.
The Commission can agree in part to Amendments 5, 20, 21 and 57.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments 2, 3, 6, 19, 22, 32, 35, 36, 38, 41, 43, 44, 45, 50, 52, 54, 59, 62, 63, 69, 70, 71, 74, 75, 76, 80, 83, 85, 86, 87, 88 and 90.
   – The next item is the report by Michael Cramer (A6-0183/2006), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the deployment of the European rail signalling system ERTMS/ETCS (2005/2168(INI)).
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I read Mr Cramer’s report with great attention and interest.
I should like to congratulate him on the quality of his report, which is the fruit of cooperation with all stakeholders in the railway sector.
You spared no effort, Mr Cramer!
Not content to organise a hearing on the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), you travelled all over Europe to raise technical and political questions relating to the system.
You consulted closely with Mr Karel Vinck, European Coordinator for ERTMS.
These are the reasons for the high quality of the report you compiled, which was adopted unanimously by the Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Your report clearly presents the advantages of ERTMS and spells out the three challenges that have to be met if it is to be deployed successfully.
First of all, ERTMS is recognised as the best system in the world today for indicating permissible speeds to drivers and for monitoring those speeds automatically.
As Mr Cramer has just emphasised, the success achieved in exporting the system outside Europe to countries such as Taiwan and Korea testifies to the potential of this system as an exportable product.
Secondly, many lines in Europe are equipped with national and even regional systems, most of which are dated and mutually incompatible.
Mr Cramer spoke of a ‘patchwork’, which very aptly illustrates the wide disparities between these systems in terms of safety and performance levels.
In order to operate on a given line, a locomotive must be equipped with the appropriate system, which is why the Thalys trains need to have seven control systems on board.
Thirdly, as long as ERTMS is not being widely used on the European rail network, railway companies are hesitant to invest in it.
Conversely, as long as trains are not equipped for ERTMS, infrastructure providers will also hesitate to invest in it.
As a result, it is often in rail companies’ interests to wait for others to take the first step.
There is a need to break out of this circle of inertia and convince all players in the field of rail transport that they should adopt what is ultimately a win-win strategy.
We can also rely on Mr Vinck, the European Coordinator, to use his powers of persuasion.
The major freight corridors will only be competitive if locomotives are not brought to a halt at national borders by technical barriers, and to that end the Community strategy must be clearly enunciated, as Mr Cramer has shown in his report.
It is essential to ensure that ERTMS is put in place wherever it is compulsory, especially on all the new high-speed lines.
European funding should be confined to rail projects in which ERTMS is taken into account.
Substantial financial incentives must be offered to the first infrastructure operators and the first train operators to equip themselves with ERTMS.
A great deal of work has been done to make ERTMS a success, but we must step up our efforts, and to that end, Mr President, the contribution of Parliament is warmly welcomed.
Thank you, Mr Cramer, for your work on this report.
We must move together in the same direction, namely towards a competitive European rail environment that is able to deliver high-quality service.
That is how we can shift part of the volume of freight traffic from road to rail in order to save energy and come closer to the Kyoto targets.
All of this, Mr Cramer, certainly does require a bold and ambitious strategy for the introduction of ERTMS.
In this respect, your report bolsters our case appreciably, and for that I wish to thank both you and the European Parliament.
   Mr Barrot, Mr Cramer, thank you for the work you have done.
You said all the right things in your report, even down to the last detail.
It is all set out very clearly.
It is a little ironic, though, that in 2006, already some way into the 21st century, we should still be debating the benefit of a single rail signalling system.
At a time when other modes of transport have made much more headway, cross-border European traffic has evidently never been that important to the monopolies.
They at any rate never poured the money into it that they should have done; nor did they come up with the ideas to move things along.
It is a little odd that we still find ourselves debating the basics where rail is concerned.
We are pleased that, during the hearing you organised, the infrastructural people were keen to apply the European rail signalling system (ERTMS).
That in itself is a success, in our view.
They could quite easily have turned round and said that they were not really interested on account of the cost and that, for the sake of those few trains that cross the border, it might be better to use lorries after all, because they can be traced by satellite.
They could have left the trains for what they were.
The enthusiasm we display does not really seem to be shared by those who should help to get things moving, namely the Member States, the railway companies and the infrastructure managers.
I am, of course, following Mr Cramer’s approach here, who said all the right things.
We have to consider the entire corridor, from beginning to end, down to the last mile.
There must be EU funding for the cross-border sections, and one corridor should not be singled out in favour of others.
The project must be considered in its entirety and we must keep an eye on the bigger picture.
The ultimate goal is to rig out the entire European railway network, or at least the major lines.
We will therefore need to find a little more than those EUR 5 billion spread over 10 years.
The amounts involved will be of quite a different order.
I would like to see whether the railway companies and Member States are prepared to actually put that money on the table, because that bit of European funding is only a drop in the ocean.
There is no use pretending: we cannot act as if we are going to put a pile of money on the table.
One cannot expect miracles with just 1% of the Gross Domestic Product.
Member States and others refuse to face this reality and think that Europe, even if it has no money, should still be the driving force behind initiatives such as these.
Railway companies too will need to prove that the funding they have received is being spent wisely, that they will look after, and attract, customers with a view to achieving ERTMS’s main goal – namely improved use of the network – so that rail becomes a mode of transport that can compete with other modes of transport.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I am a staunch partisan of the European rail system, the success of which depends on three things: interoperability, funding and opening rail networks to competition.
In this report, the political centre of gravity tends to be the opening of networks to competition, in other words the market is paramount; whenever that is the case, road transport is always the winner.
I believe we actually want to focus on interoperability and find a way to finance it.
Moreover, the main issue at the present time concerning the introduction of ERTMS is how to fund it in such a way that the huge investment burden does not further handicap the railways in their efforts to compete with road transport.
From this point of view, may I congratulate our honourable colleague, Mr Cramer, on his report.
I am not sure that there was a need or obligation to assign priority to particular rail corridors.
On the contrary, I believe it would have been better to say that, every time a network is upgraded or a new line is opened, it must be equipped to the new standard.
I can scarcely imagine that any new line would not automatically be equipped in accordance with the new standard.
There is also, of course, a crucial question with regard to funding during the transitional period when the old and new systems have to exist side by side.
If this key question is not answered, national companies are liable to be wary.
If it is answered, Commissioner, I believe we shall win the day, and we need to win, because each of the Thalys power cars, as you said, has seven different command and control systems installed, and they also cost 60% more than other locomotives.
   First of all, I should like to thank the rapporteur Mr Cramer for the positive outcome we have ended up with.
It was not easy, given the sensitivities surrounding this issue.
The compromise amendments that were eventually approved are very important.
One of the points of discussion springs to mind, namely whether or not one corridor should be singled out.
Eventually, we decided in favour of six main railway corridors.
That is important, because we are thus sending out the message that they all count.
Whether progress will be made or not will depend on the efforts and willpower of the Member States and companies involved.
ERTMS’s ultimate aim must be for it to be universally applied, because a single European railway market cannot become competitive compared to other modes of transport if we continue to apply more than 20 different signalling systems.
That means, indeed, that we must tackle entire sections rather than opt for a piecemeal approach.
The main problem remains, of course, as most fellow Members have already mentioned, the funding of ERTMS, as well as that, moreover, of the other trans-European networks.
That is why we must be creative and extract funds from, for example, the Cohesion Fund and, possibly in cooperation with the European Investment Bank, collect additional funds.
These resources should at any rate be distributed evenly, but should also be spent wisely and effectively.
I wish the Commission and the ERTMS coordinator much success in this difficult balancing act.
   The next item is the report by Seán Ó Neachtain, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on inshore fishing and the problems encountered by inshore-fishing communities [2004/2264(INI)] (A6-0141/2006).
   The next item is the statement from the Commission on Level 2 implementing measures for Directive 2004/39/EC, the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MIFID).
   Mr Radwan, I must point out to you that it is not the Bureau that sets our agenda but the Conference of Presidents.
   The next item is the report (A6-0185/2006) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the protection of the financial interests of the Communities and the fight against fraud – 2004 annual report [2005/2184(INI)].
   . Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a parliament has many tasks.
Not only does it draft and simplify laws, but it also monitors certain decisions and the question whether those decisions have been carried out correctly.
One of those core monitoring tasks is to inspect the implementation of the budget: it has to check whether the more than EUR 100 billion which is used to carry out European policy has been spent well and correctly, whether European taxpayers’ money has been used wisely and efficiently and whether it ends up in the right hands.
For the 2004 budget year, the irregularities and fraud reported by the Member States amounted to nearly EUR 1 billion.
Whilst, in the past, we could see that most of those cases pertained to agriculture and to a lesser degree to expenses in structural policy, we can now, as Mr Bösch rightly said, detect a buck in the trend: there are now more reports in respect of the Structural Funds, and fewer regarding agriculture.
This drop within agriculture is, of course, wholly attributable to the effectiveness of the integrated control system.
Against this backdrop, I should like to emphasise that it is unacceptable that one Member State, Greece, should still remain in default seven years after the event.
Mr Bösch has managed to aptly summarise what has gone wrong, and he has not minced his words in doing so.
He used the extremely efficient method of naming and shaming, and quite rightly so.
Partly thanks to the support of the anti-fraud Commissioner, Mr Kallas, in the past year, we managed to force a number of Member States to publicise the final beneficiaries of the agricultural funds.
That has given us a good insight into the spending pattern of agricultural funds and into the anomalies.
More than anything, it taught us once again that the funds do not always end up with the farmers, but with major food giants.
I think that we should now take things one step further and force the Member States to publicise the final beneficiaries of the Structural Funds, including the Regional Development Fund and Social Fund.
I should also like to use this debate to pay tribute to the people of the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF.
They are doing sterling work, although they have sometimes come under criticism.
Mr Bösch is right in mentioning in his report a number of negative points, but we should always remember that enormous progress has been made over the past eight years.
I should like to finish off by saying a few words about two very fraud-sensitive areas, namely VAT fraud and cigarette smuggling.
VAT fraud must be addressed, and I welcome the Commission’s communication in that respect.
With respect to cigarette smuggling, I will be publishing an own-initiative report later on in the year.
I am delighted that, despite the fact that an own-initiative report will be issued, Mr Bösch has already devoted a number of paragraphs in his report to this very issue.
We have struck a deal with Philip Morris, and the money that we generate from this deal should be ploughed back into anti-fraud policy.
As Commissioner Špidla was right in saying, I think that we, along with the Commission, must examine how those funds should be used, for example in the Hercules programme.
We will need to put much of our time and energy into this in the coming months.
   – Mr President, instead of constantly looking for new sources of funding, for example in the form of new EU taxes, and instead of constantly increasing the level of expenditure, it is in my view high time to intensify the fight against fraud and waste.
It is precisely during the payment of EU grants – made at appropriate points throughout the Member States – that irregularities occur time and time again.
What is remarkable is the increase in fraud cases in several Member States of the EU.
Member States should, finally, either resolve their lack of administrative capacity in this regard or be made to make good the losses that arise from it.
In my view it is indeed important that we optimise OLAF and constantly look for new solutions to improve our fight against fraud.
However, all these changes will achieve little if OLAF dossiers are not rapidly processed, because the responsible officials in the Member States are overworked, and if the recovery of erroneously paid funds is not handled rigorously.
In my opinion, we must, finally, act decisively so that the fight against fraud does not just remain a pious wish.
   The irregularities in the management of EU finances to the tune of millions or even billions of euros exposed by Mr Herbert Bösch in his report have been a disappointment.
In this context, I would like to reiterate that the report deals with the year 2004, and hence irregularities in the new Member States accounted for but a fraction of the mismanaged amounts.
Thus, there is all the more reason for us to regard these revelations as a challenge.
If the old Member States with their long-term experience have not been able to ensure adequate transparency in dealing with EU public funds, there is no doubt that similar deficiencies can be anticipated in the new Member States.
Extremely disconcerting are the reported data on the quantities and value of smuggled cigarettes and branded counterfeit products, resulting in major financial losses to the Community.
The European Union’s eastern frontier is most vulnerable in this regard, especially in the stretch where Slovakia and Poland border on Ukraine and where Poland borders on Belarus.
I therefore urge that greater attention be paid to the protection of those regions and to thwarting illegal trafficking.
By the same token, I would like to point out that the regions in question are the poorest in the European Union and that the extent of smuggling is indirectly related to their economic situation.
Ladies and gentlemen, losses and irregularities affecting Structural Funds have increased dramatically during the period under consideration.
In 2004 these increased by 44% over 2003, totalling almost EUR 700 million.
This is both a warning and a challenge for us all.
The challenge, on the one hand, is to take effective steps targeting the affected Member States and, on the other, to identify systemic solutions that would safeguard the Community’s financial interests against fraud and other forms of illegal activity.
   Mr President, we note that there is a problem on the voting list: it suggests that, if Amendment 91 is adopted, Amendment 12 lapses, when in reality they are two complementary amendments, an a) and a b).
In other words, 12 does not lapse, but 91 is adopted or not adopted, and then we vote on 12.
   I was going to announce precisely that to you, honourable Members, when the time came to vote on Article 2.
In fact, contrary to what it says in your voting lists, Amendment 12 does not fall.
We shall attend to this in due course.
   I share your opinion, Mrs Kauppi, especially since I was the Vice-President in charge of holding the gavel yesterday evening at midnight when this debate took place.
I am therefore aware of the importance of this matter.
Indeed, this is a historic moment: the completion of the Lamfalussy process for the first time by this House.
   – () Mr President, I would in fact like to propose a simple structural change to paragraph 2, in order to render it more balanced and thereby to give it more force.
At the moment we have a general introductory phrase followed by a list of examples.
I propose removing the second part of the sixth indent and adding it to the introductory phrase, so that the call to punish those responsible applies to all the national authorities.
I also propose adding the word ‘hate’ to paragraph 2, which would give, and I shall read out the beginning to you: ‘strongly condemns all racist and hate attacks and urges all national authorities to do everything in their power to punish those responsible and to fight the climate of impunity with respect to such issues’ and so on.
   Mr President, in recital B we propose to insert the words ‘and anti-gypsyism’ after the word ‘homophobia’.
   I do not know if my explanations will be as clear as yours, Mrs Roure, but our Rules of Procedure are very clear.
As soon as a Member proposes an oral amendment, if thirty-seven other Members rise to oppose it, then it is not included.
It is as simple as that.
   Ladies and gentlemen, I am greatly disappointed by the European Parliament’s stance on ethical issues.
In particular, I disagree with the funding of research using live human embryos for reproduction purposes – this is prohibited in some Member States and contravenes the protection of human life and dignity from conception to natural death.
Despite these reservations, I have voted for the Buzek report on the Seventh Framework Programme, as I realise how important it is for the future of Europe and Europe’s bid to become the most competitive global economy.
I regard this Programme as something like a guide to the Lisbon Strategy.
It gives me hope that allocations for R[amp]D will help Europe retain its research brainpower and that it will be put to use to develop high-quality projects aiming to improve EU citizens’ quality of life in the environment, transport, energy and healthcare sectors.
Allow me to use my own country as an example.
Slovakia is relying on the Seventh Framework Programme, among other things, to complete the construction and deployment of a Cyclotron Therapy Centre.
This facility will be used to treat various forms of cancer with in-depth proton irradiation, which happens to be far less invasive than conventional radiotherapy.
To date, more than 40 thousand patients have been treated using this highly effective state-of-the-art therapeutic technique.
   – Mr President, I would like to state in the clearest possible terms that the members of the Austrian People’s Party support the clear stance adopted by the Federal Government on the Euratom issue, and that their voting is in keeping with the result of the public referendum in Austria.
I regret the fact that Mrs Niebler’s proposal on the ethical issues was rejected.
The Austrian People’s Party delegation declares itself clearly opposed to destructive embryo research.
   – Mr President, as a staunch opponent of nuclear technology and energy production from nuclear technology, it was natural for me to vote against the Buzek report at the end.
I also wanted to vote against Amendment 24 but had the impression that the voting device was not working.
I would therefore like to reiterate that I voted against Amendment 24.
   I used my vote to endorse Amendments 354 and 352 as a means of opposing funding of research activities aimed at the cloning of human embryos.
The proposal from the Committee diminished the safeguards in the original Commission proposal by allowing the funding of research on so-called supernumerary embryos, with no prohibition on funding activities which would be contrary to the Oviedo Convention (i.e. cloning for research and germ-line intervention).
I also strongly hold that national standards and legislation must not be overridden or diluted by EU activities, including EU-funded research.
   . I voted for this report.
The future of Europe depends on high tech, high skill, high value-added jobs.
These will be generated by high levels of research and development spending close to the market.
The money available is better but still inadequate, particularly in view of the bizarre wastage of the CAP, where Europe's cows live on more, with two dollars per day, than do 700 million Chinese.
I also welcome the passing of Committee Amendment 66, which will allow funding for stem cell research where it is approved by Member State law and subject to strict controls.
We all know people whose lives could be transformed on the basis of stem cell research.
I neither wish to deprive them of the political benefits nor drive the research from Europe to the Far East
   I totally oppose research on human embryos.
I voted for the Gargani/Záborská amendments. These amendments were defeated.
Because I believed it served the greater good, I then voted for Mrs Niebler’s amendments as recommended by Mr Gargani (and leading Christian organisations).
I did so in the belief that this would have restricted research to stem cells extracted from the human embryo (i.e. the embryo has already been destroyed) prior to 31.12.2003 and that new human embryos could not be created and then destroyed for research purposes.
I did so in particular because the other two sets of amendments (Committee and Purvis) would be next to be voted on and seemed likely at that stage to be carried.
This is the most unacceptable position for me.
As both the Gargani and Niebler amendments were defeated, the next amendment (Committee) was passed as I feared.
I voted against this.
I am not at ease with voting for Niebler but it is a better ethical position than creating new embryos for destruction.
Killing someone to take their liver for research is murder.
Taking the liver of someone already dead for research is different but still raises huge moral/ethical questions.
   . I voted for Amendments 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357 by Gargani, Záborská et al because they disallow EU funding for human embryonic stem cell research, leaving it up to the Member States to fund from their national budget if they so decide.
These amendments acknowledge the exploitative and ethically controversial nature of embryonic procurement and research and recognise that in order to fully respect the subsidiarity principle, EU funds should not be distributed to research that is illegal in various Member States.
Nevertheless, these amendments encourage research on other promising and non-controversial stem cell research such as adult and cord blood.
These amendments have already been approved by the JURI and FEMM Committees.
When the Gargani amendments failed to pass, I voted in favour of Amendments 319 and 358 by Niebler et al as a damage-control exercise.
These amendments allow EU funding for unethical use of existing embryonic stem cell lines created before 31 December 2003.
This is a compromise amendment.
It is an attempt at damage control because it removes the incentive to create new embryos for research and would hinder any progression to cloning.
   – This morning, Parliament voted for the Costa report on common rules in the field of civil aviation security.
As the holiday season approaches, when millions of passengers get ready to board planes for their dream destinations – some 16 million per year from Brussels National Airport – I feel it is opportune to highlight certain crucial security rules on board aircraft.
Whilst some people may grumble about having to observe stringent controls, I would say that this is the price that must be paid.
The general flow may suffer, but ultimately this will be to everyone's benefit in security terms.
This report is a series of revisions of a 2002 law that was adopted in the aftermath of the attacks of 11 September 2001.
All rhetoric about security should focus on the basic standards governing controls, surveillance, prohibited articles and security agents on board aircraft.
There is one sole objective, namely greater consistency in the policies aimed at ‘one-stop security’ throughout the EU.
   Racist violence, alas, is now prevalent throughout Europe and must be vigorously addressed.
I regret though that the resolution on this important subject was misused as a vehicle to attack internal government composition in Member States, which is the product of the democratic process and, frankly, beyond the remit of the European Parliament.
Such drove me to vote against the resolution.
In terms of the standards and ethics expected of democratic parties I very much regret that in Northern Ireland the Ulster Unionist Party has seen fit to invite into its Stormont Assembly Party the political representative of the UVF, an illegal organisation which has been mired in racist, sectarian and other violence.
Such shameful association not only diminishes those who so taint themselves but undermines what should be a united stand by all democratic parties against criminality, whether of the racist or any other variety.
   .
Homophobia and racism have no place in Europe.
Article 13 of the Treaty establishing the European Community prohibits any discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.
Particularly following the scandalous and distressing events in Moscow which took place on the fringes of the Gay Pride rally in May 2006, it is imperative that we send a strong signal regarding tolerance in Europe.
Last Saturday in Warsaw at the equality parade, I demonstrated against the increasing homophobic tendencies that are particularly prevalent in Poland, which is an EU Member State.
The right of European citizens to sexual self-determination is a human right which is defended by us social democrats here in Parliament, whether in Warsaw, Riga or Frankfurt.
I therefore voted for the motion for a resolution.
   .
The Austrian People’s Party delegation, like the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, has, in all the resolutions on the subject both this year and in former years, taken a stand against racially motivated violence and xenophobia, as also against discrimination against homosexuals, and in favour of the highest standards in human rights and the outlawing of discrimination.
It, too, therefore, has endorsed the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr Gaubert on behalf of the PPE-DE Group.
The ÖVP delegation has also, however, voted against the GUE/NGL, ALDE, Verts/ALE and PSE’s joint motion for a resolution on the grounds that these political groupings made no attempt to join with the PPE-DE group in fashioning a common text; another consideration is that there has been an inflation in this sort of motion for a resolution, and that this example of the genre is a purely political document characterized by many mistakes and generalizations, doing no more than using the themes of racism and intolerance as a pretext for sending out ideological messages.
   The EU is at present giving too much money to large fishing operators and vessels.
This should be redistributed for the benefit of small-scale fisheries.
I am therefore voting in favour of Amendments 7 and 9.
This investment in small-scale fisheries should be made within the existing budget framework.
Under no circumstances do I want proposed measures to lead to an increase in the budget.
   Mr President, according to Rule ... – I do not know what number – it is not permitted to be a salesman selling a commercial product in the Chamber of this House, which is what I believe Mr Wise has just been up to.
   – Mr President, in contrast to those who have brought in this motion, I have no fundamental objections to the Commission's decision, by which it has legalised a practice to which reference is made in, for example, the US-EU wine trade accord and in individual concessions accorded to third countries since 1984.
This motion has been drafted at the behest of the Italian Government, and it is for that reason that I wonder why it is that two Italian Members belonging to different groups have tabled it.
The Commission’s decision also benefits consumers, since the ‘barrique’ practice of maturing wine in wooden casks is traditional with white wine, but particularly so with red.
A wooden cask of this sort, made of oak and capable of containing 250 litres, costs between EUR 600 and EUR 800.
It can be used three times at most, so that red wine is at least a euro per litre more expensive if matured in a barrique than if wooden planks – to which there can be no objection on the grounds of consumer or health policy – are used.
It is in this way that this decision benefits consumers, who can buy high-quality wine at lower prices, and so my view of this is diametrically opposed to that of the motion’s authors.
To Mrs Batzeli, who said that the low-cost production of quality wines of this sort should not be allowed, I ask where we will end up if we in this House try to prohibit technological progress.
Of course this discussion needs to relate to the organisation of the wine market, but the fact that Italy asked for it put the Commission under pressure to act, and so I can give Commissioner Špidla my unreserved support.
From the consumer’s point of view, there is no problem.
We will have to give some thought to whether we should allow – ‘allow’, mark you, rather than ‘prescribe’ – positive labelling, in the sense that someone could, as an advertising tactic, use the description ‘matured in wooden barrels’.
That would deal with the competition problem.
It is in any case better to legalise this practice rather than, over a period of decades, to accept that many are doing it illegally, and so I think the approach we have opted for is the right one.
   Mr President, I wished to echo Mrs Lulling’s question regarding the COM in wine: why have you not awaited the debate?
Secondly, I wish it to be recorded in the Minutes that I have spoken on behalf of Mrs Miguélez Ramos, just as Mr Vatanen has spoken on behalf of Mr Daul.
   The next item is the debate on East Timor(1).
   The next item is the debate on Syria and human rights violations(1).
   – Mr President, having just, at short notice, taken over my colleague Mr Maat’s one minute’s worth of speaking time, let me say that I share his great concern about the human rights situation in Syria.
The right to free expression of opinion is, to all practical purposes, non-existent.
Repressive measures are taken not only against journalists and civil society activists, but also, and increasingly, against ethnic and religious minorities.
It is of the utmost importance that the EU should delay signing an association agreement with Syria until there have been substantial improvements in the human rights situation.
We all know that paper is patient; if we were to sign it, the pressure would be taken off the regime, despite the continuing arrest and torture of supporters of the opposition and even though the situation as regards freedom of opinion would not have changed and Syria was still not seeking reconciliation with Lebanon.
For the EU to put pressure on Syria is not to threaten it; on the contrary, I believe that it would constitute legitimate action against a pretty authoritarian regime on the part of a union of democratic states.
   The next item is the debate on North Korea and human rights violations(1).
   . – Mr President, the situation in North Korea, if one thinks about it at all, appears depressing and hopeless, but I find myself having, time and time again, to think back 25 years to the days when I was a young assistant in this House and was fortunate enough to have had a hand in the first resolution – which was in support of Charter 77.
There were three MEPs who worked very hard at the time to bring it about: Klaus Hänsch, who is still a Member here; Otto von Habsburg and Jiří Pelikán, who used to sit as an MEP for Italy.
Today, we find ourselves debating human rights under the chairmanship of a Czech president, with a Czech Commissioner, the Iron Curtain – not least thanks to the courage of the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe – having disappeared some 15 or 16 years ago.
That should strengthen us to hold fast to the truth that the inhuman communist regime in North Korea must disappear as well, and that it will do so.
Along with Cuba and a few others, it is among the last Communist terror regimes on earth, and we should deploy all peaceful means of exerting pressure – whether political or economic – in working towards the overthrow of this Communist dynasty and its repressive system, towards the release of the campaigners for freedom and resistance fighters in it, of whom there are over 200 000, for these people – who want nothing more than to practice a religion or to express their opinions freely – to be able to enjoy freedom of conscience, and the setting at liberty of those persons from Japan, South Korea and many other countries, who, on the flimsiest of pretexts, have been locked up in North Korea.
In the case of many of them, it is not known whether they are still alive, and an urgent enquiry needs to be made in order to find out where these individuals are; that is the very least that this regime must do.
It is for that reason that I would like to make it clear that we are right to make the demand contained in the motion for a resolution, namely that we should resume the human rights dialogue with this country that was suspended in 2003 and that we should ask the Commission and the Council to conduct, in that context, in-depth conversations on human rights.
We in this House, though, have, over and above that, the task of exerting massive pressure and of ensuring that the response to this is not in the form of words alone, but also of deeds and of the necessary political and economic pressure.
   Mr President, as various speakers before me have already pointed out, freedom, our first European value, for which many of the new Member States have had to fight for half a century, is the most important human right here on earth.
Alongside Cuba, North Korea, which is today’s topic, is one of the world’s last remaining Communist tyrannies.
Unless one is a faithful slave of the regime, human life is worth nothing to this ruthless Communist regime.
As has already been pointed out, in this Communist paradise, what little food there is goes to the privileged elites, the military and the security services.
The rest of the population is forced to abide by a rationing system, the so-called public distribution system, that has been designed in such a way as to ensure that everyone remains immobile and obedient.
Recently, the operations of the World Food Programme were suspended by the regime and the private sale of grain was banned.
A similar criminal policy in the early 90s claimed the lives of millions of people, and to think that some groups in this House fraternise with the people who keep such a regime alive.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 15 June 2006.
   We will now deal with the only item on the agenda, the joint debate on the European Council report and Commission statement on the meeting on 15 and 16 June 2006 in Brussels, and the statement by the Presidency-in-Office of the Council on the six months of work by the Austrian Presidency that is now coming to an end.
   . Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, in his first sentence, the President of the European Council stated that it was, and is, his intention to promote trust – and that is the most important thing within the European Union: promoting trust.
Our continent is a complex one, and unless we succeed in bringing the various participants together through trust, this continent does not have a future.
I would, then, especially like to thank you, Chancellor Schüssel, for making a success of promoting this sense of trust between our institutions and also between our citizens.
Our task is to listen, then understand, bring individuals together and then act together.
I will never forget the meeting that we, the chairmen of the parliamentary groups, had with you last December in Vienna.
At that time, we informed you of the preconditions under which we, as a Parliament, would be able to give our consent to the financial perspective.
We said that we could not agree to what had been decided by the Heads of State or Government, but that we instead wanted to do something to bring together young people, in particular.
We wanted more transparency and more control over expenditure, and all of this was achieved by means of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
It was due to us being so candid with you, and due to you listening to us because you understood our conviction, that we were able to come to an agreement in the end.
For this reason, I would like to express my sincere thanks to you, while also thanking the Commission and its President, Mr Barroso, for their support.
As regards the Services Directive, we also take some pride in the fact that we, as a Parliament, not only succeeded in bringing about a decent compromise, but also in using this as a basis for the Council of Ministers’ decision.
Mr Bartenstein, it was a sensible decision to invite members of the European Parliament to your informal meeting of ministers, thereby facilitating an exchange of views.
The constitution has now been mentioned.
Our Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats always believed that we needed this treaty.
If we have objected from the outset to declaring this constitution as being dead in the water, this has been because it has to form the starting point for a final solution.
This not only concerns Germany and France, but also the presidencies of Finland, Portugal and Slovenia.
Everything is connected.
If a link in this chain breaks, there will be nothing for the big countries to work on either and, consequently, the work of Portugal, Finland and Slovenia is just as important as that of Germany and France, from which, naturally, we expect something special.
We would like a result by the time of the European elections in 2009.
There has also been frequent mention of 25 March 2007.
We need joint action and I would particularly like to express my thanks to Commission President Barroso.
At this point, I would like to propose that we appoint a political working group made up of a representative from the European Parliament, a representative from the Council and a representative from the Commission, so that we can decide jointly on how the days in the run-up to 25 March, and after it, are to be organised and planned.
This is because there will not just be a summit taking place in Berlin involving the Commission and Parliament, but also, without doubt, something else happening in Rome.
Above all, we have to work together on preparing the declaration, which will be a model for Europe’s future, and it is for this reason that I am proposing this working group at a political level.
Chancellor Schüssel, tomorrow, or even this evening, you will have a meeting with the American President, together with the President of the Commission.
We should make it clear that Europe is America’s friend and partner.
We must achieve a result in the Middle East.
We have confidence in the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Olmert, and in the Palestinian President, Mr Mahmud Abbas.
The peace process is needed there and it should be set in motion together with our American friends.
However, because we are America’s friend, you must also be very resolute – and in this you have the support of our Group – and make plain your views on Guantanamo – which we believe to be incompatible with the principles of law, so you can tell our American friends that too.
We must look to the future.
While I very much welcome President Bush’s visit to Hungary in memory of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, we must also keep one eye on the present.
I have just met Belarus’s opposition leader, Mr Alexander Milinkevich.
In our meetings with the Americans, but also within the European Union, we should make it clear that we support democracy in Belarus, home of Europe’s last dictator, and that we are opposed to questioning the country’s independence.
If there is to be a referendum today on an affiliation or union with Russia, we say ‘No’ to such a referendum, because the result under a dictator is already a foregone conclusion.
If we want democracy in Belarus, then democratic parties first need to build a democratic state, and we can take it from there.
We should also do everything possible – including through the media – to support democracy and civil society in Belarus.
Now to my final remark.
I was the long-suffering leader of the parliamentary party back in 2000 when the issue was raised of how to deal with Austria.
As the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, we always believed in the Austrian Government, and in its Federal Chancellor, Mr Wolfgang Schüssel, in particular.
This trust has now been justified and I hope that those individuals who were critics at the time are now big enough to say ‘thank you’ and show their appreciation for Mr Wolfgang Schüssel and the Austrian Government.
   , Mr President, I would very much like to thank the President of the Commission and Chancellor Schüssel for their help in enabling Denmark and Austria to retain their bans on fluorinated greenhouse gases, and I would like to thank all my numerous fellow MEPs who, last Tuesday, voted in favour of the groundwater rules also taking the form of a minimum directive.
Total harmonisation should much more often become minimum harmonisation, so that countries are encouraged to go further in the fight for security, health and the environment.
It is also some small degree of progress that codecision in the Council will from now on occur in public.
Last year, out of a total of 3 124 laws, the EU adopted 57 laws in this way.
What we are managing to get done in public is thus still only the tip of the iceberg.
The general principle will continue to be that the EU adopts its laws in 300 secret Council working parties, assisted by 3 000 other secret working parties under the auspices of the Commission.
The national parliaments get to decide about the principle of subsidiarity.
Seize the opportunity – allow COSAC to deal with the annual programme until October.
That was the praise; now for the criticism.
In my opinion, Chancellor Schüssel should be ashamed of calling for the ratification of a Constitution that has been rejected by the people of the Netherlands and of France. Why does he not dare ask his own Austrian people what they think of the Constitution?
Why is Finland now to ratify a text that only 22% of Finns support, while 48% are against it? EU Heads of State or Government, be warned – you are heading for a confrontation with the peoples of Europe.
Choose yourselves some new populations instead; or start afresh with a convention directly elected to draw up new texts that can then be put to referendums in every country on the same day.
That way, it is the citizens who decide.
That way, there are no longer closed meetings, like in North Korea, Cuba and COREPER.
   Mr President, beyond Chancellor Schüssel’s bonhomie, I think we can sense his frustration at the problem of shepherding 25 fairly feline characters towards agreeing a mandate for a fresh intergovernmental conference.
Now that you are becoming freer from the constraints of the Presidency, Chancellor Schüssel, would you wish to push forward the debate by sharing with us your top priorities as subjects, as chapters for renegotiation inside Part III?
   Mr President, the new buzz-phrase ‘absorption capacity’ has filled newspaper columns all over Europe. What does this phrase actually mean?
Is it just a codeword for ‘Operation Stop Turkey’? Does it not show an exceptional lack of leadership and a failure to support and explain the advantages of enlargement?
We can see, after all, that trade, growth and consumption have all risen since May 2004. Stability and democracy have been strengthened, and Europe is better equipped to face our common problems.
Expansion must not be used as a scapegoat.
Political leadership means forming, leading and shaping opinion.
I welcome the moves to increase openness made at the meeting of the European Council in Brussels, but I regret that the question of the seat of the European Parliament was not raised.
This matter is an important question of credibility for the whole of the EU and it needs to be discussed in the course of the upcoming overhaul of the Treaties.
So far, over 610 000 people from all over Europe have signed the citizens’ initiative for there to be a single seat for the European Parliament.
If you ask the people for their opinion, you must also listen to what they say.
Chancellor Schüssel, have you signed the proposal?
   – Mr President, Mr Federal Chancellor, I would like to follow on from Mr Swoboda’s contribution.
Putting up 158 sign posts in Carinthia is a first step, a small obligation based on a supreme court verdict and the terms of the 1955 treaty.
Much more generosity is, however, due to this small and ever decreasing Slovenian minority.
Austria should show the same understanding towards its own minority as for the Southern Tyroleans, the German-Italian minority in Italy.
One more word on the Brenner Base tunnel project: it is proving to be a bottomless pit for taxpayers’ money.
We need to alter our transport policy.
Without this, the railway will not stand a chance.
We need to improve our existing railways before embarking on isolated projects on such a huge scale.
   Mr President, last week in Strasbourg, I condemned the brazen contempt that we show for public opinion, for the views of voters and for democracy itself when we repeatedly disregard the verdict of successive referendums.
Nowhere is this contempt for democracy better illustrated than by the actions of the Austrian Presidency.
Both the Austrian President and Chancellor Schüssel have come to this house calling for the resurrection of a European Constitution which is dead in its own terms.
Yet, as Eurobarometer studies show, Austria is the Member State where opposition to the Constitution is the highest, at around 80%.
Chancellor Schüssel, you have called for referendums on the Constitution, so why do you not offer a referendum to your own people? Can it be because you know you would suffer a humiliating defeat?
How can Austrian leaders show such total disregard for public opinion? I can only think of one plausible explanation: perhaps Chancellor Schüssel is unhappy in his job and is hoping that the Austrian people will vote him out of office!
   For fifty years the Slovene ethnic minority in the Austrian part of Carinthia has waited for the implementation of Article 7 of the Vienna State Treaty, and now that Austria holds the presidency of the European Union, the time has finally come to implement at least some of the rights secured for the Slovene minority in the Constitution, principally that of bilingual topography.
These issues are being resolved at present, but are currently in violation of a number of international minority protection standards.
The 10/15 formula does not implement the judgments of the Constitutional Court of Austria.
A compromise solution may be to initiate rather than terminate the legal protection of the Slovene minority.
This is precisely the objective: to resolve the issue of bilingual topography once and for all.
Raising the profile of such a compromise to the level of constitutional law would, in practice, abolish Article 7 of the Vienna State Treaty and prevent its unilateral revision and any breaches of international law.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Tuesday 20 June 2006.
   The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting on Thursday 29 June 2006 pursuant to Rules 130 and 131 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
The following amendment has been proposed.
A request has been received from the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, pursuant to Rule 168, to return to committee the report by Mrs Roure on the protection of personal data (police and judicial cooperation), the vote on which was scheduled for tomorrow.
Do you wish to explain the committee's proposal, Mrs Roure?
   Thank you very much, Mrs Krupa.
I must point out that they have not only written to you.
The President of Parliament has also received a letter from the President of the Polish Parliament expressing his concern and rejection of the resolution adopted by the European Parliament.
That letter has been passed on to the members of the Conference of Presidents where it will be subjected to political analysis at its next meeting.
   – Mr President, I should like to denounce before the European Parliament today's unacceptable decision by FIFA to suspend the Hellenic Football Federation and to ban the staging of international matches in Greece, the country which organised such spectacular Olympic Games and in which the sporting ideal was born.
In its response to a question about the legal framework of professional football, the competent Commissioner, Mr Figel, told me that the national authorities are basically responsible for clarifying the legal framework relating to the staging of sports at Member State level.
The Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, has to ensure that Community law is fully respected and applied.
FIFA has passed a decision that undermines this vertical relationship between the European Union and the Member States and is unacceptable.
The Commissioner said, and I quote, that FIFA and UEFA, insofar as they are engaged in economic activities, must ensure that they comply with the legislation of the European Community.
We have case law.
   Mr President, there is something to which I should like to draw your attention.
On 10 July 2003, Sibel Yalvac, a 21-year old, mentally-retarded woman from Rotterdam was arrested at the airport of the Indonesian capital of Djakarta.
On 6 April 2004, she was sentenced there to 10 years’ imprisonment for smuggling drugs.
Two independent Dutch experts, a psychologist and a probation officer, have examined Sibel and declared her to be not fully .
She has difficulty distinguishing between cause and effect, is gullible, has a great deal of fantasy and cannot count to 12.
Sibel has been exploited by ruthless criminals for their drugs trade and now faces years of hell.
It so happens that in Indonesia, each year around Independence Day, which falls on 17 August, there is a possibility of gaining amnesty.
Together with my fellow countryman, Mr van Bommel, who is a member of the Dutch Lower House, I have started a campaign to ask the Indonesian Government to be lenient and, given her special circumstances, to grant Sibel amnesty.
On behalf of Sibel and her desperate family, the ‘Help Sibel’ campaign is asking for your support in this matter.
   Mr President, a few days ago, on 29 June, the 120th anniversary of the birth of Robert Schuman took place, one of the founding fathers of a united Europe.
It is a shame that this anniversary went by so unnoticed; it is a shame because I do not know how this honourable statesman would feel if he were here today and could see how the European Parliament is breaking yet another barrier protecting the human species from destructive biomedical experiments.
We have to call a spade a spade.
The funding of research into human embryos and embryonic stem cells under the Seventh Framework Programme, a Programme which is necessary in other respects, creates a dangerous testing ground with respect to . Human embryos are not objects; they are the beginnings of a human being just like you, like me and like all of us.
How does this fit in with respect for the Charter of Fundamental Rights, for instance, which states in Article 1 that ‘Human dignity is inviolable. It must be respected and protected’?
How does this fit in with respect for the legislation which is binding in many Member States of the European Union, including Poland? How does this fit in with respect for the religious beliefs of many Europeans?
That is why I appeal for reflection and for halting this decision.
   Mr President, 18 months ago I was one of the signatories of the appeal, signed by over 50 Members, which called for Parliament to support the opening of accession negotiations with Turkey.
I also voted in our Parliament for the door to be opened to Ankara.
It is therefore all the more regrettable that today there are reports in the world press of another attempt on the life of a Catholic priest in Turkey.
The priest is injured but has survived the attack.
Sadly, this is not the first attack on a clergyman, a non-Muslim, in that country.
The previous attack had a tragic end as the priest was killed.
Personally, I am worried about Turkey’s failure to respect religious freedom.
I am not the only one who is worried.
This makes the road to European Union membership longer for Turkey.
Even supporters such as myself, who are in favour of enlarging the European Union structures to include this country, believe this to be the case.
   Thank you, Mrs Badia.
Thank you for alerting me to the existence of the letters from the Presidents of the Parliaments of Catalonia and Galicia, which are not scheduled to be put to the Bureau today.
Parliament’s services will ascertain whether those letters have arrived or whether they are still on their way to us.
The Irish peace process is at a critical juncture.
The Irish and British Governments have set 24 November 2006 as the date for agreement to be reached among the political parties.
However, Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party has shown no interest in power-sharing or in progress and it has been allowed by the two governments to prevent progress being made.
The Irish and British Governments must act to bring about the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, which is an international treaty.
I urge the Finnish Presidency to encourage everyone concerned to make progress and would ask Parliament and the President to join in this call.
Without such progress, the peace process is in danger of unravelling further.
   Mr President, in his written declaration, the Communist Daniel Strož accuses Estonians of mass execution of Jewish people during the Second World War.
It is a harsh lie which is not based on fact.
On the contrary, Jewish people have lived side by side with Estonians as one family for centuries.
Already in 1925, Estonia adopted an act of cultural autonomy for ethnic minorities.
It was an extraordinary event in the whole world at that time, and Jewish people entered our state in their golden book.
During the Second World War, Estonians helped and rescued Jews, and in memory of that, a tree of gratitude has been planted in Yad Vashem Park in Jerusalem.
Estonia was the only occupied country where provoking programmes did not succeed.
I do not know what made Daniel Strož publish it.
Was it foolishness or something else? It does not matter.
   The next item is the interim report by Mrs Wallis, on behalf of the Committee of Inquiry into the crisis of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, on the crisis of the Equitable Life Assurance Society [2006/2026(INI) (A6-0221/2006).
   .
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mrs Wallis, who is a very experienced lawyer and an excellent rapporteur.
We have heard a whole series of reports prepared by Mrs Wallis which have been characterised by outstandingly precise legal language and a brilliantly clear description of the facts.
Mrs Wallis is also a member of the Committee on Petitions.
I have the honour and pleasure of working with her on that committee and I always regard her work with great respect.
This also applies to the report we are discussing today.
The case of Equitable Life was first sent to the Committee on Petitions.
The committee is very pleased that the case is being discussed at a plenary session of the European Parliament.
Insurance matters are incredibly sensitive issues.
We all remember well the Lloyds case which we recently looked into.
These are cases which are damaging to large numbers of people, in this case the many thousands of people who trusted the insurance company Equitable Life with their future.
Just when they reach old age it turns out that they have been left without means and a great injustice has been committed against them.
We must look into the matter very carefully but there is also another matter related to this case and that is the effectiveness of our actions.
Mrs Wallis very aptly said that it is not simply a matter of implementing or adopting the directive but a matter of both implementing the directive and involving everyone who is affected by the directive.
Therein lies the problem which we often face, namely that decisions of the European Parliament as well as those of other European bodies are sometimes not as effective as they should be.
It should be important to us, when Parliament adopts a certain position, for that position on the matter (at the moment I am thinking of the insurance cases, and the Equitable Life case in particular) to be enforced in its entirety, so that it does not merely end with a Parliament decision or a Parliament resolution.
It must end with the making good of the damage done to a very large number of people, and the effectiveness of our work is incredibly important here.
Mrs Wallis proposed in her report that our House should address this matter and adopt a position which would facilitate the work of the committee in the future.
I strongly appeal for all the suggestions put forward by Mrs Wallis in her report on behalf of the Committee of Inquiry to be supported by the House.
I congratulate Mrs Wallis and I hope that a satisfactory conclusion will be found to this matter as well as for those people who have suffered damages as a result of the Equitable Life case.
   Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Wallis, for an excellent interim report, as also the Chairman, Mrs McGuinness, who will, I am sure, be a thorn in the side of the regulators and ensure that we can get to the bottom of what actually happened with Equitable Life.
Equitable Life is the world’s oldest assurance company; right up to the end of 1999, even Westminster MPs’ pension funds were still being invested in the company.
Thousands of investors have lost money because of the cost of over-bonusing ‘with-profit’ life assurance policies.
Many assurance companies offer with-profit policies – I have several such policies myself – but provided the company does not pay out more bonuses than it can afford the system works perfectly well.
In my opinion, from the mid 1990s until 2000 the Equitable Life Assurance Society over-bonused its with-profit policies, which showed on paper at least that Equitable Life had the best results of all major assurance companies, thus encouraging people to take Equitable Life policies out.
The problem is that the cost in real terms of overvaluing the policies meant that Equitable Life paid out nearly GBP 6 billion more than it earned between 1997 and 2000.
No assurance company, however large, can afford such sums.
From the information and evidence collected for the committee, it all seems very convenient that so many people carrying out the checks and balances of the company came very late to the party: i.e., the present board of management took over in 2000 after the company had all but ceased taking on new business; the Financial Services Authority was not created until late 1999, so it is not responsible for what happened before it came into existence; the financial actuaries advising the UK Government before the FSA was formed maintain that Equitable Life was always solvent, although one actuary giving evidence to our inquiry did admit there are up to six ways of valuing an insurance company.
The committee has heard from many people who invested in Equitable Life and who have lost a great deal of money, which has caused them great hardship.
The committee will carry on its work and we are determined to find out what went wrong with Equitable Life so that these problems do not happen in the future.
We will try to get the best deal for those who have Equitable Life policies.
   As a company, Equitable Life was in financial trouble for a long time.
However, the growing crisis was concealed from policyholders.
What is worse, new policyholders were solicited and presented with a false impression of a company with a secure future in which their funds would prosper.
The regulators failed.
In 2001, Equitable Life lost a case in the UK that made it impose exit penalties on UK policyholders, though money for Irish policyholders was supposed to be ring-fenced and safe.
Despite this, two years later in 2003, exit penalties worth about 20% of the value of Equitable Life policies were imposed on Irish policyholders.
The regulators failed.
Since this time Irish Equitable Life policyholders have lost their investment, which in many cases means their life savings.
They have been denied justice by the UK, Irish and EU authorities though they are entitled to redress and protection when regulators fail.
Their case has been before this Parliament’s Committee on Petitions for a year and a half.
It is time for this Parliament to stand by the victims of failed regulatory mechanisms and to insist that an equitable settlement be finalised for the policyholders of Equitable Life.
   – Commissioner, I am very sorry that today, you did not understand why we raised this question and invited you to this Chamber.
It certainly was not because we wanted more market rules, but because we lack political leadership backed up by the European Union's strategic guidelines for financial market development.
We all know very well that the European Union has fine traditions of principles-based financial regulation.
These principles must be proclaimed.
We miss the declaration of these principles, and because of this feel confused in the market which leads to various rumours, various opinions.
Hopefully, now that we have an excellent European model, which developing markets also follow readily, we will be able to protect it; however, at the moment, it seems that the Commission's, forgive me, hesitation is allowing that model to be washed away.
Take, for example, those prospectus directive amendments which are now being debated.
It seems that we are waiting for some sort of intermediate result – a transatlantic average, which will not mean anything good for either Europe or the USA.
In truth, we ought to say honestly that we have different views and perhaps then we can try to respect and recognise each other's position.
Talking of clearing and settlement market regulation, we must recognise that this is a complex matter which perhaps needs to be solved gradually.
We should also have our own European view and not align ourselves with decisions made by large conglomerates.
Because doing nothing is not a liberal position.
When the regulator does nothing, then the law of the jungle takes root in the market and the market is ruined, and most importantly innovations are ruined, which we really do not want.
   Mr President, many colleagues have already asked what we are doing today in discussing stock exchange mergers in Europe.
Of course it is not for the European Parliament to decide on the kinds of mergers that can occur and the kind of activity on the market.
It is also up to the Commission to make judgements on whether the Euronext-Frankfurt Börse merger is better than the transatlantic one.
We need to look at the kinds of opportunities the transatlantic merger might give us, especially in terms of the transatlantic financial services dialogue which, I think, has been the most fruitful example of what we can do together if we really cooperate with the US SCC.
I want to congratulate the Commissioner on the amount of progress made.
I think if the market forces decide that we will have a transatlantic stock exchange, that will be a huge opportunity for regulatory convergence.
It is not about extra-territorial Sarbanes Oxley rules coming to Europe; the point is also that we can put forward our strategic models, our very good technological platforms and put them to very effective use in the US.
We have been negotiating, for example, about the issue of electronic trading screens in the GATS negotiations.
We have been trying to get our trading screens to US stock markets and vice versa, but this has not happened.
That kind of transatlantic stock exchange merger would be a huge opportunity for regulatory convergence and allow the job that has been done so well to continue in the future.
   Mr President, I do not think my question on the consolidation of the banking sector and whether there was anything in the Muscat report that could give comfort to the stultifying of the savings bank structure in Germany was answered.
   The next item is the report (A6-0217/2006) by Mrs Wortmann-Kool, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the proposal for a Council regulation repealing Regulation (EEC) No 4056/86 laying down detailed rules for the application of Articles 85 and 86 to maritime transport, and amending Regulation (EC) No 1/2003 as regards the extension of its scope to include cabotage and international tramp services (COM(2005)0651 C6-0046/2006 2005/0264(CNS)).
   The next item is the report (A6-0196/2006) by Mr Alvaro, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on information on the payer accompanying transfers of funds (COM(2005)0343 C6-0246/2005 2005/0138(COD)).
   The next item is the report by Mr Szejna on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs on recent developments and prospects in relation to company law [2006/2051(INI)] (A6-0229/2006).
   Mr President, I, too, should like to congratulate Mr Szejna on his report.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, our group could have quite happily added a whole load of things, but we whittled them down to a few points only, namely those also indicated by Mr Lehne, whom I should like to thank for his willingness to compromise.
Like Mrs Berès, though, I think that what we have added to the amendments for the plenary is not in conflict with that compromise.
I shall return to this point in isolation later.
In his report, Mr Szejna has opted for a wide approach, which appeals to me.
Unlike Mrs Cederschiöld, I think it important – and that was also subject of the debate that was held earlier this evening – that enterprises should not simply be the property of shareholders.
Shareholders have shares, but enterprises are more than simply a piece of paper or an investment object.
Enterprises function in the real economy where interests other than those of shareholders are at play.
That is why I should particularly like to stress recital F and general point 3, the section concerning employee participation in corporate decision-making and the thesis that is expressed in this report that this should also form an integral part of corporate governance and of company law.
I hope that Mr McCreevy can agree with Parliament on this and can ensure that this will also play an important part in future dossiers.
In the light of the fact that it is of major importance that this cannot be circumvented by, for example, the European company and a change of office, we have tabled a number of amendments to that effect.
I hope that Mr Lehne will revisit this issue – even though he does not seem to be listening at the moment – to see if he can support those.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
   The next item is the report (A6-0201/2006) by Caroline Lucas on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety on reducing the climate change impact of aviation [2005/2249(INI)].
   I would like to remind the author of the report that the European Parliament is often called the flying parliament.
Flying as we do every week to one of the EU's capitals, we should be particularly concerned about making aviation a more environmentally friendly mode of transport.
In policies concerning the effect of aviation on climate change, the ‘polluter pays’ principle must be upheld.
It is regrettable that air transport does not cover the external expenditure which arises as a result of its effect on the climate.
The logical thing would be to include aviation in the EU's trading system for greenhouse gas emission allowances.
The funds raised by the collection of such taxes could be invested in new technology dedicated to the production of ‘cleaner’ aircraft.
The expansion of rail and bus transport could reduce both the pressure on overloaded airports and the pollution emitted by aviation.
Unfortunately, the rail and road networks in Lithuania and the other Baltic countries are not integrated into the EU's infrastructure.
They are outmoded and overloaded.
If the ‘Via Baltica’ and more importantly the ‘Rail Baltica’ projects fail to receive special EU attention, it will be a long time before rail and road transport in this region are able to help aviation.
   The next item is the report (A6-0230/2006) by Mrs Eija-Riita Korhola, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the application of the provisions of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters to Community institutions and bodies [PE-CONS 3614/2006 – C6-0156/2006 – 2003/0242COD)].
   Mr President, the EU has problems with its image.
There is all too little transparency, and it is too hard for committed citizens to participate in the decision-making process, as the previous speaker so eloquently described.
The Aarhus Convention, governing the conditions for participation by NGOs in the environmental legislation process, has addressed this issue.
This splendid Convention has been ratified by all the Member States, but clearly has not been implemented as it properly should have been.
Now it is the EU that is to ensure that this legislation is implemented.
There have been many problems achieving this state of affairs on a basis that is merely more or less consistent, but so numerous have been the improvements introduced as a result of the second reading that we in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance will support the proposal, even though it is far indeed from being as good as it could have been if the EU had lived up to its own fine words about being there for the people.
It is, however, a pity that the Commission’s clear text on access for NGOs to the European Court of Justice has been watered down by the Council and by Parliament.
It is now not at all clear whether this access actually exists.
We hope, however, that future cases will work out in favour of the NGOs, and thus of the EU.
   .
Mr President, in my constituency in Ireland there is a battle being fought.
Men, women and children are standing guard everyday in Pallaskenry, County Limerick, blocking their county council from cutting off the pipes which supply them with the clean, spring-fed lake water that they and their ancestors have been using for thousands of years and from forcing them instead to take a supply of water from the River Deal, one of Ireland’s most polluted rivers.
In another stand-off in Bantry, County Cork, people are camping out at strategic positions, blocking workers sent to run unnecessary over-the-ground high-voltage power lines across their farms.
These groups are not only in the blockades but they are in the High Court, at great personal expense, and are being threatened by our justice system with prison.
With Aarhus these situations should not be happening in Ireland.
Is there anything you can do to help us? Our government has signed the Aarhus Convention, which makes our government look good among its nation peers, but our government is one of the few signatories that refuse to ratify it and to give it effect.
The Aarhus Convention demands that we the people contribute information and have access to it, that the people are part of every decision taken about the environment and that we have affordable and ready access to justice when it is necessary to protect the environment and the families in it.
By not ratifying Aarhus, the Irish Government thinks it can continue its practice of riding roughshod over its people, whilst kowtowing to any and every wealthy investor, regardless of the damage it will do to people’s lives, health and environment.
This report seeks to urge a better application of Aarhus, but we in Ireland have no application.
Please put pressure on the Irish Government to finally ratify Aarhus, even at this late date, and see the people as an ally rather than an enemy in the effort to protect the environment.
   The next item is the report (A6-0231/2006) by Johannes Blokland, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on batteries and accumulators and waste batteries and accumulators and repealing Directive 91/157/EEC [PE-CONS 3615/2006 – C6–0154/2006 – 2003/0282(COD)].
   Mr President, thank you, Mr Blokland, for a long fight that eventually led to an acceptable result.
The Council was pulled this way and that by the industry’s lobbyists and fought against the best interests of consumers and the environment.
I wonder what EU citizens would say if they knew that a majority of their governments were fighting against the consumers’ right to know the capacity of the batteries they buy.
The Council wants us to buy a pig in a poke.
What would voters say if they knew that the Council did not want batteries to be easily removable so that they might be recycled easily or have their lifetime extended? What would voters say if they knew that their governments were fighting tooth and nail to obtain the lowest possible level of liability in respect of extremely poisonous heavy metals?
As luck would have it, Parliament succeeded in putting most things right, but, scandalously enough, cadmium batteries in hand tools are still permitted.
On this issue, the industry lobby unfortunately won, both in the Council and in Parliament.
Thank you, Mr Blokland. You have done a good job, and I shall vote in favour of the report.
   Mr President, I would like to take advantage, as Mr Schulz has done, of my right as a Member of Parliament and to take the floor briefly.
I regret that you and the Conference of Presidents decided to dedicate so much time to the debate on Francisco Franco but did not permit even a minute to be spent discussing another terrible massacre which took place in Katyń.
It was something I asked for on behalf of Poles and all those who died there.
I very much regret the decision not to grant my request.
   It gives me great pleasure to be able to welcome for the first time to this House the Finnish Presidency—in-Office, represented by Mr Manninen, the Finnish Government's Minister for Regional and Municipal Affairs.
   . – Since the outset of negotiations on the Structural Funds for 2007-2013, we have stressed that a properly funded, proactive EU regional policy is a prerequisite for effectively reducing regional imbalances at EU level and for genuine convergence between the Member States.
As regards the Community budget, regional policy should be an instrument of much-needed, fair redistribution, which will at the very least reduce the detrimental impact of the internal market on the economically least-developed countries and regions.
Consequently, we must adopt a critical stance as regards this General Regulation on the Structural Funds, which translates into legislative terms the Interinstitutional Agreement on the amounts, the objectives and the implementation rules of the Structural Funds for 2007-2013.
This Agreement represents a reduction in the Structural Funds from 0.41% of Community GNI in 2000-2006 to 0.37% for 2007-2013, despite the fact that the need for cohesion is all the greater following the enlargement and that, in view of the economic and social disparities, the trend ought to be upward rather than downward.
Therein also lies the reason why, for example, the so-called statistical effect regions, such as the Algarve region of Portugal have not been completely compensated, something that we consider unacceptable.
We also object to aspects such as the subordination of Cohesion Policy to the objectives of the so-called Lisbon Strategy, with the inclusion of the objective of allocating at least 60% of funds in the convergence regions and 75% in the other regions towards funding projects laid down in the Lisbon Strategy.
In other words, cohesion is playing second fiddle to competition.
I should lastly like to lend my backing to Mr Henin's remarks about certain cross-border regions, such as Hainaut in France and Belgium, which has differentiated access to the Structural Funds.
This situation must be rectified so that the region can grow harmoniously.
   May I inform the House that there was not a problem with the interpreters this time.
Mrs de Brún began by speaking Irish.
Irish is now an official language. Yesterday the Praesidium decided that Irish may also be spoken in plenary if prior notice is given.
   This is definitely an instance where work by, and cooperation between, the Commission, the Presidency and Parliament can be evaluated positively.
Today there is reason to hope that the concerns that protracted discussion of the financial plan would lead to delays in implementing the Structural Funds will prove to have been groundless.
I would like to stress here that it is especially important to adopt the Community Strategic Guidelines on cohesion policy, and also to finish work on state aid, and state and private sector partnership legislation.
I believe that the compromise achieved for the Cohesion Fund and the large ERDF projects during the transition stage, applying the n+3 principle, is insufficient and must be retained beyond 2010 until 2013.
I therefore do not agree with the opinion expressed in Parliament’s report on the Cohesion Fund regulations that the n+2 principle should be applied to all funds, including the Cohesion Fund.
It must be taken into consideration that the new Member States lack the practical experience and human resources for managing such projects, and therefore the n+2 principle will be difficult to implement.
I support developing closer links between cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy.
Both these policies are aimed at increasing economic growth and employment competitiveness.
   Mr President, by taking the floor in the debate on the regulations on structural fund spending, I would like to draw your attention to three serious omissions relating to the matter.
Firstly, the appropriations for commitments under section 1B, namely spending on growth and employment, are over EUR 30 billion less than was previously proposed.
This must have resulted in significant cuts to the resources for individual countries.
In Poland’s case, these cuts amount to over EUR 3 billion.
Secondly, the dispute within the Council, which went on for many months, led to a serious delay in the adoption of the Financial Perspective.
This has contributed to the fact that we are only discussing regulations on the structural funds in the second half of 2006.
Thirdly, this delay will mean that the so-called Community strategic support framework will not be drawn up until the autumn of 2006 and the national strategic reference frameworks, prepared by individual Member States, will only be drawn up in 2007.
This situation will mean that the procedures for programming resources from specific funds will be significantly delayed.
Unfortunately, as a result, 2007 will to a large extent be a wasted year from the point of view of making good use of structural funds.
   Ladies and gentlemen, today we are debating and tomorrow we will be asked to approve the well-drafted reports on structural funds for the 2007–2013 period.
In this context and as a citizen of Slovakia, a new Member State in the European Union, I realise the great importance of structural assistance given by the economically strong Member States to the new members.
We truly appreciate this assistance to the Slovak Republic: we are grateful for it and feel beholden.
In particular, I am pleased by the fact that the agreement between the European Parliament and Council supports the measures proposed by new Member States, also known as the N+3 rules, which address issues such as VAT and housing.
This is a good and long overdue solution, as evidenced by the fact that all MEPs from the new Member States voted for these proposals during the first reading in this House.
For this reason, the Greens’ report on the general provisions of the Cohesion Fund seems to be a document we would be better off without, and I do not recommend approving it.
   Mr President, regional policy is second only to the agricultural budgets in constituting the most important European investment in terms of integration and achieving the Lisbon and Gothenbourg objectives.
For example, the funds payable under competition policy in Objective 2 areas, together with the research and development budgets, form the basis for a development of cohesion policy up to 2013, as well, I think, as thereafter.
Although, as we heard today, transparency and the production of results will take centre stage over the coming years, not least in the debate on the mid-term review of 2010, what the European people want is for Europe to become visible and tangible.
This is what Plan D – with D standing for development – is about; it is about more than just the pumping out of money from funds, contrary to what the Member States say as they, meanwhile, collect more money with scarcely any sense of responsibility about it, and the promotion of Europe is not forthcoming.
I have a question for Commissioner Hübner: can she produce additional initiatives on behalf of the public, as regions and cities have just done? The public and the partners in regional policy ...
   After the words ‘calls for the setting up’, enter the phrase ‘by the end of 2006 of a committee of wise persons’.
After this, the sentence continues as normal: ‘and report back six months after the establishment of the Committee’.
This amendment takes place after having also been circulated among the shadow cabinets.
   Mr President, in view of the real floods of migrants, illegal immigration into Europe and associated crime are increasingly becoming a burning problem.
The only way we will be able to save these illegal immigrants from perishing most miserably on the journey or eking out their existence in the EU under slave conditions is to carry out educational work in their countries of origin and be strict about sending illegals back home.
That is what is called for now, as we should conclude from the Cavada report.
   . Today we have had the debate on Structural and Cohesion Funds and cross-border cooperation.
As far as the latter is concerned we have had this experience in Northern Ireland for many years and it has worked.
However, recently this has not occurred.
ICBAN – one of the longest established funding bodies has through its make-up become unbalanced.
On the ICBAN board there are twenty members, only three of whom are now from the unionist community.
The body is no longer balanced and is now discriminating against the unionist community.
It no longer has the support of unionists in the area.
This body has responsibility to spend EUR 25 million in the coming years.
This is an unacceptable situation which must be brought to an end.
If this discrimination continues then ICBAN funds must be frozen until there is total fairness.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to explain why I voted against the Lamassoure report on the EU’s system of own resources.
I voted this way along with the other MEPs from the Czech Civil Democratic Party (ODS).
I strongly believe that the reform of the EU’s system of own resources agreed between the Council and the Commission is a decent compromise, which Parliament should not have torpedoed.
On the contrary, Parliament would have been well advised to show its support for such progress.
Above all, we welcome the fact that no European tax will be introduced in the foreseeable future.
Broadly speaking, the current system works and guarantees proper funding of the Union.
There is therefore no real reason to jettison it and replace it with a new system.
Accordingly, I cannot accept the critical stance of the Lamassoure report.
   Even after the British rebate is taken into account the EU is scheduled to cost the UK £4 298 million in 2006.
Considering that the net cost has been of this order every year, it is staggering just how much of our national resources we have poured into the black hole of Europe.
And for what? Think of the real infrastructural change this vast volume of money could have made if spent internally on the real needs of the UK since 1973.
Though there are now 25 Member States, the UK this year will contribute one eighth (12.4%) of the total budget revenue of £83 billion required to fund the EU in 2006.
Little wonder the tide of Euro-scepticism continues to rise.
At a time of acute pressure on our health service and vital education sector, it is appalling that we are wasting so much taxpayers' money on a failing political union.
With Blair having agreed to surrender the British rebate by stages and as the real cost of enlargement builds, the situation will only get worse.
   I voted in favour of the excellent report by my colleague, Mr Lamassoure, on the proposal for a decision of the European Council on the system of European Communities’ own resources.
In order to move ahead with the construction of a political European Union, we urgently need to reform its budgetary framework.
The difficult achievement of an agreement on the financial perspective 2007-2013 by the European Council in December 2006 and the Commission’s proposals do not make the Union’s funding transparent, since it appears that we are getting further away from the principle of budgetary equity which currently underpins the Member States’ contributions to the Union’s operations.
The debate on own resources, against the backdrop of the prospect of a federal Europe, will probably be one of the thorniest political issues to be faced in the future.
Nevertheless, in the immediate future and in view of the current deficiencies in European finances and those of the main net contributing Member States, I wonder whether the time has come to set up a great European investment loan in order to fund all of the major infrastructures (space, motorways, high-speed railways, communication technologies, ports, airports, and so on) which are necessary for economic development and social progress.
   We have today voted against Mr Lamassoure’s report on a Council decision on the European Communities’ own resources.
While it is important that a budget process that is more efficient and transparent be created for the EU, we reject any notion of future tax-levying by the EU on the likes of energy, VAT or corporate income.
   . I abstained on the Lamassoure report on own resources even though it included several good ideas for improving the present system.
I could not agree with the rapporteur's view about the UK abatement.
I remain convinced that this is justified under the present system and that wider reforms need to be undertaken before any further changes are made to the UK rebate.
   . Bearing in mind that the US budget, for one year alone, amounts to USD 2 500 billion, it is obviously untenable for the EU to have, for everyone, a budget of less than EUR 1 000 billion for 2007 to 2013.
Initially, and in order to give itself some room for manoeuvre without increasing its budget, the European Commission is gradually eliminating the common agricultural policy and Europe’s small farmers in order to recover most of the EUR 45 billion spent each year on the agricultural budget.
Hence, the unlikely position taken by the European negotiators who, at the meeting of the World Trade Organisation on 30 June 2006, accepted, behind the scenes, a 50% reduction in our customs duties, thereby leaving Brazil with a monopoly on food.
The basic problem remains intact, however.
Everyone knows that, as from 2014, Brussels-centred Europe will be doomed to increase its budget and to create a European tax.
Behind the smoke and mirrors, the Lamassoure report’s talk of own resources raises the political issue that has been dragging on since 1951 and that concerns the actual emergence, by way of a single market and then a single currency, of a political state.
What the euro did not do and what the Constitution failed to do, because the nations woke up to what was happening, taxation is set to do between 2014 and 2019.
Taxpayers have been warned.
   . The UK Conservative Delegation abstained on the final vote of this report.
We endorse many of the proposals in the Szejna report on developments in and prospects for company law, in particular, the need to apply better regulation principles, the necessity to take account of the needs of SMEs and the importance of developing best practice which respects the different traditions and systems of Member States.
We also support many of the detailed proposals for improving transparency and the rights of stakeholders.
However, there are a number of proposals that we cannot support, as they would introduce additional EU regulations in areas where there would be no demonstrated benefits to the evolution of an effective internal market for financial services.
We also endorse the benefits for companies of involving their employees in workplace decision-making, but reject the imposition of any ‘one size all’ statutory model of participation.
We therefore voted against Paragraph 3 and Recital F.
   – Mr President, I wish to explain my vote on the Lucas report, which in common with the other MEPs from the Czech Civil Democratic Party (ODS) was a vote against.
Air transport has undergone rapid development over the past 40 years, which has led to a 40%-plus fall in emissions and noise.
There is no scientific evidence that we need the kind of excessive regulation proposed in the Lucas report.
Raising fuel taxes will reduce the competitiveness of Europe’s air carriers and raise prices for the end user.
Weakening the competitiveness of air transport will hamper the EU still further on the world stage.
This is simply further evidence of the current fashion for environmental concerns, which is why we voted against.
   . I voted for the Lucas report on the impact of aviation on climate change.
I fully support action to combat the climate change impact of aviation.
I also support the principle of the inclusion of aviation emissions in the Emissions Trading Scheme and hope the Commission will come forward with a workable proposal.
I abstained on a number of paragraphs simply because I do not believe the impact of the proposals has yet been fully evaluated.
For example, I abstained on the call for an end to VAT exemption for air transport because it is not clear if this will help tackle climate change or merely hurt the less well-off traveller.
   I voted in favour of the excellent report by my colleague, Mrs Korhola, on the compromise reached with the European Council on the draft regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council in the field of information, public participation and access to justice in environmental matters.
I am pleased that wisdom has been applied to this difficult issue, the legal complexity of which has greatly delayed its political adoption.
The transparency achieved for programmes funded by the European Investment Bank is excellent.
The role of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has quite rightly been defined in this measure by referring to ‘responsible’ NGOs.
The compromise achieved by Parliament’s delegation led by Mr Vidal-Quadras is fundamentally satisfactory and well balanced.
Adoption at third reading is, in the end, a success for the European Parliament.
   Mr President, it is no coincidence that my colleague, Mr Bushill-Matthews, and myself have asked to speak in this debate.
We come from the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom, a region that has historically been very dependent on the car industry, which has been through many cycles of plant closures and change.
The other day I went to speak at a school in Coventry and I said to the children: ‘You know where that Blockbuster video store and that supermarket are? In the 1980s I worked in a car factory there that employed 20 000 people’.
There is nothing new about this.
We are treating it as if it were new.
Investment will create jobs and deliver the solution to the problems that many colleagues on this side have talked about: investment in new cars, investment in new factories, investment in robots that will cut the cost of production, and investment in quality.
I ask Mr Schulz where that investment is going to come from.
It is going to come from profits.
What the car industry is short of is not bleeding hearts; it needs more profits to invest in those new products.
That is going on in the successful companies.
Another factory I worked in during my 30 years in the industry – the Oxford plant of what was the British Motor Corporation – is now one of the most successful car plants in England, which produces the Mini.
You see them all over the place, you see them in America.
BMW – the owners of that plant, a German company – is investing GBP 250 million to make a new car there and we thank BMW for that.
It is going to create another thousand jobs.
An engine that was made in Brazil is now going to be made in Birmingham, in my constituency.
I say to my friends in Portugal – and many of them will be speaking shortly about these issues: come and talk to those of us who have lived through that problem before.
One of the saddest days of my life was when I went to the Longbridge car plant to meet the receiver of that plant, which had gone bankrupt.
I started work there in 1967 when it employed 25 000 people, and now I walked into an empty factory.
That is the reality of industrial life.
It has been there for a long time.
The issue is how we deal with it.
We need better employment, we need full employment, we need retraining, and we need to help people who are made redundant to get new employment.
If something cannot be saved, we have the responses to it.
We have been involved at Longbridge, where 5000 people were made redundant.
We are working at Peugeot at the moment and in other areas.
Come and talk to us about the practical things that we are doing and stop complaining in this Chamber about the problems.
We have all been through them every day.
Let us not have another debate like this.
Let us think about a positive way forward.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am tempted to go back over Mr Harbour’s remarks.
While he has experienced redundancies and restructuring, I myself have been made redundant three times due to economic developments and restructuring in the Nord Pas-de-Calais, in France.
The Socialist Group in the European Parliament is in favour of a policy enabling businesses to create jobs, to modernise and to promote economic development.
Yet, when it talks about economic development, the PSE Group is also talking about social support, with a view to creating wealth, but to redistributing it too.
Europe must demonstrate its European social model.
That is the reason why we have worked collectively and why more than 80% of us voted in favour of a report on restructuring and employment, in which we state that we certainly need to provide for a form of support, but that we also need to enlighten Europe about what we are and about what we do.
We voted in favour, by a very large majority, in an effort to say that, if Europe provides economic aid and public money and if it becomes clear at any given time that a form of ‘subsidised tourism' exists, then that money must be reimbursed.
General Motors, where last year more than 500 000 employees were affected by restructuring, is one such example that is of concern to us today.
We are not complaining, but we do believe that everyone must be respected, and employees in particular.
Restructuring is necessary in order to keep our businesses economically competitive.
It still has many consequences for all that.
In the case of General Motors today, as in many cases of restructuring, Europeans are awaiting a strong response from the Union.
Mr Barroso gave us this response by calling on the new Finnish Presidency to embody the Europe of results.
Well, the Europe of results starts here, in this Chamber, with a strong signal sent out to the employees who are currently in difficulties.
Support measures must of course be taken, concerning training and aid, but we must ask ourselves as from today how the public money that has been distributed will be paid back.
   – General Motors is making thousands of European workers redundant.
Last year 9 000 jobs were lost in Germany.
This year 900 job losses have been announced in the United Kingdom, and more recently the closure of the Azambuja factory in Portugal, which has been in operation for decades and where 1 200 people work, was announced.
I should like to take this opportunity to greet the representatives from the Azambuja factory who are in the Chamber today and to express our solidarity.
When we speak about thousands of redundancies, these are not just big numbers, not just statistics, not just percentages, they are human, family tragedies, and I am appalled that some Members of this House have shown a lack of awareness of this situation.
The closure of the Azambuja factory affects us all as it could be another stepping stone towards the dismantling of other General Motors factories in the EU and the subsequent relocation of those factories to the east – to Russia and to Asia.
This is why this debate is worthwhile.
It is a good thing that Mr Schulz took the initiative of scheduling the debate, to give us a chance to obtain some answers.
Firstly, what can be done to prevent the closure of the Azambuja factory? This debate should also help multinationals to realise that they cannot simply use and discard; they cannot receive incentives such as Community funding or tax breaks in one Member State and then head off to another in an attempt to obtain further support and more benefits.
Closing down factories cannot be normal.
It must be something avoidable and we, and the Commission, must of course do everything possible to ensure that this does not happen again and that the globalisation adjustment fund be implemented when things take a turn for the worse.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Azambuja situation is alarming.
Thousands of workers, some of whom are here in the Chamber today, are under threat of redundancy.
This applies to thousands of support businesses and workers’ families in Azambuja and neighbouring areas, as well as to the General Motors workers themselves.
I recently met with the Portuguese Workers' Commission, the Mayor and with my fellow MEP Mrs Madeira, but I should like to say at this point that the issue has a broader, European-level scope.
We know that General Motors has had strategic difficulties and that it has called for Renault Nissan to step in and help with the management.
This does not, however, exempt the company from their responsibilities.
The resolution that we have tabled confronts General Motors with its European responsibilities, and states very clearly what is happening in Azambuja.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, strategic changes and business restructuring must take into account the fact that workers are human beings and not just factors of production.
The EU needs to have a clear strategy, a more appropriate means of dealing with such problems if it wants to have a European social model that functions properly.
The resolution that we tabled is a step in that direction.
   The next item is the report (A6–0204/2006) by Mrs del Castillo Vera, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on Implementing the Community Lisbon Programme: More Research and Innovation – Investing for Growth and Employment: A Common Approach (2006/2005(INI)).
   This own-initiative report on the implementation of the Lisbon programme comes at the most appropriate moment now that we are on the eve of finalizing the negotiations on the new Cohesion Policy legislative package.
The revival of the Lisbon strategy's growth and employment objectives is an important aspect of this renewed legislative framework as too much delay has already been taken on the aim of making Europe the most dynamic and competitive knowledge based economy.
In this respect, I can only support the report of Mrs. del Castillo Vera and its emphasis on improving the European research and innovation environment.
More specifically, I would like to welcome the focus on the potential of small and medium size innovative enterprises for achieving Lisbon agenda's objectives as well as the demand to foster public and private funding to optimise Community's financial support.
Finally, I it is worth underlining, according to Mrs. del Castillo Vera own-initiative report, that there is indeed an urgent need to better harmonise the coordination and the cooperation between the different national strategies if we really want to raise Europe's growth and employment potential.
   The next item is the report (A6-0206/2006) by Mr Calabuig Rull on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy on a policy framework to strengthen EU manufacturing towards a more integrated approach for industrial policy (2006/2003(INI)).
   . The question is quite clear.
One of our principal objectives was to end BSkyB’s longstanding monopoly concerning the broadcasting of live Premier League matches and I think that this objective has been achieved.
In particular Setanta has now emerged as a viable competitor to BSkyB and will be able to exercise commercial and pricing pressure on BSkyB.
The sale of the live TV rights to two rival broadcasters already provides consumers with a greater choice than before.
How much of an impact this will have will depend on the commercial strategies of BSkyB and Setanta.
It is far too early to say whether the level of competition that this has introduced will be enough.
However, given the position of third parties and of the national authorities, if the consumer does not benefit from the FA Premier League’s current process, it is inevitable that there will be more discussions at national level about these issues in the future and that would be the time to deal with the Premier League.
The Commission’s Article 9 decision cannot and should not prevent this.
As the honourable Member is aware, not all the competition problems have been resolved, nor would I want the decision to be used against national authorities or courts should they wish to intervene further.
I am extremely grateful for the efforts, help and support of the OFT and Ofcom in this case.
   Thank you very much, Commissioner, on this auspicious evening for German – or possibly Italian – football.
Can I ask if you are serious? Trying to break up the TV monopoly over premiership football has been a complete dog’s breakfast.
As a football fan, I still have absolutely no choice.
I have to subscribe to BSkyB another channel if I want to follow my team.
Does the Commission appreciate that buying a random collection of football matches is not what 90% of people want? They want to follow their team.
Why have you cut up the cake in the way you have? It should be cut up so that I can choose to watch my team’s matches, not get a couple of them and twenty matches I do not want to watch.
Will you look at this again?
   Question No 37 will not be taken, since it deals with a subject that is already on the agenda for today’s sitting.
   – Do you not see a connection between the examples of contempt for the freedom of the media, the restrictions on civil society in the new Act on NGOs, the human rights violations in Chechnya and the conditions under which these prisoners are being held? The connection is that they do not actually comply with Russian law.
These men were convicted in Moscow Oblast, so they should also serve their sentences there, but after their show trial, which I witnessed myself, I do see a connection there.
If it is possible for something to be treated with contempt here, then it will be.
   I should like to ask you about the Khodorkovsky case.
Recently Anatoly Yermolin, a deputy in the Russian Duma, spoke in the European Parliament and reminded us of the attack on Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
He was injured recently.
Mr Yermolin stated that only the attention of Russian democratic forces and especially the democratic countries of the West can save his life.
Do you think that the Commission is paying enough attention to that case?
   . I can confirm that the Commission will continue to follow the issue of prison conditions in Russia, as I have just pointed out, including the situation of Mr Khodorkovsky and Mr Lebedev.
It will do so with a view also to considering whether the EU as a whole should raise this matter at the next round of human rights consultations.
   .
I can tell the honourable Member that, where energy is concerned, we are only just beginning negotiations, but we have already – at the European Summit in Sochi – addressed in no uncertain terms the important issues of transparency, reciprocity and rules that are fair to all, and these will of course form an important part of the partnership and cooperation agreement, the mandate for which the Commission has just adopted, as soon as we start negotiating with the Russians.
These basic rules will, then, have an influence, and there will be agreements specific to each sector later on.
It is now time to begin the practical work in preparation for the renewal of the EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, as the current agreement is due to expire in 2007. How does the Commission envisage the future agreement?
Is it intended that the agreement will be limited to the four road maps for common spaces?
Is it intended to widen the scope of the current agreement or, indeed, to narrow it? How will the Green Paper on a European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy, adopted by the Commission in 2006, be reflected in the new agreement?
Various signals are coming out of Russia regarding a possible future agreement.
Some Russian politicians and political analysts are expressing the opinion that the EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed in 1997 was not helpful to Russia because it was unfair and had been dictated by Brussels.
What is the Commission’s view of statements of this kind?
   During yesterday’s meeting with the Finnish Government in Helsinki, Mr Barroso said that a free trade agreement with Russia is possible.
However, there are some governments who think that this can be achieved only if Russia becomes a full member of the WTO.
What does the Commission think about this and what is now the way forward after this initiative by Mr Barroso yesterday?
   . Madam President, the Commission does not believe that the expression ‘right of permanent residence’ is necessarily a contradiction in terms since the notion of residence, which is understood to be the period during which a person lives in a place, may be long, or even permanent.
Furthermore, this notion has not been the subject of the kind of remarks suggested by Mr Tarabella, whether during the preparation of the text by the Commission, during the discussions on the directive at the Council or here, in the European Parliament.
As regards the second observation, the Commission notes, as a preliminary point, that, as stipulated in Article 18 of the Treaty and confirmed by the case law of the Court of Justice, the right of residence derives directly from the Treaty for EU citizens whose residence papers serve only to acknowledge that right.
In line with that idea, one of the major objectives of Directive 2004/38/EC was to simplify the administrative formalities attached to the right of residence.
In accordance with this text, EU citizens do not have to obtain a residence permit in their Member State of residence, as simply registering with the competent authorities is enough, and this, I might add, is only required if the host Member State deems it necessary.
In that case, a registration certificate is immediately issued to EU citizens, on presentation of their identity cards or passports and of proof that they fulfil the conditions attached to the right of residence.
After five years of continuous lawful residence, EU citizens obtain permanent right of residence, which is no longer subject to any conditions, and, if they should request it, the host Member State must send them a document attesting to this right.
To conclude, as the same Directive 2004/38/EC also stipulates, the Member States, acting in accordance with their legislation, shall issue to their citizens an identity card or passport indicating their nationality or, as the case may be, renew such documents.
It follows that a host Member State may not issue identity cards, in the strict sense of the word, to non national EU citizens.
These citizens must always have their identity cards, or passports, as issued by their countries of nationality.
These should refer, as stipulated, to their identities and nationalities and, if required by the host Member State, citizens should have a certificate, issued by the latter, stating their right of residence.
   . Yes, of course we are thinking about this communication strategy.
In my own view, the best way to show the public how important it is to abolish powers of veto is to give them concrete examples.
One such example is an initiative concerning a minimum standard with regard to procedural rights, where we are still in a stalemate after two years of discussion precisely because of the unanimity system.
Again, for example, when we talk about cross-border police cooperation, we are still blocked after 18 months of very difficult discussions because of unanimity.
These are concrete examples for the public.
Does the public think it is useful to have procedural rights or police cooperation at European level? Then please help us.
   That cannot be so, Mrs Panayotopoulos-Cassiotou, for we have very often both been here for Question Time, and I know that I have very often given you the floor, since you are among those who – I am very glad to say – are very assiduous participants in it.
Nevertheless, the fact is that we can still only have questions in blocks of time, with twenty minutes per Commissioner; that is how it is laid down in our Rules of Procedure, and the second part, with questions to Commissioner Frattini, had taken us well over twenty minutes already.
It is at that point that I have to interrupt.
The questions will be answered in writing.
We have now moved on to the third part of Question Time, as the Rules of Procedure require.
I am sorry.
There is nothing intentional about this.
   As you yourself said, that was not a supplementary question, but I really would ask you to have another look at what the Rules of Procedure say about how Question Time is organised.
It was conducted perfectly correctly, and the order of questions was not disrupted.
Those questions that cannot be dealt with orally will be answered in writing, and your Question No 54 will be one of those that gets a written reply.
   . Following the Commission’s reply to the honourable Member’s question earlier this year, we have asked the Irish authorities for clarification as to the implementation in Ireland of Directive 96/71/EC.
The deadline for the submission of observations by the Irish authorities has not yet passed.
Once these observations have been received, the Commission will assess them and of course, if necessary, decide on a further course of action.
In the meantime, we have adopted a new communication concerning guidance on the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services.
In this communication we have announced the adoption in spring 2007 of a report that will examine the situation in all Member States, of course including Ireland.
   On the issue of the race to the bottom, I should like to ask you to comment on the statement by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, when he said that when enlargement happens in January, Ireland may not open the market to workers from Romania and Bulgaria, because other Member States are not so doing and because of the concerns as to what will happen to the Irish market in relation to this race to the bottom and the rights of workers.
Could you comment on that in particular, and would you urge other Member States to do what Ireland did in relation to the new Member States already here?
   The next item is the report by Mr Calabuig Rull on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy on a policy framework to strengthen EU manufacturing – towards a more integrated approach for industrial policy (2006/2003(INI)) (A6-0206/2006).
   The next item is the recommendation for a second reading by the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the Council common position with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and the Council laying down technical requirements for inland waterway vessels and repealing Council Directive 82/714/EEC (13274/1/2005 C6-0091/2006 1997/0335(COD)) (Rapporteur: Renate Sommer) (A6-0208/2006).
   . Mr President, as the rapporteur said in her introductory remarks, a happy outcome is worth waiting for, and she was not wrong in that.
The document currently before us, and, in particular, that which this House could – and did – contribute to it, is something that can help promote free inland waterway shipping, and that free inland waterway shipping is what we need.
If we want to make the flow of traffic through Europe more generally compatible with the environment, we need proper rules, consistent with each other, for inland waterway transport, and the Commission, in its midterm review, is quite insistent on that – Vice-President Barrot should take note of the fact that I was listening very carefully the last time.
What is called for, however, is not just one single regulation, but the interlinking of all rules applicable to inland shipping, and we must make improvements to the planning of routes, that is to say, the TENs, to the support frameworks – including Marco Polo II – and, not least, the technical rules and regulations, and must bring them up to present-day standards.
A happy outcome is worth waiting for, and our group, the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, thanks Mrs Sommer, the rapporteur, for the valuable work she has done.
We hope there will be large majorities tomorrow, and will play our part in bringing them about.
We will have a few more things to do to the network.
As you have just said, Mr Vice-President, Naiades is the next draft act whereby we have to ensure that the opportunities are actually used and that Europe’s waterways as a whole can make a substantial and constructive contribution towards handling the flows of traffic.
What is important in this regard, particularly in relation to Naiades, is that we must not concentrate only on Western Europe: rather, especially now that the Danube is open, we must ensure that the whole European waterways network may grow together into a sound, proper and safe unity.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to thank the rapporteur Mr Stockmann for his very good work in finding a compromise between many and highly divergent opinions.
I believe that the most important matter for those present, chiefly members of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, is to reach agreement after six years of work on that version of the reading that is also acceptable to the Council.
To procrastinate on amendments and regulations setting technical requirements and administrative procedures in such a fast-growing business sector as aviation is, I believe, no longer permissible or forgivable.
For this same reason, namely the development of the sector, we must insist on a two-year deadline for completing the evaluation of Section Q. With regard to the compromise reached with the Council on the so-called non-regression clause, I believe that it is sufficient and I do not give credence to the concerns that have been expressed regarding mistrust of some European Union Member States which might, so it is thought, reduce flight-capacity time-limit safety standards to the lowest mandatory EU standards.
Finally, the Community-wide recognition of steward training programmes and the possible licensing of stewards as an additional means of increasing aviation safety will also have a very important effect, one that is often discussed in Parliament and especially by the left wing: it will allow members of this profession to compete within the Community and receive equal pay and social guarantees, regardless of whether they are from old or new Member States.
I will not use the time remaining to me so as to allow the honourable rapporteur to watch his team play.
   Mr President, Mr Vice-President, I would like to start by seizing this opportunity to thank the rapporteur, Mr Stockmann, most warmly for this fine report; it is a particular cause for rejoicing that he has managed, despite the problematic underlying issues, the various interests at stake and the length of time that has elapsed, to safely guide this report through to the point where it can be voted on.
There are various reasons why this ‘EU-OPS’ regulation represents an important milestone in the history of air safety: the amount of air traffic in Europe is continuing its constant upward trend; European airspace is one of the most overloaded of the areas in the world through which aircraft pass; and, if the safety of air passengers is to continue to be guaranteed everywhere, then the further development of uniformly high standards of safety is a matter of urgent necessity.
The black list, which was published a few months ago thanks to Mrs de Veyrac, has already set high standards for airlines – mainly those from outside Europe – and similarly high standards now need to be applied to the European ones.
Pilots from certain EU Member States will have the pressure taken off them as a result of the new framework conditions established by EU-OPS in respect of limits on working and rest time, and that in turn will improve passenger safety.
The European Air Safety Agency (EASA) will be producing a medical/scientific study on this, which will serve as a basis for the Commission’s proposed revisions.
In my own report I will be discussing at length the EASA’s functions and areas of responsibility.
I would like to take this early opportunity to observe that uppermost in my mind is the safety of the passengers and of all the crew, and that I will not lose sight of that while drafting my report.
Mr Stockmann has already made a considerable contribution in this respect, and has, in doing so, made civil aviation a good deal safer already.
I will endeavour to play my part in ensuring that firm arrangements are made for the allocation of powers to, and coordination of, the various air safety agencies, with it being clearly indicated who shall be required to comply with the agencies’ instructions.
   The next item is the report (A6-0174/2006) by Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council directive on the supervision and control of shipments of radioactive waste and nuclear spent fuel (COM(2005)0673 C6-0031/2006 2005/0272(CNS)).
   Mr President, I ask that Mr Farage’s description of the President of the European Council as ‘not a democrat’ be recorded in the Minutes.
   Mr President, my dear fellow member of the Convention Prime Minister Vanhanen, I think it was brave of Mr Vanhanen to offer to begin the ratification process for a treaty that should have been dead and buried after the referendums in France and the Netherlands. Why is there now a lack of courage in Finland?
Why does he not dare put the Constitution to a referendum? On the same day as we visited the Prime Minister in Helsinki he got his President to sign the draft Constitution, to which she is opposed.
This happened just a few hours after Finnish television had published an opinion poll showing that only 22% of Finns back the Constitution, while 48% oppose it.
I think that Mr Vanhanen should be hiding behind his prime ministerial gown.
At the Convention, the Prime Minister worked for transparency, democracy and proximity to the people and supported the call for the Constitution to be put to referendums in every Member State.
Make the requirement for a referendum in every Member State a condition of acceptance by Finland, thus putting into practice the transparency you heralded.
Put all the documents from the entire legislation process on the website.
Open up all meetings to the public unless a majority of the countries actively request this not to be done.
The Prime Minister signed the draft at the Convention with his own hand, in common with all the other elected representatives there.
Put it to the next meeting of the Council of Ministers.
Twenty of the 25 governments have also signed up.
The draft can be adopted by a simple majority of the 25 Member States.
Promises ought to be kept.
I call on our Finnish President-in-Office to be brave and stand by his signature.
I am sure that the Prime Minister would only make enemies in the EU’s secret COREPER government.
The peoples of the whole of Europe would love him if he were the one to open the locked doors to this remote Union.
I hope that there will be something to say thank you for in December.
   Mr President, I have a request for you, Mr Vanhanen, now that your work on extending the competence of the EU is to be taken further.
I fully support your proposal to change cooperation in legal affairs so that we will now have majority decision-making.
This would indeed mean stepping up our joint effort to combat terrorism and the terrible trade in women.
As I say, I have a request for you, Mr Vanhanen, from one Liberal to another, so to speak.
Make sure that we do not end up on a slippery slope.
There are many worrying signs.
Examples include the cases involving data protection, the handing over of passenger lists, the CIA flights and now the most recent case involving the company Swift, which has allowed American authorities to monitor European bank transfers.
We must be vigilant in ensuring that our fundamental freedoms are not violated and that we do not compromise our rights unduly for the sake of the fight against terrorism.
By this I mean that we must not unduly compromise our freedom for the sake of our own security.
There is a very fine balance to be struck here, so think about this when you get down to work.
Work well, and with zeal!
Mr Barroso, from one small country to another: have a good match tonight and may the best team win!
   Mr President, the Finnish Presidency will not just be a transitional presidency, but a key presidency from the viewpoint of the EU’s most important strategy, the growth and jobs strategy.
This will decide the future of Europe, but you have to start somewhere.
In the revised Lisbon strategy, we decided that we need to start from research, innovation and technological progress.
We will be unable to do this, Prime Minister Vanhanen, without launching the 7th Framework Programme on time.
A common position of the European Council is needed as early as July to allow Parliament to start work on the second reading in September.
I appeal to Prime Minister Vanhanen to ensure that this is done.
There has to be constant collaboration between the Council, the Commission and Parliament if we are to finish the job in November at the latest.
However, what is important as well as the 7th Framework Programme is funding for research and innovation from national budgets.
I wholly support Prime Minister Vanhanen’s statement on this.
Our greatest weakness as Europeans is lack of innovation.
I believe that the European Institute of Technology will be able to help us here.
We already have an excellent European education system, and we do not need to reproduce it.
We have reasonable research, but we lack innovation and the latest technologies which are decisive to growth and employment and which are important for our strategy.
A decision on the EIT is an important task for the Finnish Presidency.
The triangle of knowledge – education, research and innovation – is Finland’s strongest card.
The decisions on these matters have therefore come at the right time.
We wish Prime Minister Vanhanen success.
   Mr President, I am much obliged to Mr Vanhanen, who made it clear in his speech that he wishes to win over the public, to further the development of Europe and to move over to specific action.
I congratulate him on this motto – it is a motto for the future, and has my full support.
We want specific projects, and the Services Directive is one such project.
Mr Vanhanen has expressed the desire to conclude the Services Directive at second reading in autumn.
I am confident that we can succeed in this, as the decision of the Council of Ministers to incorporate and further develop Parliament’s fundamental demands provides the basis for doing so.
I am confident that it will prove possible to reach a compromise on the Services Directive under the Finnish Presidency.
I should very much like to see this.
This is an expression of the common will to make a commitment to the community of values for the public.
After all, that is what we want to achieve – and Mr Vanhanen expressed this very clearly in his speech: we want to develop the community of values, determine Europe’s future and ensure not only that we have a free internal market, including for services, but also that there is respect for citizens’ rights, labour law, social legislation, consumer protection and patient protection.
That is what we want to achieve, and it is also the way to really ensure that citizens say ‘yes’ to Europe in future.
That is the best thing we could achieve.
The matter of prime importance is the Constitution for Europe, and that is the best present that Mr Vanhanen could give himself on the 100th anniversary of the right to vote in Finland.
   . Mr President, yesterday, Israeli’s Defence Minister, Amir Peretz, held the Syrian President, Bashir al-Assad, responsible for the welfare of the captured Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit.
In doing so, he backed up his argument by reference to the terrorist command of Hamas, which operates under the of Khaled Meshal in Damascus.
Do the Council and Commission share this view and if so, how do they think this may impact on European relations with Syria?
A second question to the Council and Commission concerns the functioning of European monitoring on the border between Egypt and Gaza at Rafah.
A prominent Israeli analyst has described this EU mission as a complete failure.
Before Europe’s and Egypt’s very eyes – probably literally in the case of the Egyptians – weapons and terrorists are entering the Gaza strip.
I would ask the Council and Commission what their reaction to this is.
Given yesterday’s Palestinian rocket attack in the centre of the Israeli city of Ashkelon, this is an urgent matter.
   Mr President, on a point of order under Rules 149 to 164, I rise to ask why it is Parliament cannot be organised, via the Presidency or its administration, to have votes at the proper time, on time, when required.
Votes should take precedence over everything else and should be at a fixed time, so that inconvenience is not caused to everyone by having votes at ridiculous times such as this.
   Thank you, Sir Robert.
I did check.
This morning’s debate was slightly prolonged because of the Finnish Prime Minister’s speech, which lasted 45 minutes.
You will recall that Finnish has too many vowels for any serious language.
That is what prolonged it.
I should like to announce to colleagues that Terry Wynn will be retiring from the European Parliament this week.
I am sure that we would all like to thank him for his distinguished work, especially as Chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
   Mr President, for me as a newcomer from one of the new Member States, it was feasible to jump into the chair of the Committee on Budgets because I had an eminent predecessor.
Chairing the Committee after Mr Wynn is like flying on autopilot.
For me he is, and will remain, a great master of European finance.
All the best to you, Terry.
   . Mr President, inaccuracies in the German translation of our compromise proposal on cabin crew have caused confusion among some of my fellow Members.
These inaccuracies are found in Amendments 20, 22 and 24(1).
The authoritative version is the English ‘where relevant’, which translates into German as ’ and not , which would be ‘if relevant’.
   Mr President, unless I am mistaken, according to Rule 153(3) of our Rules of Procedure, the share of the vote just now should have led to rejection.
That is how it appears to me, though I could be wrong.
   Mr President, I regret that the Commission did not take the floor.
The decision we have just taken on nuclear exports is relevant to the forthcoming G8 Summit.
Based on this morning’s debate, I expect the Commission to raise the issues of human rights and the environmental situation in the Urals in relation to the Mayak and Chelyabinsk reprocessing plants with President Putin on site.
   It gives me great pleasure to welcome Emma Bonino, the Italian Minister for European Policies and International Trade, to the House today.
   There can be no doubt that the only effective way of combating organised crime and crime tourism is by strengthening cross-border police cooperation.
In this connection, the Schengen Information System, or SIS, in particular, seems to have proved itself in everyday policing. Indeed, owing to its speed, many alerts are now being sent only via the SIS and no longer via Interpol.
On the other hand, we now have a juxtaposition of multiple forms of police cooperation: Schengen, Europol, Eurodac, CIS, many forms of bilateral cooperation and now the Prüm Convention, too.
This gives rise to the question as to whether we may now be seeing some unnecessary overlaps here, and also whether we may be starting to lose sight of the overall picture.
In any case, we must also ensure that sufficient attention is paid to the protection of personal data.
   Even though the nuclear industry has spent five decades looking for solutions to radioactive waste, we are, in this respect, still at square one.
Nuclear waste is transported the length and breadth of Europe in convoys that cost the taxpayer millions, entail a high risk of accidents, and are an ideal target for terrorist attacks.
Risk-free storage over a period of millennia is an impossibility and the idea of it takes the argument about clean and cheap electricity from nuclear power to absurd lengths.
All we would be doing would be to burden future generations with the potential dangers from these ticking time-bombs.
Our scientists have not, as yet, even succeeded in agreeing among themselves as to what geological conditions are best suited to disposal, and so, for example, we see the desperate attempts at preventing radionuclides from escaping from the former Asse II salt mine in Germany, which are costing over EUR 120 million.
Over the coming years, the taxpayer will be required to invest some EUR 500 billion in the decommissioning of currently operational reactors in Europe; even if the atomic energy industry were to be obliged to bear the costs of storage itself instead of being able to shuffle them off onto the public purse, electricity generated by nuclear power would still be at least 20% more expensive and hence unprofitable.
It really is high time that the billions in subsidy that keep this nuclear extravaganza afloat were cut off.
   The next item is the interim report (A6-0213/2006) by Mr Fava, on behalf of the Temporary Committee, on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners [2006/2027(INI)].
   Mr President, 11 September this year will mark the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack against America.
A legitimate fight against terrorism goes hand-in-hand with reflection on the means used to conduct this fight, on the state of democracy, the rule of law and on civil liberties in situations where special services are given special authority and where general surveillance is carried out.
A new kind of community is arising on both sides of the Atlantic – a community of lawyers, journalists and politicians from different sides of the political scene, activists from humanitarian organisations and citizens who are against the recent infringements of human rights and political and civic freedoms by some European governments and the US Government.
Last week the Supreme Court in the USA pronounced the special military tribunals appointed by President Bush in November 2001 by way of a decree, bypassing Congress, as illegal and contrary to the Geneva Conventions and the American system of military courts.
The ruling of the Supreme Court is proof that we are not condemned to a tragic choice between security and freedom.
The Temporary Committee appointed by Parliament on 18 January this year has completed the first stage of its work.
The interim report concludes that illegal practices affecting citizens and residents of Europe were carried out in Europe.
I would like to underline that the committee’s report is by no means anti-American or ideological, and it is not aimed against any country or government.
The report was based primarily on around 50 hours of hearings involving lawyers, journalists, representatives of non-governmental organisations, alleged victims of special rendition proceedings, representatives of the governments of the Member States and representatives of the European institutions.
I would also like to stress that in its interim report the committee does not once mention the name ‘Poland’, unlike Dick Marty’s report before the Council of Europe in June this year.
However, our report does assert the need to ascertain whether there is proof that secret prisons are operating in some European countries, as some journalists and bona-fide non-governmental organisations claimed in the course of the investigations.
What is particularly worrying is, as Senator Marty’s report points out, Warsaw’s unwillingness to cooperate seriously with the European institutions.
The Temporary Committee should now proceed with the rest of its 12-month mandate, during which it should make official visits to various countries, including Poland.
   Mr President, we have had 50 hours of hearings and nothing to show for it.
I sent a copy of Mr Fava’s report to a former staffer of mine, Sally McNamara, who is now the international relations director for a major Washington public policy institute, the American Legislative Exchange Council.
I should like to quote her comments to you.
She uses a vernacular word to describe the report and then says: ‘If I came up with this sort of report for my boss – devoid of fact and with a hefty dose of moral posturing – I reckon I would get fired’.
I hope that our rapporteur will take note of these comments.
His report is entirely speculative and circumstantial.
It seeks to present unsubstantiated allegations as fact.
Evidence of flights that have been linked to the CIA is not evidence of rendition, still less evidence of mistreatment.
The committee started from an a priori belief that the USA and the CIA are guilty, and merely sought with little success to substantiate its prejudices.
It has not established evidence, it has merely provided a platform for anti-American bias.
Whether we like it or not, the war against terror is real and it is now.
The US has taken a lead in this war.
It has spent a huge amount of blood and treasure in the defence of Western values.
We in this House should show a little more gratitude and a little less criticism.
I agree with Mr Piotrowski.
There is no point in extending the remit of this committee.
   Mr President, Mrs Lehtomäki, Mr Frattini, honourable Members, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to thank Mr Fava for all his work on the interim report and others for the excellent work they too have done.
When Parliament and we in the Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transportation and illegal detention of prisoners began our work, I for one did not have very high expectations of what we could achieve, as a lot of the alleged practices had taken place quite a few years ago.
I have been pleasantly surprised, however.
Our work has produced results aimed at making Europe safer and human rights more secure.
For me as a Social Democrat MEP from Sweden and a proud witch, as someone chose to call us, I am particularly pleased that, on the issues of extraordinary rendition and diplomatic guarantees, we have now reached an agreement and that we are making clear the dividing lines between the fight against terrorism, a humane policy on refugees and respect for human rights, which are also in crisis following the terrorist acts of 11 September 2001 in New York.
In this area, the expulsion from Sweden of the Egyptians Mohammed Al Zery and Ahmed Agiza following a decision by the Swedish Government have pointed to solutions of the kind we do not want to see any more of.
The CIA’s solutions are unsustainable, both in the short and the long term and for both the EU and the rest of the world.
The committee needs more time.
We have learned from the mistakes that have been made and we shall propose measures and safety nets so that we do not end up in similar situations in the future.
Europeans expect a better job to be made of sorting out future crises through cooperation between the Council of Europe, all the countries of Europe and ourselves in the European Parliament.
Mr Frattini has some interesting thoughts on the security service, necessary future controls on aviation and getting the balance right in combating terrorism.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the practice used by the CIA that is the subject of today’s discussion is part of an established tradition in US administrations, from the War of Secession onwards, through the genocide of the American Indians, to connivance with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
The Fava report, substantiated by little evidence because of the obstacles put in the way of the committee by many EU governments, is not in itself sufficient to prove the political dependence of Europe.
Nobody wants to protect terrorists and nobody wants to show out-and-out anti-Americanism, but we cannot help but acknowledge that there have been breaches of human rights and repeated violations of the sovereignty of Member States throughout the EU.
Not to do so would play into the hands of anti-European interests.
   – The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the interception of bank transfer data from the SWIFT system by the US secret services.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Prime Minister Vanhanen said here today, the Finnish Presidency believes that it is a very important objective to make the European Union an area of freedom, security and justice.
With this in mind, when the Hague Programme is being re-examined, the Presidency also intends to look at how we might improve the decision-making procedure on cooperation in policing and crime.
On 28 June 2006 the Commission produced the so-called ‘Hague Scoreboard Plus’, which evaluates the implementation of the Hague Programme and whether EU legislation has been implemented in the Member States properly and according to the agreed timetable.
In addition to this, the Commission has issued a communication which contains proposals regarding both the content of the policies on justice and home affairs and an improved decision-making procedure.
As the President of the Commission has said, the Commission is ready to make proposals with the purpose of making use of the options in the Treaties to adjust the decision-making procedure.
Finland intends to discuss these proposals in depth and in this way respond to the request made to Finland by the European Council at its meeting on 15 and 16 June.
This was to work closely with the Commission to examine the possibilities of improving decision-making and action in the domain of freedom, security and justice on the basis of the current Treaties.
The Justice and Home Affairs Ministers are holding a preliminary discussion on these matters at their informal meeting in Tampere on 21 and 22 September 2006.
The talks are to be continued in Council sessions in October and December and at the European Council in December.
   I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for that reply.
In the six weeks since I tabled the question, things have moved on a lot.
I will not claim We had the whole package of proposals last week from the Commission.
I am delighted that the Finnish Presidency is going to give them great emphasis, but will the Presidency give as much emphasis to the Commission proposal on evaluation and monitoring as to the one on transforming the ineffective and undemocratic decision-making? Will it impress on those Member States that have not implemented the framework decision on terrorism that it is scandalous that, five years after 11 September 2001, two years after 11 March 2004 and, on Friday, one year after 7 July 2005, some EU countries still have no provision in their laws to define and criminalise terrorist offences?
Following the successful outcome of the COP 11/MOP 1 in Montreal at the end of 2005, it is now essential to push ahead with the new processes launched: the negotiations on the post-2012 commitments and the dialogue on long-term joint actions under the Framework Convention on Climate Change.
Can the President-in-Office of the Council state what progress was made in this regard at the 24th Session of the Subsidiary Bodies of the Framework Convention on Climate Change held in Bonn from 15 to 26 May 2006?
   – Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Finland is providing the Kosovo negotiations with a highly-qualified mediator in the person of ex-President Ahtisaari, and that gives us cause for confidence, even though there are major problems ahead, and there can, in the long run, be only one solution, namely independence: of that I am convinced.
What I would like to know is whether you think it conceivable that, as Kosovo moves towards that, UNMIK – which is a transitional administrative arrangement – will be replaced by a European administration in the shape of EUMIK, in other words: do you think that the EU will play a more active part in the administration of Kosovo?
   . Mr President, as was mentioned slightly earlier on in the debate on the CIA and the rendition of prisoners, the work of the intelligence services and the information which they provide fall, as such, within the competence of the Member States, although it is obviously useful if there can be very smooth and thorough cooperation to find solutions in kidnapping situations just like this and to examine the background to these situations, as the honourable Member said.
   Thank you very much for your reply, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
The specific problem we face in the field of immigration policy is a lack of economic resources.
For this year we apparently only have EUR 5 000 000 and there is no chance of any more resources until the approval of the new financial perspective next year.
How can we link the immigration policy to the recently approved financial perspective for 2007-2013?
   Mrs Lehtomäki, I have visited Libyan camps where tens of thousands of refugees from sub-Saharan Africa come in order to be nearer to Europe and to cross the Mediterranean.
We have FRONTEX, our external frontier protection agency, which is headed, incidentally, by a Finn.
To what extent do you intend to use this agency to halt the flood of illegal immigrants to Europe?
On 17 May 2006, a representative of the Austrian Government, Alfred Finz, answered a number of questions from MEPs on corporate taxation in different EU countries.
In response to a question by Eoin Ryan MEP, Mr Finz indicated that certain Member States had recently introduced new taxation systems under which some businesses were subject to much lower rates of taxation than in the old Member States.
Mr Finz views lower corporate tax as a form of unfair competition which must be eliminated.
Does the Presidency—in-Office of the Council agree that the new Member States had the right to introduce their own taxation systems? Would the Council take the view that attempts to harmonise taxation are evidence of a desire on the part of the old Member States to solve their economic problems at the expense of the new Member States?
   . Mr President, the exchange rate has changed recently, but the Council is not planning any measures which would compel the United States to prop up the value of its currency.
In a statement which the President of the ECOFIN Council gave at the spring meeting of the IMF’s International Monetary and Financial Committee, he reiterated the Council’s position on global imbalances, saying that in the medium term the enormous current account imbalances cannot be sustained and it is the combined responsibility of all the major players involved to address the problem.
Within the context of international cooperation, a macroeconomic and structural policy that aims to maintain growth should be practised to facilitate due rectification of current account deficits and surpluses.
This way increases in protectionist pressures could be avoided as could sudden fluctuations in exchange rates and risks to the finance industry.
There are also possible macroeconomic risks that stem from protectionist measures and unilateral action.
An open, multilateral system of trade is an essential prerequisite for greater continued growth.
Increased national saving in the United States and domestic growth in Asian countries, in particular, are crucial in any attempt to correct global imbalance.
The communiqué in April 2006 of the International Monetary and Financial Committee echoed this view, which partners at global level generally accepted.
   Mr President, Mrs Lehtomäki, I note that, notwithstanding talk of the medium term, we are now in the short term.
The EU employees who, over the next few months, will lose their jobs partly because of our inertia will not be impressed.
Why, therefore, do we not arrange for the European Central Bank to play an entirely different role under the supervision of the European Parliament?
   Mr Corbett, I have finally understood what comitology means and when I am in Yorkshire I will go into all the pubs to explain it.
   .
Mr President, as the rapporteur Mr Corbett said, this is a breakthrough. It is welcome and I am glad about it.
Parliament’s supervisory powers hitherto in the comitology procedure have been virtually a farce.
The Commission has many a time even neglected its obligation to inform Parliament of its decisions.
Parliament recently took legal action against the Commission for exceeding its powers in comitology.
The case began on an initiative by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, when the Commission, exceeding its powers, had granted an exemption regarding the banned fire retardant Deca-BDE.
Now this case is being rectified in two ways.
Parliament will have the right to block future comitology decisions by a majority of Members.
This Deca-BDE case was rectified at the end of June, when the Commission actually reversed its decision, which means that this hazardous substance will be removed from electronic equipment.
I am glad about that.
   – Mr President, Mr Frattini, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the first time in this Chamber that I have advocated a European policy on legal immigration – for humanitarian and economic reasons – and measures to step up the fight against illegal immigration and the trafficking of human beings.
The two proposals before us are important and useful.
I should like first to speak about the Lambrinidis report and to say to Mr Frattini that the Commission’s proposal is most welcome and well balanced, although I fear that the rapporteur has gone too far on some points, such as political rights.
Immigrants must be integrated, but we must not forget that this works both ways: host countries must strive to integrate them, but they must also do their bit in the drive towards integration.
I agree with Mr Lambrinidis that it is appalling that there is still a consultation process and the requirement of unanimity throughout the area of legal immigration and I agree that the clause provided for in the Treaty should be invoked in order to give Parliament codecision powers.
I wish to highlight the importance of the Gaubert report aimed at establishing a web-based information system on this issue.
Although the implementation of integration initiatives will be done at local level, it has broader implications.
The difficulties experienced by one Member State in defining and implementing their integration policies has an impact in other Member States at social and economic level.
It is thus in the Union’s interest that the Member States implement effective integration strategies the results of which serve the common interest.
It could and should be the Union’s responsibility to monitor and assess the results of the efforts of integration.
This will contribute towards the rapid adoption of the best techniques.
   Since the next speaker is Polish, I should report that this morning I heard that the United Kingdom has 500 000 Polish workers now.
They are doing a marvellous job.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not Maltese and, therefore, while acknowledging that the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs is doing a magnificent job, I regret that the Finnish Presidency, which today began its term of office, is not present; this may be because of the match, or the time or perhaps a lack of attention (seeing that one of the Finnish Presidency’s themes is immigration), but it is not here.
I have no choice, therefore, but to turn to Commissioner Frattini, who is certainly the most important representative of the European Union to be taking an interest in this issue.
I have had the pleasure and the honour of leading several visits to various countries.
This evening I would like to give Commissioner Frattini a message to deliver, and I also hope that some Council official takes note of it and mentions it to the Finnish Presidency.
I would not want to deliver a keynote speech or a political kind of speech: ‘I understand everything and I am aware of everything’.
Malta, Commissioner Frattini, is not what people imagine it to be, precisely because here Maltese colleagues make comparisons with Germany, Italy and Spain, etc., while in Malta people are unjustly detained.
Here in this Chamber we have talked about so many things; this great European Union values the rights of all, even those who launch attacks, except those of thousands of people held in Malta.
I have so many letters and SMS texts about these people that I could write a novel.
Commissioner Frattini, if this European Council, this European Union really does want to avoid being hypocritical about Malta, it must remove these people, who have been held there for months or even years.
Malta is not in any position to solve the problem.
The European Union, the large countries, should take it upon themselves to bring out those 2-3 000 individuals, who are betraying Malta and turning it into a xenophobic country, which, amongst other things, regrets entering the European Union.
Let us avoid this problem.
Let us have these prisoners transferred out of Malta to other far larger EU countries.
   The next item is the Commission statement on AIDS – Time to deliver.
   . Mr President, the Commissioner is right to highlight the progress that is being made, but I think he will be the first to acknowledge that the challenge of AIDS is widening.
We all know those figures that we quote in every debate, the 40 million people living with AIDS, the 20 million who have died from AIDS, the 12 million AIDS orphans, the 2.5 million children living with AIDS, but there are new aspects.
There is the fact that around half of the people who now have AIDS and are dying of the disease are women.
There is the problem of where AIDS is on the increase.
India is now the country with the most cases of AIDS.
It has overtaken South Africa, it has two thirds of the cases in Asia, and yet in India only 7% of the people who need the anti-retrovirals are receiving them.
We see children missing out on the HIV drugs they should be receiving.
Only one in twenty HIV-positive children are receiving the treatment they need, and the Global Movement for Children recently reported that four million children are desperately in need of Cotrimoxazole, the antibiotic costing just three cents per child per day that could prevent life-threatening infections in children with HIV and those born to HIV-positive mothers.
Closer to home, on our doorstep, we see the figures in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, where the numbers infected have increased almost 20-fold in less than a decade, and between 2003 and 2005 the number killed by AIDS has almost doubled.
So, Commissioner, we join you in your resolution to do more.
We want to see much more done in terms of prevention.
We have seen in Senegal and Uganda how investment in prevention can really work and make a difference.
We need to see that rolled out, particularly in Africa and in Asia.
Lastly, we need to see investment in research.
With research into new drugs and vaccines and the delivery of drugs, the children I have referred to who are now living with and dying of AIDS can have hope for the future.
   The next item is the report (A6-0210/2006) by Mrs Carlotti, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on development and migration (2005/2244(INI)).
   Mr President, as well as thanking Mrs Carlotti for her thorough work, I would like to draw your attention to three points.
Globalisation also involves people breaking down barriers in their search for normal living conditions.
However, differences in levels of economic development and political models impede the free movement of people.
If, within the framework of the WTO, we cannot agree to the free movement of goods, it seems that agreeing to the free movement of people is an even more difficult task, although these two issues are worlds apart.
Although we lack such an agreement, people do migrate, in particular to richer countries.
The European Union, as a destination for migrants, will be increasingly obliged to draw up solutions to this issue.
Currently, we face the problem of Malta.
Another problematic issue is the phenomenon of selective immigration, which mainly benefits rich countries.
We are talking about the brain drain, which is immoral with respect to poor countries.
We need a good policy to prevent the situation deteriorating in places such as Africa due to the exodus of educated people, and we need instead to help these countries to develop.
Examples of such a policy are reintegration projects, which I had the pleasure of discussing with Commissioner Luis Michel.
As we already have immigrants in the European Union, in countries such as Scotland, which are already an attractive destination for Poles and Slovaks and are likely to become all the more attractive for citizens of countries such as Togo or Jamaica, we have to create an educational, social and legal programme to integrate immigrants as rapidly as possible into their host countries.
The immigrants have indeed adapted.
The period of integration is both a psychological factor and an economic one.
The shorter and more sensible this period is, the better the outcome will be for both sides: for the immigrants and for the hosts.
As a result of these actions, we will be able to avoid the phenomenon of ‘brain waste’, namely a loss of skills.
Finally, I would just like to add that the problem of mainly economic immigration does not only affect France, Sweden or Malta.
It is a common, serious problem facing the 25 Member States of the European Union.
   Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work on this report and for the clear conclusions drawn in it.
These include the admission that the European Union has still not found a common, cohesive solution to the issue of immigration.
It is a worthy challenge on a large scale: 3% of the world’s population, namely 175 million people, are migrants, and 40% of these people live in developing countries.
The European Union is sometimes criticised for earmarking too few resources for the integration of immigrants and refugees.
Over the last seven years, EUR 15 million has been spent.
This amounts to half a euro per immigrant.
However, it also seems that using these resources efficiently is no less of a problem.
We have seen many worrying signs of this and we hear reports of wastefulness and corruption in the distribution of funds.
Aid for immigrants has a moral and also a political dimension, as we need to work out a new, transparent European Union policy in this field.
The fact is that, over the last 10 years, the European Union’s migration policy has been rather more restrictive than it was before.
Let us also not fool ourselves into thinking that this policy will become less restrictive in the coming years.
The opposite is more likely to be the case.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, around the world there are currently almost 10 million refugees and 25 million people displaced within their countries, mainly in the countries of the South.
Given that I was once a refugee myself and passed through the refugee system – a refugee camp – I should like to devote this speech to the situation of migrants in refugee and transit areas.
There is no doubt in my mind that the living conditions of migrants in host and transit countries, especially in the Sahel countries, must be improved.
The time has come to build a variety of information centres, foreign aid centres and legal aid centres.
Programmes aimed at preventing and treating various diseases including sexually transmitted diseases and AIDS should be put forward.
The most vulnerable sections of society, including women and children, should be the main focus of assistance.
I would therefore urge the Commission to develop an integrated strategy aimed at supporting host and transit countries.
The capacity of these southern countries needs to be bolstered and the right of such countries to pursue their own independent migration policy should be respected.
   The next item is the report (A6-0207/2006) by Mr Frithjof Schmidt, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on fair trade and development (2005/2245(INI)).
   The next item is the oral question to the Commission (0-0036/2006/rev.1 – B6-0314/2006) by Mr Enrique Barón Crespo, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on the results of the WTO meetings at the end of April in Geneva and future perspectives.
   .
Mr President, I would like, in particular, to take this opportunity to say how very grateful I am to Mr Bullmann and to Professor Lauk of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, who ensured that cooperation with the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs was very good and very fruitful, and, at the same time, extend warm thanks to the Council and the Commission, too, for their cooperation.
I would also like, speaking on behalf of my group, to reiterate that we, despite the content of this report, will be abstaining when it is voted on, and that the reason for our doing so is that there is a very close connection between the matter we are dealing with and the SWIFT debate that is currently going on.
It is particularly because so many people are concerned about interference with fundamental rights and about programmes about which people are not informed that I would have thought it politically well-advised for us to wait and see what comes out of the SWIFT investigation, and I will, for that reason, be recommending to my group that we should abstain.
As for the report itself, Mr Lauk and Mr Bullmann have my support, and I wish to thank the two groups for their good cooperation.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, would like to thank Mr Alvaro and Mr Lauk for their good cooperation.
We have come to agree, to a very great degree, on how a proper basis in law should be created, although, as regards the European Union, we do take the view that it is best to frame laws that everyone has to comply with and that every member of the public can comprehend.
It is on this small point – the only thing that divides us – that we are to vote today.
All I want is for this procedure to be technically unobjectionable.
There is a certain connection with the Corbett report, which has just been adopted, and in respect of which an amendment tabled by Mr Radwan was adopted, the intention of which was to affect a single technical detail in the way we are now to vote.
That does nothing to change the result, but the amendments relating to comitology have a minus against them in all the voting lists, in that we all agree on them; they should not be allowed to lapse, but should be voted on.
Let me now tell the House which ones these amendments are; I ask you to allow them to be voted on, but all the groups that have considered them have marked them with a minus.
Even so, we need a clean procedure if comitology and the Corbett report are to be brought into line with the item of legislation that we are now enacting.
The amendments in question are Nos 20, 22, 24, 103, 124 and 125, and they are to be voted on, and they are to be voted on even if there is a minus against them; that is the political compromise on which the rapporteurs have agreed.
   I should like to amend the title before paragraph 6.
Instead of ‘most of which are alleged’, it should read ‘some of which are alleged’.
There was a linguistic mistake in the original version.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by means of my report, we are making an important proposal for the combating of VAT fraud within the European Union, which cheats the European taxpayer out of some EUR 60 billion every year.
I see my report as constituting an important step in combating this fraud, including as it does the proposal for the reversed charge procedure, an approach that would also be practicable at the national level.
That is something that will need to be discussed, but, right now, it is the turn of the Council and the Commission, now that this House has shown great unanimity in taking this step – for which I am very grateful to it.
   – Mr President, trust is a beautiful thing, but there cannot be unconditional trust.
Although we voted today on a number of packages of financial proposals, the stability instrument is the least transparent of them.
The complexity is apparent from the very goals of this measure.
Such a broad-brush definition is capable of covering practically anything, for example justification for the policy of non-engagement in the case of right-wing coups such as the putsch carried out by General Franco.
Two days ago, Mr Giertych indicated that, according to the second part of the objectives of this instrument, it would even have been possible to support General Franco from EU funds.
He pointed out that he was merely interested in renewing and consolidating traditional Catholic values in Spain.
Although the document does not contain any figures, the Commission has promised that it will provide them soon.
For the time being, only one thing can be said.
Parliament is completely out of the loop.
Ultimately Parliament’s Committee on Foreign Affairs emphasised this in the trialogue between the Council, Parliament and the Commission and called for this state of affairs to be changed.
Parliament should not give anyone carte blanche.
Some parts of this document are dubious, unclear and manifestly open to possible abuse.
I therefore voted against the proposal before us.
   – Mr President, I should like to go back to the Corbett report.
I can only assume that my request for an explanation of vote went astray in the confusion caused by Members leaving the Chamber.
I should like to say a few words on the subject of comitology.
Just like my fellow members of the Czech Civil Democratic Party (ODS), I voted against this report.
I did so because we believe that this is a controversial issue insofar as it transfers more power from the Member States to the Commission.
We feel that the voters of France and the Netherlands told the European institutions quite clearly how they feel about transferring those powers to the Commission.
We do not think that their decision should be circumvented through the back door.
   .
The ALDE group unfortunately feels compelled to abstain from voting on the final vote on this report.
ALDE's request to postpone the vote not having been granted, we feel adoption of this report is premature as long as the question marks over the recent SWIFT scandal have not been resolved. The legislative proposal at hand must be adopted on the basis of an international agreement (FATF), to which both the EU and the USA are signatories.
The position of the USA must be clarified before the EU should proceed to fulfilling its part of the agreement. Clarification by the ECB and the national central banks is equally precondition for adoption.
In view of growing concerns about civil rights and protection of personal data of EU citizens, ALDE feels further assurances are needed in this area.
We note that in recent years a host of security measures has been taken, whereas measures to strengthen civil rights and privacy protection have been stalled, and decision making in this area largely takes place without any meaningful parliamentary scrutiny or judicial review.
The case of SWIFT casts doubts on the adequacy of data protection instruments in the EU.
A fundamental debate must be held first.
   – Mr President, Mr Gargani is right to ask for Parliament to be consulted on the modification of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities.
He is also right to call, in his report, for Parliament to have the right to appeal to the Court of Justice in the event that Member States fail to respect Members’ immunities, which were established to defend Parliament’s rights and in particular to protect MEPs against action that a hostile executive may decide to bring, via a proxy prosecutor.
Particularly so after the act of utter treachery – that is not too strong a word – committed by the French Supreme Court in the case of our erstwhile fellow Member Mr Marchiani.
Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs must also uphold the fundamental law not to examine a request for parliamentary immunity protection on manifestly inappropriate grounds, in this case Article 9, when it is Article 10 that applies.
It should adopt the same legal stance on defending freedom of expression when there has manifestly been , as in my case.
Lastly, Parliament’s legal service must not endeavour to water down Parliament resolutions, or rules that the latter has inserted into its own Rules of Procedure, while there is action pending before the Court of Justice
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today in this plenary session, the MEPs from the Czech Civil Democratic Party (ODS) chose not to support the interim report by Mr Fava on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners.
The report is, in our view, based on the current trend for anti-Americanism, which does not take account of the serious threat of international terrorism.
The United States of America and its allies, including the Czech Republic, have channelled all their efforts over the past five years into combating this terrible threat.
Since 2001, we have witnessed terrorist attacks in the USA, the UK, Spain and a host of other countries.
This is a very real danger and the Fava report completely ignores the need to combat it.
The report also entirely disregards the fact that it is the approach jointly adopted by the USA and its allies from a number of European countries that has enabled us to reduce international terrorism substantially and has thus provided the citizens of Europe with greater security.
The report instead focuses on a number of unsubstantiated cases of dubious behaviour by the security services of the USA and its allies, and draws sweeping conclusions from those cases.
The MEPs from the Czech ODS cannot support such a position with their votes.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, despite the fact that some of our amendments have been accepted, the Fava report, on which we have voted today, remains biased, one-sided and imbued with preconceptions, as well as being intent on supporting totally groundless theories.
This is a text that is one-sided in terms of its content and that even runs counter to the positions of the Italian Government.
It was Prime Minister Prodi himself who, in an official communication, contradicted Mr Fava on the Abu Omar affair.
While Mr Fava rejected an amendment of mine, which maintained that there was no evidence of involvement on the part of the government and of the Italian intelligence service, the Prime Minister's office was last night reaffirming its faith in our secret services.
Mr Fava’s attitude demonstrates how much bad faith exists within the Italian left, which does not want to renounce the anti-Americanism of the past or to stop using the European institutions for the purposes of attacking its opponents.
   . I voted against extending the mandate of Mr Fava’s committee to continue investigating so-called ‘extraordinary rendition’ because to date it has produced no substantiated evidence such as would justify its continuance.
Rather, it is being used as a vehicle for rabid anti-Americanism, willing to trade in selective tittle-tattle while operating on a presumption of guilt by the CIA.
   . UKIP have voted in favour of Amendment 13, because it emphasises that the EU High Commissioner and EU High Representative have no powers to request information in this matter from Member States.
UKIP rejects the authority and opposes the creation of both these positions and therefore welcomes the acknowledgement of a limitation to their powers.
   . The EPLP will be voting for the Fava report because we believe that it continues to be important for the European Parliament to investigate the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the alleged transportation and illegal detention of prisoners.
The interim report is important for two reasons.
Firstly, unlike members of the Council of Europe, MEPs are directly elected and answerable to our constituents.
We investigate all manner of issues on behalf of them and we cannot ignore calls that Member States may have breached their Treaty obligations under Article 6 of the EU Treaty, which outlines the basic principles of democracy, human rights and respect of law.
The European Parliament is the only body that can impose sanctions on Member States that breach these Treaty obligations.
Parliament's report is also important as, unlike the Council of Europe, the committee was able to call witnesses to testify before it.
The committee heard strong personal testimonies, which provided compelling evidence in the report.
   . My British Conservative colleagues and I are unable to support the Fava report because we believe that the report is heavy on allegations and short on new evidence or proof.
We were against this TDIP committee from the beginning and feel that it is a waste of money which duplicates Senator Marty's efforts in the Council of Europe.
Furthermore, there is no proof whatsoever of the existence of CIA detention camps in either Romania or Poland, neither do I believe that there has been a systematic US policy for extraordinary renditions to torture abductees in third countries.
   . UKIP (the UK delegation in the IND/DEM Group) voted in favour of Amendment 13 because it emphasises that the EU’s High Commissioner and High Representative have no powers to request, from Member-State governments, information of the kind referred to.
UKIP opposed the creation, and does not recognise the authority, of these posts. We welcome Amendment 13, therefore, insofar as it acknowledges some limitation of their powers.
   . – We voted for the resolution tabled by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, but rejected the joint resolution on the Society for World Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) case, on the grounds of a lack of balance that cannot be rectified by a series of amendments.
We all know the difficulty involved in assessing the level of priority of the fight against terrorism and the similarly fundamental respect for our individual rights.
The debate has been regularly affected by the news of detention conditions at Guantánamo, the case of the secret CIA flights, the detention centres in Europe, and now the SWIFT case.
It is tricky to know where to draw the line, but this is a crucial debate in a world in which terrorism cuts across national borders.
An inquiry has been launched in Belgium to ascertain whether there are any loopholes in our data protection laws.
We do not think that this vindictive resolution – which is virulently anti-American in its form, flawless in its substance (4 and 13: what a brilliant idea – the secret services are to make their operations public!) and often unreadable – improves our image among Europeans.
There were other ways in which we could have expressed our determination to shed light on any breaches, whilst reiterating our steadfast commitment to combating those whose ideology flies in the face of our values.
   – Immigration is too serious a subject to simply leave to the polling organisations or to decree it to be an important subject only during national elections.
Immigration is a fact of life: more than 40 million people live within the territory of the European Union, which seems to have a great deal of difficulty coordinating its activities.
It must act quickly to establish a consistent and effective immigration policy.
The Finnish Presidency intends to move this thorny issue forwards by breaking down the barrier of unanimity in the Council of Ministers, which is holding back all progress in the crucial field of judicial and police cooperation, in order to combat human trafficking and illegal immigration.
I very much hope that this Nordic desire will soon be put into practice, through the implementation of a humane joint policy on the right to asylum, or cooperation between the 25 Member States to allocate quotas to each country.
Another challenge that needs to be met is the integration of immigrants.
As the Lambrinidis report emphasises, there is still much progress to be made in the Europe of 25 Member States if we are to make a success of this integration, particularly in the fields of access to employment, non-discrimination, the education of women, language-learning programmes and political participation.
If we can win this bet, we will be one step closer to social peace.
   .
It is well known that more than 65 million people in the world have been infected with HIV, around 25 million people have died and some 15 million children have been orphaned by AIDS.
This is especially serious in the developing world, where of the 40 million people currently living with HIV, over 95% live in the developing world, with over 70% in Sub-Saharan Africa alone.
Against this appalling backdrop, I wish to highlight the plight of women, who represent over half of all people living with AIDS and 60% of those living with AIDS in Africa, with women being between two and four times as susceptible to the disease as men.
Although we wish to highlight the declaration of the UN General Assembly Special Session of 2 June 2006, in particular its references to promoting access to medicines for all, which includes production of generic antiretroviral drugs and other essential drugs for AIDS-related infections, it is regrettable that the declaration lacks any global targets or timelines on treatment, resources and prevention, and does not provide a viable action plan to back up the goal of providing universal access for all HIV-affected people by 2010 ...
   – The next item is the continuation of the debate on the oral question raised by Mr Barón Crespo on the results of the WTO meeting at the end of April in Geneva and future perspectives.
   Mr President, I think most of our speakers would like Mr Mandelson to be here when they are speaking.
Do you know if he is coming?
   – I am told that the Commissioner is on his way and, in fact, I think he has just entered the Chamber, so I think we can let Mr Mandelson make himself comfortable while the first speaker takes the floor on behalf of his group.
   – The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Commission by Mr Barón Crespo on behalf of the Committee on International Trade on the origin marking of certain imported products (O-0065-2006 – B6-0316/2006).
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Somalia(1).
   . Mr President, the rule of the Union of Islamic Courts has been established in southern Somalia.
From the beginning of July this year, radical forces have gained increasing influence in the territory controlled by the Union.
The new leader of the Council of Islamic Courts is Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a 60-year old radical Muslim cleric.
Sheikh Aweys is suspected of working with Al-Qaeda.
After 11 September 2001, the United States added Sheikh Aweys to the black list of international terrorists.
Sheikh Aweys does not recognise the UN-backed Somali Government with which Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, the first leader of the Council of Islamic Courts and viewed as being a relative moderate, signed a peace treaty after assuming power in Mogadishu.
Islamist factions have announced their intention to seize power across the whole of Somalia and there is a real danger that the Union of Islamic Courts will attack the northern part of the country which, until now, has been considered a relatively peaceful region.
It is made up of provinces that are divided into two autonomous regions, Somaliland and Puntland, which have strategic ports along their coastlines.
These actions would mean that Somalia would turn into another Afghanistan, ruled by the Taliban.
The human rights situation in the territory controlled by the Union of Islamic Courts has deteriorated to a dramatic extent.
Last week, Martin Adler, an independent Swedish journalist, was murdered at a rally organised by Sheik Aweys’ supporters.
One of the first decrees to be passed by the Islamic radicals in Mogadishu was an order to close cinemas and halls where the World Cup was to be shown.
Press agencies report that the Islamic military police shot two people and wounded four others during the Germany-Italy match.
The cinema owner and a young woman were killed when the cinema where the match was being shown came under fire.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Mauritania(1).
   . Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, despite being an ACP member state, Mauritania is one of the world’s forgotten countries.
For too long, the countries of Europe turned a blind eye to the dictatorship of President Ould Taya, who imprisoned, tortured and banished opponents of his regime.
Parliament and the European institutions remained silent when we submitted a request for an observation mission to be dispatched during the 2003 presidential elections, even though some candidates were being held in prison.
The Union was overcautious following the events of 3 August 2005, which brought down the dictator, without a single drop of blood being shed, even though we knew that the country was on the verge of exploding.
I am pleased that I organised the first discussion platform in 2004 at the European Parliament, gathering together, on neutral ground, Mauritanians from civil society, political parties and official representatives in an effort to pave the way for democracy.
We are paying tribute today to the Union, which supports the democratic process on which Mauritania has embarked, on the basis of a public consensus behind the Military Council for Justice and Democracy.
Pledges have already been made by this transitional authority, with the creation of an independent national electoral commission, with the abolition of media censorship and with the organisation of a referendum, on 25 June 2005, the smooth running of which was hailed by international observers. I am also pleased that the Union has committed itself to sending a long-term observation mission to monitor the elections taking place this November, thus ensuring that every Mauritanian citizen can exercise his or her voting rights.
Finally, the revenue from oil exploitation must be used for education, health care and the development of the peoples of Mauritania.
The exploitation of oil, which will not last forever, must not be done in a manner that is detrimental to marine and coastal biodiversity, but must protect the Banc d’Argouin, for example, from all forms of pollution and ensure that the fishery resource, which is so important to the people of Mauritania, is managed in a sustainable way.
I am pleased that the authorities, together with the Union, have embarked on a more open debate on the fishing agreements with a view to reaching a fair agreement.
The ban on factory ships such as the ‘Atlantic Dawn', for example, is a prerequisite for reaching such an agreement.
Finally – and here I conclude - the anti-immigration cooperation project must help to create jobs in Mauritania and to give migrants a reception that is worthy of the values espoused in Europe.
   The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on freedom of expression on the Internet(1).
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 6 July 2006.
   Mr President, I would not deny that Transnistria is a very important issue, but it merits a debate in this House on Tuesday or Wednesday.
It should be a full debate within this House, because this is a key issue connected with the European Neighbourhood Policy.
Regrettably, on Thursday afternoon, half the Members will not be here to debate this serious issue.
My argument, therefore, is that – as has been agreed by the PPE-DE Group – we should maintain the human rights debate on Zimbabwe, where there is an appalling humanitarian situation under Mr Mugabe, and we should have a full debate on Transnistria at the next plenary part-session.
   Mr President, the fortnightly retrial in Libya of the five Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor – ongoing since 13 June – resumes again tomorrow.
This House has been consistent in its support for and action in defence of those people.
In particular I should like to thank the President for his intervention in this case with the Libyan authorities at the beginning of July.
I am appalled that the Libyan prosecution has again called for the death penalty during the most recent court hearing on 29 August.
Reports from recent meetings indicate that the retrial will be concluded within a few months.
We have heard that before.
Three months have passed already, and this has been going on since 1999.
I should like to call upon the Commission and the Council – and again upon you, Mr President – to redouble diplomatic efforts with the Libyan authorities in order to bring this matter to a speedy and just conclusion, with the immediate release of the Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to discuss the situation in Slovakia.
It seems to have been forgotten that, following its victory in the election, the Direction – Social Democracy Party (Smer) formed a government coalition with the extreme right Slovak National Party (SNS).
At the beginning of August, this red-brown coalition gained the support of the members of the Slovak Parliament.
In July, I took the opportunity to express my concern and disapproval regarding this coalition, which are shared by many of my fellow Members, but the Prime Minister, Mr Fico, did not follow up on our request to reconsider whether such a coalition was appropriate.
Unfortunately, recent events have shown that our concerns were well-founded.
Members of the Hungarian minority were recently attacked for speaking Hungarian, and the leader of the SNS, Mr Slota, has continued to make xenophobic and nationalistic speeches.
By agreeing to this coalition, Mr Fico has left the door open to such outbursts, and there is a fine line between words and actions.
Politicians need to demonstrate responsibility; making alliances with extremists who hold these kinds of views will necessarily have harmful consequences.
For me, the violence we are seeing today is a cruel reminder of the darkest days of Europe’s pre-war history.
   Russia has realised that NGOs are the best way to influence public opinion.
Such organisations and foundations have become quite common throughout the states of the former empire.
By using its favourable situation in the global energy market, Russia is able to allocate more funds for propaganda campaigns.
To this purpose, a special Euroregion Livonia-Baltic foundation has already been established with representative offices in Estonia, Latvia, Belarus and the Kaliningrad region.
The official aims of this foundation include promoting business relations and cultural cooperation between the Baltic States, the Kaliningrad region, Belarus and Ukraine.
However, the founders of the foundation initiated by Russia are already known for their blatant actions against the construction of spent-fuel storage facilities at the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant.
The EU, while encouraging democratic processes in the post-soviet countries, is jeopardising its initiative in the information war.
I have already invited the European Parliament, and I am doing so again, to more actively promote the democratic process in the post-soviet countries and clearly express its opinion on the anti-western propaganda in the EU’s eastern neighbours.
   I would like to say a few words regarding Ján Slota's announcement about adopting a principle of zero tolerance towards Roma people, because all summer I have been thinking about how important it is for us to finally talk about the insults being cast at the Roma.
Ján Slota asserted his anti-Hungarian and anti-Roma views with impunity during the election campaign in Slovakia this spring more and more vociferously, a fact which we have drawn attention to on a number of occasions.
This widely known nationalist party leader, who is deliberately inciting anti-Roma sentiments among the Slovak population with his unconstitutional and prejudiced utterances, has already taken up his duties as a member of the Slovak Government, as a coalition partner.
Similar utterances during Meciar's government had almost irreversible consequences for Slovakia's Roma population.
According to estimates, there are currently 800 000 Roma living in Slovakia under very difficult social and economic circumstances.
The most important task facing the country and the government is to put an end to the Roma’s exclusion.
However, they fail to do so.
The current political atmosphere is justifiably frightening and uncertain for the Roma population and other minorities living in Slovakia, who suffer direct or indirect prejudice every day.
However, these typical utterances from Ján Slota cannot be allowed in a democracy under any circumstances.
   Ten days ago Finnish Social Democrats celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the granting of full suffrage to women.
Finland was the first country in the world in which all women had the right both to vote and to be elected.
One hundred years later, more than a third of members of parliament are women, and women hold 40% of ministerial positions.
In many other European countries, however, the situation is not very good.
In Estonia, for instance, where women were granted full suffrage in 1918, still only one fifth of members of parliament are women, and women hold only every seventh ministerial position – that is, 14%.
One of the reasons for this inequality is that voters cannot find suitable female candidates on the voting lists.
On lists of candidates, the first ten names still include only one or two women.
I call upon my colleagues throughout Europe to ensure that in their home countries there are an equal number of women and men among the candidates for parliament.
That would be the truly democratic choice.
And one need not fear that women will not vote for other women.
It is time to give up that silly myth.
   The next item is the report (A6-0184/2006) by Mr de Grandes Pascual, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a multiannual funding for the action of the European Maritime Safety Agency in the field of response to pollution caused by ships and amending Regulation (EC) No 1406/2002 (COM(2005)0210 – C6-0153/2005 – 2005/0098(COD)).
   . – I took part in Parliament’s Electoral Observation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I visited more than 40 polling stations in various parts of Kinshasa and I had the opportunity to observe the work of one of these polling stations in Dima, just one of the 250 000-plus around the country, until the last vote had been counted.
I admired the patient dedication of the Congolese people – men and women, people working in polling stations and voters.
They all said to me, with moving seriousness, that the authenticity of the people’s choice – the choice of the 25 million-plus registered voters in a logistical operation of epic proportions – would depend on their commitment and vigilance in carrying out their electoral duties and that, in turn, peace, democracy and the country’s development would depend on that choice.
This operation, and indeed the entire transitional process in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 2003, could not have come this far were it not for the European Union.
The election should therefore be a source of pride not only for the Congolese people, but also for Europe, which provided 80% of the funding for the presidential and legislative elections, with the European Commission contributing EUR 165 million.
The EU’s involvement in the DRC since the terrible war that devastated the country has been the best example of the implementation on the ground of Europe's security doctrine: humanitarian and development aid, technical support for demobilising and disarming militias, the maintenance of the political process and use of the instruments of European security and defence policy, with any additional resources used coherently to achieve a single goal, namely a democratic, peaceful and prosperous Congo, in control of its resources for the people’s benefit.
As regards EUFOR, the European military force which, since the 30 July election, has played a key role in reducing tensions between the forces of the two presidential candidates, Mr Kabila and Mr Bemba, consideration should be given to the idea of extending its tour of duty until the new government takes office towards the end of January, in order to guarantee that the electoral process is carried through to a successful conclusion.
It would be a serious mistake to leave the job only half done, because the transitional process remains poised on a knife-edge.
The fighting in the capital in August between the presidential guard and Mr Bemba's militias demonstrates that the main political actors are still prepared to resort to armed violence.
It also shows up the inability to form a unified national army, which has perhaps been the biggest and most dangerous failure in the transition process.
According to the International Crisis Group, the task of integrating the armed forces has been only half completed.
It is not only Azarias Ruberwa and Jean-Pierre Bemba who retain private armies.
President Kabila himself has failed to submit his presidential guard to the process, and it was his forces who set off the armed hostilities that took place in August.
Whatever the result of the election, the international community’s priority should be to demobilise the militias and help set up a single Congolese army viewed by the Congolese people as a force for stability and democratic authority.
Right now, however, it is not Congolese or European weapons that will guarantee the ultimate success of the electoral process.
That will primarily depend on Congolese men and women, such as the independent candidate for Parliament, Eve Bazaiba Masudi, member of the Kafko NGO, which is made up of women fighting courageously for peace, democracy and human rights, in close coordination with MONUC, the United Nations Mission in the DRC.
Eve Bazaiba Masudi and other women representing Congolese civil society are seeking to mediate and to hold the warlords to account.
These women deserve the EU’s support, and I trust that the Commission’s delegation and the committee chaired by General Morillon, whose outstanding work thus far I wish to commend, can support these people who are bringing peace and dialogue.
   – () Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what happened in Kinshasa on 21 and 22 August showed clearly that the European Union was right to take the decision to send troops to help secure the elections in Congo, even though there had been many, in various of its Member States, who had expressed doubt as to the wisdom of this approach and as to whether the European Union and its forces really could make an effective contribution.
Just now, Mr Morillon, to whom we must be grateful for the outstanding work he did as chief observer of the elections, once more confirmed that it would not have been possible for calm to be restored as speedily as it was had it not been for the deployment of troops – specifically Spanish and Polish troops – under European command, and I see that as the best indication of the rightness of that decision.
We must, however, remain vigilant, not least in the immediately ensuing days and weeks.
It is also significant that our activities in Congo should involve the civil and military powers, working closely together to manage the crisis.
Commissioner Michel has just brought home to us in a powerful way what the European Union did in the past to stabilise the Congo; the securing of these elections is just one among many interventions.
I am confident that the Commissioner, now that these elections are over, will continue to develop the plans that are needed if this country in the heart of Africa, which is important not least in terms of the security of Europe, is to be made even more stable.
   The first item is the debate on the oral question to the Commission on the suspension of negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) by Enrique Barón Crespo, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade (O-0088/2006 – B6-0427/2006).
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the results so far achieved during the Doha Round and the outcome of the TRIPS agreement on access to medicinal products are having disastrous effects on the living standards of millions of human beings.
It is quite clear that the slogan ‘Free trade = poverty reduction’ was just bait to persuade the southern, poorest countries of the world to endorse the expectations of the industrialised countries.
The real reason for the suspension of the WTO talks was that it was impossible to reach an agreement among the six main nations, which were determined to defend the interests of their agribusinesses; the other 143 countries were excluded from the negotiations.
According to the FAO, the breakdown was due to having focused all the talks on free trade instead of fair trade.
It is better to have no agreement at all than a bad agreement!
The suspension of the talks may provide an opportunity for reviewing the Commission’s negotiating mandate, which should concentrate on: 1) reforming the WTO to make it more transparent, more inclusive and more democratic, embedded within the UN system, and bound in its decision-making by the framework of international law; 2) reviewing the three main agreements now on the agenda: agriculture, intellectual property and services; 3) providing a binding frame of reference for the activities of transnational companies; 4) making respect for the rights of peoples a condition of free trade, by ensuring that the human rights clause, as approved by Parliament on 14 February, is observed; 5) refusing at bilateral or regional level to sidestep the rules agreed upon at multilateral level, taking the EPA talks with the ACP countries as an example.
   Thank you, Mr Kamall.
There are not many farmers in your constituency, are there?!
Thank you Commissioner.
With 15 minutes at the beginning and nearly 15 minutes at the end, I think you have been very consistent.
It also means that we now have a problem with the following debate.
   The next item is the report (A6-0193/2006) by Mrs Gröner on behalf of the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality on the proposal and the amended proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing for the period 2007-2013 the specific programme ‘Fight against violence (Daphne) and drugs prevention and information’ as part of the General programme ‘Fundamental Rights and Justice’ (COM(2005)0122 – COM (2006)0230 C6-0388/2005 2005/0037A(COD)).
   Madam President, I should like to make a point of order about working to the agenda.
I contacted the Sittings Secretariat at approximately 11.15 this morning.
I was told that my speaking time would be postponed until 9.00 this evening.
As soon as I found out that my name had appeared on the list, I printed out my speech, ran to the elevators and came here, because I noticed that I needed to be here before 9 p.m.!
Of course I understand that I cannot use my speaking time now, but I really regret that the Sittings Secretariat informed Members so late that the debate would continue and not end at 11.30, as it was supposed to.
That is not the way to treat colleagues in this House.
   Mr President, what is at issue here is the funding of the programme.
When we vote on Amendment 74, which has been tabled by the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, we will be voting on the sum of EUR 125 million, and so I ask that we vote on this amendment first.
If it is adopted, then Amendment 71 – which refers to the sum of EUR 120 million – will lapse.
   Mr President, as I see it, this amendment is actually superfluous on the grounds that we rejected taxation on the basis of use when we voted on Amendment 11.
   I voted in favour of the excellent report by Mr de Grandes Pascual on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on a seven-year multiannual funding for the action of the European Maritime Safety Agency, providing it with substantial financial resources for carrying out its new duties, which involve: combating accidental or deliberate pollution caused by ships.
The Agency’s idea of chartering commercial ships, known as ‘stand-by ships’, which would interrupt their commercial activities in order to be used in the area of an accident, deserves to be tested.
Nevertheless, we should carefully examine the interim reports on this system since I wonder whether it might be more effective simply to outsource this security service, which, by nature, will only be needed for one-off incidents.
The sums in question are not inconsiderable.
The cost of these ‘stand-by ships’ for 2007-2013 represents EUR 134 million of the 154 million granted to the agency.
Finally, I unreservedly support the appropriations proposed for the establishment of a satellite imaging service which must support the Member States in their fight against illegal dumping and accidental oil spills.
   – Mr President, I wanted to explain that our objection to Amendment 68 on street children was not to this category per se, but to the categorisation of victims, which is something that the Commissioner emphasised.
Similarly, as regards Amendment 70, we want a 'hotline', not a 'help line'.
As this is not clear, we opposed it, even though we agree with the idea of the European telephone line.
What I have just said concerns the amendments to the Gröner report.
   I voted in favour of the report by my colleague, Mrs Gröner, on the draft legislative resolution, at first reading, of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing for the period 2007-2013 the specific programme ‘Fight against violence (Daphne) and drugs prevention and information’.
I support Parliament’s initiatives aimed at separating the problem of violence from that of drug use.
The European Union must, in a politically visible manner, improve the way it fights all forms of violence, particularly against women, children and adolescents.
In the humanist civilisation that we are building, physical, sexual or psychological violence, including the threat of such acts, and the arbitrary deprivation or restriction of freedom, in public or private life, are a violation of the fundamental values of the Union, which include the right to life, to security, to freedom, to dignity and to physical and emotional integrity.
It represents an obstacle to the safe, free and fair exercise of citizenship.
With regard to the scourge of drugs, if we are not able to prohibit it effectively, I support any programme of prevention and increasing public awareness of this painful problem, particularly amongst the young.
   . – I abstained in the final vote because of the approval of Amendment 67.
Otherwise, the document is acceptable and in many respects excellent, but I cannot consent that the fight against violence towards children be carried out partly through ‘the inclusion of new family models’, or that the European Union should ‘bring added value’ to the actions undertaken by the Member States partly by promoting new family models.
In fact, everyday experience and a great deal of psychological and sociological research prove that the greatest violence perpetrated against children is the break-up of their parents' emotional relationships, the stability and certainty of which are assured – I mean to the greatest possible extent – by marriage.
It is also well known that children need both a male and a female reference figure.
The idea that encouraging homosexual unions and devaluing marriage means fighting to protect children from violence is therefore unacceptable.
   – Daphne is a nice name for the European programme aimed at combating violence against women and children.
It is a programme that will soon be ten years old and that has enjoyed some success, with more than 350 projects funded, mainly through NGOs involved in this field.
Violence against women is a terrible blight.
It is alarming that in 2006 adult women still come into the ‘vulnerable people' category.
Around the world, one woman in three has been victim of one of the numerous forms of violence.
There are a number of weapons at our disposal in the fight against these barbarous acts: draconian legislative measures, zero tolerance, listening to the victims and awareness-raising campaigns.
Children are also affected.
The appearance of the PNVD alone, a Dutch political party in favour of child pornography and sexual relations between adults and children, is testimony to the failures of our system and speaks volumes about the reforms that need to be carried out.
In ten years, the Daphne budget has increased fivefold and now totals EUR 25 million per year.
This is still not enough in my view to combat this kind of violence, which is all too often trivialised and which affects the most vulnerable, namely women and children.
   I have voted in favour of the report in order to send out an important signal concerning the reorganisation of taxes for the benefit of the environment.
Taxes should continue to fall within the national competence, and it is fortunate that a decision concerning Mrs Riis-Jørgensen’s desire to limit tax revenues for welfare services cannot lawfully be taken at EU level.
   . I support both objectives of this proposal for a directive: to improve the functioning of the internal market while also taking the opportunity to achieve dramatic reduction in CO2 emissions.
I also believe that the proposals could lead to significant improvement in road safety in that by providing motorists with an opportunity to pay less for new, more environmentally friendly cars, we would encourage the gradual replacement of the car fleet with safer vehicles.
In voting for the Riis-Jorgensen report today I also fully support the much more imaginative environmental demands made in this report.
Whereas the European Commission has called for graduated taxes designed to penalise carbon dioxide emissions, the European Parliament calls for the focus to cover all pollutants and fuel efficiency.
We need imaginative steps like this if we are to stand any chance of reducing the threat of global warming.
   . The EPLP is, in principle, in favour of a link between levels of taxation and our commitments to reducing environmental pollution.
Whilst the EPLP believes that this is an extremely important opinion that raises many relevant points in trying to develop a Europe-wide solution linking to pollution to consumption, the EPLP believes that taxation is a matter of national competence and therefore cannot support aims at harmonising taxation at an EU level to reach these aims without full unanimity.
Therefore, the EPLP has abstained from the final vote.
   The next item is the Council presentation of the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2007.
   . Mr President, the work on the 2007 budget confirms the old adage that, while procedures may be repeated, there is no such thing as a routine budget.
In order to round off what our rapporteur, Mr Elles, has said, I would like to mention a few of the problems which we will face in 2007.
The first is not the most important, as it is a technical, analytical problem.
Once again, it is basically the problem of the comparability of annual budgets.
This is a budget for 27 Member States.
This problem of comparability became acute when the geography of the European Union changed in 2004/2005.
However, it still exists and I agree with the view that if spending on Bulgaria and Romania is not separated, a full comparison between the annual budgets will not be possible.
The second issue, which is the most serious, was highlighted by Mr Elles, and is as follows: to what extent should the first year of the new financial perspective encourage us to not reflect so much on the form of the budget but on the budget priorities, namely how much continuity and how much change there should be in this first year of the new financial perspective?
I note a certain amount of continuity on the part of the Council, including continuing horizontal cuts, this time supported more by the so-called activity statements.
I note the traditionally privileged status of the Common Foreign and Security Policy However, I would like to clearly highlight the fact that the European Parliament rapporteur has a very strong mandate, from both the Commission and the whole European Parliament, to examine individual budget lines and check them from the point of view of what is known as cost-benefit analysis.
This is a very strong mandate and a very strong principle which will inform the first reading of the 2007 budget in the European Parliament.
This round of talks will begin tomorrow, after agreement with other committees, of course.
2007 is a problem in terms of implementing a new generation of multi-annual programmes based on new regulations and a new set of instruments for foreign trade.
The question remains: to what extent does a potential slip-up justify the careful budgeting for 2007, something that is very visible in terms of expenditure? That was likely to have been the main reason for the point of departure being so low this time around.
Spending was already below 1% of GDP in the initial draft by the Commission.
The Council made further cuts of the order of 1 billion 757 million euro, which creates an extraordinary gap between the 2007 budget and the limits defined in the financial perspective for that year.
In our opinion, this is not enough to fund the aims of the European Union.
The European Union’s ambitions as an international player, that is, on the international arena, in terms of funding research and development make this fact clear.
The implementation of next year’s budget is also a matter of quality and motivation in terms of administrative procedures, and in this respect we are very rigorously examining and analysing the Council’s approach to the issue of employment and salaries in the European Commission.
We accept the European Commission’s warning that the cuts in salaries which amount to over EUR 50 million will make recruitment, particularly from the new Member States, virtually impossible.
The Council has not denied this strongly enough, and therefore the problem will be raised in the first reading in Parliament, as it is not only a question of proportionality in terms of employment, but also a problem of efficiency and motivation for the administration which is facing new challenges.
The differences over the approach to the 2007 budget became very clear, albeit in a friendly atmosphere, during the conciliation procedure on 14 July.
A sign of these differences was, for example, the fact that no common statements were made by Parliament and Council.
Of course, we also have time to agree the 2007 budget.
For me, and this is my final point, it was very important to receive Minister Wideroos’ assurance which, while only verbal, is based on what was jointly included in the interinstitutional agreement, that is, that she will undertake to do all that lies within her power to ensure that the new financial regime will come into force on 1 January 2007.
It is clear that the efficient implementation of the budget for 2007 depends on whether there is a new financial regime to accompany it.
   The next item is the report by Mr Proinsias De Rossa and Mr José Albino Silva Peneda, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on a European Social Model for the future [2005/2248(INI)] (A6-0238/2006).
   . – Ladies and gentlemen, previously the entire sector of social expenditure was viewed as an incidental matter, as a matter of redistribution.
I believe that the experience of recent years has shown that this is not a matter of expenditure but rather one of investment, and I am pleased that we are discussing this report during the Finnish Presidency.
The Finnish crises of the early 1990s were overcome by investing in people, in a similar fashion to the Danes during the time of Bishop Grundtvig.
Recently, the work of the US economist Richard Florida has drawn attention to the creative class and the economics of creativity.
We need to create a network capable of harnessing all kinds of talent in European society and of driving development forward.
We must, in my view, regard the European social model as an area of choice and not as a unification issue.
Lifestyles should diversify, because where we gamble on cheap labour, such as in the Asian economies, there is dwindling choice and the range of opportunities for economic growth also diminishes.
   Mr President, the co-rapporteur, Mr De Rossa, talked about the need for a ‘decent society’.
That phrase was very much paralleled and echoed by the Council when talking about the need for ‘social justice’.
I hope that on all sides of the House people would agree on the importance of those phrases and agree that they should not just be empty phrases but concepts of real meaning.
I hope also that people on both sides of this House would recognise the importance of their applying to everybody in real social inclusion.
In other words, that they should apply not just to those people who are in work, not just to those people who are not able to work, but also to those people who want to work but are unable to find work because there are too many obstacles in their way.
That is why I would also like to congratulate – in addition to the first co-rapporteur – the other co-rapporteur, Mr Silva Peneda.
When he spoke he referred to the need to reform the social model.
That phrase was picked up by the Commissioner himself, who talked about the need for reform.
What particularly impressed me about the Commissioner’s remarks was that he said that the status quo is not an option.
He specifically referred to the 20 million unemployed, because they are indeed a constant reminder of the biggest social injustice of all.
Something has to be done.
We must help to do it.
To my mind the key word is ‘reform’.
I have tabled an amendment, with the help of a dozen or so colleagues from different countries, to insert into Amendment 1 on recital F the phrase ‘modernisation and reform’.
The good news is that Mr Hughes has confirmed to me this afternoon that the PSE Group will support that phrase.
We have the chance, as a House, to show that we all support that phrase and that it is not empty of meaning, but a phrase of substance.
Our constituents want reform.
Let us show tomorrow that we want it and are going to vote for it too.
   – The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the greenhouse gas emission allowance trading scheme: national allocation plans (2008-2012).
   . Mr President, I welcome the Commission and the Presidency to this debate.
I have to ask why there was this last-minute inclusion on the agenda last Friday, without the proper teeing-up among the various political groups.
Was it purely technical, to comply with your obligation to revert to Parliament by 30 June, even though you are a couple of months late? But I will move on as time is too precious to waste.
The PPE-DE Group fully supports the emissions trading scheme and our objectives under Kyoto and agrees with the need to keep downward pressure on every one of the 25 Member States to meet their targets in relation to greenhouse gases, as agreed under Kyoto.
Please take that as a given.
I note what the Commissioner has just said concerning the conclusions of the 2000 review: ‘the system works well, the results were good, the system is up and running’.
Commissioner, I do not know whether this is a PR exercise and we do not really want the truth to get out to those who might be listening.
I completely support a fully effective ETS, as do all my colleagues, but the system is not working well.
I know these are early days, which is a genuine caveat for anything we say after what has been a very short 18-month review period.
The theory is good, but the practice has been awful and has not matched the theory at all.
We need to look at this situation urgently.
The idea was that at the end of each year the amount of carbon dioxide actually emitted had to match the amount of emission permits a company surrendered to its government.
That was to keep pressure on companies to decrease their emissions.
What has happened? In the first year, 2005, the actual carbon dioxide emissions of 21 countries were 44 million tonnes short of the amount of CO2 emissions permits allocated by the 21 governments in question.
That resulted in absolutely no downward pressure to reduce emissions and in a very volatile carbon credit market that fluctuated from EUR 31 per tonne down to EUR 8 per tonne and back up to EUR 16 per tonne.
I agree that we need a properly functioning carbon credit market.
We need industry to buy into what we are saying.
We need credibility, in practice as well as in theory.
Could you please detail any amendments you are proposing in the directive before the second period of NAPs?
By the way, Ireland also submitted its NAP on 13 July and you did not mention its name in the countries that you read out.
I would like you confirm that it has done so.
Perhaps they are telling me whoppers in my home country!
   – That the flow of illegal immigrants needs to be cut off is not a matter of doubt.
The example given by Mr Medina Ortega highlights practices in his own country whereby national governments, by proceeding to – as they term it – legalise illegal immigrants, are actually sending out the wrong signal.
Does the Commission see possibilities here, and is it contemplating indicating that a stop should be put to such courses of action, as a consequence of which these illegal immigrants can find their way into all the other Member States of the Union?
   .
There is a number in the plan of Commissioner Piebalgs in this respect, so I would not, at this point, list which are priorities or otherwise.
The issue of biofuel is one of the priorities in the European Union.
It has been discussed in the College of Commissioners and in the Council, as have other areas such as the use of wind and solar energy.
What I can do, given that I am not an expert on this issue, is to make sure that there will be a written reply from my colleague with more detail on this issue.
In 2005, there were 140 000 company insolvencies in the European Union of the 15, threatening 1.5 million jobs.
In the same year in Greece, there was a significant increase of 54.55% in the number of small and medium-sized Greek businesses which declared bankruptcy compared with 2004.
In the light of these figures, what immediate measures will the Commission take to rescue small and medium-sized businesses?
Can a statement be given by the European Commission listing the different measures that it has introduced in the years 2005 and 2006 to date to cut the level of red tape faced by small businesses within the European Union?
   Mr President, Commissioner, we are now talking about 2004, but I read in the Maltese press that in the spring of 2005 and 2006, quite a few migratory birds were hunted, and a number of them shot down.
Can you inform me whether the Maltese authorities have already sent the Commission an exemption report on this 2005 spring hunting, and what their duties are in this respect? I think that this should have been done by June of this year.
Has it been?
If so, could you give us an idea of its content, and what the reasons are for this exemption? If not, when do you expect this report?
   Thank you for that reply, Commissioner.
I am glad that the study has at least started, despite the fact that we are having to wait until mid-2007, when it was first requested in December 2005.
That seems to be quite a long way away, but let us hope it is worth the wait.
Could you explain why the EU continues to import birds when countries such as the United States, for example, consider that those same birds are not sustainably harvested? Since 1992 the US has imposed a moratorium on all CITES-listed birds unless it can be scientifically proven that they are harvested in a sustainable way.
Since 1992 not a single one has been proved to be sustainably harvested.
Many developing countries also have bans on the export of those birds.
So how is it that the United States has such a different assessment from the EU as to whether or not they are being sustainably harvested?
   Whatever the United States may do by way of exemptions, we have a temporary ban which has been shown to work in terms of reducing the illegal trade, but we do not have a permanent ban, and it is we in Europe who are the major importers of wild birds, at 93% - going on for a million a year until 2003.
Between 40 and 70% of those birds die before they are exported and many more die en route to Europe.
Surely it is time that we made our ban permanent and then led the world and set an example for countries like the United States and Australia?
   .
World conservation of certain bird species is affected by international trade.
Such species could be proposed for listing under the CITES Convention, depending on the appendices.
Trade for commercial purposes is then prohibited or regulated by a permit and monitoring system.
There is a certain way of deciding this under the CITES provisions.
Species are only listed if specific conservation and trade criteria are fulfilled.
Where these criteria are fulfilled, the Commission would support such listing.
Any such listing is subject to a vote in CITES and the necessary majority might not always be attainable.
We should remember that we must act in compliance with the law and meet our obligations under the CITES Convention and we cannot do otherwise if a vote is taken.
Exporting countries are also involved and if we do not act in accordance with the law for a certain species, we may encounter problems for other species, such as reptiles or corals or other animals.
Last April, the Commission served formal notice on Madrid City Council and the Madrid Autonomous Community as part of proceedings for failing to comply with Directive 85/337/EEC(2) in respect of the work on the M-30 motorway, on the basis of the information requested by the Commission following my question P-0494/04(3) of February 2004.
Now that the City Council and the Autonomous Community have had the requisite two months to state their position to the Commission, can the latter confirm that they have done so?
If not, what is the Commission going to do? If their position has indeed been stated, what are the details, and what is the Commission's response?
   I think that the answer is very straightforward.
I could perhaps say in one sentence that the Commission has sent a warning letter as regards the presumed incorrect application by the Spanish authorities of the amended directive on the impact of public and private works on the environment in the case of the project to construct the M30 orbital road in Madrid.
This letter was sent by the Commission on 10 April 2006, in accordance with Article 226 of the Treaty, and Spain replied on 13 July 2006.
We are currently evaluating the reply given by the Spanish authorities and will shortly be completing this evaluation.
   Questions Nos 50 and 51 will be answered in writing.
Questions Nos 52 and 53 will not be taken, as the subjects concerned are already on the agenda of this part-session.
Questions Nos 54 to 58 will be answered in writing.
   .
Thank you for your question, Mr Evans.
Our view on how to end the economic isolation of the Turkish Cypriot communities is very clear: we want to execute the financial assistance programme now and we want to facilitate a solution for direct trade, possibly with accompanying measures.
At the same time, we trust that this will create confidence so that at some point – hopefully soon – we can resume talks, under the UN umbrella, on a comprehensive settlement leading to the reunification of Cyprus.
   – The next item is the oral question to the Commission by Thierry Cornillet, on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, on the counterfeiting of medicinal products (O-0039/2006 – B60310/2006).
   Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mr Bowis on his excellent report.
I should also like to say that it is not just a gender issue: there is certainly a very strong racial perspective as well that is attached to mental health and mental illness. At least we are past the age where sexual orientation was seen as a mental disorder, but there is still, as others have said, a tremendous amount of work to be done.
As Mr Bowis himself pointed out, we have only just begun to scratch the surface in terms of what we would call promoting mental wellbeing. The World Health Organisation describes mental health as a state of wellbeing in which the individual realises his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.
That has enormous implications for the social inclusion policies that we pursue and, as a Member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I want to pick up – as others have done – on the world of work, focusing in particular on paragraph 27 of the report. It is not just about the influence of mental health on employment, but the effect of employment on mental health.
As others have said, stress is potentially the largest cause of time off work. The Bilbao Agency has done a lot of work on that.
Self-reported work-related stress, depression or anxiety accounted in the UK recently for nearly 13 million lost working days in one year. If that had been the result of physical injury at the workplace there would have been an enormous outcry.
Many companies do not have a policy for dealing with stress.
Many managers cannot recognise it in themselves and cannot manage it in others.
So we need to develop training there, and we need to have a culture at work where you can admit to stress, have it dealt with seriously and work with working practices that promote mental wellbeing.
   – The next item is the oral question by Giuseppe Gargani, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, to the Commission, on European contract law (O-0074/2006 – B6-0326/2006).
   Mr President, I agree that point six is very important, partly because there are six Members here at the moment.
It is the first time that I have taken part in a debate that could be said to resemble the film ‘The Magnificent Seven’, the seventh hero being the President of the European Parliament.
It seems to be a happy coincidence.
I agree with the previous speakers that holding this debate so late, just before midnight, is not a good idea.
I remember Polish parliamentary debates that ended at three o’clock in the morning and I never imagined this to be possible in Strasbourg.
However, it would appear that I lacked imagination.
We are awaiting the European Commission’s decision on the Common Frame of Reference.
We hope that the Commissioners from Cyprus, Italy and Ireland will be able to state the Commission’s final position. The point of this legislation is to enable ordinary Polish, Czech, French, Danish and other citizens of the European Union to make use of this right.
It is also a matter of agreeing on and standardising consumer rights and other legislation making up the It is a very important matter and, once again, I would like to express my regret that we are discussing it so late. However, I do think that the Commissioner’s words today reflect the importance the European Commission attaches to this problem.
   – The next item is the oral question by Joost Lagendijk and Gisela Kallenbach, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, Hannes Swoboda and Jan Marinus Wiersma, on behalf of the PSE Group, Doris Pack, on behalf of the PPE-DE Group, and Elizabeth Lynne, Sarah Ludford and Jelko Kacin, on behalf of the ALDE Group, to the Council, on the EU's preparedness for its future role in Kosovo (O-0082/2006 – B6-0426/2006).
   – Mr President, three minutes is a wonderfully long time.
I would like to make three points.
My first is that prolonging the negotiations will not bring any change to the fundamental differences between Serbia and Kosovo.
One of them is in favour of autonomy, the other is in favour of independence.
Therefore I feel very strongly that we should stick to the timetable and time limits envisaged by the contact group and have the issue settled by the end of the Finnish Presidency at the end of 2006.
We must stay firm on this.
The second point I wanted to make is that, much like Mr Posselt, I see no option other than independence, with some limitations on Kosovo’s sovereignty, of course.
It is important, in order to maintain stability in the region, that there is an international presence and most certainly that the European Union is ready to maintain a significant presence for some time.
The third point I wanted to make is that I think the Western Balkans by and large are a painful reminder of the weaknesses of our common foreign and security policy.
I do not think we should repeat the mistakes of the past, and in that sense we must stand very firm in supporting the UN Special Envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, whom I feel is doing an excellent job.
I think that the EU’s best foreign policy is usually enlargement policy, and that is why it is very important to keep the prospect of enlargement alive for Kosovo and in the Western Balkans in general.
As a final point, I would like to make the observation that in 1999 the Finnish Presidency interestingly started with the then President, Martti Ahtisaari, negotiating peace in Kosovo and the Western Balkans.
I certainly hope that the Finnish Presidency in 2006 will end with a final settlement on the Kosovo issue and with independence for Kosovo.
   – I should like to advise you that written declaration 38/2006 by Carl Schlyter, Paulo Casaca, Karl-Heinz Florenz, Mojca Drčar Murko and Caroline Lucas on banning seal products in the European Union has been signed by the majority of Parliament's component Members. Consequently, in accordance with Rule 116 of the Rules of Procedure, it will be forwarded to its addressees and published in the minutes of the sitting of 26 September 2006.
   – Mr President, there are not only people with severe psychotic disorders in the European Union, but also people with a number of psychological disorders.
I should therefore like to move the following oral amendment to paragraph 48 so that it would read ‘... believes that the term “treatment” should be interpreted broadly, including the psychotherapy conducted by fully qualified specialists ...’.
It does not change much but it adds something that reflects what we face in our societies.
   Mr President, I should just like to move a short oral amendment to Amendments 11 and 12.
In each amendment, before the words ‘the new Member States’, the words ‘some of’ should be inserted, so that the text reads: ‘in some of the new Member States’.
The aim is to be factually correct, since what is being referred to in the two amendments does not concern all of the Member States, just some of them.
   . I voted in favour of this report on the Fisheries Agreement between the EC and the Union of the Comoros.
The last time we voted on this subject some years ago I inserted an amendment asking for joint action between the EC and the Union of the Comoros to protect that ‘fish out of time’, the Coelacanth, which, although thought to have been extinct for tens of millions of years, was rediscovered in deep water off the Comoros in the 1940s.
As far as I am aware, little was done.
I hope this time around real attempts will be made to protect this unique remnant of the world’s deep time.
   – I voted for the report by my colleagues Mr Silva Peneda and Mr De Rossa on the European Social Model, because it is crucial that our fellow citizens understand that European integration provides our ambitions to build a humanist civilisation with a social dimension.
Clearly, work remains to be done on the coherence of our sustainable development model bringing together economic growth, social ambition and respect for the environment.
This report outlines some very promising initiatives which I support, while being satisfied that, in its wisdom, the European Parliament has rejected the proposal to legislate on services of general interest, since at present it is clear that the time is not right for such a step.
I sincerely believe that a fair and balanced social model is a key element of the Union’s economic performance, while, on the other hand, over-emphasis on social policy will destroy economic growth and will in time be counter-productive, as there will be insufficient means to finance social measures.
In this matter, let us be clear about the use that we will make of the European Union, and let us not hide the reality from our fellow citizens, and from young people in particular.
   . In voting for the De Rossa and Silva Peneda report on a European social model for the future, Labour MEPs are expressing support for social and economic policies which generate employment, productivity and fairness at work.
Labour MEPs analyse each legislative proposal on a case-by-case basis in relation to their impact on UK business and the workforce.
Nothing in our voting for the De Rossa report runs counter to this approach.
Specifically, Labour MEPs believe firmly that taxation policy is a matter for individual Member States and we have voted accordingly in the De Rossa and Silva Peneda report.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted for the report on acknowledging the importance of mental illness in Europe, the rapporteur of which is my friend John Bowis, who alone has ensured that this important topic will be addressed in the best possible manner.
Mr Bowis’s fame has spread throughout Europe. An admirer of his by the name of Silvana Moggi has come from Italy, specifically from the town of Salsomaggiore (the town where Miss Italy was elected), to be here in the gallery because she wanted to be present when her great idol John Bowis presented his extremely important proposal for debate, so that all of us in Europe can be treated in the best possible way even when we have the misfortune of having mental illnesses and not just physical illnesses.
   I voted in favour of the excellent report by Mr Bowis on the motion for a resolution of the European Parliament – towards a strategy on mental health for the European Union.
One out of every four people will suffer from a mental health problem during their life.
Physical and mental weaknesses increase with age, and this is linked to longer life expectancies.
In a world which is becoming more complicated under pressure from enormous, dramatic and rapid changes, we are faced with the collective challenge to understand, prevent and treat mental health problems while avoiding the stigmatisation, rejection or, worse still, contempt, of sufferers.
The European Union must offer an example by guaranteeing its citizens a mentally healthy life.
In this regard, I am proud to belong to a Member State, France, which, under the leadership of President Jacques Chirac, has always implemented the most lucid, ambitious and, ultimately, humane policy on the treatment of mental disabilities.
   .
Although I believe more work needs to be conducted on third-party fish agreements, I cannot on this occasion support Amendments 1 and 2. Both amendments go outside the objective of the Action Plan.
   Before moving on to the next item, I have a communication for the House.
You will recall that we have occasionally had disagreements over how to interpret Rule 166 of our Rules of Procedure and that certain Members thought that the Presidency was not applying it properly, since it was not giving the floor for points of order that did not refer to the issue that was being debated at that moment.
In fact, Rule 166 does not specify clearly whether the point of order for which the floor is given must refer to the issue being debated or to that day’s agenda, or whether it can refer to any other issue.
Nevertheless, the President’s view is that common sense should dictate that the floor should only be given on the subject being debated and not any other issue.
Nevertheless, in order to clear up the argument that had arisen on various occasions in the House, I requested the opinion of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and, in its reply, it proposes the following interpretation of Rule 166: ‘Requests for the floor to comment on the application of the Rules of Procedure shall refer to the item being debated at that moment.
The President may give the floor in relation to other issues at the appropriate time; for example, after the debate on an item on the agenda or before the sitting is suspended.’
It is therefore clear that, from now on, Rule 166 should be interpreted as common sense dictates and that it may only be invoked for the purpose of commenting on the application of the Rules of Procedure relating to the item being debated at that moment.
I would point out that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs’ interpretation will be considered adopted unless it is contested before the Minutes of the present sitting are approved.
   – Mr President, since he has returned to the Chamber, I shall congratulate Mr Cohn-Bendit on his rather passionate speech, which we heard a moment ago.
At the risk of surprising and upsetting him, I agree with him on almost all points or, at any rate, on the main ones.
It is patently obvious: there is no solution other than a political one.
What is more, that political solution is possible, over and above the despair of the different sides, the despair of the extremists from both camps.
There is despair in Israeli politics right now, and the State of Israel needs to be protected from itself.
I believe that this ‘show of strength’ policy being conducted by Israel is an all or nothing policy that is jeopardising the country’s long-term existence and worrying all those who want it to be secure, as we ourselves do.
We simply differ on two points: no, it is not Europe that will impose this political solution because not everyone in Europe wants it; it took more than three weeks – as you know, Mr Cohn-Bendit – for the Foreign Affairs ministers to meet after the start of the bombings, and that was to voice their disagreements.
Let us stop dreaming of a policy based on yet another European army, on a European navy, or on goodness knows what else.
We do not agree politically; there will therefore be no true European political choice as such, at least, not as long as we follow Washington’s policy – and that is the other point on which I differ from you – as it basically consists in promoting the extremes of both camps and in destroying the geopolitical balance in the region.
By destroying Iraq, by condemning Syria, by forcing Syria to withdraw from Lebanon, an act that weakens Lebanon – the Christians themselves realise this, including even Mr Aoun – we have created the conditions for an imbalance and we are still reaping the rewards of that imbalance, which is war, which is giving a voice to the extremists - from both camps, I might add, from the dominant and the dominated side.
Unfortunately, I believe that it is not Europe that can impose this political solution; I can see no political power other than France that can do so.
   Mr President, my whole life engagement with the Middle East does not lighten my own burden of responsibility.
The situation is grave; we are almost engaged in the process of recreating an Islamic Caliphate.
In south Lebanon, we are not facing resistance movement militias, but rather special units that are well trained, manned and equipped by Iranian revolutionary guards.
They are equipped via Damascus international airport.
This army is probably better than any other Arab regular army.
Therefore, I suggest we must close and seal the Lebanese-Syrian border, send an EU monitoring mission such as the one sent to Serbia and Republika Srpska in the mid-1990s.
We must fully control Damascus international airport.
We need clear rules of engagement.
I ask you, what precisely does ‘assist the Lebanese army, disarming of armed groups without right to use force’ mean? We have to pull Syria back from its involvement with Russia and Russian interests immediately.
What can we offer there? We have to bring back Lebanese businessmen to increase investors’ confidence in their country, and we have to stop Iran from smuggling uranium, otherwise regional war will turn into a global problem.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should just like to announce that, at the end of the talks with the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, the Israeli Prime Minister has announced that Israel's air and sea blockade of Lebanon will be lifted tomorrow at 5 p.m.
   In his supplementary question Mr Moraes referred to the interests of working people.
Is the Council aware of some research concerning large European countries published in the in recent days, which shows that the majority of working people in all those countries, with the possible exception of Spain, want more flexibility in their working hours, not less? Will the Council take this into account when trying to broker a deal?
On the basis of the agreements reached by the European Council of 15 and 16 June 2006, what concrete measures has the Council adopted or will it adopt to restrict illegal immigration by citizens of third countries and facilitate their possible return to their countries of origin?
   .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the readmission and repatriation of illegal immigrants is one of the key factors in the Union’s policy on immigration, especially within the framework of a comprehensive approach to the question of immigration.
I would refer the honourable Member to the concrete measures and initiatives which the Council cited in the general answer it gave this year to oral questions H-0440, H-0455, H-0473 and H-0478/06.
Regarding the period since the European Council in June, I would refer the honourable Member to the Euro-Africa Conference on Migration and Development, which Morocco organised, with the active involvement of Spain and France, in Rabat on 10 and 11 July.
At the conference an action plan was adopted.
Its third section specifically covers matters relating to the fight against illegal immigration and the repatriation of illegal immigrants.
All the countries attending the conference stressed their commitment to the rapid implementation of the action plan.
On 17 July, the Council adopted conclusions on immigration, stating once again that illegal immigration must be effectively prevented at Union level.
The conclusions also made mention of the significance of other immigration routes, especially in the Union’s neighbouring regions to the east and south-east, and the preparations that are under way for the next Euro-Africa Conference on Migration and Development, which Libya has promised to host.
On 19 July, the Commission published a communication on policy priorities in the fight against illegal immigration of third country nationals.
It also deals with matters relating to repatriation and readmission.
It was presented to the Council on 24 July, and the Council will examine it at a later date.
At present, the Council is discussing a proposal for a directive on common norms and procedures to be applied in Member States when repatriating nationals of third countries who are illegally resident.
Talks on readmission continue in accordance with the guidelines and competences agreed by the Council.
The Commission and the European Agency for the Management of Operational Co-operation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union also reported back on the implementation of key measures included in the comprehensive approach at a meeting of the Council held on 24 July.
   I just wondered how the Council expects the EU to meet the increasing challenge of illegal entry and the need for returns when in its draft budget for 2007, and compared to the Commission’s bid, it has actually cut the appropriations for Frontex, the Borders Agency to which the Minister referred several times, and the European Return Fund.
I hope Parliament will be able to restore these cuts, but how can these be priorities when the Council is not following through on the financial commitments?
   I am very pleased that the Minister has said that there is further legislation coming forward on Article 13 regarding age.
Can the Minister assure us that elder abuse will be given appropriate attention by Member States in the national action plans on health and long-term care? Will the Minister urge the Council and the Commission to release any results on elder abuse across Member States, so that we can have an exchange of best practice?
   Yesterday we had a debate on the Daphne programme, especially as regards women and children.
We are hearing a lot about the abuse of the elderly and it might be possible to take this question on board, because it covers a similar area.
Two months ago there was a large meeting with eight European organisations of elderly people.
Could this question be taken on board within the framework of Daphne?
   .
Mr President, the current Daphne Programme to which the honourable Member refers, and which is against violence, at present applies in particular to violence against women, but, as the honourable Member says, there are obviously also ways of exploring how the situation might be improved at European level with regard to elderly people too.
   We read that the German foreign minister wants to table in the Council a proposal to bring about common values by creating closer, long-term networks between the EU and Russia.
Is this not absurd, when Russia is not even prepared to change the poor conditions under which Mr Khodorkovsky is being held, conditions which contravene its own laws, or rather not even prepared to bring these conditions into line with its own laws, according to which prisoners must be kept close to their home town?
Have you spoken specifically and directly with Russia about the case of these two Yukos detainees?
At the annual summit of European and American leaders in Vienna, President Bush said that he wished to close the controversial prison camp at Guantánamo Bay but that he was awaiting a ruling by the US Supreme Court as to where the prisoners could be tried.
In addition, it is necessary to ascertain how countries can take prisoners back.
Some will have to be tried in the USA if there are no guarantees of due process in their own country.
According to Bush, some 400 prisoners currently remain in the camp.
Does the Council know how many Europeans are being held at Guantánamo Bay? Could they not be returned with a minimum of delay and tried in Europe, where the most guarantees of correct treatment exist and as President Bush himself has suggested?
   On 29 June, the US Supreme Court ruled that military tribunals were illegal. At 7.45 p.m.
CET, President Bush is due to make an announcement that he is seeking to change the law to make it possible to try Guantánamo Bay prisoners – including EU citizens – by military tribunal.
If he makes that announcement – which I believe he will – can the Council protest in the strongest possible terms about this travesty of justice, as a matter of urgency?
   .
Mr President, the European Union has on many occasions stated that the treatment of prisoners captured on the battlefield must comply with the provisions of the Geneva Convention and the customary rules of international humanitarian law, and must respect human rights.
Furthermore, it was the view of the informal meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers in Klosterneuburg in the spring that the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay should be closed as quickly as possible, so the Union has clearly expressed its opinion on the subject.
Will the Finnish Presidency renew efforts to get agreement in the Council on a framework decision to combat race and religious hate crime as proposed by the Commission in 2001 and strongly backed by the Parliament? Will you encourage the Commission also to come forward with a measure to combat homophobic hate crime?
   I am delighted that the one Member State's objection has been lifted to the adoption of the framework decision.
Will the Presidency urge the COREPER Working Group to expedite their work on this matter so that we can get this adopted as soon as possible? Would the Council further agree that the adoption of such a framework decision would send a positive signal to our ethnic minorities in the European Union, particularly the Muslims, who feel under a lot of pressure in our continent at the moment?
   On the subject of combating international terrorism, can the Council tell us what steps it took to encourage the return of three IRA members convicted of international terrorism in Colombia, who later took refuge in a Member State of the EU – namely Ireland – and continue to enjoy sanctuary there? Is it not clear that the EU undermines its credibility as regards taking a stand on international terrorism if it acquiesces in Member States harbouring wanted and convicted international terrorists?
   The next item is the report by Bastiaan Belder, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on EU-China relations (2005/2161 (INI)) (A6-0257/2006).
I have received a request from the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, pursuant to Rule 168 of the Rules of Procedure, to refer the report by Mr Belder on EU-China relations back to committee.
Does anybody wish to move this request by the Socialist Group in the European Parliament?
   Mr President, I feared that no one else would come out in favour.
Allow me, then, to do so.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we are tackling this request in a totally constructive spirit.
I should like to say that, in the human rights area and whatever the outcome of the vote to follow, we shall of course support all the amendments in favour of human rights.
These are not, therefore, even at issue today.
What we should like to remedy – and this is what Mrs Dobolyi wanted to emphasise – are factual errors, shortcomings and deficiencies that are still extant.
We should also like to re-establish somewhat closer relations with the rapporteur. That is all.
   Mr Tajani has the floor in order to speak against the motion.
   .
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to comment on relations between the European Union and China as seen through the prism of relations between China and Taiwan and that of democracy.
It is no secret that China refuses to engage in direct dialogue with the democratically elected government of Taiwan.
The European Union therefore ought to urge China to maintain an atmosphere of mutual trust with Taiwan, and to employ peaceful means in developing relations to achieve stability throughout the region.
China’s actions in restricting Taiwan’s participation in international processes cannot be endorsed.
China must respect the fundamental human rights and freedom to make political choices of Taiwan’s 23 million inhabitants.
We should condemn the fact that the Chinese law legitimising the possible occupation of Taiwan hangs over Taiwan like a sword of Damocles.
Ladies and gentlemen, in my view, in the concept of ‘one China’ the idea of peaceful reunification should be replaced with something that is more applicable – a peaceful solution.
The deployment of approximately 800 guided and other types of missile on China’s southern coast, opposite the Taiwan Strait, must be significantly reduced.
This is threatening and stressful for the inhabitants of Taiwan.
It results in the need for counter-measures to build up arms in Taiwan, taking significant resources away from the needs of the economy and society.
The European Union’s arms embargo ought to be maintained.
To lift it would be misinterpreted as encouragement for further increases in China’s military might.
That might seriously affect stability in the Asian region and lead to the escalation of expenditure on weapons.
A lifting of the arms embargo would not foster the desired democratisation of China.
The impetus for the one-party regime to end the significant human rights violations that we have seen for so long would disappear.
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, speaking about EU-China relations, I would like to emphasise the economic ties that are closely associated to the political and human rights aspects emphasised in the report.
China is becoming one of the most important foreign trade partners of the EU; therefore, the development of cooperation between the EU Member States and China is of great importance, especially in economic and trade relations.
In the meantime, economic relations between the EU and China are facing some problems.
China is still not a free but rather a mixed market and planned economy.
The Communist Party governing the country and controlling national funds is able to interfere in the economy, while state institutions are trying to maintain their influence via bureaucratic procedures and administrative requirements, thus impeding access of EU investments and goods to this market as well as their effect upon the market.
After China joined the WTO, Chinese products flooded the EU market.
The balance of trade of EU Member States with China is becoming increasingly unfavourable to the EU.
Chinese goods are displacing local ones, but China is not willing to open its markets.
Considering the EU-China strategic partnership that began in 2003, we must pursue China's contribution to make conditions beneficial to foreign trade, improve legal protection for foreign investments and open markets for EU goods and investments.
   The next item is the report by Carmen Fraga Estévez, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on launching a debate on a Community approach towards eco-labelling schemes for fisheries products (2005/2189(INI)) (A6-0219/2006).
   Mr President, thank you, Mrs Fraga Estévez, for your constructive and well-balanced report.
We have an election in Sweden.
One of the election issues is the lack of cod.
Voters ask me: ‘How am I to be ethical in eating fish?’
Only this week, I have given them six pages of recommendations on precisely that subject.
We need labelling that is easily understandable so that we can go home with a clear conscience and eat good fish.
Those who buy eco-labelled fish also want to know that the stock is not threatened.
If the last cod is eaten, having been caught with very good equipment, in the correct way and under the right circumstances, it is still the last cod.
Such a situation is emphatically not sustainable ecologically.
I therefore think that Amendment 2 is important, emphasising as it does that threatened species, precisely by virtue of being threatened, simply cannot be fished in an ecologically responsible way.
I wish to emphasise two aspects of Mrs Fraga Estévez’ report.
Independent control, as mentioned in paragraph 6, is very important in conferring credibility.
Moreover, it is very important that we in some way facilitate clear labelling for small-scale fisheries.
Clear labelling may constitute a competitive advantage for small-scale fisheries.
We must therefore ensure that it can be exploited and puts small-scale fisheries in a fair competitive position.
   Thank you, Mr Nicholson.
I cannot say you deliver good news for us, but congratulations to you anyway.
   . Mr President, as you know, the European Court has stated that the Council and the Commission decision on the transfer of PNR data to the United States Bureau of Customs and Border Protection serves the purpose of protection of public security and concerns public activities in the area of criminal law.
Therefore, these activities are excluded from the scope of the European Data Protection Directive and Article 95 of the European Treaty, even when the data being processed was originally for the supply of commercial services.
The situation in general concerning legal bases underlines the need for a single system of legal bases for justice, liberty and security issues.
This is what I call the ‘Communitarisation’ of the so-called Third Pillar; therefore, I called upon the Council of Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs to ensure a clear legal framework for justice, freedom and security by favouring the use of the so-called clause, Article 42.
I know that the European Parliament shares the Commission’s point of view on this very important matter, which I will raise again during the informal Council in Tampere in a few days’ time.
I believe that this new agreement under negotiation with the United States should have the same content and include the same level of safeguards regarding legal certainty for air carriers, respect for human rights, notably the right to privacy, and the purposes for which the PNR data may be used.
In addition, it could integrate the current undertakings, as requested in the draft recommendation attached to the annulled Commission decision, and which the United States currently implements.
As you know, these undertakings provide for rules and procedures, which effectively restrict the use of PNR data by the United States authorities.
In order not to endanger public security, all efforts should be made to ensure that this agreement replaces the current one at the time when it expires, by 30 September at the latest.
The Commission is doing its utmost to start negotiations with the United States as soon as possible.
In accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 24 of the EU Treaty, negotiations are led by the Council Presidency, assisted by the Commission.
The negotiations should start tomorrow in Brussels.
A draft text has been transmitted to the United States authorities by the Presidency, which, as I said, is leading the negotiations.
I am aware of your request to the Presidency to make the text of the draft agreement available to you.
I am personally in favour and I can assure you that for its part the Commission intends to fulfil its obligations under the Framework Agreement between our two institutions and therefore I will keep Parliament informed throughout the negotiations.
It is indeed my intention to report to Parliament regularly on this issue and, as you probably know, I shall be participating in a meeting of the LIBE Committee next week, on 12 September.
Finally, I want to recall that, should no new agreement be in place on 1 October, air carriers flying from Europe to the United States risk legal complaints from citizens based on divergent national legislation on the transfer of PNR data to the United States.
For that reason, it is extremely important to ensure legal certainty through an agreement concluded at European level as of 1 October, whilst continuing to ensure a high level of security and at the same time privacy protection for our citizens.
   . – Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should, of course, like to begin by giving my full support to the report by my fellow Member, Mrs in't Veld.
We want a two-stage strategy: the conclusion of an interim agreement by 30 September, in order to guarantee continuity and not to cause any inconvenience to Europeans who travel to the United States, and the negotiation of a new, better-founded agreement, during the review, which is initially planned for 2007.
Two stages are therefore required.
However, the agreement to be concluded before the end of the month must not be hastily negotiated.
Mr Frattini is proposing that we keep the same text and just change the legal basis, as denounced by the Court.
We can accept that, but only on two conditions.
Firstly, the European Parliament must be fully informed of the debates under way with the Americans and must provide a political input.
What is more, the national parliaments must also be kept informed.
Secondly, we must be certain that all of the undertakings will actually be complied with and implemented by the US authorities.
I am specifically referring to the possibility of shifting from the PULL system to the PUSH system, as provided for in Undertaking 13, and of establishing judicial review procedures in the event of misuse, as provided for in the agreements concluded with Australia and Canada.
In the longer term, the new 2007 agreement must offer European nationals the same level of protection of their private lives as that guaranteed in Europe, and that is indeed a minimum requirement.
Finally, during the informal meeting in London, Mr Frattini made several practical proposals concerning a European PNR and a biometric positive profiling system, to be used on a voluntary basis.
I should like to know what exactly is the status of this meeting, in which important proposals were discussed without Parliament’s having been informed of them.
As regards a possible European PNR, it is quite clear that we will be unable to accept any proposals that allow Community legislation and national laws on the protection of Europeans’ personal data to be circumvented.
Nor will we be able to accept a procedure that bypasses the role and the democratic function of the national parliaments in this sector.
Furthermore, I would point out that the Commission proposals on these issues cannot be accepted without the framework decision on the protection of data under the third pillar being adopted.
My fellow Member, Mrs in't Veld, pointed this out, and this is an aspect that we will not lose sight of.
   . Mr President, it is not clear that there is any current use for PNR data in the US for the purposes for which the original agreement was signed – i.e. by the Customs and Border Protection Service – because CAPS II and the Secure Flight programme are dead.
In his article ten days ago, the US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff complained of being handcuffed and prevented from using all available resources.
He wants to analyse PNR records in conjunction with current intelligence, to identify high-risk travellers who are ‘unnamed threats’, and to share the information routinely with other homeland security sections, such as immigration, as well as the FBI and, indeed, ‘our allies in London’.
So we do not need a European PNR system: we will get it by the back door.
The Chertoff vision is of data-mining and profiling on the basis of past and assumed future behaviour and stereotypes of potential terrorists.
This takes us well beyond the simple checking of people against watch lists, for which APIS data – i.e. name, date of birth, nationality and passport number – is quite sufficient.
We have not begun to tackle the risks of this, so we need a very good explanation of what PNR data is being used for in the United States and what profiling techniques are being used.
We need strict and legally-binding purpose- and access-limitation provisions.
Similar concerns arise in the context of the EU plans for European PNR and so-called ‘positive profiling’.
Under the 2004 EU APIS Directive, governments gave themselves the power to use the personal data for law-enforcement purposes ‘in accordance with their national law and subject to the data protection provisions under Directive 95/46/EC’.
Surely the Court judgment on the US PNR agreement has shown that Directive 95/46/EC cannot be the legal basis for data used for security purposes? Therefore we need the third-pillar measure.
Has the Commission thought about this?
I agree with Commissioner Frattini and Mrs in ‘t Veld on the need for a coherent EU policy.
If you look at this PNR topic, the SWIFT scandal or CIA rendition, you see a pattern of a disunited Europe: Member States running round like headless chickens, subject to divide and rule by the United States.
We are not even a reliable partner: we are not even ratifying the agreements like Europol protocols, which would allow cooperation with the FBI.
We are ineffective, dysfunctional and we are letting our citizens down.
We must stop this incoherence and achieve a clear and assertive EU competence, but that policy must be determined to safeguard our privacy.
Can we trust the Commission on that?
– The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 12 noon.
   – The next item is the report (A6-0260/2006) by Mr Sifunakis, on behalf of the Committee on Culture and Education, on the protection of the European natural, architectural and cultural heritage in rural and island regions (2006/2050(INI).
   . Mr President, I should like to begin by sincerely thanking all those who have made an important contribution to this debate, in the form of ideas and of truly interesting suggestions, and I fully intend to inform Mr Figel' about them.
I should like to go back over just two points: that of the funding of the Culture 2000 project and that of the proposal, put forward specifically by the rapporteur, to make 2009 the European Cultural Heritage Year.
With regard to the first point, as you know far better than I do, the Culture 2000 project, which had a budget of EUR 167 million, is now due to be allocated EUR 400 million.
The budget has thus been substantially increased thanks to the contribution and the political support of the European Parliament.
As regards the second issue concerning the European year, the Commission is taking the proposal made very seriously, and we will assess it in the context of our objectives and priority plans for the next few years.
This proposal deserves to be carefully analysed.
I also wish to take advantage of this opportunity to point out to you that my colleague, Mr Figel', recently made an important proposal aimed at making 2008 the Year of Intercultural Dialogue, a proposal that the Commission has adopted.
I hope that the opinion to be issued by Parliament will be along the same lines.
That being said, as I stated, I shall inform Mr Figel' of the outcome of this debate, in a spirit of constructive cooperation between the Commission and Parliament.
   As Malta and Gozo are the smallest nation in the European Union it is only natural that one refers to their architecture and cultural heritage in a holistic way.
With the little available resources and an enormous architectural and cultural heritage it is impossible to preserve same using only our resources.
This is why we have to look to the EU to come to our aid.
Few know that the earliest free standing buildings in the world have been found in Malta.
Notwithstanding, they need immediate attention.
Perhaps the most impressive temple complex Ggantija in Gozo is in dire need of immediate professional attention.
Valletta, one of the most beautiful cultural capitals in Europe, is still in a disastrous state.
Fifty years have passed since the end of World War II yet the capital is still war-scarred – in particular the ruins of the once magnificent Opera House.
I appeal to the German and Italian governments to make a gesture of goodwill by rebuilding the Opera House which was destroyed through aerial bombings thus enhancing Valletta architecturally and contributing to its cultural heritage.
   Mr President, I would like to propose the following oral amendment: ‘Calls upon the Chinese authorities to reveal the whereabouts of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng and to release him unless he is to be charged with a recognised criminal offence; similarly calls for the release of Chen Guangcheng, who has helped citizens in their attempts to sue their local authorities for carrying out forced abortions and sterilisations, and of Bu Dongwei, who has been assigned to two and a half years of “Re-education through Labour” (RTL) and who is detained at an undisclosed location; therefore urges the authorities to ensure that all human rights defenders can carry out peaceful and legitimate activities without fear of arbitrary arrest, torture or ill-treatment and that they be given access to proper legal representation in the event of arrest;’.
   Mr President, in order to nip a potential myth in the bud, let me say that this House, by a large majority, adopted Amendment 33, which would appear to make reference to that concept, so your justification, Mr Swoboda, is wrong, and you ought to vote for the report.
   I shall take due note of that, Mrs Muscardini.
   Mr President, Mr Schulz, I was naturally not here on Monday when the European Commission spoke.
In his statement, Commissioner Dimas said that the only country in which the European civil protection mechanism was applied this summer was Spain.
That makes sense, because 50% of the fires this summer have unfortunately taken place in my country.
Now, Mr Schulz will know that on 6 October in the European Parliament we will hold a public hearing, proposed by our friend the ex-Commissioner Mr Barnier, precisely on the European civil protection corps.
Since we want that delegation to travel before 6 October, therefore, it is physically impossible to visit all of the countries that he has mentioned.
I propose that the visit to Spain before 6 October go ahead as planned and, if his group wants us to visit other countries after 6 October, he has my assurance that I will vote in favour of that.
   Mr President, we had surmised that things would turn out to be the way that Mr Galeote – in his most enlightening statement – has said they were, and so I ask that, following the words ‘in Spain’, the words ‘in Portugal, Greece, France and in the other countries particularly affected’ be added.
   – Mr President, I should like to propose a change to the second part of paragraph 19 with the following verbal amendment:
‘implementing multiannual projects to promote well-preserved traditional communities, with a population of, say, less than 1000;’
   . It is a tragedy that this failed over agriculture when it is less than 5% of the GDP for the European Union and the United States and yet so vital for developing countries.
While India has made the offer to end farm subsidies by 2013, the US seems hell-bent on increasing agricultural subsidies.
We can only hope sanity returns to these negotiations so important and so vital for so many!
   – The next item is the debate on six motions for resolutions on Sri Lanka.(1)
   . Mr President, the end to the violence seems to be further away than ever.
One of the reasons for this was the failure to have a second round of the Geneva peace talks, with the LTTE pulling out.
Hopes of further talks have been damaged by the Council proscribing the LTTE as a terrorist organisation on 29 May 2006.
I am personally pleased that an amendment has been tabled to that effect and I am sorry that it is not in the resolution.
The banning of the LTTE only leads to further isolation.
They are not permitted to travel, so another Geneva conference is impossible.
We should be realistic here.
However much we condemn the terrorist acts by the LTTE – and we do – the government is certainly not blameless.
We just have to look at the 17 French aid workers who were killed on 4 August 2006.
Evidence points to the government security forces being responsible – we do not know as yet.
This incident and all the others perpetrated by the LTTE and the government need further investigation by an independent human rights expert.
What I find so reprehensible is that neither the government security forces nor the Tamil Tigers do enough to protect civilians.
Persistent uncertainty about what has actually occurred and who is responsible for alleged war crimes and other violations of international law is fuelling fear and panic among the civilian population.
We must have a strong, effective monitoring operation, but it must have the support of the government, the LTTE, the United Nations and its members.
   – The next item is the debate on five motions for resolutions on North Korean asylum seekers, in particular in Thailand.(1)
   – The next item is the debate on five motions for resolutions on Zimbabwe.(1)
   Mr President, our Austrian colleague is right in saying this is not the first time we are discussing Zimbabwe in this House.
It has become something of a never-ending story, and in many respects Zimbabwe is a world record-beater with 70% unemployment, the highest rate of inflation in the world, 3 200 deaths from AIDS each week, and the lowest voter turnout in the world, namely 15%.
Four million people in that country are threatened with starvation.
The situation is a challenge for the whole world, including the European Union.
I hope that this time we will go beyond mere words, and I agree with what Mr Rueda, our Spanish colleague, said recently about not applying double standards.
By all means refer to Zimbabwe, but go further than that because fundamental human rights are also being violated in other countries and we have to constantly avoid such double standards.
It is a good thing that the House is debating this issue again, but let us hope it is for the last time.
   Mr President, this is a technical amendment.
I am advised that the final part of Amendment 5, which refers to the fact that ‘… Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner shares this concern’ would read better as ‘… this is a view shared by many international bodies’.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 7 September 2006.
   The Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats and the Socialist Group in the European Parliament have requested that the debate following the Commission statement on the ASEM Summit end without a vote on a resolution.
Mr Swoboda has the floor in order to explain this request by the PPE-DE and PSE Groups.
   Mr President, I do not always agree with Mr Swoboda, but, on this occasion, he has got it right, and so we should agree to what he suggests.
   Mr President, I oppose this proposal for two reasons.
Firstly, why would we not say something about ASEM? For the first time in years, there has been a successful ASEM Summit.
We used to complain about things going wrong but, finally, we have done something well.
Let us speak out about the improvement in economic ties with Asia.
It is an important issue and it gives us the opportunity to discuss the promotion of democracy and speak out against the continued use of capital punishment in Asian countries.
There is another reason.
This is our only opportunity this week to speak out about the military coup in Thailand.
That event should be on all our minds.
A military coup is the wrong way to get rid of even such an unsavoury character as Prime Minister Thaksin: it is not the way to go about it, and this Parliament cannot remain silent.
We have to speak out on this issue, whether it is you as President, the Conference of Presidents or, preferably, this House as a whole.
I therefore oppose having the debate without a resolution.
   Ladies and gentlemen, this Saturday Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a member of our faction and Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, was elected President of the Republic of Estonia by the electoral body.
According to public opinion, Ilves was the overwhelming favourite of the Estonian population in the contest with the sitting president, but nevertheless the elections were close, due to the regulations of the electoral body.
Both the media and the Estonian people feared that political manipulation, and not the popular will, would prevail.
On Saturday, thousands of Estonians, myself included, gathered in the centre of the capital, Tallinn.
Just as we did during the period of the restoration of Estonian independence at the end of the 1980s, we used music to express our support for Toomas Ilves as the representative of democracy.
I am very glad to be able to congratulate both Estonia and Europe.
The electoral body’s decision corresponded to the expectations of the democratic majority of our society, and after the Estonian presidential elections that took place on 23 September, I can confirm that European democracy is alive and well in Estonia.
I would also like to wish my good colleague and friend Toomas Ilves luck in his new position and in promoting more of Europe in Estonia and more Estonian ideas here.
    Mr President, exactly two weeks ago I had the opportunity of visiting South Ossetia as part of a European Parliament delegation.
It appears that in this troubled area of the South Caucasus there are at least 10 confrontations every day involving the use of firearms.
The peace-keeping forces deployed there by Russia were supposed to guarantee peace for the local people and indeed for the whole of that area of the South Caucasus.
According to the information provided to us by the Finnish head of the OSCE detachment, Major Lehtonen, the Russian peace-keeping forces are not, however, taking any steps to identify the underlying causes of these confrontations and if necessary pursue the individuals who are provoking them.
I would therefore like to draw the attention of this House to the fact that it is unacceptable to allow such an important part of our continent to remain under the sole control of a single military peace-keeping force.
We should strive to ensure that in future the European Union has greater influence over how the situation in South Ossetia is controlled.
   () Speaking before the European Parliament, I would also like to voice my criticism concerning the announcement that the deadline for new Member States to join the Schengen area has been put back to 2009.
At a time when technological advances occur at break-neck speed, the general public has reacted with surprise and great disappointment to the European Commission’s statement that the delay is due to technical problems related to the development and deployment of the SIS II database.
The Schengen Treaty is a visible and tangible embodiment of the freedom of movement of persons and goods across the entire European Union; unfortunately, we are only paying lip service to this freedom.
Therefore, I regard as unfair a situation where citizens of new EU Member States will have to wait beyond the end of the 2007 in order to travel without border checks.
I call on the European Commission to consider any and all options that would enable the original deadline to be met or, alternatively, pending the deployment of the new system, to allow the new Member States to be temporarily linked to the current system, SIS I plus.
Positive steps taken by the European Commission to meet the original deadline would help to strengthen the public’s faith in the European project as a whole.
   – ) Mr President, I should like to relate an event that happened on 7 September.
Last week I was in Romania in connection with an attack by police and hooded commandos against members of the local Roma community in Reghin (Szászrégen), which is in the district of Apalina.
Thirty-seven people were shot and injured by plastic bullets.
The county chief of police reported that only six people were injured in the incident, and that they suffered wounds that would heal within eight days.
I personally witnessed that these statements were false.
I met a man who had been hit by seventeen bullets, five of which had been successfully removed within eight days, while the other twelve are, to this date, embedded in him.
Since January, this has been the fourth such highly worrisome incident in Romania.
I bring this fact to the attention of Parliament, because, on 26 September we will have the last country report on the table.
I should like to call upon Commissioner Olli Rehn to do everything possible in order to change the situation.
   Mr President, Mr Szájer has called on the Socialist Group in this House to take a position on what has been going on in Budapest and on the statements made by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Mr Gyurcsány.
It is for each and every member of the Hungarian Parliament and of this House to decide for himself or herself whether or not Mr Gyurcsány did the right thing.
Speaking personally, I prefer politicians who summon up the courage to utter unpopular truths to those who want to carry on papering over things that need to be brought out into the open, so I think one can think what one will about Mr Gyurcsány, but it nevertheless has to be said that he had the courage to say things that others – including you, Mr Szájer – evidently do not want to say.
You can wear a white shirt if you like; it looks good on you, too, but perhaps you should also tell us whether you are a friend of those who burned a European flag in front of the Hungarian Parliament building.
If you are, then this House is not the place for you.
   Mr President, it is unfortunate that Mr Schulz is no longer here, but you can tell him that he has been misinformed.
For a start, as Mr Peterle has already said, Mr Gyurcsány does not have the courage to stand up in the Hungarian Parliament and admit to the public that he lied day and night for a period of years.
Secondly, no European flags have been burned in Hungary, and I call on Mr Tabajdi of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament to confirm that.
Here, in this European Parliament, we should tell the truth and nothing but the truth.
   Mr President, according to information provided by the human rights and democracy centre in Hong Kong, 200 people are still imprisoned in China because they took part in the demonstration in the Square of Heavenly Peace in 1989, seventeen years ago.
Those young people who demonstrated entirely peacefully at the time are now prematurely aged, ground down as a result of the terrible conditions prevailing in Chinese prisons.
I refer of course to those who survived.
We should recall that the Chinese regime applied the death penalty to many of the protesters.
It is estimated that 15 000 people were sentenced at the time.
Every now and then we call this fact to mind, but on the whole we tend to ignore it.
I hope my words today will raise awareness of it once again.
We cannot bring back those who laid down their lives for the right to express their opinions, but we can do something for the 200 who are still languishing in Chinese jails.
We must not be indifferent to their plight.
They are pinning their hopes on us because they have nobody else to turn to.
   Mr President, Hungary, like the other 24 Member States of Europe, is a democracy.
Pursuant to the rule of law, we changed our Government after the parliamentary elections in April.
On 1 October, we will have municipal elections in which we will elect the mayors in the municipalities.
Therefore, those who have demonstrated on the streets against the Government and in favour of a change of government are working against the Hungarian constitution and against the rule of law.
We are closer today to knowing who these people are who are playing with fire in this way.
Once again, Hungary should abide by the rule of law and follow democratic rules.
   Mr President, I feel bound to raise an issue that ought not to be a concern for the European Union in the 21st century.
I refer to the worrying surge of neo-Nazism and fascism in Germany.
This represents a threat to Poland and the Czech Republic.
Future relationships within the European Community are also under threat.
The results of elections in the German states of Mecklenburg and Western Pomerania were declared a few days ago.
The German National Democratic Party gained over 7% of the vote.
This means that the NDP will be represented in yet another state.
Members of this group have expressed alarming views.
They dispute the Polish-German border, and call for the creation of a IVth Reich.
They consider Hitler to have been a prodigy, and Hess a pure idealist.
They deny the Holocaust and spread Nazi-inspired prejudices about foreigners.
How can it be possible for parties of this ilk to operate legally in Member States of the Union like Germany, spreading hatred, xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism? Last year the NPD received a subsidy of more than EUR 1 million from the state coffers.
That is scandalous.
The Union must introduce a clear ban on the activities of such groupings.
I appeal to Members of this House to move a joint resolution condemning the German political system in which there is still scope for neo-Nazism.
   Thank you very much, Mr Krahmer.
You do, however, present me with a slight problem.
Your speech was very interesting – I believe that Parliament as a whole can testify to that – but you have exceeded your two minutes and ten seconds of speaking time.
Let me make it quite clear that I will be unable to extend the same generosity towards all of the Members here.
I apologise in advance for this and I hope that each Member will try to keep to his or her speaking time.
You were the first parliamentary speaker of the sitting, so we shall just treat this as an act of kindness on the part of the presidency.
   Air pollution causes major public health problems within the European Union.
The Commission’s own calculations show that getting on for 370 000 premature deaths per year are caused by emissions into the air.
Particulate emissions are the most important cause of these premature deaths, to which should be added all the health problems that affect people with asthma or allergies of one kind or another, children being an especially vulnerable group.
Air pollution also creates major environmental problems in the form of eutrophication, acidification and ground-level ozone.
There are clear reasons in terms of health and the environment for placing a strict limit on these emissions.
Socio-economic calculations lead to the same conclusion.
Society would benefit significantly by avoiding these costs linked to emissions.
The Commission’s proposed thematic strategy and proposal for a directive on better air quality are therefore a disappointment.
The level of ambition is very low.
Once again, we have been given sad confirmation that an ambitious environmental policy is not a priority for this European Commission.
Unfortunately, the draft reports produced by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety are also inadequate compromises.
The decisions proposed in them are quite simply not good enough to provide real remedies to the problems.
We in the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left have therefore tabled a number of amendments with a view to making the proposals for directives more stringent.
There are a number of purposes behind these various amendments.
Firstly, we wish to remove the very generous exemptions that Member States would be allowed and as a result of which we should have to wait an unnecessary number of years before seeing the directive implemented in practice.
Where the exposure reduction target is concerned, we believe that this should be binding, and we believe that it can be increased to 25%.
When it comes to the concentration cap for particles, we wish to reduce this to ten micrograms, so putting it at the same level as that recommended for industrialised countries by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
We also believe that the same requirements for low levels of pollution should be imposed everywhere, irrespective of natural sources of emissions.
Otherwise, environments of different quality would be required for different people, dependent on where they happened to live.
That is our position.
Mr President, I want to use the last half-minute to say a personal thank you.
Tomorrow, I am standing down as a Member of the European Parliament, so this is my last speech in the House.
I wish to thank those fellow Members with whom I have worked during the last 11 years.
It has been a pleasure to have been able to work in this House.
I also wish to thank Parliament’s services and, above all, the interpreters.
Thank you very much.
   Mr Sjöstedt, I am very moved that I am here for this moment.
I can assure you – and I am speaking on behalf of all of the Members here – that we are very satisfied with your participation in all of our debates.
You have been a Member of this Parliament for a very long time, and a Member who is well-liked, not just within your group, but far beyond, as I can testify.
   () I would like to thank the two rapporteurs for their work on this important topic.
Air pollution is known to reduce average life expectancy by as much as nine months.
More than half of Europeans are living in conditions where the daily concentration limit is exceeded more than 35 times a year.
In the European Union the situation is worst in Benelux, northern Italy, and in the new Member States.
Air pollution is the cause of multiple respiratory and other diseases.
Under Article 152 of the European Community Treaty, public health falls under the purview of the Member States, and the European Union has only limited powers in this regard; hence it is necessary to look for ways to enable the European Union to act indirectly, that is, by means of other policies, in order to improve health.
Improving air quality is undoubtedly an example of such policies.
If the Member States and, especially, the new Member States for which EU law is still a new legal area and which are facing major economic problems, are required to implement a Framework Directive in their respective legal systems, along with four more pieces of legislation, three daughter directives and a Council Decision, it is clear that implementation will be fraught with difficulties, errors and incompleteness.
The public will find it difficult to identify the binding EU standards of air quality.
I therefore greatly appreciate the fact that the proposed draft will simplify the existing legislation by as much as 50%.
The European Union needs long-term goals, strict controls and checks as to whether the Member States are properly implementing the Directive.
On the other hand, the EU should adopt standards that are transparent and that focus more on limiting emissions by polluters.
The targets set in the legislation, be it PM10 or PM2.5, or the date on which the Directive will come into force, should be ambitious but realistic.
Failing that, we expose ourselves to the risk of non-compliance by the Member States.
In this regard it is important to realise that even the most earnest activities on the part of the European Union will be in vain unless the EU is engaged in global cooperation, since air pollution will then be imported, and we will not be in a position to prevent that.
   Mr President, if you want to know why we are having this debate, come with me down Oxford Street, in my constituency of London, where you can smell, taste and feel the air pollution that we seek to tackle.
An earlier generation was faced with smog and it tackled that with Clean Air Acts, which stopped coal burning in homes, in industries and on railways.
Now we face the challenge of fine particles and the respiratory and cardiovascular effect that has on our constituents: the extra medication, the millions of lost working days each year and premature deaths.
In my constituency, 1 000 people die prematurely as a result of pollution and another 1 000 are sent to hospital.
It is now estimated that PM2.5 pollution is responsible for reducing our life expectancy by some eight months.
That is the challenge.
That is why we need to tackle pollution at source in relation to cars and heavy vehicles, ships, agricultural feed, energy-using products and so forth. However, we also need to tackle it through this directive, simplifying the previous legal instruments while bringing in this new standard for the smaller particles, the 2.5s, because we know those are the most dangerous to human health.
We need a robust directive and the Commissioner is right to remind us that we must not go back on things already agreed.
My delegation will certainly vote for standards that are challenging, that are effective and that will be implemented sooner rather than later.
I thank the two rapporteurs who brought this through the committee to this plenary and I wish the Commissioner well in his work.
May I also wish well Mr Sjöstedt, our friend and colleague from the Environment Committee.
As he takes his environmental credentials across the ocean, may we hope that he influences the Americans too, to ensure they understand the need for environmental measures of this sort.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, although pollutants in the air are difficult to see, they do nonetheless jeopardise our health.
I need only say that the cost to the national health of these illnesses exceeds 10% of the gross national product.
As far as the derogations are concerned, the best solution would be for there to be none.
I should like at this point to emphasise our support for the relevant amendment, Amendment 73 by Mr Jonas Sjöstedt; if this amendment is rejected, Amendment 54 by Mrs Hassi safeguards the minimum period of time during which derogations will be permitted.
We should emphasise that reducing the upper limit for concentrations of PM2.5 will certainly benefit European citizens.
However, recent studies have shown that a reduction in the order of 25 µg/m3 would only reduce premature deaths by 4 500 whereas, if the reduction extended to 15 or 10 µg/m3, as the World Health Organisation proposes, premature deaths would be reduced by 13 000 and 22 000 respectively.
It should be noted that one of the strongest points of legislation on air quality is that the limit value of 50 µg/m3 for maximum concentrations of PM10 must not be exceeded more than 35 times.
The amendments supporting an increase in the number of days on which the limit may be exceeded from 35 to 55 significantly water down the directive, on the one hand and, on the other hand, do nothing to safeguard protection for public health and on this point I absolutely agree with the Commissioner.
We owe you a debt of gratitude, Jonas, and I personally extend you my especial thanks, because you taught me a great deal as a new MEP here.
Good luck for the future.
The Commission can accept fully, in part, or in principle Amendments 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 19, 21, 23, 26, 27, 29, 31, 32, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 44, 45, 47, 48, 49, 50, 65 and 80.
The Commission reserves its position on Amendments 54, 56, 58, 61, 62, 63, 66 and 75.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments 5, 7, 10, 12, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 28, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 43, 46, 51, 52, 53, 55, 57, 59, 60, 64, 67 to 74, 76 to 79 and 81 to 84.
   .
Mr President, I would just like to point out – further to what I said in my speech when you were not here – that, the next time the discharge of Parliament is debated, I expect its President to be present.
   Ladies and gentlemen, as a country, the Republic of Estonia, which was restored fifteen years ago, is a winner.
Shock therapy ensured Estonia’s rapid return to the European cultural and economic area. But Estonian society has split into winners and losers.
Among the working population, the winners are the young people, who in this new situation quickly acquired the necessary diploma and skills.
The losers are those who are nearing pension age. They were considered relics who could not be retrained.
The acquisition of the eight key competencies proposed by the commission would definitely make it easier for workers to adapt to the changing requirements in the labour market.
American workers change professions an average of three times during their lifetimes.
This will soon become common in Europe as well.
With the increase in life expectancy, a forty-five-year-old worker will be only half way through his or her career.
This means new initiatives in middle age, although age discrimination is still undoubtedly a reality for workers in middle and lower-level jobs throughout the world.
In introducing the system of lifelong learning, we must change societal perception.
The eight key competencies must be given a content that would give workers confidence in the future; a confidence arising from their belief in their own ability to develop.
At the same time, employers must be encouraged to invest in experienced people from outside.
Europe must become accustomed to lifelong learning as an everyday phenomenon and an integral part of working life; otherwise, the achievement of the Lisbon objectives will only be wishful thinking.
   Mr President, Commissioner, I myself would also like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Beazley, for this excellent report. This is a very important subject.
We have to ensure that there is not just a regional and national dimension, but also a European dimension to our children’s identity and thinking, and that they understand what kind of community of values they belong to and what sort of intellectual heritage they have.
In spite of its mosaic of cultures, Europe has common values based on those of the Christian religion.
These values are also based on the Hellenistic heritage and Roman law.
Today they are mainly visible in the shape of democracy, human rights and freedom of opinion.
It is important to teach children and young people these values from a young age, to promote them and adopt them as a full immersion subject in their education, so that we might understand what it is to be a European in an ever-integrating world, and so that we might be proud of that, as well as of our national roots and our continent.
   .
First of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his very well drafted and balanced report. I have no doubt that an effectively functioning European Union employment market is still just a matter of time.
The European qualification framework will be an important step in that direction, creating the preconditions for the formation of a single employment market and a single training environment.
I have no doubt that qualification comparability would not only foster mobility in the labour force, but would impart a different quality to the employment market, by effectively distributing the labour force. The qualification framework would foster a much closer connection between Member States’ national education systems and the requirements of the European Union’s employment market.
These steps are closely related to the Lisbon Strategy and the Lisbon objectives. The most recent enlargement created an unprecedented increase in the mobility of the labour force within the European Union.
Jobseekers have travelled from various new Member States in central and eastern Europe to the United Kingdom and Ireland – older Member States, which were the only ones to open their labour markets without restrictions. In fact, the situation at this moment is unique, as far as assessing the need for the comparability of European qualifications is concerned.
The significant differences in salaries have encouraged thousands of highly-qualified jobseekers from central and eastern Europe to take simple jobs that only demand low-level qualifications. A study recently carried out by Ireland’s Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment shows that most employees are working in jobs at a lower level of qualifications than their professional training would permit them to do.
A not insignificant number of workers with university degrees work in jobs that require basic training of just a few hours.
Those are the difficulties in comparing education systems that are completely different.
Those are both resources that are lost to the states from which jobseekers come, and wasted resources in the states in which they cannot make use of their professional training.
I hope that the European qualification framework will encourage those Member States between which there is active movement by the labour force to become pioneers in putting the framework into practice and in the comparison of qualifications, and that these Member States will not be the only ones.
Thank you.
   I am much obliged to you, Mr Tajani.
We will pass that on to the President, who, I am sure, will cause those things to be done that need to be done.
   The next item is the report (A6-0275/2006) by Mr Rapkay, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission White Paper on services of general interest (2005/2101(INI)).
   . Madam President, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I very much appreciated the content of President Barroso’s speech.
I appreciated the intention he announced to present one or more legislative drafts – I shall return to the question of one or more in a moment – for adoption by codecision as well as the four principles he invoked.
I believe it was important to reiterate those principles.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs rejected our proposal for a simple reference to the substance of Article 122 of the Constitutional Treaty and, what is worse, for a simple reference to Article 86 of the present Treaty.
The latter article, as you pointed out, specifies that, in the event of a conflict between the market and public-service requirements in law or in practice, the public service must take precedence.
I believe it is extremely important that the parliamentary draft reaffirms what we adopted at the time of the Constitutional Treaty, namely the text of Article 122, and confirms that at least we still believe in Article 86 of the present Treaty.
What we would like is to go much further in pinning down the precise implications of our forthcoming vote.
If there is one point on which I agree with Mrs in't Veld, it is that Mr Rapkay’s diplomatic and very judiciously calculated statement about the need to legislate can be equally easily interpreted to mean one thing or the other.
We will therefore ask you, in accordance with both the Treaty of Amsterdam and the interinstitutional agreement, to present us with a draft directive by virtue of the right of legislative initiative vested in this Parliament.
We are also entirely in agreement with the four principles you outlined to us.
If we disagree with Mrs in't Veld, the precise bone of contention is subsidiarity.
I regard it as a grave misjudgement to talk of strict subsidiarity when the Services Directive is actually the applicable instrument in the absence of a specific directive on services of general interest.
The fact is that we have watched the substance and scope of the Services Directive vary incessantly from day to day and from week to week.
At one point, subsidised housing was included.
Then it was almost excluded, only to be reinstated again, though not fully.
We need only compare our parliamentary draft with those of the Commission and the Council to see the lack of agreement on the public services that fall within the ambit of the Services Directive.
We need to legislate today to set these matters straight.
   – Madam President, what I wanted to ask was whether the Committee on Regional Development is firmly in the grip of the European People’s Party, for what we heard from Mr Pieper was nothing more than the PPE line, and not the position taken by the Committee on Regional Development.
   I am sure that we, as this Parliament moves into the second half of its term, will again have to give some thought to the need for rapporteurs for lead committees, and also the draftsmen of opinions for others, to do that to which Mr Langen has just referred. Irrespective of the group to which they belong, they reflect the mind and the voting behaviour of the committee.
I am convinced that all of them have done so today, and anyone who is in any doubt about that can re-read the reports.
I have to say that I, as an outsider unfamiliar with the subject-matter, did wonder when I heard some of the speeches, but this is something we will be able to return to during the life of the next Parliament – perhaps as part of a reform of this House.
Mrs Stauner will now have the opportunity to be the last to put her committee’s point of view.
   Mr President, I would like to get this debate back, as my colleague Mr Karas said, to the people who really matter in all of this: our citizens receiving public services.
We know that in many cases those public services are not good enough, not efficient enough and are delivered at much too high a cost.
Mr Barroso, whom we are delighted to see here this morning, made an important point in his principles for the promotion of good-quality public-service delivery.
He mentioned the crucial factor of how technology is now enabling those services to be transformed and new models of organisation and delivery to be sustained.
Those are the things we should be talking about.
We should be thinking about the diversity that is engaging the best minds, the best technology, the best people and the best managers involved in delivering those services.
However, the debate we have had, principally from that side of the House, has mainly been concerned with organisational models and protectionism.
With the Services Directive in place, thanks to our efforts, more of those minds can be unleashed on delivery of services.
We have work to do on public procurement from recent hearings in our committee.
We have work to do on competition law.
If those are included within Mr Barroso’s idea of consolidation, that is fine.
However, we do not want a directive of the kind set out here, which is a naked political directive.
They gave the game away in their interventions.
Mrs Schroedter said that it would protect against liberalisation.
That is what it is all about, Mr Barroso!
Have nothing to do with it.
Tell us today that you will take it off your agenda.
I have asked in my committee, but with no reply, what problems for our citizens this directive is intended to solve.
When those on the Left give us a comprehensive analysis of those problems, we might consider it, but we have far more important things to do today than to talk about their political declaration.
   – I should like to thank Mr Rapkay for his report.
I must say that, after reading a great deal of detail on the subject, and following the lengthy debate on this issue, I strongly back the idea of establishing a general directive on services of general economic interest (SGIs).
I welcome the creation of this directive, which will guarantee SGIs as one of the main pillars of the European social model.
The directive should also deliver legal certainty, through a legal basis established on general principles such as equality of access, high quality services, reasonable costs, universality and security.
A balance has to be struck between the market on the one hand and the public authorities responsible for public services on the other.
Furthermore, the report raises fresh questions.
Will we actually be able to ensure that the framework directive will have sufficient substance to uphold the aforementioned principles? Will the directive actually protect services of general interest?
   Mr President, fellow Members, you usefully referred, Mr Barroso, to the four basic principles that need to guide our thinking about services of general interest.
Paradoxically, it might be thought that you have reopened the debate on the need either to have a framework directive on services of general economic interest or to choose sectoral initiatives in relation to social or health services.
The vote on the Services Directive altered the parameters in favour of the second solution since the real dividing line lies not between services of economic and non-economic general interest but – within services of general economic interest – between social and health services and other services.
This development was reinforced by the detailed and legally painstaking work done by the rapporteur, Mr Rapkay, and our colleague, Mr Hökmark, who constructed a legal bridge between the Services Directive and the sectoral instruments.
Indeed, a framework directive on services of general economic interest raises three difficulties.
Firstly, the Treaty on European Union offers no legal basis, as has been pointed out on many occasions.
Next, this directive would be incompatible with the scope of the Services Directive, as voted on at first reading on 29 May.
Finally, it in no respect meets the need for legal certainty expressed by the players and, at the same time, it threatens the subsidiarity called for by Member States and local authorities.
Whatever the instrument selected and the ideological choices that will help determine the option we choose, these are not what matter in the end.
The work of legal clarification needs to be continued in the field of social and health services of general interest.
That, Mr Barroso, is the practical problem faced by the actors on the ground.
   Mr President, I believe we are all more or less in agreement with what Mr Barroso has just said.
He is promising us a communication.
We are waiting impatiently for it.
But can the President tell us whether he will be asking his services to propose legislative texts as well so that Parliament can at last debate them as co-legislator?
   The next item is the recommendation for second reading of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Council common position for adopting a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Community Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS (06282/3/2006 – C6-0272/2006 – 2004/0158(COD)) (Rapporteur: Karin Jöns) (A6-0300/2006).
   Mr President, can you explain or give any good reason why the votes have been arbitrarily postponed to 11.40, when previously they were announced for 11.30? There was no need to start this debate at the time it did start.
Yet again, the administration of this Parliament is putting the convenience of the Presidency before the interests of Members.
It is not good enough.
   , . I do not wish to prolong this debate by much.
First and foremost, I would like to offer particular thanks to Mrs Jöns, who has done some outstanding work on the programme.
Her work has made it possible for us to quickly achieve a solution and for this solution, in contrast to what happened on the last occasion, to come into effect very quickly indeed. is an important programme, a combined programme for dealing with employment and social issues, promoting equality and combating discrimination.
We have backed this idea of a combined programme.
One of the solutions was for us here in the European Parliament to make efforts to have more money appropriated to the programme within the framework of the long-term budget, since this is a matter relating to the social Europe about which we so often speak.
The agreement to provide more money for the programme also facilitated agreement about the programme as a whole.
There was a certain degree of discord in relation to the issues of equality and social integration, but these issues have since been resolved.
These areas of the programme have received extra resources in order to provide greater equality, social integration and social protection.
This has not been done at the expense of other areas. Resources have instead been taken from the reserve.
I believe that this will be a very good solution and I believe that will play a role in the construction of the social Europe of the future.
I would like to thank Mrs Jöns once more for her excellent work.
   . Mr President, I have a very brief textual clarification, which refers to paragraph 1.
The final clause reads: ‘... to prepare them’ – that is to say school students – ‘for their roles as future citizens and as members of the European Union’.
I propose that we delete the word ‘future’ so that it will read as follows: ‘... to prepare them for their roles as citizens and as members of the European Union’.
   . Mr President, I should like to request a roll-call vote for the next two amendments, Amendment 3 (paragraph 7) and Amendment 4 (paragraph 25), because those amendments are totally against the spirit of my report.
   – I supported the Beazley report on support for initiatives to complement national school curricula providing appropriate support measures to include the European dimension.
It is clear that the inclusion of European history, shared cultural heritage and a grasp of European current affairs must go hand in hand with the development of other areas such as support for multilingualism.
I welcome the fact that Mr Beazley mentioned the education portal European School net and its activities.
I should also like to highlight the eTwinning project, which is charged with linking up educational institutions from different European countries in order to set up joint projects.
Over 17 000 European schools have signed up to eTwinning.
This own-initiative report is a good way to help Member States incorporate European topics into their education systems.
   I voted in favour of the excellent report by Mr Beazley on initiatives to complement school curricula providing appropriate support measures to include the European Dimension.
In terms of European construction, everybody knows how crucial it is to instil a European culture amongst the citizens, particularly young people: it is essential to the success of the European project in terms of creating a humanist civilisation.
In addition to learning languages, the history and geography of the European Union should, together with the arts and citizenship, be disciplines whose European dimension should be brought to the fore.
I entirely agree with this report’s suggestions, particularly on involving teachers with incorporating the European dimension into education.
I believe that there should be a similar process for universities and for lifelong learning.
   . Our support for the Beazley report reflects our desire to see a strong emphasis on the teaching of languages to inculcate a culture of multilingualism within our education systems in Ireland.
We also believe that all citizens should have access to detailed and unbiased information about the European Union and how it affects their lives.
Sinn Féin's support of the Beazley report (A6-0267/2006) 'The European Dimension of school teaching materials' should not be viewed as an endorsement of an increased role for the European Union in the education system of Member States.
Education is a responsibility for each Member State and should remain so.
   – My vote with regard to the Krahmer and Corbey reports was in favour of higher levels for the quality of air and for stricter controls in this area.
The main motive for my decision is the way Maltese and Gozitan citizens are at present being treated by the country’s authorities.
We are in a situation where not only are European standards not being respected, but people are not even being given the information they have a right to if they are to protect their health and the environment.
A concrete example of this was the fact that it was only after an intervention on my part that the authorities publicly admitted that European directives regarding emissions from the country’s power-stations were being breached.
Moreover, we have reached the stage where the equipment which gauges pollution from the Marsa and Delimara power stations has not been functional for months after it was reportedly hit by lightning.
The Maltese daily yesterday revealed that we are still not taking adequate measures, given that the new apparatus has not been purchased yet.
This is not acceptable and it is incumbent on the responsible authorities and the European Commission to follow this breach more closely.
   I voted in favour of the report by Mr Krahmer on the draft legislative resolution, at first reading, on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on ambient air quality and cleaner air for Europe.
This proposed directive is going to replace five different legal instruments and contribute to the ‘better lawmaking’ process, and that is a very positive step.
Combating atmospheric pollution is a duty we owe to future generations and, in view of recent developments in science and health issues, it is perfectly natural to revise and simplify the current texts.
We must welcome the efforts of transport manufacturers and firms that have applied rules that are sufficiently strict to meet the challenges facing us; not least the health of our fellow citizens.
We must ensure that the Member States transpose the rules and apply them rigorously.
   I abstained on the Krahmer report, the main parts of which are impossible for ordinary mortals to understand, including the legislature that is supposed to make the law.
If Parliament wants to commit itself to ambient air quality, it should be content to set the broad principles and the general framework, leaving it to the experts to set the limits.
   . – Air pollution is a major public health concern.
For example, the fine particles given off by some human activities are thought to shorten European life expectancy by around nine months.
In Belgium alone, nearly 13 000 people die prematurely every year as a result of particles given off by diesel engines in particular.
All these respiratory diseases can be avoided and the legislators ought to send out a simple message: clean air for Europe necessarily means stringent pollution standards.
That is not the message the European Parliament has sent out today by adopting Holger Krahmer’s report on the CAFE directive.
I deplore the fact that in a matter of such importance to the public, the impact of pollution on human health, my fellow Members have lacked ambition, seeking in particular not to hit certain industries.
I still hope that the European Parliament will rectify the matter at second reading, be more receptive to the arguments of environmental health experts and avoid the pitfall of setting standards that are not as strict as those in force today.
With this vote, California has never seemed so far away.
   . It is positively scandalous that today sees Parliament considerably weakening existing air quality regulations.
For the first time, this House is even adopting a weaker position than the Council.
Despite this, there is sufficient scientific evidence to suggest that fine dust particles in air pollution account for some 3.6 million lost life years, which translates into 348 000 premature deaths.
By 2020, air pollution caused by ozone and fine dust will cost Europe EUR 189 to 609 billion annually!
This House’s position is considerably less ambitious than the recommendations issued by the World Health Organisation, and those levels proved attainable in large cities in industrialised countries.
What is worse, Parliament is offering Member States the opportunity of extending the number of calendar days during which the limit value for PM10 dust particles per calendar year can be exceeded from 35 days to 55, which is tantamount to burying your head in the sand.
The USA, by issuing an annual limit value of 15 µg/m3 for PM2.5 since 1997, has demonstrated that a stricter approach is feasible.
The limit must be attained by 2010 at the latest.
The State of California, incidentally, is taking matters even further, for a limit value of 12 µg/m3 has been in force there since 2003.
The European Parliament stands by its promise to attain 20 µg/m3 by ...
2015!
If the Council does not offer enough in the way of counterweight against this weakening measure, the Commission will have no choice but to withdraw the proposal.
   .
The vote on the report on the discharge of the budget for 2004 (European Parliament) was postponed in order to look into the circumstances surrounding the lease of the Strasbourg building.
Subsequently, the European Parliament has paid the City of Strasbourg up to EUR 60 million in additional payments, and there is no possibility of compensation for the losses it has suffered.
In addition, a lack of honesty, transparency and decisiveness has been noted.
Despite these facts, we should make a decision on purchasing the Strasbourg building.
The FDP in the European Parliament is of the opinion that it is wrong for Parliament to purchase the building in Strasbourg, because it would be irresponsible for it to tie itself to Strasbourg for the long term.
We have therefore rejected the corresponding amendments.
The FDP supports the establishment of the European Technology Institute in Strasbourg, and advocates a single seat for Parliament in Brussels.
   .
We voted in favour of the Ferber report today, even though it forms a basis for the purchase of the Parliament building in Strasbourg. However, our approval does not constitute a prior decision regarding the seat of the European Parliament.
Along with more than a million other Europeans, we have supported the OneSeat.eu initiative, and, together with the citizens, we will also continue to advocate relocating Parliament's activities from Strasbourg to Brussels.
   – Mr President, study abroad and distance learning are becoming increasingly popular, not least thanks to millions of Euro worth of EU subsidies.
On the one hand, this is of great benefit to the students themselves, who gain the opportunity to develop their personal skills in addition to obtaining a specialist qualification, but, on the other hand, domestic universities have increasing numbers of foreign students.
However, I find it quite astounding that, in Austria for example, despite the low percentage of the population with degrees, they form such a high proportion of the unemployed.
In this connection, it would be worth considering whether we should provide greater support for practical internships abroad, and also extend opportunities for in-service training and distance learning.
That is why I voted in favour of the Prets report.
   . Given the significance of Mrs Prets' report concerning transnational mobility within the Community for education and training purposes, the British Conservative delegation of the EPP-ED Group will vote in favour of the report.
However, the delegation maintains its opposition to the wording 'political integration' referred to in Amendment 3 to Recital 1a (new), as this implies a constitutional settlement in the EU, which does not reflect the current position and which has not received the assent of the 25 Member States.
   I voted in favour of the report by Mrs Trüpel on the proposal for a recommendation, at first reading, of the European Parliament and of the Council on key competences for lifelong learning.
It is crucial to the European citizens that, through training, they may have a reasonable guarantee of employability in the knowledge-based society defined in the Lisbon Strategy.
I am pleased to note that the spirit of enterprise is one of the eight key competences that all Europeans should have available to them.
Everybody should be aware that, while qualifications are necessary, they are no longer sufficient and ‘entrepreneurship’ must be instilled. That will be a considerable asset for those people who acquire it as a result of the Member States’ application of this recommendation.
   . Given the significance of Mrs Trüpel's report concerning key competences for lifelong learning, the British Conservative delegation of the PPE-DE Group will vote in favour of the report.
However, notwithstanding its support overall for the report, with reference to Amendment 1 to Recital 4, the delegation does not agree that the setting of percentage targets for employment levels is an effective exercise in helping to achieve increased employment rates, but is aware that this amendment is merely a restatement of the European Council's position.
   . I voted in favour of the Hegyi report (A6-0233/2006) on the thematic strategy on the urban environment, because it is vital to boost the overall environmental performance of cities in Europe by reducing bureaucracy, by enhancing the efficiency of environmental policy implementation, and by encouraging long-term environmental planning.
Some 80% of Europe’s citizens live in urban areas, but their needs and interests are often under-represented in the Union’s funds, projects, initiatives and strategies.
Consequently, with a view to raising the quality of life of Europe’s city-dwellers, Community law needs to go further, by adopting sustainable urban management and transport plans.
   I voted against this report, not because I wish to denigrate Mr Hegy's work, but because subsidiarity is being treated with contempt and the EU and its institutions are interfering in national matters.
I do not think that this is justified.
This tendency for Europe to continually interfere in the daily lives of its citizens, even when it is not necessary, is one of the primary reasons why people are becoming so disenchanted with Europe.
   – The next item is the report by Camiel Eurlings, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, on Turkey's progress towards accession [2006/2118(INI)] (A6-0269/2006).
   . Mr President, the report that Mr Eurlings has written is an informative one, and prompts two questions to the Council and Commission, concerning the phenomenon of the so-called ‘deep state’ () and the complete lack of freedom of religion in the Republic of Turkey.
Anti-European forces in Turkey are teaming up in intransparent state structures, nationalistic circles in the army, police, gendarmerie and security services.
To what extent do those forces, summed up under the heading of ‘deep state’, hamper the present accession negotiations?
There are persistent speculations to the effect that this self-same ominous ‘deep state’ is linked to the killing of the Italian priest Andrea Santoro in Trabzon in February of this year, and that brings me to the altogether humiliating position of the Christian Church in Turkey, the clergy and lay members of which are considered to be foreigners.
In fact, contact between churches and government is made via the Foreign Affairs Ministry.
I should like the Council and Commission to take action on this score.
Or does the fear of Islamic mobilisation in Turkey make you reluctant to insist on full freedom of religion in the land of Atatürk?
   Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a mystery about the Eurlings report.
But it is not the one people say.
It is not the harshness or hardening of the report.
In fact, when you read this report you find that it repeats what we have, quite rightly, always said.
It says that human rights and freedom of expression are not adequately respected in Turkey.
It says that religious minorities do not have the right to own property, to publish and to teach that they have everywhere in the European Union.
It says that when you join a club the least you can do is to shake hands with all the members and not to behave in a warlike manner towards any of them.
Finally, it says that there has been an Armenian genocide and that nothing will be built without acknowledging that genocide, and there is nothing new in that.
We said it in 2004, we asked for acknowledgement of the genocide in 2004 and in 2005 we said it had to be a precondition.
Failure to adopt paragraph 49 would be a climb-down on Parliament’s part.
The real mystery, however, the real mystery of the Eurlings report is its consistency.
Here is an institution that continues, several years later, to say what it said before.
In the climate of general degeneration of which Daniel Cohn-Bendit spoke so critically a few moments ago, that is a strange thing.
It is strange that here and now we should be saying that what we said yesterday must remain at the centre of our concerns.
The mystery of the Eurlings report is that we find, for the first time in the history of negotiations, that we have a State that regresses before accession and not afterwards and that tells us accession must be on its terms and not ours.
The mystery of the Eurlings report is that, unlike the Commission in its report on Bulgaria and Romania, this institution has decided to tell the truth, to tell it as it is, to speak the facts, and while I know - Guy Béart said it some time ago – that the first person to tell the truth must be executed, I hope that will not be the case with Mr Eurlings and his report, which I wholeheartedly support.
   – Mr President, may I start by congratulating Mr Eurlings on his excellent work and on his report.
I shall, of course, take this opportunity to repeat that we are in favour of Turkey's European prospects.
In essence, the Eurlings report is not only a warning, a message to Turkey about the steps it must take and the obligations it must honour in order to continue on its path towards Europe.
It is also, at the same time, confirmation of the principles upon which the European Union was built, principles from which we have an obligation not to deviate because, when Mr Eurlings speaks of respect for human rights and for minority rights, he is reiterating a European principle.
The same applies when he speaks of institutional reforms, the same applies when he speaks of a peaceful resolution to differences and the same applies when he calls for the signature of the Ankara protocol to be honoured and for this protocol to be applied immediately.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, every country, every nation that forgets or does not come to terms with its history, will at some point have problems.
Thus, paragraph 50 referring to the tragic history of the Armenians, the Greeks of Pontos and the Assyrians, does precisely that.
It calls on Turkey to do so.
This paragraph is the outcome of broad agreement and must remain as it stands.
Consequently, it must not be changed in one direction or another with amendments that have been tabled.
Finally, I wish to remind all those who consider the report to be excessively strict, that there are in Turkey democratic citizens who want a modern Turkey, a developed and progressive Turkey which looks towards Europe and who are fighting for that against the well-known establishment.
They need a message which we shall give them by voting for the Eurlings report.
   Mr President, last week, together with other colleagues from the Subcommittee on Human Rights, I was in Akari province in the extreme south-east of Turkey, just a few mountain peaks away from Iraq and Iran.
In that region we met parents, desperate parents powerless to stop their young sons leaving for the mountains.
We were told that more than 200 young men have joined the armed bands of the PKK in the last few weeks.
We also met young girls fighting against family feudalism, fighting against economic and social isolation and everyday violence.
Many spoke of young girls committing suicide.
It was not hope, let alone enthusiasm for the future, that we found in Akari and elsewhere.
There are many extremely precise facts bearing witness to the violence of the security forces, including against farmers, but also to extra-judicial arrests and the torture of young people as in Diyarbakir this year.
The forced resignation of the public prosecutor of Van for demonstrating the responsibility of army members for the Semdinli bombing was also very traumatic.
Quite apart from the dirty war exploits it reveals, the frustration of the independence of the judiciary is unacceptable.
Everyone says, everyone knows, there is no military answer to the Kurdish question, and yet, with its checkpoints, tanks, soldiers and armed assaults it is the only one that seems effective.
The PKK must call a unilateral ceasefire.
If that call is heeded and kept, as we hope, it will have to be followed by a wide-ranging political proposal.
The attention and support of the European Union will be crucial.
The deteriorating situation in the south-east is affecting the human rights situation in the country as a whole.
The anti-terrorist legislation was unanimously criticised by the non-government people we spoke to.
It does not comply with international law.
It may even cancel out some of the progress made in the latest legislative reforms.
The situation in the south-east is also rekindling a nationalism that is clearly and sometimes violently opposed to democratic aspirations.
The writer Magden Perihan talks about a forest fire.
She speaks of hooligan lawyers.
Immediate action is required, in particular the abolition of Article 301 of the penal code, bringing anti-terrorist legislation into line with international law, the fight against impunity – in 2005 only 2 out of 305 accused policemen were sentenced – the compensation law must be put into effect – 2 000 cases out of 3 000 have been processed in Akari province – and, lastly, the 10% national voting threshold must be abolished, since it prevents popular democratic expression.
   Mr President, our European Union exists because it is firmly based on strict adherence to our European principles and values.
Those principles and values are not negotiable and that must be clearly understood by all those who belong to the EU and by those wishing to join.
Turkey is welcome to join our Union and I very much hope that it does, but it must accept and abide by our European principles and values.
It is Turkey that must achieve the required accession changes, not us, and we must be honest in making our position clear to Turkey.
We should not try to trick Turkey into joining the EU.
Turkey must do so only if it really wants to and in full awareness of exactly what is demanded of it.
The Eurlings report makes that clear, firmly and honestly.
The Eurlings report is the result of much discussion and debate and many compromise amendments have been voted in by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, finally achieving a much-desired balance.
Please support it and resist attempts to introduce any amendments on key issues at this stage, which is likely to cause more harm than good.
Let me remind some of my colleagues that we will bring about reforms in Turkey by telling the Turkish people the truth and not hiding the truth from them.
   I would like to thank Mr Eurlings for his report.
We in the Swedish Social Democratic group are in favour of Turkish membership once the criteria we have had for everyone else have been met.
We should not set higher requirements for Turkey or subject it to special treatment, as has been suggested in this debate today.
Right now, it is the EU that is the guarantor of progress in Turkey, not only through the encouragement we provide, but also through our demands in relation to issues such as human rights.
A former MEP, now a Social Democrat member of the Swedish Parliament, has written to the Turkish ambassador in connection with the fact that 1 200 children’s books by Swedish children’s authors, used by Swedish schools and funded by the Swedish International Development Agency, Sida, and the Olof Palme Center, were stopped by Turkish customs.
I find this unfathomable and I have therefore put a question to the Council in this regard.
I support democratisation in Turkey and problems such as this one need to be solved.
I share the critical views on the report expressed by the other speakers from the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
Let us encourage progress and solve the problems but stand firm on the fact that we in the EU wish to see Turkey as a member when the time is right and the democratic deficit has been rectified.
   Mr President, firstly I would like to thank Camiel Eurlings.
He has done some excellent work and has drafted what is actually quite a bold report, which in its own way suggests that enlargement is taking place much too quickly.
There is still so much to be done with regard to Turkey that we cannot even contemplate the idea of its membership in 10 years’ time.
I was delighted to read in this morning’s newspaper that European Commission President Barroso has stated that it was unwise to continue enlargement before we had dealt with the matter of the Constitution.
I totally agree with him.
We cannot push for enlargement on such a large scale as would be the case with Turkey and at the same time see through the question of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe.
We should be listening a lot more carefully to public opinion and to the ideas of the people.
When we recall what happened in the French and Dutch referendums, it would be better to take account of what the people think about this issue.
We should also think about how far and how fast the EU can expand.
If our citizens do not receive a reply to the question of how quickly enlargement is to take place, they will not be able to put their trust in the current EU.
It is a pity that Commissioner Rehn has left.
I would have asked him what Plan B is if rapid progress is made and Turkey is about to join the Union in some 10 years’ time and they have a referendum in France, for example.
If the people say no, we will not be able to endorse Turkish membership.
What is the plan, and how should we then proceed so as not to disappoint the Turks and stop the entire project collapsing because again there could unexpectedly be a NO vote in a referendum? Perhaps, however, we will have the answer to this later on.
   Mr President, I just wanted to protest at Commissioner Rehn’s absence from this important debate.
I find the reason he has given unacceptable.
I do not think it fair to this House either.
He could have responded to the many comments that have been made in response to the Eurlings report.
   I can inform you that Mr Rehn had other commitments and could not be present at this sitting.
Mr Michel, you have the floor again.
   .
Mr President, I should like to remind Mr Claeys that Commissioner Rehn has already explained in detail that it would be impossible for him to stay.
Whilst that really was unfortunate for the debate, I have tried to stand in for him by clarifying arguments and answering questions.
I will, of course, report back to Mr Rehn, and I am convinced that in the next meetings, he will probably be able to come and answer those questions in person.
In relation to the European Emissions Trading Scheme 2008-2012, could the Commission comment on the fact that the 30 June 2006 deadline for all Member States to submit their National Allocation Plans and for the Commission to issue a report on the NAPs has passed without these tasks being accomplished?
Less than half of all Member States have submitted their NAPs.
How does the Commission intend to proceed in order to ensure that Phase II of the ETS is up and running in time for 2008?
   Mr President, by yesterday 13 Member States had officially notified their national allocation plans to the Commission.
In other words, approximately half the plans are still pending, but it is important to emphasise that the plans notified already represent over 60% of the emission rights approved by the Commission for the first trading period.
The Member States which have notified their plans are Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The remaining Member States must of course notify their plans.
Most of these plans – in a preliminary form – are already undergoing public consultation in various Member States such as Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
Several of these Member States have already made significant progress in the relevant consultation procedures and they are expected to notify their plans to the Commission within the next few weeks.
The Commission attaches great importance to the remaining Member States submitting their plans for the second stage as quickly as possible.
Letters have already been sent out drawing the attention of the Member States to their obligations.
If there are further delays, the Commission will examine the possibility of starting infringement proceedings against the Member States which have delayed, on the basis of Article 226 of the Treaty.
However, according to the information available to it, the Commission estimates that the last Member States will have notified their plans by the end of 2006.
The Commission has already started to evaluate the national allocation plans notified and intends to take decisions on them in the autumn, in other words by the three-month deadline from completion of the plans laid down in the emissions trading directive.
This will allow the Commission to take decisions on most of the emission rights market before Christmas and to complete the evaluation procedure by the spring of 2007.
This will safeguard the smooth and timely start of the second stage of the European Union's trading mechanism in all the Member States for 2008.
The Commission cannot, of course, decide on the merits of evaluations under way, but will use every political and legal means at its disposal in order to ensure that all the plans are in keeping with the Kyoto commitments and the confirmed data on emissions for 2005, in a bid to safeguard equal terms of competition for companies.
   .
The criteria for preparing the National Allocation Plans for the second trading period are described in the directive.
There are 12 criteria; two are very important.
The first is whether the Member States are on track to achieve the curtailment target and how the allocations for the emissions trading system, together with other measures, will contribute to the achievement of that target.
The second is the available publicly-known data regarding the emissions.
For the second trading period, we have the advantage that we have the actual emissions for 2005, which are as described previously.
So these two criteria will be very important in making the National Allocation Plans achieve the scarcity that is needed in the market in order to give companies and installations incentives to make the right investment in cutting down carbon dioxide emissions.
   .
In our plans for the post-2012 period we consider it very important to bring on board all the big emitters of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
You are quite correct that China is one of the big emitters, but you forget that the biggest emitter is the United States, which emits about 25% of the greenhouse gases in the world.
China comes second, with about 14%, together with the European Union, but in order to have the equilibrium which is needed regarding the contribution by each country to the battle against climate change, we have to take into account what the United Nations Climate Change Conference states, i.e. that each country should contribute in a common but differentiated way, which means that countries like China, India and other fast-developing countries, which have contributed to a smaller degree historically to the creation of the greenhouse phenomenon and have only a fraction of the per capita income of the developed countries, have to contribute in a different way according to their capabilities and their possibilities, without hindering their economic development and without creating unfair competition with other countries.
   . Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the possibility of an intermediate solution – in other words Schengen 1+ – was raised by one of the delegations.
This, in my view, is a solution worthy of serious consideration, so long as it gives us the added value that Schengen 2 will certainly provide.
I would remind the honourable Members that over a year ago it was the Commission itself that put this idea forward.
In other words, why not look for an intermediate solution between Schengen 1 and Schengen 2? Such a solution would in fact be called Schengen 1+.
At the time, a large majority of Member States rejected this intermediate idea on the grounds that it would not be sufficiently secure, as Schengen 2 would be.
Now, as you know, the idea has been put forward again by the Portuguese delegation.
We shall reassess it, but everything depends on the added value it provides.
The next question is, ‘What is this added value?’
Schengen 2 will feature immediate, real-time connection through a central part in Strasbourg, a second part in Salzburg and the national systems, which will be connected with direct exchange of information in much shorter times and with much more secure personal data protection than is the case at the moment.
This is the main feature that makes me consider Schengen 2 the most advanced proposal yet on the table.
   .
This is a very important question.
Many colleagues and ministers in Tampere raised exactly this point.
My answer was, and I repeat it here, that I am aware of the impact of delay and possible additional cost.
That is why I have promised all the ministers to study very carefully the possibility of taking at least partial account of the additional cost of postponing the concrete operation of SIS II.
For example, I can take the IT scale systems into consideration.
I have already postponed the possibility of spending money until the end of 2007.
Why not think about postponing it again, or try to have additional funding for this extra cost? I cannot, for example, co-fund salaries for people in the police, but I will give serious consideration to the security infrastructure.
   I wish to point out that the issue of the enlargement of the Schengen area will be debated at our October plenary session.
Indeed, we shall have the opportunity to return to the issue in the presence of Mr Frattini.
Further to the European Court of Justice's ruling of 18 July 2006 in Case C-119/04, will the Commission consider applying for a revision of that ruling on the basis that important information concerning the actual working situation of foreign language assistants in Italy was not made available to the European Court of Justice?
   .
Mr President, honourable Members, in its ruling of 18 June 2006 on case C-119/04 the Court of Justice stated that, by the deadline established in the reasoned opinion, the Italian Republic had failed to provide recognition of the rights acquired by former assistant teachers who had become language teachers and specialists, although such recognition was guaranteed to all employees in the country, and had failed to fulfil all of the measures arising from the Commission v Italy ruling of 26 June 2001 in case C 212/99, and had accordingly failed to carry out its obligations under Article 228 of the EC Treaty.
The Court of Justice decided, however, that there were no grounds for imposing the fine requested by the Commission.
After examining the events in question, it did not have sufficient information to conclude that the Italian authorities were failing to meet their obligations.
The Commission would draw the honourable Member’s attention to the fact that the Court of Justice also pointed out that under Law 2/2004, which does not rule out renewing the careers of former assistant teachers of foreign language under enhanced conditions, each of the universities in question might retrospectively renew the careers of these teachers.
The Court of Justice nevertheless also held that there was still a need to determine whether or not the measures adopted following the lawful approval of the regulation were actually applied.
The Commission services are currently analysing the substance and impact of this ruling, and the best way to proceed.
One of the main questions that should be resolved in this regard is whether the acquired rights have been fully recognised and renewed, including the implementation of retrospective payments to those who are entitled to them, as declared by the Italian authorities.
   Mr De Rossa, in its discussion on the case, the Commission held to the view that was stated before the court and on which the court gave its ruling.
From this perspective we are both formally and substantively involved in the trial in question.
Accordingly, the Commission is responsible for resolving this matter and for examining whether the ruling has been applied in full, whether it has resulted in retrospective payment and whether careers have been renewed.
This is what we have to do and this is the direction in which we are heading.
How the proposed measures will turn out remains to be seen.
In my view, the bottom line is that the legal framework of the EU and the European Community must be respected, and this is the way the Commission always works.
It made its position on the matter very clear during the negotiations.
   I welcome the fact that you will be monitoring whether the ruling is properly applied.
I think it is now 21 years since this matter was raised by one of my former colleagues, Hugh McMahon, as well as Mr De Rossa.
I wonder whether we could consider having a birthday party for the question on its 21st anniversary when it comes of age, because it appears to be proceeding exceedingly slowly.
In its 2007 draft budget the Council is proposing to make substantial savings in administrative expenditure by doing away with Commission posts.
What effect would these possible cuts have on staffing trends at the Commission and in the agencies over the next few years?
   .
We carry out redeployment every year; each year we redeploy approximately 400 people internally.
But here we are talking about posts without the preparations to pay salaries.
Inside is part of our so-called productivity gain programme, which was introduced in 2002 as part of the reform.
If the priorities change, we redeploy internally: that is the normal yearly practice.
   .
Yes, in 2003 Parliament and the Council agreed to allocate 3400 new posts for enlargement in the four-year period between 2004 and 2008.
Each year we have been receiving these posts, together with payments for the salaries.
This year we have again been offered 801 posts by the Council, without any addition for the salaries.
We are not magicians and we cannot magically pay for 800 posts from nowhere.
   .
It mainly concerns the Financial Regulation and the financial implementing rules.
The Commission has prepared the simplification procedures and they were approved in May.
This package of new legislation is on the Council’s table and on the Committee on Budgets’ table with Mrs Grässle, who is the rapporteur on this question.
She can confirm that we took on about 80% of Parliament’s proposals.
The package is very good, but now much will depend on whether the Finnish Presidency will approve it and on the negotiations between the Council and Parliament, while it remains a Council decision.
So I very much hope that a lot more simplification will take place from 2007, especially regarding the procedures for paying for these kinds of projects.
But that is another matter.
Why is the Commission trying to complete the budgetary adjustments even before the report of the European Court of Auditors on the modernisation of the accounting system is published on 23 October 2006?
How many accounts covered by section 1.3.1. of preliminary draft amending budget No 5 to the 2006 budget are included on the list of its own business accounts of which the Commission was unaware, a list forwarded by the Commission on 2 June 2006 in an answer to a written parliamentary question (S-46, Complement to Questions E-4819/05 and H-0212/06)? How much money do the at least 377 unknown accounts contain?
How many accounts are covered by the headings ‘bankrupt banks’, ‘cash differences’ and ‘burden of the past’, and what sums are involved? How have the cash differences arisen and was this the result of opening accounts outside the budget?
What is meant by ‘burden of the past’, and how did it arise?
   – I am obliged to the Commissioner for her answer.
The interpretation disappeared from time to time, as the interpreter could not follow what the Commissioner was saying.
I have tried to follow the Commissioner and have realised that she has not answered one of my questions, namely the one regarding the 377 extrabudgetary accounts I listed in my question of 2 July.
This is the second time that the question as to the total sum concerned has gone unanswered.
To this I would add that there is an account of the Economat supermarket for EUR 7 million.
I would ask the Commissioner to tell us what these EUR 7 million were spent on.
   I can perfectly understand your annoyance, and to some extent I share it, but it is not strictly true to say that the questions will not be answered, as they will be answered in writing.
I am not responsible for setting the Rules of Procedure.
I am simply the referee who interprets the rules and, as you will appreciate, we cannot extend proceedings indefinitely.
Mr Figel’, you have the floor again.
   Questions 40 to 43 will be answered in writing.
   . Mr Guardans Cambó, on 20 July 2005, the Commission appointed Mr Etienne Davignon as European coordinator in order to boost the development of priority project No 3, TGV South, which includes the Perpignan-Montpellier section.
The first annual report by the coordinator, Mr Davignon, published on 13 September, states that there may be delays in the implementation of the section in question.
The completion of this section is made more difficult by the presence of protected areas and very built-up residential areas.
On confirmation from the French authorities, it appears that the delays should be far more limited than the ones you have pointed out.
While it is unlikely that we will be able to keep to the date of 2015, the date of 2020 for the entry into service of this infrastructure seems entirely realistic, and it might even be conceivable that the section will be completed before then.
Within the 2007-2013 multiannual financial framework, the Commission wants to focus a significant proportion of the Community resources available on the 30 priority projects.
Mr Guardans Cambó, in its amended proposal for a regulation laying down the general rules for the granting of Community financial aid, the Commission envisages paying special attention to projects concerned with the elimination of bottlenecks, with the cross-border sections and with the waterways, too.
I must insist, Mr President, Mr Guardans Cambó, that Parliament permit the swift adoption of this financial regulation, thanks to which we will be able more swiftly to put in place the funding and to speed up the implementation both of this priority project No 3 and of other projects.
   . I spoke of 2020 after having consulted the French authorities.
You are right, Mr Guardans Cambó, I am the first to want the major European networks to be completed within acceptable deadlines.
However, that also depends on the Member States giving their support, and you also know that, instead of the EUR 20 billion that we were hoping for under the 2007-2013 financial perspective, we only have EUR 8 billion.
That being said, the coordinator, Mr Davignon, and myself do not intend to let the French authorities effectively compromise the future of this major corridor, which is the subject of the priority project.
I therefore have a personal commitment, Mr Guardans Cambó, and we will do everything possible to ensure that things change, and, although there has been the unfortunate announcement of a timetable that I, for my part, find altogether excessive, well, I am here to tell you that the Commissioner for Transport will fight to change the situation and to ensure that we can have a far more reasonable timetable.
   It is just a question about airline operators.
I understand that they are the ones that have to tell passengers what their rights are, but in various instances, with Air France in particular, we are told that it is not up to the airline operator.
What is the Commission doing to make sure that airline operators take their responsibilities seriously? I had to intervene on behalf of several passengers because they were told that they would not get overnight accommodation, for instance.
I told them that was wrong and that the new law said that they were entitled to that compensation.
   We now continue with the debate on the report by Karin Jöns on the establishment of a Community programme for employment and social solidarity.
   Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur for her work on PROGRESS, a new and comprehensive structure for social solidarity.
For many years, social partners have been viewing social funding, human resources and even goodwill as a cake for which they, like hungry children, have felt compelled to compete.
PROGRESS will hopefully take the competition out of the allocation of funding and other resources to social partners representing people who, because of their situation in life – physical, mental, social, ethnic, economic, employment or lack of employment, and so on – need the support of the wider community.
I should like to stress once more that within PROGRESS there needs to be room for small and new NGOs.
They need to be encouraged to survive and to thrive.
It cannot only be the older, bigger NGOs, unions and organisations that are recognised and involved.
Needs change and new needs arise.
We need to remember that the well-established groups were once small too.
   Honourable Members, I should like once again to thank the rapporteur and all those who contributed to this report, which as I can see from the discussion is seen as a joint success of the European institutions.
It is clear from the discussion that the programme is regarded as being sensibly arranged and equipped with the appropriate resources.
It is also clear that the manner in which the report was submitted is regarded as being appropriate to the situation – and at this point I should like to highlight the fact that the report will be submitted directly to Parliament.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must seize the opportunity to ensure that, from 1 January 2007, we pursue an effective and successful implementation of all of the aims and objectives envisaged in the programme, thereby fulfilling the expectations that are sure to have arisen through the success of this phase.
   Apparently the actual timetable has not been changed.
However, we began the Rapkay report this morning and we then went on with the continuation as foreseen in the original agenda.
However, thank you for your observations.
I am sorry that it caused you difficulties.
   .
Mr President, we are in agreement with the Council’s decision to extend the duration of the Pericles programme.
Extending the programme to Member States that are not in the euro zone is necessary and desirable.
It is, after all, of huge importance that the trust in the euro should not be undermined by counterfeiting.
There are two aspects that cause us to raise questions at the moment surrounding the euro.
The first of these is the use of the euro as legal tender in countries outside the euro zone.
The euro is being widely accepted particularly in Montenegro and Turkey.
Can Commissioner Kallas indicate in what way those countries are being involved in the programme in order to fight counterfeiting and the bringing into circulation of counterfeit euro coins? In 2004, the European Parliament adopted the report on medals and coins that resemble euro coins.
There was a huge increase in fraud involving coins that resemble euro coins.
Commissioner, could you say whether the Council’s regulation on this subject has had any impact?
   Firstly, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Díaz de Mera García Consuegra, for his work in this field.
It may not be a very exciting area, but it is a very important one.
Mr Díaz de Mera García Consuegra has drafted a fine report, as I am keen to point out, as I myself was the rapporteur on this matter when it was one of the topics of the day during the last election campaign.
At that time, opinions were a little more divided, especially with regard to which denominations would be counterfeited.
The line taken by the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats subsequently proved to be the right one.
Many people thought that the EUR 500 notes would be the ones most counterfeited, but we in the PPE-DE Group were of the opinion that the smaller denominations, such as the EUR 20 and EUR 50 notes, would be at greater risk.
I am pleased to see that Mr Díaz de Mera García Consuegra is in favour of the idea of careful monitoring also in countries where the euro has not yet been introduced.
The risk of counterfeits is, more often than not, greater in these countries, as the populations have not had the same level of preparation as in the Eurozone countries.
It is harder for people in these countries to tell the difference between real and fake notes and, in many cases, people are often less suspicious too.
Fortunately, counterfeiting has been a much smaller problem than had been feared, perhaps due to the very Pericles programme that we are discussing, and especially due to the large scope that it has been given.
This is another example of something good that the EU has done.
This is an area where we no longer have so much conflict, but there is every reason to inform people about this programme, which protects us all in our everyday lives.
   The next item is the report by Panayiotis Demetriou, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Framework Decision on taking account of convictions in the Member States of the European Union in the course of new criminal proceedings (COM(2005)0091 – C6-0235/2005 – 2005/0018(CNS)) (A6-0268/2006).
   The next item is the recommendation from the Committee on Regional Development on the proposal for a Council decision on Community strategic guidelines on cohesion (11807/2006 – C6 0266/2006 – 2006/0131(AVC)) (Rapporteur: Constanze Angela Krehl) (A6-0281/2006).
I would like to thank the Commissioner for coming so frequently to Parliament to discuss her proposals with us.
I would like in particular to thank Mrs Krehl for her work to bring some improvements to the Commission’s original proposal, particularly in regard to partnership, the role of cities and their hinterlands, civil society, access for the disabled and the environment.
I must, however, reiterate concerns that I have raised repeatedly about earmarking, which remains central to the Commission’s guidelines.
It has been and will continue to be used at Member State level to downgrade much of what Parliament has sought to do and what people have spoken about here this evening.
It champions Lisbon over Gothenburg and some elements of Lisbon over others.
In Ireland, at present, there is another concern, unrelated to the guidelines, which I take this opportunity to raise. Namely, that in the future ‘Peace Programme’ funding will be distributed in a way contrary to equality measures and equality provisions.
I hope to speak to the Commissioner further about this.
We need to remember the original reasons for these funds and programmes and to look at them again in the mid-term review.
As Mr Beaupuy reminded us, we in Ireland, north and south, experienced great benefits and great strides with the help of those funds.
We have to remember our solidarity and allow other areas to do the same in the future.
   The next item is the debate on the oral question to the Commission by Mrs Barsi-Pataky and Mr Rübig on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, Mr Glante on behalf of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, Mrs Hall on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and Mr Pirilli on behalf of the Union for Europe of the Nations Group, on taking stock of the Galileo programme (O-0094/2006 – B6-0430/2006).
   Mr President, I, like Mrs Barsi-Pataky, am also particularly concerned about the issue of timing.
Delay is absolutely critical, because Galileo’s unique attractiveness to investors is lost once the American GPS 3 system has reached operational capability, which is estimated to be in about 2015.
I should be grateful if the Commissioner would spell out to what extent the delay is going to be detrimental to Galileo’s success in the international market for satellite navigation.
I am concerned that the delay undermines Galileo’s business plan in other respects as well.
Firstly, with the delay have come increased costs.
Indeed, the costs of Galileo have already exceeded the budget by over 40%.
Secondly, the delay undermines the potential for revenue.
The most important source of revenue is expected to be royalties from intellectual property rights.
Receiving manufacturers would pay a licence fee to the Galileo-operating company in order to have their receivers Galileo-enabled.
But what manufacturer will want to pay a licence fee for Galileo if it does not offer any added value when compared to an upgraded GPS? Therefore, delay to the Galileo programme is not just unfortunate: it could have really grave consequences for the financial burden which is carried by the public purse.
I should be very grateful if the Commissioner could give us some explanation on this.
   .
Mr President, I am particularly pleased that we are discussing this topic – albeit at this late hour – because it is indeed the case that we need to get our skates on.
We must keep the momentum going, not least in view of global competition.
Mrs Barsi-Pataky already gave an excellent outline of the framework with regard to the possible delay, the legal framework and so on.
I hope you will allow me briefly to dwell on this public-private cooperation this evening.
It is estimated that a future-oriented project such as this can yield 150 000 extra jobs, and I know that industry cannot wait to take part in it.
Moreover, there are also regions in Europe – Bavaria and North Netherlands for example – that are prepared to invest money from the structural funds in developing this further.
That has also been done before for the LOFAR radio telescope project in North Netherlands.
As you, Mr Barrot, will know, since you have been Commissioner for Regional Policy, structural funds must, more than ever, be invested in technologies and information.
Would you be prepared to take over this development of decentralised involvement and funding? You have mentioned a Green Paper.
Could that be the bridge that can bring about this acceleration?
I am also mindful of the new rules for state support.
Mrs Kroes outlined possibilities for projects of this kind a moment ago.
I think that we are under-using the other instruments in this Parliament and in the European Union.
Galileo is still in pole position globally.
Europe is still ahead, but Galileo cannot afford to fall flat on its face in the implementation stage.
Galileo should not carry on drifting, it must land.
   . Mr President, you know, I would be happy to continue this discussion all night, because Galileo is a really exciting project.
Even so, I should like once again to reassure the honourable Members: the first of the two experimental satellites was launched from Baïkonour on 28 December 2005, and it has successfully transmitted all of the signals allowing us to guarantee the use of the frequency bands allocated to the European satellite navigation system.
The second satellite, GIOVE-B, will be launched in the course of 2007.
It will carry other technologically advanced equipment such as the passive hydrogen MASER atomic clock, which will be the most precise atomic clock ever launched into space.
In parallel with this, the industrial activities of the in-orbit validation phase began in December 2004.
I have already said, and I will say it again, that the entire contract for the validation phase, amounting to EUR 1 038 million, was signed on 19 January 2006.
We are now entering a new phase, which will involve investigating all the possible applications for Galileo.
As I have explained, we have issued a kind of appeal to all small and medium-sized enterprises and engineers able to develop innovations in this field.
The Green Paper will in fact aim to ask the right questions, which should enable us to reach a better understanding of all the possible applications.
Next, when this has given us an overall vision of the applications, we will be better able to deal with the public/private partnership and to plan how to distribute efforts.
The industrial sector also needs to be involved, to the extent that it can benefit from these applications.
That will finally allow us to found this concession contract on a reasonable financial basis.
There is no reason to think, at this stage, that we will find ourselves in a situation difficult enough to upset the balance of the project.
That being said, I have made a genuine commitment to keeping Parliament informed – Mrs Barsi-Pataky, as rapporteur, is well aware of this, and I should like to thank her once again.
I am absolutely committed to coming to Parliament whenever necessary to explain how things stand and how they are developing.
You suggested that Parliament should have observer status; we have already explained our position in this regard to the competent committees.
It would be difficult for Parliament to try to be an observer at the same time as performing all of its monitoring activities.
In any event, however, Mr President, I should like to reiterate this evening the commitment I have made: I will keep Parliament fully informed of everything that happens, both of the implementation of the concession contract and the public/private partnership and of how we are going to manage the contributions of third countries and their participation in Galileo.
   Thank you very much, Mr Rajamäki.
The Council and the Commission have no time limit.
They can therefore take the opportunity to speak for as long as they need or see fit, but there are still only twenty-four hours in the day.
   Mr President, by regularising the status of one and a half million illegal immigrants in 2005, Spain and Italy have provoked a huge influx of people from Africa, the continent nearest to Western Europe and something of a suburb of Paris.
Spain, rightly accused of irresponsibility in regularising the status of illegal immigrants, argues in response that the majority of Africans arriving in the Canaries – 25 000 since the beginning of the year – are French speakers whose intention it is to travel on to other countries.
That being the case, one can appreciate why the truly disastrous Schengen agreement, applied since 1985, needs to be repealed, as it enables any illegal immigrants arriving in Spain, Italy or elsewhere, their status newly regularised, to enter France and benefit from all the social benefits provided there.
Having missed eight of the last ten Council meetings for ministers of the interior, Mr Sarkozy is in no real position to criticise Spain, and this at a time when France is in favour of abolishing the requirement of unanimity in judicial and police cooperation, that is to say is in favour of abandoning one of its sovereign powers.
It is crucial to be able to monitor our own borders at a time when immigration is a worldwide phenomenon.
The task of monitoring thousands of kilometres of eminently porous coastline or land borders cannot be entrusted to others, and the Member States’ shortcomings in this regard cannot be made up for by Frontex, this European setup that is supposed to monitor Europe’s borders.
Unless we deal with the problem of immigration at source and come up with a large-scale development policy, we shall continue to play host to millions of immigrants who, little by little, will destabilise the Europe we know and finally swamp it.
The European institutions are merely accelerating this downward spiral by favouring an immigration policy referred to hypocritically by Mr Sarkozy as ‘selective immigration’.
The nations of Europe should take charge of their own affairs again, as Switzerland has just done, and protect themselves against the migratory invasion that has only just begun.
   Mr President, as the immigration problem is one of the biggest challenges to face us so far in 2006, one would think that all Member States would have been aware of the urgency of this problem by now, but nothing seems to be further from the truth.
The reports on last week’s meeting in Tampere were enough to make one squirm.
Indecisiveness reigned supreme.
A truly humanitarian tragedy is unfolding along the Union's external borders, partly on account of the Member States’ failing policy, and I have to say, I am deeply embarrassed.
The Council’s primary aim – if one can speak of such a thing existing at all – is to reinforce the external borders.
Frontex is the key word, but it relies on the resources and manpower supplied by the Member States, and those resources are still extremely limited.
Moreover, it is an illusion to think that the flows of immigrants can be controlled by reinforced external borders alone, not that those are something we should want either.
We must look at the reasons why immigrants choose to leave their countries in droves.
The link between immigration and development is paramount.
Large-scale and strategic investments in the countries of origin are necessary.
You might well want to call it a modern Marshall Plan.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you should follow the example set by Commissioner Frattini, who has, on a number of occasions, asked you to consider a total package of measures, which alone will enable the Union to have any impact, so I urge you to realise your ambitions, as enshrined in the Tampere programme and confirmed at The Hague, to get stuck into this so important link between immigration and development, establish those cooperation agreements with the countries of origin and transit, draft, as a matter of urgency, a European return policy according to which everyone is entitled to be treated with respect, launch those information campaigns, make sure this European green card becomes a reality, and deal with your own black market in labour.
I should like to urge the Council, to use its own metaphor, to pedal as fast as it can.
   Mr President, Mr Frattini, Mr Rajamäki, the thousands of people who have died in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean have made a mistake, and that is to have been born people.
If they had been born goods or currency – if possible the pound, the dollar or the euro – the European Union would have reacted in a different, very hospitable, manner.
They were born people, however, my friends.
They have committed the terrible crime of leaving their countries to escape hunger or war and to try to live in peace.
That is the crime they have committed.
I would beg the Commission and the Council never again to discuss terrorism and immigration at the same time.
It is an affront to civilisation.
I would beg you never to do it again.
Because if you do, you encourage speeches like that of Mr Le Pen – fascist, racist and xenophobic – or actions such as those of countries that are European, but not members of the Union, such as Switzerland, which are very welcoming when it comes to financial flows, banking flows, my friend, but when it comes to people, they even call into question the right to request asylum.
That should not be the European Union’s message.
I therefore believe that we must entirely change our approach.
They are people and they deserve a civilised response.
   – Mr President, this is a difficult thing for me to say, but Mr Schulz is absolutely right in everything he has said.
I do not think I have ever said that in this House before, and it does not seem likely that I will ever do it again, but he has spelled out where the problem lies, namely in balancing the sovereignty of the Member States against the Union’s capacity to act.
How much are the Member States prepared to concede, and how much capacity to act do they want the EU to have?
This is aptly reflected in the saying to the effect that the spirit is willing, but the flesh weak.
Perhaps, in this instance, it will be the German Presidency of the Council that will send out the signal that moves the European Union further ahead, but I have to say that I would like to see Finland and Portugal acting as particle accelerators, for Germany, although large, is sluggish; it is comparable with France in being a country with great traditions, but not much in the way of speed.
Like an oil tanker, it is slow and unmanoeuvrable, and less innovative than countries like Finland where these matters are concerned, and so I ask that you help the German Presidency of the Council to make it easier to weigh up where the fundamental key issues are.
On the subject of immigration, Günther Beckstein, the Bavarian Interior Minister, made a disastrous error when he claimed that it would not be too much to expect Spain to take in 25 000 people, for what matters is not whether or not it is reasonable that they should be expected; the real point is that the fate of people – people in desperate need – waiting offshore, is at stake.
As far as migration in search of work is concerned, the German Federal Interior Minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, made it abundantly clear that legal migration cannot be considered in isolation from the labour market, so we know that nothing is happening on that front either, and, as for the Human Rights Agency that is so important to you, what the German Federal Chancellor, Angela Merkel, had to say about that was, in effect, ‘well, yes, all right, if we do not have any choice in the matter, but why do we have to have an agency to watch over our own fundamental rights?’
You can see, then, where the problem lies, so I ask you to put your particle-accelerating skills to use; you can enable Germany to make a good job of its term in the Council Presidency.
At the moment, it is a prospect that fills me with foreboding.
   Mr President, fellow Members, we have heard Mr Frattini complain about our not being able to protect Europe’s southern borders, rightly pointing out that an illegal immigrant who succeeds in getting into Spain or Italy can be in Lille or Hamburg within a day, and heard him propose, like Mr Sarkozy, that the right of veto be completely abolished.
This is one more example of European integration being used as a solution to the problems it presents.
Have not most of the parties represented in this House opened the floodgates to uncontrolled immigration by means of the Schengen agreements and the Treaty of Amsterdam, thereby depriving the Member States of their competence in this matter?
The Commission is now freezing the readmission agreements between Member States and interfering in family reunification policies and even wishes to bring in 25 million additional immigrants to curb the population decline.
No, ladies and gentlemen, it is not possible to takes turns in power for 30 years and then, as soon as the elections come along, make out that one is not responsible for the current situation.
Moreover, we are also supposed to go further in the headlong flight towards federalism.
Frankly, if you want to destroy European civilisation, just continue as you are.
   – Today we are speaking about progress in the area of freedom, security and justice.
Talk of progress is premature, however, when the Commission is unable or unwilling to honour its commitments for 2007 as regards the expansion of the Schengen area.
I find it unacceptable that citizens of the ten new Member States will not be able to move freely across EU internal borders by the promised time, namely October of next year.
It is inexplicable, in my view, that they will be subject to border police controls for a further two to three years.
The Commission ought to behave not like a bunch of interlopers but like a body elected by this Parliament and extraordinarily well paid by the taxpayer.
If it is incapable of getting the conditions in place for the Schengen area then it is incompetent.
If it is simply hiding behind technical difficulties and wants to defer freedom of movement, then it is not to be trusted.
Mr Barroso and his Commissioners are now hampering the free movement of people, which is one of the pillars of the EU.
They should be aware of the extent to which they are risking the public’s trust in the Europe project in its current form.
   Mr President, here we are again.
Mr Schulz was quite right.
I dusted my 1999 speech down, Mr Schulz left the Chamber after his speech, various other things remain just the same as they were seven years ago.
There is a lot of grey hair in this Chamber – not on me, of course.
It is true that we have the same issues and I myself believe in pragmatic inactivity as being something we should not always be concerned about.
In this particular area, at a time of great terrorist threat – and there were terrorist threats in 1999 as well – there is a very uncertain message being sent out that the Presidency and the Commission and, regrettably, too many of those sitting in this House then and now seem to think that the most pressing need is to bring in the under Article 42.
I have always had reservations about imposing a single model of justice on countries where there are different legal systems evolving in different ways.
In the case of the UK, our system of civil law is the greatest legacy of the great Angevin king Henry II, which developed with great success for over 800 years.
Equally, we have not experienced the Napoleonic Code imposed throughout much of Europe 200 years ago.
Even though we cannot apply that system, we have never wished to stop others doing so where it is appropriate.
Even on its own terms, the move to harmonisation is flawed.
The ruling in the Cassis de Dijon case was one of the key moments in the development of the internal market, giving precedence to the principle of mutual recognition over blanket harmonisation.
The Council is due to present its mid-term review of The Hague Programme at the end of the year.
As Piet Hein Donner, the midwife of the programme, has said, the first principle is the implementation of mutual recognition as the fundament for judicial cooperation.
The programme is founded on the assumption of cooperation.
Cooperation should determine the dynamics and development of European collaboration.
I believe that is a practical and sensible approach, one which is showing signs of success and I urge the Presidency and the Commission to proceed on those lines.
   Mr President, it is a red herring to say that we cannot get effective EU action on crime, terrorism and civil liberties without a new Constitution.
Mr Schulz, your outrage was as entertaining as ever, but it is your Government and Mrs Klamt’s which is using that pretext from Berlin.
We get endless speeches and conferences saying that terrorism, racism and immigration are top challenges – which they are; but the Commission still cannot tell us if states have implemented the five-year-old anti-terrorism law, and states are only just moving forward on a four-year-old proposal to tackle race hate crime.
There is no common EU policy on migration.
We are told today by the Council that safeguarding human rights is a priority for EU governments.
If that is so, how come foreign ministers were unable recently to make any formal response to President Bush’s admission of CIA secret prisons, just as they were unable to do anything about Guantánamo for four years? This system is dysfunctional and ineffective in fighting terrorism and upholding human rights.
It is a betrayal of the 21st-century security needs of what will soon be half a billion people.
   – In the long run, we cannot cope without a common immigration policy and common strategies.
The Member States are mainly responsible for integration.
The exclusion that we have at present, along with benefits instead of work, must be brought to an end, and integration policy activated.
Work must become the rule and benefits the exception.
In Sweden, the new government is aiming to make the unemployed more attractive to employers.
Integration policy must also be combined with measures to combat people-trafficking and with the development, in partnership, of agreements with third countries.
I want to praise Mr Frattini for his endeavours in this area.
We must also join together in defending the humane values on which the EU is based.
An area of freedom, justice and security requires increased legal certainty and a strengthening of individual fundamental rights that the European Court of Justice can and must apply.
Although we do not have these things in the third pillar, any more than we have data protection, we have seen measures introduced that interfere extensively in private life.
How much longer does the Council believe we can go on without fundamental rights and a court at EU level competent to re-examine cases? The focus should now be on legal certainty and fundamental rights.
In the long term, this should help us combat crime more effectively.
Legal certainty and the fight against crime go hand in hand.
   Mr President, we urgently need the bridging clause for more efficient and democratic decision-making.
The EU must speak with one voice and not allow the United States to determine unilaterally the conditions of our joint counter-terrorism efforts.
This applies, for example, to the negotiations on the post-2007 PNR agreement, but also to CIA activities.
Last week the Member States issued a very feeble condemnation of secret CIA detention camps, but I would like to know whether the Europeans will continue to use the information obtained in these secret and illegal prisons.
On fundamental rights, which are conspicuously absent from this debate, in 2004 the Commission obtained the approval of the European Parliament on condition that the Commission become the champion of fundamental rights; but so far the Commission has been fairly timid.
For example, you condemn homophobia with words, but will you also take action, Commissioner Frattini, for example on the basis of Article 7 against homophobic actions and statements by EU governments and ministers? Will you finally end the unacceptable discrimination against married gay couples?
Commissioner and Council, will you be tough on terrorism, but also tough on intolerance in Europe?
   Mr President, Mr Rajamäki stated that a revised timetable for the accession of the new Member States to the SIS II system will be made known by the end of the year.
It follows that a revised timetable for the elimination of internal borders will also be set.
It is not known when this will come about, but the postponement is not due to delays on the part of the new Member States.
Poland will be ready to start implementing the SIS II system by March 2007.
The same is true of the other new Member States.
Commissioner, Mr Rajamäki, how does this situation impact on the Commission’s credibility with regard to granting citizens such a fundamental right as full freedom of movement across the territory of the European Union? The Commission is forever ramming slogans about a Europe of the citizens and a Europe of results down people’s throats.
How dare it, therefore, for allegedly technical reasons, hold up the process of the full enlargement of the Schengen area, and postpone it until after next year, as had been agreed at the European Council? Perhaps experts from the new Member States should be asked to ensure that the central unit is completed on time?
The best IT staff and programmers must be recruited to ensure that this is done. If it is not, the Commission and you personally, Commissioner, will be called to account for such lack of professionalism.
I am not referring to the financial, technical, political and social consequences of this decision.
The European Parliament is monitoring the Commission’s progress in this area, together with any costs arising from the delay, and it will continue to do so.
I therefore urge all concerned to consider the costs and benefits involved before taking the final decision on this matter.
I congratulate the Council on reaching a compromise on the SIS II legislative package.
Nonetheless, we still need the Council to demonstrate strong leadership and reveal the so-called technical problems for what they really are, namely a smokescreen for the lack of political will on the part of certain Member States.
After all, it is the SIS II system which creates certain technical opportunities and is thus one of the conditions ensuring that the common immigration policy becomes a shared responsibility for all Member States, not just for those most affected by illegal immigration and terrorism.
If this does not happen, we shall never be able to deal effectively with terrorism and the influx of emigrants.
   – Mr President, Europe is a bicycle.
Needless to say, this quote leaves itself wide open to all kinds of feeble comparisons, because with the Schengen information system, an instrument that helps us, among other things, to track illegal immigrants, we are engaged in some kind of political Tour de France, which involves all of us racing like mad in the same direction.
Meanwhile, there are other challenges, such as preventing immigration, and the solitary figure of Commissioner Frattini is attempting to make headway using a tricycle.
The green card is a fine idea but, unfortunately, pie in the sky as things stand.
Perhaps Commissioner Frattini will tell us whether the Council is prepared to give these issues a ‘mountain bike treatment’.
Something else that is left hanging in the air is the presidency’s remark that majority decision-making works.
It does, but I am all the more surprised, then, that the Council should want to restrict Parliament’s codecision rights where biometrics is concerned. Are we not cycling around the Schengen information system fast enough?
Will Commissioner Frattini give us his opinion on whether we are or not? I look forward to his doing so.
   Mr President, I am sorry to raise this yet again, but it appears that no one in Parliament’s Presidency is listening.
We were told to arrive here for votes at noon.
That has now been postponed to 12.05 and again to 12.10.
I know that you are very efficient at getting business through this House, but I urge you please to inform the Conference of Presidents of the continuing dissatisfaction of colleagues in this House about the times of votes being changed arbitrarily, at considerable inconvenience to the way this House’s business is conducted.
   We have had a very comprehensive, whole-morning debate on a single subject.
There have been 63 speakers.
I do not want to be discourteous either to the Council or the Commission, but the Minister spoke for 23 minutes and 49 seconds, and the Commissioner spoke for 21 minutes and 19 seconds.
I am obliged to give both of them the floor now.
I hope they will be brief in their remarks.
   Thank you, Minister.
I believe it was US President Jackson who said ‘I like the noise of democracy’.
That is what you are hearing.
   We take note of your remarks, Mr Bushill-Matthews.
   . Fellow Members, I would ask you to vote in favour of the legislative resolution contained in my report on data protection under the third pillar.
Indeed, Mr Rajamäki has, this morning, been able to give shape to the moral undertakings given by the preceding presidencies.
The Finnish Presidency has made data protection its priority, and I would today thank it for having done so.
I would also take the same opportunity to welcome the Presidency’s presence in this House.
The Council is to present us with a document at the beginning of 2007 and it will take account of our opinion.
That is why I call on you to vote in favour of this report.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry, Mr President, but an error in the French translation of Amendment 29 has been pointed out to me: as the authors of the text, we should like the words ‘’ corrected to ‘’, in line with the spirit of the text in French. That is the political will of the draftsmen.
We consider it a translation error.
   Mr President, in paragraph 29, there is a mistake in the Dutch version.
I am not an expert on the Dutch language – but I will improve!
As far as I know, the phrase is not an appropriate translation of what is written in the English version, i.e. ‘appropriate legal initiatives’.
I think my Dutch friends will agree with me and maybe also give me a grade A in the Dutch language!
I would like to underline that it is the English version that is the authentic text in this case.
   It does not make a big difference, but we prefer the original sequence, and therefore we oppose this shifting of paragraph 30.
   . Mr President, on behalf of the members of my delegation, I wanted, for clarity’s sake, to make a change to the voting list.
Against the vote in sections about the original text of paragraph 72, a minus sign has been inserted in both the first and second parts by mistake.
This should be changed into a plus sign in both instances, just so as to make matters absolutely clear.
We will be voting by roll call for the first and second parts.
   – Mr President, I voted in favour of the Roure report on the grounds that the war on terror is, for the USA, a welcome pretext for compelling others to hand over personal information.
European data protection provisions, however, categorise the USA as a third country with poor data protection security, something irreconcilable with the agreement on passenger data, which is itself worthy of criticism.
It would also appear that the banks, too, are being blackmailed into disclosing the movements of funds.
While one would hope that all these things are being done only for good purposes, the EU must stop lending legitimacy to the concept of the transparent person, and should instead get back to taking data protection seriously.
   – I voted in favour of the report by Mr Diaz de Mera Garcia Consuegra on the proposal for a decision of the European Council on the PERICLES programme for the protection of the euro against counterfeiting.
This issue is essential to the proper functioning of our single currency, and I am delighted that the decision is being extended to Member States that are not part of the euro zone.
It is important to note that, while the number of counterfeit euro notes appears to have stabilised at 50 000 per month, we are seeing a worrying explosion in counterfeit coins.
We should therefore consider whether it may be in our interest to look into the introduction of a one euro note, following the example of the one dollar note in the United States of America, in order to prevent counterfeiting and also because it would be of some practical use to commerce and to the citizens.
   Mr President, I did not vote on draft amending budget No 4, the Pittella report.
This is not because I have no respect for the rapporteur – in fact I have a huge amount of respect for Mr Pittella and I am quite sure that this particular adjustment in the budget is fine.
But I do have a definite problem with the process: a qualified majority vote without an indication of votes, no check of votes on the floor and absolutely no scrutiny of the process behind this.
I would like to reflect many of my constituents’ worries about the European budget.
I was recently at meetings in both Daventry and Brixworth in my region, where concern was expressed that the budget is not spent or implemented properly.
Transferring huge amounts of money between budget lines, which does not reflect Parliament’s considered political view at the time of the budget process, is a worrying development that is happening more and more.
Thus I did not vote on the Pittella report.
   Today, we have voted on an amending budget affecting the income side of the EU budget.
The amending budget includes, for example, the recalculation of the contributions necessary for funding the British rebate.
We find it unfair and antiquated that a Member State should have been placed in this kind of unique position and we wish, in this connection, to emphasise the importance of reviewing the EU budget planned for 2008/2009.
It is crucially important that this review should cover the British rebate as well as the common agricultural policy.
   We have voted against this report because it rejects the Council of Ministers’ draft amending budget no. 3.
Unlike the majority in the Committee on Budgets, we believe that the Council of Ministers is perfectly entitled to redistribute expenditure between the EU’s different institutions during the budget procedure if it thinks this the right thing to do.
   . With the adoption of the Progress programme, all of the Community actions that were previously spread across different programmes have been brought together, for example the fight against discrimination, the Community strategy for equality between men and women, incentives in the area of employment, activities relating to working conditions and actions in the fight against social exclusion.
During the debate and negotiation stage we were able to improve upon various aspects of the Commission’s original proposal on Progress, which now includes a number of proposals put forward by our group on the opinion of which I was draftsman on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality.
Unfortunately, however, the important aspect of the cofinancing contribution was not amended.
This represents a backward step for associations working in the area of poverty and social exclusion, given that the contribution has dropped from the 90% negotiated in 2001 to the current figure of 80%, a flat figure for all associations.
There may be exceptions but it would be very difficult to gain approval for them.
This is the main reason behind our abstention on this report adopting the Progress programme.
   Mr President, I congratulate our rapporteur Mrs Krehl on a well balanced report on this crucial issue.
In Scotland we have long experience of using structural funds effectively and well, and it is vital that the funds continue to evolve to meet Europe’s needs.
This report takes proper cognisance of developments and suggests a number of helpful steps forward and I welcome it wholeheartedly.
   – I voted in favour of the report by Mr Rapkay on the Commission White Paper on services of general interest (SGI) because it is a balanced report.
In particular, he has had the courage to point out that it is impossible to provide a uniform definition of SGIs in such a heterogeneous social and economic environment as the European Union and that, in this field, the principle of subsidiarity must be reaffirmed, leaving it to the Member States to define what should or should not be classed as coming under the general interest and directly to act in accordance with their decisions.
Following the difficulties in reaching a political compromise at first reading on the ‘services’ directive, the debate on SGIs is far from concluded.
It is urgent that we legislate at European level on particular sectors, namely social services and health services of general interest, in order to provide them with legal certainty.
Finally, this matter will be important in terms of the competitiveness of the European area, to which we must pay close attention.
   . – I voted against Mr Rapkay's report on the Commission White Paper on services of general interest because several amendments that were very important to me were rejected, in particular the amendment calling for a framework directive on services of general interest and those calling for clarification of the criteria distinguishing between services of general interest (SGIs) and services of general economic interest (SGEIs) and the criteria for granting compensation for the provision of public services and in-house provision.
We must not give way on these vital issues for the future of public services in our countries, and we must not take a backward step in comparison to what Parliament adopted in the Herzog resolution in 2004 and the Langen resolution in 2001, especially at a time when the Socialist Group in the European Parliament has drafted a proposal for a framework directive on general interest services that goes still further.
   I voted against the Rapkay report because I consider that the final text did not provide adequate support for services of general interest (public services).
Directives on a sectoral basis alone will only result in ‘salami slicing’ of the overall public interest and carve out sectors for business benefit.
There are aspects of social services which support the educational sector, forms of housing which serve a general public interest even if not expressly dealing with a deprived social sector etc. – a sectoral approach is not enough.
As we have so often done in the environmental domain, we need an overarching framework directive first, setting out the general interest before we embark on specific sectors.
We can find a legal basis.
It is not enough for people to say this lies within the competence of Member States when those same Member State governments are using market rules, the Services Directive and other means to achieve liberalisation by the back door.
I hope those who supported the amendment on liberalisation, who voted against a horizontal directive and voted for the final report will be able to explain to their colleagues in local and regional government why they are not defending more strongly the public services their colleagues have to deliver.
   – Mr President, the Austrian People’s Party delegation voted ‘yes’ to the first part of paragraph 69, on the grounds that we see this as a process with an open outcome, whilst rejecting the second part on the grounds that it contradicts the first.
In the final vote, though, despite the majority support for the second part, we voted in favour, taking the view that this report does not pass judgment on the ultimate objective, but rather on the progress of negotiations to date, and that it constitutes a critical and objective discussion of the European Union’s shared laws and resolutions rather than a final vote and statement.
I wanted to make this statement for the avoidance of inconsistencies and misinterpretations.
   – Mr President, I have voted, deliberately and with conviction, in favour of the first part of paragraph 69 and against the second, taking as I do the view that the good work done by Mr Eurlings and many other Members does in fact amount to an enumeration of issues and situations that militate against Turkish accession, and that is a reason why the negotiations should not have accession as their final objective.
It is for that reason that I have voted against the report as a whole.
We should focus on paragraph 71 by trying to find a way of tying Turkey into the European structures, and we should do the same for other neighbouring countries to which the prospect of Member State status should not be held out and that we do not in any case believe capable of achieving it.
   – Mr President, even though there is no doubt that it has a number of good or interesting points – not least the way it makes clear that Turkey is not ready for Europe and also that it probably never will be – I voted against the Eurlings report, and I did so on the grounds that the Turkish Government is doing nothing more than indulging in window-dressing, in that it has agreed on a few reforms, albeit without implementing them, not to mention the fact that we are not getting any closer to solving certain problems with considerable potential for doing damage, such as the conflict over Cyprus, the Kurdish problem or the acknowledgement of the Armenian genocide.
All these matters should have been resolved long before negotiations started, all the more so in view of the EUR 1.3 billion that the Turks have been given over recent years in pre-accession aid.
I believe it is now time that we did what Europe’s citizens have been doing for some time, and said an honest ‘no’ to the accession negotiations.
   – Mr President, we, in the UDF, very strongly support Mr Eurlings’s report, because it contains some very powerful truths that must be made known.
Even so, we were obliged to abstain from voting. Why?
Firstly, precisely because this report seems to rule out the idea of an enhanced partnership acting as an alternative to pure and simple accession.
Well, that is unrealistic, especially because, by rejecting the paragraph on Armenia, this Parliament is sending out an extraordinarily negative signal.
I would point out that, in 2004, we voted in favour of a resolution stating that we were calling for the recognition of the Armenian genocide; and that, in 2005, we voted in favour of a resolution stating that we were calling for the recognition of this genocide as a prerequisite for accession.
We have forgotten about all of that today.
What message is being sent out? The message that this is a Parliament that changes its mind and that forgets about its resolutions.
The message is simple – it consists in saying to the people of Turkey: you need not be in any hurry to change regarding this matter; you may continue to make the very mention of the genocide a crime of opinion; and, when all is said and done, you will not be asked to recognise this genocide.
This is an extremely negative and extremely serious message.
I regret that it has been sent out and that it has prevented us from voting in favour of what is, I might add, an excellent report by Mr Eurlings.
   – Mr President, I voted for the adoption of the Eurlings report in the belief that it was good, critical, and the best report of this kind to have been put before us to date.
I voted for it even though I do not like everything about it.
I do not, for example, like the way this report approaches the Armenian issue.
Let us imagine for a moment that the Holocaust that occurred under Hitler’s regime were, in Germany, to be always referred to only in inverted commas or described only as the ‘so-called holocaust’; that is the way in which the Armenian issue is handled in Turkey.
I voted in favour of the Eurlings report even though a majority backed the inclusion of a clause stating that the objective to be aimed for had to be Turkey’s full membership of the European Union, an objective of which I am of course not in favour on the grounds that Turkey is neither ready for accession nor willing to comply with our requirements, and because I know – as does everyone else in this House – that the EU cannot afford to have Turkey as a Member State.
I found it easy to vote in favour of this report, for the statements that I did not want to see incorporated, yet which nonetheless have been, and which I have just enumerated, are quite obviously so nonsensical that the report, taken as a whole, nevertheless represents a good reflection of this House’s position.
   . – Mr President, on behalf of the Transnational Radical Party, I voted against the Eurlings report on Turkey, because Parliament is thereby authorising the European Union to shut itself off from the Mediterranean and the Middle East yet again.
Instead of showing its willingness to speed up the process of integrating Turkey into Europe, Parliament is proposing alternative ways to bring Ankara closer to Brussels that have nothing to do with serious accession negotiations.
The European Union must not just shut itself off and focus solely on its Constitution, as President Barroso explained to us a few days ago.
Nor should it pin its hopes on the Pope’s good offices to establish a dialogue with the Islamic world and the Middle East, as the Eurlings report suggests.
Josef Ratzinger is not Javier Solana.
Instead, starting with Mr Pannella’s appeal for peace in the Middle East, we have to revive our federalist and democratic aspirations, so as to create a Europe that can include the largest possible number of people in a political project of freedom, democratic reform and peace.
   I voted against Amendment 51 from my own group to paragraph 50 of Mr Eurlings' report on Turkey's progress towards accession.
I did that with some regret, but the consequence of the amendment passing would have been to delete the reference to the Assyrian community, amongst others.
As someone who has consistently complained that the plight and even existence of the Assyrian community is being ignored in Iraq, it would be hypocritical of me to collude in exactly the same way for the case of Turkey.
I did the same for the other amendments to this paragraph.
   . – I voted against the Eurlings report because it reflects Europe’s growing hypocrisy regarding Turkey.
In my opinion, Turkey is destined to become a member of the European Union: it has always been part of Europe’s political, economic and cultural past.
Even though it is clear that Turkey still has more work to do in many areas, certain political forces within the Council and Parliament are multiplying the obstacles that Turkey has to overcome.
I, for my part, intend to dissociate myself from these shameful tactics which, at the end of the day, are merely designed to preserve a ‘Christian Europe’!
   . – Mr Eurlings’s report contained some excellent passages, particularly those concerning the Armenian genocide - which the Turkish authorities refuse to acknowledge - the economic blockade imposed on Armenia and the refusal to recognise Cyprus, a Member State of the European Union.
Just one of those elements ought to lead us to the conclusion that the negotiations concerning Turkey’s accession to the European Union must be stopped.
Not only does the rapporteur not come to this conclusion, but, more importantly, he does not mention the following obvious fact: Turkey is not a European country.
95% of its territory is in Asia; its capital, Ankara, is in the heart of Asia Minor; and, with the Christian communities having been wiped out during the 20th century, 99% of its population belongs to the Muslim world.
Turkey therefore has no reason to join the European Union.
This obvious fact, which is acknowledged by the people of Europe, particularly in France and Austria, is not acknowledged by those who govern us.
This morning’s vote illustrates this divide: not only did the majority of our Parliament vote in favour of Turkey’s accession, but they also rejected paragraph 49 calling for the recognition of the Armenian genocide, thus bowing to Turkey’s wishes.
   Sinn Féin looks forward to Turkey joining the EU, if it decides to do so, on the same basis as other countries did including the respect for human rights, civil government, acceptance of the political rights of the Kurdish population and the recognition of the Republic of Cyprus.
We welcome today’s decision by the European Parliament to recognise that the resolution of the problem caused by Turkey’s occupation of part of Cyprus is a major issue which must be dealt with before Turkey can join the EU.
While believing Parliament’s position fell short of what it should have done on the question of the rights of the Kurdish population in Turkey, we are also glad to see the plight of the Kurdish population in Turkey being raised as a key issue in the accession negotiations between Turkey and the EU.
   Recognising that Turkey’s accession negotiations will take many years and that substantial reform is needed, there are many elements of the Eurlings report that I can support.
Nevertheless, the report is excessively negative and very unbalanced, particularly in relation to the Cyprus issue, where there is no recognition of Turkish Cypriot support for the Annan Plan or of the EU’s unfulfilled promise to end the isolation of Northern Cyprus.
There is also no call for any constructive movement on the part of the Republic of Cyprus, which is left to determine the pace of Turkey’s accession negotiations (according to recital B) and whose interests even intrude into NATO, where Turkey is then blamed for making difficulties (paragraph 54).
Furthermore, future enlargement of the EU is specifically linked to the revival of the EU constitutional process, to which I fundamentally object.
On this basis I abstained.
   Mr President, Darfur continues to be a humanitarian crisis.
More than a quarter of a million innocent people have been killed since 2003, and a further 2.5 million people have been displaced.
The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1706 last month calling for the deployment of more than 22 000 peacekeepers in the region.
However, the Government of Sudan remains opposed to such a force, accusing the UN of an exercise in neo-colonialism manipulated by Washington.
This is nonsense talk and it is nothing more than the Sudanese Government playing politics with people’s lives.
The mandate of the African Union Mission in Sudan has been extended so that the UN now has three more months in which to reach an agreement with the Sudanese Government on the need for a more effective multilateral force to protect civilians.
However, in the likely scenario of Sudan’s continuing to resist UN efforts, the UN must take a stronger stance.
The UN may need to consider, for example, military intervention under Chapter 7, given its responsibility to protect civilians where national authorities fail to save their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and/or crimes against humanity.
The Sudanese Government has shown no willingness to protect internally displaced persons.
In fact, there is strong evidence to suggest that it has assisted and sponsored attacks on refugee camps.
For the time being, support for the 7000-strong AU force is essential and the UN has agreed to give logistical and material support.
The Arab League has finally pledged some economic support and EU Member States also need to be generous in this regard.
The EU has a responsibility to make Darfur an ongoing priority for the UN.
More pressure is needed on China and Russia in particular to play a more positive role in Sudan.
More civilians have died in Darfur than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.
We all have blood on our hands because of the slow international response to what has happened to date.
This is the toughest resolution that we have seen on Darfur, but it is action that is needed.
I hope we will not be looking back in a year’s time at another 100 000 dead.
   – Mr President, Commissioner, I would prefer not to speak at all, in protest at both your and our ineptitude.
Yet China needs minerals, oil, markets, water and land.
What we are witnessing is the Chinese colonisation of Africa.
The Sudanese Government, a partner or constituent part of Al-Qaeda, longstanding home to Osama, staunch ally of Al-Tourabi, literally practices ethnic cleansing, raping and impregnating tens of thousands of women in the cause of Arab-ness and membership of the League of Arab States.
The Russians supply the arms.
The mission of the African Union has reached breaking point.
Our glorious African intervention leaves two million people in exile and half a million dead.
I should like to ask the Council and the Commission what they are doing in order to provide immediate support for a substantial United Nations mission under Chapter VII? What actions are they taking to finally implement the no fly zone called for in 13 completely pointless resolutions?
What are they doing in order to ensure that they put an end to the impunity of all those who rape and kill completely innocent civilians? It shames me that as a member of Parliament’s Investigation Committee I took on more responsibility when I visited Darfur and Abéché, and yet today all I can do is prattle on, if you will excuse the expression.
Commissioner, imagine looking into the eyes of a young woman who is caring for a baby and asking her the child’s name. She cannot answer you and she says she does not know, because the child was born out of rape.
How do you think you would feel?
   Mr President, everyone is saying: ‘Darfur is on the brink of the abyss’.
The parties involved in the conflict continue to kill and to rape.
The civilian populations are their daily targets.
Humanitarian workers are abandoning the area under the pressure of the acts of intimidation and, indeed, murders, since 13 have been killed over the last few weeks.
The conflict is threatening the entire sub-region, extending, as it does, to Chad and to the Central African Republic. It seems that all is now set for the final assault.
All is set for a massacre.
The government is playing a cat-and-mouse game with the international community.
It is a very cruel game that is paid for each day in hundreds of human lives.
Since 2004, the Union has spared no financial efforts, and this commitment has certainly helped to prevent carnage.
However, a firmer political commitment is now vital.
The priority is to act as quickly as possible and to deploy, in accordance with Resolution 1706, a United Nations peacekeeping force with a mandate to use force if necessary to protect the civilians.
However, the only way to protect the populations is to do so quickly, here and now - by forcing the Sudanese authorities to stop their current offensive and to apply the peace agreement to Darfur; by strengthening the mandate and by giving the material resources to the African Union forces that are on the ground and that, at the moment, do not constitute a solid enough shield to protect the civilian populations; and, as my fellow Members have said, by immediately introducing the no-fly zone provided for in United Nations Resolution 1591.
Furthermore, if appeals to reason are not enough, well, let us clear the way for sanctions: an oil embargo, an international arrest warrant, and individually targeted sanctions against the perpetrators of atrocities and, in particular, against the 51 people whose names appear on the list passed on to the International Criminal Court.
Ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament will not allow the first genocide of the 21st century to take place, in silence and practically in front of its very own eyes.
   – The next item is the report by Mr Sajjad Karim, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on the EU's economic and trade relations with India [2006/2034(INI)], (A6-0256/2006).
   Mr President, during our previous part-session, we had a report on EU trade with China in which we were severely critical of China’s human rights violations.
Today, the subject is trade with India.
The report is excellent.
I was able to concur with most of what it said, and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance will, of course, vote in favour of the report.
I wish, however, to concentrate here on one big issue: that of why human rights problems are not accorded importance in the report.
They are discussed, but in very general terms.
Moreover, the worst problem - and probably one of the world’s most extensive human rights problems – is almost not mentioned at all.
I am thinking, of course, of the Dalits, who are casteless.
They are mentioned, but in conjunction with the Adivasis, as if all that was at issue was a general problem involving minorities.
The Dalits are a despised underclass in several countries, but they are, in particular, India’s problem.
They are not only poor and socially excluded.
The situation is worse than that.
They are treated as if they were not human beings at all.
They are untouchable, detested by the other population groups and at the bottom of the pile socially.
They do have rights, but only on paper.
In reality, they have no rights, and they do the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs.
That, moreover, is of course what is interesting in this case.
It is they who, in industry and agriculture, work with chemicals so poisonous as to be banned in most of the world.
Without instructions or protection, they spray the fields with deadly neurotoxins.
In factories, they stand bare-footed in acid baths and colour our textiles.
No one else would tolerate these things, but the Dalits are forced to do so.
What is more, the EU deals in Indian products without asking candid questions about how they were made.
It is a nasty business for India, but it is almost more awkward for Europe, which is well aware of what is happening.
Often, we ourselves have sold them the dangerous products.
Thousands of people are harmed and many die, and they are Dalits.
The Dalits have no voice and no trade union.
We ourselves are obliged to be their voice if the outrages are to be brought to an end.
The problem needs to be on the EU’s agenda, and it is disgraceful that it is not clearly included in this report.
   Mr President, economic analysts are of the opinion that, by 2015, India, which is considered to be an ‘Asian tiger’, will have become the fourth most powerful economy in the world.
India will therefore become a strong counterbalance to China in trading terms.
In the first quarter of this year, the rate of growth of the Indian economy increased to over 9%.
As it moves on from being a developing country and comes to be recognised as a developed one, India is aspiring to catch up with China and take the lead in Asia.
We should, therefore, attach particular importance to trade relations with India.
The European Union is already India’s main trading partner.
Trade with Member States of the European Union accounts for over 22% of exports from India.
India’s industry has risen to global challenges and welcomes science-based development as a business strategy.
The large numbers of young, well-educated Indians who are cheap to employ and speak competent English represent a great asset to their country.
They should become an advantage in terms of our bilateral relations.
There are other factors, however, that the Union ought to draw to India’s attention.
Over 390 million Indian citizens are living on less than a dollar a day and the statistics for child labour in India are amongst the highest in the world.
This has to change.
The war on poverty must become a key feature of the strategic partnership between the European Union and India.
We should also strive to ensure that India is better represented at the IMF.
In addition, it would be appropriate to launch an initiative aimed at drawing up a free trade agreement with India.
This would strengthen our strategic trading partnership for many years to come.
Mr Karim has drawn up a good report that deserves our support.
   Mr President, the EU’s strategic partnership with democratic India is of vital importance for both the EU and India.
I welcome the strengthening of political and economic dialogue and engagement as well as discussions on human rights at the India-EU Summit on 13 October.
However, given the astonishing recent growth of India’s economy and its emerging global big-power status, our partnership must now deepen.
Therefore I strongly favour a bilateral India-EU free trade agreement.
That would have mutually beneficial results as our economies are complementary, as India needs our high-tech finished products and we need their services and basic machinery.
We are already India’s biggest trading partner, at some EUR 40 billion annually, and we collaborate now on high-tech projects such as Galileo and ITER, demonstrating the sophistication of India’s 8% annual growth economy.
I also call for enhanced regional cooperation and economic integration of India and Pakistan with SAARC and SAFTA, which enhances the confidence-building measures between the two states which, until recently, were on the verge of war.
The line of control between the divided regions of Jammu and Kashmir could eventually be just a line on the map, if people, goods and services could flow freely.
Pakistan should desist from its restrictive positive list of freely traded goods and change to a more liberal negative list as expected by MFN and SAFTA rules.
India is fast becoming the prime south-Asian geopolitical player and it is high time that the UN Security Council admitted the largest democracy in the world to its ranks as a permanent member.
China is our second largest trading partner, but the EU does not share the same fundamental values with it as we do with India.
That fact needs greater recognition in this House.
Coming from Britain, with our traditional links to India, I commend the Karim report and call on the Commission to develop a much deeper political and economic India-EU relationship culminating in a bilateral free trade agreement.
   – Ladies and gentlemen, direct foreign investment is an important factor in any country’s development.
I come from one of the new Member States and I can definitely confirm that direct foreign investment has played a significant role in the current dynamic economic growth that we have experienced in Central and Eastern Europe.
Indeed, the same applies to India, which is the third most attractive country in the world in terms of foreign investment, with Europe being one of the biggest investors, accounting for investments of more than EUR 1 billion in 2004.
Despite this positive trend and many other improvements, however, foreign investors in India continue to face considerable problems.
They have to struggle with municipal, regional and national bureaucracy, with oblique and frequently changing regulations, to the point where they are completely unable to invest in many sectors, one example being agriculture.
I should like to call on the Indian authorities to alleviate this situation and to make it easier for foreign investors to enter the Indian market.
As evidenced by the successful example of Central and Eastern Europe, this will be beneficial not only for investors but also for the countries into which investment flows, which in this case means India.
   The next item is the report (A6-0254/2006) by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality, on perspectives of women in international trade (2006/2009(INI)).
   – Madam President, I would take the liberty of tabling a procedural motion at the start of our debate on Mrs Breyer’s report.
My remark concerns the translation, into the various official languages of the European Union, of the motion for a resolution on women and international trade.
I have worked with the Slovak, English, German and French versions, and there are a few paragraphs that have been translated in a totally different way.
I would be pleased if the services could usefully check the quality of the translations.
   I should like to offer my sincere thanks to Mrs Breyer for her excellent report and for the fact that she has raised an incredibly important issue concerning trade and the ways in which WTO and GATS agreements, together with IMF decisions, affect people's lives and ability to provide for themselves.
In the same way as the agreements are often beneficial to industrialised countries and harmful to developing countries, women and men are, in different ways, placed at, respectively, a disadvantage or advantage by trade agreements.
By tradition, world trade is men’s arena.
The board of the IMF consists entirely of men, and 91.7% of the World Bank’s board is male.
Trade and gender are connected in a host of ways that we need to study if we are to understand how people in different places, of different genders and from different social classes are affected by trade agreements.
Gender is relevant because gender relations affect the distribution of, and access to, resources, work, income and power.
Gender affects our behaviour as economic actors.
Men and women react differently to economic changes.
Financial institutions are not only dominated by men.
More importantly, they continue and maintain gender structures in the economy.
Men’s and women’s work is valued differently.
Women’s work in the reproductive sphere is unpaid and has been rendered invisible.
These factors mean that women and men are affected differently, and a gender analysis is therefore incredibly important if we are to be able to design a trade policy that promotes equality and breaks down patriarchal structures.
Women’s role in the economy must be made visible.
Trade policy negotiations must take practical account of all the conventions, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
   – Madam President, not very long ago now, a report on trade and poverty put in an appearance in this House, and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality tabled a number of very good amendments to it, all of which were adopted.
It is with that in mind that I would like to thank Mrs Breyer for this own-initiative report, which is the logical response to the imperative need for the issue of the relative roles of trade and women to be once more addressed.
Nothing will be done about the problem of the unequal treatment of women for as long as there is no radical rethinking of economic and trade policies.
Do you remember trade agreements? There was the Agnoletto report, which stated that human rights clauses should be incorporated in all international treaties.
Since there are both individual and social human rights, it follows that it is justified – to say the least – that all trade agreements should include clauses on human beings’ social rights, namely the right to education, the right to training, and the right to free health care.
If you want those things – and we do – then you cannot, of course, want to implement a European services directive that makes them into market commodities and hence dependent on people’s ability to pay for them.
It is quite clear that that approach is eventually going to be taken to GATS, so that women in certain countries will be denied what opportunities they currently have, for those countries will not have the financial resources.
Turning to the subject of quotas, these are always crutches, but they can be bridges.
That I can tell you from my own experience as a member of the left-wing PDS party in the Federal Republic of Germany, which applies a 50% quota to all its parliamentarians, and that is something that should be brought in everywhere, for if it were, we and our society would have achieved a major advance.
   The next item is the report (A6-0266/2006) by Mr Guerreiro, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on improving the economic situation in the fishing industry (2006/2110(INI)).
   Mr Guerreiro’s report on improving the economic situation in the fishing industry worries me a lot.
The way in which the Community’s fishing fleet conducts its activities will lead to the oceans becoming irrevocably depleted of fish, and all to protect an industry that is uncompetitive internationally.
Allow me to give an example.
At the beginning of September, the Commission presented a proposal on fishing in the Baltic Sea.
The ICES, or International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, again repeated the demand for a total ban on cod fishing in the eastern Baltic, but the Commission believes that it is enough for it to be reduced by 15%.
This shows very clearly that the EU does not put the environment first but, rather, seeks the best for industry.
The last remark requires qualification, however, because the fishing industry will die out once the seas are depleted of fish.
A global view of what is just should be adopted when the EU’s fisheries policy is discussed.
The rapporteur says explicitly that the EU’s fishing fleet is forced to compete with third countries’ fleets.
The latter have much lower costs, and their products are consequently cheaper.
By introducing tax relief, which is definitely not something for the Community to do, Mr Guerreiro wishes to distort the international market and thus deprive poor people of their only means of income.
That is frightening and, at the same time, very tragic.
The EU is, however, showing its true face in this case: that of an uncompetitive economy that is prepared to do anything to protect its production, at the same time as excluding the world’s poor.
   The next item is the report (A6-0265/2006) by Mr Albert Jan Maat on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries on the proposal for a Council regulation establishing a management plan for fisheries exploiting stocks of plaice and sole in the North Sea (COM(2005)0714 – C6-0034/2006 – 2006/0002(CNS)).
   We think of sole and plaice as extremely good fish that are a great pleasure to eat, but future generations will not experience that pleasure if we do not now accept our responsibilities.
I think that Mr Maat’s report is, for the most part, sound, but I would criticise precisely the same things as the Commissioner.
Amendment 8 about having a three-year quota would have precisely those implications pointed out by Mr Davies.
It could not be adapted in time and would be inappropriate.
The same applies in the case of cod.
There is a connection here, which means that Amendment 14 cannot be approved either.
If the number of days at sea is to be limited for the reason stated, the restriction will have to apply to these vessels too, as there cannot be exceptions where this matter is concerned.
When it comes to Amendment 15, involving a ten per cent, instead of eight per cent, margin of tolerance, I would point out that, with modern computer technology, there would be no complications in having an eight per cent margin.
We could manage to calculate eight per cent instead of ten per cent.
Increased flexibility would damage stocks.
The same applies to Amendment 20.
Increased flexibility for the Member States in determining when they need to take measures would not work.
Attempts to obtain increased flexibility would actually lead to reduced flexibility, as, if fish stocks are depleted, there is no flexibility at all left.
There would then be no fishing quotas, no days at sea and 100% unemployment among professional fishermen.
That, presumably, is what no one wants to see.
   – The next item is the report (A6-0263/2006) by Mrs Miguélez Ramos, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the application of Council Regulation (EC) No 1185/2003 on the removal of fins of sharks on board vessels (2006/2054(INI)).
   Thank you very much, Mrs Miguélez.
I take good note of your complaint.
I shall pass it on to the head of Parliament’s security service so that he may take the appropriate action.
   Mr President, I am delighted that the UK Government was one of the key supporters of Council Regulation (EC) No 1185/2003 concerning the disgusting practice of removing shark fins on board vessels.
The regulation is designed to prevent shark finning, where shark carcasses are thrown overboard after high-value shark fins have been removed.
You could call this ‘slit and chuck’.
Without their fins, the sharks suffocate to death.
The practice of shark finning is known to endanger the survival of several shark species.
Only today American researchers using fish auction records from Hong Kong have calculated that the trade in shark fins kills 26 million to 73 million sharks a year.
Against this background, I am appalled and disappointed that this report threatens an increase in shark finning.
Paragraph 5 of the report requests an increase of the 5% fin- to live-weight ratio to 6.5%, particularly for blue sharks.
Paragraph 3 of the report incorrectly implies that ICES and ICCAT support an increase in fin- to live-weight ratio for the blue shark.
A paper was submitted to ICES in 2005, but ICES has not considered this paper or issued an opinion.
The same goes for ICCAT, where scientists have reviewed fin to carcass ratios but have not recommended an increase of the ratio.
Amendment 1 is placed first on the voting list, and I recommend support for it.
I fear that the European Parliament may not give its support to any of these amendments, a retrograde step, and I ask colleagues to say no to ‘slit and chuck’.
   Mr President, the UK, Germany and Belgium fought very hard to implement a ban on shark finning in 2003. They received wide support in the Council.
Spain and Portugal now appear to be the only Member States pushing for an amendment to the regulation in respect of the 5% ratio of fins to live weight of shark catch.
They say that the current regulation is unrealistic, particularly for the blue shark, which is the main target of their fishery and which they claim is in great abundance in EU waters.
I think the strong international market for shark fins, mostly as we have just heard for the Asian shark fin soup market, coupled with the relatively low value of shark meat, has motivated Spain and Portugal to support this drastic amendment.
It remains a fact that the 5% ratio of fins to live weight contained in EU legislation is the weakest in the world, as Mr Davies told us.
The proposal in this report for a 6.5% ratio would quite simply allow more sharks to be killed.
It would send all the wrong negative signals to the international community.
The higher the ratio, the more likely it is that the illegal practice of finning will recur.
That is why I have tabled an amendment which proposes that the figure be lowered to 2% of live weight.
That would ensure the protection of sharks in EU waters, increase that protection and fall in line with international standards.
The IUCN, the World Conservation Union, has confirmed that the blue shark is endangered and will be placed on its red list as a vulnerable species when that list is updated later this year.
In such circumstances, it would be madness to permit more of these sharks to be killed.
Indeed, we should be seeking to impose a strict regime of TACs and quotas on blue sharks to offer the species additional protection.
   Mr President, firstly I wish to thank Mrs Miguélez Ramos for all the work she has done in preparing this own-initiative report.
The corresponding Commission report is clear in reiterating that finning is prohibited within the Community, and in its conclusion that the percentage equivalence ratio of shark fin to body weight does not need to be altered.
The rapporteur disagrees with this percentage ratio figure, and she is of the opinion that it should be increased from the level of 5% to 6.5%.
This is the main issue of disagreement with the Commission report, and with some of us.
Mrs Miguélez Ramos argues that some scientific evidence favours her 6.5% ratio position, but let me say respectfully that other scientific evidence supplied by at least equally reputable sources supports the view that the 5% figure is in fact more than adequate.
The latter scientific evidence further supports the view that if the ratio is indeed increased, this will result in the enhancement of the very practice we want to stop, i.e. finning.
Such a practice, coupled with the general failure of implementation of the relevant Community regulation, will, in my view, lead with mathematical accuracy and in the not-too-distant future, to the endangerment of the very existence of certain shark species.
In this respect, please note that an increase from 5% to 6.5% may seem small at first glance, but in reality it is not.
It in fact represents an increase of 30%.
In other words, potentially 30% of the shark catches could end up in finning.
Much as we wish to help increase the profits of our fishermen, it is our primary concern and duty to prevent the extinction of any shark species.
I therefore urge you to support Mr Davies’ amendment tabled on behalf of the ALDE Group and aimed at maintaining the ratio at 5%, as proposed by the Commission and as supported by the Commissioner in his speech here tonight.
   Madam President, I should like to thank honourable Members for their contributions.
The only problem that has been raised substantively relates to the whole issue concerning 5% versus 6.5%.
In this regard, I should say that the ratio between fin weight and body weight varies significantly depending on the shark species concerned.
Scientific information was already available at the time the regulation was adopted, especially as regards the blue shark.
The Council, however, did not consider that a species-dependent approach was appropriate, and the maximum 5% fin- versus live body-weight ratio set in the regulation was certainly not presented as being based on scientific considerations alone.
The 5% fin- to body-weight requirement represents the only current restriction on a number of shark species caught in fisheries, notably the blue shark.
This should not be reviewed, at least until other management measures are in place to reduce their fishing mortality.
I have no problem with further research, but this has to be done before any amendments are proposed.
Again, I have no problem with regular reviews.
I have made reference to an overall consideration of a Community plan of action for sharks, when we will have ample time to discuss this and other issues concerning conservation of sharks.
On the point raised by Mr Davies concerning the plan of action, the EU has not yet formalised a plan of action for sharks.
Nevertheless, many of the actions that would constitute such a plan of action are already incorporated into Community legislation or other initiatives under the CFP.
The EU has taken considerable management action with regard to sharks, for example the improvement of data collection for large pelagic shark species, the establishment of catch limits for certain shark species, skates and rays in the North Sea, deepwater sharks in the north-east Atlantic, prohibiting trawl fisheries within littoral areas in the Mediterranean, banning the use of driftnets that may catch large pelagic sharks, prohibiting shark finning and establishing specific conditions under which only the removal of fins of sharks may be authorised – which is what we are discussing today – and the control and limitation of fishing capacity.
It is important to note that many of these measures apply to EC vessels, irrespective of whether or not they operate in EC waters.
Such measures should also be promoted in the international context, especially in other FMOs where we support measures to ensure appropriate management in respect of high-sea fisheries.
The Commission’s departments are currently reflecting on whether a formal plan of action for sharks should be developed in the very near future and I am favourably inclined to doing so.
However, considering the importance of the work to be done, the necessary collection of information, reflection and consultation and assessment of possible measures, it would not be realistic to set the finalisation date of any comprehensive Commission proposal for a plan of action for sharks within the time limit indicated in Amendment 8.
   The next item is the report by Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 on organic production of agricultural products and indications referring thereto in agricultural products and foodstuffs (COM(2005)0671 C6-0033/2006 2005/0279(CNS)) (A6-0253/2006).
   Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner, and the rapporteur for his report.
Mr Parish has made the point that consumers place great faith in the word ‘organic’ and in organic produce, and we need to ensure that those who want to buy organic are actually getting what they believe is a very pure product.
But the truth is – and I am indebted to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland for this gem of information, which I think we in this Chamber probably all know about – there is no recognised scientific test to differentiate organic and conventional produce.
It means that we need to make sure that from the seed onwards there are checks and balances in the system.
We probably have it right on paper, but it is in terms of implementation where this may fall down.
People are paying higher prices for organic produce.
On the Irish market less than 1% of food is organic.
We import 70% of our organic needs and again I have to refer to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland, because there are over 70 countries listed.
Some of them I would not have thought would be in the organic league I have to say, but they are on the list and I think that because they are on the list we need to reassure consumers, certainly in Ireland and across the EU, that if they buy organic produce from those countries, they meet the same standards of organic produce from within the European Union.
I think a paper trail is great and the EU is very good on that.
My biggest concern relates to who is monitoring the control bodies and who is checking the auditors.
This is a concern I have across all of our legislation and it is perhaps something that the Commissioner might address in the short time she has available to her.
But yes, the organic sector is growing.
It is a small sector, but I share Mr Parish’s concern that any crack in confidence will destroy it.
It will destroy the market for producers, it will ruin consumer confidence and it is something we should seek to avoid.
My fear is that some organic produce being imported into the EU is anything but organic.
   The next item is the report (A6-0216/2006) by Mr Ransdorf on behalf of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, on nanoscience and nanotechnologies: An action plan for Europe 2005-2009 [2006/2004(INI)].
   . – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I take the floor on the issue of nanotechnology with some trepidation, because we have seen that the original plans in this area, from the point of view of the budget, have not been fulfilled.
We have seen expenditure cut by 38%, and, even though in the last framework plan there was a substantial increase from EUR 140 million per year to EUR 600 million, this figure still falls short of what we would have wanted, especially given the EU’s dynamism in this area.
We are still in a great position in the area of fundamental research and publication – the EU is ahead of the United States in the field.
As regards patents, however, the United States’ worldwide share is 42%, whereas the EU stands at 36%.
We have also seen that when it comes to getting products onto the market, the EU works more slowly.
US federal expenditure is approximately equivalent to that of the whole of the EU in the area of nanotechnologies and nanosciences, and the individual Member States have unequal spending levels.
In fact, only Ireland spends more per head of the population than the United States.
I wish to stress the fact that opinion polls carried out in 2001, based on a sample of 16 000 people, showed that very few people in the EU are informed about nanotechnologies.
In this regard, I should like to quote two great scholars.
The first is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
In Faust, Mephisto says: ‘Despise reason and science, and you are mine, all mine’.
I do not wish to take the same position as Mephisto, but, in any event, I should warn against cutting spending in this area in comparison with other countries.
The other great scholar I wish to quote – and I hope this makes him happy, even though he is not here today – is Günter Verheugen, who last week listed the ten priorities for the Union in this area, one of which is of course preparation of staff, that is to say, investing in educating the public so that it is ready for the new technologies.
We cannot move forward without such change, because public opinion in the EU is often not in favour of these technologies.
Some safety issues are of course exaggerated, for example, some proposed amendments tabled to this report by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
Amendments 3 and 6, for example would mean the virtual collapse of a whole framework of progress in research into nanosciences and nanotechnologies in the context of the Seventh Framework Programme.
It is unacceptable that an entire complex research programme should be dismantled on the grounds that there can only be investment in areas where there will be no exposure for people and the environment.
I believe that the European public, the European citizens, should be given safety guarantees, but it is not possible for us to wipe out an entire complex research plan.
Let me say that it is vitally important to emphasise the social aspect of nanotechnologies.
They represent a huge opportunity for creating new jobs, for increasing investment in people, and for strengthening the whole area of medicine and health science.
In this regard, nanotechnologies represent a huge opportunity.
They are comparable in scope with microelectronics in the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
Just like microelectronics, nanotechnologies permeate every area of people’s lives.
They have major implications in the field of energy, for example, in terms of the possibilities of new lighter, more reliable and more robust materials.
The possibility also opens up of building transport equipment that will use less energy.
Demand for materials and energy can be cut substantially by means of using nanotechnologies. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the challenge that we have to meet head on if we are to guarantee that the European Community remains competitive on the world stage.
Ladies and gentlemen, these are my introductory remarks and I look forward to the debate.
I should like to thank Mr Potočnik and Mr Verheugen of the Commission, the members of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and Mr Renzo Tomellini, head of the nanosciences and nanotechnologies unit.
   . Mr President, nanoscience deals with phenomena in solid state material at nano level, namely at the scale of 10-9 of a metre.
Nanotechnology is based on this research.
It is a particularly promising area of technology and represents a potentially positive trend that may dramatically increase the likelihood of progress in many areas of our lives.
Amongst others, the automotive and aviation industries could benefit.
One of these benefits could be the manufacture of smooth abrasion-proof coatings containing nano particles.
There could also be benefits for our health, in the form of medicinal products or cosmetics.
In addition, there may be useful spin-offs for the energy sector, in the form of fuel cells or nano-porous hydrogen absorbers and efficient solar batteries.
I could also mention ICT technologies exploiting optical and spin states that facilitate further compression of information to be read with blue lasers, and to biotechnology, including DNA research and bioinformatic systems.
To these examples one could add sensory or construction materials such as nano-composites or fibres and fabrics whose surfaces are activated by electron compounds.
At the same time, unfortunately, permanent damage to the environment may be caused, and the atmosphere may be polluted by the long term presence of aerosol gases that are difficult to monitor.
There are two kinds of nanotechnology.
The first is known as ‘top down’ technology.
Amongst other things it involves the transition from the macro to the nano state, for instance by the grinding of powders, and the development and activation of their surfaces through increased potential.
Nano-diamond coating materials are one example of such technology.
The second group is known as ‘bottom up’ technology and allows the molecular level to be set.
The creation of highly integrated spintronic devices is one example of this.
Unfortunately, we have few technologies available that use tunnel microscopy or self-organising phenomena.
Biological information systems form part of this group.
In conclusion, it should be stated that scienctific policy in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology should first take account of the fact that, as it stands, the development of ‘top down’ technology in the European Union allows for the creation of at least a few and perhaps more than a dozen technological platforms.
Secondly, ‘bottom up’ technology requires further intensive cutting edge research in the area of basic science.
And thirdly, a method of researching current pollution levels should be devised as a mater of urgency.
I am referring to the current pollution of the atmosphere with nano particles that is not a result of nano technology.
This is something more than PM 2.5, which passes easily into our bodies through cell membranes and whose catalytic action can be harmful to health.
Who knows, perhaps the cancer epidemic may be linked to the permanent presence of nano-aerosols in our environment.
It is a presence that is difficult to define, may be growing and has a range of sources.
   . – Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted that Parliament is devoting attention to the issue of nanosciences and nanotechnologies.
I wish to express my appreciation and support for the report before us, which confirms that this is one of the key technologies of the 21st century.
It is therefore appropriate that nanosciences and nanotechnologies should figure among the EU’s priorities.
There are both negative and positive aspects to this issue, however.
On the positive side is the support that upcoming technologies have gained across the whole of Parliament.
As the report correctly says, the development of nanotechnologies presents an extraordinary opportunity.
Europe is currently keeping pace with the world.
I saw evidence of this a few days ago during a visit to the northern Czech town of Liberec.
The results of work carried out by Liberec Technical University and a company in the town were, in terms of the research and application of nanotechnology, absolutely world-class, including the manufacture of exceptionally high-quality machinery.
I should also like to point out that this is one of the smaller Czech towns and not a potential science centre, like Prague or Brno.
Nanotechnologies also represent an opportunity, in my view, for smaller countries, and generally for smaller organisations.
The development of nanosciences and nanotechnologies naturally requires substantial support, not only in the Czech Republic but also across Europe as a whole.
The rest of world is already aware of this.
Who do you think is among the most actively interested in the conclusions of the work of scientists and technical experts in Liberec? Naturally, it is people from other continents – especially from North America, but also from South East Asia.
Which brings me to one of the negative aspects of the development of nanotechnologies in Europe, and this is what I feel to be the insufficient protection of intellectual property in relation to the application of the results of research in other sectors.
Another issue is financial support, which, in my opinion, is insufficient, complicated and difficult to obtain.
The report also points out that the United States already accounts for 37% of the world’s expenditure, whereas Europe's spending stands at 24%, less than that of Japan.
The planned funding of nanosciences and nanotechnologies as part of the Seventh Framework Programme also lags behind that of the US.
To conclude. I should like to mention what I personally feel is a further significantly positive effect.
Nanosciences and nanotechnologies offer very good prospects for young people with an interest in science and technology and in studying at university.
We must not pass up this opportunity to give the development of science and technology in the EU fresh impetus.
We must ensure that we are present when the prefix ‘nano’ – meaning ‘dwarf’ or ‘gnome’ – gives birth to a giant of the 21st century.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank our rapporteur, Mr Ransdorf, for his committed report, in which he has handled this important issue with a great deal of awareness and sensitivity, and it now needs to be found its right place within the framework of the European institutions.
On the one hand, there is fundamental research, there is the Seventh Framework Programme for Research, the Europe Research Council, and the technology platforms – where we have done something of lasting value – and I would like to congratulate Commissioner Potočnik on the prospective great success of this Seventh Framework Programme.
There is also the Joint Research Centre, which could do more to deal with what has become known as the anxiety industry, and its objectivity would certainly be a sound basis on which to monitor these new technologies.
The ‘European Institute of Technology’ proposed by the Commission under President Barroso could make it its business, by means of a top-down strategy, to communicate the insights of fundamental research to the education and training sectors, or a bottom-up strategy might be employed to extract this knowledge from the educational institutions, but also and in particular from small and medium-sized businesses and to present it on such a platform as ‘eBay’, with the possibility of the net being used to exchange ideas, express aspirations and guarantee better communication in the twenty or more European languages.
The fusion reactor ITER could also play a role in this respect, for it is in research into fusion and plasma that nanotechnology presents a whole new challenge as a means of advancing energy efficiency, minimising losses due to wear and tear, and of developing strategies for fighting against corrosion, not least in the generation of energy.
There are many possibilities in many others fields, cleaning being one of them.
   – Mr President, according to the latest survey by the World Economic Forum, the capacity to innovate accounts for some 30% of the highly-developed countries’ competitiveness, and that is particularly true in the case of nanotechnology.
Its use in medicine, for example, opens up possibilities of improved treatments for cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, which, together, account for two-thirds of deaths in Europe.
This is a field in which Europe’s research institutions and businesses are world leaders; in the Netherlands alone, the nanotech industry achieves a turnover of EUR 20 billion, and the government is investing record amounts in it, for example in the ‘Centre for Molecular Medicine’ in Eindhoven.
As an example of a pro-active strategy, with the sort of attitude that world development and competition are crying out for, businesses are doing likewise.
The need for choices to be made, for investment, and for support to be given to European basic infrastructure – all these things are expressed well in the Ransdorf report.
It follows that the task for the Commission, for the Member States, and for the regional authorities is to work together with industry and SMEs to ensure that this is put into practice in industrial production in this part of the world.
The Seventh Framework Programme for research and development, the European technology platforms and the 'regions of knowledge', together with the Structural Funds, have laid a good foundation, particularly where finance is concerned.
Then there are the risks.
These must, of course, be considered, particularly at the global level within UNESCO and the OECD.
Finally, this autumn sees Commissioner Potočnik embarking on a roadmap for research infrastructure, which should reveal which regions, areas or clusters really do have the potential to meet the challenge of global competition.
Investment is not about a global ‘brain drain’, but should, on the ground, result in a ‘brain gain’ – a gain for the European economy and for the prosperity of Europe’s people.
   The next item is the report by Mr Hutchinson, on behalf of the Committee on Development, on ‘more and better cooperation: the 2006 EU aid effectiveness package’ (2006/2208 (INI)) (A6-0270/2006).
   Mr President, I would like to put a point of order.
Lívia Járóka, a Member of this House who has been nominated for the ‘MEP of the year’ award for her determined campaign for Roma rights, has been the subject of racist and misogynistic emails of the sort that I regard as completely out of place in this House.
This is intolerable, and I would like the House to take note of it.
   – Mr President, I am in complete agreement with what Mrs Bozkurt said.
I find it quite indecent that a Bulgarian observer is attempting to trample all over Mrs Járóka's dignity: that is precisely what his -mail does.
I expect the presidency to take firm action in this matter.
He does not belong in this House.
   Mr President, on a point of order, I wish to protest at the address made by Prime Minister Siniora of Lebanon to the Conference of Presidents yesterday.
He made a totally biased, one-sided address and there was no catch-the-eye opportunity to reply to what he said.
It was all stitched up by the political groups – fair enough, perhaps.
But I would ask the Conference of Presidents, in the interests of fair and balanced reporting, to issue an invitation to the Prime Minister or Foreign Minister of Israel, so that we can hear the other side of the story.
   .
Mr President, I would like to insert after the word ‘tandem’ the following text: ‘with trade negotiations; notes that consideration of items on the positive and negative lists is currently before the SAFTA Council’, and then we proceed with the text as is.
   .
My British Conservative colleagues and I have supported this report, but we fundamentally disagree with paragraph 58 of this report, which calls on Member States to work towards 'a single voting constituency', i.e. one seat representing the EU at the International Monetary Fund.
However, as this paragraph is merely a 'recollection' of a previously held position we are able to support the report.
   .
Whilst voting for the report, the EPLP wishes to record that it welcomes the role of the North Sea Regional Advisory Council as a provider of advice and an important element in consultation under the CFP.
The EPLP also regrets that the report did not more closely acknowledge the link between actions taken in managing plaice and sole stocks in the North Sea and the scope of the cod recovery plan.
North Sea cod stock recovery levels are poor and it is vital that all aspects of fisheries that impact upon it remain under the scope of the cod recovery plan.
   .
When it is used for non-military purposes and is not forming part of the trend towards oppressive security, the Galileo programme – the European satellite and radio navigation programme – is an important instrument aimed at delivering a public service.
Accordingly, it should be a great opportunity for cooperation, scientific and technical progress, and for the exchange of, and access to, information, without affecting the citizens’ rights, guarantees and freedoms.
Galileo could help put an end to dependence on the US-controlled GPS system, which is administered by the US military.
The latter in fact blocks access and use when they carry out their military attacks on peoples and countries.
We therefore regret that the majority in Parliament voted against the amendments tabled by our group, which were aimed at condemning the use of Galileo for military purposes and which emphasised that the programme should enable equal access for all users.
Furthermore, the public should have access to the information available free of charge.
   In the opinion of the June List, the EU’s common immigration policy is one of the primary causes of the tragic situation to which many migrants expose themselves when, in the hope of a better life, they embark on what can quite properly be called a life-threatening journey to the EU.
It is absolutely right for it to be pointed out in this resolution that the Dublin II Regulation has been, and continues to be, a failure.
The Regulation has meant that countries in the southern and eastern parts of the EU, primarily, have been given the ability to decide the fate of migrants without taking any account of the immigration policies and needs of the other Member States.
It is highly peculiar, as well as unacceptable, that the EU should have been experimenting with a common migration policy for a decade.
All these political experiments have undermined the Member States’ right of self-determination in relation to migration whilst at the same time causing great suffering amongst migrants.
The solution to the situation we face today is not to give the EU even more powers in the area of immigration so that it can continue its failed immigration policy, but to give back to the Member States their right of self-determination.
   .
I voted in favour of Mr Karim's report on the EU's economic and trade relations with India.
As I see it, the very important social aspects have been included, and there is also a focus on the social chasm between rich and poor, and between the south and west and the north and east.
I should particularly like to emphasise the importance of the International Labour Organization (ILO) for all Indian workers.
Although the report calls on foreign investors to discharge their political responsibilities, by applying the International Labour Organization's core labour standards, I should like to stress that this should, of course, also apply to Indian employers, in order to create consistent structures within India so that inequalities can be addressed and work quality can be improved.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the MEPs from the Czech ODS party refused to back the report by Mrs Breyer on perspectives of women in international trade.
This report is a piece of left-wing, feminist agitation that cannot bring any positive results.
We are completely opposed to the theory of gender equality and to all of the requirements based on this mistaken approach to human society.
We look upon people as individual citizens with individual rights and freedoms guaranteed by the State and not as collective groups pre-determined by gender and with collective rights.
Equality before the law has long been a reality in all countries.
In the EU Members States all men and women enjoy freedom and make use of it in various ways as they see fit, and an example of this would be the way that women devote more time to looking after children more than men do.
The requirement for equality between men and women conflicts with the idea of freedom.
Consequently, we cannot under any circumstances support quotas for women in the boardrooms of public companies, as proposed in the report.
I also disagree with the rapporteur’s belief that the liberalisation of world trade will bring men and women the world over fresh opportunities for fulfilment and greater wealth.
We therefore voted against the report.
   . – I refused to take part in the vote on the Breyer report which, taking as its basis the necessary promotion of women in all areas of the economy, has become a hotchpotch of ideas that mixes up the best and, above all, the worst.
   .
The VVD delegation has voted to adopt the Guerreiro report on the grounds that our party wants to see the economic position of the fisheries sector improve.
We are aware that many involved in the fisheries sector have faced economic insecurity over recent years as a consequence of rises in the price of fuel.
We are also, however, advocates of a sustainable fisheries sector, and so we oppose the renewal and modernisation of the fisheries fleet except in so far as it is done on the basis of sustainability.
We are also opposed to the payment of compensation on the grounds that this would constitute an artificial subsidy to the fisheries sector.
   .
The report acknowledges the economic difficulties facing the sector.
However, to maintain a consistent position on the major problems facing the fishing industry – over-capacity and over-fishing – the EPLP wishes to record its disagreement with the position adopted by the report on four issues:
1.
Scrapping and decommissioning – the EPLP believes that this should be an option within strategies to deal with fisheries over-capacity.
2.
Proposed increase in aid, payments that can be paid to the fishing industry for measures that would otherwise be deemed to distort competition or increase capacity – the report called for an increase to raise the level to EUR 100 000.
The Commission suggested EUR 30 000 and the EPLP advocates a more cautious approach.
3.
Engine replacement and the European Fisheries Fund – the report has been overtaken by the compromise agreement on the EFF but the EPLP maintains its view that there should not be subsidy for vessels or engine replacement.
4.
Subsidy/compensation mechanisms – the report suggests these but does not acknowledge the role this plays in fuelling over-capacity in fishing.
   .
The EPLP warmly welcomed Council Regulation (EC) No 1185/2003 on the removal of shark fins on vessels as important for fish conservation purposes.
The regulation is designed to prevent shark finning where shark carcasses are thrown overboard after high-value shark fins have been removed.
The practice of shark finning is known to endanger the survival of several shark species.
Against this background the EPLP is appalled and disappointed that the Miguélez Ramos report before us threatens to increase shark finning.
Paragraph 5 of the report requests an increase of the 5% fin to live weight ratio to 6.5%, particularly for blue sharks.
Paragraph 5 of the report incorrectly implies that ICES and ICATT support an increase in the fins to live weight ratio for the blue shark.
A paper was submitted to ICES in 2005, but ICES has not considered this paper or issued an opinion.
Likewise in ICATT where scientists have reviewed fin to carcass ratios but have not recommended an increase of the fin to carcass ratio.
The EPLP supported those amendments which would help to get rid of the barbaric practice of shark finning.
- Amendment 1 which would suspend any change in the fin to carcass ratio pending a review; (…)
   .I voted in favour of the Ransdorf report because it highlights the importance of nanosciences and nanotechnologies in fields as diverse as medicine, surgery, energy, electronics, metallurgy, and so on.
However, I voted against the amendments tabled by the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and against certain paragraphs that, using the precautionary principle as a pretext, are aimed at making people think that nanotechnologies are dangerous, because they manipulate the smallest particles - atoms and molecules.
That is ridiculous.
Where the Americans see opportunities, Europeans want first to protect themselves against any risk imaginable!
   The next item is the debate on the Commission statement on the ASEM Summit (Helsinki, 10-11 September 2006).
   – Mr President, it is not even 4 p.m. and this week's topical and urgent debate, which would only have lasted an hour, has been cancelled.
In other words, we would have been finished at 5 p.m.
There were important matters to discuss, such as the coup in Thailand and the situation in Moldova, but the Conference of Presidents arbitrarily decided that there would be no topical and urgent debate.
I should like once again, at the close of the sitting, to protest strongly against this.
We were told that this was the second sitting in September, but that is incorrect: we held the August plenary session at the beginning of September, and this is now the September plenary session, so to speak.
As such, it is our right to hold a topical and urgent debate at each regular sitting in Strasbourg.
I would ask to you pass this protest on to the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents.
   I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 28 September 2006.
   Mr President, thank you for making this statement on the occasion of the murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya.
Russia has become one of the deadliest countries for journalists, and her cruel death…
   – Mr President, Mr Swoboda, we do indeed have only one day available to us, and the reason is that we have been asking for this ever since Anna Politkovskaya was murdered, but certain groups have been standing in the way, and hence it is only today that this vote has made it possible, for, right through the preparations, certain groups – your own included – have said 'no' to this addition.
Yes, it is difficult, and we are quite happy that it should be done next week, but I ask you to admit that it is your fault, for it is you who have stood in the way of this issue being debated the whole time.
That is something that has to be said.
   – Mr President, our group’s Mr Kelam has tried to raise this issue; it may be that he made the attempt at the wrong point in the proceedings, but, now we are discussing the agenda for today’s sittings, it might be not merely appropriate but also a matter of courtesy to allow Mr Tunne Kelam to take the floor and speak, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, to this agenda and the alteration of this item on it, rather than going straight ahead and allowing votes on a single motion on this subject after so many other views have been expressed on it.
   Mr Rack, the President and the Bureau are trying to apply the Rules of Procedure strictly.
The Bureau had only received one proposed amendment to the agenda in writing in this regard before the beginning of the sitting.
Mr Kelam will certainly be able to speak at the appropriate time, but this is not it.
   Thank you very much, Mr Kelam.
I believe that it is clear.
We have followed our Rules of Procedure to the letter.
I do not believe that the Presidency has shown any lack of consideration by giving you the floor at the appropriate time, Mr Kelam.
   Mr President, this debate is about a nuclear test by the deplorable North Korean regime.
However, Mr Solana has stated on more than one occasion that this is only a ‘possible’ nuclear test.
In order to be clear about what we are discussing, would Mr Solana reassure us that he will be able to tell us in the very near future whether in fact it has taken place?
   – Mr President, further to Mr Brok’s statement, in which he implied that I had laid responsibility for North Korea's nuclear test at the door of the USA, any such insinuation is utterly false. On the contrary, the issue – and Mrs Napoletano raised something similar – of those governments – the USA, but also, and to an increasing degree, the EU, among them – that believe they have to use nuclear weapons to defend themselves against attack is something that calls for serious discussion in this House.
For that reason, Mr Brok is quite wrong to make that insinuation.
Atomic warfare is threatened not only by the USA, but also by Jacques Chirac, and that is why this issue has to receive serious consideration, and why Mr Brok is wrong to imply what he did.
   – Mr President, if I might be permitted to make a brief comment, it has to be said that those who are ready to give it out have to be willing to take it as well.
Mr Pflüger has made an accusation, to which I have responded, and he should accept that. This is a political statement rather than an insinuation.
   We shall proceed to the next item on the agenda.
This is the Council and Commission statements on the Preparation for the Informal Meeting of Heads of State or Government in Lahti and also, in accordance with the House’s decision, relations between the European Union and Russia following the murder of Anna Politkovskaya.
   – Madam President, the Finnish Presidency has declared the implementation of an energy partnership between the European Union and Russia.
I would like to ask how it intends to achieve this.
So far it has been less a question of partnership than of the 'Finlandisation' of EU-Russia relations.
The EU’s policy towards Russia is mainly one of concessions, and it is also ambiguous in its positions. This is often at the cost of the new Baltic Member States, as well as Poland.
A textbook example of this is the German-Russian agreement to build a north European gas pipeline at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Russia is skilfully using its position as a monopolist on the European energy market.
Operating the principle of 'divide and rule', Russia is making agreements with stronger states over the heads of weaker ones, and the EU meekly accepts this. So far we have not even managed to get Russia to ratify the European Energy Charter, a fundamental EU document relating to the energy market.
The informal summit between the Heads of State or Government in Lahti in which the Russian president is to participate should bring about a change to this state of affairs.
In this matter more than any other, the EU must speak up with a single voice and from a decisive negotiating standpoint.
   – Mr President, I agree wholeheartedly with the statements of my colleagues from the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats on the situation of democracy in Russia, and I do not wish to repeat their arguments, to which I give my full support.
I would like to raise two other questions, and to congratulate the Finnish Presidency for preparing two items for the informal summit in Lahti, namely energy and innovation.
In energy we need a common policy, both within the European Union, to establish a common energy market, and outside it, for example joint European negotiations with the partners who supply our oil and gas. This is extremely important.
We need to ensure that there is no repetition of the situation where one Member State's negotiations, for example, concerning supplies of oil or gas from Russia, place other Member States in an extremely unfavourable position.
It is extremely important that we approach our common energy policy in this way: this will be a major step towards creating a common foreign policy.
There is, however, another aspect to our external policy regarding energy: Ukraine’s pipelines are currently in a bad state of repair, and they are the last route for energy supplies from the east which is independent of Gazprom.
It is important that we invest in these pipelines, and that we make every effort to secure the funds necessary for such an investment.
On the issue of innovation, I would like to raise just three points. In the first place, we need a responsible economic policy whereby innovation is adopted by industry, which we do not have on our continent.
And that means an economic strategy. The second point is the issue of a European patent: we need to have our own European patent.
Thirdly I believe there is a need for a European Institute of Technology which will serve innovation. I personally support Mr Barroso’s idea and believe that we now have the opportunity to finally sort things out.
   Mr President, one event chases away another.
Nonetheless we are now witnessing live the escalation of violations of the rules of international law perpetrated by Russia against Georgia: the granting of Russian citizenship to the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the rejection of the peace plan proposed by Georgia to settle the conflicts with the separatist regions and the closure of the two border crossing points.
Tension has further increased following the arrest of Russian spies by Georgia, with reprisals from Moscow which has hunted down Georgians and is trying to economically strangle its neighbour by unilaterally introducing sanctions blocking trade between Russia and Georgia.
Finally, by giving the impression that Russia would recognise the separatist regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, if Kosovo gained its independence, Mr Putin makes the resolution of the conflict even more remote.
The list is long and the Georgians are utterly exasperated.
Faced with this situation on the brink of explosion, the European Union has a crucial role to play in bringing the sides, and especially Russia on the occasion of European Union/Russia negotiations, to the negotiating table to find a solution and put an end to this latent conflict in the Southern Caucasus. The Neighbourhood Policy allows us this; military action would be a total failure of our policies.
   – Mr President, the Republic of Lithuania gained independence just over a decade ago.
This fact was celebrated by all of democratic Europe.
Lithuania immediately started to introduce social and economic reforms, the aim of which was to eliminate the remains of Soviet occupation.
An important role in achieving independence was played by the large Polish minority (10% of the total population), which has for centuries inhabited the areas around the capital Vilnius. However, although many years have gone by since the end of Soviet rule, the Lithuanian authorities have so far failed to return to the Poles the land that was confiscated from them by the occupying forces.
And despite numerous agreements, Lithuania has refused to allow Polish names to be written in their Polish spelling, insisting that they be written in Lithuanian. These activities are a blatant breach of European regulations on national and ethnic minorities in EU Member States.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like, if I may, to draw the Chamber's attention to a serious problem facing the Czech Republic as regards drawing on cohesion funds for modernising the waste-water sector.
In order for us to honour our obligations under the directive on waste-water treatment, we will have to invest over EUR 4 million by 2010, more than 10% of our annual national budget.
We agree, of course, that this cannot be done without EU subsidies. I therefore fail to understand how it is possible that in the Commission there are projects aimed at bringing clean water to Czech towns that have been lying untouched for a year and a half.
These are projects put forward by our water companies based on an operational model that is in line with Community law, and yet Commission officials, acting on the basis of personal whim, refuse to authorise them and try instead to dictate to us, the elected representatives of these towns, what sort of contracts we should be signing and how we should be solving the problems of the water sector.
Let us not forget that the Czech Republic is in the heart of Europe and that the main European rivers rise there and flow into neighbouring countries. This is therefore not only a Czech problem, but also a European one.
   Mr President, you recently contended that the historic dimension possessed by the EU seat in Strasbourg cannot be viewed in the same way by certain Nordic countries that did not participate in the Second World War. The people of the Nordic region did not suffer enough during the Second World War to be able to understand the symbolic value of having the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Thus, Nordic criticism of the European Parliament’s expensive commute to Strasbourg can be dismissed.
Your statement was, of course, entirely erroneous from an historical point of view - Finland, Norway and Denmark were, in fact, involved in the Second World War – but it is also remarkable in another respect, in that the President of the European Parliament is entirely serious in believing that we should not listen to views on the sites at which the European Parliament sits if such views are expressed by citizens and MEPs from countries that did not take part in the Second World War. This is a grotesque idea, the only redeeming feature of which is that we thus need not listen to the President either, as Spain was also a non-combatant country in the Second World War.
This line of thought is unreasonable.
The peoples of Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden today have as much right to be heard in the current debate as those of other countries. It is scandalous that the person entrusted to be the President of the European Parliament should have such poor judgment as to consider himself entitled to tell us whom we should listen to and whom we should try to silence.
   Last June the European Commission developed a proposal envisaging a reduction in land areas taken up by vineyards in the European Union. The losses and consequences resulting from this reduction would be offset through a package of direct agricultural payments totalling EUR 2.4 billion.
This proposal would affect nearly 12% of the total surface area of vineyards, in other words approximately 4 000 hectares tended by about one and a half million viticulturists. This step could entirely undermine wine production in Slovakia, which has experienced substantial growth over the past few years, especially in terms of wine quality; in addition, this comes at a time when Slovak wines are becoming increasingly competitive in European Union markets.
The Commission’s proposal also prohibits the use of added sugar in producing certain types of wine, although in my country this procedure is traditional, as the vines cultivated in Slovakia are characterised by higher acidity, which is typical for the region.
I am not questioning the need for reform in the European wine market, but I believe we should look to other solutions.
   The truth is that I do not know what you are referring to, Mr Batten, but you are welcome to clarify what you have said to me.
If you would be kind enough to give me the details, I will be able to ascertain whether or not I have acted correctly and, if necessary, I will put things right.
I am happy for you to explain your point further.
   A member of the secretariat will speak to Mr Batten so that he can explain the point he has made with regard to relations with Algeria and the President’s compliance with his duties.
That concludes this item.
   – Mr President, I should like to express my respect to Mrs Jeggle for her work. It was not a straightforward job, and there are still some inconsistencies to be found, but, on the whole, the line it takes is the right one – Mrs Jeggle is not to blame for the inconsistencies.
I agree with her that our high animal-protection standards must be an example to the world. This is particularly applicable since we have not made a particularly good impression as a cultural area in recent years.
I am thinking here of BSE, of dioxins, of the culls as a result of foot-and-mouth disease, of the millions of animals destroyed and burned on pyres – that was not a glorious chapter to show the world. For this reason, it is important that we adopt a new line in this regard.
There is also a sales argument that needs to be taken into account when dealing directly with consumers.
If there is someone who objects to chickens being kept in cages, you can say anything you like, but what he wants is a free-range egg – he has no appetite for the alternative when he thinks about the chicken.
There must be market orientation according to considerations of animal protection, therefore; but we must also realise that animal protection entails costs.
When we are dealing with anonymous markets – which is usually the case with imports from third countries – we must have qualified external protection to ensure that our standards are not circumvented, because this will be expressed in the price.
I would say to Mrs Jeggle that the same applies within Europe, of course.
If we do not ensure the implementation of animal protection standards in production, distortions of competition will occur within Europe, too.
Consequently, we must consider including animal protection in cross-compliance, so that there are disincentives for businesses to violate animal protection standards in the form of not only certain penalties, but also financial losses – for example, deductions from premiums.
   – Mr President, the question of maintaining adequate standards of protection for animals in the EU Member States, and the resulting production of suitable food for consumers, is of great importance. For this reason everything must be done to ensure that only food of a high standard enters the common market.
Strict measures must be taken to limit the import of products if there is any suspicion that European livestock farming standards have not been applied to them. Simply increasing taxes on unfair exporters will not bring any results.
I would like to point out that to date it has not been possible for the Community to enforce respect for human rights, let alone animal rights.
A large amount of food is exported into the European market from such countries.
I would also like to say that small and family farms have traditionally treated their animals humanely, and it is large factory farms that diverge from these standards.
Distortions have also arisen in relation to the issue of guidelines on the slaughter of animals.
It is a serious mistake to prohibit the slaughter of animals for own consumption on family farms. This is a tradition which goes back centuries, and the farmers make sure that the animals are slaughtered in appropriate conditions.
   – Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on her report. Mrs Jeggle is a sensitive, capable and excellent Member of the European Parliament.
The great Indian leader, Ghandi, said that when man treats animals well he demonstrates his humanity and his higher feelings.
As such, I agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Jeggle, without any doubts.
However, I would like to highlight a delicate and important point which has to do with livestock farming, which has to do with man.
I do not refer to domestic animals, to cockfights or to dogfights, on which I agree with the rapporteur; I refer to reared animals. If the measures in the report, which – I repeat – I endorse and support, are applied, then our livestock farmers will have higher production costs, meaning that either we shall have to support them financially or we shall have to find ways of controlling the living conditions of animals reared in third countries whose meat is imported into the European Union.
Otherwise, we shall achieve nothing.
European livestock farming will shrink due to unfair competition and we shall demonstrate that we are hypocrites rather than animal lovers and that we have no sense of proper solidarity with livestock farmers.
Apart from that, I should like to highlight another issue. I should like stricter controls on wild animal hunting.
Many of our mountains and forests no longer have any wild animals because there is uncontrolled, predatory murder of the animals and this does not only have to do with the animals.
It disrupts the entire ecosystem in the mountains and forests of Europe and the rest of the world.
   I welcome this debate.
The EU has slowly but surely improved the welfare of animals through a number of measures relating to the housing and transportation of animals.
We now have to build on this and develop quantifiable animal welfare indicators and create a formal framework for animal welfare impact assessments for future EU policies.
We should also look at the introduction of an EU labelling scheme to identify products produced from higher welfare standard systems to enable consumers to make informed choices. Finally, as a member of the Committee on International Trade, I would place particular emphasis on establishing internationally recognised animal welfare standards for trade.
   . Mr President, it is not self-evident that competition in the liberal professions should be unlimited, and that is once again demonstrated by the Ehler report, and also by practical experience.
In the Netherlands, for example, fixed prices for notarial services have been abolished, while many other rules have remained intact.
Those rules are needed to guarantee quality. I was approached very recently, for example, with the question by a remedial educationalist who wanted to establish himself freely without going through the usual registration procedure with the Ministry of Public Health.
The government was right to prescribe additional requirements in terms of training for registration and compensation, something that is, of course, vitally important for public health services.
The registration requirements for different professional groups still form an obstacle to establishing oneself in a liberal profession, and there are, to some extent, good reasons for this. The guarantee for professional services cannot be made if people can set up in a liberal profession without any restrictions.
The rapporteur’s amendment aimed at drawing this subtle distinction in the report is therefore necessary.
   – Mr President, it is certainly to be welcomed if partly antiquated professional codes of conduct are reviewed in terms of their necessity in the case of independent professions. In my opinion, however, it is not a question of deregulating all the sectors affected in the same way, irrespective of their different nature.
It is known that independent professions provide high-quality services which are in the public interest. In my view, we should not undertake any experiments in this area.
The fact that in Argentina and France, for instance, second thoughts are being given to the reintroduction of statutory tariffs for notaries shows that deregulation is not perfect.
A sharp increase in the number of lawyers with a simultaneous relaxation in the Fees Ordinance has led to a situation in Germany, for instance, whereby highly qualified legal advice is only offered at staggeringly high hourly rates while at the lower end of the market, a great many lawyers work for rock bottom prices.
It is paradoxical if the Commission intends, on the one hand, to limit occupational rights but, on the other, is calling for codes of conduct to be drawn up and the introduction of new quality controls following the abolition of regulatory measures.
   The next item is the debate on the report (A6-0302/2006) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on International Trade, on economic and trade relations between the EU and Mercosur with a view to the conclusion of an Interregional Association Agreement (2006/2035(INI)).
   . – Mr President, Commissioner, I consider it right that the European Union is striving for beneficial and close relations with the most diverse regions of the globe and, of course, with Mercosur as well. However, it is wrong in my view if the Commission, by means of such agreements, tries to implement through the back door that which was rejected by the majority of countries during the WTO negotiations, namely, the liberalisation of international trade between partner countries with very different economic and social conditions, without taking the different situations in these countries into account.
The EU - Latin America summit which took place in Vienna, as well as the alternative ‘Enlazando alternativas’ summit of last May afforded the opportunity of being better able to understand the wishes of the new voices in Latin America and of shaping relations in the interests of the populations of both regions in a more balanced manner, and not just for the benefit of industry and commerce.
A few days ago, the Commission published a communication on its trade policy strategy which focussed more strongly on economic liberalisation than had previously been the case. In yesterday’s debate, Commissioner Mandelson again emphasised that he shares the same fundamental position.
I would not like to advocate such a fundamental position. The report contains references which I deem to be extremely important, such as emphasising the principles of ‘less than full reciprocity’ and ‘special and differential treatment depending on the levels of development’.
All in all, however, the report puts forward the known liberalisation demands and even goes beyond them by approving, for instance, the area of investment as the subject of a chapter in the EU-Mercosur agreement.
As a result of international protests, however, this has been deleted in its entirety from the Doha development round negotiations.
My group supports a fair association agreement but not the route taken to a free trade area between the European Union and Mercosur.
   .
Mr President, I should like to thank the House for its comments. I have taken careful note of them and I will convey them to my colleague, Commissioner Mandelson, for his consideration.
For strategic and political reasons, the European Commission is totally committed to negotiating and concluding an ambitious and balanced agreement with Mercosur.
Therefore, such an agreement remains a priority.
Engaging in negotiations with other partners does not mean, by the way, that we are giving less priority to an agreement with Mercosur.
The Treaty on Venezuela’s accession has been signed by the Mercosur members.
However, in order for Venezuela to be a full member, that Treaty has to be ratified by the parliaments. We, the Commission, do not foresee any major obstacles to the negotiation process as a result of the accession of Venezuela.
A lot has been said here about development. The EU is by far the biggest donor.
We plan to pay out about EUR 50 million for the period between 2007 and 2013.
I believe that, for economic, cultural and political reasons, both the European Parliament and the Commission share the same view in respect of concluding an ambitious and balanced association agreement between the EU and Mercosur. It is a strategic objective.
   The next item is the oral question by Mr Daul and Mr Janusz Wojciechowski, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on the situation of the sector of soft fruits and cherries intended for processing (O-0085/2006 – B6-0435/2006).
   – Mr President, we are debating the soft fruit sector in a situation where the European Commission has, after nearly two years of efforts on the part of many Members, decided to impose anti-dumping duties on frozen strawberries imported from China.
This is a long-awaited decision which, one hopes, will limit the threat of growing exports of frozen strawberries from China at dumping prices.
I would like to express the hope that the European Commission will soon also put into effect other proposals contained in the draft resolutions prepared by Mr Daul and Mr Wojciechowski such as protective clauses, entry prices, compensation for losses due to unfavourable weather conditions or a crisis on the market, and a strong support mechanism for producer groups and organisations.
   Thank you, Commissioner, for your information.
Cherries are my favourite fruit also, so I can sleep more easily. I hope that that goes for other Members also.
I have received a motion for a resolution (B6-0525/2006(1)) tabled in accordance with Rule 108(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
   – Mr President, let me make it perfectly clear, for Mrs Roure’s benefit, that the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats certainly does value and endorse the work Mrs Gál has done, and she is well aware of that fact, so nothing has changed in that respect.
We have an equally high regard for the work the Commissioner is doing, but, as I said at the very outset, we do have to do some fundamental and general thinking about agencies.
We see human rights as indivisible; compliance with them is not merely optional.
In my view, it goes without saying that they must be complied with within the European Union and in the states that are set to accede to it.
That is why some fundamental thinking about agencies and the shape they take is to be recommended.
I am right behind Mrs Gál and the Commissioner, but all my other remarks still stand – and underlined several times over.
   Mr President, I support the excellent work done, and I wish to thank Mrs Gál and Mrs Kósáné Kovács for it.
I think a Fundamental Rights Agency is very important for the European Union in order to protect, and ensure respect for, these rights throughout the Union.
I would like to mention one aspect of fundamental rights: rights relating to language and to culture.
These are not clearly protected in many European states, nor are they in some states which are candidates for accession.
This Agency could be a very good instrument to stress this point and to ensure that the rights of stateless citizens or of citizens belonging to a minority within a state are respected.
The Universal Declaration on Linguistic Rights, made in Barcelona in 1996, is a good document to take into account, and I believe we are working in the right direction.
I hope for a majority vote from this Parliament.
   Mr President, human rights are a global issue.
Despite major failings, we in Europe are in the lead.
There are agreements in the Council of Europe about the level of human rights to be guaranteed in Europe at least.
The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms is binding upon 47 Member States, 20 states more, therefore, than the 27 that will belong to the European Union from 2007.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights from 2000 is the largest common denominator of existing provisions from national constitutions and that European Convention.
This Charter was later included in the draft for a constitution as Chapter II.
In this connection, reference was made, with good reason, to the existing European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights to which the EU would also thereby subscribe.
It would be good if the now proposed Human Rights Agency could serve as a signal to demonstrate that the European Union attaches greater importance to human rights than to the common market.
Some of my group see this proposal, above all, as carrying an entirely different message, and as being an attempt at staging a competitive battle with the Council of Europe and a chance to campaign for the text of the constitution, which has already been rejected twice, and to which we are opposed.
   Mr President, last week’s gem in this place was that Europol be given fresh powers to police Euroland whilst Europol itself was placed above the law.
Even the Third Reich did not think of that one.
This week is even better: an agency for fundamental rights has been conceived to ensure that Member States comply with the Charter.
But this was contained in a failed EU Constitution.
After all, France and Holland exercised their fundamental right to say ‘no’ to this and yet again you are trying to sneak large parts of the Constitution in through the back door.
Mrs Gál even begins her statement by saying that the suspension of the Constitution-making process makes this the right moment to promote fundamental rights.
Is that what you said? The Politburo would be pleased with that.
In fact, if fundamental rights really meant anything in the EU, the democratic rejection of the Constitution would make this absolutely the wrong moment to bring forward such a proposal.
There was I believe an old Glen Miller song beginning: ‘Sleepy time Gal, you’re turning night into day’.
You may believe that you can turn ‘no’ into ‘yes’, but when the sleepy time voters wake up, they will soon throw this out.
   . Mr President, given the fact that we have adopted the amended proposal, I should like to ask Mr Frattini if he will accept the amendments just adopted by this House, or does he need more time for some final compromises in the Council?
   . Mr President, I therefore request that the vote be postponed and the matter be referred back to the committee responsible, pursuant to Rule 53 of the Rules of Procedure, in order to await the Council’s position on the amendments.
   – Mr President, I shall repeat a question to Vice-President Frattini that my honourable colleague has already asked: do you intend to accept all the amendments that the House has just adopted, or would you like more time to present some final compromise proposals?
   – Mr President, I naturally accept Mr Frattini's reply, and the process will remain the same.
   – It is proposed that the sum of 50 000 in paragraph 6 be replaced by the sum of 40 000 in order to avoid changing the current rules.
   – I voted in favour of the excellent report by my honourable colleague Mr Pahor on the amendment of the incompatibility provisions in Rules 3 and 4 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, which deal with the verification of credentials and the duration of the mandate It is indeed only right that the administrations of the Member States should be involved in the verification of credentials, particularly in cases where a new Member of the European Parliament holds an office that may be incompatible with membership of the European Parliament.
   . I fully support the strategy that my friend Claude Moraes outlined in the House during the vote.
Hopefully we have sent a political message to the Council without blocking the legislation.
   . I fully support the approach to this report outlined by my friend Claude Moraes during the vote in the House.
We will hopefully send an important political signal to Council without blocking the legislation.
   Since this House, in Article 1, is merely urging the Commission to explore various possibilities, it follows that decisions have not yet been taken as to which solutions should be chosen.
In the interests of completeness, then, measures should also be analysed that do not enjoy the approval of all sides.
   – Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have voted in favour of the Jeggle report, in a convinced and reasoned manner, because I am of the opinion that it is one of the initiatives that will take forward the debate on the subject of research on animals, that is to say on limiting research on live animals as much as possible.
I believe that we must seize every opportunity in this regard, as we have done in relation to the initiative in question.
I am aware of the fact that the legal basis for other sectors is not the most self-evident. Nevertheless, I feel that we have taken a step forward, and I hope that others will follow in this direction.
   . I voted in favour of the first part of paragraph 71 of the Jeggle report, for the following reasons.
1.
Bullfighting is a centuries-old tradition that is rooted in various regions of different EU Member States.
Its characteristics vary according to the country; in Portugal, for example, killing the bull was first prohibited in 1836.
2.
Bullfighting is responsible for the existence of the fighting bull, and, without it, this species would have become extinct a long time ago, given that rearing these animals has no economic value in terms of producing meat or milk;
3.
This does not mean that the spectacle of the bullfight and the tradition associated with it should not evolve and adapt to the moral values of the time.
The current trend is to be on hand as quickly as possible to ensure that animals do not continue to suffer physically.
There are prestigious sports that have evolved from violent practices.
One example is fencing in which, nowadays, the participants are not physical harmed.
In bullfighting, the iron spike could easily be replaced by an electronic stick which, when it came into contact with the animal, could produce the same effect in terms of spectacle.
4.
Paragraph No 71 of the report, by simplistically proposing an end to bullfighting …
   We welcome the Commission’s proposal for an Action Plan on the Protection and Welfare of Animals 2006-2010.
There is a great need to make practical improvements to the conditions in which animals live, and the Commission’s proposal contains many important proposals.
Unfortunately, we have been forced to note that Mrs Jeggle’s report has failed to live up to the high expectations that we had of it, amongst other things in the way it stresses that high standards of animal protection lead to reduced competitiveness.
This risks making it impossible, in practice, to have a progressive policy in this area.
We therefore chose to abstain in the final vote on this report today.
   . The claim is that the Commission wants there to be a balanced approach in dealing with ethanol-producing countries.
In the two concrete cases that I am aware of, Mallow and Carlow sugar plants in Ireland, this balance is not apparent.
Because the Irish Government did not do due diligence in its negotiations with the Commission for the compensation package as part of the closure of Mallow and Carlow under temporary sugar restructuring rules, we now find that the Commission is inflexible about turning these factories into ethanol-producing plants.
In fact, despite repeated appeals to Commissioner Fischer Boel to allow the ruling to be reconsidered and allow ethanol to be produced in these factories using the sugar beet immediately available, I have been assured that the plants will be completely dismantled.
   I am voting against both of these reports because Mrs Kósáne Kovács’ report will most likely stress that it is the job of the EU to decide on and implement a common foreign and security policy.
I believe that what resources there are should be spent on existing bodies such as the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the European Court of Human Rights, rather than on competing with these institutions.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 28 March 1996.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the House let me welcome a delegation from the Grand Committee of the Finnish Parliament, i.e., the European Affairs Committee of the Finnish Parliament, led by its chairman, Mr Erkki Tuomioja.
I bid you a warm welcome!
We are pleased at this visit, which reflects the increasingly close cooperation between us and the national parliaments in the Union, and I wish our Finnish colleagues a pleasant stay in Strasbourg and, of course, useful and interesting discussions in this House!
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Thursday, 28 March 1996 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on behalf of my fellow-members from the Committee on Agriculture I should like to ask you to change a few things in the voting about the BSE resolution.
Obviously one or two things have gone wrong. Points 16 and 17 now contradict one another whereas the voting showed otherwise.
I shall be passing on to you some comments which you could perhaps take up with regard to the voting.
I will have to look into that, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I cannot say anything at this stage.
We will consider the matter.
Mr President, it concerns the speech made last week by Mr Fischler on BSE and reported in the Minutes.
Perhaps the Commission or you could clarify a point for me.
It would appear that a speech made at the weekend by Mr Fischler indicates a change of his position.
I welcome this change because he has said that he will eat British beef and that the ban was imposed specifically for economic and political reasons.
Could somebody clarify that he has actually said this please, Mr President, because it is a change of views.
Mr Sturdy, I cannot see what that has to do with the Minutes.
Mr President, on exactly the same point as Mr Sturdy has raised.
If Commission Fischler has made this statement, then he has said that it is not a matter of public health.
If it is not a matter of public health, he has no legal base, if he has no legal base then he may very well face legal action from the people his statement has damaged.
Mr Smith, the same applies to your point; it has nothing to do with the Minutes.
Mr President, again on BSE.
If Mr Fischler has changed his views does this mean the Commission has?
This was actually referred to in the Minutes.
He said that any funding would also go towards supporting workers who had directly lost their jobs.
So far nothing has come of this in any scheme that has been put forward.
Does this mean the Commission has changed its view on supporting workers who have lost their jobs through this scare?
I note that there are no comments on the Minutes.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr Tomlinson, would you please give me the documents concerned.
Then I will look into the matter, both in the presidency and with the other organizations in question.
You yourself know best how difficult and complicated the legal situation is between Parliament and the firms contracted to build the hemicycle.
After all, we have in you an expert who is in any case closely concerned with these matters.
Mr President, I should like to deal very briefly with two matters.
First, since we condemned at the time ETA's terrorist murders and kidnappings, today we can give you the news that the hostage who beats all records in Spain - almost a year's captivity, 342 days, - has been freed, not, it is true, by the forces of public order, but he is at liberty.
And I should be very pleased - and so, I think, would all Members, particularly the Spanish Members and perhaps still more those who are distinguished by being Spanish Basques - if you would send a message to the hostage's family to congratulate them on his freedom.
Secondly I should like to point out, before the agenda is settled, that the importance of the bombardment of Lebanese territory by the State of Israel will make it necessary to ask for a statement from the Council.
These indiscriminate and unfair bombardments not only infringe human rights but may also pose a threat to the independence and integrity of the State of Lebanon, which is guaranteed by international law and by Resolution 245 of the United Nations Security Council.
Thank you!
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 11 April 1996 pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
No amendments have been proposed.
Mr President, I should like to ask a question.
We were too late to hand it in, but it has been discussed with a number of Members.
It is the following.
I think that in view of present events in the Middle East, we ought to ask whether the Council can make a statement on Wednesday afternoon about the way things are going.
We note that the situation is changing every day.
We see that the French Government has sent a mediator.
We hear nothing from the presidency.
Nor have we heard anything, unfortunately, from the Commission.
That is reason enough for us to be put in the picture.
I should like to ask you to see whether it is possible for the Italian presidency to do that on Wednesday afternoon.
We recognize that the agenda is very full.
I might suggest that, at least as far as the EPP Group is concerned, we could perhaps take this question up on Wednesday afternoon and then omit the Chernobyl question, otherwise I think we shall not get through.
Then we could deal with Chernobyl some time later.
I offer that as a suggestion, Mr President.
If you would like to arrange things some other way so that we do not need to take Chernobyl off the agenda that would suit us just as well.
Mr President, my group is certainly of the view that what is happening in the Middle East is very significant and that we cannot let this week with Parliament in full session pass without any response or discussion.
Could we leave it to you, Mr President, to see whether the Council is prepared to make a statement on the Middle East and what is happening in the Lebanon? Could we then look to you to see what is possible.
I am reluctant, as I know many of my colleagues are, to remove Chernobyl from the agenda, as suggested by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
However, it would be possible for us to come back to the issue of Chernobyl which does not have such immediacy although it is the tenth anniversary.
We could take this in two weeks' time, whereas the issue of Lebanon is crucial at this moment.
Perhaps, Mr President, we could ask you to look at this with the Council and see what would be possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is important that we should discuss the situation in the Middle East this week.
We all agree on that.
But I think it is equally important that we discuss Chernobyl this week.
I cannot support this proposal.
The whole world is talking about the tenth anniversary.
A major conference was held in Vienna.
There was a tribunal.
And then we say we will postpone it to whenever.
I really think it would show Parliament in a poor light if we do not discuss it on Wednesday.
We must not turn it into a competition between Chernobyl and the proposal to ask the Council to report on the situation in the Middle East this week and to debate on it, and then put Chernobyl in second place!
There are various other options.
We can listen to the Council on the subject on Wednesday morning, but please not just in a week's time.
At a time when the whole world is discussing Chernobyl and the effects of that disaster, we in this Parliament cannot say, we shall hold back and say nothing about it!
Mr President, I have already given you the reasons why the Council should make a statement about the bombardment of Lebanon.
In discussing the Euro-Mediterranean Conference, to which we gave the greatest prominence, we cannot then wash our hands of it and leave it to the European powers to take diplomatic steps in the Middle East outside the necessary agreement within the Union.
That would be a bad sign for the Intergovernmental Conference and for the future of the European Union.
But I think, like Mrs Roth, that we cannot make the subject of Chernobyl and the subject of the Middle East compete in the 'free market for news items' .
We must seek out the opportunity to discuss both subjects.
Mr President, like previous colleagues, I believe it to be absolutely essential that the Council make a statement on Wednesday about the Middle East situation, particularly in southern Lebanon.
What is happening there is worrying and distressing because the whole peace process that has been under way for several months could be threatened.
And the most important task is to stop the fighting and give priority to diplomatic moves, wherever they come from, provided they finally lead to the silencing of the rockets and guns and some real progress towards peace and stability in the region.
We should also remember Lebanon itself, which has been ravaged for many years, under the domination of one foreign power while part of its territory is occupied by another.
So it is surely our duty to make a statement on the subject: we are witnessing events which, I am convinced, should persuade us to find a slot in Wednesday's agenda for such a statement and the subsequent debate.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the cases where there is no satisfactory solution because someone is bound to be disappointed and any decision is bound to be to the detriment of someone's interests.
Let me describe the situation to you as I see it.
First, let me please establish whether the Council is prepared and in a position to make a statement.
If that should be the case, there is no point our making any changes to the agenda for Wednesday because as it stands now it is not possible to include an additional statement by the Council.
My proposal then - not now - will probably be that we postpone the scheduled report by Mrs Gonzáles Álvarez on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the proposal for a Council decision establishing a Community action programme in the field of civil protection to a later date and shorten Question Time by half an hour.
The only other options would be to reduce the duration of our debates quite drastically, either at the cost of Chernobyl, which a large number of Members does not want, or at the cost of the Oostlander report and the Council and Commission statement on the Turin European Council.
But it would be neither right nor a good idea to shorten that debate since the Italian President-in-Office of the Council will be here on Wednesday morning.
So the only possible compromise is to postpone the Gonzáles Álvarez report and cut Question Time by half an hour.
I realise that to do so would be at the cost of Members who have questions.
That is regrettable.
It is not that we will satisfy everybody this way, but if we are to try to find a solution, I am convinced that is the only possible one.
The order of business for this week is thus established.
Energy efficiency
The next item is the report (A4-0088/96) by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision (COM(95)0225 - C4-0603/95-95/0131(SYN)) concerning a multiannual programme for the promotion of energy efficiency in the Community - SAVE II.
Mr President, the SAVE II Commission proposal on energy efficiency in the European Union which is to run for five years is a continuation of the SAVE I programme.
Unfortunately, however, the Commission has not made use of the results of the evaluation of SAVE I in SAVE II.
Overall, this proposal is very vague and general and, sadly, contains no real topics or projects.
The legislative level has been disregarded entirely, although the evaluation of SAVE I showed that 80 % of the successes of that programme were achieved by means of legislative measures.
Many of the proposals for directives and action programmes planned by the Commission have for some obscure reason never seen the light of day.
For instance, it has been estimated that the introduction of calorimeters would have yielded savings of approximately 4.75 million tonnes of crude oil units and a CO2 reduction by the year 2010 of 12 million tonnes per year.
The savings from the introduction of an energy certificate for buildings would have been far higher than that even.
This list could be extended forever.
It is clear that whenever the practical will is not there, subsidiarity is brought up as an argument.
But the principle of subsidiarity is totally out of place here, firstly, because of the transfrontier nature of the CO2 problem and the need to harmonize environmental standards in the EU and, secondly, because progress has stagnated with regard to increased energy efficiency in the Member States.
That is why the responsibility for achieving the efficiency target and at the same time reducing CO2 lies with the Community, which in fact takes action when an objective can be achieved more effectively by Community measures.
Strictly speaking, it is the credibility of the EU that is at stake here.
The Commission and the Council have constantly declared how vital it is to reduce CO2 and to save energy.
The Council has set objectives in a series of resolutions, for example in its resolutions of 16.9.86 and 29.10.90 and in the commitments it made in Rio and Berlin.
So far, however, there has been no more than grandiloquent announcements and reams of paper.
The Commission itself estimates that the CO2 emissions will rise by up to 8 % in the period from 1995 to 2000.
So one may well ask: is the Community actually taking its own practical declarations of intent and obligations towards its citizens, and towards the international community, seriously or is this just a theatre of the absurd? If it really is being serious, words must finally be followed by deeds.
We urgently need genuine measures to combat the greenhouse effect and increase energy efficiency.
The situation is too serious to allow for any further delay.
A beginning might be made with a genuinely ambitious SAVE II programme, as proposed by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
That is why the amendments tabled by that committee should quite definitely be adopted.
The objection that such programmes can only be disruptive given the current economic climate and unemployment level in many Member States is unacceptable and merely ridiculous.
For in addition to their environmental dimension, they can also have a substantial positive impact on the economy.
According to the Commission, apart from its effects on the quality of life, these savings would also have positive effects on employment.
That is something I will not contradict, so that logically you must approve our SAVE II report as it stands, given that SAVE II is the only programme the EU has at present in order to fulfil the obligations we entered into in Berlin and Rio and in many other undertakings we gave.
Let me repeat that I deeply regret that the committee did not accept my proposal that we extricate ourselves from this unholy cooperation procedure and aim at a co-decision procedure.
It would have been more sensible for Parliament always to apply the co-decision procedure.
If we give the money we should also be able to say that we would like to see legislative measures.
For that is the decisive point here.
Let me suggest a deal: if the Council says it does not really want to spend any money, as it likes to say in the case of renewable energy, then we should suggest that we will agree to less money as long as we see legislative measures instead.
Mr President, firstly I congratulate Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on the amazing feat of achieving consensus in the Committee on Research. Technological Development and Energy.
I think she is well placed through her excellent report to achieve consensus in the plenary session of Parliament.
Energy efficiency is of fundamental importance both to the environmental and the competitiveness policies of the European Union.
As far as the environment is concerned, we are a long way off meeting the targets which we set ourselves in Rio.
We are suffering widespread climate instability because of that failure.
As far as competitiveness is concerned, we see a reprehensible and incredible waste of money throughout the European Union; billions and billions of ecus are being wasted in energy usage that is not necessary.
Think of the purchasing power which those billions could release to our economy.
Larger firms are, of course, aware of this.
Our target through this programme has to be the smaller firms and individual households.
They must make the decisions which will allow us to save that energy and save that money.
If we look at the history we see very rapid action following the oil shock in 1973.
Since then, however, there has been major regression tempered only by the recession which has hit most of our countries.
The energy/intensity use in most of the European Union is worsening. That is unacceptable.
The SAVE I programme was very small beer, a very small amount of money.
It is being evaluated, fortunately, before we move on to SAVE II.
One would have hoped the lessons from SAVE I would be learnt.
That is not so, as I shall explain later on.
One of the lessons from SAVE I was that far and away the best thing to do is to bring in binding legislation which Member States have to enforce.
There were ambitious plans for legislation. Very little of that legislation has appeared.
It is true that we have legislation on the efficiency of boilers, fridges and freezers, labelling, and there is more to come.
But that is not enough.
We know that the main obstacle has been the predictable resistance of manufacturers. They have no vested interest in energy efficiency and that is clear from their stance.
Let us look at the lessons.
Firstly, legislation is what works.
Secondly, you must have targets and you must monitor them.
The target in SAVE II is not ambitious; 1.5 % increase year-on-year is not ambitious.
I would like to see an indicative programme issued by the Commission and monitored throughout the Member States.
Another lesson that is important, not from SAVE I but from the regional programme, is that you must incorporate measures on energy efficiency into the regional work of the EU and its policies.
They help impoverished regions.
Of course the same would apply to third countries.
I would like to see far more emphasis in our dealings with countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean areas on energy efficiency.
One area which must be emphasized above all is transport.
Transport takes almost half the energy cost and it uses almost half the oil.
We have not done enough in that sector.
Then there are domestic and industrial appliances, insulation for the heating of homes, and in some parts of the EU for the cooling of homes.
There is a good home rating scheme developed in my own constituency which should be far more widespread.
It must be made easier for third parties to finance energy-efficient measures and for the growing industry of energy services to be helped.
This makes us competitive, remember.
Combined heat and power is another very sensible measure which needs encouragement; as do education and information throughout the EU, particularly to the target groups.
We need millions of people to make decisions which do not seem obvious to them.
Employment would be greatly helped by an extension of energy efficiency.
This has been proved in study after study.
I am therefore deeply disappointed at the negative attitude of the Council of Ministers which cannot even be bothered to get a proper legal base for the SAVE II programme.
That is indeed reprehensible, given the urgency.
I think we will see this week a very clear expression of the will of the European Parliament representing people in every Member State.
That will is to say: ' Let us have much stronger measures for energy efficiency' .
SAVE II is nowhere near ambitious enough.
It has not learned all the lessons from SAVE I. It is a very limited, minimal approach but it is absolutely essential that the Council of Ministers knows that the European Parliament is backing it very strongly indeed.
Mr President, on behalf of the European People's Party I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, both on the content of her report and on the consensus that she fostered in the committee.
That consensus has led to a number of common conclusions which I will not spell out in detail now.
However, it is worth pointing out once again that with this programme we are seeking to promote environmental improvement and to increase the competitiveness of Europe's undertakings.
As Mrs McNally has stressed, this competitiveness must, above all, be focused, through the programme, on small and medium-sized enterprises, because that is where the lowest efficiency in the use of energy is to be found and where the greatest return can be gained.
The Commission's proposal to treble the resources for the SAVE II programme, as compared with the SAVE I programme, is certainly encouraging.
But having said that, there is the situation, which pertains for many of the European Union's programmes, in which either we put all the financial resources into the first two or three years, which means that in the case of a five-year programme we are unable to take advantage of emerging new technologies as the programme moves towards completion, or, as often happens, we allocate all of the spending to the final two years, which makes it impossible for us to monitor our research programmes closely and to shape them as they progress.
SAVE II seems to be pointed towards the second of those two paths. However, it would perhaps be better if the funding could be allocated as evenly as possible over the whole duration of the programme.
SAVE II endeavours to strengthening pilot actions that were undertaken in the first programme and also makes provision for new actions.
As has already been said, the programme ignores the positive results that have stemmed from legislative measures and the possibility of achieving a further increase in energy efficiency via the same route.
Although I do not believe that legislation would help us down that route, I feel that we should not disregard the experience that we have gained from the past at a very heavy price.
I would therefore advise the Commission to look for a middle way, so as to provide an impetus to small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, as I said before.
Mr President, allow me also to say that in the Commission's proposal the supporting limits and guidelines for all of the actions and measures are determined on the basis of economic efficiency and energy-saving potential.
However, it would also be useful if the Commission were to take account of the need to achieve convergence between the Member States in the area of energy efficiency.
Mr President, I support Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's report. She introduced it with her usual efficiency.
It is important that we support the continuation of the SAVE energy efficiency programme with a budget of ECU 120m for the period from 1996 to 2000.
The SAVE initiative, which dates back to 1991, is one of the cornerstones for the European Union policies to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.
The renewal of the SAVE programme may be timely as the European Commission reports that the carbon dioxide target is being exceeded by 5 %.
However, I cannot emphasize enough, without reiterating all that has been said by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and other speakers, that the consequences of the worldwide increase in temperatures include the raising of sea level, climatic changes and an increased incidence of skin cancer.
Indeed, according to estimates, carbon dioxide accounts for 50 % of the greenhouse gases now present in the atmosphere.
Between 1991 and 1994 the SAVE programme funded a total of 203 pilot projects in the energy efficiency field.
In Ireland alone we undertook 12 pilot projects with the assistance of SAVE funds.
So I fully agree with the objective to improve energy efficiency by a further 1.5 % per annum within the European Union.
It is important in this context that the SAVE initiatives should be coordinated with other European Union energy initiatives such as THERMIE and SYNERGY.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased first of all to compliment the rapporteur on the excellent report on SAVE II.
This report makes a contribution to the difficult but important battle for a sustainable environment and a sustainable development of our economy.
For the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party sustainable development means a situation in which the natural raw materials are so used that future generations can also make use of them in the same way.
Liberals start with their own responsibility and do not shuffle it off on to succeeding generations.
That of course means that there must be sustainable management of natural resources.
There is a price-tag on pollution.
So the environmental costs of consumption and production must be made visible in the economy.
The Committee on Energy has approved 35 amendments, four of them from the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party.
I should like to explain two of them.
In Recital 15 the committee states as its point of departure that by the year 2000 between 80 and 200 million tonnes of CO2 emissions could be avoided by a 5 % improvement in energy efficiency compared with conventional expectations.
A shift, ladies and gentlemen, in the use of energy sources, in particular in the direction of renewable energy sources, could make these figures considerably more attractive.
That should be encouraged in the framework of SAVE II.
In Amendment No 12 the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party wanted to emphasize that it is not only politically but economically desirable to open the SAVE II programme to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the associated countries in the Mediterranean area.
It is essential to apply modern energy technologies and to switch to cleaner industries in Eastern Europe.
That is good for the environment and good for the economy and benefits both the Union and third countries.
That is what makes this collaboration so significant.
Mr President, it is certainly appropriate that at least one representative of a Nordic state should take part in this debate on the programme for the promotion of energy efficiency.
It is extremely pleasant to come to warm Strasbourg from cold Finland, where the ice on the lakes is still half a metre thick, making it quite possible to drive over the ice to one's island holiday home to go fishing.
There is quite a lot of snow too.
In the North, particularly in a country dominated by the paper industry, industrial users of course consume an enormous amount of energy, but we also use a lot of energy in heating.
This winter has been particularly cold, and this has meant that considerably more energy has been used than normal.
Of course, we cannot do anything about the forces of nature.
We can, however, do a lot to improve energy efficiency.
In Finland, for example, there are currently enormous quantities of wood, of waste wood, which nobody uses.
And in order to make use of these forms of energy, we need money for research; there is also plenty of room for improvement as regards all the existing forms of energy.
The directive on refrigerators, which the next speaker Mr Macartney has reported on, may even now be being debated in the Council.
Indeed, Parliament has only just debated this directive, and it must be said that in many developed countries the objectives set out there do not represent anything new.
We need to set more ambitious objectives and ensure that the old, wasteful sources of energy are modernized.
The SAVE programme is of great importance in all this improvement of energy efficiency, but in itself it does not help as much as it could.
I hope that this SAVE II programme will be adopted but there is much that could be done to improve it.
Mr President, I should like very much to congratulate my colleague, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on this excellent report and on the all-round consensus that has been achieved in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy on this issue.
I have to say that it is a bit like motherhood.
Everyone supports energy savings, everyone is in favour of motherhood.
But where are the real supports. The Commission has failed with these proposals to give us real support, key legislative proposals.
Parliament has stepped in and, correctly, pointed this out.
We do not have very much time left before the year 2000 to achieve the objectives we have set ourselves.
Let us have some real legislative proposals this time around.
The most important thing we have done recently is to evaluate the SAVE programme.
We have done an excellent evaluation and have come up with the real result that you need legislative proposals.
We need teeth to make the SAVE proposals sink in.
Unless we get teeth the Member States will not do the work. We will not get the results we need.
We have to harmonize with other programmes.
We have to harmonize with THERMIE and SYNERGY and we have to export these ideas to third countries, particularly the East.
But let us show an example ourselves.
Where are the SAVE programmes for the European Parliament? Where are the energy saving programmes for the Commission?
Let us do some real work ourselves on our own buildings.
Buildings are shooting up here and in Brussels. Where are the real energy saving proposals there?
We pontificate about what third countries and peripheral states should do all the time.
Let us do something real here in the heart of Europe where we have money.
Let us do it legislatively and with fiscal instruments. I do not accept that we cannot use fiscal instruments.
It is about time we got back to using them.
Mr President, I wish to respond to the point made by Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen that those of us who live in the more northerly parts of Europe suffer from colder winters!
It is something which is fairly obvious when you state it but clearly it has profound implications for the people who live in those climates.
In particular, the Scots should take a leaf out of the book of the Finns, the Swedes and the Norwegians on how to insulate their houses.
A lot of lessons could be learned by our people and these could be applied right across Europe to everybody's benefit.
This is an example of something which could be promoted right across Europe, and it is a great pity if some governments take refuge in subsidiarity and say that you cannot apply it to us and so miss the chance of doing something significant about the targets which Europe agreed to at the Rio Summit.
Our problem with the Commission and the Council of Ministers is not that we have any quarrel with their rhetoric or their good intentions, but is simply a question of their lack of ambition to translate this into resources and real measures.
Later on in this Parliament we shall be returning again to the subject of domestic freezers and fridges, which is a subject that often causes eyes to glaze over, I have to admit.
But when people realize how much energy the fridge or the freezer in their house consumes all the year round, I think they will realize this is important.
We are going to have a battle as a Parliament to get the fairly modest but realistic measures we put forward last time agreed upon and we will have to grit our teeth and say to the Commission and the Council of Ministers: tell us, do you really believe the rhetoric that you indulge in? Do you believe the targets that you agreed to at Rio?
Then we can look forward to a kind of level playingfield Europe by all means, but also to one in which energy savings can offer a very great contribution towards the targets which we all believe in.
Mr President, almost three years ago today I stood in this spot and delivered the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the SAVE I programme.
At the end of my speech I said that we do not want to have to come back here in two or three years' time to say: ' we told you so, so please try to strengthen this instrument' .
Well, here I am doing just that, on behalf of the Environment Committee again, because, despite Parliament's pleas, the SAVE I programme was not strengthened.
In fact, it was watered down to such an extent that the final text bore almost no resemblance to the original proposal.
This was a result, of course, of the pathetic lack of political will of Member State governments to tackle the greenhouse effect.
SAVE I, which Parliament criticized for having insufficient finance and ambition, detailed 13 legal actions and standards that would be undertaken.
In practice, only four directives emerged and it is unacceptable that the present proposal makes no reference to the failure of SAVE I as a legislative programme.
For instance, we still have no directive on energy efficiency of buildings.
It is sad that the current proposal does not contain more ambitious targets for energy saving.
In order to meet the EU's Rio commitments people have already said that a 2.5 % per annum improvement in energy efficiency is needed.
The preamble to the SAVE II programme makes it clear that over the past decade little more than a 1 % improvement has been achieved across Europe, and there is very little in the Commission's proposal to suggest that even this minimalist improvement will be sustained in coming years.
If the SAVE programme really is the cornerstone of the Community's CO2 strategy - as the proposal states - then that strategy lies in tatters.
The lack of EUwide energy efficiency targets to date has meant that Member States have failed to implement the necessary energy-efficiency measures and the proposed targets are not sufficient to make up the deficit.
With the carbon tax stalled, it is more essential than ever for Europe to have an ambitious programme for promoting energy efficiency and curbing CO2 emissions.
Unfortunately, despite its increased budget and inclusion of targets, the Commission's proposal gives little cause for optimism: ECU 150 million over five years is really derisory in the face of the problem we are facing.
It is, however, all we have at the present and, to that extent, I commend Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's excellent report to the House.
Mr President, clearly we welcome this report.
In energy conservation everybody wins.
At one stroke it protects the environment, conserves resources, boosts the economy and saves consumers money at the same time.
Energy efficiency and conservation are often forgotten altogether and Japan and our Scandinavian colleagues have shown how economic growth can actually be decoupled from the use and growth of energy.
At the time of Rio there was great excitement.
We believed in those targets. This programme does not go far enough to meet those targets.
Energy strategy is a part of environmental policy and therefore must be decided at European level and that is why we must get serious.
So this is not enough.
What we need to have as well is energy taxation which gives out strong market signals, not the voluntary system we have at the moment but one that affects all states in unison, not an additional taxation but a way of reducing tax on employment and other areas.
I welcome this report very much, but it is only one part of the jigsaw.
Let us see the others.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, for her very important report, and also the draftsmen of the opinions of the parliamentary committees.
The SAVE I programme which ended in 1995 was initially devised as an energy efficiency programme.
However, as it progressed it became the cornerstone of the European Union's strategy for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Following the presentation of the findings of the evaluation of the SAVE I programme the Commission took very serious account of many of the observations in the evaluation, and I can say that many of those observations and proposals have already been incorporated into the SAVE II programme.
However, we have also been guided by another factor, namely the lack of progress on the question of an energy tax.
And it is precisely that which has led us into developing SAVE II as a wider and fuller initiative.
I fully understand, and to a great extent share, the anxiety that very many Members, and in particular Mrs von Blottnitz, Mrs McNally and Mrs Ahern, have expressed regarding the programme's legislative dimension.
Nevertheless, allow me to say here and now that the SAVE programme is not a framework for legislative initiatives by the Commission.
As you know, the Commission is able to propose new legislation whenever it thinks it necessary, and I am absolutely sure that given the European Parliament's support we shall have the opportunity to discuss new legislative measures here in this House in the coming months.
What this programme does provide, however, is the potential for the funding of actions such as studies to investigate the possibility of legislative measures and to prepare the drafting of such measures.
In any case, before proposing legislation the Commission would like to exhaust all of the other possibilities, such as self-binding agreements, the CEN authorizations for energy efficient models and the procurement of technologically advanced products.
Please allow me at this point to deal with Mrs Pollack's comment.
I cannot agree that the Commission's legislative initiative in the framework of SAVE I was a failure, because, and I must emphasize this, nine of the thirteen legislative proposals have been adopted already and, in addition, work is proceeding on two others.
That said, however, I think that everyone will agree that the task facing us is to convince ordinary citizens, industry and the competent state authorities of the benefits of investing in energy efficiency and energy-saving.
If we can make a reality of the very considerable energy-saving possibilities that exist we shall be able to reduce our energy dependency.
We shall also be able to revitalize our industry and, as Mr Argyros has said, small and mediumsized enterprises in particular.
In addition, we shall be able to reduce public sector spending and to promote the use of new energy technologies.
Lastly, and perhaps this is the most important point, and many of you have mentioned it in your speeches, we shall be able to create a large number of new jobs, which will be a very important thing in itself.
In my opinion the budget of 150 m ECU that we have set for SAVE II is very modest in relation to the political and economic benefits which will flow from this programme.
Energy and environmental problems are not, however, confined to the European Union.
In the countries of central and eastern Europe which are preparing for accession to the Union there is enormous scope for improvement in energy efficiency.
We have a duty to give them the opportunity to participate in SAVE II.
In addition, following a request from the countries of the European Economic Area, the programme will be open to Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
We are also looking at the possibility of involving Cyprus and Malta.
The costs involved in opening SAVE II to non-member countries will be covered by contributions from those countries themselves and from existing Community resources, and not from the SAVE II budget which covers the Community countries only.
Mr President, SAVE II is an important tool, a tool which can bring results only if it is given the fullest support.
I therefore request you to look upon SAVE II as a complementary action which is thus not intended as a substitute for actions taken by the Member States themselves.
With reference to the amendments, I have to say that the rapporteur has made an extremely important contribution.
The Commission can accept five amendments without reservation, namely Nos 2, 3, 6, 7 and 8.
We can also agree in principle, subject perhaps to a slight redrafting, with 12 others, namely Nos 1, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 19, 22, 28, 32, 33 and 34.
As regards Amendments Nos 12 and 33, which seek to open the programme to the associated countries in the Mediterranean area, the Commission can accept only one measure corresponding to that of the SOCRATES programme, under which the programme was opened only to Cyprus and Malta.
As far as Amendment No 29 is concerned, the Commission can accept the spirit of the second part of that amendment.
We cannot accept the first, third and fourth parts because we do not wish to upset the existing agreement on comitology.
The Commission does also have the power, and intends in the future, to propose a legislative measure aimed at improving energy efficiency in the Union, after, however, as I said at the beginning, exhausting the existing possibilities such as the self-binding agreements for industry.
Allow me to say also, on a general note, that no legislative initiative by the Commission is dependent on approval being given to a particular programme.
Hence Amendments Nos 5, 10 and 16, which seek to commit the Commission to legislative initiatives, cannot be accepted at this point.
Amendments Nos 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 24 and 25 relate to new actions of low interest, and, of course, to the funding of them.
These actions are either already encompassed, at least in part, by the Commission's text or are well outside its framework, or, in fact, are covered by other initiatives.
As a result they cannot be introduced into the text.
The Commission believes that respect for the treaties and balanced allocation of the budget are requirements that go without saying.
That being so, Amendments Nos 26 and 27 cannot be included in the text.
The same applies to Amendments Nos 30 and 35 which would reduce the flexibility of the programme management procedures.
The Commission supports complementarity between SAVE II and the corresponding national programmes and therefore cannot accept the blurring of this concept contained in Amendment No 31.
We believe that despite its shortcomings SAVE I has contributed to energy efficiency in the Community, and therefore we cannot accept Amendment No 4.
Lastly, Amendment No 9 is not directly related to the potential for intervention built into the proposal in question and therefore it cannot be included.
In concluding I should like to thank Parliament again for its contribution, Mrs von Blottnitz personally, and, of course, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you will support this proposal following the improvements that have been made to its text via the amendments that are being accepted.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like you to tell me when you will be presenting the legislative proposals.
You said it would be very soon.
I would like you to be more precise.
Then you said this programme was useful for study purposes.
Do you not agree that we already have enough of those? You also said that of the thirteen legislative measures announced in SAVE I, nine had already been implemented.
That really is not true!
In fact only three of them have been implemented and that is the ones on hot water boilers, the labelling of household appliances and the labelling of freezers.
What you present as a major success - and which really would be one if it had happened - is the SAVE directive of September 1993, and that is precisely what we are discussing.
We are calling for legislative proposals and you say they have already been implemented.
Surely that is not the case.
The directive merely refers to the measures, while it is left open to the Member States whether they implement them or not.
But they have not done so.
After all, we all know what this is really about: energy certificates for buildings, lower heating costs, air-conditioning, encouraging third-party financing of energy-saving investment in the public sector, insulation of new buildings, regular inspections of boilers, energy estimates in undertakings with high energy consumption.
There are no laws on this in my country and I am willing to bet they do not exist in most other Member States either.
That is precisely what we need in SAVE II.
After all, it is useless simply to leave the implementation of such measures to the Member States.
If you rate what you just read out as success, then it is of course clear that you will obtain a rate of nine out of thirteen.
But you will have to agree with me when I say that in real terms only three out of the thirteen have been implemented, namely the three I just mentioned.
All the rest is declarations of intent.
In this context I would also like you to answer the question of how we can speed up the whole business a little so that we can fulfil our obligations and not stop at declarations of intent!
Mr President, Mrs von Blottnitz, first of all I should like to make it clear that the Commission is not opposed to legislative initiatives. On the contrary, it has pursued that option before and will pursue it again.
However, the difference between SAVE I and SAVE II is that with SAVE II, at this juncture, we are putting the main emphasis on studies to explore and prepare the ground for the institution of legislative measures rather than on legislation as such.
As far as the measures put in place under SAVE I are concerned, I insist that about nine proposals for legislation have been adopted by the Council. However, you are right in saying that you can see only three such proposals.
The reason for that is that six proposals were incorporated into one, and on that basis the number does become three.
But in actual fact the Commission presented about nine legislative proposals, and six of them were joined into one.
Even so, I must remind the House that the extent of implementation in the Member States will depend, firstly, on the political will of the individual governments and, secondly, on exertion of the maximum possible political pressure by Parliament, the public at large and, of course, the Commission itself.
In this latter respect, as you well know, the Commission has pursued a very constant line on the carbon dioxide tax and in general on the policy for reducing carbon dioxide emissions, and has certainly exerted pressure in every way possible, either through its own initiatives or via specific communications to the Member States, aimed at guiding the Member States towards a stabilization of carbon dioxide emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.
The Commission therefore believes that it has shown total consistency in exerting pressure from the European Union for the stabilization of carbon dioxide emissions.
Responsibility for the fact that we have not achieved our objectives does not lie with the Commission, and it is not for us to shoulder it.
The responsibility lies elsewhere, with other institutions. We do share the view of the European Parliament of course, and we are exerting all the pressure that we can to get the measures which will truly reduce carbon dioxide emissions adopted.
However, SAVE II is a very different programme, precisely because it takes account of the factor that I mentioned earlier, namely the failure to achieve substantial progress in the desired direction. We want to explore the way forward, to share the responsibility for promotion of the policy for reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and the improvement of energy efficiency, and that is why we are insisting that this programme should be broader in form than SAVE I. But that does not mean in any way that the Commission will halt its legislative endeavours or stop forwarding proposals with a legislative content.
Quite the reverse. We have the positive experience gained from the directive on refrigerators to draw on.
You will be aware that the Council adopted that directive at the end of the Spanish presidency last December.
It is a pleasing outcome.
Of course, we are waiting for the second reading by the European Parliament before proceeding.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the Bloch von Blottnitz report will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Synergy programme
The next item is the report (A4-0065/96) by Mr Soulier, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council regulation (COM(95)0197 - C4-0432/95-95/0126(CNS)) adopting a multiannual programme to promote international cooperation in the energy sector - Synergy programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think it could possibly be disputed that the energy matter in all its aspects is now an important element in the Union's foreign policy and external relations.
In the light of that, the REX Committee, in tabling its amendments, has sought, on the one hand, to emphasize the inseparable link between the European Union's energy policy and its economic and trade relations, and, on the other, to point out that precisely because of that the Union's proposals for international cooperation on energy issues must form an integral part of its foreign policy.
Ladies and gentlemen, the securing of energy sources and the security of those sources is, as you understand, a matter of the highest priority.
Given that, anything that contributes to the political, economic and social stability of those regions which hold the keys to the supply of energy must be supported.
Mr Soulier has provided some figures which indicate how the general energy picture is likely to evolve in the immediate future.
I will not repeat them, but I do agree.
In the light of those figures the SYNERGY programme assumes particularly great importance because in focusing on third countries and providing them with assistance it will help those countries formulate and implement energy policies of their own.
As everyone knows, the European Union has been providing that assistance informally to those countries for at least the last 15 years.
We now believe that this is the best time ever to give SYNERGY a legal base and to establish it as a multiannual programme.
This request, this assessment, from the Commission must be supported.
Lastly, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to say that I, too, agree with Mr Soulier's comments concerning the need to bring order to energy issues, particularly as regards coordination of the energy matter within all programmes.
I would venture a step further and say that I think that the time has come for us to look at the energy matter in the European Union's various policies and to move to a point at which we can decide that it should become a single integrated policy.
Mr President, let me by way of introduction remind you again of the position of the Committee on Budgets, namely that no important measures should be financed from the general budget without an appropriate legal base.
The Community contribution to the SYNERGY programme is supposed to be of two kinds: up to 100 % of finance experts seconded full time to the authorities in nonmember countries and up to 50 % for projects undertaken with non-member States.
This differentiated breakdown shows that the SYNERGY programme gives a greater financial contribution to the administrative costs than to the operational projects.
To avoid expert-tourism under the cover of development and cooperation, we now propose inverting the percentages, i.e., only up to 50 % of the experts' expenses should be cofinanced, which could of course also be considered as vocational training measures for third countries, and up to 75 % of projects financed from Community resources.
We also strongly disagree with the idea of funding the operating expenses of the Secretariat of the European Energy Charter Treaty even in part since the Community was not responsible for the delay in the signing of the Treaty by the USA.
The companies certainly benefit from the Energy Charter and certainly have the financial resources to finance the Secretariat.
For that reason, the citizens of the EU cannot be asked to continue paying for this.
The Committee on Budgets already pointed out when the Treaty was signed that it must not imply any significant budgetary burden on the EU, and that, we believe, is how it should remain.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Liberal Group I should like to compliment Mr Soulier on the report he has produced, although it has become very detailed.
One of the Liberal Group's basic principles is that an integrated approach to energy and environment is necessary for a sustainable development of our economy.
The SYNERGY programme may make a contribution here.
CO2 emissions are a cross-border problem and require a European approach.
The eco-tax is an excellent means for that.
The Netherlands are at present the only Member State to have energy taxation, but CO2 emissions are not only a European but a world-wide problem.
At the same time therefore, the European Union will have to try to prevail upon the United States and Japan to introduce similar taxation, otherwise Europe will be putting its industry at a competitive disadvantage as against other continents.
The Liberal Group is in favour of a phased introduction of an energy tax with a dual purpose: first, limiting the use of energy, and secondly reducing CO2 emissions.
That may help to reduce the greenhouse effect and will ensure that all forms of energy help to pay for the cost of environmental effects.
In addition my Group thinks that CO2 money must be deployed where it will yield the best return.
That is at present in Central and Eastern Europe and the rising markets in the developing countries, which in ten years will emit more CO2 than the whole western world.
Transition to modern technologies will unmistakably contribute to energy efficiency and economy.
Recent research has shown that the Union has a leading position in the field of environmental and non-nuclear energy technologies.
I am also strongly in favour of the Netherlands' choosing sustainable energy as the central point of its presidency of the Union in 1997.
Mr President, I believe that the objectives of this programme are excellent.
I thank the rapporteur for his detailed proposals.
Promoting sustainable development, reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants, enhancing security of supply and improving energy efficiency are all things that we wish to do.
I wish we could do them in the European Union. So far as we have seen in our earlier debate on SAVE II, we are not really getting there.
However, that does not mean that we should not try to have a more global approach, that we should not try to have synergy with countries in Central and Eastern Europe and with the developing countries.
I would like to add one proviso.
I would like to see more emphasis on renewable sources of energy.
There are many applications where renewable energies could be developed in the Mediterranean world and in the Third World.
I would like more emphasis in this kind of report in particular on the great potential for renewable energy, particularly in the solar energy field.
I should also like to say, along with another colleague, that nuclear safety does not belong in such a programme.
We have other programmes devoted to nuclear safety.
I think it would be regrettable to confuse the two.
There are great problems in trying to export nuclear technology to developing countries.
For example, we have not solved the problems of waste.
We, in our group do not support nuclear technology, as you know.
But even at a committee level we cannot start exporting nuclear technology to countries when we cannot guarantee that the waste will properly dealt with.
To say that nuclear safety should be part of this programme - I do not see the logic of it, frankly.
Finally, concerning the rational use of energy and sustainable development, we need to be developing them through fiscal instruments in particular. I agree with a global approach on this level.
We should follow the Rio agenda.
Mr President, I wish to begin by giving my warm congratulations to Mr Soulier on his excellent introduction, which widened our horizons considerably in the way that we need to do when we are looking at the whole question of energy consumption.
I would take issue with the REX Committee in saying that the top priority was security of supply within Europe.
The problem and the challenge is much wider than that.
I would commend the approach of looking particularly to the Third World and perhaps pushing the Commission and the Council in that direction, as a very important contribution.
The reason why I think the Third World is so important is, first of all, that it offers the greatest promise for making fairly obvious gains in energy consumption.
Likewise, the Third World often suffers from having very limited resources and limited alternatives because of the poverty of the countries concerned and the revenues available to their governments.
For example, as part of the European Parliament's mission recently I went to the Kingdom of Lesotho in southern Africa - the Switzerland of Africa, they call it - and there was hardly a tree left in that country.
It is very like my own country, Scotland, where we cut down all the trees and then we had to start burning coal, which, of course, causes all kinds of problems and is a fossil fuel.
The lesson we have to learn is that the Third World countries should not repeat the mistakes we have already made.
So, instead of coming across sometimes as preaching to the Third World in a kind of neo-colonial approach - we know best, you do what we tell you, not what we do ourselves - we should say: look, we have learned from the mistakes we have made.
As Mrs Ahern said, we should practice what we preach within the European Union.
I warmly commend this report and I very much hope that this will be taken on board so that we can not only assist the Eastern European countries, which, of course, we are already doing, but make a major contribution to combating the global-warming effect by assistance to the Third World.
Mr President, co-ordination between national policies in the area of science and technology has been Europe's Achilles heel, It is one of the reasons for our lagging behind the United States and Japan and our loss of competitiveness.
The co-ordination of energy policies in relation with third countries is a priority and should not just be seen as an appendix but as part and parcel of any future European energy policy.
I must point out the importance of co-ordinating co-operation with African countries which have particular and pressing problems, in particular in terms of training decision-makers in the energy sector and transferring techniques, experience and information.
I hope that the recent proposal by the Portuguese Foreign Minister to hold regular Euro-African summits can open up opportunities in this area.
For the European Parliament, the energy policy of the European Union is of particular importance and that is why we think it is indispensable that we should be called upon to intervene in the SYNERGY programme, and given a chance to express our opinions on the list of actions to be undertaken as well as being regularly informed of the progress of the European Union's energy strategy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank Mr Soulier for his marvellous report.
Allow me also to thank Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Telkämper, the draftsmen, respectively, of the opinions of the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
As you know, the actions for international cooperation in the energy sector began in 1988 with budgetary entries at the disposal of the European Parliament.
Initially these covered the provision of assistance for energy planning in countries of Asia, Latin America and the Mediterranean basin.
Later on the same entries were used for countries in central and eastern Europe and of the Commonwealth of Independent States for the development of cooperation on matters of energy policy.
The implementation of actions was characterized by a high degree of flexibility which permitted, for instance, immediate intervention in the autonomous Palestinian territories and, recently, in Sarajevo.
However, the absence of a legal base was an obstacle to the development of medium-term strategies and to the monitoring of individual projects, and it also made it difficult to blend the actions in with actions that were to be undertaken in the framework of other Community instruments.
In submitting this proposal for a regulation we are seeking to combine the objectives of the programme with the wider objectives of the Community's energy strategy as set out in the Commission's Green Paper and White Paper.
I do not think I need to explain in detail to Parliament why international cooperation in the energy sector is so important.
Mr Soulier has provided a very clear analysis of the objectives of this energy cooperation.
Indeed, Parliament itself has very frequently drawn attention to the value of such cooperation, which, of course, has been a factor in motivating the Commission to develop this proposal.
Mr Soulier has expressed a wish that we now go a step further and institute a dialogue to determine the specific guidelines and priorities for the actions of this programme.
Following the exchanges of view that we have had, we believe that the indicative guidelines and orientations in the annex of the regulation retain the necessary flexibility.
However, Parliament's legitimate wishes will be taken into account.
The Commission can accept Parliament's proposal within that framework.
The rapporteur has also requested that the function of the programme with regard to the coordination of structural actions on matters of international cooperation in the energy sector be clearly set out.
We share your anxieties and hence agree with the specific proposals submitted by Parliament.
In addition, the report contains a request that Parliament be regularly informed about the execution of the programme.
We consider that to be a legitimate wish and therefore accept the idea of carrying out a mid-term assessment in addition to that provided for when the programme comes up for renewal.
I must also say that the evaluation of the actions that were developed over the period 1990-1995 - which was carried out by independent experts - reinforces our desire to work from a multiannual basis.
The Commission believes that all of the improvements proposed by the experts must be incorporated in the amended proposal which will include Parliament's own proposals.
In the same context, the Commission, as well as informing Parliament and the Council annually about the implementation of the SYNERGY programme, will also provide them with information about the entire range of the actions that it undertakes on matters of international cooperation in the energy sector.
I wish to emphasize yet again the very positive contribution achieved by the rapporteur in presenting such a brilliant report to the plenary.
Wishing, also, to reply to Mrs Ahern's comment about the inclusion in the SYNERGY programme of actions relating to nuclear technology, I should like to say that the SYNERGY programme does not have the advancement of nuclear technology and the establishment and organization of better channels of communication and cooperation in the field of nuclear technology among its objectives.
What the programme does carry provision for, however, is the promotion of training and cooperation seminars on nuclear safety, not on nuclear technology.
That facet of the programme provides a response to the European Parliament's demand for the promotion of cooperation on the safety of nuclear reactors across Europe as a whole.
I turn now to the amendments. Out of the 27 which are proposed, 24 bring real improvement to the programme and can be accepted.
On the other hand, Parliament's desire to involve itself very closely with the work of the advisory committee envisaged in the regulation leads us to believe that we are treading into an extremely delicate and difficult area, and in my opinion, therefore, this is a subject that needs to be given careful examination in the framework of the interinstitutional discussions that are currently in progress.
Given that view, the Commission is unable to accept Amendments Nos 22 and 23.
The Commission accepts the first part of Amendment No 26 on the indicative action programme, but we think that the table based on the second part of the amendment runs counter to the priorities of the programme.
The proposed apportionment is at odds with the guidelines set out in the first part of the amendment.
Nevertheless, the Commission will give consideration to the indicative guidelines of the table, and we will pay particular attention to the expressed wish for a higher percentage of actions in Africa.
However, SYNERGY is a cooperation programme rather than an aid programme, and the opportunities for cooperation in the sub-Saharan area of Africa, apart from South Africa, at the level presented in the table, would appear to be very limited.
In addition to that, the greater part of the resources of the SYNERGY programme must be channelled towards preparing the accession of the associated countries of central and eastern Europe, which is a priority for everyone.
The Commission considers the table presented by the rapporteur, and, indeed, the original compromise table now being proposed again via Amendment No 27, to be more suitable.
Having said these things, Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Soulier again and to express the hope that the plenary will approve the amendments which can improve the proposal for a regulation and which we accept.
Mr President, this is not to express my thanks. I simply wish to say that the French version of my text had been curtailed.
The necessary corrective action has been taken as regards my amendment.
Mr Soulier, it is amusing that the version in which there is a mistake is that of your own language. But there seems to be no problem with the other languages.
The debate is closed
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Interoperability of the high-speed rail system
The next item is the recommendation for the second reading (A40077/96) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0002/96-94/0112(SYN)) with a view to adopting a directive on the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system (rapporteur: Mr Castricum).
Mr President, if I have understood correctly, the Ministers for Transport have recently been doing some soulsearching about the future of goods transport by rail.
It is about time too.
Even more important is the question what results that yields, because Council, Commission and Parliament may well talk about the need to breathe new life into the railways, but when we see how hard that is, how long it takes and what great internal problems are still facing many railway companies we get the feeling that the day will never dawn.
The directive on the interoperability of the trans-European high- speed rail system and its history and content still do not bring that dawn.
Seven years have gone by between the initiative and this second reading.
It took almost a year to come to a common position, whereas in the previous years an unprecedented amount of talent on the part of representatives of the Member States, the railway companies and industry had been devoted to the subject.
What is the result of all that? Movement backwards, which the often strained relations between the national authorities and the rail companies seem to confirm.
'With the amendments made by the Council to the proposal for a directive the aims sought by the Commission in its original proposals have been drastically altered.
Those amendments have in fact tended to reduce interoperability to a technical compatibility of structural subsystems and in addition to place restrictive conditions on technical specifications for economic reasons, giving preference to the retention of the existing national railway networks.'
That is the end of the quotation, with my apologies for the involved wording.
That quotation is the Commission's conclusion which above all stresses once more the wish to take account of users' needs and expresses regret at the Council's attitude.
I whole-heartedly agree, Mr President.
The second reading must make it clear to the Council once more by the proposals for amendment the essence of what is involved in the matters we are discussing together today.
The appeal of a cross-border railway system and, as a consequence of that, satisfied customers who have the feeling that Europe not only talks and thinks but also acts in the interests of the citizen.
I sincerely hope that the approach of the Commission and Parliament will still be apparent in the directive which eventually comes into force.
Anyone who in considering the citizens' network still thinks in terms of Member States' frontiers is wide of the mark.
In the long term that is the least possible service to a common European transport policy.
Mr President, I began with transport of goods and I shall end with it.
I have gathered that a misunderstanding has arisen or might arise through Amendment No 3 in which a link is traced between the high-speed system for passengers and the possibilities for transport of goods.
That amendment aims at least to take account of the opportunities which a European network of high-speed trains may provide for certain forms of goods transport.
I naturally cannot yet see container trains too speeding over that high-speed network.
I should like to say that governing means looking ahead and stagnation means decline, but I have already pointed that out in my brief exposé.
Mr President, I should first like to comment that interoperability does not often attract the interest of the media, the general public or, indeed, many of our own colleagues.
However, it is of vital importance not only to this Parliament but also to the future development of a prosperous, efficient and environmentally-sustainable Europe.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Castricum, on his work and his efforts to continue to advance the goal of a European high-speed rail network in the face of attempts by the Council of Ministers to undermine the worthy and far-sighted proposal of Commissioner Kinnock.
Europe's rail systems must be compatible.
They must work together.
They must share the same technical standards.
They must do that if Europe's railways are to fulfil their potential to shift passengers and freight from our congested roads and airspace so that we meet our environmental objectives.
Secondly, we must realize our potential to become more competitive as Europeans and to foster growth and employment.
However, we can only build Europe's railways for the 21st century if we standardize our national railway systems that were created in the 19th century.
It will cost money.
It will cost millions, perhaps even billions, of ecu over the years to come.
But every ecu spent will be an ecu well spent in terms of the dividends that our economies will secure.
We must look at this as a long-term investment in the future and in the future of Europe's competitiveness and its ability to tackle environmental problems.
In this debate we must also remind the Council of its commitments which it freely entered into at Maastricht when it committed itself not merely to a trans-European rail network but to an interoperable trans-European rail network.
It made that commitment unanimously when it agreed the Maastricht Treaty and today we should call it to account and hold it to the agreement it made then.
As Mr Castricum has said, we must harmonize the technical standards and, most critically, the standards for users, common ticketing, reservations and information.
This evening I wish to focus on the need for passengers to have easy access to the whole of the European high-speed network.
That includes passengers with disabilities.
A case in point is the marvellous, high-tech, high-speed Eurostar train which now serves my constituency and links London to Brussels and Paris.
Marvellous, unless you are a disabled passenger.
Access to the train is only by steps.
A 21st century train using a 19th century concept.
A wheelchair user who wants to travel from London to Brussels must ring Eurostar in advance, wait at a special spot on the platform for disabled passengers for a ramp to be hauled into place and, in some cases, be carried on to and off the train to one of the two wheelchair spaces which are allocated in two separate first class compartments.
If two disabled passengers travel together they have to sit separately.
If you travel with your family you have to sit apart from them.
It is quite unacceptable that Eurostar should have spent millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on a European train of the future without adequate disabled access.
I hope this evening that the Commissioner will agree with me not only that disabled access is a basic right but also that we must insist that in the future at least all European high-speed trains allow easy access for all.
It is my contention that we all, as Europeans, will benefit from high-speed trains.
We will all be paying for, and investing in, high-speed trains.
Therefore it is only right and proper that all Europeans, whatever level of disability they may have, are able to access and enjoy and use and frequent high-speed trains.
Mr President, I would like on behalf of the EPP Group to welcome the common position and the Castricum report.
The Commission proposals recognize that the existing systems are incompatible and, as a result, engines and railway staff usually have to be exchanged at frontiers.
That is not exactly the sort of exchange and free movement associated with interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system.
The proposal is particularly welcome as its purpose is to promote the interlinking and interoperability of this highspeed rail link and the creation of conditions for the development of an open and competition-orientated market in the high-speed rail sector.
We support the common position and its emphasis on the technical compatibility of the national systems.
It is right that technical specifications should be harmonized insofar as this is essential for trans-frontier high-speed transport, while the structure of the national networks is generally to be preserved.
The costs incurred will be borne primarily by the Member States' railways.
A number of Committee on Transport and Tourism amendments adopted and put to the House today aim to bring the common position closer to the original Commission proposal.
A number of amendments were accepted and adopted in the common position, notably on the progressive interoperability of trans-frontier regional transport, rapid goods transport and eventually the entire rail transport system.
These provisions should ensure that the public will have easy access to the whole network.
For these reasons we will support most of the amendments in the name of the Transport Committee, with the exception of Amendments Nos 5, 6, 7 and 8, as we feel that the original text of the Commission proposal should be carried in order to ensure the desired interoperability and the necessary technical specifications.
We welcome the amendment by Mr Soulier and hope that both the Commission and the Council will adopt it, thereby ensuring that existing lines or lines already upgraded will not necessarily be prejudiced by this last proposal.
With these provisos we recommend and commend the proposal and the Castricum report to the House.
On a personal note, can I just add that I have recently had a medical examination by the European Parliament.
My eyesight was pronounced near-perfect.
I challenge anyone in the Chamber, however, other than those of you sitting at the top table, to read the names on the new television screens.
It is absolutely impossible to see one's name on the screen.
I urge you to bring this to the attention of the authorities so that we can actually see when we are about to be called.
Miss McIntosh, we shall try to put this problem right in the way that you suggest, but I must say that we have just tested the new system today and will do everything we can to put the problem right.
Mr President, my reason for speaking in this debate is to emphasise the need to take account of the environmental considerations and public opinion and, particularly, to use them in subsequent work on the directive on high-speed rail links.
As far as I can see, though it is not totally apparent, both the environment and the public have had their positions weakened in the common position.
All else being equal, it must be assumed that an integrated high-speed network would benefit both users and the environment, but clearly the original proposal suffered from the lack of a thorough investigation into the environmental aspects.
This could have been done far more clearly, and it is rather shameful that the Commission makes integration of the environment one of the most important instruments of future environment policy, and then ignores obvious opportunities, such as interoperability, when they arise.
However, the Commission must now make good these omissions and be more forceful than hitherto in bringing the environment into subsequent debate so that we can set up an integrated high-speed network which is absolutely vital to the further development of Europe.
Each one of us who has spent hours of frustration at airports, which has definitely been the case this winter, and in traffic chaos on the roads, which has also been the case, know just how imperative it is to create an efficient rail system linking the whole of Europe.
Without it we will not be able to meet the transport needs of the future.
So let us now convert words into action and not allow the special interests of individual countries to stand in the way, and let us use logical arguments such as an improved environment combined with a more efficient transport system as one of the means of exerting pressure on countries when they resist, as they appear to be doing at present.
Mr President, it is vitally important for our future that we should change our transport system.
One definite necessity is the adaptation of the railway systems so that they can actually use one another's track and can actually be interoperable.
That sounds all very nice, and it is important.
It applies too to the high-speed lines.
Furthermore it is just as important for the systems to be interoperable also in the sense that they become more attractive for the user.
Then you are talking not only about technical interoperability but also about possible connections for example with regional lines or buying tickets, which really is a nightmare in Europe.
I think I am one of the few Members of Parliament who tries from time to time to travel through Europe by train instead of flying.
Buying tickets is still not so easy.
If we conclude that interoperability leaves something to be desired, then we must look not only at technical matters but also at how we can make things more user-friendly for the citizen in order to make these systems attractive and so that our environment is rather better preserved for the future.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Van der Waal, who cannot he here because he is ill.
The Commission's proposal on interoperability of the European network for highspeed trains has been drastically altered by the Council.
Instead of striving for a European network of high-speed trains the accent is now placed more on preservation of the existing national high-speed networks, which have been made interoperable only where necessary or where desired.
The reason for this is clear.
The Member States, particularly Germany and France, which already have a high-speed network, may be forced to spend vast sums because of the compulsory adaptation of technical specifications for interoperability.
Adaptation of existing or planned infrastructure costs a lot of money - money which, incidentally, is not available, amongst other things because of the EMU criteria.
With hindsight it is very much to be regretted that European standards were not in force before the construction of the national high-speed networks.
It is to be feared that the Council's attitude is penny wise, pound foolish.
The existence side by side of the different high-speed train systems, which are only minimally interoperable, makes it harder for carriers to provide over long international routes a service which can compete with air transport because train-units must be made suitable for various systems and will thus be more expensive or because there must be a change of locomotives.
Moreover a restricted interoperability hinders the desirable liberalization of international passenger transport.
In addition competition between the various railway industries is limited by restricted interoperability.
Finally, when in the future we still need to adapt high-speed lines to European standards that may well cost more money than is now being saved.
With the exception of Amendments Nos 5 and 6 I can support the report of the Committee on Transport, which tries to bring the Council's text back on to the Commission's lines.
I think that the interoperability of the functional subsystems, operation or users, can be regulated by the sector itself, at least if liberalization of international passenger transport is taken seriously.
I interpret Amendment No 3 about rapid goods services as transport of express goods such as postal items for which rapid delivery is required.
I can agree with that.
I thank the rapporteur for his detailed explanation.
Apart from that there is every reason for adopting measures quickly in order to improve traditional goods transport by rail.
Today's speeds of some 27 to 37 kilometres an hour must certainly be tripled. in order to avoid having highspeed trains used before long for unsuitable purposes.
Improvement of the logistics of conventional goods transport by rail must thus certainly not be held back.
Mr President, Mr Castricum has done a good job including, and above all, in terms of the difficulties involved in coordinating the requirements of the various countries to allow the directive on the interoperability of the European high speed train network finally to be adopted.
Those difficulties are apparent if we bear in mind that certain factors - environment, users and management - vary from one country to another.
It follows that if we wish to achieve interoperability of the European networks, we have to guarantee interoperability of the factors that go hand-in-hand with this, for example the energy system, the control-and-command systems, signalling and, not least, the rolling stock.
That is why the Council moved away from the original Commission proposal and, in some respects, Parliament's amendments.
In short, because of the financial situation of a number of Member States and a number of railway companies interoperability of infrastructure cannot be guaranteed.
It is therefore desirable that interoperability be gradually achieved in relation to transfrontier traffic, the rapid transport of goods and, at a later and none-toodistant stage - the whole of rail transport.
The rapporteur, Mr Castricum, is right then - and this links up with what I said at the start - when, realizing that the common position represents a necessary compromise for the purposes of which many elements contained in the original proposal have been omitted, he proposes that the amendments be accepted - and I shall not enter into the details here - to allow the high speed trans-frontier network to be set up in a relatively short time.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the opening up of the markets in transport services and capital equipment and the driving force of competition in the railway sector as a whole depend of course upon first creating a legal framework containing binding technical specifications for interoperability and harmonized standards to ensure the interoperability of the European railway network.
It is equally clear that the programmes intended to guarantee interoperability of the networks, particularly in the field of technical standards, require and will continue to require enormous technical effort and investments, seeing that the Member States' networks have been developing for a century and a half with a vision far removed from the possibility of a market without frontiers and the part which infrastructures would play in the process of its creation.
Here there is an implied attitude which is debatable from the point of view of a broad vision of the process of developing the networks and providing services.
To be specific, from a reading of the provisions of this proposal for a directive the lack of interoperability emerges as a fundamental problem as it creates internal frontiers which hinder freedom of movement.
The interoperability of the networks is therefore a question to be solved first. previously.
Once the problem has been expressed in those terms it must be recognized that as long as there is no interoperability there will be no freedom of movement.
But a statement like that is in itself little more than tautology.
Seen from another angle it is possible to ask to what extent the problems of interoperability obey fundamental causes and are an inexcusable point of departure, or alternatively to what extent they are an instrument applied more or less deliberately in order to restrict freedom of movement with other policies or other interests in mind.
Only by looking at it in that way is it possible to understand the lack of interoperability in the various high-speed railway networks which have developed in most recent years and which are still being developed at the present time.
If this second hypothesis is correct, the problem would have to be solved the other way round, starting by requiring freedom of movement in order to see how the obstacles to interoperability would then lose their instrumental role and fade away of their own accord, but only to the extent and at the cost appropriate to the actual requirements of freedom of movement.
And, Mr President, I should not like to end my remarks without congratulating Mr Castricum for his excellent work.
Mr President, the progressive development of a European high-speed rail system from existing or planned national systems, requires the interlinking and interoperability of infrastructures, of fixed equipment, of logistic systems and of rolling stock.
Various problems arise, however, one of them being the cost of such work.
The development of a trans-frontier high-speed rail system creates huge costs, which will be largely borne by the Member States' railway companies since the Community budget will make hardly any contribution.
That being the case, how will France, or more precisely the SNCF, be able to finance new infrastructures and rolling stock when it is already heavily in debt?
The cumulative deficit of the SNCF, which is supported by the State, that is the taxpayer, is FF 175 billion.
In 1995, the SNCF cost the French taxpayer FF 49 billion, with a deficit of FF 12 billion.
Will the SNCF be in a position to make new investments for the development of an open and competitive market in the high-speed railway sector?
The Commission favours an almost complete opening up of the high-speed rail network in a single step.
Would it not be preferable to opt for a gradual opening up along the same lines as for air transport? Too rigid an application of the law on competition may harm the development of European rail transport, which already suffers from a structural disadvantage in comparison with roads.
How can we not condemn the European Commission when, seeking competition at any price, it makes substantial changes to the terms of an agreement concluded between Eurotunnel on the one hand and British Rail and SNCF on the other? These two companies had entered into commitments for 12 years, but the Commission finally decided on 13 December 1994 to allocate 25 % of the available timetable slots reserved for them to their competitors, thus threatening the economic balance of the agreement.
To conclude, and on the basis of what I have just said, we should be wary of such an ultracompetitive policy.
Mr President, I am pleased to advise the House that the Commission can accept all the amendments proposed in the recommendation of the Committee on Transport and Tourism relating to the interoperability of the trans-European high-speed rail system.
These amendments reflect the stance taken by the Commission in its communication to Parliament on the common position, and I am always pleased, as members of the Transport Committee will know, when there can be such ready agreement between ourselves.
The Commission cannot, however, support the amendment from Mr Soulier - Amendment No 12 - because it would complicate the interoperability framework which we are establishing, and that contradicts the efforts to achieve simplification.
The House will be aware from our communication that there is much in the common position which causes us concern - even if, like the rapporteur, Mr Castricum, we have some sympathy with the fact that the less ambitious common position of the Council is in part a response to the difficult financial situation of many of the Community's railways.
That said, however, all governments should avoid reducing the scope of the meaning of interoperability to such an extent that it relates only to the technical capacity of structural subsystems in a way which gives priority to preserving existing national networks.
That cannot be the right approach in a time of change when for every sensible transport and economic reason, we should think continental.
It is very obvious that in the very nature of high-speed train systems, interoperability is absolutely essential for the economic viability of high-speed trains is fundamentally undermined by the delays that otherwise will continue to take place at borders and prevent a meaningful network of high-speed trains across this continent.
Obviously, it is contradictory and fanciful to suggest that the interoperable trans-European high-speed rail system which is needed can be achieved without requiring the existing integrity of national networks to be extensively adapted.
The Commission's approach, which is, I believe, generally supported in this House, is to strive to achieve an integrated trans-European high-speed rail system which is capable of competing with other modes of transport on fair terms and in meeting passenger needs.
That, of course, means the needs of all passengers, including those whose mobility is impaired.
The House is in the debt of Mr Watts who drew specific attention to that issue in the course of this debate.
It is Parliament's emphasis on interoperability that makes me welcome the amendments of the Transport Committee which are before the House today, and I hope that they can be supported by all sides of the House.
In particular, I urge Parliament to give backing to Amendments Nos 6, 7, 8 and 9 relating to the technical specifications for interoperability.
These technical specifications constitute a new and welcome approach in a directive and they apply the proposed directive's technical provisions to lay down standards or norms.
The amendments also seek to restore the full force of our original proposal to the environment, operation and user subsystems.
Different national laws on operation and the environment can obviously be a real obstacle to interoperability, so these aspects must be incorporated into the directive, otherwise the good work done in ensuring interoperability of technical standards will be wasted.
Finally, I particularly commend Amendment No 11, because it reintroduces the concept of consumer protection as an essential requirement in this proposal.
As Mr Watts said, high-speed train interoperability is hardly an inspirational rallying cry.
Although, it must be said that if your train is held up for a long time at a border because of the need to make crew or technical changes, it is possible to develop quite a revolutionary set of feelings about the barriers which still cross our transport system, especially if you are late for a meeting or if it a very hot day and the children are thirsty.
So, high-speed train operability will, as high-speed trains become more extensive, enter the main stream of political vocabulary.
I know Mr Castricum and others will welcome that civilized development.
The delays that are encountered can be ended for high-speed train passengers in the near future.
Then we can make further progress by fostering the interoperability of so-called conventional trains.
I am sure that Mr Castricum and other Members of this House will want to be part of that advance.
I welcome their attitude and their effective work and I hope that it is an attitude that is increasingly shared in practice by Member State governments throughout the whole of the Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Transport of dangerous goods by rail
The next item is the recommendation for second reading A4-0074/96) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0003/96-94/0284(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States on the transport of dangerous goods by rail (rapporteur: Mr Cornelissen).
Mr President, our Group thinks that strict measures are necessary for the transport of dangerous goods in view of the potential dangers.
That applies also to rail transport, which is relatively safe, but often large quantities are involved and railway lines often run through urban areas.
So we are happy to collaborate in the introduction of a uniform system for transport of dangerous materials for the whole territory of the European Union.
Such a uniform system must guarantee an acceptable level of safety and eliminate existing obstructions to free movement of goods between the Member States in the field of means of transport.
The Council's common position complies with these requirements and we can therefore support it, but on two points we are not convinced.
We wish to give the Member States discretion to adopt special rules for transport operations of local significance - I stress local significance - for example transport by narrow-gauge, dock or mountain railways, naturally subject to due regard for Community law and on condition that such rules are not contrary to freedom of movement.
The second point concerns informing the competent authorities in advance where transport of extremely dangerous goods is concerned.
The railway accident in Flanders on Thursday last week made it clear once again that in spite of good safety standards accidents can never be ruled out.
That applies also to transport of extremely dangerous goods.
We think that in the event of an unexpected accident involving particularly dangerous transport operations it is important for the competent authorities to be informed about the operations.
I appreciate that it is not easy to lay down practicable criteria for the concept of 'extremely dangerous goods' .
For that I shall rely on the creativity of Directorate General VII.
Two final remarks.
I am not entirely pleased with the new Article 5(2)(a) and (b) which, for transport via the Channel Tunnel and tunnels with similar characteristics, gives the Member States concerned the power to impose more stringent conditions.
How does the Commissioner think of applying the concept of 'tunnels with characteristics similar to the Channel Tunnel' ? Is it a question of the composition of concrete?
I can imagine a whole series of 'similar characteristics' . What I am concerned about is that the Commission must see to it that this article is not misused to put a spoke in the wheels of the internal market for rail transport.
I understand from a letter which I have just found on the fax that the association of European railway companies is also worried about this.
I should be glad to have a clear answer from the Commissioner on this.
Finally, how does the Commissioner see the development of transport of dangerous goods in the rather longer term? Does he expect a considerable further growth of dangerous goods transport?
If so does he see any reason or opportunity to take action to control it?
Because we are living in a very densely populated part of the world.
Mr President, this proposal has the very commendable objective of harmonizing safety principles within Member States as regards the transportation of dangerous goods.
It is also proposed to transpose into Community law the rules contained in the RID regulations as they are applied to international rail transport to include operations within Member States.
These moves are strongly supported by my group.
At the first reading, concern was expressed about the safety standards of railways in Eastern Europe in particular and also about the advance warning to the public authorities when dangerous goods are being conveyed by train.
In its common position the Council has amended both the Commission's text and Parliament's opinion.
While we as a group can support the position adopted by the rapporteur and the Committee on Transport and Tourism, we have some reservations about the number of derogations introduced by the Council, particularly in Article 5.
We believe this could have the effect of putting rail at a disadvantage compared to other modes of transportation.
My group has always been of the opinion that more freight and in particular freight designated as dangerous or hazardous should be moved by rail.
We know that like us the railways themselves favour a harmonized approach based on the RID principles.
In the previous debate we heard about interoperability of highspeed trains.
My group would like to see this interoperability extended to all modes of rail transportation including, more importantly, freight.
However, we still believe that notification of public authorities is important in the pursuit of safety.
In conclusion, my group will support the report put forward by the Committee on Transport and Tourism but I should like to emphasize the reservations we have about the Council's position, particularly as regards Article 5.
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party welcomes the common position and the opportunity to transpose into national and European law the standards reached by the UN agreement on the transportation of dangerous goods by rail.
The aims are clearly to achieve the highest level of safety and to establish a single market for these transport services within Europe.
Also, the remaining obstacles to free movement of goods between Member States relating to transport equipment such as wagons, cylinders, tanks, packaging and safety devices should be removed through these proposals.
In Article 7 of the common position the Council has accepted the amendment tabled on first reading by Parliament to allow Member States the right to undertake rail transport operations with states of the former Soviet Union which are not contracting parties to the COTIF, and that is something we welcome.
We also welcome the possibility for Member States to retain in very specific cases their national legislation with regard to the transport of dangerous goods via the Channel Tunnel and other similar tunnels of unique construction in the future.
Therefore not just the Channel Tunnel but also - as I am sure the rapporteur will appreciate - other fixed links such as those between Denmark and Sweden.
This and other derogations set out in the common position are restricted in scope to have only local effect and are not likely to hinder the achievement of a single market in rail transport.
We also support the two other amendments, in particular Amendment No 1 calling for the advance warning of the various national authorities in the event of the transportation of extremely dangerous goods.
Also, Amendment No 2 that the rights of Member States should not be restricted as regards the adoption of special rules governing the transportation of dangerous goods on narrow gauge or mountain railways, for instance. These two amendments enhance the common position.
We commend these amendments and the common position to the House.
Mr President, Mr Cornelissen has done a good job and done it relatively quickly, bearing in mind that it was not until January 1996 that he took over responsibility for the problems inherent in aligning the laws of the Member States on the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
And so, although assigning responsibility to the individual Member States, giving them the opportunity of assessing the various cases that may arise, the rapporteur has tried to achieve as uniform an application as possible of the laws on the transport of dangerous goods by rail within the individual Member States and between the states.
For instance, it has been made compulsory for the Member States to notify the competent authorities so that they can alert the emergency services throughout the territory to be crossed.
The derogations relating to the Channel Tunnel and the transport of extremely dangerous goods such as dioxins and furans are also right and proper.
I should like to begin by thanking the Committee on Transport and Tourism and in particular, the rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, for the recommendation for a second reading of this proposal relating to a uniform regime for the safe transport of dangerous goods by rail throughout the whole territory of the Union.
The proposal is intended to remove existing obstacles to free movement of goods between Member States.
Having the same regime for all transport of dangerous goods obviously adds transparency and clarity for the user and ensures greater safety.
Clearly, the Commission recognises that existing national regimes for the transport of dangerous goods have developed separately and diversely.
We naturally appreciate that harmonization cannot be achieved overnight.
We therefore provided for a degree of flexibility in the proposal and allowed Member States to retain more stringent requirements or certain derogations where these do not interfere with the principle of the internal market and free provision of transport services.
The Council increased the flexibility provided for in our original proposal.
I am glad to say that two of Parliament's first reading amendments have been incorporated into the common position, and in certain cases a more restrictive regime for Member States was agreed, a change which reflects the spirit of a third amendment proposed by Parliament at its first reading, as the House may recall.
Turning to the amendments before the House today, I have to say that we consider the first to be unnecessarily bureaucratic and it is also impractical.
It requires all rail consignments of what are described as extremely dangerous goods to be subject to a prior notification procedure.
Since there is no specification of what is meant by 'extremely dangerous' and since very dangerous goods such as radioactive substances are already subject to a notification procedure, we in the Commission see no useful purpose in adding what would be a significant administrative burden with no obvious increase in safety.
The second amendment, which was particularly referred to by Mr Cornelissen, is already addressed in Article 6(11) and the new 6(14) of the common position, which allows Member States to apply less stringent rules to transport which is conducted wholly within a port or airport, within the confines of an industrial site or between two distinct industrial sites.
This amendment is therefore unnecessary.
On the Channel Tunnel point raised by Mr Cornelissen, a delicate political compromise was reached at the Council - as I think he recognizes - to allow continuation of different, more stringent practices through the Channel Tunnel for reasons of safety.
Member States could not accept that existing stricter provisions than the RID would be deleted through this directive.
The unique technical characteristics of the Channel Tunnel and also the Øresund Tunnel, as Miss McIntosh reminded us, were recognized in the Council discussions.
The Commission considers the common position reached in the Council to be a carefully balanced compromise which was arrived at in order to secure an important Community step forward in improving safety in the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
I believe that it is generally the view of Mr Cornelissen and his committee that this is a significant advance.
I thank them for their support and understanding of the fact that it is not always easy to achieve what would be our maximum preferred position by the very nature of the Council which is representative of Member States with a divergence - or at least a diversity - of interests in this and other spheres.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his answer, although he must understand that I do not agree with him in all respects.
But I would ask him to be rather more specific in answering my question about how the Commission will manage with the concept of 'tunnels with characteristics similar to the Channel Tunnel' . Does that mean quite specifically that we must think for example of the tunnel under construction in Denmark and that it will be restricted to that kind of tunnels?
It does not say 'similar tunnels' but the directive says 'tunnels with characteristics similar...' . That makes us a little dubious.
Mr President, I am happy to respond to Mr Cornelissen.
'Similar characteristics' establishes a broadly understandable concept but, in addition, in order to ensure that there is careful assessment, a qualified group will be empowered to undertake rigorous analysis of the major tunnels that could be subject to this legislation.
There is no question, therefore, even within the broad terms of this legislative proposal, of a casual attitude being adopted or of a Member State or Member States discovering some means of evading the effect of the legislation in the case of a major tunnel simply because of some anticipated disparity or some anticipated deficiency in the definition in the proposal.
By their very nature these tunnels are huge pieces of infrastructural development.
By their very nature they must be secure for the purpose of the transport of dangerous goods.
By the very nature of the legislation, and the position of Member States and the Commission, the fullest and most careful examination will be made of the specifications and potential of a tunnel to ensure complete adherence not only to the legislation we have before us, but to the best standards of practice in the transport of dangerous goods.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 7.50 p.m.)
Decision on urgency
Madam President, the Committee on Fisheries has agreed to accept urgent procedure and to ask for this to be placed on the agenda for the procedure without debate.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
The report will therefore be put to the vote on Friday morning.
The deadline for tabling amendments is 12 noon on Wednesday.
Madam President, the Committee on External Economic Relations yesterday unanimously adopted the request for urgency on the report by Mr Pex, as you rightly said.
We hope that the House will do the same.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
This item is also placed on the agenda for Friday.
The deadline for tabling amendments is 12 noon on Wednesday.
Customs 2000
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0083/96) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0006/96-95/0087(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a Community action programme on customs (' Customs 2000' ) (rapporteur: Mr von Wogau).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are voting today at second reading on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a Community action programme on customs known as 'Customs 2000' .
The aim of the programme is to assimilate and increase the efficiency of customs procedures and customs administration.
Many of the working methods and organizational structures used by the national customs services vary widely and urgently need to be brought more closely into line with each other.
At first reading we adopted a number of amendments to the programme, many of which the Commission has incorporated in its amended proposal.
The Council, however, has made it clear in its unanimously adopted common position that it has different priorities from those of Parliament.
This is obvious even from the title of the programme, which the Council calls a 'Community action programme on customs' , whereas the title proposed by the Commission and approved by Parliament was 'action programme for Community customs' .
We had a detailed discussion with the Commission and the Council in the committee on whether or not we have Community customs.
We feel that since we have common external tariffs, we can definitely say that the European Union has common customs which all share the same rules and objectives.
The recommendation before you at second reading lays emphasis on the further development of the European internal market into a proper European home market with open internal borders and a common external border.
Particular attention is to be paid to the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
As a first step towards an eventual common customs administration, customs officials are to wear the twelve-star symbol of the Community to make it clear that they belong to a common service.
On the subject of training, the decision itself proposes the establishment of a European Customs Academy, not to replace the training provided by the administrations in the Member States, but to supplement it and help to bring the Union's customs services together.
Finally, as part of the urgently needed computerization of the customs services in the Union, we propose that they should have the right of access to certain data in the Member States' data bases, and that a common data bank should be set up.
In my opinion, this last point is particularly important and could be especially useful in protecting the Community's financial interests.
Fraud and customs evasion has cost the Community considerable sums of money, a fact which has also led Parliament to set up a committee of inquiry into the Community's freight transport procedures, where there is a particularly high incidence of fraud.
The people who will be most affected by this development are freight carriers, who are liable to the customs administration for the proper execution of the transport procedures.
There are huge sums of money involved here, and the carriers are required to provide the customs office with security for their liability.
Cases of fraudulent evasion of customs duties which are discovered by the customs authorities result in enormous penalties for the carriers.
In the Netherlands alone, carriers have had to pay almost ECU 900 million, the situation in Germany being almost as bad.
For Europe as a whole, the figure is estimated at around ECU 3 billion, and it is often only fairly small-scale firms which are involved.
Individual firms have faced demands for more than DM 50 million, for example, and for many this can spell financial ruin.
In calling for the customs services to be fully computerized as quickly as possible, Parliament therefore hopes to help prevent fraud and protect jobs.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, having arrived at this stage of the discussion following the European Parliament's adoption last October of a strong text after the Council had adopted a rather insipid common position lacking in force and depth, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has sought to restore a more real and direct force to the Customs 2000 programme by voting for a number of amendments.
Among other things, we have sought to reaffirm, through these amendments, the concept of the domestic market to which we attach considerable importance; we have also sought to give more substance to the notion of Community customs with a whole series of distinctive signs and symbols in this area; finally, we have sought to ensure the beginnings of genuine mobility for customs officers between the 15 Member States, common training and exchanges and, of course, the harmonization of controls in quantitative and qualitative terms.
In the field of legislation too, efforts are being made to achieve harmonization between Member States, and there must also be a certain homogeneity between them in the way they interpret this legislation.
But I should like to place particular emphasis, as most members of the committee sought to do, on the fight against all forms of fraud, and fraud arising out of transit operations in particular.
As you know Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a committee of inquiry has been set up to investigate fraud involving Community transit operations and its initial findings have already shown that there is a great deal of fraud and a great deal of effort required in the matter of TIR documents, computerizing the Community transit system, data exchange, and effective checks on these data.
Finally, in regard to the committee's amendments, we urged increased cooperation with third countries, and the CEEC countries in particular, through training programmes such as the Matthaeus programme.
We stress that sufficient funds should be made available under this programme to enable the declarations of intent to be expressed in action in the field.
Such are the conclusions of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and at this point I should like to thank our rapporteur and chairman Mr von Wogau.
I will end by inviting Parliament to approve these amendments, without which this programme, which is important by the very fact of its existence, would risk being seen as no more than an artifice by many people.
I repeat, if we want to be credible we must combat all the many forms of fraud which abound within the Union and which prompt nationalist reactions.
Madam President, a single market needs common protection.
This common protection needs harmonized and strong customs at the Community's borders, and that is precisely the subject of this report which we would like to see reinforced by a vote in favour of a number of our amendments.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to thank the rapporteur on behalf of my group for the great commitment he has shown over a number of weeks while working on this recommendation.
His goals of ensuring the successful operation of the internal or, as he calls it, home market and helping to combat fraud and illegal trade are objectives which we all share.
There are two points which I should like to raise. As I see it, this programme needs to ensure that customs controls are equally strict at all border crossings, including ports and airports, and it is up to you, Commissioner, to see that this happens.
People are not happy that revenue should be lost and fraud encouraged because of slack controls at certain border points in the Community.
The Community has uniform customs legislation and should therefore ensure that customs controls are applied equally strictly everywhere.
I think the programme you have proposed will be helpful here, but you will also have to monitor it in practice.
The second point I would like to make concerns a completely different aspect of the programme.
I welcomed the Commission's proposal - which was approved by the Council in the common position - that the interests of those involved in external trade should also be taken into consideration, in other words that importers and exporters should be involved.
I think it is an excellent idea to examine whether the customs rules can be simplified, since complicated rules merely encourage mistakes and fraud, whereas simpler controls would be much more effective.
I therefore welcome the fact that the Commission has said it is prepared to try to help importers and exporters by considering ways to simplify procedures.
I also think it is excellent that instead of simply handing down instructions from on high, the Member States wish to reach agreement with the freight carriers, importers and exporters on how computerized procedures can be used to simplify controls and apply them in practice.
I think that this form of partnership between economic operators and customs authorities is a very good idea and should definitely be followed up.
Finally, we should point out to the Council once again - assuming that it ever reads our proceedings - that there is no point in proposing a joint decision on improving customs if the Member States do not then provide their customs services with the funding and technology needed to put the decision into effect.
In my view, there is a good deal of ground to be made up with the installation of decent computer systems at all border controls throughout the Community, and this is something for which the Member States are responsible.
Madam President, the issue we are again discussing today - in the hope of being able to arrive at a definition of it - is of the greatest importance for the European internal market.
We clearly welcome the fact - and he has the support of my group - that it is actually the chairman of the Committee on Economic Affairs, Mr von Wogau, who is dealing with it, because there is, basically, broad consensus within the committee on the objectives put forward.
I would remind honourable Members that those objectives are crucial to the creation of a genuine internal market: what is involved here is in fact applying the common policies, regulating and facilitating trade both inside and outside the Community, collecting duties and taxes, securing compliance with fiscal and statistical rules, guaranteeing the protection of the Community's financial, economic, commercial and industrial interests, combating illegal trafficking and, above all, guaranteeing protection of the Community's environment and cultural heritage and of consumers.
There is one aspect in particular - and indeed it is one which came to light earlier - to which I would like to draw attention once again, namely the importance of identifying the customs authorities to which the 'Customs 2000' programme is addressed.
It is very important to define the powers of customs officers, and these have, of necessity to be uniform throughout the Union.
We welcome then the extension and automation envisaged and the setting-up of an information system with a common data-base which has a twofold function: firstly, to eliminate the incompatibility between the various systems of data preparation and, therefore, simplify customs procedures and, secondly, to serve as a useful instrument to combat fraud and illegal trafficking - a task that has assumed great importance since the creation of the single market and one to which the customs authorities can now devote all of the resources that are gradually being freed up.
We firmly believe that this proposal may represent a vital step towards the completion of the internal market.
Madam President, the Customs 2000 programme is very important and it is still more important to launch it with realistic objectives.
In this respect Parliament is perhaps attempting to achieve rather overambitious objectives too quickly.
For a long time to come we will be aiming rather at speedier cooperation between customs systems than at a separate common customs system - not least because there are still very sensitive issues associated with the external borders.
The Greens wish to stress the importance of customs cooperation with third countries and the European Union's immediate neighbours.
In our opinion at least one-fifth of the Customs 2000 funds should be used to develop those countries' customs institutions and cooperation with them.
It is also important to remember that, when the common data banks are set up which are essential in the fight against fraud, data protection will be needed to prevent these data banks being removed from the citizens' control and used against them.
Madam President, both the proposed programme and Mr von Wogau's report are something of a curate's egg.
It appears from various sources that the introduction of free movement has led to a sharp increase in the incidence and scale of fraud in the export, import and transfer of goods, so we now need to focus our efforts on taking adequate measures to combat fraud.
The possibility of exchanging real-time information through computerized data banks and mutually accessible computer networks will spearhead these efforts, and as far as I am concerned, setting up a joint training institute comes much further down the list of priorities.
I am astonished at the proposals for customs officers to wear the European Union emblem on their uniforms and for the creation of a single Community customs service, which are purely symbolic gestures amounting to nothing more than window-dressing.
One last point.
The planned accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will mean extra work for the European Union, and we should start now to prepare the ground for future cooperation with the customs services of these countries.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Mr Jarzembowski welcomed the fact that the programme specifically includes economic operators.
But if only we had included them in the past and heeded their warnings, we would not now be planning to extend the T1 system to cover the Visegrad states.
Freight carriers - who were mentioned a moment ago and who really do face enormous financial penalties which they have not themselves incurred - and their associations have repeatedly warned against extending the T1 system to the Visegrad states or others at the present time, not because these countries are not to be trusted or because we do not wish to have them in the system, or because we do not know how important these first moves towards enlargement are, but because the T1 system is now no longer working even in the European Union and the EFTA countries and is, according to the Commission, on the point of collapse.
To put it bluntly, there is no point in having talks with economic operators or with the customs authorities if we do not draw the appropriate conclusions.
If all that happens at the end of the day is that a political decision is taken which cannot be justified in practical terms, then even the most constructive talks are useless.
Nevertheless, we would of course welcome the continuation of talks as part of this programme.
I have a comment to make about Amendment No 16, which has caused some misunderstanding because it calls for direct customs control to have priority over every other method.
This does not mean, of course, that every lorry has to be unloaded at the border or its destination, which would, as we all know, be quite stupid.
But the approach adopted by the Commission and the Member States at the moment, of demanding higher guarantees, asking for individual sureties, extending the periods during which controls may be carried out, carrying out audits which produce statistics on fraud instead of preventing it, and then claiming payment retrospectively from the operators we have talked about so often - all of this is wrong.
The aim is not to find a scapegoat and hold them responsible for as long as possible.
The aim must be to take deterrent and preventive action, and this is only possible with controls.
What has been happening in the past few weeks with the abolition of securities for certain products and the introduction of individual sureties for sensitive products is already ruining some firms, and this is surely not what anyone here wants.
Madam President, it is obvious when a programme like 'Customs 2000' was thought up there is no doubt that everyone who created the single market had no doubt that ending customs barriers would means more fraud, more unfair competition and more crime within the European economy.
Noone was in any doubt about that.
And there is no doubt that the romantic symbol of gold stars on the customs officers' new uniform is going to do anything to solve this problem...
The measures which must be taken are well and truly enshrined in Articles 7 and 8.
Will those measures be taken?
Will there be really any interest among the Member States to take these measures? Will not many top officials in various Member States be interested in making sure that there is a certain freedom in terms of fraud so that competition takes place and their products can be sold?
To what extent can Member States be made responsible for ensuring that provision already taken should actually be executed? The problem here is that of making the Member States shoulder responsibility since there are European citizens on blacklists and it will certainly be necessary to point out which governments and administrations fail to comply with the rules set within the Council of Ministers and the Commission.
Otherwise the whole of this can have no effect and the Customs 2000 programme will just be another document worked out by the Commission and the Council of Ministers.
However, I would like to see political will be made compulsory and I would like to see the states held in check because, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, unless states actually play their part it will be almost impossible for their to be fraud in current proportions.
Madam President, I have only a few brief comments to make on a report whose conclusions I largely support.
As regards Amendment No 5, of which I am in favour, I believe that it is important to stress that if it proves possible at Community level to agree criteria for the scale of customs controls, those criteria should be for a minimum level of checks.
This means that the individual Member States should undertake to achieve at least a certain standard of control but that they will be at complete liberty to introduce a stricter system of checks if they so wish.
In the debate in the Committee on Economic Affairs Mr Von Wogau also confirmed that the criteria would be of this minimum nature.
I should like to point out that there is considerable concern in my country that the single market may make it more difficult for us to carry out effective customs to prevent the importation of drugs.
An overwhelming majority of the population want us to be able to step up inspections if we so wish.
For this reason I am also critical of the formulations in Amendment No 3.
I believe that we can, without in any serious way having to obstruct the free movement of goods and services, preserve a certain measure of internal border controls, precisely in order to prevent various forms of cross-border crime, such as that involving drugs.
Finally, Madam President, I have my doubts about the value of customs officials' uniforms bearing the EU logo with the twelve stars.
Insignia indicating authority on police and customs officers' uniforms, for example, should after all refer to the underlying legal powers, that is to say, in the case of Swedish customs officials, the Swedish state and the Swedish legal system.
I therefore regard the twelve stars as a worthless symbol.
I admit, however, that this issue is completely insignificant and it does not affect my positive attitude to Mr Von Wogau's report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau, for the important work he has done.
As stated in the report, the vital precondition for creating a genuine internal market is that there has to be joint protection of external frontiers.
That kind of joint protection is designed to guarantee the security of economic operators in the European Union; to protect the Community's financial interests and provide everyone, traders and citizens, with the same treatment in their dealings with the customs authorities.
Bearing in mind those fundamental objectives, the Commission put forward this text on 6 April 1995, and it was first considered by the House on 25 October last.
Of the 34 amendments you then tabled, 23 were taken up by the Commission in its amended proposal of 21 November, and 14 adopted by the Council in the common position of 22 December 1995.
As I emphasized to the House at the time of first reading, this programme forms part of the policy that the Commission has been applying since 1993, designed to set in place a framework that will encourage cooperation between the authorities of the Member States and between those authorities and the Commission, thereby improving the administration of the internal market.
In compliance with the Treaty - and it has clearly to be taken into account - this is not intended to take the place of the responsibility of the Member States for implementing Community law or collecting own resources: the intention is rather to create a form of constructive collaboration to secure better coordination of those activities.
The 'Customs 2000' programme is in no way intended to interfere with the organization of the public authorities or national administrations or to intervene directly in the area of customs cooperation strictly speaking, a sector in which, under Title VI of the Treaty, the Commission has no power of initiative.
Similarly, this decision does not of itself represent the main instrument devised by the Commission to tackle serious but specific problems it has identified in relation to fraud, particularly as regards transit.
Those issues will be specifically dealt with, in separate proposals, in a different context.
Nonetheless, the 'Customs 2000' programme will provide a framework particularly suited to developing a genuine policy of prevention to combat customs fraud.
And it is in the light of those objectives that the Commission has weighed up the amendments tabled in your draft decision on second reading.
The House proposes incorporating 23 amendments into the common position of the Council - on which the Commission gave its view on 11 January.
Many of them are the product of discussions held with representatives of the Council and the Commission as part of an informal tripartite dialogue; others take up again amendments from first reading that were not adopted by the Council or, in some cases, the Commission, Some, finally, are not, in our view necessary because they are already present in the text of the Council's common position.
Consequently, the Commission is able to accept, as currently drafted, Amendments Nos 1, 3, 5, 7, 9(2), 15, 21 and 23; it can also accept, with some changes to the wording, Amendments Nos 2, 4, 8, 10, 11(1), 19 and 20.
The Commission cannot, however, take on board those amendments which, in its view, run counter to the principle of subsidiarity and seek, one way or another, to shift what is properly the responsibility of the Member States to the Commission or the Community: that applies to Amendments Nos 6, 9(1), 11(2), 14, 17, 18, 22 and 25.
Even though the latter amendments cannot be accepted as such, the Commission believes that the ideas underlying some of them reflect objectives endorsed by the Commission.
That being so, the Commission undertakes to include those issues in the work that will be done in implementing this programme.
Finally, there are three amendments which we consider unnecessary because they reflect amendments from the first reading which the Council has already included, in substance at least, in the common position: they are Amendments Nos 12, 13, 16 and 24.
To conclude, the Commission welcomes the great interest that the 'Customs 2000' programme has generated in the House and the active support our proposal has been given.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Industrial policy for the pharmaceutical sector
The next item is the report (A4-0104/96) by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament (COM(93)0718 - C3-0121/94) on the outlines of an industrial policy for the pharmaceutical sector in the European Community.
Madam President, I should like to begin by saying how much I have enjoyed working with my colleagues on this pharmaceutical report, especially recently in the various rounds of votes and compromises, and I should like to thank them all for their help and cooperation.
Ladies and gentlemen, this report is sure to provoke very widely differing views on the industrial policy we should pursue in the pharmaceutical sector.
This is certain to be the case, since the report is supported by a majority in Parliament, but the Commission, so I was told by one of Mr Bangemann's press officers, is anything but happy with it, saying that we are 'making a lot of work for the Commission' with it. So we clearly do not see eye to eye on this.
I should like to pick up on this point.
The Commission communication, Mr Bangemann, unfortunately devotes far too little attention to the quality aspects of innovation in the pharmaceutical sector, the need for patients to have objective information on drugs, and ethical issues relating to their licensing and production.
We in Parliament, and I as rapporteur for this report, demand that an ethics committee be set up at the European Medicines Agency in London, and that patients' representatives be appointed to its management board and scientific committees.
Mr Bangemann, we were at the EMEA conference in London together, and I assume that you, as a forward-thinking consumer protector, will also support these demands.
I would like to stress that certain passages in this report have been watered down as a compromise, to ensure that it would receive a majority.
This is, of course, not the ideal way to produce a report, but in the end the wording is always some sort of compromise.
On the subject of patent protection periods for generic medicines, I have not only emphasized the vital role which these medicines play in social policy terms, but also the fact that more and more pharmaceutical companies are becoming heavily involved in the generics sector, either directly or through participation in research.
Further aspects covered in the report which, I am glad to say, most of my colleagues in the committee voted for, include calls for restrictions on animal testing, opening up the European market for herbal and homeopathic medicines, and the close monitoring of mergers in the pharmaceutical sector, which have a considerable impact on employment.
We are also calling for a responsible export policy in the pharmaceutical sector, with the introduction of a code of conduct.
I am delighted that at its last meeting at the end of March this year, the Council adopted a decision on the implementation of guidelines for an industrial policy in the pharmaceutical sector, which puts forward a number of suggestions and calls on the Commission - and I should like to hear what you have to say on this, Mr Bangemann - to bring forward proposals for improving transparency in the sector and taking greater account of the interests of generic and herbal medicine producers.
I am particularly pleased because these are things that we also emphasize in the report, and they are evidence of a modern approach which considers the interests of patients and consumers as well as those of the industry itself.
In conclusion, I should just like to say that I think the Conservative and Liberal groups here in the House have been very unconstructive in tabling amendments which directly contradict this modern approach, and it shows that they have simply swallowed the very intensive lobbying from the industry.
Let me be quite clear about this. A modern industrial policy must not be geared towards either producers or customers.
It must be geared towards society and its legitimate needs, and above all, Mr Bangemann, it must have the courage to innovate.
In my view, the report should be adopted as it stands.
I assume that Parliament has the courage to innovate, and that the House can tell the difference between the Commission's proposal, which was very much geared towards the industry, and the committee's carefully considered and jointly adopted alternative.
I hope that it will be widely supported, and I would be delighted if it helped to give the people of Europe confidence in our ability to protect those who are ill.
Madam President, I should like to start where the rapporteur has left off.
As Commissioner Bangemann knows, no one has fought harder for the principle of industrial policy in this House over the last three years than myself and some of the other Members who will be taking part in this debate.
We have to recognize, however, that the idea of having an industrial policy for the pharmaceutical industry is rather different from the other industries we have dealt with in the past.
We have to acknowledge that the pharmaceutical industry is intimately linked to health issues and to the national social security systems of our Member States.
When we determine an industrial policy - which we should do for the pharmaceutical sector - we have to recognize that it is a much broader sector than the other industries we have looked at in the past.
At a time when governments are trying to cut their budget deficits, we have to look at the costs involved in buying the pharmaceuticals for the health of our nations.
To ensure that we have healthy citizens we have to ensure that drugs are as inexpensive as possible.
The Socialist Group supports an industrial policy.
We do not believe that we should cherry-pick.
We want to see a comprehensive industrial strategy for the European Union and we do not believe we should only look at industries which are in decline.
Therefore, we welcome the Commission's proposal to look at the pharmaceutical industry.
Indeed, we want the Commission to come back in the very near future with a new communication on the pharmaceutical industry based on the consultations they have taken on their 1994 proposal and recognizing the rapid developments taking place in this sector.
There is global competition in this sector.
We recognize that with global markets we have to look at this key industry and ensure that it is competitive within the European Union.
That is why the report we have produced looks at a number of key issues.
We want to encourage innovation.
We want adequate protection of new medicinal products.
We want the availability of medicinal products for citizens throughout the European Union.
But in addition - and we see no contradiction in this - we want the development of an EU-based generic pharmaceutical industry as a positive contribution to competition.
There is no contradiction if we recognize the importance of the pharmaceutical industry for the health of our citizens and for our national social security systems.
We also want close monitoring of mergers, specific action towards emerging activities such as biotechnology, on which we are trying to cooperate with Commissioner Bangemann at the moment to secure rational proposals for the European Union, and of course we want the promotion of responsible selfmedication.
So, we want a well-balanced industrial policy but we want to make sure that this balance recognizes the responsibility that the pharmaceutical industry has in Europe.
It has its industrial responsibilities but also a responsibility towards every single citizen that may need to use these products in the future.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission report has been out for two years now, and the House has discussed it in great detail over that period.
It is a good thing that Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer can now tell us that the wording of various passages has been watered down, because the proposals she originally put forward were completely unworkable.
But there are still plenty of points in this report that we do not agree with, and I think it is too simplistic to claim, as Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer does, that every argument put forward by the industry must be unconstructive.
This is not the right way to go about things.
After intensive discussions, there are now four points on which we have tabled amendments with the Liberals: firstly, the question of whether the best way to ensure the future viability of the sector is through greater competition or more regulation; secondly, the role of genetic technology and biotechnology in the development of medicines for the future, particularly for previously incurable diseases; thirdly, the research and development of innovative products; and fourthly, closely linked to that, the question of generic medicines and selfmedication.
We feel that the Commission report paints a relatively accurate picture, but the proposals which it puts forward still need some improvement.
We agree with the Socialist Group's analysis here.
However, I do not believe that price controls and other measures which restrict competition are the way to ensure future viability. What we need instead are measures which promote competition and thus give firms the opportunity to establish their innovative capacity on a long-term basis, and to offer people better medicines for the future.
The future role of genetic technology and biotechnology is still in dispute, and although we need to take account of people's concerns and fears, this does not mean that we should simply reject this vital field out of hand.
We must analyse the situation carefully, and if Europe's industry is to remain competitive, we cannot afford simply to say 'this is all too dangerous for us' , otherwise we shall soon see the entire sector move to the USA.
The most controversial subject in the committee was the issue of generic medicines, on which there was fierce lobbying from the industry.
We feel that we should keep to the compromise we reached earlier, which was that we should encourage the prescription of generic medicines in general, but without jeopardizing the level of innovative research being carried out in the industry, and so the agreed protection periods should be maintained.
What we could do, however, is to harmonize the durations of these periods, which vary between six and 36 months in Europe for generics, with an average of 18 months after the expiry of the patent period.
This is one area where we can actually achieve something, and I think it would be a good way to promote greater transparency and more competition on the market.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the Liberal Group feels that if our policy in the pharmaceutical sector is to be successful, we need to strike a sound balance between public health requirements on the one hand, and on the other the need to have a competitive pharmaceutical industry as the jewel in the European economy's crown.
In recent weeks, however, I have had the distinct impression that some people in this House see government cutbacks in healthcare as the only reason for introducing a policy for the pharmaceutical sector in the Union, and regard generic medicines as the ideal solution.
There are a number of factors which they have completely overlooked, however.
First and foremost, there is the importance of medical progress.
Research and progress in the pharmaceutical industry depend entirely on having a watertight patent protection period.
Ten to twelve years of exclusive rights are absolutely vital when you know that out of tens of thousands of active substances, only one or two will produce a marketable drug.
Secondly, we must not forget that the market for generics is a purely commercial one and involves only products which are commercially successful.
Thirdly, the comparison with the situation in the United States does not hold water.
The United States does not have price regulation, so the pharmaceutical industry can recover its research costs more quickly.
The same goes for the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany, where the free pricing system has already produced a flourishing market in generic medicines, whereas in Belgium and France the market is practically non-existent.
The solution lies in free pricing, not in cutting down on the patent protection periods.
The American market is also not fragmented as it is in the Union, where the protection period is calculated from the first time a licence is granted in any of the Member States.
Finally, the innovative pharmaceutical sector is one of the leading generators of employment.
It has a much greater multiplier effect on other sectors and itself employs 530 000 people in Europe, 80 000 of them highly skilled.
Apart from her desire to reduce the patent protection periods, it is the rapporteur's views on genetic technology and biotechnology which cause me the greatest anxiety.
I wonder which is the more ethical: encouraging scientists to carry out genetic research into diseases which cannot yet be treated, or thinking that we politicians can judge how this genetic research should be developed or curbed.
I hope that when you vote, ladies and gentlemen, you will put the interests of medical progress and a competitive pharmaceutical industry in Europe first.
Madam President, in relation to this report it is important to emphasise the special nature of the pharmaceutical industrial sector.
It is umbilically linked to public health and, as point E demonstrates, we should first of all aim at the objective of providing the whole population with safe and efficient medicines.
This undeniable priority comes up at Community level against the differences between the health systems and social security regimes in the different Member States and various national peculiarities.
On one hand it is a sector which illustrates in the extreme and with many contradictions the process of private transnationalisation leading to the destruction of national industrial sectors.
From this point of view various factories which are technically performing well and which have very good laboratories have been put out of action, abandoned and transformed, because of mainly financial transactions, into mere warehouses or places where labels are changed.
The case of Portugal would be a perfect example of this accelerated and perverse evolution which has made the production and trade in medicines completely dependent on the outside.
We can only ask, as hinted at in part I, whether it will be inevitable that the European pharmaceutical sector should suffer the same fate as other national sectors, given that Europe is the biggest medicine market in the world, as is pointed out with emphasis in the opinion issued by the Committee on Social Affairs.
These remarks took on particular expediency when the 'mad cow' crisis took over the front pages and became one of the main preoccupations of the public, bringing to the fore the question of medicines and their control, a control which the exclusive interests of transnational capital accumulation have gradually taken over and turned into a problem of recovery.
It is obvious that the pharmaceuticals industry demands huge resources and calls for extremely burdensome research spending.
However it is very important to prevent that research and development from being exclusively at the service of private interests rather than mankind as a whole or public health.
The delicate nature of these questions and the dimension of the interests at stake are both reflected in the report which should deal less with the market and prices.
But that is how things are.
We must emphasise and point to Vote 26/24 behind this motion for a resolution and the clearly trade-biased orientation of some of the amendments, and we wish to point to the top priority which the pharmaceuticals industry should aim at and which is its raison d'être - helping public health.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, what we are doing here is developing a European industrial policy for a particular sector.
In the pharmaceutical sector, we need to reconcile a number of different interests.
First of all, there is our common heritage of biodiversity and acquired scientific knowledge, the latter being a basic prerequisite for the development of pharmaceutical products.
Secondly, there are the interests of society, since our social security and healthcare systems are greatly affected by price levels in this sector.
Thirdly, there is our common interest in lasting innovation for the future, which means that we will always need industrialists, and they in turn will always need a challenge.
Big profits are not enough, otherwise we would have seen a flood of industrial innovation in Europe in recent years, which has clearly not been the case.
Those who have invested in the sector, however, quite legitimately wish to see a return on their capital.
Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer's report, as adopted by the committee, contains a number of acceptable compromises, and I think it would be most inadvisable to reject these in the hope that giving the industry carte blanche is the right thing to do.
It would be wrong for us to introduce a German-style industrial policy which simply allows the economy of this sensitive sector to govern itself. What we need is to achieve a democratic balance of interests which presents a challenge to the pharmaceutical industry, and thereby stimulates the innovation that is required.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a commendable report, despite a rather unfortunate title.
Is not an industrial policy for the pharmaceutical sector reminiscent of the planning we used to see in the iron curtain countries? The argumentation without discussion is cast in the same mould.
While it is admittedly impossible to harmonize the management policies in the pharmaceutical sector, there are certain major subjects of concern which this report fails to address.
Let us first turn to what are known as 'orphan drugs' , meaning those withdrawn from the market as they are not profitable due to insufficient use.
A specific approach to this problem is essential due to the appearance of new forms of nonepidemiological illnesses.
A medicine exists because it provides treatment, irrespective of whether it is profitable or not.
Japan and the United States have awarded orphan drugs special status.
In Europe there is a legal vacuum in this area.
The legal status of orphan drugs in the United States means that they enjoy privileged status for clinical trails, tax credits, etc.
They are not withdrawn from the market; they do not stop producing them; they are not marketed - but they are made available to the medical profession.
This question of orphan drugs leads us to the whole matter of public health.
Europe should endeavour to promote this protection of life at all levels, without excluding the so-called risk groups or the victims of rare diseases.
A healthy notion of public health must allow every individual to obtain treatment according to his real needs.
This communication from the Commission seems to be seeking to ascertain how best to restrict the supply of health care.
This is unacceptable.
The report's conclusions show a certain boy scout enthusiasm, proposing an industrial policy for this sector which amounts to creating a multispeed Europe in the health sector and thus for the individual.
When you then add to this a failure to understand the market economy, the potion becomes all the more poisonous.
Just one additional question: How do people view the merger of Ciba-Geigy and Hoffmann-Laroche, which is a result of this report?
Madam President, I wish to record my thanks to the rapporteur for her important work on this key industrial sector in the European Union.
The difficulty that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has had with this report, to which the rapporteur and Mr Donnelly have alluded, is that we have no context in which to set this work.
We have no real public health strategy for the European Union, and this is an important omission, which perhaps we can rectify in other pieces of work.
The rapporteur has rightly drawn attention to some of the problems of the sector and particularly to the way in which companies in the United States of America are in many ways making gains.
She has drawn attention to the employment consequences of mergers and other changes, and she has rightly drawn attention to the problems of exporting into poorer countries drugs which are not allowed to go on sale within the European Union.
The area I wish to concentrate on particularly is responsible self-medication.
It is a difficult area, because, on the one hand, Parliament would want to support the patients' right either to choose or to be involved in the choice of what drug treatment is the most appropriate for them.
There is also an important cost element here and sometimes these two objectives can be in contradiction.
All over the European Union - indeed all over the world - policy-makers are concerned about the costs of health care and there is a temptation to make drugs available over the counter that ought more properly only to be prescribed by a doctor or a pharmacist.
This leads me on to the important role of the pharmacist in the sale and prescription of over-the-counter medicines.
We need effective labelling, effective and comprehensive testing and pharmaceutical advice if patients are to make a genuine, informed choice about over-the-counter prescriptions.
It is difficult to balance the need for adequate regulation and the safeguarding of patients' rights.
I also wish to draw attention to the part of the report that states, and I quote directly: ' Growth [in the pharmaceutical industry] cannot be a political aim in itself since there is no direct relationship between the consumption of pharmaceuticals and the health of the public.'
Now, perhaps that might be more tenuous were we to look at it in a worldwide context.
But certainly to look at the pharmaceutical industry and its effectiveness without placing it in the context of the link between poverty and health, between housing and health, between employment and health, between education and health, means a serious omission.
I welcome the report.
I welcome the innovation.
I do not agree that we need a pharmaceutical industry with price controls as they are at the moment, but this is an important contribution to a key-sector policy development.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as a practising pharmacist and someone with research experience in the pharmaceutical industry, there are two points that I should like to make.
I tabled an amendment on self-medication in which I urged that medicines which are no longer to be prescription-only should still be available only from pharmacies, and only issued once the pharmacist has been able to advise the patient.
The most obvious thing that the medical profession does is to advise patients and help them with self-medication.
The transition of medicines from being prescription-only to being available over the counter must be carefully monitored.
I am thinking here in particular of patients who were addicted to phenacetin and often used to take headache pills just for fun, and I see the same warning signs with the uncontrolled consumption of aspirin, which people now seem to regard as a panacea.
Moving on to the question of support for generic medicines, the main thing as far as I am concerned is that while generics are certainly of considerable value, the same competitive conditions must apply for them as for innovative drugs.
Only those who have no idea of the huge costs involved in researching new drugs could be in favour of granting earlier licences for generics.
The comparison with the United States, it must be said, simply does not hold water.
As has already been pointed out, patents are protected for 16 years nationwide in the US, whereas in Europe, protection only takes effect once the product has been licensed in the various individual countries.
I am not in favour of making generics prescription-only, since I think it is better to leave them to market forces.
As for the use of genetic technology in the production of pharmaceuticals, I can only see the huge opportunities which this offers, and I feel that there is no point in discussing the risks until we can assess the advances that are likely to be made in the treatment of diseases which present a major threat to mankind.
Madam President, few reports have been the subject of such intensive lobbying by the industry concerned and I think this is always instructive.
I have been part of a minority - but a substantial minority - in the Liberal Group in welcoming this report, although I feel that the criticisms of the Commission in paragraphs 3 and 4 are perhaps unjustifiably harsh.
The absence of a free market in pharmaceutical products is regrettable.
It is unhelpful to the companies producing research-based innovative drugs; it is unhelpful to the consumer who enjoys less choice, and it is unhelpful to society which eventually pays a higher price in terms of a weaker industry and fewer jobs.
I suspect that the cost of moving to a free market would be much lower than we imagine but, of course, once the psychology of restricted markets has taken hold it is hard to get over that.
But if we need a free market we also need normal patent procedures.
Why cannot we allow, as they do in the United States, companies producing generic medicines to begin their development work in advance of the expiry of patents? We know that this work is done for European companies in Turkey and in Iceland, for example.
It is costing us jobs here in the European Union.
There is more than a little hypocrisy among the large pharmaceutical companies, most of which have generic subsidiaries.
They want to hunt with the hounds and to run with the hare.
In the United States they see the generic medicine sector as an important job creator.
This report calls for the opening of that sector.
It also calls for other important changes: for the establishment of an ethics committee in the European Medicines Evaluation Agency; for measures to reduce the extent of testing on live animals; for the promotion of alternative treatments, so important especially in the homeopathic field, and for responsible selfmedication; for a ban on the export to developing countries of medicines we would not allow here; and for the harmonization of registration requirements for pharmaceuticals.
All of these would lead to a safer, healthier society with more sustainable medicinal practices and a pharmaceutical industry better geared to meet the challenges of the future.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a large part of our European identity is based on our system of social protection and, in particular, our system of health insurance.
Despite the disparities between various Member States, this remains one of the most developed in the world, to the point where it is a reference for half the population of the planet for whom the prospect of illness spells disaster.
In this respect, Mrs Soltwedel has drawn up a very clear and detailed report which deserves our praise.
At the international level, the pharmaceutical sector is going through a period of upheaval, caught between the globalization of competition and cost-cutting measures applied to public health systems.
Although Europe has a large medicines market, it also fortunately has a great scientific and industrial tradition: something known as good manufacturing practice, a notion which must be preserved.
Medicines are an essential factor in protecting health.
The availability, quality, effectiveness and safety of medicines must all be improved - on this point the report is categoric - in order to guarantee treatment or cure for everybody, and also prevention.
In this respect we must always remember the importance of information and the essential health safety on which insufficient stress is laid.
Any fudging in this area is to be rejected.
We must impose strict regulations and not leave the market to impose its own rules.
In regard to reagents, which were recently the subject of a debate in this House, we must of course refer to the sad case of the 'Abbot' AIDS screening tests.
I repeat, it is essential to prevent any backsliding and to establish sufficient health safety not only between the Member States but everywhere.
Let us learn the necessary lessons from the situation caused by the bovine spongiform encephalopathy prion.
We must not limit the action of the public authorities in this field and confine the pharmaceutical sector to the area of industrial policy alone.
There is also the matter of health and people's lives to be considered.
I repeat, that is what health safety is all about.
We must also endeavour to increase price transparency, although I know that the treaties do not, unfortunately, yet allow us to cause governments and laboratories to make an effort on this subject.
I am in favour of the use of generic medicines, but we must not dismantle the system of patents, without which there would be no research or investment, the costs of which are a growing burden.
As to gentle and homeopathic medicines, these attract me but also leave me sceptical.
As chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I should like to add a word on the need for the public authorities to assist orphan drugs and a whole range of treatments which are vital to the third world - such as vaccines - but which are not profitable enough to allow laboratories to produce them or conduct the research prior to production.
Finally, I welcome the creation of the European Medicine Evaluation Agency.
I see this is an excellent first step towards Community regulation.
I should like to end by looking at the need for bioethics and also add that I see Europe's increasing drug consumption as harmful.
There are countries which stuff themselves with tranquilizers, but I do not know of any pill against misfortune or unemployment.
The general public should be made aware of the good use of medicines and, perhaps, of the difference between what is learned at the faculties of medicine and the reality of the situation, which has changed.
Madam President, first of all I should like to say that the communication from the Commission on industrial policy for the pharmaceutical sector is appropriate and balanced, although in the future there will have to be more ambitious proposals to make innovation possible.
It calls the attention of governments and of public opinion to the need to create a social climate conducive to therapeutic research.
Certain mistaken scientific, economic and social policies in the last 25 years have led to the European pharmaceutical industry's losing almost 25 % of its competitive edge in introducing new medicines on the world market.
We cannot support the report presented by the rapporteur.
The Group of the European People's Party has therefore tabled a block of amendments which we think it is essential to approve.
It must not be forgotten that therapeutic progress would be best served by the promotion of innovation as would lightening the future burdens on social security systems.
The best protection of the interests of patients as consumers is the availability of high quality, safe and effective medicines.
We forget that a medicine is an active substance coupled with a process of pharmacological and clinical research, plus information and civil and criminal liability.
Medicines known as 'generic' , which make no contribution to therapeutic or social progress, contribute nothing to that.
It is only a factor of selfregulation and must be taken as such.
Many of the speeches made by distinguished fellow-Members on this report forget that there is very full legislation in the European Union and that this communication deals only with the perspectives of an industrial pharmaceutical policy.
If we had concentrated on that, perhaps we should have achieved a better result and practically full support for the Commission's proposals.
Madam President, I too am a small but active minority within the Group of the European People's Party.
Pharmaceutical research is both costly and time-consuming, and it can take up to ten or twelve years before a new medicine is ready to be put on the market.
In 1993 the average cost of research and development was estimated at ECU 275 million.
You can well imagine that sums like this can only be generated by companies with sufficient cashflow throughout the ten years which it takes to develop a new product.
And not only are the costs high, there is also a considerable element of risk involved.
All of this means that it is only the really big companies that can spare the money for research and development.
The recent report by the Commission on the state of Europe's industry indicates that the European pharmaceutical industry is smaller than its American rivals, which would imply that Europe's industry finds it much more difficult to finance research and development.
Twenty years ago, 50 % of all new medicines were still developed in Europe, whereas now the figure has dropped to 30 %, though I hesitate to say whether this is a cause or an effect of the difference in market share.
I obviously do not want American patent-holders to carry on benefiting once the patent has expired.
The patent period was the reward we offered the industry under the previous GATT system, in return for its investment in developing new products.
At the same time, there is a risk that all our technological know-how will move to America and Japan, where you can start research before the patent expires, if we do not provide the same conditions in Europe.
So we need to introduce an exemption in Europe to allow research into generic medicines to start before the patents on them expire.
We need to allow products to be developed and marketed as soon as possible, so that production costs can be recouped as quickly as possible.
If the House does not support paragraph 17, we shall simply be relegating our industry still further down the table.
Producers in Asia and America, where there is a research exemption, will pull further and further ahead, and in ten years' time we could be reading a Commission report which says that only 10 % of products are now developed here.
Madam President, this debate has shown that our communication was very necessary and, in my view, that we still need to discuss this issue further.
A number of questions have been raised here today which need to be examined in detail.
The Commission - and Mr Watson is right to defend us here, I think - absolutely rejects the rapporteur's claims in paragraphs 3 and 4 that we have not taken account of basic aspects of the industry and that we expect competition to be the magic solution.
Our communication clearly shows that this is not the case.
I would refer the rapporteur to the start of Chapter 2, where we say that if the Community is to take action to maintain and increase the competitiveness of its pharmaceutical industry, it must take account of the particular aspects of the sector which Alan Donnelly and others have already mentioned, firstly because its products have an important part to play in the field of public health, and secondly because the cost of medicines has a direct impact on the social security budgets of the Member States.
The Community's industrial policy in the pharmaceutical sector needs to take account of both the public health and social security aspects, without undermining the Member States' powers in this field.
So how anyone could reach the conclusions they have, I do not know, but I have no intention of letting them monopolize our discussions.
Maybe attacking the Commission is just a good way of enlivening the debate, and it is something we are quite accustomed to.
What are the problems here? This is an industry which, as Mrs Peijs pointed out, was until recently a world leader, playing a prominent role in research and development and in the creation of new jobs.
In the 1980s, employment in the sector could be expected to grow by more than 2 % a year on average.
In 1993 this trend came to a halt, and since 1994 employment in the sector has been falling: minus 1.8 % in 1994 and minus 2.8 % in 1995.
As Mrs Peijs said, the situation with patents is also looking rather bleak, and this may also explain why employment has fallen.
Between 1975 and 1979, 61 % of all new pharmaceuticals were developed in Europe, but the figure dropped to 48 %, in other words to less than half the total, between 1990 and 1994.
Over the same period, the United States' share grew from 26 % to 31 % and Japan's from 11 % to 31 %.
If we include biotechnology, which is of course one of the major fields of innovation and will become particularly important over the next few years, the situation looks even grimmer.
Patents at the clinical and pre-clinical development stage account for 58 % and 48 % of all patents held by American firms, in other words around half.
For European firms, however, the figures are only 26 % and 16 %.
What this means in policy terms is that we are dealing with an industry which is very competitive, even on the international market, but which is also in decline.
This is something the communication naturally also deals with - it is, after all, a communication on industrial policy.
Mrs Read is of course right to say that health also depends on factors such as how you live, where you live, environmental conditions, social conditions, nutrition and so on.
But this is not a health report, and health is not one of my responsibilities.
What is more, the Union is not responsible for all health policy matters, and this is a problem I shall come back to later.
The report instead tries to suggest ways of making Europe's industry more competitive and thus providing better protection for people's health and, of course, for the interests of consumers in this field.
The link here is obvious, because the pharmaceutical industry would not exist if it did not work in tandem with the healthcare and in particular the social security systems.
On the other hand it is also true, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, that consumers, or in this case patients, cannot be supplied with a decent range of products if we do not ensure that our industry is competitive.
We would seem to be caught in a vicious circle, and it is up to us to find a way out.
The first thing we proposed was to establish a single market in this sector, an idea which has never actually been disputed.
Pharmaceutical products should be subject to the rules of the single market, just as other products are.
This does not mean that they should always be treated like other products.
We have already taken a number of measures, as Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, who was with me at the Agency in London, will testify.
We are not just sitting down now to discuss what to do, this is something we have been dealing with for some years, and it was the reason why the Agency in London was set up.
We have introduced a licensing procedure which has, in my opinion, come up to the mark so far, and we shall have to see how it progresses in future.
This was why we visited the Agency.
I also have no objection to involving consumers and other organizations in assessing the results of this procedure and in evaluating medicines and the licences granted.
I have no objection to setting up an ethics committee, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer.
But if you do, you will have to accept its findings, even if you do not agree with them.
This is not the case here, Mr Langen.
I am a very open person, as you know.
I am even prepared to be friendly, which shows you just how open I am.
What I cannot tolerate, however, is for people to demand an ethics committee and then refuse to accept its findings.
We have an ethics committee on food production and labelling, and I would remind you that it endorsed our views.
We did not ask it to do so, and there was no lobbying.
The members of the committee are completely independent, and they said the Commission was right.
But some sections of the House set very little store by this, which is really most regrettable, because if you want to have such a committee, it is because you expect it to be independent and neutral, but you must then be prepared to accept its decisions, however much you might disagree with them.
While I have no objection to doing more in this area, I would point out that we already have the Agency, and a licensing procedure which ensures that pharmaceuticals have a chance on the market, but only if they meet strict requirements.
We have already dealt with the self-medication issues.
Medicines are licensed as prescription drugs, pharmacy drugs or over-the-counter drugs, which means that the system is suitable for use throughout the Union.
And - something which is particularly important with new drugs - we have already put in place some of the legal protection called for in this report.
The protection offered by patents can now be extended, in the sense that the unfortunate situation whereby the testing period had to be deducted from the length of the patent no longer exists.
This has already been dealt with, and we do not need to discuss it further.
The USA and Japan have even followed our example.
So we are by no means starting from scratch, and what we have to do now is consider what to do next.
We are left with the four problems that Mr Langen mentioned, which summarize the situation very well.
First of all, which will be more useful: more competition or more regulation? I think a combination of the two would work best, both for the industry, for cutting costs, and for consumer supply.
Some regulation will of course be required, and we have no desire to limit the powers of the public authorities here.
We need them to exercise their powers, as is entirely right and proper.
But this too is no guarantee.
Take BSE, for example.
One of the main reasons why BSE grew to become such a serious problem in the UK is that the public authorities allowed lower temperatures to be used in producing feed from animal remains.
It had nothing to do with competition or the Commission, it was the public authorities who allowed it.
Experience has shown that making a public authority responsible for something is unfortunately not always the best thing to do.
But this does not, of course, mean that we do not need public involvement in this particular field.
Think of it this way.
Priests can never hope to get their full message across because they are mainly preaching to the converted, while the others whom they might convert do not come to church in the first place.
This is why I am convinced that experience is best of all.
You only have to look at the second question Mr Langen raised, about generic medicines and self-medication, which Mrs Read also mentioned.
What is the situation here?
In some countries, consumers can obtain generics for self-medication without prescription and at competitive prices, since the only chance generics have is to squeeze the market leaders out through competitive pricing.
In countries which do not have competitive pricing, such as Spain, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, where there are fixed minimum prices for medicines, there are practically no generics at all.
90 % of the market for generics is concentrated in four countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Denmark, because they allow price competition, and this gives generics a chance.
So anyone who wants to bring prices down for the consumer should not run away with the idea that fixed minimum prices are the way to do it.
The opposite is actually the case, since consumption tends to increase with fixed minimum prices.
In other words, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, total expenditure is greater with fixed minimum prices than if competition is allowed to set price levels and influence consumer behaviour accordingly.
These are basic market forces, but it is always difficult to have confidence in them, because they seem to be such an artificial mechanism which will inevitably produce bad results.
But this is not what happens.
Mrs Read is right.
Look at how little of the total healthcare budget goes on medicines, for example: 14 % a few years ago, now down to 12 %, and even less in some Member States.
Hospitals account for the largest proportion, and even there the costs have fallen.
And when you consider that the sensible use of medicines can in many cases eliminate the need for in-patient treatment, it becomes quite clear that medicines can be very effective in reducing costs.
So when we are looking at ways of reducing costs, we should also think about how we can make this work better for us.
This brings me on to the question of how what we do affects the social security systems in the Member States.
The Council has not said a word on this, nor will it answer any questions about it, for one simple reason.
You are, of course, aware that any interference in these systems has enormous political implications, and we have absolutely no intention of harmonizing the Member States' healthcare systems.
What we actually want to do is to remove the price element from the social security system mechanisms and allow it to be determined by the market.
This will produce two results: low, competitive prices and at the same time proper social protection for patients.
If we succeed in doing this - and we have urged the Member States to comply in a special protocol to this communication to the Council - we shall already have achieved a great deal.
Biotechnology is an extremely important issue here, and will come up again when we look at the patentability of technological discoveries.
I hope that we have now made some progress in this field and that Parliament is able to accept the proposal, because there is a very real danger here.
I am not saying this because I want to put pressure on you, but the fact is that people are moving to America because they have had enough of the poor conditions in Europe, and I do not see how this is supposed to help us if it simply means that we will have to use American medicines at prices we have no control over, prices which patients will have to pay with their hard-earned money.
It will not bring us extra jobs either, so what good is such a policy?
As we can see, biotechnology is really a very important aspect.
Finally, there is the question of generic and herbal medicines.
For the first time in the history of the European Union, the licensing procedure we have introduced at the Agency allows homeopathic remedies to be licensed as medicines according to the same criteria as those which apply to other drugs.
So don't shoot me, I'm only the piano player, and I shoot back!
On the subject of generics and patent-protected medicines, here too the best idea is to allow both to exist alongside each other.
Without innovations there would not be any generics, but at the same time generics play an important role in preventing innovations from becoming so prohibitively expensive that the health sector cannot afford them.
There is a symbiosis between the two: they live off each other.
I find it hard to welcome the idea that laboratory testing is to be allowed before the patent period has expired.
A patent covers only some of the costs that can be incurred in research today, which can run to enormous figures.
Someone also pointed out how few medicines have been coming onto the market from research recently.
This is why we need innovations and why they need to be protected.
They can start to compete on price with generics later.
One final comment about mergers, which we also mention in the communication.
Of course the competition rules must apply here.
When we looked at the Sandoz-Ciba Geigy case after they informed us that they wished to merge, we were astonished to discover that these two companies, which are so important in Europe, and indeed worldwide, share only 4.8 % of the world market between them.
The biggest pharmaceutical company's share of the market is just under 10 %.
So even among the largest firms, the spread is so great that there will always be competition.
I hope that I have now answered all the points that were raised in the debate, though I am sure that we shall have a good deal more to say on this subject.
We will continue to monitor the development of the Agency, and if we really get to grips with the problem, looking at all the facts rather than just listening to people's opinions, I am sure we can develop a decent policy for this industry.
It is certainly a sector that is still worth fighting for, but subsidies are not the answer, nor are they what it wants itself, thank goodness.
But it is an industry that is losing its competitiveness, and this is what we must take action to prevent.
Mr President, please let me put a supplementary question to Mr Bangemann, since he was given five times as much speaking time as I was.
Before I come back to the pharmaceuticals report, I should just like to put the record straight about BSE.
This does not concern you directly, Mr Bangemann, since it is not one of your responsibilities.
In October, when I went to see Mr Marchand at the Commission to discuss European measures in connection with BSE, much was already known which was not made public until six months later.
There was more to it than just the fact that animal carcases were being rendered at lower temperatures because the public authorities were incompetent; there was also, above all, enormous pressure from the meat lobby, and I think that the influence this brought to bear will become increasingly clear, Mr Bangemann.
Turning back to the pharmaceutical report, I first of all welcome the fact, Mr Bangemann, that you are very much in favour of setting up an ethics committee and have indeed almost given it your approval, and I gather you feel the same about the management board and the other measures which we mention in the report and which were approved by the committee.
I am delighted to hear this, and I think it will help to provide much greater protection for patients and consumers.
I was not so clear - and this is why I would like to ask a supplementary question - about whether you seriously cannot accept the compromise that we propose in the report, namely that patent protection should be shorter with regard to generic medicines, so that the time can be used to begin research.
I should like a straight yes or no on this.
I think you owe it to us to make a clear statement on this point, instead of just referring to what Mr Langen said.
My final question will probably also be very important for us.
What follow-up will be given to this communication on the pharmaceutical industry? Can we expect directives or other more compulsory measures for the industry in the next six or twelve months, or will there only be the communication for the time being?
Mr President, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, if you think back very carefully to what I said about rendering temperatures, you will remember that I was merely responding to a comment to the effect that when national authorities deal with such matters, they can be expected to come up with reasonable solutions.
There was no more to it than that.
I did not say anything about the BSE problem as a whole.
Of course we could talk about it for hours, but all I actually said was that the example of BSE shows that this is not always the case.
I think we would get a good deal further if you did not always suspect me of saying one thing and meaning another.
I am very rarely devious, and I always warn you in advance, so that you know when it is coming.
I made it quite clear - and I really do not think I need to repeat this - that I am not in favour of allowing generics producers to begin research or experiments using data which is protected by a patent before the patent protection period expires, so that they can have a product ready for marketing as soon as the patent has expired.
I said this quite clearly and categorically the first time, and now I have said it again.
Naturally a communication such as this is always the basis for further measures.
I do not think that we shall be putting forward proposals for directives straight away, but what we aim to do is to discuss with the Member States in very practical terms just how far it is possible to take the price element out of the social security systems, so that we can establish a proper single market for pharmaceutical products and avoid the constant problem of parallel imports, and so on.
This will probably be the next item on our agenda, so we shall really want to clarify a few of the points we have mentioned before we produce any further proposals.
There is also the proposal concerning patentability, which I feel is quite important.
Once we have dealt with this, we could discuss what else is necessary.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Prevention of drug dependence
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0093/96) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a Community action programme on the prevention of drug dependence within the framework for action in the field of public health (1996-2000) (rapporteur: Mr Burtone).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for this second reading also we have taken into consideration a number of key factors.
The first is that drug dependence is no longer a marginal issue.
Unfortunately, it is widespread among all social classes and within different ideological groups: it is the scourge of almost all of Europe's cities - the model cities and those with more rundown districts.
A second element on which we based our report is that there is no one reason that leads to drug dependence; these are the causes: the breakdown of the family, the lack of values, the social context and many, many other varied reasons.
Drug-addicts are not therefore martians: they are, sadly, our children, those who live alongside us.
And if this is our approach to the problem, our starting point, then our response cannot be simple, simplistic, superficial or oversimplified.
What we actually need is to be tough in tackling the problem but also to be willing to talk.
If we are to respond, then we cannot set ourselves apart with our policy or scientific technique - we have to be able to communicate with those working in the field and seeking genuinely to combat drug dependence.
The work with which we, as a committee, tried humbly to make progress is at risk of being undermined.
I want to make that very clear - including to some members of my own group; I am very much opposed to some of the amendments tabled by the European People's Party also.
I disagree with those who - in good faith - do not approve of the approach taken in my report, because they have looked at it superficially, simplistically, influenced perhaps by a number of schemes devised solely on the basis of national experience.
But I most particularly disagree with those in the House who are deliberately trying to undermine a vital piece of work, obeying the diktat of certain governments.
I particularly condemn the superficial approach of those who operate on the basis of hearsay; those who jump from one report to the next without considering the issues in depth.
We cannot tolerate that kind of destructive and superficial attitude to the tragedy of drug-addicts and their families, this social tragedy.
We need - and have proposed this - to make progress on the path to dialogue rejecting all radical approaches. We have said 'no' , and we say it again, to the liberalization or legalization of any drug, and we have defended that position with scientific rigour, and with great respect, vis-à-vis those who take the contrary view.
We have spoken of biological damage but also of the psycho-emotional influence of all drugs, be they soft or hard drugs.
We have described the sociological link between soft and hard drugs, but we also said 'no' for ethical reasons because we are opposed to drugs sanctioned by the state.
But, just as firmly and energetically as we say 'no' to liberalization and legalization, we are also opposed to the criminalization of drug addicts because prison neither saves nor rehabilitates them.
Prison is a place of damnation: it is in prisons that, very often, drug dependence spreads further.
Of course, if a drug addict becomes a pusher, then it is right and necessary that he should pay and answer before the law also.
But the amendment tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Health and Consumer Protection sought, in cases of that nature too, to place the accent on rehabilitation and not punishment.
A specific commitment to establish certain priorities thus became apparent.
What is most baffling, and I want to make this point very strongly, is that those people who say that they want to combat drugs are opposed to taking measures to treat, rehabilitate and reintegrate, at the very time at which the scope of projects is being extended beyond primary prevention to include other objectives; they are not therefore confined to trying to reduce the demand for drugs - which is huge within the Community - they are seeking to use information and education to reach young people, to talk to them and prevent drugs playing a decisive role young people's lives.
In our programme, we have, however, sought to take stock of the dramatic nature of the problem, we have undertaken, without prejudice, all possible measures to treat, rehabilitate and reintegrate, because we are persuaded that, in dealing with drug dependence, it is crucial to understand that, sadly, people take drugs and need to be rescued.
To conclude then, Mr President, we say 'no' to liberalization but, at the same time, no to the criminalization of young drug addicts.
We do not know what the result of the vote will be but we certainly want to convey a message, a very powerful message: you can get escape from drugs and a young person who emerges from the abyss of drug use is a real living example which we should take into account in drawing up programmes of primary prevention.
I therefore ask you to reject some of the amendments tabled by the European People's Party, because, as I said at the outset, we cannot take a superficial approach.
We are engaged in a war in which we should all be fighting because we should all consider ourselves very much involved.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would strongly urge the Members of this House to approve Mr Burtone's report, and the Commission and the Council to give it their closest consideration.
Mr Burtone has succeeded in adopting a pragmatic and realistic approach which studiously avoids the usual platitudes.
I would also stress that at first reading, the Burtone report was approved by the vast majority of the House, and that this present report also secured a sizeable majority in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
However, in recent weeks a great deal of nonsense has been talked about the action plan, and in particular about the report itself.
So let us be quite clear about it: this report is not about legalizing or liberalizing any drug whatsoever.
The rapporteur, myself and others who support this report have been deluged by postcards from Sweden telling us to stand up for liberalization, but whether we are in favour of it or not, there is absolutely no question of standing up for liberalization here.
This is a report on a public health issue and certainly does not come under the third pillar.
So let that be an end to all the nonsense.
Secondly, at no point does this report approve the taking of drugs.
Thirdly, the report stresses the importance of harm-reduction in prevention.
Harm-reduction is not defeatist, and accepting harm-reduction does not mean that we think the fight against drugs is lost, but that today's reality demands urgent new measures to protect people's health and the quality of life in our society.
And what is today's reality?
Despite the 'war on drugs' , the amount of drugs available has anything but dropped, and despite the billions spent on campaigns, production has not been curbed and the number and variety of drugs has actually increased.
No more than 10 % of the growing supply of drugs is intercepted.
What this means is that drugs are not only still available, they are becoming increasingly available.
Let us come to terms with this hard fact, and stop trying to pretend that we will eventually have a drugs-free society, no matter how attractive the idea may seem.
If we are prepared to accept reality, then we can be much more efficient at every stage of prevention.
Some people think that the police should have a greater role to play.
Let me tell you what Raymond Kendall, the Secretary-General of Interpol, has to say about this. He points out that it takes USD 35 million invested in harmreduction compared with USD 246 m in police measures to achieve a 1 % reduction in the use of cocaine, in other words harm-reduction is seven times more efficient.
He is in no doubt that we need to fight drugs, but we are not likely to see any great improvement on the streets, even in the long term.
Paul Cook, a police officer from Manchester, said much the same at a recent conference in Brussels which was organized by the Commission under the Spanish presidency.
We should not just invite such people to come to our conferences, we should also act on their advice.
Some people here maintain that methadone treatment, needle exchanges, help centres and sensible primary prevention all actually pave the way to addiction and simply encourage drug-taking.
I would point out that substitute treatment keeps the use of opiates to a minimum, reduces crime, discourages third-party drug use so that there are fewer new addicts, promotes social reintegration and discourages risk behaviour in general, thus preventing the transfer of viral infections.
There is also a great deal of prejudice against needle exchange schemes, but serious research has shown that there are no new users coming, that people tend to inject less rather than more, and that injectors do not go back to their old ways.
So the results are all extremely welcome.
I think it is a great pity that some people now, at the last minute, seem to feel the need to undermine this broad compromise that Mr Burtone has been working on for months, and I hope that when we vote shortly, the voice of reason will prevail over all the slogans and hysteria, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
Mr President, I and my entire group are most grateful to Mr Burtone for his expert guidance in leading us through the first and second readings of this report.
The main focus is on prevention.
How can you stop young people turning to drugs? How can you help addicts to give them up?
How can you limit the health risks? The funding available, HFL 12.5 million a year, is merely a drop in the ocean, and is only enough to pay for exchanges of experience, unfortunately.
Providing funding for specific projects such as methadone or other substitute treatments or distributing syringes can help to improve care for addicts, but it cannot be paid for by the European Union and remains the responsibility of the Member States.
Use European funding for exchanges of experience by all means, but not for specific projects.
We have tabled a number of amendments on this point, and I think it is actually what Mr De Coene himself would like to see.
There has been a good deal of very high-minded talk about drugs policy, and it is regrettable that instead of joining forces to take a firm stand against the constant appearance of new drugs like Ecstasy, which tend to contain increasingly dangerous combinations of ingredients and are very popular with young people, we are actually not learning anything at all from each other, while the policy-makers simply argue amongst themselves.
The policy of tolerance pursued in the Netherlands is not the answer.
It simply makes drugs more easily available and acts as a magnet for addicts from other countries, increasing crime rather than reducing it.
Making addiction a crime also does not work.
We wholeheartedly support the harm-reduction policy which the report recommends, and this means that we firmly believe that no distinction should be made between hard and soft drugs.
We have no sympathy, however, with the fatalistic approach adopted by Mr De Coene, who would have us believe that the fight against those who supply drugs is a lost cause.
Tolerance and liberalization are not the answer, since they lead to a vicious circle in which society has to give more and more ground.
On television in the Netherlands last Sunday a leading socialist, Mr Tobback, said: ' What has our policy in the Netherlands achieved? I am the mayor of a city with 35 000 students, and there has not been one single case of a drugs-related death.'
What we in the PPE Group want is for the Commission and the Council to come up with a programme in the near future which takes a close look at the results of Sweden's anti-drugs policy. This is the one that our group prefers, and it may turn out to be a viable approach for many other countries in Europe.
Mr President, within every political group in the House there is a majority view and a minority view on the action programme on the prevention of drug dependence.
It is on behalf of the majority of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party that I should like to congratulate Mr Burtone on his report.
We must be clear that this report and the action programme itself are not about combating the trade in drugs, but about the public health aspects of the drugs problem, and our guiding principle here must be that a humane, tolerant and pragmatic approach - and I see that even as I speak Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is leaving the Chamber, which is a great pity - is a more effective means of prevention than treating drugs users harshly and repressively.
A repressive approach is much more appropriate when applied to large-scale drugs trafficking and organized crime, but it will do nothing to help drug addicts.
It is also right to assume that a completely drugs-free society is nothing more than a pipe-dream, which is being just as realistic as acknowledging that we have a society which uses alcohol and tobacco.
As Mr Burtone said, we are not talking about life on Mars here.
I think it is a pity that the report does not distinguish between hard and soft drugs.
In my country, the Netherlands, drugs policy is based on this distinction and has produced very good results in the public health field, compared with other countries in Europe.
We have a relatively small number of users and low incidence of AIDS contamination and drugs-related deaths, and the statistics show that compared with other countries in Europe, fewer young people are moving on from soft to hard drugs and that the use of hard drugs is declining.
I am pleased to see that there are a number of amendments which adopt this line in calling for disinfection sets and sterile syringes and needles to be provided in order to combat infectious diseases such as AIDS.
There are also some very welcome calls, such as in Amendment No 23, for substitute treatments such as methadone to be recognized.
Mr President, I think the basic problem is summed up in a report by Sir Jack Stewart-Clark for the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
In that report it is stated that the G7 financial group considers that in Europe and the United States 120 000 million dollars are in circulation bound up with the sale of drugs.
Of that amount 85 000 million dollars are laundered in financial institutions.
I think that is the basic problem confronting all the institutions, including the European Parliament, which try to deal with such a terrible problem as drug dependence.
We agree with Mr Burtone's report and with the inclusion of the amendments at first reading.
They are most important amendments because they place the fundamental accent on prevention, education and training and, when prevention is not effective, on the rehabilitation and treatment of addicts.
Those amendments also take into account the social situation of those excluded from society and the social situation of poverty which - not in all cases but in many - leads young people to drug dependence.
It therefore seems to us that the report, unlike other amendments with which we do not agree, ought to be approved in the European Parliament perhaps by the same majority by which it was approved in the Committee on the Environment and Public Health, an overwhelming majority: 28 votes in favour, 1 against and 3 abstentions.
The report regards addicts and drug dependence as public health problems and not as individuals to be hounded and suggests rather that it is the large-scale traffickers themselves, those behind these 120 000 million dollars, who should be pursued and not the little consumer whose plight might be aggravated by imprisonment.
In my country 60 % of prisoners are behind bars because of drug dependence, and 40 % of that 60 % have the AIDS virus.
Prevention must therefore be fundamental and two other amendments therefore seem important to us: in the first place to provide the Lisbon Observatory with sufficient human and financial resources to keep it right up to date all the information we have throughout Europe on which actions have been most effective; in the second place to hold in 1996 the conference proposed by the rapporteur under the aegis of the United Nations, the European Parliament and the Commission, in which the experiences of all the European countries may be evaluated, not only those of the past 20 years, so that we may know what experiences have been the most effective and may then take more practical decisions in this field.
Mr President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, I am one of these people whom it seems you respect but whose opinion you do not share and who is in favour of positive drugs control, or what you describe as 'legalized liberalization' .
I know that we do not at present have a majority in Parliament who share this view.
I would also add that I am not fully in agreement with Mr De Coene: even when you raise the question of public health, the fact remains that positive control of soft drugs would facilitate the implementation of health policy.
The same would apply to alcohol, if only we resolved to get to grips with the problem.
But I do not want to open up the debate on this issue, given the balance of opinion in the House.
One thing worries me: Europe has seen a debate of incredible stupidity over recent months.
I am aghast that the President of a republic which I like very much could have said so many things - I will not say 'absurdities' as I do not wish to offend him - on the subject of drugs which are both futile and incorrect.
This frightens me because while I am indeed in favour of a European approach to the drugs problem and to public health, if this is going to be the kind of approach advocated by Mr Chirac, then I say: ' Drop it!
What are we heading for?' It would be a disaster when you consider that the country which Mr Chirac is attacking, the country which he hates (as far as its drugs policy is concerned of course, as apart from that the Dutch are friends), this country, then, has a much better public health record than France for whose policy Mr Chirac is responsible.
So here we have a gentleman who dares give advice to people who are doing much better than certain others and who tells them: ' If you come to come to our country, you will not actually do as well, but we have a better system' .
This really is a bit much to take, ...
This is why our Parliament must adopt the Burtone report.
I do not agree with everything in it, but it is better than many other things.
Parliament must also make it clearly known to the politicians and the Council that we are opposed to the policies recommended by the French Government, not because it is the French Government, but because they are policies which are highly damaging to public health in Europe.
Mr Chirac is a veritable danger to the public when it comes to public health and drugs.
He must be told politely, because he is a friend who sometimes makes mistakes: he made a mistake with the nuclear testing and he is doing so again with drugs.
But he will learn as he gets older, he will come to understand, as everybody does.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report submitted to us by Mr Burtone once again addresses certain concerns which Parliament expressed at first reading but which were ignored in the common position.
I therefore approve of the general inspiration behind the report and virtually all the amendments, with the exception of Amendment No 8 which refuses to distinguish between hard and soft drugs at the prevention stage.
For the rest, I have the impression, on reading Amendments Nos 1 and 4, which are concerned respectively with calling into question repression and the health aspect of drug dependence, that we are afraid both of words and the reality of the situation.
The reality which is there for all to see, and which is the result of an essentially repressive policy dictated by international prohibitionist agreements and the assumed ideologies of certain countries - such as France or the United States - is the following: a continuous growth in drug trafficking and consumption, the financing of organized crime of stupendous proportions, the destabilizing of banking systems, the corruption of whole nations, the growth of delinquency due to the need for money, and the spread of AIDS. All of this under the cloak of prohibition and hypocrisy.
This is the edifying net result of the policy of repression.
But yet I do not propose to counter the dogma of unprincipled repression with a dogma of liberalization lacking in any public health objectives.
Our pragmatic position can be summed up in four simple ideas which are effectively adapted to the reality of the situation: the decriminalizing of all drug use, controlled legislation for products which do not lead to addiction, public international control of the supply and trade in hard drugs based on an agreement between the European Union, the United States and the other major consuming and producing countries, and, finally, the generalization of policies of risk reduction and substitution treatment.
This is a simple, clear and understandable policy.
As long as we fail to courageously advance along this path, crime will continue to prosper from individual tragedies.
Mr President, we have now almost finalized the drugs prevention programme.
The common position contains a considerable number of qualitative improvements introduced as a result of amendments proposed by Parliament.
It will be easier to allocate funding now that specific projects are planned, which will help both the Commission and the Member States.
A number of amendments were not accepted by the Commission and the Council, and the amendments that have come back in the recommendation for a second reading have a rather defeatist air, implying that there is not much we can do except limit the worst of the damage.
But this is playing into the hands of the drugs dealers, who are indirectly responsible for the destruction of their fellow men.
We reject on principle the acceptance of harm-reduction as a basic approach and addiction as a social phenomenon, since these undermine the very justification for providing assistance.
I therefore also oppose the amendments which aim to have harm-reduction adopted as a strategy.
Persuading addicts to kick their drugs habit is a very delicate issue and cannot be governed by any general European strategy.
It is also a curative rather than a preventive measure, and this is not what this action programme is about.
To sum up, I support the common position, but I shall be voting against the Burtone recommendation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to protest against the propaganda on the subject of the Burtone report, in the form of the tracts displayed in the corridors of Parliament.
I find this procedure totally derisory in substance and unacceptable in terms of the cleanliness of the buildings. I wonder where Parliament would be if such propaganda practices were systematically applied on the premises of the European Parliament in the case of all reports.
I therefore request, as far as possible and in Parliament's interest, the removal of these documents which are posted up all over the place.
Now for the real subject of discussion. I know that the rapporteur had a difficult task to the extent that, right from the start, the distinction between prevention and repression seems rather artificial.
Repression is clearly in many cases the best form of prevention.
I also observe, as is almost implicit in the report, and extremely explicit in certain amendments - Amendments Nos 2 and 3 in particular - that a spirit of capitulation lies behind this combat against drugs. This is totally unacceptable.
I am thinking in particular of Amendment No 2 which says that a completely drug-free society is a Utopian vision and Amendment No 3 which says that the goal should be to limit the adverse effects of drug consumption.
And I did indeed say 'limit' .
I should like to take an example in the field of economic sciences, namely inflation.
Under the pretext that zero inflation is virtually inachievable in a period of economic growth, some economists have always believed that the official policy should be one of low inflation.
In a sense this is exactly what we are trying to do in the field of drugs by saying that, because we cannot totally eradicate them, we should make the official policy that of damage limitation.
As in the case of inflation, and for evident psychological reasons, I believe this to be a mistake.
Today it has been made very clear to us that if we want to effectively combat inflation our goal must be zero inflation.
Even if we know we will never in fact achieve it, we must make it our stated aim, in such a way that we can act on the expectations of the economic agents who see it as an expression of real commitment by governments to maintaining stable prices.
The situation is very similar when we come to drugs.
We must clearly affirm our commitment to combatting them.
Another mistake is the way Amendment No 4, for example, suggests that drug addicts are simply people with a health problem.
This is not true: there is indeed a health problem, but also a moral problem and we should not forget this.
Sophocles wrote, 2, 400 years ago in Antigone, that the man of knowledge knows how to freely choose between good and evil.
I do not in fact believe we will be helping drug addicts by presenting the whole problem as exclusively a health problem and exempting drug addicts from all responsibility.
On the contrary, I believe this would be presenting them with an additional obstacle when seeking to escape from drugs.
Consequently, I believe it is a basic philosophical error to believe that you can dispense with repression in this area.
The human mind is not entirely rational, as we now know thanks to the work of phrenologists such as Mac Lean, and collective repression is absolutely essential.
Today we claim to be fighting a war against drugs costing billions of francs, but this is mistaken because war supposes that you are prepared to kill the enemy and if we are afraid to impose the death penalty for trafficking then we have lost the war against drugs in advance.
It serves no purpose to spend large sums of money if you lack the moral courage.
Drugs are spreading because this society is ethically decadent.
We are doomed to failure if we refuse to recognize the moral dimension and only consider the health and sociological aspects.
This is not helping the drug addicts, it is hypocritically allowing the traffickers to go about their business.
What do the traffickers want? They want the present situation to continue.
You have been very courageous Mr Burtone.
You have, through your group, encountered many obstacles.
I have been well aware that you had to steer a course between the two extremes.
It is essential to speak of risk prevention.
But it is not enough.
Because here, which is the place to do so and where we can benefit from the experience of others, we must finally acknowledge that we are not making any progress and are in fact regressing.
The Lisbon Observatory provides us with the tragic figures.
Of course there have been arrests and of course drugs have been seized, but drugs are continuing to enter Europe in ever larger quantities every year.
The least we can say without making a moral judgment is that the repressive policy is not working.
But that does not mean I favour simply opening up the gates, quite the contrary.
However, I do not believe you are going to get very far by giving equally short shrift to those who want to liberalize and those who simply want to repress.
I greatly admire your courage and this report, but it is not enough.
Let us be quite clear: there is racism in drugs.
When I hear of the tragic effects of soft drugs, I think of alcohol and tobacco. For these are our drugs.
Tobacco leads to a dependence estimated at 25 or 35 %.
And what do you do about that?
But then it's the State which sells it.
I am speaking from the public health point of view, if you like, but also from a moral and political point of view.
It is tobacco and alcohol which cause most damage in terms of public health.
Let us remember this and not demonize other people's drugs.
We too have our drugs.
What is needed is an economic approach.
We must have the courage to say that we must control, and not simply decriminalize drug use.
Just as if you have drunk too much you are not allowed to drive, so if you smoke too much you will not be allowed to drive.
But when you consider that, in my country in particular, there are five million cannabis users, I wonder how we are going to manage to lock them all up.
Here in Parliament we have the obligation to discuss this matter a great deal more.
We clash with the experience of others rather than listening to it.
The caricatural example is of course my country's attitude to the Netherlands which, fundamentally - namely for having adopted practices protecting users of hard drugs from HIV infection - is a good example to at least listen to and to take on board.
We should therefore discuss more among ourselves and benefit from national experiences, both negative and positive.
I believe that this will be progress and that this conference which you mention and which we all want to see, in 1996, will be a step in the right direction.
Finally, we must not demonize any experience or initiative, whether negative or positive.
Initially, let us listen to what has been done to prevent risks and try to go further in what seems to be a problem linked to our societies and not solely to any weakening of moral fibre.
I believe that if we do not offer alternatives to our young people, not enough dreams, not enough adventure, and not enough certainty, then drugs and drug dealers still have a bright future ahead of them.
Mr President, drugs are a scourge which destroy our families and kill our young people.
For very many years already the European Parliament has concentrated on three courses of action in combatting this tragedy.
Firstly, preventing drug addiction, secondly, combatting drug trafficking and the related crime and, thirdly, helping drug addicts to get well again.
Today we are interested in the first of these courses of action.
In my eyes this is the most important.
Because if drugs lose their attraction for young people, if young people believe that all drugs and stimulants are a threat to the freedom of the individual, the drugs traffic will automatically decline.
We therefore need a concerted European approach to prevention and must exchange both positive and negative experiences, include addiction prevention in the various Community programmes for young people, and fund promising projects.
But above all we must help parents who are so often ill-equipped to confront the dangers threatening their children, and also the teachers and trainers, especially those active in risk environments.
Finally, let us remember one important principle: programmes undertaken with young people are often far more effective than those undertaken for young people.
I believe that creating a sense of responsibility among those primarily concerned and ensuring their active participation must be a golden rule in preventing drug addiction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate Mr Burtone for the efforts he has made, particularly of late, to tackle the problem with greater clarity but also greater realism.
Understanding at last that punishment is not the solution to the drugs problem seems to me to be in itself an important step forward, as is the fact that the preventive approach is being adopted.
I have, however, to say that, in the end, the approach we are left with is still that of 'taking an aspirin to cure cancer' : that, basically, is what emerges, despite - let me repeat - the tremendous effort of good will from my friend, Mr Burtone, and all of those who have worked on this report.
The reality, as Mr Hory and Mr Kouchner have said, is that punishment has proved a hopeless solution and that the adversary facing us is a world economic giant and one that cannot be defeated using either tanks or helicopters: the more it is criminalized, the more drug use increases at international and world level.
That then is the reality.
We need then radically to change our approach and we must do this all together, to start with by discussing among ourselves the results so far of prohibition and criminalization.
That is why the most important amendment is Amendment No 32 which calls for a conference to be held to discuss scientifically the disastrous results of prohibition and for the international conventions of the United Nations to be revised.
Mr President, Mr Burtone has done some wonderful work and he is obviously very concerned about drugs but at the same time I would like to say that I do not share all his views.
In our group I speak for something that we call the minority but I in fact believe that in this case the minority is bigger than the majority.
Like most Swedish politicians, my party in Sweden, the Centre Party, can certainly not support the thesis that a drugs-free society is an unattainable utopia.
I was deeply upset at seeing a joint European programme of measures against drug abuse almost distorted beyond recognition by fellow Members who have given up the battle in the face of drug producers and those in favour of a liberal drugs policy.
It is completely mistaken to regard a restrictive policy on all drugs as the antithesis of a policy to reduce suffering and the harmful effects of drug abuse.
I invite any Member of the European Parliament who is in two minds about the liberalisation of drugs to make a study visit to Sweden to see how we combine a highly restrictive view of drugs with humane care for the victims of these deadly drugs.
However, the European Parliament's proposal will have no effect on Swedish laws and regulations, dealing as it does with recommendations for a programme of measures.
Unfortunately, however, this type of decision helps to undermine the legitimacy of the European Parliament and the confidence of the people of Europe in it.
This is an unfortunate consequence of today's debate.
This debate has also strengthened still further my conviction that the area of criminal law should remain a purely national concern for the Member States.
Mr President, Mr Burtone's report contains a number of different parts.
There are parts that I support, such as the importance that is attached to preventive work and the need for proper care and rehabilitation to help drug addicts give up their abuse.
There are also parts of the report, however, that are not at all acceptable.
It contains a number of more liberal formulations where the policy of what is called 'harm reduction' is concerned.
This is a philosophy which is aimed at reducing the damage done by abuse, not at combating and putting an end to it.
The report also contains demands for a supranational drugs policy and for a review of existing international conventions.
This is not acceptable.
The UN's drugs conventions should rather be strictly applied by the EU countries as one element in the battle against drugs.
The policy of certain EU countries in the field of drugs today in practice serves to sabotage international cooperation in the fight against drugs.
In the report the issue of drugs is treated as a health issue and dependency as an illness.
Drugs are, however, primarily a social and political issue.
The reasons for drug abuse are social conditions, exclusion, unemployment and the lack of future prospects for young people.
The battle against unemployment, social injustice and segregation is thus an important part of the battle against drug abuse - the most important part.
A proper policy for a system of care and rehabilitation which works is also needed.
In this context it is also impossible for society to accept either trafficking in or the possession of drugs - they should be illegal.
There should also be popular opposition to drugs and steadfast and consistent action on the part of the police and customs authorities.
This policy forms a single whole, all parts of which are needed.
Mr President, as a socialist I regard the equal worth of all people as a central issue.
I cannot accept that people should be lost to drug abuse.
This is why I would like to see a consistent overall policy with a single goal: a drug-free society.
Mr President, it is customary to congratulate a rapporteur.
But in this case I should like to extend my particular congratulations as it is rare that such intelligent and courageous texts are submitted to the House, a fact to which the number of Members present at this sitting testifies.
This report goes against prevailing opinions and the blindness which make a situation which is in itself extremely worrying worse by the day.
It identifies the failure of repressive policies which have recourse to increasingly substantial resources, to a lesser degree in Europe and to an extreme degree in the United States. Yet we continue to model our policies on those of the United States when, at the same time, we can see a parallel increase in the number of drug users, the number of risks they take, and the number of accidents of which they are victim.
So today we are concerned with the question of prevention.
This prevention must clearly be applied to hard drugs in particular, concentrating on intravenous drugs.
It must also be implemented at various levels: the family, schools, universities, associations, municipalities and workshops. We must act on all these fronts as, whatever some people may choose to believe, drug dependence is a sickness which we must fight, and we are indeed dealing with sick people, in exactly the same way as an alcoholic with cirrhosis of the liver is sick and a smoker with lung cancer is sick.
We must therefore confront an illness and its complications - which are admittedly a major element - whether viral contamination, which essentially means hepatitis or AIDS, social contamination in the form of family dramas, marginalization and exclusion-dereliction, or judicial contamination through the resultant delinquency.
All of these elements must be appraised.
Why does everyone entrench themselves in their own camp, without wanting to look at the results obtained by a number of projects - and I am thinking here of substitution in particular - the results of which have been insufficiently studied?
We must endeavour to act on collective awareness, on public opinion, on our Member States, on our governments - and I am well placed to know about this, given my nationality - and, finally, on international opinion as a whole.
In this respect, holding a conference which would call into question the position of the international community would be very welcome.
Mr President, this is one of the absolutely most important issues in Europe and the international community as a whole.
It is a matter of how we can best and most effectively tackle the scourge of drugs.
This is a task which places us under an obligation and demands that we, as parliamentarians, accept our responsibilities and do not simply let things rest.
The view expressed by Mr Burtone's report is a view which worries me.
It confirms that a re-evaluation is under way of the traditional policy on drugs which used to guide Europe and which was the lodestar internationally in work on and the battle against drugs.
It smacks of resignation and lack of enthusiasm.
Its message is that the battle against drugs cannot be won - but this is not true.
We know that a restrictive drugs policy combined with a well-developed rehabilitation system produces results.
We know that the fewer the young people who try drugs in the first place, the smaller the number who will become addicted.
This is why preventive work is aimed at young people.
It is by far the most important thing we can do.
It is the most important way of reducing the number of addicts in the future.
A policy which is geared only to reducing the damaging effects of drug abuse which is already taking place sends out completely the wrong signals and devotes resources to a completely wrong objective.
The policy of harm reduction is a policy of negative accommodation.
It is a defeatist policy.
If we are to be successful in combating drug abuse we cannot make distinctions between use and misuse.
Nor can we make distinctions between soft and hard drugs.
There is always a risk - irrespective of what we choose to call it - an imminent risk that individuals will become addicted.
I cannot therefore support the Burtone report and I hope that this house will be able to produce a more positive and more active policy on drugs.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Burtone for his report.
In the light of the figures for 1995 on the drugs problem in Germany, I would urge that the main drugs policy priorities should be measures to educate people about the dangers of those substances which, sadly, are still all too often dismissed as party drugs, and preventive measures to tackle the causes of the problem.
It is alarming to see the sharp rise in demand for synthetic drugs, particularly Ecstasy, and the careless attitude that people take to these pep-pills, with no thought of the dangers involved.
Hopefully, effective addiction prevention measures will succeed in reducing the demand, as they have done in the case of heroin.
I should also like to voice my opposition to any liberalization of drugs, in order to counter the expectation of rising demand.
Europe is still seen as a lucrative market where there are profits to be made.
At the same time, any tendency towards liberalization and legalization has the effect of playing down the dangers of illegal drugs and is the greatest obstacle to prevention.
Reference is always made in these debates to the consequences of alcohol and nicotine abuse.
Not only should these problems be mentioned, but they should be seen as a clear warning, so that we do not end up with the same problems by making soft drugs freely available.
As a practising pharmacist, I oppose any attempt to make hashish or marijuana available from chemists, since that would mean putting drugs on a par with medicines.
Instead, I would like to see new models and progress in the area of aid and therapy for drug users, including methadone substitution, though only in the context of therapeutic and psycho-social accompanying measures.
We need to offer improved and more specific counselling and treatment for those who are in danger from, or dependent on, drugs, and their families.
Let us support the concept of living without drugs or addictive substances, and let us not trivialize these problems by engaging in a debate that blurs the issues.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased that the action programme on drug dependence is the subject of discussion in the House today.
I am all the more pleased as we will soon be discussing the proposed Council regulation on North-South cooperation in the fight against drugs and drug dependence, which therefore completes the prevention aspect of the subject.
As the Intergovernmental Conference opens - a conference which has set itself the particular objective of drawing closer to Europe's citizens - the subject under discussion is one of concrete and, unfortunately, daily concern to our citizens.
As the Member for a region particularly affected by this scourge, located 100 kilometres from the Netherlands, I know the destructive effects which drugs can have on our society as their use is unfortunately increasing among our young people and sometimes even among our children.
90 % of the addicts being treated in my region are under 30 years of age.
We must turn off the tap and stop the continuous supply.
Naturally, we must also improve and reinforce treatment programmes.
I welcome the proposals of the common position of the Council which include a series of schemes which are clearly more important and more specific than those of the Commission's initial proposal.
Efforts must continue in this direction.
In particular, we must increase the resources allocated to treatment cures.
We must also promote improved cooperation between Member States and between the competent Community bodies in this field.
And would it not also be wise to bring together all the Community bodies and agencies active in this area within a single organization? It is only by such a pooling of energies that we will be able to effectively combat and eliminate this scourge.
Mr President, it is most welcome that we now have our first preventative drugs programme based on health and social considerations.
I hope this is the beginning of better cooperation between the police and home affairs authorities on the one hand and the health and social authorities on the other.
There is a need for cooperation projects between the different authorities.
In Finland we have had experience of these problems mainly owing to the import of drugs across our Eastern border.
The starting point of drugs policy must be clear: society does not approve of drugs. The non-medical use of drugs is unacceptable.
When a person learns to regulate his state of mind chemically starting with tobacco and alcohol and ending with drugs, a spiral of exclusion easily starts as a result of over-use.
'Legal drugs' (tranquillizers) finding their way on to an illegal market, especially when used in combination with alcohol, are a major and serious problem particularly for young people.
Controls must be tightened.
Drug education must be carried out skilfully and expertly without shock tactics and together with young people.
Further research is also needed.
Mr President, I strongly agree with the proposals contained in this report.
For too long in Europe we have been concentrating on financial and trade issues at the expense of major social issues such as the drugs problem.
The imbalance has been somewhat redressed by the public health competence given to us by the Maastricht Treaty.
Even though the proposed budget for the programme is lamentable - ECU 28 million over five years is entirely inadequate given the scale of the problem - it is evidence of the recognition of the need for concerted action at European level.
Combined with unemployment and poverty, drugs are laying waste large parts of our cities and destroying the lives of our young people.
In my own city of Dublin the number of heroin addicts has been increasing steadily for the last 20 years and is estimated to be about 7, 000 now.
I would ask Commissioner Flynn to join with me in urging the Irish Government to coordinate its efforts with the efforts being made here in Europe.
We need, for instance, to increase the size of the Drugs Squad.
The Drugs Squad in Ireland stands at 1 % of the total force.
That is laughable when 80 % of Dublin crime is drug related.
We must also ask for effective coordination between the Gárdai, the revenue commissioners and the Department of Social Welfare.
It is time that the government came to grips with any remaining industrial relations problems in this area so that the ill-gotten gains of the drug dealers can be targeted.
I visited Mountjoy Prison recently in Dublin.
It is clear to me that a policy of 'containment only' operates there.
An effective follow-on therapy should be provided for prisoners by the Eastern Health Board.
The Ecstasy problem is now escalating out of control and party packs are now widely available in Dublin.
We need more education programmes.
I agree that specialized treatment programmes for patients are needed to deal with Ecstasy but also with heroin use, whether people inject or they smoke; and finally, intensified Gárdai action at known drug-dealing locations is needed.
I ask the Commission to bring forward further programmes along these lines to tackle this life-threatening problem that faces all of Europe.
Mr President, I have been working on the issue of drugs since the very first committee of inquiry in which I served with Sir Jack StewartClark.
I found myself pulled in a variety of ways over the years.
Very often it is ageing liberals from the '60s, like myself, who advocate liberalization, legalization of drugs.
They make a very good case very often.
But generally speaking, the people who take this line are not themselves addicted, are not themselves very often in direct contact with the vast problems related to addiction, and they are complex problems.
Of course the element of unemployment and poverty is very significant here.
In fact, the whole question of why some people choose to deal with life through the haze of drugs, why some people become addicted and others do not, is also part of the issue we have to face.
We need to pay particular attention to our prisons.
Contrary to what has been said by the previous speaker, I am happy to tell you that a specialized unit has been opened in the prisons in Dublin.
I am sure many colleagues from other countries have experienced the same problem that very often young people in prison, who may not in fact be addicted when they go in, come out addicted.
Therefore it is important that one has a unit in prisons where the prisoners themselves can make a choice against drugs.
You will find that a significant number of them will probably make that choice.
While 80 % of the people in our own prisons are there because of drug-connected crime, some of them are not.
This is a contagious disease, as contagious as tuberculosis was in the '40s and '50s.
We have to treat it like that.
We also have to recognize that our detox and treatment programmes must include not just detox but also an element of teaching life-skills.
You cannot rehabilitate people if many of them have never been habilitated in the first place.
Mr President, I know that Commissioner Flynn shares with us the regret that we do not have total competence in all matters concerned with drugs.
The fact that law and order sits within the third pillar is regrettable.
However, we have education - education to young people, to teachers, to parents; health; we have rehabilitation and we have harm reduction, and there is a great deal that we can do in this regard.
Therefore, this common position is a good first step.
Mr Burtone has made a sympathetic report and, on the whole, we ought to support this.
My view is that national countries must decide on their own drugs policy.
Indeed, if we look at my own country, in Scotland and England there are two separate drugs policies.
Scotland is more concerned with harm reduction than England.
And here I see an absolutely vital role for the Drugs Monitoring Centre.
It is up to this new committee which has been set up with members from national governments, which Commissioner Flynn no doubt will be chairing, to produce proper comparisons of what is taking place in each country, to look at what methods are being used to help drug addicts, to educate drug addicts, to get the drugs problem solved and then to come to the Community, to this Parliament, with a recommendation of what needs to be done.
That is its value.
Therefore, in supporting this debate and what Mr Burtone has put forward, I ask the Commission to come back to this Parliament and to make specific recommendations on the basis of the committee's work and on the basis of what the Drugs Monitoring Centre is recommending.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the health of the people of the Union is something we concern ourselves with as regards foodstuffs and consumer goods.
Why should we then not concern ourselves with the health of our fellow citizens where drug abuse and its effects on the brain, lungs and reproductive organs is concerned?
The policy on drugs must be approached from different angles.
There are no simple solutions.
The goal must be a society free of drugs.
We must find common and national methods which are effective.
The emphasis here must be on prevention and combating drug trafficking, while treatment detection and prosecution are national responsibilities.
If we wish to have the support of the people we cannot use EU resources to finance controversial projects, such as the prescription of heroin.
Syringe programmes involving methadon are also controversial, however.
5 % of those who participated in methadon programmes over a period of ten years managed to overcome their addiction - this is not particularly effective.
We should, however, jointly evaluate our special national programmes.
This will also enable us to find a common policy, which will emerge from the results, results which will of course lead to lower demand.
The alternative to this policy is increasing drug abuse and gains for the drug traffickers.
What is important now is to show a willingness to compromise.
This we must do if we are to be able to achieve common measures.
I should also like to thank Mr Burtone for his commitment to this issue and say that I believe the Commission and the Council have chosen a realistic, sensible path, which Parliament should support.
It is not the drug traffickers but our colleagues in the European Institutions that we should support.
Every time drugs are discussed in the European Union, tempers flare - this time between France and the Netherlands.
I am alarmed at how all the protagonists in the debate portray their own opinion as the only legitimate one.
This is an accusation often levelled at Mr Chirac, but in my experience it is at least as true of those, within and outside this House, who make a fetish of liberalization.
As far as the PPE Group is concerned, the contradiction that is often drawn between help and punishment does not exist.
Both are necessary if the problem is to be tackled truly effectively.
The Swedish model seems to me the most successful one at present.
Throughout the debate today, and indeed on other occasions, I have heard no convincing argument against the Swedish model, and I see no reason why it should not be a model for Europe as a whole.
In the light of that, I am also irritated by the debate between my country - Germany - and the Netherlands.
Our Foreign Minister, Mr Kinkel, said recently in The Hague that nobody wished to interfere in the drugs policy of the Netherlands, but the German Government as a whole takes a different view.
I wonder whether Mr Kinkel has forgotten that we are in the third year after Maastricht.
The dialogue about combating drugs is not interference: it is European domestic policy.
The drugs problem must be tackled at European level, firstly by means of prevention - that is what we are discussing today - secondly through better cooperation in policing, via Interpol, and thirdly through a common development policy to create alternatives in the countries where drug crops are cultivated.
To my mind, the third point is of particular importance.
I hope that everyone who is following the debate today will also be listening when this question is discussed on Thursday, not because I am the rapporteur, but because the drugs problem cannot be tackled effectively without alternatives for the countries where drug crops are grown.
Mr President, I first of all thank all those who have contributed in such a sincere and dedicated way.
Obviously it is a debate that touches a lot of people's concerns in the House.
The text before you today for this second reading is the Council's common position on the first programme for Community action to prevent drug dependence.
We all agree on the need for such a programme and the need to adopt concrete measures to combat drug abuse at European level.
I would like to express my thanks to Mr Burtone, your rapporteur, for the very considerable efforts he has made in examining the common position, the text today, and the amended proposal which was tabled by the Commission following your first reading.
As you know, the initial proposal has been extended following the incorporation of some 21 amendments which were proposed by Parliament and which were supported by the Commission either fully or partially.
The Council took on board many of the amendments, sometimes, I have to say, in a different form.
I believe that considerable progress has been made in arriving at a text which is acceptable to all the Community institutions.
I accept that there is need for some further work to be done so that we can resolve the differences that exist.
For its part the Commission could not accept the Council's common position for two principal reasons. They have both been referred to here.
The Council wants to reduce the overall budget for the five-year programme from ECU 28.5m to ECU 27m.
The Commission finds this unacceptable given that the common position which has been suggested by the Council substantially extends the scope of the original proposal.
It wants to extend the scope and still reduce the money.
We find that unacceptable.
Secondly, the management committee, a structure which is proposed by the Council, is inappropriate for such a very small-sized programme.
The Commission supports the setting up of a purely advisory committee, both as a matter of principle and in order to avoid unnecessary administrative burdens.
I remain of that view, notwithstanding the decisions taken on the committee structure for the three other health programmes recently approved under the codecision procedure.
I would like to turn to the Commission's position on the 32 amendments proposed by the rapporteur in the second reading.
Twelve are acceptable to the Commission, Mr Burtone, fully or in part.
These are Nos 3, 6, 7, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 26, 27, 28 and 31.
On the remaining amendments the Commission cannot support the draft recommendations for the following reasons: Amendments Nos 1, 2, 8, 11, 14 and 30 and the new Amendments Nos 33 to 36.
These lie outside the Community powers based on Article 129 or deal with matters that fall within the scope of other pillars of the Treaty, the exact point Sir Jack Stewart-Clark has been making for some time.
Amendment No 4: this statement is already covered by recital 1 of the common position and by Amendment No 6.
Amendment No 5: Amendment No 7 describes the objectives of the programme in greater detail without reference to the objectives of a policy on drugs.
Amendment No 6: the first statement is fully acceptable since it confirms the public health approach to the scourge but the second part falls outside the Community powers under Article 129.
Amendment No 9 is already covered by Amendment No 7.
Amendment No 13: the content of this amendment is covered by Amendment No 15 which is acceptable to the Commission.
Amendment No 18: the tasks of the EMCDDA are dealt with in the regulation establishing it and it cannot be modified through this programme.
Amendments Nos 19, 20 and 21: I have already underlined the Commission's position concerning the nature of the committee foreseen by Article 5 of the proposed decision.
Furthermore, I would like to point out that Amendments Nos 19 and 21 are not in the line with the decisions taken by the three health programmes that were adopted at the beginning of this year.
Amendments Nos 22 and 37: the activities foreseen in these amendments are not in line with the principle of subsidiarity and would exceed the budgetary possibilities of the programme.
Amendment No 23: the Commission was supportive of the evaluation and exchange of experience in the fields mentioned in the amendment and this has been incorporated into the common position.
Amendment No 24: the Commission considered that these activities are already included in the common position under generic provisions.
Amendment No 25: the first part of this amendment is already covered in the common position whereas the second part, which relates to the organization of social and health services, is a matter for the national authorities.
Amendment No 29: the prevention of drug dependence and associated risks with the support of the activities of relevant bodies is the main aim of the programme and it is already underlined in the Council text.
Amendment No 32: the organization of a European conference is not indicated as there was already a European Conference on Drug Policies coordinated and co-organized by Parliament, the Council and the Commission in December last year with a specific workshop on prevention policies and activities.
So, having reviewed these various amendments, I would again like to express my appreciation for the work of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
The Commission's report on the evaluation of the European drug prevention week of 1994, which has recently been transmitted to Parliament, confirms the interest of those involved in the day-to-day management of drugs-related problems in cooperation on a European scale.
I hope that the adoption of this programme will in due course support, relaunch and act as a catalyst for common efforts to prevent drug dependence and to help drug users.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Votes
Madam President, we would like a separate vote on Amendments Nos 5 and 6.
Madam President, I was under the impression that we had agreed that if we wanted a separate vote on anything, we had to say so in advance.
I naturally agree with Mr Pompidou, but I think we have to be consistent, otherwise we cannot carry on.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, you are perfectly right in the case when there is a recommendation from the committee responsible.
That is why I initially stated that there had not been any recommendation from the committee responsible in the case of these amendments.
There is not therefore any problem.
Excuse me for intervening once again, Madam President, but we also want a separate vote on Amendments Nos 22 and 23.
(The President declared the common position adopted as amended)
I should like a separate vote on Amendment No 16, Madam President.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on this occasion the committee responsible has recommended a block vote on Amendments Nos 12, 16, 19, 21.
Furthermore, your request for a separate vote does not seem to have reached us before the deadline laid down by Rule 116.
I am sure you will understand the difficult situation this puts me in.
Madam President, I am looking for someone at the back of the Chamber, but if my memory serves me correctly, the list of how we wished to vote was drawn up last week, and although I cannot see the colleague in question, as far as I am aware, the list was handed in to the secretariat.
We did everything according to the rules, Madam President.
For the sake of fairness, Madam President, if we have a sperate vote on Amendment No 16, we request the same for Amendments Nos 19 and 21.
No, Madam President, it is in the interests of consistency.
I am sure, Mr Pompidou, that you will withdraw this request which was made in order to inject a little humour into the vote.
No, Madam President, my group is with me.
I cannot decide alone to withdraw this request.
(The President declared the common position adopted as amended)
Madam President, I wanted to say a word on this point as I once again presented the table which failed by just one vote to win the Commission's support.
But I should like to draw attention to the fact that having approved the previous text we will be contradicting ourselves if we do not adopt the amendment which I propose.
Yesterday Commissioner Papoutsis, who was here, demonstrated the coherence between the text we have just adopted and the table I propose.
This is why I invite you to vote in favour of my amendment, especially as the Commission and Parliament must succeed in convincing the Council.
Madam President, I should like to support the amendment.
I do not think there is any contradiction here.
The committee approved the table unanimously because, in the table, priorities are established very clearly, perhaps more clearly than in the broader brush-strokes of the text.
As I said, however, there is no contradiction here, and the committee approved this table unanimously.
Thank you sir.
The House is sufficiently well-informed to vote in full knowledge of the facts.
After the adoption of the 'table' part of Amendment No 27:
Madam President, the table I referred to was, of course, that of the committee, not the table submitted by Mr Soulier and the PPE.
It is really quite straightforward, because the committee presented and approved this table, not the one that was submitted by the PPE.
I would therefore ask that the vote be retaken, because what I said clearly created some confusion.
So to recap and to make it quite clear: the committee's table is not the same as that of the PPE.
Mr Lange, I believe that there is in effect some confusion.
I believe that for my part I have been very clear.
I put to the vote Amendment No 27 by the European People's Party.
The rapporteur then requested to speak in order to explain why he was in favour of this amendment and why he had tabled it.
You spoke giving the impression that you supported it, but that is your affair.
This amendment was put to the vote once again and I made it quite clear which one we were dealing with.
We will not be taking this vote again.
That would not be right.
I believe that everything was very clear.
I should like to protest.
It is indeed normal for a rapporteur to speak on behalf of the committee.
But in this case we were misled for the simple reason that the rapporteur did not speak on behalf of his committee, but on behalf of his group.
That is not at all normal.
Mr Dankert, I listened carefully to the rapporteur, especially as he spoke in my language so there was no possible interpreting error.
I most definitely did not hear Mr Soulier refer to the PPE Group.
I was really very attentive and I tell you this quite simply.
We will not be taking this vote again, it would not be right to do so.
Everything was very clear.
Madam President, although the House is empty, there is a great deal of noise going on behind me, but I am none the less pleased that the House has accepted my report, and that we have approved the legislative measures in the SAVE programme.
I would call on the Commission, as a matter of urgency, to follow Parliament's lead in this case, for once, because we have clearly seen that without legislation there is absolutely no movement: that has been demonstrated with regard to CO2 reduction and energy efficiency.
There has been no movement on the THERMIE programme, a programme on renewable energy, which is being held up by the Council.
Despite its high-sounding political pronouncements around the world, and despite having signed up to the Rio and Berlin treaties, the Council is blocking the one programme - THERMIE II - which is concerned with renewable energy.
It is therefore all the more important that we, as a Parliament, get it implemented and make the Council and the Commission put their money where their mouth is.
Otherwise, we in the EU will gradually become a laughing stock!
I would not go so far as to call us liars, but absolutely nothing is happening!
High-sounding words about the need for energy efficiency and CO2 reduction are being bandied about, but nothing is being done!
It is all hot air.
That is why the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy included the legislative element in SAVE II.
So, to repeat my advice to the Council and the Commission: take your lead from the committee - it is giving you sound advice!
Otherwise, we shall make problems when it comes to the budget.
The proposal for a Council Decision concerns an exceptionally important area for the Union's Member States in terms of the economy, the environment and supply policy: the promotion of energy efficiency.
It should be obvious that by increasing their energy efficiency, the EU Member States will be able to reduce their consumption of energy, exploit a range of non-renewable energy sources more rationally, decrease their dependence on energy imports and reduce the volume of CO2 emissions, which are the main cause of the greenhouse effect.
It is vital, therefore, to extend the SAVE programme for a new five-year period with a view to a more rational use of our scarce resources.
In the light of this situation it is, of course, encouraging to note that the sum of ECU 150 million allocated for the implementation of the SAVE II programme constitutes a significant increase in the modest appropriation of only ECU 35 million previously allocated to SAVE I. The rapporteur is, however, right in saying that there is a need to introduce binding measures in the EU countries in connection with the implementation of SAVE II, to ensure that the objective of reducing energy consumption, is achieved.
There is no point in not legislating in this area - on grounds of the principle of subsidiarity - in view of the cross-border nature of the problems associated with CO2 .
For the same reason, I believe that the EU - in accordance with the objectives of the SYNERGY programme - should make all useful data and experience gained from the SAVE programmes on the efficient use of energy resources available to the developing countries whose consumption of fossil fuels, in particular, is expected to soar during the years up to 2020, with a considerable increase in world CO2 emissions as a result.
Recommendation for second reading by Mr von Wogau
We assume that the Customs 2000 programme is concerned with agreeing at Community level criteria for the minimum level of the controls to be carried out.
Since the various Member States today have different legislation governing such subjects as drugs and arms control we do not consider that it will be possible to arrive at a common interpretation of the powers of customs authorities.
In our opinion each Member State should itself be allowed to decide on the level of controls to be carried out at its borders with other EU countries.
At the time of our intervention at first reading on the Community action programme on customs, we welcomed this initiative designed to better coordinate national customs controls at the Union's external borders, while at the same time being concerned at the direction taken by the European Parliament: its amendments tended to 'communitize' the national customs and to promote the objective of a 'domestic market' which is even more unified than the present single market and which would virtually deny countries any margin for manoeuvre in their legislation.
We are therefore very pleased today, at second reading, to see that the Council has since taken the same line as ourselves and rejected Parliament's most contestable amendments.
In order to make its intentions quite clear, it has even dechristened the programme, which is no longer concerned with 'Community customs' but simply 'Community action on customs' , which we consider to be perfect.
As could have been expected, the European Parliament has returned to the attack with amendments which my group voted against.
We believe that the Community, under pressure from federalist groups such as those in this House, is systematically adopting the wrong approach: first, we dismantled controls on goods at the internal borders without even having harmonized controls at the external borders, a mistake for which we are now paying very dearly.
Now, under the pretext of improving external controls, the proposal is to move towards 'communitization' . This is to make another mistake, and for three reasons.
A reason of principle as each Member State must retain its customs, which also fulfil purely national tasks, including the application of possible safeguard clauses (let us remember, in this respect, the lessons of mad cow disease).
A reason of effectiveness as we believe, here as in other cases, that it is better to support the former national administrations which are working than to create new European structures (we prefer partnership to fusion). Finally, as if any further argument were needed, a reason of advisability: given the dominant free trade attitudes, there is nothing to guarantee that by once again renouncing our customs defence instruments for the benefit of the Community, controls will become stricter, as they should do.
I approve of Parliament's insistence in giving the Community 'Customs 2000' programme more force and substance faced with the hesitations of the co-legislator, the Council.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy thus wants to step up the fight against fraud through harmonized and reinforced customs.
In the face of third parties, common tariffs must be matched with common customs.
This means imposing strict rules everywhere where there are customs, and not rules which vary from one Member State to another.
Such a programme can encourage the European Union to advance in this direction, but we must of course show we are serious in implementing the programme, in particular when it comes to the controls.
Each Member State must provide its customs with the technical and human resources necessary to fulfill this task.
I stress in particular the importance of continuing high-level training supplementing the initial training which each customs officer receives in his country of origin.
This continuing training, to be given at a European customs academy, will be a vital asset for European customs officers working at external borders and involved in the fight against fraud.
We have voted today against almost all the amendments to the Community action programme 'Customs 2000' , since we believe that they do not respect the individual Member States' sovereignty.
It should still be up to each Member State to decide how they wish to control their borders, train their personnel, etc.
Practically all the Member States have different laws on the importation of different kinds of goods, e.g. drugs and arms.
That is the way it should be in the future as well, and that is why we see no grounds for harmonizing legislation in this area.
Drug abuse is one of the worst scourges with which Europe has to contend.
It is therefore also extremely important that strategies for combating drugs are chosen with care.
We are of the opinion that the proposals put forward in the Burtone report are geared too much to measures to reduce the harm caused by existing abuse.
We believe this is far too late.
Greater emphasis ought to be placed on preventive work, particularly among young people.
We know that the fewer the young people who try drugs in the first place, the smaller the number who later become addicted.
Obviously preventive activities must be combined with a well-developed system of rehabilitation, the main concern of which should be to free those involved in drug abuse of their addiction and to help their return to society.
We also believe that it is wrong to make a distinction between hard and soft drugs or between use and abuse.
The problem of where the line should be drawn will always arise and any ambiguity about what is acceptable and what is not will only send mixed signals to our children and young people.
A drugs policy aimed at restriction and prevention is the common path we ought to take, in order to be able to combat drugs effectively.
Resignation and an ever increasing level of tolerance will only have the opposite effect.
The drug abuse issue is at heart a question of democracy and human rights: all men and women should have control over their own bodies.
A person dependent on drugs can never be free to exercise such control.
The report proposed by our colleague Mr Burtone once again had to take into account a considerable number of amendments adopted by the European Parliament at first reading, the Council having deliberately neglected our proposals and changed the nature of the Commission's amended proposal.
It is highly regrettable that the Council does not have a point of view to match the scale of the problem of drug dependence and the essential need for prevention.
Like the rapporteur, I believe that 'all-out repression' is not the right way to succeed in eliminating this scourge of consuming narcotic substances and that repression must primarily target the dealers and suppliers of these products, and in particular those who use drug networks for financial purposes.
There must be no holds barred when it comes to combatting the drug dealers, those peddlers of death, and those who specialize in laundering drug money, the financiers behind organized death.
Drug addicts must be saved from these people. They must be cared for and allowed to benefit from the widest possible prevention, one which certainly includes a genuine European health programme but which also extends to other Community policies.
The Council must accept the cooperation which must be implemented.
The Council must see drug addicts as people in distress who must be brought back into society and not as delinquents.
Consequently (and this is a long-term goal), we must first give drug addicts the means to avoid the spread of risks linked to drug consumption.
We cannot rescue them from their dependence overnight.
Also, together with prevention pure and simple, which is a means of avoiding the use of drugs, we must protect addicts from the still greater risks they run.
I therefore fully support the Burtone report, which we must adopt with a very large majority.
I hope that the Commission will support our approach.
I invite the Council to show greater realism and commitment in implementing this programme.
Its very credibility is at stake.
What upsets me and greatly concerns many Swedish people and other Europeans is the tenor of the amendments tabled by Mr Burtone and the committee.
Certainly it is important to help drug addicts.
It is at least equally important, however, to prevent young people and others being drawn into drug abuse.
Clear signals are needed from the authorities of European states.
By approving the Burtone report the European Parliament would be sending out a completely different signal, a signal which could lead to many more young people in Europe being drawn into a life of hopelessness, prostitution and crime.
It is not concessions in drugs policy that we in Europe need but forceful measures from governments, parliaments and voluntary organisations to punish those who profit from drugs and reduce drug use with the aim of freeing our continent from addictive drug abuse.
This is why I voted against central elements of the Burtone report.
The fact that I have abstained from voting in favour of the report on the prevention of drugs, does not mean that I am not in favour of preventing the drug problem.
I am, to the greatest possible extent.
However it is precisely prevention of, as opposed to combating, this serious problem which is best undertaken at national state level.
The states themselves are best able to assess which policy and what resources in their particular circumstances - including cultural norms - will produce optimal results.
A common EU strategy would not be the best way of preventing the drugs problem, and the prospects of there being agreement about such a strategy are unlikely in the light of the differences between the various speeches made here today.
Earlier, the Burtone report caused considerable conflict between the majority, who are liberal on drugs, and most of the Swedish Members.
In the proposal which has now been adopted some of the proposals from those who are liberal on drugs have been removed.
It has also been established that it 'is not advisable to draw a sharp distinction between soft and hard drugs' .
Does this mean that the information provided by Sweden has had an effect? This is possible and, if true, it is hopeful sign.
The report still contains a number of elements which the environmental party cannot support:
The environmental party cannot accept the so-called 'harm reduction' strategy , because this concept has become a code word for a liberal strategy on drugs.-The environmental party cannot accept that the introduction to the programme states that 'a completely drug-free society is a Utopian vision ' .
That the principal goal is dismissed even in the introduction as 'utopian' represents an unacceptable reduction of ambitions.-The environmental party cannot accept that drugs policy should become a competence of the EU because this would open the way for Community legislation on drugs decided upon by majority voting.-Finally, we consider that border controls must be allowed to remain if an EU country deems them to be an effective way of combating drug smuggling.
Fighting against drugs dependence, in particular by motivating co-operation between the Member States, backing respective actions and promoting and co-ordinating their policies - the basis of the programme of Community action to prevent the scourge of drugs in the framework of public health - deserves our agreement.
Everything that can promote information, prevention and education, prophylaxy and treatment, whether in the younger age bands, where appeals to consumption take place at ever earlier ages, or within families, schools or at work, or through actions aimed at risk populations (including prison inmates), or aimed at public opinion in general, can count on our support and approval.
But we should have no illusions that the success of this programme requires other policies to be implemented in a coordinated way, including those which deal with punishing the money laundering of capital and combating the profound causes of social marginalisation and social instability, as well as unemployment, which together, make people vulnerable and make them more likely to consume drugs.
It is also to be regretted that the budgetary amount made available by the Council for this programme, 27 million ECU, in other words around five billion escudos, over five years) is lower than proposed and well short of what is desirable.
In our fight against drug abuse we shall be committing a serious mistake if we begin to admit that it is a 'lost war' and that, for hypocritically economically-based questions, it is not worthwhile investing enough money to deal with the size of this scourge.
On the contrary, it is only if we tackle and reduce drugs dependence with enough political will and sufficient means that we will actually be able to attack this problem from every aspect.
The consumption of various kinds of drugs, including so-called hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine, has assumed dramatic proportions over the last 20 years.
It is not surprising therefore that many EU citizens today regard drug abuse as one of the greatest of all social problems.
Nor can there be any doubt that this cross-border problem must, and will, be solved by means of a combination of national and international measures.
In this light there is every reason to welcome the Commission's proposal for a programme of action for the prevention of drug abuse.
In its report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has put forward a number of proposals for supplementary measures, including a proposal for an improved exchange of information between the Member States, support for the improvement of information campaigns, support for the work of voluntary organizations, and a proposal for a more effective strategy for combating drug abuse at international level, on the basis of a comparative study of the respective countries' drug laws.
I fully support these proposals to improve the Community's programme of action.
Recommendation for second reading by Mr Castricum
The proposed interoperability of the transEuropean high-speed rail system is a good project.
But it only has any meaning if it is accompanied by a financial plan allowing Europe to complete the efforts made by the individual Member States.
We must apply the principle of subsidiarity and too often the European Union intervenes illegitimately in matters which are normally within the sphere of competence of the Member States.
But in this particular case it is surprising that the European Union is not pledging major financial support for this ultimate transborder project.
Let me take the example of the East high-speed rail link, running from Paris to Strasbourg, Vienna and Budapest. In addition to the efforts of the Member States, this project also needs Community funding.
The European Union should redirect its efforts at genuine transborder projects.
Taken overall, this would not increase expenditure but rather reduce it.
I should like to see a financial report one day complement the present report.
I believe there is an urgent need for this.
Recommendation for second reading by Mr Cornelissen
The safety systems used in connection with the transport of dangerous goods must be tightened up.
I say this in reference to the train accident at Næstved station where, even three years after the accident, there are problems with seepage of toxic materials.
I consequently welcome the work done in this report, to tighten up the regulations, and I am therefore able to support the report.
Soulier report
The proposal for a regulation on the SYNERGY programme is, in every respect, a positive contribution to resolving a number of environmental, developmental and energy supply problems at an international level, and there can therefore be no doubt that this programme, the first phase of which was launched over fifteen years ago, must be extended into a new fiveyear period.
Total world consumption of energy is increasing, particularly in the developing countries.
For example, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the developing countries, which in 1990 accounted for 75 % of the world's total population, but for only 25 % of the global consumption of energy, will account for 80 % of the world's population and 40 % of total energy consumption in the year 2010.
Unfortunately, this increase in consumption will primarily take the form of greater use of fossil fuels, increasing emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere as a result.
In order to militate against this trend as much as possible, it is of paramount importance that the EU continues and intensifies its transfer of know-how in the energy sector to the developing countries.
As a step towards this end the EU should, for example, make all the useful data and experience gained from the EU SAVE II programme available to the developing countries.
Soltwedel-Schäfer report
Madam President, the report by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer is full of comments and proposals which show both good sense and goodwill.
However, certain points are unacceptable.
First of all, we completely rule out even a partial standardization of the social protection systems of the Member States (in order to harmonize the reimbursement amounts for medicines).
Secondly, you must be careful when promoting so-called generic medicines.
This must not be detrimental to the laboratories which create fundamental products which are the result of research which lasts longer than their period of use, research which is very expensive and in comparison with which advertising costs - exclusively among members of the medical profession we should remember - seem to have been greatly exaggerated by the rapporteur.
Thirdly, we are highly suspicious of the praise of self-medication.
This opens the door to all kinds of abuses and dangers.
We must never forget that medicines are an active product which must be treated with care.
We must therefore never lose sight of the all-important role of the pharmacist and physician in terms of information and control and not seek to sacrifice this at the altar of illfounded economic arguments.
The most important consideration in all of this must be public health.
Finally, and this is an equally important point, we regret the imprecise use of the term 'ethical' which recurs frequently in this report: this is the term of the new language of the 'politically correct' which is used in order to avoid the necessary submission of medicines to the principles of natural and Christian morals.
Despite these major reservations, we voted in favour of this report.
Community guidelines for an industrial policy for the pharmaceutical industry must take account of the fact that the trade in medicines does not take place under normal market conditions.
It is not an invisible hand which determines demand, supply and price, it is the representatives of interest groups and government authorities which exercise a considerable influence over sales, consumption and profits.
This has a number of consequences.
Think of the enormous profits, the artificial prices, the hugely expensive advertising and publicity, the large-scale mergers and so on, though it must be said that all of these are also influenced by the enormous cost of research and development, employment, competition and the special nature of medicines.
'Pharmacon' means both medicine and poison, something healing and something deadly.
It goes without saying that you cannot obtain goods of this kind freely, nor can you supply them unsupervised.
We can also understand why the state, the health insurance funds, patients' associations, doctors' organizations, universities and the pharmaceutical sector are all involved in the creation and distribution of medicines.
The European Union's interest, and particularly that of the European Parliament, lies in both the industrial and public health aspects.
The main thrust of its policy is as follows: rationalize production, with limits on advertising budgets and the prevention of fragmentation; and reorientate innovation, focusing on proper modernization, licensing procedures and registration requirements for new medicines, rights of ownership and medicines or treatments for rare or previously untreatable diseases.
This in turn will help to promote preventive and instructive medicine, generic medicines, herbal and homeopathic medicines, the sensible use of medicines, uniform packaging, alternative testing, selfmedication, an environmentally-friendly industrial policy, multiannual planning, a responsible trade policy, a European data bank - the ECPHIN - an ethics committee at the EMEA, and so on.
As a member of the two committees asked for their opinion, I agree with the draft proposal in principle.
It is a sensible and balanced compromise between the different interests of the pharmaceutical industry, social security, research organizations, the health insurance funds, the medical profession and consumers' organizations.
I do feel, however, that we need a clear definition of innovations.
A real innovation is a new medicine, not an existing medicine that is given a new description or a 'me too' medicine which is brought out as a derivative years after a genuine innovation.
A real innovation is used to cure previously incurable or untreatable diseases and conditions, or offers better treatment for certain complaints or a better chance of curing them than existing medicines.
All in all, I feel that this proposal is a step in the right direction.
A policy on pharmaceuticals must take account of the competitiveness and profitability of the sector as a whole - industrial policy - and of employment, public health, medical progress and social security - social policy.
I believe that the proposal on which we are to vote meets all the requirements of sound policy, both industrial and social.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Discharge for 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0058/96 by Mrs Kjer Hansen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the EAGGF clearance of accounts for the 1991 financial year; -A4-0086/96 by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission report on action taken in response to the observations contained in the resolutions accompanying the decision giving discharge in respect of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1992 financial year (COM(95)0666); -A4-0097/96 by Mr Samland, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission report on action taken in response to the observations contained in the resolution accompanying the decision giving discharge in respect of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1993 financial year (COM(95)0666); -A4-0098/96 by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1994 financial year; -A4-0089/96 by Mr Blak, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the management of the ECSC for the 1994 financial year; -A4-0081/96 by Mr Kellett-Bowman on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on postponement of the discharge to the Management Board of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Thessaloniki) in respect of the implementation of its budget for the 1994 financial year; -A4-0082/96 by Mr Kellett-Bowman on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Administrative Board of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Dublin) in respect of the implementation of its budget for the 1994 financial year; -A4-0096/96 by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on refusing discharge to the Commission in respect of the management of the European Development Funds for the 1994 financial year.
Mr President, I would not have objected to my Danish colleague, Eva Kjer, speaking first.
My subject is the Coal and Steel Union and I must say that I am a little disappointed that the Commission is not present, that the Commissioner does not find it important enough for him to be here for this debate.
Of course, I appreciate that he has an able representative in Fritz Brüchert, who is present, but I would very much like to have seen the Commissioner himself here while we discuss such an important subject.
What we are talking about here is 60 billion Danish kroner.
This year the Coal and Steel Union is the only body to have been awarded an unconditional Statement of Assurance, and that is incredibly good.
There has been exceptionally good co-operation between the European Parliament, the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Court of Auditors and the Commission, but that does not mean to say that there have not been differences of opinion.
On the contrary!
I would, however, like to start by congratulating the Commission on the fact that the Bagnoli case is now finally concluded.
For four years I have protested about a ten-year-old matter concerning the missing interest payments which the Italians tried to cheat us out of.
The Commission has succeeded in recovering this money.
It is a couple of million Danish kroner, but it is something at least, as taxpayers will understand, that money which had been paid out unlawfully, has been repaid.
We should almost put the flags out to celebrate the fact that, on 11 October 1995, the Commission was finally able to resolve this matter.
But then we begin to have some of the minor points we have problems with. The solvency ratios.
We adopted a directive in 1992, and now we are even contravening the actual solvency ratio directive.
That is to say that we have excessive external investments.
The key factor is risk spreading, and it is being confined to fewer and fewer debtors and bigger and bigger commitments.
I can quote a couple of figures.
There are 11 debtors whose loans exceed 25 % of the ECSC's net assets.
The main commitments exceed 800 % of net assets, which means that the risk is not sufficiently spread.
We may run the risk of some momentous events occurring whereby we suddenly sustain some losses, but perhaps we are running over into next year's discharge procedure now.
But what if, for example, we are involved in a bankruptcy in connection with the tunnel between France and England? Then the EU system loses - and wait for it everybody - over 10 billion Danish kroner, and that is when things start to get problematic.
That is to say, therefore, that even if the accounts have been properly kept, there have still been shortcomings.
That is one of the things I am really aware of, and I have asked for a list of the types of guarantees we have.
I have been promised it by the Commission, but have not yet received it.
We do not seem to be very good at speculating in securities either.
In fact, during the past financial year we are due to approve, we lost ECU 70 million, and once again - you heard right - 70 million kroner by not selling securities at the right time.
Now we shall have to wait until the market changes and the rate goes up to recover the money.
Let us look at another problem, for example the Paris affair.
My good friend John Tomlinson will remember that we did something quite outrageous in Paris.
We bought a property that was so expensive that you would have thought we had bought the whole of Paris.
We have covered it up here in the accounts.
28 % of the investments which should have been paid back to the ECSC have not been received, and that amounts to ECU 1.68 million.
That means that the figures are being massaged, and I would therefore ask the Commission to sort things out and stop using all these tricks to hide the figures.
I also wonder, in regard to all the properties we have at our 126 embassies around the world, whether the accounts have been tampered with there as well? These are some of the things which I, at any rate, will try to investigate when we get to next year's discharge.
And then there's an entirely separate matter: the closure of mines in England where a Conservative government asked for low interest loans and then discovered that perhaps they would not use the loans after all and repaid them.
They have had God knows how many million kroner in interest allowances and, according to the Commission's legal service, we have no chance of recovering them.
In this case we should, in my opinion, no longer confine ourselves to the legal aspects of the matter, but should pursue a political course and bring the English Government before the Court and tell them that we do not like their speculating and stealing our money.
In short, the Commission should be brave and take a political step to get the money back.
Finally, Mr President, England has received over 50 % of the loans earmarked for four countries. We cannot have that.
It is interesting when an English government does this.
Prime Minister Major is behaving like a flirtatious woman; asking all and giving nothing.
He may well like our money, but he does not like the EU.
I call upon Mrs Theato to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I did not quite understand why the order of the reports was changed. I was told that the President-in-Office would attend our debate and hear at least the first reports.
Could you please tell me whether you know if the President-in-Office is coming and, if so, can we ensure that those reports for which we would particularly wish the President-in-Office to be present are dealt with before the Council addresses the House - in other words, that the rapporteurs at least can speak beforehand.
I would greatly appreciate your confirmation on this point.
My fear is that we will waste time by making further changes and failing to adhere to the agreed timetable.
The order was changed, Mrs Theato, solely because Mr Blak had important business preventing him from attending later.
All the other reports will be dealt with in the order envisaged.
The Council will be able to speak, but it seems that there is some delay because of the trialogue which is taking place.
I call upon Mr Tomlinson for a point of order.
Mr President, I am astonished that we are holding this debate on the discharge without having the Commission here.
How can we expect people to take Parliament seriously if it operates like this? I have been an elected representative for 25 years, but I have never experienced anything like this.
Will you arrange for a representative of the Commission to come here without delay?
Mr President, I should like to support what the previous speakers have said, and in fact I would urge that we vacate the Chamber and suspend the sitting here and now, until Parliament informs us that it can continue in a proper manner.
It is quite impossible to proceed with the discharge debate under these circumstances.
Mr President, on the same point.
I was just going to make the move for adjournment and I am supported by a large number of Members from all round the House.
Mr President, I have just come from the trialogue and Commissioner Liikanen is indeed tied up there as is the President-in-Office.
We left here when voting finished at 1 p.m., went directly to the trialogue and for approximately 45 minutes the trialogue has been adjourned so that the presidency can sort itself out.
The way it has tried to conduct the meeting during the last two hours has been an absolute disgrace.
I cannot see an end to it within the next two hours.
I do not know if the room is booked.
I have come out because I have two reports on the agenda.
But you have a problem, Mr President.
Perhaps someone can get some information from the meeting room as to when they expect to be finished.
That would help Members considerably.
Mr Wynn, ladies and gentlemen, I shall suspend the sitting for ten minutes.
I have sent someone to ask whether after these ten minutes we can expect the Council and the Commission.
If the Council and the Commission say they cannot guarantee to be here in ten minutes, I shall put it to the vote whether or not we should continue with the debate.
(The sitting was suspended at 3.10 p.m. and resumed at 3.20 p.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been in contact with the Commission and the Council.
The Commissioner has been kind enough to come straight away.
As regards the Council, we are told that they are discussing a document at the moment and will be another quarter of an hour.
I therefore put to the vote the question whether the debate should continue.
(Parliament decided to continue with the debate)
Mr President, I warn in advance that God help the Council if it comes in here wanting to lecture us for half an hour on a debate it has not heard.
I hope you make that abundantly clear to the President-in-Office before he walks into this room.
We were treated with disdain in committee when we were sent a civil servant to give what after all is a political recommendation.
We made it quite clear in committee that was unacceptable conduct by the presidency.
We have been treated with contempt again this afternoon and what we will not put up with is some sort of lecture on a debate which the Council has not had the courtesy to listen to.
I hope the representative of the Council can make that quite clear to the presidency before it comes to the Chamber.
It will save some of us the embarrassment of having to say it again directly to the Council when it arrives.
Thank you, Mr Tomlinson.
The Council has a distinguished representative here who will naturally report these points of view.
You know that it is not for me to censor what the Council wishes to say in this Assembly and you will receive the appropriate answers in parliamentary terms.
I therefore call upon the rapporteur, Mrs Kjer Hansen, to present her report.
Mr President, as the Commission is now well represented, I shall begin by thanking it for its co-operation and for the fact that the Commission has readily provided me with information and answered my questions on this subject.
Let me start by stating that, in my opinion, most of the shortcomings in the procedures for closing the accounts are due to the agricultural policy itself, the actual way in which we have formulated the common agricultural policy.
The agricultural policy has become so complex that it must be radically simplified and reformed before the accounts can be closed efficiently.
I hope that message will be an important consideration in any discussion of future agricultural policy.
It is also a problem that agricultural expenditure is paid via the EU budget only.
Naturally, the Member States do not, therefore, have the same interest in exposing irregular payments which may have taken place.
It is quite simply a clash of interests between the Commission and the Member States in that expenditure is not shared.
The procedure for closing the accounts is far from satisfactory for several reasons.
The Commission does not have sufficient resources to carry out the procedure satisfactorily.
The scope of the audit is minimal compared with the transactions made.
There are areas where no checks have been made whatsoever for years.
It is also difficult to carry out proper checks owing to the large numbers of bodies involved in paying out funds in the Member States.
In many cases it seems to be pure guesswork as to what sums are to be collected.
Only 7 % of the corrections made in the 1991 budget are individual corrections.
The rest are 'standard' corrections, i.e. the Commission estimates or, more correctly, guesses what sums or what percentages are to be recovered.
The Member States accept the corrections in the majority of cases, but we have also seen a number of examples of disagreements which have then been brought before the Court.
I therefore welcome the fact that a conciliation board has been set up to enable the Member States and the Commission to enter into conciliation in the event of a dispute.
The critical problem with the procedure for closing the accounts is that what should have been a technical procedure has, in reality, become a political negotiation.
The assessment which the Commission makes is made the subject of negotiation between the Commission and the Member State in question.
We have seen a number of examples of this.
One of the worst is cotton production in Greece where the Commission initially called for a correction of 25 %, but after negotiations with the country concerned, this was changed to 10 %, subject to a number of requirements being fulfilled.
Of course, both good and bad things might be said about such negotiations, but the fact is that there is no question of objectivity.
Another well-known example is the milk quota affair.
We have previously discussed this in great detail, but allow me to emphasize all the same that negotiation and political pressure predominated over the fact that there was a case of an unlawfully paid sum.
The whole matter ended up as political horsetrading, and the best that can be said about the milk quota affair is that the public got to hear all about it as it unfolded.
The fact that there is often negotiation between the Commission and a Member State means that the law is not necesseraly upheld.
The risk that the Member States are not given the same treatment exists, whether it occurs consciously or is merely a reflection of accidental discrimination.
Of course there are other Member States which find this so-called flexibility quite acceptable, because they believe it could be in their interests.
The problem is, however, that the idea behind the closure of the accounts is to recover expenditure not actually entitled to support.
The system suffers from numerous failings and the most serious is that it does not ensure, and does not seek to ensure, objectivity in closing the accounts, so that the amounts recovered reflect actual losses.
I recommend that discharge be given for this area, not because it deserves to be, but because it is the natural thing to do if we are to be consistent and follow up an earlier decision.
May I conclude by saying that I consider it better to close the accounts in spite of all the shortcomings, than not to close them at all, and I hope that in other areas, too, e.g. the Structural Funds, we will be able to complete the procedure for closing the accounts.
Mr President, the discharge for the 1992 budget has caused something of a stir.
As we know, thanks to Parliament's persistence the Commission has finally recovered ECU 1.6 billion in respect of the non-application of milk quotas in Spain and Italy, in other words Parliament has saved the taxpayer no less than ECU 1.6 bn - a fact worth remembering, particularly for the Eurosceptics.
Could I ask the Commissioner how much of the ECU 1.6 million has now been paid?
A few points were left over at the end of the discharge debate last year, such as the inquiry into tobacco fraud in Greece and Italy.
Am I right in thinking that very little work has been done on the investigation in Greece?
When will Parliament be informed about the probable scale of the fraud and the measures that have been taken?
Then there was the milk quota buy-back scheme which was being operated without any legal basis.
The Commission tries to make light of this by pointing out that a legal basis was adopted in 1995 with retrospective effect, so that the ECU 170 m in question were legalized retrospectively.
Does the Commission share my view that this is hardly what one could call sound financial management?
Finally, there was the failure to recover ECU 170 m from Spain for the nonapplication of milk quotas in 1989.
In the detailed information which I am most grateful to the Commission for supplying, it argues that it did nothing to recover this money because none of the Member States had lodged an appeal with the Court of Justice.
This is an extremely serious matter.
It means that the Commission makes the application of the Treaty and the principle of equal treatment conditional on a protest from one or more of the Member States.
I cannot help thinking that the Commission is in danger of becoming the Council of Ministers' lackey, instead of the guardian of the Treaty and protector of the European taxpayer.
I realize that most of these decisions were taken by the previous Commission, but I insist on having a clear explanation from the present one.
The handling of the issue of funding for slaughtering calves in the Netherlands is further undermining the credibility of the Commission's financial policy.
I know that the Commission is to make a statement tomorrow, but perhaps the Commissioner responsible for the budget and budget control could say something now about this 'spend, spend, spend' approach.
Let me explain what I mean.
First the Agriculture Commissioner says he is surprised at the Netherlands' decision to destroy 60 000 calves, then a few days later we read in the newspaper that the Commission is contributing HFL 20 m towards this measure, which it has itself already condemned as unnecessary and unwarranted.
I think this is an extremely serious matter which undermines the credibility of the entire Commission.
Can the Commissioner explain how this is supposed to be consistent with the strict financial management which Mr Santer announced, and on which I congratulated him? After all, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, so I would like a detailed reply from the Commission on this fundamental question.
Mr President, these eight reports for joint debate represent something rather new in the Community this year because the Maastricht Treaty instructs the Court to produce a Statement of Assurance each year on the Community's finances.
It does not tell the Court how to do it nor does it tell Parliament what to do with it.
I was preparing to follow Mr Wynn with my remarks and now I find that I am playing St John before him!
The Court devoted considerable resources to the DAS (Statement of Assurance) and that fact is obvious when you see the shortcomings or look for the holes in the Annual Report for 1994.
I look to the new President of the Court to bring about a restructuring of the working methods of the Court.
I asked for that last year and I ask for it again because we need to see the Court so organized that it can actually produce an annual report and the Statement of Assurance.
This leaves it, I know, hard pressed but if it acted more like an international firm of auditors and rather less like a pale copy of the European Commission, it might be more successful.
The second problem follows the receipt of the DAS by the European Parliament.
This has led to considerable discussion in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I strongly support the answers provided by Mr Wynn, which he will give later and which can be found in his explanatory statement.
He sets the DAS and the constitutional position of DAS in its proper context because all the European Council did was just request that the Court produce the Statement.
It did not say how the Court should do it and it did not say what we should do with it.
But I believe that the explanatory statement attached to Mr Wynn's report is so good that we ought to draw up an own-initiative report which will enable us to put those paragraphs - 30 to 51 - before the House so that it can vote on them as the policy for the Community.
Now my friend Mr Blak has had to depart.
It is a matter of breaking the windows and running away.
Last year I said about him 'I regard him as the man in charge of the European Coal and Steel Community.
He does a splendid job.'
However, with his remarks about the closure of coalmines, he has allowed his party politics to get the better of his normally sound judgment.
He is at it again this year!
It is true to say that he makes it clear the United Kingdom has not acted illegally.
There has been no question of deliberate wastage of European Coal and Steel Community funds.
While one of the mines was closed in 1990, the Markham main colliery has been mothballed, in that it is under repair and maintenance so that it can be used in the future.
We shall vote against his paragraph 11.
If I may turn to Dublin, that is a fairly easy task because the Committee on Budgetary Control has no hesitation in recommending that discharge be given for the 1994 year.
I am delighted that it has been reported that the saga about property in Dublin is at an end.
This has gone on far too long and that worry is now behind us.
But the problem of financial control at Dublin is not yet settled.
We recommended last year that the Commission appoint a part-timer to carry out this work and this has not yet been done.
The pattern of work, the Financial Regulation and the Court's advice seem to conspire to produce too much cash in hand at any one time.
If the Court, the Commission and the Foundation cannot get it right, they should propose an amendment to the Financial Regulation because the advice conflicts from year to year.
I hope that the House will endorse the Committee on Budgetary Control's recommendation that discharge for the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin be granted.
It is not such an easy story when we turn to the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, CEDEFOP as we call it; there are much more serious problems there.
I hasten to add that the problems are not mainly of the Centre's making - they are not its fault at all.
It must have been a prime instance of European cock-up theory which prompted the European Council to transfer CEDEFOP from Berlin to Thessaloniki.
I really believe that it was their intention to transfer the East European Training Foundation - who were temporary tenants of CEDEFOP in Berlin - to Thessaloniki.
But as the king had spoken, the move had to take place.
The Commission did not help because it indulged in some appalling labour relations so that more than half of the staff were not prepared to move.
I do not think Parliament helped either because we had asked for independent consultants to come in and review the work of CEDEFOP.
They chose to come in just at the time when morale was under the floorboards because the staff were not happy with the arrangements that were being made.
The Court produced a fairly critical report on this point, but the consultants went so far as to suggest that the centre was not a great deal of use to the Community.
I do not think the Committee on Budgetary Control is the right body to make a qualitative assessment as to the centre's usefulness and future use.
That is the work for the Spending Committee.
My view is that as long as there is a growing demand for the centre's reports they must be doing some useful research which people want to get hold of.
That is a good commercial justification.
In addition, I think we would look rather foolish if we suggested that such a centre was unnecessary at a time of high unemployment in Europe and a time when training and retraining ideas are vital to our future.
That work deserves an even higher priority.
Rather than condemn CEDEFOP out of hand by refusing discharge, we propose that discharge should be deferred.
In the immediate future the committee should arrange a visit to Thessaloniki, thus the director and officials could reassure us as to the future of CEDEFOP, its viability and that it can play a useful role in research into training and retraining.
The Budgetary Control Committee recommends to the House that we defer discharge to CEDEFOP for the time being.
I finish with an appeal to the Commission and everybody else concerned to look at what is happening to the management boards for both Dublin and Thessaloniki.
There are now more people on the management boards than there are people working in the centre.
The founding fathers' original idea was to get the social partners to talk together - that is a good thing - government, employers and trade unions.
But if you have one representative from each of the 15 Member States and the EFTA countries and representatives from the Commission, you have got boards of 60 people.
They meet twice and their bureau meets three or four times.
There must be a better way of doing it which would look more sensible to Europe's citizens.
I appeal to the Commission to instigate an enquiry as to how this can be improved.
Mr President, first of all, on the general budget: within the resolution let us not lose sight of the fact that we actually welcome the spirit of constructive cooperation that has existed between the Commission and the Court of Auditors for the year 1994.
If that applies to the past, then we also welcome the SEM 2000 proposals and hope that in the future things will be far better.
The problem when we give discharge is the fact that 80 % of the Union's budget is spent by the Member States, and we all know this.
Unfortunately, we do not give discharge to the Member States, we only give discharge to the Commission.
The Commission must not get too enthusiastic about hearing nothing but praise, for it knows that this resolution contains criticism of the lukewarm manner in which the Commission has acted as far as we are concerned, instead of having a go at the Member States to get the money back or ensure that it is spent correctly.
A lot of the specific subject areas within the report will be covered by people who follow me.
I just want to concentrate on one issue and one issue only, which has been referred to by Mr Kellett-Bowman, and that is the DAS.
The DAS will enhance the sound financial management of the Community's budget - we all accept that - but there are problems, as the Court of Auditors indicated.
Within the 70-odd paragraphs of the resolution, to me the most important one is paragraph 8, which asks the Commission from now on to include an account headed 'specified amounts subject to recovery proceedings' .
We asked it to specify individual cases and sub-totals based on substantial errors reported by the Court; then we asked it to inform Parliament of the action taken in both cases.
I say it is the most important paragraph, because, whilst I shall recommend that we give discharge, I shall recommend we do so only on the clear assurance from the Commission that it will do what we are asking.
So we await the Commission's response on that.
This was the first Statement of Assurance.
The results of the Court of Auditors' report on the Commission were somewhat mixed.
Within the Explanatory Statement I use a footballing term to say if we were to look at this response we could say that the Commission had one win, one lose and one score draw.
The win was that the accounts accurately reflected the revenue, expenditure and financial situation of the Union; the defeat was that there were too many errors in payment transactions to give a positive assurance, and the score draw was the fact that there were no significant errors in own-resources but that it was not possible to give an assurance that all chargeable imports have yielded corresponding revenue.
Even with that one win, one lose, one score draw, last November when the Court presented its report the media - certainly the British media - latched on to the figure of 4 %.
It was blazoned all over the media that the Community was misspending or losing - of course, the word 'fraud' cropped up time and time again - 4 % of our budget.
We have to take that on board and we have to decide whether we can give discharge to the Commission in the light of what was said in the DAS statement.
Let us just look at it.
The one thing that we have to remember is that discharge is the legal certification of the accounts.
When we look at this 4 % we have to ask the question: well, is this an acceptable level or a non-acceptable level?
The simple answer is that it is a non-acceptable level!
Parliament in no way can condone this 4 % figure. So we cannot accept that one ecu in every 25 is wrongly paid.
But then you have to look at the system itself and you have to ask questions such as: is the figure reliable? That depends on which angle you look at it from!
You will find that discussed in the Explanatory Statement, where we ask whether the figure is reliable.
But if it is reliable, then whose fault is it? That is an even bigger dilemma.
In the main, we could blame the Member States, because they are the ones who spend this 80 % of the budget.
But, of course, as I said, we do not give discharge to the Member States.
The thing we should asking is: can those errors be corrected? I think we find an answer to that within that Explanatory Statement; and that is why paragraph 8 is so important to this Parliament, because that is the way that we can give discharge to the Commission, even with the Statement of Assurance being as it is.
Let us be perfectly clear that Parliament cannot legally establish a debt.
We cannot do the job of the Commission. Therefore, we cannot make the recovery of the money a condition of discharge.
That is of fundamental importance.
Parliament's discharge power is focussed on the Community's accounts.
This is the area where, of course, we can act.
If the accounts were amended, as we request in paragraph 8, to include the sums the Commission hopes to recover, then three things would happen.
Firstly, Parliament would not have to certify the accounts and, therefore, we would not be covering up any errors; secondly, the Commission would be obliged to pursue recovery of the amounts paid in error and, thirdly, the Commission's legal responsibility to implement the budget would not be hindered.
Therefore, the conclusions reached in that general report are that we should grant discharge subject to these demands on the Commission.
I now turn to the European Development Fund.
Here the recommendation is greatly different.
Those of us who have been here for many years and have seen the EDF discharge year in and year out know the problems of funding through the European Development Fund and we have accepted that over the years - not that we have tried to cover anything up, but at least we have tried to take cognizance of all those areas where, in development terms, things are not as simple as they would seem to be to an everyday accountant.
There comes a time when we have to say enough is enough.
Quite frankly, there are three things that have come to a head and which have now brought us to the stage where we say enough is enough.
We have said for a long time that the EDF does not give the correct democratic accountability and that it is compromised by its legal and financial framework.
And yet it is the Member States, once again, who are responsible for that legal and financial statement: they are the ones who have created the situation, they are the ones who can change the situation.
Within this report and within the resolution Parliament recognizes the Commission's attempt to improve the EDF through its better financial management, even working within what we consider to be an impossible framework.
There is no criticism of the Commission on the EDF in general.
The criticism, of course, comes when we come to the Cultural Foundation - I shall come to that in a moment - because that is the one area where we use the word 'deplores' ; in fact we use it twice in relation to the Cultural Foundation.
But the DAS gave us the opportunity to look at the accounts, and the Court of Auditors said that the accounts imperfectly reflect the financial situation and the operations of the EDFs.
They lack the consistency and discipline to be able to reflect the true situation faithfully.
That is clearly not a positive statement of assurance.
DG VIII of the Commission would argue that it is.
That was once again our dilemma where we acted as the referee and in doing so the one thing we are clear about is that it is not a positive statement.
As I said about the general budget, it is there as a tool to help Parliament.
But the biggest anomaly this year - and it was the same last year but we did not have the DAS then - is that the Court of Justice in its ruling has now stated that the European Development Funds are not Community expenditure.
It is Member State expenditure which is managed by the Commission.
In other words, the Commission acts as a sub-contractor to manage these Funds and to all intents and purposes Parliament has no say in this expenditure.
Yet we are obliged to give discharge.
We respect the Court of Justice ruling but it creates a confused and incoherent mess.
It also creates problems for the day-to-day management of the EDFs.
If we want to give a discharge year in and year out, we would want to know where we stand legally to do so.
The Commission has made great strides to change things and we accept that and welcome it.
But a radical re-think is needed and I am sure everyone in this Parliament, barring the odd one or two - and I mean odd one or two - would actually agree that the EDFs should be budgetized.
That is the only way the system can change.
We also recognize with the current system that the Commission staff in Brussels is not sufficient, not in quality but in numbers.
It does not have enough staff to do what it should be doing at present.
The nature of the Commission's role as regards development funding gives rise to contradictions that Parliament as a democratic institution finds extremely hard to accept.
Member States take the credit for providing the funds. They write the rule book - such as it is - but they then leave the Commission and Parliament to take the blame.
So there are two aspects which I have named so far. Firstly. the DAS and, secondly, the Court of Justice ruling.
The third aspect was what happened at the Cultural Foundation.
There should be no excuses whatsoever from the Commission.
When I met the Commission it would have been nice for them to have said: ' It's a fair cop, Guv'nor.
We hold our hands up, we were wrong' .
But a defence was put up in certain quarters and I find that quite inexplicable.
When something is as bad as what happened with the Cultural Foundation, we should not try to cover it up.
The Commission took a political decision which it did not have to do even if the Council of Ministers was leaning upon it to do so.
In no way, shape or form should Parliament be connected with that decision.
If we had not had the DAS or the Court of Justice ruling, I for one would have been recommending that we do not give discharge because of what happened with the Cultural Foundation.
It gives me no joy whatsoever to make a recommendation not to give discharge to the European Development Funds but the time has come for Parliament to stop providing this veneer of respectability, this fig leaf which we have always given in the past.
From now on we have to look at it through different eyes and for the year 1994 the recommendation is refusal of discharge.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a Parliament we have a different task from that of the Court of Auditors.
Our task is to make a political assessment of what the budget reveals about policy.
In the area of social policy, it reveals a gulf between the requirements, in terms of European social policy, and the European social policy that exists.
That comes across very clearly.
It is then further reflected in individual structural problems.
There is, for example, the recognized structural problem - still unresolved, despite reforms - of the difficulty in disbursing money from the European Social Fund on time; this problem has not yet been solved, despite the efforts made by the Commission to address it.
A further problem - and the last one that I intend to mention in detail - concerns the social dialogue, where there is still a great imbalance because worker-employer relations have been europeanized to varying degrees, which means that the extent to which people are willing to show their hands in this context also varies.
If we grant a discharge, we must recognize, on the one hand, that although European social policy is needed, it is not being practised.
However, we must also ask ourselves - and I would explicitly endorse what Mr Wynn said on this point - who is responsible in each instance.
It must be made very clear here that it is time to find another way of placing some of the responsibility on the Member States, since all too often the policy pursued by the Member States consists of foot-dragging, in the hope that at the end of the financial year, they might perhaps get some money for projects which they could not otherwise have implemented; or else they are actually given money from the Social Fund and spend it on building roads, because that is their preferred use for it.
If we cannot manage to curb this behaviour on the part of the Member States, there is something strange about criticizing the Commission and refusing to grant it discharge.
We must, therefore, grant discharge to the Commission, because we have succeeded in establishing to our satisfaction that it is not the Commission that is at fault here.
Mr President, it is our job to monitor the efficiency of development aid and to exercise control, in our own political interest and the interest of the taxpayer.
It is perhaps worth noting that all this aid would not be needed if we had a fair system of trade, and were prepared to cancel debts.
The report by the Court of Auditors and our own report find fault on many specific points, for example humanitarian aid, only 66.9 % of which is utilized, or, as detailed by the Court of Auditors, the lack of independence of contracted agencies, ill-defined audit contracts, insufficient preparation, and slack and superficial monitoring.
In many cases, there are no written reports on these matters.
The Commission should not rely too heavily on the implementing authorities or firms to provide effective monitoring.
In view of the strict limit on speaking time, I do not wish to go into these points at greater length; instead, I should like to deal with the final point made by Mr Wynn, that because of the problem with the Cultural Foundation, we should not grant a discharge in respect of the financial administration of the European Development Fund.
This problem with the Cultural Foundation is a scandal, but it is already two years old.
We in Parliament have brought the scandal to light, and set the wheels in motion to have it discussed.
We had a debate in the House, we set up a hearing in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and we submitted a report at the ACP Joint Assembly, in order to bring the whole scandal out into the open.
I think we can fairly say that it is being dealt with.
If we do not grant this discharge, we may spark off a fresh debate about Lomé IV and financing.
We have just been involved in major controversy with the Council about these issues.
I find a great deal to criticize in Lomé IV too, but we are talking here about the only forum for North-South dialogue.
This political dialogue has to be important to us.
Therefore, we should not see it destroyed because of this one instance.
It is important that this issue should be discussed at the Intergovernmental Conference.
We must make the inclusion of the Development Fund in the budget a political issue at the conference.
That is our demand.
We should use this budget discharge as an occasion to exert pressure on the national governments.
Mr Wolf has just said that we must place a share of the responsibility on the national governments.
That is what we must do.
It is my belief that if we proceed by making an example of this scandal, the effect we produce will be disproportionate to our analysis.
I would therefore urge, particularly with a view to the Intergovernmental Conference, that we should postpone this vote in order to impress on the Council the following point: if we are to operate a European development policy, then this House must be one of the monitoring and authorizing authorities.
That means that the fund must be budgetized.
It might then be possible to resolve scandals and problems such as these by other means.
I believe that if we do not take this step, the Commission will be cast in an unfavourable light, and we shall undermine what we ourselves, as a Parliament, achieved by means of our initiatives two years ago: namely, bringing this matter out into the open.
To be brief, therefore, I am urging that we should defer the decision on this discharge, raise the issue with our national governments - in Bonn and Paris and London - and then wait and see what happens at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, I would like, first of all, to congratulate all the rapporteurs on these many reports and say that in each case I will be following the rapporteur's recommendation.
It reflects the work they have done to get consensus for their reports.
I want to use my limited time to talk politically about the process that we are going through.
The Commission's attitude is welcome.
Quite clearly the culture in the Commission has changed and is improving.
I hope it will continue to improve until we have the sort of culture that has been visualized both by the President of the Commission and in the sound and efficient management documents that have been put before us.
When I turn to the Council I have to say that its attitude in the process is deplorable.
80 % of the expenditure is spent in the Member States.
The fiddles that affect the European taxpayer largely take place in the Member States and under their jurisdiction.
The clearance of accounts is in the Member States.
The fines are then against the Member States.
If we look at what has happened since the reports were debated in committee, particularly those relating to 1992 and 1993, Italy has been fined ECU 217m on milk quotas, ECU 89.4m on non-existent cereals - and I have to tell you ECU 89.4m on non-existent cereals represents a lot of cereals - ECU 25.6m on beef storage, ECU 16m on exceeding tobacco quotas.
I could just as easily cite the other Member States; I am only choosing Italy because I know it will be close to the President-in-Office of the Council.
Other Member States such as Spain, Greece, Ireland and the United Kingdom, have all been fined in the clearance of accounts procedures.
Yet this Council, which is long on rhetoric when it comes to value for money and the fight against fraud, is short on action.
The action of the Council has been to send a civil servant to the committee who could not answer a single political question and to absent itself from our debate today.
Granted it is absent to be at a trialogue, but they were the people who double-booked the meeting!
It is a contempt of Parliament.
We might just as well have had a debate with an empty chair.
That has been the level of the contribution that the Council has made to our procedures.
Mr President, first of all I should like to associate myself with what Mr Tomlinson has just said.
Whilst we were debating Mr Wynn's report on the approval of the implementation of the budget for 1994, the opinion was expressed in the Committee on Budgetary Control that the Court of Auditors was in danger of becoming the victim of its own success.
We think that is clear now because the Court of Auditors will leave this hemicycle today not only with recognition of its hard work but also with the burden of at least six special reports and perhaps two or three new control procedures.
However, we can already see growing signs that the Court lacks the material resources to achieve the objectives which Parliament itself has laid down.
And the requirement under the Maastricht Treaty to prepare a statement of assurance as to the reliability of the accounts will contribute still more to putting pressure on certain material resources which are already very tight.
This Parliament has voted and will continue to vote for austerity in expenditure, particularly as regards the appointment of new staff, but we must bear in mind that without a Court of Auditors with sufficient resources we shall find it very difficult to comply with one of the principal mandates of our electors, namely to ensure that Community funds are used correctly and that European taxpayers' interests are protected when we are faced with the certain fact, stressed by the Wynn report, that 80 % of the Community budget is spent within the Member States.
There is a current of opinion, as honourable Members are well aware, which considers that in view of the 80 % it should perhaps be the Member States and their own national control institutions which should have full responsibility in supervising Community expenditure; that is to say, the pure and strict application of the principle of subsidiarity to budgetary control and its renationalization.
However, I think that the majority of this Assembly would not approve such an application of the principle of subsidiarity.
In no case do Community funds represent more than 2 % of national budgets and so to treat them in the same way as total national expenditure for control purposes would only reduce the actual quality of the control.
But it is clear that more effective machinery for cooperation between the Court of Auditors and national audit departments must be set up.
If that is hard to manage for the moment it is because there are considerable differences in accounting between the Member States, particularly in periods for drawing up and presenting accounts and also because there are differences in the functions of national audit offices and the political and administrative structures.
All that comes from different constitutional systems which make it very difficult - though not impossible - to establish indispensable machinery for collaboration to ensure that Community resources are satisfactorily controlled.
The commitment and political will of the Members of this Assembly to strengthen the material capacity of the Court of Auditors to perform its duties must be very clear.
Clear expression should also be given to the importance which this Assembly attaches to keeping the Court of Auditors responsible for controlling 100 % of Community resources, with the Court retaining full autonomy and independence from Parliament in addition to observing and fulfilling the conditions laid down in the Treaties.
I should like to end by congratulating all the rapporteurs whose capacity and readiness for discussion are shown by the small number of amendments tabled.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on the discharge for 1994 is proving of to be of greater importance than in the past.
That is because, on the basis of the new provisions of the Maastricht Treaty, Parliament's powers are no longer limited to merely approving the Commission accounts, a kind of rubber-stamping; they are in fact based on the statement of assurance from the Court of Auditors and are therefore far more significant and substantive.
On the substance, as a result of what can only be described as a veritable tidal wave of fraud and irregularities, which have reached levels so worrying as to require detailed review of the procedure for implementing and monitoring all Community spending, discharge this year takes on completely fresh importance.
Consequently, the Wynn report has a very important political significance, and its conclusions - which take in the substance of the suggestions made during the debate within the Committee on Budgetary Control - have a direct impact not only on the procedures for implementing the spending provided for in the budget but also, and most importantly, the functioning and - currently completely unsatisfactory - methods of administering Community policies.
If we want to avoid Parliament calling next year for discharge to be refused and, hence, a serious conflict of competence between Institutions, we shall have very rapidly to set under way a reform with a far-reaching impact on the spending mechanisms.
In particular, we must ensure that there is greater transparency and publicity, particularly as regards the administration of direct funding, in certain vital sectors such as tourism and, more generally, internal policies.
We shall have, if necessary, to look into the possibility of setting up a committee of inquiry into the protection of the Community's financial interests.
Mr President, I would like to start off by commending Mr Wynn for his discharge report on the general budget.
I believe that the rapporteur has succeeded in putting his finger right on the sensitive points which need to be highlighted.
I agree that a change has taken place recently.
Co-operation with the Commission is now conducted in a more positive spirit than hitherto.
I believe, however, that it is depressing to note that there are so many repetitions in the discharge reports, year after year.
I cannot overstate the need for stricter observance of the obligation to follow Parliament's recommendations, and I believe that there is an obvious need to tighten up the regulations in the context of the intergovernmental conference for example, so that both the Commission and the Member States are required to comply with the changes which are necessary to run the accounts satisfactorily.
It is clearly unsatisfactory that the Commission does not currently use the means at its disposal to get the Member States to observe the rules and comply with their obligations to carry out checks, knowing full well that it is often the Member States which are neglectful in this respect.
We can see this, for example, with the Structural Funds where there is totally inadequate control over projects, and no consequences if projects are not completed or are completed in some way other than that originally laid down.
We must impose a requirement that if the regulations are not observed, aid will be reduced, so that there are also consequences in this area for failure to comply with the applicable rules.
On the subject of the PHARE programme, may I urge the Commission to take up the challenge to work out some strategic guidelines for the PHARE programme's role in connection with enlargement to incorporate the Eastern and Central European countries.
It is imperative that the purpose of the aid which we provide through the PHARE programme is to pave the way for enlargement with the Eastern and Central European countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have a comprehensive package of discharge decisions before us, allowing us an overview of the most serious problems that we have to contend with in the proper implementation of the budget.
The citizens of the EU are entitled to require that every last ECU should be managed in a transparent, effective and economical way, and today, like last year, we must once again conclude, on the basis of the Court of Auditors' analyses, that there are major flaws in the system.
However, the very fact of discussing these deficiencies openly and frankly can go some way towards generating confidence.
Nothing should be swept under the carpet.
In this respect, all the reports paint a very clear picture and have the support of my group.
As I see it, there are two main areas of difficulty. We must cut the ground from under the opportunists.
What do I meant by that?
If Member States find a way to make some money on the side from milk quotas, and if their little scheme receives the retrospective blessing of the Commission, in the sense that there is no insistence on the repayment of ECU 2 billion, this encourages the hope that putting your hand in the Union's till will ultimately pay off.
My colleague Mr Samland, and of course the Council, will have more to say on this point.
If the rules on the administration of the Structural Funds are not observed, and if this does not incur, for example, the suspension of further payments, then such an approach is actually being encouraged.
It is a fact that 80 % of the EU budget is spent by the Member States, and it is precisely there that significant deficiencies are emerging.
However, we shall get nowhere simply by issuing appeals.
As long as the EU budget functions with the present high level of subsidies from the Agricultural and Structural Funds, there must be a range of sanctions mechanisms to prevent irregularities going unpunished.
The Commission should therefore take very seriously all the proposals made by the Committee on Budgetary Control for securing and recovering sums wrongly disbursed.
As regards external policy, the important thing is to overcome difficulties in the treaties, in order to achieve a more transparent spending policy and genuine cooperation between the two arms of the budgetary authority.
That applies equally to the European Development Fund and to the common foreign and security policy.
Parliament has repeatedly called for the EDF to be integrated into the budget.
The reasons for taking such a step are obvious, and led the Court of Auditors to comment that it was hard to draw any comparison between what was intended and what was implemented.
I would therefore say to all those who argue that a refusal to grant discharge would be an insult to development policy in general and our commitments under the Lomé Convention in particular: it is quite the opposite!
The financial subculture that we are currently sustaining is creating major administrative weaknesses.
We are meant to grant discharge, even though we have no influence or effective political control over how the resources are spent.
That has to change, not least in order to improve the quality of our development policy!
Refusing discharge will, therefore, send the right signal to the Intergovernmental Conference, to tell them that it is time they came up with an institutional solution to this dilemma.
I also expect the conference on the revision of the Treaty to produce clarification of the common foreign and security policy and associated budgetary matters.
It is unacceptable that the Council should decide on joint actions - such as the one in Mostar - and that these should be financed from the EU budget, without the Council at the same time adhering to the procedures for managing the appropriations.
There is a major procedural loophole, and unfortunately it now also affects discharge, because at the end of the day, Parliament cannot discharge the Council.
I am grateful to Mr Wynn for including the conclusions of my working paper in the motion for a resolution, and I am very hopeful that the special report on foreign and security policy announced by the Court of Auditors will give us a good basis for making more detailed proposals to the conference on the revision of the Treaty.
Mr President, my group supports all these reports but I have a query for Mr Wynn before I can advise the vote on the development fund question, which I will come to in a moment.
With regard to Mrs Kjer Hansen, it was very clear that where there are corrections to be made, this should not be a political, negotiable matter.
It should be an objective matter based on the actual loss.
I follow Mr Cornelissen's report on this point. He explained that the money was not recovered because no Member State had applied to the Court.
This really will not do.
We cannot go back to our European citizens who are very critical about the question of fraud and what they read in the press, and tell them that this is the system.
We have to get a new and better system that will work because they will find it inexplicable otherwise.
While I agree with Mr Tomlinson that we have seen an enormous improvement in the whole attempt by the Commission to get its house in order in all these matters, nevertheless it did not fulfil all the requests for information in certain headings.
There is room for improvement.
To come to Mr Wynn's general discharge, he says that he is recommending a discharge on assurances by the Commission.
It is a bit difficult to know how we will vote because the Commission has not been here to hear him and to give these assurances.
So what are they worth? We will not know, unless it reads the transcript tonight.
The Council is here now but it did not hear either.
It is a very unsatisfactory situation.
I will have to explain that to my group at tonight's meeting.
I am very critical of the Member States.
They are dealing here with the European taxpayers' money. They do not seem to take it seriously enough.
We should not be giving the fig leaf of respectability that was mentioned by getting involved in a procedure where we really cannot act properly because we do not have proper control.
Regarding my question on the Development Funds, is Mr Wynn aware of the feelings of the ACP's 70 states expressed at the recent Lomé conference, that if we do not grant discharge, it might affect them in some way? If I could have that assurance I could advise my group.
If it does not make any financial difference, if it does not destroy their confidence, then I could go along with the refusal to discharge.
But I would quite like to hear about that.
Mr President, representative of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin with a comment on procedure.
I was not present just now when my colleagues expressed their views on this subject, and this is not because I was attending the trialogue as I was not included in the European Parliament's delegation.
I should like to point out that we are discussing eight reports in under three hours.
One of these concerns action to be taken following the 1992 discharge, namely Mr Cornelissen's report.
On this subject, you will remember the discussions on the discharge in question, which was postponed for more than a year.
The second of these reports concerns action to be taken following the 1993 discharge.
The third, by Mr Wynn, concerns giving discharge to the Commission for the 1994 financial year, when the Statement of Insurance (DAS) by the Court of Auditors entered into force for the first time and provided us with a negative DAS on payment operations.
Is this reasonable?
Should not more time have been allowed for each of these reports?
Is not Parliament discrediting itself by seeking to discuss everything, at the risk of not even doing that for which it exists, namely to exercise control over the use of European Union funding? When you add to this the fact that we have changed the order in which the reports are to be considered in order to fit in with the arrangements of one of our rapporteurs, Mr Black, who is not even present to hear what follows, then you can understand to what extent our procedures may appear surprising.
I now come to the two reports by Mr Wynn, one on the 1994 discharge which he proposes to grant on the general budget, and the other on the 1994 discharge which he proposes to refuse on the question of management of the European Development Fund.
We are therefore granting discharge on a budget of almost ECU 60 billion, brushing aside the Court of Auditors' refusal to give a positive DAS due to payment irregularities amounting to ECU 2, 386 million, which is ECU 2.4 billion or 4 % of the budget.
We reject the discharge in respect to the EDF budgets of an amount in the region of ECU 2.5 billion, and for two reasons: firstly, there is no positive Statement of Insurance, which also applies to the general budget, and secondly, there are irregularities regarding the Cultural Foundation's budget, irregularities which I do not dispute.
But do you know what this Foundation's budget is? I say this for the benefit of those who listen to us here: ECU 810, 000 or 0.04 % of the EDF.
I tabled an amendment which simply specified these amounts.
Without being contested, this amendment was rejected.
Why? In truth it was because the decision on discharge had been made in advance.
The arguments put forward are no more than pretexts.
Discharge to the Commission was refused because the EDF is not integrated into the Community budget.
So I should like to ask a few questions. Why was discharge granted at the time of previous EDF budgets when similar criticisms had been raised and the legal framework was the same?
Have we taken into account the disastrous consequences, in political terms, of this refusal to grant discharge on the conference of ACP countries, in terms of the way they perceive the commitment of the European countries? Before requesting additional competences for Parliament, would it not be better to ensure that there are more deputies able to implement them?
Mr President-inOffice, Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very sorry that I am only now able to take part in this debate.
As you know, I do not make a habit of being late, because part of debating is, of course, being able to respond to what one's colleagues have said.
You know, however, that we have also been negotiating today in a trialogue on an important budgetary package, and that is why the Council President and members of the delegation from the Committee on Budgets had to be absent from the debate.
I am exceptionally sorry about this, and it certainly does not mean that we underestimated the importance of this debate, but it does explain why we could not be here on time.
As regards the report that I have to present today, I can tell you that it has been a remarkable experience for me to follow a budget from its drafting in 1992 - on the basis of the Commission's figures for 1991 - and its adoption for 1993, through to its second stage in the discharge procedure last year and now in the Commission's responses to the discharge procedure.
It has to be said, Mrs Müller, that there are certain points where one has the feeling that it should have been possible, somewhere between 1991 and 1996, to achieve some movement.
A look at the tobacco regulation or the regulations in the wine sector, however, forces one to the conclusion that even five years is not long enough to see progress.
With the support of the committee, I tried in my report to respond on only a few main points, and I should like to stress that this does not mean that all the points not addressed have been accepted.
The few points on which I have commented relate firstly to tobacco, secondly to wine, thirdly to transfers of appropriations and quality control, and fourthly to the recovery of interest on unused monies from the Structural Funds.
Let me say something more on these four points, and firstly on tobacco.
We have a report before us from the Court of Auditors on this issue.
We asked the Commission to submit a report on it, a report which was to be based on the Court of Auditors' guidelines and submitted by 1 April.
Judging from the informal preparatory work which has already been done in connection with this process, it looks as if the recommendation from the Court of Auditors - the introduction of direct income aid for tobacco producers - is not going to be implemented; it looks as though the Commission will not actually submit this proposal, never mind the Council accept it.
This demonstrates, however, that an element of inconsistency, mismanagement or actual fraud - call it what you will - is being carried over from year to year, because the legal basis for it is not changed.
The reason for this, Mrs Müller, is that in the discharge procedure, we argue with our partner, the Commission, whereas we should be arguing with the real culprit at the next level, namely the Council, which is capable of establishing legal bases that would rule out mismanagement or fraud.
The same applies to the wine sector, which is a virtual disaster.
We insisted that a register should be compiled - properly compiled in every Member State.
Now a new register is to be set up because the first procedure posed too many problems.
However, we are still paying for the current procedure and, of course, the new procedure is not available yet.
Whose fault is it that the reform proposals have not been properly implemented? As in the previous case I referred to, the culprit is the Council.
Furthermore, the Council has some 256 decisions pending, whereas here in Parliament we have only 52 decisions in the pipeline.
That shows where the bottleneck and the imbalance between the institutions is to be found.
The third point concerns interest for the Structural Funds.
We have requested and called on the Commission to see that there is a precise definition of eligible and non-eligible expenditure in the context of the Structural Funds, and to ensure that the question of the recovery of interest is finally resolved, because we see this as Community money which should come back to the Community, rather than disappearing into anyone's coffers in the Member States, or even in the regions of the Member States, as happens in my own country, Germany.
Last but not least, transfers of appropriations by DG XIX.
I know that you are responsible for the budgetary aspect, Commissioner, but we shall expect you, in future, to supply us not just with an accounting justification for transfers of appropriations, but also with a qualitative assessment, because that has to be the basis for using and implementing resources efficiently.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has unanimously approved my draft report on this issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must first apologize for arriving late, this was partly due to the fact that the political interest in the Community's future budgets, in other countries also, tends to be greater than in past budgets: I was in fact engaged in discussing the outline for the 1997 budget.
I am here to present the Council recommendation, adopted on 11 March and transmitted to the House, that the Commission be granted discharge for the budget for the 1994 financial year.
I am sure that you share the view of the presidency and the Council that the two institutions need to work in harmony, including when it comes to measures concerning the Community budget.
I know from previous experience that Parliament and the Council consider it crucially important that the Community should ensure that all direct measures are maintained and improved to ensure that resources from the Community budget are spent in full compliance with the principles of financial management which I shall summarize here as consisting of three factors.
Firstly: the decisions should reflect the needs of communities; secondly: the resources should be used economically and efficiently; and, thirdly, there should be complete transparency in resource management and accounting.
Those criteria assume crucial importance at the current time when the Member States are having to contend with well-known social and financial problems.
In its recommendation, the Council emphasizes that budgetary discipline and respect for the principles of sound management, to which I referred, have to be applied to all measures funded from Community resources.
It is vital that there should be a period review of the reasons that led to the adoption of the measures under way in order to guarantee economy and efficiency in resource utilization.
That should always be done independently of the assessments made to prepare budgetary decisions.
The reports of the Court of Auditors and the monitoring activities on which they are based provide the basic instruments that permit us to monitor the application of those principles.
We have to congratulate the Court of Auditors for the efficient way in which it performs this task assigned to it by the Treaties.
I wish also to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on Budgetary Control for the work it does every year in relation to the discharge procedure: that work is done in the interest not only of the European Parliament but the Community as a whole.
As far as the views of the Council are concerned, let me make a few brief points on the main issues and ask you to run through again in every detail the text of the recommendation and the comments that go with it.
In the field of own resources, the Council shares the concerns of the Court of Auditors about the operation of the Community transit scheme in the Member States.
In that connection, it is most certainly interested in the European Parliament's suggestion that a temporary committee of inquiry be set up to look into these customs arrangements.
On the issue of spending, the Council fully agrees with the Court on the need to improve the management and monitoring of the common organization of the market in the fruit and vegetable sector and also confirms the importance of reducing structural surpluses and making better use of products withdrawn from the market.
Moving on to the structural funds, the Council notes the persisting and major problem of an excessive concentration of commitments and payments towards the end of the financial year.
That state of affairs must be remedied as soon as possible and, to achieve that, the Member States will have to improve the way in which they programme expenditure and the Commission to speed up the administrative procedures.
The Council considers it necessary to improve cooperation between the competent national authorities and the Commission services involved in spending activities.
We need also to make a greater effort to clarify the criteria governing the admissibility of expenditure and the verification of declarations of expenditure.
Looking more particularly at the European Regional Development Fund, the Council is calling for uniform and strict application of the Community rules on the award of public contracts and environmental legislation in relation to measures financed with a contribution from the Community budget.
In the context of the European Social Fund, the Council is calling for the problem of over-utilization of the Fund to be resolved and for there to be a review of the management structures for Community initiatives to make them more efficient.
As regards the comments made by the Court of Auditors on the implementation of the PHARE and TACIS programmes, the Council is aware that the Commission is having to work in difficult conditions, but is calling for improved coordination between those participating to ensure that the studies carried out are followed up with specific actions and for preventive assessment to be carried out automatically before any decision is taken on programme renewal.
Finally, on the issue of implementation of the administrative expenditure of the Institutions, bearing in mind the comments made by the Court of Auditors on a number of shortcomings in staff management, external delegations and property, the Council notes that the Commission is implementing the Court's recommendations.
In conclusion, bearing in mind all of the comments made by the Court of Auditors, and after having looked at them in very great detail, the Council has agreed to recommend to the House that it grant the Commission discharge for the implementation of the 1994 budget.
Two final points, one of which concerns the issue of the statement made for the first time by the Court of Auditors pursuant to Article 188c, which gave rise to the Council statement transmitted on the same date as the recommendation.
The Council has pointed out that the accounts accurately reflect the revenue and expenditure of the Union, even though the information they contain needs to be improved.
The Court has not identified significant errors concerning the regularity of revenue transactions but has identified errors in payment transactions, as a result of which it unable fully to certify the legality or regularity of all transactions.
That has been at the root of the Council's concern, and it has welcomed the announcement of the programme to improve the Commission's financial management.
That programme must be applied rapidly and in full to reduce errors in payment transactions.
That is what the presidency had to say, on behalf of the Council, on the problems relating to the 1994 budget.
Mr President, I may have misheard what was said.
The Council referred to the European Regional Development Fund, but it did not take a position on the European Development Fund.
Mr Wynn warned that the discharge would be suspended.
On behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I advocated deferring the decision, so as to give the Council - which I blame for the kind of scandal which has occurred with the Cultural Foundation, though in fact the fault also lies in the structure - the chance to adopt a position, for example by budgetizing the Development Fund.
The House would appreciate a response to what we have advocated, so that then we know where we stand.
We also have to form an opinion on these matters within our group.
The Council cannot simply sweep its problems under the carpet now, because the scandal has made them quite apparent.
I should like a response from the Council on this question.
Does the Council wish to speak again or wait until a later occasion?
I prefer to wait, Mr President.
Mr President, as spokesperson for the Socialist Group on development, I deplore the fact that the management of the European Development Fund is not democratically accountable.
I deplore the fact that we go through this annual pretence, this annual charade, when Parliament has no say whatsoever over the funding of the EDF.
I deplore the disgrace of the management of the Cultural Foundation.
It was a scandal which was investigated by the Bureau of the Joint Assembly of the Lomé Convention of which I was a member.
We called witnesses and carpeted individuals, including a key Member of the European Parliament.
I make that specific point to be fair to the Commission.
Cultural cooperation is central to development and has suffered a big setback because of this scandal.
I trust that the refusal to grant discharge will speed up the move towards the democratic accountability of the EDF.
I wish to put on record that this Parliament formally deplores the disgusting scandal of the Cultural Foundation.
I express the view that the Commission should be vigilant and meticulous in supporting these views, about which I believe both the Commission and Parliament are in full agreement.
Will the Council now please as a matter of urgency exercise its responsibility to ensure that the funds of the EDF are properly accountable.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, eight discharge reports have been presented, not quite in the order indicated on the agenda, but we appreciate the reasons for that.
It is impossible to speak on them all in four minutes.
I wish to look at only a few key points, but I should like to extend my sincere thanks to all the rapporteurs.
I shall begin with a word about the authority to grant discharge itself, and about our Committee on Budgetary Control.
For 20 years now, we have had the authority to grant discharge, and we have constantly been developing it.
We rely mainly on the annual report and the special reports of the Court of Auditors, for which we are grateful to the Court, but also on the position of the Council when it is available in time - as it was in this case.
However, despite our repeated requests, clarification of the position was presented to the Committee on Budgetary Control not by a member of the Council, but by a senior official, though I imply no criticism of him.
He performed his task well in so far as he could.
Now you, Mr President-in-Office, have addressed the House, and I think you have also listened carefully to what has been said here.
Our comments have been directed mainly at the Member States, but it is not the Member States to whom we must grant discharge.
I should like to turn now to the issues involved.
This time, the discharge of the Commission involves two instruments which have been used for the first time - instruments, as I said, directed specifically at the Member States.
The first innovation is our vote on the clearance of accounts for the EAGGF, submitted by the Commission for 1991.
Clearance of accounts was previously classed as a technical procedure for which the Commission was responsible.
Parliament had little to do with it.
It is thanks to Mr Cornelissen, as rapporteur on the 1992 discharge, that the problems from previous years have been raised.
A particular problem which has been brought out into the open is the loss to the Community of some ECU 1.6 billion on milk quotas in three Member States.
Detailed discussions between the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Commission have produced reform as regards the clearance of accounts decision, which now completes the discharge already granted for the year in question.
This procedure is being applied for the first time for the year 1991, with the very good report by Mrs Kjer Hansen.
The rapporteur deserves our thanks for highlighting the difference between the technical and political aspects.
The necessary financial corrections applied by the Commission to the Member States are absolutely non-negotiable where losses to EU funds are involved.
If this is not the case, then the discharge for the clearance of accounts will have to be suspended until the monies are recovered.
An initial tangible result of Parliament's insistence on protecting taxpayers' money is that the first tranche of the unpaid milk quotas has been received.
The second innovation, the Statement of Assurance, or DAS, by the Court of Auditors, has far-reaching implications as regards discharge.
Although there is no legal requirement on Parliament, and although an improvement in staffing levels would enable the sampling method initially developed by the Court to be further refined for specific Member States and sectors, we must take pains to include the certificate in our decision.
The rapporteur, Mr Wynn, has done this in the motion for a resolution from the Committee on Budgetary Control, and his readable explanatory statement provides us all with an invaluable aid to understanding this complex issue.
I would like to thank him particularly for that.
I am very concerned at the figure of 4 %, arrived at by the Court, for errors concerning payments, but in the light of the measures initiated by the Commission with the SEM 2000 programme - and thank you, Mr Liikanen and Mrs Gradin - and particularly on condition that the Commission recovers the outstanding sums and identifies the accounts to which they relate, and that we check them, I am prepared, with these considerations and conditions, to support the constructive approach proposed by the rapporteur in the first year of trying out the DAS procedure.
My group therefore backs the recommendation to grant discharge to the Commission in respect of the general budget for 1994, in spite of the shortcomings that have been identified, and subject to the appropriate conditions.
Madam President, it is appropriate that in discussing budgetary matters we make some reference to the key principles governing responsible budgetary control, such as prudence and the allocation of funding to appropriate and deserving projects.
However, it is clear that not all European projects adhere to these principles and I wish to refer to one in particular.
I am speaking about the administration of our own finances within our own structures.
Recent visitors to Brussels were taken aback by the continuing construction of the European Parliament's new headquarters there, which has been going on since 1990, and the ornate nature of the building in question.
This latter-day glass Tower of Babel is utterly unnecessary and a waste of resources which Parliament could have more constructively utilized for other aspects of its work.
This building will cost an estimated ECU 900m - an outrageous sum of money given the other uses to which this funding could have been put and that the projected present budget deficit for this year looks like being about ECU 72m, equal to what we saved in the CAP reform for the year.
All these ecu saved are now being heedlessly squandered.
MEPs, who have a democratic mandate from the electorate, were not consulted on the building of this folly or allowed any opportunity to veto its construction.
Instead, the building of this glass palace has continued unimpeded.
It is particularly ironic that we are discussing budgetary and fiscal matters today in this Parliament.
If ever there was an example of budgetary irresponsibility, it is the grandiose edifice currently taking shape in Brussels.
Despite much talk about bringing Europe closer to its citizens and the need to construct a People's Europe, projects such as this building only serve to reinforce the image of an elitist Europe out of touch with ordinary people and their concerns.
Perception is very important in this European Parliament and this is no help to it.
Madam President, I have a number of comments on the Wynn report on the discharge for the 1994 financial year.
First of all, what he says about agriculture.
I think that in future it will be almost impossible to forecast agricultural expenditure with any accuracy.
I have never known anyone who could forecast the weather, or what new diseases are going to emerge - we have only to think of the recent appearance of mad cow disease.
And I have never known anyone to predict the exact dollar-ECU rate.
So I think it is always better to err on the side of caution, so that we are always able to honour the guarantees we give our farmers.
One aspect over which we do have control is to make the rules as clear as possible, but as many people have already pointed out, they still leave a lot to be desired.
If a political decision is to be taken on how the rules are to be revised, I think it should be a matter for the Commission, the Council and Parliament together.
My second comment concerns the PHARE programme.
PHARE is, without doubt, intended to prepare the countries concerned for eventual membership of the European Union, and this is why we must ensure that there is not even a hint of financial mismanagement in our dealings with them.
If we want to improve cooperation with them, we not only need better efforts from the diplomatic service and our delegations, but we should also organize exchanges of officials between, say, DG VI and the agriculture ministries in the countries concerned.
Could we not bring officials from the agriculture ministries in the countries of the former Eastern bloc over to Brussels, and send DG VI people to those countries to explain its policy?
I hope this proposal will be examined in the document which we are scheduled to receive by 30 September 1996, and that the Commission will explain how it intends to improve the development of its veterinary and plant health measures and cooperation in this field.
Madam President, I should first of all like to say that I entirely agree with the Wynn report and would only pick up on one point, which Mr Tomlinson has already mentioned: that it is rather hypocritical of the Council to say in its recommendation on discharge that the Court of Auditors is right and the Commission must work more efficiently.
At the same time, however, there is something in what the Council says, because if you read the Court of Auditors' report carefully, it does indeed appear that the Commission is seriously failing in its duties as the guardian of the Treaties.
It is doing practically nothing to implement directives on public contracts or the environment.
The reason for this is clear: if it did so, the Structural Funds would end up being even more seriously underspent than at present.
But this is no excuse for not enforcing legislation, since this simply means that a great deal of money is wasted or that environmental legislation no longer prevents damage, but at best merely limits it or occasionally puts right damage actually caused by the Funds.
Let me give you one example of what I mean about public contracts. It is apparently a regular occurrence in Greece that Greek contractors win a contract because they offer bids of less than half the cost of the project, but they can eventually claim more than 150 % of the cost from the Commission.
I find it hard to believe that the 50 % profit all goes to the contractors.
The situation with the environment is no better.
Environmental impact assessments are usually drawn up after a political decision has been taken on a given project, and this means that attempts are hardly ever made to find alternatives, such as with the Tagus bridge in Lisbon, and damage limitation is the only option.
The main reason for this, as I have said before, is that most of the Commissioners regard it as far more important to spend the budget than to respect legislation.
I entirely agree with what Mr Liikanen said in a letter concerning Community customs, that the Commission has no choice but to carry on enforcing existing legislation.
That is just as it should be.
But in my experience, it is not what the Commission actually does.
There are other factors involved here: inadequate control procedures and monitoring committees, and its failure to apply Article 24 correctly.
In short, when it comes to the Structural Funds the Commission, the supposed guardian of the Treaties, is a complete failure and needs to look very closely at how it can do better.
I think it should be agreed with the Council - and this ties in with the Council's own recommendations - that the Member States themselves should be given more responsibility for applying the directives, and that on that basis the Commission should only decide whether or not projects should be allowed to go ahead.
Madam President, my colleague from my constituency, Mr Killilea, was at his colourful best when he described the new European Parliament as the Tower of Babel.
I am sure it is designed to attract the maximum attention, but I do not want that sort of allegation circulating in my constituency unanswered.
We did not build a parliament for the Members of Parliament who are here today.
We built it for the people of Europe.
It was built at a cost of about ECU 3 per capita for one year of the people of this European Union.
I hope, like the House of Commons or the Reichstag in Germany, or the Cortes in Spain, that building will be there for our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, that it will never be bombed or desecrated and that it will be the place in which the people of Europe will find their voice over the generations to come.
I am proud of that building.
It reflects some of the technology and the grandeur of the age and the competence of the people of Europe of this day.
The attack by Mr Killilea was not worthy of a Member of Parliament.
If he had attended regularly to the business of this House he would have known that we were consulted.
If he was not prepared to be here at all times then he could trust his colleagues who were here and made the decisions.
I want to thank Mr Wynn for his report.
I support his refusal of discharge.
I am not looking at it in the area of the European Development Fund. I do not regard it as a reflection on the competence of the European Commission but of the circumstances in which we find ourselves; the impossible situation of being required to account for something that cannot be accounted for, and for which we do not have responsibility.
I do not agree with the tone of his criticism in relation to agricultural spending.
The expertise and the knowledge that I find in the Commission surprises me at times.
It is a most infinitely complicated business to try to forecast what the cost of agriculture will be for any year.
Parliament is continuously a little bit harsh insofar as this sort of criticism is concerned.
The last point I want to make is in relation to the fine that was imposed on the Irish Government.
Unfortunately the Irish taxpayers have to accept this while they got no benefit out of malpractices which led to it.
I want to underline the fact that it was not at European level but within the Irish Parliament that the first disclosures and demand for clarification on all these abuses occurred.
This fine was exceptionally harsh in that it was equivalent to ECU 1, 000 million for the British or the Italians.
Irish agriculture got no benefit out of it whatever.
Madam President, I will refer to the report by our esteemed colleague Mr Edward Kellett-Bowman on postponement of the discharge to the Management Board of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training in Thessaloniki.
Frankly, I did not understand why Mr Kellett-Bowman is asking for postponement.
Is he doing so because there was a financial scandal in the management up till 1994? If so, he should say so in his report, he should describe it to us, and I believe we would then all go along with him.
However, his report mentions no such thing.
On the contrary, it expresses doubts about the continuation of that Centre's operation - CEDEFOP's operation - related to its productivity and efficacy.
And it attributes those doubts to the fact that when the decision was taken at the 1994 Summit to remove the Centre from Berlin and transfer it to Thessaloniki, half the Centre's staff declined to move to Thessaloniki along with the Centre.
Those who had powerful political protectors were transferred to other services of the European Union.
Those who were close to pensionable age requested early retirement, which they were granted, and finally, those who did not fit either of these categories resigned.
So of approximately 100 people, less than half are now in Thessaloniki.
And I, ladies and gentlemen, would like to ask: is that how Europe's enlargement will take place?
When the Eastern countries accede in due course, will certain spoiled members of staff refuse to transfer to capitals outside the ParisBerlin-Brussels triangle? Is that the basis for the European Parliament's policies on decentralization and regional development?
I am very sorry, but unless I get serious answers to the questions I have raised, my recommendation to my group will be to vote against Mr KellettBowman's report.
Madam President, I wish to speak with reference to Mr Blak's report on the ECSC on the discharge for 1994.
I would like to draw Members' attention to paragraph 11 in Mr Blak's report that is on the UK pit closures.
I want to draw Mr Liikanen's attention to the whole question of what he and the Council of Ministers are going to do about the recovery of subsidies paid to pits in the United Kingdom which were subsequently sold off or privatized.
Can we look very briefly at the wording of Mr Blak's report? It says, very interestingly, it accepts that the ECSC will not be able to recover by legal means the interest rate subsidies paid to financial production enhancing investment.
But if it cannot be returned by legal means, is Mr Blak, or is the Commission, going to send the boys round to 10 Downing Street to ask for the money back? What is at stake here?
The Court of Auditors' report says quite clearly that under Article 54, 15 pits received subsidies.
Two of them were closed. One - Lea Hall in my constituency - has received an unrecoverable subsidy of almost half-a-million ECU and Frickley colliery a subsidy of ECU 294 million, which has not been recovered from the British Government.
Monies have also been paid to pits which were subsequently privatized - two, again, in my constituency: Trentham and Silverdale.
I know that when Trentham was privatized, much of the equipment paid for by the ECSC was actually bricked-up.
So, to Mr Liikanen I put two questions: what are you going to do to recover the cash subsidies, and how are you going to stop subsidies being paid to industries in the UK which have been privatized or are going to be privatized in the future? How are you going to get that money back for us and stop it happening again?
Madam President, I should like to address myself first and foremost to the Commission, because although it is up to us to grant discharge to the Commission, I regard it as Parliament's natural ally when it comes to the economical management of the budget.
As Mrs Theato has already said, the DAS, the statistical Statement of Assurance, provides us and the Commission, for the first time, with an instrument which, although it is not perfect, makes the discharge procedure more meaningful and thus gives the Commission more scope and more responsibility for the implementation of the budget.
The question of the staffing of UCLAF is similarly important.
We have seen, for example in the case of fraud in the packaging sector, that this unit has become a vital part of proper financial administration, and obviously it also has an important function in the fight against fraud.
This means that it must also be given the level of staffing that it requires.
The point has already been made that 80 % of expenditure is managed by the Member States; it is therefore all the more important that the Commission should probe more deeply, because we have heard hair-raising things about the results of checks on the withdrawal of fruit and vegetables from the market.
This has demonstrated the importance of checks and the need to extend their scope significantly, so that the Member States, too, can be made aware of their own responsibility.
The final issue that I wish to highlight concerns the satellite bodies, the decentralized institutions which are based in individual Member States, but work for the Union as a whole.
Our Greek colleague has referred to the Centre for the Development of Vocational Training.
As a result of its move to Thessaloniki, this centre is experiencing difficulties.
Mr Kellett-Bowman and the committee were right to recommend that we should defer discharge until this body acquires a clear function and provides a quality of service commensurate with the need.
We shall see whether this is to be the case.
If so, the centre will have a purpose.
If not, we must draw the necessary conclusions.
Madam President, the debate on discharge for the European budget clearly throws up one important reason for the disenchantment with Europe that we see in our countries.
One of the causes of disenchantment is the somewhat lax approach to money - European taxpayers' money.
I have been following the debate today with interest, because it has focused quite clearly on the question of finding a culprit: was it the Member States, or was it the Commission? I see this as a rather fruitless line of inquiry.
The European Parliament is being shuttled here from pillar to post.
I cannot entirely absolve the Commission from blame.
Particularly now, when we are once again discussing the legal bases - and I believe that the legal bases are also an important basis for safeguarding the budget in Europe - I have the impression that the Commission is quite content just to play along.
Secondly, having seen the clueless attitude of some members of the Commission appearing before our committee of inquiry into fraud in the transit procedure, I have to say that more changes will be needed if confidence in this Commission is to be improved as regards financial matters.
With these points in mind, I would congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Wynn, on his clear report on the implementation of the European Development Funds in the 1994 financial year, and in particular on the proposal to refuse to grant discharge to the Commission in this respect.
Through its refusal, Parliament will let it be known that we are no longer prepared to cover for goings-on which deserve to be highlighted, rather than concealed.
It is clear that irregularities, such as that involving the Cultural Foundation, occur in areas where the responsibilities are ill defined.
To put it plainly, it is our wish and our demand that the European Development Fund should become part of the European budget, so as to remove the grounds for mismanagement in this area.
I hope that the new Member States, too, will have some pertinent suggestions.
However, I think that we are also entitled to expect active support from the Commission.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, although the debate is drawing to a close, I should like to express my concern as to whether the political significance of this discharge procedure is properly understood, either by the Members of the House or at the level of the Council and the Member States - and indeed, therefore, by the public.
I think this is extremely questionable.
Indeed, it has to be asked whether the Commission takes the whole business seriously enough, and I would simply remind you of how the debate opened.
Nevertheless, I have to make it quite clear that our impression of cooperation with the Commission, as indeed with the Court of Auditors, has been very good, and leaving aside all the arguments, that is the real basis on which to grant this discharge - quite apart from the fact that postponing discharges will cease to be effective if it is done repeatedly.
I was not made sufficiently aware today of the way in which the Council and the Member States are involved in this whole process.
Almost every speaker referred to the fact that 80 % of the budget is spent in the Member States, but lasting improvement of the way the budget is implemented can only be achieved in conjunction with the Member States, and I believe we must therefore ensure that cooperation with them is improved.
I also think that in many cases, the Commission's attitude to Member States which step out of line, by failing to observe the conditions, is half-hearted.
In any event, I have no hesitation at all in supporting the proposal to defer or even refuse discharge in the case of CEDEFOP, but this situation cannot go on indefinitely.
I already see reason enough to ask whether we should not be thinking in terms of closure.
Contrary to the view of one of the previous speakers, Mr Kellett-Bowman made it very clear that there is no assurance at all that this centre is performing its functions efficiently.
In conclusion, I should simply like to make a point which I think has been neglected this year - that just as we have been looking at expenditure, we must also consider revenue.
We referred to the fact that this task is being undertaken in the committee of inquiry.
However, the committee reflects only some of the major concerns in this area which we need to discuss.
Madam President, at the outset, I must state that I have particular reservations about Mr Kellett-Bowman's report on CEDEFOP.
The report refers to minor financial management problems, which lead it to conclude that CEDEFOP's discharge concerning the financial year 1994 must be postponed.
The proposal to postpone discharge is based on a report by external consultants, which is unclear about the extent to which it refers to the financial year 1994.
I suspect that other aims and aspirations lie behind this attitude, such as restricting CEDEFOP's activities and closing it down, as the report indirectly implies.
It is a fact that CEDEFOP is passing through a time of transition because of its move from Berlin to Thessaloniki following the decision taken at the European Council in Brussels, concerning which anyone is entitled to have reservations.
Yet, it was a policy decision that we all ought to respect and support.
So if any delays or irregularities have been observed, efforts should be made to overcome them by supporting CEDEFOP and organizing it more rationally, instead of casting doubt upon the utility of a European institutional body.
The utility of CEDEFOP is enormous at a time when unemployment is one of the European economy's gravest problems.
Madam President, I think the European Commission has an obligation to make better use of CEDEFOP's contribution, as the rapporteur himself also said.
Besides, a long-term programme prepared by CEDEFOP has already been prepared, and this must be given serious attention.
Finally, I would like to invite the rapporteur, when he visits Thessaloniki, to assess the situation objectively.
For the present, I call on the rapporteur to delete paragraph 2 of the motion for a resolution, which casts doubt upon CEDEFOP's utility.
Madam President, I wish to express my sincere thanks to Mr Blak not only for an excellent report but also for drawing our attention yet again to the iniquitous practice of the Conservative Government in misusing and abusing European funds.
It must be said that this is only the tip of the iceberg.
ECU 2.2 million does not seem a lot of money given that the Commission is currently investigating virtually half a billion ecu of ERDF resources that have gone into the privatized utilities of gas, water and telecoms in the UK.
I believe that it is the role of this Commission and of this Council to monitor and control the use of those funds and to take action.
I am afraid it is simply not good enough to say that, for legal reasons, the Commission cannot act to recover taxpayers' money.
How can it be that we allow President Santer to stand up and call for a confidence pact in employment while at the same time we allow our loans, grants and subsidies to go into privatized utilities and multinational companies for them to line shareholders' pockets and to put people on the dole? It simply will not wash with the public and they will see the hypocrisy of our policies.
Therefore, I ask the Commission and the Council to take action.
Two years ago I tabled parliamentary questions on this matter.
As yet we have had no results on that.
I believe that if the Council and the Commission will not act, it is the job of this House by demanding the establishment of a committee of inquiry into the misuse of funds to prevent the systematic abuse of funds for private gain and profit.
Madam President, I wish to refer to Mr Samland's report, on which I congratulate him.
I welcome in particular his reference to the TACIS programme and the greater need for commitment to the monitoring of TACIS projects.
There is also a need, as the rapporteur stated, for a better dissemination of the results of the TACIS programme.
TACIS has poured some £600 million into the Russian Federation, for example, in the last five years.
Yet does Parliament have a clear idea of where the money has been spent or how effective TACIS has been? The answer must be a resounding no!
Increased accountability and transparency must be given top priority, including increased monitoring of programme spending for the newly-independent states of the former Soviet Union.
But this must not be at the expense of swift and efficient implementation.
I hope the Commission will ensure that this spirit of transparency is extended to its investigation of any wrongdoing by Michael Emerson and that Parliament is given a full account of any possible misuse of European funding or the granting of consultancies.
I should like to apologise for the delay at the beginning but we were spending time together with members of the Committee on Budgets and presidency trying to solve the problems of next year's budgetary procedure.
The debate today and the vote tomorrow bring to a close the review of the financial activities of the Community in 1994.
The process of external control is a key part of the efforts to improve the effectiveness and the value for money of the Community budgets.
Each step - from the reports of the Court of Auditors to the thorough deliberations of the European Parliament - reinforces the efforts for financial management reform in the Commission and across the Community.
The Committee on Budgetary Control, based on a report by Mr Wynn, recommends giving discharge to the Commission with regard to the general Community budget for 1994.
Discharge is also proposed concerning the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin, based on the reports of Mr Blak and Mr Kellett-Bowman, respectively.
The Commission welcomes these proposals.
In this context I want to reply to Mr Blak on the question of Bagnoli, Italy.
The subsidy was fully paid back by the end of the last year.
The discharge for the CEDEFOP is postponed.
The Commission will work with the rapporteur, Mr Kellett-Bowman, to clarify the outstanding issues.
Finally, with regard to the European Development Fund, based on a report by Mr Wynn, it is proposed to reject the discharge.
I will return to this question in a moment.
The particularity of the 1994 discharge procedure is that it has to evaluate the results of a new instrument introduced by the Maastricht Treaty, the 'Statement of Assurance (DAS)' .
The results of the first DAS demonstrate that the examination of individual operations, from the Commission down to the final recipient, provides valuable new information on the functioning of the financial management of the Commission and the Member States.
At the same time, the necessity to come to general conclusions on the basis of a small sample poses difficult methodological questions.
There is also the difficulty of explaining the meaning of the results to a broader public.
As has already been said today, the headlines of: ' billion ecu fraud and waste' - unfounded as they were - show the difficulty of a broader public to comprehend this instrument.
It is therefore particularly valuable that the comprehensive and balanced assessment of the first DAS by Mr Wynn will establish a reference for future exercises.
I want to congratulate the Commission and Mr Wynn for their excellent work.
I especially want to refer to the explanatory note because it is conceptually a very difficult issue and it is very clearly explained in the note.
This might even prove to be a useful reference for the Commission in the future.
The Commission will continue to work with the Court of Auditors and outside experts to improve the methodology of DAS.
The main consequences to be drawn from the first DAS are twofold.
Firstly, all efforts will continue to eliminate sources of errors identified in DAS.
The errors attributed to the Commission - mainly formal - have been addressed as part of the first two stages of the Sound and Efficient Management programme (SEM 2000).
The errors attributed to the Member States - often substantial - will be addressed in the third stage of the exercise. This stage has been launched.
The first meeting of the group of personal representatives of the Ministers of Finance of 7 March 1996 was fruitful.
A work programme was agreed.
It covers topics from the preparation of the budget to financial control.
The first items discussed in some depth included the question of eligibility of structural funds expenditure and the possibility of reinforced sanctions.
These questions are identified by the 1994 discharge report as the key question for the structural funds.
As Mr Samland said in his report, this is a key issue.
We hope that in the working group we are going to find a solution.
The discussions in the group of personal representatives confirmed expectations that progress on the questions will be difficult.
A number of Member States took a view opposite to the approach of the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament.
There is, in fact, a built-in contradiction between, on the one hand, ambitious quality objectives and, on the other hand, the political commitment to 'spend it all' by 1999.
The European Council of Madrid has given a strong impetus to increasing quality of spending and examining the possibility of new sanctions. But the basic contradiction remains.
Secondly, the recovery of those individual payments where the Court of Auditors finds serious errors, needs to become more systematic and more transparent, as asked in the 1994 discharge report, and as was repeated by Mr Wynn a while ago.
The Commission will therefore - from now on - provide a report on the follow-up of each serious payment error.
This report will be made available jointly with the annual financial accounts.
Furthermore, the claims forecasts (or prévisions de créances ) will from now on be established by sector.
The amounts will be estimated by the Commission services concerned regardless of the source of information which establishes an irregularity.
The recovery will then be pursued according to the sectional procedures in place.
In different sectors we have different procedures.
As far as internal policies are concerned, the 1994 discharge report expresses serious doubts on the transparency of procedures with regard to direct financing and subsidies.
There is little evidence to support this view in the report of the Court of Auditors.
In fact, it should be noted that both LIFE and research expenditure have their specific, detailed rules assuring transparency with regard to project selection and programme evaluation.
Publication in the Official Journal is mandatory.
Tourism activities have been thoroughly evaluated. The results will be transmitted to Parliament in a few weeks' time.
I highly recommend reading this report as an informative approach to the evaluation methodology in which I strongly believe for the future.
The Commission will work with Parliament on any useful improvement.
Instead of another horizontal report covering all of category 3, it would however be more effective to focus on individual programmes through ex ante and ex post evaluations for each programme concerned.
Let me turn then to the European Development Fund.
The Committee on Budgetary Control proposes not to discharge the Commission.
This proposal is not primarily based on bad management by the Commission.
In fact Mr Wynn's report recognizes the Commission's attempts to improve EDF financial management although it criticizes the financial management of the ACP Cultural Foundation.
Instead the main reason is the non-budgetization of the EDF.
The Commission regrets this proposal.
For its part it will continue its best efforts to improve the administration of the EDF.
The management mistakes made with regard to the Cultural Foundation are recognized but consequences have been drawn from this experience and the Foundation has been shut down.
It should also be borne in mind that the amounts involved were quite small.
Furthermore, the Commission has always shared the criticism of Parliament concerning the legal and financial framework of the EDF.
The Commission will continue to press for budgetization of the EDF.
But to refuse discharge until the EDF is budgetized, while being understandable and consistent, may mean that until such a time Parliament's voice will not exist with regard to the EDF implementation.
Finally, as you are certainly aware, there are those in the Commission dealing with development policy who fear that the refusal of discharge may make development policy more difficult in future.
Let me conclude with two replies to Mrs Kjer Hansen and Mr Cornelissen, whom I also want to thank for their excellent reports.
Mrs Kjer Hansen talked about the resources in the clearance of accounts.
We have known the needs there, but I want to say that the Commission has already taken a decision for the 1997 budget that we will not ask new resources outside the enlargement budget.
So we will do all we can within the redeployment and the enlargement budgets.
Mr Cornelissen had a number of questions here.
First of all, concerning the recovery of the funds for exceeding the milk quotas, we are recovering the funds in four years which means in four equal tranches.
In 1995 we have already received ECU 450m; ECU 450m has been decided for this year and budgetized and two other tranches will be recovered in 1997 and 1998.
As far as tobacco fraud is concerned, investigations and legal proceedings continue.
The Commission will keep Parliament informed of any new developments.
As to the buy-back scheme of milk quotas, the legal base has in the meantime been adopted and the Commission considers this matter closed.
On the Spanish milk quota in 1989 the Commission does not have a legal base to change the decision.
This is also the position of the Court of Justice.
Finally, on the Dutch calves I will transmit that question to Commissioner Fischler.
My expertise is not sufficient for that.
There was also a question on the ECSC loans to British Coal.
We discussed this matter also a year ago.
I am sorry to say this but, according to the opinion of the legal service, there is no legal base for the Commission to recover these subsidies on the grounds that British Coal was subsequently closed.
Finally, I want to extend thanks to Mrs Theato, the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control for these exceptionally thorough and productive discharge procedures for 1994.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, would you like to speak?
Madam President, a very brief comment concerning the European Development Fund.
I would point out that the Fund is financed via direct contributions from the Member States and not with appropriations from the Community budget.
That being so, discharge of the Fund budget was not mentioned in today's speech by the presidency.
Madam President, we must correct that statement if it is going to be in the record.
What came through in English was that Parliament plays no part in discharge of the EDF.
That is the whole point.
We play a part in that and in nothing else.
I must say to the President-in-Office that I saw him struggle before - this is not a personal condemnation - in the trialogue meeting and with the type of answer he has given now he is not being given the best advice on something Parliament takes extremely seriously.
Madam President, there is a very serious conflict here between the Commission and Council that we need to clarify.
The Commission has alleged that unless we grant the discharge concerning the European Development Funds, it may make their work more difficult.
This was followed by a statement from the Council informing us that we do not have any responsibility whatsoever to discharge the EDF.
Could they get their act together and tell us what the situation is?
Madam President, I am grateful to the Council for the information it has just given us, but I would appreciate it if the accuracy of that information could be checked again.
As far as I am aware, it is not accurate.
There is definitely a recommendation from the Council as regards the Development Fund.
I would therefore ask for this point to be checked again.
Question Time (Commission)
I posed this question because the opponents of cooperation under Schengen always maintain that accession to Schengen will make it more difficult to catch criminal gangs.
I maintain, however, and I would very much like to hear the Commissioner's views on this, that traditional border controls are antiquated because they are very easy for criminal gangs to get through and it is therefore out of date to deploy police along borders; instead, we should have international co-operation to combat crime.
I would very much like to have your confirmation that accession to Schengen co-operation in no way prevents the Italian, French and Danish police from stopping, examining and searching cars etc., and undertaking all the investigations necessary to catch drug traffickers and money-launderers, and put a stop to trade in human beings etc.
I would earnestly request you to confirm this.
As the honourable Member is aware, the Commission is taking part in the meetings of the Schengen Executive Committee as an observer.
At this time, in this first year of application of the Schengen accords, it has been observed that their application has, in point of fact, increased the opportunities for control in relation to all issues that threaten the security of citizens. The application of the Schengen agreement has therefore stimulated cooperation in the field of activities of prevention and control applied by the competent authorities of the various Member States.
I therefore believe that the response - of particular interest to those countries which are considering acceding to Schengen in the future - may be encouraging.
Mr President, I should like to take up the issue raised by Mr Haarder's question.
At present the situation is that these controls are conducted on the basis of spot checks without the national customs authorities in Denmark and Sweden having to have any suspicions of criminal behaviour. Does the Commissioner consider that such spot checks, not based on any suspicion of criminal behaviour, are compatible with the Schengen Agreement?
Mr President, this surprises me a little as we have been told that it will no longer be allowed for Sweden to carry out spot checks of the kind carried out before we acceded to the European Union. This question is therefore extremely important.
Is it so that we are entitled to carry out spot checks at present and will there be any change for the worse, that is to say, will it become still more difficult to carry out such checks under the Schengen Agreement?
Some change is surely bound to happen in connection with the Schengen Agreement?
I thank the Commissioner for his response. However, he is somewhat misguided in what he has said.
Indeed he is throwing a very unusual veil of secrecy over what is going on. He said that the duty-free mechanism is contrary to the internal market.
Yet one of the major points of any internal market should be the harmonization of VAT and excise duty ratings. That is not happening.
There is no sign of it happening in the near future. What is being proposed here by the abolition of the duty-free regulations is a huge loss in employment across the 15 Member States as well as a huge drop in the attraction to travellers of services that they are free to choose for themselves; and if they go outside the EU they can get these services.
I would call on the Commission here and now to postpone implementation of this decision until such time as we have the other essential sectors of the internal market in place, namely the harmonization of excise and VAT regimes.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for the observations he has made. My own view is that it is a complex matter, as he has said.
It is probably too complex to deal with in this manner.
The Commissioner has suggested that duty-free shopping, were it to continue beyond the deadline set by the Council, would offend the principles of the internal market; but it does not necessarily offend against the Treaty.
The Treaty provides in Article 99 for harmonization necessary to ensure the establishment and functioning of the market. I do not know that the case has yet been well established that the scale of alleged distortion is in some way a significant problem or impediment to the functioning of the internal market.
I should like to ask the Commissioner one question. On 20 November 1990 in a debate on the VAT system in relation to the Fuchs report your predecessor promised the House a full Commission study on the implications of abolishing duty-free sales prior to the date in question.
Is the present Commission prepared to carry out that commitment which has never been discharged and which would allow us to deal with this matter which, as you have clearly suggested, is complex and cannot be dealt with in this manner?
Question No 21 by Wayne David (H-0229/96)
Subject: VAT claims
What are the procedures involved in claiming back VAT on goods and services purchased across the European continent by long-distance lorry drivers?
As regards the VAT forms, is it true that lorry drivers have to complete forms in different formats and the language of the Member State where the goods and services were purchased to be able to claim back VAT, or is it the case that forms in the native language of the driver can be used?
I thank the Commissioner for his full and comprehensive reply and I take on board the point that he makes at the end that this is essentially an interim problem and once the new arrangements are in force the problem will disappear.
But, given that there is this interim problem and given that enormous difficulties are being caused at the moment, are there no measures at all that the Commission can introduce so that the procedure is made much more straightforward and efficient, albeit in the interim?
The Commission has indeed considered whether, under the present regime, there is any way of eliminating the inconvenience which I acknowledged is there.
I am afraid we have not been able so far to identify any such possibility.
International removal companies are experiencing very similar problems with VAT to those of lorry drivers. Can you confirm which country should levy VAT on removals - the country being moved out of or the country being moved into - and can some clear guidance be given to the companies concerned?
Under the Treaty on European Union police cooperation is an issue of common interest. This is perfectly obvious from both Title VI of the Treaty and the declaration on police cooperation.
Some of this cooperation will be achieved through the development of a Union-wide system for information exchange within a European police office, known as Europol.
The aim of Europol is to improve the opportunities for the competent authorities in the Member States to fight serious forms of international organised crime within the European Union. In accordance with the Convention there will be close cooperation with Interpol.
The Council will establish provisions formalising this cooperation and ensure that the various functions complement one another.
Thank you for that answer but I do not believe it was a proper answer to my question as to what Europol will do that Interpol is not already doing. I have studied carefully a German thesis entitled 'Grenzenlose Polizei' , which quotes a British Interpol official as saying that Interpol has global responsibility, which is an advantage over Europol, and the former head of the Bundeskriminalamt, who says that Europol is an organisation which will dissipate energies and operate in parallel and in competition with Interpol.
Swedish police chiefs have also expressed public criticism, including the former National Head of Police, who is also a former President of Interpol, who asked more or less the same question.
I would therefore repeat the question: what is Europol expected to do in practical terms which Interpol does not already do or could do?
If no answer is forthcoming to this question it is clearly an organisation set up to compete with Interpol, in which case one might well ask whether it is necessary at all.
I would like to express my thanks for the reply and for the summing up of the contents of the work programme and the provisions already adopted. However, I would like to ask the Commissioner to confirm that it is an untenable position for us not to have common sanctions in all areas.
The Commissioner has touched on some of the areas where some initiatives have been taken, but it still remains extremely limited. And what use is there in adopting some common rules to apply in the EU, if there are no common control systems to ensure that the rules are observed, or common sanctions for contraventions?
If there are no such provisions, then there will always be a difference, and that means that there will be those who can get off lightly by circumventing the common rules. I would therefore ask the Commissioner to confirm that what we are trying to achieve is a common system of sanctions in all areas.
May I also ask a question regarding the system of sanctions in relation to the Member States? The situation is that where the Member States' do not implement rules laid down in law, the Commission is able to impose sanctions on them in the form of fines.
We have not yet seen a single example of this option being used.
Will the Commissioner also make use of sanctions against Member States in future?
Commissioner, do you not think that the greatest problem as regards corruption in the European Union lies in the fact that the individual Member States frequently go to some lengths to deny the Commission the resources it needs to exercise effective control over the various operations?
Mr President, in reply to Mrs Theorin's question, I should like to point out that the Commission's opinion was drawn up for the Intergovernmental Conference and that it constitutes a formal part of the procedure laid down in the Maastricht Treaty.
I therefore find it rather difficult for the Commission itself to give further information on this opinion outside the IGC.
I would point out to the honourable Member that all the Member States have already agreed that the common foreign and security policy 'shall include all questions related to the security of the Union, including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence' , in Article J.4 of the Treaty on European Union.
The Commission opinion in question must certainly not be interpreted as implying that any Member States will have to leave the Union. All the individual aspects of the Member States' obligations will, of course, be dealt with in detail at the IGC.
Commissioner, I am interested in a number of points in relation to what you have said.
Firstly, what practical effect has the interim agreement had on positive, democratic development?
Secondly, how do you view the fact that, once again without the approval of parliament, the editor of the parliamentary newspaper has been removed, simply for speaking out regarding the lack of press freedom in Belarus?
How do you view the fact that Decree No 336, which maintains the ban on trade unions, has not yet been repealed?
And finally, how do you view the fact that the legal text signed by Lukaschenko has not yet been published, despite the fact that the future of relations with Russia is the key constitutional issue?
I regret to say that if the honourable Member believes that President Santer and the Commission have the power, to use his phrase, to make available additional resources for TEN, then he is labouring under a very sad and serious misconception.
I should like to take his mind back to the Essen Summit.
The heads of government at that summit unanimously expressed the view that the Commission should come forward with proposals which they should put to ECOFIN for a top-up of what was available in the Community budget for the transEuropean networks budget line. That call - made, as I said, first at Essen - was repeated in Madrid only last December.
Despite repeated, detailed propositions made to ECOFIN, ECOFIN has so far proved to be deaf to those appeals.
Recording the concern of the Commission, which I have expressed on many occasions, President Santer quite rightly made it very clear at the beginning of this year that he thought it was now time for ECOFIN to make a positive response to the submissions made by the Commission and to the call made by the heads of government. So far nothing practical has developed.
What we have done is to take account very directly of the applications made for transport TEN funding support from the Member States, which are now running at six times the resources available to us. We have made a calculation in terms of the projects that they have in hand and we can demonstrate that there would be a justifiable top-up of an extra ECU 1.7 billion in addition to the nearly ECU 2 billion that is currently available in the total transport TEN line.
We know that there are budget constraints and consequently we have also made it clear that we would settle for a top-up that is smaller than the ECU 1.7 billion.
There still has not, so far, been a practical and positive response from ECOFIN.
We will therefore reconfirm that.
On the last point that the honourable Member made, it is very clear that if we have the resources or even a decent proportion of the resources that we can prove to be necessary and that could be practically employed for the purpose of enhancing competitiveness, improving growth and generating employment in the European Union, we would be very ready to respond to the realistic demands that are made in relation to Alpine crossings, including the Brenner project.
Over the period 1992-1994 Danish access routes of the Øresund fixed link received Community financial support under the transport infrastructure programme, totalling ECU 21 m in the form of direct grants to the Danish authorities.
In 1995 Community financial support was awarded under the new regulation for granting Community assistance for work on trans-European transport networks.
The support consisted of ECU 10 m for the cofinancing of studies on the Øresund fixed link itself, where the beneficiary was the Øresund Consortiet Project Authority and ECU 5 m for studies on the Danish access routes where the beneficiary was the State of Denmark.
The co-finance studies for the Øresund fixed link in 1995 included design studies, environmental studies, environmental-impact assessment activities and monitoring, as well as traffic forecast studies.
The co-finance studies for the Danish access routes in 1995 included technical design studies, as well as environmental studies and monitoring.
Further financial support is envisaged for the period 1996-1999 since the Øresund fixed link is a key element in the development of the trans-European transport network.
Indeed, it is a transEuropean network transport priority project.
The 1996 TEN transport request for support for the Øresund fixed link is in the form of interest-rate subsidies. The Commission is not aware of any substantial increase in the project's budget.
The figures available to the Commission, based on the 1996 application for trans-European transport co-financing, show that the construction budget has been increased from ECU 1, 837 m to ECU 1, 962 m due to a number of changes and improvements related in particular to environmental projects.
I thank the Commissioner for his answer to me.
I would simply like to stress yet again, as a member of the Committee on Regional Policy, that there is a difficulty about the financing of such projects which involve countries that do not belong to the European Union. Granted that we finance our own projects from the Cohesion Fund, or from the Community Support Framework, in the case of countries that are not members of the European Union the finance should be combined with contributions from the PHARE programme.
This constitutes a problem.
I would like to hope that it will not impede the progress of Egnatia's vertical axes, but at the same time I should like to ask the Commissioner how optimistic he feels about the project's overall progress and whether he thinks that with the participation of private capital, the Egnatia highway and its vertical roads would progress much more rapidly than at present.
Fisheries agreement with Morocco
Mr President, with regard to the fisheries agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco, we ought not to lose sight of overall relations between the two countries and the way they have been developing.
In every international agreement there must be a symmetry which respects and, to the highest degree possible, satisfies the needs of the contracting parties.
The unbalanced nature of this agreement seems obvious to us and in this respect it must be borne in mind that in the global context - and I am not speaking only of fisheries - Morocco has obtained concessions in certain sectors of production characteristic of the south of the European Union which are having a negative effect, creating the risk of seriously damaging our economic and social structures.
In the negotiations Morocco exerted pressure on the fishing sector condemning the Community fleet to idleness with the object of obtaining concessions in the agricultural sector. The arguments put forward, ostensibly conservationist, very frequently turned out to be unjustified.
The European Union's negotiating position was extremely weak; the question of the sovereignty of the Western Saharan waters was avoided and agricultural concessions of an unspecified duration were granted for the signature of a rather restrictive fisheries agreement of limited duration.
The weakness of the European Union's position cannot be attributed, in our opinion, to the Committee on Fisheries or to Mrs Bonino, but is due to the attitude of certain States within the Council.
Personally I understand Mrs Bonino's difficulties during the whole period of negotiations and congratulate her on her performance.
The agreement is not satisfactory for us because it creates a precedent for renegotiation of the agreement.
The European Parliament has been consulted, and that is something, but we were also consulted too late.
I should like to associate myself with what some fellow-Members have said with regard to the complex problems of agreements with third countries.
Let us hope that we all reach a greater appreciation of the difficulties and realize what we have to work for in the seminar at Quimper.
Mr President, the regulation now before us on an agreement with Morocco concerns more than the fishing industry.
European horticulture is also affected by this agreement, albeit indirectly.
Without the trade concessions in the sphere of importation of Moroccan vegetables, fruit and flowers the agreement would never have come about. European horticulture has thus unfairly become the victim of the solution to the fisheries dispute between the Union and Morocco.
To alleviate the pain the Union undertook at the General Affairs Council of 10 November 1995 to make proposals for a fund to promote ornamental plant products.
So far, six months later, the Commission has not yet followed up that commitment.
That is unacceptable!
I expect specific proposals from the Commission at the earliest possible date. This is a sector which is in difficulties, partly owing to increasing imports from third countries as a consequence of the tariff concessions granted in recent years.
Products from third countries are therefore being imported almost entirely without duties.
It is high time that the European Union did something about it.
Is the Commissioner ready to give an undertaking?
If so, then I can vote for the regulation.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think we must welcome the fact that this fisheries agreement between the European Union and Morocco has been reached.
It has certain characteristics which I think will be common in the agreements which may be signed in the future: reduction of fishing quotas for the fleets of Community countries; essential appraisal of resources; the confirmation that there are no surpluses and therefore the need for sustainable exploitation of fisheries resources in the relevant areas; and, moreover, the growing presence of third countries in future fishing activities close to their coasts.
All that, of course, has appeared in this agreement with Morocco and I think we must welcome the actions of the Commission and of the Commissioner in particular in achieving this agreement which, as the rapporteur rightly said, is perhaps not a good agreement but possibly the best that could be achieved.
In this respect I think it is important to stress also that there was a need for negotiations for this agreement to be speeded up in view of the pressure exerted by one member of the negotiating team; pressure not unconnected with the holding of the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference at the end of November, and let us remember that it was only a few weeks before that conference that it was possible to achieve the agreement with Morocco.
I think that determined the conclusion of this agreement and it will be important for an analysis to be made in the European Union as to the way in which future agreements must be negotiated for the good of the European fishing fleets.
Mr President, most representatives of the Andalusian fisheries sector say that this agreement is the best of those signed between the European Union and Morocco - simply the best.
I think that is so, because this agreement has some very favourable aspects: its four-year duration with no mid-term revision, which ensures stability going far beyond what was envisaged even by Mr Almeida when negotiations started; because the overall fishing capacities are increased; because the technical and administrative conditions are improved; because many thousands of jobs are guaranteed, directly and indirectly, in areas of high unemployment; because it offers continuity to the Community fishing fleet; and because the aspects of the unfavourable impact are gradual.
Let me sincerely congratulate the negotiators who have certain been a homogeneous team, which has acted firmly and calmly, waiting for the right time, and in the end decisively.
They have done well.
It is an agreement which was so difficult but which has turned out so well.
And it is an agreement which allows us to continue, improve and advance our relations with Morocco.
I notice that Mr Arias Cañete is not saying what he was saying before the Spanish elections.
Previously he was saying that agreement was impossible, that only a miracle performed by the Virgin could make it possible and was making rather cruder comments about our dropping our trousers before Rabat, for instance.
Now, Mr President, after the elections I see he has changed his tune, so welcome, Mr Arias Cañete, to our point of view, welcome to good sense, to rationality, above all in view of the options for government which exist in Spain.
Health monitoring
Alzheimer's disease - health card - blood safety
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the two aims being pursued are indeed the restoration and strengthening of confidence in the safety of the transfusion chain and the achievement of self-sufficiency in blood.
However, it is not very easy to accomplish all this as we find ourselves doing away with provisions which obstruct the free movement of goods and at the same time taking steps to guarantee maximum safety. Common standards will therefore have to be set.
But it is worth pausing a little and looking at these common standards. For the private sector claims that the measures introduced in the name of selfsufficiency in plasma, particularly through the resolution of the European Parliament of 14 September 1993, prevent it marketing these products.
To be completely clear on this point: the free movement of goods is undoubtedly a sacred dogma, and engaging in industrial practices which generate economic activity and prosperity is undoubtedly sacrosanct but, to put it very bluntly, the life of our fellow citizens is probably even more important.
And, just as farmers' income has to be preserved, but not at any price, we should expect strict regulations to be put into place. They should not be over-fussy, but they must protect us.
On the same subject, barely a fortnight ago in this very chamber, we had a debate on in vitro diagnostic devices: serological tests.
The monitoring and regulation required provoked a general outcry, precisely in the name of the free movement of goods.
Yet only a few days after that debate, 50 000 HIV tests were recognized as defective by their manufacturers and the tests will have to be started all over again. Strict regulation and monitoring would have protected us.
When we realize the dramatic effect that a false positive result can have on a family or a couple, when we realize the truly disastrous effect on health that a false negative result can produce, we can appreciate the necessity to remain unswerving, scrupulous and precise about the requirements for voluntary donations and for optimum use of blood and blood products; about informing the general public of the harmlessness of giving blood, of the urgency of the situation and of blood donation as an act of solidarity.
We must demand that a standard file be drawn up on all donors.
We must demand that blood-saving techniques be developed. We must encourage research on synthetic products and substitutes.
We must demand the training and retraining of doctors and nurses; we must demand traceability and haemovigilance networks.
Finally, in connection with the haemovigilance network, a truly harmonized European system should be able to rely on the regulatory framework already established in Directive 89/381.
The European Parliament already asked for precisely this in its resolution of November 1993.
I hope we shall be able to remember this after three years.
Mr President, Mr Poggiolini's report deals with a problem which has hitherto not been much in the public eye: Alzheimer's disease.
The number of people over 60 suffering from this disease is growing alarmingly.
Patients become completely dependent as a result of their illness.
Care for such people often falls upon the shoulders of members of the family and neighbours and becomes a serious burden.
This report therefore rightly calls attention to Alzheimer's disease and its consequences and presses for further research, the provision of more information and increased funding by the European Union and the Member States.
Such an illness and its social, mental and economic consequences cannot and must not be played down. It is therefore with due deference and prudence that I put forward the following ideas, more or less inspired by an observation in Mr Poggiolini's explanatory statement.
At one point he refers in particular to the fact that developing countries are little affected by this illness because life expectancy there is too low. That is poignant and also significant.
Longevity has become normal in our welfare society.
That is something to be grateful for.
But it is striking that in our society the current ideology projects only the image of the ideal person as young and healthy. We are scared of old age, sickness and death.
The crux of this problem naturally lies in the loss of the purpose of this earthly existence. Without the hope of the gospel death is always final.
A disease such as Alzheimer's certainly needs to be tackled.
But let us learn to accept that sickness and old age form part of our existence. In our society we seem to want to detach that from our daily existence.
By that we deny the value of our fellow human beings with their own place in creation. Because that is what they are: fellow human beings, nothing more, nothing less.
Mr President, I should like to say something about problems of safety in transfusion that should also appear on the agenda of a Council planned by the Irish presidency next autumn.
This is an extremely serious subject, when the memory of the controversies provoked by the contaminated blood catastrophe is still with us.
I should like, while of course keeping to both the subject matter of the Commission's communication and the main arguments of the rapporteur, to call the executive Commission's attention to the question of freeze-dried plasmas. This is a method of preservation which is quite effective but which nevertheless, because of the long time it allows specimens to be kept, has created and perpetuated a number of risks in transfusions.
It seems that a few residual stocks still remain - some use of them has been mentioned, particularly by the armed forces - and for several years have escaped all safety measures.
As part of the preparation for this Council on the safety of transfusion, I should like the question of these residual stocks of freeze-dried plasmas to be raised and I should also like steps taken to avert any risks that might remain in using them for transfusion.
It would appear that everything is not yet clear in this matter. Quite apart from the problem of AIDS, there are still said to be problems relating to hepatitis.
I believe it would be a good thing for the planned Council to be the occasion for some clarification, so as to give the required assurances and to guarantee that the objective of safety is achieved, an objective we share with the rapporteur.
Mr President, I wish to bring to the attention of Commissioner Flynn the kind of problems experienced by European citizens which have been brought to me by a constituent.
A constituent's son went to Greece and suffered an injury there.
Of course he presented his E111 form when he returned to the United Kingdom but was told that the receipt which he had obtained from the doctor was invalid because it did not contain a perforation on it.
Imagine the problem that young man faced: exhausted, tired and upset, he was required to insist upon a receipt with perforations on it.
The fact that he did not return that receipt with the appropriate perforations to the United Kingdom meant that he was unable to obtain reimbursement.
Now that inhibits, I am sure you will agree, free movement.
Therefore, I would like you to look upon the proposal for a health card in the light of the time that we have already spent on this as a Parliament.
You will recall this is one of a series of resolutions, the first of which was in 1981.
So we have been asking for this for a very long time.
The difference now, however, is that we have Article 138b, which gives the power of legislative initiative for the first time to the European Parliament - admittedly with no sanction against the Commission should the Commission fail to deliver.
I urge the Commission to think very carefully about this, because, as I have already said, it is a matter of free movement; it would reduce bureaucracy of the kind I have tried to illustrate, and I am sure that this is technically possible.
Indeed, Mr Leopardi, in an excellent report, says that much in part of the resolution.
I should like to say to Mr Flynn, who I know is aware of this, that if he were kind enough to come forward with a proposal, the kind of card which I have already presented to him would be available to every European Union citizen.
This is the kind of thing that the Socialist Group has already designed and would be of great value to every European citizen when making their way round the single market.
We ask the Commission to come forward with this and we hope very much that the Commissioner will respond in the way I have described.
Mr President, we have just heard from Mr David Martin a number of figures about people with Alzheimer's disease in the European Union. I should like to focus them still more specifically, Mr President.
At present the European Parliament has 626 Members.
The average age is about 45.
One third of Members are 55 or older.
Statistically, within ten years five to fifteen of our fellow-Members will be suffering from Alzheimer's disease. That means specifically that they will be suffering, and I quote from Mr Poggiolini's excellent report, from an irreversible and incurable degeneration of the brain leading to loss of memory, confusion and in some cases personality change.
And that is leading aside the emotions involved with Alzheimer's disease.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is to be hoped that within ten years there will be efficacious therapies and medicines to prevent Alzheimer's and similar diseases and if possible to cure them. But that depends amongst other things on the readiness of the European Union to invest in the fight against such afflictions.
That needs to be done amongst other things by supporting and encouraging scientific research into the causes and consequences of the disease, that is fundamental, applied, medical and pharmaceutical research, and also by instructing and training both professional carers and voluntary companions, by providing help for the victims, both the patients themselves and their nearest relatives and live-in or local by establishing appropriate institutions within or near hospitals, homes for old people or psychiatric institutions; by promoting cross-border exchange of data and experience with regard both to the disease and to the patients and by setting up or contributing to information programmes and investigative projects.
A Community action programme with a special and not merely symbolical budget heading ought to be able to supplement the existing Community initiatives and coordinate the campaigns started by the Member States up to a certain level.
It goes without saying that the Member States have a primary responsibility, particularly where reimbursement of medical expenses and social contributions are concerned.
One final point, Mr President, we must not play patients off against one another on budgetary grounds or compare one patient with another.
But as rapporteur for Community programmes on behalf of the elderly I must sincerely ask that this group of the population should not be forgotten.
In the year 2000 there will be more than 50 million of them in the European Union, so more than one million Alzheimer patients. As a social personalist and a Christian Democrat I earnestly plead for a European approach to Alzheimer's disease.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I have a point concerning page 20 of the Minutes.
At the end of the debate on the eight reports on discharge - when you were in the Chair - there is a reference to a remark by me that 'although it was true that the Council had not attended the whole debate, neither had all the rapporteurs been present to hear the Council speak' .
This only records part of what I said.
I pointed out that although the absence of the Council and the Commission had been noted at the start of the debate, it was unsatisfactory that four of the eight rapporteurs were not present during the Commissioner's reply.
I also stated that rapporteurs, when they accept reports, should undertake to be present at the debate on those reports.
I should like those details to be included in the Minutes.
I can testify to what you say, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
That will therefore be corrected.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
European Council in Turin
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the text of the joint resolution to wind up this debate, signed by virtually all the political groups, states that 'the European Parliament congratulates the Italian presidency on its successful conclusion of the IGC's preparatory stages within the timetable, thus enabling the European Council to confer on it a sufficiently broad mandate to permit significant progress by the Union.'
The Socialist Group shares that view.
Despite the difficulties arising from the situation in Italy, and contrary to the rather pessimistic forecasts that were widespread even in the European Parliament, at Turin the Italian presidency proposed a range of content for the conference which corresponds suitably to the expectations of Parliament and of everyone who believes in Europe.
It is positive that the reduction of issues to be dealt with in the new Treaty to the lowest common denominator, which we feared and still fear for the future, has been avoided, it is positive to have highlighted the need for a Union that is stronger because it is supported by a different balance between political union, economic union and monetary union, and it is also positive to have prioritized employment, the fundamental issue for the Socialist Group, which informed you of that personally, Mr Dini, in Rome before the start of the Italian presidency.
I would add personally that in the last few months Italy's role as a proEuropean country committed to building the European Union, a role which had seemed to be missing or even lost, has been reconstructed.
The Socialist Group also appreciates the work that has been done on citizenship, justice and home affairs.
On unemployment, we emphasize the need to implement all aspects of the Delors White Paper, to develop the Employment Pact between the social partners proposed by the Commission and consequently to revise the financial perspectives.
Of course there are unresolved problems, ignored by the Council or inadequately dealt with, and they are set out one by one in the joint resolution.
Let me give some examples: we are not satisfied with the role of the European Parliament as regards both the relative positions of Parliament and the Council during the conference, and the extension of codecision and assent by amendment of the Treaty, and also as regards the still unsatisfied request to put the signing of the future Treaty to a vote in Parliament, and so on.
So, while we appreciate the need for the reinforced cooperation clause, it is not clear whether and how it also guarantees the necessary institutional unity.
The Union's social policy is still in limbo.
We are far from finding a satisfactory solution to fundamental problems relating to the institutional structure and the instruments of common foreign and security policy, even though these are already in place. It will be the task of the conference to resolve this, of course.
If the Tripartite Conference on growth and employment between governments, social partners and the Commission, and the next European Council in Florence, decide on a far-reaching and effective initiative on employment, the Union will have finally laid the foundations for renewed public confidence and it will be possible to say the Italian presidency ended with a flourish.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission. The main political groups of this Parliament are united in congratulating the Italian presidency on its success in preparing the Intergovernmental Conference and on the broad mandate agreed in time for these negotiations.
We hope that these negotiations will be completed in Amsterdam under the Dutch presidency by the end of June 1997.
Seldom, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, has a tableau been drawn up so full of fundamental questions and challenges facing the European Union.
Seldom too in the history of European unification was the risk so great that we would lose control of the political goal to which our generation owes decades of peace and prosperity.
That is the reason for our political responsibility in the months ahead.
This calls for a clear head on what is at stake in Europe, on the elements which determine peace on our continent and which regulate our ability to build a strong and soundly based European Union where Europeans feel comfortable and confident.
We have inherited the fifty years which is now drawing to a close from the forwardlooking political courage of the statesmen who planned and built up the Community of peace and progress.
Western Europe was the first to reap the benefits of its creativity, but soon the whole continent will be able to share the results of Community Europe after the accession of the countries from central, southern and eastern Europe.
The question we must answer is the following: what do we want to leave to the coming generation? There is every reason to be worried; nationalism is flaring up again, of which the persistent, gruesome conflict in Bosnia is a tragic example.
The xenophobia which is difficult to suppress, the allurement of fundamentalism which is cropping up almost unnoticed in Europe.
What kind of Europe are we going to hand on to the younger generation? What kind of message of hope can we transmit to the young people who all too often in our countries are deprived of the right to work and develop?
Our people are frightened when they think of the future. Will the globalisation of the world economy mean definitive structural unemployment for Europe which will make our society crumble, wipe out the social achievements and destroy once and for all the European social model, the fruit of a subtle blend of economic efficiency and solidarity between people?
We really expect the European response, the response of the IGC, to these basic issues to be the right one as we are building Europe because Europe embodies values which respect the human being and does not doom him to be subjugated to the laws of economic competition but which on the contrary, can create a pact of confidence, as the President of the Commission said.
That is why we urge the Presidents of the Council and the Commission not to take a short-term view of the problems during the IGC but to demonstrate courage and magnanimity by accepting an agreement which enables a genuine European political Union to come about.
We do not underestimate the difficulties of the negotiations.
The diversity of our aspirations, the force of our traditions, the divergence of our cultural sensitivities, political fears, all these differences if taken together and allowed to influence could lead to the result of the negotiations being a minimum minimorum .
That would be the worst possible hypothesis, for that would mean a postponement of all the basic problems.
In this respect I would remind you of a famous declaration and confirm that our group will never be satisfied with the European convoy only sailing at the speed of the slowest ships.
The EPP Group can accept the way in which the European Parliament will be involved in the IGC.
A public debate was wanted.
This time a new treaty will not only be negotiated by ministers, technocrats and diplomats, but the voice of the people in Europe will be heard through those whom they democratically elected.
Mr President, first of all I am delighted to welcome President Dini at last, on his first official visit to the European Parliament, after over 100 days of the Italian presidency and with barely more than sixty left.
But perhaps it is legitimate to voice a slight suspicion that there are three days to go before the Italian elections and Europe is unfortunately being used as a platform for national issues.
As the Member of the European Parliament for Turin, I had the good fortune to be present at the Turin Conference, though certainly not by official invitation.
I was present for the public part of the conference of course, certainly not in the control centre which not even President Hänsch was invited to, unfortunately. I saw and heard many important things.
Certainly not everything this Parliament wanted to hear, but many of them are vital, if they are properly followed up.
Obviously this must not be allowed to come to an end on 30 June in Florence when, as President Dini mentioned, the six months of the Italian presidency ends.
These issues represent Europe's future, because we know that these are the years which will make or break Europe.
One issue dealt with in Turin stands out, although it is still clouded by the more pressing problem of mad cow disease, and that is the issue of employment.
Mr President, I want to confirm what I said in this Chamber in January, in front of Minister Agnelli, and I want to thank him again for his helpfulness and commitment to the European Parliament's full involvement in the work of the conference.
What we say on employment, as a group, is that we should not be trying to create the new jobs where mechanization and robotization is gradually eliminating them.
They must be made to emerge in economic sectors and on a business scale that we have underestimated so far.
I am talking about small and medium-sized enterprises, the only real alternative for the socio-economic development of the European market.
Mr President, the future belongs to small and medium-sized enterprises. They must be supported in every possible way.
They need financial help to grow until some of them can operate abroad in the increasingly internationalized market and they need to be freed from the constraints, particularly fiscal burdens and red tape which currently prevent entrepreneurs from developing their businesses.
I shall end, Mr President, by recalling an idea Minister Agnelli has already expressed here in Strasbourg.
We should think of Europe as a triangle: institutions and politics are its base, but its sides are the people of Europe, and I would add that they should not just be regarded as an electorate all the time, but, especially in this forum, as citizens.
Mr President, I want to thank the President-inOffice for being here just a few days before voting takes place in Italy, an event so important that it involves all the political and social forces of our country.
I thank him on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left, but also on behalf of my party in Italy, the Movimento dei Comunisti Unitari , which has had positive relations with his government and often been criticized for it.
I have a criticism to make here, because in my view the concluding document from the Turin Council is too vague and imprecise, if we consider that the task of the Intergovernmental Conference is to revise the Maastricht Treaty.
Instead it seems to me that in Turin the determination to respect all the provisions for economic and monetary union has once again prevailed, despite the fact that in some countries, including my own - as you are well aware, having governed it all these months - the rigid application of the convergence criteria involves serious social consequences.
Moreover we feel there is insufficient commitment to dealing with the most serious problem in every European country, the problem of employment.
I think a different commitment is needed, one that involves all the social partners, and first and foremost the trade unions of the European countries.
Before I end, let me make a recommendation: I do not think it is true, as someone stupidly said in Italy for purely electoral purposes, that certain countries, including ours, are being sold to the Franco-German axis, but it is crucial, Mr President, that the possibility now open to some countries to move ahead with closer cooperation should not lead to a multi-speed Europe, based on discrimination, competition and inequality.
The Italian presidency can continue to make a fine contribution, as it has done up to now, to the great commitment to make Europe a political union and not just a monetary union.
Presidents Hänsch, Santer and Dini, ladies and gentlemen, one particular image of the Turin summit sticks in my mind.
I think of the building in which it took place; I think of the Lingotto of the Agnelli family, I see the racetrack on the roof of that building, I think of the German Foreign Minister, Klaus Kinkel, who drove round the track in a Ferrari, and I recall that another famous German, the world Formula One champion, also drives a Ferrari; only it seems that Michael Schumacher somehow has a spanner in the works, which is affecting both his car and himself.
The project to revise the Treaty, of course, had a spanner in its works from the very beginning, and in our view the Turin Council summit has done nothing to alter that.
The cosmetic involvement of the European Parliament that was decided upon is miles away from what we ourselves were demanding, namely a role in the ratification process.
But above all, nothing has happened to resolve the underlying dilemma, in other words the basic decision to carry out the necessary revision of the Treaty in the framework of an intergovernmental conference along the lines of Maastricht I, which is simply not open to public scrutiny, which simply does not promote a transparent and democratic process based on popular participation.
Public participation and debate in the widest possible sense are the only ways to overcome the clandestine nature of the intergovernmental conference and to let public acceptance gain ground over Euroscepticism.
The fact is, of course, that the European Union pursues an unfathomable policy, its words speaking of transparency but its actions of secrecy.
So we can scarcely wonder at people being every bit as distant from the EU as the EU is from democracy.
The tide did not turn at Turin, and that is certainly not the fault of the presidency, which tried very hard.
Klaus Hänsch asked the Council not to let its meetings degenerate into declaratory summits, but now, when I compare the statements with what is actually happening, Mr Hänsch's call remains a pious wish.
So what are the candidate countries to think of the outcome, of the fact that foremost importance attaches to economic harmonization, when they played no part whatsoever in the conference? What is it other than hollow rhetoric when the Council refers to the struggle against unemployment as its prime concern and as a common goal without any real guidelines being formulated on the form this struggle should take, and when the finance ministers seek to whittle away at Mr Santer's project after the summit?
That is something they ought to tell us.
Where, then, are the guidelines for improving the environmental situation? Not an inch did we move in the direction of a CO2 tax, not an inch towards a link between economy and ecology, not a single inch towards a real pact to promote employment and combat ecological destruction!
What are we to think of the decisions on mad cow disease? When was there a better time than now to make the switch towards species-related husbandry, natural feeding and controllable markets and away from the agroindustrial mentality?
I fear that we have not moved on from that original racetrack image, from the picture of a car churning up clouds of dust as its engine roars but unable to head towards the finish because it is immobilized in the pits.
Mr President, despite all the speeches and promises, the Maastricht Treaty appears increasingly to be the biggest stumbling-block to economic recovery and the fight against unemployment.
The figures are disastrous.
In Europe, the average rate of unemployment rose from 9.6 % to 11 % between 1990 and 1995.
Six million jobs have been lost and 55 million people are living on the poverty line.
While fanatical supporters of European integration have for years been doing their utmost to advance the process of building Europe, or so they claim, industrial production has stagnated and social breakdown has become worse.
While some of their leaders engage in trivial pursuits, the French people are growing increasingly concerned about relinquishing national sovereignty, and how this will affect their daily lives.
How can we therefore expect France, which has only ten votes in the Council and 87 out of 626 Members of the European Parliament, to entrust its future to the representatives of countries which, while they may be friends, have not been elected by the French people?
Before the next general election in 1998, the Gaullist renegades within the majority should once more call to mind the battle that the French people, on both the right and left, have been fighting since time immemorial to protect their independence.
In this respect, the idea put about in some quarters of increased cooperation between some Member States, with others constructively abstaining - what a joke! - can only be a prelude to further withdrawals.
This puts us in mind of the Fourth Republic, and what is known as the policy of letting sleeping dogs lie.
A new referendum is now in order, in view of the insidious implementation of a federalist Treaty that only just secured enough votes in 1992.
The proposed changes arising out of the Intergovernmental Conference should provide a good reason for again asking the French people whether they are willing to entrust the most important aspects of French economic policy to supranational bodies.
Life shows that any living creature that gives up the struggle is condemned to extinction!
Mr President, 15-19 January, 12-16 February, 11-15 March, 31 January - 1 February, 28-29 February, 27-28 March. These are the dates, Dr Dini, of the other plenary sessions of this Parliament which you did not attend.
Parliament's lack of interest in your appearance, demonstrated by this empty Chamber, is a response to the lack of interest you have demonstrated towards us.
The President of the Italian Parliament, Mr Pivetti, came here to testify to the interest Italian Members of Parliament take in their European colleagues.
You never came, and you represent the Italian presidency.
But you come today, four days away from the Italian election.
Perhaps your lack of interest in our Parliament, not to say your scorn, derives from the fact that you have never been a Member of Parliament, you have never been elected, which means the people have never given you any mandate.
Perhaps your presence today is not even a belated apology to all of us who have been elected, but another attempt to use the European platform for base domestic motives.
You are the only person who ever decided, when President-in-Office of the Council, to enter an election campaign by founding, in a fit of megalomania which finds no parallel in the history of western democracy, a party which bears your own name.
You have come to Strasbourg to get coverage in the European press which you hope will reflect in publicity for you in Italy, because you are here to promote your election campaign, following the route of those who use foreign platforms to send messages to Italy and who would do better to keep silent.
But you should know you have done your country a disservice.
Decent men are capable of a little humility.
Shrewd politicians know that the form is often the substance and in terms of form you have been extremely rude to this Parliament.
In terms of substance, a list of issues was drawn up at Turin without indicating effective solutions for the great challenges at home and abroad: unemployment, lack of unity in foreign policy, lack of results in the common struggle against organized crime and drugs, lack of any effective will to build political unity, at least in parallel with economic union.
We have waited in vain for Italy and its European partners to confront the problem of the 20 million people currently unemployed, which could become 30 or 40 million if the enlargement takes place without first solving the unemployment problem of the existing European jobless, and promote the issue of political union which now seems to interest few people.
But you continue to speak of preparation for the enlargement and fail to concern yourself either with genuinely combatting the growing poverty in Europe or with closing the gap between the citizens and the Union, which is becoming more obvious and worrying all the time, given the failure of the Commission's White Paper.
In Turin you talked about challenges, but you ignored the risk of making the Union look like the ideal model for destroying jobs in the eyes of the world, safeguarding positions of privilege for those lucky enough to be in secure categories and protecting certain sectors which are almost always unproductive.
This state of stagnation stands in the way of the creation of new wealth. The challenge of becoming competitive is met with fear and a preference for sheltered niches, protected from innovation, forgetting that competitiveness is an indispensable condition for growth and employment.
You are silent about relocation, about fundamentalism, about the deaths caused by failure to achieve political union.
As regards the Verona Summit, I merely point out that the economic disorder which prevents Italy from enjoying the necessary credibility is the responsibility of many of your current electoral partners.
But at Verona, just to keep the support of the Bundesbank you refused to face the obvious, which is that Germany is pushing forward the deadlines for achieving monetary union in order to obtain the immediate enlargement to the east that has been mentioned.
We hope that in the short time remaining to the Italian presidency the next government will be equal to the task of restoring the prestige Italy is entitled to.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome a delegation from the Interparliamentary Organization of ASEAN, who are here to take part in a meeting with our colleagues from the Delegation for relations with the ASEAN Member States.
The visiting delegation is led by the President of the Thai National Assembly and includes parliamentarians from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam.
On behalf of our entire House, may I bid you a warm welcome to the European Parliament and wish you every success in the work you are about to begin.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen of the AIPO, welcome to the European Parliament!
(Loud applause)
European Council in Turin (continuation)
Mr President, I have listened with great interest to the views expressed this morning by honourable Members of the European Parliament.
On matters of substance - apart from those of form which I shall deal with at the end - I want to emphasize that the problem of employment, dwelt on by certain Members, is the absolute priority for the Heads of Government of the European Union, and it goes hand in hand with the progress that needs to be made to bring about economic and monetary union.
We are all aware that we cannot build a Europe of unemployed people.
Europe has been an area of progress and prosperity in the past and we intend to make it so in the future.
Hence the initiatives on employment that are going to be taken at the Community level: President Santer's initiative and the interministerial initiatives proposed for the near future.
In any case the fact remains - and I think it is indisputable - that employment problems have to be solved primarily through measures taken by the national governments.
These problems cannot be solved at Community level; the Community can only set guidelines and contribute, as far as it is able, to certain projects to provide employment, and these are of course the great European transport network projects.
I have also noted with great interest what has been said about how important it is for the Intergovernmental Conference, in examining the issues before it, to take a long term rather than a short term view and look to a more distant horizon to find high profile solutions for those issues.
I do not agree that the Turin document is vague.
The Turin document provides a mandate and puts the issues to be covered on the agenda.
The fact that it is all-inclusive of every problem that needs to be faced, and that there was agreement on that, is an important step towards finding the right solutions to the various matters that need to be dealt with.
I just want to say two things.
First, as regards the Verona Conference, my task here today was to report back on the session of the European Council and the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference. I restricted myself to that without touching on the important meeting of Finance Ministers which took place at Verona a few days ago.
At that meeting it was not a matter of deciding which countries would take part in monetary union from day one, series A countries or series B countries.
All countries are equal under the Treaty and the aim is to apply the same conditions to all the countries from the moment the decision to move to phase 3 is taken. I think that is also the will of the governments.
At Verona, after some discussions which had been specially requested by certain Member States and Heads of Government, including myself, the ministers considered what measures should be taken in order to guarantee proper functioning of the single European market, under the hypothesis that not all Member States would be able to be or would want to be part of economic and monetary union from the start.
I believe that the single European market is the European Community's greatest achievement and we must therefore establish mechanisms to guarantee its proper functioning as some countries - not all - move to monetary union.
That is in the interests of the countries involved from the start, and also of the countries which remain outside, and rights and obligations must be correctly balanced.
The discussion dealt exclusively with that.
Agreement was also reached that, to keep the countries that introduce the Euro at the outset united with those which aspire to join monetary union in phase 3 as soon as possible, it would be necessary to have a new exchange rate mechanism, a new European monetary system, which would keep them united, with fixed rights and duties for those inside and for those remaining temporarily outside.
I think it was a great success to achieve that objective, and that is also the opinion of the Finance Ministers who took part in the meeting.
It means none of the countries has given anything up, so no-one can complain, and it is actually a matter of protecting the common interest during the move to the third phase of monetary union.
As regards my presence here today, I know that it is customary for whoever holds the presidency to be asked to report to the European Parliament after the sessions of the European Council.
That was my intention, and I welcomed the invitation from the presidency of the European Parliament to come on 13 March - that date was agreed at first - to report on the Turin European Council.
Unfortunately that had to be abandoned because of the meeting at Sharm-el-Sheikh which the Heads of Government had set for the same date.
On that occasion I gave my apologies for my absence.
But Italy was there, at Foreign Minister level, and today, at the second invitation of the Presidency of Parliament, I came here to report on the outcome of the European Council, and that is what I have done.
There will, I believe, be another opportunity for the Italian President-inOffice of the Council to come and report on the outcome of the June European Council before the end of the Italian presidency.
I think I have replied to the main points that have been made, but we will also take full account of each and every one of them.
(Applause)
Mr President, I yield to the temptation to borrow a phrase from Sir Christopher Wren on this occasion: ' Si monumentum requieres, circumspice ' .
If the President of the Council of Ministers required to see a monument to the success to the Turin conference, then obviously he would have been greatly disillusioned and disappointed here this morning when he came to report on the conference to the European Parliament.
There was nothing to report, sadly.
In fact it would have been long-forgotten but for the fact that the major item for discussion was the BSE disease and that the conference itself was held in the Ferrari buildings.
The European Union and its Member States have a number of very major political, social and economic problems to confront over the next few years.
Policies will have to be developed which are capable of generating economic growth and new jobs for the millions of unemployed; of tackling international crime and drug smuggling; of settling the difficult question of the future funding of Europe from the year 2000 onwards and of moving forward with the single currency project.
At the same time existing Member States will have to prepare the way for the accession of up to 10 or even 15 new Member States from Central and Eastern Europe.
The likely accession of these countries will provide all Europe with a unique opportunity to work together for a peaceful and secure future.
However, we will have to ensure that the burden of admitting these new countries, all of whom will be net beneficiaries from the EU budget for the foreseeable future, must be shared equally by the existing Member States.
A straightforward redistribution of the existing resources from the structural funds and the common agricultural policy will result in the Union's agricultural regions taking on a disproportionately large share of the cost of enlargement.
The budget will have to be increased significantly if the existing common policies are to continue to operate effectively in an enlarged Union.
After the IGC conference there will be a wide-ranging public debate in each of the 15 EU countries and in some cases a referendum before the ratification process can be completed.
Finally, during the course of these debates our citizens will be expecting clear evidence that the European Union is capable of providing clear-cut and effective solutions to these major political, social and economic problems.
Mr President, the conclusions reached at the Turin Summit from my point of view deal very correctly with a certain number of extremely important points concerning the revision of the Treaties, although it has to be recognised in certain cases that we have not got any further than a few platitudes.
But a positive note has been struck, nevertheless.
We do note, however, certain omissions which are a cause for concern, but I would like to begin with the points which we feel are more positive.
It is recognised that the fight against unemployment must be our main priority - this calls for an economic policy which is orientated towards stability, greater competitiveness and far swifter growth.
As far as free circulation is concerned, there is an intention to implement coherent and effective policies in terms of asylum, emigration and visas, as well as stepping up controls at external borders.
The omissions which concern us start, for example, with the failure to make any reference to economic and social cohesion.
We are certain that the 15 heads of state and government will not call into question this principle because it is vital to European construction and must underlie all of its policies.
But it would be useful and reassuring if the principle could have been reiterated in the final communiqué, something which did not happen.
The same concern is also valid for the problem of statutory equalities.
It is vital to ensure that demographic differences cannot have repercussions on the exercise of the presidency of the Council of Ministers, the representativeness of the Commission or the equal status of all commissioners.
What is firmly fixed, following the meeting in the wellguarded factory area in Turin, is some clear outline of what we can expect.
It is a clear procedure that has been adopted, and the outlines of the future Union are more or less clear.
This is also shown by the joint resolution which has been submitted by the large groups.
It is specifically, as mentioned under item D, that Europe must assert itself better at international level and must administer a joint foreign and security policy which is in keeping with its rank in the world.
That is one decisive point, and the other decisive point, which is stressed in item 2, is the importance of the intergovernmental conference making discernible progress with regard to union citizenship as well as legal and internal matters.
It concerns areas which are of decisive importance for the development of the European Union.
It means, simply, more Union, but in Denmark we have a tradition of asking the people for their views about extending the Union, and on the Danish side we have already once before declined the recipe which exists here.
I believe that we will do so again, and if the Danish tradition is applied to the whole Union, then the Union project will encounter difficulties.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Dini has just told us that the Heads of Government were particularly concerned about employment.
That is good news, and I think Parliament can take some credit for making it understood that our citizens are deeply anxious about this problem.
Mr Dini also said that employment policy was above all the prerogative of the Member States.
No doubt that is true, but there are three points which I should like to make.
Firstly, Parliament believes that employment should be one of our guiding principles as we move towards economic and monetary union.
In introducing a single currency, we must have a goal, and this should naturally be employment.
Secondly, I believe that if the procedures approved in Essen are to bear fruit, they must be improved.
In our view, it would help to make employment a truly European issue - and this is essential - if a chapter on employment were to be inserted in the Treaty.
Thirdly, there can be no employment policy without a social policy.
This concept needs to be reiterated.
But I should also like to mention the status of the European Parliament, and to acknowledge the considerable effort which the Council and the Italian presidency have made in order to reach a solution.
I think the outcome is a purely symbolic one, but it should not be ignored.
The opposition of the French and British Governments seriously affects us all. We must overcome France's over-sensitivity about national sovereignty and the British Government's refusal to accept both Europe and democracy.
But in its resolution last December, Parliament also referred to the interinstitutional conference.
It seems to me that relations between Parliament and the Intergovernmental Conference are more conflictual than amicable.
Naturally, there are points of view to be defended, and in this respect, I believe that the interinstitutional conference format should be retained, since in the end, it brings together 15 government representatives against - if I dare use the expression - 15 representatives of the European Parliament.
From an institutional point of view, this arrangement maintains a balance of power that is fairer to Parliament.
I believe that the interinstitutional conference, which paid dividends at the time of the Maastricht Treaty, can be revitalized and improved, but that it is crucial in terms of the role of the European Parliament vis-à-vis the Intergovernmental Conference.
Although our achievements have been reasonable, we are prevented from doing better by the role and status of the European Parliament itself, and by the difficulty of persuading governments to accept that major institutional change is vital, and that we need more democracy and more policies.
Mr President, I trust that you will once again put the interinstitutional conference on the agenda, in accordance with the wishes of the House.
And that is why the Socialist Group will be voting in favour of the amendment which the Green Group has tabled on this issue.
Mr President, in his introductory remarks Prime Minister Dini stressed how very important it is to fight unemployment.
I fully share this point of view.
However, the fight against unemployment cannot comprise merely fine words, not even if a separate title in the Treaty is devoted to the subject.
The Swedish proposal for an employment union is an example of this.
Originally, this proposal was a proposal to coordinate finance policies and make them more expansionary and to increase demand in times of economic recession. It was a proposal which really could have had an effect at European level in checking the recession.
Now the proposal has been abandoned totally.
It was not taken further because it conflicts with monetary union and the policy of convergence.
This is thus another example of the fact that today the policy of convergence is the biggest single stumbling block in the fight against unemployment in Western Europe.
This policy must therefore be reviewed, as must the EMU project.
If unemployment could be 'talked out of existence' we would have got rid of it here a long time ago - but that is not possible.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I will reply briefly to the speeches honourable Members have made and in particular the last speech by Mrs Dury.
I do not think there is any obstacle to pursuing the interinstitutional dialogue: the Turin resolution is not an obstacle to that, nor is the so-called understanding on Parliament.
As regards the other speakers, I simply make this comment: without prejudice to the importance of the fight against unemployment, which has already been emphasized, I cannot agree with the view that nothing remarkable happened at Turin, that in reality Turin was useless, as Mr Collins said.
Well, Turin had a single task: to launch the Intergovernmental Conference and set the agenda for that conference, not to offer the solutions already, when they are to be the outcome of the conference itself.
And this also applies to other comments honourable Members have made about citizenship, about pooling a common heritage, about border security, multi-speeds, and all the various points which have been raised.
I repeat, all that will be the task of the Intergovernmental Conference, with the help and suggestions of Parliament.
Italy has fought - successfully, in my view - to have Parliament associated with a conference which is indeed intergovernmental but in which the governments have need of the suggestions, the advice, the support and the encouragement of Parliament.
On behalf of the presidency then, and I would also like to say on behalf of Italy, we cannot but thank Parliament for the attention it will devote to the Intergovernmental Conference and the advice it will be able to give.
I have received eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Preparation of CCEE for accession
The next item is the report (A4-0101/96) by Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on preparation of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe for accession to the Union on the basis of the White Paper on the subject (COM(95)0163 - C4-0166/95).
Madam President, the White Paper on the preparation of the associated countries for membership of the internal market of the European Union only deals with agricultural aspects in a small way.
It deals with guidance for the associated countries relating to some agricultural sectors and connected with veterinary checks, the free movement of goods, phytosanitary products and fodder, and the requirements for marketing certain products.
To this end the Oostlander report takes substantial note of the European Commission guidelines which are very clear, very precise and do not leave room for subjective interpretation.
The problem for agriculture is a problem of outlook.
I believe, in agreement with the Oostlander report, that it is not possible to say we will do the accounts first and then see what implications the enlargement will have. Instead it is a matter of working right away for the enlargement and adapting the common agricultural policy to the guidelines that the Commission adopted at the Madrid Summit.
In my opinion this constitutes a good starting point for ensuring that the whole of European agriculture spends less on traditional support to markets and more on structural policy and rural development.
Madam President, the Economic Affairs Committee is in favour of enlargement but disagrees with the Oostlander report on its timing.
An overhasty accession, in other words before the applicant countries and the Union itself are ready, is not in the interests of either the applicants or the Union.
First of all the Union must through the IGC re-assert its authority to take decisions and become more democratic.
The applicants must have grown sufficiently strong in terms of their economic and social development to stand up to the tough competition on the internal market without protective measures.
Because unlike the accession of Spain, Portugal and Greece long transition periods are no longer possible.
Now that there are no more border controls there is no longer any scope for a special status on the internal market.
Accession might well take a long time, certainly into the next century.
But in the meantime the applicant countries should not be expected to travel that path empty-handed.
The present trade regulations with central and eastern Europe are hypocritical.
The most difficult and restricted access to the Union is reserved for the most competitive products.
It is no wonder that the European Union has built up a trade surplus.
That must change quickly if the Union wants to remain credible.
Madam President, to deal with energy in the countries of Eastern Europe in just one minute would almost be a record!
But I am going to try and be extremely brief, if not terse, and say simply that the recommendation contained in the Oostlander report touches on two main points.
Firstly, we must take into account that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are heavily dependent on nuclear power.
In this respect, we therefore have two aims.
On the one hand, to do everything that needs to be done to improve nuclear safety, in order to instil in our future partners in Central and Eastern Europe our own safety culture, which they still do not have.
And, on the other, to envisage a realistic timescale for the possible closure of nuclear power stations that do not comply with basic safety regulations.
The second point in the recommendation is that we must investigate all the different energy sources which might be available in Central and Eastern Europe.
I personally had suggested that the Commission should organize a regional energy conference in these countries, with a view to encouraging diversification.
Madam President, we are aware that the integrationrelated problems of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are great, and that the starting-point of each country is different.
Given that their social structures are diverse, we must look for convergence in terms of increased democracy, the rule of law and responsible administration.
I shall now try to summarize the three areas on which the Committee on External Economic Relations wishes to place particular emphasis.
Firstly, the transposition of the Community's laws into the national legislation of each of the countries concerned, with particular attention being given to social and environmental requirements, will involve a huge legislative effort.
Furthermore, we must bear in mind that cooperation between the Union's undertakings and those of the applicant countries must not be impeded by the kind of legal, fiscal or administrative difficulties which frequently have their origin in attitudes and habits acquired under the previous economic system.
Similarly, a revision of the common agricultural policy must prevent increased rural desertification and serve to maintain the standard of living of the Union's farmers.
Secondly, competition rules must be applied to ensure that the policy is effective, and that legal harmonization in the social and economic fields produces equal conditions for the undertakings on both sides - the applicant countries and the European Union.
And thirdly, as regards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the internal market, there is a need to combat fraudulent activity in the field of imports, particularly along the European Union's eastern frontier, whereby the Union is losing hundreds of millions of ECU and thousands of jobs every year.
Finally, I regret the fact that the Commission has not examined the situation of each of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe likely to join the Union separately, specifying their current degree of integration into the internal market.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin my remarks with three basic observations.
First of all, the gradual eastward enlargement of the European Union is a task of historical necessity.
Secondly, many countries of central and eastern Europe are plagued by indescribable poverty and social deprivation.
Thirdly, many Member States of the Union are also faced with serious social problems.
These observations form the basis of my opinion.
The fundamental requirement is the incorporation into the integration process of the social dimension as reflected in the European social model.
Unfortunately, too little account is taken of this requirement in Mr Oostlander's report.
In order to avoid undesirable social repercussions in the countries of central and eastern Europe and in the EU Member States themselves, a phased plan is needed for the gradual integration of the central and eastern European states into the internal market.
This phased plan must include the social dimension.
The Union must assist the candidates for accession to establish and develop socially orientated administrative and organizational infrastructures.
This socially acceptable form of integration will entail extremely high costs both for the Union and for the acceding countries.
That is why the Union has to adopt the appropriate measures in good time.
The necessary integration of the countries of central and eastern Europe must be managed judiciously and in a socially responsible manner.
Otherwise the unwanted social side-effects of such integration could jeopardize the gratifying democratic developments in the applicant countries and their commitment to the idea of a common European home.
Madam President, real socialism leaves behind a catastrophic environmental legacy.
The alarming environmental situation is a real danger to public health.
The available know-how must be deployed to ensure that the quality of water, air and soil undergoes constant systematic improvement, not only in western Europe but in the East too.
Safety standards at nuclear plants, as well as the safeguards in place at the numerous storage sites for radioactive waste, are of the utmost importance to the entire global population.
The commitment of Europe, and especially of its Parliament, can not only help to analyse and evaluate sources of danger but can also be a means of identifying numerous opportunities for energy saving, efficient management of resources, strategic environmental legislation and so on.
The technical capability of the waste-disposal plants available in individual countries to recycle hazardous waste safely could be used as a criterion in decisions on waste management.
Minimum environmental protection standards should be defined, and states should receive financial and advisory assistance to make those standards attainable.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Institutional Affairs regards enlargement as both a political necessity and a historic opportunity for Europe.
However, we have stressed the fact that if the European plan is to be viable, the new Treaty must first of all provide for institutional instruments that meet the requirements of an enlarged Union.
Because if institutional reform does not go far enough, it will endanger the very process of building Europe.
We must avoid the risk of Europe being watered down.
Broadening and deepening must be reconciled, through in-depth strengthening and reform of the present institutional framework.
Increased democracy, efficiency, solidarity and transparency must be the key elements in that reform process.
Whether or not the Union is ready for enlargement will depend on the outcome of the IGC.
In this context, the Committee on Institutional Affairs would like to lay down a condition which it believes is unavoidable, namely that the House should deliver a favourable opinion at the end of the negotiations.
Madam President, I agree with the view expressed by the previous speakers that the enlargement of the European Union to include the states of central and eastern Europe will not only foster security, prosperity and peace in Europe; we are also well aware of the opportunities that will present themselves to the European Union as a result of future enlargement.
Fisheries, as it happens, vary greatly in their importance to the economies of the individual candidate countries.
Nevertheless, there are common features, which demand a uniform approach by the European Union.
The impact of integration on the applicant countries will be considerable.
The local socioeconomic importance of fishing in some countries cannot be ignored; coastal fishing and aquaculture still account for a substantial number of jobs in the Community, and indeed fisheries are the sole source of income in certain places. When I speak of the Community here I am referring to the work done by the Community in the various sectors.
Our accession strategy must take due account of this fact.
The development of new economic structures and an integration process without traumatic consequences must be our stated objectives.
The present report by Mr Oostlander has been long awaited, not only by us.
These countries are looking hopefully towards a future in the European Union.
In this report we are giving a political signal, telling them that we await them in the Strasbourg family.
But until then there is much to be done by all sides.
I thank Mr Oostlander, who devoted particular attention to the situation of women in central and eastern Europe and adopted the main points from the opinion delivered by the Committee on Women's Rights.
These women need to know what they can expect from membership of the European Union.
They also have to be sure that joint efforts will be undertaken to promote employment and education as well as social and health services for women and girls.
Efforts must be made from the very outset to ensure that women are not economically and socially marginalized.
In eastern and central Europe many women are trained for technical occupations and are to be found in far greater numbers in the realms of science and research than is the case in western Europe, for example.
Let us ensure that they can assume an increasing amount of political responsibility and can thus effectively play an active part in helping to shape life in the European Union.
Let us support the young democracies by means of reliable partnership and clear messages.
Madam President, I shall restrict myself to two points after congratulating Mr Oostlander on his fine, factual, in-depth report.
The two points I want to make are as follows.
First of all everyone will agree that it is extremely important that we increasingly adopt a pan-European approach to transport.
We see the trouble in our part of Europe caused by not managing to set up a proper transport policy in the European Union.
Let us now try to do that on a pan-European basis, and that is also why we, together with the Commission, are in the process of preparing the next pan-European transport conference next year in Helsinki.
There we hope, together with the relevant authorities from the eastern European countries, to shape the pan-European transport policy.
The second point I wish to highlight is the area of tension on the requirements necessary for vehicles from eastern European countries operating on our markets.
We all know how important it is to reduce the environmental pollution from traffic.
We lay down stringent requirements on vehicles stationed in western Europe.
We now see an increasing number of vehicles from eastern Europe which do not come anywhere near meeting these same requirements operating on our road network.
The tension is obviously there because we on the one had want to give these countries the chance to develop their economy but on the other hand, Madam President, it is becoming extremely difficult for our people to accept that they must meet these more stringent requirements while vehicles from eastern European countries do not need to come anywhere near meeting these requirements.
I would appreciate hearing what the Commissioner has to say on this area of tension.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, back in the summer of 1993 the European Council decided that those countries of central and eastern Europe which wanted to join the European Union could do so.
The European Council set out the conditions, and quite tough conditions they are too.
They relate to the development of democracy in those countries, but above all they relate to harmonization of those states' economic and legal systems to the acquis communautaire , to the development and the aims of the European Union.
The obstacle to accession is not insurmountable, but it is very high.
Today in the European Parliament, not for the first time and surely not for the last time, we are discussing, in the context of Mr Oostlander's report - for which I should like to thank him sincerely on behalf of my group - the question of the amount of progress that we - and by 'we' I mean both the associated countries of central and eastern Europe and the European Union itself - have made in the preparatory process.
To make it quite clear once again to many people, let me say that we are not discussing the accession of the central and eastern European countries today but are reviewing the progress made with these preparations and identifying the tasks that still have to be accomplished.
President Dini stated this morning that preparations for enlargement are also on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference.
He said that the agenda was ambitious and kaleidoscopic, that the Council will present an interim report and that the Madrid decisions are to be implemented.
Those are clear words.
The requirements set by the European Union when it held out the prospect of EU membership after the end of the East-West confrontation are demanding, but the countries of central and eastern Europe set about their work right away, doing everything in their power to achieve the necessary objectives as quickly as possible.
The European Union provided help.
The funds disbursed so far under the PHARE programme have done much to promote the establishment of the private economy in those countries, to pave the way for restructuring of state enterprises and to develop a sound financial and banking system.
In short, the European Union has made a decisive contribution.
But the really strenuous efforts to date have been made by the governments and more especially by the people in the countries of central and eastern Europe themselves.
This led the Czech Prime Minister, Mr Václav Klaus, to state that not only had the countries of central and eastern Europe left the operating table and were on the road to recovery, but they were also completing the first phase of economic transformation, the main aims of which were to achieve macroeconomic stabilization and to create a regulatory framework for the market economy.
The preparatory work for the accession of these countries, however, is not only theirs to do; important decisions also have to be taken by the European Union, decisions over which the states of central and eastern Europe have no influence at all.
They have no say in the form, the direction or the speed of the western European integration process, nor have they any influence whatsoever on the proceedings of the Intergovernmental Conference, where the conditions for the smooth entry of their countries into the institutions of the Union have to be formulated.
Moreover, they have no influence over the essential reform measures that we still have to adopt within the Community, for example in the domains of finance and agriculture.
The countries of central and eastern Europe, however, are not deterred by this, nor should we in the European Parliament be deterred by the magnitude of the tasks facing us.
We want to modernize the European Union.
We want to guarantee stability in Europe, both now and in the long term.
We want to secure the future of the entire population of the European Union, which means being prepared to offer the countries of central and eastern Europe an honest assessment of their prospects of acceding to the European Union and hence of playing a part in our common development.
We know that this will not be free of charge, but the cost of non-accession, the cost of instability in Europe and the cost of separate development would be far, far higher.
The future accession of the countries of central and eastern Europe to the European Union is no reason for euphoria and certainly not for arrogance.
The future enlargement of the European Union gives us no cause for excessive optimism, but neither should it cause us undue alarm.
We must set about our task of creating the new Europe of the twentieth century realistically, critically and confidently.
The forthcoming enlargement is part of that task.
Our Europe will become what we ourselves make of it.
Madam President, I speak not only on behalf of my group but as chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with the Czech Republic and as someone who believes that the reintegration of Europe is both a duty and a joy.
I have spent considerable time in Central Europe since the revolutions and I believe that we owe our fellow-Europeans the courtesy of the truth.
Enlargement is not only necessary, it is urgent.
It will not come all at once, it will come in waves of countries determined by geopolitics, by economic and political readiness and, only marginally, by economics.
We can help that process by the raft of programmes we already have in place but, most notably, we can help by training their civil servants.
We can hinder that process by failing to put our own House in order over the common agricultural policy and over budget reform.
Above all we can hinder that process by a failure of imagination and by self-absorption.
I fear we are about to see a classic example of that self-fascination in the parochial stance that has been taken by the Socialist Group, in obedience to Mr Wynn and his Committee on Budgets' colleagues, in today's vote.
How are we supposed to explain in Prague that the European Parliament is in danger of taking apart the Oostlander report because of an argument with the services of Parliament over the timing of this debate relative to the Committee on Budgets' hearing on the financial aspects of enlargement? The financial aspects of enlargement will not be clear for some time yet.
They will depend on the sequence and on the timing of that enlargement and on the progress of the CAP reform.
This is no time for bean counting, it is a time for clarity of intent and honesty of purpose.
Madam President, this debate has assumed a historical dimension, since it is a case of finally turning over one of the darkest pages in our European past.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe are European countries.
We all share the same values and heritage.
However, 50 years ago they were torn away from Europe and forced into a geopolitical entity where they have never felt at home.
For these countries, the European Union has always been an ideal, because in their eyes, it represents a success in three areas: democracy, security and prosperity.
Since 1989, accession to the Union has been their main aim, and they have harboured two illusions: they believed that accession would happen quickly, and that it would be the surest way of accomplishing the transition to democracy and a market economy.
But the problems and difficulties which they have encountered along the way have been more serious than they imagined, which means that the path to be followed in order to fulfil the conditions for membership is longer than it appeared in 1989.
Furthermore, the European Union has grown larger and more complex and cannot admit new countries without taking substantial precautions to ensure that its cohesion is not weakened.
It is a bitter pill to swallow for these countries, which have dreamed of Europe for half a century, to be told that accession must wait and that a good deal of effort is needed on their part.
But if we speed up the process, we run a serious risk of causing them to miss their opportunity.
That is why it is important for us to do our best to prepare them for accession.
There are three conditions to be met.
First of all, these countries must share our aims and values.
They must accede in the hope of sharing not only in our prosperity, but in everything that gives meaning to Europe, above all democracy.
Secondly, while the countries of Central and Eastern Europe clearly do not form an indissoluble bloc and will not all join the Union at the same time, it is nonetheless important for them to cooperate in preparing themselves for accession.
They will have to learn to share their experiences, because even though they have been forced to live together for the last 50 years, they are unfamiliar with the common approach prevailing in the Member States and the constraints which it imposes.
Cooperation on a regional level will accustom them to this.
Finally, it is understandable that having had their independence suppressed for 50 years, national security is of great concern to these countries.
As things are at present, NATO represents, in their eyes, the kind of security structure that meets their needs.
Countries which have emerged from the communist bloc must be able to choose freely the type of security structures they wish to have.
This will be easier still, once there has been an in-depth discussion on NATO and its aims in a world that is no longer bipolar, as well as on ways of securing Russian cooperation in revising security structures.
To appease Russia, not by giving in to its demands, but through an exhaustive dialogue, is a crucial element in the process of enlargement.
Mr Oostlander's report sets out very clearly the information on preparing for enlargement, and for this reason, my group will give it its support.
Madam President, now that the IGC has started it is not merely necessary but also very desirable that a signal should go out from Parliament to the associated countries in central and eastern Europe.
This signal is not only important for these countries themselves but also for this House, and the basis for this signal is the outstanding Oostlander report which towers over everything, and although it may ramble on a bit in parts, it is nonetheless a very clear signal.
In this resolution Parliament rallies behind the view of the Commission and the Council.
The Commission must present its opinions on all the applicant countries soon after the IGC negotiations.
The applicant countries should be treated on an equal footing and the complete acceptance of the 'acquis communautaire' should be central to the negotiations.
The Commission's White Paper is a very useful tool in this exercise.
The preparations in the individual countries will determine the time of accession.
The consensus between the institutions on the procedure to be followed will enable an accession which has been well prepared.
The political decisions to allow these countries to accede has been taken once, twice, three times over and there is no way that the Budget Committee can put a spoke in the wheels just by not having decided how much it is going to cost.
Of course it will cost money, and if you are thinking of costs then I am sure that it will cost more the longer we fail to implement what we have decided.
I could not agree more with Mr Spencer.
There is a lot to be done in economic terms for the central and eastern European countries.
With a little help from the European Union they will be able to make it.
For this adaptation process they have no need of tons of White Papers but concrete aid.
Once the adaptation process has been completed they will be ready to accede.
This was a difficult report, on too big a subject, a good attempt but at all events nothing compared to the difficulties we shall encounter with the definitive accession.
Madam President, like the rapporteur, we are in principle in favour of enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, since we believe that a united Europe is inconceivable without their participation.
Nevertheless, widening must be accompanied by deepening - in order to prevent the European Union from becoming a mere free-trade area - and progress towards political union, with the introduction of the essential institutional reforms.
We believe that enlargement must be a gradual and considered process, at the end of which at least three things must be guaranteed: firstly, that it does not result in the creation of a multi-speed Europe; secondly, that the goal of economic and social cohesion is maintained; and, thirdly, that it has a minimum social impact in the applicant countries, for which integration into the internal market must not mean brutal deregulation.
If there is something which we must export to those countries, it is not all-out economic liberalism, but the European social model.
Consequently, there is a need to ensure the preservation of policies such as the CAP - albeit reformed - and the Structural Funds.
We do not wish to see agricultural policies returned to national control, or appropriations for the Structural Funds remaining unaltered, with the same amount of money being distributed between a greater number of countries.
Also, negotiations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe must be conducted individually, taking into account their specific characteristics and providing for adequate transition periods, in order to safeguard important production sectors in the current Member States, such as agriculture, textiles and steel.
In the political field, we must support the deepening of democracy and the defence of human rights.
And as regards security, accession to the European Union must not be automatically linked to accession to NATO.
That is not the way to guarantee the security of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The way to do that is to create a genuine European security and defence identity, based on new foundations and adapted to the current situation.
We are therefore in favour of enlargement.
This report represents a contribution - albeit an inadequate one - to that process.
We in the Green Group see eastward enlargement as the current political goal of the European Union.
Enormous historical importance attaches to it.
It could become one of the main prerequisites of a peaceful and democratic Europe.
The countries of eastern Europe in particular entertain high hopes of early accession.
For that reason it is unfair and irresponsible towards those countries to nurture their hopes of possible speedy accession on the occasion of every state visit while at the same time developing an accession strategy that is not conducive to rapid enlargement.
After all, it is not only the countries of central and eastern Europe that have to prepare to move in step with the European Union. It would be wrong to try and solve the European Union's own structural problems by extending its market eastwards.
How are these countries to develop the ecological and social aspects of their economies if the so-called conditions of accession are based on an export-orientated development process? This would resolve neither the social nor the democratic conflicts in those countries.
Expecting the countries of central and eastern Europe to embrace the principles of the common agricultural policy is a step in the wrong direction.
If they pursue such a policy, they will be faced with a huge employment crisis.
Those countries are neither prepared for such a crisis nor able to overcome it.
The European Union has no option but to prepare for this enlargement by reforming its structural and agricultural policies.
Such reform is essential if we are to shift our agricultural policy from export-orientation to integrated rural development and to a common agricultural policy that will guarantee economic and social cohesion for all Member States, including new ones.
I also believe it is wrong to seek to develop a common security policy without preventive mechanisms and without the OSCE.
This is a major flaw in the Oostlander report.
Madam President, the White Paper on which this report is based deals with a vast but well-defined subject: preparing the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe for integration into the Union's internal market.
Mr Oostlander, whom I congratulate on the quality of his work, has decided to extend the scope of his report.
He has presented us with an overall political picture of enlargement, the reasons behind it, its effects, and the conditions which have to be fulfilled in order for enlargement to be successful.
The 15 opinions of the specialist committees have enabled us to cover a wide spectrum of issues.
In general, I am in favour of Mr Oostlander's report.
It is constructive, positive and does not discriminate between the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe, all of whom are starting out from the same point.
However, it could perhaps have placed more emphasis on the considerable opportunity which enlargement represents for ourselves.
Admittedly, huge difficulties are involved, but there are also benefits to be gained. It is a breath of fresh air which could, if used wisely, revitalize the rest of Europe economically, socially, culturally and, of course, politically.
As regards the conditions which have to be met before we begin negotiations on accession, I appreciate the rapporteur's insistence on a rapid and thorough reform of the Union, which is crucial if we are to avoid the system becoming paralysed.
But I would earnestly ask that mentioning pre-conditions should not make people think that we are, in fact, in no hurry to throw our doors open to new residents.
Hope is vital to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and while they are well aware that it would be rash to move too quickly, they still need to be given, as soon as possible, some clear and encouraging signals.
Only then will they be able to summon up the energy needed to justify the tremendous effort that is and will continue to be required from their people.
Just think of the progress already made: for example, a 7 % annual increase in GNP in both Poland and the Czech Republic.
Political action thrives on goals, hope, and even dreams.
For those of a more serious or technical turn of mind, there is the White Paper itself.
The Commission has carried out an excellent piece of work, which is already proving useful in planning the reforms that are being carried out in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I was in Poland recently and can confirm this.
Naturally, this White Paper on the internal market will be supplemented by others.
For instance, there should be a White Paper to assess, realistically and without prejudice, the economic and financial implications of enlargement on the Community budget; and another to tackle legal reform, aimed at creating systems based on the rule of law, and genuine democracies which respect human rights and freedoms.
This subsequent work will allow progress to be assessed, but above all it will encourage the efforts made by the applicant countries, as well as ourselves.
Nobody puts a question mark against the White Paper's and the report's principal political objective: peace and stability in Europe.
But the question is whether the means to achieve this are the right ones.
The critical point is that the idea is not to provide a basis for free dialogue and free economic relations between independent nations.
The plan is for our eastern neighbours to be subjected to the conditions laid down by the European Union.
The keyword is adaptation, which actually means, in practice, submission.
There are political conditions attached to our neighbours' access to our markets, and these political conditions are based on the obsessive notion that social, political and legal problems are solved by means of strengthened supranational mechanisms.
It is a tragic mistake, not made any better by the report's highflown language which includes an innovation called the social market economy.
I will admit that social market economy is linguistically creative, but unfortunately politically impossible.
Madam President, in the report on the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to the European Union, I was particularly struck by the constant references to democracy and human rights.
But what right have we - parliamentarians from Western Europe - to be giving lessons in democracy to our Eastern neighbours, when we well know that in our own countries, and particularly my own, Belgium, elections are systematically rigged for financial, media or political reasons, with the silent complicity of the various European authorities?
I was also struck by the report's obsession with economics, when what Europe needs is political will.
The Eastern European countries, which have only just emerged from 50 years of communism, are now being scourged by the full force of the rampant, Mafia-infested capitalism from which we Western Europeans have not yet managed to escape.
It is up to us, in company with our comrades in the East, to seek a third way, one far removed from socialism as well as capitalism, both of which generate poverty and social injustice.
Madam President, we should not lose sight of what the Oostlander report is all about: it is a response to the Commission's White Paper and it is not Parliament's definitive decision on enlargement.
We should make that clear to everyone.
The Committee on Budgets did not submit any amendments to the report for the simple reason that we are awaiting the outcome of a public hearing next month on the cost of enlargement.
We would have much preferred that the Oostlander report waited until after that hearing or, indeed, that the hearing be brought forward.
I think that is to some extent a condemnation of the timetabling of Parliament's business.
But here we are, we are left with the report, and the fact that the Budgets Committee has not yet had its hearing.
I do not take exception to what Tom Spencer said: I take it as a compliment when I am criticized in this respect.
But Tom said something about the Budgets Committee wanting to spoil this report because it is involved in bean counting.
One of the questions we have to ask, quite frankly, is how many beans are the Member States prepared to pay for enlargement? Until we get an answer to that, we can pontificate as much as we want about enlargement and will be giving a false impression until we know the cost.
Parliament's position on enlargement deserves something far better than a report of this kind.
At least it deserves a committee in its own right, as we had with East German accession.
I agree with Tom that we need to be honest with the applicant countries, but that means saying to them that whilst Parliament is full of good intentions, we cannot deliver a bean without the Member States being able to foot the bill.
We should not be giving those applicant countries false hope until we know the cost.
Madam President, the Council has decided that the European Union is to be enlarged to include the states of central and eastern Europe, and the European Parliament supports that decision.
It represents both a historic challenge and an opportunity for all concerned.
For the first time, the states within the boundaries of Europe can become a community devoted to peace.
The closer we come to this step, however, the more discussion there will be of the details of enlargement.
The White Paper is a compendium of rules governing the working of the European internal market, and in the event of accession the candidates will also have to base their policies on the White Paper.
So that proper preparation can take place and excessive expectations and misleading arguments can be avoided, this subject must be systematically and seriously discussed in all its aspects.
It is clear, and has often been said, that while the European Union has to move, so too must the candidate states.
This report by Mr Oostlander can only be the starting-point for a thorough discussion.
As a budget expert, I should like to add that the Committee on Budgets, as Barry Wynn pointed out, will contribute to a wide-ranging discussion of this matter.
On 7 May the committee will stage a hearing on the financial aspects of enlarging the European Union, which will culminate in the use of its right of initiative to table a report.
The purpose of this, however, is not to demonstrate that the whole thing is too expensive but on the contrary to seek ways of achieving our political objectives, in other words enlargement, while bearing in mind that such schemes depend on popular support in both the European Union and the applicant countries.
Both the Oostlander report and the Christodoulou report on the financial aspects of enlargement are intended as a signal to the Council to institute concrete measures at the IGC and thereafter with regard to the forthcoming enlargement.
They are also meant to demonstrate that Parliament has already begun its work towards this end and intends to pursue it resolutely.
Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his report which can at least be called comprehensive.
It tackles many aspects of enlargement of the Union, including the budget, education, social affairs, the second and third pillars.
But in my view the Commission's White Paper is not about that.
The White Paper is about preparing the central and eastern European countries for their integration into the Union's internal market.
The report pays scant attention to trade, the economy, subjects which are the very essence of the White Paper while the rapporteur ignores the opinion of the REX Committee, which does focus on the economy and which does make constructive proposals in this context.
But our proposals are important for the integration of applicant countries into the Union's internal market.
Among other things they include the tremendous legislative task facing the countries of central and eastern Europe to adapt their national legislation to the internal market.
The central and eastern European countries must be encouraged and motivated into accepting the temporary high costs of this because this adaption is needed for the major panEuropean market of the future.
It goes without saying that we shall have to help them in this process.
The principles of competition must be respected in the central and eastern European countries and the criteria for granting public aid must be harmonised.
The common agricultural policy must be reviewed and the policy on structural funds will have to be adapted; the context must be created for encouraging cooperation between businesses in central and eastern European countries and companies in the European Union and we must help them change their approach to the former planned economies; we must have a more determined harmonisation policy towards external aspects of this market, especially within the context of the world trade organisation; they must adapt their customs legislation to that of the Union bearing in mind fraud, smuggling, drugs, illegal transport, nuclear transport, etc.
We have made some proposals to that end.
But these are subjects which unfortunately are not touched upon in the report.
My conclusion is simple.
We are convinced that the gradual integration of central and eastern European countries into the internal market will benefit the quantity and quality of mutual trade and create a relationship of trust which will assist the process towards accession.
Madam President, there is no doubt that enlargement is being promoted by the dominant powers in the European Union, for ideological and geopolitical reasons.
I think today's debate proves that the European Parliament too subscribes to that kind of thinking.
It is a policy that will have enormous consequences, both in connection with security, and of an economic, social and institutional nature for the functioning of the European Union, parameters which at the time of this debate are imponderable.
How are the Union's citizens to support a policy when the problem of own resources remains unsolved, a problem which could rock the agricultural sector and have enormous consequences for the very participation of the EU's Member States in the functioning of the European Union as a result of the changes brought about by the Intergovernmental Conference? How can our peoples pretend to adopt that policy when its consequences for their countries and for themselves are unknown?
I do not think that anyone gives us the right to teach democracy to any of Europe's peoples.
Democracy and social integration are the concerns of all peoples, and from that point of view I think we ought to act with reserve and be careful about how we approach the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.
Madam President, the enlargement of the European Union towards the east is written in the stars, and is therefore as inevitable as it is inviolable.
This is a fact of life which no Member State can deny.
Nevertheless, the negotiations which will begin after the Intergovernmental Conference must concentrate on establishing the conditions that are required to make integration a politically constructive process.
However, according to present studies, it would not be in the interests of either the applicant countries or ourselves if accession were to take place before 2005.
Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia have all made tremendous efforts in order to join the Union.
We must not deceive them, and must therefore show, without resorting to either populism or paternalism, that we have the political will to include them among our number.
I am afraid that if accession takes place too quickly, and in particular without adequate preparation, we shall only be playing into the hands of those who would like to see the Union as a kind of economic free-trade area.
Quite simply, opening up towards the east is the wind of change that many liberal governments are hoping will flatten for good the still fragile house of cards of genuine political and social union.
That is the challenge which is facing us.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to commend Mr Oostlander on his excellent in-depth report.
However, I cannot conceal a slight feeling of dissatisfaction which it is beyond the power of Mr Oostlander alone to overcome.
The rapporteur has to take account of many different aspects: the wishes of the Commission, which would like to deal with integration in the internal market in its own way; our own newly begun work; considerable uncertainty about the cost of adapting the CAP, infrastructure policy and regional policy; and the timescale for exposing the applicant countries to European competition.
In short, the difficulties facing us are so great that amid all the recommendations, which are so vague as to be frustrating, and the excessive detail on priority areas, the enormity of the task of integrating at least a dozen other countries is almost lost from view.
This is a great pity, since our work needs such a perspective.
We are taking part in a historic adventure.
The 15 present Member States of the Union have practically all waged war on each other during the course of the last seven or eight centuries.
The arrival on the scene of other nations provides a chance for reconciliation in a continent that has experienced more wars than almost any other.
Furthermore, history contains no case of a great power that has been forged other than by conquering its future vassal states.
It is a historic adventure without precedent, and should inspire us to hope and pray for a Union marked by increased cooperation as regards competition policy, macroeconomic strategy and social policy, as well as foreign policy and policies on legal and human rights issues. But the countries in question are not applying for membership for purely economic reasons.
They aspire to our standard of living, of course, but they are driven even more strongly by the twin desires for security and to carry more weight in world affairs.
In this respect, Commissioner, we are going to vote for this report because it says much that is useful, even though it might say too much, and in such cautious terms that one comes to doubt its aims and the will to attain them. I would, however, like to see the report accompanied by a Commission document restating what our final aims are in building Europe, and why the chance of counting among our ranks at least 12 nations that have experienced a tragic period of history is such an amazing challenge.
I would also stress that the final choice of dates does not lie with the European Parliament, but with the Intergovernmental Conference.
I do not think it would be wise to take any risks, however small, in this respect.
We ask you to heed our message, Commissioner.
Since we have listed figures, doubts, uncertainties, and conditions, we should also mention motives, which could turn out to be noble and generous.
We are embarking on the greatest political adventure that mankind has ever witnessed.
Madam President, as a long-time student of the enlargement question, I must confess to being slightly bemused by the debate going on about this particular round of enlargement.
We started off a couple of years ago with everybody saying 'Oh, we must enlarge' , talking very glibly about it as if it was about members joining some sort of social club.
I found myself warning that it was not as simple as that.
But we have now got ourselves into a position where everybody is throwing up their arms in horror at the enormous difficulties, and that is before we have even started the negotiations.
I find myself having to play down those difficulties.
As the last speaker on behalf of Parliament I ought to reiterate some basic points.
Firstly, it is not a question of if we enlarge, it is a question of when we enlarge.
The European Union is open to any state which meets the basic criteria.
In addition, to the Central and Eastern European countries we have long said that if they threw off the yoke of dictatorship we would welcome them into our family.
If we reverse that message now we run the risk of undermining all the reforms which have taken place at great pain in Central and Eastern Europe.
We also run the risk of seeing a descent into the sort of ethnic tension we have been horrified by in Yugoslavia.
We also run the risk, as Mr Wiersma has said, of undermining the security of the continent.
That said, of course, we have to acknowledge that there are major difficulties which need to be addressed in the years to come, particularly in agriculture and the Regional Fund and in the decision-making structure.
To underestimate those difficulties would be ultimately to undermine the enlargement process.
An overhasty enlargement would actually do more harm than good.
We cannot pretend that these problems do not exist.
But in response to Mr Wynn who says we cannot enlarge until we know the cost, the answer is: until we start discussing enlargement properly, we do not know what the cost is and we cannot sit around waiting for someone to work it out.
We cannot constantly be operating under the tyranny of the Committee on Budgets in the European Parliament.
I welcome the White Paper because it is a start in addressing the practical issues in relation to enlargement.
At the end of the day enlargement is a political question, it is a question of political will by political leaders.
Do we want to make it happen? There is also a question of political acceptability to the citizens of the European Union and to the citizens of the Central and Eastern European countries.
Unless they are prepared to accept the conditions we negotiate, it will not happen.
We should bear that in mind in everything we say and do leading up to ultimate enlargement in the next century.
Madam President, I have listened with great interest and fascination this morning to the many Members who have spoken on this highly important subject of the enlargement of the European Union.
May I first of all congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Oostlander, on his comprehensive report and the great deal of work he has put into it.
In a fairly short space he has managed to cover in detail the varying political views in this House, and he has produced a motion for a resolution which covers not just the White Paper and its implementation but also the more general question of the future enlargement.
I know that he consulted many other parliamentary committees in order to product a well balanced text and we ourselves had the pleasure of discussing the subject with him on several occasions.
At the end of the day, Madam President, this is about the European Union facing one of the biggest challenges since its foundation: the expansion to the east and south which will produce a union of more than 25 countries.
It is a historic opportunity, a point which has been made several times this morning.
We ought to seize this opportunity, which is not easy at times, but the political decision taken at the European Council in Copenhagen in 1993 was clear.
The Member States decided to further in this way the political, economic and social development of all peoples in Europe.
In that decision security policy played a determining role.
A successful Intergovernmental Conference is in the view of the Commission essential for enlargement.
We in the Commission know that Parliament agrees with us here. Mr Oostlander's report also makes this quite clear.
You will recall the promise given to you by the Council during the last enlargement.
The European Council in Madrid in December proclaimed a new phase in the process of enlargement of the Union and was challenged to define the procedure and the timetable for its preparation.
The Commission was instructed to produce a report on certain aspects of enlargement.
It has to further evaluate the consequences of enlargement on community policy, with particular reference to agriculture and structural policy. The European Council will resume its examination on the basis of these reports.
Good progress can be reported on the opinions requested in Madrid on the nine applications for accession to the Community from countries from central and eastern Europe, because as you are aware the applications from Cyprus and Malta had already received an opinion from the Commission.
In the next few days a series of technical questionnaires will be sent off to the applicant countries which we hope to receive back in the summer and then the Commission can get down to work on its opinions on these applications. The Commission services continue to analyze the consequences of enlargement on the Union's policy as well as the situation in each of the applicant countries.
As you know the Commission will present its opinions on the applications as quickly as possible after the closure of the Intergovernmental Conference, expected to be mid-1997 if the IGC does in fact conclude. These opinions will be accompanied by a so-called synthesis document in which the main horizontal questions relevant to the enlargement and the prospect of accession negotiations will be addressed.
The Commission will then produce a statement on the financial framework, after 1999, which takes account of the possible enlargement.
The Commission agrees with those who said this morning that this is not the time for detailed costing, nor would that indeed be possible since the most important cost aspects, such as the adaptation to the common agricultural policy or the regional policy, have yet to be examined in detail.
The Council will then decide on the start of accession negotiations in the light of all these reports.
With regard to Cyprus and Malta, as you know, the decision was taken to start negotiations six months after the conclusion of the IGC.
But in addition to that the European Council expressed the hope that the preparatory negotiations on the accession of the countries of central and eastern Europe would 'coincide with the start of the negotiations with Cyprus and Malta' . But definitive decisions have yet to be taken.
That is the situation at the moment and I intend, and the Commission intends, to involve the European Parliament as closely as possible in this process.
It is only by working in harmony with the other institutions that this ambitious task can be done.
We need your help and advice and this report from Mr Oostlander forms a good point of departure.
More specifically with regard to the implementation of the White Paper considerable progress has been made with preparing the associated countries to integrate into the internal market.
They have worked out new national strategies to adapt to the legislation of the internal market or are in the process of doing so in close cooperation with the Commission.
On 10 January the office for the exchange of information on technical assistance got off the ground; this service provides information to the associated countries in the field of documentation, information on the implementation of the 'acquis' on the internal market, study meetings and study visits.
This service will soon be expanded to include experts in the field of the internal market from national administrations and from private bodies in the Member States.
I shall now turn briefly to the specific paragraphs of the motion for a resolution.
We fully support the broad outlines of the motion for a resolution.
Paragraph 1 calls the enlargement of the European Union to include the countries of central and eastern Europe a momentous opportunity to contribute to peace, security and prosperity throughout Europe.
That is the Commission's starting point for its future activities.
In paragraph 4 the Council and the Member States at the IGC are urged to do everything in their power to reform the institutions of the European Union to enable the EU to operate more effectively. As I have already said, the Commission totally endorses that view.
In various paragraphs you call for more White Papers to be presented on various subjects.
I would, however, point out that pursuant to the European Council in Madrid the Commission has been instructed to present various reports. In addition to the detailed opinions on the applications for accession the Commission will also produce a synthesis document on the enlargement.
I have already mentioned that.
The Commission has also to produce a detailed analysis of the financial system of the European Union as quickly as possible in order to present immediately after the IGC a communication on the financial framework of the Union after 31 December 1999 which takes account of a possible enlargement.
So the Commission has already a large number of reports to work on.
Finally, Madam President, paragraph 14 calls on the Commission to give the candidate countries the necessary assurances regarding their accession to the Union by drawing up minimum criteria which must be complied with.
I should point out that these criteria are already listed in the conclusions of the Copenhagen European Council, namely stable institutions which guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for the protection of minorities. Secondly, the existence of a functioning market economy and thirdly the ability to withstand the pressure of competition and market forces within the Union.
We believe that clearly describes the criteria.
This important debate will undoubtedly be followed by many more. May I conclude by thanking Parliament again most warmly for the great deal of work it has done; I promise that we shall continue to keep Parliament informed of further preparations of the enlargement process and look forward to more debates both in committee and in the plenary.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a moment.
Votes
Before this roll-call vote is held, I should simply like to point out that the amendment relates only to the figures.
Rejecting it would therefore amount to contesting the figures, which at present are not in dispute.
After the vote on the amendments:
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. Our group calls for this report to be referred back to committee, not because we do not believe a strong judgment should be made but because we believe that the signal which this sends out is such a tough one, namely refusal to grant discharge, and that it is unclear whether the consequences of this decision will be what we want.
What we therefore want is referral back to committee to have the strategic debate on it there because it has not been properly debated yet.
We believe it extremely important that Parliament give itself time to examine whether the consequences of this decision will be what we want, namely budgetisation, so that we create a clear structural situation.
We are afraid that this will, on the contrary, send out an unwelcome signal for development cooperation in general, and that at the start of the IGC this is not the best way to work for more say in the IGC; we further believe that this cannot be done on a year by year basis, but that a structural answer should be sought.
We are calling for more time for a strategic debate and hence for referral back to committee.
I thank those Members who are applauding in advance what I am about to say.
I should like to say to Mrs Aelvoet that, despite the fact that we are on opposite sides of the House, I fully support her proposal for referral back to committee.
I do not agree with her when she calls for the European Development Fund to be integrated into the general budget, since that would mean that the ACP countries would receive less money.
I do agree with her, however, when she says that the debate was not conducted properly and that we are sending a bad signal to the ACP countries.
It is not the question of the integration of the EDF into the budget or otherwise which determines our rejection of this report, but the fact that we are sending a bad signal to the ACP countries.
To refuse the discharge would be to call into question our cooperation with those countries and our will to continue that cooperation.
It would be to exploit the issue of budgetizing the EDF, through an institutional ploy which we reject, to the detriment of our relations with the ACP countries.
I am therefore in favour of referring the report back to committee.
Mr President, the proposal to refer this back to committee is totally inappropriate, particularly for the reasons given.
First of all, for Mr Fabre-Aubrespy to say the debate was not conducted properly is, I think, offensive in the extreme to the chairmanship of Mrs Theato in the committee and to your predecessor in the chair in this House.
It was a perfectly proper debate.
In a roll-call vote on the crucial paragraphs the amendment from Mr FabreAubrespy was defeated by the votes of 365 Members, an absolute majority of this House, and paragraph 10 had 364 Members, an absolute majority of the Members of this House, voting in favour.
I can think of no circumstances less appropriate to refer a matter back to the committee.
It is a question of those who either did not properly participate in the debate, or those who, having participated, found their views rejected, now wanting to have a second bite of the cherry.
This House should reject this proposal.
(Applause)
(Parliament rejected the proposal to refer the matter back to committee)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, on a point of order, I should like to move an amendment to the order of voting.
In the voting list the amendment I am tabling on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party comes before the amendment tabled by the Green Group in the European Parliament.
The Greens' amendment, however, goes further.
Both amendments concern research with foetal tissue.
The Greens reject such research outright.
Good reasons may be found for that, but it does not reflect the view expressed by Parliament in other resolutions.
That is why we should vote first on the more radical amendment proposed by the Green Group in the European Parliament and then on our amendment, which does not reject such research in principle but formulates very strict conditions for it.
I believe we can then carry this Amendment No 3 together, because Parliament has already adopted it once.
But let me add that some groups would like a separate vote on the passage concerning somatic gene therapy at the end of Amendment No 3.
If it is still possible, I should like to ask for that to be arranged, but the more important point to me is the voting sequence.
Mr Liese, I cannot agree with you.
The order in which the secretariat has prepared the vote is the logical and correct order.
Mr President, you certainly answered my point very clearly and assuredly.
I should just like to know what makes you so sure that a total ban on research in a particular field is less far-reaching than the subjection of such research to certain safety regulations. At any rate, I stand by my opinion and call for the vote to be taken first on the amendment tabled by the Green Group in the European Parliament and then on our amendment.
It is not for the Chair to judge these things.
All we are doing in terms of setting the structure for the vote is to follow the logical, chronological order of the amendments.
The House is sovereign in terms of the decisions it makes.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, this is a very minor amendment.
I understand it has fairly wide-spread support across the House.
I should just like to read the first line: ' Notes in this respect that measures to promote employment should...' .
After the word 'should' we would like to insert the word 'also' so that it would then read: ' ...should also be developed by the Member States, the regions and local communities and especially by the social partners.
(The oral amendment was accepted)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I ask your indulgence to invite my colleagues who have not yet signed the declaration on autism to do so.
Over 100 colleagues have signed it in the last two days.
I wish to invite the rest to sign it as soon as possible.
Under the Rules, you cannot so inform the House but you have anyway.
With the granting of the European Parliament's assent to the conclusion of the fisheries agreement between the Kingdom of Morocco and the European Union today, a new framework for cooperation has been established. This will be balanced cooperation between the two parties in a sensitive area: the conservation of fisheries resources and their economic exploitation, directly or after processing.
Parliament's decision is fully in keeping with the conclusions of the Barcelona Conference. It is time to restore balance to the European Union's cooperation with its partners on the other shores of the Mediterranean.
Furthermore, with regard to the fisheries sector, we must welcome the financial protocol annexed to the agreement, which amounts to ECU 500 million over four years.
I personally support the breakdown between four actions: financial compensation, development programmes, scientific research and training programmes.
The aid granted must serve to promote employment and development.
The European Union is showing solidarity in an important sector of the Moroccan economy.
This solidarity must also be displayed in other sectors.
It is for this reason that I regret the fact that the European Parliament is not also - in tandem with its assent to the fisheries agreement - adopting a position today on the association agreement, which has a more general scope.
A vote in favour is virtually certain, but we shall have to wait a few months before giving a boost to renewed general cooperation.
We voted in favour, because this is a good agreement, which is the outcome of sound negotiations and an excellent result for relations between the European Union and Morocco.
The conclusion of this agreement was possible because, despite the difficulties involved, the fundamental aspect prevailed: the clear political will, that is, as associated countries, to reach an agreement which was satisfactory to both parties.
That has been achieved.
We always believed that it was possible to reach a balanced and long-term agreement such as this: a compromise between parties whose positions were initially poles apart, but which made great efforts to find common ground.
Other political forces adopted more variable and opportunistic stances: they preached doom and gloom, and ruled out any possibility of an agreement being reached during the Spanish election campaign, turning this important international accord into an instrument of petty domestic politics. That was a serious mistake.
We therefore acknowledge the efforts of the Spanish Government and the Spanish presidency of the European Union, the Commission, the Moroccan Government and His Majesty King Hassan II of Morocco - all of which have made possible the conclusion of this 1996 Fisheries Agreement between the European Union and Morocco.
Despite the positive aspects included in it, namely giving the go-ahead for resuming fishing activity by the thousands of fishermen laid off, whom we have defended from the outset, our abstention in the vote on the Arias Cañete report and the overall terms of the fisheries agreement with Morocco is based on the following aspects:
1.The European Parliament is issuing this opinion a long time, around five months, after the Commission and Council negotiated and approved this agreement, not allowing an appropriate and timely intervention by the elected Members of this Chamber; 2.The negotiation of this agreement is being processed after a unilateral decision by Morocco - which could and should be opposed - to consider as null and void the fisheries agreement which was in effect and whose duration should extend until April 1996.
This decision is all the more unacceptable given that it is quite obvious that its sole objective was to impose the acceptance of benefits in the trade agreements negotiated alongside the fisheries agreement and not to preserve fish stocks in Moroccan waters; 3.The agreement by the Commission and Council to offset measures in the trade agreement - referring to fisheries but also to agriculture and the preserving industry - imposed by Morocco on the European Union but not imposed by this North African country on the fleets of countries which are not Members of the European Union; 4.The fact that some of these concessions agreed to in the trade agreement are unacceptable, in that they could even cancel out, in economic terms, the positive aspects of the fisheries agreement.
Giving away with one hand what is received on the other is certainly not beneficial to all of those productive sectors involved, in particular for two of the less developed countries of the European Union; 5.Furthermore, there is the fact that the fisheries agreement is scheduled to last for four years with a more than doubtful renewal, whereas the trade agreement is set to last for ten years, at the end of which concessions made are irreversible.- Poggiolini report (A4-0092/96)
Who could possibly object to better coordination in health policy?
Monitoring public health and exchanging relevant data seems at first sight a totally acceptable activity, especially if it is all done with a view to improving public health.
Yet we voted against the proposal and did so for the following reasons.
It is obvious that collecting data serves a wider purpose than merely evaluating the present community policy.
The background is the continuing harmonisation of the health systems themselves.
That goal is now just a step too far.
If these systems grow towards each other, then that is all very well.
But if Brussels deliberately dictates that path, then that is an undesirable development in our view.
Mr President, for some years now the European Union has had a number of public health programmes in an attempt to bring Europe closer to the man in the street.
Even European programmes to combat cancer, aids and smoking have difficulty resisting the test of subsidiarity.
Subsidising national programmes is basically nothing other than recycling money.
Money which is first of all transferred to the Union and then after a lengthy process of project selection is finally returned to base.
The value of a European approach is in serious doubt.
The problem facing a policy on public health in many countries is the inability to pay for care.
Costs have soared through the roof.
But the question of how much money should be paid for health care should be answered by the people involved.
It is a national affair.
Commissioners and Members of the European Parliament have no business saying anything here.
If the national authorities can hardly come to grips with it then nothing will be gained by tackling it on a wider scale.
Europe should not get over ambitious by trying to manage public health policy.
Even the very definition of a hospital bed creates problems.
A European monitoring system is out of the question.
In my opinion the development of a worthwhile European policy on public health is a dream.
Let Europe concentrate its forces on other affairs.
If there is something which is true of the industrialized countries as a whole - or, with regard to what interests us more specifically, the countries of the European Union as a whole - it is the need to make fundamental choices in the field of public health policy.
I shall not go back over the reasons which led us to raise these issues, but whatever options are chosen in the future by the governments of right and left, North and South, whatever economic constraints they are subjected to, it is clear that one of the fundamental measures to be adopted before taking any decision is to carry out, at European level, a programme of assessment of the current state of, and probable trends in, Europe's health and health systems.
This is what is proposed in the Commission's document, which the rapporteur has skilfully amended.
The fundamental choices which the Member States will be obliged to make are important and will have a bearing on the future of the European project itself.
The European Parliament had intended to propose the establishment of a genuine European Health Observatory, along the lines of those being set up in other fields.
However, the majority in the Council preferred to restrict the programme to one of simple coordination - exploiting, as usual, the different traditions and reservations of the health sector and the budgetary constraints in this area.
The outline of the health monitoring system proposed by the Commission is certainly somewhat blurred, but whatever form this new instrument takes, we wish it to be practicable and effective.
We need such a system - as health professionals, patients and governments - in order to be able to provide our decision-makers with as much useful information as possible concerning the current situation and foreseeable trends in the other Member States, it being understood that the assessments will focus not only on health, but also - so to speak - on the health of healthcare systems.
We also need such a system in order to be able to focus our efforts more rapidly on prevention rather than healthcare per se - and this, perhaps, should be the aim of medicine in the twenty-first century.
The European Parliament also wished, in general terms, health professionals, NGOs and the paramedical sector as a whole to be more closely associated with the definition of the broad outlines of health policy.
I am not entirely convinced that this wish was taken into account by the Commission.
It is time, therefore, to ensure the involvement of the citizens and health professionals in the taking of tomorrow's major decisions.
In the Commission's own terms, the proposed health monitoring system is designed to:
' analyse the state of health of Europe's citizens and certain common factors such as nicotine and alcohol addiction, in the context of possible proposals for Community action; -assess the impact of the Community action programmes in the fields of cancer, AIDS and other communicable diseases, as well as that of all other programmes in the sphere of health education; -provide the Member States with health information as regards the health status of populations, lifestyles and health habits, living and working conditions, health protection, demographic and other social factors.
As long as the data provided is harmonized, this will make it easier to compare information and adjust national health policies.' All this is fine, as long of course as this laudable project is underpinned, in full agreement and cooperation with the Member States, by a general philosophy which is far more ambitious than the simple collection of data: the philosophy of the absolute need to promote health protection.
I repeat: medicine in the twenty-first century must be more resolutely focused on prevention.
We have much to gain from this, and let us make no mistake: a well-managed prevention policy will enable us to safeguard the integrity of our endangered healthcare systems.
By spending in advance, we spend less later on.
If operations were carried out as soon as the warning signs appeared, there would be fewer deaths and tragedies.
If people were trained in prevention, in paying greater attention to their bodies, if doctors were encouraged to educate their patients, if cancer screening and care for pre-menopausal women were better funded, there would undoubtedly be less expenditure later on and the death rate would also fall.
I hope that this Commission proposal - even if I do not believe that it is as accomplished as the House would have wished - will constitute a first step towards establishing this medicine of tomorrow.
Leopardi report (A4-0091/96)
In establishing the internal market and the free movement of goods and persons, the European Union must also promote compliance with Article 129 of the TEU, which states that the Community shall contribute towards ensuring a high level of human health protection.
The creation of a European health card, as repeatedly called for by the European Parliament, will represent a step in this direction, and we therefore wish to congratulate Mr Leopardi on his report.
Europe's citizens are entitled to health protection, and the introduction of a European health card, as well as the right to the treatment required by a person's state of health, are therefore inherent aspects of the free movement of persons and the concept of European citizenship laid down in the Maastricht Treaty. Consequently, we believe that this must be a Community initiative.
Once again, we add our voice to this positive request.
My grounds for voting against the report on a European health card are that it is an unnecessary measure of no particular benefit, in that national health cards can serve the same purpose.
Furthermore, the national health cards are subject to the standards and criteria governing information/registration applicable in the Member State in question, which restricts the scope for misusing information.
Moreover, the report is an example of the numerous own-initiative reports from the EP in the health sector, which have no overall strategic basis, and cut down the time available for actual legislative work.
Given current technological development, enabling the creation of a health card useable in all the countries of the European Union and with a possible extension, in the short term, to all other countries in which it would be possible to store all possible information about a given person, in particular chronic disease, serious infections or allergies, blood group, vaccinations, agreement or not to blood transfusions or the transfusion of blood derivatives and an indication of whether or not the person wishes to be an organ donor, the family doctor to be contacted in the case of an accident, inter alia, while maintaining respect for confidentiality of data and medical secrecy.
Such information would make it possible not only to avoid serious accidents or deaths as a result of the wrong treatment but could also speed up treatment and lead to savings, because unnecessary secondary examinations would not be necessary.
Portugal, with its insular ultra-peripheral regions, a country to which tourists flock in large numbers and a country also affected by migratory flows, many of them seasonal, has an important role to play, contributing to considerable mobility by the citizens within the European Union and throughout the world, and can only benefit from the widespread introduction of such a card on a voluntary and optional basis.
These are the reasons for which I voted in favour of this report.
The idea is simple: to enable European citizens travelling around Europe to have on their person, at all times, the information on their state of health allowing them to be treated properly, wherever they are.
This would represent a genuine step forward in making the daily lives of our citizens easier.
This idea has been on the table since 1981, and Parliament has adopted a number of resolutions on the subject.
Now, pursuant to Article 138b of the EC Treaty, it can request the submission of a corresponding legislative proposal.
Mr Leopardi's report indicates that the legal basis would be Article 129 on health policy, whereby the European Union may encourage and coordinate the Member States' actions in the sphere of public health.
Two issues, in my view, are particularly important.
The first concerns respect for the confidentiality of the information contained on the cards, and the confidence that citizens can place in the competent authorities wherever they go.
And the second concerns acceptance of the card throughout Europe.
This will inevitably be a long-term enterprise, especially in that it involves an area where the Community's competence is limited.
Furthermore, it will not be a question of legislating to impose the health card from on high and at a stroke, but of working together with the national authorities and the main health professionals concerned - especially doctors - to determine the means of ensuring the introduction of the health card within a reasonable period of time.
The Popular Movement cannot vote in favour of this report, in that we consider it to be far too narrowly conceived.
If a form of health card is to be devised, then it should extend far further than the EU's borders, and we would like to see something established at the WTO level for example.
We also see a danger in adopting an EU health card since we fear that it will be a step towards further integration and finally lead to a common EU health policy.
We do not want that.
The individual Member States should continue to be able to pursue an independent health policy.
We find that a health card containing information about sexual orientation, for example, is quite unacceptable.
And we also believe that it should be voluntary to have a health card or not.
In conclusion, we would add that experience should always be exchanged both within and outside the European Union, but we are opposed to monitoring systems of any kind, including any in the health sector.
Wynn report (A4-0098/96)
Mr President, our group did not vote in favour of Mr Wynn's report granting the Commission discharge in respect of the implementation of the general budget for 1994.
I should first like to make some remarks concerning the procedure. As I pointed out yesterday in the general debate, eight separate reports were the subject of a joint debate.
Taking into account the breaks in the sitting, this debate lasted less than two hours.
There were very few contributors other than the main speakers from the Committee on Budgets.
Consequently, the debate received little input, and today very little time was devoted to the votes.
I note that no amendments were tabled.
Finally, if I am to believe what you have just said concerning the list of Members wishing to give an explanation of vote, Mr President, I shall be the only person to speak on the general budget for 1994.
So there will be virtually no explanations of vote on this subject.
This is revealing, in my view, of a negative trend which I must condemn.
By increasing the number of Parliament's positions on matters which do not strictly fall within its competence, we have arrived at a situation where Parliament is failing to fulfil the tasks assigned to it - in particular its budgetary tasks, whether as regards the vote on the budget, or budgetary control.
With regard to the Wynn report itself, I wish to say that although for the first time a statement of assurance was issued, pursuant to the Maastricht Treaty, which provides for this procedure, and although this statement of assurance was a negative one in respect of certain appropriations - payment appropriations - and the Court of Auditors estimated 4 % of the appropriations to be suspect, the discharge was not refused, just as it was not refused for 1992, despite very serious irregularities, or for 1993.
In view of the fact that the Committee on Budgets is failing to assume its responsibilities, therefore, we voted against the Wynn report.
Wynn report (A4-0096/96)
Mr President, I had the opportunity to express my views on the discharge yesterday, and once again, a little while ago, in connection with Mrs Aelvoet's proposal for referral back to committee.
We tabled four amendments to this report, and I took the precaution of stressing - with your permission, for which I am grateful - that the purpose of Amendment No 2 was simply to specify the figures for the Cultural Foundation's budget.
And I would point out that the Foundation's spending - ECU 810 000, or 0.04 % of the EDF - was the pretext used for refusing the discharge.
That is the only irregularity.
And I accept that it is an irregularity.
However, comparing this sum with the amounts involved in the general budget, for example, I believe that we should ask ourselves whether there are not grounds for qualifying the criticisms that could be made - and which should also have been made at the time of discharge decisions in previous years. I am thinking of the criticisms regarding the non-integration of the EDF into the general budget - criticisms which concern only the legal framework within which the funds are managed.
Are the disastrous political consequences of a negative decision on the EDF's accounts not likely to undermine the ACP countries' confidence in the Member States' commitment towards them?
The institutional ploy in which the majority of Members are engaging is unacceptable.
It discredits this Parliament.
We cannot use a report, regardless of its substance, as a pretext for engaging in deliberations on structural or institutional problems.
We did this with regard to loans to South Africa.
Now we are doing it again with regard to cooperation with the ACP countries.
Our group refuses to participate in this institutional ploy, this continuing squabble.
It is for this reason that it did not vote in favour of Mr Wynn's report.
The conflict between the Commission and the European Parliament concerning Mr Wynn's proposal to refuse the discharge in respect of the implementation of the European Development Fund for the 1994 financial year illustrates the absurd and anti-democratic situation created by the European Union's all-out interventionism.
There is no real democratic control over the utilization of the European Development Fund, whilst in the Member States, development aid expenditure is controlled by the national parliaments.
This is an area in which the usefulness of pursuing policies jointly under a Community procedure has not been demonstrated.
Given that the principle of subsidiarity is now enshrined in the Treaties, abolishing the EDF and restoring the corresponding policies to the control of the Member States - which can manage them perfectly well on their own - would be a good example of a return to democracy.
This area could be the subject of an experiment in taking matters back out of the Community domain - something which could catch on - with a view to democratizing European policies and keeping only what is strictly necessary within the Community sphere.
The undersigned agree with the Court of Auditors' criticisms of the shortcomings of the European Development Fund's management and the minimal scrutiny to which the Fund's payments are subject.
We are also critical of the lack of logic in the legal and juridical framework governing the EDF.
However, unlike the report we do not believe that Parliament should be given increased budgetary or legislative powers.
The EDF should continue to be managed by the Member States and audited by nationally appointed auditors.
Discharge should be granted by the national parliaments, which are the bodies with most democratic legitimacy.
For this reason we voted against the report.
The ARE Group's decision to vote against granting the Commission discharge in respect of the implementation of the European Development Funds for the 1994 financial year is based on the following two reasons:
the annual report of the Court of Auditors and the detailed arguments of both the rapporteur and the draftsman of the opinion make it abundantly clear that the way in which the EDF appropriations were utilized does not correspond to any rule of sound management; -furthermore, and this is the main reason, the European Parliament is called upon to grant discharge every year, even though it possesses neither the corresponding budgetary nor legislative powers: by supporting a discharge procedure of a purely accounting nature while not, at the same time, having the power of budgetary authorization, we are consenting to a confusion of powers which is prejudicial to Parliament's political authority, in the sense that we are agreeing to carry out a legal exercise which is not in keeping with our mandate.It is for this reason that I and my colleagues are reiterating our call for the EDF to be incorporated into the general budget.
Firstly, I should like to pay tribute to the rapporteur for his efforts to explain and shed light on Alzheimer's disease - a little-known illness which nevertheless represents a veritable health scourge which must be eradicated.
We are all aware that the population of the European Union is living longer and ageing.
We must welcome this phenomenon, which is proof of the constant improvement of living and hygiene conditions.
Nevertheless, we must also prepare for its many consequences.
The increase in lifespan is leading to a rise in the incidence of age-related diseases - in particular, Alzheimer's disease.
We cannot ignore the fact that by the year 2000, around 8 million European citizens will be affected.
The consequences of this irreversible degenerative disease are above all human.
The progressive alienation and physical decline of an elderly person cause immense suffering to both the patient and his or her family and carers.
Given the extent of Alzheimer's disease, however, the amount of financial resources and medical staff devoted to tackling it are totally inadequate.
I unreservedly support the rapporteur's call on the Commission to implement a programme of measures to combat this disease.
Similarly, I would urge the Commission to draw up, in collaboration with the Member States, a white paper on the different approaches to Alzheimer's disease in the European Union.
Let us enrich our collective knowledge with the experiences of the different Member States.
Let us join our efforts to establish the specific causes of this disease.
Failing to spend sufficient money on research into the disease is bound to mean having to spend more money on dealing with its consequences.
In addition to this essential but futile humanitarian expenditure, therefore, let us make a positive investment in eradicating this scourge - God willing - once and for all.
Finally, I should like to say emphatically that the European Parliament - even if the 'elderly persons' intergroup deals with this matter - must take the initiative and conduct a debate on the increase in lifespan and its human and economic consequences.
In voting against the report on Alzheimer's disease, I am expressing dissatisfaction with the lack of an overall strategy within the health sector for rare diseases and, with it, European cooperation on these illnesses. The fact that an own-initiative report has been drawn up on Alzheimer's disease is not wrong in itself, but why this disease in particular?
What about all the other rare diseases where there is a need for greater research? It would have been a better idea in the first place to have devised a common strategy for rare diseases and, in that context, discuss the priorities for Community action.
The incidence of Alzheimer's disease in advanced countries, where it is mainly concentrated, is already high.
The absolute number of victims is already considerable and comparable with that of other virus diseases, such as AIDS.
Despite this, however, neither information, nor scientific research, nor prevention and treatment, nor the care of those who fall victim to Alzheimer's disease have benefited from the systematic, widespread social and collective efforts that its severity demands.
Could this be mainly because it is believed that Alzheimer's disease affects mainly the aged?
So far there have only been research programmes of limited scope, while the financing of those programmes falls far short of the associated scientific and social interest.
'Senile dementia' , as it is known, is not the target of a single expenditure programme by the welfare organizations.
Following the decimation of pensions and social provisions for old people and those who have retired, in the name of profit and increased competitiveness, a new kind of racism is being cultivated by the state and social welfare against the elderly, imposed by unchecked free market forces which decree that death is 'allowable' when it costs less than staying alive.
The Commission's statement postpones consideration of the issue for the future, a future, however, that is very uncertain indeed for the thousands of elderly suffers whose present situation should concern us right now, with the adoption of support measures and the creation of infrastructure for therapeutic care, the organization of nursing centres, and the organization of training programmes for specialized staff who will tend the patients.
However, in the immediate future, finance must also be provided for research on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of the disease.
A society which supposedly strives to prolong the average lifetime, indeed under the best possible conditions of survival, cannot possibly allow the spirit of old people and their personality, for the sake of voracious 'profit' , to succumb to the effects of a disease so distressing and destructive, both for the patient and his or her family.
Cabrol report (A4-0094/96)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Cabrol's report contains some excellent proposals which we endorse - with the exception of the call to set up a European Blood Safety Supervisory Body, of whose usefulness we are less convinced than the rapporteur.
Ladies and gentlemen, what a long way we have come!
We can finally dare to talk openly of selecting blood donors, whereas in the past, they were drawn from among the prison population, where unfortunately drug addiction, homosexuality and the rape of fellow inmates are commonplace.
We can finally dare to talk of carrying out tests and telling infected donors not to give any more blood - although you would think that was the least that should be done.
We can finally dare to talk about promoting the use of self-transfusion, something which until very recently was prohibited, for reasons which in fact were far more ideological than practical.
It is indeed the ideology of making mixing the norm - at least as much as incompetence and the love of money - which has been responsible for the spread of the AIDS epidemic, against which the National Front tried in vain to warn.
Our reasoned words were met with nothing but scorn.
Today, those who contradicted us stand accused of the infamous charge of contaminating the population.
I have already had an opportunity - yesterday evening, in plenary - to express my support for the Commission communication and Mr Cabrol's report.
Today, I wish to reiterate the importance of ensuring the safety of blood products through the testing of donations and the application of stringent circulation and storage requirements.
I also wish to stress the need for a large-scale information and awareness campaign on blood and blood donation, with a view to achieving self-sufficiency in Europe.
Lastly, I wish to call for the promotion of voluntary, unpaid donation - especially in Europe - with the support of donors and their associations, which work from day to day for self-sufficiency, safety and clear moral rules in this vital but sensitive area.
May we never forget the tragedy of all those recipients of transfusions who were infected for want of adequate tests and safety measures - even if the information on AIDS available at the time was inadequate.
That must serve as a lesson for the future and prompt us to introduce even more stringent safety requirements.
I have chosen to vote against the report on safety in the blood sector and self-sufficiency in blood, because I see no special grounds why the Community should be self-sufficient in blood.
There is nothing to indicate that blood from the Member States is any better than that which we obtain from the USA for example, and I therefore see it as yet another example of the Union busying itself with areas which are not important for Europe or Europe's development instead of concentrating on the important issues.
This debate on the safety of transfusions and self-sufficiency in blood and blood products raises an important social issue.
A choice must be made between the defence of moral principles and the pursuit of profit.
From this point of view, the directive of 14 June 1989 on blood derivatives was a dangerous one, in that it opened the way for the application of market laws to substances of human origin, with the resulting payments for blood donation and the growing penetration of the blood derivatives market by private companies.
The House was able to highlight these dangers during a special debate in September 1993.
The Commission was required to take account of Parliament's concerns in its communication of December 1994, which is the subject of this report.
Our group's position is based on an inviolable basic principle: that the human body is not a commodity.
We believe that the human body and any organs or substances obtained from it are inalienable and non-marketable.
On the basis of this principle, we are proposing to amend the 1989 directive in such a way as to free it from the application of market laws, by allowing Member States to insist on respect for the ethical principle of voluntary, unpaid donation before authorizing the placing on the market in their territory of a product derived from blood or plasma.
Similarly, we support all measures aimed at improving the Community's selfsufficiency in blood and blood products by encouraging voluntary, unpaid, anonymous donation, in particular through the information, education and motivation of the public, support for voluntary blood donor associations, the promotion of cooperation between the Member States and the holding of a European blood donation day.
Our position coincides with that outlined in the report by the Committee on the Environment - a report which we are all the more happy to support now that it has been improved and strengthened by our amendments.
Voluntary blood donor associations have long been pressing the Commission to take action in this important area of public health.
These associations have always stressed the need for blood donations to be voluntary and unpaid. This, their basic principle, is designed to guarantee both self-sufficiency and absolute safety in the supply and use of blood and blood products.
It is the trade in blood and the pursuit of profit which threaten to introduce the risk of contamination, through inadequate or lax controls and failure to comply with rules and time limits throughout the transfusion chain.
I therefore support the rapporteur's fundamental demands: the establishment of common standards throughout the European Union; respect for the principle of voluntary, unpaid donation in all the Member States; strict rules on the use of the blood collected, with particular attention being given to the selection of donors, the devising of uniform tests of the highest technical quality, the application of stringent storage requirements and the rational use of blood and blood derivatives.
Let me say that thanks to the effective action taken by the Luxembourg Red Cross and voluntary blood donor associations, Luxembourg has managed to ensure both self-sufficiency and absolute compliance with all safety and hygiene requirements.
In any event, if we are eventually to set up a common system, that system should be based on those existing in the Member States which have the most stringent requirements in this field, such as Luxembourg.
Blood, and the products obtained and extracted from it, are extremely important therapeutic substances by means of which medical science offers substantial help in both acute and chronic diseases.
Unfortunately, however, repeated revelations about defective control methods and the methods used to collect blood, which have resulted in the transmission and spread of serious diseases and in large numbers of deaths in the European Union, give rise to great and justified social disquiet and demand that the matter be given the greatest possible attention.
The methods used up till now must be re-examined as responsibly and sensitively as possible, as well as the rules relating to the system of blood donation and its safe therapeutic use in patients.
Current regulations involve omissions and inadequacies that are responsible for the results of the practices in force for the production and disposal of blood products.
The development of voluntary blood donation must be the most important contribution to covering the demand for blood used to cater for the therapeutic needs of patients.
However, that source must go together with reliable and responsible clinical and laboratory support.
A national blood donation service should be set up to direct and control, with reliability and responsibility, the process of collecting and using blood, as well as every factor related to donors, recipients and anything else that is relevant, including information exchange with all other competent services and agencies at national and European level.
Liaison and cooperation between the relevant services in the Member States must be facilitated, to guarantee coordinated action in the context of the therapeutic use of blood and the avoidance of disease transmission by biological factors.
Paid blood donation for the industrial production of pharmaceutical products must be carried out by specially organized medical and laboratory units working under the supervision of special scientific centres in the Member States, with the aim of selecting the donors in a controlled way and carrying out all the necessary laboratory examinations to detect biological factors responsible for the transmission and spread of serious diseases.
In the case of this kind of blood donation it has been ascertained that the attempt to keep production costs low has acted against scientific method, with the purchase of large quantities of blood from foreign countries with populations whose standard of living is low and whose hygienic standards are poor, without carrying out the essential scientific procedures, which were deemed too expensive for the company and whose omission proved devastating for human life.
We cannot legislate to ensure ethical conduct.
What is essential, however, is to establish all the prerequisites that will eliminate whatever conflicts with the personal and social right to health and life: sensitization of the public, insistence on scientific research of the highest quality, the supervision by national and scientific agencies of companies to ensure avoidance of the production of products that undermine public health, and the imposition of all measures necessary to exclude the use of contaminated blood for the production of pharmaceutical preparations or for direct therapeutic purposes.
Turin European Council
Mr President, the European Council's dilemma at the Turin summit could be summarized as follows: in order to facilitate the Union's enlargement to the east - which is our main priority - the moves towards federalist integration must be restricted. Such restriction is impossible, however, since the introduction of the single currency will require further transfers of sovereignty.
Widening must therefore be reconciled with deepening - but how will this be possible whilst respecting the fundamental principle of maintaining a single institutional framework?
In these circumstances, we are not surprised to find, in the summary of the European Council's conclusions, a lack of any clear vision of Europe's future.
No clear choice is made, in particular, between a Europe that applies constraints, towards which the extension of qualified majority voting is implicitly directed, and a more flexible Europe, organized around what is delicately called the 'reinforced cooperation clause' . These two parallel proposals are, however, based on radically different philosophies: the system of qualified majority voting implies constraining the minority; that of the reinforced cooperation clause, on the other hand, implies agreeing not to constrain it.
Will the Intergovernmental Conference succeed in reconciling these two conflicting demands?
However, the IGC is burdened with an even more serious problem: that of the single currency.
Officially, the conference is not meant to be addressing this issue, since the decision has already been taken.
In reality, however, the preparations for the single currency are bringing to light a number of serious institutional problems which remain to be resolved.
Mr Hänsch himself drew attention to this in his speech at the Turin summit.
I shall quote him: ' Europe's currencies will be brought within the Community domain.
Economic policy, however, will not.
It is not good for this situation to continue.
The Union needs global macroeconomic management.'
However, this was the same Mr Hänsch who said at the Cannes summit, as he has said here in the House, and I shall quote him once again: ' The Union does not need to be delegated more powers by the Member States.
It must simply be able to exercise better the competences which it already enjoys.'
The contradiction reflected by these two quotes is common to all the Union's institutions.
One statement derives from the need to respect public opinion, the other from the need to support the single currency.
Following the IGC, one of the two - respect for public opinion, or support for the single currency - must prevail.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen - and ushers - we know very well that under the cover of what is assumed to be a federalist goal - organizing the deepening of the Union in preparation for its widening - the aim of the Intergovernmental Conference in Turin is to lay the foundations of a European super-state whose centralizing function will only increase.
We do not want such a state.
We want it all the less because, behind all the fine speeches about a people's Europe, transparency, democracy, employment and prosperity, lies petty political manoeuvring.
At Maastricht, we paid dearly for the agreement of Portugal, Spain, Greece and Ireland, with the creation of the Cohesion Fund.
This year, it is the United Kingdom with which we shall have to compromise.
The spectre of mad cow disease hung over the Turin summit.
The Member States have agreed to pay 70 % of the cost of slaughtering old British cows at the end of their productive life.
This is a wasted effort, however, since the British Government is already contesting the legality of the ban on its beef exports at the European Court of Justice.
And, to cap it all, the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference will have to wait until after the general election is held in the United Kingdom!
Whatever next!
If the revision of the Treaties were to be the key issue in a democratic election enabling European citizens to express their views, that really would be something.
Once again, hidden behind the great plans and fine speeches lie quibbling, horse-trading, undeclared aims and financial designs.
No: whatever clothes you try to dress this monster in, we want nothing to do with such a Europe.
The Intergovernmental Conference, in its present form, is in danger of becoming a hotch-potch.
In the absence of a clear analysis of the world situation, there is no real principle underpinning the conference.
Let us take the case of the fight against unemployment and external policy.
In fact, these two areas are connected, since unemployment is provoked by international competition, immigration and the world monetary disorder - all things which concern both economic and foreign policy.
The reality which we are refusing to see and put a name to is the following. Today, there is only one major power left in the world: the United States.
Having played a decisive role in the victory in the Second World War, in 1989, the United States won the cold war with the Soviet Union.
The United States is in a position to lay down the law to the international community.
In economic terms, this is the law of unrestricted freedom of trade, from which, for historical reasons, the big American companies are able to profit most.
The free trade imposed by the United States calls into question the various social protection systems which exist in Europe.
It is at the root of both the relocations which are leading to the rise in unemployment in the Member States, and the increasing pressure to reduce wages and even the purchasing power of the mass of workers.
Because it will not call into question the 'leadership' of the United States - which would not prevent friendship with the American people, however - the European Union is subject to this global law.
As a result, it cannot tackle unemployment at its root, and it is proposing no more than stop-gap measures and limited adjustments.
In political terms, Europe is obliged to support the establishing of the new world order as defined by the United States.
Whether the Member States retain their freedom or speak with a single voice, whether external policy decisions are taken unanimously, by majority or qualified majority, nothing will change this fundamental reality.
And what are Europe's plans for the world order? They do not exist.
They would have to be defined on the basis of national realities, and we are a long way from that.
In these circumstances, the IGC will bring no improvement, other than in procedural details.
The European Union seems to be afflicted with the same disease as Byzantium at the time of its decline: a lack of self-assertion and a lack of courage.
On the subject of the Turin summit, and while emphasizing that the Italian presidency is not responsible, I wish to express my dissatisfaction firstly at the lack of a European will to combat unemployment, secondly at the institutional prospects, and thirdly at the disturbing lack of drive in Europe.
Europe today too often gives the sad impression of being an association of shopkeepers - prisoners of their own interests, incapable of either solving current problems collectively or mapping out a clear vision of the future.
It is in this light that I cast my vote on the joint motion for a resolution.
Despite the fact that the resolution focuses on promoting employment and citizens' rights, which we of course support, we, the undersigned Members, cannot vote for the resolution, partly on account of its express support for 'a common foreign and security policy worthy of its position in the world' , which in plain English probably means a common defence and the incorporation of the WEU in the Union, and partly because the resolution supports the idea of the Union having greater powers through 'more effective' decision-making procedures and of more legal and home affairs issues being incorporated in Community law.
We want the EU to continue to be an organisation for civil cooperation between independent states.
We also believe that the Intergovernmental Conference should be urged by the European Parliament to take up the issue of the EMU convergence criteria and recognise the link between unemployment and those criteria.
Having regard to the national compromise and the Edinburgh agreement, the Danish Social Democrats are not able to support those aspects of the report regarding the common foreign and security policy and Union citizenship, which are contrary to the four Danish derogations.
Increasing unemployment and poverty in Europe will not be solved by a further expansion of the EU's political influence.
Increasing supranationalism within the Union will only remove political decision-makers still further from the people.
Democracy becomes difficult to discern when, because of ambiguous political structures, decision-makers at national or European level can blame the problems faced by society on one another.
It is my firm belief that the European Union should be a forum for cooperation between sovereign states in which ultimate accountability to the voters lies with the national parliaments.
I hope that the Intergovernmental Conference will produce a result which makes the European Union simpler and less bureaucratic.
A large majority of our group could not support the resolution because it falls far short of the reforms that are needed in the EU today.
Instead of addressing the burning issues that the EU is already facing and will face in the foreseeable future, the review conference provided for in the Maastricht Treaty is restricted to institutional reforms in the narrowest sense.
Instead of grasping this opportunity to press vigorously for the Intergovernmental Conference to tackle at long last the major tasks of overcoming mass unemployment and effecting the transition to a new development model based on solidarity and ecological responsibility, thereby refashioning the EU into an environmental and social union, and for the preparation of EMU and the formulation of decisions regarding the financial basis of the Union to be given the comprehensive attention they merit, Parliament has restricted itself to a few non-committal statements that are themselves confined to the institutional aspect.
In this way it has squandered another opportunity to make good its own claim to an active role in the development of the reform process.
Alongside that failure, any individual textual nuances over which we might quibble pale into insignificance.
The message to Parliament is the same one that Europe ought to take to heart in the global context: ask not what the world can do for you - ask what you can do for the world.
But a genuine process of democratic reform of the EU is obviously still a long way off!
Oostlander report (A4-101/96)
Mr President, everyone here is convinced that the European Union's strategic priority in the coming years will be enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which share our values and history, and which already have association agreements with the Union.
Nevertheless, the diversity of these countries and their differences - not least economic and social - from the Member States of the Union will make this process a difficult one. How can we accomplish it quickly?
What kind of institutions will enable us to assimilate these disparate nations? The Turin European Council gave the Intergovernmental Conference a mandate to seek solutions, but regrettably failed to provide guidelines for a specific vision of the future institutional architecture of an enlarged Europe.
The Oostlander report, which was presented to the House today, corresponds to an ultra-federalist concept of the future, which raises more problems than it solves, and which now appears to have minority support in Europe.
It assumes that the countries of Central and Eastern should accede to the Community en bloc , with institutional unity, and only some slight differences as regards their respective speeds.
Furthermore, it assumes that these countries should cooperate in the institutional development of the Union in the direction - and I quote - of 'Community decision-making procedures which will involve the transfer of part of national sovereignty to European level' .
With these words, the Oostlander report aims in particular at the extension of qualified majority voting, which is meant to facilitate the functioning of an enlarged Europe.
We might well ask how.
Because if it is difficult to take decisions unanimously in an organization with 25 members, it is unacceptable to take decisions by majority in an organization with 25 disparate members.
In reality, the only solution is to abandon the dogma of institutional unity and accept variable geometry.
This also means that we must opt for a European partnership of nations, rather than a federal Europe.
This will enable us to welcome the countries of Central and Eastern Europe more effectively and more quickly.
In a European partnership of nations, for example, what would prevent these countries from acceding without delay to an intergovernmental organization such as Europol, with a view to combating more effectively large-scale international crime?
Mr President, I subscribe entirely to the views expressed by my colleagues, and I shall therefore confine myself to making three specific points.
Firstly, the Community's secondary legislation has drifted so off course, and its legislative texts burgeoned to such an extent - in their complexity and in the constant exceeding of powers - that it forms a body of law to which the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will not easily be able to accede.
Secondly, Mr Oostlander's report makes frequent reference to democratic legitimacy, the rule of law, and democracy - I am thinking in particular of paragraph 18.
Would we not do better to put our own house in order, when the elections to the Belgian senate were so marred by irregularities that one party was prevented from taking part, and when in my own country, France, public freedoms are still governed by a communist law - the Marchais-Gayssot law?
Thirdly, and lastly, Mr Oostlander's entire report is based on the premise set out in recital H that 'enlargement yields considerable gains for both old and new Member States' .
I fear, Mr President, that this idea is more of a slogan than a proven fact.
The enthusiasm with which countries of central and eastern Europe were initially promised membership of the Union seems somewhat tempered; not just because of the technical problems the enlargement will bring but also and especially because many people want first of all to secure the community nature of the Union before enlarging it.
This tendency is to be found in the Oostlander report on which I am making this explanation of vote together with my colleague Mr Van der Waal, on whose behalf I also speak.
In addition to the justified demands which the report makes of central and eastern European countries in terms of economic integration, the rule of law and democracy, it also expects a certain federal approach and complete acceptance of the 'acquis communautaire' .
In practical terms this means putting a brake on a speedy expansion towards the east.
That is unacceptable to us on both moral and security policy grounds.
Furthermore we regret that the report pays no attention to the geographical and cultural confines of Europe.
That is necessary to prevent any arbitrary accession of new countries.
Any attempt at enlargement must be directed at countries which belong to the sphere of European culture and influence of western Christianity including the reformation.
Despite these criticisms we voted in favour of the Oostlander report because we believe that enlargement should be a priority goal of the Union and we can agree with the lines of development traced in the report on the economy and rule of law.
Good neighbourliness is important, especially in international relations, but before one invites the neighbours into one's own house one should have a good think.
The iron curtain between West and East seems to be drawn back and even tucked away, but the economic gulf between the two Europes is still there.
The manner in which this gulf is closed and relations between the relevant countries improved can vary from an advanced form of development aid through a package of privileged trade relations and cooperation links to enlargement of the European Union to include central and eastern European countries.
Sooner or later this last option will be followed, but more important than the question of who and when will accede is the question of the conditions under which such an accession will take place.
Proponents of enlargement always assume that enlargement will benefit both the present and the future member states.
That is undoubtedly true.
Just think of our domestic and foreign security and of democratic stability.
But the fact that there is a price to be paid and that there may even be drawbacks is often passed over or even forgotten.
This is partly because the consequences of this kind of accession are not clear or are inadequately recognised.
What will happen to the existing agricultural, horticultural, forestry and fisheries policy, to the free movement of goods and services, persons, information and capital, to the single market and the single currency and to central community projects? What will happen to decision-taking, to the institutions, to the community budget in general and the budget headings for the cohesion funds and structural funds in particular?
Until such times as these questions receive serious answers and even approximate estimates made of the cost of enlargement, enlargement will remain a step into the unknown, both for the present as well as future member states.
I am not prepared either as a politician or as a private citizen to write a blank cheque.
I want and I must know the costs of my decisions and the repercussions of my choices from all possible angles: budgetary, financial, monetary, fiscal, economic, industrial, commercial, social, ecological, diplomatic, etc.
We would also be wrong to raise hopes in the relevant countries which might not be fulfilled.
Despite the German wish to welcome Poland and the Czech Republic just now. Despite the Swedish wish to allow the Baltic Sea countries to accede.
Self-interest is a poor adviser in this kind of negotiation.
This also applies to the reluctance of Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece who are thinking of a drastic cut-back in aid from the European Union to the Mediterranean countries.
Such an all important political issue as accession, with its implications for the future and the very existence of the European Union, cannot be decided on reasons of preferences or prejudices.
In the final analysis we are talking about extending the European Union and not replacing it with a large free trade area with a dwindling community pillar and a dominant intergovernmental pillar.
We, the undersigned, have voted for the report.
We did so because we believe that the report gives consideration to many of the problems involved in the accession of the Eastern European states to the EU.
This is in marked contrast to much of the over-simplified propaganda which is being disseminated in the EU, not least in Sweden, concerning the advantages of the accession of the Eastern European states.
We believe, as does the report, that the Eastern Europe states should be able to accede to the EU but we would also stress how important it is for the people in each of those countries to be given the opportunity to express their views on membership.
It is also very important, as the report says, that those countries which elect not to join should be granted good conditions for trade and cooperation with the EU.
Despite our vote in favour, however, we would stress our criticism of the report's talk of the unilateral adjustment of the Eastern European states to accommodate the EU rules and regulations and economic system, which would include the expressly mentioned requirement of market-oriented deregulation and privatisation.
The report also lacks a serious analysis of the security policy problems, not least as regards Russia, which may arise in connection with the EU's planned development of an integrated defence and military dimension.
The authors of the report on the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe consider that enlargement to the east will have 'major budgetary and financial consequences' , and could also have 'major social, political and security consequences' .
The Belgian National Front does not rule out these dangers, but is amazed at such caution on the part of parliamentarians who, for the most part, recently approved a customs union with a non-European country, Turkey.
The authors of the report consider that enlargement to the east is undoubtedly possible in theory, but will be far more difficult in practice.
It is to be regretted that the states of Central and Eastern Europe are today paying the price of 50 years of socialist economics and bureaucracy, and that because they are not members of NATO, they are not benefiting from the Union's generosity in the same way as the Republic of Turkey.
In fact, it seems as if Europe is opening its borders to the south, but closing them to the east.
The purpose of this report, like that of the Commission white paper on the same subject, is to review the progress made by the associated countries in their transition towards accession to the European Union.
Given the uncertain prospects, and the indecisiveness - not to say positive lack of commitment - on the part of our countries, they appear to be making all the effort.
In this context, it is important to point out, firstly, that the principle of the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe has been established and must remain so.
We must avoid breaking the camel's back by imposing unrealistic preconditions on the applicant countries, or indulging in petty accounting.
The main obstacle to the smooth progress of a transition which should logically end in accession is, to my mind, the over-cautiousness of the Union Member States.
Enlargement has a price, that cannot be denied.
But the price of our indifference and selfishness will undoubtedly be far higher, because they threaten to deprive the countries of Central and Eastern Europe of political prospects which are essential to the success of their transition.
The report on the Central and Eastern European countries' participation in cooperation in the internal market is very well thought out.
The rapporteur deserves praise for his excellent analysis of the problems to be solved as part of the preparations for the forthcoming enlargement of the EU.
I am thus able to give my full support to the rapporteur's invitation to the Central and Eastern European countries and their minorities communities to settle any conflicts via political dialogue and with due consideration for the minorities' right to maintain their cultural identity.
I would also like to highlight the rapporteur's recommendations on education, information and the media and those on cross-border cooperation between the Central and Eastern European countries themselves, and between those countries and their geographical neighbours among the EU countries and the CIS states.
If we wish to create a better understanding of other peoples' living conditions, break down prejudices and emphasise the common European cultural heritage, we must strengthen the cultural dimension of European cooperation and international cooperation, respecting diversity and individual countries' cultural identity.
And - as the rapporteur so rightly stresses in his concluding remarks - all the countries have their own particular history and cultural identity, which they naturally want and will be able to preserve within the European Union.
With regard to the arrangements for the accession negotiations with the new Member States, I would also agree with the rapporteur when he stresses, at the beginning of his report, that the negotiations with the associated countries should start at the same time .
It does not automatically mean that the new Member States should, or will be able, to accede to the EU en bloc .
The applicant countries are very different, which can duly be taken into account only by conducting accession negotiations with each country separately.
For the same reason, the duration of these negotiations as well as the timing of the individual applicant country's accession to the EU, may well vary considerably.
It is vital, however, that the EU countries are not, from the very start, guilty of politically influenced discrimination towards the new Member States, as this would be seen by public opinion in Central and Eastern Europe as being an indication that some applicant countries were 'more welcome in the EU' than others.
Should this - false - impression spread, we should immediately have failed to achieve the objective of the forthcoming enlargement to further the process of political and economic reform in the applicant countries and recreate a whole, undivided Europe without prejudice and political tension.
In the light of these highly sensible and realistic considerations, I find it surprising that the rapporteur concludes that a tenable European legal system cannot be achieved by developing EU cooperation in a pragmatic fashion, but that the EU must be structured as a federal organization - here and now.
It is my impression that throughout the whole post-war period - to a very great extent - we have been able to develop and strengthen European co-operation by taking a pragmatic approach.
It is absolutely essential if such cooperation is to be developed further that it is not stepped up without popular consent, but remains based on careful analysis and demonstration of the need for practical cooperation.
I have voted for the report because I consider it to be more important to enlarge the EU so that it becomes an organisation of truly pan-European cooperation than to develop a deeper Union.
It is important that the negotiations with the countries of Eastern and Central Europe which have applied for membership should begin simultaneously.
Countries with a stable democracy, openness and a functioning market economy should have priority, while countries which have not yet achieved these goals should have to wait for membership.
It is extremely important that the process leading to possible membership is conducted democratically and openly, preferably concluding with a referendum.
Each country should of course decide for itself how it wishes to cooperate with the EU.
The future enlargement of the European Union, be it to the countries of central and eastern Europe or to include Malta and Cyprus, is a fact of enormous political importance which deserves our support in principle, for which it is fundamental that the will freely expressed by the peoples of the applicant countries should be manifested and respected.
Since this is a question of principle it is equally fundamental that the accession processes should be painstakingly studied and that there should be a thorough explanation of all of the ramifications of these accessions, both on the European Union and all its Member States as well as the applicant countries themselves.
On the other hand, a European Union with 20 or 25 countries requires and demands far-reaching consideration as to the future Community budget, which means having at our disposal the bases and perspectives enabling us to respond effectively to needs arising from enlargement, without calling into question the legitimate aspirations of the peoples of the existing Member States, in particular in respect of the common agricultural policy, the structural funds and other Community policies.
That is why we must plan for pre-accession periods and sufficiently tailor-made transitional periods which take into account the complexity of all of the aspects involved in the different enlargement processes, always paying attention to the conditions of existing Member States.
As far as institutional affairs are concerned, it is necessary, for the sake of the principles of sustainable development and economic and social cohesion, which underpin the European Union, that enlargement cannot be a pretext for imposing hard cores or directories of countries, for the institutionalisation of groupings of countries at different rates or speeds, just as it is inadmissible to use enlargement as an argument for breaking the current rules of appointing commissioners, the rotation of Council presidencies, full equality in the treatment of languages, as well as safeguarding and fully and totally respecting proportionality when determining the number of Members of the European Parliament.
Just one last comment to say that we do not think it admissible that we should make acceptance of new countries in the Union depend on their prior accession to NATO or any other international military organisation, nor that this should even be hinted at as a condition for accession, especially since this could well give rise to political and military instability in eastern Europe, in particular in relation to Russia.
Since the Oostlander report does not satisfy our preconditions in the slightest we are unable to vote in favour of it.
Tackling the problems and challenges faced by modern society requires the development of exchanges and cooperation in every sphere.
In this context, I am in favour of the enlargement of the Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
This must provide an opportunity to encourage the development of a democratic Europe, based on economic and social progress and forming part of a common vision of international relations.
The establishment of economic and political cooperation undoubtedly requires efforts on everyone's part, but we cannot oblige the applicant countries to adjust their structures and legislation to comply with the Maastricht Treaty without taking into account the possible economic and social consequences, and without allowing them express their views.
Furthermore, in just a few years, the economic shock therapy experienced by these countries has given rise to considerable social inequalities.
It would be useful, therefore, to carry out a detailed analysis, on a case-by-case basis, of the political, economic and social implications of enlargement for the applicant countries.
I support an approach which is quite different from that of placing workers and economies in competition with each other.
Such an approach must be based on the aspirations of the peoples concerned, and on the promotion of human potential, employment, democracy, peace and security.
The campaign for disarmament and demilitarization is thus an essential aspect of our security on the European continent.
The bloc mentality and military designs of organizations such as NATO or the Western European Union will have no place in the Europe of the future.
The report contains advances - regarding in particular the defence of human and minority rights, and the intention not to encourage privatization in the fields of culture, education and health, in the interests of social cohesion.
Nevertheless, it does also contain dangers.
For all these reasons, I have abstained from voting on the report.
Our group abstained from this vote.
The reason for our abstention is not that we were in any way unappreciative of the work of Mr Oostlander and the Members who supported him.
Wherever he took a stance against the new manifestations of western European isolationism, which mainly lurk behind financial issues, he deserved and he had our support.
However, this constant rearguard action against narrow 'little European' thinking evidently tends to diminish the scale and importance ascribed to the task of planning, in the context of the enlargement process, a European development strategy that is sustainable and that will work throughout Europe.
The economic challenge, especially in terms of regional, industrial, social and employment policies, is inexcusably underestimated once again in the present report, and there are even instances of the aim of a demilitarized pan-European home being actively obscured, for example by uncritical endorsement of the common agricultural policy, by detachment of the problems of 'illegal immigration' or 'organized crime' from their proper contexts and hypostatizing them or by implying that there are military solutions to pan-European problems.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Welcome
I wish to announce that our Parliament is honoured to welcome in the official gallery a parliamentary delegation from the Ukrainian Parliament.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, the Ukrainian Parliament's delegation will hear the statements by the Council and the Commission and, ladies and gentlemen, it will observe our sitting and listen to our debate.
This delegation, which is led by Mr Andrei Mostytsky, will have working meetings today and tomorrow with our Parliament's Delegation on Relations with the Ukraine.
I address our greetings to the Ukrainian delegation and wish it every success in its contacts and meetings with our Parliament.
Welcome to you.
Chernobyl, prospects for EU involvement
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident, on the impact and prospects for European Union involvement.
Mr President, I am expressing the feeling of my group, and at the same time the generally shared feeling of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy which I have the honour to chair.
Ten years on from the tragic accident, everyone is aware of the desolation it caused and despite the fact that false information was supplied to us and also to the Congress of Vienna, we know that in the immediate neighbourhood of the explosion there were hundreds, possibly thousands, of victims, and the figure has increased over the last ten years, perhaps beyond a hundred thousand, which truly makes us shudder.
Today we have to count the cost of the damage caused by that catastrophe, but above all we must face up to the damage that will probably continue to derive from it, not only in the area immediately adjacent to the explosion but tragically in every part of Europe that was affected through atmospheric activity.
I would merely remind you that in countries as far away as Germany thyroid cancers continue to increase cyclically as a function of the biological cycle, linked in turn to plants, animals and rain.
As we heard in Mrs Estevan Bolea's impassioned speech, we can no longer tolerate a situation where we do not have solutions to this kind of catastrophe and especially faced with what awaits us in the future.
Certainly an important step was taken with the memorandum of understanding signed at Ottawa by the G7 countries.
Clearly our intervention in the Ukraine must proceed with caution so as not to deprive that country of 6 % of the energy it needs.
During the second part of the hearing organized by our committee, when the representatives of the Ukrainian government and the energy agency spoke to us very frankly, we learned the devastating news that, in addition to the tragedy of cancer and leukaemia caused by the explosion, there has also been the tragedy of people dying of cold, because last winter temperatures of minus 14-15 degrees were reached in buildings probably only open to foreigners on holidays.
We must not be hasty but we absolutely must intervene and our committee is sounding the alarm with all its strength because Chernobyl is not an isolated case.
Mr Lange has already mentioned the other power stations and in fact we are in a situation of extreme risk involving a whole series of other power stations in other eastern European countries.
Mr President, I am anxious to reaffirm our commitment to put every effort into pursuing a policy that we may be able to call an energy policy in the near future, a policy which will be efficient and safe.
That will be the aim of our committee.
Mr President, many roads lead to the MCA - the maximum credible accident.
For all our dealings with accidents and disaster, is it perhaps the case that, despite the misery they have caused, we have yet to learn our lesson from them? Thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands, of children are ill or have been born handicapped, and the rate is increasing.
Although areas of land the size of the Netherlands are contaminated, we have allowed time to elapse without taking action.
The RBMK and VVER reactors are scrap heaps and will remain so, and retrofits will do nothing to alter that!
They have no emergency cooling systems and no fire-prevention mechanisms, and it is of very little use, for instance, when the operators say that they have good firefighting teams.
There is a lack of instruction manuals.
Safety precautions on site are absolutely minimal.
The sum of ECU 550 million has already been pumped in from the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
What do we have to show for it?
First of all, 90 % of the funds have been disbursed in western Europe on safety studies.
Strictly speaking, the object of the exercise has been to open the door to new markets.
We have not achieved any more security at these sites.
There can surely be no question of that.
What has occurred is not a reduction but rather a prolongation of the risk.
That has to be acknowledged once and for all.
We are categorically opposed to the completion of two reactors which are already in an absolutely desolate condition and cannot be properly completed.
For six billion dollars we could have new cogeneration plants, generating both heat and power, with an output of 10 000 megawatts.
Instead of that, money is being squandered so that some companies can earn more profits.
It is scandalous, unacceptable and a disgrace to the European Union.
Let me say one more thing.
In western Europe we have many reactors that are no better than those.
If we continue to pursue the same policies here, the next MCA will come along as swiftly and surely as night follows day!
Mr President, I welcome the representatives from Ukraine to whom all our hearts go out.
Could I ask everyone a question who may be listening to this: will the next nuclear disaster following Chernobyl be in Chernobyl? That is a chilling but a real question.
Poor Ukraine - they have been told that they have not lost 125, 000 people but that they have only lost a few hundred people.
But on the BBC we saw a film recently showing the deformed children and animals and the worried elderly people who have decided to go back because that was their home, even though there is a risk.
Poor Ukraine - 29 % of their budget spent on clean-up.
Yet as my colleague here said, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is going to spend our money on two other reactors as a price for the agreement of closure.
With the lack of proper arrangements in many other reactors - because Chernobyl was only the fifth worst - we are going to have another disaster and the EU will have a great deal of responsibility.
We must decide that the time for talking has really ended and really put our hands in our pockets and give the money that is necessary to clean up this situation.
We know that Ukraine is heavily dependent on this type of energy, so we have to face up to this.
We know the cost of nuclear decommissioning and we should take a hard look at nuclear energy.
I happen to belong to an anti-nuclear party, I am President of it in Scotland.
I sit with colleagues who are pro-nuclear because France has a different attitude to that. I can understand that.
Sweden was the most heavily nuclear-dependent country, and yet they have taken a different attitude.
Perhaps we have to look at the whole question of our energy policy.
If we do not know how to destroy the monster we create, have we any right to create any more monsters? That is really the question.
Sitting up there are brave people who have come to see us today and I hope I have the chance to meet them.
We have to pledge our solidarity, not just with words, but with finance.
Mr President, Chernobyl has gone down in history as the biggest nuclear disaster of all times.
The disaster is imprinted on the minds of many residents of Ukraine.
And not just there.
The consequences are imprinted on the bodies of people and on their descendants.
It happened only ten years ago.
How many tens of thousands of people are still facing day in day out the gruesome consequences of over-radiation? We do not even have accurate numbers.
That is why it is right that the international community should continue to remember them.
A tenth anniversary such as this serves the purpose of focusing public attention.
It is particularly sad that even today there is no satisfactory answer to the question of how the accident could happen, nor even to the question of what should be done with the remaining section of the power station.
Have we really no idea? Closure is the only answer.
I fervently hope that the Ukrainian government will give its cooperation.
If the rich countries come up with sufficient money then nothing will stand in their way.
But we have not reached that stage yet.
Has the time not come to decide to close down the remaining fifteen power stations of the Chernobyl type? Everyone knows that this will be extremely costly, both for the dismantling of the installations and for the provision of alternative energy supplies.
But the international community must recognise that this is a problem that is far too great for an individual country or group of countries to tackle alone.
In financial terms the former Soviet Union is not up to it.
It would be a demonstration of international solidarity if not only the G7 but all affluent countries were to agree on a plan to make these dangerous power stations disappear from the face of the earth.
The collapse of the Iron Curtain has created a number of new responsibilities for the countries of the West.
Now that we can afford to spend gradually less on defence the money saved should at least be used to improve the situation in the former East bloc.
And that includes closing down these power stations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was the Chernobyl disaster which made public opinion aware of the dangers of nuclear technology.
But that was ten years ago.
At the time, the Greens certainly expressed concern at these problems, but being bound by political friendships and dependence, they were silent on the subject of the building of nuclear power stations in the East.
The National Front, for its part, has been making its views on this subject clear since 1978.
It has always been cautious as regards the whole dogma of nuclear technology.
Moreover, this was the subject of one of our first pamphlets.
In 1980, we campaigned in favour of civil protection, insisting on the need to build nuclear shelters.
And, in 1986, the disaster which we had been fearing for nearly ten years occurred.
On 30 April of that year, my husband, Jean-Pierre Stirbois, spoke in the French National Assembly to draw attention to the weakness of France's civil protection system with regard to nuclear, civil or military threats.
At the same time, he called for the implementation of a responsible and effective security policy for times of both peace and conflict.
By way of example, only seven radioactive fallout warning systems had been commissioned at that time.
Naturally, none of them was yet in operation. As for the budget allocated to civil safety in the nuclear sector, it was simply ridiculous.
Totally unaware of the magnitude of the problem, the Interior Minister, Charles Pasqua, told my husband that rather than throwing the population into panic for populist reasons, he would do better to go and observe the excellent work of the fire service in the area of civil protection against nuclear accidents.
It was unbelievable!
Regrettably, in this context too, we were right - just as we were right with regard to the tragedies of AIDS and 'mad cow' disease, a situation which my colleague Mr Martinez has been condemning since 1990.
We have consistently warned in advance of the disasters that have occurred in these closing decades of the twentieth century.
At the time of the Chernobyl disaster, we were not told that the radioactive cloud would pass over France: the effects were played down, it was said that there was no real danger, and so on.
Nuclear energy seemed to be a taboo subject.
Furthermore, information was withheld, on the pretext of not causing panic.
This is arbitrary and dangerous behaviour which gives cause for concern. The majority of the élite were wrong.
Insanity prevailed over reason.
Our leaders were blinded by the dogma - condemned by certain colleagues - of progress, mass consumerism and free trade. Why should we be surprised if cows go mad when, sadly, they have been turned into carnivorous cannibals?
Why should we question nuclear technology? Clearly, nuclear disasters would have ceased long ago if moderation had prevailed over the excitement of all the sorcerer's apprentices.
Ultimately, it is the choice of our form of society which is at fault.
Today, the tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster leads us to debate this issue - but it is no longer simply a question of Chernobyl.
There are dozens of Chernobyls.
We should like to know, moreover, as my colleague said earlier, more or less where things stand.
Finally, we also wish to know what plans have been drawn up in Western Europe for decommissioning nuclear power stations which come to the end of their life, since there is considerable cause for concern in this respect and we should like awareness of this problem to be genuinely raised today.
Mr President, I am sure we all remember on this day the fear that gripped us 10 years ago.
When we heard the news of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl and followed the trail of nuclear radiation as it crossed Europe we felt real fear.
It gripped us deeply.
However, it has diminished; it has gradually ebbed away.
Now we do not have sufficient concern to take the actions necessary to remedy the ecological, economic and social consequences which each year become more and more apparent to us and could hit us again at any moment.
Whilst some actions have been taken, they have proved to be insufficient.
More clearly needs to be done.
The sarcophagus of the Chernobyl 4 nuclear reactor could be much better and more effective.
The original clean-up from the original disaster could have been done much better and more effectively.
Indeed, as regards the effects upon human health that have occurred in terms of cancer and other sicknesses, much more could and should have been done.
Most of all, what should have been done is that we should have stopped the possibility of such a disaster again.
That sadly, is our biggest problem.
That sadly, is our biggest unachieved task.
Many reactors of exactly the same kind as Chernobyl - in some cases in worse condition than Chernobyl - still exist and are in operation in Russia and other parts of the CIS.
Worse still, there remains a foolish determination to proceed with this uneconomic and unstable production of nuclear energy by construction of nuclear plants that could be more economically and safely replaced by the introduction of programmes of energy saving and power production from other sources.
I am sure the Commission would agree that this alternative approach to solving the power needs of East and Central Europe, as opposed to a nuclear programme, is the one that we should pursue.
Unfortunately, as Mr Pimenta has already pointed out, this morning's news demonstrates that other organizations like the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development do not seem willing to investigate in any serious form through these cost option studies other possible ways of solving East and Central Europe's energy problems.
On this tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster we must rekindle our fears and our concerns to ensure that we have the determination to take the action necessary to stop this ever happening again.
We must take hold of the initial agreement in the form of the memorandum of understanding and develop it further at the G7.
We must close dangerous reactors - not just Chernobyl, but elsewhere also - and we must resolve ways in which to find the funding to do so.
We must provide that funding no matter how much it costs.
We must also offer to East and Central Europe, through forms of European assistance, Commission programmes, through the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development and other bodies, solutions that will solve their energy needs and ensure that in future their energy will be supplied on the basis of energy saving and sustainable environmentally-acceptable energy generation.
Mr President, 10 years have now passed since the Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster.
This accident brought to light that there are numerous power stations in the former Soviet Union built with the same technology and with a highly unreliable safety record.
Some of these are very close to Finland, in Karelia and other neighbouring areas.
In Finland we currently have four nuclear power stations which have worked impeccably and meet Western European safety criteria.
The Finnish energy supply authorities consider that we need to build a fifth nuclear power station.
The abovementioned Chernobyl nuclear power station accident opened people's eyes to the dangers of nuclear power and increased the Finns' opposition to nuclear power to such an extent that the Finnish parliament has halted all new nuclear power station projects for the time being.
There is thus no chance of building new nuclear power stations until people are certain that they are safe.
It is therefore particularly important that the European Parliament debate this issue and appeal to the Commission and Council, and that every possible means be used to try and minimize the threat from Chernobyl-type nuclear power stations.
At the same time we must endeavour to close down these dangerous power stations as soon as possible.
Secondly, we must concentrate on improving the safety of more modern nuclear power stations and develop programmes to save energy, to improve the cost-effectiveness of energy use and to promote safer forms of energy such as hydro-electric power, peat and natural gas.
As I have said, there is a great deal of opposition in Finland at present to nuclear power, which in practice prevents any further nuclear power stations from being built.
Consequently, attention has turned to natural gas.
Here, in the European Parliament, too, there has been debate about European natural gas networks, and in this connection we Finns have proposed the inclusion among these networks of the 'Northern Gas Network' which integrates the networks of the Northern Member States by linking gas resources from Russia and Norway.
This would increase the security of gas supply throughout the whole of Northern Europe, the Baltic States and other Member States of the European Union, and would accordingly reduce the need for nuclear power.
In my opinion this Northern Gas Network should be added to the EU's Europe-wide gas networks.
The matter is being discussed today at the Visby conference.
Marjatta SteniusKaukonen has tabled an amendment to the opinion on the abovementioned gas network.
I would ask you, Members of the European Parliament present here, to support this amendment by Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen which all members of the Finnish parliament across party boundaries support.
When natural gas networks and safety are increased throughout Europe, this will tend to reduce fear of nuclear power stations as well.
Mr President, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, Mrs Ewing and Mr Pimenta have said it all today.
It is hard to believe ten years after the Chernobyl disaster which, as has already been said, left 125, 000 dead and a further 3.5 million ill, that the plant in the Ukraine is still open even though it only produces about 6 % of the electricity there.
This is hard to credit.
Although the Ukraine authorities have pledged to dismantle the plant by the year 2000 in exchange for international aid for the harnessing of alternative sources of energy, closure cannot come quick enough.
In November last year at the Chernobyl second reactor three workmen were exposed to massive doses of radiation and we still have not learned the lesson.
It is vital that the European Union plays a central and constructive role in ensuring the practical provision of resources under programmes such as TACIS.
This programme is aimed at supporting nuclear safety in the former Soviet Union.
Given the condition of many nuclear power plants there one cannot underestimate the importance of the programme.
However, this programme cannot work unless the European Union makes sure that sufficient resources and grants are available for TACIS to carry out its task.
Finally, as has been said by Mrs Ewing, Chernobyl is not a unique plant.
They exist all over Europe.
Where will the next nuclear disaster be? As an Irish Member I must refer to the Sellafield plant in the UK.
For many years the Irish people have lived under a cloud of unease as the Sellafield plant has stumbled from one safety misdemeanour to another.
We have had enough of this.
Nuclear accidents do not respect borders and no Member State can act on its own.
Mr President, Chernobyl was the accident that could not happen.
It is quite insane to imagine pollution on that scale.
Just think, they really said that back in the 1970's.
The technology could not go wrong.
That is why some people had some problems explaining themselves 10 years ago.
The answer was, of course, that it was because the Soviet Union was undemocratic.
It is not that simple.
With all technology of that type there is probably a danger - albeit slight - of an accident. But if the accident does occur, then the risk is great.
There is only one answer to Chernobyl: it must be closed down.
It is the only answer decent people can give to using technology which was anything but harmless.
The truth is, of course, that we in the West also bear a responsibility for promoting this technology.
It is extremely disappointing if the EU's answer is that we want to build a democratic nuclear power station, and we will only invest in extinguishing fires started by communists, but not in stoves built by democrats.
That is not the answer.
Energy savings and the use of other forms of energy is the answer.
Mr President, ten years ago over two million children were exposed to the fall-out from Chernobyl.
It was an accident that appalled the world and released 300 times more radioactivity than fell on Hiroshima.
Until now there has been a conspiracy to deny that any damage to the health of those people and children is a result of radiation.
The International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear safety division has been at the forefront of this cover-up.
In 1990 the IAEA published a health report which stated that there was no evidence of disease linked to fall-out and that the ill health was a result of psychological stress.
This was in spite of mounting evidence of thyroid cancers in children at the time.
Because those children were not screened and not treated, some of them died, and the IAEA is responsible for those deaths.
In 1995 over 400 cases of thyroid cancers were documented in children.
This was not finally accepted until the WHO Conference in Geneva last year when the findings of the thyroid project, based in Minsk, were adopted.
The WHO radiation expert has gone on record about the opposition to this project encountered at all stages of its development.
I say to you today that one slow, lingering death of one child from radiation is one too many!
Beyond the visible and immediate effects on children, the World Health Organization's scientists concluded that radioactivity has a range of effects on health, including higher rates of cancers and heart disease.
But the IAEA are now trying to do the same thing to others as they did to the children with thyroid cancer: they are effectively denying these people screening and treatment.
In the Russian Federation, they have collected data discussed at the Minsk Conference showing significant rates of cancer and leukaemia are dose-related - which means radiation-induced.
The IAEA at their conference in Vienna last week still deny these findings, although the Ukrainian, Russian and Belarussian delegations dispute their figures.
Commissioner, I would say that the IAEA are not competent to make judgements and pronouncements on health and I ask you to state that the World Health Organization is...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the Commissioner mentioned the conference convened last week in Vienna by the International Atomic Energy Agency. This organization should really be called the 'International Agency for the Promotion of Nuclear Energy' , and in my view it is unacceptable that it should attempt to play down the effects of the Chernobyl disaster on the health of the population of Ukraine.
I call on you, Commissioner - and this appeal is also addressed to the President of the Commission, Mr Santer - to make available to the Ukrainian authorities all the financial resources necessary to ensure that the people of that country receive adequate health care.
Another subject touched on by the Commissioner was that of the culture of nuclear safety.
In my view, this is no more than a smoke-screen put up by the nuclear lobby - of which Electricité de France, Framatome and Siemens form part - which wishes to sell reactors to Russia and other former Soviet republics. An accident at a nuclear power station, in the East or the West, is simply a question of a greater or lesser probability.
Please, do not finance the construction of any new nuclear reactors in the former Soviet Union!
I know what I am talking about, because I come from a region which is threatened by the Cattenom reactors built by EDF.
I am convinced that an accident with the same radiological consequences as Chernobyl could happen there at any moment, and in my view, it is unacceptable that these reactors should still continue to operate, even if a European licence allows them to do so.
Mr President, ten years on from the explosion in the fourth reactor of the Chernobyl power station the emergency continues, above all in Belarus and the Ukraine.
In Belarus in 1994 and 1995 over 100, 000 people died from causes ascribable to the accident at Chernobyl and in the most affected regions (Gomel and Mogilev) the birth rate has collapsed from 17 to 10 per thousand since 1986, while the death rate has risen from 9-10 per thousand to 12-13 per thousand, a rise of over 33 %.
In 1995, according to the Belarussian health ministry, 400 out of 500 babies with pathologies had cancer.
The incidence of cancer in the infant population is 50 times higher than 10 years ago.
Official sources put deaths in the Ukraine at 180, 000 and birth rate, death rate and cancer statistics are similar to those described earlier.
Furthermore, taking account of the fact that there could be an explosion with catastrophic consequences at the Chernobyl nuclear plant at any moment, as pointed out in a recent report commissioned by the European Union on the possibility of collapse of old pillars supporting the sarcophagus which was built around reactor no 4 after it exploded in 1986, the European Union simply must put pressure on the Ukrainian government to close the Chernobyl nuclear power station, and in the meantime it must provide the aid necessary to make up the electricity that the Ukraine would lose.
The European Union must also intervene through the TACIS and PHARE programmes with the countries of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, so that they gradually abandon or convert the at-risk nuclear power stations.
Mr President, I should like to begin by expressing my disappointment to the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council.
I had not really expected you simply to declare your support for something on which, as far as I know, we all agree, but rather to tell us where the money is to come from to implement this memorandum of understanding or, for example, what sort of timetable is likely to be necessary so that the two Chernobyl reactors can be decommissioned.
This debate, regrettably, has reaffirmed something we have observed over the past ten years, namely that the Chernobyl debate is marked by a mixture of strong words and weak actions, by loudly applauded declarations that remain fruitless.
The other RBMK reactors, a total of 15, are still on line, after all.
We know a lot about the sarcophagus, but we are far from knowing how to deal with it.
The only thing we know about the whole business is that we actually know nothing.
Proposals - for which we have paid dearly, I might add - unfortunately abound.
There are risks elsewhere too, as we know, for instance with the more modern VVER reactors that have been mentioned and of which there are a total of 45 different types with varying risk levels; none of them, however, would qualify for an operating licence in our countries.
There are also risks in the irradiated areas of the Urals or in the former nuclear weapons test site in what is now the Republic of Kazakhstan, etc.
It is true that we have provided money; I make it a total of some 600 million dollars given by the West to the former Soviet republics.
However, it is estimated that we should need around 15 to 20 billion dollars to do everything the experts have proposed.
Here too, I can only come to the sad conclusion that the most important lessons of the Chernobyl disaster are that we are hungry for sensations but reluctant to offer solutions and that horror does not translate into help.
This makes it all the more important, to my mind, that at the present time of this tenth anniversary we should not be thinking of some ceremony or other but rather of how this memorandum of understanding can at least be implemented.
It is a package - and let me say this to my honourable colleagues too - it is a package that includes the completion of two VVER reactors.
Anyone seeking to drop this condition is putting a match to the entire package.
We have to be quite clear about that.
(Heckling by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz) No, no, we must be aware that the removal of this condition means dismantling and destroying the whole thing.
That is just how it is.
I did not negotiate it, nor am I the Ukrainian Government, but anyone who seeks to tamper with it must know that he is giving others an excuse to make the whole thing fail.
That would be extremely regrettable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to use this debate to express my bewilderment at the fact that at last week's conference in Vienna, ten years after the reactor accident in Chernobyl, there was neither any new evidence presented on the overall extent of the disaster nor agreement on the immediate closure of the reactor complex in question.
In Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania, there are still 15 reactors of the same design as Chernobyl in operation.
The long-term effects of the disaster on man and the environment have still not been researched.
There are still the most enormous difficulties involved in providing proper medical care for the victims.
That is why I am highly sceptical about the special meeting of the G7 in Moscow on 19 and 20 April devoted exclusively to nuclear safety.
I appeal to the four G7 members that also belong to the European Union not to deviate at the meeting from the line laid down in the memorandum of understanding and to be even more vehement than hitherto in demanding the closure of these reactors.
Unfortunately, as in the case of the resumption of work on the Mochovce plant in Slovakia, which is of special concern to me as an Austrian, we see that the nuclear industry is not interested in seeking realistic alternatives but prefers to carry on the unprofitable and hazardous construction of the nuclear plant in order to complete a showpiece project for nuclear power stations in eastern Europe and to earn itself kudos.
There is a conclusive and authoritative study which demonstrates that upgrading the Mochovce reactor to western safety standards is not only shortsighted but downright impossible.
The aim of this interest group does not seem to be the prevention of further accidents on the scale of Chernobyl but rather the creation of new nuclear risk factors and sheer profiteering.
I call on the Commission to reexamine the Mochovce project in terms of its danger to Europe and, if need be, to take the necessary steps to halt it.
Mr President, the problem of outdated energy production stations in the countries of the former Eastern Block is one of the most serious in Europe, and we all know that.
Ten years after Chernobyl the danger is ever-present, and despite the thousands of deaths the station continues to operate.
On the 19th and 20th of this month in Moscow, at a new meeting between the Seven and the Ukraine, as has already been said, the question of finance is to be discussed.
Within the scope of the TACIS programme, the European Union has committed itself to provide 110 million ECU by the end of 1996 towards improving the safety of nuclear stations in Central and Eastern Europe, and about 200 million more are to be provided by the European Reconstruction Bank.
However, money alone cannot solve the problem, other things are needed as well, most of all a change in our thinking.
Because Chernobyl is not the only place with problems.
In Bulgaria, very close to us, the Kosloduy station is considered the next most dangerous after Chernobyl since last October when it resumed operation.
Despite all the pressures by the European Union the date for its operation to cease is constantly being postponed.
The nuclear station of Metzamor in Armenia is also regarded as problematic and others too have been mentioned here, while many more still are likely to emerge in the future.
It is in our immediate interests to help those countries convert to new, less costly and safer sources of energy, and to audit and monitor the implementation of the programmes and the utilization of the aid provided.
Mr President, have we not learned anything in the last ten years? Scientific evidence shows that 60 000 deaths were directly caused by the after-effects of the Chernobyl accident and not 30.
Perhaps they were the ones who died immediately.
Innumerable people became ill.
Six hundred thousand people had to be evacuated.
The EBRD now wants to make one billion dollars available for the completion of two reactors in Ukraine.
That is the price for the closure of Chernobyl.
How long shall we continue to support this extremely hazardous technology with its frighteningly inadequate safeguards?
Two days ago we learned that Mochovce is to be built with Russian and Czech money.
I just marvel at all the things for which Russia has money.
French and German companies such as Siemens will help to build this dangerous nuclear centre. That is scandalous!
In Germany the same sort of reactor did not receive an operating licence.
It is truly scandalous!
Mochovce is a nightmare! It endangers the whole of central Europe.
Vienna is almost within sight of it.
How many million deaths does the EU need before it will agree to change its energy policy? We need different solutions in Ukraine, and we need different solutions throughout central Europe.
I do not want membership of the EU to be conferred on any country that jeopardizes the health and safety of the people of another country.
I now ask the Council whether its policy on Slovakia is changing as regards the talks on Union membership.
Mr President, on 20 December 1995, a memorandum of understanding was signed in Ottawa by the representatives of the G7, the European Commission and Ukraine.
This memorandum of understanding contains something good: the decision to shut down Chernobyl by the year 2000.
It also contains something very bad, however: the decision to complete work on the two nuclear power stations at Khmelnisky and Rovno.
For the House's information, the work of completing these two nuclear sites will be carried out by European firms: Electrabel of Belgium and Iveo of Finland, under the supervision of Electricité de France.
This decision is undoubtedly good for Western Europe's industries, which have run out of markets. However, it is clearly unacceptable, since these reactors will not conform to Western European standards, and because the decision was not based on a comparative analysis, for example to assess the impact on supply and demand.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, when we speak today about what lessons we have learned from the Chernobyl disaster - the full extent of which we are, of course, as yet unaware, since we do not know what consequences will be suffered by unborn generations or how the contaminated landscape will develop in years to come - I have to conclude that we have not learned the necessary lessons and that many years have passed without anyone taking the action that really ought to have been taken in the wake of the Chernobyl disaster.
How else could we speak today of the sarcophagus having so many cracks that repairs are necessary, and how else could we be saying today that it will take several years before the other Chernobyl reactors are decommissioned?
Commissioner, when you speak of reactor safety, it strikes me that safety cannot only mean better knowledge of the effects of radioactivity, but that reactor safety can be achieved when unsafe reactors are closed and when we in the European Union provide the countries of eastern and central Europe with appropriate financial and other resources, and by 'other resources' I mean energy-supply programmes, development programmes for different sources of energy.
Nuclear safety is indispensable, not only to the countries of central and eastern Europe but also to all the countries of the Union and the whole of Europe.
As an Austrian, I also wish to take this opportunity to express my total incomprehension of the decision reached by the Slovakian Government to press on with a technologically dubious plan to complete the construction of an unsafe reactor with funds that could have been put to better use a year ago to build a gas-turbine plant with which the energy demand of the population could have been met.
Madam President, let me just say this in conclusion: I understand the fascination that nuclear energy holds for scientists, but I believe we have become bogged down and that the lesson of Chernobyl would be to make an orderly retreat from this nuclear quagmire.
Madam President, I was here in Parliament when the Chernobyl explosion took place.
One of the clearest memories I have of that time is the rush with which many of our European governments ran to press to claim that in some mysterious way the contamination had wondrously blown away from their countries and not polluted their countries, so that they could sell their radishes, lettuces and cabbages without anyone assuming - horror of horrors - that they had also been affected by the disaster of Chernobyl.
Perhaps it was the appalling vista of the potential effects of that explosion that caused so many governments and individuals to run for cover; because they simply could not contemplate it.
The explosion and its aftermath were surrounded by a wall of secrecy - and indeed, in many cases, they continue to be surrounded by that wall of secrecy - and were largely ignored by the international scientific community, while a few heroic Russian scientists did all they could to contain the aftermath of that explosion.
It is now largely through the efforts of some highly motivated NGOs and some journalists that the full extent of the genetic time-bomb which was released in Chernobyl that day is revealed in its full horror.
The full impact of the radioactive fall-out on human health is still being assessed, and I do not believe adequately assessed.
Already we have seen a generation of children with grotesque and life-threatening malformations.
We have got a new word in our vocabulary now: the 'Belarus necklace' , applicable to a generation of children have had their throats slit from ear to ear to deal with their thyroid cancer.
We have done too little to alleviate the pain and distress of these children and their families.
Many generous families and medical specialists in my own country are doing splendid work, but the scale of the disaster requires a concentrated and coordinated world-wide response.
We must provide more medical help for these victims.
I fear that the potential consequences, should the downside of the nuclear industry become more widely evident, are probably too much for some of our Member States to bear.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ten years on from the disaster at Chernobyl we are beginning to understand its breadth and gravity.
We know the technical reasons for it today, we know that the RMVK reactor had an intrinsic design defect.
We know that at the time of the disaster the operators of Chernobyl acted too rashly and we know that the reactor did not have a containment housing to retain the radioactive material in the eventuality of an accident.
The responsibility lies with the operators then, but also with the scientists, consultants and politicians, and with the government for its handling of the emergency.
Today the Ukrainian government has massive problems to cope with involving incurable radiation sickness with unknown prognosis.
The terrible psychological stress on the people, largely linked to lack of information about the real risk, the forced exodus, the loss of the building stock, together represent an exorbitant economic and social cost.
Certain problems of a strictly nuclear nature remain open, and the fuel still in the reactor, the sites where highly radio-active waste is buried, and the actual sarcophagus, do not instil confidence.
All these problems are our concern, naturally they are the concern of the Ukraine first and foremost, but they are also our concern.
The Ukrainian government must respect the commitment to shut down the plant that is still operating, but the European Union has the duty to intervene with the breadth of measures necessary to remove the risk and take care of the casualties as far as possible.
Unsafe power stations must be closed, wherever they are, and a sensible energy policy encouraged, particularly in the eastern European countries.
That is the thrust of the joint resolution we have presented with other parliamentary colleagues and which we naturally support.
Madam President, the tenth anniversary of Chernobyl is full of flowery statements and costly conferences, but when it comes to discussing concrete international aid, we are fed with lies, sweet talk and duplicity.
What has happened to international responsibility when the IAEA in Vienna presents an international Chernobyl project based on the assumption that the health of the inhabitants of that region is not seriously endangered by the reactive contamination of Chernobyl? And this is done despite the fact that 200 reputable scientists from Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine have already identified an increase in cancer, leukaemia and organic brain damage.
For Belarus, the hardest-hit country, the equivalent of 31 annual budgets would be needed to establish some degree of control over the impact on man and nature.
That country cannot possibly afford to take such action.
That is why Belarus is pursuing a policy of rehabilitation, has cut social welfare and has legalized resettlement, and the whole thing is supported by TACIS aid, which is promoting economic development in highly irradiated areas.
As far as financial accountability is concerned, the nuclear operators could be made to bear responsibility for the risks by means of an international aid fund stocked by a risk levy on those operators.
Madam President, today, ten years after the Chernobyl disaster, we might have expected a reasonable discussion. I see, however, that once again, simplistic anti-nuclear populism is prevailing in the debate.
The ranks of those who say 'We just need to do this and that' swell from speech to speech, from debate to debate, and do not take us a single step forward.
At present - and this is the Council and the Commission's message, one which is perhaps a little disappointing, but nonetheless real - we have the G7's memorandum of understanding.
That is the basis of our approach.
Clearly, we do not have the resources, at European Union level, to conduct a large-scale action programme in this field.
We need an international agreement.
We have one. Perhaps some people do not like some aspects of that agreement.
Perhaps other solutions, other types of action, could have been envisaged, but we all know how difficult international negotiations are. We have this agreement, this memorandum, and we must stick to it.
Beyond that, is there room for the European Union to carry out more specific measures with its more modest resources? I believe that we could take action, for example - as Mrs Banotti mentioned - in the field of medical assistance.
Clearly, there are a number of medical and social problems that have not yet been adequately addressed in the regions concerned, which do not possess the facilities that we have.
This is a field in which the European Union could conduct an action programme.
It could also carry out a longer-term action programme in the area of the celebrated culture of nuclear safety, which was so lacking at the time of the Chernobyl disaster, and which will continue to be lacking in the future, even if we hand over fully operational, safe nuclear power stations to the people of Russia and Ukraine. In this area, Commissioner, perhaps you could submit to us a more specific proposal for discussion at a meeting in the near future, which I hope will be more constructive.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-inOffice of the Council, at this stage of the debate, I should like to begin by saying that today, the Chernobyl sarcophagus is an impossible symbol.
That is because no matter how many layers the sarcophagus has, there is something which will keep the reactor alive: the victims of the Chernobyl disaster.
I should therefore like the European Parliament's key message to the victims of the Chernobyl disaster today to be one of solidarity - solidarity which must translate into practical aid for the people of Ukraine.
I agree with Mr Desama that the memorandum of understanding is a positive initiative, which Parliament must in no way try to play down.
However, the issue of nuclear energy is a never-ending debate: on the one hand, there is the question of energy supply; and on the other, there are the questions of the increased consumption of nuclear energy and the large number of nuclear power stations existing in the world.
Consequently, there is a need for a substantial increase in both investment and the political will to take the necessary measures in the area of nuclear safety.
It is time to call for the opening of a new phase of nuclear safety, as regards both control of the dangers and treatment of the waste from nuclear power stations.
Commissioner, I would urge you to respond to the pressure from Parliament by bringing forward the economic proposals that it is calling for this afternoon, with a view to tackling the problem firmly.
Madam President, I had the opportunity at the beginning of the debate to put forward some very comprehensive observations about events which have happened, and so I would like to conclude with some comments to summarize the excellent debate which has taken place.
A common feature was everyone's very great concern about the past 10 years and whether a similar situation could arise, and I do not think that any of us today could rule out that possibility.
That is why, over the last 10 years, we have been very concerned to find out whether we could have managed things better than we managed the events surrounding Chernobyl.
There have been quite a lot of different figures put forward regarding the nature of the accident and the number of victims.
It is often the way that there are different measurements of this kind of thing.
I have based my information on WHO data, but it is not so much the numbers which should concern us, but rather the will to help the victims which we know there have been.
It seems to me that there has been too little acknowledgement of the work undertaken jointly by the Union, whether in regard to the necessary aid to the victims or medical preparedness and tighter safety measures to guard against future accidents.
I personally regard that as a very important effort over the 10 years.
I share the view that there is a need for a common energy policy, a need to find alternatives, and there have been many proposals mentioned in the debate in this respect, which I hope will be developed in the same way as I have noted a general interest in strengthening safety.
Also the last comments from Mr Sindal regarding the situation in Lithuania were instructive.
I do not, therefore, think that we have merely been talking.
I think that there has been international co-operation.
I believe, also, that considerable efforts have been made.
One may justifiably ask whether they are sufficient, and there I am in agreement with those who say, no, of course they are not, until the plant is closed down and new solutions found.
Both for Ukraine and the people of Ukraine, of course, not enough effort has been made, and until then there is a major task ahead of us.
Thank you for the debate.
Madam President, on behalf of the Council I have listened with great interest to what has been said, and I must say that I have learned a great deal: I have learned that this is an immensely complex and complicated problem in medical, social, technical and finally, energy terms.
A lot has been said, but I think many of the speeches have been a little unfair - I am particularly sorry that Mrs Estevan Bolea is no longer here - in claiming that neither Commissioner Bjerregaard nor the Council has produced anything other than words and nothing concrete has been done.
I do not think that is true and I do not think it is fair to say so, because the Commission has done everything possible: when it comes down to it, 4 billion dollars have been allocated in one way or another.
So it cannot be said that nothing has been done.
Certainly we must do far more, that seems obvious: we must do far more now and we will have to do far more in the future.
Let me say quite frankly that far more needs to be done in many respects, but I do not think it is possible to do everything for everyone in every case.
I would like to remind you that the other day, Saturday, in Brussels, the Pledging Conference on Bosnia was held and the States that took part committed 1, 230 million dollars for the rest of 1996.
So it cannot be said that the States are doing nothing and it certainly cannot be said that the European Union is doing nothing.
I would also like to make some detailed comments. A lot has been said about the Ukraine, and we naturally extend our solidarity to the Ukrainian delegation here today.
But we also need to talk about Belarus, which is suffering equally serious pollution and human and social damage.
I must tell Mr Linkohr in particular that it is not true that we do not know when Chernobyl is going to be closed, because a date is set in the memorandum of understanding: the year 2000.
I also want to say that Mrs Stirbois is right - she is not in the Chamber at the moment - that there are also power stations in the west which may present risks.
I think we must be objective about this problem and it is also necessary to think about the amount that would be needed and would have to be demanded not only of the Commission, which has large but limited resources, but also of the States. The States are trying to fight unemployment and help Chernobyl and Bosnia and the Rwandan and Liberian refugees all at the same time, and in the end I do not think the poor European Union States can do everything.
What I think the Council should say, in human terms and in terms of the sensitivity the States of the Union have always shown, is that what happened at Chernobyl should make us think carefully and increase our commitment, and, as a small aside, I hope Parliament will finally approve the TACIS regulation the day after tomorrow; it has been mentioned more than once but the Commission is currently applying it without the regulation because Parliament has not yet approved it.
I hope it will be approved as a further demonstration that Parliament is also determined to help on the Chernobyl issue.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Situation in the Middle East
The issue we now have to deal with is a very delicate, very complex and very difficult one.
The recent events in Lebanon are additional confirmation that the Middle East is still a volatile area, and it is no accident that the presidency, which I have the honour to represent here, has placed the Middle East and the Mediterranean in general amongst the priority areas in the interest of the Union.
The Union has done everything possible and has spared no effort to try to reach, or at least facilitate, a solution to the troubles in the Middle East.
Certainly Parliament has been informed of these efforts; certainly these efforts have always been deployed in close coordination with the United States; certainly there has been a common vision behind their development: security for everyone in the area, recognition of the existence and the right to exist of all the peoples of the area. But the vision has not always coincided; sometimes it has been complementary.
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Agnelli, spoke in this Chamber on 12 March to report on the deliberations which took place at the extraordinary Council of Palermo, the results of which were then confirmed at the extraordinary Conference of Sharm-el-Sheikh.
As you know, many steps have been taken subsequently in the midst of great difficulty, difficulty that certainly did not result from lack of determination on the part of the presidency, the Council and the Commission.
The troika was able to visit certain Middle Eastern capitals; in fact if I am not mistaken it is in Beirut or Damascus or Amman or Tel Aviv at this very moment.
It is making a four-day visit to the zone to try to achieve action on what was agreed in Palermo and decided in Sharm-el-sheikh, as well as to provide a useful point of contact at this delicate, difficult and dramatic time.
There have been some results, fewer than we would have hoped, it is true, but account has to be taken of the objective situation.
I would like to mention one as a reminder to us all: the visibility of the Union at the Palestinian elections last January.
I think that the European electoral unit which oversaw and monitored that election had considerable influence on ensuring an orderly course of events, as did some visits that the President-in-Office of the Council carried out during that period.
The Union has also made a significant commitment to the peace process, and not just this year, with support to Palestine and the Palestinian national government.
I think the European Union, strengthened by this record, has been in a position to express its concern about what is happening in Lebanon today.
The recommendation and the hope, all too obvious, is that violence will not breed violence, that chain reactions will not be triggered off and endanger the peace process.
The Member States of the Union regard the peace process as important because of the concrete results already achieved, and everyone is determined to do everything possible to prevent those achievements being compromised.
In summary, the objectives proposed by the Council and the Union are to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 425, urging all to exercise moderation, and above all to end military action.
All the countries involved are being asked to contribute, as far as possible, to a reduction in the level of tension and above all - I repeat - to abstain from the use of force.
The Union will also continue its efforts through direct contacts and visits at the political level to the countries of the area, to emphasize the commitments undertaken by the informal Council of Palermo of 10 March, that is, cooperation to combat terrorism but also the opportunity, the need and the duty to consider civilian and unarmed populations.
Ladies and gentlemen, the union - as I said at the start - reaffirms Israel's right to its own security and condemns the violence of Hizbollah which has caused a reaction by Israel.
But at the same time, the Union expresses its concern about the effects the Israeli reaction has had on the unarmed civilian population, and an emergency plan to assist the populations directly affected is being implemented.
In the last few days - let me repeat - the European Union has stepped up its action with the visit of the troika and through this diplomacy we hope to bring about or facilitate in any way we can the resumption of negotiations and ensure that the 1993 agreement between Israel and the Hizbollah constitutes a useful starting point.
I think this action is strengthened by what has been done over the last few years.
Certainly the European Union cannot do everything, nor is it alone in being able to do something, but it is certainly the most committed and it has long been committed, as it was in 1980, for example. It has now been committed to reestablishing justice in the area for 16 years.
The Italian presidency is maintaining that policy, especially by coordinating its own action with the countries of the area on the one hand, and with the United States and with Egypt on the other.
There is an American delegation in Rome at this very moment for that purpose.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to say I do not know what results the troika has achieved in the last few days in its contacts with Beirut, Amman, Damascus and Tel Aviv, or what conclusions it has been able to reach.
It hardly needs sating that the attention of the Council and of all the Member States represented by the Council is concentrated on this issue.
Next Monday's General Affairs Council in Luxembourg will definitely go further into the situation in the light of any information it has been possible to obtain.
Naturally, the presidency will not fail to keep Parliament informed, and the suggestions, advice and opinions expressed by this Assembly today will be especially valued by the presidency and the Council.
The problem is close to all our hearts and has dramatically worsened in the last few days and hours.
If I may add a personal comment, our task is not to pass judgement on who is wrong and who is right, but to save the civilians and save the peace.
Madam President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his report and we were particularly pleased to hear that the Troika are at this moment active in the region.
It is important that the European Council is seen to act through the Troika rather than just leaving actions to individual Member States of the Union, no matter how worthy and welcome those individual actions may be.
It is the action of the European Union that my group believes is crucial at this moment.
Those of us who have vested much hope and expectation in the Middle East process are today sad and despairing.
In this House we have paid fulsome tribute to our friends in this Israeli Labour Government who, by acting with courage and vision, began the process to lead the tormented Middle East out of conflict and towards a long-term peaceful solution.
On behalf of the Socialist Group today we extend our undiluted support for that peace process.
We offer our support as well to the Israeli Labour Government and those of their Arab neighbours who have met the challenge of peace and have become bigger men because of it.
Let us also not underestimate the immense provocation to which the Israeli people have been subjected and to which their Labour Government has steadfastly over months urged understanding and tolerance.
What were they supposed to do in the face of unprecedented murders, terrorism and sustained attack? While our intellect may tell us that this current action against Lebanon is not the right approach, our hearts, which have bled with the Israeli people for their dead and injured, have considerable sympathy with their predicament.
It is always more difficult to tell your friends and those you respect that you believe they are wrong.
Yet today my group urges Israel to stop the bombing and action in Lebanon which we believe cannot be right and cannot aid a long-term solution.
Rather it perpetuates hate, encourages yet more young Arabs to take up arms against Israel and it destabilizes Israel's friendly Arab neighbours.
We condemn utterly those in Lebanon who have permitted the attacks against Israel to continue from Lebanese territory.
We deplore the hand of Iran in this and look to Syria to exercise leverage in Lebanon if it truly seeks peace as its leaders so recently assured a delegation from my group that it did.
The European Union has a growing responsibility to support those seeking peace on its borders.
We owe it to Israel and to the Palestinians.
We owe it to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin and we owe it as well to Shimon Peres and to Yasser Arafat.
Of course we want Israel to stop the bombing that is causing such human misery to the civilian population in Lebanon.
But we also demand solidarity and real political commitment to support Israeli civilians against the terror of the extremists.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in the Middle East is now extremely grave and there is a long list of victims on all sides.
In the face of this reality, sad as it is for the prospect of peace, I wish the European Union had done much more than it already has.
This is not the right time to be critical, because the gravity of the situation and the rapid development of the facts demand that, even after the event, we must put forward a system of measures to deal with the crisis, despite the fact - and I cannot avoid saying this - that especially in this case we should have acted along preventive lines.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, given the situation that has developed today, the solution to the Middle East problem lies in the implementation of a system that includes, on the one hand, immediate measures to built trust, and on the other hand, long-term policies.
The immediate measures have four ingredients: on the one hand, an end to terrorist acts against Israel and provision of the security guarantees which that demands.
On the other hand, immediate cessation of bombardments by Israel and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the security zone in South Lebanon.
Long-term policy amounts in essence to just one thing - the continuation and support of the peace process already started.
So far as the immediate measures are concerned there are already, as you have mentioned, Mr President-in-Office, two initiatives: the French, and an American plan about which I, at least, only heard yesterday evening.
I am glad to hear you say that the Troika is there on the spot, and I would like to believe that this visit by the Troika will lead to a presentation by the European Union of a plan of its own.
So far as long-term policy is concerned, in other words the peace process, there is no doubt that to continue and support this process is the only guarantee of peace in the area.
However, this depends not only on developments inside Israel, not only on developments concerning the Palestinians, but also on positive intervention by the European Union towards other countries in the area which have a powerful influence on the developments I have mentioned.
In that sector we do in fact see substantial intervention and help, at least from the Commission.
Yet, still more initiatives are needed and must be undertaken by the Union.
I have already spoken about putting forward a range of trust-building measures to guarantee the continuation and support of the peace process.
No doubt there are other specific activities that could take place to make the most of such channels as the Union has already opened, but also - and why not - to open fresh ones as well.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a motion has been tabled which expresses the anxiety of all the political groups in this House.
On behalf of the European People's Party, I call for a vote in favour of that motion.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, our fear is that the escalation of violence in South Lebanon and northern Israel will undermine the Middle East peace process initiated by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat.
The first has already paid for his courageous commitment to peace with his life, and the position of the second is now being weakened by the new situation in the region.
The European Union and its Member States must do everything possible to prevent the logic of peace from being replaced by a logic of war, through a deadly sequence of events which no one is able to stop.
Firstly, we must forcefully reiterate our condemnation of all extremists: the Jewish extremists and their accomplices, who murdered Yitzhak Rabin; and the fanatics of Hamas and Hizbollah and their foreign sponsors - notably Iran - who have already committed, or are ready to commit, appalling attacks against innocent civilians.
We must reaffirm unequivocally the right of the Israeli people to live in peace and security within their internationally recognized and guaranteed borders.
At the same time, however, we must recognize, with equal formality and commitment, the right of the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples to live in peace within states whose territorial integrity and sovereignty must be recognized.
We must call on all the warring parties to show the spirit of conciliation that is needed for the continuation of the peace process.
It is hard to accept without comment the statement by the Israeli Prime Minister that it is too early to negotiate.
It is never too early to negotiate to stop a war: to say otherwise would be to admit that a war can be justified and to exclude any kind of preventive diplomacy.
No one doubts the ability of the Israeli army to destroy Hizbollah - but at the cost of how many 'martyrs' whose successors will demand vengeance?
Furthermore, there is nothing to say that this is the Israeli Government's objective - for is it not Syria, through poor Lebanon, which is its target?
Is it therefore reasonable to call on the head of the Lebanese Government to disarm Hizbollah, whilst continuing to occupy part of that country's territory?
Evacuation and disarmament must go hand in hand.
Today, it is the rebuilding of Lebanon which is being called into question.
How many years will it take to erase from the collective mind of the peoples of the region the painful memories of the present conflict and those which have preceded it? The solution to the conflict will not be military, but diplomatic.
The countries of Europe - notably Europe's Mediterranean states - which do not have a military presence in the region, but which have age-old ties of friendship with the peoples of the Middle East, all have a duty to offer their services as mediators, as France has done already.
Similarly, we are entitled to call on our American partner, the United States Government - whose opinion, we know, counts for a great deal with the Israeli Government - to play a mediating role.
We welcome the ceasefire plan proposed by the United States Government, but the ceasefire must be implemented without delay.
In particular, the Israeli air force's bombing raids on civilian targets in Lebanon must end immediately, because as the French Prime Minister said yesterday, they are unacceptable.
Naturally, the same goes for Hizbollah's rocket attacks on northern Israel.
We can only deplore the large numbers of civilian victims of the conflict and the misery of the displaced populations. Diplomacy must now prevail over bombs and rockets.
We must pray that the peace process will be resumed and continued. We all hoped that the murder of Yitzhak Rabin would not be in vain, but would serve the cause of peace and not that of war, as his assassins wished.
Now is the time to remember this, whilst imploring all those responsible for the current escalation of violence to rejoin the path of negotiation and peace, for tomorrow may be too late.
Madam President, Israel's current actions in South Lebanon do not constitute an attack, but a response to an attack.
This is the conviction which determines the Liberal Group's position, and which underlies its motion for a resolution and the fact that it does not subscribe to the joint motion for a resolution.
Indeed, we believe that, leaving aside the balanced and reasonable statement by the President-in-Office of the Council, the joint motion for a resolution considerably underestimates the pressure that Hizbollah has been exerting on northern Israel for several weeks, and the suffering of the inhabitants of Kyriat Shmona and the surrounding region.
Over and above the latest incidents, it should be observed that there is no territorial dispute between Lebanon and Israel, and that the conditions for peace will be met as soon as a free, sovereign and democratic Lebanon is reestablished.
In the present century, democracies have not waged war with one another.
Wars have always broken out between democracies and totalitarian or fanatical states, and that is what we are witnessing today.
It is for this reason that, whilst deploring the human tragedy currently being played out in the Middle East, we retain the hope that the peace process will not only be resumed, but extended.
In particular, we hope that a peace treaty between Israel and Lebanon - the Lebanon that we love - can also be signed.
Madam President, the Israeli bombing of Lebanon provokes our condemnation and concern.
It is plunging the defenceless Lebanese people into all the horrors of war - dead and wounded civilians, the destruction of property, and mass exodus.
And it is jeopardizing the entire peace process in the region, which gave rise to such hope.
Clearly, we can only condemn Hizbollah's blind attacks on the Israeli population.
Far from contributing to its security, however, Israel's bombing can only fan the flames of fundamentalism and encourage terrorism and its monstrous outrages. In this region, as elsewhere, the escalation of violence is a dead end.
Such a chain of events exposes the civilian population, which has such need of peace, to all the dangers of war.
We are calling for the immediate cessation of the Israeli bombing - which is endorsed by the Americans - and an immediate halt to all military action, as well as the granting of emergency humanitarian aid to the Lebanese refugees.
Everything possible must be done to save the peace process and build a lasting peace in the region.
This implies, first and foremost, respect for the sovereignty of peoples: with regard to Lebanon, through the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 425; and with regard to the Palestinians, through the return of the occupied territories and respect for the right to selfdetermination, the end of the sealing-off of the territories, and the implementation - finally - of the promised aid for reconstruction.
The European Union and each of its Member States must act to bring an end to Israel's military actions and bombing in Lebanon.
It must bring its full weight to bear to help the resumption of the peace process and the building of a lasting peace which guarantees the security of all the peoples of the region.
Madam President, the Greens condemn the Hizbollah attacks on northern Israel but at the same time we believe that Israel has gone far beyond what might be considered legitimate self-defence in its deliberate attacks which are forcing the mass flight of the civilian population and which, among other things, hit an ambulance the other day.
We believe that the peace process is now at risk - it must be continued.
We are happy to agree with the liberals that the peace process must be expanded to include Lebanon and Syria.
We demand that Israel stop the bombing immediately and enter into negotiations.
The Israelis must also show clearly that they are prepared to withdraw from Lebanon completely as part of an agreed peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Syria must use its influence to put an end to the Hizbollah action.
We condemn the attitude of the Iranian government and we urge the Commission to draw up a comprehensive plan for humanitarian aid for those who have suffered in the Israeli attacks.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the events of the last few days in Lebanon fill us with dismay, since they are threatening the peace process which we have welcomed from the start.
Certainly, we can and must understand the reaction of the Israeli Government, which cannot stand back and watch while terrorist attacks increase and its citizens are killed.
We can also understand the difficulties of Prime Minister Peres, who is facing elections and is obliged to demonstrate his firmness.
On the other hand, however, we can and must question the scale of Israel's military operations in Galilee and Lebanon, as well as the acts of violence committed against the civilian population, which is being forced to flee in appalling conditions.
And we can express our concern that Israel's response is a disproportionate one, all the more so in that it is impossible to see how the crisis can be resolved by force.
Ultimately, the outcome of Hamas and Hizbollah's appalling attacks and Israel's 'Grapes of wrath' retaliatory operation is a spiral of violence which is in danger of becoming out of control.
As for the international diplomatic initiatives, they are hardly likely to reassure us.
Firstly, I would comment on the almost total absence of the European Union, which once again has been overtaken by events.
Certainly, as you have just said, Mr President-in-Office, the Troika, represented by the political directors of the three foreign ministries, is paying a visit to the region, but in a very low-key way and without tangible results.
Furthermore, Israel will only talk to the United States, and seems to think that it is the only possible mediator.
The United States' peace plan has finally been examined by the opposing governments.
France, for its part, has attempted a number of measures, but without consulting the other Member States beforehand - which is hardly in keeping with the European spirit.
Also, the initiative which it was emphatically announced was intended to secure a ceasefire has progressively been downgraded to a modest fact-finding trip by the French Foreign Minister, Mr de Charrette - a trip based on the strange assumption, moreover, that Lebanon is a sovereign, independent state, whereas unfortunately we know that it is nothing of the kind, and that it is Syria which plays the decisive role in the region, whilst not forgetting the influence of Iran.
Neither Israel nor the United States make this mistaken assumption.
In the face of this mess, however, let us hope that the meeting next Friday between Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat will enable the region to emerge from this nightmare.
Madam President, after the suicide attacks by the Hamas the rocket assaults on Northern Israel by the Shiite Hizbollah movement show clearly how fragile the peace process is in the Middle East.
The freedom that Syria and in its wake Lebanon are giving to the actions of the Hizbollah is a major obstacle to reaching a definitive peace settlement.
It is unacceptable that this movement is allowed to wage such acts of aggression from Lebanese soil.
One basic principle of international law is that no country may make its territory available for enemy activities against another country.
The Israeli government is justified in its military actions of the last few days to do everything possible to protect its citizens on the border with Lebanon against the cowardly rocket attacks.
As diplomatic means had no chance of success they had no option other than this to defend themselves.
In the meantime Israel's actions are a clear warning to Syria and Lebanon to put a complete stop to the Hizbollah's activities on Lebanese territory.
They have sufficient means if only they have the political determination to do so.
I would therefore urge both the Council and the Commission to stress action against the Hizbollah in their contacts with both countries.
The independence of the Lebanese state must also be re-established by Syria and Iran ending their interference in Lebanon.
Finally developments in Lebanon form an additional reason to exert diplomatic pressure on Iran.
Iran is an important source of support and inspiration for the Hizbollah movement.
A signal from the European Union, as well as one from Israel, would not be out of place to show Iran clearly that sabotaging the peace process is not worthwhile.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once again, Lebanon is being battered and bruised in a war which the two rival powers in the region are waging on its territory.
Lebanon is occupied by Syria, which has set up a puppet government - the government of the multi-millionaire Ariri, the former friend and financier of Jacques Chirac, whose inane comments and promises to the Lebanese people can now be seen for what they are.
Syria arms the Hizbollah militias in their war - which it firmly controls - against Israel.
Hizbollah was created by and for Syria.
Given that the Israelis know and declare that the Syrian authorities are behind Hizbollah, therefore, why do they not hit Damascus - for that is where the movement's leaders live? Its arms dumps, barracks and training camps are all in Syria.
The truth is plain to see.
Israel and Syria have a cynical, immoral and dishonourable pact to keep the war in Lebanon, and the latest incidents are just an episode in this situation.
It is to Syria's advantage.
The war legitimizes its police and military regime and its occupation of Lebanon.
And it is to Israel's advantage.
An economically prosperous Lebanon would mean the return of Beirut as a strong financial centre, at the expense of Haifa and Tel Aviv.
So Israel's army destroys the power stations and the painstakingly rebuilt infrastructure in Christian territory in Lebanon.
Consequently, this pact suits both the Israeli Government - which is backed unconditionally by the United States - and, since the Gulf War, Syria's dictators.
Meanwhile, no one cares if little children in Iraq and Lebanon are dying.
For them, there are no human rights!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should not like to miss this opportunity to thank the presidency for their kind and helpful comments.
It was particularly valuable to learn that the Union had sent observers to the elections in Palestine.
From time to time you tell us, Mr President-in-Office, what the troika has been doing and what has been happening with the American delegation in Rome. Now, in the light of your comments, I can better understand why the French Government chose to go it alone.
I wish to begin with the common ground that has characterized the Middle East policy of the European Parliament for many years.
First of all, the European Parliament has unequivocally and emphatically condemned every act of terrorism, including today's Katyusha rocket attacks on northern Israel by the Hizbollah.
Secondly, irrespective of party and national allegiance, we in the European Parliament have welcomed and supported the peace process between Israel and the PLO.
Let me repeat the gist of what the late Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, said at the peace rally to explain his belief in the peace process and his commitment to it only a few minutes before he was assassinated.
'For many years' , he told the rally, ' I fought for my country on various fronts and gave everything to enforce a military solution for the sake of Israel's security and her right to live within secure borders.
Today I know that only the peace process, not military action, can achieve this.'
Mr Rabin, as a former hawk, was more able than anyone to convince people that there is only one way to solve the Israel-Palestine problem.
His conviction and his commitment to peace cost him his life.
Deaths, misery, expulsion and suffering are on our agenda today.
That is why this Parliament, which has spoken such clear words in the past, must turn to Israel today and tell it to stop the bombing and the expulsions in Lebanon right now!
Mr President, I can be brief because Mr Dimitrakopoulos has made many of the points that I would have wished to have made, and I welcome his reception of this statement and support for the joint resolution which will come before Parliament.
We were pleased and delighted when the peace process started and the agreement was reached.
Today I have heard talk from many people on the floor of this House about war.
I hope it is not war.
I hope it is an act of terrorism that we are seeing and that we can actually get back to the peace process and the continuation of the agreement.
Terrorism stops the peace process and I believe that some people have a lot to answer for at the present time, namely Hamas and Hizbollah.
Of course Syria is involved, and, of course, Syria must be a key player in the eventual solution.
We as a Community must act together and I am delighted to hear the President-inOffice say that the Troika is currently looking at the situation.
I hope that just looking at the situation actually produces some results, because we must get a solution!
We cannot, as a Community, keep depending on the United States to solve all the problems in the world, and that is what it currently looks like.
We must get up a little bit earlier, as President Clinton has advised us.
But we must also understand the Israeli response to the current situation.
I am convinced, having been to Israel a couple of times recently, that they seek and desire peace.
In the negotiations and in the agreement they have already given up a lot.
They have given much towards the peace process and yet we are not seeing the peace process being delivered from the other side.
I do not myself feel inclined, therefore, to condemn outright the Israeli response to what is happening at the present time.
When they were under attack, when their citizens were being killed, it was not easy for them.
We must look at the whole situation.
There is one government in the Middle East which is guilty of crimes within its own country as well as within the Middle East generally and that, of course, is Iran.
We need concerted action from the Community, we need coordinated action, and I hope that the Troika can deliver it.
Mr President, this Parliament has expressed on numerous occasions its unequivocal support for the Middle East peace process initiated by the Oslo Agreements.
With equal firmness, it has condemned the terrorist attacks which directly threaten that process by sustaining a familiar strategy of raising tension.
It has also said, though, that combating terrorism effectively means bringing an end to the conditions which provide its breedingground.
The terrorists of Hamas, for example, will not be eliminated by sealing off the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or by keeping thousands of Palestinians in prison - measures which are causing an increase in unemployment, and a deterioration in the living conditions of the people in those territories.
Rather, they will be eliminated by strictly complying with the commitments made to the Palestinian National Authority.
Similarly, the Israeli army's disproportionate attacks against Lebanon will not succeed in stopping Hizbollah's bombardment of Israeli civilians.
Moreover, those attacks are causing numerous civilian casualties, including children.
And, above all, they are seriously undermining the stability which the region desperately needs, as well as the peace process as a whole.
Israel must cease its military actions against Lebanon and comply with the relevant international resolutions, in particular UN Security Council Resolutions 425, 508 and 509, which call for its withdrawal from South Lebanon.
It is not possible for such serious action to be taken purely on the basis of electoral considerations - unless the fact is that the hawks in the Israeli army are daily gaining ground in Tel Aviv.
If Israel complies with those international resolutions, Hizbollah and its sponsors will be isolated and deprived of all justification for their actions.
The European Union must take action along these lines - collectively, and not in the form of isolated initiatives - if it does not wish to continue merely financing the strategies of powers outside the region, and if it wishes to play a part in restoring peace to the region, something which is vital to the success of projects such as the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement.
Association agreements, Mr President, must be made conditional on compliance with international resolutions and the non-use of military means to resolve problems.
Mr President, all reasonable people know that no problem can ever be solved by war, in the Middle East or anywhere else.
And no one can remain indifferent to the suffering of civilian populations, in Lebanon or elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the State of Israel, which has demonstrated its desire for peace, and which has already paid a very high price, cannot allow terrorist movements to strike at its very heart by launching rocket attacks on its towns and villages.
The terrorist movements responsible for these actions, these murders, have been clearly identified.
They have the backing and financial support of a terrorist state - Iran - and operate from Lebanon, a country which is largely under the military control of Syria.
These terrorist movements must therefore be eradicated once and for all. To this end, Iran must be ostracized by Europe, and Syria must be forced to the negotiating table.
On this basis, peace - a genuine peace - can be restored, and poor Lebanon, rid at last of war and all its consequences, can begin to enjoy the normal life of an independent state.
The European Parliament must take action along these lines, thereby assisting the peace process and its architects on the ground.
It must unequivocally demand the ending of all negotiations and all contact with Iran, until that country condemns terrorism.
Similarly, it must obtain an undertaking from Syria - with which the European Union has ties - to join in the peace process and stop giving the impression of a country that is playing a double game.
Peace in the Middle East depends on this far more than on resolutions.
In this respect, in our words and deeds, we must all be resolute, determined and specific.
Mr President, I should firstly like to say that I agree with many of the major points that Mrs Green and Mr Sakellariou have made about this conflict.
I shall therefore take this opportunity to make a number of other points, which may be minor ones, but which I believe need to be highlighted.
First and foremost, I wish to say that here in the House, we have absolutely no doubts about the need for Israel's security, and we have condemned and deplored the terrorist attacks of which the Israeli people have been victims.
I had the opportunity to attend the Palestinian elections as an observer for the European Parliament.
On the one hand, I saw a happy and hopeful Palestinian population which was enjoying a new-found dignity, and I believe that all of us there had that impression.
On the other hand, a number of the Palestinians to whom we spoke - not all of whom lived in the territories - did not share this happiness; they were not always able to give us comprehensible reasons for this, and we sometimes had the feeling that their reasons were inexplicable.
Today, Yasser Arafat's government and people are fighting terrorism.
And I heard a short while ago, at a meeting held in this very building, that the Israeli ambassador recognizes and welcomes this fact.
And I think it is clear that no one in this Chamber wishes to see a return to the logic of violence either.
Today, at a time when we are greatly mourning the loss of Yitzhak Rabin, we fear that the escalation of violence - as is always the case - may take on a logic beyond all reason and control.
The European Union has established, albeit timidly, a framework for dialogue.
It persuaded the Syrians and Israelis to sit down at the same table at the Barcelona Conference.
It played a fundamental role in the Palestinian elections.
I therefore call on the European Union to use all its powers - which are not always visible, or as great as we would wish - to ensure the cessation of the attacks and to bring the parties back within the still shaky framework for dialogue which it has established.
Mr President, we all sympathized with the Israeli government, and very rightly so, when it was facing the problem of attacks by Hamas which brought great loss of life, and when the Prime Minister of Israel, Mr Yitzhak Rabin, was assassinated.
I am afraid, however, that those who put arms into the hand of the Israeli Prime Minister's assassin are in the end starting to influence and determine Israel's policy and the dynamics of its position.
Because everyone recognizes the right to self defence, but it is a right that must be exercised with complete and strict self restraint.
Here, we now have aggressive action on the part of the Israeli government, we have barbarous, foolish and dangerous acts.
And from that standpoint I think those acts should be condemned by the European Union, the United States, and by every international agency.
At this time, the important efforts made by the European Union at the Barcelona Conference, with an open Mediterranean policy which presupposed the furtherance of the Middle East peace process, is literally at risk of being blasted to bits.
I believe that to a large extent this can be attributed to an inadequate presence of the Council of Ministers in the Middle East crisis, perhaps related to the internal problems of the country exercising the presidency, while in fact Italy, owing to its position, its geographical position, and its historical ties, could have played a very important role.
I think it is very important that we should now demand that Israel must stop its activities immediately and that the stage should be set for a dialogue between Syria, Lebanon and Israel, leading on the one hand to a total cessation of terrorist acts by Hizbollah from Lebanese soil and on the other hand to the complete withdrawal of Israel from Lebanese territory.
With this opportunity, however, Mr President, I want to express my concern about the recent defence cooperation agreement between Israel and Turkey, which has resulted in a link between two great crises, the Middle East crisis and the Greece-Turkey crisis, and which could lead to more general and more widespread problems in the area.
Mr President, in the path of justice is life, says the Bible in chapter 12 of the Book of Proverbs.
That is the motto of next year's congress of the Protestant Church in Germany.
Without justice there is no life and no peace.
It is in three different capacities that I address the following requests to the Middle East, to its competent representatives: first of all as Europeans we have to agree that we too are responsible for stability and peace in the region; secondly, as German Europeans we have a special responsibility to ensure that peace reigns in Israel and that the State of Israel can live within secure borders; thirdly, as chairman of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries and the Gulf States, I shall be in the region next month with colleagues from the European Parliament, visiting Syria, Jordan and Lebanon; our official parliamentary delegation will convey the clear message that we want peace in the Middle East and that anyone who destroys peace there through acts of terrorism will thereby become an adversary and an enemy of Europe.
I urge the Hizbollah and their backers to stop firing on northern Israel, to call a halt to terrorism and to accept the offer of negotiations.
We want to amend point 5 of the resolution, which I believe would make it acceptable.
Our aim as Europeans is not only to secure peace in Europe but to secure stability and peace all around us, not only for Christian reasons but because it is better for all concerned that peace should prevail in this and other regions of the world.
We Europeans believe in the peace process that Mr Rabin initiated, and we shall do everything in our power to ensure the success of that process.
Mr President, following on from what the President-in-Office of the Council said in his introduction I would just repeat that the Commission also shares the concern at the current escalation of events in the Middle East and is more than willing to study where humanitarian aid is needed so that we can contribute in that action.
Mr President, at the same time the Commission is convinced that first of all an end must be put to terrorism.
But even in a mediating role, such as presidency, troika, United States, France, one cannot be blind to the truth of cause and effect and the Commission can at all events agree with those who say that one may wonder how much account Israel has taken of proportionality, but the fact that the Israeli action was an answer to Hizbollah provocations cannot be denied, because that would not bring a solution any closer.
We also believe that Syria and Iran should also be approached about the role of Hizbollah in Lebanon.
The Commission is also of the opinion that Resolutions 425 and 508 of the Security Council must be respected.
It also believed that Israel has shown willingness to make sacrifices for peace in the past year, and has also done so, as has been mentioned today; until such time as a peace settlement has been reached with Syria there is little realistic chance of insisting on the implementation of Resolution 425 as we all know that when a peace settlement is reached with Syria it will have to include a settlement for the integrity and independence of Lebanon; then Lebanon will really be able to guarantee, possibly with aid from neighbouring countries, that there will be no attacks on Israel from its territory.
Mr President, I agree with the feeling in this House that does not wish to polemicise.
This is about maintaining the peace process and the peace process is today at stake.
But there is a difference between taking action precisely to save the peace process or taking terrorist action to torpedo it.
I feel that this distinction must be clearly made.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council has listened to a debate of high moral tone, if I may say so, and also of great political support for action the European Union, the Council, the Commission and all the Member States may take at an objectively difficult time.
Without seeking to reply to individual Members who have spoken, I would like to make two or three comments.
One is also about method: I must tell you frankly - and I say this more on my own behalf than on behalf of the Council - that European Union foreign policy measures cannot always be taken at the speed that may be required.
There is a necessary and objective process of joint planning which can be an advantage but may also, as in this case, be a disadvantage of the European Union.
The crisis broke last week, and as Commissioner Van den Broek put it, very well I think, it involves an evaluation of degree, which is difficult and needs to weighed with great wisdom because no-one can deny - and this has been the attitude of all the Member States of the European Union, at Palermo and then in a wider spectrum of nations at Sharm-el-Sheikh - that terrorism must be condemned and countries supporting terrorism or even suspected of it must be given some kind of warning.
In fact the troika went to Teheran on 2 April, that is, after Sharm-el-Sheikh and before the current crisis.
Nevertheless there was terrorist aggression by Hizbollah and the Israelis reacted, and we now have to weigh that not in a pharmacist's scales - where human suffering is involved we cannot pick over who did the most and who is at fault - but politically, to save the peace process as far as possible.
Various comments have been made about Syria and its attitude, about Lebanon which is suffering from the violence of others, but also about Israel's patience and determination to achieve peace as demonstrated over all these months, about the terrorist attacks inside the country, and about the sacrifice of Yitzhak Rabin, and I would say in homage to him that it was an almost classical sacrifice to the peace process.
All this must be considered when intervention is described as too slow - although that is true, there is no denying it.
I would like to say that the presidency, all of us, were already doing everything possible last week to try to find suitable ways of ending this process, through contacts which are not always public - Mr Pettinari will forgive me - because of the delicacy and caution required not to break the threads of the fabric, the sometimes very delicate weave of a peace process which in itself is extremely fragile because it depends not just on governments but also on zealous or fanatical splinter groups.
I would like to make two or three more points.
I think the initiatives of individual countries, appreciable and noble and important though they may be, and that is how they are described in a communication to the President of 15 April, but the efforts of each country to contribute to the extent of its influence, weight and tradition certainly need to be coordinated with the Community's general measures.
In this case France certainly took a very noble initiative and the presidency was in fact informed and it was implemented in a way that made it part of a collective plan, a common design.
This is, I repeat, an extremely delicate issue, and if it is to be handled successfully I do not think everything can be made public. Sometimes matters have to be discussed with extreme caution.
The objective is to involve everyone in a peace process, every zone in the area, every country and every effort they can make towards it.
Today, at this very moment, American Under-Secretary Peltow is in Rome to try to coordinate joint action with the presidency in the hope that this can have some effect.
And here I would like to remind you that on the 29th the follow-up to Sharm-el-Sheikh will be held in Luxembourg in a Community setting.
To demonstrate that the presidency of the Council intends to keep Parliament informed of these important events, I will tell you what has been communicated to me at this time. The troika is also going to Tel Aviv, a stage which was not planned for the first tour, and through the contacts made in the two day tour of Amman, Beirut, Cairo and Tel Aviv, it is seeking to restore vitality to the 1993 understanding between the Hizbollah and Israel, which I mentioned earlier, and put an end to the crisis.
In addition to this, other ideas have been outlined and the American Under-Secretary is examining them today in Rome.
This delegation is not just at the level of policy directors, Mr Lalumière, but involves Under-Secretaries of State, and that is precisely to give the troika's mission not only a functional value but a higher political profile to increase its importance and, as far as possible, send a political signal from the European Union.
At the moment the troika delegation is in Cairo, tomorrow it will be in Damascus, and the day after tomorrow in Tel Aviv.
In addition to this, it is necessary to think about a new form of involvement in this plan of ours and about the forces in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Egypt, and throughout the area which can restore the peace.
Some things are still in the pipeline so I cannot go into as much detail as I would like.
But I want to assure Parliament and honourable Members that all of us, the Council, the presidency, the Member States, quite clearly regard this as an issue of the greatest importance.
Mr Alavanos is right that it is in fact of special interest to Italy, for obvious reasons it seems to me, but unfortunately Italy is not acting alone and there are many things to be considered.
The point is very simple: we have to do everything possible, but not pass judgement, which is very difficult to do at the moment, faced with the suffering of the Israeli people and, of course, of the people of Lebanon.
It does not help to pass judgement on who is in the wrong and who is in the right at a time like this: what will help is doing everything we can to prevent a very difficult and fragile peace process from breaking down because of irresponsible acts of terrorism and, as one honourable Member said, this Parliament should not talk only of peace when it is still to be achieved.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 12 noon tomorrow.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-0431/96).
I regret that we are down to one hour rather than the usual one and a half hours.
Therefore, I shall allow a supplementary question from the original questioner plus one other rather than the usual two.
Mr President, you have said the we have just one hour.
It is scandalous that it is reduced that way.
In fact we have only 48 minutes.
I beg you to present something to the presidency.
It is intolerable that one of the major rights of Parliament - to ask questions - is not being fulfilled.
It really is intolerable, what is happening now.
Mr von Habsburg, I am totally in agreement with you.
I constantly bring this matter up both in writing to the President and to the heads of the political groups.
I do not seem to be making much progress but perhaps together we can have another go.
I intend to have one hour of questions even though this goes beyond 7 p.m.
I hope that the interpreters will be agreeable to this because it always depends on their cooperation.
If I am not mistaken, this question comes from Mr Bertens. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it would be almost a platitude to reiterate how deeply all of us in the Council cherish the freedom of the press and how determined we all are that the freedom of journalists should be assured, even in crisis areas.
But I think it would be difficult to give journalists the support Mr Bertens would like to them to have.
I assume that when Mr Bertens refers to crisis areas he means areas in a state of civil war, with a real war in progress. I imagine that is what he is referring to.
However it does not seem to me that these crisis areas are located, except in an extremely limited way, inside the territory of the Member States of the Union and therefore, if I have understood correctly, he means journalists operating outside Europe, in third countries.
In that case, I think it may be very difficult for the Union and the Council to intervene in a coordinated way on behalf of people whose job is to provide us with information, as none of us are in a position to guarantee the safety we would certainly like to afford them.
The Union provides all possible moral and political support, but I am fully aware that such support is symbolic rather than actual.
I think it is right to put on record that we owe our journalists a great deal for their commitment in going into these areas. But apart from any action the individual States may be able to take through the usual diplomatic channels, frankly I do not see how the Union can help journalists in difficulty apart from giving them moral support which is admittedly not very much.
But we simply do not have the means to take more concrete action.
Mr Ferraris, thank you very much for your answer which proves yet once more that Italians may perhaps think more in symbols and Dutch probably more in effective measures.
This question was tabled on the basis of a report in my name which was unanimously adopted on 6 December 1993 and which dealt with the protection of journalists on dangerous missions and in which - and I shall not dwell in the realms of philosophy - we called for practical aid to be given to journalists in trouble by setting up a 'coordination centre to collect information and grant specific aid' .
This coordination centre was to have a direct link with the European institutions to facilitate adequate political action.
I did this in conjunction with all international and national journalists' organisations, and I am now asking you why I have not to date even received an acknowledgment of receipt.
I trust you will do something about that.
Thank you for that clarification, Mr Bertens, which is very useful indeed and I can only reply in all honesty that I take note of your request.
I believe it is up to the Member States to provide journalists with the normal consular or diplomatic protection and I support them in that commitment, however I take note of your suggestion and if I may I will get back to you on this as soon as possible.
Question No 2 by Concepció Ferrer (H-0211/96)
Subject: Plan for joint action to combat racism and xenophobia
Given the fundamental differences between the UK and the other Member States regarding the plan for joint action to strengthen judicial cooperation in the area of combating racism,
Does the Council intend to maintain the broad thrust of the initial plan?
Does it not believe that the objectives of the proposed action would be difficult to achieve if the British position were to prevail?
At the Council session of 19 and 20 March 1996, the Member States supported a proposal from the Italian presidency to amend the text of a joint action plan, which had in fact already been presented by the Italian presidency.
Account was taken of certain reservations of Dutch MEPs, and others of a linguistic nature.
The text we proposed takes account of certain comments made by the United Kingdom delegation in particular and is broadly based on the plan examined by the Council in November 1995.
This text is intended to establish legal cooperation on the instructions for drafting the leaflet on conduct that can be described as racist or xenophobic.
The purpose of this cooperation is to ensure that such conduct is subject to criminal sanctions or covered by exemptions under the principle of double jeopardy.
In addition to better legal cooperation, the plan provides for the adoption of appropriate measures in specific sectors, for example the seizure and confiscation of texts, pictures, or other documents which incite to racist or xenophobic conduct, in the course of enquiries or legal action relating to matters liable to be criminally listed as indicative of racism or xenophobia.
For its part, the Italian presidency will do everything possible to ensure that this plan can be approved before our presidency ends.
It goes without saying that we consider it the duty of every free citizen to condemn racism and xenophobia.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for your answer to my question, which was in fact tabled before the Council adopted its decision.
I was moved to ask it by my concern at the apparent impossibility - given the doubts and reservations of the British Government - of a text of this kind, which is so necessary and important, being adopted in due course.
Let us not forget that racism and xenophobia are a great problem, which requires action on the scale of that which the Council and, more specifically, the Italian presidency are in favour of taking.
Consequently, I simply wish to thank you for your answer and welcome the proposed action.
I would like to congratulate the Italian presidency on the way it has promoted this issue of taking action to combat racism and xenophobia at the European level as well as at local and national level.
I am dismayed at the negative attitude of my own government.
Will the Council make every effort to try and persuade the British Government that we need to take action at the European level as well as anything else we do? Could I also ask the President-in-Office if the final decision on action in this area will be taken by unanimity or by a qualified majority?
This time the honourable Member has me in difficulties, because I do not know the answer.
I say that sincerely.
I venture to suggest that a decision like this, condemning racism and xenophobia, would be unanimous.
It would be surprising if the fifteen were not unanimous on this subject.
I want to say that the presidency and the Council are aware that this decision alone cannot reduce racism and xenophobia.
It needs to be translated into action in prevention, in youth exchanges, in the Euro-Mediterranean project, and so on.
Ladies and gentlemen, our condemnation of racism and xenophobia cannot be limited to legislation to prevent it.
There is a need to promote moral action, because if the European Parliament and the European Union are not in a position to combat racism and xenophobia, they will be failing in one of their duties.
Question No 3 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0213/96)
Subject: Position of the Council regarding the crisis between Greece and Turkey
In a resolution of 15 February 1996 the European Parliament deplored 'the failure of the European Union and its Member States in this crisis to take effective action within the framework of the common foreign and security policy' .
At its meeting of 26 February 1996 the Council was also unable to adopt a position because the United Kingdom exercised its right of veto.
Will the Council say how it intends to express its solidarity towards the Member State in respect of which Turkey has threatened the use of force (casus belli), should it choose to exercise its legal rights, such as its right of sovereignty over its own territory, and how it will oblige Turkey to maintain good-neighbourly relations with this country, in accordance with the terms of Customs Union?
Does the Council consider that such a position is conducive to the idea of a common foreign and security policy?
Mr Alavanos' question is also quite difficult and delicate at this time.
As you know, the Council and the presidency have devoted great attention to the problem of the conflict, or rather - because I prefer not to talk about conflict - the difference of opinion between Greece and Turkey in the Aegean Sea and we have several times expressed our concern as well as our determination to prevent this friction between Greece and Turkey.
This was repeated in the Association Council and again in the General Affairs Council just last month and I believe action has been initiated not only by the presidency but also by the Commission, in particular by Commissioner Van den Broek, to try to persuade the two parties to show moderation. While expressing solidarity with Greece, ladies and gentlemen, we are also taking account of the importance of Turkey, and that has already been said to you on other occasions.
A little while ago Mr Alavanos quite rightly spoke about the importance of equilibrium in the Mediterranean. He was referring to the Middle East and also recalling the difficulties between Greece and Turkey.
I certainly do not think the presidency can be reproached for not devoting every effort to ensuring that these disputes could somehow be resolved through talks, in the interests of both countries, in the interests of the region - and by region I mean something very specific - and hence in the interests of stability in Europe.
I thank Mr Ferraris and in every way echo the wishes he has expressed.
Nevertheless, I would like to reiterate what my question says, namely that the European Parliament and not the Greek MEPs, the Plenary of the European Parliament deplored the failure of the European Union and the Council to take effective action within the framework of the CFSP so far as the GreeceTurkey crisis is concerned.
And I now want to make my question completely specific on the basis of recent developments, namely the failure to convene the Council of Association.
Is the presidency of the Council prepared to submit any constructive proposals for the Council of Association to be convened again, including a commitment to reject the use of force between Greece and Turkey and a commitment by all sides that in the specific crisis relating to the islet of Imia the path followed will be that of international methods for the peaceful solution of crises, such as recourse to the International Court of the Hague?
I ask for a specific answer from the President-in-Office.
Mr Alavanos is right in a sense, but if it were possible to give a more definite reply, the problem would already have been solved.
The difficulty actually lies in trying to identify the possibility of genuine terms for a solution between the two parties involved.
Mr Alavanos, you are aware of the significance of the statement made by Mr Jimas, the President of the Turkish Council, a few days ago in Brussels at the last General Affairs Council and the efforts made by the presidency to reach an understanding with the other members of the General Affairs Council, so that the meeting of the Association Council with Turkey, which should have taken place on 26 March, should not be cancelled but only postponed.
This is a very delicate issue, as Mr Alavanos knows, but I ask you to trust in the presidency's very active commitment and, if I may say so, very personal commitment as well, to trying to achieve what Mr Alavanos is calling for and what it is in our interests to achieve.
Question No 4 by Carmen Fraga Estévez (H-0225/96)
Subject: Decision by the US Court of International Trade
In February 1996 the US Court of International Trade recognized that there was clear evidence that Italy was infringing UN resolutions on the use of driftnets limiting their maximum length to 2.5 km.
If the situation is not rectified within three months the United States will ban the import into its territory of fish and fish products originating in Italy; given the existence of the single market, this could affect the rest of the European Union as well.
Does the Council not agree that there is a need to ban the use of such fisheries equipment in the Mediterranean as soon as possible, in order to avoid a trade war with the United States?
Thank you, Mr President. In the first place I want to point out that the Council is not in the habit of evaluating or commenting on decisions, acts or statements made outside its own meetings by persons or organizations external to the Council.
I do not think that would be correct.
In general we believe that our Community legislation conforms to United Nations resolutions.
As to the implementation of Community legislation, it is obvious that it is up to the Commission to ensure that the provisions in force as regards management and conservation of fisheries resources are respected, in this case Council regulation 345/92 which prohibits any Community fishing vessel from using driftnets exceeding 2.5 km, irrespective of which waters it is fishing, with the single exception of the Baltic Sea which is subject to a special regulation.
I would also like to draw Mrs Fraga Estévez' attention to the fact that the Council is currently examining a Commission proposal for a total ban on driftnets, in the light of the opinion expressed by the European Parliament.
This proposal will be discussed at the next meeting of the Fisheries Council on 22 April 1996, as I have already stated in replying to other questions three weeks ago.
In fact the Council has never had occasion up to now to discuss the specific facts mentioned in the question, so I do not think there is any more I can say in answer to Mrs Fraga Estévez.
I would like to make two comments.
The first is a general one on your complaint about the delays, Mrs Fraga Estévez.
Unless I am misinformed, there are difficulties within the Fisheries Council because opinions differ on this issue and it is therefore hard to achieve unanimity and reach a decision on the lines you indicate.
The second comment is that, in our opinion, our standards are in line with those of the United Nations and therefore I must infer that the attitude of the United States is wrong.
Finally as regards your specific question as to whether Italy intends to react within 30 days of a certain date not known to me, I will find out and if you are interested I will let you know.
That question is put to me as an Italian and not as the representative of the presidency, so I will find out and make a point of giving you the details.
I was very surprised by the reply from the Presidentin-Office.
He said that the Council was not in the habit of commenting on the decisions of organizations other than itself.
The fact is, however, that this is a decision by the Court of International Trade of a foreign power - the United States - which may have the effect of restricting the Community's exports, and the Council can do one of two things: either it can take no action, or it can take action.
If it decides to take no action, that will mean that it accepts the accusations.
In that case, it must resolve to put the Community's house in order.
If it decides to take action, because it believes that the United States has violated world trade rules, then it will have to take the matter to the World Trade Organization.
My question is: does the Council intend to defend the Community's fisheries exports by lodging a complaint against the United States with the World Trade Organization? Or does it, on the contrary, intend to accept the export ban?
If that is the case, it will have to draw up a policy to ensure compliance with United Nations rules in the fisheries sector.
You are right in a sense, Mr Arias Cañete, but first I would like to make one thing clear.
If I understood your comment correctly, it was not a decision of an international court, but a United States court, so with all due respect to the United States, it is a court of a third country.
Secondly, the actions of a United States court cannot have extra-territorial effect, they cannot have effect outside the United States.
In the third place it seems to us that these provisions, as they have been described, are incompatible with the decisions of the Uruguay Round on free trade.
In the fourth and last place, I can assure you, and this should give you some satisfaction, that in our view the question should obviously be put to the World Trade Organization authorities, which are not yet fully established unfortunately and that is why it is actually difficult to know what to do.
So I would ask you not to press me any further and I will do what I can.
The Council is most grateful for the very specific information you have given me.
Question No 5 by Michl Ebner (H-0233/96)
Subject: Protection of minorities in Member States of the Union
In view of the fact that many conflicts could be avoided by timely protection of minorities and that neither the Treaty of Rome nor that of Maastricht contain provisions governing the protection of national minorities, will the Council state in what form the rights of minorities in the Member States of the Union are to be enshrined at the 1996 IGC?
I do not think it will be difficult for Mr Ebner to understand my thinking on the subject of what has been done by the Council and by Italy on the principle of respect for minority nationalities.
At this point it should be remembered how much the European Union, the individual Member States and Italy have been doing progressively over the last few years to advance the recognition of documents relating to minorities, like the Charters of Copenhagen and Moscow, in the context of the ex-ECSC, now the ECSO.
Certainly nothing is said about this in the Maastricht Treaty - there Mr Ebner is right - there is no explicit mention, in fact, except in the general area of the defence of human rights.
I would like to remind Mr Ebner and other Members that at the very first meeting the other day of the Intergovernmental Conference at senior official level, it was decided to make the question of what might be called the chapter on the rights of European citizens a priority.
The rights of European citizens cover all the expressions of freedom.
Furthermore, the European Parliament is associated in the work of the Intergovernmental Conference, in the form you are aware of, and I think Italy as a country, certainly, and the presidency as long as Italy is in office, will always welcome anything that can heighten, enrich and make more meaningful the protection of minorities as they exist today in Community Europe and as they will exist in the enlarged Europe of tomorrow.
I do not know whether I am speaking on behalf of the Council or on behalf of Italy, Mr Ebner, but you know my views and you are fully aware that we must all have this issue of minorities very much at heart.
In fact, minorities in all their forms are one of the greatest living demonstrations and one of the most vital elements of the protection of the citizens of Europe, in their diversity of language, culture, and sometimes religion.
All this is part of the heritage of a Europe which belongs as much to its minorities as it belongs to all its citizens.
Count Ferraris, I am sincerely grateful both for what you have said and above all for what has been done in the past on this issue.
In this context, however, may I also intimate that, although the European Parliament wished and called, through the Reflection Group, for a clear and unequivocal opinion on consideration of minority rights, and although the subject was dealt with by the Reflection Group, the latter did not include the question of minorities in its report.
That is a great pity, and I believe that the demand made by the European Parliament in the Maij-Weggen/Dury report underlines this.
We hope that the subject of human rights which you mentioned will include the codification, or at least an acknowledgement, of the rights of minorities and will not be confined to non-discrimination, for as far as minorities are concerned non-discrimination is certainly not enough.
I think I can also say on behalf of the Council that this is non-discrimination: but that would be a long debate and I do not want to go into detail.
I would like to suggest that Parliament returns to this issue.
It is true it was not mentioned, but that was for the sake of brevity, not out of ill will.
I think point 4.13 of Parliament's resolution on Europe's support for the recognition of cultural diversity ought to be taken up.
Personally I hope that Parliament will seek to bring up this point when participating in the Intergovernmental Conference, because it is an intrinsic part of the heritage of rights of European citizens.
Mr President-in-Office, your answers have been excellent, but I am afraid the same cannot be said of the situation itself.
If we added all of the national minorities or ethnic groups in the European Union together, particularly after enlargement, they would constitute the second-largest Member State.
This, then, is a very sizeable problem.
At the moment, the preamble to the Europe Agreements contains an obligation to protect minorities.
When these states accede to the Union, however, this obligation will cease to apply.
The Intergovernmental Conference, of course, has a mandate to prepare the Community for enlargement, and I cannot imagine how the Community can be enlarged without an internal mechanism for the protection of minorities.
Otherwise many problems from central and eastern Europe will be imported into the European Union.
I have difficulty answering you, Mr Posselt, because I have already mentioned the importance of this issue in relation to the enlargement myself.
Let me repeat that we are at the start of an Intergovernmental Conference. This is a very important point and it needs to be raised.
The European Parliament is associated with the work of the Intergovernmental Conference, so it can propose something along these lines and I am sure that the governments will have no difficulty accepting it.
I entirely agree with you that it is an issue we need to resolve internally, before the enlargement produces further problems.
Furthermore, speaking as an Italian - I think Mr Ebner gave me credit for this - I believe we have done everything possible.
Problems will never be entirely solved; total satisfaction will never be possible!
Otherwise we would not be human, we would be divine.
Frankly you place me in difficulty, because I am personally completely convinced of the importance of the minorities and so I think there would be full support from us, certainly from Italy, but also from all the countries of the Community for an issue which is important because - I repeat - it is an expression of freedom.
Question No 6 by Christine Oddy (H-0247/96)
Subject: Sri Lanka
What steps does the Council intend to take to ensure that urgently required medical aid is sent to Northern Sri Lanka?
I think I have already replied in the past to questions about Sri Lanka and my reply to Ms Oddy is that the European Union is very concerned.
Obviously it is following the situation in Sri Lanka closely, it has repeatedly deplored the loss of human life caused by the war, it has urged the government and the Tamil Tiger movement to make every effort to protect the civilian population and it has also sent humanitarian aid to alleviate the sufferings of the population.
We are following developments on the ground and, as regards the medical aid Ms Oddy is talking about in particular, we are in a position to communicate that various Member States have initiated urgent aid to Sri Lanka on a national basis.
As to the solution of the problems which are at the basis of the armed conflict, the position of the Union is well-known and has not in fact changed since the last statement which goes back to November 1995.
I have the impression, alas, that the Union does not have great resources.
I can only hope that the parties will return to the negotiating table, but in situations of this kind it is fairly rare.
Both sides must be willing to negotiate and this does not seem to me to be the case in very tragic conflict situations like the one in Sri Lanka.
I visited Sri Lanka from 1-5 April and met Joe Green, the Commission representative out there, who was very helpful.
He is under-resourced and this is bringing the European Union into disrepute at present.
There are three problems which I have now identified and I would like the Council's views on them.
Firstly, a number of important supplies, such as medicine, which could help the LTTE, are banned from the north.
This affects children, elderly people and the disabled.
Can the Council use its good offices to ensure that civilians do not suffer from lack of medical assistance?
Secondly, there is a drought in the country and it is feared that there could be a severe shortage of food in a few months' time.
Again, will the Council comment on emergency preparations in place if that should transpire?
Thirdly, there is a problem of lack of independent, objective assessment of the situation and suffering of civilians in the north.
Will the Council try to ensure that the ECHO office visits as soon as possible?
You are right, Ms Oddy.
I can see that you probably know better than anyone that Sri Lanka recently reintroduced a state of emergency.
This measure was adopted by President Badaramaike, elected at the end of 1994, if I am not mistaken, and sometimes that makes it very difficult to take the humanitarian action you quite rightly hope for.
The European Union can do no more than confirm the 1994 declaration, the condemnation of all who violate human rights, its position in defence of human rights, and the commitment deriving from Parliament's resolution of 27 March of this year, calling for the definition of certain priorities.
But I really do not know what the presidency of the Union can successfully do apart from trying to work in the Council for the constitutional revision, to bring about action for peace on the scene and where possible to send humanitarian aid.
It is my opinion, finally, that the Union, the presidency and the Council are unfortunately powerless in the face of this tragic situation.
As you know, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the majority of the Council wants to agree the financial regulation as soon as possible for the MEDA programme, which affects not only Union countries but other Mediterranean countries as well. The funding is already earmarked for this programme, the political agreement exists and only needs to be made formal.
But there have been repercussions from the difficulties that arose between Greece and Turkey, and that has slowed down and hindered the adoption of MEDA, which should have taken place at the General Affairs Council last month.
Obviously the Council is aware of the opinion already expressed by the European Parliament on the Commission's proposal and I am sure it will consult Parliament again as soon as the Council recognizes the political agreement. It is our purpose, our aim and our intention to bring that to a successful conclusion as quickly as possible.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for your reply, which nevertheless directly contradicts what the European public has been told.
The answer you have just given me is new and contradictory, and is only comprehensible because of the lack of transparency in the debates of the Council.
The Member State which is blocking the regulation - the United Kingdom - has still not given an explanation.
Mr President-in-Office, could you please convey the fact to the UK Government that we are demanding an explanation for its obstructive stance, which is a gratuitous one that is holding up all the Mediterranean programmes? We want a clear and public explanation.
The position defended by the United Kingdom is more lax and less demanding of respect for human rights, and also has no real foundation - and I repeat this because the information is conflicting.
It is prejudicing the Mediterranean region, and in my view is based on an attempt to oppose the Mediterranean and the East in a way which has already been overtaken by events.
Mr President-in-Office, this is not an exercise in the politics of appearances, whereby we seem to be adopting policies in favour of the Mediterranean region, but when the moment of truth arrives, they are not implemented.
We demand an explanation.
I can give you the answers you want right away, Mrs Izquierdo.
I am afraid your information was not correct because the problem that existed with the United Kingdom has been resolved. I am sorry to contradict you, but it has been resolved.
An accommodation was reached through the good offices of the presidency, and as a result there is now political agreement between all the Member States.
Only one difficulty remains and it was raised at the General Affairs Council last month. It relates to a conflict situation which a Member State thought should be taken into consideration.
The problem of the United Kingdom - a problem about how to decide on possible suspension in relation to possible violation of human rights - was resolved with an appropriate formula which was also considered acceptable by the United Kingdom itself.
Question No 8 by Per Gahrton (H-0255/96)
Subject: Openness and forms of decision-making during the Intergovernmental Conference
The Intergovernmental Conference will take the form of summits, starting in Turin, and a long series of meetings of Foreign Ministers, chief negotiators, and possibly other participants in other forms.
In the light of this, will the Council give a complete breakdown, by relative status, of the various types of meeting to be held within the framework of the IGC, the precise formal decision-making process at different forms of meeting, including whether minutes are taken, and the extent to which documents on which decisions are based are publicly accessible? At what sort of meetings are decisions taken?
How are decisions taken, by consensus or formal voting?
Are minutes of the decision-making process kept?
How are the documents drawn up for and connected with the various meetings handled?
Which documents are publicly accessible?
Which documents can only be made available to relevant bodies within the European Parliament? Which documents will be classified as secret?
I believe this problem about methods was discussed in the plenary session of this Parliament a few days ago.
So I think this question probably predates the understanding adopted and then approved in Turin on 29 March.
Let me just remind you briefly that Parliament is invited, through both the presidency and Parliament's own representatives, to join in the process of decision-making at the Intergovernmental Conference.
This is being vigorously promoted in cooperation with Parliament.
I think the solution adopted takes account of two aspects.
On the one hand, that it is purely and simply an Intergovernmental Conference and that therefore only governments can be involved in the actual negotiations; on the other, that the governments and in particular the presidency and the majority of Member States want Parliament to be associated with it in an intense, penetrating and profound way because it is felt that the advice and support of Parliament is needed to achieve greater transparency and a people's Europe.
We hope that the outcome of the Intergovernmental Conference will be advantageous to Europe and that these assumptions will be respected.
Mr President, I am sorry to have to say that it once again appears as if those with whom we speak in the EU do not understand what we mean, when we Swedish Members take up the issue of public access to documents on which decisions are based.
This is not a question of the European Parliament's participation in the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is a question of public access for citizens and journalists to the documents on which discussions and decisions at the IGC are based.
It is a question of whether minutes are kept and whether those minutes are publicly accessible.
It is a question of how decisions are taken, that is to say whether this is done on the basis of a vote or of consensus, and whether unanimity is required or some form of qualified majority.
The most important thing here is however: will the people of the EU, through journalists, have access to the documents, the papers, and so on, on which discussions at the IGC will be based? I did not unfortunately receive an answer to this question.
If I have understood your request correctly it is not so much about the association of Parliament as actual public access to the documents of the Intergovernmental Conference, the way in which the decisions are taken and the content of those decisions.
In this connection, Mr Gahrton, I would like to remind you that it is an Intergovernmental Conference, a conference of Member States, which is not going on in the strict context of the Community institutions, but is a conference between governments.
This conference stands alone, whatever level it develops at; it is sovereign and it is therefore perfectly free to choose the working methods it considers most appropriate.
The presidency will do everything in its power to ensure that there is adequate information on the progress of the work and naturally it will try to provide all possible information to the public and to the national parliaments, via the conference of organizations specializing in the affairs of the Community, COSAC.
I think these democratic principles of transparency are being appropriately applied but if I may add an entirely personal point, I do not think it would be to the advantage of an Intergovernmental Conference if its every act took place in public.
The public must naturally be informed by implementing the principle of transparency which is to the advantage of all, but a wholly public conference would not facilitate the achievement of that consensus, that agreement, taking account of every nuance and all the interests and concerns of the Member States, which has to be reached.
But I want to say, and this is in my official capacity, that the clear intention of the presidency, the Council and, I believe, the Intergovernmental Conference itself is to be as transparent as possible in making its decisions widely available to the public.
The Intergovernmental Conference must be a conference that is addressed to the citizens and open to the citizens.
Taking advantage of the fact that the President-inOffice is so in favour of transparency, I should like to ask him if he could provide me with some transparent information concerning what has been happening in the Council with regard to the blocking of the MEDA regulation.
I am not prepared to take that supplementary, because it referred to the previous question.
Question No 9 by Peter Crampton (H-0261/96)
Subject: Hong Kong
The British Government recently agreed to waive visa requirements for Hong Kong holders of British National Overseas Dependent Territories Passports after control of Hong Kong reverts to China in 1997.
However, this will apparently not allow these citizens to enter Germany, France, Spain and Portugal, as visa rules have not yet been harmonized at European level.
Could the Council explain the steps it is taking to allow British National Overseas Dependent Territories Passport holders free movement in the European Union?
According to a statement by the government of the United Kingdom, under the Act of Accession of the United Kingdom to the Community, the validity of which is recognized, inter alia , by a judgement of the Court, citizens of British Dependent Territories, with the exception of Gibraltar, are not considered citizens of the United Kingdom.
Therefore citizens from Hong Kong who hold British passports are included amongst citizens of third countries who currently do not have the right to stay and move freely in the territories of the Member States, unlike citizens of the Union.
Furthermore, on the adoption of Regulation 2317/95, which determined which third countries' citizens must hold a visa to cross the external frontiers of the Member States, the Council issued a public statement that the treatment of Chinese citizens who have the right of residence in Hong Kong and Macao will be established later.
Finally, still under the same regulation, it is up to Member States to decide whether citizens of third countries which do not appear on the common list attached to that regulation are subject to the obligation to hold a visa.
The Member States will have this power until the Council has completed the relevant harmonization.
In addition, under the same regulation, within five years the Commission must to proceed to closure with a report on that harmonization and, if necessary, it will present proposals on further measures necessary to achieve this objective.
However that may be, as regards the Italian presidency, we have sought to progress the work in the Council on both the draft convention on crossing of external frontiers and the three proposals relating to the free movement of persons presented in 1995 by Commissioner Monti, which includes a provision which would allow the citizens of third countries to travel inside the Community.
I do not know the problem in detail but it seems to me that British Overseas National status, which was set up to replace that of British Dependent Territories Citizen of Hong Kong with a view to the transfer of Hong Kong to the sovereignty of the People's Republic of China, means that they cannot even reside in the United Kingdom.
So I think it is a little difficult to ask for them to be allowed to move around the Union when they cannot even go to the United Kingdom, if my information is correct; forgive me if it is wrong.
However that may be, as from 1 July 1997 - at least according to the information I have available - passports will be issued as follows: Hong Kong Special Administrative Region passports to people who have not asked for British Overseas National status, and people currently holding a Hong Kong Certificate of Identity.
The methods for issuing this new Hong Kong Special Administrative Region document have not yet been established, but it should be a different passport from that issued by the Chinese government.
I am sorry, Mr Crampton, but that is the information I have.
This seems to be a very complex matter.
I repeat, if citizens of Hong Kong with this document are not even allowed to reside in the United Kingdom, then the question of visas for Germany, France, Spain and Portugal arises in a slightly different way.
But if the information is wrong, the presidency will be very pleased to receive clarification and further details from you.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was closed at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Mr President, I have come here tonight to protest in the strongest possible terms and to ask you to change the Rules of Procedure which are being applied tonight to the statement by Commissioner Fischler on BSE.
At the Conference of Presidents last week it was agreed that the statement would be made, to be followed by 30 minutes of questions without a speaking list.
Anybody who looks at the agenda as published will see that it says quite clearly 'Statement by the Commission on BSE, ... followed by 30 minutes of questions' .
In the allocation of speaking time it says: ' 3 to 6 p.m., 9 to 12 midnight, excluding the Commission statement on BSE' .
It is completely clear and the recollection of everybody from my group and, I understand, others who were there in the Conference was that there would be no speaking list and we would apply the rules of the Delors procedure whereby the President in the chair would call Members on a show of hands.
We are notified this afternoon that this procedure has been changed and that speaking lists have been submitted and been requested by other groups.
That is absolutely unacceptable.
I do not know who has changed it.
The agreement in the Conference of Presidents was clear.
I would like to insist now that we revert to what the agenda clearly says was the procedure to be adopted and that we should have a free 30-minute question time following the statement from Commissioner Fischler.
I think we should first of all deal with the agenda, that is, the first item on the agenda.
As soon as that subject has been dealt with I shall ask the Assembly, which is sovereign, whether or not it wishes to accept Mrs Green's proposal.
I think that is the proper procedure to follow.
Mr President, I have to say that is manipulation of the worst sort.
It is perfectly acceptable for you to make that decision now, given the time of day that it is, given the fact that my group has prepared for this discussion tonight without a speaking list.
You are now saying that we should stay here and wait until this first debate is finished before that decision is made.
That is not acceptable, Mr President.
In the spirit of good will and the way this Parliament operates, we could take that decision now.
There is no reason why we should not.
I ask you to take the decision now, Mr President!
I think it is possible to decide now too, but to stick to the agenda which has been laid down.
First we deal with the subject which was on the agenda and then, as the second subject, under the procedure laid down by Parliament, the other matter will have to be dealt with.
Mr President, if you are telling me that at some later point tonight I may have to produce a speaking list for my group then I want some time to prepare it, and that means that we must take the decision now...
(The President cut the speaker off)
We shall decide quickly the procedure on the list of speakers, but the discussion on this matter must follow the order laid down by Parliament and its services.
Is that agreed?
Mr President, our group is under the same understanding as Mrs Green.
We understood that there was to be a statement made by the Commission on BSE in beef and the export ban in relation to UK exports of beef.
We understood that is was going to be originally at 3 p.m., then at 5 p.m.
Then we understood that it was going to be at 9 p.m.
I move that we take that point now under the procedure that Mrs Green said was agreed by the political groups last week; that is, whoever catches your eye in the Chair.
That should take place now and that should have precedence over the items on the agenda which, it was generally understood, would follow after this one-hour debate.
I am saying that we should decide quickly whether the speakers are to be called upon on the basis of a list or on an impromptu basis.
In any case as there is another item first we cannot upset the agenda.
So let us follow the normal procedure.
Mr President, I agree with Mrs Green, as my colleagues no doubt do as well.
I would ask, however, that questions should not extend beyond two minutes, to ensure that the maximum possible number of Members are given the chance of putting a question.
One minute would be even better.
The agenda cannot be amended, amongst other things because Rule 96 of the Rules of Procedure says clearly that once adopted the agenda may not be amended.
I now put to the vote Mrs Green's proposal as to whether it is preferable to follow in the debate the procedure you proposed, that is, speakers taken on an unscheduled basis without any list of speakers.
(Parliament agreed to the proposal)
Mr President, I thank you very much for your cooperation.
As you will be in the Chair, I am sure it will be an extremely good session.
It always has been!
The Rules of Procedure themselves do not provide for a list, but there has always been fair play on the part of the Members in presenting it.
You are therefore fully entitled to make your request.
Mr President, I have a further point of order.
There has seldom been a discussion for which it has been so important to have the Commissioner responsible present in the House.
Could you please ascertain, at the start of our discussion of the item on BSE, why Mr Fischler is not present? We need him to give us a clear statement.
I do not wish to imply any lack of respect for his deputies, but we do need a clear and unambiguous statement from Mr Fischler himself.
I must say that it is not necessary for the Commissioner to be here, because we are dealing with another matter.
Let us proceed calmly and with due order!
Visby Summit
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
by Mr Burenstam Linder and Mr Martens, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council (B4-0295/96 - O-0071/96) and to the Commission (B4-0296/96 -O-0072/96) on the Visby Summit on the Baltic region; -by Mr Olsson and others, on behalf of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, to the Commission (B4-0297/96 - O-0078/96) on the Summit of Baltic States, 3 and 4 May 1996, in Visby; -by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council (B4-0298/96 - O-0080/96) and to the Commission (B40299/96 - O-0081/96) on the Baltic Summit; -by Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council (B4-0300/96 - O-0082/96) and to the Commission (B4-0425/96 - O-0083/96) on the Visby Summit on the Baltic region; -by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council (B4-0426 -O-0088/96) on the Summit on the Baltic Sea; -by Mrs Hoff and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council (B4-0427/96 - O-0095/96) and to the Commission (B40428/96 - O-0096/96) on the Visby Summit on the Baltic Region; -by Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group to the Council (B4-0429/96 - O-0099/96) on the Baltic States Summit; -by Mr Krarup, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, to the Council (B40432/96 - O-0101/96) and to the Commission (B4-0433/96 - O-0102/96) on the Baltic States Summit in Visby on 3 and 4 May 1996.
Mr President, I have asked the Commission how we can help at the Visby summit to prepare for the enlargement of the European Union and bring about cooperation with our neighbours to the East and with Russia which is characterised by trust.
The EU has every reason to support regional cooperation around the Baltic Sea economically and politically.
Greater Baltic cooperation will facilitate a rapid enlargement of the European Union to include Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
Baltic cooperation also demonstrates how cooperation between EU countries and countries outside the Union, such as Norway, Iceland and Russia, can be put into practice on the basis of trust.
By ensuring that the Baltic conference is a success the EU can also wash away the unjust images of the EU as an exclusive club for Western Europe alone.
I believe that the Europe agreements on trade between the EU and applicant countries should be reviewed so that they do more to promote trade and enterprise around the Baltic.
The Baltic region should once again be able to become a flourishing region for trade, investment and tourism.
Vigorous economic action is required from the EU for the environmental clean-up of discharge sources and to improve the marine environment of the Baltic.
The EU's support system can definitely be used better to ensure the sustainable development of the Baltic Sea region.
I am surprised that the Commission has not permitted the European Parliament to participate sooner in the elaboration of the EU initiative on regional cooperation in preparation for the meeting of the Council of Baltic Sea States in Visby on 3 and 4 May.
The European Parliament has shown great interest in Baltic cooperation and issues concerning the Baltic have been debated here on many occasions. We should have had the opportunity to participate in a dialogue on these issues sooner.
Mr President, the Baltic Sea area is turning into a northern extension of the European Union stretching far towards the Arctic Ocean.
All 11 states in the area are either members of the European Union or are linked to it by special agreements.
The European Union is also a full member of the area's central cooperation bodies, particularly the Baltic Council and the Baltic Protection Commission (Helcom).
At present, economic support targeted at the Baltic area is still only weakly coordinated in the Union.
The Greens in the European Parliament call for the Commission to develop an integrated Baltic programme.
It need not think that it would have to start building up such a programme from scratch, for cooperation has been established in the area for a long time and is indeed based on a centuries-old tradition.
The region's own expertise and existing development programmes should be exploited and an attempt made to coordinate them.
Close cooperation particularly in the framework of the Baltic Council is now important because this body might become the region's most important political coordinator.
The Baltic region also needs to build up a comprehensive environment programme on the basis of sustainable development.
Helcom has an operational programme currently in force and this could certainly be used as a basis for a more ambitious plan than in the past.
The Commission's task is above all to ensure that it has sufficient international funding.
The Commission is due to assume the presidency of Helcom at the beginning of July and this will provide an excellent opportunity, nay, an obligation, to carry out this task.
In the plan for large-scale transport and energy networks a wide-ranging strategic environmental impact assessment must be carried out, because the Baltic's sensitive environment cannot cope with these projects.
A very critical attitude needs to be taken to them and an attempt must be made to support environmentally acceptable solutions.
The region has considerable energy resources, even though it also has major problems.
Priority in energy policy should be given to natural gas networks; the most dangerous nuclear power stations should be closed immediately and it must above all be remembered that there are measurable nuclear problems in the Kola peninsula.
The Commission ought to say how it sees the possible enlargement of NATO and the Western European Union affecting the stability of the Baltic Sea area.
In this new initiative which the Commission has proposed, all the various points of view, from environmental policy to security issues and economic development, should be brought together.
Mr President, the initiative adopted by the Commission to reinforce the stability and economic development of the Baltic Sea area is welcome.
The Commission is not offering any new resources, but is proposing a better exploitation of current cooperation and programmes.
There are good reasons for starting from this point: established forms of cooperation must be fully exploited.
The Commission proposal contains concrete projects in the energy field.
It notes that the crude oil pipeline from Russia to Finland, together with the linking of the EU's and the associated countries' electricity and gas networks, should be a subject of development.
By way of example, the Commission mentions the Baltic Electricity Ring which was adopted at Parliament's suggestion as one of the list of energy networks in the Community interest.
The Commission's new initiative will only be sufficiently comprehensive if it also includes a concrete opinion on the development of the gas network.
Simply having a positive attitude to this issue is not sufficient.
The development of the northern European gas network received the support of the European Parliament and Council Conciliation Committee.
Interinstitutional declarations stress that the development of gas networks in northern Europe creates possibilities for significant growth in gas markets and for the improvement of energy security and environmental quality throughout the Union.
In conciliation on energy networks Parliament's proposal for a northern gas network - the Nordic Gas Grid project - was unfortunately omitted from the project list.
We gather that the Commission will begin updating the annex to the list as early as the middle of June, by which time Parliament and the Council will hopefully have adopted the proposals of the Conciliation Committee on energy networks.
I should therefore like to propose, in paragraph 7 of the resolution due to be adopted tomorrow, a wording which reflects the current state of the project.
In Amendment No 6 I propose that the Nordic Gas Grid project be included as soon as possible on the list of Europe-wide projects in the common interest.
The purpose of this project is to link the gas pipelines in the EU's northern Member States Finland, Sweden and Denmark so that Russia's and Norway's gas resources can be used to increase the security of gas supplies both in the Baltic Sea region and in the whole of northern Europe.
The Finnish Members of the European Parliament were unanimous on this point.
However, I should like to repeat once again that the northern gas network is not only an important project for the Finns but is important for the protection of gas supplies throughout the whole of the trans-European energy networks.
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance supports the resolution on the forthcoming summit on the Baltic Sea, for reasons which I shall outline briefly.
The countries bordering the Baltic differ from each other and in their relations with the European Union.
Some are Union members already, while Poland and the three Baltic States have association agreements aimed at preparing them for accession. Russia, which has a partnership agreement with the Union, demonstrates more strongly than any of the other countries that it is a very substantial partner, though somewhat unpredictable and volatile.
It is heartening that the Baltic Sea summit should provide a forum where these countries can forget their differences in order to launch new initiatives for working together.
There is an urgent need for the Union to produce an overall action plan coordinating its activities in the Baltic, beyond the bilateral relations which it has recently established with the various countries, and on top of the financial aid provided through PHARE, TACIS, INTERREG, Synergy, the ERDF and other programmes.
The Union is involved in many sectors, including civil and military security, economic development in industry, agriculture, the services sector, transport and telecommunications.
It is also playing a part in advancing democracy and developing legal systems, as well as in fighting crime, safeguarding the environment and managing marine and energy resources, to mention just some of the sectors concerned.
In short, the Union needs a clear and coherent policy in this sensitive area of north-eastern Europe, and we are counting on the Council and the Commission - under Parliament's supervision, of course - to frame and implement such a policy.
Mr President, when governments and heads of state meet in the Baltic Council, it must be presumed that this is to emphasise a desire for action and to underscore its high priority.
Parliament has, on several occasions, pointed out the need to bring about practical Baltic cooperation.
New Member States, more applicant countries, everything already points in the same direction, as other colleagues have stressed.
It is necessary to stimulate regional cooperation.
The historical changes alone require this.
The differences are not really that great as yet.
There are long and proud cultural traditions, there are long traditions of cooperation on trade, and with a security policy dimension in mind, all the indicators are that the next step for the region should be to step up cooperation.
The summit meeting, as we call it, followed by an actual Baltic Council meeting, should end with a declaration of intent to establish an actual Baltic programme in line with the Mediterranean programme.
The experience gained from our Baltic inter-parliamentary delegations should provide Parliament with a basis to support such a development.
It is exceptionally important that, for example, environment, transport, various networks and joint exploitation of the Baltic's resources are discussed and planned in a common Baltic spirit.
In that way the region's identity as an independent but very active part of Europe is strengthened.
The Council and the Commission must follow up the Visby meeting and ensure that hope, strength and faith in the future is given to the peoples around the Baltic Sea.
I would like to begin by saying that I have a lot of sympathy for the amendments tabled by Mrs Hautala and Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen, but the principal matter is the joint motion for a resolution.
I would point out that the history of the Baltic countries is at least bloody and troubled as the history of the rest of Europe, including that of France and Germany.
But up in the north we put away our weapons of war at the beginning of the previous century, after the Napoleonic wars.
It is perhaps worth reminding this Assembly that the era of Swedish and Danish imperialism and the many wars fought between the two nations, was brought to a peaceful conclusion without any union - in fact, one might say that the opposite was the case, in that it led to cooperation at all levels, but without any supranational institutions.
These peaceful neighbourly relations have formed the basis for the international cooperation which has developed in the Baltic region, particularly as a result of the Helsinki conventions and the HELCOM cooperation on the Baltic's marine environment.
It is not perfect, but it works without any supranational suprstructure.
But now it is going to end, according to the joint motion for a resolution, for the EU's federalists demand that this regional cooperation, this international co-operation, be subordinated to the European Union.
This is shown most clearly by a number of provisions.
The English version thus refers to the Northern dimension of the European Union .
That is the point of departure, the Northern dimension of the European Union is nothing other than a kind of imperialism, since there are only four member states among the many states which comprise the Baltic region.
And even more clear and more absurd is the assumption that the Union holds the chairmanship of HELCOM, and that means that Sweden at the present time, and then Finland, Denmark and Germany will be identified with the European Union.
But, ladies and gentlemen - to speak on behalf of the peoples in the region - the Baltic nations are quite forthright in their views: Hands off Baltic cooperation!
I should be tempted to discuss with Mr Krarup whether or not there have been wars in the Baltic region, but that is not the subject this evening.
In anticipation of the forthcoming Summit meeting of the Council of the Baltic States, to be held in Visby and 3 and 4 May, the Council has been asked about the Union policy with regard to the Baltic region.
The Council is to be represented at the Visby meeting by the President of the European Council, that is by Mr Dini, who is an Italian and who will be taking part in this Summit precisely in order to emphasize the importance which the Council and the Union attach to the Baltic Union.
I should like to remind you that in May last year the Commission - which moreover is a member, if I am not mistaken, of the Baltic Council - was represented at the fourth ministerial meeting of that council, held at Danzig.
Point 8 of the declaration issued on that occasion expressed the view that it was desirable and important that there should be a further rapprochement between the Baltic States and the European Union - that is, those Baltic States which are not yet members of the European Union.
At that time the Ministers approved the accession of Finland and Sweden to the Union and the conclusion of agreements with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Moreover the Danzig Declaration referred to the cross-frontier dimension and the possible forms of financial aid in the framework of the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
In point 16 a favourable view was expressed of the Union's approach to the Baltic area and finally point 28 stressed the objective of recognizing the Baltic region as a political force and a dynamic element in a democratic Europe.
I wanted to quote the Danzig Declaration in the trust and conviction that at Visby too there would be the same approval of that link, that relationship between the European Union and the Council of the Baltic countries.
I should like to point out that the Union supports regional cooperation initiatives in Europe.
Supporting them is, I would say, almost a Union policy.
It supports, in addition to the Council of the Baltic States, the initiative for Central Europe and economic cooperation in the Black Sea for which a meeting is to be held at the end of next week, if I remember correctly, on 27 April, to which the President of the Union amongst others has been invited, for the very purpose of furthering the economic development of the regions concerned and political stability and security in Europe in general.
The Union, then, is particularly interested as regards the Baltic States, bearing in mind that some of its Member States are also members of the Council of Baltic States - Denmark, Germany, Finland and Sweden - whilst others are members of the European Economic Area - Norway and Iceland - and others, finally, are associated States, namely Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
To complete the picture and to emphasize the Union's particular interest in the Baltic countries, I would remind you that the Madrid Council, in December 1995, took note of the Commission report on the situation and the prospects for cooperation in the Baltic region, a report which formed part of and was a follow-up to the conclusions on the development of cooperation, political dialogue and economic cooperation in the Baltic region.
In addition, and this seems to me an important observation, along the lines mentioned by Mrs Lalumière, the European Council of Madrid requested the Commission to propose an appropriate initiative for regional cooperation, to be submitted to the heads of State at Visby.
As far as we understand, this Commission proposal will be ready this month, April.
In any case, Commissioner Van den Broek will be able to tell you much more.
Finally I should like also to mention the other initiatives which the Union has taken as regards the region of the Baltic countries.
For example participation in the seminar at Karlskrona in Sweden last March on cross-border cooperation, in which the European Union was represented, demonstrating the concern and need to find adequate Community funds in connection with the TACIS and PHARE programmes.
Then the Union took part in the specialist conference at Copenhagen of the Nordic Council and in the Nordic Ministerial Council devoted to European subjects, with representatives from national parliaments, governments and of course from the European Union.
In addition our interest in the Baltic region extends, albeit indirectly, to the Central European initiative, of which Poland has been an important member almost from the outset.
Thus the initiative, from being four-sided, became hexagonal simply because Poland was involved.
Finally the political dialogue between the European Union and the European Economic Area - Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein - involves countries which are more or less in the Baltic area.
A meeting at ministerial level is also being considered to give it greater moment.
To round off this matter, I should like to say that I myself, as representing the presidency, have travelled to the three Baltic republics, to Riga, to Tallinn and to Vilnius, in the past few days to discuss and consider together with the foreign ministers, the Presidents of the Republic and other bodies and organizations in those countries, the results of the Intergovernmental Conference in Turin and above all to show the European Union's specific interest.
Those were not just formal engagements, however important those may be, and I would remind you that the foreign ministers of those countries had been invited to Turin together with those of the other applicant countries.
We should like to mention the usefulness of engaging in a continuing dialogue with those countries and, if I may add a personal comment, they particularly appreciated that very idea of dialogue: it gives them confidence to know that the presidency is concerned about them, is following their affairs, intends to keep them informed by holding a dialogue not just a one-sided affair, but allowing them to make proposals and suggestions which may be useful for the work of the Union as a whole.
In conclusion, I have taken note of everything that has been said, in particular regarding energy networks, and of what has been stressed in greater detail by Mr Olssen, Mrs Hautala and Mr Burenstam.
The interest expressed by the Members present here who are particularly close to the Baltic region, in particular those of Sweden and Denmark, show that the region is not forgotten by the Union.
That interest has been taken over by the Union as a whole and by the presidency in particular in so far as the Baltic region is an essential part of Europe, that is, of a Community stretching from the Mediterranean to the far north, and which finds the region of the Baltic a matter of particular interest in the runup to enlargement, which we hope will not be too long delayed, and may include all the countries of the Baltic region, that is, the three Baltic Republics and Poland, in our European Union.
Mr President, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, which the Commission regards as a unique forum, comprises four EU Member States, four associated countries, the Russian Federation, Norway and Iceland, as has already been mentioned this evening, and what is fairly unique in the view of the Commission is that the Commission is a full member of this Council in its own right.
Cooperation in the regions is developing speedily and the Commission feels that it has a contribution to make there, and is so doing.
To promote the objectives of the Baltic states the presidency, currently Sweden, has invited the prime ministers to an extraordinary summit in Visby.
The aim of this meeting, as we understand it, Mr President, is to have an optimal direct dialogue between prime ministers, to promote mutual understanding and define mutual objectives.
The conclusion of the summit should see an affirmation of objectives, namely the promotion of stability, well being and solidarity in the region, the presentation of an agenda for coordinated action for a stable, participative democracy, for economic cooperation, for integration and development and last but certainly not least for cooperation on environmental protection.
At the request of the European Council in Madrid the Commission has produced a document, to which President Ferraris has already referred, called 'Initiative for the Baltic Sea Region' and this will be presented in Visby.
This document is based on an earlier Commission communication dated October 1994 called 'Guidelines for the Union's approach to the Baltic region' and on an earlier communication, ' Situation and prospects for cooperation in the Baltic' , which the Commission presented in December 1995 at the European Summit in Madrid.
These documents give an overview of the region's potential, of cooperation activities and of the financial instruments.
The Commission's initiative on the Baltic Sea contains proposals for coordinated action in a number of priority areas, including first of all strengthening democracy and political stability, secondly stimulating the economy with emphasis on infrastructure, energy, nuclear safety and the environment, and thirdly development of regional cooperation including trans-border cooperation and simplifying border traffic.
The initiative was presented using the existing financial funds, which are, as far as the Commission is concerned, the PHARE programme, the TACIS programme ad the INTERREG programme.
It is also expected that the international financial institutions, including the European Investment Bank, will also grant aid.
Additional financing is therefore not required in our view.
The Commission is convinced that working towards common objectives and implementing coordinated measures will contribute to the desirable stability, prosperity and democratic content of the Baltic Sea region.
Mr President, I hope that the summit which begins on 3 May in Visby on the island of Gotland on the initiative of the Swedish government will mark the start of strong and increasingly comprehensive cooperation around the Baltic Sea.
The Baltic region is a region with many opportunities and great potential as regards natural resources, production and trade, with a total population of around 60 million.
The Baltic region is also a region of considerable importance as regards security policy; it could play an important role in establishing good relations and closer cooperation between the European Union, the former Soviet states and Russia.
Nevertheless, common initiatives and efforts are required from both the Baltic States themselves and from the European Union if democratic and economic development in the region is to be fostered.
It is through practical proposals and the creation and strengthening of different forms of cooperation between peoples and at local, regional and intergovernmental levels to deal with common challenges that we can best lay the foundations for stable and peaceful development.
This is also the strategy adopted by the Council of Baltic Sea States for the summit, where the most important points which will be discussed are precisely cooperation on the environment, economic cooperation and cooperation at the level of the people, that is to say between one people and another.
A strategy of this kind is in accordance with the new, expanded concept of security which we must all accept.
An active and effective security policy must above all seek to counter the threats which have their origins in social, economic and ecological problems.
Military alliances and investment in military resources can never be the prime method of ensuring security and safety.
The countries which are not yet members of the EU should even now be involved in the work taking place in the social dimension, in the development of a common employment strategy and in the EU's environmental policy work.
I therefore urge the Commission to submit practical proposals at the summit on these areas and thereby help make the outcome of the meeting as substantive as possible.
Finally, it is important to stress that we should not regard this Baltic Sea initiative as competing with the Mediterranean programme.
There is no conflict between these two areas of regional cooperation in Europe.
Both are equally important for the achievement of harmonious and peaceful development in Europe.
Mr President, at the beginning of May the heirs to the Hanseatic League will be holding a summit meeting in Visby at which the discussion will include promoting the development of the area's economy.
For this meeting the Commission has drawn up its cooperation initiative for the Baltic Sea area, through which it will attempt to support the area's development in a wide variety of ways.
In the field of economic cooperation the measures the Commission is prepared to support through the Phare programme include a free trade area comprising Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and the foundation of a customs union by 1998.
By means of the same programme the Commission undertakes to promote the achievement of free trade in the framework of the Central European Free Trade Agreement between the Baltic states and Poland.
Preparations for Poland's membership of the OECD, the three Baltic countries' membership of the WTO and Special Economic Zone status for the Kaliningrad region will also promote trade and investment in the area in a positive way.
The Commission quite rightly draws attention to the important role of small and medium-sized undertakings in promoting trade cooperation.
In order to improve their trading conditions the Commission is cooperating with the international financial institutions with a view, inter alia, to founding a Baltic business council.
Regarding energy cooperation the Commission notes that the proposed gas pipeline from Russia to Germany through Belarus and Poland, and the proposed oil pipeline from Russia to Finland must be the prime objectives.
The Commission also considers it important to link the Union's electricity and gas networks to the corresponding networks in the associated countries, such as the Baltic electricity network.
These priorities are excellent, but it is surprising that the project list does not make any mention of the Nordic countries' gas network linking the Russian and Norwegian gas resources.
This gas network permits a good level of security of supply which will benefit not only the Baltic region but the whole of Europe.
It is to be hoped that the Visby summit will extend the gas network list in this sense.
Mr President, I should like to put forward two points which I think are important. First of all the Council and Commission must remember that the Barents sea area is a vital part of the Baltic region.
The Barents Euro-Arctic Council must be given an equal position with the Council of Baltic States.
The Union must also participate more actively than hitherto in the development of the Barents sea area.
Secondly, if the plans to deepen and enlarge the EU are achieved, this will give rise to a damaging two-way split in the Baltic region in which Russia will become isolated.
According to current plans the EU is developing into a tight economic, political and even military union from which only Russia will be excluded.
There is thus a serious contradiction between the Union's declared and de facto objectives.
The aim of the Union is to prevent Europe from being divided in two again, but its own plans for deepening and expanding are leading towards a twoway split whose negative effects will be felt especially strongly in the Baltic region.
To ensure the favourable development of the Baltic region it is necessary to create pan-European cooperation in which Russia too has an equal part.
In principle this could be done either by accepting Russia too as an EU Member State or by turning the Council of Europe into a strong pan-European cooperation umbrella.
Both alternatives would mean in practice that Europe would be made up of several cooperation areas which each state would contribute to unifying under its own conditions and at its own speed.
I hope that we can promote a realistic discussion about the future of Europe as a whole on the basis of these alternatives.
Finally, when we speak of the development of the Baltic region, we must remember that this is a part of the EU's wider northern policy which also includes the Arctic regions.
The Union is already involved in the work of the Barents EuroArctic Council.
Three Member States, Denmark, Sweden and Finland will be joining this Arctic Council scheduled to be set up in June.
This being so, the Union too must start developing its own arctic regions policy, including objectives relating to the exploitation of the natural resources of these areas and also the Union's responsibility to protect the sensitive environment of these regions and take account of the privileges and rights of indigenous peoples.
Mr President, the Visby Summit is a welcome initiative of vital concern to the future development of the Baltic Sea region, discussing as it will security, crime, the environment and EU enlargement.
The summit is also important because it brings together members of the Council of Baltic Sea States and two of the three leading institutions of the EU: the Council and the Commission.
It is regrettable that given the importance of the summit there is not some representation from the European Parliament.
Four members of the Council of Baltic Sea States are EU Members already, while four are applying for membership: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.
The EU has a partnership and cooperation agreement with Russia.
The EU has a direct interest in the matters under discussion at Visby. The EU is already playing a key role in encouraging better regional cooperation between the Baltic Sea states.
The EU is committed to countering pollution in the Baltic Sea and ensuring the safety of nuclear plants and installations.
Through TACIS, PHARE and INTERREG the EU is assisting the economic and political reform process in the former Soviet bloc.
The EU's Europe and partnership agreements are designed to encourage this further with due respect to the human rights and rights of minorities wherever they live.
Controlling the growth of crime and the Mafia will be vital as the EU expands.
However, the EU should be careful that it does not stimulate unrealistic expectations amongst the Baltic Sea states.
EU entry for Poland and the Baltic states will not happen overnight.
The EU and the applicant states have much to prepare before enlargement can take place.
Obvious examples are the reform of the CAP and structural funds and reform of the EU's decision-making structures.
Economically, legally and socially, Poland, and especially the Baltic States still have much ground to make up.
Further work needs to be done to guarantee the rights of Russian-speaking minorities in Estonia and Latvia.
Realism is necessary today to prevent bitter disappointment and disillusionment tomorrow.
When it comes to security we should make it clear that the extension of NATO to all potential future members of the EU is not desirable or feasible.
Other security mechanisms must be found: for example, the reformed WEU and a revitalized OSCE.
Security cooperation with Russia, through NATO, also requires further work.
I hope that the summit at Visby will take place in a spirit of positive, but realistic cooperation.
I should like to mention by way of a rider that I feel that the House has been treated somewhat with contempt today because this Baltic debate has been put back by four hours.
We had been expecting a statement from Commissioner Fischler at 5 p.m., 9 p.m., and now 10 p.m.
I do not think this is the proper way for Parliament to be run.
Furthermore, I think it is treating the Members of this House and the millions of people that they collectively represent with contempt.
I hope it will not reoccur.
Mr President, the major change in Europe over the past few years has significantly affected the position of the states in the Baltic sea area.
Finland and Sweden have joined the European Union following the breakdown of Europe's ideological and military division.
The Baltic countries and Poland, having regained their independence, have concluded association agreements with the EU with a view to membership.
Russia is seeking its way towards democracy and the market economy.
A cooperation and partnership agreement has been negotiated between the EU and Russia which should hopefully enter into force this year.
It is important that all the regions in the Baltic area should take part in the Visby Summit and that the European Union should have a strong presence there.
Hopefully the meeting will mark the beginning of cooperation founded on the participation, equality and mutual respect of all parties.
The main objective of the Visby conference will naturally enough be strengthening democratic and economic development in the area.
Similarly the meeting is expected to send a positive message about EU enlargement.
It is also essential to give further impetus to concrete projects on the environment, transport and energy networks.
On behalf of the Finnish Social Democrats, I should like to place particular stress on the importance of implementing and reconciling the TACIS, PHARE and INTERREG programmes so that the region will benefit from them in practice.
We also support the inclusion on the list of Europe-wide gas networks the one linking Russia's and Norway's gas resources.
Attention has quite rightly been drawn in this house to the necessity of creating a programme for the European Union aimed at balanced and sustainable development in the Baltic region, which will strengthen joint economic and political activity in the area.
In the Baltic region there is a need for cooperation based on respect for the independence of all the countries in the areas.
At the same time emphasis must be placed on the protection of the rule of law and minority rights in the states of the region.
The Baltic countries and Poland have expressed their wish to join not only the European Union but also the European security systems.
It needs to be stated plainly that the legitimate security interests of these countries must be taken seriously.
The Baltic states must not be left in the lurch.
At the same time, security solutions must be such as to increase the stability of the whole Baltic region.
Mr President, the speeches of honourable Members in the last round have raised one or two points on which I should like to make a few remarks.
Mrs Theorin and Mrs Iivari in particular spoke of security and also of security organizations with regard to the Baltic.
I should like to point out that the four Baltic countries are associate partners of Western European Union and take part regularly as observers in various sittings of the WEU Council.
I can also say that at the time the association of these countries with the WEU was an Italian initiative.
It was during the Italian presidency of the WEU two or three years ago if I am not mistaken that that initiative was taken and their participation has been standard, active and effective.
I think that should be remembered. Then I would mention that Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, four Baltic countries which are not members of other European organizations, send observers to the WEU Parliamentary Assembly.
Strangely enough, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the WEU, Sir Dudley Smith, is in Rome today and will in fact be holding discussions.
Finally I should like to mention that various Baltic countries, apart of course from Germany and Denmark, - that is, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - will be taking part in the Ministerial Council of the WEU in Birmingham in May.
Another point: Mr Väyrinen referred to the Arctic Council and the Barents Sea.
The idea in fact will have to be given some consideration in the future too, in relation also to the application of the law of the sea.
Mr Väyrinen and Mrs Iivari have also spoken of minorities, a matter which we discussed this afternoon in reply to a question from Mr Ebner.
We may therefore refer to what was said particularly as regards the European countries which are Members of the Union.
Here I should like to mention, in case it may be of interest, both the Council of Europe Convention on protection of minorities and the Central European initiative INCE in this same connection.
I mention all this in order to stress how, apart from the European Union as such, other European organizations have a particular interest as regards the Baltic countries, an interest which finds expression either in the field of security, the law of the sea or minorities, that is, in all the spheres touched on, I think, by honourable Members in their speeches.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at noon tomorrow.
Commission statement on BSE
The next item is the statement by the Commission on BSE, including the financial aspects.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 27 March, in other words about three weeks ago, I took the opportunity of addressing Parliament on the subject of the background to the emergency decision which was adopted by the Commission on that day.
Since then, some three weeks have passed, and today I should like to bring the House up to date on a number of important events which have taken place, and make some comments for the future.
However, let me first of all say a few words of explanation concerning the remarks I made at the weekend about British beef.
The Commission has never said that British beef is unsafe.
The first doubts over the safety of British beef arose as a result of the statement made by the British Government in the British House of Commons.
Because of this, and because of the furore to which it led and the increasing disquiet in the Member States, the Commission felt obliged to take a number of steps, including the imposition of a temporary export ban.
This was based on Article 43 of the EC Treaty, which the Court of Justice has interpreted as extending to health issues, where these are connected with agriculture.
When a journalist visited me at the weekend and asked me if I would eat British beef, I replied that if I were visiting the United Kingdom, I would personally make no fuss about it.
And I cannot see any reason why I should behave differently from a British farmer, for example, or a British worker.
So I entirely fail to understand why I should be criticized on precisely these grounds by the British National Farmers' Union - unless perhaps it is part of some strategy for restoring consumer confidence?
And in any event, my comments make no difference whatever to the fact that the Commission was entirely within its rights in deciding to prohibit for the time being all exports of British beef and beef products.
Our intention was, and still is, to eliminate any possible risk for the consumer.
But let us return to my starting-point.
Since the suspicion that BSE might be transmitted to humans became known, the Veterinary Standing Committee of the European Union has examined all the available data relating to the new cases of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease and the measures currently in force for the control of BSE in the United Kingdom.
The committee took the view that these measures were important, in that they reduced the risk of coming into contact with the infective agent which causes BSE.
However, it added that this threat should be further reduced by removing from the food chain all those animals which had had any probable contact with the agent.
As a result of this, as the House will be aware, a special meeting of the Council was held in Luxembourg from 1 to 3 April on the subject of BSE, at which the ministers came to the following conclusions: firstly, cattle in the United Kingdom which are over 30 months old at the time of slaughter must not be permitted to enter the food chain.
Secondly, specified bovine offal from United Kingdom sources, referred to as SBOs, must also be prevented from entering the food chain, whether for human or animal consumption.
Thirdly, the Commission will shortly adopt a decision requiring all offal from mammals to be treated using processes which ensure that the organisms causing scrapie and BSE are demonstrably rendered inactive.
Fourthly, the United Kingdom is to submit to the Commission by 30 April a specific proposal for the selective slaughtering of animals or herds which have probably come into contact with infected flesh or bone meal and which, from this point of view, represent groups which are at special risk.
Fifthly, the veterinary services in the United Kingdom will step up their inspections to ensure that controls on the identification and destruction of cattle are in fact being scrupulously carried out.
Within the next few weeks, the Commission will send an inspection team to the United Kingdom, including experts from the other Member States.
This team will have the task of checking on the implementation of the measures which have already been adopted.
On 9 April, the Veterinary Standing Committee again reviewed the whole body of scientific knowledge on rendering the infective agent inactive in the course of tallow and gelatine production.
On the basis of the data currently available, the committee identified two processes, one used in the production of gelatine and similar products, and the other in the manufacture of tallow, whereby products could be manufactured for use in foodstuffs, medicines and cosmetics without any danger to health.
On 2 and 3 April, prior to these discussions, the World Health Organization held a hearing of experts on public health issues connected with communicable spongiform encephalopathies in humans and animals.
Besides issuing a number of other recommendations, the WHO experts took the view that gelatine and tallow are quite safe, provided certain processing methods are applied.
All the WHO recommendations are due to be discussed again next week, in full and in detail, by the Veterinary Standing Committee, which will examine the WHO recommendations and decide what conclusions should be drawn from them in terms of Community measures.
I can also inform the House that on 15 April, the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs, chaired by my colleague Mr Bangemann, dealt with the issue of the use of gelatine and similar products.
The committee came to the following conclusion, and I quote: ' At the present time, the committee has no option but to recommend that bovine material for use in manufacturing these products should originate only in areas in which BSE is not epidemic.'
In addition, the Scientific Committee of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency met in London on 15 and 16 April.
The committee made it clear in its recommendations that in the manufacture of gelatine for medicinal purposes, raw materials should be used that were not of British origin.
As regards the use of tallow and other substances made from cattle, it was established that in the pharmaceutical sector, special manufacturing processes are applied which ensure that the agent causing BSE is rendered inactive.
However, we are not only concerned with health and veterinary measures; as you know, we also have a tremendous marketing problem to solve.
Since the BSE crisis came to a head, the marketing of beef products throughout the Community has become a very serious problem.
On the other hand, average prices - except in Britain and Ireland - have not collapsed dramatically because farmers, for the moment, are only bringing small numbers of cattle to market, in the hope of seeing the situation stabilize in the near future.
But there is only one way to bring about this stabilization of the market, which all of us are striving for and wish to see.
Consumers are rightly demanding assurances that the meat they are eating is absolutely safe and will not harm their health.
Stabilization of the market cannot be achieved simply by intervention buying, because what we put into store today we shall have to sell again tomorrow.
Nor is stepping up exports a way to solve this problem in itself, because if European consumers have no confidence in our beef, we can hardly expect to find such confidence among buyers in third world countries.
On this basis, stabilization of the market cannot realistically be achieved unless we can offer our consumers, without hesitation, further guarantees as to the safety of our beef.
A first action of this kind is the measure co-financed by the EU to buy in British cattle aged over 30 months, ensuring that they do not subsequently find their way back into the food chain for human or animal consumption.
This plan was in fact agreed by the Management Committee last week, and is to be adopted by the Commission by written procedure in the course of this week.
Under a second plan, Belgium, France and the Netherlands will be given help to enable them to remove from the market any calves of British origin which were imported for fattening prior to the issuing of the ban on exports.
Apart from these measures, which are intended to help restore consumer confidence, the Commission is also supporting farmers in the other Member States.
Further to the special Council meeting in Luxembourg, it was decided by the Management Committee to bring forward the opening of intervention and at the same time to increase carcass weights.
Last week, the Commission put before the Management Committee a proposal for a procedure without weight limits and covering additional quality grades.
Apart from further scientific discussion and the forthcoming inspection arranged by the Commission in the United Kingdom, the Member States called on the United Kingdom at the last Council meeting to put forward a programme of selective slaughter designed to bring about a swift and substantial fall in the number of BSE cases in the United Kingdom.
I know that the United Kingdom Government has been discussing this matter intensively in the past few days.
The Agriculture Minister, Mr Hogg, speaking yesterday in the House of Commons, emphatically denied that any such programme would have to involve hundreds of thousands of animals.
Rather, those animals which present the greatest risk of infection should be identified systematically; destroying them would ensure a significant reduction in the incidence of new cases of BSE.
We are now expecting to receive specific proposals from the British Government at any time.
My assessment of these proposals will be based on the extent to which they improve the protection of public health and are likely to help restore consumer confidence in the EU as a whole.
In accordance with the conclusions of the special Council meeting on BSE, the Commission will keep the Council and the European Parliament regularly informed on the question of BSE.
I am now providing Parliament with the first of our reports on this matter, and will submit a full report to the Council at its meeting on 29 and 30 April.
I cannot give a comprehensive answer today to the question of what financial resources would be needed for a so-called BSE crisis package, since there are still many unknown factors in our calculations.
For one thing, the specific proposals which, as I mentioned earlier, we are awaiting from the British authorities have still not yet come to hand, and consequently the cost of these cannot be worked out for the moment.
Moreover, no one can predict how the European beef markets will develop over the next few weeks and months, or the resources we shall need to have available.
We can, however, make estimates for the following measures. Firstly, the removal from the food chain of animals over 30 months old.
We are assuming that in 1996, 400 000 cattle will be covered by this scheme, and 800 000 in 1997.
At a price of ECU 392 per head, the Community budget will have to face expenditure in the region of ECU 160 million in 1996 and ECU 320 m in 1997.
These figures are based on a Community contribution of 70 %.
The costs of the disposal of carcasses must be borne by the United Kingdom alone.
Secondly, the programme on calves will cost - and this figure applies only to 1996 - in the region of ECU 50 m.
And thirdly, for intervention, it is reasonable to assume that if we are looking at a figure of 50 000 tonnes in April, that will imply overall costs of some ECU 100 m.
In this context, perhaps I could say a few words on the revision of the financial perspective.
On the basis of the present data, the Commission takes the view that our proposal remains justified in its approach.
However, we must concede that as a result of the BSE crisis, our anticipated margin for 1997 has been significantly reduced.
Finally, I should like to report briefly on the discussions which I had last week with Professor Weissmann of Switzerland and Professor Collins of the United Kingdom.
I have invited Professor Weissmann to chair an advisory group of scientific experts, whose members are specialists in BSE and Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease.
This advisory group will keep us up to date on the state of research and on future research requirements.
I understand that Professor Weissmann and his working group will be able to provide us with appropriate recommendations in the autumn.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to take the opportunity of asking Members most sincerely to join the Commission in seeking to avoid any further inflammation of public anxiety by its comments or actions, thereby further aggravating the problems associated with BSE.
Commissioner, I think that in the financial estimates promotion of meat consumption must be discussed.
It seems to me not only a British but a European problem.
Is it known that the DG VI services are thinking about the preliminary draft budget for 1997 with spending cuts on the promotion of agricultural products on the European internal market and international markets, and if not do you think that in the light of this situation that estimate must be revised?
Mr President, I am glad to be able to answer that.
It is quite true that the Commission intends to help stimulate the beef market.
We are working on the principle that the only sensible way in which to proceed is to translate any such programme into action in cooperation with the Member States, and we have a budget appropriation for the purpose which we can use.
Finally, we believe that we must choose the right moment for starting such action very carefully, because if we were to choose the wrong time, whatever we do might well be counter-productive.
Thank you, Commissioner, for being here tonight because I know you have had a very hard day and you have met many groups in Parliament.
I hope you have had a good dinner.
It is important we recognize this as a European problem.
The Dutch have entered into a slaughtering system for which, I understand, there is going to be Community money available.
The UK is proposing a slaughter policy which will require some European money.
Is it your intention as Commissioner to develop a European policy to eliminate BSE throughout the Community? Because we should all recognize that there are other countries in the Community that have BSE and for some countries there is no apparent reason for this BSE.
I am thinking particularly of a country in the south of Europe which has had over 30 cases which are completely unconnected to the British problem.
I hope, therefore, that you can clarify that position.
You might also say something about pharmaceutical products, because of the provisions which allow pharmaceutical products to continue to be traded within the European Community that contain gelatine.
Mr President, I shall be glad to take your admonitions seriously and keep my remarks as brief as possible.
Firstly, as regards calves, it is true that in the Netherlands at the present time, calves are being slaughtered which originated in the United Kingdom.
However, I would point out that this measure does not represent a health requirement, but is one initiated by the Netherlands.
In view of the marketing problems involved, however, the Council has decided to give these measures some support as well.
As regards your question about the eradication of this disease in itself, I am sure we are all of one mind that it is in our common interest to have the disease eradicated as soon as possible.
But we cannot pretend that the answer is simply a matter of saying that the more animals we have slaughtered, the better.
We must also look at the targeting and effectiveness of our measures, and that is why it is now critical that we receive an appropriate proposal from the United Kingdom.
As for the measures taken in other Member States, the herds in which cases of BSE have appeared have so far been slaughtered as far as possible.
There have only been a few cases, and the Commission is also ready to discuss the cases which are still pending or to help with slaughter in those cases too.
As regards the further spread of this disease, I may have misunderstood the question.
At any rate, there is no evidence that the disease has spread into 30 countries.
Mr President, I thank you for calling the Member who represents both Aberdeen and Angus!
We are very hoping that the ban on UK beef can be lifted globally and we are all united on that.
However, if this proves not to be immediately possible, could the Commissioner confirm that there is no rooted objection in principle to the application of a regional or zoning approach, in particular as regards Scotland and Northern Ireland, given that they have a separate administration, a lower incidence of BSE and a much better control policy?
Would the Commission therefore give serious consideration to any such programme were this to be brought forward from the UK for Scotland and Northern Ireland? If such a scheme were brought forward, what conditions would have to be met?
For example, there is talk of cow passports. Are we talking about extending the quality assurance to give it official approval so that we have in effect cow passports with visas to make sure that they can be safely exported?
We had an opportunity of discussing this matter together this afternoon, Mr Macartney, and as I told you then, the first thing to be done is to ensure that the controls are operating effectively throughout the United Kingdom.
This means having checks on how the system is operating, on registration and the measures introduced in all parts of the United Kingdom, including of course Scotland, Northern Ireland and the various regions of England itself.
Over and above this, a question of differentiation or regionalization is emerging, on the basis of comparisons with previous control measures.
But I am sure you must realize that the regional approach that was adopted to cope with swine fever and foot-and-mouth disease in Italy, for example, or in the case of other comparable diseases, must be viewed quite differently from this present problem. The crucial point will always be the adequacy of controls.
That is why the British Government has announced that proposals are also to be submitted in this respect.
In the first place, however, it is up to the British Government to put forward proposals of this kind, and as soon as such proposals are available, the Commission will of course assess them.
As regards a system of registration, or the sort of cow passport that you mentioned, the inspection team which is going to the United Kingdom next week has been asked to look at the registration system which is in force there, and will if necessary report on whether any further measures are needed in this field.
Commissioner, you said that confidence among consumers must be created through measures to guarantee health. Do you think that a sweeping statement that British beef is safe represents that kind of measure?
Do you think that if all of us sitting here tonight were to say that British beef is safe, that would be a confidence-building measure and anyone would believe us? Or might we not be making ourselves look ridiculous?
My second question is this: if, as you say, you cannot stabilize the market in terms of quantity, then why are you withdrawing 50 000 tonnes just when the debate is at its height? Whether it is actually safe or not, that meat is going to be forever tainted.
My third point is that you referred to selection or culling.
I would agree that even in Britain, not all the animals are sick, and not all their meat is bad.
Will the Commission put any effort into this aspect of the problem, and has Professor Weissmann made any proposals for tests to be carried out on live or slaughtered animals? There is a heated debate on this question at present.
Could not the Commission make some contribution here?
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, in reply to your comments about market measures, I said that intervention in itself could never solve the problem.
But that does not mean that the statement can be turned on its head and taken to mean that we should - or could - abandon intervention altogether.
There is one thing you must not forget, and that is that each of these cattle now standing in the cowsheds of Europe is growing one kilogram heavier every day, which means that they are becoming harder to market every day as well. Remember too that the quality of the meat does not improve with prolonged fattening.
All these factors, in my view, justify us taking action now.
If we wait until the market has totally collapsed, that will not do anyone any good.
With regard to tests on live animals, Professor Weissmann has told me that at present, there is no reliable procedure for carrying out tests of this kind.
He also pointed out that it will be no easy matter to develop such a test, for the simple reason that the biochemical mechanism of the prions is known to be constructed so as to prevent the body's immune system from reacting to them.
This means that entirely new designs for testing procedures must be developed - assuming, that is, that such a thing is possible at all.
Mr President, following on the Commissioner's earlier remarks, you are very welcome to visit Ireland where our beef is grass-fed as you know.
This is environmentally friendly, safe food of very high quality.
But you know we are currently suffering because of the controversy.
You gave some assurances earlier today at some meetings and perhaps you would clarify for all of us what exactly you said.
My substantive question is: I would like to know - in the present crisis and on a temporary basis - would you be prepared with regard to intervention, to consider raising carcass weights and price?
If I may briefly recapitulate what I said earlier in my statement, we have already announced, for the 50 000 tonnes, an increase in carcass weights from 340 to 380 kilograms, and for the remaining quantity the weight limit has been removed entirely - in other words, there is at present no carcass weight limit here at all.
In addition, to match the higher weights involved, we have adjusted the quality classes eligible for intervention; we cannot use intervention for all qualities, since we have no interest in holding only meat in intervention which no one else wishes to buy.
Mr President, BSE first came to light ten years ago, but it was the statement by the British Government just a few weeks ago that the disease could be transmitted to humans which sparked off a general panic, made worse by the fact that there is no concrete scientific evidence.
We needed this warning, however, in order to be made aware of the dangers connected with this disease.
I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he thinks that a European health observatory which, together with Parliament, I have been advocating for some time now, could have monitored BSE, or indeed other diseases of which we are not yet aware, and kept the public informed, thereby avoiding these obsessive fears as to the possible long-term economic and financial consequences.
As chairman of the French National Food Council, I should like to commend the measures taken by our minister to reassure both consumers and the breeders of unaffected livestock.
Mr Cabrol, in reply to your question as to whether a health observatory should be set up, I would say that this would make no difference at all to the situation we are faced with regarding BSE.
We simply have to live with the fact - and this is a problem and a responsibility that no one in Europe or the whole world can lift from our shoulders - that unfortunately we still have at our disposal very little scientific knowledge on BSE or the extent to which it can be transmitted to humans, and so on.
At the same time, this means that there are a number of things which unfortunately cannot be ruled out, and it is precisely this factor which is causing us so much concern at present.
This is the difficulty which, in my view, we have to come to grips with as responsible politicians.
Mr President, I am grateful to the Commissioner for his reminder that the UK government has not yet put any proposals on the table.
But does the Commissioner recognize that the problem in the United Kingdom and the public reaction to what is happening on the continent is such that it threatens to spill over into wider areas of policy and to sour the whole spectrum of relations between London and Brussels? How does he intend to tackle this?
Would he consider, as a way of moving things forward, a partial lifting of the ban, perhaps by lifting the ban on thoroughbred animals, those which we can prove have been fed organically, raised organically and have no history of BSE, such as the Dexter herd, as a way of seeking a compromise and starting to move the debate forward?
As I have already explained, all these considerations and proposals must be based on comprehensible control mechanisms.
This is an essential precondition, because otherwise we shall never gain the confidence which has been mentioned.
However, I also feel that our initial efforts must above all build on those measures which have already been introduced.
I do not think it has really been made sufficiently clear to public opinion what enormous changes have been made in our procedures in the course of these last few weeks.
You should not forget that animals aged over 30 months are now excluded from the food chain both for human and animal consumption.
Equally, it must be remembered that the parts known as SBOs are now being removed from younger animals as well, and carefully disposed of.
These are major changes geared to public safety and confidence, and they should be put across much more strongly, because of the far-reaching effect they will have.
It seems to me that one cannot rely on the idea of each of us saying in turn: ' But my cattle are not infected. They have never been in contact.'
That would just be making things too easy for ourselves.
We must try to bring about an overall solution to the problem.
Mr President, I think - and this also emerged from what the Commissioner said - that we are operating in an area of scientific uncertainty and many questions.
Many times, the Commissioner used the words: probably, gelatine for the time being, and other suchlike.
From that point of view I fear that the mistake made by the British government during the past decade may be being repeated.
I would like to ask the Commissioner: for example, today, the expedient of slaughter is to be used as a protective measure.
But on the basis of the scientific information available to the Commission, is it certain that BSE is not transmitted via the soil or via slaughter-houses? Might it not be important and positive, besides the information we have from the Commissioner responsible for agricultural policy, to obtain information as well from the Commissioners responsible for public health and for research?
One thing has become clear from scientific research, and that is that the suspect tissues which are at the root of the BSE problem are firstly the brain, secondly the spinal cord, and after that a number of very specific internal organs or offal.
This is where the real problem lies, and if you read the research findings, you will see what differences exist, and what concentrations of prions are encountered in these various tissues, when infection by the disease is clinically diagnosed in an animal.
Consequently, the deciding factor is this: can one or can one not eradicate these doubtful tissues or parts in every case?
That is one of the crucial points.
As regards the mechanism for the disease spreading via the floor, I must confess that I really cannot imagine how that is going to happen in practice.
You cannot have any scientific evidence for this, and the point is best dealt with as follows: when it comes to slaughter hygiene regulations, we in the European Union have - and we should make this clear for once - the strictest regulations in the world.
We should not forget that, when it comes to the general point at issue.
In view of the lack of time, I shall simply ask two questions.
Do you not agree, Commissioner, that in the long run, it would be wiser to abandon intervention in the case of British beef? What I personally fear is that if this meat comes back on the market in the future, there will again be difficulties.
And there is another problem: the at-risk imported cattle which have gone to other countries should now also be looked at closely.
Will there be slaughtering programmes here too?
I am sure you cannot read all the many press reports, even those in Germany.
But when we read in one of the leading German newspapers: ' Fischler says there are no medical reasons, only political ones' , then in my view that does not help any of us.
Mr President, I have to say that I do not share the view that intervention should be abandoned for British beef, or that this would be possible.
Secondly, as far as British animals which have been exported to other countries are concerned, I have already said that here - with regard to cattle which could have developed problems or might develop them in future - we are of course working on eliminating this element of uncertainty.
As for the reports in the media, it often happens, unfortunately, that a number of journalists simply copy from one another, and in the process two things are frequently entangled.
The first is that there is of course a clear basis in law for the Commission's decisions, and this forms what might be called the judicial background to this decision.
The second thing is, however - and this is where the end and the means have sometimes been confused - that logically, the measures we have taken not only serve the interests of public health, in other words eliminating uncertainty, but are also intended to help restore consumer confidence and control the upheavals on the beef markets.
Proceedings are only brought before the Court of Justice by the Commission when clear breaches of EU laws have taken place.
As regards help for farmers affected outside the United Kingdom, I have already pointed out, firstly, that we have provided help through intervention; secondly, that we have offered special aid for calves imported from the United Kingdom in Belgium, France and the Netherlands; thirdly, that we are prepared to support any conversion that is required in various carcass rendering plants to produce safe animal meal, so that this process can be completed on schedule by the end of the year.
Finally, it is expected - as I said at the beginning - that we shall adopt a variety of market measures to stimulate the purchase and consumption of beef once again.
Mr President, I understood at the beginning of this debate that you were going to take it as a free debate, that you would see people raise their hands and call them as you saw them.
I understand, though, that you have a list from some groups that you are using as an orientation for your choice.
I think that is not playing by the rules.
I am following the rules, except that Members all raised their hands at the same time.
What would you have done?
Mr President, we are all concerned on this side of the House about the magnitude of the crisis.
Let me be clear.
We want this ban to end.
My question is a simple and straightforward one: can the Commissioner indicate to us why he believes it is taking so long for the British Government to get its act together and submit proposals which would allow the ban to be lifted?
I can only say that the British Government and the British Minister for Agriculture have announced that they are now in a position to put a proposal on the table, as regards the additional slaughter programme, by the end of this month at the latest.
I received a telephone call yesterday from the British Agriculture Minister during which he informed me that he intended to come to Brussels next Tuesday and would present his proposals then.
Commissioner, the damage has been done.
But the fault lies with the companies - for the most part international companies - which produced the contaminated feed.
Everywhere, the law says that the guilty party should pay compensation. My question is therefore simple.
Are you willing to tell us the names, first of all, of those companies which have produced contaminated feed; secondly, of the companies responsible for importing 42 000 tonnes of contaminated feed into France; and, thirdly, of the international companies, such as Unilever and Unigate, which at the end of the 1980s and in the early 1990s hived off their animal feed producing divisions?
All I am asking for is three lists of names.
Under Articles 129 and 129a of the Treaty on European Union, you are obliged to make such information freely available to all European citizens.
As regards the manufacturing of animal feeds, there are several provisions which have been adopted over the years.
But if the users of these feeds fail to use them properly, they can hardly have the producers prosecuted for that, since feeding them to ruminants has been unequivocally prohibited for several years now.
All the same, we have to take it that this ban is not always obeyed.
For several years, there has been a total ban on feeding ruminants meal which is itself derived from ruminants.
I have already indicated that this ban is unfortunately not always obeyed, but to bring the producer before the courts for that reason seems impossible to me, in legal terms.
The special Council meeting has now decided on three additional safety measures. Firstly, this ban must be made clear, and it must be made clear once and for all that feeding animal meal to herbivores remains prohibited.
Secondly, a further safety measure is to be introduced for all meat and bone meal production, to ensure that such feed can only be produced in plants where the processes used are declared by the experts to be free of any problems.
Thirdly, the way in which the contents are listed must be changed, so that the wording on the outside of the feed container makes it quite clear, in large letters, what the feed may and may not be used for.
We are taking it for granted that everyone can read.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that we must analyse this issue with some realism.
I think that we are on the verge of the biggest revolution in recent decades in terms of changes in what we eat, that consumers have lost all confidence in their countries and producers and that we are not going to solve the problem by killing animals or banning particular foods.
I think we must go much further and much deeper; we must make a pact of solidarity, a serious pact of confidence with consumers without which we will never solve this problem.
This pact means making alterations to the way in which states work, with active participation by consumers, and we must also set up national laboratories, we must impose new taxes on farms in order to change the system of compensatory amounts, awarding them only to protect public health and animal sanity.
But, for me, the most important thing, Commissioner, in this pact of confidence is winning over consumers and consumer associations.
I challenge the Commissioner to inform us whether, in this great food revolution which is upon us, he is willing to study this pact seriously, together with the active participation of consumers themselves.
Perhaps I can compensate for the length of my statement to some extent by answering what you have just said with a simple and sincere yes.
Mr President, the restoration of consumer confidence in beef is central to this particular issue.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if he will implement an effective promotional campaign in relation to beef and also a factual, credible information campaign for consumers?
I would also like to acknowledge the fact that he recognizes that we have a special problem in Ireland.
I would ask him to respond in a positive manner to that particular crisis.
We are dependent on exports.
Up to 90 % of our beef is exported.
I think the Commissioner is doing a very good job in what is an extremely difficult situation.
It seems to me that the questions are starting to become somewhat repetitive, Mr Hyland.
I have already provided the information asked for in your first question, and would prefer not to repeat myself.
As regards your second question about the particular situation in Ireland, we know that Ireland depends on exports, that is quite clear.
Ireland is the Member State which is most dependent on beef exports, and I can inform you that we have been making great efforts to restart the exports to third countries from Ireland which have been affected by the various import bans imposed by states in Central Asia and the Near East.
Mr President, as the Commissioner said, there are still many unknown factors surrounding BSE.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if the Commission is willing to release a considerable amount in this budget year for scientific institutes to carry out further research into this disease?
We shall certainly make a further sum available, Mr Mulder, if it is necessary and wise to do so.
But we are thinking in the first place of making the BSE question a central focus for research, and will give BSE a correspondingly high priority in the allocation of resources to research projects.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his frank and straightforward statement.
Would the Commissioner, because of the problems of certain suckler herds - grass-fed beef which has never, ever been in contact with the food that is tainted - consider a top-up in the beef suckler premium scheme or the suckler cow scheme to actually help them in the future?
I would like to point out that I have already answered this question too.
Mr President, in view of the Commission's statement and assurance on 27 March that solidarity would be shown in helping employees most hard-hit by the crisis, does the United Kingdom Government's statement of 16 April announcing compensation constitute adequate support for those working directly with cattle as well as those working in related food processing sectors? Has the Commission been informed by the United Kingdom Government of the destruction and disposal methods it proposes to adopt, and are these considered to be safe enough?
We have been informed of the statement that was made in the House of Commons yesterday, and the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Hogg, also faxed his statement through to me.
There has been personal contact with the British Government.
The British experts have reported to various committees, including in particular the Standing Veterinary Committee.
As I have already stated, there will be a further meeting with the British Minister next week.
The main purpose of all these meetings is to allow us to discuss together the specific measures and decisions which must now be adopted.
I am closing the discussion on this question here, because forty minutes have gone by rather than thirty.
I am very sorry, but I think that on such an important and sensitive subject we shall have other occasions for everybody to speak.
On a point of order, Mr President, can I ask the Commissioner whether he will be attending a meeting of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development next week where some of us who have detailed knowledge of what is actually happening in our constituencies can put detailed points to him which are really very important?
Mr President, I should like to take up and look into the suggestion which has been made today that I should also make myself available to the Committee on Agriculture next week.
It may be possible to arrange for us to continue today's discussion next Tuesday.
I should like to say, in closing the discussion, that all the Groups present in Parliament have raised questions: naturally the biggest Groups have raised the most questions, but almost all countries have been able to express their views.
As everyone asked to speak at the same time, naturally we have not been able to satisfy all requests.
Mr President, I would like to thank you for your own chairmanship of this evening's sitting, but also to say how lamentable it is that a subject of this importance should have been taken so late at night when neither the press nor the public will ever hear what was said.
I hope you could pass on those remarks to the rest of your colleagues.
We shall try to arrange our work better!
Mr President, on a point of order: I think that this type of debate must be urgently reviewed because we, the Members of the European Parliament, have been treated today like schoolchildren.
This cannot be allowed!
Biocidal products
The next item is the report (A4-0056/96) by Mrs K. Jensen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal and amended proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the placing of biocidal products on the market (COM(93)0351 - C3-0285/93) and (COM(95)0387 - C4-0311/95-00/0465 (COD)).
Mr President, this directive is the missing link in a range of chemical directives.
It is absolutely necessary to be clear about what chemicals are being used in the Union.
It is said that 100 000 different chemicals are on the market.
Only a few have been through an authorization system involving risk assessment, and we see time and again that chemicals can have terrible effects on nature.
Just think of the debate surrounding the declining quality of men's sperm because chemicals can behave like artificial hormones.
Under the proposal for a directive on biocides, more chemicals will be subject to authorization and that is very positive.
There have been a number of complaints that it will be costly for the manufacturers to have their materials and products approved.
That is true enough. But it will cost society a lot more in the form of health costs and pollution prevention if we do not achieve better control over the chemicals.
The directive has been a long time coming.
After a long wait the directive is now complete, including Annex 6.
When Parliament insisted on having Annex 6 on the implementing provisions, it was because it expanded on the principles and because we are talking about a directive of extreme importance to the relevant national authorities.
In addition there is a need for documentation providing technical guidance.
The directive is based on mutual recognition of the products containing biocides, and it may be a problem when not all the Member States have competent authorities within the meaning of the directive.
A weak link in the chain may allow access to the market to easily.
The Environment Committee has therefore opposed automatic market access after 60 days.
It is also important that each national authority has sufficient information before marketing is authorized.
The industry has asked for a longer period for data protection, while the unions in the textile industry, on the other hand, feel that an authorization procedure lasting 10 years is very long.
And it is worth noting that the period for data protection in this proposal for a directive is five years longer than that applying to the pesticide directive.
During this period we have listened to arguments, the majority of which are familiar from every environment debate: that rules will become bureaucratic and will erode the competitiveness of the industries concerned, and that we cannot impose stringent standards on ourselves in a world of international trade.
On the last point, all that needs to be said is that we have to start somewhere.
The European Union should set the tone for international assemblies, and it is wealthy enough to pave the way.
On other matters, too, the European Parliament has said that we should not wait for other parts of the world, we should be first ourselves.
The authorization system seems to me to be very flexible and not particularly bureaucratic.
It must be remembered that, at all events, it will take a long time before all the products have been through the procedure, and that it will be possible to market them for a long time yet.
The industry has claimed that a product which only alters in colour or smell will have to go through an entire authorization procedure, but the Commission has confirmed time after time in the Environment Committee, that this will not be the case.
The Environment Committee has been given two different explanations by the Commission as to why there are two Annexes, Nos 3 and 4, on which to base trials.
Everything is subject to Annex 3, while Annex 4 should only be used where it is relevant.
For a long time we were given the explanation that it was out of consideration for animals used in experiments. For example, when toxicological data is already available, and the use of further animals in experiments can be avoided.
But at some point this explanation was altered, so that it was no longer the animals which were to be saved, but the industry.
And this point is really significant.
Parliament would, of course, very much like to save animals from experiments, but we are interested in finding out what the Commission's interpretation of Annex 4 is.
Will it be possible to avoid Annex 4 simply by referring to economic conditions?
I would like to point out that the committee has proposed a definition for framework authorization and that there is no need to adopt any of the other proposals submitted here to the plenary.
We cannot have different opinions about the same point.
An important aspect is the alternative assessment of biocides.
It will ensure that the most dangerous substances do not come on to the market or are taken off the market if a less harmful substance is found which can be used for the same purpose.
That is to say that the manufacturers of products containing biocides can always find an active substance, though possibly something different from what they had previously used.
There has, nevertheless, been a political commotion about alternative assessment, a commotion which, in my opinion has grown totally out of proportion.
As a society we should be able to protect ourselves both with products containing biocides but also against the most harmful of the biocides themselves.
An argument against alternative assessment is that it will be to the detriment of small and medium-sized businesses.
It should be remembered that small and medium-sized businesses more often produce products containing biocides rather than the active substances.
Consumers will continue to be able to buy products with which to combat a specific organism, as an active substance is only replaced if a new substance can be used for the same purpose.
It is this very soft and friendly form of alternative assessment which supplements the risk assessment being drafted.
Not a lot to write home about for an environmentally friendly politician, and it is also fully in line with the fifth environment action programme.
Alternative assessment is a new instrument which could well be incorporated into future revision of other chemical directives.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking today as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the proposal for a directive on biocidal products.
The committee discussed the draft report intensively, and in November 1995 adopted the opinion by an overwhelming majority.
Our opinion seeks to take account of the special features of the biocidal products market.
The total value of this market is estimated at between ECU 1.5 and 2.5 billion.
Somewhat in contrast to the plant protectives sector, this is spread across some 400 active substances and 7000 biocidal products.
Standardizing the authorization procedures among individual countries is a sensible policy, and represents an enormous saving both for the Member States and the producers, and hence their customers.
The market is predominantly structured around SMEs, since the range of different applications for biocidal products makes it possible to cater for individual markets.
On the other hand, the development costs - and those of licensing and providing data - may in some cases, such as active substances, go well beyond the ECU 1 million mark.
Since market volumes are so limited, it needs to be considered how the necessary protection for mankind and the environment can be ensured with minimum financial outlay.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has therefore drawn the following conclusions.
Firstly, the proposed directive, which closely follows the plant protectives directive, does not do justice to the particular position of biocidal products.
Secondly, the authorization procedure should be less costly, and past experience should be taken into account.
Thirdly, there should be provision for framework formulations for the authorization of active substances which would permit a simple registration procedure for less problematical biocidal products.
This proposal has also largely been adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Fourth, equal treatment of active substances and biocidal products produced in the Community with imported products must be guaranteed.
The rules of the directive must therefore also apply to imports.
Fifth, the fees should reflect costs.
Sixth, the Commission is called upon to submit a detailed study of the economic consequences for small and medium-sized businesses.
Unfortunately, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, in the course of its deliberations, showed little willingness to accept the amendments tabled by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The rapporteur mentioned one critical question, that of comparative assessment.
This is a very strong measure to be applied here, and I think we have not heard the last of the debate on this subject.
However, I do believe that in line with Mrs Schleicher's amendment, for products which are used in purely industrial production processes, a simplified authorization and licensing procedure or a simplified registration procedure should be made possible.
All in all, the Commission's proposals will bring about a number of desirable improvements, but will also involve some considerable problems, given the special circumstances of an industry based on SMEs.
Mr President, even though it is late and many of us are tired I am glad that we are finally taking a decision and in any event conducting a debate on the proposal for a directive on biocidal products.
I believe that this is a report which displays both faith in the future and purpose.
It is also a report which gives us a tool with which to protect both people's health and our environment.
I believe that it is important that we establish at Community level a common system for the control of biocidal products.
This applies in respect of both the environment and industry.
As a result of the directive companies will in fact have the opportunity and the right conditions to enable them to operate under the same conditions throughout the single market.
But perhaps the most important thing is that the report proposes a flexible system which will provide the incentive for the development of more environmentally friendly products and therefore also for steps towards a sustainable society.
By supporting the report Parliament can move towards this goal, which is so decisive for the future.
There are many who were concerned about what the system would mean for small and medium-sized businesses in particular.
This concern focuses above all on the text concerning comparative assessments contained in Article 9(5).
There is anxiety that companies will go out of business and that unemployment will increase.
Our experience in Sweden, however, where we have had this system for almost ten years, suggests the opposite.
We know that the active substances which are produced are produced by large companies which in fact have the capacity to contribute to positive development.
We also know that methods involving comparative assessments have resulted in a broader range of products being available and in more companies coming onto the market.
I also believe that it is important to point out that in our country comparative assessments are conducted in respect of about 10-20 % of the products on the market.
They are conducted whenever two active substances are comparable and effective in the same field and costs are the same, but one product is in fact much better for the environment than the other.
The comparative assessments which have been carried out have been conducted in consultation with both the company and the authorities, and of course consumers. Though I consider that the report is a good one, I think it is a shame that we have expunged certain parts through compromise, thus weakening it.
This is true above all in respect of antifouling paint for boats, but I am nevertheless in favour of the report.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive concerning the authorization and placing on the market of biocidal products is a balanced one - at least that is my personal opinion - and aims to ensure the quality, safety and effectiveness of this widely used group of products.
As has already been pointed out, the proposed directive runs side by side with that already adopted for agricultural pesticides.
In Parliament's debates on that directive, we had the opportunity to put forward many amendments, ideas and objectives, which ensured that the regulatory framework for agricultural pesticides is very satisfactory, and currently one of the best in the world.
The proposal for a Community system for the authorization of active substances on the one hand and specific products on the other is a good solution which fits in well with the process of European integration, in the sense that it balances centralized procedures with decentralized authorization of products, and until shown otherwise, the Community authorities will have full powers and responsibilities with regard to such authorizations.
The mutual recognition and freedom of movement of biocidal products should therefore be ensured, and nobody should call them into question.
A great deal of confusion was created in the debates in committee - as it will be, I imagine, in those in plenary - because an excessive number of amendments were tabled which in my view contribute absolutely nothing, and fail to take account of the ultimate purpose of this directive, which is, as I said before, to ensure the quality, safety and effectiveness of all biocidal products that come onto the market.
Parliament needs to be given evidence that the scientific and technical requirements which figure in the annexes are of the highest level, in order to ensure that the public feels protected.
The Commission has not made our work any easier, since although it is true that it finally met Parliament's legitimate request to see the annexes, it has failed to take adequate account of the economic, social, scientific and technical problems to which this directive gives rise.
If its report had been more specific, things would have been much clearer to a large number of Members who are not familiar with this type of proposal.
Finally, introducing the fourth criterion of comparative assessment is, in my view, the weakest aspect of this proposal, since it leads us into considerable legal uncertainty - and this, I believe, is unacceptable and a departure from current practice in Community law.
Mr President, I believe that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has made considerable improvements to the Commission's draft directive.
However, if we wish, as we should, to promote products that are increasingly less dangerous both for human health and for the environment, the procedures which are put in place must help to achieve that end.
In this respect, I have some reservations on the issuing of licences for ten years, which is a long period.
It does not allow the continuous assessment which would achieve the objectives I have just mentioned.
On the other hand, even if the principle of comparative assessment contained in Article 9(5) is approved - which would be a positive step - it does not automatically follow that substances which are more harmful to the environment and to health would automatically be rejected.
That is why we have tabled a number of amendments which we hope will improve the present text.
I have one final remark to make regarding an amendment tabled by some of my colleagues concerning anti-fouling paints for ships' hulls. The amendment is unacceptable because the chemical involved - tributyletin - is particularly toxic to marine flora and fauna.
Mr President, I welcome the fact that there is now European legislation on the admissibility of biocidal product for nonagricultural purposes.
That is not an unnecessary luxury on the internal market.
It is only regrettable that it has taken so long to put common principles down on paper.
The document before us, however, forms a satisfactory basis for a uniform admission procedure, in our view.
We are particularly pleased with the so-called alternative evaluation in Article 9(5).
The intention is that the environmentally friendly products will oust the harmful biocides from the market.
That is sad news for the producers of all the old biocides, but if we take sustainable development seriously then the damaging products will have to disappear in due course.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen on her report.
She has put much time and effort into it, as the result bears witness.
Improvements have been suggested on various points, for example on the framework formulation.
That should prevent a load of red tape and unnecessary testing.
Another important point is the question of the pesticidal paint.
We have learned in the meantime, as Mr Lannoye has said, that this biocidal paint is very deleterious to the water environment.
Now we could in the European Union unilaterally ban the use of this kind of paint, but that would not achieve very much because if we ban the use of it here then ships will just go to the Far East for repairs, probably under even worse environmental conditions than here.
You would then be transferring employment to Korea without any noticeable advantage to the environment.
That is why I am in favour of Amendment No 61 which allows an exception for the use of biocides in shipyards.
It is not an elegant solution but I cannot see any other way.
That does not excuse Europe from the obligation to do everything possible to find a solution.
In this context I would ask the Commissioner what the Commission is doing about this. Is any progress being made in the International Maritime Organisation, and when can we expect something from that organisation?
Mr President, the 'Europe without frontiers' needs frontiers.
In the absence of border controls the requirements relating to products coming on the market must be such that products can be safely used in all Member States.
There are many problems involved with the chemical industry, particularly as regards the environment.
Consequently clear legislation is needed to protect both the consumer and the environment.
In her report on biocides, Mrs Kirsten Jensen has addressed the central questions relating to the environment and the consumer.
The most important thing is that the products on the market should be those with the least environmental impact and that lower quality products should be removed from the market or that the 'reassessment procedure' should be used.
The removal of border controls also means that there must be a reasonable level of certainty that a product approved in one country can be placed on the market in all other Member States.
However, we must be able to be absolutely sure that the 'weakest links' are not used to obtain approval in the countries with the least strict standards.
This report gives the national authorities 60 days in which they are supposed to find time to carry out research, on the basis of information they have obtained themselves, as to whether biocide products should be released for sale.
However, I am not sure that 60 days will be enough in all cases.
There are some very widely differing ecosystems within the European Union.
For example, in the cold weather area where the ground remains frozen almost all the year round, the disappearance of residues released into the water and the soil takes considerably longer than under any other conditions.
I should also like to take this opportunity to ask the Environment Commissioner, Mrs Bjerregaard, how the Commission intends to ensure that sufficient time will be allowed for the national authorities to investigate the suitability of products under differing conditions.
In other words, how it will ensure that the environmental impact of products on the market is taken sufficiently into account in differing ecosystems?
Ladies and gentlemen, the active substances in medicines and plant protection products are covered by the corresponding EU directives.
The last major field remaining - all other active biocidal substances - will now be dealt with by this proposed directive.
These rules are particularly important for the environment and consumer protection, since many people come into contact with products containing biocidal substances.
We are talking here about insecticides, disinfectants, preservatives and products used to protect materials, to mention but a few.
As it stands at present, this new directive will apply to all the groups of biocidal products not covered by the plant protectives directive.
Since it deals with similar effects, the Commission's draft follows that directive very closely.
Unlike plant protection products, however, biocidal substances are a very diverse sector, as Mr Langen has already pointed out.
There are some 400 active substances used in around 7000 products, and above all produced by many small and medium-sized businesses.
Individual substances and products are already tested on a national basis, and are only licensed for use after testing.
But so far there have not been the kind of uniform and systematic rules which are urgently needed at Community level, not only for reasons of competition and to ensure freedom of trade, but also and above all to protect consumers and the environment.
Every test involves not only costs, but also a huge investment of time and materials, with a corresponding administrative burden on the authorities of the Member States.
I regard it as absolutely essential to strike a reasonable balance here - with the proviso, of course, that the protection of consumers and the environment is guaranteed.
Important as this Community protective legislation is, it can only work if the implementing provisions are adopted at the same time, if both the directive and the implementing provisions are clear and unambiguous, and if evaluation is carried out on the basis of objective criteria, which in my view - as has already been mentioned, albeit the other way round - is not the case with the so-called comparative assessment provided for in Article 9(5).
With these points in mind, our group has tabled a number of amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, biocides are products that are used in disinfectants or insecticides, to combat grain weevils, for example, and also in preservatives - we have already heard the figures.
It is high time that we established European rules on the marketing of these products.
The European Union, and the Commission in particular, has already taken up this initiative, and I welcome this on two counts: both for reasons of environmental protection and competition - which is so important, because without a level playing-field, we cannot run businesses in Europe.
The Commission's proposal, to my mind, represents a good starting-point for our discussions.
As with the directive on plant protection products, the Commission has dealt with the active substances themselves and the register of them on the one hand, and the question of how biocidal products are to be authorized at national level on the other.
I believe that this division into centralized and decentralized rules meets the needs of the moment, and I am glad that this approach has been adopted here, since otherwise we should have had to take account of too many climatic and hydrological differences within the Union.
My amendments are focused on the definition and in particular the licensing and placing on the market of products containing biocidal substances.
I am glad that Mrs Jensen has supported these proposals, at a time when everyone is talking of Molitor and hence deregulation, leanness and simplification - which I too am in favour of, and indeed who in the House would not support them? However, there are more and more Members, and even spokesmen for the Commission, who are using Molitor and its ideas as a cloak for environmental dumping.
That is precisely what we do not want.
Of course, we do not have that impression in the case of this report.
I am very glad to hear that the Commission is letting it be known in the lobbies that it will accept our amendments on framework formulations.
What does this mean? It means that in future, products derived from processes which have already been authorized will have a simpler licensing route to follow.
This is a necessary move towards a transparent approach to trade and the environment.
So I am glad, Commissioner, that we have been able to firm up your proposal a little, and it is now well placed to go on for discussion in the Council and its second reading.
Mr President, this proposal for a directive on a common EU-approved list and approval procedure concerning biocidal products, i.e products used for the control of organisms that are harmful to human or animal health, has come up for debate in Parliament at what I believe is a most appropriate time, for alarming medical research has recently been coming from various parts of Europe on the number of growth-inhibiting agents and their residues which are harmful to human hormone activity and consequently tend among other things to weaken human fertility.
Secondly, discussion has centred on mad cow disease, which has been debated this very evening, and I am mentioning this now because it too is an example of how the whole foodstuffs chain has a great responsibility for human health; consequently higher moral standards must be demanded of the food industry than at present to enable the food we eat to be as safe as possible.
Some countries' environmental conditions differ from those in other countries.
In the northern countries, Finland for example, pest control agents are not needed in anything like the same quantities as in more southerly regions because of the cold climate.
Consequently the regulations in different parts of Europe are different.
Foodstuffs, however, cross borders and the consumer cannot always know nowadays in which country and how the food he is eating has been produced and where it originates.
It is therefore important that the proposal for a directive currently under discussion should standardize the biocides permitted in the EU countries.
In my opinion products for sale in EU countries but originating from outside the EU should also require this approval, otherwise the directive would damage and distort competition from the point of view of health protection.
It is important to remember that man is part of nature and is always just as sensitive to environmental pollution as the rest of nature.
This proposal for a directive tends above all to protect the interests of human health and it is therefore essential that it be approved.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the Environment Committee, the Economy and Monetary Affairs Committee and, of course, to a very considerable extent, the rapporteurs for the immense amount of work put into this proposal, which is the last piece of EU legislation on chemicals.
I would like to thank Mrs Kirsten Jensen in particular for a number of constructive and useful amendments which have made this highly technical proposal much more understandable, and which have also enhanced protection for animals used in experiments.
I shall, because of the time, refrain from my more general observations on the proposal, because they have been covered so excellently by the comments during the debate, and concentrate instead on the amendments.
The objective of the proposal is quite simple, while the means of achieving it are complicated, and for this reason the proposal is highly technical.
The Commission has acknowledged this situation and we are therefore pleased that the proposal has been clarified by many of the amendments.
A very large number of amendments have been tabled.
Initially 62 and then a further 34 supplementary amendments.
Two amendments, Nos 16 and 30, were subsequently withdrawn, and of the remaining 94 amendments, the Commission is able to accept 36 entirely or in part or in principle, and where the amendments cannot be accepted this is often due to technical reasons, or because they are outside of the scope of the proposal for a directive.
It would take far too long to discuss each individual amendment in detail.
I understand, however, that I should for formal reasons give the Commission's position on each individual amendment, which I am naturally pleased to do, but I will summarize and refer only to the numbers of the amendments and then comment on some of the most important.
First of all there are the amendments to the recitals.
Amendments Nos 3, 6 and 92 are acceptable.
Amendment No 2 in principle and Amendment No 5 in part.
Amendments Nos 1, 4, 7 and 8 are unacceptable.
Then there are the amendments to the articles.
Amendments Nos 9, 11, 17, 21, 29 and 31 are acceptable.
Amendments Nos 10, 14, 18, 19, 24, 26 and 37 together with supplementary Amendments Nos 76 and 78 are acceptable in principle, and Amendments Nos 36 and 39, together with supplementary Amendments Nos 70, 93 and 95 are acceptable in part.
Amendment No 20 is also acceptable in part.
Amendments Nos 12, 13, 15, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 38 and 40-43, together with supplementary Amendments Nos 63, 65-69, 71, 74, 75, 77, 82, 84-91 and 94 are unacceptable.
Then there are the amendments to Annexes 2 and 3.
Supplementary Amendments Nos 79-81 and 83 are acceptable, while none of the first Amendments Nos 44-45 are acceptable.
Then there is the amendment of Annex 6, common principles.
Of these amendments, Nos 56, 57 and 59 are acceptable.
Amendment No 61 and supplementary Amendment No 64 and 96 are partly acceptable in principle, while Amendments Nos 55, 58, 60 and 62 are unacceptable.
I shall now briefly comment on some of the amendments.
The amendments to the recitals which the Commission is able to accept concern greater protection for animals used in experiments, while those which cannot be accepted involve revision of the annexes which we do not consider appropriate in purely technical terms.
With regard to the amendments concerning the articles, I would again like to thank Mrs Kirsten Jensen for Amendment No 31, which represents a significant improvement to the text.
Of the unacceptable amendments to the articles, I would like to concentrate on Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 15, which concern the scope of the proposal, and Nos 42 and 43 which aim to extend its scope.
First 12, 13 and 15.
Here I would stress that the proposal for a directive covers the marketing of all products in the Community containing biocides, and that it also includes the conditions of use.
The proposal for a directive does not concern the manufacture of the actual products which contain biocides or treated materials, i.e. materials which are treated with products containing biocides.
Neither does the directive cover products containing biocides which are destined for export outside the Community.
Amendments Nos 42 and 43, finally, aim to introduce economic means or other measures to restrict the use of products containing biocides.
I can, in general, support these ideas, which are completely in line with the fifth action programme in the environmental sector.
But I must, unfortunately, stress that they do not belong here in this proposal, because the proposal concerns assessment of the risk to humans and the environment associated with the various active substances and the products containing biocides, which contain those substances.
The aim of the proposal is therefore not to draw up an overall strategy for their use.
In this connection I can announce that the Commission has embarked on an investigation into how we might best achieve a viable use of pesticides in the future.
And then there are a number of supplementary amendments which I shall not comment on further, unless I am subsequently requested to do so.
As regards the amendments to Annexes 2 and 3, I would merely note that the acceptable amendments seek to make the requirements of applicants adaptable to technological developments, and the Commission considers that a good idea.
As regards the amendments to Annex 6, it is the anti-fouling agents in particular which Parliament seem to have been interested in.
I will be pleased to admit - and somewhat different opinions have been voiced in the debate - that the Commission is favourably inclined towards an exemption.
We prefer it to be based on Amendment No 61, specifically naming the anti-fouling agents, and we are also in favour of restricting the supplementary extension period referred to in the amendment, to a further five-year period only.
There was a separate question from Mrs Kirsten Jensen concerning mixing up Annex 4 and Annex 3 and different statements by the Commission in connection with consideration of the proposal.
I have understood the two answers to mean that the proposal aims to cover both aspects - it seeks to alleviate the burden on animals used in experiments, but also to alleviate the burden on the industry; the Commission has not contradicted itself in this respect.
I would also like to say in reference to Mr Blokland's question on anti-fouling agents, that there will be a meeting of the IMO as early as this July, and that the Commission has proposed that a special committee be set up to see whether alternative agents can be found.
With these remarks I would again thank you for a very positive reception and consideration of the proposal by Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Price indication
The next item is the report (A4-0109/96) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on consumer protection in the indication of prices of products offered to consumers (COM(95)0276 - C4-0301/95-95/0148(COD)).
Mr President, although the hour is late I wish to present my report on unit pricing.
I apologise to the House that we only managed to vote on this report last Monday; the subject is of concern to many Members, as is often the case with environmental issues, which tend to cover a multitude of areas.
Mr President, I enjoyed working on the directive on unit pricing because the problem has been with us a long time and has already been the subject of a great deal of legislation; but what has most frequently happened is that new legislation on the subject has been postponed because it was considered too complicated and the exercise was limited, perhaps necessarily so, to reaching compromises between the various Commission services, and indeed between the various organisations in our society.
And that is also the problem. There is legislation, but legislation which is too complicated, but at least everyone can agree on the principal.
The attempt has always been made to inform the consumer about prices so that he could make comparisons, but the complex legislation on product series, for example, did not work.
There are voluntary and compulsory series, as we see, and there are exceptions allowed at the European level, and exceptions allowed at the national level too, and if you understand it all, Mr President, you are a better man than I am because when I first looked into this whole business I could not make head nor tail of it.
If you establish the principal that you should be able to compare prices, that you want to help the consumer, then you must do it in a perfectly understandable way.
Mr President, I do not claim to have invented the simple solution.
It was the people in the Economic and Social Committee who produced a good report and a Greek colleague, Mr Folias, who produced a good report which was endorsed by all parties, employers, workers and also the consumers in the Economic and Social Committee; I was more than happy to endorse it. It was adopted unanimously.
Then I thought: if the people who know something about it and whom we are called upon to represent, if they produce this report then we should be grateful for it, and I really did not have to make many changes to it.
Mr President, what did they want and what do we want? We want to put an end to all these complications, we want to stop the endless prolongation of legislation, we want clarity.
And that clarity means trying in principle to indicate the price of the product per unit.
That is the principle, so put an end to working with product series even although I as a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection have of course a lot of sympathy with series.
But series are so badly treated even in this Parliament, take wine for example; you have series of a litre, of three quarters of a litre, then you find a half litre and now it is two and a quarter.
You could no longer see the wood for the trees although I would have happily lived with intelligible series which would also have brought quite a number of environmental advantages.
But that did not happen, Mr President, and that is why we now need this transparent solution.
Now I do appreciate that this transparent solution could bring a few problems in its wake.
For example, if we are now going to dictate that very soon the unit price per product must be easily identifiable everywhere, and that is the principal we are working towards, then I know we will be unpopular with every wine grower in every single country.
I know that full well.
We did not try fighting windmills in the Dutch parliament, as Doeke Eisma knows, and I do not fancy trying that here because I know where it would lead.
That means, Mr President, that the various amendments I would really like to have introduced so that unit prices could be compared everywhere have been withdrawn in favour of the solution offered by the Commission, in other words that wine, spirits and the like may remain exempt.
I have written off that problem.
And then Mrs Thyssen and a few others, including Kirsten Jensen, came up with another problem, namely what about the small and medium-sized business.
Well, Mr President, I am most concerned about them because I also hail from a small village where alas the last corner shop has disappeared.
What has to be done to save the corner shop?
Mr President, we have presented three solutions for that one.
First of all the exemption remains, secondly there is an introduction deadline which we in this House want to change from four to six years, which means that even after the introduction of the Ecu the prices will be given per standard quantity.
The third solution was produced by Mr Folias and I think it is rather a good one, and that is that if the corner shop has also to go along with this system then it does not need to go out an buy a complicated computer because the little old lady who keeps the corner shop cannot be expected to operate a computer; she can just display a simple list with the exact cost per standard quantity, for a kilo cheese, a kilo dried sausage or 'saucisse' or whatever.
The shopper can read it off the list.
Now some people say that that is a problem, but I disagree because a smaller shop with a smaller range of goods usually gets their supplies from a wholesale outlet where the prices are already marked.
Mr President, I think that all the problems have been solved and it is not just the Commission but also the Economic and Social Committee we have to thank for that; I hope Parliament will accept the amendments we adopted in committee so that we can have this adopted at both the first and second readings.
Mr President, I moved my seat closer to the centre because at this late hour I think we should all huddle together for comfort.
I do not think this has been the most distinguished evening in the history of Parliament.
Maybe now we are discussing something which is not so much a Columbus egg as a Columbus omelette.
We are, at this moment, at this very late hour, trying to decide the strengths and weaknesses of the directive.
I want to congratulate the rapporteur - once again - for coming forward with a measure which has significant benefits for consumers in the European Union.
I echo her words of praise for the Economic and Social Committee, from whom I have learnt a great deal in the course of our discussions.
It was only on Monday evening that we finally voted in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection - again in a late and hurried fashion.
I want to confine myself to speaking about some of the reservations that were raised then which I hope to put to the Commission.
There is a good deal of uncertainty about a number of things: the cost of the equipment, which the small trader will need.
Some will go for a list, some may use a price-gun, some may want some computerized system.
That is compounded by the multiplicity of prices that will have to be displayed as this period overlaps that in which we shall be moving towards the single currency.
Finally, there is a difficulty because the price estimates that have been produced by the Commission thus far are somewhat at variance with the estimates we have from the retailers themselves.
That is not surprising.
They will sometimes exaggerate and sometimes the Commission may underestimate.
But there are differences and we believe that there should be a continuing review of precisely what the price implications will be.
One of Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's amendments deals with the question of information for the small retailer.
I hope some amendments which have come from our side of the committee will give further reassurance in this matter.
I introduced Amendment No 45 to make sure that there was a six-year period for implementation, running from 1997 to 2003, thereby overlapping the strained and difficult period which will be covered by the early years of this directive.
I personally can see no reason why, in that time, the main problems for small traders cannot be met.
It is not our intention to introduce amendments tonight which prevent this directive coming into force, or in any sense allow for the postponement of serious discussion until the next millennium.
We are saying to the small retailers we are trying to help that this is the timetable within which, we hope now, this adjustment, with our assistance can be made for your benefit as well as that of European consumers.
I have also offered - it was only been tabled very late on Thursday of last week - a new amendment which I have discussed with the rapporteur and which specifically looks at a number of exclusions.
She has indicated general assent with most of these exclusions.
So instead of simply having an argument over a definition of what retailing might be, we look instead at the products and the kinds of trade which plainly are not in the static situation of even the corner shop itself.
If that list of exemptions, or something close to it, can be sustained over the next few weeks and months I am confident that this directive can be what we all expect and hope it will be, and be greatly to the benefit of the consumer.
Mr President, the two-fold pricing that the Commission is proposing is undoubtedly a help for shoppers who want to compare prices.
To that extent the proposal for a directive is to be welcomed.
But if I look at it not solely from the consumer's point of view but in a wider context, and when I think of attempts to cut down the red tape, especially on the eve of the historic change to the Euro, then on balance I must unfortunately reject it.
First of all we have yet another demonstration of how good Europe is at paying lip service to small businesses but how difficult it is to help them when it comes down to practice.
Whether a shop gets a transitional period of two or four or six years, and whether it has to indicate prices manually or by computer, it all boils down to an increase in paper work and there is already far too much of that.
Some amendments, Mr President, offer a glimmer of comfort, but apart from Amendment No 5 they are all theoretical.
Even Amendments Nos 7 and 9 fail to convince me.
Of course it sounds good to provide financial aid for information brochures for the SMUs, but small businesses are well able to do their sums and they know that there are such things as PCs.
They do not need information so much as less paperwork.
And speaking of small businesses, Mr President, we are not just talking about corner shops owned by little old ladies, but about many young people who are trying to make a business for themselves with very little capital and certainly no hoards of staff to do this kind of job for them.
Mr President, my second objection is to the timing.
I fail to understand why this proposal cannot wait until the Euro has been introduced as the sole legal tender, to July 2002.
Amendment No 18 confers on Member States the opportunity, not the obligation, to permit small businesses a postponement, thanks to our colleague, Mr Whitehead, but why not postpone the whole thing?
A regulation which says that three or four prices must be indicated per product, and even up to six or eight for price reductions does not, to my mind, help the consumer a great deal.
I would like to ask the Commissioner how she sees her proposal for a directive being applied in practice in the transitional period to the Euro as of 1999 and especially in the period between January and July 2002.
Mr President, I shall speak briefly only for long enough to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, for dealing in such a complete and well-informed manner with a matter which is technically not of the simplest.
The Commission had two aims in this directive: on the one hand to keep consumers ever better informed and on the other to protect the distribution system, particularly for small- and medium-sized businesses, which are the ones which will suffer most from the introduction of technology.
I think the extra time for technological adaptation is enough.
But I should like also to express my appreciation to Mrs Commissioner Bonino for accepting a large number of the suggestions made with regard to the first version: the document is now more manageable and closer to the real objectives proposed, namely to inform consumers simply but completely.
Still, we would ask the Commission to make a further effort to accept the amendments presented today, which are those left over from the last draft, voted on Monday evening. They are all really useful, although a little repetitive in themselves: useful for making a directive which on the one hand follows closely both the market as it grows and changes and on the other hand is useful for the requirements of the final customer who is able to compare prices and quantities.
Thus I think we shall have a directive appreciated both by traders and consumers - and that is not a trifle!
Mr President, I wish to congratulate my colleague, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on her flexible approach as rapporteur to the subject.
We are used to a different technique from her, especially on drugs, but in this case she has been very flexible.
The Group of the European Liberal and Democratic Party welcomes the present directive to replace two old directives for the last two just did not work in practice.
They were based on the idea of standard packages, which the producers could not agree about, which meant that the system of selling products throughout the whole of the Union in the same quantities was just impractical.
The consumer was therefore unable to compare prices, which is why we have this new directive which departs from the old system and indicates the price per measurement unit, i.e. per kilo or per litre for each product.
Some colleagues and even the Agriculture Committee have tried to re-instate the old system.
We reject their attempts to do so, as they have proved not to work.
We also insist on the amendment which calls for the Commission to produce a statement on the financial consequences for the retail trade, especially the small and medium-sized businesses, so that we in this House are better able to evaluate the next stage in the procedure.
My question is: when will the Commission, when will Commissioner Bonino, produce the statement on the financial consequences of this system for the retail trade?
We consider it only logical and reasonable that funds are made available to help the retail trade, with information programmes on the introduction of this new system.
Mr President, we would have preferred nothing at all to be laid down in this directive on the transitional period when the Euro, not the Ecu, is introduced.
We are crossing bridges before we come to them, and I think it much more sensible to produce general rules for this transitional period when more is known, rather that try to write solutions into all kinds of different directives.
Finally, Mr President, we support the amendments which say that the price of the product does not always need to be indicated on the product itself but, again to help the retailer, may be on the shelf or elsewhere. That makes it much simpler and I am looking at Mrs Thyssen.
Let us make the new system of pricing, which I support, as easy as possible for retailers to apply.
Mr President, some supermarkets already indicate prices per unit.
It does not cost the shop keeper any extra money but it helps the consumer.
That is why I welcome binding European legislation on pricing.
We can happily assume this will be welcomed by consumer organisations.
I wish to pay tribute to the work of the rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten. With her amendments she has improved considerably a number of points of the Commission's proposal.
They may seem trivialities, but this legislation has tremendous repercussions for innumerable shop keepers and consumers.
That is why it is important to word things carefully and define retailers' obligations.
I think a good balance has been struck for the position of the small business.
I understand that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is confident that her report will be passed in the final vote.
Perhaps the Commission's opinion on the amendments may yet cause her a sleepless night.
Be that as it may, I do wish her a good night's sleep. She has earned it and to look at her she needs it, and she is not the only one.
Mr President, despite the lateness of the hour, I should like to thank the rapporteur for the way in which she has reconciled so many interests - those of the producers, the wholesalers and the retailers.
The point has already been made that the directive allows retailers a period of grace, without in any way affecting the protection given to the consumer.
Anyone wishing to breathe life into the section of the EU Treaty which refers to a high level of consumer protection must, to my mind, be in favour of this report.
Anyone who goes into a shop today to buy food for the weekend - and I assume that even Members do such a thing occasionally - has to spend a great deal of time and either be good at mental arithmetic or have their calculator with them if they wish to be price-conscious and compare prices.
For many products, they cannot see the unit price at a glance.
Price transparency does not exist - but that was the aim at European level nearly 20 years ago.
The rules which have applied up to now have no doubt made things better for the consumer in some countries.
Personally - and here I am in the same boat as Mrs Oomen-Ruijten - I have found them rather confusing, and quite often simply a puzzle.
If I bought an unwrapped piece of ham, I could see the selling price and the cost per kilo.
If I bought a prepacked item, I could see that there were two pieces, but had no idea how big they were: it would just say 116 grams and the selling price.
I had to work out for myself what the cost per pound or kilo was.
So I am very pleased, no doubt like the great majority of consumers, to see the unit price at last becoming a reality.
Mr President, I want to put on record, since I believe that in future some European Union of small shopkeepers may look up this debate, that we are debating it at nearly half past midnight with 10 Members and a Commissioner whom I congratulate on her stamina.
I say that people will look back on this debate and I want to put this on the record because I believe that although unit pricing can be of great advantage to consumers in larger shops in the larger supermarkets, when we come to the small shops the directive will introduce an insensitive degree of extra regulation.
It is true, as the rapporteur has explained, that she has tried in various amendments to lighten the burden on small shops.
In her Amendment No 14 we read of the possibility of putting up price lists and placards inside shops.
Well, Mr President, you come from Italy.
I ask you, think of those small Italian shops that you know in Italian towns, piled high from floor to ceiling with goods, hundreds of different items.
Well you can go back and tell them that thanks to this directive, admittedly within six years rather than in four years, they will have to have unit pricing on all the items in those shops.
I do not myself think that it will be possible in small shops with that huge variety of items packed close in to have unit pricing indicated simply by putting up posters at one end of the shops.
A survey within the United Kingdom of small shops in the Spar grocery chain found that typically they include some 3, 500 items and in a small shop of that type your are looking at some price changes of about 100 a week.
So that would mean that it would be much easier if you went over to a computerized system of pricing.
The net result of this directive, unless the burden on small shops is lightened, will be that small shops either narrow the range of their products or else they go out of business.
If they are on the verge of going out of business then the one piece of good news that we offer them is, that under one of Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's amendments, we are going to be sending them a brochure to explain why the European Union is putting them out of business.
I must explain that I believe that Amendment No 7 is not possible for the Commission to accept.
It would set a tremendous precedent to invent Commission support to help pay for the price of the directive.
What we need to do is to put the emphasis on Amendment No 5 in this report and to request the Commission very strongly on behalf of all groups in Parliament that they should come forward before the second reading with some real estimate of the cost of this directive.
I find myself in the unusual position for a Conservative Member of speaking on behalf of the Cooperative Union of the United Kingdom, but also on behalf of the Retail Consortium, the Association of Convenience Stores, the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, the Automatic Vending Association and, strangely, the Scottish Grocers' Federation.
They cannot all be wrong!
This directive creates real problems for small shops and I hope the Commission will address it.
Thank you to the rapporteur, thank you to the Members who have followed this debate.
I should like to take the cue from come observations made by Mrs Jackson and make one or two clarifications.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is not inventing a directive.
I have to tell you that there were three complicated and unworkable directives which would have been due to enter into force in 1997, three sets of legislation so complex that they could not, in our opinion, have been applied, but which all the same would have come into force in 1997.
I should like to ask the honourable Member to consider the positive aspect of this attempt to simplify the situation, at least for the small- and medium-sized businesses and, we might say, postpone it: we have accepted six years as a compromise to give time for adjustment.
But perhaps the honourable Member ought to answer another question: if the Commission, by agreement, I hope, with Parliament, had not taken this initiative, the transitional period would have ended in 1997 and the three most complicated existing directives would have come into force.
I should really like to ask honourable Members and the whole Parliament to consider the positive aspect of this initiative, benefiting not only consumers but also traders who would otherwise have found themselves, if I may say so, in a desperate situation.
Of course I do not want to go into the details of all the rules, I should just like to explain in the few minutes available to me the amendments which for the moment the Commission does not intend to accept, and briefly to explain the reasons.
Of the remaining amendments the Commission accepts the great majority and also thanks Parliament its effort at clarification through much re-wording which seems to us more appropriate.
The Commission however thinks, at least at present, that it would be premature to commit ourselves now regarding the decision and all the amendments, or rather two of them, which refer to the coming into force of the single currency.
I think we have enough time, between now and 2002, to understand a little better how we can adjust the measure: Parliament is well aware what great importance the Commission attaches to the problem of the single currency, in particular as regards consumers, so I do not want to commit us to a decision today.
Secondly, as regards financial support, the Commission will draft a report, as requested, but not in a year's time.
One year is really too short a time to manage to draw up a coherent report.
We therefore maintain our proposal of two years, with a report on the situation as regards entry into force.
But the Commission really does not think for the moment that it needs to intervene on financial support, since it has accepted as a compromise a longer period of application.
Amongst other things I should like to tell Mr Eisma that, as regards the financial costs, there are now detailed data which my officials will be pleased to send you, since there are four different solutions for implementing the directive.
That depends for example on the manual method, the computerized method and the contingency of various costs and prices which will have to be checked in implementing it, but as from now, Mr Eisma, the officials are available to give you the information in our possession today.
The other amendment which I think I cannot accept today is that which excludes automatic distribution, because frankly I do not see the point: certainly there is no question of costs from that point of view.
As regards the list of exemptions, Mr Whitehead, as you said, it did not arrive at the right time, in the prescribed time, but the Commission is in a position to examine the list of products which we know you think warrants consideration.
I am referring for example the antique trade and others, some of which warrants a moment's reflection.
That said, I should just like to say in conclusion that by striving to improve we often mar what is good and that this report or this directive could certainly be improved in one way or another, but they do seem to me to simplify existing legislation and, I think, to help small- and medium-scale businesses.
I should finally very much to thank Parliament for its time - I know you have very much speeded up your work - to thank the rapporteur for her dedication and also the chairman of the committee; they have given me the opportunity - for which I am very grateful - to take this directive the Consumer Council next Tuesday.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at noon tomorrow.
(The sitting was closed at 12.35 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, in yesterday's Minutes it is recorded that I abstained on Amendment No 22 on the Oostlander report.
It was my intention to vote for it.
It was a case of mea culpa rather than a faulty machine.
Please, could it be corrected.
It will be corrected.
Mr President, yesterday I managed to reach the Chamber just as the Minutes were being agreed - I had been attending another meeting.
Had I been here, I would have made a correction.
Yesterday's Minutes said that we agreed Tuesday's Minutes but in fact Tuesday's Minutes were incorrect.
They omitted the reference to my presentation of the discharge report on the general budget and the FED.
It was a 13-minute speech.
I may not be the world's greatest speaker but 13 minutes is quite a sizeable chunk to miss.
I should be grateful if that could be corrected in Tuesday's Minutes.
We take note of that.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Monetary cooperation
The next item is the report (A4-0053/96) by Mr Garriga Polledo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the strengthening of world monetary cooperation to ensure better regulation of monetary and finance markets.
Mr President, this report on the strengthening of world monetary cooperation to ensure better regulation of monetary and financial markets is very timely.
After all, we in Europe recognize only too well that activity one side of the world can have profound effects elsewhere, including Europe.
I do not just refer to the collapse of Barings Bank in London, following dealings on the Singapore market, but also to the consequences which followed lower interest rates in the United States in 1995.
The Deutschmark interest rate remained high, with enormous knock-on effects on Europe's economy and its ability to climb out of its economic pause - to borrow a phrase favoured by the Commission.
If that is true in the Europe of today, imagine the situation once the Euro has entered the currency markets.
What are we to do in this new environment which will be upon us shortly? We will need strong international cooperation, and the newly-fledged European Central Bank will need to quickly master its global, as well as its local, role.
I would suggest that part of its and the Commission's responsibilities in this new environment is to improve not just monetary cooperation in the world but also to promote greater synergy in the fiscal and economic areas.
Although the Garriga Polledo report perhaps underplays the degree of danger unleashed by liberalizing the financial markets, I believe we can support the remedies suggested by the rapporteur.
He highlights the need to put in place an effective advance warning and monitoring system; he encourages prompt and appropriate political responses; he agrees with the G7's request to the IMF to establish new procedures regarding finance mechanisms and, of course, he calls again, through the G7, for strengthening international cooperation.
To these suggestions I would add that the G3 or the G7 should not exclude other important global players, including Asia and ASEAN, whose parliamentary representatives are in conclave with Euro-MPs this morning here in Strasbourg.
Nor should we fail to remind the financial community of their own responsibilities.
The better they can regulate and monitor themselves, the better we, the politicians, will be satisfied.
The sorry story of Barings' collapse reveals all too palpably human frailty at work.
Whatever else is true, it is apparent that the internal checks and balances were not operating successfully between London and Singapore.
That brings me back to where I started.
Today's lead story in the Financial Times reports the IMF's regular world economic outlooks exhortation to Germany to cut its interest rates and so boost economic recovery.
We truly live now in an interdependent world and must reform ourselves to meet these new circumstances.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Garriga Polledo's report, which takes due account of both the advantages and disadvantages of the general liberalization of the capital movements and the globalization of the economy, recommends to the Commission and to the European Monetary Institute a package of measures or recommendations focusing on three themes, which we endorse.
I recommend, in essence: closer cooperation in the field of economic policy between the 'big three' , in other words the United States, Japan and Germany; closer cooperation with regard to exchange rates, in particular between industrialized countries; and, finally, action to promote greater international financial stability in the context of a would be globalized economy.
This would be implemented by the use of an early-warning system, relying on the appropriate financing mechanisms and promoting the strengthening of international cooperation.
The report likewise shares the opinion of the G7 that the best way of achieving stability of exchange rates is to implement monetary and budgetary policies which are compatible with the fundamental economic parameters - and this is a good thing - for fear of exposure to the devastating and immediate effects of speculative capital movements in search of the best short-term profit.
It is true that market reaction is often the logical result of the thoughtlessness or inadequacy of the economic, monetary and even budgetary policies pursued in some quarters; the result is devaluation, which imposes a direct and heavy penalty - especially in terms of employment - on the more virtuous and stricter policies pursued by other States.
We must therefore congratulate ourselves on the results of the meeting held in Verona last weekend, following which the Finance Ministers of the fifteen States of the Union called upon the Commission to study the setting-up of a mechanism intended to counter any attempts at competitive devaluation.
There are three main lines of approach that come into question here: strengthening the present multilateral surveillance system, making payments from the Structural Funds subject to certain conditions in the event that a country fails to move with sufficient determination towards economic convergence, and, finally, setting up a fairly complex system which would deprive the defaulting State of a 'laisserpasser premium' , guaranteeing that it would receive no more money from Brussels as long as that aid - currently paid in ecus and in future to be paid in Euros - would represent a large sum in national currency after devaluation.
The operative part of the motion for a resolution contained in Mr Garriga Polledo's report, the broad lines of which we support, prompts two comments from us.
First, as regards recital No 1: it is impossible to say that the present weakness of the dollar is responsible for the appreciation of the German mark, for a very good reason: the American currency has continuously gained ground against the mark for the past year.
Secondly, the wording of paragraph 19 of the motion for a resolution is not acceptable to our group, because it requests that, via the Commission and the future European Central Bank, the European Union should be a full member of all the international institutions mentioned and that it should be involved as such, in the drawing up and taking of decisions.
I would remind you here of the content of Article 109(4) and (5) of the Treaty: ' The Council shall, on a proposal from the Commission and after consulting the ECB, acting by a qualified majority, decide on the position of the Community at international level as regards issues of particular relevance to economic and monetary union and, acting unanimously, decide its representation in compliance with the allocation of powers laid down in Articles 103 and 105.'
The Commission has been invited to the meeting of the G7 which is to be held in Lyons in June, but as far as I know it is not involved in the G7 meetings attended by the Finance Ministers.
We therefore need to keep out heads and not put pressure either on the course of events or on the States.
If the question should eventually arise as to whether the provisions of paragraph 19 are to be proposed and transcribed into international reality, then we shall discuss the matter again, but as far as the Treaty on European Union is concerned, this hypothetical situation cannot be taken into consideration at this stage.
Mr President, the rapporteur seems to be relying too much on the assumption that the movement of capital functions best under the current international funding systems.
Nor am I sure about the Social Democrats' proposal that it would be sufficient to set up an international economic council to monitor speculation.
There is a need for a much more radical change to worldwide funding structures.
At present the sum of money changing hands throughout the world is equivalent to three times the foreign currency reserves of many industrialized countries.
Neither any national banks nor their international counterparts are capable of combating this level of speculation.
Of course the Greens too support the establishment of this type of early warning system and the strengthening of cooperation on international financial policy.
This, indeed, was proposed last year at the Halifax Summit and this is what the rapporteur is now proposing, but it is really not enough.
There is a need for measures which will automatically prevent speculation, and the speculators must be made to pay for such measures.
The proposal which is urgently needed is to bring into force an international tax on speculation capital.
This was proposed as long ago as 1978 by James Tobin, who later won the Nobel Prize.
Even a very low tax, of the order of 0.5 % on the quantity of capital exchanged could have a significant effect on reducing particularly short-term placements or speculation proper.
It will not of course be easy to introduce such a tax, but it should be attempted, with a view thereby to achieving an entirely new system for the supervision of capital movements at global level.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me fair to say that the system introduced at Bretton Woods, over fifty years ago now, has lost all its legitimacy today, despite the updating of the Plaza and Louvre agreements, or the Halifax declarations of intent, and yet it has continued to generate numerous effects which cause a serious imbalance for the majority of the world's States and their populations.
Whatever one may think about the Bretton Woods agreements, the superiority of the dollar as a reference currency for the entire international monetary system was justified on three grounds.
One was political: the United States had just won, and helped the Europeans to win, the Second World War.
That was an important reason, but it was one born of circumstances, and has now become invalid.
The second reason was economic: the United States were financing European reconstruction through the Marshall Plan.
Here again, they seem to me to be its main beneficiaries, but this reason too has ceased to exist.
As for the third reason which enabled the superiority of the dollar to become established, it was a purely technical and monetary one, and was linked to the commitment by the United States to guarantee the permanent convertibility of their currency into a fixed quantity of gold.
The United States abandoned that guarantee on 15 August 1971.
We even experienced American treasury officials touring Europe and saying to the European leaders: ' The dollar is our currency and this is your problem.'
The fact is that, since that time, they have enjoyed a preeminent position because in point of fact it is the other nations, and especially the Europeans, which are paying off the public and private deficits accumulated by the United States of America.
To put it bluntly, if my debt is expressed in my own currency and if international trade is all settled in that currency, I know that I am not going to pay my debt - it is as simple as that.
Today, these imbalances have become so serious that - while paying tribute to the efforts of the rapporteur - I cannot endorse some of his conclusions, or indeed some of his premises.
In the motion for a resolution, I read this: ' recognizing that the liberalization of capital movements brings enormous benefits, since a free capital market ensures that savings are assigned to the most productive investments' .
Well, everyone knows that the reverse is true: the deregulation of the national markets and the liberalization of international capital movements steer the savings towards immediate profits which no longer have any relation to production, and we are operating in a 'casino' economy, where the financial flows are no longer in any way representative of the trade in goods or services.
I think, therefore, that we should think carefully.
After all, as has just been said, a universal capital taxation mechanism serves a speculative purpose.
We also need to consider what, today, is the justification of credit, and especially short-term credit, and we need to consider a new monetary agreement.
This is why the Group of the European Radical Alliance is resolutely in favour of the single currency, and I would say that even without dwelling too much on its immediate social cost, though this remains an essential point as we see it.
Over and above that social cost, however, we know that the move forward to the single currency is the only way for the European Union to bring about the adoption of a new international monetary agreement which, for us, has to be the prerequisite for the conversion of the present World Trade Organization into a World Economic and Trade Organization. By subjecting the latter organization to that prerequisite this would allow the introduction of a social clause, a clause relating to the placing of export products on the internal market, an environmental clause and a democratic label.
Mr President, the Garriga Polledo report supplies an excellent analysis of the international money markets and their possibilities with regard to regulation, but it also contains a considerable surprise.
It hardly mentions the supposed stabilizing virtues of the single currency at world level.
Yet the Commission's arguments always include, prominently faced, a paragraph from which we learn that 'the single currency will contribute to greater worldwide monetary stability' .
It is hard to understand exactly what this statement is supposed to mean, and the Garriga Polledo report provides no enlightenment.
The explanatory statement, in fact, contains not a single word on the subject, while the motion for a resolution itself contains one brief reference, which is expressed as a hope rather than an argument.
In point of fact, as the report rightly stresses, the best way for a country to arrive at stable exchange rates is still for it to implement sound economic policies, without tolerances designed to facilitate that stability.
In order to achieve that objective, there is no real need for the crutch of the single currency - all that is needed is courage and discipline.
On the other hand, the report does in fact disclose a disadvantage of monetary union.
By abolishing exchange rates within the Euro zone, it will cause the disappearance of an indicator and the yardstick for the quality of national administration.
This indicator will have to be replaced by the instructions of the Council of Ministers, or the Stability Council, possibly backed up by sanctions, which will create problems of implementation far more difficult and conflict-ridden than the impersonal warnings of market forces.
However, it may unfortunately occur that currencies are lastingly undervalued or overvalued relative to the real parities of purchasing power.
In this case, international monetary cooperation should be a possibility, in order to bring the exchange rate back within an acceptable band, and it could be coordinated by the IMF, as the report rightly indicates.
But we all know that the success of this method cannot be guaranteed: the major powers are not necessarily going to be prepared to subordinate their national economic policies to the objective of maintaining their exchange rate parities, and in any case the capital flows are very often stronger than any intentions that may be expressed.
In these circumstances, once again, we deplore the fact that countries which are the victims of monetary dumping cannot, ultimately, protect themselves by means of compensatory monetary sums.
Whether this dumping is the result of the deliberate intent of a third party or of the mechanical interplay of market forces at a given moment makes no difference.
The compensatory sums would reestablish their competition and even the possibility of their implementation would surely be sufficient to produce a substantial deterrent effect.
They could also be useful in relations between European States and third countries, and within a reconstructed European monetary system, as an ultimate deterrent intended to reinforce discipline.
We regret the fact that the latest GATT negotiations do not include a monetary section, and we hope, Mr President, that further discussions on this subject will begin as soon as possible.
Mr President, I too am grateful to the rapporteur for this very well presented and very effective report.
I should like to begin with one or two points of interest: the report contains some introductory remarks which provide information on the deregulation of domestic financial markets, the associated trend towards the globalization of financial and capital markets, and the liberalization of capital movements.
It also states that a free capital market ensures that savings are assigned to the most productive investments.
Some very interesting comments are made in relation to the overvaluation of the US dollar in the international economy, whereby 60 % of world currency reserves and half of all private financial wealth are invested in US dollars, even though the US economy accounts for only 20 % of total production and 14 % of world trade.
This highlights the need for Europe to act.
I certainly do not take the view that Europe's scope for taking action should be hampered by imposing a tax on speculation, as the Greens have once again proposed today: this would be tantamount to double taxation, since profits from such financial transactions will in any case be taxed as profit by the domestic financial institutions.
To my mind, this report contains three important calls: the first is for a financial system to be established which avoids inflationary or deflationary cycles, achieves a healthy balance of payments, and leads to lower interest rates and sustained, high-quality economic growth.
The second call, to curb the predominance of the US dollar, is without doubt justified, and the single currency might be of assistance here.
If all the Member States take part, the convergence criteria are met, and the citizens of Europe put their trust in the new currency, the euro could perhaps become strong enough to act as a third 'international currency' .
It is also important to bear in mind external debt and the developing countries.
I do not think there is any point, in this context, in writing off financial positions as debts which will never be repaid.
Overall, therefore, I think the report is a constructive one: it provides a good starting-point for further discussion in the various European forums.
Mr President, this report is a most timely one, in that immediately prior to the April meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, it once again calls for an improvement in international monetary cooperation.
The embryonic reforms of the international financial institutions have not been enough to establish an effective early-warning system, to ensure better intergovernmental harmonization, and to involve not only the G7 industrialized nations but also other countries in institutionalized cooperation.
It is therefore right to make these calls now, in view of the globalization of markets and the weakness of cooperation in this area between the governments of the major industrialized nations, as well as the technical advances in communications and the massive increase in capital movements, only 4 % of which are accounted for by the real economy and real trade.
It can thus be said that a new Bretton Woods system is even more urgently needed now than was the case when it was originally introduced.
We are all aware that such a system is no longer possible today, but because the rules of the game have changed, I believe, like my colleagues and the rapporteur, that European monetary union could allow us to apply some kind of plan for target zones or even improve monetary cooperation in this direction, once the euro becomes the second international reserve currency, since it will then be easier to see the true value of this currency.
Because after all, as the report makes clear, the US dollar accounts for 60 % of world currency reserves, which in no way corresponds to the importance of the US economy.
The European Parliament has already quite rightly called on the Commission several times to produce a white paper on monetary developments.
Today we are going further, and also asking for an assessment of the effects of monetary union on the stability of the international financial system.
This is particularly important now that there are new financial instruments on this market which can influence monetary planning, for example the blueprint for the future European Central Bank, since these new financial instruments will mean that it becomes harder to assess and manage the money supply than has hitherto been the case.
I therefore believe that we are quite right to call on the Commission to carry out further studies in this area.
What is most important of all, however, is to establish a UN Economic Council along the lines of the UN Security Council, in order to institutionalize monetary cooperation.
Clearly, it will otherwise be impossible to reconcile the different economic and financial interests of the large industrialized nations and the threshold countries, and this must be done if monetary policy is to take due account both of the requirements of countries and their peoples and the need for financial discipline.
Mr President, in my opinion Parliament acted responsibly when it gave the Committee on Economic Affairs the opportunity to draw up this report.
The economic cooperation which has developed has benefited nations and their citizens.
The exchange of raw materials and product information has fostered development.
The use of energy provides a good analogy for this process.
Skill in exploiting energy, consumption of and trade in raw materials have benefitted us to a great extent.
Only the excessive use of energy and its various forms are causing us problems.
In the same way we may say that the liberalization of capital is positive in itself; however, the enlargement of foreign exchange markets has assumed ungovernable proportions.
When markets grow twenty-fold in ten years and daily currency movements have doubled in relation to currency reserves, we may guess what type of risks this may bring.
Our new technology makes it possible to carry out transactions at the speed of light and when speculations are added to this problem, we are really endangering the conditions for international free trade.
Common sense dictates that a change must be made.
It is also clear that the European single currency would facilitate the necessary cooperation with Japan and the United States on setting rules for the currency markets.
There is frequent talk of the confidence of the citizen.
This is also an essential condition for all democracy and market economy.
Therefore the world democratic governments must bring the currency markets under control.
There is no time to waste; regulation is needed above all to protect ordinary citizens and their jobs.
Their work depends on the real economy, not on speculation.
Small businesses in small countries suffer especially from uncertain currency markets.
They do not have the resources or the opportunity to protect themselves.
Small countries also have to increase their currency reserves many times over compared to large countries.
EMU would in these circumstances be a healthy development.
It would reduce the need for these reserves and yet at the same time could increase creditability.
It is quite true that the regulation and taxation of capital movements need to be harmonised.
If the movement of capital is free, such taxation should be made compulsory.
Capital cannot be given a free ride. It must bear the social responsibility of paying tax.
But if progress is to be made in this matter we must also support the Single European Currency.
Only in this way will it be possible to move forward in this area.
Mr President, I start by congratulating Mr Garriga Polledo on the very comprehensive and technical report before us today.
The international financial markets now play a very important role in the world economy.
The deregulation of financial markets in many member countries has meant that trillions of pounds and dollars can now flow across international borders to seek a return for those investors.
I congratulate Mr Garriga Polledo on identifying some of the major issues which affect the success or otherwise of those markets at the moment, in particular his reference to counter-cyclical action with respect to the booms and busts that the world economy has seen over many years.
It is clear that what we need is sustainable positions across the globe whether it is in the United States, Europe, Japan or indeed in the developing world.
It is clear as well that the actions of the market in the longer term will lead to lower interest rates which will make it cheaper to borrow for investment and in turn will create jobs.
I also accept some of the analysis of Mr Garriga Polledo in terms of the fact that the international monetary system needs rules. I echo the words of Mr Rönnholm on that.
In order to create those rules it needs an institutional framework.
At the moment, as we see in Europe, the Bundesbank acts in the interest of the German economy.
We are trying to create a system where we would have a European Central Bank acting in the interests of the European economy.
We see a similar position with the US, the Japanese and the European markets acting to some extent on their own.
What we need is a system which acts in terms of the global interest and international objectives.
The only way we can do that is through rules and through international cooperation.
I also accept some of the assertions by Mr Garriga Polledo about the damage that floating exchange rates can do.
It can cause over-evaluation of currencies.
I believe that the money markets are not necessarily the best judge of real economic performance, as we have seen with the exchange rate mechanism here in Europe.
I do not necessarily believe either that intervention is the answer.
What we need is a new direction.
That new direction is cooperation.
We need a framework which will be brought into existence after stage three of monetary union.
I do not necessarily believe, as the rapporteur suggests, that the IMF and the World Bank are the best institutions to do that.
But I agree that the G7 is not enough.
What we need is to include the fast-growing economies of Asia in that process and, at the same time, look at how we can involve the developing world in that process.
We need new multilateral procedures, we need cooperation because the success of the global economy and the livelihoods of many people around the world depend on it.
Mr President, Mr Garriga Polledo has worked very conscientiously on a technically and politically difficult subject, and he deserves the congratulation of his colleagues, particularly for the broadmindedness with which he cooperated with his colleagues on the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs.
The same cannot be said about the subject of his report, the international financial markets.
It is fashionable to hear, particularly from many on the opposite side of the House - though fortunately not from Mr Garriga Polledo himself - that we should be grateful to the international financial credit markets because they save us from the stupidity with which governments manage the economy.
The international money markets are supposed to achieve this by penalizing governments with high interest rates, currency devaluation or the flight of capital if they pursue mistaken policies, in other words policies that seem to the markets to be inflationary, or, now that most of us are implementing anti-inflationary policies, ones that do not seem sufficiently so in the eyes of the markets.
When the markets tame the budget deficits, they begin concerning themselves with broader issues such as the social state deficit forecast for the coming century, which we must also restrict or better still eliminate if they are to stop penalizing us with unjustifiably high interest rates.
The rationale of the markets has almost gone too far.
A few weeks ago, Wall Street started to fall, not because unemployment in the United States increased but because it fell.
Think what would happen to us if unemployment began to fall in Europe!
Fortunately, our conservative governments, with their employment policies, protect us from any such ill-omened development!
Ladies and gentlemen, we ought to turn the picture upside down and, one day, count the disasters heaped upon the world's economy by the deregulation of the financial markets, as it is elegantly termed, or their untrammelled action as I would call it myself.
They have created the Third World debt disaster.
Has anyone counted how much hunger, how much backwardness, how much disease, how large an increase in infant mortality Third World countries have had to suffer in order to make up for that 'slight error' by the major banks? The deregulated money markets created the SLM scandal in the United States, a scandal involving hundreds of billions of dollars that taxpayers had to pay for.
Similarly, a year ago they created the Mexico crisis even though Mexico implemented all the rules they had dictated to it.
And here, European taxpayers have also had to pay their costs.
Mr President, in today's political conditions the major conservative governments refuse to cooperate on monetary issues.
From that point of view, it is just as well that Mr Garriga Polledo's report keeps the subject open and, in common with others among us, I too would like us to take another and more effective look at the issue of controlling the international money markets.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes Mr Garriga Polledo's report, which recommends greater international monetary and financial cooperation.
This report has been perfectly timed to support the Commission in its efforts to improve international monetary cooperation.
In the Commission's view, and as emphasized by the rapporteur, a stable national economic policy remains a necessary but not a sufficient condition for the stability of the international monetary system.
Moreover, while the markets serve a useful purpose in imposing discipline, they can have destabilizing effects which need to be offset by international cooperation.
The Commission therefore supports the proposal that monitoring procedures should be tightened up, and believes that the European Union's experience of multilateral procedures to monitor national budgets could be of assistance in this context, for example.
As Mr Santer and Mr de Silguy have emphasized to the relevant international bodies, the IMF and the G7, increased cooperation on the macroeconomic policy front implies that all those concerned must agree on the objectives, and undertake to use the instruments which enable those objectives to be achieved.
In the short term, this is above all a matter of improved monitoring and the creation of crisis prevention mechanisms.
In the longer term, institutional reforms are needed to make it easier to step up international cooperation and enhance the coordination of macroeconomic policy.
The Commission is therefore in favour of increased cooperation between the international institutions.
One of the major challenges for international cooperation in the future will be to take more account of the interdependence not only between countries, but also between their policies.
The House is also calling for the European Union to play a greater role in international cooperation and, via the Commission and the European Central Bank, to become a full member of the international institutions concerned.
The Commission is willing to assume this role.
The question of international cooperation in the monetary arena must also be considered in the light of monetary union, which will have far-reaching consequences for the international monetary system.
It should be stressed here that the introduction of economic and monetary union should considerably improve international monetary cooperation.
First of all, the increased role of the euro as an international currency will help stabilize the international monetary system and, secondly, monetary union should give the European Union a weight and influence more in keeping with its economic importance than has previously been the case.
In this way, the Union would also be in a better position to coordinate monetary policy with its international partners and to bring about a reform of the international monetary system.
To achieve this, however, the European Union must adopt a firm and steadfast attitude towards its partners.
The practical details of the legal framework governing the monetary union's external responsibilities are currently being considered: clarification is needed of the monetary union's responsibility for external economic, financial and exchange-rate policy, and the functions of the relevant institutions need to be laid down.
It also remains to be decided how the monetary union could and should be represented in the international institutions.
The Commission's services are looking into these issues at present, and Mr de Silguy, who is unfortunately unable to be here today, will keep you informed of the progress made, as he has done in the past.
Until such time as a new framework for international monetary and financial coordination has been defined, however, it would seem premature to comment on a financial support mechanism to minimize exchange-rate fluctuations.
Finally, as far as financial monitoring is concerned, the Commission will continue to carry out its existing responsibilities.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00.
Economic and Monetary Union
The next item is the report (A4-0073/96) by Mr Walter, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on Economic and Monetary Union and economic and social cohesion.
Mr President, Commissioner, the development of the European Union has until now revolved primarily around progress in the economic sector, and the moves towards economic and monetary union represent another important milestone on this road.
And yet, if the nations of Europe are to continue to coexist in peace, they must be guided by more ambitious goals.
This includes bringing the EU Member States closer together in terms of living standards and opportunities in the various regions.
Despite all the efforts which have been made, regional disparities in income, infrastructure and employment levels are still substantial: by comparison with Europe's ten most prosperous regions, the ten poorest regions have an average per capita income which is three and a half times lower, and an unemployment rate which is six times higher.
Economic and monetary union is a crucial and, we believe, an inalienable part of Europe's future; when it is completed, the advantages will be felt not only in prosperous regions, but in peripheral and disadvantaged ones too.
It will also help to improve the effectiveness of the Structural Funds, the Union's most important instrument of economic and social cohesion.
But both before and after EMU, the overarching aim - cohesion - must be borne in mind, and we must ensure that the effects of economic and monetary union and of cohesion policy are complementary, not contradictory.
It is therefore necessary to draw up a cohesion strategy laying down specific stages, as happened in the case of economic and monetary union.
In practice, this means that once EMU is up and running, we must first do our utmost to ensure that its foundations are stable and lasting.
This will require both the participating countries and the pre-in countries to act responsibly.
Secondly, however, we shall need to be supportive of those who are pressing on steadfastly with their sometimes difficult task of meeting the criteria.
This could perhaps be done by means of an extended instrument of solidarity like the new Cohesion Fund.
We are definitely not thinking here of financial compensation: an equal measure of solidarity must be shown by the ins and the outs.
Furthermore, if economic and social cohesion is to make progress, we shall have to define more clearly and realistically than in the past what we mean by cohesion and the adaptation of living standards in the Union.
We should consider using less rigid indicators than GDP, as at present: unemployment statistics should be included.
However, in view of the strong trend towards migration, especially in rural areas, the economic summary should also include as a criterion the actual number of jobs in a region, in other words the rate of employment.
Key factors are sustainable growth, changes in economic trends, action to prevent exclusion, and the state of infrastructure, including social and cultural infrastructure.
These indicators should also be used in developing and focusing the Union's most important instrument of cohesion, the Structural Funds, and the challenges which lie ahead of them.
The Structural Funds should therefore be reformed in order to support efforts to achieve cohesion; in other words, even in the event of the enlargement of the EU, the catching-up process of disadvantaged regions must still be possible and affordable.
We should also have the courage to set deadlines by which tangible progress is to be made.
The self-confidence shown when EMU was introduced must not be dismissed as unattainable in the case of cohesion.
A true cohesion policy, designed to dovetail with economic and monetary union and to absorb any adverse effects, will entail greater coordination in all policy areas which have a bearing on economic and social cohesion.
In a European Union with 17 million unemployed, employment policy must take top priority.
We are therefore calling for an explicit article on employment to be incorporated into the Maastricht Treaty.
An active, sustainable environmental policy must also be put in place: a healthy environment will make a major contribution to the quality of life in the regions and their attractiveness.
In terms of social policy, everyone must pull together to avoid the distortions caused by social dumping - and I say everyone, to include in particular the country which has until now been opting out.
If we add cross-border regional planning, a coherent European industrial and research policy, and the safeguarding of public services which are accessible to all, what emerges is a cohesion policy worthy of the name.
Europe will have a bright future if it can combine solidarity with reliability.
Policies to create economic and social cohesion will be the litmus test of a peaceful and united Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the long-term goal must inevitably be for all Member States to take part in monetary union, and in that respect there is no conflict with the goals of greater economic and social cohesion.
Problems are more likely to arise in the short to medium term, if one acknowledges the possibility that employment might be adversely affected in countries which are not yet taking part in monetary union.
On the other hand, such short- and medium-term considerations may well have to take account of distortions or even disruptions of the internal market.
It has to be said, however, that adverse effects on employment certainly do not occur in one direction only.
We experienced this in Austria when, in 1995, our Italian neighbours devalued the lira.
It was not the case that adverse effects on employment were immediately felt in Italy - far from it.
Austria, a country with a hard currency, was the one to suffer, when millions of schillings' worth of purchasing power poured into Italy from Austria.
All I am saying is that there is no one-way street here and no automatic response, but that the effects are of many kinds and must all be taken into account.
I therefore believe that it is illogical at this stage to discuss the basis for monetary union and to ask whether the convergence criteria are correct or, as you mentioned, whether or not we need a new European industrial policy, and the inclusion of employment in the Treaty.
None of this goes far enough. Our number one concern must be to forestall any distortions in the single market by creating a new European monetary system - an EMS II - which seeks to keep real exchange rates within a certain range.
Secondly, when overhauling the Structural Funds, I think it is important to focus on projects which are needed in order for countries not yet taking part in monetary union to meet the convergence criteria.
And thirdly, private investment must be stimulated, since this alone can create truly secure jobs.
Mr President, I am very pleased we have been able to have this debate today following the initiative of my own political group to draw up an own initiative report on EMU and economic and social cohesion.
The reason we wanted this was because in all the discussions we have had on EMU and the single currency, Member States and experts simply have not dealt with the regional issues.
They have only dealt with the macro-economic issues at the level of a national economy and ignored the regional impact of EMU, or have ignored the relationship between EMU and cohesion policy.
People in our industrial, declining, peripheral and rural regions need to know that EMU will have some benefit for them.
Cohesion is the overriding objective in our Treaty, it stands over and above EMU and that is why we believe that EMU and its processes and stages need to be scrutinized to see how they contribute to cohesion policy.
In this report my group has pledged its support for EMU.
We recognize the advantages due to the cuts in transaction costs, due to the harmonization of interest rates and the growth in employment potential of EMU; but we also have to say that we do not believe necessarily that EMU and social cohesion are mutually reinforcing.
They are certainly not mutually exclusive, as Mr Walter has said in his report, but we believe it will be nominal and real convergence which will support the European Union's competitiveness with the new Asian Tigers, Japan and the US.
EMU therefore needs to demonstrate that it can support, underpin and promote cohesion.
I wish to emphasize again what Mr Walter has put into his report.
He is calling for an integrated cohesion strategy which means that we include EMU, regional policies and all relevant policies in the processes of cohesion.
He is asking for flanking measures to ensure EMU and cohesion come together and we are asking also for a solidarity mechanism to protect the financial markets against speculation and to include countries wishing to come in.
It is a very relevant debate.
President Lamfalussy of the EMI spoke to Parliament's Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs on Monday and presented the annual report.
The word 'cohesion' did not pass his lips once.
It is disappointing that these issues are not dealt with as a whole and cohesive strategy.
Looking at the countries that will join EMU from the beginning, it appears that the countries on the outside may suffer punitive actions.
That is why the Walter report is such an excellent one, because it puts forward constructive policies on how we can help those countries move into EMU and into the third phase faster.
Finally, we need to step up our actions in the regions.
We need to reaffirm what was agreed at the European Council in Madrid.
We need to look at local initiatives, education, training, the organization of working time, promotion of SMEs; but above all we need to win the arguments for EMU in our regions.
This is why we need an active cohesion policy orientated towards employment and growth.
I know the Commissioner will take this forward and I ask him to do so with the incoming Irish presidency and future presidencies so that the Walter report does not lie in the filing drawer covered in cobwebs and dust.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, along with the completion of the internal market and the achievement of economic and monetary union, the promotion of economic and social cohesion represents one of the EU's three political priorities.
Nominal and real convergence are not two mutually contradictory goals here.
Sound public finances, stable prices, low interest rates and a stable exchange rate are preconditions for growth and employment.
EMU, with all its advantages - including in particular for social and economic cohesion - is impossible without nominal convergence.
It is therefore clear that a reduction in crippling national debt plays an important role with regard to investment, and thus employment.
Practical experience in recent years has shown that where unemployment has been tackled by increasing national debt and raising taxes, no lasting success has been achieved.
Only a stable economy, which is the crucial precondition for participating in monetary union, can create market confidence, encourage trade and investment, and hence stimulate growth and job creation.
Regardless of the agreement on the long-term goal - that all Member States should take part in EMU - a transitional phase in which some, but not all Member States take part will pose problems, as Mr Spindelegger has already mentioned.
One of the main challenges at the start of EMU will therefore be to define the relationship between the currencies of participating states and those of countries which are not participating.
The Walter report explores this problem.
The many amendments tabled by my group have, in my view, brought about some good compromises, even though not all our hopes have been fulfilled.
Let me therefore draw particular attention to two points which are of considerable importance to my group.
The first is Amendment No 9 on paragraph 22, in which we state that the current provisions of the Treaty are not inadequate and incomplete, but merely need to be strengthened and properly applied.
Furthermore, we cannot agree to an economic steering body as a counterpart of the ECB.
The second point relates to Amendment No 11 on paragraph 41, where we refer to the Ciampi report, in which leading European trade union and industrial representatives point to a direct link between public services and competitiveness, and state that greater competition in public service provision is of benefit to governments, economies and consumers.
Therefore, public services - and incidentally, the Treaty refers here to services in the general economic interest, and I think the proper terminology should be used - should not be immune to free competition on the EU market.
We cannot and do not wish to alter the Treaty; otherwise, competition would ultimately be eliminated and the market partially segmented, to the detriment of consumers.
Surely that cannot be in our interest.
I would therefore ask the House to vote in favour of our amendment on this specific point.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that economic and social cohesion is one of the principles of the Treaty.
However, it must be present in all measures taken by the European Union, although the most obvious facet of this cohesion tends to be the structural funds.
We must bear in mind that this principle should not be limited to the structural funds but should be applied to all the measures taken by the European Union and also to Economic and Monetary Union.
Cohesion is not a vested interest of country A or B nor is it a vested interest, for example, of the countries which are furthest away from Community averages, but it is the vested interest of everyone.
That is the only reason why it was given so much emphasis in the Treaties.
At this point, I should like to distinguish between two aspects: first of all, that the level of cohesion cannot be measured only between countries but also between regions; secondly, that reinforcing this cohesion cannot be seen only as the co-responsibility of each Member State or only the responsibility of the European Union, but it has to be seen as shared responsibility by both.
On the other hand, we must acknowledge that economic and monetary union is one of the most ambitious projects and perhaps the one with the greatest implications for the European Union and its future.
In my opinion, a positive implication. Positive implications to take place which we feel are worth the sacrifice that we can make in order to bring about, for example, the criteria of nominal convergence, imposing discipline but also sacrifices, imposing sacrifices which are obviously heaviest for those states which are furthest away from the average Community incomes.
We have discussed both of these issues many times separately.
Economic and social cohesion, on the one hand, and economic and monetary union, on the other.
But we have to see them as interlinked.
That is the great merit of this report.
In other words, it has put together these two aspects of European union which we must be capable of reconciling.
In these situations, what is on the table is the fact that we are not able to choose between these two aspects, we are not able to choose between economic and social cohesion and economic and monetary union.
We must reconcile the attempt at achieving economic and social cohesion with achievement of economic and monetary union.
That is what we have to do and that is what is imposed upon us by the Treaty on European Union.
The Walter report shows us that this aim is not easy but nor is it impossible.
Moreover, if we fail to bring about this reconciliation the effects for the European Union will be disastrous.
I therefore congratulate Mr Walter on his report because I think that it has led to a very positive debate which has been open to all contributions.
In my opinion, the outcome is obviously balanced and essentially - and, perhaps, most important of all - it shows that it is possible to reconcile the two aspects, namely economic and social cohesion and economic and monetary union.
With one condition, namely that we actually do so, and in order to do so we must have a concerted strategy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, it is a matter of priority for the European Union to promote economic and social cohesion, in order to provide a guarantee for the leastdeveloped regions that in the transition to economic and monetary union, the inequalities do not increase.
Nevertheless, as Mr Walter reminds us in his excellent report, despite the efforts made and the progress achieved, the regional disparities in the Union in terms of incomes, infrastructure and levels of employment are still very wide.
We support the proposals in this motion for a resolution which are aimed at promoting solidarity, offsetting or avoiding the adverse effects of economic and monetary union and, above all, combating unemployment: cohesion and unemployment are incompatible.
Cohesion and degradation of the environment are equally incompatible.
And, to ensure adequate regional development that is geared to cohesion, there is a need to create trans-European transport, telecommunications and energy networks and a horizontal European industry in all regions, promoting and defending public services, social rights and everything that is European.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left wishes to express its concern at the dangers to cohesion which economic and monetary union involves.
The present convergence criteria laid down in the Maastricht Treaty are neither compatible with the principle of cohesion, nor sufficient.
Others must be considered: convergence in terms of unit labour costs, the wage-productivity ratio, and so on.
Otherwise - and this is a serious point - the adjustments will be made, and they are already being made, at the cost of jobs.
Because, as Mr Walter points out in his report, the conclusions of the Madrid summit and other initiatives may remain empty words if they are not genuinely put into effect.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is important in that it spells out the danger that the principle of economic and social cohesion might be abandoned in the context of economic and monetary union.
Unfortunately, it is not consistent.
On the one hand, it calls upon the IGC to maintain economic and social cohesion as a policy in its own right, but on the other it is inclined - more so here than in the first draft - to misuse structural policy as a carrot-and-stick approach to the consolidation of national budgets.
Although the idea of solidarity with countries which are unable or not allowed to take part in monetary union does feature prominently in the report, it is inconsistent here too, because dividing countries into first and second class in itself belies the notion of solidarity.
The effects on regional development make the downside of the planned monetary union all too clear.
Our role in Parliament is in fact to take corrective action, but Parliament too is starting to question the original principle of economic and social cohesion.
I indicated during yesterday's debate on enlargement to the east that the European Union is in urgent need of reform.
Social and ecological reform would provide an excellent opportunity to bring the economic crisis under control.
Mr President, it goes without saying that this report deals with economic and social cohesion in Europe, and I believe that when reference is made to preserving the convergence criteria, it is clearly being assumed that the Commission has left itself some room for manoeuvre under the Maastricht Treaty as regards strict observance of the convergence criteria.
It cannot be said in respect of government debt and net deficits - the two points which repeatedly crop up in the debate - that the criteria have to be observed to the letter: there are phrases such as 'declined substantially and continuously' , or achieving the aim 'at a satisfactory pace' .
I believe that three points should be borne in mind when it comes to meeting the criteria on government debt and net deficits.
Firstly, the Member States should realize - or be reminded - that the only way to achieve this objective is by means of a judicious savings programme.
Quite simply, employment will suffer if budget spending on investment is reduced, if the structure of expenditure in the more unproductive sectors is not adapted to allow for privatization, if government intervention is not pruned back and wastage curtailed, if bureaucracy reigns supreme and laws continue to be passed at the drop of a hat.
Secondly, we must of course ensure that the criteria concerning government debt and net deficits really are adhered to, since otherwise EMU could become a marriage of unequal partners, and that would undoubtedly be detrimental to Europe's financial market in the long term.
Thirdly, and quite simply, there must be a guarantee that this single currency will not be imposed against the wishes of the citizens of Europe.
I am therefore firmly convinced that any country able to do so should put the question to its citizens in a referendum, to be sure that monetary union meets with the acceptance of Europe's citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my only purpose in speaking is to congratulate Mr Walter most sincerely on his excellent report and on the intensive preliminary work which enabled him to reach these conclusions.
The hearings of experts, the contributions of the unions, and the appearance of Commissioners Wulf-Mathies and de Silguy before the Committee on Regional Policy have enabled us to broaden our knowledge of an issue of overwhelming importance: the relationship between economic and monetary union and economic and social cohesion - complementary goals of equal political importance, as laid down by the Maastricht Treaty.
Economic and social cohesion has always been a Community goal, but as Mr Walter points out, the Treaties do not provide us with a clear definition of this concept.
In my view, therefore, the request to the Commission to include in the first three-yearly report on the state of cohesion a clear and comprehensible definition of this concept, and to improve and broaden the indicators used to measure it, is a very important one.
The report raises another issue to which I should like to refer: the impact of future accessions on Community regional policy.
The future enlargement will require the Union to make a substantial budgetary effort if it wishes to consolidate the achievements of the cohesion policy, since if the current level of expenditure is maintained, the funds that are allocated to regional policy will have to be diverted to the future Member States. And in this case, ladies and gentlemen, the cost of enlargement will fall entirely on the less-favoured countries and regions of the Union, as is happening at present.
Mr Walter is quite blunt on this point: the future enlargement must, under no circumstances, be carried out to the detriment of the cohesion countries.
In conclusion, I offer my sincere congratulations to Mr Walter on the content of his report, the working method chosen to draw it up, and the excellent degree of consensus which has been achieved.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Walter's report is an important one.
I myself am a member of the Committee on Regional Policy and of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in which the report was discussed.
The proposals it contains to counter social dumping and strengthen regional policy and employment policy in order to counterbalance EMU are of course good ones.
Here, however, I represent opinion in the Nordic countries which is critical of EMU, Mr President.
I myself am against EMU - my group holds a different view.
The reason for my critical attitude is that the risks are too great.
EMU is a high-risk project, as the Walter report makes clear.
Sweden and the Nordic countries are vast areas and already have serious regional problems.
We are afraid that these problems will become considerably worse if EMU is implemented.
The consequences which are examined in the report are interesting to see but I consider that there is a lack of depth as regards the issue of studies of the effects on unemployment, regional balance and the environment.
Such studies on the effects of EMU on these areas, both in the long and the short term, should be conducted before EMU is implemented.
For example, what will change for the Member States when they become part of EMU - if they do so?
What instruments of control will remain at national level to deal with economic slumps, for example? Sudden changes in, for instance, the timber industry as a result of lower prices would soon turn into a crisis in Sweden and Finland.
Will countries still be able, at national level, to pursue certain economic policies, interest and exchange rate policies, regional and labour market policies, and so on? Or - as is the idea with EMU - will EMU and the measures which will be taken by the EU and the European Central Bank balance out these disadvantages for the individual states so that the EU can take the necessary decisions on stabilisation, in order to prevent, for example, massive economic change within a sector such as the timber industry?
I doubt it!
It would also be best if the EMU project - if it is implemented according to the current timetable - contained a description of the decision-making process.
Should decisions on EMU be taken at EU level, should they be taken here, by the people's representatives - which is unlikely to be the case according to the Maastricht Treaty - or is it the European Central Bank which should take the main decisions?
A final point on this subject: before EMU is implemented, if it is, the democratic process must be strengthened in all Member States.
I am in favour of referenda as one way of doing this and of improved activities to provide information on the advantages and disadvantages of EMU.
The present report should be seen as an initial step towards elucidating the consequences of EMU.
Mr President, the report by the Committee on Regional Policy states that the less-favoured regions will derive advantages from the single currency, yet it is forced to admit that the application of the convergence criteria may slow down growth, worsen unemployment and reduce social spending.
It does not call the criteria into question, and goes no further than calling for the adoption of supporting measures to ensure that the Economic and Monetary Union is not prejudicial to economic and social cohesion.
This approach is illusory.
The allocation of structural funds has not, hitherto, done anything to reduce the regional disparities in the matter of income, infrastructure and employment which are very prevalent in the European Union, as the Committee on Regional Policy acknowledges.
The European Commission, for its part, is not prepared to hand out budgetary compensation since it purports to sanction the so-called 'cohesion' states which fail to meet the convergence criteria.
Mr Walter's report falls foul of a substantial obstacle which he cannot overcome: the incompatibility of the single currency with economic and social cohesion.
Experience shows us that the application of the nominal convergence criteria for the preparation of the single currency is nothing less than the declaration of war on employment, wages, social protection and the economy in regions which are already less favoured.
Furthermore, the European Social Observatory has recently acknowledged that the Economic and Monetary Union model inevitably carries the seeds of social deregulation.
The former Chairman of the Bundesbank, Mr Otto Pöhl, for his part recently stated that compliance with the convergence criteria was incompatible with the desire to combat unemployment.
The only means of creating jobs and ensuring genuine economic and social cohesion is to reexamine the issue of the single currency, which subjects economic policies and national budgets to the domination of the financial markets.
The social unrest in France during November and December opened the way to the financial markets by expressing the workforce's rejection of a social model based on ultra-liberalism.
By lending weight to this social movement, and prolonging it, we must help to lay the groundwork for a new type of development of society, in Europe in particular and, let me add, throughout the world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a crucial issue.
I am deeply sorry that the European Parliament excludes the possibility of headto-head discussions in which I, could for example, counteract the opinions of the previous speaker with whom I disagree.
This debate is a series of isolated statements without any real dialogue or thought.
But the Walter report is a noteworthy report of enormous lucidity and I am entirely in agreement with it.
A single currency will represent one of the most profound changes which Europe has undergone in recent decades.
There will be a 'before and after' in terms of the single currency.
A new ball game.
And the challenge to the poorer regions posed, in the field of the single currency, an extremely powerful challenge.
The single currency is going to be an important element of the identification of European citizens with the European Union.
In addition to its symbolic import, its cultural and psychological effects, it will imply and generate a powerful integrating logic which is going to change everything: monetary policies, economic policies and budgetary policies, etc.
Early on, the Union will have to set up a federal-type budget.
The current budget will be insufficient, too limited and restricted in terms of the implications of economic and monetary union.
Without such a federal budget the imbalances across the Union's territory might well worsen, especially when we note the so-called asymmetrical shocks which will effect certain countries and regions more than others.
That is why territorial cohesion calls for the continuation of structural policies and this itself calls for a stepping up, rather than a closing down, of structural policies.
The Union's cohesion in the broadest sense is going to depend on the single currency and it will depend on economic and monetary union, it will depend upon solidarity and generosity, it is going to call for the continuation of transfers of resources from the richest countries to the poorer countries but it will also demand of the poorest regions and countries greater responsibility and better use of those resources.
Mr President, I think it is continually becoming easier to grasp the positive consequences of introducing the single currency: reduction of the cost of exchanges, uniform interest rates, the avoidance of inflation caused by money market crises, a boost for the competitiveness of Europe's economy, and finally, development and new job opportunities for the unemployed.
With a view to the aim of a single currency, I think we will have to insist on the application of the convergence criteria decided at Maastricht.
And we must not do this just because nominal convergence is a prerequisite for the introduction of the single currency.
We must do it because nominal convergence is to a large extent a prerequisite for true convergence.
By improving the health of the weaker economies we help them in the long term to approach the stronger ones.
However, the criteria for achieving nominal convergence, however important they may be, are not enough for the achievement of true convergence.
The weaker Member States are forced to make cuts in their public expenditure and public investments in order to restrict their deficits, cuts that may make the economy healthier in the short term, but which can slow development and broaden the gap between the strong and the weaker.
The Union must therefore implement a generous policy via the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, so that the resources needed by the weaker may be found, to enable them to invest in education and training, basic infrastructure, and to modernize the structure of their economies.
Mr President, there is a risk associated with enlargement, concerning which we all of course agree in principle.
The candidate member states have low levels of development and will absorb large sums, resources which must not, however, be taken away from the weaker Member States because that would undermine all that we keep saying about economic and social convergence.
As we know, the IGC is not going to consider the problem.
To me, this seems like burying one's head in the sand, since the problem of own resources and the sufficiency of resources for the policies we announce is an issue of great importance.
We need not only a Europe institutionally equipped for enlargement, but at the same time a Europe ready to deal with the economic issues raised by enlargement itself.
It is therefore a matter of absolute priority to implement an integrated regional policy, with all the improvements demanded to make it more effective.
And among those improvements, personally I believe that we must include, first, a European policy on regional planning that will allow a global approach to the problems of development, and secondly, an integrated policy on island and remote regions, which in any case the report calls upon the Intergovernmental Conference to adopt, a thing that I think is happening for the first time in the history of the European Parliament.
Mr President, as has been demonstrated in the Commission studies and has been referred to by the rapporteur, Mr Walter, it is to be hoped that the introduction of the single currency, being in the interest of the whole of the Union, can be especially advantageous for the less-developed countries: with businessmen suffering to a greater extent from uncertain micro-economic costs and calculations and the macro-economic costs of monetary instability, which is the current situation.
It can also be hoped that greater growth in all economies will have especially marked effects on these countries, as has been noted in the developments of national averages in the European Union and that countries have grown closer as growth increased.
As it is, however, far from certain that these effects will be noticed immediately we must bear in mind that the difficulties of real convergence can be especially great in some of the less-favoured regions of various countries, as has already been said by my colleague, Mr Costa Neves, which has not been recovered even in the more prosperous periods which we have been through.
In any case, the distance, even at national level, is so great that decades will be needed until cohesion countries reach a rough approximation of the Community average, vital in order to avoid risks and in order for the benefits of European monetary union to be felt.
Nevertheless, there is no going back and, on the contrary, with the approach of the single currency, we shall have to strengthen cohesion policies, as the rapporteur quite rightly suggests in his magnificent report.
However, since the less-favoured countries must also make a greater effort towards nominal convergence, in order to meet the Maastricht criteria, it is also important that, without delay, there should be some more flexibility in the requirements of additionality, since it is vital that real convergence should be achieved without a worsening of budget deficits or public debt.
This is what I would suggest to the Commissioner: without increasing European Union appropriations and by easing the requirement of additionality of the different countries, it would still be possible for countries to recover without any adverse effects on the criteria.
Mr President, the reality lived by Europe's citizens today, and those of the most backward areas too, confirms that economic and social cohesion is incompatible with EMU and the convergence criteria imposed by the Maastricht Treaty.
It has already been proved that the effort to fulfil the criteria for nominal convergence has negative results for development, reduces the GNP and leads to job losses on a dramatic scale.
Such a situation is politically unacceptable and economically destructive, especially for countries like my own, Greece, which are advancing at the lower speed.
Yet, the picture of negative consequences is still incomplete.
A study of the consequences of the Single Currency and the Stability Agreement for the economic and social situation, both in countries that join EMU and in those that stay outside it, would, I believe, produce new and impressive results.
Might it be that the Commission and the European Parliament too should begin working on such a study?
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Walter for his report.
It contains a lot of ideas and useful proposals.
I think it is a good comment on regional policy and its importance within the European Union.
Economic and social cohesion is what we are trying to achieve with regional policy.
Regional policy is something we will need always.
The figure in that report that indicates that 0.4 % of GNP is devoted in the European Union to regional policy draws attention to the fact that the resources committed are quite small.
By comparison with resources in the United States of America they are quite small.
We have to recognize that if enlargement is to take place, and considering that the gap is even wider than this report says - my understanding is that the candidate countries have an average of only about 30 % of the GDP of the Cohesion Fund countries - then obviously, we are going to have to strengthen European policy considerably.
We know from historical experience that economic activity ebbs and flows and what is rich today may be poor in 50 years from now.
If we are going to have a European Union then a strong, important regional policy will be a very important component of the policies that we pursue at European level.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that the report gives us the figures for the amount of structural fund resources committed to various countries.
In the case of Ireland I think the figure is a little bit out.
It says 3.3 there, while the sixth report of the Commission on structural funds says the figure is 2.1.
Taking into account the GDP of Ireland as it is today, I think that the figure is actually on average over the six years of the programme around 2.5.
However, even that amount of money has made a big impact.
I have never accepted that Economic and Monetary Union is a threat to the peripheral regions, just as I have never accepted that the completion of the internal market was a threat to the poorer peripheral states.
Experience has shown that the internal market has helped the poorer and peripheral states to grow.
The gap between Ireland and the average European Member State has closed by 21 points; for Spain, by 7 points; and for Portugal, by 9 points. Greece is the exception.
Our colleagues from Greece would have to explain to us why it is the exception.
Sicily also is an exception, but there is a problem there.
For the future, the sacred cow of additionality will have to be revised under new programmes.
It only complicates the whole issue.
We are saying in the structural funds that we must have additionality.
That means that most of the Member States - the poor states - will increase spending.
But as far as monetary union is concerned we are saying that they must reduce spending.
When we have a new programme we will have to look at the economic planning of the less prosperous states.
There has to be a partnership between them and the Commission.
We have to sit down and work out sensible economic plans and apply to their policies the resources that we can afford.
But the element of additionality cannot be proven in such small amounts of money spread over so many policies.
It is only wasting the time of Commission officials and obstructing the whole business of trying to evaluate what has been achieved.
Mr President, I should like to begin my speech with the warm congratulations deserved by a well-drafted report such as that presented by Mr Walter.
I would also make an initial remark comparing one aspect of our situation with that of the United States.
Per capita income in the richest region in the United States, Connecticut, is twice as high as that in the poorest, Mississippi.
Per capita income in Thuringia, the poorest region in the European Union, is one sixth of that in Hamburg.
Perhaps it is realities such as these, amongst other things, which ensure that economic and social cohesion is not an incidental goal of the European Union, but an objective which is enshrined in the Treaties.
The European Parliament is calling on the Intergovernmental Conference to promote and defend economic and social cohesion as a key element of the European Union.
And we must state quite clearly that we fear that economic and monetary union may have a serious negative impact on cohesion, if the necessary accompanying measures are not taken.
I do not intend to examine the statistical details of convergence.
Let me simply point out that at the present time, the only three countries which would fulfil the convergence criteria are Argentina, Taiwan and Singapore.
I should like to know how many interpretations of the Maastricht Treaty will be made if France or Germany fail to fulfil the criteria.
It is good to provide a model of budgetary discipline - I agree with that; but it is better still to ensure that no mistakes are made with regard to convergence.
No country which has made a genuine effort to fulfil the convergence criteria should be excluded from the single currency.
That is my personal position.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at noon.
1994 Cohesion Fund
The next item is the report (A4-0069/96) by Mr Costa Neves, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the complement to the Commission's annual report on the Cohesion Fund (1994) (COM(95)0222 - C40237/95).
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Costa Neves on his report.
On behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I would like to point out that in accordance with the principles governing its operation, the Cohesion Fund aims to underpin the efforts of the less well developed Member States.
Its declared aim is therefore to support economic and social cohesion.
Financial support for infrastructure projects is aimed at doing something about unemployment in weaker Member States and about the structural problems of their economies, in an effort to make an important contribution towards development.
Consequently, it is an important instrument for the exercise of economic policy, and it can play some part in the reduction of regional inequalities and in a fairer distribution of revenue within the framework of the European Union.
Yet, the linking of a smooth flow of finance or approvals of new projects to the absence of excessive financial deficits, as envisaged in the related regulation, could lead to negative results and undermine the Cohesion Fund's declared aim, granted that the Fund was created to contribute towards convergence and not to be converted into a means of imposing specific financial conduct.
Approval and the payments of credits must go together with the fulfilment of conditions such as compatibility of the project with the Fund's declared principles, its suitability and utility for development, its connection with the promotion of the project and its proper and transparent management.
However, to link it to the size of the overall financial deficit of the beneficiary state could impede efforts towards convergence, bearing in mind the condition in which most of those states find themselves.
It also leads to a vicious circle since the withholding of credits then leads to worse recession, which entails additional non-productive expenditure, which in turn exacerbates the financial problem.
Consequently, the assessment of projects and the finance for them should be based on the criterion of how well the project contributes to the developmental effort of the Member State in question, and should take into account facts and figures that reflect its particular features.
The debate on this item will be resumed today at 6 p.m.
Before going ahead with voting time, I would like to tell you that, as reported by the news agencies, a terrorist attack took place this morning at 7 a.m., 5 a.m. GMT, at the Europa Hotel near the Pyramids of Gizeh, 5 km outside Cairo.
A group of terrorists attacked innocent tourists with the loss of 17 or 18 lives, most of them Greek tourists, and 14 or 15 wounded, 7 of whom are in a critical condition.
It is reported that 14 of those who died were women, and I would like to express the House's most vigorous possible condemnation of that terrorist attack, and our absolute opposition to terrorism wherever and against whomsoever it takes place.
I would also like to express the sentiments of us all, I presume, in addressing Parliament's warmest condolences to the families of those who died, and our sympathy towards the families of those wounded.
Mr President, you have spoken for us all.
I too heard a little while ago about what has happened, from Mr Dimitrakopoulos.
I just wonder, besides what you have said, whether the Commission, the Commissioner responsible for tourism ought not to consider the need to inform European Union citizens about the particular dangers they may well have to face in certain countries? I do not know whether that would be part of a travel directive or something else, but I believe the European Union could contribute in some way towards the protection of citizens.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I would like to express our revulsion and sorrow at this terrorist act, and our sympathy for the families of the victims.
Mr President, I too, on behalf of our political group, would like to express our sharing of this grief and to ask that we should not dignify such occurrences with a political or any other character.
Terrorism is to be condemned anywhere in the world, and that is all.
Mrs McCarthy, I was not here yesterday evening, but I asked our collaborators at the desk, who take a different view of the matter. However, we will see that you are informed about the facts so that we can look into it further.
Votes
Mr President, is it acceptable, now that we have voted on nearly a hundred amendments, that the plenary should substitute its own text for that of the committee responsible?
Mr Pasty, I think this is an issue that should be considered both by the Conference of Presidents of the Political Groups and by the Bureau.
I would not like to start a debate here, in Plenary.
It is one of Parliament's eternal problems and we have tried very many times to solve it without any result so far.
Let our Presidents look at it again, and let us do so ourselves, in case some new effort can achieve something better.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Green Group in the European Parliament voted against the report which has been adopted today, because it contains a number of loopholes which pose a major problem in terms of authorization.
We very much regret that our amendments were not carried, above all the one taking up the Swedish proposal on comparative assessment, whereby authorization would be refused if the assessment revealed that a less harmful biocidal product was available.
The report now says that a product may be refused and removed from the list.
But may does not mean shall : this means that we have abdicated all responsibility and placed it firmly in the hands of the Commission, instead of insisting on the imposition of a rule to prevent biocidal products, with their damaging effects on human health and the environment, from reaching the market.
We also regret the adoption of an amendment authorizing anti-fouling products for ten years, even though we know that mechanical methods exist which make the use of these products superfluous.
This is all the more unfortunate since we are aware that these products are the main cause of pollution in our seas and oceans. It is therefore utterly incomprehensible why, in voting today, the European Parliament has above all looked after the interests of industry, rather than trying to adopt a report which seeks to minimize the quantity of biocidal products being placed on the market.
We also find it regrettable that authorization is granted for such a long period of time, and that our amendment in line with the Danish proposal was rejected, namely to authorize highly toxic products for four years only.
No-one can fail to be aware that there are differences in temperature and climate between the north and the south of Europe which cause different conditions for microflora and parasites to live in and hence give rise to a different demand for products such as biocidal products for example to solve this problem.
Harmonization ought to take account of this and that implies a certain flexibility in the list to be prepared and a calm and accurate evaluation of the whole problem in all its breadth and complexity.
Our inclination is to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks and to correct the belief that biocidal products are necessarily always damaging to the environment and dangerous to human health.
The directive under discussion does not refer to a new sector but forms part of an already existing legal system governing chemical substances and preparations in general.
Rejecting Amendments Nos 4 and 42 on laying down a green tax, and Amendments Nos 7, 38, 43, 87 and 89, and accepting instead Amendments Nos 96, 97, 100 and 101, we support the directive.
The increase in the number of biocidal products is alarming.
Our dependence on chemicals is a growing cause for concern.
Only a fraction of the almost 100 000 chemical products on the market have been authorized.
Some ECU 400 million is spent on biocidal products and more than ECU 11 billion spent on pesticides each year.
As a result, there was a need for this proposal for a directive concerning the placing of biocidal products on the market, in order to establish an approved list of active substances and a system for the mutual recognition of biocidal products in the single market.
Because of the complexity and interdependence of the 20 or so existing directives on chemical products, understanding and interpreting this draft directive is not easy.
There is an urgent need, in this area, for the simplification of legal texts that was proclaimed in the Treaty on European Union, and I therefore wish to congratulate Mrs Jensen on her work.
I would end by expressing my endorsement of the agreement which I reached personally with the rapporteur concerning the alternative evaluation methods that are required, which despite representing a very positive step, could have given rise, without this compromise amendment, to unacceptable situations of privilege and monopoly.
Given the importance of this issue, and the support of the Commission and Parliament for Amendment No 95, the Spanish socialist delegation will be voting in favour of this report.
The so-called 'biocidal' products, such as disinfectants, products for treating wood, bird repellents, anti-slug agents, insecticides, etc., are not ecologically harmless products.
Furthermore, this wide domain of chemistry has a substantial economic value.
It is, then, because it lies on the border between economics and ecology that this report arouses strong feelings.
I would like to say at once that I fully endorse Mrs Kirsten Jensen's reservations regarding the 'automatic' principle introduced into the directive.
In accordance with this principle, a biocidal product which has been authorized by the responsible authorities in a single State would also have to be authorized automatically by the authorities in other States within a period of sixty days.
This poses a problem for those countries whose ecological standards are high, and it presupposes the existence of authorities that are genuinely capable of making distinctions.
According to the rapporteur, there are at present about a hundred thousand chemical products on the market, very few of which have been authorized under the procedure suggested in the present directive. The importance of efficient monitoring procedures will be readily appreciated.
We need not only to enable consumers to protect themselves against chemical products whose side effects are little understood, but also to defend nature and wildlife against invasive chemistry.
What we need to do, therefore, is to provide the Member States with the option of conducting a fresh assessment and refusing approval to a substance if it appears that a similar substance already exists and poses fewer health or environmental risks.
Compliance with this principle, combined with the requirement that the Member States should be provided with genuinely comprehensive information, can restrict the damage caused to the environment and to health by biocidal products.
That is why I strongly support Mrs Jensen's report.
Oomen-Ruijten report
One of the fundamental principles of the European Union is that of subsidiarity.
In order for the Union to function effectively and in order for the people of Europe to have faith in cooperation, Community legislation must concentrate on those problems which national governments can only solve through cooperation.
The measure concerning comparative price labelling is a clear example of the move away from the principle of subsidiarity.
Such a move will provoke criticism from the Member States about unnecessary bureaucracy emanating from the EU.
We believe in principle that this type of legislation should not be the subject of a Community directive.
The proposed legislation is not needed to make the single market work.
We consider there to be few disadvantages in certain differences existing between Member States in this field.
Where legislation is needed urgently, this should be the concern of each country individually.
In principle we believe that the EU should have nothing to do with issues such as this and that they are best dealt with at national level. We have, however, chosen to support what is best for the consumer, and have therefore voted for the report.
We support the fact that things are to be made easier for consumers, among other things by making price comparisons where necessary, by including comparable prices in advertisements indicating prices and by removing the link with quantity series, as they make things more difficult for consumers.
We cannot support the amendments concerning the single currency, as we do not support the idea as such; nor do we believe that it will come to pass.
From the consumer point of view we do not believe either that it will be easy to make sense of all the different prices which will be indicated.
Consumer protection and consumer information are both very important, especially in the internal market.
As a consumer, I wish to be informed about what I buy: informed about the content as well as the price.
I wish to be able to make objective comparisons.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, objective!
In other words, distinctions must be drawn.
We have managed to achieve standardized sizes for many products on our markets.
Consumers benefit from being able to compare them.
We improved matters in the wine sector in the late 1980s by banning 0.68, 0.7 and 0.73 litre bottles and replacing them with the now compulsory 0.75 litre bottles.
This EC-wide harmonization was, moreover, an attempt to reduce the number of bottles in circulation by increasing recycling.
At the time, this was a major cost factor for the wine industry.
A basic indication of the price per litre without distinguishing between different, legally controlled qualities of wine - which in Germany range from simple table wine to top-of-the-range specialities like Trockenbeerenauslese and Eiswein - would fall well short of ensuring price transparency, in other words enabling consumers to compare the quality and price of the individual wines on sale.
Not all wines are the same.
What is marketed in 0.75 litre bottles is not sold in 1 litre bottles, and to compare wine made from late-harvested grapes with ordinary table wine would be like comparing chalk and cheese.
An objective approach is thus essential.
And let us carry out a cost-benefit analysis of all the rules that we adopt.
Conversion does not come cheap.
But where is the benefit for consumers? I think we have to draw distinctions.
Where standard sizes have already been introduced, it will be enough to go on indicating prices for these units.
Dual price indications should only be provided when it is objectively possible to compare prices, and therefore helpful for the consumer.
Talleyrand said everything which is exaggerated is insignificant.
It was this basic proof that came into my mind when I analysed the report by our Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection proposing a new Community directive relating to the indication of prices of products offered to the consumer, with a view to protecting the consumer by providing appropriate - in other words - specific - information on prices, so as to enable a comparison.
I am bound to say that I could happily have accepted the Commission's proposal, which seems to me to conform to the intended objective of protecting the consumer.
As regards the new obligation on retail traders to disclose the selling price and the price per unit of measurement - in other words per metre, per kilo or per litre - obviously there can be no question of forcing the retailer to disclose, for example, the price per litre on a bottle of first grade growth wine which is supplied only in the standard 0.75 litre bottle.
What would be the point, in this case, of indicating the price per litre? After all, for wine of this high quality there are no litre bottles on the market.
Such information would tell the consumer nothing.
All it would do would be to increase his confusion, a nonsensical result.
I trust that the amendment before us will be interpreted in this way, if it is adopted.
Too much information, especially irrelevant information, is counter-productive.
I wonder whether we do need to force traders, following the introduction of the single currency, to quote three prices for each product during the transitional period: the price in national currency, the price in European currency, and the price per measured unit in the single currency, and why not quote this price in the national currency too, which would ultimately result in four different quoted prices?
However, the authors of these amendments seem to have lacked the courage of their own convictions, since they propose a detailed report of what these obligations would cost the retail trade, and even suggest a solution to the problems faced by small traders.
The answer, according to them, could be for the Commission to provide aid to persons in this category, though of course they give no details as to how such a proposal - doubtless well intentioned - could be implemented in practice to the tens of millions of small retail traders in the Community.
Nor do I understand why we are being asked to delete the Commission's very reasonable proposal that the Member States should be permitted to exempt products from the obligatory indication of the price per unit of measurement if the provisions laid down at national or Community level do not require any indication of the length, weight or volume of those products.
This option includes, in particular, products sold by the piece or unit.
Why delete this reasonable provision? Why impose abnormally short deadlines for the application of all these new obligations?
I think that the Commission's proposals are far more reasonable.
For all these reasons, I abstained.
Walter report
I have voted for the report.
I regard it as a first attempt to illuminate the social consequences of EMU.
This does not mean I am in favour of EMU.
On the contrary, I am against EMU precisely because I consider that there are considerable risks that unemployment will increase still further, that regional imbalances will get worse as a result of greater concentration in trade and industry and that environmental problems will grow because of the lack of environmental criteria for 'growth' .
The report should also have looked at the changes which will take place as regards the instruments which may be used at national level to counter downturns in the economy, as they affect forestry for example.
Will Member States be able to pursue their own economic policy, interest rate policy, currency policy, regional policy and labour market policy in the future so as to respond to such changes in the economy or will all the relevant decisions be taken at EU level by the new central bank? In the long term, will tax and finance policies be decided at EU level too?
The democratic process leading up to a decision on EMU is important.
It will be made easier if the advantages and disadvantages of EMU are better explained.
Referenda should be regarded as the obvious means of ensuring that EMU has the support of the people.
This report contradicts itself to a great extent.
Both in the explanatory memorandum and in a major part of the conclusions many of the negative traits of the current economic and social state of the European Union are recognised.
In fact, it is worth remembering, and we think this is quite obvious, that economic and social cohesion and the reduction in the disparities of development are central objectives of the European Union and we should also remember that EMU will not just be an instrument - just one alternative, we should add - but is a sharp reminder to all of those - including the Governments of the 15 countries - transforming the passage to a single currency into a central objective (which should not even be an objective at all) and in addition excluded from any of the discussions about the revision of the Treaties.
We should also like to point out that the increase in unemployment (a further one and a half million jobs lost by the year 2000), the reduction in economic growth, the increase in taxes or the reduction of social public spending (or both) are all consequences of the achievement of the criteria of nominal convergence and we should also remember that a Union at different speeds is a contradiction in terms - none of this comes as a surprise because we have been saying it for a long time.
The contradiction in this report resides in the fact that some of the conclusions insisted, nevertheless, as is recognised, on maintaining the existing criteria with a view to the single currency, in the suggestion of tightening up the criteria after 1999 (with disciplinary or punitive measures applied to the 'ins' and the 'outs' , despite the fact that a multi-speed Europe has already been accepted), by restating - unbelievably - the principle that EMU can actually foster social cohesion, when it is really a contradiction in terms, by putting back on the table a proposal of conditionality for the Cohesion Fund and the implicit rejection of the creation of identical regulations for the structural funds after 1999.
We tried to solve this contradiction by letting the peoples of Europe have a say and by proposing the conducting of constitutional referendums on a handover to a single currency, but this amendment was rejected.
Therefore, and without denying the public recognition which we have defended for a long time, and which a major part of this report actually corroborates, we had no choice other than to abstain from the vote on this document.
Chernobyl disaster
Mr President, I have just voted for this report with the greatest of pleasure.
I would remind honourable Members that we have had a visit here from a delegation from the Ukraine.
I myself was involved in this visit.
It emerged once more from the talks we had with the delegation just how complicated the situation in the Ukraine is.
But I should also reiterate the point made by many honourable Members in past debates, namely that there is no need to dismantle the two new nuclear power stations.
The old plant meets only 16 % of the Ukraine's energy needs and it became apparent to us in the course of our discussions that the search for alternatives would be welcomed.
But the Ukraine - rightly - wants more than words and wants to see action.
So I urge the European Commission to work vigorously with the Ukraine to find alternative options.
I think that country deserves this, but we as Western Europeans deserve it too, despite all the risks entailed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the resolution, because I find that there is more hypocrisy here in the European Parliament than anywhere else.
Politicians are concerned not about whether we will survive a second Chernobyl, but only that the West European nuclear industry might not survive a second Chernobyl.
The European Union has failed lamentably.
It has left the nuclear industry to cope with the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster.
However, it is unacceptable for tax revenue to be spent on studies designed to create a new market outlet in Eastern Europe for the West European nuclear industry.
We know that West European nuclear power stations are not safe either; we should therefore have begun by decommissioning our own nuclear reactors.
Even the World Bank has recognized that the best and quickest way to help the East European countries is to upgrade their gas and oil supplies, not to rely on nuclear energy, which is so dangerous and completely uneconomic.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for more than seventy years the USSR regime was presented as the model society, the result of the application of a socialism which was allegedly both scientific and inevitable.
Today, this very House is crawling with the USSR's travelling companions - green or red - and paid spies. And that same USSR today presents us with the terrifying spectacle of an unprecedented global devastation, because although communism certainly killed people in Gulags and massacres, we now see the consequences of its madness endangering not only the heroic Chechen people but the entire human race.
It is not only the Chernobyl power station - where the fusion of one of the two reactors still cannot be brought under control - that still threatens Europe with a fresh disaster: there are twenty other power stations that could explode at any time.
Not forgetting the Barents Sea, transformed into a vast radioactive dustbin where 30, 000 fuel rods have been dumped and where 52 abandoned nuclear submarines represent 52 separate terrifying dangers.
The same is even true, I regret to say, of the Far North of Siberia, where there are nuclear dumping grounds for submarines.
To take account of this vast, tragic situation is the most urgent task confronting all the nations of Europe.
That is why we voted in favour of the text presented to us, whatever its deficiencies.
Mr President, I voted against this motion for a resolution because the text allows the Western nuclear industry complete freedom to go and carry out cosmetic operations in the countries of the former USSR.
In this connection, let me cite the example of the pressurized water nuclear power station of Cattenom, which is in my own region.
Once it had been found that the probability of an accident was very much higher than had initially been admitted, and after an opinion had been sought from the Commission in Brussels, iodine filters were fitted which are supposed - in the event of a melt-down - to prevent the escape of radioactive iodine.
Well, those filters have never been tested - not even in a laboratory - so that this is indeed a case of 'cosmetic' treatment, in so far as it serves no purpose whatsoever.
For my part, I would have preferred the public funds to be invested in cogeneration rather than in the alleged improvement of existing power stations.
The Chernobyl disaster was discovered in Sweden and apart from Ukraine and Belarus Sweden has been the country which has suffered most from the consequences.
Still, ten years on, 7-8 % of the Lapps' reindeer in North Bothnia are condemned because of excessive levels of caesium 137.
A large proportion of natural raw products, such as game, fish, mushrooms and berries, are also unfit for human consumption on account of their caesium content.
25 % of elk have to be condemned and in the worst hit areas more or less all roedeer.
It is not unusual to find roedeer with 30 000 becquerels in the Gävle region - and all this despite the fact that the authorities promised ten years ago that all radioactivity would disappear very soon!
At the same time Sweden is one of the countries most dependent on nuclear power for its electricity supplies.
To implement the decision which has been taken to decommission all nuclear power stations by the year 2010 will not therefore be easy but it must be done nevertheless.
Despite the fact that the nuclear industry has invested enormous sums of money in PR campaigns to avoid decommissioning, Sweden's new prime minister, Göran Persson, has voiced his views in such a way that he was described as an enemy of nuclear power in the newspaper 'Aftonbladet' the other day.
Persson has said that the decommissioning of nuclear power is an opportunity for development.
His industry minister, Anders Sundström, said yesterday that nuclear power as a source of energy was finished.
Sooner or later it would have to be phased out everywhere and it was good to be among the first.
The EU should listen to this Swedish minister.
The phasing out of nuclear power - in order to avoid other Chernobyls in the future - is both possible and necessary and could, moreover, confer a competitive advantage, since those who are first to give up this doomed energy source will have put all the problems of conversion behind them when the competition still has them to come.
Here in the European Parliament various committees have pronounced in favour of the phasing out of nuclear power, in favour of Euratom becoming a body for alternative energy.
If the European Parliament really wants to protect the future of the Union, a common plan for the phasing out of nuclear power should be very high on the agenda.
I have voted for the resolution but would, if I had been permitted to draft it, have included a section on the fact that nuclear power as a source of energy should be phased out both within the EU and in the rest of Europe and replaced with renewable and sustainable sources of energy based on the principle of recycling.
The EU should therefore amend the Euratom Treaty so that the current text relating to supporting civil nuclear power is removed; the Treaty should then promote renewable energy sources which are sustainable in the long term.
Visby Summit
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we did not vote in favour of the texts that had been presented, reflecting as they do in the refusal of this Parliament to denounce the collusion by Israel and Syria at the expense of Lebanon.
These text, once again, make no genuine peace proposals, and the peace of 1993 has failed.
Why? Because it strengthens the apartheid between Jews and Palestinians, an apartheid which is just as unacceptable as the form which once prevailed in South Africa, between the Bantu homelands and the predominantly European areas.
Well, on the basis of the noble ideas of peace, democracy and progress that everyone advocates, why not learn from the example of South Africa? I propose to this House the creation of a Federal Republic of the Middle East, constructed on the principles of equality and the rejection of exclusion.
In four words, one man, one vote.
It will comprise the territories of the former British mandate: Jordan, Israel and Palestine.
Its President, on the same principle as Nelson Mandela, would be Yasser Arafat, representing the Arab majority, and assisted by a Vice-President, like Frederik De Klerk in South Africa, who would be Shimon Peres, while his Minister of the Interior, equivalent to the Zulu Chief Buthelezi, would be the King of Jordan.
I have no doubt that the anti-racist Jewish leaders would accept this solution of universal citizenship, as the Whites did in South Africa.
My thanks to the ushers and officers for their attention.
The Green Group has voted for the joint resolution concerning the Baltic Sea conference, despite the fact that we regard it as being far too weak in many respects.
The environmental situation in the Baltic Sea is alarming, not least in respect of exhaust fumes from road transport and the risks from nuclear power stations.
The EU should therefore take its own rules on environmental impact assessments more seriously where TEN projects, including the Öresund bridge, are concerned, and adopt a clear policy on the closure of dangerous nuclear power stations in the region, rather than supporting them and prolonging their active life.
The potential for alternative energy sources has not been exploited at all.
Nor has sufficient attention been paid to the risk that EU membership and the Schengen Agreement, which it is true will increase freedom of movement for EU citizens within the EU, may result in the establishment of new barriers between peoples in the Baltic region.
Finally, there is no serious analysis of the security situation in the region.
Many former communist states are now doing all they can to become members of Western military alliances (NATO and/or the WEU).
At the same time it seems there is only limited interest within these alliances in an enlargement which would give them a long common border with an Eastern, Russian-led bloc.
The Greens are opponents of military blocs and would warn against a new division of Europe.
It is therefore surprising that the majority in the European Parliament would appear to have so little interest in exploiting Sweden and Finland's experience of non-alignment as the basis for new, common security parameters in the region.
Irrespective of whether one is in principle a believer in or an opponent of enlargement of NATO and/or the WEU, alternatives must be prepared.
Current policy, which gives the impression that the countries concerned will soon be incorporated in a Western system of military 'security' , may cause people to feel they have been deceived and give rise to a dangerous backlash if it does not become reality soon; it may also foster nationalist sentiments.
A serious analysis should therefore be made of the opportunities which exist for the creation of a non-aligned security zone in the Baltic region for those parts which are not part of the Russian Federation or NATO and of course do not become dependent on one or other of these military blocs either.
The EU countries Sweden and Finland should play an active role in this.
Ukraine's decision to remain non-aligned is a positive step in this direction.
Two things must be halted at once: firstly, all efforts to shoot down the Middle East peace process through international terrorism; and secondly, neutral population groups must no longer fall hostage to escalating military confrontation.
The first can be stopped, and assistance can be provided for the neutral population - the group whose very name is a blasphemy has now admitted that it receives support from Iran, that Iraq is providing transport, and Syria weapons.
The international community should make it clear once and for all that what these countries are supporting is a criminal attack on peace, which must be condemned as international crime and dealt with accordingly.
Katyusha rockets have to be supplied and transported, and anyone who does so is collaborating in a crime against peace.
The international community should call to account the perpetrators and their accomplices, and do everything in its power to help the innocent people who have become involved.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Madam President, just half a minute to mention a sad situation.
The Portuguese public have been faced, yesterday and today, with pictures of terrible violence resulting from the savage and barbaric beating of eight East Timorese citizens who tried to find refuge in the German Embassy.
Again today another three East Timorese tried to seek refuge in the Dutch Embassy.
I should like again to mention the fight of the people of Timor and I should like to ask the Presidency of the European Parliament to do all it can and to make all of the possible contacts in order to remain informed about the events which are taking place in Jakarta in order to safeguard the rights of the people of Timor.
Madam President, indeed once again there has been a flare-up of the situation in East Timor, in relation to Indonesia.
I should like to say that the reaction of the police force and regime in Indonesia has now gone even further than that to which we were used and what we were already used to was bad.
On the other hand, it is vital that we be given an explanation about exactly what has happened, especially since one of the events concerns the Embassy of a European Union country in Jakarta - I am referring to the German Embassy.
I would like to have all the necessary information - in particular, as to how this situation came about so that the European Parliament can take a stand on this matter, as it always has in the past.
Thank you, Mr Costa Neves.
Like Mr Apolinário, you are well aware that those were not really points of order, but in view of the gravity of the events you have reported I am nevertheless glad to take due note of them.
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the topical and urgent debate on subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0501/96 by Mr Imbeni and Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of PSE Group, on the insult to the memory of the victims of the extermination camp at Auschwitz; -B4-0509/96 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the insult to the memory of the victims of Auschwitz; -B4-0511/96 by Mr Nordmann and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on respect for the memory of the victims of Auschwitz; -B4-0517/96 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the demonstration by the extreme right on the site of the former concentration camp at Auschwitz; -B4-0529/96 by Mrs Seillier and others, on behalf of the EDN Group, on the desecration of the site of Auschwitz-Birkenau; -B4-0533/96, by Mr Pasty and Mr Ligabue, on behalf of the UPE Group, on respect for the site of Auschwitz; -B4-0534/96, by Mr Provan and Mr van Velzen, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the insult to the memory of the victims of the camp at Auschwitz; -B4-0540/96 by Mr Piquet and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the desecration of the concentration camp at Auschwitz.
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I wish to condemn in the roundest possible terms the insult to the memory of the millions of victims of the Holocaust, in the shape of the demonstration organized some weeks ago by some hundreds of neo-Nazi militants inside the Auschwitz concentration camp.
It is the most recent and most serious of a series of provocations over the past few years designed to diminish and even to deny that the extermination of the Jews perpetrated by the Nazi system and its allies before and during the Second World War ever actually took place.
The choice of Auschwitz is no accident, since it is the very symbol of the Holocaust and more than a million Jews were massacred there.
It is significant and important that today all the democratic political Groups of the European Parliament are jointly expressing their own firm condemnation of that iniquitous demonstration and of any act of anti-Semitism, racism or xenophobia.
We intend by this means to reaffirm that the memory of the horrors of the past cannot be wiped out, that civilization and European democracy have asserted themselves by the very means of the victory against Nazism and fascism and that the fight against every act and every ideology of discrimination and extermination must always be at the basis of the Europe of today and tomorrow.
We wish to express our solidarity not only with the memory of those who lost their lives as a result of Nazi barbarity but also with the Jewish community which has once more been outraged.
A serious warning is emanating at present from Poland.
We ask the Polish authorities not to tolerate the resurgence of anti-Semitism but to prevent these criminal acts, to work to preserve the evidence of a tragic past but one which must serve as a lesson for the future.
For these reasons the plan to construct a commercial centre in the vicinity of the Lager of Auschwitz must be rejected once and for all.
Auschwitz, which was and is the symbol of the ultimate limit of the Nazi and fascist aberration must become a place for conveying the historic memory and for creating a stronger and more far-ranging awareness, above all for the younger generations, of democratic values and tolerance.
The European Union has a great duty in this direction and we therefore strongly advocate the strengthening of specific information and training programmes directed towards the young and more active preservation of the integrity of places which hold the memory of the Holocaust and of the crimes committed by Nazism and fascism against the peoples.
In the next few weeks the 51st anniversary of the defeat of Nazism and fascism will be commemorated.
That must be a further opportunity not only to honour the memory of the victims of the past but also to commit ourselves to building a common future in which the evils of racism and anti-Semitism are for ever banished.
Madam President, when I visited Auschwitz at the invitation of the Jewish Congress for the anniversary of the camp's liberation, I was immediately struck by the fact that it was possible to live at Auschwitz and to lead an ordinary kind of life there.
I was struck by the fact that the Polish authorities themselves resorted to a kind of trivialization of those tragic past events, as if no one bore any further responsibility for them.
And now we learn that preparations are under way, on the actual site of Auschwitz, for the building of a supermarket.
We learn that the Prefect of the Auschwitz region has apparently authorized a demonstration by the Far Right, under Nazi banners, and really it is hard to say which is worse - the violent denial or the commercial trivialization.
Whichever is worse, both are intolerable.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance, which I represent here, believes that all the discussions - all the many discussions - that take place between the European Union and Poland must include the duty to protect and preserve sites such as Auschwitz - and, alas, there are others in Poland.
We also believe that the European Union must now give early consideration to the possibility of financing a programme to preserve these sites, to commemorate the places where European humanity faced its most violent challenge and where, happily, it ultimately won the finest of victories.
Madam President, the Liberal Group naturally has no difficulty in endorsing the content of what has just been said by Mr Vecchi and Mr Hory, and we adopt on our own behalf the reasons on which they base their motions for resolutions and their attitudes.
I would simply like to add how shocked we were by the justifications advanced by the Polish neo-Nazi leader, Techkowski, when he stated that Auschwitz was essentially a place of Polish suffering which was a matter for the Poles and for no one else.
This, of course, is to deny the essentially anti semitic aspect of the extermination at Auschwitz, and also denial of the fact that some places belong not just to the States which have territorial sovereignty over them but to the entire human race.
Auschwitz, obviously, is such a place.
And Mr Techkowski's attitude shows us the lengths to which ultra-nationalistic abberations can go.
Let me add one further thought.
We are of course anxious about the attitude of Polish authorities, and it is indeed necessary for the European Union to be able to exert the necessary pressure.
But we are equally anxious, bearing in mind that this matter comes so soon after the matter of the Carmelite order, about the attitude of certain Polish religious authorities, which are admittedly swift to denounce anti-semitism in general but refrain from denouncing Polish antisemitism, including the antisemitism that prevails within the Polish clergy.
There are grounds here, I am sorry to say, for doubt and anxiety.
These doubts and anxieties also underlie our motion for a resolution, and our vote in favour of the joint resolution.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen: Auschwitz - the very name will signal for ever the end of normality, since at Auschwitz the end of humanity was administered and implemented.
Those who support a return to the normality of supermarkets and anti-Semitic chanting at Auschwitz are seeking a return to the normality of barbarity and inhumanity.
But no one has a right to destroy justice, and those who wish to suppress freedom must have no freedom of opinion or association.
The European Parliament is therefore pleased that both the President and the government of Poland have condemned the building of a supermarket and the march by neo-Nazis at Auschwitz.
It is in fact in the first instance up to the Polish authorities to decide how to respond to the provocative acts of 6 April, and who must be called to account for them.
However, whatever their response, the peoples of Europe must ask themselves whether they can tolerate any longer the existence of economic and political circles which are evidently determined to undermine the political and moral foundations of the post-war period. The answer to this question should be an unequivocal one.
Madam President, it is more than fifty years since the nazi regime came to an end.
The need to confront the horrors of the holocaust and the inability of many people to come to terms with it left Europe traumatized and embittered.
How was it possible that our countries, with their civilization and culture rooted in Judaeo-Christian values and traditions, could allow the Jews of all people to be exterminated on so massive a scale?
The Auschwitz concentration camp, the final resting place for millions of Jews, serves both as a memorial and a warning.
Here our young people can be taught what racism, antisemitism and xenophobia led to in our own time.
Here the nameless victims of the totalitarian nazi regime can be remembered with honour and respect.
I am speaking also for the rest of my Group when I say that recent events concerning Auschwitz shocked us very much.
We deeply deplore the local Polish authority's absurd plans to build a supermarket in the immediate vicinity of the former camp and the offensive demonstration by a group of neo-nazis on the site of the former camp.
The Polish Government only reacted to the local authority's commercial plans after a protest from the Polish President and a number of groups.
Can the Commissioner in fact confirm reports that the Polish Government has now definitively ruled out the building of a shopping centre close to the former concentration camp? During the demonstration mounted by the neo-nazi splinter group influenced by Techkowski the police did not intervene and the Government reacted only three days later amidst a storm of protest.
In Poland itself there was little reaction to the demonstration.
Only one liberal Polish newspaper reacted directly to it.
The line was that the actions of this insignificant neonazi group were disgusting, but hardly a threat to Poland's democracy.
According to this newspaper the fact that democrats do not take to the streets to protest against antisemitism and racism constitutes a greater threat.
Techkowski's neonazis are there for all to see, says the paper, but where are we?
We share this concern about the Polish Government's attitude and shall ask the same question in our own countries.
It is a question we must keep asking ourselves and the Polish Government.
The terrible truth of our history entitles us to do so.
Racism, antisemitism and xenophobia exist everywhere in the world.
We need to take action.
Where are we?
Madam President, I should like to express my absolute and total support for what has been said here by my colleagues.
How could I not do so? Fifty years ago, the Nazis were trying to destroy the camp at Auschwitz to erase the traces of their atrocities.
And fifty years later, today, young neo-Nazis, proclaiming the same ideology, are demonstrating within the actual perimeter of the camp in another endeavour to wipe our the memory of these massacres.
Of course, I myself and my group, like everyone else, can only and strongly condemn this demonstration, as we condemn all the attempts to impair the symbolic character of the Auschwitz camp.
For example, we condemn the proposal - which has been mentioned here - that a hypermarket should be built there.
We believe, Madam President, that the decision by the Polish authorities to authorize this neo-Nazi demonstration is unacceptable.
It is all the more worrying, to my mind, in that it goes hand in hand with a resurgence of racism and antisemitism in Poland.
I therefore welcome the fact that our Parliament considers it necessary to maintain a duty to commemorate all the victims of Nazi barbarity.
And I believe, that as a contribution to this, the governments of all the European States should further strengthen their legislation against racism and antisemitism, the more so since the organization of the European Year against Racism, in 1997, should enable us to encourage further activities.
In conclusion, I should like to call upon the European Institutions, and especially the Commission, to continue their activities intended to contribute to the development of Community and national initiatives to ensure the protection of the Nazi concentration camps as historic monuments, as was recommended in our motion for a resolution that was adopted by a large majority on 11 February 1992.
Madam President, I address the House on behalf of Mr Donnay, who is not here.
It is with some emotion, and also with some indignation, that I speak in this debate.
The Second World War and the atrocities which it produced cannot and must not be forgotten after no more than a few decades.
And yet, what is happening? There are plans today to build a supermarket on the site of Auschwitz, the location of the prison camp so grimly notorious for its exterminations.
This is an insult to the memory of a million men, women and children who were massacred on that site in the name of the ideological insanity of a few people.
But what increases my indignation, Madam President, is the demonstration organized by young neo-Nazi extremists on that site, the site that should be sacred to the memory of and remembrance of the million victims who disappeared there.
I cannot accept the trivialization of such actions, because it is our duty to keep alive the collective memory, to ensure that such events can never happen again.
We will therefore support the text of the motion for a resolution tabled by all the groups.
Madam President, the Group of the National Alliance associates itself with the indignation aroused by the desecration of the former concentration camp at Auschwitz by fanatics advocating racial hatred and impossible historical revisionism.
We wonder how it can have been possible for the Polish authorities to authorize such disturbing demonstrations and we think that the European Union must do everything in its power to ensure that there is no repetition of such episodes.
At a time when confrontation between religions is disappearing and the Pope is relaunching dialogue and understanding between the various religious faiths it is all the more necessary to stifle at birth everything which may put back the clock of history.
The Group of the National Alliance agrees with the content of the joint resolution and will therefore vote for it; we hope also that such sites which saw the horrors, may be maintained in their entirety out of respect for the dead and as a warning for the Europeans of tomorrow.
We hope also that the places which witnessed the Stalinist barbarity and where the opponents of Marxism-Leninism were physically and morally annihilated may enter into the collective memory of the peoples of Europe.
Madam President, several speakers today have already pointed out that the demonstration by hundreds of right-wing extremists and skinheads at the Auschwitz concentration camp was an outrage which took place with the permission of the Polish authorities.
I find this incomprehensible and an abomination.
To my mind, the statement by the leader of the authority responsible that the lesser of two evils had been chosen, because if the rightwing extremists had been refused permission to march there might have been riots on a larger scale, is in no sense an adequate justification.
And I think this is all the more alarming in that Poland is currently ruled by a post-Communist president, Mr Kwasniewski.
I would not have expected such events there, under such a government.
We must now insist that demonstrations should be banned in the vicinity of all former concentration camps and memorial sites recalling the horrors of the Second World War, as well as around the graves of the fallen.
Reverence for the dead and the memory of this barbarity are of greater moral value than the democratic right to demonstrate freely.
We are therefore calling on all the institutions of the European Union to urge the Member States' governments to prohibit such demonstrations.
And this applies above all to the candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe, within whose borders many of these memorials are situated.
Demonstrations of this kind in front of a shrine to humanity must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, once again Parliament must come to a decision with regard to most serious events afflicting an African country.
The present situation is made worse by the fact that the disturbances affect Liberia, one of the African States which has long been independent, at least if we look at its original history.
At least two points in the resolution in support of which I am speaking on behalf of the Liberal Party seem to me to warrant the full attention of the European Parliament and other Community bodies.
The first concerns the thousands of Liberian boy-soldiers who need to be reintegrated into civilian society by means of school, occupational training and if necessary psychiatric help.
The second concerns the hundreds of thousands of Liberian refugees in the Côte d'Ivoire, Guinea-Conakry and Sierra Leone who, whilst waiting for the situation to settle down, which unfortunately seems a long way off, need humanitarian help from everyone, but above all from the European Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it really is an appalling situation to be forced, year after year, to consider the fate of a wretched country experiencing the same disasters over and over again!
Today, once again, that country is being carved up between more than half a dozen factions who are fighting over the wreckage following the collapse of the Government, which went down with all hands.
Chaos is the order of the day: bands of adolescents, intoxicated with drugs and alcohol, rounded up by gang leaders to indulge in slaughter and looting.
Clearly, we can no longer look to the Government for assistance here.
Instead, what we need is a military force, properly equipped, properly officered and properly trained, either to intervene or to keep order.
We cannot avoid this situation.
So let us have the courage to say so openly.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, what we are seeing in Liberia is an example of what happens when constitutional rule breaks down and populations are abandoned to their fate, at the mercy of factions battling for power.
What is striking here of course is that all international efforts, such as they were, have achieved nothing of lasting worth; every cease-fire is broken, and hostage-taking continues.
The latest attempt at a cease-fire was on 12 April and it has promptly collapsed.
But those who live in glass-houses shouldn't throw stones.
You will note that the efforts of the world community get less energetic when only human lives are at stake rather than economic interests.
We thus call for a strengthening of the African countries' powers to intervene and for better control on arms supplies, because it is the free circulation of arms which allows horrendous wars of this kind, which no one can then contain, to happen in the first place.
Madam President, the recent resurgence of fierce fighting in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, could, unless it is speedily halted, lead to a new human catastrophe of major proportions.
During the course of a savage civil war which lasted some six years, an estimated 150, 000 people lost their lives and a majority of the population were forced to leave their homes.
In these circumstances, in which large numbers of refugees are unable to get away from the fighting and have no independent means of support, the number of potential victims of the fighting is enormous.
Many of these are already suffering from malnutrition and disease and it is vital for all possible pressure to be brought to bear on the warring factions to cease fighting and restore the peace agreement of Abuja.
We totally condemn the savage crimes committed and the taking of hostages in this new round of hostilities.
The need for humanitarian aid is immense and exists not only in Liberia but in numerous neighbouring countries to which thousands of Liberian citizens have fled in fear of their lives.
The European Union, along with United Nations agencies and other international donors, must do everything possible to help provide and deliver the necessary supplies.
Renewed efforts need also to be made to prevent the delivery of arms and enforce the embargo approved by the United Nations.
It is tragic to reflect that a state begun as a homeland for liberated slaves should have degenerated into a hell on earth.
We must press not only for peace, followed by elections and the emergence of a stable government, but for continuing aid and an end to the policies of strategic adjustment which have produced crisis and breakdown in a number of African states.
Madam President, the civil war in Liberia has flared up again for the umpteenth time.
A number of warring groups have been responsible for some 150 000 deaths in the seven years since 1989.
Soldiers of the militias, but many more civilians, have been killed in the fighting.
A number of groups signed a cease-fire last August and declared themselves ready to try to disarm their forces and prepare for democratic elections to be held before August 1996.
The fighting has not stopped.
The groups appear to have become even more fragmented.
Recently on 6 April fighting broke out again when the police tried to arrest one of the warlords, Roosevelt Johnson, for his dubious role in the whole conflict.
One really wonders if it might not be best to detain all the leading activists who constantly cause this war to flare up again.
Since the war has been in progress the situation in the country has steadily worsened.
There is starvation, there are 100 000 refugees, there is a massive loss of health care and education and the country is gradually sliding into the abyss.
The question is what can be done?
In the first instance I think we must support the African peace-keeping force in Liberia, ECOMOG, but they ought really to be given the freedom as soon as possible to disarm and detain, maybe re-educate and feed the young soldiers who are randomly running around shooting and stealing, most of them fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds high on drugs.
It is obvious to everyone that something has to be done in Liberia and I think it is equally obvious to everyone that Europe cannot just stand by and look on.
But my question to the Commissioner is this: what is Europe going to do here? It is precisely as one honourable Member said just now.
Liberia is not a Kuwait.
We have no great economic interests there, but we are witnessing a tragedy in the making.
The umpteenth tragedy in Africa.
Liberia's tragic situation forces Europe to launch an immediate political initiative to persuade the parties to the conflict to lay down their arms and start the process of material and economic reconstruction of the country.
Here, in fact, the road to peace lies in the first place through determined support for the institutions set up by the peace agreements of Abuja on 20 August 1995, which remain the only legal national and international framework capable of allowing Liberia to find once more the path to development.
It is therefore necessary for the European Union to support the State Council and the provisional government set up by those same agreements and to relaunch economic cooperation and development through these new representative bodies so that new and free elections may be organized and so that the civil population may return to their own villages.
My Group is convinced that ECOMOG must be given responsibility at international level for disarming the factions and for deploying its troops in the capital, Monrovia, and throughout the country.
We think in fact that the European Union should ask the Economic Community of the West African States to reinforce the international presence in Liberia, since there is the question too of ensuring that the arms embargo, laid down in 1992 by the United Nations Security Council, is respected, since it seems that there is a shortage in Liberia of everything but arms.
We cannot remain indifferent to the agony of a whole country and people.
The European Union is the only international institution which today can help to create conditions of stability and peace in that country.
Now that many European and American residents have been evacuated there is a risk that all talk of the war in Liberia will cease, whereas the urgency for a political and diplomatic intervention remains the same.
I hope therefore that the Italian presidency of the Council, in consultation with the United Nations and ECOMOG, will produce political initiatives, so that a serious cease-fire is declared and respected, together with a programme of economic cooperation with the new, weak authorities in Liberia.
Madam President, once again there is violence, civil war and death in an African country; and once again, there are thousands of refugees, displaced persons and hostages.
Liberia is in the news in the international press because its tragedy, its process of self-destruction, has once more become topical.
The people of Africa do not deserve such suffering, such large-scale and senseless death.
Africa does not deserve to be condemned to oblivion, hopelessness, starvation and poverty.
Africa and its inhabitants do not deserve to be ruled by corrupt governments which hold sham elections in order to stay in power, by brutal dictators who become rich by consigning their people to poverty.
And Africa and its citizens do not deserve the developed world to stand by and watch, with a mixture of indifference and horror, the torment of a continent which, with a few exceptions, is slipping increasingly into underdevelopment and injustice.
Liberia is just the latest episode in a collective tragedy which appears to have no end - and we cannot remain apart from all this.
We cannot stand by and watch the destruction of not only a country, but almost an entire continent - for we too shall pay the consequences of so much horror.
If action is not taken, other names will be added to those of Rwanda, Burundi, and now Liberia.
The ACP-EU Joint Assembly must take rigorous action.
I believe that the ACP-EU Joint Assembly is far more than simply an observatory; it must also be a means of taking preventive measures and action.
Only by acting within the framework of the Lomé Convention - reiterating the United Nations resolution, demanding respect for the arms embargo on Liberia, reaffirming the Abuja peace agreements of August 1995 - and with decisive, responsible and rigorous action by the Organization of African Unity, is it possible to think about starting to rebuild what used to be a country called Liberia.
Madam President, some speakers have already indicated that we are particularly shocked to see Africa's oldest democracy, which in spite of the unfavourable circumstances under which it was founded in the last century, has nevertheless managed to represent what might be called a model of development, plunged into such difficulties.
We are now seeing that such a lengthy tradition of democracy has been incapable of stemming the tide of violent reaction.
Some colleagues have already referred to the problem of youngsters involved in military organizations.
What is even more alarming, if anything, is the fact that these groups have begun to spawn independent gangs of youths who are acting with ruthless violence and are completely out of control.
What is particularly disquieting in this respect is the report in today's press that a certain American television station which operates worldwide has in a sense been providing instructions on how to seize vehicles from relief organizations, convert them into combat vehicles and use them for totally unlawful purposes.
It goes without saying that we call for arms embargoes to be respected, but on the other hand, we have to acknowledge that there is a flourishing black market which will not be in the least concerned by any number of resolutions we might adopt, calling for an arms embargo.
The joint resolution which has been tabled asserts that aid for the population is a matter of urgency, but also that it is extremely difficult at present to provide assistance.
Given these circumstances, we should consider how to enable the aid teams at least to protect themselves and their equipment, so that they too do not fall victim to the mob.
Madam President, in Monrovia, a week after the sudden flare-up of violence, the capital presents a scene of desolation that grows worse day by day.
How can we not condemn these acts of violence, which to make matters worse are being perpetuated by armed adolescents.
A catalogue of violence, murder, rape, looting and destruction of dwellings - that is the sad picture today.
And yet Monrovia had been relatively calm since 1993 and had never experienced this kind of conflagration in six years of civil war.
So what happened?
Excluded from power because he has been found guilty of murder, the head of the Khran tribe, Roosevelt Johnson, unleashed a counter-attack which very rapidly developed into urban guerilla warfare.
The Khran rebels, holding some six hundred civilians hostage, used them as human shields.
The United States, whose historical links with Liberia we know, organized the evacuation of foreigners at a cost of millions of dollars.
The Americans responded with a literal flood of resources.
Five thousand American troops are in the region.
Because of the extreme violence of recent days, and in the absence of any real authority, all the humanitarian NGOs, including the International Red Cross and MSF, have had to abandon their posts.
They were only too well aware that there was nothing more they could do and that the rebels had no respect for anything.
The present situation is disastrous, and we urgently call upon the Commission and the Member States to provide effective humanitarian aid, because the population is seriously afflicted by starvation and disease, especially cholera.
It is essential that the UN Security Council, and the Council of the European Union, should resolve upon urgent action aimed at national reconciliation to promote the return of peace.
Madam President, as we know, the swift deterioration of the crisis in Liberia is having tragic consequences for the civilian population.
The European Commission fully shares the European Parliament's anxiety and concern over the humanitarian situation on the ground there.
A great deal of hope was placed in the Abuja peace agreement which was signed in August 1995 by the leaders of the main factions and provided for the setting up of an interim government in which members of all factions would be represented.
However, the exclusion of Roosevelt Johnson's Ulimo from important government posts and failure to comply with the agreement's stipulations on disarmament and demobilization lit a new slow-burn fuse.
It became possible for thousands of armed fighters to enter Monrovia together with the faction leaders.
The attempt to arrest Johnson on 5 April last had more to do with factional politics than with justice.
His followers naturally resisted his arrest and within a few hours the situation had got totally out of hand.
As a result of the fighting hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed as they fled and most of Monrovia's businesses and private houses were looted.
Unless peace is restored quickly it is to be feared that the already alarming situation will end in even greater disaster.
One of the many alarming aspects of the past week's unrelenting violence was reports of attacks on the aid agencies.
Many aid workers were seriously harassed and their offices and living quarters were looted.
The UN headquarters was stripped bare.
Most of the non-governmental organizations have already lost their equipment and vehicles.
Most foreign personnel have been evacuated.
Intense pressure from all those concerned narrowly saved the European Commission's aid coordination office in Monrovia, still manned by a skeleton staff, from being looted.
It is vital to keep this office going not least because many people are dependent on water supplies provided under an EU water project.
If things do not get better in the next few days the Commission too will have to pull its people out.
The Commission has contacted its NGO and UN partners on the possibility of an emergency aid programme.
A meeting is to be held in Brussels on 23 April with representatives of the main bodies currently or previously operating in Liberia.
The Commission emphasizes once again that it is prepared to look favourably on requests from the partners for humanitarian aid and that it will continue to monitor the situation.
The Commission also draws Parliament's attention to the presidency statement of 11 April on Liberia which strongly deplores the renewed violence and calls on all faction leaders to keep their members under control.
The statement also stresses that the Abuja agreement remains the best hope for peace.
It is clear that the Council and Commission warmly and strongly support the continuing efforts spearheaded by the United Nations to get the parties to return to compliance with the agreement they concluded previously.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
China/Tibet
B4-0514/96 by Mrs Larive and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the need for dialogue between China and Tibet; -B4-0520/96 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the motion for a resolution on China (Tibet) within the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the position of the EU States; -B4-0525/96 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the China/Tibet motion for a resolution at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the position of the EU States; Malaysia
B4-0496/96 by Mr Eisma and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Bakun dam; -B4-0500/96 by Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the rights of the indigenous population and the Bakun dam; -B4-0522/96 by Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the V Group, on the Bakun hydroelectric power station; -B4-0551/96 by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the rights of the indigenous population and the Bakun dam; Colombia
B4-0546/96 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on human rights in Colombia; Morocco
B4-0542/96 by Mrs Elmalan and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the human rights violations in Western Sahara; Patrick Kelly
B4-0497/96 by Mr Cox, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the application for the transfer of the republican prisoner Patrick Kelly from Maghaberry Prison in Northern Ireland to a prison in the Irish Republic; -B4-0503/96 by Mrs Malone, on behalf of the PSE Group, on Patrick Kelly, a seriously ill detainee at Maghaberry Prison in Northern Ireland; -B4-0508/96 by Mrs Ewing and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the fate of Mr Patrick Kelly, a seriously ill political prisoner in Northern Ireland; -B4-0515/96 by Mr Collins and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the holding of Patrick Kelly in detention in Northern Ireland; -B4-0521/96 by Mrs McKenna and others, on behalf of the V Group, on Patrick Kelly, a seriously ill political prisoner being held in Northern Ireland; -B4-0538/96 by Mrs Banotti and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the transfer of Mr Patrick Kelly to Portlaoise Prison.
Madam President, I am glad that despite opposition from the European Christian Democrats we have managed to get Tibet put on today's agenda.
Today of all days, when the European Parliament's China delegation is meeting here in Strasbourg with the Asian European Parliamentary Partnership it is most useful to send a political signal and to impress on the Chinese delegates that dialogue and constructive cooperation with the people of Tibet are urgently needed.
They are needed because recent reports show that the position of the Tibetan people is getting worse and now, for example, there are more political prisoners than ever before in the past six years.
They are needed too because China's constant refusal to engage in dialogue with Tibet damages the relations between the European Union and the People's Republic of China.
The European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Group is very happy with the European Union's decision to submit a resolution to the UN Commission on Human Rights on the situation in China and Tibet.
And we must urge our Member States to gather as much support as possible here, because we have Russia, Ukraine, Brazil and Chile, for example, and we have to steer the same course as the United States too.
We ask them too to hold a thorough, in-depth debate ahead of the vote in the UN Human Rights Commission.
We must not be afraid to raise the imprisonment of Wei Jinseng, the disappearance of the Panchen Lama, the situation in the Chinese orphanages, the death penalty, the continuing policy of moving ethnic Chinese to settle in Tibet and the dismal conditions of the Tibetan people in general.
Madam President, the Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Group would like to have a roll-call vote here and we hope that our vote today will be one of conscience and not opportunism and self-censure.
I hope and expect that the Dutch Foreign Minster will be prepared to submit our resolution tomorrow in The Hague, when the Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen is present.
Madam President, unfortunately greed seems to be gaining ground in relations between the EU Member States and China.
For example, the President of Finland is currently in China with an 80-member trade delegation.
In my opinion it is completely impossible to condone this because China's human rights record has really not improved at all.
Nor has there been any improvement in relations between China and Tibet; on the contrary.
The genocide which has been going on for 40 years is still in full swing and it is the European Parliament's responsibility to remind the Member States, the Council and the Commission continually of this terrible tragedy.
I am glad that there are members of the EP-China delegation who firmly intend to bring up the subject not only of China's human rights records but also of the tragedy of Tibet.
We must continually keep this matter in the public eye.
The UN Human Rights Commission should adopt the resolution defending human rights in China and the position of Tibet.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the text of the motion for a resolution finally submitted by the European Union to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva is an extremely feeble one, a text which barely condemns the Chinese authorities and merely touches upon the tragic matter of Tibet.
We probably owe this text to a sudden burst of guilty conscience on the part of the Union following Mr Li Peng's visit to France.
Yet this feeble burst of dignity would be no more than an alibi unless the Union were to make the determined effort - and everything seems to suggest it is not doing so - to persuade as many third States as possible to vote with it in favour of this resolution.
Hence the importance of a positive vote by this Parliament, today, to remind the Union and the Governments of the Member States that the principles from which they derive their legitimacy will not allow them to skirt around the question of human rights, anywhere in the world.
On the Bakun hydroelectric power station in East Malaysia, Madam President.
It seems that things are not going smoothly with this dam which has long been a source of contention.
That worries us.
We fear that the building of this dam will destroy tropical rainforest and trample over the rights of indigenous communities in the area.
It is not the first time we have talked about this.
We adopted resolutions on it back in 1988 and 1993, but other issues have emerged since then.
Loss of biodiversity as a result of clearing large areas of tropical rainforest is a very real fact and the environmental impact assessments are not satisfactory here.
We thus urge the Commission to remain vigilant and aware of this and to continue monitoring the huge consequences which this dam will have for the environment.
I will not details all the appeals we have made; I hope and am confident that Commissioner van den Broek will share our reservations concerning this hydroelectric plant in Bakun and will take action accordingly.
Madam President, the Bakun dam is an ecological and social disaster: it is a massive hydro-electric project which will flood 70, 000 hectares of prime tropical rainforest in Sarawak and displace 7, 000 local subsistence farmers.
Undersea cables are planned to take power to peninsula Malaysia and nobody is really sure if the whole thing is necessary at all.
In the face of massive protest in the 1980s, the project was abandoned in 1990, and the Malaysian Prime Minister actually said to the world that this was proof that Malaysia cares about the environment.
But in 1992 the project was resurrected. It puts in serious doubt Malaysia's commitment to manage its forests in a sustainable manner.
Fortunately, European Union funding is not being used here.
The hope, with this resolution, is to press European investors, construction companies and world bodies to pull out.
The resolution goes into much more detail, which we do not have time to deal with in our short speaking-time, but I commend it fully to the House.
Madam President, 20 years ago, when I worked in Malaysia for a while, there was considerable concern that the Bakun dam might be built.
That time has now come.
Forest clearance and construction work have already begun, even though the government declared in 1990 that the project was to be shelved for environmental reasons.
That decision was reversed in 1993, and we are once again extremely concerned that huge areas of tropical forest are about to be destroyed: the area of land affected is about the size of Singapore.
After the confrontations which have taken place, we are very afraid that human rights are being abused.
What, we wonder, will happen to the rights of the people living in the region?
How will their traditional, established rights - which are partially unwritten - be protected? What measures are being taken to resettle and protect them?
We hear from Malaysia that the whole process is flawed.
There are flaws in the legal procedure for the environmental impact assessment: it has been split into four separate parts, and construction work has started even though not all of these have been carried out.
Such a procedure is intolerable from a legal point of view, and some of the demands of the local population have not been met.
I think it is essential for the Commission to raise this problem in its negotiations with Malaysia.
We simply cannot accept such goings-on.
Finally, European companies must be put on the spot and asked what moral standards they can have if they work in this region, import tropical timber, disregard biodiversity and flout human rights: take, for example, the German firm Lahmeyer International. Other European firms should also bring their operations there to an end.
Madam President, once again, we have to raise the subject of Western Sahara, the defence of the Sahrawi people and their right to self-determination, and the need for the referendum which is being constantly delayed.
In the motion for a resolution which our group tabled this week, we refer to this indirectly.
However, the detention and condemnation by a military court to 20 years in prison of a 24-year-old woman - and I shall read out her name: it is Keltoum El Ouanat - simply for demonstrating peacefully in support of selfdetermination for her people, reminds us of the repeated postponement of the referendum in Western Sahara, which must be held without delay, but which is being blocked.
The United Nations resolutions stipulated that a referendum on the selfdetermination of the Sahrawi people should have been completed by the end of 1992, but we are still discussing this subject today.
These two issues are connected, therefore: defending the freedom of a 24-yearold woman; and the need for the European Parliament and the other Community institutions to give a decisive push to this stalled process.
Also as regards Colombia, sadly, we must once again speak of human rights violations.
In our last debate on the subject of Colombia, we used a word which is today constantly on the lips of all those who work to safeguard human rights in Latin America: impunity.
Not only in Colombia, but also in Bolivia and other Latin American countries, impunity is the word which is constantly on the lips of all defenders of human rights.
The motion for a resolution which we are introducing today refers to nine more murders which we fear will go unpunished - in the same way as the 94 other murders committed in recent years.
And Colombia is afflicted not only by drug trafficking and murders, but also by the permanent conditions of poverty and injustice which give rise to these scourges.
We therefore urge President Samper not to succumb to the temptation of approving the reintroduction of the death penalty, as this will only make the situation in Colombia worse.
Rather, we appeal to him to take measures to combat the impunity - a word which, sadly, we shall hear again many times in this Chamber - of those responsible for the murders.
Madam President, the situation in Colombia is deteriorating day by day.
That is nothing new; you know that from the papers, from television and the radio.
The controversy surrounding President Samper is undermining the authority of the Government, which has to contend with continuing bloodbaths.
The Colombian Government must do everything possible to halt the spiral of violence, human rights abuses and other activities which undermine the rule of law.
The overwhelming priority of the Colombian Government must be to restore the rule of law; reintroduction of the death penalty and the lifting of the state of emergency are being misused as instruments of human rights violations and they are not the answer.
On the contrary, they merely lead to a further escalation.
Instead the Government must bring those responsible for the killings to justice and take responsibility itself for seeing that human rights are upheld by the forces of law and order.
Only if the Government itself shows respect for the rule of law can it persuade others to do likewise.
Lastly, Madam President, in order to help halt the spiral of violence the United Nations should appoint a human rights envoy for Colombia and I urge the Member States of the Union to advocate that strongly in the UN Human Rights Commission; I also convey that same message, of course, to our most estimable Commissioner.
Madam President, I want to speak on the motion on Patrick Kelly, which is a resolution before you under the human rights heading.
Patrick Kelly is an Irish citizen who is a prisoner in Northern Ireland and who is suffering from cancer and is critically ill.
The resolution requests his transfer on humanitarian grounds to Portlaoise prison where he will be nearer to his family.
He has only seen his three-yearold daughter a few times since she was born.
It takes his family 11 hours to complete the round trip from their home to the prison where he is presently incarcerated.
Under the Convention on the transfer of sentenced prisoners ratified by all European countries, Mr Kelly is clearly eligible for transfer to a prison in the Republic of Ireland.
He has applied for such a transfer so that he can spend whatever time remains to him close to his family.
In view of the Convention and his rapidly deteriorating health I call, on behalf of the Socialist Group, for his immediate transfer in the interests of justice and decency.
We are joined in this request by politicians from parties in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, including colleagues from the Irish Labour Party who have visited Mr Kelly on numerous occasions.
A petition has been signed for his transfer by 85 % of members of the Irish Parliament, including Dick Spring, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs.
In conclusion, I want to point out that no logical or legal impediment exists to prevent Mr Kelly's transfer to Portlaoise prison.
I would ask all Members of the House to support the motion.
Madam President, I wish to add my voice to the views expressed by my Irish colleagues in requesting the early transfer of Patrick Kelly from the prison in Northern Ireland to a prison in the Irish Republic.
I believe that there are powerful humanitarian and compassionate reasons for this request; reasons that will surely convince the British authorities to allow him to be transferred to a prison near his family.
Patrick Kelly is gravely ill and his health continues to deteriorate.
This situation has caused enormous hardship and distress to his family who, in visiting him, are all too aware of the precarious state of his health.
Transferring Mr Kelly to a prison which is in the jurisdiction of the Republic of Ireland would be clearly of great benefit to him and greatly alleviate the anguish being felt by his family.
Bearing these factors in mind, I urge the British authorities, in a spirit of compassion and humanitarianism, to accede to the request for Mr Kelly's transfer.
There is growing support for such a move.
Political parties in the Republic of Ireland and in Northern Ireland are very supportive.
I hope that my British colleagues in Parliament would acknowledge the importance of this matter and would also lend their support.
I would also emphasize to the British authorities that the Convention on the transfer of sentenced prisoners has been ratified by all European countries and that the Convention allows for the transfer in cases where the justification is on humanitarian grounds.
It is overwhelmingly evident that the case of Patrick Kelly meets these humanitarian requirements.
Madam President, I welcome the fact that this resolution is on the agenda today.
Britain has ignored calls from all sides, both North and South, on the Kelly issue.
Kelly is a 44-year-old prisoner who is seriously ill.
I do not think it is very good for the peace process in Northern Ireland to take this approach.
The Home Secretary, Michael Howard, is an absolute disgrace for refusing to transfer somebody who is seriously ill.
You can contrast the harsh treatment that has been meted out to Patrick Kelly with Private Lee Clegg, a British paratrooper, who was actually convicted of murdering a joyrider: he only served two years of his sentence and then was released.
It is absolutely disgraceful that one person is treated in one way and another in another, particularly taking into account that Patrick Kelly was sentenced to 25 years for conspiracy.
Conspiracy, do not forget, is not when a crime is committed but when a person conspires to commit a crime.
Some people have serious doubts about this kind of conviction.
In addition, he was denied medical treatment for over a year.
The British authorities were aware of the fact that the skin cancer that Kelly had could reoccur.
It was over a year afterwards, and only after appeals from the Irish Government, that they gave him access to a cancer specialist.
This did not need to happen.
There is a high recovery rate from melanoma.
It is very important in future that this does not happen.
That is why we have two amendments down to this resolution.
We do not think it is strong enough.
We would like the fact that he was denied treatment to be recognized and that it should not happen to any other prisoner.
Secondly, we would also like to see the European Parliament playing a much stronger role in relation to human rights abuses within the European Union.
There is widespread support for the European Parliament to send an all-party delegation to visit prisoners in Britain and Northern Ireland and see the conditions there for themselves.
This proposal is also supported by many human rights lawyers who are working on these issues.
I do not think that Britain is respecting its responsibilities under the European Convention on the transfer of sentenced prisoners because this convention actually provides for transfer of prisoners for humanitarian reasons.
Patrick Kelly is a prime example of humanitarian reasons.
I am also appealing to Parliament to vote for our two amendments to strengthen this resolution and, for once and for all, to address human rights abuses within the Community and not just in China, Tibet and different parts of the world, but here in Europe where we are primarily responsible.
Madam President, the Convention on the transfer of sentenced prisoners is in force throughout Europe and is being extensively used.
All applications between Ireland and the UK are being looked at on humanitarian grounds.
This is one of the key grounds on which transfer requests are made.
Prisoners have to be treated as prisoners and Patrick Kelly was found in possession of a considerable amount of explosives.
But they should be allowed to serve their sentences as close as possible to their families.
If the worst fears which have been voiced over Mr Kelly's health are confirmed, this prisoner should be allowed to spend as much time as possible close to his family in County Laois in the period ahead.
This could be achieved either by way of transfer to Irish jurisdiction, which the Irish Government has repeatedly requested, or by a decision by the British authorities to release him on compassionate grounds.
Every case is special.
Patrick Kelly's association with events in Northern Ireland makes his proposed transfer perhaps more sensitive than most.
All I can say is that the sympathetic consideration of this case is of paramount importance in the context of our continuing efforts to sustain the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Indeed, I believe that the issue of prisoner transfer is central to the outcome of the peace process.
Senator Mitchell in his report also emphasized this point.
If we are to have a successful outcome to the proposed negotiations on 10 June, I believe that the transfer of Mr Kelly will be a crucial issue in the outcome and success of these talks.
I believe it should be addressed urgently both because of its potentially damaging impact on confidence and for basic humanitarian motives.
I would like to thank all the political groups in Parliament who have supported this joint resolution.
However, I would like to make one point about the two amendments from the Green Party.
I have already signified my own willingness and anxiety to visit the prisoners in England.
I do not believe that many Members of this Parliament can support the amendments because of the language used.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to support them. However, my group will be voting in favour of the resolution.
May we return to China, Madam President? The attention of the whole world is fixed on that great country and especially on the market opportunities it offers.
Eagerness to take advantage of them brings a willingness to turn a blind eye to the inhuman situations there which we have repeatedly debated.
The recent aggression against Taiwan has also caused many Asian countries to rethink their policy on China.
Much criticism has been voiced in Parliament about the upholding of human rights in Asian countries and sometimes we even go so far as to call in our resolutions for a halt to investment.
I have never as yet heard anything like that said about China, so there is a bit of a double standard here.
Madam President, investors can improve working conditions in a country, but not its whole policy on human rights.
But if investors are backed by the criticism of 15 Member States the country concerned will have to take that on board sooner or later.
So the resolution represents a call by Parliament for the EU and UN to send a signal to China.
The European Parliament, Madam President, has nothing at all to gain from constantly pillorying China, but it does have a responsibility to promote stability in the world economy which is becoming more and more interdependent, and China is a factor of major importance in it.
Madam President, I also speak as rapporteur for the European Parliament on EU/China relations, a subject which is occupying much attention both here and in Asia, based on the fact that there is an enormously important trade between our two continents, one which we would like to develop and which was solidified at the recent Bangkok Summit.
I visited China recently and went to Tibet.
I had meetings with many ministers and officials during which I raised the matters which the European Parliament has been preoccupied with for so long, including the question of human rights, the status of religious freedom, the problems in Tibet, the Panchen Lama, the orphanages but also those more positive aspects relating to the new economic policy in China.
I was present at the opening of the academic session of the Europe China Business School in Shanghai.
Concerning the resolution, if we are to be consistent and if we are to support our Member State governments in the development of a common foreign and security policy, we should support the resolution before the House which addresses itself specifically to the Geneva meeting.
The timing of this resolution is that of the United Nations.
I am conscious that a delegation visiting Parliament today from China is deeply disturbed by this matter and I simply report that to the House.
The leader of that delegation Mr Zhu Qizhen said this morning that the Asia/Europe parliamentary partnership meant a dialogue.
We need that dialogue.
The European Parliament should not just be about business as usual but about politics as usual.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking as chairman of the Interparliamentary Delegation for Relations with China.
I have taken a few minutes off from a most important conference being held here in this building on the initiative of the President of our Parliament, an initiative which was a follow-up to the governments' initiative to give parliaments too a part to play in Europe-Asia relations.
There is no doubt that today's initiative for an umpteenth resolution which sounds like a condemnation of the Chinese Government, regardless - and I wish to stress regardless - of the meaning or the content of that resolution, the merits of which I do not wish to discuss, is inappropriate.
Some minutes ago, in the course of our meeting, the chairman of the Chinese delegation threatened to withdraw and left the meeting because he regarded today's vote as a provocation to his government and his country.
I think that the duties of hospitality to some extent justify him and that we cannot fail to take account of that.
For that reason I should like, with due humility, to give the authors of these resolutions the free and independent opportunity, as is fair, as in any parliament, to withdraw these documents today and not to put them to the vote, as a sign of respect and regard for our guests, but above all for the consequences, for the importance of the conference we are now holding; a conference which tomorrow, if the Chinese delegation were to withdraw, would appear in the newspapers exclusively because they walked out and not because of its importance or because of the role and the prestige which parliamentarians want to have.
That is why my Group spoke yesterday against this urgency, without going into the merits; that is why my Group, in supporting this opportunity, will vote against if my request to withdraw the motion is not accepted.
I hope, however, that wisdom, strength and political richness, if only in the contrast and the variety of opinions in every Parliament, will persuade the authors to accept my pressing, cordial, friendly and fraternal request to withdraw the motion.
Madam President, concerning the position of Mr Patrick Kelly.
The European Parliament, as we have seen, has reason to be concerned for the fate of this seriously ill man, Patrick Kelly, who as we have heard is a detainee in Northern Ireland.
The European Parliament is particularly eager to uphold human rights in areas where they sometimes come under pressure as a result of political problems.
It would not be right for Kelly, who is suffering from skin cancer, to be the victim of setbacks in the Irish peace process.
It ought to be possible to separate he fate of this sick man from the controversy - to put it mildly - which surrounds the Irish peace process.
I hope that these calls for the British Government to show humanity will be heard and that the Government will show the necessary flexibility and political sensitivity in respect of the European Convention on the transfer of sentenced persons.
The European Parliament, Madam President, has a reputation to maintain on human rights both inside and outside the Union.
We must not sit on our hands in this case either.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, formally speaking Colombia is a democracy but as we all know, the rule of law does not operate normally there and there are regular violations of human rights.
That has been documented clearly enough in a number of UN reports, and a conference held in Parliament itself stated the central requirement that a special rapporteur should be appointed by the UN to conduct further investigations into human rights abuses.
To my mind this is also the central requirement in the resolution, the original resolution now before us.
I should point out, ladies and gentlemen, that curiously a number of members of the Spanish delegation tried very hard to water down the force and scope of this resolution, to draw its teeth, as it were.
I would find it most regrettable if all the amendments aimed at changing it were accepted, because the resolution would then lose its importance.
And I should say here that I would find it most regrettable if personal relations, between the delegation and the Colombian ambassador, were more important than the defence of human rights particularly when we know that Ambassador Marie Landa is responsible for the fact that 450 dispossessed families were driven off his estate by paramilitaries, and I am not talking through the back of my head here, I have documentary evidence to prove it.
Mr President, China seems likely to feature permanently in our debates on topical and urgent matters.
I would remind you of China's countless abuses of human rights in general, of the situation in the orphanages, of the political terror waged against Taiwan and today, sadly, for the umpteenth time, of her occupation of Tibet.
The Tibetan question has been raised here on more than one occasion, including that of a visit by the Dalai Lama himself.
Has that ever cut any ice with China? On the contrary, it seems that the policy of genocide against Tibet continues unabated and with no less brutality.
We the European Parliament and the European Union generally should thus take further action ourselves, given the manifest recalcitrance of Beijing; we should establish real diplomatic and parliamentary ties with Taiwan and the representatives in exile of the Tibetan people, for example.
I ask myself why it is that the European funds formerly available to finance resistance to the apartheid regime in South Africa, for example, are not now forthcoming when it comes to backing legitimate resistance on the part of the Tibetans.
On the contrary we all know that all the time, and this very day in Parliament, the red carpet is being rolled out for the Chinese communists.
I will end there, Mr President. I shall vote for the compromise resolution, but in my view it does not go far enough.
Mr President, next time in the Conference of Presidents I shall ask if we cannot have a rather more logical order in our human rights debate, because we are hopping about from an Irish prison to China, from China to Colombia, on which I would like to say a few words.
It is most confusing.
I have very little to add really to everything that has already been said on the subject of Colombia.
I think the essential point in this resolution is that we should collectively call on the United Nations to appoint an envoy on human rights in Colombia; that is vitally important, not because envoys' reports change or improve things in themselves, but because the terrible human rights abuses there show that constant vigilance is needed, vigilance which may be the best way of halting the spiral of violence.
I take note of your comments, Mrs d'Ancona, and I myself will be raising the question in the Bureau of whether it is possible to arrange the order of business in such a way as to deal with the human rights issues item by item, in order to make the debate more coherent.
Mr President, I am now speaking on the motion for a resolution on Western Sahara.
We have already adopted many resolutions on Western Sahara, all of them with the same basic tenor: recognition of the West Saharan people's right to self-determination.
This is a longstanding colonial conflict, and we are responsible - not only the former colonial power, but also the European Union as its successor - for enforcing the right to selfdetermination.
The resolution before us today, however, deals with a very specific case, that of Mrs Keltoum El Ouanat.
She is 24 years old and was born in Western Sahara, in other words in the region under Moroccan occupation, and has been in custody in the Moroccan prison of Ben Sergaou near Agadir since 1993.
She was arrested on 10 October 1992 for having taken part in a peaceful demonstration in Smana calling for the right of self-determination.
What we are entirely free to do here leads to being arrested there.
She was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment by a military court in 1993.
I regard this as an intolerable violation of human rights by Morocco.
Both we and the UN should take up this case.
The peace process must be supported here, and the matter brought before the 52nd session of the UN Commission on Human Rights which is currently taking place.
Looking today at the Amnesty International report on Morocco, which is still hot from the press, I note a large number of human rights infringements in that country.
The Commission must be quite clear in its policy towards Morocco, a country with which we have concluded a whole series of agreements in the tourism and fisheries sectors, on how it wishes to see this right of self-determination enforced, and what pressure we can bring to bear.
Mr President, the violence in Colombia has three main causes. Firstly, there is the conflict between the various armed groups - such as the FAR and the so-called National Liberation Army - which have been operating in Colombia for over 30 years.
Successive governments have offered these armed groups the possibility of dialogue and reintegration into the political process.
However, when former guerrillas rejoin civilian life, they are frequently murdered by more radical elements in their group.
Secondly, the guerrilla groups are playing havoc with the Colombian military, which is sometimes obliged to respond to their attacks.
And thirdly, we cannot address the subject of Colombia without mentioning the drug cartels.
There is frequently close cooperation between the guerilla groups and the drug traffickers, and there are often violent clashes between the different criminal organizations.
In any event, we must not forget that the political situation in Colombia is currently in a particularly delicate phase.
Now more than ever, therefore, we must be aware of the need to defend and support the democratic institutions and the rule of law in Colombia.
I cannot end without pointing out that the death penalty was abolished in Colombia more than 80 years ago, by means of a constitutional reform. And I would remind the House of that today, in order to prevent the confusion which sometimes arises between the settling of accounts among armed groups and the Colombian judiciary's legal means to combat violence.
Mr President, it has just been said once again that this is a question of a colonial war and self-determination in Western Sahara.
Let me emphasize that the first country to propose self-determination in the Sahara was Morocco.
Since then, the Polisario has persistently been following a policy of obstruction, doing all it could to deprive the region's new inhabitants of the right to self-determination.
Much has changed in the past 25 years, and this has led to a different population structure.
There is no reason to ignore these elements, however, and to keep harking back to the circumstances of over 20 years ago.
It is wrong to do so, in my view.
I am all in favour of the young lady being released, to the extent that this is an issue of human rights, but I am not in favour of linking that with political untruths.
Mr President, a few words on China to begin with, since so many speakers have talked about China.
On the subject of China, Parliament will be aware that the European Union takes every opportunity, and has taken every opportunity in the past, to voice its concern either in the specific dialogue on human rights, the last session of which was held in Beijing in the third week of January, or on an ad hoc basis as and when specific questions arise between the Union and China.
Regarding Tibet, the Union has always sought to promote direct dialogue between the Chinese authorities and the representatives of the Tibetan people.
This reflects the European Union's firm belief that a positive approach forming the basis for a constructive relationship is probably the best way of achieving progress.
Confrontation would very probably not only achieve nothing; it would actually be counterproductive.
In recent weeks and months the European Union has constantly sought to establish a real dialogue with China based on constructive cooperation.
But given that China was not prepared to offer sufficient meaningful assurances here, the Union had no option but to submit a resolution to the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations, albeit in a way which left the way open for further dialogue.
We acted in close concert with the United States on this, primarily by making joint approaches to many member states of the UN Commission on Human Rights.
It will be apparent from this, Mr President, that far from avoiding discussing and criticizing China on the subject of human rights, we give fresh thought in every case to what the best way may be of moving forward on this front.
Results to date are admittedly not too promising but we must not give up.
Mr President, several honourable Members have referred to the Bakun dam.
The Commission is aware that the Malaysian Government decided recently to continue with the building of this dam in Sarawak, East Malaysia.
In its cooperation with Malaysia the Commission has always consistently taken account of Parliament's resolutions on Sarawak, from 1988 onwards.
These point out the negative effects of wholesale deforestation.
Mr Eisma did so again.
The Commission has also stressed - and we shall continue to do so - that families and others who suffer disadvantage as a result of the building of this hydroelectric plant must be receive assurances that they will be treated fairly. As mentioned in a number of resolutions, some seventeen studies on the technical feasibility of this project, carried out in 1980, were deemed classified under the Official Secrets Act and are thus not available for inspection.
The Malaysian Government is also waiting for the results of the environmental impact assessment for this project, which appears to be split into three parts.
The European Commission does not yet know if this study will be made public.
In the absence of such official documents the Commission is not as yet in a position to state a view on something which will presumably be one of the biggest infrastructure projects in South-East Asia, valued at 18 billion ECU or thereabouts, and we cannot say what the long-term effects of it will be on the immediate environment or what the implications of it will be for population groups which may possibly suffer disadvantage as a result.
The Commission will, however, instruct its delegations in South-East Asia to monitor developments closely and will consider how this project affects the project for forest conservation and sustainable forestry management in Sarawak which the Union is funding.
Mr President, the Commission has long been monitoring the human rights situation in Colombia.
It deploys all means at its disposal to support the efforts made on the Colombian side to ensure compliance with and guarantee human rights in Colombia.
The Commission fully agrees with the resolution in which the European Parliament expresses its serious concern over the violence in Colombia.
It also shares Parliament's concern at the Colombian President's announcement that the death penalty is to be reintroduced.
The European Commission has under the budget line 'Support for democratization and human rights in Latin America' funded a variety of initiatives aimed at developing and consolidating the rule of law.
Abuses of the kind listed in the draft resolution now under discussion will continue to be systematically targeted by the Commission.
Now to Western Sahara, Mr President.
The Commission has long been keeping a close eye on the efforts which the United Nations Secretary-General has made at the instigation of the Security Council to obtain a referendum in the search for a peaceful solution to the dispute over Western Sahara.
We believe that regional conflicts must naturally be resolved by peaceful means if the Mediterranean area is to be a zone of peace and stability.
But by way of its contribution to this, the Commission maintains partnership agreements with most of the countries in this area.
The text of the association agreement with Morocco was signed at the end of February 1996.
Under the terms of the agreement on political dialogue either party can initiate discussion of any matter of mutual interest.
Talks are due to start this year with Algeria on an association agreement once the Council has approved a mandate for the Commission.
This means that an institutional platform is being created on which the European Union can continue raising these questions with the countries concerned which are involved in the conflict over Western Sahara.
Mr President, the Commission also believes that the Euro-Mediterranean Conference launched a process of multilateral debate which will promote harmonious coexistence between countries to the north and south of the Mediterranean.
These, Mr President, were the subjects raised.
You will appreciate that in line with the custom of the House, the Commission does not comment on human rights issues or related matters in Member States of the Union.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0502/96 by Mrs d'Ancona and Mr Meier, on behalf of the PSE Group, on strategic nuclear arms control, disarmament and the test ban and the G7 + 1 summit to be held in Moscow on 18-20 April 1996; -B4-0506/96 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the G7 + 1 summit in Moscow on 19 and 20 April 1996 and the control of strategic nuclear weapons; -B4-0507/96 by Mrs Ainardi and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on nuclear weapons and international law; -B4-0512/96 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the G7 + 1 summit in Moscow and the CTBT; -B4-0524/96 by Mrs McKenna and others, on behalf of the Green Group, on strategic nuclear arms controls, disarmament, a test ban and the G7 + 1 summit to be held in Moscow from 18 to 20 April 1996; -B4-0535/96 by Mr Wim van Velzen and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Moscow summit on nuclear safety; -B4-0547/96 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the G7 summit in Moscow on nuclear disarmament.
Mr President, the G7+1 summit is taking place today in Moscow on disarmament matters.
So this resolution could hardly be more topical, but I should point out that for years this House has been working to achieve an end to the arms race, pressing for the reduction of nuclear arsenals, the halting of nuclear testing.
Consequently, Mr President, we make another urgent appeal today to the Russian Federation to ratify START II, the treaty limiting nuclear arsenals, to China to end its test programmes, and to all parties concerned, amongst them the European Union, the US and the Russian Federation, to return to the negotiating table in Geneva to sign a comprehensive test ban treaty.
Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties has already looked at the black market in nuclear materials.
In a world ravaged by terrorism it does not take much imagination to realize the kind of world disasters into which such a trade might lead us.
Thus it is our fervent hope that this point too may be considered at the G7+1 summit in Moscow.
Mr President, we have too few reasons for satisfaction in this House not to emphasize those we do have.
Well, the year 1996 could be a decisive year for the decline of the detestable ideology of military strength based on nuclear power.
Admittedly, there are still reasons for anxiety: the attitude of China, the present silence of the States which are parties to the Threshold Treaty, the distribution of nuclear resources in the former USSR, and the trafficking in nuclear materials by organized criminals.
However, this year will have been notable for the final cessation of the French tests by the confirmation of the moratorium by America, Britain and Russia and the American ratification of the START II Treaty (pending, we hope, the signature of the Treaty on the total banning of nuclear tests).
It seems to me, then that the human race will have taken a significant step forwards along the road to reason, because not only is using - or threatening to use - a nuclear weapon unlawful, but it also represents a terrible confession: he who threatens nuclear war is speculating on the other's moral superiority.
'We are capable of doing to you what you dare not do to us.'
That was how, not so long ago, we justified out claim to the humanitarian high ground.
Finally, let me return to the blatant proposal by Mr Chirac, a few months ago, that France's nuclear resources should be employed in the services of the defence of Europe.
We should be glad to obtain further details of his idea, and especially to know how it would fit into the institutional structure of the Union.
Mr President, one of the important points with regard to stopping the spread of radioactive materials is of course to get a grip on the unprecedented problems which exist in the former Soviet Union.
The joint resolution several times makes the point that it is a question of creating an infrastructure to allow the strict monitoring of flows of nuclear material from the former Soviet Union and of combating trafficking in nuclear material, which often also originates in the former Soviet Union.
One of the people who has done most to ensure that we know what is really happening in the former Soviet Union is the former nuclear inspector Alexandr Nikitin, the Bellona activist, who is regrettably in prison in St Petersburg.
The European Parliament has already, on 15 February, called for his release.
Numerous petitions and resolutions have been drawn up urging his release, signed by the former President of the Commission Jacques Delors, among others.
As part of this debate I should like to remind the House of this and most strongly urge the representatives of the European Union who are to attend the conference in Moscow to take this issue up with President Yeltsin and ensure that the Russian leadership demonstrate the seriousness of all their promises that democracy will prevail in the country and that there will be freedom of information so that it will be possible to monitor how radioactive materials are dealt with.
We know that there is a mafia, disorder and chaotic tendencies in Russia.
A person such as Alexandr Nikitin should in such circumstances be regarded as a great champion of peace who should receive the full support of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the control of strategic nuclear arms, a ban on nuclear weapons testing, and disarmament in this field will remain urgently needed until further progress has been made.
The G7+1 summit in Moscow provides a direct opportunity of drawing attention to the significance of an issue which is so vital for human beings throughout the world, as Parliament has already done in a number of resolutions.
Above and beyond people's important, everyday need for freedom, employment and a decent standard of living, one of mankind's prime concerns is to live in safety, especially given the danger of the nuclear threat, which has no respect for national borders.
An overwhelming majority of people everywhere would come out against nuclear weapons and in favour of nuclear disarmament.
It is therefore the duty of responsible politicians throughout the world, and of course in Europe, to take a firm stand against the dangers of destructive and deadly nuclear weapons - and I would happily include other weapons too - by promoting practical measures such as controlled disarmament and a test ban, and to divert the money spent on life-threatening arms into peaceful economic policies such as employment, social measures and a healthier environment.
This Parliament, which represents the citizens of Europe, is directing a renewed plea to this effect to the participants in the G7+1 Conference, and to all politicians.
I therefore support all the calls contained in this motion for a resolution: to ratify the START II Treaty and urge all the countries concerned to do likewise, to respect the ABM Treaty, to end nuclear testing once and for all, and to take further steps towards disarmament.
We in Europe should of course set an example and show the world that peace reigns in Europe.
The European Parliament is launching a powerful appeal to this effect to the conference on disarmament.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0495/96 by Mrs Spaak and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the increasingly explosive situation in Kosovo; -B4-0499/96 by Mr Cars and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in former Yugoslavia.
Mr President, the Dayton Agreement, the NATO-led implementation force and the aid programme for reconstruction, under the leadership of Carl Bildt, are the USA and the EU's joint contribution to peace in the former Yugoslavia.
The Agreement and other measures must be implemented.
Nobody in this Parliament has any doubts about that .
We would all prefer not to think about what the consequences would be if the package failed.
There is nevertheless of course a great deal which gives rise to concern: the people's freedom of movement is still limited, the legal proceedings against those suspected of war crimes are facing difficulties, the negotiations between the Croats and the Muslims are proceeding slowly, the city of Mostar has not been integrated and reconstruction work is going badly.
There is still hope, however, Mr President - hope that the efforts now being made will result in a permanent peace in Bosnia even after the withdrawal of IFOR.
Nevertheless, we are very concerned about the situation in Kosovo.
Everything is going in the wrong direction there at present.
Verwoerd, Malan and other apartheid leaders have found keen followers among the Serbs in Kosovo, among the minority who with the assistance of police violence and discrimination hold the ethnic Albanian majority in an iron grip.
How long can we expect the Albanians to put up with being cruelly oppressed and humiliated? What will happen when the bomb goes off?
Parliament's recommendations to the Council of Ministers on the former Yugoslavia can be summarised as two points.
Do not hesitate to use sanctions against anyone who breaks the Dayton Agreement or who sabotages it in any way.
Do not wait to act in Kosovo until violence has been met with counter-violence, which could once again fan the flames of war in Yugoslavia.
Put pressure on Serbia now and convene an international conference on the future of Kosovo as soon as possible.
Mr President, in November of last year I was approached during the OSCE meeting in Warsaw by a man from Kosovo who was of Albanian extraction. He gave me a truly depressing account of the position of the Albanian minority in the area which had become marginalized within a very short period of time and since then, as we all know, the overall human rights situation there has worsened.
Kosovo is a vital part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which will, if prevented from developing satisfactorily, radiate a dangerous and negative influence into the surrounding area.
So it is crucial to this area's development that Belgrade should begin talks with the elected representatives of Kosovo.
My Group regards this as an important prerequisite before the EU restores diplomatic ties with Yugoslavia and lifts the economic sanctions which are still in force.
Consequently it is regrettable that a number of EU Member States believe that the time is right to recognize Yugoslavia.
In general many obstacles remain to recovery in Yugoslavia.
President Tudjman is certainly making little effort to reunify Mostar, there is still no international civilian police force, road blocks are still in operation, the financial aid promised for the tribunal is still not forthcoming.
In short, things are not looking good.
The Council and Commission thus need to keep their finger firmly on the pulse.
To come back to Kosovo, my Group endorses the proposal for an international conference on Kosovo and it would be a good idea to set up an EU office there.
I do not wish to reply to Mr Alavanos; there is no point.
I would merely ask you to ensure that all Members are treated in the same way as myself, that is all.
Mr Alavanos was allotted one minute and spoke for two.
I am sorry, but that must not happen again.
Mrs Pack, I have never cut a speaker off during his or her speech.
I simply confine myself to indicating - albeit quite forcefully - when a speaker's time is up.
Mr Alavanos originally had one minute's speaking time, but he informed me that another member of his group had given him his minute.
I waited until the two minutes were up, and then I indicated that to Mr Alavanos.
I did not cut him off, just as I would not have cut you off, Mrs Pack, for two reasons: firstly, because I never do; and secondly, because you would not have allowed me to.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make the point that I personally have the most explicit reservations regarding everything relating to Kosovo in the motions for resolutions that have been put before us.
Always as far as the former Yugoslavia is concerned, I have learnt, during this Parliament or the previous one, that it was difficult to swim against the tide of the prevailing ideas.
However, I do not allow that to discourage me.
The prevailing idea here is extremely simple: it would be appropriate to encourage all attempts to break up the former more or less totalitarian groupings - whether it be the former USSR or Yugoslavia - about which the West has been so complacent for so long.
Starting from this a priori , the European Parliament as not - I am sorry to say - taken a responsible attitude to the Yugoslavian crisis, and indeed I believe it has helped to make matters considerably worse.
It was premature to recognize the independence of Slovenia, of Croatia, of Bosnia and even of Macedonia.
That step should have been preceded by precautions enabling all the populations to be associated with it, and a Yugoslav confederation to be constructed and associated with our European Union.
We did not arrange these preliminaries, and in the course of the inevitable conflicts which independence was bound to generate we were forced to take sides, always blaming Serbia as being capable of any evil.
And so we brought about precisely what we were pretending to fear.
In Bosnia, we asserted our principles: independence, territorial integrity of a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural entity.
We asserted those principles so intrinsically that many Bosnians thought they could take what we said literally and paid with their lives for European cowardice.
I do seriously urge you, ladies and gentlemen, not to start the same process again tomorrow.
So soon after the flames have died down in Bosnia, let us not throw oil on the smouldering embers - and they are smouldering! - in Kosovo.
The road to hell, as we know, is paved with good intentions.
Admittedly, the rights of the Albanians in Kosovo must be defended.
Admittedly the excesses committed in the name of autonomy until 1989 triggered a process of recentralization which highlighted certain equally deplorable excesses.
But that is not to say that one injustice can be remedied by committing another.
We cannot pretend to aid Kosovo while ignoring the position of Serbia, of which Kosovo forms part and, indeed, represents the historic heart.
None of us would accept similar interference in his own country.
We cannot transfer to the case of Kosovo diplomatic and economic sanctions which, rightly or wrongly, were adopted in order to resolve the Bosnian crisis.
The way to a lasting, just solution to the problems of this region is via an open, positive and constructive dialogue between the European Union and the Republic of Yugoslavia.
Let us have no more of this anti-Belgrade oversimplification, an oversimplification which, in this case, can only lead to another war.
Mr President, in this, my maiden speech as a Member of the European Parliament belonging to the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, I wish to express our concern at the serious deterioration of the human rights situation in Kosovo.
Since the removal of Kosovo's statute of autonomy and the subsequent loss of its right to independence, which had been decided in a referendum, the situation in this region - and especially that of the Albanian minority - has steadily been growing worse.
This could be a new source of conflict in the region, and I therefore believe that it is vital for the European Union to continue its efforts to ensure compliance with the agreements under the peace plan.
Similarly, in line with the conclusions of the last donors' conference, held in Brussels on 12 and 13 April, the European Union must step up its efforts to assist the rebuilding of former Yugoslavia.
Only on this basis will it be possible to make progress in the process of democratization and the defence of human rights in the territory of former Yugoslavia.
Thank you, Mr Mohamed Alí.
As you said at the beginning of your remarks, that was your maiden speech in the European Parliament. Allow me, therefore, to welcome and congratulate you, as did our President at the opening of the part-session on Monday, and say that this House is sure that your presence here will make a positive contribution to the atmosphere of freedom, coexistence and respect for democracy that is the hallmark of this Chamber.
Thank you, Mr Mohamed Alí.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The topical and urgent debate on subjects of major importance is now closed.
(The sitting was suspended until 5.30 p.m.)
Mr Pasty has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I would just like to make a comment.
I am absolutely delighted by the vote which has just been taken, but I note that, since voting began, the quorum has not existed.
I have not asked for the quorum to be established, but I have observed, as a result of the electronic votes, that there are not 207 Members present in this House, and I deplore that.
Are you asking for the quorum to be established, Mr Pasty?
I am not asking for that, I am simply saying that no quorum exists.
In any event, Mr Pasty, let me thank you for your observations.
At the same time, however, I must tell you that they will have absolutely no effect on the result of the vote.
Mr Falconer has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I would just like to say that if Mr Pasty has any problems about the attendance, if we all went to Brussels, we might get a quorum.
On a point of order, Mr President, there is an embarrassing oversight in paragraph 11, mea culpa, it is most embarrassing, also for the Commissioner who is here and above all for Mr van den Broek who has spent the whole afternoon with us.
He himself drew my attention to it.
The paragraph talks of calling on the Council to instruct the Commission, etc., and naturally that cannot be correct.
It is not possible under the Treaty, so I would ask you to substitute the following 'Requests the Commission to open an office in Kosovo' .
It will make very little difference, because the Commissioner has already said that there is no money for it.
Thank you for that clarification, Mr Bertens.
1994 Cohesion Fund (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the report (A4-0069/96) by Mr Costa Neves, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the complement to the Commission's annual report on the Cohesion Fund (1994) (COM(95) 0222 - C4-0237/95).
Madam President, I firstly wish to say that I regret the lack of continuity in this debate between the rapporteur's introduction of his report and the speeches which will now be made, since this will to a large extent distort the message. I must therefore now return to the speech by Mr Costa Neves and his report.
I should like to begin by congratulating him, since I believe that he has drawn up a considered, objective and unbiased report on the very important subject of the implementation of the Structural Funds in 1994.
In view of some of the comments that are made concerning the monitoring of the Structural Funds, I believe that there is a need for Parliament to underline the substantial impact which these funds are having on the development of the economies, social cohesion and general welfare of the countries which receive them. These are countries which are lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of GDP, per capita income and a range of other factors, but which will hopefully one day cease to be so.
In particular, I wish to say that in Spain, we are proud not only of our utilization of the Structural Funds - because in Spain, the take-up rate is very high, not to say comprehensive - but also of the fact that these funds have clearly and efficiently helped to transform Spanish society.
At the present time, Spain's economy is in relatively good shape.
It could even be said that is in better shape than the economies of a number of other European countries which are more advanced in terms of infrastructure and technology.
And the unequivocal message which I wish to convey to Parliament and the public today is that the Structural Funds are an essential means of removing obstacles and transforming and modernizing the countries which receive them.
These are substantial funds which - I acknowledge - must be supervised, and we agree absolutely with whatever efforts to monitor, evaluate and rationalize their use are considered necessary.
However, these are also funds which are serving to bring our infrastructure up to a level which is necessary to foster not only competitiveness, but also social cohesion.
I thank Mr Costa Neves for his report, and I believe that reports on the various annual assessments of the implementation of the Structural Funds should continue to be presented, since this provides Parliament and the beneficiary countries with a guarantee.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the report on the application of the Cohesion Fund in 1994, which deserves our full support - and I take this opportunity to offer my congratulations to the rapporteur - includes various amendments tabled by us, accepted by the rapporteur and approved in discussion by the Committee on Regional Policy.
I should like to pick out those which call for the need to carry out an appropriate and prior assessment of the environmental impact project and the need for elected regional and local authorities to take part with increased powers in the supervisory committees.
In a political framework in which certain sectors insist on suspending funding to those countries which fail to meet the criteria of nominal convergence imposed by Maastricht, it is right, above all, to emphasise the adoption of amendments which we also presented and which advocate that the regulatory aspects of the Cohesion Fund must not be interpreted in an inflexible manner, accentuating at the same time that it is a protocol, outside the Treaty on European Union which, therefore, does not give it equal legal force.
Along these lines, it is also worth pointing that the Cohesion Fund does not favour only the beneficiary countries but also increases demand for goods and services throughout the European Union - which therefore, in the end, benefits all Member States.
It is also a well known fact that for every 100 ECU handed out by the structural funds, 45 ECU benefit the less-developed countries of the European Union.
Therefore - and to make sure that this is made quite clear - we can be sure to oppose and denounce firmly anyone who pretends and even accepts the idea of imposing conditions relating to monetary convergence of an even stricter nature on countries following 1999 which continue to need the Cohesion Fund and, not content with that, who might have the idea of extending the same conditions to the allocation of structural funds in the future.
Nor can we accept that countries affected by the Cohesion Fund should therefore be marginalised in the allocation of various financial incentives, as happened recently in respect of the construction of trans-European networks.
Madam President, cohesion is more correctly referred to as economic and social cohesion.
However, even a microscope will hardly reveal the social element of projects funded from the Cohesion Fund.
It is not just common knowledge, but is actually stated in the document 'Europe 2000+' , that investment in transport stimulates development in regions where growth is already strong.
At a hearing in the Committee on Regional Policy, the Spanish Secretary of State for the Environment said that this was leading to greater polarization in the economic power of some central regions.
The point here is that environmental projects do not always protect the environment.
For example, under the 'green dot' system introduced in Germany, waste is eliminated simply by changing its name from waste to 'recyclable material' .
This avoids having to avoid waste.
The system has caused one environmental scandal after another, and a study is now being financed with a view to trying out a similar scheme in Portugal.
This is how the reserves of the new structural policy are being used.
The present annual report will surely be the last one where cohesion funding is paid out without respecting the convergence criteria.
Things are going to change in the future.
In future, in fact, the disadvantaged regions will be even more disadvantaged.
If we are wondering how to set about reforming the structural policy, the Cohesion Fund springs to mind.
I am of the opinion that we should come out clearly against preserving the convergence criteria for structural policy purposes, because for social and economic cohesion to be undermined by convergence criteria is counter-productive.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Costa Neves, on his excellent report.
According to the principles governing its operation, the aim of the Cohesion Fund is to support the efforts of the less developed Member States whose GDP is less than 90 % of the Community average to narrow the gap between themselves and the other Member States; in other words, to strengthen economic and social cohesion.
The fund is a significant instrument of economic policy and can play a not inconsiderable role in reducing regional disparities in the European Union, particularly in terms of environmental protection and infrastructure schemes in the context of the trans-European transport networks.
The fact that the year 1994 is being discussed here, and that the Court of Auditors reports a payment rate scarcely in excess of 50 %, shows that the form employed by the Commission to provide information for that year was inadequate, since it has merely supplied a complementary document.
On the other hand, the funds have been properly administered and the projects completed on time.
This proves that the beneficiary countries have been keen to use the opportunities provided by the Cohesion Fund to move closer to the goal of convergence.
Although the balance between financing environmental and transport infrastructure projects has largely been redressed, it must be said that road-building is still being prioritized unduly.
However, the increased attention being given to projects to protect the environment, such as water supplies and the treatment of waste water and other waste, is welcome.
But the approval of projects must be subject to a proper environmental impact assessment.
Finally, as an MEP who does not come from a cohesion country, I would stress that this fund has not just been a useful instrument of Community initiatives for the beneficiary countries, but has boosted trade and stimulated demand for goods and services throughout the European Union.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
North-South cooperation and the campaign against drugs
The next item is the report (A4-0070/96) by Mr Liese, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(95) 0296 - C4-0380/95-95/0167(SYN)) on North-South cooperation in the campaign against drugs and drug addiction (Budget heading B7-5080).
Forty to fifty million people worldwide are addicted to illegal drugs - the fate of any one individual is awful enough to demand action.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation has presented a report, which it adopted unanimously, to contribute to solving the problem.
The crops used to manufacture drugs are cultivated primarily in three areas: in the Andean countries, the countries which form the 'golden crescent' , and the countries of the 'golden triangle' in Asia.
A crucial reason for the concentration of cultivation in developing countries is the dire poverty of the people in those regions.
When the alternative is to grow coca or suffer abject poverty and death, the Mafia has an easy task.
Development cooperation is therefore essential, not only in the EU's own interests, but also out of solidarity with the people concerned in this area.
It cannot be stressed often enough that the problem of drugs is also a problem of development.
Europe realized too late in the day the need for joint measures to combat the drugs problem, and we are still being too tentative.
I take exception to any nationalist attitudes in this area: we must act together.
Not only must we act together in Europe, but we must also cooperate with the United Nations, taking account of the relevant international conventions and ensuring at last that these are enforced much more strictly.
The question 'should drugs be legalized - yes or no?' has exercised the House on more than one occasion. I made it clear very early on that such calls for liberalization had no chance of being put into practice either within or outside the European Union, and that international cooperation is imperative.
On the substance of the matter, too, I came out at a very early stage against liberalization, because I believe that such an approach would solve nothing.
I am very grateful to the committee for having rejected every amendment which did not explicitly rule out liberalization, so that we were able to focus more closely on the essence of this report, namely how to master the drugs problem through development policy.
That was very beneficial to the committee's work, and I should like to thank all those colleagues who were of assistance.
So how should the resources from this budget line be spent? The European Parliament created the budget line 'North-South cooperation in the campaign against drugs and drug addiction' in 1987.
The total take-up of funds up to the end of 1995 was ECU 75.68 million.
Clearly, there can be no effective campaign to combat the problem simply by activating these funds, since the turnover of the drugs mafia is many times greater.
But this could serve as a model for the use of funds from other EU sources - such as the European Development Fund and LAA programme resources - so that other countries can follow our lead.
The Commission proposes that initiatives could be funded under the UNDCP programme in particular, for example aid to monitor and combat the drugs trade.
The committee wholeheartedly supports this idea, and we agree that prevention and treatment should be another priority, since it is important and true, and unfortunately not widely known, that there is a large number of drug addicts in the developing countries themselves.
On one point, we are firmly convinced that the Commission's proposal is in need of improvement: the Commission proposes that a substantial part of the budget line for feasibility studies should be spent on investigating whether the GSP is functioning properly.
I think that we should save this money, and the committee agrees with me.
It would be preferable to devote the money to specific projects, because calling into question the GSP preferences - even indirectly - would send the wrong signal to the developing countries. These preferences must be maintained and in fact extended.
One cannot always prove whether one cabbage imported by the European Union replaces one coca plant; the problem is far more complex than that.
It is all to do with sending out a political signal and with the shaping of opinion in the countries concerned.
We focus on alternative development.
Alternative development means offering producers alternatives so that they are no longer dependent on the cultivation of drugs.
It is not enough simply to promote substitute crops: technical knowhow, infrastructure and marketing structures are needed too.
All this must be provided.
There are some very good projects in this area which are extremely successful.
Unfortunately, the EU - the Council and Commission - has not declared its unequivocal backing for such schemes, so we in Parliament should adopt a clear-cut position in order to send a signal to the Council and Commission.
The committee has unanimously done just that, and I am grateful to all the colleagues involved, in particular Mr Schmid - who unfortunately could not be present today for personal reasons - who gave me some very valuable suggestions.
But I wish to thank all my other colleagues too.
I should like to conclude by drawing attention to one particular aspect: the Council challenges the legal basis of this programme, saying that everything to do with the campaign against drugs automatically falls under the third pillar.
I wish to state emphatically on behalf of the committee, and also on behalf of the members of the Committee on Budgets, that in our view, this is an impertinence.
When we pursue a development policy and disburse funds by way of assistance to developing countries, that is development cooperation. Parliament has the power of codecision, or at least has competence, in the field of cooperation, and we shall not allow this competence to be disputed.
If the Council is of a different opinion, we shall find ways of asserting our rights through the budgetary procedure.
I thank you for your attention, and urge you to support this report from the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Madam President, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
When I say hell, of course, I mean the hell of drug addiction.
As for good intentions, the proposal for a Council regulation which is before us today is a perfect illustration of such intentions.
After all, what could be more praiseworthy than the desire to finance projects for North-South cooperation in the campaign against drugs and drug addiction, in order to make the developing countries more aware of these problems.
However, although we believe that it is necessary to help those countries, the draft which is proposed to us today leaves us sceptical.
First, it is inconsistent.
Parliament has on several occasions expressed its opinion as to how the campaign against drugs should be conducted, especially at international level.
We regret the fact that this proposal takes insufficient account of that opinion, and that it refers only to the United Nations International Drug Control Programme.
Moreover, the overall budget that would be allocated to the project is too limited for the latter to be really effective.
In this respect, we would like to have a more accurate idea of what activities will be financed.
Furthermore, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, of which I am the draughtsman of the opinion, would have liked to see an approach which was more geared to prevention and which took account of the needs of local communities in the area of health education, especially for high-risk groups.
Moreover, the committee has already emphasized the need for a global campaign against the consequences of poverty and the promotion of a genuine programme of education in the developing countries.
In conclusion, and more generally, I would remind the House that, whether it be in the developing countries or in Europe, the prohibitionist approach has never yet provided an effective way of combating the escalation of supply and demand for drugs.
We should not choose the wrong target and be too precipitate in pointing the finger at the developing countries.
The synthetic drugs that have appeared in the Western countries prove that.
The Ecstasy taken by young Europeans in Amsterdam or in Paris is just as harmful as the glue sniffed by street children in Rio or Mexico City.
Consequently, only a genuine codevelopment policy will enable us to take effective action against this scourge, both here and there.
Madam President, I think we need to focus on the most important aspect of this debate, and Mr Liese should be warmly congratulated on his contribution and report for advocating more than just a policy which seeks legislation and the destruction of crops, because that often has disastrous consequences, firstly because it pushes demand up rather than down and secondly because, and Mr Liese knows this too, a one-sided strategy of this kind leads to poverty, human rights abuses and often damage to the environment.
Happily the European Commission is aware of that fact too.
At the beginning of this week a meeting was held in Bolivia between foreign ministers from the Latin American countries and their European Union counterparts.
The Cochabamba communiqué stressed the need for collective, concrete measures to tackle the worldwide drugs problem.
Commissioner Marín said at the meeting that the European Union had a different view from the United States on how to combat drug trafficking.
Marín sees little benefit in the US policy of forced destruction of crops, and that is a view reflected in the report, the Commission proposal on which the Liese report comments.
The Commission maintains that measures against drugs have in fact been unsuccessful so far.
It puts the blame for this on certain economic patterns which also apply to the drugs trade, in that where there is demand it creates supply, and where there is greater freedom in trade because borders have been abolished, this helps the drug traffickers too.
Fortunately the European Commission is increasingly recognizing that there is a need to balance the fight against drugs with the general social and economic development of the drug-producing countries.
Ideally the European Union needs to appreciate that cooperation on measures to combat drugs should be born of broad cooperation on measures to foster a good civilian society in its partner countries.
That of course is a long job.
In short, Madam President, north-south cooperation and measures against drugs have failed in terms simply of a war on drugs.
The outcome is negative in two respects: the objectives pursued are not met and the effects of a heavy-handed policy are disastrous.
I think the Commission is on the right road with its proposal for a regulation.
I think Mr Liese has raised the profile of this subject a little and I hope that a few of my amendments on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs will be adopted, thereby giving the whole thing a bit more of a human face. But I very happy with this report and I compliment Mr Liese on it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, millions of people are addicted to drugs.
Cruel tragedies are taking place out of sight of our proposals, reports and amendments.
The victims are drug abusers, though not only them but also their families and all too often children and young people; it is the latter who probably suffer the most in the vicinity of drugs.
A liberal policy is just as irresponsible as a passive one.
Cooperation must be increased, not only across borders but worldwide.
There must also be greater cooperation within countries, between social services, the police and schools and other educational establishments.
A dialogue has been initiated between the USA and Europe and it is obvious that Europe will have to do more if it is to be equal to the American challenges.
On this issue the committee has received a number of opinions from several other committees with relatively mixed results.
I am happy to see that the Committee on Development and Cooperation has succeeded in distilling a constructive and consistent line from so many contradictory standpoints.
It would be naive, however, to believe that the EU can replace all drugs with other crops and simply buy solutions to the problem.
This is unrealistic. We can provide development aid, set a good example and contribute to development activities to create better infrastructure.
This is where progress in the area can be made.
If the problem of financing in this connection is to be resolved we must have thorough research, evaluation, accounting and monitoring, as well as proper public scrutiny.
The problems involved are massive and we cannot solve them through resignation; rather we must counter them with greater efforts and endeavours.
We therefore expect the Intergovernmental Conference to find much more effective ways of taking decisions where drugs trafficking is concerned.
After all, we cannot then take a retrograde step in this connection.
The victims of drugs trafficking cannot simply be left to their fate.
We are all responsible, not least those Members of the Council who do not wish to meet the obligations imposed by the proposed measures but who do not have any alternative proposals either.
I welcome the humane viewpoint which I believe permeates both the proposal and the report.
It shows a way towards an alternative development which will result in less demand.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the campaign against drug addiction is a subject which gives rise to a great deal of polemics and passion, because unfortunately there is no miracle cure to stamp out this scourge which is poisoning our society, creating greater and greater devastation, and giving rise directly to delinquency and prostitution.
I am a grass-roots politician.
The Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, which I represent, has seen a considerable increase in this phenomenon during recent years.
Drug seizures increased by 272 % in 1995 as compared with the previous year.
The number of drug addicts in the region is estimated at 15, 000, or 10 % of the French total; the population of the region represents 2.5 % of the population of France, so that Nord-Pas-de-Calais sadly has four times as many drug addicts as the national average.
The proportion of heroin addicts in the region is increasing; it exceeds the national average by 15 %.
Multiple addiction is spreading.
It is the young generation that is affected: 90 % are under 30 and half are under 21; most of them are male and 65 % are job-seekers.
Drug addicts are not just dreamy intellectuals trying to escape, from time to time, the reality of everyday life; they are also young people, victims of the economic crisis, lacking roots, values and standards.
Far from solving the problem by eliminating the attraction of forbidden fruit, the legalization of the sale of soft drugs, persistently called for by some Members, would merely exacerbate it by increasing the supply and making it easier to purchase drugs.
Every country or region that has tried this experiment has found it a failure and has turned back.
The Dutch also acknowledge that, although their policy has had satisfactory results over a long period, their liberal intentions are today being perverted by international traffickers.
What they have seen in the Netherlands is nothing less than drugs tourism, and they are the first victims of it.
In 1991, 61 % of the heroin sold in France came from the Netherlands.
In the last two years, more than 40 people from the Department of Nord have died of an overdose in the Netherlands.
The French and Dutch police believe that young French people are making 200 trips per day to the Netherlands to buy drugs there.
An association from Lille, set up in 1995, has set up a contact group in Rotterdam to repatriate these deeply distressed young people.
It is essential now to devise a plan for global action.
First, greater cooperation between the Member States is necessary to ensure better comprehension of mutual problems and the harmonization of policies.
We cannot organize the coexistence of such different models as those that exist at present.
Secondly, we need to reinforce the health programmes and information campaigns. That is what we set out in the Burtone report.
Finally, we must boost international cooperation to combat organized crime and reduce supply.
As our rapporteur quite rightly stresses, while the only choice is between growing coca and extreme poverty or death, the Maffia will be on velvet.
It is crucial, then, to encourage substitution development strategies to offer certain developing countries other alternatives to the production of drugs.
The proposals by the Commission and the rapporteur are satisfactory.
We must allocate substantial resources to implementing them.
We shall therefore support this report, which is a step in the right direction.
Madam President, notwithstanding the very proper concern voiced by the previous speaker, Mr Donnay, he seemed to be talking about northsouth cooperation, between the Netherlands and France, and I thought the report dealt with something different from what Mr Donnay was talking about, but I do share his concern.
Madam President, I know from my own experience - don't get me wrong here - that drugs and drug-related crime are spreading in third world countries. Corruption is also spreading and so is the absolute dependence of various third world countries on this abhorrent trade.
The harm this does to stability and economic development in these countries gives us cause not only for great concern but also cause to reflect on what is in effect the failure of our development cooperation.
Many citizens of these countries appear - as I said - to be totally powerless to halt the expansion of the drugs trade, the drugs industry, the cultivation of narcotic crops.
Because people live in poverty, the result of the failure of large areas of our development cooperation, they often have no alternative.
Consequently we must not only look at the position here in Europe as part of a coherent and global campaign against drugs; it is very much in our interest to offer a viable alternative in the areas to which Dr Liese has pointed.
One major element in our global policy on drugs is thus cooperation between north and south; it has to be.
It is a useful means of strengthening the institutional capacity of the countries concerned so that they in turn can have the weapons with which to act against the laundering of drug money and fight the drug barons.
In another important aspect of our north-south cooperation, however, we must try to encourage the cultivation of alternative crops to get off the ground.
This cannot be an ad hoc policy. The encouragement of alternative crops can only succeed if we ourselves open up our markets to third world products, including agricultural products.
The funds for north-south cooperation are far too modest, Madam President.
Ten million ECU is of course nothing, peanuts.
More must be found if Europe really wants to provide serious help with the problem we are discussing.
We must also cooperate with the United Nations and the Member States to make our efforts more effective.
This north-south cooperation must also be a part of our overall policy of development cooperation: human rights, the environment and the role of women all have their place, but I tell you, the most important requirement of all is action to tackle and defeat dependence on the drugs trade, the drugs industry, drug manufacturing.
What we must do here in Europe, whoever we blame for drug addiction, whether it is the Netherlands or Belgium or another country, we must send out an important signal to the roots from which this abomination grows, and I am happy that Mr Liese, who know what he is talking about, has given that signal.
My compliments to him.
Madam President, Commissioner, it is generally believed that in the fight against international drug trafficking, the key to success lies - and this was confirmed by the European Council in Madrid - in drawing up measures to reduce demand, combat the illegal trade and establish international cooperation.
There is no agreement, however, on how to reduce demand - and without the reduction of demand, the other measures will be largely ineffective.
This aspect of the question should be borne in mind, even though we are at present discussing international cooperation; for what is the point of reaching agreements with the countries concerned to eradicate drug crops from certain areas, when the criminal organizations can simply grow those crops somewhere else? Indeed, the eradication - or at least the attempted eradication - of drug crops from certain geographical areas has not resulted in the reduction of the quantity of those crops.
The question is not so simple - would that it were.
Consequently, I believe that we must continue our attempts to increase the budget for promoting alternative agricultural development in the countries concerned, with a view to ensuring that the substitution of traditionally grown narcotic plants with alternative crops is genuinely feasible. At the same time, however, I believe that we must address the serious problem of drug addiction from many different angles and without preconceptions.
Madam President, plans drawn up around the conference table do no good.
They have resulted, in the 'golden triangle' for example, in crops being grubbed up, causing villages to slide away because of erosion, and driving people who lose their jobs and homes in rural areas into shanty-towns around the big cities; once there, they have sunk into poverty and have themselves begun to take drugs.
One solution would be to involve local people from the outset in all restructuring plans for which aid is intended, but we can see few really positive examples of this.
The problem with international institutions receiving funds from the European Union is that the EU often loses any control.
When one considers what is actually being done nowadays to combat drugs, it really is an act of desperation: the police are being used in the campaign against drugs, and the root causes are in no sense being addressed.
Generally speaking, we are in favour of Mr Liese's report.
But we fail to understand why he has suddenly developed such an admiration for trade preferences.
Basically, these benefit only large concerns, whereas small farmers gain absolutely nothing.
In Colombia, for example, in the flower plantations run by these large concerns, serious violations of human rights are taking place, particularly against female workers.
Their health is being damaged irresponsibly, and yet aid is being provided.
Is that what we want? Parliament has been demanding investigations for years now, but the Commission does nothing.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, not all the members in my group agree with the point I am about to make, so I shall speak personally.
The rapporteur proposes the development of alternative crops to persuade peasants in Third World countries to abandon the unlawful production of hallucinogenic plants.
The broad stratagem suggested is to offer customs preferences for the export of legal agricultural products.
In a nutshell, what the rapporteur is offering these Third World peasants is that we should pay them a few pence extra for their potatoes and ask them to forego incomes a hundred times as great that they can earn by devoting their efforts to illegal crops.
This policy, which has been christened with the resounding name of 'alternative crop policy' , is actually nothing more nor less than the same tired policy of the American DEA, the Drugs Enforcement Administration, which has been implemented for twenty years with results that we know, though it seems necessary to remind the honourable rapporteur of those results.
In twenty years, the DEA has spent hundreds of millions of dollars a year to finance the destruction of thousands and thousands of hectares of illegal crops.
Over those same twenty years, production and consumption of illegal drugs, for its part, has increased to an extent that is literally unparalleled in the history of mankind's consumer habits.
Europe's response to the blatant failure of this American policy - though it has not lacked resources, to say the least - is to propose the same policy, with financing amounting to ECU ten million.
All this would be ludicrous, Madam President, if this whole drugs business were not totally tragic.
Tragic for many Third World democracies which have already been destabilized by clandestine organizations whose enormous power crushes them; tragic for our democracies, slowly but surely infiltrated by dirty money; tragic for those hundreds of thousands of European citizens who have suffered at the hands of consumers of illegal substances, literally forced into crime; and tragic for those millions of consumers who have been so definitively marginalized.
After twenty years, after thirty years of error, tragedy and evil effects of all kinds, there is not another minute to lose.
Individual States and the international community must be given back genuine control over the production and distribution of all the substances that are at present illegal.
We must regularize and legalize all drugs, straight away.
And let us stop telling the anti-prohibitionists that a debate on the legalization of drugs will be a waste of time.
Confronted with a disaster on this scale, it is the prohibitionists who must now bear the burden of proof.
Madam President, first of all I must compliment the rapporteur on the excellent report which he and the Committee on Development and Cooperation have produced.
Unlike the opinions delivered by other committees his report provides a balanced account and has avoided the temptation to make unduly forthright comments about liberalization and legalization.
Because that is not what we are about here.
The Commission's aim with this proposal is to enable developing countries to combat drug addiction effectively and to involve them in existing international cooperation efforts on the subject.
Our job now is to examine this proposal from the point of view of development policy.
And that is what we must do.
People in developing countries do not grow coca and poppies because they believe in principle that drugs should be freely available; usually they grow these crops purely in order to subsist.
And meanwhile the cultivation and sale of these crops also causes a lot of economic and social problems in their own countries too, which often have enough other problems as it is.
It is awful to realize that so far Europe has done precious little for the developing countries.
I also find it awful that some people are again trying to steer the debate towards liberalization and away from the real subject of this report.
We must not forget that the growing of narcotics is often the result of a deeper underlying problem, poverty.
We need to set up an international policy of cooperation with the developing world to combat the worldwide problem of drugs.
But this will lead nowhere unless we in Europe can offer these countries a real prospect of a better future.
Studies have shown that Europe has developed more in the direction of a closed market vis à vis the developing countries than an open market.
Until such time as we take development policy seriously and stop undermining it with our economic policy we cannot expect programmes like these to produce anything much that is worthwhile.
So I shall warmly endorse Amendment No 2 to Mr Liese's report, which emphasizes this point.
I shall also support the other amendments which seek to channel aid as directly and as specifically as possible to where it is needed.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is actually a very interesting report on a useful idea: the idea of granting aid to the less developed countries in order to enable them to abandon drug production in favour of alternative crops.
However, this report places a great deal of emphasis on economic aspects, and less on the power relationships underlying this problem.
In many cases, whole populations are forced by the drug traffickers to produce drugs, and the problem is not so much an economic one as a problem of real political sovereignty and so, ultimately, virtually a military problem.
As the rapporteur has quite rightly noted, the credits released by the European Union in this area are far too modest, to say the least, in the light of the scale of the challenge represented by the drugs market today.
But it is not just the credits that are modest.
I fear that the same applies to our actual intentions.
As things stand today, waging war on drugs means resulting to completely exceptional measures.
In our opinion, this cannot be done unless we reintroduce, and actually apply, the death penalty for the drug barons, as is being very successfully done in certain countries such as Singapore.
For ideological reasons that are only too familiar, this approach is considered to be out of the question. Instead, efforts are made to handle the problems created by the drugs traffic from an economic angle, and even to establish research credits, although the efficacy of such credits is not really proven.
We tend to forget that the drug traffickers are not just shady businessmen but actual murderers, and that consequently the problem is not a purely economic one - I say again, it must be dealt with politically and I will go so far as to say militarily, bearing in mind the scale of the traffic today.
There are no signs at present that the European Union, or the Member States, intend to pursue this line.
For this reason, although the report is a good one, we once again feel that the heart of the matter has been overlooked.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Civil Liberties is in a critical position with regard to the Liese report because it is based on a Commission proposal in which the European Union's action envisaged for the fight against drugs in developing countries is based on an absolutely ineffective strategy.
Moreover the Commission's own document reflects a certain lack of confidence in stating that the international community, including the European Union, must note the obvious failure of the fight against drugs.
That failure is derived from certain economic laws which apply also to the narcotics sector.
In the proposal under consideration the importance of the system of generalized preferences is confirmed.
However, it is not in fact clear that it is really to the advantage of the small growers who have cultivated staple crops instead of drugs or who have helped in some way to reduce the areas cultivated for drug production.
The production, sale and use of drugs has increased out of all proportion in recent years and that tendency is confirmed in Interpol's statistics according to which, for example, in the space of thirteen years the quantity of cocaine seized in Europe has increased 200-fold.
It is now clear that, given what this represents in financial terms, the drugs traffic and related illegal activities create corruption at all levels and the infiltration of criminal organizations into the management of public affairs and the organization of the economy.
The drugs problem is a real political problem in the producer countries, because it is known that the cartels use the resources they have accumulated to interfere in the democratic and economic processes of their countries, thus controlling policy and taking control of key sectors of business life and the financial services sector.
The problem has world dimensions and it is precisely in the field of cooperation policy and development aid that Europe can and must take stock of the situation to bring all aspects of the phenomenon into focus, to evaluate the policies implemented hitherto and to provide for setting up new forms of intervention capable of promoting cooperation between the producer States and the importing States and between the public authorities at all levels as well as assessing the suitability of root and branch changes of approach and of particular intervention policies.
The policies of crop destruction and the financing of alternative products are recognized by all studies and analyses as a failure.
As regards the allocation of appropriations it may be noted that in the proposal before us, whereas significant tranches had hitherto been reserved for measures to encourage a reduction in demand, the Commission seems to want almost to halve appropriations available for restraining demand, and this at a time when it is coming more and more to be recognized that only by reducing demand will it be possible to solve the drug problem as, moreover, the Commission itself has recognized in referring to the growing consumption of drugs.
It is essential therefore for the Commission to reconsider the scale of allocation of resources and it would be appropriate, moreover, to provide for rules with regard to co-financing.
Finally respect for human rights must be one of the Union's objectives in the field of the fight against drugs and not only in the context of prevention measures, treatment and rehabilitation of addicts.
In fact legislation against drugs and its implementation by police or military forces may involve risks of breach of human rights which can in no way be endorsed by the Community.
Madam President, the production, marketing and consumption of drugs has increased beyond measure in the past few years.
Interpol statistics relating to drugs seized show clearly the trends in recent years: from 1 366 kg of heroin seized in Europe in 1989 to 6 100 seized in 1990; from 59 kg of cocaine seized in Europe in 1977 to 12 912 in 1993.
As regards amphetamines, the total amount in 1990 was 380 kg seized as against 184 in 1989.
The illegal trade in cannabis and marijuana is increasing throughout the world: in 1990 211 tonnes were seized as compared with 160 in 1989 and 242 in 1992.
It is now clear that trafficking and related illegal activities, in view of the financial value of the phenomenon, create corruption at all levels and infiltration of criminal organizations into the management of public affairs and the organization of the economy.
The drugs problem is world-wide.
The international cartels are adopting an ever more aggressive and expansionist strategy in invading fresh markets with new drugs, with constantly changing distribution arrangements and with an increasingly remarkable ability to conceal and transfer the proceeds trafficking.
It is primarily a political problem in the producer countries, because it is known that the cartels use their accumulated funds to interfere in the democratic and economic processes of their countries, thus controlling policy and taking control of key sectors of business life and the financial services sector.
Organized crime can employ the best brains, avail themselves of the latest technologies, of the leading experts in laundering, make use with impunity of so many arrangements and places.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must go to war against drugs in all spheres.
It is an absolute ethical commitment which we must make our priority in order to allow our children to live in a future in which the values and the joys of living must not be jeopardized by the chemistry of drugs.
It is a true commitment requiring serious responses, an army of organized criminals cannot be beaten by the chatter of demagogues.
The road will be long, hard and not yet entirely sure, but free men who believe in life have the duty to travel it.
Though the problem is of world dimensions it is precisely in the framework of cooperation policy and development aid that Europe can and must take stock to bring into focus all aspects of the phenomenon, to evaluate what has been done, to determine new forms of intervention capable of encouraging cooperation between producer States and importing States, between authorities at all levels.
The approach must be a global one and there must be an in-depth reappraisal in the United Nations of the results of policies hitherto followed in the matter of drugs, leading if necessary to a revision of the UN Conventions on the matter.
We are fully aware that the powers of the United Nations are very slight, but the road is worth travelling, in a framework of North-South financing in the drugs sector.
Madam President, before the Commissioner responds to Mr Liese's excellent report and gives the Commission's views on the various amendments, I would like it confirmed that the Commission has been properly informed that Amendments Nos 31, 32, 34 and 35, submitted in the names of Mr De Coene and Mrs d'Ancona and the Socialist Group, have, in fact, been withdrawn.
Madam President, the battle against drugs is a priority issue for the Commission.
The abuse of drugs is a great worry throughout the world.
Between 40 and 50 million people are addicted to illegal drugs.
In recent years the number of drug addicts has increased dramatically in developing countries too.
Within the EU there are hundreds of thousands of addicts.
This situation is extremely serious.
The Commission has a clear policy in this area.
The emphasis is on efforts to reduce availability and demand, efforts to combat illegal trafficking and efforts involving international cooperation.
It is essential for the EU to cooperate closely with developing countries in the battle against drug abuse.
It is a question of providing assistance in such a way that people are not forced into drug production simply out of poverty. They must have the opportunity to earn an income from other crops.
It is a question of supporting countries' own efforts, together with other international organisations.
If the problem is to be dealt with effectively, efforts must be made in various quarters.
In concrete terms this means that the measures taken should be intended to reduce both supply and demand and to combat illegal trafficking and money laundering.
The Commission welcomes the report from Mr Liese and the excellent work done by the committees concerned.
To a large extent it corresponds with the analysis and guidelines proposed by the Commission.
A large number of amendments have been tabled.
Unfortunately we were not informed of whether any of these amendments had been withdrawn.
Of the amendments tabled, the Commission accepted the following: Nos 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 28, 30 and 33. As regards Amendments Nos 5, 8, 10, 15, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29 and 36, these are essentially problematic and cannot therefore be accepted by the Commission.
Amendment No 5 proposes that the associated countries should have the opportunity to reject the evaluation criteria.
The Commission is the only body responsible for evaluation and it is therefore only reasonable that it should also be the Commission which decides the criteria.
Amendment No 8 concerns the European Development Fund.
This is not a financing body belonging to the Community and it is not therefore possible to refer to other financing bodies in a legal act concerning budgetary matters.
Amendment No 15 refers to giving priority to direct measures to tackle the drug problem.
This would reduce the Commission's freedom of action with regard to cooperation with developing countries to far too great an extent.
Amendment No 10 puts forward a limit of 10 % for, inter alia, the evaluation of projects.
The Commission considers that this could hinder the development of projects and that it would inappropriately restrict the opportunities for evaluation.
Amendment No 18 proposes a reference to Article 205.
As the proposal concerns a legal act which will become Community law the whole Treaty must be respected.
There is neither any need to confine oneself to a single article, nor would this be meaningful.
Amendment No 20 proposes an amendment to the budget regulations governing the European Community's general budget, which the Commission cannot approve.
Amendment No 22 concerns comitology and the July 1987 decision of the Council.
This issue can only be resolved within the framework of the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference.
Amendments Nos 23 and 25 concern reports to Parliament, to be made twice a year.
The Commission's proposal was for an annual report.
The Commission considers that Article 10 in its proposal meets the two legitimate demands that the Commission's operations should be open to scrutiny and that it should concentrate on project administration.
Amendment No 27 concerns measures to combat illegal trafficking.
The Commission does not wish to reduce its measures to combat illegal imports and the manufacture of illegal drugs and cannot therefore approve the amendment.
Amendment No 29 in part concerns the same issue as Amendment No 10, i.e. a limit of 10 %, and also refers to studies and cooperation with specialised agencies.
I have already considered the issue of the 10 % limit and I would add that the Commission's studies are generally carried out by experts.
Amendment No 36 refers to controlling the use of coca leaves.
It has proved extremely difficult to control such use.
Amendments Nos 2, 8 and 12 can be approved by the Commission after some editorial changes which do not alter the substance.
The Commission can only accept parts of Amendments Nos 26 and 31.
Amendment No 2 proposes the inclusion of words to the effect that the Union will not take any measures which would result in loss of income or greater poverty in the south. In principle the Commission shares the view that the European Community should not take measures which have negative consequences for developing countries.
It is, nevertheless , of the opinion that the European Community cannot commit itself to not taking such measures.
The Commission proposes that reference be made to the need to eliminate poverty in developing countries.
Amendment No 8 refers, inter alia, to the Dublin Group's definition.
In the interests of greater clarity, the Commission proposes that the Dublin Group's definition of alternative development should be attached in an annex to the report.
Amendment No 12 concerns protection against reprisals.
Bearing in mind the nature of the other measures which it usually supports, the Commission cannot commit itself to the protection of farmers from reprisals which drug traffickers may take.
Allow me in conclusion to stress the enormous importance which the Commission attaches to cooperation with developing countries in the fight against drug abuse.
We welcome the European Parliament's considerable commitment to the issue.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Civil protection action programme
The next item is the report (A4-0100/96) by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision (COM(95) 0155 - C4-0221/95-95/0098(CNS)) establishing a Community action programme in the field of civil protection.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is the international decade for the prevention of natural disasters, which will end in the year 2000.
In 1994, there were 580 natural disasters across the world, causing 16 000 deaths and more than USD 65 million worth of material losses.
Consequently, the establishment of a Community action programme in the field of civil protection is of the utmost importance in tackling not only natural disasters, but also man-made disasters of a technological or industrial kind.
This very week, we have had a debate in plenary to mark the tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster - the ultimate example of a disaster caused by the irresponsibility and imprudence of man.
And I believe that the Chernobyl disaster makes crystal clear the vital need for Europe-wide civil protection measures.
In 1985, a first ministerial meeting laid the foundations for Community cooperation in the field of civil protection.
And since 1984, the European Parliament has delivered a number of opinions in favour of the introduction of more effective measures, especially in the field of prevention.
The Council resolution of October 1994 recalls the declaration in the final act of the Treaty on European Union, which states that the question of introducing a specific title on civil protection into the Treaty establishing the European Community will be examined on the basis of a report which the Commission is to submit to the Council by 1996 at the latest.
We have therefore reintroduced the amendment which Mrs Díez de Rivera tabled in the Committee on the Environment - and which was not adopted - concerning the need for the Intergovernmental Conference to establish a legal basis for Community civil protection measures.
Fundamental to this proposal are measures in the areas of forecasting, prevention, training and information, the self-protection, awareness and solidarity of citizens, and cooperation and coordination between local, regional and national authorities.
Consequently, our amendments seek to enhance these aspects, whilst underlining the need to pay special attention to the isolated and ultraperipheral regions, which face enormous difficulties and are often affected by emergencies - typhoons, fires, hurricanes, and so on.
The role of the non-governmental organizations and the need for adequate funding are the subject of other amendments adopted by the Committee on the Environment.
We respect the proposals and amendments put forward by Mr Schnellhardt, with whom we have held discussions, but we were obliged to oppose a number of them, particularly as regards the committee which we call advisory, but which Mr Schnellhardt proposes should manage the action programme in conjunction with the Commission.
We do not agree with this, because we believe that it would mean returning the measures to national control, and because of course disasters do not usually respect national borders and therefore require joint measures to be taken by the Commission - with consultation, naturally, of a committee in which the Member States are represented.
Such a committee is clearly provided for in Article 4 of the proposal, and we believe that consultation and the requirement that the Commission must take its views into account are sufficient.
Finally, in the explanatory statement, we strongly recommend that a European Union intervention fund should be set up to guarantee immediate and effective action in the case of disasters.
We believe that this would not mean spending more money.
Indeed, on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, the Commission and the other institutions send money to the various countries hit by disasters to help them cope with the consequences.
Having an intervention fund would be an important means of ensuring a more rapid and effective response.
I should like to end by thanking my colleagues in the Committee on the Environment who helped to improve this report, the representatives of the Commission, who also assisted us, and our committee secretariat, which also collaborated in this report, which the scant attendance in the Chamber may perhaps suggest is unimportant, but which I believe to be one of great importance.
Madam President, the proposal for a decision now before the House on the extremely important subject of civil protection is vague and inadequate, despite the rapporteur's courageous attempts to improve it.
For years, inefficiency at Community level - due, amongst other things, to a lack of staff - has delayed the development of a coherent and effective policy in this field, despite the fact that for more than ten years, the European Parliament has been calling for the promotion of preventive measures, mutual assistance and training, the use of new technical equipment, the coordination of efforts, and the establishment of citizens' information and awareness campaigns.
Furthermore, a specific chapter was devoted to this subject in the fifth action programme on the environment, directly following that on nuclear safety and protection against radiation - because as we recalled yesterday, the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster are still in everyone's mind.
Given that civil protection is a matter of fundamental importance to the Union's citizens - as it is to the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, notwithstanding the fact that, incomprehensibly, this question is being debated when the sitting is almost over - how is it possible that the Treaty on European Union should only mention it in the first declaration, even though transnational action and cooperation between states are essential to its effectiveness? The vague and ambiguous provisions of Article 3 and an ephemeral legal basis are all that we can count on to deal with serious environmental disasters such as oil spills, accidents in the transport of hazardous substances, radiation leaks, forest fires, and so on.
I am therefore proposing that the Intergovernmental Conference should address this issue, and I thank Mrs González Álvarez for her comments concerning my amendment.
Having said that, it is true that something is better than nothing.
It is also true that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has extensively amended the Commission text, emphasizing in particular the need for preventive measures, training, cooperation and shared responsibility, without forgetting the specific problems faced by the smaller islands and the valuable contribution that non-governmental organizations have made to tackling countless disasters.
I should like to end, Madam President, by congratulating Mrs González Álvarez once again, although I fear that the Union's citizens would have preferred a more ambitious and specific text.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, civil protection is an area which has until now, as it were, been located on the extreme fringes of Community competence: the Member States have been acting by means of intergovernmental cooperation.
The Commission proposal now before us adopts the right approach, setting out an integrated action programme which complements existing Community activities in the field of civil protection.
What does this involve? The draft action programme is based on the premise that civil protection falls under the competence of the Member States, since prompt action by those responsible at local and regional level is crucial to rapid and effective assistance in the event of a disaster.
EU involvement should therefore be restricted to additional help in cases where there is a need for cross-border action.
In short, it is a matter of transferring know-how, providing mutual assistance and exchanging experiences.
This was the thinking behind the existing activities, and in my opinion it should be maintained in principle.
In the past, there has always been a good deal of interest in the transfer of know-how.
I also welcome the proposed new measures to improve the ability of European citizens to protect themselves against risks, however, since this should help considerably to restrict or reduce the damage caused by disasters.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has proposed a few additions to the content of the future action programme, most of which my group endorses.
Opinions differ, however, as to how the future action programme should be implemented, especially in terms of who should take the final decision on the measures to be carried out.
Hitherto, the so-called network of civil protection correspondents, consisting of representatives of the Member States, has been responsible for putting EU actions into effect.
The Commission is now proposing that it should have the final say, and it is just not true, Mrs González Álvarez, that the committee simply expresses its opinion and then this is implemented; the exact opposite is the case.
The new civil protection committee, consisting as before of Member States' representatives, would have a purely advisory role.
Its members would merely be informed whether or not the Commission was following their recommendations.
I find this unacceptable.
I strongly urge Parliament to adopt a different stance here, namely that the final power of decision should rest with the Council when - and only when - the views of the Commission and the committee diverge.
I fully realize that the European Parliament has its own, critical attitude to the question of comitology, and quite rightly so in many cases.
I am not seeking blindly to hand over all decision-making power to the Council and take away responsibility from the Commission and Parliament.
Rather, it is our duty to devise appropriate Community procedures for an area of activity which is on the extreme fringes of Community competence.
I could only support a solution on the Commission's lines if civil protection were to be included in the Treaty in its own right.
However - and here I have to contradict you, Mrs González Álvarez - neither the Commission, nor the Reflection Group, nor Parliament has called for this, which means that the matter will not even be discussed at the IGC.
No such passage will be inserted into the Treaty, and we must therefore make the necessary changes.
Let us be consistent and remain within the framework which we ourselves have adopted as a guide, and let us at least apply the rules of comitology.
Madam President, I welcome the proposed action programme on civil protection.
It has been a long time coming - probably because the Treaty as we have already heard does not provide specific powers to act in this area.
The programme had to be put forward under the general Article 235.
We can only hope it will not suffer the blocking fate of the poverty programme and the Action for the Elderly programme which are under this legal base.
There is a good argument for a Treaty amendment in this area in due course, not because the European Union wants to dictate to Member States on civil protection policies - far from it, but because exchanges of best practice and action to prevent cross-border disasters such as flooding, fire and acts of terrorism must be able to be coordinated at European level where that is desirable.
I am proud to support the London Fire Service, the largest and probably the best in the world.
It has suffered severe financial cutbacks and restrictions in recent years under the present Conservative Government in Britain and it is very much in favour of these cross-border exchanges to pursue its campaign to promote the Hazchem system to exchange its expertise in disaster management with other countries in the European Union and perhaps further to the east as well.
I trust Parliament will approve the funding in the 1997 budget once this important action programme has been approved by the Council, and I hope the Council will listen to our arguments in support of the programme and approve it as soon as possible.
Madam President, the Commission would like to extend its thanks to the Committee on the Environment and to the Committee on Budgets, and in particular to the Mrs González Álvarez and Mrs Gredler for their work and commitment to the report.
Disasters are happening all over the world.
Everyone in Europe is exposed to many and various risks.
These include earthquakes, forest fires and volcanic eruptions in the southern part of the Union or floods, storms and technological risks throughout the Union.
Community cooperation in civil protection matters is intended to increase safety levels, as regards both natural and technological disasters affecting people, the environment and property.
The most important elements of this cooperation are the sharing of experience, learning from previous events and the coordination of efforts in those Member States with a responsibility for civil protection.
The proposal also provides a legal basis for budget item B4-3300 concerning civil protection and environmental disasters.
With that, permit me to move on to the amendments which have been tabled, Madam President.
The Commission accepts many of the proposals.
Amendments Nos 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 19 improve and clarify the text and elaborate the Commission's proposal.
The Commission approves them in their entirety or substance.
Certain amendments must be clarified.
These are Amendments Nos 2, 4, 8, 10, 14, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 31, which can therefore be approved in part.
Certain amendments cannot be approved by the Commission, however.
We believe that the Commission's proposal concerning comitology provides the best balance between the institutions, as a result of which Amendments Nos 16, 17, 18, 27, 28 and 30 cannot be approved.
What the Commission is proposing is in fact a committee procedure of type 1.
Changing to a different procedure would mean a less effective decision-making process.
Amendment No 25 would allow voluntary organisations to obtain support from the Community for their work.
The resolution on mutual assistance which was adopted in July 1991 by the Council and representatives of the governments of the Member States means, however, that only the competent authorities may apply for and obtain support within the Union.
Voluntary organisations are not authorities and cannot therefore be approved.
We should, however, remember that non-profitmaking organisations play a very important role in civil protection in our Member States.
We have every reason, therefore, to encourage them in their work.
In Amendment No 26 it is proposed that the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference should provide civil protection with a special legal basis. A programme of measures is, however, not the right place to establish views on what the Intergovernmental Conference should result in and we cannot therefore accept the amendment.
As a result of the amendments tabled the proposal concerning civil protection has, I believe, been much improved.
At the same time I should like to point out that no appropriations have been earmarked as part of the budget item for civil protection, that is to say B-3300 for 1996, despite the Committee on the Environment's excellent report.
This situation will present considerable problems.
The Commission cannot therefore support activities of the kind involved in the three simulation exercises to be conducted this year in Italy and Sweden and on the Dutch-German border.
The same applies with regard to the European Fire Services Training College's summer course in fire and rescue work.
The situation can be improved, however, if Parliament approves without delay the request for the transfer of appropriations to the budget item for civil protection which the Commission intends to submit in the very near future.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
Thank you for your good wishes, and thank you all for your kind thoughts.
Many thanks.
Madam President, I would like to draw attention to a somewhat regrettable misunderstanding which occurred yesterday.
And in drawing attention to it, I hope that something or other may be done so that it does not occur again.
I had a group of visitors who were sitting up in the gallery, and I was going to show them around Parliament.
Our agreement was that they were to send me a note when they had finished in the gallery, so that I could be called from the Chamber where I was voting.
However, I never received the note in question, and it was only an hour and a half later when the group of visitors was about to leave, that I caught up with them.
In the meantime the Danish head of the visitors' service had been summoned.
She had looked around the Chamber, but as she did not expect me to be sitting here, where I do not really feel that I belong in any case, she was not able to see me in the Chamber, and she told the group that I was not in the Chamber.
That means that the group were given the impression that I had not been here, that I was not doing my job, and that I could not be got hold of.
The long and the short of it is that I was not able to show the group around Parliament at all, but only found them five minutes before they were due to leave the place.
I think that this is highly regrettable, and I cannot understand why the note was not passed to me, and why it was said that I was not here.
I would, at any event, like to be assured that such a thing does not happen again.
One might be waiting for some very important messages sitting here in the Chamber.
Mrs Sandbæk, I have read about this incident and the misunderstanding that occurred.
I do of course realise that it is very unfortunate, and I want you to know that everyone regrets it very much and that, since we cannot put things right, we shall ensure that nothing of the kind can happen again.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
As regards the resolution on Tibet, my name does not appear although I did vote in favour, by roll-call vote.
That error will be corrected, Mr Caudron.
Are there any other comments?
(Parliament approves the Minutes)
Mrs Gebhardt, that was not a point of order, but as you can imagine I was listening very attentively.
Votes
I voted against the González Álvarez report, in the first place because I do not subscribe to the proposals it contains.
In the amendments attention is called in particular to the ultraperipheral regions of the Union.
I see no good reason why this primarily requires European interference.
But what is more important is that I am against the Commission proposal as such.
The proposal is based on Article 235 of the Treaty, the article which provides a legal basis for actions unconnected with the objectives of the Treaty.
My Group thinks that civil protection is an activity which the Member States can well handle for themselves.
Even more important, very often protection of the population is in the hands of large numbers of volunteers.
That alone indicates that one must be careful about European interference.
Why should the EU intervene in fields which are now looked after with great dedication by the Member States themselves?
Cases are conceivable in which the European Union may play a useful part.
Crossborder disasters for example.
They of course require a cross-border approach, that is logical.
The prevention of natural disasters by a responsible management of nature and the environment may also justify the European approach.
But that is not this programme's primary aim.
This programme is much too broad and general and I am therefore against it.
Recognition must be given to the major importance of the programme of Community actions aimed at civil defence to be developed in the Member States of the European Union, given in particular the major impact of natural disasters and other catastrophes which regularly affect our country.
This statement contains no approach or analysis of the great variety of the different types of risk of extraordinary seriousness to which our countries and regions are subjected.
We all know what they are and we have suffered the harmful effects of many of them.
What I am particularly interested in pointing out at this time is that the Commission must give significant support to Member States in order to help them react rapidly and effectively and whenever possible to prevent or give warning of storms, floods, droughts, forest fires, earthquakes, major rock or land slips, ecological disasters, technological disasters, major transport accidents, etc, not only financial support but also in the form of training activities or preparing those most effective in terms of civil defence, by improving the technical means of acting and any equipment aimed at preventing or coming to the immediate rescue, by educating and raising public awareness in civil protection, etc. There should also be an exchange of experts and technicians between the various Member States in order to improve their knowledge and to perfect their services.
It should also be pointed out that, in accordance with the European Parliamentary report under examination, we must consider in any actions and measures to be worked on by the Commission that the isolated and ultraperipheral regions of the European Union have special features, given the existence of particular conditions of a geographical, orological, social and economic nature, which make access harder and make it more difficult to come to people's assistance in emergencies, which means that special attention must be paid to specific projects aimed at these areas too and actually putting them into practice.
Costa Neves report
The Cohesion Fund was set up in order to reinforce economic and social cohesion, such that the European Union would fund, to the tune of 80 to 85 %, any projects in the field of the environment and infrastructure works in the sector of transport in the trans-European networks, aimed at the less developed Member States including Portugal, with the ultimate objective that all Member States should be able to participate in the final phase of European economic and monetary union.
The inclusion in the report of a pointer to the realities of ultra-peripheral and island regions, calling on the Commission to pay greater attention and set greater priority on sea transport, which is less harmful to the environment, as well as the reference to the need to open up supervisory committees to regional and local elected authorities, giving them greater powers in the selection of projects, respective priorities and financial management, not forgetting the need to make the precondition of assistance concerning excessive budgetary deficits more flexible (Article 6 of Regulation 1164/94 on the Cohesion Fund), which could lead to a failure to fund any new project until that deficit has been corrected. For all of these reasons, I voted for the supplementary report by the Commission on the Cohesion Fund in 1994.
Assistance to NIS and Mongolia
The next item is the report (A4-0107/96) by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the draft Council Regulation (EURATOM, EC) concerning the provision of assistance to economic reform and recovery in the New Independent States and Mongolia (4546/96 - C4-0090/96-95/0056(CNS)).
Madam President, unfortunately Mr Pex is indisposed this week, but since these problems have proved to be very urgent, the Committee on External Economic Relations adopted the corresponding amendments on Monday evening, and on Tuesday the House decided to hold a topical and urgent debate.
These are problems whose importance cannot be too highly estimated, namely the TACIS regulation concerning the States of the former Soviet Union and Mongolia.
This House has taken this task very seriously, and is trying to bring in a number of essential principles, now that the subject has been dragging on for such a very long time, which is not the fault of Parliament, but is due to the fact that the Council, as it were, in the middle of the process, changed its draft or produced a new basic text for the draft.
We are of the opinion that, because of these various procedural shortcomings, it would have been entirely possible, on our side as well, to have dealt with the matter at greater length.
But we did not want to delay things, because it is not simply a matter of technical parameters here, but of human beings and peoples who have suffered horribly over the last seven decades and more, and who now have the chance of starting afresh.
This fresh start, however, is once again gravely at risk.
This is why we have used some of our amendments to make it clear that the socalled former Soviet Union no longer exists, that we give a clear rejection to any attempts - like the one that occurred recently in the Russian Duma - to resurrect the Soviet Union, and that we wish to pay tribute to the independence and dignity of these peoples who, after decades of oppression, have now become free.
On the other hand, however, we do not take the view that this forced unity, which has now been shattered, should be replaced by conflict, by a sort of 'Balkanization' of this enormous Eurasian region.
Consequently, in our amendments we have laid special emphasis on one specific area.
Here I have been working very closely and successfully with Ms Schroedter, from the Green Group in the European Parliament, in an attempt to ensure that minority rights and the rights of indigenous peoples are more firmly anchored in this regulation, to direct our assistance more strongly in this direction, and also to give special assistance to cross-border projects, particularly in the case of smaller projects and when it is a question of creating cross-border cooperation, with a view to avoiding any misunderstandings.
In doing this, we are not sticking to the fiction of the compulsory unity of the Soviet Union, which has now, thank goodness, been shattered, but rather we are trying to apply and extend systematically the process of cross-border cooperation, as we have already introduced it, first of all here, with the Interreg Programme, then with the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and now with countries further east.
I am particularly happy about the fact that in committee there was a large majority in favour of two amendments which I believe are of particular significance.
Firstly, we want to ensure that the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, in other words the countries that lie between us and the area occupied by the former Soviet Union, are also actively included in this assistance, and that the regional authorities are involved in these projects.
I believe that not only is it very important to encourage cross-border cooperation between, say, Poland and Byelorussia, or between Hungary and Ukraine, and between many other countries, but it is also a question of those Countries of Central and Eastern Europe which, because of their geographical position and their more favourable internal political circumstances, have developed more rapidly than other countries further east, becoming actively involved in the reconstruction process.
In other words, these countries are, to an increasing extent, becoming donor countries too.
I think that it is very important to encourage and intensify this process.
These countries will thus be acting as bridges.
Secondly, we are insisting, and I believe that this is vital, that countries which have special links in a region, for example Turkey in the Mediterranean area and among the Turkic peoples, should become more closely involved, because we do not want to go over the heads of the people concerned, but rather to take into account their traditional structures and links.
Therefore this report has been deliberately arranged along regionalistic lines.
Madam President, the problem with the Tacis regulation is not a new one.
We have examined this problem and made a start on tackling it, and I hope that this time we shall be more successful.
The problem lies with the Council of Ministers.
I also feel bound to point out that we should not lose sight of the fact that Tacis is, to a large extent, a trompe l'oeil window: however much we improve the window catches, they are merely 'painted on' , and the window will still not open.
The reason for this is that, in order to carry out the task that sounds so nice in the title, i.e. 'the provision of assistance to economic reform and recovery in the New Independent States and Mongolia' , the resources available under Tacis are ridiculously small.
Moreover, the tasks are structured in such a way as to ensure that funding goes entirely to problematical projects such as nuclear safety or infrastructure on the one hand, and to Western advisers on the other.
A further difficulty will lie in the fact that these are Western advisers, with the result that Russian, Mongolian or Kalmuk advisers will not be taken into consideration at all.
There is an enormous problem here.
However, we as a Parliament must of course attempt to do something about it.
I think that the cooperation that there has been in this area is a positive thing, though I regret the fact that no interregional, cross-border cooperation in the Baltic, for example, has been written into this regulation.
I believe Mr Posselt is quite right in saying that it is up to us to ensure that we do not create any new 'ethnic prisons' - and I am sure we would agree on that point - but we should not be carrying out any Balkanization either.
However, I have a problem with his argument that we should simply use the traditional structures.
We should like to offer this option to those people who live in traditional structures, but we also want to encourage the new, emancipating, democratic structures that are also developing in these countries.
With this in mind, we want a Tacis regulation which will in fact be one first, small and insufficient step towards a policy of good neighbourliness, which is what we need for this large region that lies in our neighbourhood.
Madam President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Pex, for his excellent report.
It is very important that Tacis, the aid programme for the states of the former USSR, should be continued into its second phase, so that previous assistance does not come to nothing, and so that the money already spent will not have been spent in vain.
For reasons that are well known to us, the restructuring process in these countries is taking very much longer than expected; certainly it is being obstructed often enough.
Following the total collapse of whole industries, and in view of the new economic conditions and the sort of mentality and level of qualification that is expected of the people there, and in view of the completely new and unfamiliar competition situation, it is essential, first of all, to build up structures that are capable of withstanding competition, if employment is to be safeguarded.
It is particularly important to give the people a new feeling of self-worth and of confidence in their own capabilities.
I know what I am talking about, because I was fortunate enough to run a bilateral aid programme for three years, assisting with education and further training for specialists and managers in those countries.
We should also bear in mind the fact that, with this programme, economic and technical progress in the countries receiving the assistance, and the building up of democratic decision-making structures, are also in our own best interests, as trading partners and - as I have already mentioned - as political partners too.
There is no doubt that, in future, the aid should be accompanied by more critical comment, and this is a task for the Commission in particular.
In view of much justified criticism of the aid scheme that has been in operation up to now, I welcome the fact that, following a proposal from the committee that has overall control of the scheme, there is to be constant qualitative monitoring, control and evaluation of the projects.
It remains to be seen, however, how this can be achieved in practice.
It also seems to me rather important that there should now be some coordination in bilateral aid schemes between different countries, where those aid schemes have the same intentions and development areas.
This has happened all too rarely in the past, but it is very useful as a means of pooling resources and avoiding duplication of effort.
It also seems to me essential to have a constant mutual exchange of experiences between those who are responsible for implementing projects in recipient countries, in order to achieve a synergistic effect, and here I call upon the Commission to organize this more intensely in future.
Finally, just one additional comment: the transfer of know-how, which we operate under the Tacis scheme, must work first and foremost to the advantage of the ordinary citizens themselves, and not serve the economic interests of Western investors and specialist institutions.
I am very pleased about the passage in the Council's draft which lays down that it should not always be the same experts who are involved.
The different types of expertise, which are well known and not always made use of, should wherever possible be provided by experts with local knowledge, and accompanied by local specialists, and should be based on a very thorough knowledge of administrative, economic and educational structures in the individual countries concerned, which unfortunately has not always been the case in the past.
Madam President, on behalf of the Commission I would first like to thank Parliament for the fact that the Members agreed to deal with this topic under urgent procedure.
Parliament has been of considerable assistance in ensuring that this reconsultation proceeds rapidly and constructively.
I would especially like to express my gratitude for the speed with which the report has been drawn up.
As you all know, the period of validity of the previous Tacis regulation expired at the end of 1995.
Since then the Commission has been forced to operate in a legal vacuum.
The vote today is therefore an important step towards a stable framework for our medium-term planning.
It will also enable us to implement the programme for 1996.
The Commission submitted an initial proposal for a new Tacis regulation as early as April 1995.
Parliament delivered its opinion on it in time, in November 1995.
The Council, however, modified the proposal in respect of a number of crucial points.
The Commission therefore considered that it was necessary for Parliament to be consulted again.
To summarise the Council's new proposal briefly, it can be said that some of the ideas which Parliament put forward in its opinion in November 1995 have already been incorporated.
For example, the proposal gives greater priority to the environment, permits combined financing through Interreg and Tacis and provides for the regulation to have a limited period of validity. Other important changes include the conditions relating to contracting procedures and the conditions for the implementation of the programme.
The Commission is able to accept these amendments because they entail a reasonable institutional balance while at the same time maintaining the conditions for the effective administration of the Tacis programme.
The new text will also improve the necessary openness of the programme.
Most of the new provisions are intended to formalise the procedures which have been applied up to now.
The Commission considers it a positive step that these are now being given a more formal basis.
Other important changes in comparison with the previous regulation will mean that in special cases it will be possible to extend Tacis to include not only technical assistance but also the financing of investments in infrastructure and the provision of capital.
Both these changes are in response to repeated requests from recipients.
They also meet other objectives which are clearly in the interests of the European Union.
Financing through the provision of capital will make it possible through Tacis to promote industrial cooperation between small and medium-sized businesses in the EU and their counterparts in the NIS.
It is important to give Tacis the opportunity to finance small-scale investment in infrastructure. One of the aims of cross-border cooperation is after all to remove bottlenecks at frontiers, to increase trade and transport across borders.
It is also a question of fostering cross-border cooperation between the EU and the NIS and between countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the NIS.
The new regulation means that political conditions may be attached to aid.
Consequently, respect for human rights and democratic principles has been given a more prominent place in the new regulation.
The Commission accepts by far the largest proportion of the amendments tabled by Parliament.
I understand that you would like to retain the possibility of resources being earmarked for technical assistance on the one hand and infrastructure and capital provision on the other.
The Commission, however, is of the opinion that a margin of 10 % should be retained for infrastructure investment and the provision of capital, in order to ensure that technical assistance remains the most important part of the programme. We also find it difficult to approve certain proposals in connection with open tendering procedures as this would extend the implementation of the programme still further.
As regards institutional aspects, the Commission believes that the retention of a management committee in the proposal would be a good compromise between the position of Parliament and that of the Council.
As regards the political conditions, it is the Commission's intention that the European Parliament will be informed as quickly as possible if the Commission temporarily suspends a programme on account of serious violations of human rights.
It is our express intention to continue the modus operandi vis-à-vis Parliament introduced with regard to Chechnya when procedures in connection with the interim agreement with Russia were frozen in January 1995.
Madam President, in sum we have every reason to be satisfied with the results of our joint efforts.
With the help of this regulation we will be able to develop the European Union's links with the NIS and Mongolia and achieve our common goals, namely the transition to a market economy and support for democratic structures.
This is especially crucial for Russia, which is approaching important crossroads.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed with the vote.
Madam President, a slight error has crept in.
In committee, Ms Schroedter used the expression 'indigenous peoples' , which I continued to use.
The original text was in German, but it has now been translated into other languages, and the expression 'native peoples' has been used.
In German, however, this expression has unfortunate overtones, although as far as content is concerned it means something similar.
I should therefore like to ask you to work on the basis of the original expression, ' indigenous peoples' - or 'indigene Völker' in German - and to ensure that this expression is translated adequately into the other languages.
I entirely share that sentiment, and we will endeavour to find the most appropriate way.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, I could have said this at the start of the sitting, but I can see that we still have three very important reports to deal with, and only after that will we hear the Commission statement on the G7 meeting on employment in Lille.
I wonder whether the Commission is able to make its statement now.
A while ago, when voting began there were nearly 200 of us here.
Now there are about 40.
Would it not be possible for this important subject - the subject of employment, which has brought together the seven industrialized countries and the President of the French Republic, who has made a priority of the social chapter - to be examined by bringing forward this statement?
I should make it clear immediately that it will not in any way affect the way I allocate my time, but I imagine that, sadly, there will be more of us here if this statement is made now rather than at the end of the morning.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I think that, as this statement is so important, Members will remain until this matter comes up in the order of business.
It would not be polite to those Members whose reports are to be considered first to change the order of business, and I must refuse to do so.
If any one else raises a similar point, I can tell you quite simply that I shall not be able to act on it.
We will therefore adhere to the order of business.
Interim agreement with Kazakhstan
The next item is the report (A4-0049/96) by Mr Chesa, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion by the European Community of the interim agreement between the European Community, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the Republic of Kazakhstan, of the other part, on trade and trade-related matters (COM(94)29-5515/95 - C4-0605/95-95/0031(CNS)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this report relates to the ratification by the European Parliament of a joint agreement between the European Union and Kazakhstan for a period of 10 years, this report replacing the agreement on trade and economic cooperation between the EEC and the USSR of 1989.
This text is very important for Kazakhstan, which has suffered from the breakup of the former Soviet Union, with severe damage to its trading system and its supply network.
In political terms, the agreement covers respect for democracies, the principles of international law and human rights, and the establishment of a political dialogue and cultural cooperation.
The economic and commercial aspects relate to trade in goods subject to mostfavoured-nation treatment.
Coal and steel occupy an important place in this partnership agreement, while trade in textile products is the subject of a separate agreement.
The provisions affecting business and investment govern the field of employment as well as the establishment and operation of companies.
Economic cooperation extends to the industrial sector, the promotion and protection of investments, and the strengthening of education and training in the widest possible range of areas.
Parliament have felt it desirable to suspend the procedure for the ratification of the partnership agreement until general elections had been held, free of the defects that marred those of March 1994.
Further elections took place on 5 and 9 December 1995.
The delegation of European Parliament observers deemed that these elections were such as to form the basis for the formation of a democratic parliament.
There is thus no further obstacle to reconstruct a partnership, and it is therefore possible to pronounce in favour of concluding interim agreements with Kazakhstan, as requested by the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Madam President, the partnership and cooperation agreement between the European Union and Kazakhstan was in fact signed on 23 January 1995.
The political events which followed that signing, and in particular the dissolution of the Kazakh Parliament by President Nazarbaev, lead our Parliament to suspend the procedure for ratification of that agreement until general elections were held. Such elections finally took place on 5 and 9 December last year and, following the report by our delegation of observers, lead by Mr Robles Piquer, we decided to unfreeze the procedure ratifying the agreements, as Mr Chesa has just recalled.
The first stage relates to this interim agreement which we are to approve today, although Parliament's opinion on the matter is of only very limited relevance.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs considers that we should give a favourable opinion, and that is my personal opinion also.
The economic issues are important, and it would not be appropriate to delay the cooperation envisaged in the interim agreement.
However, this opinion will be without prejudice to the final position we adopt on the main agreement, that is to say the partnership agreement itself.
The facts are that the economic situation in Kazakhstan is still poor, the social situation is serious, or even tragic, and above all the political situation has once again become tense just recently.
Human rights are not respected, and President Nazarbaev seems almost insensitive to Western criticism.
But we shall see what we shall see.
For the present, the Committee on Foreign Affairs shares the point of view of the Committee on External Economic Relations and approves the interim agreement.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement with Kazakhstan is often discussed purely from an economic viewpoint.
In reality, it is not only the economic aspect that plays an important part - and in that respect Kazakhstan has a great future ahead of it - but the political aspect is also very important.
In fact, Kazakhstan is a country that one might almost describe as explosive.
It is one of those Islamic states in which there is a relatively high percentage of Russians who might well be described as a fifth column, in opposition to the predominant people, the Kazakhs, who make up 40 % of the population.
Moreover, there is no doubt that the most dynamic countries have already become interested in the country.
Because when I look at what is coming into Kazakhstan from other countries, then there are three countries that are really operating in Kazakhstan: from Europe there is France, from the margins of Europe there is Turkey, and finally there is Japan.
It is therefore of very great importance to the Community that we should set an example as far as Kazakhstan is concerned.
I admit that there are endless problems: social problems, employment problems and, last but not least, a relatively weak democracy.
But when I look at how friendly we are to other states, for example Russia, where there is really not very much democracy to speak of, or even at how we behave towards Cuba, then I have to say that Kazakhstan deserves our support.
As far as President Nazarbaev himself is concerned, he has been very strongly criticised.
However, I should just like to say one thing: the man is, after all, a Turk.
He has good connections with Turkey, and these are drawing him slowly over to our side, at a time when, on the other side - i.e. from the direction of Iran - a serious threat to Central Asia is becoming apparent.
Recent events in particular have shown us that we must be careful here, and that in consequence a sign from us to President Nasarbajev would be of great political advantage to political stability in Central Asia.
In this respect, I can only say that we should be delighted that we are able to conclude this agreement, and that in so doing we are giving a sign to Mr Nasarbajev and his people, thereby leading to a political and economic consolidation which will no doubt still have to survive very difficult times ahead, but which, in the long term, will be of great value to us.
The report is to be welcomed, because the current economic situation in Kazakhstan, as has already been mentioned several times, must be regarded as very bad to catastrophic.
In Kazakhstan, however, it is not simply a question of boosting industrial production, which has declined by almost 30 % within a single year, but also, above all, a question of supporting the democratization process that is taking place there.
Mr von Habsburg has just given a very graphic description of the situation, particularly with regard to fundamentalism.
This will only be possible, however, if there is a comprehensive economic stabilization of the country, particularly by reducing the rate of inflation.
Otherwise, the creation of added value, and with it long-term economic recovery, will be almost impossible.
If the agreement is to be of benefit to both sides, the interim agreement must be accompanied by macroeconomic aid measures.
In any case, however, Kazakhstan must be willing to make the effort itself.
By this I mean, in the first place, reform plans, for example to regulate property rights, the operation of an efficient administration, a corresponding build-up of confidence in the banking sector, and of course respect for human rights as well.
In Kazakhstan, where the Kazakhs make up 40 % of the population, and where there is a Russian minority amounting to 38 %, it is most important that this question of property rights should be cleared up; otherwise it would seem that conflict will be a foregone conclusion.
Where there is political uncertainty, one can more or less rule out any hope of foreign investors committing themselves to any great extent.
So even the planned privatization of formerly state-owned undertakings would only be successful if this political climate were stabilized.
Madam President, the Interim Agreement between the European Union and Kazakhstan makes it possible for us rapidly to put into practice the intentions of the partnership and cooperation agreement on trade and trade-related issues.
I would stress that partnership and cooperation agreements, and especially those parts relating to trade, are a key instrument in our policy towards the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS.
It constitutes a general framework for our future relations with these countries. I would particularly like to thank Mr Chesa for an excellent report.
My colleague, Commissioner Van den Broek, has recently visited Alma-Ata and Tashkent and studied the situation in Kazakhstan.
Various signals emerged from discussions with the Kazakh authorities.
The level of priority accorded by Kazakhstan to relations with the European Union is extremely unclear. All the participants stressed that Kazakhstan's absolute priority is to strengthen relations with Russia.
However, it remains unclear whether strengthening relations with the Union, with us in other words, is as important as those with China, the USA and Japan.
Nor was it very clear to what extent the relations being forged through the four-party agreement between Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan affect our bilateral relations under the partnership and cooperation agreement.
The Kazakhstan government assured the Commission that, despite the agreement, Kazakhstan considered itself to be free to determine for itself the content and conditions of its relations with third countries.
It remains to be seen whether this will be possible as regards trade.
Customs union agreements, for example, prescribe the automatic acceptance of Russia's customs tariffs and customs legislation.
The ambassadors of the Member States of the EU in Alma-Ata have noted that the European companies which are represented in the country are hesitant about investment.
They have adopted a 'wait and see' attitude on account of the uncertainty surrounding Kazakhstan's political structure.
Although certain companies have moved to Tashkent in Uzbekistan, there has not as yet been any large-scale withdrawal from Alma-Ata.
The Commission delegation stressed the need to establish close regional cooperation among the Central Asian republics, both for economic reasons and with the aim of fostering stability in the region, which is ethnically extremely diverse.
The European Union regards as essential regional cooperation and voluntary integration with respect for the independence and sovereignty of each participating country.
The Kazakhs appear to be open to the idea of establishing communications to the West, to Europe, through the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus.
In political terms this would be an attractive way of complementing the country's priority orientation to Russia.
Tacis is supporting projects such as transport corridors in the Caucasus and Central Asia and the working party for oil and glass management.
My colleague, Mr Van den Broek, emphasised in the talks he held that the contractual relationship with the EU was considered as complementary to relations with the republics in the CIS, and Russia in particular, and not as a substitute for or alternative to such relations.
It is too soon to draw conclusions about how and at what speed relations with the European Union will develop in the future.
In view of the country's geopolitical interests and its wealth of natural resources, the European Union should follow political developments in Kazakhstan closely.
At the same time the Tacis programme should, over and above the current measures, try to persuade the Kazakhs of the advantages of economic legislation and trade legislation which is in accordance with international rules, that is to say WTO rules, and heavily emphasise issues concerning communications and energy links.
The Interim Agreement provides the appropriate basis for the promotion of such a development.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed with the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Cooperation Agreement with Nepal
The next item is the report (A4-0072/96) by Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Decision (COM(95)0488 - C4-0582/95-95/0256(CNS)) concerning the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the Kingdom of Nepal.
Madam President, as you have just mentioned, this is a question of deciding to ratify the first, and therefore historic, economic and trade cooperation agreement between the European Union and Nepal.
This agreement, as one may easily imagine, represents hope for this little Himalayan country.
With its 20 million inhabitants, Nepal has always had to endure the looming presence of two gigantic world neighbours, China and India, which themselves have always attracted international interests in political and economic terms to the detriment of other countries in the region.
In addition Nepal has always had to take account of the well-known problems of Tibet and the ethnic and religious conflicts which have arisen in India, and at the same time has had to give shelter to a considerable flow of refugees from Bhutan.
The cooperation agreement, on which we are shortly to vote, therefore represents a turning point for Katmandu and gives its government the opportunity to open its markets to Europe, thus increasing the development potential, and to escape from its position as an enclave between two important regional powers.
I should therefore like to emphasize the political aspects of the agreement, above all as regards the recognition that by our vote we are contributing to the process of democratization which that country has been and still is experiencing.
Since 1990 Nepal has been engaged in a radical institutional change which has led to free multi-party elections and the alternation of democratic governments. The new constitution turns Nepal into a constitutional monarchy, creates a bicameral parliamentary system with 265 members of parliament divided between the House of Representatives and the National Council, guarantees a division of powers between the various organs of State placing Nepal in the vanguard of countries on the Indian subcontinent.
We must not in fact deny that Nepal is one of the few countries on the Continent of Asia in which, today, democratic freedoms and freedom of political expression are really guaranteed - one more reason why Europe and the European Parliament support the political process which is evolving in Nepal.
In this connection I should like to express to the Commissioner here present the hope and the request that the Commission will open an office at Katmandu as in other Asiatic countries.
A high-level European diplomatic presence would represent an essential support for democratic developments in progress in Nepal and would mark the definitive European commitment to follow more closely the situation of a little country whose history and culture are however very important, which is asking for assistance in its evolution towards democracy.
I hope the Commission will take up this suggestion and I am sure that the European Parliament, in approving the budget, will support this request.
I must stress that the draft agreement submitted for our approval has the same features as those already concluded by the European Union with other developing countries.
I wish to point out the importance of the so-called human rights clause in the agreement, which is a positive and characteristic feature.
I should like, in fact, to remind the Nepalese Government that it is true that the requirement of respect for democratic principles and human rights is one of the principal characteristics of European policy towards developing countries.
It is also a fact, moreover, that the Government of Nepal has unequivocally committed itself to promoting and guaranteeing total respect for human rights in the country.
Europe must welcome this readiness and must confirm that it will continue both to follow attentively the human rights situation in Nepal and if appropriate to exert the necessary and appropriate political pressure.
From an economic and commercial point of view it is vital for the aims laid down in the agreement to be achieved as soon as possible.
It must in fact be stressed that Nepal has an extremely adverse balance of trade.
Its total imports amounted in 1992 to 780 million dollars, whilst export earnings were the equivalent of only 350 million dollars.
Europe must help Nepal to overcome this difficult situation because its development cannot be ensured simply by mountain tourism: it can be effectively guaranteed only by a diversification of exports and promotion of internal development.
The Kingdom of Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world and therefore has to face difficult challenges in the field of development.
We are dealing, as I said, with a young democracy, still fragile, seeking unconditional support in order to be able to consolidate definitively its own process of democratic transition.
The cooperation agreement concluded by the European Union and Nepal sets up a stable institutional framework, capable of assisting such a situation at both political level and the level of economic and social development.
I therefore recommend Parliament to proceed without delay to ratify this economic and trade cooperation agreement.
Madam President, I congratulate Mr Pettinari on the quality of his report.
As he has said, Nepal is a small country of twenty million people, sandwiched between giants, and of course it has not aroused all that much interest in Europe now that Katmandu is no longer synonymous with journeys of initiation, as it was in the 1970s.
Respect for human rights is an important element in the draft before us.
Indeed, it is actually the subject of the first article of that draft. Well, Nepal is not entirely above criticism in this matter.
The police still use methods which could be described as dubious, to say the least.
The practice of debt bondage still exists, political and religious proselytism is treated as an offence, and the treatment metered out to refugees from Tibet and Bhutan falls someway short of what one might hope.
Not only that, but the country is extremely poor, and ranks among the handful of most deprived states on earth, with an annual income per capita estimated at 150 dollars (or no more than 200 dollars according to the most optimistic estimates).
We are now being invited to open the way to stable, sustainable development in Nepal, accompanied by respect for human rights.
However, it should be noted that the Committee on Budgets has expressed several important criticisms regarding the conclusion of this agreement perhaps because of the absence of the financial statement, although one was appended to the agreement.
The agreement is for a period of five years, and is renewable; be that as it may, I believe that in five years the Nepalese will have been able to receive aid, and that we for our part will be able to see things more clearly.
Madam President, this is the first cooperation agreement between the European Union and Nepal and as such it is a landmark in our relations.
I welcome it most warmly as vice-chair of the South-Asian delegation.
I deplore that it has taken four months to bring to plenary because of an internal dispute in Parliament.
We must sort this sort of thing out much more quickly in future.
Nepal has made great strides in developing a pluralistic, democratic system of government in the last few years. It is to be complimented on this.
Although it is a country of great natural beauty it faces enormous problems, not only as one of the poorest countries in the world but there are also refugees from Bhutan and from Tibet, reflecting the geo-political difficulties in the region and a huge, illegal trade in girls into the Indian prostitution trade which has been documented by Asia Watch.
One way to tackle this is to improve education for women and alleviate rural poverty.
This agreement can help in doing this.
As Katmandu is host to the secretariat of SAARC. I endorse the rapporteur's request that the Commission put a full representative in there as soon as possible.
I regret the unenthusiastic opinion from the Committee on Budgets which might have been avoided if the Commission had put forward a more rigorous financial statement as part of the agreement.
Having discussed ideas for projects with the Nepalese Government I know that all parties are eager to get final approval for this cooperation agreement so that we can all begin to tackle some of the many problems faced by Nepal and help its progress into the modern world.
In that context I wholeheartedly commend the agreement to the House.
Madam President, the Group of the European People's Party welcomes the fact that we have now, as the previous speaker mentioned, finally achieved this cooperation agreement with Nepal.
However, in this matter we must make sure that we do not put the cart before the horse, because it seems to me that one of the biggest problems preventing sustainable development in this area is the extremely high level of illiteracy.
I should therefore like to ask the Commission to give special attention to this sector.
One positive aspect of this country, in my view, is the fact that there is as yet no risk here of slums developing, nor is any such development to be expected in the near future, because the population is spread relatively evenly over the country, and is not, as in other regions - and especially in Asia - concentrated in the larger cities.
From that point of view we have got a good start here.
Of course Nepal still has a problem with child labour, but the country has made some progress.
I should like to emphasize particularly the fact that there has been a noticeable reduction in child labour, especially in the carpet industry, because the country is making a great effort to comply with demands for a reduction in child labour.
We cannot change conditions by this demand alone, but somewhere here there has to be some kind of quid pro quo as well; that much is obvious, of course.
Several speakers have referred to the fact that the per capita income is extremely low in this country, and child labour is a sign of this, and must be considered accordingly.
The other problem, forced prostitution, is also a matter of common knowledge.
I very much support the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, including on the question of human rights.
The issue of imprisonment for debt is certainly a problem which is rooted in the country and its history.
I think that we must be careful if we try to tackle this problem by applying our own standards, and we should regard the new constitution, and the fact that there is a working parliament in operation, as an opportunity to express a certain amount of anticipatory confidence in the country, including in the human rights sector, instead of straightaway turning up on its doorstep in the role of constant critic and monitor.
At the end of the day, we cannot free a country from its history, which to some extent may have taken a very different course from that of our own.
Of course there is also the question of what the other wealthy countries of Asia are doing in the sort of emergency situations that we are seeing here, countries which, owing to their position, might also perhaps be involved.
In addition, I should like to draw particular attention to the criticisms of the Committee on Budgets, by asking the Commission to take those criticisms seriously and to submit to us, as quickly as possible, an appropriate acceptable financial framework.
Madam President, I thank Mr Pettinari for this excellent report.
Nepal is very high up and helping this country where needs are very great must also be high up on our list.
Madam President, the Union has hardly any links with Nepal except tourism, but no contractual relationship at all.
It is one of the poorest countries where the average income is no more than 180 to 200 dollars.
For that you can make one visit to a hotel here in Strasbourg.
Although the Union has given a fair amount of aid to Nepal there is still no agreement and this relationship must now take real shape; naturally we liberals are great supporters of the cooperation agreement before us.
It offers the opportunity for strengthening trade and investments, for economic and technical cooperation and provides an ideal forum for regular discussion in the joint parliamentary committee.
Unfortunately there is no clear financial appropriation - and this is one of the poorest countries in the world.
Dogged by illiteracy, underdevelopment in education, and the need for water purification, and overwhelmed by large groups of refugees from Tibet and Bhutan, Nepal deserves more than ad hoc financing by the Union.
We must have a presence there just when the process of democratization is beginning to bear fruit.
Finally it is right to place great emphasis on development cooperation and sustainable economic development is of paramount importance.
Nepal is chiefly dependent for its income on tourists, but we must not let them spoil whatever remains of a good environment.
The Union, Madam President, is Nepal's foremost trading partner.
We must support this country, which has a geo-strategically very important but isolated position between China and India.
We shall therefore naturally vote for the cooperation agreement.
Madam President, we too support this agreement with the Himalayan State of Nepal which, as explained in this report, is faced with two major infrastructure problems, namely the problem of electricity supplies and the problem of drinking-water supplies.
I myself have visited the country several times, and I have seen the problems for myself, at first hand, problems which also affect those areas that lie at a higher altitude.
My own homeland, the Republic of Austria, has tried to give the country some support, by means of several projects: a project to install electricity supplies in the Sagarmatha National Park, the so-called Sherpa Country, and a reafforestation programme, which I believe to be very important, with the aim of replanting the last of the protected forests which have now been felled.
This reafforestation programme was given a very positive reception.
I also believe that the other areas covered, namely the expansion of trading relations with this country and the expansion of tourism, as well as providing assistance to improve infrastructure in Katmandu and in the other cities of this country of 20 million people, are of particular importance.
I believe that the European Union quite simply has a duty to help this small Asiatic state.
Therefore I welcome the fact that this agreement has given rise to the present debate, and I believe that in future the Union will have to take further important decisions on this subject.
The agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world and yet at the same time a country with such a rich culture, is something of a model agreement.
It is the first treaty between the European Union and a third country which is based on respect for and observance of human rights.
If human rights are not respected, the treaty can be suspended.
This agreement is a framework treaty, which will be, and must be, followed by further agreements concerning action and projects, because we do not wish merely to make a general declaration of solidarity; we want to put things into practical terms.
Like Anita Pollack, I welcome this, as the Deputy Vice-President of the European Parliament's SAARC Group.
Despite the criticism from the Committee on Budgets - and that has again been documented here today - regarding the type of financial planning proposed by the Commission, there has been broad agreement from all the competent committees of the European Parliament.
I am delighted that we are able to debate this agreement here today, in the presence of the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Nepal to the EU.
Our cooperation should serve to encourage all those politicians who, as I have been able to see for myself on many occasions in Katmandu, are putting so much energy, circumspection and courage into building up and developing their young democracy, both politically - and not only as a buffer state between two giants -, and also economically and culturally.
They have now laid the foundations, and I am delighted that we are able to build on these foundations together.
This cooperation will make it clear, without any possibility of a misunderstanding, to all these people, whether Hindus or Buddhists, who are now really living together peacefully, in contrast to many other countries, that we are ready to provide not only qualitative help but also self-help.
In practical terms, this means improving living conditions in rural areas, reducing environmental pollution in urban areas, ensuring the careful use of resources, expanding energy networks, expanding drinking water supplies, creating new employment opportunities, particularly in the farming industry by stepping up agricultural research, and bringing progress in the form of education and training in health care, in the economic and social integration of women, and in the protection of children.
We also want to provide incentives for direct investment in Nepal.
We want to encourage business links with European SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), to give long-term support to economic development, and to guarantee better market access for Nepalese products.
I should like to wish the European Union and Nepal, a country which belongs to the SAARC, whose regional cooperation is becoming increasingly important, success and fairness in their cooperation, which has a great future ahead of it.
Namaste!
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Support for arable crops
The next item is the report (A4-0080/96) by Mr Goepel, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(95) 0497 - C4-0602/95-95/0265(CNS)) amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 1765/92 establishing a support system for producers of certain arable crops.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hardly think that I shall be taking up the whole of my five minutes, which some of you will no doubt be glad to hear, in view of the lateness of the hour, and those of you who know me know that I do actually keep to time.
Within the framework of the Uruguay Round decisions, the European Union is committed, under the Blair House Agreement, to growing a maximum quantity of oilseeds for the non-food sector on set-aside land.
The background to this arrangement is as follows: the set-aside scheme was introduced as part of the 1992 agricultural reform in order to limit the supply of cereals and oilseeds for food.
The cultivation of certain agricultural products for use in the non-food sector is permitted on such land.
The production of methyl ester - known as 'bio-diesel' - from oilseed rape gives rise to a by-product, rape cake, which, like soya meal, can be used in animal feedingstuffs.
These feedingstuffs now compete with certain imported feedingstuffs, most of which are imported from the United States.
The European Union has therefore undertaken, under the above-mentioned agreement, to limit the amount of this rape that is grown for the non-food sector to a specific quantity, in this case 1 million tonnes of soya bean meal equivalents.
The present proposal by the Commission is intended to introduce measures to restrict the rape cultivation in question if this figure of 1 million tonnes of soya bean meal equivalents is exceeded.
Depending on how you calculate it, this quantity is equivalent to a cultivation area of about 1.2 million hectares of rape, a figure which so far has never been reached in the European Union.
This scheme has no effect on expenditure from the European budget.
However, in 1995 the amount produced was 940 tonnes, which fell well short of the maximum permitted quantity of 1 million tonnes.
This figure, which is based on the Commission's calculations, must clearly have been set too high as a result of using conversion coefficients which were no longer appropriate.
As a result of the reduction in the set-aside quota a falling trend is actually expected in 1996.
The Commission's proposal therefore appears, at first sight, to have been presented prematurely; on the other hand it does give producers a degree of security in planning their production, and it should be seized - and used - as an opportunity to get ahead in setting a new trend towards making greater use of renewable raw materials.
That is also the reason why I have to reject Amendment No 3, which lays down that, in the theoretical case of the permitted maximum quantity of 1 million tonnes of soya bean meal equivalents being exceeded, in some circumstances a further, punitive set-aside area should be imposed the following year.
It was precisely this that we were trying to avoid in this report, which I drafted.
I should just like to make a few brief comments on the amendments. The maximum limit of 1 million tonnes applies only to by-products intended for food or feed use.
Many by-products can however be used for other purposes.
For example the meal that arises as a result of rapeseed extraction, also known as rapeseed cake, is an excellent protein concentrate, but can also be used, for example, in alternative energy production, or as a soil improver in arable farming.
Amendment No 1 therefore seeks to make it clear that this type of by-product, which can be used for purposes other than feed or food use, for example as a source of energy, as a biogas fuel or as a source of humus, is excluded from the calculation of the maximum permitted quantity of 1 million tonnes.
This means that our farmers have the chance of developing this alternative fuel on a larger scale, if they are able to grow an unlimited quantity of rape on their set-aside land.
The coefficient for calculating the soya bean meal equivalent of rape meal and sunflower meal currently used by the Commission - though not, as far as I am aware, laid down anywhere in a legally binding form - is too high.
The reason for this is that the change in the range of oilseed varieties in recent years has resulted in a reduction in the crude protein/fat content.
Amendment No 2 takes these recent developments into account by setting lower coefficients which are legally binding.
The coefficients proposed by the EDN are of course better from the mathematical point of view, but in practical terms they are not really enforceable at the present time.
Nevertheless, we suggest that these coefficients should be reviewed every year and adjusted under the management committee procedure.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Goepel on his excellent report.
He has taken a very complex, technical subject and made it comprehensible to us in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
He has put together what we believe is an excellent report. It will have our complete support.
Set-aside is a very unpopular regime both with farmers and the general public.
We want to keep flexible at all stages.
That is one of the reasons why we will, in our voting, make sure that we reflect the need for flexibility.
That is one of the reasons why we will not be able to vote for the EDN resolution which we believe militates against that flexibility.
I am a Member from Great Britain, as you know.
I cannot stand up in the Chamber now without saying something about the crisis in agriculture in Britain at the moment.
I would like your indulgence while I very briefly tell you some of the things that are happening.
Many of us with rural constituencies have had the experience of farmers who have invested their lives, capital and energy in their businesses ringing us in the last few weeks, close to tears, saying: ' What am I going to do?' . On 20 March, overnight, businesses which had thrived for many years were simply wiped out.
It is now 17 April and I deeply regret that the British Government and the European Commission seem to be engaged in megaphone diplomacy on the issue.
I would plead for all parties involved to get round the table as quickly as possible and bring this crisis to an end.
Eighty-five percent of British beef herds have never had a case of BSE.
We can look our Continental partners in the face and say it is safe to eat British beef.
We deeply regret this terrible slur cast on our meat industry.
I do not think the entire blame for the delay lies with the Commission.
I have the uncomfortable feeling that the British Government is about to embark on the general election campaign using the beef crisis as one of its main planks.
My advice to the British Government is: please, do not go down that road for electoral purposes.
Please, use your common sense and make sure that we try as hard as we can to bring this crisis to a resolution.
I say to the British Government: please, please, please, do not play politics with people's jobs and livelihoods.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say, first of all, that I am very pleased with the proposed report, and that it is particularly important for Austria too.
Amendment No 1 in particular provides long overdue clarification in connection with the cultivation of crops such as rape, for example.
This amendment makes it possible for those areas of land that are not used for food or animal feedingstuffs, but are used for non-food purposes, for energy production or humus formation and the like, to be left out of the basis of calculation.
It follows from this that not only can residual waste products be made use of, but also an incentive is provided to use set-aside areas for the production of renewable raw materials.
In this field, Austria has had very good experience over a long period.
In our country we have used energy plants not only for heating, but also as lubricants or as methyl ester obtained from rape, and we have really been most successful with it.
However, I believe that in future it will be important that we should work out some taxation arrangements for energy from biomass, on a Europe-wide basis, because it is the only environmentally friendly form of energy.
I believe that we owe it to future generations to have a change of attitude on this subject.
A regular review of the coefficients will take into account the progress that is continually being observed in breeding new rape varieties, and their higher oil content.
This means that the limit of 1 million tonnes of soya bean meal equivalents will not be reached so quickly, and it will not, therefore, lead to restrictions on renewable raw materials.
This report, together with Amendment No 1, is in line, in its present version, with the opinion of COPA, and in my opinion it is essential for ecologically orientated agriculture and energy policy in Europe.
I therefore support the report before the House, which is a vital necessity not only for Austria, but also for Europe.
Mr President, Mr Goepel, we support your report.
We share your view that we must have this scheme, from the point of view of both the cultivation of this crop and the conversion coefficient.
I shall therefore not go into the matter in any further detail, but will use my two minutes to give my views on set aside as a whole.
You know that the set-aside scheme was originally introduced by the Commission, amongst other things as an environmental element.
We have come a long way from that, and the fact that we are now allowed to grow renewable raw materials no longer has anything to do with the ecological element.
Moreover, oilseed rape, which is essentially what we are talking about here, is not an ecological crop, at least not in practice, the way it is grown at present.
Consequently, even though we agree with you, I should nevertheless like to ask you to have a closer look at our original idea as well, in other words, the idea of using set-aside land to grow clover/grass leys, or pulse crops, for use as fodder.
The idea behind it would be the same.
Here too we would have non-food production, but with a by-product in the form of animal feed.
It is precisely this problem on which the Americans have intervened.
If we allow pulse crops to be grown for fodder under this scheme, then we would produce the same effect, but the ecological improvement would be greater.
If we then tried to incorporate this type of set aside into crop rotation schemes, then we would also have the effect of providing nitrogen for the next crop, and would thus have the overall effect of giving farmers a chance both to save money and to produce animal feedingstuffs.
By having a flexible set-aside quota, we would also be able to ask ourselves constantly how much we want to take out of the market and how much we want to release as animal feed. I hope that your group will also be able to come round to this way of thinking, not so much as a quid pro quo in return for our agreement, but because what we are saying makes sense!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Blair House agreement set the production of oil seed cake obtained from the cultivation of set-aside land in the European Union at one million tonnes of soya bean meal equivalent.
These plant products are now very important to us.
Let me explain: firstly, the level of European self-sufficiency in proteins intended for animal feeds is declining, on a net basis, and is no more than 29 %.
Secondly, in the crisis situation we are now passing through because of 'mad cow disease' , demand for plant products intended for livestock is going to increase, bearing in mind the foreseeable and probable reduction - of even elimination - of bonemeals.
It will be highly undesirable for European farmers to be deprived of a source of plant protein which is compatible with the GATT agreements.
It makes sense, therefore, on this basis, to endorse the proposal by the rapporteur, Mr Goepel (whom I congratulate, incidentally, on his report), whereby this quota would exclude by-products intended for purposes other than the feeding of animals, such as the manufacture of biofuels or the introduction of bio-organic matter as humus for soil conditioning.
Furthermore, Amendment No 5, which states the position of the experts representing the French Agriculture Ministry, which has been accepted by the 15 Member States of the Council and is based on criteria that are common to the scientific and professional circles, also looks towards making better use of the quota for the entire European Union.
It proposes that the coefficients of equivalents between soya bean meal and rapeseed or sunflower seed cake should be calculated.
It is obvious that these coefficients must depend first on the specific composition of these plants, and secondly on their food value determined through their real digestibility potential.
In conclusion, then, I propose on behalf of my group that we should support the proposal by the rapporteur, Mr Goepel, while voting in favour of Amendment No 5, which will allow optimum use of the GATT constraint on European agriculture.
Mr President, at the time of the Blair House agreements the European Union was weak enough to accept a constrain not imposed on our American partners - a ceiling on its industrial set-aside, in other words the land area devoted to crops intended not for food but for industrial use, for example the production of biofuels.
Below this first ceiling, the Union was then guilty of an even more unjustifiable weakness in allowing a second ceiling to be imposed upon it: a ceiling on the by-products of the oil seeds thus cultivated, the direct result of which was to limit the production of those oil seeds although, once again, they are produced exclusively for very important and praiseworthy purposes, such as the manufacture of green fuels or biodegradable packaging.
These one-sided ceilings are expressed, for the various crops concerned, in a common accounting unit - tonnes of soya bean meal equivalents.
But, of course, in order to make the calculations it is necessary to know the conversion coefficient for each production.
In the first half of 1995 the Commission presented a first draft of a scale of equivalences, based on the by-products' contents of proteins and residual oils and fats.
However, the Council's expert groups and the management committees unanimously expressed reserves regarding these coefficients, because they felt that the criteria adopted were not the right ones, and also that the result arrived at imposed far too heavy a penalty on our farmers, with absolutely no necessity, as far as this specific point was concerned, deriving from our international commitments.
It would be, as it were, a penalty unilaterally applied by us on ourselves.
Today, this House is asked to consider the proposal for a Council Regulation intended to establish the system for monitoring the ceilings.
We see this as an opportunity for Parliament to suggest the application of fairer coefficients.
That is the purpose of our Amendment No 5, which is additional to Mr Goepel's excellent report and bases the conversion coefficients on much more relevant criteria than those proposed hitherto, criteria which are scientifically justified.
Since these ceilings relate to by-products which, it is feared, might be used in the production of feeds or foods, the relevant criteria are associated with the nutritional value, for example the average rates of protein value as proposed by various scientific research institutes, such as the French National Institute for Agronomic Research or the Paris-Grignon Agronomic Institute.
If this Amendment No 5 will be accepted, the Community, although still subject to the GATT constraints, could nevertheless produce on industrial set-aside, up to 3.1 million tonnes of rapeseed of 3.6 million tonnes of sunflower seed, or an increase of 20 % over the Commission's initial proposal.
This result would make the present situation more bearable in the short term for our farmers although, of course, the Community's ultimate objective must be to correct the initial error and obtain, somehow or other, the removal of the actual ceiling.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by saying how impressed we are by Mr Goepel's excellent report in this matter.
Even so, I should note that the limitation to one million tonnes of oil seed byproducts, decided upon at Blair House in 1992, is clearly contrary to the interests of the European Community.
We should note that the crisis brought about by the spongiform encephalitis affair is probably going to provide a fresh boost to the soya cake market, which will benefit American products at the expense of Europe - obviously, since Europe is self-limited, as my colleague Mr Berthu rightly said just now - forcefully, but rightly.
In fact, imports are certain to increase, contrary to what the Commission claims.
Even in 1995 there was a shortage and it would have been possible to export, since world prices were higher than on the European market.
At that time, however, the Commission had imposed taxes on cereal exports.
So the way everything is going, it would seem that the policy pursued year by year by the Commission has been contrary to European interests and has favoured the United States, and it is hard not to feel a degree of unease at this situation.
First, Mr President, my compliments to Mr Goepel for the careful way in which he has drafted his report.
As has already appeared from the discussions in the Committee on Agriculture, we can support his amendments.
I am particularly curious to know the Commission's reaction to one of the amendments: what is the Commission's view on the use of the by-products for purposes other than for food or feed? What is the Commission's view on the use of these by-products for energy production?
Another aspect in this connection is that the use of biodiesel everywhere in Europe has assumed enormous proportions.
That might be because a large part of the areas set aside is being used for the cultivation of oleaginous plants.
It may also be because indirectly a subsidy is being given.
If my information is correct, there has long been a Commission proposal before the Council aimed at encouraging the use of these biodiesels by reducing the tax on them.
I should like to hear from the Commission what the situation is with regard to that proposal.
The Commission wants to encourage the use of these products.
Probably the production of oleaginous plants for biodiesel will be reduced as the amount of land set aside is reduced.
What alternative method can the Commission propose in the future so that the heartening use of these raw materials is not lost? Those are two specific questions.
Mr President, Mr Goepel and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development have together produced a constructive report, on which I congratulate them.
The Commission's proposal has been tabled on the basis of point 7 of the Memorandum of Understanding between the European Economic Community and the United States within the framework of GATT on certain oilseeds, in accordance with which the Community is to make appropriate corrections within the framework of the Common Agricultural Policy.
It is byproducts from the cultivation of certain oilseeds on land which has been set aside which are concerned.
If such byproducts exceed 1 million tonnes per year, expressed in soya meal equivalents, measures have to be taken.
The Commission's proposal is aimed at maximising the opportunities for farmers in the European Union to cultivate the oilseeds covered by the Memorandum of Understanding, while at the same time respecting our international obligations in full.
Amendment No 1 proposes that the threshold of 1 million tonnes should apply only to byproducts used in foodstuffs and animal feed. Other areas of use, including energy production or the provision of humus should be excepted.
The Commission accepts this amendment.
Amendments Nos 2, 4 and 5 are aimed at ensuring that the Council regulation takes into account the coefficients which have to be used in converting rape meal and sunflower seeds into soya meal equivalents.
As this is obviously a technical question, I believe it would be more appropriate to leave it to the management committee.
Amendment No 3 proposes that sanctions should be imposed the year after the threshold has been exceeded.
In accordance with the Commission's proposal sanctions should be applied in the same year.
This makes it clearer that regard is being paid to the Memorandum of Understanding.
It will also prevent significant fluctuations in the supply of the byproducts concerned from year to year.
The Commission thus cannot approve the amendment.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
G7 meeting on employment
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the results of the G7 meeting on employment of 1-2 April in Lille.
Mr President, on 1 and 2 April Ministers of Labour, Economics, Commerce and Finance from the G7 countries, along with the President and Commissioners of the European Union, met in Lille to discuss the all-important topic of employment.
The Group came to a number of very important conclusions which the Commission was particularly pleased to note.
I believe that the most significant conclusion agreed on by the seven most-developed industrialized countries was that our aim must be to achieve both economic growth and general prosperity and that we should not have to choose between higher unemployment and widening economic inequality.
I stress this because it had been widely supposed that there was a divergence in views between the European governments and the United States, whereas the reality is that both sides agreed that they had to adapt their policies in order to attain the shared objective of improving the employment situation.
The summit agreed that this would not be easy because far-reaching reforms would be required but that they would be all the more effective if they enjoyed widespread support and if workers and employers were actively involved.
The second major point they made was that in order to attain our objective, we need to ensure strong economic growth and structural reform, which requires a well-balanced mix of macroeconomic and employment policies.
They made a strong declaration on human resources, confirming what we already know and believe, that investing in people is as vital as investing in capital, and the successful economies in the future will be those that focus on the long term by investing vigorously in training for their workers.
But they did not stop there, they went on to say that each worker should have access to vocational training and upward mobility in order to adapt to economic and technological changes.
Thirdly, they made a strong declaration about the need to prevent and fight social exclusion.
The problem of those workers who find it difficult to adapt to the labour market cannot - and will not - be resolved in conditions of continuing or increasing insecurity in their pay and living conditions.
Finally, I would like to stress that the meeting of the G7 members was characterized by an openness to change, not erecting barriers but rather encouraging opportunities to compete in the global economy.
They all acknowledged the need to pursue vigorously open trading policies and called on Trade Ministers to maintain the momentum of trade liberalization through the World Trade Organization and at its conference in Singapore.
At the same time the G7 noted the importance of unchanging core labour standards around the world, thereby acknowledging the concerns of the trade unions and of many governments.
In the context they referred to the completion of the studies by the OECD and the ILO and the social dimensions of international trade.
The conclusions of this summit serve to confirm the strategy developed by the European Union following the European Councils at Essen, Cannes and Madrid and the overall strategy of the European Council which should be encouraged, and we should use this signal as an opportunity to go forward and do even more.
Mr President, the Socialist Group supports every real - and I stress, real - initiative to deal with the problem of unemployment.
To the extent that the French presidency's initiative for Lille can be considered real, it certainly has our support.
To the extent that it constitutes a continuation and perpetuation of pre-election, vote-campaigning rhetoric on unemployment, we are obliged to stress that the problem of unemployment is far too serious to be dealt with by rhetoric alone.
Neither is it enough, from time to time, to convene a forum for information exchange at the highest level of the political leadership of the most developed economies, a kind of seminar where we supposedly inform one another about our progress, but in fact end up informing one another about our failures to combat unemployment.
Where unemployment is concerned, the time for seminars is past.
It is true that among G7 some economies achieve lower unemployment levels than others.
Those successes - which have of course been paid for by keeping down working peoples' incomes for twenty years, and I am of course referring to the relatively lower proportion of unemployment in the United States, which as we know, has entailed holding working peoples' incomes down for about that long - are due to basic institutional differences that cannot be passed on by simple contacts between leaders, and even assuming that they should be passed on at all - as the Commissioner told us - there is no agreement that we must follow this method in doing so.
On the contrary.
Those are fine words, but what is to happen in practice?
We expect something more from the meeting of the G7 leaders.
We need measures, not just discussions.
The Lille conference was long on discussions but short on measures.
At any rate, it is positive that its analyses point in the right direction.
The G7 leaders disassociated their position from the theory that development can continue within a framework of unemployment.
The statement stresses that more rapid development is a basic prerequisite for fighting unemployment.
We agree.
Development at a rate higher than at present is certainly a prerequisite for the absorption of any significant proportion of unemployment.
Unfortunately, the statement does not add that more rapid development can today be achieved much more easily by countenancing a certain inflation, because the inflationary tendencies we have seen in the past have been suppressed, which allows us to dare to encourage the economy towards more rapid development, in both monetary and financial terms.
The position stated in the White Paper is correct, and the Commissioner very rightly comments that the G7 conclusions confirm the European Union's strategy.
The problem is that it is not enough for political leaders to meet and congratulate one another.
What matters is that life itself must confirm those policies, and for this to happen, we must of course dare to implement them, which we are not doing, even in relation to the White Paper.
And as you know, Madam Commissioner, the Commission's report on the economic situation in Europe admits that the White Paper's aim to cut unemployment by half by 2000 is not going to be achieved by the present policies.
G7 could indeed contribute to more rapid development, because more rapid development depends on increased investment.
Besides, so far as Europe is concerned, we have said that the investment level ought to increase from 18 % to 25 %.
The White Paper says so too.
An international coordination of macroeconomic policy - which the governments do not want just now and which is probably also not possible on that scale - could increase investment levels.
No such coordination is possible.
Measures could, however, be adopted to restrict the profiteering use of capital and to encourage its use for real investment.
Taxation measures, measures to combat monetary instability, measures of a nature that can only be taken at world-wide level, so that they cannot be used by one group of countries against another.
In such a framework, structural measures to fight unemployment are of course also necessary and all this could help, but we must not think that we can start by making the markets more elastic to give the economy a boost, because that amounts to putting the cart before the horse.
In a rapidly developing economy the markets will become more elastic, working people will have better training opportunities, and all this will in turn further the speeding up of the economy.
But we cannot start with those things.
We must start with a systematic financial and monetary effort to increase the rate of development.
Everything else must come later and contribute to that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to draw the following conclusions from the meeting of the G7 countries in Lille.
There are 18.3 million registered unemployed in the European Union, and they are a risk to social peace.
The battle against unemployment is not a purely national problem.
On the contrary, now that national economies have become integrated, it must be fought on a Europe-wide or even a worldwide basis.
It is caused by the following factors: the rise in labour costs, and particularly in costs accessory to wages, the falling off of investments, and the imbalance between job supply and demand.
Nowadays, economic growth alone is not sufficient to reduce unemployment.
The natural level of unemployment, and with it the numbers of long-term unemployed, increases with every recession.
Poverty and debt in developing countries affect exports.
The crucial factor in determining international competitiveness is now the innovative capacity of the economy.
This is threatened by a certain amount of hostility towards technology in some parts of Europe, particularly on the part of the Greens.
We need a high level of education for our employees, a highperformance infrastructure and good framework conditions to encourage innovation.
In my opinion, this summit, like so many before it, has not come up with any practical measures to alleviate the high level of unemployment, and I would therefore ask the G7 states to create, at long last, the following conditions. Firstly, they must guarantee that the markets operate smoothly.
Secondly, they must create a favourable climate for saving and investment activity and for business creation, by means of tax-law provisions.
Thirdly, they must increase financial resources and provide guidance in technological research.
Fourthly, they must encourage industrial production in fields involving state-of-the-art technology, by setting standards and providing guidance for public procurement.
Fifthly, there must be better coordination between industrial-policy measures and trade-policy dealings with third countries.
Sixthly, when regulations and joint-action programmes are decided on, particular attention should be given to small and medium-sized enterprises, in order to take into account their special characteristics.
Seventhly, a transport policy should be implemented which aims to develop transport facilities as a necessary instrument for expanding trade with third countries.
I would emphasize, in particular, that there is still a great deal of potential for job creation in the healthcare sector, in the caring services, in tourism, in the cultural sphere and in environmental protection, as well as in services in the commercial sector.
Another important prerequisite is to do away with bureaucracy.
The social partners need to take action in the following areas in particular: better qualifications for employees, more flexible working hours and a reduction in costs accessory to wages, particularly in the case of less highly skilled employees.
Mr President, I should also like to lay claim to the extra minute that was allowed to the speaker on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
The countries of the European Union must increase their efforts, by giving fixed-term labour cost subsidies for the long-term unemployed, by improving the efficiency of public job-finding services, by subsidizing new products and services until they are ready for the market, and in particular by giving financial support to the setting up of new SMEs, by improving training and further education schemes, and by having a common employment policy.
I welcome the initiative of the French President in urging the G7 states to adopt a common employment policy at last, and I regret the fact that his efforts were entirely unsuccessful.
Therefore I would recommend that in future we should refrain from holding summit meetings of this kind which, when they do not produce any practical results, only serve to awaken false hopes in the minds of those who are affected by unemployment.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I welcome the fact that the G7 have spoken so extensively about the employment situation but I think it is pretty poor if the only outcome is what we already know, namely that we must bring about economic growth and more prosperity.
I regard this meeting as a first step and I think that the G7 should draw a number of conclusions from it.
So I have a number of questions.
Is it possible to produce a comparative in-depth study of the part played by taxation and social security systems in the Union and in the other G7 States so that we can see the effect of the various systems? After all we still have many times more unemployment in the Union than in the United States and Japan for example.
My second question is: what part does the Union really want to play in the world debate on human solidarity as regards taking care of social security and the environment, for example in the next world trade negotiations?
My idea is that if it does not come from the Union it will not get on to the agenda in the right way.
The Union has a social model to protect and to lose.
Finally I should like to call attention to the financing systems existing in Europe for small and medium-scale businesses.
The position is that in America there are many more opportunities for anyone starting up in business and for small and medium-scale undertakings because of the way in which the pension funds and banks are ready to finance these organizations.
As far as it goes I welcome the Liese programme but I think that it is only a first step.
Since I still have time left I should like to bring another matter to your notice and that is the question of training.
In a very recent report Mr Delors said that 6 % of the GNP should be devoted to training and many Member States are not yet coming up to that level.
I should like to see a greater effort there.
Mr President, I find it difficult to understand the source of the optimism and satisfaction displayed by the Commission and by G7 itself, concerning the fight against unemployment.
G7 may have confirmed the European Union's positions and policies, but they are not confirmed by the reality that the Union's citizens are living through, nor by the state of the unemployment problem itself in Europe.
It is becoming more and more clear that the development noted, and even the development it is hoped to achieve, is incapable of leading to increased employment.
Consequently, there seems no prospect of cutting the rate at which unemployment is increasing over the next few years, and that is a result of the very policy adopted both by the European Union and by other developed capitalist countries.
I would like to put a number of questions to the Commissioner:
To what extent is it estimated that the competitiveness of European companies can be increased by reducing the so-termed non-labour costs, in other words employment contributions towards social welfare?
Against which countries is this competitiveness to be increased? The United States?
The new industrialized countries of the Far East?
Which countries?
Or is the competitiveness of European companies, precisely because of this policy, to be an internal European matter, in other words the competitiveness of the very large multinational companies will be increased within Europe itself to the disadvantage of SMEs?
To what extent can such support contribute substantially towards increasing employment and cutting unemployment?
And finally, will the Commission ever consider reducing working hours without loss of pay, will it ever see that this could contribute to dealing with unemployment, so that we can at last have a specific measure and not wishful thinking, which Europe's citizens contemplate with ever-increasing disappointment and reaction against the Union's policies?
Mr President, I must say that words fail me - and that is something that does not, I think, happen to me very often.
The first priority that is emphasized everywhere, the scandal of mass unemployment, is being treated here like a sort of appendix to the session.
Then Mrs Gradin stands there - excuse me for talking to you like this - and says how delighted she is about the results of a summit, out of which, it is generally agreed, nothing whatsoever came.
I must say that that takes a lot of swallowing!
Mrs Gradin, why are the Commission and the Community not taking action to ensure that the subject is discussed at the United Nations Economic and Social Council? Has it still not occurred to you that, contrary to the OECD philosophy which aims to create working poor instead of unemployed people, there is another strategy, which is followed by the ILO, the ECE and the UNDP, and which aims to encourage social and sustainable development?
Will the Commission finally decide where it stands in this debate?
What sort of model for a European, active, independent policy to conquer mass unemployment do we actually want to put into practice? It is said to be our first priority, and then we continue to pursue a policy that sets different priorities, in the present case trade and growth, namely growth in profits, and this is happening in a situation in which, as Keynes said, the euthanasia of the rentier - not the pensioner-, the euthanasia of the functionless investor, is the only solution in the present crisis!
In this situation we can no longer go on pretending. What will become of the Santer Pact then?
Will it continue to be followed up, after certain Member States have already made it clear that they are not going to have anything to do with it?
Can an employment policy be implemented without funding? The finance ministers did not even go to Lille!
Can an employment policy be implemented without a reform - with ecological solidarity - of the tax system? These are questions which the Commission needs to answer as a matter or urgency, and on which we must finally put an end to hypocrisy!
Mr President, my impression is that the latest G7 meeting took place in the same atmosphere of indifference as our debate here this morning.
And yet nearly 20 million Europeans out of work, and an unemployment rate of about 20 % among young people, might have prompted the Western powers to display a little more determination and imagination.
Instead, once again, the worn-out credo of ultra-liberalism seems to have dominated the proceedings.
The Americans have denounced social entitlements as an unemployment factor, conveniently forgetting that, in their own country, another 40 million people are living in poverty and exclusion.
Madam Commissioner, you know how much importance we in this House attach to the social integration of Europe, a Europe which cares for the well-being of its citizens and guarantees them a minimum standard of social welfare.
Only on Wednesday, in the course of the debate on the Turin Conference, we restated that necessity.
Now you have come here to tell us about the results of the meeting in Lille, and we are grateful for that, but I would have liked to know what the Commission's position is in this debate, especially as regards the development of new forms of wage activity and new zones of technology.
In a nutshell, how are we to reconcile technological innovation, employment and accepted social benefits?
Mr President, the conclusions of the G7 meeting held in Lille early in April are clearly aligning the industrialized countries towards an American-style economic policy, which is considered to generate more jobs at the cost of greater flexibility of employment. Unfortunately, however, its objective can also be stated in different terms: a gradual lowering of our social standards to the much lower average required by a globalization we have been unable to control.
In the eyes of the growing number of Europeans, the aim of the policy pursued by Brussels seems to be to break down national peculiarities in order to clear the road for this globalization and facilitate its progress.
Instead of protecting us, therefore, the policy of Brussels would become the implicit ally of those opposed to our societies, our ways of life and our nations.
The answer most frequently given to this serious accusation is that the best way in which the European States can defend themselves is to improve their competitiveness. Unfortunately, however, that is only partly true.
Does the Commission think that the cost of European labour will be able to compete with the cost of labour in the emerging countries?
Does it think that, by disrupting national societies, it will promote a competitiveness of the European region? And if not, how does it expect to reestablish a community preference which is capable not of preventing globalization but of disciplining it?
Mr President, Commissioner, I am also speaking for Mr Schreiner.
The statements that have been made today admittedly make clear the Commission's firm intention to make employment a central theme of its work.
Practical measures are lacking, however, and platitudes remain ineffectual.
Above all, the constantly expressed desire on the part of the Greens and the Social Democrats, to include the employment question as a further criterion for European monetary union, would prove to be a fatal fallacy for economic and monetary union, and would allow unemployment to rise even further.
The same applies to savings programmes without simultaneous structural reform.
It is therefore not so much the lack of a political will on the part of the European Union that I see as an obstruction to any effective campaign against high unemployment, but rather the lack of willingness on the part of individual Member States to adjust their economic and social-policy framework conditions to fit those of the international competition.
By this I mean the exorbitantly high costs associated with wages in Europe, the excessive taxation systems, the overregulation and the - to a greater or lesser extent - uncontrollable bureaucracy in individual Member States.
We shall not create jobs by adopting regulations and declarations of intent.
Jobs will only be created by competitive framework conditions and, as a result, optimistic investors who are willing to take a risk, and not by the whingeing of affluent citizens.
Commissioner, what practical proposals does the Commission have in order to reduce drastically, perhaps by means of an environmental tax system, the costs associated with wages, costs which are much too high in all the Member States?
Mr President, I just wanted to re-ask the question: how can we breathe new life into the world economy and, more particularly, into the EU economy? We all speak a lot about unemployment and about job creation.
The reality, unfortunately, in my view, is very different.
High costs in the EU, lack of competitiveness in the EU, perhaps even scale of operation in the EU, together with new technologies, modern methods and other new approaches, are driving employment levels down not up.
This environment is making it much more difficult to increase employment levels.
I ask the Commission: how can we cope with this? Surely we cannot turn the clock backwards.
Society must continue to move forward and progress.
Every citizen in Europe wants to see this happening.
Every effort has to be made to achieve development but, unfortunately, this approach is being resisted.
It is being resisted by environmentalists.
I do not want to suggest that we should not consider environmental issues - of course we should.
But everybody seems to want to resist and oppose development and efforts to get things done.
So I want to ask the Commission: is there a way, can you reconcile these differences? Is the Commission looking at this side of the argument at all.
I say this with respect, Commissioner Gradin, but it always seems to me that it is pious platitudes but no action. Can you answer my questions, please?
Mr President, thank you for all the interesting contributions and comments on my report from the G7 meeting.
Unemployment is the most serious issue facing the European Union.
For many, it is a tragedy that there are 18 million people outside the labour market. Everyone, I think, knows someone in their own circles who does not have a job.
It is especially tragic when unemployment affects young people.
This is why unemployment is at the top of the Commission's working programme agenda.
The same was true at the European Council meeting in Turin, where it was felt that unemployment and employment should be one of the central issues at the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is also against this background that the Commission has put forward its proposal for a stabilisation pact, and it is for that reason that President Santer is currently travelling around the fifteen capital cities.
The aim of this is to ensure the coordination of the measures proposed by the Commission and those which it expects all governments to include in their working programmes and plans in this field, in order that is that the proposals put forward by the Commission can be followed up as regards research and development, as regards small and medium-sized businesses, as regards the harmonisation of labour market policies and environmental policy, and as regards ensuring the establishment of training programmes; training after all is an extremely crucial issue if we wish to withstand competition from both developing countries and other areas.
In this way we wish to defend the social model which we consider to be so important in our European Union.
Briefly, Mr President, I believe that the Commission has here shown how serious it is by presenting concrete proposals.
We thus look forward now to a response from all fifteen governments and to President Santer receiving that response on his current visits.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, once again, let me thank you for taking part in a Friday morning sitting, so that Parliament's business can move forward.
Today, however, my thanks are especially significant. I have learned a great deal from Mr Martens' impeccable conduct as a parliamentarian.
Today, he has taught me something new: that it is possible to celebrate your birthday and still fulfil your duties in this Chamber.
Thank you, Mr Martens.
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 9 May 1996.
Mr President, this morning a terrorist attack was carried out in Cordoba. It was the work of the ETA terrorist group and resulted in the death of an army sergeant, Miguel Ayllón.
Our group wishes to express its revulsion and condemn this terrorist attack, requesting that condolences be sent to the victim's family while emphasising the importance of unity among democrats against terrorism in order to bring about a closer relationship among Europeans.
Mr Marset Campos, the House has condemned this kind of terrorist attack on several occasions.
We do so again in this case and I will express condolences and sympathy to the families on behalf of us all.
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 15 May 1996 pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
Sitting of 20-24 May in Strasbourg
Please note that the deadline for tabling motions for resolutions on Cuba is set at 12 noon on Tuesday; the deadline for tabling amendments is 12 noon on Wednesday.
Regarding speaking time: with a view to a more flexible allocation of speaking time on Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday evening, the Union for Europe Group has proposed setting an overall amount of speaking time for the periods 3 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 12 midnight, instead of allocating a separate speaking time for the agricultural debate as is presently the case.
Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, one speaker may now speak in favour and one against.
Mr Pasty has asked for the floor.
I assume he is speaking in favour.
Mr President, in my opinion, the debate we shall have at the beginning of next Wednesday afternoon on the 29 agricultural rules for the next season is probably one of the most important of all the debates we have during our parliamentary year.
Why? Because the common agricultural policy is, with the fisheries policy, one of the few really common policies within the European Union and also because agricultural expenditure accounts, as you know, for half the European Union's budget.
It therefore seems to me extraordinary that a shortened speaking time is to be shared between the groups: 75 minutes for nine parliamentary groups is obviously not enough in view of all the Members wishing to speak on the subject.
That is why, without wishing to upset the conduct of our business on Wednesday afternoon, I ask for aggregation of the speaking time to allow groups the chance to register those who wish to speak in the agricultural debate.
Do not take this amiss, Mr President.
Mr Pasty has put forward a proposal.
You have heard one speaker against it.
I should like to speak for Mr Pasty's proposal, for two reasons: firstly because I think Mr Pasty has put forward a proposal which makes good political sense.
It is true that the agriculture debate is very important to many Members of the House, not just members of Mr Pasty' Group, but for members of other groups as well.
So if it is possible to introduce a measure of flexibility into our agenda by juggling speaking time around a little, it seems to me that is a proposal which makes political sense, in the interests of the good name of the House.
Of course we have to have enough time to debate other matters, but I was rather surprised by Mrs Green's remarks.
We cannot have the House's agenda determined by whether or not officials of Parliament choose to be here.
This House is sovereign.
If we, Parliament, decide to place a subject on the agenda which concerns the House, it goes without saying that we should be able to count on you, Mr President, to ensure that the officials concerned are present.
That really is enough.
The Rules of Procedure are quite explicit.
I had not quite realised that Mr Pasty was speaking as the mover of the request but took him to be the speaker 'in favour' .
And as the mover of the request he has the right to justify it.
Then Mrs Green spoke against.
Mr De Vries spoke in favour and I think that is sufficient.
We have to vote now.
Mr President, I just want clarification.
My Group would support the motion if we could have an assurance that should the debate on the Dankert report, which is on our own Parliament's discharge, be held later or not start until 9 o'clock, the senior members of the administration of this Parliament will be present.
This is a crucially important debate for us.
So, if we could have that assurance, my Group will vote in favour.
Mr President, I just wish to make the point that some of us are here at 9 o'clock for the night sittings and know exactly who comes to these night sittings!
It is not the case that people are usually here when important discussions are going on.
The Secretary-General has indeed realised that, quite directly so to speak, for he is sitting beside me.
He will no doubt say the necessary to his colleagues.
Sitting of 5-6 June 1996 in Brussels
We have one more point, in relation to the sittings of 5 and 6 June in Brussels.
The Group of the European People's Party has requested that the Council make a statement on the decision not to admit Croatia to the Council of Europe.
That would of course be entered on the agenda of Wednesday afternoon.
I call Mrs Oomen-Ruijten to move the request.
Mr President, we should very much like to have a statement from the Council on its decision in the Council of Europe, apparently reached jointly by all the fifteen.
Even though the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly gave its approval, fifteen of the members voted against and we would like to have a statement on that.
Mr President, it may be that the Council will make one in the course of this week on the basis of Article 37, but if it does not, I am serving notice now that we shall be requesting either a statement or - and this may perhaps appeal to other Members of the House - an oral question with debate.
I would ask you to make time available for that, Mr President.
It should be possible to have this instead of the debate on the ombudsman.
Your request is that we take this during the June I part-session.
That would mean we try to include this item on the agenda of Wednesday, 5 June, beginning with a Council statement.
Since nobody has asked to speak against, I assume the House agrees.
The order of business is thus established.
Return and export of cultural goods
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0110/96 by Mr Escudero, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive (COM(95)0479 - C4-0463/95-95/0254(COD)) amending the Annex to Council Directive 93/7/EEC of 15 March 1993 on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State; -A4-0111/96 by Mr Escudero, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal fro a Council Regulation (COM(95)0479 - C4-0558/95-95/0253(CNS)) amending the Annex to Council Regulation (EEC) No 3911/92 of 9 December 1992 on the export of cultural goods.
The EEC Treaty set up an area without borders for the single market in which the free circulation of goods was guaranteed.
However, in turn, it became clear that it was necessary to make this free circulation of goods compatible with responsibility for cultural goods which are symbols of Europe's rich and varied cultural idiosyncrasy.
This means that whereas goods in general could be the subject of free traffic there is a need to guarantee the protection of cultural goods and preserve each country's artistic heritage, avoiding situations where the poorer areas are dispossessed of their signs of cultural identity or the richer countries, through trading power, make off with the artistic heritage of the harder up.
To this end the EEC Treaty recognised that these states could impose prohibitions or restrictions on the import and export of cultural goods.
In fact under Community rules, not only are Member States authorised to determine which of their cultural goods are to be exempted from the general rule of free trade but the Commission has taken it upon itself to institute in general terms a complementary protection system for the export, import and transit of cultural goods.
This complementary Community protection is exercised by the means of two legal instruments: a 1992 Regulation on the export of cultural goods and the 1993 Directive on the return of cultural goods unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State.
Cultural goods are those goods qualifying for protection and defined as those listed in an Appendix common to both the Regulation and the Directive offering an economic evaluation.
In addition to this economic evaluation, cultural goods need, according to the regulation, a licence in order to be exported and, in addition to quantity - according to the Directive - goods may be reclaimed if, according to the law, they have been the subject of illegal export.
These categories of cultural goods include paintings - Category 3 - and drawings - Category 4.
The financial threshold for paintings is 150, 000 ECU and for drawings 15, 000 ECU.
However, the problem has arisen as to the category of one type of cultural goods, namely water colours, pastels and gouache, which for reasons which would be too troublesome to go into this afternoon, some countries regard as paintings and others as drawings.
In order to find a solution to this problem, the Commission might have proposed integrating pastels and gouache into Category 3, in other words setting the same financial threshold as for paintings, or into Category 4, giving them the same financial threshold as drawings.
But this would have gone against the positions of the Member States whose definition was rejected and will also not have been a viable solution in financial terms.
We know in fact that as a whole, to generalise, the price of water colours is much lower than that for paintings and much higher than that for drawings.
Were the threshold the same as that for paintings a high proportion of water colours, pastels and gouache would circulate unrestricted.
Were the threshold for drawings, 15 000 ECU, to apply, far too great a number of such works would require Community export licences, leading to red-tape problems, economic chaos and budgetary difficulties.
If, in the end, water colours, pastels and gouache cannot be classified in all cases as either paintings or drawings, both for purely terminological reasons and on financial grounds, only one solution remains: these types of work must be placed in a separate intermediate category.
In other words, the solution would be to create a category which comes between Category 3 for paintings and Category 4 for drawings, an intermediate new Category 3a to be inserted between Categories 3 and 4.
Given that, as we have already shown water colours, pastels and gouache generally fetch prices closer to those of drawings than those of paintings, as is recognised by those dealing in such cultural assets, I propose this afternoon that the financial threshold for Category 3a should not be equidistant between the other two but should be closer to that for drawings: in other words, it should be fixed at 30 000 ECU.
I hope, Mr President, that this is a way of solving the difficult problem of categorising and trading in these cultural assets and that this will be in keeping with the fundamental principle of any legal order: in other words, everyone must deal with the same things in the same way otherwise no legal order, as everyone knows, could survive.
Simply, I would like to finish by pointing out that this proposal for reforming the Directive and Regulation on the Export of Cultural Goods is a reform which is fundamentally a technical one, fundamentally based on a problem which had been felt in practice and which should not stand in the way of the revision and reexamination of the Directive and Regulation, something which this Assembly should also look at.
Mr President, I think that Mr Escudero's report has a certain value and I ask him to accept my congratulations.
However, Mr President, speaking for my group at least, I feel that I must draw attention to the fundamental underlying pretence of the directive and regulation that are being proposed.
Firstly, I do not believe that creativity is strengthened by emphasizing and protecting objects rather than their creators.
You will say that this has nothing to do with the texts that we are debating, but I just wish to make the point.
Many such creators of cultural objects, among those who are alive now at least, are quite emphatic about that.
Secondly, Mr President, I truly cannot fathom out this attempt - if my understanding of it is correct - to restrict international trade in cultural objects. What is the meaning of it?
In saying that such and such a cultural object must not be taken out of the country are we saying that cultural goods ought really to be available for broadly based public and social enjoyment? Then what does it matter then if a private citizen in the territory of a country which prohibits the export of cultural objects wishes to keep such an object at home purely for his own enjoyment?
I fear that, essentially, the directive and regulation will do nothing but bring about a lowering of the value of objects kept at home by private collectors.
But why? Is it because we expect that as time goes by someone, the state that is, will be able to buy them and make them available for the pleasure of the general public?
If that were the case there would be a meaning in it. If that also is not the thinking - and I see no reason why the states should necessarily be envisaging that - the only thing that can be said about this policy is that it runs counter to the laws of the market, egregious as they are in this field too.
I do not think that cultural heritage problems which stem from the organization of the market and the circulation of capital can be solved like this.
Mr President, the rapporteur is quite right to point out that this is primarily a technical matter.
But he is equally right to point out that in the end we are concerned with the protection of cultural goods.
In that regard I take the view that the proposal he has submitted, i.e. to introduce a special category for water colours, gouaches and pastels, is right, in order to prevent any inappropriate equal treatment or inappropriate unequal treatment in future.
But we should also follow the proposal from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and review the effectiveness of both the directive and the regulation after three years.
I think a separate comment has to be made on the wording with regard to the return of national cultural goods.
So long as a member country of the Council of Europe produces legislation on what is called plundered art it is in my view also essential to pose the question what the ownership or possession of cultural goods actually means.
I think we have to discuss this right from the start in relation to the general accessibility of cultural goods, protection against misuse and forming part of a regional or local cultural context.
Who is the owner of the symphony from which we have taken our European anthem? I think the answer to that question is also relevant to the fine arts.
Mr President, I believe we can all be pleased with the two proposals submitted for our scrutiny today.
For although our Union is founded on the principle of the free movement of goods, we are all aware that it would be dangerous to apply it to cultural matters, since cultural goods are not merchandise like other goods and the lifting of restrictions on trade between Member States could lead to the spiriting away of works of art.
A remedy therefore had to be found for this practice, which I'm afraid has been common in the past.
Remember the way the Nazis organized the pillage of works of art in the countries they occupied.
What is more, this practice has not completely disappeared.
That is why the introduction of Article 36 undoubtedly represented progress: it gives Member States the discretionary power to invoke a clause limiting the import or export of certain cultural goods on grounds of protecting national treasures of artistic, historic or archaeological value.
Two additional bricks have been added to the edifice by this Regulation and Directive, as they introduce the concept of 'national treasures' making it possible to give them protection under Community law.
Once again, we can only welcome these proposals and we hope to see them adopted like the report of Mr Escudero, whom I must congratulate for the work he has put in.
A comment and a regret, however.
If it is absolutely fundamental that cultural goods should be protected, it is all the more regrettable that the RAPHAEL programme has been blocked.
After all, this aims to protect Europe's cultural heritage and it must be borne in mind that such protection assumes a minimum of rules and objectives that only a programme can provide.
So, ladies and gentlemen, the tree formed by these two measures is an undoubted improvement, but this should not make us lose sight of the wood of our shortcomings in protecting our heritage.
Mr President, allow me first of all to congratulate the rapporteur on his two reports, at least for emphasizing the importance of affording protection to all of the diverse cultural objects that reflect the artistic creativity and the historic heritage and identity of each people.
Of course, this cultural heritage has value and importance only when it is actually at the disposal to the people who created it; because, as Mr Papayannakis has asked, what value can an object have when it is locked away in the private collection of some tycoon of the times and protected in that sense, and with its value not falling but, in actual fact, rising because of the restrictions? In our view, anyway, cultural objects ought not to be treated as mere goods, and their import, export and movement should be controlled or prohibited so that the artistic, historic and archaeological heritage of nations can be protected.
Speaking from that standpoint, I would like to urge the Commission just a little bit more to venture at some juncture to put its fingers on the stigmata.
Is the priceless cultural heritage, passed down from the depths of history, which has been stolen from countries such as mine for instance, going to be protected? Are those countries which are currently in possession of priceless archaeological treasures going to be made to return those cultural objects to the countries from which they were stolen?
Even parts of the Parthenon, that immense creation of the human mind, are being kept far away from their rightful place, and their return is being refused! In the impending substantial revision of the directive can we not insert a demand, at long last, for the return of such treasures to the countries they belong to?
That is my question to the Commission, Mr President, and I would like a reply.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for once this report describes to us a legal mechanism that is perfectly in balance.
This is the mechanism of Articles 30 and 34, laying down the principle of free trade, and of Article 36, laying down the conditions for the protection of national heritages of cultural goods.
Why this Article 36? In the end it exists, firstly, to prevent an attack on cultural diversity and, secondly, to avoid dispossessing the poorest of their cultural identity.
At this point, I can't help thinking of a famous saying of the French socialist Jean Jaurès: ' The poor have only their country' .
For with very little in the way of personal goods, they, more than other citizens, have only their national cultural heritage to enjoy.
Thus, the present cultural mechanism, which consists of a Regulation on the export of cultural goods and a Directive on the return of cultural goods, seems to us to be well balanced.
The rapporteur's proposals for the creation of a third category of works of art for the practical application of this mechanism seem to us to be going in the right direction and we shall vote for this text.
At this point, however, I should like to raise a question of principle.
Does free trade always bring maximum satisfaction to all the partners? Is it not a unilateral principle, originating therefore from a sort of hemiplegic thinking as absurd as its opposite: the autarkic thinking which would abolish all free trade?
Does not the truth lie, as Aristotle saw, exactly in a happy medium, aiming at the common good? Why should what is true for cultural goods not be true for other types of goods, since it is obviously far from being clear how far the concept of 'cultural goods' extends.
Some very high quality goods, in the world of fashion for example or in the agri-foodstuffs area for certain wines, show clearly that protective mechanisms are needed to prevent levelling down by market forces.
This is also true every time the production of a high quality product does not automatically generate a profit for the producers.
And then there is also the problem of access for the poorest.
For all these reasons, therefore, I believe that there must be a balance between the two principles of freedom and protection, and it seems to us that, while retaining free trade as the principle for economic wealth creation, it is essential to introduce the concept of 'national preference' and of 'European preference' as originally embodied in the Treaty of Rome.
Mr President, of course it is extremely important for those cultural goods that form or will one day form the artistic heritage of the Member States to remain in their original environment.
The fact that there are divergent artistic views on many subjects, e.g., the definition of the various types of pictures, is proof of the Member States' cultural independence.
This fact alone suggests that it should be up to the national states to fix the financial threshold for certain categories of art works.
It should be left to the national states to decide what priorities they set and what financial thresholds they observe in order to counter the risk of an artistic sell-out.
During the planned general review of the regulation and the directive, it should be up to the Member States to fix the financial thresholds for works of art, as it is up to them to classify them as national cultural goods.
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Humanitarian aid
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0125/96) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position of the Council (C4-0098/96-95/0119(SYN)) on the proposal for a Council Regulation on humanitarian aid (rapporteur: Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a huge and vital subject: humanitarian aid, in the eyes of Europeans, is one of the most positive images Europe is creating for us.
Mrs Sauquillo has been able, with patience and determination, to make the most of the options available to the Committee on Development and Cooperation on the importance of humanitarian action and of cooperation between those involved: the Community, Member States, international organizations, NGOs.
This work is a credit to the European Union, which, alone in the world, I repeat, is endowed with such determination and such instruments.
First save bodies, said Albert Camus, channel aid to those who need it most, develop rehabilitation and reconstruction work, genuine development programmes, which can only start later; try to mitigate the disastrous consequences of the displacement of populations, etc.
Mrs Sauquillo's work backs up ECHO and those involved in humanitarian aid of the utmost urgency.
We should like these proposals to be extended to humanitarian mine-clearing operations and we are not happy with the results of the Vienna Conference in this respect.
In order to carry out all these actions, coordination with NGOs and international organizations had to be improved.
That is now done, and Parliament will receive an annual report on such aid.
We willingly accept that the Commission and ECHO can alone decide emergency measures not exceeding a budget of ECU 10 million.
On the other hand, we shall be much firmer and more watchful over the comitology procedure - I can't get used to this name - adopted by the Council.
The Procedure 3a suggested seems to us quite obviously cumbersome, expensive and sometimes difficult to implement.
I cannot say this too strongly: watch out for emergencies, watch out for delays, we would not be forgiven for them.
In Liberia, do you see States discussing whether a boat should be sent when people are drowning?
Finally, and I have been fighting for this for more than twenty years, I see this House still preoccupied with the prevention of conflicts, a form of legal and moral interference which always has to be undertaken beforehand, and which must not cost much money, which must of course be efficient, much more efficient than the rest of the world, but always arrives too late.
Thank you for your efforts, Mrs Sauquillo.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I too would like to thank the rapporteur for her work on behalf of our group.
We are concerned here with humanitarian aid, that is to say, the suffering of many millions of people in the world.
We all know that the money from this budget line cannot in itself reduce all the suffering in the world let alone eliminate it completely.
That is why I would like to use this opportunity to point out once again that we must remove the roots of the suffering and the roots of the humanitarian problems by pursuing an effective foreign and security policy that regards peace and the prevention of military conflict and respect for human rights as the primary objective.
A final decision must be taken on this at the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference, and on the abolition of the unanimity rule.
On the other hand, of course we must also ensure through long-term projects that the situation in many countries stabilizes and that these humanitarian disasters do not therefore occur in the first place.
Natural disasters will continue to exist, but here too I do not believe that they are acts of God.
As a result of the climatic changes we are already seeing an increase in the number of tornados and the scientists are predicting very definitely that we will be witnessing more natural disasters unless something decisive is done to protect the climate.
That is why the European Union must carry out a much wider-scale preventive environmental policy than before in order to prevent such disasters in future.
On the budget line I take the following view: if we agree that we cannot remove all the suffering in the world just with this money, then that means on the one hand that we must remove the causes.
On the other hand, it means that this money must be allocated especially effectively, because we are dealing here with human lives.
Every Deutschmark that is wasted cannot be used to save human lives.
Moreover, we face the dilemma that we have to act as quickly as possible and that certain control measures, which are necessary or are carried out in other areas, cannot be implemented in this area.
We discussed that at great length in committee and also followed the Council's discussions of this subject.
We really must reconcile these two interests.
The rapporteur herself mentioned that this committee procedure is regarded with some criticism, presumably partly because the European Parliament does not have any chance of participation here.
Of course the best solution would be for us to be just as involved in all the political decisions of the Commission as the Council representatives are, but I do not think that is feasible at this moment.
The alternative, namely to let the Commission decide quite freely here, without being tied by any political instructions, has its dangers too.
Speaking just for myself I must say that some comments made by the responsible Commission officials - I do not mean you, Madam Commissioner - did rather irritate me.
For instance, I did not always receive a confidence-inspiring answer to the question of how to ensure that the money is allocated effectively.
Yet I believe that control is most important in this area too and that the Council has found a compromise that is flexible to the extent that we do not in fact have to wait for years for funds to be granted in cases of disaster.
Our group has therefore decided not to support Amendment No 2 because we believe that it is better for all concerned, including the Commission, for procedures to be laid down and the responsibility to be distributed across several shoulders so that the measures can be implemented all the more resolutely.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate Mrs Sauquillo on the excellent and detailed work that she has done; as I have said on several occasions in this House, the role of humanitarian aid begins when, unfortunately, political or diplomatic efforts have failed or, at least, proved to be ineffective.
It is therefore crucially important, on the one hand to restore the role of preventive democracy, so that it can assume its real function of crisis prevention and, on the other, to ensure that coherent and coordinated humanitarian strategies are devised, designed to tackle, using rapid and effective methods, situations of conflict which it has not been possible to avert.
Underdevelopment and poverty are almost always at the root of crises; the humanitarian actions in which the European Union has participated in recent years have largely been the result of conflicts that have come to the surface in developing countries, mainly of a domestic nature.
The difficulty is to assess how the Union can intervene more effectively, bearing in mind that there is no right of interference in the domestic affairs of a state; we need therefore to try to reinforce the right to interfere for humanitarian purposes, with which some colleagues are very familiar, so that assistance to victims is not related to any kind of party-political consideration, and this proposal for a regulation seeks to underpin the existing budget lines, earmarked for humanitarian aid, with a legal basis commensurate with needs and recent developments in Community action in this sector.
The UN's basic expertise lies in crisis management rather than crisis prevention.
We have therefore to effect a change in that approach, now that the political base-lines have changed with the collapse of the Berlin Wall and it is possible to set in place a policy of prevention that is not constrained by the split resulting from the East-West conflict.
But the UN does not currently have the human and material resources it needs to put into effect a warning system that is both credible and independent.
Its excessively centralized administration does not lend itself to implementing rapid preventive measures.
It is for Western Europe to play a balancing role in the state of affairs that has now come into being - particularly Parliament which we here represent - by seeking to encourage measures that form part of a global strategy to resolve the problem which has to be based on genuinely reinforcing preventive diplomacy.
Mr President, I will begin where the rapporteur, Mrs Sauquillo, left off, and I must compliment her on her work.
Indeed, humanitarian aid workers would not be necessary if it were possible to bring preventive action to a satisfactory conclusion.
I would thus argue in favour of more material support, including private initiatives from this House, given that Mrs Sauquillo is a member of the forum for preventive diplomacy.
Perhaps then, Mrs Baldi, we might have some follow-up to the report on the right of intervention which was adopted here unanimously - with my name on it - because that report has been hanging around for three years already.
The European Union is extremely active in providing humanitarian aid to crisis areas, and that can only be good.
Former Yugoslavia, Angola, the Great Lakes Region of Africa, we are there.
I am very proud of that and so are all the members of my Group and perhaps all Dutchmen too.
We are in favour of moves to give this policy a legal basis at last.
The Union needs flexible rules for decision-making in this area.
In my view the common position of the Council sticks too much to over-complex and time-consuming comitology procedures.
For this reason too the Liberals support the rapporteur's amendments.
The same goes for the rapporteur's other amendments; for example, and let us be clear on this, it is just too crazy for words to agree to taxes being charged on humanitarian aid by countries through which it passes and countries which receive it.
That penalizes the needy population, but it offends my own conscience too.
The objective is to get as much help as possible to the population and not to comply with a few rules.
The Union has constantly to continue optimizing its emergency aid, we know that.
The Union could improve its policy further by maintaining more emergency stocks than it currently maintains in crisis-prone areas, so that aid can reach the spot quickly.
Furthermore, as far as possible supplies should be purchased in the region or elsewhere in other developing countries.
This would provide a good boost, for example to local agriculture.
Lastly, I welcome the reference which Mr Kouchner made to the need for humanitarian aid to include land mine clearance, so that unnecessary civilian casualties are prevented and development is not impeded.
I have to say, the emptiness of the Chamber is out of all proportion to the importance of this debate.
Mr President, humanitarian aid is an act of humanity in emergency situations, either in crisis situations resulting from natural disasters, in which case we have to ask ourselves whether we are partly responsible, or when preventive diplomacy and political action as a whole have failed.
Since 1992 we have had the European Union's Humanitarian Aid Office - ECHO.
Mrs Sauquillo has submitted an important report that sets out specific objectives and general criteria for the Community's humanitarian aid.
We have noted that difficulties arose with other Commission departments and that problems have occurred in the cooperation between ECHO and the other Commission services responsible for development policy.
We were told that they have been or will be dealt with.
However, to date we have not seen a specific document defining the areas of competence.
I believe we must differentiate between emergency aid, aid for reconstruction, i.e., rehabilitation, and development aid - that is not in the report.
Only on the basis of a common programme can we achieve anything in the field of humanitarian aid.
It was also said here that this is an area of foreign policy.
Here I think the European Community, if it formulates a new foreign and security policy at the Intergovernmental Conference, must take care not to use humanitarian aid as a new means of defining its foreign policy profile at the cost of humanitarian aid.
There is no evidence of harmonization with UN organizations; so the possibility of giving the European Union a higher profile must not mean putting an end to on-going forms of cooperation and we must not set up separate bodies.
Finally, in my view we need a little more modesty and a little more cooperation with the NGOs.
The NGOs in particular have often criticized ECHO for taking a centralist approach.
Here we must encourage dialogue, here we are a critical partner; then we will be able to provide humanitarian aid in real emergency situations.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's action represents an important stage in legislation because we are finally reaching the end of a process which will at last enable us to establish a legal basis for the European Union's humanitarian aid. That aid - and we should not forget this - is the most substantial of its kind at an international level, and this report is therefore very welcome.
I wish, of course, to add my thanks and congratulations to the rapporteur, Mrs Sauquillo, but I wish also to extend them to Commissioner Bonino herself, not just because of what she is doing and has done in the field of humanitarian aid - her very hard work in the various areas and on the various fronts of humanitarian aid which has made it possible to move beyond aid to the prevention that so many of us had wanted to see - but also because, through Wednesday's vote and the final decision, she has brought the dossier to fruition.
Personally, and on behalf of my group, I have to say that I intend to vote for our amendments, in particular that relating to comitology and am therefore astounded at the position today adopted in the House by the EPP group which is at total variance with the stance taken by the group in committee, given that the report was adopted unanimously.
I hope that they will reconsider because, as the Commissioner will recall, there has been reference to the code of conduct and the importance of Parliament's votes on second reading being able to be accepted by the Commission.
I know that there is a compromise and, since we are waiting for the IGC to provide us with an improved definition of the committees, I think it important that Parliament should confirm its intention of opposing committee 3a in this sector in particular in which - and Mr Kouchner was right to point this out - matters are urgent, and the Commission has to have a free hand and be able to take decisions more flexibly than is currently allowed by the Council.
Mr President, the Commissioner has heard from the rapporteur, the chairman of the committee and representatives of all the groups that he has compromised too far on the comitology issue.
The Council's adherence to setting up new, delaying and secretive comitology committees prejudices this whole regulation.
It is a regulation about humanitarian aid, which, in particular, should be about bringing speedy relief to the innocent victims of disaster and conflict throughout the world.
Yet all the decisions about the protection of humanitarian aid, goods and staff - despite the fact that defence implications are specifically excluded, as well as all actions taken directly by the Commission and by the specialized Member State organizations - will now be referred to and controlled by the Council under its excessive 3a procedure.
It could have been even worse, and I pay tribute to Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco, our rapporteur, who has ensured an urgency procedure for projects up to ECU 10m, with global plans of humanitarian aid like those being planned at present for Angola, Sierra Leone and the Sudan dealt with under a lesser procedure.
Nevertheless, in supporting Amendment No 2 today this Parliament remains steadfast in its opposition to any extension of these excessive 3a committees.
Not only does it transfer decision-making away from the Commission and bring it to the Council, but it does so via meetings for which there are no prior published papers or minutes, from which the European Parliament and all those committed to openness and transparency in decision-making are excluded, and where the need to write papers diverts already stretched Commission staff away from their proper job of managing humanitarian aid effectively.
The delay in translating those papers into eleven different languages can be measured in terms of extra deaths.
It seems to us that the Council is more interested in playing the politics of Europe than in assisting people in distress.
We ask the Commissioner to support Parliament in our resolve on this issue.
Mr President, I also would like to add my congratulations to Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco for an excellent report.
But, as Mr Howitt has said, this regulation represents yet again the wish of Member States to usurp the executive responsibilities of the Commission.
The comitology procedures which are proposed are restrictive and challenge the democratic role of this Parliament to which the Commission should be accountable.
The 3a committee procedure proposed is certainly not an example of either openness or democracy.
The proceedings take place in secret and the members are nominated by governments.
As my colleague, Mr Wynn, said here on another occasion, being unelected and almost always meeting in secret and therefore not being subject to supervision by the budgetary or legislative authorities, these committees may subvert the legislative process.
It is indeed regrettable that the nine most significant European Parliament amendments were not incorporated into the Council's common position.
Parliament should not be fobbed off by the Commission's willingness to submit an annual report.
The European Parliament is not associated in any way with the onceyearly discussion on general guidelines on operations.
Neither - and we regret that - are we associated with the regular assessments which will establish whether objectives have been achieved and how guidelines should be changed to improve the effectiveness of subsequent operations.
The suggested procedures for ECHO are extraordinarily complicated and will deter the speedy and effective action that ECHO so often needs to take.
There will be elaborate procedures and delays.
ECHO is already under enormous strain - up to 15, 000 contracts in 1995 alone.
It is inevitable that the policies, strategies and coordination of ECHO will be damaged by these proposals.
More paperwork will mean more bureaucratic delay and will certainly reduce the likelihood that our programmes will be properly prepared or properly targeted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Sauquillo, the chairman of the committee and all of you for the contributions you have made and also for the speed with which you have considered this report.
I hope that, following tomorrow's vote, the 'development' Council, which meets on 28 May, will be able finally to close this dossier.
The rapporteur has said how long and - let me assure you - extremely difficult the negotiations have been.
You are familiar with the Commission's original proposal concerning a consultative committee; among other things, the work of the committees is normally confidential or secret, regardless whether we are dealing with a consultative committee, a 2a committee or a 3a committee: that is a factor common to all committees.
Basically, there are three points that I wish to make.
First of all, along with the Commission, I personally agree with the stress many of you have placed on the need for preventive diplomacy, the humanitarian right to interfere or the right to interfere for humanitarian purposes; I also agree with the stress many of you have placed on the issue of mines and the need to eliminate them, as well as the need to try to clear land of mines.
It seems to me that these are issues, on the one hand of an institutional nature, which will be tackled in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference and, on the other, particularly as regards mines, that are now the subject of international consideration, although very considerable difficulties are involved.
The Commission wishes at any rate to assure the House that we truly share that approach.
Having said that, as far as what we are able to tackle today, in this report, is concerned, I believe that there needed to be a legal basis for the emergency aid, at any event we were asked for that: on that point, I think we have done a good job.
Turning to the three remaining amendments, I wish to make the following points.
As regards the first, concerning exemption from tax, levies and customs duties etc, the Commission will be incorporating it into its proposal because, frankly, it seems to us absolutely right.
I do not wish to enter here into the issue of certain recent cases of humanitarian aid concerning one region in particular, in which that problem has arisen: there have also been negotiations with the country in question - with which you are very familiar - and the Commission therefore accepts the amendment in question.
Turning to the second amendment on comitology: you know that the Commission was in favour of a consultative committee; you will also be well aware that the negotiations were very long and that, in the end, we arrived at a compromise that you are familiar with and are seeking to improve on.
Let me make just two points here: first of all, we have listened, in the House, to many different views, but they have been far more univocal than those expressed in the Council, albeit in the more limited sense of the term.
I have therefore to say here that, as regards the 3a procedure, this concerns genuinely special cases: in particular it concerns cases involving the protection of victims or direct action by the European Community.
I have also to say that, when it comes to emergency cases, the Commission is empowered to take its own decisions.
Admittedly, we too would have preferred a different position, but it seems to us that, at this point, we ought to accept this type of compromise on the common position.
As regards the third amendment, I have to say that the Commission has tried, and is trying, on a voluntary basis also, to have ever more contacts for the purposes of consultation with the non-governmental organizations.
Frankly, however, it seems to me to be difficult to insert the proposal in question into a Council regulation.
The Commission is proposing to you a declaration in which it undertakes to cooperate and consult with the non-governmental organizations.
It does not accept the amendment simply because it does not believe that the proposal fits into the Council regulation.
The Commission - let me repeat this - intends, through its declaration, to enter into a very specific political commitment vis-à-vis the House and our partners who are in fact the nongovernmental organizations.
I further take the view that as regards the relationship between humanitarian aid and rehabilitation, the two debates that are to follow during the course of this afternoon will give us an opportunity to go more deeply into certain aspects, given that the two reports still to come deal with those very issues.
Allow me, finally, to stress that humanitarian aid does not go to developing countries exclusively: humanitarian aid currently goes - increasingly, I regret to say - to countries such as the former Yugoslavia or countries stricken by natural disasters or to other countries which, objectively speaking, do not have the problems of the developing countries.
I therefore urge the House to bear in mind that humanitarian aid is geographically channelled to where it is needed and not, in fact, limited to the developing countries.
In conclusion, I would again thank the House and the rapporteur, and I hope that, once the legal basis is established, our work will be able not only to continue but to improve.
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Food-aid policy and management
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0126/96) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position established by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on food-aid policy and food-aid management and special operations in support of food-aid (C4-0097/96-95/0160(SYN)) (rapporteur: Mr Telkämper).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report concerns the European Union's food aid policy and creates a new legal basis for that policy.
Before discussing the report in more detail, I would like to add a few words on food aid policies, for they mean more than what we are defining and deciding here through the various budget lines.
What is the situation at present on the world market? There are more than 800 million chronically undernourished people.
The number of children who die every day is equal to the population of a medium-sized town in our Community.
This number will rise dramatically.
It will rise dramatically and new famines will occur, caused by factors we do not generally tackle.
What are the causes? They are natural disasters, whose origins we often do not question, such as whirlwinds.
Reference was made to climatic disasters in relation to the previous report.
When we in the European Union decide on measures in the field of transport, such as the trans-European networks with the emissions associated with them - CO2 , nitric oxides - we are contributing to the continuation of these climatic disasters and therefore these famines.
That means that the policy pursued in this area ought to begin with the reorganization of industrial society.
We are seeing a growing number of wars.
Over recent years we have always had more than 50 wars on this planet, with many people in the European Union becoming very rich from arms exports.
I think we should stop these arms exports and the production of weapons.
It would be more sensible to safeguard jobs by reorganizing the arms sector and in any case we should ensure that arms exports are registered.
Then there is indebtedness, debts from which our banks make good profits and that prevent the southern countries from being able to develop and therefore condemn them to famine and disasters.
We have the GATT negotiations, a ruthless bunch of people operating on a world scale; because of the world-scale deregulation we have an increasing number of regions that simply cannot produce enough food for themselves.
That is our point of departure.
We have devised a programme of food aid policy here that is sensible enough in itself but that cannot really take effect unless we also adapt the other policy areas.
I think that must be said from the outset if we really want to clarify the scale of the problem facing us.
This new regulation is useful, this new regulation sets targets and encourages self-sufficiency.
That is a step in the right direction for the countries concerned.
The special feature - and this is something development politicians have been demanding for years - is that with this regulation we are dissociating food exports from the promotion of food production and distribution in the developing countries concerned.
I think this dissociation from the EU agricultural market represents major progress and is most important.
A further sign of progress is that we have incorporated in the regulation something development politicians have been demanding for decades, namely the support and encouragement for triangular operations.
It makes sense to rebuild this subsistence economy at local level and through regional markets, to ensure that one country can supply food to a neighbouring country suffering from famine.
Precedence is being given to extensive farming.
What we need is a reform of the UN World Food Programme.
It must go hand in hand with this programme which we are proposing as a legislative basis.
We have incorporated consultation and control mechanisms in the internal implementing regulation, which preclude any conflicting agricultural or development aid policy.
We need more financial resources and if we manage to reorganize agricultural policy here in the European Union and to continue to reduce agricultural subsidies, then we should use that money to promote ecological farming, for instance, and small and medium-sized undertakings in the south.
We were very concerned with the regional dimension, as we were to emphasize the role of women in production.
In many forms of society women play an important role in the field of agriculture, nutrition and food, and that needs to be supported through joint programmes.
As with the previous report, it is a pity that this Parliament does not have adequate powers.
I think that for the future formulation of this policy we need a co-decision procedure.
That is a matter for the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Council should get that into its head, but the citizens of our Member States and the members of our national parliaments should also take it in.
They must try to convince their governments, to ensure that we can achieve genuinely democratic structures here.
I think we will be faced with major famines again, and for the reasons I cited earlier.
One first indication is the price of wheat.
New markets are emerging, China is buying up wheat, the price of wheat has doubled and supplies have therefore become scarce.
This is a challenge to us right now.
We can only change this situation if we change the international structures.
We can only have a genuine food aid policy if, among others, we reorganize agricultural production in our European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, how could one fail to agree with Mr Telkämper? You know the old refrain: the Northern countries have for thirty years been living through a recurrent crisis of agricultural overproduction, but the world still has 800 million starving people.
How could one fail to agree with him? He is right: the food is there, but the problem in many countries is to procure it when their individual annual income is less than 200 dollars, or even less than 100 dollars.
The main problem as regards starvation and malnutrition is certainly not the general problem of world production, but instead that of distributing food and sharing it among the inhabitants of the world.
What is there to add to that? Mr Telkämper has mentioned some very specific points about these recommendations and I am of course in agreement with him.
I should like to single out a vital element of response.
This concerns what is called the transnational dimension of a region wishing purchases to be made, as far as possible, either in a neighbouring country or in the country itself, or else in another part of the country where there is no famine.
These operations, described as triangular, are absolutely essential, first to ensure the sure supply of food that is our concern and to avoid changing the eating habits of the region, but also to develop something we are fighting for: local production and local trade.
This point can never be sufficiently stressed.
Europe has tried successfully to make the promotion of human rights the cornerstone of its development policy.
Might we do the same as regards the fight against famine and poverty by accepting that democracy will not be possible if there is not enough food?
And I would personally see no objection, either, to the possibility of transferring the debt of poor countries to development schemes and the fight against famine and malnutrition, managed by countries to which they are indebted.
Finally, I should like, with your support, to make a serious proposal here for holding a major conference on water.
This is the essential element without which there will be no preventive or even curative policy on malnutrition and food problems.
If, all together, we were to tackle the water problem at the dawn of the twenty-first century, it would redound to the credit of the Members of this Parliament and would, I am sure, prove to be effective.
Mr President, first of all I should like as usual to congratulate Mr Telkämper.
On development issues he is one of the safest pairs of hands as far as I can see.
I entirely agree with his analysis of the situation.
I had the opportunity of travelling to Angola with him quite recently.
I do not think we disagreed on any of the issues we saw there, so his analysis is my analysis and I fully support it.
The fundamental rationale of all EU food aid policy must obviously be to guarantee that the food in question gets to the communities and regions where it is most needed.
However, while short-term food aid is vital to respond to emergencies and rapidly deteriorating situations, EU food aid policy must work towards long-term security in food supply for the countries in question.
The formulation of a long-term objective of food security must be strategically based, with specific targeting of aid.
This would involve a more regional approach to food aid, helping specific regions to build up their food-producing infrastructure.
Support must be given to the small farmers and food producers in the regions in question.
Part and parcel of such an approach will be the further development of sectoral policies including those for agriculture, the environment, health, family planning and education.
Macro-economic policy such as structural adjustment programmes should be brought into line with the requirements of guaranteeing long-term food security for all.
Securing guarantees of food supply will help to combat the corrosive poverty which exists in these countries and serve as a basis for long-term development and restructuring.
In essence we need an integrated approach, not a piecemeal one; an approach that binds together and builds up existing programmes and policy initiatives in order to create a more effective whole.
If we are to seriously pursue our long-term aim of food security then clearly we need resources to match our aspirations.
Let me say that the criticism that appears to be directed at Mr Telkämper is totally unjustified.
I support him entirely in his approach and I thank him for it.
Mr President, in opening I wish briefly to refer to my speech earlier and to highlight the fact that this regulation on food aid requires the setting-up of a new comitology, committee 2.
Although, thanks to the rapporteur, this is restricted to level 2(b), it is still one which will bring extra delay and bureaucracy to the very simple process of providing food to people who are hungry.
We cannot let this decision pass by without raising the same objection that we expressed earlier.
But let me be positive in supporting this report too, and in particular in supporting Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 21 which have been accepted in full or in part in the common position.
These amendments provide welcome recognition that women play a vital role in producing food as well as providing it for their dependants.
Often in crisis situations it is women who become the sole providers and they therefore deserve particular recognition and support for this role within our development programmes.
Even before the crisis begins, women and other groups experience the different food entitlements which are common in many societies.
Social position affects how quickly women suffer from malnutrition and from starvation.
This is also true, of course, for other groups like the elderly, the disabled and children.
Reproductive health and family planning are also an integral part of our approach in this field.
They are crucial if food security is to become a reality.
Growing population in turn places an increasing burden on food supplies which, if crops fail, leads to crisis and starvation.
Malnutrition in pregnancy causes high mortality rates and, by increasing the chances of vitamin deficiency, leads to disabilities.
All of these factors must be taken into account if we are to realize a true policy for food aid and sustainability through the passing of this regulation.
Rehabilitation programmes for developing countries
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0136/96) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position established by the Council with a view to adopting a Council regulation on rehabilitation and reconstruction operations in developing countries (C40099/96-95/0165(SYN)) (rapporteurs: Mr Andrews and Mrs Baldi).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the need to promote the further development of the developing countries in the world and to encourage the process of achieving democratic maturity requires that we rethink methods of funding and funding management procedures.
In 1993, the European Parliament drew attention to the need for aid for the structural recovery of the countries in question and, in order to deal with those needs, considered it appropriate to set in place two budget lines, intended to finance the programmes for the resettlement of southern Africa - B7-5071 - and measures for recovery and construction in the developing countries - B7-5076 - which the Council decided, on 29 January 1996, to adopt together in the common position we are discussing, in which the Council will - I hope - pay special attention to southern Africa.
That is how the main objectives of, the conditions and the criteria applicable to that aid have been defined, to be set under way and put into effect by means of detailed and active coordination between the Commission and the Council.
There is a very close relationship between human relations, democracy and development: human rights are more likely to be successfully established where there is a stable democracy, underpinned by policies of sustainable development, whereas economic difficulties are frequently used as a pretext to interfere with democratic life.
We need therefore to use the available resources to encourage and sustain the development of economic activities which make possible a lasting recovery of those countries' systems of production, beginning by renovating basic infrastructures - physically and functionally - including mine clearance operations, the social reintegration of refugees, displaced persons, the disabled and ex-combatants, in an effort to counter the devastating effects of civil war.
It is our duty to enter into specific commitments towards those who are suffering, and we cannot remain untouched by starvation and genocide, whether these are present far away from us or on Europe's threshold; both Europe and the international community must devote greater efforts to policies to eradicate economic poverty and social marginalization, the prime obstacles to the establishment of a constitutional state. We need to reinforce, including through close coordination, the programmes of the European Union on training, education and rehabilitation so that those countries are able, depending on the circumstances, to return to or move towards sustainable development.
If we want those states to become stable partners in the Europe of tomorrow, then we have to replace humanitarian aid with measures for structural recovery and reconstruction, in order to re-establish in those countries an economy that works and is environmentally benign, able to pave the way towards sustainable development.
Within a medium or long-term development scheme, those measures revolve around three main axes: firstly, extending the scope of rehabilitation measures, particularly as regards mine clearance and assisting refugees and displaced persons to return; secondly, attaching priority to strengthening the potential available locally that can reactivate the economy, particularly via training measures; and, thirdly, expanding the coordination and evaluation of rehabilitation projects and redefining the procedures for keeping the European Parliament informed.
Together, the European Union and the Member States constitute the prime source of official development aid, more than the United States and Japan put together.
It is, however, important to remember that development does not consist in economic development only: the UN Conference on the environment and development that took place in Rio in 1992 referred to sustainable development - that is to say development that respects human beings and is in harmony with the environment, with the earth's system - designed to reconcile population growth, development of the poor countries and respect for the environment.
At a time when the European Union is adopting its programme of aid to the developing countries, it must take account of the need to reconcile economic growth and sustainable development, if the result is to be genuinely to improve the living conditions of the most disadvantaged population groups.
Mr President, rehabilitation is now, or should be, in my opinion, a major link in the development process.
War, civil unrest or natural disasters are affecting an increasing number of developing countries.
The European Parliament, as well as the ACP-EU Joint Assembly strongly supported the idea of a special economic rehabilitation and social reconstruction programme.
Such a programme was considered necessary mainly because the Community lacked a specific instrument which would deal with situations between purely humanitarian actions and medium to long-term aid.
In view of the large, varying and complex situations in the different developing countries and the close connection which exists between humanitarian, rehabilitation and ordinary development actions, we need concepts on which to base the decision.
That is the objective of the present proposal.
These concepts must allow flexibility - and that seems to be an 'in' word here tonight, flexibility in development - and quick action without sacrificing the necessary coherence between the actions undertaken.
Rehabilitation should enable the disaster-stricken population and conflictafflicted areas to contribute to reconstruction of the economy and the improvement of their living conditions.
This should be achieved by adequate technical assistance, supplies of tools, equipment to assist in the restoration of water, electricity, basic health centres, roads and all the other infrastructures in such a way that the period for granting humanitarian aid and the long-term dependence on external aid may be reduced.
Basically, we need to create a framework of conditions to improve the production and services sector - the vital infrastructure - and the social, institutional and administrative conditions as quickly as possible.
The earlier we act, the sooner the population will be in a position to help themselves and, what is equally important, the conditions for medium and long-term development efforts enhanced.
As long as humanitarian aid workers' lives and the results of the planned action are not at stake, rehabilitation measures should begin as early as possible.
This is important not only for the people directly concerned but also to prevent possible further spreading of conflicts that might otherwise continue merely because of the miserable living conditions.
Lastly, I wish to suggest to the Commissioner that the 'can do' approach of ECHO should be adopted in this particular process.
I commend this report to the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commissioner has given us a most able account of her difficulties with the Council and I fully understand her.
We have the same problems, often even greater ones, and we just have to make the best of it.
But I note the great dedication of the few contributors - although the best - to this debate, which concerns most of the world and the poorest parts of it.
We are all convinced that it is the European Union which directs the greatest residual attention to emergency humanitarian aid, to rehabilitation and to sure supplies of food.
These figures are extraordinary.
Just now, we talked about the quantity of aid.
Well, let me tell you that we, the European Union, give ECU 500 000 per day to the Great Lakes region in Africa.
We obviously find money for the Great Lakes region: Goma, Burundi, Rwanda, but after the event; we also find money for rehabilitation.
But for prevention there is never any money, never any attention, never any policy decisions.
At this very moment, Burundi is going downhill but we are doing nothing, and one day, when the pictures and the tragedies reach us, we shall give yet another ECU 500 000.
In the Committee on Development, we have talked a great deal about these three subjects, which are to the credit of our Parliament, and which, I repeat, make me worry about what will happen.
When we were the European Community, one of the great policies was that of development.
Today, less attention and less money is devoted to this.
I am extremely concerned when I see that the European Development Fund is not included in the budget, and that less attention is given to such work.
Apart from that, of course I congratulate Mrs Baldi, Mr Andrews and the other rapporteurs for this day which has been devoted to the poorest parts of the world, but I am worried about tomorrow, because this enormous part of humanity concerns us less and less.
We must not however forget, in spite of our difficulties, that we are still the wealthiest part of the world.
Mr President, it is a sad fact that whatever continent one looks at there seems to be civil war and genocide with its appalling consequences.
Half the world seems intent on destroying itself while the other half bears the costs of trying to bring about reconciliation and reconstruction.
The reality is that we spend billions of ecu each year just keeping people alive.
Help has to be given to rebuild not just their physical requirements but also their institutional organizations to give them the ability to run their countries.
That is why I welcome this Council regulation on rehabilitation and reconstruction and I congratulate Mrs Baldi and Mr Andrews on the work they have done in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
The scale of the task is enormous and must be tackled step by step, namely food security, shelter, structural institutions and employment.
I must pay tribute to the NGOs on the ground without whose dedication very little would be accomplished.
The NGOs' workers often live in appalling conditions in fear of their lives, and yet by their work in the medical and social fields they are responsible for saving millions of lives.
Any programme of reconstruction needs close cooperation between donor and recipient states.
While it is natural that tenders and the awarding of contracts should be open to Member States and recipient countries, regional cooperation between developing nations is also vital.
If neighbouring countries can provide services or supplies this should be encouraged as it would bring further stability to the regions.
All this work will need careful planning and adoption followed by constant monitoring and naturally the Committee on Development and Cooperation feels its members should be closely involved.
It is also important that, where possible, local partners should invest a financial contribution so that there is sustainability for the project after Community funding has ceased.
If a project cannot be sustained without continual funding it should only be supported if it has humanitarian benefits such as food security.
This whole programme must be treated as a matter of utmost importance and urgency for the restoration of basic social facilities for millions of people in dozens of countries.
We trust and hope that action will be taken soon.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Bernard Kouchner is of course right to say that cooperation with developing countries has long since passed its peak.
That is the general trend: less money, less concern.
The upshot of that is that these countries seek to gain the best foothold they can in world markets.
That is the new solution.
And of course we are seeing the results of that.
Last year Africa attracted 1.5 % of world investment.
When we talk here today about rehabilitation and reconstruction projects we are indeed talking of little more than ancillary measures, but they too are important, however bitter that may sound.
No one doubts how important they are.
We ought to stress, and Mrs Baldi's report makes the point, that prompt action on reconstruction is of the utmost importance.
We believe these reconstruction measures should act as a real bridge between a past emergency situation and future sustainable development, which is the right way to go.
In the language of sustainable development we find that there is increasing consensus over the practical ways to achieve it and this raises a number of questions.
But we are pleased that the Council, all in all, has adopted a good common position which also took account of the many amendments made by Parliament, though not all of them.
We regret the omission of a number of elements which Parliament had thought important, for example the need to increase national and local capacities by means of training.
The Council position also fails to take sufficient account of how to target specific groups, but nevertheless we think that the position is deserving of our support, and Mrs Baldi's report certainly is too.
Mr President, I wish first of all to thank the rapporteurs for their excellent work.
The programme of action proposed by the Council for rationalizing rehabilitation and reconstruction operations to the benefit of developing countries is important, because it should make possible a speedier and hence more effective response to the needs of developing countries that are victims of natural disasters and war, giving priority to the poorest of them.
I should nevertheless like to stress two points which could, I believe, hinder the progress of this programme.
The first relates to the cumbersome nature of the structures set up to assist the Commission.
The consultative committees which are to advise the Commission are unquestionably useful, but in the form envisaged in the initial text and made more complicated by the rapporteurs' amendments, they seem to me likely to make the whole programme very cumbersome to operate.
In my view, this problem also goes well beyond the single case of the text submitted to us.
The second point concerns the implementation of these programmes.
The European Union should take the greatest care to monitor everyone involved in implementation.
NGOs, enterprises and associations should, above all, be chosen from within the developing countries concerned and within countries of the European Union.
Too often, unfortunately, we find that community funds are being used by organizations which are in reality only facades for large American firms.
Commissioner, on this regulation, in introducing new comitology we remain furthest apart.
Council in this instance requires a 3a committee for all actions above ECU 2m, whereas you join with us in seeking a 1a advisory committee for all actions. I have to put to you: do you have the courage to act on your convictions and on this Parliament's beliefs?
Putting all these regulations together I have to ask whether considering our firm resolution, which I am confident we will pass with big majorities tomorrow, you should consider threatening to withdraw each and every one of these three regulations unless the Council is willing to agree to a better compromise. I would ask you to respond specifically to that point in reply to our debate.
However, let me use my remaining time to highlight another crucial, but often disregarded area, namely, Amendment No 5 to Article 2, which seeks to integrate disabled persons into the rehabilitation process.
I am concerned that the common position says it has accepted Amendment No 5, but that once again disabled people have dropped out of the text.
In the development situation, as elsewhere throughout this world, the main problem for disabled people is in the attitudes and lack of awareness of other able-bodied people rather than any aspect of their physical and psychological impairment.
Disability is currently an invisible issue in too many of our development programmes and making disabled people visible will require positive action, risk and experiment.
In developing countries people experience disabilities caused, for example, by landmines; for every child killed by a landmine three more are permanently injured.
Other disabilities arise out of malnutrition, for example blindness, and vitamin deficiency.
These disabled adults and children share the same need for employment and housing and in other areas of their lives which we seek to ensure through the rehabilitation process.
Some disabled people's lives can be transformed through specialist rehabilitation; through exercise, mobility aids, prosthetics, and so on.
Disabled people can then be enabled to become contributors to their communities rather than being forced into dependence.
But our main aim with our amendment is to seek to assist disabled people through mainstream programmes, for example through education, where children should be educated within the mainstream education process and where very basic training for teachers can be more effective not just for those children, but for all children who have suffered emotional problems.
We ask you to look again at the wording of Amendment No 5 and we ask you to reply on the issue of comitology.
Mr President, in the course of this decade we have seen a shift in the emphasis as far as global development priorities are concerned.
Increasingly, we have funded military action as tension and conflict get out of control.
In the absence of timely political action, humanitarian aid then steps in to pick up the pieces.
But long-term investment in properly targeted development assistance seems not to enjoy that same priority.
We do not seem to be putting in first place the importance of targeting proper poverty-alleviation programmes.
I know that the Commissioner would agree that humanitarian aid should not at any time be seen as a substitute for political action.
Of course I support the principle behind the initiative we are discussing this evening.
Financing operations to progressively take over from humanitarian action and paving the way for long-term development planning is very welcome.
The regulation shows, in fact, that the Commission recognizes that there is a necessity for better coordination between available instruments and that the elaboration of a more holistic approach to development is also very welcome.
However, as Mr Howitt has said, we have to criticize the arrangements Council is proposing for the implementation.
For grants of more than ECU 2m a type 3a committee is to be used.
The Council should not be mistaken.
Standardization is by no means synonymous with simplification.
This is certainly the case here where the most restrictive comitology possible is set in place and it will certainly prevent the Commission from acting swiftly and effectively.
Many of us will remember all too well the failure of the special initiative for African recovery.
It is quite clear that comitology played its part in what turned out to be a totally ineffective operation.
I therefore, as Mr Howitt has done, urge the Commissioner to respond to the request for clarification of what the Commission view will be on what I am sure will be a very strong European Parliament response to the comitology procedures suggested here.
I wish to thank the Commissioner, but there is one point that I should like us to look at again together.
With specific reference to the political interest in and special attention to be paid to the developing countries, I would point out that, as far as southern Africa is concerned, this House worked together with the Commission, just last year, on budget line B7-5071, because we wanted to move forward a programme in a particular way.
Only in January of this year did the Council decide to join the two proposals for a regulation, and that was why we felt it was politically important to retain at least one reference to that region which currently stands in great need of this, among other things.
In referring to mine clearance and specific operations in certain areas of the world, it was our intention to provide a definition of our aid and political interest, as, moreover, unanimously expressed by the House last year - something the Commission too was interested to hear.
That is why we wish to retain a particular interest in that region - because it is genuinely of great importance to us.
The Commission agrees with you, Mrs Baldi, about the very special importance of that region.
Our only reason here is to ensure the instrument we are discussing is consistent - the instrument itself and its content. There is no political distinction between your concern and interest and ours - it is simply a matter of a lack of consistency in the instrument under discussion.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 24 May 1996.
Mr President, I should like to refer to the Rules of Procedure, more particularly Rule 5.
After our part-session in Strasbourg the Belga press agency published a telex message under the heading 'Members of the European Parliament do not want to economize on their own allowances' , in which it was stated amongst other things that at the moment Members of the European Parliament receive a lump sum allowance for their travelling expenses.
A Greek or a Finnish Member, for example, automatically receives a huge travel bonus, business class, the minute he or she attends meetings in Brussels or Strasbourg.
No check is made as to whether Members actually travel to and from their country or whether they pocket money by travelling cheaply.
Our fellow-Members Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Lannoye have also made statements to the same effect, which have received extensive coverage in the Belgian press.
Rule 5 of the Rules of Procedure provides that the Bureau is to lay down rules governing the payment of expenses and allowances to Members.
Rule 4 of the Bureau's rules provides amongst other things, first that Members are entitled to the lump sum travel allowance mentioned in Article 1(1) for only one return journey each week.
Secondly, if a Member makes more than one return journey in a working week he receives for the extra journeys an allowance for the travelling expenses actually incurred.
They are reimbursed on the basis of an air ticket or a first-class rail ticket upon presentation of the relevant ticket to the Members' allowances branch.
Car journeys are reimbursed on the basis of the first class rail fare.
I ask you, Mr President, whether or not the provisions of Rule 4 of these rules on Members' expenses and allowances are being applied.
On a personal matter Mr President.
My name has been mentioned here and I wish to make a reply.
Mr Wijsenbeek, allow me to advise you and all other Members that the Bureau took the decision I have outlined on the basis of the political responsibility it bears.
Should you disagree with it, every group and every Member is free to make appropriate proposals to the Bureau, and I guarantee that we shall discuss them.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, my name has not been included in the attendance register in the Minutes, but I was present.
You can check that by looking at the results of the roll.
I ask that the register be amended accordingly.
We shall correct that, Mr Malangré.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, I ask to speak under Rule 108 of our Rules of Procedure, which states very clearly that Members have the right to ask to make a personal statement.
That is normally allowed once the item under discussion on the agenda has been dealt with.
The item under discussion on the agenda was the speech by Mr Martens, who referred to a Belga report but also mentioned statements.
I have the right under Rule 108 of the Rules of Procedure speak in order to refute any remarks made about my person.
This is what I have to say.
We as Greens have not once made a press announcement with regard to the amendment we had tabled proposing a change in the rules on Members' travel allowances.
The statement I made and Paul Lannoye's too were correct as regards the system applying today.
We have simply proposed another system.
I do not think it is right for Mr Martens to associate our names with statements by the Belga press agency, which were partially incorrect.
Welcome
Urgent political matters
The next item is the statement by the Commission on urgent political matters of major importance.
Before calling Mr Santer, I should like to remind you of the rules.
The rules are that after the Commission statement questions may be asked.
Each questioner is allowed one minute, and in view of the large number of questions to be asked I shall ensure that this one minute is not exceeded.
President Santer, first of all may I express our sincere thanks for the information you have given us on this morning's decision by the Commission to lift the export ban on gelatine, tallow and bulls' semen from the United Kingdom.
I should like to remind the House that we have this subject on tomorrow's agenda and that the agreement reached by the groups is that we should discuss the topic of employment policy and the decision taken by the Commission on that subject this morning.
You now know the rules, of course.
Questions will be taken on the basis of requests to speak that are made in the course of Question Time and not on the basis of a list of speakers.
I now open Question Time with the President of the Commission.
President Santer, I very much welcome your statement today and your continuing efforts to promote the idea of added value at Community level in the field of employment.
I hope you fare well in Rome at the forthcoming tripartite conference.
I want to make three brief points on what you have said: firstly, some of us in this House are a little concerned about the Commission's recommendation on the broad economic guidelines.
We feel there is a little complacency and a lack of balance.
For example, the urging of continued wage restraint, on the one hand, is only sensible, so long as on the other hand the record profits are put into productive use, and if we know what the Commission has in mind to put these record profits into productive use.
On your pact, in relation to the social dialogue process, what measures are in hand to make sure that the social partners themselves enter into meaningful, practical, concrete pacts to give your pact meaning on, for example, the issue of youth unemployment?
Finally, you mentioned the Essen follow-up process.
One of the important elements coming out of Madrid was the idea of common uniform employment indicators.
Could you tell us please what progress you are making vis-à-vis Member States. That is a very important democratizing element to the Essen follow-up process.
Mr President, first of all, we are of course presenting this action at Commission level, at Community level, in order - as you said just now, Mr Hughes - to promote the value added to the efforts made by the Member States.
On the other hand, of course, it is necessary for the actions we are proposing today to be translated into specific agreements, especially as regards the employability of the young.
It is necessary, then, for very specific commitments to be entered into by all those concerned, not only at government level but also at the level of the social partners.
Furthermore, we are conducting a dialogue with the social partners on a number of these matters.
Now, as regards the elements arising from Essen, this is one of the integral parts of the action we are taking to promote employment, and on the basis of the multiannual programmes of the Member States - the first which, as you rightly said, was presented in Madrid - we are going to add further detail to the employment indicators.
Progress has been achieved in this respect, but to make that kind of progress on all the points arising out of Essen is not enough.
It is statistical progress, but it needs to be given more substance if we are to make real progress along the road to the reduction of unemployment.
Mr President, I should like to ask Commission President Santer what message your communication sends to young unemployed people.
Responsibility appears to lie with politicians and parties only and I wonder at the fact that the Commission does not to a greater extent gear itself to the driving forces which concern individuals; the politicians should now be removing obstacles to enterprise, employment and investment in Europe.
I am quite well aware that employment can be created artificially but new jobs cannot be talked into existence.
I should therefore like to see more measures to ensure the necessary structural changes, more deregulation, liberalisation and the abolition of old national monopolies in Europe.
Mr President, in our communication we provided for a number of schemes relating to the employability of young people, placing more emphasis on a common initiative by the social partners for the integration of the young.
We are also going to submit to the social partners the entire complex of problems associated with the integration of the young.
And we are asking for the development of mechanisms based - as I have said just now - on the Youth Start and Leonardo programmes.
This is an initiative to be developed jointly with the Commission and Member States.
Otherwise, I naturally agree with you when you say that the internal market has yet to find, through a certain policy of liberalization, the resources to provide new, stable jobs - sustainable jobs from which the young people of tomorrow will be able to benefit.
President Santer, I hope your perseverance will obtain concrete results at the Florence summit.
And with regard to the training and education policy I have not heard anything about a proposal - which was in the white paper - about lifelong learning.
Do you not think that the Commission should tackle that subject of employment and the training for our human capital, which is so important for the future?
Mr President, Mr Barón Crespo is right to stress this point. It does indeed appear in our communication, and in the White Paper which was presented by Mrs Cresson.
We must indeed place a very special emphasis on education and continuing vocational training, or the lifelong learning process.
In this context, you will find that our communication has something to say about education and training as levers to open access to employment.
I entirely agree with you that these elements are becoming a key factor in the framework of these activities designed to reduce unemployment, especially among the young.
Mr President, I want to congratulate President Santer on his continuing efforts to get national governments as well as the European institutions to give this serious problem the priority it deserves.
In doing that I hope we will not give the national governments an opportunity to create the impression that the responsibility for high rates of unemployment lies with Europe.
Since national governments control taxation policies, social welfare policies, working hours and rates of pay, obviously it is there that the greater part of the responsibility lies.
The President of the Commission pointed out that the parts of the structural funds not being spent are an embarrassment since we need greater investment to create more employment.
Would the President agree with me that perhaps the additionality clause in the regulations needs to be looked at? On the one hand we are saying to governments that they must reduce their deficits and taxation, on the other they must increase spending in order to match European money.
Does he think that this policy needs to be reviewed and that an individual regulation to suit each Member State is required in the spending of structural funds?
Mr President, you will notice, in the communication which we have presented to you and which you have had the opportunity to examine, that significant space is given to the reallocation and restructuring of the structural funds, again with reference to the objective of employment.
I believe that these funds still offer a great many opportunities, because three-quarters of them are used in regions where two-thirds of our unemployment is concentrated.
To put it another way, the funds are one of the main ways of guaranteeing the reduction of unemployment and greater employability in those regions within the framework of joint programmes - together with the Member States, naturally.
In that same context, you also refer to taxation.
I can tell you that the Commission has drafted a communication on taxation, in connection with which we are currently discussing the relations between direct taxation, indirect taxation and the tax on employment.
We have also begun thinking about a number of ways of reducing the tax burden on employment - the social costs, as they are called - because they have increased over recent years; we want to see how they might be replaced by other forms of deduction.
This, then, is an overall programme, and when it is studied is important not to take individual points out of context.
You are right to lay particular stress on the importance of the structural funds which, perhaps, are not being sufficiently used to reduce unemployment in the regions in question.
First of all, President Santer, bravo.
You see before you a Parliament of elected representatives who, each time they meet their constituents, have to justify the collective impotence of the Member States and of the Union when it comes to unemployment, which is becoming more and more of a scourge.
We are glad to find you sensitive to this, to welcome the Pact for employment that you have adopted, and to believe that you are bolder and more receptive to sweeping solutions, shall we say, than the average government of one of the Member States of the Union.
You can attend the forthcoming summit meetings confident in the strong support of this Parliament.
However, I cannot refrain from expressing my major fear.
All these measures are small-scale ones.
Flexibilization, tax improvements, better training - all these things are necessary.
The ideas are right.
What troubles me is the tempo, which will take between 20 and 25 years to eliminate European unemployment.
President Santer, why don't you include a serious question to the Member States, a suggestion that working hours should be massively reduced, which is the only weapon we have not yet used?
Mr President, Prime Minister Rocard is certainly right to stress a number of matters which, indeed, must be included in our overall strategy if it is to produce concrete results.
First, I should say that our communication, and our strategy, are not intended to replace the responsibility of our Member States, because we are fully aware that it is with the Member States that the primary responsibility lies, and that they and the national governments have their own homework to do.
On the other hand, it is appropriate to include a number of factors such as the length and arrangement of working hours, and we have examined this question in section 3 (15) of our communication.
We consider that this is a special project which needs to be debated, negotiated and discussed between the social partners, and I alerted them to the fact at the Round Table on 28 and 29 April.
The objective must be - building on what has already been achieved in the agreement on parental leave which the various social partners have succeeded in concluding for the first time - to go further in the quest for new ways of reconciling personal time and company time.
This is an important debate which concerns all our Member States, and not one in which the Commission can impose a decision.
It is necessary for our social partners themselves to embark on this route and to discover every possible way of exploiting this vast area, which also covers other arrangements such as part-time working, the calculation of working hours on a yearly basis, flexible retirement, the use of the time thus made available for the development of training, and sabbatical leave.
In other words, this is a whole group of problems which covers what you have called working hours.
We need to be innovative in this area, and I hope this is one of the major lines of thought which our social partners will be pursuing.
Mr President, I would like to make a request which links both parts of President Santer's report: the part on BSE and the part on employment. They are closely connected, because the President knows the mad cow crisis has already resulted in a great deal of unemployment.
I was particularly interested in one thing President Santer said, and I am sure everyone who works in the agriculture sector will be too.
He said Great Britain has, for the first time, come up with proposals useful for restoring confidence.
Well, the agriculture coordinators have reached agreement, considered and discussed at length, on a joint resolution which we will present tomorrow, and I think it would be helpful if we could possibly be told a bit more about these new proposals for restoring confidence in advance, to check whether certain concerns we have expressed in this document are still current and, especially, whether any of the solutions we are calling for have perhaps already been found.
Mr President, as far as employment is concerned, it is of course possible to establish certain links between BSE and the culling of livestock.
A number of social problems have also been created, especially in rural areas and in the agricultural sector.
I am certainly not unaware of the scale of this problem as regards the matter with which we are currently concerned.
On the other hand, I must tell you that the matters proposed to us yesterday by the British delegation will the subject of further discussions.
What is at issue is a step-by-step approach to the ultimate lifting of the embargo.
So a framework has been established.
I believe this is the right approach, and indeed it is the approach which we have been constantly recommending since the crisis began, ever since 20 or 21 March.
The first essential is to restore consumer confidence so as to bring market stability via specific activities designed to eradicate BSE - mad cow disease - completely.
The British delegation has made a number of proposals to us.
Commissioner Fischler will be presenting them to you tomorrow. He is the expert in these matters, not me.
My only regret, and I say this frankly before your Parliament, is that we have wasted at least six to eight weeks before reaching any specific solutions.
That is my regret, and that is why I share your apprehension.
Mr President, two short questions.
Yesterday the Council of Ministers, without the United Kingdom, adopted the directive on parental leave.
The Commission is very alert to competition problems.
Does it not feel that the absence of the child-minding directive in a single country might distort competition between the states?
My second question is this: our states are caught between two fires.
One is compliance with the convergence criteria, and the other is the reduction of tax capabilities.
You said that the Commission was going to think about matters of taxation, but how much time is that thinking going to take, and when are you really going to address the problem of European taxation of unearned income?
Mr President, in response to Mrs Dury's first question, I can say that, unfortunately, this decision was taken by 14 states, but that is connected with the social chapter and the United Kingdom's opt-out clause.
As you are well aware, the Commission - in common with Parliament - requested that the social chapter should be integrated into the Treaty at the intergovernmental conference.
I believe this is the right thing to do, and we shall support it fully; I hope that an agreement on this matter will be reached at the intergovernmental conference.
For the moment, we can only live within the jurisdiction we have, in accordance with the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty, where in point of fact the social chapter applied only to 14 states, not 15.
As regards your second question, we have developed, within the Commission, a complete and consistent programme on taxation, incorporating both indirect taxation, to ensure the introduction of the final system for VAT, and direct taxation, including taxation of earned income.
This programme contains lines of thought which Commissioner Monti has identified and which were the subject of discussions at the informal Ecofin Council held in Verona six weeks ago.
On that occasion, the Finance Ministers decided to set up a committee of personal representatives, chaired by the Commission, to enable what I hope will be decisive progress to be made in the field which must concern us all.
This approach ensures that joint consideration will have been given to the balance between the taxes on earned and unearned income.
Of course, Mr President, in order to embark upon a course of action on the scale I have described, it is necessary for the social partners - and this is the essence of our discussions - to be included on an equal basis.
In this connection, following the discussions I had in the various capital cities after the tripartite conference of 28 and 29 April, I am quite hopeful that the social partners will in fact embark upon the road I outlined.
This commitment to negotiations between the social partners could initially be reached on four matters, which seem to me essential, as of now. Negotiations must begin.
We have the result of initial negotiations on parental leave.
We have need to go further.
One line of approach, it seems to me, relates to part-time working, which is atypical, and would in itself represent a significant support for the concept of the pact.
Secondly, the social partners are going to try to produce a joint manifesto - that is what they have agreed to do - on the integration of young people in the employment market.
Thirdly, they are going to produce a framework text on training, which is equally essential as a lever for providing access to employment.
And fourthly, they are going to produce a joint opinion on the structural funds.
All this in itself seems to me to represent a very decisive commitment by the social partners at that level.
From a different angle, on the matter of the budgetary resources relating to some of our programmes to which I, personally, am very attached, I shall be asking the European Parliament, as a budgetary authority, to take every care to ensure that sufficient resources are provided.
Mr President, as the third pillar in your proposals for improving labour-market policy you referred to the electricity sector, the creation of the single electricity market. I should like to ask how you assess the value of the single energy market in terms of new job opportunities.
Is energy, as a cost factor of location in Europe, not perhaps being overpriced here?
Should not rather the alternative and regenerative forms of energy technology be developed and encouraged more vigorously, so that such innovations can lead to real new jobs in Europe and new export opportunities for companies based in Europe? Have we not been grossly underestimating the importance of environmental protection as a means of securing and creating jobs?
Mr President, I can say that I am in agreement with what the honourable Member has said where it is not in conflict with what I have just said.
What we want to do with the internal market is to take full advantage of all its potential.
That market has been created by a number of directives, but it is not yet functioning as an internal market, since some sectors are still protected.
We have decided to liberalize telecommunications.
We have now made proposals to the effect that the electricity market should also be liberalized, but that is not the same as saying that we are opposed to alternative energy sources. Quite the reverse.
What we are trying to achieve is a situation where this internal market really functions as an integrated internal market, on the model of the American market, which operates as an internal market with a single currency.
We have not yet reached that point.
That is why European business is still unable to exploit all the potential inherent in this internal market.
But this certainly does not exclude, far from it, the compatibility of the policy of competition with new initiatives, especially alternative energy sources and, as you have said, the creation of new jobs, the key to the future, on the basis of a sound environmental policy.
Not taking any risks is the greatest risk, President Santer, as you so rightly said.
So it is not a matter of merely producing piecemeal measures but of ensuring that we create a common framework.
As for the Member States, which fear different paths to unity more than the devil fears holy water and which only once, namely in Essen, where they identified five new key areas for action, have got round to pulling the various strands together, should we not make it clear to them that we do not want anything new?
We do not want any new structural-fund resources but rather more effective application of the existing structural funds.
We do not want to create any new local employment initiatives in competition with SMEs; such action should be taken as a parallel effort accompanying in a fair and balanced manner our promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Is it not equally necessary to tell them that we must devote more of our resources to practical education and to the promotion of vocational training? But in our view this also means that we must not reduce still further the already meagre Leonardo funds.
We must therefore make it clear to these countries that it is not a matter of pursuing new whimsical policies but quite simply of distributing more prudently the funds that are available.
Mr President, I am in agreement with the honourable Member, because - as I have been at pains to make clear - we are not intending to reinvent the wheel.
We want to build on the substance of the 1993 White Paper on Competitiveness, Employment and Competition, but we are not trying to extend our jurisdiction.
What we are aiming at is better allocation of the resources that will be available to us between now and 1999, and this applies equally to the structural funds and to the transeuropean networks.
I am surprised, incidentally, that no Member has yet mentioned the question of the transeuropean networks, a question that has arisen at every European Council.
We do not want more money.
All we want is to have the necessary financial resources within the framework of the present budget to be able to finance the 14 priority transeuropean networks which we have decided to set up, so that the citizens of Europe can see that decisions taken at the highest level do produce results.
That is our approach, and it is within that framework that we specifically want to implement, step by step and in the context of an overall strategy, all the elements of the 1993 White Paper.
Mr President, I must ask Commission President Santer to elucidate two points relating to the communication concerning the employment pact.
You said that the Commission is to launch a joint pact in which the parties will be compelled to participate in the confidence pact.
In view of the fact that the discussions which have taken place to date have not been particularly successful, I wonder what kind of ace it is that the Commission has up its sleeve, what means it intends to use, to compel the parties to agree in this way.
The other matter I should like to have explained concerns what you said about the importance of sound economic management, that EMU is our ally and that there is a broad consensus in favour of EMU.
However, criticism is in fact growing among economists, among politicians and, above all, among the general public. So, what kind of consensus is it, Mr President?
Is there not rather a yawning chasm separating us from anything resembling consensus?
Mr President, as far as the first question is concerned, we certainly do not want to compel the social partners to reach an agreement - quite the reverse.
It is a matter for them, through the device of a social dialogue on their own terms, to find avenues, channels of thought, to bring them to specific results on the basis of a number of proposals which we are making to them.
There is no question whatever of constraint, at any stage.
It is in this spirit that we have to mobilize all the economic actors - not just the governments of the Member States at national or local level, not just the Community institutions, but the social partners too, so that collective negotiation will lead by way of social dialogue to certain concrete results.
There is no question at all of constraint, quite the reverse. This is a matter of considered approach.
I can assure you, the social partners whom I have met in all the Member States, without exception, are ready to meet this challenge.
They are ready to commit themselves because they are the parties most closely concerned, and they are aware of the challenge that has to be met in the interests of tomorrow's society.
As far as the second question is concerned, it is of course true that economic and monetary union is one of the crucial elements for completing the internal market.
I know of no other internal market in the world - as we are the largest - with 370 million inhabitants - that functions with 14 different currencies.
We need to realize clearly what that means.
So we have an interest in the coming of monetary union, as soon as possible and on the basis of the convergence criteria, to enable us to exploit the full potential of this internal market, so that our currency, the Euro, can play its part between the yen and the dollar, and so that our national currencies do not all reflect the fluctuations of the dollar and suffer from them whereas we have no control over it.
That is the aim of monetary union.
Monetary union as such is not an end in itself; it is the instrument of a policy of economic and social development.
That is how we need to think of it.
And that is the spirit of the commitment we must enter into.
We must do away with the idea that monetary union is the enemy of employment.
Quite the reverse. Monetary union, as we want to see it, as it has been planned by the negotiations of the Maastricht Treaty, will - thanks to sound public finances and the reduction of interest rates - stimulate the necessary investment to bring more growth and more jobs.
I speak as Parliament's rapporteur on the 1996 annual economic report and on the broad economic guidelines.
I should like to ask the President of the Commission to what extent Parliament's conclusions as set out in its resolution of 9 May were taken into account in drawing up the document referred to today, especially Parliament's references to the need to eliminate existing rigidities in the labour market, its reference to a reduction in non-wage labour costs and to the adaptation of working time and work organization.
I notice that the President of the Commission referred to reduction in working time, not adaptation of working time.
Mr President, I do of course believe that these matters form an entity within the discussion and must be taken into consideration.
When you read our communication, you will find these matters examined in the context of greater flexibility for our employment market.
We believe that it is necessary to ensure that flexibility is reconciled with security - some people have called this 'flexisecurity' . I think this is a matter that needs to be taken into account.
It goes without saying that I am also in favour of reducing the cost of labour, but we shall then have to see how these costs are replaced by other measures, other means.
The third element you mentioned, which also appears in our document as I mentioned just now when answering Mr Rocard's question, is the adaptation of working time with a view to reducing working hours by collective negotiation between the social partners.
But the adaptation of working hours by using new forms of so-called atypical work is already becoming the normal, typical way of working in some of our Member States.
First, Mr President, it is important to realize that competitiveness is not the enemy of employment.
I state that categorically.
And you need only read, or reread, the report by the Ciampi group, headed by the former Prime Minister and current Minister of Finance in the Italian Government who also chairs our advisory board on competitiveness, to see that competitiveness is not the enemy of employment.
Quite the reverse. Unless you strengthen the competitiveness of a business, you will not increase the number of jobs in the medium and long term.
Indeed, the objective today is to strengthen the competitiveness of European business so that it can create new jobs, jobs for the future.
That is the essence of our policy, which is designed to alleviate the sickness from which Europe is now suffering.
We are suffering from having lost market shares around the world, because our companies are not as competitive as those in other regions.
That is why we have to boost competitiveness, but in conjunction with the transition to employment. It is not competitiveness that is killing off jobs, but there is a need to find the link between competitiveness and the creation of new jobs.
That is what we are trying to achieve in Chapter 3 of our communication, which I invite you to study very thoroughly.
Mr President, my question relates to the Swedish debate and the Swedish Government's proposal for an employment union.
The original idea of the proposal was that Member States should be able to coordinate their financial policies, particularly in a recession, in such a way as to allow demand to be maintained through measures to stimulate the economy (investment, stimulating demand), thus preventing unemployment rising.
Personally, I think it is an excellent idea.
My question concerns how the Commission President sees it; does he think it is compatible with today's convergence policy and the convergence criteria for monetary union that demand and investment should today be maintained through the Member States' national budgets?
Mr President, I can tell the honourable Member that we are in full agreement with the proposals made on this matter by the Swedish Government in the context of the intergovernmental conference.
I had the opportunity to discuss this subject with the Swedish Prime Minister.
The Commission supports the Swedish proposals which are not in conflict with the objectives of convergence as laid down.
Within that framework, we must strengthen and definitively establish, at the intergovernmental conference, the follow-up procedure regarding the five points agreed on at Essen.
By doing so, we will achieve a better balance between the internal market on the one hand and the social aspect on the other, to live up to our citizens' expectations.
The Swedish proposals are on the same lines as the proposals we ourselves made for the benefit of the intergovernmental conference.
I welcome President Santer's discussion of the role of cities, towns and regions in the economic reconstruction of Europe.
So much of our discussion about dealing with the unemployment problem takes place at the macro-economic level which seems very remote from the unemployed people we seek to help.
Is your announcement of pilot towns and cities mere window-dressing or will it unleash the potential of those towns and cities throughout Europe to contribute to the process of economic development? Will it be like the URBAN programme and the URBAN pilot projects, with just twenty or twenty-five towns able to participate or will there be the opportunity for towns and cities throughout our continent to take part?
Will there be the objections we have heard from Member States on the grounds of subsidiarity which means they want to hold on to the money and do not want to let our towns and cities take part?
Finally, will there be new money which will go to our towns and cities and which will help them unleash that potential to put people back to work?
Mr President, I do indeed believe that we should be moving more towards regional pacts and municipal pacts.
In a number of cases the Member States have had highly encouraging experience of this, through a gradual process of decentralization of employment.
In this context, we have suggested that regional pacts should be introduced to give a political starting signal for this type of pact at the appropriate regional level, based on a process of selecting, in each Member State, a significant number of pilot regions, towns or rural areas interested in these pacts.
I hope that we will be able to obtain initial approval of these regional pacts when they are presented by the Commission at the European Council in Dublin.
We shall be making appropriate proposals about this to you when the time comes.
I believe that the local development initiatives must be of overriding importance.
That is why we have also emphasized the decentralization of our training systems and the employment systems, which appears us to be essential in order to ensure the employability of certain categories of people, especially the young.
Ladies and gentlemen, that ends Question Time.
I thank everyone who took part, especially the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, who addressed us and answered our questions this afternoon.
I shall now take a point of order from Mr Holm.
Mr President, that is the second time you have called me by the wrong name.
I have already corrected you in the Bureau too, and I find it rather irritating that this mistake makes you pass me over at Question Time, despite my having corrected the error.
I believe it is reasonable to expect the Members who are in the Bureau to know each other's names!
My name is Voggenhuber.
I accept your criticism.
I am sorry, but in the papers I have here your name and the number of your seat do not correspond.
Mistakes can easily happen in that situation.
I do apologize.
Mr President, I just wanted to say that I myself would have been delighted to hear you call me by name, even the wrong name, but you pronounced it perfectly just now.
You have let some fifteen speakers take the floor.
I must have raised my hand some fifteen times and been amongst the first at least a dozen times; I am concerned that you might be a little short-sighted in your right eye.
The ladies and gentlemen who have been watching me here over the past few months will know that I am not short-sighted on the left or the right side but on both sides!
There are a great many Members who raise their hands 15 times and more during Question Time to no avail, because the number of prospective questioners - thankfully - exceeds the number of question slots.
Agreement with Morocco - Human rights in Morocco and Western Sahara
Mr President, we thank the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Marín, for the detailed explanations he has given us.
The opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations is to a large extent based on some of the aspects he has mentioned, for example:
1.The importance of consolidating the European Union's links with the Southern Mediterranean by means of the new policy of association with the Maghreb and the Mashreq.2.This new policy should contribute to the stability of the region in a framework of security and the promotion of democratization and human rights; also greater institutional pluralism and economic development will help to improve the standard of living of all its citizens as regards social aspects and employment.3.The need to show yet again that the European Union wishes to bring the tolerant cultural traditions of the north and the south closer together.The agreement with Morocco, following those of Tunisia and Israel, is an example of that effort, aimed at providing a suitable framework for the political dialogue and for developing more balanced economic and trade relations which will take the form, after transitional periods, of the liberalization of trade in goods, services and capital.
This agreement, as the Vice-President of the Commission has said, includes the conditionality clause on which all relations must be based, that is, on respect for human rights and democratic principles.
We are thankful for the effort Morocco has made in this direction.
However, we are concerned about the impasse reached with regard to holding the referendum on the Western Sahara, because such paralysation might entail real risks for stability in the most western part of the Maghreb.
The European Union has demonstrated its political will.
For Morocco this agreement is a fundamental political option aimed at anchoring its economy and society firmly to Europe, but it must not be forgotten that there are also economic risks inherent in carrying out the agreement.
With all this in mind the Committee on External Economic Relations has given its approval with an opinion in favour of the association agreement between the European Union and Morocco.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I should like to add my speech to the previous ones, giving express support to this agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco.
We must pay attention to the point made by both the Commissioner and the rapporteur, stressing the basic geostrategic situation of the Kingdom of Morocco.
And we must appreciate the desirability of mutual understanding between two cultures - European and Moroccan in this case - for establishing important collaboration.
From my committee's point of view we think that specific agreements might be reached and I should like to mention to begin with the energy cooperation agreement and above all the opportunities opening up in the field of renewable energy sources.
There is a possibility of exchange of scientific information and of exchanges in the policy of training of research workers which I think might be enormously profitable for both the Kingdom of Morocco and the European Union.
We must not forget sources of energy vital to the European Union necessarily pass through Morocco.
We must not forget that the European Union has important responsibilities to ensure that Morocco, which has managed to make moderation its trade mark, is also treated appropriately.
We therefore heartily applaud the association agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco.
Mr President, this is a debate of particular importance and also of particular sensitivity for those of us who represent countries which, like Spain, have special ties not only of neighbourliness but also cultural and economic ties with the Kingdom of Morocco.
We cannot agree with those who prefer to reject this agreement for purely political reasons, citing the democratic deficit of that country, the question of human rights or of the Sahara.
It is true that Morocco is not an exemplary country in that direction, but a politician neither can nor must ignore reality or practicality, trying to make everything fit the ideal of certain objectives which may be achieved with words and good intentions but which are closely bound up with economic and social development.
Morocco at present is calling insistently at the gates of the European Union for help to achieve economic growth.
However, demographic growth there is unstoppable and, if it is not accompanied by job creation, the pressure of migration will continue to rise, with all the accompanying problems.
On the other hand the Moroccan economy needs alternatives to the proliferation of a corrupt economy sustained by the cultivation of drugs, which increases as a function of the needs of the population as a result of their level of poverty and underdevelopment, not to mention the needs in infrastructures such as transport, health services or modernization of their own administration.
This agreement is aimed at collaboration in the full development of all those fields I have mentioned and indirectly to increasing stability and democratic development to make the country more prosperous and with a higher social and cultural level.
All that does not mean it is a blank cheque to the Kingdom of Morocco but implies more stringent monitoring as regards compliance with agreements and the rules of the International Labour Organization in the social sphere, particularly those relating to child labour and working women, respect for freedom of trade unions, dialogue and social protection which at the moment are clearly insufficient.
Morocco must also take steps to control not only its own emigration but the emigration taking place across its territory from African third countries and must collaborate to put an end once and for all to the degrading spectacle of the little boats in the straits of Gibraltar and Central African pressure on the Spanish frontiers of the Union such as Ceuta and Melilla.
In brief, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is wise to vote in favour of this association agreement, because it will have a positive effect not only in giving Morocco a larger slice of freedom and democracy and the means to demand more, but in guaranteeing greater stability, peace and security in the whole Mediterranean region as was agreed at the last Euro-Mediterranean Conference held in Barcelona.
Mr President, Parliament's Committee on Development and Cooperation urges ratification of the agreement with Morocco, as another important step in the new Euro-Mediterranean strategy identified at Barcelona last November.
This involves moving to a new strategic equilibrium in the external relations of the European Union after the priority given to the central and eastern European countries in recent years.
In fact the stability of Europe's southern flank affects the whole Union, and not just the more geographically exposed Member States.
The dialogue with the Mediterranean should primarily be a structured political dialogue, not one that is merely based on the exchange of goods. It should be an institutionalized dialogue leading to continuous political consultation between two cultures which need to have useful contacts.
Precisely because of this, because we are making Morocco a privileged partner of the European Union, we are obliged to stress two matters of concern deliberately ignored in the report, but emphasized by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and we would like the Commission to take them into consideration. First, the serious violations of human rights perpetrated in Morocco, and which are going on now, not in the past.
Secondly, the deadlock on the independence referendum for the Saharan people. A few weeks ago the latest Amnesty International report stated that the Moroccan security forces in Western Sahara have carried out serious violations of human rights.
Condemning this is not a form of racism.
In addition, Amnesty states that the Moroccan government is showing no intention of investigating these violations.
Another source of deep concern is the fact that the Moroccan government is blocking the United Nations Security Council's peace process, specifically based on organizing a referendum on self-determination.
The committee also calls on the Polisario Front to seize the opportunity for peace that exists and continue along the path of dialogue and contact with the United Nations.
Mr President, the Committee on Fisheries has given its opinion in favour of the Association Agreement with Morocco, which was considered by both parties as inseparable from the conclusion of a fisheries agreement with that country for a period of four years.
However, whilst no question arises as to the raison d'être of that agreement, it must be mentioned that the sardine processing sector is a real martyr to that agreement.
The sardine processing sector has in fact been contending with a long-standing crisis which may lead, with the complete liberalization of the market - unless something is done - to its disappearance, with consequent unemployment and the consequent tragedy for some 15 000 workers in Portugal and many others in countries such as France, Spain and Italy.
As a result the Committee on Fisheries in its opinion has recommended certain priority measures to the competent Community bodies.
Amongst them the following should be stressed:
first, the introduction of a compensatory indemnity system for sardines intended for the Community processing industry; -secondly, to allow the industry to be directly eligible for the storage premium since a pre-determined price is paid for production; -thirdly more stringent controls on imported products in order to guarantee that the European Union's health rules are complied with.We hope that these measures will be taken internationally since we have no doubt that Europeans as a whole and the Moroccans as well can only benefit from this partnership and cooperation agreement.
Welcome
Agreement with Morocco - Human Rights in Morocco and Western Sahara (continuation)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the economic and geostrategic importance of the association agreement on which we are being asked to vote is obvious.
So I will talk about other aspects.
Once again, we find ourselves in a position to measure our hopes against the hard yardstick of reality.
This Parliament has consistently, and on very many occasions, demonstrated its desire to bring about genuine convergence, a complete synergy between the various facets of development, living standards and productivity, trade and respect for human rights.
Reconciling these factors is difficult.
No one is perfect.
In fact - and we previously had a rather similar debate on the subject of Turkey - when it comes to association agreements with countries with an unsatisfactory human rights record, our own choice is between refusal, equivalent to imposing a penalty, and resigned approval.
Neither solution is entirely satisfactory.
The whole problem is knowing where to draw the line, how our politicians should make their decisions so that our requirements in terms of civilization and human rights remain unmistakably obvious and firm, without thereby undermining or obstructing the efforts of those countries which, although their initial situations may be undesirable and open to criticism, are undeniably demonstrating the desire to improve.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, democracy and respect for the human rights, which are so dear to us, are not just constitutional and legal abstractions: they are also the expression of a culture, a way of living and thinking built up over a great many years.
In our case, these values and forms of behaviour took nearly 200 years to come into existence.
In the Islamic cultural sphere, the movement to introduce democracy began much more recently.
We can reasonably criticize those who reject it, but not those who are merely lagging behind.
The current position is that the human rights situation in Morocco is unsatisfactory.
There are many political prisoners.
No one can be sure that torture is not continuing.
The course of justice is being obstructed in the search for certain missing persons.
The peace process in Western Sahara is deadlocked.
That is the immediate position.
Over the course of time, though, Morocco has made important advances: many prisoners released, secret camps shut down, huge advances towards freedom of the press, an institutional process which is moving slowly towards constitutional monarchy, and a parliamentary opposition which is increasingly influential and is asking us, urgently, to vote in favour.
In comparison terms, Mr President, Morocco has slowly become one of the least dictatorial of the Arab States.
In the Arab world, which has had a raw deal from history, the only territory governed by an elected democracy is the Palestinian authority.
Its closest rivals in the progression towards international standards of democracy are the two kingdoms of Jordan and Morocco.
Are we going to treat Morocco as if it was Iraq? Do we want to support the reactionary Islamic forces within that country which are opposing closer links with the West, even trade links?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we should vote in favour of this agreement, as a sign of encouragement, as a positive bet on the future, and also as a means of keeping up pressure whenever negotiations take place regarding application or renewal.
We in the Socialist Group have been very hesitant about this.
Eventually, we adopted the position I have had the pleasure of presenting to you.
We must vote in favour.
Mr President, for us the approval of the Euro-Maghreb agreement under discussion today has the greatest importance.
Following the signing of the agreements with Israel and Tunisia this agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco must be regarded as one of the objectives announced at the European Council of Essen and developed at the Euro-Mediterranean Conference of Barcelona.
On the other hand this represents a demand put forward years ago by the European Parliament and particularly by its Committees on Foreign Affairs and on Development and Cooperation.
Progress is thus being made in the rebalancing of the Union's policies to make it possible to deal with our relations with our neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe and in a similar manner with our neighbours on the southern flank of Europe.
The agreement we are discussing has an economic and commercial content, aimed fundamentally at the economic and social development of the Kingdom of Morocco and the growth of economic and commercial relations between Morocco and the European Union.
But I should like to emphasize that the agreement itself lays down, as one of its first provisions, that one essential feature of the new framework of our relations is to be respect for human rights and democratic principles.
On the other hand, Mr President, we are sorry that the United Nations did not succeed in the task assigned to them of keeping peace in the Western Sahara and organizing the referendum on self-determination to bring the long process of decolonization of the territory to a close.
For a Member of Parliament such as I am, elected as a native and resident of the Canary Islands, the question of the Sahara is not a problem of greater or lesser theoretical importance but a conflict which places the Islands on the margin of a zone of warlike tension for which the Canaries have paid a high price in political and economic terms, but above all in terms of human lives with the blood of some of our fishermen on the Canary-Sahara fishing banks.
I cannot finish, Mr President, without referring to the concern felt at the terms of the agreement with Morocco in certain economic sectors, particularly amongst growers of tomatoes, fruit, vegetables, flowers and plants in certain European regions - regions certainly among the least developed in Europe, which might in the end be placed at an unfair disadvantage by an agreement which, as a whole, is obviously of benefit to the signatories and which we, of course, support without reserve.
Mr President, the agreement with Morocco arrives third, after the agreements with Tunisia and Israel. So it constitutes an important stage and is a signal of consistency with the Euro-Mediterranean inaugurated in Barcelona, a concrete demonstration of the will of the European Union to become as present and active in the south as it is in the north and the east.
Moreover this agreement is not, as was said by other rapporteurs earlier, only an economic agreement. Like the other two agreements which have preceded it, as well as an economic dimension it has another, equally significant, of foreign and security policy.
With this are being created the conditions to fill a void in these two policies for Europe, a void which has been untenable up to now.
Morocco, in particular, like Tunisia, is also a precious area of stability, which contributes significantly to the containment of the violence which is unfortunately still present in Algeria and hence contributes not only to regional but also Mediterranean and European stability.
True, there is the painful aspect of human rights.
And it is right to demand that they be strictly protected and also demand the acceleration of the process of democratic reform.
We owe it to ourselves however also to take account of the fact that the persistence of conditions that are not at all satisfactory runs parallel to the existence of a risk of serious emergency.
Indeed, as Commissioner Marín has said, reform is proceeding at a fairly rapid pace and we are convinced that the greater the stability the greater will be the speed of implementing reform. Expecting everything immediately does not seem wise.
I therefore associate myself with the opinion Mr von Habsburg has expressed in his excellent report and I propose, on behalf of my group, approval of the ratification of the association agreement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we should all like to live in the Kingdom of Utopia so well described by Sir Thomas More, except that Utopia is always taken to be something illusory.
To try to establish any kind of agreement between the European Union and a third country and to require the ideal - I repeat the ideal - of democracy and human rights draws us inevitably into the Kingdom of Utopia - that is, into an illusion.
But if this country has taken concrete, objective steps in the direction we require for political, economic and social democracy, it would be politically criminal to impede the progress which has been made and to reverse the positive trend. development.
For these reasons I think the agreement which the European Union is intending to conclude with Morocco, consolidating and developing what has already been achieved in the sphere I mentioned, is essential.
Apart from that, and in fulfilment of the undertakings of the Barcelona Conference, this agreement brings Morocco closer to the European Union and is one more step towards the good relations which the European Union wishes to establish with the countries of the Maghreb.
The excellent report of our colleague and friend, Mr von Habsburg, is in favour of the conclusion of the association agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco and, for the reasons I have given, deserves our support.
Mr President, we do not regard ourselves as a Group of ill-will, or racist or short of intelligence; nevertheless we are by no means ready to support the development of political Islamism.
We shall therefore vote against this association agreement between the European Union and Morocco.
We shall say 'no' because we believe that this type of agreement should further the economic and social development of the countries with which they are concluded, but it should also further their political development, which includes strict regard for human rights.
How sad it is to hear in this House that progress has been made because a few political prisoners have been released!
How sad to hear in this House that there is less infringement of human rights!
How sad to hear in this House that although democracy has not been established by a particular government and human rights are not fully respected, nevertheless relations with that government must be privileged!
How sad in this House to hear it regretted for example that the United Nations Security Council has decided de facto to withdraw the Minurso, yet not to hear in this House that it is the Moroccan Government which is basically responsible for blocking the process of self-determination for the Sahrawi people because for some years it has been preventing the work of the United Nations missions! How sad to hear in this House, once more, that political realism leads us to vote in favour of an agreement which will not serve either peace or stability in the region or even the development of democracy or human rights in Morocco.
Mr President, the Green Group will vote against this proposal.
I myself shall do the same, not because I am an anti-Arab racist but because in my own country I am known as perhaps one of the foremost friends of the Arabs.
I cannot accept the inverted racism which means that the suppression of freedom in Arab countries is acceptable on account of their culture and traditions.
Those who take this line are no true friends of the Arab world.
For us Western Sahara is a crucial point.
The question is when it will be appropriate to enter into an association agreement with Morocco.
The Security Council recently decided to extend the Minurso mandate in the hope that it will be possible to resume identification work.
In that connection the Security Council particularly stressed that Saharan political prisoners in Morocco must be released.
The view that it is Morocco which is primarily responsible for the breaking off of the peace process is shared by practically all experts, from the OAU, the Organisation of African Unity, to the European Parliament's Committee on Development and Cooperation.
We in the Green Group regard greater cooperation around the Mediterranean in a very positive light.
There should be no doubt about that.
However, we believe that right now it would be extraordinarily inappropriate to give King Hassan and his regime political support by approving the agreement.
It would also be an insult to the legitimate battle for freedom being conducted by the people of Western Sahara.
Mr President, Michel Rocard said earlier that we must choose between our unreasonably high expectations and bitter reality.
I often think that we find ourselves having to choose between commercial interests and democratic values.
It is indeed tragic that the European Parliament, when push comes to shove, so often chooses commercial interests in preference to democratic values.
Mr President, in the seething cauldron of the Mediterranean, where Algeria is running with fire and blood, where Turkey is rent by internal warfare, where Israel and Palestine face the constant threat of latent violence, and where Libya is under the sway of a known terrorist government - in this region, a theatre of hostilities where death and injury are commonplace, Morocco, like it or not, is a relative haven of tranquillity, one of the few countries where an acceptable degree of collective security prevails.
To attempt to give lessons to that country and select it as the appropriate locale for urgent intervention is either an error of judgment, which is what I hope, or deliberate, blind partisanship, which is what I fear.
The fact is that there are two factors that can militate against the adoption of the text before us today.
First, it is true - let us not bury our heads in the sand - that the defence of human rights in Morocco today still involves police action, court judgments and conditions of imprisonment which are often unacceptable.
The basic freedoms, those formal freedoms that our communist comrades used to talk about, are still granted grudgingly, if at all.
To be resolutely hostile to government policy is no sinecure, no kind of picnic at all.
All these things are still true but, to be a little more specific, they are becoming less and less true.
And we need to help our democratic friends in Morocco to ensure that these things are no longer true at all.
We should note though, in passing, that those who vow to bring down the regime and the Moroccan kingdom are not all apostles of liberty - far from it.
The second point which seems to be deterring some of our colleagues from endorsing the text produced by our rapporteur, Otto von Habsburg - who, incidentally, I must congratulate - is the matter of Western Sahara.
The 'green march' and the de facto annexation of the territory more than 20 years ago have led to results that cannot be accepted as things stand.
Clearly, it is necessary to consult the views of the people.
But to accuse Morocco of sabotaging the referendum process is simplistic, to put it mildly.
The Polisario Front, which - as I have said before and as I say again now - is detaining several thousand families -the Saharan refugees are literally detainees - this Polisario Front, then, which has taken away their papers, which indoctrinates them as a matter of routine and uses whatever threats are necessary against those who show any inclination to return to their homes is hardly in a position to lecture us on the subject.
If no referendum has taken place, in accordance with the United Nations' decisions, it is frankly wrong - I didn't say dishonest, I said wrong - to hold the Kingdom of Morocco alone responsible for the unacceptable delays in organizing that referendum.
Let us be close to the Moroccans.
Let us move even closer to them.
It may be good business, but it is certainly right.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has to be realistic.
The Union's external policy has to draw the logical conclusions from the general situation in the Mediterranean, where economic and political instability and the rise of fundamentalism coexist with the growth of genuine development areas and real hope of stability.
In the Maghreb, the tragic events which have just brought bloodshed to Algeria, the cold-blooded murder of seven Trappist monks, the relentless civil war taking place there, all these must strengthen us in our determination to support those who, on our southern borders, opted for stability, development and friendship with Europe.
Since the first days of independence, Morocco has pursued a dual objective: defending its own identity while developing in partnership with Europe.
This bold and courageous choice was not, and is not, free of risk for the policy makers who made that choice and are still pursuing it.
If our Parliament refuses to give its assent to the association agreement, it will amount to abandoning those who made that choice in Morocco, and would weaken their position at a time when every country on the southern shore of the Mediterranean, including Morocco, is now being tormented by fundamentalism.
The stability of Morocco cannot be taken for granted: it is the product of the determination of Morocco's rulers, and our cooperation has its part to play there.
Furthermore, the opening-up of Morocco, from Pope John Paul II's visit to Casablanca to the festival of sacred art in Fez, is in any case too rare an example among the countries in that region not to deserve enthusiastic encouragement.
After all, at a time when the Member States of the European Union are using all their resources to fight against illegal immigration and the marginalization that it generates, Morocco has embarked upon the road of selfcentred development which proposes to make full use of all its human resources.
By supporting this kind of development, then, we shall at the same time be helping to combat illegal immigration.
Development, stability, openness, progress towards democracy even if that progress is sometimes hesitant - all these trends at any rate deserve our encouragement and support.
We have an opportunity to express that encouragement and support clearly and specifically by approving Mr von Habsburg's report and the association agreement upon which we are being asked to vote.
Let us not miss that opportunity.
Mr President, we approve the proposals put forward by Mr von Habsburg regarding the strategic importance of Morocco, a great and proud nation, and a friendly one, which has supported and still is supporting a dazzling civilization.
Yet the association agreement you are offering us gives rise to serious reservations on our part, the same reservations that we have entered in all similar cases.
I should say at once that those reservations have nothing to do either with the Sahara question or with the political regime in Morocco; nor do they have anything to do with those human rights which we talk about so often and implement so badly.
Ladies and gentlemen, before we presume to give lessons to the King of Morocco, let us start by putting our own house in order.
Just four days ago, under the laws of the thought police, an examining magistrate by the name of Tchalian in my country, France, ordered the arrest of the director of an independent newspaper, the journalist Debeketsch, for expressing the wrong opinion.
In many ways, there is more freedom of expression in Morocco than there is in Europe.
So the Moroccans can do without your lessons on the right way to behave, as can we.
The main thrust of our reservations concerns the underlying nature of the Maastricht system.
It is presented as being a stabilizing factor in Moroccan society.
If the European Union were to produce that effect, it would be something new.
On the contrary, how can anyone fail to see that unrestricted free trade produces a destructive effect, a point that was noted in former times by Karl Marx, who incidentally was a supporter of it for that reason.
What about your political imperialism, the arrogance of our subculture, the destruction of our spiritual values?
Do you want to impose all that on Morocco?
The second reason relates to Title VI and Article 64: the alignment of the rights of Moroccan nationals with those of our own nationals.
Clearly, Moroccans do have rights abroad, just as foreigners have rights in Morocco.
But it seems to us that those rights should be determined by ordinary international civil law.
We have just been talking about unemployment in Europe.
But you refuse to see that extending our welfare systems and economic systems to nationals of non-member states of the European Union serves to attract people in those countries, at a time when the European Union, the economic area with the world's lowest growth rate at present, is in no position to accept them.
As far as this is concerned, the corrective factors referred to in Article 71 are unlikely to be much of a barrier.
Thirdly, we have always believed that the European Union should confine itself to a European political, economic and cultural area.
If not, and it is embarrassing to have to make such obvious points, it ceases to be a European entity and becomes one step on the road towards the construction of a global entity.
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what we needed here was not a general free-trade agreement but an agreement on cooperation, close cooperation.
It is true that the Mediterranean countries are as deserving of our attention as those of central Europe, but you have not gone the right way about strengthening our links with this great country.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of the Barcelona initiative is to promote security and stability in the area of the Mediterranean Sea, the south flank of the European Union - stability which may benefit both the Union and the North African countries.
Here Morocco plays a very important part as a bridge between the Maghreb and the Union.
In the past few years a cautious beginning has been made in the sphere of democracy.
Commissioner Marín has just confirmed that.
Admittedly it is all a small start.
But when such a man as Abraham Serfati who spent more than ten years in Moroccan jails confirms these small steps in the field of human rights, who are we to dismiss them out of hand and refuse to count their weight in balancing our scales for or against an agreement.
The human rights situation in Morocco is still far from ideal, but, ladies and gentlemen, a rejection of the association agreement before us will certainly not bring respect for human rights any closer.
Only a critical dialogue with all levels of Moroccan society can bring closer the advancement of the State governed by the rule of law which we so keenly wish to see.
It smacks of Realpolitik and I support what Mr De Melo said about it - approving the association agreement on the basis of a joint resolution on democracy and human rights, rather than slamming the door on a country whose citizens are daily in our midst.
Above all to approve it in order to avoid even the slightest risk of seeing Morocco slide down into an Algerian situation.
That must be avoided.
Mr President, I should like to consider this subject from the point of view of finance since, if I did so from the point of view of politics I might be as inconsistent as the Member who expressed disagreement here today and yet voted in favour of an association agreement with Cuba.
In the Committee on Budgets we gave an opinion favourable to the association agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco in a letter signed by the chairman of the committee himself.
From the financial point of view the agreement is covered until 1999 by the appropriations earmarked for the MEDA programme, but that does not mean that our hands are tied since Article 90(2) of the agreement permits the Union to take any appropriate measures if the other party fails to fulfil the obligations set out in the association agreement.
For those reasons therefore this agreement may be approved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement we have been asked to approve today is an especially important one both for our Member States and for the Kingdom of Morocco.
This is no longer just a matter of renewing the previous 1976 agreement, but a matter of redefining the economic and politic relationships between the European Union and the Mediterranean seaboard States as was decided at the European Councils at Essen in 1994, and at Cannes in 1995, and since then at the Barcelona conference, which laid the groundwork for closer multilateral cooperation designed to create a Euromediterranean region of stability, peace and prosperity.
It is this last point, the creation of a region of peace and prosperity, that I would like to stress.
We all know how the political situation in a country depends on its economy, and so we are also all in agreement that economic aid from the Union can help a country to maintain a precarious but essential political equilibrium.
As far as the Kingdom of Morocco is concerned, we want to encourage it to pursue its economic reforms and political liberalization.
Following the model of the two previous texts of the same type, concluded with Israel and Tunisia, this new generation of agreements is more than just an attempt to establish a genuine economic partnership between Europe and the country concerned; it has a political aspect, too.
Provision is in fact made for a regular political dialogue to be set up between our Union and the Kingdom of Morocco.
And, within that dialogue, respect for human rights and principles of democracy will play an essential part.
That is why, incidentally, the agreement includes a clause authorizing its suspension in the event of any violation of these fundamental principles.
Mr President, it would not be reasonable, then, to expect the European Parliament not to give its assent to the agreement between the Union and Morocco.
To the contrary, we have a duty to support - as does the rapporteur Mr von Habsburg, whom we thank - we have a duty to support the Kingdom of Morocco and do everything we can to help it, because it is still a bastion against the rise of the extremists, extremists on the very borders of Morocco who, for their part, have not the least concept of the most basic of all human rights - respect for life.
Mr President, the Euromediterranean agreements may help to strengthen cooperation with the Mediterranean countries, and I am in favour of them.
But they must find expression in genuine cooperation, based on mutual advantage and free of any thought of domination.
I have to say that they are too much dictated by the ultraliberal logic of creating competition between economies and nations, based on free trade and the free movement of capital.
Furthermore, the agreements cannot be confined to financial and commercial aspects, leaving aside the questions of democracy and human rights.
Undeniably, significant results have been achieved by Morocco in this field, thanks to the international mobilization of opinion to which this House made a powerful contribution.
Prisoners have been released, missing persons have emerged from their secret prisons, yet there is still much to do before it can be said that human rights are really being respected.
Opponents of the regime are still in prison: Abraham Serfati, who has been mentioned here, is still not being allowed to return to the country, and hundreds of inhabitants of Western Sahara are still unaccounted for.
The situation in Western Sahara, which was one of the main reasons this House rejected the financial protocol with Morocco in 1992, has not improved.
The Moroccan government is still pursuing its policy of obstructiveness. Unfortunately, it is enjoying the tacit support of certain Member States and of the United Nations, whose Secretary General has just decided to suspend the process of elector identification.
In our vote on the agreement with Morocco, we have the opportunity to send a signal to the Moroccan government, an indication that it should cease riding roughshod over the international human rights conventions, to which it is a signatory, and that it should finally apply the arrangements to the peace process in Western Sahara. I believe it will be illusory and ineffective to approve this agreement after having first made grandiose statements about human rights to clear our consciences.
Mr President, with regard to the European Union's desired agreement with Morocco, some people have been advancing the equality argument, saying that we must conclude the agreement because the EU is concluding the same type of agreement with other Mediterranean coastal states.
But there are differences.
Libya, for instance, is not one of the states involved in the MEDA programme. Morocco differs from the other Mediterranean states in that it has occupied the Western Sahara.
The European Parliament has always taken a clear and unequivocal position on Morocco and the Western Sahara.
The realization of the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination has always been a matter of priority for us.
We bear special political responsibility here too.
The Sahrawi people have lived in refugee camps for 20 years.
That is the result of an irresponsible policy pursued in the postcolonial era.
That we should give humanitarian aid to the refugees and to the refugee camps is therefore a dictate of our humanity and part of our historical obligation.
But before we can sign or approve this agreement here today, we need a political solution for the Western Sahara, and that means Moroccan withdrawal from the Western Sahara.
The peace process was a good start.
The ceasefire agreement was important.
But the referendum is also important to us.
Some people are still saying that dialogue is needed.
We can see how dialogue works in the wake of the agreement with Turkey.
There is dialogue. There are Spanish and French tourist organizations represented in Morocco, there are fisheries, arms exports, police training in Germany.
I believe that if we want to move forward here, it is essential that peace should reign in the region, that human rights should be respected and especially that the Sahrawi people's right to self-determination should be supported.
We want peace in the Mediterranean Basin, but only on condition that Morocco demonstrates real commitment to it.
Otherwise we advocate waiting until the referendum has actually taken place.
We agree with the rapporteur, Mr von Habsburg, that Morocco is one of the most advanced of the Maghreb countries and that the situation in Morocco cannot be measured with the same yardstick as for the countries of the Union.
But that must not prevent us from drawing attention to the human rights situation in that country.
I am thinking above all of cases of persecution of religious minorities, particularly Christians.
Only recently we received information about that from the European Evangelical Alliance.
That is remarkable because religious freedom is basically guaranteed in Morocco, which has also signed various international human rights conventions.
There therefore appears to be a serious discrepancy between the national authorities' policy of tolerance and the application of that policy by the local authorities.
It must be discussed with the national authorities.
In addition Morocco must show signs of greater cooperation as regards Moroccans wanting to return from Europe to their home country.
Returning is not at present an attractive prospect since the Moroccan authorities do hardly anything in the way of reception and guidance.
Finally it would be a good thing for curbing the drugs trade if support were provided from the European Union for developing alternative sources of income for the farmers who are now almost entirely dependent on the cultivation of cannabis.
In spite of what I have said we shall give our support to the association agreement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at this stage of the proceedings perhaps I may concentrate on the salient points of this debate, because actually we are asked for an opinion on the association agreement with Morocco.
I must say very clearly that the most important thing is its historic significance.
We have before us the most important agreement ever signed with the Kingdom of Morocco, and the first one based on the essential principles of reciprocity and association, the only agreement to launch a political dialogue, which must take the form of a new parliamentary dialogue between the European Parliament and the parliament of Morocco.
The fact that this agreement is going to have to be ratified by the 15 Parliaments of the Member States of the Union may give us an idea of its parliamentary importance.
But, ladies and gentlemen, let us give it a chance and let us have patience to sort things out.
We are speaking about an agreement which has not yet come into being.
It is an agreement looking towards the future.
Everything in it relates to commitments for the immediate short-, medium- or long-term future.
It is an association agreement designed to bring about a different state of affairs.
Let us not fall into the trap of turning this into a test for good behaviour.
On the contrary, it is a question of making this association agreement what it is: a means of overcoming the past and taking a step towards a new situation in the future.
How sad it is, ladies and gentlemen, to see that there are political Groups capable only of understanding the politics of frustration, yet not capable of understanding that what is before us is a new road to progress to build together the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco!
Precisely for that reason, because it deserves this confidence, because we believe in a democratic Morocco, more democratic than the present one, because we believe in a Morocco in which there will be room for economic and social progress, for that very reason we have to say 'yes' to this agreement.
How odd that the extreme parliamentary Groups on both sides should finally agree on the same position, by different routes but both of them on a negative vote!
Let us look towards progress!
Let us vote in favour!
Mr President, this agreement with Morocco is a good example of lack of transparency.
Although it is essential for the European Parliament and all the national parliaments to give their approval, the trade component - and I am speaking directly to you, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, with regard to the question you raised - has already come into force without any ratification.
There are two possible alternatives - either the European Parliament has the courage to take up a clear political position and reject the agreement, or the Commission and the Council will continue to take the decisions without fully respecting the powers of this and other chambers.
In addition, in the case of this agreement there are other weighty reasons for rejecting it.
To start with political reasons, notably the systematic procrastination and undermining of international decisions on the independence of the Sahara; it also has a profoundly unbalanced economy.
Once again productive sectors of the poorest countries in the Union are affected, particularly in Portugal, with the unfortunate but active participation of the present government, with thousands of jobs placed in jeopardy by a trade liberalization which even manages to breach the conditions of GATT which themselves are so onerous.
We reject the hypocrisy of those who state that these are economically unimportant sectors.
We regard them as fundamental activities for supporting thousands of families with a strong cultural and social impact on vast strata of the population and typical of one particular national identity.
Mr President, we all want to strengthen our links with Morocco.
We admire the courage and energy of our many Moroccan friends, including the Moroccan MPs who are with us yet again in Parliament, with whom we have a very active dialogue.
If Morocco had spent a fraction of the time it has spent on lobbying the European Parliament on cooperating with the peace process in the Western Sahara, the conflict and suffering would have ended many years ago.
I should like to congratulate Mr von Habsburg, our colleague who describes Morocco as a plural democracy.
He has again shown he is a good friend of the King of Morocco and, unfortunately, an apologist for the illegal occupation of the Western Sahara by Morocco.
This Parliament has consistently deplored that illegal occupation which has resulted in loss of life, political prisoners, torture and suffering for some of the most vulnerable people in the world for far too long.
In seeking closer links with Morocco for our mutual benefit, this Parliament is entitled to expect Morocco to show respect for international law, for human rights and for self-determination for the people of the Western Sahara.
I trust that Parliament, the European Union and the Moroccan Government will not abandon the people of the Western Sahara who have suffered so much for so long and that we will use all our efforts and responsibilities to support the people of the Western Sahara in their search for freedom and self-determination.
(Applause)
Mr President, I shall vote, with conviction and hope for the future, in favour of this report.
Not because I believe, like Mr von Habsburg, that support for any government which is moderate in matters of religion - whether we like it or not - is a good thing for curbing Islamic fundamentalism, but rather because I believe in openness and in the capacity of citizens who are ever more free to overcome such problems.
I have not the honour, like Mr von Habsburg, of being one of the oldest Members in this hemicycle, but I can remember perfectly well how in my country we still used to have situations in which religion controlled society, situations which were humiliating - for women, for instance.
In view of Spain's subsequent experience I am in favour of this agreement and of support for the most active sectors of society.
Of course I feel, like so many others, frustration at the present situation of the conflict in the Sahara.
I think that the Union must keep on paying great attention, as it is doing - and of course doing so very well - to the humanitarian situation of refugees, to the situation of many children, men and women in the camps, and we shall have to do our utmost, as the Commissioner was saying, to resolve this conflict.
But I think that this agreement is one step further in that most important process initiated in Barcelona and we must welcome that.
The Mediterranean countries are asking us to play our part in the region, and we must do so and make the greatest possible use of the means which this agreement offers for turning the Mediterranean into a zone of dialogue for mutual understanding and so that our sea may be a more prosperous and a freer area.
Mr President, Commissioner, we have heard all the arguments in favour of this report and against this report, and for my part I shall disregard my notes and tell you that I shall be voting in favour of Mr von Habsburg's text, because I like the Moroccans.
Oh yes, I like lots of other countries and lots of other people!
But if I talk about the Moroccans it is because I have heard them in recent times, like all of us, on the various committees, saying to us - majority and opposition alike - that they have confidence in us and that this means of moving closer together was necessary precisely for the reasons that concern us: the human rights situation, and the situation in Western Sahara.
So, after the necessity to follow up the resolutions of the Essen summit, let us also follow up - and I pay tribute to Manuel Marín, the originator of these efforts - the efforts of the Barcelona conference.
We need this stability; we need economic, institutional and cultural ties with the Mediterranean.
That is true. And especially with Morocco, that is even more true.
I would like to dwell on the two points which are causing a problem.
First human rights, and then of course the reference to Turkey.
We are not all that sure, ladies and gentlemen, that we did the right thing when we voted in favour of Turkey's entry into the customs union; we are not sure.
A fortnight ago we were very dubious, and every day we worried that we may have been wrong.
The situation is not the same for those who know the Moroccan people.
And in fact I think it is not the same for those who know the history of that ancient land, that ancient people, that ancient kingdom and, I would say, that young nation.
No, it is not the same.
Let us bank on it being very different.
Then, of course, there is also the matter of the Saharans.
I have no great enthusiasm for the way they are being treated, I must say, by Algeria and in the camps with which I am familiar.
I have no great enthusiasm for it - quite the reverse.
But I know that they fought courageously.
I know that some of them are deeply sincere, and I know that causes a problem.
But I have read the documents, the document that the Saharans have just sent us, the document that the Moroccan Socialist Opposition has passed to us, and Mr Boutros Ghali's document.
And I believe that neither side can be accused of 100 % responsibility for blocking the peace process.
Let us put our trust in the UN.
Let us keep the pressure on.
This referendum is necessary.
Let us not abandon the Saharans. Certainly not!
I am taking this gamble, yes, because I believe that there are times in politics when we should follow the dictates of our hearts because our heads are not sure of the way.
That is why my vote will be in favour of the Moroccans.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Non-admission of Croatia to the Council of Europe
The next item is the statement by the Council on the non-admission of Croatia to the Council of Europe.
Mr President, as Members are aware, Croatia applied for membership of the Council of Europe in September 1992 and in December of the same year the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe asked the Assembly for assent.
The state of war which developed in former Yugoslavia obviously made the procedure for ascertaining that all the requirements necessary for Croatia's membership of the Council of Europe were in place more complex and lengthy.
Anyway, in 1995 the Assembly gave assent, after a rather complex passage, but made that assent subject to certain conditions, in particular relating to full recognition and respect for human rights, with particular reference to refugees and minorities, to total commitment by the Zagreb government to implementing the peace agreements and to full cooperation by the Croatian government with the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague.
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe took note of that position and sent the assent on, explaining the request to fulfil a series of conditions even more precisely to the Zagreb government.
I shall mention them specifically: cooperation with the International War Crimes Tribunal in the territory of former Yugoslavia, including the immediate arrest and handover to that tribunal of persons suspected of having committed war crimes or other violations of international humanitarian law; full compliance, in its capacity as co-signatory of the Paris/Dayton agreements, with the provisions relating to the establishment and operation of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina; cooperation in the holding of free and fair elections, which include the city of Mostar; the invitation to respect human rights and rights of minorities and refugees and to introduce an amnesty law, and finally, the request to respect the freedom of the press and the media, to cooperate with the Council of Europe in revising the rules of local government and to adopt a timetable for holding elections in the city of Zagreb.
We draw particular attention to this last request, not because the previous ones are not important, but because on the others - particularly those relating to the Paris/Dayton peace agreements and the consequences of the war in former Yugoslavia - the Zagreb government has repeatedly given assurances, at least in principle, of its willingness to comply, and the request by the Council of Europe for effective fulfilment of these conditions also corresponds to the stated intention of the Zagreb government. However, on freedom of the press and freedom and democracy inside Croatia, we are obliged to highlight a certain disparity between the requests made by the Council of Europe and the attitude frequently demonstrated by the Croatian government.
It is particularly important that membership of the Council of Europe should be consequent on total compliance by the Croatian government with all the conditions called for by the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers and confirmed at the recent meeting of the standing committee of the Council of Europe in Salonika.
The European Union agrees with the Council of Europe's approach. In fact, the positions of the fifteen States of the European Union, members of the Council of Europe, have tended to be coordinated in support of the position the Council of Europe has taken.
The coordinated position of the European Union supports the Council of Europe's approach and was reflected in the positions that emerged at the meeting of the European Union General Affairs Council on 13 May, which confirmed, on the one hand, the importance of supporting Croatia's membership of the Council of Europe through a more general strategy of consolidation of the democratic transition of the central European countries, and reinforcement of all the measures and instruments that can help consolidate democracy in those countries, but, on the other, the need for the Zagreb government to comply with all the requests from the Council of Europe as the guarantee of achieving full democracy in Croatia and full application of all the political and civil principles of the rule of law.
There will probably be another meeting of the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the European Union on this agenda before the summer to coordinate current positions and assess the state of application by the Zagreb government of the conditions laid down by the Council of Europe, and clearly if these conditions are respected the European Union will of course take steps to hasten Croatia's membership of the Council of Europe.
Mr President, it will not surprise this President-in-Office of the Council that I entirely agree with him.
My Group was indignant about the proposal from the Assembly of the Council of Europe to admit Croatia, albeit conditionally, as a full member of the Council of Europe.
It looked as though that country was to be rewarded for its part in the peace process, and as though political arguments thus played a large part in the proposal then made.
But that would amount to toying with human rights criteria by the Council Assembly whereas the Council of Europe's most important task is to put human rights to the test.
In our view Croatia, or must we say the Croatian Government, does not at present meet the criteria.
Not long since, the President refused to accept the democratically elected mayor of Zagreb and did everything in his power to prevent the appointment.
The independent media are seriously hampered in Croatia, and as has been said, the situation of the refugees and the minorities is very unsatisfactory.
There are thus reasons enough for keeping up the pressure on the Croatian Government.
That actually applies as well to Croatia's role in the peace process.
As long as full cooperation with for example the war crimes tribunal at The Hague is not established and the crisis round Mostar is not settled, Europe must not be in a hurry with its recognition of Croatia.
My Group supports the policy of the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers to defer a decision about the admission of Croatia.
We welcome the response of the European Union.
We are also glad that the Political Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe supports this proposal.
Next month and subsequently the Croatian Government will have the opportunity, as regards the questions I mentioned, which are also the criteria formulated by the Council of Europe, to prove itself as a potential member of the Council of Europe.
The European Parliament, and this is also in the joint resolution put before us, is willing to help Croatia in the field of human rights, to free funds from the rightly frozen PHARE programme for the development of democracy.
We shall follow developments closely and we ask the Council of Europe to keep us informed of its findings in the coming months.
And more generally we shall follow closely the Council of Europe's admission policy.
Previously we debated the admission of the Russian Federation to the Council of Europe.
I also think it is disturbing that the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe came close to adopting opposite views on this matter.
That is a pity because the Council of Europe may in a sense be an antechamber for the European Union in particular where assessing human rights situations is concerned.
If this Parliament and the Assembly of the Council of Europe are going to interpret criteria differently we shall have a serious problem.
I hope the content of the European Parliament's resolution will cause our colleagues there to think again.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I should like to begin by observing that our debate today on whether or not the Council of Europe should admit Croatia as a member reflects the two sides of relations between the European Union and Croatia.
On the one hand, we know how important it is for the Croatian people, their parliament, their governments and all political, economic and social groups in that country to be admitted to the Council of Europe and, having gone through the necessary stages, eventually to attain membership of the European Union.
We in the European People's Party and the Group of the European People's Party support Croatia and its people, as well as its Parliament and Government, in this aspiration.
On the other hand, we know that the only way to their goal involves complete democratization.
Like all other states of central Europe, Croatia must establish the same democratic rights and rules of play that apply in the countries of the European Union itself.
Croatia has already made great progress towards becoming a democratic and pluralist society.
In the peace process it has taken a moderate line, and its position is now one of commitment to peaceful solutions.
The economic and social groups - employers, trade unions and the other associations - are free and active.
Croatia, in our opinion, is pursuing a prudent economic and monetary policy.
Most of the conditions are in place for reconstruction to be carried out in a climate of stability.
However, now that hostilities have largely ceased, we want the Croatian Government itself to keep all the rules of democracy.
Freedom of the press and respect for democratic decisions and election results at all levels are indispensable prerequisites.
We are opposed to discriminatory treatment of Croatia in the domain of human rights.
We should regard it as hypocritical, for instance, if the Council of Europe were to admit Russia despite the war in Chechnya but ultimately refused to admit Croatia even if the Croats fulfilled the required conditions.
But it is precisely because we favour the early admission of Croatia to our circle of European nations that we appeal to the Croatian President and his Government to do all in their power to end the intimidation and harassment of journalists forthwith and to ensure that freedom of the press and media not only exist on paper but are fully respected in practice.
For the municipal government of Zagreb too, a solution must be found which is politically sound and which respects the outcome of democratic elections.
The European Union, for its part, should do everything possible to ensure that the resources available under the PHARE programme are committed at long last to the specific aims of developing the economy and democracy.
To sum up, we believe that the ball is now in the Croatian court.
We also ask the Council of Europe to keep us informed of any changes in its position on the human rights issue and in the criteria it has laid down, for the Council of Europe's criteria often serve as the basis of our decisions.
Mr President, in recent years this Parliament has pressed the governments of the Union to intervene to re-establish peace and respect for human rights in the countries of former Yugoslavia.
In these years we have never hesitated to point the finger at the Serb Republic as primarily responsible for the tragedies that have occurred, especially in Bosnia, and our resolutions have frequently defended the right of Croatia to have the territory occupied by the Serbs restored to it. But precisely because of this, at a time when a more peaceful situation is developing in former Yugoslavia after the Dayton agreements - and this situation must develop - we cannot fail to condemn today, as forcefully as we have condemned mistakes and crimes in other countries, what is going on in Croatia itself as regards respect for human rights, respect for ethnic minorities, press freedom, press pluralism and, last but not least, the point you mentioned, Mr Fassino, about Croatia's commitment to cooperate with the Hague Tribunal and hand over those suspected of serious crimes.
None of this has happened, so we are totally in agreement with the decision by the Council of Europe and the Union governments you have announced and we are convinced that if the international community fails to establish a climate of transparency and respect for human rights while the IFOR troops are there, it will become extremely difficult for us to leave knowing that as soon as IFOR departs there is the risk of everything going up in flames again.
So it is urgent to make this stand and it is right to make it firm and clear.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, my group appreciates the efforts the Italian presidency has made to remind the Balkan states of the principles of promotion and defence of human rights and democracy, and we also take a positive view of the decision by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe to delay Croatia's membership of that important European Assembly precisely because of the clear violation of the right to free expression.
We are in favour of conditional cooperation with Croatia, which must provide further guarantees of the irreversible democratic development of its institutions.
So we view with concern any authoritarian drift by the Zagreb government, the unacceptable boycott of the city elections, the fact that it has ignored the 21 commitments made in applying for membership of the Council of Europe, and its lack of cooperation with the Hague International Tribunal. All this means the Croatian government needs to show further signs of respect for democratic principles.
Every obstacle to Croatia's membership of the Council of Europe should be removed once Zagreb has provided guarantees of the existence of real press freedom, once it has permitted the return of the Serb refugees and once it has taken steps to resolve the crisis affecting the city of Mostar.
When this Parliament approved the extension of the PHARE programme to Croatia, it was unanimously made conditional on respect for democratic principles.
So I believe the Council, and especially the Commission, should not hesitate to demand the suspension of PHARE if Zagreb continues in the direction it has taken.
On this last point I ask the President-in-Office of the Council to make the position clear to ensure that later, as we all hope, we can proceed to the agreements.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Green Group entirely agrees with the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers in their decision provisionally to defer acceptance of Croatia as a member of that Council.
There is indeed every reason for doing so.
More than a year ago it was already decided in this Parliament by a considerable majority that there were serious problems in connection with democratic execution of policy in Croatia.
First I would cite the independent media which certainly suffer under Croatian Government repression.
Then Mr Tudjman, the President, has still not appointed a mayor previously put forward by a majority of the people of Zagreb; there is poor cooperation with the International Tribunal, there are still serious problems in connection with the return of Serbs and in this respect laws have been approved in Zagreb and are also often applied, the direct effect of which is that return is made impossible.
So that is why we say: we agree about looking very carefully at developments in the future.
I can understand my honourable friend Mr Schwaiger when he asks why we are more demanding towards Croatia than towards Russia; that is entirely connected with geopolitical considerations which often get the upper hand in this House.
Mr President, at first sight it is possible to justify the fact that a country like Russia should recently have been admitted to the Council of Europe and Romania and Bulgaria even before that, whilst the membership of Croatia is deferred.
But Croatia's application needs to be assessed on its own merits.
Otherwise the credibility of the Council of Europe would be still further impaired.
It is generally known that the protection of fundamental freedoms in Croatia still leaves a good deal to be desired.
The media are under severe restraint and the independence of the judiciary is not guaranteed.
In addition President Tudjman's conduct is controversial and there is little cooperation with the International Tribunal on war crimes.
But the state of the peace process in the former Yugoslavia above all makes us cautious for the present.
Croatia's membership of the Council of Europe would favourably encourage a change of conduct, but in view of the sluggish process of implementation of the Dayton agreement we think accession would at the moment be premature.
Compliance with Croatia's application might moreover act as a precedent with regard to Bosnia and what is left of Yugoslavia.
So, although we think that Croatia must be able to join the Council of Europe, we can agree with the decision to defer it provisionally.
Mr President, my understanding was that as a general rule our Parliament was against exclusion, but there is one area where Europe favours exclusion - the exclusion of Croatia.
As far back as 1991 Europe's leaders had refused to recognize the independence of that country, which was then freeing itself from the federal and socialist yoke of Yugoslavia.
They did not allow that nation to join the international Community until January 1992, when a third of its territory was occupied by the Yugoslav federal army.
Today, Croatia has gained its freedom, but it is still not in good odour with this House or with the Council of Europe.
Indeed, the Council of Europe is refusing to allow Croatia to join the club.
The reason cited is the Croatian government's failure to respect human rights, in particular freedom of the press. As if those principles were applied in every one of the thirty-nine member states!
Is freedom of the press, or even freedom of elections, better respected in Russia than in Croatia? It's doubtful, to say the least.
Similarly, what right has the French government to give lectures on freedom of the press when, six days ago, the editor of an opposition newspaper, Mr Debeketsch, was prosecuted merely for holding certain opinions, arrested, and taken in handcuffs to a police station where he was stripped and then body-searched?
As if that were not enough, the journalist in question is seriously ill.
These appalling events happened not in Zagreb but in Paris.
So perhaps it is time for European governments to respect human rights at home instead of being so fussy about what happens elsewhere.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, first I should like to say that I support, as does my Group, the decision which has been taken to postpone Croatia's admission to the Council of Europe.
I consider myself a friend of Croatia, since I have lived there and in the former Yugoslavia during the hard years of the armed struggle, but I think that the message now being sent to Croatia will have a positive effect in overcoming the difficulties which still persist whilst the democratic political life of the country is returning to normal and also in the part which Croatia has played, is playing and will have to play with regard to the conflict in Bosnia.
Two days ago I had the opportunity to meet the Croatian Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Mate Granich, following a week-long tour of Bosnia-Herzegovina where, after seeing the situation in Mostar in fair detail and having spoken to refugees of Serbian origin who had left Croatia, I was able to discuss with the minister the various issues, which Mr Fassino also mentioned, such as the main reasons for deferring Croatia's accession to the Council of Europe.
I understand, as the President-in-Office of the Council was saying, that the freedom of the communication media and the subject of the mayoralty of Zagreb are the questions which are the most direct, clear and obvious responsibility of the Croatian Government.
But I should like to emphasize other aspects which have an enormous importance for the future of peace in the region and particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, both in relation to the electoral process in Mostar and the attitude of Croatia in general to the Republic of Bosnia.
I should also like to mention the subject of the minorities.
The problem of the treatment of minorities in Croatia is serious and must be solved urgently in relation to those who have left.
But the same problem must also be solved in relation to Eastern Slavonia which is due to come under Croatian sovereignty and where a considerable portion of the Serbian population - at present 100 % - live following the expulsion by the Serbs of all the non-Serbs in that region.
The solution to this problem lies in treating the matter of the minority groups with sincerity and honesty and not by mere statements on the part of the Croatian Government; in addition the amnesty law must actually extend to all those who have not committed war crimes.
Moreover I think that the involvement of Croatia in Herzegovina and in support for the bands of mafiosi and ultra-radical fascists operating in the region of Herzegovina will not escape anyone who knows Bosnia.
Croatia has a direct responsibility for that and only by the will of Croatia can the present situation be prevented from dragging on.
Finally I should like to say that equally firm, but different, measures will have to be applied to Serbia.
Mr President, there is increasing confusion in this Chamber and Parliament's credibility is evaporating fast.
On the one hand, the decision to approve at the first reading a draft law which forbids Croatian children to go to minority language schools is rightly deplored; on the other, a few months ago customs relations were opened with Turkey regardless of the fact that the death penalty is in force there, mutilation is permitted, it is compulsory to state one's religion on the identity card, and in their spare time the Turks bomb the Kurds.
The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe was right to defer Croatia's membership for not respecting the freedom of expression of the independent press and media. One need only think of the way the Croatian government has intimidated 'The Voice of the People' and 'Glas Istre ' .
Croatia is also pursuing serious systematic humiliation of national and minority groups and discrimination against them. Then there are the many commitments made by Tudjman and the President of the Croatian Parliament and never respected, for example, its unwillingness to cooperate in arresting war criminals.
Turkey's customs union with Europe has not been assessed with equal seriousness and objectivity!
But unfortunately these are not the only contradictions in this Parliament: human rights come second to the interests of the few and I am afraid hypocrisy triumphs.
Mr President, the decision to postpone admission of Croatia to the Council of Europe is important and correct.
It is important that the countries which are admitted to the Council of Europe respect the fundamental rules and principles which the institution is in fact there to safeguard.
Croatia at present does not do this.
Anything else would completely undermine the Council of Europe's credibility.
Croatia is guilty of ethnic cleansing in that large sections of the Serbian population in Krajina and elsewhere have been driven out through a reign of terror against civilians, through the systematic destruction of their homes and through the obstruction of their return home.
There are also extremely worrying developments in Croatia as regards press freedom.
In practice, the government is attempting to silence those critical newspapers which exist.
This applies to Novi list, which is published in Rijeka, the only independent daily newspaper left.
It applies to the satirical weekly paper, Feral Tribune, against whose staff legal proceedings have been brought for criticising the president, something which is illegal under section 77 of the Croatian criminal code.
Such provisions are totally inappropriate in a democratic state.
Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights stipulates that freedom of expression shall be guaranteed.
Croatia is unfortunately not complying with this provision, and we therefore support the decision not to admit the country to the Council of Europe at present.
Mr President, along with Mr Mendiluce Pereiro I went to Bosnia last week to study the situation for myself.
We travelled by road from Croatia into the state of Bosnia.
As we entered Bosnia we saw a huge election poster for President Tudjman of Croatia.
At first I thought this was a mistake but the deeper we went into the Bosnian state the more we saw of these huge posters.
They symbolized the extent to which President Tudjman is prepared to ignore the Dayton accords and is prepared to fulfil his own agenda in undermining the peace agreement in Bosnia.
That symbolism was reinforced for us when we went to Mostar where we were told by the authorities that one of the biggest stumbling blocks to a lasting peace and fair elections in Mostar remains the Croatian community which is clearly encouraged in its defiance of Dayton by the government in Zagreb.
Obviously the international community cannot ignore such deliberate defiance.
I support the decision taken by the Council of Europe.
We have to make it clear to all the parties in former Yugoslavia that they must adhere to the Dayton agreements and that we want to see the free movement of people which is being denied by the Croatian authorities in Bosnia.
We want to see the return of refugees and we want to see free and fair elections.
The essential prerequisite for free and fair elections is a free media.
This is manifestly not in existence on the Croatian side.
Therefore I support this decision by the Council of Europe.
I hope it will continue to drive home its message, as will the European Union, that the Dayton accords are the basis on which there will be peace and stability in the former states of Yugoslavia in the future.
Mr President, Croatia is an emergent democracy, and that is why we support the demands made by the Council.
Allow me, however, to address the President-in-Office of the Council and to put to him the urgent plea that the Council apply the same yardsticks, the same criteria.
I was the rapporteur on Romania for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The list of unfulfilled demands made by the Council of Europe was far longer than the list referred to here for Croatia.
Yet Romania was admitted, and of course is now under obligation to meet these requirements gradually.
The same terms, I submit, must be granted to Romania.
It is not my intention to speak of the admission of Russia, which was based on political considerations with blatant disregard for the findings of the judges of the European Court of Human Rights, who delivered a written ruling that the government of Russia is not based on the rule of law and that Russia cannot be admitted under the Statute of the Council of Europe.
The same criteria must be applied here, and that is why Mr Oostlander and Mr Schwaiger have both cited point 5 of the resolution.
But I should also like to refer to point 4, Mr President-in-Office, in which we explicitly and jointly demand that PHARE resources be allocated now - and not just at some later date - to promote the democratization process in Croatia.
I consider it quite vital that we provide such help in this specific sector in order to play our part in ensuring that Croatia is admitted as soon as possible under the same conditions and criteria that have applied to other countries.
There is no point in trying to be more Catholic than the Pope here.
If goodwill is shown, we should be prepared to honour the decision taken by a two-thirds majority of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, in other words by the national parliamentarians of our Member States.
Thank you for those speeches. I have taken note of the points made and the presidency will make sure the Council is informed.
I just want to emphasize two points here.
We know how complex and difficult the transition is for the countries of central and eastern Europe, and hence our attitude is not so much one of judgement but of support and assistance in a process.
We need to see a proper rule of law established, full democracy, full protection of the rights of individuals, of the community, and of minorities. We need to act in such a way that the process of democratic transition becomes ever more consolidated and rooted, so that democracy can grow with deep roots in these countries.
To do this we must be capable of sustaining and assisting the process.
I have made this point to explain that we agreed with the decision of the Council of Europe to ask Croatia to fulfil certain conditions before allowing it to join, not because of any punitive attitude towards Croatia, not because we want to discriminate against Croatia, but because we believe it is necessary to ask Zagreb and the Croatian government, just as other countries should be asked, not to delay achieving full democracy, and not to introduce factors that slow down or block a democratic process which should instead be pursued to completion with determination and speed.
So at the same time as the Council of Europe was asking that - and we share its approach - we ourselves asked Croatia to establish conditions which guarantee full respect for all civil, political and democratic rights in that country. We feel we have a duty to do everything possible to ensure that these rights can be guaranteed, assured and achieved.
I think we should take the same attitude towards every country engaged in transition.
Later we will be discussing Albania, where there is a similar problem not only of evaluating the transition, but also of deciding on a more practical and effective strategy to ensure that the transition has a positive democratic outcome.
That is why we have supported the position of the Council of Europe, that is why we are hoping that Croatia will soon be in a position to demonstrate that it is fulfilling the obligations required of it and that is why we hope that before the end of the summer there can be a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Council of Europe, which will then be in a position to make a positive decision on Croatia's membership of the Council of Europe.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
Elections in Albania
The next item is the statement by the Council on the elections in Albania.
Members are naturally aware of the progress of events so I do not need to go over what has happened in the last few weeks in Albania.
What I need to do here is to bring you up to date with the assessment made on 29 May and to take account of the developments of the last few days to decide on the most useful approach at this stage.
The presidency of the European Union has been in constant consultation with the OESC which had its own observers in Albania, with our principal European partners, with the diplomatic representatives in Tirana, with the Albanian political parties, both in government and in opposition, and we have also kept in constant touch with the government of the United States to agree a position which follows on from last week's Euro-American statement on democratic transition in Albania.
This series of contacts has allowed us to bring together a number of points which are set out in the statement issued by the Italian presidency last Friday on behalf of the European Union.
The facts are well-known: there was a high turnout in the first round of the elections, but that first round was marked - as all the on-the-spot observers have testified - by widespread and serious irregularities, both in the voting and at the count.
This situation led the opposition to take particularly serious action, with accusations of ballot-rigging even before the polls had closed in the first round and the announcement of their withdrawal from the elections, which produced a state of grave tension between the government and the opposition, culminating in demonstrations and serious incidents.
On the basis of all this evidence, the presidency of the European Union sought to respond to this state of tension by asking the Albanian government to comply with three measures: immediate cessation of any authoritarian repression which might result in a further increase in tension; cancelling the elections and rerunning them in those seats where proven and confirmed voting and counting irregularities occurred; guaranteeing that the second round would take place absolutely correctly and normally.
At the same time as it asked these three things of the Berisha government, the presidency of the European Union invited the opposition parties not to estrange themselves totally and refuse to participate in any way in Albanian political life.
Last Sunday the second round took place and was certainly characterized by a much more correct and peaceful climate than the first, but also by a dramatic fall in participation as a result of the opposition parties' appeal to the Albanian electorate to abstain.
So even if the climate was much calmer, there is no doubt that the second round was nullified by the abnormal situation.
In short, the completion of the first and second rounds of the election has not resolved the crisis situation in Albania.
The position is still open, both as regards the outcome of the election because this anomaly, this crisis, has meant it is not yet possible to allocate the seats proportionally under the Albanian electoral system, and also because the opposition parties are contesting the validity of the election and the procedure has not been exhausted. Some parties entered appeals at an early stage involving 41 constituencies and, according to the latest information received today, further appeals entered in the last few hours involve 97 constituencies.
Faced with this situation two decisions by the government need to be kept in mind: the willingness shown by President Berisha and the Albanian government to re-run elections in four constituencies is significant.
But this number seems far lower than the number of constituencies where the opposition parties are contesting the validity of the elections. More importantly, the central electoral commission seems to have autonomously decided, according to the news received today, and independently of the appeals, to carry out a general review of the counts in all the seats.
I emphasize that this is a particularly important step because if it is true and if it is carried out sufficiently quickly, it may turn out to be an essential and decisive move for the final evaluation of these elections, for understanding to what extent they can be considered valid and where the irregularities are such as to require a re-run. In any case this decision - if confirmed, I repeat, because the news only broke today - about a general review by the central electoral commission could provide a framework of knowledge and information which would allow everyone, the Albanians first and foremost, but also the international community, to make a clearer and more complete assessment.
It seems to me that these considerations lead to two conclusions, which I set out here for Members.
The first is that the electoral procedure is not finally completed so we must continue to monitor the situation and update our assessment in due course since our judgement may change and our final assessment may alter on the basis of the events of the next few hours and days, in particular the review of all the counts the central commission seems prepared to carry out.
We need to understand what is going on and what is likely to happen, so the view I have expressed today will have to be updated later.
The second conclusion is that whatever happens in the next few hours strictly in relation to the electoral procedure, it seems clear in any case that the political and institutional crisis which has developed in Albania means a stage of political dialogue must be opened up, whether these elections are considered valid to all effects, whether they need to be partially re-run or whether the future determines otherwise. In the last few days Albanian society has split from top to bottom, with a crisis between the Albanian political parties which cannot be overcome in procedural terms alone but requires political dialogue between all the political parties of Albania, both in government and in opposition, to construct a political solution to this crisis which allows all Albanians to feel represented in the process of consolidating democracy in their country.
Mr President, unlike Mr Wiersma I am quite favourably impressed by the answer from the presidency of the Council.
I think it is very fair to wait and see what developments the next few days bring.
This Council presidency has clearly pinpointed the sensitive areas and has spoken of the need for a possible partial re-run of the elections in some districts.
There are indications that the Council may also quite likely be able to give a more detailed commentary at the next plenary part-session as Mr Wiersma asked.
Of course Albania has been a problem for us all for a long time.
True, it is a small country, and it is close at hand, but as regards development it is still a country which is a long way down on the list of world powers.
Naturally that goes hand in hand with a very badly developed public administration.
Knowing how things have gone with the administration of justice, with the staffing of the judiciary, which was no longer acceptable after the revolution and which has been taken over by half-trained personnel, we realize that in that sphere too there is an enormous leeway to make up, a leeway caused in particular by a very long-standing communist dictatorship, a kind of dictatorship which guarantees under-development rather than progress, which was the illusion at the time.
We must take that into account.
When we see how the parties over there stand against one another, government parties and opposition parties of various shades, we can only be surprised about their destructive attitude towards one another.
We see that the idea of the public interest on which a different view might perhaps be taken, actually hardly exists.
The experience of an upbringing purely with class interests or else for example purely with ethnic interests, is at present tremendously divisive and leads to chaotic electoral procedures marked by that self-same stark polarization.
That of course does not mean that we must resign ourselves to it.
But I should actually be very pleased if something could be done in particular by the Commission, especially so that a study could be made of the situation in Albania and what we could do to promote the rule of law and democracy there.
I wonder whether it would not be useful for the Commission to give Parliament a policy report with regard to a country like Albania.
But in that sphere too - we have just had the experience with Croatia -it is particularly necessary for PHARE democracy funds to be used to the best advantage.
So whatever may possibly be done with regard to Albania, an extra special effort must be made in that respect because it is not only political morals which leave much to be desired with the parties and possibly with other government institutions but also training in citizenship; public morality amongst the citizens themselves requires considerable nourishment from the opportunities and the facilities of the European Union.
Help with legislation, training and extra contact are all matters in which we can take care that such pitiful things as the abortive or half-abortive elections in Albania can no longer take place.
I should be glad to hear the Commission's view and possibly those of the Council as well.
Mr President, many of us have placed great hopes in the new Italian government and in the Italian presidency, and I am sure that those hopes, which are sincerely felt, will not be dashed, and that problems that are arising in the immediate vicinity of the European Union will be approached in an honest and principled manner and with respect for democratic norms.
In the light of that, and with reference to Albania, I think we can fairly say that the elections there were conducted in an atmosphere of violence that would not be acceptable in Italy or Greece and should not be acceptable for Albania either.
We are speaking about a country that is being rent apart, about the destabilization of a country that borders on to the Balkan situation, that is next door to Kosovo, to the former republic of Yugoslavia and to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia; about a situation that is pregnant with danger.
I cannot see how the Council, the Commission and this Parliament can do other than what Mr Wiersma of the Socialist Group has proposed, namely to refuse to accept the whole election, to demand new elections right across the country - talk about just a few electoral districts is ridiculous - based on the democratic conditions that we apply in our own countries, and until then to freeze all economic and trade agreements with Albania.
I think that we owe that to the Albanian people and that it is the only proper way to proceed.
I am grateful to Mr Fassino for his speech, but in the view of all the observers present - before, during and after the elections, and while the votes were being counted - the most elementary rights of the opposition were flouted. The political parties did not have equality of opportunity in the election campaign, the rights of voters were violated and all sorts of ballot-rigging occurred.
Examples of all this have already been given in the debate we had in Strasbourg.
On that occasion we showed - for example in my speech in Strasbourg - that there was no equality of access to the media during the election campaign, and that certain parties and political figures were excluded.
In addition, during the elections the electoral commission was made up entirely of spokespersons from the governing party and opposition parties were kept away from the polling stations and the count.
In many seats a turnout of 100 % was recorded, despite the fact that some electors were prevented from voting.
At the same time certain voters, known to be members of the governing party, received multiple ballot papers.
Opening hours for polling stations were extended during voting and then changed by the various chairmen.
During the count valid ballot papers were declared void.
And I could continue in this vein at length.
What I want to say is that there is no question of resolving the matter with just four constituencies. The whole election should be re-run, yet we do not even know who will control the electoral commission, if it carries out a review in all the constituencies.
That is why I am asking for pressure to be put on Albania to re-run the elections and the Greens will table a motion along those lines at Strasbourg.
Mr President, I think it is important to speak and thank Under-Secretary Fassino for what he has said, because at a time when Albania, which is effectively part of Europe, should be receiving our particular attention, we need to look at the negative and the positive aspects before we make choices and judgements. So it is important for the political dialogue to be geared precisely to understanding what is going on.
I agree with what Mr Oostlander said because in my opinion, in our opinion, it is essential to understand exactly what is going on before making decisions, because it seems to us that some observers mentioned negative factors, others positive.
So we need to begin a careful evaluation, be present on the ground and see if there is some way we can intervene.
So that is what we think is important, before making any choice, ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I have listened to honourable Members but, if I may say so, I have the impression that honourable Members did not listen to me!
I have the impression that people said what they thought about the election in Albania - fair enough - but disregarded what I had said.
So I would like to take a few minutes to confirm the position I have maintained on behalf of the presidency of the European Union.
Whether or not there was ballot-rigging is not in question.
It says in my report - and I said so in my speech - that the elections were marked by widespread and general ballot-rigging, and voting and counting irregularities.
I did not say we had to accept the Berisha proposal to re-run the elections in four constituencies, in fact I said that considering the 41 appeals entered up to two days ago, and the 97 appeals entered today, the Berisha proposal to re-run elections in four constituencies was totally unsatisfactory and unacceptable.
Our problem is not to decide whether the elections were properly conducted or not, because I do not think they were properly conducted.
The problem is to find the most effective and appropriate strategy now to end this crisis.
I do not want us to be judges as well as politicians. It is not up to us to pass sentence, it is up to us to find a solution to a very serious crisis.
I think it would be legitimate to say that the best thing to do is re-run the whole election, but the question is how do we get a decision to re-run the election?
That is the real question!
It is not enough for us to say that the election must be re-run. If we say the election must be re-run and one of the parties involved refuses, we are immediately left without a strategy.
And the crisis gets more and more acute and serious!
When I spoke of political dialogue I was not using that formula to suggest a generic methodological formula valid for all occasions and all political situations.
No!
I have in mind a specific formula, the need to identify a setting, a table, for political dialogue involving the participation of all the parties, in government and in opposition, attended by some international figures, if appropriate and if the parties think they should accept that, to find a way out of this crisis together.
And personally I think one of the things to be discussed in this setting is precisely whether it is possible to agree a re-run of the election.
But the political problem is not just to form judgements or set up objectives, it is primarily to establish the route to certain objectives.
The problem in Albania today is precisely that the elections were certainly not properly conducted. The irregularities in the elections have opened up a dramatic rift and it is hard to see how this rift can be closed in the current situation.
I do not think it is our role to minimize criticism of this election but, at the same time, we must implement effective and necessary strategies to help overcome this crisis.
So I think it is important to see what happens in the next few days.
I agree with Mr Wiersma's proposal that we should assess the situation again during the Strasbourg session.
I think that by then we will have the information we need to make a final evaluation and take a clearer, more precise and more definite position than we can at the moment.
Mr President, since Mr Oostlander has addressed himself to the Commission I should like to mention one or two points in answer.
First of all, in the past few years, and I am speaking of the period from 1991 to 1995, Albania has as a whole received very considerable aid amounting to more than ECU 400 million, and per capita that is very considerable assistance.
Secondly, there is also a Community project with the Council of Europe to try to launch a real reform of the judicial system from a democratic point of view.
So that seems to me to be worth while. Those are two pieces of information which I wanted to give, but I should like to end with a general political reflection.
There must naturally be no doubt at all that the further development of relations between Albania and the European Union depends essentially and crucially upon the quality of the democratic process.
It must be made clear to Albania that naturally the European Union cannot go further with that project unless that distorted situation which now undoubtedly exists is set democratically to rights in one way or another.
Obviously there must be a pragmatic approach, but there must be no doubt that the democratic process must be substantially correct so that the European Union may continue with its efforts.
The debate is closed.
Common transport policy - action programme 1995-2000
The next item is the report (A4-0075/96) by Mr Parodi, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions (COM(95)0302 - C4-0351/95) on the common transport policy action programme 1995-2000.
Madam President the objectives of this action programme must be to offer basic mobility to all citizens without damaging nature and the environment.
From this definition it is clear that our current transport policies are unsustainable and need a radical shift in direction.
Yet this communication adopts a business-asusual approach, regardless of the dangers of current trends.
The Environment Committee is particularly concerned about the impact of road transport on the environment.
At present, cars and lorries are responsible for about a quarter of the European Union's CO2 emissions.
With the projected increase in transport on the roads, this large figure is likely to double by the year 2010, making a mockery of our EU commitment to stabilize CO2 levels and revealing our failure to meet the real targets.
Clearly what is needed are EU-wide targets for the reduction of CO2 emissions in the transport sector.
To be fair, the Commission does talk about the necessary shift of traffic from the roads.
But integrating the environment into transport policy must be more consistent and more focused.
Principles already in place, like the polluter-pays and precautionary principles must be part of all transport legislation.
One way to ensure such integration could be to annex an environmental impact sheet to all new transport proposals outlining what environmental problems are at stake and what actions can be taken to solve them.
All the Commission has for the period 1997-2000 in this action programme are three proposals on air transport and one on maritime transport.
This neglects the fact that the impact of road transport on the environment is one of the most serious problems being faced by the European Union and it will get worse if nothing is done.
However, the planned environment proposals are very welcome, as are the recently published Green Papers on the citizens' network and the internalization of external costs.
The latter proposal, in particular, should make it possible for less polluting forms of transport to compete on a more equal footing with polluting ones.
Radical and far-sighted policies are urgently needed in this sector and unfortunately there are not too many signs of those in this communication.
My committee therefore gives it qualified support.
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, may I express our gratification that the proposals made by the Committee on Budgets are reflected in the present resolution.
The main observations we made were that the financial programming envisaged by the Commission is purely indicative and that at the time of its adoption the Financial Perspective contained no provision for the funding of trans-European networks or of structural improvement measures in inland waterway transport.
We therefore call on the Commission to submit a proposal amending this Financial Perspective, and we welcome the fact that the Council shares Parliament's view that a revision of the Financial Perspective is necessary to ensure the financing of the networks.
We welcome Parliament's endorsement of the 14 priorities, because the trans-European networks naturally have two key functions.
First of all, the Commission believes - and we agree - that they are an important aspect of employment policy.
Secondly, they should help to reinforce Europe's appeal as a business location.
So it is important that we concentrate on these and do not dissipate our energies.
As an Austrian I welcome the fact that these 14 projects include the Alpine crossing, namely the Brenner Tunnel and its feeder lines, because we shall be confronted in 2004, as a result of the Swiss people's petition, with a virtual ban on road haulage traffic through Switzerland, which has already been severely curtailed by the introduction of a 28-tonne weight limit.
I should also like to mention the need to win over the Council for a replenishment of the networks budget within the limits of the own-resources ceiling which will enter into force after ratification by the Netherlands, so that we can proceed quickly to the actual implementation of these important projects.
The second thing I welcome as an Austrian is the plan to extend the envisaged high-speed Paris-Munich rail link to Vienna.
I am delighted at that, not only for my native city of Vienna but also because I believe that it is important to the Union as a whole that we should prepare the way for links with the East, with those associated states that will accede to full membership in due course; it is, of course, vital to them that the infrastructure is already being planned with their accession in mind.
Parliament should therefore be absolutely rigorous - and I hope that the Commission will support us here - in ensuring that the required funds are made available so that the trans-European networks really can play their part in guaranteeing jobs and in securing Europe's long-term future as a business location.
Madam President, I should like to say, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that the action programme presented by the Commission constitutes, in our view, an essential framework-programme which is important for achieving the objectives and priorities of the white paper on the future development of the common transport policy.
We think, however, that it will be desirable to make a more specific approach with the inclusion of a comprehensive statistical background which in our opinion is inadequate.
As regards the financing of the trans-European transport networks, its importance is universally recognized by us all.
The networks are an essential feature of the realization of the internal market.
Their impact on employment and the social problems with which we contend every day are taking on a decisive importance.
From this point of view we feel that the instruments and financial resources necessary for giving specific expression to these objectives must be substantially increased or we risk falling irrecoverably short of the objectives we are proposing to achieve.
We would pinpoint in particular an increase in the resources for infrastructures and we think also that special attention should be given to encouraging partnerships in the public and private sectors so that we may overcome the difficulties known to us all.
In the field of safety let us not forget to say that special efforts must be made to achieve a high safety standard which must be valid throughout the European Union and hence we think also that an observatory to keep track of these problems might be a particularly important instrument.
As regards the internalization of external costs, that is, in our opinion a matter of high priority.
The ideas outlined in the green paper on this subject show clearly what possibilities there are and they must be followed by concrete measures at the appropriate levels as soon as possible.
Madam President, I will concentrate on social aspects of this report.
Like the previous speakers, our committee is very concerned about the very cautious nature of the report, which was not wide-ranging enough taking into consideration that the common transport policy is very important for the Union.
We are particularly concerned about working time and how it affects the transport sector.
We were promised earlier last year by Commissioner Flynn that he would bring forward proposals to cover the excluded sector dealing with pilots' hours and those other aspects of transport where the workers were not covered by the original working time directive.
That was a long time ago, in fact it was 18 months ago Mr Flynn first promised us this.
He promised us it about January 1995 and we are now in June 1996.
Our committee now feel that it is time that the Commission galvanizes us into action in this area.
We are also concerned about the TENs which other people have mentioned.
We are worried about the fact that the Edinburgh facility, the economic investment fund that was established in Edinburgh, has remained a dead letter.
This has impeded transport development, particularly infrastructure development schemes such as the west coast line in the United Kingdom and the electrified line into Glasgow airport.
Many of the other good ferry services we could have linking cross- Channel states of the Community have remained another dead letter because there has been no funding.
It is important that the Commission put some pressure on the Council to ensure there is adequate funding in this area of infrastructure.
Transport is very important for the European Union, to make sure that there is genuine freedom of movement and people and goods can go freely about the Union.
The best way to do that is by good transport links.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this White Paper is the logical sequel to the report by our former Italian colleague Mr Porrazzini on the future development of the common transport policy as a framework for sustainable mobility.
We welcome the fact that this effectively represents a return to an old demand made by the European Parliament for a multiannual legislative framework with a timetable and priorities, and I believe that an equally favourable judgement can be passed on the treatment of the transport sector as an integrated unit, in other words on the fact that the various modes of transport are viewed in a consolidated manner, from a global perspective.
But we also have considerable deficits.
I shall try to focus again on something my honourable friend Mr McMahon mentioned in passing in the opinion he drafted for the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
We expect the relationship between harmonization and liberalization, which is still out of balance, to be kept under constant review.
I intend to emphasize very clearly at every opportunity that our pleas to this effect should be addressed primarily to the Council rather than the Commission.
We do, however, ask the Commission for its continued support in this matter.
Our social standards are still not safeguarded; indeed, social standards are slipping, are constantly being forced downward.
We need consultations; we need the development of consultative mechanisms so that management and labour can come up with effective legislative solutions.
That demand, as Commissioner Van Miert will recall, was very clearly articulated at the conference on Crete in 1994, where we not only related it to the interior of the European Union but also to our dealings with the states of central and eastern Europe, which had newly achieved their independence and were in the process of developing their own structures.
Only yesterday the relations of the European Union with the states of central and eastern Europe were under discussion when we in the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the steering committee accompanying the pan-European transport conferences welcomed a group from 17 different countries to Brussels, among whom were the parliamentary representatives of the transport committees that have been established and appointed in those countries.
The results of these discussions will naturally be fed into the preparatory phase, as well as into the agenda itself, of the third Pan-European Transport Conference, due to take place in Helsinki in 1997.
I may say that my honourable colleague Mr Parodi has, of course, already taken part in this preparation in his capacity as rapporteur and that the main components of this highly complex report - which could not be otherwise, given the White Paper that has been presented, for it had to address an extremely wide diversity of subjects - will be incorporated into the agenda for this third Transport Conference in Helsinki.
It is a good basis.
Safety problems and the quest for environmentally acceptable solutions are actually a matter for all transport operators.
I touched briefly on external relations, and I should like to add something to that.
I consider it very important that the Commission should be given mandates to represent the European Union in negotiations with third countries on transport matters and that this should be done more quickly than has hitherto been the case.
In particular, of course, I am thinking of air transport negotiations with the United States, for which I was appointed rapporteur.
That must be further expanded, for it is our only means of really guaranteeing that individual Member States of the European Union will no longer be played off against each other with adverse results, as has happened in the past.
Wherever possible, then, we want to move away very rapidly from these bilateral structures and to see the Commission sit down much sooner at the negotiating table to look after the interests of the entire European Union.
Our honourable colleague Mr König referred to the trans-European networks.
Mr König, we have made far less progress in this area than you seemed to suggest.
Another meeting of the Conciliation Committee is currently taking place between delegations from Parliament and the Council.
The Council has scarcely budged, and at the moment the whole scheme is tending to look like a dead letter.
I should very much regret that, but the Council has to realize that there are powers of codecision involved here; it has evidently not understood that yet.
But over and above the 14 projects, which we in Parliament certainly support, we wish to have an additional list of priority projects.
Going beyond the work of the Conciliation Committee, we naturally also want to develop a financial basis at long last.
On that we are agreed.
One of the problems at the moment is the siege mentality adopted by the Council.
The further development of a transport policy for the whole of Europe is being curbed rather than encouraged by the Council.
Without Parliament and the Commission the situation would indeed be bleak!
I believe we can only support and endorse what the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, said this afternoon about the need for us to develop a more solid financial basis.
We require investments totalling hundreds of billions, but only a ludicrous few hundred million ecus are earmarked in our European budget.
So we must continue to assume that these tasks will primarily be undertaken by the Member States.
Mr Parodi's report marks an important step in the series of reports on this subject and in the ongoing development of a pan-European transport policy.
Madam President, the European People's Party welcomes the action programme from the Commission and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Commission for its initiative and to congratulate our own rapporteur, Mr Parodi, on his report.
I would like this evening to highlight one or two issues, in particular, the need to use the action programme to complete the single market and to base the action programme on safety and competition, and enhanced consumer choice.
In relation to sea transport, I would like to draw my colleagues' attention to the request that we take positive measures to promote the European fleet, including the setting up of the Euros register.
I would also urge that the action programme take in those measures to enhance ferry safety, allowing landbased infrastructures for satellite systems enabling a rapid response when vessels run into difficulty.
This would enable vessels to enter a harbour to find a safe haven and would strengthen port-state and flag-state control and the designation, where appropriate, of sensitive areas.
In the field of railways, we would like to see a better development of the European railways.
We call specifically for the railway market to be opened up to new, private railway companies, thereby enhancing consumer choice.
Turning to safety and the fitting of seat belts, we would emphasize especially the importance of fitting threepoint seat belts on coaches and buses, as well as roll-over bars on coaches and mini-buses.
In the field of air transport, it is particularly important to have a unified system of air traffic control.
We should bring to an end state aids to airlines and particularly call on Commissioner Van Miert to insist on the one-time, last-time principle being applied to state aids in the airline industry.
In paragraph 56, we believe that the rapporteur meant to push for an external relations policy for air transport and I hope that he can support our amendment along those lines.
As other speakers have mentioned, we support the TENs enabling a greater use of public and private partnerships and an imaginative approach to financing such schemes.
On a personal note, could I conclude by saying the Commission's proposals reflect in my view what is already happening in the United Kingdom in the provision of transport services by road, rail, air and sea, as well as combined transport.
I hope the House will join me in agreeing that Britain is leading the way in Europe, not least in ensuring a level playing field with the removal of state aids but also the fitting of seat belts in coaches and mini-buses and safety at sea.
We in the European People's Party commend the report to the House, we congratulate the rapporteur and thank the Commission for this initiative.
Madam President, I would like to compliment Mr Parodi, not just out of politeness but sincerely and enthusiastically, because I think he has provided those of us who want to go to the very end of the road to integration and rationalization of transport with a sure, definite and consistent map. It is consistent with the past, as Mr Lüttge has reminded us, but I think it also projects the new paths for the future.
From the many stimuli it offers, I choose one, the one the rapporteur placed, perhaps not deliberately, at the end of his own presentation: finance.
Carrying out projects is fine and exciting, but how can that be done without the necessary funds? There are already grounds for satisfaction about the approach to the project in the preamble, but there is also concern because it stands on feet of clay.
This concern arises from two figures: the funding requirement for the trans-European networks in the period 1994-99, as set out in the Delors White Paper, is ECU 200 billion, but the resources earmarked for these networks for the same period amount to ECU 1, 698 million.
In other words only 0.85 % of the funds described as indispensable is being provided.
The European citizen can hardly fail to be a little confused when presented with promises impossible to keep.
That is why the Commission, Parliament and the Council must make it clear how the money will be found and how the famous partnership, claimed as the definitive answer, is going to be constructed.
Point 87 of the motion for a resolution proposes an innovation, not exactly original but very interesting, involving the creation of new stimuli and especially obligations on the European Union, to provide incentives for participation by the private sector.
But here caution is necessary: in fact, after supporting the creation of Eurobonds in point 1 of its conclusions, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment also calls for a certain responsibility. This is further underlined by the greater realism of the Committee on Budgets, which points out in its general comments that the priority list should distinguish between those projects which offer a real return and those which constitute obligations for the European Union.
I remember Commissioner Kinnock telling us one day to convince our citizens that participating in the creation of these networks is a bargain.
Well, I think we need to look at this invitation again with great realism and great honesty, and first set ourselves definite, clear and transparent guidelines.
Madam President, I am a little disappointed in both the Commission action programme and the report.
There are a few things left out of the Commission's action programme.
I think the association with environment policy is incomplete and in addition where security for example is concerned I think the response to the security problems on road transport and also on air transport does not go far enough.
Where the environment is concerned I cannot find even a reference to the aims of CO2 reduction as the European institutions themselves have previously laid them down.
How can you maintain now that you are trying to create a sustainable mobility if in an action programme like this you do not even refer to aims of that kind and indicate how they must be achieved.
Mr Parodi's report touches upon it but unfortunately the report has become so convoluted, such a long string of demands and wishes that we can no longer pick out the priorities.
That is a very great pity because then it cannot be seen just where Parliament's main criticisms of this action programme lie.
So it will not surprise you that we as a Group have tabled a number of amendments to see whether we cannot point it here and there more in the direction of a better environment policy and that means for example that we think that with air transport, as has moreover been said by the Council of Environment Ministers and as was mentioned by the Commission in its report on excise duties that air transport must now finally be subject to indirect taxes, VAT and excise duties.
Madam President, the Commission's action programme is so general and comprehensive that there is little in it with which I can disagree.
That is the strength, but also the weakness, of this document.
Too many general statements with very little commitment and too few specific priorities.
Admittedly the problems of transport are complex and very diverse.
In all fields of policy numerous legitimate aspirations need to be expressed, but that must not prevent priority choices being made or some parameters being drawn.
The Parodi report rightly mentions this.
So after the pan-European transport conference in Helsinki next year the Commission will have to draw up a new action programme and lay down clearer priorities.
In that connection I should like to point out three areas for attention.
In the first place the enlargement of the Union which will result. we expect, in a great increase in traffic.
The Union must address itself to that as a priority in collaboration with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Secondly, with a view to the enlargement and because of the increasing traffic within the Union itself, the proportion of transport by rail and water must be considerably increased.
Inland navigation, coast-wise trade and rail will have to acquire a much stronger market position.
Measures for discouraging goods and passenger transport by road including the charging of external costs are insufficient where there is no good alternative.
Opening up the railway market and continuing construction of the trans-European networks are therefore necessary.
Thirdly, in view of the strong growth of air transport the Union will have to do its best to arrange taxation of aircraft fuel on a world scale.
Finally Mr Parodi is to be congratulated on the extensive piece of work he has put before us.
I am afraid, however, that there is a risk that sight will again be lost of the priorities since the report is so extensive and so complete.
Madam President, in its communication on the Common Transport Policy Action Programme for 1995-2000 the Commission has certainly heralded a step towards a comprehensive transport policy strategy.
The concentration on four lines of action is indicative of the desire to take an integrated approach to transport legislation.
What makes this all the more gratifying is that Members who serve on the competent parliamentary committee sometimes feel they are dealing with a motley assortment of unconnected legislative bills.
Transport, and this can never be repeated too often, cannot be compartmentalized into separate modes.
It must always be seen in its entirety and subordinated to overriding strategic aims, such as the reduction of environmental pollution.
These remarks assume particular significance if we look at the social dimension and the question of working hours.
Each of us knows that compliance with legally prescribed driving and rest periods is patchy.
This not only harms and endangers the drivers in question but also involves constant subsidization of an environmentally detrimental form of transport.
The legal remedies available to us at European level appear modest when compared with the powers available under classic competition law and with those vested in DirectorateGeneral VI.
The communication from the Commission envisages the line of action entitled 'taking account of the social dimension' as amounting only to continued consultation of management and labour.
However, to rebuke the Commissioner for such inadequacies is to miss the point, for the real problem is that the Member States are continuing to hide behind the mask of subsidiarity.
But the consequences of this policy - or, to be more precise, this lack of policy - affect the whole internal market and distort competition between modes of transport.
And so in conclusion I wish to voice my doubts as to whether the Commission can ever achieve the aim it has formulated in the White Paper by environmentally compatible means.
Madam President, in many respects the report which we are currently debating is a positive document which takes the offensive.
It is necessary if we are to solve Europe's traffic problems in the future, not least in view of the extensive enlargement process which lies ahead.
We also therefore have reason to be thankful to the rapporteur, Mr Parodi, for the work he has done.
One major challenge still faces us, however, and that is to find an appropriate way of combining increased traffic with a better environment.
The UN has declared today World Environment Day.
This debate and the decision we are about to take should reflect this fact.
The environment is the biggest issue facing mankind as we approach the next millennium.
Nothing can be more important for us than to solve the environment's various problems.
In the same way as peace was the great vision when the EU was first established, and still is of course, the challenge of solving Europe's environmental problems should, as the 21st century draws near, be the vision which inspires all of us who are involved in some way in the European political arena.
Road transport is indisputably to blame for many of the different problems affecting the environment.
I believe that it is possible to say this and at the same time still understand two things, first that the number of cars will in fact continue to grow in EU countries because this is quite simply seen by the greatest majority of people as the best way of getting about, and second that we will not solve the environment's problem with cars by simply imposing punitive taxes on car drivers the whole time.
In several countries the only effect this is having is to ensure that nobody can afford to buy new, more environmentally friendly cars.
As a result the cars in circulation are simply getting older and older as time goes by - and from the environmental point of view, worse and worse.
This is nevertheless the policy we are pursuing in a great many countries today.
Instead, it is now time for the EU to formulate the long-term view that the negative environmental effects of carownership should be eliminated as one element in the process of solving Europe's environmental problems.
This assumes that we have the courage to establish the objective and formulate the requirement that in the future cars will be powered by something other than today's internal combustion engine.
It will presumably be battery power or some form of hybrid engine which will have to be made available commercially instead.
This in turn presupposes purposeful research to enable the various problems to be solved.
What we really need today is to direct all action towards a time when the problems will have been solved.
If we allow the European motor industry to gear itself to this and also make available the necessary resources for research, I am convinced that this will work.
It would, Madam President, be one of the best investments we could make for the next generation.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, within the common transport policy the environmental aspect, as it relates to nature and the affected populations, should be accorded the same priority as the aim of improving the competitiveness of the entire European economy.
It seems to me that the development of areas with weak infrastructures is being overemphasized at the expense of the effort to solve the acute environmental problems in heavily congested areas, problems which stem mainly from transit traffic, especially in the Alps.
For this reason too, as the Committee on Budgets suggested, the 14 top-priority projects for trans-European transport networks should be placed in order of urgency and common financing secured for them where more than one Member State is involved and the projects are in the general European interest.
It should also be mentioned in this context that it is absolutely essential to secure pan-European funding as soon as possible for the Brenner tunnel and its feeder lines.
The three participating countries - Austria, Germany and Italy - cannot raise this money alone.
The stoicism of the people living in this part of the Alps has limits that must not go on being transgressed indefinitely.
And this is precisely where I agree with the rapporteur when he says that not only the national benefit of transEuropean infrastructural projects for the individual Member States should be taken into account but also the net benefit to the Union as a whole.
The realization of the Brenner tunnel project in particular will not only mean economic and ecological progress for the directly affected regions but will be of enormous benefit to the entire Union.
Madam President, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on a fine report.
The trans-European networks are certainly extremely important to the future of the European Union, especially to peripheral areas of that Union, and I want to deal with that in more detail in my speech here this evening.
Good infrastructure within the European Union is important and air and sea links are imperative.
In Northern Ireland we totally depend on the links from our ports to the mainland of the United Kingdom.
All our imports and our exports depend on an efficient roll-on, roll-off infrastructure.
Sea transport is our road and bridge to mainland United Kingdom and further to mainland continental Europe.
We must not be disenfranchised by unfair support to other parts of the European Union and to other Member States through Cohesion Fund support, as is happening at the moment.
I welcome the inclusion of seat-belts because this is a very necessary safety measure for buses and coaches within the European Union.
When we speak of harmonisation of fuel and vehicle taxes, I have some concern.
I believe we must have a level playing field but we must harmonise at a realistic level.
Flags of convenience in our shipping industry have haunted us for years and we have never achieved a solution.
This is a very serious problem and it will not disappear. We have not been prepared to date to face up to the consequences of increased safety on our sea routes.
Finally, I welcome the fact that Mr Van Miert is the Commissioner here this evening.
Many years ago, when he had the responsibility for transport, I led a deputation of Westminster MPs to see him.
When we arrived at his office it was found that Northern Ireland did not even exist.
There were no links from Northern Ireland to mainland United Kingdom and Europe.
I would like to play tribute to him tonight because after our visit to him, he ensured that we had links from Belfast and Larne and the other ports.
I am very grateful to him for that and I have no doubt the Commission will continue to pay heed to the necessity and the importance for Northern Ireland of these links.
Madam President, this is indeed an opportunity for me to return for a short time to my old love, because, as has rightly been said, in my first term of office as a member of the Commission I did in fact have to concern myself with transport policy and I remember that that was a period when we were able to make certain progress.
But let me start by sincerely congratulating Mr Parodi and the Committee on Transport and other committees which have collaborated in this report on the Commission's action programme.
It has become a very extensive document which demonstrates the thoroughness with which not only the rapporteur but also other members both in the Committee on Transport and other committees of Parliament have studied the Commission's programme.
The report, then, contains a wealth of useful suggestions and constructive criticisms which the Commission will naturally take into account in its deliberations.
I must of course point out that not all objectives can be realized in the short term and that the development of the Community transport policy is a long-term operation.
Moreover we know from experience that at one time Parliament itself had to go to the Court of Justice to get things moving.
Since then we have certainly been able to achieve something, but the momentum which we had seven or eight years ago seems today unfortunately to have been rather lost.
Inevitably it is impossible within the compass of this short debate here to go into each separate suggestion, observation or criticism in Mr Parodi's report.
The action programme was set up in accordance with an endeavour by both Parliament and the Council to set up a multiannual legislative framework programme for transport.
That endeavour was in turn a result of the discussions on the 1992 Commission white paper on the future development of the Community transport policy.
As you know, that was the period for which I still had some responsibility.
You will still remember that a very interesting report on the subject was drawn up by Mr Porrazzini.
We have thus come back to this endeavour and our starting point was to give a concise summary of the programmes we planned for the period up to 2000, and when I say we, it was in the first place my colleague Mr Kinnock who took the responsibility for that and who is sorry he cannot be here this evening, but you will perhaps excuse him if I take his place.
In setting up the action programme the Commission's intention is simply to present a number of possible actions.
It is a misunderstanding to think of it as a global strategic approach; it is only a list of the initiatives which may be adopted or which the Commission thinks may be presented in the years ahead.
The parameters for the policy and strategy were in fact already laid down in the white paper.
It is true that the main areas of our activity are sketched out in greater detail in the action programme for the sake of clarity.
The long list of requirements in Parliament's report must not let us lose sight of the fact that Parliament and the Commission have increasingly agreed on transport policy and the actions to be undertaken.
I have noticed that too in most meetings; actually we are not so far apart.
It is more a matter of appreciation, of emphasis.
It seems to us impossible to discuss further in the framework of this debate all questions noted in the report.
I should like to refer to various points made, but unfortunately we do not have the time.
So I shall be very brief, but there are individual points which must be mentioned.
Thus the motion for a resolution asks for the drafting of a whole series of documents, an amended action programme by the autumn of 1997, every two years, starting in summer 1998, a comprehensive planning and implementation document, another white paper in 2000, a report about the suitability of the Maastricht Treaty as the basis of a new Community transport policy - all this on top of our annual programme of legislation.
That is naturally a serious message from Parliament but I should like to ask you and urge you to preserve some sense of reality, we cannot go on piling up reports and programmes.
We must also try to be practical and to move ahead.
The report also repeats the idea, long held within Parliament, that our general policy and our specific proposals must be based on a better statistical foundation.
Naturally we agree, but you know how hard it is to get reliable material from the various Member States.
In some sectors the position is better.
I am thinking amongst other things of sea and air transport, and as that material becomes available it will naturally be used by the Commission.
Then I should like to make an observation or a reflection with regard to various critical asides on the social and employment aspects of transport policy.
Naturally we must be concerned about that, but there are present in this Assembly people who know very well that the Commission has tried over and over again, in the past too, to put forward concomitant measures, harmonization measures, specific social measures with regard to the liberalization policy which needs to be followed.
But unfortunately we have had to recognize that on that plane too the willingness of the Council of Ministers and a number of governments was minimal.
May I remind you that years ago the Commission took the initiative of trying to harmonize flying time and rest time for pilots, but we came back empty-handed.
I could give you other examples, so I must say that it is not for lack of trying on the part of the Commission or lack of initiatives, but normally because the Council has not had the political will to make concrete progress.
Then I should like to touch on what Mr Lüttge said and I should like to sing his praises to some extent because he is one of the foremost originators of pan-European thinking at this time.
I remember our first conference in Prague when not only we from the European Union but also the countries of Central and Eastern Europe met together and we discussed for the first time what was necessary for trying to build bridges over all the obstacles from the past.
But unfortunately that too is a long time ago.
We should have been able to do a great deal more if only we had had the necessary budgetary resources put at our disposal to support specific projects.
But we must keep hammering away at it.
Naturally the position is the same with the trans-European networks.
Here I assume that no-one in this Parliament can reproach the Commission with not making the necessary efforts.
Here too moreover I should like to sing Parliament's praises.
I remember, and this is what I should like to say to Mr König amongst other things, because he was not yet in Parliament, but the first financial resources we received for doing something with infrastructural works came from Parliament against the Council's wishes.
That was how we received our first funds.
Parliament together with the Commission have always had to fight the Council to get the money needed.
With the prospect of the summit meeting of the European Council at Florence you know how hard the Commission and its President in particular will be hammering that point home again.
I can only express the hope that mad cow disease will not put a spoke in the wheel again to delay the matter for us once again.
I should like to conclude with that, ladies and gentlemen.
Certainly there would be other things to say, but I think I can leave it at that.
I should like to thank all those who have spoken for their contribution, and once more, on behalf of Neil Kinnock, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Driving licences
The next item is the recommendation for the second reading (A4-0123/96) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0150/96-95/0109(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive amending Directive 91/439/EEC on driving licences (rapporteur: Mr Farassino).
Mr President, this directive can be summarized in a few words.
At first reading, the European Parliament approved the Commission proposal of 16 January 1995 on the alternative plastic credit card model driving licence, making eight amendments.
They were important amendments, and I shall mention only the most important three. The first saw the need to devise a future penalty points system; another important amendment related to the option, at the discretion of the Member States, to include on the licence medical information vital to the health of the holder or willingness to donate organs; thirdly there was the obligation on Member States to refrain from levying any annual tax on the licence; the only charge should be the actual cost of issue.
In the light of the European Parliament's opinion, the Commission altered its initial proposal, taking over the amendments on the inclusion of colours and markings on page one, and the option to show life-saving medical data or the holder's willingness to donate organs.
The Transport Council of 7 December 1995 agreed on the common position, which was finalized on 26 February 1996. Its main points are as follows: no steps are to be taken at European level to incorporate microchips into the licence for the moment, but an expert working party is to study the repercussions of their introduction and all the security and confidentiality aspects; removal of the planned ten-year validity limit on the credit card driving licence - and this is absurd in my view, because a driving licence cannot be issued at 18 and remain valid till death with the same photograph.
Other specific optional headings have been introduced for the holder's identification number if any and if different from the driving licence number, and for further information which a host Member State might wish to add at a later stage to a licence issued by another Member State.
Lastly, a new heading has been inserted, number 14 on page 2, to enable an issuing Member State to enter administrative information concerning a licence, for instance, the date the holder passed the driving test, or road safety.
At the request of the holder, this new heading could also contain information not connected with the licence, like blood group, willingness to donate organs, holder's nationality, etcetera.
The scheduled date of entry into force of the directive remains 1 July 1996.
In substance, the Council has accepted three of the European Parliament's eight first reading amendments.
The rapporteur is therefore proposing not only to retable some of the amendments from the first reading, but also to alter some passages where the Council has changed the initial proposal.
First, Amendment No 1 reinstates amongst the aims and advantages of the new credit card model driving licence the references to flexibility of use, increased security and reduced risk of forgery.
Amendment No 2 makes it compulsory again to mention the Member State issuing the licence, which the Council felt should be optional.
Amendment No 3 merely slims down the Council's proposal by removing the first part.
At this point I would also ask the session officers to note of the fact that a mistake must have been made in copying the amendment, which should read: ' The words 'Driving Licence' in all the Community languages shall be printed in pink to form the background of the licence' .
Finally, Amendment No 4 reinstates the prohibition against Member States adding taxes to the licence fee. The fact is, people already pay for the licence, pay road tax, pay a pile of other taxes, and in my view they should not have to pay another annual tax as well.
Mr President, the proposal to introduce a European driving licence in the form of a plastic card of credit-card dimensions is basically a sensible and practical idea for all concerned.
The licence card is actually intended to facilitate the free movement of European citizens and to promote the mutual recognition of driving licences.
But after examining the Council's common position, I cannot help thinking that the Council wants to take systematic action to prevent any progress towards a stronger common identity within the European Union.
Almost every article contains one of the words optional and non-compulsory .
These words, though quite innocuous in themselves, nevertheless mean that it is being left to the discretion of each Member State to do what it wants when it wants.
A directive, however, is meant to establish the framework for a national law, and such a framework should not be turned into an elasticated stretch cover by means of the words optional and non-compulsory .
The common position is indeed a prime example of the Council's inability to arrive at proper joint decisions.
Only when it comes to disregarding the proposals of Parliament does the Council seem able to draw on vast reserves of solidarity.
The Commission's proposal for the optional - and I emphasize optional - incorporation of a microchip into the card was also rejected and has been replaced by a new space on the card.
The basis of the proposal for the credit-card model, however, was the potential controlled use of future information technology.
Through its decision the Council has now brought more bureaucracy and expenditure upon itself, because once the conditions for the introduction of the microchips have been negotiated, the new driving licences will have to be exchanged again.
Strangely enough, the Council, and above all the German Minister of Transport, had rejected ten-year validity in favour of unrestricted validity with a view to saving time and money.
I wonder how mutual recognition is meant to work in Europe on this basis.
If, for example, a German with a card that is valid indefinitely moves to a country of the EU in which a time limit applies, no-one is going to pretend to me that the German licence will be recognized.
The problem must be resolved, even if we have to wait until an action for discrimination is brought before the European Court of Justice.
I take the view that the term 'European driving licence' is a case of fraudulent misrepresentation.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism has adopted four amendments for the second reading.
My group will support them.
The directive, as we know, is due to enter into force on the first of July this year.
We in Parliament do not wish any further delays, for the introduction of the credit-card format is already being used as an excuse, by the German Government for example, for not implementing the 1991 Directive by the prescribed date.
Its stated intention is to wait until the plastic card is introduced.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission proposal that the Member States be given the opportunity to introduce a model Community driving licence on 1 July 1996 in the form of a 'credit card' -type document as an alternative to the paper version.
First of all, such a document offers the basis for national driving licences that are comprehensible and recognized throughout Europe, which means greater security for licence-holders.
Secondly, it facilitates any spot-checks that may be necessary and thereby enhances road safety.
Thirdly, it guarantees greater flexibility of use while reducing the risk of licence forgery.
Fourthly, it satisfies the desire of many people nowadays for effectiveness and efficiency and for practicality and flexibility in the use of things and in dealings with authorities and institutions.
That is precisely why I expect many Member States to take the opportunity to introduce this type of model driving licence as quickly as possible, even though it is unfortunately not compulsory.
I should like to congratulate the Council on its decision to side with Parliament in opposing the Commission proposal to limit the validity of the licence to ten years.
This decision gives user states the chance to decide themselves on the term of validity of the driving licence, which, though drawn up in accordance with the EU model, is still a national licence.
At the same time, the Group of the European People's Party not only favours a far longer term but actually supports unlimited validity.
This would help to save money and to minimize bureaucracy.
The introduction of a separate space in which the issuing country may make optional entries is in line with the wishes of Parliament.
The utmost care must be taken, however, with medical data in particular, in other words details of blood group, allergies and suchlike and indication of willingness to donate organs, to ensure that there is also a separate written statement of consent by the licence-holder.
The option of including bar codes and national symbols - which, of course, must not impair comprehensibility and mutual recognition - accords with the legitimate interests of the Member States.
Let us hope that this also contributes to speedy implementation.
I propose that we support Mr Farassino and his report.
Mr President, we have to be strict about not allowing Member States to collect tax on driving licences annually.
I also support Mr Farassino in urging that a reference to the flexible use of driving licences and to the prevention of forgery should be included in the directive.
It would also be sensible to include information on the driving licence about consent for organ donation.
I failed completely to understand why a centralized monitoring system in the form of a register of penalty points should be introduced in connection with driving licences.
Restricting the duration of licences to ten years would also increase bureaucracy unnecessarily.
The requirement laid down in the directive that lorry drivers who wear glasses should lose their licence after 1 July has caused great amazement among the Finns.
The wearing of glasses or contact lenses with a strength of +/-4 does not in any way hinder their driving.
There are proportionally more long-sighted people working as professional drivers than in any other profession.
I would like to ask the Commissioner how this error will be rectified.
Parliament will have to request immediate negotiations between the bodies concerned in order to correct the directive in this respect.
Mr President, with the prospect of more people moving around the European Union more freely, my Group and I welcome the harmonisation of driving licences.
This proposal from the Commission, with the sensible amendments from the rapporteur, will take the harmonisation process forward by requiring a common code system for conditions under which any driver is authorised to use a vehicle.
In the European Union we have already had mutual recognition of driving licences for some time now.
But that has not meant that every police officer in every Member State inspecting those licences fully understands what is communicated or written on them.
The new licences will make certain that police officers will be able in the future to appreciate and understand the information contained in them.
The driving licences are certainly going to be of value to road safety.
They will certainly enhance the feeling of the right of movement by EU citizens and they will also certainly benefit disabled drivers.
The licence also contains a micro-chip and it is this that has caused the greatest debate among the Members.
As well as codifying conditions under which the owner can drive, the micro-chip could store useful information as suggested already concerning the willingness to donate organs, as well as medical requirements and needs of the driver himself.
I can understand and appreciate the fear that might be felt among certain people that this card would develop into an ID card, via the back door.
To offset that danger, the rapporteur and the Commission have agreed to a special committee, which will examine the confidentiality and security implications of the micro-chip.
In the meantime, I certainly welcome the rapporteur's report with the hope that the Commission will give that report their full support.
I also look forward to more people, even from the island of the United Kingdom who have the habit of driving on the wrong side of the road, driving even further on the continent of Europe.
Mr President, the common position of the Council on the amendment of the Directive on driving licences has already taken account of major proposals made by the European Parliament, which pleases us, although we should have welcomed the replacement of some discretionary clauses by peremptory clauses.
So let us regard this proposal as a first step in the right direction, though not perhaps the last.
But driving licences are also part of our citizens' everyday lives.
That is why it is important in our eyes that, besides being an instrument of harmonization, driving licences should also be a means of improving control and security, that they should perhaps also contain information which might even make the difference between life and death in critical situations.
We therefore hope that all the Member States will agree on a sound compromise between data protection and the sort of information that contributes to safety in general as well as to the safety of the individual.
It does seem to me, however, that the most important of the amendments is the fourth, the aim of which is to outlaw the imposition of annual taxes on driving licences.
If this amendment is not accepted, we run the risk of seeing the European driving licence pressed into service as a means of levying new vehicle taxes, which could also vary between countries.
The beneficial effect of the introduction of a European driving licence would, in my opinion, be completely overshadowed by these disadvantages.
That is why we also support Mr Farassino's proposal, and we hope that he will obtain a majority here in the House for all his amendments.
Mr President, despite the unresolved issues, I believe that we can generally be satisfied with the work done on this Directive.
The Commission, with its credit-card model, has put forward a foresighted proposal.
It represents a successful compromise between harmonization and respect for the specific characteristics of our Member States.
Every citizen of the EU who lives for more than three months in another Member State will come to appreciate the advantages offered by this Directive.
In the same way, Member States will be able to switch in due course from paper licences to the credit-card format and will do so secure in the knowledge that the necessary interoperability of the 'credit-card' -style driving licence is guaranteed in all Member States.
And from a parliamentary point of view, we too can take pleasure in the fact that some of the results of our work are reflected in the common position.
Licence-holders who so wish, for example, will now be able to have their blood group and allergies entered on request and make a voluntary undertaking to donate organs.
Anyone who remembers the first reading here in the House will know that even this dictate of common sense did not pass unchallenged by some Members.
But let us hope that today at least we shall make the rapid administration of first aid our prime concern rather than exploiting the all-too-serious subject of data protection for the purpose of panicmongering.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Inland waterway transport
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0170/96) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0096/96-95/0106(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on common rules applicable to the transport of goods or passengers by inland waterway between Member States with a view to establishing freedom to provide such transport services (rapporteur: Mr Le Rachinel).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a Council Regulation on my report relates to the free provision of services in the transport of goods or passengers.
The intention is to create a legal guarantee of free access by transport undertakings in the Community Member States to inland waterway transport.
The Commission considers that, since Austria joined the Union, a new arrangement is required.
This is because Austria has concluded bilateral agreements with Germany and the Netherlands.
They make access to the international inland waterway transport market more difficult for carriers in that sector who are based in other Member States.
These bilateral agreements are therefore incompatible with the principle of the free provision of services.
Not only that, but they imply a discrimination based on nationality.
In this area, the Court of Justice of the European Communities, in a judgment of 22 May 1985, specified that, where inland waterways were concerned, the Council should within an appropriate period free access to the inland waterways transport market of any discrimination based on nationality.
Austria's membership of the European Union thus offers an opportunity to do so.
The initial Commission proposal was adopted unamended by Parliament on first reading.
The common position introduced only minor amendments, mainly editorial in nature, stressing however the fact that the owner of a vessel used for transport between Member States and in transit between those States must be under the flag of a Member State and have its home port in one of those States.
I fully endorse this proposal.
This proposal has therefore been adopted unanimously by the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the second reading.
It is therefore this report, which poses no particular difficulties, that I have the honour of presenting today to be voted upon in this House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Green Paper on innovation
The next item is the report (A4-0165/96) by Mr Argyros, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Commission Green Paper on innovation (Vol. I and Vol.
II) (COM(95)0688 - C4-0609/95).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, today's debate on the Green paper on innovation is timely and I hope that it will be of help to the Commission and the Member States, and also to European industry, in the determining of priorities.
We in this House have debated the questions of competitiveness, development and employment on very many occasions, but only rarely have we focused on the importance of innovation in the pursuit of those three objectives.
The challenge for a policy on innovation is four-pronged: firstly, to underscore the fundamental importance of innovation to prosperity; secondly, to assist the introduction to the market of new products and processes by facilitating their viability during the initial stage of an innovative investment; thirdly, to reward innovative activity through fiscal policies, and, fourthly, to ensure that the regulatory and administrative environment facilitates innovation.
There are two truths which need to be emphasized, by way of qualification: the first is that research and technological development are not synonymous with innovation; the second is that successful innovation means, more than anything else, success in the marketplace.
In order to be relevant and effective, the research and technological development policy of the European Union should not, I believe, seek to define technological priorities for industries that operate in rapidly changing global markets.
Nor should it become a form of hidden state aid for sectors that cannot effectively compete in such markets.
Lastly, we should not base our efforts on the false hypothesis that innovation is a linear result of the research and technological development process; that the more that is spent on basic research, the greater, axiomatically, will be the output of technology products, and that that, in turn, will lead to increased innovation.
The innovation process is more complicated than that, and we in the European Union should ask ourselves whether the existing research and development policies and structures are based on an up-to-date understanding of the subject.
In the opinion of the Committee on Research and Technological development, this policy must focus more on the diffusion of technical and scientific know-how by making technologies more accessible, relevant and exploitable across the European Union.
And therefore a strategy focusing on the dissemination of research results must support research that is inter-disciplinary, application-orientated and network-driven.
It must develop regional networks of non-industrial and industrial institutions and elaborate visible aims to help society understand the research and technology process and to become involved.
In that context, three routes of action in the Commission's proposal deserve special mention.
Firstly, the encouragement of innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises. This means that research policy must take account of the needs of SMEs and of their capacity to manage technology programmes by creating networks which will help those businesses and enhance links between the INNOVATION programme and national programmes.
Secondly, the furthering of the mobility of researchers as an important means of diffusion of innovation via the strengthening of links between the INNOVATION programme and Activity Four of the fourth framework programme.
This route of action must include more industrial research laboratories in its fourth activity.
The third route of action that deserves special mention is the improvement of the financing of innovation. This is not, strictly speaking, a matter for government or for research policy.
Rather, it is a matter for private investors and for the companies themselves, which are impeded by the prudence of institutional investors, the structure of tax systems and their own lack of technical expertise. Yet the investment structure with regard to the fostering of innovation in the European Union is so underdeveloped that the subject is an important public policy issue.
One of Europe's main weaknesses, in fact, lies in a failure to translate technological research results and technical know-how into commercial success, chiefly because of the ineffectiveness of the financing system.
By establishing a more effective structure the INNOVATION programme does help, but there is a manifest need for more concerted and systematic action by the Commission to improve the financing sector.
It might be useful for the Commission to think of other ways of improving the financing situation, such as the linking of research and development programmes with financing initiatives, the nudging of public authorities in Europe in the direction of innovation through public contracts, the strengthening of actions to translate university research into commercial prototypes and to make researchers into entrepreneurs.
Without things of that sort I think that the Union will fail in its activities.
In concluding, Mr President, I would like to emphasize that innovation depends not so much on the financing of research collaboration programmes in the so-called 'strategic sectors' as on the existence of a dynamic single market with a clear administrative and regulatory framework.
And I believe that the effectiveness of the Union's research and technology policy demands the promotion of collaboration and coordination via integrated strategic diffusion of the results of research and technological development.
I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Argyros on this excellent report and the work he has put into it.
It is a credit to this House.
Millions of years ago the dinosaurs died out because they could not adapt fast enough to a changing world.
Today the same fate faces European industry if we cannot make change our ally.
Innovation is the lifeblood of the new global economy and our only hope for survival in a hostile economic environment.
But the picture painted by the European Commission is none too bright.
Clearly the European Union lags behind its major competitors in almost every field; research and development, the dissemination of information, attitudes to training, the business environment and so on.
The picture is made bleaker still by the attitude of Member States such as my own where innovation is sacrificed on the altar of short-termism.
A lack of long-term planning and an obsession with dividend payouts to shareholders mean that innovation is left a long way down the list of priorities.
Europe's role in curing this disease is strictly limited but that is why we have to make sure that what we do, we do well.
Above all, we have to bridge the gulf between business and science, not only in terms of disseminating information but in building a working partnership between innovators and industry.
The two are not chalk and cheese.
They should be flip sides of the same coin.
Making this a reality begins at the most basic level.
We have to create an environment that is favourable to science and innovation in every corner of society: making the most of science education for our children, providing better links between schools and the workplace, designating 1996 as the Year of Lifelong Learning, creating better research facilities for academics, financial incentives for research and innovation, and accessible scientific news for the layman.
These are the foundations for an innovation-based society and industry.
The Commission's proposals and the recommendations in this report could kick-start this process.
In particular, through the creation of a sectoral taskforce, they provide a basis for bringing science and industry together in a goal-driven team.
They also mark a move away from the old subsidy-based approach.
Our task must be to make sure that the Member States show equal determination to fulfil their part of the bargain.
Action in Europe is no excuse for complacency at home.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Argyros, for an altogether excellent report and for the fact that he paid considerable attention to the viewpoints of the Social Affairs Committee.
I shall restrict myself to the social issues.
The relationship between society and innovation is a symbiotic one.
On the one hand, the way a society is organised plays a major role in determining whether innovations come into being at all.
On the other, innovations can in themselves change society.
This is the way it has always been.
Innovations have played a large part in the treatment of disease, conditions for the disabled, improving the environment, improving working conditions for people on the production line and in creating employment in thinly populated areas.
They can also play a significant role in the future too.
I am often asked whether innovation will create new jobs. I usually answer that it depends on whether one takes the short-term or the long-term view, whether one sees the issue in its narrowest sense or more broadly.
Narrowly speaking, and in the short term, innovation in a limited field can of course result in fewer jobs.
However, history shows that societies which have been open to innovation have always been the most competitive societies, societies which have been able to carry on and create new jobs.
I am therefore convinced that a society which favours innovation also creates jobs.
Education and training is important, the relationship here too being two-way, since a society with a high level of education will also give rise to greater innovation, while innovation itself requires highly skilled people. For example, innovation has resulted in the information society and in a high level of training.
Finally, a word about business and employees. It is sometimes said that employees and co-determination for employees are a burden on industry.
Where innovation is concerned this is definitely not the case.
In companies where employees have considerable influence and co-determination is important it is much easier to foster attitudes which are favourable to the implementation of innovations.
This is why co-determination and employee participation is incredibly important in a society which seeks to be innovative.
Mr President, we have to face the fact that the Community's competitive position in relation to Japan and the United States is going backwards and not forwards.
We must also face the fact that the evidence is clear that it is not a failure in research which is the problem but the failure to apply the research to products and processes.
This is not an assessment which is new to us on the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
We have been aware of this for some time and, indeed, we can claim that it was at the insistence of Parliament that the innovation part of the framework programme has been increasingly important in recent years.
In fact, as we know, within the current fourth programme innovation is a fully-fledged programme in its own right.
The Commission's Green Paper is a welcome document.
It recognizes the need for some new thinking to encourage the innovation processes.
Proposals for action at Community level are now awaited from the consultation process which the Green Paper has initiated.
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Argyros, on the quality of his report and the very strong efforts he made to take into account fully the opinions of other committees, as Mr Andersson has acknowledged.
The rapporteur subsequently went to the bother of tightening up the resolution to make it much more focused and that was unanimously approved by our committee.
Because of this the Socialist Group fully agrees with the resolution and we will vote against any amendments.
The contribution which R & D will make to economic growth and employment in the Community in the next twenty years will depend little on future R & D. It will depend on exploiting the work that has already been done.
Over the years Community research has created a great reservoir of ideas.
The task now is to ensure that this knowledge reaches every manufacturing and service business.
Production processes and services activities have to be broken down into their components and analysed for methods of improvement.
That is the culture we have to encourage.
It is truly a formidable challenge to the concept of the information society.
Actions at Community level will be useless unless there is a strong link with regional and local technology and innovation centres.
Member States have a key responsibility to promote these centres and, where appropriate, the structural and cohesion funds of the Community should be used in support.
The big idea concept will not solve our problems. A multitude of small applications probably will.
In backing this report, the Socialist Group calls on the Commission to incorporate the ideas which have been expressed in the resolution and in the explanatory statement into the action plan which we await with keen interest.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I also see this piece of work, the Green Paper on innovation, for which I express my special thanks to the Commission, as an important contribution to the urgent and intensive discussion on the preservation and securing of jobs.
This problem is currently the main concern of the European Union.
Jobs will only ever be secure if we establish ourselves in a leading position in the technologies of tomorrow.
In this respect, I believe that three particularly important points are made in the Green Paper.
First of all, there is the dissemination and exploitation of research results.
This process, which we sometimes rather indiscriminately call 'technology transfer' , is still inadequate in many areas, even in those fields such as biotechnology where the division between basic research and product development is often very blurred and fluid.
For that reason, we call for more interaction between the Innovation programme on the one hand and the specific research programmes and Commission policies on horizontal dissemination of research results on the other, as well as for the development of a methodology involving the cooperation of all bodies responsible for the dissemination and exploitation of research results, both horizontal and vertical, in order to identify models for the more rapid conversion of research results into marketable products.
In addition, it is naturally essential that research findings should be presented in an informative and intelligible manner to the general public and that a technology culture should be promoted.
At the same time, I am aware that these two efforts cannot be centrally directed but must come from below, so to speak, beginning in school.
Secondly, in the European Union we have 15 research policies, many of which are formulated in isolation.
If our innovative capacity is to be enhanced, closer cooperation at national and Union levels is necessary.
It is also important that the dynamic balance between two factors is preserved, namely the coordination of activities and promotion schemes on the one hand but also the necessary competition for the best solutions on the other.
This necessary competition is not simply a matter of duplicated effort at twice the cost but also releases creativity and ideas for the future, and they are just what we need!
Mr President, Commissioner Cresson, I cannot begin to speak about technological innovation today without mentioning the event which was unfortunately on the front pages of many of this morning's newspapers: the loss of Ariane V. I think it is in difficult moments like this in one of the Union's strategic research and development programmes, that there should indeed be clear priority objectives without giving way to frustration or emotional criticism.
Coming now to the Commission's Green Paper, I note that it contains much valid analysis and thought: some traditional, some innovative. The analysis of Europe's decline in the innovation league is now traditional, as are the lack of fiscal and financial instruments for the creation of businesses, particularly as compared with the American models, the limited integration between public research and industry, the vague areas in the protection of intellectual property, the limited coordination of national and Union policies, and the limited mobility of researchers.
But the identification in the Green Paper of innovation in the firm with success on the market is new and strong, as are the recognition of the basic cultural problem, and that the success of the modern firm is based on technological competence, entrepreneurial competence and learning capacity, and hence, in particular, the importance of small and medium-sized firms using the emerging information networks in the now imminent challenge of the information society.
The previous Commission also raised the issue of the economic and commercial potential of research projects, and the fourth framework programme is steeped in this principle, but this Green Paper seeks to focus even more on firm/research involvement, introducing the task force experiment.
Thanks to the dialogue Commissioner Cresson pursues with the Committee on Research, we have finally understood and largely concurred with the reasoning behind the task force experiment and the merit grid used to identify the issues proposed by the task forces themselves: being intelligible to public opinion, the capacity for economic and competitive decline, the potential for triggering off a virtuous circle between industry and research. This validates the task force model for later implementation in the Fifth Framework Programme.
I recognize the potential of this approach and I am sure we will continue the debate and exchange of views with Commissioner Cresson when it comes to refinancing the Fourth Framework Programme.
For the moment, we approve and encourage the Commission's efforts in the Green Paper.
But novelty should not deter us from taking the most traditional, familiar and yet necessary measures: development of a European capital market for small firms, simplification of administrative formalities, researcher mobility.
Finally, I would like to conclude by congratulating the rapporteur on the authority with which he has put together a coherent report which respects the opinions of the European Parliament, out of a sea of additions and suggestions, to the point that he actually invented a procedure which we have christened the 'Argyros procedure' in the Committee on Research.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I should like to compliment Mr Argyros on his report and thank him for his positive cooperation both within the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and outside it.
That has resulted in a brief, cohesive resolution.
The most important message of the green paper is that the Commission, like a number of Member States, is extending technological policy into innovation policy.
In itself it is a readable document with a good analysis and lines of action which seem likely to be effective.
The headpiece put on it with the task force is rather incomprehensible to the Liberal Group.
Close coordination of research efforts is necessary.
But that must not entail covert sector support.
For liberals that is something akin to swearing in church.
The development of generic technologies useful for many sectors can actually increase the competitive capacity of the whole European Union.
Secondly, the distribution of powers between national authorities and the European authority according to line of action is arguable.
Innovation policy including technology policy needs to be developed and implemented at national level unless the extent of the problem or of the scale is of such a nature as to require an approach at European level.
Innovation policy for the small and medium-sized businesses seems to be pre-eminently a task for the national authorities.
Naturally certain things can and must be fitted in to the European innovation policy directed to large undertakings, but it is to be expected that the national authorities are most aware of the needs and requirements of local small- and medium-scale businesses.
Thirdly, renewal of the economy and the economic structure must to a considerable extent be initiated by smalland medium-sized businesses, able to play a full part and not be obstructed by administrative procedures which act as a keener brake on a small firm than on a large one.
Besides, small- and medium-sized businesses are not a homogeneous group of undertakings but an extremely diverse group.
A different approach according to the target group is desirable.
So I am glad that my amendment on that has been taken up.
From various enquiries it seems that with small- and medium-sized businesses one working year's research and development provides twice as many innovations as in big business.
But the number of innovations successfully introduced on to the market is pitifully small.
The percentage of success for Europe as a whole is only 20 %.
That is primarily due to strong selectivity on the technological sides of innovation and insufficient attention to market aspects.
My Group hopes that a fundamentally different approach to the problems of innovation will lead to a new and effective policy with, as its aim, wide scope for innovative firms and new opportunities for employment.
Mr President, the Commission's Green Paper on innovation shows an awareness of the importance of the relationship between innovation and society, but in outlining the innovation strategy it fails to deal, for example, with the relationship between innovation policy and environmental policy, nor does it discuss innovation policy in relation to social policy and labour market issues.
In the report of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy Mr Argyros has taken due note of the points made concerning these issues in the opinions of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment in particular.
Innovations obviously have a positive impact in many ways, but not necessarily a positive social impact.
Innovations can help to create new jobs and entire industries, but the opposite can also be the case.
Research into the social impact of innovations should therefore form a part of innovation policy.
An increase in production efficiency as a result of innovations should also be beneficial to employees, for example by leading to shorter working hours and a redistribution of tasks.
It is also important to emphasize, as the committee has done, that only in organizations with well-developed communication producers and high levels of employee participation can the opportunities provided by innovations be exploited effectively.
Finally, I should like to emphasize that the innovation policy presented by the Commission focuses too much on technology.
Social innovations and cultural innovations should be supported by the EU, particularly since these areas are becoming more important in safeguarding individual well-being and improving employment prospects.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Argyros for a very good report, which I largely support.
I have nevertheless tabled three amendments, as I believe there are a number of things Mr Argyros has forgotten.
We Greens believe that it is important to create the right conditions for innovation but perhaps not so much in order to compete with the USA and Japan as to move towards a sustainable society with environmentally friendly policies.
My first amendment concerns environmental taxes.
I believe that if the Union can bring about an environmental tax reform at Union level, this will as a matter of course enormously increase the level of innovation in three important sectors - the environment, energy and transport.
These are three areas in which the Member States of the EU today lack proper innovation which would help them cope with environmental problems, growth and unemployment.
The Union should not risk falling behind on these important issues because of a fear of innovation and change.
It is also absolutely essential that risk capital should be made available for innovators.
I propose that the NASDAQ model should be used to achieve this.
My final amendment is aimed at the inclusion of young people too in a European network, whereas the committee today only proposes women. Thank you.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the will and the ability to innovate are the keys to the economic and social future of the entire Community.
Europe in particular has to remain a leading player if it is to safeguard its international competitiveness, not only in terms of economic performance but also in the exploitation and widespread application of new forms of technology.
For one thing, I advocate more vigorous support of the Scientific and Technological Option Assessment unit (STOA).
I regard this as an absolutely essential point, because technology assessment helps to broaden the range of instruments available for technological forecasting.
The more complex scientific and technical developments become, the more important it is to explain the consequences of new technology to the public and to assist MEPs in their decision-making with the aid of STOA.
STOA should cooperate closely with the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS), and the IPTS should be assigned a key role in improving the coordination of European technology assessments.
One of the main aspects of innovation is the question of security and access to information.
At the Euratom Conference on the Control of Nuclear Material in Novosibirsk, which I attended yesterday, it became clear how important innovation is in the domain of control.
It is also important to be aware of the need to promote initial and advanced training in this domain.
Innovation in the field of human resources must take place through the development of the existing programmes, such as Socrates, Leonardo and TACIS.
I also call on the Commission to create a European network of women self-starters.
We are undergoing a comprehensive structural transformation from industrial society to service and information society.
The service sector is a women's domain.
The number of women who have started businesses has increased considerably.
The reasons for the higher proportion of women self-starters lie in the marked improvement in the vocational training of women, and another factor nowadays, of course, is that on completion of their vocational training many women have no prospect of finding a job or have to work under the constant threat of unemployment.
The most important enabling measure for women self-starters is state-aided professional consultancy.
A special coaching model would be highly desirable, in other words advice provided over a lengthy period by a consultant for particularly innovative self-starters, be they men or women.
Consideration should be given to the establishment of intersectoral, supraregional and European coordinating agencies for business start-ups.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
EURET programme
The next item is the report (A4-0090/96) by Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the report from the Commission on the evaluation of the EURET programme (European research on transport) - final report (COM(95)0450 final - C4-0511/95).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, the EURET programme is the first specific programme for research and technological development in the field of transport.
It started off in 1991 under the second framework programme.
The transport sector is pre-eminently a sector requiring a European approach.
Research on and the introduction of new techniques and technologies are of decisive importance for solving the European transport problem.
The start of European research in this field in 1991 must therefore at least be referred to as late.
So it is no wonder that there is no European vision in the direction of R & D in the field of transport by land, sea or air.
The report before us today is an evaluation of the EURET programme prepared by a panel of five independent specialists.
This evaluation was only started a year after the programme was due to come to an end.
Moreover at the insistence of the Commission the evaluation had to be prepared within six weeks.
It therefore lacks depth.
The experts say so themselves.
After that it took a further eight months before the evaluation report was sent to the European Parliament and then only in three languages - one more assault on the principle that every European citizen should be able to read documents in his or her own language.
Every Member of this Parliament has the right according to the Treaty of Rome to work in his or her own language.
Nevertheless that right is regularly trampled under foot by the Commission.
This question plays a part at Council level also, because yesterday the Netherlands ministers announced that they would take decisions exclusively on the basis of documents translated into good Dutch and ready in good time.
The way in which the evaluation of the EURET programme has been approached is not acceptable to your rapporteur.
It would have been possible to start with the evaluation before all projects had been wholly completed.
It is true that an interim report was made in 1993 but even that report came out a year later than had been envisaged.
It referred to all the gaps in the control and management structure of the projects.
Nevertheless there was no adjustment.
The final report on the EURET programme was drawn up only after the specific transport programme in the fourth framework programme had been approved.
The final evaluation of EURET thus failed in its mission.
It made no contribution to the fourth framework programme.
The Committee on Research therefore hopes that the experts' recommendations will at least be used in the implementation of the specific programme and in the drafting of the fifth framework programme.
According to the panel's recommendations the Commission needs to take appropriate steps to arrive at joint or at least coherent aims with regard to research and technological policy and the common transport policy.
The 1995 external monitoring report also calls on the Commission for a more specific vision in the field of transport.
Cohesion between the programme's various areas of research and collaboration with other DGs in this field is essential.
Overlapping must be avoided.
Sustainable mobility can be achieved only if the proper strategies are developed.
The fourth framework programme is directed particularly to transport efficiency and only marginally to prevention and changes in modal distribution.
Tele-working therefore needs to be encouraged throughout Europe because that is a specific technological application which may reduce mobility.
A further aim of many Member States is to reduce environmental pollution such as the emission of various harmful substances, by means of energy efficiency.
Research can make an important contribution to the development of environment-friendly technology in the transport sector.
For that too a European vision with a planned approach would not be out of place.
Clean engines which use considerably less energy and therefore burn more cleanly would make the car more acceptable as a means of transport.
For that a European directive on maximum emissions is needed.
Finally my last point.
In 1994 when the period envisaged had expired, a further ECU 8 million was spent on extra appropriations in order to ensure that a number of projects within EURET were continued.
Can the Commission say how that ECU 8 million breaks down?
And what was the percentage contributed by Member States to these projects?
In conclusion, Mr President, transport, together with energy, the environment and town and country planning, is a crucial sector for the European economy in the coming century.
Well-regulated transport means energyefficient, environment-friendly transport with the infrastructure geared to town and country planning.
It would be sensible if the Commission were to develop such a vision in consultation with the European Parliament.
Mr President, we are taking part in a debate which shows both sides of the coin of research projects and I congratulate both Mr Argyros and the Commissioner who have been able to explain to us in detail a series of thought-provoking ideas about innovation in the European Union.
The positive obverse side of European research lies in innovation.
But the reverse side of the coin is the project which we are discussing at the moment on the evaluation of a series of programmes related to transport.
Experience in this respect has been problematical but the research which is at present under way and which is due to continue, is very important.
Transport is increasingly one more structural variable on top of so many other social, economic and all sorts of other variables.
It has not been possible for the recommendations of the group of experts to be incorporated in the fourth framework programme, and that is really serious.
We must put an end to such things in the European Union, because we may be brilliant at making declarations - like the green paper on innovation - and then very slow when it comes to considering evaluation studies and to the practical application of these interesting plans we draw up.
We are dealing here with interconnection and interoperability in transport, a very fundamental subject; with the environmental effect of this transport; with accidents; with noise and atmospheric pollution; with systems of administration of air traffic.
That is to say, a series of factors of enormous importance.
And all that - if we may be critical - has been spoilt by inefficiency and red-tape which have ensured that studies do not arrive in time, that they cannot be used, that the money spent has been badly allocated by not arriving in time.
I hope there will be no repetition of this and that studies on transport will nevertheless continue to be an important feature of subjects for research.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make it clear that I am replying here on behalf of Mr Neil Kinnock, who is currently travelling on official business.
The Euret programme has replaced the Union's original research programme in the transport sector.
That was a trial.
To judge by the general tenor of the evaluation report by the independent experts, that trial has been considered conclusive.
Like the evaluation report, the report prepared by Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel acknowledges the important contribution made by research to the definition and exploitation of an efficient European transport system which at the same time respects the environment.
I welcome that.
Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel does however make various critical remarks regarding the content of the evaluation report and the way in which that evaluation was undertaken, and those remarks are reflected in the motion for a resolution.
Rather than considering them all one by one, I would like to comment briefly on some of them.
In point 2 of the motion for a resolution, it is stated that the conclusions of the evaluation of the Euret programme could not be taken into consideration in the transport research programme because of poor synchronization between the timetable of this new programme and the timetable of the evaluation.
That is only partially true.
The first period for submitting proposals for the new programme in fact ended on 15 March 1995.
Some of the recommendations made by the experts were thus able to be taken into consideration.
Overall, however, the Commission shares the feeling that the evaluation report on Euret was not available at the time when it would have been most useful.
Nor was it the only one to be in that situation, because of the provisions adopted in the third Framework Programme.
This situation was rectified with the fourth Framework Programme.
In the adoption decision, it is clearly stipulated that the evaluation reports must be available and disclosed to the European Parliament before the Commission presents its proposal for the fifth Framework Programme.
The question of the coordination and complementarity of the European and national efforts, mentioned in sections 5 and 6, also has to be considered in a qualified manner.
A minimum of coordination was guaranteed, as is always the case, through the agency of the programme committee.
Here again, especially, I can reassure you.
In the follow-up to the Commission communication, ' Achieving coordination through cooperation' , the CREST had its coordinating mandate strengthened.
Ad hoc groups, broadly supporting programme committees, were set up.
They were intended to make it possible to ensure good coordination and optimum complementarity between national and European activities.
As to the problem of administrative expenditure, mentioned in section 13 of the motion for a resolution, it must be considered in the light of all the different aspects.
Of course this figure is higher than the average, too high, and in future we will need to ensure that expenditure in this category does not rise to such a level.
But the programme was a small-scale one and, as you know, there are fixed costs that cannot be reduced.
It is more difficult, therefore, to keep the administrative costs of smaller programmes at the ideal level.
Above all, this was a first programme, so that this expenditure can be regarded as investment outlay.
Thanks to this above-average effort, the administrative costs of the 'Transport' programme amounted to only 4.9 % of the total committed credits.
In conclusion, while we share Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel's general opinion, as regards the points I have mentioned and various other points in the motion for a resolution, the Commission would have preferred to see more qualified statements, showing greater understanding of the constraints under which the Commission has to work when implementing research programmes.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Cooperation in research and technological development
The next item is the report (A4-0160/96) by Mr Pompidou, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission: ' Perspectives for international cooperation in research and technological development' (COM(95)0489 - C4-0502/95).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is being presented on an evening when we have just discussed the excellent report by my colleague Mr Argyros, and my own report is naturally complementary to his.
The aim is to define, for the first time, the principles of a strategy for scientific and technical cooperation between the European Union and the rest of the world.
This attempt had never been made before.
Contacts were made haphazardly, as it were, between the European Union, especially the Commission, and its Permanent Representations in third countries.
There was no defined strategy.
In fact, I could ask no better proof of this than the confusion - the unacceptable confusion - that exists in the Commission's report between scientific cooperation as such and technological cooperation.
I believe a distinction should be made between the sharing of knowledge on the one hand and the conquest of new market shares on the other, thanks to the development of new classes of products through technological innovation, research and development.
And, as in the Commission report, which might have been discarded if Parliament had not been there, the projects are not identified.
It seems to me necessary to identify major global projects designed to improve the overall state of the European Union, the Member States and the associated third countries, major targeted projects, research and development in respect of high-technology products intended to improve industrial production or consumer products, and then, on the other hand, research and development in respect of high value-added, innovative products, as is the case in particular with agri-foodstuff products.
The European Union also needs to be able to develop, together with third countries, a megascience in the field of particle physics, as is already happening at CERN in Geneva, and in the observation of the universe.
And it is nevertheless necessary to maintain and recognize those fields of excellence that are specific and particular to the European Union.
Finally, the Commissioner, thank God, improved this report verbally this afternoon, or just now, by talking about the Argyros report and stressing the need to improve the protection of intellectual and industrial property, and we welcome that.
After all, this is a real cause for concern, because in order for information to be able to pass between the European Union and third countries it is necessary to be able to define agreements regarding the protection of industrial and intellectual property.
And then, of course, we are also delighted that agreements are gradually being concluded, as they develop, with the countries of central Europe, the Baltic States and the independent States that emerged from the breakup of the former Soviet Union.
As far as the SMEs are concerned, the emphasis was on technological innovation, but I believe that - as the Commissioner said - it is necessary for there to be ties between big business and the small and medium-sized enterprises, based on observation of balanced partnership agreements, or otherwise the small would be crushed by the large.
We can wave our arms around as much as we like, we shall achieve nothing.
In addition, we need to develop major transverse projects - that is our committee's opinion - on energy production, so as to improve the energy efficiency of transport, new information and communication technologies, environmental protection and climatology.
This approach calls for a number of task forces, which have been defined.
Next, it is important to initiate targeted projects for monitoring space and the earth, for telecommunications and multimedia and, especially, for biology too, particularly in the field of genome research.
Also, one point that has not been touched upon either in the communication on innovation or in the Commission communication on cooperation with third countries is scientific and technical surveillance.
Here, again, I welcome the fact that the Commissioner has indicated the need to strengthen ties between STOA - the Scientific and Technological Option Assessment Unit - and the Institute for Exploration in Seville, which she supports and has set up, and that all this is leading to specific measures which will be supported by financial funds, and in particular a European-style NASDAQ - an EASDAQ, for example.
In conclusion, Mr President, it is important to make a distinction between countries which are candidates to join the European Union and qualify for association agreements, the industrialized countries which qualify for cooperation agreements, and developing countries which qualify for assistance agreements.
This can provide a basis for defining a genuine policy of cooperation with third countries, designed to bring to the fore a Europe of competences.
As far as the amendments are concerned, they have all been adopted by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, as have the amendments proposed by the Committee on External Economic Relations, the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
As regards the last amendment put forward by Mr Holm, I have to confess that I don't understand it.
It seems to me that he is firing at his own side, since research into the elimination of fissile materials will in fact lead to dangers of proliferation.
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Pompidou, on his splendid report, but also and especially on his classification of the type of cooperation the European Union can put into effect depending on the type of partner country and the type of policy to be pursued.
This is the key which has made the examination of this communication by Committee on External Economic Relations so much more effective. There are the countries applying for membership, where the intention is to promote a European model of free market development; the neighbouring Mediterranean countries, where improvements in quality of life and sustainable development are sought; other third countries, including technologically advanced countries, typically our competitors; developing countries, some already competing, others needing assistance.
Today the European Union is opening its Fourth Framework Programme to all European businesses, but the definition of a European business is not always very clear, and it is not always the most appropriate definition or the best adapted to stated policy.
A breakdown on the basis of policy objectives ought to be considered for the Fifth Framework Programme.
The Committee on External Economic Relations therefore recommends that whenever the Commission draws up a new external cooperation agreement the chapter on opening up trade should be systematically accompanied by a chapter regulating intellectual property for technological trade and a chapter on scientific and technological collaboration geared to general policy objectives.
That is the thrust of the three amendments proposed by the Committee on External Economic Relations to strengthen Mr Pompidou's text further, and I congratulate him again on an excellent report.
Mr President, let me first thank the rapporteur, Dr Pompidou, for the excellent report that he has produced.
I also thank him for the special attention he has paid to the priority given by the Development Committee to the need to intensify the cooperation between the European Union and developing countries in research and technological development.
I would also like to thank the Secretary-General of the ACP, Dr Carl Greenidge who during an interesting hearing presented to the Development Committee the ACP perspective on the most important issues.
His contribution helped us to identify the needs of the developing countries.
There is an increasing demand for cooperation on the part of the developing countries because of their awareness of the fundamental importance of being involved in the rapidly increasing innovation that is taking place in research and technological development.
Some of the areas of specific interest that have to be addressed include food supply, health and environmental protection and energy issues.
These can make an important contribution in relation to new employment opportunities, to remove the many development bottlenecks and to overcome the marginalization of developing countries in global agricultural production and manufacturing.
Food security and the health sector represent the main priority.
The need to strengthen cooperation between developing countries is urgent as underlined by the alarming report from the World Health Organisation on the increasing spread of epidemics and resurgence of diseases in new, resistant forms.
A global emergency has been declared by the World Health Organisation on tuberculosis, which has killed millions of people in recent years.
Famines which were relatively rare in Africa in the 1960s, re-emerged as endemic in the 1980s and 1990s.
According to the Food and Agricultural Organisation, 44 out of 52 African countries are presently threatened by severe food shortages.
Devoting resources to getting more food to a given area is therefore of high priority.
A few guidelines should be essential to our cooperation with the developing countries, if we are to implement a research policy that truly serves development needs.
Close association of the beneficiaries with the research activities from the earliest programming stages and sustainable development of local research capacity can lead to significant development of the skill levels available to developing countries and help ensure the dissemination of scientific results.
The Development Committee was very happy to commend this report, as do I here tonight.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to thank the rapporteur, Mr Pompidou, most sincerely on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists for a really excellent report, and we shall certainly follow his recommendations.
On the report itself, I should like to say the following: when historians come to write the history of the 20th century, the section covering the last 20 years of this century will probably be headed 'Globalization' .
For many years, indeed, we have seen the economic structure, the financial system and even environmental hazards assuming global dimensions.
It is not only astronauts who see the world as a single entity.
The world itself is developing an increasing number of common visions.
But the coordination of many activities into one global action must not blind us to the fact that continental, national and regional conflicts are on the increase.
Some of them, as you know, are discussed here in the House too.
The Cold War may be over, but real wars, conflicts between groups, regions and states, have not subsided.
In addition, we are increasingly conscious of differing attitudes on to ethics, tolerance and human rights, as well as to environmental matters and technological safety.
These have become more visible, especially against the background of global competition.
Now science - and this is Alain Pompidou's premise - can and must help to bring about a worldwide consensus on values and attitudes, on our relationship with nature, with the animal kingdom, with plant life and with our fellow human beings too - and thereby, I might add, to promote fair competition.
The global scientific society must follow the global economy.
In the same context I should like to refer to a study that was compiled by the Commission a few years ago about the different attitudes of Europeans and Asians to things like the living world and the inanimate world.
Interestingly, it was found that Europeans make a clear distinction between flora and fauna on the one hand and human beings on the other, whereas in Asia, with a Confucian culture, humans and animals are seen as very much closer to each other, and the gulf between them and plant life is far wider.
This is not a purely philosophical discussion; the phenomenon described here has implications, for example in the pharmaceutical industry with regard to experiments on people or animals, and it can even influence the competitiveness of entire continents.
What I mean to say is that it is extremely important for us to develop, nurture and intensify a dialogue between the various cultures on values, on basic attitudes.
Mr Pompidou rightly pointed out that we even have instruments for that purpose, namely the European Technology Assessment Network (ETAN) or the Scientific and Technological Option Assessment unit (STOA), as well as other establishments and instruments which feature in our budget, and I therefore recommend that we do not restrict our conception of broader scientific and technological cooperation to the economic or scientific domain alone but extend its scope into the realm of values, for only in that way can we lay the foundations for a global scientific society.
We shall be supporting the resolutions tabled by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Mr President, research and technological development have important social, economic and political ramifications. They contribute to improvement of the quality of life on our planet and are helping to provide solutions to the major problems currently facing human society.
For example, in energy, and with regard to renewable energy sources in particular, energy efficiency, transport, the information exchange technologies, environmental protection, multimedia, biology and biotechnology, to mention just a few sectors, we can expect important developments, discoveries and inventions whose applications will have an enormous effect on people's lives.
The establishment by the European Union of a stable environment for research and technological development, involving, as part of the process, the promotion of international cooperation in the various sectors - cooperation, that is, with other countries - which can act as a catalyst and increase the efficiency of research workers is therefore clearly essential.
Cooperation and the exchange of knowledge in research and technological development are a sine qua non for research workers.
They presuppose, of course, adherence to basic principles, and especially the protection of intellectual and industrial property.
The cooperation must embrace basic research and research in respect of high technology and innovative products between universities and research establishments, with the involvement also of industry, and cooperation, of course, on large-scale programmes concerned with space, telecommunications, the information exchange technologies, multimedia, renewable energy sources, biochemistry and molecular biology and biotechnology and the environmental technologies.
These agreements must promote the exchange of knowledge, via the use, especially, of global information technology networks.
The involvement of the European Union's neighbours, namely the countries of the Mediterranean basin and of central and eastern Europe, the Baltic countries and the newly developing countries of the former Soviet Union, is important.
The huge network of agreements, programmes and cooperative ventures will help to maximize efficiency in research and technological development and will certainly advance the search for satisfactory responses to the major challenges facing Europe and the rest of the world.
In closing, I should like to say that this report to a large extent covers the points to which I have referred. It gives me pleasure therefore to congratulate Professor Pompidou on his truly excellent work.
Mr President, I should like to begin by complimenting Mr Pompidou on his report and in particular the distinction he draws between scientific cooperation and technological development is excellent.
Universities have been cooperating on scientific matters for a long time past.
Even before there was any mention of an information society the universities already had EUARN (European Academic Research Network).
New advanced applications often come from the academic world, where there is good collaboration in the field of information technology.
Now all European national research networks, associated in DANTE, have applied for a project TEN 34 which aims at linking all these networks by means of 34 megabyte optical fibre cables.
It will be possible to carry out experiments and to develop European standards which we are so looking forward to.
So it is incomprehensible for the Liberal Group that this project, which can really help us in the competition stakes has already been blocked by DG III and DG XIII in the Commission for a year past.
I hope that in the future the Commission too will learn to cooperate so that international cooperation will be possible in the academic world also.
Mr President, as a number of speakers have already stated, it is a very important and good report that Mr Pompidou has produced.
I tabled several amendments in committee which Mr Pompidou and the committee endorsed.
However, there is still one thing on which Mr Pompidou and I do not agree, and that is my amendment concerning plutonium.
What we want to see is not the proliferation of plutonium, of course, but global cooperation to resolve the problem of plutonium and other fissionable material.
In the Union alone there are today 340 tonnes of plutonium, which makes the resolution of this issue of the utmost importance.
This can be done in cooperation with other countries which unfortunately also, like those in the Union, have large quantities of plutonium.
Plutonium is dangerous and this is an issue which affects me as a young person a great deal because I know that something could happen involving it.
International cooperation on this subject is therefore of the utmost importance. Thank you very much.
Mr President, the two reports we have dealt with this evening - the Argyros report and the Pompidou report - are very closely interrelated.
That is also demonstrated by the almost identical lists of speakers.
As this debate draws to its close I really wish to confine myself to a very few remarks.
First of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his very clear report, which has brought a great deal of order to a number of instruments that had never before been properly collated.
The devil, however, is so much in the detail here as in the implementation.
For example, we are going to need clear statements on codetermination and on the possible cofinancing of research projects by third countries.
There must also be decisions regarding the right to use the results of such research and regarding entitlement to subsequent profits.
That brings us to the question of intellectual property.
The absence of harmonized rules governing intellectual property is not unique to Europe.
We shall also have to incorporate the national rules that already exist, of course, into international agreements.
We shall have to guarantee compatibility.
We shall also have to guarantee compatibility in any joint ventures that may take place between researchers and business, something that has not really been tried out at all in our part of the world and does not exist here yet as it does in the United States, for instance.
But we also need compatibility between all the factors associated with venture capital and with mixed public/private funding.
A great deal has been said today about all these points.
There are many things we cannot regulate at EU level, but I hope that we here in Parliament - and in the Commission too - can provide inspiration and ideas so that national governments can work together to promote harmonization.
Such harmonization will serve us well when it comes to cooperating at international level.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first and foremost I must offer my warmest thanks to Mr Pompidou for the quality of his report and of his work on this complex and multifaceted subject of international cooperation in research and technological development.
Parliament has always shown a special interest in this question, and has undertaken various initiatives in this field.
The fact that the European Union's programme of scientific and technological cooperation has extended to include new regions, such as the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean States, is largely attributable to the efforts of Parliament.
This report and this motion for a resolution are a logical continuation of those efforts.
In its communication of last October, the Commission tried to establish, for the first time, a general framework of thought and action regarding the Union's international activities in scientific and technological cooperation and to launch a debate on this subject between the institutions.
Mr Pompidou's report comprises a very valuable attempt at clarification, and the motion for a resolution - while broadly supporting the Commission's approach - introduces a number of ideas which undeniably deserve consideration.
Overall, then, the Commission can only express its agreement.
Without going into detail about the very numerous articles contained in the resolution, I would like to make a few brief comments on three points.
The resolution calls on the Commission to specify the arrangements for cooperation, by distinguishing between the various types of collaboration and the major categories of countries.
I would remind you that between now and the end of the year the Commission will be presenting specialized communications on cooperation with, respectively, the States of Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean States and what we refer to today as the emerging economies.
The resolution also calls for the Union's scientific and technical cooperation to be the subject of a prospective and collective evaluation by the Institute for Forecasting in Seville, the European Science and Technology Assembly, and the ETAN and STOA networks.
I can tell you that a seminar on international scientific and technological cooperation, attended by representatives of all these bodies and of the Commission, will be held during the second half of this year.
Finally, the resolution rightly emphasizes the need for closer cooperation between the activities of the Union and those of its Member States in this field.
Work on this question has begun.
The hope is that it will shortly result in the establishment of an initial basis for improved coordination, and I shall be sure to keep you informed of the developments that occur in this field.
Together with the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence policy, on External Economic Relations and on Development and Cooperation have unanimously stressed the importance to the Union of international scientific and technological cooperation.
The Commission intends this importance to be clearly reflected in its future actions.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Financial instrument for the environment (LIFE)
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0166/96) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0223/96-95/0093(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1973/92 establishing a financial instrument for the environment (LIFE) (rapporteur: Mrs Marinucci).
Mr President, in Italy the name LIFE is currently being used by a group of secessionist tax refusers, so its reputation is none too good.
In Europe, on the other hand, LIFE has become the banner of environmental protection, a programme which certainly does not have the range of the structural funds which should be used to restore and protect the environment, yet the experience of the first three years has shown that the projects financed by LIFE have produced great added value, especially in terms of demonstration and example.
In fact, LIFE's role is to contribute to the development and implementation of Community policy and legislation on the environment, through specific measures geared to environmental problems in the various social and economic development sectors, measures which should give life and direction to investments made with the support of other Community or national financial instruments.
To achieve this result, the LIFE rules need to be clarified, gaps filled in and obstacles eliminated.
So the proposal for a regulation we are debating is intended to redefine, in the light of acquired experience, the projects eligible for financial support under LIFE, extend its field of application to the associate countries of central and eastern Europe, clarify the procedures for managing projects by making a distinction between nature protection and other activities, and improve the project selection process by defining new eligibility criteria.
After unanimous approval by Parliament at first reading the Council forwarded the common position, albeit with some delay, which took up fully, substantially or partially a large number of the European Parliament's amendments included by the Commission in its modified proposal.
There was acceptance of the introduction of a consideration on the application procedure for LIFE and on the general information procedure, to improve transparency and efficiency, and of a second consideration which defines the nature of the preparatory activities. The inclusion of air protection and the setting of a maximum intervention percentage for LIFE in the nature protection sector for measures affecting bird species threatened with extinction were also accepted.
On the financial side, while not accepting the doubling of funds that Parliament voted for, the common position does provide for a review of the reference figure in 1997, recognizing that the interest shown in the LIFE programme is disproportionate to the available budget.
So while appreciating the fact that Parliament's work was well received by the Commission and the Council, it is considered essential to table some amendments to reinstate the reference to rivers which flow into coastal areas and to the sustainable management of the wetlands created by such rivers; to reinstate the reference to the protection of water resources and water management to be provided for as part of the preparatory activities; to point out that the 3 % intended for assessment and support for activities must also be available for use with the remaining part of the first stage; to specify more clearly the assessment and selection procedure for innovative projects, whereas it is already clearly established that for LIFE-nature activities, reference must be made to the 'Habitats' directive. Lastly, we must insist again on the doubling of the budget.
Finally, Mr President, may I thank the Members present, the officers of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Commissioner and her department for their assistance, and I hope the new regulation will be approved as soon as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of LIFE is to help develop and implement the environmental policy and environmental legislation of the European Union, especially in relation to the impact of industrial activity and the protection of nature, but also in the context of cooperation with third countries, particularly those of the Mediterranean Basin and of central and eastern Europe.
In view of the broad spectrum of projects which it would be desirable to finance, the funding of the LIFE programme, though considerably increased by the European Parliament - for which I thank Mrs Marinucci - remains very meagre.
That means that we must be very cautious in awarding these funds and ensure that the money is spent on useful projects.
In the past there have been repeated complaints of a lack of transparency in the awarding of funds.
The main root of the problem has been that no precise criteria for the selection of projects were laid down in the original LIFE programme.
So the primary objective of the revised LIFE proposal under discussion today is to establish such criteria.
Today's text considerably improves the catalogue of elimination and evaluation criteria for LIFE applications.
On behalf of my group I very much welcome that.
How the evaluation criteria work in practice remains to be seen and will have to be reviewed in due course.
There is, however, one point with which I am not happy: LIFE can only make good its claim to be an instrument for the promotion of innovation in the industrial sector if the best available technology is taken as the starting point for innovative projects for the development of technological refinements, because otherwise we should find ourselves promoting a project in one Member State to develop technology that has already been in use for several years in another Member State.
Given the shortage of funds, that is something we simply cannot afford to do.
That is why I say that the best available technology must be used as the basis of evaluation when it comes to selecting projects for the further development of existing technology.
The common position on the Directive defines the term 'best available technology' , which means that an agreed basis for the use of the term is already in place.
For that reason I should like to ask Commissioner Bjerregaard again whether she does not agree with me on the need to include this in the LIFE programme, because that would be a consistent policy and position for the Commission and the European Union to adopt.
If Mrs Bjerregaard could agree to that, perhaps Mrs Marinucci could also support my motion, for I consider it very important that we should not pursue a redundant policy but rather apply the rules that are needed.
Some countries do need to catch up, and instead of being content to go on letting them lag behind we should ensure that their technology reflects the state of the art by providing them with the necessary funds.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is fair to point out that Community policy on the environment has been carried out ever more comprehensively and effectively.
Even though it does not cover every aspect of the environment to the extent we should like, Community policy has encouraged in all Member States the development of programmes and projects aimed at environmental protection and consequently at improving the quality of life in the European Union.
The proposal for a Council regulation on the establishment of a financial instrument for the environment - the LIFE programme - which we support, forms part of this policy.
But at the moment we should like to say how pleased we are with Mrs Marinucci's report, which considerably improves the proposal for a Council regulation, extending its field of application to rather sensitive areas such as the protection of wetlands of rivers flowing into coastal areas, the protection of water resources in general and the conservation or restoration of significant habitats of threatened species of flora and fauna and also because the report proposes a financial reference amount for the implementation of programmes, for the period 1996-1999, of ECU 600 million, 150 million more than provided for in that proposal.
I should like to believe that the Member States will take proper advantage of all the aid this regulation offers them.
And as regards particularly the ultraperipheral areas of Portugal - the Azores and Madeira - it is to be hoped that above all in the protection and rational management of coastal areas, in the protection and management of water resources (including waste or contaminated water treatment), in the reduction of toxic and dangerous residues and in all actions relating to the protection of nature, with special emphasis both on the preservation of the typical forest, exceptional and valuable - the laurisilva - or its restoration, and in other eco-systems, biotopes and species endemic to those islands, it will be possible to follow firmly and wisely the ways which are being opened up or enlarged as a result of the Community instruments fortunately being produced in the sphere of the environment.
Mr President, many thanks to Mrs Marinucci for her very good report that we have been discussing here.
'Environment' , it seems, is but a word, an empty shell.
ECU 600 million had almost been voted by the Council.
A majority of the ministers were on the point of agreeing, when things suddenly took a turn for the worse.
Petty jealousies, concern that too much money might be poured into the South, finally won the day, and agreement was reached on ECU 450 million.
Does this amount really reflect the wishes of the European people?
When I consider that in 1996 we are promoting tobacco production to the tune of ECU 1.1 billion and spending ECU 894 million on textile fibre plants and silkworms, I have to ask whether the European environment is not worth more than silkworms.
What is more, this amount of ECU 450 million has been earmarked for a multiannual programme.
This is downright scandalous, Mrs Bjerregaard!
There am I, on the one hand, protecting the livelihood of tobacco-growers, while on the other hand they probably have no clean water to drink and too little pure air to breathe.
The one is really no substitute for the other.
I should also like to mention the Commission's laxity with regard to the investigation of the misuse of LIFE funds in Italy.
Why has it taken so long to institute proceedings? This reticence on the part of the Commission is losing us a great deal of money every year!
Lastly, I wanted to mention that the inclusion of the countries of central and eastern Europe is very important to us, because environmental conditions in some parts of those countries are disastrous.
But if that is mentioned as a priority, Commissioner, we must also be prepared to find the necessary resources.
Where will you obtain the money for such priorities? I am interested to hear that.
Mr President, we shall support Mrs Marinucci's proposal for presenting these seven amendments again.
We should like to draw attention to two of them.
With regard to no 1, which relates to the conservation of rivers and wetlands, the Commissioner knows very well - in my country for example - the number and value of the wetlands and how they are deteriorating.
I could mention many: Doñana, las Tablas de Daimiel, Santoña and so on.
On the other hand Amendment No 5 proposes more funds.
The problem always lies in the scant resources allocated for dealing with a programme like Nature 2000.
DG XI itself has sent us today a very interesting bulletin, no 1, in which it is clearly shown how many countries there are which have still not started to designate their special areas for conservation.
So it seems to us that this instrument in the first place needs to be effective and in the second place to prevent the disasters already occurring in fauna, flora and habitats which will wipe them out before the year 2000.
This very week in my country, in the Island of Lanzarote, which is a biospheric reserve, military installations have led to the disappearance of a plant which is unique in the world.
The only place in which it lived was the Risco de Zamara in the Island of Lanzarote.
It seems to me that if the financial instrument is not equal to preventing that from happening and if we do not manage to set up this Nature 2000 network in the time envisaged we shall be losing a great opportunity.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner.
LIFE has proved to be a successful environmental policy instrument, not least as far as Finland is concerned, judging by our experience of one year of membership.
The proposed budget of ECU 450 million for the entire second stage of LIFE is, however, totally insufficient, especially if the intention is to broaden the scope of the instrument.
As far as the share allocated to third world countries is concerned, where the problems are severe, the amount is really negligible, a mere five per cent.
The effectiveness of LIFE should be safeguarded.
In other words, efforts should be made to ensure that projects are implemented as planned, but monitoring problems should be solved other than by means of increased bureaucracy.
Since the aim is to improve the procedure for project selection by laying down new criteria to govern eligibility for financial assistance, the entire application procedure should be made as clear and as open as possible.
Projects should have genuine merit.
With respect to industrial projects, particular attention should be given to whether the project really is innovative.
They should promote the development and application of the most useful technology available.
A clean, viable environment is fundamental to the future of mankind.
We will not achieve real and lasting environmental improvements until such time as a sufficient number of people are aware of the real state of the environment and are willing to assume responsibility for it.
This is why I consider it very important that the results of these projects are communicated efficiently, so that the information can be circulated as widely as possible.
Mr President, first of all I should like to say that the Commission much appreciates Parliament's speedy second reading of the Council's common position.
In addition I should like to take the opportunity to emphasize here this evening the reasonable and constructive spirit which has been typical of the work of the Committee on the Environment and I should like to give my special thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Marinucci.
I am happy to note that we are approaching the target in the best possible conditions. It may be regarded as being the bright spot for the European environment and for the fruitful development which LIFE is trying to promote thanks to a creative strategy in which new methods and technologies are used.
Personally I am quite pleased with the Commission's common position, which is the result of lengthy discussions and which represents a compromise which the Commission can use as a working basis in the period 1996-1999.
Of course it is not a perfect compromise since the Council has not included some of the improvements which Parliament had proposed and which the Commission had accepted.
But that is not so serious, since the most essential is included, and as the rapporteur, Mrs Marinucci rightly said, the text resulting from the common position has turned out clear and positive.
The Commission thinks that the greater part of the amendments - and there are in fact only a few - put forward here in second reading, point in the right direction.
The Commission actually accepted the first four in November last year and incorporated them in the modified proposal in January.
Amendment No 6, tabled by Mrs Marinucci, is new and explains what is, in the Commission's opinion, a quite essential point.
I share Mrs Marinucci's view that with no reference basis, the most suitable projects may be selected by a transparent application of the criteria in the regulation.
The choice of the criteria to be taken as the basis, together with the procedure for selection of projects is the only way to avoid misunderstandings at the implementation stage.
Although I can, therefore, concur with the procedure proposed, I must point out that it is impossible to incorporate Amendment No 6 in the regulation in view of the legal implications for the Commission's powers of initiative.
I therefore undertake to draft a statement from the Commission to the Council on the basis of Amendment No 6 in order to call attention to Parliament's wishes.
So I can say that the Commission accepts the principle of the amendment but will in due course give it a suitable form.
Amendment No 7 can of course be accepted in the light of that statement replacing Amendment No 6.
Mr President, I shall urge the Council to look again at the aspects raised by the amendments in the hope that it will accept this in principle, if necessary with certain adjustments in drafting.
I must on the other hand admit that the Commission does not regard Amendment No 5 as being a step in the right direction.
The amendment concerns an increase in the LIFE budget to ECU 600 million and in that connection I can only confirm that it was discussed at length in the Council and reiterate the Commission's usual view as regards form and content.
With regard to form the Commission cannot agree with the idea of stating a specific amount in the document.
With regard to content the Commission does not think that it will be possible with the present budgetary perspectives to go further than the Council's proposal to consider the situation afresh in 1997.
At the present time therefore it is impossible to accept the idea of increasing the LIFE budget even though the ECU 600 million may be regarded as a compromise between the amount of ECU 800 million proposed in first reading and the ECU 450 million entered in the common position, which the Council decided to accept until the further assessment in 1997.
In my opinion the essential factor is that the Council has recognized the disproportion between the interest in LIFE and the budget available.
That shows in a way that the Council shares Parliament's view, as expressed here this evening, and that the Council is trying to improve the situation as far as possible.
With regard to the amendment which has just now been put forward, namely Amendment No 8 introduced by Mrs Schleicher to Article 1(5) of the common position, which she was advocating a moment ago, I should like to say that the Commission prefers the more general text in the common position.
According to the wording it is for the Commission and the Member States' experts to decide themselves whether the industrial technology which is to receive LIFE support is the best technology available, depending on whether an individual country or the Community is concerned.
The Commission will therefore submit a remodelled proposal to the Council as soon as possible with a view to approval of the second stage of LIFE in June.
If that comes about - and I think it is possible in view of the assurances I received from the Italian presidency - it will be due in my opinion particularly to the effective work Parliament and the rapporteur, Mrs Marinucci, have done, to Parliament's interest in the specific problems confronting us, which we must solve.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.30 p.m.)
Extraordinary Council meeting of 3/4 June 1996
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has decided to deal in this session with the problems facing the European Union now that the spread of BSE has thrown the whole beef sector into crisis, with all the producers in the Member States suffering serious losses.
The European Parliament also wishes to take a position on the attitude of one Member State which has been applying a selective policy of non-cooperation for several weeks, preventing the Council from adopting important decisions for the functioning of the European Union.
As President of the Agriculture Council, which devoted its meeting of 3 and 4 June essentially to BSE problems, I am most grateful for the invitation to take part in this debate and report to Parliament on the outcome of the Council's last meeting.
But I would first like to mention the approach taken by the Agriculture Council in its discussions since the British government laid the official information on BSE before it last March.
The Council has expressed its determination to take all necessary measures to ensure the protection of public health.
As emphasized in the texts approved at the Council meetings of 1-3 April and 29-30 April, the priority has been to ensure a high level of health protection on the basis of the available scientific data.
As you know, faced with the consequences suffered by the United Kingdom and the rest of the European Union, on 27 March 1996 the Commission decided to introduce a temporary ban on the export of bovine animals, beef and beef products from the United Kingdom to other Member States and third countries, as a protective measure.
Following this decision, the United Kingdom adopted a series of measures to eradicate and prevent the spread of BSE throughout its territory, and the Commission has been monitoring the implementation of these measures through repeated inspections.
A report on the Commission's last inspection mission to the United Kingdom, conducted from 28 to 31 May, was presented to the Council on Monday 3 June.
At the same time the British Minister for Agriculture presented a comprehensive plan for the eradication of the disease from the United Kingdom, and this plan should eventually produce a substantial reduction in the incidence of BSE in United Kingdom herds.
The Council decided that all the new documents received should be thoroughly examined by the relevant Community departments.
However, as you also know, the main item on the agenda at the last meeting of the Agriculture Council was the examination of the Commission proposal for a decision on partial lifting of the embargo covering the whole British beef sector.
Essentially this involved permitting exports of three by-products: gelatine, tallow and bull semen.
This proposal reached the Council after the Standing Veterinary Committee failed to provide an opinion on 20 May.
On the basis of the current rules of procedure, the Council could then approve the proposal from the Commission by qualified majority, amend it unanimously or reject it by simple majority.
After conducting a series of bilateral meetings with the various delegations to see if conditions for agreement existed, I had to acknowledge in the Council that there was no qualified majority in favour of the Commission's proposal despite certain changes which could have been made to the proposal to strengthen the criteria for opening up trade, in particular as regards bull semen.
In fact it was on this last item, - semen exports - that there was strongest resistance from some delegations, and that meant there was no qualified majority.
Immediately afterwards, however, I recognized that no majority of delegations existed in the Council to reject the Commission's proposal, so on the basis of the rules of procedure which apply in this case, the proposal will be adopted by the Commission under its own responsibility.
Although some delegations could not associate themselves with this decision and thus prevented the Council from adopting it, the Commission has always maintained, naturally on secure scientific foundations, that the proposed measures will not prejudice public and animal health.
In fact this is the criterion underlying the Commission's whole approach to lifting the ban progressively, only as and when the scientific evidence justifies it.
You will be aware that the Commission adopted the proposed measures yesterday and they will come into force as from next Monday, 10 June.
For my part I want Parliament to know that the Italian presidency, by agreement with the Commission and recognizing the delicacy of the matter and its human, social and economic repercussions, has left no stone unturned to gather all the detailed information needed to justify a decision to lift the ban, if only partially.
I would also stress that even those Member States expressing reservations or opposing did so out of a sense of responsibility and without any punitive intent, but purely to guarantee the health of consumers through the strictest controls.
There has already been major progress towards restoring consumer confidence with the United Kingdom's wellconstructed programme for eradication of the disease, as well as the confirmation of the commitment to make the exceptional effort equal to the gravity of the problem, obviously a priority for the United Kingdom which faces a worse situation than any other country.
But the United Kingdom has repeatedly stated in the Council that it cannot settle for such piecemeal decisions and its aim is to obtain a Council commitment to a framework for step-by-step progress towards complete lifting of the ban.
The United Kingdom is visiting the various capitals to this end.
The British delegation was received yesterday evening by the Italian Foreign and Health Ministers and by myself.
The United Kingdom has a very detailed framework programme for the eradication of the disease and is seeking a commitment from the European partners to examine and approve it quickly.
The Italian presidency recommended thorough examination of the document by the European Commission and the appropriate Community scientific and technical bodies.
This will take place over the next few days with a view to providing firmer scientific and inspection data on which to base a gradual and justified series of measures leading to a possible lifting of the ban.
As regards the United Kingdom's aim - complete lifting of the ban - I want to stress that the Council clearly stated, in paragraph 6 of its conclusions of 29 and 30 April, that the group of measures introduced by the United Kingdom, their implementation, the appropriate controls established by the Commission, the programme for selective slaughter announced by the British authorities, the supplementary measures which have proved necessary and, finally, the equally necessary assurance that all future decisions will be based on solid scientific opinion, constitute reference points in a process leading to progressive lifting of the export ban, stage by stage.
The Council is not hiding behind a safety measure taken against a sector of production in a Member State for economic and commercial reasons. Its every act is guided by the priority of protecting animal health and human health.
That is the Council's fundamental position.
The Council is already committed to taking the necessary decisions that will lead to the lifting of the ban once the United Kingdom has taken sufficiently credible action to permit a clear assessment of the eradication of the disease.
The need now is to encourage the United Kingdom to pursue the eradication of BSE, and continue to show due solidarity towards this country which is so heavily committed to the reconstruction of the entire sector.
In view of all this, the attitude the United Kingdom has adopted in the last few weeks, expressed in the policy of non-cooperation with certain decisions of the European Union, does not appear to be the best way of serving the common objective of preserving public health and progressively rebuilding the market through the positive effects of the health measures.
It has been impossible to take important decisions for the operation of the single market in the areas of development policy, social affairs, the economy and finance because of the United Kingdom's non-cooperation policy.
The President-in-Office of the Council and Commission President Santer have stressed in an official letter to Prime Minister Major that there is no justification for such behaviour.
We also confirmed this yesterday evening to the British Foreign and Agriculture Ministers.
We shall not fail to act in close solidarity with the United Kingdom to contribute to the eradication of a disease which has devastated that country's herds, but we expect the British government to restore the climate of reciprocal confidence vital to the proper functioning of our institutions by renewing respect for the common rules of conduct which make our Community a community of law.
Encouraging signals are now being received from the British government and we look forward to definite confirmation.
Finally, I want to remind the European Parliament that the last Agriculture Council meeting also dealt with the Commission proposal on emergency income support measures in the beef-producing countries of the European Union. These measures are proving increasingly vital as a result of the grave crisis sparked by BSE.
The Council unanimously stressed the urgency and importance of these support measures, although many delegations made the point that the amount proposed by the Commission was quite inadequate compared to the loss of income suffered by European Union producers.
Given the urgency the Council decided to ask the European Parliament for an opinion on this proposal in the next session of 17-21 June.
Being familiar with parliamentary procedure, I recognize that the request for an urgent opinion from Parliament may create some difficulty, and obviously I must leave it to the European Parliament to take the decision.
I am quite sure you all understand the spirit of this request and the need to respond rapidly to the expectations of Community beef producers who have seen their income seriously compromised and their costs of production significantly increased, while the prospects for market recovery and an upturn in consumption are extremely insecure.
We must all work together to send a message of confidence to the world of the producers and to the consumers.
So I feel sure the European Parliament, which is the most genuine expression of public opinion, will support us on the road we must travel together.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the House for the opportunity to provide an update today on the latest steps taken by the Commission to overcome the problem of BSE, which is wreaking havoc throughout the European Union.
In particular, I should like to report on the events that have taken place in the last few days and over the past week.
The Commission, as you know, took a decision yesterday about gelatine, tallow and bulls' semen.
In taking that decision, the Commission was fulfilling its responsibility to take steps that will help to normalize the situation in the European Union.
The Commission has enacted measures based on scientific knowledge, measures designed to protect public health, to help restore consumer confidence and to enable us in specific areas to take our first steps back towards the single market.
The Commission decided on these measures long before the British announcement of a non-cooperation policy at European level and believes it is necessary to hold fast to this course despite any acts of political escalation.
However, as the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, explained to the House yesterday, the British policy of obstruction is making the work of the Commission increasingly difficult.
Before dealing with the substance of yesterday's decision, I should like to report briefly on the other developments, one at a time.
One thing that seems important to me is that last week from 28 to 31 May the second inspection took place in the United Kingdom.
The main purpose of the inspection was to check on the implementation of the programme for cattle older than thirty months, cattle which must not enter into the human or animal food chain.
In addition, observance of the ban on feeding animal and bone meal and progress in the introduction of a new system of animal identification were also checked.
The programme for the slaughter and disposal of animals over the age of 30 months is now fully operative.
By the end of May, around 80 000 animals had been slaughtered under that programme.
The programme presents an enormous challenge to all concerned, and especially to the authorities.
Some 200 auctioneers, 115 abattoirs, three cold stores, nine carcass disposal plants, various storage facilities serving as depositories for tallow and animal meal and twelve incineration plants have had to be involved in the implementation of the programme.
The inspection team noted in its report that the British authorities were making great efforts to establish appropriate procedures for the proper implementation of the programme and to effect improvements which initial difficulties had shown to be necessary.
There are still problems, however, with regard to individual aspects, such as coordination problems relating to certain bodies involved in the programme and problems with the settlement of compensation claims.
What evidently makes the verification process particularly complex is that almost without exception the animals have been slaughtered in accordance with standard procedure and have been processed into products, such as animal meal, without adequate facilities being available for the destruction of such products.
The products therefore have to be kept in storage until they are finally incinerated.
I therefore believe that an organizational streamlining of the programme is desirable and would help the UK authorities to solve the present verification problems.
The United Kingdom has also now been making great efforts to enforce the feed ban.
I hope that the waste-return programme currently under examination, whereby feed residues from feed mixers and similar installations are taken back and disposed of, will provide additional safety.
Two sets of talks were also held last week, one with representatives of the Portuguese authorities and the other with representatives of the British authorities about their respective slaughter programmes.
With regard to the Portuguese slaughter programme, the various unresolved points were discussed here, and the Commission requested further information, such as epidemiological data, details of animal traceability and information on the feed ban in Portugal.
As a result of this preparatory work, it should be possible at today's meeting of the Standing Veterinary Committee to discuss the Portuguese slaughter programme in detail and, if circumstances permit, to adopt a decision.
At the end of last week, the United Kingdom presented the Commission authorities with the draft of a very comprehensive slaughter programme comprising just over 120 pages as well as an extensive technical annex.
This programme was also distributed to the Member States through the Council.
The programme will now need to be discussed and examined in detail, and that will also be done by the Standing Veterinary Committee today.
The opinions of the Member States on this programme are expected to be delivered at that meeting, and I hope that we shall be able to make appropriate progress today in this area too.
The Commission and various Member States regard the realization and implementation of a selective slaughter programme as one of the key elements in the restoration of consumer confidence and in particular as a prerequisite of discussions on the framework programme requested by the British Prime Minister, Mr John Major.
But let me now deal briefly with the three products to which I referred at the start, namely gelatine, tallow and bulls' semen.
As you know, back in early April the Council adopted conclusions in which it asked the Commission to have its scientific committees examine the list of products covered by the export ban.
This was done at various meetings held by a highly diverse group of committees in the course of April.
The scientists there reached the conclusion that bulls' semen posed no danger and should therefore be removed from the list of banned products.
Their conclusion on gelatine and tallow was that the establishment of safe production processes which guarantee deactivation of the BSE pathogen can eliminate any health risk connected with these products.
In its conclusions at the end of April, the Council then asked the Commission to submit a proposal for a set of rules covering the aforementioned products in line with these scientific findings.
The Commission responded to this request and on 15 May presented the Standing Veterinary Committee with a draft opinion.
This was discussed in detail, but the Veterinary Committee has yet to deliver its opinion.
In addition, at its meeting of 22 May the Commission, following the rules of the contrefilet procedure, decided to submit to the Council the draft opinion on which it had asked the committee to vote and asked the Council to adopt a decision on the draft.
As you know, the Council discussed the draft in detail at its meeting of 3 and 4 June and put it to the vote, where it was backed by nine Member States, the other six Member States withholding their support.
This meant that the procedure was to be continued, which was done yesterday.
The Commission duly took the decision, empowering the President and myself to implement it on Monday, following the expiry of the statutory period during which the Council may take the decision.
Let me explain briefly the ins and outs of this decision.
It is not the case that the export ban on these products expires on Monday, so to speak. With regard to bulls' semen, we have no objections on the basis of the scientists' opinion.
For that reason, bulls' semen can once more be sold within the European Union.
As for gelatine and tallow, in our Regulation we have defined a safe process by which these products must be manufactured in future.
It is also necessary, however, that companies which intend to produce gelatine or tallow obtain a licence.
This licence will be issued by the British Government.
The British Government is also required to notify the Commission of each licence issued; once this notification is received, a site inspection of the production facilities concerned will be conducted, to which the Member States will be invited.
Only when the production process has passed this inspection will the Commission give the go-ahead for the marketing of the product in question.
In this way, I believe, we have done everything that is humanly possible to fulfil the obligation to which I referred at the start, namely to give absolute priority to human health and safety.
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, the proof that Europe is gambling away not only the future of an economic sector but its own political survival on BSE was given by the strength of feeling in President Santer's voice when he spoke in this Chamber yesterday.
Even here we feel rather powerless when faced with the distress of bewildered consumers who have lost faith in Europe's capacity to guarantee the absolute safety of their food, the procedural riddle preventing the Council, in such a delicate situation, from reaching a decision with a majority either for or against, the resurgence of nationalism and the deadly blows it deals our mythical single market, or the spectre of the policy of the empty seat, popular since time immemorial.
What is to be done? We might want to throw in the sponge and go home, saying the European project was a fine thing, but there were forces and beliefs too strong for it to overcome.
But we cannot give in to that, we must make the right signals.
Now, was yesterday's decision by the Commission on the partial lifting of the ban right? It opens a window of opportunity, breaches the solid wall which would not serve the citizen well because it suggests ulterior motives.
I know there is strong anti-British feeling in the countryside, but isolating the United Kingdom is no way to handle this crisis. The problem is a collective one.
But we are also telling the British government and above all the British people that political opposition to Europe is no way to deal with their problem. Hindering Europol or the fight against racism is not going to gain them more attention for their legitimate national interests.
Lifting the ban, by whatever means, will not restore consumer confidence.
The more the table is thumped, the more obvious it is that there are no other arguments on the table.
And it is the other arguments we have demanded: a plan for eradicating the disease which secures the assent of the European bodies and which attracts the European solidarity, including financial solidarity, we are all agreed on, plus support measures for the sector which not only add new money where plenty is already being pocketed, but also take account of the peculiarities and differences of the various European countries.
All this can be done. It is reasonable, and shows political sense which is also common sense.
But if political situations can be created for purposes of domestic political window-dressing, Europe will be in a permanent state of gelatine.
Minister Pinto has brought us positive signals today and I do not think it is irresponsible optimism to say that more Europe is needed, not less Europe.
Mr President, the Commission decision to lift the ban on the export of derivatives is very welcome news and it is, of course, consistent with the previous statements that Mr Fischler has made, on a number of occasions, on the basis of scientific evidence.
I accept - Mr Santer pressed for this yesterday - that this is a decision of principle and I recognise that it depends upon British action in their programme of eradication of the disease, in an endeavour to restore confidence among beef-eating consumers.
Many will say that the plan of action to exclude from the human food chain all parts of bovine carcasses which could convey infection, if it were transmissible to man, should have started five years ago.
Well it did, because all ruminant material which could convey BSE to cattle was excluded six years ago.
All cattle suffering from BSE have been slaughtered to date.
That is 190, 000 of them since 1992, costing ECU 180m.
A further ECU 63m has been spent on research and administrative controls have cost a further ECU 43m.
The budget for research in the United Kingdom has been increased and the meat hygiene service budget also increased by £39m for additional control.
These measures have had a clear impact; the number of confirmed cases has dropped since 1992 from 36, 000 to 8, 000 and it is still declining.
I invite everyone to read and consider the further action programme, all 121 pages of it, and to consider what has happened.
Since 29 March, 81, 648 cattle have been slaughtered under the Government's scheme of carcass disposal.
Last week, the total slaughter exceeded 25, 000 and that includes the cold storage and 1, 500 further emergencies.
In addition, 20, 000 calves have been slaughtered since 29 March, 4, 000 a week.
We are very grateful to the Commission for the compensation and the added intervention and support measures which I hope have been agreed.
With a framework plan of action for tightening measures for dealing with BSE, I hope we can now remove the crisis of confidence and restore normal trading as soon as possible.
Confidence will only be restored by a rigorous and demonstrable enforcement of animal and public health control measures and I submit that it is time to get this issue back to science and away from political posturing.
Mr President, we understand that Lord Plumb has to put a good face on a terrible story; we feel for him.
Mr President, I presented the truth.
Mr President, the embargo on British meat and derived products has achieved three things.
It has protected the Union's reputation for the quality of its food.
It has kept the internal market intact by preventing individual countries from erecting national barriers.
And it has obliged the United Kingdom to adopt a number of measures at last.
But it will still take some time before consumers' confidence is restored outside the United Kingdom.
Even if the ban were completed lifted, most people would still not be ready to eat British meat.
Now that the Commission has decided partially to lift the embargo I call upon the Commission to make sure that no Member State independently introduces new import barriers.
Let the Commission also ensure that similar safety standards are applied in the whole European Union.
But, Mr President, I want above all to speak of the political background to this crisis.
The British ship of State is a rudderless vessel which has run aground on rocks of its own making.
There is a bitter irony behind the many inconsistencies in the British position.
By bringing an action before a Court of Justice whose powers it wishes to see curtailed, by resisting measures which it supports and by being politically rescued by the faceless Brussels bureaucrats, the British Government shows how very much British diplomacy has tied itself in a knot.
After blocking 30 measures in less than three weeks perhaps we should even thank Britain because London has demonstrated how necessary it is to replace the unanimity rule by majority voting.
But, Mr President, above all I should like to express today my deep concern at the emergence of a venomous nationalism in the United Kingdom.
There is mention of a wave of insults against Germany and German citizens.
That wave fills me as a citizen of the Netherlands and as a European with disappointment and shame.
How easy it is, 50 years after the Second World War to summon up a xenophobic storm and to wallow in chauvinism.
How easy it is to call up once more the demons of intolerance and prejudice which have so often disfigured European civilization.
(Applause) How easy it is, ladies and gentlemen, for a government to encourage nationalism instead of resisting it.
There is no honour in that strategy, ladies and gentlemen.
Each of us, as politicians is faced with a choice.
We can exploit prejudices or we can help to spread tolerance.
We can excuse prejudices or we can oppose them.
We can preach nationalism or we can strengthen the rule of law within the European Union.
The conservative party has made its choice.
That party has chosen nationalism as its electoral strategy.
The conservative party is no longer the party of responsible government and of one nation.
The conservative party has become the English national party.
(Applause) Some courageous individuals such as Emma Nicholson, have made their choice.
They have left the conservative party to join the only British party which consistently follows a pro-European line.
It is time for those of her colleagues who share her concern to follow her example.
By letting party interests prevail over the country's interests the conservative party has shown clearly where it stands.
It is time for my conservative friends in the European Parliament to do the same.
Let them put principle above party.
Let them choose an England in the heart of Europe.
Let them choose the only British party which is not ambivalent about Europe.
Let them join the British and European liberals.
It is time to make their choice.
(Applause)
Mr President, perhaps there is no need for me to mention the wrong approach taken by the British Government but you will perhaps allow me an observation on the functioning in this case of the Community institutions.
The underlying problem with BSE is that political decisions have been subordinated to economic pressures in the United Kingdom.
The disease originated with the introduction of meal of animal origin into animal feed and a change in the industrial processes to which it was subjected.
Both of those factors yielded considerable profits and it is highly significant that when it was shown that meal of animal origin was responsible for BSE the multinationals pulled out of manufacturing animal feed so as to avoid responsibility.
Yesterday Mr Santer told us that the Commission, faced with the blocking tactics in the Council, without any political pressure and on the basis of scientific evidence, decided on the partial lifting of the ban on gelatine, tallow and semen from the United Kingdom.
But if blocking the Community institutions does not count as political pressure I cannot imagine what does.
It is clear that the British Government has caused blockage in the institutions, forcing through the adoption of decisions which may adversely affect public health, because those products were originally included in the ban and the disease has not been eradicated so it must be feared that if at any time there was a danger, it has not disappeared.
The Commission claims to have scientific evidence in this connection, but it is not publishing it or passing an appropriate opinion on to the relevant scientific bodies.
Mr Fischler has just referred in his speech to the debate in the Veterinary Committee, which ended without any positive statement that the ban could be lifted.
There are surprising arguments in the media.
I cannot understand what the fact that the disease is not transmitted through the genes has to do with gelatine or tallow.
We also hear about the report provided by an association of gelatine makers on the safety of those products.
However, in the Commission's earlier decisions it was stated that in the present state of knowledge there were no known processes which could fully guarantee to render the infective agent inactive.
It must be made clear that decisions are based on rigorously scientific grounds so that it may not be thought that economic interests and political pressures are taking precedence over protection of the public health.
In this respect the Commission must produce any scientific proof it has for proposing a partial lifting of the ban, a description of the new experiments carried out, their results, the names of the people who have conducted them and the assessment of those experiments by the competent scientific bodies and in particular by the Scientific Veterinary Committee.
Unless it does so, the impression will inevitably be given that the Commission has adopted decisions which may present risks for public health if there are no favourable reports from the competent scientific bodies.
The line taken in the CAP has led to certain problems.
The quest for competitiveness at any price encourages the introduction of methods and techniques whose long-term consequences are unknown.
The CAP was set up at the beginning of the 60s to guarantee Europe's food supply.
Now the situation has changed and we ought to be asking ourselves whether this is not the time for the common agricultural policy to cease to concentrate solely on quantitative aspects and begin to take action with regard to the quality of the food with which the European Union supplies itself.
Mr President, there is no anti-British climate, either in the House or in our group.
There is, however, a British Government which is irresponsibly banking on political and administrative pressure and creating an atmosphere in which nationalist chauvinism can rear its head again, which we should scarcely have thought possible.
And there is a British Government which, by means of this political and administrative pressure, is preventing the necessary measures in the United Kingdom that could lead to effective suppression of this disease.
Mr Fischler, this morning you have again been speaking of 'could' , ' should' and 'ought to' with reference to the measures that the British Government must introduce.
You do not tell us what the British Government has done, because it has to be assumed that, apart from exerting political pressure, it has not done very much.
It is true that the suppression of BSE cannot be restricted to the export ban alone.
It is a European problem, as we have always said, not an English disease, so we all have responsibility to bear.
But at a time when political pressure is being applied, a decision to relax restrictions sends the wrong signal and has nothing to do with scientific findings or responsible behaviour!
It is true, Commissioner, that the products to be derestricted - gelatine and tallow - do not belong to the most dangerous category and are ultraheat-treated, but, as you will also be aware, the latest findings show that this process does not kill the pathogens but only reduces their activity.
And how you want to explain the lifting of the ban on bulls' sperm, when it is perfectly clear that the disease is transmissible from one generation to the next, is beyond me.
I believe it is time to return to an objective discussion focused on BSE and to explore seriously every possible scientific avenue.
The Commission should also present a plan at long last laying down the means by which, notwithstanding the present epidemic, proper beef production can be ensured, we shall no longer need to talk about BSE or to discuss any future antibiotics scandals, European agriculture can be set to rights and we can inspire confidence among consumers, sustained confidence that will endure beyond the present BSE scandal.
Our group originally wanted to approve this joint resolution.
We assumed that the Commission had not yet reached its final decision.
We enquired about the scientific findings in order to substantiate our decision.
But now you have crossed the Rubicon.
The die is cast.
That is why our group can no longer subscribe to this resolution.
We retract our signature.
We are opposed to a relaxation at this point in time and on the basis of the available findings.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Santer, President of the Commission, told us yesterday of the decision on principle regarding a partial lifting of the ban, probably relying on the paralysis of the summer months to bury the matter permanently.
I trust that he will be sufficiently touched by and sensitive to our legitimate questions not to confirm that decision on 10 June, whatever the political consequences may be.
To err is human, but to persist in error is another matter.
Mr Santer also told us that his only regret was that it had been necessary to wait six weeks in order to find a solution, alibi, compromise.
Six weeks to make sure that the experts were infallible.
Six weeks to make sure that the gates of paradise were open to all, to take an economic decision against the interests of nature.
Commissioner, do you think that is reasonable? If your heart fails to rule your head today, fear will soon do so.
While we wait for that inevitable day, for which you will accept responsibility, let us stop expecting the worst and start hoping for the best.
Morale will benefit, and so will our health.
Commissioner, can you conscientiously take the consumer hostage now that he is refusing to consume high-risk products, having felt they represented a danger to his health?
Can you take hostage the tax-payer, who pays up with no guarantee of origin or quality and has other legitimate concerns than paying the bills of those who have made a lot of money out of him without committing themselves? Can you condemn the farmers, including our British and Irish friends, their careers, their jobs, other than the job of burning carcasses, and at the same time the whole of European agriculture in every aspect of its production simply for having naively trusted a few unscrupulous multinational animal feed companies?
Can you, once again, leave it to European and national aid to make good lost revenue, soothe spirits and prevent liquidations and the resulting desertification of the rural environment? You are well aware that this aid will be criticized by observers of the European Union's agricultural financing.
We will not escape that criticism, and that goes for Parliament too.
And, as always, the farmers will be in dock.
All that remains will be to dream up a system of compensation between production operations to make quite sure that farmers are divided on the subject.
Everyone will lose out: the tax-payer through the State, the farmers through their professional solidarity, and the administrative machinery as far as its operation is concerned.
To conclude, Commissioner, given the present political complications of this matter, are we to allow political responsibility to assume, in the name of the Commission, something that is not a matter for your authority or jurisdiction? That is why my group opposes the lifting of the embargo and, consequently, will vote in favour of the resolution, provided it is amended.
Mr President, the lifting of the export ban on beef derivatives is a significant step forward.
Equally, I am pleased that the British Government is at least showing some signs of constructive behaviour by apparently supporting the association agreement with Slovenia.
That slightly modified stance needs to be taken much further.
It is surely absurd that the British government is actually damaging everyone's interests by indiscriminately blocking measures which are in Britain's national interest and some of which were actually proposed by the United Kingdom.
The saddest aspect of this whole business is the way the British Government has encouraged an unprecedented xenophobic, jingoistic rhetoric and practice.
Surely such language has absolutely no place in the European Union or in any civilized society.
The use of racist language and innuendo is a political tactic which will have a lasting and detrimental effect on both Britain and the European Union.
It must be our task as democrats and as parliamentarians to do all we can to end this crisis.
It must be our task to ensure that the ban is lifted.
It must be our task to help ensure that consumer confidence is restored as quickly as possible and to ensure that, above all else, jingoism is never, ever, heard again in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the cattle disease BSE has not only provoked a crisis within the European Union; above all, it has led to a significant loss of consumer confidence.
Anxious consumers mean a reduction in sales, and that in turn means lower prices for beef producers.
We are locked into a cycle here which has already produced unforeseeable effects and which we urgently need to bring under control.
But the best way for us to do that would be to restore confidence in European meat production.
We should therefore take a first step towards that goal by rigorously culling the BSE-infected herds.
The introduction of a practicable system of identification marking for meat and meat products across the whole of Europe, animal protection standards that apply throughout Europe, intensified research efforts to discover ways in which BSE can be transmitted and a critical examination of yield enhancers, medicated feed additives and feed supplements, as well as their residues, are also necessary.
Consumers must ultimately be able to find out where their meat comes from.
The danger at the present time is that hasty measures will be taken through force of circumstances and will sap consumer confidence still further.
This could be the case if the export ban were lifted without appropriate prior guarantees that the animalidentification system will work, for example, or that the ban on feeding with bone meal will not be contravened.
In addition, continuous monitoring by the EU will be necessary in future.
This is also the context in which the Austrian position in the Council should be seen, for at the present time we feel that the uncertainties are still too great.
It is in the interests of no-one to maintain an indefinite export ban on British cattle, but it is surely in the interests of everyone that safety and quality of supply should be ensured.
Let us not only regard the current problems as a disaster but let us also see them as an opportunity to take the proper steps in the right direction.
Mr President, I wish to restate here this morning my confidence in Commissioner Fischler's handling of the BSE crisis.
I welcome the partial lifting of the ban.
The decision is based on scientific evidence and will bring some movement in the beef sector which is very welcome at this time.
However, I urge the Commission to bring to fruition the compensation package promised to beef producers.
At a time when the industry is on its knees with farmers facing bankruptcy and workers in the industry losing their jobs, it is disgraceful that the Council of Ministers is unable to reach an agreement on a compensation package.
I also restate my view that the compensation proposed is totally inadequate and must be immediately increased.
Beef producers were already facing heavy financial losses before the BSE crisis.
I regret that the overall impact of the crisis on consumers and farmers is not improving.
The latest statement, for example, by a British scientist that the disease is transmitted by cows to their unborn calves is creating further doubts in the minds of consumers.
Where is it all going to end? There are people out there with all kind of agendas and nobody knows exactly where the truth lies.
We need urgently to concentrate on the public health considerations and what the position is there.
My understanding is that there is no proven health risk and surely it must be possible to have a factual and credible statement with regard to this.
In the meantime Britain continues to treat the Community with arrogance and contempt.
It created this problem and Europe is now having to pay the price.
If consumer confidence is to be restored, Britain must implement an eradication programme that will leave no doubts in the minds of consumers.
That is what the European Community is committed to funding and it is not unreasonable to expect a satisfactory response.
As I have stated here on previous occasions, this crisis is having a greater impact on Irish beef producers and on the Irish economy than any other Member State.
I would like to hear Commissioner Fischler this morning confirm the effectiveness of Ireland's control programme which has been in operation since the first case was identified a few years ago.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I listened to the strong words spoken by Mr Santer yesterday and Mr Fischler today condemning the behaviour of the British Government, I could not help feeling that this tough talking is really only a facade behind which there lurks a strategy or tactics that will make it easier to give in to demands for an end to the embargo.
Let me justify that assertion.
If I say that it is too soon for the ban on these three products to be lifted, I am not denying that there may be conditions under which a very high level of safety can be guaranteed.
But the fact remains that the conditions for lifting the ban at the present juncture have not yet been fulfilled.
If we want to act fairly - and I am not one of those who seek to maintain the embargo in its entirety until the last vestige of uncertainty has been eradicated - we must assess, step by step, the success achieved in combating the disease and ease the ban in the same gradual manner.
But the mechanism has been thrown out of balance.
Success has not yet been achieved, nor can we be certain that the three products are absolutely safe.
That is why the ban on these products has been lifted too soon!
The Commission should know that it has, to some extent, been left holding the baby.
If the coming months are marked by dogged consumer resistance to many products containing gelatine and tallow, just as has happened with beef itself, this will have something to do with the premature lifting of the ban on these three products.
I do not wish to be a Cassandra or to tempt Providence, but we know how volatile consumer markets are, and I fear that the same will happen with a wide, wide range of products as has been happening with beef.
The Commission should know that.
I believe we have really reached the point at which the BSE crisis may become a crisis in the European Union.
The British Government has to take a considerable share of the blame - of that there is no doubt - but the actions of the Commission and of some Council members are fomenting this process.
Where health is concerned there can be no half measures!
That is the foremost precept of the European Union and surely also of the British Government.
Health is paramount.
Nothing, but nothing, is anywhere near health in the list of priorities - just health, health and health again!
Only then, well down the list, come national sentiments and national sensitivities.
That applies to the continent as well as to the British Isles!
My fear is that the Council and the Commission are frittering away the trust of European people in the European Union, and Parliament should have no part in this squalid process!
Mr President, the BSE crisis is now ten weeks' old. It is the fruit of a reckless statement to the House of Commons which had no scientific basis.
Since then the European beef industry has been brought to its knees.
Farmers, especially those in major exporting areas such as Ireland, have suffered tremendous losses.
Many are now close to bankruptcy.
Consumer confidence in beef has been severely undermined and consumption levels have declined by anything up to 30 %.
We now need immediate and well-focused action to restore consumer confidence and eradicate the BSE disease.
In the last few days, following many meetings, including briefings from UK ministers, we have seen some positive developments.
The British Government now assures us that the rules on the disposal of offal and contaminated feed have been strengthened, are being rigorously enforced and are now watertight.
At last the British Government has produced a fairly detailed programme for the eradication of BSE.
Although this document is far from perfect it is going in the right direction.
In addition the Commission has produced a new programme to compensate farmers for some of their losses.
There are, however, some negative developments.
The British decision to disrupt Community business is wrong.
It is counterproductive and it has made a bad situation very much worse.
It is bad for Britain, bad for Europe and will only prolong the crisis.
This display of lawlessness at the highest level of government is unacceptable in a Union based on the rule of law and solidarity.
It has also been a slap in the face to this House and those of us Members who have since 20 March tried in every way possible to resolve the problem and reduce the adverse impact of the BSE crisis.
This is a lesson in how not to resolve conflict within the EU.
The other major downside is that ten weeks have gone by arguing about peripheral issues such as the ban on derivatives while ignoring the real fears of consumers and the plight of beef producers.
In areas such as Ireland farming incomes have been decimated through no fault of the farmers concerned.
The British Government has failed since 1989 to recognize the gravity of the situation.
We are now reaping the harvest of its inaction.
It must now sit down with the Commission and examine the eradication programme and adopt a set of measures to eradicate BSE and restore consumer confidence.
There must be no let-up in the efforts to eliminate older animals from suspect herds in the UK, herds known to have consumed infected feed and many of those cattle now incubating the disease.
Consumers must once again be convinced that beef is a wholesome food.
The current diet of misinformation and distorted facts must cease.
The challenge for all of us now is to demonstrate to consumers that the British Government has finally become serious about the eradication of BSE and it must now go about the task with commitment and determination.
Finally, the Commission must urgently re-examine the proposed compensation package for beef farmers.
Any help is welcome but the current package will have to be substantially increased if it is to address the real losses to the people involved.
Mr President, Lord Plumb is an able advocate - nobody denies that.
He told us movingly about the work going on in the UK to deal with BSE.
Sadly he omitted to tell us how the mess was caused in the first place.
He did not tell us who was responsible, who had been reckless with consumer interests and who had been reckless with the health interests of the population in the last fifteen years.
However, not even Lord Plumb's advocacy - Mr de Vries will be very happy to hear this - can save the British Conservative Party from their own fate at the hands of the political equivalent of BSE.
Only a programme of electoral culling can do that.
It is more than two and a half months since the British Minister told the House of Commons of the possible link between BSE and CJD.
Ten weeks later it is only this week that we have received a plan to deal with the problem.
Incredibly, in spite of all the warnings, from here among other places, the Government had no contingency plan when the Minister made the statement in the House of Commons.
Now we have two ministers touring the capitals on what they call a charm offensive.
They do not include Lord Plumb because he is far too committed a European for that.
But two ministers - I am not sure, incidentally, which one is charm and which one is offensive - are touring the European capitals.
It is a bit like sending Saddam Hussein on a peace mission.
For what they are not doing is concentrating on the eradication of the disease, concentrating on issues of consumer health and consumer confidence.
In this Parliament we need to reorientate the debate to concentrate on public health, to recognize that there are still mysteries surrounding this disease.
We do not know about transmissibility and we do not really know about its origins.
We do not really know about the links with CJD and that is why the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are jointly running a hearing at the end of this month to investigate precisely these things, to throw some light in public on what is going on.
Far too much of this debate and far too many of these concerns have been hidden behind a shroud of secrecy in the Council and elsewhere.
Mr President, I think the attitude of the United Kingdom on this question is not only regrettable but fundamentally reprehensible.
In a community based on the rule of law such as the European Union it seems that there can be no justification for pressurization and such blocking tactics as we have seen.
That attitude might - though I hope that it will not - sway the Member States, and even of the Commission, but in no circumstances could it help to restore consumers' confidence.
We can raise the ban, partially or totally, but that will not bring normality to the market in beef either in the United Kingdom or the European Community if the consumers continue to think that there is a risk to health.
It therefore seems to us essential that the Commission should place all the information available before the European Parliament and before public opinion.
This partial raising of the ban needs to be justified; the scientific proof in the Commission's possession which led it to formulate the proposal made must be produced to Parliament; information must be given as to the scientific experiments carried out, their results, the names of those who conducted the experiments and the evaluation made by the Scientific Veterinary Committee for example.
We also need close Commission monitoring of the measures taken by the United Kingdom.
We think it is important that the Commission, after examining the United Kingdom's measures, should see that they are strictly complied with so that they may be effective.
Only that will really help to restore consumers' confidence.
We also regret the significant change of attitude in the Council of the Spanish Minister for Agriculture when, as the Commissioner has said, the United Kingdom's programme needs time and study, discussion and consideration.
It seems to us that such changes do not help to restore consumers' confidence either.
Finally I should like to put a specific question to the Commissioner: has the resignation of a highly-placed Spanish official in the Directorate General for Agriculture anything to do with this matter?
Mr President, we have just heard the Commissioner who has just given us with a wealth of details the latest news about control of BSE with the basic criterion of safeguarding consumers' health - a criterion with which we agree -and has told us of the various plans for eradication of the disease, control of beef products and derivatives from cattle possibly infected with BSE, such as the destruction of the carcasses, sterilization of such products, monitoring at the stage of manufacture and inspection and a follow-up on the spot.
That is all very well and we support these measures, although we might have wished they had been taken some years earlier so that the problem could have been stopped before reaching its present scale.
In my country we say that if you do not stop a leak you have to repair the whole house and today the cost has been considerably greater since, Commissioner, the ECU 650 million which you have earmarked are the first, since you will have to keep on earmarking funds for that purpose.
Here the Union's solidarity in the face of this serious crisis is demonstrated.
One Member was saying that in a similar matter - African horse sickness - her country was left to cope alone, and that should not be the position either.
The ban is to be lifted on trade in gelatine, tallow and semen.
As regards the first two - gelatine and tallow - we are speaking of cosmetics, food, soft drinks, chocolates, sweets, sausages, doughnuts and so on.
It seems, according to what the Commissioner has just said, that technically control by sterilization methods is guaranteed.
But I have my doubts about semen since the measures we have heard about, such as sterilization, as the word indicates, would leave it useless.
And I wonder how the ban can be lifted from the movement of semen when it is not only unproved that the disease is not transmitted through the genes but when there are fundamental aspects of these diseases which make it clear or suggest that there is genetic transmission, since they appear in given sectors of the population with similar characteristics and in totally closed environments.
Commissioner, the health of consumers is the first consideration.
We must not play with these things.
We must control the problem we are speaking of and above all follow things up in the country of origin to prevent possible escalation of the problem at Union level.
Mr President, in everyday life if not in European politics the penalty for blackmail is imprisonment.
The British Government, which is blocking all European decisions in order to obtain the abolition of the ban on tallow, gelatine and bulls' semen, is rewarded by having its demands met.
So no-one must be surprised if it acquires a taste for that and continues with its policy of blackmail.
Now it has already announced that it will continue blocking all European decisions until there is also an agreement on total abolition of the export ban on British meat.
I seriously wonder how the British Government thinks it will ever restore confidence in British meat if it goes on so clearly treating mad cow disease not as a health problem but as a political issue.
The extent of the present crisis is clearly the product of thoughtless deregulation and maladministration on the part of the British Government.
But the export ban has to be viewed in another light against the import ban on British meat and meat products which it now appears have been applied by countries such as the United States and Argentina since the late 1980s.
Why has no publicity ever been given to that import ban, Commissioner Fischler?
Why has that never been contested as import bans are normally contested? Perhaps because it was then thought that the Americans and Argentineans were perhaps right, in other words, and I should be glad to have an answer from the Commissioner, as to whether the EU has not been negligent in only now proclaiming the British export ban.
Mr President, I would like colleagues to focus on what we do now and next week.
This is an appalling problem, it can be solved and the resolution of it lies in our own hands.
We now have an eradication plan on the table and the derivatives ban has been lifted, courtesy of the courage and persistence of Commissioner Fischler.
Yesterday, President Santer asked for a de-escalation of the British policy of non-cooperation with Europe.
Last night he got it from the British Foreign Secretary in Rome, announcing that we would not veto the association with Slovenia.
What we need to do now is concentrate on establishing a framework for the progressive lifting of the main ban.
The British Government is not asking for dates, it is not asking for anything to be taken on trust; it is asking merely for the establishment of a framework.
That can and should be delivered.
It would be easier for it to be delivered if people abandoned some of the rhetorical tricks they have been using this morning.
I do not know quite whether I am more irritated by the recruiting campaigns of my Liberal Democrat and Scottish Nationalist colleagues, or by the Labour Party's habit of behaving like a nervous jackal, circling around this issue and frightened to bite in case they damage Tony Blair's frail reputation for patriotism.
This is not clever, what we need is a resolution of this problem and that means an early negotiation of a framework.
I would like to say to my friend Mr de Vries that you are right to raise the demon of nationalism, but this is 'pitch' and you must be careful how you throw it around.
If colleagues in this House start quoting the poisonous drivel from The Sun and attributing it, however indirectly as Mr Macartney was doing, to the actions of a party they oppose, that is dangerous.
It sticks and plays precisely to the nationalist demon that lurks in all countries and in all parties.
I beg us all not to do that and concentrate on completing a perfectly simple negotiation on the framework for raising this ban over time when it becomes scientifically justified.
Mr President, I am sure you will join me in thanking the Commission for their continued effort towards finding a solution to the on-going crisis in the beef industry.
Only through dialogue will solutions be found which are satisfactory to all those who, through no fault of their own, have become involved.
It is in the interest of all parties and Member States to ensure that consumer and animal health throughout the Community are safeguarded and we have a responsibility to do so.
For that reason I wholeheartedly agree with Mr Collins who has pointed out that a number of questions remain unanswered.
For example, questions about epidemiology and transmissibility.
The urgent need for increased and coordinated research has so far been largely ignored as efforts have been concentrated on emergency solutions to a crisis situation which should have been avoided.
Not only must we also establish an information programme for consumers but the means should be made available to answer the questions that need to be answered before consumer confidence is restored.
The final point I would like to make is one which I have made before and will continue to make.
Whilst I welcome the aid package which has been proposed by the Commission, assistance has only been extended to farmers and the slaughter industry.
The plight of others is being ignored.
To date, 36, 000 people in the United Kingdom, employed in the beef industry, have lost their jobs and many others are likely to do so.
Some of those people are with us today in the visitors' gallery.
The United Kingdom recently handed back ECU 200m, which was earmarked for the agricultural processing industry, to the Commission.
I call upon the United Kingdom Government to spend that money for the purpose it was intended; to help those employed in rural industry.
I urge the Commission and Parliament to ensure that they do so.
Our task is to bring an end to the crisis for all those affected and not, as the British Government seem to be doing, continue down paths which deepen rather than solve problems.
The debate is closed.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Financial services and movement of natural persons
The next item is the report (A4-0171/96) by Mr Kittelmann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion on behalf of the European Community, as regards matters within its competence, of the results of the WTO negotiations on financial services and movement of natural persons (COM(96)0154 - C4-0272/96-96/0105(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this case, as so often these days, we have good news and bad news.
The good news is that the proposal was referred to Parliament and the committee at all.
Our thanks go to the Commission for that.
The bad news, and I urge the Commission and the Council to take this properly on board, is that the rapporteur had good reason to point out that we do not intend to deliver an opinion but to give our assent; we believe this simply reflects valid Community law, for two quite straightforward reasons.
The first reason is that it is the extension of a treaty - GATT - to which we had to give our assent.
It is the logical sequel and the logical consequence of this that all further negotiations resulting from the treaty should be subject to parliamentary assent as a matter of course.
It makes no sense to seek our assent on the original question but not to have us approve the results of the follow-up negotiations, which are just as important and relevant; furthermore, as we now know, our political responsibility has become even greater, because GATS is a very important element in the World Trade Organization.
The second reason is that GATS is an international agreement, and international agreements are now referred to us.
I simply ask the Commission and the Council to take note of that and to let Parliament perform the duty which is incumbent upon us and which we are prepared to discharge in a responsible manner.
There is another piece of good news, thanks once again to the Commission.
This is the second time I have thanked you today, because you have really done some excellent work.
You undoubtedly prevented the collapse of the talks during the negotiating rounds.
We know how difficult the Americans were as negotiating partners, in the talks on the telecommunications element of GATS as in other domains.
Here too, you negotiated exceedingly well, for which I offer you our special thanks.
This should send a signal to the United States, urging it simply to regard liberalization as a philosophy that should be followed throughout the world.
The United States has almost always been the leading exponent of free trade, but now it is abandoning the principle wherever awkward situations arise, and that must not happen!
The Americans really must see the process through and stop merely pushing national and regional interests.
That also applies, incidentally, to our debate on Helms-Burton.
I ask the United States to take this message to heart.
Mr President, I rise with mixed feelings to speak in this debate as regards both the procedure and the substance.
We naturally welcome the fact that the Council has consulted Parliament on the agreement negotiated in the framework of the World Trade Organization.
But we are disappointed that the Council has preferred the consultation procedure to the assent procedure.
We are also disappointed that once again the Council is allowing Parliament such a short time for giving its views.
That is becoming a habit.
It has taken some ten months for the Council to consult Parliament.
Now Parliament has very few weeks if the date on which the agreement takes effect is to be observed.
As regards the substance I shall be very brief.
I refer to our colleague Mr Kittelmann's excellent report.
But I should like to express the hope that the concessions in opening up the markets will increase the commercial opportunities for banks, financial institutions and insurance companies.
It is a pity that the United States has felt unable to take part in the agreement.
That will not perhaps have any dramatic effects as regards our relations with the United States, but it undeniably reduces the credibility of the World Trade Organization.
In conclusion I should like to say this: Parliament must be consulted according to the assent procedure whenever agreements concerning the World Trade Organization are involved.
That is moreover the view of the Committee on Legal Affairs too.
We may therefore hope that Parliament will accept Mr Kittelman's two amendments contained in his report.
Finally one last observation.
Parliament must protect its institutional position not only within the European Union but also within the World Trade Organization.
I think Parliament must therefore do everything necessary in order to be represented by a delegation at the ministerial conference in Singapore in December next.
It would be inconceivable if Parliament were unable to attend.
Mr President, the agreement on financial services was adopted almost a year ago and has only now been referred to Parliament, shortly before the deadline.
We know that it had been a bone of contention for years.
We know that many developing countries had very serious objections to this agreement and to one-sided liberalization of trade in services in general.
Among their objections was the fact that, although the agreement was intended to create freedom of movement for major banks and insurance companies, it contained no provisions on the free movement of persons.
A concession has since been made to the developing countries, but this does not alter the fundamental issue.
We also know that the United States has not acceded to this agreement, so a major international trading nation is missing.
What we do not know, however, is how this agreement will affect employment in Europe and in the Third World.
The WTO is conducting secret diplomacy, and the European Commission seems bent on outdoing it for secrecy.
Not even the competent parliamentary committee was duly informed.
Two years ago we were already sounding warnings to the effect that the WTO would mean less democratic control by parliaments and citizens.
To rush through in this way, without time for careful scrutiny, an agreement with such far-reaching implications for people's lives cannot be justified to the voters who gave us our parliamentary mandates.
That is why we shall not vote for this agreement.
Nor can I share the euphoria about the liberalization of world trade that is prevalent in parts of this House.
On the contrary, I fear that if we continue to pursue this ambition we shall liberalize ourselves to death.
Mr President, the liberalization of services would be a significant step towards the worldwide liberalization of trade if the United States did not refuse to approve it.
The agreement that was achieved certainly offers easier access to new markets for European businesses.
That will have some beneficial effects, especially in the fast-growing markets of the developing and newly developed countries.
However, without the approval of the United States, which leads the field in international competition, the liberalization of service markets has been severely disrupted, to put it mildly.
When this decision is implemented, great care will also have to be taken to abide by the principles of mostfavoured nation treatment and national treatment.
Otherwise the agreement could very quickly turn out to be an exercise in self-deception.
Liberalization also presupposes scrupulous observance of the legal provisions governing the capital and liquid resources of financial service enterprises.
The point that this Council proposal would have benefited from better cooperation and above all from parliamentary assent has already been adequately expounded.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I want to congratulate Mr Kittelmann on his report which gives a very accurate and clear description of the World Trade Organization negotiations on financial services and on movement of natural persons.
As you all know, in July 1995, the European Community made a decisive contribution to the conclusion of these negotiations.
The excellent results obtained under the Community's leadership have confirmed Europe's position in the World Trade Organization, which will need to be further consolidated in the future.
The proposal for a Council decision, which confirms the commitments made by the Community, is the final step in these negotiations.
The deadline for acceptance of the legal instruments implementing our commitments is fixed for the end of this month.
Here I must sincerely apologize for the fact that the proposal for a Council decision has been presented to you at a relatively late stage. This was principally due to the various procedural stages, such as the legal verification of the timetable for the commitments which we had go through in Geneva.
As I have already said, the Council decision, proposed by the Commission, will allow the Community to confirm the results of the Geneva negotiations.
This is based on numerous articles of the Treaty on European Union which generally speaking reflect the sectors covered by our commitments in terms of access to the market and national treatment in relation to financial services and movement of persons.
I wish to specify clearly that none of these commitments involves any amendment to the acts or legislation in force in the Community but simply reflect the current degree of liberalization on its territory, without going any further.
The co-decision procedure under Article 189b, mentioned in the Kittelmann report, applies only when an international agreement gives rise to the amendment of an act adopted according to the procedures provided for in that article.
This does not apply in the present case, so Article 189b cannot be invoked.
I also want to clarify some points that were made on the connection between the conclusion of this negotiation and the results of the Uruguay Round.
The Uruguay Round package presupposes the creation of a new institutional framework with binding legal rules and disciplines.
The assent of the European Parliament was asked for on that basis.
That is how the World Trade Organization was created and is now operating.
But the position here is different: as the introduction of a new institutional framework or new rules and disciplines was not provided for, the criteria under Article 228(3)(1) do not apply.
Finally I would like to emphasize, Mr President, that the Commission has thought long and hard about the type of opinion Parliament should be asked for.
For the reasons I have just given we did not consider it appropriate to apply Article 228(3)(1) which provides specifically for assent.
So Parliament is being asked to give its opinion on the basis of Article 228(3)(1).
I conclude by emphasizing the need to take a decision rapidly to confirm the Geneva results. We reiterate the importance of the role played by the European Community and the commitment undertaken in this multilateral process.
Recent developments demonstrate that the leadership of the European Community is undeniably necessary.
Here I would also like to express my thanks for the recognition accorded to the Commission's conduct of the negotiations.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Votes
I cannot tell you whether that meeting was really authorized or had simply been announced, but I am taking note of what you say.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Kingdom of Morocco is destined by its history, its splendid civilization and its geographical situation to be an essential partner for Europe, and especially for France, which is linked to it by long-standing ties of friendship.
That is why bilateral agreements between Morocco and the European States concerned could usefully extend these relationships into the future.
On the other hand, the multilateral agreement between the European Union and Morocco which is before us today smacks of a project to globalize the economy, generating imbalances and destroying the roots of nations.
Not only that, but this agreement is incompatible with the principle of national preference, which seems to us more important than ever.
I am thinking especially of national preference in employment, at a time when millions of men and women in France, as throughout Europe, are the victims of unemployment.
That is why we voted against the von Habsburg report, which reflects a policy of which we disapprove.
This general policy only serves, in the long run, the interests of a handful of multinationals and the globalist lobby.
I did not vote for the von Habsburg report.
It is a most inappropriate time to make this agreement with Morocco.
We have sacrificed our principles of defence of human rights on the altar of trade.
We have abandoned the people of the Western Sahara for this shoddy and shabby deal on trade.
Therefore I cannot support this agreement.
Madam President, I did not vote for this report either, along with numerous other Austrian Social Democrats, because it effectively forestalls something that the world and Europe have long awaited.
It is not as if the inhumanity and the escalation of the conflict with Polisario had happened yesterday.
Efforts to find a solution have been going on for years, and it is quite obviously the case that Morocco has no interest in an amicable settlement.
Nor are the human-rights violations a new phenomenon.
I am not prepared to pay the piper before he plays the tune.
I should have considered it more appropriate to state clearly that there should and must be such an agreement but only if Morocco fulfils the clear conditions that this Parliament has stated in its resolution.
Madam President, it is because we would not wish on Morocco something we reject for ourselves that we have not voted for the association agreement with that great country.
Because, more and more, we are seeing the fateful effects for nations throughout the world of Treaties inspired by the single notion of free trade.
Now, hardly has this agreement been approved than we find Parliament voting to make Morocco a ward of court, accused of failing to respect human rights - rights which, as we know, are very unstable here, in what might be called this multi-track Europe.
Rights that have been violated in France where, to use the words of the famous journalist Annick Rigel, the Stalinist Rocard-Gayssot law has set up an intolerable thought police, whose origins she, for her part, was able to name without the danger of being accused of the crime of crimes.
So let us first put our own house in order, by breaking with the single-track thinking and totalitarian methods worthy of the Brave New World, before we start giving lectures to the Kingdom of Morocco.
Parliament earlier rejected ratification of the financial protocol between the EU and Morocco precisely because of the Moroccan government's infringements of international law.
According to a report from Amnesty International (18 April 1996) the Moroccan security services are guilty of serious violations of human rights, in contravention of international human rights conventions which have been ratified by Morocco.
Another major problem is Morocco's systematic boycott of the process to implement the UN Security Council's resolutions that a free referendum should be held concerning the independence of Western Sahara.
The European Union has a responsibility to help ensure that Morocco develops into a stable and properly functioning parliamentary democracy which respects freedom of speech, freedom of organisation and the freedom of the press.
To enter into an association with Morocco under present circumstances would mean going back on our demand that Morocco should introduce real democracy and respect human rights.
For this reason we will vote against the report.
The Portuguese Socialists are voting for this Euro-Mediterranean agreement with Morocco, conscious that the historic aim of the opening up and cooperation of the European Union with the countries to the south of the Mediterranean is the condition for political stability, economic development and peace in the region.
Morocco is, moreover, one of the markets with the greatest potential for Portuguese exports, which have been gradually increasing and are on the whole favourable with a positive export cover rate of 160 (11 500 million escudos of exports in 1994).
This agreement, like the goodwill already shown by the Moroccan authorities and in particular by His Majesty the King, in favour of cordial and friendly relations between Morocco and Portugal, will now provide great opportunities for Portuguese firms.
On the other hand this association agreement has also opened the way for a new fishing agreement between the European Union and Morocco, of fundamental importance for the economy and for employment in fishing areas such as Sesimbra/Setúbal and the Algarve.
And without an association agreement there will be no fisheries agreement: we cannot have the sun shining on the threshing floor and rain on the turnips...
The agreement is naturally based on a compromise between the contracting parties, which in our case, as far as Portugal is concerned, brings constraints in the field of competition, particularly in the sardine processing sector.
The Socialist Members are also in favour of a specific Commission support framework, apart from the structural funds already assigned in the TAC, which will make it possible to bring about a restructuring of the sector, the establishment of a compensatory indemnity, the preservation of storage aid and the launching of a campaign at Community level to encourage consumption of sardines, whether fresh or processed or in new products (for example sardine paste).
But the processing industry must also recognize that, within the world economy as a whole, competitiveness will be based on quality and commercial dynamism, not on protectionism, and that is also the best response to social and environmental dumping.
This House has voted in favour of the association agreement between the European Union and Morocco, and I welcome that vote.
By making this gesture we have accepted the conclusions arrived at by Mr von Habsburg, and I congratulate him on his excellent work.
We all have at heart the process of renewal of the European Union's Mediterranean policy, established by the Barcelona Conference.
In giving our assent, we are keeping faith with the desires we expressed.
This agreement will stimulate Morocco to expedite the opening-up of its economy, with a view to a free trade area.
In addition, economic cooperation will be strengthened, with the aim of supporting and developing sectors that create jobs.
That leaves the matter of human rights, an argument of which much has been made by the supporters of a 'no' vote.
It is my deep-seated conviction that this question should be integrated into the actual philosophy of the association agreement.
We are giving a clear political signal to the Moroccan authorities to continue along the road towards liberalization, political as well as economic.
Finally, let us also remember that the fisheries agreement has already received the assent of this House.
Not to give our assent to the association agreement would have made no sense at all.
Paradoxical as our vote may have seemed, it was more a vote against the way in which the European Union has behaved in the negotiations with the Kingdom of Morocco, particularly with regard to the consequences which this agreement will have for Portugal, than an actual vote against Morocco which, we are convinced, will sooner or later have to be our partner, even if as an associate country.
The question for us is simple: those who negotiated and signed this agreement on the part of the European Union did so from a global viewpoint - which was inevitable - but, whilst safeguarding the interests of some, they forgot to safeguard the interests of all the Member States of the European Union to which we belong.
Obviously we are speaking of essential questions, as essential as the productive sectors of a little economy such as ours and, let us be clear, assuming that the ever-growing problem of human rights would be solved.
The agreement now approved has in itself some good aspects; it will bring the people of Morocco closer to Europe and will have the effect of bringing Europe closer to the people of Morocco.
We have always been and shall always be in favour of an agreement with Morocco.
But because it affects our agricultural sector (for example as regards fruit and horticultural products such as tomatoes and early potatoes as well as flowers (particularly from Madeira), because it affects our industrial sector (for example the processing sector) and because it affects our fishing sector - although that was the subject of a special agreement for which, moreover, we voted - we think this association agreement should be condemned.
Above all, it is worth repeating, because of the way in which Europe protected (or rather did not protect) one of its Members.
But we still hope that although the agreement is for an unlimited period the Kingdom of Morocco and Portugal will be able to cooperate and show, as regards the healthy relationship which must exist between these two countries in the sense that they draw closer together without provoking one another, that there was no need to harm essential sectors of the Portuguese economy so that an agreement, a good agreement between the European Union and Morocco could be signed, this time with our vote in favour.
We are sure that the Kingdom of Morocco will see the importance of the way we have voted and that the European Union will understand it.
Farassino report
We regard the design and issuing of driving licences as a matter for national governments, not only in the EU but throughout the world.
There is no need for a special EU driving licence.
The principle laid down in Article 1 of Directive 91/439/EEC concerning mutual recognition of national driving licences is entirely sufficient.
In view of the above we are voting against the report.
This directive has been improved considerably since the first reading.
I am therefore voting for it.
However, I regard the whole idea of an obligatory common driving licence for the different countries of the Union to be wrong.
Each country should have the right to decide for itself on the design of driving licences.
The directive will only give rise to unnecessary change-over costs in the Member States.
Adoption of the common driving licence model should at least be voluntary.
Marinucci recommendation
I want to express my support and that of the Green Group for the Marinucci report on the proposal to amend the regulation establishing LIFE.
The fact that the common position took up a large number of the amendments proposed by Parliament at first reading is a positive sign.
However certain amendments not included in the text of the common position are very important in our opinion, especially inclusion of the wetlands in the protection and rational management of the coastal area, protection of the habitats of threatened species and, above all, increasing the funding from ECU 450 to 600 million, as proposed by the Greens in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which roughly splits the difference between the initial request from the European Parliament (ECU 800 million) and the Council proposal.
LIFE is the most important Community environmental programme, and amongst other things it should initiate the network of protected areas known as 'Natura 2000' . Carrying it out as planned with the allocation proposed by the Council is unthinkable.
I hope the Commission will support the point of view of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I only wish to repeat what I said in my speech during first reading.
LIFE is the financial instrument which has done most to help our environment and although the common position covers a considerable number of the amendments submitted by the Committee on the Environment, there is one submitted by me which is of special importance with regard to the protection and management of water resources.
I have no doubt that the amendment will be accepted as the Commission told us in the previous debate.
I shall therefore vote in favour.
Parodi report
The Commission's communication on the common transport policy action programme 1995-2000 has many serious failings from the environmental point of view.
The Commission wants to keep transport policy and environmental policy separate, which will result in unsustainable development, in view of the fact that the effect of road transport on the environment is one of the most serious threats facing the European Union today.
The proposed green paper on the internalisation of external costs and citizens' networks is a positive element, however.
In its report the Committee on Transport and Tourism has tabled a number of proposals to improve matters, but as a whole the proposed action programme nevertheless takes the enormous challenges facing transport policy with regard to environmental adjustment far too lightly.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism describes transport and the trans-European networks as 'the basis for social, economic and cultural development' .
We regard this description of Europe's cultural development as a somewhat gloomy and narrow conception, particularly in view of the fact that the trans-European networks will mean that the area taken up by motorways in Europe will increase by 32 %.
It is against this background that we abstained in the final vote on the Parodi report.
We have voted for the report and the amendments from the Greens, including paragraph 41, integrity, Amendment No 12 by the Green Group.
We assume that the phrase 'harmonised at European level' means 'minimum rules' which permit Member States to retain or introduce more stringent environmental and safety standards, not least where permitted alcohol levels and speed limits are concerned.
I believe that the time zones which countries belong to and the summertimes they adopt are national matters where the principle of subsidiarity should apply.
I oppose the requirement that less state aid should be provided for rail transport while heavy goods vehicles do not have to pay their own environmental costs and state aid is provided for the construction of motorways.
It should be possible for the requirement concerning emergency telephones along European motorways to be modified in accordance with the extremely low traffic density which exists in northern Scandinavia, in order to avoid unreasonable costs being incurred.
A common rule on the maximum permitted blood alcohol level is desirable but I would like it to be possible for stricter national requirements to be applied, as well as a zero level for all drugs.
I should also like to observe that support for airports in thinly populated areas, at the expense of big airports, following the Swedish model, should be allowed to continue.
For the rest, I welcome the proposals concerning environmental adjustment put forward by the rapporteur.
I would stress that changing over to a transport system more suited to the environment is of the utmost importance if European industry is not to fall behind.
As I did not have the opportunity to speak when the report was debated in plenary I would now like to give an explanation of vote on the subject.
I believe greater emphasis should have been placed on the waste which partly accounts for the administrative costs of 13 %.
Corresponding costs in normal research programmes are between 2 % and 3 %.
Where future research programmes are concerned we must make sure that stringent measures are taken to keep down administrative costs.
In the research world it is generally acknowledged that bureaucracy and high costs are typical of EU research programmes.
This state of affairs should be properly reviewed and appropriate measures taken.
Argyros report
Madam President, the fact that Croatia is not being admitted to the Council of Europe on the pretext of a supposed absence of press freedom really is a peak of Parliamentary hypocrisy.
Because, after all, who would venture to claim that the press is freer in Russia - to name but one instance - than it is in Croatia?
Croatia had to conduct a heroic struggle for its independence before reestablishing its economy.
And admittedly, we who maintain close links with the opposition know that Mr Tudjman's present government is persisting in practices that still reflect socialist customs, which are difficult to get rid of.
But it really is a bit rich to complain of that here, in this House, when, this evening, every channel in France is going to be broadcasting a single programme.
A single broadcast about Aids, which seems to be regarded as the only illness worthy of sympathy, a hundred times more so than cancer or muscular dystrophy or all the other illnesses put together.
What strange exclusive criterion, what strange variety of racism treats such things as acceptable at home but criticizes them in Croatia?
Madam President, we in the Freedom Party also regret the actions of the Croatian Government in relation to the appointment of the Mayor of Zagreb and the restrictions on the opposition and on freedom of the press, and we call for a rapid improvement in the situation.
However, in awareness of Croatia's difficult position after waging a long and brutal war to obtain its freedom, we believe that this brusque rejection of Croatia for the aforementioned reasons, especially when compared with the treatment accorded to Russia or, as was mentioned earlier, Romania, is heavy-handed and counterproductive.
The votes of some Members may also reflect a delayed reaction to Croatian independence, which some groups accepted reluctantly.
This, however, would be the wrong way to lead a country scarred by years of Communist dictatorship and by civil war towards the Western European fold.
For that reason we reject this resolution.
Extraordinary Council meeting
Madam President, my group believes that we have no alternative today, for the protection of human health, but to maintain a complete ban on British beef and veal and their derivatives even if it does mean finding the resources to pay appropriate compensation to the farmers concerned.
At first sight this may seem a difficult line to follow, but if we fail to follow it for the sake of simplicity we risk regretting it bitterly in a few years' time.
So let us act responsibly.
And acting responsibly includes analysing the underlying causes of the crisis and implementing the essential remedies to ensure that it does not recur elsewhere.
First, let us acknowledge that mad cow disease is the result of unnatural agricultural practices, embarked upon in a mad race for world market prices.
This deplorable approach is now engraved on the heart of the new common agricultural policy.
Unless we undertake a radical change in direction, we must be prepared for other mad cows, or worse, in future years.
Secondly, we must also recognize that, in the name of abolition of frontiers, the Commission has been slow to react at every stage of the crisis, trying to prevent those states that wish to do so from adopting protective measures.
After all, it is quite possible that the chaotic state of frontier controls has facilitated the fraudulent importing of contaminated meat or cattle feeds into mainland Europe.
We must accept that States have the right to control their frontiers for the objectives stated in Article 36 of the Treaty, in particular the protection of human life and health.
Finally, we cannot accept the procedure that has been followed, and a situation where, although the Council has not adopted the Commission's proposal by a qualified majority, the Commission nevertheless has the right to implement it of its own volition.
That, they will tell us, is what the Treaties say.
Well, our answer to that is that the Treaties are absurd.
This abdication of responsibility by the politicians in favour of civil servants dishonours the Council and helps to explain much of what is wrong in Europe.
Madam President, in my view the British Government is making itself look very silly in the present circumstances.
However, I regret that today's resolution was a very substantial change from the resolution we passed on 28 March.
Now we seem to be supporting the ban rather than being an interested, neutral observer.
I would rather we have maintained the position whereby we were an observer of the ban rather than a supporter of the ban.
A few nights ago I was in my hotel room watching German television.
I watched a programme on ZDF and as a British citizen from a beef area I was appalled at the almost hysterical attack on the British beef industry in that programme.
I found some of the scenes quite distressing and quite offensive.
I have been very critical of the way the British press has been talking about our partners in Europe in recent weeks.
I would ask that the continental media show some balance in the way in which they report the subject of BSE.
Madam President, my answer to Mr Hallam, in particular, is that our British colleagues and the British government are scientifically right: there is no danger of horizontal transmission and the culling of cattle is scientific nonsense.
But he is wrong legally, because what characterizes Europe is error, and the responsibility for error, or at best objective responsibility, the responsibility for risk.
One British factory, the Dunkester factory in Yorkshire, by changing its manufacturing processes, has poisoned 156, 000 British cattle to date, and a few others elsewhere in the world.
Well, that is a matter of responsibility.
Every human act that causes damage to another person obliges the party responsible for the error to put things right.
By rejecting Mr des Places' amendment, which was an attempt to fix responsibility on the polluter and the poisoner, we have gone against the flow of what is characteristic of Europe, the principle that each individual is responsible for his acts.
What we rightly accepted in the case of the Amoco Cadiz disaster, the principle that the major oil companies were to be held responsible for the pollution, we have rejected in the case of the British factories responsible for spreading poison.
Scientifically, Mr Hallam, you are right: the risk is exaggerated.
Legally, you are wrong: the factories that caused the poisoning should have been held responsible for it.
I abstained on account of Recital E, which recommends additional support for agriculture of several billion.
I consider current agricultural support to be wasteful and do not wish to contribute to further subsidies for this sector.
Madam President, I voted against the resolution.
I should have expected the European Parliament to signal far more clearly that consumer protection and public health are not subordinated to economic interests in the European Union.
The decision taken by the Commission makes a mockery of consumer protection and public health.
The relaxation of the export ban at a time when more and more cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are coming to light can only lead one to conclude that such a decision is based on sheer cynicism.
The Commission, the Council and even, to an increasing extent, the European Parliament are buckling under the blackmail tactics of the British Government.
It is to be feared that the Commission's decision will pave the way for the complete lifting of the export ban.
I believe it is a totally misguided decision, because consumer protection and public health must take priority.
We must practise preventive health care.
As long as scientists cannot rule out a health risk, we must try to have the export ban maintained.
That should have been our aim.
I believe that this decision taken by the Commission shows total disregard for consumer protection and public health in the European Union.
That is why I regret that we did not adopt a more radical resolution.
That concludes voting time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12.10 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 6 June 1996.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, in particular from the region concerned, have asked me to make a short statement on the bombing in Manchester last Saturday.
The IRA bomb injured over two hundred people, many of them seriously; it caused vast material damage to the centre of Manchester.
It is almost a miracle that hundreds of people were not killed.
There is no possible or conceivable justification for the IRA bomb.
The targets were ordinary men, women and children shopping, on Saturday morning, in a busy city.
What possible cause could justify such barbarism?
The aim of the bombers is clear: to destroy peace; to shatter peace talks, which have just begun in Belfast, following the courageous efforts of the two governments, the democratic political parties and the community of Northern Ireland.
The European Parliament expresses its sympathy for those injured by the bomb in Manchester last Saturday, and our hopes for their speedy and full recovery.
I am writing to the Lord Mayor of Manchester to pass on this message to the injured and to their families.
I am sure that I speak for the whole House when I say that the cause of peace must not be abandoned because of intimidation by terrorists.
(Applause) Terrorism can be defeated by the courage and steadfastness of communities and their leaders, to keep the peace process moving forward.
(Applause)
Welcome
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 13 June 1996 pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
Mr President, I should like to give an account of something that happened recently and ask the presidency about it.
Last Friday a demonstration was held in Brussels by a trade union representing metal workers and its route passed close to the European Parliament buildings in rue Belliard.
When the demonstrators marched below the pedestrian walkways joining the Belliard building to Van Maerlant (at about 1 p.m. on 14 June 1996), various European Parliament staff members and/or members of different political groups noticed that certain individuals dressed in civilian clothing and armed with walkie-talkies were filming demonstrators from these walkways.
According to the huissiers they were not members of the European Parliament's internal security forces nor could they have been, given what they were doing.
Nor were they visitors.
Who were these people filming the demonstrators?
Were they police officers?
If so, who authorised their activity? Can you give me any information on this matter, Mr President?
Could you please just put your headphones on, Mr Novo.
Firstly, you may have heard me announce that the next item was the order of business. I could not see that what you were saying had anything to do with the order of business.
Secondly, you can send your comments to me in writing, and I shall look into the matter.
You will also then receive a reply.
For this week, there are no amendments.
On the July part-session in Brussels:
For Wednesday, 3 July 1996, I have a request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists for the report by Mr Pelttari on the bioethics convention to be postponed.
The PSE Group is asking for this report to be postponed to the second part-session in July.
The exact date will have to be fixed by the group chairmen, since we cannot decide that here, but we can of course decide on the postponement.
Since no one wishes to speak in favour of or against the request, I put it to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request) The order of business is thus established.
Deadline for tabling amendments and motions for resolutions
Mr President, as you know, we have a discussion and a resolution on the summit meeting on Florence.
Part of that, according to most groups I imagine, will be to make some sort of statement from this House on the British Government's policy of non-cooperation in Europe.
As you know, the Foreign Affairs Ministers are meeting today to discuss that issue and I wonder, therefore, whether on just that single issue we could shift the deadline so that we can take into account in our resolution what is decided or not decided tonight by the Foreign Affairs Ministers.
Perhaps we could hold the deadline on just that single issue until 11 a.m. or noon tomorrow to enable our resolution to be up-to-date and to make sense.
I assume it is the general view of the House that we should have the opportunity of tabling such a resolution, which means having to set a deadline of 12 noon for this item.
The services responsible are signalling to me that this is technically feasible.
If the House has no objections, we shall proceed accordingly.
Mr President, I should like to pass on some information.
This House, last July and again in December passed a resolution on foreign lecturers in Italy.
We were particularly concerned about the plight of the Naples 88 who had been sacked due to a breach of Community law.
You, Mr President, the chairman of the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and the Working Environment and Mr Newman in the Committee on Petitions took the matter up.
I am very pleased to inform you that on Friday all 88 at Naples got their jobs back and their back-pay.
I think this is a significant victory for us in the European Parliament.
(Applause )
Thank you, Mr McMahon.
We too are glad to hear good news.
Framework programmes for R & D
The next item is the report (A4-0183/96) by Mr Linkohr, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on:
I. the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision (COM(96)0012 - C4-0092/96-96/0034(COD)) adapting for the second time Decision No 1110/94/EC concerning the fourth framework programme of activities in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (19941998); II.the proposal for a Council Decision (COM(96)0012 - C4-0157/96-96/0035(CNS)) adapting for the second time Decision 94/268/Euratom concerning the framework programme of activities in the field of research and training for the European Atomic Energy Community (1994-1998).
Mr President, if you permit, I shall speak on behalf of my honourable friend Rolf Linkohr, who is unable to attend this sitting for medical reasons, for which I pass on his apologies.
At the same time I shall crave your indulgence, because I am having to stand in for him more or less at a moment's notice.
Today we are discussing a proposal for the refinancing of the fourth framework programme, a proposal made by the Commission on the basis of a decision, or more precisely a joint decision, taken on 26 April 1994, when the guidelines and financial resources for the fourth framework programme were adopted.
And the latter, sadly, will be the main topic of our debate this evening and, most probably, tomorrow in our contacts and inevitable conciliation efforts with the Council.
That decision of 26 April 1994 effectively set the overall amount for the fourth framework programme at ECU 12 300.
This was a compromise achieved by the Council and the Commission and was the fruit of prodigious efforts; part of the compromise was an understanding that, at the halfway point, the Commission would table a proposal for supplementary financing of up to ECU 700 million.
It was a hard-won compromise, because from the initial discussion phase Parliament had been seeking to go beyond the 13-billion mark, while the Council, it has to be said, did not approach the problem from quite the same angle.
Today we are in the implementation phase of one of the main areas to which codecision procedure applies, and we should like to thank the Commission at this point for having proposed from the outset an amount of ECU 700 million, which is exactly the proposal Parliament would have made if the right of initiative had been ours.
So we started on a sound footing and, before dealing with the financial aspect, I should like to remind you of some elements of the Commission proposal, a proposal that is anything but unimaginative, because the Commission opted, under the influence of Commissioners Cresson and Bangemann, not simply to replenish the fourth framework programme but to realign it quite radically.
And indeed there were many of us at that time who bemoaned the fact that the fourth framework programme was following the old beaten tracks, as it were, which had been established by the previous framework programmes and that we were inheriting a number of specific programmes which would tie up part of our resources.
The Commission has submitted a legislative proposal based on five task forces, to be financed, or at least refinanced, as part of the framework programme.
I refer here to the task forces on multimedia software, aeronautics, clean cars, transport intermodality and water.
Although action in all of these proposed areas is desirable, they differ in relative value and have not all come across equally convincingly to the European Parliament, at least not at the present juncture.
I have no doubt that when it comes to the fifth framework programme we shall be on more similar wavelengths.
In the second legislative proposal, relating to the refinancing of the fourth framework programme for Euratom, there were also a number of elements of special relevance to development and in particular - I emphasize this intentionally - to the development of close cooperation with the countries of central and eastern Europe in the domain of nuclear safety.
In response to these Commission proposals, which are eminently innovative and have managed to elicit an extremely wide range of reactions in Parliament, the rapporteur, Mr Linkohr, tabled his report, a document in which he highlights various different aspects of the proposals.
The first element of the report is clearly a criticism of the Commission, based primarily on the fact that, contrary to the joint decision of 26 April 1994, to which I have already referred, a prior independent evaluation report never really materialized.
Since then, following contacts with the Commission, there has been an ongoing effort to rectify this defect, but we should have wished to see the evaluation report at an earlier stage of the proceedings.
The next point - and this is perhaps at the root of the difficulties we have faced - is that we made the mistake of not establishing any sort of hierarchy among the task forces.
For all that, the rapporteur has approved the overall package of Commission proposals, except that, like the main parliamentary groups, he wanted to see the brunt of the financial effort focused, as part of the refinancing arrangement, on three task forces, namely aeronautics, water and educational multimedia software.
As for the other areas, we shall probably be called upon, at the understandable insistence of our friends in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, to formulate a joint PSE-PPE compromise proposal on intermodality, and I believe that in so doing we shall be reflecting the wishes of a large majority of the House.
Among the other proposals put forward by Mr Linkohr, the rapporteur, I should like to dwell on one which does not relate to a task force but to a special research project on methods of locating and destroying land mines.
This is a problem of great concern to Mr Linkohr as well as to many others among us.
We know just how lethal these land mines are around the globe, and so an emphatic message was required.
This report has enabled us to convey that message.
And so, finally, to the financial aspect.
We know full well that the success of the 700-MECU refinancing will depend largely on the revision of the financial perspectives that the Heads of State and Government will be discussing at the Florence summit.
And it is precisely in order to facilitate these discussions that I have proposed, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, which approved my proposal, as did the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, that we envisage the possibility, if need be, of spreading these additional funds of ECU 700 million over three years, in other words over the financial years 1997, 1998 and 1999, with the 1999 financial year being divided between the final refinancing instalment and the first budgetary allocation under the fifth framework programme.
It is a proposal intended from the very outset as a compromise.
We wish to tell the Council very clearly that we are not disposed to give way on the amount of 700 million but that we are prepared to discuss methodology.
I hope the Council will hear this message.
In any event we shall proclaim it loud and clear in our future contacts.
Mr President, I am presenting this opinion on behalf of my colleague, Mr van Velzen.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy can agree with the setting-up of task forces as a mechanism that might bring research closer to the market, if it is on an experimental basis that will inform the methodology for the fifth framework programme without prejudgement.
The committee is calling on the Commission to set up intersectoral and interdisciplinary task forces, and to involve European industry as closely as possible in drawing up research topics, so as to avoid a top-down approach.
The criteria and data for selecting task forces must be made transparent; in particular, a comparative assessment of the benefits of the task forces should be presented after a certain period of experience.
The committee is asking that, when preparing the fifth framework programme, the Commission should draw not only on existing experience with the task forces, but also on the 'best practice' criteria contained in the Green Paper on innovation.
Further, the committee calls on the Commission to consider cooperating with other European partners and with small and medium-sized firms, as desired by the business world, as a means of increasing the task forces' prospects of success.
In short, we regard the task forces as a positive initiative, but above all as an experiment which will only succeed if, at the same time, the lead time for application assessment is shortened, small and medium-sized firms are more closely involved, and the selection of topics is made more transparent.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's proposals regarding the establishment of these task forces were originally of great appeal to the Committee on Transport and Tourism, not least because the transport sector was given considerable prominence: task forces on aeronautics, automobile RTD-activities, transport intermodality and interoperability, maritime systems, and the train of the future.
According to the Commission's proposals, as much as 55 % of the ECU 700 million - in other words, ECU 385 million - was to be assigned to transport issues.
We in the Committee on Transport and Tourism were therefore all the more taken aback by the outcome of the voting in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, because all that remains of these various transport projects is aeronautics.
The Committee on Transport has consequently tabled an amendment of its own, Amendment No 60, which reinstates at least the intermodality task force, and with a suitable appropriation.
We must in fact recognize that interoperability is an inherently European topic.
For example, we have five different railway gauges in Europe, and we wonder why many hours are wasted changing engines.
Time is not wasted in this way with lorries.
It is also a matter here of increasing competitiveness in the European Union, whereas the car sector, for example, can readily be tackled at national level.
To my mind, interoperability is the European topic par excellence .
The two largest political groups have tabled a compromise proposal with a somewhat reduced appropriation; the Committee on Transport and Tourism hopes that this compromise will meet with the approval of the House.
I know that we are to discuss the funding separately, but our inclusion of this title shows clearly the direction in which European transport policy needs to move.
Mr President, it is a great pity that Rolf Linkohr is not with us this evening for the presentation of this report.
I would like to congratulate him on the quality of the work he has done.
The explanatory statement is a very valuable document and I hope colleagues will take the trouble to study it.
We have had a lot of difficulties with this report, on the whole question of how much money we should go for and over what period of time, and what the role of the taskforces should be.
Although when we agreed the original fourth framework programme it was not our idea that it would serve as a forerunner for the fifth framework programme, this has, in a sense, been one of the strands that has been emerging in our discussions.
We have to learn some lessons in Parliament with regard to the Commission: when trying to decide how much money should go into research and how we should spend it and the role of taskforces, there is a great deal more work that has to be done amongst ourselves.
I should like to say on behalf of the Socialist Group that this is the path that we wish to follow.
The report is subject to the co-decision procedure and we must have a majority in Parliament.
I hope that, although most of us have reservations about the report as it emerged from committee, we will support it.
We have the task ahead of making sure that we can put a convincing case to the Council for increased research activity at European level.
Perhaps the most telling phrase in the whole of Mr Linkohr's report is that, even if we approve the ECU 700m, it will not be sufficient to catch up with the work that is going ahead in the United States and in Japan.
We are still falling behind and I hope we will take this lesson, if no other, to heart this evening and make sure we argue this case very strongly with the Council of Ministers.
I just want to mention a couple of items.
One, the increased funding for BSE research.
This is very topical and, if nothing else, it shows the importance of having a bit more flexibility in our programmes.
It would be a real tragedy if we had to wait three, four or five years before we can change the direction of some of our research, simply because we are locked into a rigid five-year programme.
That lesson is one we need to learn.
We need to look also at the question of the safety of nuclear reactors.
We are all agreed that we need to do more work in these areas: the decontamination of affected areas and the radiation protection programme.
I hope these matters will have strong support in the House tomorrow.
Mr President, I wish to add my voice to that of Mr Adam in thanking Mr Linkohr for his very good work and all honourable Members who have worked to find a point of basic agreement on this issue which is extraordinarily important not only as regards, clearly, the refinancing of the Fourth Framework Programme but also future lines of action.
We are dealing, as Mrs Quisthoudt has said, with the issue - which might be described as being experimental in nature - fundamental to the development of the Fifth Framework Programme that will soon be with us.
I have to say that my group is in agreement and will therefore be supporting the compromise that has been reached on this, but I want personally to stress two aspects: the issues on which we have focused, selecting them from among the Commission proposals, are definitely of interest, but the special point that has been raised by Mr Linkohr is certainly an important one - not only in humanitarian terms but also in terms of our responsibility vis-à-vis the scientific guidelines that cannot be separated out from the more immediate issues that currently concern us.
In that context specifically, we should devote a word or two to another important issue on which Mr Adam touched, that is to say the possibility of increasing, albeit partially, to a limited extent, the resources of Biomed and Biotec to develop research into what will surely be the next century's ill: the new viral diseases and above all bionic diseases.
In conclusion, I believe that by approving the Linkohr report tomorrow, we shall be giving the Council a strong signal that the House wants to move in that direction Europe's research strategy for the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I have already said on a number of occasions that the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party is by no means in favour of the task force model developed by the Commission.
Although it may be useful for identifying technical priorities in some industrial sectors, the task force model appears to add yet another management and coordination level to a structure which actually needs to be made simpler and more transparent.
It also interferes with the current programme structure.
There are a number of subjects which my group recognizes as extremely important for Europe and its citizens.
Information and communications technologies are vital for the future of Europe, and are areas where rapid changes are taking place.
Future workers are going to have to learn about telematics, and this is why the task force on educational multimedia is such a good idea.
Multimedia products need to be developed for and used in schools.
A good example here is the UK, whose schools have made much more progress in using information technologies than those in other EU countries.
Secondly, small and medium-sized firms must be able to participate fully in the fourth programme.
This is a point I have made repeatedly, but the Commission remains very ambiguous on the subject.
On the one hand, it is setting up task forces specifically targeting major industries, but it also states in every programme that there is plenty of scope for small and medium-sized firms.
The framework programme has taught industrial firms in Europe how to work together, and this is something we must not jeopardize.
Cooperation is the best way to disseminate new knowledge in Europe, and this is why it would be better to separate the two groups completely, so that firms both large and small can benefit from the framework programme.
Mr President, in the process of reorienting Europe's productive activity to meet the demands of the globalization of the world economy, research and technological development play a crucial role.
In his report, Mr Linkohr responds to the Commission proposal for additional funding of ECU 700 million for the fourth framework research programme and the setting-up of task forces with a counter-proposal which is far more positive and significant.
The Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left disagrees with the Commission proposal and agrees with Mr Linkohr's report, whilst recognizing that it does have some shortcomings.
Firstly, we disagree with the Commission proposal because it seeks to amend the fourth framework programme without a prior evaluation of the horizontal criteria on which the programme has been based, introducing vertical proposals which concentrate activities on a small number of countries and undertakings.
Secondly, we disagree with it because these proposals focus on the interests of the big multinationals and the nuclear, automobile and aerospace sectors, and so on - pressure groups, in other words - without taking into account the social interests of the citizens of Europe.
We therefore welcome the fact that Mr Linkohr has incorporated into his report our amendments concerning the elderly and health care - areas which will present the most urgent problems in the coming years.
There should also be a concern to promote a model of sustainable development.
And, thirdly, we disagree with it because the Commission proposal advocates, looking forward to the fifth framework programme, a vertical philosophy that will increase the research disparities which exist in Europe, given that some countries devote 0.5 % of GDP to research, whilst others dedicate 2.7 %.
For these reasons, we reject the Commission proposal and support Mr Linkohr's report, acknowledging the efforts made by the rapporteur.
Mr President, in times of recession, one should actually be welcoming an increase of ECU 700 million for the fourth framework programme of activities in the field of research.
Research and development must receive financial backing, but the focus has to be right.
And, in our opinion, the focus no longer is right.
I should like to explain this by taking some examples.
First of all, another ECU 105 m - and we have in fact tabled an amendment here, but I fear it will not be adopted - is to go to Euratom, where it will be used for fusion, a form of energy which has already received ECU 895 m under the fourth framework programme, and which might perhaps solve our problems in the year 2030 or 2050, but certainly not here and now.
Secondly, the money is to be spent on the so-called inherently safe reactor, something which does not and cannot exist, and for which there is no acceptance among the general public.
Moreover, as Mr Scapagnini has quite rightly said, research funds always go to major industry and not to SMEs, which could really do with them.
Another case in point is that, according to the proposal from the Commission, ECU 150 m was to be made available for the SAVE II programme.
The Council then had the impudence to reduce this funding to ECU 45 m: in other words, it has slashed a five-year programme, the only programme we still have which could go some way to meeting the commitments we made in Rio and Berlin.
But huge sums of money are to be spent on aeronautics and fusion and other such gimmicks.
My second example concerns THERMIE.
No one mentions THERMIE II any more, another programme which has become absolutely vital.
We hear every day that CO2 levels are rising.
And now some clever people are saying that the cause is our opposition to nuclear power plants.
What nonsense!
Having looked at the OECD statistics, I note that countries with a particularly large number of nuclear power stations do not have lower CO2 emissions.
In fact, this phenomenon is caused primarily by traffic, which is not being taken into account at all.
In conclusion, we cannot approve this increase, because we believe that the focus is wrong and it will not solve our immediate, pressing problems, even though many of the minor points contained in the proposal are - admittedly - worthy of support.
Mr President, thank you for allowing this exception.
On behalf of my group, I should like to highlight three important points, and firstly the amount of the increase: ECU 700 million.
Even though savings are now the order of the day in all the Member States and at EU level, we believe that there is an urgent need to invest in the future.
And this can only be done through innovation, the basis for which is research and development.
That is why we have endorsed this overall sum.
Secondly, we agree with the Green Paper on innovation that the dissemination and exploitation of results must be improved.
We have taken this into account in our amendment on the allocation of resources.
Even though money is not all that is needed here, it certainly does help!
Thirdly, we are in fact in a transitional phase, in the middle of the fourth framework programme.
The discussion has in some cases been unusually heated, however, due to the fact that the thrust of the research topics was altered in an over-hasty way.
We hope that the consultation process in preparation for the fifth framework programme will be smoother and more relaxed.
Finally, I am grateful to the rapporteur for having worked with us in such an open and fair manner, and I would thank the Commissioner for having sought and conducted a dialogue with Parliament, after certain initial difficulties.
As Gordon Adam has already said, we do need an absolute majority in Parliament.
For that reason, there has been a strong desire in the House to reach an agreement, and this is reflected in our compromise proposals.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, both the Commission's proposals and Mr Linkohr's report on the adaptation of the European Community's fourth framework programme of activities in the field of research - in Annex I, footnote 5, of that report, and Annex II, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the report on the adaptation of Euratom research - rightly refer to research into increased safety in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
It is most important to increase the safety of the nuclear power stations located, in particular, in the countries of the former Eastern bloc and in China.
But another Chernobyl-type accident would be extremely dangerous for us too.
That is why, for reasons of solidarity as well as our own safety, it is imperative for us to contribute and expand our practical help and know-how regarding accident prevention.
However, it is not acceptable that a covert or overt extension of the use of nuclear energy should be pushed through by these means.
Many people are in fact in favour of abandoning this fundamentally uncontrollable technology, and we should like to see a move into the age of solar power.
So it needs to be made clear that European research funding should not be used to develop new types of reactor, but only to enhance the safety of existing nuclear plants, including that of the disposal of radioactive waste.
That is the most we can possibly accept, and even that demands something of an effort from us, because in structural terms, even safety upgrades are an incentive to keep dangerous nuclear plants in service.
In principle, this means that the life-span of the plant and technology of a conventional nuclear power station is likely to be extended by a further 40 years.
With regard to Central and Eastern Europe, the following ping-pong effect, which might not be immediately apparent, will play a major role: because of the chronic lack of foreign currency in these countries, the upgrading work is to be funded by so-called payment in kind.
In this way, for example, not only is the latest nuclear technology to be introduced at Sosnovy Bor, but the decommissioning of the Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power station in Germany is to be avoided.
Therefore, because this legally questionable option of continued operation must be averted, I would urge the House to support Amendments Nos 53, 54 and 62, as does a large majority of my group.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Energy efficiency of domestic electrical appliances
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0194/96) on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council (C40203/96-94/0272(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on energy efficiency requirements for household electrical refrigerators, freezers and their combinations (Rapporteur: Mr Macartney).
Mr President, Members will be aware that we have already been through the general aspects of this report in the first reading.
Just to remind Members, however, the whole objective was to make a contribution towards the problem of global warming, to try to take some steps towards fulfilling the commitments which the European States made at the Rio Summit and, at the same time, to make some contribution towards the question of saving the consumer bills on electricity.
The Commission proposals did this by looking at the question of improving the efficiency of refrigerators.
Both the Commission and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy relied heavily on the background study which indicated that it was perfectly feasible to achieve substantial improvements in efficiency in the European Union, parallel to those which have already been achieved in the United States and Japan.
So when we went through the first reading we made some substantial statements and some substantial progress.
We come to the second reading now, having had our common position outlined by the Council.
Just to remind Members, the first set of norms proposed by the Commission was for a 10 % improvement in energy efficiency, whereas we are convinced that a 20 % target is required.
The committee also believed that a stricter timetable for implementation was appropriate two years after adoption of the directive, and that a second set of norms going beyond the first set should be implemented five years after the adoption of the directive.
It was proposed in the first reading that there should be a flexible implementation system which was based on information given to consumers, which was an innovative approach.
Some of these proposals met with the approval of the Council and some did not.
The first point is that the Council agreed on a 15 % energy efficiency target, which was similar to the Commission's revised proposal.
It decided that the implementation time for the first norms would be three years after adoption, whereas the Commission and Parliament had proposed two years.
The Council text refers to a possible second set of norms but, frankly, it is so vague as to be almost evasive.
Unless there is a specific figure mentioned, then there is no point in talking about improvements or, for that matter, like one of the amendments which I do not support, ' substantial improvements' .
That is not worth the paper on which it is written.
So we have a crunch here about setting firm targets.
At the same time, the committee has wisely compromised on two issues.
One is to say to the industry which is asking for a voluntary agreement or the possibility of a voluntary agreement: Okay. You have got some time after the introduction of the first set of norms to come up with a voluntary agreement.
We will wipe the slate clean and forget about the fact that nothing happened for four or five years when you wanted one before and we will take you at your word now.
But, if this agreement is not achieved, the Commission has to propose a firm piece of legislation, and we would support this.
The other compromise we have made is on this rather controversial and, some would say, bizarre category of subtropical and tropical appliances.
The expert advice was that really the whole category did not make a lot of sense.
Nevertheless, the expert who was consulted by the Commission and by Parliament's committee concluded that there was a case for making one small exception in this category and that is for the four-star fridges - if you want the full details - with a single compressor and two compartments.
So there is a small exception, which allows us to meet the Council half way.
What I am putting to Parliament is a plea that we go forward with a firm resolve to have a clear set of norms for the second phase, although we are prepared to go along with a couple of concessions in order to meet the Council half way.
I plead with Parliament to get the amendments proposed by the committee through in toto , otherwise we will have been wasting our time.
However, I am very confident in the wisdom of this House and the assiduity of the Members and I am very confident that when they vote tomorrow we will have an overall majority and Parliament will have achieved something for energy efficiency which will benefit both the planet and the consumers.
Mr President, on behalf of my colleague Mrs Jensen, who unfortunately cannot be here today, I should like to make the following comments. In this proposal, the point is made that the EU has committed itself to reducing CO2 emissions.
It is also stated that refrigeration appliances consume a great deal of electricity, and that this is an area in which the EU can do something.
The proposal seeks to remove the heaviest energy users from the market, but unfortunately the effect will be no more than that of natural innovation in the sector.
The technology is available, and the sector should make use of it.
The most important thing in the proposal is that the Commission commits itself to bringing forward a proposal for a second set of norms to match what modern technology can do.
With the first set of norms, we are merely getting rid of the heaviest energy users.
The Commission says that it will be of benefit for consumers, society and the environment to have refrigeration appliances which are more energy-efficient, and that this is technically feasible.
While we are waiting for the CO2 tax, we can make appropriate use of the mechanisms of the internal market.
This week, we have put the Union's future climate strategy on the agenda.
In this context, it will be remarkable if we cannot agree on this proposal, which in spite of everything is a step along the road.
There is not very much good news regarding CO2 , since it now appears that the EU will be unable to achieve its aim of stabilizing CO2 emissions at the 1990 levels in the year 2000.
As Commissioner Papoutsis rightly pointed out, the end is one thing and the means another.
For example, the Council recently cut back the SAVE programme from ECU 150 million to ECU 45 m. This raises serious doubts as to whether there is any political will at all in the Council to tackle the CO2 problem.
The IEA has produced comparative studies of worldwide refrigerator norms.
In the USA, for instance, a third set of norms is being introduced in 1998 which is much more ambitious than the Council's proposals, and that is in the free and liberal United States.
Europe is far behind.
We are all concerned about the effects on the climate when a billion Chinese and millions of Indians increase their energy consumption, but can we in the West ask so much of them if we are unable to meet limits to which we have committed ourselves internationally?
Mr President, I should like, very briefly, to indicate the position the Socialist Group will take on Mr Macartney's amendments.
In general terms, the Socialist Group intends to support Mr Macartney's five amendments.
The last two of these are relatively formal amendments.
The first three, however, are important amendments, because in Amendment No 1 in particular the energy efficiency improvement is set at 20 %, not only in the first phase but in the second phase too, while Amendments Nos 2 and 3 provide respectively for a reduction of the period allowed for local industry to adapt to the new norms and for various specifications relating to tropical and subtropical refrigerators.
I could leave it at that, but honesty compels me to admit to Mr Macartney that the recommendation will not be supported by the entire Socialist Group.
In fact, a substantial minority of the Socialist Group intends to oppose the first three amendments for the following reason: in general terms, we feel that since the Commission - and very probably the Council too - will be unable to back these amendments, we are likely to become involved in conciliation procedure, which seems to be a luxury we can ill afford in the present circumstances.
We should have welcomed a greater degree of willingness to achieve some sort of rapprochement between the positions of the various institutions. Be that as it may, notwithstanding this reservation - which does not concern the substance of Mr Macartney's proposals - the recommendation will have the support of the Socialist Group, but not its unanimous support.
Mr President, the objective of reducing the greenhouse effect is absolutely praiseworthy given that there is a great deal of macroscopic evidence that the planet is heating up.
In point of fact it would be useful to be able to undertake further research in situ to enable us better to understand the processes whereby infrared light is trapped, if I may be allowed a very brief digression, using satellites attached to long lines - like the one we had occasion to experiment with in a space mission in 1992 - which will make it possible to explore those high strata in the atmosphere which balloons cannot reach and in which satellites cannot remain.
That could perhaps be an ideal subject for the Fifth Framework Programme; turning to the directive at issue, however, that document identifies energy-saving with energy-efficiency and applies the sole criterion of energy efficiency to a great variety of European refrigerators.
Different habits, in the European Union, that vary from region to region as a result of climate, eating habits and also the purchasing power of European citizens, trigger different market requirements, and the predictable result of this directive will therefore be to reduce the number of refrigerators on the market and direct the market itself towards products that are more efficient certainly but higher range and more expensive, particularly in the countries of the south.
This is not a question of respecting the concept of energy-saving, which is we accept, or taking a view on the fate of future generations, it is a matter of establishing whether this measure is fair and balanced or whether it benefits one industrial sector as compared with another, resorting to the expedient - if I may put it thus - of confusing energy-saving, which is our objective - not producing carbon dioxide then- and energy efficiency.
To demonstrate that energy-saving and energy efficiency are not the same thing, suffice it to say that a Mercedes may be more efficient in terms of energy than a scooter but a scooter clearly uses less energy than a Mercedes.
A person travelling by scooter saves energy as compared with someone using a Mercedes but has a less efficient vehicle.
When considered in detail, the directive at issue does not appear to constitute a balanced measure, given that there has been no socio-economic study on the costs for consumers in the north and in the south.
As regards the second step towards efficiency - following on from the first, on which we at any rate agree - I propose that the House support an amendment which leaves this vague, although incorporating the element of reinforcement contained in Amendment No 5.
The intention is not so much to make it difficult to take that step as to allow the Commission to structure it better and resume the study.
That has in fact been the Commission position in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and the Council position similarly.
I therefore commend to the House Amendment No 5.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, domestic fridges and freezers account for 7 % of the total electricity consumption in the European Union.
A 15 % reduction in energy consumption could mean as much as a 1 % drop in electricity consumption and lower CO2 emissions throughout the Union.
The Council has proposed a transitional period of three years for the directive instead of the two proposed by Parliament, which allows ample scope, especially when you consider that fridges can easily last 20 to 25 years.
There is also no evidence that energy efficiency will drive the price of fridges up.
On the contrary, there are already more energy-saving coolers which are no more expensive to buy than the average fridge.
So the cost will not be higher for the consumer or, in all likelihood, the producer.
The Liberal Group supports the rapporteur's proposal to introduce a second series of measures once the first phase has been evaluated.
At the suggestion of the Netherlands, the Commission has been trying for the last five years to reach voluntary agreements with the industry, but this appears to be impossible, hence this proposal for a European directive and the amendments by Mr Macartney which my group wholeheartedly supports.
Mr President, the purpose of my remarks is to summarize in two phrases the position of a large section of the Socialist Group: total support for the Council's common position, since it addresses the major objectives which will make energy savings possible; and total rejection of the amendments proposed by Mr Macartney, who has ignored the views of many Members of the House and a large number of countries which have declared their opposition to these amendments.
These amendments are not about energy savings or environmental protection.
They are about something else: a disguised and covert trade war.
One cannot fail to take account of the different conditions prevailing in the various Member States. One cannot say that there is a single study on this subject, when in fact there are several which justify the need to distinguish between different refrigerators.
More specifically, in the view of a large section of the House, allowing the industry time to adapt and accepting the category of tropical and subtropical appliances are essential not only for achieving energy savings, but also for ensuring that concern for the environment is not used as a covert means of supporting certain commercial interests.
In fact, Mr Macartney's Amendment No 3, concerning four-star refrigerators, is technically quite incorrect.
Today, refrigerators do not a have a single compartment.
The four-star compartment is a freezer, but refrigerators have other compartments which require fewer stars. And these compartments are not given co-efficients, although they would meet the directive's requirements if they were.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Macartney for his report and for his work during Parliament's second reading of the proposal.
As he has pointed out very clearly, the great importance of this proposal lies in the fact that it forms part of the European Union's strategy for the stabilization of carbon dioxide emissions.
It will not, in absolute terms, make the biggest contribution to the reduction of those emissions, but it is a necessary element in the pursuit of the objective.
If we are really serious about that objective, we must do everything that is economically feasible to achieve it.
And this measure offers a favourable cost-benefit for society as a whole.
The proposal will also produce substantial savings for our peoples.
I feel obliged to say that Parliament, through the Committee on Energy, has done much to improve the text and to give the directive a good balance over the course of the second reading.
However, we should remember that time itself is a pressing factor in the struggle to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and that achievement of a reasonable result by the year 2000 depends on getting this proposal adopted as quickly as possible.
The European Union enters into a great many policy commitments; however, as we had occasion to point out to the Committee on Energy recently, the final stage of decision-making for directives and specific proposals is often plagued by delays.
I think that you would be wise to bear that in mind now as you deliberate on this directive and tomorrow when you vote on it, because having a directive which can be implemented to produce real results by the year 2000 will boost the credibility of Parliament and the credibility of the three legislative institutions as a whole.
You will have noted that the Commission, with this modified proposal, has heeded Parliament's call at the first reading for a strengthening of the original proposal.
The common position is now very much stronger than it was in the first proposal.
We believe that the common position now strikes the right balance between protection of the environment and the protection of consumers and the interests of the manufacturers, and we can therefore support it.
As regards the amendments, Amendment No 1 is very important because it has to do with the adoption of the second phase.
The Commission has always supported the need for a dynamic approach and for the implementation of a second phase of measures five years after the adoption of the directive.
The Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament has taken a positive stance on the question of the voluntary agreements to be implemented in the second phase.
That, too, conforms with the common position.
However, according to the recommendation of our experts in their extensive study, a precise determination of the technical and economic improvement in the level of efficiency is not possible at this present time.
The Commission thinks it important that the economic and technical factors should be evaluated when the first level enters into force and that determination of the second level of efficiency improvements should be embarked on afterwards.
In view of that, the Commission, while accepting the principle expressed in Amendment No 1, cannot accept the proposed text where the improvement of efficiency is given a quantification.
We do not have the necessary figures, and it is far too early to contemplate such an amendment.
Rather than a specifically quantified improvement in efficiency, the Commission could accept the expression 'substantial improvement' , and the Council also could accept that, which would make it possible for all of us to give the proposal final approval.
I believe that what we all want, in the policy sense, is to see the adoption procedure for this proposal brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
Amendment No 2, concerning the period of adjustment for the first phase, is acceptable to the Commission.
And we are glad that the three legislative institutions agree on the 15 % figure for efficiency improvement in the first phase, because it obviously strengthens the original proposal.
Amendment No 3 deals with an exceedingly technical aspect which has already been discussed in detail in the Committee on Energy, and I would not wish to go into all the details of it today during this debate.
However, as the experts have said, at least for four-star refrigerator-freezers, these coefficients are technically justified.
I therefore welcome Parliament's acceptance of them, and I can say that the Commission can accept this amendment.
Amendment No 4, on the new version of the EN 153 standard of July 1995 can also be accepted by the Commission.
Amendment No 5, tabled by Mr Malerba to Amendment No 8 concerning the adoption of the second phase, approximates very closely to the common position.
The only difference is that 'improving' is changed to 'significantly improving' .
This change would be acceptable to the Council and would obviate the need for the conciliation procedure.
For that reason the Commission supports the amendment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in concluding I would like to request Parliament to support amendments which will permit swift adoption of this proposal.
If we truly wish to contribute to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2000, it is the most significant thing that we can do.
We need to move rapidly.
I wish to thank all of you, and the rapporteur, Mr Macartney, in particular, for your substantial contribution to the improvement of this proposal and for giving it your support.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Short sea shipping
The next item is the report (A4-0167/96) by Mr Sindal, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission (COM(95)0317 - C4-0297/95) on the development of short sea shipping in Europe - prospects and challenges.
Mr President, together with my colleagues, I very much welcome the initiative taken by the Commission in this area.
The Committee on Transport has worked on a good many maritime questions in recent years, particularly involving safety.
Now we have come to the development of shipping in the future.
This report may only deal with a communication, but it is a pleasure to be able to present an end result which supplements this initiative.
We have also noted in the committee that the Council has a positive attitude towards the maritime sector.
Unfortunately, this is not always borne out in practice.
As Pushkin put it, words are one thing, actions quite another.
We are therefore some way from the goal we write and speak about so much: short sea shipping as part of the European transport network.
And we all know how things are going with the conciliation procedure.
At this very moment, they will be sitting down and arguing in Luxembourg.
Unfortunately, that is why the Chamber is half empty, because those of my colleagues who are waging the campaign for the Maastricht Treaty to be applied in this area as well are not present.
But the wish to create a coherent transport system in Europe may be harder to put into effect than a common European security and defence policy.
Enough of that, however; let us now turn to the report.
There are two points in particular which are important - two things which are important if we wish to promote shipping in European waters, in other words what we commonly refer to as short sea shipping, or coastal traffic.
The first is the ports structure and related matters.
The second is competition between the different modes of transport.
These two areas are mentioned in all the statements and all the answers from hearings in this context, and in connection with the production of this report.
It is very important for the Commission and the Council to be aware of this.
On the first point, when will a common position be established as regards the ports sector which all the Member States will apply?
And on the second, will we succeed in making the initiative on fair pricing and so on something which the Council of Ministers takes seriously? Will any more concrete initiatives and decisions be forthcoming?
Turning to the amendments, I am grateful for the contributions from the Committee on Regional Policy, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
It has been a positive experience to work with both internal and external committees, and it also means that there are not so many amendments to the report, a sign that the process we have been through has been effective.
We have reached out to each and every part of Europe, to every port and every ship, in order to discuss this subject.
There are two specific amendments to be dealt with, the first by Mrs Myller and others.
On a previous occasion, I found it helpful to ask the Commission to assess the growing volume of low-standard river-going ships operating in Europe which come from the former East European countries.
The amendment by Mrs Myller and others can therefore be accepted.
I have discussed the other amendment, by Mr Wijsenbeek, with the author and I am bound to say that it belongs in a different area of the debate.
I should therefore like to thank the secretariat and the Commission, and I hope that the Council of Ministers, which will be planning the development of European transport, will be able to achieve a good result.
Let me emphasize from a personal point of view, partly with my own father and grandfather in mind, that shipping was once the future. For many years now, it has been underrated.
I believe that if we adopt a sensible approach, it will be the role of Parliament, the Commission and the Council to bring shipping to the forefront once again.
If we are serious about this, then decisions are the order of the day.
Politics is all about will, about having the will to do things.
It is not about waiting to see how the market develops.
We should not think that there will be any changes in European transport policy if we fail to decide anything at European level.
Mr President, on behalf of the PSE group I would like to join the rapporteur in thanking the Commission for this important contribution to the debate on the maritime sector and its future and in particular, the role of short sea shipping.
I would also like to underline the point made by the rapporteur that what we need here is political will and in the process thank the rapporteur, Mr Sindal, for the political will he has demonstrated throughout Parliament's consideration of this communication.
I thank him for the effort that he has put into this report which has ensured that all parties concerned with the future of the maritime sector have fully participated in the development of our response.
The role of short sea shipping clearly needs to be developed.
As many of us are already aware, it already plays a key role in the transportation of goods throughout the European Union; indeed 30 % or 40 % of our trade is already by short sea shipping.
Clearly that role needs to be developed, not just for historical or sentimental reasons.
I, although I represent the historic port-town of Dover and am very aware of the need to remember our history, recognise that the maritime sector and in particular, short sea shipping could play a key role in the development of transport policies in the future to fulfil both our economic and our environmental objectives.
I should like to deal briefly with both of those issues in turn.
Firstly the economic objectives: the development of ports and port infrastructure and short sea shipping would actually work well towards fulfilling our objective of assisting Ireland and the peripheral areas.
Many of the run-down areas in the European Union with high levels of unemployment are often associated with these ports and coastal areas.
We would therefore be facilitating the regeneration of declining peripheral areas if we supported the measures outlined by the rapporteur.
Secondly, overall within the European Union we will enhance industrial competitiveness if we make short sea shipping in Europe more competitive.
My second area of interest is the environment.
We must not overlook the fact that the short sea shipping sector could play a key role in fulfilling our environmental objectives.
Probably like many Members in the UK, Mr President, you were shocked to find that the EU's commitments made at the Rio Earth Summit to stabilize CO2 emissions at the 1990 levels by the year 2000 not only are not being fulfilled but are well on course to exceed those particular commitments by a substantial margin.
We therefore desperately need to ensure that short sea shipping is promoted to enable the EU to fulfil its international obligations.
I should like to conclude by thanking the rapporteur for his efforts but I plead with the Commission to state this evening what actions they will now be promoting both within the Commission and the Council to put these fine words into action.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I wish to congratulate Mr Sindal on his excellent report on the Commission's communication on the development of short sea shipping in Europe.
With just a few amendments, the Commission's guidelines and action programme will be extremely effective.
But as my colleague Mr Jarzembowski never tires of pointing out, the general policy on seaports, formulated almost in passing and in an annex, is unacceptable in its present form, since it goes far beyond the promotion of short sea shipping.
A reasonable level of mobility in the long term depends on more flexible and efficient transport infrastructures and rational connections between them.
From this point of view above all, but also for environmental and regional policy reasons, I warmly welcome all those aspects which help to shift goods traffic from the roads to coastal waters.
This can only be done if, firstly, the fleet, port structures and links with the port hinterlands are modernized; secondly, if there is greater transparency of the services on offer, port taxes and port administration structures; thirdly, if there is coordination between the funding of public and private infrastructure; and, fourthly, if administrative procedures are simplified.
It is interesting that short sea shipping is finally being regarded as a complex form of service transport: in transport terms, it is thus part of the door-to-door transport chain, and so in direct competition with road haulage.
Short sea shipping must therefore become simpler, cheaper and more efficient in terms of transport times.
The Committee on Regional Policy tabled some amendments at a very early stage. The thrust of these is contained in the Commission's original text, or the rapporteur has picked up on the linguistic nuances and incorporated them into his report.
For these reasons alone, and not on grounds of content, our group is proposing to reject the majority of these amendments.
A new element raised in Amendment No 3 is the effect of the development of short sea shipping on the creation and preservation of jobs in EU shipyards.
We should therefore support this amendment.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Sindal for his work in highlighting this neglected sector.
We are always worried about job creation and here is an area where we could really stimulate enormous job potential.
At present there are 600 ports near industrial centres. There are hundreds more that could potentially be developed for this purpose.
Previous speakers have mentioned the aid to stop congestion on the roads which is horrendous and costly in every way, and also that this is an environmentally friendly kind of procedure.
European funds would be well spent if we could encourage further action of this kind and it has to be encouraged because the political will seems to be lacking on the part of our governments.
There are 90 islands in my constituency and many have ferry connections. But we no longer have direct links, as we used to have in Scotland, with the Low Countries, Scandinavia and the Hanseatic ports.
We could so easily have those links and it would help everybody.
If ever we were looking for ways to assist job creation, this would be an area that we should be considering.
Mr President, given the expected growth in freight transport and the problems we are already facing, short sea shipping is going to have to assume a more prominent role in relieving the burden on land transport.
In order to do so, it will have to be integrated into the trans-European networks, since it is only if it becomes part of the overall door-to-door transport chain that it will be able to compete strongly against other forms of transport.
Firms must make best use of the rapid developments in data processing to ensure smooth links with the other forms of transport used in each case.
Secondly, the time spent by vessels in port must be reduced.
A good deal of progress has already been made here through the use of modern loading and unloading techniques, but it would still be useful to investigate ways of reducing the time still further.
Short sea shipping is also very much held back by cumbersome customs procedures, particularly veterinary checks, and by the monopolies enjoyed by the providers of services in some ports.
This problem receives little attention in the Commission document, despite the fact that it is one of the Commission's responsibilities to promote the smooth operation of the internal market.
Finally, we must not forget that the promotion of short sea shipping must be seen as part of our overall transport policy.
There is competition not just between the various shipping operators, but also between shipping and other modes of transport, particularly rail.
We endorse the Sindal report and feel that, taken together with the Commission document, it constitutes a valuable and helpful addition to the work of the Maritime Industries Forum.
The Commission must now ensure that all these good intentions are actually put into practice.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the rapid increase in the volume of traffic that we are seeing as trade expands within the single market means that we have to find new methods of looking at transport.
The recommendation drawn up by the Commission in its White Paper on Transport Policy is therefore an obvious and natural consequence of developments in the sector.
It is vital for that purpose that we move from land transport to other forms of transport, such as short sea shipping and river transport.
We have to bear in mind the cost/benefit ratio, the number of kilometres - 35, 000 - of European coastline and the more than 600 ports from which goods can be distributed, the majority of them close to industrial centres.
That is why those working in this area should pay greater attention to sea transport, and specific infrastructures need therefore to be created to reduce costs and remove obstacles.
The ports should, in particular, make an essential contribution with customs checks, on persons and goods, and also animal health checks.
Moreover, relaunching short-haul sea transport could provide a fresh incentive for economic activity in certain regions, creating new jobs.
Mr Sindal's report, which follows on from and expands upon the Commission and Council directives, gives us an opportunity to reflect and shows us that we can take the maritime route and that it for all of us to determine the future.
Mr President, sea shipping relieves and lightens overland traffic in many ways.
This is also the case in the area around the Baltic Sea, as Mr Sindal points out in his excellent report.
Despite a long tradition of co-operation in shipping in the Baltic area, going back as far as the Hanseatic League, and despite the fact that sea shippings on the Baltic Sea generally are known to be ecologically beneficial and efficient forms of transport, transport in this area is slower and more difficult than transport across the continent.
Transportation across the Baltic Sea involve the use of several different transport vehicles; the cargo has to be unloaded and reloaded due to the water levels and the archipelago.
It should be possible to link cargos more smoothly to other parts of the transport chain.
A good example of this is the rail-ship combination, which is expected to increase strongly due to demand.
In the Baltic countries, any future Member States of the European Union, the legislation, the development of ports and of traffic structure require a good deal of work.
It would also be sensible for the European Union to invest in the development of port infrastructure in this area.
Transport connections to northern Europe which work well are obviously beneficial to trade in the entire EU.
The Baltic area should consequently be given similar status in EU traffic policy as has already occurred in the Mediterranean area.
Finally I would like to stress an environmental issue about which I feel that the European Union should make an initiative and start preparatory actions.
I am referring to the transport of oil in European waters - oil transportation, both in small and large vessels, should be prohibited unless the vessels are equipped with a double hull.
The catastrophe in Wales showed that double hulls are an absolute necessity in both small and large oil-transporting vessels, and consequently all vessels in question should be equipped in this way.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of the report before us is to promote the transport of goods by sea and to correct the imbalance that exists between maritime and overland transport - an excellent aim, but one which raises various problems regarding the environment, social issues and safety standards.
Minimum safety levels really must be imposed in order to protect human life and to ensure respect for the environment.
A list of essential conditions could be drawn up, and special attention must be given to the need for a minimum training standard for crews.
In this respect, minimum nationality quotas might be a means of raising overall levels of aptitude in view of the lack of professional skills among certain crews whose members are recruited at low cost from countries outside the European Union.
Moreover, standards governing the construction and refurbishment of ships ought to be adopted, since the short sea shipping fleet comprises many small and dilapidated craft.
That could serve as an opportunity to promote European dockyards, thereby establishing a European preference in the domain of ship repairs.
Lastly, it is absolutely essential that there should be standards governing the conditions under which dangerous goods are transported and rules for the prevention of marine pollution, as well as regulated procedures for rapid assistance to ships in distress.
In conclusion, we note that there is convergence between these needs and the activities of the dockyards which exist in the countries of Europe, and we believe that the best possible use should be made of this convergence.
Mr President, it is vitally important, not least for environmental reasons, to do everything we can to move goods and passenger traffic off the roads and onto the railways and the various waterways.
From the perspective of a landlocked European country, inland waterways should be given rather more prominence in this overall context.
Given the likelihood that east-west transit traffic on Austrian roads will increase sharply as a consequence of enlargement to the East, shipping on the River Danube will represent an important alternative.
The efficient management of passenger and goods transport on the Danube is bound to take on a regional dimension in the context of the accession negotiations with the eastern countries bordering on the Danube, and this alternative transport corridor must be used to relieve the already unbearable pressure on the roads.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Kinnock has asked me to apologize to you for not being able to be here today.
He is attending a meeting of the Transport Council in Luxembourg.
First of all I would like to thank Mr Sindal and the Committee on Transport for this very positive and constructive opinion.
I note as well that the opinion gives support to the policy of the Commission regarding the measures proposed in the communication on the development of short sea shipping.
I understand the anxiety about the need for more emphasis to be given to the social dimension of maritime transport.
This dimension, which preserves, in particular, the know-how of European seafarers through education and vocational training and the availability of qualified personnel in the countries of the European Union, is covered in more detail in the Commission's communication on the new strategy for shipping which was published last March.
The communication proposes joint action by the European Union and the Member States to promote seafaring vocational training programmes and to attract young people to the shipping professions with a view to preserving the seafaring specializations in the European Union and to meeting present and future demand for well-trained seafarers with high levels of skill.
In due course you, as the Parliament, will undoubtedly turn your attention to the specific measures proposed in the communication, and I feel sure that you will view them as positive.
In the framework of that communication, the Commission has embarked on a study of the vocational training and employment of seafarers in the Member States.
The study will cover the following areas:
first, world trends in employment in the marine professions; -second, the measures taken by the Member States to promote shipping vocational training and career development programmes for seafarers; -third, other measures which may be necessary for the purpose of attracting young people to the professions.
Obviously, we will make the recommendations of the study known to Parliament and the other institutions.
The study will be discussed with shipowners and the unions in the framework of the Joint Maritime Transport Committee.In response to the question by Mr Watts concerning the direct action that we intend to take, I can inform the House that the Commission is currently drawing up a draft Council regulation on the extension of the combined transport pilot actions.
The five-year experimental programme will be completed in December of this year.
The Commission intends to use the new PACT programme to make the combined transport pilot projects concerned with short sea shipping eligible for financial support on an equal basis with those relating to other forms of transport.
Short sea shipping continues to occupy an important position in on-going activities of the Commission such as the fourth framework programme on research and development, the integration of ports into the trans-European transport network and the support for pilot actions.
With reference to Mr Van der Waal's concern about the cumbersome administrative burden of veterinary checks, and the question of the legislation itself, the Commission is working closely with the Member States, and I believe that we are already making some progress.
In the future development of policy in the short sea shipping sector the Commission will take account of Parliament's recommendations and will keep it informed about progress that is made.
In addition, as recommended in Parliament's report, the Commission will liaise with the Short Sea Panel of the Maritime Industries Forum on the implementation of the action programme envisaged in the communication.
This process has already begun, and the seventh plenary of the forum in Marseilles on 4 and 5 July will make a first formal assessment of the progress that has been made so far.
To conclude, I would like to thank Mr Sindal again for his splendid report and the European Parliament for its painstaking perusal of the communication.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Climate change
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the current and future strategy on climate change.
Mr President, it is now four years since the Commission published its original proposal for the introduction of a Community-wide CO2 energy tax.
At the time it was seen as an essential part of the Community's efforts to meet international targets which, after all, they had agreed at Rio.
In spite of that agreement, four years on the proposal still stands blocked by the very Council whose members agreed these original targets.
As the Commissioner has said, earlier this year in February the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection had a public hearing during which a series of distinguished speakers told us of the dramatic effect climate change might have.
Drought, storm damage, floods would become more likely and medium and long-term insurance costs are therefore likely to become considerable burdens on industry and consequently on job creation.
The Council seems to have forgotten that sustainable jobs depend on a sustainable environment.
Short-term thinking in both industry and governments has meant that Council is still unwilling to take any action. The latest ridiculous example of this was the slashing of the SAVE II programme.
Have these people never heard of the precautionary principle?
Do they not take advice from their own scientists? Do they not realise that they are prejudicing the well-being and even the livelihood of European citizens?
The lessons from last week's Rome Conference in which the Commissioner, the Italian President-in-Office and myself took part are there to be learned.
In spite of increased unemployment, the fact is that taxation on labour has more than doubled in the last thirty years but taxation on resource-use has remained steady at only 10 %.
It is time we embraced the economic model advanced in Chapter 10 of the Delors White Paper and altered that balance.
As far as we are concerned, the Commission must redouble its efforts to persuade Member States that the creation of employment and the protection of the environment go hand in hand.
Both demand a credible and active policy to reduce CO2 emissions through a combination of incentive, regulation and progressive taxation.
That policy is needed sooner rather than later.
I hope, therefore, that when the conference of parties to the Convention on Climate Change meets in July, they will not simply add to the greenhouse effect by generating even more hot air.
We have had quite enough of that.
It is the role of the Community to persuade its Member States to take action and I hope the Commission will take that job seriously and persuade all Member States to cooperate fully in producing that action.
Mr President, I welcome the Commissioner's statement and, in particular, that she speaks on behalf of the Commission in deploring the latest developments in the Council over the CO2 energy tax.
I agree with her emphasis on the political nature of this problem and welcome her call for us to take a leading role.
But if we are to take a leading role we have to be politically credible; and if we are going to be credible we have to learn the lessons of the past, which is that very little has actually been achieved.
Very little has been achieved in recent years because of the determined blocking of the political process by particular lobbies that threw dirt in the potential way forward of solving the administrative problems and indeed denied the whole scientific basis.
I share with her the belief that the relevant timescale is from now until the Kyoto Conference.
The mandate is important: it is important that the Council gives the Commission a mandate for widespread negotiations, and these are not just negotiations with the Americans, they have to be negotiations with the Chinese and the Indians as well.
This is a global problem and it needs a global solution.
There is a need to refresh the debate and to talk about not global warming but climate protection, to recognize that the ground of the debate has shifted, that there are people in the insurance industry and the agriculture industry who are already feeling the advanced impact of climate change.
So I have brought her this evening a modest proposal which I invite her to support.
It would dramatise political attention if we were to indicate exactly why this is so politically difficult.
It is so politically difficult because of the fossil fuel industries' determination to jam up the legislative process both here and in America.
So I invite her to support an idea of mine, which is that we should take to naming hurricanes after oil companies.
When hurricane Exxon hits the Florida coast this might well focus attention quite eloquently.
I should like to endorse what the last two speakers have said and also thank the Commissioner for the commitment she has shown on this issue; the matter is best summed up by saying that we have the knowledge, but need political action, and this is not in fact a situation where there are grounds for criticizing the Commission.
I therefore join in the regret at the lack of a decision by the ECOFIN Council on the CO2 tax and the decision taken by the Energy Council on SAVE II, which show that when it comes to realities, the Council wants neither taxes nor research, in other words it wants nothing at all when it comes down to it.
The Commissioner said that the Union should take the lead in this field, and here one has to say that the Commission has taken the lead, but the Union certainly has not, and the risk we are running at the moment is that the climate issue will be one of the really sorry, not to say frosty chapters in the long history of the Union, while reality shows that what is in fact involved is global warming.
Mr President, I wish I could take pleasure in hearing the Commissioner say that the Commission wanted to be ambitious and realistic.
The realism, unfortunately, consists today in recognizing that we are in something of a blind alley, especially as far as energy taxation is concerned.
But since we are talking of ambition, I believe we must ask some questions about the types of initiative that the Commission and the European Union might take in the coming weeks in connection with the Geneva conference.
I should like to know what the Commissioner thinks of the German proposal that has been tabled, namely that we should set ourselves a new target of a 10 % reduction in greenhouse-gas concentrations by 2005 and a 15 % reduction by 2010.
It is a proposal that my political friends and I find too weak, but it points in the right direction.
We believe it is totally realistic to set a 20 % reduction in the 1990 figure as a target for 2005, a 30 % reduction for 2010 and 50 % for 2030.
It is perfectly realistic from a technical point of view as well as being economically advantageous.
All the arguments prove that, which is why I think we ought to move in this direction.
My second question is this: it would seem that a discussion paper has been circulating in the Commission in which it is proposed that a maximum permissible concentration of greenhouse gases, or rather of CO2 , be introduced and that this ceiling be set at 550 parts per million.
May I point out that before the industrial age there were 280 ppm of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that an increase to 550 ppm, which is virtually double the concentration, would entail a temperature increase of two degrees.
Is the Commissioner able to confirm or deny the existence of this paper, and what does she think of its alleged content? I believe that is quite crucial to the future course of our debate.
Commissioner, I should like to associate myself with the congratulations that have been expressed to you on the objectives and ambitions you have established for the Commission, but if I may strike a whimsical note - with all due respect to yourself - I feel that it is not the Commission we should be listening to here but the Council of Ministers, since all guidelines established by the Commission are systematically destroyed by the Council.
I am thinking especially of Jacques Delors' Directive on CO2 -based energy, which was buried with great haste by the Council in Essen in 1994.
I am also thinking of a number of other proposals made by the Commission which were never put into effect.
We have to tell the Commission that its ambitions are noble but that it ought to go further, especially with regard to the fifth action programme, in which it set itself the aim of incorporating an environmental aspect into all its policies.
But whenever we discuss transport in particular, we notice that the environmental aspect is excluded.
The Maastricht Treaty may well be criticized, but to its credit it does lay down convergence criteria and quantifies them.
We have no such criteria for the environment or for combating the greenhouse effect.
Why, Commissioner, should we not establish environmental convergence criteria which the Member States and the Commission and governments would be bound to follow and which would be quantified in accordance with environmental needs? I have the feeling that, with the environment and the greenhouse effect, we shall have to go careering into a brick wall - as is happening with the BSE crisis - before we realize that a radical change of direction is needed.
Once again, the vacuum left by the lack of political will has been filled, as Mr Spencer rightly said, by business, liberalism and the quest for profit.
Shall we have to leave the government of Europe to the tender mercies of those multinationals which, at the moment, are doing their business at the expense of consumers?
I think not. Finally, the latest UN conference, Habitat II on cities, illustrates to us how urgently the Commission needs to let its voice be heard by the Council of Ministers and, ultimately, to reassert its authority.
Mr President, I sometimes have the impression that disasters are already happening, but we refuse to admit that they are the result of climate change.
It is becoming increasingly clear from research that human intervention in the form of emissions of greenhouse gases is causing climate change, so that even those who most stubbornly refuse to accept that there is a link are beginning to have their doubts.
We do not appear to know yet what the precise link is, and I would therefore ask the Commission to intensify its research programme in this field.
It seems to me that we need more information on this link in order to be able to develop an appropriate reduction strategy. What does the Commission think about this?
What approach does it intend to adopt at the forthcoming conference on climate change and the developing countries?
What efforts are we making in Europe, and which projects by the developing countries are we prepared to support financially? Does the Commissioner agree that if the Union is to maintain its credibility, we must ensure that the support we provide is balanced between Europe and the developing world?
Mr President, as the greenhouse gases build up, there is a growing likelihood that our climate will be adversely affected, and we must always bear in mind that the climate is not a linear system, in that very sudden, unexpected changes can occur, causing whole eco-systems to disappear at a stroke.
We now know from many scientific reports what kind of counter-measures are required, and where and by whom they should be taken, but the introduction of such measures is being delayed, because unfortunately the many fine words are not being followed by the necessary deeds.
I would have particularly liked to see the introduction of what are described as 'no regrets' measures - measures which, whatever the circumstances, bring immediate and substantial benefits to the environment by reducing pollutants, and which undoubtedly improve energy efficiency as well as creating jobs, as previous speakers have pointed out.
When one thinks that a third of all the CO2 emissions in the world are caused by energy generation and distribution, we have surely not yet fully exhausted the potential savings, which should at long last be introduced, because of course lower energy consumption not only does less damage to the environment and reduces emissions into the atmosphere, but can also have a major impact on the competitiveness of our countries.
I hope, Commissioner, that in the discussions on the mandate which you are to be given, you will draw the attention of the Council members in particular to the fact that decisions like the slashing of the SAVE II programme are totally at odds with the declarations which they make.
Mr President, the Commissioner tells us that we have done everything we can to reduce CO2 emissions, but we have failed in our aim and now, four years on, we are once again going to a conference where we will be trying our best to come to some sort of new agreement.
And what was the reason for our failure? According to the Commissioner, it was because the ECOFIN Council will not accept our CO2 tax.
But we have known for two years now that ECOFIN will not accept the CO2 tax, so why does the European Union not try to develop a number of alternatives instead? The next question is: what exactly should it do?
Will we have to change from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy, and reduce energy consumption? What has the Commission agreed to do about this, or is the CO2 tax still the only thing anyone talks about?
What precise agreements have been reached?
The best idea, it seems to me, would be to see what we can arrange on a voluntary basis with our industries, in the form of self-regulation.
Why can we not do this, instead of simply waiting to see what a CO2 tax will achieve, when we know that there is no chance of it going through at the moment? I would therefore urge the Commissioner to come up with a plan that we can consider in parallel with the CO2 tax, so that we can go along to the international conference with some honest proposals.
Mr Blokland is quite right when he says that if we, the industrialized countries of the European Union, cannot get anything done, then we really cannot expect the developing countries to do anything either.
Mr President, my question relates to what the previous speaker and the other Dutch Members have said.
What we are talking about this evening obviously concerns the developing countries, and the Netherlands has already felt the effects, as it were, of climate changes in the Antilles.
I have a very specific question which relates to those raised by my colleagues.
There is an organization called AOSIS, the Alliance of Small Island States, and if there is one subject close to its heart it is climate change.
The islands of the Pacific and the Caribbean will be in the front line if the situation deteriorates.
An ambassador in the Pacific once said 'we are the canaries of the mines' .
If the canary drops dead, you know you have to get out of the mine, and that is what these small island states are.
My question to the Commission is this: these islands are very well aware that they are in the front line.
There are atolls in the Pacific which are being evacuated at this very moment, but this is not even mentioned in the European press.
There are 200 or 300 people who are being moved from the atolls where they have lived for generations.
Many of the AOSIS states are ACP countries - in fact, one third of the ACP countries with which Europe has development agreements are small island states.
Is the Commissioner prepared to develop a plan with Mr Pinheiro, who is responsible for the ACP countries, to try to work with them to provide help for the AOSIS states, and is she also prepared to attend the hearing on climate change which the ACP Assembly is organizing in Brussels in September?
Mr President, the reports we have debated here this evening have had a great deal to say about climate change.
They dealt with precisely the problem taken up by Commissioner Bjerregaard.
I believe that the debate has demonstrated Parliament's concern for this issue extremely well; there was not a single speaker who did not stress the importance of taking measures in this field.
I believe it is interesting to return to the report of the Brundtland Commission, where climate changes - the climate issue - is cited as being the environmental issue of greatest priority in the report 'Environment and Development' .
With regard to the intensive debate we have had on nuclear energy, it is also interesting that this report takes roughly the same line as Commissioner Cresson did very recently, namely that safety measures must be increased in this field so that nuclear energy can be used in the positive battle to achieve lower carbon dioxide emissions.
I should then like to ask the Commissioner if it would still not be possible, despite previous failures, to continue with carbon taxes and attempt to convince the Member States of the wisdom of carrying out these measures.
I might perhaps be able to advise them to study carefully the carbon taxes which have been introduced in Sweden.
I willingly admit that we have had failures in some areas but in others these taxes have been very successful.
There is every reason to promote this in other countries in the Union.
Mr President, I am grateful for the many helpful comments on a problem which I recognize is one that we agree should be taken seriously.
There are a few points which I should like to make about some of what has been said.
I very much agree with Mr Collins that when you run into difficulties, there is little else to do but try to redouble your efforts, and I think we are in fact trying to do so.
That is why we are now seeking to obtain a mandate in connection with the negotiations at the end of 1997, as both I and Mr Collins mentioned, and to make progress with the use of economic means in general.
I also share Mr Spencer's view from the other side of the House that we must naturally concern ourselves with what we are able to do here in the Union, but that it is important for us to bring about the dialogue which is so urgently needed with China and India, for example, if these problems are actually to be resolved.
Several Members referred to the SAVE II programme. Mrs Dybkjær did so, and Mr Blokland called for more resources to be provided for targeted research programmes.
It may well be said that what took place in the Energy Council, where my colleague Mr Papoutsis argued very strongly against the cutback which was decided, seems most unreasonable and also casts some doubt on what we can actually achieve in the area of research, but it will not prevent us from trying again to see how far it is possible for us to go.
Mr Lannoye referred specifically to the German proposal and the objective which it contained.
We are currently working on several different objectives put forward by countries in the Union, and we are glad to support many of the proposals which have been made, because we need ambitious targets in order to make any progress at all, and we do wish to make progress in the negotiations.
This is a general objective on which we have an opportunity of moving forward.
The only contribution here this evening which I did not actually understand was the one by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, because it appeared from her speech that we in the Commission are supposed to have sat back and waited and not really done anything, because we cannot get our CO2 tax through at the moment.
I am sure Mrs Oomen-Ruijten will remember that the Commission, when it emerged that we would be unable to get the tax through, brought forward guidelines which gave the Member States some scope for making progress, because we did not just want to resign ourselves to waiting when we made no progress on this in the ECOFIN Council, and so we have been continuing our work.
There is a new mandate, on the basis of which Commissioner Monti is currently working, and as regards the international conferences we have been talking about here this evening, they have nothing to do with the tax, they are about the targets, and then we have to choose the means we are going to use in this area.
I can tell Mrs van Putten that measures are well under way to help the smaller islands, and to help with the problems to which she referred.
I will gladly look at the scope for doing more, together with Commissioner Pinheiro.
We are very conscious of the matter, and there is excellent cooperation in this area.
I would say to Mr Virgin that one of the purposes of the conference in Rome on economic means was precisely to look at what the Member States have done - including Sweden, but other Member States as well - when they have tried to use economic means; how these have worked, what weaknesses there have been, and how we can possibly make further progress with this approach.
The real breakthrough in this area lies in the negotiations at the intergovernmental conference and involves extending majority decision-making to other sectors, but that is - and I think Parliament would agree - a different debate which we must have on another occasion.
Mr President, I gather that the Commissioner says she did not understand my question.
Let me explain.
First of all, because of climate change we reached a number of agreements on reducing CO2 which we have been discussing for the last four years. In the meantime, the Commission has come up with the idea of a CO2 tax, but this has not gone through.
My question is: what progress has Europe really made in reducing CO2 ? And the answer is none at all.
So I wonder why, in addition to this tax idea, we should not also try to bring about voluntary reductions by encouraging a voluntary shift from fossil fuels to other renewable energy sources, as has already been done very successfully in the Netherlands? Why can you not try something like this?
Why not try and move forward with new projects instead of just sitting back and waiting?
Mr President, the Commissioner answered one of my two questions but not the other.
The second question referred to whether or not a proposal was about to be put forward by the Commission limiting the acceptable future concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to a ceiling of 550 parts per million.
That would lead, it must be said, to an average temperature increase of two degrees.
Does this proposal exist, or does it not? Is it a basis for discussion?
I would say to Mr Lannoye that as far as I am aware, this is not our proposal, although it has entered into some of the negotiations; however, it would not be particularly wise of me to say more without studying this in further detail, so as to be sure of giving you a correct and more complete answer.
I should then like to say again to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that I understood her first speech very well, which differed from all the other speeches here this evening by taking the view that the Commission had done nothing at all since we were unable to secure the introduction of the CO2 tax.
That is not true.
As I pointed out, we went on to bring forward a number of guidelines designed to improve the situation. In addition, we have been calling very strongly for targets to be established, and we have been active in this respect following the Berlin conference.
This has been achieved for some countries in various ways, and we have explained some of the ways in which it has been done.
We are continuing with our task, and it is clear from our programme of work that there will be a communication on voluntary agreements aimed at considering how these can play a part not only in terms of climate change, but in other areas too, and I very much hope that the programme concerning motor oils, which is closely linked to emissions and the scope for reducing them, will go through at the Commission meeting tomorrow.
So while we maintain that a CO2 tax would be sensible and appropriate, we have worked on guidelines, we are naturally working on many other proposals, and as regards the international conferences, we are not abandoning our aim of establishing reasonable standards in the negotiations that will take place with other countries.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was closed at 7.40 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, concerning item No 10 on page 16 of the Minutes, Mr Novo raised the matter of the use of the bridge over rue Belliard to film a demonstration.
The President said that he would reply in writing.
It was a legitimate question and we are all entitled to hear the answer.
If Parliament's premises are to be used by the goons and the ginks and the finks we are all entitled to know.
Perhaps the Minutes do not record the President's words accurately, Mr Smith.
He asked Mr Novo to submit his observations to him in writing.
Clearly, he could not give an immediate reply, and since he did not have direct knowledge of the events in question, he asked Mr Novo to make his point in writing, so that he could make the necessary inquiries and provide an answer as soon as possible.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Calendar of part-sessions
At its meeting of 13 June, the Conference of Presidents decided to propose the following calendar of part-sessions for 1997:
13 to 17 January; - 29 to 30 January; - 17 to 21 February; - 10 to 14 March; - 7 to 11 April; - 23 to 24 April; - 12 to 16 May; - 28 to 29 May; - 9 to 13 June; - 25 to 26 June; - 14 to 18 July; - 8 to 12 September; - 24 to 25 September; - 6 to 10 October; - 20 to 24 October; - 5 to 6 November; - 17 to 21 November; - 3 to 4 December; - 15 to 19 December.The deadline for tabling amendments to these dates is 5 p.m. on Wednesday, 3 July.
The vote will take place at 12 noon on Wednesday, 17 July.
Thank you, Mr Tomlinson.
The President set this deadline precisely so that the political groups would be able to discuss the calendar beforehand.
In any event, I shall pass on your comments to the President.
There is another meeting of the Conference of Presidents this Thursday, and the group chairmen will thus have an opportunity to discuss the deadline and change it if necessary.
Decision on urgency
Mr Santini has the floor to give the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture as the committee responsible.
Mr President, since Mr Jacob, the chairman of the committee is not here, I wish to express in his place the view of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, that is to say the decision we have taken not to agree to urgency on this matter.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Mr President, I would formally request the House to agree to urgent procedure.
We have fallen badly behind with our emergency aid for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
I was there with other Members a fortnight ago, and we were able to see that the emergency aid of ECU 92 million cannot be put into effect because of the lack of a legal basis.
Please do not make the people in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who desperately need this money, pay the price of the disagreement over the legal basis.
If we do not agree to urgent procedure, it will take longer still for this money even to reach the start of the administrative process.
I would implore you to vote in favour of urgent procedure in this case.
Mr President, we shall be looking at the question of finance tomorrow afternoon, and I hope that we can take the vote on Thursday, because the Committee on Budgets adopted that report unanimously yesterday evening.
So I do not see how urgency will make any difference as far as the report on the regulation is concerned.
We would prefer to keep to the planned timetable, in other words to have the vote on the Committee on Budgets' report on Thursday and the debate on the report on the regulation in due course.
Mr President, with reference to the alarming situation in Bosnia, agreement was reached in January of this year at a tripartite meeting of Parliament, the Council and the Commission on guidelines for the budget concerned.
Most of the appropriations are to be used for the procurement of goods for the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In other words, thanks to Parliament's decision in January to approve disbursement, EU aid is already a reality in the region and continues to flow in.
The legal formalities surrounding this aid do not therefore need to be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
Secondly, Mr President, the Commission and the Council have taken six months before deciding they wanted to seek Parliament's views on these legal issues.
If Parliament now takes one month it can hardly be regarded as unreasonably dilatory.
Thirdly, however, Mr President, we in the European Parliament have objections to the procedure proposed by the Council.
The Council decided on the regulation at its meeting of 10 June 1996 in Luxembourg, when it also amended the Commission's proposal.
Now Parliament is being consulted on an issue on which the Council has already adopted a standpoint.
I do not wish to rule out the possibility that Parliament will request negotiations with the Council once it has given its opinion in July.
In any event, Mr President, we should today reject the proposal from the Council for a special urgent debate on this subject.
Thank you, Mr Cars.
We have heard one speaker in favour and one against, and Mr Cars has spoken on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
I now put the request for urgency to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
EMI annual report - Currency fluctuations and the internal market - Exchange rate relations- Broad guidelines of economic policies
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A4-0180/96) by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the second annual report of the European Monetary Institute (C4-0228/96); -the report (A4-0181/96) by Mr Pérez Royo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission (COM(95)0503 - C4-0011/96) on the impact of currency fluctuations on the internal market; -the report (A4-0186/96) by Mr von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the interim report by the Commission to the European Council (CSE(95)2108 - C4-0308/96) on the exchange rate relations between the Member States taking part in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union and the remaining Member States; -the oral question (B4-0561/96-0-0126/96) by Mr Cassidy, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, to the Council, on the recommendation on the broad guidelines of the economic policies; -the oral question (B4-0567/96-0-0130/96) by Mr Hughes, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, to the Commission, on broad guidelines of the economic policies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the second Annual Report of the European Monetary Institute contains an adequate analysis of the progress made by the Union's economies in the process of economic and monetary convergence, as well as a detailed description of the preparatory work for the third stage of economic and monetary union, with particular emphasis being placed on the report on the changeover to the single currency which formed the basis of the European Council's decision of December 1995, the agreement on the interconnection in real time of gross settlement systems - the 'Target' system - and the coordination of the instruments of monetary policy.
There are still far too many question marks over the final outcome of this process, in which the European Monetary Institute plays a fundamental role.
Despite the fact that six months ago, at the Madrid summit, the Heads of State or Government of the Member States firmly reiterated their commitment to achieving economic and monetary union and introducing the single currency, certain statements made in political, economic and financial circles have been casting doubts on whether these objectives are entirely viable.
As Mr Lamfalussy said, the process of economic convergence is meeting with success in three respects: inflation, interest rates and exchange-rate stability. Furthermore, we have sound and competitive economies, as is demonstrated by the positive development of the European Union's balance of trade.
Nevertheless, the hoped-for economic recovery - which six months ago, the European Commission was calling robust - has failed to materialize.
We are in a period of uncertainty, of economic sluggishness - there was even a slight recession in the first quarter of the year - which can only be explained by the lack of consumer and investor confidence brought about respectively by the high level of unemployment and the necessary budgetary cutbacks, all of which is preventing the economic upturn from occurring.
However, as is also stated in the EMI's report, there is a clear need to reduce public deficits and debts substantially. In my view, therefore, the only course is for the Community institutions - and especially the Council - to give a clear and resolute signal that the process of economic and monetary union, as set out in the Maastricht Treaty, is irreversible.
Consequently, it is essential for economic operators to be provided with adequate guarantees that enable them to give a boost to the kind of economic activity in which investment plays a key role in both promoting the recovery and ensuring that the European economy is sufficiently competitive in the medium term.
In this context, the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy stresses the need to enhance the role and the capacities of the EMI, especially in view of the fact that 1996 is a decisive year for economic and monetary union, since according to Article 109f of the Maastricht Treaty, the EMI must specify by 31 December the regulatory, organizational and logistical framework necessary for the European System of Central Banks to perform its tasks in the final stage of EMU.
We believe that in its activities hitherto, the EMI has been excessively reserved and restrained.
Our committee takes the view that the EMI should adopt a firmer and more resolute approach, enabling it to play a more active role in the coordination of the Member States' monetary policies and to establish flexible working relationships with the international financial institutions, in particular the International Monetary Fund. Also, the committee gives its backing to the proposal that the EMI should be rigorous in the application of Articles 104 and 104a of the Maastricht Treaty, which prohibit monetary financing and privileged access - cases of which have occurred, albeit on a small scale, and which must be eliminated completely.
Our committee also stresses the need for the adjustment of internal control mechanisms, with the introduction of new and effective procedures aimed at preventing the kind of distortions which occurred in connection with financial derivatives.
Finally, it is calling for the European Monetary Institute's activities to be extended to more operational fields, in view of the timetable and objectives entrusted to the EMI, which is a key player - and, we would wish, a more active one - in the process of preparing for economic and monetary union and the single currency.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report which I have the honour of presenting to the House today concerns the monetary fluctuations which occurred during 1992 and 1993 - and indeed 1995 - and which, as we know, had a significant impact on the functioning of the European exchange-rate mechanism and the internal market itself, leading first and foremost to changes in competitiveness in favour of those currencies which suffered depreciations.
Secondly, it should be remembered that as a result of these monetary fluctuations or upheavals, two currencies left the European Monetary System in 1992.
The EMS was itself modified in 1993, with the broadening of the fluctuation bands.
Above all, however, the distorting effects on the internal market caused by the uncertainty and insecurity in the markets resulting from these fluctuations should be underlined.
The main concern of our report is not so much to produce a balance sheet of winners and losers as a result of these fluctuations, but to draw the lessons from the past which must be taken into account in the future, especially when it comes to defining the relationship between the euro and the currencies which temporarily remain outside EMU.
As far as the causes of the fluctuations are concerned, we must focus principally on the inadequate coordination of the economic policies of the Member States, whose economies, prior to 1992, displayed very different patterns of behaviour as regards inflation, budget deficits and interest rates.
This situation contrasted with the stability of nominal exchange rates, which progressively diverged from real exchange rates, giving rise to the corrective action of the markets, which was also encouraged by the lack of flexibility of the EMS which existed at the time.
With regard to the effects of the fluctuations, we agree with the Commission communication that they were not particularly noticeable at macro-economic level, neither in terms of the volume of external trade of the countries affected, nor the increase in market share.
On the whole, the effects were mainly felt at sectoral level, with a reduction in the profit margins of undertakings in countries whose currencies appreciated.
In any event, we would stress that the principal damaging effects were those caused to the smooth and effective functioning of the internal market. This was especially due to the fact that the fluctuations of European currencies were accompanied by fluctuations of the dollar and yen, underlining Europe's need for a single currency - the euro - capable of functioning autonomously as a reserve currency at international level and offsetting the fluctuations of these and other currencies.
I should also like to draw attention to the fact that in recent years - those of the second stage of EMU, the current stage in the process - there has been an improvement in the coordination of the economies of the Fifteen, which have made progress towards convergence.
This progress has been underpinned by the behaviour of the markets, which appear to be demonstrating their confidence that the timetable for economic and monetary union will be met.
Since 1993, the European Monetary System has functioned satisfactorily.
Despite the broadening of the fluctuation bands, the currencies which form part of the EMS have been moving within reduced margins which correspond to the narrow bands in force before the summer of 1993.
This very week, if we examine the EMS grid, we can see that the difference in parities between the strongest and weakest currencies is less than 2 %. And this has been the case continuously now for several months.
In this context, the report recommends that an explicit call should be made for those currencies at present outside the European Monetary System, both those which left it in 1993 and those of the new Member States - which, with the exception of Austria, have not yet joined the EMS, to be integrated into it as soon as possible.
And, in this respect, we must welcome the rumours - because at present they are no more than rumours - of the imminent return of the lira to the EMS, as well as the entry of the Finnish mark.
Looking towards the future, it is important to stress the need to strengthen the mechanisms for coordinating economic policies at European level; and it could even be argued that the ECOFIN Council should progressively become a kind of economic government of the Union.
Finally, I should like to make a few brief comments concerning the relationship between the 'ins' and the 'outs' - between the euro and the currencies which remain outside EMU.
This issue is the subject of the report which will be introduced next, so I shall deal with it very quickly.
There is a broad consensus on the need for a system which has the euro as a pivot, in relation to which the currencies which remain temporarily outside EMU would float within bands of an agreed width.
This system would be complemented by a practice of inflation targeting approved jointly by the European Central Bank and the central banks of the countries outside EMU.
Mr President, it is not in any sense part of my job this morning to answer comments made by previous speakers.
However, just in parenthesis, I will make the point, following on what my colleague, Karl von Wogau, has just said, that the question of the United Kingdom's relationships with the European Monetary System and exchange rates is, of course, one for markets and not for governments.
But that is a matter which I am sure we will discuss endlessly in the coming months.
I speak this morning as the rapporteur on the annual economic report and part of the responsibilities that go with that rapporteurship is producing a report on the broad economic guidelines.
My first suggestion, addressed to the Commission - and I promise the Commission that this will be my last criticism of it - is that it would be most helpful in future if the Commission could contrive to produce its annual economic report and its broad economic guidelines in sufficient time for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment because these two projects are the joint responsibility of those two committees.
It would be helpful in future years if we could have the broad economic guidelines a bit earlier, because the trouble this time is that we have had to rush to conclusions because of the deadline at the end of this week of the 21 and 22 June meeting in Florence.
This has meant that we have not really had time in the Economic Committee to produce a report debated in committee, adopt amendments in committee and then present to this House a report that is properly balanced in the way in which the three previous reports are balanced and reflect consensus in the committee.
The compromise resolution, which we shall be voting on later today, is therefore unsatisfactory in some respects, but that is an inevitable part of having a compromise.
Compromises, by definition, do not satisfy everyone and we would say that the joint resolution is all right up to a point but we shall be tabling a number of amendments to it.
One is to remove the Commission from the line of fire of criticism, because you will have noticed that our resolution is somewhat critical of both the Commission and the Council.
But we believe that at this stage it is too late to criticize the Commission.
We shall also be tabling amendments on matters which we feel very strongly about and which, indeed, are in our question to the Council, because at the moment there is no reference in the final resolution to the need for the Member States to analyse the best practice in Member States and, in parenthesis, the United States, in order to identify the policies which can achieve results in bringing down unemployment rapidly.
This is something which the committee as a whole felt strongly about in the resolution on the annual economic report and it is a significant omission that it is not in the resolution to wind up this debate.
I hope that the House will agree to incorporate this point and that the House will also agree to the addition that the Member States should create an environment where employers are encouraged to take on workers.
It is not part of my job to anticipate what the speakers on behalf of the Social Affairs Committee may say on that matter, but it is very clear, with the high level of unemployment in the European Union, that it is unacceptable that there should be something like 18 million unemployed in our society, with 50 million living in poverty or in near poverty.
Coming to the substance of what the debate this morning is all about, this is actually the European Parliament's opportunity to put forward its views to the European Council which meets in Florence at the end of this week.
You will find in our resolution something to the effect that our President should take this resolution to Florence.
The other important point is paragraph 11 of our resolution which calls upon the Irish presidency to report very quickly back to this House on what action is going to be taken by the Member States on the broad economic guidelines.
I do not know whether there is a representative of the Irish presidency here but, if not, perhaps the representative of the Italian presidency would be kind enough to pass on that message and a copy of our resolution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think we are moving towards an important decision.
The House is likely, by a large majority, to reject as unrealistic and inadequate the broad economic guidelines presented by the Council.
That is very important, and it is also very important that we should do so by a large majority.
I agree with Mr Cassidy that we can no longer accept economic growth which is such that employment levels continue to decline.
I would, however, like to discuss with him in more detail what he means by encouraging employers to take on workers.
I believe that a very specific form of encouragement is required in the case of companies which are now able to earn far more from currency speculation than they can through genuine economic activity.
We need a change of direction here.
As a Parliament - and here too I turn to Mr Cassidy - we have taken a joint decision in many areas that it is high time to put an end to the superficial strategy of pretending that all is well and there are no structural problems; these problems need to be resolved as a matter of urgency.
Parliament has asked a number of questions which the Commission has taken up in part, very tentatively, and which the Council has not even acknowledged.
It is therefore the duty of the House to reject these guidelines, not merely for reasons of parliamentary etiquette, but because it is central to our task as a Parliament to tackle the mass unemployment and mass poverty which have become the real scandal of the European Community.
I would assume that a large majority of us will address ourselves to this task.
Because of the speed of the procedure, and not any fundamental disagreement with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment has asked the Commission a number of supplementary questions.
This is not because we think that the Commission is the main culprit in this situation, so to speak - rather, the guilt lies chiefly with the Council and the Member States.
However, the Commission too could do more, and we are therefore asking what initiatives it plans to take to bring about the necessary change in economic policy.
We are asking about the implementation of our priority of combating mass unemployment effectively, because we cannot expect the citizens of Europe to tolerate another outpouring of meaningless fine words.
We are also asking in particular about additional Commission measures to send a strong signal to the markets and help revive the economy.
We are asking for the much-trumpeted initiative of a European pact on employment to be presented at long last.
We are asking what efforts the Commission plans to make to redress the balance between fiscal and employment policies in the multiannual programmes submitted by the Member States.
We are asking how the Commission is going to devise and apply common socio-economic indicators which make it possible for a binding debate to take place on the coordination of economic policy, no longer geared solely towards a monetarist approach to national debt. And we are asking for greater coordination between economic and employment policies.
The decision which we have to take today is not a trivial one.
The real issue is the point in time when the European Community becomes relevant to every individual in this Community.
It is a matter of making it clear at last that our Community is one which has set its sights on genuine improvements in the welfare of its citizens, and which is not solely determined to push through a narrow monetarist view of stability policy and a technocratically agreed timeframe and strategy for the introduction of monetary union, at the expense of millions of impoverished and unemployed people.
I hope we shall decide by a large majority that this cannot go on.
I also hope that this will be the first impulse for real change.
Unfortunately, the House does not yet have the power to force a change, but the governments would be well advised to react now, because otherwise the problems will seek out new governments.
Mr President, you said, when you spoke at the meeting held in Luxembourg on the Council's current economic policy strategy, that although the economic fundamentals were favourable, the Community's overall results were not yet satisfactory.
That does not, however, mean that the strategy itself is called into question: progress has been made more difficult as a result of the slow-down in activity over the past twelve months but the current strategy needs to be continued and reinforced.
The Council expects the positive impact of the action taken by the Member States in response to the maximum guidelines to become more perceptible as time goes on, with an improvement in economic conditions.
The Council therefore confirms the need to continue with the balance-of-payments adjustment and control of inflation, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty, and stresses the importance of achieving a stable and appropriate macro-economic policy framework as the pre-condition for increasing growth and reducing the level of unemployment.
The Council unanimously confirms the need to implement this policy combination, as these are policies which have the backing of the other Community Institutions, the Commission and the European Monetary Institute.
Consolidation of the process of adjustment, in its current form, is the way to create a macro-economic framework which increases growth and creates jobs.
That, naturally, presupposes in particular that further progress will be made in reducing government deficits and implementing stability-oriented monetary policies and trends in salaries and wages that are consistent with the objective of price stability and increased productivity.
If that very ambitious objective is achieved, we shall be able, in the medium if not in the short term, to create the macro-economic circumstances needed to improve the Community's negative record on unemployment, by cutting interest rates.
As far as structural measures are concerned, the maximum guidelines provide us with a useful set of policy recommendations that have to be implemented under the responsibility of each Member State, enabling us to banish the rigidity that currently affects the labour market by, for example, reforming the social welfare system to guarantee efficiency and fairness between the generations in the current systems; introducing improvements into the education and vocational training system so that priority is given to employment for the less qualified, young people and women; reducing indirect wage costs; encouraging, where appropriate, regional and intersectoral mobility; and reviewing working hours and the organization of work.
Increasing employment is the main priority, and the Council is trying to identify those experiments which have been successful in the different Member States in improving the employment strategies of those same States.
That will be one of the focal points of the annual report on employment at the Dublin European Council, and, naturally, as Mr Cassidy has requested, the Italian presidency will pass on your requests to the Irish presidency.
I can assure you that the convergence programmes are the focal point of the Council's multilateral monitoring procedure.
The aim of those programmes is to secure the convergence required for participation in the single currency area and they are important in themselves because they are designed to bring about sustainable and non-inflationary growth.
The Treaty itself establishes a useful range of procedures - maximum economic guidelines, convergence programmes and procedures covering excessive deficits - in order to secure effective coordination.
This will be further improved as a result of the process which will bring into effect the third phase of European Monetary Union.
The maximum guidelines for economic policy, as well as the procedures relating to excessive deficits will, of course, become more rigorous in the context of Monetary Union.
As far as the objective of sound public finances is concerned, some limited progress has already been achieved in the last year.
The excessive deficit procedure is an effective means of encouraging the efforts of Member States towards consolidation; the concept of countercyclical policy, taken up by Mr Cassidy, is difficult to apply in the context of an open economy, but it is certain that achievement of the fundamental objectives of economic policy, as set out in Article 2 of the Treaty, in particular non-inflationary, stable growth which respects the environment and secures a high level of employment, depends on effective and close coordination between the Member States.
If we are to increase growth and, therefore, levels of employment, there have to be measures designed to improve the operation of the markets, services and products.
In its plan for the maximum economic policy guidelines of the Community and the Member States, the Council points out that, as far as the improved operation of the markets is concerned, the individual Member States very largely possess the key to this.
The Council, however, appreciates that national measures can be reinforced via the guidelines at Community level.
The problem of increasing levels of unemployment is the main crisis area in a Europe caught between two requirements: the need to reposition its own economic and productive structures generally and the need to safeguard those fundamental social achievements that constitute the distinctive feature of Europe's cultural tradition built up over the passage of time.
If we are to do that, we need to attach less importance to the role of financial returns and concentrate resources on productive uses.
Since our approach cannot be to restrict the social rights of workers in an effort to increase Community competitiveness, we shall have rapidly to adopt measures designed to encourage innovation.
The Commission's Green Paper on innovation makes a very useful contribution to the debate on competitiveness and deserves to be looked at closely in terms of how it can be applied at both national and Community level.
The Council will be very interested to take part in and contribute to the forthcoming discussions designed to devise specific measures.
At its meeting of 3 June, the ECOFIN Council achieved some important progress in the field of economic and monetary policy that we are discussing here today.
Let me just summarize the main issues: as regards preparation for the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union, the Florence European Council will reaffirm that it intends to conclude by the end of the year the technical preparatory work on the legal framework to be used for the euro; the Council has concluded that it would be helpful to consider in parallel the problems of exchange rate parities and budgetary discipline; it has also stressed that, regardless of whether or not they adopt the euro, it is of great concern to all the Member States that Economic and Monetary Union should function properly and that there should be an exchange rate parity mechanism which provides a point of reference for the application of sound economic policies.
Membership of the new system of exchange rate parities would continue, in the Council's view, to be optional; however, provision can be made for those Member States given an exemption to join the mechanism.
The Council has suggested that, like the earlier systems, the new system will be set up on the basis of a European Council resolution and become operational following an agreement between the European Central Bank and the central banks of those Member States that have not joined the euro area.
The Council stated that it favoured an asymmetric system in which the euro acts as an anchor.
The new system would be designed in such a way as to permit various levels of convergence of the Member States.
Turning, finally, to budgetary discipline in the third phase, the Council has asked all of the Member States to aim in the medium term for a budgetary position that is close to equilibrium or in credit.
That should allow the automatic stabilizers to operate throughout the whole of the economic cycle.
The Council, finally, has proposed strengthening the procedure concerning excessive government deficits under Article 104c.
It takes the view that it will be necessary to set rigid time-limits, based on the assumption that the Council will impose pre-set and proportionate penalties in cases where excessive deficit persist.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Council and the Commission for their presentations this morning.
I shall concentrate on the broad economic guidelines.
The Socialist Group firmly rejects the guidelines adopted by the ECOFIN Council recently and we are deeply unhappy with the approach taken by the Commission regarding the economic prospects for the European Union.
The first point is to look at the economic fundamentals which the Commission claims are favourable.
We have historically high levels of unemployment.
Some 50 million people in the European Union are suffering social exclusion and poverty.
Internal demand in the EU is depressed because of the attack on social protection and jobs.
Real wages are stagnant.
Business confidence fell again last month for the seventeenth month in a row and there is a collapse of consumer confidence.
Public investment has fallen over the last ten years from 3.5 % of GDP to 2.5 %.
If the Commission and the Council claim these are favourable economic fundamentals I would like to see the statistics they are basing this on.
Clearly Europe is in crisis and we need coordinated measures by the Commission and ECOFIN to try to bring Europe out of that crisis.
The growth rate this year is 1.5 %, which I imagine will be estimated as even lower by the end of the year.
There may be a growth rate of 2 or 2.5 % next year. It is completely insufficient.
That is why we have produced a very critical report on these guidelines.
In particular, I want to refer to the guidelines as approved by the Council.
Mr De Silguy did not refer to the way in which the guidelines were changed by the Council and I should like the Council and Mr De Silguy to deal specifically with the changes that have been made to those guidelines by the ECOFIN Council.
I hope the Council is listening carefully to this.
There are ten cases where the Council has deleted points from the Commission's guidelines, which Parliament was already unhappy with.
Why did the Council delete the reference to a better economic policy mix more favourable to growth? The ECOFIN Council deleted this.
I want to know why.
The reference to the European Parliament's opinion on the economic annual report was deleted by ECOFIN.
Why did it delete that? A durable detente in macro-economic policy is essential to relaunch activity and strengthen growth in job creation in the medium term.
Again, in the Commission text, the Council deleted that reference.
Why did it do that? Monetary policy can, within the spirit of Article 105 of the Treaty, contribute in a substantial manner to the achievement of Community objectives as laid down in Article 2 of the Treaty.
That reference was deleted.
Why? The Council has to explain to the House why it made these changes.
The Commission text referred to the social partners and to the dialogue that exists.
The Council deleted the reference to an efficient coordination between the different actors concerned and between countries as essential to ensure the coherence of these policies.
That reference was deleted and we want to know why.
It deleted the reference to the fact that measures aimed at improving convergence go hand in hand with the promotion of growth and employment in the medium term.
Why did the Council delete that from the broad economic guidelines? In relation to TENs - the trans-European networks - the statement proposed in the Commission text, that action has to be taken to remove the last obstacles to the achievements of the TENs projects is deleted in the Council text.
The ECOFIN Council is acting with extreme arrogance if it believes it can simply disregard growth and employment in the European Union.
We were deeply unhappy in this House with the Commission text but at least it made some effort to refer to the need to bring unemployment down and to deal with the appalling levels of growth.
The Council text is completely unacceptable to this House.
If the Council would look at paragraph 10 of the resolution that we will vote at lunchtime today it will see that we insist that in Florence these deletions from the Commission text be reinserted, and that is the text which should then be endorsed by the Council.
Unless that happens I warn the Council that whether it be the Italian presidency winding up to their presidency in July or Mr Spring or Mr Bruton presenting the programme of the Irish presidency, this Parliament will roundly reject the conclusions of Florence, unless the Council gives a real commitment to bringing unemployment down, getting growth back to Europe and ensuring that the EMU project can continue on a path that will mean something to the citizens rather than simply being something which is pursued by central bankers.
(Applause from the left)
Mr President, allow me first of all to thank Mr Lamfalussy and Mr de Silguy for their reports.
As far as the report of the European Monetary Institute is concerned, I must say that, as with the previous one, a very good and serious attempt has been made to cover the issues of preparation for the third stage, and we are pleased to see that substantial progress is recorded.
In connection with Chapter 1, however, on the growth of the economy, I have a number of observations that I think deserve discussion at greater length at some juncture.
For instance, the report does not stick as firmly as I think it should to the duration of financial performances, and the importance of that is something that I think needs to be stressed all the time.
The cause of smooth transition to economic and monetary union is certainly not helped if a country, after achieving satisfactory convergence figures, suddenly goes off the rails.
The Institute's report is, of course, pervaded by a certain optimism.
Thinking back to my previous remarks, I have to say that it is logical for there to be some element of optimism in these analyses.
Statements given out by the institutions of the European Union cannot be pessimistic in tone or doom-ridden in their assessments.
Naturally, there is a very big difference between that and projecting baseless assessments and analyses.
However, one can see that the financial prospects, as analyzed, are not far short of reality.
Despite the element of optimism the substance is pretty accurate.
That applies for both the European Monetary Institute and the Commission.
As regards the Commission's analysis and the changes in the financial prospects, I, too, have to say that I find them totally incomprehensible.
Unless, that is, ECOFIN decided to adopt a purely technical approach and to refrain from policy projections and appraisals.
If that was the case - and if it was I would regard it as mistaken - the deletions can be justified, but it means that ECOFIN is now functioning as a technical body rather than the policy institution which it should be.
The EMI report refers to the internal market as the instrument for growth, by contrast with 1994 when the talk was of export-led growth.
Of course, the internal market is supposed to promote competitiveness, but the big difficulty with regard to competitiveness in the European Union is that we have developed a quality of life and forms of social conduct that give us problems vis-à-vis those of our competitors who are not bound by the same criteria.
This difficulty, however, must be tackled in a logical and constructive manner and not by opting for things such as a slackening of monetary policy, which is the sort of thing that we often hear advocated.
At this present time there is no alternative to the strict monetary policy.
There is no other policy available to us, and to tackle phenomena of a structural nature with measures that are appropriate for cyclical adjustment is mistaken because it would be damaging rather than beneficial.
On the matter of unemployment, to attribute it to something entirely independent, to something which is not the consequence of other phenomena, is a massive error.
Unemployment did not appear from nowhere.
It is the consequence of other phenomena, of structural phenomena to be precise.
We have to try to rectify these structural weaknesses, but it cannot be done via the countercyclical measures that are always being recommended here.
I say again: in these circumstances, countercyclical measures would in the long term bring a result exactly the opposite of that which is desired.
On the question of convergence and relations between the Member States taking part in the third stage and the remaining countries, I must say that here, happily, the Treaty is beginning to be implemented correctly and that the analysis of the parameters is beginning to show an element of flexibility.
And why is this so? The reason is that is very important that we keep to the 1999 starting date and that progress is not impeded by certain very small percentages.
In this regard, Mr President, it is important that the analyses should take account of the criteria of those countries which wish to join the EMU but will not be in the first group and that notice is taken also of factors stemming from occurrences of an urgent nature.
I am thinking of my own country which, precisely because the European Union would not give political support if it were to be faced with a threat of war, is now having to embark on an armaments programme to the tune of ECU 10 billion, which will totally negate all of the efforts of recent years to achieve convergence with a view to joining the EMS and the EMU.
At some juncture more attention will have to be paid to this matter than at present.
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating the three rapporteurs, in particular Mr Gasòliba, on the drafting of the reports we have been listening to.
As did the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, my group is examining closely the EMI annual report for 1995, as this is a major document that deals comprehensively with the state of preparations for Economic and Monetary Union.
During the coming six months, however, it will be necessary to define the parameters of the framework as a whole, as we look to the third phase and the responsibilities attaching to the European system of central banks.
As Mr Lamfalussy has already said, the process of economic integration is on the right path, but the recovery we had all hoped for has not got off the ground and unemployment remains Europe's number one problem.
The EMI report clearly indicates that the solution necessitates, among other things, consistent reduction in government deficits; in that connection, the Institute should take action particularly in regard to those Member States in which those problems are all too marked and have so far prevented them becoming full members of the European Monetary System.
We need therefore to look more closely and more receptively at those Member States which, although not at the moment fully complying with the Maastricht parameters, are, nonetheless, showing signs of a change in trend, indicating that their - currently negative - parameters could, in just a little while longer, meet the conditions for the single currency system.
As Commissioner de Silguy has pointed out, the EMI framework defined in Maastricht should be directed towards a more active role in coordinating the Member States' monetary policies.
There has also to be preventive assessment of what might happen as a result of the coexistence of those States that belong to the single currency and those that do not, with the distortion of competition and fluctuation in exchange rates that would ensue.
There is finally a practical aspect on which we are focusing particular attention: this concerns the introduction on to the market of the new currency, the euro, and its distribution in the Member States.
Explaining to the citizens of Europe how the single currency operates will certainly not be an easy process: there will have to be the maximum of cooperation on the part of those market structures in which citizens actually come face to face with the euro.
I have in mind here the retail industry, in all its guises, in which there will have to be a campaign of information directed towards businessmen, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, and towards those working at the point of sale.
That will in fact be the point at which consumers discover the euro and with it perhaps a greater understanding of the Community's economic system.
Public acceptance and understanding of the single currency will also imply acceptance and understanding of a united Europe.
Mr President, I am speaking on the broad economic guidelines.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party believes that there is a credibility gap at the heart of Union economic policy, which is undermining public confidence in the entire enterprise.
There is a gap between aspirations and their realization, rhetoric and substance, and economic guidelines and their implementation.
The gap is measured most starkly by the 18 million people out of work and up to 50 million suffering from social exclusion and poverty.
It is a dismal record.
Ecofin's report to Florence on what I would characterize as the non-implementation of the 1995 guidelines, following hard on the heels of the non-implementation of the 1994 guidelines, is a ritualistic, bland and passive document in the face of this pathetic factual record.
Little wonder that in their day-to-day lives so many citizens are questioning Europe's ability to deliver the goods, because they know that action speaks louder than words.
The ELDR Group is strongly committed to achieving EMU in line with the Treaty criteria and timetable, but there remains space for real policy debate.
I have several questions to the Council in the time permitted to me.
From the institutional point of view, I repeat the question: why has the Council, even in the preamble to its recommendations, made no reference to Parliament's opinions?
Policy-wise, I wish to ask the Council to respond today on the question of inflation policy, where we know that inflation is historically low and contained, according to our own analyses. Why is it that it recommends these results should be improved on?
Does the Council not share the fear expressed recently by the Bank for International Settlements that there is a risk of deflation if we push the price stability objective beyond what is appropriate? What is the Council's view?
Finally, on the macro policy mix conducive to growth, employment and convergence, the Commission correctly referred to Article 105(1) and let me quote it briefly: ' Monetary policy shall support the general economic policies of the European Union, including those concerning a high level of employment' .
The Council today needs to explain why politically it has scandalously disregarded this capacity for an appropriate flanking measure, because symbolically it is saying to the 18 million unemployed: we frankly do not care about the appropriate mix, we are monetarists and we will do it our way.
If that is your way, it is a political mistake for the Council and for Europe.
(Applause from the centre and the left)
Mr President, the single currency scenario is paving the way for a multi-speed Europe.
Our group is extremely worried about the repercussions for the weakest countries, most of all, and for the millions of workers and unemployed people in the European Union.
The whittling away of the whole concept of national sovereignty, with the management of monetary and exchange rate policy being handed over to bodies such as the European System of Central Banks, which have no political and democratic legitimacy, is a particular cause for concern.
The countries which do not join the EMU will fall even further behind those which do; divergence, in real as well as nominal terms, will increase.
That will be followed by an even harsher anti-popular policy for the purpose of trying to meet the Maastricht criteria, which will remain an unattainable dream.
The countries which remain outside will face serious problems over resources as capital, albeit for speculation at first, moves to the euro core, and this will have a domino effect on currency reserves, on growth rates and on the living standards of workers in those countries.
The abolition of the ECU will generate new problems in connection with the Community budget and fiscal relations between the European Union and the countries which do not join the single currency.
Risk premiums and the obligatory circulation during the transitional period of the new currency in parallel with the national currencies will create additional difficulties for those countries, difficulties which they will have to tackle in various ways to the detriment of their economies.
The decision to pursue further enlargement of the European Union adds another complication to the single currency process, and the costs of enlargement will be transferred down to the countries which remain outside the system.
Mr President, we hope that the peoples of the European Union will fight against these options, that they will rise up and demand referenda in the Member States when the new treaties come up for approval and that they will refuse to go quietly down the one-way path of bankers' democracy.
Mr President, the common denominator in this morning's reports is that they all want to keep strictly to the schedule and criteria set for EMU, regardless of the consequences.
It is clear however that by the end of the millennium we will not have a situation where all EU countries will be participating in a common currency.
In addition to this it is of course questionable whether EMU will be implemented in the first place.
In any case EMU will cause divisions in the Union, and taking into consideration an expansion from the Eastern bloc there will be at least a 'three-speed' union.
As we know EMU is a continuation of the internal market.
It is interesting and indicative that even Mr Mario Monti, member of the Commission, has now tabled a question concerning the fact that the internal market has not fulfilled the expectations on a macroeconomic level.
As far as employment especially is concerned the internal market has hardly had any positive effect.
The Commissioner has also chosen to present this report during the summit in Florence.
There has to be big question mark as to whether we are in for a similar disappointment as far as EMU is concerned, since the internal market and EMU are products of the same mind set.
The Green Group unanimously supports a healthy economic policy, where there is an equilibrium in the public sector and where budget resources do not have to be largely spent on interest payments on public loans.
At the moment however the European or Nordic society is threatened, because we are aiming to implement these EMU criteria far too quickly, perhaps even arrogantly.
For this reason the schedule simply has to be postponed.
Another reason for a postponement of the EMU schedule is that it makes a genuine rapprochement between the economies in the EU countries possible.
The economies of the European Union Member States have, according to some research, recently moved even further apart from each other.
Perhaps we should agree on a factual precondition for EMU, that employment really should be halved before EMU is implemented.
This objective has been voiced by many Member States with high unemployment and also by the European Union.
A somewhat more flexible economic and monetary policy would have to be considered.
According to some estimates a one percent increase in inflation could help to create two million jobs.
Above all the Green Group proposes a thorough reform of taxation.
The Commission has recently published an interesting document on taxation within the European Union.
The document expresses the view that, essentially, taxation at the EU level should be considered as a complete entity, rather than on a tax by tax basis, since the Member States have already lost a major proportion of their taxation sovereignty to the markets, much to the politicians' discredit.
No solutions regarding taxation have been achieved at the EU level, and I would like to ask the Council whether it is aware of the enormous contradiction that is involved in aiming for a rapid implementation of the EMU and the complete inability to deal with taxation, a matter with far-reaching effects on the economy and on employment.
Mr President, I rise on behalf of my group to support the compromise resolution and to say I would like to identify my group with the questions that were asked by Mr Cox and the criticisms that were expressed by Mr Donnelly on the question of the broad economic guidelines.
The compromise resolution speaks out against this terrible gloom and doom of the 18 million unemployed and the 50 million on the bread-line.
There is such a colossal loss of dignity involved here that it is surely not to be tolerated.
Nor should we tolerate the many fears of our citizens: fear of those in jobs - whether they will still have a job; the fear of the lack of social protection - we have seen that in the unrest in Germany and France; the lack of consumer confidence; our growth is low and getting lower and public investment is dropping.
All this demands action and yet the Council and the Commission do not seem to be listening to the European Parliament which is the democratic base of all the institutions.
They must listen to us and we must see investment boosted, consumption boosted, lower interest rates, a rise in labour-intensive growth and an increase in consumer confidence.
Today, when we see greater profitability, we do not necessarily see a reduction in unemployment or an increase in wages.
I have just read in The Guardian today that British Steel made £1 billion profit.
We have seen incredible profits made by British Telecom recently.
This has not led to higher wages or a significant increase in employment.
We also all have to guard against the wishful thinking of some of the economic forecasting we have seen from the other bodies of the Community.
Economic forecasting has so often had to be revised downwards.
This creates yet more mistrust out there in the minds of our citizens; it worsens confidence and has negative effects on consumers.
Turning to EMU, few Member States seem to be able at this moment of forecasting to meet the criteria.
I have noted them: Luxembourg, Ireland, Denmark and the UK.
Denmark and the UK have an opt-out, so in effect that is two.
I was privileged to be in the EMAC delegation to Dublin recently where we had an excellent address from the Irish Finance Minister.
He was pointing out that despite Ireland's strong growth they have not reduced unemployment.
So, you can meet the convergence criteria and still have the basic problem of unemployment.
Ireland has that in a very serious way.
It must be looked at as an entity, almost separately from all these other matters.
It is quite clear that France and Germany will have difficulties in meeting the criteria, Italy more so but making confident noises and Belgium has problems with one particular aspect but surely the Benelux countries will not go in and leave Belgium out.
The date is being constantly reiterated as if it is all going to happen and yet there is an air of sleepwalking, it seems to me, and of wishful thinking. Because, when you examine the criteria, very few countries seem to be likely to meet them and the flexibility which does exist does not seem big enough - to me anyway - for 1 January 1999 to be the date.
I would like to support the compromise paragraph 6 and the emphasis on life-long learning, education, and the creation of new jobs in new sectors.
I am at the end of my speaking time but this recent debate in the UK about being able to leave the EU is so disgraceful and so detrimental to consumer confidence that I feel I have to mention that as well.
Mr President, the report by Mr von Wogau is extremely useful.
The European Union's internal market benefits from having a monetary system which is designed to prevent fluctuations in the exchange rates between European currencies, and we agree with the rapporteur that a 'new style' of European Monetary System will be of great assistance here.
The motion for a resolution rightly states, however, that monetary stability cannot be created by EMU or an exchange-rate mechanism, but depends on the Member States pursuing a credible economic and budgetary policy.
Like the rapporteur, I too expect relatively few of the Member States to take part in the third phase of EMU in 1999.
Many Member States, including France, Germany and the Netherlands, do not currently meet the entrance criteria, and there seems little likelihood that the position will change in the short term.
Some politicians have panicked and called for the criteria to be relaxed, but all this does is to undermine the credibility of the euro and place a time-bomb under any new exchange-rate mechanism.
I really do wonder whether there is any point in forming a monetary union with only three or at most four Member States, since the advantages would scarcely outweigh the costs of setting up EMU.
An important practical reason why we should not establish a monetary union prematurely is that it would create a barrier to the early accession of countries from Central and Eastern Europe.
It would be much better to align the economic and monetary policies of the present and future Member States in a totally unforced way, with the Member States themselves working to achieve monetary and exchange-rate stability.
This would improve the operation of the single market and avoid creating any unnecessary obstacles to the accession of Central and Eastern European countries.
Mr President, the Commission's report confirms the view of those who believe that both the Union as a whole and individual Member States will be adversely affected if the monetary union enters into force step by step on the scheduled dates.
Degeneration into a two-speed Europe is inevitable, and even if this state of affairs were to be only temporary, it is at odds with the goal of economic and social cohesion.
The prerequisite for unrestricted participation by all Member States in the euro will be that the budgets of those countries already meeting the criteria, weakened as they will be by savings measures, will have to provide substantial support for the 'outsiders' .
The distortions of competition, caused by unilateral devaluations, which are at present a burden on the external trade balances of certain Member States, cannot be overcome by the countries with soft currencies remaining outside.
It is therefore particularly important to devise as soon as possible intervention mechanisms to neutralize speculative pressure.
This report, at any rate, contains only vague and general indications, and does not state when the general guidelines for the future exchange relations between participating countries and those not yet participating will be drawn up.
Yet again, the fears of citizens in many Member States are being borne out: that in view of the poor economic situation, only a few countries will be able to meet the stability criteria; and, at the same time, that the vital question of the stabilization of exchange rates between the 'ins' and the 'outs' is unfortunately only now beginning to be addressed.
Furthermore, in this divided Europe, some parts of the export and tourism sectors in countries with hard currencies will continue to suffer significantly from the adverse effects of savings measures introduced in order to achieve convergence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following what Mr Donnelly said, there is one point I should like to make first of all about the broad economic guidelines, which is that we firmly support the line the Commission has adopted, especially as it is largely based on the consensus positions reached by Parliament itself.
Although we are aware of the financial constraints which restrict what the governments can do, our group nevertheless regrets the changes which the Council has made to the Commission's proposals.
That is why, unlike the Socialist Group, we do not want to tar the Commission and the Council with the same brush.
Moving on to the von Wogau report, I would point out that changes to exchange rates between the currencies of countries belonging to the same common market have always been a matter of common interest.
What this means is that the Member States can no longer do as they please.
It is something which applies today and will continue to apply tomorrow, something which was spelt out in the Treaty of Rome and was not amended in the Maastricht Treaty, nor is it likely to be at the IGC.
This makes sense, because changes to the exchange rates which are not simply designed to redress imbalances in purchasing power would distort competition and seriously damage the operation of the single market.
That is why, despite the fact that after difficult negotiations and completely contrary to the spirit of the Treaties, two Member States have finally been allowed to opt out of monetary union, this does not mean that they no longer have to act in tandem with all the others when it comes to realigning exchange rates.
It is also totally unacceptable for some people to say that they will refuse to be bound by any future discipline adopted jointly, by democratic methods and in accordance with the Treaties, in relation to exchange policy with the euro.
If the new European monetary system is sufficiently flexible, as the rapporteur has claimed, then the United Kingdom should not have any serious objections to taking part.
It is therefore a mistake to give it the option, even now, of going its own way, which it tends to do all too often these days.
That is why, on this particular point, we do not agree with some of our colleagues and have tabled an amendment reaffirming the basic principles on which Europe was founded.
One final comment on the 'ins' and the 'outs' , or the 'pre-ins' and the 'ins' , to use the current jargon.
There is clearly a degree of solidarity involved here, as we have said on many occasions, but it should not, as certain amendments seem to imply, go so far as to restrict the independence of the Central Bank and impose in advance certain constraints or requirements regarding its interest-rate policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reports before us cover three areas of major importance: economic and monetary union, the impact of currency fluctuations on the internal market, and the annual report of the European Monetary Institute.
The motion for a resolution is an important contribution to the construction of Europe's monetary system, and the mechanism proposed by Parliament is very similar to the outcome of the discussions in the Council itself, which was presented at the informal ECOFIN Council in Verona and is shortly to be presented at the European Council in Florence.
The exchange-rate mechanism is essential if we are to prevent currency fluctuations in non-participating countries and to protect the single market.
The resolution rightly points out that while it relies mainly on the Member States achieving convergence and sound financial management, it also needs to include ways of supporting any currencies under attack.
Our group has some reservations, however, concerning paragraph 4.
We feel that while stable real exchange rates are certainly necessary to prevent unfair competitive advantage, stable nominal rates are also a powerful deflationary force, help towards convergence and underlie the very principle behind the European Monetary System.
In order to prevent exchange-rate fluctuations in future, we agree with the resolution that we need greater convergence and closer monitoring of the macro-economic situation within the Union.
The report also opposes any corrective measures which run counter to the rules of the single market, and it proposes specific measures to help small and medium-sized firms.
On the subject of combating currency fluctuations, I would point out that the French Finance Minister recently put forward three proposals to his Union counterparts designed to prevent exchange-rate turbulence.
The measures involve keeping payments made under the Structural Funds in line with changes in the real exchange rates, introducing macro-economic conditionality for Structural Fund payments similar to that which applies for the Cohesion Funds, and making procedures stiffer under the broad economic policy guidelines.
The resolution proposes the right way to prevent currency fluctuations: stronger macro-economic and budgetary discipline in the Member States, which will boost economic convergence and prevent the imbalances which are the source of financial instability.
Once we have entered the third phase of EMU, the same question will arise in relation to the currencies of those countries which are still outside the system.
The Council has already made progress in this direction by adopting, with the exception of the United Kingdom and Sweden, a proposed exchange-rate mechanism based on the EMS.
The technical details are to be finalized at the Dublin Council, which is a concern raised in the motion for a resolution.
Our group has serious doubts, however, as regards the proposal to introduce a tax on currency speculation. How can you tell the difference between a speculative transaction and a cover operation?
How effective would it be in a world where capital moves around freely and European currencies can be traded in financial centres in America, Asia and elsewhere? In other words, why should we give the rest of the world an advantage over Europe at a time when unemployment is still our biggest problem?
It is subject to these reservations that our group supports all three of these reports.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are enormous challenges involved in introducing a single currency, and our experience up to now has taught us a number of important lessons about the exchange-rate arrangements between the countries at the centre of EMU.
I would emphasize once again, perhaps unnecessarily, that any arrangement that limits reciprocal exchange rates is always better than no arrangement at all, and we should therefore follow the recommendations put forward by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm and Mr von Wogau.
However, leaving aside the tremendous importance of EMU, which my group hopes will create jobs, we must not forget the terrible problem of unemployment.
As many speakers have already mentioned, we have 18 million people out of work and many different forms of hidden unemployment.
It is a subject we have been talking about ever since I have been in the House.
An excellent report was produced on employment, growth and competitiveness which we have been discussing for two years now, but it has not yet been implemented.
The Council is mainly to blame for failing to make adequate progress on its recommendations concerning education and training, greater flexibility on the labour market, new working hours, shorter working hours and above all shifting taxes on labour onto other targets.
I also gather that in the pact on employment which President Santer is taking to the Florence summit, the 17 areas where employment could have been created, mainly in the regions and the cities, have been dropped.
I should like to know why the Council has decided against implementing all these specific examples on which Parliament and the Commission have worked so hard.
Mr President, despite all the considerable doubts and criticism the leaders of the Union continue obstinately to insist on a dogmatic theory and its implementation - a theory which has no basis in reality.
What are the consequences which we can all see? They include the inability to pursue a constructive economic policy, the destruction of important social infrastructure, powerlessness and cynicism in the face of mass unemployment and social crisis, total capitulation to the destabilising effects of speculative finance capital and now finally also the risk of splitting the Union.
What conclusion should be drawn? The conclusion is that it is time to give up an obsolete, dogmatic idea and choose a modern, flexible form of monetary cooperation and economic policy which is grounded in reality.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, how we have seen our language and ideas change since the Maastricht Treaty!
In 1992, we were promised that all the Member States of the Union would adopt the single currency by 1 January 1999 at the latest, apart from a few minor derogations.
We maintained at the time that this was completely unrealistic, and we asked instead that the European Monetary System should be reformed so that it would work properly.
Today, those responsible for the single currency project have been forced to invent a new monetary system, more or less at the last minute, in order to prevent the Union from being split into two or more groups.
Even worse, having proclaimed that the EMS was dead and buried, they are now having to resurrect it, and having said that the single market could not function without the single currency, they are now having to admit the opposite.
However, while the current developments are certainly heading in the right direction, we are still not entirely happy with them, for two reasons.
First, the new EMS cannot be more than a temporary arrangement, since the official objective, in theory at least, is still a single currency for everyone and convergence in the foreseeable future.
This policy seems as unreasonable as expecting all the Member States to go for the single currency at the same time.
It suggests that it will be possible to apply a single economic policy across the board in the near future, which presupposes that our problems and therefore our societies will be as one.
In our view, this is ridiculous!
If disparate societies have this bureaucratic convergence forced upon them, it could have a very negative or even destabilizing effect on the system.
Another reason why we have our doubts is that the new system they are trying to invent has never been thought through and has never been democratically approved by the national parliaments, despite the occasional indications that you find here and there in the Treaty.
It is difficult to impose discipline where it has not been accepted, and we cannot take a major step of this kind in the dark, so we shall sooner or later have to reopen formal discussions on the subject.
Mr President, Mr Lamfalussy, Commissioner, the reports by Professor Pérez Royo - who totally disagrees, incidentally, with Milton Friedman, the monetarist, who thinks the single currency is suicide - Mr Gasòliba and Mr von Wogau bring us back to the 'theological' and 'teleological' problem of the single currency.
Let us consider the theological problem first of all. Is the Lord good?
Is the single currency good? France's strawberry producers tend to think the single currency is good because of the devaluation of the Spanish peseta.
But as it happens the Spanish peseta and the Italian lira, which are of interest to France's cattle breeders, will probably not even join the single currency, so the apparent advantages are somewhat deceptive.
And even if the Fifteen all join, the dollar will not, nor will the undervalued currencies of South-East Asia, Morocco and so on.
The single currency might suit the European single market, but the single market is becoming less and less European and more and more global, mainly because of the European Commission's free trade policies.
Another much more serious problem is that a currency is nothing more than a vehicle for information on the economy.
It is the reflection or shadow of the economy, not the economy itself.
It is like the story of Plato and the cave; it is the signifier, not the signified.
But trying to force 15 different economies to have the same official monetary shadow is really just forcing them to chase their own shadows.
Experience shows that if you chase your own shadow, you will eventually fall down exhausted and die.
And that equates, in economic terms, with unemployment, austerity, recession and protests, even in Germany.
This brings us on to the teleological problem, or what it is all for.
The single currency may be fine, but what is it for, what purpose does it serve?
Is it Europe's objective to have a single currency, a single central bank and a single market, or is it prosperity, democracy and development? Forgive me for saying so, Mr Lamfalussy, but when Articles 107-109 say that the president of the European Central Bank shall not take instructions from anyone, it smacks more of oligarchy than democracy.
So even if there are some kind of parliamentary controls, they will not go very far.
And if the aim is prosperity, Mr Pérez Royo, the situation of farmers in Andalusia, Finland and France reflects what Jaurès said about money being the blood of the poor.
Just look how we have forgotten what history has taught us!
We have already had a single currency in Europe and throughout the world: the gold standard.
But it did not stop deflation.
The great depression in America happened at a time when it had a fixed exchange rate with the gold standard.
I know that I will not convince you, Mr de Silguy, since this is a religious question.
At least we shall know what to think about the disasters it will bring in its wake.
Market forces produce contaminated meal.
Mr President, if we wish to have monetary union, we must combat unemployment in the European Union, as is repeatedly stressed by both the European Monetary Institute and the Commission in its annual economic report.
To my mind, however, it is not enough to carry on as before.
We need to provide greater impetus on the structural policy side, and that is why the economic policy guidelines must indeed be reoriented, as Parliament is calling for today.
This is now more important than ever, because we need a more optimistic and confident approach in order to complete the project of monetary union.
If, happily - as is also noted by the EMI - the work is on schedule, this project must not be jeopardized by a lack of credibility as regards the other policy elements.
I do hope that the European Monetary Institute will continue to adhere to the timetable, and that Mr Lamfalussy can give us a guarantee that the EMI will carry out its evaluation of convergence this autumn in such a way as to establish whether or not a majority of the Member States meet the convergence criteria, so that there is clarity about the appraisal and the scope for interpretation, and also about the need for participation in a European exchange-rate mechanism.
The House stated very early on that currencies not participating in European monetary union should be linked to it by means of an exchange-rate mechanism with the euro as its anchor-point.
Fortunately the monetary institutions, as well as the Commission and the Council, have since come round to Parliament's position.
What kind of mechanism should this be? In my opinion, we need a European system of solidarity and stability, because on the one hand the currencies not belonging to the monetary union must be protected from speculative attacks, and on the other a split in the internal market must be prevented.
Above all, we should assure the other currencies of our support and solidarity, so that they can join the monetary union as soon as possible.
In fact, as the past few years have shown, exchange-rate turbulence has a detrimental effect not only on economic growth, but also on employment.
It is therefore important to introduce an exchange-rate mechanism on these lines, in order to maintain the credibility of the initiative.
In my view, it is very important that the European Monetary Institute should conduct further studies of these exchange-rate fluctuations, in particular to examine their micro-economic effects, since these can give us a much clearer picture of individual sectors and branches of industry, especially in 1995, and show how these elements have contributed to the lack of confidence in business circles.
Ultimately, what is crucial today is not wage costs, but the factor which distorts competition within the internal market by pushing up unit labour costs in countries with hard currencies, namely exchange-rate variations and fluctuations, as well as exchange-rate protection operations.
So it is high time for us to invent a mechanism which makes one thing clear: that those currencies which do not participate in monetary union immediately will be able to join in later, and that the internal market as such will not be fragmented; rather, European monetary union is a further step towards its consolidation, and another contribution to the multinational dimension of the market.
Mr President, unemployment is at the moment a Europe-wide problem, to which a solution is sought in all Member States of the European Union.
Unemployment does however not a constitute a barrier to joining the EMU, since EMU not only improves competition but also increases demand, which helps maintain employment.
EMU reduces sharp economic fluctuations, lowers the interest rate particularly in smaller European countries and increases trade within the internal market.
There is no short-cut to employment and it is not improved by short-term measures.
Economic and monetary union is a natural extension to the internal market, since full benefit from the internal market can only be achieved through co-operation and convergence within economic and monetary union.
It is true that the implementation of the third stage of monetary union within the schedule set in the Maastricht Treaty is uncertain, due to economic problems.
However, a postponement of the third stage and the postponement decision in itself will slow down the recovery of the European economy, keep interest rates high and cause great economic uncertainty.
By fulfilling the EMU criteria stability can be achieved. The political decision-making within the economy, regarding both exchange rates and interest rates, will decrease, and this reduces the benefits of not joining the third stage.
After EMU's third stage, currency policy will be of general concern to Member States.
Price stability has to be regarded as an essential objective both within and outside monetary union.
Countries outside the EMU should receive help from the system to join at a later date, and the system should not complicate activities in the internal market or the European Central Bank's monetary activities.
From the point of view of EMU support, it is important for the Commission to define the currency rules for the countries staying outside the EMU during the course of the current year.
I hope that the Commissioner will see that this is implemented and aim at finding a solution to the situation as soon as possible.
The rapporteurs' views on the current situation of the EMU and on the preparatory stage prior to progressing towards a common currency are realistic.
I find however that fulfilling the convergence criteria is more important than linking floating currencies to the European monetary system, since it enhances political credibility regarding economic issues and provides greater opportunities for achieving both monetary stability and national economic stability.
Mr President, in April 1996 the European Monetary Institute published its annual report for 1995.
This excellent document contains a section detailing the economic and financial conditions in the European Union including the existing situation in the different Member States with regard to the Maastricht criteria of convergence necessary for the successful implementation of economic and monetary union.
Our group, for its part, recalls the necessity, eventually, for the participation of all currencies of the European Union in the exchange mechanism if we wish to guarantee the correct working of the single market and ensure the transition towards EMU.
Mr Böhm's report, which we generally support, welcomes the EMI report and draws on its main principles, which are the need to follow the Treaty at all institutional stages towards the transition to the third stage of EMU; to continue the reflection on exchange relations between the future Euro-zones and other parts of the Union; and continued pursuit of the adjustment of public debt.
The Institute's report, like the rapporteur's resolution, goes in the right direction from the point of view of our group, with one slight exception.
In fact in one of the recitals the motion for a resolution notes a contradiction between the EMI and the European Commission with regard to their explanations of the economic fluctuations which were so evident in 1995.
The term is a bit strong and for our part we think there is consensus and that the prognoses of the two differ only in the respective importance given to the level of the rate of interest in 1994 and to the monetary fluctuations during the first quarter of 1995 as well as their impact on the confidence of economic agents.
In this general outline our group welcomes the report by Mr Pérez Royo, which puts the emphasis on the efforts in terms of convergence and budgetary discipline, which alone are able to prevent monetary fluctuations.
In conclusion, we believe that the system of monetary cooperation is not the competence of the Commission and the EMI alone, but also the competence of the Council, the EMI and the Commission respectively.
At the same time one should bear in mind that the possibility of narrower bands of fluctuations should not be the only resort of Member States concerned and that there should also be a multilateral framework at the disposal of the Ministers of Finance, of the European central banks and of the central banks of countries which are not yet in the system.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make a specific comment on behalf of my group on the Pérez Royo report.
The Liberal Group agrees with the main thrust of the report, but we have two fundamental objections to paragraph 4, which states that a tax on currency speculation can help to keep the exchange rates calculable.
First of all we doubt just how effective such a tax would really be, and it is not even a good idea in the first place.
Why can we not introduce this tax? Because we could not limit it to currency market transactions, otherwise the speculators would simply turn to other financial transactions such as derivatives.
Furthermore, the introduction of such a tax in Europe would simply mean that capital movements would shift to other countries such as Singapore and Hong Kong.
In other words, if the tax is to be introduced, it must be extended to all financial transactions and to every country in the world.
But even if we succeeded in introducing the tax, it would still not be a good idea.
First, it would lead to less liquidity on the financial markets, which can in itself trigger greater currency fluctuations.
Second, it would also make capital more expensive.
It makes no distinction between genuine speculation and investment.
Both business credit and cover transactions for direct investments would be affected, and curbing investment is surely the last thing we want.
I find it extremely regrettable that the idea of taxing currency market operations is brought up time and time again without ever being properly thought through, and that is why I and my Liberal colleagues will be voting against the paragraph in question.
Mr President, one more voice, one more minute.
So that once more it can be made clear that the so-called path of consensus is not actually a path of consensus at all.
What was decided about EMU and a single currency at Maastricht was not set in concrete.
Reality has shown that the planned path cannot be achieved.
One voice and one minute to remind everyone of unemployment and social decline and the share of responsibility borne by the nominative criteria which served to impose a policy even though they were proved to be unattainable.
But after the total inflexibility shown towards arbitrary goals and deadlines we might now have a more easygoing and arbitrary flexibility in the interpretation of the Treaty articles once it has been realised that applying previously set and inflexibly applied conditions was out of the question.
Above all, one voice and one minute to assert that the problem is the fall in demand, the orientation of investment, the need to tax speculation and stimulate production and job creation. To change our economic policy to one where the single currency has its rightful place of monetary instrument and the objective is improving social conditions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, representatives of the Commission and the Council, since September 1992, there have been a number of devaluations of national currencies: one of the most significant, in terms of loss of value, was that of the Lira, which lost as much as a third of its value against the Deutschmark, causing the Lira to depart the EMS.
And now, in Italy, all we hear about is the re-entry of the Lira into the European Monetary System as soon as possible.
This seems to be a priority which, in my view, is likely to cause us to lose sight of the fact that the prime objective that the Italian Government has to achieve is to reduce the government deficit and, therefore, apply a sensible and stable fiscal policy which may help ease the rate of inflation which, in Italy, continues to be one of the highest.
It is precisely because I agree with the spirit of the report by Mr Fernando Pérez Royo that I am worried therefore: the devaluation of the Lira has been the consequence of speculation and short-term economic policy but, at the same time, we have seen it recover very rapidly against the Deutschmark - something which I personally find it hard to come to terms with, precisely because of the rapidity of this development which leaves me confused.
We need to have transparency: a policy of transparency is a good thing, and nor do I believe that this sudden revaluation of the Lira is the result of the so-called confidence of the markets in the stability of a government which has been barely two months in existence.
I therefore ask that we delve deeper into the causes of financial fluctuations which occur too regularly not to be suspect, bearing in mind that there was a time in Italy when all it took was a 'leak' of information on guarantee notes to send the Lira tumbling, with the cost then being borne by Italian workers in terms of their purchasing power.
To conclude, Mr President: we need common aims and a common macro-economic policy designed to resolve those economic and monetary problems currently besetting certain Member States which could, however, affect others in the future.
Mr President, in welcoming the 1995 EMI annual report, I wish to congratulate not only Parliament's rapporteur, Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, but also EMI President Alexandre Lamfalussy, who has recently announced his retirement in 1997.
That does not, however, mean that the Socialist Group agrees with all that is set down in the 1995 report or, indeed, the rapporteur's gloss on it.
In many areas the report adumbrates ideas given wide currency in the Commission's annual economic report, on which Parliament has already pronounced.
Some differences between these two snapshots emerge however.
The EMU idiosyncratically scarcely mentions the shaky state of consumer and business confidence as a significant contributing factor in the current and recent economic slowdown.
As a consequence, it omits to highlight the need for active measures, including the judicious use of monetary policy to prompt recovery of business and consumer confidence.
On the other hand, the EMI report talks glibly about the rigidities of the labour market and seems to follow the simplistic approach that labour-market flexibility means poorer wages and conditions for workers rather than improving their mobility through education, training and investment.
Similarly, the doubtful observation that percentage rates of public expenditure were unacceptably too high, was only half-heartedly qualified by Mr Lamfalussy when he came under fire in Parliament's Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs recently.
Finally, the EMI report failed to point a finger of blame at the rigid monetary policies pursued by some national monetary authorities whose effect in the real economy has been so deleterious.
Socialist amendments underscoring some of these sins of omission and commission have been incorporated in Parliament's report.
I am also pleased that future EMI reports will contain more detailed analyses and evaluations of the effect of the exchange-rate fluctuations on the economy.
Secondly, Mr Lamfalussy has promised that he and his successor are prepared to issue half-yearly reports on the EMI's preparatory work for EMU.
This will give greater transparency to the EMI's work and that, in turn, will benefit us all.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Every speech that I have sat through this morning has been extended one way or another through your incompetence in the chair.
It is no good exhorting people to shorten their speeches.
You are in the chair on behalf of Parliament to shut people up when they go over time, because they transgress on other people's democratic rights to speak in this Parliament.
Could you wake up and do something about it?
Mr President, if everyone keeps to what has been agreed, not just here in Parliament but everywhere else, then economic and monetary union will be in place by 1999.
It is not just the politicians already in favour who believe it will happen, the financial markets also already seem to be counting on it, as we can see from the convergence of long-term interest rates in France and Germany.
Next comes the man in the street.
We are going to have to earn his trust in practical ways, by meeting the criteria and by providing proper information from now to 2002.
My group believes in the single currency, let there be no mistake about it.
But we do still have a number of questions which I should like to put to the Chairman of the European Monetary Institute, Mr Lamfalussy.
The Treaty states that the central banks must make themselves independent of the decision-making powers of their governments and parliaments by 1 January 1999 at the latest.
At the same time, the institutions of the ESCB, the European Central Bank and the central banks, are not to take any further instructions.
This is often referred to in the press as the sixth convergence criterion.
The majority of the national central banks do not yet meet the independence requirements, and far too little progress is being made here.
Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Sweden have done particularly badly.
And even once a bank is formally declared independent, it may take a considerable time before it develops its own tradition of independent decision-making.
The independence of the future European Central Bank would provide a sound basis on which its president could build a reputation for reliability.
France yesterday came up with a proposal that could become the political equivalent of the Central Bank, or something resembling an economic government, as Mr Pérez Royo described it this morning.
I should therefore like to ask Mr Lamfalussy two questions. What does he think in general terms of the progress made by the central banks towards independence?
And does he see the French proposal as a restriction on the independence of the Central Bank in particular? Do Mr Waigel's 'stability pact' and other similar proposals also imply restrictions on the independence of the Central Bank?
I should also like to ask about the blueprint which the EMI is to produce for the future operation of the European Central Bank.
According to the Treaty, this blueprint is supposed to be ready by the end of this year, and it is being increasingly widely reported that the Central Bank is probably going to pursue a policy of controlling the money supply.
This was the system used by the German central bank, the Bundesbank , and according to reports it worked successfully in only ten years out of twenty.
What is the argument in favour of using this system?
My third and final question is this: what does Mr Lamfalussy estimate the value of the euro will be against the Asian currencies? I ask this because I am convinced that in some sections of the market, the European currencies are overvalued against the Asian currencies and vice versa, and that this may lie at the root of some of our unemployment.
Mr President, thankfully we live in a Community where the weapons of war these days are economic rather than military.
It is important that we seize the opportunity to get our economies together to prevent future conflict.
It is a bit like the difference between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission.
We all know that nuclear fission is an inherently dangerous process, as indeed is a fission in our economies.
But if we were able to achieve the economic equivalent of nuclear fusion and fuse our economies together, we all know that the benefits would be great and that we would produce a lot of economic energy through a growth in trade on our continent and a lot more jobs, which is so important.
I belong to a tradition of a party in Great Britain which has always believed in the United Kingdom's full participation in economic and monetary union.
Indeed, one of the more eminent members of my party, Mr Roy Jenkins, in his time as President of the Commission, was one of the main proponents of currencies coming together.
I am proud to be in that tradition, to stand against the prevailing government policy and sentiment in my country.
Mr von Wogau said that perhaps it would be better if the UK did not join a single currency.
I beg to disagree with him.
I am arguing very strongly in my country that we should join a single currency.
It is important for us irrespective of its importance to the European Union as a whole.
On Black Wednesday in September 1992 we saw the immense damage that can be done by great devaluations of currency.
In his report, Mr Pérez Royo talks about the growth in Italian competitiveness through the short-term devaluation.
One can also look at the growth in UK competitiveness and the damage it did to the French and Belgian economies.
I do not agree with him that we need a tax on currency speculation but certainly we need to avoid this kind of movement.
Finally, I am arguing in my country that the logical consequence of an opt-out from the single currency is a lockout from the single market.
Countries cannot co-exist in a single market with partners who reserve the right to indulge in competitive devaluations to gain short-term advantage over their neighbours.
If we live in a union it is a union where solidarity in these matters must prevail.
In our view, the point of this debate we are holding is that the economic guidelines and, above all, the political measures taken so far are insufficient given the real state of affairs; the truth is that we are in a stage of economic slow-down with an unacceptable level of unemployment.
And so, if in those circumstances the internal market is not strengthened, if there is no fresh investment, if we do not have an effective employment policy, that slow-down could turn into a new period of recession and, if that situation persists, then the time-scales ahead of us cease to be credible.
This is a political and not a technical problem.
The closer we come to the third phase, to the single currency - which is essential and has to be maintained - the clearer it becomes that Economic and Monetary Union has not been brought into effect as a whole and, more particularly, that Economic Union has not moved forward.
There is at present not even a trace of government of the economy; there is no coordination, save in theory, between the Member States; and the main guidelines are not being put into practice - despite the fact that those are the very elements that need to be given a boost, not forgetting the priority to be accorded to employment, as happened at the tripartite conference recently held in Italy.
That is the point!
Finally, we must be clear that the policy of austerity, albeit vital, cannot be allowed to destroy development; that is fundamental point but does not seem to me to be taken fully into account in either the discussion or the documents of the Community Institutions.
That is why I think it would be a mistake to make the Maastricht criteria stricter, as some would wish.
What we actually need is to revert to an intelligent reading of Article 104c which says, among other things, that public investment needs to be rid of deficit - and that is a basic factor.
I know that it is difficult to balance out deficits with a high level of public investment; difficult to reduce the fiscal pressure on employment, as Commissioner de Silguy said, but that is what needs to be done, and coordination between the Member States is needed for this.
I wish also to point out that, as President Santer rightly said in a recent statement: we need to make full and good use of the Structural Funds - ECU 170 bn - to aid investment and employment.
The Commission and Council must do more here.
Mr President, honourable colleagues. The economic guidelines now before us are marked by the preparations for EMU and the tragic fact that the European model has created a situation involving 18 million unemployed and 50 million people suffering social exclusion.
It is obvious that the new jobs and sectors of the future are not thriving in today's EU.
I am convinced that cooperation on economic stability and a common currency is the most important contribution that the EU can make towards the creation of better conditions under which we can all be more competitive, achieve greater growth and thus create new jobs.
Even for those countries which will not qualify for the first round of EMU the process has resulted in a thorough and in many cases necessary revision of the economy.
For it is to be hoped that we have come to the end of the era in which budgets could be expanded and politicians could buy popularity by shifting the burden of debt irresponsibly onto future generations.
Much remains to be done, however, as part of a structural revision, responsibility for almost all of which lies with the individual countries.
It is the responsibility of the members of ECOFIN and of the Ministers meeting in Florence to effect changes in the various countries' national tax, social security, labour market and education systems rather than just talking about them.
As regards the Union, and not least us here in Parliament, it is a question of gearing our work to deregulation and not to new expensive regulations which hinder development.
I would stress what is said in the guidelines, namely the need to reduce expenditure and the fact that increased taxation is not an alternative, particularly with a view to our competitiveness.
We must thus forcefully reject increased taxes, European taxes and in particular the proposed Tobin taxes.
There are no quick and easy solutions to the problem of unemployment.
We could learn something from other countries' experiences, however, more quickly than getting bogged down in meaningless political formulations about vague ideas of an employment union which has shown itself to have no effect whatsoever, at least not in the way it has been put into practice in my country.
The old structural problems in Europe cannot be ignored.
The omissions of many years must be dealt with in the short term if we wish to retain our prosperity.
And we have white papers, Essen conclusions, these guidelines - which is to say that the conclusions and the direction to take are clear.
I should now like to hear fewer fine words and see more concrete evidence that the leaders of the EU are really serious about their goal of halving unemployment.
The Commission's recommendations to the Council on the broad guidelines of economic policy are a source of some concern to us, since they appear to be determined by a strictly monetarist approach in which employment and growth are incidental considerations.
This approach could take us straight to the wall.
Look at what is happening in Germany, Belgium and France.
We cannot have a single currency if we do not have the support of public opinion. The currency has no virtue in itself, but it has a vital political dimension and represents part of what it is to be European.
What is more, experience has shown us that in industry for example, excessive belt-tightening can be counterproductive in that it destroys the social cohesion which everyone agrees is a vital element in being competitive.
This is also true of the macro-economy, but its importance is underestimated, and I therefore wonder what Mr de Silguy means when he recommends 'suitable' wage increases.
In his preliminary remarks, Mr Lamfalussy told us that we should seek to get to grips with the serious problems facing us.
But if we are to do so, we cannot accept the economic guidelines being proposed by the Council and the Commission.
In particular, the Council must agree to adopt and finance the 14 major infrastructure projects proposed by Jacques Delors, which Parliament has called for time and time again.
On the jobs front, our structural policy must be to reduce working hours.
Looking beyond the accepted monetarist approach, simply saying that we intend to invest in infrastructure and human resources is not enough, we must also say how we intend to do this and how much we intend to invest.
I have one comment on the report by Mr Pérez Royo.
His proposal for a tax on currency speculation is absolutely vital for the system we wish to introduce, and Europe should take the initiative on this subject at the next G7 meeting.
Finally, while we are in favour of monetary stability, it is our political responsibility to condemn the conditions under which the Council and the Commission expect us to pursue this objective.
The Commission's economic guidelines are unacceptable, and have been made even more so by the ECOFIN Council. They merely demonstrate that our executive bodies have caved in to monetarist pressure, and they play into the hands of those who oppose the single currency.
Mr President, what message do Europeans have for our almost 18 million unemployed people? Are we able to solve real problems, instead of simply making solemn declarations?
New jobs in the environmental sector, social services and information and communications technology are not enough in themselves.
Disputes over competence will not take us any further forward. Only when measures at European level are coordinated with those of the Member States will effective results be achieved.
Jacques Santer's confidence pact on employment in no way impinges on the legitimate aim of subsidiarity.
A chapter on employment in the new EU Treaty will not in fact create a single extra job, but the foundations are being laid for an active policy on employment.
After all, the Commission is supposed to complement, not replace, measures taken by the Member States.
It is therefore not a question of new programmes costing millions, but rather of jointly agreed resources, such as the Structural Funds, being coordinated so as to enhance their effectiveness.
The European Council in Essen took the first real steps by establishing five areas for action.
The Madrid Council then decided to reduce regional imbalances, not least as a means of combating long-term unemployment.
Research and development must be strongly promoted, alongside small and medium-sized enterprises, which provide the bulk of the jobs and traineeships in Europe.
We need more flexible working hours, greater investment in training and further training, the introduction of lifelong learning and more generally a policy of stability.
The convergence criteria and the third stage of economic and monetary union must be adhered to.
As a hard currency, the euro will help to boost investment and to create new jobs in Europe.
The social market economy is and will remain Europe's number one export in intellectual terms.
But both parts must be in harmony: the economic part, with an increase in competitiveness, and the social part, which must never be allowed to fall by the wayside.
Our model is based on consensus, not on confrontation.
The alliances on employment which should be pursued and respect for the interests of the social partners belong in this context.
Mr President, I will start by bringing the House's attention to the Delors White Paper which was charged with the task of providing a blueprint to get 15 million of Europe's citizens back to work by the year 2000, an ambitious task but one which I believe we should still pursue.
At the same time we have within the Maastricht Treaty a timetable laid down for monetary union which we need to stick to.
Indeed until recently the growth projections of both the Commission and the OECD suggested we could still possibly complete that task of getting millions of people back to work by the year 2000.
What concerns me is the revision that has taken place on those growth figures and the likely impact on jobs.
The jobs, I believe, will not come with such low revised figures and what we really need is the measures outlined in the resolution that will go before Parliament shortly so that those jobs are created.
Modest growth in itself will not bring those jobs.
What is clear is that the reductions in the number of people paying income tax because of the increased unemployment and the increased number of people dependent on social security payments will seriously affect the achievement of the debt and deficit targets of Member States in the European Union, and I draw Members' attention particularly to the situation in Germany.
Only by getting people back to work, getting people to pay taxes, reducing social security spending as a whole, will we actually get to meet those debt and deficit criteria and see jobs and the single currency at the same time.
We know that growth does not guarantee jobs but without growth jobs will not be created at all.
Mr Santer came to us with a package of confidence-creating measures which at the moment seems to many like a confidence trick.
What we need are the measures outlined in our resolution in order to see the real growth and the real jobs that we need in Europe so desperately.
Mr President, I have listened carefully to the speeches of all those have taken part in this debate, and I was particularly struck by Mr de Silguy's comments.
I would agree with the Commissioner that the introduction of the single currency must not give rise to a split between the rich and poor countries of the European Union, but I note with regret that this statement is far from consistent with the intention expressed by the French Government - and partly taken up by the Commissioner - of at least studying the possibility of paying Community grants in depreciated currency and - what is worse - of making Structural Fund support conditional on the improvement of public finances.
Besides having no legal basis in the Treaty, these two measures - and especially the second - would be in clear conflict with the Commissioner's statement, since they would mean adding new penalties to the existing penalty of exclusion from the hard core, increasing the 'pre-in' countries' difficulty in joining the common currency, and ultimately widening the disparities and causing the split which the Commissioner does not wish to be created.
The Spanish delegation supports the establishment of an exchange-rate mechanism which encourages the convergence of those countries which do not participate in the third stage of EMU from the outset and protects their currencies from external pressures.
However, it does not - and will never - support the introduction of penalties which make convergence more difficult and impede the entry of those countries which initially remain outside the hard core.
Mr President, economic growth will not be a magic cure for all the European Union's problems, but adequate growth is absolutely essential if we are to achieve both our current main aims of higher employment and economic and monetary union.
The first thing we might expect the broad economic guidelines to do is to set a course for achieving adequate growth in the short term. It is therefore quite astonishing to realize that neither the version put forward by the Commission nor the ECOFIN version actually does this.
What is worse, if we followed today's recommendations to the letter, our already stagnating growth would be slowed still further.
The main problem seems to be that the Commission and the Council live in a one-dimensional world of supply economics where the concept of demand is completely taboo, so no account is taken of the impact which the recommendations given in the broad guidelines might have on actual demand.
The Member States' convergence programmes are still under review, with adjustments being made to accommodate declining economic performance, and we shall not see the cumulative effect of all these until the end of the year at the earliest.
Clearly, the idea that 90 % of the Union's gross national product is earned within the Union itself and only 10 % through external trade has not yet got through to everyone.
If the Commission and the Council are recommending a number of measures designed to curb demand to all the Member States, where are we going to find the impetus for growth to help us increase employment and achieve EMU?
From the 10 % of GNP which we earn from exports outside the Union, against a background of strict monetary policy geared towards lower inflation, when the BIS is already warning against deflation?
By refusing to take advantage of the flexibility built into the EMU criteria and imposing an unnecessarily severe programme of belt-tightening on all the Member States, which would run counter to present economic trends? And by curbing wages in all the Member States, so that there is little growth in internal purchasing power and therefore in intra-European exports?
When our joint resolution says that the approach adopted by the Commission and the Council is unrealistic and inadequate, we are really understating the case.
It is actually a danger to the Union, and must therefore be rejected.
Mr President, we are here to discuss a common project, the single European currency, and its next stage.
A precondition for the progress of EMU is that European citizens have confidence that it is justifiable.
Large Member States play a significant role in this. The interest rate is a good example of the above.
The interest rate of the anchor currency will have to be lowered before interest rates in my own country, Finland for example, can decrease, even though Finland has the lowest inflation rate in Europe.
Finland has discussed joining the European exchange rate mechanism.
Before joining, however Finland wants to be certain that the anchor currency, the German mark, is not used to protect Germany's national interests, as was the case in the early 1990's, when Germany was forced to sustain an unrealistically high interest rate in order to prevent an inflationary election campaign of a politician which would affect the value of the German mark.
This lead to a collapse of the entire ERM, and the weak ones are still struggling with high unemployment as a consequence.
In EMU discussions we are talking about necessary savings within the public sector.
With regard to EMU's progress it is important that this concept is not misunderstood. Public savings should not mean that everybody is saving - on the contrary.
The private sector in particular, where there is money, should invest and also spend.
This serves to bring about an equilibrium in the public sector, more jobs are created, more tax revenue is collected and there are fewer costs related to unemployment.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Lamfalussy, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to concentrate on just one aspect of the subject that we are debating; on a very important aspect on which the success of the whole single currency venture may hinge.
Namely, the relations between the Member States in the first group and those which remain outside.
We have before us a first class report, and I would like to congratulate Mr von Wogau on the intellectual range that he has displayed in producing it.
However, various points have remained unclarified in this debate and I will recall them for you now.
First, the likelihood that the countries which are not in the first group will face a worsening of the terms of the Treaty because of the stability pact, otherwise known as the Waigel pact, about which there is intense discussion.
The Waigel pact makes things worse, and it matters not whether those in the first group agree on it.
What matters is that it will worsen the situation and make things much more difficult for the countries in the following group.
To put it in a nutshell, I think that the main issue that should be concerning us in the whole affair is the position of the European Central Bank which will support the currencies of the countries which are outside when they are threatened, but only sufficiently, so it tells us, to prevent a threat to the stability of the euro.
And, of course, that is just as it should be.
No one would wish to see the stability of the euro threatened in the very early days or to see it sacrificed on the altar of stability for the currencies which are temporarily outside.
However, there is no reason why it should ever come to that, because each intervention by the Central Bank in support of a currency can be sterilized.
The essential element is equitable apportionment of the interest cost, of the cost of interest rate changes, so that the economies of the countries which have remained outside are not excessively burdened.
I would like the Commission and the European Monetary Institute to take note of this point.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with three days to go to the Florence summit, it was important for Parliament to say what it thinks about the economic situation in the Union and its economic and social prospects.
The only option open to us was an oral question, and so I now have only two short minutes in which to restate my dissatisfaction at the far too liberal approach adopted by the Commission and the Council.
Budgetary discipline, combating inflation, flexible working conditions and increasing competition have proved to be anything but the right way to get Europe out of its present severe crisis, with 18 million unemployed, 50 million people living in poverty, inadequate demand, a lack of confidence, falling investment and excessively high interest rates.
None of these remedies has worked.
As the French socialists see it, we should instead promote economic growth by bringing interest rates down, abandoning the fight against inflation, which is now in any event practically non-existent, channelling profits towards investment in order to create jobs, implementing a regeneration programme based on the Delors White Paper, and reducing working hours so that people can share them more fairly.
And, lastly, the Intergovernmental Conference must give Europe a social and, above all, a political dimension.
An economic Europe which is soon to have its own single currency will really need political government by a governing body.
This may be a different issue, but the fact that Europe does not have a political dimension certainly partly explains the Union's poor economic and social performance at the moment, which has brought such condemnation from the public.
Mr Cox has asked for the floor; since we are about to start the vote, I would ask you to very brief and take the floor only to make points of order, given that I have still to give the floor to Mr Macciotta, on behalf of the Council, and Mr de Silguy, on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, you have anticipated the point of order I wished to make.
I welcome the fact that Mr Lamfalussy has made his closing comments but I must insist that the House also hear the other institutions.
We have asked direct questions and we should have direct answers before we go to vote.
It is rather difficult for me to answer all the individual points; I shall therefore focus on a number of general considerations.
To begin with, considerations of an institutional nature: there is no question that, objectively speaking, difficulties exist in relations between the Institutions, these provoke tensions and, looking ahead, represent an obstacle to further integration: we have a communications' deficit which is resulting in a shortfall in participation and democracy.
We shall have therefore to find a way of involving the European Parliament, but also the national parliaments, in the decision-taking processes of the European Community.
This is not an artificial concession but a real need to which it is in all our interest to respond through the appropriate institutional changes, which are, in any case, being considered by the Intergovernmental Conference.
A few points now on the substance: the achievement of Economic and Monetary Union will help reinforce the conditions needed to give a fresh boost to economic and social development in Europe, making it more competitive in relation to the three other major economic areas in the world, and will therefore make it possible to speed up the process of creating new jobs.
If that process is to be pursued in a resolute and credible manner, the priority objective of reducing levels of unemployment is both a necessary and a consistent one.
I should like to say to Mr Martinez at this point that not taking part in the stable system of exchange rates is not helpful, as is clear from experience in Italy which did not devalue in order to be more competitive but experienced, in 1992 and between 1994 and 1995, sudden instability from which it is only now emerging with difficulty and determination.
A stable macro-economic framework is not then of itself enough to guarantee the creation of new jobs.
If we are bring down unemployment to a reasonable level, we need to take more wideranging measures, of a structural nature, designed to improve the operation of the markets, in particular the labour market.
There are indispensable constraints and objectives: first and foremost the social welfare model - which, as I have already said, is an essential feature of Europe - needs to be defended and preserved but, given the changes in the age pyramid and the professional qualifications of Europe's population, if we are to do that we have to review it to make it more effective and alter the balance.
Secondly, we need to increase investment in human capital which is the most important source of wealth for our continent, by strengthening and improving education systems and vocational training.
Thirdly, we need specific measures to help the less-favoured groups in society: young people, women and the long-term unemployed, to make it easier for them to join or rejoin the labour market.
The issue of employment is a priority for the European Union.
The Florence European Council, to take place at the end of the week, will focus essentially on that issue, with the objective of making still more targeted and effective the strategy for combating unemployment, the broad lines of which have already been identified in earlier European Councils, beginning with the Essen European Council.
The tripartite conference, convened last week in Rome by the Italian Government, showed that the broad lines of that strategy enjoy a large degree of support from the social forces.
We need to increase that support because it is vital if we are to make this strategy more effective and more vigorous.
Strengthening consensus, through dialogue and consultation, underpins the confidence pact for employment launched by President Santer.
We are certain that the Florence European Council will be able to give fresh impetus to the strategy of combating unemployment and that resolute implementation of that strategy will soon produce real results.
Noninflationary macro-economic policies geared to stable growth are not incompatible with the aim of increasing employment: they are in fact the vital prerequisite for achieving that objective.
In that context, we need also to find and apply in all of the Member States fiscal policies able to reduce pressure on earned income - a hope that has been expressed in the course of this debate.
That aim is not inconsistent with the need stated in the Council resolution not to reduce, for the time being, overall fiscal pressure: we are talking about a targeted redistribution of the tax burden.
The objective we have set ourselves is difficult and requires a collective effort at all levels, but it is essential, and the future of the European Union depends on its achievement.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Votes
Madam President, since Parliament has, as was to be expected, rejected Amendment No 1, I should like to call on all my colleagues in the House to support Amendment No 5, tabled by the Union for Europe Group, since we shall then at least signal a certain amount of willingness on the part of Parliament to move in the direction wished by Mr Macartney.
Madam President, I have a comment to make about the voting order.
It seems logical to me to have the vote on the two amendments tabled by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, Nos 59 and 60, before Nos 64 and 65, in view of the substance of the amendments and the fact that the Committee on Transport and Tourism feels that they go further.
I would ask all Members who think we need to find a solution to the backlog to take another close look at Amendments Nos 59 and 60.
Madam President, I should just like to thank the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy for their support in drawing up this report, and especially for their valuable contributions in the discussions in committee.
I think we can vote on the report and the amendment together - given that there are no other amendments - but I should like to clarify the following technical point.
We accepted Mrs Randzio-Plath's amendment to paragraph 10 in committee, but the second part of that paragraph - referring to the role of the EMI - has been left in by mistake.
Consequently, we should vote on the report and amendment together, but we should not vote on the second part of the paragraph in question.
That will leave us with the following:
'Stresses the need for a balanced policy mix' .
(FR) We therefore do not need to vote on the second part of this paragraph.
Madam President, I think our translators do an excellent job, but on this occasion I would like to ask for the Dutch version of the report by Mr Gasòliba to be revised again.
There are four translation errors, all stemming from the same problem.
'Fiscal policy' is translated as 'fiscaal beleid ' instead of 'begrotingsbeleid ' .
And 'fiscal consolidation' is wrongly translated in three places as 'fiscale consolidatie ' .
This is not the first time this mistake has occurred, so I suggest that not only should this report be checked again, but that the problem should also be brought to the attention of the translation service, so that they know that 'fiscal' in English can be translated in two different ways in Dutch.
This is an excellent report which proposed to make a concrete difference by its proposal for energy efficiency which in helping to reduce carbon dioxide emissions also addresses climate change.
The Green Group supports all the amendments by the rapporteur and I agree with Mr Macartney that it is a shameful day when this Parliament cannot take direct concrete action on a simple, straightforward issue like energy saving.
Linkohr report
I cannot support the EU investing a great deal of money in research which is not in line with the Greens' proposals.
The research includes aerospace research, as the text states that air traffic will double within the next 15 years.
Flying is not an environmentally friendly form of transport.
More resources should rather be made available for research in the fast train industry.
It is true that this is also included in the proposal but I would like to increase its share considerably.
There are many areas and objectives that I approve of, however, and I support the amendments, for example the reduction of the appropriation for nuclear safety by ECU 10 million.
Unfortunately, experience shows that this money contributes to the continued use of nuclear energy and gives the impression, in the Eastern European countries as well as elsewhere, that nuclear power is safe.
Nuclear power is not safe and we should instead invest money in renewable sources of energy in order to get away from nuclear power.
I am voting against Amendments Nos 50 and 51 because they do not take money away from Euratom.
I support Amendments Nos 55-57 because they ensure that Euratom money goes into support for renewable sources of energy.
On the occasion of the refinancing of the Fourth Framework Programme, Commissioner Cresson has altered the political objective of European research for integration and cohesion and geared it to new purposes:
support for the international competitiveness of European industry; - making the subject-matter of research comprehensible to Europe's citizens; and - bringing together national and Community endeavours.The rapporteur, Mr Linkohr, was quite right to take up the three issues he considered, but looking beyond those particular issues and the priorities relevant to each, it seems to me that, on the occasion of this all too short debate, Parliament should give an early signal to the Commission concerning the approach to be taken in the Fifth Framework Programme.
I would like to suggest that we use this opportunity to take a further step forward by earmarking a percentage of the total budget for projects involving a technological challenge, the so-called 'challenge-led' projects.
A 'challenge-led' project is characterized by:
a high risk, such that it cannot be carried out at national level; - the possibility of triggering a multi-disciplinary approach and international cooperation (in the context of which it is Europe's interest to speak with one voice); - a real technological challenge - the breakthrough, when it comes, bringing with it substantial economic or social benefit.A 'challenge-led' project does not integrate existing technologies.
Examples of challenge - but these are examples only - are:
the magnetic-levitation train or superconductor electric cable; - the super-efficient battery (all renewable energy technologies are limited by the problem of batteries); - vaccines which prevent illness: they are ruining the pharmaceutical companies but require major investment.Parliament and the Commission should start thinking now about the most important technological challenges - selecting one or more topics - and, in the context of the Fifth Framework Programme, adequate European resources should be earmarked for them, to ensure that specific programmes are viable and have a clear European profile.
The Commission should not drag its feet, content to do only what it is well-equipped and knows how to do.
If we want to keep pace with innovation, we must be prepared continually to re-invent ourselves.
It is good to have the task forces for the time being!
Strengthening the funding of the 4th Framework Programme for technological research and development, in effect since 1994, together with as assessment of its activities, is of capital importance for guaranteeing Europe's competitiveness.
But I must point out that the area of technological R&D is particularly important for countries like Portugal.
By introducing the notion of task forces, interesting in fact in terms of principles, the Commission has somehow undermined the balance struck when defining the 4th FP. By banking on major applied research projects it runs the risk of harming cohesion, preventing the less developed countries from taking part actively, even though they want and need to take part for the whole Union's good.
All Member States must have a voice in defining the future task forces but it is also important that the priorities already defined in the 4th Programme should continue to be taken into account.
I agree with the rapporteur's proposal to concentrate priorities or focus on such basic areas as educational multimedia and hydraulic resources.
Educational multimedia is the perfect Trojan horse for stating European identity and the European Union must accept this and draw the necessary consequences.
The introduction of the new area of research on landmines deserves my full support.
I am well versed in this problem since in Portugal's brother states, Angola and Mozambique landmines are still a scourge claiming countless lives among the younger generations in those Portuguese-speaking countries with so much to offer the future of our society.
I back the amendments referring to the multimedia priority but must stress that only the budgetary increase proposed by the Committee on Culture will make them operational.
I back all the amendments referring to concentrating priorities, the amendment on mines and the amendment calling for better and more permanent interdepartmental interaction.
We Greens believe that a key element of any sound economic policy in the future is effective support for research which is not thrown off course by cyclical pressure for cuts, but in fact lays the foundations for future progress in an anti-cyclical way, at the very time when the economic cycle indicates that the innovations made have been exhausted.
We therefore particularly regret that the proposed increase in resources for the fourth framework programme, which we shall support whenever we have the opportunity, has once again been inextricably linked to unacceptable changes in direction which will hamper and obstruct future developments, rather than facilitating them.
These decisions include the funding for Euratom, for research into fusion and aeronautics - which might be of use 50 years from now, if ever - as well as the one-sided concentration on research carried out by large industry and the reckless determination to pursue biotechnological research without adequate risk surveillance.
We regret this, and call on Parliament to devise a procedure for similar decisions in the future which enables us and others to make our criticisms of substance in an appropriate way, without at the same time having to reject the EU's whole research policy.
Sindal report
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the main concern of this report is to make sea transport more flexible and attractive.
There is a need to give a greater role to this mode of transport, so as to relieve pressure on the others.
However, various problems and shortcomings have come to light in the course of examining of this report, especially as regards environmental protection and safety standards.
Indeed, the vessels employed in short sea shipping are particularly small and dilapidated.
The risks of an accident are therefore greater.
We must now take all these factors into account, with a view to making short sea shipping a mode of transport which is environmentally friendly and safe.
Madam President, in commenting on the Sindal report, I very much welcome the plans contained for a switch of 30 to 40 % of trade between Spain and Britain from the roads to short-sea maritime transport.
It will be good for the environment, take 0.6 million tonnes of trade off our roads and it will be six times more efficient in terms of energy usage and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
I rise in support particularly to plead to the Commission that it ensures that the port of Tilbury in my constituency is at the heart of this new increased trade.
It is a port which is close to London and the major transport networks from the south-east of England to the whole of the United Kingdom.
It has an unmatched range of flexible facilities. Recently it has announced a fast, daily container service to Rotterdam.
It has the potential to benefit from this increased trade and I ask the Commission to ensure that it does so.
After months of intensive work, Mr Sindal's report is now ready for adoption by the House and, despite some criticisms, I should like to congratulate him on behalf of my group.
An intensification of coastal shipping should have positive economic effects and a dynamic impact on employment in the coastal regions of the European Union, and above all in the least developed of them:
the necessary modernization of the fleet will revive the European shipbuilding industry, thereby preserving or even creating jobs in coastal regions; -moreover, an increase in the volume of turnover should result, and this will be of benefit to small and mediumsized ports as well as large seaports; -finally, an intensification of short sea shipping will above all benefit small and medium-sized firms in the maritime transport sector: it is mainly small shipping companies which are involved in the cargo sector, and a large percentage of the jobs on board vessels flying EU flags are concentrated in the short sea shipping sector.The Sindal report acknowledges that an intensification of coastal shipping must go hand in hand with a good deal of modernization, both of the fleet itself and of ports and their connections with the hinterland.
At the same time, the text comes out in favour of free competition, which is generally to be welcomed, but against any aid measures, whether direct or indirect.
This appears, at least to those of my colleagues who were actively involved in drafting the opinion on the Sindal report in the Committee on Regional Policy, to be somewhat at odds with the reality in many coastal regions.
The Committee on Transport would therefore have been well advised to devote rather more attention to that committee's proposals, which were adopted with the strong backing of the PPE Group and the support of the socialist Members.
Because - and here I have three questions to those present - is there any such thing as 'fair' competition between prosperous and less-developed coastal regions, or between large and small ports?
Can it really be said that some individual Member States or regional and local authorities, for example in Objective 1 regions, have as much budgetary scope for the necessary modernization work as their more prosperous counterparts?
Was it taken into account that coastal shipping offers major development prospects in regional and planning terms, particularly in the Atlantic and Mediterranean areas, as demonstrated by the case studies for the planning document 'Europe 2000+' ?
More account should be taken in future of such imbalances and different geographical circumstances, especially in the context of transport policy.
After all, economic and social cohesion is one of the fundamental objectives of the European Union: the individual Community policies are committed to supporting this goal, and there is a broad consensus in the groups as to its importance.
Finally, I have two further comments in support of a coherent European transport policy, as called for by most of the political groups:
it would have promoted safety on the high seas and the protection of coastal regions, which are of ecological importance as both residential and economic areas, if specific research or training measures had been called for in this sector: new, safe types of vessels and their handling, as well as portside logistical support for navigation, create a need here for accompanying measures; -lastly, it is strange, in view of the conciliation procedure currently under way concerning the trans-European transport networks, that the motion for a resolution fails to reiterate Parliament's appeal for short sea shipping to be included in the TEN guidelines.
Marine transport, and specifically short sea shipping, has long been deprived of a proper level of attention from the European Union and the Member States, chiefly because of pressure from big monopolies whose prime interest is the growth of road haulage.
However, the development of short sea shipping via the improvement of infrastructures and ports and the establishment of multimodal links aimed towards combined marine and land transport, renewal of the fleet and the maintenance of a high level of safety would allow the comparative advantages of marine transport to be fully exploited and lead to lower transport costs, to an increase in the carriage of goods and passengers by sea and, most importantly, to a reduction of the pollution caused by road transport.
The constant growth in the volume of freight, growth which has become very rapid because of the internal market and the World Trade Organization agreements, makes it imperative to look for a different approach to transport and for priority to be given to marine and rail transport which are much more efficient and use much less energy per kilometre/tonne.
The promotion of short sea shipping could be particularly beneficial to the coastal and island regions on the periphery of the Union, especially those in Greece which have thousands of kilometres of coastline and numerous islands, which are currently beset by infrastructure weaknesses, a lack of regular transport links and an incapacity to develop productive activities and to achieve adequate levels of supply because of transport costs.
Furthermore, development of this transport sector, renewal of the fleet and adherence to the most stringent safety regulations for workers, passengers and freight, will ease the crisis in the Community's shipbuilding and ship repair industry, especially in less-developed countries on the periphery, such as Greece.
Special attention must be paid to the need for consolidation and extension of the social rights of seafarers, for improved health and safety conditions, wages and working conditions, for accident prevention measures and for the safeguarding of seafarers' insurance and pension rights.
The expansion of short sea shipping will require specific national planning within the framework of the overall organization of national transport modes, development of the requisite infrastructures, the deployment of financial incentives and disincentives and the application of legislative and administrative measures to create a climate which will divert investment away from its current orientation and towards short sea shipping.
Unfortunately, however, the benefits can only be realized if the European Union is prepared to re-examine this present directive - which really ought to be scrapped - and to think again about the liberalization of cabotage. Far from strengthening short sea shipping, this is likely to lead to a further worsening of the current level of services and to the creation of new problems, particularly for the island and more remote regions.
Promotion of national planning will permit wider planning of the development and exploitation of short sea shipping at the European level and facilitate the growth of the sector, the maintenance and expansion of employment, development of the island and coastal regions and protection of the environment.
The Greens have voted in favour of the Sindal report.
In comparison with rail and air transport, short sea shipping uses very little energy and is therefore less damaging to the environment.
The geography of Europe being as it is, with its many coastlines, short sea shipping could and should be much more widely used, which makes it even more incomprehensible that it does not form part of the TENs, a situation which should be remedied immediately.
My group has drawn attention to the rather surprising comparison made between road and rail transport in recital A and paragraph 6.
These two are by no means developed and subsidized to the same extent.
There is a risk that the poor working conditions in short sea shipping will be used as an excuse to bring further pressure to bear on working conditions in land transport, and for this reason I would again stress the importance of paragraph 19.
Finally, my group was unable to support Mr Wijsenbeek's amendment, which would have reopened the debate on weights and dimensions.
We were delighted to give our support to Amendment No 2, which is an excellent example of how short sea shipping and inland navigation can be combined.
Gasòliba i Böhm report
I agree with the criticism in the report concerning the late arrival of the annual report and believe, like Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, that the Monetary Institute should submit regular interim reports to the EU Parliament and others.
This is because the issue is one of the most important in the EU and one which affects all citizens of the Union.
What I miss in the annual report is a proper analysis of how the policy being pursued affects ordinary people, as regards such things as the coordination of Member States' monetary policy, budget consolidation and the transition to EMU as a whole.
The annual report should also get away from the usual economic terminology and be easier for ordinary people to read, explaining simply what the Institute is doing and how it affects the man or woman in the street.
I oppose the introduction of a common currency in view of all the negative effects it will have.
My goal of an ecologically sustainable society is not compatible with EMU.
In view of the above I am voting against the report in the final vote.
Referring to the national compromise and the Edinburgh agreement, the Danish social democrats naturally cannot support those elements of this report which run counter to Denmark's four reservations.
Pérez Royo report
I am voting against all of this report by Mr Pérez Royo because it includes so much that I cannot support.
It is primarily a question of the views expressed which pay homage to a common currency and the need for progress in the convergence process.
On the other hand, I support the idea of a tax on currency transactions because it would reduce speculation considerably.
Such a tax should be introduced by countries outside the EU as well as the EU Member States.
The tax should, however, not be seen as a stage in the process leading to the introduction of the common currency; rather it should be introduced simply in order to reduce speculation.
I find the totally uncritical praise of EMU, the convergence criteria and the schedule for those criteria totally incomprehensible.
I am not against the national economies of the Member States being put in order but the cuts which are now resulting from the convergence policy should give cause for reconsideration.
Rather than simply thinking in terms of the traditional economic objectives it is necessary to consider the new economic policy, the aim of which is an ecologically sustainable society.
This objective is not compatible with the EMU project which must therefore be stopped.
Referring to the national compromise and the Edinburgh agreement, the Danish social democrats naturally cannot support those elements of this report which run counter to Denmark's four reservations.
Although it contains a number of good proposals, such as the tax on currency transactions, we are voting against the report because we are against the entire EMU project.
Madam President, it is remarkable that in different contexts - including the reports which have already been debated today and the Von Wogau report - it is stated that there is a broad consensus in favour of EMU and the main principles involved in the introduction of the common currency, including an exchange rate mechanism.
However, there can be no-one who does not know that outside the EU institutions there is considerable doubt about the splendid qualities of EMU, the schedule for EMU and the convergence criteria.
This criticism comes from politicians, economists, bankers and trades unionists.
Demonstrations in Belgium, France and Germany bear indisputable witness to the social unrest which the convergence criteria are causing among ordinary people.
Naturally all countries must make every effort to pursue sound economic policies.
However, this requires healthy development, not constant growth which adds to the growing environmental deficit.
It also requires fair distribution of common resources and policies which prevent social exclusion and unemployment.
With EMU, however, the EU has established an economic policy which puts price stability and balanced budgets above all else, which may entail cuts in public services and cause many more jobs to disappear.
From a democratic point of view the European Central Bank is unacceptable.
The Von Wogau report speaks of accountability but the truth is that it is impossible to impose accountability on the decision-makers.
The six members of the European Central Bank's board cannot be removed in the course of the eight years for which they have been appointed.
EMU is to be administered by experts over whom no political control will be possible.
Economic and monetary union thus faces far too many unsolved problems and risks becoming a political owngoal, far removed from the real world and economic realities.
As the idea of an economic and monetary union is basically a federal one and conflicts with our belief in the creation of a Europe of democracies, we will abstain from voting on this report.
Allowing monetary policy to be determined by officials at the European Central Bank is not in accordance with our view that economic policy should be governed by the people through their elected representatives.
On a separate point, it may be noted that during the membership negotiations Sweden made a unilateral declaration that we would decide for ourselves whether we would participate in EMU or not.
The legal validity of this declaration is doubtful but the political view is that it is the Swedish people who will decide on EMU membership. As far as Sweden is concerned the matter has by no means been decided.
As an opponent of the entire EMU project I am voting against this report by Mr Von Wogau.
There are some good amendments, which I support, but they do not outweigh all the less satisfactory parts of the report which remain.
I do not support the establishment of an exchange rate mechanism for the common currency in the present situation.
Each country must bear responsibility for and be able to pursue its own economic policy, which takes into account the conditions in that particular country and the country's industrial structure.
This will be made impossible by participation in EMU.
It is naturally desirable that exchange rates fluctuate as little as possible.
This is not only true with regard to the EU's Member States, however, but also with regard to those countries outside the Union, of which there are far more.
The report is permeated by the demand that the convergence criteria should be implemented.
In view of the massive cuts which many of the EU Member States are now being forced to make or will make, there should be some pause for thought.
Rather than fostering the expansion of social welfare EMU policy is now resulting in the dismantling of the welfare system in country after country.
This is not a policy I can support.
As I oppose the entire EMU project I am voting against the Von Wogau report.
I followed the debates this morning carefully.
At no point was there any mention of the fears of the citizens of the Member States with regard to the single currency.
Our political leaders, the Commission in Brussels, deliberately encourage confusion between a single currency and a common currency.
Clearly, the people of Europe find it hard to tell the difference.
For example, if you talk to French people about a European currency, or indeed a single currency, they think you mean a common currency, and seem to be in favour of it.
But if you clearly explain to them what is at stake, they are against it.
When they realize that the introduction of the euro will mean the disappearance of their national currency, they oppose it - and they are right.
Why?
The people of Europe have a deep emotional, psychological and practical attachment to their national currencies.
Depriving them of a reference point as essential as their national currency would undermine them psychologically.
In the words of General de Gaulle, the currency links the citizen to the nation.
I voted against the von Wogau report because, as a convinced European, I believe that Europe must not be built on a massive lie.
Since Maastricht, there has been a growing suspicion on the part of people in Europe that partisan economic interests are increasingly taking hold of the process of building Europe.
In this crisis of credibility in the EU, those who had been relying on the monitoring and corrective powers of the European Parliament have been deeply disappointed for months now.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that the convergence criteria for monetary union are a vehicle for the destruction of welfare standards in the Member States.
The pressure to achieve the criteria simultaneously and as soon as possible has begun to have a recessionary effect and is leading to a sharp increase in unemployment.
Yet people in the European Union are waiting in vain for the EU institutions to reform these criteria, which have long since become socially irresponsible.
A few days ago the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, drew attention once again to the Member States' responsibility for pursuing an active policy on employment, but he cynically failed to mention that these EMU convergence criteria are precisely what has eliminated the necessary political room for manoeuvre.
This inconsistency is heightened by the lack of any social initiatives at European level.
In view of this policy, which is severely disrupting the social peace in Europe, it is the duty of the European Parliament to speak out strongly in favour of the development of a social and ecological Union, and against a policy of stultifying economic liberalism.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.12 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Fisheries
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0189/96 by Mrs Péry, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament (COM(94)0335 - C4-0086/94) on the crisis in the Community's fishing industry; -A4-0133/96 by Mr Arias Cañete, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the problems of the fisheries sector in the NAFO zone; -A4-0172/96 by Mr Arias Cañete, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the amended proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0117 - C4-0299/96-95/0252(CNS)) laying down certain conservation and control measures in the Antarctic; -A4-0169/96 by Mr Kofoed, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(95)0670 - C4-0033/96-95/0338(CNS)) amending for the sixth time Regulation (EEC) No 1866/86 laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources in the waters of the Baltic Sea, the Belts and the Sound.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are debating the crisis in the Community's fishing industry.
This economic, social and ecological crisis is affecting the entire sector.
For a number of years now, we have been obliged to cut back on catch authorizations, apply more effective controls, reduce fleet sizes and step up structural and social accompanying measures.
At the same time, although the amounts of fish caught have decreased - in my own country, for example - many species have suffered the effects of international market forces.
In certain regions of Europe, fresh fish prices have fallen by an average of 25 %.
' Blue Europe' is a fragile common policy because it is incomplete.
All Europe's coastal regions are looking to the future with concern.
That is why I felt it essential to begin this report by calling on the Commission and the Council to map out some clear prospects and to show a willingness to ensure a maritime future for the countries of the Union.
By chance, Commissioner, our respective timetables meant that we learnt your response a few days after this report went to print and after our seminar in Quimper.
Consequently, our committee has not yet been able to debate the fourth multiannual guidance plan which you are submitting.
Certainly, we were expecting a message of vision, but we were also expecting one of confidence.
However, seeking to reduce fishing opportunities by an average of 40 % in five years will, as you well know, not only mean the scrapping of large numbers of vessels, but also lead to the certain death of several ports which are already heavily in debt as a result of their efforts to modernize.
This is a very hard blow to the economic and social activity of the whole sector.
I am convinced that we must now display not only vigilance and firmness, but also imagination and political will as regards a number of new proposals which are capable of restoring confidence to the sector.
I shall restrict myself to dealing with three key points, concerning resources, the markets and structural policies.
As far as resources are concerned, we are aware that sacrifices will still have to be made.
So let us adopt stricter technical measures which genuinely make it possible for resources to be renewed.
We refer in the report to the use of square meshes and more selective fishing gear, and to the protection of zones in which juveniles are concentrated.
We propose the introduction of biological rest periods when species are particularly under threat.
However, Commissioner, the Fisheries Committee also refers to the need for financial compensation.
The Commission's reply will be that the common fisheries policy does not provide for this type of funding, save in very exceptional cases.
'No support for incomes' , you will say.
I do not believe that I make populist speeches very often: I will not conceal the difficulties, but I cannot accept that the sacrifices should be one-sided.
If we have the money to compensate for the destruction of a vessel, then we should also be able to find the money to conserve resources.
In order to produce maximum effect, all these technical measures must be underpinned by constant and increasingly in-depth scientific research and far more rigorous controls.
Hence it is essential not only to encourage those directly involved in the sector to assume their responsibilities, but also to equip ourselves with new means of surveillance.
I know that I am wrong to put forward ideas which are not financially neutral, Commissioner, but this will allow us to gauge if there is a genuine political will in the European Union and its Member States to maintain a competitive European fisheries sector.
With regard to the markets, I should like to point out firstly that the internal European fisheries market is heavily dependent on imports, both for consumption and supply to the processing industry.
When the common fisheries policy was launched, the creation of a free market, a market which is open to international competition, was the choice that was made; and the crisis has affected the markets, the auctions and the distribution sectors.
The industry as a whole must improve its systems of information and communication.
The modernizing of the industry is vital in today's world.
We also believe that it is important to involve producers more closely in the distribution sector, as well as to exploit the quality and the origin of fisheries products.
However, Commissioner, I do not believe that the 'blue Europe' of 2002 will be able to make do with such a weak 'market' aspect.
I am firmly convinced that it will be necessary to establish a more binding Community framework - compulsory withdrawal prices, preference prices which are better respected - and to put in place a financial instrument to help fresh fish producers' organizations in times of serious crisis and when there is a collapse in market prices.
Here too, I know that you will say: ' But that is a form of income support!'
I would reply that when the market fails to perform its function, support measures are required, especially in view of the fact that only 2 % of the Union's fisheries budget is devoted to price support.
Time will not allow me to elaborate on my third key point, which relates to structural policies.
This is undoubtedly the aspect of the common fisheries policy for which the Member States and the Union have provided themselves with the most extensive resources - and so much the better - through the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance and the PESCA programme, which we wish to see implemented as a genuine 'SEA LEADER' .
We also give our backing to your achievements in respect of early retirement measures - although we wish that the Member States would play the game too, when they know that the Union is already co-financing these measures by up to 50 %.
This social dimension cannot be passed over in silence: it exists and must be adequately supported.
I have already overrun my speaking time, Commissioner.
I would simply say, in conclusion, that we shall be equal to the task in terms of vigilance and firmness.
We shall need courage too, but we shall discuss this guidance plan again. To my mind, it is unacceptable, both with regard to production and the sector as a whole; we must take more imaginative measures, and certainly give more financial support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of establishing the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission in 1974 was to create an institution in which the countries bordering the Baltic Sea could jointly take responsibility for the management of fishery resources in those waters.
Its decisions were to be based on advice from biologists, with the countries' own biologists also taking part in the IBSFC.
This form of cooperation has worked extremely well, though there were some difficulties during the communist regimes in the Baltic States and Poland.
Conservation policy has been based on the usual principles: an assessment of catches and the state of juvenile stocks, with quotas being allocated accordingly to the various countries.
In addition, of course, there are the other technical measures such as mesh size and so on.
The report which is before the House today concerns the approval or rejection of a decision which was taken last year and applies to 1996.
In its report, the Committee on Fisheries criticizes the fact that we are being consulted so late in the day.
I hope that the Commissioner will try to ensure in future that these decisions are forwarded to us somewhat earlier.
It would also be a good idea if the Commission were to invite some members of the Committee on Fisheries as observers to the preliminary negotiations which begin in Warsaw in September.
It is naturally not the task of the European Parliament to act as an administrator, but in our consultative role this would surely be a good idea, because Parliament could then have a better basis on which to take the proper legislative decision in due course.
In my report, there are one or two proposals for the forthcoming negotiations in the IBSFC.
What I have tabled in the report are amendments for the future.
Amongst other things, they seek to introduce conservation measures which are different from those used in the past.
Thus I am proposing the introduction of a limit on the engine power of vessels, such as 400 horsepower for vessels fishing cod and salmon.
The reason why I am making the proposal now is that the Commission should be aware that Poland, the Baltic States and Russia are in the process of modernizing their fleets.
If these fleets are modernized to include large vessels which are too effective, it will not be possible for fish stocks in the Baltic to be maintained.
I am also proposing this because the fisheries policy which has been pursued in the Baltic Sea has not produced an increase in fishery resources.
The stocks of cod, for example, are even lower than they were in 1984.
I also have something to say as regards the quota policy.
This involves a mass of control measures, imposes constraints on fishermen and criminalizes fisheries to some extent.
It is also impossible to produce correct figures on what is not being fished, on what is not being reported under the quotas, so we have no idea how much we are talking about, and the biologists' models for what quotas should be adopted in the future will not be correct either.
I am therefore proposing that a limit on engine power should be introduced, and if people want to have quotas, then give the large vessels quotas for a certain period and a certain quantity, and let all the other boats under 400 horsepower fish without quotas.
I think I can promise the Commissioner that fish stocks would not fall, but on the contrary would increase.
In this way, the wind and the weather would have an effect on when fishing took place, as opposed to now, when the big vessels fish in all weathers.
So the fish are never left in peace in these areas.
Furthermore, as a suggestion to the Commission, some of the areas should perhaps be protected during the spawning period, so that there is no fishing at that time.
If you are a hunter, you do not hunt game during the breeding season, and the same principle should in fact be introduced in fisheries.
Finally, I should like to say that I hope we can have a debate on how this instrument can be applied.
I am not a supporter of quotas, because they criminalize fishermen, even if the aim of conserving fishery resources is a very good one.
So I do not think that our fisheries policy should be based on the Machiavellian idea that the end justifies the means.
The means cannot be to turn people into criminals.
I should like to thank the Commission and the members of the Committee on Fisheries for their cooperation.
Mr President, today's debate is an important one and one reason for this is that, on three different issues, we have had the impression - and, I believe, concrete proof - that our own Committee on Fisheries has proposals of its own, having drawn up specific documents and had, for some time now, the real technical capacity to tackle proposals relating to reform of the common fisheries policy.
Well then, Mr President, we need reform of the common fisheries policy, and are very much persuaded that the texts that have been submitted represent a step in that direction.
We are hoping for a reform that takes account of new environmental balances, that seeks to retain employment in the sector and also takes account of the capacity needed to meet consumer requirements.
The Socialist Group will be tabling its own text officially, on Thursday, in this Chamber. We would take this opportunity to invite the representatives of the Commission to take part in our initiative here, in Strasbourg, on Thursday.
The document put forward by Mrs Péry is a very important one, the product of the substantial experience she has gained in this sector.
It in fact contains a number of very important and innovative elements: firstly, as I said a few moments ago, the fisheries sector must take account of environmental balances but it must also be able to retain an adequate market position.
Production and market have therefore to be substantially integrated, and that can be achieved through technological innovation and the capacity to be able to handle increasingly large transactions which are both of Community origin and guarantee fishermen an adequate price, as a result of the role that the fishermen's organizations can play to an increasingly greater extent as an important point of reference.
We shall also have to discuss again the consolidated arrangements, so to speak, for fisheries ownership.
We favour an approach here whereby fishermen participate in ownership; we are therefore also in favour of local multi-ownership experiments which are becoming a point of reference and, in that sense, we are in favour of a form of integrated management between multi-ownership and the local institutions.
We are also very much in favour of involving the local institutions and are also, naturally, persuaded that the fisheries policy should be a common policy but that the regional and local authorities should be associated with it because of the fundamental role they can play, including in relation to the integrated management of coastal fishing.
This also offers a way of eliminating the over-fishing that has occurred in recent years.
From that point of view, we consider that the programming document is important and when we have an opportunity of discussing it in official fora, we shall look at the substance in greater detail.
For the moment, we regret the fact that we have yet to be involved as Members of Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, it is timely for the European Parliament to be dealing at the same time with the general fishery crisis and the NAFO zone crisis, which epitomizes the former.
These are issues that must be tackled by implicating the European Union's political will and clear cooperation by the Member States.
Some European Union countries tend to ignore the real significance of the fishery sector for the whole European economy.
Yet it should be pointed out that in peripheral maritime countries fishery accounts for much economic activity and many jobs.
Take the example of NAFO.
My country has been fishing in that zone since the 15th century, cod in particular, the historic reason for which Portugal is now the world's biggest market for that fish.
Portugal's accession to the CFP and the NAFO crisis have lead, in four years, to a 70 % reduction in the fishing fleet and the direct or indirect loss of some 12000 jobs.
I can state here that Portuguese shipowners intend to continue fishing responsibly in order to conserve stocks.
They therefore agree with moves to strengthen taxation and controls carried out by the European Union.
But it is difficult to understand why these controls are not carried out so intensely on ships belonging to nonCommunity countries which have signed the Convention.
Another aspect which we should pay special attention to is that of scientific research which carries out on-going analyses of stocks and changes in their patterns.
It is difficult to see why the European Union should have delegated to Canada scientific research in areas as important as 2J, 3K, 3L and 3NO, knowing full well that the interests of both parties clash over this.
This research should also be extended to Community waters, taking into account information supplied by fishermen and producers.
Take the case of sardines.
When the Commissioner tells us that we must cut catches by 40 %, apparently on the basis of data she was supplied with - possibly by my country - the fishermen say that this decision is unfounded given that the stocks are still healthy and have just moved to other areas.
This can lead to conflicts that affect the credibility of our institutions and the Union itself.
As is stated explicitly in the documents we are discussing, agreements with third countries should continue to deserve the support and full weight of the European Union given their importance for supplies and safeguarding production.
We think, however, that every time that association agreements are concluded with third countries - in which, apart from Community funding fishery products are exempted from customs duties - we should negotiate fishery quotas for Community producers that correspond to the amount of non-received customs duties.
I commend the value of these texts and think that they are a good starting-point for dealing with the whole problem of fishery.
Mr President, when the Commission report on the crisis in the fishing industry came out in 1994, as Mrs Pery has reminded us so well in her report, it was primarily about prices.
Since then the fishing industry has been far more in crisis because of the biological aspect of depletion of stocks and the failure of the management system of the common fisheries policy to address any of the problems and to work effectively within the industry.
What do we have in terms of a solution? First, we have to scrap the common fisheries policy as it stands at the moment.
I am not in favour of renationalizing it.
That would be an extremely bad idea but we need to scrap it as it exists.
We need to make sure that we reduce this constant friction between scientific evidence, the fishing industry, Member States and the Commission.
The only way to do that is to push power downwards, to manage fish stocks around the areas of the fisheries rather than around the states which surround these areas and rather than from an inland city of Belgium centrally managing the whole system.
That will not work.
In the meantime we have to address the matter of quota hopping and, although we have had many discussions with the Commissioner and I welcome her constructive comments, we have to move this matter on.
We cannot get a sensible solution within the current legislative framework.
We have to look to derogations from the Treaty to solve the problem.
In terms of the 40 % cuts we are discussing at the moment, there is no chance of getting this through sensibly and I condemn the Council of Ministers for the way it is treating the matter, without at the same time offering positive alternatives to the industry as part of the solution.
With regard to Canada, I am delighted that in the Committee on Fisheries we made this report less antiCanadian than it had been.
We now have access to ports in Canada.
We need to sign the EU-Canada action plan and we need to make the objection procedure much better.
I welcome Mr Kindermann's amendments on that as well.
Mr President, with regard to the report on the crisis in the fishing industry, I should like to make a number of comments.
While we were working on this report - and here I would congratulate Mrs Péry on her efforts - the Commission drew up its proposal on the restructuring of the fleet during the period 1997-2002.
It is true that the fisheries sector is suffering a crisis caused by the scarcity of resources, to which the liberalization of trade, the reduction of tariff protection and the growing difficulty of access to other fishing grounds are not unconnected.
However, we believe that the Commission has drawn up proposals which it is difficult to accept.
The problems affecting the fishing industry cannot be resolved solely by dismantling the Community fleet.
There is a whole series of problems which cannot be ignored, and which in my view are explained quite well in Mrs Péry's report.
For example, the social dimension of the common fisheries policy has developed favourably in recent times, but is not commensurate with the large-scale adjustments proposed by the Commission under MGP IV.
Also on Mrs Péry's report, and with many doubts in my mind, I should like to express the following reservations. The report advocates the establishment of 'prices and markets' instruments and mechanisms similar to those of the common agricultural policy, but I do not feel that these are problems which can be addressed in a mechanical way.
Given the Community's capacity for self-supply and the present level of tariff protection, application of a prices and markets policy raises difficulties, and could perhaps lead to undesirable effects in terms of the conservation of resources.
As for PESCA, it is an initiative which has produced few results. The problem is that if we wish to apply the LEADER model, access to the alternatives envisaged under that model will perhaps be far more limited.
I say this too with serious doubts in my mind.
Turning to the report by Mr Arias Cañete, we fully support it.
I should just like to underline the weakness of the European Union, which is sometimes the fault of the Union itself, and sometimes the fault of the positions adopted by the different Member States. And I would say to Mr Kofoed that we understand and agree with his comments concerning quotas.
Mr President, the four reports being discussed today concern fisheries in widely different areas of the globe: the Antarctic, the Baltic Sea, eastern Canada and here in Europe.
This demonstrates the wide extent and influence of EU fleets.
The common theme running through them all is the effect that the excessive amount of fishing capacity has on European fisheries.
The Péry report on the crisis in the fisheries sector quite correctly points out that there are several problems that affect the industry, but surely the most important is the fact that there are too many boats chasing too few fish.
This is probably the most important issue that faces the EU this year as it prepares the multi-annual guidance programme - the fourth one - to reduce the size of the fleets.
It is certainly the most contentious political issue.
Everyone accepts that many of the EU stocks have been over-exploited.
The most effective single action that the European Union can take to resolve this problem is to decrease the size of its fleet.
If this is not done, and done very soon, then the crisis in the sector can only escalate.
The ones who would suffer most would be the small boat owners, those with a small economic base and very little political clout but who, in fact, actually provide the most employment.
The decisions on how to reduce the fleet should consider not just the status of the stocks the fleet fishes but also other impacts of the fleet.
For example, some gears have a higher by-catch than others or inflict more severe damage on the sea bottom.
Environmental impacts of gear are a very important factor.
Similarly, in terms of the employment generated, preference should be given to vessels which provide most jobs relative to the amount of fish they catch.
In summary, the fleet reduction is urgently needed and it must be vigorously implemented.
The Green Group submitted amendments on this issue in committee but they were not accepted so we have re-submitted them to plenary.
I hope that they pass this time. For unless there is a rigorous programme implemented right away then the next report on the sector may well be its obituary.
I was glad to hear Mrs Péry say that she will vigorously support efforts by the Commission.
So I hope that she will support our amendment now.
The issue regarding the Baltic concerns the adoption of a closed season for salmon.
Whilst stocks of salmon in the Baltic have been decimated by habitat destruction and over-fishing - including the use of long drift nets - the recent Lassen report on fishing capacity in the EU actually recommends the complete closure of the fishery, so a simple seasonal closure is totally insufficient.
The waters east of Canada have seen fishing vessels from Spain, France and England for hundreds of years.
They used to be one of the world's greatest fishing grounds, which is probably why fishermen went so far under difficult conditions to fish there.
But in the 1980s the bloated size of the European fleets forced the EU to claim unilateral quotas on several stocks there.
It is unacceptable behaviour in a multilateral convention to regulate fishing.
These unilateral quotas contributed to the obliteration of some of the stocks in eastern Canada; I say 'contributed to' for the responsibility does not actually lie with the EU alone.
Canada has shown that it can actually wipe out its stocks without any help from anyone else.
But here the European fleets did help.
As regards the Antarctic, the European Union has no real fishing interests, at least on paper.
However, some vessels fishing down there are European vessels flying other flags and established under joint ventures.
So the long arm of the European Union's excess capacity reaches out even as far as there.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Péry on her thorough and discerning analysis of the causes of the serious crisis currently affecting the Community's fishing industry.
Unfortunately, the Commission communication on which this report is based fails to put forward any proposals commensurate with the scale of the crisis.
It recommends a policy which is more stopgap than imaginative, more resigned than determined.
This policy seems to be based on a fatalistic premise: that the disappearance of the Community fishing fleet, overseen by the CFP, is inevitable.
However, Europe's fishermen are expecting a different message.
As the elected representative of a maritime region in the west of France, I can assure the House that they are expecting us to send them a message of hope, telling them that the profession they have chosen is not doomed, that it may be suffering a crisis, but that they can trust in its future and that their children will be able to practise it.
That is the message which I propose we send to all the communities throughout Europe which depend on fishing, by adopting the amendments that I have tabled on behalf of my group.
Firstly, all the measures aimed at reducing the size of our fleets are the consequence of the almost total opening-up of the Community market to imports from third countries, whose methods, as the House well knows, are frequently at odds with our legitimate concern to conserve fishery resources.
This issue is not addressed in the Commission communication, although it is a matter of urgency to restore the confidence of our fishermen in the conservation efforts that are required of them, above all by establishing a protective European framework in the face of imports from third countries.
Also, surely the mechanisms of market support should be replaced by a more pro-active policy, for example one which establishes the compulsory levying of a countervailing charge on the import of species found in the Community, amounting to the difference between the import price and the current guide price, which could be used to promote the fishing industry in the developing countries?
Finally, it also seems essential to me to involve the sector more closely in the management of resources, in particular by giving it responsibility for managing the resources of specific fisheries, on the basis of historical rights, within the framework of decentralized regional conferences.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am only speaking about Mr Arias Cañete's report on the problems of the fisheries sector in the NAFO regulatory zone.
Although this is a very thorough and open-minded report, my group has some difficulties with it, and that is not because it is so openly critical of the Canadians at various points. In our view, this criticism is mostly justified.
However, the report focuses too narrowly on the maximizing of fishing opportunities and fails to take account of some important aspects which should certainly have been addressed in an own-initiative report of this kind.
I would firstly mention the monitoring arrangements: instead of dismissing the monitoring arrangements contained in the bilateral fisheries agreement of 17 April 1995 between the European Union and Canada as discriminatory and too costly, its innovative aspects should have been given greater prominence.
It is true that the new inspection arrangements are costly, but they are obviously working and have, above all, helped to defuse the situation.
Far fewer infringements have been detected than before, and so the potential for conflict between the parties to the agreement has been much diminished.
It is also questionable whether different arrangements - as called for in the report - really would be more effective, or whether they might ultimately dilute monitoring practice.
To my mind, on-the-spot inspections still remain the most effective way of monitoring catches and the type of gear being used.
Satellite surveillance cannot replace these inspections, but only complement them in order to determine the location of vessels, as is in fact stipulated in the NAFO monitoring arrangements.
The relatively high cost of carrying out such measures should be regarded as the price to be paid for dwindling fish stocks and for past neglect.
In any event, we should like the existing NAFO monitoring arrangements to be recognized as an improvement in terms of the conservation of stocks, thereby helping to safeguard fishing effort in the future.
Another very important aspect which is also omitted from the report concerns the decision-making procedure in the NAFO Fisheries Commission.
Those in the know agree that the main reason for the appalling state of fish stocks in the NAFO zone is the fact that the NAFO decisions on management and conservation measures are not binding.
The scope for raising objections has undermined all the measures, and any party dissatisfied with the catch quota allotted to it has routinely been able to award itself higher catch quotas.
For my group, therefore, the abandonment of this objection procedure is the key to further progress in fisheries management in the NAFO zone.
Unless this happens, in our opinion, there would in fact be little point in putting any of the other demands into effect.
What, for instance, would be the use of the rapporteur's call for a more balanced composition of the NAFO Scientific Committee, or for a voting system in NAFO which is more satisfactory to the Union, when in a borderline case another party which is outvoted can raise an objection to certain management measures, thereby triggering the next conflict?
While it is true that my group's request does not correspond to the currently accepted international principles, it would nevertheless be very appropriate in a report which in several respects takes issue with those principles.
One need only look at the proposals concerning the voting system in international organizations.
Also, our request is by no means out of place, since the UN agreement on the conservation and management of straddling stocks and discrete stocks explicitly obliges coastal states and countries engaged in deep-sea fishing to cooperate in laying down conservation and management measures.
My group has tabled a number of amendments reflecting our concerns, and it is vital for them to be adopted if we are to support the report.
I therefore ask Mr Arias Cañete too to look favourably on these amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, although some Members may think that Mr Arias Cañete's report is excessively critical of Canada, I personally - having closely followed the European Union's fisheries relations with that country - wish to congratulate the rapporteur on the even-handedness of his report, which avoids dwelling on the periods of tension which Canada's stance has forced the Community to endure.
Now it is a question of looking to the future.
In my view, this is another indication of the European Union's goodwill and readiness for dialogue. However, I am bound to condemn the fact once again that - judging by the latest news - this is not an attitude which is shared by Canada.
It is true that the Canadians have expressed their willingness to open up their ports to the Community fleet - although only in certain cases - and are giving to understand that this is a generous concession on their part. The fact that this is a unilateral decision, however, leads us to fear that it can be revoked at any time.
If Canada really wished to permit access to its ports, it would have signed the bilateral agreement, one of the key points of which concerns precisely the normalized access of the Community fleet to Canadian ports.
However, Canada continues to show great reluctance to ratify the agreement in question.
It is my understanding, moreover, that in the latest round of negotiations between Canada and the European Union, Canada continued to insist that it had a complete right to manage certain stocks exclusively and absolutely - cod, for example - in international waters. This is a fresh sign of its intention to take action outside the 200-mile limit, in violation of the International Law of the Sea.
Consequently, I would call on the Commission once again to defend our fishing rights, since the European Union is just as sovereign as Canada, and to defend Community interests in accordance with the Union's international weight, which is far greater than the results achieved recently would suggest.
With regard to Mrs Péry's report on the crisis in the fishing industry, the rapporteur deserves to be congratulated on her efforts to unite positions.
On the specific question of markets, however, I should like to call on the Commission to present, in its new draft regulation, a genuine reform which is geared to the challenges of the common fisheries policy. This time, it must be an in-depth reform, based on non-discriminatory criteria and free of the excessive red tape which is a burden on a sector that needs mechanisms to allow it to respond rapidly, ensuring it a permanent position on the fishery products market.
And with reference to Mrs Péry's comments concerning the social measures for which there is such a need in the fishing industry, I believe that a good indication that something is amiss is the fact that in the next budget, only ECU 50 000 is earmarked for such social measures, whereas ECU 3 000 000 is set aside for observers in the NAFO zone, for example.
In my opinion, something is not right in this sector.
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate all of those who have presented reports here today.
Due to time restrictions I shall concentrate on the Péry report.
The current crisis assailing the Community's fishing industry is sapping morale from the most important employment sector in peripheral coastal regions in this Community, including my own country of Ireland.
It would surely be considered a great scandal for the Community if, after obtaining control over significant areas of the most productive fishing zones in the world, we were proved incapable of managing fisheries in a coherent and, more important, a practical fashion for the benefit of the Union's consumers and producers. There are matters affecting us where short-term decisions could be taken.
What have we done about imports of salmon from Norway. We have introduced minimum import prices.
They have not worked. What about quantity restrictions?
What about the low cost of cod imports? Nothing has been done there by the Commission.
I believe Parliament can play an important role in assisting in the restoration of confidence to an industry where morale is at its lowest.
We must point to a more positive future.
Tax and quotas and not GRT or carrying capacity have regulated the landings of various species over the years.
Of course we are looking at technical conservation measures.
We have not been presented with specific measures as yet.
At the same time the Lassen Report is indirectly being presented to us and suggests we should slash the fleet by 40 %.
I would suggest to the Commissioner that is not the answer.
Tax and quotas are the answer.
We are unable to make our boats safer.
It is an indictment of the Member States and the Commission that we were unable to make our boats safer.
If we add to the GRT, we cannot receive permission although we are not adding to the carrying capacity or to the landings of fish.
It makes little sense to me.
There is a crisis and the Commission is adding to the crisis because of the veterinary charges to be introduced later after a short derogation period. What is Commissioner Bonino doing about that?
And what are we doing about early retirement? It is too horrendous to contemplate what will happen with a drastic reduction.
Finally, I and many of my colleagues speak on behalf of the industry in Ireland, but Ms McKenna does not.
We are not prepared to share the pain.
We have shared too much pain over the years.
We have paid too great a price in Ireland.
We want to ensure that Irish fishermen are fairly treated in the years to come.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with growing demand it is no surprise that the management of fishery stocks should once again be a priority in the common fisheries policy.
But we need to be aware that the problem of balanced stock management should not be the sole responsibility of the European Union but should be done worldwide.
It is also important to point out, in this regard, that some of our current problems are due to the ingenuity of the Commission in its negotiations with third countries.
In fact, only a few years ago we were accepting reductions in our fish quotas but these countries were increasing theirs.
That is unacceptable, because the rules must be the same for everyone.
Having given in in international negotiations, the Commission has now resorted to the draconian management of our waters, proposing reductions in the fishing fleet by up to 40 %, such as for sardine fishing off the Portuguese coasts.
Has the Commission, Madam Commissioner, actually assessed the economic and social effects of an almost 50 % cut in the fishery sector which represents more than 15000 jobs in Portugal? If the issue of stocks was so serious, why is it only now that the Commission is acting?
Who supplied the Commission with these figures?
What alternatives does the Commission propose to fishermen, industrialists and workers and their families whose livelihood depends on Portuguese fisheries?
The Péry report - and I congratulate Mrs Péry on its quality - seems to take a balanced look at the main issues of the common fishery policy.
It will therefore win my backing especially since it takes on board some of the amendments tabled by me and approved by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, such as those on international negotiations, the reaching of interprofessional agreements and the possibility of introducing a storage premium to be paid to the industry under certain conditions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner. For a long time we have been campaigning for conservation of fishery resources, taking all the technological, social, monitoring and taxation measures needed to bolster the industry properly.
However this strategy, albeit vital, has not been very transparent nor has it been applied by everyone, indeed by very many.
First of all because the decisions are very often taken on the basis of at times inadequate or distorted scientific studies which fail to take into account local reality.
Also because these decisions overlook the appropriate and vital intervention of fishermen's organisations and fail to take account of any preference trade policy for the Community fisheries sector.
All of these and other facts justify and generalise climates of mistrust and conflict among fishermen and ship-owners in the Member States.
On the other hand - as shown by the figures and recent declarations by the Commissioner herself - there are few countries (like Portugal) that in recent years have observed (excessively sometimes) obediently and scrupulously the decommissioning plans while other countries, unfortunately the majority, have not done so.
Against the background of a crisis in the fisheries sector, non e of this should be forgotten.
Neither the Commission, nor the Member States, nor the government of my country.
As well as conserving stocks, we need more transparency and equal participation in the decision-making processes - e.g. in NAFO, where I must repeat my utter failure to understand the proposals to reduce the TACs without proper scientific grounds - or the case of cod, also in NAFO waters. We must express our opposition to any reduction proposals which are not the same for all countries and species (e.g; sardines) without taking into account the reduction efforts already made by various countries and not taking into account recent facts which have been to the detriment of Portuguese fisheries, such as the agreement with Morocco and its effects on fish preserves and fisheries in general.
Mr President, I want to talk mainly about Mrs Péry's report, for which congratulations and support.
I fear I shall say some of the things that have already been said.
We have here the views of the Committee on Fisheries on the continuing crisis in the fishing industry.
The basic crisis has been with us for many years and it will be with us for many years more unless we do something radical about it.
In fact, it will probably become hardly worth fishermen putting to sea in many parts of the European Union's waters.
That has immense consequences, of course, not only for the fishermen but for all those involved on shore and for the consumer.
We have to pay serious attention to this problem, which is a problem accentuated by a lack of political will, by far too much nationalism, and dare I suggest that we should look at the policies of the Norwegians and Icelanders and how they tackle their problems.
The basic reason is, of course, simple: too many boats chasing too few fish.
You can tackle this in two ways, and both need to be tackled.
The first one - too many boats - obviously needs a serious decommissioning scheme.
Now some countries have put decommissioning schemes into practice; my own country has not been serious about this and therefore is marked down for a 40 % cut.
That is not an acceptable solution for fishermen and for the people who are dependent upon them.
The other side of the problem is too few fish.
Now there is much that we can do here and much that the Commission and the various Member States' governments could do.
In many cases the research is already there.
Mrs Péry mentions many of the things that could be done: improvements in the gear that is used, to allow many smaller fish to escape; improvements such as inserting square-mesh panels in nets.
There is a whole range of technical improvements that have been tried and that work.
We obviously need large areas to be closed off for fishing part of the year or, in some cases, permanently or near enough permanently, to allow the stocks to recover and to allow the juvenile stocks to grow.
So we need conservation areas, if you like.
We need to somehow get into being a policy which ends the practice of discards.
I do not know about other areas, but in the North Sea sometimes 50 % and more of the catch of a fishing boat is discarded because it is too small, unmarketable, or whatever.
So we have a whole range of measures on both sides of the equation.
Finally, I must stress that we need a very rigorous evaluation and inspection system and I and many of the fishermen I talk to would prefer it if that was operated by the European Union.
Mr President, I wish to thank Mrs Péry for her report and to say that I agree with her when she implies that the common fisheries policy is just a half-baked policy.
Unlike the common agricultural policy it does not have the confidence or respect either of the producers or the consumers.
In fisheries, the policy always seems to be about reducing the catch.
The European Union is only 50 % selfsufficient and stocks are falling, yet prices continue to go down.
We feel more concern about cheap supplies to processors than about the income of the fishermen whose interests we are supposed to support.
This policy is doing the image of the Union no good either with its own producers or abroad.
The common fisheries policy seems always to be about control but the benefits never seem to come.
The Member States are unwilling to concede to the European Union the full responsibility for a comprehensive policy but are always willing to blame the European Union for the negative factors.
There is one thing about the Commission's proposals which I would question: why all the emphasis on tonnage if we have a quota policy which is working? Why, if quotas are being observed, do we need such emphasis on tonnage?
Quotas could be policed: with a proper computer system, a proper satellite system and proper import controls we could regulate the amount of fish taken out of the seas and marketed, if we really set ourselves to do so.
If we are serious about supervising landing and if Member States cooperate, then tonnage reduction could actually be on a voluntary basis with compensation.
If we had a policy of maintaining proper prices, then lower quotas would be much more acceptable in the fishing regions.
Some trade restrictions are acceptable in view of the social environmental problems that are so obvious. If there is a precious and scarce resource, why do we exploit it and give it away at prices that are far below its real value?
I agree with Allan Macartney when he suggests that the policy needs a fundamental reappraisal and that the disadvantaged areas should be given more control over both the exploitation and the marketing of the resource that is adjacent to them.
Mr President, I should like to say a few words about the Kofoed report on fisheries in the Baltic Sea.
The report has been drafted in response to a Council regulation on salmon fishing entailing the further extension of the closed season in order to protect, above all, wild salmon.
They are good measures even if they do not go far enough in view of the crisis conditions which exist as far as wild salmon in the Baltic is concerned.
In connection with this report the rapporteur has, however, tabled two amendments on cod fishing in the Baltic.
These amendments propose replacing the existing quota system with rules on fishing boat engine power.
I do not think this is an especially good or well-thought-out idea.
The problem with the current system is that certain countries stick to their quotas while others do not do so in the same way; what is needed therefore is better monitoring. Another problem is the level of prices for cod caught in the Baltic.
I believe that a change to engine power would instead make it still more difficult to check how much fish is actually caught in the Baltic.
It would also be more difficult to adjust fishing to actual stocks.
I will not vote for the proposals on engine power.
Mr President, I welcome the Commissioner.
It is going to be a pleasant change to hear her views rather than read about them in the Financial Times and the other press.
Fishing in the Communities is a very volatile, very political matter at the moment.
We have too many fishermen chasing too few fish.
Everyone accepts that.
I think it is symptomatic of open competition, which is compounded by the increasing efficiency of our fishing vessels and particularly the gear.
Indeed when I was at school we were told that the United Kingdom was a lump of coal surrounded by a teeming sea of fish.
There is very little coal left in the United Kingdom and if we go on using the gear we are using now then there will be very little fish either.
The Union has got to call a halt to this.
We are, at the moment, in a crisis in the fishing industry in Europe and particularly in the UK where the fishing fleet is the third largest within the European Union.
The government is again preaching the virtues of deregulation.
We have seen in the last few weeks the effects of deregulation on the agriculture industry.
We do not want to transfer the bad practices of BSE into the fishing industry by deregulating everything and believing it is the way ahead.
In an attempt to reduce the number of vessels by the doctrine of laisser faire economics the United Kingdom Government has left the fishing industry in Britain suffering at the hands of market forces.
This is not conducive to promotion of conservation of fish stocks or to security of jobs of local fishermen, or to the livelihood and the thriving of local communities.
It is no wonder, therefore, that local communities which are totally dependent on fishing for their livelihood view the United Kingdom Government and others with suspicion.
The same government began decommissioning vessels as late as 1984 and offered grants in return for surrendering licence.
It is now crying out in outrage about quota-hopping.
Indeed the same government which is crying out about quota-hopping is the government which, at the moment, to popularize its own party is parading its xenophobia and has started blocking European institutions.
We need action on quota-hopping but we must disassociate ourselves from the nationalistic sentiments surrounding it.
There is a solution to the problem of quota hopping: there should be some recognition and licensing done by the Member States, to ensure some control of the quota-hoppers.
The fundamental problem remains that fishing stocks are becoming dangerously scarce; Europe's fishermen are going out of business every day; sustainable conservation needs to be promoted and enforced.
This can be helped by a reduction in the entire fleet capacity of the EU.
The three multi-annual guidance programmes have all failed to allow Member States to reduce their fishing fleets.
In the UK alone it will not be possible to meet the 1996 fleet reduction requirements.
We have to deal with this problem.
We have to come forward with proper methods of conservation and proper methods of supervision.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I should like to welcome the fact that this important joint debate on four reports by the Committee on Fisheries is taking place.
Of these four reports, two relate to the conservation of fishery resources - an issue of concern to the European Union - in two areas: the Baltic and the Antarctic.
The latter, incidentally, is an area in which the Community fleet does not have a presence and where, in my view, specific and experimental fishing campaigns should be carried out, with strict respect for the ecological balance.
With regard to Mrs Péry's report, it sets out the diverse and complex set of problems currently affecting the fishing industry, where I would stress the need for socio-economic and structural flanking measures, given that, as we know, the fishing industry is based in areas which are heavily dependent on this sector.
I also welcome the notable inclusion in the report of a call for the strengthening of fisheries agreements with third countries, both old and new.
Lastly, Mr Arias Cañete's timely and important report on the problems of the fisheries sector in the NAFO zone makes it clear that major steps still need to be taken in order to balance the fishing effort in this area and ensure that the European Union participates in that effort on an equal footing.
We wish to underline the urgent need to establish a voting system which is in keeping with the European Union's actual weight; to modify the composition of the NAFO Scientific Committee; to increase Community investment in research in this zone; to improve protection of the Community's fishing opportunities in this fishing ground; to reduce the cost of monitoring systems; and to call on the Canadian authorities to make practical gestures - such as withdrawing the legislation which discriminates against the European Union and ratifying the 1992 bilateral agreement - and to insist that they lift their ban on access to Canadian ports by Community vessels totally and for good.
These measures are vital, Commissioner, for the improvement of the European Union's relations with Canada in general, and its fisheries relations in particular.
Mr President, there is no doubt in my mind, nor I am sure in colleagues' or the Commissioner's minds, that there is a crisis of confidence in the fishing industry at the present time.
In my own country some in the fishing industry are calling for the scrapping of the common fisheries policy.
They conveniently forget what it was like before the common fisheries policy was introduced in 1983 and that at that time there were many international agreements.
Fortunately we now have a policy but we all recognize that it needs to be adapted because it is not working properly.
The 40 % reduction which is being proposed at the present time may be a suggestion which is not properly understood.
People do not understand either that there are fewer and fewer fish in the sea.
But I would suggest that we must work with the fishing industry and make sure that it fully understands the problems.
I welcome the fact that the Commissioner has gone round many of the ports in the Community discussing the issues with the fishermen.
She has raised her own profile and that of the Commission regarding fisheries and that is to be welcomed.
I hope we can look at and address properly the issue of quota hoppers.
I do not believe that quotas and the single market are compatible with each other.
That is something we must look at.
If we are going to have confidence in the industry we cannot allow quota that is allocated to one country to be fished by another country.
That is the major issue we must face.
There are many problems we must solve and I hope we can work with the Commissioner to get the right messages across.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner. In his report Mr Kofoed deals with the situation of the Baltic salmon in a most creditable way.
With regard to the population of wild salmon the situation is already alarming.
There is a danger that entire salmon stocks will become extinct.
Wild salmon forms only 5-10 % of all the salmon in the Baltic Sea.
By definition wild salmon is a salmon stock from a particular river which goes back to spawn in the same river in order to reproduce.
Finland, for example, now has such salmon stocks in just two rivers, Tornionjoki and Simojoki.
Special action is required to save the wild salmon population.
The most important measures are fishing restrictions both at sea and in the spawning grounds, and the regeneration of fish stocks in order to preserve the genic genotype of wild salmon.
It is very positive that the necessity to regenerate fish stocks, an issue which is not very well known within the European Union, is included in Mr Kofoed's report.
Another thing worth mentioning is that it is a great waste to catch wild salmon in the sea where it is half-grown, often weighing only a few kilograms.
The price of salmon consequently remains very low compared to the price a fisherman would pay the local authorities for fishing salmon in a river as a sport.
Well looked-after fish stocks are of great importance to tourism in Finnish Lapland.
The strengthening of Tornionjoki's position as a salmon river is to be regarded as good from the point of view of both regional and environmental policy.
That is why fishing restrictions to protect wild salmon and fish stocks to secure the salmon population are required.
I feel that we are here today on the right track on this issue.
Mr President, I shall concentrate my remarks on the question of fishing in the NAFO zone, and especially on the problems of a fleet which has undergone one of the toughest decommissioning programmes in the European Union over the last few years.
I refer to the Community cod fleet.
I should like to thank the Committee on Fisheries - and in particular Mr Arias Cañete - for adopting my amendments to this report concerning the cod fleet.
Because the fact is that the Community fleet's fishing opportunities in division 3NO - the 'nose' of the Terranova Great Bank, which is in international waters - are currently nil, since a zero TAC has been set.
Let us remember that the NAFO Fisheries Commission fixed a TAC of 6000 tonnes for cod in division 3NO for 1994, 2213 tonnes of which were allocated to the European Union.
But at the beginning of 1994, Canada called for a meeting to be held in Brussels.
At that meeting, which took place in February, without any new scientific data being put forward to justify the amendment of the TAC for this division, a zero TAC was set which has also been applied in 1995 and 1996.
Commissioner, you are well acquainted with the crisis afflicting this sector, whose fleet is in some cases confined to port for up to ten months a year.
I would urge you - with your customary firmness, which has brought such good results for the Community fishing industry and other sectors - and the rest of the Commission to play a leading role in securing the amendment of this TAC, the application of which is not based on sound scientific data.
93 % of the Terranova Great Bank lies in Canada's exclusive economic zone, and the Community fleet, operating in international waters, must not be made to pay for Canada's mismanagement in this area.
Above all, Commissioner, we cannot continue to let Canada pursue its eternal fisheries strategy: concealing the promotion of economic and commercial interests behind environmental arguments, whilst it destroys and exhausts its own fishery resources.
Mr President, time has proved us right - and not only time, but also the speeches that we have heard in this debate today, in comparison to those that were made in the past.
Furthermore, the scientific and legal analyses have also made it crystal clear that in the 'Halibut War' , the European Union and Spain were entirely in the right.
As the Commissioner rightly said at the time, the seizure of the 'Estai' was a case of hijacking, and Canada was violating international law.
Today, the claims to be protecting the environment made by the mercenary Canadian Fisheries Minister at the time are clearly laughable.
However, let us examine the facts - because the facts which gave rise to that conflict still remain: Canada wishes to drive the Community fleet out of international fishing grounds which are not its own; it has not ratified the bilateral fisheries agreement; it retains laws which are unacceptable to the European Union; and it is calling into question access to Canadian ports by Community vessels.
These facts are keeping the tension alive.
Canada is not acting in good faith - far from it - but is maintaining its hostile attitude.
There is a need to demonstrate, even if only once, that the European Union is acting in a coordinated way in the Commission.
It needs to be made clear that there is institutional unity and coherence.
Consequently, if the Commission, as a collegiate body, refers in its programme of work to relations with Canada as an industrialized country, and if it intends to conclude agreements with Canada in the fields of competition and research and development which are in Canada's interests, then what we must do, logically, is refuse to decouple those agreements from the fisheries dispute.
Commissioner, I would urge you to speak to your colleagues with responsibility for research and development, competition policy and relations with the industrialized countries, and ensure that the conclusion of any agreement with Canada is made conditional on that country genuinely pursuing a policy of good fisheries relations.
We must not isolate the fisheries question.
There must be unity and coherence in this respect.
We are discussing the halibut dispute, which was caused by a bad decision in the allocation of the corresponding TAC quotas.
And the fact that the Spanish fleet had been operating in those fishing grounds since the sixteenth century counted for nothing.
Similarly, I have to say that the Spanish Agriculture and Fisheries Minister was unduly hasty in accepting a quota for scorpion fish which is so small that it reduces the authorized Spanish catch by up to 20 % in comparison with last year.
This readiness to accept intolerable decisions is astonishing.
I shall end by saying, Mr President, that the other occasion on which the Spanish minister in question turned the other cheek concerned the decisions taken on mad cows by mad British ministers.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Pery on her report.
She is right.
There is a crisis in the fishing industry of Europe.
The fishermen I represent in Devon are very unhappy about it.
They are not happy about quota hopping by re-flagging devices.
I welcome the Commissioner's initiatives in bringing forward ideas to try to solve that problem.
Many are aware of the failure of the quota system to conserve, manage and regenerate our fish stocks, not least because of the high proportion of discards which must be thrown back and are no use for conservation, no use for fishermen's income and no use for the consumer at home.
The response should be to come forward with better conservation measures, perhaps a 'days-at-sea' policy which could be honoured by all fishermen throughout the Community, and not more proposals for decommissioning, particularly when our fishermen do not believe there is fair play in the implementation of the decommissioning schemes.
Because of the volume of discards our fishermen believe there are more fish in the sea than the scientists say there are.
There is distrust of scientific advisers in this area.
There is widespread concern about industrial fishing for fishmeal, scooping out immature fish from the sea and damaging the possibilities for regeneration of the stock.
I wonder what the Commissioner has to say about that particular aspect of the industry.
As for the 40 % reduction in fleet capacity, I trust this is an opening bid for debate to catch our attention.
Above all we want to see fair and even-handed implementation of any measures that are agreed upon.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I must first of all congratulate Mrs Pery on her report.
I should then like to develop two or three ideas in respect of the Arias Cañete report.
First of all, I think that this report will be a reference text marking - I am quite certain - the line to be taken by the Union in respect of NAFO.
We want a relationship of mutual respect and cordiality with Canada within the standards of international law but we were right to condemn the conduct of the Canadian authorities motivated by the interest of domestic politics and not backed up scientifically.
Like the rapporteur we agree that the number of votes in NAFO should take into account the number of countries represented by the Union, that the opinion of the Scientific Committee should take prevalence when defining admissible catches, that the Canadian authorities should ratify the bilateral agreement and allow access to Canadian ports by Community ships.
But in this debate and in respect of a discussion which also took place here on the POP IV programme and the debate taking place in my country, I should like to deal with a couple of questions.
First, industrial and deepsea fishing is now at loggerheads with a heightened awareness of ecology, environmental preservation and responsible fish stock management, all of which came about when Portugal and Spain joined the EEC - something that should not be overlooked when fisheries are being discussed, in terms of boats and catches and which does not justify an anti-European or anti-construction discourse.
Secondly, in the European Union and Portugal in particular, the social and political weight of fisheries is far greater than its economic weight, by tradition, history and culture.
Nobody can forget, especially when we are discussing the Multiannual Guidance Programmes 1997-2002, when we debate the crisis in the sector or thinking beyond the year 2002.
The Commission must now carry out its duties, dispel mistrust and win over the people.
There can be no fisheries without fish, it is true - but there can be no fisheries without boats and fishermen either.
Mr President, as a representative from Ireland, I wish to express my deep opposition to the Commission's proposals which we know are aimed at reducing the size of the European fishing fleet by 40 % over the next six years.
Fishing communities by their very nature are located in the most peripheral parts of Europe.
In these areas the only indigenous resources that can be fully utilized are the fish in our waters.
Current policy, however, places limits on the degree to which this resource can be exploited.
Now we all accept that fishing activity must be limited in line with declining resources, but the Commission's proposals are unfair and contradictory.
They take no account of the size or the age of the boats that ply the European Union waters and it is simply ludicrous to suggest that identical restrictions should apply to a ten-metre boat and to a seventy-metre boat.
Here I call on the Commissioner to target fleets which impose unsustainable pressure on key stocks.
Particular attention must be given to the needs of small, isolated coastal communities that rely exclusively on fish.
I agree with Mrs Pery when she says fishing communities throughout Europe have little confidence in present policy.
In order to rebuild this trust, there has to be a complete crackdown on illegal fishing.
I am glad to say that the Irish presidency intends to make this a priority in its forthcoming term.
Simply setting minimum prices for imports or financial compensation schemes are not sufficient: further action is required.
I therefore welcome the rapporteur's calls for the improved management of resources, stabilization of incomes, measures to compensate for income losses and the creation of 'SEA LEADER' programmes.
Mr President, Mrs Péry's report analyses the different factors in the long-term crisis afflicting the Community fishing industry.
The rapporteur underlines the need for a political priority to be established, that of restoring confidence to the sector, since we must accept the fact that Europe's fishermen have lost all confidence.
What message is the Commission sending them?
It is always the same: there is overfishing, and boats must be scrapped.
Certainly, there is overfishing of some species.
Certainly, there are catches of some fish which are too young.
Certainly, it is the Commission's duty to sound the alarm.
But fishermen are not fools, Commissioner.
They know very well that the survival of their profession depends on managing the resources responsibly.
It is simply that they are obliged to work more, to produce more, because the collapse of fish prices leaves them no alternative, if they wish to survive.
And we are talking about tremendous rates of work, crews who go out to sea for 320 or 340 days a year, ageing vessels which fishermen have neither the time nor the money to maintain, and a single obsession: to fish more in order to avoid bankruptcy.
Contrary to some simplistic ideas, the more the price of fish falls, the more our fishermen increase their catch tonnage in order to balance their books.
It is not just a question of scrapping vessels, but above all of breaking this vicious circle.
The crisis affecting the fishing industry is clearly a market crisis.
The role of the common organization of the market is, in particular, to regulate the conditions of competition between Community producers and to prevent unfair competition from third countries.
However, prices are being undermined from outside as well as inside the Community.
From the outside, they are being undermined in general terms by what are token health controls; from the inside, they are undermined by unfair competition, caused by monetary and social disparities and encouraged by the Commission, which refuses to take the necessary market organization measures.
When will it be understood that the resources currently available are enough for the existing equipment to be profitable, provided measures are taken to make price stabilization mechanisms compulsory, so as not to encourage overfishing? When will it be decided to impose the application of minimum prices - which only make sense if everyone plays by the same rules - on the producers' organizations?
I know that this seems to run counter to the sacred dogmas of economic liberalism. However, Commissioner, this is the reality which must be faced: the reality which means that whilst over the last four years, producer prices have fallen by 25 %, they have done nothing but increase for the consumer!
The consumer is not being made king, but once again taken for a fool.
Today, the Commission is presenting its fourth fisheries guidance plan.
With the commendable aim of conserving resources, this plan provides for further drastic fleet reductions.
If a price regulation mechanism is not implemented at the same time, as Mrs Péry proposes with regard to the role of producers' organizations, then this plan will not restore the confidence of fishermen, but ensure their lack of support and anger.
The industry will go from crisis to crisis until - and I wonder if this is the Commission's aim - the total disappearance of the patients will allow the doctor to announce triumphantly that he has eradicated the disease.
I must thank the Commissioner for the information she has given us but my question remains unanswered.
My question was: who gave the Commission the information used as the basis for the proposal for a 40 % cut in Portuguese sardine catches?
Mr President, I would ask Mrs Bonino to read the transcript of my speech, where she will see that I did not refer to her at any time, and I am quite sure that she has fulfilled her duties as a Commissioner.
I referred to a Spanish minister, criticizing the fact that she accepted a 20 % reduction of the scorpion fish quota at the start of the negotiations.
I said that this was a clear mistake on the part of the minister in question, but I did not refer to the Commissioner at all.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner if she would reply to the safety factor which is all-important.
Safety should be the prime objective of the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
There is a very serious situation in Ireland.
If fishermen want to make their boats safer they are prevented from doing so because it is suggested by the Irish authorities and by the Commission that they are adding to the capacity.
This is totally untrue.
They are making them safer.
They are not increasing the capacity of the vessel.
They are not increasing the carrying capacity.
They may be increasing the tonnage but there is no relationship between one and the other and Commissioner Bonino should take this matter on board and try to ensure that the boats are safer.
We have an ageing fleet and this should be taken into consideration.
Mr President, I do not like to speak in the European Parliament on domestic policy issues, but since a Spanish socialist Member has made some personal remarks about a Spanish minister, I think I have a duty to explain the problem to her.
It is not a question of a mistake by our minister.
The fact is that for years, during the time of the socialist government, the Spanish fleet asked the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries for permission to fish for scorpion fish in the NAFO zone.
The former socialist minister repeatedly refused that request.
Now, with the establishment of a TAC and quotas based on historical rights, the problem is that unfortunately our fleet does not have historical rights in that fishery.
That is the problem, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo.
And it is not the fault of our minister, but of the former socialist government.
Mr President, as usual, this debate on the fishing industry has aroused a great deal of interest.
Please forgive me, but many questions were asked which I was unable to answer individually, although we shall be seeing each other again on 26 June.
With regard to the report containing the scientific data on sardines, this data has twice been passed to the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, a body which brings together the leading scientists in this field, including those from Portugal.
I described the situation concerning sardines - notably in Portuguese waters - in the House last year.
The problem is not a new one, therefore.
As for the question on safety, MGP IV in fact provides for the establishment of facilities to increase safety at sea, provided these are compatible with the need to conserve resources.
In accordance with Article 10 of Regulation No 3699, modernization of the fishing fleet, in particular for occupational health and safety reasons or with a view to the use of more selective gear, continues to be a priority of the structural programmes.
This must not lead to developments which conflict with the aims of revising fishing capacity.
It is therefore possible to achieve this goal, even under MGP IV.
I hope that this answers the question.
I shall not go over the national issues again, except to confirm that this is the first time that a TAC for this type of fishery has been established.
I would add that after a long debate, the Commission and the Member States have shown themselves to be reasonable and understood perfectly well who had historic rights and who did not.
I have no wish to restart the debate, but I should simply like to clarify the Commission's proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the four reports will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Practice of the profession of lawyer
The next item is the report (A4-0146/96) by Mrs Fontaine, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive (COM(94)0572 - C4-0125/95-94/0299(COD)) to facilitate practice of the profession of lawyer on a permanent basis in a Member State other than that in which the qualification was obtained.
Mr President, I should like to begin by complimenting Mrs Fontaine on her diligence and care in drawing up this document, and on her cooperative spirit, which has ultimately led to an excellent result.
I would appeal to Commissioner Monti: we really did not take this matter lightly, and we have, I believe, achieved a very good result.
The legal profession needs this directive, and I hope that the Commission will soon express an opinion on this matter and follow Parliament's proposals if at all possible.
Things are moving at last in the European legal profession.
The internal market has given rise to a good deal of cross-border economic activity: the creation of companies, mergers, subsidiaries and partnerships.
In addition, people are engaging to a growing extent in cross-border activities which are not merely economic.
Lawyers have seen themselves for too long as a part of their own national judicial system, and not as consultants whose services are also needed across borders.
I am extremely grateful to the CCBE, the association of European lawyers: it has made a major contribution to a fresh understanding of legal practice, and has been arguing for more than a decade in favour of facilitating the freedom of establishment for lawyers in other Member States.
Without the persistence and the helpful suggestions of the CCBE on the proposal for a directive which is now under discussion, we would not have reached this stage.
In the mid-1970s, in its landmark judgment in the Reyners case, the European Court of Justice ruled that legal practice was covered by the freedom to provide services and the freedom of establishment.
Twenty years later, we are at last making this principle of primary Community law a reality, at least in respect of the right of establishment.
After the 1977 directive on the provision of services and the 1988 directive on the recognition of higher education qualifications, the results of which - as the Commission has acknowledged - have not been satisfactory in practice, we now finally have a proposal for a directive to facilitate the establishment of lawyers.
This directive is a necessary one: firstly, it makes it clear that lawyers can establish themselves permanently in another Member State and practise the law of the host country, under the home-country title.
This did need clarifying, because despite the Court of Justice ruling of 30 November 1995 in the Gebhard case, doubt is still being cast on this right.
I would therefore draw attention to what is probably the most important sentence in that judgment: membership of a professional body cannot be regarded as a constitutive element of establishment.
Secondly, the integration of lawyers wishing to join the bar of the host country is to be facilitated.
They will no longer be expected to sit an aptitude test under the directive on the recognition of qualifications, but will be able to prove their aptitude by practising the profession for three years.
I would stress that this arrangement is in line with the case law of the Court of Justice, which made an important judgment in the Vlassopoulou case in 1981, at the time when the directive on the recognition of higher education qualifications had just been transposed.
This judgment obliges the Member States to take account of the title acquired by the lawyer in the home country to practise the same profession.
Should the knowledge and skills of the lawyer not correspond to the specific knowledge required in the host country, that country can demand that it be acquired differently, for example through practice.
This judgment therefore entitles lawyers to prove their ability by means of successful practice.
Thus the Vlassopoulou case forms the basis of the provisions for integration into the bar of the host country, as proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights.
The arrangement proposed by that committee, approved by a large majority of its members, is a fair and liberal one.
It is also courageous.
It demonstrates that European spirit which is so often lacking nowadays.
And since I have just said that the committee's proposal is a courageous one, I should now like to thank Mrs Fontaine not only for her diligence and her care, but also for her courage!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I really do believe that the directive being discussed today at first reading is a very important one.
There still remain a number of professions within the European Union - albeit not many - to which the rights of freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services, as laid down in the Treaty, have not so far been applied.
Lawyers have until now belonged to this category, since there have naturally been restrictions on the practice of the legal profession because of the differences between legal systems.
I therefore warmly welcome the presentation of a directive which will solve precisely this problem, and will in principle grant lawyers the rights enjoyed by all other European citizens in the practice of their professions in Europe.
These provisions are long overdue, and represent a major step forward.
And that is no doubt why the vast majority of lawyers have expressed support for such a directive becoming European law in the near future.
It is, however, only natural - and what else could one expect of lawyers? - for there to be disagreement as to what should be included in this directive, and how the problems should be solved.
Within the legal profession, there has been some dispute about how, but not whether, to proceed.
It has therefore been the task of the committee, and tomorrow it will be that of the House, to resolve this dispute over the approach.
I believe that thanks to the help and the willingness to compromise of everyone concerned throughout the discussions, in particular the rapporteur, the Legal Affairs Committee has produced what is a truly viable compromise.
There were two main points at issue: firstly, whether or not to retain an aptitude test.
Our view here was that in principle a test can be dispensed with, if a lawyer can provide evidence of sufficient practical experience in the country to which he moves.
This was a courageous decision, and one which runs counter to what is to some extent a majority view among both the legal profession and the governments involved, whose opinions will be sought again in the course of the legislative procedure.
The second point was the question of so-called compulsory integration.
Here the Commission originally proposed that after the expiry of a certain period of time, the lawyer must have an opportunity to decide either to become a full member of the local bar or to return home.
The committee decided to abandon this principle of compulsory integration, simply because it was our unanimous view that this is not in keeping with the principle of proportionality.
It is illogical to allow a lawyer to practise in a foreign country for a certain period of time and then, merely because a certain period has elapsed, to tell him that he may not do so any longer unless he applies formally for membership of the bar.
The committee proposes that the House should take a decision on this important point as well.
My group and I believe that it should be possible to find a compromise in the Council on the proposals contained in this report, and that after everything we have heard today from the legal profession throughout Europe, they should be broadly acceptable in principle.
I would therefore appeal to the Council not to block - by failing to act - an important decision in the interest of this group of professionals, but to carry forward this draft legislation in the Council on the lines which I hope will be approved here tomorrow by an overwhelming majority, and to adopt an appropriate common position on this proposal.
In the light of our discussions with the Commission, I take it that the Commission is likely to accept in principle the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights, even though it has not yet stated its views officially.
But it will no doubt do so over the next few days, or indeed at our sitting today or tomorrow.
All things considered, the PPE Group supports this report in the amended form produced by the Legal Affairs Committee.
The amendments represent a broad compromise between national interests, the interests of lawyers, and also between the different views of the political groups.
Mr President, I am very glad to see our rapporteur in this role, as we have just had an eventful time together in a conciliation procedure, but now I can contradict her a little in the open.
Mr President, the rapporteur talked about squaring the circle and finding an acceptable compromise with which everyone could be happy, because it ultimately gives everyone freedom of establishment.
But for the Liberals this is not enough, because we do not believe that there is any reason why there should be different rules for lawyers from those which give any other professional group freedom of establishment in the European Union.
Why can doctors, who deal with life and death, move from one Member State to another and look after patients there, whereas lawyers cannot? I simply do not understand it.
But the answer is, of course, as it has always been: professional groups tend to wish to protect themselves from outsiders and adopt protectionist practices.
And unfortunately there are still traces of this protectionism here in this directive in the form of the equivalence test, just like in the Cassis de Dijon case, rather than relying on mutual trust.
There is still only a limited right of establishment for people to practise under the home-country title, and we wish to see equal treatment for everyone throughout the Union.
We have tabled a number of amendments on this subject, and we hope that the rapporteur and the House will respond favourably to them.
The debate is adjourned and will resume after the evening suspension.
The next item is Question Time.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-0566/96).
Question No 40 by Mark Killilea (H-0435/96)
Subject: Termination of the EU's Helios programme
Will the Commission confirm that the EU's HELIOS Programme for the disabled is to wind up at the end of this year?
Can it confirm that the staff in the HELIOS Brussels office have already been told that they are to be let go by the end of the year?
Will it also confirm that it does not intend to renew the programme for a further 4 years, and that there is no comparable programme being put forward to replace it?
Given that there will be no successor HELIOS Programme for the foreseeable future, will the Commission formally and extensively consult disability groups on what action they want for follow-up programme?
Why has there been no consultation on these proposals?
Disability is the first programme to be abandoned by the Commission because of the problems with Article 235.
Is this an indication that disability is a low priority with the Commission?
The Commission has been active for many years in promoting better living and working conditions for people with disabilities.
As has been clearly indicated in its White Paper on the future of social policy and its rolling social action plan, the Commission is committed to a continued strengthening of the Community's contribution in this field.
Already the potential of the structural funds in supporting people with disabilities has been enhanced.
In addition to the HORIZON employment initiative, significant resources are also targeted on people with disabilities through the mainstream structural fund programmes.
Quite clearly therefore it is the structural funds, and in a very special way the European Social Fund, which constitute the most important financial instruments at Community level for improving the situation of people with disabilities and the Commission is anxious to build on this.
As far as HELIOS is concerned, the Council decision on 25 February 1993 establishing the HELIOS II programme provided that the programme was to be carried out in the period 1 January 1993 to 31 December 1996.
Consequently, the contracts with outside experts assisting the Commission in implementing the programme will finish at the same time as the programme itself.
The final evaluation report on the implementation and results of HELIOS II will not be available until the middle of 1997.
Pending that evaluation it would be premature to propose any further programme of the HELIOS type.
In the meantime, however, the experience of, and the lessons learned to date from, HELIOS II are being actively considered by the Commission in the context of a review of its overall strategy in this field.
Although, as I have already mentioned, the final evaluation report of HELIOS II will not be available until well into next year, it is already possible to set out the overall strategy to provide both continuity and reinforcement of its action.
The Commission recognizes that the European Parliament, the NGOs and, most importantly, disabled people themselves have high expectations of continuity of effort in this regard.
Accordingly, a communication setting out the main lines of its strategy will be issued by the Commission in the near future.
Finally, with regard to consultation of groups representing the concerns of disabled people, the Commission fully recognizes the value of the communications, practices and the experiences developed within the HELIOS programme, and by the NGOs and the European networks dealing with disability issues.
The Commission intends to consolidate and further develop its links with these in a common endeavour to encourage the development of better policies and the implementation of better practices throughout the European Community.
In this context the House may be assured that future strategy and any new initiatives will be discussed with the disability groups and, in particular, with the European Disability Forum.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I want to compliment him on the wonderful work he has done to help the disabled since he came into office and also on the recent statement in Mayo concerning the funds that should and could be spent by national governments for the disabled.
I have a few points. Is it not rather odd that it takes until the end of the HELIOS programme before an assessment is made?
Could it not have been made to coincide with the ending of the HELIOS programme? Then perhaps, in a different form but with the emphasis on the same strategy, the HELIOS could be applied under a new name in the mainline programme which is to be announced by the Commission in the very near future as outlined by the Commissioner.
I would make the following suggestion.
It is fundamental in the allocation of structural funds or other major programmes that the amount of money available for the physically disabled should be identified.
(The President urged the speaker to conclude) I am sorry, Mr President, but I am sure you, unlike the Council, can allow a few moments for the disabled and less well-off in our society.
I thank the honourable Member for his interest in this matter.
I can assure him that it is a shared interest.
He will be aware that the programme runs out at the end of December.
The full evaluation will take place some months after that.
It was not possible of course to carry out the evaluation until the programme was finally completed.
I must tell Mr Killilea that we have an interim evaluation on the HELIOS II programme which was carried out by independent experts.
They highlighted a number of problems.
Consequently, I think it is much better that we have a really dedicated programme on the next occasion so as to take full advantage of that evaluation and the further details in the final evaluation.
As regards finance, the HELIOS II programme was designed to co-finance the exchange of ideas simultaneously right across the Union and so it nicely complements the European Social Fund which cofinances innovative action in the Member States.
I am trying to get a better understanding between the cofinancing for the international networks and the co-financing at Member State initiative level.
As you know, in the preliminary draft budget some ECU 6m has been allowed under heading B 34102 for 1997.
That is a proposal for the preliminary draft budget. It has been adopted by the Commission as a whole but it does not commit the budgetary authority.
The budgetary competence for non-compulsory expenditure rests with Parliament and it can take its own decision in that regard.
I am more confused now that I have heard the Commissioner than I was before. Could he answer some simple questions.
Is there going to be a comparable programme in the future?
Is disability a priority of the Commission?
Will there be continuity from the HELIOS II programme? It sounds to me as if HELIOS II is going to come to an end, the Commission is going to think about what it might do in the future and then it hopes the issue will disappear.
Is there going to be continuity?
Is it a priority of the Commission? Will there be comparable programmes in the future?
Let there be no confusion on this matter.
The question of disability and what can be done to help people with disabilities is of the highest priority for the Commission.
Let that be clearly understood by everybody.
It is certainly our intention to have another programme.
There will be continuity of understanding and consultation with the people with disabilities themselves.
We do not want to go into the next programme until we have completed evaluation of the existing one.
That is why we are taking some time to consider what is the best way forward and to get the best synergy possible.
It is the highest priority and because it is the highest priority we are not just allowing a follow-on of what has been done heretofore because some uncertainties have been identified in the interim report.
I also wish to join in the thanks to the Commissioner for his work in the area of disability and in particular to welcome his commitment to involve the NGOs in the area, especially the European Disability Forum.
He mentioned that it is a priority within the Commission. I think everybody accepts that as true.
In his discussions with the Italian presidency and the incoming Irish presidency, has he had any commitments from them that it will also be a priority for the Council?
Secondly, is it possible to remove the blockages which have been put in place because of dependence on Article 235 by Member States, particularly in programmes that relate directly to alleviating the poverty traps which disabled people have fallen into because of the lack of work at national level? If not, then what are the proposals from the Council - especially the incoming Irish presidency if it has any - with regard to implementing a new article to ensure that these social action programmes can be undertaken?
Firstly, I should confirm here that I have heard nothing to suggest that any less priority would be given to people with disabilities and to what can be done for them by either the Italian presidency or the incoming Irish presidency.
On the contrary, I have only heard very positive remarks at all times concerning what can be done.
There is the continuing situation with regard to Article 235, as the honourable Member has mentioned, and I have to say that Article 235 is the only possible legal base for the actions that are carried out under the current Helios programme.
The House knows very well the difficulty we have been having concerning some of the social programmes insofar as the use of Article 235 is concerned.
It should be stated here that the Council's Legal Service has confirmed the principle of using Article 235 to achieve Treaty objectives where there is no specific legal base.
We might also note that the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights made a similar recommendation when we talked about the programme for the elderly and that there was no other adequate legal alternative.
So I was perfectly satisfied that Article 235 is quite sufficient and proper in these circumstances.
You can rest assured that everything will be done to promote this matter as effectively as possible under the Irish presidency.
Question No 41 by Ivar Virgin (H-0412/96)
Subject: Closure of nuclear power plants in the EU on safety grounds
Have all nuclear reactors in the EU been fitted with pressure-reducing filter systems so that even major accidents do not pose risks to the public?
Do grounds exist for shutting down any reactor in the EU as a result of safety requirements not having been complied with?
Is there any safety-related evidence which is giving the Commission cause to consider recommending that a reactor be shut down in any country?
There are various kinds of safety measures, systems and procedures which are needed to limit the effect of a serious accident on the reactor shield, depending on the type of reactor and the national legislation in this sector.
Such measures are provided for at all the nuclear power plants in the Community where there could be a risk of excess pressure within the shield.
The national nuclear safety authorities ensure that the safety standards in their countries are complied with.
All those Member States with nuclear power plants also have qualified, independent nuclear safety authorities which issue operating licences and, if necessary, order plants to be shut down.
At present, the Commission therefore has no plans to recommend the closure of any nuclear power plants in the Community.
Thank you for your answer.
The background to my question is the fact that it was decided, in connection with the very intensive debate we had in Sweden at the beginning of the 1980s after the Harrisburg accident, to invest in safety measures of the kind I mentioned in my question, namely pressurereducing filter systems.
As the question undeniably is of more than national significance I believe it would be reasonable for the Commission to take an active interest in these issues.
I should therefore like to ask if the Commission actively supports plans to make this kind of safety investment in other countries.
My judgement of the matter is that, precisely as a result of these safety investments, the Swedish public have a confidence in nuclear power which they would not have had, or would have been unlikely to have, if the investments had not been made.
I agree with the questioner that it is important, when it comes to the development of nuclear power, that the population should have confidence in what is being done, and there is no doubt that safety measures play a very significant role.
The Commission therefore also supports the safety measures taken by the Member States.
The situation is that under the Euratom Treaty, the Commission does not have the authority to intervene and introduce common safety standards for the Member States, but through the various resolutions which have subsequently been adopted, we have been given scope for cooperating with them to secure mutual recognition of the various national standards.
This means that in many areas, a common stance has been formalized to some extent on these important safety-related matters.
Question No 42 by Anita Pollack (H-0448/96)
Subject: Potential trade war between Italy and the USA
What is the Commission doing about the USA threat to stop importing all fish products from Italy by 28 July unless Italy stops all illegal driftnetting?
On 28 March 1996, following a ruling by the United States Court of International Trade, the United States identified Italy as a country engaged in large-scale driftnet fishing in international waters.
As a result sanctions may be introduced against Italy.
The timing of US internal procedures allows 30 days from 28 March for consultations between the United States and Italy, with a further 90 days to reach agreement.
In the absence of agreement the United States has 45 days in which to apply sanctions, which would take the timetable of the procedure to early September.
The Commission sent a diplomatic démarche to the United States State Department on this issue, which states that the Community shares US concern over the incidental death or serious injury to marine mammals caught through drift-net fishing whether large-scale or not, but reiterates Community opposition to the extra-territorial application of US jurisdiction.
The Community also stresses that such unilateral trade sanctions contravene the basic principles of the WTO and the United States' obligations within that organization.
The Community reserves its rights under the WTO should such trade sanctions be introduced by the United States.
I thank the Commissioner for his fairly predictable reply.
I wonder if the Commissioner would have come to Parliament about this issue if we had not asked the question first?
We have about US$1 billion worth of products involved here, including jewellery and perfume as well as fish products.
We really need to know what the implications are for multilateral trade agreements.
Does the Commission think it might be useful to try to persuade Italy to stop using illegal drift-nets?
While we have EU rules which limit drift-nets to a maximum of 2.5 kilometres in length, is the Commission aware that the Italian swordfish fleet uses nets as long as 20 kilometres? Scientific studies show that less than 1/5 of the targeted species that are caught in the nets are actually used, while the rest of the catch is often thrown back dead.
So what is the Commission going to do to persuade Italy to put a stop to this very sorry state of affairs?
The Commission has started infringement procedures against Italy as provided for under Article 169 of the Treaty.
The issue will soon be raised again with the Italian authorities.
I hope that a satisfactory outcome can be achieved without delay.
If that is not the case, then the Commission will proceed with the case to the Court of Justice in the normal way.
As Mrs Pollack has already indicated, there is a clear risk to the Community fish market in connection with this issue, since the amounts at stake in a ban on the import of fish products into the United States would be in excess of PTA 100 000 million.
It should also be borne in mind that the same organization which brought this matter before the US Court of International Trade is also investigating the activities of the fishing fleets of other Member States using drift nets in the Atlantic.
Consequently, should not the Commission take this matter seriously and consider that the way to avoid these possible sanctions, which may have a serious impact on the Community fish market, is to ban the use of these nets, the illegal use of which may cause substantial damage to the entire Community fish market?
The position is that under United States' legislation, if the matter is not resolved, the United States would and could introduce sanctions against marine products from the Member State concerned, that is from Italy.
We do not regard that as justifiable for the reasons that I have given and reserve the right to take action in the World Trade Organization to deal with that situation should it arise, although it has not arisen.
I hope it will not arise because we also take the view that the action that has taken place is contrary to Community law and it is for exactly that reason that we have started infringement procedures against Italy.
I share the concern expressed about the infringement of the law and, therefore, I very much hope that the issue can be resolved by Italy causing the necessary action to be taken for the procedure not to need to go forward and therefore, of course, the United States' sanctions also not to proceed.
Question No 43 by Wolfgang Nußbaumer (H-0446/96)
Subject: Standards and regulations on certification
What is the Commission's assessment of the effect on competitiveness of the numerous and different standards and regulations on certification within the European Union and what measures does the Commission intend to take in this connection?
How does the Commission guarantee that a standard which does not meet the fundamental requirements provided for in directives, but which is referred to in the Official Journal, conforms to Community provisions?
Mr President, standards are in the first instance private norms, in that they are drawn up by standardization organizations but do not generally have a binding effect.
They can of course become binding if the Commission makes them mandatory and incorporates them into safety provisions, but that only happens in exceptional cases.
The existence of different private norms alongside one another is of course damaging, and that is why we set up the three standardization organizations CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, whose workload has increased substantially.
At first, the formulation of these European standards, which replace a multitude of national standards, made a slow start.
After all, every standard requires technical preparation.
More recently, however, these bodies have been working very effectively: over 1000 European standards per year are currently being produced, which means more than four standards every working day, and that is a considerable number in view of the sometimes difficult technical preparatory work.
It is not too many, though, because these standards do replace a whole multitude of national standards.
Cooperation with national standardization bodies is also very good.
The CE mark, which is not a quality standard, but simply confirms that a product meets the European standards, is being used increasingly, and is also having an impact on the certification procedures serving the needs of the internal market.
In principle, the standards drawn up by these organizations have no technical flaws, and this is ensured by the fact that they are checked by independent experts from outside these bodies.
However, should a standard exceptionally fail to meet the relevant basic requirements in full, it is withdrawn by the Commission, once its shortcomings have been noted and after the appropriate consultation procedure has been followed.
Thank you for your answer, Commissioner.
I am always being told that many SMEs are deterred from patenting their inventions by major procedural and, above all, financial obstacles put in their way by the relevant authorities.
How can the Commission encourage the Member States to reduce their red tape, thus removing the competitive disadvantages suffered by European firms, especially in relation to American and Japanese companies, and giving them an incentive to develop new processes and products?
First of all, to my mind, one must distinguish between standards and patents.
It is of course very much to the advantage of small and medium-sized firms to apply standards, so as to offset to some extent the disadvantages which they suffer in calls for tender because of their size.
In order to make smaller firms more aware of standards and facilitate their application, we are working closely with an association created by small and medium-sized enterprises, whose brief is to ensure that these standards are known and complied with during the production process.
I believe that, as a result, more and more small firms will begin to apply standards.
Patents are of course something quite different.
I do not know whether that was a slip of the tongue, because patents have nothing to do with standards.
Naturally, a patent must be registered in accordance with certain procedures.
This is done either nationally or through the European Patent Office, which is increasingly taking over the work of the national patent offices.
It is true that the fees charged are sometimes fairly high, which in the case of the European Patent Office - where we have a certain amount of influence - is due to the fact that the Office is funded entirely from these fees.
The European Parliament itself regards it as essential that such authorities and agencies should be funded out of their own revenue, and clearly this is a financial burden which we cannot reduce.
Commissioner, to what extent does European standardization go hand in hand with international standardization, given the fact that over 40 % of European standards have already been recognized internationally? Is it not our duty to respect not only the three standardization bodies in Europe, but also the worldwide standardization network, for example in the telecommunications sector?
The honourable Member is absolutely right.
What you say is indeed logical, and ideally standards would be applicable internationally.
In many sectors, we already have a global market, and you rightly mention telecommunications.
Together with the European standardization organizations, therefore, we are attempting to ensure that these standards apply worldwide.
In practice, there are two ways of doing this: the first is to participate in the work of the international standardization bodies which already exist.
Here we are more active than anyone else: for example, almost 80 % of the work leading to such international standards - and, incidentally, of the financial resources too - is provided by the European Union.
I myself would not have thought this massive percentage possible, but at a meeting with our American friends, who have always accused us of seeking to use our European standards as a form of protectionism, we looked into who does what in the international standardization bodies.
The Europeans carry out the bulk of this work.
Secondly, there is a method which is very effective once a standard has already made an impact on the market.
The best example of this is GSM, the technical standard for mobile communications.
Once such a standard has made its impact on the market, this impact spreads to the global market, and we hope that many of the standards which we are drawing up in this new sector - telecommunications - will have a global impact.
Question No 44 has been withdrawn.
Question No 45 by Allan Macartney (H-0336/96)
Subject: Commission policy and criteria with regard to the need for NGOs to have expatriate presence in the countries where they work
Many NGOs work through local organizations in developing countries, in recognition and support of the experience and capacity that exists in those countries.
In the past, the Commission has supported this approach and encouraged European development NGOs to work with local counterparts.
In the fields of food aid, rehabilitation and longer-term development, the Commission has on numerous occasions stressed the importance of civil society and private initiatives in developing countries.
Yet, on other occasions, Commission services have turned down applications by European development NGOs on the grounds that those organizations do not have sufficient expatriate presence in the country concerned.
What criteria do the Commission apply in determining whether there is a need for European NGOs to have an expatriate presence in a particular country?
What are the advantages for the Commission and for the NGO programmes of the use of expatriate European staff as opposed to staff of local organizations?
Does the Commission agree that, in the light of its discussions on the linkages between emergency aid, rehabilitation and long-term development, there is added value in strengthening local organizations by working through them?
Mr President, the Commission entirely agrees with Mr Macartney that it is important to strengthen local organizations and enhance their role in guaranteeing the linkages between emergency aid, rehabilitation and development.
The importance of this aspect was especially highlighted in the recent Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on this very issue.
Generally speaking, the Commission bears in mind, as far as possible, the need to strengthen and implicate local partners in the execution of the various financial instruments.
Against this background, as far as possible, NGOs must resort to local staffing, as mentioned in the very conditions of co-funding for executing structural development projects.
It is obvious that this approach must be adapted according to the specific aims of the different budget rubrics and in situ conditions.
When assessing requirements for an expatriate presence for a given project, the Commission bears in mind the objective of the given project, the country's logistic and technical capacity in terms of the planned action, the experience and financial management capacity of the beneficiaries.
As a result in emergency situations and/or during the rehabilitation stage in countries which have just undergone serious crises and whose political, economic and social structure has suffered profound upheaval, it may be necessary to resort to a greater expatriate presence than, for example, in normal development stages.
Resorting to expatriate aid workers is usually done so along with a unit of training staff to teach the local people so that the project's viability in the medium or long term can be guaranteed once the foreign staff have left.
I do not know whether to be reassured or otherwise by the Commissioner's response.
He seemed to be saying all the right things.
If I could just clarify it a bit, did I correctly understand him to say that, other things being equal, he would prefer to rely on local staff in NGOs rather than having Europeans acting to some extent as minders, which I take it could well be the perception? The reason I ask that is because, after many years of decolonization, there is still an impression in some countries that the European Union has not changed its basic mentality.
I hope I am wrong and perhaps he could confirm that I am wrong in that regard.
Let me reassure you that you are right in your concerns but wrong in your subsequent conjectures.
In fact, in 1995, of the 67 projects which we financed under the budget lines that are mainly concerned with rehabilitation and crisis management, only seven of those projects fell into the category to which you referred in your question, in which reinforcement of European personnel was required.
The reason was that the administration was in a shambles and it really was not possible to carry out some essential projects if we did not contribute some expertise of our own.
But the principle is that unless there is a local partner - we always try to be the main force in the project - we simply do not finance the European NGOs.
This is a very strong principle.
You will see that in the report we are presenting to the Council and Parliament at the beginning of next year that this is set out as one of our main objectives.
Thank you for the question because it is an important one.
Mr President, European Union aid to sub-Saharan Africa is comprised, as you know, of resources earmarked in the Union's budget and the European Development Fund which, as you know, too, is currently and against the will of the Commission not yet receiving European budget funding because of the Council's refusal.
The authorizations granted in the framework of the European Development Fund have continuously increased.
Under the VIth Fund the funding levels reached 7.5 billion ECU rising to 10.9 for the VIIth and 12.8 for the VIIIth.
In other words, the funding for the EDF has gone up by almost 20 %.
The share of g overseas aid taken up by the Fund has remained steady since 1991, around 45 % of all Community overseas aid.
This is important and especially so since of the 48 least developed countries identified by the UN, 40 of them belong to the ACP and are funded in terms of overseas aid by the European Development Fund.
As far as the Union budget is concerned, the importance attributed to the ACP countries and especially the poorest ones in the framework of aid and cooperation policies has likewise not gone down over recent years.
Indeed the Cannes summit set a share-out of aid among various geographical groups, namely the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, ACP countries, Asia, Latin America, the former Soviet Union and former Yugoslavia.
This share-out will remain in effect until 1999 and nothing suggests that it will be changed to the detriment of resources earmarked for the ACP countries.
European Union aid to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is indeed important and has steadily increased since 1990.
Resources for the Mediterranean region will also increase substantially given our new Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
But I should like to emphasize that none of this has bene to the detriment of the ACP countries.
I have given some figures but I should like to emphasize that translated into dollars, the currency usually used for development aid cooperation, the increase from the VIIth to the VIIIth EDF budget was almost 50 %.
When translated into local currencies - i.e. purchasing power on the ground - the increase is far greater than 50 %. In other words, ladies and gentlemen, I can say with some certainty that the number of projects which the European Union will be able to fund under the VIIIth EDF will probably will half as much again as those funded under the VIIth Fund.
I should like to thank you for your answer.
What you said was not unexpected, I must admit.
One of the reasons I asked the question is that the Swedish government has now decided to make cuts in aid in Sweden, partly on account of the EU aid programme.
I have examined EU aid with this in mind.
Even though I can agree with the Commissioner that in ready money the changes are not so large, it is clear that it is emergency aid which the European Union has agreed to which is also at the expense of more long-term development projects.
I therefore believe that my question still requires an answer.
Am I making a correct interpretation, does the Commission share it and if so, how does the Commission intend to work to improve things for the 20 poorest countries in the world today?
Overall public expenditure on aid by the international community has decreased over the last decade, not because the European Union and its Member States have decreased it - on the contrary, we have increased it - but because some of the major donors, namely the United States of America, have dramatically decreased their contribution and also because the Japanese, who were one of the major contributors, decided after the Kobe earthquake to reduce their aid commitment.
The second aspect which I would like to underline is that the multilateral approach is not a substitute for some of the bilateral approaches.
In that regard I have been urging Member States that we should coordinate our efforts and find ways of working together and that there should be no decrease in the bilateral effort which has been crucial in many countries and places for many different reasons.
The Nordic countries especially have set an example of very good cooperation, especially in ACP countries and through some of the best NGOs we have working in the ACP countries.
I therefore hope that Sweden, as one of the main countries that has pursued that policy, will continue to do so in future.
A second aspect concerns the poorest countries.
The Commission has decided that the funds provisionally earmarked for the next five years should allow for a greater increase for the poorest countries - the poorest of the poor.
Therefore we established a system that means that of the poorest countries no-one will get less than a 25 % increase in their EDF funding.
Most probably they will receive 50 % more in the five years to come as regards the EDF financial envelope. Why have we done this?
Among other reasons, because we have two tranches in EDF spending.
In principle the poorest countries will be less able to absorb it and therefore it will be the better off that will get some extra money in the distribution of the second tranche .
In creating this imbalance in favour of the poorest countries at the beginning, we have tried to make sure that the overall balance is not destroyed at the end of the next EDF.
Nowadays not only the quantity of resources available is crucial but also the coordination.
That is the reason why the Commission is now engaged in a very intensive coordination effort with Member States and other international donors, namely the World Bank which, as we know, is one of the main donors, and also United Nations agencies such as UNCTAD, UNIDO, UNICEF, FAO and others.
It is a deliberate policy which is already paying off.
I will be able to come back in September after a seminar we are holding with the World Bank to report on the common action that we have decided to undertake in order to maximize the resources available for assistance to the ACP countries.
Question No 47 by Graham Watson (H-0317/96)
Subject: Microsoft monopoly
Is the Commission aware that Microsoft is exploiting its monopolistic position in the computer software market to the detriment of European suppliers and users? Having secured around 80 % of the market in this sort of software, Microsoft enjoys an unrivalled domination in the sector.
According to the magazine 'Personal Computer World' , the computer software giant sells copies of Microsoft Office to US suppliers for only $80 whilst charging UK and presumably other European competitors £140, almost twice the US rate for exactly the same package.
High levels of demand for the Microsoft Office, which includes WORD wordprocessor and EXCEL spreadsheet, amongst consumers limits UK, and hence European, suppliers' competitive ability and diverts business to the US.
What action does the Commission intend to take to end such a blatant example of predatory pricing which clearly breaches the spirit of GATT negotiations?
The Commission shares the honourable Member's concern about the behaviour of dominant firms and we are particularly concerned where abusive behaviour by a dominant firm may be impairing the ability of its European customers to compete.
The extent to which Microsoft , which appears to be a dominant supplier, can charge different prices to different customers and other aspects of their licence contracts with computer manufacturers are currently being discussed with Microsoft 's management.
I am grateful for that information from the Commissioner that this is being discussed because this strikes me as a blatant example of predatory pricing which clearly breaches the spirit of the GATT negotiations.
If the allegations contained in the magazine, Personal Computer World , are true - they are certainly reported very bravely in view of the possible loss of advertising - they suggest that this practice is more wide-spread than it should be.
Indeed it is possible that this is not the only case of predatory pricing by this particular company.
I do not believe that there is any way in which we can prevent what is a very good product being the standard for office software in Europe.
All attempts to promote alternatives to it from Europe will probably be a waste of money because it is a very good product and very successful with consumers.
But pressure, adverse publicity and perhaps financial penalties for predatory pricing are more likely to be successful.
Any assurance that you can give the House that action could be taken if this is discovered to be true would be gratefully received.
As I said, we are discussing this with the management of Microsoft .
Before coming to conclusions one must be very much aware of the fact that first of all, the pricing information we have is of a confidential nature.
But on the other hand, we have already seen a range of licence fees. They are very different.
It is not appropriate to jump to a conclusion now.
I must be aware of very different situations which need to be looked into more closely.
On the other hand one should not forget, again before jumping to conclusions, that there are different fees for different services.
Comparing only two amounts if not good enough.
I want to stress that point.
Therefore please accept that I cannot be more specific today.
But I confirm that the Commission is discussing this with the necessary confidentiality and with determination to find out what is really happening.
Question No 48 by Pat Gallagher (H-0390/96)
Subject: Tendering procedures for mobile phone licences
With regard to the awarding of a second mobile phone licence in Ireland, can the Commission confirm the accuracy of the statement made by the Irish Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications in the Dáil Eireann on 22 November 1995 regarding the European Commission's involvement in the award of the second mobile phone licence, including the following comment by the Minister, ' A cap of £15 million was put on the licence fee in the context that Eircell would also pay £10 million. That led to the approval in advance of the selection process by the Commission' ?
What is the view of the Commission regarding the content of letters sent by the Irish Department of Transport and Energy and Communications, in June and on 5 July 1995 to the bidders for the second mobile phone licence process, to the effect that the EU and the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications had fixed a £15 million 'entrance fee' for the new operator?
To understand the involvement of the Commission in the Irish tender procedure, it is necessary to recall that the Commission opened a formal proceeding regarding the maintenance of the GSM monopoly in Ireland in May 1994.
On 8 March 1995 Minister Lowry confirmed that all the preparatory work for the opening up of the GSM market to competition was completed.
By letter of 27 April 1995 the Commission had to draw the attention of the minister to certain conditions of the call for tender which could appear to be discriminatory.
The main issue was the amount the applicants were invited to pay for the right to the licence under clause 19.
It was explained that such an option resulting in a fee which is only imposed on the second operator can significantly distort competition and favour the extension of the current dominant position of the incumbent telecommunications organization.
At the same time it was stressed by the Commission that it was not entirely clear from the competition documentation submitted by the Irish authorities whether Telecom Eireann which already offered its own GSM service would also have to pay the same amount as the new competitor.
The Commission letter also mentioned that such an initial payment would lead to higher tariffs to recoup the money paid thus rendering the mobile service less affordable and restricting consumer access to the market contrary to the objective behind Council Recommendation 87/378.
Subsequent to this letter, the representatives of the Irish Government during a bilateral meeting held in Brussels suggested to cap the initial payment and to impose a similar payment on Telecom Eireann.
The Commission considered that if such an approach were followed, together with additional measures such as the right to establish own infrastructure, there would be no grounds for further action under Article 90(1) in conjunction with Article 86 irrespective of the option fee imposed on the second operator.
The role of the Commission is not to choose a given approach but to ensure that the approach chosen is in conformity with the rules of the Treaty.
During these bilateral talks, the bidding procedure was suspended until the official confirmation of the Commission on 14 July 1995.
After that date the Commission was not involved in any of the subsequent stages of the selection process.
The Commission was not consulted on the letters of June and 5 July 1995 mentioned in the honourable Member's question.
I thank the Commissioner for his detailed reply.
I would say to him that there is concern in Ireland over the allocation of the second mobile phone licence. This is a key element in our telecommunications strategy.
There was confusion as to the role of the Commission and I am pleased that has been clarified by the Commissioner this afternoon in view of the correspondence from the Irish authorities indicating that the Commission was responsible for the delay in expediting the process.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if it is customary for the Commission to become involved in the capping of fees as was the impression given by the Irish authorities.
This evening's reply is important in the light of the political and media speculation in Ireland over the last few months.
Could he confirm if the Commission could be involved in any way in the delay in expediting the process?
Well, first of all let me recall that it is our policy to try to convince the governments not to impose a fee for a new operator.
But if a government does so - which was not only the case in Ireland, it was also the case in Belgium, Italy and Spain - then the Commission obviously asks the authorities to be even-handed and to impose the same fee on the incumbent operator, who is usually already on the market.
But that is the second-best choice because, at the end of the day, the consumer has to pay the bill.
Again, if the government chooses another approach, then it should be an even-handed one.
In the light of our remarks, the Irish Government was willing to cap the fee.
That was an attempt to limit - to put it in this way - the bill to be paid by the consumer, because our first concern is to have competition and by having competition also to serve the consumer best and to have the most attractive tariff.
Question No 49 by Anne Van Lancker (H-0392/96)
Subject: Implementation of the guidelines on aid to employment
On 12 December 1995 the Official Journal published the guidelines on aid to employment . These guidelines provide for a number of derogations from the rules of competition and the rules relating to state aid to firms for the benefit of certain groups of workers and unemployed persons who are difficult to place.
Can the Commission say to what extent Member States (and regions) have been availing themselves of these opportunities and announced or taken measures to support employment for specific categories of workers? Which Member States have done so?
Do firms in the social economy sector (such as those described in the Commission's communication on local initiatives ) and sheltered workshops qualify? Is the Commission considering an initiative aimed at encouraging the various authorities to take advantage of these measures?
My thanks to the Commissioner for his detailed reply.
It clearly proves that social principles can still be observed even when competition rules are applied, and I am very pleased to see it.
I think far too few people realize that this is possible.
I would just like to ask the Commissioner whether I can conclude from this that social clauses may be included in public invitations to tender, provided that they do not give an advantage to a particular firm, but simply seek to create opportunities for a particular social group which faces difficulties on the labour market?
I do not wish to give a specific answer on this, because I feel that it is something that should be dealt with by the Commissioner responsible for the internal market.
Clearly, we have no objection to governments providing aid for special categories of workers who have difficulties in accessing and staying on the labour market, or for bodies dealing with such workers, for example.
But where the measures affect competition and have a cross-border impact, then we naturally have to impose certain limits.
We try to interpret the concept of permitted state aid for employment as broadly as possible, provided that the governments or authorities are not trying to use this to gain an unfair advantage over one another.
One thing we do hope is that, as the White Paper recommends, we can gradually bring labour costs down - not what people actually earn, but the additional related costs, so that labour is less severely penalized than it is today.
Question No 50 by Jörn Svensson (H-0460/96)
Subject: Competition rules
A company called Danisco has a monopoly over the sugar market in Scandinavia.
It has decided to close down a profitable sugar refinery on the Swedish island of Gotland and is putting obstacles in the way of someone who is interested in taking over the refinery.
Current legislation does not prevent such tactics.
Does the Commission intend to take steps to tighten up the rules of competition so that such situations cannot arise?
Since the matter raised by the honourable Member has not been referred to the Commission under the EC competition rules and the Commission does not have all the relevant information at its disposal, it is not in a position to comment on the merits of the case as such.
In principle, the Commission would not, on the basis of the competition rules, oppose operations whereby a company, even in a dominant position on a national market, for reasons of restructuring aimed at rationalization of production, moves production from one production unit to another within this market.
This is happening every day.
Obviously, when a company in a dominant position is abusing its position, for instance, by behaving in such a way as to keep other competitors out of that market at any price or buying other companies to close them down to limit potential competition, there might be a problem.
But in this specific case we have not been received any specific complaint or any information.
Therefore, I cannot be more specific.
Mr President, thank you Commissioner for your answer, even though it was by its nature rather vague. We shall perhaps return to this question and I will then try to produce more concrete information on the case as such.
What we are talking about is in the first instance to all intents and purposes a monopoly; no sugar is sold in Sweden that does not come from this particular company.
I consider that this in itself is a situation which should call for steps to be taken.
Secondly, this company is preventing the establishment of an alternative on the island of Gotland, which is important from the point of view of regional policy and where the sugar industry plays a major role.
A small follow-up question: what attitude would the Commission adopt towards stricter Swedish legislation to prevent monopolistic behaviour in the sugar industry of the kind we are seeing today?
Since Sweden has only recently become a Member of the European Union, some of the problems which might arise and monopoly situations which are there have to be tolerated for the time being.
In this respect I would ask national competition authorities if necessary to perform their own function.
But if it is a question of a dominant company or monopoly abusing its position then that must be established.
You must have evidence to show that.
If you say that the company in question is trying to prevent another competitor from buying that company and wants to close it down in order to avoid competition and if you have the evidence, you can send this to the Commission or the competitor could file a complaint.
That is why we have competition rules and a competition authority which, as you know, is the Commission.
As long as we do not have a complaint and as long as there is no evidence, the honourable Member will understand that the Commission has no reason to act.
Question No 51 by Mikko Rönnholm (H-0493/96)
Subject: Business concentrations in Finland
Finland is in a strange position at present as regards competition policy: banking and insurance activities and the retail trade have been concentrated in the 1990s into ever fewer hands.
In 1991 the market share of the two largest banks taken together was 55 %, whereas in 1995 it was almost 80 %.
The corresponding figures for the retail trade were some 60 % in 1985 and nearly 90 % in 1995.
The emergence of business concentrations particularly since Finland's membership of the EU is causing surprise among Finns, because it results in rising costs and a falling level of services.
Does the Commission regard the current competition situation in Finland as contrary to the Union's competition policy, and if so, what has the Commission done and what does it propose doing to remedy this situation and prevent the wrong picture being given in Finland of the effects of EU membership?
It is not surprising that when countries join a big single market such as the one we have there is also a movement of concentration, mergers and acquisition.
This is part of the game and is happening every day everywhere in Europe.
Obviously, and fortunately I would say, there are rules of the game.
We have had the merger regulation since 1989.
In the most important cases the Commission has the exclusive right to vet the mergers and the acquisitions.
By the way, since 1988 we have had to vet more than 400 cases of big mergers and acquisitions.
Everyone would agree that it has been a rather successful policy and in several cases we had to impose conditions on such mergers and acquisitions.
In Finland there was the merger between Kymmene and Repola .
We imposed some conditions on that.
In some other cases the Commission went as far as giving a red light and did not allow a merger or acquisition to go ahead.
That is the rule of the game.
The basic rule is that acquiring a dominant position by merger or by acquisition is not allowed.
This is a real guarantee against too big mergers and certainly against the creation of dominant positions by means of mergers and acquisitions.
I should also tell you that we have another instrument, namely Article 86.
No-one should point the finger at a company which acquires a dominant position by virtue of its own strength rather than by merger or acquisition.
But if it is abusing that position, the Commission can act and possibly impose heavy fines and this occasionally has been done.
We have rules and if there are cases which the Commission should know about or where competitors think they have a case, they should file complaints with the Commission.
Not that I am asking for extra work.
Last year there was an increase of one-third in the number of cases, more than 30 % of the number of cases in the competition field, and this was only partly because of enlargement.
Mr President, as pointed out in my question, the situation looks serious to the Finns, since the business concentration in question has taken place since we joined the Union.
I would therefore once more request the Commission to underline the importance of competition, and to make its opinion known on the present situation, where acquisitions in the retail trade clearly have been made at a price considerably higher than the market price. This, I believe, demonstrates that it is a question of preventing competition, and not of rationalization or any other radical restructuring.
Let me just say one thing.
First of all, as you probably already know, the Commission wants to reduce the thresholds for the implementation of the merger regulation, because we are only competent with regard to big mergers, that means beyond ECU 5 billion for the companies concerned, which is really a large amount of money.
We would like to reduce that threshold to ECU 2 bn, which would already give more scope for the Commission to look into that kind of merger.
This might well apply in the case of Finland.
There is the so-called Dutch clause - Article 22 of the merger regulation - which allows national authorities to take a case before the Commission even if the figure does not reach the threshold.
So the government can send a case to us and the Commission will scrutinize it and if appropriate take a decision.
So it is already possible for a national government to take that step.
Although this clause is rarely used, it could well be used very soon in Finland, if I am well informed.
I cannot be more specific but as far as I know the Finnish authorities are rather in favour of that kind of cooperation.
Question No 56 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0422/96)
Subject: Tobacco farming in the EU
What prospects does the Commissioner for agriculture envisage for tobacco farming in the EU in general and in Spain in particular?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can tell the honourable Member that, as provided for in the basic Council regulation on tobacco, the Commission will shortly be presenting a proposal on the future tobacco regime, to apply from the 1998 harvest onwards.
The reform of the tobacco sector, carried out in 1992, will be reviewed at the same time.
This review is not yet complete, and I therefore regret that at present, I am unable to make any detailed comments.
With regard to Spain, however, I would make the point that, as in other less-favoured regions of the European Union, tobacco growing represents practically the only source of income for many small farmers there.
Your answer was not a very specific one, Commissioner.
However, I am grateful for the information you have given us concerning tobacco farming in the European Union in general, and in Spain in particular.
I had hoped that this question would provide an opportunity to set out some specific guidelines for the future for the many small tobacco farmers in southern Europe - Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal - and, more specifically, in the north of the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, which is the area that I am familiar with on a daily basis.
You will be aware, Commissioner, that these farmers and their families are concerned for their future, since tobacco farming is an activity of great social importance which creates and supports a large number of jobs in the regions concerned.
And I am sure that it is quite clear to the Commissioner that what must never occur is a drastic reduction in tobacco farming without prior provision for farming of an alternative, substitute crop with the same characteristics in terms of socio-economic benefits.
This consideration must be taken into account, I believe, in the proposals for 1998, to which the Commissioner has just referred.
Since the honourable Member is well acquainted with the procedure in the House, you will know that - once the Commission has completed its report - there will obviously be an opportunity for Parliament to discuss the issues you have raised.
I am well aware how important tobacco growing is for many small farmers in the European Union.
According to our estimates, some 400 000 jobs throughout the Union depend on it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question is now being put the other way round, as it were.
The questioner asserts that aid for tobacco growing leads to an increase in smoking, thereby compounding the health risks.
But if you look at the state of the international market in tobacco, you will note that all that would increase, if the European Union were to discontinue its aid for tobacco growing, is imports on the one hand and unemployment on the other.
People would be unlikely to smoke either more or less.
After all, we do not subsidize the cost of cigarettes or cigars or any other smoking materials; all we try to do is enable European tobacco growers to operate cultivation methods and structures which can keep pace with world market prices for tobacco.
Thank you for your answer, Mr Fischler.
In view of the damage which tobacco causes and the health programmes run by both the Union and the individual Member States it is of the utmost importance that we should reduce smoking.
There is naturally a conflict here and this is why I asked my second question about whether the Commission has any proposals on how to change production over from tobacco cultivation to the cultivation of some product which is more humane and more geared to good health.
This is the answer I was really after in that the question you answered earlier mentioned that a great many small farmers continue to cultivate tobacco.
How does the Commission intend to deal with this problem and find a new crop for these small farmers to grow?
I would repeat that even if we were to give these small farmers an opportunity to grow different crops, that is no reason to expect people in Europe to smoke less.
The two things are completely separate, and must be kept apart.
In any event, I think it would be premature to hold a detailed discussion today.
I can assure you that our report, soon to be presented, will also ask what would happen if aid for tobacco growing were discontinued, so that you too will be able to assess the likely results and consequences of such an option.
Some Members of the House - including the last questioner - have drawn attention to the importance of retaining this aid and preserving jobs in tobacco growing.
We shall be able to discuss this with one another.
Commissioner, I must say that I tend to take Mr Holm's line and I am glad that he has tabled the question, because it is the inconsistency of Community expenditure that worries many of us in this House.
When I last looked at this issue, I discovered that 80 % of the value of the product is in fact Community subsidy to tobacco growers - 80 % - and that is not very helpful.
The annual payment that some of the tobacco growers get is, in fact, more than the value of the land that tobacco is grown on.
So, again, there is a huge inconsistency in what the Commission is trying to achieve.
I tend to agree with alternative production, but some of these growers are very small growers indeed.
Therefore, Commissioner, I would like to suggest to you that what we should do to try and get consistency in Community expenditure is, in fact, to decouple the payment from the product.
I have a good deal of sympathy for what you say, but you should realize that you have at the same time given evidence of the fact that tobacco cannot be grown profitably in the European Union without subsidies.
So a decision has to be made: either not to provide aid, but that then means no tobacco growing; or to keep the door open for tobacco growing, and that can only be done by granting aid.
As to whether aid to tobacco growers is currently being provided in the best possible way, that is open to discussion, and will likewise be addressed in my report.
I therefore do not wish to embark on a full discussion here and now.
I wish to point out that subsidies for tobacco production not only go to the very poorest Members of the European Union but also to countries like France, Germany and Austria, which have among the highest income per head within the Union.
Surely we should not be subsidizing very rich countries to produce what you have just said is a very unprofitable crop when there is absolutely no economic reason for doing so?
We should do away with that completely and help, through structural funds, those countries where there is a real economic problem and help them to develop alternative crops.
Mrs Hardstaff, with the best will in the world, I cannot go along with your assertion that there are simply poor countries with poor farmers, and then rich countries with rich farmers who are not deserving of support.
Unfortunately, because of the structures which exist - even in the country with the best structures in the European Union, namely the United Kingdom - some farmers are experiencing real income problems.
It cannot, I am afraid, be inferred from the fact there are many wealthy farmers in the UK that those who do have problems there deserve no support.
We cannot discuss the matter on this basis.
Question No 58 by Gerard Collins (H-0427/96)
Subject: Emergency aid for Nyre Valley sheep farmers
Has the Commission been made aware of the freak snow storms in the Nyre Valley, Co. Waterford, Ireland last March which resulted in large scale losses of sheep and has the Commission been requested by the Irish Government to make emergency aid available to the Nyre Valley farmers?
Will the Commission now bring forward proposals to aid the many farmers who have had to endure large scale losses as a result of the abnormal weather conditions?
Mr President, the Commission is aware of the difficulties referred to in the question, which were caused by this snow storm and the freak weather conditions in the Nyre Valley in Ireland.
However, I can tell you that the Irish authorities have not sought assistance from the Commission.
The reason is very simple: as you know, the Community is not responsible for disaster relief and protection, which is the responsibility of the Member States. Support measures or emergency aid in the case of adversities caused by the weather can therefore only be provided at national level.
As the author is not present Question No 59 lapses.
Question No 60 by Christine Crawley (H-0453/96)
Subject: Job losses in agricultural industries
What does the Commission estimate is the number of jobs lost and under threat in the European Union, in agriculture-related industries as a result of the BSE crisis and subsequent export bans? What mechanisms for monitoring the effect on jobs has the Commission put into place, and what support will the Commission be making available to those people and industries affected by the BSE crisis?
The Commission has no precise statistics on how many jobs have been lost, or are at risk, in the processing industry, in slaughterhouses or in the cattle trade, as a result of the BSE crisis.
We do not possess such information.
It goes without saying, however, that the Commission is well aware of the problems and has begun to consider how they can best be minimized.
One of the most important short-term measures which we have taken in this context is of course intervention.
If, with the aid of intervention, we can compensate to some extent for the current slackness of the market and hasten a return to more normal market conditions, then that is the best thing we can do for those employed in this sector.
Over and above that, to my mind, it is chiefly a matter of seeking to adopt longer-term confidence-building measures to boost the consumption of beef.
Here the Commission is of course trying to help find solutions to overcome these serious difficulties and to restore consumer confidence.
Also of relevance in this context - and this has major implications in terms of employment - are the measures agreed for animals over 30 months old which have recently been put into effect in the United Kingdom.
The same applies to the measures, still to be agreed, which are intended to accelerate the eradication of the BSE disease.
I believe that all these measures, taken together, do provide some relief in these difficult circumstances.
I thank the Commissioner for his answer.
I find it disappointing given the scale of the crisis that we have with BSE that the Commission has not yet asked for figures or started to look at the monitoring of the situation as far as jobs are concerned beyond the measures that the Commissioner has spoken about such as intervention and confidence-building.
It is the Commission's responsibility to produce an annual employment report in the European Union and therefore I would suggest that it is very important that the Commission actually starts some scheme of monitoring the jobs and the sectors that are under threat in this crisis.
I know anecdotally, as an individual Member of the European Parliament, that there are thousands of jobs under threat across the European Union because of the BSE crisis, not only in my own constituency, but in many of the European Union countries outside the United Kingdom.
So I believe that it is important for the Commission to take this very seriously.
I would ask what steps the Commission intends to take to ask for figures from the Member States on the threat to jobs and jobs that have already disappeared because of the BSE crisis?
Perhaps I might add that certain programmes are being implemented on a continuing basis: there are, for example, the Structural Fund resources, which can be used to assist Objective 5b or 5a areas, and which could be applied to support the restructuring of the rendering industry in the United Kingdom, for instance, or to promote investment.
Other initiatives can also be taken under the Objective 3 and Objective 4 measures; these offer very specific support.
With statistics alone, we cannot help anyone.
However, if you think it important to have precise figures on the employment situation in this sector, I shall gladly pass the matter on to my colleague Mr Flynn, who is the Commissioner responsible.
We could perhaps carry out a detailed survey, or else obtain information from the UK authorities.
Mrs Crawley's question was about people in associated industries, the people who lost their jobs as a result of the ban, who work in the road haulage industry, the slaughterhouses, the meat-processing industry.
I asked the Scottish Office if there are any programmes we can use to help, for example Objective 5(a) or Objective 5(b).
The Earl of Lindsay tells me that there are quite insurmountable obstacles in using EC structural funds.
There are detailed legal obligations which cover these measures and it is not possible to set aside these provisions.
But Objective 5(a) concerns grants for marketing and processing of agricultural products.
If people are prevented from marketing or processing agricultural products, could we not use Objective 5(a) funds to assist them with this particular problem that we have at the moment?
I think we actually need to look at the scale of what is involved here.
If you think that intervention costs are lower, I would point out that across the EU, the total amount in intervention has reached 150 000 tonnes.
The cost of intervention for 100 000 tonnes is ECU 240 million.
This means that we have already spent ECU 360 m on these measures alone, to enable the animals to be slaughtered immediately, because ultimately this boosts employment in slaughterhouses.
If they are then stored in refrigerated warehouses, people are employed there too, and so on.
If you now consider that an additional 25 000 animals per week are currently being slaughtered, under the provisions on animals over 30 months old, you will get some idea of the effect this is having on employment.
I therefore believe that these large-scale measures are in fact the most important contribution in terms of employment.
Moreover, I would draw your attention to the fact that the volume of turnover is significantly greater in the United Kingdom than in many other Member States.
Although prices to farmers are low, the turnover of slaughterhouses is higher than in other Member States.
The question of employment can certainly not be seen merely in the UK context.
I should like to come back to Objective 5(a) and particularly budget line 886.
I understand that from the period from 1994 to 1999, ECU 226.487 million were available to the UK to use for marketing and processing.
In fact I understand that the UK Government is only wanting ECU 51 million of that, therefore not taking up ECU 175.304 million.
For me that is a massive dimension of funding which could very well be invested in the UK economy to help those people in the industry.
If you were to have a request from the UK Government to reinstate that ECU 175 million to use to solve the crisis and help the workers in the industry, would you be prepared to look at that favourably and would you be prepared to released those monies to the UK?
The figures which you have given tally exactly with my own figures.
It goes without saying that the Commission is prepared to take decisions on measures under any directive, but we do need a request from the government responsible.
As you will see from the footnote, the Commission has asked if we could take Question No 94 from Mrs Crepaz on basic foodstuffs - consumer protection.
Question No 94 by Irene Crepaz (H-0465/96/rev. 1)
Subject: Basic foodstuffs - consumer protection
Which final products are directly or indirectly affected by the lifting of the ban on gelatine, tallow and bull semen?
What measures have been taken to inform and protect consumers (certificates, labelling, information campaigns)?
What is the Commission's attitude to the statement made in the context of the BSE crisis that producers of basic foodstuffs should take responsibility for these?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to bull semen, the final products covered by Decision 96/362 include products containing gelatine and tallow, which in the United Kingdom are manufactured strictly in accordance with the requirements of that decision.
Under the decision, the raw material used to manufacture these products must originate from cattle under 30 months old that are not infected with BSE or suspected of infection.
In addition, only tissue from types of raw material in which the virus has never been detected may be used.
The raw material must be processed under veterinary supervision and in accordance with the procedures laid down in the annex to the decision, whereby an independent laboratory must certify that any infectious residue which may have been present in the original materials has been rendered inactive.
The products listed in the annex must be labelled, or otherwise marked, with details of the manufacturer and the manufacturing process, and must bear a certificate of fitness for consumption issued by a veterinary official.
The composition of the final products is visible to the consumer from the list of ingredients, which must appear on the label pursuant to Directive 79/112 on the labelling of foodstuffs.
The Commission will consider the question of extending the rules on product liability to primary producers in the context of its current work on preparing a green paper on food legislation.
Thank you for your comprehensive reply, Commissioner.
I just have a brief supplementary question.
The health of consumers really should be our overriding concern, and with regard to final products we now know, for example, that gelatine is contained in cake glazes and in jelly-babies, which are so popular with children.
Can you assure me, with a clear conscience, that these do not contain any pathogens, and that they represent absolutely no health risk to consumers? And with regard to bull semen, can you state with a clear conscience that no disease can be transmitted through it?
In reply to your last question concerning bull semen, I can say the following: we based our decision on the view of the experts on the Scientific Veterinary Committee, according to whom there is no risk associated with bull semen.
As far as gelatine and tallow are concerned, perhaps I might describe the present situation once again: firstly, we asked the scientists to define a procedure which ensures that any possible trace of the BSE virus is inactivated, in other words destroyed.
Secondly, we have stipulated that every manufacturer of gelatine and tallow in the United Kingdom must obtain a licence from the British Government.
Thirdly, we have ensured that only certain specific products may be used to manufacture gelatine and tallow, namely those which I have already described.
Only such tissue may be used.
Fourth, the British Government is obliged to inform the Commission as soon as it awards a licence to an industrial company.
Fifth, the Commission carries out an inspection in the UK - and invites all the other Member States to join it - and only once all these matters have been resolved to our satisfaction will the Commission formally decide that a particular British company may once again place gelatine or tallow on the market.
Even then, every consignment must be accompanied by a certificate from the veterinary official, stating that all the rules have been complied with during the production process, and indicating the frequency of inspections carried out in that company by the veterinary official.
In effect, this means that we now have a blueprint for the future, and it is now up to the British Government - and of course the industry in Britain - to see how rapidly they can adapt their procedures so as to meet the requirements for safe production and enable these inspections to be carried out.
No one can say at present when exports of gelatine will in fact be resumed.
Question No 61 by Roy Perry (H-0474/96)
Subject: BSE
The significant difference between the large number of cases of BSE in the United Kingdom and the declared cases of BSE in other Member States has been partly attributed to the United Kingdom's greater vigilance and understanding of this disease.
BSE has only recently become a notifiable disease, and it is evident that this disease has not been as closely monitored in other Member States in comparison with the United Kingdom.
Does the Commission consider the statistical evidence of BSE to be both accurate and equivalent for all Member States, and has it set up a mechanism whereby cases of BSE can be accurately monitored and confirmed throughout the EU?
Mr President, according to the latest information, the most likely cause of the BSE epidemic is the feeding of cattle with meat and bone meal derived from processed materials containing sheep carcasses affected by scrapie.
The unusually high incidence of BSE in the United Kingdom, compared with the other Member States, can be attributed to various factors.
A risk assessment of these factors has revealed that the circumstances which can cause such a high incidence of the disease, and also a high prevalence of scrapie - a change in the method of processing carcasses and a high proportion of meat and bone meal in feed - exist to this extent only in the UK.
BSE became a notifiable disease throughout the Community under Decision 90/130/EEC, in the context of Council Directive 89/894.
Commission Decision 94/474/EC stipulates that where carcass inspections reveal clinical signs of BSE, such animals must be confiscated and their brains examined for BSE.
The Commission has arranged training courses for national experts on issues relating to the detection of BSE, so as to ensure that all the Member States are adequately equipped to diagnose it.
The Scientific Veterinary Committee, having examined the question of disease monitoring by means of sample checks, concluded that such a procedure would be unlikely to contribute significantly to detection of the small amounts of the BSE virus which might exist in the Member States.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply but I have to say that farmers in my constituency say to me they have grave doubts about the validity of statistics in other countries of the European Union which are very low compared with the United Kingdom.
Only this weekend there are reports from scientists in such places as the Dutch Institute of Science and Health and Tübingen University, which throw grave doubts on the figures coming from other European countries.
Between 1985 and 1989 57, 000 cattle from the United Kingdom were exported to countries in the European Union.
Had they remained in Britain those scientists would have expected something like 1, 600 cases of BSE to be declared.
In reality only 30 cases have been declared and I repeat the question: does the Commission have any system at all for monitoring and validating the statistics that are coming from these other countries? Has he any comments on these reports now coming from European scientific foundations?
Mr President, the Commission keeps the scientists informed continuously both of the detailed statistics and the most recent history of the disease, and frequent discussions also take place in meetings of the BSE subcommittee of the Scientific Veterinary Committee.
The fact that, to date, 99 % of cases have occurred in the United Kingdom and only around one per cent in all the other countries of the world is not attributable to other countries being less meticulous as regards the obligation to notify the disease.
This disease is notifiable in all countries, and we can therefore assume that the Member States are fulfilling their responsibilities in this respect.
It would also be very useful in future - although a good deal of research is still needed - if we could find out not just after an animal has been stricken with BSE that the sickness has occurred, but could also test for the disease, as it were.
That is why I have asked the so-called Weissmann Group to propose some research projects, so that such tests might become a reality as soon as possible.
That would considerably facilitate the handling of this disease.
That concludes Question Time.
Questions not taken for lack of time will be answered in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.27 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Practice of the profession of lawyer (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0146/96) by Mrs Fontaine, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive (COM(94)0572 - C4-0125/95-94/0299(COD)) to facilitate practice of the profession of lawyer on a permanent basis in a Member State other than that in which the qualification was obtained.
Mr President, the draft directive which is the subject of this debate has two objectives: on the one hand, to give effect to the freedom of establishment of lawyers within the European Union by means of a specific directive; and, on the other, to facilitate the participation of legal experts in crossborder commercial operations in which, by virtue of the very nature of the internal market, international, Community and national legislation are increasingly overlapping.
There is no reason why these two objectives should conflict, but nor are they are necessarily complementary, as this draft directive makes clear.
Indeed, certain safeguards built into the draft directive, and which can be seen as an attempt to ensure expert advice in cross-border operations, do themselves represent obstacles to the freedom of establishment, such as the restriction of the practice period and the retention of aptitude tests.
These restrictions, if applied, would give rise to different conditions for the practice of the profession in a host Member State for migrant lawyers and lawyers who are nationals of that Member State, and this would obviously be a violation of the right of establishment, which is based on the principle of equal conditions.
Certainly, it is not all negative.
The draft directive has some positive aspects which I have no difficulty in recognizing, such as the satisfactory solution to the question of professional and ethical rules; the establishment of the possibility of group practice; and the completion, in spite of the restrictions I have referred to, of the Community legal framework for the freedom of establishment of lawyers.
However, the amendments proposed by the rapporteur - which, as she herself said, are the product of a compromise - markedly improve the draft directive, especially those aimed at guaranteeing the right to maintain more than one place of work within the Community, strengthening consumer protection and safeguarding the independence of the legal profession and the right to practise independently.
Finally, I am obliged to say that we should have taken liberalization much further and deleted all references to temporal restrictions, including the requirement of three years' regular pursuit of an activity involving the law, which I regard as a lesser evil.
In these restrictions, certain features of the type of corporatism which I reject survive, although a reasonable effort to achieve a compromise has been made. Naturally, on behalf of my group, I support that effort.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her clear and effective treatment of this second version of the proposal for a 'lawyers' directive.
Indeed, whilst this draft directive complements its predecessor from 1977, which was restricted to liberalizing the provision of services, there was a substantial risk of seeing this project becoming bogged down in the quagmire of national preference.
The various players involved - the Commission, the Consultative Committee of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Community and Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - quickly realized that the success of this codification proposal depended on their joint agreement.
The painful birth of the 'pharmacists' and 'dentists' directives, which took 16 and 17 years respectively to adopt, provided an example to avoid.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance welcomes the outcome of the vote in the Committee on Legal Affairs, which improves the proposal for a directive of 21 October 1994.
We support the replacement of the aptitude test with a fair and equitable procedure for assessing the professional competence of migrant lawyers.
We welcome the consensus achieved with a view to protecting lawyers' interests in the case of the establishment of multi-disciplinary practices.
We support the provision allowing migrant lawyers to practise under the professional title of the host Member State after practising their profession effectively and regularly for at least three years.
On the other hand, perhaps - and I stress perhaps - the provision enabling migrant lawyers to practise under the home-country professional title for an unlimited period of time ought to be questioned.
And perhaps the committee's recognition of a hybrid status of established free service provider should be questioned too.
While the ARE Group might wish to see a smoother process of integration from Community to national level, it can only endorse this report, which is the product of a consensus.
It deals with the interests of the profession of lawyer and, above all, the interests of European citizens subject to the law.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the peculiarities of the British legal system, with the division of the legal profession into solicitors and barristers, and the peculiarities of the Romano-Germanic legal systems which apply in the majority of the other Member States, have too often resulted in a total lack of reciprocity in the freedom of lawyers to exercise their profession in another Member State.
Mrs Fontaine's report concerns the interests of the legal profession as a whole.
It deals in particular with the question of the right of migrant lawyers to practise their profession permanently under their home-country professional title in another Member State.
The National Front and the Group of the European Right support the original position of the French bar, which was in favour of the automatic integration of migrant lawyers into the host-country bar and the adoption of the host-country professional title following a period of practice in that country.
Like many lawyers in France and other Member States, we have reservations as regards the possibility of practising permanently under the home-country professional title, without any limit of time.
And like the French bar, we are opposed to the absence of genuine controls and restrictions on the activities of migrant lawyers in host Member States.
We also wish to protect the interests of citizens subject to the law, and we are calling for genuine and de facto equal treatment of lawyers registered in France, for example, and migrant lawyers.
In particular, fiscal and public service constraints must not be a burden on host-country lawyers alone.
The French bar expressed its opposition to the first draft of this report, which it considered to be prejudicial to the profession.
Mrs Fontaine and her colleagues in the Legal Affairs Committee have finally drawn up a compromise text.
We pay tribute to the rapporteur's considerable efforts, but we are not entirely satisfied with the resulting text, in which, against all the odds and with a great deal of perseverance, she has managed to combine a variety of points of view.
It is for this reason that we are reserving our position on the report and the draft directive.
Mr President, the draft directive on the practice of the profession of lawyer is the outcome of fruitful cooperation between the Commission, Parliament and the profession concerned, aimed at achieving a balanced text which effectively ensures the freedom of establishment, whilst retaining certain essential safeguards.
Following the adoption of the general directive on the mutual recognition of qualifications, the bars of Europe - with the exception of the Luxembourg bar, which bowed out from the start - took the view that there was a need for a specific directive to give full effect to the 1988 directive, and not to restrict its scope, as Mr Wijsenbeek seems to believe, if I understood him correctly.
The profession, as represented by the Consultative Committee of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Community, worked hard on this project for a number of years.
The CCBE made sufficient progress to convince the Commission of the need to submit a proposal for a directive, but not to achieve the very broad consensus necessary for the adoption of the text.
We undoubtedly owe it to the authority, patience and persistence of Mrs Fontaine that it was possible for the profession and the European Parliament to overcome the remaining obstacles and reach agreement on the text submitted to us.
I should like to make two comments concerning this text.
Firstly, the debate has understandably centred on the remaining obstacles: aptitude tests, and the right to practise under the home-country professional title.
However, this should not lead us to forget the other important provisions of the text.
I am thinking in particular of those concerning joint practice, which should enable our bars to compete on an equal footing with large-scale United States and Japanese practices, which have never needed directives in order to cream off the legal market in Europe by playing on our divisions.
My second comment concerns the particular question of the right to practise under the home-country professional title, an issue on which, as was pointed out a few moments ago, the French bar is especially sensitive.
I believe that the proposed text gives the necessary assurances.
It clearly makes migrant lawyers practising under their home-country title subject to the regulations, codes of conduct and disciplines of the bars of host Member States.
Lastly, Amendment No 35, which provides a useful clarification of the integration mechanism that is being established, will meet the expectations expressed by a number of bars, including in particular the Paris bar.
It now remains for the Council to put the finishing touches to the text, with the help of Mr Monti.
Is it being overoptimistic to hope that it will do so quickly? The adoption of this directive has been dragging on for some ten years now - if not for the 17 or 18 years of other directives.
In any event, it is undoubtedly desirable to consolidate the consensus which has been achieved on Mrs Fontaine's report without delay.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive which we are discussing today is undoubtedly one of those measures which, to paraphrase Robert Schuman, strengthen the building of Europe.
And this measure, like so many others, bears the hallmark of men and women who have proved capable of overcoming national fears and prejudices in the interests of a European vision of Europe, as Carl J. Friedrich says in his book 'Europa: Das Entstehen einer Nation' .
Besides your own name, Commissioner - and I wish to echo the praise of previous speakers - that of the rapporteur, Nicole Fontaine, a French and European lawyer, whose good offices will for ever be associated with this directive, stands out on this list.
And I should also like to place on record, in the report of Parliament's proceedings, the efforts of another lawyer, this time European and German - Hans Weil, who from his position as chairman of the CCBE, the legal profession's representative body in the European Union, illuminated the debate with his intellectual honesty and rigour.
Tomorrow's vote will therefore have the particular importance of setting out the future of Europe's legal profession.
At the same time, however, it will be of general importance, since the issue under discussion goes beyond the strictly professional domain to encompass European society as a whole, and to encompass the citizens whom this Parliament represents - because indeed, we lawyers are the 'voices of the law' , to use the fortunate expression coined by Alfonso X, Spanish and European king, in his compilation of the laws of Castile.
The debate on this directive in committee brought to the surface the most obscure national fears and the most deep-seated mistrust between those of us who are called upon to pursue this common project of social, cultural and political integration, based on the rule of law.
In the face of such mean-spirited and short-sighted attitudes, the Committee on Legal Affairs, led by the rapporteur, has managed to achieve through the amendments a comprehensive solution which is both prudent and courageous - as Mr Rothley rightly pointed out - and which I am sure will receive the overwhelming support of the House tomorrow.
For let no one doubt the fact: European integration must be based on the rule of law.
Europe will be a Community of law, or it will be nothing - in other words, it will rapidly return to being what, strictly speaking, it has never ceased to be: a single market governed by the prevailing economic forces.
Europe will be a Community of law, or it will be nothing.
And this project will only be consolidated if professionals in the legal arts, especially lawyers, become aware of their social function and prove capable of rising above the particularities of national legal systems, to build Europe on the acquis communautaire represented by the general principles of the law, as refined by our legal history and embodied in the Union's founding treaties.
For if lawyers are not capable of ensuring that the general takes precedence over the particular, of emphasizing that which unites over that which divides, can we realistically expect this attitude from those who are not specialists in the law, which is the art of integration par excellence ? Lawyers must prove capable of recognizing the fact that the principle which ultimately governs acceptance of a case is the ethical obligation not to participate in a lawsuit, not to give advice, without sufficient knowledge.
And this rule requires a Spanish lawyer, for example, not to take part in a case involving the statutory provisions of a Catalan will, although his professional title formally permits him to do so, in exactly the same way as it requires him not to participate in a case involving German inheritance law.
It should not be forgotten that what prevents him from taking part in these cases is the responsibility imposed by his professional code of conduct not to participate without sufficient technical knowledge.
I am coming to the end, Mr President.
I referred to the social function of lawyers.
The legal profession is faced with the exciting challenge of combining the inevitably commercial aspects of the practice of the law with its social function.
Because its ultimate raison d'être , beyond any other consideration, is to defend our citizens, our fundamental rights and public freedoms, and the spiritual heritage which constitutes the foundations of European civilization.
Clearly, the creation of an area of freedom and security is everyone's joint task.
But lawyers will play a particularly important role in this respect.
As the voices of the law, they must speak out clearly and firmly in defence of the law and justice, and in defence of Europe, in order to ensure that the European Union provides a reference point and an incentive in a world of turmoil.
Mr President, following a virtually unanimous request put forward by lawyers, the Commission has presented a proposal for a directive, which we are now discussing.
The general directive from 1988 on the acknowledgement of qualifications with respect to this sector has proved poor and inadequate, since most Member States of the EU have chosen an alternative permitted by the directive involving the introduction of a compulsory aptitude test for professional practice, which in reality has hindered the free practice of the profession of lawyer.
It is regrettable that despite the experience gained from the regulations in force and from the practice of the European Court of Justice, the Commission has not presented an amended proposal to this general directive nor a proposal which would at least make the free movement of lawyers possible.
I consider this free movement to include not only the free movement of practising lawyers, but also the actual freedom to offer one's services.
The Commission has however chosen to give a special sectoral directive and to maintain the principle on a restrictive aptitude test.
Today the Committee on Legal Affairs is proposing 27 amendments, by which fundamental changes are made to the Commission's proposal.
The purpose of these amendments is to increase the opportunities for a lawyer of one Member State to establish himself in another Member State.
The committee proposes that it would be possible to practise the profession of lawyer in all Member States provided that the lawyer permanently uses the professional title from his own country.
The group that I represent is not certain whether the proposal put forward by the Committee on Legal Affairs in principle is consistent and logical.
We have therefore presented amendments with the purpose of emphasizing that each lawyer has the right to move to a Member State other than where he has qualified for the profession and to practise the profession in accordance with the regulations of the host Member State.
May I ask the Commission to give its view in detail on the amendments put forward by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the group that I represent. Finally I would like to congratulate Mrs Fontaine on an excellent report.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mrs Fontaine on her excellent report, on which there are a number of comments I wish to make.
With this report, we are at something of a crossroads.
The legal professions, of which lawyers are one of several - business trustees, notaries and the like - are of course based on their national legal systems.
In recent years, however, there has been a growing need within the European Union for these professions - to which I myself belong - to look beyond national borders.
This has obviously made it necessary to get to grips with other legal systems.
I am not in favour of compartmentalizing this profession by erecting an artificial barrier to access, and the report says the same thing.
On the other hand, the legal safety of the citizens in our countries is at stake.
That means devising a system which will serve two purposes: on the one hand, free access to the profession must be guaranteed, in any country of the European Union; and, on the other, a lawyer must have sufficient knowledge of the legal system concerned to ensure that clients and companies receive the best possible advice.
I believe that the Commission's proposal - to lay down a clear definition of this professional title throughout Europe - is a very good one; the discussion about whether lawyers can operate in joint practice, or in companies with share capital or partnerships, is also very welcome, because I think that this question will be of particular relevance to the profession in the future.
The functions of lawyers should not, in my opinion, be seen in narrow terms, but they should also be regarded as business advisers.
In the future, it will certainly be necessary to do this.
If these directives and the debate on them open up such a prospect, then the report is a good starting-point for a very fruitful discussion.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Fontaine and colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for their considered and intelligent discussion of this topic. This is an important plank in the freedom to establish services and the completion of the single market.
It gives room for recognition of the fact that lawyers can practice under home title in other countries.
It is particularly important for lawyers in England and Wales as English law is an international commercial law.
It is particularly important in the areas of shipping contracts, i.e. charter parties, commercial contracts, insurance, reinsurance, banking contracts and rescheduling of debts, which often specify English law as a law-governing contract even though neither of the parties is of English origin.
I would like to flag up one linguistic problem.
Amendments Nos 25 and 35 should state 'public interest' and not 'public order' as has been translated.
In conclusion, this is the usual understated, erudite competence which we expect and usually find from Mrs Fontaine.
Mr President, the report that we are scrutinizing today is a compromise.
A compromise which embraces various approaches and attempts to indicate ways forward on the important issue of the practice of the profession of lawyer in a country other than that in which the qualification was obtained.
However, Mr President, I do not think that it matters very much that the result of so much time-consuming hard work, which has been overwhelmingly approved in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the plenary and accepted by the great majority of the administrative councils of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Community, is a compromise.
Of much greater importance, in my view, is the quality of the compromise, and in that regard Mrs Nicole Fontaine deserves all our congratulations.
Because this compromise, as set out in her report, leads in the right direction.
It gives real meaning to freedom of establishment.
It constitutes an advance for the Union and for Europe.
We are getting rid of provisions which, essentially, have perpetuated protectionism and cast doubt on our reason - how else could the imposition of examinations on professionals who have practised their profession for years be explained. So I think that we should all accept that Mrs Fontaine's compromise is a good step forward.
On such a subject it is only natural that many people should have had reservations and objections.
We in Greece, too, have had a lot of difficulties.
Just as an example, I can mention the problem of the establishment of law firms in Greece via a particular method and with elements that are not applicable in other European countries.
Of course, we all had to surmount those problems rather than persist with reservations which would have worked against the solutions put forward today by Mrs Fontaine.
I followed at close hand the first stage of this substantial and lengthy endeavour of hers which has led to today's outcome, and I think that both she and the Committee on Legal Affairs, and, from tomorrow, the whole of Parliament, will be able to feel well-satisfied with the new prospect that has been opened up.
Mr President, firstly, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, on this report on the proposal for a directive on the practice of the profession of lawyer.
I believe that ensuring the freedom to practise the profession of lawyer throughout the European Union represents a further step towards achieving the political integration of the Union and guaranteeing the democratic rights of all its citizens.
We must interpret the rules concerning access to the professional title of a host Member State, whereby automatic entry to the bar is prevented and a period of practice in the host country is required, as a positive step which in the short term will enable the system to function and, in the long term, may be adapted to new circumstances.
The current problems may well be simply the kind of temporary difficulties which are characteristic of an adaptation period - a period which will pave the way for the proper functioning of the system in the future.
Furthermore, I welcome Amendment No 7 to Article 1, which provides for the establishment of the professional title 'lawyer' in all the official languages of the Spanish state. It is a good thing that this recognition of all Spain's official languages should appear in a text concerning the profession of lawyer, since lawyers are traditionally the most important defenders of human rights and the collective rights of peoples.
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her excellent report and thank her for the understanding that she has shown throughout her work for Luxembourg's special circumstances.
The Luxembourg bar currently has 620 lawyers, 27 % of whom are non-nationals.
This is clearly proof that the free movement of lawyers is a reality in Luxembourg.
Furthermore, national and non-national lawyers in Luxembourg coexist in a harmonious and collegiate way, and the user of legal services - the citizen - has confidence in lawyers registered with the Luxembourg bar, whatever their nationality, because he has the assurance - since all these lawyers have received specific training in Luxembourg law, which is different from French, Belgian, German or any other law - of being properly defended before the courts by lawyers who know both their job and Luxembourg law, as well as the specific jurisprudence of the country.
If this new directive is applied, what is in danger of happening? Firstly, the user of legal services will no longer know where he stands.
Will the lawyer he chooses be familiar with Luxembourg law or not? There will be a risk of being poorly defended before the courts, and this will lead consumers to choose their lawyers according to nationality, something which at present does not happen in Luxembourg.
Consequently, instead of promoting the free movement of lawyers, the new directive is in danger of hindering it.
Furthermore, there will also be discrimination between national and non-national lawyers who have taken the supplementary courses in Luxembourg law and their colleagues who are admitted to the profession without having undergone the same process.
In order to protect the users of Luxembourg's legal services, without jeopardizing the freedom of movement, and to defend the interests of lawyers of all nationalities registered with the Luxembourg bar, I have tabled two amendments. The first concerns the obligation to know the law of the host Member State, and the second concerns the requirement to be familiar with the languages legally recognized as judicial languages in the host Member State.
I should like to thank in advance all those Members who are kind enough to support these amendments.
Mr President, I too extend my congratulations to the rapporteur, especially for the compromise text that she has produced, with which I find myself overwhelmingly in agreement.
There was one very important point that I made at the committee stage which, I regret to say, has not been taken up by the services: that is to point out that Article 10(3) should be correctly translated into English as 'public interest' , not 'public order' .
As colleagues are aware - particularly those who follow football and other sporting events where public disorder is very much the order of the day - it is important that the text should read correctly in all languages.
I would like your assurance that tonight the services will take this on board and that Article 10(3) will now read 'public interest' , and not 'public order' .
This problem has already been dealt with by the relevant services.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to join the ranks of those congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, on her tremendous feat of having produced this excellent report.
I also welcome the objective of this report - to improve freedom of movement for lawyers by means of this specific supplementary directive - especially as the general directive fails to clarify the question of the right to practise on a permanent basis under the so-called home title, and because the aptitude test laid down in Directive 89/48 has often been a real obstacle to the freedom of establishment of lawyers.
Personally, however, I wonder whether the approach of the Fontaine report to solving these problems will find favour with the professional groups concerned and, more generally, if it will meet the needs of people seeking legal advice.
Guided by the Community-spirited principle of mutual trust between the Member States, Mrs Fontaine, you have drawn up a very far-reaching proposal.
Through your exemplary work, you have managed to align the position of the European Parliament with that of lawyers in many areas.
The amendments to Articles 2 and 5 of the Commission proposal, on the practice of the profession and home titles, address comprehensively what is a pressing concern of lawyers.
However, the crux of this directive is the provision in Article 10 which eases the existing requirement of an aptitude test.
This certainly goes too far: to my mind, it is not enough to guarantee automatic, complete integration after three years of effective and unbroken activity in the law of the host country, without any formal criteria.
I suggest taking up the proposal of the CCBE that an interview, rather than an examination as such, should be held.
That would, I believe, be a thoroughly fair compromise, which would in particular suit the smaller Member States.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12 noon.
Satellite personal communications services
The next item is the report (A4-0179/96) by Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision (COM(95)0529 - C4-0517/95-95/0274(COD)) on an action at Union level in the field of satellite personal communications services in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when Ronald Reagan launched his Strategic Defence Initiative - known as 'Star Wars' - in the early 1980s, the general reaction was to regard it as a piece of science fiction.
The plan was for a network of satellites to monitor the entire planet in real time in order to detect enemy missiles and knock them off course, possibly using lasers.
Although the project is more than likely to be mothballed indefinitely, it had a spin-off in terms of research - initially subsidized research - into satellite technologies.
That is why America is now the leader in the field.
The main practical uses of these satellites are in telecommunications and broadcasting, services that we use very intensively.
Most telecommunications or broadcasting satellites currently in use are geostationary, orbiting at a height of 36 000 km, and of course they need to have a 'footprint' on the earth's surface, which is a relatively cumbersome and unwieldy arrangement.
For that reason, development work began on new technologies using satellites at lower orbits.
Some of these are at a height of 10 355 km, but there are also some in the range 7001400 km, the so-called LEOs - low earth orbit satellites - which are the subject of our debate today.
I believe there has been a lack of awareness among Europeans in recent years as regards the development and use of these new technologies.
The leaders in the field are American companies which are able to obtain licences in America but then seek to operate throughout the world.
In Europe, we have failed to give European companies a stake in this area of development.
We are merely passengers in these sectors, trying to hitch a ride without knowing exactly where we want to go or who is in the driving seat.
That is why it is vital for the industry in Europe to wake up and play a part in shaping satellite development, and in particular to have some structural involvement so that we can also then keep pace in terms of jobs.
No matter how many white papers on employment we produce, we shall never make up for any missed opportunities in this field.
The Commission has responded in the right way by stating that it has a responsibility to spur the Member States of the European Union into action.
We must keep reminding them that this particular area of satellite technology is one in which new markets will develop.
The Commission has done a good job in this respect.
Unfortunately, however, the Member States of the European Union were caught napping again at the ITU conference in Geneva last year, and allowed Bill Gates and his new company to reserve all the frequencies in individual countries throughout the world for data transmission through a system of 840 orbiting satellites.
This means that terrestrial frequencies may face new competition in a form over which Europeans no longer have any influence.
A considerable number of launchers will also be needed to put 844 satellites into orbit.
That will cost money and that is added value - and we may miss out on our share of it.
In this proposal, the Commission has asked to be involved in issuing licences and in international negotiations with third countries.
The Member States - who are not our main concern in this debate, although as rapporteur I had to bear them in mind in order to achieve a practicable result - are naturally also involved, because they are responsible for allocating frequencies.
Here in Parliament, therefore, we have proposed that in the event of a failure to agree on frequency allocation, or in international negotiations on the issue, the Commission should be given a mandate.
I hope that the Council will recognize the pragmatic nature of what we are asking for, and will not interpret it as weakness on the part of Parliament.
I am sure that the Commission will assert its rights in negotiations with the Council, so that a sensible outcome can be achieved for European companies.
I am also sure that the Commission will continue to press for a mandate from European companies and the Member States, because only recently, at the WTO conference, the Americans tried to have the whole satellite system excluded from the agreement on telecommunications.
What they were up to there is not clear.
We must be vigilant in this area, and I am sure that the Commission too will continue to take a lively interest in it.
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to make a number of points that I put forward in the Committee on Energy, Research and Technology, that were mentioned in my opinion and follow on quite naturally from what has just been said by the rapporteur on the substance, Mr Hoppenstedt.
There is an important difference between satellite telephone services and multimedia services via satellite.
In the case of the former, the reference is to mobile terminals whose main purpose is planet-roaming, the possibility then of travelling all around the world with just one telephone terminal.
The technology is there, the international consortia have been set up - and European industries are also involved in them - and the pilot projects are ready to get under way.
In contrast, the multimedia satellite service sector, Teledesic - that of Bill Gates, let us be clear about this - is still at the stage of technological development, particularly as regards onboard satellite processing in which interesting possibilities of technological competition between the United States and Europe remain.
Furthermore, the content of the services and the actual operators have yet to be clearly identified.
That being so, I have suggested that a clearer distinction be made in the Commission proposal for a decision between the approach to the former and the latter.
As regards satellite telephone services, given the very small number of potential operators and the relatively limited interest in Europe for that service as compared with the cellular service, GSM, there seems to be no justification for the Commission setting up a new selection procedure which would delay bringing the new services into operation.
Moreover, the fact that there are several operators means that competition is secured.
I agree with the rapporteur, however, on the need to harmonize the procedures for the award of licences, but I do not think that the role of the Commission can extend beyond that segment.
I have spoken on other occasions in the House - and Commissioner Bangemann will remember this - in favour of a 'European Federal Communication Commission' .
I am therefore in favour of the European Union having a regulatory function but I do not believe that this dossier justifies the Commission being given responsibility for selection.
Through Amendment No 11, however, I am suggesting that we increase research into, the promotion and regulation of multimedia satellite services, the other category in fact.
It is in that sector that the future of the information society is being played out and it will be important that Europe is not caught unprepared.
To conclude: there has been substantial agreement with the views of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the rapporteur, Mr Hoppenstedt, whom I congratulate on an excellent piece of work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Hoppenstedt has explained with his customary skill and great clarity, we are examining this evening a proposal for a decision on an action at a Union level in the field of satellite personal communications services.
In fact, a network of satellites covering the whole planet in real time already exists.
It is the bastard offspring - so to speak - of President Reagan's 'Star Wars' project.
This network makes possible the creation of satellite personal communications systems, which will offer the equivalent of cellular phones with a world coverage - although, of course, at a far higher cost - and will therefore be used in sparsely populated regions which are not served by cellular networks.
Substantial investment will be necessary to achieve this goal, and this opens up some interesting prospects for the European space industry.
Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that this project also covers fields other than telephony, notably multimedia communication.
A project of this importance undoubtedly requires a coordinated approach at international, and especially European level.
And it is in this context that the Commission is envisaging the adoption of a single Community procedure for selecting operators and granting licences to them.
Whilst I understand the Commission's thinking, I have to say that, on the whole, I do not support its proposal for a decision, an attitude which is very much in line with that of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Besides the problem of the Member States' sovereignty, which is largely ignored in the Commission proposal, there are other considerations which disturb us.
Indeed, given the small number of potential global competitors, who are bound to reach agreement on the distribution of the available spectrum, we feel that it is pointless to impose the selection of operators.
Moreover, the proposal does not seem to take account of the requirements of the draft 'licences' directive regarding harmonization and the possibility of obtaining an authorization which is valid throughout the Community from a single regulatory body.
Even if this directive does not concern individual licences, it could provide a framework for discussions which the Commission should try to complement.
Like the rapporteur, I approve the Commission's concern to establish a harmonized Community approach to the issue as soon as possible.
Finally, we believe that prior to any international negotiations, Community cooperation should be promoted, with a view to establishing a single position which the Commission can then defend in international forums.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hoppenstedt's excellent report brings us up to date on the implementation of an information infrastructure project of which the least that can be said is that it is truly global.
The strategic implications of the systems and services involved are considerable, and very important to the European market and European industry, especially in view of the global consequences of the transfers of technology from the military to the civilian sector, in particular in the United States.
At international level, the question of satellite personal communications systems and services recently took a new turn when, in the multilateral negotiations on telecommunications in the WTO, the United States decided to adopt a more intransigent attitude, threatening to exclude this sector from any future agreement. At present, therefore, there is no guarantee that satellite systems will be included in the final commitment that the United States will make at the end of the negotiations.
Furthermore, the fact that a mechanism exists in the United States for granting space segment licences will give rise to discrimination against systems of non-US origin.
The Commission's initial draft has provoked strong opposition from a number of Member States. This is mainly for institutional reasons, since it provides for implementing procedures which are difficult to accept - especially as regards the powers attributed to the Commission - and give rise to serious doubts as to their conformity with the Treaty.
In view of the new situation created by the state of the negotiations in the WTO, it is essential to harmonize the negotiating positions within the Council as soon as possible, and to refer to the mechanisms provided for in the draft directive on licences when it comes to matters concerning the harmonization of authorization conditions and the content of terrestrial segment licences.
The amendments adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, at the instigation of Mr Malerba in particular, make some important improvements in this respect, for example the removal of the questionable mechanism for the selection of space segment operators by the Commission.
Another step in the right direction is the proposed integration of the rules on the terrestrial infrastructure for satellite personal communications services into the harmonized system of licences and authorizations.
In the view of the UPE Group, the proposed amendments in the international section also help to improve the draft decision, except for the possibility of giving the Commission a mandate to negotiate the allocation of frequencies within the ITU, in place of the Member States.
There does not appear to be any good reason for such a delegation of authority, which would also seem to be incompatible with the current statutes of that organization.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mr Hoppenstedt, but also take the opportunity of making the following comment of my own: when will the Commission finally submit a framework directive that will allow us to debate the basic outline conditions for liberalization of the telecommunications sector and the preconditions in terms of social policy? And when will the common framework for general authorizations and individual licences - which the Commission has already submitted - make its progress through the legislative procedure?
I should also like to raise some questions which, while they may be naive, concern what I regard as fundamental issues.
Firstly, there are the conditions for harmonizing selection, as referred to in the reports and by previous speakers.
I think it is clear that the Commission has consciously chosen not to make a sharp distinction between satellite-based personal communications on the one hand and broadband multimedia services on the other, in order to have an instrument that will allow it effective involvement in selection decisions in the latter area.
That is by no means an unwise move, if one recalls the saga of satellite broadcasting and the key role that it played in the establishment of private television channels.
My second point is that a market is being talked about here, and at the same time we are being told that there are currently three providers operating across the world.
I cannot help recalling the words of the great John Locke, the founder of modern liberal thinking, on the question of what constitutes a market: ' Being but two they could not agree' .
Does this mean that if they had been three, it would have been possible to set up mutual relations based on the exchange of equivalents? If there is anyone here who believes that, I will buy them a drink!
I should like to begin by thanking the House, and in particular Mr Hoppenstedt, for the swift response to our proposal, since in spite of all the differences between your position and ours which came across clearly in the debate, there can be no disagreement on one point, namely that if we do not act quickly, no solution will be achievable - whether it is the one proposed by the House, that sought by the Commission or a compromise between the two - because what Mr Hoppenstedt said was true: our competitors, especially in the USA, are wide awake!
They scored a partial success at the ITU conference.
They are going to invite European companies to take part in the venture, indeed they are already making moves in that direction, but Mr Hoppenstedt was also right to say that the European firms are likely to end up as passengers.
Their share will not be enough to give them a decisive role, and they will certainly not be able to determine the course of events.
There are many possible definitions of a market.
Where there is only one operator, however, there is no market, but rather a monopoly.
The problem with satellite communications, for whatever purpose they are used, is that in place of the public monopolies which existed in Member States in the past, there will now be a private monopoly.
Parliament has repeatedly warned us that while deregulation might break up public monopolies, it could open the way for private ones.
I am genuinely at a loss to understand the tone of the debate.
On the one hand, while we are to remain vigilant, there is thought to be relatively little chance of our competitors turning their lead into actual monopoly positions; on the other, our proposals are dismissed as an understandable but basically unacceptable attempt by the Commission to acquire new powers.
That is certainly not what we are doing, and the selection procedure, which has attracted various comments in the debate, must definitely not be the norm.
It may even be that it is the exception, and we go so far as to assume that that will be the case.
To that extent, we do not regard the arguments which have been put forward here in favour of the amendments as being conclusive.
Of course the House was right to make the point in the debate that satellite personal communications will come under the general 'licences' directive which is soon to be approved.
However, that directive does not address issues of harmonization - which are certainly not covered by individual licences - and nor are there any plans for the coordination of decisions by the individual countries in good time, and that is the crucial factor.
I have always had the greatest respect for Mr Hoppenstedt's contribution in this area, even before I took over this portfolio on behalf of the Commission, but I must be absolutely frank about one thing, and Mr Hoppenstedt knows that it is a point of difference between us.
What Parliament is proposing here with these amendments may well be the position which eventually emerges as a compromise from the Council. That is quite possible, and we can only hope that a compromise does emerge.
But in terms of tactics and strategy, I think it is illadvised to open discussions with the Council from such a position, and that is why we are against allowing individual national licences which would merely be coordinated.
Such a system will not be in place in time and it will not work, quite apart from the fact that in some cases, Mr Caudron, there are inherent anomalies, for example if every Member State has to issue individual satellite licences.
Luxembourg is a country for which I have the very greatest respect, but I have to query the idea of one or more satellites intended for use in satellite personal communications in the European Union having to be authorized in Luxembourg.
I can adapt to many things, but you must forgive me if I have some difficulties with that.
What I am saying is that we agree with the House on the need for action.
However, I am not sure that the Council will move sufficiently on the basis of what Parliament is proposing here.
Nor do I see why a distinction should be made between systems that use the frequencies assigned to mobile telephony services and broadband multimedia systems, which also operate on higher frequencies.
In terms of regulatory policy, the two categories are quite comparable, and I do not think the difference in use is a justification for separating them.
Let me end by saying that I have felt during this debate as if I was arguing with the Council.
I will leave it to the House to decide whether or not that is a compliment.
Thank you very much, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Two or three-wheel motor vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0199/96) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council (C40149/96-00/0470(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on certain components or characteristics of two or three-wheel motor vehicles (rapporteur: Mr Barton).
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate all the individuals and organisations who have contributed to creating the compromise package before Parliament on the future of two- and threewheel vehicles.
I give particular praise to individual bikers who have directly lobbied their Members in all Member States and in a very responsible manner argued for measures which will improve safety, reduce pollution and tackle the very real problems created by an irresponsible minority of bikers who ride bikes with very noisy exhaust systems.
The European Union as a whole needs to learn the lessons pioneered by the European Parliament; that good legislation is only made possible when you have constructive dialogue with the citizens who are directly affected.
This exercise has been made possible in this case because of the work of national and international bikers' rights organisations coordinated by the Federation of European Motorcyclists, or FEM.
I should pay a special tribute to their secretary-general, Simon Millward.
This process stands as a classic example of how to connect the citizen to the workings of Europe.
The Council must now take this backing seriously, unlike when it responded at first reading.
It is simply not acceptable for the Council to ignore practical proposals such as the one that would make it unlawful to trade in illegal, noisy exhaust systems.
These are the systems that create the greatest nuisance and give biking in general a bad name.
Nor can we allow manufacturers to brand specify replacement parts such as tyres.
The customer must be allowed to choose from a range of suitable replacement parts as long as they meet the relevant technical and safety specifications.
By way of an example, a manufacturer such as BMW cannot require that only, say, Pirelli tyres could be fitted as a replacement when, for example, Dunlop or other manufacturers had made perfectly suitable and possibly, in some cases, superior alternative tyres.
Parliament's package requires that before we agree the next stage of controls on noise and emissions joint research should be done with riders' organisations and manufacturers to ensure that realistic and practical proposals are forthcoming.
If the Council's position on anti-tampering was not amended, riders would be discouraged from the maintenance periodically needed to minimize pollution levels.
After all, it would be ironic if such proposals were by default to jeopardize the future of two- and three-wheel vehicles.
Motorbikes have a positive role to play in providing an economical as well as an enjoyable form of personalized transport, causing far less congestion and pollution than their four-wheel counterparts.
I urge Parliament to approve en bloc all the amendments tabled by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy with the exception of Amendment No 3, which hopefully will be replaced by a new compromise amendment, Amendment No 20.
Sadly it seems inevitable that the Council will not immediately embrace our amendments.
Nevertheless there is one message that it must understand: if the European Union is to be connected with the everyday concerns of its citizens on biking or, for that matter, any other subject it can only do so in dialogue with the people directly affected.
Parliament has conducted a meaningful dialogue on this item and we will not take kindly to that work being ignored by ministerial officials meeting in secret.
A very important democratic principle is at stake.
Mr President, we could have a very interesting discussion on what Mr Barton has said about the people concerned by this directive.
This is precisely what I wish to talk about.
For those who view motorcycle noise from the other side, the non-bikers who mainly see only the negative aspects of biking, this has been a very difficult debate, because when one interest group makes itself heard as loudly as those representing the heavy bikers, it is difficult for Parliament not to side with them.
Given that the representatives of the non-bikers have not made themselves heard at all, I think that we in the House have actually done quite a reasonable job.
Exhaust emission requirements are to be tightened up and the possibilities for tampering with engines drastically curtailed.
However, when it comes to noise, major concessions have been made compared with, for example, a voluntary directive which has been in force in the Netherlands and Germany since 1978.
What Parliament is now proposing is much less strict on noise levels and the measuring methods used.
Personally, I think this sends out entirely the wrong signal both to users and the industry.
All motorcycles sold in the Netherlands and Germany already meet strict standards, measured using even stricter methods.
The main argument put forward by the biking lobby, that these stricter standards will mean the end of air-cooled engines, is manifestly wrong if you look at which models are sold in the Netherlands and Germany.
The real argument is probably that less noise will mean less engine capacity, which leads me to suspect that the lobby we have been talking to mainly involved 'superbikers' .
But the Council also has no room to talk.
The real problem is with souped-up engines and illegal exhaust systems, but up to now it has rejected every compromise proposed by those who take the noise problem seriously. This fortunately includes the rapporteur and many bikers themselves, who have called for steps to be taken to enforce greater compliance with existing noise limits.
I sincerely hope that the negotiations that we will certainly have to hold with the Council and the Commission will produce satisfactory solutions to the problems of noise and the use of illegal exhaust systems.
Mr President, I think we need to go for the conciliation procedure. The Council has refused to incorporate our amendments from the first reading in the common position, so I think Parliament now needs to show that it means business.
We must be sure that we get the 314 votes we need tomorrow, but they must be votes based on the facts of the issue, not used as a negotiating tactic, which is the approach the Council seems to be taking. And I would bet a good European motorbike that we win, Commissioner, then we can both ride on it.
The Council is playing a strange kind of game.
On the one hand we have the 80 decibel limit, but since the first reading the Council has come up with the idea of using the highest result of the four measurements instead of the average, which actually brings it down to 78 decibels in practice. Terribly environmentally-friendly, do you not think?
In fact, it is not. As Mr Metten has already said, the Council is refusing to deal with the problem of illegal exhaust systems, so all this is just window-dressing really.
Not even the rules as they stand at the moment are being obeyed, and the police, for example in Amsterdam, are sitting with their hands in their pockets. So simply tightening up the rules will not achieve anything.
I would ask Mr Bangemann whether the proposed measuring system has been influenced in any way by pressure from the Germans, whose technical skills could give BMW a major competitive advantage.
We need to have standards that are realistic and likely to gain public support.
So we should go for 82 decibels and a total ban on the production and sale of illegal exhaust systems, because they are the root of the problem, not the decibel level.
Anti-tampering is only useful in this context to prevent category-hopping.
What the Council means is upgrading a moped to a small motorbike, and a small motorbike to a large one.
But it has missed the point here, because all marking and plating does, even for larger bikes, is to create more red tape.
The idea of using shear-bolts too will mean an enormous increase in costs for European bikers, who already find it expensive enough to maintain their machines.
Finally, let us make an appeal to the bikers themselves.
82 decibels and an average measurement result are fine, but be strict with yourselves and with others.
Do not allow those who spoil things for everyone and flout the rules to get away with it.
Help the police to take effective action against offenders.
Cooperate with the police.
Then there will be no need to change the rules in 2001, as Amendment No 20 calls for.
I am looking up at the public gallery when I say: the ball is in your court.
Mr President, in my opinion the Council has given way to Parliament on a number of issues.
Parliament seems intent on pandering to the bikers, so that as far as the House is concerned they can go on making as much noise and creating as much pollution as they like.
A very sad state of affairs, in my opinion.
As Mr Metten said, on the one hand we have the bikers, who seem to revel in noise, fumes and dirt, and on the other we have the powerlessness of those who, as far as Parliament is concerned, simply have to accept that these young people have the right to come and disturb them.
I would invite the rapporteur, the Commissioner and all the Council ministers to visit our river dykes and listen to the noise of the hundreds of motorbikes that come to shatter the peace of the local inhabitants from Ascension Day onwards and throughout the summer.
I cannot understand why we have to protect the bikers' interests, and not the interests of these poor people.
Why should they have to stay inside with their doors and windows shut?
I find it both incomprehensible and disgraceful.
The possibilities for technical progress which Parliament usually regards as so important when it comes to environmental issues are being completely ignored here.
The rapporteur is under pressure from the bikers' lobby to which he himself belongs and which is still not content. Mr Barton has tried to sink any attempt to tighten up the regulations.
The vast majority of my group remain totally opposed to giving any ground on harmful emissions or noise at second reading.
I really cannot understand what is happening here, and I can only hope that the Council will stick to its guns in the next round.
Mr President, on a point of order, it was mentioned that I was part of the bikers' lobby.
As an elected Member for all citizens in my constituency I take great exception to being considered part of the bikers' lobby.
I will work with the bikers' lobby and I will work with all responsible lobbies but I really resent being called part of the bikers' lobby.
That is not true.
Mr President, the European Parliament can be quite content.
The Council has incorporated almost all its amendments from the first reading in the common position, except on the permitted noise levels, where it would not accept Parliament's rather curious wishes.
And rightly so, in my opinion, because the noise limits originally proposed by the Commission were included in the second phase of the directive as long ago as 1987.
The House would lose all credibility if it decided to relax the noise limits now.
Amendment No 11 would be a slap in the face for the innovative motorbike manufacturers who have voluntarily kept to the existing limits, only to be told in 1995 that they must now meet stricter requirements.
This sort of ungentlemanly conduct is not acceptable.
The bikers' lobby argues that it is not the requirements that need to be tightened up, but how they are monitored.
They see maintenance as the problem and feel that emphasis should be laid on preventing mopeds and motorbikes from being tuned up, by banning the sale of tuning kits.
In fact, we must cover both.
Bikers who make too much noise not only spoil things for others who are out enjoying themselves, they also spoil things for other bikers who behave in a more socially responsible and environmentally-friendly way.
The anti-tampering measures are absolutely essential, as are the stricter noise limits.
But we should not be thinking of simply keeping the 1987 noise levels in force until 2006, as Amendment No 3 proposes.
Anyone who believes that this will put us in the best possible starting position for the conciliation procedure is entirely mistaken.
In negotiations, it is extremely important that your opponent takes you seriously, which is hardly likely to be the case here.
Mr President, I should first of all like to commend all the many people, not least in Denmark, who have campaigned actively for this proposal.
There has been effective lobbying by the motorcycling population, not only members of the well-known groups, but also ordinary office workers who ride their bikes on Sunday.
They have helped to persuade the European Parliament that the positive aspects of motorcyclists' outdoor life should be supported.
Clearly, there can be situations where motorcycle noise may be a nuisance, but the point at issue here is not whether people are sensitive to noise, and I disagree strongly with the Greens, but they are still too much under the influence of cyclists.
The point here is that the Commission has once again had its technical experts produce some fairly absurd regulations, without any regard for common sense or the realities of the outside world.
The standards for noise should match the actual situation.
And there are in fact not many people who can tell whether the noise level is higher than 82 decibels.
The Commission should concentrate instead on ensuring that the motorcycles produced in Europe do not suffer from unfair competition.
After all, unemployment is one of the worst problems in Europe today, so it cannot be of any help if we make it impossible to keep jobs in Europe by imposing unreasonable requirements on our own workplaces in the Union.
I very much welcome the substantial amount of work which Mr Barton has done on this issue, and there have been a number of creative attempts to bring the points involved home to the Commission.
Indeed, even Mr Bangemann has been for a motorcycle ride with Mr Barton to find out that Parliament's proposals were on the right lines.
Motorcyclists are people who like the outdoor life and the quality of life, and for goodness' sake let us stop spoiling this with stupid limits which cannot be measured.
So I would say finally to the Greens once again: this may have been a brave attempt to do something for cyclists, but I am an active cyclist myself, and I think you should stop producing such ideas, because it will end up with people selling their bicycle and buying a motorcycle instead.
Mr President, this is a strange evening.
In the previous debate, I heard the kind of arguments which I normally encounter only in the Council, and now I am listening to myself.
What I said two years ago has been said by almost every speaker except Mr Blak - and another thing, Mr Blak, I have not yet taken a motorcycle ride with Mr Barton, but I have done so with Mrs Larive and that was, if anything, more enjoyable than with Mr Barton.
However, I am also prepared to go for a ride with Mr Barton, I have no difficulty with that.
Of course I understand - and I say this to Mr Barton - that when an elected representative has a special relationship with a particular section of the population or of his electorate, he can sometimes become a mouthpiece for ideas of this kind, and that is quite legitimate, it is part of his function.
However, I cannot accept the way in which Mr Barton has sought to exceed that process today, implying that he represented the people, whilst Commissioner Bangemann represented who-knows-what.
In any event, it is not industry that I represent in this case.
I have in fact tended to assume the role of my colleague Mrs Bjerregaard.
It has always been my position that motorcycles should be subject to the same standards which Parliament applies to cars, light commercial vehicles and heavy goods vehicles.
It is not often that I agree with Mr Metten, but I was really impressed by his speech this evening.
It could have come from my own lips, and I can only congratulate him on it.
Incidentally, I found it amusing that England beat Holland 4-1 this evening, but four Dutchmen spoke after Mr Barton, so that redressed the balance.
What course of action is open to us as things stand now? I would say that since the Council has adopted a good many of Parliament's amendments, we should finally bring this process to a close.
The file has now run to 657 pages!
I would therefore ask you to appreciate that I cannot accept those amendments which seek to improve on elements already agreed by the Council.
Parliament will be doing itself a favour if it decides to accept in essence what the Council has already accepted.
That is substantially more than the motorcycle lobby could have expected at the outset.
There is nothing wrong with lobbying, and of course people have to defend their interests, but motorcyclists are by no means the only people involved here.
There are also those who suffer from the activities of motorcyclists.
Mrs van Dijk reminded us of that.
I would add that you have no need to invite me to measure noise levels - invite Mr Barton and other Members of the House!
I would not wish to imply that your invitation is in any way threatening - please feel free to invite me, but not so that I can listen to motorcycle noise.
There is no need for that. From the start, I have said that we should treat this issue just as you would any other.
I am, however, prepared to accept the position previously established by Parliament, and to that extent I too am part of this democratic process and I can accept that, even if it is hard for me to swallow at times.
I would therefore propose that we should accept nine of the 20 remaining amendments, namely Nos 6 and 7 and Nos 13 to 19.
The latter are all concerned with the procedure for measuring noise levels, and their purpose is to reinstate the text originally proposed by the Commission.
The common position made the procedure more rigorous, effectively introducing more stringent limit values.
I would point out that the measures to counter noise pollution are already tightened up considerably in the Commission's original proposal, because we are making the optional limit values binding.
With our proposal, we are therefore roughly midway between what the Council is seeking - which is even tougher - and the significantly less stringent proposals from Parliament.
We cannot accept the remaining 11 amendments, for the following reasons: Nos 1, 4 and 5 are at odds with the prohibition on introducing to the market equipment that does not comply with the provisions of the directive.
We have already stated that quite clearly in Article 15 of the framework directive.
We cannot accept Amendment No 2 because trailers are definitely not covered by these provisions.
Amendment No 3 seeks to postpone the date on which the limit values come into force.
If we wish to postpone the whole thing until the year 2006, then we can let this go too.
Why not, Mrs van Dijk, seek a postponement until 2026?
I wonder how that would be received?
The amendment tabled yesterday on the same subject is likewise unacceptable and would create substantial delay.
Amendments Nos 8 to 11 are intended to delete various provisions relating to anti-tampering measures.
We need to consider for a moment what is meant by anti-tampering measures - we are not concerned with DIY enthusiasts, Mr Barton, or young men who buy themselves a motorbike and then make alterations to it in an attempt to give it more power, all of which is perfectly understandable.
But with these amendments you would seek to permit, for example, any illegal modifications to motorcycles above a certain cubic capacity, in other words to big bikes.
Do I see you shaking your head?
This is something which we really cannot accept, therefore, and for that reason we have to reject, in this context, these measures whose only purpose is to allow performance-enhancing modifications with a minimum of risk.
I would note in passing that these amendments refer to the Commission's original text which was not queried by the Council in its common position, nor by the House at first reading; in other words, from a purely formal point of view, the amendments are in a state of limbo, as it were, because they refer to something that has neither been proposed by the Commission nor adopted by the Council in its common position.
We are unable to accept Amendment No 12 on sound level limits.
Measures which have already been considerably diluted, because their application is to be optional, are being watered down further still, and I would say to Mrs Larive who wondered at the Council's attitude: I wonder not at the Council on this issue, but at Parliament.
In every other area, you find fault with us.
Today we approved a programme on motor oils and its impact on emission levels for cars, a joint proposal by my colleagues Mrs Bjerregaard and Mr Papoutsis and myself, and I have no doubt that Mr Barton will tear it to shreds.
He will ask how we came to set such low limit values. Wait and see.
Section 7, paragraph 4, contains the following note: ' L'inclusion du point 4 ' .
It is in French, Mr Barton, if you would please bear with me.
France had a victory tonight too, so...
The inclusion of paragraph 4, ' Provisions concerning the branding of components' , in paragraph 3 implies that the provisions concerning branding will only apply to mopeds and light motorcycles.
In that case, mediumweight and heavy motorcycles would be completely excluded from the scope of the anti-tampering measures.
(DE) Imagine such a situation, if you would!
Caught between motorcyclists on the one hand and a group of decent people on the other, Parliament has to find a way of remaining consistent.
You must stick to the line that you have taken - and things have come to a pretty pass when you need an Industry Commissioner to tell you that.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Leghold traps and pelts
The next item is the report (A4-0151/96) by Mr Pimenta, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(95)0737 - C4-0105/96-95/0357(SYN)) amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3254/91 prohibiting the use of leghold traps in the Community and the introduction into the Community of pelts and manufactured goods of certain wild animal species originating in countries which catch them by means of leghold traps or trapping methods which do not meet international humane trapping standards.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of our debate is this object which I am holding up: a leghold trap.
Is there anyone here who would like to place their leg or hand in it? - then you will find out what this method of catching animals is really like: a cruel and inhumane death.
This is what we are discussing here today, Mr President.
We are also discussing a gross violation of Community law by the Commission and the GATT and the issue of the native peoples of Canada and the United States.
Let us begin with the gross violation of Community law.
We had a regulation which is still in force, dating back to 1991.
This regulation should have entered into force in 1995 but was delayed by one year in accordance with the terms of the regulation itself and following a request by the social and economic cohesion to improve its implementation.
But the truth is that it should have entered into force on 1 January 1996.
It so happens that by means of a press release and a letter signed by to Commission officials, it was decided that the 1991 regulation would not enter into force.
Mr President, I am no lawyer by I have been taught that in order to revoke a law or amend it a legislative act of equal judicial dignity is needed.
In other words in order to annul a regulation or amend it, it would have been necessary for the Commission at some time in 1995 and according to legal procedures to present a proposal.
This was not done.
If it wanted to amend the regulation it failed to take action.
On 1 January 1996 it was already too late.
The European Parliament, through a vote in the Committee on Legal Affairs and a letter from President Hänsch, initiated the process to take the Commission to court for failing to comply with Community law, for the failure to apply the 1991 regulation.
It is very important for the dignity of this house to make a response in order to safeguard the democratic legitimacy of applying legislation.
Secondly, we are discussing the GATT.
The European Parliament has been duped and I was one of those who fell into the trap.
The Vice-President of the Commission, Sir Leon Brittan, addressing the European Parliament in plenary session in Brussels, in order to obtain the ratification of the GATT over whose ratification - or nonratification - the European Parliament had sovereign powers, told us that there was no European environmental or social legislation that might be called into question by ratification of the GATT.
Six months later Commissioner Brittan's own department told us that we would have to ditch the 1991 regulation because of the GATT. Does Vice-President Brittan speak with a forked tongue?
What faith and confidence can we have in him? He obtained the European Parliament's vote by withholding the truth and did not even have the courage to come before this Chamber - once again it is the environment Commissioner who is here - to face the Members of the European Parliament and tell them that he lied.
The third question is that of indigenous peoples.
There has been a lot of demagoguery about this, because it is a serious problem and must be dealt with seriously.
These are the figures - official figures from the Canadian census.
Only 1045 natives are full-time professional hunters.
According to the Hunters' Association, they earn only 1 dollar for 5 dollar's worth of pelt.
The money makers here are the fur traders and not the indigenous hinters, Mr President.
We have the figures here.
These thousand or so full-time professional hunters earn no more than 7000 dollars a year, something that could easily be compensated by regional development aid and other subsidies.
We spend more in the European Union on farmers in difficult or mountainous areas.
Recognising the seriousness of certain situations I have incorporated into my report amendments tabled by colleagues, which I accept, and propose the following.
They should be entitled to take part in the negotiations which began a year ago, with consultative status.
We should give these people the greatest possible right - even if Canada does not want to reach an agreement with us, the European Union should give them the opportunity directly to seek an agreement with us, through the Ottawa authorities.
We should open up negotiations with them.
I return to the subject of cruelty.
It is inhumane and cruel, it is impossible to allow animals to die in this way, allowing them to agonize for days on end - this cannot go on, regardless of any other considerations.
There are more humane, less cruel ways of hunting and killing.
At the end of the 20th century we cannot, as a civilised nation or people, allow this kind of thing to carry on.
Mr President, the reason we have this report from Mr Pimenta today is that the Commission has back-tracked on legislation properly carried by the European Parliament and approved by the Council of Ministers.
There really is a serious problem of lack of democracy here, which we have to continue to pursue.
When the regulation of 1991 was approved it was agreed that imports of fur into the European Union from countries which had not banned this barbaric and cruel leghold trap would cease in 1995.
We had the debate about the substantive issue back in 1990, withstanding ferocious lobbying in the process, and we won the argument.
It is a little unfair that we have Commissioner Bjerregaard here tonight to take the flak rather than Sir Leon Brittan.
But of course this is the price of so-called collective culpability, unfortunately. So I am sorry for Commissioner Bjerregaard.
But the collective Commission decided to operate a let-out clause and to wait for a fairy tale, which was the hope that an international committee in Geneva would come up with a humane leghold trap, thereby letting off the hook the major fur trapping countries.
So it extended the deadline for a year until 1996.
There is and there will be no such humane trap.
So the impossible dream did not materialize and towards the end of last year the Commission started to get nervous in the face of threats from Canada to take the European Union to the WTO under GATT.
There is an available solution for the fur-trapping nations and that is to ban this leghold trap and to use some of the different kinds of methods which are available.
But let us face it; the Canadian Government is making huge amounts of money from an industry designed for rich people to wear fur coats.
It is on quicksand as far as its arguments are concerned on this issue.
Anyone with a grain of backbone would have been able to face up to this threat.
It is perfectly clear that we have plenty of GATT clauses for legal people to argue under: Article 20 is one that comes to mind.
But the Commission decided in its infinite and arrogant wisdom that a possible and dodgy threat from a foreign government with a big vested interest in making a lot of money out of its exploited indigenous people was more important than democracy, more important than the European Union's own law, duly enacted, more important than the interests of 350 million citizens and consumers and more important than animal welfare.
One could go on for hours about this sorry saga.
There are facts and figures that could be argued well into the night, but the essence is that the Socialist Group and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and this Parliament are outraged that the Commission sees fit to flout the democratic process of the European Union in this way.
We will not stand for it.
There is no case for the pathetic and weakkneed new proposal from the Commission, belated though it is, and it knows it.
We fully support the excellent report by Mr Pimenta which we know is based on very carefully researched facts.
There is only one way forward for democracy, for animal welfare and for a citizens' Europe and that is to implement the original regulation and to ban imports of fur from countries which are continuing to use the leghold trap.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the issue of the so-called leghold trap regulation is a never-ending saga: this is episode five, if we are counting in years. Why is that?
Could it be that we took the wrong approach in trying to exert indirect influence, through legislation, on activities which quite justifiably meet with our disapproval? Events would seem to support that conclusion.
Since 1991, it has been the position that the regulation was to enter into force on 1 January 1996.
That should have allowed sufficient time to work out the implementing provisions.
Although I was not a Member of the House in 1991, I would point out that the aim was to see more humane trapping standards applied.
In particular, the use of leghold traps was no longer to be permitted, and rightly so.
But the regulation has failed to meet its objective in this respect.
Of course, there are various reasons why it has failed and I shall go on to analyse those reasons briefly, one of which I have mentioned already.
A dilemma then arose.
By the end of the year, no implementing provisions had been drawn up, so they could not be applied.
At this stage, the Commission submitted a fresh proposal.
It is my view that this proposal cannot possibly be approved, for a number of reasons.
For a start, both the timeframe and the objectives are very vague.
On the basis of such a regulation or proposal, negotiations could go on forever and I think that cannot be in our interest.
What is presented in this regulation is an over-simplification.
Mr Pimenta, who courageously and quite rightly chose a different approach, therefore has my best wishes.
This is an approach that we can support, although I make no secret of the fact that we have different views and expectations on certain points.
Let us consider the situation of the native peoples, especially in Canada.
Mr Pimenta does indeed mention the figure of 1045 people, the fact that wages are low, and so on.
But there is another point that we must bear in mind: in the areas where these people work and hunt, there are no species which are threatened with extinction.
There are no problems with conservation and the environment.
The people are adamant that their areas should be preserved and protected from so-called 'industrial progress' .
Now we come to the anomaly in our approach: we are creating a situation in which a people who strongly defend the causes of animal and environmental protection - causes which we support - are suffering because of us, and may lose their livelihood.
We therefore have a duty to take account of the native peoples and what they require to make their living.
The regulation does take account of these factors to some extent, and we have tabled some amendments which should improve the position.
I hope that they will also have the support of the House.
We do not agree with the rapporteur, however, that the implementing provisions themselves should be included in the regulation.
That is the Commission's task, which is for it to perform.
So we would remove the items in question, but I have to stress that this does not mean that we disagree with the way they have been formulated.
Basically, all the Commission has to do is copy them out.
However, we believe that their inclusion here would require the House to consider every change in detail, and we do not have the time.
We ought to bear that in mind.
It is a job for the executive, and in principle that means the Commission.
If we bear that in mind, we may find the best way to proceed.
The working party is still seeking to establish standards, and however illusory these may be, they have not yet been ruled out.
Where do you draw the line between humane and inhumane methods? Perhaps the working party will eventually come up with an answer to that question.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is important that we succeed in laying down international rules to enable us to reach a framework agreement on catching wild animals using traps or methods that do not involve cruelty.
The availability or otherwise of any type of trap, be it the kind that kills or the kind that restrains animals, should in any event be based on standards agreed between the States of the Union, third countries and the indigenous population, with professional trappers, those who study wild animals and veterinary experts being consulted.
The negotiations currently under way for the definition of standards for more humane traps are going well and represent a first step towards an international agreement founded on scientific knowledge and the concern better to protect animals.
That being the case, even if a final agreement has not been reached by 31 December of this year, it will be appropriate to assess the progress achieved by that point in time but not to place a radical ban on imports of pelts obtained from wild animals caught in traps.
We have, however, to bear in mind that an important part of the way of life of some indigenous peoples - the Inuit, for example - is based, for environmental reasons, on hunting and fishing which currently still represent an important economic resource.
If, on the one hand then, it is vital that a framework agreement is reached on rules on trapping without cruelty, it is also necessary that those same rules should safeguard the interests of the indigenous population.
The entry into force of the rules must also allow the countries which produce the pelts of wild animals to adapt to the legislation by guaranteeing, as requested, that the methods of capture using traps which they employ for the species contained in the list comply with the standards adopted: immediate or premature entry into force would thwart the efforts so far made to facilitate methods of capture or practices which are not cruel, but would above all put at risk the livelihood of 200, 000 people involved in the pelt processing industry and employed in the Union.
That is a risk that we cannot accept and which can be avoided by adopting a reasonable time-scale for the entry into force of the rules.
We should bear in mind that combating unemployment is a priority not only of the individual Member States but also of the Union as a whole.
Finally, one last point: on issues of interest such as this, it would be helpful if the Commission consulted Parliament in good time and not at the last moment as has happened in this instance.
Mr President, there is really no need to go through all this again.
In 1991, the European Environment Ministers decided to ban the import of pelts from countries where leghold traps are still used.
The ban was to come into force on 1 January 1996, one year after leghold traps were banned in the countries of the European Union.
We were therefore totally taken aback when, at the end of last year, the Commission proposed that the import ban should be postponed indefinitely.
The Commission has yielded to pressure from the fur trade and the threat from the United States and Canada that they would fight the ban on the basis of the WTO rules.
The interests of trade are apparently more important to the Commission than democratic decisions to reduce the suffering of animals.
The European Parliament must not make the same mistake.
What happened at the end of 1995 was that Commissioner Bjerregaard lost out to Commissioner Brittan, and I think she should be ashamed that things were allowed to go so far.
The European Parliament must reverse the Commission's decision.
I can only agree with Mr Pimenta when he says that once legislation has been proposed, the result can never be that no legislation is adopted, since this would set a precedent that would undermine the credibility of the Commission and of the whole Community decision-making process.
That would be completely unacceptable for us.
We all know that leghold traps deliberately condemn animals to a slow and lingering death, which is what makes the pelts such good quality and brings the best prices.
Leghold traps are extremely brutal instruments and must be banned.
There must be more humane trapping methods, but we in the House must not allow ourselves to be blackmailed by postponements and other tactics into delaying the approval of these methods.
Throughout the whole debate, the importance of leghold traps for native peoples has been deliberately exaggerated.
The Commission wants to introduce an automatic exemption from the import ban for native peoples, but such an exemption would undermine the whole directive.
I entirely agree with the rules proposed by Mr Pimenta on the subject.
We should give Mr Pimenta's very detailed report our fullest support, but we also wish to see some immediate action.
One of the things the Commission must do now is to publish the list of countries which do not use leghold traps.
It should be required do this within the next month, otherwise Parliament will take it to the Court of Justice.
I should like to ask the Commission whether it intends to publish this list in the immediate future?
Mr President, Commissioner, if we agree that leghold traps are a cruel and inhumane means of trapping animals, and if the European Union has banned their use within its territory, it is surprising that the import of pelts from third countries in which animals are caught by means of these traps should be accepted.
The successive postponements of the entry into force of Regulation No 3254 cast doubt on the Commission's political will to comply with Community law, when it should be setting an example in this respect to the Member States.
The Commission knows that the talks between Canada, the United States, the European Union and Russia aimed at establishing humane standards may go on for ever; it is extremely difficult to determine these standards.
Mr Pimenta's proposals include the necessary implementing provisions, take account - in various amendments - of the social and economic implications of the regulation for the indigenous peoples, and bear in mind the responsibility of the Member States to help improve those peoples' living and working conditions.
They provide for the ban on imports to be lifted once credible rules, including a reasonable implementation period, have been agreed.
Commissioner, we all know that without clear rules and specific deadlines it is very difficult to ensure compliance with Community law.
We have seen this with regard to the legislation on the substances that are destroying the ozone layer and on CO2 levels, and we are seeing it with regard to this regulation.
This regulation must be implemented, if we wish to ensure respect for, and the credibility of, the Community's institutions.
Mr President, this is lunacy!
Here we have a five-year-old regulation - a piece of legislation adopted by the Council - and the Commission simply digs its heels in and fails to put through the implementing provisions.
Is this what we can expect to see in future?
Along comes a lobby group - in this instance the Canadian, American and Russian fur industry - and kicks up a big fuss, and we are left with nothing.
If that is the shape of things to come, then we can save ourselves a great deal of work.
I think it is outrageous!
Even more outrageous - and I shall not mince my words here - is the fact that virtually no notice will be taken of the amendments and proposals in Mr Pimenta's report, although they are excellent and have our full support.
And where will we be then? We might as well shut up shop for half the week, because half our work is not being taken seriously by the Commission.
What exactly do they think they are doing?
I shall tell you another thing.
Over the next year, there are to be talks on humane trapping methods, and humane traps are to be developed.
What rubbish!
There are no such things as humane traps.
Whether or not there is a bit of padding on the teeth of a trap, the animal in it will die a miserable death.
Nor is there such a thing as a selective trap.
An animal cannot read a sign that says 'Lynxes please do not use this trap' !
There are no selective traps.
Protected species also get caught, and trapping is simply inhumane.
If people insist on catching animals, then they should be sensible and shoot them.
Any other method is inhumane.
I fail to see one good reason for supporting the fur lobby, hunting animal species and damaging the environment to the point that they are now almost all extinct.
Damn it all, why should a few people deck themselves out in furs? There is no call for it.
We must develop a different relationship with the gifts that nature has given us, and that certainly does not mean that we have to carry off the last remaining animal pelts.
As for those who are so concerned about human beings - and I hear endless expressions of sympathy for the poor native peoples - I have to tell them quite frankly that they are hypocrites.
We are shamelessly hypocritical when we import uranium which continues to be mined at the sacred sites of native peoples; when forests are felled and people lose their homelands and we import the wood.
Those are the facts, if you please, and I would ask the Commission seriously if it has any intention of respecting our regulations, or if the situation will simply continue as before, with nothing being done!
Mr President, our group firstly wishes to pay tribute to the work of Mr Pimenta, who has addressed this particularly complex question with his customary tenacity.
This issue has all the elements of a psychological drama which we should very much keep in mind: the campaign against the unnecessary suffering of animals; the need to ensure the survival of northern indigenous peoples and their traditional way of life; the pressure from commercial lobbies and governments, which use unscrupulous arguments; and an interinstitutional conflict between Parliament and the Commission, which prefers to evade its responsibility to Parliament rather than risk opposing some of its partners in the World Trade Organization.
On the majority of these points, we agree with the Committee on the Environment's proposals.
First of all, I should like to say that we must indeed put pressure on the negotiators to define satisfactory trapping standards.
Too much time has been lost already.
By ensuring that the ban comes into force as soon as possible, we shall increase the chances of achieving a result swiftly.
Even if it may sound paradoxical, or even absurd, you will see why the date of last January should be retained.
It is unthinkable for Parliament to accept being presented with a fait accompli in this way.
It is a question of principle.
Furthermore, the procedural schedule in Parliament which is necessary to prepare for second reading and conclude this legislative procedure will provide an additional breathing space which must be used to good effect by the negotiators in the International Organization for Standardization.
However, I would stress the fact that the interests of indigenous peoples whose survival may depend on hunting must also be taken into account.
The inability of the Commission and their governments to conclude the negotiations must never constitute a threat to their way of life.
In this respect, while there are some sound points in Mr Pimenta's arguments, we believe that it is preferable to follow the Commission proposal.
Our group will therefore be supporting the Committee on the Environment's amendments, with the exception of Amendment No 24.
Mr President, there are two almost irreconcilable interests in the debate on the use of these inhumane leghold traps: the economic survival of a group of hunters who have no other means of earning a living in the short term, and animal welfare.
From the outset, Mrs Sandbæk and I have adopted the position that the native hunters must not be deprived of their livelihood, and I am pleased that the amendments from the Committee on the Environment now specifically call for attention to be given to this threatened group.
We too are aware that the number of genuine native hunters is relatively small, and that they are just about able to support themselves.
But this is no reason to stop them selling any more furs at all because of the trapping methods which they use.
Here in Europe we apply transitional measures in all kinds of situations, and I see no reason why we should not do so with trapping methods.
This is, after all, what this group of people relies upon to earn their daily bread.
We very much hope that all the political controversy surrounding this piece of European legislation will finally result in the speedy introduction of safer trapping methods.
There can be absolutely no doubt, as far as we are concerned, that these barbaric traps must be abolished.
The Pimenta report is, in my opinion, a good compromise between the various viewpoints.
What I should now like to hear from the Commissioner is what is happening about the proceedings against the Netherlands, which has declared that the regulation will come into force as originally scheduled on 1 January?
Mr President, the rapporteur deserves to be thanked for taking over the job of doing the Commission's homework.
As we approach the end of the millennium, our society must give the same priority to preventing cruelty to animals - preventing unimaginable and prolonged suffering among living creatures - as it does to consumer protection.
Preventing cruelty to animals is almost a form of consumer protection from a different angle.
It means protecting consumers from going about clad in the fashionably processed suffering of mammal species.
A person's ethnic origin can never entitle them to use cruel trapping methods.
It is quite amazing that the USA and Canada have so far refused to recognize that leghold traps are inhumane.
It is scarcely possible that regional development and the welfare of the people concerned should depend solely on the use of leghold traps, which are not even a traditional trapping method.
We should also recognize clearly that the decline in recent years in the sale of furs and skins is part of a pattern of changed practices on the part of consumers.
By following the proposals of the rapporteur, the European Parliament would be sending out a positive signal.
Mr President, as I stated in the last discussion about this issue, I was the hapless rapporteur on the first report on the leghold trap.
That was in 1990.
In the course of preparing my report I did a great deal of research; I took it extremely seriously.
I was the butt of - as Mrs Pollack has said - some of the most ferocious lobbying ever seen in this Parliament.
I am very happy indeed that Mr Schnellhardt has said, on behalf of my group, that we will be supporting Mr Pimenta's report.
But I wish I could agree with my colleague, Mr Schnellhardt, that the Commission should be left to get on with the job.
I do not think it has done, and I do not think it did in the past what this Parliament asked it to do in 1990.
Mr Pimenta faces the issue that was the most agonizing for me, personally, in my work on the report: the serious concern he has for the indigenous people in Canada. I met them.
I went out on a trap line. I have seen exactly what happens there.
As a result of what I saw then I deliberately set out to give longer time to develop an alternative method of trapping in order to cause the minimum amount of difficulty to the indigenous people in Canada.
But unfortunately it took quite considerable time for anything to be done on that.
It was clear when I was in Canada in 1990 that nothing had been done on it up to then.
What I think happened was that the Commission just kept its head down and hoped that it would all disappear; that it was a flash in the pan and that nobody would take it terribly seriously and nothing would have to do be done about it.
But a lot of attitudes have changed radically in the last few years, particularly on issues of animal welfare.
Nobody ever thought that the poor old cows or sows or whatever were really being taken seriously.
In the last few years we have started to look on these as moral issues.
I think we have to continue to do so.
I am very happy to support Mr Pimenta's report.
Finally, if I lived in northern Canada in the cold and wind that exists there - and I lived in Canada for well over a year in the 1960s - I would wear a fur coat.
I would probably wear one of those long furry things that were quite cheap and very practical at the time.
But the market for fur coats now has generally collapsed.
It is really only those rich people who live in southern hot countries who are buying them.
So I ask myself: do we really need to go the wall about a political issue like this? But the trap that Mr Pimenta has held up is evidence that this is a very nasty piece of work.
By now we should have found some alternative to it.
Mr President, intimidated by the threats of the Canadian and US Governments to appeal to the World Trade Organization, the Commission agreed, in July 1994, to suspend for a year the entry into force of the rules.
As was absolutely predictable, that postponement failed to produce the hoped-for results in the search for traps that do not involve cruelty.
Once that deadline had expired, the Commission took it upon itself illegally to suspend the entry into force of the regulation itself as of 1 January 1996, for the sole purpose of according the Americans and Canadians a further opportunity of developing so-called 'humanitarian' trapping standards.
That task, which the North Americans in fact gave to the ISO - the International Standards Organization - back in 1987, has proved hopeless for two reasons: the clear impossibility of developing trapping methods that are not cruel and the substance of the research which focuses less on studying improbable methods of trapping without inflicting pain than on legitimizing those methods already used by Canadian and US trappers.
It is therefore vital that the House confirm robustly and resolutely that it is a matter of the utmost urgency that the general principles of Regulation No 3254/91, on which I worked, as a Commissioner, along with Parliament in the early nineties, are complied with: if it is allowed to slip further the real intention will be to get rid of it for good.
It is in that firm belief that, as mentioned by Mr Bloch von Blottnitz, the Greens are prepared to support the amendments to the Commission text tabled by Mr Pimenta: Amendments Nos 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 28 in particular remedy the unacceptable loopholes which the Commission proposal to amend Regulation No 3254/91 would allow for the purpose of continuing to bring into the European Union pelts obtained using traps.
Mr President, this is not the first time that I have had the opportunity of discussing this issue with the House; several speakers have already described the course of events, and so I shall confine myself here this evening to the formal response which can be given to today's debate.
First of all, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Pimenta, for his report on the extremely vexed question of leghold traps.
I know that the Commission and Parliament essentially have the same goals in this area.
We differ as to how those goals can be achieved.
As is made clear by Mr Pimenta's report, Parliament is in favour of introducing a trade ban and then discussing the conditions for it to be removed.
You will be aware that the Commission's stance, following its most recent decision, is the opposite, and we have therefore already had talks in the quadripartite group - including the USA, Canada and Russia - with a view to achieving results before we begin to consider what further steps can be taken.
Given the fundamental difference in our approach, it will come as no surprise to the House that the Commission is unable to accept the proposed amendments.
In addition, there was a direct proposal from Mr Eisma, who asked me for a response to Parliament's letter of 13 May to the Commission.
The Commission has not yet come to a decision on the request from the President of Parliament for it to publish a list of countries which prohibit the use of leghold traps.
Naturally, the Commission will respond to this request within the deadline which it has to give a reply.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Market organization in beef and veal
The next item is the report (A4-0203/96) by Mr Jacob, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0242 - C4-0291/96-96/0148(CNS)) providing for additional payments to be made in 1996 with the premia referred to in Article 4b(6) and Article 4d(7) of Council Regulation (EEC) No 805/68 on the common organization of the market in beef and veal and amending Article 4i(4) of that Regulation.
Mr President, on this report, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development unanimously agreed to the Council's request for urgent procedure, in view of the extreme urgency, complexity and sensitivity of this issue for all beef and veal producers, as well as all European consumers.
Firstly, I should like to say that I am presenting this report on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture, in my capacity as chairman of that committee.
The proposal submitted to us by the Commission is, in my view, fundamentally balanced, in that it contains a section devoted to specialized breeders - in other words, producers of suckler cows and young bovines - and another section devoted to the national element, which will enable each Member State to adapt and respond according to its own specific circumstances.
I tabled a number of amendments which did not receive the support of the Committee on Agriculture, and which I am now retabling in plenary on my own behalf.
These amendments seek to increase the aid to specialized producers to ECU 50 for each animal.
What seems essential to me in this debate is to support those specialized farmers and breeders in Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and France who live from the production of beef and veal alone and whose future depends on this activity, as opposed to other farmers who are undoubtedly affected by the crisis, but who produce beef and veal alongside other activities.
I therefore believe that it is important to support these specialized producers, whose animals have never seen an ounce of meat meal in their lives, because they are reared on grass. There are producers of this kind throughout Europe.
These are the producers who should be supported in particular, and that is why I am proposing to increase the compensation to ECU 50 for suckler cows and young bovines.
I am also making this proposal in order to send a political signal, because all that people can find to say to me on this subject is: ' The package will be inadequate, and so we shall have to show self-restraint and distribute it as widely as possible' .
I am surprised, however, by those who are defending this kind of argument.
They are the same people, one should remember, who react vigorously from time to time to prevent the common agricultural policy from being touched, saying that they are against renationalization.
Now the same people are rejecting all those amendments which are designed to support specialized producers, in favour of distribution by the Member States.
If there is one category of breeders who should be supported, in my view it is traditional breeders.
Undoubtedly, other breeders are affected, and that should be taken into account.
But let us not forget those who are currently losing around FF 2000 per animal, and who are now in an extremely difficult position, because they have no borrowing arrangements, few investments and social security entitlements, and low incomes - an average of FF 50 000 for beef and veal producers.
For such farmers, the consequences of this crisis are dramatic.
It is therefore necessary to increase the package proposed by the Commission.
This package is inadequate - and I am sure, Commissioner, that you are aware of that today.
Given the extent of the crisis, there is a need to increase the proposed package substantially in order to provide support for these farmers, whose role goes beyond the mere production of beef and veal and is very important in terms of the development and management of Europe's regions.
I have therefore tabled these amendments, and another which I should like to deal with by supporting the amendment by my colleague Mr Happart concerning the increased use of plant proteins in animal feed.
I entirely endorse this amendment.
I believe that it is essential.
This means, however, that there is also a need to renegotiate a number of matters.
The agreements on plant proteins concluded during the GATT negotiations must be discussed again.
They no longer hold good!
Similarly, we must have an assurance that meat meal has not been used in the production of imported beef and veal, since the current situation will give rise to an increase in protein prices to the benefit of third countries - which has already begun - since the European Union has a substantial shortfall in protein production.
In conclusion, Commissioner, I believe that it is important to support specialized producers, and so I am retabling my amendments in a personal capacity, even though they did not obtain the support of the Committee on Agriculture.
Furthermore, I also believe that it is important to strengthen the European Union's capacity for protein production, since given the extent of the crisis, we cannot accept the GATT agreements in the form in which they were concluded.
This sector must therefore be completely redeveloped.
Mr President, Commissioner, I take a slightly different view from Mr Jacob, although I respect his opinion: while it is right to applaud the speed with which the Commission moved to take this measure to support producers affected by the BSE crisis, it has to be said that in substance that particular measure is the source of a good deal of injustice.
While the Council had said that it was necessary to support in the short term all beef and veal producers, with the idea of earmarking no less than ECU 534 of the ECU 650 for the supplementary premium for male cattle and suckler cows, in my view, the Commission is ending up by helping only a section of European producers.
And it is precisely those producers that are already enjoying the largest helping of aid from the common organization of the market in beef and veal.
It is true that there is a need for speed and to commit spending, which has to be kept within very strict timescales, but it is also the case that there is something to think about here: I ask you, Commissioner, to consult the table that appears on page 49 of the first volume of this year's price package from which it is clear that there is a small minority of countries which have many more premiums than they do head of beef cattle and a majority of countries where the imbalance is precisely the reverse.
We could discuss at length, Mr Jacob, whether there are specialized producers and, if so, which producers they are and whether priority should be given to that group or to others.
But what I do not want to see this evening is those producers who have specialized in obtaining premiums being advantaged.
I believe that all should be given the same opportunities and that Parliament's amendments - at least those of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development whereby the flexible portion available to the Member States would be increased from ECU 116 m to ECU 424 m - will make it possible largely to resolve this problem.
More resources would certainly have been better but we have to be realistic.
We have then to be very careful to check that national aid becomes the exception and not the rule.
I ask you, Commissioner, whether we ought not to conclude from this that some kind of review of the COM in beef and veal is needed, and whether the time is not now ripe, given the news we have heard, to move on to other measures, since the eradication programme seems to be beginning to achieve some results.
You, Commissioner, have had the courage to take difficult decisions which have laid you open and continue to lay you open to criticism and probably will cause acute tension in the European institutional balance in Florence two days hence.
I therefore believe, Commissioner, that it is very important that there should be mutual understanding between Parliament and the Commission and a shared perception of what we want to do and the way to do it, including as regards this evening's measures.
I therefore believe that it is for you this evening to show consideration for the work of our committee - our group, the Socialist Group, is counting on this.
Mr President, since early 1996, when the British Secretary of State for Health reported that new cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease had occurred among humans in the United Kingdom, beef consumption has once again plummeted.
The market for beef has collapsed not only in the United Kingdom, but in virtually every region of Europe, including Member States which have not had a single case of BSE.
Thankfully, the Commission has taken a range of measures, including buying in beef and an export ban to protect consumers.
To reduce the impact of the heavy losses suffered by beef producers, the Commission promised an emergency programme.
For technical reasons connected with the budget, that programme must be paid for immediately, in other words by October 1996.
We are grateful to the Commission for its proposals.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has considered the document that was submitted and has formulated a number of principles for approval by the House.
The committee is calling for a standard subsidy for suckler cows and male cattle.
The subsidy should amount to an additional grant of ECU 10 per head.
At the same time, I must acknowledge that dairy farmers have also suffered losses.
The price of cull cows and calves has fallen just as sharply as that of beef cattle.
Furthermore, the Commission itself admits that it will be hard to include all the stock that should, in fairness, attract compensation payments.
Let me give you one or two examples: for instance, those cases where farmers are claiming subsidies for growing pasture instead of livestock premiums, or where they have not kept within the limit of 2.5 livestock units per hectare.
Virtually all the farms in these categories will be excluded, because they are not currently entitled to premiums.
For those reasons, the committee decided to increase the proposed sum to be made available to the Member States to compensate for losses that would not otherwise be covered.
In the short time that is available, it will not be easy, even for the Member States, to distribute this money in such a way as to compensate farmers to some extent for their losses.
We should therefore give the Member States as much latitude as possible, so that they can get the money to the farmers in good time.
We have to be clear that these subsidies are only a drop in the ocean.
Nonetheless we must make the most of them.
I shall be grateful to you if we can find a viable means of doing so.
Mr President, Commissioner, in my view, the Council's proposal for a regulation properly has the air of an emergency measure in what is developing into a real crisis, not only from the economic point of view but also because of its political and institutional implications.
It seems to me, however, that the haste has been ill-advised because instead of remedying situations of hardship, the measure is likely to compound the imbalance and the discrimination that exists between those countries which already make full use of Community resources and others that suffer from an historical disadvantage linked to the system of producer premiums.
In the table of statistics, mentioned by Mr Fantuzzi and annexed to price package for which I was the rapporteur, we voted, at the last part-session, for a state of affairs that is worrying to say the least.
There are countries which receive amounts far in excess of their entire production.
Right at the head is Luxembourg with 227 %, followed by Ireland with 147 % and France with 123 %.
At the bottom, needless to say, is Italy, which has received only 29.6 %, although with 2, 200, 000 head, it is Europe's main producer.
It is not my intention to pave the way, here in the House and in these circumstances, for national claims, but it is at any rate right to ask the Commission and Council to prevent chronic under-utilization of Community resources becoming the inescapable rule for emergency measures.
The subdivision into the three methods of intervention - suckler cows, male cattle for fattening and the national element - seems to be completely inappropriate and allows only 30 % of Italian producers to have access to the premium.
We therefore propose concentrating resources as much as possible on the national element by unhooking the measure from the system of premiums.
But that is not enough: it also seems appropriate to give the Member States the opportunity to award national aid to offset the loss of income on cattle excluded from the premium. To conclude, Commissioner, the resources of ECU 650 m are clearly inadequate.
It seems then that in Italy alone we are talking about an estimated ECU 250 m. And so I ask myself, with no more than a hint of bitter irony: will the other fourteen countries be content with the remaining ECU 400 m?
Mr President, in our opinion the Commission is entirely justified in proposing to make ECU 650 million available for dealing with the effects of the BSE crisis.
The crisis which individual farmers are currently facing is not their fault, it is the result of failings on the part of the governments.
And if it is the governments which have failed, it is also up to the governments to put things right again.
We wonder whether ECU 650 m will be enough, but I am assuming that it is not possible to make more available at the moment.
We do have some fairly major objections to the Commission's proposal itself, which as we see it gives an unfair advantage to extensive cattle breeders.
The BSE crisis affects all beef producers, both extensive and intensive farmers.
We therefore feel that measures must be taken which deal with both sectors fairly.
The amendments which have been adopted by the Committee on Agriculture are definitely heading in the right direction.
More is still provided for the extensive farmers, but the national governments are now in a better position to provide support for the intensive farmers too.
This gives the Member States the scope to channel aid towards the sectors which they judge to have been worst affected.
We think it is also very important that this should not mean the renationalization of agricultural policy, as Mr Jacob suggested.
It does not need to be.
The Commission must be careful to keep a close eye on competition, but it is primarily up to the Member States to take the lead here.
Mr President, I spoke earlier in the debate on leghold traps.
Now, however, I should like to put things in perspective: cattle breeders - and, by extension, the entire beef and veal sector - are today the human victims of the economic consequences of the epidemic of mad cow disease that has been raging since 1986.
For several years, beef consumption has been falling in Europe.
For the last three months, the beef and veal sector has been totally disaster-stricken throughout the European Union.
As time has passed, it has become absolutely vital to draw up a rescue plan for the beef and veal sector, from the producer to the retail butcher.
Such a plan requires a coordinated, comprehensive and united approach.
Among the possible measures, the matter of greatest urgency is immediate compensation for producers, in order of priority.
Firstly, there are the specialized beef and veal producers with herds of suckler cows.
Beef is the only source of income for their farms.
They have taken the full force of the crisis, and their loss of income is in direct proportion to the fall in prices.
What are they doing? They are waiting, while millions of cows grow fat in the fields and a solution is postponed.
And secondly, there are the dairy farmers, for whom beef nevertheless represents around a quarter of their income, in the form of veal calves and cull cows.
Tens of thousands of breeders, whose loss of earnings is currently put at between FF 1500 and 2000 per head of fattened animal, are waiting for our decision with impatience.
They will find it hard to understand why we have reduced the proposed aid to an additional ECU 10 per premium.
I ask myself, moreover, whether we were not unwittingly misled at the time of the vote in the Committee on Agriculture the other day.
Consequently, I call on the House - without, of course, rejecting the Committee on Agriculture's amendments as a whole - to support Mr Jacob's amendments, which favour non-intensive breeding.
Let us not forget that in order to repair beef's image and restore consumer confidence, there is a need to discourage industrial production methods and replace them with natural methods, for example by encouraging the production of protein plants.
Commissioner, a crisis of unprecedented gravity is affecting the cattle breeding sector in the European Union.
And it is to be feared that as well as being exceptionally grave, it will be exceptionally long.
It took only a few days and a few decisions - or an inexcusable lack of decisions - for consumer confidence to be lost.
However, there is no doubt that it will take months, or even years, and also firm guarantees of quality control for that confidence to be restored.
We must face the fact that as well as this exceptional crisis, there is a structural problem of adjusting supply to demand, to which solutions have to be found within the totally destabilized economic environment obtaining in the sector.
Breeders are hostages to this situation, and they no longer know what to do.
Faced with a widespread slump in sales and unduly low selling prices, they still have to meet their costs.
At the same time, they are being asked to invest substantially in order to comply with environmental requirements, particularly in terms of the campaign against nitrate pollution.
The cost of setting up environmentally friendly systems of storage and effluent treatment is very high, at a time when some breeders are wondering whether to continue their activity in the current economic situation, or if they should switch to more extensive farming methods.
Since the European Union has not yet clearly indicated how it intends to resolve the economic and structural crises affecting the beef and veal sector, I think it is wise to pause before applying any measures which involve heavy investment in cattle breeding.
There is surely no logic in asking breeders to invest now in plant which is of no use in the future, but for which they will still have to make the annual repayments.
If we are to avoid hindering the establishment of a new European cattle breeding policy, we must not delay in showing cattle breeders, who are in the midst of a crisis, that the Union understands their concerns for the future and will not require them to invest in plant which may subsequently prove useless or unsuitable.
In conclusion, I should like to draw attention to one of the implications of changing the composition of animal feeds.
If animal proteins are replaced with plant proteins - for reasons which I think are quite legitimate - we shall have to review the agreement on protein plants concluded in the context of the GATT agreements, because the European Union's rate of self-supply is currently low and will increasingly decline.
It is for this reason that we shall be supporting Mr Jacob's position.
Commissioner, the least that can be said is that we were not caught unawares.
It was impossible not to know.
The laxity of the last few years was bound to have serious consequences.
As a result, in order to restore consumer confidence, we need to follow the path of the contaminated meat meal, identify the holdings where this meal has been used as cattle feed, single out the animals which are contaminated or likely to be so, slaughter them, analyse the brain, spinal cord and lymphatic fluid, and incinerate or deeply bury the carcasses of the animals which are contaminated or suspected of being so.
The cost of the analyses and the destruction of the carcasses, as well as that of the compensation for the loss of earnings of the beef and veal sector as a whole, should of course be borne entirely by the producers of this type of cattle feed.
Those who have cheated have to foot the bill - and I am choosing my words carefully.
It is unacceptable, it is criminal, that meat meal deemed unfit for consumption in the United Kingdom should have been exported for consumption in other countries.
If the directives on the labelling of food products were applied throughout the Union in such a way as to indicate the region of breeding and slaughter, consumers would be able to decide in a more informed way whether or not to buy this product.
It would only be necessary, for example, to label meat from the United Kingdom 'British beef' for consumers - households or restaurants - to know exactly what they were buying.
In any event, the BSE crisis has demonstrated the fragility of the European Union, the instinct for renationalization, and the failure - or rather the non-existence - of European policy.
Consequently, Commissioner, I should like to ask you the following question: to which budget will the administrative costs of providing these ECU 10 or so of compensation per animal be charged?
Mr President, first I would like to thank the Commissioner for coming forward with the proposal so promptly.
I welcome the idea of setting aside a portion of the package to be distributed by the individual Member States to meet the needs of farmers facing acute financial problems.
However, the crisis in the beef industry is unprecedented and much deeper than anything witnessed in the past.
The losses to livestock farmers are colossal.
In Ireland alone it is estimated that losses so far - since 20 March - are in the region of Irish £250 million.
The price fall has not yet levelled out.
In my view, stability will not return until decisive, radical and refocussed eradication measures are put in place and are seen by consumers to be producing results.
Losses will continue for as long as we have not restored consumer confidence through total and complete eradication.
It is obvious that the size of this package is totally inadequate to meet the real losses incurred by farmers.
A package several times greater would be necessary to compensate farmers even for the losses incurred so far.
I therefore propose that the fund be substantially increased.
As a first step the package should be increased to ECU 1, 000 million.
Also, the situation must be kept under constant review.
The ECU 116 million - that is, ECU 9.5 million for my country, Ireland - to be distributed to Member States to meet cases of acute financial distress is also inadequate.
Whatever the final figure is, we must ensure that this money is also used to support the producers of heifer beef who, under the present system receive no premium or compensation of any kind.
Their losses have been greater than those of the producers of male cattle.
This needs to be recognised and included in the package before us.
Mr President, I wish to acknowledge the Commission decision to provide ECU 650 million compensation package for farmers who have and still do experience serious financial losses resulting from BSE.
The collapse of the beef market is undoubtedly the most serious catastrophe to hit European agriculture and indirectly, employment in the agri-food sector.
Scientists differ in their interpretation of the impact, if any, of BSE on public health.
Consumers are understandably concerned and confused.
In the process European farmers - the people on whom we rely to produce our food requirements - are in serious financial difficulty, so much so that many of them, even with compensation, will be forced out of business.
In relation to the proposed compensation package I would say to the Commissioner that payment should be fast and efficient.
There is no need to remind the Commissioner that the beef sector, even before the advent of BSE, was in financial difficulty.
The problem with export refunds and the associated difficulty of developing third country markets had a bad impact on the profitability of the entire European beef sector.
In our desire to compensate all farmers affected, and in particular the farmers most affected, we should try avoid introducing an over-bureaucratic system which would only tend to slow down the payment of compensation.
I believe we should use the existing established structures of the special beef premium and suckler cow grants, both of which are part of the agreed CAP framework, as a means of determining the shareout of the additional funds between Member States while at the same time allowing individual governments to decide how best the package can be applied to each sector.
I also believe that as a short-term measure and for the purpose of dealing with the build-up of animals due to the market collapse, beef heifers should be included with steers as being eligible for compensation.
I do not believe that the compensation package of ECU 650 million is sufficient, but it is a start.
We must put the system in place immediately for its implementation.
My concluding comment is: get this money into the system fast; intensify our efforts to restore consumer confidence in beef as a quality food product, which is what it is; and assist in every way possible to develop third country markets as a profitable outlet for European beef.
Mr President, I seek to paint a broader picture here tonight.
A week ago I brought four workers to Brussels to make their case for recompense.
They were workers from the Midland Meatpackers, one of the many abattoirs in my constituency which has been cruelly hit by the BSE crisis.
They represented hundreds of workers who have already lost their jobs or whose jobs are under threat.
They came to Brussels to seek justice.
They are the hardest hit sector of the whole beef industry for their skills are not transferable.
So they see themselves as having no future.
They have lost everything.
In two days they met many of the influential people and groups within Parliament.
You, yourself, generously gave them some of your time.
The workers returned home to Northamptonshire buoyed-up and encouraged by the support from all sides.
You, Commissioner, are on record as saying that those most severely affected should have priority funding.
But fine words are cheap and that encouragement will soon melt away.
I tonight would remind you of your words.
I would remind you of the undertaking in the Treaty on the CAP which promises the means for agricultural workers to find gainful employment.
I would remind you that money is available both in Objective 5(a) and 5(b) and in Objective 4 to find recompense for these workers.
So, I have five questions to put to you, Commissioner.
First of all, do you agree that these workers are entitled to recompense and do you endorse it?
Secondly, that the funding that I have mentioned should and could be used for that purpose?
Thirdly, that although the UK Government has opted out of Objective 5(a) it could and should be encouraged to take that option up again and use the money accordingly?
Fourthly, will you give an undertaking that all funding will be allocated on the basis of need, not just to farmers and abattoir owners but to everyone who has been so cruelly affected by this appalling disaster? Finally, will the Commission urge the UK Government to use the contingency funding at its disposal to offset the job losses?
If you give these undertakings, Commissioner, you will demonstrate that the European Union is indeed an institution that has at its heart the wellbeing of all its citizens irrespective of influence, status or political favouritism, and as such you will be an institution that will be applauded.
Mr President, I would like to add my voice to those expressing their concern about those beyond the immediate farms who are being affected by this crisis.
A county council in my constituency, Shropshire, has produced this report.
I believe it is the first report of its kind to look at the local impact on the economy of the BSE crisis.
It paints a very worrying picture.
We already know that at least 700 jobs have been lost in meat processing, road haulage and in the markets.
We also know that an estimated £100 million has been taken out of our local economy and that will have further knock-on effects.
We also know that this impact is being felt most acutely in our small market towns which already have fragile rural economies and that is why they already qualify for Objective 5(b).
This is a blow that they just cannot cope with.
We now need to focus on how we can bring help to those people.
We need to look at Objectives 5(a) and 5(b).
Possibly we need to look at something like a RECHAR or RESIDER programme for agriculture, but action is needed very, very quickly.
Commissioner, I have your copy here. I will give it to you before you leave tonight.
There have been reports on the BBC tonight that the Commission meeting here has worked out a formula for the end of the ban on British beef.
I would be very grateful if tonight you would tell us exactly what that formula is so that we can report it back to our constituents.
Mr President, losses have been suffered.
Very large losses have been suffered, Commissioner, in this animal health disaster.
We could have dealt with this disaster on the basis of a simple principle - that of the assumption of responsibilities: by the British producers of Doncaster, in Yorkshire; by the British Government; and by the French importers.
You have opted for the principle of solidarity.
You are making the responsibility collective, and that is all very well.
On this basis, compensation should be provided for all losses.
But no, you have decided on a figure of ECU 650 million for the 81 million cattle that are affected.
That actually makes ECU 8 per animal.
According to the proposal, it is ECU 10 per animal.
Mr Jacob's proposal of ECU 50 per animal - which is little enough - has been rejected.
And the idea of an additional premium for non-intensive farms has been rejected too.
In other words, you have rejected responsibility in favour of solidarity, and you have dismissed solidarity in favour of greed, mediocrity and accounting.
Nor is there any provision for preventive measures - Mr Happart referred to this - or the renegotiation of the agreements on protein plants and oilseeds.
I must say, Commissioner, that this affair is getting off to a very bad start.
I am not addressing you personally, but the Commission as a whole, as well as your predecessors, who bore a very great responsibility and who, when the time came to meet that responsibility, did very little, as the records make clear.
Put yourself in the place of the cattle breeders.
I understand why they have doubts about European integration and the protection that it will afford them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the House sincerely for the urgency with which it has addressed the important issue that we are debating today, and also for the speedy way that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and particularly its chairman Mr Jacob, put together this report.
The first point I have to emphasize is that since 20 March, beef producers throughout the European Union have found themselves in a major crisis and have been facing serious financial pressures.
Since that date, the Commission has initiated a whole range of measures, starting with the opening of intervention which has already accounted for 150 000 tonnes of meat, with a further 30 000 tonnes earmarked for intervention in June.
We have made use of every market instrument at our disposal, from an increase in export refunds to private storage, in order to at least reduce the impact of the problem.
Like you, however, I am aware that all of this taken together is not enough.
We must go a step further and provide additional income subsidies.
There is a general consensus - and this was evident again from today's debate - that producers must be helped as quickly as possible, with a minimum of red tape.
However, this also means that we must organize the income support within the 1996 budget.
The fact that the EAGGF year ends on 15 October means that we must design our measures in such a way that they can be implemented before that date.
We therefore began by trying to estimate the loss of income among beef producers which could be expected in the current year, and to establish how much scope we had in the 1996 budget.
On that basis, we came up with the figure of ECU 650 million which is being discussed today.
As I told the House earlier in the month, an additional ECU 200 m has been earmarked for support measures in connection with BSE.
When that is spent, however, we shall have exhausted all the scope available to us, according to the current estimates of our budget margin for this year.
This means that we cannot go above the sum of ECU 650 m.
We then come to the question of how the ECU 650 m is to be shared out.
Under the first proposal, made by the Commission on 20 May, additional payments were to be provided only to those producers who had claimed premiums for suckler cows or male cattle in the previous year.
While this option is a very simple one to implement, it does, of course, have certain disadvantages.
The Member States therefore sought a more flexible approach and called for account to be taken of those issues which were not addressed adequately in the proposal.
In response, we came up with a flexible arrangement for 20 % of the ECU 650 m total, a figure of ECU 116 m, which was to be shared among the Member States, with the option of including in the distribution of that sum those producers who are receiving no premiums, or only limited premiums.
According to the amendments from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, it is now proposed to allocate a larger proportion of the total for national distribution and a smaller proportion for topping up cattle premiums.
However, an option as far-reaching as this would lead to serious problems, particularly as regards the coherence of the measures in question, and above all would jeopardize the main objective of getting these sums of money paid out to farmers quickly, in other words before 15 October.
This objection concerns in particular Amendments Nos 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 13.
Also, a considerable period of time would be required to set up appropriate new administrative and indeed monitoring mechanisms in time to be effective, and this would create difficulties that would make it impossible to ensure that the resources were shared out in good time.
However, the Commission recognizes Parliament's wish to create greater flexibility and will convey that concern to the Council, to the extent that it does not jeopardize the main objective to which I have already referred.
As for the request that the Commission should do its utmost to ensure greater use of plant proteins in animal feed, and to guarantee that cattle are fed solely on plant rather than animal products, I must emphasize on the one hand that there is already very considerable support for plant protein cultivation in the European Union, and on the other that a prohibition on feeding animal or bone meal to ruminants has been in place for some time, and of course we intend to retain that prohibition in the future.
Moreover, we believe that we must take a rather cautious approach to further intensification of stock-farming, particularly in view of likely consumer trends in the Union.
Finally, as regards the option of providing national subsidies, I would point out that measures of this kind were applied during the last beef crisis in 1990 and 1991.
By providing government subsidies, Member States can address specific problems of their own that are not fully covered by the Community resources.
On the question of assistance for those employed in the processing industry, I would remind you that I addressed that issue in depth during Question Time earlier today.
President Santer, in his speech tomorrow morning, will give his detailed views on the Commission decision this evening on the so-called framework programme submitted by the British Government.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12 midnight)
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
The next item is the vote on objections concerning the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance (Rule 47).
On Item II, Nuclear Waste:
Mrs Roth, we shall discuss the matter at the Conference of Presidents this afternoon, as you wish, but as far as this morning and the topical and urgent debate are concerned, Parliament has taken its decision and will abide by that decision.
European Council in Florence - IGC
The next item is the joint debate on:
the statements by the Council and Commission on the preparation for the European Council meeting in Florence on 21 and 22 June; -the oral questions by Mr Morán López, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, to the Council (B40444/96-0-0115/96) and to the Commission (B4-0445/96-0-0116/96) on the progress of the IGC.I have just discovered that the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs is still on his way here.
He has not yet arrived, so I propose that we should follow a procedure that is somewhat different from our normal one, and begin the debate with the Commission's statement, so as not to waste any time.
I have also arranged for the Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs to be informed of this.
The President of the Commission, Mr Santer, is prepared to open today's debate by giving his statement.
Mr Santer, please take the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Council to be held in Florence in two days' time is of special significance for the future of our Union.
I am therefore pleased to have this opportunity of letting you know the Commission's position on what it considers to be the priority items on the European Council's agenda.
Before doing so, however, I would first like to congratulate the Italian presidency on the work accomplished during the last six months, of which Florence will be the crowning achievement.
The task has not been easy.
The problems confronting the Union have been numerous and difficult, and the internal political situation in Italy can hardly have failed to add to the worries of Mr Dini and his colleagues.
In spite of that, they have succeeded in driving forward the European ship by keeping the Union as one of their foremost priorities.
They have held to the course identified at the Madrid European Council despite all the Cassandras and siren voices that could have deflected them from the direct route to the achievement of our objectives.
I should like to offer my sincere thanks to the Italian authorities, and more particularly to Mr Dini for his dynamic and enthusiastic contribution as President of the European Council and of the General Affairs Council.
Mr Dini will shortly be giving you a complete survey of the European Council's Florence agenda.
It is still the business of the presidency to decide on this agenda, so that I can restrict myself to dealing with the Commission's major priorities.
The Commission is seeking a new impetus both in the fight against unemployment and in the work of the IGC, and it would like the European Council to restore calm in our institutions, which are being seriously disturbed by the so-called 'mad cow' crisis.
As has often been said, employment is our first priority.
It is this conviction which led me to propose a Confidence Pact for jobs and it is this same conviction which was the basis of the communication from the Commission I presented to you on 5 June in Brussels under the title 'Action for jobs - a Confidence Pact' .
I will not repeat the details of this communication here, but will simply remind you that our aim is to launch a collective approach, involving public authorities and the social partners, by defining their respective commitments, in a coordinated global strategy.
Everybody should shoulder their responsibilities and everybody should take on concrete commitments at their own level.
The foundations of the strategy for jobs now exist and are sound.
Since the adoption of the White Paper 'Growth, Competitiveness, Employment' in 1993, the fifteen Member States have been united in the same basic choice of macro-economic and structural policies which have been reinforced during successive European Councils.
Moreover, my tour of European capitals has confirmed to me that all the governments and all the social partners are more than ever aware that the highest priority must be given to the fight against unemployment.
The approach outlined in my proposal for the Confidence Pact has been welcomed in the great majority of capitals.
The panel of social partners has stressed its importance and urgency, and the tripartite conference held in Rome last weekend gave it wide support.
The conclusions of this conference totally agree with the Commission's communication and correspond exactly to the spirit of my proposal, seeking a mobilization of all those involved and an assumption of responsibility at all levels.
I hope the European Council in Florence will follow the same line and that the Heads of State and Government will build on the foundation of the support recorded for the Pact.
Thus, Florence could be for employment what Madrid was for the single currency: namely, a confirmation of the political will and an instruction to the Council of Ministers to take short-term decisions and to start work leading to later decisions.
The Confidence Pact is not something that can be achieved overnight.
It is a matter, as I have just said, of determining responsibilities, mobilizing all those involved, creating synergies, energizing all the elements which can help to create jobs, whether it be the internal market, the macro-economic policy, or anything else.
This must be done as a matter of urgency and to the greatest possible extent.
Something concrete must be achieved in the short term.
This is the approach adopted by the Commission in its communication on the Confidence Pact and I hope the European Council will follow our lead by declaring itself in favour of the Pact and by confirming the main lines of action defined in our communication: namely, firstly, the creation of a favourable macro-economic framework with sustainable growth, based on monetary stability and a sound financial policy.
Secondly, full exploitation of the potential of the internal market.
Some real progress must be made before the end of the year in order to complete and improve it.
Our competitiveness must be strengthened, small and medium-sized enterprises must be helped and our access to world markets must be opened up.
One aspect particularly close to my heart is the construction of trans-European networks.
These are an indispensable element in the infrastructure and without them the potential of the internal market cannot be fully realized.
The European Council has expressed its own wishes in calling for trans-European networks.
It should now, this time once and for all, decide on the resources to be made available for their construction.
The Commission has made its proposal in line with this reasoning and I ask the European Council to be faithful to the same reasoning, which in any case follows from its previous decisions.
The third line of action to be followed is to speed up reform of the system of employment through closer monitoring of the implementation of the Essen priorities, by activating national employment policies and opening up large sites for future employment.
Fourthly, as a matter of priority, using European structural policies for job creation in allocating the uncommitted ECU billions available up to 1999.
That, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, is our first priority for the European Council.
The message from the Heads of State and Government should be one of confidence.
In that way they can show citizens that Europe is a force, a force for a large-scale mobilization in the battle against unemployment, a force that will bring about the convergence of national policies and that will create the added value necessary to rescue us from the jobs crisis.
A message of confidence, I also hope, for the second major item on the Florence agenda: the Intergovernmental Conference.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us be frank. The situation at the moment does not fill us with enthusiasm.
The Italian presidency has started work with a great deal of commitment, and it is not their fault if their work lacks dynamism.
We have to recognize that negotiations have not really started.
Let us not make the mistake of thinking we have plenty of time or that we can calmly await clarification of the political situation in this or that Member State.
The problems to be solved are numerous and complex.
Their solution is urgent if we seriously wish to prepare the Union for enlargement, as already decided in principle, if we wish to convince citizens that the Union is a project with which they can identify, and if we wish to avoid the mistakes of the past by creating the margin of time necessary for democratic debate before, and not after, negotiations.
Do the negotiators fully understand this urgency? Have they a clear vision of the aims of the Intergovernmental Conference?
I am not alone in asking myself these questions. I heard them from many delegations during the conference which has just been held in Rome.
I conclude from this that there is an awareness among Member States that something has to change.
This awareness must be transformed into a new impetus that the European Council should give to the work.
The political will expressed at the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference in Turin on 29 March must be confirmed.
We must change into a higher gear.
We must fully commit ourselves to negotiation, and do so at a level worthy of the high ambitions for the future of an enlarged, more securely based and efficient Union.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the third important subject for the European Council in Florence is the so-called 'mad cow' crisis that has shaken the Union over the last few months.
Our farmers throughout the Union have suffered serious financial losses, consumer confidence has been undermined, our institutions have been paralysed and the damage caused by the crisis is severe.
The European Council offers the chance of a turning point, a chance that must be seized.
Yesterday evening, the European Commission set out its position, which it will formulate in a document for Florence at the request of the General Affairs Council.
One principle is essential for the Commission.
All our actions must be based on, and inspired by, the absolute and sole imperative of protecting the health of our citizens.
Lifting the ban on British exports is therefore strictly conditional upon the eradication of BSE.
Since the source of this disease is in the United Kingdom, it is the British authorities who must put into effect the eradication measures required for the ban to be lifted.
This has been the constant position of the Commission ever since the beginning of the crisis on 21 March, and it will remain its position until the end of the crisis.
It will not be affected by political pressure, by blocking moves, even by the use of the veto.
The biggest mistake that could be made would be to turn the crisis into a politicians' issue.
We cannot play around with health!
(Applause) And in respecting this principle, it should be possible to come to an agreement in Florence about preconditions, about the stages and procedures that will allow us to consider, step by step, the normalization of the beef trade with the United Kingdom, but any decisions will have to be based on the best and most recent scientific knowledge available.
Any decision will necessarily have to pass through the normal procedures, with the full participation of veterinary and scientific experts from Member States, and any decision will have to be subject to rigorous monitoring, prior to its implementation, before the ban can really be relaxed.
There will be no blank cheque!
The Commission for its part will contribute fully to the search for a solution to the crisis.
It expects the United Kingdom to do the same, not only by taking all the steps necessary to restore consumer confidence and to stabilize the market, but also to enable the institutions to function normally.
To put it bluntly, the Commission expects the policy of non-cooperation to end.
Without this commitment, there will be no agreement in Florence!
(Applause) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have restricted myself to the three topics that in my opinion are matters of priority for Florence, but I also express the hope that the European Council will ensure that everything is in place so that, at its next meeting, it can take the decisions necessary, according to the agreed programme, to move towards the introduction of the single currency.
I also hope that, as a result of the commitments entered into at its meeting in Cannes, the European Council can finally lift the blocking of Europol, thus making it possible to increase the cooperation essential for strengthening the internal security of the Union.
Here then, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, are the hopes and expectations that I wish to express on the eve of the European Council in Florence and, as I already know, are yours also.
(Loud applause)
Thank you Mr President of the Commission.
The Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs and Presidentin-Office of the Council of the European Union, Mr Dini, is also here now.
I should like to welcome him most warmly, and ask him to speak straightaway.
Mr President-in-Office, please take the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Florence European Council will be the culmination of the Italian presidency's term and the government of my country is approaching this important appointment in full awareness of the responsibility facing us, but also of the significance and value of the work that has been done since last January.
The European Council must set itself a dual objective: evaluation of the results obtained over these six months, and suggestions, guidelines and momentum for the Council and Commission to follow up the most urgent and controversial issues.
The decisions of the European Council are the traditional inheritance of the incoming presidency and here I want to stress how much our activities have been assisted by the guidelines agreed in Cannes and Madrid thanks to the work of the countries which preceded us in leading the Council of Ministers.
The Florence Council will mark an important stage in the approach to and preparation for the great deadlines that await the Union.
It is well-known that these relate to the reform of the treaties, respect for the criteria and the timetables leading to economic and monetary union, and the preparation and adaptation of policies and financial instruments designed to welcome the countries which have applied for membership into the Union.
These binding deadlines can only be respected if the Union is able to respond to a growing imperative: the involvement and participation of citizens in the European project, and its image must not be artificial, legalistic and institutional, it must become capable of providing adequate and visible responses to the concerns of societies as increasingly complex, interconnected and riven with stress and anxiety as ours.
I think the European Parliament is in a better position than any other European Union institution to interpret the citizens' need to understand the opportunities and limits of the process of integration more fully, and mobilize the consensus needed to achieve the progress and deepening which can allow our countries to consolidate the advantages obtained in this half-century of democracy, peace, stability and widespread prosperity.
From this viewpoint, the revision of the Treaty is a priority.
The Turin European Council, a crucial episode in the Italian presidency's term, set an agenda for the work of the Intergovernmental Conference.
At Florence the initial stages of the negotiations need to be evaluated and, in particular, the trains of thought being pursued must be more precisely defined so that the necessary compromises can be found on some of the more controversial issues, such as the definition of fundamental rights and rights of citizenship, the adaptation of the institutional system with a view to the future enlargements, the possibility of introducing strengthened forms of cooperation into the Treaty, the inclusion of a specific chapter on employment, radical improvement of European action on justice and home affairs, a more coherent, solid and effective structure for foreign and security policy, and simplification of the Treaty to make it easier to understand, giving due emphasis to the principles of subsidiarity and transparency.
The first stages of the work of the conference have confirmed that Member States continue to have differing priorities and visions, and highlighted the need for a constructive approach to the Turin commitment to conclude the negotiations within a year.
I was able to verify this last Monday in Rome, when the Foreign Ministers met informally to make a joint evaluation of the Intergovernmental Conference and the progress of its work, and I want to take this opportunity to thank President Hänsch once again for his contribution to that meeting and to the other meetings of the Conference.
In Rome we jointly recognized that one stage of the Conference was completed, and another - the real negotiations - must now begin.
With this in view, while every item on the Conference agenda is of equal importance, the fact is that we have more hope of concrete results on some than on others.
I am especially thinking of the third pillar, where Union citizens expect a specific response in terms of guarantees of their security and respect of their rights.
But I am also thinking of the chapter on the common foreign and security policy, which must also make progress as part of the new prospects opened up for European defence by the NATO ministerial meeting in Berlin.
The understanding reached at this very important meeting, on the possibility of the Western European Union using NATO resources for its own peacekeeping operations, constitutes further confirmation that the concept of a European security and defence identity is complementary to the essential transatlantic link which must be seen as part of a coherent plan for stability and security in Europe.
It is now up to the conference to draw the consequences for the European Union of its relationship with the Western European Union.
In its conclusions the Turin European Council agreed the methods for associating the European Parliament with the work of the conference in terms less ambitious than the presidency had hoped, certainly, but nevertheless representing significant progress compared with the position the last time reform of the Treaty was negotiated.
Italy has sought a broad interpretation of the formula for associating the European Parliament with the Intergovernmental Conference, and has arranged for all the conference working documents to be sent to you.
I would also like to express my personal thanks to Mrs Guigou and Mr Brok for the quality of their contributions to the debate, at both ministerial and representative levels, and for demonstrating the utmost integrity in the search for better solutions for real and advantageous implementation of the Turin agreement.
We take responsibility for passing on to the future Irish presidency an interim report summarizing the work done so far and setting out the progress achieved.
But from the discussions in Florence must above all emerge a firm and unequivocal sign that the pace of the work is accelerating and the stage of mere repetition of national positions in which some delegations still unfortunately indulge is over.
The slowdown in economic growth at the end of 1995 and the start of this year have made the fight against unemployment even more dramatic, if that were possible.
The Italian presidency has been able to avail itself of the quality and quantity of the work carried out by the Commission, and in particular of President Santer's proposal for an employment confidence pact aimed at giving this issue maximum priority at the Florence European Council.
The dramatic nature of the employment problem scarcely needs underlining. It is not just an economic problem, it is also a social tragedy tearing our countries apart, causing growing social exclusion, making part of the population feel inexorably surplus or supernumerary which is entirely alien to the very idea of European citizenship.
In the face of this disturbing situation, there is a clear awareness that no miracle answers exist and direct responsibility for dealing with the problem still remains at the national level.
But this does not justify failure to act or lack of initiative at Union level.
The message to the European Council on this is extremely clear.
At the tripartite meeting in Rome, which we regard with a certain amount of pride as one of the outstanding moments of our presidency, the social partners indicated certain common objectives which should be taken fully into account by the European Council and the institutions of the Union.
The necessary efforts all the Member States are making to improve their finances both with a view to economic and monetary union and to avoid being penalized by markets and international investors, must now be accompanied by strict budgetary discipline at Union level too.
But the allocation of available resources must also take account of the political priorities and that is the spirit in which Florence should discuss how to make the aim of prioritizing sectors with higher employment potential more effectively visible, by completing the great trans-European networks, developing the research programmes, and supporting small and medium-sized businesses.
The rationalization of expenditure must take place in a general framework which naturally promotes the search for competitiveness, through the completion and consolidation of the single market, the liberalization of services, wage flexibility and moderation, the development of active employment and training policies, and taking full advantage of joint planning by the social partners.
The Madrid European Council specified the route to achieving economic and monetary union, based on the criteria and timetables laid down in the Treaty.
During our presidency, preparations for the move to the single currency have continued, both through the now tested procedures of macro-economic guidance and multilateral surveillance, and through deeper examination of the delicate issues involved in strengthening budgetary discipline during the third stage of monetary union and relations between the Euro and the currencies of Member States not in a position to participate in stage 3 on 1 January 1999.
I believe significant progress has been made on these points and the European Council will be in a position to outline approaches which support the need to protect the single market by preventing excessive monetary fluctuations, preserving monetary stability, and fully respecting the procedures and institutional mechanisms in case of adoption of stricter criteria to ensure the necessary strength of the future single currency.
I think it is also positive to highlight the total unanimity which exists between us on the need to continue to work for healthy national finances and to make every effort to make the most of the advantages and opportunities which the single currency will offer to each of the Member States.
It is no accident that not one Member State has called for the debate on economic and monetary union to be re-opened in the process of reforming the Treaty.
I need not waste many words reminding you that cooperation in justice and home affairs is a strategic factor for the future of the integration process.
It is now well-known that in this area the ambitions of the majority of the Member States and the gravity of the transnational phenomenon we face are in increasingly strident contrast with the institutional tools we have available.
The European Council will essentially be called on to discuss the outstanding issues of extradition and EUROPOL.
The Italian presidency has made every effort to meet the deadline of 30 June set in Cannes for resolving the problem of the Court of Justice's powers under the EUROPOL Convention.
The continued opposition of one delegation to every compromise proposal formulated has prevented the Justice and Home Affairs Council from reaching agreement.
So the matter must be discussed at the European Council, when the presidency intends to emphasize once again the serious political damage done to the Union as a whole by a lack of decision-making capacity.
In Florence there will also be discussion of the proposal to create a European observatory for racism and xenophobia.
This is an initiative to which we attach great significance in the context of the fight against all forms of intolerance likely to endanger the fundamentally distinctive character of our democratic societies.
When it decided to create a consultative committee on racism and xenophobia, the European Council made clear its intention to take energetic action to counter the spread of racist attitudes and prejudices which are insinuating themselves into many of our countries, often by stealth, and especially corrupting less advantaged groups of young people.
The reform of the current mechanism for the third pillar will be one of the surest measurements for evaluating the results of the conference.
Certain subject areas still restricted at present to cooperation of the predominately intergovernmental type, and therefore bound by the need for unanimity, should be progressively brought into the Community sphere.
This route will make it easier to resolve some serious outstanding problems like free movement of persons.
Despite the best efforts of the Italian presidency, the package of three directives on free movement presented by Commissioner Monti remain the subject of numerous reservations, many of which are due to the uncertainty of the legal bases and the distribution of powers between the Community and intergovernmental spheres.
The progress of the Council's activities has been greatly disturbed in the last few weeks by the attitude of the British government over the mad cow crisis, which President Santer has described.
In handling this crisis situation the presidency has been inspired by three considerations. The first is solidarity with the British government, which is facing a delicate situation likewise affecting every other Member State of the Union and which presents complex political, financial and veterinary implications.
We have demonstrated this spirit of solidarity both at the Turin Council and at various meetings of the Agriculture Council devoted to this issue.
The second consideration is the responsible handling of issues involving consumer protection and public health.
The sole objective of the decision to impose a ban on exports of beef and beef derivatives from the United Kingdom, taken in full respect of tested Community mechanisms and procedures, was containment of the epidemic, allowing all the necessary scientific investigations to be carried out in the meantime and a start to be made on the definition, implementation and control of plans for the eradication of the disease.
The decision to raise the ban on certain by-products taken by the Commission a few days ago, is confirmation that there is no intent to persecute or excess of zeal in the way this crisis is being handled.
Intense work is going on between the United Kingdom government and the Commission to finalize a step-by-step plan, to be submitted to the Florence Council, which will lead to drastic containment of the epidemic and progressive lifting of the ban on the export of the products concerned.
All this must occur under two very specific and strict conditions: close control by the Commission of the whole agreed plan and scientific evaluation by the relevant committees of all the measures to be implemented.
Respect for these conditions is indispensable to restoring order and certainty to the beef market.
The third consideration is that the United Kingdom's attitude of non-cooperation taken by the United Kingdom is extremely regrettable because it breaks the duty of loyalty under Article 5 of the Treaty, whereby Member States 'shall abstain from any measure which could jeopardize the attainment of the objectives of this Treaty' .
I would further point out that the decision of the United Kingdom to prevent the approval of measures totally unconnected with the BSE crisis has turned out to be counterproductive, giving rise to the impression in some Member States and sectors of public opinion that there is a desire to use political pressure to resolve issues which actually require measures based on strictly technical and scientific evidence, as only these are credible and effective.
We hope the Florence Council will help bring calm to the situation and that the British government will abandon its policy of non-cooperation, given that the ban has already been partially lifted and that there are indications of the way forward to gradual elimination of the ban, within such periods as prove necessary in the assessment of the technical committees.
I want to reiterate the points I made to you the day after the Turin European Council on some useful lessons the BSE crisis has taught us.
Subsidiarity, deregulation, and simplification of rules are key themes for the balanced development of the Union, upgrading local and individual initiatives and eliminating unnecessary burdens on firms and citizens.
The Florence Council will also be required to comment on the progress made by the Union in the sectors of telecommunications, energy - the council concerned will try to reach agreement tomorrow on the highly important directive relating to the single market in electricity - social policy, environmental policy and agriculture.
The decision reached on 17 June by the Transport Council on the major networks is particularly significant.
A substantial part of the European Council's work will be devoted to the external relations of the Union.
Too often - and often rightly - the Union is criticized for a structural incapacity to act consistently on the international scene.
The objective limits to affirming the European identity may only be finally overcome in the medium and long term through incisive innovations introduced by the Intergovernmental Conference and the revision of the current institutional basis.
The ultimate aim is to project a reliable and coherent image of Europe outside and inside the Union, injecting real substance and content into its international role.
Developments in former Yugoslavia will be in the foreground at Florence.
The Italian presidency has sought to keep a high European profile in implementing the peace agreements, and establishing a regional approach to the consolidation of the peace and the future stability of the entire area.
The Ministerial Conference which took place in Florence on 13 and 14 June was a high point in the international community's action on Bosnia in terms of taking stock of the initiatives so far introduced and relaunching the action for the crucial months ahead.
It was also an occasion to seek greater commitment from the parties implementing the Dayton agreements.
In particular we succeeded in concluding the understanding on arms control and reduction at subregional level, which had not been possible in the preceding weeks and which was signed by the Bosnian parties, Croatia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and by six 'witness' countries.
We can also count among the positive results the setting of a precise date for the Bosnian elections within the Dayton deadline, the reaffirmation of the international commitment to restructuring, and the reaffirmation of the importance of the chapter on human rights and minorities, including the problems of Kosovo and eastern Slavonia.
The Florence European Council will also be called upon to recognize the importance, on the one hand, of adopting the action plan for Russia and, on the other, of the contribution made to the development of the premembership strategy for the CEECs, which has proved more visible, more intelligible and more flexible than structured dialogue.
Here it is surely significant that the presence of the Slovenian representatives in Florence, the signature of the Europe-Slovenia association agreement on 10 June last in Luxembourg, and the presentation to the European Union of the membership application from Ljubljana have been highlights of the Italian presidency.
So a fundamental step has been taken to progress the membership process for Slovenia, which now stands alongside Cyprus and Malta and the other new CEECs, as a beneficiary of the pre-membership strategy and a convincing candidate for early membership.
Amongst other important items on the Florence agenda is the ceremonial signing of the European Union-Chile framework agreement and the partnership and cooperation agreement between the European Union and Uzbekistan, at which Chilean President Frei and Uzbeki President Karimov are expected to be present.
Florence will also take stock of the European contribution to the Middle East peace process, particularly stressing the Union's role in monitoring and coordinating the Palestinian elections of 20 January, the importance of the informal meeting of Union Foreign Ministers in Palermo, and several visits by the political troika to the principal Middle Eastern capitals.
The European Union troika also played an active part in the Sharm-al-Sheikh meeting and the follow-up to it, seeking a balanced and global approach to the problem of combatting terrorism with a view to sustaining the peace process.
At Florence the importance Europe attaches to the continuation of the peace process must be reiterated and an urgent appeal along these lines sent to all the parties involved.
Special emphasis will also be laid on the great progress achieved in these six months in the construction of the Euro-Mediterranean partenariat, agreed at Barcelona.
This progress reflects our conviction that no project for political and economic synergy between the two shores of the Mediterranean can develop profitably without the creation of a dense network of relationships and common interests between the two societies.
In this context we cannot underestimate the grave damage done to this process and to the international credibility of the Union by the failure to approve the new MEDA regulation on which the technical and financial assistance provided by the Union to Mediterranean third countries depends.
The Italian presidency has done its utmost to find a compromise formula or mediation approach which would break the deadlock currently holding up the progress of the regulation.
But we are pursuing this with maximum determination, while respecting Community solidarity and understanding the extremely delicate implications of this negotiation, in particular for one Member State.
Closely connected with this the issue are relations with Turkey, one of the most delicate problems the Union has had to deal with in the course of this six months: in addition to the total blocking of financial cooperation, we have had to recognize that it is impossible to organize the planned meeting of the Europe-Turkey Association Council.
We are hoping for positive developments in the next few days, and the Turkish premier has been invited to a meeting in Florence, testifying to the presidency's commitment to pursue, through very serious difficulties, the objective of strengthening Euro-Turkish relations.
As regards transatlantic relations, we have tried to implement the new transatlantic agenda, approved on 3 December in Madrid.
During the Europe-United States Summit in Washington on the 12th of this month, we took stock of the progress made, establishing the premises for achieving the other objectives of the action plan and thus setting the priorities for the next six months.
However, the broadly positive context of this dialogue was weakened by the tensions which have been accumulating over the last few days around the Helms-Burton Act and the analogous laws on Libya and Iran currently being debated in the United States Congress.
The consequences of these measures on Community economic operators and the disruption they might bring to the multilateral trading system are causing great concern in the Union.
The Florence Council will reflect these concerns, sending a clear political signal to Washington that the Union's intends to confront future developments in this matter with determination.
Finally, the results achieved at the Europe-Asia meeting in Bangkok, introducing a novel element into EuroAsian relations, must be given due prominence at Florence.
On that note I will close. Thank you for your attention.
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr President-inOffice of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I should firstly like to thank you for the clear and detailed information you have given.
The responsibility for organizing the launch of the Intergovernmental Conference has fallen to the Italian presidency.
It is not necessary to remind the House that, at this stage of the process of European integration, the work of this conference is crucial.
On the one hand, it must strengthen and consolidate Europe's institutions; and, on the other, it must fine-tune them with a view to the enlargement of the Union.
We should remember and applaud the fact, in this context, that when the Italian presidency addressed the issue of the participation of Parliament in the Intergovernmental Conference, it took a positive line.
The stance adopted by certain other Member States, on the other hand, will prevent Parliament from participating to the extent that it was involved - and with good results, I believe - in the Reflection Group.
Nevertheless, it should be recognized that the degree of Parliament's - and, by extension, the European public's - involvement in the Intergovernmental Conference will be far greater than it was at the time of the negotiation of the Maastricht Treaty.
There is therefore a need to recognize this and address the important issues with which the conference will deal from the perspective of Parliament and the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
We know that in its initial stages, under the Italian presidency, the conference has identified the Member States' positions as regards the issues involved in the revision of the Treaties. And we cannot fail to be concerned at the fact that certain Member States are resisting both the extension of codecision to all legislative acts and the institution of qualified majority voting in the Council as the general rule.
As things stand, there is a risk of the conference becoming bogged down or leading to only minimal revisions, thereby defining a European Union which is inadequate in terms of the challenges which we are facing and the demands of European public opinion which can clearly be discerned, in a process which ultimately provides the Union with its legitimacy.
The European public - and Parliament as its representative in our contacts with intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations - have set out a series of demands which Europe's institutions have to meet in order for a new process of social legitimation to take place.
Firstly, there is the strengthening of European citizenship, as well as effective cooperation in the fields of justice and home affairs, especially as regards the bringing of certain third-pillar matters into the Community domain and the stepping-up of cooperation on others, including the improvement of internal security and the effective combating of terrorism and organized crime, with all the consequences that derive from this, not least as regards the Treaties.
With regard to employment and social protection, the European public wishes them to be dealt with in a separate Treaty chapter.
I welcome Mr Santer's words and initiatives in this respect.
On the basis of what Mr Dini said, I am confident that the Italian presidency supports this approach, and I would urge both the presidency and the Commission to continue along these lines, since without the degree of social integration represented by full employment and adequate social protection, the Union will be deprived of its legitimacy.
The Union's institutions must be more effective, more democratic and more transparent.
We know that at the current stage of the conference, issues such as the weighting of votes, the extension of qualified majority voting and the simplification of legislative procedures have not yet achieved a minimum consensus.
All this gives rise to hope and concern: hope in the work of the Italian presidency; concern at the existing problems and the UK Government's blocking of the Community process.
Consequently, the committee of which I am chairman is calling for an effort from the Italian presidency, and asks the President-in-Office what measures, what initiatives, the presidency intends to take to ensure that the Florence summit is the success we wish it to be.
Mr President, paradoxically there is a useful side to the otherwise unjustifiable blocking of European Union decisions by Great Britain.
In fact it demonstrates to the full the fragility of the Union's present institutional mechanism.
Intergovernmental cooperation is a cumbersome and inadequate instrument: that has been seen and is still seen in the European Union's lack of presence in foreign policy, as witness Yugoslavia.
It is a real contradiction to have a common currency, but no common economic, fiscal, or employment policy, no common foreign policy, and no common justice policy.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party hopes that contradiction will be resolved in a positive way and that Europe will take the path of federalism.
The Intergovernmental Conference is certainly not moving in that direction, at least not so far, and President Santer was right to state that clearly.
When the Council opens in Florence, I hope the Italian government will recognize all this frankly, and make it no routine meeting but a turning point in the political history of European integration.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, the European United Left, I should like to make three comments which reflect three general but deep concerns.
The first is the impression that the Intergovernmental Conference is becoming dissipated and stagnating, with the added problem of the BSE crisis.
It could be said that the conference has begun to lack intensity and substance. We wish the conference to be consolidated.
We wish to see fresh impetus given, and decisions taken at the Florence summit which signify that the IGC exists and is meeting with a response from the European public.
The second concern is the role of the European Parliament.
Despite the efforts of our representatives, starting with the President of Parliament, it must be said that Parliament does not have the necessary weight in the Union's democratic balance, at a time when there is a call for greater democracy, transparency and representativeness in Europe's democratic fabric.
At times, Mr Dini and Mr Santer, Parliament seems to be playing a role similar to that played by the government of a country which is not yet a Member State but which wishes to join the European Union: it has a presence, it can speak, but it takes little part in decision-making.
We are calling for the requirement of Parliament's assent for any revision of the Treaties to be recognized swiftly and written into the Treaty.
And the third concern is European society and unemployment.
You have never struck us as being a dogmatic politician or economist, Mr Dini.
You will therefore understand that in the eyes of many European citizens, the urgency and rigidity of the conditions for achieving the single currency in accordance with the German conservative model are serving to legitimize policies which are sometimes anti-social and, to a large extent, discourage public investment in the Member States.
They do not, therefore, promote employment.
Our group does not give much credence to the stability pact, or indeed the confidence pact.
We need different macroeconomic policies which generate employment.
And we do not wish to be told, a few months or years from now, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, what Chancellor Kohl was told by German demonstrators in Bonn with a large banner: ' You, the European Union, are not combating unemployment, you are combating the unemployed' .
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, the Greens feel bound to express our deep concern about the future of the European Union, because while we are discussing the Intergovernmental Conference which has opened in Turin, events external to that Conference are undermining Europe's prospects.
What has happened with the mad cow crisis and the United Kingdom's decision to block business shows that there is lack of respect for Article 5 of the Treaty, and that the existing Treaty is no longer tenable and would be even less so should there be enlargement.
Given this situation I believe we must vigorously confirm, the European Union must vigorously confirm that an effort is needed within the Intergovernmental Conference to achieve greater internal democracy and establish the conditions necessary for enlargement to go ahead safely.
And that is why it may be important - and I say this particularly to representatives of the European Socialist Party - for the European Union, under attack from the United Kingdom and faced with these blocking tactics, to act as fourteen countries for the time being, because by its obstruction the United Kingdom has de facto withdrawn from joint decisions.
We must be in a position to move forward, above all reassuring consumers about BSE, all European consumers, starting with British consumers who face difficulties as a result of their government's decisions.
We must work harder all round, in every sense, starting with the Florence Summit.
On employment, the Greens are not at all satisfied to be told yet again that the only alternative is to reiterate the need for major infrastructure projects, and that the agreement obtained on the trans-European transport network is a great result.
Here too we have seen a debate about the prerogatives of the European Parliament and an attack on the Maastricht agreements, with Parliament prevented from discussing fourteen projects on the pretext that the decisions had already been taken, which meant Parliament was denied the opportunity of co-decision.
Such attacks call into question and threaten the future of Europe, and they do not augur well for good progress at the Intergovernmental Conference.
It does not solve the employment problem if the most we can do is offer firms new profit margins, which provides no guarantee of employment, and also damages the environment and social security.
Nor are we satisfied with what we have heard on foreign policy.
We have heard nothing about Albania.
We have heard that the Turkish premier will be present in Florence despite was is going on in Turkey internally and externally, and we do not have a commitment to MEDA.
But we are satisfied that this administration has finally made an agreement with Slovenia.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, it is a real shame, President Dini, that you arrived late this morning at the debate on preparations for the Florence European Council, as you would have been able to hear President Santer's speech which brought some politics into this debate rather than simply presenting us with a list of expenditure as you have done: frankly that could probably have been circulated as a working document.
Allow me to draw your attention to some of the points made by the President of the Commission: on the IGC, President Santer confirmed that the record so far is hardly exciting, and we all know President Santer is a byword for prudence so I think that says it all.
The Italian presidency, the government you led earlier, and the present government, chose not to give the negotiating group the necessary political profile and substantially the result is that not one step forward has been taken in six months.
President Santer has taken a clear, firm and consistent position on the British crisis, without any pretence of mediating on everything and between everyone, based on the health of European citizens and consumers, and that came through in his speech. Will the Italian presidency support these priorities?
Will it confirm that the ban will only be lifted when the disease has been eradicated?
Will the Italian presidency do everything in its power to make the British government face up to its responsibilities on BSE and the intolerable paralysis of the institutions, which, incredibly, you seem to regard merely as a source of regret? Does the Italian presidency confirm that any decision on the subject will be based first and foremost on the most precise scientific evidence possible?
True, the presidency has cleared the way for the agreement with Slovenia, overturning the position of the Dini government on that, and will sign the agreement on Uzbekistan: a drop in the ocean, in my view.
Mr President, I was rather surprised and pleased by Mr Santer's words on taking up his office: less and better.
In 1993, there were 17 000 EU rules, so a clear-out was needed in the mass of legislation.
Now the subsidiarity principle was to be applied: let the Member States take care of those matters which cannot be dealt with better in Brussels.
It was the right approach, but unfortunately Mr Santer has not been able to deliver the goods.
There are now 21 392 regulations, directives and other laws.
The quantity of legislation has increased elevenfold in 22 years.
But instead of a clear-out, it is now planned to press on regardless with majority decision-making and hence more government from Brussels.
We propose a different approach.
The limits of the EU's powers should be defined, so that it deals with international topics.
EU legislation should begin and end in national parliaments, so our citizens are able to keep track of it.
The Commission should only put forward proposals if asked to do so by the national parliaments.
The EU should only be able to adopt common minimum rules, and standards should become a voluntary means of assistance instead of a centralized dictatorship.
It is all very well for a fruit wholesaler to be able to refer to common standards on the size of strawberries in international trade, but my mother-in-law does not need any EU rules to sell the freshly picked strawberries from her garden to people who can see the fruit.
It is all very well to have common minimum rules on the employment of children, but my wife and I do not need an EU directive to decide whether our son should deliver newspapers.
It is all very well to have common rules on what kind of toxic substances can be deposited in groundwater, but it is worse than mad cow disease when a majority in the Commission in Brussels is ready to stop a local authority setting tougher limits on the pollution of groundwater, which is not an international commodity...
(The President interrupted the speaker) ... and I would not least suggest to the President of the Commission that he should open the Florence summit by putting forward a long list of proposals to abolish...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, you have mentioned the achievements of the preceding six months, and you have listed the goals to be achieved in the next six months, but we have really heard very little of the results obtained in the Italian six months.
Perhaps you took out those pages, but I cannot believe there were any extra pages, because everyone knows the standard times for speeches in this Chamber, you more than anyone.
I do not think Italy has brought any honour upon itself with its lax attitude to Slovenia over property taken from Italians and not yet restored.
Nor is it to the credit of our presidency that there has been no reference to human rights in countries we import from, countries which use child labour and where social security is totally lacking.
We ought to be trying to protect the physical and moral health of these people, and protect our economy.
As regards the grave embarrassment of the British government and the economic damage, it might have been avoided if something had been done earlier.
I remember asking the Commission a question a year and a half ago, and the reply was that everything was under control. So much under control that we are where we are today!
We are delighted with the initiative to create a European Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia and we would modestly suggest a home for it.
We see Mantua as the home for this agency, because that is where the pilot project saw the light of day, establishing how and when the phenomenon of racism and xenophobia arises, if only inside Italy.
As we live through the final days of the Italian presidency and approach the Florence Summit, I would like to remind everyone here of the need to return finally to the aims of the founding fathers of the European Union.
We talk too much about money and economics these days and never about the deeper political union which is the indispensable prelude, the sine qua non , for achieving economic union, the single currency and a minimum of welfare.
It is impossible, inconceivable, that the unemployment afflicting 20 million citizens in Europe can be eliminated if we do not achieve the political union that will give impetus and power to economic union.
There will certainly be interests, outside Europe too, seeking to impede the achievement of this union, but we are ready to fight for it in the knowledge that despite different cultural and political origins there are people in this Parliament who stand by political union, because they know that is where the future lies, and the alternative is war between poor people.
If political union is not achieved first - I wish the Italian presidency would commit itself to this - enlargement will only lead to massacres of poor people by other poor people and a constant rise in unemployment while the rich and powerful keep getting richer and more powerful.
We do not want oligarchies, we want democracy for all citizens equally, and we also want to remind the Italian presidency of the obligation to act in such a way that all are equal inside the European Union, and in particular that the problems of Italian firms should be dealt with by the same standards as other countries.
It so happens that at the moment we are the only country where a formal decision has been applied on the issue of telephone systems, while no measures have yet been applied in other countries in the same position.
I have received eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, I would like to concentrate on the fact that Florence is the last act of the Italian presidency, so it is important to use it to the maximum advantage of our common destiny.
After all the talk of recent years, we expect the Italian presidency to close the six months by bringing concrete proposals and measures to Florence.
What is more, Mr Dini, you won acclaim from Parliament by committing yourself to that last time you were here.
I appreciate the Italian government's decision to hold a national conference on employment as an operational follow-up to the confidence pact between the social partners, an initiative we resolutely support and consider extremely important.
I hope the decision will be taken in Florence to do the same throughout Europe, but the Florence Council can also decide to refinance the funding for small and medium-sized firms agreed at Copenhagen, indicate approaches to revision of the labour market and working time to be agreed between the social partners under the confidence pact, and above all decide to finance the trans-European networks and the most innovative part of the White Paper, raising the loan on the financial market called for by Delors and never authorized by the Council.
This is a fundamental political issue which demonstrates the capacity of the European Union to intervene in the economy at moments of crisis.
We are hoping for long-awaited concrete measures, and if they do not come it would be better to abandon the employment programmes.
There is resistance to serious discussion at the Intergovernmental Conference, as President Santer has clearly stated, and I think he did well to say so and it should also be said openly to the citizens of Europe.
We are alarmed at delay which could turn into paralysis, loss of the sense of Europe and the general interest, and regression to purely national visions.
Our criticism goes out to all the governments holding back the work on significant issues.
Now that the presidency is ending, and with it the obligation to be the mouthpiece for common positions, we call on the Italian government to become a resolute driving force at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, it is the heartfelt hope of the great majority of this Parliament that the Florence European Council is not remembered only for the mad cow crisis.
The joint resolution to wind up this debate refers to the issues on the table: the Intergovernmental Conference, employment, the CFSP, the third pillar, the internal energy market.
Great hopes hang on the effective capacity to finalize a timely and credible response to the tragedy of unemployment.
I live in an area of Europe where unemployment is over 20 % of the population of working age, where of 100 young people looking for work 55 do not find a job and many of them, long term unemployed, are now well over thirty-two years old.
This is a tragic situation, which goes well beyond tolerance limits and has serious economic, social and civil consequences, affording easier penetration to organized crime.
This situation makes me indifferent to byzantine disputes about dual European and national responsibility and obliges me to demand an effective and urgent European initiative, which really adds to the efforts of the national, regional and local governments rather than using them as a comfortable alibi for inertia and delays
So I want to thank you and support you, President Santer, on the method adopted and the merits of the European Commission's proposal.
You have presented a confidence pact to governments and social partners and Europe must be in a position to sign that pact, especially with the younger generation, on the sure grounds that Europe will help them build a better future through its measures, its choices, its greater capacity to respond to the new challenges of globalization and because it is really prepared to gamble on their willingness to make a commitment, their inventiveness, their creativity and their intelligence.
We are pleased to note President Dini's assurance of availability, on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, we also want to thank you for the very useful work done in the last few months despite the election campaign which kept you busy in Italy, finding echoes in some of the speeches here.
We are cheered by your commitment to start the negotiating stage of the IGC as soon as possible.
There is a widespread conviction that unless the problem of the Union's democratic deficit is confronted and resolved, it will not be possible for the planned enlargements to take place and it will not be possible to give the European Union the desired impetus.
It must be the hope of us all, and I have almost finished, Mr President, that within a year Europe will really be able to plan its future, its borders, its aims, and its democracy. What better way to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome?
Mr President, I wish to begin by expressing my thanks and appreciation to the Italian presidency, Mr Dini, and to the Commission President, Mr Santer, for their valuable contributions to this debate here this morning.
Next week's European summit must concentrate on defusing the tensions which have been allowed to build up in recent weeks between the British Government and its European partners.
The policy of non-cooperation which the British Government is now pursuing in Brussels has had an entirely negative impact and must be abandoned at the earliest opportunity.
In Britain much of the anti-European rhetoric which has been unleashed following the government's decision to adopt an obstructionist approach to European decision-making has been profoundly disturbing.
Responsible political leaders in London must now take the initiative and reassure the British people that they have nothing to fear from their neighbours in the European Union.
European leaders, especially the British Government, can help to restore some balance in relations between Britain and the rest of Europe by agreeing on a framework for resolving the BSE problem at the summit.
The European Union must also take steps to restore the confidence of consumers and producers in beef as a healthy, safe and marketable product.
It is imperative that the protection of the health of our citizens is our only priority and that all decisions will be based on the best scientific evidence available.
I commend President Santer on his principled stand on this issue, defending the citizens of Europe.
The beef crisis has already diverted attention from important work under way in the Intergovernmental Conference.
The beef crisis has diverted attention away from fighting unemployment and international crime.
The Intergovernmental Conference must prepare for the expansion of the European Union to include the former communist countries in Eastern Europe.
It is important that these negotiations are undertaken in a calm and rational manner.
Unfortunately, the debate on Europe which has been under way in the British media has been characterized by an absence of calm and rational comment.
Finally, the danger now is that agreement at the IGC will be much more difficult to achieve because of the antiEuropean forces unleased in the United Kingdom.
Mr President, the first point I want to make to you is about the credibility of our institutions on the occasion of the Florence European Council.
Who knows what the Florence European Council will talk about on 21 June?
That is not a rhetorical question, because even at this stage we have no idea whether the Heads of State and of Government will deal with the problem of BSE, draw up a credible strategy to resolve the problem of the 18 million unemployed in Europe, take a position on the Russian elections or, as is probable, deal with all these problems, together with another hundred, in statements diligently prepared by the hardworking officers of the Council and the Commission.
And what does the European Parliament do, beyond the ritual liturgy? Have we been able to influence the agenda?
Will we be able to open a serious dialogue with the European Council and agree a common strategy next month, when it presents the report to us as provided for by Article D of the Treaty on European Union?
Personally I find it incredible that three years after the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty and with a debate going on about whether to make the European Council the supreme body for deciding the Union's foreign policy, there has not yet been any attempt to establish a more solid basis for the relationship between the institution which represents the highest level - democratic legitimacy - and the institution which represents the States' legitimacy.
In my view, a Parliament with any self-respect ought to take the earliest opportunity to put a code of conduct to be followed in relations with the European Council on the table to ensure that not only the letter but also the spirit of the treaties are respected.
Last March, we asked the European Council to take part in the annual debate on the state of the Union with a report....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, the motion for a resolution tabled by the Committee on Institutional Affairs is quite right to complain about the status quo tendency of the Intergovernmental Conference's work so far. But has this Parliament done enough to overcome this policy of timidity and lack of imagination?
Yet the task that lies before is plain for all to see. That task is to transform an economic community, an area without internal borders, into a union of nations, a political union, like it says in the Maastricht Treaty.
There is no democratic way of creating such a union other than by entering into a process that will produce a constitution, in order to overcome Europe's East-West divide, thereby providing an initial response to the enormous challenges facing society today.
Where should the initiative for such a process...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, it is already three months since work on the IGC opened officially in Turin and we are forced to recognize that we find ourselves in a blocked situation.
Some will say that it was difficult to achieve more results in such a short time, forgetting that the reflection group under the chairmanship of Mr Westendorp had already done the spadework and that this preparatory work should have allowed the negotiators to start on real negotiations from March onwards.
We think it is time to sound the alarm since, in our opinion, the problem is not restricted to the question of the British veto, unacceptable as it is.
There is a real danger of getting bogged down, of a woolly compromise and of a downward revision of the Treaty, against which the European Parliament should rebel.
There is, in particular, a marked absence of political impetus and of an overall vision, which are lacking at the very moment when the building of the Community has to face crucial challenges.
Are we ready, as an institution, to respond to these challenges when faced with the hesitations of our governments? My group is convinced that there is no alternative to the pursuit of integration and that this will only be viable on a federal type basis.
That is why, if the difficulties persist, we think serious consideration will have to be given to the idea that those who wish to go forward should do so and in that way make all States face their responsibilities.
It is surely better to take the risk of a political crisis now, rather than pursue negotiations which would risk leading us, on the eve of enlargement, to woolly and inadequate compromises which would jeopardize for ever the future of our Union.
Mr President, on the eve of the Florence Council, the governments of Member States still seem to be hesitating to endorse the federalist proposals that the European institutions are urging upon them.
They are right to take a second look at them, since by listening to bad advice from the Europe of today, they would jeopardize the opportunities for the Europe of tomorrow.
Today's Europe is divided into peoples.
We need not ask why: it puts the abolition of frontiers before security, free trade before jobs and health, and superstates before the sovereignty of the people. How would citizens identify themselves in such a Europe?
The mad cow affair is unfortunately a good illustration of our drifting off course and the IGC should learn the lessons from this if it really wants to solve the problems of concern to citizens.
First lesson: our agriculture, with all frontiers open, is in danger of sliding down the slippery slope of levelling down, whereas, in accordance with the spirit of Article 100a, we should set a high standard of quality for ourselves.
To stop such a slide, however, we must adopt strict standards and a genuine Community preference.
Second lesson: States should have the right to use Article 36, particularly to protect the health of their people, even in areas already harmonized, something which is in any case expressly provided for in Article 100a for the environment.
Third lesson: the abolition of controls on goods at internal frontiers on 1 January 1993 has at the same time dismantled information and verification systems and has increased fraud.
This must be rectified as a matter of urgency.
Fourth lesson: since the beginning of the crisis, the Commission has sought to maintain the movement of goods without control - this is called free movement - and has gone as far as threatening Member States with the Court of Justice if they protected themselves and has rejected transparency because the press has revealed that pressure has apparently been exerted on experts.
We think the IGC should allow better control over the powers of the Commission and that it should impose on that body a general duty of transparency.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, caught between the uncertainties in the East and the mad cow disaster, the Intergovernmental Conference is marking time and nothing gives us any reason to think that the Florence summit will be able to unblock the situation in a Europe whose machinery is beginning to seize up for the simple reason that it was bound to happen one day.
It is not so much the cows that are mad as the utopian project that we are always chasing after.
The British government, like the Anglo-Saxon multinationals involved in totalitarian feeding, like the Commission and like the governments of our countries, bears an overwhelming responsibility for the undermining of both cattle feed and human foodstuffs.
But it is scandalous to use this situation in an attempt, practically if not institutionally, to get round the unanimity rule.
The British government, after all, is defending its own interests.
Whether it is trying to continue exporting its glaucous gelatinous products is its business.
It is up to others not to accept these goods.
It must be recognized that it is because of the pressure from the Commission that the British government has been reduced, in retaliation, to try to block what it could in order to assert its point of view.
We have here a striking demonstration that it is absurd to seek to merge the old European nations.
Too much Europe is killing Europe.
The Europe we wanted and still want is one with a multiplicity of cooperation agreements, between States of course, but even more between industrial, commercial and agricultural enterprises.
By dint of seeking to govern and legislate in all areas, we arrive at a situation where any crisis in a single area leads to a threat of a general break-up.
That is what will happen sooner or later, since no yoke can hold peoples who want to be free.
Putting an end to the unanimity rule is finally allowing the Commission to exercise increasingly compulsory powers.
There is thus nothing to say that legislation will not be forced on us tomorrow on euthanasia, the liberalization of drugs or the democratic legalization of satanic cults.
Mr President, I believe that Mr Santer presented the issue in its proper terms this morning.
What we have today is a crisis of confidence of Europe's citizens in the Community institutions. And I was particularly reassured by the Commission President's statement this morning to the effect that the Commission will act solely on the basis of the best scientific reports with regard to the issue of mad cow disease.
However, the President of the Commission will perhaps agree with me that the crisis of confidence of Europe's citizens in the Community institutions may be caused partly by certain past actions of those same institutions.
More specifically, with regard to public opinion in Spain, great concern has been caused by reports in the Spanish media that a senior official in the Directorate-General for Agriculture, Mr Mansito, has been relieved of his duties and in particular of the chairmanship of the Veterinary Committee as a result of his firm stance in defence of scientific criteria.
With regard to the Council - and I now wish to refer to the excellent speech by the President-in-Office, Mr Dini - I would stress that Europe's citizens are also concerned at the fact that, at present, decisions in the Council are not being taken in accordance with the need to protect public health, but on the basis of political horsetrading.
I trust that the President-in-Office, with his characteristic rectitude, will prevent the Council of Ministers from being turned into a forum for political horse-trading.
Lastly, I wish to express my clear support for the stance of the President-in-Office.
At present, the British Government is violating not only the spirit of the Treaty, but also - as both Mr Martens and the President-inOffice said - Article 5 of the EC Treaty. This is a clear infringement which must be eliminated.
Europe began with a Greek god in the form of a bull.
I am sure that it will not end with an insular mad cow.
There is one thing that we must realise, and the BSE crisis has made this clear: this Intergovernmental Conference must make progress on decision-making mechanisms that will prevent a destructive government from obstructing the European Union's ability to act.
For this reason, the introduction of the principle of taking majority decisions in all matters involving legislation is the clear consequence of the BSE crisis.
This is one of the tasks that we must set ourselves at this Intergovernmental Conference.
President Dini, I am grateful to you and to Mr Faggiolo for your friendly attitude towards Parliament.
I am also sure that, in the final version of the Italian report on the progress made by the Intergovernmental Conference to date, issues such as ability to act, transparency and the objectives of the European Parliament will be adequately taken into consideration.
Let me make a second comment.
The NATO Council in Berlin has taken away the excuse used by all those who, on the grounds of their alleged consideration for the USA, were previously against a defence-policy identity for the European Community.
The NATO Council, with the agreement of the USA, stated quite clearly that such a defence-policy identity is in the interests of both parties and is in the interests of the development of transatlantic relations, and that for this reason we Europeans are called upon to develop our own capacities, in order to fulfil common objectives for the protection of peace and freedom.
I believe that these tasks will have to be set by this Intergovernmental Conference, as will many other things.
Allow me to make one final comment.
Mr Santer, I am grateful to you for your remarks.
If the Commission succeeds in ensuring that the elimination of the BSE crisis takes place subject to the condition that the policy of non-cooperation is abandoned, so that step by step, by taking all veterinary and medical knowledge into consideration, and by taking corresponding control measures at European level, the confidence of consumers can be won back, so that they feel that their health is not in danger, then we are in a position to solve this BSE crisis.
If you are going to stick to these conditions accordingly, then we are also in a position to make this clear to our consumers.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I am intervening especially on behalf of the French Delegation of the UPE Group consisting, as you know, of elected Members from the RPR and the CNI.
I should like to make three observations.
The first, to say to you, Mr President of the Commission, that we particularly appreciated your speech.
This morning, you set out in magisterial fashion the order of priorities: nothing is more important than public health.
It was essential that Europe should declare this to be its position and should do so in the strongest terms, here and now.
Having said that, we should not forget the reality, soon to be a tragic reality, of the economic problems that are about to arise.
We must realize that, within a few months for certain, anger will be brewing up in our beefproducing countryside since, while consumption within the Union has decreased to an often significant extent (even though for some countries the drop is quite moderate), exports have now fallen to zero or almost zero.
The necessary steps must be taken to reverse the tide of opinion both internationally and amongst buyers outside the Union.
The second remark is to say that the position of Great Britain is morally indefensible and politically completely irresponsible.
To mix up the problem of the beef crisis with the functioning of European institutions is pointless and scandalous, unless it is a deliberate and in the end convenient camouflage of a wish to block the IGC.
Thirdly and lastly, the IGC should fight back.
Florence should mark a new turning point: Europe cannot afford the luxury of a crisis.
We ourselves are pleased at the firm determination of the French authorities to create the conditions for this initiative at the Florence summit.
Florence should have been the moment for all of Europe to take stock of the many critical decisions that weigh upon us, in particular unemployment, as underlined by President Santer, and the democratization of our institutions.
Instead, it has been hijacked by the behaviour of one Member State.
The waters of a flood of Anglo-Saxon self-delusion are lapping at the steps of the Fortezza del Basso.
Many people in Britain are shocked, saddened, angered and ashamed by the antics of the British Government.
The President-in-Office of the Council spoke of solidarity with the British Government.
Mr President, please think about solidarity with the British people instead.
(EN) British Government representatives will claim that their policy of non-cooperation is all about defending vital national interests.
Well, I challenge them to explain the method in their madness.
They claim to want an efficient Europe that gives its citizens value for money: so they block moves to crack down on fraud.
They claim to want a Europe in which businesses can grow and prosper: so they block moves to support those very businesses.
They claim to want a Europe that is moulded in Britain's interests: so they threaten to block all discussion of the big issues that face us today, from common foreign and security policy to justice and home affairs.
If that is protecting vital national interests, then clearly Britain is suffering from mad minister disease.
The hard core of Euro-sceptics is running the show, driving ministers to show how tough they are on Europe with ever more extreme acts of folly.
I make two suggestions.
To the British Government I say: wake up.
Conservatives are supposed to believe in strong leadership.
If they still do, then it is time to start showing some.
The British people want to see evidence that they can lead in the interests of the whole nation and in the common interest of the community of European nations, not in the interests of 20 disgruntled back-bench Members of Parliament.
To the rest of Europe I say: do not give in to blackmail.
My constituents have suffered more than most from the BSE crisis.
But it would do no favours to Britain, or to the Union, to give the impression that these tactics have worked and it would probably result in an unworkable agreement.
As British ministers should know all too well, it is never right to negotiate when someone is subjecting you to blackmail.
Now they should learn that there are no exceptions to that rule.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, the President-in-Office of the Council is not here any more as he has quite reasonably decided to follow the example of many Members of Parliament. I agree with President Santer when he said the record so far was not positive.
As Mr Santer said, this is not a negative judgement on the Italian presidency - it is as well to remember Mr Santer's whole sentence and not continue the election campaign which has not borne good fruit in Italy anyway.
The Italian presidency has actually done well in conditions that have frequently been very difficult.
In my view, President Santer's negative judgement is on the deadlock in the construction of Europe as a whole.
One need only think of what we regarded as positive intentions proposed in Turin, which have remained intentions, perhaps partly because of the British difficulties.
But I am convinced that the difficulties also reside in the fact that we continue to concentrate only on monetary union instead of working for the political unity of our continent, with the risk that the monetary and financial objectives may collapse as well.
So I think it is right to ask for one more effort, as the final act of the Italian presidency, to establish a real plan of action that can be adopted and applied in every country of the Union.
It is not enough to speak of a confidence pact, President Santer, because there is no confidence, there can be no confidence in a Europe with 18 million unemployed.
There is one more thing I want to ask for at the Florence Summit: let the door be opened to the possibility of renegotiating important matters like the deadlines for the single currency and greater flexibility in the accounting parameters.
I ask that to save the European Union and relaunch it, so that together we can all avert the threat of real shipwreck.
Madam President, by way of an introduction we heard Mr Santer express the wish that the Florence summit should be a real turning point, marking the mobilisation of Europe to ensure real progress on the labour market and the creation of more jobs.
Like millions of people in Europe I am sure, I share this wish.
However, if it is to be possible it is essential that EMU should be discussed by the Intergovernmental Conference and that the convergence criteria should be revised because the cuts which are now being made throughout Europe in order to meet the convergence criteria are instead increasing unemployment.
I believe we all agree that all countries must have sound economic policies.
However, sound policy also means pursuing a policy which prevents social exclusion.
It is high time, Madam President, to review this politically high-risk project which is creating social unrest and political tension in Europe.
Put EMU on the agenda for the IGC!
Madam President, I listened with great interest to what Mr Santer and Mr Dini said to us here this morning.
Both gentlemen highlighted the lack of progress to date at the IGC negotiations.
While recognizing that the problems are very complex, they can only be solved by courageously taking the first decisions on the various items on the agenda.
The crisis of confidence in the Member States will have to be overcome.
The negotiators will have to move into a higher gear if they are to reach successful conclusions.
As Mr Dini said, we in the European Parliament are in the best position to reflect the concerns of our citizens.
I know that many items which people want tackled are high on our agenda but they are not being dealt with at the IGC.
I want to lobby unashamedly for the European anti-poverty network.
A priority must be the fight against poverty and social exclusion and in particular the discouragement of the 18 million unemployed.
We are all very concerned about the impact on employment of the beef crisis.
But consider for a moment the plight of the millions of people in long-term unemployment and the many people who have never had a job and who struggle through life in dire poverty.
The fight against unemployment must be put on a par with attainment of EMU.
We need to redress the balance between economic policies and social policies by providing for a social audit of all European Union policies.
We should enshrine fundamental rights for all citizens of the Union in the Treaty: the right to a decent income, health care, education, housing, work, training, welfare services, community and family life.
These must be guaranteed to all residents of the Union without discrimination.
Finally, the behaviour of the British Government with regard to the beef crisis is unacceptable.
I fear that if beef is allowed to take over the Florence Summit it will augur very badly for a successful summit in Dublin.
Madam President, despite the Commission's honest efforts to solve the BSE problem - and I greatly appreciate President Santer's initiative - it increasingly looks as if we are about to have one of the strangest European summits of the past 15 to 20 years.
At a time when the European Union's heads of government need to be addressing urgent problems such as unemployment - and we have an excellent proposal on that - or the conduct of the IGC, EMU, enlargement, the role of the Union in Yugoslavia after the pull-out of US troops, for example, and a host of foreign policy issues, relations with Russia, Israel, with Turkey which cannot keep its hands off Greek islands, in short, at a time when the Union has a lot of important things on its plate this European summit looks like becoming a ridiculous mad cow farce.
No prizes for guessing what the man in the street will have to say about that!
The negative attitudes towards Europe which are already firmly rooted will flourish even more as a result.
Three brief remarks, Madam President.
On BSE first.
I totally agree with Mr Santer that BSE is a public health matter and must be resolved in a responsible manner.
I approve of the proposal which has now been put forward.
I hope the United Kingdom will accept it.
But at the same time I must say the chances are that it will not.
In that event we should seriously consider having the other fourteen summit members simply take decisions without the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom would then have to refer the legitimacy of those decisions to the Court of Justice.
As regards the IGC, it has to be said really that little progress has been made.
The progress report we have now received says little more than last December's Westendorp report.
I think we need to indicate that it is important for something to be done.
We want our citizens to play more of a part.
We want more openness and transparency.
We want more democracy.
We want better arrangements for internal security and better results from our external policy.
These things have to happen.
Parliamentary assent is needed to all these things.
One last remark.
The resolution now before us mentions Yugoslavia.
We are very keen, and the resolution reflects this, to have an inquiry into Srebrenica.
I would draw this passage to the attention of the Italian presidency; will they consider it carefully?
President Dini - I shall address him even if he is not here at the moment - during the six months that has seen the start of the Intergovernmental Conference in Turin, the government holding the presidency - the Italian government - has changed radically.
Only President Dini has retained a fundamental role in the handover, moving from Prime Minister to Minister of Foreign Affairs: his responsibilities on Europe are quite undiminished.
So we look to President Dini, and naturally to President Santer, to guarantee the continuity of the work begun in Turin.
Since Turin, in fact, the European Union has moved into a phase of total renewal, a renewal applying to issues and problems which this Parliament, together with the other institutions, has clearly identified and which have been mentioned this morning: unemployment, the single currency, peace and economic growth, free movement inside the internal market, social cohesion, consumer protection.
On this last point we have a problem which certainly did not originate three months ago, which has already siphoned off too many resources from the work in Turin and which threatens to have a negative impact on the work in Florence: the mad cow crisis.
While we maintain full solidarity with Great Britain, we want to see its government forcefully invited to shoulder its responsibilities towards consumers and their health, which are even more important than its economic responsibilities.
As President Dini reminded us this morning, Turin has produced two main issues: administrative and fiscal deregulation and bureaucratic simplification.
These are essential conditions of economic recovery, above all for small and medium-sized firms, the real cogs in that recovery.
The Italian presidency has not been without merit, and still has a chance at Florence to leave a lasting impression, especially on its the Irish successors, who cannot really be expected to have a Mediterranean vision of Europe.
It is worth remembering that Italy will not hold the presidency again for at least seven and a half years, and by that time Europe will either be finally built or will not be built at all.
Madam President, concerning the Florence European Council, my first words must be to condemn the United Kingdom government for its obstruction used to retaliate illegitimately against the Union's measures to combat the scourge of BSE.
Despite everything this crisis has the merit of showing how impossible it is for us to maintain the Treaty rule according to which one Member State can boycott the normal functioning of the institutions and prevent decisions being taken that all the others want, decisions in this case that not only concern vital interests but are also aimed at protecting public health.
As priorities for the Florence summit and, as it happens, in accordance with the joint resolution that we are adopting, I should like to emphasise the following points: adopting a clear strategy to get the IGC going and redefining the respective priorities, unblocking the resources needed to implement measures planned in the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, giving support to the Middle East peace process on the basis of the scrupulous respect by all parties of the agreements in force and, finally, pursuing actions and current programmes in former Yugoslavia following on from the Dayton agreements in order to reach a lasting peace.
Madam President, as the beef crisis continues so the British Government's still largely indiscriminate non-cooperation policy appears increasingly counter-productive.
There is simply no sense in blocking measures which, for example, prevent fraud, reduce red tape, promote minority languages and step up the fight against racism.
Whatever happens with the beef ban, if the British Government now disrupts the Florence summit it would be an act of folly and stupidity.
On the summit agenda will be proposals for a stability pact to boost job creation, measures to encourage small and medium-sized businesses, measures to boost investment in trans-European networks and measures to ensure that the single market operates more effectively.
With 18 million people without work in Britain and throughout the European Union it would be madness for the British Government to block this proposal.
Jobs must be the Florence priority and nothing - absolutely nothing - should be allowed to distract us from this objective.
I want the beef ban to be lifted immediately but I also recognize that the British Government must bring forward proposals which will command genuine consumer confidence.
The events of the past few weeks have undoubtedly harmed the European Union and weakened Britain's standing and undermined her influence.
The Florence summit has to be seen as an opportunity for a fresh start.
The onus is firmly on the British Government to demonstrate that it is serious about constructive, European cooperation.
If a Conservative Government is not up to that task it should make way for a Labour Government which is.
Madam President, the harrowing experience of the tragedy in Yugoslavia has highlighted the absolute need for a common foreign policy and precisely targeted preventive diplomacy.
A lot is said about this vital need, but little is done.
The worst thing of all is that there is no mechanism for dealing with dangerous situations immediately they arise.
That is precisely what is missing now in the case of the Aegean.
For some time, the behaviour of a country bordering on that sea has been generating intolerable tension in the region.
For some time, various reports have pointed to an imminent danger of a hot conflict.
What is even more worrying is that the country in question, Turkey, actually felt free to embark on this behaviour after it was granted - with the blessings of all of the partners - a closer association with the European Union via the customs union.
When Turkey provoked the dangerous incident on Imia, it was the Americans - not the Europeans - who intervened and sent Mr Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton accords, to take the heat out of the situation. And he it was who noted, somewhat scornfully, that the European Union seemed to be asleep.
However, Turkey has been stirring up trouble even since Imia. There have been threats of war, frenzied statements by ministers, brazen territorial claims and aspersions about the sovereignty of Members of the Union.
Time is running out. If the Florence Council really wishes to promote a common foreign and security policy and preventive diplomacy, it should point out very clearly to that mischief-making country that if it wishes to reap the benefits of European cooperation it must honour its obligations to the European Union and show respect for international legitimacy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the escalation of the mad cow crisis shows how lies, economies with the truth and secrecy create a climate in which hatred, fear, xenophobia and suspicion can flourish.
It hardly needs saying that this may ultimately jeopardize the ratification of amendments to the Treaty.
When Major then blames the European Union for the crisis this is the ultimate example of the attitude adopted by an awful lot of governments whenever they use and misuse the European Union as a lightning conductor, an umbrella or a scapegoat.
That too fuels scepticism and disbelief amongst the public.
The Intergovernmental Conference must strip governments of the institutional instrument they might use to play this obstructionist game again in future.
The instrument they make use of, ladies and gentlemen, is the secrecy of their deliberations and the secrecy of voting in the Council of Ministers.
I thus call on the IGC to address itself to the ending, once and for all, of secret voting in the Council's activities as legislator and generally speaking to the promotion of transparency.
Madam President, three months after its official opening and despite the efforts of the Italian presidency, the Intergovernmental Conference is at a standstill.
The first reason for this is the general lack of political impetus.
The problems to be solved by the conference are not technical but political.
Only the ministers and Heads of State and of Government can provide the indispensable impetus.
They should become personally involved, which has not yet happened, if they wish the conference to make progress.
The second reason is the blocking by the British Government.
The blocking of the conference started well before the 'mad cow' crisis, but since it was expressed in a civil fashion the other Member States could delay the moment of truth.
The blackmail by the British Government over 'mad cow disease' is forcing Member States to ask themselves the following question sooner then they expected: how can the present United Kingdom Government be bypassed, how can we progress without it?
A fine result for Mr Major. He isolates himself and shows by his attitude the vital importance of majority voting.
The European Council in Florence should lay down a few guidelines for the Irish presidency so that the Intergovernmental Conference does not find itself in Dublin at the same point as it is today.
Our resolution details the priorities.
I shall deal with only four of them.
The new chapter on employment to highlight the wish to put employment at the top of European Union priorities; public services as a central element in European citizenship; codecision for the European Parliament covering all legislative acts; making majority voting the general rule; and finally the simplification of the Treaty, a subject that should be tackled after Florence if we want to have a chance of making progress in that direction.
This Parliament, I hope, will not approve a minimal reform.
Nor will some national parliaments.
Ambitious reforms are the only way.
Madam President, last week the Committee on Regional Policy met in Brussels. At that meeting, two Austrian heads of provincial governments, who had entered into office as a result of democratic elections, could not be given formal accreditation owing to the British policy of non-cooperation.
The problem in the Committee on Regional Policy was solved in the spirit of European cooperation.
We must do the same thing on the subject of BSE, and in doing so we must not, above all, forget our own farmers at home.
Yesterday evening many millions of Europeans had the pleasure of seeing the excellent match between England and the Netherlands.
I should like to ask our British colleagues what would have happened if Europe had followed a policy of non-cooperation in the European football championship. But there are more important things in Europe than the Committee on Regional Policy and the European football championship: unemployment, a Europe that is able to act for itself, economic and monetary union and many other things.
And here we really do need the cooperation of everybody.
As far as unemployment is concerned, we need not only cooperation, but also workable plans, not mere catch-phrases.
There are massive conceptual differences here, between us, the Group of the European People's Party, and other groups within this House, in particular the Socialists.
Employment cannot be guaranteed on paper only.
A paper employment chapter in the Treaty is simply too little, and if it were to result in a centrally controlled employment policy for Europe, then that would be too much.
Jobs are created by the economy, and above all by small and medium-sized enterprises.
The Member States and the Union must cooperate with one another in order to create the framework conditions that we need to get more jobs.
I shall end with a quote from a young, twenty-five year old man, who wrote to me as follows, "Let us not forget that the European Communities did not arise out of sheer affection between nations, but out of the experience of terrible catastrophes caused by senseless nationalism and ignorance of one's neighbours' .
Let us not disappoint that young man!
Madam President, at a time when European citizens are expecting solutions to the burning issues of employment and an indication as to what kind of Europe we want to build together, the EU decisionmaking has come to a deadlock because of one government's policy of obstruction.
Hopefully this situation can be resolved at the summit in Florence so as to make decision-making regarding both employment and the IGC efficient.
Not only economic growth but also co-operation between governments and employers' organisations and trades unions is required in the fight against unemployment.
We have to be able to agree jointly on a policy which would channel economic growth into investments.
Similarly productivity has to be improved and new means of work-sharing has to be found.
It should not be forgotten that we also need to invest in research and education in Europe.
Although the IGC is still at the stage of general discussion, as far as I know the initiative put forward by the Finnish and Swedish foreign ministers regarding the development of WEU as a means of crisis administration within the EU has received support.
This initiative is to a large extent similar to Parliament's standpoint.
NATO's decision concerning the possibility of using NATO forces in European operations also fits into the whole picture.
The common foreign and security policy should be made more efficient.
We should also ensure that countries not belonging to defensive alliances are given equal opportunities to participate in the forming and implementation of a common foreign and security policy.
In today's Europe non-alliance should not be seen as a way of avoiding responsibility, but could instead increase stability and security.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is an astonishing degree of agreement to the effect that as far as the third pillar is concerned, results have so far been unsatisfactory.
Even the British Government is entirely in agreement with this view, and this is contrary to many of our citizens' expectations regarding European policy.
If we look for the reasons, the first thing that we find is the requirement that there should be unanimity in the decisions of the Council of Ministers.
However, if we look beyond this, we find that, on grounds of national sovereignty, it is claimed that certain decisions should not be taken on a Community basis, but ought to remain the preserve of the national authorities.
Yet suppose that Community police action would guarantee the public greater protection from crime than would a national procedure, then that would mean that the public were being deprived, in the name of national sovereignty, of a protection that they were actually entitled to.
If sovereignty leads to a situation in which the public are deprived of possible protection against crime, then I cannot imagine that sovereignty in that sense is supported by the will of the people.
Therefore, in the context of the summit and the negotiations over the Maastricht Treaty, the concept of sovereignty must be examined under the microscope.
Sovereignty is the basis of the nation state, and in the foreseeable future we shall no doubt need that as the organizational model for the purposes of performing public duties.
However, sovereignty must concentrate on those key areas in which it is indispensable, and it must allow a little room to manoeuvre so as to enable Community duties to be performed, not least as far as the third pillar is concerned.
Madam President, the Florence summit and the Intergovernmental Conference are confronted with problems that show up certain weak spots.
Owing to certain disagreeable developments in one specific area - and here I need name only the key words: BSE, health, and the behaviour of the British Government, and I say 'British Government' deliberately, because I do not mean the British people or Great Britain itself - a situation has arisen in which all further progress is being blocked, on certain fundamental issues and also, at the same time, on what one might call everyday decisions - and there must be about eighty of these already.
Although I would urge us all to seek to convince one another by means of argument, and also show a certain amount of patience and understanding in the present situation, it should not be possible for unjustified blockades to be set up, which have no basis in fact.
I call upon the British Government to give up its current obstreperous behaviour.
In that sense I support all developments that lead to future changes, and that also includes the area of common foreign policy and common security policy, where we must have the necessary flexibility - See Point 9 of the motion for a resolution tabled by the Committee on Institutional Affairs - to make further developments and measures possible, without being obliged to participate, but also without being able to prevent decisions being taken.
The Florence summit was intended, as the Italian presidency comes to an end, to sum up the progress that has been made over the last six months, to open up prospects for the future and to introduce the next presidency.
On all the subjects that are to be discussed, this summit is especially important, because an initial report is to be given on the results, to date, of the Intergovernmental Conference.
To sum up, I should just like to go over, briefly, the main points for discussion at the European Council and the Intergovernmental Conference.
They are concerned with further institutional development, of deepening and broadening.
I support the present motion for a resolution.
Particularly important are those developments that give the European Parliament more weight.
They are also concerned with questions of security, and with universal services.
Important, here, is the progress that has been made in the third pillar - and I shall just mention Europol in this context - and particularly the economic and social components, in which the employment situation and the strong joint efforts that are being made to improve it are given the highest priority.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, when you find yourself in the presence of fourteen partners who say 'yes' to a Commission proposal and only one who says 'no' , not because it disagrees with the proposal but because it wishes to pressurize the others to obtain their support for another decision - and it cynically admits this and makes no mystery of it - you are clearly faced with a breach of the law.
You may therefore declare that such a decision is valid and the recalcitrant wishing to contest this validity will have to prove it before the Court of Justice, and I wish him good luck.
I am astonished, Mr President-in-Office, that neither you nor the legion of legal advisers surrounding you have not yet thought of this solution.
This also goes for the President of the Commission.
You are the guardian of the Treaty and you cannot allow the solemn commitments embodied in Article 5 of the Treaty to be reduced to a useless scrap of paper in this way.
It is therefore your duty to act, and not only by threats, which are undoubtedly expressed with much conviction and I must acknowledge are well-directed, but are so far without effect.
Since you have such means at your disposal, why not use them?
Madam President, we must hope that this does not simply turn into a Council meeting about mad cow disease - Florence is much too beautiful a city for that.
Certainly it is an important question, especially as it has resulted in a political game which is only increasing the public's mistrust of the Union.
However, let us ensure that at least the other fourteen Member States are prepared to accept their responsibilities.
Mr Dini said that it is important that the EU does not give the impression of being an artificial construction.
I agree with this.
We must show that we really can use the Union to deal with the problems which concern the public.
This means employment and nothing else.
I am totally convinced that this is the common message from this House and the common message from the people of Europe.
In this connection there are now a number of initiatives which can be taken up, from France, from Sweden and now also the Commission's idea of a confidence pact.
I hope that Mr Dini will take the following message with him: take up all these initiatives and show that it is possible to achieve something concrete in Florence.
Finally, Madam President, there is another area in which fine words must be given some substance.
This is the question of openness.
We must have a system of rules so that EU officials know what is required.
Things should not be left to their discretion.
The basic rule must be that all documents which are received by or emanate from the EU institutions should be public.
It should be entirely possible to start this work while the current IGC is in progress.
We do not need to wait for an IGC lasting one and a half or two years' to be over before instituting reforms in this area.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when more than 18 million people in the Community are unemployed, then the Union, as a union, is challenged, even when the main responsibilities involving employment policy lie with the Member States, and above all the social partners.
The confidence pact for employment in Europe, as proposed by the Commission, is absolutely essential, as are employment alliances at all levels.
That is social dialogue in action, and subsidiarity in action.
But subsidiarity also means that when the primary, smaller competent body cannot master the task alone, then the larger body must become increasingly active in a subsidiary capacity.
We need an agreement to release additional investments for trans-European networks, without increasing public duties as a whole.
We need to concentrate resources on investments that create jobs, including those in the EU Structural Funds.
However, there is no way that these resources should be taken out of "traditional' social policy, i.e. Chapter III of the Community budget.
On the contrary, other parts of the budget should be brought into play, parts in which there are unspent surpluses, for example, in the case of the Funds as well.
The confidence pact favours greater flexibility, productivity-oriented wages and a reduction in costs accessory to wages.
I hope that at the Florence summit substantial progress will be made on the main aspects of the confidence pact, as well as the white paper on employment, and that the main features of the European model will become clear, namely partnership and the social market economy.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, we are aware of a sense of difficulty in the initial negotiations of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The resolution from the Committee on Institutional Affairs emphasizes that.
It deals with a serious concern about an institutional issue. We have the impression of a minimalist approach to the question of citizenship, difficulties about making co-decision the great strategic terrain of democracy, and increasing national reservations on the majority question.
It has not been and is not yet a case of making decisions, but of identifying a strategic vision at a transition stage in the life of the Union.
So we look forward to Florence and highlight the need for political impetus. We expect this from the Italian presidency rather than an analysis of dissent on each issue, and we are confident that this is possible.
The European process often moves forward in political fits and starts, not by always recording dissent.
It is obvious that the Intergovernmental Conference must keep time with political reality.
There cannot be a wait-and-see policy, the economic situation in Europe has been abnormal for at least four or five years and calls for profound revision of the Treaty, otherwise there is a risk that the whole process will go into reverse.
It is an absolute necessity to prevent imbalance in the relationship between monetary union and the Intergovernmental Conference, and to modify the institutions appropriately with a view to the enlargement.
In short the Union needs a strategic vision, an answer to the question: what will Europe be like at the end of the century.
That is the great question the Intergovernmental Conference must answer by making sure pressure towards renationalization driven by individual interests does not close down or blur the image of the common European good.
There must be recognition during the work of the conference that Europe has no alternative to Europe.
Madam President, in his remarks, the President-in-Office of the Council spoke about the third pillar - and many Members have done so too - and he said that as far as the third pillar is concerned, the expectations of the public must be fulfilled, with regard to internal security in Europe.
And in fact this is correct: the third pillar is concerned with a series of important areas of the policy of the European Union, areas that are relevant to security.
But if we look at what the third pillar contains - and the President-in-Office of the Council also mentioned Europol - then it seems that fulfilling the security needs of the citizens of Europe is a sad story.
This is because, for a long time now, all those who are involved, who are concerned with security in Europe, have known that we are conducting a debate that could be summed up in the following comparison.
If the European Union were a car, its bodywork would be that of a Lamborghini, whereas its engine would be that of a Cinquecento , and a spluttering one at that.
That is the major problem that hits us when we look at the Europol Convention.
The main problem is that as far as internal insecurity goes, progress is being made, whereas as far as internal security is concerned, Europe is just not getting to the point.
And in this specific case Mr Herman has put his finger on the problem.
But it has to be said, unfortunately - and we do not believe that it is right - that the voting is still fourteen to one, and this shows that if Florence does not make any further progress on the institutional reform of the European Union, then this summit will once again be futile.
We really must succeed in fulfilling the needs of the population, and their expectations of the European Union.
It must be possible to take essential future decisions, including, for example, those that are concerned with internal security, because the extent to which a citizen identifies with the institution in which he lives is always dependent on how secure he feels there.
We shall only make progress in ensuring that the citizens of Europe identify with Europe, and we shall only be able to satisfy their need for this identification and their need for security, when we finally take seriously the question of the institutional reform of this Union, especially where the third pillar is concerned.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, European summits have to be concerned with fundamental issues, and in Florence, the question is whether we say yes to the Community, or yes to blackmail.
For ten years the Tory Government has said no to European social policy, and now it is saying no to the basic European consensus.
That really is the limit!
The character of Europe as a mutually supportive community is now at stake.
Oh yes, the European Union is more, much more, than just a free trade zone, and membership is based on treaties and on trust.
As far as the present situation is concerned, this means that negotiations are needed on the subject of the BSE crisis.
The principles of the EU and the health of its people, however, are not negotiable.
Anyone observing how calmly the fourteen Member States have accepted the British policy of obstruction will realize just how low our expectations of the London Government's willingness to cooperate have sunk.
If we no longer have any expectations, then the Intergovernmental Conference cannot possibly be successful either.
But if it is not successful, what future will there be for Europe? The European Union needs Great Britain, and Great Britain needs the European Union.
The only solution to the present crisis must therefore be that Great Britain must stay, and the Tory Government will have to go!
Madam President, I had intended to say a few things in connection with the institutions today, but the speech of the President-in-Office has forced me to turn to something else, specifically to the Turkish Prime Minister's mischief-making in Florence.
Is it proper, Mr President-in-Office, at a time when Turkey is flagrantly violating international law, that you should have announced it to us just like that? As if nothing, absolutely nothing, was happening in the Mediterranean!
Mr President-in-Office, that country is officially disputing Europe's frontiers, and its conduct gets worse each time the European Union butters up to it.
At a time when Europe Union has a credibility problem how can the leadership of Europe possibly adopt a neutral position when international law and the legal civilization that our societies have established through thought and the shedding of blood are officially held up to ridicule? Have we learnt absolutely nothing?
Does the fact that those frontiers are long make it as if they do not exist?
It will be a terrible pity, Mr President-in-Office, if the Council undermines its own credibility again in Florence by giving the impression that the arguments of the market count for more than those which emanate from international law and respect for human dignity.
It is credibility that we are fighting for. Exactly who gets hurt each time credibility is lost hardly matters.
Madam President, I have listened with great interest to all the statements that have been made by honourable Members and though doubts may have been raised, I want to stress my conviction that, despite delays and difficulties, Europe is making progress. Perhaps not as fast as we would like, but the process of building the Europe of the 21st Century is going ahead, and it has advanced in the last six months of this year.
Here I would mention that the Intergovernmental Conference was not in fact expected to open during these six months.
So I emphasize the importance of the Turin decision to get the conference going.
In these last three months following the opening of the conference, important groundwork has been done - in less than three months, I repeat - and the report the Italian presidency hands over to the Irish presidency constitutes a substantial step forward towards reform of the Treaty. Why is that so?
Because it defines the objectives for further negotiation, outlines the compromise solutions, contains the substantial structure of the changes to be made to the Treaty. What we should expect of Florence - what we hope for - is that the European Council will give new and strong impetus to the Intergovernmental Conference and indicate that a first draft of the Treaty can be prepared during the next six months of the European presidency, preferably to be presented to the Dublin European Council.
On economic and monetary union, the informal ECOFIN Council held in Verona in April laid down the essential conditions for a good relationship between the 'ins' and the 'outs' , hence the stability pact. These are also substantial steps forward to the achievement of monetary union.
On employment, the tripartite conference held in Rome in the last few days indicated, amongst other things, how the method of cooperation between the social partners should be adopted at the European level.
This also needs to be emphasized as an important fact.
On the third pillar, the protocol for Europol has been finalized during the last few months and we trust it can be agreed at Florence.
Progress has been made on issues relating to culture, work, audio-visual and television without frontiers.
On foreign affairs, I do not think anyone can deny the fundamental and constructive role that the European Union has played in the Bosnian peace process.
And the Florence Conference held last week has, I believe, really made it possible, with the contribution of all, to achieve further progress, involving, as I have said, the signature of the agreement on arms control in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the decision to hold the elections by 14 September and other decisions relating to that.
On the Mediterranean, there have been five meetings at ministerial level to follow up the Barcelona Conference: on computer systems, culture, energy, industry and tourism.
Finally, I have already highlighted the issues and problems affecting the transatlantic agenda, as well as the Bangkok meeting of Heads of State and of Government.
I thank President Santer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a moment.
Votes
Madam President, I would mention that this proposal was part of a price package for which I was rapporteur and was the only one not passed by this Assembly.
As rapporteur let me say that there were very important reasons for that vote. It was a decisive 'no' to the grubbing-up campaign which is gravely damaging European vineyards.
As rapporteur I ask that this vote be confirmed, and that consequently we vote against the proposal of the Commission to extend the old regulation which is no longer appropriate to a changing situation.
This will mean we also have an excellent opportunity to ask the Agriculture Council which is meeting next Monday and Tuesday to prepare a new document.
So I repeat, I ask that the vote against the extension of the current regulation be confirmed.
(Parliament rejected the Commission proposal)
Madam President, the Commission understands the concerns that have been expressed with regard to the grubbing-up aid scheme in the wine sector.
However, I wish to emphasize once again for the Commission that this proposal was only intended to cover the period from the end of this campaign until the adoption of the reform of the wine sector.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has sent a clear message to the House.
If this is now confirmed, the Commission will do its best to find a solution in this direction within the framework of the pricepackage discussions in the Council.
I hope that that message will be received with generous acclamation by Parliament.
Madam President, the Commission is maintaining its proposal on grounds which are not wholly convincing, I was the rapporteur on reform of the wine sector, which has now been awaiting variation by the Council for a long time, too long, and a code of conduct has existed between the Commission and Parliament since March 1995 whereby if Parliament rejects a Commission proposal the latter undertakes to withdraw it. Now, as this has not been done in this particular case and I have not heard that any particularly important and exceptional reasons exist to justify for putting it forward again, I would ask Parliament to remit the vote to the next session so that the Commission has time to think again and produce more convincing arguments.
A proposal to postpone the vote is put before our Assembly.
Does anyone wish to speak against?
Madam President, at the request of the rapporteur, we have just confirmed our opinion, which seems to me essential.
I am totally opposed to Mr Fantuzzi's proposal, because in fact what we are in danger of passing is that the whole of the 'price package' be called into question.
I therefore urge the leaders of the Socialist Group to think hard about the consequences of Mr Fantuzzi's proposal.
If it is accepted, the Council of Ministers will be unable to adopt the 'agricultural price package' next week because this regulation will not be included.
That is why, as the rapporteur Mr Santini has confirmed, Parliament has held to its opinion.
Our position on this remains as it was and I reject Mr Fantuzzi's proposal.
Madam President, just a second to reply to that statement.
This is about extending a regulation for a year without any consequences, except that obviously growers who grub up their vines would no longer receive rich premiums.
It will increase the pressure on the Commission to commit itself to thinking seriously about reform of the COM for wine and will in no way prevent any of the other regulations in the price package being adopted.
(Parliament rejected the proposal to postpone the vote)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, with regard to the text of the joint motion for a resolution on the European Council in Florence which is to be put to the vote - and there is always a certain amount of haste in putting resolutions to the vote - I believe that something has escaped the attention of the authors. Recital A refers to the political blackmail being used by the United Kingdom; and paragraph 3 also refers to the United Kingdom.
What we wished to say, however, was 'the government of the United Kingdom' . I should therefore like to table an oral amendment to the effect that the term 'United Kingdom' should be replaced by the term 'government of the United Kingdom' in recital A and paragraph 3.
I would also point out that the original French version of paragraph 3 refers to the need to 'induce' the UK Government to face up to its responsibilities. The English version, however, uses the word 'compel' .
The English version does not therefore correspond to either the French version or the Spanish version, which I have before me. I would therefore ask the translation services to revise the English version of paragraph 3, replacing the word 'compel' with a word which implies agreement, in keeping with the French version.
Mr Medina, some of your points concern the language versions.
We take note of these.
There is then a proposal to add the word 'government' .
Madam President, I understand quite well the political reasons behind this request of the Socialist Group.
But if you look at the Treaty and at point 3, we should read Article 5 of the Treaty which says very clearly that Member States shall take appropriate measures.
That means Member States and we do not ask that from governments.
The reference made in this particular point to Article 5 makes it impossible to accept that oral amendment.
Madam President, I am solely putting forward what was the intention of the people who drafted the original text.
Clearly there are linguistic problems in two areas which can be sorted out in the text.
But the other point concerns the clear intention when the compromise text was put together.
Paragraph 3 does not reflect properly the intention of those who drafted the text.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, since you are opposing this on behalf of your own group, we do not accept the oral amendment.
We shall not start a fresh debate.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, may I ask you for an answer concerning the legal status of Amendments Nos 8 to 11?
The European Commission has maintained, both in committee and yesterday evening in the plenary, that these amendments are in violation of our Rules of Procedure, specifically of Rule 72(2), since they are allegedly new amendments which amend the original Commission text.
Can I take it, since the matter is now being voted on by the plenary, that this view of the European Commission is not deemed correct? I think it is important to be clear on this before we begin negotiations with the Council.
I have asked the opinion of the presidency services, who do not share the opinion of the European Commission, and I am therefore relying on the advice given to me.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Madam President, I should like to draw attention to a number of instances in which the different language versions of the amendments - in particular the Spanish version - need to be brought into line.
In Amendment No 5, for example, the words 'doit obtenir ' in the original French version have been translated as 'debe permitirse ' , which is not the same thing.
More importantly perhaps, in Amendment No 23, the word 'établis ' has been translated as 'residentes ' ; and I would point out - though not as emphatically, since I do not know English as well as I know Spanish - that it has also been translated as 'resident' in the English version.
With regard to the profession of lawyer, these are different concepts, I believe. Furthermore, in Amendment No 25 to Article 10(5), the word 'de ' is missing, altering the meaning.
Finally, Madam President, Amendment No 35, which was tabled by 29 members of the PPE Group, needs to be brought into line with Amendment No 25 by adding the word 'relevant' to the term 'competent authority' . This is a point on which our British colleagues insisted; and, although Parliament's translation service duly added the word 'relevant' in Amendment No 25, they failed to do so in Amendment No 35.
Madam President, in relation to Amendment No 25 to Article 10(4), there has been a specific request that the words used are 'public interest' , not 'public order' .
The words 'public order' have no meaning in this context in English.
Could you please confirm that this will be translated as 'public interest' ?
Madam President, I fully accept Mrs McIntosh's interpretation of the English version.
On the other hand, the French version must continue as 'ordre public' .
This must be quite clear.
Madam President, on this very important point, the French expressions 'ordre public' and 'intérêt public' in no way have the same meanings.
'Intérêt public' would mean that the State could make use in some way of a potestative clause to release itself quite unilaterally from the obligations of the Directive.
The words 'ordre public' presume a direct breach of the most fundamental laws of the State or possibly of its own security.
I believe it is extremely important to keep the words 'ordre public' in the text.
I do not know what the exact English translation is, but I believe the English concept of 'public interest' is much wider and much more vague than the French expression 'ordre public' .
Madam President, I should like to have the reaction of the European Commission.
Madam President, Mr Pimenta can anticipate the reaction of the Commission since he well knows that, partly due to his effective efforts, these issues have received the most thorough attention.
Parliament must make its decision on its choice of procedure and of course that is Parliament's privilege.
The Commission cannot really add anything useful at this stage to that consideration.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Welcome
Votes (continuation)
Madam President, in the motion for a resolution on broad economic guidelines there is at least one expression that is open to misunderstanding.
Therefore I should like, on behalf of my group, to make an explanatory statement regarding this expression.
We are of the opinion that a "relaxation of monetary policy' is only possible where it does not lead to the endangering of price stability, of interest levels and, therefore, of a possible upturn in the economy, because this is the prerequisite for the creation of new jobs in Europe.
Only if this is made clear are we prepared to agree to this resolution as it stands.
Madam President, of course, anyone can explain whatever they want to, but a vote taken in this House cannot be tied to the fact that a complex situation, like the policy mix that we need in order to solve the problem of mass unemployment, is now being defined, unilaterally, by Mr von Wogau, as being a tautology.
This sentence, as it stands in the text, means what it means, and anyone can think what they like about it, but that does not alter anything.
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
Each European Council held at the beginning or end of a Member State's presidency of the Union is always the time for the public expression of certain wishes after having passed judgement on several questions.
On the eve of the Florence summit at the end of the Italian presidency, I should like to draw attention to three points that seem to me essential, if not vital, for the future of our Union.
Firstly, I am in broad agreement with the analysis presented by the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, and I repeat his turn of phrase here: Madrid was the Council of currency, Florence should be the Council for jobs.
But may I be allowed to add this: let us stop shouting all over the place that our priority is the fight against unemployment in Europe!
We have all understood this!
Let us act!
Talking is not enough. We must act and show the political will to put an end to rising unemployment and to bring it down.
The European Union will once again emerge discredited if no concrete proposals emerge from this Council to expand employment, both by creating jobs with major public works and by economic measures to promote growth, and not forgetting job sharing.
We cannot continue to do nothing for the 19 million or so in Europe who are still unemployed and creating a life of poverty for nearly 50 million.
This is the priority that the Florence Council should take on board, with a timetable and specific commitments.
Secondly, what we need now is a political Europe!
The Intergovernmental Conference provides the means to achieve this.
But with the way it is going today, there is a great need to hurry.
Nothing has been established and nothing constructive has emerged from the first debates.
We are really looking at a debate among selfcentred experts, not to mention the stench from all the nationalists.
Today, the IGC is bogged down.
It too needs a strong statement of policy in Florence.
In six months, it may be too late.
Reconstruction of the treaties is essential to the establishment of the political Europe that has long been hoped for and must be accompanied by a social Europe.
Thirdly, we cannot contemplate the Florence Council, carrying so many hopes and expectations, being put at risk by the mad cow crisis.
There is a real public health problem here and it should be quickly cleared up.
Every precaution should be taken.
But I will not accept the adoption of blocking tactics, even blackmail, which imperil European construction, now at a turning point in its history.
I dare not imagine that some of us might be completely irresponsible.
Where mistakes have been made, there must be redress.
The diplomatic terrorism being used is pointless!
I should like to end by thanking the Italian presidency which, in difficult circumstances, has been able, in spite of everything, to work and make progress on certain issues.
Having said that, these six-monthly rotating presidencies are showing their serious limitations and this strengthens my conviction that there must be a more stable European government.
May the IGC move us forward in this matter.
The current obstructionist tactics of the British Government are to be deplored.
The BSE crisis was a direct consequence of its own political ineptitude and there was no justification for punishing the rest of the European Union for its own mistakes.
Hopefully the Florence Summit will bring an end to this unfortunate episode.
However, it must resolve it in a way that does not reward blackmail.
If blackmail tactics are seen to succeed on this occasion then a real danger exists that other Member States would be tempted to apply similar tactics when it suits them.
One of the lessons to be learnt from this saga is that the IGC must refine the decision-making structures of the European Union to ensure that there is no repetition of these circumstances when one Member State is able to hold the entire European Union to ransom.
The European Council in Florence will take place under the shadow of the harsh anti-popular measures imposed in Germany by Mr Kohl which demand further cuts, albeit nominal, in the incomes of working people and the abolition of substantial rights in the social insurance and pensions fields as a means of catering for monopoly interests and combating the economic crisis, and which will serve as a model for the wider economic policy to be pursued by the European Union in all of the Member States.
At the same time, however, this European Council will take place under the shadow of the struggle being waged by German workers and their comrades in other countries against the high-handed, anti-democratic and antipopular policy being imposed by the Brussels masters in the framework of the Maastricht Treaty.
The acceptance of the scenario for the third stage of EMU and the move to the single currency, the refusal of the governments even to re-examine EMU in the framework of the intergovernmental conference and the acceptance, even by the majority in this Parliament, of the imposition and perpetuation of a Europe of two speeds all make it manifestly obvious that the institutions of the EU are completely indifferent to the real problems and demands of Europe's peoples and are kow-towing to the dictates of large-scale capital.
The European Union's inability to develop positions of its own on international problems, the waiting on each occasion, that is, for a lead from the United States, applies not only to issues of vital concern to it, such as the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East, but, also, sadly, to the expression of support for its own Member States; for Greece, for instance, faced as it is with the expansionist policy of Turkey which keeps on pushing territorial claims and is drawing heart from the culpably neutral stance adopted by the European Union and its Member States and from their persistence in continuing and widening economic and other relations with it while it blatantly violates international law, occupies the northern part of Cyprus and tramples on human rights within its own borders.
The move to strengthen policing at the European level via uncontrolled mechanisms, the attempt to exert joint control over the Union's foreign receipts and the unification of the policy approach on immigration matters, in particular the formulation of common rules for the deportation of citizens of third countries, constitute a further erosion of the sovereign rights of the Member States and are detrimental to the democratic links and friendly relations which many of them maintain with movements which are progressive and concerned for peace.
Unfortunately, the majority in this House has rejected certain proposals that we put forward, among them proposals relating to employment, in the shape of an overall policy to combat unemployment which demanded, in particular, the establishment of a 35-hour week without wage reductions, the non-blockage of Cohesion Fund resources in the event of failure to meet the EMU criteria, full acceptance of the principles which underpin the fundamental obligation to provide public services, via the rejection, first and foremost, of competitive tendering, and the taking of measures to combat racism and xenophobia.
Indeed, it has done the very opposite by approving provisions which will lead to an upsurge of militarization, to greater inequality, to de-democratization of the Community's institutions and to a continuation of the present economic policy which has already put 18 million people out of work and 55 million below the poverty line.
In my opinion the European Council summit in Florence should discuss and take a decision on the following subjects:
Shelving plans for a common currency.-Measures in the respective Member States of the EU to increase employment and alleviate poverty.-Ensuring that the enlargement of the Union to include states which wish to join and which used to be part of the former Soviet bloc takes place as quickly as possible.-Speeding up the rate of reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.The European Council should also make it very clear to Albania, Belarus and Turkey that their cooperation with the European Union is being severely damaged by the infringements of human freedoms and rights which are now occurring in these countries.
It should also once again be stressed that the EU should stand for cooperation between sovereign states and that there must never be any move towards a superstate.
If in the future Europe is to be a stable and peaceful continent where democracy and human freedoms and rights are honoured and established principles, any federal tendencies within the European Union must be opposed.
Once again, President Santer has given us a demonstration, rhetorically speaking, of how to square the circle, since he has said that combatting mass unemployment is the Union's highest priority and , at the same time, he has reaffirmed that we should stick to the basic decisions of current economic policy in terms of macroeconomics and structural policy, i.e. pursuing a policy of saving, at the expense of much-needed reproductive spending, combatting inflation when there is no inflation, and sticking to the Maastricht strategy for economic and monetary union without taking the losses into consideration.
As long as the Commission is not prepared to take on board Parliament's constructive criticism of this economic policy, which is based on superficiality, wishful thinking and unilateral opportunism as far as the financial markets are concerned, and as long as it is not prepared to enter into conflict with the Council, and in particular with certain particularly powerful Member States, including Germany, then all the Commission's initiatives, which in themselves are to be welcomed, and which are intended, somehow and in spite of everything, to improve the way in which the unemployment problem is taken into consideration, will either never get off the ground or will, at best, remain relatively ineffectual.
I believe that this House is entirely prepared to offer the Commission its firm support in the disputes that will be inevitable if the necessary corrections are made to our economic policy.
However, the condition attached to that support is that the Commission itself must explicitly correct the objectives and clearly identify the problems that it faces.
Only in this way can we really achieve a European employment pact, in the teeth, as it were, of the finance ministers' rejection and of five or six more powerful Member States.
At the end of the day, the fate of the European Union will probably be decided by this issue of mass unemployment.
We call upon the Commission to face up to its historic responsibilities, instead of continuing, with honeyed words, to pretend to be doing something.
Intergovernmental Conference
At the last IGC member state governments failed to convince the citizens of Europe that the European Union was relevant to their needs and had answers to their problems.
As a consequence the Maastricht Treaty was nearly rejected and the EU was catapulted into temporary crisis with the concept of European integration seriously undermined.
If the same mistakes are not to be repeated, this IGC must focus on the primary concerns of the European public.
The obvious area for concerted action at the moment is devising policies to combat drug trafficking.
This has been confirmed by recent public surveys that although they demonstrate little public awareness of the IGC itself, they nonetheless show that a majority of public opinion wants priority to be given to tackling the drug problem on a European-wide basis.
While I welcome the fact that the Irish Government has made this area one of the priorities of the Irish presidency, I seriously question the commitment of our European partners.
This is evident in a number of ways.
The UK's blocking of the ratification of the Europol Convention deprives the EU of one of its major weapons against the drug barons.
The absence of a united approach by all governments, as illustrated by the permissive Dutch approach to soft drugs making it a virtual supermarket for drugs; the violent opposition of France and opposition from Belgium and Spain to a proposed 16.7 % increase in the budget for the European Drugs Unit is difficult to comprehend, particularly when the existing budget is a pathetic £4 million.
In fact the total budget for combatting drug abuse and drug trafficking amounts to a mere £24 million - a damning indictment of current EU policy and the low priority being given to the drugs issue.
If the present IGC in its revision of the Treaties fails to remedy the situation then it could be heading for disaster and deservedly so.
If the European Union fails to utilise its existing powers properly and to build on them then it does not deserve to be given increased powers.
Barton recommendation
There are two proposals in this report which we do not agree with even though we voted for the report as a whole.
1.We consider that the individual Member States should in future continue to have the right to refuse the registration or the use of vehicles if they are so moved.2.One can of course argue that the decibel limit for heavy motor cycles can be increased from 80 to 82 because an untrained ear cannot hear the difference.
However, we believe that there must a limit somewhere.
Nor is it sufficient to measure the average values in noise tests.
It is the peak noise values which are of interest as it is those which cause nuisance.
We have voted for the Barton report, although we do not agree that issues concerning the noise made by motorcycles and the like should be dealt with at Union level.
However, we regard the report as being less regulatory, less protectionist and less arbitrary than the Council's extreme common position.
In Mrs van Dijk's statement yesterday, she gave the reasons for the position of the majority of the group.
The minority, however, on the basis of the same ecological and social objectives, came to a different conclusion.
Why was this?
We are working on the assumption that highly fundamental environmental objectives are best achieved by effective practices being changed and not by maximum limits set by the administrative authorities.
Especially in areas where the active cooperation of many individual operators is necessary, the strategy of regulating environmental pollution by means of maximum limits is restricted by the willingness of those operators to organize their own cooperation.
With this in mind we support the demands of motorcyclists for workable compromises on maximum limits, with the simultaneous ending of illegal practices.
The cooperation of the motorcycling organizations should in our opinion be a central element in making two-wheeled motor vehicles, which from the social point of view are an essential means of transport, ecologically defensible and harmless to health as well.
In addition to this, we believe that the arguments of the motorcycling organizations regarding the use of catalysers on two-wheeled motor vehicles and the problem of "sheer bolts' are founded on fact and should be taken seriously.
Fontaine report
Madam President, no profession is excluded from freedom of movement and freedom to practise within the Community.
Quite rightly our rapporteur has reminded us that this key principle is established by Article 52 of the Treaty of Rome.
Here, we have worked for decades to set up this freedom of movement.
I was myself a rapporteur on the free movement of midwives in 1969, if my memory serves me well.
We have always done our best to set up freedom of movement for workers and freedom to practise for professionals, particularly in the liberal professions, by avoiding regulations which would in the end have had the effect of discriminating between nationals and migrant workers.
Community legislation on the freedom of lawyers to practise has had the effect that almost one third of lawyers currently registered with the Luxembourg bar are non-nationals.
I understand the efforts made by, amongst others, the Community Bar Council to facilitate the practice of the profession of lawyer on a permanent basis in a Member State other than that in which the professional qualification was obtained.
The more so because lawyers in my country - which has no law faculty - are obliged to obtain their professional qualification in another country.
However, we do prescribe further training periods and examinations for them to master the specific features of Luxembourg law, since there can be no question of favouring non- nationals over nationals as regards these additional tests.
In order to maintain the quality of services provided by lawyers, there can be no question of levelling down by abolishing the additional training periods and tests prescribed in Luxembourg.
Because some of the proposals from our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights go beyond what would be adequate and non-discriminatory, I cannot vote for these amendments and I have, a fortiori , also voted against the report, because the amendments we tabled were rejected.
We are in favour of this report, which represents a step towards balanced regulations authorizing lawyers of one European Union country to practise in other countries of this same Union.
We congratulate our colleague, who has produced a most competent report and has played an important part in furthering the compromise obtained, which goes in the direction of the very clear interests of the professionals in the various countries concerned, France among them.
From the French point of view, this agreement is reached in an area where our national tradition is that of considerable expertise which can be of benefit to clients throughout the European market, something we are particularly pleased about.
The present Directive and the related report are arousing dismay and opposition among Luxembourg lawyers.
Dismay, because the Commission's approach is inconsistent.
Just when the transposition of Directive 89/48 on the general system for recognition of degrees is still in progress, with all the problems described in the Commission's report of 15 February 1996, it is now sought to force the hands of the States, in different sectors, by extreme liberalization.
Luxembourg lawyers do not understand why the system introduced by Directive 89/48 can no longer serve.
It has contributed to vast liberalization of the profession in Luxembourg, where over 27 % of lawyers are foreigners.
At the same time, it has ensured that these lawyers, whether foreigners or nationals, offer the safeguards and knowledge needed to serve their clients on the spot.
Dismay also because the new stage of liberalization will create new discrimination between those who will be admitted without any restriction and those, whether foreigners or nationals, who have to take an additional examination in the country where they will be practising.
Our opposition to this new Directive will therefore be understood.
It contains a serious defect because it offers no safeguards to clients: a foreign lawyer who sets himself up with his home-country professional qualification and wants to work in Luxembourg law may know nothing about this specific law.
I shall be told that clients will very quickly discover this.
True, but it is irresponsible to allow the market to operate as regulator of a profession which is, when all is said and done, of public interest.
A foreign lawyer who sets up in Luxembourg with his home-country professional qualification may know nothing about the languages used in that country.
I shall be told that, in that case, he cannot practise; but it will still be the market that will have to clarify this state of affairs, and I refuse to let the market control these choices.
Without going into the details of Mrs Fontaine's report, I may say that, although I willingly accept the need for liberalization of the legal profession, the method chosen by the Commission and by Parliament does not reassure me.
That is why I support the amendments tabled by the Luxembourg Members and am against Mrs Fontaine's report.
Like the French Members of my Group, I have voted against Mrs Fontaine's report on the proposal for a Directive on the rights of lawyers to practise.
There are already two Directives on lawyers, that of 22 March 1977 regulating the provision of services and that of 23 December 1988 relating to the equivalence of degrees.
The new Directive seeks to go further by wider liberalization of the conditions under which lawyers can practise in all European Union countries.
However, lawyers cannot be compared with a marketed product.
Neither is their profession comparable with that of banks and insurance, for example, for which it has been possible to harmonize the conditions for equivalence and practising without too much difficulty.
The law in each of our countries, on the other hand, has, and will retain in the future, its own specific features and peculiarities.
The conditions for admission to the profession of lawyer are not identical; those for practising the profession of lawyer are even less so.
The duration of the right for a lawyer to practise under his home-country professional qualification in a Member State other than his own should therefore not be extended indefinitely, but on the contrary should be lowered from five years (period laid down in the Commission's proposal) to three years in order to facilitate speedy integration into the profession of the host Member State.
Better protection of consumers' rights would also have been ensured by providing that, during this intermediate period, the lawyer can practise law in the host Member State only by acting together with a lawyer practising in that State.
Failing which, because it validates over the whole Community the admission of a lawyer to the bar of his home country, the text will end up juxtaposing fifteen different professions in what we wish to be a single market.
As regards access to the profession of the host Member State, the aptitude test has rightly been abolished, seeing that a lawyer wishing to gain access to the profession of lawyer in a State other than his own is required to furnish evidence of effective and regular professional activity for a period of three years in that State.
But there should also have been a provision that a lawyer so admitted to the profession of the host Member State must use his home-country professional qualification alongside the professional qualification of the host Member State.
Consequently, I hope that when the Council examines this Directive, it will reconsider these very debatable proposals.
In the vote on the report presented by Mrs Fontaine on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive to facilitate the practice of the profession of lawyer on a permanent basis in a Member State other than that in which the qualification was obtained, I took account of the tremendous progress represented by this directive towards giving effect to the fundamental principle of the freedom of establishment and practice of the liberal professions - in this case, that of lawyer - in the European Union. I should also like to emphasize my particular satisfaction at the adoption of Amendment No 7 to Article 1(2)(a), which recognizes the variety of professional titles in accordance with the different official languages of the Member States of the Union, which in the case of Spain are Castilian, Catalan, Basque and Galician.
This is a good indication of the European Union's recognition of the linguistic diversity which enriches it.
"To make new progress in the construction of a cultural Europe' ; that is how the rapporteur describes the size of the task that she had to cope with.
Anyone who knows anything about the differences that have had to be overcome, for example between the United Kingdom and the Federal Republic of Germany on the one hand and France and Spain on the other, will be bound to admit, on seeing the results of all this work, that the rapporteur has carried out her task with a great deal of sensitivity as well as energy.
The report is an impressive example of how the policy that the Community has pursued since 1988/89, a policy of mutual recognition of qualifications gained in a Member State on the basis of mutual trust between the Member States of the Union, can also be applied successfully in the case of lawyers' rights to become established anywhere in the Union.
The content of the new directive may thus serve as a convincing example of the sensible application of the principle of subsidiarity.
The rules in force in Member States remain unchanged, but the lawyer who practises in a country other than his country of origin is also subject, in the same way, to the rules of the Member State in which he is established and in which he practises.
It is also worth mentioning, and appreciating, that the report has also taken on board and applied the judgments given by the European Court of Justice in the cases of Klopp and Gebhard Bahnen regarding freedom of establishment.
The report itself is thus a testament not only to the diversity of European legal practice but also to a new, cooperative legal culture.
It deserves the full support of Parliament.
Hoppenstedt reportLindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (EDN), in writing.
(SV) As opponents of the Union it was with great satisfaction that we read a report which opposes the Commission's integrationist zeal.
We share Mr Hoppenstedt's view that the Commission should not decide on licensing or have the right to negotiate on personal communication services vis-à-vis third countries and in international bodies.
In this connection, as in many others, it is the Member States which are in the best position to take sovereign decisions.
As is made clear in the rapporteur's explanation of the amendments which have been tabled, including Nos 10, 12, 15, 17 and 19, the committee feels that it is unnecessary to lay down special EU procedures for selecting and authorizing space segment and gateway service operators, since the effective number of global competitors in this particular sector is already so limited that it should be possible to create a basis for sensible coexistence among these very few operators in the future market in satellite personal communications.
However, attention is rightly drawn in the report to the need to establish a common legal framework for authorizing services and also a 'one-stop-shopping' system to prevent incompatible national decisions on satellite systems from being taken.
All in all, the rapporteur of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has succeeded in carrying out a critical but balanced assessment of the Commission's proposal.
I can therefore fully endorse the rapporteur's conclusions, which should be seen in the light of the need for international coordination of satellite personal communications services and in the context of the other EU legislation in the telecommunications sector, in particular the Commission's proposal for the 'licences' directive.
Pimenta report
Madam President, the excellent report by Mr Pimenta raises the fundamental question of the hierarchy of standards.
Does the European Commission rank below GATT and the World Trade Organization?
In 1991, Mr MacSharry told us that he was moved by the fact that the bones of animals caught in traps were torn, that they cut their own tendons and skin with their mouths or teeth so that they could escape.
And it was reaffirmed that, from 1 January 1995, there would no longer be any leghold traps.
Then, in 1994, it was explained to us that there were technical problems and that the ban had to be postponed to 1 January 1996.
1 January 1996 has been and gone, but we are now told about the Inuits who from time immemorial - even though steel did not yet exist - have trapped animals in steel leghold traps.
The reality is quite simple.
The reality is the World Trade Organization, which wants freedom of movement without any kind of hindrance.
We have given in over fruit and vegetables, by adopting United Nations standards!
We have given in over the WTO bananas by submitting to the wishes of American multinationals!
Perhaps we shall give in over hormone-treated meat and we are now in the process of giving in over leghold traps!
There is no European Union, there is only a world market and although there are still innocents who believe, even the greenest of innocents are forced to recognize that they have been rolled in contaminated cattle meal.
Madam President, I was glad to see Parliament giving such tremendous support to Mr Pimenta's report.
The debate on hunting and humane trapping methods has been both long and heated, within the EU and in the rest of the world.
As a result there are now 60 countries which have prohibited hunting using leghold traps.
Of these, 22 countries have introduced the prohibition in the last five years.
This shows, among other things, that hunting can be carried out without the terrible leghold traps.
After all, I don't suppose that there is anyone here who believes that the Lapps in Sweden, for example, have stopped hunting because fox traps are prohibited.
In the EU the import ban should have entered into force on 1 January 1995.
However, as a concession to the wishes of the major fur-exporting countries, particularly Canada, its entry into force was postponed till 1 January 1996 - a most remarkable occurrence.
There is no legal instrument which would allow further postponement and something now has to happen.
It is with dismay that we now discover that despite this the Commission is proposing amending the regulation in a way which will constitute a regression of a decade for the EU and all of us. It is reasonable to ask why.
Is it out of fear of countries such as the USA and Canada?
Is it out of fear of the WTO, or what? No matter what, it is to say the least deplorable and unworthy of an organisation which claims to represent a humane approach.
Humane hunting methods and leghold trap regulations have become a symbol of the conflict between animal welfare, indigenous peoples, markets, trade and the environment.
An institutional question of principle has now also arisen here, namely, what happens when Community legislation is undermined by, for example, the Commission?
Unlike the Commission, the Green Group in the EU Parliament has not changed its standpoint and has not given in to pressure and has therefore supported the report.
When the Commission appeared before us last December, we expressed our dissatisfaction at its failure to implement the ban on the import of pelts of certain wild animals caught by means of leghold traps.
Today the Commission is presenting us with a new regulation designed to cover up this failure. However, there are serious doubts about the legality of this regulation, because as well as setting an unfortunate precedent with this kind of approach, the Commission does not have the power to postpone these import restrictions.
And so? And so we welcome Mr Pimenta's excellent report which, despite the legal equivocation I have referred to, introduces the necessary corrective elements by means of suitable amendments which were approved by the Committee on the Environment and restore the obligations contained in the text of the original regulation.
It is to be hoped that on this occasion, Parliament's voice will be heard - although it must be said that having deliberately failed to comply once, there is nothing to say that the Commission will not re-offend.
We trust that that will not be the case.
I would like to express my support and that of the Green Group for the report by Mr Pimenta on trade in skins of animals caught in traps.
Despite the fact that this issue has been discussed for years now, no agreement has been reached with Canada and the United States so the Commission's proposal to remit this again cannot be accepted.
There must be a ban on imports of skins of animals caught in a cruel way, especially as the European Union has already prohibited the use of traps on its own territory.
Such a ban does not conflict with the GATT agreements, because the COM regulation includes a clause protecting health, environment and ethical interests.
As regards the legitimate rights of the indigenous populations, it has been shown that only some of them live exclusively from hunting and their income can be replaced or increased by new occupations, underpinned by local aid.
We therefore urge Members to vote for the amendment tabled by the Green Group, which clarifies the terms of the ban, involving both indigenous peoples and animal protection organizations in a consultative capacity, and providing for proper involvement of the European Parliament.
I support the Pimenta report as I am angry that the Commission has so far failed to implement the ban on importing furs from animals captured using leghold traps.
It is unacceptable that this ban is still not in force six months after it was due to be implemented.
Many people in my own constituency are concerned about animal welfare issues - and rightly so.
If we want Europe to be known as a civilized part of the world then we must act in a civilized way towards animals.
I hope the President's proposed legal challenge to the Court of Justice over the Commission's failure to act is swift and successful.
However, I am also aware of the need for us not to dictate our standards to native peoples in other parts of the world - so the Pimenta report's idea that native communities who do not use leghold traps can still trade with Europe, regardless of the position of their national authorities, is a sensible and fair compromise.
Jacob report
Madam President, here is an animal health disaster.
Damage has been done and must be put right.
One way of doing this was simple: it was that of responsibility, responsibility of the enterprise owned Mr Mudler - who is not a colleague of ours - of Doncaster in Yorkshire.
This way was not chosen.
What was chosen was solidarity, but solidarity also implied that there should be full compensation for the damage.
But what has the European Commission decided? Well, simply that we are going to compensate by a lump sum: ECU 650 million to be shared among 81 million cattle, which amounts to about ECU 8 per animal.
And effectively, provision is made for an additional subsidy of ECU 10, that is 50-60 francs.
Responsibility has been rejected in the name of solidarity and we end up with rapaciousness, mediocrity and accountancy.
This is where we are now, faced with a disaster for which the Commission is partly to blame.
Neither direct damage, indirect damage, immediate damage nor induced damage are being compensated for in full.
Just now, we saw Community law give way to UN standards, now Community law is giving way to the standards of natural law, which imply that those responsible should make amends.
Madam President, I welcome the Commission proposal to support the hard-pressed beef farmers throughout Europe.
The reduction in beef consumption across Europe has totally destroyed the market for beef and beef products.
This has placed many farmers in serious financial difficulty.
I understand the need to restore consumer confidence in the red-meat industry.
This we must strive to achieve, but we should never forget that beef farmers, through no fault of their own, have faced a serious crisis since this problem has been blown out of all proportion by the press and the media throughout Europe.
We must do everything possible to restore confidence throughout the industry once again.
I could not support the proposal of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to reduce the level of support through the suckler cow and beef premium.
But, although the proposal is not perfect, it is at least a good attempt to help and to achieve a new beginning.
It will take a long time to recover from this crisis, but we must not ignore it.
In fact, as we move towards the autumn, the problems may well increase and develop to an even greater extent.
To subsidise a sector of production which is hit by a crisis in this way is not tenable in principle.
The European Union cannot subsidise each sector of production hit by a fall in sales.
Of course measures against BSE must be taken, and these should include stopping the use of bonemeal in animal feed.
Reform of the Common Agricultural Policy will not be furthered by the EU Parliament now sending out the signal that as soon as a fall in sales occurs in any part of the agricultural sector the producers in that sector will receive compensation.
It is not therefore possible to vote for this report, even though we are of the opinion that forceful action must be taken to counter BSE.
The current beef crisis is worse than anything that occurred in the past.
For example, in Ireland alone it is estimated that the accumulative loss since the middle of March is in the region of £250 million.
The fall in prices will continue until we restore consumer confidence and an effective and comprehensive eradication policy is fundamental to achieving that.
The present proposed package is totally inadequate to meet the real losses incurred by farmers.
I would like Parliament to support the proposal put forward by myself and colleagues to increase the package to ECU 1, 000 million.
Furthermore the situation should be kept under constant review.
A total of ECU 116 million of which ECU 9.5 million id proposed for Ireland is a woefully inadequate proposal.
Furthermore, whatever final figures are agreed it is imperative that the money is used also to support the producers of heifer beef who currently received no premium or compensation of any kind.
Their losses have in fact been worse than those of the producers of male cattle and this must be recognized.
We would have been very pleased to see that our Parliament was taking on its responsibilities with regard to the mistakes arising from the mad cow crisis, and that it was taking good note of this by showing itself capable of reacting to the helplessness of farmers.
We are forced to say, however, that nothing of the sort has happened!
The vote taken today is highly significant: a reduction in additional aid; suckler cows and young male cattle at ECU 10 per head instead of ECU 20 and 25.
It is well known that only the interests of a certain number of countries are being satisfied, to the detriment of the general interests of the European Union.
As a result, the interests of specialist breeders, who are of course those most affected by the current crisis, are neglected to the advantage of mixed and intensive cattle rearing.
I remarked previously, during the last part session in Brussels, that my amendment asking the Commission for a full enquiry in order to identify the responsibilities of the various parties involved (cattle food industry, Member States, Community institutions, etc.) for the propagation of BSE had been rejected by a large majority of the Members of our Assembly present.
Was there complicity, thus taking advantage of the ignorance of cattle breeders and scapegoat consumers who, in every case, will pay for an affair for which they are in no way responsible?
The matter is sufficiently serious for the governments of Member States to wake up to this at the Florence summit and not to allow the internal political problems of Great Britain to interfere with the search for a financial and political solution to this case.
It is almost impossible at EU level to judge what support might be needed by individual meat producers in the Member States of the EU because mad cow disease hits different producers and different countries so differently.
Support should instead be decided at national level in accordance with local and regional circumstances.
Broad economic guidelines
Madam President, while we are promised with every major new European project that it will increase growth and employment, the report of the European Monetary Institute records, on the contrary, a steady drop in the average growth rate in Europe which, and I quote, ' was 4.7 % in the 1960s, 3.3 % in the 1970s, 2.2 % in the 1980s and 2 % so far in the 1990s' .
It does not add, as it could have in order to give a complete picture, that unemployment is following a reverse curve and stands today at close to 11 % in the Union, in spite of a tiny plateau in 1995, which does not give reason to anticipate any reversal of the trend in the future.
In this worsening situation, the Commission merely plans to continue as before.
It even specifies, and I quote, ' that if this strategy does not yet seem to have produced globally satisfying results in the Community, it is because it has not been implemented with sufficient vigour and credibility' .
This assessment is undoubtedly partly true, particularly as regards reform of the job market, reduction of charges on the low paid and adaptation of the education system, including professional training, to market requirements.
But it must all the same be wondered whether a policy that fails constantly is not wrong somewhere.
Our view is that the Union is pursuing the broadly counter-productive objective of forced convergence, and that it is suffering from the absence of a genuine measure for international trade protection.
In view of this trend, the Commission's report quite clearly shows that the criteria for public deficit and government debt will not be fulfilled on average at the end of 1997, unless between now and then there is a hoped-for miraculously vigorous resumption of growth.
This amounts to tossing a coin over the question of the single currency coming into force.
For a reform of that importance, is this really responsible?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the preamble of the joint motion for a resolution is very enlightening: economic stagnation, unemployment at record level, sluggish demand, declining public investment, depression amongst businesses and consumers.
However, we should ask ourselves why this has happened because there in fact are examples of brilliant economic success in Europe.
Norway and Switzerland in the west, for example, or the Czech Republic and Estonia in the east.
All these countries have the following features in common: first, they have a strong national currency within a space of a small country, which proves that it is possible for a small country to have a strong currency.
Secondly, none of them is a Member of the European Union and is therefore not obliged to apply the deflationary policy of the convergence criteria.
History also teaches us that the centres of growth in Europe were often small States or free cities particularly in Italy or Flanders, and not large artificially unified continental conglomerates.
In order to give new impetus to growth in Europe, we must abandon the unrealistic objective of monetary union, and copy the examples of these small independent states, Norway or Singapore, which show that national independence and the conditions for growth are entirely compatible.
Referring to the national compromise and the Edinburgh agreement, the Danish social democrats naturally cannot support those elements of the resolution which run counter to Denmark's four reservations.
There is much that is good in the economic guidelines, for example the concentration on employment.
I have voted against as I am against EMU.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Aid to former Yugoslavia
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0174/96 by Mr Alavanos, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission (COM(95)0564 - C4-0535/95) on 'humanitarian aid to the former Yugoslavia: prospects and guidelines' ; -A4-0184/96 by Mr Mendiluce Pereiro, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council (SEC(95)1597 - C4-0595/95) on 'reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia' ; -A4-0204/96 by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the communication from the Commission (COM(95)0581 - C4-0608/95) on 'the European Union's financial contribution to reconstruction in former Yugoslavia' ; -A4-0178/96 by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the communication from the Commission (COM(95)0582 - C4-0519/95) on 'reconstruction in former Yugoslavia: EU aid administration and international aid coordination' .
Mr President, we are beginning a debate on a number of reports dealing with aid and reconstruction in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the former Yugoslavia.
The reports coming to us all the time are, I think, rather worrying.
Various objectives of the Dayton accords, such as freedom of movement, are turning out to be pie in the sky.
Refugees are being allowed to return to their homes only after checks by the armies of the controlling ethnic groups.
Thousands of refugees - there were new waves of refugees after Dayton - and the Croat and Serb sides, but also the party of President Izetbegovic, are contributing to a resurgence of ethnic cleansing. Of course, we can now say that there is peace and not war, which was not the case some months ago.
However, this peace is, firstly, very fragile. Secondly, it is being used less for reconciliation and more for consolidation of the gains made through the ethnic cleansing that took place during the war.
Thirdly, it is engendering greater division rather than unity. The activation and mobilization of the international community as regards aid and reconstruction which can, in my opinion, in addition to the humanitarian aspect, constitute a very significant political intervention in developments in Bosnia and in the former Yugoslavia as a whole, should, I believe be assessed in that framework.
The International Institute for Peace Research in Stockholm has stated, accurately, that the Dayton agreement has brought the deep conflicts which continue to exist in the former Yugoslavia very clearly into focus, and that the impediments of the break-up of Bosnia, which are still in place, can only be surmounted by international aid and a flow of trade and information.
The mobilization of the European Union and the international community has to be seen in that context, I believe, and, of course, the European Union carries a big responsibility because it has been up until now, and will continue to be, the biggest contributor to economic intervention in the former Yugoslavia.
That is the basis on which the Committee on Foreign Affairs gave unanimous approval to the report that I am presenting.
I would like to emphasize a few main points.
Firstly to say that the humanitarian aid should be viewed as a link, as a bridge, to the policy for reconstruction overall.
However, it does have its own autonomous features, and because of its urgency and its humanitarian nature, as a means to ensuring the survival of people and saving lives, it is important that it should not be tied to political conditions, to political requirements, but should be available to all sides and to all regions of Bosnia.
My second point is that while the aid must, of course, be directed towards the provision of food and clothing, it must also be aimed towards meeting other needs, including the provision of medical equipment, encouragement of the return of medical staff to Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia, initial repair of damaged water supply, natural gas and electricity grids and the re-establishment of transport networks, all of which are essential in order to provide the people of Bosnia with a modicum of basic normality in their lives.
My third point is one that the World Bank has given special emphasis to: namely that the aid should be used in such a way as to encourage the mobilization of local resources and the setting in motion of an autonomous economic dynamic in Bosnia.
As my fourth point I mention mine-clearance.
This must be accepted for what it is - an essential element in the approach to the problems, closely linked with the provision of aid. IFOR is playing an important role in mineclearance, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs is minded to promote budget lines to assist the process.
Lastly, Mr President, I want to stress the importance of encouraging the return of refugees, but in a realistic manner, from western Europe, and of supporting NGOs, especially those established locally, as means to breaking down the final barrier in Bosnia, namely the barrier of enduring fear and hatred, and in order to permit the revival of a multi-ethnic society in that land.
Mr President, we have discussed the issue of former Yugoslavia so many times in Parliament, in relation to numerous resolutions, that the report which I am presenting today refers only to the new developments which directly concern the reconstruction proposals and the corresponding communication from the Commission.
However, I should like to draw the House's attention to a number of points which I believe to be very important.
Firstly, it should not be forgotten that the Dayton agreements have been signed - and signed in their totality - and must be complied with in both their letter and spirit.
And I stress this because many people are now questioning the wisdom of holding the elections on the date which is planned; of holding them throughout Bosnia; of applying the principle of conditionality; of bringing firm pressure to bear to remove those accused of war crimes from public office, arresting them and bringing them before the International Tribunal in the Hague - something which some people even believe might be considered a provocation.
Many of us take the view - and many people here in Parliament felt that the Dayton agreements were too much the result of a belated exercise in political realism designed to offset the disastrous consequences of this war - that now the Dayton agreements have been accepted by the parties, it would be extremely dangerous to start adding further doses of political realism which would not actually help their implementation.
In this context, I think it is important to highlight a number of points. As rapporteurs, I and several other Members have just been on a seven-day fact-finding mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
We were able to see that progress is being made in a number of fields, above all in military terms - although I do not wish to fall into the trap of saying that the military aspects of the Dayton plan are working, but the civil aspects are not. Given the differing degrees of complexity of the two aspects and their treatment in the Dayton agreements, this is a generalization which we cannot accept.
We must do away completely with the impression that what the Americans are doing is working and what the Europeans are doing is not.
However, it is true that the implementation of many of the civil provisions of the peace plan is facing serious problems.
I shall draw attention to some of these, of which everyone is aware. There is only relative freedom of movement: people are able to move around individually and in small groups, but there is no generalized freedom of movement.
Only small numbers of refugees have been able to return home, and then usually to territories in which their ethnic or religious group is in the majority.
As regards democratization, the options of the democratic opposition political parties are minimal, and I am sorry to say that none of the political forces represented here in the House has made a serious attempt to support the creation of non-ethnic, non-radical political options in the territories of Bosnia-Herzegovina. In my view, this reflects a serious lack of responsibility on the part of all the democratic political parties represented in this Parliament.
Karadzic continues openly and directly to pull the strings of the government of the Republika Srpska , and there are considerable doubts that he will be arrested before the elections.
And I would say that the responsibility of President Milosevic, who is the real protagonist in the manoeuvring which has led to the disastrous failure to arrest Karadzic, and the responsibility of President Tudjman to remove from political office and detain a number of war criminals in Mostar and Herzegovina, such as Dario Kordis and others who are less well-known, mean that we must keep up strong, sustained and unequivocal pressure on Belgrade and Zagreb if we wish the Bosnian peace process to move forward.
There is not a great deal of positive information concerning the forthcoming elections, although I should like to express my personal concern - and that of many Members of this Parliament, I believe - at the debate surrounding the date of those elections.
Many of us believe that it is not a question of the date itself, but of meeting our responsibility as the international community to ensure that the conditions are as favourable as possible by the planned date.
Consequently, if we continue to fail to support the democratic parties, and if we continue to fail to bring maximum pressure to bear for the arrest of the war criminals and so on, postponing the elections will not represent a significant change.
I shall end by saying that in terms of actual reconstruction, the results of the European Union's action can be seen in Mostar, although there are serious political problems, such as the lack of reunification.
However, physical reconstruction can be seen in Mostar.
It is not visible in the rest of Bosnia.
It would also be a good idea for the Commission to examine whether the mechanisms, procedures, rules and regulations applied in an operation of this scale and with this degree of political responsibility are suitable for this or future actions which we are required to carry out beyond our borders in the framework of the CFSP.
I would say that they are not, and that - without wishing to criticize in the least the Commission or its agents on the ground - it is important for the Commission to tell us which of these mechanisms and procedures will be useful in the future and which will not.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in presenting this report of an apparently strictly budgetary nature, I should like first to draw the Assembly's attention to the origins of this affair and then to its financial implications, and also to its political implications, which to my eyes are immensely important.
First, the origins.
The proclamation of the independence of Croatia and Slovenia on 25 June 1991 led to the intervention of the Yugoslav Federal Army two days later and at the same time provoked war which had disappeared from our continent since 8 May 1945.
To begin with, the old European demons - differing judgements and analyses and failure to understand what was happening, then divisions over what to do - led Europeans not to intervene and to watch the progress of the war as an exotic phenomenon which would come to an end some day.
The consequences for the rest of Europe first appeared as a subject for reflection by our pseudo-philosophers looking for moral imperatives, but mostly for cheap personal publicity, and not as a crucial issue for the whole of our continent.
And sending in the UN blue berets, whose only orders were to keep the combatants apart, could give the impression of a profound lack of interest in a conflict on the doorstep of the Union of 12, later of 15.
For five years, the Europeans, who love justice and freedom, watched sadly and in dismay something which the rest of the world saw as an illustration of the powerlessness of Europe.
And then came 16 June 1995 when, under the name of the rapid reaction force, the West froze the situation on the ground, before presiding over a withdrawal of the opposing forces and achieving on 21 November the global peace agreement for Bosnia, concluded at Dayton in the USA.
Three weeks later, the agreement signed in Paris at the Elysée Palace Conference created two entities, the Croat-Muslim Federation and the Serb Republic of Bosnia, and decided on the deployment of an international peace-keeping force under NATO command, the implementation force , amounting on 1 February 1996 to 65, 366 men.
This Pax Atlantica - there is no other possible expression - since 54, 220 of the soldiers come from 15 countries of the Atlantic Alliance - is now accompanied by a plan for reconstruction.
These are the financial and political implications of the peace we are discussing today.
What our Assembly should consider at this sitting is what any Assembly with budgetary powers should do, that is, provide the financial resources to transform peace through arms into a return to normality by moving on to the reconstruction of this region of Europe devastated by war.
On this subject, we have in fact three reports apart from mine; those of our colleagues Mr Alavanos, Mr Mendiluce and Mr Titley which, even if they cover the same geographical entity, relate to three different types of reality, graduate their approach to the use of appropriations and are in fact complementary.
For in an ideal situation, the more rebuilding progresses and the less we shall need humanitarian aid, the more it will be possible to mobilize appropriations for housing and employment and the more those with homes and jobs will once again become free human beings.
Our Assembly should therefore now take formal note, by a vote that we hope will be in favour, of its involvement in the process of funding reconstruction.
Although the first Conference of donors on 20 and 21 December 1995 took place hurriedly and at some distance from our Assembly, the next, on 12 and 13 April in Brussels, gave it a substantial role as Mrs Müller, Mr Mendiluce, Mr Titley and I represented you there.
This second Conference had been preceded by a trialogue under the responsibility, for our Assembly, of Mr Samland, during which a broad convergence of views with the Council and Commission emerged.
This positive action demonstrated that in this matter the Council, the Commission and the second branch of the budgetary authority shared the same objectives.
The Committee on Budgets unanimously pronounced itself in favour of the Alavanos report on humanitarian aid.
In our view, no limitation whatsoever, whether budgetary or legal, can be imposed on humanitarian aid, when it is needed to deal with a distressing situation and above all to help the innocent: the women, the elderly, the children abandoned along the road having fled from the fighting.
Let us simply remind ourselves that, apart from the 200, 000 who have lost their lives, 3, 600, 000 others have been displaced and their homes destroyed or damaged, so that 80 % of them are now dependent on international aid.
As for the Titley report, which deals with the management of European Union aid and the coordination of international aid, the Committee on Budgets has also expressed an opinion which was unanimously adopted and which emphasizes the need to provide credible justification for the resources committed by the European Union.
The justification for this use of appropriations is only a condition adding to those we have consistently urged in this Assembly for many years, particularly the re-establishment of the rule of law, the restoration of basic freedoms, the creation of a civil society and naturally cooperation with the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, for which the operational funds should be substantially increased on this occasion.
As regards Mr Mendiluce's report, the Committee on Budgets has also expressed a favourable opinion for the same reasons as those stated concerning the Titley report.
Turning to the report entrusted to me by the Committee on Budgets, I wish firstly to draw my colleagues' attention to the importance of the contribution from the European Union.
Although contributions are theoretically shared between three major participants, the European Union, the USA and the other countries wishing to give aid, it is useful to recall that only the contribution from the European Union is the subject of a multiannual programme, which also requires a review of budgetary perspectives up to 1999 on which discussions have already started.
This is reflected in a withdrawal of funds under two main headings of our budget, as a result of the simultaneous adoption of our budget on 13 December and the conclusion of the Paris Agreement on the following day.
I remind you that in December we approved a sum of ECU 400 million programmed as shown in the table on page 14.
The Committee on Budgets now proposes to you that we confirm the Commission proposal to release ECU 600 million from the PHARE programme for the period 1996-1999.
For information, I should like to remind you that the budgetary commitment for the PHARE programme over this period amounts to ECU 6, 690, 000, 000, so that the ECU 600 million allocated to the former Yugoslavia represents less than 10 % of the Union's outlay in assisting the CEECs.
ECU 1 billion over five years which is a symbolic figure as the ECU 400 million and ECU 600 million have to be added together represents less than the average annual unused appropriations of the combined PHARE and TACIS programmes.
The table on page 12 also shows the proposed breakdown for democratization, sanctions, antipersonnel mines and the city of Mostar, the Gordian knot and focus of all the difficulties experienced by that unhappy country.
It is now clear that the particularly tight programme approved by the Committee on Budgets, especially as regards the progress of Category IV, which you will find on page 14 of my report, will be greatly facilitated by proper regulations for the use of these appropriations, which have finally just been proposed by the Commission.
The arrival the day before yesterday of these draft regulations proposed by the Commission nullifies point K in the preamble of my report.
This is a minor comment, but I now wish to make a major comment.
Yesterday morning, I was opposed to urgent examination of this document.
Because of its importance, it seemed to me to call for a particularly detailed examination by our Assembly, examination all the more so because we have consistently maintained that the regulations for the PHARE programme are totally unsuitable and have demanded regulations fully adapted to the exceptional situation in the former Yugoslavia.
A few more days reflection will therefore be useful for a careful examination.
To conclude and to get away a little from figures, I should like to mention a quotation.
The President of France declared recently: ' Recent history has provided Europeans with a good illustration, in Bosnia, of their present opportunities and limitations.
On the positive side is the Franco-British military cooperation and the German decision, taken at the prompting of Chancellor Kohl, to participate in external peacekeeping operations.
On the negative side is the present inability of Europeans to engage in a large-scale politico-military action on their own responsibility.
We must put an end to what is perceived by the world as European powerlessness.
We must build our common European defence policy, to which we are committed by the Maastricht Treaty' .
I will add for my part that our Assembly must also participate in this.
By adopting these four reports which in fact form only a single one, our Assembly will play its full part.
We have often been criticised for being inclined to discuss matters of little importance.
This time, make no mistake, this is a major report and, by approving it, you are preparing yourselves to take a major political act.
Mr President, we should all be clear that there is no peace in Bosnia at the moment in any sense in which the ordinary person would understand that word.
There is very little sense of reconciliation, there is virtually no freedom of movement and few refugees have been able to return home.
Instead, international military force has merely brought about a halt in hostilities.
It has provided us with a very small window of opportunity to show the local population that they have a stake, both politically and economically, in the future.
They will get a political stake when elections are held and, despite all the difficulties, it is vital that these elections go ahead on schedule.
The economic state will depend on the success of the international reconstruction effort, which is the area my report deals with.
In assessing that effort we should remember, firstly, that the destruction was enormous: the basic infrastructure was extensively damaged or destroyed, only 20 % of houses were left undamaged and 60 % of industrial capacity was destroyed.
Secondly, the basic structures of society were missing.
Government institutions have had to be built up from scratch.
The legacy of the old state-run economy means that there are great problems concerning property rights, which hinder economic reforms, and there have been major issues concerning Bosnia's international debts which had to be resolved before the financial institutions could offer assistance.
Thirdly, economic reconstruction is not the same as humanitarian aid.
Reconstruction involves careful planning, extensive consultation and the implementation of long-term financial management.
It therefore takes longer to produce results and requires patience.
Given these and many other difficulties, the reconstruction effort mounted so far by the international community has been remarkable.
The Commission in particular has achieved a great deal, particularly in Mostar.
Therefore, the concerns I am about to outline should be seen in that context.
There have been two major international donor conferences which have jointly raised US $1.8 bn.
That amount contrasts, of course, with the US $7 bn which the IFOR operation is costing.
It is also a misleading figure.
In making their pledges governments have sometimes juggled the figures.
The real amount is less than US $1.8 bn, which has caused some of the reconstruction projects to be scaled down.
Further, the money has been very slow to materialize.
In April only half of the money pledged at the December conference had actually been committed.
The burden of reconstruction money has not been shared out as fairly as originally intended.
The EU is still responsible for more than its fair share.
That is why I call in my report for other donors, particularly the United States, Japan and the Islamic countries, to make a greater commitment.
Donors have mainly put money into specific projects or given assistance in kind.
Too little money has gone into other areas.
Funding for recurrent expenditure is desperately needed.
Rebuilt schools and hospitals are of little use if there is nobody to pay the salaries of teachers and doctors.
Money needs to be channelled into the social sector, both to provide shortterm employment and to fund a basic social security safety net.
Another essential area being underfunded is land-mine clearance.
There are more land-mines in Bosnia than people.
Economic life cannot return to normal if people literally cannot walk in their back garden for fear of landmines.
But only 2 % of the money committed in the first donor conference has gone on land-mine clearance.
Finally, we must constantly emphasize the importance of housing reconstruction.
Without that normality cannot return.
When I was in Bosnia, criticisms were made that the Commission was releasing money too slowly.
Given the difficult circumstances the Commission operates under and the need to ensure financial probity and full transparency, these criticisms are largely unfair.
There is a desperate need, however, for small sums of money to be rapidly disbursed.
I hope we can do something in that respect in the future.
It is also essential to make it clear that there is no weakening of our determination to make our assistance conditional on respect for the Dayton agreement and particularly respect for human rights.
We must also ensure that there is effective coordination of the international aid effort.
We have heard a number of stories of failed coordination which has hampered the effectiveness of that aid.
Finally, the international community has done much, but has actually talked a lot more.
If we are to build a real and lasting peace in Bosnia, then the international community must put its money where its mouth is.
Mr President, following the signing of the Dayton agreements, peace at last seemed possible in the wartorn territories of former Yugoslavia.
However, peace is not won; only wars are won.
Peace is built.
It is built by restoring dignity to those from whom it has been wrested by force of arms, by sowing the seeds of harmony where the warmongers wished only hatred to grow, by covering with a mantle of renewed hope the traces of the long dark night of suffering and death.
Hence the urgency of carrying out the moral reconstruction of former Yugoslavia and the need for measures which help to establish a just order, based on respect for democracy and human rights.
This is not an easy task.
The pain and humiliation of those who suffered the indignity of ethnic cleansing is too great.
The scars left by the violence and hatred are too deep: 200 000 dead, more than four million refugees and displaced persons, cities reduced to rubble, and a traumatized civilian population.
Consequently the REX Committee, like the rapporteur on humanitarian aid, believes that for peace to be genuinely possible, over and above the Commission's own emergency measures and the priorities it has established in its communication on the prospects and guidelines for humanitarian aid, there is a need for such aid to be reoriented towards measures which facilitate the return and social reintegration of the refugees and displaced persons.
It is therefore not only a question of ensuring a continuum between the emergency stage and the rehabilitation stage, important as that may be, but of encouraging the social and political conditions which will make possible if not the dream of the restoration of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic society, as Mr Mendiluce said yesterday, then at least the achievement of peaceful coexistence.
It is a question of healing the wounds in the hearts and minds of those who have been the innocent victims of this war, and providing peace education aimed at promoting tolerance and respect for diversity.
To this end, there is a need to increase substantially the financial resources being made available, to coordinate the efforts of the donor countries and NGOs, to support the UNHCR in carrying out its guiding role, and to introduce the principles of greater flexibility and decentralization into the technical assistance initiatives under the PHARE programme.
In this way, peace will start to become a reality in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The European Union, which was incapable of stopping the war, now has it in its hands to make peace possible.
This is the European Union's great responsibility, and indeed our responsibility.
Mr President, in the debate on former Yugoslavia I should like, as joint draftsman, to focus on Mr Alvanos's report on humanitarian aid to this war-torn region.
Very few people are aware that the European Union is far and away the biggest donor of humanitarian aid to the countries of former Yugoslavia.
Since 1992 the Union has provided 1.6 billion ECU, and this region thus takes more out of the ECHO aid fund than all other regions put together.
Aid is channelled through the Red Cross, the UNHCR, Médecins sans Frontières and dozens of NGOs operating in the field in order to help the 3.5 million or so refugees within the region to survive.
I must stress here the respect I feel for all those working with the NGOs, who often have to operate under difficult conditions and sometimes at considerable risk to their own lives.
Against that background, Mr President, I have a few comments which you will also find in my opinion and which have been very largely adopted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
We believe a clear distinction needs to be made between humanitarian aid and aid to reconstruction.
Aid to reconstruction is not emergency aid.
Humanitarian aid is given without political strings attached and aid for reconstruction does have political strings.
We think these two flows of aid must be kept separate because otherwise humanitarian aid, which is in any case all too meagre, will be misused for projects which are really part of the reconstruction effort.
We have put down a number of amendments on this and are glad that the Committee on Foreign Affairs has endorsed them.
Secondly, the levels of aid for food, clothing and services such as housing are more or less adequate, but the NGOs report that not enough psychological and social help is being given, for example to the families of people who are missing, to women and children who have been the victims of assault and rape.
Perhaps a little more can be done here under ECHO.
Thirdly, help is also needed in the social and cultural field, because multicultural organizations need to be able to regenerate themselves.
It must also be possible to counter the segregation which increasingly threatens to become established in schools and hospitals, but help is needed for that.
And we believe such help has to be given.
And then there are the soldiers being demobilized, Mr President.
There are some 300 000 of them and we hear that they are increasingly forming gangs and thus creating a new danger.
It is said that there are 3 to 4 million mines in the region.
We think humanitarian aid money can be used here if there is no other way of paying for mines clearance.
A couple of remarks to close with, Mr President. We think it is most important for the return of refugees to be properly coordinated.
We are genuinely concerned that too many of them will be forcibly repatriated. We urge the Commission to be particularly alert to this possibility.
Finally, Mr President, one political question: what is actually going to happen when the United States withdraws from the entire region?
Can we then expect the European Union to fill the gap?
Is there any truth in the rumour that Mr Bildt too will be resigning at the end of the year? Can the Commissioner give specific answers to these questions?
Mr President, we have held countless debates in this House and adopted numerous resolutions on the tragedy of the war in former Yugoslavia.
We have condemned the atrocities committed, and drawn attention to the inaction and dissent of certain members of the international community, as well as to the efforts carried out on the ground, with great personal commitment, by those who have sought to defend the victims by monitoring both the ceasefire and the situation of civilians.
The point should also be made, however, that some people have done very good business in this war, because we are not so naive as to be unaware that wars always provide opportunities for shady commercial dealings at the expense of the victims.
Little has been left standing; the destruction is continuing, and time is short for peace to be secured.
In this debate today, we are determined to establish reasonable criteria for reconstruction of the areas which have suffered the severest damage as a result of the conflict.
Former Yugoslavia is on our borders, and this means that the Union must make a great effort, even if critical voices are raised - and they will be heard.
It is worth committing ourselves to the establishment of a plan for peace, harmony and cultural tolerance.
Intolerance and hatred are scourges which must be combatted with solidarity.
And solidarity, let us not forget, is a duty which cannot be replaced by goodwill or charity.
In other words, success will depend on a number of factors, but above all on a distinct financial effort.
It can never be stressed enough that the peace is fragile.
The region - above all Bosnia-Herzegovina - is shattered, its industrial fabric destroyed and its productive capacity reduced to nil.
So it is essential to lay the foundations for reconstruction without delay, thinking in both the medium and long term.
And achieving peace will depend on the process of democratization as well as on the economic effort.
In the view of the REX Committee, the financial instruments available must first be directed towards restoring the productive fabric and infrastructure, with a view to making progress in two directions: regional integration, and preparation for future association with the Union, which can be achieved by adapting our contractual relations as the situation develops.
Unfortunately, the transition to a market economy - a precondition for this contractual development - will be taking place in the worst possible conditions.
As a result, the Union's financial instruments must be well defined and match the realities.
Two questions which the REX Committee has been asking itself in the course of its lengthy discussions are, firstly, whether in the present budgetary framework the Union will be able to respond rapidly and effectively to the challenge; and, secondly, whether the virtual insolvency of the former Yugoslav republics will be another obstacle to gaining access to international credit.
The REX Committee considers it essential that, with the exception of humanitarian aid, the Union's technical, financial and macro-economic assistance should be made subject to the criteria of political and economic conditionality laid down by the General Affairs Council at its meeting in October last year.
The nature of the consequences of the war in former Yugoslavia will not allow total normality to be restored for a long time, and it should be stressed, finally, that abuses will continue to be committed, but that these abuses will be far more serious if the international community - and, more particularly, the European Union - fails to assume its responsibilities.
Mr President, six months ago the peace negotiations in Bosnia-Herzegovina ended with the signing of the Dayton Accord.
Since then, the international community has made great efforts to achieve longterm peace in this devastated country, by means of reconstruction.
The European Union and its Member States have fulfilled their responsibilities with regard to a substantial part of these efforts, in terms of both reconstruction and peacekeeping by the IFOR troops.
However, we have not yet succeeded in ensuring peace.
After a certain amount of initial difficulty, the first results of the reconstruction effort are now visible, and even the restoration of infrastructural facilities is slowly but surely progressing.
Thanks to the presence of the international troops, however, the most important objective has been achieved. The war has ended.
This does not mean that all the wounds in the relationships between the individual ethnic groups have already been healed, and that peace is guaranteed in the long term.
But thanks to IFOR the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina can now venture to make a new start in relative safety.
Unfortunately the situation is still not such as to make this possible without the presence of the IFOR troops.
Enormous efforts will still have to be made if there is to be reconciliation between the different ethnic groups, because if there is one thing we have learned from Bosnia-Herzegovina, it is that it is more difficult to make peace than to make war.
The planned withdrawal of IFOR forces at the end of this year is therefore likely, in my opinion, to constitute the greatest threat to maintaining both the peace and the reconstruction process.
My group has therefore taken the initiative and, by means of a European Parliament recommendation, has asked the Council of Ministers to prolong the presence of at least the European contingent of the IFOR troops so that it continues into next year.
Mrs Maij-Weggen has spoken about this problem.
I take exactly the same view as she does.
The matter must be discussed.
A decision of this kind is essential, because without IFOR we cannot expect the peace process to be successful.
All those who have said so here today are right, because although progress is being made on reconstruction, there is still a lot of work to be done.
As was shown by last week's follow-up conference in Florence, on the implementation of the peace accord, there are some areas in which a lot of work still has to be done.
This is particularly true with regard to the return of refugees and those who have been driven out of their homes, the measures needed to guarantee freedom of domicile for people throughout the whole of the sovereign territory, and the building up of joint democratic institutions at national, regional and local level.
The implementation of free and democratic elections could make an important contribution here, if - and I emphasize the word "if' - the basic conditions for those elections can be provided.
Of absolutely vital importance is the existence of free and independent media, so that it is possible for all candidates and all parties to have free and equal access.
Even more important, however, is the existence of multi-ethnic political parties, which will make it possible, after the elections, to continue the process of rapprochement between the various ethnic groups, and to prevent ethnic separation from becoming strengthened and legitimized by the elections.
The European Union now faces an important task. It must do everything it can to ensure that the hope of a peaceful future in Bosnia-Herzegovina can survive.
I hope that we shall all be in a position to do so.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is now almost seven months since Dayton or Paris, and we have to ask ourselves whether anything has really changed.
The only thing that has changed is that there is no longer a war going on, but the changes have not been as great as we should have liked.
On the civilian side, things are not yet progressing as we had thought they might.
We are coming up against a lot of obstacles, including the fact that in this instance war has paid off, since the aggressor has gained 49 %.
It is also true to say that ethnic cleansing is still going on everywhere in Bosnia.
Over the last four years we have learned that ethnic cleansing still goes unpunished.
It is now continuing in all regions, and we cannot prevent it, despite the many organizations that are there on the spot.
We are forced to admit that local politicians and police officers are still compliantly doing the dirty work for their criminal bosses.
Of course there are decent politicians everywhere, and those who would like to make these things public, but who dare not, because if they did they would very soon lose their heads.
So the civilian implementation is not working, but the reason it is not working is that it is mainly Europeans who are involved.
At the end of the day, everybody agreed to this civilian implementation, and everybody is responsible for it, just as we are also all responsible for the positive results of the military implementation.
As far as humanitarian aid and reconstruction aid are concerned, we are faced with the question of how to give our aid, whom to give it to and on what conditions. If we were to follow our own ideas, then we would be able to give aid to hardly any projects at all, because hardly anywhere are the provisions of the Dayton Accord being observed.
The extradition of the war criminals is being boycotted.
Freedom of movement has not been established.
Only a tiny number of refugees have returned from the Serbian sector of Bosnia into the Croatian-Moslem sector.
The authorities in the Serbian sector have absolutely no interest in having their fellow Serbian citizens coming back to Sarajevo, for example, which in many cases they went away from as a result of Serbian pressure.
Nor have they any interest - although they maintain that the opposite is true - in seeing them go back into Krajina, thereby forcing the Croatian authorities to show their true colours.
They would much rather keep them almost like hostages, so that they can then say that they have so many Serbian refugees that they are unable to allow any Croatian or Muslim refugees, who have lived there for hundreds of years, to come back.
The reciprocity scheme is working wonderfully well, except that the Serbs are to some extent preventing their own fellow citizens, who would very much like to return to their original homes, from doing so.
The politicians in the Serbian sector of Bosnia do not regard their sector as a constitutive part of Bosnia, and yet that is what is set down in the accord, and that is what they signed up to!
In other words, not much is happening.
Yet the people of the country want peace!
They need, at long last, to have leaders who want the same thing, and the new elections could bring this about, at least in part.
But the prerequisite for any elections whose results will not be a foregone conclusion is to have media that will stop inciting the people and start informing them, and will finally follow this motto: this land of Bosnia is the land of Muslims, Croatians and Serbs!
This message must be got across, every day, morning, noon and night, by television and radio, so that the people - and in particular their politicians - finally understand it.
Our aid must be concerned with the media projects.
It is a matter of the utmost urgency that we should rebuild houses and that we should rebuild multi-ethnic schools.
But it is also necessary to provide aid to build up the SMEs, thereby providing the possibility of help by self-help.
Jobs are absolutely essential in order to give people prospects and in order to make them immune to the inflammatory speeches of their leaders, some of whom are criminals.
Mr President, I should like first of all to compliment Mr Alavanos and the other rapporteurs on their reports.
Mr President, I do not want to go into detail about what has happened in the blood-soaked former Yugoslavia over all these years.
I just wish to say that on numerous occasions there has been no shortage of hypocrisy in the European Union, and no shortage of it here, too, in the European Parliament.
I also believe that the European Union bears a huge responsibility for the tragedy that the peoples of the former Yugoslavia have had to live through, and still are living through.
And therefore its responsibility to assist in the repair of the damage, in so far as it can be repaired, and to show solidarity with the people of the region in their struggle for survival is equally huge.
The main foci of the aid must be:
the reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed in the war; -the return of all refugees and displaced persons to their homes; the creation, that is, of conditions which will encourage them to return, because fine words alone will not get these people back to their homes, to the places where they lived peacefully in earlier years; -clearance of the minefields which are endangering the lives of many thousands of people in Bosnia; -the placing of priority on the social rehabilitation of the people, with emphasis on ensuring that the appropriations are not frittered away by businessmen and the various opportunists who will be looking for the main chance; -fair distribution of the appropriations among all of the peoples - Serbs, Croats, Muslims - without special conditions and requirements.We would view any attempt to link this aid to political conditions, to a demand for the establishment of any particular social organization model, as a new manifestation of inhumanity on the part of the Union and its institutions.
The Dayton peace was imposed by weapons, by force.
So, of course, it is not real peace.
The crisis and the hatred created by the war have not been overcome.
Any attempt to impose conditions, or any unfair treatment in the management of the aid, could re-ignite the flames of war.
Posterity will judge whether the European Union shouldered its responsibility and implemented a good policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the peace process in former Yugoslavia and more particularly in Bosnia-Hercegovina does indeed continue to be very hard going.
To my mind there are two factors which might have a very negative effect in the short and medium term.
The first is the lifting of the arms embargo yesterday and the second is the possibility - I hope it will be no more than that - that the elections planned for the autumn will fail.
The Dayton Agreement stipulated that the state of Bosnia-Hercegovina should not initially have its own army and its own police force, which would of course normally be an essential part of the state apparatus.
There were obvious reasons for this but it remains a fact that the presence of two armies within a supposed state, which are still hostile to one another, continues to be a factor of divisiveness.
On top of that the Security Council decided yesterday to lift the arms embargo, thereby placing the Americans on the ground in IFOR in a very ambiguous position, as peace-keepers in IFOR on the one hand and, on the other hand, as the biggest supplier of arms to the Federation of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Everyone know this and it is also visible on the ground.
Hence my question to the Commissioner as to how the Union will seek to monitor the agreements which have been reached and to ensure that IFOR's credibility is not damaged, because in my view it is practicable to say that IFOR should stay rather longer than originally envisaged but it is a contradiction in terms to link that to rearmament.
As for the second problem, the elections, it is clear here that many groups on the spot and concerned principally with human rights are warning that in the short term those who will wield the greatest influence are those who advocated and fought for ethnic cleansing.
On the other hand all the parties, including the opposition, think that it is better to hold the elections than not to.
I am willing to give this the benefit of the doubt but it will be most important for us to monitor this process in the next few weeks and months, otherwise we shall fail over this too.
Mr President, peace has returned to Bosnia-Herzegovina. At least the guns are silent.
Two hundred thousand soldiers, or a few more, have returned to barracks, with ordered arms.
Today, the worry is that everything, or nearly everything, remains to be done.
We must, at least for the time being, go into mourning - but mourning is by its very nature temporary - for a dream long kept alive of a multiethnic, multicultural and multireligious society.
Make no mistake, the rapists and murderers have won the game.
I am not saying they have won the war, but they have won an important battle.
Each of the now peaceful zones is controlled by an exclusive, or at the very least a largely dominant, ethnic group.
Try to go from one town to another in Bosnia.
It is practically impossible.
Try to telephone from Tuzla to Banja Luka, it is also virtually impossible.
These minimum freedoms of movement and communication are still non-existent.
The people in control of these adjacent enclaves care little for their citizens' freedoms, including freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
But the European Union does have enough weight to induce these authorities to respect, however minimally, the freedom of the citizens living in the zones they control.
We have the means, you have the means, to set clear conditions for establishing cooperation, particularly of a financial nature.
In this respect, the naming, prosecution, judgement and sentencing of the criminals and the quality of the help given to the court by the local authorities - Serbs, Croats and Bosnians - will have to be regarded as a decisive criterion for the allocation of European aid.
For the violence to continue to be held in check, it is also essential that IFOR, in its present form or in a form still to be determined, should be present, that it should be well armed and determined to protect the populations which, when it suited it, the international community left in the hands of butchers.
Such a military presence, which is supposed to prevent any resumption of the armed conflict, should also enable these populations to regain confidence and to start rebuilding their own future.
Mr President, on reading these four outstanding reports one is impressed once again by the enormity of the human suffering and material damage caused by more than four years of war in former Yugoslavia.
Whilst the Dayton Agreement offers a basis for peace, given the continuation of divisions along ethnic lines the question remains whether Bosnia can ever become a multiethnic unified state.
We cannot see an enforced balance of power and peace agreement achieving this.
Nevertheless the international aid we are discussing today is the appropriate instrument for encouraging a return to normal society in former Yugoslavia.
In addition to humanitarian aid in the form of food supplies and medical care amongst other things, the focus must switch in future to reconstruction aid, with a view to selfsufficiency.
It is primarily important that tangible results should be achieved ahead of this autumn's elections.
It is not easy to pick out priorities from the wide range of projects.
But we would give precedence to those projects likely to encourage cooperation between the different population groups in former Yugoslavia.
High priority should also be given to demobilizing the 300 000 or so troops and finding these people employment.
One question which does not receive sufficient attention is how far the Union can help to reduce the number of weapons in the region.
I fear that peace will not be helped merely by stabilizing existing arms levels.
I would be glad to hear the Commissioner's views on this.
Lastly, in giving aid for reconstruction the point is not so much that the Union should prove its credibility in terms of its foreign and security policy, as we read in one of the reports.
The point is primarily that the Union and the international community should, in providing aid, fulfil their moral obligations towards the citizens of war-torn former Yugoslavia in the hope of establishing a lasting peace here.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Alavanos, Mendiluce and Titley reports submitted to us on humanitarian aid and reconstruction in the countries of the former Yugoslavia are unsatisfactory.
Only that of our colleague, Mr Giansily, has the strict budgetary qualities that we are pleased to acknowledge.
As for that of Mr Alavanos, the Greek communist, it repeats the intentions of the Council and Commission concerning humanitarian aid, but accompanies them with unacceptable conditions connected with his ideological views.
In 1991, Mr Alavanos, like Mr Delors, opposed the independence of the Slovenian and Croatian peoples, who were unanimous in their wish to recover their freedom and sovereignty.
This attitude is known to have been regarded as significant support by the rulers of the communist regime of the Communist-Serb army.
It is hard to understand why Mr Alavanos, who praises a unitary, multinational, multicultural Yugoslavia, does not extend his argument to his own country.
Why should he not advocate a Greco-Turkish or Turko-Greek society, which would end the age-old conflict between two neighbouring nations?
The two other reports are also marred by such ideological attitudes.
In this way, it is forgotten that Croatia, a third of whose territory was occupied and laid waste for more than four years, has made an immense effort to welcome into its liberated area not only its own nationals but also tens of thousands of Bosnians, both Christian and Muslim.
The war has resulted in partition, as always unsatisfactory, but because each people has now, somehow or other, been allocated a territory, why is it necessary to force the return of refugees at all costs to their former place of residence? What madness that is, when the same causes produce the same effects!
The important thing is to prevent for the Muslim population of Bosnia the Palestinization that threatens them.
May these refugees therefore leave their camps in a foreign land as quickly as possible and return to their homes, or to somewhere near their homes, in Bosnia, for only amongst their own will they find the surest guarantee of peace!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as we all know, Europe failed to prevent the conflict in former Yugoslavia, has failed to end the conflict in former Yugoslavia.
It must now be a point of honour for Europe to take the lead in providing fast, efficient and generous assistance to do as much as it can to rebuild former Yugoslavia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina in particular.
There are, of course, a number of strings attached.
Firstly, the Dayton Agreement must be implemented in full.
I think the frame of this debate is clear.
Everyone understands that structurally important problems remain given the lack of a true desire for peace on the part of all the parties concerned.
So there is by no means any de facto implementation of the Dayton Agreement.
The elections have already been postponed and questions remain as to whether the autumn elections will be a success.
The mid-term review of 13 and 14 June in Florence confirmed that sizeable problems remain over freedom of movement and media freedom.
That war criminals are far from being handed over, that Karadzic and Mladic are still at liberty.
Something which I think is often overlooked is the close link between the situation in Bosnia and the situation in Eastern Slavonia.
Because any worsening of the situation in Eastern Slavonia, due to new mass movements of refugees, may seriously affect the fragile situation in Bosnia-Hercegovina.
I thus believe special concern should be shown for Eastern Slavonia.
A second proviso which we, and primarily the Committee on Budgets, would impose is that there should be maximum transparency in respect of monies earmarked and strict monitoring of the way in which financial resources are spent.
In concrete terms that means that the European Parliament wishes to be and to remain fully involved in the specific reconstruction effort.
It is important here that our Committee on Budgets and Committee on Budgetary Control should play a major part.
Urgency, regular urgent procedures of the kind we have seen for the transfers of appropriations we have already approved, are no longer democratically acceptable to this Parliament.
Today we have yet another financial regulation.
Yet again urgency is requested.
We need to think carefully about how, through the budget, we can make sure that on the one hand aid is given efficiently and quickly enough but on the other hand that it is transparent enough.
In concluding, may I say that I was impressed by Mrs Müller's report on the slow pace at which funds are released.
We have to cut through this red tape, at least as far as the future deployment of aid is concerned.
Mr President, at the beginning of this debate we heard once again about the ineptitude and failure of the outside world and the European Union to deal with the problems of former Yugoslavia.
I think we should stop talking of the European Union in those terms, because we know that foreign policy is directed by an intergovernmental band of ministers equipped with vetos, whose moral calibre can thus by definition never be higher than that of the member with the lowest moral calibre, and that consequently this whole business is the result or the fault of an amoral foreign policy regarded by its proponents as a sign of competence.
I think we should make no bones about the fact that the blame for events in former Yugoslavia lies with the intergovernmental Council and we should stop talking about ineptitude or failure, because this is not the way it was.
We are now living with the reality of the Dayton Agreement, child of the Vance-Owen agreement and grandchild of the plans of Karadzic which he demonstrated to me neatly on a wall chart early on in his country's sufferings.
We are not totally happy with it.
We are happy that it has a military component, carried out by NATO in cooperation with other troops, with IFOR, which separated the troops, unfortunately at a time when Mladic's troops were losing out.
Nevertheless, they are separated. And there is a civilian component which is really a joke, since the maintenance of order and, for example, organization of the return of refugees and elections needs a pretty firm hand when you have a situation of violence.
My first question to the Council is whether there is still any prospect of an international police force, which would also have to be well equipped.
We cannot plonk London bobbies down in Banja Luka and environs, or in Sarajevo and environs.
That is just not feasible.
You need troops there who are more akin to riot police or our Dutch military police, a force which can if necessary call on armoured vehicles.
In Bosnia we are regularly dealing with armed gangs.
Is there any prospect of this police force becoming a reality and of operating effectively?
Concerning elections, I must also ask the Commissioner how things stand with regard to our help for a free media.
We know that the conflict in Yugoslavia just as in Rwanda and Burundi, for example, is very largely the result of misuse and manipulation of the media.
We have been talking about this for years and there is still no prospect of effective opinion-forming by truly free media supported by us.
I think that is needed as a start to the healing process.
Mr President, I particularly welcome the acceptance today in another report of the need for an international public inquiry into the political events surrounding the fall of Srebrenica.
I think that certain countries are not so keen on this, any more than they want to see the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic, perhaps because too many awkward facts may come to light.
I think it is important that Parliament, as the elected voice of Europe, should have asked for this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to congratulate Mr Mendiluce and Mr Giansily on their excellent work.
The reconstruction of former Yugoslavia and assistance to the people shattered by the war cannot leave out of consideration the peace process which opened in December 1995 with the ratification of the Dayton agreements.
The European Union has taken responsibility for 65 % of the humanitarian aid and for organizing the donor meetings on the reconstruction of the country.
A rapid and decisive start to the reconstruction of the economic and social fabric of former Yugoslavia will constitute a first step towards stability and thus towards improving people's lives.
This is the essential condition for restoring normality to the country.
The aid must make it possible to move progressively from the emergency phase to the reconstruction phase.
The creation of common democratic institutions, respect for civil, political and human rights, guaranteed return of refugees, and cooperation with the international court all form part of a successful peace process.
The International Conference of Ministers in Florence on 13 and 14 June - known as the mid-term conference - has taken place halfway through the peace process.
Italy's success in bringing together the 45 countries involved in various ways in activating the Dayton peace agreements has led to the understanding on disarmament and the commitment to elections in the coming months.
The elections are a key stage in reconciliation: a free vote is needed to bring into being a new leader class in a position to govern the country and manage the funding the international community is providing for the reconstruction of Bosnia.
These elections must take place in maximum calm, with action taken to bring war criminals to justice.
The words peace, security, freedom, respect for human rights, democracy and justice must grow in significance in this region after years of martyrdom.
There must be political balance in television programmes to guarantee freedom of expression and put out accurate messages before the vote.
The situation is particularly tense because of widespread animosity between the various ethnic groups, so great care is needed in action to ensure maximum respect for local populations and minorities, and allow the return of evacuees.
Mr President, it is good to hear from colleagues who have visited the former Yugoslavia that the situation there has improved.
This underlines the value of our support both for IFOR and for the reconstruction which is being managed so well by Carl Bildt.
Both inside and outside the EU there are many who regard developments in the former Yugoslavia as a test of the European Union's foreign policy strength.
This makes positive results all the more important.
To achieve them money is needed; the aid conference was successful but more is needed.
In this connection I should just like to emphasise that the PHARE programme, which is regarded as a milch cow, is not inexhaustible and has many, many calves to satisfy.
EU support should primarily go to power supplies, communications and homes and to revive the industry which has been destroyed.
For liberals it is especially important that no EU aid should be given to those who refuse to respect human rights.
Allow me, Mr President, to take this opportunity to express my estimation of the great efforts being made by our colleague Elisabeth Rehn.
Nor should aid money be given to those who do not show by their deeds that they have understood the necessity of suspected war criminals being brought to trial.
Those responsible for ethnic cleansing must be removed, refugees must return home, independent media must be established once again and free elections must be held.
We must construct a solid post-96 structure for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have now discussed the question of how extremely difficult it is to implement this much-needed aid in such a way as to ensure that within a short time these people, who have suffered all the atrocities of the war, can be given new confidence, confidence in the knowledge that they are not without protection and that they will succeed in getting the economy going again.
At the same time, as Mrs Pack has pointed out in great detail, injustice and ethnic cleansing continue, to a large extent without the authorities taking any notice, and we, the European Union, are the only ones who have fulfilled the obligations that were agreed on at the Donor Conference.
But we must be careful!
Accusations will not help those people out there who are now waiting for help. They need economic aid, but they also need psychological help.
We must not leave them alone now, but must try, together, to open up a large number of sources of aid and to show the people - not only those who stayed there, but also the refugees who still hesitate to go back - that the reconstruction of the country depends on everyone lending a hand.
Nor can we divide the population into those who were able to flee in time and are now waiting for reconstruction to get underway so that they can then go back, and those who stayed there and suffered. We cannot say to the latter, "Start building, ' so that the others will see that it's safe to come back.
I can see the dilemma, but we also know what the results would be.
There is only one thing that we can say with any certainty, and that is that the road to peace is a long one.
We must not get impatient, and we the European Parliament must help the Commission and the Council, not by heaping accusations upon them, but by means of mutual understanding in a difficult situation.
Money is needed everywhere, but at the moment it is needed most urgently there.
We must therefore fulfil our obligations in difficult times as well, and we must not fail.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, I have asked to speak for just one simple reason, not to repeat what many of my colleagues have said about our position, the difficulties, the outlook and so forth, but to raise an issue I have already raised once in the Committee on External Economic Affairs with Commissioner van den Broek present, and which is fleetingly covered in the Mendiluce report.
I am convinced we cannot wait for the revision of the financial perspectives to work out an ad hoc programme for the reconstruction of former Yugoslavia.
I believe that even the most consistent aid - and as a European Union we are certainly deeply committed to that - will be inadequate without the framework of a new programme.
We cannot regard what we are doing as adequate, not so much from the quantitative point of view, because we introduced TACIS and PHARE after the upheavals, the end of the cold war, etcetera. But after a war which has lasted four years, our reconstruction aid must be organized through an ad hoc programme.
That is fundamental to the credibility of the European Union and to strengthening our right to intervene.
In other words we need to participate in the election campaign not as observers or guarantors, but as an intrinsic component in the election campaign in Bosnia, basically saying two things, and of course there should be different spokespersons, not just for the Commission and the Council, but for all the institutions as a whole.
The first question is this: are we going to commit ourselves as soon as possible to drawing up a full reconstruction programme, a multiannual and renewable ad hoc programme?
The second question concerns the fact that our international presence will certainly not be limited to 1996.
In this respect the voices of the countries and the institutions that unite them should be clearer and more distinct.
If there is uncertainty about what will happen after the end of 1996 as regards the presence of IFOR in former Yugoslavia, in Bosnia, everything becomes more hazardous and even the commitments to peace with justice, rightly recalled by Mr Oostlander and so many others, become less certain, less sure and perhaps a bit hypocritical, without real impact.
Madam President, first of all I should like to make it clear that the European Union was the first and last to give help to the countries of the former Yugoslavia in their time of need.
We are on the spot, and we are also active, and that is certainly all to the good.
So what really is the problem? Right from the beginning the Members of the European Parliament have pointed out that the reconstruction of these countries cannot be assisted by the traditional methods and strategies of the European Commission.
The Giansily report highlights the fact that the current aid comes out of ten different budget headings, and this means that different Commission services are trying to coordinate this aid, using different procedures.
We must also look at this question in the context of the other donors and of coordination with their aid.
I fear that in many cases aid is coordinated without taking other aid coordination measures into account.
So what, in my opinion, needs to be done? We need to tighten up the financial aid by means of a legal basis which has yet to be created.
That point has already been mentioned. The Commission must organize efficient aid, and the process must be speeded up.
That point has also been mentioned already. Because the current procedure, and the current PHARE process - and we have pointed this out on many occasions - is totally unsuitable.
Just imagine: with this complicated process of inviting tenders, the time that passes between deciding on a project and implementing it is at least six months, and usually a whole year - and that cannot be regarded as emergency aid for the former Yugoslavia.
PHARE is negotiated by means of interaction together with the recipient country, with the recipient governments, and individual projects are negotiated with the governments.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina, elections are imminent.
The PHARE Programme can therefore be used as an election campaign tool by the present government, and that applies both to choice of project and to the possible delaying of a project.
Europe has already looked to us once, when there was war in this region.
Now the tender little shoots of peace have started to grow, and Europe is looking to us again.
Let us therefore see to it that we take care of those shoots by watering them, by watering them with money, so that they can thrive!
Madam President, I have only a minute to tell you how happy I am with these reports, and that I congratulate the rapporteurs, particularly the most political of them, Mr Mendiluce Pereiro.
Then, a few quick and blunt remarks: elections yes, because that is better than no elections, as long as they are well prepared.
To postpone them once again would be a setback.
We must see these elections as a beginning, not as giving up; elections must be held to increase solidarity.
As for the refugees, it is of course necessary to ensure their return, but not to get rid of them nor to force them; they must be left the choice of aid, but humanitarian aid must be separated from contributions towards reconstruction, which can be conditional, particularly on the arrest of criminals; in other words, we should help the permanent International War Crimes Tribunal whose resources are limited.
We can do this.
We should make this aid conditional.
And then, let us not do everything in a hurry and let us not disappear after the elections.
We must prepare the European relief force, even when we know that the American troops will leave.
This is the time to say to ourselves that, after the departure of the American troops, we shall still be needed for a long time.
Let us show ourselves, we the Europeans, to be capable of making up for what could be interpreted, perhaps even for electoral reasons, as giving up.
Madam President, I must say that it is always a pleasure to hear the different views expressed.
I may not entirely agree with some of them, as in this debate when some Members have said how the resources which have been allocated for emergency aid in Yugoslavia should be used for other purposes.
I will not deny that there are many good ways of using money, and as always it is a question of priorities.
But when you have visited the area yourself and seen with your own eyes the human suffering which is taking place there every day, then as a human being you have no choice but to hold out a helping hand to those who are asking for it.
Personally, I think we should be doing much more, but what we are seeing now is at least a beginning.
The reconstruction of former Yugoslavia is a task which we should start as soon as possible.
The country is one great pile of bricks.
In most places, there is no water or electricity and, worst of all, landmines have been laid over large areas - mines which make no distinction between soldiers' boots and children's games.
The refugees now living in other countries naturally have no wish to go back to a country where people die from going for a walk in the woods and where you have to walk several kilometres to fetch water.
It must be possible to live in these areas before the refugees can return.
They must have a future to go back to.
We need to help make a whole country habitable once again and create a decent life for millions of people.
We must not make them dependent on our emergency aid: our task is to enable these people to become self-sufficient and to stand on their own feet.
As vice-chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I am concerned about the final management of the resources.
There is such a great need for this support that it is a crime whenever a single ECU disappears on unnecessary administration and shoddy work, not to mention outright fraud.
So we must do all we can to check that the aid is reaching those for whom it is intended.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Assistance to the NIS and Mongolia
The next item is the report (A4-0202/96) by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the outcome of the conciliation procedure provided for in the joint declaration of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission of 4 March 1975 concerning the joint guideline approved by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation (EURATOM, EC) concerning the provision of assistance to economic reform and recovery in the New Independent States and Mongolia (COM(95)0012 - C4-0242/95-4546/96 - C4-0090/96 - COM(96)213-95/0056(CNS)).
Madam President, this is the third time I have spoken as rapporteur for TACIS in the Chamber, this time in the presence of the Council of Ministers.
Before I start I should like to ask the Council to reply to the questions and remarks arising from the debate.
Because that has never yet happened, at least in the case of TACIS.
If the Council fails to respond here, as it has done in the past, I shall take that as a clear insult to Parliament.
The old TACIS regulation lapsed six months ago and there is still no new one.
The Council could not take a decision at the time it was needed.
By postponing its decision the Council has got bogged down in the furore over mad cow disease.
A British veto is now blocking TACIS, a scandalous form of blackmail which hurts the Russians and the other peoples of the CIS, and this just a few days before the elections in Russia.
So TACIS is now in trouble.
All the Member States of the European Union repeatedly say that ties between the European Union and the CIS are extremely important and that the CIS must be supported.
When it comes to the crunch, to continuing TACIS projects, for example, the Council backs out.
Twice already the European Parliament has responded promptly: to the European Commission proposal on 16 November 1995 and the Council proposal on 19 April 1996.
In the fifteen months since the European Commission's proposal the Council has not once contacted the European Parliament or its rapporteur to discuss the TACIS regulation.
On 14 May 1996 the Council requested conciliation, as a matter of urgency, please note. It took the Council more than a month to ask for conciliation.
The Council then had the nerve to request a debate for 6 June, when the normal procedure is three months.
What does the word conciliation mean in our various languages?
What does the word conciliation mean in Italian, Mr President-in-Office? I thought that conciliation meant talking together to see if we can reach agreement on certain points.
Was it worth seeking agreement between the Council and the EP? The European Parliament put down 36 amendments, of which the European Commission accepted 27, in numerical terms alone an indication that the European Commission regarded Parliament's amendments as not unimportant.
Perhaps the Commissioner would care to comment?
What are these amendments about? First of all there is a set of amendments wanting greater accountability to Parliament on spending.
Parliament has budgetary powers here, so it is logical that the European Parliament should wish to exercise effective scrutiny over this huge sum of money. Why is the Council unwilling to accept any of the amendments dealing with this?
Why will the Council not even discuss it? A second series of amendments concern management and specifically the management exercised by the Council through the management committees.
This is the main bone of contention between Council and Parliament.
I believe that the work of the Council's management committees is responsible for the poor state of affairs surrounding the TACIS programme.
Of course, the Council may feel differently about this, but surely, Mr President-in-Office, it is worth talking about it to Parliament.
If the Council refuses to accept these amendments it will bear full responsibility in future years if the TACIS procedure fails.
A third series of amendments concerned the improvement of tendering procedures, one of the main factors which hold projects up.
The manner in which the Council treats Parliament is utterly indefensible.
The TACIS programme, Mr President-in-Office, includes courses in democracy for the Russians.
We, as the supposed wise men of the European Union, think the Russians need to learn how to be good democrats.
Perhaps the members of the Council of Ministers could take a training course in how to apply the principles of parliamentary democracy properly.
In a way, Madam President, the blackmail perpetrated by the United Kingdom is a blessing in disguise.
The Council has now won some time, time to hold the conciliation procedure with the European Parliament again.
I suggest the Council should make use of this chance and make good its earlier omissions.
Madam President, my report is short and I hope to the point.
We consider that the conciliation procedure has not really taken place and thus has certainly not been completed.
The agreements of 4 March 1975 between the Council, Commission and Parliament, pursuant to the Treaty, have not been complied with.
I note that there is still time to restart the conciliation process.
I am available to take part in it.
We need to ensure that we have a TACIS regulation by 1 July so that the TACIS projects which we consider so important do not stagnate.
Mr President-in-Office, we are currently living in historic times.
Russia has gone through the first round of its first democratic election and we await the second round.
Since we are hoping that the development of democracy in Russia and other CIS countries will progress, the approval of this regulation is of the utmost importance.
It is also important because as a consequence we can enjoy further stability in our neighbouring areas and ensure that this stability remains.
As a practical tool for this work we have the TACIS programme, the development and improved practical applicability of which is the subject of the regulation amendment now being discussed.
The Council's consideration of the amendment of the TACIS programme has been inexcusably slow.
The validity of the old regulation terminated early this year, and a new regulation has still not been enforced.
Parliament on the other hand has worked within the schedule given, and drawn up a report of its own, the content of which is very good. The Council has however ignored the proposals in the report.
It is difficult to understand why such an attitude has been adopted, since the amendments proposed by Parliament would have solved the very problems which have come to light on the implementation of the TACIS programme, that is lack of candour and efficiency.
A speedy acceptance of the TACIS programme is however essential, which should also be the aim of Parliament's efforts.
I would like to thank Mr Pex for his contribution here today and also for his report.
The funds reserved for the TACIS programme in the budget should also be used effectively on programmes to ensure an increase in democracy, stability and social equality.
Nor should it be forgotten that these programmes should be implemented in co-operation with regional authorities in Russia and other CIS countries.
The present central position of Moscow in these programmes should be abandoned, and the planning and implementation of the programmes should be transferred to the regions which are in practice carrying out the programmes.
I would also like to emphasize the importance of ensuring, with this regulation, that the TACIS and Interreg programmes are linked together in border areas. In this regard I would like to put a question to the Commissioner.
In this year's budget an amount equivalent to 30 million ecu was approved by Parliament to be used for furthering cross border co-operation in border areas.
Why has this money still not been made available?
Mr President-in-Office, I must express the deep displeasure of the parliamentary delegation and of the committee responsible, the REX Committee.
This displeasure is due to two clear things.
Firstly, the procedure followed by the Council and, secondly, the Council's attitude during this so-called conciliation procedure.
In my view the Council's approach is totally unacceptable.
Only a small number of Member States were represented.
Those Member State representatives who were present were not sufficiently senior to be either willing or able to defend a politically binding position.
Without the slightest justification the Council imposed a very short time limit on Parliament, this same Council which allows weeks and months to pass before it consults Parliament.
The worst thing has been and remains the Council's attitude during the conciliation procedure.
Even before this took place it was rumoured that the Council would in any case not accept or even discuss a single one of the amendments approved by Parliament or any of those approved by the Commission.
This rumour was confirmed at the start of the conciliation procedure by the acting President-in-Office of the Council, ambassador Cavacini.
After difficult and protracted deliberations the Council had reached a compromise whereby nothing further could or should be amended.
This attitude negates the very spirit and letter of the conciliation procedure. What is the sense of such a procedure?
The Council has made a real joke out of it, a farce, in effect it has insulted Parliament.
We cannot tolerate that.
Especially since this kind of attitude on the Council's part places Parliament before a kind of moral dilemma given the understandable and urgent concern which we all have to feel for the countries concerned and their peoples.
The Council is clearly trading on this and insulting us.
In those circumstances, Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, the conciliation procedure is pointless!
If the Council will not or cannot work seriously with Parliament, if it is not prepared to take the slightest account of the views of this popularly elected body, the whole conciliation procedure will have to be revised.
The criticism that this report levels at the Council, which did not make use of opportunities of reaching agreement with Parliament, has been sufficiently well interpreted, and I fully agree with this criticism.
However, rather than quarrelling about procedures it seems to me more important to say that the support being given to the New Independent States will only be effective if it is concentrated on the restructuring of public administration so that it can provide efficient services, if the banking systems in the countries concerned start to function, and above all if small and medium-sized structures are strengthened.
It is therefore sensible, if these objectives are to be achieved, for the Member States to be involved in implementing the measures, because the countries that are being supported have very different requirements as far as support programmes are concerned, and therefore all the Member States will be able to put their own experiences to good use.
Not only Parliament, but also, and above all, the Council, must be aware that it is not only the TACIS Programme that is needed, but also the strengthening of control over the implementation of the support measures.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, previous speakers have pointed out various important points.
I should just like to emphasize certain aspects once again.
If we introduce a process such as the conciliation process, then there must be a reason for that process.
We are an institution within the European Union, which consists of three conglomerations, namely the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
But if we institutionalize such a process, regardless of what form it takes or how flexible it is, then that process must have sensible and reasonable legitimacy.
Mr De Clercq has already pointed this out. It is shameful to see how you treat us and how we all, indirectly, treat one another.
Please, allow this procedure to be taken seriously, as it should be in principle, and allow us to conduct reasonable negotiations!
We have made 36 proposals, and 27 of them have been accepted by the Commission.
Perhaps you accept only six of these proposals, but then at least allow us to talk about these six, or five, or ten, or however many you like.
And do not come to the conciliation process, like the one we have had, and present us with those proposals that you are not prepared to accept.
We want to hear about those that you are willing to accept, because those are the ones that we can talk about.
Only then - and I would ask you to really give this some thought - can the work of the institutions, the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council, serve the public better.
We must present our work as serious cooperation, even if, among ourselves, this is purely symbolic.
Even symbols, as we know, have their serious side.
Please, let us enter into negotiations once more.
Let us know which proposals you are able to accept, and you will find that Parliament is willing to listen, and the committees too, as you know, are always willing to listen.
Please allow us to come up with some serious results.
Madam President, despite all the aggravation I at least would like to thank Parliament for the fact that it has twice now given an opinion on the draft regulation under extreme pressure of time.
And as you know, the Commission thinks that your proposals have significantly improved the draft regulation and, as intimated earlier, the Commission is happy to accept 27 out of the 36 amendments approved by the European Parliament.
For this reason the Commission too is sorry that the Council saw fit to reject all the amendments proposed by the European Parliament and we regret too that the conciliation procedure did not deliver the desired result.
On top of that, unfortunately, the United Kingdom blocked the approval of the regulation by the General Affairs Council on 10 June for reasons well known to us.
This sends an extremely negative political signal to the new independent states, especially Russia, which is currently experiencing a politically difficult period.
And all this may seriously delay implementation of the TACIS programme for 1996.
It is thus most important that this legal vacuum should be filled and the new regulation approved as quickly as possible.
The European Parliament and especially its rapporteur, Mr Pex, had the same objectives as the Commission throughout this lengthy process as regards both the substance of the amendments and the timing of the two opinions.
I repeat, I am very grateful to the Commission and to Parliament for this.
So I can only hope that the right conditions will shortly be created to enable the new regulation to be implemented.
Lastly, I think it was Mrs Myller who asked why the money to be spent on cross-border cooperation has not yet been used.
This is entirely due to the fact that the new regulation has not come into force.
As you know, that sum is set aside under the new programme of TACIS 1996; nevertheless preparations for its disbursement are already in hand.
I can tell you that a few weeks ago I myself visited the Russo-Finnish border where a crossborder project of this kind is envisaged to improve significantly communications across the frontier between Finland and Russia.
It will also clearly serve to promote stability and facilitate considerably the resumption of contacts between the peoples to the east and west of that border.
Once the regulation has come into effect a start can be made on actually carrying out these projects.
I recognize that Parliament feels dissatisfaction and indeed irritation towards the Council.
All I can do is start my speech by repeating Bernadotte's famous remark: I realize everything is against me except your personal kindness.
In fact, the situation with the TACIS regulation was complex and troubled and it was difficult to establish complete compatibility between a fully transparent procedure and full involvement of all the institutional levels in the decision on the regulation, and the definition of the regulation within a sufficiently short time.
I would mention that the proof of what I have said lies in the fact that the TACIS regulation was discussed from April 1995 onwards and its definition has already engaged three successive Presidencies of the Council. This in itself is indicative of the complexity of the decisions to be taken.
Of course, it is also clear to honourable Members that adoption of this regulation is extraordinarily important to consolidate the democratic transition in Russia which we all consider essential to stability and security, not only for that country but for the whole of Europe and the whole planet.
As you will remember, a situation of deadlock had already developed by the end of 1995, because the Council on the one hand and Parliament on the other had gradually developed a series of proposals which appeared to be difficult to reconcile.
We worked towards a compromise text and the last draft, dating from 29 January, received Council assent, but while taking account of the opinions and suggestions of the Council, it barely takes account of Parliament's proposals because there seemed little room for compromise and consensus.
You are more familiar than I am with the various points of dissent.
There was and is dissent as to whether the TACIS funds should be used only for technical assistance or also geared to a policy of investment and financing of infrastructure projects. There was discussion as to whether or not to include the environment in the aims of the TACIS regulation.
Compromises were sought on the principles which regulate the criteria for application of the regulation in relation to actual market conditions. An effort was made to identify an acceptable compromise by concentrating TACIS funding finally on strengthening institutions, legislation and training.
In short, we worked to find a compromise, but undoubtedly that compromise was not such as to include all of Parliament's suggestions.
Faced with the difficulties which gradually emerged and the new amendments, the Council decided to consult Parliament again and last March, as you know, we asked Parliament to agree to urgent procedure.
On 19 April, Parliament proposed 36 new amendments, which would have significantly altered the text agreed by the Council the previous January.
As accepting these amendments would have meant looking at the regulation all over again, re-opening the debate about structure and approach, entering into another lengthy consultation and decision procedure, and this would have further delayed the possibility of implementing the TACIS regulation, the Council did not think it was in a position to accept these amendments.
I should say that it came to this decision with regret, and in awareness of sacrificing Parliament's absolute right to contribute to the amendment of this regulation, but bowed to the political priority of finally completing all the investigative procedures for this regulation to enter into force as soon as possible.
It was also aware that the equilibrium reached with the January compromise was already very fragile and bringing any of it back into discussion would probably have meant difficulty finding another point of equilibrium and another point of consensus.
That is why we confirmed the text resulting from the January 1996 compromise in the full knowledge that this decision derives primarily from an urgent vote with the aim of putting us in a position to ensure that the TACIS regulation becomes operational and produces the benefits we are all hoping for.
Naturally this does not alter the fact that, in this case, relations between the Council and Parliament have been difficult and complex, and legitimate proposals and well-founded arguments have been sacrificed.
But a political judgement had to be made about priorities and a premium was put on urgency.
Also the progress of the political process in Russia in the last few months and weeks, and the delicacy of the current electoral process, which we naturally all hope will have the same positive outcome as last time, based on the recent first round, require the European Union to complete discussion and procedural preparation of this instrument and move on to making it fully operational.
Thank you very much, Mr Fassino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-566/96).
Mr President, I have asked for the floor because I seek guidance from the President-in-Office of the Council.
Parliament will recall and the record shows that during the last Question Time to the Council I asked a series of questions regarding the Turkish financial cooperation agreement with the European Community.
I will not summarize these just now because that would take up time from other people's questions.
The President-in-Office said then that he would return this Question Time and give me the answers which I sought last session but which he was unable to provide at that time.
Could he please advise me when he will be giving the answers? Will it be before, during or at the end of Question Time?
I think I am in a position to reply to Mr Falconer at the end of Question Time.
Question No 1 by Mr Tillich (H-0443/96)
Subject: European voluntary service for young people
What fiscal, financial and residence permit arrangements has the Council adopted to enable the pilot project for a European voluntary service year which is endowed with a budget of ECU 15 million under budgetary heading B3-1011 actually to be implemented in 1996?
According to the information available to me, no arrangements have yet been made to allow young people to spend a period of more than three months abroad.
Is this one of a number of problems which have led to the postponement of the action until next year?
As I understand it, the idea for the European voluntary service year for young people arose during the German presidency.
During the last six months, the Commission has succeeded in drawing up a proposal for this pilot project, naturally with the support of the European Parliament, which has made the necessary financial resources available.
I am therefore astounded to hear the Council's representative reply that he is not aware of any proposal by the Commission, because I, on the other hand, know of a document stating the Commission's position, in which the latter deplores the fact that certain problems with the Council have not yet been ironed out.
In my opinion there is a need for clarification here.
In case the point is not clear, let me explain that the honourable Member is referring to the presumed decision of the German presidency. Since then there has been a Spanish presidency.
A lot of time has gone by. I say presumed because it is one thing to announce a political intention - as the German presidency did at the time - to introduce measures to encourage and promote a form of civil voluntary service, and quite another to prepare concrete proposals of a formal and procedural nature.
I confirm to you again that the Commission has never put forward proposals on the matter, and the Council does not have its own power of decision but decides on the basis of proposals put forward by the Commission.
I repeat, it may be useful to ask the Commission to put forward proposals on this matter, and when they are presented the presidency of the Council will examine them.
Question No 2 by Mr Watson (H-0445/96)
Subject: Uniform electoral procedure for elections to the European Parliament
What action does the presidency intend to take to ensure that the original commitment of the Treaty of Rome to the establishment of a uniform electoral procedure is honoured before the Treaty of Maastricht is updated? Will the presidency take action to fulfil its Treaty obligation to this Parliament and put an end once and for all to the ridiculous situation whereby Parliament could be elected by 16 different electoral systems in 1999?
This is a matter which, as you know, has been the subject of political discussions amongst Europhiles and those concerned about Europe for many years.
The adoption of a uniform electoral procedure to upgrade the current situation by which each country elects its own representatives to the European Parliament by its own procedure is a recurrent issue.
And there is no doubt that Article 138, paragraph 3, provides that the Council shall decide unanimously to lay down appropriate provisions to permit the election of Members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage in accordance with a uniform procedure in all Member States, on condition, naturally, that this is done by agreement and with the prior assent of the European Parliament and subject to the subsequent adoption of those provisions by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.
As I said, this is a recurrent theme which has been discussed many times over the years and was considered at the last General Affairs Council of the French presidency on 10 April 1995 when it had to be recognized that the unanimity amongst Council members that was needed to secure progress on this dossier did not exist.
The reflection group which carried out the preparatory work for the Intergovernmental Conference included it amongst the institutional reform issues on which the Intergovernmental Conference could and should intervene, without going any further.
In establishing the programme for the Intergovernmental Conference, the Turin European Council included in the agenda the examination of the composition of the European Parliament and the uniform procedure for electing it.
At this point it seems to me that the matter is now the prerogative of the Intergovernmental Conference, like many other institutional reform issues.
The presidency of the Council can only hope that progress will be made in that forum in the direction of a uniform procedure for the election of the European Parliament.
Does the presidency recognize that this House has a socialist majority purely because of the operation of the United Kingdom's electoral system? The United Kingdom Labour Party took only 45 % of the vote but has 75 % of the United Kingdom's seats here.
Now a common electoral system as specified in the Treaty of Rome, under proportional representation, would not only end this disgraceful state of affairs, it would also add to pressure for reform of the United Kingdom's domestic voting system so that Europe would no longer have to suffer British governments elected by only 40 % of those who vote in UK national elections and which are so clearly unrepresentative of Britain when it comes to matters European.
Would the presidency not therefore ensure that this item stays on the agenda of the IGC until we get a resolution?
I can only emphasize that the presidency of the Council hopes a solution will be found at the Intergovernmental Conference, not because it is particularly interested in the type of government that rules the destinies of Great Britain, but for an institutional reason which affects the European Union and its future.
I wonder if the Italian presidency will recognize from the form of this question that this is blatantly a matter of domestic rather than European concern.
I think the presidency would agree that we have made much progress towards a common system.
We have Members elected on the basis of a similar electorate, we have elections in all the countries at the same time, and so on.
What is really being pressed, it seems here, is that the precise method of election should be the same.
Does not the presidency feel that this would be an intrusion because it would force countries to adopt for one kind of election a system they find quite inappropriate in all the other elections they have? I would like to see every Member elected here on the basis of the commitment and accountability of representing an individual geographical constituency, but I am not so ambitious as to suggest that everybody else should adopt the system I like.
I am perfectly prepared for each country to continue with the system it prefers.
While this debate is, of course, very interesting, I must say it is taking a rather questionable turn.
But perhaps I may be allowed a personal comment, because one has some discretion when answering questions, not being able to consult the other fifteen members in real time.
I think the whole constitutional debate that has been going on for years, the debate about the European institutions and the institutional and constitutional debate in progress in many countries on the subject of electoral law, confirm the need for any electoral law to be defined in relation to the type of assembly to be elected.
So it seems to me that in considering which electoral law would be best for the European Parliament and how a uniform procedure can be achieved, the essential concern should be the criterion of coherence and compatibility between the electoral system chosen and the assembly elected.
I doubt whether it would be useful to seek to bend the electoral law of the European Parliament to the internal equilibrium of this or that country, because we are already fifteen, before the end of the century we may well be twenty, and it will be difficult to find an electoral law that works well for the progressives to the detriment of the conservatives or vice versa in every country.
Furthermore I doubt that it would be useful to establish any correlation between electoral systems with a specific political and institutional history, applying to elections to regional parliaments, regional authorities, or local councils, and the system to be adopted for election to the European Parliament.
If we want to have a useful and profitable debate rather than a mechanistic one when we discuss the European Parliament and how to elect it, I think it would be wise to deal essentially with the issue of the coherence between the type of assembly the European Parliament represents, with its specific powers and prerogatives, more familiar to you than to me, and the electoral system which best corresponds to such powers and prerogatives.
I had my hand up for some considerable time before Mr Elliott.
Therefore I wonder why he was chosen.
I appreciate the President-in-Office of the Council's answers and particularly the reply to Mr Elliott.
It shows that he is not accepting this imposition of Stalinist/Liberal views across the whole of Europe.
I appreciate that entirely. It is a queer view for Liberals to adopt in these circumstances.
But turning to the question of 'ridiculous systems' .
Can he advise us of what he regards as 'ridiculous systems' ?
Does he think, for example, the PR system which operates in Germany and has produced over one million spoilt ballot papers thus defranchising one million people is ridiculous? Does he think that the PR system in France which has resulted in two million spoilt ballot papers is a bit ridiculous?
Or does he think that the system in his own country, Italy, which has produced over seven million spoilt ballot papers - almost the population of London - is a bit ridiculous? That is what Mr Watson and his ilk are trying to impose upon the rest of us.
The United Kingdom has a clear record of the lowest number of spoilt ballot papers when people go to vote. They understand the system.
They know what they are voting for.
(Mr von Habsburg spoke without a microphone)
Anything is possible, but we do have a strict rule which only allows two other speeches, two supplementary questions, after the Council's reply.
As there are a great many questions, we can only succeed in dealing with some of them, so if we dwell on just one question we deprive many Members of the chance of a reply from the Council.
I therefore ask everyone to show a little tolerance and indeed fairness towards other Members.
Mr President, I simply wish to remind you that an agreement exists whereby supplementary questions should be put by Members belonging to different political groups. That has not been the case here.
I am grateful to Mr von Habsburg, but I should explain that I had called Mr Imaz, who represents a different party from the previous speaker, but then he withdrew at the last minute.
As no-one else wanted to speak I gave Mr Falconer the floor.
Mr von Habsburg's objection is correct, however.
Question No 3 by Mr Papakyriazis (H-0509/96).
Subject: Blocking of EU business by the UK
During the past month the UK Government has blocked a series of decisions (on European Year against Racism, equal participation of men and women in decision-taking, the simplification of Community legislation, the protection of the economic interests of the Community, etc.) by invoking national interests to an unwarranted degree.
Will the Council say whether it will allow a Member State virtually to paralyse EU business by preventing all decision-taking and jeopardizing by its behaviour the attainment of Treaty objectives? What developments does it foresee?
How will it address this situation and what measures does it intend to take?
This matter has been widely discussed this week in all Community settings and has been debated in the European Parliament on several occasions, including this morning with the communications from President Santer and President Dini.
Clearly the crisis over BSE goes far beyond the disease itself, and there is a delicate balance to be established between the general interests of the Union and the specific legitimate interests of one of its Members.
Obviously such balance and compatibility was relatively easy to find when there were only six Members of the European Community. But gradually the European Union has enlarged from six to nine, from nine to twelve, from twelve to fifteen, and before the end of the century we will be twenty or twenty-four.
As the number of parties to decisions that must be taken increases, it becomes increasingly complicated to achieve compatibility and convergence around a general interest of all the players.
It becomes increasingly probable that someone will express interests and sustain positions, quite legitimate from a national point of view, which make decisions very difficult.
It seems to me, then, that this is the real issue raised by the mad cow crisis.
It is no accident that one of the main items on the agenda at the Intergovernmental Conference is the reform of the decision-making mechanisms, and in particular how to move from unanimous decisions to majority decisions, recognizing that it will still be necessary to secure compatibility between the capacity of the Union to make its actions by majority decision effective, and preventing this from becoming an imposition on those supporting a different position.
Having stated the problem - and I do so because I do not want to minimize it or take a one-sided attitude - the presidency of the Council also believes, as the question suggests, that the British attitude is frankly rather incomprehensible.
In fact, while it may be legitimate to stand up for national interests which Great Britain regards as overwhelmingly important, it is less legitimate to convert this into a strategy of general noncooperation and paralyse Union decision-making across a wide range of areas totally unrelated to the issue of BSE. British non-cooperation blocked the EUROPOL Convention when it might have gone through, and the adoption of the TACIS regulation we were talking about just now.
Perhaps the position is changing, as in the last few hours the British government appears to have dropped its opposition to signing the cooperation agreements with Chile and Uzbekistan, due to take place in Florence. This is definitely a positive move, but it comes at the last minute and only a few days ago it looked as if this would be blocked as well.
European Year against Racism and Xenophobia and the commission that would consequently have been set up has in any case been blocked, along with a thousand other dossiers.
Naturally such an attitude is dangerous and worrying and a growing embarrassment to Europe. That is why the Italian presidency made an oral statement in the Council, and in view of the delicacy of the issue I will give you the full details.
First the presidency expresses regret at the continuation of the British government's attitude of non-cooperation inasmuch as it affects the adoption of initiatives necessary to ensure the ordinary progress of Community business, and urgent initiatives of the highest importance.
Secondly, the presidency considers this attitude harmful to the interests of the countries of the Union and also likely to be counterproductive for the United Kingdom itself, in that it could cause irritation in Member States and impair the maintenance of that climate of confidence and cooperation necessary to achieving agreement between the various delegations in all the main sectors of Community business. Thirdly, in addition to appealing once again to the British government's spirit of reasonableness and cooperation, the presidency calls on all the Member States to respect the wording of Article 5 of the Treaty, by which Member States shall abstain from any measure which could jeopardize the attainment of the objectives of the Treaty.
We can only hope, and we are encouraged by the partial progress, mentioned this morning, in the search for an agreement on the mad cow crisis, that the British government will gradually adopt a more flexible attitude, which will lead to an end to the deadlock of the last few weeks.
I am very grateful to the President -in-Office for his detailed and extensive answer, and I consider it satisfactory.
I could stop speaking now. However, in the light of the high-level debate this morning and the decision taken by such an overwhelming - some might say, crushing - majority, I just want to say that when I tabled this question on 5 June I could not have imagined, no matter how great my powers of forecasting, that the issue would have reached its present pass.
All of this goes to show, Mr President-in-Office, that, yes, there really is an institutional issue.
I respect absolutely and agree with your academic and general political appraisal.
But that is not the issue here.
The issue is that things specific and things general, for example, the Florence Summit and the intergovernmental conference, are going on under the shadow of the problem created by the government of Mr Major.
It is not just a general political matter any more, nor, certainly, an academic institutional issue. It is, rather, a question of options and decisions.
Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I am concerned for my fellow-Europeans in the British Isles.
I am concerned for my fellow-Europeans across the whole of the European Union, and for the people of the whole world.
Permit me to say, as a professor of medicine, that I understand the problems stemming from mad cow disease.
But that is not the issue.
The issue facing us is what to do about this dangerous paralysis of our general functioning.
I would appreciate a further comment from you, Mr President-in-Office, beyond the resolution that you read to us at the end and about which I am glad; a further statement from you as to whether specific decisions have been taken, such as on exploring the possibility, with the Commission, of taking the matter to the European Court.
Because from time to time certain countries have, in fact, been habitually, and unjustifiably, depicted as the black sheep of the European Union.
But anyway, I, for my part, do not want to view the government of Mr Major as the black cow of the European Union.
I refer to what President Dini said here this morning.
We hope the way forward to solving the BSE problem will be determined in the next few hours, ending the current state of paralysis and deadlock and allowing the United Kingdom to replace non-cooperation with a more flexible attitude. If this does not happen, we believe that Florence, only forty-eight hours away, and with all the Heads of State and of Government present, will provide an authoritative political setting for examining the problem and deciding on any subsequent steps.
I raised the matter this morning with President Dini, then with President Santer.
Of course, neither has replied.
I now make a third attempt: why, faced with such an attitude, one that you yourself have just described as totally contrary to the spirit of the Treaty, do we not recognize that we find ourselves confronted by a position that can be likened to abstention? In the present very specific case, the British position is a non position, and therefore an abstention, which legitimately authorizes you to take decisions that are completely valid.
It is up to Great Britain to go before the Court of Justice to have these decisions ruled to be invalid.
We wish them good luck.
Why do you not do this? And what arguments have your lawyers so far advanced against this proposal?
In principle there are no legal obstacles to using the instrument Parliament is calling for.
But political judgement is what is needed.
The British attitude of non-cooperation has aroused great tension in the Union.
We want this state of tension ended and perhaps this can be done through an agreement based on political logic.
I think what you are asking for should be a last resort, and before we reach that point we are trying to resolve the matter through persuasion.
That is the view of the presidency of the Council.
I do not think recourse to the Court of Justice would calm the situation down, it would just make everything more complicated and tense.
Politics is the art of negotiation!
Mr President, I believe that Mr Herman has presented the issue in its proper terms.
I welcomed the statement this morning by the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Dini, and I welcome Mr Fassino's interpretation of the issue.
I think that Mr Fassino is right when he says that this is a political matter, but that it also has a legal aspect.
And there is some truth in what Mr Herman has just said.
If the government of the United Kingdom is violating Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union, there are two possibilities: either the Council - or the Commission, since this also seems to be the Commission's viewpoint - can appeal to the Court of Justice to declare the British Government's action illegal; or the Council can simply declare that the British delegation has voted against a given decision.
There are two possibilities, therefore, but I believe that the President-in-Office is also right when he says that this is above all a political matter for the moment, but that the legal aspect also has to be taken into account.
In any event, I believe that this issue is beginning to be addressed in its proper legal terms.
I can only reiterate what I have said.
I am not saying this idea is not based on a legitimate legal approach.
I recognize that it is and we may even get to the point where we have to use that instrument. But I repeat that I feel it should be the last resort and, above all, follow evaluation the immediate contingencies.
Mediation is in progress to reach an agreement, and the European Council meets in forty-eight hours. In view of these two considerations, I think we should assess, in Florence, whether the deadlock is over, and if it is not, everyone best able to take the most appropriate decision will be there, so that is the place to consider what to do next.
Question No 4 by Mr Newens (H-0404/96)
Subject: Freedom of the press
In view of the threats to freedom of the press which are implicit in the policy increasingly adopted by large media distribution companies of refusing to handle publications with limited circulation, what action can the Council take to prevent discrimination against such publications?
This is an issue of enormous significance.
As we all know, information and full freedom of expression through information channels of every kind is of the utmost importance in today's modern society.
Obviously we all agree that plurality of information is and must remain a fundamental principle of the state of law and democracy in our countries and in every country.
It is implicit in the concept of plurality of information that every effort should be made to prevent cultural decline or any impoverishment in the range of information media either through simple market forces or worse, through inadequate or faulty legislation.
In Europe we are witnessing an apparently contradictory phenomenon - I emphasize apparently, because the range of cultural information media has never grown so fast as in recent years. One need only think of the quantity of newspaper titles and of publishing houses of every type and quality which have flourished lately.
But on the other hand there is recognition in all the countries of the inadequacy of legislation and financial support effectively ensuring pluralism in information, above all that provided by small and medium-sized newspapers.
I think it goes without saying that it is in the interests of the European Union and all its bodies, including the presidency of the Council, to do their utmost to take all necessary and useful steps to ensure full pluralism of information.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I should really like to have it in English so it would be available for outside information.
However it really does not deal with the problem because what we are asking is what action can the Council take to prevent discrimination against such publications.
At present too few publications with limited circulation are handled by large media distribution companies and if we allow those that are available to vanish from the shelves it will be a sad state of affairs.
Therefore, I share the President-in-Office's views on these matters.
The reality is that mergers and acquisitions are putting enormous power in the hands of distributors and newspaper publishers which means that these two cartels working together can shift magazines and newspapers off the shelves at a whim.
They will place other magazines, for example pornographic magazines and other obscene literature - and I mean obscene political literature as well as obscenity in the human decency sense - but they will prevent the distribution of political magazines considered reasonable in any civilized society.
So we are asking what action can the Council take in these matters?
I have no difficulty in agreeing with the honourable Member on the need he raises, but I would like to emphasize that under Article 155 of the Treaty it is up to the Commission to monitor the application of the Treaty provisions and the measures taken by the institutions pursuant thereto.
So it is the responsibility of the Commission, not the Council, to monitor existing regulations, including regulations relating to information, and it is the Commission which should bring forward proposals.
The Council can only agree with the need raised by the honourable Member and hope to receive proposals from the Commission.
As the author is not present, Question No 5 lapses.
Question No 6 by Mr Theonas (H-0407/96)
Subject: Tension in Kosovo
The recent bomb attacks carried out in the suburbs of Pristina by Albanian-speaking groups and the clashes in north-eastern Bosnia between Muslims and Bosnian Serbs are reviving sources of tension and giving justifiable cause for concern that the region is once more about to erupt.
The heightened tension in Kosovo is giving rise again to the disquiet engendered by the Dayton Accord, which is so vague in many respects and fails to address significant territorial and constitutional issues that it is unsure whether it will be observed and doubtful whether it can contribute to a genuine and stable peace in the region.
Will the Council take steps to secure the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the region so that the local communities can resolve their differences by peaceful means and on just terms, on a genuinely equal footing and without foreign intervention, in order to prevent the rekindling of hostilities and the creation of further flash points?
This is a very delicate issue and of course a very important one.
We all know that for years there has been an unresolved problem about protecting the rights of the majority Albanian population living in the Kosovo region.
Now I do not want to enter into a general discussion and will naturally restrict myself to the terms of the question.
The honourable Member makes explicit reference to the Dayton agreement.
Well, I want to emphasize - I do not know whether it is right or not, but I will start from this point - that the Dayton agreement covers the re-establishment of peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina and that the situation in Kosovo and in other possible flashpoints in the region is not directly governed by the Dayton and Paris agreements.
It is clear, however - it escapes no-one, it did not escape those who signed the peace in Dayton, nor does it escape anyone in this Chamber - that stability and peace in the Balkans depends not only on full respect for what was said and signed up to in Dayton but also on a policy to guarantee the rights of all the ethnic, religious and national communities throughout the Balkan region.
Kosovo has long been a flashpoint. This Parliament and the presidency of the Council, in the various presidencies that have followed each other, have frequently expressed concern about the situation in Kosovo, through many periods of tension, if not open repression of the Albanian population.
I confirm what has been confirmed on many previous occasions by the Council and what has been said in numerous statements of the European Parliament, which is that the request to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to conform to the principles of international law established by the Paris Charter and by the international conventions on the rights of minority communities to full protection and respect for the rights of the Albanians in Kosovo.
I would further mention that the situation in Kosovo is being formally monitored by the working group on minorities in former Yugoslavia, chaired by Mr Lutz within the peace mission which is currently managed by the High Representative of the European Union, Carl Bildt. I would mention that it was formally established that the condition of a progressive improvement in relations between the European Union and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is full respect for human rights, minority rights and the right to return of all refugees and displaced persons, as well as granting a large degree of autonomy to Kosovo within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
During the visit that President Santer and President Dini made to the capitals of the principal states of the region on 7 and 8 June last, they once again impressed on the Belgrade government the delicacy of the problem and the need for Belgrade to comply with that criterion if relations with the European Union are to progress. This was also discussed a few days ago at the Florence International Conference, and it is the task of the presidency of the Council to act, in agreement and in concert with the other bodies of the Union, so that the rights of the Kosovo Albanians can be respected and a solution found to the problem which guarantees respect for the rights of minorities and protection of the individual and collective rights of those who live in that region.
I am grateful to the President-in-Office, at least for the length of his answer.
However, I would like to point out that while the Dayton Accord has no applicability to the problem in Kosovo, its general spirit may, I believe, be influencing the situation that is developing there, if one takes account of recent events in Albania itself, the approach of the Albanian Government to the situation in the region and the general climate of hostility towards the Serbs.
I think it ought to be stressed that the rights of minorities also include the rights of the Serb population of Kosovo, and we cannot accept that those people should have to suffer acts of terrorism, without so much, furthermore, as a word of sympathy from us for the victims of such acts.
So I think that we should be careful and that the European Union should be doing whatever it can, on the basis of the spirit of the Dayton Accord, to prevent the creation of a source of tension in Kosovo which could take the war further south in the Balkans.
I agree with the points that have been made. It is true, of course - and I said so myself - that even if the Kosovo case is not specifically mentioned in the Dayton agreements, the application of these agreements requires a wider framework of stability which also means working for a solution in Kosovo.
I agree with that evaluation and I confirm the commitment of the presidency of the Council to take action in all settings to encourage a solution.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, first of all I should like to thank you for your clear answers.
However, in connection with Kosovo I should like to make one comment.
You have read out to us some very fine-sounding statements, containing demands that human rights should finally be respected.
But we have a credibility problem here, because we have threatened all manner of things, but have not really taken any serious action.
Do you not think, Mr President-in-Office, that it is high time to set a real example in Kosovo, in other words to stand up, credibly, for the right of self-determination, or at least for the protection of the Albanian majority, so that the European Union will at least be standing up for something in earnest? On the one hand we issue statements, but on the other hand the sanctions are increasingly being relaxed, and the Serbs continue their provocative behaviour.
They are just laughing at us!
Mr President-in-Office, it is vital that we should regain our credibility.
Do you not think that this would be a good opportunity?
I agree with you, I think you are right. The challenge is, of course, to do it more effectively.
There is no doubt that determined and clear action must be taken against Belgrade to make explicit the disquiet and dissatisfaction of the international community about the current position of the Albanians living in Kosovo, nor is there any doubt that we must go further than words because those words must be followed up with political deeds which change the situation.
It is a matter of achieving maximum effectiveness.
I am not going to pretend that it is not complicated and difficult to protect the Kosovo Albanians, especially after these four years of war in Bosnia and throughout former Yugoslavia.
Obviously the tension, conflict and open warfare in the area has made everything more complex and difficult and has certainly not made things any easier for Kosovo and the Albanians who live there either.
In any case I agree with you, and the presidency of the Council is determined to deal with this problem in a credible way.
Mr President, the collapse of Yugoslavia was triggered in Kosovo by the major deployment there of a million Serbs in 1989, and by the abolition of autonomy.
So why has Kosovo retreated into the background? Because the Albanians of Kosovo, who are not a minority, but rather the majority in Kosovo, did not use force, but deliberately chose non-violent means.
I see a very dangerous development here.
If this majority, the Albanian majority, is punished because it chose non-violent methods, then this will send the message that violence is necessary in this region.
I therefore take the view that we should have a Kosovo Conference of our own, since Kosovo was omitted by mistake from the list of conditions for the recognition of what remains of Yugoslavia.
In addition, I believe that elections should be held there in the presence of international observers.
I think there is an urgent need for action here, before catastrophe strikes.
So far, this has only been done in one case, that of Macedonia, and in that case it was helpful.
We really ought to take preventive measures, because otherwise violence will flare up again there, and will spread like wildfire.
It is absolutely true that one of the initial flashpoints of this Balkan crisis was Kosovo: the repression of Kosovo and the abolition of Vojvodina's autonomy originated the crisis in former Yugoslavia.
It is by no means a marginal flashpoint and obviously not just a consequence of the events of the last few years. In fact it has been a flashpoint for a long time.
We are all well aware of Twentieth Century history: the problems of the Albanians and Kosovo have repeatedly sparked conflict and tension.
It seems to me that all this should increase our determination to work towards a political solution to the problem.
As the author is not present, Question No 7 lapses.
Question No 8 by Mr Lomas (H-0410/96)
Subject: Death of Mr HUSEYIN KOKU
Will the Council please press the appropriate Turkish authorities for information regarding the death of Mr Huseyin Koku, who was arrested in Elbiston on 20 October 1994? Nothing further was heard of the prisoner until 27 April 1995 when the police advised his wife that his body had been found.
No details have ever been given to his wife and family.
I will reply to this question in two parts.
While certain rather inadequate information has come to the attention of the Council about the specific case raised, this event and the difficulties the presidency of the Council has encountered in obtaining any details, in my opinion confirm the delicacy of the situation in Turkey and the need for the presidency of the Council and the European Union more generally to put all possible pressure on the Turkish government to guarantee the respect for human rights, fundamental democratic rights and principles of the rule of law that governs the life of the Union.
These are prior conditions for a country to become part of the Union or, as in the case of Turkey, have a special relationship with it, and of course Turkey and the European Union have signed a customs union agreement.
I would also mention that the criterion of full respect for the principles of the rule of law by all those who are either members of the European Union or have established relationships of cooperation or association with the European Union, was confirmed at the Barcelona Conference and in the final declaration of the Ravello Mediterranean Forum, and has frequently been confirmed during contacts and at meetings between the European Union and the Turkish government.
But while pressure from the European Union and the international community has achieved some results, such as the partial modification of the constitution in the direction of greater respect for fundamental democratic rights and principles, we do not think we can lower our guard yet, and the presidency of the Council remains faithful to its commitment to maintain vigilance and pressure on Turkey and every other country which violates human rights.
I am sure the Council will appreciate the anguish of the family of this murdered man.
I do not think they would use the term 'delicacy' , as the Council did.
The last time they saw him alive he was in police custody.
Now, of course, we know, regrettably, that it is all too common in Turkey for the police and the military to murder its citizens.
But just general condemnation - while that has to be made - is really not sufficient.
I ask the Council to ask the Turkish Government - particularly in view of the fact that we now have this customs union which, we were told, would improve human rights in Turkey - whether it would institute a proper inquiry into how a man can die while in police custody and then his body be produced six months later, told it was found in some wood somewhere and the police had nothing to do with it.
It is just so blatantly unlikely.
I ask Council to press this specific case, rather than just make generalized condemnations.
Mr President, this is just one example that the questioner has raised concerning the situation in Turkey.
A habitat conference was held very recently in Turkey which also demonstrated police methods of dealing with their Kurdish and Turkish fellow citizens.
I would like to ask whether the Council does not draw any conclusions from the judgement which Mr Fassino says the Council made in connection with the customs union agreement with Turkey.
The judgement was, after all, as you say, that it was better to allow Turkey to conclude an agreement and to exert influence in that way. Several months have now elapsed.
Have any of us and have you in the Council seen any improvement in conditions as regards human rights, democracy and freedom of expression? I have not seen any such thing.
Finally, I should like to ask the following question: if there is no improvement - and this was a requirement set by Parliament and the EU in connection with the customs union agreement with Turkey - is the Council prepared to tear up the customs union agreement with Turkey?
No, I do not think that interpretation can be put on my position and I do not believe that is the intention of the European Union.
The argument is not of a purely legal nature and there are no suspensive conditions to be interpreted in legal terms. We have to make a political judgement.
When Europe chose to sign the customs union agreement with Turkey - after a very difficult debate, I repeat - it did so in the conviction that involving Turkey in the life of the European Union and providing a stronger European anchorage would lead that country to adopt European standards especially on democracy and human rights.
Now that the judgement has been made, the European Union feels committed to apply all forms of pressure and persuasion to ensure that the Turkish government does adopt policies better geared to full democracy.
Naturally, if we then find ourselves greeted with a deaf ear, the fears honourable Members have expressed will be proved right, but at this stage I think we should continue to act positively to obtain from the Turkish government those guarantees which have been lacking up to now.
Mr President, I understand that you are refusing me the right to ask a supplementary question to the Council on the basis of the question tabled by Mr Lomas because I previously asked a supplementary question to another question to the Council.
There is nothing in the Rules which prohibits this.
This decision is based on an interpretation of what is written there by the staff sitting on your left-hand side.
Mr President, that is wrong.
Therefore, I ask you to refer this matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, because what you are saying is that it is acceptable for Members to come here and ask their own particular questions and then leave whilst the rest of us - who have an interest in a variety of subjects - are denied the right to ask a supplementary question which is of interest to the Member who asked the question in the first place.
The Rules of Procedure are very rigid on this point.
I welcome Mr Falconer's suggestion that it be referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities for amendment.
But that relates to the general right to ask questions. You have already asked one and I am therefore constrained not only by the Rules but by the many questions tabled by colleagues long ago which will unfortunately not be answered because those present are taking up their time and refusing them the floor.
But I will put the question to the Committee on the Rules, Mr Falconer.
Now we must move on to the next question.
Question No 9 by Mr Kranidiotis (H-0415/96)
Subject: The Di Roberto report on Cyprus
In January the Italian presidency appointed Ambassador Di Roberto as its special representative on Cyprus.
Mr Di Roberto visited the parties concerned, heard their points of view and in April submitted his report to the Council.
Can the Council provide more information on the Di Roberto report, the response of the parties concerned, his recent contacts and activities and proposals to continue and upgrade his mission in view of the forthcoming assumption by Ireland of the presidency of the Council?
This is another particularly delicate political issue.
We all know that the Cyprus question has dragged on for years and successive presidencies of the European Union have attempted mediation to reach a solution, but so have the United Nations and various governments, in particular the government of the United States.
Ambassador Di Roberto has made numerous missions to Cyprus and the principal capitals of the European Union on behalf of the Italian presidency, and has also kept in touch with the principal governments interested in resolving this crisis, including the United States government.
I have been asked for a report on the situation, so I want to mention, if only in summary, all the work Ambassador Di Roberto has done so far. It will be continued in the next term, no longer by Ambassador Di Roberto but by a special representative of the Irish presidency who has already been named.
Ambassador Di Roberto has made progress in several areas. On security, which is regarded as an essential priority by both sides, the Turkish Cypriots have confirmed their position on the validity of the treaty of guarantee signed some time ago, while President Cleribes has on occasion been open to and interested in the hypothesis of demilitarization, coupled with the presence of a multinational force.
As regards the institutions, the United Nations resolution calls for the establishment of a federation with single citizenship based on the principles of bizonality, bicommunality and political equality between the two parties, and these points are maintained.
But although that is accepted in principle by both parties, the efforts to achieve it have not yet produced tangible results, in fact there are fears on one side that it would result in some kind of recognition of Turkish Cypriot identity and on the other that a unified island would not give the Turkish Cypriots proper guarantees.
President Cleribes has mentioned a transition period for implementing freedom of movement for all Cypriot citizens on the reunified island, and another proposal put forward by the Turkish Cypriots, for a cantonal structure for the island, should also be looked at carefully.
As regards the renewal of the dialogue between the two communities, despite many difficulties the Turkish Cypriot leadership recently confirmed again that it was ready to renew interinstitutional dialogue without preconditions.
Traditionally Turkey is not in favour of a European Union role in Cyprus, but there is a hint that Ankara might recognize a role of facilitator to the Union. Coordination between the European Union and the United States remains crucial to any solution.
As I said just now, we understand that the Irish presidency intends to take Ambassador Di Roberto's work forward, and an Irish diplomat has already been identified as its personal representative with mediation functions.
Obviously the Irish presidency will need to continue the action carried out in these six months by the Italian presidency and operate in close contact with the troika to monitor every possibility of a solution.
I would also mention that while positive, if only indirect, cooperation towards a solution to the situation still does not strike me as imminent, this could develop out of implementation of the activities planned by the EuroMediterranean Partenariat as agreed at Barcelona.
I am grateful to the President-in-Office for his answer.
However, I am sorry to have to say that the results of the Di Roberto mission fall short of our expectations.
I appreciate the difficulties faced by the Italian presidency and by Mr Di Roberto himself. Despite their good intentions, they were unable to achieve any progress because of the opposition of certain other Member States which had embarked on initiatives of their own which, in the final analysis, served to undermine the Italian presidency's initiative.
Nevertheless, I am glad that the Irish presidency intends to continue with this initiative.
I want to say something else, however, and to ask about the following. As you know, the European Parliament believes, and has stated in a resolution, that the European Union should undertake a comprehensive initiative to find a solution to the Cyprus problem; an initiative in the form of a joint action, as opposed to a mission by a representative of the presidency simply to monitor the Cyprus situation.
We believe that the time is now right for the European Union to assume its responsibilities and to embark on a joint action, which should include appointing a coordinator for Cyprus and developing ideas for a number of cooperation programmes to involve Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and also - why not - formulating a proposal for a solution to the Cyprus problem based on the resolutions of the United Nations and, in view of the fact that Cyprus is due to move towards accession to the European Union, on the Community legal order.
It has been agreed that Cyprus will be included in the next enlargement and that negotiations with it will begin six months after the end of the intergovernmental conference.
Naturally I can only concur with the demand for a wider and more effective initiative, and it will obviously be up to the Irish presidency to see how practicable this is and implement it.
If I may make a point, which is as valid for this situation as for any other conflict situation, at least in this case, at least at this stage, we are not dealing with a bloody conflict but with a political conflict, even if it has a bloody past.
It has to be said that mediation can only be effective when the parties to the conflict are reasonably ready for it. Peace can never be imposed from outside, it has to come from within.
Until those who are making war become convinced that it is better to make peace, the war will not end.
That is true of any type of conflict. So the international community must try to find a method of mediation and intervention and cannot be a passive witness or play a waiting game.
I certainly welcome the request from the honourable Member because it would mean a leap forward in the European Union's initiative, but I emphasize that in Cyprus, as in so many other situations, mediation has been hampered by persistent and obstinate refusal to listen and be receptive to the points put forward by any mediator.
We hope things will improve in the future.
I, too, wish to thank the President-in-Office.
I would like to say first of all that we in this Parliament viewed Mr Di Roberto's appointment as mediator, as the representative of the presidency in the search for a solution to the Cyprus problem, as a very positive step.
I regard the intention of the Irish presidency to continue with the initiative as equally positive.
I would, however, like to ask the President-in-Office whether Mr Di Roberto's mission brought any actual gain which can further the work of the new, Irish presidency, mediator.
And something else: during the period of Mr Di Roberto's mission, we had the statements from Denktash, of which you will be aware, about the fate of the missing Greek Cypriots in Cyprus.
Did Mr Di Roberto himself deal with that question, and what does his report say, if, in fact, he has submitted a report?
Ambassador Di Roberto has naturally accumulated a vast amount of information which is summarized in a report presented to the General Affairs Council, and in an updated version to COREPER.
The fifteen countries of the Union therefore have all the information they need to assess the situation and this provides the acquis which will be the starting point for the Irish presidency to pursue mediation and also deal with the problem of those who have disappeared.
I just wish the House to know that I will remain here for this particular purpose.
By your absurd ruling based on the absurd advice you received from the staff next to you - nice persons though they are - you have denied representatives of this House the opportunity to ask a second supplementary question.
I hope that has been entered in the record.
Question No 10 by Mr Vieira (H-0418/96)
Subject: Poseima
Poseima is a wide-ranging programme for the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores.
It includes various measures which have quite rightly been of benefit to agriculture, fisheries, handicrafts, energy, consumers, the environment, taxation, etc.
I imagine that the Commission will seek to ensure that this programme is continued, if only because the text establishing it makes no general reference to expiry dates. However, in some cases, the periods for the granting of aid are stipulated, e.g. in the case of the extra cost of the maritime transport of petroleum products.
Poseima should also cover other products with a major impact on the economy of these outermost regions, e.g. agricultural fertilizers, building materials (cement, timber, roofing materials, glass, etc.) and components of livestock feedingstuffs, which have so far not been covered.
Does the Council plan to improve the effectiveness of Poseima by continuing to support the extra cost of the transport of petroleum products, extending the expiry dates for other products and including additional products essential to the economy such as those mentioned above?
The Council naturally concurs with the analysis the honourable Member has set out in the question as to the usefulness of the Poseima programme, launched in 1991 to overcome the distance and insular nature of Madeira and the Azores.
But we must point out, as we have already said in other cases, that it is up to the Commission to present proposals to us on the subject and so far the Commission has not submitted any proposal to the Council designed to extend the deadlines or widen the existing measures to other products not already governed by the existing rules.
So while in general nothing prevents the points in Mr Vieira's question being taken up, it is up to the Commission to draw up a proposal covering them and submit it to the Council, and that has not happened yet.
Mr President, I thank the Council for its explanations but I think it strange that the Commission should not have referred yet to the Council, for example, for financial support for the extra cost of petrol products up to 1994.
I should also like the Council to tell me whether the feeling is that this programme will continue beyond 1999 or whether there might be an objection to continuing this programme which, I repeat, has been very useful indeed for the peripheral regions of the Azores and Madeira.
It may well be strange that the Commission has not put forward proposals, but that is the case. What else can I say?
The Commission has not put forward proposals on the issues raised in your question. If the Commission will put them forward, and also give the reasons for them, then in principle nothing prevents the Council examining and welcoming them positively.
But it is not up to the Council to present the proposals or justify them, it is up to the Commission, so I agree with you on the need to ask the Commission.
There is something else I should say: when situations like this occur - and we have already had others - the European Parliament has many more ways of putting pressure on the Commission than the Council to progress certain proposals.
I say this because the inadequacy of the European Parliament's powers is a recurrent issue. There is no question that the European Parliament has insufficient powers and everyone knows that the Italian presidency has fought and is fighting in the Intergovernmental Conference for greater powers for Parliament, but there is no doubt that Parliament and individual Members have the power to put political pressure on the Commission, especially about progressing specific proposals, so it might be worth using it with more determination.
I will stop the questions now.
But there remains Mr Fassino's commitment to reply to Mr Falconer on a question left open from the previous Question Time.
The departments have worked hard to get me all the details I need to give Mr Falconer an answer as promised.
We have a written answer for Mr Falconer which is probably more precise and comprehensive than anything I could say here off the cuff.
I think it contains all the desired information. If Mr Falconer is not satisfied then we can return to the discussion at the next Question Time.
So we have even satisfied Mr Falconer.
I want to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for the cooperation and availability he has shown us in the past few months.
Questions not taken will be answered in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Nordic Passport Union, EEA, Schengen - Visby Summit
Ladies and gentlemen, with your permission, the sitting will now commence.
As you know, we have unfair competition from a football match - so I greet even more warmly the President-in-Office of the Council - and we also have a Provençal party, but we also have some very serious work to do here.
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
by Mr Rehn and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, to the Council (B4-0442/96-0-0056/96) and to the Commission (B4-0443/96-0-0057/96), on free movement of persons in the Nordic Passport Union, the European Economic Area and the Schengen countries; -by Mrs Cederschiöld and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council (B40449/96-0-0123/96) and to the Commission (B4-0450/96-0-0124/96), on the EU, the Schengen Convention and the Nordic Passport Union; -by Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission (B40562/96-0-0128/96) and to the Council (B4-0563/96-0-0129/96), on free movement of persons within the European Economic Area, the Nordic Passport Union and the Schengen countries; -by Mrs Hautala and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council (B40564/96-0-0131/96) and to the Commission (B4-0565/96-0-0132/96), on the compatibility of the Nordic Passport Union, the Schengen Convention and Article 7a of the EC Treaty; -by Mr Caccavale and Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, to the Council (B4-0568/96-0-0137/96) and to the Commission (B4-0569/96-0-0138/96), on freedom of movement, the Schengen Convention and the Nordic Passport Union; -by Mr Pradier, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council (B4-0570/96-0-00139/96) and to the Commission (B4-0664/96-0-0140/96), on freedom of movement in the context of the European Union, the passport union of the Nordic countries, the European Economic Area and the Schengen countries; -by Mr Krarup, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, to the Council (B4-0667/96-0-0144/96) and to the Commission (B4-0668/96-0-0145/96), on the Nordic Passport Union and the Schengen Convention; -by Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council (B4-0669/96-0-0146/96), on the Schengen Convention and the Nordic Passport Union; -by Mr Burenstam Linder and Mr Martens, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council (B4-0447/96-0-0121/96) and to the Commission (B4-0448/96-0-0122/86), on the Baltic Sea States summit meeting on 3-4 May 1996 in Visby, Sweden; -by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council (B4-0665/96-0-0141/96) and to the Commission (B4-0666/96-0-0142/96), on the conclusions of the summit of the Baltic Sea States; -by Mr Krarup, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, to the Commission (B4-0670/96-0-0148/96), on the Visby summit of 3-4 May in Gotland, Sweden.
Madam President, I am sorry that this is taking place at the same time as a very important European event between Germany and Italy. I myself am also reluctantly present.
I assume that the discussions tonight will be very brief.
Behind the oral question under discussion this evening there is concern that the idea of free movement of people already included in the Treaty of Rome has not been genuinely enforced within the European Union.
The Liberal Group and the whole Parliament would therefore like an answer from the Council and the Commission, firstly, as to what measures will be taken in order to bring the regulations of the Schengen Agreement in line with the European Union's fundamental treaties and Community decision-making, and secondly, as to what measures will be taken in order to secure the continuation of the Nordic Passport Union when Denmark, Sweden and Finland, current members of the passport union, join the Schengen Agreement at a later date.
The question should be resolved over two separate time spans.
The future of the Nordic Passport Union has to be safeguarded within the next few months of negotiations between the Schengen countries and the Nordic countries.
The Nordic countries, which besides Denmark, Sweden and Finland, all Member States of the EU, also consists of Iceland and Norway, both non-member states, have since 1954 had a passport exemption clause covering the borders between their countries.
A pragmatic and realistic solution to the problem is about to be reached.
The governments of Iceland and Norway have stated that they are prepared to abide by the terms of the present Schengen Agreement.
These countries have the right to give their opinion on any future decisions made within the Schengen Agreement.
Similar rights for Iceland and Norway to veto decisions is of course not on the agenda.
The alternative for these countries is either to accept future decisions made by the Schengen countries or to withdraw from the Schengen Agreement.
Citizens of the five Nordic countries wish to be part of a wider European territory, where there are no border formalities.
On the other hand it is not acceptable to give up the passport exemption clause which has worked for decades.
The introduction of border controls between the Nordic countries, which have had a passport exemption clause on a par with that mentioned in the Treaty of Rome since the 1950's, would be a big step backwards for the European integration.
That is something we simply cannot afford to do.
As a long-term objective the Schengen Agreement should be made part of the fundamental agreements of the EU.
This is the only way to ensure democratic decision-making and a judicial monitoring by the European Court.
The Liberal Group considers this to be one of the most important objectives of the present IGC.
The Council and the Commission should set a schedule for achieving the objective, for example by the end of year 2000.
The answer will show how serious the Council and the Commission are about creating a people's Europe, which essentially is what this discussion is about.
Madam President, free movement of persons is one of the Union's most important objectives.
It should not be forgotten that it is an objective which is laid down in the Treaty, one to which all Member States have committed themselves, including those which are now saying they are against free movement and working against it.
Schengen cooperation is a special solution which should in due course be integrated in the EU and be governed by Community legislation, in order for it to operate properly, exactly as we in Parliament and the Commission want.
The same is true of more or less all other conventions which come under the third pillar. Everyone knows that completely new legal solutions are required, new legal mechanisms to deal with many of the issues which are today taken care of through conventions which, moreover, are often not ratified and so fail to have the desired effect.
As a result, we have no success with the compensatory measures which in themselves constitute the conditions for freedom of movement.
We must in fact at least deal with the most necessary of these: the external borders and the fight against drugs.
Deadlocks in the Council often result from Member States' mistrust of other states' ability to take sensible political decisions.
Quite simply, there is no sense of trust and this must be established.
Here we have Nordic cooperation, which represents practical progress.
Nordic police, customs and drugs cooperation is on an everyday basis.
We trust one another, in fact.
It ought to be possible to transfer this to EU level.
Even if the methods are different, the objectives are the same, for example that drug traffickers and terrorists should not be allowed to move freely across European borders.
In the Nordic countries we do not close the borders because the other country is pursuing some policy which we perhaps do not entirely approve of.
We exercise trust rather than mistrust.
We have had a passport union for over 40 years - it must be retained.
The Nordic countries have been a forerunner of and an example to the EU in this regard.
We have achieved the goals which the EU is pursuing in this area and therefore it is only logical that the Nordic countries should be involved in continuing developments.
It is important to bind Europe together, not to split it, and so the links must become stronger.
The Union should be enlarged not only to the East but also to the North and the South.
This means stronger links with the democratic, market-oriented countries around us.
The Union must not contract.
Our values must be disseminated.
There are some technical and practical problems, concerning such things as air travel and baggage.
I believe that Sweden would be able to help in this connection. Perhaps some of the travellers could travel via Sweden, as we have in fact solved this problem.
It is not the technical resolution of each little detail which is important and upon which we should concentrate, even though the information Parliament receives on how solutions are found needs to be clearer.
The important thing is to incorporate these new countries in a properly functioning legal system, where the Court and Parliament have a supervisory role.
To put it simply: Iceland and Norway must be part of things.
I do not doubt for a second that the Commission will be able to take the initiative in this area.
However, will the Council manage to live up to European, democratic values?
Madam President, I agree with my fellow representative Mr Olli Rehn that there is no reason to fear that Iceland and Norway would start to sabotage Schengen decisions, if they were to join in the way presently being discussed.
Instead there is reason for concern that membership in the European Union alone and also Sweden's and Finland's membership in Schengen will create other new borders in northern Europe, such as between the Baltic countries and Russia on the one hand and the Nordic countries on the other hand, where movement already is clearly becoming more restricted.
People are not able to move within northern Europe as they used to.
It should also be pointed out that Finland joined the Schengen Agreement rather passively, in fact without any extensive public debate, and as far as I know even the Finnish parliament has had its doubts as to whether Finland even needs an arrangement like the present Schengen Agreement.
The Green Group feels that the fact that the Data Protection legislation is rather questionable presents a major problem for the Schengen Agreement.
It has to be said that parliamentary monitoring is not enough, but the Green Group would not like to think that the right solution would be to integrate the Schengen Agreement as such into the European Union, since there are fundamental problems related to this agreement from the citizens' point of view, not dissimilar to those relating to the Europol co-operation.
It is clear that there is no reason to create a European security state which controls and puts every citizen under suspicion.
There is also a problem regarding what would happen if Norway were to decide to stay outside the Schengen Agreement.
Being Finnish myself, I feel that Finland, and possibly also Sweden and Denmark, should give careful consideration to their Schengen membership in this situation, since it would mean in effect that the Nordic Passport Union would cease.
Free movement should be developed by means other than the Schengen Agreement within the European Union, and such issues as those concerning data protection and the position of the individual are absolutely vital.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, another event of European significance is responsible for my lateness or at least gives me an excuse.
I want to associate myself with the demands and questions put by honourable Members and, taking advantage of Commissioner Monti's presence, I am standing in for Mr Pradier to ask, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, the questions we all have, faced with the drift by which the system has in fact overturned one of the cornerstones of the internal market, one of the great strides of the 1985 European Single Act, which opened up the horizon to free movement not only of goods but also of people, thus establishing a great area of freedom and rights.
I consider this very dangerous and Commissioner Monti has inherited a very delicate dossier, but we know how effective he is and since he took office he has in fact been attempting to make this right a reality and honour this neglected Article of the Treaty.
But the situation now seems to be becoming particularly grave, when decision-making bodies do not even have the shame to refer to it. I am not speaking of Community bodies as such, but of the third pillar and particularly the Schengen executive committee, the body empowered to deal with issues relating to free movement, both internally and in third countries.
Obviously I am referring to the question of the countries of northern Europe, but it is a general question.
So it is reasonable to ask what can be done and how we can help the Commission to ensure that the citizens of Europe receive a message of integration and not one of liquefaction, especially in this area, from mere intergovernmental cooperation which is anyway bankrupt.
Madam President, the Nordic countries' passport union has been in operation for more than forty years.
Unlike the Schengen Agreement, it has operated well.
But then it is completely different from the Schengen Agreement.
It means that one has the right to travel freely without a passport, though border controls are still carried out.
It is a model which has considerable popular support.
The Nordic passport union must be retained.
The Swedish government has made it clear that it would not be appropriate for Sweden to become a party to Schengen unless all the Nordic countries do.
It is impossible not only politically but also in practical terms to have a Schengen border between Sweden and Norway.
The Nordic countries have now been offered an agreement by the Schengen countries which would mean all the Nordic countries adopting the Schengen model.
For Norway and Iceland this would mean that they would have to comply but without being able to exert any influence.
They would not have voting rights on the Schengen executive committee but would on the other hand have to approve all future decisions, on pain of having to leave the entire Schengen system - immediately.
I believe that in democratic terms such a model is totally unacceptable.
It is moreover an extraordinarily unstable model; all it needs is for Norway to say no once and a Schengen border would have to be erected between Sweden and Norway.
Never before has the Nordic passport union been so threatened as it is today by this arrangement.
My next question is this: what will happen when the Schengen Agreement becomes part of EU law? We know that that day is relatively close.
At the Intergovernmental Conference highly technical and highly concrete discussions are currently taking place on how Schengen should become part of EU law.
If that happens the Court of Justice will have jurisdiction and then the Norwegian constitution would have to be amended.
If such an amendment were moved, it would be sufficient for every fourth member of the Norwegian parliament to vote against for Norway not to be able to become a party to Schengen.
At present more than every fourth member of the Norwegian parliament is opposed to the Schengen Agreement.
This means that the Nordic passport union is at direct risk from the arrangements being made now and the current haste is completely incomprehensible, when we do not yet know how the Intergovernmental Conference will turn out.
It puts Nordic passport freedom at risk.
In the debate on the Schengen Agreement passport freedom is used as a bait but Schengen is so much more than that: it comprises a harmonised refugee policy with clearly inhumane characteristics, it means large registers of persons subject to weak democratic control.
In actual fact it is a central part of the European Union's development of a common policy on justice.
This is what Iceland and Norway are to subject themselves to, without having any influence, despite having taken the democratic decision not to become members of the European Union with all its regulations.
Furthermore, the promised passport freedom may turn out to be something other than expected.
With regard to other parts of the world, such as Third World countries, it means stricter controls.
It may also mean that we are forced to carry identity documents. Sweden has already received reminders from France and the Netherlands that Swedish citizens should have special ID cards when they travel abroad.
I therefore wonder what kind of freedom it is when a passport is simply replaced by an ID card. As I see it, it is no freedom at all.
There is really only one solution to this for the Nordic countries, only one solution which will safeguard the Nordic passport union and only one solution which is capable of securing genuine popular support and which will allow us to determine for ourselves the future of the passport union.
It is that all five Nordic countries should decide not to accede to the Schengen Agreement.
Madam President, the Council of Baltic Sea States' summit meeting in Visby, at which the EU was represented at the highest level, was a success and that is very important.
The Baltic region represents a compact European problem.
The former Soviet system has left much behind it and now there is direct contact between the new Russia, the new countries seeking membership of the EU and the new Western Europe, geared to the fulfilment of its historic mission.
The Baltic region has great promise but also entails considerable risks.
As one can see from the presidency declaration made by the president of the Visby summit, the Swedish prime minister, the issues discussed included economic development and economic integration, environmental problems and the fight against international crime.
Mr Santer presented what is known as the EU's Baltic initiative, which lays a basis for further efforts on the part of the Union.
Together with the documents which the country holding the presidency of the Council of Baltic Sea States has been asked to draw up, we have here the principles for the follow-up work which will be started on 2 and 3 July at a meeting of foreign ministers in Kalmar, a town on the Swedish Baltic coast.
Security issues are not on the actual agenda for the Council of Baltic Sea States but in this respect too the Council has an important role to play.
The summit provided the first opportunity for informal discussions at the highest level between the Russian prime minister and leaders of the three Baltic states.
There will be opportunities for such contacts at subsequent meetings at ministerial level.
The security situation will also be furthered by networks of contacts at all levels involving civil servants, industrialists and academics.
The EU and the Council of Baltic Sea States can facilitate an intensification of all these networks.
The motion for a resolution to be adopted by Parliament states that the EU and the Council of Baltic Sea States should take the initiative in gathering together all the Member States of the Union, in cooperation with the European Parliament and the national parliaments for a conference of the kind which was held last year in Barcelona on Mediterranean issues.
Such an initiative would bring peoples closer.
Within a growing EU, Madam President, special measures are needed to foster contacts between Members and applicant countries, since geographical distance and differences in history and culture can make it more difficult to create a real community.
As part of the preparations for the Visby summit a group of prominent business leaders held a business summit at which they adopted an agenda of measures to stimulate increased economic activity, investment and trade.
The chair of the business leaders group was invited to give an account of this agenda at the Visby summit.
It is important that this industrial cooperation is facilitated and fostered and that industry recognises and makes the most of the opportunities.
In this way the resource flows arising from the European Union aid effort and bilateral programmes can be enlarged and vitalised.
The motion for a resolution also stresses the importance of creating better legal structures in the countries which are now undergoing political and economic transformation.
A country should be built on the basis of law.
Law faculties at universities were seriously neglected during the Soviet era.
There is an important task for the EU here, namely to support national efforts to develop legal competence.
Madam President, the Schengen Agreement was signed as long ago as 1985 but it was ten years before it came into force.
Most Schengen countries and their citizens are today extremely critical of the Agreement.
In many other countries there is also a great deal of mistrust.
In order to achieve something positive - free movement - it was felt that a great many negative measures had to be taken and this has led to the idea of Fortress Europe.
Is it not time to recognise that the Schengen Agreement which is so subject to criticism is neither the best nor the only way of achieving free movement of persons?
The Nordic passport union is another way; it has been in operation for over forty years and really does allow people free movement, without creating walls against the world outside, and it must be preserved. What does free movement mean from an EU perspective?
High walls against the outside world and advanced systems of control, replacing fixed internal border control points with peripatetic controls on the inside, exchanging passports for an obligatory Schengen ID card, and so on. Everything being monitored by a police office we call Europol.
The Green Group wishes to express its total opposition to the integration of the Schengen model in the Union and regards it as regrettable that the Council's working documents show that work is already being done on this.
Madam President, I just want to mention what the citizens of Europe have been waiting for since January 1993: economic growth, especially free movement and cooperation between national governments on security and the fight against crime, but I would say primarily a Europe that is a leading world player, and it seems to me that we are very far from achieving these objectives.
We cannot calculate the negative effects of the fact that these objectives are not being achieved in the Union.
I think we are all, or almost all, in favour of the Nordic countries joining the Schengen Agreement, but our criticism is about a two-speed Europe, more than two speeds, and in open order, with some Member States going ahead on free movement and security and the fight against crime in their own ways.
That is why we are so critical.
Not of the aims of Schengen which are perfectly correct, but of the fact that this agreement might discourage or slow down bringing the third pillar into the Community sphere, which is what we all want.
Great commitment is required of us all on this subject and I wonder if the importance of the objective of free movement of persons is comparable to the territorial issue of Gibraltar or the powers of the Court of Justice, which is also of absolute importance.
Now the convention is blocked and it is also blocking other important acts, for instance the Dublin Convention on the right of asylum.
So I would like us all to give this our attention and I hope that the Commission and the Council take positions on this.
As regards accelerating the implementation of free movement of persons in the European Union, the Council's organizations are working on three proposals presented last year by Commissioner Monti on the right of citizens of third countries to travel inside the Community, the abolition of controls on persons at internal frontiers and the adaptation of the derived right of free movement of workers, self-employed workers and beneficiaries of services.
Furthermore, the Council is devoting attention to the draft convention on the crossing by persons of the external frontiers of the Member States of the European Union.
However there are still unresolved problems on this text including in particular the area of territorial application and the possible attribution to the Court of Justice of powers to make preliminary judgements on the interpretation of the provisions of the convention and to rule on controversies relating to its application.
The opinion expressed by Parliament on this draft convention in April 1994 has naturally received the Council's attention, and successive Presidencies of the Council have not failed to inform Parliament step by step of the progress made on this issue.
The Council is also looking at the relationship between the Nordic Passport Union and the draft convention on the crossing by persons of the external frontiers of Member States.
It is not up to the Council to take a position on the implications of the Nordic Passport Union and the extension of the provisions of the Schengen agreement.
Any communitization of such sectors, envisaged by the Schengen agreement, can only be achieved in accordance with the procedures laid down by Article K.9 or Article M of the Treaty on European Union. Article K.9 provides that the Council, acting unanimously on the initiative of the Commission or a Member State, may decide to apply Article 100c of the Treaty to certain areas covered by cooperation in the fields of justice and home affairs determining the relevant voting conditions.
These decisions should later be adopted by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.
The Commission has already announced that it does not intend to present an initiative along these lines in a communication to Parliament and the Council of November 1995, as it believes the objective of the communitization of the sector in question is more likely to be achieved under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Conference for the revision of the treaties rather than through an initiative based on Article K.9.
So it is clear that as the Intergovernmental Conference has started its work, it is up to that forum convened under Article N of the Treaty on European Union, to examine the possibility of incorporating the provisions of the Schengen agreements into the Treaty on European Union, bringing them under the control of the European Parliament and the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Community.
I would now like to dwell briefly on the Baltic Sea States Summit of 3 and 4 May at Visby.
I want to emphasize that the Council naturally sets great store by strengthening the stability and the economic development of the Baltic region and, in line with the conclusions of the Essen European Council, it confirms the importance of regional cooperation initiatives in Europe.
As regards cooperation, in particular with the Baltic Sea region, on 29 May 1995 the Council drew up conclusions on European Union policy towards this region based on guidelines in a Commission communication.
Before coming to the contents of these conclusions, I would like to record that the presidency of the Council has actually spoken on the Visby summit in Parliament already, in a debate here on 17 April.
The Union's interest in the whole area bordering on the Baltic was stressed at Visby. I am thinking in particular of the European association agreements with four countries in the area - Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - and of the intense political dialogue that has now developed on the basis of the Italian-British initiative of 1993.
Indeed, the European Parliament contributes significantly to this political dialogue. At the Warsaw meeting of the joint parliamentary committees of the European Parliament and the Polish Parliament on 22 January, and the analogous meeting held with Estonia in Brussels on 26 March, where the Italian presidency intervened at the political level.
There was also the information mission made by the Italian presidency at the beginning of April to Riga, Vilnius, Tallinn and Warsaw to explain the priorities of our term to those countries.
There was also the participation of Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the WEU as associated partners, a qualitative leap achieved by moving forward from the old consultative forum with the countries of central and eastern Europe and granting associated partner States participation with a reasonable degree of involvement in many WEU activities.
What I have mentioned so far is part of the general framework of Union support to the various forms of regional cooperation discussed and approved at Essen, intended to promote the pre-membership strategy and bring groups of States closer to the Union, in particular the States in the area concerned.
I have already mentioned the Nordic Council; I would also like to mention the Central European initiative which also specifically targets the Baltic because Poland has been involved from the start.
At the ministerial meeting in Vienna a few weeks ago, the INCE decided to enlarge its organization to fifteen members, making it the strongest and largest example of regional cooperation in Europe.
The Council and the Commission has entered into relations with the INCE, and this will be reflected in the final document from the Florence European Council.
I have mentioned all this to remind you that the 29 May Cooperation Council with the Baltic Sea States was not an isolated event but part of a strategy on relations between the European Union and the countries of the Baltic Sea, which is already well advanced.
In particular, the Council stresses the importance of integrating the region into the European and world economy through the possibility of trade and investment, and this integration is in the interests of the Union.
The European Union already contributes through existing instruments, in particular the PHARE, TACIS and cross-border cooperation programmes, to economic growth and freer trade, encouraging new investment possibilities.
It has also concluded agreements with coastal third countries to reduce port barriers in particular ways.
Many of the plans that emerged from the Visby Conference are already under way with the assistance of the European Union and with bilateral assistance from Member States. There is, for example, assistance in the administrative and customs sectors, support to coastal third countries to join the World Trade Organization, support for establishing a free trade area between Baltic countries and Poland, assistance in cross-border cooperation.
In conclusion, the Commission will report to the Florence European Council on the results of the Visby Conference, where it presented its initiative for the Baltic Sea region.
The framework guidelines of this initiative must now be converted into action and the Council will of course make a statement on that, in the light of the conclusions of the European Council and with a view to the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Baltic Sea Council, which will take place in Kalmar on 2 and 3 July 1996.
Madam President, the European Parliament has always strongly supported the abolition of internal frontier controls on persons, an aim written into the Treaty under Article 7a.
So I find it logical that honourable Members are interested in the development of Schengen, especially the relationship between the Schengen Agreement and the achievement of this objective throughout the Union.
The oral questions tabled demonstrate this interest, and seem to me to revolve around three essential issues.
First, how the Commission now intends to achieve the objective of abolishing internal frontier checks on persons in the Union; second, whether the acquis of the Nordic Union will be maintained, hence including Norway and Iceland when this objective is achieved at Union level; third, the role the Intergovernmental Conference could and should play in achieving the objective of integrating Schengen into the Treaty on European Union.
On the first point, while the Commission welcomes the Schengen Agreement as the Union's precursor to achieving abolition of controls on persons, it recognizes that Schengen is only a partial implementation of the objective of Article 7a of the Treaty on European Union.
This is in fact a Community objective, to be achieved throughout the European Union using European Union instruments and drawn up in accordance with the provisions of the treaties and in full respect of the role of the various institutions.
From this viewpoint, Schengen currently suffers from an institutional deficit.
Personally I have to say I find it particularly unacceptable that, of the four great freedoms of movement on which the European single market is based, it is actually free movement of persons which remains most in arrears.
So it is hardly surprising if the citizens do not have a real and positive perception of European integration.
That is why the Commission put forward three proposals last July to complement the legislative instruments which will allow us to abolish internal frontier controls throughout the European Union, and Parliament's opinion on those proposals is expected shortly.
Mr Dell'Alba, whom I thank for his appreciation of these proposals, wonders how the European Parliament can help the Commission.
First of all, I would say, by giving the requested opinion on the Commission's three proposals for directives which is scheduled for the July session, and then, with the specific proposals on the table, by exercising all that welcome and timely pressure which the European Parliament has historically brought to bear on this issue.
On the second point - cooperation between Schengen and Norway and Iceland - I recognize that, at the appropriate time, the Union will have to deal with the same problem already encountered by the Schengen group.
The Schengen Member States and the countries of the Nordic Union are of the opinion that Denmark, Finland and Sweden being party to the agreement must not compromise the acquis of the Nordic Union.
Their involvement must therefore be accompanied by cooperation between Schengen on the one hand, and Norway and Iceland on the other, which cannot join Schengen because the convention is restricted to Member States of the European Union, in twinning the two areas without frontiers, Schengen and the Nordic Union.
When we are close to achieving abolition of internal frontier controls on persons in the European Union, that clearly should not become a reason for eliminating the acquis of the Nordic Union, which dates back forty years.
So we must find appropriate solutions for this.
I believe Schengen may, and indeed should, also function as precursor in terms of twinning the areas without frontiers of the Nordic Union and the European Union.
Political agreement on the cooperation to be established for this purpose exists, but the negotiations on technical solutions between the Schengen States and Norway and Iceland have only just begun.
The Commission is involved in these negotiations, and I guarantee that it will ensure that any cooperation agreements between Schengen and Norway and Iceland do not compromise existing Community law or constitute an obstacle of any kind to its future development.
Madam President, I come to the third issue raised in the various questions: the role that the Intergovernmental Conference could or should play in the context of the achievement of this fundamental objective.
The European Parliament is kept informed of the work of the Intergovernmental Conference so honourable Members know about the three hypotheses under consideration. One is about bringing into the Community sphere a number of policy areas which currently appear in Title VI of the Treaty on European Union, so that they can benefit from Community mechanisms and all the institutions can fulfil their traditional roles, which is the aim the Commission supports.
Then the mechanisms established in Title VI need to be strengthened for the matters it continues to cover, and in particular the institutions should be assigned a more important role.
Finally there is the possibility of integrating the content of Schengen into the Treaty on European Union, some of it in the first and some in the third pillar as appropriate.
These options are not mutually exclusive: for example possible integration of the content of Schengen into the Treaty on European Union should in no way interfere with increasing the effectiveness of the decision-making procedures set out in Title VI at the same time.
However, and this concludes my reply to the first group of questions, in the Commission's view, the Intergovernmental Conference - let me stress this - cannot serve as an alibi or pretext for holding up work in progress.
The objective of abolishing internal frontier controls on persons is already in the Treaty on European Union and together we must do our utmost to achieve it on the basis of the Commission proposals currently under examination.
We cannot yet foresee the content of the new Treaty, it will take time for it to be ratified by all the countries, and if we wait for that we will inevitably get even further away from the date initially set for the completion of the single market and free movement of persons constitutes an essential factor in that.
I come now, much more briefly, to the questions on the Baltic Sea States Summit held in Visby.
On 17 April Commissioner Van den Broek explained to Parliament the objective of the Visby meeting and the role the Commission would play there.
It is superfluous to stress the political importance of cooperation between all the countries of the Baltic Sea. The informal and open dialogue between the Heads of Government of the Baltic Sea States, in which the Presidents of the European Council and Commission took part, has contributed to strengthening cooperation and, I would say, trust in the region.
The meeting supported the efforts made by Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland to join the European Union.
On the specific questions by Mr Burenstam Linder and Mr Martens, I have pleasure in confirming that the Commission's document 'Initiative' has been favourably received, both as regards the support of the Community to priority cooperation sectors defined by the Baltic Sea States, and as regards the efforts made by the Commission to strengthen coordination.
On the questions by Mr Roth and others, I want to confirm that nuclear safety is one of the Commission's priorities.
We are trying to strengthen international collaboration in this field but we must not forget that this is primarily a matter for national governments.
As to the future of reactors which do not meet current safety criteria, the Commission believes that they must be brought up to standard or deactivated as soon as possible.
Finally, on protection of the identity of the Nordic countries, the subject of a question by Mr Krarup, I can only say that the Visby meeting looked at cooperation in the whole Baltic region, including strengthening democracy and the security of citizens.
I thank Commissioner Monti for his very detailed replies and I give the floor to Mrs Iivari, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Madam President, I am going to talk about the summit in Visby, and I would like to take the opportunity to thank the Council's and the Commission's representatives for their contributions here today.
The development in the Baltic and the Mediterranean areas is important for the stability and prosperity of the whole of Europe.
The European Union's active involvement in creating democracy, strengthening economies and overcoming environmental problems is essential both in the south and in the north.
It is essential that the political results reached regarding the Baltic area at the summit held in Visby are put into practice without delay.
It was of great value that all states in the Baltic area, including Russia, participated in the summit, in addition to the European Union.
Let that be a start to a strengthening of the Nordic dimension within the Union.
The Council and the Commission should now draw up a programme as soon as possible for the initiatives required to implement the decisions made at the summit.
In the Baltic area widespread co-operation is required in order to counteract international crime and resolve severe environmental problems, amongst other things.
An energy network comprising the whole of Europe, linking Norway's and Russia's gas resources, should be extended to this area.
The PHARE and Interreg programmes should also be integrated and implemented in such a way that they offer real benefits in creating democracy and public well-being in the Baltic countries.
The European Union's Baltic policy should be based on existing Europe agreements as well as a full implementation of co-operation and partnership agreements.
The Baltic area, which in many respects is in a very delicately balanced, requires a framework for co-operation which respects the independence of all countries and guarantees human rights for citizens in the whole area.
This co-operation cannot be left to words alone.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, I have listened with pleasure to the comments made concerning Baltic cooperation.
I was visited today by some television people who work a great deal on media cooperation in the East.
We talked about the cultural aspects too, and I would recommend that those aspects should also be addressed in all the discussions on the economy.
I think that on this Scandinavian evening, a welcoming voice should be heard from Denmark among the chorus of speeches which have been made.
I myself live near the Danish-German border.
This is not only the border between Denmark and Germany, but also the border between Germany and the other countries of Scandinavia.
The Nordic Passport Union, which my fellow countryman Mr Krarup says must not be called that, but referred to as a Nordic passport-free area, is not just a practical question, but in fact a political one as well, which says something about the Nordic context and also about Nordic solidarity.
As a Dane, I think it is important to draw attention to this, in these days of Europe and Schengen.
I hope - and I welcome what the Commissioner said in this respect - that Norway and Iceland can be brought into this cooperation, so that the Nordic Passport Union is preserved intact.
The delegation from Parliament will be going to Norway and Iceland shortly.
It would be very good to be able to say in Oslo and Reykjavik from the European Parliament - and this is what I understood from the Commissioner - that there is every chance of the Nordic Passport Union surviving intact within the system in Europe.
Madam President, it is undoubtedly necessary both to widen the Schengen area to cover as many countries as possible and to improve the free movement of persons between the Nordic Union and the European Union, provided that minimum guarantees are demanded from Iceland and Norway.
But haste is one thing and speed another.
In the first place, to accept the complete 'communitization' of the third pillar today, as the resolution of 13 March 1996 would wish, while negotiations in the Intergovernmental Conference are still going on, seems to me premature.
Although harmonization with the Community sphere, particularly for points 1 to 6 of Article 1, is desirable, we should nevertheless consider it point by point and take the necessary precautions.
We must always hold fast to the idea that the European citizen should be at the heart of European integration.
The Union has an unconditional obligation to look at its citizens' needs in practical terms, but also at their concerns.
Similarly, there can be no question of creating a European space with no frontiers without the accompanying measures needed to deal with internal security.
Measures relating to free movement and those relating to the security of external frontiers should be applied simultaneously.
Ladies and gentlemen, for the sake of the well-being and freedom of all citizens of the Union, let us avoid (in the words of a well-known saying) 'putting the cart before the horse' .
Besides, these same citizens would accept the idea of freedom linked to free movement more enthusiastically if the European decision-maker framed this plan with due allowance for aspects essential to the security of the external frontiers.
Let us never forget that security for us all is as much a right as freedom of movement.
Madam President, I should also like to thank the Council and the Commission for the interesting answers.
I should like to begin with Baltic cooperation.
It is good that the Council supports Baltic cooperation so actively.
It is important that this cooperation should become a matter for the whole of the EU; it is quite likely that the subject will also be discussed further in Florence.
It is good, however, that we have already been able to confirm that active Baltic cooperation is a matter for the whole of the EU and that it is not simply a question of cooperation with the Baltic states and Poland but can also become an important bridge to Russia.
As regards the free movement of persons, I believe it is worth stressing that this is something that the single market stands for and is intended to achieve.
This was completely clear both to those who created the single market and to those of us who joined the Community later.
I am also one of those who complains that free movement has not been achieved and that it is quite possible to criticise the often highly technical and convoluted solutions, or detours, which it has been necessary to adopt via Schengen.
However, I also believe that everyone who is in favour of such free movement understands us in the Nordic countries, that we are afraid for the community which we have in the form of the passport union and a free and common labour market.
This can of course, as has already been pointed out, serve as a good example of how free movement can operate at its best.
I am quite convinced that if the Member States of the EU and the Nordic countries which are not part of the EU can only find the will it will be possible to resolve the difficulties associated with the achievement of free movement throughout the Nordic countries and the EU.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the questions raised this evening show that the only realistic Europe, which is at last being built, will necessarily be one that is sometimes scornfully called an 'à la carte' Europe.
Because there is both dogma and reality.
The dogma, of course, is expressed in Article 7a of the EU Treaty, for example.
The reality is the setting up of specific systems like that established for the Schengen agreement.
The reality is also the existence of autonomous machinery for regionalized spaces for free movement of persons like that of the Nordic Passport Union.
But it is by no means certain that it is possible or even desirable to harmonize these different systems and, from this point of view, plurality, originating from a previous historical development, should not necessarily be automatically criticized.
Moreover, we have here a unilateral idea.
Freedom of movement is always favoured at the expense of security, and it is in the face of this situation that some States found themselves prey to a kind of anxiety which led them to set up the Schengen agreements.
I do not think this situation will disappear overnight.
Thirdly, the Visby conference proved that frameworks for cooperation much wider than those of the European Union alone had to be found.
All this clearly shows that it is unreal to pretend that Europe should be organized only in the rigid framework of the European Union.
I should like to emphasize in passing that Europe will always be mutilated as long as it excludes Russia, and for the very simple reason that the present Europe is increasingly becoming a privileged space for economic and cultural colonization by the United States. Faced with this transatlantic world superpower, it will be absolutely essential to find a counterweight some day.
Of course, I do not think that Russia and the CIS can be included in the rigid framework of the European Union, but this means that that framework cannot take priority.
Other, more flexible, forms of cooperation will have to be set up: this is what is happening gradually under the pressure of necessity.
Consequently, for all these reasons, I truly think that the Europe of the future will be an 'à la carte' Europe, which may or may not please those who, on doctrinal grounds, are opposed to it.
Madam President, it is perfectly understandable of course that the countries of Denmark, Sweden and Finland should be seeking to join the Schengen group.
It is equally understandable that they will want to preserve the existing Nordic free movement arrangements and that their membership of Schengen will be contingent upon the willingness to accept that Norway and Iceland should be included in that as well, expanding Schengen to some 13 members.
Indeed, in the negotiations on accession by Norway, which came to naught because of the referendum decision, this was an important consideration.
Some speakers here have dwelt, quite understandably, on the problems that would arise from the fact that Iceland and Norway, through not being Member States of the European Union, will be excluded from discussions on the future development of the free movement area if it were to be incorporated into the Union treaties.
I would like to add another angle to that, namely the question of the three or four Member States which at the moment do not seek to join the Schengen arrangement and which are insisting on retaining the right to exercise border controls because they do not accept that non-citizens of the Union have the right of free movement.
They would be in a peculiar position because they would find that non-Member States were involved in a free movement arrangement which as Member States they were not part of.
It is all a very unhappy situation.
I hope that it will not be a permanent difficulty, that one day it may be possible for all the Member States of the Union to be part of the free movement area.
But it is a reality at the moment that Britain and one or two others certainly do not see that happening in the immediate future. And that must be recognized.
In conclusion, some of us may have to abstain on this common text.
There are certain points in paragraphs 1, 2, 6 and 10 which we cannot at the moment fully accept, although I must say that there is an enormous amount in this resolution with which we could all agree.
First let me emphasize once more that the Visby meeting promoted regional cooperation and also identified, as an example of such regional cooperation, the Baltic way - the road corridor between Helsinki and Warsaw-Tallinn-Riga-Kaunas - which is one of the trans-European network priorities.
Then there are two groups of questions which I will briefly follow up. As regards the Nordic Union countries, I believe it is very important for the European Union to keep in mind the experience on passports acquired over a long period by the Nordic Union and I think it is appropriate to mention the question of compatibility between the Nordic Union arrangements and the Treaty on European Union.
The Commission is not aware of any provisions in the Nordic Union agreement which might be incompatible with existing Community law or existing European Union arrangements.
Everything naturally needs to be explored in the new situation which we hope will shortly be created when the abolition of the controls on persons enters into force for the whole of the European Union.
Some people have stressed the issue of security.
I want to dispel any doubt immediately: the three proposals formulated by the Commission in July 1995 are all inspired by full recognition that security is just as important as freedom of movement, which is why a link has been planned between the accompanying measures and the abolition of controls at the internal frontiers of the European Union.
So I would not want anyone to think the Commission is so preoccupied with achieving the objective of freedom of movement that it would neglect security. That is certainly not the case.
Finally, on Mr Elliott's speech, some Member States, probably very few, which are not interested in taking part in Schengen and have certain reservations of principle about the interpretation of freedom of movement of persons in the European Union, may indeed find themselves in a peculiar situation, when other states which are not members of the European Union are participating, through Schengen, in this great area of freedom of movement in security.
I have received 11 motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Economic and social reform in the Mediterranean
The next item is the report (A4-0198/96) by Mr Barón Crespo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0113 - C40253/96-95/0127(CNS)) on financial and technical measures to accompany the reform of economic and social structures in the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership (MEDA).
Madam President, I take the floor with great concern because the Union's credibility is at stake.
This morning Mr Dini, President-in-Office of the Council, said that he too was concerned about it but, at the moment, it would seem that the Council is more concerned with leaving the Chamber than following the debate.
But, after all, we are used to this kind of shenanigans.
I am concerned that at this moment the Union's credibility is at stake vis-à-vis the Mediterranean countries because we have approved a Euro-Mediterranean policy and we must honour our commitments.
The Council, in principle, claimed to refer to the European Parliament and, for the first time, there has had to be a fresh consultation of the European Parliament and we have tried to help to unblock a situation where - I must acknowledge - the Commission has shown sensitivity towards our proposals.
The issue has been blocked for some months now in Council for two reasons: one concerns the situation of the human rights clause - and I must say that we maintain an amendment referring precisely to the way of assessing developments in the situation, and our proposals is that in cases where a Mediterranean partner fails to meet the obligations set out in Article 3, i.e. there is a situation of massive human rights violation, the measures including the suspension of planned aid, should be determine by qualified majority, on the Commission's proposal and following the prior opinion of the European Parliament, by 30 June 1997.
Our committee's proposal to refer the issue to the IGC has succeeded in unblocking a situation in which the government of one Member State has vetoed the situation.
I think that this proposal will meet with the agreement of the Commission because, inter alia, the Commission itself has been proposing it in a general way to the IGC and we think that it is important that, in that case, we should make some progress in turning human rights into an important rallying point and in a democratic way.
There is the other extreme that we must not forget: the concern with safeguarding and protecting one Member State, namely Greece.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs has been sensitive to the concerns of our Greek fellow Europeans, about what I might call certain territorial disputes which have worsened this year and we have therefore accepted an amendment referring to the territorial integrity of the Member States and their external borders and of the Union.
The resolution which the European Parliament has approved concerning the Florence summit also mentions this matter and it is also in the Treaties.
However, with respect to this and the EuroMediterranean Conference, it is worth making it quite clear.
I should like to launch an appeal although I am not sure if it will be heeded, reiterating the words of Mr Pangalos, when he stayed away from the Council meeting at the end of May, revindicating for Greece the fatherhood of the Euro-Mediterranean policy.
It is certain that many things were born in Greece, not just the Euro-Mediterranean policy.
There is no doubt that it was at the Corfu summit that a boost was given to it, when the Commission proposal was accepted despite reservations by the Council and the European Parliament.
It would therefore be very positive if we could count, having shown our solidarity, on the real and effective support that would enable us to unblock this situation and, above all, enable us - and here I turn full circle - to honour our commitments and keep to our word since, at this moment, this is now the end of June and we must be able to spend effectively nearly 900 million ECU that we have promised for this year.
The agreements which we have reached, albeit multilaterally, always imply services in return.
Our Mediterranean partners have taken a step and now we must in turn we able to face up to our responsibilities and keep to our word.
Therefore I think it is important that this regulation be approved once and for all, through consultation, at this plenary session.
Madam President, I should like to take the floor very briefly since we already examined this report last November.
First of all, I think that, although this is a fresh consultation, the opinion of the Committees on Budgets and Budgetary Control should have been sought, and this was not done.
Secondly, I should like to ask why it is not the Committee on Budgets at this moment in time that is the right one to deal with the fundamentals of this issue, since this is a regulation with an essentially financial content.
Thirdly, I should like to comment that, as far as the overall chapter is concerned, this is acceptable, with the rider that the Council does not take any decisions that might affect the fragile balance struck in category 4 without first consulting the European Parliament.
On the other hand, I should also like to comment that six months have gone by, as the rapporteur said, and yet the issue is still being held up in Council.
Fourthly, the European Parliament - and this too has already been mentioned - has respected for 1996 the sum of 900 million ECU decided at the Cannes summit.
Yet the execution of the MEDA budgetary line for this year is still at the starting-point.
Time goes by and we shall reach the end of the year and, Commissioner, you know what we shall be told - ' You will not be able to spend this money in this or that zone...' .
We know what the cost of propelling the MEDA programme has been and we know what is at stake in the area.
Fifth point: I think that reference must be made to the fact that in the past financial protocols with the countries in the Mediterranean zone have been submitted to the European Parliament for the opinion procedure, enabling it to exert some control.
This regulation, however, only provides for a consultation of the European Parliament.
This means that the European Parliament must develop effective instruments so that it can exert control over the application of the programme, as well as proper budgetary management.
I should like to end by thanking once again - because I thanked him in November - Mr Barón for accepting our amendments and I must say that they were purely technical, drawn from the experience of PHARE and TACIS.
Thanks to them, with the permission of those whose task it is to unblock the procedure and with the speed that must be applied by the Commission, I am sure that we shall be able to keep to our commitments for 1996 and, in accordance with Article 205, obliging the Commission to deal with proposals approved in the European Parliament, I am convinced that we shall finally succeed in implementing the MEDA programme.
Madam President, the Socialist Group supports the report of our rapporteur, Enrique Barón Crespo.
My group campaigned for a Mediterranean policy for the EU and insisted on parallelism between our approach to the east and to the south.
It is the Mediterranean policy and its funding which we are talking about tonight and, in our view, the MEDA programme must be seen in the light of our commitment to the development of democracy, economic advancement and the cause of human rights in the Mediterranean basin.
The Socialist Group will support the approach to global MEDA funding.
But it is fair to give warning that we believe that the Government of Turkey has yet to deliver on the promises made to this Parliament before the ratification of the customs union in December last year.
We know that in the field of democratic reform and human rights abuses the situation has not only stalled but has actually deteriorated since the Turkish general election in December.
Not one of the constitutional reforms brought in to charm us last year has yet found its way onto the statute book.
The continuing stream of arrests for freedom of thought and speech continues to give Turkey an internationally bad name and the recent wave of unrest and hunger strikes in Turkish prisons is a demonstration of the violation of natural rights and common decency.
Nor has Turkey made any effort to deal with the political problems of Cyprus and the Kurdish area.
In all these ways Turkey is found wanting, and yet it has an exceptionally close relationship with our Union and we have a right to expect more.
My group will therefore be looking to use our budgetary powers this autumn to keep up the pressure on Turkey.
We have a substantial right as the co-authority on the Union's budget.
We intend to use it and to invite other groups to join us.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, would like to compliment Mr Barón Crespo on his work and, also, on the way he handled this delicate matter in the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The MEDA programme must be implemented quickly - immediately, I would say - even though one country, Turkey, is systematically creating problems, in contravention of the philosophy and principles both of the Barcelona procedure and of the MEDA programme itself, not only for one Member State of the European Union but also for at least one other country in the Mediterranean basin, namely Syria.
You are all aware of the problems that Turkey is creating for Syria, at least as far as water is concerned.
Even so, the MEDA programme must be implemented. It is the financial instrument of the Mediterranean policy, and both we and the Mediterranean countries are looking forward to it with some impatience because everyone is of the view that it can bring overall improvement to those countries and turn them into genuine and full members of the new Euro-Mediterranean partnership, which is something that we all want.
Further to that, I would be failing in my duty if I did not emphasize the special relevance that the implementation of the MEDA programme will have for the Middle East peace process.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the MEDA programme encompasses many important actions covering nearly every sector of civil life: energy, transport infrastructures, regional cooperation, small and medium-sized enterprises, and a whole variety of other activities within that bracket.
The four amendments that have been tabled are all, I think, very important.
I will mention just two of them: the amendment concerning the definitive procedure for adopting appropriate measures when such are deemed necessary and the amendment on synergy.
As regards the first of those two, Commissioner, I hardly need to say how important it is that the decision on the adoption of appropriate measures must be approved by qualified majority.
In fact, that is what you, and the Commission, recommended in your original proposal.
As regards the other amendment, I feel that I should draw attention again to the importance of ensuring transparency in this programme, particularly given the undesirable precedents that have occurred in certain other sectors.
I remind you, Commissioner, that you yourself - and I commend you for it - have on many occasions given verbal assurances to committees of the European Parliament about the safeguarding of transparency.
To conclude, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I inform you that my group will be voting in favour, will be supporting the regulation, that is.
Madam President, in addition to congratulating Mr Barón Crespo on his report, I should like to emphasize that the MEDA programme, promoting the development of and closer contacts between countries on the southern flanks of the Mediterranean, can only merit our full support.
This is a neighbouring area, closely linked to us throughout our history, where the lack of resources and demographic growth are now triggering extremely tricky problems.
As well as the most important aspect, the fact that the well-being of the area's peoples is in jeopardy, this is also leading to an obvious migratory pressure with people seeking employment in our countries, leading in many cases to serious problems of integration.
This is the case not only in the southern countries of the Union but also in the North (which is where the highest percentages of immigrants are to be found), and they should be as or more involved in finding a solution that, indeed in the overriding interest of the migrant populations themselves, will encourage them to stay in their countries of origin.
Given this humanitarian, social, economic and political interest we must all have a broad view when it comes to finding the funds needed, while recognising the existing difficulties.
The existing rules must be kept to but it is equally necessary to stop using the need to stick to the rules as a pretext for dragging our feet over the basic problem, a problem that instead of being a reason for widespread concern could be turned into a factor of enrichment for both of these neighbouring regions.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this report concerns the Euro-Mediterranean policy which fully illustrates the ultimate wish to communitarize all fields of external policy.
Everything proposed here could just as well have been regulated by bilateral agreements, with all the flexibility that such agreements between the various countries around the Mediterranean could have given.
Moreover, bilateral agreements would probably have ensured a much more genuine democratic control than the control exercised in the context of the European Union, that is, the control of national parliaments over the foreign policies of Member States.
It is true that in this case the main objective is perhaps less legitimate cooperation between the different States than the ultimate creation of a kind of enormous free trade area extending over the whole Mediterranean basin.
However, in the light of the differing economic structures north and south of the Mediterranean, it is not certain that it has to go in this direction without precautions.
We have seen the disastrous consequences for Mexico which have followed from the NAFTA agreements in North America, for example.
As for human rights, I cannot speak about the Mediterranean without recalling at the same time that our Parliament was considerably misled last autumn, or last winter, during the negotiations on a customs union between Europe and Turkey, and I note that the fears of our Greek colleagues were fully justified in this respect.
To return to the MEDA programme itself, we are not sure that it will not in fact ultimately be economically counterproductive, and in any case we are convinced that it is contrary to the wholehearted application of the principle of subsidiarity.
There is no need, in this respect, to eliminate the role of Member States in this type of cooperation policy.
That is why we shall vote against the report in the hope that this kind of policy will henceforth come within the competence of Member States, with all the flexibility which that will allow in comparison with the rigid programmes planned at present.
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Barón for his report and congratulating him and, above all, the European Parliament and its various committees for having agreed to carry out the second reading so quickly.
There is no doubt that the Commission backed the European Parliament's criterion and I must say that, after some hesitation, the Council has also finally come round to the idea of a further consultation of the European Parliament, because there would undoubtedly have been one or two points that would have had quite obvious political repercussions vis-à-vis the original proposal and, at the same time, a series of new decisions that were the difference between the Council's final decision and what would have been the European Parliament's proposal and report.
To sum up - as I think that Mr Barón has said this very well - we accept what he pointed out.
It is true that at the moment, in terms of the MEDA regulation, regardless of the fact that it is - it is true - a strictly financial regulation of great technical complexity, this is a political moment when what Mr Barón said is quite right: what is at stake is the credibility of the Union's capability in terms of foreign relations.
I share the concerns of the Committee on Budgets and Budgetary Control.
I should like to respond to those concerns.
Three agreements have already been finalised.
In chronological order they are: Tunisia, Israel and Morocco.
In all cases both parties have agreed upon a free trade zone.
Each party has stood up for itself.
One of the main demands of the European Union has been precisely the lifting of trade barriers.
This stems from the retrospective clause of 1 January 1996 and has already begun but I cannot go on, as Commissioner responsible, receiving more and more visits from the ministers of those countries asking for their share.
We cannot go on until the end of the year with a situation in which one party - with a far weaker industrial base and economy than us, after all - has done its duty and completed its work and the European Union has not.
In other words, Mr Barón is right.
This is a problem that goes beyond the financial aspect or technicalities of the MEDA programme.
As for the amendments, the Commission thinks that in the case of three of them this is not the right moment to introduce them because that would presuppose changing the proposal and that would take us another three or four months.
But there is a political amendment which I see no reason for the Commission to refuse since it has already put it forward at the IGC.
Indeed, in the procedural framework for decision-taking in the new CFSP, as I envisage it, the Commission's position will be that all cases relating to human rights will always be decided on the basis of qualified majority.
Over this there is no doubt: the Commission is quite against the idea of unanimity.
It is a problem of time.
If the MEDA regulation had been approved by qualified majority, it would have been a good precedent for the European Parliament and the Commission, but it would now provoke a negative attitude on the part of certain delegations to the IGC.
You might say: what is the link between these? Many of the tactical positions of the Member States are interlinked at this moment in time, and it would only need the principle of qualified majority to be applied just now for some of them to block everything.
We hope that, in the framework of the IGC, the human rights dossier will have its rightful place in terms of possible sanctions and the application of qualified majority and the Commission will stick to its previous position.
As for what was said earlier, I should like to make a few remarks, which might be bad for my health.
I hope that the mad cow miracle will take place in Florence and I hope that the MEDA miracle will also take place.
I hope the IGC will get off the ground in Florence.
We are expecting so much of Florence that I think we might be disappointed.
I should like to make this point: the situation for the Committee on Budgets and Budgetary Control has become so schizophrenic that I have to point it out to the European Parliament.
The Commission and the European Parliament reached agreement over financial programming for the next three years.
For this year, the Commission and the European Parliament reached agreement over a figure: 600 million ECU. It was the Council which increased that amount to 900 million ECU.
That is the truth.
It is true, however, that the Council has denied us, by various blockages, the legal basis since last November, when the Barcelona Conference took place.
That will last until July.
In other words the same institution that increased the financial ceiling has also prevented us from spending a single ecu.
You will understand that, supposing that an miracle does take place in Florence, the Commission knows what decisions the Committee on Budgetary Control will take in October, and all unspent reserves will be cancelled, making the situation even more schizophrenic because we have been prevented from spending that money for lack of a legal basis.
Try and explain that to the Mediterranean non-member states - that not only are we not going to honour our commitments under an international agreement but, in October, we are going to lower the financial commitment too.
That is totally schizophrenic and it highlights how rotten this so-called CFSP instrument is.
I therefore hope that, on the basis of many concrete cases, there can be some lessons learned among the various institutions as to how to find a compromise solution for something that is clearly difficult to comprehend.
And understand this: I prefer the political sanction of being prevented from spending that money - although it seems unfair since we have not been allowed to - to a situation in which the Commission spends everything in September in order to escape the regulation's guillotine clause.
That would be irresponsible of the Commission and so I am not going to propose that the Commission spend all of the 900 million ECU programmed for this year because this would not be possible, it would not be credible, it would not be serious and in the end it would kill of any remnant of credibility remaining in the MEDA programme.
In other words, the situation is very serious, Mr Barón.
I am not over-dramatizing.
We cannot go on working like this and I think that the TACIS and MEDA programmes both demonstrate perfectly, for the benefit of the IGC, that with the Treaty as it stands it is quite impossible to carry out serious and solid work on foreign policy in the European Union.
Madam President, I should first of all like to thank Commissioner Marín for the frankness and clarity of his answer.
As for his position on amendments that cannot be approved, I must nonetheless thank him for the Commission's favourable stance vis-à-vis the most important one and I agree that this amendment does not only refer to this programme and this report, but is a fundamental political criterion for the Commission which the European Parliament has always agreed with; decisions must always be taken by majority including those referring to the CFSP.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Workers' health and safety in explosive atmospheres
The next item is the report (A4-0158/96) by Mr Mather, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(95)0310 - C4-0508/95-95/0235(SYN)) on minimum requirements for improving the safety and health protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres.
Madam President, the Commission has put forward a basically sound and progressive proposal on improving the health and safety protection of workers who are potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres.
The directive is produced in accordance with the Framework Directive No 391/89. It places three main obligations on employers.
Firstly, they must prevent the formation of explosive atmospheres.
Secondly, they must prevent the ignition of any such atmospheres.
Thirdly, they must reduce the effects of explosions to a minimum.
Our report from the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment insists that employers must treat each of these three obligations as high priorities and observe each of them.
The Commission's purpose in this report balances the need to protect workers with a balanced approach to regulation.
This really is an area where preventative measures can help to safeguard human lives.
In due course this sign - if I may show it to colleagues in the Chamber - will signify the presence of explosive atmospheres.
This black and yellow warning will help protect workers from unexpected explosive atmospheres and warn them to take care in those environments.
The directive is also necessary because in some Member States regulation is non-existent or at best rudimentary.
The Commission's set of minimum standards is an effective one.
It is important to note that the consultative process on which the Commission embarked was both thorough and exhaustive and this has lent credibility to their conclusions.
All these points have been kept in mind by the committee when it reviewed the comments and suggestions of various associations and institutions and worker representatives and including the opinion of ECOSOC and other parliamentary committees.
I am glad to say that the committee voted unanimously for this report.
There are some important amendments including the one which highlights the triple responsibility of employers.
It is necessary to ensure that Member States which already meet minimum requirements should not be subject to excessive administrative provisions from such a directive.
Therefore the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment has suggested that the documentation and classification systems advocated by the Commission could instead be fulfilled in these circumstances by using current documents or practices at the Member State level.
This, however, does not amount in any way to a lessening of effective control and it is important to note that some of the committee's amendments strengthen the Commission's proposals, in particular the requirement in Amendment No 12 that employers should constantly monitor the protective systems, not just engage in an annual review but maintain constant supervision that protective measures are up to scratch.
Some amendments concerned the implementation periods which are appropriate for this directive.
It is clearly enormously important that small and medium-sized enterprises across the Union are given adequate time and information to bring into force effective preventative measures.
The committee has drawn again on ECOSOC opinions written by the workers' group representative there to strengthen the proposals in the directive.
These are a few general points about the report and I look forward to hearing the observations of colleagues and of the Commissioner.
The importance of this directive must be clear to all of us and it rests in the fact that this measure can improve the prospects of health and safety in the workplace with the real possibility of saving lives across the European Union.
Madam President, Commissioner, I will begin roughly where the rapporteur left off.
I heartily agree that this regulation substantially augments the armoury of the European Union, of the Member States and of our people in the combating of workplace hazards.
And that is not the only point on which assent is forthcoming from this side.
In the case of this report, Commissioner, common points of agreement were found very easily, and we worked through it in the Committee on Social Affairs and, I venture to say, improved it, and finally approved it, unanimously, without any difficulty at all.
We think that this Commission proposal provides a significant advance in the definition of what is meant by an explosive atmosphere; an advance, that is, which, as well as augmenting the armoury of the European Union and imposing equipment requirements that bring the approach that we have been working on for quite some time to completion, fills the gaps that exist at Member State level.
And let me remind the rapporteur that the need for a common approach, for common measures at the European Union level, in order to safeguard the safety of workers in what is, by definition, a dangerous environment, was never a source of contention.
We believe, Commissioner, that the amendments, as finally formulated after exhaustive but quite easy discussion in our committee, from which many compromise positions emerged, genuinely improve the regulation.
I must stress that the emphasis is placed where we believe it to be necessary; that is to say, not on the officially large corporations, which are pretty obviously not a problem in that monitoring is easy, but on the many instances in which small and medium-sized enterprises have to deal with these phenomena on a daily basis and right alongside us.
In addition, I believe that the implementation timetable in our proposal strikes a good compromise between the immediate future and the time that undertakings actually need to adjust to the new equipment.
On behalf of my group I can inform you that we shall be very happy to vote for Mr Mather's report.
Madam President, Mr Flynn, in businesses and factories in Europe there are often no instructions at all about how to handle explosive atmospheres, or at best they exist only in rudimentary form.
An explosive atmosphere is a highly inflammable mixture of air and flammable substances, and constitutes a potential danger to workers.
Therefore there is a need for a European directive.
Organizational measures and technical specifications should be laid down in order to improve protection for workers' health and to ensure greater safety.
Graham Mather has done some excellent work here on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
What are the principles to be observed in order to avoid explosions and provide adequate protection? The formation of explosive atmospheres must be prevented.
The igniting of explosive atmospheres must be avoided.
The effects of explosions must be limited so that they no longer constitute a hazard.
By observing each separate principle, the necessary protection can be achieved.
Rooms in factories should be divided up into various zones, depending on the level of risk.
Employers must be aware of their duty to inform and involve their employees and their representatives, and to listen in good time to what they have to say.
The safety measures must be checked at least once a year, using suitable instruments and modern technology, and must be under the constant supervision of a responsible person, to be appointed on the basis of their professional training and experience.
In order to provide equality of opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises, this directive must be implemented within a reasonable time.
Last but not least, a vade-mecum should be drawn up, in agreement with the Council, in order to explore the options for putting the minimum requirements into practice.
Our unanimity within the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment certainly sends a positive signal to workers, and also to the Commission and the Council.
Madam President, the Commission's proposal regarding the minimum requirements for the protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres is absolutely vital.
Far too many workers have been injured in explosions and far too many workers have died in explosions.
Stringent safety measures are required to prevent explosions.
Detailed regulations are also required in order to minimize the damages caused, if explosions occur despite safety measures.
Mr Mather pointed out in committee that regulation is required.
I am glad to hear that Mr Mather has come to this conclusion after reading the Commission's proposal, considering that the British government formed by the party he represents has systematically opposed the health and safety regulations drawn up by the European Union.
It has been mentioned that the report was accepted unanimously by the committee.
I did indeed vote for the report in the final vote, but I could not support all of Mr Mather's proposals, which unfortunately were accepted by the majority of the committee.
On many issues it would have been better to rely on the Commission's expertise, instead of proposing apparent amendments.
These amendments do not however change the situation so much that it would be dangerous if they were accepted.
I cannot however recommend to my group the acceptance of Amendments Nos 1-8, whereas I warmly support Mr Mather's proposal to provide more information for employees, especially those working in small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, on the dangers caused by explosions.
On the whole I congratulate Mr Mather on this report.
First of all I should like to express my thanks to you, Mr Mather, for the remarkably good job you have done on this very technical matter.
The Commission is prepared to accept the majority of the proposed amendments, in total or in part.
Let me start with the four amendments which we find are not acceptable to the Commission: Amendments Nos 6, 9, 10 and 12.
Amendment No 6 is unacceptable to the Commission since Article 9 covers requirements on both workplaces and work equipment.
Concerning Amendment No 9 the Commission considers that it introduces uncertainty regarding the entry into force of the directive.
However, the Commission supports the concept underlying the amendment and during the interinstitutional negotiations it will bear this in mind and seek to ensure that information is properly provided to all of the parties concerned.
Indeed the question of good information being supplied has been mentioned by many of those who have contributed.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 10.
However it would consider modifying its original text by adding the phrase 'and the assessment of the anticipated effects' in order to bring the text more into line with the ISO texts.
Regarding Amendment No 12, the Commission thinks that this amendment renders the text too restrictive and imposes an unnecessary burden on industry, in particular on small and medium-size enterprises, and therefore it cannot be accepted.
Secondly, I would like to enumerate the five amendments that are partially acceptable to the Commission.
Regarding Amendment No 2, the Commission feels that the first part of the amendment clarifies the text of the Commission's proposal and therefore it can be accepted.
In contrast, the last paragraph runs contrary to the risk assessment philosophy as it imposes the application concurrently and simultaneously of all three basic principles, rendering the text unnecessarily stringent.
Regarding Amendment No 3, the replacement of 'responsible supervision' by 'appropriate supervision' also reflects the opinion of ECOSOC and is acceptable to the Commission.
However, including training and education in this context is rather meaningless as far as supervision is concerned.
So the last paragraph of the amendment cannot be accepted since it adds nothing to what has already been laid down in Article 4(4) of the proposal and Article 6 of Framework Directive 89/391.
Regarding Amendment No 4, the Commission considers that the amendment can be accepted with a slightly different wording in line with the Commission's original text which specifies that the employer shall ensure that a health and safety plan is drawn up and kept up to date, otherwise the employer will be obliged to draw up the health and safety plan himself or herself, which would impose unacceptable constraints on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Regarding Amendment No 7 the Commission considers that the deletion of 'work equipment' is a logical consequence of the wording of Article 9, paragraphs 1 and 2, and can be accepted.
However, workplaces already in use before entry into force of this directive have to comply with the minimum requirements specified in the proposal and not only those of Article 4.
With respect to Amendment No 8, the Commission is of the view that the deletion of the reference to Article 17 of the framework directive renders the text imprecise since the amendment does not specify who draws up the vademecum.
As a consequence it should be complemented with the words: ' by the Commission' .
Lastly - and this was something that was mentioned both by you, Mr Mather, and by Mr Papakyriazis - I am pleased to inform you that there are five amendments which are totally acceptable to the Commission.
The Commission's view is that these amendments, namely Amendments Nos 1, 5, 11 and 13, improve the original text by providing a better formulation and that Amendment No 14 in particular, by providing for early information, particularly to small and medium-sized enterprises, facilitates their adaptation to the requirements of that directive.
Indeed Mr Thomas Mann very rightly draws our attention to the basic principles involved here, which firstly, are, to prevent the formation, in the first instance, of such atmospheres, which requires certain elements of venting.
Then there is the question of preventing the ignition causing the explosion.
And we must, of course, always seek to take mitigating action if the explosion occurs.
These are the fundamentals of what we are seeking to do here.
Mr Papakyriazis, you are quite right to say that this is a good step forward.
We have to provide the right kind of information, as Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen said, because this is the way to move forward in the interest of protection of workers.
Thank you for your attention.
There are not many here but at the same time this is important legislation and we look forward to its early adoption.
Madam President, I wish to thank Commissioner Flynn for what he said and, indeed, all my colleagues for their remarks, which have been most helpful.
As the Commissioner said, this is a very technical measure indeed and the points which have arisen show that.
The committee, as Mr Papakyriazis said, has spent a great deal of time and paid enormous attention to detail.
I am most grateful for that and for the comments of my colleague, Thomas Mann.
I must say a word in response to Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen, who gave me a slightly mixed score on the amendments.
They are, indeed, stringent and, as my witness, I would call the Commissioner who, in his comments, observed that a number of the measures were slightly too stringent for the Commission's taste.
So perhaps I am not stringent enough for Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen and a little too stringent for the Commissioner. I hope the report is therefore pitched about right.
I will not abuse the hospitality of the Chamber to defend the honour of the UK Government in response to Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen's comments, other than simply to say that it is the view of my colleagues in London that they assiduously comply with and support what they consider to be genuine health and safety measures, but take quite a firm view when health and safety procedures are used for other measures they do not think properly fall within that boundary.
Thank you once again for a debate which I hope will be helpful.
We look forward to taking this very important subject further.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Protection of workers against carcinogens
The next item is the report (A4-0103/96) by Mrs Stenuis-Kaukonen, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(95)0425 - C4-0433/95-95/0229(SYN)) amending for the first time Directive 90/394/EEC on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens at work.
Madam President, in this proposal by the Commission the objective is to set an occupational limit values for exposure to benzene, extend the scope of the directive and clarify the wording of two clauses in the directive.
This amendment is a clear improvement of the directive.
Extension of the scope of this directive is particularly important, since it brings medicinal preparations, cosmetics, waste, fertilizers, explosives and foodstuffs into the remit of the directive.
The choice of benzene as the first substance for which a limit value is proposed is justified, because benzene exposure is extremely widespread and its tolerance risks clearly stated.
Benzene exposure occurs for example in oil refineries, in connection with petrol transport and distribution, that is at service stations and garages, and in the petrochemical industry.
Users of power saws may also be exposed to benzene.
The Committee on Social Affairs proposes 16 amendments.
The European Parliament has already demanded that limit values be set for all carcinogens.
This has however not been implemented.
Although in its report the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment does support the Commission's proposal to set a limit value only for benzene as the first substance, it makes a strong recommendation for the Commission to draw up a proposal as to how the required limit value could be set as soon as possible for all substances classified as carcinogens.
The Commission has already drawn up a priority list of substances for which limit values should subsequently be set.
The committee considers it important that limit values are also set for heavy metals without delay, and proposes that arsenic and certain arsenic compounds should top the priority list.
The committee also proposes that the Commission examines the possibility of simplifying the setting of limit values particularly for substances for which the limit values, based on scientific information and solid research, are purely health-based.
A considerable weakness in the Commission's proposal is that skin absorption has not sufficiently been taken into account.
Although the consequences of skin absorption are highlighted in the report, no biological measurements are mentioned in the directive, nor any limit values.
In its report the committee requests that the concept of biological limit value is defined and that the Commission should present the biological tolerance limits for benzene without delay.
The definition of limit values in the report is taken from the Commission's proposal for a directive on chemical substances.
The Committee on Social Affairs and Employment recommends that the definition for limit values as a concept is clarified.
In the Commission's proposal the spatial measurements area is regulated using the expression 'the employee's breathing area' .
Legislation should make a clear distinction between two concepts, the air of the workplace and the breathing air of the employee.
The committee has consequently made an amendment to the clause in question, in line with a recent recommendation of the European committee on standardization, in which breathing area is defined as an area from which the worker takes his breathing air.
Exceeding this value would be prohibited.
The committee's report also recommends that a common measuring practice is created for defining limit values for benzene content.
If the concept of limit values is defined in the form presented by the committee, there are no grounds for granting provisional exceptions as suggested by the Commission.
They are not satisfactory as legislation.
They are also in contravention of the health and safety regulations.
If the proposal of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment is accepted, that is the exceptions are removed, there is no need for Amendments Nos 18 and 19 proposed by the Committee on the Environment.
It should be emphasized that benzene is considered to be a substance for which no limit value can be set beneath which there would be no health risks.
Decrease in exposure however also decreases the risks.
The limit value of 1 ppm proposed by the Commission may, if exposed to over a working life, cause 0.5-6.6 more cases of leukemia per 1000 workers.
This involves a too great a risk, and therefore this limit value should be gradually lowered.
The Committee on the Environment has proposed a limit value of 0.1 ppm by the beginning of year 2001, and I myself put this proposal forward to the Committee on Social Affairs, but it was not accepted.
I now propose a compromise of 0.5 ppm by the beginning of year 2003, and hope that at least this could be accepted.
The benzene content can be lowered mainly by reducing the amount of benzene in petrol, and the Commission has today put forward a proposal, but I do not find it adequate.
I would like to thank the Commission for their willingness to co-operate, and I am happy that Ireland will bring this issue to the Council for consideration as soon as their period of presidency begins.
Madam President, the opinion of the Committee on the Environment is not very different from that of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
Our task will be easier as a result, but I should like to draw attention to a few aspects of this proposal for a Directive.
Firstly, we ought to be delighted that the field of application is widened so as to include all carcinogens present in the workplace - this is excellent - and also so that it takes into account all the possible ways in which workers can be exposed.
Fixing limit values for benzene is also a good thing.
What is less good is the fixing of the limit value at one part per million, that is, 3.25 mg per m3 on average over eight hours.
This value in fact corresponds to the present situation in all workplaces where benzene is used, except for certain types of enterprise related to the oil industry, precisely where the proposal aims to grant a derogation with a limit value three times as great.
When it has been known for a hundred years that benzene is a carcinogen, when it is also known that there is no value below which there is zero risk, in other words, as soon as one is exposed to benzene there is a risk of cancer, I think - along with the Committee on the Environment - that the proposal is completely inadequate.
The derogation is unacceptable.
It is entirely possible to limit the working time if, in the short term, it is technically impossible to prevent a worker who works eight hours from getting an exposure of more than one part per million.
Thus, the short term solution is to reduce his hours of work.
Another solution would be to reduce the benzene content of fuels.
We know that the United States tolerates only 1 % of benzene in petrol, while Europe accepts a maximum of 5 %.
Quite clearly therefore the need would be to make a major effort in that direction rather than to grant derogations which will only confirm an existing situation.
One last remark: since logically we should like it to be laid down that exposure to benzene should ultimately be reduced as much as possible, it is essential that, after the year 2000 - and this is the proposal from the Committee on the Environment - the limit value for exposure should be reduced by a factor of 10, in other words to 0.1 part per million.
Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen has produced an insightful and thorough report which has been done practically through hard work in our committee.
She knows that I accept nearly everything that she has done, and we in the Socialist Group will accept the entire committee's report as it was voted.
I have a particular direct question to put to the Commissioner on the limit values which have been set by the Commission at 1 ppm.
We accept them as being those which the industry can attain and can afford.
I wonder whether the Commissioner could confirm that any further reduction, which I believe is unlikely in the short term, is unrealistic as an objective and possibly too severe a burden on the chemical industry as a whole.
I do not believe it offers the hope of saving more lives, because I do not think in the short term that this will be achieved, but the possibility of the destruction of many small businesses.
Millions become ill each year in work-related illnesses and this report will have a direct effect on reducing that industrial carnage and misery.
That is why we need this report to succeed and we should underline any significant achievements and support them where they occur.
It is easy perhaps to dismiss it saying that we have not gone all the way down the line but we know that 5 ppm exists at the moment.
To come down to 1 ppm is a significant achievement.
I apologize for using the jargon but it is good solid progress.
I hope that all my colleagues in the House, wherever they might be tonight, will take a pragmatic and sincere approach to this problem in tomorrow's vote.
No-one should play silly games with health and safety and I should say, without fear of reproach, that this report is one of the most important directives made in health and safety.
I warn anyone who thinks that he can play fast and loose with this kind of report that the gloves will come off.
The challenge is here to achieve a limit which has never been achieved before, and it is within our grasp to do it.
I want the report to be a success.
Let there be no difference between us and the Commission on this issue.
We want to return this jointly to the Council and we want the Council to accept our opinion.
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen, the rapporteur, on her report.
This is a field about which she knows a great deal and which she understands thoroughly.
I regard the amendments to the Commission's proposal which are proposed in the report and the amendments by the Greens as a necessary tightening up of the Commission proposal.
It should really be self-evident that we should do all we can to ensure that people's health is protected and that they are not exposed to substances which we know to be highly carcinogenic, such as benzene, either at the workplace or anywhere else. Where toxic substances and substances of this kind are concerned the first question should always be whether the substance or product is needed at all; then we can ask whether it can be replaced by anything else.
Only thirdly should it be a question of minimising risks.
It is of course extremely good that the Commission has tabled this proposal and that we are going to have a limit value.
However, I must at the same time express my regret that limit values have not also been set for all the other substances that have also been found to be highly carcinogenic.
It would be preferable for as many of these substances as possible to be got rid of and for limit values to be established for all those which we absolutely have to have.
The limit values should also be binding, with a maximum permissible level which may not be exceeded.
In this connection the Commission proposal should be formulated in such a way that there can be no ambiguity and no possibility of it being interpreted in different ways.
In order for limit values not to be merely empty figures, the directive should also indicate what will be required of employers if those values are exceeded or what sanctions or consequences will ensue if the maximum permissible levels are not respected.
I also believe it would be regrettable if the directive did not at this stage already lay down a considerably lower limit, exactly as the rapporteur has proposed.
It would be a pity if this compromise were to be reached, that is to say 0.1 ppm by the year 2000.
After all, there are already countries which have in fact decided to implement it.
I do not therefore believe that it would be so impossible.
Nor can the Greens accept that an exception be made of the petrol sector, that is to say its storage and distribution, with a limit value of 3 ppm.
We will of course support this proposal but only with the amendments which the Greens have also tabled.
Madam President, cancer is a serious disease among the population.
It severely affects many people, and claims many human lives.
Leukaemia is one of the most serious forms of cancer; we know from countless studies that there is a link between exposure to benzene and leukaemia.
It is therefore extremely welcome that the Commission is now seeking to introduce a higher degree of protection for workers.
There is a need for a directive on carcinogens, and for the scope of the current directive to be extended to include medicinal preparations, cosmetics and pesticides.
We should do what is politically and humanly possible to limit cancer and protect workers, and this can only be done by taking preventive measures.
So I do not think that introducing biological limit values is a good idea.
We should ensure that the working conditions as a whole are satisfactory, so that there is no reason to take measurements for individuals.
If we go that far, there is already a risk that people will have become ill.
We should measure for the workplace, and not for individuals.
The limit values should not stand alone, and we must take care not to focus exclusively on limit values.
The other measures in the framework directive should be given higher priority, and there needs to be an overall solution, providing for a safer working environment in general.
We must not allow any kind of dangerous substances or machinery in an undertaking.
If a substance is dangerous, it should be replaced by another.
I would therefore ask the Commission to step up the work in the Scientific Committee.
Things are moving far too slowly as regards the study of the various carcinogens.
There is a disgraceful lack of speed about this work, Mr Flynn.
It is not enough simply to check that the limit values are respected.
In some work situations, even the proposed limit value of 0.1 ppm would be too high.
The workplace should be completely safe and free of risk.
That should be our starting-point.
And lastly, I would commend the rapporteur on what is an excellent report.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mrs Stenius-Kaukonen for her good work on this proposal and for her support of the Commission for some time in the fight against occupational cancers.
The Commission appreciates it very much as I do personally.
The objectives of the Commission proposal are quite simple.
Firstly, we want to extend the scope of the directive to a whole series of preparations which the rapporteur has mentioned, such as medicinal preparations, cosmetics and pesticides.
Secondly, for the first time we want to set an occupational limit value for a well-known carcinogen, namely benzene.
Both these measures represent significant new initiatives in the Community's efforts to provide protection for workers from occupational exposure to carcinogens and the Commission is grateful for the support given by Parliament to its proposal.
I am pleased to say that the majority of the amendments proposed are acceptable to the Commission.
However, I regret that Amendments Nos 11, 14 and 15 cannot be accepted.
These call for the deletion of the temporary derogations for selective sectors of activities as far as the limit value for benzene is concerned.
These derogations, which were agreed by the social partners in the advisory committee, are necessary to ensure a little more time for some industrial sectors to comply with the provisions of the directive.
The Commission accepts that these derogations are necessary.
Obviously it would be ideal if all sectors were in a position to meet the revised requirements immediately.
However, in the case of these sectors it is simply not possible.
It is important to note that the derogations are restricted both with respect to the number of industrial sectors concerned and in time.
Thus the derogation will expire two years after the transposition by the Member State.
The Commission is ready to consider any proposal for a reduction of the time limit for benzene in the future.
The figures included in the present text, as I have already said, are the result of a comprehensive consultation with the advisory committee for safety, hygiene and health protection at work.
Any further reduction could be part of a further updating of the directive in the future.
Mr Skinner is right: this is real progress and he states the position correctly so far as limit values are concerned.
There are countries with the 5 ppm situation in existence so going down to 1 ppm is considerable progress.
Mr Skinner was quite right in what he said.
For this reason, Amendments Nos 17 and 20 cannot be accepted.
Amendments Nos 18 and 19 which intend to reduce the work-time for workers in the case of higher exposure level, even if scientifically sound, would be very difficult to put into practice in the situations provided for in the derogations.
For that reason the Commission cannot accept them.
The Commission considers that Amendment No 10 is not appropriate to the text.
It is superfluous, given the provisions of the Framework Directive 89/391 from which the current text is derived.
The Commission can understand the basis for Amendments Nos 3 and 4.
These require simplification for setting limit values for carcinogens and ask for a plan on how to set up these values as quickly as possible for all carcinogens.
However, the simplification of the process involved not only included the Commission but also the social partners and the Council.
As far as Amendment No 4 is concerned, adequate scientific data is not available.
That is a key point and many of you will understand this, in particular the rapporteur.
It is not available just now for all carcinogens.
However, the Commission would like to assure the House that when the data is available it will not hesitate to act.
In addition, Amendments Nos 3 and 4 which refer to the recitals have no legal follow-up in the text of the decision.
This applies also to Amendment No 7.
I consider that it would, therefore, be preferable to take note sympathetically of the ideas in these amendments without commitment at this point as to how we might put the principles into practice.
Amongst the amendments which are acceptable, I would in particular like to express my agreement with Amendment No 16 which requires a uniform, measuring procedure for benzene.
The Commission will find the appropriate wording to include that particular idea in the text.
I should like to thank all those who have contributed and say that we regard it as an extremely important amendment to Directive No 90/394.
I am happy to say that the matter has been given priority by the Irish presidency and I sincerely hope we can progress it further in the immediate future.
I should like to thank you in my turn, Commissioner Flynn.
Mrs Stenuis-Kaukonen, you wish to comment?
Madam President, perhaps a few comments would be in order.
The exceptions are not in my opinion necessary, not even for the two years proposed by the Commission, but the Commission has its own view on this and I hope that Parliament takes a different view.
Most importantly the benzene content in petrol should be lowered in order to achieve lower benzene contents in the air.
I referred earlier today to the package on engine oils for cars accepted by the Commission, but unfortunately the target set for the content of benzene in petrol is 2 %, which is far too high.
If this target were to be set at 1 %, as many countries have already done, it would be considerably easier to reach the 1 ppm target particularly at service stations, where petrol of course is handled a lot.
In this connection I would merely like to point out that the scientific information on the dangers of all carcinogens - as we know there is not sufficient information regarding all substances - but clearly the Commission has not understood my intentions behind the proposal of this plan.
For the substances about which we have sufficient information a detailed proposal should be drawn up regarding when limit values should be set, and for those substances which require more research, this research should be carried out and targets should be set for the schedule of the research.
This would speed up these issues considerably.
It was said here today that it had taken too long to set these limit values.
I would like to remind you of the fact that several years ago now Parliament put forward measures on these issues.
On the whole, as I said before, I would like to thank the Commission for its co-operation on this issue and hope that we can now move forward.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I notice there are a lot of roll-call votes accompanying the Minutes.
I notice that yesterday you did not tell us who had asked for the roll-call votes.
It might help if today's Minutes showed the average cost of one of those and possibly, by extension, the amount of trees we consume in a year, often for quite frivolous reasons.
I have made a note of what you've said.
I can answer your question as regards why I did not specify each time who had asked for a recorded vote: it was because virtually all the political groups - I think - asked for one, and I was hoping to save a few seconds each time, in view of the length of the voting process.
Each time, however, the Minutes did record which group had made the request.
And I have now made due note of your comment.
Are there any other comments?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Annual report of the Ombudsman (Presentation)
The next item is the presentation by the European Ombudsman of his annual report for 1995.
Madam President, distinguished Members of the European Parliament, I should like to begin by thanking you for creating time in a busy parliamentary schedule for the Ombudsman to present his report.
By establishing the practice that the Ombudsman presents his report in person, the European Parliament is following the best parliamentary traditions of those Member States that have established a classic Ombudsman institution.
I am convinced that this practice will prove beneficial in terms of our common ideals of an open and democratic European Union.
I would also like to draw attention to the serious and dedicated attitude that I have observed in the Committee on Petitions and in Parliament as a whole towards the rights of European citizens.
This is a promising sign for a fruitful and effective cooperation between the Ombudsman and the European Parliament, especially the Committee on Petitions, to the benefit of the European citizens.
This is the first annual report by the European Ombudsman.
At this early stage in the development of the office it is very important for me to have the views of you, the Members of the European Parliament, about what I have done so far and about what should be done.
Furthermore you have the opportunity to make observations on my report as well as on the report of the Committee on Petitions. This will be of great value to me in my future work.
There have been voices saying that the Ombudsman's office has not achieved results.
My annual report covers only a short period from September 1995, when I took up my duties, to December 1995.
The report also includes statistics about complaints up to the end of March.
Since then the situation has changed considerably.
My office has now been active in producing decisions and solutions.
As of yesterday my office had received a total of 647 complaints.
An examination of admissibility had already been completed in 599 cases, that is in over 90 % of the cases.
In 132 cases a preliminary inquiry has been initiated.
16 inquiries have been closed, 6 with a favourable solution for the complainant, 1 with a critical remark addressed to the institution.
In one instance the complainant dropped the case and in 8 cases no instance of maladministration was found.
My office was only able to start the work with the complainants at full speed from the beginning of this year.
The institution in question is usually given three months to comment on the complaint.
This time limit is mentioned in the statute.
After that the complainant has one month to react to what the institution has said.
Only last month, therefore, did it become possible to take further action in the first cases.
There has also been criticism of the high number of inadmissible cases.
You have to remember that the mandate 'maladministration in Community institutions and bodies' is a limited one.
Only about 40 % of the complaints are within the mandate.
The statute of the European Ombudsman contains additional requirements before I can investigate the complaint.
The limited mandate given by the Treaty and the further restrictions in the statute which Parliament has laid down for me explains why only about 20 % of complaints reach the stage of an inquiry.
I am bound to act in accordance with these provisions.
The procedures of work and statistics are presented in the annual report.
I am sure that the figures will be much more favourable in the next annual report.
Article 8(d) of the Treaty establishing the European Community creates two important rights for the European citizens, namely the right to petition the European Parliament and the right to complain to the European Ombudsman.
Citizens enjoy both these rights and it is for them to choose whether to address a petition to Parliament or apply to the Ombudsman.
However, it may not always be obvious to the citizen which course of action is more appropriate.
For this reason my office and the Committee on Petitions have cooperated closely to clarify our respective functions and to establish methods of cooperation.
There is a procedure for the transfer of cases between the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman with the agreement of the petitioner or complainant.
The Ombudsman does not, as a rule, deal with a matter pending before the Committee on Petitions unless the committee transfers it to the Ombudsman.
Nor does the Ombudsman deal with cases that have been examined and dealt with by the committee unless there are relevant new elements that justify recourse to the Ombudsman.
Complaints about decisions of the Committee on Petitions itself are considered inadmissible since its decisions, like those of Parliament, are political matters.
The right to petition created by the Treaty is a right to petition the European Parliament.
The Committee on Petitions acts on its behalf.
It is for Parliament to supervise the work of its own committee and, for example, to make sure that the committee's resources are adequate to perform the tasks entrusted to it.
The mandate of the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman are different and complementary.
Together they constitute a unique possibility to promote the rights of the European citizens.
My experience of cooperation with the Committee on Petitions has been very positive.
I am ready to monitor the established procedure for cooperation. I look for ways to enhance cooperation in favour of the rights of the European citizen.
The Ombudsman himself should act in as transparent a way as possible so that the European citizens can fully understand what he does and to set a good example to others.
For this reason it has been decided that the register of complaints is to be open to the public.
The complaint, the first opinion from the institutional body as well as the decision that finally closes this complaint will also be publicly available.
The inquiries following the first opinion from an institutional body are carried out in private, however, so as to ensure full cooperation and to promote a friendly solution in the case.
The complainant's right to privacy must be respected.
If confidentiality is requested then the complaint and all the documents relating to it are treated as confidential.
The entry on the register, the decision that finally closes the complaint as well as any report or recommendations to the European Parliament will be made anonymous so that the complainant cannot be identified.
But the Ombudsman should do more than just seek transparency in his own office.
Part of his mission is to enhance the relationship between the Community institutions and bodies and European citizens.
The creation of the office was meant to underline the commitment of the European Union to an open, democratic and accountable administration.
The need for transparency in the Union is emphasized by Mrs Ahern in her report and by the Committee on Petitions in its motion for a resolution.
During my first months in office I have received a number of complaints concerning public access to documents held by Community institutions and bodies.
The Commission and Council have already issued a code of conduct about public access to documents they hold. But I have no information that any other Community institutional body has adopted general rules on public access to documents.
I have therefore launched an initiative by asking the other Community institutions and bodies to inform me about the position in respect of public access to documents.
The initiative covers all institutions and bodies except the Council and Commission.
For example, it covers Parliament, the Court of Justice but only in relation to administrative documents, the Court of Auditors, the European Investment Bank and the European Monetary Institute.
I hope that this initiative will be well received and that it will lead to more transparency in these institutions and bodies.
Creating a new office takes time.
So far the establishment of the office of the European Ombudsman has proceeded relatively smoothly.
That is in large part because of the helpful and cooperative attitude shown by the European Parliament and its administration, by the Commission and the Council and by the other Community institutions and bodies.
The proportion of inadmissible complaints I have received is relatively high.
European citizens need time and information to understand what the Ombudsman can and cannot do.
For this reason, a leaflet about how to complain to the European Ombudsman has been published.
It includes a standard form on which the complaint can be made.
The leaflet is being widely distributed through the national offices of Parliament and the Commission, the offices of the national ombudsmen and similar bodies and through a large number of organizations involved in European affairs.
Since last week the text of the leaflet is also available on the Internet.
There is nothing unusual about inadmissible complaints.
Ombudsmen at all levels receive many of them.
Whenever I am unable to deal with a complaint, I try to advise the complainant to go to another body which can help.
Very often the advice is to petition the European Parliament.
In some cases it is appropriate to refer complainants to the Commission as the guardian of the Treaties.
The Commission's own complaints procedure has great potential to help European citizens to protect their rights under Community law when national authorities are involved.
I hope that this important activity of the Commission will become better known to the public.
Finally, I attach great importance to cooperation with national ombudsmen and similar bodies.
Such cooperation in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity will be of great importance in promoting the full implementation of Community law at all levels of the Union.
A seminar is being organized next September here in Strasbourg to discuss with them the principles for such cooperation and to agree on common activities in the future.
The work of the European Ombudsman is only one element in the process for ensuring that European citizens enjoy the benefits of an open, democratic and accountable administration.
The Ombudsman's office can succeed only if the Community institutions and bodies are firmly committed both to these principles and to the full cooperation with the Ombudsman.
From my experience so far I believe that this commitment exists.
I look forward with confidence to continuing to develop a partnership with the other Community institutions and bodies to protect the rights of European citizens.
Madam President and Members of the European Parliament, thank you for your attention.
(Loud applause)
Annual report of the Ombudsman (Debate)
The next item is the report (A4-0176/96) by Mrs Ahern, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual activity report (1995) of the Ombudsman of the European Union (C4-0257/96).
Madam President, Mr Ombudsman, Madam Rapporteur, as the Treaty states, the Ombudsman's annual report is made to Parliament.
Perhaps you will allow me, nevertheless, to tell you, on behalf of the Commission - and in particular of my colleague, Mrs Anita Gradin, whom I am representing - the Commission's view of this institution and of the work it has done.
It is obvious that with the creation of the office of Ombudsman, the people of Europe and the concept of European citizenship, have been substantially enriched since the sound administration of the European institutions, the transparency and the fairness of their operations correspond to fundamental rights of the people of Europe, and the European Ombudsman can help to guarantee that those rights are effectively exercised in practice.
The Commission feels sure that with the European citizen able to exercise control through the Ombudsman over how our administration works, we can only be encouraged to work better, to put right our shortcomings and our mistakes and of course to work more transparently.
The Ombudsman's report quite rightly states that harmonious relations between the Commission and the Ombudsman himself are fundamental, amongst other things because - as is also stated in his report - the great majority of the complaints made to the Ombudsman concern the Commission or its work.
The Commission has also had an opportunity to reply to the requests for information concerning complaints querying the Commission's administration or its day-to-day running.
On behalf of the Commission I think I can say that the Commission has replied without holding anything back, in a spirit of transparency and respecting the prerogatives of every institution.
Although some problems have arisen in a limited number of cases -in particular as regards the length of time it takes to get a reply from the Commission - I can assure you that the Commission has undertaken to overcome those problems without delay.
I should like to tell you that the Commission, knowing that the Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, is particularly concerned about the problem of delays, has taken the appropriate measures to ensure that the time-limits fixed for replying when a complaint reaches the Ombudsman's office are observed.
I should like to end by congratulating Mr Södermann, the rapporteur and the European Parliament on behalf of the Commission and of course by wishing Mr Södermann the best of success in his task of protecting citizens' rights and assuring him of the Commission's full collaboration.
Rest assured that we shall remedy the shortcomings you have pointed out in your report, which we think in fact will be an easy mater.
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists I want to congratulate the European Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, on his excellent first report.
I also want to congratulate the Committee on Petitions' vice-chair and rapporteur, Mrs Ahern, on her excellent report on behalf of the committee.
The Ombudsman has proved to be a serious, assiduous and determined person committed to protecting the rights of the people of the European Union.
An excellent working relationship has already developed over the past months between Mr Söderman and myself, who at the moment hold the office of chair of the Committee on Petitions.
I am sure such a relationship will continue with any future chair as well.
The Committee on Petitions is, as has been said, the committee responsible both for relations with the European Ombudsman and for monitoring the work of the European Ombudsman.
The European Ombudsman is independent and so we, as the Petitions Committee, do not interfere in the ongoing investigations of complaints.
When in future the committee gets reports of maladministration relating to the outcome of individual complaints we will discuss them with interest.
We welcome his initiative to call for greater access to public documentation of European Union organizations.
The work of the European Ombudsman and the Petitions Committee is complementary.
One deals with allegations of maladministration in European Community institutions and bodies, the other, the Committee on Petitions, deals with the general area of European Union fields of activity, particularly non-implementation by Member States of European Union law and proposals to improve European Union policies.
Turning to the amendments, the Socialist Group will be opposing all the amendments because we think the report is excellent as it stands.
Mr Pex's amendments in particular are not helpful and were rightly rejected by the Petitions Committee.
They turn a report on the Ombudsman's report into a report on relations between the Ombudsman and the Petitions Committee.
In particular Amendment No 4 encourages the Ombudsman to challenge decisions of the Petitions Committee taken on so-called improper grounds.
How are we to decide if members of the Petitions Committee have taken a decision on improper grounds? Presumably, if a Member disagrees with a majority decision of his colleagues or if he is too busy elsewhere to take part in a decision of the committee with which he disagrees.
Finally, and more positively, I want to make it clear on behalf of the Socialist Group that we will support the work of the European Union Ombudsman, respecting his independence, with friendly criticism where appropriate, but primarily backing him and assisting him in pressing the European Union institutions and bodies to implement the recommendations in his reports particularly when he has found maladministration.
He can be assisted by the democratically elected representatives of the people in ensuring that his work in combating maladministration in the European Community is supported strongly.
Madam President, on behalf of the European People's Party I too am pleased to congratulate Mr Söderman on his first report to Parliament and Mrs Ahern on her report.
The post of European Ombudsman is one of the most valuable and least controversial fruits of the Treaty of Maastricht.
Since national posts of ombudsman originated in Scandinavia, we are particularly fortunate in having not just an experienced postholder in Mr Söderman but an ombudsman who brings all the accumulated experience of Finland to the exercise of such a role.
It is important that the institutions of the Union serve the European citizen and not the other way around.
That is what makes the post of ombudsman so valuable.
Citizens need to know there is someone, a real human being, who will take their side if bureaucracy threatens to ignore the rights of the citizen.
Experienced parliamentarians in this House will have no difficulty in understanding the concept of maladministration and will easily know what is the ombudsman's sphere of responsibility.
MEPs will appreciate the different responsibilities of national ombudsmen, the European Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions.
However, these are not easy concepts and that is why a maximum of simple, colourful publicity is required to explain in straightforward terms how the ombudsman can help citizens and how his role differs from the Petitions Committee.
Mr Söderman referred to his pamphlet, ' How to Complain to the European Ombudsman' .
In terms of simplicity and colourfulness, I give this a mark of 2 out of 10.
I have received tax demands that are more colourful and more inspiring than this document.
Just compare it for instance with the document I picked up last night at the party celebrating the wines of Provence: that makes me want to drink a glass of Provençal wine, I am not too sure this pamphlet does much for the European Ombudsman.
Do we not have anybody within the European Community, better graphic artists, who could give the boost that is needed to bring this down to a personal level?
To turn to Mrs Ahern's report, I welcome Amendment No 1, which refers to the use of new technology to apply to the ombudsman.
We need to make use of modern and easy means of communication, but please do not make that an excuse for having dismal paper means for publicising and contacting the ombudsman.
Cooperation, communication between the ombudsman and the Petitions Committee, is also very important if we are to protect more fully our citizens' rights.
In that respect I believe Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4 help the report by underlining the complementary role of ombudsman and Petitions Committee.
I would add that this House, as one of the institutions of the European Community, should certainly not be shy of allowing the ombudsman to investigate our procedures.
In conclusion, and on reflection, I give the ombudsman 9 out of 10 for his first report, but I have to say I reduce the score for his pamphlet to 1 out of 10 and plead with somebody to make that more attractive so that the citizens know that they have the ombudsman and Parliament on their side.
Madam President, I should also like to express my thanks for the Ombudsman's activity report and the report by Mrs Ahern.
The former is called an annual report, but in fact it covers three months, since the Ombudsman has not actually been in office that long, although I think he has achieved a good deal in the time he has been working.
I also think that the Ombudsman has adopted the right approach to his work, namely dealing with citizens' complaints and in particular not making political capital at the expense of the institution - the Union as such - even if that would have been very easy, but in the long term not very likely to improve the understanding of the Union's work.
Having said that, I would agree with Mr Perry that one might perhaps wish to see a rather more colourful form of publicity for the Ombudsman, but we can try to provide some inspiration for that in the course of the coming year.
I shall now turn to the amendments, the budget and the question of the office in Brussels.
We can support Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4 and 5.
I am not sure if these are particularly necessary, but on the other hand they do no harm.
As for Amendment No 3, I am sorry that the Conservative group has not made the amendment somewhat clearer.
In a way, we agree that it should be possible to make use of Article 169, but we do not think that involving the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman is particularly appropriate, and so we shall be abstaining on this amendment.
When it comes to the budget, the Ombudsman has of course like everyone else had some tough discussions with the Committee on Budgets.
These will no doubt continue, and I would advise the Ombudsman to explain as well as he possibly can at present the need for an increased staff and also what kind of tasks it will not be possible to carry out unless sufficient budgetary resources are made available.
As regards the office in Brussels, the discussions will be resumed.
We understand the Ombudsman's views on the need for an office in Brussels in order to make his work in Strasbourg more effective, and in the course of the coming year we shall therefore be pleased to discuss the scope for setting up such an office, without creating any conflict with the location in Strasbourg, where the Ombudsman himself also wishes to remain.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the annual report of the Ombudsman, Mr Södermann, covering the year 1995, has two features which I think warrant attention, namely that this is the first report of the Ombudsman to the European Parliament and that the period which it covers is very short.
Those two features give this document a basically pedagogic role, as the Ombudsman was no doubt aware when he was drafting it.
Therefore, apart from serving as an instrument of information and as a balance sheet, Mr Södermann's report makes an important contribution to our knowledge both of the new European institution and of its objectives and the means of access to it for bringing about its intervention.
But in spite of the short period covered by the report, Mr Södermann's previous experience as Ombudsman in Finland has enabled him to present us with a remarkable ethical study on actions taken, which rightly lead Mrs Ahern, in the excellent report she presents on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, to congratulate Mr Södermann on his interesting and detailed report.
Special mention should be made of the considerations put forward by the European Ombudsman with regard to his relations with the Committee on Petitions on the basis of a clear definition of the scope of the powers of each, laying the foundations for a fruitful collaboration which in practice has already begun, as Mr Newman, who speaks with greater authority than I do, has reminded us.
Everything shows, Madam President, that this new parliamentary institution set up in the Maastricht agreements, has started off in the right direction.
Now, in the fresh modification of the Treaties expected at the outcome of the present Intergovernmental Conference, we must progress to a more open and democratic operation of all the European institutions, as Mrs Ahern's report states in its conclusions.
Finally, Madam President, it is appropriate to say that, if Mr Södermann's report is widely publicized, it will not only help to put an effective instrument in the hands of European citizens in the event of possible cases of maladministration in the European field, but it will in addition help to widen and consolidate the identity of European citizenship.
For all those reasons I think the European Parliament must express its entire agreement with the contents of the European Ombudsman's First Annual Report and must encourage Mr Södermann to keep on working with the same sensitivity and the same meticulousness as he has done so far.
Madam President, I must extend my congratulations and those of the Green Group to the European Ombudsman, Mr Sönderman, for his report, and also to Ms Ahern for the report she has presented on behalf of the Committee on Petitions.
This first report by the Ombudsman clarifies, albeit within the limits of the period during which he was in office last year, those problems which citizens might encounter in seeking access to this new body of the European Union. I wish also to stress the importance of the interaction between the European Ombudsman and the European Parliament via its Committee on Petitions in guaranteeing those rights of citizens which these two Institutions are required to protect.
This is an important step towards the concept of European citizenship and also a way of guaranteeing transparency and the proper functioning of the institutions of our European administration.
The concept of citizenship is, as we know, also being considered by the Intergovernmental Conference that is currently under way, and I think it important for the purpose of giving specific definition to this concept of European citizenship that the Ombudsman's report should be presented to the Intergovernmental Conference which should then take it properly into consideration.
I therefore think we should make an effort to make all Europe's citizens aware of the possibility they have of approaching both the Ombudsman, by petitioning him, or Parliament, by submitting a petition to the committee set up for that purpose.
I think it important to explain to Europe's citizens when it is appropriate to approach the Ombudsman and when to approach the Committee on Petitions.
That is something we should all try to do and that is why the Greens are completely in favour of and will be voting for this report.
Madam President, I too would like to congratulate the Ombudsman on this first report.
Admittedly, three months is far too short a period to draw up an initial balance sheet for what is a completely new activity for our institutions.
Even so, I think it is worth emphasizing a number of points that clearly suggest that the citizens of the Union will have access to an independent, transparent yet discreet institution to which they can turn in the event of a conflict with the European administration and when they feel their rights have been infringed.
Mrs Ahern, in her excellent report, carefully analyses these three conditions, and I approve her efforts without reservation, especially when she outlines the cooperation that will need to exist between the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman.
That leaves, Mr Söderman, the massive problem of informing the public, creating public awareness, of this new institution whose work you are pioneering today.
This seems to me to be the most important factor.
First, a suggestion.
Would you not agree that we could make things easier for those who want to apply to you by enabling them to do so through the channels provided by the new technologies? My group has tabled an amendment to that effect, and I hope honourable Members will support it.
I believe that by enabling citizens and residents of the Union to address the Ombudsman telematically we shall make it easier for them, in practice, to exercise their rights.
It would be a step forward - an advance.
In any case, providing information to Europe's citizens on the institution you represent is a major factor and I must admit that I myself would like to have more information on how you are planning to publicize your service to that public.
I know, Mr Söderman, that you have had some experience of this function in your own country, but it would be unfortunate to see your strengths changed into weaknesses because Europe's citizens have neither the experience nor the knowledge of the institution of mediation that they were able to acquire in their own Member States.
However, the institution of an Ombudsman and his recognition have a very important part to play in the emergence of that European citizenship which is so close to our hearts.
And Articles 8(d), 138(d) and (e) of our Treaty will only really justify their existence if European citizens become aware that their institutions - of which, incidentally, they know very little - can also safeguard them against maladministration or injustice.
Now, you have a leading part to play.
Remember that you are the first Ombudsman, and that as such it is up to you to give that fine institution its initial image.
However, Mr Söderman, we have no doubt that you are fully aware of that responsibility.
Madam President, Mr Söderman, ladies and gentlemen, although the first report by the European Ombudsman covers a period of only three months it does supply us with some very useful indications about this new institution and about the way in which Mr Söderman intends to fulfil his mandate, with the benefit of his experience as a national Ombudsman.
I am particularly pleased by the close cooperation that is developing between the Ombudsman and Parliament's Committee on Petitions.
Even so, there is one question I would like to raise which is of the greatest interest to me: where is the Ombudsman going to exercise his function?
At the time of his election, Mr Söderman clearly stated his intention of basing his secretariat in Strasbourg, the seat of the European Parliament.
This decision was in line with the spirit of the Treaties.
Yet we have now learnt, a few days ago, that the Ombudsman has asked the Committee on Budgets to increase his operating budget by 150 %, virtually doubling his staff from 10 to 17 jobs.
It would be easy enough to understand this increase, ladies and gentlemen, if it occurred in the course of the normal growth of his activities, but it seems that the real purpose of this request is gradually to transfer the office of the Ombudsman from Strasbourg to Brussels, opening up a second secretariat in the Belgian capital from 1997.
So, as I know that Mr Söderman is to give a press conference very shortly, I would like to know whether this step really does form part of his intentions and what the reasons for it are.
If this trend were to become established, ladies and gentlemen, we would once again be seeing an anomaly in the matter of the seat and of the institutions and organs of the European Union, and in that case my group would be firmly opposed to it.
Madam President, the European ombudsman, Mr Jacob Söderman, states in his concluding remarks to the annual activity report for last year currently under discussion, that the formal duties and the qualifications of the Ombudsman are only one factor in a process whose object is to guarantee that the advantages of an open, democratic and responsible administration are made available to European citizens.
In his opinion the Ombudsman and his office can succeed in this only if the Community's bodies and institutions are totally committed to these principles and to co-operation with the Ombudsman.
Having read these documents I conclude that the Ombudsman believes that such a commitment has already been made, even though his term of office is still too short to make a reasoned assessment.
The European Ombudsman deals particularly with maladministration.
From this point of view he has the opportunity to bring his influence to bear on the development of sound administration.
It is the constitutional right of each citizen of the Union to file complaints with the Ombudsman concerning the activities of Community bodies and institutions, if the complainant feels that he has been subject to neglect, carelessness, faulty advice, procedural fault, discrimination, unnecessary delay or unfair action.
The annual activity report clearly states how the Ombudsman's office works and what citizens should do if they want to take matters to the Ombudsman for consideration.
The Ombudsman's policy of advising and guiding citizens is positive and especially important during the first stages of a new institution.
The proposal of the rapporteur concerning widespread distribution of the annual activity report in the Member States should be supported.
The guidebook written by the Ombudsman serves the same purpose.
It is excellent news that the guidebook has been published so soon, and its content is in my view good.
I feel that we should encourage citizens of the European Union and also citizens from outside the Union staying in the area as well as enterprises, associations and communities in the Union to familiarize themselves with the Ombudsman institution and if necessary to use the services it provides.
I would also like to point out that the activity report reflects the Ombudsman's search for co-operation.
An absolute precondition for reliability is that the Ombudsman in his activity is independent.
Despite this, co-operation is also required.
Parliament should support the Ombudsman in his work.
I would like to congratulate the committee and thank the Ombudsman for his valuable efforts.
Madam President, the Ombudsman Mr Jacob Söderman's first annual activity report is, as Mrs Ahern points out in her report, most interesting and informative.
The annual report should definitely be circulated as widely as possible, since it includes a clear description of the area of authority of the European Ombudsman and thus forms an important source of information for all citizens.
Since for practical reasons it will probably not be possible to distribute the annual activity report widely, it is much appreciated that the Ombudsman as one of his first tasks has prepared a guidebook on 'How to complain to the European Ombudsman?' to be distributed to all citizens.
The guidebook has been published in all Community languages, and is available both at the national ombudsmen's offices and at Community offices.
Increased information will rapidly lead to more complaints.
This is a fact that should be taken into consideration when resources are allocated.
From the point of view of legal protection it is essential that the complainant receives a reply within a reasonable time.
Therefore the Ombudsman's office should have personnel in proportion to the amount of complaints.
The Ombudsman's office is located in Strasbourg, but the Ombudsman hopes to get an additional office, with staff, in Brussels.
The statistics concerning complaints from March 1996 shows that of 86 complaints taken up for consideration 78 concerned the European Commission.
It would therefore seem natural to have the Ombudsman's office in Brussels, even if Parliament's official domicile is Strasbourg.
The list of tasks to be performed by the Ombudsman states that it is his duty to continue to implement efficiently citizens' rights at all levels of Union administration and a openness of the work carried out by Community bodies and institutions.
The first annual activity report suggests that good results will be achieved in both areas.
Madam president, I agree that the Ombudsman's report is important.
I think, though, that his initiative to promote transparency is not enough to solve the problems that could compromise the importance of his action vis-à-vis European citizens.
The first aspect concerns limitations stemming from the Treaty.
Indeed, the Ombudsman has no powers to assess those acts of Member States that are tantamount to maladministration of Community law.
The second aspect concerns the public visibility of the Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, and his linkage with national Ombudsmen and national parliaments.
The people of our countries must be able to see that there is an Ombudsman and that he can receive their complaints.
This is vital.
I think that the fact that the Ombudsman and his department are stranded in Strasbourg, far away from the other Community institutions and their day-today operations, and from the European press specialising in Community affairs, will do nothing to help that visibility.
Mr Söderman, I wish you all the best in your new job and, in particular, as a Portuguese Member of this Parliament, I hope that you will deal properly with your first Portuguese cases, because the way in which you deal with them will be important for convincing the people of my country that it is worthwhile calling on your services.
Madam President, I think that democracy in the European Union was improved and its citizens' rights safeguarded when it was decided in the Maastricht Treaty to create the European Ombudsman as an institution.
The Ombudsman is vital if we are to ensure that our citizens are more closely associated with the Union and that they can present their grievances when they feel they are being wronged.
With the appointment by the European Parliament of Mr Söderman from Finland, I believe we have chosen very much the right man for the job.
Mr Söderman has only been in office for a short while.
He has dealt with 131 of the 298 complaints which he received in 1995.
On the other hand, I think that it is a matter of some concern that 80 % of these 131 cases had to be dismissed because they did not relate to matters falling within the Ombudsman's terms of reference.
It is essential for our citizens to be aware of the Ombudsman's existence, and I therefore fully support the rapporteur's proposal for the Ombudsman's report to be distributed widely.
Finally, I would call on all the EU institutions and others to show respect for the Ombudsman, and to demonstrate all the willingness to cooperate which is needed for his work.
Madam President, I, too, wish to thank and congratulate Mr Söderman.
I congratulate him for presenting us, initially in the Committee on Petitions and now here, with a report which is painstaking, comprehensive, analytic and helpful.
I must not forget also to mention the important contribution of Mrs Ahern, our rapporteur, in presenting us with her report which we approved unanimously in the Committee on Petitions.
I venture to describe this report, in a word, as historic, because it is the first report submitted to the European Parliament by the first European Ombudsman.
I believe that the account it provides, together with the actions initiated by the Ombudsman and the presence and influence that he has brought to bear since the post was introduced, vindicate and re-endorse the confidence shown by the European Parliament and give the best possible guarantee of the institution's future.
The institution is totally consistent with and fundamental to the ideal of the European Union; because, in the final analysis, it is the European Union that concerns us, rather than the individual institutions.
In my view, the confirmed, fundamental right of the European citizen to submit a petition and the real entitlement to direct participation and influence via the bringing of life's experiences to the European Union's attention for the purpose of achieving change are two hugely important pillars.
I, also, agree that, for these reasons, the institution must be given publicity and made more widely known.
Not as a pretext for boosting our prestige, but in order that we can demonstrate convincingly that we are fighting for full democracy in the European Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Traffic in radioactive substances
The next item is the report (A4-0066/96) by Mr Schulz, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the illicit traffic in radioactive substances and nuclear materials (COM(94)0383 - C4-0227/94).
Mr President, there can be no doubt that illicit trafficking in radioactive substances and nuclear materials is both wrong and a cause for concern, which this report rightly addresses.
Yet it must also be a cause for regret that instead of focusing on the main issue this report has sought to widen the debate by including matters of national defence policy which are not within the competence of this Parliament, by attacking the competence of a Member State in the justice field and by using this as an opportunity, yet again, to open up a more general anti-nuclear debate.
This report contains some very questionable assertions about both scientific and legal matters. I welcome the amendments brought forward to remove many of them.
Most of all I welcome those amendments which remove references to the military stocks and defence competences of EU Member States.
Not even this report is suggesting that any illicit trafficking originates in the EU in connection with Member States' stocks.
The problem originates outside the EU.
And by the way, that means outside our competence.
So it seems silly to try to link external problems with Member State competence in defence and security.
As to some of the scientific assertions I believe there is a sizeable body of opinion that would challenge the view expressed in Recital C. And there is certainly a widespread view in the industry that would disagree with the view in Paragraph 3 concerning MOX fuel.
I note in the list of recommendations in the report for action there is a call for the Commission to reorganize the internal structure of those of its departments responsible for nuclear matters.
I wonder how many times this call has gone out to the Commission for other issues and just what chaos might ensue within the Commission if all such suggestions were implemented.
In conclusion, let me reiterate the risk that we run as a Parliament if we dilute our effort by not concentrating on the main issue and insist on poking our nose into matters which are not our competence.
The risk is that Parliament will continue to be taken less seriously than it should be and will not gain any additional powers in the IGC.
Mr President, it was with some surprise that I listened to the previous speakers, in view of the fact that the opinion of the committee which in the first instance has responsibility for foreign affairs and security policy was adopted unanimously.
In that unanimous opinion we state, among other things, that there would naturally be a greater incentive to abolish nuclear weapons if those states which possess such weapons undertook to destroy their own nuclear arsenals.
We also say that all states should naturally refrain from nuclear weapons testing pending international agreement on a total test ban. As regards nuclear power, we also state that over and above this, bearing in mind the ecological risks entailed in nuclear power, it is the whole way of producing energy which should be changed.
This will be the major task of the next century.
So this was the view taken by a committee which is primarily responsible not for environmental and energy issues but for foreign policy aspects.
I have read with considerable interest the record of attendance for the meeting at which we unanimously backed it.
The list includes Mr Matutes, Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Bertens, Mr Caccavale, Mr Colajanni, Mr Goerens, Mr Von Habsburg, Mr König, Mrs Lenz, Mr McGowan, Mr Poettering, Mr Sakellariou, Mr Viola and myself.
These include quite a number of Members who in other contexts would perhaps have adopted different standpoints.
When I then see that Mr Schultz's main report has been adopted by only 12 votes for and 2 against, with 16 abstentions, I begin to wonder a little about how the decision-making system in this parliament operates.
One must surely be able to assume that Members who participated in a unanimous report did not sleep through the entire proceedings but actually support it.
I trust that they will act accordingly in the vote here today too.
Mr President, I wish to compliment Mr Schulz not only on the quality of his report but also on his presentation this morning, which was excellent.
Surely the future well-being of the human race is within the competence of this Parliament? I want to see the world which my granddaughter will inherit handed over in a better form than it is just now.
I believe we should deal with the threats we face.
Without any doubt there has been, as Mr Schulz said, a disturbing and dramatic rise in the number of documented cases of illicit traffic in nuclear materials.
What remains unreported or unknown is anybody's guess.
But what is clear is that serious questions have to be raised about the effectiveness of international controls over nuclear materials.
I listened very intently to what the Commission said in response to the calls for action which Mr Schulz outlines in his report.
I just wish to take this opportunity to return to a question I asked the Commission recently regarding allegations that nuclear materials covered by safeguards at the ITREC facility near Rotondella in southern Italy were illegally removed from that facility.
Now that is not in the former USSR, it is part of the European Union!
I would be extremely interested to know if the Commission could provide me with any further update on that situation, primarily because this incident typifies some of the concerns we have about the nuclear industry.
First among these is public information.
A well-informed public is one of the greatest safeguards we could possibly hope for.
So information about storage, transport or processing must be in the public domain.
Secondly, this close and dubious relationship between the nuclear and the civil nuclear industries: the very genesis of the civil nuclear industry was in the nuclear industry and the blanket of national security still weighs heavily there.
We should lift that blanket and let some light in.
Thirdly, the risks associated with radioactive substances which are not covered by safeguards: there is a case to be made for re-examining the controls over these particular substances.
In conclusion, I plead for more active cooperation between nations and for more stringent and effective international controls in order to contain some of the gravest threats we face.
Mr Schulz's report has opened our eyes to some of these threats and we must act on it now.
Ladies and gentlemen, the charm of Mr Schulz's statements lies in their inconsistency.
On the one hand Mr Schulz rightly pointed out that international crime is one of the greatest threats of the present and the future, on the other hand he tried to play down its importance in an unacceptable manner for internal political motives.
In my view his statements today have made this very plain, because he keeps confusing the fire-fighters with the arsonists.
Of course secret services operate in the grey area, because it is only in the grey area that they can pick up the criminal elements operating there.
The statistic he gave is therefore most informative, which is why I am glad he produced it, even if I do not endorse the way he worded his proposal.
It is informative because it proves that middle Europe, i.e., the countries along the former iron curtain, are particularly exposed to cross-frontier bands of criminals and nuclear crime.
That is why we should be glad that the German and Austrian security services, like the Hungarian, Czech and Polish security services, are making particular efforts to control this crime, and we should be grateful that the Bavarian police and the Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Mr Beckstein, have taken up this challenge and thereby done a service to the European Union as a whole.
In this area Bavaria is quite definitely in the front line of the fight against international crime on behalf of the entire European Union and if you try to knock the security services that can only destabilize these police forces who do such excellent work, which has long since been the practice in the regions of North-Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony, as we have seen from the internal security situation there.
This is a most important subject.
It is a European subject, and that is why I am sorry that you have dragged it down to the level of internal politics with your proposals.
It is a threat!
Attali spoke of hundreds of cases of nuclear smuggling in a report for the United Nations.
The United Nations is assuming that Russia and many former CIS states are not in a position legally or in terms of staffing to combat the spread of this crime.
That is why we must endeavour to do so.
It was not just some flight of the imagination that persuaded the Council, the individual Member States and the Commission to increase and coordinate their efforts and to discuss an increase in funding.
That is why we do support your operative proposals, which are in stark contrast to the opinions you are disseminating here for demagogical reasons.
You know full well that it is necessary to combat international crime on a European basis, and that is the purpose of our amendments and those by Mr Caccavale.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking Mr Schulz for his report and for the great commitment he has shown in dealing with this issue.
Just how much detailed work he has devoted to it is clear from range of documentation and statistics which indicate to us the scale of the problem.
On the other hand, I have also to share in part the reservations expressed by some of those who spoke earlier.
I think that the report has moved a little beyond what is strictly within the area of competence of the House and the committee which has produced the document.
In point of fact the subject-matter of the report - I remind you that the title of the document is 'the illicit traffic in radioactive substances and nuclear materials' - has been extended to cover what are really energy and defence policies.
That clearly does not mean that the problems are not linked.
I realize, as Mr Schulz says, that the problem involves not only nuclear materials as such but the question of experts, particularly from the former Soviet Union, who are smuggling their experience in this field around the world as well as the technologies.
In my view, furthermore, there is no precise list detailing the problem.
We do not in fact know how many people there are posing this great threat that is spreading throughout the world, nor can we identify them.
And it really is a great threat because many of the countries that lack proper democratic control are likely to pose a serious and very great threat to us and to the future of humanity, as a result of the traffic in those materials and the development of nuclear powers.
Nor can we hide away behind the fact that this is now a major business.
And to consider that it can be resolved by making proclamations seems to me to be an absolute non-starter.
We have to realize that this is a difficult form of trafficking, that sales are not as easy as in the case of drugs, for example.
It is therefore plain that attitude of the secret services has an important part to play.
I believe that it is our responsibility, the responsibility of the democratic countries represented in this House, and the Members of this House to secure scrupulous monitoring of this activity, this grey area involving the secret services.
The problem cannot just be one of organized crime!
Mr President, up to now there have not been any real accidents as a result of illicit dealings in nuclear materials but just imagine if nuclear materials got into the hands of a dictator or a terrorist group bent on mischief, then there would be every chance of a disaster.
That means that we have to do everything possible to prevent trafficking in nuclear materials and, if it happens, to combat it.
The Liberal Group believes that today's debate must focus on this, and that our debate and the resolution too must not address the pros and cons of nuclear energy as such, as I have just been hearing from the Green Group.
Mr President, it goes without saying that we must help the countries of Eastern Europe to solve their problems in this regard.
The resolution quite rightly calls on the European Commission to tell us what the financial implications of that support for Eastern Europe are and Parliament is entitled to be informed of them.
Mr President, in connection with measures to counter trafficking I will say just one word: Europol. It is of course a scandal that Europol is not yet able to function properly.
In the Internal Affairs Committee it seemed as if we were holding a German domestic political debate and I have to say in all honesty that I do not care over much for the high tone taken by our honourable friends, the German Members.
The subject is far too important.
The European Parliament must not meddle in German domestic politics but we must have a European Parliament resolution because if we do not Parliament will have achieved nothing and the matter is far too serious to allow that to happen.
Mr President, the discussion on the illicit traffic in radioactive material in fact raises far more questions than we have answers to at present.
First, we keep just hearing about the sellers.
Who and where are the buyers? Where there are sellers there are also buyers.
Secondly, it is unclear why on earth 30 out of the 35 cases - for we have to include the recent seizure in a garage in Bavaria of 277 kg of highly enriched uranium - have occurred in Germany. Does that mean that the German police are particularly good or that the market there is particularly large?
Or are the police not so efficient in other countries?
Third question: how is it that the German Federal Government says that it informed Euratom on 27 July while Euratom says it was informed on 10 August, namely when the aircraft arrived?
There is something odd here. The call for the use of Europol misses the point.
Let me remind you that by law nuclear material comes under the control of Euratom.
So Euratom Safeguards must at last be put in a staffing and financial position that enables it finally to carry out proper controls.
We are rightly upset at the 400 g of plutonium, but we have tonnes of plutonium in England and France.
In France there are 265 facilities with nuclear material, only 116 of them can be inspected by Euratom, of which 30 are so-called mixed facilities, meaning facilities used for civil and military purposes, which we have to deduct too, of which France can say: ' No, not today' .
And there are 103 facilities in which only foreign material, i.e., nuclear material from foreign countries, is stored.
And another thing: the IAEA can only inspect one facility per year in France.
Surely that is the real scandal!
So we must make the following demand: the disclosure by all nuclear states of all their civil and military fissile material and of course a complete stop to the further use of plutonium and a stop to this senseless transportation from one country to another.
That is the real, genuine threat in Europe, and I have not even mentioned the CIS states yet.
We only have a vague inkling of this threat.
We should have spent far more money on this area in order to enable the Euratom Safeguards departments to be up to date.
They have to live on crumbs, with which they cannot carry out any controls.
Mr President, the Commission communication gives a balanced account of how the collapse of the Soviet Union has created a dangerous situation with regard to the illicit trading of nuclear substances.
In a structured manner the Commission explores ways in which the Union can tackle these problems.
Mr Schulz's report, however, is downright disappointing.
Instead of a report containing valuable recommendations to the Commission, we have a chaotic document in which all manner of irrelevant hobbyhorses are ridden to death.
Insistence on nuclear disarmament, the ending of nuclear energy policy, insinuations against the German police.
As a result the Committee on Civil Liberties approved the report by only the slightest of margins, which ought not in principle to be the case in matters dealing with this issue.
Significantly, the Socialist Group only decided to vote in favour of the report once it became apparent that the Christian Democrats would be abstaining.
Because, I ask you, who is there in this House who is not anxious to counter the illicit trading of nuclear substances? A broadly based resolution should not be a problem and would certainly enhance the credibility of Parliament.
Regretfully I have to say that the present resolution in no way meets that need.
I hope that all its shortcomings will be rectified as a result of the amendments, but if not I shall certainly be voting against this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Schulz's report contains some interesting points.
Yes, the traffic in nuclear materials represents a deadly danger; yes, that traffic has grown alarmingly since the break-up of the Soviet Union.
But we should not conclude from that that it was the USSR that was preserving Europe from the atomic threat.
After all, we have nuclear power stations in danger of exploding, atomic submarines in the North Sea, tons of radioactive wastes discharged into the oceans - and all these things are the work of the Communists who held power until 1991.
Today, other countries are in the process of providing themselves with atomic weapons, notably Iran - a terrorist state - aided by the old Communist nomenklatura.
The American Government, too, bears some responsibility for this process.
The Gulf War has destroyed Iraq, the only power in that region capable of counterbalancing the power of the Ayatollahs in Tehran.
So the scale of the risk is significant, and it was the Front National which, during the 1970s, was the first political party in France to caution governments against their all-nuclear policy.
Yet, in an increasingly dangerous world where new atomic powers are coming into existence, the protection of our nations depends, sir, on the acquisition of a credible nuclear deterrent, a civil defence system comparable to that enjoyed by the Swiss, and the reestablishment of border controls.
Mr Schulz, in his report, recommends the nuclear disarmament of France and the United Kingdom.
This is a far cry from trafficking in nuclear materials.
He also passes over civil defence, and of course when he talks about borders he means the borders of the Europe of Maastricht.
Moreover, the desire to give extended powers to the Commission and to Euratom is inspired by the same philosophy.
On the pretext of a threat on a global scale, the Member States are to be deprived of their powers in favour of supranational institutions.
Well, today we have the crisis of mad cow disease, which is first and foremost a failure on the part of the Commission, to serve as a dramatic illustration of the inability of Europe's institutions to protect the public, and the threat represented by the unrestricted opening of our borders.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the spectre of international organized crime is one of the greatest challenges facing all the Member States of the European Union.
In the past it was traffic in human beings and drugs, and now it is increasingly also traffic in nuclear materials, which is of course also encouraged by countries that want to procure themselves nuclear weapons by illicit means.
The problem is a very serious one.
The Commission has presented a good communication.
But the discussion will be brought into discredit if it is used for internal policy purposes and distorted into a kind of story time or unworldly energy policy.
That is of course totally unworldly and does not take account of the fact that in the view of most of the countries in the world, without nuclear energy it is simply not possible to satisfy the energy requirements of a world that is growing by 260 000 inhabitants a day.
And that is why 55 nuclear plants are currently under construction.
But that is not the issue here.
In 1992 Parliament proposed international monitoring plans, the classification of certain acts as a serious form of international crime and the training of experts.
The Commission's recommendations and Parliament's discussions follow the same line: secure storage, accurate monitoring, early detection, identification and prosecution, specialist technical assistance for the countries mainly affected, stocktaking, accounting and monitoring.
In other words a transparent system, together with cooperation between Member States on safety technology and of course building up Europol.
Let me draw particular attention to paragraphs 11 and 14 of the conclusions of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, which points out that the incentives can be reduced by offering scientists opportunities to apply their expertise to peaceful activities.
In particular, plutonium must be rendered harmless by conversion into MOX fuel elements.
We can expect 100 tonnes of weapons-grade plutonium from disarmament over the next few years.
It has to be reprocessed and made safe.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Schulz on his report this morning and his presentation and for pointing out to us the problems that we have in this area.
It is horrifying to think that substances such as high-grade plutonium could get into the wrong hands, like those of terrorists and criminals; it is appalling to think of the spectre of nuclear explosive devices being available to them.
We have the concern in Ireland that there are millions of tonnes of plutonium available in the UK and naturally enough it is worrying for us.
Furthermore, it is no secret that countries such as Iraq and North Korea have made attempts to obtain bomb-building capacity.
So for all these reasons it is important to guarantee that we control the supervisory measures over nuclear materials.
It is well known - indeed Germany informed the International Conference - that 19 cases of thefts involving nuclear materials have been discovered over the last two years.
Those were in Russia; but in addition the German authorities uncovered 267 cases involving either indirect traffic or fraudulent offers to sell nuclear substances in 1994, the most spectacular being the seizure of plutonium in Munich of course.
The response of the Commission has been adequate in proposing to beef up the EURATOM Safeguards inspectorate and to develop closer links with the International Science and Technology Centre under the TACIS Programme.
However, there is a need to improve the legal cooperation between Member States of the European Union and the Republics of the former Soviet Union to deal with the illicit trafficking of nuclear materials.
This should come under the articles of Europol, the European police agency in The Hague.
There is also the option of strengthening the controls of the European Union borders with Eastern Europe and finally, we should consider the formulation of various partnership agreements with the Eastern European States to deal with this issue.
Joint action to help combat this growing problem could also be taken under the European Union's common foreign and security policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by underlining that my group and I remain highly disturbed at the extent of the lack of reactor safety in the former USSR and the ineffective control of nuclear materials.
That is why we are also concerned about the smuggling of nuclear materials and other radioactive substances.
But we must certainly also endeavour to resolve this problem through cooperation with the Russian authorities and not through confrontation.
However, my group finds a number of arguments incomprehensible and hard to understand.
Firstly, the report does not distinguish clearly between questions of nuclear weapons proliferation and nuclear smuggling.
The differences between the two questions should be made much clearer.
Nor do we understand why the report postulates the abolition of nuclear energy while at the same time emphasizing the usefulness of plutonium for peaceful purposes in the European Union.
In my view that is pure nonsense, for why should the reactors in the former USSR become safer, the nuclear materials be supervised better and the smuggling stop if the safe reactors in our country are shut down?
We are dealing here purely with problems in the former USSR, with problems which have indeed taken on dramatic dimensions.
The countries of the former USSR, especially Russia, urgently need energy in order to survive, so they cannot abandon nuclear energy.
At the same time, their control systems urgently need modernizing, since they are no longer able to ensure adequate supervision of the nuclear materials and radioactive substances.
I discovered that myself a fortnight ago in Novosibirsk where I attended a conference on cooperation between Russia and Euratom on the control of nuclear materials and also had an opportunity to visit a Russian fuel elements factory.
The situation is dramatic!
On the question of combating the threat of nuclear smuggling, my group calls for the Union to make every effort to link up the various executive authorities and thus finally to establish comprehensive cooperation.
Furthermore, we call for closer cooperation with Russia on the prevention of nuclear smuggling.
We must raise the necessary funds for this which, we believe, would be well invested.
For it is without doubt cheaper and better to give full support to the Russian authorities concerned in their efforts to modernize or set up their control systems than for us here in the European Union to pick up the nuclear materials and other radioactive substances one by one.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, from the viewpoint of a nuclear-free Member State the plain facts - I emphasize 'facts' - presented by the rapporteur look twice as serious.
We are dealing here with what is no less than a European and international mega-problem.
Combatting the illicit traffic in radioactive substances and nuclear materials is of course the concern of every country and should therefore be dealt with by the United Nations and be classified as a crime against humanity, as genocide was in the 1948 UN Convention.
Given the growth of illicit nuclear trafficking, it still seems legitimate to ask whether the European Union should not regard it as an urgent task to endeavour to get out of the nuclear industry.
At any rate, during the negotiations on the accession of new Member States, we will have to examine the safety aspect of their nuclear power stations very carefully indeed.
Mr President, I will take less than two minutes.
I would like to ask you to give me an opportunity to clarify something.
I can just accept terms such as utter nonsense or similar interpretations, but not the word 'demagogical' for my statement!
That is why I would like to make a statement of fact that is not demagogical.
Twelve Member States of our Union are not familiar with the problem of nuclear trafficking, three are.
The police authorities of all three countries have confirmed to me as rapporteur that in no case could they establish the involvement of organized crime.
That statement was made by the German, the Italian and the Belgian police.
That is what I have to say on the subject of 'organized crime' and 'demagogy' .
The debate is closed.
The vote will be held at noon.
Votes
Mr President, concerning paragraph 4 there is an alteration to amendment 5 which would read, following the oral amendment that everyone knows of, as follows: ' Urges that reductions in the fishing fleet should not depend only on reductions in vessels but also on active policies top defend fishery resources' .
This is the wording of my amendment on behalf of my group.
Mr President, this oral addition does nothing to change the meaning of the paragraph, and we decided to reject it, not because of the merits of this amendment but because these same ideas can already be found in several other passages of the report.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would ask that we not do proceed to the vote on the oral amendment.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, we have already overrun our time and we still have four motions for resolutions on the Schulz report.
This report is most important and in view of the crumbling attendance here I request on behalf of my group that we vote on the Schulz report at the next part-session.
I ask you to put that to the vote.
Mr President, looking at the voting list I see that we currently do not have all that many votes still remaining, so that with a bit of goodwill we could well be finished by 1.30 p.m.
Our Group thus prefers to complete the voting.
Mr President, I find it unfortunate that we never manage to organize our voting time in a way that allows us to make best use of our sittings.
In recent months we have repeatedly seen voting time extending far into the lunch break.
I think we have to organize ourselves better.
So I agree with the Socialist Group's suggestion that the Schulz report be voted on in two weeks' time at our next Brussels meeting.
Mr President, it is very late in any case.
I want to support the request by Mrs Hoff and Mr De Vries, for this report really is too important for us to try to get through it now.
I too am in favour of voting on it during the next part-session.
Mr President, if I understand correctly, the agenda which has been proposed for us provides for any unfinished morning votes to continue at 6 p.m.
So I gather, Mr President, that a convenient slot is envisaged from 6 in the evening.
The House will vote on the proposal that the vote on the Schulz report be postponed from this afternoon or from tomorrow morning to the Brussels part-session.
(Parliament decided to postpone the vote)
Mr President, the same obviously applies to the Titley report as to the Schulz report.
However, I would have nothing against our continuing the vote through to the end now.
The House will vote on the proposal that voting continue on the Giansily and Titley reports.
(Parliament agreed to the proposal)
I want to take what has been expected of us again today, namely to work here for hours and then not to vote, as an opportunity to request that we finally reinstate voting time on Thursday evening.
We will not be able to do our parliamentary work here properly without that voting time.
I ask you to put this to the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents.
The Nordic passport union which has been in existence for just over forty years has functioned excellently.
The Nordic countries have abolished passport requirements for their citizens, but not border controls.
The Nordic passport union should not be put at risk for the sake of such a hazardous undertaking as accession to the Schengen Agreement.
Should Norway for whatever reason not be able to participate in Schengen cooperation or be compelled to cease being a party to it in the future, this would put Sweden in an extremely difficult and in practical terms impossible position if the long land border with Norway had to be guarded.
Accession to Schengen by Sweden would threaten the Nordic passport union and establish new borders with the Baltic states, Eastern Europe and the rest of the world.
Sweden risks becoming part of a European security state which keeps records on and monitors the citizens of the Union and prevents others from entering 'Fortress Europe' .
In both Sweden and Norway Schengen is being marketed as an enlargement of the Nordic passport union.
This is wrong, since the Nordic countries have abolished passport requirements but not border controls.
If border controls are abolished 'monitoring measures' will be needed in the form of common police activities.
This will require an enormous control system, the Schengen Information System (SIS) in Strasbourg, Europol, which is moving in the direction of a federal police force modelled on the American FBI.
There is also a risk that the passport union will be replaced by an obligation to carry a special ID card at all times and in all places.
Schengen also means stricter asylum, visa and refugee policies, with Sweden having to introduce stricter visa requirements for several countries.
The risks of arms and drug smuggling will also increase if border controls are abolished.
We have voted against this resolution because there are all too many question marks involving Sweden.
We dissociate ourselves completely from the idea of the Schengen Agreement being incorporated in the EU Treaty.
The Nordic passport union has worked incredibly well and should not be put at risk for the sake of the huge gamble which accession to the Schengen Agreement in many ways represents.
Should Norway for whatever reason not be able to be party to the Schengen Agreement or be forced to withdraw from it in the future, Sweden would find itself in a precarious and practically impossible situation as regards control of the long land border between Sweden and Norway.
Another reason not to proceed with Sweden's accession to the Schengen Agreement until further notice is the compensatory measures which Sweden would have to take when border controls vis-à-vis the Schengen countries were abolished.
It has still not been said what these compensatory measures would be.
It is therefore impossible to vote for this resolution since far too many questions remain unanswered as far as Sweden is concerned.
For example, through the Schengen Agreement Sweden would be part of a common territory for the free movement of goods and persons.
For our part, to share such a common area with the Netherlands, which takes a totally different view of the cultivation of narcotic crops, is an incredibly risky undertaking.
Péry report
Mr President, on the Péry report, I am most amazed.
We tabled an amendment on how Member States get round the multiannual guidance programme by transferring their vessels to third countries and by using flags of convenience.
I am surprised that there were only 47 votes in favour of this amendment, despite the fact that even my own country of Ireland complains about it.
The British, for example, are always complaining about the flags of convenience and the fact that their own government has failed to decommission and, instead, has sold off its flags of convenience to countries like Spain and France.
This is quite appalling because it represents a failure to recognize that European fleets are far too large and need to be reduced.
Member States have to recognize that fact.
But some Member States are exploiting this situation and the people representing Member States suffering as a result do not even realize this.
It is a disgrace that only 47 Members voted in favour of my amendment which criticized Member States which transferred their vessels to third countries which are already overexploited by the fisheries agreements or transferred their vessels to countries like Britain.
They fly flags of convenience and then, when they break the rules, Member States, for example Spain, turn around and say: ' Oh, well, it was flying a British flag' , when the reality is that it was a Spanish-owned vessel.
The Member States who are doing this have to acknowledge that they are not meeting their obligations.
No-one would dispute that there is an urgent need to conserve fishing stocks by reducing fleet capacity.
However what is in dispute is the size of the reduction and the particular manner in which it is to be applied.
Ireland, since its accession to the EEC, has never been treated fairly with regard to our total allowable catch.
Despite the fact that we have 20 % of European coastal waters we have only been allocated 4 % of fishing quotas.
The proposed reduction in the European Union fishing fleet should be used to redress this balance and Ireland should therefore not be subjected to pro rata cuts.
Furthermore if there is to be a major reduction in fishing activity it must be vigorously policed to ensure that there is no illegal fishing. And given the legitimate concerns of Irish fishermen relating to Spanish access to the Irish Box the EU must provide the necessary resources to patrol this and other areas.
I rise in support of the case of the fishermen of Southend, Leigh and Canvey in my constituency, who are further threatened by the Commission's latest announcement.
These fishermen are native to the Kent and Essex waters, with smaller boats under 17 metres, and have already suffered a cutback of more than half of their catch in the last ten years.
Bigger boats from Belgium, Holland and other UK regions have grabbed their share.
And whilst fish stocks in our waters have held up compared to elsewhere in the North Sea, these latest quota cutbacks threaten more non-native boats coming in to destroy the livelihoods of locally based fishermen.
That is why our call today for more involvement by the fishermen themselves and the amendment which I have cosponsored to prohibit 'quota hopping' of British stocks by other European vessels is absolutely right.
Our aim in Essex is to set up our own regional fishery with our own producers' organization to give the traditional and important fishing industry off the Essex coast much more control over our own waters and therefore over our own future.
The fishermen of Northern Ireland have never felt more isolated.
The recent Commission announcement of an intended 40 % cut in the fishing fleets of Europe was the final blow.
Such a proposal would devastate the industry and the communities in which they are situated for they have no alternatives.
This dictatorial approach without consultation with the industry and the fishermen is unacceptable and will be resisted to the bitter end.
The Commission says there are fewer fish available to catch.
The fishermen in my area say this is nonsense and the scientists never contact them or ask their advice on the stocks available.
This is an impossible position for the Commission and the fishermen.
Brussels is too remote and a more reliable system must be found, with more control devolved to the administrations closer to the people.
The problem of quota-hopping and flagging out must be addressed for it causes deep resentment in the industry.
We at present have a common fisheries policy which does not work and is not understood by the fishermen or the industry.
We need and require positive proposals to revive the industry and instill confidence to ensure survival.
With regard to both policy formulation and the implementation of policy, the European Union's approach on fisheries is seriously deficient and ineffective and is doing nothing to assist fisheries development.
On the contrary, it is driving a sector which has traditionally been dynamic and productive, especially in the coastal and island regions on the periphery of the Union, which in many cases are dependent on fishing for their survival, into inactivity and decline.
The imposition of Community directives which take no account of particular national circumstances, and which, rather than promoting modernization of the fishing fleet, demand ever more severe cuts in its size, and weaknesses in infrastructure and the miserly funding of fisheries research, which are depriving those involved in fishing of technical and scientific support, have led to problems in the sector which are beginning to look insuperable.
The signs are already very worrying, even for a country like Greece with its long experience and tradition of fishing and its natural advantages in terms of geography and fishing resources.
We think that the Member States must be given the option of managing their own resources, and we consider the implementation of discriminatory restrictions to ensure conservation of valuable stocks and of a range of technical measures (criteria for the granting of fishing licences and the necessary controls, breeding ground studies and protection, measures to protect seas against pollution by toxic and hazardous wastes etc.) to be essential.
We do not believe that over-fishing and the over-exploitation of sea resources can be fairly blamed on the large numbers of inshore fishermen who each catch just a few kilos of fish, who have always existed (and are the ones whose numbers are falling with every passing year) and who contribute to the economies and help to maintain the ecological balance of their localities.
The problem was started, and is being made worse all the time, by the big industrial fishing fleets; by the factory ships which fish for the world market and set prices, and which are causing economic, social and ecological devastation by fishing coastal zones to exhaustion.
In the Mediterranean, in particular, this is tolerated, even connived at, by the common fisheries policy, which seems to work in favour of allowing sea resources to be managed, in terms of both orthodox fishing and aquaculture, by the multinationals whose only interest in the fisheries policy is making sure that it suits their ends.
We believe that fisheries activity can and must be strengthened. However, this can be achieved only through a new policy dedicated to promoting proper exploitation of sea resources, to safeguarding the balance of the marine ecosystem via effective measures to curb the pollution which is one of the main causes of lower catches and to ensuring that workers in the sector receive satisfactory incomes and have a decent standard of living.
Arias Cañete report
Mr President, the Arias Cañete report on fishing problems in the North-Western Atlantic area comes before us at a time when it could hardly be more topical, since the Euro-Canadian declaration which should have been adopted by the Council last week is still under examination today.
Among the obstacles that have occurred is the Commission's determination to slip in free trade everywhere, even when the Council will have none of it, and the Commission's strange omission of the entire heritage of relations between the Union Member States and the Canadian provinces.
Let us hope that these failings will be corrected.
And then there is the thorny problem of fisheries, which we have been considering today.
On this point, the European Community is calling on Canada to ratify the bilateral 'Fisheries' agreement of 1992, which provides in particular, and among other things, for the reopening of Canadian waters and Canadian ports to Community vessels.
The Arias Cañete report, as adopted, supports that demand very strongly, and so do we.
This matter of fisheries brings to light an institutional quirk which may help to explain the apparent weakness of the Union in the day-to-day handling of its problems.
Within the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization, as within many other international bodies in the fisheries sector, the European Union has only one vote in total, rather than one vote per Member State.
So, within the North-Western Atlantic Fisheries Organization, the European Union as a whole carries the same weight as Cuba.
The Commission really must be very anxious to be thought of as the single Government of Europe if it has come to the point of tolerating this kind of anomaly.
This is something that absolutely must be put right in the future.
This fisheries report contains observations to which special attention must be drawn.
I refer in particular to the following recitals:
J) which concerns Canadian law which the EU cannot accept.
The EU has nothing to do with these provisions as far as fisheries is concerned.
The EU must learn to respect individual states' sovereignty as regards industries which are important to them;
V) which concerns the fact that Canada wishes to have zero quotas for cod, which the EU does not regard as being justified pending new scientific data on the subject.
We consider that in the case of fish quotas the precautionary principle must apply so that stocks are not reduced/wiped out.
The EU should respect Canada's opinion concerning zero quotas as an ecological measure based on the precautionary principle.
Mather report
The Danish social democrats are voting in favour of the report on minimum requirements for improving the protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres.
Workers should be given the best possible protection.
However, a connection is lacking between this proposal for a directive and other similar proposals, for example on chemical agents.
It appears strange for special rules to be laid down when the general basis regarding chemical agents is not yet in place.
The scope of the directive is thus unclear.
We therefore hope to see a move soon from the Commission on chemical agents.
Stenius-Kaukonen report
In that benzene is an extremely hazardous substance which is also extremely common I intend to vote for the most far-reaching requirements which are put forward.
Naturally it is my hope that a majority in the EU parliament will also have the nerve to set proper requirements as regards the protection of employees.
Even with a limit value of 1 ppm, which is proposed in the report, there are considerable risks of humans contracting leukaemia.
It is therefore reasonable that the limit value should be lowered after 1 January 2001, as proposed in amendment 20 by the Green Group.
This limit value is also being proposed in Denmark, for example, at the present time.
In this connection it is important that it is made absolutely clear that this provision is binding and that no exceptions will be made.
I naturally support the amendments relating to these requirements.
Barón Crespo report
Is it really necessary to stress once again what an essential necessity the MEDA aid programme is for the Mediterranean countries?
Yes, I believe it is!
And I must warmly congratulate our colleague and friend Barón Crespo on the quality of his work.
Last December we adopted a position on providing effective aid to the Mediterranean countries, aware that peace and stability were greatly dependent on the economic development of that region, certain areas of which have been hard hit by the economic crisis.
We know, too, the role that we need to play in reestablishing dialogue between the countries of that part of the world, a dialogue which may enable terrorism to be eradicated and democracy instituted throughout the region.
In December, then, we made the implementation of the programme conditional on two things. One was greater transparency in the allocation and use of the funds provided.
This condition appears to me minimal but essential, and it would be worth using it in some cases with other community subsidies.
The other condition related to respect for human rights in potential beneficiary countries; and in this case the subject has given rise to much debate on the aid termination procedures to be employed in the event of human rights violations.
What a lot of sterile argument to obscure genuine debate on the merits!
Yes, it is necessary that human rights should be respected, and I sincerely believe that the Mediterranean States are making an effort to do so, though that effort may still be regarded as insufficient in some quarters...
Be that as it may, I want to make the point here of how terribly subjective human rights violations are - are we going to have to lay down convergence criteria?
More seriously, though, I should not like to think that the debates on human rights possibly conceal a degree of reluctance with regard to aid for the Mediterranean.
In these difficult budgetary times, we have to make choices, certainly.
But I do not believe that favouring the development of some partners rather than others is the right choice to make!
The European Union must establish itself at the heart of a region extending from the East to the Mediterranean.
Let us be bold; let us not take the risk of excluding the Mediterranean.
All of us here know that, sooner or later, the misfortunes of the Mediterranean States will have repercussions on Europe.
Let us be fully aware of the opportunity we have to develop and strengthen a wide range of partnerships with countries whose many different heritages and traditions can only enrich us.
Titley report
The Titley report on aid for reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia is full of high-minded sentiments.
It is a pity, though, that this solicitude did not put in an appearance earlier, five years ago, when a number of States in the former Yugoslavia expressed the desire to gain independence and sovereignty.
At that time, for the European Union to have recognized the independence of those States would no doubt have made it possible to avoid the war, and the destruction for which we are now paying, in every sense.
We shall not be voting in favour of this report, for that reason and many others: because the only country that will benefit at present is Bosnia, since Croatia - one-third of whose territory has been ravaged by fighting - has been denied access to the PHARE programme, has seen negotiations for a cooperation agreement with the EU suspended, and has had the gates of the Council of Europe slammed in its face, though those gates were open to the great Russian 'democracy' .
Because Europe, despite the promises of other donors, is responsible for 1/3 of the donations in theory and 2/3 in practice.
And because, above all, it does not seem to us that Europe will emerge politically strengthened by bearing the financial burden of the consequences of the international policing operations conducted by the United States under the leadership of the highly globalist United Nations Organization.
Unless, of course, this Europe of yours believes that its international political dimension can only be asserted under the shadow of the Clinton administration.
Pex report
The Pex report is about the way the Council treated the European Parliament at the last conciliation procedure.
And here the question arises: what interest has the Council in ignoring the European Parliament's proposed amendments in this manner? After all Parliament is not primarily concerned with disputes about areas of competence, as keeps being suggested, but with the matter in hand.
The Council's proposed regulation falls well behind the existing means of supporting the CIS states.
Furthermore it does not take account of the new facts, namely that the EU now has a long border with Russia.
And lastly, what is called the compromise package really only regulates means of improving the way TACIS funds can flow back into the European countries and in such a way that all EU countries get their share.
It fully ignores the fact that the sufferers will be the people in the CIS countries.
Nor does it take note of the fact that small projects in particular will hardly be allowed now.
The disappearance of the entire social dimension and most of the environmental and health aspects will considerably impair the process of transformation in these countries.
By its attitude the Council is showing that it does not want these improvements in terms of content either, which is why it is hiding behind the arguments of the compromise package.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0735/96 by Mr La Malfa, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the elections in Albania; -B4-0774/96 by Mrs Green and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the elections in Albania; -B4-0783/96 by Mr Pasty and Mr Caligaris, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the elections in Albania; -B4-0791/96 by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the elections in Albania; -B4-0794/96 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the elections in Albania; -B4-0813/96 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the electoral process in Albania; -B4-0826/96 by Mrs Pack and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the electoral process in Albania.
Madam President, in this debate today the issue is not whether we agree that the elections in Albania were undemocratic.
Sadly, everyone acknowledges that there was an orgy of intimidation against the opposition, even those who are endeavouring to paint the situation in a more favourable light.
The self-delusion of some people who maintain that it is a case of good pro-Westerners on the one side and supporters of the former regime on the other - that, too, is reprehensible, given that the roles of everyone, now and before, are known fact.
They are all children of the former regime.
The fact, however, that nine opposition parties boycotted the second round of the elections, the fact that the Albanian electoral committee itself felt obliged to declare the elections invalid in 17 constituencies and the fact that no international observers were present when the new elections took place in those 17 constituencies do not say much for the progress being made towards democratization in Albania.
This country is a member of the Council of Europe.
It aspires to closer links with the European Union.
Nevertheless, it is true that Albania is still struggling to find its way in Europe and equally true that the road to democracy is not an easy one, particularly when a country has no tradition of democracy.
The recent happenings are far from encouraging.
If the European Parliament and the European Union genuinely wish to help the Albanian people along the road to democracy, they must issue a stern warning to Mr Berisha and condemn unequivocally conduct which may serve the interests in the region of certain parties in the medium term but will lead to greater tension in the long term.
The region is already full of tension and burdened down by suffering in myriad forms as a result of the open machinations of powerful states and the zones of influence that they are striving to regain.
Madam President, undemocratic elections have taken place in Albania, which is a member of the Council of Europe.
The lack of a free media, the exclusion of certain opposition parties from the elections together with serious irregularities have made the Albanian elections into a farce.
The OSCE report is very clear on that.
We must do everything we can to steer Albania as quickly as possible back on to the road to full democracy.
Albania is entitled to this, but so are we.
So the elections must be held again from scratch. Political prisoners must be released and the conditions for the holding of new elections must be drastically improved.
To that end the Union must pressurize the Albanian authorities and suspend cooperation with Albania.
The European Parliament must send a clear message.
Consequently the Liberal Group will support the amendments put down by the Socialist Group because any half-hearted pronouncement will only encourage President Berisha to continue his undemocratic behaviour.
He has to understand that there is at present no democracy, in other words he must listen not to us but to the democratic will of his own people who are at last free of the yoke of the past.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, although the elections took place scarcely a month ago, the public has almost forgotten what happened around these elections.
But the European Union institutions must not overlook these incidents.
According to information received from international observers, these elections involved very serious infringements of the principle of free and democratic elections.
Intimidation of voters and actual cheating were observed on several occasions and on such a massive scale that Helsinki Watch, the international human rights organization, pointed out in a report on these elections that their results must not be recognized because of the systematic infringements of local and international rules.
Even before the elections, President Berisha and his government took a number of measures which considerably restricted the chances of the opposition parties.
The opposition had little chance of presenting itself and its programmes to the media.
The infringements of the democratic electoral process even led all the opposition parties to withdraw from the second ballot.
Where there is no opposition, there is no democratic state.
But President Berisha has achieved one thing now: in contrast to 1994 - remember - when the draft constitution he proposed was rejected by a clear majority of the inhabitants, he can now fashion the Albanian state as he wants and dictate what happens in the country.
As a result of international pressure elections were held again in 17 constituencies without the participation of the opposition parties.
It is clear that this has not saved democracy in Albania.
Only new general elections that respect the international rules can put the democratic process in Albania back on track.
No democratic party in the European Union can even consider any further cooperation with a party that shows so little respect for democracy and is only interested in staying in power.
To pretend that nothing has happened is hypocrisy!
It is not enough to appeal as the Christian Democrats have done to the government party to make responsible and prudent use of the re-confirmation of their position as the majority party in order to achieve broad agreement wherever possible.
That would legitimize cheating and be a threat to democracy.
For the European Social Democrats it is not the colour of the government party that is important.
All that counts for us is respect for democracy.
Full or partial recognition of these elections is equal to the rejection of democratic principles for Albania.
So we call on the Council and the Commission to freeze relations with Albania until new elections have been held in this country under international democratic rules.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in a Chamber as deserted as the one in which we now find ourselves in this form of normality that Parliament has appropriated for itself whereby policy has to be evacuated, it is appropriate that we should be discussing Albania and the difficult, the very difficult phase we are now seeing, with the holding of elections that were clearly completely, partly or largely irregular, as claimed by many, although not all, observers.
And in these circumstances we are now witnessing a rather strange turn of events in that the two main groups in the House - which alone account for 400, if not more, Members - are not signing a text on Albania, are not therefore taking up a position, unless to absent themselves, and are not abiding by the compromise that was in fact negotiated with the Socialist Group and the PPE Group also.
That document, signed by Group of the European Liberal Democratic and Reformist Party, the Group of the European Radical Alliance, the Green Group in the European Parliament and the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left endeavours to be balanced and robust, a strong but not an unbalanced appeal, as would appear to me to be the implication of what Mrs Hoff said.
I would in fact agree with what Mrs Hoff said, were the philosophy of the Socialist group applied to all of the situations in which this happens, but it seems to me odd that in the case of Albania the Socialist Group should want to adopt a position which is absolutely at odds with that of the other part of the House and which above all - I repeat - is being applied in a somewhat unilateral manner to that country and not others.
I therefore again ask the scant representatives of the groups I have mentioned to think again so that the text we have drawn up as a compromise and that I would describe as robust but acceptable can be adopted without going too far in one direction or the other.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. The electoral fraud that has just occurred in the recent sham elections in Albania has been internationally recognised.
Violations of the political and human rights of countless leaders, party members, trade unionists and members of the civil society in Albania are internationally recognised, too - violations that took place before, during and after the sham elections took place.
In this context, the European Parliament must either adopt a clear position on this issue or set serious precedents for the future in similar situations.
The European Parliament must adopt a clear position and not adopt any position that is in cahoots with democratic mockeries.
In order to adopt that clear position we are tabling amendments along with the Socialist Group calling clearly for the elections to be re-held in accordance with international standards - or else any economic and political cooperation could be suspended.
Madam President, as I had cause to say at the last part-session that we held in Brussels, practically all observers, of every nationality, found that the elections in Albania were irregular, and that the irregularities took place before the poll, that is to say in the course of the electoral campaign - as a result, for instance, of the fact that not everyone had sufficient opportunity to campaign; during the poll itself, as a result of clear irregularities in access to the ballot-box, by preventing the monitoring of the poll itself, and also after the poll because it was possible, contrary to democratic principles, to examine the votes and because opposition protests were suppressed.
We are therefore dealing with a failure to respect the normal rules of democracy and have therefore to ask ourselves a question: what kind of process of democratization is under way in Albania at this point in time? We are dealing - perhaps for the first time - with regression of the normal democratic process.
That the previous elections went better than these therefore means that no attention was paid by international bodies, including the European Union, to ensuring that this was a progressive and not a regressive process.
In that context, it is a matter of regret that yesterday, during the debate on the Italian presidency, President Dini did not discuss the issue of Albania.
I believe that it is at any rate necessary at this point to hold new elections that respect democratic rules.
We have to work towards getting the Albanian Government to change policies and give guarantees to that effect, but we have also to work towards securing rapprochement between the government and the opposition so that dialogue can be reopened in Albania.
And we can also do this by bearing in mind that we need to replace the 1992 economic cooperation agreement: means of exerting pressure are therefore available to us.
Finally, I wish to remind the House of the need to apply, from now on at least, the same methods and the same criteria to all countries in which a process of democratization is under way.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to stick to the facts and not to things someone has read somewhere.
One: initially all the parties took part in the first elections in Albania.
At that point, according to its own statements, the opposition saw no unsurmountable problems in participating in the elections.
Two: the opposition parties, led by the socialist parties, withdrew their candidates and even their electoral assistants two hours before the end of the elections, but after the announcement by an American opinion poll that the election results were extremely unfavourable to them.
Three: the latter event obviously led to irregularities at some polling stations.
Four: the independent electoral committee found that irregularities and acts of violence had taken place in 17 constituencies and repeat elections were held there last Sunday.
Five: the opposition refused to take part in this second election round.
Nobody, my dear Mr Bertens, was excluded!
Six: following the opposition's call for a boycott the recorded electoral turnout was only 18 % lower.
Seven: the high vote for the Democratic Party was therefore confirmed at the second ballot.
Eight: the various observers of the first ballot did not agree in their assessments.
Let me remind you, for instance, of the Helsinki Human Rights Group.
And since only one report was taken into consideration, the ODIHR report by the OSCE, there really are doubts about the election.
The composition of the group of electoral observers is extremely questionable.
I identified no less than 14 of these electoral observers as Young Socialists, as genuine Young Socialists and not parliamentarians.
In addition there were two Marxists, who were highly regarded guests in Albania at the time of Hoxha.
These 14 people were originally invited as observers of the communists and only subsequently recruited by the ODIHR group to observe the elections.
We should also remember that the EU ambassador and the American ambassador in Tirana drafted a document yesterday in which they picked the ODIHR report to pieces.
And they were strictly opposed to these conclusions also being put to use here.
We should take note of that and not only of what fits in with our political calculations.
Nine: the Albanians voted in accordance with their own views and not the wishes of the Left in this House, which greatly pleases me personally.
Ten: on the call for the release of political prisoners, let me say that I know of no political prisoners in Albania.
I only know of the case of a prominent left-winger who is, however, in prison for financial offences - that is to say, a legal matter that I will not become involved in.
Eleven: as Mrs Hoff said, I expect the Albanian Government to use its large majority with moderation and to involve the opposition in its activities, even though the latter rejected it.
I hope this opposition will take a constructive approach, for it too represents its fellow-citizens and its country.
Twelve: Albania had to find its way from the Middle Ages to modern times, i.e., from the high-security wing of communism to democracy, in a space of five years.
That is hellishly difficult and there will still be a lot of mistakes for a long time to come.
So let us not be so arrogant and blinkered in our judgment!
We too found it difficult to achieve our democratic standards.
We can be proud of them, but now we should help Albania to refine these standards further.
That is what we should do, rather than rejecting it!
Madam President, in response to what other speakers before me have said.
I am happy to echo what Mr Bertens said about his Group's position and the clear message which his Group too wishes to send to the Albanian Government, to the effect that the situation there is not acceptable to us.
Listening to Mrs Pack of the Christian Democratic Group I think our assessments of the situation there are quite a long way apart.
Our concern is not so much with a party-political assessment of the situation there but primarily with the conclusion that there were so many irregularities in these elections that one cannot speak of a credible result and if there is so much uncertainty, so much doubt, we think the elections have to be held afresh.
That is not a party-political choice.
Our aim is to reach an objective verdict on what is going on in Albania.
Observers, including observers other than those mentioned by Mrs Pack, identified so many irregularities, and where observers were not present all manner of things may have happened so that one can in all fairness talk of systematic fraud.
In a situation like this, where there is so much doubt, we think that fresh elections have to be held and that we as Parliament should make a clear pronouncement on them.
We can argue at length over who was or is to blame for the way things turned out but that is irrelevant to the question of whether the elections were fair.
For the Albanians' understanding of democracy it is better, if errors are discovered, that the elections should be held all over again.
That is better than endless discussions about where exactly irregularities occurred and where the voting needs to be done again.
I also think, in conclusion, that we should treat Albania in the same way as we treat other countries, in accordance with the standards applied by the Council of Europe, and we cannot adjust those each time the political situation changes.
My Group has clearly endorsed this position, also through the amendments to the joint resolution.
In short, it makes it clear that we stand firmly behind the voter in Albania who has been treated with such contempt.
Madam President, when I listened to Mrs Pack I actually had the feeling I should hand her my two minutes' speaking time, for what she said was so interesting, so clear and factual, and a good answer to the irresponsible demagogy we are faced with today.
The truth is, indeed, that we find ourselves in a time of democratic decline.
Anyone who knows a bit about Albania - unfortunately too few people know this country - will remember how things started out there.
I was there shortly after the collapse of the communist regime and saw the dreadful conditions that prevailed there.
Of course it is quite clear that you cannot have the kind of democracy we know in Switzerland or the UK there yet.
But there is no doubt that great progress has been made.
Something really is being done for the people in Albania.
The country has a government that really wants to do the right thing, and we have to recognize that.
That irregularities occurred during the elections cannot be denied.
The fact that the elections had to be repeated in 17 constituencies is evidence of that.
But in most constituencies the electoral process was orderly.
I very much regret that the opposition, which for the rest was made up almost entirely of communists, withdrew the electoral observers before the end of the elections.
They simply did not want to find out the truth because they knew full well from polls carried out in the course of the elections that they were facing a major defeat.
So I believe that we should do our utmost to ensure that Albania gets what it deserves, namely that it is accepted into the community of European democracies, even if that will still take a while.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is, I believe, no question that the elections in Albania were not completely democratic, in fact that there were serious violations of the most fundamental principles of democratic competition: that is the position, there is nothing to discuss.
But it seems to me that, as usual, we are moving from one extreme to another.
We did all we could to secure some kind of European protection for the elections in Albania to achieve, as far as possible, non-violent transition towards democracy, and now we are calling for everything to be dismantled, for the elections to be held afresh and chaos to be returned to that country.
That, I believe, is an approach that we have to reject: we need to exert strong pressure on the Albanian Government that has won the - in many instances, I repeat, nondemocratic - elections to hold them afresh in those districts in which irregularities have been established, but only in those districts.
I think it incumbent on Europe, at this stage, to monitor closely, without creating further upheaval, this process of transition in Albania: it is not democracy that is at stake here but above all civil coexistence within the whole Balkan region.
Madam President, the final report of the OSCE on the elections in Albania confirms previous reports detailing the irregularities which took place during voting and reports cases in which there were in fact infringements of the new electoral law approved last February.
The European Union has issued a forceful statement concerning those events and has asked for the elections to be held again in those constituencies in which there had been irregularities.
It also stated that the continuation of the electoral process according to international democratic rules constituted an essential factor for the successful future development of relations between Albania and the European Union.
We also condemn the violent police response to the demonstration on 28 May.
The Commission has received in Brussels the leaders of the Albanian opposition parties to hear their views and their criticisms of the way in which the elections were held and it was clear that the elections would have to be held again in various constituencies.
The decision taken by the Albanian Government to hold the elections again in 17 of those constituencies is a step in the right direction but it is regrettable that this has not given time to take into account and evaluate the final report of the OSCE and for observers to be present when they are held again.
Only yesterday an informal meeting of the permanent Council of the OSCE was held in Vienna with an Albanian delegation to discuss the OSCE's own report.
Representatives of that organization were invited to Tirana to deal with the recommendations and technical aspects of the report.
It - the report - includes recommendations on improving electoral procedures and the holding of elections.
It passed no judgment on the general validity of the elections nor did it state the exact number of constituencies in which it would be appropriate to hold them again.
It is clear that respect for democratic principles and legality will be decisive for the future development of relations with Albania.
It is true, as some honourable Members have said, that Albania is an important factor for stability in an extremely unstable region and it is also true that in recent years important progress has been made in the economic field.
We must therefore continue to support this internal trend which, I repeat, is in the right direction.
In recent months the Commission has been engaged on preparing a negotiating mandate for a new trade and cooperation agreement with Albania.
For the moment the Commission has preferred to wait to see how the situation in Albania develops and whether, through the actions of the party in power and the dialogue between President Berisha and the opposition parties, it is possible to restore calm in Albanian political life and gradually to establish normal democratic working.
Thank you, Mr Marín!
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the motion for a resolution (B4-0734/96) by Mr La Malfa and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democratic and Reformist Party, on the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Madam President, it is very important that democratic elections should be held in Bosnia.
The date has been set and we must stick to it.
However justified a postponement might seem in the present circumstances, that would carry a lot of risks, for example Bosnia might disintegrate further and we would have to continue our negotiations with the warlords of recent years even longer.
Bosnia needs a stable and legitimate government, based on democratic elections.
We must thus do all we can to improve the conditions in which those elections are held.
First point: IFOR's mandate must be broadened so that IFOR can arrest war criminals and oversee the return of refugees.
Free media must be encouraged.
Separatist forces must be firmly resisted.
Not only must Karadzic and Mladic be put behind bars, we must also reject the independence of the Bosnian Croats and strongly condemn the attack on Silajdzic.
The announcement that the Bosnian Serbs are to set up their own tribunal to try their war criminals is yet one more slap in the face for the peace process.
Our opposition to these developments must be very resolute and unequivocal.
We must use every available instrument to get the message across.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission fully endorses the European Parliament's resolution on the holding of elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
They represent the crucial factor for the peace process and will form the basis for the Constitution of BosniaHerzegovina which will give its institutions legitimacy.
In the Council for implementing peace in the former Yugoslavia held in Florence last week, preparation for the elections was one of the main subjects.
Although conditions are far from ideal, the feeling was that it was vital to stick to the date of 14 September.
To postpone the elections would aggravate the division of Bosnia-Herzegovina and would leave the country without appropriate tools to work on its future.
The OSCE must ensure that the conditions for holding elections are satisfied and fix the date.
It may be assumed that the decision will be taken towards the end of June.
So it will be necessary to make an enormous effort between now and the elections to improve the present difficult situation.
The slowness of the return of refugees and displaced persons, owing to lack of freedom of movement, of course complicates preparations for the elections.
Freedom of movement does exist in theory but in practice there are numerous problems creating a climate of fear and mistrust aggravated by the presence in the Republica Srpska of people like Karadzic and Mladic who stand accused before the War Crimes Tribunal.
The relationship between the various entities is subject to separatist tendencies and insufficient progress has been made within the Croat-Muslim Federation.
Access to the communication media by all political parties is moreover still restricted.
Since January the OSCE which was entrusted by the Dayton agreements with the supervision and preparation of the elections has been working on the spot in the difficult political and practical conditions I am describing.
A provisional electoral commission has been set up to supervise the process and the rules on electoral registration, the right to vote - including that of refugees - and access to the communication media.
Similarly a series of programmes intended for civic education has been organized.
The Member States of the Union and the Commission fully support the OSCE's actions.
The Member States - and the Commission -have strongly supported the OSCE's voluntary fund used for financing electoral preparations.
The Community budget's contribution for civic educational material and for the manufacture of voting booths and ballot boxes comes to ECU 2 million.
By means of a common Union programme we shall finance to the amount of ECU 3 million the deployment of observers to monitor appropriate preparations for the elections.
Considerable help is also being given to the independent communication media.
In this connection the Commission will contribute ECU 2 million to support Carl Bildt's proposal to set up an independent television channel.
And naturally the European Union as such will also take part in supervising the elections according to rules to be studied with the OSCE election supervision coordinator.
Thank you, Mr Marín!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
East Timor and Indonesia
B4-0776/96 by Mr de Melo and Mr Cunha, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in East Timor; -B4-0782/96 by Mr Marinho and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in East Timor; -B4-0784/96 by Mr Vieira and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the events in Baucau (East Timor); -B4-0785/96 by Mr Pradier and Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in East Timor and events at Baucau; -B4-0806/96 by Mr Ribeiro and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on East Timor; -B4-0819/96 by Mrs McKenna and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the human rights situation in East Timor and Indonesia; -B4-0831/96 by Mr Lucas Pires, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Indonesian Government repression and imprisonment of Timorese demonstrators in Baucau; -B4-0764/96 by Mrs D'Ancona and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the sentence imposed on a former member of parliament in Indonesia; -B4-0777/96 by Mr Pimenta, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the lack of fundamental freedoms in Indonesia; -B4-0800/96 by Mr Ribeiro and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on human rights in Indonesia; -B4-0817/96 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the V Group, on the human rights situation in Indonesia; -B4-0825/96 by Mr Moorhouse, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the human rights situation in Indonesia; Nigeria
B4-0737/96 by Mrs André-Léonard and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the murder of Mrs Abiola in Nigeria; -B4-0787/96 by Mr Macartney and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the murder of the wife of the Nigerian opposition politician Moshood Abiola; -B4-0799/96 by Mr Pettinari and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the murder of Mrs Kudiratu Abiola in Nigeria; -B4-0815/96 by Mrs Müller and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the assassination of Mrs Abiola in Nigeria; -B4-0827/96 by Mr Moorhouse and Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the PPE Group, on human rights in Nigeria; Burma
B4-0740/96 by Mrs André-Léonard and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Burma; -B4-0801/96 by Mr Vinci and Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the banning of the NLD in Burma; -B4-0822/96 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the V Group, on human rights violations in Burma; -B4-0832/96 by Mr Moorhouse and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on human rights in Burma; Turkey
B4-0769/96 by Mr Newens and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on human rights and the situation in Turkey; -B4-0797/96 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the human rights situation and prison conditions in Turkey; -B4-0820/96 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the V Group, on human rights violations in Turkey; -B4-0828/96 by Mr Moorhouse and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the human rights situation in Turkey; Chile
B4-0762/96 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, on behalf of the V Group, Mr Pradier, on behalf of the ARE Group, Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the ELDR Group, Mr Fernández-Albor, on behalf of the PPE Group, Mrs Sornosa Martínez and Mr Miranda, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, Mr Pons Grau, on behalf of the PSE Group, on amnesty for the alleged kidnappers of Carmelo Soria; -B4-0795/96 by Mrs Sornosa Martínez and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the amnesty for the alleged kidnappers of Carmelo Soria; -B4-0811/96 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and Mrs Telkämper, on behalf of the V Group, on an amnesty for the alleged kidnappers of Carmelo Soria; Raghbir Singh Johal
B4-0780/96 by Mr Tomlinson and Mr Murphy, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the detention of Raghbir Singh Johal; Victims of Chernobyl in Belarus
B4-0829/96 by Mrs Reding and Mr Moorhouse, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Belarussian authorities' suppression of the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the Chernobyl accident and their ban on medical aid to child victims through independent NGOs; China
B4-0772/96 by Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco and Mrs Kinnock, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the serious situation of Wei Jingsheng and the human rights violations in China; -B4-0778/96 by Mrs Larive and Mrs Gredler, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Wei Jingsheng and the lack of human rights in China; -B4-0792/96 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the serious situation of Wei Jingsheng and the human rights violations in China; -B4-0816/96 by Mr Ripa di Meana and others, on behalf of the V Group, on human rights violations in China and the situation of Wei Jingsheng.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, once again we have condemned here the attitude of the Indonesian authorities that are continuing to use military repression on the people of East Timor and its youth in particular.
Indeed once again this month the Indonesian authorities killed, wounded and arrested young Timorese citizens who were demonstrating peacefully in Baucau for freedom of religious practice following acts of provocation and religious intolerance culminating in the profanation of a Catholic religious image.
In Jakarta the Indonesian police, once again, shot a Timorese youth.
The gaols of East Timor and Indonesia continue to detain hundreds of political prisoners.
The Indonesian government continues to ignore all of the positions taken by the international community calling for the respect of human rights and the right of the people of East Timor to self-determination.
This cannot be tolerated.
It is important that the European Parliament once again condemns the Indonesian authorities for the use of military repression against the people of East Timor and demands the immediate release of all political prisoners, in particular the lead of the resistance, Xanana Gusmão, and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the fight of the people of Timor for self-determination and an end to the illegal occupation of their territory.
We cannot use words alone.
To demonstrate our solidarity with the victims of the struggles and their families we must also call on Member States once again to stop selling arms to Indonesia and lending it military assistance.
Madam President, the violent, bloody and deathly incidents described in the explanation of the joint resolution show that the sensitivity of the majority of Members of the European Parliament has not yet been taken in by the pro-Indonesia propaganda and the fight of the Timorese people for observance of UN resolutions and the respect of human rights is well known, backed and respected by the majority of political groups in this house and most Member States on the Council.
This resolution only confirms that the cause of the East Timorese people is gaining more and more notoriety and international political backing as the repression of the Indonesian dictatorship insists on violence.
Therefore, apart from common positions, occasionally adopted by the Council and suffering the ups and downs in terms of publication that are known to all by dint of the British position, positions that confront Indonesia vis-à-vis the respect of UN resolutions, I emphasise the common desire of the European Parliament that Indonesia should quickly and clearly respond to the dialogue initiative of the Portuguese prime minister as a first significant step towards finding a political solution for the East Timor problem.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. The illegitimate, illegal and bloody occupation of East Timor by Indonesia is one of the recent decades' most serious and violent conflicts.
Twenty years of war and military repression have led to large numbers of deaths, wounded, invalids and prisoners, challenging the culture, history and sensitivity of the increasingly martyred Maubere people.
The events of last week in Baucau show once more how false have been the promises of peace and how sham is the respect of human rights and free exercise of religion in Timor.
The Indonesian authorities took part in a terrible provocation of the mostly Catholic population's feelings.
They gratuitously insulted symbols of a religion that they must respect, and killed, maimed and arrested indiscriminately people who legitimately dared to protest.
All of these deeds must be strongly condemned but unfortunately some countries that speak of peace and the respect of human rights have been lending backing, weapons and logistics enabling the war and violence to go on.
As we saw in December international hypocrisy actually condoned the terrible crimes that have gone on, you might say, in litis consortio .
There is no point in continuing to churn out resolutions condemning the Indonesians in the European Parliament, the UN or any other forum, unless there is a strong will and genuine desire to free the Timorese people from the Indonesian yoke and restore peace and security to its people.
The truth is that if the many countries that claim to defend freedom and human rights really wanted it a solution for the East Timor problem could be found faster than one might think.
It is time to say enough is enough.
It is time to act instead of just talking.
It is time to say that this barbarity is unbearable and shameful for the whole of mankind.
To cap it all, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today in the press room of the European Parliament, is a press release strongly attacking Portugal, a European Union country that has only been defending the freedom of Timor, dated 3 July 1995 - yes, 3 July 1995 - revealing the attitude and permanent inflexibility of its authors.
A year without changing a single comma of this matter is an eternity.
Madam President, Timor again.
Some of our colleagues seem to be a bit tired of this issue.
For our part even if the Timorese themselves were tired - and, to their credit, they are not - and even if the Indonesians terminated their genocide, with the tolerance of the international community against its own positions, we still would not be sick and tired - our indignation would be as great.
Is there anything new?
Yes, still more aggression and provocations following on from military occupation, and still more demonstrations by a people demanding self-determination.
There is also the fact that we are discussing, umbilically, human rights in Indonesia and the occupation and repression that goes on in a still to be decolonised territory.
The same root for two different situations.
We must not be deluded into thinking that the international political issue can be solved by extension if there is more democracy in Indonesia since that would imply that East Timor is part and parcel of Indonesia.
Representatives of the Timorese people are meeting Indonesian democrats.
This is a positive signal that we applaud but they are meeting to coordinate different struggles and not to mix up the internal and external struggles.
Then people come along in the service of the current Indonesian regime - they should be paid no heed or honour - to accuse Portugal of being the colonizing power and diverting attention away from the fact that this is a case of unfinished decolonisation business - this ignores the fact that the Indonesian government has not - yet - responded to the Portuguese initiative in the framework of negotiations under the aegis of the United Nations.
They have used wily manoeuvres and we shall have nothing to do with them.
Let us repudiate them.
The question is the right of a people to self-determination, prevented by a military occupation that has led to religious, cultural and physical genocide.
Madam President, I am hoping that East Timor will be top of Ireland's agenda on foreign policy during the Irish presidency.
I believe the best way we can help East Timor is to openly criticise our EU partners who are arming the Indonesian dictatorship that has subjected the Timorese to 20 years of murder, rape, torture and oppression.
We should not be afraid of offending our EU partners by condemning their cooperation with tyranny.
This is one of the problems with this compromise resolution, that it is too weak on this point.
This year at least three European Union countries have been involved in arms deals with the regime of General Suharto.
Britain exported two Hawk jets to Indonesia in April. That is the first in a batch of 24.
It is part of a £2 billion contract for British Aerospace.
The pilots for these jets are due to be trained in Wales.
Sweden has decided to resume arms sales to Indonesia.
Finland issued a licence in March for the export of 60 armoured troop carriers to Jakarta.
I think it is fitting today that we are talking about this issue because it is the 50th birthday of Xanana Gusmão, the Timorese resistance leader who is serving a 20-year sentence for opposing the Indonesian rule.
In the eyes of the Timorese he is the Nelson Mandela of East Timor.
Many governments and many human rights organizations have called for his release and for the release of all political prisoners.
The other thing the Indonesians have to realise is that we need people to have access to East Timor.
I was prevented myself from going there.
Parliament should be forcing Indonesia to allow people in there to see what is really going on.
Madam President, some people are tired of hearing the East Timor issue being raised here at the European Parliament.
But the problem could easily be solved: all Indonesia needs to do is to stop systematically violating fundamental rights, such as the right to self-determination, the right to life, and in the specific case of Baucau, the right to religious freedom.
Some people think that these things are less important than the roads that have been built in Timor by the Indonesians.
But they certainly built more gaols.
Thankfully there are people who do not swap the values of freedom and identity for concrete buildings and roads.
That alone merits our appreciation.
Finally how come the European Parliament has agreed on this for the last ten years, since the Portuguese arrived?
Why do the United Nations not recognise the Indonesian occupation?
All they all blind?
Why are there bullets and not ballots in Timor? How cynical can you get when President Suharto launches a new car called the Timor on which you pay no sales tax, when he negates the most elementary liberty of circulation by Timorese citizens inside and outside the country?
Although Portugal has been designated administrative power by the UN rejects unilateral solutions and is proposing a dialogue with Indonesia and a joint solution.
The Portuguese prime minister recently made concrete proposals.
But what is serious is that Indonesia has not responded to this proposal and carries on torturing.
Indonesia prefers torture to talks and so we ask for the country to be condemned by the European Parliament, aware that this body and Europe as a whole must be one of the great beacons of fundamental rights in the world.
We shall come here as often as is necessary.
That is the least we can do for the remotest and most ignored of all the suppressed peoples in the world.
Madam President, it distresses us that a country like Indonesia, which we admire in many respects, is unable to resolve a number of structural problems concerning human rights.
It is more serious still that the senseless and pointless repression, the curtailment of press freedom, the use of force against defenceless citizens as in the arrest of Dr Sri Bintang Pamungkas is not tackled seriously by Indonesia itself and that no efforts are being made to find a political solution.
We have people here who would be willing to work together with the Indonesians to find a solution.
That would be better, Madam President, than producing resolutions, since Indonesia takes no notice of these and obviously neither do the Member States since military aid and arms exports continue.
This impasse has to be broken, Madam President.
Madam President, there are three subjects with which we are constantly concerned here when it is a question of the right of a people to self-determination, subjects for which the colonial period is to blame.
They are the occupation of the Western Sahara, Mururoa and, again and again, East Timor.
We have a particular responsibility for that conflict.
We must tell the Indonesians that they must respect human rights.
It is a question here of the right to self-determination of the people of East Timor.
Yet we as Parliament and the EU as a whole also bear a responsibility here.
We have discussed the conflicts of Dili for years.
Now there have once again been demonstrations and incidents.
On 9 and 11 June two people were killed in Baucau.
Injuries, arrests and further oppression are always the consequence.
We are not dealing here with a religious conflict but with forms of systematic oppression.
In Jakarta itself the 25-year-old Imanuel Suares was executed.
We have the acts of oppression in Irian Jaya and one of the extreme cases was the arrest of the former member of parliament, Sri-Bintang Pamungkas, because he had spoken in Germany.
He was accused of intending to instigate demonstrations against Indonesia in Germany.
That is absurd, we can do that ourselves.
But we did guarantee him freedom of expression.
That has to be taken into account.
That is why we call for his release.
We have heard, however, that arms are continuing to be supplied from the UK, from Sweden and from the Federal Republic. The EU cannot permit that.
Here it is up to the Commission to act.
And it is up to us as Parliament finally to set up the delegation we decided to create in 1991 and called for in countless speeches. Here I expect an answer from you, Madam President, or from Mr Hänsch.
When will this parliamentary delegation be set up? How much longer do we have to go on talking about it?
Are the discussions here just window-dressing or will this Parliament take action as a parliament? Only you can give me this answer from the Bureau.
I hope this matter will be dealt with at the next Bureau meeting.
Madam President, I want to say something about Nigeria, where the murder of Mrs Abiola has darkened what was already a murky political situation.
This murder rekindles the memory of the victory of her husband, Mr Abiola, in the presidential elections just three years ago, and the annulment of the election by the military.
Since then, imprisonment and exile have reduced the opposition to living on scraps.
Mr Abiola, accused of treason, is being held in virtual secrecy and is at risk of the death sentence.
We call for an international Commission of Inquiry to take up the investigations necessary to ensure that those responsible for Mrs Abiola's murder are punished, and we call for sanctions to be invoked against the Lagos regime.
On that point, after the execution of the Ogoni, the junta - following international pressure - promised a programme of disengagement designed to hand power back to the civilian authorities in October 1998.
In the meantime, in order to ensure that this return to normal takes place as soon as possible, it is necessary for the sanctions to be tightened and implemented by mutual agreement between the Commonwealth, the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.
Madam President, this House has to protest once again by way of a further resolution condemning murder by the Nigerian Government.
The murder of Mrs Abiola is simply the last and most serious incident in a long series of violations of democracy and human rights in Nigeria.
The time has come for us to ask ourselves - and I am addressing the Commission here - whether we should continue to wait or should try taking substantial measures.
I think that this latest incident may lead us finally to call for the perpetrators of this murder to be identified, and the only way of doing this is to set up an international commission of inquiry, because we certainly cannot expect the murderers to hold an investigation into themselves. Do we want to do this?
Do we want to take that kind of action? I also believe that it is no longer possible to put off isolating this Nigerian regime within the African continent.
And, as the European Union, we already have the means of doing just that, because Nigeria belongs to the ACP Assembly.
We must take action at European level, and Europe can do this because commercial relations exist and I think that the time has come to impose exemplary sanctions that can no longer be deferred.
Madam President, we are shocked at the death of Mrs Abiola, whose husband is in prison even though he was legitimately elected.
We are shocked at the way the Nigerian Government is behaving towards us.
The murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa gave rise to vehement international protests.
There were resolutions and discussions.
The Nigerian Government took an arrogant attitude to us in the Committee on Development and Cooperation and to the ACP Assembly but in the end there was some hope that we could enter into a dialogue and achieve a certain amount of democratization.
This hope sprang partly from the fact that we have economic relations with Nigeria and that new agreements were concluded.
Some of this has been destroyed again as a result of this murder.
This dictatorship is being supported by our trade relations, by us buying up oil instead of imposing an embargo and lastly also by the European Union selling arms.
We should not get our hands dirty here.
We should stop at this point and demand that the Nigerian Government initiate a process of democratization, immediately release Mr Abiola, move towards new elections and take legal measures to prosecute the murderers of Mrs Abiola.
Only by so doing can it signal a move towards democratization and real respect for human rights.
Madam President, the military junta in Nigeria rules the country gun in hand and it arrests and murders political opponents and representatives of the civilian population without pity.
The latest prominent victim is Mrs Abiola, wife of the democratically elected President Abiola.
Mrs Abiola was merely defending the cause of her husband who was arrested because he was victorious in the 1993 presidential elections and the military junta was not prepared to acknowledge his victory.
And in order to silence the democratic opposition, political opponents are terrorized and if necessary assassinated.
Nigeria is a great power in Africa.
Nigeria has the largest population in Africa and ties many African countries to it through its oil reserves.
The Nigerian military junta thinks that this knowledge and the possession of oil reserves means that it can do as it pleases.
And we have to admit that this arrogant attitude is paying off since world protest is loud but nothing is done.
We saw how the Nigerians operate at the last ACP meeting when fifteen diplomats flew in in a special plane to intimidate the other African countries to such an extent that they did not dare vote in favour of a resolution criticizing Nigeria.
And only urgent intervention by us to secure a secret vote made it possible ultimately for that critical resolution to be passed by a large majority.
We have been complaining about the Nigerian Government's behaviour for months now and I think it is time to take action.
I would urge the Commissioner to take a firm stand, along the lines set out by Mr Mandela, for example, and that means that really there is no option but to go for a diplomatic boycott, an oil embargo or an arms embargo.
I think the Nigerian authorities will only respond to tough measures after everything they have done.
I urge the Commission to act along these lines.
Mr President, further repressive measures directed at Mrs Suu Kyi and her party have just been adopted by the military junta.
The clear purpose is to muzzle the opposition, by imposing upon it heavy sentences of as much as twenty years' imprisonment.
Yet that is not preventing the Burmese opposition from gathering in thousands outside the barred gates of the building where Mrs Suu Kyi lives under house arrest.
Her supporters know that by gathering together they are defying the ruling junta.
The deteriorating situation in Burma is causing concern to the ASEAN, which had responded to the appeal by the junta by granting credit to it.
That is why its Member States are hesitating to introduce sanctions against Burma, which might result in the brutal suppression of the activities of Mrs Suu Kyi's party, the LND.
It is deplorable that some Asian States have now demonstrated their sympathy with the military junta for reasons of commercial opportunism.
We therefore call upon them to ensure that the SLORC - the initials of the ruling junta - is politically and economically isolated.
Since the opposition in Burma has so little room for manoeuvre, it is up to Europe to respond to its appeal for openness and dialogue, in an effort to solve the Burmese question before further blood is spilt.
Mr President, this third human rights subject also concerns the European Union's relationship with a dictatorial regime and the relations between politics and economic power.
This time we are concerned with Burma.
We are concerned with the National League for Democracy, with Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, with the opposition movement there.
The latest measures taken in Rangoon to suppress the opposition movement, which we support, have shocked us.
The question is, what can we do about it?
I believe we can make political protests, but we in our Member States should also use our economic power to persuade the appropriate undertakings to implement our political demand, namely: the need to respect human rights.
Undertakings should give practical support to our demands in their dealings with the political leadership of such countries.
If BMW from Germany, Heineken from the Netherlands, Total from France go to Burma now, their economic cooperation should be accompanied by political dialogue.
They must not fail to refer to the need for democracy!
Of course that should also form part of the negotiations which the Commission is conducting on behalf of the European Union and which we are conducting with the ASEAN states to ensure that human rights really are respected there and that the opposition has freedom of movement and expression.
Mr President, last month we adopted a resolution on the human rights situation in Burma which seemed to take sufficient account of the situation there at that time.
Regrettably, however, the political situation appears to have taken a turn for the worse with the fresh threats by SLORC against not only Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi but her followers.
Anyone who turns up to hear the weekly address by Mrs Kyi is threatened with up to twenty years imprisonment.
There are now fears for the personal safety of Mrs Kyi and of her followers.
We therefore make two proposals in the resolution.
One, to invite the Commission to investigate the general human rights situation in Burma.
Two, to ask our own Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to consider sending a European Parliament mission to Burma for talks with SLORC.
We would also ask the Commission to report on the use of forced child labour in Burma and whether it intends to withdraw the system of generalized preferences.
Mr President, since this Parliament approved the customs Union with Turkey in December of last year, human rights, Kurdish rights and the situation in South-East Turkey, far from improving, have in fact deteriorated, despite all the promises and hopes of the period leading up to our vote in December.
Leyla Zana and the three other former Kurdish MPs have not been released but are on hunger strike along with Kurdish prisoners in many other Turkish jails.
Torture has not been stopped and the prosecution, imprisonment and ill treatment of both Turks and Kurds who speak out for freedom has continued.
Army operations have been stepped up and Turkish troops have again penetrated into Iraqi Kurdistan, despite the declaration of a ceasefire by the PKK on 15 December.
We most earnestly appeal to the next Turkish Government to end this never-ending saga of oppression and civil war, to liberate political prisoners and to seek to settle the conflict in the south-east by peaceful means and not force of arms.
We urge the Council and the Commission at the same time to search out and pursue every possible opportunity to promote initiatives aiming to resolve this tragic situation without further suffering and loss of life.
It is announced today that the doctor appointed by the prison authorities to deal with the health of those on hunger strike has been arrested after a report he made to the effect that prisoners on hunger strike are at the stage of death.
I hope the prisoners can be persuaded to end their hunger strike and it is possible to avoid further loss of life that would add further to the appalling cost in terms of human suffering of people who are all Turkish citizens after all.
We all want closer association with Turkey and its peoples but I hope the Turkish authorities will see this resolution as a clear statement that unless steps are taken to achieve positive improvements in Kurdish and human rights and to end the suffering, our mutual relations will be seriously damaged.
The democratic veneer adopted by the Turkish authorities in order to organize the Habitat II World Conference in Istanbul has quickly peeled off.
Demonstrations have been suppressed, and intellectuals are once more being prosecuted before the courts.
Leyla Zana - who I would remind you was awarded the Sakharov Prize by this Parliament - and three other members of the DEP are still being held in prison under intolerable conditions.
The army has intensified its offensive in the Kurdish provinces: more than 3000 villages have already vanished from the map for refusing to respond to the cease-fire appeal made by the PKK on 15 December 1995.
This situation, which has lasted all too long, is intolerable.
The approval of the customs union was a bad solution, because it was perceived by the Turkish authorities as an encouragement to persevere.
We should remember that those who asked us - almost begged us - to vote for that customs union were telling us that it would help to improve the situation, that it would strengthen our position.
Well, before customs union, I was able to visit Leyla Zana and the imprisoned members of parliament, and now we can no longer do so.
So we need to start taking action again, in every form and at every level, to secure respect for human rights and the opening of negotiations with the Kurdish organizations to find a peaceful political solution to the Kurdish question, which they have been demanding for a very long time.
Let us not be indifferent, then, to the hunger strikers in the support of political prisoners.
The adoption of our resolution is a logical continuation of this campaign, which has to be relaunched by the Commission and the Council, and also by national governments which are demonstrating culpable collusion, or even complicity. Take the case of France, the French Government, which is putting on the pressure to develop its trade relations and laughing both at human rights and at the rights of the Kurdish people.
No more collusion.
Freedom for Leyla Zana and all political prisoners.
Ladies and gentlemen, we saw a number of things in Istanbul with our own eyes: the Turkish police evicting the leadership of human rights organizations from the premises they had rented during Habitat II; family members who had asked for news of missing relatives being intimidated by the police; a colleague from our own Group being detained for the simple misdemeanour of giving out an invitation to the seminar organized by the Greens; the chairman of the Green Group being grilled for a whole hour by the police because she had given a press conference on Habitat II.
So we have now experienced these kinds of conditions for ourselves. Even more serious is what Turks who question existing policy have to endure in these circumstances.
I was particularly struck by how utterly impossible it is to talk about the Kurdish question.
You are immediately categorized as a terrorist and separatist sympathizer.
We are thus very concerned at present for the hunger strikers, amongst them Leyla Zana, the winner of Parliament's Sakharov prize.
We thus urge the Commission to give Parliament an interim report on the human rights situation.
Human rights in Turkey, of course.
Mr President, it is a matter of great regret to our group that we should feel obliged yet again to table a resolution about human rights in Turkey, but I feel we have a moral duty so to do.
When as a Parliament we agreed to the customs union with Turkey, before Christmas, we did so on the strict understanding that steps would be taken to allow real freedom of speech and full respect for the human person.
Sadly, it appears little or no progress has been made in this direction.
For that reason we are, as a Parliament, continuing to withhold our agreement to the adoption of the regulation for the associated financial protocol and I find it hard to see how we could change our attitude.
The reports of ill treatment, to which colleagues have referred, in Istanbul's prisons, are particularly disturbing.
Then we have the former MP Leyla Zana and others who continue to be held in jail, while the famous writer Yasar Kemal continues to be harassed.
So fresh initiatives may well need to be called for, and hence our proposals in the resolution to put the Kurdish issue and Turkey on the agenda of the OSCE and we would like to hear from the Commissioner on this subject and also maybe to explore other avenues.
In any case we look to the Commission to provide us with the further reports promised to us on the human rights situation in Turkey.
Mr President, the life of Carmelo Soria, a Spanish national and an official of the United Nations removed from his post in Chile, came to an end on 14 July 1976.
He was tortured and murdered by Major Salinas Torres and NCO San Martín, members of the Directorate for National Intelligence.
It is a paradox that on the anniversary of the beginning of the French Revolution, 14 July a democrat should have been murdered by the collaborators of the Chilean liberticide, General Pinochet.
The Soria family, like the families of all the victims of that sinister era, demand justice.
The dignity they deserve is the dignity they claim for their nearest and dearest; neither Carmelo Soria nor those who met this same tragic fate will recover it until the guilty are judged.
Nobody is asking for a squaring of accounts, only that those who committed those barbarous deeds should be tried subject to guarantees - which their victims did not have - and should be sentenced.
The transition to democracy in Chile is not proving an easy one.
The military authorities are still playing too great a part in the social and political life of that nation.
The Constitution grants Pinochet the right to appoint senators, a right which he exercises; that shows the extent to which Chilean democracy is controlled by Pinochet.
That allows him to continue protecting those who collaborated or committed murder and carried out torture.
This debate is not intended to be a criticism of the present government, it is only a call for the defence of human rights, a demand for dignity, and it must be a support for keeping up action before the courts.
It may even encourage justice in Chile to act in freedom and without fear.
It is a moral condemnation of the murderers and must be a living memorial to the victims, including Carmelo Soria.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the terrible legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship has still not been overcome in Chile.
There are still more than one thousand unsolved cases of disappeared people, the torturers and murderers have not been found and sentenced, crimes have not been atoned for!
An unconstitutional amnesty law still covers the period from 1973 to 1978!
Unfortunately I have to add that torture is still taking place in the prisons!
Five political prisoners still fear the death sentence and the Amnesty International annual report that has just appeared paints a shockingly gloomy picture.
Today we are concerned with the case of a Spaniard working with CEPAL who was murdered by the Chilean secret service in 1976.
His file was wrongly closed.
But in fact we are concerned with far more than that, for the murder of Carmelo Soria is not an isolated case.
It is urgently necessary for the amnesty law pronounced by murderers to be suspended and for the government, military and police apparatus to be purged completely of all those who committed crimes during the military dictatorship.
The families have the right to know who murdered their relatives and that the perpetrators must atone for this.
There must never, never be torture in Chile again!
With the forthcoming signature of the EU-Chile framework agreement President Frei will testify to that.
Mr President, our Europe is a place of boundless idealism.
There are men and women donating their free time, their energies and their financial resources to help the child victims of the Chernobyl disaster who were exposed to radiation.
To pursue this aim, there are hundreds of people, thousands of people, in the Member States who are giving what they can spare, certainly, but are also giving of themselves to help those children.
They are sending convoys to Byelorussia, technical aid, medical aid, medicines, even offering those child victims of radiation the opportunity to spend holidays here in Europe, with our well-to-do families, families where people eat well, live well, enjoy freedom and health.
And, so far, all this has gone very well.
But what is happening now, Mr President? What is happening, so we learn, is that the authorities in Minsk have refused to allow the non-governmental organizations that were providing regular supplies of medicines for Belarus's child victims of radiation to enter the country unless they agree to allow the authorities to be responsible for delivering those medicines.
In other words, instead of those medicines going directly to those who need them, to their doctors and their hospitals, they are at present being diverted through other channels, and the bottom line is that we no longer know if they will ever reach the children.
This is a scandalous situation.
I believe it must stop, and we call upon the authorities in Minsk, the Byelorussian authorities, to cease their policy of obstruction and allow the non-governmental organizations to carry their aid - that vital aid - to the unfortunate child victims of Chernobyl.
Mr President, the human rights situation is and remains a matter for concern.
During the commemorations of Tiananmen Square 50 dissidents were arrested in order to prevent demonstrations.
Nine of them are still in custody.
Meanwhile new figures from Amnesty and other sources tell us that 2 000 executions were carried out in 1995 and that more than 3 000 new death sentences were imposed the year before that.
There are hundreds of reasons why China deserves to be condemned worldwide for its serious abuses of human rights.
The scandalous treatment of Mr Wei Jingsheng and the hundreds of thousands of citizens held in labour camps are just two of them.
At the beginning of March China managed, after a lot of machinations, and despite great efforts on the part of the Union, to prevent the adoption of a highly critical resolution by the UN Committee on Human Rights.
The difference was just one vote.
I will conclude, Mr President. The Union must continue making China aware of its bad reputation and we must lobby for worldwide condemnation of China.
Our standards and our respect for democracy make it imperative that we do so.
We must not be distracted from this by any economic considerations.
We must seek broad cooperation with other partners in order to exert as much pressure as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, the absence of any policy towards the People's Republic of China on the part of the Union and the Member States is more apparent than real.
Such a policy does exist - it is the old policy of reasons of State and the primacy of commercial interests.
Only this Parliament seems willing to denounce it.
Some will say that this is yet another manifestation of the marginal nature of this Parliament.
For my part, I am convinced that the reverse is true.
I believe that our Parliament, even if it is still being too timid, is in the process of laying the groundwork for a genuine policy towards a country which will be one of the major issues of the next century.
A country the size of a continent, which both the governments of the Member States and the Commission persist in regarding as first and foremost a market to be conquered, where the law of every man for himself is becoming more and more important. And so they forget the reasons that lie at the origin of their union and they forget, too, and more importantly in my view, that this self-styled policy has a price - the liberty and democratic rights of 1, 200 million people, whether they be Hans, Uygurs, Tibetans, Mongols or Manchus.
I believe that this difference between our Parliament and the other institutions does it great credit, and the recent positions adopted by the parliaments of Denmark and Luxembourg, by the Belgian Foreign Affairs Committee and by 200 members of the French Parliament, directly inspired by resolutions adopted by our Parliament relating to the invasion and occupation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China, are all eloquent proof of that.
Today, we are preparing to vote on another important text.
Starting from the denunciation of the position of Wei Jingsheng, an exemplary and central figure in the democratic and non-violent opposition to the Communist Government in Peking, what we want to emphasize is the situation of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of the laogai , thousands of people under sentence of death, tens of thousands of people subjected to torture.
This reminder of the situation is, of course, addressed to the Chinese authorities, but even more so to the Union and to the Member States, urging Europe finally to break with this policy of de facto complicity with the current regime and not to reproduce in the case of China the Munich-style policy of appeasement that it adopted towards the Soviet Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, yet again attention of an unheeding public is being drawn to a very serious problem: I am referring to the increasing number of executions that are taking place in China, that are related to crimes of opinion and economic or tax offences and that are connected with the secret market in human organs for transplant: all of this is happening in clear contempt for important fundamental rights and proper process of the law.
In those circumstances, the call for the immediate closure of the labour and detention camps, better known as the laogai , has a symbolic value also, as does the call to reopen the case of Wei Jingsheng, on the basis of an independent judicial review open to international observers, to put an end to the emblematic persecution of the most famous Chinese dissident who is being held in sanitary conditions that are a cause of concern.
That is also the backdrop to our request to the Commission that it look at this and present to the House a report on the Union's current policy towards China.
The Chinese are a great people and China is a great country but also an interesting economic and consumer market; that does not make it acceptable - and I am appealing to you here, Commissioner - that Europe should be the silent accomplice in an unacceptable trade in human lives and fundamental rights.
Mr President, I should like to go back to another of the world's benighted countries, Nigeria.
Despite international pressure things are going from bad to worse in Nigeria and there is no sign at all that those in power are prepared to allow the opposition any room for manoeuvre.
Quite the opposite. The measures which the European Parliament has called for in earlier resolutions are manifestly not enough to make dictator Abacha see reason.
Unfortunately too, I see too little serious criticism and measures from Africa itself and notably from the Organization of African Unity.
I mention the OAU, Mr President, because Nigeria is also a responsibility of the African states.
The motion for a resolution now before us - the third within a short space of time - talks of tightening sanctions.
I think this is the only logical conclusion and we could take a new initiative here, which Mrs Maij-Weggen mentioned, namely a diplomatic boycott.
Nothing else is going to work.
Mr President, first let me say that I am not speaking on behalf of the EPP Group because this time I am representing a minority of the EPP.
Mr Moorhouse has already spoken for the majority.
I just want to say one thing on behalf of this minority: we are a liberal party which can represent different views.
We systematically regard some nations as the whipping boys of the world and assert all kinds of things about them; it is quite clear that Turkey will figure among them.
Yet Turkey ought to be our friend, that would be in the European interest.
I at least take the view that we have been elected here in order to represent Europe, to represent European interests and not to go on some kind of worldwide excursions that may be wonderful but have no effect whatsoever.
As Europeans it is simply our duty to say some things more clearly, that is in our interest.
Mr President, I shall certainly not vote for these senseless resolutions.
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg.
I believe that we have in this Chamber 626 people who are free to express whatever view they wish.
I would merely remind you, as I understand it, that you are down to express the view of your group.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that, sadly, again today we are going to be discussing China, the violations of human rights, the labour camps, the laogai and the executions that take place daily, but absolutely nothing will change today, tomorrow or the day after because business with China will go on, because the big business opportunities along that vast frontier are too important to the international market, because Europe is absolutely powerless, because we, my friends, count for absolutely nothing here.
I therefore believe, Commissioner, that the time has come to do something concrete and stop going on about what we all, unfortunately, know: in China human rights are a utopian concept at this point in time.
A word or two on Nigeria now, Mr President.
Commissioner Marín is very familiar with the issue of cooperation with developing countries.
In the case of Nigeria we have a weapon: let us throw Nigeria out of the Lomé Convention, Commissioner!
Mr Bertens, that, as you know, is a problem that has been raised on several occasions, and you certainly did well to make use of a point of order, but that is not the way to resolve it.
I think that the best way - and some of you have already done this - is to speak to your group chairman to get the Conference of Presidents to decide to find a better solution, given that this is something we all feel the need for.
Mr President, I should like to speak to say something to Mr Bertens.
I had the honour to be in the Chair during one of these sittings and Mrs D'Ancona and Mrs Lenz called attention to the fact that on the subject of human rights speeches flitted from one subject to another.
I took up these concerns and reported them to the President, and the Parliament staff organized for us an ordered debate in which the various subjects referring to human rights were kept separate.
Mr Bertens has perhaps not entirely noticed that now each of these subjects is separate on the agenda.
At the end some speeches were intermingled, but during the whole of the debate the speeches were kept separate.
Mr President, let us render unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's and unto God the things which be God's.
Mr Bertens has already been given a partial reply by Mr Gutiérrez.
It will probably not be completely satisfactory, but my invitation to refer the matter to your own group chairmen naturally stands.
I feel I must refer again, Mr President, as other fellow-Members in this House have already done, to the concern aroused by repeated breaches of human rights and fundamental freedoms in Turkey, in spite of the fact that that country has signed the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and has undertaken to observe them - an undertaking which has not stopped their taking political prisoners, the maltreatment of those arrested - a situation which is all the more wretched since they are in a position in which they completely unable to defend themselves - and the violence against the Kurdish people, which has got worse since the customs agreement was signed.
Such a situation represents on Turkey's part - and that has been said before - a violation of the spirit of the customs union and is sufficient reason for asking the Council and the Commission - to our regret - to urge the Turkish authorities to take steps to guarantee an end to such ill treatment, to free political prisoners and to end violence towards the Kurdish people.
Mr President, it is unfortunate that we in the European Parliament are once again compelled to debate the issue of Indonesia.
The Indonesian military's repression of the people is continuing and has recently been directed against the country's young people too, young people who only want the minimum human rights and freedoms to which all people of the world should really be entitled.
The Indonesian authorities have also imprisoned enormous numbers of political prisoners and we naturally demand that they should be released as quickly as possible.
While the Indonesian regime continues with this oppression the Member States of the EU should of course stop exporting arms and providing military assistance to Indonesia.
To everyone's surprise arms exports from countries including Sweden and Finland have been restarted and exports of guns and ammunition have been resumed.
This is taking place under the name of 'follow-up deliveries' .
Guns, however, are not spare parts, nor do they constitute follow-up deliveries.
These activities are therefore totally unacceptable and must be stopped immediately.
Mr President, I met Mr Raghbir Singh Johal's wife several months ago at one of the largest Sikh gurdwaras in Europe: there were some several thousand people in the Sedgely Street Temple in Wolverhampton.
She was absolutely distraught. She could not talk to me properly because she was crying so much, she was so worried over the detention of her husband.
It cannot be right, in 1996, that a democratic country imprisons without trial or without charge a man for over 15 months.
I must pay tribute to the British Sikh Federation and to the National Union of Journalists who have campaigned tirelessly on behalf of Mr Singh Johal.
But this Parliament which - let us be honest and open with each other - is the very physical embodiment of democracy in 15 separate European countries must send a clear message to the British Government: either produce the explicit evidence that shows that Raghbir Singh Johal is actually involved with international terrorism, or release him immediately.
That must be our simple, strong, clear message from this House.
Mr President, I find it deeply depressing to have to return for the umpteenth time to the subject of Turkey, particularly after the approval of the customs union.
There are at least two areas in which that country must sooner or later change it ways.
First, on respect for human rights, where practices and shortcomings in disregard of everything that the international community stands for are still continuing.
Then there is the behaviour towards a Member State of the European Union and towards other Mediterranean neighbours of Turkey which is seriously inconsistent with the philosophy and principles of the Barcelona procedure and international law.
Mr President, the policy being pursued by Turkey in the region is generating problems and posing a threat to the security and stability of the European Union's south-eastern corner.
Turkey must therefore be sent a message from here to put its behaviour to rights.
Mr President, the arguments put to the European Parliament by the representatives of the Commission and the Council six months ago as the supposed case for eliciting our support for the customs union with Turkey are still ringing in my ears.
What did they tell us? That we should approve the customs union as a means to curbing the threat from the Islamists, namely from the party of Mr Erbakan.
That by approving it we would be helping the cause of human rights. That there would be big economic benefits for the Turkish people.
Now, Mr President, six months later, the party of Mr Erbakan has become the biggest party in the Turkish parliament, and as Mr Lake's report, which you have to hand, shows, the situation on human rights and democracy has deteriorated.
The Commission's representative in Turkey has sent a report to the Commission which makes it clear that the human rights situation has worsened.
And as to the economic benefits, just ask the Turkish people.
There is something else as well. Something which has been worrying me a great deal.
All the main Turkish newspapers have carried a story stating that Mr Yilmaz told his parliamentary party that when Mrs Çiller was asked by President Demirel what had happened to the 6.5 million dollars of secret appropriations that were found to be missing after her fall from power, she replied that the money had been used for 'buying' the customs union! What did she mean by that, Mr President?
What did 'buying the customs union' involve? Whom did she buy?
The Commission must give a response to this claim by Mrs Çiller, because we have a duty to give an answer to those who are watching and listening from the gallery, to the people of Europe, that is.
Mr President, the current list of human rights violations in Turkey is a long one: illtreatment of detainees, disappearance or death of prisoners.
The facts complained of are virtually always the same, quite a strange situation in a member of the Council of Europe which has subscribed to the values of liberty and respect for human dignity.
Strange or not, as long as Turkey refuses to declare out-and-out war on torture, the hope of putting an end to this shameful situation will be a vain one.
As long as Turkey can shelter behind the provisions of Article 11 of the Convention against torture - and thus oppose the publication of the reports in which the Control Commission, whose job it is, denounces these violations - human rights will be violated behind a cloak of anonymity, not to say general indifference.
The customs union between the European Union and Turkey, as it may be necessary to remind those honourable Members who prematurely ratified it, is producing very disappointing results when we recall the charm offensive carried on by Turkey before December 1995 - in other words, before the ratification of the customs union.
Mr President, let us at least have the courage to enforce transparency upon Turkey when it comes to respect for human rights.
Mr President, all those who know, love and value Belarus and the people who live there are noting with great concern that human rights violations in that country are becoming a constant theme here.
There are continuous reports about the decline in democracy in that country.
Belarus is isolating itself more and more.
Wide circles of Belarussians, and not just the Popular Front but also the non-governmental organizations and the liberal democratic and social democratic forces within the Belarussian Parliament are making efforts to direct this process of transformation towards reforms.
Yet the stubborn line taken by the government keeps destroying these efforts.
We must continue to support the democratic forces in that country by adhering consistently to our decisions.
We should constantly remind the Belarussian Government that in signing the interim agreement it has also signed the democracy clause, which we consider important.
It is incomprehensible why the Belarussian Government is playing down the decision by this Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs and dismissing it as personal animosity.
Mr President, let us go back to the case of Chile, and for our part we think this debate is not only appropriate but even essential since the European Parliament must not stand idly by whilst justice and international law are flouted by the disguised trap of an amnesty or pardon which is really only a cover for the concealment of unacceptable acts such as the case of the murder of the Spanish national, Mr Carmelo Soria in Chile in July 1976, most of all today when a recent, though respectable, democracy is already established in Chile.
Chilean democracy is indeed recent but we must still acknowledge that the level of democracy in Chile is fortunately amongst the most consolidated on the Latin-American continent.
Since that is the real position it is not right to look away when there, years ago, human rights were trampled under foot and justice has not been done.
Mr President, just one comment on the resolution about the behaviour of the authorities in Minsk, Belarus.
We note in this resolution that medical aid is being provided in Minsk by independent NGOs, medical aid for children damaged by Chernobyl.
They are truly independent NGOs.
Their aim is to supply medicines to the children in Belarus affected by radiation, and these NGOs are simply not allowed by the Minsk authorities to supply them direct.
They are told they must deliver to the Government.
We find that very strange.
We would like to know if the Commissioner understands why the authorities are behaving in this way.
What lies behind it?
We would also ask the Commissioner if he is prepared to use our existing ties with Belarus to find out what the situation is there in regard to this matter.
Mr President, I speak about China and in particular the case of Wei Jingsheng.
When the delegation of the European Parliament was in China last month we were repeatedly asked: why so many resolutions? So far 24 have been tabled in Parliament on the subject of China and human rights.
The explanation is quite simple.
The European Parliament follows the Treaty and in its declaration on relations with China the Council, on 4 December 1995, stated that the basic goals of the EU in relations with China are: the promotion of democracy, structures based on the rule of law and respect for human rights.
In the case of Wei Jingsheng it is precisely the rule of law which is not being upheld; not the rule of law of the European Union but the rule of law of China itself because he is being held in detention, he has not been charged, and he has been in this state now for 14 years.
It is because China ignores basic human rights and ignores its own so-called rule of law that we are able to criticize.
On this occasion I hope that Parliament will support this resolution and the amendment tabled which asks the Commission to state whether it will take human rights into account in its recommendation on China's request to join the World Trade Organization.
With regard to Indonesia I must mention in the first place, Mr President, that the Commission has protested to the Indonesian Government on numerous occasions about the human rights situation in that country.
Those protests include not only requests to come to a fair agreement respecting the aspirations of the people of East Timor but also criticism of unjustifiable acts, the need for impartial judgments, appropriate legal representation and access to prisoners in general.
In December 1995 the presidency made representations to the Indonesian Government with regard to the sentences imposed on journalists.
As you know, the question of human rights was also raised at the last AsiaEurope meeting held in Bangkok in March 1995.
The President's final declaration made it clear that a dialogue should be initiated on the basis of mutual respect, equality and defence of human rights.
Similarly the firm commitment to the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the action programme of the World Conference on Human Rights was reaffirmed at that meeting.
The Commission supports the project - to reply to a question by Mr Telkämper - of possibly sending a delegation of the European Parliament to Indonesia; and the Commission will naturally continue to defend human rights and fundamental freedoms in its relations with the Indonesian Government.
I now turn to the speeches about Nigeria.
There can be no doubt that the Commission shares with all speakers their regret at the recent murder of Mrs Abiola.
The circumstances of her death are still, up to a point, mysterious.
The Commission recently launched an analysis of the present European Union measures against Nigeria, applied following the hanging of Ken Saro-Wiwa in November 1995.
The Commission in fact considers that new measures should be adopted, particularly to lend greater support to the Nigerian groups committed to the fight for democracy and human rights and that additional sanctions should be studied along the lines of freezing assets and against the oil industry.
The purpose of these measures would be to hasten the peaceful withdrawal of the military from the positions of power in the Nigerian Government and the election of a coalition government, accompanied by the restoration of human rights and the independence of the judiciary.
The Commission assures the Members of the European Parliament that it is doing everything in its power within the limits of its authority to speed up the peaceful transition to a democratically elected government in Nigeria.
In this connection we are studying how to step up the dialogue with the Nigerian authorities on these matters.
The possibility of expelling Nigeria from the Lomé Convention has been mentioned.
But from the experience we have had on other previous occasions which I do not need to quote, when the Commission has tried to do that but has failed, we must be very cautious before putting that type of decision into practice.
In any case I have told you that the Commission is in favour of introducing additional sanctions.
With regard to Burma, the Commission shares with honourable Members their concern at the recent arrest of 262 elected members of the opposition and the continued threats from the government -the military Junta of Myanmar - to the democratic movements since that Junta cut short the beginnings of democracy in 1990.
The Commission continues to monitor the internal situation in Myanmar carefully but, apart from the freeing of Aung San Suu Kyi in July last year, there has been no sign of significant improvement in respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms or of any steps taken towards the restoration of democracy.
Consequently it may be said that the problem of Burma continues to be a matter for concern and that it is impossible to trace any progress on the part of the authorities of that country.
That has led to the Commission's proposing to cancel all benefits of the system of generalized preferences in favour of that country, and this will be the first case in which the new arrangements envisaged in the system of generalized preferences in the event of failure to observe human rights have been put into force.
As regards Turkey it must be recognized that since the general election in December 1995 it has been experiencing a serious crisis.
Last March the then Prime Minister, Mr Yilmaz, in his inaugural speech, clearly placed the strengthening of democracy in Turkey on his government's programme; the Prime Minister similarly made certain positive statements on the cultural rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey.
During the visit of my colleague Mr van den Broek to Turkey last April and during Prime Minister Yilmaz's visit to President Santer at the beginning of this month the Commission had the opportunity to tell our Turkish partners again of the importance which it - like the European Parliament - attached to the continuation of the reforms initiated last year and the putting into practice of Mr Yilmaz's statements in this connection.
It is no secret that the coalition government in Turkey has not lasted very long and it is clear that the accepted by the then Prime Minister, Mr Yilmaz, will be hard to fulfil.
And not only did that process cease from the second half of last year - at least as far as declarations are concerned - but we are sorry to note also that there have been fresh dubious happenings in Turkey, which increase our concern in the matter of human rights.
In any case, conscious of the concerns of the European Parliament, we intend to continue the dialogue on these questions as soon as there is a new government team in Turkey.
Mr Moorhouse has asked the Commission to send an annual report on the human rights situation and the progress of the democratic process in Turkey.
That annual report will be sent to Parliament in October.
With regard to Chile, the Commission agrees with honourable Members that Mr Carmelo Soria indeed murdered and on those grounds the Commission's own delegation in Santiago de Chile has taken various steps to bring this to the notice of the competent national authorities.
I must also tell you, that following the line expressed in the resolution, specific representations were made on 5 June - only a fortnight ago - by the Troika in Santiago de Chile; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was informed of the need to make this case the epitome of what ought to be seen in practice from justice and the review of a case which, as I said, is nothing but a political murder.
As regards Chernobyl and Belarus, the Commission has been informed of the restrictions imposed by the Government of Belarus on independent non-government organizations.
Both situations must give us concern but in different ways.
In fact no government action must interfere with the distribution of humanitarian aid in Belarus or in any other geographical region.
However, the Commission can tell you that the European Union's aid programmes in Belarus are proceeding normally and at least the non-government organizations working with the Union have not raised any complaint or reported any interference from the Government of Belarus.
Human rights are another matter.
In this case the Commission gave our views to the Prime Minister, Mr Tshygir, in March 1996 and more recently to the Foreign Minister, Mr Syanko.
In addition the ambassadors of the Member States also made further diplomatic representations on 13 June to make our concern clear.
The Commission will continue to keep a careful watch on the human rights situation in Belarus, including freedom of the press, so that it can constantly keep bilateral cooperation between the European Union and Belarus under review.
Finally, China.
The question of human rights in China has been systematically taken up within the political dialogue with that country, the last meeting for which was held on 14 June in Beijing.
The fact is that apart from some significant reforms - such as the new legislation amending the Chinese law of criminal procedure - the human rights situation remains a source of disquiet to the European Union and the motions submitted by honourable Members contain precisely those matters which the European Union is to raise with China as a matter of priority.
The Commission will inform Parliament at a later date how those contacts have developed.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0736/96 by Mr Bertens and Mrs Larive, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on nuclear tests; -B4-0768/96 by Ms Malone and Mr D'Ancona, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and China; -B4-0788/96 by Mr Mamère and Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the ARE group, on nuclear tests in China; -B4-0805/96 by Mr Piquet and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL group, on the fresh Chinese nuclear test and the negotiations on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty; -B4-0812/96 by Ms McKenna and others, on behalf of the V Group, on Chinese nuclear testing and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty negotiations; -B4-0830/96 by Mr Fabra Vallés and Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Chinese nuclear testing.
Mr President, time is now getting short for completion of the talks on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
These talks have to completed by the end of next week, or the signing ceremony cannot take place in September during the next session of the UN General Assembly.
Compromises on verification mechanisms and the conditions for the Treaty's entry into force are currently being worked out.
China has finally agreed to things which may mean that it cannot conduct further peaceful nuclear tests.
That at least is something.
The bad news, meantime, is that India has announced today that it will not sign up to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
International pressure must be brought to bear to change India's mind.
The difficult negotiations are also constantly being undermined by what is going on on the ground.
China's recent nuclear test and the announcement that it is to carry out another one before September is a slap in the face to the negotiators.
Moreover, Mr President, the American announcement that subcritical nuclear tests are to be postponed till next year is not exactly encouraging either and detracts from the credibility of this forthcoming CTBT.
America, China and India must all realize that they are jeopardizing everything which has been achieved so far in respect of nuclear arms reduction.
Mr President, at exactly this time last year you will recall that there was worldwide condemnation of the French nuclear tests and this Parliament told President Chirac in no uncertain terms here in this hemicycle what we thought of his government's actions.
I deeply regret that the People's Republic of China has now carried out a nuclear test after the conclusion of the NPT Conference.
In the resolution before us today we call on the Chinese Government to abide by the moratorium adopted at international level.
The Chinese must understand that the continuation of nuclear testing is incompatible with implementation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
The Chinese Government insists that it should be permitted to carry on with peaceful nuclear explosions or PNEs.
A PNE programme can form part of a nuclear research and development programme and the organization Greenpeace contends that a significant reason for China's attraction to PNEs comes from encouragement by weapons scientists in both Russia and the United States.
These scientists are unable to pursue PNEs in their own countries due to environmental and cost reasons.
With regard to recital E in the compromise text I should like just to point out that I was not involved in the negotiations and I wonder if there would be any way of getting agreement on a change because there is an inaccuracy.
The factual situation is that China is proposing that peaceful nuclear explosions should be reconsidered at a review conference ten years after the Test Ban Treaty enters into force and that review should be automatic unless a majority of parties vote against it.
Would it be possible to take a split vote on recital E?
We were concerned last year - as were millions throughout the world - at the health and environmental consequences resulting from the testing in the South Pacific at Mururoa and most Members here will recall the public hearing held here in Parliament which dealt extensively with this issue of health and public safety.
I do not know and I am not qualified to say what the consequences of the recent tests will be on the health of the people living in the Lop Nor region.
But there are obviously concerns there and it is right that Parliament should voice these concerns.
I ask all Members to support this resolution.
Mr President, allow me to reply in person to the somewhat provocative remarks of our young colleague.
My group did indeed demonstrate with banners and streamers, outside the Chinese Embassy because it is at China that such action should be aimed.
Moreover, if the President of China were to appear in this House we should do the same, and I should be glad if Mr Dupuis would join us.
Mr Aelvoet, of course that was not a personal statement: it was in fact a political comment on what the previous speaker had to say.
At any event, the Chinese President will not be able to come here.
That, I believe, is out of the question!
Mr President, thanks to your wise words, I shall give up my speaking time.
I wish only to say that I note what Mr Aelvoet said - evidently, it seemed to me also that it was certainly not a personal statement.
As far as I am concerned Mr Chirac got all he deserved here.
In fact, if I had my way, he would not even have been allowed in Parliament.
We have always been outspoken about condemning nuclear tests.
Now, just to get back to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty currently being negotiated in Geneva: there must not be any loopholes to allow countries to conduct nuclear tests.
If it is not watertight it means that certain countries will find ways of carrying out nuclear experiments and producing absurd arguments about how they are essential for world peace, just as Mr Chirac did during the debate on the French testing in Mururoa last year.
What Mrs Malone said is very true: recital E is actually misleading.
China has long favoured an exemption from that treaty for so-called peaceful nuclear explosions.
This concept originated in the US in 1957 as a method of investigating the non-military uses of nuclear explosives.
The whole concept is an actual farce because the results of these 'peaceful' explosions can easily be used to develop weapons of war.
For example, India described its only nuclear test as a 'peaceful nuclear explosion' , but it still used the results to develop its weapons programme.
The other sad fact is that this Parliament does not really have the moral high ground to condemn nuclear tests after our failure on the whole issue of France's nuclear tests and nor does the Commission because the Commission sat on its hands when it had the power to do something and it did not do anything!
The Member States which let France go ahead with its nuclear tests all have dirt on their hands, so we cannot take the moral high ground here.
Mr President, there is no getting away from the fact that nuclear tests run counter to the letter and spirit of the nuclear weapons reduction treaties because they are intended to promote qualitative improvement of nuclear weapons, which is of greater significance than an increase in their quantity or their geographical proliferation.
Likewise, there is no getting away from the fact that China should cease carrying out nuclear tests immediately.
Mr President, if we want to steer clear of displaying double standards, it is important that we call on China to do what we called on France to do, namely to halt nuclear testing immediately.
Mr President, I am glad that, following the underground nuclear tests in the Lop Nor desert in China, honourable Members have stressed in their motion for a resolution the importance and urgency of the question of the Treaty on a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing.
Following approval of the extension for an indefinite period of the Treaty on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons in May 1995, for which the European Union made an unprecedented diplomatic effort, there is today a new opportunity in the context of multilateral nuclear disarmament which, in the Commission's opinion, the international community must not miss.
The signing of a Comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty including the zero option is a fundamental objective of the common foreign and security policy.
For that purpose the Commission associated itself with the European Union's declaration on 22 April last year.
That declaration emphasizes the importance of negotiations to make it possible to sign the Treaty in the autumn, precisely at the opening of the Fifty-First General Assembly of the United Nations.
Similarly it would be appropriate to try to ensure that the Treaty is a universal one and that its application on an international scale may be genuinely monitored.
Consequently the next week is of fundamental importance and I am sure that all the Member States of the European Union and the associated States will make an effort so that it may be possible as I said to turn the need to sign this Comprehensive Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty at the next opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations into a reality.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0770/96 by Mr Sauquillo Pérez del Arco and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the assassination of humanitarian relief workers in Burundi; -B4-0779/96 by Mr André-Léonard and others, on behalf of the ELDR group, on Burundi; -B4-0786/96 by Mr Pradier, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the murder of three members of the ICRC in Burundi; -B4-0789/96 by Mrs Baldi and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the murder of three ICRC delegates in Burundi; -B4-0798/96 by Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the assassination of three ICRC delegates in Burundi; -B4-0821/96 by Mr Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the V Group, on Burundi; -B4-0824/96 by Mr Günther and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Burundi.
Mr President, first I should like to propose an oral amendment to the joint motion for a resolution.
It is to add at the end of paragraph 5 a request to the Commission to retain its office in Burundi.
In the past week - since the tabling of this motion for a resolution on the death in Burundi of humanitarian aid staff - a further 70 civilians, this time Hutus, have been murdered.
All deaths have the same value, but the murder of three members of the International Committee of the Red Cross marks a qualitative change in the scale of the conflict.
For the first time there has been an attack on the international presence which plays a fundamental rôle in the attempt to contain of the conflict by means of humanitarian aid.
At every significant stage in this war the European Parliament has approved a resolution with specific proposals.
Now that we are about to vote on one more we have to wonder about the point of this type of action.
Politics take on a purpose only if they extend to practice and do not keep repeating the same thing, each time with less impact.
If the results obtained constantly fall short of our proposals, then apart from the human tragedy, in this case for the population of Burundi, we must reflect upon our own performance and the effectiveness of our institution, the European Parliament.
In Burundi peace will be possible only if it is possible to achieve an international agreement on an effective arms embargo with sanctions for those who fail to observe it; supervision of the disarmament of all the parties involved, militias and armed forces; and the holding of immediate official negotiations under the supervision of an international authority and in the presence of observers.
The negotiations would have to involve reform of the army and of the police, a solution to the problem of refugees and displaced persons under international supervision, the establishment of an effective judiciary and of a system for protecting humanitarian aid and staff.
However, neither the Commission nor the Council nor the Member States of the European Union individually have provided the resources for these measures to be applied or consequently for peace to be a reality in Burundi.
Once again we condemn the situation but we also wish to condemn the failure to put these measures into practice.
Mr President, in view of what has happened in Burundi during the last few months, we are indeed divided between the temptation to lapse into somewhat gloomy resignation and the determination to silence the guns and those who serve them.
In this very House dozens of texts, some more thunderous than others, declarations of all kinds, tons of paper and gallons of ink have been expended, and massacres in Burundi continue unaffected, claiming several hundred victims every week.
Far from regarding ourselves as blameless, Mr President, we need to accept that we bear our share of responsibility for the lorry loads of corpses being shovelled into the communal graves in that country.
And even today, when the International Committee of the Red Cross, the specialized United Nations Organizations like the WFP, the UNCD and the WHO are pulling out and even the non-governmental organizations are pulling out, we of the European Union can at least try two gestures.
The first is to stay put; the second is to maintain a rapid reaction force on the borders, capable of being deployed in a few hours.
Mr President, I too am alarmed at the constant deterioration in the situation in Burundi.
The mediation missions under Mr Nyerere and Mr Ajello have been stonewalled by the mistrust between the various factions, and especially the attitude of the extremists; the Belgian and French schools in Bujumbura have been closed; French military and civil cooperation has been suspended; the activities of some NGOs have been suspended; the national political dialogue has reached deadlock, with violence escalating in the hinterland; and - let us not mince words, Mr President - the army has been using violence against the civilian population.
And yet there is no shortage of international diplomatic initiatives working to restore peace.
But the impression one gets is that there are arguments for and against each of them, to the point where none of them make any progress.
The intransigence shown by some of them is dangerous, because it threatens to plunge the country in despair, opening the door for the settling of scores.
That is what the extremists have long wanted, and with each day that passes they become more difficult to control.
So, Mr President, when are we going to see an arms embargo?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if there is one subject on which I think everything possible has been said and said so many times without any adequate action being taken, it is the situation in Burundi.
We have here a special kind of civil war in which it is wrong to speak of extremist groups because it is a generally acknowledged fact that the Burundian army itself is a party to the conflict.
Last Friday I entertained a delegation of parliamentarians from Burundi.
I was given a whole list of killings in a particular diocese, the diocese of Muinga, from which it is clear that the army itself is blamed for half of all the cases.
If you add the case of the three Red Cross workers, whose deaths prompted the urgent debate here today, and the fact that it is known that these Red Cross people were murdered by the Burundian army, then there is more to this than crimes committed by extremist groups.
We really do face a fundamental political problem here.
There are two things which need to be said.
Firstly, the political dialogue so vigorously advocated by Nyerere is currently blocked in Tanzania due to Uprona's refusal to sign the agreement which was reached, thereby making the political situation even worse.
Secondly, it must be pointed out that all the international organizations are currently in the process of pulling out, including the representatives of the European Commission.
As regards the latter, I would earnestly recommend that the people there are given the protection which they themselves have requested.
I also think it has to be said that an international intervention force should be on standby in the region to take action if things should escalate further, and no one can ignore the fact that the danger of that happening is very real.
Mr President, honourable Members have rightly condemned the climate of violence again present in Burundi.
I shall therefore confine myself to putting a question to the Commission - a request for clarification in relation to the fact that in recent days and weeks the violence has become directed towards the humanitarian organizations present in Burundi.
It seems evident to me that by striking at those organizations, the more violent factions are seeking to tear asunder one of instruments still available to those who are currently striving in Burundi for peace and civil coexistence.
I am then asking how and whether the European Union is seeking to prevent those organizations from abandoning Burundi.
I also consider it very important that we reconfirm our full commitment to this continued humanitarian presence, to be demonstrated in two ways: first of all by guaranteeing that European aid will continue to arrive directly with the population and, secondly, by ensuring that the staff of the humanitarian organizations enjoy adequate protection.
Here too, I believe that the Commission can take further steps to secure improved protection.
Mr President, when in recent years the massacres began in Rwanda there were those who said that Europe was unprepared, that we had not in fact grasped the serious threat that was affecting the region of the Great Lakes.
Today, in the case of Burundi, no-one can claim that; no-one can claim that we were unaware of the danger threatening that region torn apart by ethnic rivalry, by age-old hatreds which surfaced in the form of unthinkable, unprecedented massacres, unparalleled in that region in recent years.
The most recent incident that has come to our attention is of particular concern to the Red Cross, some of whose delegates have been assassinated, but continues to affect Burundi's civilian population that suffers acts of banditry and daily violence, and that should not leave us helpless.
I believe that clear action is now needed: I am calling upon the Commission to take an initiative to set up an international force ready to intervene - including militarily - in Burundi, with global action by the European Union directed towards an effective common policy in the region.
Mr President, once again today we see that the world is letting slip a chance of using active, preventive diplomacy to stop a conflict from escalating.
The bloodbath in Burundi which involved members of the Red Cross and other NGOs is bound to have repercussions.
How long does the international community think that the NGOs will go on providing humanitarian aid if they remain targets for uncontrolled young people and gangs? When are we at last going to decide to accept our responsibilities?
We seem to get nowhere when we ask for the Carcassonne action plan to be carried out.
It does not seem as if an international military force for Burundi is going to get off the ground. Srebrenica must not mean that we are never again willing to take part in peace-keeping operations under UN auspices.
We must accept our responsibility, even if it is just in training and helping to set up an African military presence.
And further work is needed on the political front too.
Nyerere's initiative, as has already been said, is very welcome, and so is the European special envoy.
Mr President, the tribal warfare between Hutus and Tutsis is escalating again, this time in Burundi.
Extremists on both sides have gained control there.
The Tutsi army is losing its hold on the countryside and various Hutu guerilla movements are increasingly carrying out attacks in a number of regions.
And the civil war is increasingly becoming regional in character.
It is also worth pointing to the extremely dubious role being played by President Mobutu of Zaïre.
He says he wants the Rwandan and Burundian refugees to return to their homeland, but in reality he is supporting the Hutu rebels.
There are even indications that the Zaïrean army is helping the Hutus with ethnic cleansing.
The media too play an important part in the ethnic conflict.
One even hears talk of a Hutu press and a Tutsi press.
Last time the conflict in the Great Lakes region was discussed it was still possible to argue in favour of a regional conference.
That time is now past.
Ending the bloodshed must now be the first priority.
International intervention in Burundi is thus a matter of urgency.
The question is whether intervention in Burundi alone might not simply move the conflict to the neighbouring countries of Rwanda and Zaïre.
The main question is which country should take the lead in any intervention in the Great Lakes region.
Following its action in Somalia the USA has intimated that it is prepared to send equipment but not troops.
It is also doubtful whether France will take the lead in view of that country's close involvement with the parties in the region.
The fear thus seems justified that following a disaster of the kind which occurred in Rwanda objections to intervention will disappear.
But for thousands of people it will then be too late.
Mr President, the Commission profoundly regrets the murder of three Red Cross delegates and the threats recently made against their colleagues in Burundi.
This is tragic evidence of a security situation which is rapidly deteriorating.
On the other hand it shows the risk run by staff at present working on the aid programmes in Burundi which in our opinion has reached such a pitch as to be barely acceptable.
The Commission has therefore decided, in close consultation with the Member States, to evacuate from Burundi families and staff not regarded as essential.
However the Commission will continue to be represented on the spot and to support the efforts to re-establish peace and stability in the region and in Burundi in particular.
Missions from the troika have visited Burundi, various diplomatic representations have been made and both the Union and the European Parliament have put forward various resolutions.
The European Union is trying to play an active part in these efforts as is very clearly shown by the appointment of Mr Aldo Ajello as a special envoy of the European Union in the region.
Mr Ajello is already recognized as a valuable partner in the quest for peace.
His mandate is to support the actions which are in progress - in particular those of ex-President Nyerere - and to press for a regional conference under the auspices of the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations.
In all these diplomatic and political initiatives the message has been identical: violence must stop at once; a dialogue of national reconciliation must be opened; there is no possible military solution; peace and stability in Burundi - and in all the region - can only be re-established at the negotiating table.
We place great hopes in the laudable efforts of ex-President to unite, or reunite, the parties to the conflict round the negotiating table in Tanzania.
The Commission, for its part, has done everything possible to support this initiative and those of the other prominent figures who are devoting their talents and experience to finding a peaceful settlement to the conflicts in the region.
Since the beginning of the crisis in the Great Lakes region the Community budget has made available more than US$ 700 million in humanitarian aid and rehabilitation work.
Considerable sums are still available and the Commission would be prepared to release them as soon as the political, security and human rights situation allows.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Votes
Mr President, in Amendment No 4 by Mr Pex there is a problem in the English translation.
Could you ask the author of the amendment if he could explain the phrase 'decisions taken on improper grounds' .
It does not make sense in English.
Mr President, Mr Pex has asked me to say that the Dutch text is the original text. Unfortunately the chairman of the Committee on Petitions is not able to read the Dutch text, but it is perfectly clear.
Mr President, I am against this amendment.
It is quite improper in the English language and it is quite contrary to the Treaty.
We cannot accept this amendment in its present form.
Mr Pex knows that and has admitted so to me.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate the Ombudsman on a successful first year of activity.
One of the European Ombudsman's most important tasks is to play a role in developing a Union citizenship, which presently is only a small germ of an idea compared to what it could become.
It is very pleasing that the Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, has chosen to take a stand on a matter of such importance to all citizens as openness within the European Union.
Openness is one of democracy's cornerstones, and Mr Söderman has sent an inquiry to Union bodies regarding the way in which documents are made available to citizens.
Let us hope that this inquiry speeds up the development of openness and transparency within the European Union.
The Ombudsman's area of authority is very closely connected with the citizens' actual constitutional position in the European Union, and I assume that as soon as he has established his position, discussions could be started regarding a possible extension of the civil rights of Union citizens.
This way also the Ombudsman's authority would increase and develop its full potential.
It is evident from the above that the European Ombudsman plays an essential role in developing the European Union into an authentic citizens' Community.
The European Ombudsman has its good and bad points as an institution.
The same applies to Mr Söderman's report.
On the positive side, any system of complaints can help to promote the hard-pressed concept of legal safety.
It is also clear from many of the opinions which Mr Söderman has delivered that he is a serious lawyer, who in a number of cases has taken both the Council and the Commission to task, especially in connection with questions of openness.
On the other hand, the creation of the European Ombudsman provided for by Article 138e of the Treaty on European Union is clearly a federal move which serves to give the Union and the European Parliament a false air of democratic legitimacy - an expression both symbolically and in reality of 'more Union' .
Unfortunately, Mr Söderman has already accepted this function in his opening statement on taking up his post in September 1995.
It grated on the ear to hear him say that the idea behind the European Ombudsman was to promote the concept of European citizenship.
There is no shortage of control mechanisms in the EU; they have a tendency to develop into self-sustaining bureaucratic instruments.
If the Ombudsman were to be an effective guardian of legal safety in the same way as the national Ombudsmen, it would require a huge bureaucracy.
By way of comparison, the Danish Ombudsman has a staff of 25 lawyers.
I wish to record my support for the new Ombudsman as this new role is another step in the direction of making the European Union more accessible to ordinary people.
As an elected representative I feel it is vital that my constituents have someone to turn to with their complaints at the highest level.
I recognize that the Ombudsman has already become a champion of ordinary people's interests.
However, as the role of the Ombudsman is so new, we in Parliament must make sure that both the Council and the Commission cooperate fully with his office.
Any information required to answer people's enquiries must be forthcoming from the Council and the Commission.
Having established this important new role to give our citizens more knowledge of EU decisions we, as their representatives, must make sure they are not disappointed.
There must be no secrecy where my constituents' grievances are concerned.
That concludes the vote.
Money laundering
The next item is the report (A4-0187/96) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the first report from the Commission on the implementation of the money laundering directive (91/308/EEC) (COM(95)0054 - C4-0137/95).
Mr President, you will understand that in my constituency, in Essex in the UK, the menace of drugs misuse is bitterly understood.
In the last year in our community we have suffered the tragic death of teenager Leah Betts, after taking ecstasy pills in a Basildon nightclub.
In a quiet country lane in Rettendon, three drugs-related execution-style murders today remain unsolved and a Billericay businessman was found shot dead in his car with £5, 000 of drugs money left on the dashboard.
I am sad to say that we understand only too well that the scourge of drug addiction is big business too.
That businessman's used car business is under investigation as a possible front for drug trafficking and therefore as an easy way to launder the profits of this destructive trade.
That is why tonight we call for a tightening of the rules, not against the people in the mafia-style gangs, but the men in the sharp suits and with the briefcases who are behind this $500 billion drugs trade worldwide.
After the scandals of Nick Leeson and Barings and in the last week of Mr Hamanaka and the Sumitomo Corporation we know that massive fraud and deception is happening today within these multinational financial institutions.
When a 59 year old grandmother, a 30 years' activist in the British Conservative Party is jailed for five years for laundering £400, 000 on behalf of the fugitive Azil Nadir, funder of that same ruling Conservative Party, we know that these criminals can be found in the most unlikely places.
Our local authorities, police and health agencies will do everything possible at the local level to combat illegal drugs supply and misuse, but they will not win the war against drugs until we at the European level bring about the necessary cooperation between governments, law enforcement agencies and banks to stop the bankrolling which is behind the scourge of the drugs trade.
End the dirty dollars and the hot money and we will really put a stop to the senseless and needless deaths.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Lehne for the excellent work he has done.
His is a good report, bearing in mind that the Commission is asked to take more resolute action in seeking data and information, communicating with the House and promoting greater cooperation with the national authorities by amending the directive on the recycling of capital.
Up to this point we are clearly in agreement, as we are in agreement on the fact that EUROPOL needs to be ratified as soon as possible, as it may provide an important means of combating this problem, just as, on the other hand, it could be very dangerous to open up to other countries, such as Russia, without the necessary guarantees on the issue of money-laundering.
It is clear that money-laundering is now the main weapon of organized crime - let us be clear about this - a lethal weapon which means that organized crime is taking possession of the economic and productive nerve centres of the large-, medium- and small-scale economic activities to be found in Europe.
I do not, however, believe that it will be possible to resolve the problem on the basis of controls or policing activities in regard to banks, for example.
The same is happening, for instance, in the case of the drugs problem, as Mr Howitt said a few moments ago: that problem is simply the product of a mistaken approach, a repressive approach the sole effect of which is to expand the drugs market.
I believe in and stress the importance of striking at the economic interests of organized crime and thus moneylaundering, by bringing into effect the concept of confiscating the proceeds of organized crime. This should be done not only in relation to organized crime but also in relation to individuals who commit such offences.
Mr President, in the first place I should like to say that the report on the implementation of the directive has made clear the need to take account, in the prevention of money laundering, of the new types of financial transactions and the elaboration of new legislative measures to deal with the complexity of such transactions.
In the second place it should be said that the present directive needs to be revised to include in its field of application occupations and categories of business likely to be involved in money laundering and similarly the directive should be revised to bring greater flexibility into the measures to be taken and the provisional confiscation of goods suspected of being of illegal origin.
Finally I should like to point out that the effectiveness of the campaign against money laundering depends both upon widening the field of application of the directive and on better information on the flow of capital to ascertain the origin and the monetary impact of the relevant transactions. Otherwise how can we ascertain whether or not they are legitimate?
Without such a move towards transparency, although the measures proposed are positive and deserve to be approved, I do not think it will be possible to put an end to the wealth born of crime, which is usually so tempting precisely because it pays so well.
Mr President, Commissioner, the rapporteur had to do more than just square the circle or hit a nail on the head.
Because of the 1991 directive he was forced to take a legislative approach to a subject that is after all basically financial and economic.
He had to deal with a range of criminal activities for which there is no EU criminal law.
He had to set up a police force for which there is neither a legal basis nor democratic or judicial control.
With the list of clean banks he was forced in the end to show the money launderers where best to invest their money and in the end he, who after all wants to combat money laundering as we all do, had to call for evidence that the practice of money laundering is on the increase and that it is playing a growing part within the network of criminal associations.
The rapporteur is certainly not responsible for the mistaken philosophy on which the entire money-laundering legislation is based.
For the basic mistake is to take money laundering as an established fact instead of destroying the economic preconditions that make it so and, secondly, to intervene in the protected private sphere by legislative means instead of withdrawing the protection from those who misuse it to cover up their criminal activities.
That creating 'clean banks' will be a strong weapon for combating money laundering is in my view the opposite of likely in more than one respect.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, has made certain improvements by comparison with the Commission's first report, they are still far from sufficient, given the scale of the problem.
Unlike the rapporteur, I believe that an enumerative, unnumbered and above all truncated report, a report in other words that annoys no one, cannot be a good report.
Nowhere is any mention made of numerical data on either the conventional or new laundering channels, although the total extent of the laundering of capital can be evaluated at ECU 500 thousand million.
More seriously, the report gives a clean sheet to the twelve Member States that signed the directive.
Yet the reality is very different.
After all, how can we explain the fact that the banks in Guernsey, which are under the authority of the British Crown and were formerly known for their cattle, are sitting on a hoard of 27 thousand million pounds sterling? How can we explain the fact that the Dutch Government has ratified a unique form of tax convention with the Dutch Antilles dependencies?
I shall not go into any detail about the fiscal and banking legislation in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
And I can already picture Austria's formal ratification of Directive 91/308.
How are we to explain the fact that a State that is home to 8 million souls has managed to amass within its territory more than 20 million anonymous savings books?
To pretend to display firmness by ratifying such directives, while at the same time continuing to wash our dirty linen in private; to play the policeman without ever being seen as the villain in the eyes of public opinion - what hypocrisy!
Do we have to wait for one of our Heads of State to be caught in some dark dealings with money laundering, perhaps associated with arms dealing or drug trafficking? Do we need a European version of Mr Samper to force our leaders to see reason?
Let us start by going to the root of the problem. Let us start by regulating and legalizing all drugs, now.
Until that happens, my group will abstain.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Lehne for an excellent report.
Money laundering is a growing problem in all Member States.
The authorities should prevent criminal money from penetrating the financial system.
This is essential, since criminal money puts at risk the reliability and stability of the entire financial system.
In Europe resources should be centralized to support preventive activity and to facilitate information exchange between the authorities receiving notifications, because information exchange at the European level is extremely difficult, especially between authorities and the police.
A system should be created which would prevent successful money laundering by supporting preventive measures in respect of targets exposed to money laundering risks and which would make it possible to discover, trace and investigate money laundering.
The system should work on two levels.
There should be a preventive function, including checks and training of targets under surveillance, analysis of money laundering methods and legislation initiatives, and an investigative function, including investigating suspected money laundering incidents.
If money has slipped through security measures, this money should be identified, traced, confiscated and the offenders brought to justice.
Money laundering can be done in various ways, which is why the reporting obligation should be extended.
Dealers in securities and money exchange bureaux will in all likelihood be obliged to report this year.
In the future also enterprises dealing in betting and gaming, real estate developers, companies or individuals in occupations handling valuable objects, accountants and enterprises or professionals offering financial services will in all likelihood be obliged to report.
A number of international organisations are involved in resolving the problems of money laundering.
There is clearly a need to co-ordinate measures at European level, in order to avoid a duplication of effort.
Mr President, the rapporteur Mr Lehne rightly said that the fight against money laundering must not be confined to drugs money but must of course also include the proceeds of all criminal offences committed by organized crime.
That is also why the European Parliament organized the first committee of inquiry on the transit system, for the Member States and the European Union are losing billions of ecus through the evasion of duties, especially in the case of sensitive products such as cigarettes, alcohol and certain foods.
Organized crime is active there too.
That is why we need comprehensive rules.
It is also necessary, however, to include and criminalize fraud involving EU budget funds in all the EU states.
To date that is only the case in some countries and it is quite incomprehensible why loopholes are being created here, which make it more difficult if not impossible to combat money laundering.
On the other hand it is a little naive to believe - and here I am addressing Mr Dupuis - that anonymous savings books with small deposits of less than ECU 15 000, which is laid down as the limit in the directive, or similar banking transactions in other EU countries, such as Italy or Germany, that do not need to be disclosed, are used for money laundering purposes.
There are quite other reasons for that.
As Mrs Hlavac rightly pointed out, it is simply the case that many people open small savings books for their children, grandchildren and for the whole family.
That area is not suitable for money laundering.
Organized crime uses dummy firms, fictitious transfers and cover-ups on a large scale.
That is why the Community has to take a coordinated approach and needs a uniform information system, which also has to be extended to the Visegrad states if they are to be included in our system.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
Linguistic diversity in the information society
The next item is the report (A4-0148/96) by Mrs Mouskouri, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the adoption of a multiannual programme to promote the linguistic diversity of the Community in the information society (COM(95)0486 - C40152/96-95/0263(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal from the Commission comes in the framework of the growth of the information society.
The Commission is proposing the adoption, that is to say, of a multiannual programme to promote the linguistic diversity of the Community in the information society.
This proposal brings two benefits, the second of which flows from the first.
Firstly, it accepts the reality of linguistic diversity in the European Union, the reality of the linguistic pluralism which is currently under pressure because of the use on the information highways of only one language, English, which monopolies not only technology but also communications generally.
The use of this single language threatens to lead to a standardization of thought and to deprive large numbers of people in the Union of access to information, progress and knowledge.
For that reason the adoption of this programme should be warmly welcomed because it comes to the aid of our linguistic heritage and seeks to promote it, while at the same time offering total participation in the information society for all of Europe's citizens without exception.
The second benefit is economic and springs from the fact that undertakings which have previously confined themselves to local markets will in future be helped by multi-lingual products to find international outlets.
In presenting to you the Commission proposal, with a number of amendments inserted by the Committee on Culture, I would like to draw your attention to a serious issue concerning the legal basis. The programme has the objectives of promoting the use of technologies and methods which can reduce the cost of transferring information from language to language, strengthening the languages industry and encouraging the development of multi-lingual services.
The question we have to ask ourselves is whether the promotion of linguistic diversity in the Union is an objective end it itself or simply a means to the promotion of the information society at the international level.
The Committee on Culture has come to a clear conclusion, namely that the programme as such is the main objective and that appropriate means are contained within it for the realization of that objective.
This means that the cultural dimension of this programme has priority over the industrial effects and that therefore a change is necessary in the legal basis.
We are pleading with the Council and the Commission to accept that this proposal be at least given a double legal basis, with recourse to Article 128 as well, rather than having it rest solely on Article 130 which would be much too restrictive a basis for the subject.
The European Parliament would be willing to request a judgment from the European Court, not only for the purpose of seeking support for its position in this particular case but also in order to seek, above all, confirmation and endorsement of the importance of the role of cultural values in the European infrastructure.
The Commission has proposed three action lines: support for the construction of an infrastructure for European language resources, mobilization and expansion of the language industries and promotion of the use of advanced language tools in the European public sector.
The programme ends in 1998 and has a budget of ECU 15m.
Allow me to turn now to some of the Committee on Culture's most important amendments.
Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 7 make the case for placing the Commission proposal in the cultural sphere, with Article 128 as the legal basis.
In a related way, Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10 emphasize the social aspect of the information society, the need to ensure democratic access in order to protect certain population categories against exclusion.
Amendment No 11 underscores the threat of 'dialectification' to languages left on the margins of the information society.
Amendments Nos 23 and 39 deal with the economic aspect.
Most of the enterprises with an interest in this programme are small and medium-sized, and it is important that we protect and assist them.
Amendment No 25 proposes the use of the Structural Funds by the Member States to help protect our linguistic heritage.
Many of the amendments call for special attention to be paid to the lesser-used languages and for examination of the possibility of seeking synergies with other social programmes such as the ARIANE programme.
Lastly, taking account of the great importance of this programme, it is proposed that the financing be raised from ECU 15m to ECU 20m.
In concluding, I should like to re-emphasize to the House the immense importance of preserving the European Union's linguistic heritage and of ensuring, above all, that it is not devastated in the future by information highways whose content is incomprehensible.
Lastly, I would like to thank the Commission very greatly for its excellent initiative and to say that I hope that this proposal will be accorded the cultural dimension that it merits and that it can be implemented swiftly.
Mr President, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy considers it essential for the European Union to draw up a policy aimed, on the one hand, at guaranteeing and promoting the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Union in the information society and, on the other, transforming the obvious advantages of the Union at the level of knowledge and experience of multilingualism into new economic and job-creating opportunities.
Any effective action must start out with a sound knowledge of the facts of the problem.
In that connection, the Commission document is disappointing.
Indeed, apart from a very approximate estimate of the financial dimension - unsupported and lacking in detail and some reference to jobs - it contains not the slightest analysis of the market in question.
This seems to us to represent a highly detrimental omission.
It would be desirable for the Commission to complete its proposal by adding a searching analysis of the world and European markets and of the strengths and weaknesses of European undertakings.
This would create the opportunity to make soundly-based choices and to target efforts.
It is clear that this programme is far from equal to the situation it describes.
Given the advantages of Union industries, the activities of European undertakings in this market deserve to be supported.
This programme in its present form is incapable of providing the necessary assistance and it can, at best, prepare the ground.
The development of the global and multimedia means of communication can jeopardize the cultural and linguistic diversity of the Union.
It is, therefore, appropriate in that connection to draw up a policy for the defence of cultural and linguistic identities already existing, the number of which is, of course, much higher than the number of official languages in the European institutions.
In this connection, the arrival of new translation and interpretation techniques can help the so-called minority languages to flourish.
On the other hand, technological development that will lead to production of new translation and interpretation tools could enable the European Union to exploit economically its natural knowhow in multilingualism at world level.
A market for these new applications of language technology is a highly promising one, in particular in terms of job creation and exports.
In that connection the Union must conduct an interventionist policy of accompaniment and support for the efforts of European undertakings that have committed themselves to this market.
I now wish to congratulate the rapporteur on behalf of the Green Group and to say that my new computer at home sings to me, but not with the richness or diversity of the rapporteur herself or the human voice in general, and the computer will never take the place of human beings.
I share her view that we must dismiss the quick fix of English only: we must take concrete action to promote cultural and linguistic diversity in the information age.
The right of mother tongue access to information technology must go hand in hand with the promotion of language learning.
In this regard, the non-official languages of the Union which have a status recognized at regional level are used as instruments of communication, both for the transmission of technical information and in teaching and cultural activities.
The diversity of the languages used in the European Union constitute a wealth that must be preserved and dynamically developed, both from a cultural point of view and to secure economic spin-offs for the language industries.
Action taken in this programme should help to create a favourable environment for strengthening the language industries.
I thank the rapporteur very sincerely for her efforts.
Finally, we must create an environment favourable to the expansion of the language industries and promote the development of multilingual services.
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Mouskouri on this report on the promotion of the linguistic diversity of the Community in the information society.
The development of globally interlinked information and communication services could have a major impact on the languages we use.
People who are not in a position to communicate properly in the usual languages could be prevented from taking full part in our increasingly information-oriented society.
Since information affects all levels of society, equality of opportunity for all is of major importance in order to ensure full participation by all.
If we allow the information revolution to advance unchecked this could lead to a two-tier society.
Many of the minority languages find themselves in difficulties under the influence of changing communication patterns.
If the new technologies are put to full use that could even speed up the process and risk destroying the linguistic and cultural diversity of the European Community.
I recently leafed through a report by 'Euromosaic' which is about minority-language communities and which points out that earlier proposals concerned emotive, traditional activities such as folklore whereas today we are also concerned with preventing the social and economic marginalization of minority-language communities and that it is also of decisive importance whether the use of the language in question is extended to the working environment.
That is to say, we are concerned today not with cultural but with economic measures.
By the way, there is also some criticism of the fact that not only are not enough funds available but that they are not always spent efficiently.
We need specific directives to ensure a balance between the major language groups and those languages that are used in smaller national or regional groups in Europe, with a view to achieving equality of opportunity.
Resources such as electronic dictionaries, terminology data banks and language and grammar data banks are needed in order to transform communication technologies into marketable products.
Here the necessary efforts will have to be made to attract investment from the private sector and small and medium-sized undertakings.
Small undertakings, as Mrs Mouskouri also noted, that are confronted with large and diversifying markets also need to be offered adequate assistance.
The Member States, the European Commission and private undertakings have already invested substantially in the production of language resources.
However, most of these are single-language systems and, moreover, the current systems are not sufficiently compatible.
The linguistic diversity in Europe is notable compared, for example, with that in the USA or Japan.
Europe has the scientific and technological know-how and the economic strength, but it must also have the political will to maintain its linguistic diversity in the information age, which is what the people of Europe want.
Let me underline that the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media calls for the modest financing basis to be increased from ECU 15 m to ECU 20 m.
The people must be guaranteed their basic right of access to information in their European mother tongue.
European society must not be split into the informed and the uninformed.
Europe's richness lies in its diversity.
We must promote it and invest in it in a well-considered way.
Mr President, first of all my compliments to Mrs Mouskouri for her excellent work and for the power of her conviction.
And I very much approve of the Commission proposal.
Linguistic diversity in the Union is a matter close to my heart.
It is not just an economic burden which we seek to ease by technology.
It is above all a cultural asset, something precious which should be treasured.
Our citizens attach importance to this, for a variety of reasons.
We must support them in this, at Union level too.
In this respect the programme is a step in the right direction.
Thirdly and lastly, a small complaint.
I absolutely do not agree with the legal basis and am totally with the rapporteur on this.
Of course it makes sense to make room for a programme like this in industrial policy.
It fosters economic integration, opportunities for small businesses and the competitive position of the language industry sector.
But legally and politically it is a mistake to use only Article 130 as a legal basis.
Firstly, because this cuts out the Committee of the Regions and Parliament totally and partially.
Secondly, and most importantly, because it does not appreciate the cultural dimension of this subject.
Language is both the basis of culture and its expression.
I would be glad of an answer from the Commission, preferably a straight yes or no, to each of the following two questions.
Does the Commission view linguistic diversity as an aspect of cultural diversity within the meaning of Article 128 of the Treaty? And secondly, and I will end on this: in the Commission's view is linguistic diversity a part of our European cultural heritage, within the meaning of Article 128 of the Treaty?
Mr President, I welcome the proposal of the Commission for the adoption of the programme to promote linguistic diversity in the information society and offer warm congratulations to Mrs Mouskouri.
The linking and interoperability of file and information centre services will certainly be an advance.
However, we need to ensure that the periphery, which is striving hard to adjust and needs greater support, is not further marginalized because of infrastructure shortcomings and deficiencies in technical know-how.
There is a connection between that and the threat to the lesser-used languages of Europe and to the future of multilingual European culture.
We must reject one-dimensional linguistic cultural expression, and Mrs Mouskouri's excellent report emphasizes that very clearly.
That means giving our support to the efforts to promote cultural products released in the various languages of the countries of the European Union.
It was to that end that we gave our support for the preferential treatment of multilingual audio-visual works via the MEDIA II programme, and for the conversion of printed publications into electronic publications via INFO 2000.
And the ARIANE translation programme was formulated in the same general spirit.
We must now support the increased appropriations for the financing of linguistic diversity in the information society.
In addition, as has already been said, Article 128 must be given primacy, so as to create, together with the use of Article 130, a double legal basis which can accommodate the essentially cultural character of this programme.
Lastly, we must keep on insisting that each country must have access to the information centres and to the services of the information society in its own language.
As has been already been emphasized, and I am glad that it has come also from Members whose mother tongue is English, the quick fix of English, of that language which is used in such a debased and codified way, can neither reflect, by itself, nor defend our multi-cultural Europe.
Mr President, the future of the languages of Europe is a central problem to the policy of the European Union even if the Union does not seem to acknowledge that, given the paltry size this programme.
It must be debated and discussed, something which has not yet been done in full detail and complexity, to find solutions, with a contribution by all the Union's institutions and those of the Member States, specialised bodies and relevant companies.
The Mouskouri report is an excellent list of questions.
It reflects the great openness of its author.
But I would like to see a clearer definition of the priorities.
Language policies need to be dealt with at very many levels.
First of all, the language itself.
Each country and each linguistic region needs to requalify the instruction of the language at school - that is a basis which does not exist at present.
Secondly, functional bilingualism: every citizen must, as of the most basic educational level, be trained in the notion of the European linguistic plurality and become bi- or even trilingual.
That could cement European citizenship together.
Thirdly, translation; the circulation of knowledge throughout Europe, be it artistic, literary or scientific, must be done in all languages, with reliance on a coherent common policy, with linguistic resource infrastructures created by the different Member States and, in cases where subsidiarity allows, by the European Union.
The problems concerning scientific and technological translation, literary translation, translation of the multimedia need to be dealt with, taking into account their individual specific needs.
Fourth point: the Union and Member States' official policies.
European language policies must give equal treatment - and that does not mean egalitarian - to all national, regional and minority languages in Europe, and also to non-European languages spoken by communities residing in Europe.
I should like to end by referring to one last point and making one proposal.
My final point is about translation and interpretation at international fora.
The future of the use of different languages by international organisations deserves to be given thought in the cool light of day.
I think it would be a serious mistake to pull out a pistol every time someone mentions reducing the number of languages.
It is not here that our identity is at stake.
I think that the launch of this three-year Community programme is the right time to hold a major international conference on the future of language sin Europe so that we can decide clearly which direction to take when the programme comes to an end in 1998.
This is my proposal to the Commission.
Mr President, the diversity of our languages is an integral component of our cultural heritage and must be preserved and maintained.
The planned action programme will support this important objective.
But let me just point to one aspect to which perhaps not quite enough attention is paid, that of the minority languages.
They too are an expression of cultural diversity and I am glad therefore that the rapporteur has made constructive proposals on this important question in several amendments.
The programmes must take account of minority languages, even if they are languages that are only the official language outside the Union.
Precisely these languages must not be excluded from the information society either.
For instance, a significant Slovenian minority lives in the southernmost province of Austria, Kärnten, and their language is protected and taken into consideration in the Austrian educational system in exemplary fashion.
Unfortunately one cannot say the same for the German-speaking minority in Slovenia.
But quite apart from that it would be important if pilot actions could be envisaged and carried out precisely for this kind of linguistic minority, as proposed in Amendment 29.
Actions of this kind could also give rise to interesting synergies in relation to enlargement eastward, which will naturally have a major impact on the Austrian frontier regions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I too should like to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri on her splendid work and stress the importance of the subject we are discussing and the part which the European Parliament must play in everything related to defending and encouraging linguistic diversity in the information society.
The information society offers us the opportunity of enriching the main European bastion, which consists of a rich cultural, historical and linguistic heritage, in offering us the possibility to provide new services intended for a wider European audience.
By means of the so-called information highways culture and languages will spread more rapidly and widely within and outside Europe.
The building of Europe must develop by means of respect for the cultural and linguistic heritage of its citizens and initiatives like this help to encourage that diversity.
We must take advantage of the challenges and opportunities which the information society offers us on behalf of European citizens, safeguarding one of the basic principles of Community law such as equality of opportunity.
The use of all Community languages in Community networks is fundamental for developing information and communication accessible to all since citizens who are not able to communicate in the widely-spoken languages such as, for example English, might be cut off from any form of communication or at least placed at a disadvantage.
Parliament must take an active part in the functioning, establishment and results of the programme as a body representing the interests of European citizens, ensuring in its turn that there is synergy between this programme and other programmes relating to the information society, since it is clear that coordination saves duplication of effort which unfortunately frequently arises in the Union.
For all these reasons, Mr President, I should like to express again all my support for the report and of course to repeat my sincere congratulations on the rapporteur's work.
We must also support Community initiatives like this programme for the encouragement of linguistic diversity, which guarantees full multilingual protection in the use of computerized information.
Mr President, I support the Commission's three-year programme to promote linguistic diversity in the information society through the encouragement of new technologies and the development of multilingual services.
I also support the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media amendment to increase the budget allocation from ECU 12m to ECU 16m.
We must all ensure that the spread of modern technology will strengthen rather than weaken the continent's rich multilingual diversity.
The growing emphasis of an English-dominated global network information and communications service must not undermine the range of European cultures and languages.
This programme aims to encourage producers to supply support material and manuals in various languages, devise ways of making online dictionaries and terminology banks multilingual and encourage the expansion of software products.
With English firmly established as the major international high technology language, there are fears that non-English speakers may not be able to benefit from the various services available, reducing the information society's impact on schools, businesses and homes.
There is justified concern that the linguistic diversity resulting from the 45 national and regional languages spoken by the EU's 270 million inhabitants could be suffocated by the predominance of one or two major languages.
We should never overlook the fact that 20 % of our citizens speak minority languages.
These languages should not be allowed to suffer because of the dominant role of a few major languages.
These of course include the first language of my country, the Irish language.
People must have access to information in their own language.
I hope the Telecommunications Council meeting on 27 June next will have the wisdom and foresight to support these innovative proposals from the European Parliament.
Many thanks, Mrs Larive.
You know that the President's gavel is not to stop you speaking but on the contrary to tell you that you have used up your speaking time.
Mr President, although my Group regards the Council proposal for the establishment of this programme as highly positive it nevertheless regrets that the budgetary allocation envisaged in principle is insufficient to achieve the objectives set by the promotion of linguistic diversity with a view to the new information society.
The European Charter on minority languages forbids any kind of discrimination with regard to their use and the safeguarding of that principle may be endangered by an upsurge in new forms of communication in privileged languages.
On the other hand perhaps the Council is underestimating the aims to be achieved.
If we have proposed in these programmes to guarantee the citizen's democratic access to information it is essential that it should be available in his own language.
On the other hand I think that if appropriate finance were assigned to this programme it would be in our power to ensure that our cultural diversity in the new information society should indeed be a source of richness and that, furthermore, this rich European diversity should become the key feature distinguishing us from the world of informatics - only in English - which comes from the United States.
Our Group in convinced that the Union's minority languages as well as of the minority languages brought to us by others whom we welcome to our territory need to be promoted.
That will no doubt help to increase the cultural diversity of this pluralistic and democratic information society which we desire for Europe.
In the Spanish State, where languages like Catalan, Galician and Basque form an important part of our cultural heritage and as such, and in their capacity as official languages, they deserve every possible assistance to flourish and thrive.
Finally, perhaps I may make a reference to languages such as Berber which, apart from being spoken in Spanish territory, is the languages of thousands of emigrants who also help to enrich the Spanish and European cultural heritage.
Thank you, Mr Mohamed Alí, and thank you also Mrs Larive.
When I use the gavel it is only so that you may know that you have used up your time, but you can decide for yourselves in such a quiet and interesting evening as this and in such good company.
Mr President, this report corrects what at times is an unforgivable oversight in the European institutions.
There is much talk of official languages of the Union and it is forgotten that many millions of us citizens speak languages which are not official, though they are official in our own different spheres.
It would be cynical to talk about linguistic diversity without putting these languages on the same footing and would constitute discrimination against the linguistic rights of European citizens.
I would even go so far as to say that these languages need additional support because they are weaker in the face of the challenges posed by the information society.
The Commission says that market forces by themselves are not enough to achieve the multilingual information society in Europe which is essentially a positive measure.
So that is all the more true, if possible for the less wide-spread languages.
Parliament's action in supporting this aspect in its Committee on Culture is an important advance, as will also be its final approval, I feel sure.
Support for the weaker languages deserves special emphasis, particularly in bilingual regions.
Bilingualism is cultural richness, but it is also an interesting aspect of tolerance and mutual respect.
Having two languages is for some people something which helps us to understand a little better the concept of respect for others, as long as we are able to accept both as appropriate.
We have to make appropriate machinery to ensure that in the information society in which communication will radically change, these languages may develop.
Our world is experiencing two different phenomena, two faces of the same coin: globalization with the new technologies and innovation as a driving force, and at the same time, a return to what is small, to our own, to something with which we can identify ourselves.
Both tendencies are positive and compatible.
I think support for multilingualism in the information society will represent a fine balance between them.
So, Mrs Mouskouri, many thanks for your report, which I am sure will work in that direction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to express my enthusiastic support for Mrs Mouskouri's report on the adoption of a multiannual programme to promote the linguistic diversity of the Community in the information society.
The report - and the amendments proposed by the Committee on Culture - show a laudable sensitivity and a very positive proposal for the application of the principles contained in the Treaty with regard to cultural policy, the conservation and protection of the Union's cultural heritage and the application of the principle of unity in diversity.
The report and the amendments it proposes guarantee these principles, pay special attention to the non-official languages of the Union which have a recognized status at regional level and place the emphasis on the application of a policy guaranteeing and promoting the linguistic diversity of the European Union, ensuring multilingual information, including the protection of and help for the so-called minority languages and approving the funds necessary for it by an amount of ECU 20 million, according to the distribution proposed in Amendment 2.
Vostè, senyor President, comprèn, com a català, l'especial importància del contingut d'aquest informe, atès el treball que realitzem per defensar llengües europees que, com la nostra, representen la identitat i la cultura de milions de ciutadans europeus, una riquesa espiritual a la qual Europa no pot renunciar, ans al contrari, ha de promoure i recolçar.
For those who have not been able to follow the dialogue between the President and me, I was telling him in a common language spoken by millions of European citizens that we understand the importance of this report precisely because there are millions of European citizens able to express themselves in their own language, which expresses their identity and which is a spiritual richness which we cannot give up.
Thank you, Mr Gasòliba.
Ladies and gentlemen, although you may have been lost for some of the time, Mr Carles Gasòliba's speech was very interesting and I think it is also interesting for us to get used to hearing what languages sound like and so, on a day like today and in a debate like this, it seems very appropriate to hear one of the languages which represent the multilingual cultural wealth of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the following quote from a recently published book on tele-translation goes to the heart of the proposal before us.
It reads more or less as follows: now that we are beginning to master the technical problems the real problem of communications is coming to light, and it is enormous.
Various languages wait like stumbling stones on the other side of the electronic highway and fully reveal the problematic nature of cross-cultural communications.
To find solutions, that is the far more difficult task that the Commission has undertaken with this proposal for a pan-European project, together with the Member States and the appropriate private and public institutions.
The report by Mrs Mouskouri, the rapporteur, on which I too want to congratulate her warmly, endorses our analysis of the impact of the information society on the European languages and vice versa.
Nor is there any major difference of view on the actions required, although the European Parliament is rather more ambitious than the Commission thought justifiable at this point.
Let me make it clear from the outset that the multilingual information society programme forms part of the comprehensive action plan entitled 'Europe's way to the information society' and is and must be coordinated with other actions provided for in that plan.
After careful analysis of the 59 amendments the Commission decided to accept 21 amendments in full and 16 in part with small textual changes.
For reasons of time I will not read them all out now.
But the Commission does not find itself able to accept the remaining 22 amendments and I will now discuss the most important of these and explain why not.
The European Parliament proposes taking Article 128 as a further legal basis in addition to Article 130 and links this with several other amendments as a logical consequence.
The Commission is adhering to Article 130(2) as the legal basis because the main aim is to motivate industry to develop and offer multilingual products and services using advanced technological and linguistic tools.
But its adherence to this legal basis has not prevented it from nevertheless asking the Committee of the Regions to give its opinion, which I am sure you are familiar with.
The people of Europe use many languages in order to communicate and the information society must ensure that they can continue to do so.
The main players who should ensure that the people can use their mother tongue are the many undertakings, the public sector and the private organizations that supply information to the people or receive it from the people and the specialized undertakings and occupations which facilitate the provision of these kinds of services in the various languages.
The actions proposed by the Commission are directed primarily at them, in order primarily to create an awareness, to stimulate cooperation and to make the provision of linguistic services more transparent.
These practical objectives led the Commission to propose Article 130(2) as the sole legal basis, even though the Commission fully and entirely appreciates the impact of this programme on other aspects of life and society and in particular on the protection of the linguistic heritage.
The European Parliament regards the Commission's proposed funding as too modest.
The Commission is assuming that for reasons of subsidiarity the Member States will primarily have to provide the funding, but that the private sector is also likely to invest in it.
The proposed programme is due to run for only three years and it is breaking new ground.
That is one reason to start modestly.
The Commission's proposed budget of ECU 15 m is indeed limited but, in our view, it is appropriate for financing surveys, promoting awareness, mobilizing those concerned, creating the bases for institutional and linguistic infrastructures and promoting the use of multilingual tools.
May I remind the European Parliament that the general financial plan seriously restricts new budget initiatives and the current Chapter 3 restrictions of the financial perspective are particularly stringent, as Mrs Theato has also just pointed out.
Let me also point out that in line with the joint declaration on financial regulations of 6 March 1995 the Commission does not lay down any indicative frameworks in legal acts that are not the subject of co-decision.
With regard to the allocation of funds, i.e., Amendment 58, the Commission can appreciate the emphasis on action lines 1 and 2, although one must not underestimate the important role of the public sector as the demonstrator of multilingual practice.
In relation to synergy with other programmes I would like to point out that both the Commission and Parliament take the view that successful cooperation is and must be a keynote of this programme.
However, the potential of cooperation and synergy is not restricted to Community initiatives.
It would be counterproductive for this initiative to be isolated from similar national or regional initiatives.
The multilingual information society can basically be regarded as an exercise in European cooperation, but that means that the programme must also be an attractive partner for other initiatives.
Good and transparent management of the programme, broad political support and adequate financing are therefore necessary.
Let me only emphasize, on the basis of my own dossier, that to some extent we also specifically promote minority languages in our INTERREG programme in order to make it clear that they represent a fundamental aspect of European diversity.
So we are fully aware of the regional-policy importance of this subject.
Let me end by thanking Parliament's committees, and especially you, Mrs Mouskouri, and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for your constructive and creative proposals.
I am sorry that we differ as regards the legal basis.
Nevertheless we can accept in part the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media's interpretation of the programme.
We recognize that measures to deal with linguistic communication problems have cultural, social and also political consequences.
But in the Commission's view the programme is directed above all at industry and the language industry, even if that word does not necessarily fill everyone with enthusiasm.
For legal reasons the Commission cannot support the European Parliament's proposal.
Nevertheless, the European Parliament and the Commission are following the same direction, although Parliament, as is only its right, is looking ahead a little further and more quickly.
I am convinced that there is a general agreement between Parliament and the Commission on the need to take practical action to promote the development of a multilingual information society that will do justice to European diversity.
Mr President, I put two very specific questions to the Commission.
I can live with the fact that I am not getting an answer for the moment, but I did wonder if I might get an answer later in writing or whether I first need to put my question in writing in order to be sure of an answer.
I would like to know, please.
I am grateful to you, Commissioner, for the replies that you have given us.
I would just like to say that the placing of Europe's diversity on an industrial footing is very difficult to accept.
It is something that we cannot accept.
Europe needs to create an infrastructure of its own based on its linguistic pluralism, on its multilingual wealth.
Because its culture, to which, in the creation of this Europe, all of the countries will be linked, resides therein.
I think that Europe's identity is encapsulated in its multilingualism, and restricting that multilingualism to an industrial presentation will restrict the projection of its quality.
Spreading Europe's identity through the information highways with a quality lower than it would have in the dimension that is necessary for it, namely the cultural dimension, will place limitations on it.
We shall keep on pressing as much as we can for that in the hope that you will be very understanding.
Just a quick word to you, Mrs Mouskouri.
We do not want to industrialize the diversity of Europe but on the contrary use industry, but also the public service and political measures, as instruments for making this cultural dimension of practical use to the people.
That must after all be our objective.
We cannot do that alone as an institution, nor can the European Union do it alone; to do so we need those who have to provide the resources to enable the people actually to be able to communicate in their own language on the data highway.
I believe we entirely agree on that objective, even if we have different views on the legal basis.
I would like to answer your questions, although I thought I had already done so in the context of the Committee of the Regions.
Perhaps we can clarify the matters that are of special interest to you in a moment.
My answer may have been too general. We are happy to go into more detail on certain questions if you wish.
Thank you, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.55 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, yesterday morning I raised, under the Minutes, the suggestion that we should record in the Minutes the average cost of roll call votes, because I noticed that there were quite a large number from the previous day.
That cost does not appear, nor does the suggestion about the number of trees that might be involved in a year in roll call votes.
I mention this in particular because the Green Group managed to call for more roll call votes than anybody else.
They should think of the trees!
Mr Kellett-Bowman, that was not the subject of the discussion but of course we will raise it and consider it.
Madam President, I am very sorry but I have to speak up here.
I am not usually inclined to comment on the Minutes, but Mr Kellett-Bowman should remember that the Green Group is not the only one to request roll call votes.
Moreover, the Green Group is very much the group which constantly sees to it that trees are planted everywhere in Europe, forests are protected and roads are not built because they interfere with nature and destroy nature.
So do not accuse the Green Group of destroying the environment by asking for roll call votes.
You, Mr Kellett-Bowman, belong to a group which is constantly advocating trans-European networks which will ruin the natural environment everywhere.
Mrs Van Dijk, we are discussing the approval of the Minutes!
Madam President, I had asked to speak before Mrs Van Dijk began talking about the networks, which cannot be discussed if there are no motorcyclists.
I refer you to the proceedings for 18-19 June, page 18: in connection with what Mrs Larive said just before Mrs van Dijk spoke.
Mrs Larive has just left for Cuba - I do not know if she has gone for good, I presume she is coming back - but the proceedings say &#x02BC;lastly, Madam President, an appeal to the motor cyclist himself, 82 years, average value'.
Motor cyclists are usually on the elderly side when they hang up their helmets for good, but Mrs Larive was not referring to 82-year-old motorcyclists, but to 82 decibels.
Will you have that corrected?
Mr Wijsenbeek, we are discussing the Minutes.
What you are referring to is the Rainbow edition.
But you can make requests for changes there too if you believe something needs changing.
Madam President, the Schulz report was postponed yesterday and it says in the Minutes that it was deferred to the next part-session.
I would like to know whether the so-called mini-session in Brussels is or is not now a part of this plenary part-session, for that would mean that it is postponed to July, or whether the Brussels part-session should be regarded as a separate part-session. I would also like to know whether this report is to be taken on Wednesday at the beginning of the part-session or on Thursday during voting time.
Would you please clarify this because it is in no way clear from the Minutes.
Firstly, the part-session in Strasbourg and the mini-session that follows it are regarded as a package and their agendas are drawn up together.
The Schulz report will be put to the vote on the Thursday of the mini-session at 11 a.m.
Madam President, people who are in the chair should express themselves carefully.
There is no such thing as a mini-session.
There are sessions or no sessions.
Unfortunately this expression has become current, but in future I will express myself correctly.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Votes
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as an exception, for reasons connected with the Community's present budgetary situation, I would ask you to accept an oral amendment modifying Amendment No 33 of my report.
I would ask that this statement be recorded in the Minutes.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media asks that the sum provided for the duration of this programme be increased from ECU 15 to 20 million, a modest increase over the year being in mind the importance we attach to this programme.
We are therefore anxious that this request should be granted.
However, the Commission must understand that it has to accept the consequences of the new initiatives it is taking in connection with the financial perspectives.
We consider, therefore, that of the grand total of ECU 20 million, 5 million will be subject to the revision of the financial perspective. Thus, I would ask you to change the first phrase of Amendment No 33 as follows: ' the reference amount for the total duration of the programme shall be ECU 20 million, of which ECU 5 million will be subject to the revision of the financial perspective' .
Madam President, do I understand from Mrs Mouskouri that this extremely long text is being presented as an oral amendment? May I ask for clarification, because I was not altogether sure.
Does Mrs Mouskouri's proposal entail amendment of the financial envelope? Because if so, I really wonder whether that can be done in an oral amendment, otherwise could you just read out the one sentence containing the oral amendment.
Because that is not clear at the moment.
Mrs Mouskouri, could you please read out the sentence that is to be added again?
Madam President, Mr De Vries, yes, indeed, this will replace the first part of Amendment No 33.
I will read it to you in French in order to be more precise.
The reference amount for the total duration of the programme shall be ecu 20 million, of which ecu 5 million will be subject to the revision of the financial perspective.
The added phrase states that ECU 5 million will be subject to the revision of the financial perspective.
That is the oral amendment.
Is that clear now, Mr de Vries?
On Amendment No 58:
Yes, precisely, Madam President, this follows on from Amendment No 33 and means that we should reject the second paragraph of Amendment No 58.
The first part is exactly the same, following on as it does from Amendment No 33.
So it should be put to a split vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
The Commission initiative to create a programme to promote linguistic diversity in the Community in the framework of the information society is fundamental for maintaining the Union's cultural diversity.
An initiative that the excellent Mouskouri report, which I shall vote for today, has undoubtedly improved thanks to the tabled amendments.
I should like to pick out those that change the legal base which makes it possible to bring the proposal through the co-decision procedure and those that help to highlight and strengthen the linguistic plurality of the Union by including regional and minority languages.
Special importance for me as a representative of the people of Catalunya are those amendments that I myself introduced in committee and which mean that Catalan will benefit from the programmes contemplated in the proposal.
In any case, the Mouskouri report is another step along the road towards a European Union that respects its cultural diversity and the signs of peoples' identities which comprise it and therefore I hope that the Commission will adopt it.
As chairman of the Intergroup Working Party on Minority Languages I congratulate Mrs Mouskouri on her outstanding report and on the fact that the amendments of hers that were adopted today concentrate very strongly on promoting minority languages.
Anyone who, like the rapporteur, is at home in nearly all the cultures of Europe, is aware of the inestimable value of cultural diversity and therefore able to sweep away the widely prevalent trend towards centralism.
I now appeal also to the Council, the Commission and colleagues to maintain the budget line for the promotion of minority languages and, since it was used 100 % and a growing number of tasks need to be carried out, to agree to increasing it by 15 % during the forthcoming budgetary deliberations.
Aid to ACP banana suppliers
The next item is the report (A4-0182/96) by Mr Castagnede, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0033 - C4-0187/96-96/0028(SYN)) amending Council Regulation (EC) No 2686/94 establishing a special system of assistance to traditional ACP suppliers of bananas.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Castagnède has accurately explained the meaning of today's debate on the partial and concrete modification to Regulation 2686/94 setting up a special assistance system for traditional ACP banana suppliers.
The Commission is simply proposing to extend the expiry date of the Regulation - 28 March 1996 - until 31 December for reasons which are fully explained by the rapporteur, Mr Castagnède and which I shall not reiterate for time reasons.
The amendment tabled by the Committee on Development is an amendment that takes up, as the rapporteur also said, a motion for a resolution that I myself, together with Mr Robles Piquer, tabled at the ACP Joint Assembly meeting in Windhoek, Namibia and that, with contributions by other members and other groups of ACP representatives, was unanimously adopted.
It is simply a political declaration intended to strengthen the position of both ACP countries and European banana producers, defending what is done by the banana COM.
Defence of Regulation 404/93 which is quite relevant as, ever since its approval, the banana COM in Europe has come under constant attack by means of legitimate measures, undoubtedly, in many cases, in most cases, but sometimes using measures that do not seem to be entirely justifiable.
For example, we have known for some months now that up to 100, 000 tonnes of bananas per annum have been smuggled in through European ports by quite fraudulent means: each bundle of bananas must weigh 18.14 kg but when inspections are carried out it seems that they all weigh more, mostly 19-20 kg.
This is part of a plan to undermine quotas, in other words it is yet another way of undermining or violating current Community rules.
We think that the resolutions proposed by the Committee on Development should be approved as it is defended by Mr Castagnède with the amendments tabled by the Committee on Development.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think I need describe the proposal again because the rapporteur has presented it to you.
So I will only point out that it is urgent to adopt this proposal because the regulation lays down that the income support must be calculated annually in July.
ECU 30 m is entered for this purpose out of the 1996 resources, but until the proposal has been accepted, we will not have the necessary legal basis for allocating them.
Unfortunately the Commission does not find it possible to accept the two amendments, because they are not legally compatible with the text of the regulation, because the Commission does not accept the Windhoek resolution and in particular because the second amendment goes beyond the framework and scale of the resources allocated.
That is why I would ask you to withdraw that amendment.
Thank you, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Madam President, I think that Mr Castagnède has gone out but I think that he clearly said that now that the Commission opinion is known - we found out about it a few days ago and it has now been reiterated by Mrs Wulf-Mathies - both amendments should be withdrawn and not put to the vote.
In nay case we would recommend a vote against them.
Madam President, I rise to confirm the point of view put forward by Mr Fernandez Martin.
As soon as the Commission informs us that the adoption of the amendments might result in delaying the implementation of the assistance system, we shall take the responsibility of asking you not to vote on those amendments.
Madam President, this explanation of vote will be very brief.
The consensus which has very clearly formed on this proposal and the pragmatic approach which led us to take all necessary steps to ensure that assistance is expedited require no explanation, but argue in favour of the need for the European Union to accept its historical role and, consequently, to demonstrate its solidarity with these ACP countries, whose economies are highly dependent on one-product systems.
Those systems were established during the colonial period and have been reinforced since these former colonies became independent of their European rulers.
Next, it is important that the European Union should remain faithful to its principles, and in particular to the social clause.
Mr Castagnède, the rapporteur, has moreover reminded us forcefully that, gradually, the Union has been attentive to the social clause and, therefore, to the need to be extremely rigorous with regard to imports of bananas from the dollar areas, where social dumping is widespread and the democratic rules that govern market economies are not properly respected.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Wine
The next item is the report (A4-0196/96) by Mrs Klaß, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on:
I. the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(95)0744 - C4-0111/96-96/0007(CNS)) amending Regulation (EEC) No 823/87 laying down special provisions relating to quality wines produced in specified regions; II.on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(95)0744/96 - C4-0112/96-96/0008(CNS)) amending Regulation No 2332/92 on sparkling wines produced in the Community.
Madam President, I would like to pay tribute to Mrs Klaß for her work on this excellent report.
We have all enjoyed the discussions - sometimes very wide-ranging - we have had on it.
Mrs Klaß has borne them with good humour and we have all learned a great deal and I thank her for her work.
From the Socialist Group's point of view we will be supporting most of the amendments tabled.
On our voting list we made a slight mistake: we will now be supporting Amendment No 11 which Mrs Klaß referred to earlier - so I would remind my Socialist colleagues to vote for Amendment No 11
I particularly welcome Amendment No 10 because it will place a limit on the way in which champagne-style bottles can be used.
In England where we do not produce these beautiful wines there is a development which is to be regretted, namely that manufacturers of alcoholized cola and alcoholized lemonade are putting their products into champagne-style bottles, trying to give the impression that they are of good quality when, in fact, they are absolute rubbish to drink and to taste.
So I hope that Amendment No 10 will play some part in ensuring that this regrettable development stops.
We welcome this report and look forward to it going through hardly amended.
Madam President, this is a proposal for a Council regulation amending four previous regulations concerning provisions on quality wines produced in given regions and on sparkling wines produced in the Community.
It is a proposal with which we are fundamentally in agreement because it meets basic objectives: first of all to unify legislation and adapt it to the needs and realities of European Union wine producers. Secondly because it takes account of some small problems in Member States concerning specific aspects.
I shall speak only about the latter.
We fully agree with the Commission proposal to maintain the use of one, two or three varieties.
We also agree that the name of the producer should be shown, and possibly the name of the seller.
We also back the idea on brut nature - which we shall not develop because everyone here knows what it is about - and the solution found for the problem of crémant which created discriminations between different producing regions in the European Union.
A compromise solution has been found that I think is reasonable for everyone.
As Mr Hallam said we insist on an immediate ban on the bottling of other products in champagne-style bottles, a current trend.
This situation is harming the Union's producers of the real products to the tune of millions of ecus.
This must be banned and care must be taken to observe this ban throughout the Union, including exports.
Madam President, here then we have four regulations to bring a little order into the confused bundle of legislation in the most delicate of the agricultural sectors: wine and, in particular, sparkling wines.
What a good idea of the Council to have a thorough report by Mrs Klaß who has had to work her way through the many and varied styles in which Community producers perform here.
Yes indeed, because wine is not made solely of grapes, it is also made of culture, and it is specifically those differing practices that frequently conceal serious threats to the moral integrity of wine that has at least and always to be mainly derived from grapes.
Wine production in areas in which grapes do not grow is therefore an industrial and not an oenological practice.
Transporting too many grapes from one region to another distorts one of the basic characteristics of wine which derives its character and identity from its place of registration.
That is stated by Regulation No 2392/89 which rightly places a strong emphasis on origin and, in the case of table wines, replaces the weak description 'vino tipico ' with the more robust 'indicazione geografica tipica ' , now finally in force - and, what is more, with retroactive effect.
That same regulation limits to three the grape varieties to be shown on the label.
Frankly, that is still too many for anyone wishing to defend their own personality.
But the proposal with the most bite comes from Regulation 2332/92 on sparkling wines.
These are the stars of the market, following in the footsteps of their noble cousin, French champagne.
Quite rightly, the precautions taken here are greater still, but it may perhaps be a little exaggerated to propose a minimum of 90 days on the lees in all cases.
For some sparkling wines that are obtained in autoclaves using agitation, a shorter period will suffice.
Of importance in this regulation is the extension granted to 31 August 1998 for the process of adjusting superior wines using products that did not originate in the area of production, albeit subject to drastic limits.
Moving on to sparkling wines, we are also right to be concerned about the constitution of a product that is held in such high regard.
That is why I am opposed to any concession concerning the use of typical sparkling wine bottles for wines or other food products.
The risk of fraud is always just around the corner and even the smallest concession may encourage it, that is why I have asked that we vote separately on the different parts of Amendment No 10 - the first paragraph is acceptable but thereafter it contains too many dangerous exemptions in regard to other products.
Unfortunately, fraud is already rife on the market, as we were reminded by the rapporteur: there are, for example, the producers who send from France and Germany to Eastern Europe tankers full of grape or other fruit juice to which alcohol is then obligingly added, and this is subsequently sold as sparkling wine in elegant bottles that are easily mistaken for the real thing and, what is more, to complete the deception - beware - the names given on the label are in Italian.
Mr President, the Liberal Group very much supports the work of the rapporteur and most of the amendments, although not those of the ARE.
I was interested to hear Mr Hallam's comments in the long tradition in the UK of Socialists supporting champagne.
We agree with his comments.
I personally - and the Liberal group - welcome the fact that certain English wines can now have regional designations.
I am still very concerned that no vineyards are able to have quality labels within the United Kingdom.
In my constituency in Fowey in the Camel Valley we have excellent wines which are still not able to have those designations.
With your indulgence I would like to move on to a more important topic.
Last night in my constituency a gentleman called Albert Tong was arrested by the British authorities to be deported to Hong Kong, causing the break-up of a British family.
He is now in hospital with heart condition.
I wish to express my dismay and disgust at those actions.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate the rapporteur.
It is always a pleasure to deal with people who know what they are talking about and that is quite definitely the case here.
Even if the report looks rather technical at first glance, it does cover major problems as regards content.
Let me particularly emphasize the fact that it is thanks to the rapporteur's and the committee's work that regionalization in the wine sector has now been established and trend away from the producer towards the vendor, towards artificial production, has been stopped.
In our group's view that has something to do with ecology, even if no specific reference is made to it here, because the description of origin allows the consumer to know where a product comes from and to check how it was grown.
In the age of BSE, when we have seen what anonymity and uncontrolled sales can lead to, it is particularly important to be stringent in this field.
Now one could say, in relation to sparkling wine in Russia, that it does not matter what you get drunk on, but of course here we are concerned not with alcohol but with a semi-luxury.
That is why I am very glad that this report was drawn up; our group supports it and the amendments it proposes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank Mrs Klaß for the excellent report she has produced in consultation with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I also extend my congratulations to my colleague Mrs Barthet-Mayer for the effort that has gone into her numerous amendments.
And, if I may, I should like to make a few comments on the amendments that have been tabled.
First, Amendment No 1.
On the official pretext of easing the administrative burden on winegrowers, this amendment may have the unwanted effect of making it difficult to monitor the quality of wines and grape musts.
Similarly, I shall be opposing Amendment No 4, because it makes it possible to retain the term 'wine' for sparkling wines which have not achieved the legally prescribed excess pressure or no longer exhibit that excess pressure.
My reasons are simple: if the product is not of sufficient quality at the end of the production process, or if the storage conditions have not allowed it to retain that quality, it is logical that the product should be destroyed or reprocessed - according to the statutory and recognized oenological practices, naturally - before it is marketed.
As regards the amendments relating to the definition of crémant, about which we have just heard so much, I shall of course be in favour of Amendment No 9, the result of a compromise reached by the Committee on Agriculture, because crémant must remain a quality product and so correspond to specific standards in terms of traditional vine varieties, pressing rates, maximum sulphur dioxide content and maximum sugar content.
Moreover, the name 'crémant' represents a particular oenological method and must compulsorily be associated with a specific region within a Member State.
So we can talk about Crémant d'Alsace, Crémant de Bourgogne, Crémant de Loire, Crémant du Jura, etc., and not just 'crémant' on its own.
I shall be voting in favour of Amendment No 10, and I will ask the rapporteur to accept an oral amendment from me.
This is because the amendment contains the words 'may be put up in 'Champagne'-type or similar bottles' .
I would prefer the term 'Champagne' , which relates to a French registered designation of origin, to be replaced by the term 'sparkling wine' , which conforms to the original text of the amendment and, moreover, has the advantage of being a generic expression which makes no reference to any particular geographical indication.
With regard to Amendment No 11 tabled by the rapporteur, this states that it is necessary to add 'the name of the local administrative area, or part of the local administrative area, and Member State in which the abovementioned person has his head office' .
For many undertakings, and especially winegrowing ones, the registered office of the undertaking is located at the same place as the premises where the product is produced.
On the other hand, in the case of large undertakings, a single head office may cover a number of different production establishments.
I shall of course accept all the amendments tabled by my colleague Mrs Barthet-Mayer, with who I have worked very closely.
However, I cannot accept Amendment No 6, tabled by her and accepted by the Committee, unless the word 'complete' is deleted.
My reason here is the statement that the term 'producer' defines the operator who undertakes the complete production of the product.
Moreover, in some regions, it is possible to subcontract certain procedures, bottling for example, a practice more commonly known as bottling to order.
However, in other regions, some wine is sold in barrel.
The definition of a producer must not be too strict, or it would result in unnecessary detail on the label and would disrupt the economic balance existing in our production regions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wanted to express my support for the proposals in the reports by Mrs Klaß, which have the advantage of paying special attention to quality wines and sparkling wines - one of the sectors in the European Union that has developed fastest and shown positive developments, in my country, Catalonia, for example, in respect of cava . This process of improvement and accuracy had to be reflected in the regulations, especially vigilance over quality, because it is by improving quality that this sector can be competitive and face up to other wine derived products.
Mr President, Mrs Klaß' report proposes a number of important simplifications to the current EU rules and regulations.
So in principle our group very much welcomes it.
But in our view the Commission's proposal to indicate three instead of two vine varieties on the labels of quality and table wine is not useful because it would lead to even more confusion on the labels.
We should take a decided stand against allowing artificial and imitation sparkling wines, which the consumer has always recognized as such, to be bottled and marketed in traditional sparkling wine bottles.
In the opinion of Austrians, who had to deal with an appalling wine scandal some ten years ago, any measure that describes the quality of a product in clear, honest and comprehensible terms is a good one, because it will do much to restore consumer confidence.
Mr President, as this is my maiden speech I should like to begin by thanking the presidency for their kind words of welcome on 20 May and thank all of my colleagues that I have met here in this excellent Assembly.
Since I come from an excellent wine-producing region, the ancient kingdom of Navarre, it is with much interest that I have followed the excellent work done by my colleague, Mrs Klaß.
Unfortunately, I was unable to take part in the debates but I have been particularly concerned about Amendment No 3 changing the date for allowing the use of 15 % of grapes from regions not mentioned on the label.
I am worried that no new date has been set and that this exemption has been extended indefinitely.
This might be the thin end of the wedge and mean that even more than 15 % of other-region grapes could find its way to our cellars, raising problems with DOC.
The quality wine we want to protect must respect the consumer and the region it is supposed to come from.
In any case it is laudable that both the Commission and the Committee on Agriculture are taking an interest in overseeing our wine production and the two million producers in the Union.
There may be concern in some other committees, like that on Economic Affairs, where discussion has begun about the surplus production and how special taxes might foster such a surplus.
I think that production is not too high but demand is too low.
It is the non-producing countries with their high taxes on wine that are preventing lower income families from drinking wine.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that I have been able to discuss two European cultural products while I was here today, namely linguistic diversity and now the diversity and quality of wines and sparkling wines in Europe.
That is why I want to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and especially Mrs Klaß for their very good work on this report.
The report contains a thorough analysis of all four proposals to amend the regulation on quality wines produced in specified regions, sparkling wines and their description, even if the European Parliament was only formally consulted on two of the amendments, namely the amendment of Regulation No 823/87 on quality wines produced in specified regions and of No 2332/92 on sparkling wines.
The Commission takes note of the call to simplify the legislation on the description and presentation of wine.
It also welcomes the fact that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has approved many of the Commission's proposals without change.
That applies in particular to Regulation No 823 on quality wines and Regulation No 2332 on sparkling wines; only one amendment was tabled on the latter.
Unfortunately that amendment calls for the possibility of using 'return' wine in the production of sparkling wine.
The Commission cannot agree to that without first having an opportunity to discuss it in depth with the Member States.
All the other amendments relate to Regulations Nos 2392/89 and 2333/92 on the description of wines and sparkling wines.
On Amendment No 1 concerning no compulsory indication of the alcohol content and the nominal volume in the accompanying documents let me make the following comment: the Commission can take account of your views and make it clear that both must be indicated under the implementing provisions.
The Commission cannot, however, accept Amendment No 2 on indicating only two vine varieties on wine labels because the indication of more than two vine varieties is now common practice and improves consumer information.
Nor can the Commission accept the amendment proposing an unlimited extension of the exceptional provision under which quality wines may use the name of a geographical unit smaller than a specified region provided 15 % of the grapes used are harvested outside this geographical unit named on the label.
It could, however, consider extending the deadline so that some Member States can make the necessary adjustments.
Amendments Nos 5, 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 concern the obligation to indicate the name of the producer or vendor on the label.
The Commission can under no circumstances accept making it compulsory Community-wide to name the producer or vendor on the label, even if in some cases it only applies to quality wines produced in specified regions.
Given the various types of sparkling wine produced in the Community, and in view of the different conditions in the individual Member States, the Commission believes it would be best to leave it up to the Member States to decide whether or not to make it compulsory to indicate the producer.
That is why the Commission finds Amendment No 12, which provides for the possibility of producer Member States making it compulsory to clearly indicate the producer's name or firm, entirely acceptable, although the proposal on the optional designation of the vendor can be dropped since that is already regulated by the existing rules and I have understood that the compromise by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development also tends in that direction.
The Commission cannot, however, accept Amendment No 5 on a new definition of sparkling wine producers because this definition is confined to sparkling wine produced in specified regions and according to traditional methods of fermentation in the bottle, which precludes from the outset sparkling wine produced in specified regions according to the pressure-vessel method.
The Commission can accept Amendment No 8 concerning the indication of the sugar content of sparkling wines because it clarifies the conditions for the use of the proposed new designation.
Regarding Amendment No 9 introducing additional criteria for the use of the term 'crémant' , the Commission agrees with some of the additional criteria proposed by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, for instance that the Member States must decide whether this term should be used in a specified region.
But the Commission found it unacceptable for the term 'crémant' only to be used in regions which have traditionally produced this product.
It therefore proposes - and from what some speakers have said I think there would be a consensus on this - that this rule should apply for all quality wines produced in specified regions in which the prescribed technical rules and therefore also the quality criteria are observed.
With regard to the use of traditional vine varieties, the Commission does not consider it necessary to apply this new criteria to 'crémant' since it already applies to all quality wines produced in specified regions.
Finally, the Commission can accept Amendment No 10 banning the use of sparkling wine bottles or bottles of a similar type for what are called imitation sparkling wines because it is designed to make the products that have traditionally used these types of bottle more recognizable and to prevent the public from being misled.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
I support this defence of quality products associated with particular regions, particular varieties in the case of wine, and very strict traditional methods.
Today, we are concerned with the crémants.
Their name cannot be given to just any sparkling wine, some of which have never seen a single grape!
Some time ago, we were defending the Champagne designation - and rightly so - prohibiting even the use of the term 'Champagne-type' .
Today, the problem is crémant, whether it comes from the Loire, the Jura, Alsace, Languedoc or Luxembourg.
There can be no question of allowing any old sparkling wine to add to the confusion already caused by the shape of the bottle by deceiving the consumer with an ambiguous label.
Our group, being concerned to ensure respect for traditional and regional products, has expressed the desire both within the Committee on Agriculture and in the plenary that crémant should remain a quality product complying with strict oenological and production standards.
That is why we helped to draft, and supported, the amendments setting a maximum content of sulphur dioxide (150 mg/l), a sugar content of below 50 g/l, a pressing rate limited to 100 litres of settled must for every 150 kg of grapes, and wines produced from traditional grape varieties.
These standards, of course, define a minimum quality level in order to be permitted to use the term 'crémant' .
But the Member States, the institutions responsible for registered designations of origin and the winegrowing syndicates must always be able to adopt stricter standards if they so desire.
The use of the term 'crémant' must always be associated with a name identifying a production region.
I stress the word always , because I know that some Member States and some third countries would like to use the word 'crémant' on its own, without associating it with a production region.
Their aim would be to make 'crémant' a manufactured product of constant quality, irrespective of any typical features associated with region, vintage or harvesting and winemaking conditions.
In order for crémant to remain a traditional product, therefore, an association with a region is essential.
Crémant d'Alsace differs in composition, grape variety and characteristics, from the crémants from the Loire, Burgundy, the Jura, etc. and it must remain different.
Our Alsace growers, our winegrowing syndicates and the INAO (National Institute of Registered Designations of Origin) have worked for more than twenty years to ensure that Crémant d'Alsace is what it is, and we must not allow community legislation, which will be replaced in the medium term by that of the IWO (International Wine and Vine Office) to destroy the heritage of our products.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Ornamental horticulture
The next item is the oral question (B4-0446/96-0-0118/96) by Mr Jacob and Mr Filippi, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on the Community initiative to assist ornamental horticulture.
Mr President, of the issues that are normally the subject of debate within the Community Institutions there are two which have a direct connection with the subject for which I am rapporteur: one is the issue of employment and the other concerns management of the - on occasion somewhat ill-considered and indiscriminate - extension of the free trade zones, as well as the effects of those zones on the development of agriculture and agricultural products, particularly those of the Mediterranean.
The motion for a resolution on flowers and ornamental plants is in a way linked to those two issues.
On the first - employment - I wish simply to point out - and this is not always done when we are discussing sectors that are considered marginal - that in Europe this sector employs as many workers as the three major European car manufacturers, that is to say more than half a million workers.
It is a sector that covers 68, 000 hectares, with a value of ECU 11 bn and a turnover of ECU 19 bn.
We are always talking about pacts for employment and employment policies, but we often forget to defend traditional sectors like this which is one of the sectors in agriculture with the highest level of job density.
It is true that we must encourage the modernization of European economic sectors, we must promote new forms of entrepreneurship but we must above all try to protect what we have now.
Turning to the free trade zones that have recently been extended to cover Morocco and Israel, there is tendency on the part of the Commission to treat agriculture as if it were an industrial economic sector.
We know that a degree of protection of agriculture exists throughout the world, and not to take account of that in Europe has the effect - when the free trade zones are defined and have then to be applied - of dramatically undermining the competitiveness of our economic sectors.
The subject of debate is not then cooperation with third countries, it is the need for greater balance in drawing up agreements so that our sectors are able to survive; that is why we need, in this as in other sectors, measures to promote European products, given that, as a result of opening up to imports, Europe is now invaded by products from third countries.
We therefore need action to promote the products of the Member States, taking a multinational approach - that is to say coordinated between them - we need to define and back specific measures to promote products in the light of the individual markets; we need to encourage producers to take part in and manage programmes.
This, moreover, is a sector which has problems because, as these are products that are very much geared to the gift market, they have to compete with industrially produced products which compete - in the individual and family gift sector - with flowers and ornamental plants.
Since we took the initiative of tabling the oral question there has been some progress. We knew that there was a proposal at the back of a drawer, and the purpose of the proposal was to get it on the table.
That, I think, was important because it follows up on the commitment that the 'General Affairs' Council entered into back in November 1995.
We shall be seeing the proposals which, we hope, will come rapidly to us for an opinion.
Looking at them as a whole, as things stand, all we would say is that the funding that is being envisaged is quite inadequate compared with need.
According to the organizations in the sector, ECU 60 million are required; we know that the Commission is inclined to cut off the intervention at ECU 10 million.
We are not asking for the ECU 400 million that was once envisaged in a study put forward by the Commission, but consider that ECU 60 million to be absolutely vital.
Mr President, first I want to thank Mr Jacob and Mr Filippi for their oral question because I consider it important for Parliament to concern itself with this particular economic sector.
As you know, the Commission has submitted a proposal on measures to promote the marketing of live horticultural plants and goods.
The purpose of this proposal is to support national programmes to promote the use of live horticultural plants and goods produced in the Community, not just in the Union but in third countries too.
The Community budget will bear 60 % of the total costs of the programme, which should amount to a maximum of ECU 10 million a year.
The Commission is aware that the trade associations would like more funds to be allocated.
The ECU 10 million proposed by the Commission is, however, comparable to the amounts available for advertising measures in other important agricultural production sectors, such as the dairy sector.
The Commission is assuming that these programmes will have a positive effect on the incomes of the farmers concerned since general advertising measures of this kind have proved successful in the past and have markedly improved turnover and consumer interest in ornamental plants.
Mr President, obviously ornamental horticulture is a sector of high ambitions in many countries which have concluded or would like to conclude a free trade agreement with the European Union.
It has gone unnoticed that the European Union has already granted considerable trade concessions in this ornamental horticulture sector to countries which are actual or potential exporters of these products.
I do not wish in any way to argue in favour of a more protectionist policy on imports of ornamental products.
And the European Union has an interest in having free access to third country markets.
Nevertheless, because of the great pressure from imports from third countries and because its own production has increased, the ornamental horticulture sector frequently suffers the problem of unduly low prices and incomes.
Every effort must thus be made to improve the market position of ornamental horticulturalists in the European Union.
The European Commission clearly has a job to do here in launching a Community initiative.
With this in mind it is useful to make a comparison with the fruit and vegetables sector which is not unrelated to ornamental horticulture.
In the fruit and vegetables sector the Commission proposed strengthening this sector by means of support for certain activities of producer organizations.
This was to be done primarily by means of a Community contribution to action funds held by these producer organizations.
Might the Commission consider a similar policy for ornamental horticulture, perhaps in an amended form? The area concerned is the marketing activities of the producer organizations.
With fruit and vegetables payments made be made for not selling, and there may be compensatory payments for market intervention.
This does not arise in ornamental horticulture and would not have to be encouraged.
But for most other marketing activities, primarily promotion, the system proposed for fruit and vegetables could also apply to ornamental horticulture.
Is the Commission prepared to look at this and make funds available? This would provide a fairer deal for this sector which all too often ends up as the poor relation in EU talks on free trade.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the appropriate exploitation of the natural resources of European regions must be stimulated and preserved in order to protect the lives of their populations and usually modest resources.
When those regions suffer from natural disadvantages and their development has to be faster or more significant, that obviously calls for greater protection of those resources and the potential that they offer, especially when it is a question of agricultural production.
The defence of ornamental plant and flower production is extremely important in the European Union and in the country I represent, especially the autonomous region of Madeira.
Given the current imbalances in the marketing of exported flowers, because of trade agreements with non-Community countries in which due attention was not paid to their impact on the economies of Member States, the Commission must take urgent action, introduce financial aid and take other measures so that production can be preserved and, better still, so that it can properly expand.
It must not be forgotten that, as well as all the European Union support to Member States and their producers, it is vital to apply to our production - and not only farming production, but especially quality production at good prices and of manifest interest for the whole European economy - the principle of Community preference which should always figure and been observed in cooperation agreements with third countries.
The problem of unemployment is now at stake and we do not want it directly or indirectly worsened.
To go off on a slight tangent, I recall that in one way or another Community preference has been mentioned or applied but only in a few cases and when the interests or strength of stronger countries is at stake.
I sincerely congratulate Mr Jacob and Mr Filippi on the relevance of their oral question on this issue.
As for the amendments to the text of the resolution tabled by Mr Mulder, I cannot support his first amendment on the application of VAT but I fully back his suggestion about creating a quality label that properly applies to present and future farm production.
Mr President, the Commissioner can count herself fortunate this morning.
Not only is she dealing with two European cultural products, she is getting a third one this morning, European flowers and ornamental horticultural products.
This sector is currently in some danger, as a result of the conclusion of all manner of free trade agreements which are largely disadvantageous to this sector.
They are disadvantageous because in those countries with which agreements are being concluded horticulture is extremely important and much of the produce is exported to Europe.
What is important to us is that the conditions of competition should be the same.
It seems to me not very fair that we in Europe should impose all manner of strict environmental requirements on horticulture and that we should import flowers from producers who do not have to meet such requirements.
Hence my argument in favour of a quality mark.
Another point: more promotional funds, not 0.05 % of total sales in the sector but I would say about 0.5 % of the value of the sector.
Mr President, ornamental horticulture is having a difficult time at present.
Growth is stagnant and competition is particularly fierce as a result of free trade agreements with countries such as Morocco.
A strong boost is thus needed to sales of this economically important sector by means of marketing and promotional activities.
In this respect the Commission's creation of a promotional fund is a welcome initiative.
But the 10 million ECU budgeted for it are totally inadequate.
Thanks to the lowering of tariffs on imports from third countries the Commission will lose some 60 million ECU.
In fact this is a form of subsidy to ornamental horticulture in those countries.
The 10 million ECU which the Commission is earmarking for the European promotional fund is in stark contrast to this.
It is altogether reasonable to support the promotional fund too to the tune of 60 million ECU.
Together with the 40 million ECU which the private organizations themselves spend on marketing and promotion, that makes an available total of 100 million ECU which is still well below the 2 % of the value of the trade which the Commission recommended for this objective in an earlier study.
Let us not forget either that this fund is the only form of European aid to ornamental horticulture.
Other sectors receive enormous sums of money.
Lastly, I would ask the Commission to press for cut flowers to remain in the low VAT band.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I just wanted to say that in my country, in Catalunya and the País Valencià, the production of ornamental plants is an important crop that has replaced other crops for many years now.
We are quite aware that the European Union has to reach agreements with third countries, especially North African countries.
The Barcelona Conference was quite explicit on this score.
But reaching trade agreements with these countries does not mean neglecting or undermining the needs of the ornamental plant sector in the European Union.
I therefore think that what Mr Mulder said is important - there must be fair competition and proper environmental conditions must be demanded of countries exporting flowers to the Community so that we can safeguard our own sector, a very important one in the Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in my country too ornamental horticulture is going through a difficult period for the reasons already stated but primarily too as a result of the great difference in the VAT rate between ourselves and our neighbours.
The Commission proposal which sought a solution was blocked for a long time by the Belgian Government.
Its view was that from 1995 the normal rate had to apply in all Member States.
Last year it even went to the Court and brought an action against seven Member States.
This attitude is hardly helpful to the ornamental horticulturalists.
The Belgian Government is inconsistent too, because it is not in favour of raising the reduced rate on firewood and wool, principally products from French-speaking Belgium, but is in favour of reducing the normal rate on cut flowers which are principally grown in Flanders.
Fortunately a preliminary agreement seems to have been reached within COREPER on the application of a reduced rate.
I hope the ECOFIN Council will ratify that agreement on 8 July next.
I also hope the Commission will quickly come up with measures to keep the sector competitive.
Mr Mulder's suggestion of a quality mark is certainly worth investigating too.
I would just like to add two comments to what I said earlier, firstly on Mr Sonneveld's suggestion about the question of comparable treatment with the fruit and vegetable sector and secondly in relation to VAT.
I also thank Mr Mulder for presenting me here with another bouquet of cultural products of Europe.
On the question of comparability with the fruit and vegetable sector let me point out again on behalf of the Commission that of course the horticultural sector has its own characteristics that are not comparable with those of other sectors, including fruit and vegetables.
It is, however, true that increased imports from third countries are putting pressure on our own producers' incomes.
In order to remedy this situation, a rule was introduced in the EU organization of the market on adherence to minimum prices for products imported from Mediterranean countries together with a protective clause that will be applicable from 1 January 1997 under the new generalized system of preferences.
In the Commission's view these measures, together with the above support programme, suffice to maintain the dynamism of the sector.
As regards VAT, i.e., the reduced VAT rate, I hope that the compromise reached in the Council by the presidency will be adopted at the next Council meeting and that VAT can therefore soon be reduced for this sector.
In accordance with Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received two motions for resolutions.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Motion for a resolution B4-0732/96
We cannot support a proposal which seeks to provide support of ECU 60 million per year for horticulture.
It is unreasonable that every single sector of agriculture should receive additional support every time it gets into difficulties.
After all, this does not happen with other sectors of the economy, such as industry and services.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Aid to the Slovak Republic
The next item is the report by Mr Konecny (A4-0157/96), on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision repealing Decision 94/939/EEC providing further macro-financial assistance for the Slovak Republic (COM(96)0009 - C4-0154/96-96/0018 (CNS)).
Mr President, After this excellent report by Mr Konecny, I can be very brief.
This Parliament's Group of the Party of European Socialists will fully support this report.
I believe the rapporteur's statement complemented the report extremely well and threw great light on the complexity of the European Union's relations with the Slovak Republic.
Given the positive trend of the Slovakian economy which has been referred to, and which of course led to today's decision, it really is incomprehensible why Slovakia is still imposing a 10 % import levy.
At its second meeting in Brussels early this month the EU-Slovakia Joint Committee unanimously called for its abolition.
We are assuming that this demand will be met in the foreseeable future.
We also believe that the already mentioned, encouraging economic figures of the Slovak economy may also give cause for a certain optimism so that the political inadequacies rightly referred to by the rapporteur can be remedied in the foreseeable future.
We are of course very pleased, given the budgetary situation in the European Union, that today's decision will relieve some of the pressure on a somewhat tight area, namely the European Guarantee Fund.
Mr President, the reason I like the report by Mr Konecny so much is because it paints a differentiated picture of the differentiated situation in Slovakia, which is usually depicted in a simplistic manner.
I am pleased with his reference to the fact that through their hard work in the recent years of change, the Slovakian people helped ensure that the money we have already granted is in a sense flowing back to us.
OK, we no longer have it, but in a sense it is flowing back to us.
I think we may conclude from this that Slovakia is on the right path in many areas.
But I can also understand the concern he expressed in paragraphs 9 and 10 of his explanatory statement, both as regards privatization and the accompanying concentration of power in what are possibly the wrong hands, and as regards the political framework conditions.
I think it is important not to separate the economy and the political framework conditions, for you simply cannot have a working market economy the rule of law also prevails.
That is why I would point out - as the rapporteur did in his report - that it is not just the language law he mentions but also the criminal law that was recently introduced for allegedly anti-state opinions expressed abroad that are likely to destroy international confidence in Slovakia.
On Wednesday the vice-president of the 'coexistence' movement of the Hungarian ethnic group in Slovakia was a guest of the inter-group working party on minority languages which I chair, and he told us about this problem and about the problem of the administrative reform, which is an attempt to rob the minority of the basis of their livelihood.
We must continue to keep a careful eye on this situation.
We should not try to tell them what to do but should distinguish on the basis of dialogue between the Slovakian people and various wrong turns.
We have always supported self-determination for the Slovakian people.
But this self-determination is only possible for the smaller nations of Central Europe if fragmented artificial states are replaced by a new, large entity that links the nations together, namely if the European Union is enlarged to the east.
The peoples of this region must not confront one another but form a community that binds them together.
That is why Slovakia must remain in the front row of countries we hope will become Member States.
To support this is an important task, which is why I am glad that Mr Konecny has taken this matter up as he has.
I believe we should certainly not slam the door on Slovakia and use the fact that economic successes have been achieved but that there are also points of criticism in order to enter into a differentiated dialogue with the Slovakian people, who clearly belong with us.
Mr President, it is of course good news that a country previously promised macrofinancial assistance does not need it and, as Mr Posselt says, the money thus comes back.
We are happy with that.
Slovakia, Mr President, has seen unexpectedly positive economic development: economic growth of 5 to 6 %, a sizeable improvement in the balance of payments - from a one billion dollar deficit in 1993 to a small surplus in 1995 - and a rapid fall in inflation.
This is an impressive achievement, and many a country of the Union would do well to emulate it.
Slovakia is now able to operate in the capital market on its own account.
This is all the more remarkable in that institutionally and economically quite a few problems remain.
Slovakia is reluctant to agree to the terms attached to the macro-financial assistance it had requested earlier, and the privatization process in particular was a point of concern to would-be lenders.
The European Union must continue to pay appropriate attention to this country by means of structured dialogue.
In the first place - and the two previous speakers have already said that - an eye must be kept on the political situation and rights of minorities.
For the time being it would appear impossible for Slovakia to join the Union on the basis of the current situation, but the same goes for privatization.
The exemption of major areas of the economy creates great problems.
Broad dialogue with the Slovak authorities would appear appropriate.
And may I once more compliment Mr Konecny on this report.
Mr President, I too shall be supporting Mr Konecny's report, but like all those who have spoken before me I must also express my concern at developments in Slovakia.
It may well be that Slovakia does not need this loan, but it may primarily be a signal from the Meciar Government that it does not need the Union.
It is precisely this which bothers me, because I know that the great majority of Slovaks think otherwise.
The problem is of course that the Meciar Government has so far always ignored the pressure put on it by the Union.
Examples have been given here, of action by the Meciar Government against minorities in the use of language, also for example the redrawing of provincial borders to ensure that the Hungarians will not be in the majority in one of the provinces, the laws on seditious talk, and so on.
I think the Meciar Government has to remember that it has to respect human rights, that it has to respect democratic principles.
I think it is very important in the near future, if the door is not to be shut in Slovakia's face, to encourage NGOs from the West and from Slovakia to contact each other and try jointly to get a dialogue going from the bottom up.
I think quite honestly that this may achieve more than what we have been doing so far with our pressurizing of Slovakia, though this must of course continue otherwise Meciar will simply carry on as before.
Mr President, Slovakia's economy is doing so well that foreign help with its balance of payments is no longer needed.
The economy is growing considerably and unemployment is falling.
Reasons enough to vote for the Commission's proposal to end macro-financial aid.
But there are also economic minus points.
The privatization programme is stagnant and the level of investment is very low.
The question is thus whether the economic recovery is sufficiently sustainable, especially as Slovak exports are largely generated by just two companies and are heavily dependent on imports of cheap raw materials from Russia.
So for the longer term not all the economic signals are green.
The greatest problem, however, is the political problem.
It is well known that there is tension between the president and the prime minister.
There is no media freedom and life continues to be made difficult for the Hungarian minority.
There is also notoriously the law on protection of the republic under which criticism of government policy may be a criminal offence.
Commissioner van den Broek has repeatedly raised these matters with the Slovak Government.
That critical dialogue should be continued.
The tempo of change may be somewhat hesitant, but the changes do have to be in the right direction.
Mr President, the Council proposal to repeal the financial assistance and the Slovak Government's rejection of further financial assistance is presumably based on the fact that Slovakia no longer wants to follow the path proposed by the European Union, in particular in its privatization policy.
Moreover, the Slovak Government is not prepared to suspend the 10 % import levy on foreign goods.
A further reason is probably the Slovakian nuclear policy.
Slovakia is obviously not prepared to continue the construction of Mochovce according to Western safety standards and at the same time to close down the obsolete Bohunice nuclear power station.
What does that mean in terms of cooperation between the European Union and the Slovak Republic? For with the association agreement on the one hand and the disappearance of the financial aid and the conditions tied to it on the other, however much understanding we have for its difficult position, it will become easier for the Slovak Government to revert to a planned economy.
For all these reasons the European Union must make greater efforts to seek dialogue with the Slovak Government in order to prevent Slovakia from pursuing a policy that tends to move away from Europe again instead of towards Europe.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes Mr Konecny's report on behalf of Parliament's Committee on External Economic Relations, which supports our proposal to repeal the financial assistance to Slovakia.
In 1995 the Commission held talks with the Slovak Government on the economic-policy conditions to which the loan was to be tied.
No agreement could in fact be reached during these talks because the Slovak Government could not decide to take various measures that the Commission considered essential and in particular, as all the speakers have pointed out, rapidly to abolish the 10 % supplementary import levy which Slovakia has imposed since 1994.
Moreover, the Slovak Government decided to cancel the voucher-privatization plan, which the Commission regarded as a highly important precondition for payment of the loan.
Because of this about-turn in its privatization policy, the interim review provided for under the standby credit agreement with the IMF could not be carried out.
This led the World Bank to break off the talks on a structural adjustment loan for the Slovak financial and business sector.
Meanwhile, as has also been pointed out, the balance of payments situation in Slovakia has improved markedly, so that the Slovak Government has declared it is no longer interested in continuing the programme agreed with the IMF.
In view of these facts and in particular of the inadequate structural reform carried out by the Slovak Government, the retention of the supplementary import levy and the marked improvement in the Slovakian balance of payments, the Commission proposes repealing the Council decision on financial assistance to Slovakia.
In a letter the deputy prime minister and minister of finance of Slovakia addressed to the Commission at the beginning of the year, he took note of the Commission's proposal to repeal the financial assistance and conceded that this assistance is no longer justified.
Once this assistance has been repealed, the necessary budgetary rectifications will of course have to be made.
Let me point out that regardless of these events the Commission will continue its critical dialogue with the Slovak Government.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Fishery products from Ceuta
The next item is the report (A4-0154/96) by Mr Valdivielso De Cué, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Regulation opening and providing for the administration of Community tariff quotas for certain fishery products originating in Ceuta (COM(95) 0687 - C40134/96-95/0351(CNS)).
Mr President, in March the Council consulted the European Parliament on the proposal for a regulation opening and providing for the administration of Community tariff quotas for certain fishery products originating in Ceuta.
The legal basis chosen by the Commission is the Spanish Act of Accession, in particular Article 25.4, calling for the opening of the quota to be regulated by a Council regulation and also calling for the European Parliament's opinion.
I would like to remind you that Spain has three customs systems: one covering the mainland and the Balearics, the customs union with the European Union; one for the Canaries, and another for the territories of Ceuta and Melilla situated on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa.
Once the report was assigned to the REX Committee we contacted the people of Ceuta in order to discover the social and economic reality there so that this report would be as objective as possible.
Analysis of our report shows clearly that Ceuta is a city in decline, lacking land, water and energy and that the free port is also in decline, as we shall see.
84.5 % of the population lives off the tertiary sector and is highly dependent on the current customs set up.
This situation changed after the signing of the Mediterranean Agreement between the European Union and the kingdom of Morocco, setting up a free trade area over 12 years, breaking the previous trade specialisation model and raising problems of the future viability and economic survival of the city.
Analysis shows the need for a new development strategy for Ceuta.
On this score, we must consider using customs policy measures - in the REX Committee - as an instrument of economic and social cohesion for ultra-peripheral regions.
Although the European Union has co-funded in Ceuta aquaculture activities and has started up a fish farm with genuine success, we think that it should also use - as a tool for boosting the economy and creating jobs- since there is a market - the possibility of adopting customs measures since Ceuta, although a part of a European Union Member State has a separate customs system; especially bearing in mind that extending the quota proposed in this report, together with the REX Committee's own amendments, would not distort the Community sea bream and sea bass market, as these are the products concerned and which enjoy full and growing demand.
Therefore logic calls for an increase in the tiny quota of 200 tonnes proposed by the n to 1000 or 1200 tonnes in accordance with the projection included in the draft resolution.
The knock-on effect on the g market would be very limited - not to say practically nil - other than in southern Spain.
On the other hand the development of this activity would be beneficial for the GDP of the city of Ceuta, possibly as much as a 2 % increase.
We think that employment would go up by 0.5 to 1 %.
The economy would also be diversified whereas at the moment it is in dire straits as we have already said, for reasons already explained.
Therefore the REX Committee is proposing to the Commission and the Council to extend the Community quota for sea bass and sea bream.
This extension would result in a 69, 000 ECU loss for the Community budget but would harmoniously consolidate and develop industry and help the economic diversification of the region as the quotas could be gradually increase over the next two years.
That is why we are asking the Commission to draft a technical report in order to assess the effects of the planned trade liberalisation and relations between the European Union and Morocco, that so much affect the city of Ceuta.
This petition would also be extendible to the situation in Melilla.
To sum up, we should like to see management of quotas as an instrument of social cohesion in a declining region.
Mr President, the Liberal Group fully endorses Mr Valdivielso's report, and I compliment him on it.
The Commission's proposal for a new tariff quota for certain fish species merits support, but more desirable still, in all honesty, is a doubling of the quota for sea bass and sea bream, as the rapporteur proposes.
Ceuta is greatly affected by the European Union's new Euro-Mediterranean policy.
The gradual creation of a free trade area with neighbouring Morocco will, as we all know and as Mr Valdivielso has already said, totally remove Ceuta's trade advantages.
In order to strengthen local aquaculture and for reasons connected with diversification of the economy it is thus desirable that we should create this quota.
Aquaculture in Ceuta has great potential.
This tariff quota may boost Ceuta's economy but will have very little effect on aquaculture in the Union.
So anyone who urges caution on environmental grounds should be very careful and bear in mind that this quota means only 0.18 % of the Community market's absorption capacity, in other words it is well short of the 2-10 % of capacity.
Furthermore, demand for sea bass and sea bream is rising in the Union and a doubling of the quota, as I have indicated, would thus be a good thing from that point of view as well.
Mr President, Mr Valdivielso de Cué's report on the tariff quotas for certain fishery products originating in Ceuta very clearly describes the current economic situation in Ceuta and the prospects of developing its aquaculture.
Ceuta is part of the national territory of Spain but not of the Community's customs territory.
Protocol No 2 to the Act on the Accession of Spain and Portugal applies to trade between Ceuta and the Community.
The purpose of this proposed regulation is to extend the provisions applicable in the preceding year and to expand them by adding further fish varieties.
Let me give my position on the individual amendments.
Amendment No 1: since Ceuta is not listed in the declaration on the outermost Community regions annexed to the Treaty on European Union, it cannot be regarded as such a region in this regulation.
Amendment No 2: the Commission can accept this additional recital.
Amendments Nos 3-5: the purpose of these amendments is to increase the newly proposed tariff quota for sea bream and sea bass from 100 tonnes to 200 tonnes.
In view of the fact that production of these fish exists in the Community too and any increase in the proposed quotas would put the unanimous adoption of the regulation by the Council at risk, the Commission takes the view that the quotas should not be changed.
For if the Council did not adopt the regulation, that would mean that none of the proposed tariff quotas could be applied because the existing regulation has expired.
On the impact-assessment report you request, I would ask Mr Monti to examine whether and in what form Parliament can be given information on this matter.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Mr President, I just wanted to say the following on Mr Valdivielso's report. We are facing a very serious problem in the Ceuta region because of developments in Gibraltar.
That will lead to political tensions.
Here the Valdivielso report raised a very important subject, namely aquaculture.
Any who knows this region is aware that it is almost predestined for aquaculture.
I just wanted to put the question whether joint aquaculture projects could not be carried out between Gibraltar, Ceuta and Melilla and also include Morocco, for then we could contribute towards the political detente of the present situation through a practical economic project.
That is why I welcome this excellent report but hope that we will also take it further, for this is where a real start can be made, which might prove important in the future.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 21 June 1996.
You will be speaking about the agenda in a moment and I have major problems with the agenda.
I wanted to plan my time scales for next year and found that not a single date given in the European Parliament's diary for 1977 is correct as from 1 February.
Ash Wednesday falls on a Monday.
The date 29 February is printed even though it is not a leap year.
So I would advise and ask Members and also the Bureau not to agree any dates on the basis of the European Parliament's diary for 1977 because not a single date after 1 February is correct.
(Laughter, applause)
Mr President, if you wonder why the Chamber is not very full, may I raise with you a real problem of access for Members and visitors at the present time.
I have just come across the tunnel from the Belliard building to this one.
It is impossible to come up in the lifts.
There are crowds of people on minus 2 floor and it is absolutely impossible to get access to this plenary for 3 p.m.
It is very inconvenient for visitors but it is desperately inconvenient for Members.
I would ask that someone looks at ways of ensuring easy access for Members to the plenary while at the same time allowing visitors access to our public gallery.
The situation is very bad today.
You are quite right, Mrs Green, but we will, I hope, manage to resolve quite a number of the problems connected with this building and access from Belliard and other buildings in the course of next year when D3 comes into use and we have direct access...
... from the offices to the level of the plenary.
Mr Crowley, first let me thank you for that comment and for referring to the matter and secondly the applause greeting your comment indicated the views of this House.
I will proceed as you suggested: I will make it clear to the Irish media and in particular to the newspaper in question that we support the maintenance of freedom of speech and deeply regret the death of the Irish journalist.
Urgent political matters
The next item is the statement by the Commission on urgent political matters relating to the meeting of the G7 states in Lyons.
I call Mr Santer, President of the Commission.
Thank you very much, Mr President of the Commission.
Let me once again inform all those who are still not sure about them of the rules of play.
There is no list of speakers, those who wish to put questions may in each case request to do so after the Commission has spoken.
Requests to speak beforehand cannot be accepted.
Secondly, the questions may not take more than one minute and the answers should not be too lengthy either.
You mentioned that the first item on your agenda was combatting international terrorism.
Can you tell us whether you are more optimistic now that the Europol Convention will be ratified during the Irish presidency? As you know, it is one of the main focuses of the Irish presidency.
As drugs are part of the international terrorism network can you tell us what precisely you agreed at the G7 conference? Also, may I use this opportunity to express my regret about the incident in Osnabrück which happened during this conference and on a more local level at the outrageous murder of Ms Veronica Guerin by people involved in the drugs trade.
Mr President, I do indeed believe that the entire international community, and more especially the European Union, must do everything in its power to counter this modern scourge of terrorism.
It is our duty to fight against all the forms of organized crime to which you have referred, and I believe that now that the Europol project has finally been unfrozen and set in motion, backed up by all the other provisions existing within international law, such as the agreement on extradition and various other measures, we will gradually be able to combine all our resources in the fight against terrorism and organized crime.
As far as organized crime is concerned, you will have read in the final communiqué - I will not cover all the details here - that some forty measures have been agreed upon and are now to be put into effect at the various levels by the various international bodies.
At European level, in accordance with the commitment given by the Irish President, whom I had the opportunity to meet yesterday in Dublin and who made this matter the primary objective of her joint action and of the priorities of her programme - a programme which she will be presenting here in the plenary in a few days' time - I believe that we shall succeed in combining our forces to combat international terrorism and organized crime.
But considerable efforts will be needed - good intentions are not enough - and we will need to translate into reality all the right-thinking declarations that are being made within the various international bodies.
Mr President, in Lyon you expressed appreciation - at least as reported in the newspapers - of the Italian government's document on economic and financial policy for 1997-1999.
In the days that followed there was controversy in Italy - I imagine your assistants provided you with a fat press file on the subject - because Commissioner Monti expressed a different opinion on that document.
So I want to ask you one question: do you agree with the strategy set out in the Italian government's document on economic and financial policy, yes or no? Please, Mr President, do not remind me of the Maastricht criteria, because everyone knows about that!
Just answer yes or no!
Mr President, in answer to the honourable Member, although my grasp of Italian is not sufficient to enable me to follow the Italian press from day to day, I do even so know something about the debate that has taken place in the press and Italian public opinion in the last few days.
That was why, last Friday, I myself had already made a statement in Lyons when I was asked to give my views on this matter.
I said that I was encouraging all the steps taken by the Italian government to satisfy the convergence criteria, and that I was not prepared to speculate at that time but that it was a major step in the right direction, which is what we hope for.
In this context, having regard to the debate that is stirring up the press and informed public opinion in Italy, I made a statement today which I will take the liberty of reading to you by way of a reply.
It will not be a straightforward yes or no, because the problems are more complex and cannot be answered with a simple affirmative or negative.
Anyway, following a meeting this morning with Mr Monti, who is responsible for the internal market, and Mr de Silguy, who deals with economic, financial and monetary affairs, I made the following statement:
' The Commission encourages the efforts being made by the Member States to control their excessive deficits and comply with the convergence criteria, with which you are fully familiar.
It takes note of the specific measures announced so far by the Italian government, and notes with satisfaction that government's intentions with regard to restructuring their finances.
As the Commission has repeatedly stated, the performance of the Member States with regard to the criteria laid down by the Treaty will be assessed in the light of the final economic results for 1997, in other words in 1998 at the earliest.
That is the strategy we agreed upon at the European Council in Madrid.
The decisions will therefore be taken by the European Council when the time comes, and cannot be anticipated.
Naturally, this will not prevent the Commission from encouraging all the Member States to take all necessary steps to satisfy the criteria and to participate - from the outset, if possible - in economic and monetary union in accordance with the rules laid down by the Treaty.'
Mr President, first I would like to thank the President of the Commission for the very clear statement he has just made to us on the results of the G7 summit, making it clear that such essential matters as the consequences of globalization, the multilateralization of trade and terrorism were discussed, that clear guidelines were identified and that powerful signals were sent.
Eight days earlier the Florence summit was held, and that summit did not arrive at the same results, to say the least.
I would to know whether the Commission draws any conclusions from this comparison, from the institutional standpoint, and whether it might not be of value to set up a committee to follow up the G7 guidelines within the European Union.
Mr President, you will shortly be hearing statements on Florence by the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Prodi, and Mr Dini.
I am therefore not going to dwell on the results of that summit.
Indeed, unless I am mistaken, I shall have the opportunity to do so in my capacity as President of the European Commission very shortly, from 4.00 p.m.
As regards the guidelines laid down by the G7, I would agree with Mr Pasty that they are general guidelines, and that they largely coincide with those which we are trying impose upon the European Union.
I am very happy to note, as I said just now, that a number of ideas which we recommended within the European Union have been taken up by the G7 - for example, cooperation on macroeconomic affairs at the level of the international economy, which forms part of the G7 conclusions for the first time.
There are, therefore, interactions between the G7 and our activities within the European Union.
At European Union level, of course, we shall do everything we can to ensure that the general guidelines adopted by the G7 - which, I would remind you, are not decisions but guidelines - are gradually transposed into our activities within the European Union.
I consider, then, that the follow-up must be not sporadic but permanent, and I am glad to note that the guidelines adopted by the G7 correspond to our own guidelines and our own programme.
I need not go back over all the details of the programme that was mentioned just now, but I will place greater emphasis on the aspect of multilateralism within the framework of international trade, and especially within the framework of the WTO.
The European Union, as you know, has always supported this multilateral aspect, and I am very glad that the agreement between the 7 clearly and succinctly restates the guidelines which we have never ceased to advocate in order to strengthen the World Trade Organization.
Mr President, in the run-up to the G7 summit the Council adopted a new action programme to support the Russian Federation.
This programme was indeed discussed in the Commission but it was not notified to Parliament.
I would very much like to know what the content of this action programme is, whether it is a new parallel programme to the TACIS programme, whether this programme played any part in the summit or whether it was merely intended as electoral support for the presidential elections currently being held in Russia.
Mr President, Mrs Hoff, the Commission and the European Union have always pursued an overall strategy with regard to the Russian Federation.
I believe it is essential that we should maintain constant relations with Russia, having regard to its geopolitical situation.
We are well aware that stability and security in our own countries depend on stability and security in Russia.
This was the spirit in which, last September, we compiled an overall strategy which has been submitted to the Council, and which is certainly familiar to honourable Members.
It is concerned with deepening our relations, not just to secure the reelection of a President but to deepen our relations with Russia, in the framework of all the international efforts made, for various reasons, to support the economic reforms and programmes pursued by the Russian authorities.
In this connection, I can tell you that, at the G7 in Lyons, the Director-General of the International Monetary Fund, Mr Camdessus, stated that Russia has hitherto complied with all the constraints and obligations arising from the IMF programme, that the economic reforms are beginning to produce specific results, and that we therefore have every reason to continue to support those results.
We must, therefore, commit ourselves to a continuous process of deepening our relations with the Russian Federation, not just in political terms but in economic and commercial terms too.
This has nothing to do with the election now taking place, but relates to the fact that we have a common interest in ensuring that Russia can carry through its economic reforms successfully and become a stable Federation, because stability is also in our interest.
Mr President of the Commission, I have followed your speech carefully and I must mention my surprise and concern, because at one moment it seemed as though you were speaking in behalf of the G7, which, we must remember, is not a democratically constituted organization and which leans towards and contributes to an 'anti-democratic continental drift' affecting even countries like Sweden which up to now have taken a stance of peace and neutrality and which little by little are moving in the other direction, which is very worrying.
I should like to ask you whether the Commission will continue to insist upon defending certain international political or economic democratic organizations or is it going to submit to this form of interference by the G7 in international political life?
Mr President, I am not the spokesman of the G7, but I am a member of the G7.
In that capacity, the President of the Commission has to help ensure that the guidelines adopted by the world's most industrialized countries correspond to the guidelines which you, and we, lay down in this House.
And I am very glad to find that a number of the guidelines which you have adopted as Members of Parliament, together with the Council, have been adopted by the G7 also.
It is a notable success for European organization to be able to claim, in connection with the G7, that the ideas which you have decided upon democratically - or so I trust - in this House have been reflected in the various guidelines.
As I said just now to Mr Pasty, you have always supported multilateralism, for example, against unilateralism in international trade.
Well, for the first time, if you re-read the conclusions of the G7, you will find an important passage about the strengthening of the World Trade Organization, and if you read between the lines - as politicians sometimes have to - you will also find an unequivocal condemnation of the Helms-Burton Law and the D'Amato Law passed by the United States of America.
I believe it is a success not for the G7 but for the European Union to find, within the general guidelines of the G7, an agreement which precisely corresponds to the views which you yourselves have adopted in this House.
There is no reason to regret this attitude; indeed, there is reason, even if you do not welcome it, at least to be satisfied that the ideas recommended at European Union level are being incorporated into the considerations and broad guidelines of the G7.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, I have two questions.
The first concerns the fight against terrorism.
You know that we can only combat terrorism if we have a comprehensive exchange of data.
Let me ask you how the individual citizen in Europe can check where his data is stored in Europe and what data is stored and what means of influence he has to protect his privacy in this connection.
My second question relates to the G7 meeting.
Now it was agreed at the last G7 meeting to give financial assistance for two reactors in the Ukraine, thanks to the means of financing we have in the EU, so that Chernobyl can be shut down.
These reactors would not obtain authorization to operate here at home because they are to be built according to a Russian type of reactor.
Let me ask you this: how can we agree to provide financing for something that does not comply with our guidelines?
Mr President, as far as the struggle against terrorism is concerned, I should point out that a number of systems have to be set up.
You know, for example, under the Schengen Accord, that computerized systems are in place, especially in Strasbourg, which make it possible to identify and trace these people.
Clearly, this system needs to be extended to other institutions.
We now have Europol, and we have Interpol.
President Chirac has suggested that the senior representatives of the working group against terrorism should be assisted by Interpol.
So a number of elements have been set up to improve the structure, and to institutionalize as it were, the struggle against terrorism, through a variety of measures to be taken at all levels, in all the institutions, and by all the member countries of the international organizations.
As far as your second question is concerned, I would remind you that this is precisely the purpose of the G7 meeting on nuclear security which was held two months ago in Moscow.
At that meeting, we agreed upon a programme and strategy intended to lead to the shutting-down of the two reactors at Chernobyl, which do not comply with the safety standards in force in our own countries.
We also submitted an overall financing plan to ensure that this shutdown does take effect.
We laid down a programme, step by step, with financing, and I can tell you that we, for our part, have just recently signed the second part of our share of the financing which, if I recall correctly, amounts to ECU 200 million.
A whole package of measures, then, has been taken to put an end to the insecurity associated with reactors which fail to comply with our safety standards.
This refers not only to Chernobyl but also, more generally, to other reactors still in operation in a number of countries, particularly in the East, to enable them to meet the safety standards we expect, and be refitted to those standards.
I don't know who is giving the folklore performance here, you or me, I don't know.
That's for you to judge.
At all events, I take myself seriously, and I have no desire to play a walk-on part in a folklore performance.
I tell you this frankly, and I trust that you will accept what I say on the same basis.
I believe that is the only way that a conversation can be held between honest, politically mature and cultivated men.
Perhaps Lyonnais cuisine is not to your taste, I would not know.
Are you familiar with Lyonnais cuisine? That is another question I would like to ask if the President will permit me.
At all events, I ate what was put in front of me, and I am quite happy about it, and you would undoubtedly have done the same yourself if you had been invited to Lyons.
Perhaps the reason you are complaining today is because you were not invited.
Now I am going to answer your questions, because I have no desire to descend to your level.
As far as the environment is concerned, we decided within the World Trade Organization that the ministerial conference in Singapore, which is to be held in December, will have to deal both with the environment and with international social standards.
As I said just now, we want to see the multilateralism of trade taking account of both environmental and social concerns, not with a view to protectionism but simply in order to respect the obligations entered into by the various Member States of the European Union, and also by other states outside the European Union.
As regards employment, I am no fan of deregulation - quite the reverse.
I served as Minister for Social Affairs and Minster of Labour long enough to know what employment is and how it can be created.
I also know that employment requires a certain amount of growth, and that we need to use our internal market to stimulate all the necessary forces to create a growth which is rich in jobs.
That is our purpose, and one of the elements of the Confidence Pact for employment which I presented to you.
Deregulation is not an end in itself, but deregulation - or the liberalization of some sectors - may be regarded as a way of promoting a number of new jobs for the future, thanks to modern technology.
You are being reactionary if you cut yourself off from all new forms of technology.
That is no way to create jobs.
(Applause) Finally, I am not one of the complainers, one of those who thinks that employment is sufficient. Quite the reverse.
If you study all the speeches I have made since my investiture, here in this Parliament, you will know I have always said that the first priority is, specifically, to combat unemployment in the European Union.
If we want the Europe of citizens, we must take an interest in what concerns the citizens, in the problems that affect them most - employment, and the struggle against unemployment.
That is my philosophy, and my commitment, and I hope you will share it.
It is a commitment that has nothing to do with folklore, I assure you.
I am concerned, perhaps more concerned than you, with our citizens' concerns and preoccupations.
And I believe that you too, once and for all, should respect this commitment.
(Applause)
Mr President, I should like to return to the decisions adopted by the G7 regarding the campaign against terrorism and crime.
I should like to ask President Santer whether the fact that the antiterrorist campaign is one of the hobby-horses of the G7 will help to strengthen the third pillar, offering greater efficiency, and therefore greater communitization, with a view of course to the intergovernmental conference.
Mr President, I can tell Mrs Reding that that is indeed our preoccupation.
I have just come back from Dublin, and I think I can safely say that the same preoccupation is shown by the Irish presidency.
We must all become much more concerned with the problems relating to the third pillar.
The methods under the third pillar, as they stand at present, are not adequate to deal with matters of direct concern to our citizens: organized crime, illegal immigration, asylum, campaign against drugs - and there are others I could mention.
The need, therefore, is for greater efforts, and I hope that the intergovernmental conference will draw conclusions in this respect leading to greater communitization, or take steps to consider what means exist for responding to our citizens' concern about the campaign against terrorism.
For my part, speaking on behalf of the Commission, I can say once again that we are fully agreed that at least seven of the various campaigns currently taking place under the third pillar could be communitized and, if possible, transferred to the first pillar.
Mr President, my question relates to the mad cow business, and also to our relations with the United States.
It would surely seem prudent, in order to avoid any risk to human health, to prohibit the use of animal wastes that have been declared unfit for human consumption in the manufacture of feeds not only for cattle but also for poultry, sheep, pigs and even fish.
Better still, to prevent any recurrence of the conditions that gave rise to mad cow disease, we should prohibit the use of any meal of animal origin for the feeding of herbivores, which is after all a perversion of nature.
However, those States which are thinking about such bans are, it appears, being deterred by one objection: if this prudent action were to be taken, it would be necessary to compensate by using greater quantities of proteins of vegetable rather than animal origin, such as soya, for example.
However, the Blair House agreements have set ceilings on the areas which we may plant with protein plants, so that increasing demand would mean increasing our deficit.
So my questions is this: does the Commission not consider it appropriate, in these circumstances, to renegotiation the Blair House agreements, which are drastically reducing our room for manoeuvre?
Mr President, I must say very simply, honestly and frankly that I am not prepared to give an objective answer to that question, not having studied the question in detail.
I can, however, assure the honourable Member of one thing: as I said at the last part-session in Strasbourg, as far as mad cow disease is concerned we are being guided solely by public health considerations, on the basis of scientific criteria.
This applies equally to feeds and to meals.
As you known, a new controversy has broken out on this matter.
In view of this, we are inclined to consider and examine all the proposals made, and I am glad to take note of your concern.
I feel sure you will appreciate that I cannot answer this question off the cuff, since it was not on the agenda at the G7 in Lyons.
Mr President, I have a question about the herring crisis.
Can the President of the Commission tell me how it is possible that in spite of a Community restriction on herring fishing by means of total allowable catches, crisis measures have suddenly to be adopted in the middle of the fishing season and the herring stock seems to have declined to an all-time low level of 400 000 tonnes?
Mr President, herrings were another subject not discussed by the G7, but even so I shall reply to the honourable Member.
It goes without saying that the action taken by the Commission to reduce herring fishing is intended to help preserve fish stocks.
I believe we have a certain responsibility in that respect.
Mrs Bonino has explained to you elsewhere the strategy we are working on with regard to the restructuring of fisheries and the preservation of fish stocks for environmental and ecological reasons.
Having said that, we are of course concerned with the fate of herring fishermen, and other fishermen, and we intend to accompany these measures to restructure the fisheries industry with technical forms of assistance to fishermen and the payment of compensation, to ensure that this very large sociological group is not too severely penalized.
But our first concern is to preserve fish stocks, and especially herring stocks.
President Santer, if the G7 summit has led to a definite result as regards Karadzic, I would like to know how it happened that - as we read in Le Monde today - Karadzic has had himself put up as a candidate for the next elections?
How could Mr Bildt say quite clearly yesterday, sitting beside Mrs Plavsic, that he was satisfied with what Karadzic has now announced - his pretend resignation - and that Karadzic had therefore fulfilled all the requirements?
In my view that does not tally with what you said earlier!
Mr President, I can only confirm what Mrs Pack has just said.
That was indeed not the intention of the participants in the G7 meeting.
If you read the conclusions again, it is perfectly clear that all the provisions of the Dayton Peace Agreement - of the agreements signed in Paris, in other words - must be implemented in their entirety and, of course, to the extent that those provisions are not implemented, the sanctions will still remain available as means of coercion.
Be that as it may, however, a symbolic withdrawal, a temporary eclipse, is not sufficient to satisfy the provisions of the Dayton Peace Agreement .
I welcome the discussions which took place at the G7 and the expressions of concern about poverty in the Third World and ACP countries.
Although they expressed concern for people in the Third World, they still talk about the necessity for structural adjustments.
That has come to mean cuts in health, cuts in education, cuts in housing, cuts in welfare, in fact cuts in the kinds of services that can make these countries much more competitive and certainly to bring them eventually onto a par with ourselves.
Does Mr Santer not consider that the cancellation of debt - and here I am talking about the interest upon the interest upon the interest - could be the single best contribution we could make to the developing world?
Mr President, I share the view of the honourable Member.
As regards the least developed countries, the conclusions of the G7 envisaged that the easing and cancellation of debt would be a necessary condition for their future development.
But the easing or cancellation of debt is not sufficient in itself.
There will still be a need to provide public aid to development, at least for the least developed countries.
In addition, other steps have to be taken, steps to give those countries access to our markets.
We can help them not only with aid but also by making it possible for them to trade their products in our markets.
That is the only way that a genuine partnership can be established.
These countries cannot survive by aid alone - they need a package of measures, structural adjustments, the assistance of the International Monetary Fund, the cancellation of debt but also access for these countries to our own markets, so that a genuine partnership, something which is so necessary, will be created step by step, leading these countries along the road to successful development.
Mr President, I would like to continue on the subject of unemployment.
In Florence it was agreed that efforts should continue to be made to promote the EMU.
All the important measures aimed at reducing unemployment were postponed, including your own confidence pact, as well as other proposals put forward by Sweden.
Were these issues discussed in G7?
Did you yourself, as the president of the Commission, make any demands on the G7 countries? If this was discussed, what conclusions did you come to?
Mr President, first I am very glad to find that the European Council in Florence has confirmed, or endorsed, the Commission's action, which has been given the name of the Confidence Pact for employment, because it is a joint approach.
Unemployment cannot be reduced by legislation; but it can be reduced by a joint effort by all the Member States at different levels, mobilizing all the economic and social actors.
It seems to me that one element of this overall pact is the question of economic and monetary union.
Economic and monetary union cannot be seen as opposed to the creation of jobs.
Some countries have clearly demonstrated this.
Ireland, for example, has dramatically reduced its public deficit while at the same time creating new jobs.
Sweden has done the same thing.
So what is needed is a package of measures, based on macroeconomic policies like the policy designed to create economic and monetary union, but also based on the full exploitation of all our potential within the framework of the major internal market, the interlinking of which will enable it to function as an integrated market.
Next, the social partners must be given every opportunity to participate in negotiations on job flexibility and job security, on the standardization of working hours, on education, apprenticeship, etc., while at the same time stimulating new initiatives such as small- and medium-sized enterprises, etc..
This, then, is a whole package of measures and activities that need to be undertaken, and the principles and broad lines of which have in any case been adopted.
Mr Prodi, President-in-Office of the Council, who chaired the European Council meeting in Florence, will be reporting to you on this shortly.
A whole package of measures needs to be implemented to ensure that, gradually, unemployment can be reduced in the European Union.
We all want to see that, and so we must not relax are efforts to bring it about.
You said something I simply do not understand.
You said that we must ensure that the rich countries do not become richer and the poor do not become poorer.
The second part is true, the poor must not become poorer, but I take the view that we are not talking here about zero-sum games.
We cannot artificially make the prosperous countries more prosperous.
Conversely, it could be said that if the prosperous countries have a chance to achieve growth and then to take the poorer countries along with them, the whole idea becomes more acceptable.
People sometimes say in very polemic language - it is wrong but I will quote it today anyway - that development policy is often pursued in such a manner as to ensure that the poor people in the rich countries pay money to make the rich people in the poor countries richer.
That is why I ask for a rectification.
Do you agree with me that we must ensure that we all jointly bring about economic growth and social improvements?
Mr President, that was precisely the objective of the G7 meeting, whose general theme was globalization to benefit the whole world, not just one part of the world.
All the statements I have just made should be interpreted in that light.
We do not want the benefits of this globalization of our economies to be available just to the few, whether in the rich countries or the poor ones, or to be to the detriment of a few, whether in the rich countries or the poor ones.
We also need to realize that in the rich countries, in the most prosperous countries in the European Union, there are many people who are excluded or marginalized, and that again is something we have to fight against.
The European Union numbers eighteen million unemployed and fifty million outcasts, living on the margins of our society, on the threshold of poverty.
They, too, deserve our consideration.
We need to think not just about one country as a whole but about the different social strata, the different environments.
Consequently, the G7 meeting approached the problem from the right angle by stating that the benefits generated by globalization must be distributed to all, rich and poor alike.
That concludes Question Time.
Welcome
Before we continue with the agenda, I have the pleasure of welcoming Mr Luciano Volante, Speaker of the Italian Chamber of Deputies.
I bid you a warm welcome!
The talks you held during your visit to our House will certainly help to further strengthen the cooperation between the Italian Parliament and our House.
Florence European Council - activities of the Italian presidency
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I come here today with the greatest respect to illustrate the principal results of the Florence European Council which represented the conclusion of our Presidential term.
I feel even greater consideration towards you because the circumstances of the last six months mean that I come amongst you only at the very end of my country's great task as regards Europe.
But I am sure you will find, from what I have to tell you, that this task has been pursued in complete continuity and that the election and change of government has not in fact changed Italy's priorities, which confirms the deep-rooted attachment to the ideals of European integration of the main political, economic and social forces in my country.
The government I have the honour to lead has always identified with the programme of work presented to you last January, which has guided our actions over these six months.
From the start our aim has been to ensure the consistency and continuity of the Union's activities while respecting institutional equilibrium, and to work with determination to relaunch the European ideals by paying greater attention to the problems most frequently raised by public opinion.
I do not intend to dwell on the delicacy of the appointments awaiting the European Union.
The various stages of Agenda 2000 - from the revision of the treaties to the move to the single currency, from the opening of the negotiations on the future enlargements to the consequent demands to adapt certain common policies and the financial base - all present enormous opportunities for development and deepening, but they also represent a tremendous danger: that our laborious achievements since the founding of the Community could be reversed and fragmented.
Awareness of the crucial deadlines awaiting us encourages each presidency to construct its own projects, starting from the business left over by the previous presidency, to ensure gradual but definite progress towards the objectives we have set ourselves so that the Union can make a leap of quality towards a higher and irreversible level of integration.
From this viewpoint a significant part of the presidency's work was devoted to preparing for the Intergovernmental Conference so that it could be formally called at the Turin European Council of 29 March, as agreed in Madrid last December.
I would like to reiterate my thanks for the quality of the contribution made by President Hänsch, Mr Brok and Mrs Guigou to the work of the conference, based on the positions of Parliament.
This was added to a stage of development achieved by the patient and profitable work of the Foreign Ministers and their representatives.
The Italian presidency claims the merit of steering the stage of comparing national positions, which took place between March and June, towards the objective of deepening specific themes and individual options needed to move to the next stage of the search for balanced solutions.
This work is reflected in the report we have handed on to the Irish presidency.
The Florence European Council clearly asked that we should now move to the negotiating stage on the textual amendments to the existing Treaty.
The conference mandate to present a general outline of the revised draft to the Dublin European Council unequivocally confirms the determination to respect the one-year deadline set by the Turin European Council for the conclusion of the negotiations.
So the new Treaty should be approved within the first six months of 1997 as it represents a logical and chronological precondition to the development of the successive stages of Agenda 2000.
Those with the patience to reread the introductory statements made by our presidency at the beginning of the term would find the issue of employment at the centre of our programme.
Here we are at the focal point of a dramatic and nullifying issue.
The very success of the design of supranational Europe, which has guaranteed us - we had better not forget it even now - forty years of peace, stability and democracy, makes the motives that inspired the founding fathers of the Community, who had experienced the tragedy of European division and civil war, less urgent and perceptible.
The relaunch of the European ideals today cannot rely on rhetoric. It will only be possible to reaffirm the raison d'être of the process of integration as a great human, political and intellectual undertaking if we can succeed in making it crystal clear that, within a certain legal and institutional framework, there are areas where common action by the Member States can add real value and help solve the most acute problems and anxieties afflicting the citizens of our country.
There is no doubt that employment is the foremost of these anxieties.
We know there are no miracle cures and the immediate responsibility for dealing with the problem still remains at the national level.
But we know that global markets and globalization, the need for financial rigour and improved public finances, and relocation of production are priorities which it would be pointless to try to shirk.
But this should not justify resignation or fatalistic submission to the therapeutic virtues of the invisible hand which is supposed to lead us towards new equilibria in the long term.
Employment is not just an economic issue: in many of our countries today it represents a collective tragedy, causing deep lacerations and growing social exclusion.
It has the devastating effect of making groups of people feel inexorably surplus, utterly alien to the very concept of citizenship.
Enormous courage and political imagination will be needed, not only to confound the mistaken idea that the plan for European economic and monetary union is anti-social, requiring the sacrifice of jobs, but to counter the direct threat to the structure of the European civil contract, which includes solidarity and cooperation in its basic ingredients.
Some observers have rated the conclusions of the Florence European Council insufficient or even inadequate by comparison with the gravity of the problem, which calls for concrete direction and mobilization of efforts rather than declarations of intent or principle.
We do not agree with this interpretation and believe that some progress was made at Florence on a road which remains difficult, partly because of the inevitable diversity of situations across the Member States.
Nevertheless, there is growing consensus in Europe behind the idea of an integrated strategy for employment and growth, thanks partly to the tireless work of the Commission, which has my sincere thanks.
The tripartite conference on employment we called in Rome on the eve of the European Council was confirmation of the fact that even in a dialectical framework the social partners have now identified common ground for initiating reforms of the labour market and creating the macroeconomic framework favourable to employment, without which it will be impossible to respond to the emergency of employment.
The passage in the European Council's conclusions on the organization of work and hours of work is an important step forward, which the social partners will be able to develop the search, in full autonomy, for new ways of organizing work which reconcile the creation of employment with the maintenance of the level of social protection compatible with our traditions and our civilization.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Madrid European Council solemnly reaffirmed the criteria and timetable for the move to the third phase of economic and monetary union; during our presidency significant advances have been made in the definition of the future exchange relationships between the Euro and the currencies of Member States which will not be participating in the single currency as from 1 January 1999.
The new mechanism sought will be based on central rates agreed by the Member States and used to set the authorized fluctuation margins. Progress was also made - and we must continue along these lines - on examining means of strengthening budgetary discipline in the third phase of economic and monetary union, using for this purpose the mechanisms laid down in the Treaty.
On the basis of the preliminary work, the Dublin European Council will be able to take the relevant decisions.
Much more effort will have to be put into persuasion and clarification in the coming months as we prepare for the move to the single currency. Only by highlighting the objective advantages which derive for the whole European Union, and hence for each citizen, from the adoption of the Euro, will it be possible to bring together the political and social energy necessary for respecting the parameters set in the Treaty.
They may indeed seem severe but they represent the only way of guaranteeing that the future single currency has the stability and the vital strength to ensure success on international markets. The Florence European Council has demonstrated that there is firm determination at the highest political level to continue down this road, refuting the illusion of brokering reduced financial rigour and artificial stimulation of economic growth.
I have already had an opportunity to share with you my assessment of the justice and home affairs issue.
The Intergovernmental Conference must update the current legislative and decision-making provisions of the Treaty.
If this does not happen, the Union will substantially be condemning itself to powerlessness on issues affecting the freedom and security of citizens where effective responses no longer exist at the level of individual Member States.
But I want to stress my satisfaction with the agreement reached in Florence to give the Court of Justice powers over the EUROPOL Convention and the clear instruction to seek similar solutions in relation to the conventions on information and customs systems and the protection of the financial interests of the Union.
Also of great political significance is the decision we took to create an observatory for racism and xenophobia, bearing witness to the common determination to fight against all forms of discrimination, intolerance and rejection of diversity.
This is another of the grounds on which our capacity to work together to defend the values we hold in common, and which go to the very heart of the process of integration, will be measured in the future.
Finally I would like to salute the agreement on extradition reached right at the end of the Italian presidency.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the orderly progress of Union business has been seriously disturbed in the final weeks of our presidency by the BSE crisis.
I do not intend to go over the various stages of the complex issues involved.
The Foreign Minister and the Agriculture Minister have already had occasion to speak to you on these matters.
I will therefore confine myself to two general points.
The first is great satisfaction that the crisis was overcome in Florence through a solution which is likely to permit the gradual lifting of the ban on British beef exports on the basis of precise conditions, first and foremost the necessary opinions of the competent scientific and technical bodies and full protection of public health and consumer confidence. The second is that this solution was certainly assisted by British awareness that their attitude threatened to prove counterproductive, generating negative reactions from other delegations and the feeling that an attempt was being made to use political pressure to resolve issues which should instead be dealt with on the basis of scientific assessments, which are the only credible and appropriate means of restoring public confidence.
The Union was able to show strength and understanding at a moment when it was not easy to maintain European solidarity. In fact, the process of integration is the fruit of a common consensus and imposes on all the States obligations of consistency and loyalty, which are moreover contained in Article 5 of the Treaty.
This cannot be sustained by obstructionist use of procedures which allow the business of the Union to be blocked even in areas which have nothing to do with a specific and particularly controversial situation. So there needs to be political foresight and self-discipline by governments of Member States to prevent a repetition of any across-the-board obstruction of Union business, on the one hand, and on the other, the next Treaty should reaffirm even more unequivocally the obligations of responsible cooperation to achieve the aims of the Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when drawing up the final balance sheet there is always a risk of indulging in self-congratulation and over-valuing the results obtained.
As President of the European Council and Head of the Italian Government, I believe my country can be reasonably satisfied with the way it has conducted the presidency of the Union over these months.
A comparison between our programme of priorities, illustrated in Strasbourg last January, and the results effectively achieved, illustrated in more detail by Minister Dini, in his capacity of President-in-Office of the Council of the Union, is perhaps worth more than any apologetic speech. Certainly many of the achievements would have been impossible without the stimulus and cooperation of the other institutions of the Union, in particular the Commission and Parliament, without the contribution of the Member States and without the operational support of the Secretariat General of the Council.
At the end of any undertaking there is always some regret.
In spite of all our efforts it was not possible to get the MEDA regulation adopted, as TACIS was.
The Italian presidency succeeded in resolving all the technical problems still outstanding on the text of this important measure. Unfortunately in this case too a general political reservation blocked a legislative act affecting the fundamental interests of both the Union and a number of third countries.
Once again it appeared that our current mechanisms do not shelter us from situations where a timely and mature decision to adopt a measure is taken hostage for general political reasons.
We hope the efforts we have initiated to reverse the blocking of MEDA can be successfully pursued by the Irish presidency, so as to permit the entry into force of the regulation by 1 January 1997.
The meeting I had in Florence with the other Members of the European Council, including the Greek representative, served to confirm to the Turkish Prime Minister the importance the Union attaches to a constructive relationship with Ankara.
The end of the presidency closes a difficult and stimulating phase of our membership of the European Union.
I am perfectly conscious that the process of integration is not an undertaking which can permit pauses. We must continue our work with renewed energy, internally and in the context of the institutions of the Union, to achieve those objectives which are in the forefront of my government's programme: healthy finances to respect the Maastricht parameters, re-entry of the Lira into the EMS, full integration of Italy into the Schengen mechanisms.
The construction of Europe as a response to the great challenges of the next century and as a barrier against the resurgence of the demons of nationalism remains just as crucial today, after the end of the cold war, as it was for the founding fathers after the end of World War II.
The European ideal, which pervades all the leading Italian political movements and for which some of our country's great figures have fought - from De Gasperi to Einaudi to Spinelli - will continue to be central to the internal and international policy of Italy.
(Sustained applause)
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
I call Mr Santer, President of the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President of the European Council has dwelt on the major achievements of Florence. For my part, I want to draw your attention to the principal results of these six months, starting with the intense activity in foreign affairs.
In former Yugoslavia our aim was to maintain a high profile for the Union in the implementation of the peace agreements, laying the foundations for their consolidation with a broad and concrete regional approach.
The steadfast and energetic support to the European Administration of Mostar has also allowed us to provide proper visibility for what is still the best constructed and most complex common action of the Union on Yugoslav territory and on the success - or failure - of which the credibility of Europe in the eyes of the local people largely depends.
On both these fronts we can take stock of the results.
The Rome Conference of 17-18 February broke the deadlock of the crisis created after the protests against the European Administrator at Mostar, thus consolidating the prospects for the elections, which then took place on 30 June with a significant turnout and in a climate of calm which augurs well for the future of that city which is the key to internal equilibrium in the Muslim-Croat Federation.
The mid-term audit of the peace process, which took place in Florence on 13 and 14 June, was an opportunity remind all the parties to implement the agreements they had signed. A highlight of the Florence meeting was the very important understanding on the control of arms reductions, which could not be achieved in Geneva only a few days earlier.
That meeting also confirmed the date of 14 September for elections throughout Bosnia.
The Union had a duty towards its own citizens and towards the peoples involved to make up for the delays and hesitations which hampered it when the Yugoslav crisis broke.
That was our aim and we committed ourselves totally to achieving it. The declaration approved by the Florence European Council bears witness to that.
Action in the Middle East peace process has been another area of priority commitment. The Union has sought to respond to all the main events in that zone.
First of all we assured coordination and monitoring of the Palestinian elections which reached their final stage a few days after we took over the presidency.
The informal meeting of foreign ministers at Palermo on 20 March last - in the midst of the tension following the wave of terrorist attacks in Israel - led to the definition of a balanced approach by the Union, broadly taken up later by the Peace Summit of Sharm-al-Sheikh and also respected in the declaration of the Lyon G7, and in the various political missions of the troika in the Middle East.
The elections in Israel gave the Union an opportunity to reaffirm, through the declaration approved in Florence, the key principles underlying the peace process in the Middle East, providing the Arab world with a clear vision of European positions, and thoroughly emphasizing our continued deep commitment to the peace process.
The Union has also provided itself with the instruments of a strategy towards Russia that is clear in content and visible in objectives. The action plan, approved on 13 May last, was designed to be a message of confidence in the capacity of the Russian leadership to carry forward the process it has begun, and at the same time give the Union the instruments that will contribute, together with those of the TACIS regulation also approved under the Italian presidency, to strengthening solid political and economic structures in that country.
The Florence European Council confirmed this action in an important statement.
Other events have represented highly significant moments in the definition of the foreign policy of the Union.
I am thinking in particular of the Bangkok Euro-Asian Summit and its planned follow-up, opening up new prospects for cooperation between Europe and the world's most dynamic economies which go beyond mere commercial competition.
Deepening structured dialogue with the candidate countries for membership - which now include Slovenia, thanks to the signing of the European association agreement on the eve of Florence - and putting the mechanisms established by the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference into effect, have been another two focuses of our presidency.
In the dialogue with Mediterranean third countries we have sought to develop all the aspects of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership in a balanced way, starting with the political dimension.
The agreed action plan, its importance just affirmed by the European Council, targets gradual development of preventive diplomacy initiatives which should open the way for further consolidation of an area of stability and peace in the Mediterranean. The ministerial meetings on energy, industrial cooperation, the Euro-Mediterranean social area, the information society, the dialogue on culture and civilization, and tourism have also made it possible to improve identification of cooperation and common action.
There has been a vast panorama of initiatives at the technical and scientific level involving European and Mediterranean universities, and nongovernmental and twinning organizations. The presidency has also sought to reaffirm the role of the Union in the search for solutions to the Cyprus crisis through the nomination of its own ad hoc representative.
The strengthening of transatlantic links has been pursued, in spite of certain American legislative initiatives on trade in serious contradiction to the multilateralization and liberalization of trade which we have jointly sought to encourage over the last few years.
The dialogue with the United States was confirmed as essential and the prospects for further deepening were highlighted at the 12 June summit in Washington.
Transatlantic relations should include formal understandings with Canada as soon as possible. On the basis of work done so far we hope that the next presidency can finalize the relevant action plan and joint declaration.
The conclusions of the Florence European Council make significant reference to an issue which has received our particular attention: the development of common foreign policy on security and defence. The recent decisions of the NATO ministerial meeting in Berlin on the possibility of the WEU using the resources of the Alliance for its own peace-keeping operations make this dimension an objective to be pursued as a priority, and that includes the work of the Intergovernmental Conference, confirming complementarity with the vital transatlantic link in the context of a coherent plan for stability and security in Europe.
Intense activity at diplomatic level and on economic cooperation with the countries of Latin America has also been a consistent thread in Union external relations during this six months, as well as continued European development cooperation with Africa and the policy of support to peacemaking in certain areas of that continent, with particular reference to the Great Lakes region, for which a special Union envoy has been appointed, tasked with maintaining close contact with the United Nations and the Organization for African Unity.
The coherence of the Union's external action is still hampered by legislation and operational formulae which are not on a par with our increased responsibility to protect common interests. So I want to reiterate the hope that the Intergovernmental Conference can introduce innovations into the Treaty which will bring a dimension to common foreign and security policy comparable to what has taken shape over the years in external economic relations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Italian presidency put the need to bring the citizens closer to the process of integration at the centre of its programme of political priorities, believing that public opinion today is expressing a demand for security and stability, and the national governments and European institutions must respond to that demand.
I believe we have honoured that commitment and produced concrete results, even if they have not been very visible in the media, which are likely to lead to important developments for the future of the Union.
I believe the directive on parental leave will be numbered amongst our successes, as the first concrete implementation of the agreement of the Fourteen on social policy.
The social partners have been a driving force at European level, making it possible to achieve an understanding on this delicate matter and confirming the value and effectiveness of working together.
The approval of the common position for the directive on redundancy, which was blocked for over four years, also represents grounds for satisfaction.
The trans-European networks and making the most of the single market represent the other strategic points in Union action to relaunch growth, competitiveness and employment.
The mobilization of greater financial resources for achieving the great infrastructure projects is still conditional on the need for budgetary discipline which must necessarily apply to the Union as to the Member States. Notwithstanding this, the premises are in place for additional finance of ECU 1 billion for the major networks.
At Florence agreement was also reached to use the existing margins of manoeuvre in the context of the structural funds for policies and actions geared to the creation of jobs: some ECU 13 billion will become available for this purpose.
At the legislative and project level progress during the term in the sector of the trans-European networks has exceeded even the ambitious objectives that we set ourselves. In fact the agreement on the conciliation procedures for the trans-European networks in the transport and energy sectors establishes the premises for a real start on the identified projects and for the use of the existing credits and those that will become available, opening up more favourable prospects for involving private capital.
The results obtained also give the lie to the ever more recurrent criticism of the alleged cumbersomeness of the co-decision procedure and instead confirm how profitable legislative collaboration between Council and European Parliament can strengthen democracy in Union decision-making without damaging the timescale of the action to be undertaken.
The liberalization processes inside the single market encompass the effort to eliminate monopolies, demarcations and diseconomies which damage European competitiveness and hold back our capacity to compete on the world scene, but without reneging on the civil principle of universal access to any category of essential service.
Progress is also being made in this field: the agreements reached on the directives on the internal market in electricity and on interconnections put the European energy and telecommunications sectors in a position to operate in a clearer and more open framework.
The commitment, repeatedly affirmed by our presidency and fully supported by the Commission and by the majority of the other Member States, to more incisive action to support small and medium-sized enterprises has found expression in the adoption of a multi-annual action plan which will in particular improve the legislative, administrative and financial context for these firms and promote their access to innovation and research.
The European Council has given a mandate for defining and approving the action programme within the current year, and has specified the funding available.
The transformation of the European project from essentially economic to potentially all-inclusive calls for particular attention to policies which most directly affect the citizens. Here measures have been adopted, in full respect for the principle of subsidiarity, on environment - I am thinking in particular of the biocide directive and the results on CO2 emissions from private vehicles - on health, with the action plan for monitoring health, and consumer protection, laying the basis for the adoption of the directive on indicating the prices of products, and we consider these at least as important as strictly economic measures.
But I believe the most significant progress has been made in the cultural sector with the adoption of specific programmes of support to artistic activities, promotion of the book and reading, protection and development of cultural heritage. The adoption of the common position on the 'Television without frontiers' directive, dealing with very sensitive cultural and industrial issues, will allow the Council to pursue these with the European Parliament under the co-decision procedure, respecting the legitimate sensitivity and expectations you have expressed.
I hope the Italian presidency will be remembered above all for the approval of these fundamental measures for the future of the Union. We have concentrated our energies on them, even though we know they are not issues that find immediate and gratifying resonance in the media.
The ministers and the officers who have worked with us will probably not be remembered as great builders of integration, but they deserve recognition for contributing to the progress of the deep forces of Europe and for completing a plan which must come to fruition through patient day-to-day mediation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the speeches members of the Italian Government have given and heard in this Parliament have provided useful guidance for our presidency. For this I must thank you, personally and on behalf of all of those who have participated in the difficult but fascinating common enterprise that is the presidency of the Council of the Union.
Mr President, I want to thank Prime Minister Prodi, President Santer and the President-in-Office, Mr Dini, for their reports.
I listened with particular and careful attention to the two reports by Mr Prodi and Mr Santer on the evaluation of Florence.
I must admit my evaluation is somewhat different to theirs.
I was a little surprised at their upbeat response particularly with regard to employment.
The Madrid Summit six months ago has become known as the summit of the single currency.
Florence was heralded as the Council of employment.
The reality was that BSE and the policy of non-cooperation in Europe which the British Government had instigated was hanging like a cloud over the Florence Summit.
Indeed, that cloud contained over 100 pieces of European Union legislation vetoed by the British Government.
So the signs and signals in advance of Florence were not auspicious.
Therefore, I suspect that most people in the European Union were not surprised that nothing came out of the Council with regard to employment, bearing in mind the chaos in the Union and its decision-making at that moment.
Perhaps it was our expectations as politicians dealing with this issue that were naive and unrealistic.
We actually expected something on employment out of the Florence Summit.
People have spoken about the resolution of the policy of non-cooperation in Europe and resolution of the BSE crisis.
The Florence summit did not solve the BSE crisis.
What it solved was the institutional and political crisis created by the British Government.
It did not resolve BSE.
Of course we welcome the framework agreement to look at the BSE crisis, but I want to remind the Council of the firm determination of this House and of my group for real action to protect the health and safety of European consumers as the paramount issue in the BSE crisis.
That has not gone away and is not resolved.
(Applause) On employment we have heard pious words, pious words and pious words.
Over two years of discussions in summit we have seen very little real action on employment.
Only if action follows those words are the words great.
In his introduction, Mr Prodi commented on the firm determination of the Council in Florence on the detail of EMU.
What a pity that same firm determination was not there on employment.
There was a total lack of action with regard to employment.
No resources, no greater coordination, no adjustment of the broad economic guidelines and the policy mix within it which we had urged on the Council just a few weeks ago.
We should take one example: the trans-European networks.
There was great expectation that finally, after all this time, there would be funding for the TENs coming out of the Florence Summit.
We know now that is not to happen, it is not to be.
Not only was there no money for the TENs, but let me remind everybody in this House and the Council, only four days before the Florence Summit, after months of tortuous negotiation between Council and Parliament, after meetings that lasted not just through the day but through the night, there was agreement in conciliation on the TENs.
In Florence, four days later after that agreement, the Council decided unilaterally to change the conciliation on TENs.
I want to say now to the Council that if it is going to take unilateral action of that sort, I hope it will come to this Parliament.
I hope Mr Prodi will be able to tell us how the Council intends to bring that change to the agreement made four days before with this Parliament to this Parliament so that we can be a part of the TENs agreement - as we deserve to be.
(Applause) Let us be in no doubt that if this House had unilaterally changed that conciliation agreement, the Council would have been furious with us and we have a right to be furious with it.
If I sound angry, it is because I am angry.
The people of the European Union blame us all for lack of action on employment.
They do not differentiate between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
They blame the European Union and my group does not want to be associated with this failure on employment.
It is the single most important issue for our people and we want our citizens to see, as we in this Parliament have done, that we care about them and we care about employment.
We must now look forward to Dublin.
We will do that but please let us not overestimate the decisions of Florence.
To most of our citizens, and to us, they were a great disappointment.
(Applause)
Mr President, Europe's progress over the last forty years has not always been linear so it has often been laborious. And yet there has always been progress.
The sense of vigil the European institutions are experiencing has hung over the six months that have just ended. We are on the eve of a new Treaty, on the eve of the enlargement, on the eve of the restructuring of the welfare system in every country of the Union.
It seems to me - and my tone is different from Mrs Green's - that it has been the merit of the Italian presidency to have coped with this difficult period with a clear faith in the European project. It has coped with this period realistically, avoiding reversals and pursuing the way forward with determination and drive.
It has been the merit of the Italian presidency to have resolved the British crisis over BSE, with the crucial contribution of the Commission and President Santer.
The task of politics, Mrs Green, is certainly to expressing opinions and judgements, but it is also and above all to solve problems and resolve crises.
This has been done and this should be noted.
It is our opinion that in these difficult conditions the merit of the Italian presidency has been to project the European horizon towards the future.
The Intergovernmental Conference has not only been called, it has started on its journey with the aid of the reflection group's very important work, which President Prodi and President Dini have referred to here. Work has started on changing the decision-making and operational methods of the European Union; the phase of enlargement has begun; it has just been mentioned that Slovenia has finally started its journey towards association.
Three months on from calling the conference it cannot be claimed that there is yet any possibility of making even a rough draft of the new Treaty.
That is the task of the Irish presidency.
But in this spirit of looking to the future I also rank the success of the informal council of Finance Ministers in Verona, where the aim of monetary union was confirmed and the relationship between the 'ins' and the 'pre-ins' was finally resolved satisfactorily.
In that same spirit of looking to the future I include the Bangkok Conference: at last and for the first time, a relationship has been established between the countries of Europe and the countries of the Pacific Rim, together with the possibility of cooperation which - as we must recognize - will be increasingly difficult in the future, because over and above cooperation, there is competition.
The need to talk and define the rules of that competition has at last been faced.
Finally I come to the ultimate issue, employment: a painful issue and also the most important issue for the Group of the European People's Party.
It has been the merit of the Italian presidency - in fact I think this is the first time it has happened - to make this issue its clear central objective. We are not satisfied with the conclusions of the Florence European Council either; we too are concerned about the emergence of feelings which might be defined as 'Euro-egoism' .
We know this issue has to be dealt with primarily at the national level, and yet, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, we are convinced that there is great scope and much work to be done at the European level.
Investment in the trans-European networks is not only an opportunity to increase employment, it is also an opportunity to modernize the infrastructure of Europe. Support to small and medium-sized enterprises not only assists a model of enterprise which can expand employment, it also promotes a modern model of enterprise.
We also believe there should be harmonization, at European level, of fiscal policies, social security policies and employment policies, because that will increase levels of employment and help transform the welfare system.
But it must be recognized that the Italian presidency has had the merit of raising the issue of work and employment and placing it for the first time within the remit of the European institutions, of proposing to and imposing on the fifteen European partners...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Italian presidency has had a difficult task. It has had to start negotiations in the Intergovernmental Conference at a very delicate moment for the construction of European unity, it has had to assess and take decisions on highly controversial issues which have been deadlocked in the Councils of Ministers, and at the same time it has had to manage the internal deadlines.
We believe the actions and approaches you have described in your speech, Mr President, provide an excellent picture of the contribution the Italian presidency has made to overcoming the obstacles in the way of the integration process.
Although the last six months has been a particularly delicate period in Italian politics, with partial discontinuity in the leadership of the country, the presidency has been able to pursue the work that was begun with dignity and register significant progress on certain issues.
Union decisions and intervention during this period on former Yugoslavia, the Middle East peace process and Euro-Asian relationships, and above all the political agreement reached on the EUROPOL Convention, will certainly be remembered as milestones in the common commitment, and Italy has represented it well.
But Mr President, it would be irresponsible to remain silent about the lack of success, let us call it that, at the Florence European Council.
For the first time we have seen a European Council affected by the 'adjournment syndrome' .
Unfortunately, an unforeseeable event, the mad cow crisis, has stirred up deep malaise in the Union and diverted part of the attention and energy of the European institutions to an issue which is indeed important, but marginal when put in perspective. The important MEDA regulation, the first stone in building a more effective policy of partnership in the Mediterranean basin, remains grounded and ECU 3.5 billion is blocked.
The funding for 14 strategic transport infrastructure projects is held up as well, and the Santer project to boost employment with finance for the great European shipyards has also been put off.
What has happened to the nine scientific and technological research programmes? What about the interventions in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises, and the liberalization of the internal market in electricity and communications?
None of these proposals, some initiated by the Commission and supported by the presidency, has seen the light of day.
All have been adjourned to the extraordinary European Council in October.
It is necessary to dwell on these matters to highlight the point every commentator has made: there is persistent weakness in our common values and they rarely succeed in finding common ground with national interests.
Meanwhile the citizens are calling for economic growth, monetary policy, freedom of movement, a clear response to the great issues of employment, immigration, environmental protection, and a battle against the evils of the century.
These are the priority goals but the institutional base of Europe also requires thought.
The response must certainly take account of the number and practicability of the reforms proposed, but the fundamental principles of the state of law must also be kept in mind: respect for the individual, balance between powers, effective procedures, guaranteed control of policies implemented and of summit changes.
The institutional base itself, the role of the European Parliament and the Council in the legislative procedures, the reorganization of the College of Commissioners, the role of the emerging institutions - first and foremost the Committee of the Regions - all need technical solutions. Their impact should not be undervalued, but they will be solutions that are instrumental to the aim that unites us all: European integration and the coming enlargement.
Mr President, that destiny unites us all, because the external challenges and the paths we must take force us to assume a leading role on the international stage, in foreign and security policy, in economic policy and in the imagination of the people of our continent.
In substance that means Europe must be in a position to take over the existing responsibilities of national identity, without necessarily having to transform itself into a superstate.
It is a source of real bitterness to see Community Europe, in the grip of massive social problems, failing to extricate itself from the quagmire of documents, wasting time to the growing disappointment of the citizens.
They see the delicate balance of the welfare state dangerously compromised and are still looking in vain today for a continental dimension to those solutions the individual nations cannot provide.
The Italian presidency certainly cannot bear the blame for all of this alone.
The current malaise has its roots in the history of all the European countries, all the citizens, all the political groupings, but this is no time for fake optimism, still less for pointless quarrels. We must escape from the dead end we have got into if we want to save the achievements of our economies and our societies, and most of all our democratic freedoms.
Finally, Mr President, we do not believe strictly financial intervention can really create new jobs. Employment can be stimulated by the state, as you are well aware, but what creates it is the spontaneous initiative of individuals, above all small and medium-sized firms growing in a rich humus of economic and social activity.
It is sad that our country cannot take away any tangible sign of its prestigious term of office, which has ended in surrender to the humiliation of adjournment.
Let us remember that Italy was one of the promoters of this European enterprise and has unequalled commitment and worth.
The stage of transition it is in must not lead to deterioration. We know our country is able to respond to its partners' calls and can take its place in the first rank immediately.
Mr President, you have my best wishes for insisting on the convergence priorities, as Italy continues in the troika, making a decisive contribution towards the great appointments awaiting Europe on the threshold of the third millennium.
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Foreign Minister, I believe it is right, at the end of the Italian presidency, to express a calm and considered judgement on these months of work.
My judgement is broadly positive, because these months have been marked by a wealth of useful initiatives for the European Union, many of which were mentioned just now by Minister Dini.
I want to make it clear that my judgement - positive, I repeat - is not affected by the fact that I belong to a movement, the Unitary Communists, which is part of the government led by Mr Prodi.
I do believe, objectively, that the Italian presidency has worked well, because it has operated in complex conditions with two governments succeeding each other at a particularly delicate stage in the life of the European Union, and a rather serious crisis developing with the British government.
But for the sake of clarity, I also believe that, as Italy prepares to vacate the presidency, there must be straight talking on the difficulties encountered, perhaps straighter than we have heard so far. It must be made clear what the Florence Summit was like.
It was good, very good, in that it succeeded, at least for the moment, in resolving the crisis with the British government. It was good on arms reductions but bad, very bad, on the issue undermining each of the Member States more than any other: unemployment.
President Prodi, you know Florence was not a good summit for employment, and President Santer, you too know that your proposals on the confidence pact were rejected.
On employment, honesty demands the admission that the summit was a failure. Why?
In my opinion, because instead of everyone concentrating their efforts - political and financial - on attacking this terrible scourge of lack of work, discussion always and exclusively revolves around how each country can get into a position, however high the social cost, to satisfy the parameters, timetable and compatibility of Maastricht.
Mr President, everyone knows that some countries will not be able to respect those parameters. Others - and Italy is one of them - will only be able to do it by damaging their social defences even further.
I am asking you not to do that and I also think it is wrong for certain European Commissioners to approach the economic problems of our country, Italy, as if Member States were made up of computers and machines instead of families, men and women.
Just cut wages and pensions, and lo and behold, 3 per cent of public debt, as required by the treaties, is achieved.
But what sort of Europe would that produce? A Europe which only holds together for strong states and crumbles for the weaker ones.
So why not insert another parameter for the single currency, a minimum level of unemployment, without which monetary union cannot take place. The Commission should work on that!
And Commissioner Monti, who has demonstrated that he knows how to add up, should also think about the number of unemployed: that needs to be cut too.
The rigid terms agreed at Maastricht can be revised by the Intergovernmental Conference.
So my group - the Confederal Group of the European United Left - calls for the timetable and the establishment of the single currency to be linked to employment. These terms must be revisited or Europe cannot really be united!
Politically and economically united, and including all its Member States.
If the Italian presidency can leave that message of openness and flexibility behind it, it will have done a really good job and it will have set ambitious and positive goals for the future of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, Mr President of the European Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would sincerely like to give credit to President Prodi for giving his own government a strong European stamp and trying to conclude a difficult term for the Italian presidency in the best possible way.
The Italian presidency has had the undoubted merit of making continuous dialogue with the European Parliament a high priority and fully respecting, with perhaps just one recent exception, the independence and the specific roles of the individual institutions of the Union and their members.
Having said that, the Group of the European Radical Alliance cannot but agree with the majority of Members who have spoken so far on the unsatisfactory outcome of the Florence Summit and, more generally, on the fact that the Italian presidency failed to keep some important appointments.
Certainly, in Florence the European Council resolved the political problem - certainly not the health and economic problems - of BSE, but at what price?
President Prodi referred to the presidency's programme of work and President Dini mentioned certain priorities at length.
I have taken the trouble - as you recommended - to read and reread that programme and those priorities.
That programme prioritized the issue of unemployment. Now, it seems to me that everyone agrees that President Santer's confidence pact and hence the idea of mobilizing new European resources and energy on this front, were blocked in Florence.
Basically the Commission was asked to look into the matter more deeply, and we know very well what that means in politics.
Nor has anything real been done on the additional financing that the presidency and we ourselves hoped for, in particular for the major networks, for the fourth framework programme on research, for small and mediumsized enterprises. There has just been an accounting exercise.
There has been little progress, and that is putting it mildly, on the Intergovernmental Conference, the apple of the presidency's eye, even though the presidency hoped to get it off to a flying start in certain key sectors.
On the internal market there has been a standstill on many issues, from the free movement of persons to the European company statute, to taxation, to the banking and insurance sector.
On other internal policies, a few important steps forward have been accompanied by equally important failures, from social policy to telecommunications.
In the agricultural sector there was no success in setting agricultural prices for the next financial year and, above all, there has been no progress on reforming the wine, oil and market gardening sectors.
On the third pillar, while the Italian presidency deserves credit for bringing the EUROPOL issue and the convention on extradition to a successful conclusion, no significant progress has been made on other priorities, from the external frontiers to the struggle against terrorism, to the observatory on racism.
Finally, one of the greatest disappointments has come from the Union's foreign policy and external relations, with the lack of progress on the MEDA programme.
Was it really not possible to do a little more to break the current deadlock and conclude those necessary bilateral agreements, essential to the development of the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue?
Exercising the presidency of the Union and bringing the European summits to a successful conclusion is certainly no easy task, and it must have been especially difficult in the six months that have just ended.
But I do not think it is either honest or helpful, President Prodi, President Dini, to make out that the Florence Summit and the Presidential term have been positive - and that is what has been done - when there has broadly been stalemate and failure to achieve a large number of objectives.
Mr President, an article about the Florence Summit in one Dutch newspaper was headlined: ' No crisis and no euphoria' .
I think that is a good summing up of the meeting of the European Council.
The threatening crisis over mad cow disease has been averted.
But the high expectations with regard to Mr President Santer's so-called 'confidence pact' have not been fulfilled.
Time will show whether the BSE problems have been finally removed from the political agenda.
A provisional objective solution seems to have been reached with the agreement on a phased plan based on scientific criteria.
But the question remains whether all considerations of a political nature or differences about interpretation can be altogether excluded in the execution of this plan on the basis of scientific or veterinary pronouncements.
We are talking about a period of years.
In any case, no crisis.
But no euphoria either.
There we must think above all of the plan for employment.
In the run-up to the summit this subject seemed to be the main item but although the heads of government were well disposed towards the proposals they took no decision with regard to the ECU 1 000 million which had been requested for setting up the trans-European networks.
We can feel some sympathy for the idea of the heads of government to see whether these projects could not be financed in some way other than by what is left over from the agriculture budget.
Does not this indicate that the European Council thinks that the networks will have a much lesser impact on employment than does the Commission?
The networks were put forward at the Edinburgh Summit at the end of 1992 to strengthen the internal market and as a boost for employment.
But, judging by the slowness in working these plans out and the difficult process of conciliation between Council and Parliament, you would scarcely think that these projects are closely connected with the serious problem of employment.
Is it not better then not to arouse such high hopes in people's minds with about the networks' impact on employment? Perhaps a better European line on employment could be established with the thousands of millions from the structural funds, quite apart from the fact that employment policy is primarily a matter for the Member States.
As regards the IGC too, the results of the Summit are modest.
The detailed progress report of the Italian presidency amounts chiefly a list of the various viewpoints of the Member States.
But the direction is clear: enlargement of the tasks of the European institutions and further development of Community powers.
And as far as we are concerned that is not the right direction, all the more so since one important point will undoubtedly be to extend voting by qualified majority.
The United Kingdom's blocking of the European decision-making process has been seized upon with both hands in various quarters as an argument for abolishing the right of veto.
The blocking by Greece of the MEDA regulation with regard to the Mediterranean policy might be added to that.
But let us not run away with the impression that it is too easy.
This is more than a technical or a procedural question.
With decision-making procedures the fundamental question facing us is in which fields and to what extent the countries of Europe are willing to work together.
How far can you go in outvoting Member States by a qualified majority when you cannot convince them?
And what significance does that have for the democratic basis of such a decision within the Member States which have been outvoted?
It was already clear when the Maastricht Treaty came into being that there were limits to integration.
Two Member States insisted on a reservation with regard to certain important matters.
Amongst the nationals of Member States too it appeared that there was strong resistance to more far-reaching centralization.
With a Union of 20 or more countries and more majority decisions that phenomenon can only increase.
Cultural differences will play an ever-increasing role.
In the revision of the Treaties there will have to be a thorough appreciation of the citizens' views.
But there might well have to be an end to the matter-of-course way of solving problems by strengthening European powers at the cost of the independence of the Member States.
Mr President, you have talked about relaunching the European ideals in the public mind.
Does this perhaps mean that your government, as part of the troika, will ensure that Europe is finally discussed in Italy and in the Italian press?
We hope so! But before setting out on a new course there needs to be clarity about the past.
On 5 December 1995, before the Houses of Parliament and then before a forum of European Heads of Government at the European institutions, the Dini government presented the Italian presidency's programme.
Specific commitments were made in that programme, setting out the firm intention to advance the cause of Europe in every area, starting with the priorities of employment and internal and external security.
But the Florence Summit concluded with no consensus on what to do now and in the future, apart from adjourning to Dublin what had already been adjourned to Florence.
The next summons, to Dublin in October, threatens to find the European partners still very distant from each other on political union, on the enlargement, and on economic union. The silence is especially deafening on how to achieve political union without setting a serious timetable for common foreign and defence policy.
Mr President, how can anyone imagine implementing the option of enlargement without first achieving a binding political union? How can economic union be managed in the interests of the people, not just of the richest countries or the great multinationals, if that economic union does not flow from political union?
The question we are all waiting for an answer to is unemployment.
How is the dreadful tragedy of 20 million unemployed to be resolved? And here I did not understand whether there was an answer, and if there was an answer, what it meant.
Instead of providing the necessary funds the Commission was calling for, the Florence Summit advised President Santer to continue working on the proposals, with a 'see you in Dublin' . And the willingness to provide common funding for those proposals simply is not there.
So unemployment remains a national problem and not a European problem, factually demonstrating that for many governments and many forces political union is no longer the aim. It is Mr Santer's aim, it is this Parliament's aim, but it is not the aim of certain forces.
How can anyone believe that it is possible to stem the rising unemployment and poverty in the fifteen countries, destroying the welfare state - which was never achieved anyway because it is still a matter of handouts and not social security - and at the same time expect to enlarge Europe within a few years to countries with economic difficulties and worse unemployment than exists in the Fifteen? It is impossible to establish minimum and essential welfare provision by adding poverty to poverty, unemployment to unemployment.
The Italian presidency has made no proposals on these issues, nor has it implemented the internal market agenda on banking, taxation, tourism, public protection, harmonization of the postal service, training or youth, not to mention transport, industry, agriculture, crafts, the external frontiers and immigration, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It seems like an endless list, and sadly it is an endless list.
The Italian presidency should have got the regulation implementing the funding adopted and proceeded to negotiate the agreements, following up what the French and Spanish Presidencies began on the EuroMediterranean dialogue. Instead everything remains at a standstill.
In conclusion, all this reminds me of Spinelli's speech on Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the Sea' : as he drew closer to port, the fisherman watched the huge fish he had caught gradually reduced to nothing, devoured by sharks.
I leave it to you, ladies and gentlemen, to decide who today's sharks are.
For us in the Alleanza Nazionali, the sharks are those who talk about Europe but do nothing to build political union or, better still, try to reverse the few steps taken in the last few years.
We have the courage to admit it: there are certain political forces and certain economic forces which no longer see European political union as the aim.
We invite the troika to throw light on this scandal!
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I too would like to express my thanks to all those who have spoken in this debate, and especially those who have made very direct contributions to the European Commission's campaign to promote employment, and more particularly to the Confidence Pact which I have had the opportunity to outline here.
Up to a point, I understand the disappointment, or dissatisfaction, felt in some quarters regarding the serious problems we were called upon to discuss at the European Council in Florence, and I myself could have been the first to share that disappointment at the time.
But I ought explain why the European Council in Florence nevertheless provided a number of indications along the right lines, especially with regard to the Confidence Pact for employment.
In Strasbourg, during the last Parliamentary part-session, before Florence, I told you that my specific hope was that Florence would be for employment what Madrid was for the single currency.
Well, for the first time since 1993, when the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment was adopted, for the first time since then an in-depth debate on employment and on the entire package of measures we need to introduce took place in Florence.
And that is not the least of the achievements of the European Council in Florence, because it is necessary to examine what the Council adopted in terms of guidelines for employment.
The Confidence Pact which I have outlined to you is not confined to supplementary financing for the Transeuropean networks.
It is a whole package of measures designed to promote employment as a whole through a variety of schemes.
If you reread the conclusions of the European Council, you will see that, in our Confidence Pact, the nucleus, the heart, was retained and confirmed in Florence.
The European Council is not there to take decisions on specific matters - it provides guidelines to the Council of Ministers, which is then required to implement them.
It calls upon the Council of Ministers, in the presidency's conclusions, ' to expedite work towards the adoption of the status of the European company and the legal framework for biotechnological inventions' . That is what I had asked for in the Confidence Pact.
The Council confirms it.
Next, the European Council calls upon the Council of Ministers 'to adopt the new plan of action for small- and medium-sized enterprises before 1996' . That is exactly what I asked, specifically that this plan of action should be adopted before 1996.
The Council then says: ' The Council approves the priority use of the available margins to support the structural policies, to support small- and medium-sized enterprises in partnership with the European Investment Bank, and to support local initiatives in the area of employment' .
That is precisely what I asked.
The available margins mentioned just now by Mr Dini, amounting to 13, 500 million, will be used in our structural schemes, by the structural funds, with a view to creating jobs and also to supporting local initiatives.
Next, the European Council calls upon each Member State to select regions and towns suitable for participating in pilot projects connected with territorial and local TACs for employment. This is precisely what is stated in the Confidence Pact, precisely what we asked for and precisely what the European Council in Florence has confirmed.
So we need to take an overall view of this, not consider some particular scheme in isolation.
Very specific guidelines have been laid down by the European Council in Florence. Not the least of the achievements of the Italian presidency is that it was able to support, in their entirety, all the Commission's communication schemes.
This result needs to be considered globally and not in isolation.
It is in this respect the European Council in Florence marks an advance in our progress towards the reduction of unemployment, in order to create jobs, support growth and maintain our course towards economic and monetary union.
My only regret, and one shared by all concerned as President Prodi has just recalled, is that no decisions were taken regarding the supplementary financing of the Transeuropean networks. Even so, the discussions did make progress, and I am very pleased that President Prodi, in his conclusions, felt able to adopt the proposals I made in this respect.
I think it is fair to say that the majority of the Heads of State and Government of the Member States who have expressed an opinion were in agreement with those proposals. Perhaps there was insufficient time to consider them in greater depth, but I would emphasize the commitment entered into by the Irish presidency at the European Council in Florence to support these proposals.
You will have an opportunity to discuss the Irish presidency's programme, but I can tell you - because I was in Ireland yesterday - that the Irish presidency is very determined to conclude the discussions within the Council of Finance Ministers in order to ensure that the financing of the fourteen priority networks can be definitively concluded within a short time, under the Irish presidency.
So, even if not everyone is entirely satisfied about all the items on the European Council's agenda, there can be no denying that the European Council in Florence pursued its course insistently, and that is essential.
In politics, it is sometimes necessary to argue in terms of alternatives. What might the alternative have been if the Council had been unable to resolve the mad cow crisis?
What might the alternative have been if the Confidence Pact for employment had not, in essence, been ratified?
The Council, then, provided very specific guidance for the future. It is now up to us to work on the basis of the decisions and guidelines that have been adopted, and which are by no means insignificant, if you reread them in the presidency's conclusions.
To all those who are partly disappointed or dissatisfied, I would say that what matters in politics is to accept challenges, not to lay down ones arms but to retain a degree of tenacity which will enable us to advance.
After all, we are all well aware that the existing problem of unemployment - and we regret the fact that it does exist, of course, since it is always our first priority - has not been solved by a decision taken by the European Council in Florence. It is a course of action that has to be embarked upon, and everyone is invited to join in.
At all events, I can assure you, as President of the Commission, that the Commission will continue to fight for the objectives that you want to see achieved. All I expect from each of you is that you will not abandon the fight but will support us in the efforts we have to make in dealings without citizens, and also in dealings with our governments.
At the end of the day, there are signs that we have made some progress towards the object of our approach. At all events, the European Council in Florence - and this is not the least achievement of the Italian presidency - has been able to pursue its course with consistency and determination, and I welcome that in my capacity as President of the Commission.
Mr President, I agree with the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Prodi, when he said towards the end of his speech how important it was for the Italian presidency to resolve the question of the British blockade.
I think we must not underestimate the importance of that and I think Mr Prodi's government has acted with delicacy, with what the Italians call finezza .
So my group, the Group of the European People's Party, congratulates him and we are tabling an amendment to the joint motion for a resolution along these lines, because I think that the solution found has not lost sight of the essentials.
I have a friend who says that what distinguishes the intelligent from the unintelligent is their ability to tell the difference between the essential and the peripheral.
And the Italian presidency has distinguished the essential from the peripheral.
The essential thing is the health of European consumers - which was at risk - and we shall continue to defend it.
My group therefore strongly supports the Commission proposal consisting in giving extraordinary aid to the producers affected by the 'mad cow' crisis.
I think it is a positive political response because it also shows Europe's solidarity.
I hope that my British friends and their fellow citizens in general also understand it.
At the same time I should like to nip something else in the bud, a venticello which is going round Brussels too, which consists in saying that this solidarity in the face of the mad cow crisis, payments to the producers who have suffered loss, will come out of the common organizations of the market and in particular those of the countries of the south.
I think that is a risk we must avoid and I am glad Mr Santer is here because I am sure he will use his authority to ensure that the proposals of the Commissioner for agriculture are impartial, which is what comprehensive solidarity and cohesion require.
I think too that we, and above all the governments, must draw a positive conclusion from this unacceptable crisis of the British Government blockade.
The positive conclusion is that we cannot go on in a Europe of Fifteen with the possibility of blockades, of permanent vetoes, of vetoes based on the 'Luxembourg compromise' .
It is not possible because in that way we shall not manage to make any progress in the building of Europe.
Thinking of that situation with 15, we might imagine what might happen in a Europe of 20 or 25.
The Intergovernmental Conference will therefore have to come to a decision on this subject.
And I therefore also call the presidency's attention to the resolutions of the European Parliament, which I think give a balanced solution on this subject.
But the Italian presidency, which I was saying earlier had shown such finezza , did not do so on another subject.
I should like it to be said to Mr Prodi personally, but as he is not here I say it to you so that you may pass it on.
I think Mr Prodi made a reference in ending his speech to De Gasperi and to Spinelli.
I think De Gasperi and Spinelli, who were two great Italians and two great Europeans, would have disapproved of all this disagreement between Mr Prodi and Commissioner Monti, because I think it is a bad disagreement which fails to recognize the very essence of the Commission, made up of independent Commissioners who have to watch only over the interests of the Community.
But in the last resort we are still in time to remedy it.
Allow me to finish by making one other point.
The enlargement negotiations are important, we support them, and we support the final communiqué.
But the final communiqué also approves enlargement provided that the Intergovernmental Conference produces positive results.
If it does not produce positive results, to make any kind of enlargement is madness.
Mr President, from today we leave the Italian presidency behind us. We leave Florence behind us, with its non-decisions, or rather its decisions not to decide but to put everything off until Dublin in October.
But it will not be Italy that leads Europe until then. Italy will not hold the presidency of the European Union again for seven and a half years and will have to leave it to Ireland and Luxembourg, the next Presidencies, to solve the problems of the Mediterranean, agriculture, employment, small and medium-sized firms, tourism.
But since our vision should be European and not just national, we give the Italian presidency credit for some significant results: EUROPOL, the fight against racism and xenophobia and, above all, ending the mad cow crisis, on which - if I may say so - the work of this Parliament had undoubted and significant influence.
So it is above all to Turin that we look today, now that the Intergovernmental Conference has begun, and to the revision of a Treaty which time and the state of the Community has partially outdated.
It is above all to Minister Dini that we look as the only representative of both the governments on either side of the Italian elections which fell halfway through the presidency and had a strong effect on it.
From Minister Dini, currently responsible for foreign affairs, we call for continuity in the pursuit of the European aims that the Italian presidency rightly set itself.
We therefore hand over with confidence to our Irish friends the work schedule that will bring the citizens closer to the European institutions.
Ireland will not have to concern itself with mad cows - also because Irish meat is at least as good as Italian - so it will have greater resources to commit to the construction of the common European home.
Italy and its current government must perhaps live with the regret of having once again missed some opportunities, but these can be recovered to a certain extent through loyal cooperation with President Santer and the next presidency.
Mr President, there is something repetitive about our six-monthly debate.
We have to say that Italy has effectively conducted its term well, despite the weakness caused by the elections, which also happened to Germany and France before us and with similar consequences. In fact Europe is being stifled by the day-to-day management of European issues.
We must succeed in making progress in the political handling of the issues of European integration. The single currency requires a federal supranational power in the area of economic policy, because the problems of unemployment are just as important as those of monetary stability.
Europe does not have a foreign policy; we have seen that in Bosnia and continue to see it in Eastern Europe. The problems of the enlargement and NATO call for top flight political decisions but we remain in the wake of the United States, so to speak, unable to express a European will.
In short, we need a supranationality which we do not have in Europe. The governments do their bit but they all fail to move the process forward, and I fear the Intergovernmental Conference will one of the most disappointing, perhaps more disappointing than those which went before it.
Maybe - and we ought to talk about this one day - there has been a mistake over the enlargement and the lack of adequate political conditions to make it feasible.
Today, when it comes down to it, our vision remains economic and commercial, too limited for Europe's problems.
Perhaps there comes a time to say better a smaller but more European Europe, a more supranational Europe, than a large and unwieldy Europe which fails to deal with any of the great internal and international problems it must confront.
Mr President, a government like President Prodi's, standard bearer of general innovation, ought to have been able to drop the old tradition of optimism at the end of Presidential terms.
In this Parliament we are not satisfied with the outcome of the Florence European Council and with the term that has just ended in general.
First, the employment crisis, which is certainly not recent, was left by the Florence Council exactly where it was at the start. For over twenty years, since the first oil shock, the European Union has been faced with the dilemma of how to resolve the problems of structural unemployment and quality of life.
Six European Councils have been heralded by announcements of grand solutions to the public and it is an absolute swindle that the Florence European Council unloaded its responsibility into the hands of those who have blocked the decisions for six years: ECOFIN.
Secondly, in Florence the Italian presidency was presented by the Intergovernmental Conference with a proposal for reduced content and timetable, contrasting with the request for acceleration from the French and the Germans.
It remains our hope that the Italian government, free from the tinsel and the nightmare of the presidency, will now take on a driving role, finally involving public opinion as well.
Lastly, a question: can President Prodi today confirm the solemn commitment, taken in her time by Minister Susanna Agnelli, that Italy will make its own approval of the IGC's conclusions subject to prior approval by the European Parliament. President Prodi, I would like a clear answer on this point.
Mr President, while acknowledging the initiatives undertaken by the Italian presidency, I am bound to say that I do not feel very optimistic.
Quite simply, as far as the social area is concerned, Florence has been a great disappointment.
We are told, as a basic reason for rejecting the Confidence Pact for employment, that the European Union is not the best framework within which to combat unemployment effectively.
Yet, at the same time, if the matter of employment is exclusively one for the Member States, the figures show where that leads.
In my opinion, it is necessary to join forces effectively.
We are also told that the massive potential latent in the information society will enable much of the unemployment problem to be solved.
This is becoming the universal panacea.
But, ultimately, we know very well that that society will have no place for the Union's twenty million unemployed.
Those from the textile industry, iron and steel, shipyards, the motor industry, building and public works and other industries will be considered beyond redemption.
In the battle that has been joined around the subject of globalization there will be winners and losers.
Europe, today, is losing jobs; tomorrow, perhaps, it will start losing its soul and its culture.
Europe may swiftly slip into a dangerous form of decadence.
I know that President Santer's room for manoeuvre is small and limited, but I call upon him to persevere in his efforts and to say to the governments of the States of the Union, too, that it is not enough for them to meet and discuss the tragedy which unemployment represents for millions of Europe's citizens - it is necessary to act, and act quickly.
He could have said that here, now that the major projects recommended by the White Paper have been buried.
Europe does, however, hold some strong cards, and it can restore confidence in those who have lost it.
As far as employment is concerned, much remains to be done, and I believe there are at least three areas in which greater efforts must be made.
First, technological innovation and research.
Consequently, the programme must touch every sector of industry - the small- and medium-sized enterprises and industries, and very specifically those suffering from relocation.
Secondly, industrial policy must under no circumstances be directed towards controlling decline - it must focus on a strategy of victory and employment.
Within this framework, the structural funds must be allocated differently.
And, finally, the single currency must be harnessed to the service of employment and not to the service of the markets.
Mr President, the Council report and Commission statement on the Florence meeting and on the subject of employment and growth are simply not concrete enough.
Announcements are not translated into action and, if you look carefully, no new decisions were taken on these questions.
So what remains is the Council's requests to the Member States, and if you look at those in detail, you find that not all the proposals are likely to increase employment.
I need only think of the Council's call on the Member States to implement the directives on the award of public contracts.
Their implementation would not create new jobs but at most lead to a regional shift in the unemployment figures.
The real problem, namely to put a stop to the rising unemployment caused by the European economy's declining competitiveness compared to that of the USA and the Asian economic area by creating competitionboosting framework conditions in the Member States, was not discussed in Florence, let alone were any measures taken in that direction.
It was not even decided to make an adequate financial framework available for the third multi-annual programme for the SMEs.
So it is up to the individual national states to decide on measures, as you, Mr President-in-Office, also asked them to do.
But the Council is the sum of the national states.
So the question arises of the necessary initiatives in this respect, for so long as the Member States are not willing or able to create economic framework conditions that encourage people to form companies and create the necessary conditions to enable existing undertakings to become more competitive, all the measures taken at European level are unlikely to create employment and at most will shift the employment figures within the EU.
Mr President, at this stage in the debate I am a little concerned that the Italian presidency might think we are criticizing it unfairly.
We are not.
I think Mr Colajanni's speech was very clear.
The Italian presidency has made an enormous effort under very difficult conditions.
But I would say that it was the Italian presidency's turn in this case to 'get the dirty end of the stick' .
It was faced with a mad government creating a crisis, letting an epidemic develop, admitting that that epidemic might affect humans with the result that we other 14 States of the European Community got the blame.
That has meant that the Italian Government has had to concentrate on that problem, which is a real problem, but which has determined the outcome of the European Council.
As a consequence the outcome of the European Council of Florence was unfortunately not satisfactory.
There is only one point on which the Florence Council has made progress, and that is the third pillar.
I congratulate the presidency of the Council on that result, specifically on the European Convention on Extradition, which will make it possible to fight terrorism effectively.
It is a great success and I congratulate the Italian presidency, which also deserves our congratulations for unblocking the Europol Convention, although we regret that, again owing to the intransigence of a single government, the problem of jurisdiction has not been resolved, so that we may have difficulties.
And in a very similar field, we must also welcome the creation of the observatory on racism, which will be an important factor in fighting racism.
But in other things unfortunately the European Council of Florence is going to be associated with failures: on progress with the Intergovernmental Conference; on progress with the Delors White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment; on the confidence pact of Mr President Santer, who has also made a great effort which must be recognized here; on the trans-European transport networks - the modification of a conciliation agreement which had been reached; on the multiannual programmes for the development of the SMES; on the multiannual programmes for aid to research; on the financial perspectives and on the MEDA programme.
Finally, Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I should like to thank the Italian presidency for the great work it has done in a much reduced period of time and in the face of enormous difficulties.
But I would say that this Parliament unanimously regards the European Council of Florence not as a step forward but as a step backward or at least a phase of paralysis which shows there is a crisis in the Union.
And if we do not emerge from this crisis then the European Union, will not actually make any progress in the political sphere.
Mr President, I want briefly to endorse a few of the comments made by the previous speaker, namely in relation to his assessment of the Italian presidency of the Council.
We have in the past certainly made a few critical comments on it in this House.
But now that we are summing it up after six months and suddenly find that some important directives with which we had great difficulties in the past were adopted during the Italian presidency of the Council or at least that a common position was reached, we have to revise some of our criticism and admit that the Dini and Prodi government did make good preparations and proved able to carry them through in a range of areas.
We are sometimes unjust in the way we divide up the presidencies of the Council into six-month terms.
A Council presidency can only be successful if it can build on past achievements during that presidency; if it cannot build on past achievements, it is difficult for it to attain any goals.
I think that is also part of any real assessment.
I think one particularly good result of the Florence summit is that it was decided there to politicize the intergovernmental conference.
There was always the danger that the intergovernmental conference would turn into a technocratic event.
Under the chairmanship of President Prodi it was decided to hold a special summit in Dublin.
Then the heads of the state and government of the European Union will discuss this question at quarterly intervals, i.e., in October and in December, which will produce the necessary pressure for tackling matters politically at the level of talks between the foreign ministers and the representatives, instead of merely becoming absorbed in technical details.
For that will create pressure to formulate proposals for these summits and I believe we cannot attach too much value to that.
What is important is that the intergovernmental conference will be politicized as a result of this decision.
In this connection I would also like to thank the Commission and President Santer.
What he said today about the Commission's position on the question of the European Parliament's co-decision corresponds in important points with the position which Mrs Guigou and I gave in writing and orally at the intergovernmental conference.
There are some details, for instance in relation to Article 129(c)(1) and some other areas, such as Article 103(5), where we still differ.
That can be discussed.
But I believe that the Commission has drawn a sensible distinction in a number of areas, for instance agricultural policy, between that which is classical legislation, where Parliament is to have powers, and that which relates to executive, administrative tasks where Parliament is not required to have co-decision powers.
We too need this kind of distinction to be drawn and at this point I would like to say once again both to the presidency and to the Commission that the European Parliament would like to have co-decision in areas relating to classical legislation.
Here the Council must realise that it draws a distinction between executive tasks and legislative tasks in its own activities, so as to make this kind of cooperation with Parliament possible.
I think the Commission has submitted a sensible proposal here, on the basis of which we can hold sensible talks over the coming months.
One statement you made here, President Santer, is of crucial importance.
Co-decision must be the rule!
Then we can talk about a few exceptions, and we did not want to take the case-by-case approach, which some Member State governments have unfortunately sometimes brought into play in recent times.
Let me say something on other subjects raised at the summit.
I think that the BSE crisis was an excellent business, in terms of the situation of the intergovernmental conference, for the BSE crisis has made it clear to everyone in Europe that we have to mange to formulate an agreement that also works if there is one destructive partner.
Agreements are not just designed to regulate periods of fine weather; we need them in order to be able to act in times of difficulty and if someone is not being constructive.
For that reason the UK Government with its BSE crisis was extremely helpful in terms of the success of the intergovernmental conference, and we should build on that accordingly.
I also think that we should clearly establish the real orders of magnitude.
I would have been very pleased to see President Santer's proposals on the TEN adopted at the summit.
But at the same time we in the European Parliament should not give the impression that this would also resolve the problem of 20 million unemployed people.
The TEN are important infrastructure measures which will in the medium and long term create greater competitiveness thanks to the improved infrastructure.
They only have limited effects on the labour market.
We must also realise that 97-98 % of appropriations for the TEN have to be made available at national level.
We should now concentrate on removing the planning obstacles and making the budgetary resources available at national level.
And then let us ensure that another scandal like the BSE one does not take away the resources we need to provide the necessary European share.
But we should not pretend that the ECU 1 billion mean that the TEN cannot be created.
It is now up to the Member States to do their homework so that the European Union can make the necessary contribution to this.
Nor should we let it be said that we are to blame for the fact that unemployment has risen so much so long as the powers in this area lie with the Member States.
Mr President, first I should like to express my thanks and appreciation to the Presidentin-Office of the Italian presidency at a most difficult time, in fact at a time of European Union institutional crisis.
I would like to express my thanks and appreciation to the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, for his statement here today which is most welcome because of its optimism, its encouragement and which gives a clear demonstration of his determination.
I regret that the European Council, while giving political support to President Santer's proposed confidence pact for employment, failed to agree on the more important questions of funding the measures proposed by the Commission President, thereby ignoring the 18 million European citizens who had been led to place their hopes and trust in the outcome of the Florence Summit.
I now believe that the Irish presidency must give priority to persuading Member States to agree on a funding package for the trans-European networks to ensure that they are put in place as quickly as possible.
It is important to state that the establishment of a European budget for the construction of these networks must not be at the expense either of the structural funds or of the common agricultural policy.
The structural funds have proven to be a successful vehicle for generating economic growth in the less well-off regions of the Union.
The need to help farmers affected by the BSE crisis has once again demonstrated the importance of maintaining the CAP budget at a level which can fund the ongoing farm programmes while at the same time responding to emergency situations such as the beef crisis and the recovery of consumer confidence in healthy beef and opening up all the internal European markets for disease-free beef from other European Union Member States.
The Irish presidency must guard against short-term solutions to the problem of funding the trans-European networks which involve diverting money from either the CAP or the structural funds, both of which must be maintained at their present level.
Finally, Florence will be remembered for the successful efforts of the Commission president and the Italian presidency in persuading the United Kingdom to lift its veto on the Union's institutional democratic decisionmaking process.
It will also be remembered for the acceptance of Europol as a major weapon in our determination to cooperate to fight organized crime and we all welcome the European Extradition Convention.
Mr President, I wonder what people will remember about the Florence European Council in six months' time. Probably the end of the mad cow crisis, not temporary we hope.
That crisis has laid bare the current inability of the European Union to pursue the common interest. While the Court of Justice will take the legal decision on the validity of the ban, the crisis has once again demonstrated that inability to take political decisions we have already experienced at other times and on more serious issues, such as the crisis in former Yugoslavia.
But the disappointment of Florence does not end there, because very little has been said on the problem of unemployment, and the paucity of results from the Intergovernmental Conference is clear just from reading the conclusions published in the press.
Fortunately, on some issues like EUROPOL and the convention on crossing frontiers, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.
Florence confirmed 1 January 1999 as the date for economic and monetary union, as laid down in the Treaty and already confirmed in Madrid.
The sentence stating that there will be no assessment of the conditions for moving to the third phase at the end of this year is puzzling, suggesting the European Council thinks it has the right to change a Treaty obligation which, in the circumstances, involves the European Parliament.
I realize that such an assessment may cause embarrassment to many Member States, but that does not strike me as any reason to prevent the European Parliament carrying out its own duties on an issue like economic and monetary union, where it has already done a bit more than make an appearance.
It would be unfair to blame the Italian presidency alone for the dearth, when in fact it bears witness to a structural defect in this European Union.
We hope the time will come when we can free ourselves from much of the ambiguity and ill will of the many who exploit Europe and do nothing to build it.
Mr President, despite the efforts of Mr Prodi and Mr Santer, yet another Summit Conference has led to intense disquiet and indignation on the part of working people.
Yet again, we have had a surfeit of proclamations and wishful thinking about unemployment.
A surfeit, I would say, of hypocrisy.
Essentially, every specific measure to deal with the problem was rejected.
Not a single ECU was set aside for that purpose, the policy of frugality prevailed, and the labour and social rights of working people were overturned completely.
Amid a persistence of conflicting statements, a political compromise was reached regarding 'mad cows' , which provocatively ignores the need to protect citizens' health on the basis of scientific criteria.
Mr President, the Summit Conference reiterated the aim of strengthening relations with Turkey.
It seems to draw no conclusions from Turkey's aggressiveness, which intensified greatly after the approval of Customs Union.
The continual provocations in the Aegean and the continual disputing of Greece's territorial integrity demonstrate the kind of community solidarity guaranteed by the Common External Policy, and its imminent institutionalization by the Intergovernmental Conference.
I think that concern is justified, Mr President, and should preoccupy the European Union's bodies.
Mr President, if I had to describe the summit which took place in my beloved Florence in a few words, I would have to say Florence was two steps backwards and certainly not a good summit, President Santer.
The first grounds for saying that is the incredible arrangement over the mad cow crisis, which may gratify John Major but certainly cannot be described as a serious agreement and one to dispel the image of a choice designed to export the problem out of the European Union, which instead is what it suggests. On the contrary, it is likely to displease the farmers and breeders who have been seriously harmed by the effects of the crisis on public opinion, especially in terms of consumption.
But if the outcome on BSE, sad enough in itself, and threatening, among other things, to have created an important precedent, even an endorsement, for policies of blackmail and non-cooperation as likely to pay off, had not already given Florence a negative image, the lack of conclusions on the European employment tragedy, described by President Prodi as a collective tragedy, has rendered the summit essentially useless and a failure, and - this is the most negative aspect - projected an image of Europe that is beyond disappointment.
The Italian presidency, together with Presidents Prodi and Dini in particular, has the very specific responsibility of having given the impression it would make a genuine warhorse of the age-old problem and thus deluded millions of concerned people in Italy and elsewhere.
Instead they have had to make do with a speech - an authoritative one, true - because there was supine acceptance that the knot of employment cannot and should not be untied at Community level but only at national level, and President Santer's sad defence of his proposals at a press conference counts for very little.
While there is no panacea or magic wand to solve the employment problem, it is equally true that the Florence Summit missed a great opportunity to bring Europe closer to the citizens.
Mr President, one positive feature about the Florence Summit was that for the first time Slovenia was able to participate alongside other countries belonging to the &#x02BC;Europe Agreement'.
As we know the Association Agreement between Slovenia and the EU was signed on 10 June, having been through many stages.
Slovenia can now start to catch up politically with the other Central and Eastern European countries in relation to the EU.
At the same time it should be pointed out that Slovenia is the most developed of the new Central European democracies and thus deserves to be one of the first ones to be taken into account when decisions concerning new members are made.
All in all however the summit produced fairly meagre results.
It was of course welcome that the dispute between the EU and Great Britain concerning mad cow disease was resolved.
However it is worth mentioning that despite the importance of the issue the dispute grew all out of proportion.
I believe that the issue on whether to increase the number of decisions to be taken by a qualified majority vote will have gained much support as a result of the British government vetoing many important decisions.
The new TACIS regulation, which was difficult enough to produce, was one of the victims of British policy.
Fortunately it was accepted by the Agricultural Council last week, and is now at last coming into effect.
At a time when we are awaiting the results of the Russian presidential election, it is worth emphasizing the importance of developing co-operation with Russia.
It is worth keeping in mind that stability is best achieved by establishing a variety of financial, cultural and political ties.
An atmosphere of suspicion and a dangerous policy based on that suspicion can be prevented only by increasing mutual understanding and mutual interests.
The TACIS programme is an important instrument in this process.
The Florence Summit was a disappointment for European citizens expecting firm decisions on reducing unemployment.
We all know that there is no single means of improving the employment situation, but that it requires many different kinds of initiatives.
But leaders making official statements consisting of mere words leads to frustration and cynicism understandable under the present circumstances.
This growing frustration will become a real obstacle to building a common Europe and reducing unemployment.
Mr President, the Romans said concordia parvæ res crescunt , union is strength.
The corollary of that is that lack of unity leads to weakness and that is what Mr Prodi and the whole Italian Government had to contend with.
The Union had fallen into complete impotence through lack of unity.
So it would not be surprising if any success in solving that matter, in bringing about a certain unity, were to warrant congratulation rather than the scoldings I have heard here.
So as far as that is concerned I should like to congratulate the Italian presidency.
A second point which has rather surprised me is what Mrs Green has said.
She said she was greatly disappointed.
Naturally we are all disappointed about the results, and I shall be coming back to that shortly, but it is surprising that with a party represented in eleven of the fifteen governments, in which seven of the fifteen present governments are socialist, that she is so disappointed in this Parliament.
That takes a bit of reconciling, I think.
Now for employment.
The question of employment has not been well solved.
I think we are all agreed about that.
I am glad that Mr Santer has found some positive points but no good solution has been found for it.
What is the reason? I think we are to some extent fooling one another with big ideas in which we call all sorts of meetings thinking that that can solve the employment problem.
Everyone must cooperate and then it will be solved!
We must admit that at Union level relatively little can be done, at national level rather more and at local level perhaps more still.
If we concentrate on that and divide the tasks up according to whatever country has done well, whatever region has done well, whatever town has done well, then I think we should get a lot further than at the moment.
It is even dangerous to think that the Union can bear the load, that the Union, which is already so divided, as has just been said, can bear the whole burden of those 18 million unemployed.
That does not mean that we cannot make an important contribution.
I am also very glad that the Commission is going about that in various ways, above all by bringing the social partners together in such a positive way.
We must keep that in view - and that is also the objective of the European People's Party.
Then there is one great potential danger - that we adopt a number of measures, and the trans-European networks are one of them, where we say: Money must be found for that, but actually there is none.
We know that in the present European budget there is not enough money to finance such an ambitious programme as the TENs.
I am not saying that the TENs are not important.
I think they are very important, but if we want to set them up we must somehow or other fresh money, whether by loans or by means of special taxation.
We have suggested a road tax or something similar, but we cannot get it from the present Category 3.
My great fear was that that would happen, that we should say there is not actually enough money there, but let us look in the present Category 3.
There will not then be money for all the other useful things and they will not then be able go through, but we shall then be able to finance only a little part, a rather smaller part, of those TENs.
I am glad that danger is averted.
I am also glad that there has been some extension, though not a genuine one, in Category 3, but it is not enough and we must not delude ourselves that it is.
The one big danger is, I think, that this might be regarded as a solution.
It is not - not yet - we must press on and I wish the Commission and the Council and us ourselves all success in order to bring that about.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while the Florence summit confirmed that the intergovernmental conference will end by mid-1997, it nevertheless revealed that the preparatory work for that conference was far from well advanced and would have to be speeded up in order to reflect the determination of the Member States to adopt a genuinely strong policy to ensure better preparation of the next summit in Dublin.
Various points that arose at the Florence summit have yet to be resolved, as indeed Mr Santer said.
I would like to stress two of them.
First, the matter of implementation of the MEDA programme.
As our President, Jacques Chirac, recalled, France was an originator of a united, stable Mediterranean.
We are not, of course, unaware of the difference between Greece and Turkey. A difference, incidently, which is leading Greece to block the MEDA programme.
But let us make no mistake about it, this obstructiveness is penalizing all the States of the Union, and in particular those who have no connection whatever with the dispute.
It is a matter of urgency, therefore, to find a solution to the problem.
The other point to be resolved concerns the financing needed by small- and medium-sized enterprises and by a policy of major projects, such as the transeuropean network project, which would enable jobs to be created - an important aspect, incidently, of the 'growth and employment' theme debated by the Council.
It is to be hoped that the resistance put up by some countries - Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden and the Netherlands - will not last, so that the Irish presidency can contemplate taking decisions and providing additional finance.
There are positive aspects, however, and I will conclude by considering mad cow disease, the topicality of which was at the heart of this summit, and which made it possible to restate Europe's concern for public health and to demonstrate how the European Union has reacted to this epidemic, as well as showing its support for those farmers who have been hard hit by the decline in consumption of beef and veal.
Finally, we can only congratulate the Council on instituting the third phase of European monetary union, for which we should all be grateful to it.
Mr President, I represent half a million citizens in the southwest of England.
Rarely have we followed a European Council meeting with such interest as we did the Florence Summit.
I must congratulate the summiteers on the agreement on BSE.
We are not yet out of the mire but the eradication plan agreed in Florence is, nonetheless, a cause of relief for the cattle heartland of Great Britain.
However, I deeply regret the abject failure of European leaders to agree action to create jobs.
It is important to sort out the structural problems in our economies but this will take time.
It is no less important to act now to gain the benefits identified in the Cecchini and Delors reports of creating jobs through the dynamics of European economic integration.
This week has seen some 1, 400 jobs lost in the footwear industry in England to low-cost producers overseas.
On top of the BSE crisis, the mood in my constituency is one of near despair and this pattern is being repeated in rural areas across Europe.
President Santer described the challenge of unemployment as a question of the credibility of the Council itself.
It is more than that.
It is becoming a question of public confidence in democracy in Western Europe.
When the European finance ministers meet next week, we need action on jobs.
They flunked it in Florence, they cannot afford to flunk it again.
Mr President, President Santer, survivors of the Italian government, the Florence summit is very much a symbol.
In a nutshell, Florence means Machiavelli, and the rule of deceit.
The deceit of the Cecchini report, which promised us five million jobs and gave us twenty-five million unemployed.
The deceit, too, of the handling of mad cow disease.
But Florence also stands for the Medicis, for poison.
The poison of the contaminated feeds.
And it also stands for Lorenzo the Magnificent or rather, in the present case, Europe the malevolent.
Malevolent towards employment.
All right, so you devote four pages out of eleven in your conclusions to the problem of employment.
You drone away about employment, growth and competitiveness, but you don't do anything.
All you do is tell us that you are looking for trails, as if a European summit was a jamboree of boy scouts practising stalking.
Well, unemployment has nothing to do with trails.
What it has to do with is causes, and the causes are a tragic set of four errors.
First, an error concerning immigration, but all you can think about is xenophobia and racism, so I shall say nothing about it.
An error on free trade, the free movement of animals feeds - how many jobs has that done away with in the cattle sector?
Thousands of jobs. An error with excess taxation.
For example, medicinal products in France were taxed at 2.1 %, and you have forced us to tax them at 5.5 %.
How many laboratories are you going to destroy?
I told you, Mr Santer, in this very House, and you smiled, I told you that you would only solve tax problems first by imposing a ceiling on obligatory levies, not more than 40 % of GDP; and secondly by following your logic through to the end - because you are a European, which I am not, I am no Federalist - and allowing a free choice of which method of taxation bears the lowest burden.
When spouses are taxed in France but not in Ireland, when the estate duty allowance is 300, 000 Francs in France but 1, 300, 000 thousand in Germany, then there is a problem.
All this needs to be equalized by allowing a free choice as to which method of taxation bears the lowest burden.
And the other error, President Santer, concerns your budgetary policy.
Article 104c of the Maastricht Treaty is a Greek tragedy.
The more Mr Aznar and Mr Juppé and Mr Dehaene struggle to fill the hole, the deeper and wider they make it.
It is a Greek tragedy.
Europe the malevolent, too, as regards monetary policy.
You told us that the single currency would provide a solution to the problems of competitive devaluation.
Yes, but Italy and Spain will not be participating, and those are the countries responsible for competitive devaluations.
You told us that we would be a power, but in order to be a power you have to have the strength to resist, for example to resist the Helms-Burton Law which is strangling Cuba or to resist the embargo which is strangling Iraq, but resistance is not one of your qualities.
Finally, Europe the malevolent as regards agriculture and this whole mad cow business.
Back in 1990, in this very House, I denounced contamination of feeds.
As for you, your word was 'solidarity' . No, I am wrong, not solidarity, ' responsibility' .
The criminal responsibility of the De Mulder brothers, in Doncaster, in Yorkshire, who manufactured the contaminated feeds.
The criminal responsibility of the Glon Company, in France, which imported them.
The political responsibility of you yourselves, as the Commission.
I am well aware that it was the sainted Delors, that the sainted Delors knew, and he let them get on with it, with the contamination, with the poisoning.
The philosophical responsibility lies with the inherent logic of the European Commission which, by allowing free movement, demolishes customs barriers and, at the same time, allows the barriers between species to be breached.
One word of good news, Mr President, and I shall leave it at that.
You have set up an observatory to study racism and xenophobia.
Incidentally, you seem to have forgotten antisemitism.
I hope this observatory will be able to find employment for the twenty million unemployed.
Then, for once, you will have done something useful.
Mr President, I think the previous statement made it particularly clear how much this European Union is bound, if not doomed, to succeed in the question of combating unemployment, since the alternative is nationalism and a great French President told us here a few months ago that nationalism means war!
In this context, as an Austrian social democrat I absolutely cannot endorse some of the euphemistic words we have heard here about the Florence summit.
On the one hand it was certainly a success for the presidency to have got this whole question of British BSE out of the way, and that was certainly not easy.
In the end even the British prime minister had to acknowledge that his policy of obstruction has led his country off the track and that it is not possible to build the future of Europe or of ones own country by using the political methods of the past.
In that respect the rapid and solidary decision taken by the summit, namely to lend a hand to the farmers harmed by BSE by giving an extra ECU 200 m, was right and welcome.
On the other hand this Florence summit was a pitiful failure in terms of employment policy and combatting unemployment in the EU.
This failure is all the worse because tackling this problem is increasingly becoming the acid test of European integration.
What is the point of all the important decisions on stronger methods of combatting crime if we are not able to offer millions of young people in this European Union jobs and prospects for the future?
A few years ago this European Union and its governments solemnly set themselves the aim of halving unemployment by the end of this decade.
I heard nothing about that in Florence.
Today these same governments are not even able to spend a fraction of the money already set aside in the European agricultural budget on the areas of trans-European networks, small and medium-sized undertakings and research in order to create more jobs and prefer to pass on this unpleasant ball to their own finance ministers.
Just think of the normal budgetary procedure.
Then we see what these solemn declarations mean in real terms: again and again we see the Commission and the Council deleting funds from what are already very small social lines, deleting funds in social partnership credit lines.
People have been referring here to a confidence-building agreement.
These statements have to be reflected in the annual budgetary procedures, Mr Santer!
I would have expected the Florence summit to have acted as quickly in relation to the review of the financial perspective with a view to the creation of new jobs as it did when it supported the farmers affected by the BSE epidemic.
I call on the Member States to make up for their failure to act by the time the 1997 budget is adopted and thereby to give our citizens a right and important sign that we are on the way to an employment union.
Mr President, at this stage of the debate there is little point in trying to be tough and original at the same time.
There are some on the other hand who simply resort to provocation and who say almost anything.
In the People's Party we are not 'Euro-archangels' , nor are we Euro-fanatics and of course we should never regard Europe as evil.
We think of ourselves as realists in European matters and therefore, to deal with a point just made, we do not believe there is anything ominous about any State not achieving the conditions laid down by the Maastricht Treaty for starting the third stage of monetary union.
Mr President, it is impossible to be original at this time.
I shall try to contribute something to this debate and I shall therefore go back to two words which are constantly in the mouth of Mr Santer, the President of the Commission, and which have been mentioned by Mr Prodi: liberty and security.
I shall concentrate on the achievements of Florence in this truly borderline area where the European Union is going all out, where it is being decided what the European Union is to be, because undoubtedly amongst the agreements adopted at the European Council of Florence what stands out from the point of view of the European citizen, whom this Assembly represents, is the achievements in the field of the third pillar: the observatory on racism and xenophobia, cooperation against drugs and crime and very specially against terrorism, which has culminated in the Extradition Convention recently signed, and lastly Europol.
Without underrating the importance of the Treaty on the subjects of employment, the single currency or subsidiarity, we must not lose sight of the fact that in practical terms the citizen especially values the relevance of measures which, like those I have mentioned, directly affect liberty and security.
The European Council of Florence was a shining example for us Spaniards since the stimulus given to the subject of extradition is a basic factor in eradicating ETA terrorism.
Liberty and security, Mr President.
Progress was made in Florence.
And I must say with satisfaction that the Irish presidency has taken up this banner.
But there is much work to be done.
We must lay down certain common conditions for entry, for residence, for the legal system in the Union for subjects of third countries and we must make possible mutual recognition of jurisdiction which will give full effect to the judgments pronounced by the courts of each State, and we must resist terrorism, fraud and the other forms of organized crime.
There is also need of uniformity, more active Community cooperation, in both the judicial and the political fields until the Union reaches maturity.
We also echo the conclusions of the European Council of Florence with regard to the unsuitability of the third pillar instruments, in particular the common position and the agreements.
And the fact is that if we are incapable of finding joint solutions to burning issues such as immigration or drugs, we must not be surprised at the apathy reflected by public opinion polls as regards the integration process.
It is hard to make the citizens enthusiastic about abstract ideas and unspecific future possibilities.
To conclude, Mr President, an appreciation of the common legal heritage must take precedence over technical and formal considerations.
Europe will have great difficulty in making progress in its most important institutional aspects if the standards, the objectives, the methods and even public proceedings are not channelled through the general principles which constitute the cement of our systems of legal order.
Because as Octavio Paz says in La llama doble , ' Knowing full well that we are stating a paradox, we may say that liberty is a dimension of necessity' .
Security, Mr President is no doubt the other essential dimension of necessity.
And to combine the security and the liberty of the European citizen is the challenge of the third pillar.
Mr President, Mr Dini and Mr Santer, as trustee for the common good the current presidency of the Union can formulate initiatives but as captain it cannot be better than the team as a whole.
Yet in my view one of the welcome pro-European signs is that in spite of internal political difficulties, elections and at time changes of government, the last three presidencies, and Italy too now, have made considerable efforts to achieve a common Europe in their capacity of both captains and trustees.
That shows that the awareness of trusteeship can be a mobilizing force.
I would like to compliment you today, President Dini, and thank you in particular for the Italian ministers of energy who have energetically brought the single market a good step forward.
It is still incomplete in four areas, namely internal controls, fiscal matters, monetary affairs and the energy market.
There we have neither a single market nor a uniform situation, and considerable progress was made there.
Consumer rights may have been enshrined in the Treaties for 39 years, but have also been disregarded for 39 years.
For eight years we have been discussing how they can be translated into money and in the run-up to the Florence summit the energy ministers made considerable progress.
The customers may not all have been given freedom of purchasing choice in relation to a specific type of energy, which is why the number of consumers with the right to purchase differs from one Member State to another, but the direction is right and of course clever business managers have long since quietly adjusted to this situation.
The degree of market openness in the individual European markets will be the same.
No-one is prevented from being more open.
That will make them sure that this openness will not be abused unilaterally by an escape clause.
It is also important to know that services of general economic interest can be provided and that distributors are also involved in the competition to the extent that their customers are involved.
Overall, the consumers are acquiring more rights, which is something we must also tell the citizens as consumers.
The fifteen individual markets can grow closer together and I agree with you, Mr Dini, when you said the Union is becoming more competitive.
Seen in those terms, 1 January 1999 will be doubly important.
I hope that will be the date not only when monetary union enters into force but that it will also be the date when the energy market that has been decided on can enter into force along the lines I mentioned and that a consumers' union will gradually come into being in the energy sector.
Mr President, I value the tenacity of Mr President Santer, but there is one problem - that of credibility.
His perception is too far removed from that of the European Parliament and, if I heard him aright, from Mr Prodi's too where employment is concerned.
I understand what Mr Santer is doing.
He seizes every positive point because that in itself is a step out of our present situation.
In itself I am ready to support that.
But if that optimism is too far removed from what we all see and what newspaper readers also see, then there is a credibility gap which in my view is already much too big in Europe.
In my opinion we have not so far had any concrete decisions giving any 'body' for example to Mr Santer's confidence pact.
I shall not go into detail on the two points but the TENs and support for medium- and smallscale businesses were important parts of that proposal.
I regret that the Council subsequently passed important decisions on to ECOFIN without even giving an indication, as far as I can understand the decisions, because ECOFIN can never be accused of showing any sympathy for giving substantial support to TENs or other big projects.
I think that transfer to ECOFIN is dangerous and actually also conflicts with what was decided at Essen, to give subjects concerning employment to both ECOFIN and the Social Council.
Every analysis emphasizes the importance of the confidence which employers must have in investors in the European economy.
There is now an urgent need for concrete decisions, for concrete signs that Europe's leaders themselves have confidence in that market.
That confidence can be created only if we stop selling indecision as resolution, and seek out the sensitive areas; I think that is also a task for the Commission.
Mr President, first of all I too will thank the Italian presidency for its effective way of working and the final result.
Congratulations!
I regret, however, that the presidency's Summit Council rejected President Santer's proposal to increase structural fund appropriations for the trans-European networks.
How are we to fight unemployment and how are Europe's economies to recover? Frugality policies and financial measures alone will not suffice.
I am also sorry because the Summit Council reversed the list of priorities of the major trans-European transport network projects, which the Council itself approved and formally ratified in December 1994, by transferring project No 8 on the Essen list.
This unilateral change in the priority of the major projects, without the European Parliament's agreement, goes against the letter and spirit of the orders of Article 129 of the Maastricht Treaty, which explicitly require a joint decision by the Council and Parliament before the priority of major projects can be changed.
Unfortunately, this stance by the Summit Council is in complete harmony with the common position adopted by the Council of Ministers concerning guidelines on the trans-European transport network, where despite the explicit orders of the Treaty I have mentioned, the Council refused and still refuses to recognise the European Parliament's right to decide jointly when the priority of network projects is at issue.
Of course, that common position will soon be coming up before Parliament's Plenary, and you, ladies and gentlemen, will be called upon to decide according to your consciences and undertake the responsibility of approving or rejecting the common position, bearing in mind that the European Union must not be turned into an inter-state alliance of economic interests in which Parliament's voice, which expresses the aspirations and interests of Europe's peoples, is stilled by the arrogance of the respective governments in our countries.
Finally, a few words about the MEDA Regulation.
Mr President, why is the Council of Ministers not accepting the European Parliament's amendment proposing that from now on the MEDA Regulation should include division of the funds among the Mediterranean countries?
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I believe it is right to stress the fact that the future of the European project is in deep crisis, irrespective of the events that affect individual Presidencies.
This crisis relates to the issue of employment and the consequent feeling that Europe is increasingly distant, and it also relates to political and institutional issues, which is confirmed, in a sense, by the impression of deadlock at the start of the Intergovernmental Conference and as its negotiations develop.
The truth is we need to recover a strategy, we need to recover an overall objective, which must revolve again around the question: what sort of Europe do we want? And as Italy is still in the European troika, I think we can make an important contribution to finding the answer to this question.
Institutional issues are at the centre of this question so I want to touch very briefly on the point Mr Sarlis mentioned just now. We have asked for simplification of the procedures for extending codecision, but we know that even under the current Treaty it is very difficult to implement this crucial process for European democracy effectively.
There is exceptional resistance in the Council.
It has been pointed out that the Florence Council changed an essential decision which had been made on the trans-European projects.
I wonder if the European Parliament is in a position to be able to approve that compromise, because there is no doubt it creates a great problem.
Then there is the matter of strong resistance to majority voting.
Someone said we ought to thank the United Kingdom because it has forced us to understand the absolute need to go beyond unanimity.
Well, Mr President, we must fight for a new identity.
The issue is this, the answer is this: political union and supranationality.
That is the line we must take. Otherwise the original great project for Europe is bound to enter its final crisis.
Mr President, I believe the identity of Europe is measured by its social security model but also by its capacity to establish the best possible balance between freedom and security in order to achieve the full implications of coexistence under a state of law.
Viewed from this angle, the importance of the results achieved under the Italian presidency in justice and home affairs is heavily underscored, especially when account is taken of the difficulty of dealing with this famous and rather impervious third pillar.
The results - as others have mentioned before me - have been EUROPOL, agreement on the convention on extradition, agreement on the protocol on corruption and the drive towards action on racism.
These seem to me to be very important points.
But I must say that in addition to this the Italian presidency adopted an approach which all Members of Parliament have acknowledged: open cooperation with Parliament, a willingness to inform and the courage to propose consultation on matters which have been kept from this Assembly at other times.
This is a key point - and I want to say so before briefly mentioning unfinished business or criticisms - precisely because the purpose of completing this element of the state of law is to assure transparency, and hence social control, parliamentary control and judicial control in all these matters.
And what has been done lays the foundations for a breakthrough on all that remains to be done in this sector at the Intergovernmental Conference, having the courage to regard certain issues as Community issues: immigration and the right of asylum, and above all a legal basis to cover fraud.
We are witnessing a contradiction as regards Community fraud; we have been in retreat for the last few years. Whenever there is a footbridge we go the other way.
But at the Intergovernmental Conference we must insist on full Community powers in the matter, because conventions do not work well enough.
Mr President, I wish to echo the disappointment expressed by Pauline Green when she responded on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists at the beginning of this debate.
I want to look simply at budgetary matters.
In the conclusions from the presidency, under the comments on job creation and competitiveness, all it says is that the Council will take note of the Commission's proposals on the budgetary issues.
It is a pity that it could not have been far more explicit in that statement.
In fact, the proposals from President Santer were a mere shadow of what the Commission had originally envisaged because the Commission knew what was achievable.
Even now I am not too sure that the Commission will even achieve those limited aspirations in the light of what the Council is saying.
My concerns are for the trans-European networks regardless of what is said in here.
My concern is for the promised money for the research budget of which there is no mention here.
My concern is for the incentives for small and medium enterprises to which there is only a passing reference in this document.
My concern also is that the Council only says it will consider these proposals.
It is a pity it was not far more explicit and it is a pity it could not give us a lot more explanation.
For example it talks about raising a commitment ceiling in category 3 but the payments will be settled within the current limits of the overall ceiling. What does that mean?
I am sure the Commission knows but does the Council? If it does know then a mere simpleton like me would love to know what it means by that.
The proposal to find the extra ECU 200, 000 within category 3 by 'redeploying available appropriations' .
What does that mean? There are no incentives for the job creation proposals which the Commission and Parliament really wanted.
Of course what it should have said is that it does not intend putting any further money into the European Union budget and, in fact, wants money back.
But that would not fit into the niceties of the diplomatic language used in these conclusions.
Mr President, I should like to start by echoing some of the concerns of my colleague, Mr Wynn, at the paucity of solid measures being introduced to deal with unemployment.
I am particularly concerned about the lack of commitment shown with regard to the trans-European networks and particularly with regard to funding of the taskforces for research and development into many key strategic industrial areas that will affect the competitivity, the success and prosperity of the European Union into the next century.
Aerospace and educational software and multimedia are the key industries and key technologies for the next century.
Most people's prosperity will be based on one of those two industries.
Firstly because of the growth in air transport and secondly because of the development of the information society.
The outcome of the Florence Summit does little to give confidence to business and workers across the European Union and particularly in a constituency such as mine in the northwest of England which is so dependent on these two industries for its success and prosperity.
Mr President, this Parliament has always been concerned about the democratic deficit in the Community's decision-making process and the defence of proper rights of representation.
But today our reformist horizon has broadened and especially includes overcoming the institutional deficit which penalizes certain Community policies as compared with others.
The main achievement of the six months just ended has been to narrow this institutional gap, seeking a new internal balance between Union policies.
Europe is no longer the monetarist monoculture it was six months ago, and that is an undeniable result.
In Rome, at the tripartite conference with the social partners, and in Florence, the first institutional elements of a Community employment policy were outlined.
Employment is not generated only by investment in the transEuropean networks - tarmacking is not governing - it is generated above all by the institutional capacity to apply torsion to the entire Community machine, gearing up the value added by employment and social cohesion.
This institutional torsion has begun. It is now a case of concentrating the effort on consolidating this institutional process for employment and other citizenship policies, while the mechanisms of monetary unification move onward.
Not being able to see all the elements of an actual process is a political sin as great as prejudice.
Mr President, I would like to greet the new Italian Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, and welcome the political change in his country and the expectations it raises of a strengthening of his government's commitment to democratic political construction of Europe.
I regret, however, that the Italian presidency, in the light of the existing crisis of great severity, was unable to give the necessary political boost to initiate a genuine political negotiation in the IGC.
We would like to see that negotiation not only limited to the lowest common denominator but at least attacking head on, with the Union's new powers and means, real problems such as employment and deepening political and social union just as we are preparing the way for the single currency.
Unless the European Union acquires the capacity to regulate economic and social affairs so as to overcome the ultra-liberalism of the single market, it will see its own democratic legitimacy compromised and the popular support on which it depends alienated.
I want to make it clear here and now that the Florence Council was capable of producing various positive decisions such as those already mentioned in respect of the third pillar.
I would also like to point out, as a Portuguese Member of this parliament, the receptiveness of the Council in relation to the agreement between the Portuguese and Spanish governments on the new projects for transfrontier links, improving the existing opportunities for these two countries in the framework of transEuropean networks.
I regret, however, that the Council was unable to give a response to the main question concerning our people, namely the fight against unemployment.
I regret that the Council should have turned down the means for relaunching growth and employment.
I would still like to back calls for making available the necessary resources to finance the Commission's proposals.
I should also like to insist on the idea that the measures to be adopted by the Commission in the framework of the confidence pact for promoting employment are not incompatible with and should not jeopardise the policy of economic and social cohesion, which is a Community acquis .
The Socialist Group has therefore tabled an amendment - inspired by myself - to the joint resolution that we are to vote upon tomorrow, and I hope to obtain from President Jacques Santer a clarification that in no way will the Community's agreements on economic and social cohesion contradict or put at risk the pursuit of the very just goals of promoting employment.
Mr President, I am rapporteur for the trans-European transport networks and I would like to offer my thanks and respect to the Italian presidency in this connection for the efforts it made in the conciliation procedure.
In particular I would like to thank the transport minister, Mr Burlando, and Commissioner Kinnock for enabling us to achieve a result, to reach a compromise in this procedure.
Four days before Florence we had this compromise.
It also covers the fourteen Essen projects, which we included in a list.
So we were all the more surprised to read in the Florence conclusions that the European Council notes that two Member States want to make changes to an important project on this list.
That is why I now ask you, given that the conclusions are somewhat unclear - and here I would ask for a very precise answer if possible, Mr President-in-Office - how does the Council propose to deal with this proposal from the Florence summit, in the framework of co-decision with Parliament and on the basis that we have to vote on the results of this conciliation in Strasbourg in July? So may I ask once again for a very precise answer, because many Members of Parliament, and I too, regard your answer to this question as highly important.
Thank you very much, Mr Dini.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.45 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Transitional periods in accession treaties
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B4-0673/96 by Mrs Hautala and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the fouryear transitional period accorded to the three Member States, Austria, Sweden and Finland, concerning certain Community provisions on the environment; -B4-0674/96 by Mrs Myller and Mrs Graenitz, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the four-year transitional period on environmental legislation granted to the new Member States in their accession treaties; -B4-0675/96 by Mr Rübig and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the review procedure under the EU Accession Treaties of the three new Member States, Austria, Sweden and Finland; -B4-0676/96 by Mrs Ryynänen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the review procedure for Community environmental measures in connection with the transitional period granted to the three new Member States; -B4-0677/96 by Mr Sjöstedt and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the four-year transitional period granted to Sweden, Finland and Austria, when they acceded to the European Union in 1995, as regards their more stringent environmental standards; -B4-0678/96 by Mr Mamère, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the transitional periods provided for in the accession treaties of Austria, Finland and Sweden; -B4-0679/96 by Mrs Sandbæk, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, on the transitional period granted to Austria, Finland and Sweden with regard to environmental legislation; -B4-0680/96 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on environmental legislation: revision of environmental standards following the accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden.
Madam President, Finland, Sweden and Austria were given the right to maintain certain more stringent environmental standards during a four-year period.
During the transitional period the purpose was to re-assess the Union's corresponding regulations, so that the new Member States do not have to lower the level of their standards by early 1999.
We are half way through the transitional period and nothing worth mentioning has happened.
The environmental Commissioner stated when she took over that one of the most important objectives during her term in office was to re-assess these regulations.
We have reason to believe that the Commission will merely achieve a poor compromise, whereas this would be a perfect opportunity to raise the standard of environmental and health protection in the entire Union.
Madam Commissioner, now is the time to live up to your promises and reassure your colleagues that a high standard of environmental protection is important for the entire Union and that a compromise is not adequate for this purpose.
By the beginning of April next year the Commission and the Council will give a detailed report on the progress of this matter.
Madam President, the first time I spoke in this Parliament at the beginning of January 1995 I put a question to the Commissioner.
I wanted to know at what point the higher environmental standards of the three new Member States, Austria, Finland and Sweden, which were to be examined in the Union, would be assessed.
At the time you replied that you regard it as one of your important tasks to raise the Member States' environmental standards.
The new Member States were not to lower their standards but instead the Community standards were to be improved with the accession of the new Member States.
We all know that environmental policy cannot be pursued at purely national level and that every improvement will benefit all the citizens of the Union if it leads to fewer dangerous substances, less air pollution, less environmental damage.
Exactly 18 months have passed since I received this answer, which was regarded as very positive by myself and my country and no doubt also by the other new Member States, 18 months during which I did not manage to find out what measures you have taken or whether there were any measures at all.
So we have put this oral question out of our concern for our common environment, for the health of the people of the European Union, and also on behalf of the citizens, in their interest, because we have to let them know that their interests take precedence over economic interests, which are certainly only short term and short-lived, and that in the end the sustained development of our European Union also demands the appropriate environmental legislation.
We therefore urge that a plan be presented showing how, by which measures and according to what timescales these adjustments can be achieved.
I believe we must not waste any more time for two and a half years are a relatively short period for adopting legislation in this House, even if all the institutions that have to participate manage to cooperate.
Various proposals that have already been put before Parliament, such as the directives on fuel qualities and on motor vehicle emissions, could in fact already contain elements of these higher environmental standards.
I ask myself why this is not yet the case.
And I would also have expected, during the review of the fifth framework programme, mention to be made of the three new Member States, for reviews should take account of new circumstances and the enlargement of the Union to include such major and in environmental terms very sensitive areas is certainly a new factor to be taken into account.
Therefore, Commissioner, I hope that you can answer the questions we are putting to you today as positively as you did at the time, in January 1995, when you came into office.
I also hope it will prove possible by the end of this decade to raise the environmental standards in the European Union to a level that will greatly benefit the people and the environment.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, agreements are reached through agreement and the promises made in agreements should be kept.
Particularly with regard to the horizontal approach to environmental law, it is important to note that we said 'yes' by an overwhelming majority before our accession.
Two thirds of Austrians expressed themselves in favour of the European Union, some 500 days ago, and the Austrian people put a great deal of trust in the Union.
It is now up to the Union not to disappoint the trust put in it.
We will be holding elections on 13 October and they will be another measure of whether there is as much efficiency at European level as imagined.
In the Act of Accession the European Union undertook to bring the European environmental standards listed in the annexes to the Treaty of Accession closer to the higher standard of protection in the new Member States of Finland, Sweden and Austria within a transitional period of four years.
In particular this involves updating the existing legislative texts on the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances, on pest control and pesticides, on batteries and on the lead content of petrol.
If the EU is to gain greater acceptance by the citizens of the Member States, it is important to take the opportunity arising out of the review process to achieve our common aim of creating uniform environmental standards at a high level.
For that reason we place great expectations in the Commission's proposals and call on it resolutely to fulfil its obligations as set out in the Act of Accession.
Both I and the citizens of the European Union find it hard to understand the slowness of its work process so far.
Moreover, we want to call on the Member States of the European Union to comply with the obligations they undertook in the framework of the accession negotiations with the new Member States and to give the necessary support to the proposals the Commission will be formulating.
The single market can only work if there are uniform standards.
So it should be in the interest of us all jointly to aim at setting high-level environmental standards and thereby to counter the threat of the internal market principle being watered down by divergent standards.
As a representative of the business world in the European Parliament I lay the utmost value on ensuring that the higher environmental standards apply throughout the European Community.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, the citizens of the European Union Member States expect firm evidence that the European Union really is working in the interest of their safety and their future.
In this respect it is particularly important to tackle efficiently the question on how cross-border environmental problems are tackled at EU level.
Citizens of new Member States cannot be expected to accept that the Union would force their countries to lower the standard of environmental legislation.
On the contrary we feel that it is reasonable to expect that with joint efforts we can achieve progress on environmental policy within the European Union.
Improving the state of the environment should be one of the most important objectives in achieving binding international co-operation.
We have trusted the Commission to fulfil its promises to develop Community legislation during the four-year transitional period so that it is in harmony with the more stringent environmental standards of the new Member States.
Now the time has come to know what the Commission's measures and plans are and what the timescale is for fulfilling these promises.
What efforts will the Commissioner make to bring forward legislation in accordance with both the general agreement and the fifth programme of action on the environment? What is the Commission's view on revising Article 104 so that the Member States besides keeping their own higher environmental standards can also introduce new regulations for improving the state of the environment?
I would like to emphasize that we are talking about an important principle for the credibility of the entire EU, and we also require information on the fate of the transitional regulations given to new Member States.
Individual exceptions agreed upon with the new Member States are important in themselves.
Finland for example wishes to assert its right to maintain a lower level of cadmium in fertilizers, because cadmium is a so-called accumulative substance, which does not degrade but accumulates, thereby increasing the level of risk.
Similarly it is essential to restrict the content of sulphur in liquid fuels in order to prevent acid rain.
Madam President, in the negotiations leading to EU membership, Sweden, Austria and Finland were given a four-year transitional period for parts of their environmental legislation.
At the same time the EU promised to revise their own regulations.
In Sweden this agreement with the EU was publicly proclaimed as a guarantee that Sweden would not have to lower its environmental standards.
The ministers responsible emphasized among other things that Sweden by virtue of Article 100a(4) would be able to maintain more stringent environmental standards even if the Union did not manage to raise environmental standards to our level.
Since then little progress has been made.
We still lack a firm timescale as to how the EU will achieve these objectives.
We will be greatly disappointed if the Union does not succeed in raising the level of its environmental standards as promised or perhaps even obliges the new Member States to lower their environmental standards.
This would serve to swell the enormous criticism of the EU voiced by the majority of the Swedes today.
For this reason I would like to present four pertinent questions to Commissioner Bjerregaard.
1.This question is about the legislation on chemicals.
It is absolutely essential that the Commission puts forward a proposal for the amendment of the directive on preparations as soon as possible in order to answer some of the questions connected with the fourth risk category in the Swedish chemical legislation.
When will the Commission put forward this proposal?2.Timescales are required for risk assessment and amendment of the directive on the restriction of harmful substances.
The Swedish regulations on cadmium, tin-organic compounds, arsenic and pentachlorophenol are valid.
When will the Commission specify how this work will be carried out?3.What initiatives does the Commission intend to take regarding cadmium in commercial fertilizers?
The longterm contamination of arable land is a big problem and technical solutions are already available for purifying cadmium in phosphoric acid for example.4.If the EU has not raised its environmental standards by the end of the transitional period, can Sweden refer to Article 100a(4) despite the fact that we did not take participate in voting in the Council when the directives in question were accepted?The complexity of these problems show how absurd the EU priorities are regarding the regulatory framework, where free movement of goods is given priority over environmental considerations.
This is why a proper guarantee on the environment should be given during the intergovernmental conference; an environmental guarantee which safeguards the right to preserve existing legislation and introduce more stringent measures on goods for both environmental and health reasons.
Madam President, the Commission's work in connection with the review clause contained in the Act of Accession for Austria, Finland and Sweden is progressing well, despite some of the comments which have been made here this evening.
The Commission fully accepts its obligations to review the relevant provisions of Community law which do not apply to the three new Member States during a four-year period.
The review will, where necessary, be aimed at raising the existing Community standards in the areas concerned.
To begin with, I should like to make it quite clear that in my own sector, the environment, my political stance is now and has always been that none of the new Member States should find themselves in a situation where they are obliged to reduce their health and environmental standards when the transitional period comes to an end in 1998 because they then have to apply the relevant Community legislation, so I can entirely confirm the answer which I gave to Mrs Graenitz more than a year ago.
At the same time, I must of course also say that the result depends not only on the efforts made by the Commission, but also on those which the Member States are willing to make, especially the new ones.
For example, the Commission's ability to achieve the right result often depends on the information we receive from the Member States, such as on the classification of a dangerous substance in the country in question.
In order to step up the dialogue between the new Member States and the Commission on this issue, I convened an initial coordination meeting at the highest level on 20 June 1996, involving the Commission and representatives of Austria, Finland and Sweden.
At this meeting, there was a discussion of the progress achieved, the problems which had arisen, the future strategy and the timetable for the review process.
It is my hope and belief that this meeting and others of the same kind which are due to take place regularly in the future will provide a sound basis for continuing the review process.
This cooperation is important to achieve the political goal of high environmental and health standards, since the Commission, as I said, is also dependent on information from the new Member States.
Moreover, I have seen to it that my services and the other services involved have ensured that all the substances and preparations to be reviewed are on the agenda for the discussions which are to take place in the relevant groups of experts.
Where the directives in question are under review, the Commission is endeavouring to take the new Member States' legitimate interests into account.
At the moment, work and discussions are taking place at all levels with a view to completing the process before the expiry of the transitional period, and we are striving to find solutions which are acceptable to all parties.
I should now like to describe what is happening or has happened with a number of directives covered by the review clause which contain aspects relating to health and the environment.
These have been referred to by several speakers.
It should perhaps be pointed out that the directives are administered by different services and therefore fall under the responsibility of different Commissioners.
Firstly, there is Directive 67/548 on dangerous substances.
As regards the differing classification and labelling requirements for some 100 substances where Austria and Sweden have a different system for one reason or another, the Commission is seeking to ensure that all the substances are included on the agenda for the meetings of experts at the European chemicals office in Ispra.
The results of these meetings will be adopted as adjustments to technical progress under the committee procedure which is laid down in the directive.
The first results have already been produced: the twenty-second adjustment of the directive to take account of technical progress, covering around 20 % of the substances which are to be dealt with - 13 in the case of Austria and 11 in that of Sweden - will shortly be adopted in the form of a Commission directive.
If the new Member States can supply the necessary scientific data in time, the prospects are good for concluding the process before the end of 1998.
As regards the different criteria for the classification of carcinogenic substances in Sweden and the so-called fourth category of risk there, this will have to be taken into account in the harmonization which is currently in progress under the auspices of the OECD.
Both the Commission and Sweden will play an active role in this process, to ensure that an acceptable outcome is achieved before the expiry of the transitional period.
Austria is to submit a study of the effects of the country's additional labelling requirements on the attitudes of consumers.
Further discussions will take place on the basis of this study and Austria's proposals for measures in case of accidents.
Then there is Directive 88/379 on dangerous preparations.
The problems with the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations are closely related to those arising in the case of the directive I have just dealt with.
The solution for dangerous preparations will therefore broadly follow the approach outlined in that context.
With regard to preparations which are not dangerous, it is proposed to solve the problems in the planned review of Directive 88/739.
The adoption of a Commission proposal for a new European Parliament and Council directive is scheduled for July 1996.
We next come to Directive 78/631 on pesticides.
This directive will be repealed.
The classification, packaging and labelling of pesticides will be included in the scope of the revised directive on dangerous preparations.
It is hoped that the proposal for a new European Parliament and Council directive will be adopted by the Commission in July 1996.
Directive 91/414 deals with the marketing of plant protection products.
A draft proposal covering the classification, packaging and labelling of plant protection products, where Austria and Finland have different requirements, will be produced alongside the Commission's proposal for the amendment of Directive 78/631 on pesticides.
There is also Directive 76/769 on limiting the marketing and use of certain dangerous substances and preparations.
The new Member States have stricter legislation, as has been emphasized here today, on the marketing and use of PCPs, cadmium, organic tin compounds and arsenic.
During the discussions so far, it has become clear that strict provisions of this kind, which are being sought by the new Member States, cannot be introduced without agreement on detailed risk assessments concentrating on exposure scenarios, in which context it is also necessary to include chemical substitute products for these substances.
The substances in question will therefore be included in the third list of priorities under Council Regulation No 793/93 on the assessment and control of risks associated with existing substances, provided that the precise chemical identity of these substances is established and the producers and importers of the substances are known.
These risk assessments, which should be completed by early 1998 at the latest, will form the basis for the discussions in the relevant working groups, together with further technical and economic data.
The directive can be amended by a committee procedure.
The Commission will begin specific studies after the summer holidays, and due account will be taken of the Austrian studies of substitute products for PCPs.
Austria will also be presenting studies of the gradual phasing-out of the use of cadmium.
The last directive to which I shall refer is Directive 76/116 on fertilizers.
This directive can be amended by a committee procedure.
On the basis of a risk assessment and an economic study of the cadmium content of fertilizers, which represents a problem for all the new Member States, it will be possible to bring a proposal before the committee.
I am sorry to have spoken at some length, Madam President, but I felt it my duty to give Parliament a thorough account of the situation.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, colleagues; during membership negotiations Sweden was granted transitional regulations for a period of four years for sections of the environmental legislation.
The objective was that during this period the EU would catch up with our more stringent regulations.
Naturally in the long-term we cannot grant exceptions and special regulations within the internal market and consequently create differences which affect the flow of goods and services as well as free competition.
We have sound reasons for assuming that by the end of this four-year period these exceptions would constitute the minimum requirements within the Union, and that we as a country would definitely not have to lower our environmental standards.
The waterways, the sea and the air are ours in common and we have to work with the Community to be able to create uniform regulations.
The Union's most important task is to achieve a viable environmental policy.
These serious, cross-border problems which we are encountering today cannot be resolved at a national level alone.
The environment requires strong European co-operation, and environmental policy today affects the credibility of the European Union, not least as far as the expectations of a young generation are concerned.
Therefore it is of the utmost importance that we achieve results now.
We have been members of the Union now for one and a half years.
According to the Commissioner the work is on-going.
I wish that we could have rather more tangible evidence that the work does in fact receive priority within the Commission, but I feel more confident after what I have heard today.
I would however like to have more details of the overall timescale and how co-operation between the various directorates is organized. We have had positive experiences proving that there does not have to be conflict between industry and the environment, rather the contrary.
Technology, products and limit values are already operating within the Union.
We should take advantage of this and create the long-term environmental policy needed to achieve workable solutions in the future.
Regarding the assessment, it was not quite clear whether this work has already begun or not.
The responsibility for organizing and structuring this work in fact lies with the Commission.
I am convinced that none of the countries withhold essential information.
The assessment must be carried out immediately in order to give us a basis for decision-making and thus create credibility so that our regulations can be transferred up to Union level by 1999 at the latest.
Madam President, what the Commissioner said was most interesting.
However, she did not give her position on the main question.
How does the Commission interpret Article 100a(4)? That is a relevant question for those who want to know whether Austria, Finland or Sweden can retain their national provisions in the field of environmental protection and the working environment.
That means it should not be insinuated that in using the measures they want to apply these three countries are trying to bring about arbitrary discrimination and covertly to restrict trade.
That is not the purpose of these three new countries.
The aim of these three new countries is to maintain and further improve the high environmental standards in Europe.
That is also the priority of the individual European citizen.
Commissioner, Article 69 of the Treaty of Accession states that specific provisions may be retained and will be reviewed by 1998.
It also says that regardless of the results of that review, the acquis communautaire shall apply from the end of the transitional period. That is the real snag.
I would like you to tell me how things are to go on if no agreement can be reached?
Is what was promised to us in 1994 still applicable if difficulties arise in European harmonization? Those are relevant questions, which have remained unanswered.
We do not want specific rules but would hope that Europe as a whole will go along with us and introduce the same rules that are already law in our three countries.
That is the subject today, not individual difficulties with cadmium, alkali-manganese batteries and so on.
Madam President, despite Mrs Bjerregaard's promises the Commission's activities during the past 18 months have been inadequate to reassure the public that the Commission is serious about taking action in accordance with the agreement entered into with the new Member States.
In the AUTO-OIL programme for example, accepted by the Commission a couple of weeks ago, the permissible benzene content in petrol is set at two percent.
Many Member States at the present time permit a benzene content of just one percent.
If the Commission wanted to show that it really is serious about tightening environmental standards to meet the level of the new Member States, it should therefore have proposed a benzene content in petrol of one percent maximum.
This kind of example, of which there are several as we have heard here today, undermines the credibility of the Commission's role.
The Commission should immediately draw up a plan showing how it intends to fulfil its promises.
Madam President, having heard the Commissioner's reply, we should seriously ask ourselves what will happen at the beginning of 1999 if this re-assessment fails.
We might for example end up with a situation where, say, the French fertilizer industry appeals to the Commission about the Finnish cadmium restrictions. And the Community's Court of Justice may finally decide that Finland is preventing free competition and that Finland should loosen its environmental legislation, the importance of which surely became clear to everybody in the previous discussion.
If we want to prevent a succession of court decisions weakening environmental protection in the new Member States, the relation between free movement of goods and environmental protection should be revised at the intergovernmental conference, as has been pointed out today.
But Madam Commissioner, you did not answer the questions raised.
What is the Commission's viewpoint, and do you believe that the link between environmental protection and free trade will be tightened at the intergovernmental conference in favour of environmental protection?
It is not very professional to go behind the backs of the Council.
As a Commissioner you have wide powers to take initiatives and you are very aware of it.
Fortunately we are talking about issues which are subject to collective decisions, and the European Parliament consequently will have to be vigilant, and will continuously press you on the issue, to try to limit proposals, which I am sure will be presented to Parliament in an unacceptably unrestricted form.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, merely to aim at solving the environmental problems we have is not sufficient.
Nor is it sufficient to hope for a solution regarding Austria's, Sweden's and Finland's transitional regulations.
There must be a higher objective.
That objective must be to achieve firm proposals on how we should act in order not to have to lower our more stringent environmental standards.
That is really the only answer we want.
Pious hopes are not enough.
That is why the Commissioner's replies are inadequate.
It is of course a positive development that there will be something in July regarding the directive on preparations.
But we would like to know what this something is. Nor is it enough that something will be done on cadmium in commercial fertilizers.
We would like to know what exactly is being done.
I do not think that we need further proof of what cadmium in commercial fertilizers does to nature. There is already evidence of that all over Europe.
We need to know what the Commission is really planning to do.
The same applies to the schedule for directive 76/769 on the restriction of harmful substances.
It was said that it is not vital to specify the harmful substances which are of concern to us.
But I feel that this really is essential.
The Commissioner talked about a detailed assessment of the risks.
But what more do we need to know about cadmium, tin-organic compounds, arsenic and PCB.
I do not think that we need any further proof of the consequences of using them.
I think that the environmental situation in Europe is already proof enough of an existing problem and where the causes of this problem can be found.
In my opinion there are really only two solutions to this problem:
1.That the Commission together with respective governments puts forward firm timescales and presents measures for resolving the problem and thereby gives us an exception in accordance with the environmental guarantee in Article 100a(4).2.That the Commission simply admits that it has failed and extends the transitional period.It was said earlier that is not only a question of environmental issues.
It is also a question of people's confidence in the European Union.
We have had our referenda.
We know that there will possibly be more referenda, and the environmental issue is critical in the public's perception of the EU and its way of dealing with issues. That is why we have to be more active on this issue than we have been hitherto.
Madam President. This really is a test case for the EU, since all the Swedish environmental organizations prior to the referendum expressed criticism about Swedish EU membership for environmental reasons.
The undertaking given by Commissioner Bjerregaard that no new Member State should have to lower their standard involves considerable measures.
Now the question is how this undertaking corresponds to the Commission's report of 10 April, which stated 'The most realistic approach would be to go for a level of protection which is a compromise between the least stringent standard among the new Member states and the existing Community standard' .
Such a compromise is bound to lead to a lowering of standards in the new Member states.
In another Commission report of 18 June, just a couple a weeks ago, regarding the directive on preparations and the directive on means of controlling harmful organisms in plants it was stated that the four-year transitional period will in all likelihood be insufficient.
Commissioner Bjerregaard gave an extremely far-reaching undertaking.
Does this mean that the Commissioner considers these documents from the Commission, which present a considerably more pessimistic view on the possibilities of fulfilling these undertakings, to be null and void and that the Commissioner pledges her political belief that Sweden, Austria and Finland will not have to lower a single standard regarding the hundreds of firm cases in question?
It will be excellent if you can stand by this undertaking.
I would like to have this confirmed.
Madam President, from some of the contributions here in the House, one might almost have the impression that I had not made my speech.
I did in fact deal very carefully with the meetings which have been held, some of them at high level; I described a number of the very specific matters referred to by the first speakers; and I explained the kind of timetable and procedure with which the Commission is working.
Also, I declared what I myself am working for in political terms.
I think that everyone here in the House understands that no country was given guarantees in advance.
The prospect was held out to all the countries that we would seek to achieve as high a level as possible, and I have said that this is also my political aim and what I am working for.
Clearly, many of these proposals are subject to a democratic process.
However, the countries which have belonged to the Community for a longer period of time have also been through a democratic process as regards the proposals they have adopted, and they naturally cannot accept being sidelined when it comes to changing some of the rules.
We have to abide by the rules as they stand.
It has in fact been difficult, in the course of events, to obtain the information that we needed from the Member States, and the most recent high-level meeting has helped a good deal in this respect, as I mentioned in my first speech.
In this way, we have ensured that we shall have the information we need to be able to make the necessary changes.
I should therefore like to say, as regards the discussion on what will happen if we are unable to cope with the demands which have been made, that it is my wish that we should be able to cope with this politically.
That is what I am working for, and I also believe that it is possible.
I understand that I have the support of Parliament.
That is the task before us, and together we must do all we can to ensure that it is achieved.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Legislative and administrative simplification
The next item is the report (A4-0201/96) by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the report of the Group of Independent Experts on legislative and administrative simplification.
Madam President, the Molitor Group did not produce a good report.
It was unbalanced, incomplete and biased.
In addition, the Molitor Group did not fulfil its terms of reference.
In the light of this it is perhaps appropriate that the European Parliament is now debating Molitor several months after it was filed and possibly even binned by the Commission.
For administrative and legislative simplification to become a reality we must reject the concept of deregulation.
That implies lower health and safety standards in the workplace, less consumer protection and lower environmental controls.
This is the sort of deregulation advanced by Molitor.
In addition, the Molitor Group looked more to the needs of big business rather than SMEs who are the real job creators.
The Commission and this Parliament have moved on.
The better law-making and the slim, simpler legislation for the internal market initiatives are to be welcomed.
Agreement can be reached on plans to simplify European Union legislation, to better identify and consolidate related laws into single accessible texts.
In addition, progress must be made in ensuring that national civil services do not goldplate European legislation by making it more onerous than intended.
Similarly, the comitology committee must not be allowed to contaminate directives and governments must do more to ensure uniform enforcement of legislation across the Union and, where necessary, the Commission's powers of enforcement must be augmented.
Simplification of laws is a key to European competitiveness but it must be carried out with full public consultation and involvement and it must pay particular attention to the needs of SMEs.
It is a shame that the Molitor Group did not accept these challenges and it is a shame that we are debating Molitor so late this evening when the debate and much of the activity have moved on to bigger and better things.
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur for having kindly considered the views of the committee.
The report is a reaction to the Molitor Group's proposal.
I will deal solely with the areas which are within the scope of the committee, issues on labour law and working environment and to some extent also issues of principle.
The Molitor Group's proposal has been heavily criticized; partly within the Group where some of the members had dissentient views, partly by the Commission and now also in the report from Parliament.
Let me give you some examples.
1.The Molitor Group states that a distinction should be made between simplification and deregulation.
But this distinction is not made later on in the report.
There is of course an essential distinction.
Who could oppose laws being simplified as much as possible. But this does not always mean deregulation.
Regarding for example the health, safety and labour law I maintain that since there is a deregulation in the goods and service market, it may be, and I believe it to be the case, that we need further regulation regarding health and safety in the working environment as well as regarding labour law.
We need regulation in order to achieve better health and safety for employees, but also to prevent social dumping.2.The Molitor Group assumes that deregulation supports growth and employment. There is no such proven link.
Japan, for example, has a high employment rate, high growth and a highly regulated labour market.
In the eighties new jobs were created in Europe, but this was not the result of deregulation.
But with the extensive deregulation in Europe in the nineties we lost jobs.
There is no link between deregulation and growth and higher employment.The Molitor Group was also given the task of examining national legislation.
This the Molitor Group has not done. This makes the report more or less worthless.
Regarding health, safety and labour law we have a very limited legislation at Community level, but a very extensive legislation in individual countries.
It may even be that if we had more extensive legislation at Community level, we would not need such an extensive legislation at the national level. And this would make things simpler.
Another problem the Molitor Group does not sufficiently deal with is implementation.
Although, as I said earlier, we do not have very extensive legislation at Community level, a major part of the legislation regarding health and safety has not been implemented in Member States.
It is very contradictory to have even less legislation at Community level, as the Molitor Group suggests, when existing legislation has not been sufficiently implemented.
Instead we should demand that existing legislation is implemented.
Article 171 should be used to enforce the implementation of existing legislation.
The Molitor Group has doubts about Article 100a being criticised as it states that we should have minimum standards and that individual countries could keep their more stringent legislation and progress from there.
According to the Molitor Group Article 100a is sufficient.
This is not the case.
Article 100a regulates, and is the norm for the internal market. Article 118a on the other hand protects the individual.
In the report cost is weighed up against benefit - naturally.
But what cost? The short-term or the long-term cost?
Should we consider the cost of all injuries and deaths that occur in the workplace? In 1992 these accounted for 7 % of the social costs in the EU.
That amounts to approximately 27, 000, 000, 000 ecu.
Of course they should be considered.
As should the cost of the 8, 000 deaths occurring in the workplace each year.
What is the cost for those 8, 000 people? Such aspects should naturally be weighed up and included in a cost-benefit analysis.
I will finish by saying something positive about the Molitor report.
It proposes a number of fundamental social rights to the Treaty - this we find very promising.
Madam President, our committee supports the idea of simplifying and clarifying European legislation but we want to stress that there can be no question of lowering environmental, public health or consumer protection standards in Europe.
We take the view that high standards of protection can only be achieved by environmentally sound regulation and harmonization.
We reject the report's assertion that past European environmental policy was inefficient and ineffective.
In fact, it has played a major role in cleaning up Europe's environment.
We deplore the lack of a firm statement in favour of environmental protection in the Molitor Group.
We remind the Commission that Parliament must consent to any repeal of legislation and that any repealed laws must be replaced.
This is as true for food policy as it is for environment policy.
We want simplification but we do not want deregulation.
Some basic principles must be the guidelines for any action stemming from Molitor.
First, current environmental standards and existing levels of consumer protection must not be lowered.
In fact, there is plenty of room for raising environmental standards in many areas as we have already been debating.
Second, European Union legislation must be clear, coherent and transparent.
Third, it must be able to ensure uniform implementation and enforcement.
It is regrettable that there was no expert with environmental or food law experience on the Molitor Committee.
What has emerged has to be treated with a great deal of caution and the Environment Committee is very anxious that we do not go down the deregulation road but that we keep our high standards in Europe, maintaining, however, clarity and simplification where necessary.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the results of the Molitor report are disappointing.
It cannot be denied that many legal provisions are too complicated and inaccessible to the legal layman because they are incomprehensible.
That situation is extremely unsatisfactory, which is why means must be sought of remedying it.
As stated in Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's report, clarity and readability, which make the legal standards more comprehensible, are an important factor of their public acceptance.
The attempt to simplify the standards is, however, often misused in political debates as a means of putting at risk achievements such as the protection of workers consumers and the environment.
The report by the working group asserts that there is a correlation between legislative simplification and increased growth and job creation.
It has not, however, favoured us with any proof that this assertion is correct.
No doubt it is particularly important and desirable to simplify legislation, and above all many procedures, for the small and medium-sized undertakings.
It would be a help to go through the provisions in many areas, such as building regulations, operating rules or permits.
But it would be dangerously deluded to believe that the situation in competition can be improved by social dumping, by dismantling worker and public health protection.
That is why we fully endorse the fact that the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens emphasizes that the deregulation proposals in the social area cannot be accepted and that the labour law proposals designed to reduce the level of European worker protection are not acceptable.
The notion that single market regulations should only be adopted in areas in which the single market has clear advantages is also to be rejected.
The question must be asked, advantages for whom, for here it is easy for businessmen to demonstrate that the single market has opened up many new opportunities and brought many advantages.
To conclude I would therefore say that we are certainly not against reform.
We Members of Parliament in particular, who have a special obligation towards our citizens, support legislative simplification.
We know that it is also to do with us if laws come into being that can only be understood by specialists and that the appeal for greater clarity and simplicity must also be addressed to us.
We also support the proposal to accelerate the codification of Community legislation.
Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's report also contains proposals on how these problems can be tackled.
But we will not accept any attack on the working consumer and the environment under the guise of simplification.
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party and speaking quite plainly and in accordance with my duty to be strictly fair, I must begin by stressing the quality of the report submitted by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
The meticulous nature of the ideas, the measured tones where criticism was merited and the clarity of her expression, which bear the hallmark of the rapporteur, contrast rather markedly with the Molitor report which, for anyone lacking in German gravitas , is an easy target for superficial criticism.
The EPP Group agrees with the report in all points and we do not doubt that tomorrow it will receive the Assembly's majority support.
After the rapporteur's brilliant exposition there is little to add as regards the lights and shades of the Molitor report.
So, Madam President, perhaps I may focus on the actual basis of the report, on the mandate given by the Commission to the group of experts, charging them, in the actual words of the mandate, to 'assess the impact of Community and national legislation on employment and competitiveness with a view to finding ways of reducing and simplifying such legislation' .
We are speaking of rules, Madam President, that is of legislative provisions.
But rules or provisions are enforceable and derive their capacity for social integration from the fact that they are the law.
Either they are the law or they are nothing.
And there is something in this mandate which is deeply repellant to anyone who knows the law, because it cannot be measured, be examined, in terms of employment and competitiveness, important as they both are.
The law, which coincides with the rules only when they are simple, clear and consistent and reflect the essential values of society - is the foundation, the very cement of this cultural and political plan, the European Union, and so that cohesion, that consistency, that quality in the last resort of the rules is, I venture to say at the risk of sounding pompous, an indissociable objective of the building of Europe itself.
That is clear, Madam President.
The ideal of European law contrasts, above all on certain subjects, with the complicated panorama of Community rules which, when they come into contact with national rules, turn, more often than is desirable, into real gibberish.
It is therefore urgent to transform the fake acquis communautaire into genuine European law which it is possible to use as a legal yardstick for finding a sure guide to direct and lead European citizens at the end of this century through the impenetrable labyrinth of questions raised by the economic and social complexity of our times.
Simplification, codification, the best technique of legal draftsmanship is therefore an urgent task which cannot be deferred.
But the law is not there to serve employment and competition or even the values which represent the cement of our civilization, since the law is the very incarnation of those values of society.
To conclude, Madam President, I shall take the liberty, in tribute to the rapporteur, of quoting the sentence with which Koschaker begins his seminal treatise on Roman Law, and I shall quote it in Spanish as my German is very poor.
Koschaker says: ' There is no branch of knowledge which is so European in its nature as that of Private Law and that is because, ever since it was first studied in the school of the glossators in Bologna, it has always been the corner stone of the building which we call Europe.'
Madam President, the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs is right only in so far as there are one or two faults to be found with the work of the Molitor Group, but certainly not as many as the report makes it appear.
The Molitor Group made a fundamental mistake by resorting to casuistry and identifying themselves a little too much with the point of view of employers in general with the wishes of those who want the minimum legislation possible.
It may well be correct, as Mrs Mosiek's report also points out, that medium- and small-scale businesses above all are burdened with excessively detailed legislation, but that does not mean that legislation as a whole is a bad thing.
My positive conviction however is that quite a different approach should have been chosen by both the Molitor Group and Parliament.
I hope that at least the Commission will give some thought to my suggestion.
I see that Commissioner Monti has not thought it worth the trouble of coming and now that Mrs Bjerregaard is here I ask whether you will at least give me an answer or have an answer sent to me either in writing or orally, whether the Commission has plans to bring the Treaties out as such in a better-organized and consolidated version and then to bring other subjects, like the excellent consolidated version of the customs legislation, into one manageable code of law so that at last European legislation can be manipulated in daily practice without too much trouble.
We are waiting hopefully for the results of the Commission's SLIM project so that, if they are positive, SLIM can also be applied to more projects.
But the Commission ought to realize that not everyone, certainly in the agriculture sector, has problem-free access to the CELEX network.
The same difficulty applies, mutatis mutandis as far as the European Parliament is concerned.
Again and again when we get an amendment of an old directive we have to find out ourselves how that amendment fits into the old directive.
We cannot bring out any proper coherent legislation in that way.
I have already spoken once to the Commission about it.
The Commission has sent me an answer but we see very little result.
What I dislike about Mrs Mosiek's report, although I wish her all luck with it, is that objectives which are nevertheless worth while, such as the environment and I should say also social legislation, are dragged in.
My group will therefore vote against some passages but support the report as a whole.
Madam President, the report of the Molitor Group is on first impression a pessimistic one.
It leaves out fundamental questions and makes proposals which are worrying and which disappoint the hopes placed on the work of the Molitor Group.
If the aim is to make Community law which is in force accessible to the citizens by means of legislative and administrative simplification it is hard to see how that object can be achieved without going exhaustively into the question of what bearing the simplification of legislation on a Community scale has on the simplification of legislation in the Member States.
On the one hand there are specific fields which the Molitor Group did not deal with and which affect citizens, such as legislation on the environment.
On the other hand there are others which have been dealt with where only economic criteria are paramount.
Thus proposals ostensibly devised to simplify legislation lead only to deregulation in social matters and to reducing workers' protection at European level without beginning to analyse the repercussions of Community legislation and of national laws on competitiveness and employment.
That is unacceptable.
The points drawn up by the rapporteur are very pertinent and so are her recommendations.
Finally I should like to point out that the simplification and reduction of legislative texts must not lead to covert suppression of rights.
Madam President, legislative and administrative provisions must be as clear and simple as possible, if only to provide the necessary clarity of standards, a basic requirement of all legislation.
Given the actual state of our legislation, it is not surprising that the Commission instructed a group of experts to work out proposals to simplify Community legislation and administrative provisions.
But when one reads the unanimous criticism that all the committees asked for their opinion have directed at the result of the Molitor Group's activities one has to ask oneself whether this result is not also attributable to the general nature of their mandate.
At any rate, this general mandate enabled the group to continue working on the hypothesis that simplification is the same as deregulation.
So, the word that became the central concept is not only a little dusty anyway, but as a programme it has manoeuvred our economy precisely into the situation we are now in, namely the economic and social crisis of mass unemployment.
Parliament is only doing its duty in refusing to approve this concept and agreeing with the committees that ask it not to do so.
The amendments tabled by my group merely want to make the rapporteur's ideas a little more concrete in two areas, namely environmental and social standards, in order to check the tendency towards harmonization at the lowest level.
The best way to simplify legislation and administrative provisions is to have clear legal bases, but unfortunately in the cases concerned the only binding Community legislation is in Articles 130a to 130t.
For instance the social protocol is not a legal basis, but should become so as soon as possible, and Parliament should not cease calling for that.
Madam President, simplification can be a very complicated business.
The way in which the Molitor Group has tackled the problem, by effectively identifying simplification with deregulation, has done nothing to simplify the treatment of the problem of simplification.
Because we can see the results, everyone says to us, ' Hands off my acquis communautaire, hands off my legislation' .
Well, the problem today is to rediscover the majesty of the law.
Because, in most cases, what is referred to as the shortfall of democracy is really nothing but a shortfall in legibility.
In this respect, the methods proposed by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn are entirely admirable.
I would like to add two comments.
My first relates to consultation.
It is true that there is a need for consultation in the legislative process, but one cannot help wondering whether the Commission, which does a lot of consulting, does not perhaps tend, if I may say so, to internalize the debate, leaving very little material over for the parliamentary debate.
My second comment - and this will be all I have to say Madam President - is that this debate is inseparable from the debate on the hierarchy of standards.
In order for simplification to take place, there has to be a distinction between legislation and regulation.
The intergovernmental conference will have to concern itself with that.
This evening, we can thank Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn for having posed the problems so skilfully.
Madam President, my group is in favour of simplifying European legislation.
But we regard the Molitor report only as a start.
Like the Florence Council we are expecting that this year the Commission will send the Council and, let me stress, also to Parliament, the first results of the SLIM project, that is, the Simple Legislation for the Internal Market.
European business circles have long been demanding an internal market, the market in which a large number of national laws are collected into uniform EC legislation.
But uniformity must be guaranteed.
Member States and the Commission together must ensure that the legislation is implemented correctly and on time.
And both must check how and whether this legislation is observed.
It upsets the basis of the State governed by the rule of law if we make laws which we then do not enforce.
Along with a check on correct and prompt legislation I think we must beware of unnecessary complication of national legislation in transposition - a subject which Molitor, wrongly, did not get round to at all.
So I should like to see a joint action programme by the Commission and the Member States to achieve an improvement in the quality of transposition at national level.
Supervision must be accompanied by adequate penalties, preferably also by a procedure for complaining to the Commission, which would involve industry, and also for lodging complaints where they arise instead of intimidating businesses so much that they dare not lodge the complaint.
So complaints need to be taken seriously and the complaints procedure needs to have time-limits applied.
Finally I very much regret that Commissioner Monti is not here, because we have an anniversary to celebrate today, not the Commissioner's birthday, but the fact that it is precisely one year since the Commissioner promised me in reply to a question of mine that we were to get such a right of complaint direct.
I would gladly have offered him a cake if he had been here to celebrate.
Madam President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, for her report, which will be able to play a part in the efforts we are making together to simplify legislative and administrative procedures.
As the House is aware, the Commission has been engaged in a process of simplification for a number of years, and has already taken a whole series of initiatives in this respect in various sectors, as the rapporteurs for both the Council and Parliament have testified.
Simplifying the legislative and administrative procedures to which businesses are subject is an important part of the general strategy for growth, competitiveness and employment.
The Commission felt that it was necessary to obtain the opinion of a group of independent experts in this area.
In September 1994, therefore, it set up a group of independent experts, chaired by Bernhard Molitor, whose task was to assess the impact of both Community and national legislation on employment and competitiveness, with a view to putting forward proposals for simplification.
The Commission's position on the Molitor Group's report is well known, since it has expressed its views on each of the proposals contained in the report.
Like the European Parliament, the Commission takes the view that the Molitor report and the Commission's general guidelines on legislative policy show that there is a need to ensure that we have Community legal frameworks which are unambiguous, clear and of a high standard; to speed up the codification of Community law; to improve its implementation and effectiveness at national level; to make use of legislative checklists; to carry out studies in areas of special interest; to hold consultations with the parties involved; to assess the results of legislative work; and to investigate the effect on small and mediumsized enterprises, to which many speakers have referred today.
On the other hand, like the European Parliament, the Commission would have liked to see the Molitor report demonstrate the connection which must be presumed to exist between the proposed simplifications on the one hand and competitiveness and employment on the other.
The Commission would also have liked to see the group do more in terms of analysing and assessing the impact of national legislation, as many speakers have also emphasized today.
Like Parliament, the Commission therefore feels that supporting and encouraging simplification is not synonymous with deregulation.
The point is for us to have better legislation, in other words to make Community law coherent, easily accessible and workable for all our businesses, citizens and authorities, without losing what has already been achieved within the Community framework.
Here I am thinking in particular of the implementation of the internal market and maintaining a high degree of protection in terms of health, safety and environmental and consumer protection, as provided for in the Treaty.
Despite these reservations concerning the Molitor report, it is a useful contribution to the debate on simplification - and I would stress that it is just one useful contribution.
It is of course up to the Commission to take the necessary initiatives, just as in the final analysis it is up to the legislators to come to a decision on these initiatives.
The recent moves in this area by the Community institutions, for example the SLIM project, show that the process is well under way.
You may be assured that the resolution which Parliament will presumably adopt tomorrow on the basis of the Mosiek-Urbahn report will be a source of inspiration for the Commission.
I put a very definite and direct question to the Commission.
Now it may be that Mrs Bjerregaard only reads the text she has received, but at least she can then agree to give us a written answer.
There was a request in the opening speeches for the questions that were asked to be answered in writing.
That will naturally be done.
Renewable energy
The next item is the report (A4-0188/96) by Mr Mombaur, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on a Community action plan for renewable energy sources.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, among the most urgent challenges facing Europe are the challenges on the employment market and the protection of the earth's atmosphere given its limited capacity to absorb emissions from the use of coal, oil and gas.
The action plan for renewable energy sources makes a considerable contribution to tackling both challenges.
It is concerned with creating a worldwide market for energy technology, which will grow because of the world-wide energy famine, and above all with solutions for nearly three billion regional inhabitants.
What we need is innovative techniques that combine the use of several renewable energy sources.
The Union still occupies a leading position in the technology for using these energies.
Do we want to miss out on developments here too, as we have already done in some areas? Do we want to miss the opportunities?
I and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy say we do not, and we must act quickly, otherwise the production will move away from Europe.
Jacques Santer said: ' Europe has no shortage of trump cards, and lacks only a strategy for playing them.'
Jacques Delors said: ' In terms of worldwide competition the Community is suffering for its inadequate involvement in markets with a wealth of possibilities for the future.'
How true, how right they both are!
So, let us work out the strategy and carry it through.
The starting signal has sounded today.
The date of the debate, in early July 1996, could not be more propitious.
The Irish presidency has announced that developing renewable energies was a priority.
UNESCO will be holding the solar summit on the solar energy decade in September.
The conference on climate will be held in Geneva in July.
In Trieste, the EU and Mediterranean countries' energy ministers have just created a forum for renewable energy sources.
Unfortunately I must remind you that early this year the Commission made a very poor impression when allocating research funds for renewable energy sources.
It now has an opportunity to make up for that.
What is our strategy? Anyone who believes renewable energy techniques could be applied worldwide on the basis of tax money is on the wrong track.
No, the only recipe for success is to impress the markets, that is to say, to aim at sustained demand and not just a temporary upsurge.
Building on that, the producers of this technology must be allowed new stages of production, i.e. cost reductions.
At Union level that also means coordinating Union, Member State and third country programmes, sharing the added value between all concerned, which also and especially means the Maghreb countries south of the Mediterranean which were after all the first to start up decentralized, regional electrification programmes.
It also means that the many policies of the individual directorates-general must at last be coordinated and made more open so that anyone can see what is actually happening there overall.
It also means stimulating the markets by having standards for marketable goods.
It also means increasing the budget appropriations for this research, for it is one of the most important research fields.
It also means that the Union, represented by the Commission, must cooperate more closely than in the past with the World Bank.
Our hearing brought some weaknesses to light.
We also think that management consultants should assess the efficiency of the measures we have taken to date, and let me also remind you of the need to pursue the idea of a CO2 energy tax on a European basis.
I agree with Mr Spencer: the next hurricane should be named after an oil company.
What about calling it Mobil?
At Member State level, information is necessary, as is the training of architects.
How do we really propose to promote this technology? If private clients turn to architects who have no idea about the technology, we will see no progress.
We need workers in the installation trades, we have to change the building regulations in the Member States.
We need rules for the input of electricity from renewable energy sources into networks and of course we must finally crack the monopolies in the energy market so as to create at least some interest in promoting this development for the benefit of the citizens and consumers.
The measures I have listed make it clear that the European Union cannot promote this development by itself.
We are a supranational Community.
We need the participation of the Member States, and there we are in a bad way in many respects.
Why does Greece have markedly better values than Italy? Why are there major differences between France and Germany, indeed extreme differences in wind-power technology?
Why between Denmark and Ireland?
All this is unexplained, all this indicates weaknesses. It is clear that if one country blocks progress, that slows down all the others.
Commissioner, it must therefore be decided what the Union should do and what the Member States should do.
General declarations are no use to us any more.
That is why the debate in the Council is of strategic importance - I want to emphasize that strongly - for the Council as the sum of the Member State governments must decide whether as co-legislator it wants to make the Union responsible here or whether it says that the Union should not act and that is why we will call on the Member States to act at home.
That is why it is of strategic importance.
Commissioner, I am grateful for your presence at this late hour.
On behalf of the committee, and I hope also on behalf of the plenary, I call on you to waste no time!
Make use of the strong support this House gives you.
Forward the already agreed communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament without delay, so that today's starting signal can immediately lead to successful developments.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the Mombaur report reflects the need for the European Union to step up and boost its environment and energy policy worldwide, something becoming more and more urgent given the very serious problems jeopardising the planet's climate and equilibrium.
We cannot stand by and do nothing to stop what is happening to Earth and the European Union should be at the forefront of deciding the right measures to be taken to stop a worsening and, if possible, gradually to reduce, above all else, the so-called 'greenhouse effect' and 'hole in the ozone layer' .
If we carry on using fossil fuels to produce energy, it is obvious that the emission of pollutant gases will also continue, with the well-known harmful effects on the climate.
That is why we must make swift progress towards using renewable energy forms which, alongside a serious energy saving policy and an increase in energyrelated efficiency, is the main way of overcoming these problems.
The advantages of renewable energy forms are countless and nearly all well known, but the fact that they are virtually inexhaustible, they do not pollute, they are produced locally, they can be used outside networks and are less costly make them particularly attractive.
That is why we back the report and congratulate Mr Mombaur, raising a few points which we think are important:
firstly, whatever the Community programmes on renewable energy, the Community funding must be significant and adequate not only for a broad promotion of the various sources and the sizeable application of investment, especially in the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions of the Union, including its islands, but also for a wideranging programme of vocational training and applied research, development and demonstrations on prospecting the potential and proper use of these energies; -secondly, the Member States must be encouraged to create regional energy and environment agencies, especially for the vital study and up-dating of energy plans in the framework of the different regions as well as the coordination and supervision of measures and actions, development and implementation; and for participating in regional and local networks created between the Member States and/or their departments or other bodies as one of the best ways of helping the distribution of renewable energies; -thirdly, it is important that the European Union and its Member States, in this energy area, should begin to set practical examples of their interests or desires, as in the case of the buildings of their institutions and public bodies, in terms of ensuring that their architecture functions as a model in particular with respect to making use of solar energy; concerning the use of biomass the Member States should step up not only studies in this field with much interest not only in the mere use of wood as a fuel, but also more significant and intelligent forestation projects paying more attention to the farming sector and a significant increase in the production of biomass; -finally, in the creation of new taxes to penalise conventional energy production it is necessary for this not to prejudice the European Union's economic activity; energy taxes, especially for their knock-on effects on the whole industrial sector, must only be set worldwide so that we do not produce another case of dumping, ecological dumping in this case, with harmful effects yet again on the European Union and its Member States.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Mr Mombaur's report contains a very realistic analysis of the possibilities and measures in the field of generation of renewable energy.
Europe can do something with that.
The Liberal Group shares the vision presented here and thinks that in due course money should be made available to fund it.
But at Council level at the moment an extraordinarily dirty game is being played.
Time after time programmes which would necessarily lead to energy savings, lower CO2 emissions and transfer of knowledge of energy technology within Europe and elsewhere are being blocked by the Council.
First it was THERMIE as long ago as 1994 and now we can add SAVE II.
It is striking that the Council never makes cuts in nuclear energy or nuclear fusion programmes.
For those the budget is even increased without any discussion.
It is also striking that in particular the big Member States with a major interest in the nuclear energy sector such as France, Germany and the United Kingdom are blocking SAVE II in the Council.
It is time for us to tell the citizens of Europe and of Germany what game their governments are playing.
Instead of new technologies they are exporting obsolescent nuclear technology they have no more use for in their own countries to Central and Eastern Europe such as the Ukraine.
Countries in Western Europe, including the Netherlands, have an enormous over-capacity in electricity.
The power-stations which supply this energy are proportionally much cleaner than power-stations in countries such as the Ukraine.
But these power-stations are standing here doing nothing.
They are superfluous.
My group asks the Commission and the Council why we do not export these gas-fired surplus power-stations to the Ukraine where they can soon be supplying electricity.
As a last point I should like to advocate a European energy policy on behalf of my group, because without that there can be no question of a European environment policy.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Mombaur for his excellent report.
It is unusual to be able to welcome so unreservedly a colleague's report and I know that we do so tonight.
It is a really practical way for moving forward on renewable energies.
Renewable energies present us with a paradox.
They are the oldest of all energy sources but nowadays modern technology permits us to use them efficiently and enables a new potential to be realized.
There are inexhaustible benefits and no pollution of the biosphere.
It is particularly important that the more than 50 % of the world's population which is deprived of infrastructure, electricity and energy for development should be provided with decentralized infrastructures in a proper and concrete way.
We should regard this as an urgent priority.
The local production of photovoltaic energy on buildings makes renewable energy very competitive.
It secures jobs and ensures cooperation with the third world and the Mediterranean in particular.
In this context, I should like to see more renewable energy used in public buildings in Brussels and other places in the European Union.
I know that the rapporteur has endeavoured to be realistic with his target of 15 %.
In the light of current practice, which is stagnant, this is a useful move forward.
I say that we can exceed this target and go for 20 % if we really try.
I should also like to agree with my colleagues who say we must have a real energy policy for the European Union.
Why should we in this Parliament agree to funding any nuclear budget at all under the Euratom budget when Parliament is not able to approve such policies and they are not part of the treaties of the European Union. It is about time we had a proper energy policy for the European Union and a proper environment policy.
We should have this with a legal base.
Madam President, the rapporteur, whom I also want to congratulate on his first-class work, makes it crystal clear that it is urgently necessary for the Commission to draw up a comprehensive action plan.
Of course the EU can only promote and encourage a change of trend, because of the subsidiarity principle.
The final responsibility lies with the Member States.
Apart from the primary reasons that speak for this action plan, I want to draw attention to the positive effects on rural populations - in relation also to employment.
By promoting regional projects and activities new jobs can be created.
The market in technology for the use of renewable energy sources is a much contested future market precisely because of these circumstances.
This kind of action plan to promote renewable energy sources must contain the following basic features: forward-looking, clear and credible declarations of intent must be made at the highest political level, which the European and national legislators must incorporate into a binding legislative framework.
The objective must be to raise the share of renewable energy sources in primary energy consumption from the present 5.2 % to 15 % by the year 2010, and I believe that this ambitious aim can be a realistic one.
Public corporations should set an example in their investment projects, and that also applies to the European Union's public buildings.
In terms of organization, the European Union should form the many individual responsibilities of the Commission's directorates-general into a uniform policy to promote renewable energy sources.
Existing technologies should be promoted by increasing European investment in third countries, so as not to leave market shares in this promising area to competition.
The budget appropriations for this area, which will have a decisive influence on the future of Europe, must be in reasonable proportion to the sums that have been invested to date in Euratom research on the one hand and the protection of nuclear power stations in need of redevelopment on the other.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have tabled two amendments because I had a burning need to do so. Why?
Because the SAVE II programme, for which appropriations of ECU 150 m were proposed, was cut to ECU 45 m by the Council.
Just imagine: Germany is referring to its subsidiarity, Austria was actually in favour of it being cut to ECU 35 m.
Quite incredible!
We are the model European country in terms of environmental standards and yet we are cutting precisely those programmes that help us to implement these environmental standards.
What the Council has done here really is ludicrous!
That is why I think it is important to draw attention to this now and to say, that will not do!
That is not what the European Parliament wants!
We want to support good programmes that help us to save energy and that is why the SAVE II programme should be allocated at least ECU 150 m if it is to be at all competitive.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Mombaur on his excellent report.
I regard this report as particularly important, for very many reasons.
First of all, because it comes before us at a time when the Community's presence in the energy sector needs to be stressed.
Secondly, because it proposes a balanced and logical approach to the promotion of alternative energy sources.
Finally, because it proposes a global policy for the sector of renewable energy sources, at a time that is critical for the future development of those energy sources.
I will not reiterate the benefits that would stem from intensified development of renewable energy sources, nor the need to promote them.
Those subjects have been developed in detail, both by the rapporteur, and by the various previous speakers.
However, let me remind you that in the Commission's White Paper on energy policy, it is stated that world demand for energy is forecast to increase in the coming years, the coming decades.
Despite the improvement of energy efficiency, it is forecast that if present trends are maintained, the consumption of mineral resources will increase in order to satisfy our energy demands.
Deposits of mineral energy sources and uranium are limited and it is becoming increasingly clear that fossil fuels harm the environment by emitting greenhouse gases and other pollutants as well.
Clearly, alternative solutions are needed.
Besides this, however, reliability of supply is one of the most basic issues that concern the European Union, and one which entails Community action as a priority.
The promotion of renewable energy sources must be a fundamental ingredient of these alternative solutions.
We therefore agree completely with Mr Mombaur's essential aspirations, as expressed in his report.
As we have already stated in the White Paper, and we agree with your own views, the Commission will prepare an overall strategy and a plan of action to promote renewable energy sources.
I intend to present that document before the end of the year, in the form of a statement to Parliament and the other institutional bodies, with an action programme which will propose new measures.
All this, of course, will take place after consultations with all the interested agencies.
In that context, we will of course analyse the action already taken by the Commission in this specific area.
The research and demonstration activities promoted by the Commission have played a very important part in improving the quality of the energy services provided by renewable energy sources, and in reducing the cost of constituents and systems.
It was precisely with this in mind that the resources of the fourth framework programme on renewable energy sources were increased by 50 % compared with the previous period 1990-1994, up to 45 % of the total figure for the JOULE-THERMIE programme.
Besides, within the scope of the ALTENER programme, which covers the years 1993-1997, over 220 projects have been financed.
More particularly, there are plans for the support of around 60 further projects.
In addition, we have made substantial efforts to give out information within the scope of this action.
Towards the end of this year, the Commission will submit to Parliament and to the Council a proposal to extend the ALTENER programme beyond 1997.
And I would like to assure you that the Commission will where possible take all of Parliament's comments into account.
Personally, I assure you that I will promote the greatest possible coordination between the Commission's various services, by means of a coordinating group under my leadership, to prepare our strategy.
That coordination will have to be strengthened still further within the scope of putting our strategy into practice.
Now, as for preparations for the extension of the ALTENER programme and the assessment of the activities taking place in that sector, a thing which the rapporteur called for, I can tell you that now, at the end of the ALTENER programme's third year, the Commission has embarked upon an assessment of the activities carried out so far and is preparing proposals for the programme's future orientation.
Towards the end of November, the Commission will organize a conference in Spain for all contributors to and participants in the programme.
Together with them, we will try to formulate conclusions based on experience so far and determine guidelines for our future orientation.
In conclusion, I would like to express my satisfaction that this report proposes to develop renewable energy sources in the Mediterranean area.
I have personally undertaken the commitment to promote cooperation in the sector of energy in the Mediterranean area.
I hope my counterparts in the other Mediterranean countries will also lay due stress upon renewable energy sources.
In the aftermath of the Barcelona Conference, the European Union's Ministers for Energy and the Ministers responsible for issues of cooperation between the European Union and the Mediterranean countries met in Trieste between 7 and 9 June, and officially declared the start of cooperation initiatives in the energy sector, among which the promotion of renewable energy sources is included.
The MEDA programme will also constitute an important means of cooperation and we will consider how it could best be put to use to promote our common energy objectives and, among those, the promotion of renewable energy sources.
Madam President, I would like to conclude by congratulating the rapporteur Mr Mombaur once more on the quality and importance of his work.
His report is one which largely strengthens and supplements the Commission's efforts in a sector which is vitally important for the future.
At the same time, it is a report which gives us much food for thought concerning the preparation of a new Community strategy to promote renewable energy sources in the European Union, which we will in any case have the opportunity to debate again, both within the framework of Parliament's Committee on Energy and of course during Parliament's Plenary.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Population conference in Cairo
The next item is the report (A4-0152/96) by Mrs Fouque, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the follow-up to the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development.
Madam President, the rapporteur has already said it.
It is two years since the Cairo Conference was held and we note little result.
The States themselves and the international institutions as well have done hardly anything to follow up the undertakings they made there.
That is true too of the Union, and here I am looking at the Commissioner.
To a considerable extent that is because of lack of means, but above all shortage of staff both in Brussels with the Commission and with the establishments abroad.
That leads to unnecessary delays.
It is not so much that the means are not there, but those related projects connected with the eradication of poverty, and dealing with environmental issues and population growth, those flanking measures do not get off the ground because not enough staff are available.
I think it is of great importance too for the Commissioner to tell us how he would like to change this organization to give shape to projects of this kind in the future.
Naturally it is very important to coordinate the budgets.
We have tabled an amendment indicating that the budgets are all at sixes and sevens and all the headings are at cross-purposes, and it would be a good thing if the Commissioner would bring those budgetary authorizations more under a single heading.
The Committee on the Environment is convinced that the question is not merely one of demographic population growth and increasing poverty but also of effective environmental responses.
A demographic policy can only be effective if it is part of a broader whole of measures to combat poverty and environmental threats.
This naturally involves projects and programmes for family planning, post-natal care and the prevention of AIDS.
May I, in conclusion, bring something to the Commissioner's attention in this respect.
I read this morning in a Dutch newspaper that AIDS will really affect the demographic prospects of 20 or 30 African countries.
Things are very tragic and that is not the way in which we want to put the brake on population growth if I may put it like that, so, Commissioner, we hope more can be done to link those projects to the field covering AIDS prevention.
Madam President, first of all warm thanks to Mrs Fouque, whose report provides an excellent basis for further Union activities in the field of population and development policy.
The ICPD in Cairo represented a historic turning-point in the history of UN population conferences.
The ICPD action programme reflects a worldwide and far-reaching vision while at the same time achieving agreement on the key questions, on highly sensitive questions which, after all, affect people in the most personal way.
Despite the very difficult circumstances and violent attempts at disruption by religious, fundamentalist states, from Iran to the Vatican, it did not prove possible to prevent a new worldwide concept of reproductive health from being defined in Cairo.
This term signals an integral entitlement to health, family planning, contraception, safe sex and safe birth.
The decisive advances achieved after more than three years of negotiations recognize the close interconnections between the areas of population development, poverty, education, production and consumer behaviour and environmental policy.
For the first time, at UN level, women were named as the decisive, key figures in relation to future development.
The message of Cairo - that women are the key to development - also dominated the action plan and made it incontrovertibly clear that equality for women in all areas must be a requirement of all policies and programmes.
The point of departure was to place the individual at the centre of things and to recommend that investments in human beings, for example in education, housing, health, nutrition, legal certainty and equality, together with the satisfaction of subjective needs, be regarded as the main component of a global population policy, instead of setting demographic aims as in the past.
The report gives a very good account of the situation and the problems involved.
I will therefore confine myself to a few additional remarks.
The birth rate has fallen in every part of the world except in Africa south of the Sahara where it remains 6.2 births per woman.
In the threshold countries, some of which have double-figure growth rates, the birth rates are close to the European ones, as are women's educational and job opportunities.
On average, women who have attended school marry five years later than uneducated girls and have their first child four years later and overall have three children fewer.
The real squanderers of the environment and of resources are clearly pinpointed as the highly-developed industrialized countries.
That is why the two key concepts of Cairo - reproductive health and the empowerment of women - must be regarded as closely linked, and the Beijing World Conference on Women consistently developed these concepts further.
Yet it was noted in Beijing that insufficient resources were being allocated and that there was a far-reaching rise in poverty, marginalization, discrimination and violence against women.
Let me ask the Council, let me ask the Commission, what has happened to the target of allocating 0.7 % of gross national product to development cooperation?
My country, the federal government, spends less than 0.3 % on this important task, although it has agreed to made greater efforts and increase the expenditure.
I appeal to the sense of responsibility of the Member States and the Commission and call on them to carry out the follow-up measures rapidly and to increase the appropriations.
I ask all Members not to fail to support the well-balanced motion for a resolution in the Fouque report.
About one third of all pregnancies worldwide are and remain unwanted and here I also appeal to Members not to spark off a conflict in this House on the subject of contraception, for that would not be useful from a European or a religious point of view.
Contraceptive methods can only work if they are used in agreement with those concerned, which means with the women.
We are categorically against compulsory sterilization, as is practised on women in China, for instance.
But if women decide on it freely, then sterilization is a good method.
That is to say, we need agreed methods.
We social democrats therefore call for a continuous follow-up process and for the Cairo and Beijing proposals to be implemented consistently, with the participation of those concerned.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I should like to congratulate Mrs Fouque on her splendid report on the follow-up to the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, the first assessment of which is to be made in Hanover in 1999.
So we are at the half-way point and it is appropriate to take stock.
I should like to remind you briefly that the report tackles the world demographic problem from the point of view not only of economics but of ethics.
It deals with the problems related to population, poverty, means of production and consumption, the interrelation between development and environment and how all those subjects are related to women, above all in the sphere of health and education.
That Cairo Conference highlights the growth of world population by 94 million a year, 90 % of which is in the poorest countries.
If demographic growth continues at that rate, by 2050 there will be 10 000 million people in the world.
The Cairo Conference has very specific aims: to reduce deaths from childbirth and infant mortality, to promote access to genetic health, family planning and to prevent AIDS and to make primary education available to all.
That will require resources. 17 000 million dollars by the year 2000.
Follow-up for this Conference consists in: international political support for all aspects concerning population and development, mobilization of the necessary resources, coordination of actions, diffusion of information and a permanent quest for solutions.
Everyone knows what hopes the world places on the European Union for its pioneering role in encouraging democratic freedoms, the rights of women and equality of opportunity.
Our free dialogue with the developing countries and the Union's economic contribution to cooperation have placed us ahead of the United States.
But we must remember that in Cairo the European Union promised to give considerable economic aid and, seeing that Community action in the field of cooperation has a good legal foundation in the Treaty and that in many of the Member States there is a political will to apply it, we ask the Commission and the foot-dragging Member States once and for all to apply all those programmes intended to ensure the dignity, the equality of women in political, economic and family life in accordance with the promises made in Beijing and covered by the Fourth Programme for equality approved by this Assembly last December.
The European Union should be a mirror in which all countries can see their reflection.
We men and women of Europe must be capable of innovation and flexibility in our approach.
The difficulties and the slowness in applying the objectives of Cairo reflect an inertia which we must resist by encouraging networks, centres of analysis and exchange and above all new forms of association and work between NGOs, governments, Members of Parliament and individuals to promote this new culture of development cooperation.
To conclude, Madam President, I should like to mention that, through the ironies of history, we have the paradox that whilst the demographic situation in Europe is alarming because of the ageing of its population and the very low birth rate in some member countries, in other parts of the world, basically in Asia, Africa and Latin America the problems of the demographic explosion give rise to an enormous increase in poverty and much environmental damage.
On behalf of my group I therefore ask the Commission to increase its efforts and to evaluate the plans and actions designed to further the development policies and programmes in demographic matters, in health and education, above all of women, in the developing countries so that we may reach the year 2015 having achieved the objectives of reducing infant and maternal mortality, and making genetic health, family planning and primary education available to all.
In that way we shall be pursuing a preventive policy whereas today, in medical terms, we are pursuing only a curative policy.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent in-depth report on the present situation on the follow-up to the Cairo Conference.
Women in the developing world are facing a precarious situation.
We are witnessing an enormous population explosion which is concentrated in the poorest countries of the world.
Many of these countries have limited resources and are incapable of dealing with the demands of their growing populations.
As the rapporteur has already said, women are among the main victims of debt in the developing countries.
In my view the World Bank could help resolve this problem by selling some of its assets, including gold, but the World Bank, being the World Bank, seems to be deaf to the plight of millions of people suffering from indebtedness.
Far from meeting the goal of devoting 0.7 % of GNP to development aid, the donor countries' global contributions to development programmes fell in 1992 and 1994 from 0.34 % to 0.29 % of GNP.
An exception must be made for developing countries.
It is an appalling indictment of international policies that 70 % of the 1.4 billion people living below the poverty threshold are women.
They are discriminated against in many ways, not just politically and socially but in terms of health and education.
It is a matter of serious concern that the number of women who are still dying as a result of early or repeated pregnancies, complications following childbirth and clandestine abortion is approximately 500 million.
Furthermore, 150 million women are left with long-term illness or disability as a result of pregnancy.
There are twice as many women as men among the new AIDS cases - a fact which has already been referred to here tonight.
Some 9 million women are HIV-positive.
I am appalled by the suggestion in the report that women in developing countries are being used as guinea pigs for experiments involving new contraceptive products.
I deplore and condemn this.
Any company doing this should be banned and forced to pay massive compensation.
I would call on the Commission to examine this situation as a matter of urgency.
Illiteracy remains a serious problem.
This is generally evident from the fact that of 960 million illiterate adults in the world, two-thirds are women.
Furthermore of the 130 million illiterate children in the world, 90 million do not have access to primary education.
Not even these figures reveal the full picture of the situation in which women find themselves, who often have to bear the brunt of poverty and the consequences of the policies of exclusion in developing countries.
I look forward to the first assessment of Cairo which will be held in Hanover in 1999.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the action programme set out by the Cairo Conference combined effective demographic policies with human dignity and emphasized the central role of women in the development of peoples, in demographic stability and in promoting peace.
It is therefore necessary to guarantee and to promote women's education, their access to employment, their health training, information on their rights as regards voluntary parenthood and access to methods of birth control.
But Mrs Fouque's splendid report and these speeches will remain mere declarations of good intention unless we have attainable regulations and projects capable of helping the Third World to emerge from its poverty and from the demographic explosion.
The European Parliament expressed its views before and after the Cairo Conference and now we ask the Commission to send us, two years later, a document or a report explaining what it has done to put the policies decided in Cairo into effect and we also ask it to accept this resolution.
Madam President, I shall begin a little differently.
Every child not born in the West makes a considerably greater contribution to saving natural resources than every child not born in the developing countries.
That is perhaps rather an odd way to begin, but by that I do not mean that we ought to do nothing about the population explosion. I just want to make it clear that that responsibility cannot simply be pushed on to the people in the developing countries and that we have a great responsibility for that ourselves just because we consume the majority of those natural resources on this side of the equator.
It is true, as is said here, that not very much has happened since Cairo.
I should like to press the Commission to arrange as quickly as possible, in cooperation with the United Nations, for the development of framework agreements to implement as quickly as possible the decisions taken in Cairo.
In this report, which is a splendid one by Mrs Fouque, it is made very clear that the trend of demographic development can only be reversed if you ensure that the position of women is improved both socially and economically but also as regards training for women and access to facilities such as health care.
I think that is much more important than old traditional patterns of family planning because they, as has been clear for a long time, do not work all that well.
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Fouque for the explanatory statement contained in her report, and especially for the first page of that statement, page 11, and I hope that all honourable Members will read that statement and think about it.
I will however take the liberty of saying, Mrs Fouque, that I am aware of a certain inconsistency between that statement and the continuation of your report.
I would however thank you for having stressed that there has been a welcome reversal in attitudes.
We have moved on, as many of our colleagues have said, from an ideological view in which overpopulation as such was the cause of underdevelopment to a much more realistic concept where we can see that the problems of development and economics, wretchedness and poverty, are the causes of overpopulation.
This finding suggests to me that we must, when dealing with these conferences and topics, come to the point of really questioning our own economic development in our so-called wealthy countries.
We should completely reorganize international trade, the international ground rules, so that the purpose of international trade is not to benefit financial interests at the expense of the various nations, developed countries as well as developing.
All world economic development must be geared to satisfying the fundamental and basic needs of food, shelter and health care in these various countries.
This really does call for a profound examination of our consciences - I venture to use this word since you used the word 'ethical' , and I am grateful for it - which must be a challenge to us all.
Because these evils are linked: our 18 million unemployed, the 50 million citizens of the Union afflicted by poverty and exclusion, and the difficulties experienced by the developing countries.
These are not two separate realities, they are two inseparable realities.
From this point of view I have insufficient time, but I believe there could be enough of us prepared to decide to change our international economic analysis.
On the other hand, I thank you for having stressed the fact that it is no longer tolerable - and, thank heavens, many honourable Members agree on this - to impose anything whatsoever when it comes to demographics.
There was a form of imperialism - let us not mince words - which exerted an influence and still does, and we now need to ensure that these practises, which we all condemn, are going to cease for good and all.
Now let me stress one particular point.
In the resolution of 11 March 1994, and later in the resolutions regarding Cairo and International Family Year we in this Parliament voted for genuine liberty, freedom of choice, for women in matters of family planning.
Alongside the various forms of contraception, women must be free to choose a control system based on knowledge of the female cycle - the Billings and symptothermic and other methods - which have been the subject of international research and substantial scientific progress. However, women do not have access to this knowledge.
This is a profoundly shocking finding in terms of that selfdetermination for women to which we are committed.
I would also like to say that these methods have the virtue of treating men and women equally in terms of their responsibility for procreation.
Finally, one last point. Poverty has a serious impact on single women with children.
And I believe that, from this point of view, both in our own countries and in the developing countries, the crisis of the family - whatever it may be - is not beneficial either to children or to women, who find themselves responsible for the children they have brought into the world.
Madam President, Commissioner, despite commitments stemming from the signing of agreements, and declarations about the political, social, and economic rights of our citizens, both men and women, a survey of the results would easily demonstrate that all those agreements, declarations and laws have led to no substantial steps at all.
Violence constantly increases and disrespect for human life is a daily practice in many countries.
The more these two increase, the more numerous their victims become, especially women and children, because violence and discrimination against women are not confined just to countries in which armed conflict takes place.
They are often found in countries where traditions demand that women should be sold in slave markets or sexually mutilated, that they should die because they are bearing a child in their womb, be subjected to psychological stress because they are compelled to practice compulsory contraception or the opposite, the latter when contraception and planned parenthood are regarded as forbidden.
Every effort should be made to subject traditions and customs that cheapen human life to scrutiny or review.
In many countries, of course, such traditions are lost in the mists of antiquity.
However, such traditions and practices ought not to be used continually as an excuse by certain elements of authority to preserve the status quo.
The need for access to education and information is now essential, and I would say, even urgent.
On the threshold of the new millennium, 2000, while the countries of the European Union and others in the developed world are organizing information campaigns and establishing the free issue of condoms for protection from AIDS, in other countries the use of the condom is still disputed.
There is also discrimination in education.
Most illiterates are women, because they are not recognized as having the right of access to education.
The European Union's role, then, must be a catalytic one but not only in approaching the issue from an economic standpoint.
I applaud the aim of increasing the amount available from the European Union to 300 million ECU by 2000.
However, I am concerned that no applications have been received from Mediterranean countries.
And if the reason for this is the complexity of the procedure, perhaps we ought to review that procedure.
Besides, perhaps part of that money should be set aside for information; in other words, to circulate special leaflets giving information about how applications can be made, by which countries, and what prerequisites must be satisfied.
The European Union should also encourage information campaigns for the citizens concerning their rights, training and information programmes, and programmes relating to the health of women and children.
In addition, it should also encourage NGOs to undertake initiatives, because their contribution is direct and effective.
I thank Mrs Fouque for her excellent work and hope the Commission will respond to our appeal.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first I should like to thank Mrs Fouque for her excellent and well-balanced report.
The Commission of course shares her opinion that the follow-up to the Cairo Conference must not only respect the action plan agreed in Cairo, but also the status of women and must ensure that the contribution which that makes to solving the problems of development, poverty and population is fully recognized.
The Commission finds that the policy emerging since the Cairo Conference represents a real advance in concrete terms, even though by now I acknowledge that our policy was a modest one.
Honourable Members will remember that on the basis of the Cairo action plan and taking account both of the European Parliament's resolutions and the Council's observations, the Commission in 1995 presented its proposal for a Council regulation on aid for population policies and programmes in the developing countries.
That new regulation is specifically linked to a modest budget heading - ECU 7 million in 1996 - although its real significance is much more important in political terms, as I shall try to show later.
The regulation will give priority to innovative pilot projects, catalyst programmes and operational research work.
Although the main demographic measures will continue to be financed by national programmes charged to the relevant cooperation budgets, they will chiefly be guided by the ideas contained in the new regulation and by the results obtained from the ideas put into practice by means of the budget heading I have just mentioned.
The main priorities put forward by the Commission in its proposal - I am speaking of the regulation - are very clear: to allow women and men to choose freely how many children they have; to help to create a socio-cultural, economic and educative environment which will make possible to full exercise of that right; to help to develop health systems which, where reproduction is concerned, will significantly reduce the risks for mother and child.
To pursue these priorities the Commission proposes to concentrate Community aid on:
the development of family planning services in accordance with the policies pursued by governments, international organizations and non-government organizations, in particular in favour of marginalized sectors of the population; -the education of women and health education, particularly the preparation, realization and financing of specific policies in the sector; -the improvement of reproductive health services; -help for information, education and public awareness campaigns; -the development of basic organizations and south/south cooperation between the underdeveloped countries themselves.These guidelines, in conjunction with the guidelines on selection of projects in the demographic cooperation sector, constitute a sufficiently precise framework to enable the Commission to plan its activities consistently.
On the other hand the setting up of the group of experts supported by the Council and the revision of important cooperation projects by the Council's committees themselves must in principle help to ensure that there is an acceptable level of coordination between the Commission's programmes and those of the Member States.
As regards the European Union's undertaking at Cairo to increase its allocation of funds to population programmes, the news is in principle favourable, naturally within modest limits.
The average for budgetary appropriations for commitment from 1991 to 1994 - and I mean financial commitments under the Community budget - has gone up to ECU 20 million a year.
Total commitments for 1995 have gone up to some ECU 45 million.
To put it another way, from 1994 to 1995 the Community budget for implementing the Cairo Conference has doubled.
As regards 1996, the present financial year, we are hoping - this is the Commission's proposal - to be able to increase our commitments for these policies on demography and women to some ECU 90 million.
Naturally it is debatable whether any budget is enough.
And to answer the questions raised by most honourable Members, I have to remind you again that in the European Union there are two budgetary authorities: one is the Council and the other is you, the European Parliament.
Consequently I invite you, if you think the figure proposed by the Commission - some ECU 90 million - is not enough, or if, as some speakers have said, you think the number of officials working on these matters is not enough either, I would encourage you, when the budget is being discussed in Parliament in October, to use your budgetary authority and increase the appropriations for these programmes and, moreover, give us increased appropriations so we may appoint more officials.
Believe me, as a Commissioner, I should be tremendously happy if I could rely on the support of Parliament, which, as I say, is part of the budgetary authority.
What could please me more than your being able to give me more funds and to let me have more officials!
Mrs Fouque, however, puts forward a series of ideas which at least I should like to introduce in collaboration with my colleague, Mr Pinheiro, who has responsibility for the Lomé Convention.
It is by no means correct, as her report states, that only ECU 2.8 million have been spent in the context of the Lomé Convention.
ECU 20 million have been spent this year on projects located in Kenya, Malawi and above all in the Caribbean.
In any event the Commission is making an effort to include in all its population programmes the objectives which you set out in your report.
The Commission believes that the motion for a resolution is clear about what line should be followed.
However, we think that recognition of the role which women must play is expressed even more clearly in the amended proposal for a regulation which the Commission will shortly be sending to the Council and which will have to be dealt with by the joint procedure with the European Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Women and Olympic Games
The next item is the oral question (B4-0560/96-0-0125/96) by Mrs Castellina, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, Mr Kouchner, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and Mrs Van Dijk, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, to the Commission, on the non-participation by women of certain countries at the Olympic Games in Atlanta.
Madam President, may I start by presenting the apologies of Mrs Castellina, the chairman of the Committee on Culture.
Unfortunately she could not be here this evening and so I am to speak for her and so presumably also on behalf of the Committee on Culture.
It has become apparent as the Games in Atlanta, due to be opened in a week or two, draw near, that there are still a number of countries which are refusing to send women to the Olympic Games.
I must say we were naturally rather shocked when it appeared at the Olympic Games in Barcelona that no fewer than 33 countries decided not to give women a chance to take part in the Olympic Games.
Naturally that is quite unacceptable and also entirely contrary to the Olympic idea, in which discrimination, whether on grounds of sex, race or anything else is of course fundamentally wrong.
For the Games in Atlanta too, although we cannot yet say that with 100 % certainty, the expectation is that a large number of countries will again refuse to admit women to the Games.
I have telephoned the Olympic Committee in Lausanne and in Atlanta today and they could not give me any absolute certainty because there are still two days before the final list of participants in the Olympic Games in Atlanta is known, which means that all those countries which until now were minded not to send any women there still have two days' time, or by now I should say one and a half days' time, to change their list of participants and still to allow women to qualify.
I must say that these are not only the Islamic countries.
Let me dispel that myth, because that is so easy to say, but it is not only the Islamic countries which make themselves guilty of this sex discrimination.
There are also other countries such as Laos, Uruguay, the British Virgin Islands and the American Samoan Islands.
I mention only a few countries which do not belong to the Islamic range.
We do not know how it will be this time, but in Barcelona it could only be called simply shocking that of the 9 368 who took part only 2 108 were women.
That jolly well ought to be changed.
The responsibility naturally lies with the Olympic Committee, which of course should refuse to allow these countries to take part in the Games, but it does not lie solely with them.
It also naturally lies with the other countries and for example with the European Union, with the Council of Ministers to say 'No, we cannot accept that; we are against that; we cannot accept that there are countries which go so far as to refuse to allow women to take part in these Olympic Games.'
And as the question is now down on paper I should like to hear from the Commission whether it is really ready to contribute its mite to resisting this kind of breach of human rights, and to draw the consequences and to put a stop to aid to countries which follow that kind of practice.
I should also like to know from the Commission if it can indicate more precisely which of the countries to which it gives aid are guilty of this.
I am speaking on behalf of the chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, Mr Kouchner.
Politics were dragged into the Olympic Games a long time ago.
I remember 1936 when a black American sprinter was refused the award for his victory.
In 1979, unfortunately also in Germany, there was an attack in Munich by Palestinians, then Palestinian terrorists, on the Israeli delegation.
Now in 1996 the Palestinians themselves have come with a team.
I say that first before broaching the subject of women.
I think it is clear, and the previous speaker has made it thoroughly clear, that we have now arrived at the ridiculous situation in which countries are refusing to accept women in their team.
There has already been mention of Barcelona where it became very clear, where one country refused to follow a female standardbearer.
It is clear that many of those countries - there are some 33 - belong to the so-called ACP countries and the ALA countries.
So that brought us in the Committee on Development and Cooperation to the question raised by Mr Kouchner in committee whether these ACP and ALA countries are supported by Europe in sports activities.
That is the first question.
The second question is actually whether the Commission should and could declare that teams which quite deliberately do not include women must not be admitted to the Olympic Games.
Naturally an exception can be made for a country like the Solomon Islands or Tonga which perhaps send only one competitor.
But I think that you have to draw a limit perhaps with teams which have more than three or four members.
If it is then quite clear that women are deliberately not included, then we are dealing with deliberate exclusion and that is entirely against the principle of the Olympic Games.
I hope to have an answer from Mr Marín to those two questions, the original question and the supplementary one.
Madam President, I must start by saying that I fully understand the content of the question as explained by Mrs van Dijk and later by Mrs van Putten, but I wonder whether the Commission is in a position to resolve this situation, since the European Union has no kind of cooperation agreement in sports matters with any third country.
No such sports cooperation exists.
So, taking account of the authority which the European Parliament has in such matters, perhaps you could invite the International Olympic Committee to come here to the European Parliament to explain to why some countries discriminate against women by not allowing them to take part in the Olympic Games, which is in fact contrary to the Olympic Charter, the United Nations Convention and the Convention on Human Rights, which states that there shall be no discrimination on grounds of race, religion or sex. Perhaps the International Olympic Committee will be able to explain to you much better than I can why, within the international Olympic movement this type of situation is permitted.
Speaking on behalf of the Commission, I have the greatest sympathy with this problem, but at the moment we have no instrument to enable us to help you to solve the matter and perhaps you should address yourselves, as I said, to the International Olympic Committee so that it may explain why it accepts such a situation.
Madam President, the summer Olympics are due to open in Atlanta on 20 July, but it has already become clear that many countries are once again infringing and disregarding Article 1 of the Olympic Charter, as we have heard, even though discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, politics and indeed sex is declared contrary to membership of the Olympic movement.
In 1992, 169 nations entered this top competition, of which 35 were all-male teams, including teams from Iran, Kuwait and Pakistan; other countries have also been named during this debate.
In some Islamic countries women are barred from sports on principle or are unable to participate because of strict dress codes.
Sometimes, sportswomen from these countries are even threatened by fundamentalist groups.
In the field of top-class sport there have in fact always been discussions about human rights, which is a good thing.
Top-class sport is the shop window of a society, but at the same time it reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the countries concerned.
South Africa, for example, as an apartheid state, only chose whites for their teams, Islamic fundamentalist countries only choose men for their Olympic teams.
That is why a group was founded after the Barcelona games in 1992, the Atlanta Plus Committee, by a number of personalities who supported the aim of abolishing discrimination in sport.
Logically speaking, the International Olympic Committee should now exclude those delegations that discriminate against women.
Let us leave aside the exceptions that Mrs Van Putten mentioned here, namely if people do not satisfy Olympic qualification criteria, for that is another question.
But where it really is a case of discrimination against women, the countries concerned must be excluded.
Atlanta Plus, this campaign, has now become a movement supported by many sports personalities and politicians, yet the International Olympic Committee is hesitating and the European governments are remaining silent.
Let me remind you again of Barcelona 1992: while the successes of a South African team that now consisted of different skin colours was celebrated with great enthusiasm and emotion, the gold medal won by the Algerian track and field athlete Hassida Boulmerka in the 1500 metre race turned into a real demonstration.
She defied the defamation and threats by Islamic extremists who wanted to ban women entirely from public appearance.
Her courageous attitude excited general public interest, for contempt of human life and contempt for women are closely related.
Racism and sexism have the same roots.
Europe must not remain passive here.
The Council must call on the IOC to ban teams that discriminate on the basis of gender and this can and must be followed by sanctions.
We will not admit any new form of apartheid against women and vigorously support the aims of the Atlanta Plus movement against the exclusion of women from sport!
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, some countries cannot be persuaded by means of exclusion or condemnation to allow their women the freedom to take part or not in the Olympic Games.
Perhaps it is the responsibility of the national and international committees to open discussions with those countries, to try and understand them, and to teach them the Olympic spirit of freedom and democracy.
There is therefore no sense in demanding womens' rights by threatening penalties, but on the contrary, we ought to introduce women themselves to these games, give them the chance to discover them and take an interest, without any fear that they would be betraying their religion, culture, or traditions.
The word 'communication' is of feminine gender in many languages, and it would perhaps be useful for everybody if the gentlemen on the Olympic Committee invited more women to join their ranks.
Women could respond to that dialogue and so promote womens' athletics and their participation in international competition.
Perhaps also a new policy should be adopted in the sector of sport, a policy better suited to the spirit of these games, whose organization often depends too much on clearly economic choices, a fact that has led us today to celebrate the centenary of the Olympic Games far from the country where they first saw the light, the country of their birth, and the country that first kindled their flame.
Perhaps it is time to revert to the initial ideals of the Olympic spirit, and promote and implement the games without distinctions of gender, religion, or colour, so that we will never again be faced with similar acute problems of exclusion, which may well become exacerbated in the meantime.
Let us therefore not lose time.
The year 2000 is approaching, and is already just around the corner.
We must remember that in ancient times all virtues were personified: democracy, freedom, and victory were represented by women, while the Olympic Games were represented by a man.
Yet, women and men together lived on Olympus in peace and harmony.
And it is those female virtues which the world today unfortunately finds it difficult or refuses to recognise or respect.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, nothing has changed.
As in Barcelona in 1992, women are once again being prevented from taking part in the Olympic Games in Atlanta this year.
Islamic countries in particular are not allowing them to take part in sports under their own responsibility.
Girls and women cannot train in these countries, are prevented from participating by dress codes, often threatened by fundamentalist groups and of course not nominated.
As in the days of Barcelona there are now probably some 35 states that will send all-male teams to the USA.
This clear infringement of the Olympic Charter is unacceptable.
It is irreconcilable with the idea of the Olympic movement for people to be discriminated against on grounds of religion, politics or sex.
The accusation that action was taken too late is not correct.
Lissy Gröner rightly pointed that out.
A whole 500 days before Atlanta, at the beginning of January 1995, committed women in Paris founded the Atlanta Plus Committee and contacted national sport authorities, sportsmen and sportswomen, with some success.
But the answer they received from the International Olympic Committee, the IOC, was terrible.
It had the presumption to say that Atlanta Plus' proposal was a politically motivated attack on a religion.
Any restriction on women's elementary rights in sport, education and health, as in the professional world, is unacceptable.
This has been the subject of repeated debates and decisions, including those taken at the International Conference on Population in Cairo in 1994 and the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995.
The exclusion of women from the Olympic movement merits only one answer: sanctions.
What South Africa felt the brunt of for decades, its exclusion from the Olympic movement because of its policy of apartheid, must also apply to the national Olympic committees of those states that trample women's rights underfoot.
They must no longer be accredited, they must be suspended.
Countries in which girls and women are prevented from realising their potential cannot and must not receive material or political support from the European Union.
We must confront them with the need to change, for the sake of the realization of human rights.
The resolution submitted by our Committee on Women's Rights deserves the support of the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Madam President, thank you for giving me the floor so late in the evening and at such short notice.
I am of course in agreement with what all my colleagues have just said, the more so since it was I who tabled the first motion for a resolution.
One point seems to me to have been overlooked: sport is a factor in improving health for men, and more particularly for women, and those countries which prohibit women from participating in the Olympic Games are those which have the highest maternal and child mortality rates and the highest levels of underdevelopment and discrimination against women.
I think this point was worth repeating.
I have received one motion for a resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 12.20 a.m.)
Mr Wolf may speak for one minute to make a personal statement.
President Santer reacted irritably to my question yesterday and accordingly congratulated himself on the fact that he was not descending to my level.
A Member from one of the large groups asked me whether I would accept that as it stood.
Surely no self-respecting Parliament can allow itself to be attacked in this way by an Executive!
That is why I want to explain my question yesterday and clarify some personal questions which President Santer brought up.
Firstly, Mr Santer is an honourable man in his own choice of words.
I had no intention of saying nor did I say anything that would cast any doubt about that.
However, I must confess that I am somewhat concerned about one thing, namely that the political attitude displayed by President Santer yesterday in pretending that every failure and every defeat was a success could one day plunge our EU into a serious crisis of credibility.
It fills me with consternation that the question about the Lyons summit and the way it was used for electoral purposes, which is an objective one - and not just for President Santer - was punished with authoritarian disparagement on the part of the Executive, for it makes me pessimistic about our parliamentary future if objective problems of this kind can no longer be addressed in graphic language.
But I am not giving up hope that this was merely a slip-up and that in fact President Santer has a more highly developed sense of democracy than to regard himself as an authority who may at most be criticized in the roundabout language of sycophants.
Ladies and gentlemen, I very much hope that you will realise that here I am addressing a common concern of this House.
Mr President, following that last intervention, I would not want Parliament to associate itself with this remark, because it referred to respect for Parliament.
Parliament is respected to the extent that Parliament itself respects the other institutions.
The manner in which Mr Wolf addressed Mr Santer yesterday was not a mark of respect.
Mr Herman, ladies and gentlemen, we are not going to open a debate on this question.
Mr Wolf, in accordance with Rule 108 - personal statements - has made use of the legitimate right which the Rules of Procedure give him.
What he said was addressed to the Commission.
Any reference which might have been made to that institution has been explained by Mr Herman.
We shall not therefore start a discussion on this question which has now been considered in accordance with the provisions of Rule 108 of our Rules of Procedure.
Commercial transactions, capital markets and information networks
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0147/96 by Mrs Ewing, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the second report from the Commission relative to the implementation of the decision regarding the provision of Community interest subsidies on loans for small and medium-sized enterprises extended by the European Investment Bank under its temporary lending facility (the SME facility) (COM(95)0485 - C4-0594/95); -A4-0168/96 by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission reporting on the feasibility of the creation of a European capital market for smaller entrepreneurially-managed growing companies (COM(95)0498 - C4-0486/95); -A4-0161/96 by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission recommendation on payment periods in commercial transactions (C(95)1075 - C40198/95); -A4-0161/96 by Mr Hendrick, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission on the future operation of the information and cooperation networks in the framework of enterprise policy (COM(95)0435 - C4-0012/96).
Mr President, small businesses is big business for the European Union as we strive for growth recovery in jobs.
Small capital markets are potentially big for us and for Europe's small but fastgrowing firms, the expansion of which depends on regular shots of fast capital at their most explosive stage of development.
Get these SMEs on the travelator of success and we can really be seen to be helping to tackle the scourge of unemployment which still disfigures the EU in too many of its Member States.
Help is at hand for these smaller entrepreneurially-managed growing companies in the form of Europe's small capital electronic stock markets like EASDAQ in Brussels, AIM in London, Neuer Markt in Frankfurt and Paris's Nouveau Marché.
I should make it clear at this point that the earlier references to EASDAQ in my text should be replaced by the term pan-European small capital markets.
All these new markets borrow ideas from the world's most successful small capital market, America's NASDAQ, its most famous listing being Microsoft itself.
Not only is NASDAQ the forcing-house of American fast-track SMEs but it is also the home to European companies thirsty for capital.
Ten per cent of new listings on NASDAQ are European and European finance institutions use NASDAQ to invest in new American companies to the tune of 20 % of turnover and in NASDAQ-listed Euro companies by 35 %.
How crazy!
Why are we in Europe not providing home pitches for our domestic SMEs and finance institutions to come together and marry their finance and their entrepreneurial flair for Europe and Europeans' benefit. Well, now we are, and the Commission's report is a response to this fast-changing situation.
The Commission and Parliament acknowledge the need to focus on the specialized area which in the American hothouse of NASDAQ has netted 16 % of all new jobs in the early nineties despite representing only a minuscule 0.04 % of all US company listings.
Europe's focus then is on high-risk, high-return entrepreneurialmanaged growth companies with trans-national aspirations whose Jack-and-the-Beanstalk growth often implies early years of loss-making expansion, a fact which would disqualify them from a listing on Europe's more traditional markets.
Parliament can strongly support the Commission's communication reporting on the feasibility of creating what are more Europe-wide capital markets, another distinctive feature of which would be the electronic screen-based nature of the marketplace.
Such a development is the way of the future and threatens those existing market locations which remain flat-footed in their thinking and their response to a changing market scheme.
But Parliament calls for caution to be mixed with enthusiasm.
We believe that issues of liquidity, regulation and possible protectionism have to be addressed.
We call upon Member States, for instance, to repeal restrictions on pension fund investments in securities listings or exchanges in other Member States and in unlisted securities.
We are, after all, in a single market and we should make that single domestic market work for our own small businesses.
But hand-in-hand with this liberalization should go the strict observance of prudential rules established by appropriate regulatory authorities.
In addition, access to small capital markets should be facilitated.
Entrance fees should not be prohibitive.
Investors should not be discriminated against fiscally in terms of double taxation or capital gains tax because they choose to buy shares that are listed in a market located in another Member State.
Insofar as we can, we should ensure that the duplication of markets does not take place such that we divide our effort to set up an alternative to America's NASDAQ.
On present evidence we will avoid that problem.
To interest big institutional investors we need the highest standards of regulation, perhaps a European Securities and Exchange Commission.
The prospectus approval system must be streamlined by harmonization or by mutual recognition.
Any panEuropean small company stock market should of course be complementary to the national official list but Member States should not frustrate the development of such markets by engaging in unfair competition practices, for example by withholding settlement facilities.
Finally, I reiterate the point that the introduction of the Euro as our single currency will heighten the attractions of a small capital market for all Europe's fastgrowing hi-tech companies.
Indeed, any such pan-European market will itself be an appropriate means of channelling European investment funds.
I welcome the Commission's report.
On late payments, recently in my home town of Chester, I was approached by a small firm which was suffering cash-flow problems as a result of a big firm paying late.
Their problem was intensified, however, by the fact that their supplier in the chain of added-value business was a business in Sweden where payment times are short due to the far-sighted payment practices endemic to Scandinavia.
My local firm was caught by the double whammy brought about by the single market: in hock to a larger firm happy to pay late but obligated to pay a Swedish firm used to being paid early.
Two other firms in my constituency in Ellesmere Port and Crewe name the culprit late payers as the European Commission itself.
Mention of my role as Parliament's rapporteur on this vexed subject prompted payment double quick but these are all too familiar stories in Europe today.
It is small firms which are the revving engines of Europe's growth and recovery which too often have been the victims of slow payment at the hands of big business, local or central government or, indeed, the Commission itself.
That some of our Member States do not take the matter seriously was sharply exemplified by the confession of UK Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine that he built his own big business empire on the backs of small businesses whose bills he habitually paid late before breakfast, before lunch and before supper.
It is time to call it the Last Supper for those who deliberately flout proper business practice by paying their colleagues late.
In any other parlance we would call these people cheats and they certainly swindle the small businesses which go to the wall after such daylight robbery.
Late payment is, arguably, SMEs biggest problem. It is a worsening rather than improving situation.
As the Commission's recommendation reveals, the outlook is bleak for those businesses which attempt to trade across borders.
The variation across the EU markets for a bumpy playing field is such that the EU average of thirteen days delay after due date is exceeded by the UK's deplorable figure of twenty-three days and includes Sweden's admirable average of a mere seven days.
How do we right this wrong? How do we help SMEs regain monies which might otherwise be used profitably to invest in growing small businesses and producing jobs for Europe's jobless.
Remember we are talking megabucks here. The UK-based Forum of Private Business calculates that the British SMEs are deprived of £20bn at any one moment in the business cycle through late payments.
My answer - and I hope Parliament's too - will be a directive aimed at introducing a statutory right to interest for firms paid unwarrantably late.
Such a system could encourage a virtuous circle where prompt payment becomes the norm not the exception.
Existing Swedish legislation and the US Prompt Payment Act have each transformed the business culture.
We must act here for all the European single market, perhaps targeting first all public institutions like governments and local authorities.
The penalty of a statutory right to interest is where Europe can score right between the posts and bring succour and soccer to Europe's level playing-field for its SME entrepreneurs.
I implore the Commission to bring forward a directive with this purpose in mind.
In the meantime we will naturally support all the other worthy ideas set out in the Commission communication.
It must be wise, for instance, to establish definitions regarding due date, to have common ideas on payment periods - perhaps 60 days - whilst leaving such decisions to the contracting parties, to encourage the development of a common format for invoices, to applaud the publication of appropriate credit information on persistent late payers, to harmonize legal provisions especially in respect of enforcement procedures, to supply concrete measures for training SMEs in credit management, something positive which was recorded in the latest Coopers and Lybrand report on British SMEs.
All these carrots of encouragement are bland without the stick of a statutory right to interest.
This is the linchpin in tackling trade's toughest task.
As parliamentarians we must ensure that small businesses are given the true opportunity they should have by acting on late payments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to support the Hendrick report on the future organization and operation of the information and cooperation networks.
The incorporation of computerized communication networks in business is fundamental in an interconnected, open world such as we now live in.
The business world cannot be left behind by a reality such as the information networks, Internet and the like, but it is a reality which must be regulated in order to prevent those networks from being used for spreading criminal material, diffusing pornography or defending terrorism and also in order to protect data of a personal nature and the private life of users.
I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Telecommunications Council on approving the harmonized rules for protecting data of a personal nature.
I regard it as a first step in seeking solutions at European level, the OECD level and on a world scale in this field.
With regard to the Hendrick report on the other hand I must confess that I have my doubts about his view that these communication networks and so on can create employment in line with the Delors report.
I think they are necessary and indispensable, but intrinsically there is nothing about them which creates employment, since the only thing they do is to adapt situations to present-day life and frequently jobs are unfortunately lost.
I should like to consider the statement that there will be an automatic net creation of jobs, as was mentioned.
There is no doubt that strengthening new technologies, processes and procedures creates employment, but unfortunately harsh reality confirms that frequently more jobs are lost than are created.
On behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations I should particularly like to thank the rapporteur for agreeing to accept the new conclusions from our committee which he has incorporated in his work and for which I had the honour to draft the opinion.
So I basically support the rapporteur's report and I should like to add certain details about the networks as regards third countries.
It is obvious that virtually all countries observe the rules of the free-market economy and consequently immense markets are emerging in Asia, Central America, South America, Central and Eastern Europe and so on.
A transnational basis consequently needs to be established for business relations.
Such links, such networks serve to promote cooperation and must incorporate support for those bodies which have the most direct contact with the actual business world, such as chambers of commerce, trade guilds and the like.
What are the main existing networks?
The Euro Info Centres, the Business Cooperation Networks, the Business Cooperation Centres and so on. What are the results?
To put it briefly, they are all being pooled in order to develop these networks.
However, the evaluation of the results varies greatly according to the network. Their effectiveness could be greatly improved and they should be brought closer to the business world.
Distribution is not homogeneous as regards human resources.
I am referring to the quality.
There is a risk of developing variable-speed networks.
Operation of the networks is not sufficiently decentralized and is too bureaucratic.
To sum up, I should like to emphasize the importance of these networks.
We note their disparity, we think it is important to consolidate them and we welcome the new phase which is dawning with the information offices.
I therefore repeat my thanks to the Commission for the progress made along these lines.
Mr President, the most serious problem faced today by Europe and European society is the very high level of unemployment that prevails, which threatens the fabric of social and economic life.
Unfortunately, the European Union has not so far been able to develop a long-term and cohesive policy to promote employment, which would include among other things funding for infrastructure projects, networks, etc.
There are proposals.
There is the White Paper of President Delors and the recent Confidence Agreement by President Santer.
What is lacking, is the political will to provide the necessary funding.
The activity we are debating today on the opportunity of the Commission's report concerning the implementation of the decision on Community interest subsidies for loans by the European Investment Bank to small and medium enterprises, is a positive step by the European Union in the right direction, though its scope is limited compared with the overall problem.
It relates to SMEs, which are the backbone of business activity in many Member States and which are the main sector in which new jobs can be created.
The report describes the course so far of this loan facilitation and must be welcomed because it demonstrates that substantial progress has indeed been made, while the measure as such has worked relatively well.
It is significant that 42, 000 new jobs have been created so far.
Yet, a number of comments concerning the problem should be made:
First, so far as jobs are concerned, it is not clear where those jobs have been created and in which sectors; second, it is not clear how the aid has been distributed between large and small countries, and perhaps it would be appropriate for the Commission to examine ways of favouring outlying and peripheral regions; finally, I believe that the Commission ought to submit proposals to extend the programme, which has ben shown to be both useful and beneficial.
Mr President, I rise to present my report to Parliament and to say that the exercise of compiling this report was extremely gratifying.
I have been very interested in the work that the European Information Centres have been carrying out both in the UK and elsewhere around the European Union.
As many of you will know, the enterprise policy for the European Union began approximately six years ago and these centres have been in operation for that period.
Particularly at a time when the finances of the European Union are coming under great scrutiny for various reasons - fraud, mismanagement and waste - it is particularly important that we assess the benefits as well as the costs of these information centres and the services they provide to small business.
I was particularly interested to visit one in my own region in the City of Liverpool which has been operating for quite some time and to see how it was helping business.
The people at the centre were very keen to show me examples and case studies of businesses they had worked with and how people had benefited from their activities.
I was particularly interested in how the networks function and the fact that we have this network across Europe.
It is doing much to foster enterprise and trade across the European Union.
I have recently come from a BBC TV interview where they asked me some very clear questions about what the benefits of these centres are to the Community.
My report focuses on two particular areas.
Firstly, as I have already said, it is clear that significant amounts of European Union funds go into these centres.
Therefore, at a time when the finances of the Community are under scrutiny, it is important that we begin to quantify the value of the work they are doing.
That means we need to measure the benefits of the centres as against the costs.
As the Commission report itself points out, no significant amount of work has been done to assess the benefits.
Some measure of customer or client satisfaction is obviously required to determine the benefits and then to weigh those against the costs.
At the moment people in these centres feel they are doing a good job.
They are fostering enterprise and promoting business but it is difficult to say how many businesses they are helping and how successful that help is.
In some cases one centre may quickly find business across the European Union with another company in another country but then it may only come six months later because in many cases what is on offer is not necessarily the sort of services you would expect from a consultancy.
It may be just that the centre has pointed a business in the right direction and it takes the business some time to link up with another company.
For example, a company which sells bolts and wishes to sell in France needs to be matched up with a company in France that wants to buy bolts.
It is this matching process which may only take hours but in some cases can take months.
That is an area I am concerned about and in my report I have suggested that a review procedure takes place and a set of parameters is developed whereby the benefits to the small business can be measured as well.
I have also suggested that, as we are moving towards an information society in the next century, the centres do as much as they can to benefit from the new technologies which are becoming available.
At the moment the centres tend to pick up most of their inquiries through telephone calls and use fairly basic new technological methods such as electronic mail in order to pass messages around the Community and to match up companies.
At the present time, where millions of pounds can change hands in a micro-second and with the sort of activities that go on the stock exchange and new methods of electronic commerce, it is clear that the matching of two companies - one which wants to buy and one which wants to sell - can be done quite automatically.
I would like to see the centres begin to introduce these new techniques so that the enterprise policy for the European Union can move into the next century.
With those comments, I ask Parliament to support my report.
Mr President, the severe employment, or rather unemployment situation in Europe has created a general interest in supporting the activities of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The social democrats have been very active in this respect both regarding budgeting and other matters.
The same applies to our position at the national, provincial and local level.
It is understandable that small and medium-sized companies naturally operate in the surroundings most familiar to them.
It is quite natural that a majority of the problems encountered by small and medium-sized companies originate from sources local to the companies.
I however believe that networking and the availability of information will for example increase the knowledge of business culture in new Member States.
The Nordic countries, as we know, are not known for the prominent position of their small and medium-sized companies.
But employment can also be improved by using these networks.
From the point of view of developing internal markets, particularly in the high-tec sector, small and medium-sized companies are of great importance.
They, however, face problems which have been discussed here today, particularly financing.
National frontiers and monetary transactions also cause great difficulties to small companies.
It goes without saying that small companies require &#x02BC;soft' finance and that the need for risk financing is particularly great at present.
After all one billion ecu is not a lot of money.
It is less than three ecu per capita, so increasing the amount should not present any difficulties.
The price of money is one problem, and another problem is that the guarantees are inadequate.
We should also be able to make progress in this area.
The EU should make sure that there is also enough competition in all Member States in financing, and that small and medium-sized companies are not unreasonably squeezed in this respect.
In this connection I would like to describe briefly the situation in my own country by giving you a practical example.
Finland has an advantage over other countries in as much as the number of qualified engineers is relatively high.
In the rest of Europe there is a shortage in this particular sector of the work force, and it should therefore be made available to these countries.
One alternative is of course mobility of labour, which however also causes social problems.
It is therefore better that such engineering work is sold by companies to its users.
I know of a company whose exports account for 80 % of its business.
Last year this company's loss due to currency fluctuations was greater than its net profit, which illustrates the dilemma.
The culture of late payment in the rest of Europe is another major problem for these companies.
Companies are forced to double their capital in relation to domestic requirements when operating abroad.
If these innovative engineers are having to face currency and financing problems, they lose sight of the main objective, and suddenly they are no longer designing raw material and energy-saving ships which could improve European competitiveness.
Finally I would like to point out that in any circumstances currency is a factor, and problems facing small and medium-sized companies cannot be overcome until we have a common currency.
Mr President, today there are four reports on the agenda which have a bearing on the position of European small- and medium-sized enterprises in the internal market.
Yesterday too in the debate about simplification of legislation the concept of SMEs occurred repeatedly.
The position of small- and mediumscale businesses is a little like that of women.
The target group is large and appealing and they are discussed at length, but very little is done.
Take for example the squabbling about the budget for the European multiannual programmes for small-and medium-scale businesses.
We are thinking of the ECU 180 million which the Commission needs in order to carry out its action programme properly.
Let the Council realize that this is a minimum and if that amount is not produced, then as far as I am concerned the Council need never again mention employment plans and all the rest of it.
A sphere in which the European Union has a clear responsibility, which it actually accepts, is the establishment of mechanisms for giving small- and medium-scale businesses access to risk-bearing capital.
Mrs Ewing rightly remarks that the temporary lending facility of the European Investment Bank has been a success, but not in every country.
Parliament increased this budget heading for 1996 to ECU 50 million.
I applaud the latest Commission proposal for providing credit guarantees for investments of small- and mediumscale businesses through which the SMEs get better access to financing, the so-called ELISE programme, particularly because it is specifically addressed to the really smaller businesses.
I see it as a continuation of the growth and environment budget heading which I had to defend almost with my life in this Parliament in 1995 and 1996.
I hope that will be a success so that the ELISE programme may also be a success.
It is unusually accessible and very unbureaucratic, so it should deserve genuine success.
Secondly my Group is glad that something is being done with the establishment of the EASDAQ, the European exchange for high-growth innovative companies with trans-frontier ambitions.
From the forthcoming European observatory for SMEs it will appear that this is the group of firms which will generate the most employment and from their manner of working we can perhaps learn a lot about solving the employment problem.
But what is important is that the Commission is investigating how many European undertakings meet the conditions laid down, how many European firms actually qualify for joining the EASDAQ which are now quoted on the NASDAQ in the United States.
How many of those firms are actually planning to come over to the EASDAQ? This would enable us to estimate the credibility and liquidity of this future pan-European exchange.
It will have to be attractive for investors to invest their money and for firms to put their shares on this exchange.
The European Association of Securities Dealers would perhaps be the appropriate body to recommend this market to investors.
One European measure to improve the liquidity of the market might consist in the abolition of national restrictions with regard to investment of pension funds in stocks and shares.
The recent pronouncements of Commissioner Monti about summoning a number of Member States, namely Italy and Denmark, before the European Court because of a restrictive policy for those pension funds give hope for the future.
It goes without saying that there must be clarity with regard to the relationship between the future EASDAQ and the existing national and regional exchanges in connection with undesirable overlapping and competition.
These small- and medium-scale businesses which have to act as a driving force for employment deserve real support at the moment from both Parliament and the Commission, and not last, in drawing up the budget in the near future, from the Council.
Now is the moment of truth.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was the European Council in Copenhagen which, in 1993, instituted the SME mechanism, providing for the appropriation by the EIB of one thousand million ECU for schemes designed to increase the competitiveness of small- and medium-sized enterprises.
In 1994, the Ecofin Council held that, in certain circumstances, the loans granted could be the subject of interest-rate subsidies financed from the Community budget.
Only those loans made within the framework of the EIB's SME mechanism are eligible, and the subsidies - granted for a period of five years - are fixed at 2 %.
In other words, a loan granted at a rate of 8.5 % per annum, for example, costs the borrower only 6.5 % per annum, the difference being paid from the Union's budget.
For some time now it has been apparent that some Member States were committing only a small proportion of the funds appropriated to them.
It is clear that these delays in the appropriation of resources are prejudicial to potential borrowers in the Member States.
Consequently, we support the rapporteur when he invites the Commission and the EIB to examine why these delays are occurring.
Similarly, it is noteworthy that some Member States are publishing much higher job creation forecasts than others, and again that some Member States are, it seems, able to create jobs with infinitely smaller loans than the others.
Mrs Ewing's report is approved by our group as a whole, though we would enter certain reservations.
I should remind you that the original mechanism was intended to promote investment to create jobs, not to subsidise the creation of jobs.
Consequently, it would be dubious under these conditions to create a mechanical link between the total subsidy - ECU 30, 000 per job created - and the number of jobs created, without taking into account the type of investment made or the quality and durability of the jobs created, even if we favour endeavouring to ensure that the Community scheme produces the best effect on employment.
Any comparison between enterprises or between States thus appears somewhat random.
Similarly, we consider that it is not a matter for the States to assess what is the most effective vector for promoting and organizing this type of mechanism.
Furthermore, Article 10 appears to us to be unfounded in that its effective functioning does not presuppose the creation of a joint committee which would prove to be an ad hoc supervisory body.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, our group will support the report by Mr Hendrick and Mr Harrison.
Our group particularly values the call in Mr Harrison's report for the creation of a pan-European capital market on which high-growth entrepreneurial companies could make contact with private and institutional investors at minimum transaction costs and quotation fees but with the assurance of absolute transparency and security.
However, this initiative will be conclusive only if the obstacles relating to liquidity, regulation and the risks of protectionism are attended to.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate is certainly important because it reconsiders specific and very relevant questions to try to give due attention to entrepreneurial activity which is of paramount importance in creating employment - and which forms the basis of the European Union's business activity - such as the small- and medium-sized enterprises.
And it deals with questions genuinely concerning the real problems experienced by the SMEs, as is the case with the loans at below market rate interest - the loans provided by the European Investment Bank - or again the subject of security and the periods for recovery of payment for the services supplied by the small- and medium-sized businesses, which sometimes face excessive pressure from the great conglomerates, both commercial and managerial.
Of course these are questions of fundamental importance affecting the most important social problem raised by the European Union, namely that of employment, and let us remember once again that it is precisely the small- and medium-scale businesses which, at times of crisis or recession or simply of economic stagnation like the present, create the most jobs.
So in this debate there are a number of features which we must emphasize and I should like to say how anxious I am for this debate to come first to the ears of the small- and medium-sized enterprises so that they may know that the European institutions and the European Parliament do concern themselves with the specific problems affecting them and so that they have the best access to these facilities provided by the European institutions.
Mr President, regarding the future economic structure small enterprises are no doubt of great interest.
But at the same time we should not have a too idealistic and optimistic view of their ability to create new jobs.
Firstly small companies are of divergent types.
Subcontractors are very different from companies operating in the consumer goods market.
Small companies in different lines of business also have different opportunities.
Secondly, a great number of small companies are established, but a fair number also go under.
Many companies have a limited life, which also decreases the effectiveness of subsidies of a general character.
Although the purpose of subsidies and lower interest rates is good, it is questionable whether they are effective when there is a general economic depression.
Sweden's experience of reduced social costs for example is that they are practically worthless.
A current survey of small companies in Sweden shows that most companies blame a weak market as the source of their difficulties. And this is evidently the conclusion to be drawn, that ultimately macroeconomic policy is the decisive factor as regards small companies contribution to job creation.
The current deflationary policy in Europe restricts opportunities for small companies.
Thank you, Mr President.
Mrs Peijs, I would like to compliment you on the energetic manner in which you always raise the question of the SMEs and put forward your arguments, many of which I agree with.
I am very glad to see how energetically you keep doing so, in our committee and here in Parliament.
The Council should not only take that to heart, that is one aspect, but should also take a closer look at the problems of the SMEs in Europe.
For small and medium-sized enterprises and the policy vis à vis these enterprises represent the policy for the basis of employment in Europe.
Basically, in terms of support measures the SMEs still come off worst in comparison with large firms, with shortterm industrial projects, especially in rural areas.
Now one could say that these are the usual arguments put forward by parliamentarians, who always want more and more and are never satisfied.
That is not the case.
I regard the ELISE programme as a very good project.
And it will bear fruit.
My request to the Commission and the Council, and especially to the Council, is that they draw up a more consistent and well thought-out general plan for the SMEs.
To be paid too late for work already done, especially outside Europe, spells the end for small and medium-sized firms, which is why my group endorses and supports a directive on payment periods, as referred to in Mr Harrison's report.
We also support Mr Hendrick's proposal, which Mrs Hautala will be discussing in a moment.
Mr President, small- and medium-scale businesses should be pleased about the enormous interest of the authorities, at both national and European levels in recent years.
Small- and mediumscale businesses seem to be the European politicians' pet child.
Let us hope that with everything we do not cuddle small- and medium-scale businesses to death.
There is a real danger of that.
So with measures for encouraging SMEs the accent must be placed on lightening administrative burdens and simpler legislation.
That works much more effectively than any system of subsidies, because in practice it seems that financial encouragement of small businesses costs a great deal of effort on the part of both the authority providing the subsidy and the firm receiving it.
What does the Commissioner think of the suggestion of concentrating subsidies for supporting SMEs on test projects established by the bodies providing services perhaps in collaboration with educational institutions?
With regard to Mrs Ewing's report about interest subsidies I notice that relatively few firms with fewer than 250 employees are included.
That is due particularly to the short period for application.
It is worth recommending that local and national employers' organizations should be involved in the information process.
The Euro Info Centres would then have to collaborate closely with that kind of organization.
Then I come to the European capital market for rapid-growth firms.
I understand that such an institution gives a positive spur to promising firms, but I have one fundamental question: is it the authorities' job to set up such an exchange? Definitely not, in my opinion.
The authorities ought simply to remove obstructions and create the necessary legislative preconditions for such an institution.
Finally the problem of the late payments in the European Union. How do we solve that?
With a recommendation or a directive? Paragraph 6 of the motion for a resolution calls for a directive.
The arguments for that are too slight.
A directive looks very nice for the SMEs but how will that help an employer? If others have to pay on time, he will have to as well.
That will just be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The rapporteur's argument does not hold water.
There will not be nearly so much capital freed as he maintains for investments and employment.
The risk that a customer will not pay remains the same.
So employers would be better served by a course in how to assess a customer's credit-worthiness.
It would also be a good thing if small firms were allowed to deliver their VAT return quarterly or were allowed a longer time for returns.
More far-reaching proposals would quickly amount to an encroachment on freedom to contract.
I say in advance that I shall not blame the Member States if they say they cannot do much with the Commission's recommendation.
Mr President, SMEs are becoming increasingly important as a means of boosting the economy and reducing the high unemployment figures.
That makes it all the more pleasing that, if the report draws the right conclusions, the grant of interest subsidies has done more than expected to create new jobs in European SMEs.
It is to be welcomed that the definition of the size of SMEs has been reviewed in this context and the dimensions are to be revised downwards in order to take account of the real situation of European enterprise structures.
And efficient information and cooperation networks can give small SMEs in particular the necessary market access so that they do not to lag behind in terms of efficiency and can participate in the innovative developments.
Even though I am in favour of privatization on principle, we must ensure that the proffered information services are simple and affordable for the SMEs.
Finally, we must also pay attention to the balanced distribution of the horizontal information and cooperation networks to preclude from the outset any risk of distortions of competition in this area too.
Mr President, I think that, as has already been said, we owe hearty congratulations to the Commission because this initiative means an important series of measures which help to find a solution to the excessively long payment periods in commercial transactions and which provide security for their recovery.
And of course I should like to congratulate Mr Harrison for his splendid report.
Up to a point the recommendation - which is not binding according to Article 189 of the EC Treaty - diverges from Parliament's resolution on the Commission's communication on the implementation of an integrated programme, but all the same it must be accepted seeing that this instrument is intended as a first stage in regulating payment periods, with a view to creating a reference framework.
A single solution is impossible.
Different solutions will have to be applied.
What is happening is that the report on the recommendation has the great advantage of bringing solutions to a specific subject.
At international level it is important to stress that it would be necessary to begin extending to the commercial field the Rome Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations and also to carry out a study of the situation of those who, in spite of the 1968 Brussels Convention on Jurisdiction, have difficulties in obtaining enforcement.
As I said before, the problem of payment periods has no single legal solution and the law cannot be regarded as the only option.
Any rules governing payment periods will moreover have to take into account aspects of tax policy - particularly those relating to SMEs, banking policy, cross-border transfers, industrial policy, business training and business management techniques.
Mr President, in supporting today's proposals in favour of small business I want to bring to this Chamber the clear experience of small business in my own constituency.
I speak as an honorary member of the South Essex Chamber of Commerce having close contacts and met in recent weeks with the Thurrock Industrial Association and the Basildon Business Association and just last Friday participated with representatives of over one hundred local companies at the launch of Business Link Essex.
All these organizations are committed to nurturing small and medium-sized companies.
The question is what can the European Union do to help us.
Firstly, I should like to give the strongest support to action to halt the scourge of late payments which threaten so many of our small businesses.
I would highlight a small printing company in Tilbury in Thurrock, S & S Printing, which finds by and large that it is working for other companies which are larger and more secure.
Yet non-payment of invoices presents a real problem to their manager, David Stear.
He puts it plainly when he says that when these companies who are in debt to him pay their salaries they are doing so with his money.
In another arena that would be called fraud and it is shameful that the UK has the worst record of late payments in Europe at a dismal average of 23 days.
That is why our initiative to end this scourge of late payments is absolutely right.
Secondly, I wish to support the continuation of our European programme for intra-subsidy loans to small companies but to call for clear improvements in the way that these loans are administered.
Eleven small companies have benefited or become eligible to benefit from South Essex since 1994.
Too many of them have told me of the difficulties associated with this scheme.
Let me make it clear that bank loans are absolutely crucial to this sector of business and European support with minimum bureaucracy and targeted at job creation is a very effective way of offering support.
Precision Components in Benfleet, a small engineering company, started by the owner's father from a garage and still present on the same site were enabled to invest in new equipment for the first time in four years.
Before the recession in the 1980s they invested in new capital every year and our help has returned them to the path of growth and new competitiveness.
Just this week Thames Estuary Plastics of Rayleigh has had its interest subsidy from Europe confirmed to support twelve new jobs as part of a £470, 000 project.
In addition, we will enthusiastically try to implement the new loan guarantee scheme, ELISE, in my area.
However, Terry Pearce from Precision Components remains sceptical about Europe's involvement.
While Thames Estuary Plastics have had to wait nearly two years for confirmation of their support, another company, Camtac of South Woodham Ferrers, have waited so long that their success in the meantime means they now no longer have need for the loan.
A success story for them but hardly for Europe!
Another company, Beaver 84 Ltd, of Basildon was not even told by its intermediary that its application for a financial lease was even on the list for a European subsidy.
Europe's role was hidden from them.
The solution to all of this is to ensure that sufficient funds are given to meet the demands and to avoid lengthy delays on the waiting lists.
In Britain as a whole 700 companies have been helped but 650 more applied and were eligible.
Intermediaries should be much clearer about the role of European support and all Member States should operate a reserve list system to help eligible companies who were not first in the queue.
Finally, on the European information centres, we receive no service in Essex.
There is a huge gap to the north of London, in Essex, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.
Essex has 66, 000 overseas and UK businesses providing 590, 000 jobs.
Commissioner Oreja's answer to my parliamentary question on 13 June when he said that services are provided from Norwich or should be sublet from Norwich is wholly unacceptable.
Let the Essex County Council Library Service be a European information centre.
No new money is needed.
We simply want the title so that we can get access to the information, to the publications and to the network of other centres.
It is not working at the moment in Essex.
Look at our case once again.
Mr President, I am glad that before dealing with the multiannual programme for SMEs we can devote a whole morning to these dossiers.
Since Edinburgh it has been the custom for every European Council to sing the praises of the small- and medium-scale businesses.
Again and again the part they play in economic growth and in the creation of employment is painted in glowing colours - as happened in Florence too.
The fundamental political significance of this must naturally not be underestimated, but let us not forget that a policy needs specific action if it is to be of any use.
To improve the SME climate effectively and to make all the solemn declarations credible, measures are needed.
In the organization for independent employers and SMEs for which I worked for years it was our slogan that SMEs are not just pocket-sized big business.
They have their own characteristics and need a specific policy.
This morning's dossiers are an apt illustration of that.
The small-scale and frequently the family nature of these businesses means that they have to settle funding problems in a special way.
Their small scale moreover prevents them from taking in experts in all fields, so that there is a danger of chronic lack of information.
Finally small businesses find late payers more than a nuisance.
The Community initiative for granting interest subsidies on loans was modest but welcome.
At that time I was anxious to reduce the target group to undertakings with fewer than 250 employees.
The Commission did not want to support my amendment but did promise to steer the bulk of the resources to that sector.
I am glad to note today that that promise has been kept.
I also support the rapporteur, Mrs Ewing, to the full when she asks for priority attention to those of less than 50 employees.
I hope ELISE will give our new loan guarantee system a push in the right direction.
The SME capital market is another instrument for financing.
The EASDAQ may perhaps start in September and will finally provide a solution within and not outside Europe for the rapid-growth advanced high-technology SMEs.
The Euro Info Centres and the Cooperation Networks are more necessary than ever.
The rapporteur, Mr Hendrick, is right to emphasize that service to the SMEs must be the criterion.
We shall certainly talk about this again in debating the multiannual programme.
Finally there is the Harrison report about terms of payment.
Late payments are not infrequently the cause of one or a series of bankruptcies.
They are an evil which SMEs relatively often have to reckon with.
The lack of knowledge and expert advice and an incomplete internal organization certainly have something to do with this, but also the lack of a position of power in negotiations serves the SMEs ill.
The question is whether we can put this right with a directive.
Personally I have doubted this for a long time and have always advocated harmonization of procedural law, the introduction of simple judicial procedures and encouragement of extrajudicial arbitration procedures.
I still think this is needed, but I admit that many discussions with employers have also eventually convinced me of the need for a directive - a directive with rules of imperative law but also, as regards terms of payment themselves, rules of dispositive law.
Mr President, you will certainly allow me to tell the rapporteur that I found his willingness to cooperate exemplary.
As a result we have been able to arrive at a report which has the full approval of my Group.
I would have been glad to hear from the Commission exactly what it plans to do now about late payments.
Is a proposal for a directive already being prepared, or are there other plans?
Mr President, our group has come out in favour of the position sustained by the rapporteur this morning on small and medium-sized enterprises.
We could not do otherwise, because anyone with a broad vision of Community economic growth cannot dismiss the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises.
But if they are to grow they must be given the necessary tools, on the one hand legislative, laws geared to the needs of the market, and on the other hand financial.
I do not think anyone doubts that the development of the European economic fabric over the next few years will above all depend on small and medium-sized enterprises rather than large ones, so greater attention must be paid to that sector, with appropriate support.
In this context we can only applaud the new multi-annual plan for 1997-2000 recently drawn up by Commissioner Papoutsis and DG XXIII with special attention to the necessary financial instruments, which we will shortly deal with in this Chamber.
The fragmentation of the Community capital market constitutes a problem for all growing firms. Too often when companies turn to other countries and to other sources, we do not do our job very well.
So it is vital to strengthen the European capital market where firms can get directly in touch with private and institutional investors, with steadily falling brokerage charges.
We are convinced that a phenomenon of late commercial payment exists and that it is a great burden, especially for micro-businesses which survive on respect for payment terms.
That is less true of medium-sized and larger companies.
In that sector payment conditions are only one of the contractual terms governing relations between client and supplier.
So it would be absurd to seek to regulate one of the normal conditions of relations between businesses by law. The recommendation relating to medium-sized firms is more than sufficient, while legislation is desirable for micro-businesses.
One final point I would like to mention here is the distinction that should be made between the various economic sectors of small and medium-sized enterprises.
We believe three sectors deserve particular attention because of their innate potential for development, employment and investment. I refer in particular to crafts, tourism, commerce and distribution.
These three sectors have the greatest resources and the greatest direct contact with the consumer, which is the real objective of the daily work of millions of entrepreneurs, however small or large, facing a market we are duty-bound to expand and improve.
Mr President, it is known that both development itself, and the promotion of employment rely largely on the existence and activity of small and medium enterprises, and more particularly, small enterprises.
It should be stressed, however, that SMEs and in particular the smaller among them face very acute problems due to the intensified competition brought about by the internal market, the internationalization of production, and the coordinated action of major international capital.
The result is that thousands of companies are approaching extinction, with the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.
From that standpoint, the European Union's measures so far on behalf of SMEs cannot be regarded as satisfactory.
They are fragmentary and purely administrative, and they try to present the alibi of protection, when the European Union's more general policy is stifling such companies and contributing to their extinction.
That is the background against which we judge the implementation of the programme 'Facilities for small and medium enterprises' .
Subsidies should be directed towards companies that are really unable to cope with the burden entailed by recourse to foreign capital.
Small and medium enterprises employing fewer that ten people, which account for 92 % of SMEs in the European Union, should be treated favourably.
Consequently, we consider that the limit of 500 employees mentioned in the decision is entirely unacceptable.
In essence, it is a means of providing yet more help to large companies.
The reduction of that limit to 250 and the classification of SMEs suggested by Commissioner Papoutsis are along the right lines, but not enough.
Granted the essential coverage of the initial distribution of one billion, we call upon the Commission to extend the programme by approving new appropriations, and to adopt special support measures for very small companies, in other words those employing fewer than 10 people.
Mr President, I would like to express a few thoughts on the views put forward in Mrs Ewing's report.
I agree with Mrs Ewing that we should consider going even further in directing interest subsidies to the very small companies, and in this respect the ELISE programme occupies a key position.
Another aspect which I would like discussed is that when public funds are used to support companies, we really need to know in detail whether our good intentions are achieved with this support.
In this respect the Green Group has tabled an amendment to Mrs Ewing's report, which emphasizes that the Commission should look into those sectors of business where the support system has succeeded in creating more jobs.
In actual fact I would like to ask the Commissioner whether she thinks that we have an adequate picture of the effects of the support on unemployment. Interest subsidies are in themselves an excellent instrument.
They are flexible and perhaps provide an opportunity to provide support to a greater variety of companies than would be achieved with direct support.
In connection with this I would like to bring up a slightly difficult, sensitive matter, that we should also encourage investigations into how support to companies may distort competition and hinder the activities of healthier companies.
I would be interested in hearing whether the Commissioner has given any thought to this matter, and if the Commission has possibly looked into whether support to companies does distort competition.
I know that in some business circles there is a desire to cut back on direct support and perhaps give companies support from the community for example in the form of tax reliefs.
Mr President, late payment is the scourge of businesses the length and breadth of the single market.
It is an especial problem for our 17 million small and medium-sized enterprises.
I welcome the Commission's initiative in the area of late payment but my welcome can only be qualified.
The recommendation is acceptable only so far as it goes.
Europe's SMEs and SMEs in towns like Dudley, Halesowen, Stourbridge, Smethwick and Wolverhampton in my constituency need more.
In the early 1970s my father set up his own small business.
One of his first major contracts was to erect a security fence around a cold storage company premises.
He had to borrow money from the bank to buy his materials.
The cold storage company, an internationally renowned business, delayed its payment.
This delay took my father's young business to the verge of collapse and I can well remember the anxiety this financial crisis caused in our family home.
We need to change the business culture regarding late payments but I would say to the Commissioner that I do not believe this can be achieved with a recommendation which is essentially a wish list for best practice observance.
This is a carrot approach without the stick.
A directive introducing the automatic statutory right to interest on late payments of outstanding commercial debt would be that stick.
The need for such a statutory right of interest was the conclusion of an EMAC hearing in April 1995.
All the small businesses that spoke at this hearing spoke persuasively of the need for a statutory right.
Mr Sam McCrone from Scott Young Research of Brierley Hill and Mr Ian Brough, chief executive of Dudley Chamber of Commerce and Industry gave the hearing the benefit of their experience of late payments as it affected their locality.
Mr McCrone, in particular, made the point that this was a single market issue.
Small and medium-sized businesses such as his were experiencing real late payment delays in other parts of the European single market such as France.
I believe we may be back here in two or three years' time talking about the failure of the recommendation to deliver what we want.
We should have that directive and have it now.
We can save ourselves the trouble of waiting for two or three years and actually deliver for our SMEs not just in my part of the industrial West Midlands but throughout the whole of the single market.
Mr President, today we have four documents from the Commission on the agenda; a communication, two reports and a recommendation.
The texts usually contain plenty of sensible comments.
Unfortunately these documents do not always lead to firm actions.
The four separate reports from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy are very good.
They indicate an understanding of the conditions of small and medium-sized companies.
I would like to mention one report in particular.
Mr Harrison's report on payment periods in commercial transactions, which should have been issued as a binding document from the Commission.
Instead it is unfortunately only a recommendation, which means that it does not receive the attention required to promote effectively shorter payment periods and consequently lead to less strain on cash flow for European companies.
Sweden's experiences of legal regulations currently in force on the recovery of payments for the benefit of commercial companies are good.
What I dislike about the Commission's recommendation and the final report is the interference with freedom of contract.
In my opinion there is no need for statutory payment conditions.
Access to capital is essential for a growing company, both through better cash flow and the opportunity of generating its own capital without high taxation and through the possibility of accessing venture capital.
The latter particularly concerns fast growing companies in the high-technology sector.
This was dealt with in Mr Harrison's second report.
I agree that European companies must be given the same conditions as their American counterparts, and it would be excellent if a working capital market could be established as part of this process, otherwise we run the risk of the good ideas being exploited elsewhere.
I hope that the Commission will take the initiative for the legal conditions required to establish a European capital market.
National regulations and restrictions on the movement of capital will have to be abolished in order to create an effective capital market.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on these reports.
They are very helpful contributions to the very important debate we are having about small businesses. As we know, the latter are so important in the generation of wealth and employment in our Union.
The schemes which have been put in place by the European Investment Bank have been extremely good.
Certainly in my country the way these have been operated through some of the commercial banks have been very helpful to small companies.
I would like to see the European Investment Bank investigating a little more closely how they are actually put into operation.
I have had complaints from businesses in my constituency of commercial banks requiring the businesses to move their accounts to those banks before money can be paid out under the schemes.
If that is the case it is a deplorable situation and it would be good to see it investigated.
The work that is being done on capital markets is most important.
The biggest problem that small businesses face across the Union is access to capital.
But perhaps the most important and most immediate of all these reports is that on late payments of debt.
In my country we know that the total trade debt owed to private business is now of the order of £46bn, that the total overdue debt owed to private business is now of the order of £20bn.
These figures are ones which are clearly not helping small businesses and these reports can only be helpful in achieving a satisfactory solution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I myself run several SMEs in France, and it is in that capacity that I offer these comments on the reports before us today.
I have never resorted to an EIC to obtain information.
In my country, the prefectures, general and regional councils, chambers of commerce, professional associations and other bodies deluge us with information.
For me, therefore, going to the European level would be gilding the lily.
As regards the delays in payment, which are now as long as six months, you are attacking the consequences and not the cause: the general economic crisis.
These payments would be made much more quickly if the economy were in good health, and the economic policy which you impose on the Member States is not conducive to growth.
Charging interest in default, which is actually obligatory in France, is rarely respected for fear of losing a customer.
The really good idea contained in this report is the idea of paying VAT when invoices are actually settled.
This is a commonsense measure attractive to all heads of businesses.
The creation of a second European market, in the sense in which you mean it, is of interest only to a few enterprises in a very specific sector.
I should be content with a flexibilization of the second French market to make it more accessible to small private shareholders and businesses.
Savings exist, but they are not invested in the economy for lack of suitable structures.
Finally, as far as credits are concerned, the EIB mechanism seems to me to be the prototype of restrictive aid to employment, which becomes the focal point of enterprises' financial arrangements and very often brings about their downfall.
Abandonment of EMU, cheaper credit and persuading the banks to stop regarding loans to SMEs as a risk they are no longer willing to take - those are the things that would help us.
Finally, as I see it, the main problems of the SMEs are as follows: cost of credit, the nervousness of the banks, administrative constraints, taxation, excessive social burdens - and none of these problems, I fear, will be solved by your Europe.
Mr President, before I became a Member of the European Parliament I was for some fifteen years a member of a local authority in the United Kingdom and for ten of those years as deputy chairman I was responsible for an organization called the Staffordshire Development Association, the main objective of which was to encourage and foster the growth of small businesses.
In this organization in Staffordshire we had over 200 members ranging from large companies such as Wedgwood and Steelite which are well-known - when you drink your coffee in this Parliament it is from crockery made in my constituency by Steelite - to micro companies.
I really want to address my remarks on the two reports before us today to the question of those micro companies.
These are the companies consisting of between roughly 5 and 15 employees.
When I was deputy chairman of the Staffordshire Development Association two key problems emerged in dealing with small businesses.
One was the access to capital markets.
In her report Mrs Ewing highlighted the problems - despite some changes - which small businesses face in that area.
The work of the EIB is highly commendable but two points should be taken on board.
The sums available of ECU 1bn are too small given the number of micro companies in the European Union.
We need to increase that sum steadily over a period of years.
The second point which is very important is that there ought to be a target or targeted fund for the micro companies in particular.
Those companies which have a small number of employees find it most difficult to access resources to expand their businesses.
If we go back to the Delors White Paper, as Mr Harrison has commented, we see that the engine of growth is going to be the micro companies.
These are going to be the organizations which are going to grow.
We have to focus on them.
Also, we have to study the lack of takeup in some Member States' economies.
Another point is the late payment argument.
There have been many wonderful contributions from this Chamber.
We need a statutory right to interest.
For too long now we have been pussyfooting around.
It is local authorities and large organization, quangos and national governments which are by and large responsible for a very high proportion of that.
If we do not have a statutory right to interest, if we do not bring forward legislation on this, we are going to sell short our small companies in the European Union.
The figures on late payment which Mr Harrison gives in his report pale into insignificance compared with debt payments in Staffordshire which take much longer and which are driving small businesses into the ground.
Let us have a Commission proposal and statutory right to interest right across the European Union to encourage and help small businesses.
Mr President, I welcome these reports today and their recommendations.
I particularly welcome the proposal for a statutory right to interest on late payments.
I hope it will improve confidence and the functioning of the single European market and eliminate unfair payment practices.
It would be ideal if companies were to take their responsibilities seriously in terms of prompt payment but we know that is not the case and therefore minimum legislation is necessary to improve the business culture and ensure fair and good practice.
Companies need to understand that late payment is not good credit management.
How often have we said in this House that the growth of SMEs is the key to fighting unemployment in the EU and indeed in our regional policy programmes we have strengthened our support for SMEs in recognition of this potential.
It would be a travesty if, as a result of late payments, we were to undo all that good work.
It is a fact that many small firms struggle because of late payments.
Their cash flow dries up.
Innovation and enterprise is halted because funds cannot be released due to supporting late payment.
It is time for action.
Governments, public institutions and the Commission should lead the way by example.
They can institute a policy of prompt payment without the need for EU legislation.
Recently the British Government White Paper: Competitiveness - Helping Business to Win said that small firms pay a vital role in the economy.
They are flexible and responsive to change.
They stimulate, and are a major source of, job creation.
Yet I am sure you will agree with me that it is scandalous and shocking that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury in the UK and the spokesperson for small businesses, Angela Knight MP, an MP in my own Euro-constituency, said that the Treasury's late payment on 25 % of its bills is not exactly the crime it has been portrayed as.
It is a crime if, as a result of late payments, small firms go to the wall.
They collapse and people lose jobs and our social security bill increases.
I welcome this directive.
I welcome the chance to improve the survival chances and financial prospects of UK small companies and also to contribute to the overall competitiveness of the EU in boosting job creation.
I also hope that it will force the UK Treasury and Miss Knight, as Economic Secretary, to pay their bills on time.
Mr President, we have advanced a great deal since a few years ago, when very little notice was taken of small and medium-sized firms, even in the European Parliament. I am pleased about this.
But today we are in a delicate, difficult stage.
There are two questions that I want to put to you, Commissioner Papoutsis.
First, the Florence Summit, which was not positive on the issue of employment or therefore on small and medium-sized firms, threatens to weaken the policy on small and medium-sized enterprises as well as the funding for the third programme.
How are we going to react?
The second question is about the way small and medium-sized enterprises are being strangled by delays in payment by larger firms and also by public authorities.
The recommendation is a first step which I myself asked for many years ago, but if it does not bear fruit, if the Member States do not apply it, we will have to move quickly to a directive. That is the political point.
So, I propose a grand meeting of the European Parliament and Commission with representatives of the small business community to address this problem. Either the recommendation is applied or we will have to move to another, more binding, instrument.
That is my proposal, Commissioner.
Votes
Madam President, our group voted against the Schulz report because for internal policy reasons Mr Schulz has created an extremely contradictory report through his amendments, by which he has tried to belittle the Bavarian security organs, which represent an important front in the fight against organized crime.
That is why we could not vote for that report and we call on Mr Schulz to follow the example of the US Congress and the US Senate, where both large parties have jointly initiated a major programme to combat nuclear smuggling, which they designated as the number one threat to the United States, on the basis of a report by the Institute for Strategic Studies which drew on hundreds of cases of nuclear crimes in the territory of the former Soviet Union.
The United States has managed to get the major democratic forces to cooperate.
Mr Schulz has missed that opportunity and I hope we will soon follow the example of the United States in this area.
I should first like to pay a sincere tribute to our colleague and friend Mr Schulz, for the documentary quality of his report and the intense effort that must have gone into it.
We are rightly focusing on this traffic in nuclear materials, a quite recent development.
This form of contraband presents dangers on a completely different scale to those we have encountered in other fields.
Thus, we need to reconsider the nuclear problem in terms of its origin: the production of energy.
We must not totally call into question nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
On the other hand, we need to be even more vigilant in view of the potential dangers it involves.
Next, we need to take due account of the handling of nuclear wastes and to suppress this unhealthy trade that I have denounced.
It is absolutely essential to monitor all flows of fissile materials and other nuclear wastes.
Euratom could very well take charge of this if the Commission and Council were to take a decision to that effect.
The territory of the European Union cannot remain a permanent nuclear danger zone.
With this aim in mind, we must take into account the many questions posed by the countries of central and eastern Europe, which today are juggling dangerously with the civil and military nuclear arsenal which they have acquired.
Our duty is clearly to establish the means for combatting the distribution of these substances.
These are areas in which there is a need for precise knowledge of the situation with this traffic and the risks being run.
We need a strong political will to protect the public.
I have no desire to find myself shortly a victim of those 'sorcerer's apprentices' whom I denounced a few months ago.
Illegal trade in nuclear material and radioactive elements must of course be fought strongly.
This trade is evil both for human beings and for the environment.
Action must be taken to stop it.
But we are being used to bring about the creation and extension of Europol and as a means of exerting pressure on Member States to ratify the Europol convention.
We have therefore chosen to abstain from the final vote on the Schulz report.
My understanding is that it is necessary to get to the root of this problem which is the production of radioactive elements leading to potential for trade in 'waste products' .
This problem is mentioned in paragraph 3 of the Schulz report, which is good.
Therefore, I intent to vote no to Amendment No 22, which would remove this.
Illegal trade in nuclear material is a problem not only for EU countries but an international problem.
Therefore, we must take action internationally to resolve the problem.
Of course the UN and Interpol should receive increased resources to be able to take action.
Closer cooperation between all the countries involved is important, not just in the EU but internationally.
Europol is not the appropriate organisation for this issue as Europol is not a global organisation.
I am voting against paragraph 18 which requests that Member States should immediately bring about the creation and extension of Europol.
Even the tiniest amounts of plutonium are enough to poison the whole of mankind.
For that reason alone we must prevent the production of plutonium.
To do so we must put an end to the civil and military use of nuclear energy.
But even if we abandon nuclear energy, that does not eliminate the existing plutonium.
The civil and military stocks must be declared and placed under the control of Euratom and the IAEA.
Under no circumstances may any more plutonium be carted around on our streets or in the air.
The Munich plutonium scandal in particular raises a number of questions that should be clarified by a committee of inquiry. firstly: the Federal Government, the Bavarian State Government and the authorities told the public fairy-stories for electoral strategy reasons.
They irresponsibly stirred up fears and put many people at serious risk, in an infringement of international law.
Headed by the public prosecutor Helmut Meier-Staude, first they created the demand for plutonium, so that they could then make loud noises about a nuclear market and present themselves as anti-crime supermen.
The astonished public is then faced with the question: who is more dangerous or a greater criminal, the Bavarian State Government or the traffickers in nuclear materials?
Second question: when did the Federal Government inform Euratom? Two dates have been given.
So: who is lying, the German Federal Government or Euratom?
The plutonium scandal raises a third question: the question of the relations between the secret service and the police.
After the terrible experiences with the Gestapo under Nazi rule, people in the Federal German Republic drew strict distinctions between secret service and police.
Particularly in Bavaria, these distinctions are becoming increasingly blurred.
The Munich scandal showed where that leads: both agencies become unpredictable and uncontrollable.
That provokes breaches of the law.
My colleague Martin Schulz has taken up the questions I have discussed in his very good report. That is why we endorsed the report.
European Council in Florence
Madam President, the European Council in Florence gave the impression of enormous confusion where the problems of employment are concerned.
Yesterday, in the report given by the Italian presidency, we heard two expressions which are typical of European speeches today.
First, that there is no miracle cure for unemployment; secondly, that the national level is the level best suited to combat unemployment.
The cumulative effect of these two proposals, which incidently are partly contradictory, is hardly exhilarating.
This sudden desire to respect powers of the Member States would be more convincing if one did not have the feeling that it was dictated mainly by impotence, and if the violation of subsidiarity had not become an everyday event - especially as represented by President Santer's Confidence Pact, despite all its manifest good intentions.
In the field of international trade, especially, one may wonder whether the implicit purpose of this new presentation is not to dilute European responsibility by this sharing-out of functions.
The Commission wanders the world negotiating free trade agreements in the supposed interests of mankind, while the Member States try to deal with the unemployment that is partly as a consequence of those agreements.
Obviously, we are not in agreement with this share-out which seems a little too convenient for the Commission, which we feel should get it into its head that its primary task is to defend the States of Europe.
Finally, the conclusions of the Florence Council relating to the IGC contain another proposition: a call for improved European coordination of national policies.
This policy is based on the notion that improved European coordination would necessarily, everywhere and always, produce beneficial results.
Unfortunately, one may wonder whether the bureaucratic coordination of ill-conceived policies like those of today may not be more likely to paralyse growth and employment, as seems to be proved, a contrario , by the experience of those countries that have remained outside the Union.
This European Council was overshadowed by the so-called mad-cow crisis.
The mad cows actually rescued the summit because it was possible to claim that it was a success just because the boycott threatened by one Member State or its prime minister was avoided, apparently firmly.
But was public health truly safeguarded, unequivocally, on the basis of scientific criteria? From this point of view the Council was not such a resounding success and the European Parliament's resolution does not raise this vital question.
This Council was once again a 'summit' meant to define policies, take measures, sign pacts and which, following on from the indecisive positions taken at other Councils, was meant to fight rising unemployment and the deteriorating social situation.
One boycott replaced another without being clearly denounced.
Another Member State, another summit protagonist, impeded any clear affirmation of proposals, proposals of good intentions, together with any previous ones.
Not even that.
This too has not been properly dealt with in our resolution.
This Council was a reaffirmation, intransigent for some and autistic for others, of one road towards 'European Construction' .
Not even sweetened with good intentions and better words.
These major questions were left for Councils of lesser ministers.
Accelerated liberalization of public services, especially telecommunications because there are information highways to earn profits and for circulating, competitiveness and wage restraint, but not offset with any consideration of moderating speculative transactions that withdraw capital from its job-creating function, a clear threat of diverting structural policies away from their objectives linked to the now forgotten economic and social cohesion.
That is what is present in and absent from the summit 'conclusions' and the resolution says nothing about this.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, once again 'sympathy' for Turkey without the necessary self-criticism for the steps already taken banking on the fact that minimum human rights would be observed when, on the contrary, the situation has deteriorated.
On the other hand, as for Cuba, the firmness towards the unacceptable US legislation was tempered with unfounded not to say false assessments as to the responsibility for the rift in relations between the US and the European Union.
For these reasons (and more) a Council unable to cover up social failures withe so-called successes over mad cows and EUROPOL and a resolution that once again skirts around the real issues as if they had been solved or would be solved once we reach El(euro)dorado .
Transitional period in the accession treaties
In our opinion the European Union will not prevent any Member State from going ahead with reforms on environmental protection even if other Member States feel that it infringes the four aspects of freedom of the internal market.
There has been no evidence so far that the environmental guarantee exists in reality.
In our opinion the environmental guarantee shall apply as soon as it is referred to by the national parliament of a Member State for a decision to be made.
Mosiek-Urbahn report
We have voted for Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's report.
We agree to a large extent with the criticism of the Molitor Group's report which is presented in Mrs MosiekUrbahn's report.
We feel that when talking about pan-European issues, especially social issues relating to the labour market and problems relating to the environment, minimum regulations are required also at Union level.
This however does not prevent individual countries from proceeding on their own and introducing more stringent regulations.
This requires for example that the current Article 100a(4) of the Treaty of Rome is made more stringent.
But we are also critical of some aspects of the report of Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, namely the proposal that by virtue of Article 171 Member States would be ordered to pay a penalty.
The wording in clause 1.26 is in our opinion completely absurd.
It reads: ' The European Union is currently conducting the greatest simplification campaign in modern economic history by endeavouring to replace 15 sets of rules and regulations with 1' .
It is beyond our comprehension how a parliament which would like to consider itself as serious can accept such wording.
The Swedish environmental party, like the environmental parties in the other new Member States, were seriously concerned that joining the EU could lead to a situation where our existing standards on environmental, social and consumer protection, among others, would be lowered.
Unfortunately developments so far seem to justify our misgivings, which has been proven for example by the fact that the Commission has not fulfilled its promises to increase the EU's environmental standards to the level of the standards in the new Member States during the transitional period agreed.
This apart, I cannot support the conclusions of the so-called Molitor report, since they only involve the interests of big industries.
It also seems clear that the Molitor Group's intention was in fact to use the deregulation of EU legislation as a model for similar measures at a national level.
The intention was simply to break down what has been achieved for example within environmental protection in Europe, instead of progressing.
Since I, as a member of the Swedish environmental party, generally speaking remain rather sceptical for reasons mentioned above to EU legislation in certain areas of importance to us, I would like to concentrate on clarifying my vote regarding the two amendments I have tabled.
The first proposal is about the Molitor Group's view that economists are the only experts regarding decisions on legislation in society.
Therefore we wanted to stress that there are other aspects than financial calculations of importance when decisions are taken on the need for legislation.
The Green Group in the European Parliament has also expressed concern that clauses on minimum standards regarding environmental, consumer and social protection in the future are interpreted as optimum standards.
For us it is therefore essential that a lowering of existing national standards is not imposed in the name of free competition in areas of vital importance to the environment and for the so-called ordinary citizen.
It is equally important that the EU does not constitute an obstacle to further progress in these areas.
Deregulation at EU level is of importance in order to reduce unnecessary regulations and bureaucracy. The report however only deals with the symptoms of the problem, since regulations at EU level are already a reality.
The report should have examined which issues should be considered at various levels; local, regional, national and European EU level. A check list describing the issues to be considered and by whom they should be considered should have been drawn up.
The report also concentrates on deregulation of trade and industry for the benefit of strengthening competition.
Deregulation is important from a democratic point of view to simplify existing regulations for the individual citizen and to clarify at what level different decisions are taken.
A 'subsidiary list' with issues which could be transferred back from the EU to national, regional and local level should have been drawn up.
This report deals with an absolutely crucial issue, the importance of which for the further development of the internal market - and, in this context, for employment and economic growth in Europe - must not be underestimated.
The report thus contains an excellent analysis and a critical assessment of the so-called Molitor Group's report on legislative and administrative simplification.
On the whole, one must agree with the rapporteur and the committee in their criticism of the Molitor Group's report, since while the report does indeed contain a useful summary of the problems connected with extensive legislative or administrative regulation of the market, it unfortunately also tends to underestimate the adverse effects in terms of competition and/or consumer policy of arbitrary deregulation at European level.
The rapporteur is thus entirely right to draw attention to the need for an analytical checklist to be compiled, making it possible to judge whether it is necessary to implement any new piece of Community legislation or whether new Community initiatives are required, and also to assess the consequences of repealing or amending legislation which exists already.
In this context, it must be borne in mind that the implementation of common legislative provisions in the EU - where the introduction of such provisions is necessary in the first place - is in itself a considerable simplification of the rules for the benefit of our citizens and businesses, since fifteen different national sets of rules are thereby replaced with one.
Mombaur report
Debates on energy have been fashionable in the European Parliament just recently.
So far, they have been conducted more from a liberal, industrial and competitive standpoint than from an environmental one.
This report by Mr Mombaur seems to be an essential one.
Its subject is nothing less than the future of the planet and the satisfaction of ever increasing energy needs.
All of us here know that the road we are currently following in order to meet those needs is a dead-end.
Our sources of energy are far from inexhaustible, and in any case they cause pollution.
While the former aspect is a matter of concern for future generations, we are already feeling the effects of the latter.
Also, I would like to pay tribute to the clarity of the report and to the innovations it suggests, which are the result of deep analysis.
The European Union really does have an interest in developing renewable energy technologies.
Nature itself offers us the means of achieving this.
It is up to us to be able to and willing to exploit these means.
And it is up to us, too, to equip ourselves with the necessary resources.
We need to convince the Council of the value of this research, and to take swift steps to promote new, healthy and efficient energy sources through tax incentives.
It is necessary for the Union to set an example and increase its consumption of renewable energies.
Admittedly, the initial investments are high; admittedly, just how high depends on how conveniently situated the sources of these energies are.
But the stakes are equally high - the issue for us is to preserve our planet but also to enable everyone to produce energy sources to guarantee independence and development factors that are mutually complementary.
The Union needs to integrate this necessity into its policy of development and cooperation.
Today's investments will be tomorrow's economic, human and ecological benefits.
Renewable energies exist, even in the northern European countries: solar energy, wind energy, hydraulic energy, biomass.
Renewable energy techniques need to be developed on a voluntary basis: if, as this report demonstrates, the same appropriation from the European Union budget were to be made to the promotion of renewable energy sources as is made to the promotion of nuclear fusion, ECU 840 million in other words, they would soon reach a competitive standard.
The objective is clear: we must make use of these energy sources, which are inexhaustible, non-polluting, capable of decentralized exploitation, well accepted by public opinion, not reliant on mega-installations like nuclear energy and offer great employment potential.
The stimulus to master the various technical and economic problems can come from the European Union, but that is not to say that the Member States have no responsibilities of their own to discharge, especially if the target - as this report proposes - is that renewable energies should amount to 15 % of all primary energy by the year 2010.
One essential condition has to be satisfied in order for that to be possible.
In order to ensure the competitiveness of renewable energy technologies, it will be necessary to take into account the true costs of other technologies.
In the case of nuclear energy, then, that would have to include security measures, investments and the enormous cost of treating nuclear wastes and decomissioned installations, not to mention the overall social cost of a high-risk technology that has never been completely mastered by man.
I would like to express my complete agreement with the measures proposed by the rapporteur for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and to congratulate him on this important work.
I have voted for the report which in principle I find satisfactory.
Most of the EU funds for energy research are spent on fusion research within the so-called JET programme.
This could be reduced or dropped completely.
More resources are required for research and development of renewable energy sources.
It is completely unacceptable to invest 400 million ecu on two nuclear reactors in the Ukraine, and this must be rejected.
The Commission must quickly present proposals as to how carbon dioxide emissions are to be reduced.
A recommendation for a carbon dioxide tax must be drafted.
This is a commitment accepted by the EU and its Member States at the conference on the environment in Rio in 1992.
The Euratom Treaty must be transformed into a treaty for investing in renewable energy resources.
We have long been aware of the need for a consistent reorganization of energy consumption.
Around the time of the oil price shock in the 1970s, the western industrialized countries recognized the need to step up research into the use of renewable energy.
This was above all out of a concern for security of supplies, stemming from the realization that our energy needs could not be covered indefinitely by the use of fossil fuels.
Since then, environment policy considerations have understandably come to play an equally important part in the debate - not least in view of the fact that the world's overall energy consumption is expected to increase dramatically within the next quarter of a century, as a result of the industrialization of many third world countries.
Against this background, it is high time that the European Union implemented an action plan to promote renewable energy sources, taking special account of the particular conditions for using certain forms of renewable energy in the individual Member States: increased use of solar energy in the Mediterranean countries, for example, further use of wind power in the north-western Member States, and so on.
This report from the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy contains an excellent analysis of the proposals from the Commission, amongst which those concerning measures to improve the competitiveness of renewable energy sources are of particular interest.
The continually increasing demand for energy, combined with the shortage of conventional energy forms and the problems they create, make it essential to develop renewable sources of energy.
For countries such as Greece, moreover, the issue is vitally important granted that the country's geographical and morphological structure enhances the importance of developing renewable energy sources such as wind energy or solar energy, as a means of meeting the energy demands of island and outlying regions.
Reduction of the energy dependence of the Member States would contribute towards improving the publicsector economies by decreasing reliance on external energy sources, while it could also contribute substantially to regional and local development and to the growth of employment.
In that context, the EU could contribute by devoting financial means at its disposal to the support of related programmes.
However, we categorically oppose not only the liberalization of the energy sector more generally, but in particular the sector of alternative energy sources.
Liberalization would have tragic consequences, granted that this is a branch of strategic importance.
Any such development would threaten security of supply, even at the present level of energy availability, to the benefit of major capital which would make huge profits while threatening the viability of public agencies that would provide no more than the infrastructure, and also to the cost of the economy and consumers, who are entitled to cheap, adequate and environmentally friendly energy.
In our opinion technological advances should not be sacrificed on the altar of profit.
It must be made possible for everyone to benefit from them, and they should not become the means to increase the profits of some who exploit them to their own advantage.
Fouque report
Our colleague Antoinette Fouque is presenting to us here a report following up the International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo in September 1994.
In doing so, she is offering the European Parliament the opportunity to review the status of development and the condition of women in the world.
First and foremost, I must thank her for her work and for the enthusiasm that inspires it.
That Cairo conference, like many other international conferences, is often called into question, some people regarding it only as a mass of good intentions, soon forgotten.
I believe, nevertheless, that they are creating increasing interest, as witness the Cairo conference, which is intended to enable the Union to express, once again, its principles with regard to development and women's rights.
The Cairo conference reaffirmed the essential status of women in the quest for sustainable human development.
Confronted with demographic growth and the consequences to which it leads, the conference clearly defined the role which women could take in controlling it, and the trump cards they hold.
As our colleague recalls, birth control alone cannot solve the population problems facing the world, and more particularly the developing world.
Early steps need to be taken to allow for the problems of aging, rural depopulation, international migration and, above all, the environment.
Within this framework, the demographic problems associated with non-respect for women's rights have to be solved.
Women must be able to become the protagonists of this renewal.
Freedom of choice to have children, free access to health and education for all women, these are the best tools.
Too many women in today's world are not 'full members' of the human race.
Who can settle for that? Who can accept it?
There is a need for a genuine development policy, integrating the objective of the valorization of women as the motive force of development.
The Union has already entered into commitments along these lines, and it would be well for all the Member States to do the same, following the example of our German and Dutch friends.
The financial commitments entered into must be respected, and the facilities must be granted to ensure that this aid is not wasted because of the sluggish administrative procedures that we know too well!
We must think in terms of new partnerships, and develop our cooperation both with third countries and with the NGOs.
The subject is a crucial one.
It is the guarantee of the future for one part of the world.
At all levels, we have to commit ourselves to sharing in this new state of mind.
Let us think again about development, let us think of ways of helping those men and women who are suffering.
Technical assistance in itself is not enough - it must be backed up by consideration and concern for universal dignity, the specific feature of the human condition.
I was pleased to note that the report really does attempt to contribute to a practical implementation of the results of the conference in Cairo regarding the EU's policy on development aid.
Women, and hence children, in different parts of the world are in real need of direct, strong action.
All the same the report leaves a bad taste in the mouth.
As usual the European Union is quick to take a stand and set requirements for countries outside the Union.
Poor developing countries are expected, with help from the EU, to manage things that some of the EU's own Member states do not manage.
For example:
' Adequate' courses in sexual education at different school levels; -Encourage the use of condoms which are distributed free of charge; -Family planning to be integrated into co-operation programmes; -Introduce equal opportunities for women in politics/economics; -The right to free and legal abortion etc.Should our next objective perhaps be to implement the results of the international conferences on women within the European Union and the Union's co-operation countries?
It should also be mentioned that the existing, virtually unrestrained market liberalism of which the EU professes itself adherent does not favour women either within the EU or in the developing countries. Quite the reverse!
Despite the above I am voting for the report, since the purpose of promoting women's situation, is the essential issue after all.
Olympic Games in Atlanta
The idea of the Olympic Games is a grand idea, the idea of bringing together men and women from all five continents to participate in a sporting competition based on the principles of brotherhood and fair play.
But what happens to this fine idea under the influence of discrimination?
The European Parliament must reassert its essential commitment to equality between men and women, and fight against all forms of obscurantism, whatever and wherever they may be.
Even more seriously - and here I echo the text of the motion for a resolution and the oral question - we cannot accept, I trust, a situation where the European Union finances or aids, by whatever route, all or some of those countries which prevent their women from going to compete in the Atlanta games.
We cannot be the accomplices of this kind of segregation, which in our eyes represents a seriously retrograde step.
I would venture to hope, then, that the Council and the Commission will quickly give us assurances on the points that have been mentioned and will officially adopt a position hostile to such methods.
Our credibility is at state here.
Ewing report
I have given my support to this report today because I am a keen supporter of small businesses, as we all should be if we are interested in the future of Europe's economy.
Almost 100 % of our companies in Europe are officially classed as SMEs.
Yet too often these key companies who employ two-thirds of all EU workers and generate two-thirds of our business turnover are forgotten by policymakers because they do not have the lobbying voice of industrial giants.
All the more reason for the Commission to extend the affordable loan scheme for smaller companies which is a genuine EU success story - as far as it goes.
When in the UK alone over ECU 200m has helped to create almost 12, 000 jobs since 1993 it is vital that we build on such success, given the hard economic times people are living through in my constituency and across Europe.
Our people deserve any assistance we can provide to their businesses upon whose success we all depend.
Harrison report (A4-0161/96)
I am glad to support this report by my British Labour Party colleague Mr Harrison as it aims to give businesses - and in practice that means small businesses - the protection they deserve from the unacceptable practice of too many larger companies who pay their bills late.
This trend has caused real financial hardship to many of the honest and hardworking business people and employees of commercial areas such as my own constituency.
That is why my own party is addressing this problem in Britain and why the Commission is looking at late payments at European level.
However, the good intentions of the Commission will not be enough if as currently suggested compensation to creditors affected by late payments is a nonbinding Recommendation to Member States.
Given that the Conservative President of the Board of Trade in Britain himself virtually boasted of his skill at paying creditors late during his time in business, I can think of one Member State at least whose government needs a directive if we want them to act to protect the honest and hardworking from what we in Britain call the 'spivs' .
That concludes voting time .
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12.55 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 4 July 1996.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, a year ago exactly, we heard the news of the fall of Srebrenica.
The inhabitants of Srebrenica were trusting in the fact that in April 1993, as you will remember, their town had been declared a UN safe area.
They were bitterly disappointed when the Serb forces, under the command of General Mladic, took the town in July 1995.
In front of the United Nations soldiers, the Muslim men were then separated from their families and the women and children driven from the town.
Since then, some 8000 people have been reported missing.
They have probably been killed.
It is now up to the investigations which are under way to establish the facts of the matter, amid the horrors of the mass graves.
The massacre at Srebrenica is one of the most dreadful of the war in Bosnia - sadly, one among many others.
The international community cannot rest until the facts of the massacre have been established and those guilty have received the punishment they deserve.
We owe that to the victims of Srebrenica and their families.
We owe it to justice, which the tribunal in The Hague is seeking to dispense.
I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to join me in paying tribute to the victims of the massacre at Srebrenica by observing a minute's silence.
(The House rose and observed one minute's silence)
Madam President, on a point of order.
I occupy room 238 in IPE 2, from which I normally have the pleasure of observing the French countryside.
However, I find that I now face a wall of concrete, about which the Quaestors appear to know nothing.
Could you tell us whether all the other inhabitants of the second floor are to be subjected to this on a permanent basis, or would you recommend that we move to Brussels until we have a chance to have offices that again return us a view of the French countryside?
I have visited one of these offices myself, Mr Spencer, which as you say have practically been walled in.
I think it is absolutely terrible.
You ask if there are many offices in a similar position.
Those on the first and second floors are affected, but the ones above do have a view.
I think we need to investigate the matter, and I was intending to raise it at this evening's meeting of the Bureau.
I cannot say any more than that at present, but I entirely share the feelings experienced by yourself and other Members in the same situation.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I just wish to say that I have had the same experience.
Members of this House are kept in the dark and covered with manure like mushrooms, and it is about time it stopped!
I have no daylight in my office and it is an appalling insult!
I have just said what I think of the matter, and you have heard that I share the same feeling.
We shall have to see what can be done.
I naturally note what you say, Mr Crowley.
You will appreciate that we cannot start a debate now.
As you know, this very serious situation will be examined in due course at this part-session.
I would ask you please not to start a debate on the subject by means of a point of order.
You will have ample opportunity to state your views, for example on Wednesday morning when the Irish presidency presents its programme.
Madam President, I am not going to make this into a debate but since the question has been raised, I want you to confirm that it will be on the agenda and that we will have a statement from the presidency.
Northern Ireland is demonstrably ungoverned and may be ungovernable under the present structures.
The citizens of that state do not have equal rights.
Yes indeed, Mrs Ahern, that is what I said.
Order of business
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to stress that I am keeping to the agreement reached by the Conference of Presidents concerning the declarations to be made, and we in the Conference instructed a working party to try to produce a text on which a consensus can be reached.
This is not exactly what has happened, but the objectives we are pursuing are still vitally important for this House, which has come under attack so often, particularly in recent times.
I think it is absolutely crucial for the credibility of the House that we should reach a decision this week.
As we see it, there is just one small problem left to clear up, which is that we need to define - and this is something the Bureau can do - exactly what constitutes a gift or benefit.
I think the House can reach a consensus on this.
Indeed, as we have seen in various Member States, including my own, it is easy to reach agreement on the principles governing declarations of assets, but far more difficult to put them into practice.
We think the Bureau has an important role to play here in defining the text.
It should also be possible to settle the issue of gifts and benefits very quickly - before the end of the year, in our opinion.
In any event, I should like to confirm that we intend to stand by this agreement and that we are determined to reach a consensus.
I think we should be able to adopt the text by a majority of more than 314 votes this week, on the understanding that the Bureau is to be instructed to produce a definition, which will be important when it comes to applying the agreement.
This need not involve a delay, it is simply a precaution, and we really do feel that it is extremely important in the present circumstances for Parliament to reach a decision this week.
I am taking a risk in proposing this, but I am convinced that we have to do everything we can to protect Parliament's credibility when it comes under attack.
Various people in this House have been working hard for years to win greater power and influence for Parliament, and I think this has to go hand in hand with working to improve our image.
That is why I think we have to decide to vote on the text this week.
I would remind the House, if need be, that at this stage we are voting on the agenda.
Let it be clear, therefore, that there is no question of opening a debate on the substance of the matter.
Mr Martens has just explained why he wished this item to be reincluded on the agenda for this part-session.
I have several requests to speak from group chairmen, and I think it is important for them to be able to state their views.
As you know, the eyes of the media are upon us.
We are dealing with a very sensitive issue.
I shall therefore give the floor to Mr de Vries, who has asked to speak, then Mrs Green and Mr Puerta.
Clearly, we are not opening a debate, but I think that before voting on whether or not to reinclude this item, it is essential for the group chairmen to express their views.
Madam President, the House has spoken on behalf of the people of Europe in repeatedly calling for greater transparency in the operation of the European institutions, which are all too often seen as dark, secretive bodies, sometimes unfairly, but often also with a grain of truth.
But if we want the Commission and the Council to be more transparent, we must also be prepared to make the workings of Parliament equally so, and an important element here is transparency in Members' financial interests.
My group feels it is vital that we should vote on the Ford and Nordmann reports this week, and we support the Christian Democrats' proposal on the subject.
But let me warn you: we are prepared to help the Christian Democrats obtain the majority they need to amend the Rules of Procedure, but not if it means sacrificing the principle that there is, and must remain, a ban on accepting gifts.
There is absolutely no reason why this House should allow Members to accept gifts, and if we instruct the Bureau to draw up a definition of what constitutes a gift, it must take account of the spirit and the letter of the Rules of Procedure we adopt.
What is banned is banned, and the only possible exceptions, as far as I am concerned, are bunches of flowers and cups of coffee.
(Applause)
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Martens for reiterating his personal commitment to the agreement made by the group leaders to ensure that the Nordmann report passes through this House before the summer recess.
I would also remind the House that agreement by the group leaders included an absolutely clear commitment that Members should refrain from receiving gifts, payments or benefits.
It is important that the House understands that.
It is important that the House understands the crucial nature of getting that agreement through this House if we are to demonstrate the transparency which Mr De Vries spoke about.
My group will support putting the Nordmann report on the agenda as long as it is clear that, as far as we are concerned, that agreement holds.
Last week it was not so clear as far as the Group of the European People's Party is concerned.
Mr Martens has expressed his desire that it should hold.
We will support him by putting our votes behind the clear commitment made by the group leaders earlier this year.
Madam President, with the same degree of seriousness and commitment as the other group chairmen, I wish to express the concern of my group at the way in which the Nordmann report is coming before plenary.
In our view, it is clear that the circumstances have not changed since last week.
I would remind the House that the Conference of Presidents decided by a majority to withdraw the Nordmann report on Thursday afternoon. And it did so because the amendments that were to be presented raised serious problems regarding the gifts and benefits that Members would be able to receive.
We did not agree beforehand, and we expressed our concern in the meetings of group chairmen or deputy chairmen that the formulas being used - whereby support in terms of staff or material would be permitted, though that support would have to be declared on the register and transparent - were very dangerous, notwithstanding the traditions of certain Member States in the regulation of this matter.
Our opinion has not changed.
We believe that this amendment - which some people now wish to interpret, and which leaves the distinction between gifts and privileges to the discretion of the Bureau - is extremely confused.
I agree with the other group chairmen that there is a need to ensure complete transparency in the eyes of public opinion, that demagogy should not be permitted, and that the credibility of Parliament must not be undermined. And it is for precisely this reason that - in the same good faith as the other group chairmen, but on the basis of a different opinion and decision - we shall oppose the reinclusion of the Nordmann report on Tuesday's agenda, with a view to its possible adoption.
Madam President, the Greens in Parliament are certainly in favour of debating the Nordmann report, provided that it is done with great frankness, such as we have already heard from Mr de Vries.
Mr Martens came close, but he was still not entirely open.
He said that he wanted to keep to the agreement reached in the Conference of Presidents, an agreement we thought was a minimalist approach, but which has now been thrown open by an amendment from the Christian Democrats.
If the question is whether we agree that we should deal with this issue, then the answer is certainly yes, as far as the definition of gifts and so on is concerned, but it means that Mr Donnelly's amendment on behalf of the PPE Group which refers to gifts which are not likely to influence Members' views should be withdrawn, otherwise the situation will become as unclear as before.
Madam President, I also wish to say that our group is in favour of the Nordmann report being debated during this part-session.
Nevertheless, I should like to point out that we are only having to discuss the reinclusion of this report because the Conference of Presidents decided by a majority to remove it from the agenda, and that our group did not vote in favour of its removal - a decision which was adopted by a simple majority of the Conference of Presidents.
The supposed conscience of the people of Europe is frequently invoked in this Chamber, as it was a short while ago.
The fact is that the peoples of the various Member States expect their elected representatives, and especially those in the European Parliament, to adopt clear and transparent rules governing their own conduct.
How can we fail to note the fear of a great many of our colleagues at the adoption of these simple rules, rules which concern the declaration of assets?
It is not a question - it should be emphasized - of referring to national legislations.
The European Parliament is capable of adopting these rules.
Certain colleagues do not wish their income to be transparent; they do not wish gifts to be prohibited. Our group is in favour of maximum transparency, since in order to be beyond reproach, elected representatives must adopt clear rules on these matters, which are very important in the eyes of public opinion.
Madam President, the Union for Europe Group, like the Europe of Nations and PPE Groups, voted in the Conference of Presidents to maintain the Nordmann report on the agenda.
We shall therefore remain consistent with that vote: we shall vote for the reinclusion of the report, because we too are in favour of complete transparency on this matter, whereas the amendment that was proposed introduced an element of doubt.
We are thus in favour of transparency, without indulging in demagogy of any kind, and I therefore believe that it is right that the Bureau should exercise a kind of moral authority in deciding what should or should not be termed a 'gift' .
Furthermore, the solution proposed by Mr Martens does no more than make explicit what was implicit.
Indeed, I recall that when we entrusted the task of mediator to Mr Cot, he himself proposed that it should be the Bureau which determines what constitutes a 'gift' and what does not.
Consequently, our group has absolutely no hesitation - quite the opposite - in voting in favour of the reinclusion of the Nordmann report on the agenda.
We hope that this report secures the 314 votes required and is adopted during the current part-session.
Madam President, it goes without saying that our group is ready to debate and adopt the Nordmann report.
However, in accordance with the procedural agreement reached by the group chairmen, we wish to vote on the compromise text without amendment.
What has really confused matters is the amendment tabled by members of the PPE Group, in which the possibility of Members of Parliament receiving gifts is recognized.
Let us hope that we have misunderstood it.
In any event, whilst we are in favour of the Nordmann report being debated, we shall refuse to allow the fundamental nature of the report and its conclusions to be changed by such amendments, which ultimately recognize the possibility of Members receiving gifts - which is not what my group wishes at all.
Matters must be made clear, and not complicated by last-minute amendments.
Madam President, the rapporteur wishes his report to be reincluded on the agenda, not from personal vanity, but in the firm belief that postponing the debate on the report again would give the impression that the European Parliament is incapable of amending its Rules of Procedure to ensure the increased transparency that is essential.
Consequently, I should like to indicate my personal readiness to work for a compromise.
In the Rules Committee, we made progress towards a consensus.
And we did so whilst remaining faithful to the guidelines drawn up by the working party set up for this purpose.
The amendment, or compromise, referred to by Mr Martens implies either that new amendments will be tabled, or that a compromise formula will be proposed to the House in the form of an oral amendment at the time of the vote on Wednesday, if the report is replaced on the agenda.
I believe that the correct procedure is to agree on a text which will secure an absolute majority of 314 votes.
This implies that the text should conform to the spirit of the working party's conclusions: in other words, restoration of the ban on gifts and benefits, and provision for referral to the Bureau - if necessary - of the detailed points of implementation to which these rules may give rise.
However, this provision for referral to the Bureau must not seem to negate immediately what has just been adopted.
This, Madam President, is the spirit in which the rapporteur wishes to continue his work - with total readiness, I repeat, to reach a compromise, and recalling the words of France's most radical-socialist king: ' Paris is certainly worth a mass' .
(Parliament agreed to the request)
Madam President, I think that all Members will have read in their respective national presses the decision by the US administration to ban from American soil a Canadian company in application of the Helms-Burton Act reinforcing the embargo against Cuba.
I think that this decision, apart from the protests which it has led to, could also affect large numbers of European companies.
May I remind you that 45 % of trade with Cuba is carried out by European companies.
I think that at various times we, in the European Parliament, have already demonstrated against the embargo on Cuba and all measures taken to enforce that embargo, both the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act.
I think that once again we cannot stand by without reacting against this measure by the United States.
Of course, the Council is meeting today, Monday, and is examining this situation and I would like to draw their attention to this novelty, as we might say. I therefore think that on behalf of my group it would be important to introduce a Council declaration on this matter.
I know that our agenda for today's business is extremely overloaded.
But I do think that we should do all we can and should call upon the Council to make this matter a special priority.
If we leave this until later on, our September part-session, for example, we might miss the opportunity of getting the Council to do something.
That is why I do not think that we can leave this matter until later on.
Would you agree, Mr Novo, to this important question being covered in the statement by the presidency on its programme, or do you wish to have a separate statement?
Madam President, I think that our group could accept this suggestion by the presidency as long as the Council declares at this time that it will include this matter in the discussions for Wednesday.
If that is the case I am entirely in favour but if it is not I think that we should deal with the question as a separate issue.
Very well, Mr Novo, we shall forward Parliament's wishes to the Council.
There are no objections to dealing with the matter in this way, and so we shall proceed accordingly.
Madam President, to be quite honest, this is because Mr Galeote has an unexpected and very urgent engagement elsewhere.
As you know, Mr Martens, it is possible for rapporteurs to arrange deputies for themselves.
Madam President, I would ask the House to accept Mr Galeote's apologies.
His engagement is something which has come up quite unexpectedly.
We would therefore ask that the item be removed from the agenda or postponed.
Madam President, if the PPE Group were really so interested in postponing this report, it would present its reasons to the House.
As we do not know its reasons, my group will vote against the request.
Madam President, I wanted to raise something on Tuesday's agenda - not to change the agenda but to ask for clarification from you.
We have the discussion on Tuesday morning on the Commission's information policy regarding BSE (mad cow disease).
There was an absolute demand from the Conference of Presidents that Mr Santer himself should address the plenary on this matter because this is not an issue for the agriculture Commissioner but concerns the Commission policy on information.
Could you please inform us whether it will be Mr Santer?
I can tell you straight away, Mrs Green, that in view of the importance of this issue, which we all appreciate, both Mr Santer and Mr Fischler will be present.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome a delegation from the Japanese Diet, who have taken their seats in the Official Gallery.
(Loud applause) This delegation consists of members of the House of Representatives and the House of Councillors, and is led by the former Prime Minister of Japan, Mr Tsutomu Hata.
Our Japanese colleagues, who have our warmest greetings, are in Strasbourg today to take part in the seventeenth interparliamentary meeting between the European Parliament and Japan, co-chaired by Mr Bertel Haarder, chairman of the European Parliament delegation.
On behalf of all Members of the House, I sincerely welcome you to the European Parliament, and I hope that our work together will be extremely successful.
(Applause)
Major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0224/96) from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council (C40222/96-94/0014(SYN)) with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances (rapporteur: Mr Bowe).
Madam President, before I begin I should like to say that I come here as the rapporteur on this report at second reading.
I took it over at the beginning of this Parliament, a lot of the work on it having already been done by a colleague of mine, Claude Delcroix.
Before I go on to talk about it, I should just like to express my thanks for the work that was done by Mr Delcroix in the last Parliament and say that a great deal of the work that I offer you today and that Parliament has done was achieved under his guidance.
We owe him a debt of gratitude.
We have in front of us a directive up for a third revision, it having been thought necessary to review it in the light of experience, technical progress and operating knowledge.
We should not underestimate just how important this directive is.
Far too often many of the installations which this directive is designed to safeguard, operate quietly and unobtrusively without people realizing the great dangers that they pose.
It is only when something goes dramatically wrong - serious explosions or fires and people injured or killed - that we realize how important this legislation is to ensure the safety of the people of Europe and that our industry can operate not just economically and profitably but also safely.
The common position before us today is generally one which Parliament would agree with.
It does not alter the general structures of the proposal.
In fact it has certainly been improved by the addition of some of Parliament's amendments from first reading.
But there are some areas where we believe that acceptance of some more of Parliament's amendments might improve the text further.
We therefore offer the Council and the Commission second reading amendments to make improvements in the following areas.
Firstly, we object to the scope of the directive being diminished by granting exemptions from obligations such as the safety report, the emergency plans and the provision of information to the public.
We feel that seriously weakens the directive and should be improved.
Secondly, we are concerned that certain installations are excluded from the directive, particularly military establishments, land-fill sites and certain intermediate storage areas such as those in rail depots, docks and other places.
We feel further work should be done in that area.
Thirdly, we feel that there is a lack of clarity with regard to the time limits to conform with the provisions of this directive and that insufficiently binding obligations are placed upon certain operators to ensure that they are fully adhering to the provisions of this directive within appropriate time-scales.
In addition, there is the issue of land-use planning.
As a principle, this has been weakened within the directive as compared with first reading, just when the problems of urban sprawl and the growth of cities around these dangerous and hazardous sites are becoming acute.
We feel it is important that we, the Council and the Commission go back and re-examine these issues and ensure that the ordinary development of cities and towns does not threaten or create new dangers.
It is also essential that there is proper public participation and that the public is informed and given full information about the planning and licensing procedures for these sites and for new installations in particular.
We placed particular emphasis on this at first reading and we do not feel that enough of our concerns have been taken up by the Commission and the Council so far within the proposal.
There are a number of other technical issues with regard to harmonization of certain reporting criteria and harmonization of certain aspects of the inspection of these installations.
However, we recognize that this is the kind of legislation which grows incrementally, as it is now moving on to its third reading.
It is legislation which grows as we learn of the greater dangers that are occurring around us, and which we would expect to see grow, perhaps as a result of future revision in years to come.
However, that does not in any way exempt the Commission or the Council from guaranteeing the safety of the people living around these dangerous chemical sites and other dangerous, large installations that have the potential to create such cataclysmic damage.
We would therefore appeal to the Commission and the Council to examine again this proposal and take on board more of Parliament's amendments to ensure that we continue to lead the world.
We have been leading the world and are proud to lead the world in chemical plant safety and protecting public health and the safety of our citizens.
We feel that is what should be being done now and into the next century.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we recently celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Seveso disaster.
This major accident occurred in 1976.
Since 1982, there has been legislation in the European Union on the major-accident hazards of certain industrial activities. Minor amendments to this legislation were made in 1987 and 1988.
As the Commission has ascertained, the provisions of this legislation - especially as regards the technical aspects, the prevention and tackling of accidents, and emergency plans - have proved very successful.
Nevertheless, they have not managed to prevent some 130 accidents from occurring since 1982.
In the past, the legislation has affected some 1866 undertakings.
Following repeated requests from Parliament and the Council, technical progress and the benefits of more than ten years' experience of the existing legislation have led to the submission of the text that we are discussing today at second reading.
It is not simply a question of the revision of the 1982 directive but, in substantial areas, of a completely new directive, as well as an entirely new approach.
Mr Bowe, as rapporteur, has already said something on this point.
In our view, the protection of people and the environment in the vicinity of potentially dangerous installations must be improved further.
The top priorities are to prevent major accidents involving dangerous substances and, should such an accident occur, to limit its consequences for people and the environment.
Our group supports this goal fully and absolutely.
However, I have doubts that we are achieving it.
These doubts are fed by the hitherto inadequate level of transposition and implementation of the directive in the Member States, as well as by certain basic considerations.
I believe that it is important to bring this directive into line with other legislation on the same subjects.
I therefore welcome the fact that, in its common position, the Council has finally taken on board some of the criticisms repeatedly made by Parliament - and, in particular, my group - in the sense that the content in at least some of the areas been brought into line with the provisions of existing directives.
This includes the definition concerning the IPPC directive.
Also in line with the IPPC directive, requirements for operators to provide information have been introduced.
The rules concerning the provision of information have been brought into line with those contained in the existing directive on free access to information on the environment.
My group is therefore opposed to some of the amendments which have been tabled, which might call this consistency into question.
However, the main problem concerns the following: as yet, the Commission has failed to submit to Parliament appropriate proposals for the annexes, although, according to Article 9 regarding the security reports to be drawn up, these criteria have to be established.
I regret the fact that they have not been submitted on time.
I questioned the Commission on this matter in committee, but I did not receive a reply.
Parliament and the Council are excluded from this decision: it is a matter for the Commission alone.
I therefore greatly regret the fact that Parliament has not been included in this regard.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, after seventeen months, the proposal for a directive concerning the revision of Directive 82/501, the so-called Seveso Directive, on the major-accident hazards of certain industrial activities, has returned to the House for second reading.
We can only welcome the common position adopted by the Council, in that it reflects the basic thrust of the proposals made by Parliament at first reading, striking a satisfactory balance.
Certain aspects could of course be developed further, especially those relating to the definition, at Community level, of the essential provisions to which inspection systems adopted by the Member States must conform, and to the adoption by the Member States of the measures needed to ensure adequate training for those who draw up external emergency plans, those who take decisions in the case of serious accidents, and for workers, contractors and subcontractors at high-risk establishments.
Despite agreeing on the need to define the concept of major-accident hazard, for which there still exists no definition, we do not regard the rapporteur's proposal as satisfactory; moreover, we are strongly opposed to the inclusion of military establishments in the scope of this legislation which, it should be remembered, must respect the principle of subsidiarity.
What is more, the rigid timescales proposed in the amendments rejected by the Council could hamper industrial activity and production still further, without achieving the desired results.
Lastly, I believe that this directive must be finalized and implemented in the Member States as soon as possible, in order to improve the systems available to industry and to the competent authorities - limiting the risk of accident hazards and simplifying the criteria for implementation - thereby making it more responsive to industrial change.
Madam President, at one time it would have taken a major disaster like Bhopal or Basle for this directive to be amended, but this time, I am glad to say, the revision is not the result of any serious accident.
I think the Commission's proposal is sound, but there is still room for improvement, and it is now up to Parliament to put forward amendments to consolidate it.
Having heard what the rapporteur has had to say, not just today but over recent months, I can tell you that the Liberals will support all the amendments he has proposed.
I shall not go through them all, particularly on such a hot afternoon, but I would like to mention nuclear and military installations and storage facilities.
The Liberals feel that it can only improve public safety if such installations are covered by the directive, and I therefore do not understand why Mrs Baldi says that for reasons of subsidiarity, military installations should not be covered, since they face the same risks as similar civilian installations.
It seems inconceivable to me that the second should be covered, but not the first.
And if we look at nuclear power plants, it is clear that although radioactive hazards are already regulated by the Euratom Treaty, the other hazardous substances found at nuclear installations need to be covered by the directive for the sake of public safety.
We are therefore happy to vote for the amendments, and we would ask the Commission to support them, since they are designed solely to provide better protection for the public against the risks presented by concentrations of dangerous substances, particularly in urban areas.
Mr President, I support Mr Bowe and his report and the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I totally disagree with Mrs Baldi. It would appear that she is basically a spokesperson for the military and for industry.
Parliament has a duty to support what the Environment Committee is proposing.
It has a duty to increase the safety of citizens facing dangers posed by the concentration of hazardous substances in the atmosphere, particularly in urban areas.
Parliament's duty should first and foremost be to the citizens, not to industry or the military.
I support most of what other speakers have said regarding the twenty years since Seveso and also what have we learned from the Sandoz disaster.
It is completely unacceptable that the military or landfill or any of these things should be exempt.
Also, I would support Mr Bowe on public participation.
That is vital.
I come from Ireland where a recently published report by the Cork University Hospital - one of the two centres designated for treating victims of nuclear and chemical accidents - stated that there are no facilities presently available to enable it to fulfil this role.
Basically, Ireland is very ill equipped for dealing with major accidents in the chemicals industry.
It is lax in the extreme that the hospital which is located near the biggest concentration of chemicals factories in Ireland has no decontamination unit for treating chemicals workers or members of the public who fall victim to major accidents.
In 1993 a fire in the Hickson plant in Cork raised public awareness about the threat from the chemicals industry but no lessons have been learnt by the Irish authorities since then.
The authorities have been reckless in allowing the Norwegian multinational, Dinochem, to start construction of a glue manufacturing plant at Marino Point.
14, 000 people live on the nearby island, and if there were to be a major accident, their only point of exit would be a bridge which is only 300 metres from the new plant.
In such an event the possibility of so many people being marooned is alarming.
There is already a need for EU legislation to make Member States take account of the need for the adequate separation of plants posing major hazards from population centres.
The Irish authorities decided to play with fire when they set out to encourage industrial development by multinational chemicals companies in Ireland without looking at the long-term consequences.
Mr Bowe has said that it is essential that the public should participate and also that there should be proper training.
Most accidents occur as a result of human error.
It is extremely important that emphasis be put on public training.
Parliament should support what the Environment Committee is putting forward.
It is our duty to put citizens' interests first and not the interests of industry or chemicals companies.
People must come first!
If you look at what happened at Bhopal in India, people are still suffering. They have received no compensation.
What has happened to those people?
Mr President, Parliament may remember that I tried to get an exemption for whisky bonds - almost all of which are in fields away from residences, though there are some older, smaller ones nearer residences - but I was not successful.
I have never really been able to regard whisky as a dangerous chemical.
Perhaps I am a little prejudiced, representing as I do almost all the Scotch whisky in the world.
But I am happy to say there is an exemption for part of the procedural arrangements.
There is nothing more secure than a whisky bond for the reason that it is guarded by the police because of the tax value of the whisky in the bond.
It is a bit like going to Fort Knox to go to visit a whisky bond.
So I am happy that there has been at least part exemption.
Mr President, the Council adopted its common position unanimously, and incorporated a considerable number of amendments from the first reading.
This is extremely good news.
It was noticeable that the Commission initially refused to support some of the amendments which the Council accepted, but in any event the common position now before us is a considerable improvement on what we had before.
The remaining points need not, in my view, present any insuperable problems for the Commission or the Council.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the way he has handled this whole issue.
His amendments have always taken a very clear direction, focusing firmly on safety and openness, and it seems likely that the new Seveso Directive will be a clear and easily implemented piece of legislation.
The protection of workers and the public in general is important enough to warrant legislation of the very highest quality.
I know that industrial safety is primarily the responsibility of the firms concerned, but there is still a need for a clear legal framework.
We know that 90 % of serious accidents are the result of human error, so internal safety measures and worker training in firms are of vital importance.
At first reading, Parliament adopted an amendment on compulsory information, training and equipment for workers, and I regret that this amendment has not been incorporated into the common position.
Can the Commission explain why it did not include this amendment?
Many chemical firms already regard training, refresher courses and fire drills as important, but there are still far too many others which do not, and these are the ones that need to be put under a legal obligation.
Loss of concentration, the gradual decline into lazy habits and becoming inured to dangerous situations are risks that workers face every day.
One final point: there have been complaints that extending the scope of the obligations in the directive will impose too great a burden on industry, out of all proportion to the gains in safety.
I should like to hear what the Commission thinks about this.
Do we know how great this extra burden will be?
Mr President, the major accidents which have occurred in recent years have demonstrated the threat posed to human society by certain essential but dangerous industrial plants if stringent operational safety measures and accident contingency plans are not in place.
To allow any recurrence of accidents like those at Chernobyl and Seveso would be unthinkable.
This directive has as its specific objective the control of major accident hazards involving dangerous substances produced and used at industrial installations.
It will replace Directive 82/501, also known as the Seveso directive.
That directive was adopted in 1982 following a series of accidents involving dangerous substances and was amended following two major accidents, namely the one at Bhopal and the one at Basle which polluted the Rhine.
Fourteen years on from the introduction of the directive, the wealth of experience acquired in the interim had to be incorporated into the legislation.
This present directive draws on that more recently acquired knowledge and experience to provide a more effective future approach to major accidents involving dangerous substances.
Speaking now, in this place also, I should like to stress the importance of the register of all accidents involving dangerous substances and the exchange of information at the European level.
That is a vital element of this new directive, because the exchange of information, the general provision of information and the periodic review of the safety reports will facilitate an ongoing process of adjustment.
Also important is our amendment defining the 'almost major accident' concept: that is to say, a major accident avoided owing to an intervention, whether or not planned in advance, or owing to a chance coincidence, the result of which was that the major accident did not occur.
In our view, the registering of almost major accidents will provide important information which can further the cause of safety, for the simple reason that almost major accidents are more numerous than those which actually occur.
In concluding, Mr President, I should like to commend the important work done by Mr Bowe and to urge the Commission to accept the amendments of the Committee on the Environment and Public Health, including those which introduce the concept of a near major accident, which were approved unanimously.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the Environment Committee and in particular its rapporteur, Mr Bowe, for the effort and attention which they have devoted to this proposal.
This is a directive which has a serious background and is of great importance for the public and the environment, as the majority of speakers have emphasized.
So there is no doubt that we are dealing here with a valuable proposal which gives the EU's citizens a guarantee that their safety is being ensured as far as possible.
The proposed changes we are considering today are the result of a radical overhaul of the directive, as Mrs Schleicher also pointed out, and are based on the experience gained from the existing directive.
The changes build on the principles which are already contained in the directive, but a number of important key areas have been extended and strengthened.
These are concerned with land-use planning, safety monitoring systems, to a large extent freedom of access to information and public participation, and improving continuity in the implementation of the directive.
I also have the impression after the debate today that, as regards the Seveso Directive and this amendment to it, Parliament and the Commission essentially agree on the political commitments which the directive represents, namely to increase the safety of the public and the environment where they are exposed to the risks associated with dangerous substances.
We have the same goals in this respect.
I shall now discuss the amendments which have been tabled and indicate the Commission's position on each of them.
Many of the amendments improve the quality and clarity of the proposal, and the Commission can accept the following either wholly or in principle: Nos 1, 4, 5, 10. 11, 13, 25, 27 33, 37, 39, 40, 42, 44 and 45.
Amendments Nos 2, 29, 30 and 32 can also be accepted in part.
However, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 31, 34, 35, 36, 38, 41 and 43.
It has been pointed out that six of the amendments tabled express concern at the number of exemptions from the directive.
I feel that these are entirely relevant concerns, and the Commission is trying as far as possible to meet them.
The Commission is thus giving priority to activities which are in progress in this area.
We have already begun a detailed study of pipelines, with regard to Amendment No 2, and of temporary storage in connection with transport operations, with regard to Amendment No 17, and we shall if necessary bring forward specific proposals for these areas, as was also indicated in the debate at first reading.
Amendment No 15 concerns the exclusion of military establishments, and both the rapporteur and several other speakers referred to this question.
I can appreciate Parliament's concern, but this matter does not fall within the area of competence of the Community.
Amendments Nos 3 and 18 are aimed at bringing land-fills, i.e. waste disposal sites, within the scope of the directive.
The Commission entirely agrees that there is a need for Community legislation on land-fills, and we are therefore in the process of drawing up a new proposal on waste disposal sites.
It was also pointed out that seven amendments deal with the need to include so-called 'near misses' in the directive.
These are already covered by Annex VI of the common position, but a number of these amendments have been accepted because they further improve the protection in this important area.
As regards Amendments Nos 1 and 42, and in the light of the discussions which have taken place with the Environment Committee on the importance of effective cooperation with third countries outside the EU in terms of information exchange and warning systems, the Commission can accept these amendments in principle.
It is recognized in this context that the UNECE convention on transboundary pollution is particularly relevant, and the Commission will try to put forward a more detailed text in the proposal after second reading, in order to reflect Parliament's concerns appropriately.
Mrs Schleicher asked me a question concerning the annex to the directive on harmonized criteria, and here I would like to stress that, in the Commission's view, it is necessary to set up special groups of experts to compile suitable particulars for harmonized criteria.
The most appropriate and effective way of establishing such criteria is through the committee procedure laid down in the existing directive.
This approach has already proved its worth in the production of guidelines in various sectors, including accident analysis, safety reports and safety management systems.
In conclusion, I would say that the amendments which have been accepted will further improve this proposal.
And I am sure that all of us can look forward to this proposal increasing the protection we provide for both people and the environment against the dangers of major accidents which could have disastrous consequences.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Water, energy, transport and telecommunications markets
The next item is the report (A4-0022/96) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 93/38/EEC coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors (COM(95)0107 - C4-0162/95-95/0080 (COD))
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the second time, Parliament is debating the Commission proposal amending the sectoral directive.
The starting point for this proposal was the first GATT Agreement on Government Procurement, which the European Union signed at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round.
The aim of that agreement is the increased liberalization and expansion of world trade.
The new agreement goes much further than the previous procurement agreement and encompasses contracts which, according to the Commission, will be worth some ECU 350 billion a year.
Parliament very much welcomes this agreement.
However, the Commission itself stresses in its proposal that amendments to Community law are not necessarily essential for the implementation of the agreement by the European Union.
An extensive debate has developed between, on the one hand, the European Parliament and, on the other, the industries concerned and the Commission, on the question of the extent to which the existing EU sectoral directive will have to be amended as a consequence of the new WTO agreement. Today, at the end of that debate, Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is submitting to the House an almost unanimous recommendation to reject the Commission proposal at first reading.
For over a year now, in a series of discussions with the Commission - but also following a hearing of the business associations concerned - Parliament has been striving to achieve a reasonable compromise.
I am personally grateful to Commissioner Monti for repeatedly stressing the Commission's readiness - as regards any differences of opinion between Parliament and the Commission - to study Parliament's arguments concerning the content of the proposal.
We only wish to see new legislation in the problem areas - such as threshold values, which must be adjusted - in which this is urgently necessary.
We do not wish to see a comprehensive modification of the procurement directive which goes beyond the WTO agreement, especially as regards those sectors which are not covered by that international agreement, such as telecommunications.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy reached an agreement with Mr Monti that the Commission would endeavour to withdraw its proposal and submit a new proposal to the Council and Parliament.
We are convinced that this is the only way to ensure that Parliament's proposals are adequately taken into account in the subsequent discussions.
Mr Monti declared his willingness to support Parliament's position in this respect, as well as on the essential issues of content.
For procedural reasons, however, he was unable to secure a majority for this position in the Commission.
We are therefore more or less obliged to reject this draft directive today, so that in the autumn, following the conclusion of this stage of the procedure, the Commission can submit a new, modified proposal to which Parliament has largely agreed in advance.
The discussions in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy pursuant to Rule 59 did not bring any new findings to light. Consequently, the committee is resubmitting today the report that has been on the table since 24 January 1996, when it was adopted by 47 votes to 1.
There are differences of opinion - and a need for discussion - particularly with regard to the so-called 'technical dialogue' in the case of complex and technically demanding procurement plans.
Parliament is opposed to the idea of undertakings which are involved in the preliminary stages of an invitation to tender - helping to draw up complex technical specifications - subsequently being prohibited from bidding for the specific contract.
In our view, this will result in a significant restriction of technological progress, thereby leading to considerable competitive disadvantages for European industry, to which the directive applies.
We take the view that the procedure adopted hitherto in this respect has proved its worth.
Transposition of the GPA is of far-reaching importance for the competitive position of European industry.
This is particularly true of the high-tech areas of the sectoral directive, where in order to secure its future as a strong global player, the European Community must remain competitive when markets are opened up.
Administrative considerations such as the appropriate form of transposition, or other more or less formal legalistic arguments, should therefore not be a decisive factor in the transposition of the GPA into European legislation.
In our opinion, what is important is to maintain strict reciprocity, as called for by Parliament a few months ago in its resolution on the G7 conference.
To ensure the appropriate transparency, the GPA should therefore be transposed through a supplementary directive which will contain the exceptions and special arrangements and will refer to the existing EU directives on public tendering.
We are trusting in the good sense of the Commission as a collegiate body, as well as in the promises that Mr Monti has given us.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank Commissioner Monti for his constant readiness for dialogue, and thank my colleagues in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy for an excellent joint discussion of this draft directive.
I hope that we shall be able to conclude the discussions and bring about the appropriate transposition of the GPA before too long.
I would like to thank my colleague Dr Langen for all the hard work that he has put in on this issue and I think I can say on behalf of the Socialist Group that there has been a genuine bipartisan approach to this subject.
The effects of implementing the proposals contained in this Commission document will be immense.
Every company which deals with contracting entities in any of the utilities sectors will have to adjust its working practices to conform with the rules that we impose upon them.
Before we do that, we have a duty to ensure that those rules are necessary, will work to enhance European business's rights and opportunities, and will serve their part in the opening up of global markets in our fight to improve employment and to create a level playing field.
Even though this is an internal directive, it cannot be taken in isolation, just as the EU cannot be taken in isolation.
The fact that these proposals are being introduced to eliminate disadvantages created by the implementation of the GPA demonstrates how we are all intertwined.
So to evaluate these proposals as a whole, we should look at what we are competing against, to see what practice, or what common practice there is in the market-place.
When we look at our major rivals - firstly Japan - the Japanese are making no attempt to draw up similar legislation to that put forward by the Commission.
The United States - not only have the United States failed to introduce internal legislation to bring their home market in line with the GPA they have not even introduced the GPA itself, and what is more they do not have any intention of so doing before the election of this year, if at all.
Secondly with regard to the United States: not only have they failed to introduce internal legislation to bring their market into line with the GPA, they have failed to eliminate the 'Buy American' Act. More than two years ago they promised to do this, yet there has been no action.
They have had rulings in their courts that no foreign legislation can take precedent over domestic legislation, which legitimizes their protectionist trade regime.
Now with the Helms-Burton Bill, we even have the American Government taking non-American companies to court over trading with Cuba.
We do not condone this; we call on the Commission to actively pursue these matters and insist on the full implementation of all agreements signed at international level.
We want internal legislation to eliminate disadvantages, albeit minor ones of threshold levels created by the GPA, and to set up controls to safeguard EU citizens and businesses against corruption in the awarding of government contracts.
This is very important because taxpayers' money is involved here.
We also need to ensure that, whatever measures are put in place, our businesses will be left as competitive as possible, both domestically and in terms of overseas competition.
The problem is that at the moment we simply do not know what the right practices are.
Representatives of all sectors of industry have indicated, at a public hearing, that they see huge problems with the Commission proposals.
Unlike the Commission they did not consider these proposals as benefits but burdens, they were unanimous in their opposition.
We have asked the Commission on more than one occasion to supply information on the practical effects of their proposals, they have not so done.
I ask the Commission again, let us have studied consideration of the effects of each of the measures you wish to implement.
Let us have costings.
Let us have justifications.
Let us consult on this.
The Union pays out a fortune on studies every year.
If ever there was a clear case for a study there is a case for one on public procurement.
We have heard much from the Commission on the distortions in the internal market caused by bringing some sectors into the scope of the directive and leaving others out.
That is one question.
Another is that by changing the status of sectors, do we not distort the existing market?
The Commission has also proposed to bring the private sector within the scope of Directive 93/38/EEC: effectively in line with the GPA even though the private sector is excluded from the GPA.
Does the Commission expect companies to run two systems, one for internal transactions and one for external, thereby increasing costs?
We have been told the Commission has a legal obligation to press ahead with this legislation.
We do not know whether this is true.
There is no proof that this has been put before the committee despite repeated requests on our behalf.
We in the Parliament need to be cautious.
We are dealing with matters which may be simple on paper yet have important implications for jobs.
What we need is time.
We have time to get this directive right because it does not have to be implemented until 1998.
I would ask the Commission to listen to the concerns of Parliament and industry and let us have a new directive, then we can report on it, give our response and pass it through Parliament quickly.
The Commission knows what we want and we can act fairly and effectively and as quickly as possible when we get that proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our group will be following the advice of Mr Langen, rapporteur for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Indeed, the Union for Europe Group cannot accept the manner in which the Commission has interpreted the content of the GATT agreements.
What is fundamentally at issue here?
The negotiations on the extension of the GATT government procurement regulations of 1980 led to the conclusion, in December 1993, of the second GATT Agreement on Government Procurement, which forms part of the new WTO accord.
The transposition of the GPA is vitally important to the competitiveness of the European economy.
This observation applies in particular to the high-tech areas of the directive on specific sectors.
In this context, the European Community has a duty - especially when it opens up its markets - to secure its economic future by maintaining its status as a strong and competitive global player.
What is essential, in my view, is to maintain strict reciprocity, as already called for by Parliament - with regard to economic relations with third countries - in its resolution on the G7 conference, and hence to bring out clearly all the special practical features of tenders from GPA third countries.
Since, with the system for which it provides, the proposal under discussion exceeds the scope of the GPA, it must be resolutely rejected.
The Commission is proposing to amend Directive 93/38/EEC in such a way that all the proposed modifications, with the exception of the new statistical requirements, would apply to research and development services, public undertakings, and private undertakings operating on the basis of a special or exclusive right - such as a concession - in all the sectors covered by the directive, including the four referred to, which are not covered by the GPA: gas and heat distribution; extraction of oil and gas; transport by railway other than urban railway; and telecommunications.
The proposed transposition of the GPA by amending the existing directive does not, in practice, make it sufficiently clear which areas are excluded from the GPA or what special features apply to contracts which have to be published and awarded in accordance with the provisions of the GPA.
This was the conclusion of the public hearing of European companies and businesses held by Parliament on 31 October 1995.
Consequently, if we wish to ensure an adequate degree of transparency, the GPA must be transposed by means of a supplementary directive which will both contain the exceptions and special arrangements and refer to the existing EU directives on public tendering.
In other words, it should be made clear that implementation of the draft directive being proposed by the Commission would amount to granting foreign suppliers - and, above all, US suppliers - total access to the European market, whilst European suppliers would only be able to operate in the US public market. However, the public market in the United States accounts for only a fraction of the market as a whole.
Mr Langen therefore has our support with regard to this matter.
Mr Monti will have to go back to the drawing-board.
Mr President, it is good that the Commission should be taking a constructive, serious view of the European Parliament's wish to examine more closely what the implementation of the WTO agreement will mean in practice.
In general, however, the problem is that when market forces are given free rein and when the economy is deregulated the consequences are not necessarily clear at the time when decisions are taken.
It is certainly the case that the WTO agreement has already been ratified and that it is in force, so that, from that point of view, there are no grounds whatever for cherishing hopes of protectionism as practised in the past.
There is, however, every reason to adopt a cautious approach.
The Green Group as well fully supports Mr Langen's conclusion that the Commission should submit a fresh proposal to Parliament.
It would be appropriate for Commissioner Monti to explain briefly, for example during this debate, on what basis the Commission intends to draw up a fresh proposal.
In that respect, the issues which concern us at least most of all are, firstly, which sectors will ultimately fall outside the scope of this agreement and, secondly, what problems will be caused by the fact that two systems are in force at the same time: the one we are discussing now and the directive by means of which equivalent rules have already been implemented within the European Union.
Moreover, extremely large sums of money are involved: in the context of this agreement, some ECU 350 bn. will change hands around the world each year which will certainly create opportunities for the European Union, but the strict application of the principle of reciprocity is called for, and for that reason, I endorse the previous speaker's call for a little more time and a little greater clarity.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my main observation to the House regarding the Langen report concerns the clarification of the legal scope of the Commission's proposal.
We are dealing here with two different legal orders: the international agreement on the one hand and the Community directives on the same subject on the other.
In the natural way of things the international agreement regulates relations between the Member States of the European Union and third countries.
The Community directives cover the rules applicable in the Member States.
These directives cannot change the international order; nor can they confer on suppliers and contractors from outside the European Union rights which operate to the disadvantage of suppliers and contractors in the Member States.
What the Commission has tried to do - and it has done it well - is to adapt the internal law of the Union to the international agreements while ensuring, specifically, that suppliers and contractors in the Member States have at least the same rights as those conferred on suppliers and contractors from third countries by the international treaties.
The argument that the legal order worsens the situation for European businesses is mistaken and groundless, and the argument expressed against the Commission's proposals by suppliers and contractors should not surprise us.
What else should we expect them to say?
Mr President, it is well-known that there are many other special problems in the public works and procurement sector.
Corruption is very deeply rooted. We need only think of the 'tangentopoli' scandal in Italy and of the front page story in the Financial Times a fortnight ago about the arrest in Germany of 15 senior civil servants for allegedly colluding with contractors to defraud the German taxpayer in connection with the construction of the second terminal at Frankfurt airport.
These things are happening all over Europe. In Belgium a general committed suicide some time ago in connection with a similar circumstance.
The Commission's desire to tighten up the system is laudable.
Its proposal will not, of course, be approved on this occasion, given that the two main groups in the House are recommending rejection, but it should at least be told that many of us consider this an excellent proposal that we can support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Langen, and recalling the context in which we are operating.
The Government Procurement Agreement, the GPA, forms an integral part of the Community's legal order, following the Council's decision of 22 December 1994 approving the agreements reached in the Uruguay Round negotiations.
Consequently, the GPA entered into force in the Community on 1 January 1996, as provided for in its Article XXIV.
Its implementation in the Community does not in itself require any transposition.
The Commission has nevertheless proposed a series of amendments to this directive with a view to avoiding any discrimination against Community firms, granting them the same advantages as those enjoyed by third-country businesses under the GPA, and ensuring that the two legal orders are consistent, thereby simplifying implementation in practice.
It should be made clear that these amendments do not represent a unilateral openingup of Community contracts to third-country businesses.
The GPA governs the relations between the Community and third countries, so the rights of third-country businesses to participate in Community contracts are laid down and circumscribed by the GPA itself.
The Community directives, on the other hand, whether amended or not, govern only intra-Community relations, in other words those between contracting entities and Community firms; they do not, therefore, grant any rights to third-country businesses.
The purpose of the Commission's proposal is to guarantee Community businesses equal treatment to that given to businesses from third countries.
Apart from some minor amendments which are purely technical in nature, the Commission has confined itself to proposing amendments to the directive only where this is strictly necessary in order to avoid discrimination against Community firms.
In the present situation, even when Community businesses take part in the same calls for tender as third-country firms, they do not enjoy the same rights and advantages as businesses from third countries which have been signatories to the GPA since 1 January 1996.
Community firms whose tenders are rejected have no right to be told the reason why, nor to receive information about the relevant features or advantages of the tender which is selected; they do not have the right of access at all times to qualification systems; they are not entitled to equal treatment in terms of the technical dialogue; they do not enjoy the advantages in connection with ways of submitting tenders; they do not have the benefit of the additional information which must be contained in the periodic indicative announcements; and they do not have the advantages relating to the terms that apply to the restricted or negotiated procedures.
It may be, for the reasons mentioned by Mr Katiforis, that not all of these points emerged at the hearings.
As things stand, Community businesses do not enjoy these rights and advantages; the negative consequences for them are obvious and serious.
With this in mind, I regret that our efforts to find a compromise with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs have not resulted in a report enabling us today to discuss the proposal's merits and any specific amendments to it.
Clearly, however, the directive does need to be amended as soon as possible, so as to restore without delay a level playing field for third-country businesses and Community firms.
These are the main reasons why the Commission is convinced of the need to amend the directive.
Other concerns have emerged in the course of discussion.
As I have already said, and as Mr Langen has been kind enough to acknowledge, the Commission intends to take account of these concerns, and to this end I have made known the details of our proposed amendments to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I can therefore confirm that the Commission intends to present an amended proposal based on the suggestions made in the committee.
In particular, it is a matter of clarifying further still that it is not by virtue of this proposal that thirdcountry firms will have access to public procurement in the Community; of rewriting the text of the provision on the technical dialogue to make it more flexible; and of re-examining some of the amendments in order to restrict them as far as possible to the scope of the GPA.
In conclusion, I can summarize my position by saying that I intend to present an amended proposal for a directive, taking account of the concerns expressed in the course of the debate in committee.
I hope that in this way, we shall soon be on the same wavelength as Parliament and thus achieve what I believe we all wish for: the restoration of a level playing field for third-country firms and European businesses, in a context of adequate legal certainty.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Wine products
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0210/96) on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1601/91 laying down general rules on the definition, description and presentation of aromatized wines, wine-based aromatized drinks and cocktails aromatized with wine products (C4-0288/96-95/0287(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr P. Martin).
Mr President, for once, we are able to approve wholeheartedly the Council's common position, since it incorporates the amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading. We pay tribute to the Council for this very wise decision.
Indeed, the Council has understood our concern to expand on the notion of traditional product - something which, in this and other areas, is of crucial importance to ensuring consumer confidence in our excellent quality products.
With regard to wine, aromatized or otherwise, we hope that, with a view to good health, increasing numbers of consumers in all the Member States will consume wine products, which - as we know - have many physiological and organoleptic properties when drunk in moderation. These properties can be summarized as follows: wine is a food; it is a tonic; it calms your nerves; it is a digestive; it is a diuretic; it makes good mineral deficiencies; it is a bactericide and anti-allergic.
It is therefore important to take this opportunity to say that the consumption of wine must be encouraged in all the Member States.
I particularly welcome the fact that the Council accepted our views concerning the definition of 'Glühwein' , which must not be watered down when it is sold ready-made in bottles with the spices, sugar, and so on, already added.
I have to say that I was surprised to learn that 'Glühwein' is on offer to the consumer ready-made in this way, with all these ingredients already added, so that all that you have to do is heat it up. Hitherto, I had only ever heard about or consumed freshly made 'Glühwein' , prepared in accordance with our grandmothers' traditional recipes.
Things being what they are, it is clearly important to include a definition of 'Glühwein' in this Community regulation, in order to prevent its manufacturers from selling water instead of wine to the consumer.
I should therefore like to pay tribute to our rapporteur, Mr Martin, for securing such a successful outcome for this draft regulation.
Since the Commissioner is honouring us with his presence, however, I cannot resist taking this opportunity to express my regret at the fact that the Council has not yet established its common position on the reform of the common organization of the wine-growing market, which Parliament dealt with at first reading fourteen months ago.
I hope that the Irish presidency will finally succeed in presenting us with a common position, something which the French, Spanish and Italians - the biggest wine producers in the Community - proved incapable of doing when they held the presidency.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by very sincerely congratulating our colleague, Mr Philippe Armand-Martin, on the magnificent work he has done on this report and that he has already done on other reports, whenever we have debates here on wine.
In our Committee on Agriculture it is always Mr Philippe Martin who deals with this subject and that is because he is the leading authority on the matter.
Once again he has demonstrated that authority which is why his recommendations and proposals, already approved by us in the Committee on Agriculture, were approved in full by the Council.
That is why it is not difficult for us to support this joint position given that it is full of common sense and good reason.
I think that wine-based cocktails and drinks aromatized with wine products are now being recognised as traditional in certain markets and for certain consumers.
I think that for this reason this debate is positive since we are speaking about products which guarantee the use of wine and enhance it through a number of derived products.
This is very important as long as the rules of the game are clear in terms of quality and discipline.
I should like to conclude by echoing what Mrs Lulling said.
I should like to remind the Commission that three years ago exactly, the Commission - the Commissioner was not in his post at that time but his job was held by his predecessor, Mr René Steichen - presented a working or study document on common organisation of the market in wine.
Two years ago there was a respective proposal by the Commission.
In the meantime the European Parliament, 18 months ago, approved a compromise proposal, a very interesting opinion, but the whole matter has been forgotten.
I would like to ask the Commissioner: in which draw is the wine COM? I think it would be good for us to discuss this.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, whether it is a matter of the wine-growing sector in particular or agriculture in general, I am committed to defending rural traditions, whilst avoiding the trap of social or economic regression.
As Mrs Lulling indicated a few moments ago, we must welcome the fact that the amendments included in Mr Martin's report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development have been incorporated into the common position.
With regard to aromatized wines - for example 'Glühwein' , for which the possibility of adding water has been eliminated - our principal demands have been met, notably as regards the requirement of a minimum wine content of 75 %, the use of grape musts, and the need for a clearer classification and definition of products.
I am thinking in particular of 'Fernet Branca' .
On behalf of my group, I would urge all colleagues to approve this common position, which reflects a consensus in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and which forms part of the efforts to strengthen our European agricultural identity.
Mr President, I also wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Martin, for his report.
Nevertheless, at second reading of this proposal, I should like to make one or two critical comments.
We are discussing aromatized wines, wine-based drinks and wine-product cocktails.
All these terms include the word 'wine' .
In accordance with all current foodstuffs legislation in Europe, wine is a drink that is produced from the fermentation of fresh grapes.
We must bear in mind that, in using the word wine to describe a composite drink with a minimum wine content of only 75 % - aromatized wine, that is - we are to a certain extent undermining the significance of this natural process, which has been employed by man for over 5500 years.
I believe that we must respond to this situation with clear rules governing descriptions.
When consumers purchase and consume this product, they must be able to recognize clearly that it is a composite drink.
They must be able to trust in the fact that they are not being offered a counterfeit.
I agree with the opinion of previous speakers that we must adopt a common organization of the European wine market and find a joint solution as soon as possible.
I believe that this will make an important contribution to ensuring the confidence of European wine producers and consumers, who have a right to be offered quality products.
Mr President, Sweden is not a wine-producing country but we in Sweden are consumers of the wines and other drinks concerned in this report.
The report deals with definitions, descriptions and presentations of aromatised wines.
The main theme of the report is that traditional methods and traditional products, as defined in the respective Member States, should be respected.
My contribution to the debate concerns precisely this respect for individual Member States' patterns of production and consumption and for their traditional policies on alcohol, for the two are connected.
They are not the same in northern Europe as in southern Europe.
If we in Sweden and the other Nordic countries respect the traditional methods of production and definition of the wine belt our social policies on alcohol and our stricter rules on the production, import, consumption and sale of alcoholic drinks should also be accorded respect.
I do not believe that it is outside the remit of the report that we should demand respect for our stricter import regulations which limit the amounts which may be imported and for the stricter conditions we impose on the sale of wine, wine-based drinks and other alcohol and the system of selling alcohol only in special establishments - state off-licences - which we have in Sweden.
I also consider it natural to respect the production of agricultural products and drinks in other Member States, on condition that other countries also respect the production, consumption and health policy requirements we have in Sweden, including for example the special provisions on the import of wines and spirits which we have today.
We hope that these rules will continue to apply in the future.
Mr President, this is more than anything a small reminder to the Commission and the Council and I hope that they will take note of the different rules on production and health policy patterns which exist in Europe and in the Member States of the EU and thus be able to see this report as providing support, as a matter of principle, for traditional decisions on rules for the production and consumption of alcohol which will also apply in respect of a country like Sweden.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we discussed the proposal now before the House at first reading, I was able - as you will remember - to accept all the amendments that were tabled.
You will no doubt be aware that they have all been incorporated into the common position established by the Council on 29 April 1996.
I am pleased to be able to say that we are also in agreement at second reading.
The common position contains only a few new features and makes only a small number of changes, principally of wording.
Parliament was informed of the Commission's approval of the common position on 23 May 1996.
I welcome the fact that the unchanged recommendation of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and its rapporteur, Mr Martin, is now before us for second reading.
This should enable the Council to adopt the proposal without delay.
In conclusion, I wish to thank Mr Martin and the Committee on Agriculture for their work, which has made it possible to achieve a rapid solution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Groundhandling at airports
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0229/96) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on access to the groundhandling market at Community airports (C4-0220/96-94/0325(SYN)) (rapporteur: Mr Seal).
Mr President, as the rapporteur said, this issue of groundhandling has been a long-running saga and, in fact, was initiated by the airlines themselves.
When the committee of experts reported back it could only provide a majority report. There was not unanimity in their particular report.
I appreciate the difficulty for the Commissioner because this is something that he inherited rather than instigated but I would have to support the rapporteur's view that there is something gravely wrong with the position which has been agreed at the Council of Ministers.
The PES does not object to competition at airports in the area of groundhandling nor does it oppose liberalization just for the sake of it.
But we believe that where there is liberalization there are certain matters that have to be taken into account.
In this particular area of groundhandling, airports in peripheral areas, airports with seasonal traffic, and the social consequences to jobs and the conditions of services and safety, have to be paramount when deciding any legislation.
Parliament recognized these problems at the first reading and amended the proposal accordingly, particularly in the area of social protection.
However, the Council chose to ignore Parliament's view and agreed a common position that is unacceptable and something of a dog's breakfast.
It is very difficult to find anybody who actually agrees or likes this particular common position with the exception of the group opposite.
Member States, whose common position it is, even had the nerve to approach Members to see if they could slip in amendments to make it better.
So what have we got with this common position?
We have something that the airports do not like; we have something, as the rapporteur has mentioned, that airlines do not like - and remember they are the ones that initiated the whole procedure; we have something that refuellers and groundhandlers do not like; we have something that trade unions do not like; and we even have something that some Member States do not like.
So one has to pose the question in those circumstances: if there are so many people who do not like this particular groundhandling common position, why should we as a party vote for it. It appears to my group that only one course of action is open and that is rejection.
I remember as a teacher, if a child produced work that was totally wrong, inappropriate or not on the task, then you would try and help them, but you would write at the bottom 'Start again and try and answer the question' .
These are words, I believe, that should be placed at the bottom of the Council's common position.
My group supports the recommendation for rejection that has been put forward by the Committee on Transport and Tourism through its rapporteur.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I think you need to have a word with your British Labour colleagues on this occasion.
I should simply like to say that, as the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy unanimously sought to ensure, the Council's common position proposes a cautious - in some areas even limited - opening-up of access to the groundhandling market at Community airports: in the case of self-handling, from 1998; and in the case of third-party handling, from 1999, with transitional arrangements until 2002.
Mr Simpson, Mr Seal, I cannot understand you at all!
Naturally, I encountered the same problems: neither the airports nor the airlines were very happy with the proposal.
They all said, however, that some kind of regulation is better than none.
I can only say, therefore, that you are being unrealistic!
Without a common directive, both airports and the airlines would be totally at the mercy, so to speak, of Mr Van Miert and his officials, since then only the possibility of individual legal actions pursuant to Articles 85 and 86 would exist.
I therefore support Commissioner Kinnock's call for the introduction of basic rules enabling airports and the airlines to adapt to the emerging legal framework and achieve security of planning - and this also applies to the workforce, Mr Simpson and Mr Seal, because employees also have to know which way the wind is blowing.
As Christian Democrats, we are in favour of the liberalization of groundhandling services.
Commissioner, perhaps you could give your Labour colleagues an individual tutorial on this matter!
I should like to indicate that, in my view, the Council's liberalization proposal represents a fair compromise between partly complementary and partly contradictory objectives.
Those objectives include: the efficient use of airport installations through the existence of competition rather than monopolies; efficient, economic management by the airport undertaking, if necessary - and here I agree with my colleague, Mr Mann, of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment - with provision for socially acceptable adaptation measures; fair market-access opportunities for new groundhandling undertakings; most importantly, the possibility of airlines being able to choose whether to perform their own handling services or have them performed by the airport undertaking - as hitherto - or third parties; and, finally, high safety standards at airports.
And I have the feeling, Mr Seal and Mr Simpson, that you forget that the objective is also to ensure the best possible service for passengers - since airports exist not for the benefit of the airlines, but for the benefit of passengers.
Sensible liberalization, therefore, is what we must strive to achieve.
Of course, there are a number of points with which we are not happy, and I hope that the Commission will take up the amendments that we adopt in tomorrow's vote.
For example, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is calling for the exemptions provided for under Article 9 to be extended to include a special derogation for cases in which the managing body of an airport can show that further extension of the airport is not possible for relevant, objective and transparent reasons.
As regards the choice of service providers, I think the major airlines should not be discriminated against: they must also have fair market-access opportunities.
It should be made clear, moreover - and here I agree with Mr Seal - that this liberalization directive must not lead to new market restrictions or interfere with existing contracts.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I believe that this is a reasonably balanced compromise, and that if nobody is entirely satisfied or dissatisfied with it, then it is a good compromise which we should approve!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow, in approving - with amendments - the Council's common position, or rejecting it, Parliament will have the choice of assuming its political responsibilities or, once again, bringing discredit upon itself.
There is a great deal at stake in this proposal for a directive on groundhandling.
We all agree that the text of the common position is far from satisfactory, since we all share the concern to ensure the highest possible standards of safety and service, whilst respecting social imperatives.
I personally tabled a number of amendments at first reading expressing these concerns and, like all my colleagues, I deplore the fact that the Council has taken up so few of the nonetheless essential amendments we adopted.
We are faced with a simple choice.
Our first option is to adopt a principled stance and register Parliament's dissatisfaction by rejecting the common position.
We must weigh up the implications of such action.
If there is not unanimity in the Council, we shall have to start the entire process all over again - something which would take months, if not years.
There would then be a legal vacuum.
As you know, ladies and gentlemen, nature abhors a vacuum.
There would therefore be countless long and complex legal disputes.
Let us also not forget that if a directive is not adopted, the Commission will be at total liberty to decide and lay down rules pursuant to Article 90(3) of the Treaty.
We must consider all the implications of this.
Our second option is to amend the common position.
In doing so, Parliament will display an attitude of constructive criticism, by defending the essential points that are inadequately taken into account in the common position.
Personally, I prefer the second option.
I shall therefore vote against rejection of the common position and in favour of the amendments which seek to ensure increased safety, improved quality of services and the maintenance of social protection.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the Commission.
It is quite clear that if no one is happy, you find a compromise so you are able to say that everyone can be happy, even though they are all unhappy.
A considerable number of amendments have been tabled, a fact which speaks for itself.
It also means that when the committee voted by a majority of one to reject the common position, it was already fighting a lost cause.
I think this is an extremely dangerous situation for the dignity and position of the House.
My group will not on any account support the rejection of the common position, nor did it do so in the committee.
Mr Donnay's group is not prepared to do so, Mr Jarzembowski's group is not prepared to do so, so the common position will simply not be rejected.
That is not to say that the compromise before us is exactly ideal, and I should like to hear whether the Commissioner is prepared, now that he has heard all the objections from both sides of the House, to examine how further improvements might be made, because I think - and the Commissioner knows - that the ministers were also not entirely happy with it.
I would therefore urge the Commission to make use of its right of initiative, and I would also urge the House not to reject the common position out of hand, because it is surely better to have something than nothing at all.
Mr President, the draft directive on groundhandling at airports, now before the House for second reading, does not take account of the principal amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading.
The aim of this directive is to deregulate the sector in order to open it up to free competition.
Thus, access to the groundhandling market will be granted to external players from whom no guarantees are required.
Certain US companies - chiefly motivated by financial considerations - are stepping up pressure in all the Community's institutions for the adoption of this directive.
In Parliament's debate on this subject in November 1995, I stressed the gravity of the likely economic and social repercussions of the directive, which have not been assessed at all by the Commission, and which concern the issues of employment, flexibility, the increase of job insecurity, the jeopardization of public services, the dismantling of staff regulations, the growth of subcontracting and the encouragement of social dumping.
Besides being unacceptable from a social point of view, these repercussions are bound to have an impact on the most crucial aspect of air transport: safety.
The Council's common position also fails to take account of the analyses and proposals put forward by trade union organizations, which have formed a united front on this issue.
What a contempt for public aspirations and the most fundamental rules of democracy!
This is the hidden side of all the talk about a social Europe!
The Committee on Transport and Tourism - and I welcome the fact, since we contributed to this outcome - has delivered an opinion in favour of the rejection of the common position.
This opinion must be endorsed in plenary, in order to send a clear message to the Council and the Commission: your proposal is unacceptable and must be fundamentally amended.
Firstly, in drawing up any new proposal, the Council and the Commission must take account of the views of the trade unions.
They must evaluate the social costs and consequences of implementation of the directive - as the Commission undertook to do before this House.
They must provide for effective measures to combat unfair competition and social dumping, as well as ensuring that we meet the objectives of public service, the improvement of safety and the safeguarding of social gains.
Consequently, Parliament will bring credit upon itself by rejecting this negative common position and encouraging the submission of a proposal which meets the common interests of users - who wish all aspects of air transport to be safe and reliable - and the workforce, who legitimately refuse to accept the deterioration of their working and living conditions, just a few years away from the twenty-first century!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Seal's report illustrates once again the interest that Parliament takes in transport issues.
This interest was confirmed by the vote at the last meeting of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
All the political groups mobilized their troops - both Members and officials - in an extraordinary case of lobbying.
At the time, we in the ARE Group advocated abstention, since we believed that rejecting the Council's common position without having voted on the amendments tabled by the various groups was a very strong measure, in political terms.
Now, the ARE Group has discussed this report and reached the following conclusions.
Firstly, we regret the fact that a whole series of amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading - especially those with the greatest social content - have not been accepted by the Council. We therefore condemn the Council's socially insensitive attitude, which is perhaps the result of its excessive liberalizing zeal in dealing with this package of measures for the air transport sector.
Secondly, we would have preferred to support the common position, had it incorporated our two amendments to Articles 4 and 5, concerning respectively the separation of accounts in the management of airports and the user committee.
Faced with this impossible situation, we have no option but to announce our rejection of the common position.
Nevertheless, we await with interest the political developments which may occur between now and voting time.
Mr President, the Council's common position is, in our opinion, far from ideal, but we do not think this is sufficient reason to reject it, as Mr Seal has recommended on behalf of the majority in the Committee on Transport.
The current situation regarding groundhandling does not meet the requirements of the single market, and does not allow airlines to obtain an adequate service at a reasonable price.
Rejecting the common position will only prolong this undesirable state of affairs.
Judges in any disputes which might arise between the airports and the airlines will have to rule on a case-by-case basis, resulting in a lack of any clear, consistent line.
The common position has a number of shortcomings, not least of which is the possibility that the airlines might be completely excluded from the groundhandling market.
But there are also various points where the Council has tried to accommodate Parliament's wishes, for example in providing protection for the rights of workers and its extremely cautious approach to liberalization, where it makes provision for a number of exceptions.
In short, this is a cautious step in the right direction.
By adopting a number of amendments, we can improve the common position further still, and only those who do not want to see the situation change could have any reason to reject it.
Mr President, the common position established by the Council on access to the groundhandling market at Community airports is likely not to be approved.
Mr Seal has rightly tried to make it clear that this common position did not appeal to anyone, in spite of the complexity of the problems, which are interesting in certain ways.
Various committees were unhappy with it: first and foremost the committee responsible, the Committee on Transport, and likewise those consulted for an opinion: the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I am in partial agreement with Mr Seal: the Commission's common position is unacceptable to the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which has worked very hard, while the Council has taken no account of the wishes of the European Parliament.
Parliament did in fact attempt to improve the proposal for a directive by submitting various amendments, almost all of which were ignored by the Council.
The Commission must pay due heed to the role of airlines in groundhandling and acknowledge the European Parliament's attention to social factors, which are of particular relevance in the case of groundhandling.
Since the common position is not unacceptable in its entirety, it requires further amendment, and certain amendments must be accepted; Parliament must therefore express its views on some of these aspects in plenary sitting.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are witnessing how, under the cover of comprehensive and sweeping liberalization which is claimed to be essential, important social and economic structures at airports with outstanding operational records are being called into question, thereby prejudicing both employees and the undertakings operating at those airports.
Moreover, there are a number of negative aspects arising in connection with the procedure.
The fact that the Council was not even prepared to discuss informally the improvements overwhelmingly called for by Parliament indicates a disrespect for this House.
This is an outcome which the European Parliament can only note powerlessly.
The majority of our proposed amendments have not been taken up, and if our proposal for rejection of the common position does not secure the necessary majority, that will no doubt also be the fate of the other amendments tabled.
In comparison with the original inadequate Commission proposal, a number of changes and improvements have been made, but important elements are missing.
Parliament's proposals for social measures, as well as those geared more towards making the measures workable, have been almost completely ignored.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists is therefore calling for the number of suppliers of one or more categories of groundhandling services in all or part of an airport to be limited, in order to safeguard the viability and profitability of airports' current investments and investment plans, if relevant, objective and transparent reasons make this necessary.
Airports must thus be able to control the technical and operational management of infrastructure.
Furthermore, we are calling for the establishment of user committees in which employees are also represented, and - as a supplement to the common position - for the job specification of aircraft handler to be expanded, thereby contributing to competence and safety.
Finally, we are calling for workers' organizations to be supported in their defence of social protection and the criteria for participation in the event of structural change.
As was made clear in the debates in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, the PSE Group totally rejects the accusation that the unions have been playing with marked cards.
We support the unions' position, since realities and current developments are proving them, as well as our own stance, right: subsidiary companies are being set up; wages and salaries are being reduced; social protection standards are falling; and part-time jobs are replacing forms of employment which have been established for decades.
These are realities which the PSE Group cannot accept.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, competition is a key element of our social market economy. Who would not be in favour of the liberalization of competition?
Who would be against curbing any domination of the market? However, the details of what is acceptable in principle must also be correct.
The conditions of competition must be fair.
Dumping in terms of prices or conditions is unacceptable.
The criteria for suppliers and their services must be quite clearly defined.
With regard to groundhandling services at Community airports, the following must be taken into account: firstly, the different physical capacities of the Community's airports, which frequently cannot be extended because of limited space or for environmental reasons; secondly, the need to ensure quality, in the interests of both passengers and airlines; and, thirdly, the capabilities of suppliers, since not all suppliers are able to guarantee that they can meet the necessary technical, industrial and operational safety requirements and high environmental standards.
The Council's common position incorporates only some of Parliament's proposals.
These include express recognition of the fact that the Member States must guarantee a high level of social protection.
Employees' rights with regard to training and occupational safety must be taken into account.
The proposal to restrict self-handling for reasons of space and capacity is also included.
However, the necessary balance in the safeguarding of the interests of users - passengers and airport employees - is absent from the common position.
Further points must also be incorporated into the common position.
Firstly, in any restructuring process, priority must be given to safeguarding existing jobs and guaranteeing the social protection of employees.
Secondly, with a view to ensuring quality - a key element of industrial productivity in Europe - a higher level of training, conforming to the ISO 9000 standard, should be aimed at.
It is in the interests of passengers that no mistakes are made in groundhandling, that precision is not the exception but the rule.
A qualified groundhandler makes an essential contribution to maintaining the highest standards of safety.
Thirdly, the concept of self-handler must be clearly defined.
If parent and subsidiary companies simply provide groundhandling services for each other, then we must seriously ask ourselves whether competition is genuinely being ensured!
Fourthly, the planned user committee must include representatives of travel organizations and airport employees, with a view to protecting workers' interests.
In order to ensure the committee's neutrality, its chairman must be independent of the airport and its users.
I call on the Commission to support these views.
If it backs us in the vote on these and other amendments tomorrow, there will no longer be any argument for rejecting the Council's common position.
Our positions have moved closer together.
Now the Commission must take the decisive step!
Mr President, in my opinion Mr Seal has done an excellent job, as regards both the approach to the subject and his proposal that the common position be rejected.
In the circumstances, if Parliament does not reject the common position and ends up humbly acquiescing in a common position that no one here is satisfied with, it will essentially be abdicating its role and making a mockery of itself to the Council.
The argument that we should accept this because it is less bad than the present situation is ludicrous.
Rather than doing that, we would all be better off sitting on the beach back in our countries, I think, bearing in mind the time of year.
I, too, offer support for rejection of the Council's common position.
This has nothing to do with being against liberalization and competition or with supporting the monopolistic and archaic situations which currently prevail at a great number of airports and everything to do with seeking to ensure, as other Members have already said, that the objectives are tied in with requirements relating to safety, service quality, the peripheral status of many of the airports and the social rights of employees.
Mr President, if the common position is adopted in this form, it will lead to serious discrimination against airlines at their home airport.
The draft directive will allow all airport managing bodies, from the outset and for an indefinite period, to provide unlimited groundhandling services without being required to undergo a selection procedure in the same way as the airlines.
From the economic point of view, there is no real justification for airport managing bodies to receive better treatment than the airlines which use the airport in question as their home base.
The airlines possess the necessary facilities and qualified staff at their home airport.
They should therefore be fully allowed to utilize these staff, as well as to make optimum use of all these facilities, so as to be able to offer a complete third-party and self-handling package at their home airport.
The destruction of current and future jobs within airlines can hardly be the Council's intention.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have before the House today a report which has been causing us a great deal of concern for several months.
I should therefore like to reiterate that our main objective is - and must continue to be - to ensure that airports remain as independent economic bodies.
At both readings, therefore, we have attempted to introduce stringent requirements for self-handlers.
This is the only way to preserve the investment power of airports and to protect groundhandling services from market dominance by home airlines.
I also believe that it is imperative for employees to be represented in the user committee.
The thinking of management and labour must undoubtedly be incorporated into such important decisions.
The harmonization of training and safety standards will be to everyone's benefit: airlines, passengers and employees.
It is very rare that a common position is rejected by the committee concerned.
However, we have been confirmed in our decision by the numerous comments of all the interested parties.
It must be clear to everyone: the Council and the Commission have failed to achieve a balanced compromise between the interests of airlines, airports and employees.
If the Commissioner is unable to assure us today that he supports our amendments, this House will have only one course of action: rejection of the common position!
The Council must finally take on board the fact that this House takes its work very seriously, and that - as is widely known - Parliament's proposals have met with the broad approval of the various interested parties.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission proposal which attempts to introduce a degree of liberalization and competition in groundhandling services in airports from 1998.
Regrettably, the common position dilutes the whole basis of the Commission proposal, seriously delaying the introduction of liberalization and competition.
I would like to place on record the position as it exists today in the United Kingdom, where liberalization and competition exist in groundhandling services at airports and where airlines are allowed to self-handle.
Why should British travellers not be allowed the same standard of service when travelling in France, Germany, Italy, Greece and Spain as is currently available in the UK? I find myself in an extremely uncomfortable position since, in spite of all the work undertaken by the Commission, the Committee on Transport and Tourism (notably our rapporteur, Mr Seal), the airlines, the airports and all interested parties, the common position fails miserably to achieve the objectives of the original Commission proposal.
I fear personally that Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty would achieve more in the way of opening up groundhandling services at European airports to competition, defeating national monopolies and ending the privileged and protected position enjoyed by many of Europe's flight carriers.
I want the best for Europe's travellers, an excellent service at a reasonable price.
Currently, travellers have poor service at a high cost.
We must give the travellers choice and introduce competition.
I want each and every one of us to stand up and be counted and to vote for competition, choice and lower prices.
Mr President, I support the proposal of the Committee on Transport for rejection of the common position and I commend Mr Seal for recommending that.
The Council's common position appears unable to resolve any of the problems created in the European airport industry by the whole air transport liberalization policy.
As it spreads to Europe's airports this policy is assuming even more dangerous proportions.
The Council has provocatively disregarded the European Parliament's amendments.
It has ignored the consequences for service quality and, most importantly, the consequences for the safety of groundhandling services.
It has ignored the social consequences and the proposals for worker representation on the user committee.
Lastly, it has ignored the special interests of airlines which account individually for more than 25 % of the traffic at an airport and also the special factors affecting island airports.
In the circumstances, I think that the only thing that the European Parliament can do is to support rejection of the common position.
Mr President, the Council proposals liberalizing airport groundhandling services could actually have very serious consequences for jobs and safety at the airport in my own constituency, Dublin, and indeed at other major airports throughout Europe, as has been mentioned by other speakers.
While I, like Miss McIntosh, welcome increased competition in principle, the proposals currently being put forward by Council are badly thought out and ill-considered.
They would mean thousands of job losses throughout Europe in aircraft refuelling, servicing, cleaning, passenger handling and baggage registration.
They would also lead to a serious deterioration in safety standards, a matter which we must all be very concerned about.
The Council's suggestions have been rejected by everybody directly involved in the industry - in particular by the airlines and the trade unions - and this must tell us something.
Aer Lingus estimates that up to 200 jobs would be put directly at risk if it is forced out of airport groundhandling services while the central representative Council of Trade Unions at Dublin Airport envisages a steep decline in safety.
I really regret the way in which the Council has refused to discuss the matter properly with Parliament.
It has refused to take up any of our suggestions to safeguard jobs and ensure safety standards are improved.
The Council has even declined to discuss the matter on an informal basis with the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I am sure that Mr Seal and his colleagues have noted this position.
I will be urging Members to vote against the Council's common position and I hope that we succeed in getting the required number of votes.
Mr President, the issue of liberalising access to the market for groundhandling services at Union airports can be compared with a number of other liberalisation proposals which have been debated by the European Parliament recently.
Each time the socialists and other Members on the left have opposed and tried to prevent developments leading to a greater role for the market economy in the areas in question.
The liberalisation of postal services is one example, groundhandling services at airports another.
Socialists, Greens and others appear to want to keep us in a society governed by old-fashioned laws and regulations, a society where free enterprise is not encouraged and where the state regulates access to various markets.
Until now I had always thought that Barry Seal's party in the UK, the Labour Party, wanted to put this image behind it and instead pursue more up-to-date and market-oriented policies.
This is clearly not the case, which is particularly regrettable.
The Commission's attempt to create greater competition at Union airports is a good and commendable one.
If more parties are active in the market competition will increase and prices will fall.
Airlines and ultimately passengers will benefit.
In the long term those companies which are exposed to competition will also benefit, as they will be compelled to develop and improve their activities.
Obviously it is true that there are also areas and sectors where it is difficult to open up the market, especially where services require a particular infrastructure, such as baggage handling and refuelling services.
It is my opinion nevertheless that, by responding positively to the Council's common position, we must demonstrate our willingness to carry out the Commission's intentions.
I believe that a gradual liberalisation in the manner proposed would be extremely positive.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to say first of all that the common position of the Council is clearly better than the Commission proposal.
The Council has improved on the Commission's positions and recommendations, and I must also point out that a number of provisions approved by the European Parliament at the first reading have been accepted by it.
However, I must ask this question: if the common position is rejected, what will the situation be afterwards? That appears to be something that Members on the other side have not thought about, perhaps because they feel that in the end the common position will not be rejected.
I say this because if the common position is rejected, no one can be sure that the Commission will want to bother with it again or that the Council will want to re-examine it.
We shall be left, that is, with a situation in which groundhandling services market will be regulated by Mr Van Miert on the basis of the general provisions on competition, and that will mean having the same regime in European air transport as that which pertained in the United States after the liberalization of air transport during the Reagan presidency.
On that basis I think that we should support the common position as it has come to us, after amending it as best we can.
Members on all sides have already tabled amendments, and I feel that if the Commission - and I address myself directly to Commissioner Kinnock at this moment - can state that it accepts them, or tell us which it can accept, it will help greatly and serve as a powerful means of putting pressure on the Council to accept the amendments that we approve.
That is what I wanted to say, and I think that we should concentrate on getting adoption for those amendments which genuinely improve the common position.
Having the Commissioner as our helper and ally will greatly assist the achievement of that.
Mr President, I see that a considerable number of amendments have been tabled by various groups, including those who are in favour of rejecting the common position.
In deciding on whether or not to vote for rejection, a good number of Members will undoubtedly be swayed by the Commission's position on these amendments.
I should therefore like to ask the Commissioner whether we can have the Commission's position on the amendments in writing before the vote.
Mr President, over the years there have been many occasions on which I have agreed with Mr Seal and I find myself in a similar position again, certainly in respect of the remarks he made right at the beginning of his contribution this afternoon.
Until last Thursday this debate was scheduled for tomorrow.
Like several Members of this House, I consequently accepted important public engagements.
The procedures of this House, however, apparently mean that important business can be changed at very short notice.
In order to be able to attend this important debate on groundhandling, therefore, I had to cancel my engagements last Friday.
I consider it important that the relevant Commissioner with a portfolio is in this House to respond on the business for which he or she is responsible.
That is why I had to cancel.
To say that I was infuriated and embarrassed by having to commit such a discourtesy to the very large number of people I had to let down is to make an understatement.
I have to say that whilst I am not in the least bit concerned about my personal inconvenience - that does not matter at all - I must urge the authorities of this House to reform procedures both for the sake of the good name of this Parliament and out of respect for the general public, some of whom, of course, wanted to be able to attend this debate and had made arrangements to be here tomorrow and found it impossible to change them in order to be here today.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal on groundhandling has, not surprisingly, as we have heard this afternoon, proved to be controversial and that - of course - is demonstrated by the recommendation of the Committee on Transport and Tourism that the common position be rejected by this House.
I regret that.
I like to be in agreement with the committee as frequently as I can and I certainly understand the reasons for the view of the committee.
Nevertheless, I cannot avoid recognizing the reality that groundhandling services at most Community airports are still often the monopoly of the airport or of the dominant airline and that condition certainly does not meet the requirements of the single market.
Nor can I ignore the fact that for some years past the Commission, the Council and, indeed, this House have emphasized the need to deal with the liberalization of groundhandling in the Community.
The main objective of this proposal, therefore, is to introduce basic rules to ensure that air carriers are provided with a genuine choice of suppliers so that they are able to obtain services that meet their needs at a reasonable price.
In an effort to ensure that liberalization takes place as smoothly as possible and takes into account the interests of all stakeholders, particularly airports and employees, the proposal is formulated in a balanced way.
As with the airline sector, we are therefore proposing arrangements which give stakeholders a reasonable period of time for transition.
We have heard this described this afternoon from some quarters as 'too reasonable' and 'too long a period of time' for transition, but we are doing this in order to avoid abrupt changes with significant social consequences.
The gradual introduction of the new market organization and the possibility of granting exemptions in exceptional cases will allow Member States sufficient time to adjust to the new situation.
Some airports will obviously be able to meet the requirements more quickly than others and some services will find change easier to implement than others.
For that reason, the common position adopted by the Council provides for full access to the market and freedom to self-handle on the land side of the airport.
On the air side, however, where services are clearly subject to greater safety, security, space and capacity constraints, it will be possible to limit the number of suppliers or of carriers that want to self-handle.
In addition, under specific circumstances, exemptions can be granted by the Member State under the supervision of the Commission.
The reason offered by Mr Seal and Mr Simpson and their colleagues for rejecting the common position refers to the dissatisfaction of the different stakeholders.
I understand their view, since change will always provoke opposition from interests seeking to defend their established position whether they are representatives of employees or in some cases airlines or, in some cases, airports or suppliers.
I must say, however, that by its very nature this proposal cannot give absolute satisfaction to any one group of stakeholders since it tries to take into account the problems of each relevant group.
Indeed, if I were the teacher referred to in a speech by Mr Simpson I would have to take account of two factors when marking the work.
First of all, the need to adhere to the competition rules of the Community and secondly, the diversity of interests involved in groundhandling.
When, as a teacher, I took account of these two intractable and unavoidable questions I would give at least 8 out of 10 for content, 9 out of 10 for effort and 10 out of 10 for originality.
The problem raised here is not a matter of conflict between airlines and airports despite the efforts in some quarters to use the vocabulary of the battlefield; the issue relates directly to applying the Treaty rules on commercial activities to monopolies or quasi-monopolistic situations, whether the holder of the monopoly is the airport itself or the dominant carrier of the airport.
It also relates to the need to ensure that our airlines, which have Europe as their main market, are not hampered by competitive disadvantages by comparison with United States or Far East competitors.
The Commission is keen to ensure that the opening of the market does not have negative consequences for employment.
That is why we sought to provide for a phased implementation that is carefully adapted to circumstances.
We bear in mind also that where groundhandling has been liberalized, the consequence has, in some respects, been an increase in employment opportunities.
At Parliament's request, the common position includes the possibility for Member States to take measures to ensure an adequate level of social protection and respect for national social legislation.
We could also accept the addition of some references to regard for, and defence of, social rights, especially in the approval clause or in the standards and technical conditions of the selection procedure.
It is, of course, difficult to introduce special rules offering derogations for reasons of social protection for the groundhandling sector alone, or to insert amendments which would constrain the opening of the market and so reduce the scope of the Directive.
In addition, the Commission is not in a position to change the scope of Directive 77/187 on the transfer of undertakings by making reference to its application in the groundhandling text.
It is clear that Directive 77/187 will certainly apply in many situations. But its application in particular circumstances depends on the way in which they fit into the general principles established by the European Court of Justice.
Against that background, I wish to respond to the amendments to the proposal that have been presented by different groups in this House.
First, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 8, 9 and 39 in part, and Amendments Nos 27, 31, 34, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43 and 45 in full, since they have been accepted at first reading and they contribute to the improvement of the text.
Second, the Commission can accept, in principle, subject to some redrafting, Nos 7, 11, 15, 17, 20, 21, 30, 33 and 36.
The Commission cannot, however, accept parts of Amendments Nos 1, 8 and 39 or any of Amendments Nos 2, 3, 12, 13, 14, 18, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 32, 35 and 44, either because they do not correspond to the scope of the Directive or because they reduce the scope too much.
We cannot accept part of Amendments Nos 9 or 39 or any of Amendments Nos 4, 5, 10, 24, 41 concerning thresholds, dates, subsidiarity and comitology.
It is very difficult to reach an agreement on these matters with the Member States in Council, and the Commission must resist reopening any of the issues since that would most certainly divert and delay progress with the legislation in a very negative way.
Finally, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 6, 16 and 19, which are considered inappropriate in this context or are contrary to normal business practice.
In answer to Mr Cornelissen's question: he can most certainly have the abbreviated explanations or reasons for acceptance and rejection of amendments and they will be at his disposal shortly after the debate.
In general terms, the common position - which was, incidentally, adopted by a Council of Transport Ministers, including eight socialist ministers - corresponds to the balanced approach we have all tried to adopt in this issue of groundhandling liberalization.
For a variety of sometimes differing reasons, the majority of airports and airlines now support it and prefer to accept the proposed text as it stands rather than find themselves in a state of continuing uncertainty.
The Directive is needed in order to complete the liberalization process in the air transport sector.
To underline that, I draw attention to the fact that the Commission has received a number of complaints over the years about the high prices and the quality of groundhandling services at many airports where these services are supplied in monopolistic conditions.
It is therefore necessary to improve the situation with a broad measure that will ensure a degree of market liberalization in all Community airports for the benefit of users and passengers, while allowing the Member States the means to guarantee sufficient levels of safety and security and, of course, respect for employees' rights.
The common position fulfils these requirements and I therefore urge the House to support it.
That concludes the debate.
I will ensure that the remarks that you made on the timing of business are drawn to the attention of the Conference of Presidents.
Mr President, I am pleased that you made your last comment.
I entirely support the criticisms by the Commissioner, and I think that what happened was extremely unfortunate, particularly for those trying to follow our debates.
I also did not hear about it until Friday, since no one took the trouble to inform the chairman of the committee responsible.
I asked the secretariat on Friday to telephone as many people as possible to warn them not to come tomorrow.
I hope you will look into this, Mr President, and let us know what you decide.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 12 noon tomorrow.
(The sitting was closed at 8.09 p.m. )
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday evening a serious plane crash occurred at Eindhoven airport, seven kilometres from where I live, in which 32 people were killed and nine were injured.
Hundreds of their relatives in Belgium and the Netherlands are now mourning their loss.
On behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the Dutch and Belgian Members of this House I would ask you, Madam President, to send our condolences to the relatives of the victims.
I shall be discussing with Commissioner Kinnock today whether the European Commission should be involved in the investigation into the cause of the crash, because it is extremely important that we should learn as much as we can from such tragedies.
I am sure the House will join you in expressing sympathy and condolences, Mr Cornelissen.
Madam President, I have a question concerning yesterday's order of business which was approved when the agenda was finally adopted.
My question is this: how can a report - in this case the report on groundhandling services - be brought forward by a day?
It is one thing to expect us, as Members of the European Parliament, to be capable of preparing a speech in an hour and a half, but what about those members of the public who are catching an early flight this morning so that they can be here when we discuss groundhandling services this afternoon, and who have made a hotel reservation for tonight so that they can be here for the vote tomorrow?
This makes a complete nonsense of the effort we have all been making to ensure that our sittings are open and members of the public can participate.
Madam President, I have to beg your indulgence for the error of my ways, since I failed to sign the attendance register yesterday.
It is my own fault, but I was hoping that you could perhaps vouch for the fact that I was present, thereby correcting my mistake.
In any event, I have to apologize, since it is my own fault.
Madam President, could you express to the British Government the outrage of Members of this House at the treatment meted out to protesters in Garvaghy Road, Portadown, last week and the fact that small sections of the community should bring commercial life in Northern Ireland to a standstill.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Decision on urgency
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture, I would ask all colleagues to vote in favour of this urgent procedure.
This measure is basically intended to rectify a situation which has been worsening progressively of late.
In my report on agricultural prices, I proposed a 10 % reduction in setaside, which seemed at the time to diverge significantly from the Commission's proposal.
Now the Commission is sensibly proposing 5 %, and that is what farmers are now expecting.
But we must vote on the Gillis report this week, because the Council meeting early next week, on 22 and 23 July, will need to ratify our decision.
I therefore strongly urge that this report should be adopted during this part-session.
Is there anyone wishing to speak against? There is not.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Free movement of persons
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0095/96 by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive (COM(95)0348 - C4-0357/95-95/0202(COD)) amending Directive 68/360/EEC on the abolition of restrictions on movement and residence within the Community for workers of Member States and their families and Directive 73/148/EEC on the abolition of restrictions on movement and residence within the Community for nationals of Member States with regard to establishment and the provision of services; -A4-0219/96 by Mr Ford, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(95)0347 - C4-0468/95-95/0201(CNS)) on the elimination of controls on persons crossing internal frontiers; -A4-0218/96 by Mr Linzer, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(95)0346 - C4-0420/95-95/0199(CNS)) on the right of third-country nationals to travel in the Community.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, before I start, I should like to make a brief point concerning speaking time. We have come to a slightly different arrangement within our group, to the effect that Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's speaking time will be split between Mr Nassauer and myself, so that I hope I shall have rather more than five minutes.
It is a fact that the history of these three proposals goes back a long way.
The old European Community Treaty already included provisions for the creation of a common internal market in Europe.
Parliament has consistently expressed the view that this concept obviously includes the right of free movement without frontier controls between the countries of the European Union, or the European Community as it was then.
For a long time, the Council failed to agree on the issue, and for many years the Commission also shied away from taking the initiative in any move towards practical legislative proposals to abolish frontier controls in Europe.
The first consequence of this was that a number of Member States took the initiative themselves and, going beyond the Schengen Agreement, created a special set of agreements in parallel, as it were, to the European Treaties, with the result that this internal market goal - the elimination of frontier controls - has now been achieved de facto in at least part of the European Union.
Several years ago, because the Commission had taken no action, Parliament initiated proceedings against it before the Court of Justice for failure to act.
Thanks to the cooperation of Commissioner Monti, the new Commission - which was also the first to be confirmed, and to require confirmation, by Parliament - has clearly changed its stance on the issue and has submitted three proposals for directives that aim to finally abolish internal frontier controls within the European Union.
I wish to make it very clear, at the outset, that we welcome these proposals from the Commission and support the action that it is taking on this issue.
I have a number of comments on the three proposals. One of them - the subject of my own report - is a proposal from the Commission to amend two existing directives which flow from Article 48 and the following articles of the Treaty, that is to say from the rights of citizens of the European Union.
The aim is to make provision within the existing legal system for workers and people who wish to exercise the freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide services, so that in future they cannot be subject to frontier controls when they wish to move within the internal market.
The other two proposals concern the elimination of controls on persons, and freedom of movement for thirdcountry nationals who are lawfully in the territory of the European Union.
This follows naturally because it is obvious that, unless they check identity documents, border officials cannot determine whether a person is a third-country national lawfully in the territory of the European Union or a citizen of the European Union.
As regards my report, it may be useful to make the following additional points on the basis of the discussions that took place in the committees which contributed to it, in particular the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
We have here a directive that is subject to the codecision procedure, a typical internal market directive over which Parliament's powers, since the Maastricht Treaty, are very far-reaching.
And this is where my report differs from the other two reports that are before us today, because the legal basis of the other two directives is Article 100, and they must be adopted unanimously by the Council, with Parliament merely being consulted.
We are therefore entitled to effective involvement in the decision on workers' freedom to travel and the exercise of their right of establishment and right to provide services.
Because we welcome and support these proposals in principle, we should expedite our discussions in Parliament and let the Council have our vote so that a decision on the issue can be reached quickly.
However, there has now been a new development: since last week, you will have been aware that the Irish presidency has made its own proposal for a draft joint action on the freedom of movement of third-country nationals in the European Union, on the basis of Article K.3.
I believe this is directly at odds with the Commission's and Parliament's approach to the issue, as regards the legal basis.
It is our view that the question of eliminating controls in the internal market is quite definitely an internal market issue, and that is why it belongs within the institutional decision-making framework of the European Union and cannot be decided solely by the Council of Ministers through a draft joint action.
What has happened now creates a new situation, because it is clearly quite bizarre that, alongside the process of opinion-forming and decision-making here in Parliament and earlier in the Commission, the Council should have started to take action on its own initiative, as it were, and obviously with a full knowledge of what is going on elsewhere.
We must consider how, as a Parliament, we are to react to this situation: whether we can, in fact, vote and decide the issue today, or whether we ought not to refer it back to the committees so that we can then get an opinion from the Council on these new moves by the Irish presidency.
I should like to make one final comment on my report. A number of amendments have been tabled with a view to having freedom of movement for third-country nationals included in my report as well.
In my view, this is not legally acceptable, because the legal basis for the Lehne report and the corresponding Commission proposal is Article 48 and subsequent articles of the Treaty, which define citizens' rights.
For that reason alone, the report cannot be extended to cover third-country nationals.
For purely legal reasons, the issue cannot be dealt with in this directive, but will have to be addressed by the other two directives.
Madam President, I should like to say that I am pleased on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs to participate in this joint debate on the Lehne report, my own report on the Council directive on the elimination of controls on persons crossing internal frontiers and on the Linzer report.
These reports arise directly from the Treaty of Rome which sets out very early a commitment to the free movement of goods, services, capital and people.
Unfortunately in the European Union, while the first three flow freely, there has been much more resistance to the free movement of people.
It is absolutely vital for the future of the Union that the people of Europe - if you want the prime group constituting the European Union - be allowed to move freely around the Union itself.
The Commission has been very tardy in bringing forward proposals in this area; in fact so tardy that this Parliament, during the last Parliamentary session under the urging of Amédée Turner, the British Conservative Chairman of the Civil Liberties Committee, actually took legal action against the Commission because of their failure to act.
The second result was that because there was a failure to act by the Commission we saw the Council set up the Schengen system, that semi-clandestine organization with no accountability, no reporting back to Parliament which means that free movement has not proceeded in the way that we would like.
Then, on the very eve of the European Court taking action against the Commission, the new Commission and the new Commissioner, Mr Monti, brought forward these proposals.
When I first saw them I had my doubts as to whether they constituted a genuine proposal because they were linked to a whole series of accompanying measures which threaten to act as a poison pill such that the proposals would never come into operation.
Unanimity is required in these areas and the current British Government has said it will not vote in favour of these proposals so that they cannot be implemented.
The current British Government can, of course, be changed and that is something that may happen in the future.
But more importantly, in terms of the accompanying measures, the external frontiers directive is linked to the British/Spanish dispute over Gibraltar.
Despite the clear legal position it is also very obvious that there is no easy solution to this problem.
When the government and opposition of both Spain and the United Kingdom are so committed to their current position it is not obvious that the external frontiers directive will come into operation early.
There are similar problems with the Dublin Convention.
The Socialist Group wants a clear, unadulterated, uncluttered set of proposals that sticks to the fundamental principles of free movement and has no accompanying measures.
The more the Commission's and Parliament's proposals vary from these clear principles the more difficulty the Socialist Group will have in supporting them.
Yes, of course we agree that there are other measures that will have to be taken in order for these proposals to operate, but they should flow from an agreement and not precede it.
We know that the Member States will very rapidly reach an agreement on security and other issues if they have to, but while they can use them as an opportunity to block the proposals we will see no progress.
I also agree with Mr Lehne on the draft joint action proposal that has come forward in the last few days.
This has clearly complicated matters and perhaps we need to take all three reports back to committee to see how the new proposal on the draft joint action programme impinges upon them.
The people of Europe have a right to expect substantial progress in this area.
The Commission has not given it to us in the clearest possible way.
We look to the Commission and the Council to proceed, and the Socialist Group - and I hope Parliament - will vote accordingly.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I have the privilege of bringing before the House today a report from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on the right of third-country nationals to travel in the Community.
The aim of the report is, at long last, to enable third-country nationals who are lawfully in a Member State, and family members of European Union citizens who do not have citizenship of a Member State, to travel more easily for short stays in the territory of other Member States.
I have already established for my report that the Commission proposal will not, in effect, mean any significant change in the situation on the ground.
Given that virtually no frontier controls are now carried out and, in fact, controls between the Schengen countries have generally been abolished, the real aim of this Commission proposal, which is based on Article 100 of the EC Treaty, is to create an appropriate legal context for a situation that already exists in practice.
My report is based on one of three Commission proposals referred to the committee, which were drawn up with a view to fulfilling the obligations imposed by Article 7a of the EC Treaty.
Article 7a deals with the establishment of the internal market by 31 December 1992.
The internal market was to comprise an area without internal frontiers, in which the free movement of goods, services and capital, as well as what we are talking about today - the free movement of persons - was to be ensured in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty.
I would remind you that this is 1996, and it is only now that the House is discussing these three Commission proposals for fulfilling the obligations to which I have referred.
Although it has taken more than three and a half years to bring practical proposals from the Commission before the House, we are grateful that we now have them.
The only reason that the proposals are now before us, however, is that as long ago as 1993, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs of the European Parliament took the initiative and gave the Commission a practical incentive to submit proposals by bringing proceedings for failure to act.
My report is primarily concerned with clarifying the situation and facilitating freedom to travel for third-country nationals who have entered a Member State with a visa and who wish, during their stay there, to make a short visit to another Member State; and also for third-country nationals who have a residence permit in one Member State and wish to visit another.
In general, the fact that the right of third-country nationals to enter and remain in a Member State, even for a short period, is regulated by the Member States' national legislation - which is neither coordinated nor harmonized - means that individual citizens face further bureaucratic obstacles.
The effectiveness of the directive therefore depends on removing the link between the exercising of the right to travel and the requirement of citizenship, and building on the principles that residence permits and visas should have equal status and that visas should be mutually recognized.
I would take this opportunity to emphasize that people will measure the political credibility of the Union by the way the internal market operates, and particularly by the way the free movement of persons is implemented.
A gap in the overall concept of the internal market will also mean a loss of confidence among the great majority of European citizens.
Sometimes, however, I cannot help feeling that some of the institutions involved in creating the internal market fail to realize the full weight of their responsibility.
The approach of the Commission and Council to completing the provisions for the free movement of persons indicates how important it is that the European Parliament should be more closely involved in the legislative process.
I can only hope that the Intergovernmental Conference will bring Parliament all that it seeks in this respect.
Who else but ourselves - the democratically elected representatives of the peoples of Europe - can bring the necessary energy to bear in looking after citizens' interests? If, as has been widely reported over the last few weeks, the Commission is making full implementation of the freedom of movement of persons in the European Union contingent on the application of accompanying agreements and measures, particularly as regards asylum and visa regulations for third-country nationals, then its behaviour indicates to me that it has not yet learned the lessons of recent years.
Clearly, the Commission cannot do without these accompanying measures if it is to have the support of the Member States, but in my view the two sets of issues should be considered separately.
By approving these proposals for directives, which are intended to give people the right to move freely from one Member State to another, we shall remind the Member States of their duty to turn their attention more actively and effectively towards instruments for implementing these measures.
Madam President, the proposals of the Commission in this area are to be welcomed.
Article 48 of the Treaty of Rome laid down a fundamental right for free movement of its citizens.
This was extended to free movement of persons and the Court of Justice has, in its case-law, extended the rights to free movement.
This is a very important plank in the achievement of a single market. Therefore, I support the proposals in the Lehne report, which simply extend existing rights.
I also want to support the Linzer report, giving rights to third country nationals to travel in the Community.
This is a very new but important right and I know from my own experience in my constituency that this will enhance academic and professional links between the European Union and other countries.
It has a humane face to it in that it will permit visits to families for weddings, funerals and illnesses.
It also enhances the cultural links in the European Union.
Many people want to come to Europe to see our cultural heritage and this I believe is an important part of our economy and also our links with the rest of the world.
There are no problems for the Member States because this does not impact on employment or on social benefits.
That is made quite clear in the text and therefore there should be no concerns for Member States.
It also provides and stresses the right of Member States to remove people who are a public security threat. The safeguards are quite adequate and the words 'or to its international relations' should be excluded.
Madam President, like other Members I welcome the Commission's three proposals to make a reality out of free movement.
I see them as a genuine and realistic attempt to achieve long-held and cherished objectives of the European Community.
I am speaking specifically on the Linzer report on the right of third country nationals to travel.
The object of this proposal is to harmonize national provisions concerning the right of third country nationals to travel and remain within the territory of the Union.
At the present time this type of journey is governed by divergent national provisions, most of which require third country nationals legally present in the territory of another Member State to obtain visas.
This is an insult to third country nationals who are living legally and subject to the proper conditions in the Member State, and some of these nationals can be second or third generation third country nationals.
For example, in my own country Pakistani and Indian citizens often prefer, for reasons of relations at home, to keep their Pakistani or Indian nationality.
They will be living in the UK all their lives, yet they have to apply for visas to travel to some Member States of the European Union.
This situation would be resolved by the Commission proposal, and they would be able to move across frontiers freely in the same conditions as other citizens of the European Union.
As Ms Oddy has said, this proposal would not involve the right to work or other rights of establishment.
It is simply a right to travel.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has two concerns.
We are worried that the Commission chose to add the words 'threat to its international relations' to the normal grounds for expulsion from a Member State.
The Treaty has a formulation - which has been tried and tested through the European Court - which allows expulsion for threats to public order or public security, but we have never seen this expression 'threat to international relations' before.
I hope the Commission will consider withdrawing that phrase as requested both by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
This would mean that third country nationals, for example, could be expelled simply because a third country complained about their presence in a European Union Member State's territory.
The Council's recent initiative complicates the matter somewhat. On the one hand, we welcome the fact that the Council is showing an interest in this.
On the other, we regret the fact that it is under Article K.3 and therefore a third pillar matter, weakening the rights of the European Parliament and the European institutions, but we believe it is worth looking seriously at the Council's initiative and we will probably support withdrawing these three reports and referring them back to committee.
Madam President, I rise to speak as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment in connection with the Ford and Linzer reports.
Our committee insisted, above all, that it should be made quite clear in the text of both reports that, whilst the Commission proposals on the abolition of controls on individuals at the European Union's internal frontiers are good schemes - the submission of which, though belated, our committee welcomes, since a happy event never comes too late - this does not mean that their provisions can be made subject to the adoption or implementation of accompanying measures relating to the external frontiers convention, or any other measures.
And our committee welcomes the fact that the relevant amendments have made it quite clear in both the Ford and Linzer reports that the provisions in question constitute a clear obligation on the part of the European Union, which cannot in any way be made subject to such conditions.
Secondly, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment wished to stress that the abolition of all controls at internal frontiers must not be an isolated measure, and that - at least as far as the free movement of workers is concerned - other obstacles which continue to exist must also be removed: the failure to complete recognition of diplomas and professional qualifications; the lack of coordination of supplementary social security schemes and special social security schemes; and the absence of Community provisions relating to the direct taxation of migrant workers.
Our committee has called on the Council and the Commission to adopt the necessary measures to eliminate these obstacles.
Finally, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment insisted that the implementation of these provisions be accompanied by an extensive information campaign.
At present, the Commission is already carrying out an information campaign on the single market.
It is essential for our citizens to know that these obstacles are being removed - and this requires more than just the publication of this information in the Official Journal.
There is a need for all citizens to be made aware of these effective measures.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would remind us all of what we have promised, and of the great expectations aroused by Europe's undertaking to introduce freedom of movement for persons by 1 January 1993; it is now July 1996, and this free movement of persons has still not come about.
This is in clear violation of Article 7a of the Maastricht Treaty, which was endorsed by the Member States; what is more, it is completely illogical in view of the cost/benefit ratio resulting from the lack of free movement for persons.
It strikes me that our obsolete internal borders are now no longer able to stop anything whatsoever - not goods, not trafficking, nor crime - except poor, honest citizens, who find that they have to show their identity cards every time at our ridiculous, obsolete border checks.
An additional element is that certain EU Member States have decided, in the form of the Schengen agreement, to go one step further than Article 7a of the Maastricht Treaty, which sanctioned this right to free movement of persons.
This proves that, in effect, when the political will exists on the part of the Member States, there is indeed free movement of persons, whatever concerns and reservations one might have.
The Schengen agreement, however, is certainly not a Community initiative, a European initiative; it is the initiative of individual Member States.
Thus I believe that all the reservations and - let us be frank - the excuses being put forward about the question of accompanying measures should be cast aside.
The package presented by the Commission goes in the right direction, but in my opinion the accompanying measures are still being used by the Member States as an excuse for their own serious lack of political will.
I believe that with every day that passes by without the free movement of persons becoming a reality, we are dealing a perhaps irreversible blow to our citizens' hopes of having a real united, federal Europe without all these visas, permits, certificates and red tape which are in practice impeding its development.
With regard to the opinion assigned to me by the Committee on Civil Liberties, concerning the abolition of restrictions on movement and residence within the Community for workers of Member States and their families, I believe that it is necessary to consider whether the proposal for a directive is comprehensive enough as regards the problem of free movement for nationals of non-member countries who are legally resident, whether they are directly or indirectly entitled; to consider the possibility of issuing a single list of residence permits on the basis of the four or five directives which already exist, duly published in the Official Journal and conferring the right of free movement of persons; to consider whether these entitled persons who are not nationals of a Member State will have the same rights as a Community national; and, finally, to consider whether to introduce an amendment to this end.
In this context, I too think that the Irish presidency's joint action programme should be scrutinized by Parliament's Committees on Civil Liberties and Legal Affairs.
Our group will not object if a proposal is made to refer this matter back to committee.
But, I repeat, Europe cannot take shape without free movement of persons.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the actual date by which freedom of movement in Europe ought to have been made a reality was 1 January 1993.
Consequently, according to the Treaty that was signed by all fifteen Member States, what we ought to be doing today is not debating the introduction of freedom of movement, but instead, for example, receiving a report on how it has functioned and deciding what action to take, and how to achieve further progress if possible.
But we are a long way from that.
I am not saying that the failure so far to achieve freedom of movement is a breach of the Treaty, but it goes against the intention to which all fifteen Member States put their signature.
The fact is that the idea was not just to create freedom of movement for services and capital: at this important time, people too should be able to experience Europe in the fullest sense.
They should be able to travel freely in Europe and to see, as citizens, what they make of this European Union that we have entered into.
That has not happened.
And I am not saying that it is the Council, as such, which has prevented it from happening - we must cultivate the habit of taking a rather more critical look at things.
There are certain Member States that are not fulfilling their obligations under the Treaty.
It is only a minority of them which are in this position, and the arguments which they employ do not stand up.
They say that freedom of movement cannot be created just like that, because the internal frontiers have played an important role in combatting crime, for example.
That is a completely anachronistic position to adopt, ladies and gentlemen.
It is an untenable position nowadays for any expert on the subject.
It is quite ridiculous to claim that crime cannot be effectively combatted without frontier controls.
If that were the case - if frontier controls were really necessary for combatting crime - we should have to reintroduce them between Bavaria and Hesse, for example.
Such a thing is unthinkable.
Nowadays, criminal activity needs to be tackled using quite different instruments - Interpol, for example, and the data bases that are to be installed there.
That is the modern way to combat crime - and, amazingly, its implementation is being delayed by precisely the same countries that are denying us freedom of movement on the scale sought by the Treaties.
One of the catchphrases is 'accompanying measures' .
It is true that the Council still has some homework to do before freedom of movement can become a reality.
It is true that frontier controls cannot simply be abolished without putting some alternative options in place.
The external frontiers must be secured.
It must be clear, in future, that by crossing an external frontier into a Member State of the European Union, a person acquires freedom of movement throughout the Union.
This means that the country which allows a person to enter across its external frontier also becomes responsible for that person's freedom of movement in the Union as a whole.
It should be noted here that we seek this freedom of movement not only for citizens of the European Union, but also for citizens of third countries who are legally resident in the Union.
There is really no other concept of freedom of movement.
We cannot have a two-tier system of freedom of movement in Europe; freedom of movement must be enjoyed by everyone who is legally in the European Union.
It seems strange in this situation that, just when the Commission is doing what Parliament asked it to do by submitting appropriate proposals - and Commissioner Monti's proposals have our unqualified support - and just when we are reaching a position on those proposals, some entirely new ideas should be published in Council circles.
I do not intend, at this point, to discuss institutional developments, but it is very clear indeed that the first thing we need to know now is what the Council is actually seeking.
That is why I am convinced that we cannot come to any conclusion until the Council supplies us with some information as regards what it is really up to with its new joint action.
We wish everyone in Europe to have freedom of movement as soon as possible, and those whose fault it is that such freedom is not yet in place must now be called to account.
Madam President, the three proposals for directives now before us are the Commission's response to the proceedings brought against it by Parliament in the European Court of Justice for its failure to act in the field of the free movement of persons within the European Union.
Realizing that these proposals touch on important issues in the fields of immigration and internal security, the Commission has written into them accompanying measures which it regards as essential for maintaining a high level of security in an area without internal frontiers.
However, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has not only rejected an amendment by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, the aim of which was to provide a list of these accompanying measures, but has also adopted amendments stating that the free movement of persons cannot be made contingent on the implementation of those measures.
One could therefore be forgiven for wondering if these amendments are simply demagogic.
The adoption of these proposals for directives requires unanimity in the Council.
And certain Member States, for a variety of reasons, are not prepared to call into question these accompanying measures, which fall under the third pillar.
Using the powers conferred on it by Article K.3(2), the Commission could have cooperated with the Member States - if Parliament had not served notice on it, as it were - to achieve the free movement of persons within a negotiating framework acceptable to all parties.
Furthermore, in its report on the draft directive on the abolition of restrictions on movement and residence within the Community for nationals of Member States with regard to establishment and the provision of services, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights proposes the deletion of Article 3(3), for the reason that it conflicts with Article 6 of the EC Treaty, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of nationality.
However, possession of an identity card may also be considered as a means of citizens' protection: it is proof of their entitlement to exercise a right.
Possession of an identity card or travel document is one of the fundamental freedoms to which people living under the yoke of dictatorship aspire.
Possession of an identity card is the best means of protection against arbitrary treatment for the Union's citizens.
Madam President, this debate concerns one of the fundamental aspects of the European Union: the free movement of persons.
As other speakers have pointed out, we should have had a completely open internal market with freedom of movement for goods, services, capital and people by the end of 1992.
But this did not happen.
We had freedom of movement for goods, services and capital, but not for people.
You can see this if you go to the United Kingdom, to mention just one example, where there are still immigration controls under the old legislation, European Union or no European Union.
So what we are talking about here is the move from a financial Union to a citizens' Union.
It is absolutely ridiculous that it has taken us until now, in 1996, to hold such a debate, when the planned measures should have been introduced by 1992 at the latest.
The previous Commission was wrong not to put any proposals forward, and the European Parliament was even forced to bring a case against it before the Court of Justice, which is the most serious step you can take under our European system of law.
Now, at last, the present Commission has finally come up with some proposals, too late, of course, but now that we have them, the Liberal Group feels that they should be examined on their merits.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party supports the proposal for a directive on the right to travel of nationals of non-member countries who are legally established in the Union.
Such people - many Turks and Moroccans, for example - currently need a visa to be able to travel within the European Union, causing them great inconvenience, and a solution to this problem is therefore most welcome.
The proposed directive on the elimination of controls on persons crossing internal frontiers is really what this debate is all about.
We know that the Commission's idea here is that the internal frontiers have to come down throughout the whole of the European Union, but that before this happens - and I am paraphrasing the Commission's argument here - we need to take a series of measures to deal with any unwelcome consequences, such as the spread of crime and illegal immigration.
Then there are accompanying measures on improving the policing of our external borders, the division of responsibilities in asylum policy, a common visa policy and data exchanges through a European information system.
The Liberal Group finds it entirely understandable that these various measures and the directives before us should be linked in this way, because people want to see border controls abolished, but they also want measures to be taken to prevent any increase in crime.
As a representative of the people, I think that the national governments are at fault here.
The Dublin Treaty on asylum policy has been in the pipeline for years and still has not come into force.
Equally deplorably, the external frontiers convention has been ready for the last five years, but has not been introduced because of differences between the United Kingdom and Spain over Gibraltar.
This is extremely regrettable.
The ELDR Group feels that the European Parliament must adopt a clear position here.
The Maastricht Treaty does not link the free movement of persons to any conditions, and there can be no question of introducing legislation to link the removal of the internal borders to measures to combat crime and illegal immigration.
But there is a political connection between the two issues, and it is up to the national governments to take the necessary measures as quickly as possible.
Today, Parliament must consider what it really wants.
Do we want to haggle over principles, refusing to consider accompanying measures, but knowing that we will then end up with a decision that gets us nowhere, or do we really want freedom of movement to be introduced? In our view, we have to be realistic.
The Commission and Parliament must join forces in sending a message to the Council of Ministers that freedom of movement needs to be introduced, and it needs to be introduced quickly.
If the Council then fails to do so, it will have to account for its actions in public.
Madam President, I should like to make a number of comments on the three proposals for directives.
The first is that Parliament's position has always been that, in order to make the free movement of persons a reality, all restrictions on travel and residence must be removed.
In the particular case of workers and their families, the Member States have an obligation to eliminate controls at internal frontiers.
However, the corresponding Commission proposal makes a right enshrined in the Treaties subject to new conditions, on the grounds that accompanying measures must be introduced in order to make possible the abolition of these controls.
This is unacceptable, to the extent that it means, in practice, postponing the elimination of controls at internal frontiers - in other words, maintaining surreptitiously precisely that which we are purporting to abolish.
Implementation of the Schengen Convention has demonstrated that it is quite possible to eliminate controls without introducing accompanying measures; and to promote such measures is to undermine the right to free movement.
We are opposed to that.
We must not acknowledge a legal link between the abolition of controls on persons and the accompanying measures.
Turning now to other matters, the single market comprises an area without internal frontiers. This implies that the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is guaranteed.
Consequently, anyone who is legally present in the Community must have the right to travel within it without any kind of restriction or discrimination.
It should be borne in mind that Articles 3 and 7a refer to the free movement of persons, not of citizens.
It therefore seems inconsistent to impose on third-country nationals who are in possession of a valid residence permit or travel document the obligation to report their presence.
Such treatment is discriminatory.
The Union must recognize the right of third-country nationals who are legally resident in the Community to travel within it under the same conditions as Community nationals.
Otherwise, there will be an inconsistency between the free movement of capital and goods and that of persons.
As a final comment, the proposals for directives make the right to free movement contingent upon preconditions which do not appear in the Treaty, although the abolition of controls is a clear and unconditional obligation on the part of the Union.
Furthermore, the possibility of suspending application of the directives cannot be left to the discretion of the individual Member States - in particular, since matters concerning the free movement of goods and capital do not fall within their sphere of competence.
Such an approach will undermine the Union's political credibility.
The free movement of persons contributes to the meeting of cultures and the development of democracy.
Whatever safeguards are needed must be implemented, not at the Community's internal frontiers, but at its external frontiers, by means of the instruments which are already available to us - and with a view to combatting drug trafficking and organized crime, not to harassing those who are legally resident in the European Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, what we were promised was open frontiers, unrestricted freedom of movement, and no more controls.
How often have we heard it said that Europe was a single territory?
But that was - and is - a lie.
No other European promise has been broken so often as the promise of a frontier-free Europe.
Now, as we consider three proposals for directives and we learn what the Council is getting up to behind the scenes, it is not the old idea of Europe that is becoming a reality, but the old lie.
The fact is - and many speakers have made the point - that the crucial Article, Article 7a, states in black and white that as from 31 December 1992, the internal market is to be an area without internal frontiers: with no ifs or buts, no restrictions, no so-called accompanying measures, no delays, and no directives that seek to qualify the process or call it into question.
It is now patently obvious that the order of priorities in Europe today is: goods first, then services, then capital.
Those are the only priorities - or if people are a priority, it is only some people, not all of them.
Is this a viable way for Europe to function? No, it is not, because the frontier-free market must apply not only to prunes and potatoes, but also to people!
Since 1 January 1993, we have been bending an article of the Treaty. That article is becoming meaningless.
Article 7a is being breached, because controls are still in operation, from London to Athens and from Stockholm to Munich.
The governments of Europe have adopted a take-it-or-leave-it attitude to the old legal principle that pacta sunt servanda .
However, that cannot be our position, nor should it be the position of the Commission.
But in the case of freedom of movement, the Commission has failed to perform its most specific task.
Instead of being the guardian of the Treaties, it runs the risk of becoming nothing more than the Council's henchman.
Moreover, if the collective might of the Council is now being brought to bear in an attempt to instil fear into Europe, if the fear of immigration outweighs the right of freedom of movement, then Europe's spell will be broken, and we shall pay dearly for that!
We are against referral back to committee, because we think it is high time that Parliament took a stand and made its position clear to the Council and Commission.
Madam President, the object of this exercise is to determine, through examining the question of the free movement of persons, whether or not the will exists to build a genuinely united Europe - to act, that is, in accordance with the Treaty on European Union, which defines the Union as an area without internal frontiers.
Following the legal episodes of which we are aware, the Commission has the credit of moving our endless task forward once again.
I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Commissioner Monti for his prudence and courage, even if this initiative does not go as far as our group would wish.
But let it be quite clear that, at present, the Member States, the national governments - or rather certain Member States and national governments which are not really in favour of European integration - would have us share their irrational fear of immigration, which is wrongly blamed for all the ills of our society.
The need to safeguard the Union's security is put forward as an argument for restricting freedom of movement.
But freedom and security go hand in hand.
Let us take care to ensure that, following the example of a certain Middle Eastern country in which the obsession with security is resulting in the peace process being brought to a halt - a country which nevertheless remains a friend - the need to safeguard the Union's security is not allowed to serve as a pretext for those who do not wish the European Union to move forward.
Lastly, I wish to express my support for Mr Ford's conclusions to the effect that, without banging its fist on the table, Parliament must be clear and unequivocal in its intention to defend the free movement of persons, and that no legal link must be established between the elimination of controls on persons and the accompanying measures, which must not become a barrier to the exercise of our most valuable asset, namely freedom.
Madam President, this debate today is surreal.
Just when the Member States are struggling to combat the problems of drug trafficking and illegal immigration, the European Parliament is dealing with a number of proposals for directives aimed at eliminating throughout the European Union all controls on persons at internal frontiers, whether those travelling are Community nationals or nationals of third countries.
The Commission tells us bluntly that, whatever the circumstances, the elimination of controls is 'an unconditional obligation which derives from Article 7a of the Treaty' , and that it must dismantle all controls at internal frontiers, ' whatever their form, and whatever their justification' .
You heard correctly: ' whatever their justification' .
We are unable to agree with this extremist approach to the abolition of border controls, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Article 7a, which provides for the creation of an area without internal frontiers, was, like the Schengen agreements, conceived at a time when the pressure of economic migration was not as great as it is today, and moreover when the Union's eastern border was formed by the Iron Curtain.
Secondly, within the Union itself, illegal trafficking - especially of drugs - has increased.
And the fixed controls at internal borders have a part to play in stopping this trafficking, as the recent seizure of 106 kilograms of heroin at Calais, with the help of a French customs scanner - an instrument which is, by definition, fixed - has just made clear.
Thirdly, the Member States must retain control of their territory, in order to be able to exercise the national rights which a number of Treaty articles - for example, Articles 36, 48 and 100a - rightly recognize them to have.
And lastly, Article 7a is not entirely unambiguous - although, contrary to what Mrs Roth just said, it was accompanied by an explanatory statement - and in any event, it must be interpreted sensibly.
No: freedom of movement is not hindered by appropriate controls at the Union's internal frontiers; on the contrary, those controls serve to protect our citizens' freedoms!
The proposals for directives which the Commission is presenting to us today are therefore totally inappropriate.
Not only must the Council reject them, but the Intergovernmental Conference must rewrite Article 7a.
Furthermore, the Member States must agree not to eliminate the controls at the Union's internal frontiers, but to improve them, supplementing the concept of fixed controls with that of a territorial filtering strip - as proposed, in France, in the recent report by Senator Paul Masson.
However, today's debate seems even more surreal when we consider that it is taking place against the background of the 'mad cow' crisis, in the context of which the Commission stands accused of having sacrificed public health on the altar of the dogmatic objectives of free movement at any price.
The situation with regard to these directives on the abolition of the Union's internal frontiers is exactly parallel.
If they are adopted, they will give rise to a serious deficit in security - and, in ten years' time, Mr Santer's successor will come to this House to explain that is not the Commission's fault, since public security has always been its top priority.
That is not true: it is clear from this debate that the Commission's priority is not safeguarding public health or security, but above all promoting the fusion of the peoples of Europe, notably by eliminating the Union's internal frontiers!
Madam President, do you by any chance have any explanation to give me about the request I made as Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs for the Council to attend this debate? I imagine that you have no explanation to give me because, of course, the Council did not even bother to answer our request.
But it is a shame that it should not be here.
Madam President, regardless of the fates which these directives might be reserved a word of thanks to Commissioner Monti and Rapporteurs Ford and Linzer on the excellent work they have carried out so far.
Madam President, the situation which we are experiencing now in this House in respect of these reports and the initiative by Commissioner Monti on the freedom of movement is, thanks to the Council, quite awful from an ethical point of view and an attack on the European Parliament's rights from an institutional point of view.
When finally after many years of doing nothing the Commission finally presented the European Parliament with three proposals for directives aimed at creating an internal market for persons and the European Parliament, as a consequence and following a number of months of debate, laboriously expressed its opinion, look what the Council did, on the sidelines of the legislative process enshrined in the first pillar, without letting the European Parliament know and without the slightest respect for the work it carries out: it has now taken a parallel initiative based on intergovernmental logic with scant regard for the efforts of the Commission and this House to achieve the first of all Community freedoms: the freedom of movement.
In the corridors and without any transparency or any parliamentary control, both at European and national levels, the Council is preparing - in the very week in which our Plenary is taking place and dealing with hope and seriousness with a fundamental legislative package for European citizens - to empty of any meaning the Commission initiative and the Parliament opinion and offer citizens an empty charade of legislation packaged up in a joint action by the Council.
Madam President, this incident is one of the most serious and gross violations of inter-institutional dialogue.
That is why we will no longer take part in this farce and will not discuss or vote for anything at all since we know, farce and hypocrisy aside, that our work over lengthy months of discussions is destined quite simply for the rubbish bin.
We refuse to take part in any legislative clowning of which Machiavelli himself would be proud without the slightest honour and very little glory, when the sole objective of the manoeuvre is to make legally ineffective the rights, enshrined by the Single Act, which the Commission and Parliament wish to offer citizens residing in the European Union.
Madam President, the challenge has been thrown down and the accusation has been made.
The Council has been acting behind the backs of the Commission and the European Parliament in bad faith.
We are owed an explanation, a justification, a notice and some information.
We are at least owed a posture of seriousness.
Either the Council should do so very quickly and make all of its proposals quite clear or the European Parliament should use all political and legal means possible to denounce or to confront the Council and to make it assume its responsibility.
We will wait as long as is necessary and until this takes place we think that trust has been broken in the very minimum of interinstitutional ethics.
Everything in its place.
The Council must show transparency in everything it does in its aims and responsibilities and, for our part, we know what we want: to abide by the rules and turn European citizenship into something practical while respecting the Treaty.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as other speakers have already said, there are four freedoms in the internal market.
Three are geared to economic interests, whilst one is the focus of popular expectation in Europe.
Three of them - the economic freedoms - have been achieved, but the free movement of persons has not become a reality.
I wish to know why this should be?
We are told that freedom for people represents a greater risk.
But is that really true, if one considers the environmental risks involved in freedom of movement for goods, in the explosive upturn in mobility, the waste of energy and the excessive division of labour in Europe? Goods have to be given free access to markets, even if they do not meet the standards or conform to the traditions or safety expectations of the Member States.
But we are told that it is people who represent the risk.
On the contrary, we are facing much greater risks as a result of the free movement of goods, currencies and services.
Many people are prepared to tolerate those risks only because of the promise to introduce free movement of persons.
By delaying and failing to fully implement freedom of movement of persons, the Union is denying the rights of its own people.
To restrict freedom of travel to citizens of the Union, and to continue to make it difficult even for them, is to deny Europe's openness to the world.
It means that the fears of a Fortress Europe are being borne out by Union policy.
This is a policy that is based not on people's needs but on fear of people, a policy geared not towards cultural openness in Europe but towards total control of the population, a policy that divides, rather than unites Europe.
Madam President, freedom to travel is probably the most important element in creating the internal market as an area without internal frontiers.
Implementing this fundamental freedom will meet the expectations of many citizens of the Member States.
For several decades, the people of the former communist countries were denied the fundamental freedom to travel.
It is therefore all the more important that no one - and particularly not those people - should be treated as a second-class citizen within the Union, not least at the internal frontiers.
Amongst the measures needed to counter any possible increase in crime after the removal of all the controls, and to prevent illegal immigration by third-country nationals who are already in the Union illegally, are more intensive cooperation by police forces and social services, and the effective exchange of information through Europol.
Madam President, only last month an elderly woman of 76 was, in my view, illegally arrested on a train from London to Brussels, held overnight in a cell and put back on a train the following day because it was alleged that she had not brought with her what was claimed by the Belgian authorities to be a necessary document, namely a passport.
I believe that woman should consider very seriously taking action as an individual citizen for illegal imprisonment.
That being the case, the key to free movement is probably going to be individual European Union citizens taking actions by themselves rather than relying on the Commission or Member States to ensure that we have free movement.
I believe that free movement is not an objective of the Treaty but is a fundamental, constitutional right.
That is something without which the European Union cannot operate.
Therefore, if individual citizens are in a position to enforce Article 7a either directly or indirectly then the free movement will be enhanced.
The court case against the Commission by Parliament was not so much a mistake but should have been carried through to adjudication because it was said that the Monti proposals which flowed from that court case were in some way a kind of compromise and a way forward.
The so-called accompanying measures and the Schengen Agreement are both excuses for trying to avoid the central issue of Article 7a.
If it is said that the so-called Monti proposals brought forward now will be vetoed in the Council of Ministers, that does not mean the end of all of this, that Article 7a somehow disappears.
It remains an obligation under which the Commission has to work and it remains something on which the Commission has to take action.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has always adopted a very clear position on the issue of the free movement of persons, based on two principles to which other speakers have referred.
Firstly, the free movement of persons is an obligation under the Treaty which should have been carried out by 31 December 1992 at the latest, without any preconditions.
Secondly, when we talk about persons, we mean all those legally resident in the Member States, and this has to include the 13 to 14 million nationals of third countries who have been living and working here for years, because we will not tolerate discrimination, and in any case restricting freedom of movement to EU nationals alone would be a nonsense in practical terms.
The Commission has, at long last, come round to our point of view and has produced these three directives, which are supposed to establish - three years too late - one of the few basic rights which people in the European Union have under the Treaty.
But the same parties who included the free movement of persons in the Treaty - the national governments - are now increasingly fighting shy of it and turning the whole issue into one of national security, afraid of their own shadows.
They are throwing more and more obstacles in its path, linking it to technical measures which then become legal requirements for the abolition of the internal frontiers.
The House rejects this position.
But now things really have gone too far, and this proposal from the Council for a joint action on the right to travel of nationals of non-member countries who are lawfully residing in a Member State, under Article K.3, the third pillar, is an extremely provocative one both for the Commission and for this House. Is Parliament supposed to be pleased that nationals of non-member countries are finally to have the right to travel?
We are far from happy, in the first place because this joint action institutionalizes discrimination once and for all between citizens of the European Union and those from non-member countries, and it implies that those referred to in Article 7a of the Treaty can apparently only be citizens of the European Union.
Secondly, it also means the end for freedom of movement as a Community issue.
The next step will be a Schengen protocol in the Treaty and the abolition of Article 7a after the forthcoming IGC.
The Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice will be completely sidelined.
It is a slap in the face not just for this House, but also for the people of the European Union, who do not want to see either Parliament or the Commission being walked over in this way.
Madam President, I am sure we will all support the aims and principles of these reports.
But the difficulties that clearly exist in the European Union at the moment in relation to these matters are due to the fact that when Heads of Government get together on various occasions there are often hidden agendas, and what seems to be agreed on paper is not always what they really intend to do: the result is that the free movement of peoples is the one area in which we have made very little progress in relation to the other freedoms.
I wish to speak mainly in relation to the Linzer report and I very much welcome some of the changes that have been made by way of amendment.
In particular, I want to stress the importance of the amendment to remove the reference in the report and in the Commission proposals to the right of Member States to expel third country nationals, not only if they represent a threat to public order or public security but also if they represent a threat to Member States' international relations.
This is a very dangerous proposal; it has been exploited by certain governments - including my own - to expel people who are protesting about the denial of human rights and the very serious problems in certain countries in the world which have obnoxious, racist and militaristic regimes.
These people have been threatened with expulsion owing to their activities in drawing world attention to these problems because the country concerned fears that that will affect its trade, or some other aspect of its relations.
That should not be a major factor, and I very much welcome these proposals.
Finally, there are certain difficulties for the British Labour Members in relation to these reports, and we will have to await the outcome of the vote on the various amendments before deciding whether we can or not support them, or whether we may have to abstain.
Madam President, I can understand that there are some people who are starting to become impatient to do away with the controls at the internal borders, but we have to realize that, for good reason, it is precisely this part of the internal market which is the hardest to put into effect.
We need to be realistic.
We cannot open the borders until passage across the external frontiers and the rules on asylum and visas have been settled.
Borders are a sensitive matter.
National frontiers are a central part of many people's consciousness.
The population is simply not prepared to accept the consequences of the absence of border controls.
Whether it involves trafficking in drugs, human beings or waste which is hazardous to the environment, things will not have to go wrong many times before the EU loses credibility and is accused of doing more harm than good.
Furthermore, many people in Denmark are employed to carry out border controls, and we shall also have the problem of explaining things to them.
I should like to see a Europe without borders or border controls, but I cannot accept it if the result is that there are simply more police on the streets carrying out spot checks to make sure that people's papers are in order.
That is what the consequences will be if we do not remain calm, but plunge headlong into open borders in Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by offering sincere thanks to the various parliamentary committees, and in particular their rapporteurs, whose work has highlighted the key aspects involved in achieving the objective of Article 7a of the Treaty.
Reading the reports, one gains a sense of unfulfilled hopes and of frustration, together with an impatient wish for political decision-makers to ensure that the single market becomes a reality in terms of free movement for persons, as is already the case for goods, services and capital.
I must say that when I arrived at the Commission in January 1995 and assumed responsibility for the single market, I immediately found it unacceptable that three of the four freedoms had been achieved - or nearly so - but not the one of greatest relevance to persons.
That is why, back in July 1995, I had the Commission adopt the proposals now before Parliament.
I can only share the feelings expressed by a majority in this House.
What does an individual or society usually do when it wishes to take action? It sets itself a goal, an objective, and decides on the means by which to achieve it.
But what are we seeing today? There is no certainty about the objective of Article 7a of the Treaty, nor is there agreement on the best means of achieving it; and this has been the case for nearly ten years now, in other words ever since the start of the work leading to the adoption of the Single European Act.
Why has the Schengen agreement enabled progress to be made in this area, whilst the Union has been marking time? Quite simply, because the countries belonging to Schengen agree both on the objective and the appropriate means of achieving it.
In our case, the objective itself is rejected by at least one Member State.
As to the means, opinions differ widely: the question of the legal basis is endlessly discussed, but the reality is that one detects certain fears regarding the institutional foundations of the first pillar - the involvement of Parliament and the Court of Justice, and the role of the Commission.
Could it be that these foundations, so vital for democracy and the rule of law, are irreconcilable with the safeguarding of public order and security? Certainly not, in my view.
This does not mean to say that I cannot understand the concerns which have been expressed by the Home Affairs Ministers.
The free movement of persons inevitably raises questions of security and public order which must not be underestimated.
But having listened to you, and having participated in the initial discussions in the Council - in its 'internal market' and 'justice and home affairs' configurations - I have become convinced that the Commission's chosen approach is indeed able to meet the various requirements.
I would make an appeal to the House, if I may, as it comes to vote on the amendments to the Commission's proposal.
Let us concentrate on the essential points in that proposal, those aspects which are designed to send a strong message to our citizens: yes, Article 7a can and must become a reality; yes, the means that are proposed are reasonable; yes, the legal bases of the so-called first pillar are relevant; and yes, the accompanying measures are appropriate, but any further delay in adopting them is unacceptable.
For this reason, the Commission will accept only those amendments whose purpose is to safeguard the legal basis of the proposals, in the Community's best interests, and to improve or clarify the wording in keeping with the logic and discipline of the proposed texts.
With regard to the proposal for a directive on the elimination of controls on persons crossing the internal frontiers, the Commission was concerned, as I have already said, to make it clear that it did not intend to promote freedom to the detriment of security.
So I deny that there is any intention to make the accompanying measures and the actual elimination of intra-Community controls contingent on one another.
There is a link, however, and it is more political than legal in nature, since our citizens do have concerns about security.
The Commission therefore cannot accept those amendments which eliminate all links between these two aspects: freedom on the one hand, and security on the other.
I fear that by removing this link, we would not actually be doing anything to help achieve freedom of movement.
The Commission can accept four of the other five amendments, in other words Amendments Nos 1, 2, 5 and 6, since they are aimed at consolidating the legal basis of the proposal.
With regard to the proposal for a directive on the adaptation of secondary legislation applicable to EU citizens and members of their families, this is a technical adaptation which can be introduced once internal border controls have been abolished.
The only amendment contained in Mr Lehne's report seems to me to overstep this particular mark, and I am unable to accept it.
Finally, as regards the proposal for a directive on the right of third-country nationals to travel within the Community, the Commission intends to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 5, 9 and part of Amendment No 10, as well as Amendments Nos 15 and 18.
There is no need to remind the House that this proposal has been subject to particular scrutiny in the Council, no doubt for two reasons: firstly, the part of the proposal for a directive concerning the equivalence between residence permits and visas, for people who are resident in a Member State of the Union, could be adopted and enter into force even before internal border controls have been eliminated; and, secondly, this is the proposal which best lends itself, in terms of its legal basis, to being transferred from the first to the third pillar.
Here we should be careful not to detract from the traditional objectives and instruments of the Treaty, and even from the Schengen agreement which - let us not forget - already confers an absolute right to travel.
I think that all the legal and political implications of this very sensitive problem need to be assessed carefully.
I shall conclude by recalling once again what I hope goes without saying for all of us: free movement within the Union must be indistinguishable from free movement within our countries.
Like goods, services and capital, persons too should be able to move around freely.
We are duty-bound to achieve this goal, but we shall only be able to do so if all internal border controls are eliminated.
Let me end, Madam President, by referring to what has been highlighted by various speakers, namely the initiative by the presidency.
In the course of Council business, the presidency put forward an initiative of its own at the meeting of Steering Group I on 8 and 9 July.
It should come as no surprise that the College of Commissioners has not yet had an opportunity to adopt a position, and that I am consequently unable to inform you of the Commission's stance on this matter.
However, in view of the importance which I attach to this problem, I admit that this new initiative worries me personally for more than one reason.
In fact, my concerns are threefold, and relate both to the link with our proposal for a directive on the right to travel, and to the content of the initiative and its legal basis.
Starting with the legal basis, I would recall that the Commission has always felt that the proposal on the right to travel is so inextricably linked with the question of the single market that the only appropriate legal basis is Article 100 of the Treaty.
I believe Parliament shares this point of view, especially since that legal basis is the one which preserves its prerogatives.
I admit that I am concerned about the content of the presidency's initiative, and above all about its scope: the joint action programme is in fact confined to facilitating movement and does not confer the right to travel.
In reality it will merely allow a third-country citizen to present himself at the border, armed with a residence permit but without a visa.
This will not confer upon him the right to enter the territory of the other Member State; thus he will run the risk of arbitrary expulsion and, what is worse, without the grounds for refusal of entry being subject to legal scrutiny by the Court of Justice.
Furthermore, this is a step back from the Schengen Convention, which already confers this right to travel.
In addition, the absence of the right of entry implies a need to maintain controls at internal borders, in order to check whether entry onto that territory can be authorized.
So, from a proposal for a directive whose purpose is to abolish controls at internal borders, we are moving to a legal instrument which will make it essential to keep those same controls in place.
In conclusion, I wish to stress that the thoughts which I have expressed thus far about this presidency initiative commit no one but myself.
Nevertheless, I shall not hesitate to make my concerns known to all my fellow Commissioners, inviting them to determine as soon as possible the strategy to be followed.
For my part, I would invite you, the European Parliament, to determine your own clear position on this problem.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.40 a.m. and resumed at 10.50 a.m.)
Commission statement on BSE
The next item is the statement by the Commission on its information policy on BSE since 1988 and measures it has taken to ensure compliance with the export ban and eradicate the disease.
I give the floor to Mr Santer, President of the Commission.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, the internal note by a Commission official of October 1990 condenses in a single page everything for which the Union's bureaucracy is criticized by the public.
Added to the revelation of this note - why such agitation on the Commission's benches? - are the rumours of illegal circumvention of the ban on exports of British beef.
Since this last matter is now before the Italian courts, I shall not dwell on it.
The impact of these revelations is devastating!
Admittedly, the Commission of which Mr Santer is President is not responsible.
Admittedly, the official responsible in 1990 may well be in retirement.
Admittedly, it is probable that no Commissioner saw the note in 1990.
However, none of this excuses us from drawing the necessary lessons from what happened in 1990.
It is because we respect the Commission's work, and because the Commission must be above all suspicion, that we wish things to be that way.
What does this note reveal? It reveals, firstly, an attitude which is frequently condemned by the Socialist Group, but which rarely appears in such a cynical form: the attitude that the market is the paramount consideration - which is equivalent to saying that anything else, in this case the protection of public health, is of secondary importance.
This attitude was born, in certain countries, of the triumphant economic liberalism of the 1980s.
The creation of the single market - in which attention is focused on the economic dimension at the expense of the social and environmental dimensions - is the extension of this attitude at European level.
Secondly, it reveals an incredible blindness to the concerns which had already been expressed at the time by the parties involved.
I shall cite no more than the written question on this subject submitted by my colleague Mr Happart in May 1990, and the Agriculture Commissioner's subsequent bland reply.
Lastly, it reveals a wish to create a lack of clarity in the provision of information, or even to misinform: a refusal to ensure transparency which is absolutely scandalous in a modern democratic institution.
What lessons must we draw from this matter, therefore? The first is that it is not a question of apologizing swiftly and turning to the business at hand, but of undertaking to bring about a profound change in attitude and approach.
The fact is that if a Commission official was able to produce such a document in 1990 - whether the politician responsible at the time knew about it or not - it is because the preconditions existed for him to do so.
In other words, giving priority to the demands of the market, a lack of responsibility with regard to the protection of public health, and the desire to deal with such matters behind closed doors must all be common currency for such a document to be produced without giving rise to questions at any level.
Furthermore, if such an attitude coincides at Member State level with very significant economic interests, lax veterinary controls and disregard for Community regulations, one can imagine the scale of the disaster, the extent of the permanent concealment of the facts, and the level of disregard for all public health and consumer protection concerns, for the benefit of economic interests.
That, Mr President, is the real scandal.
If the Commission now wishes to safeguard its credibility with the general public, it must show proof of a desire for absolute transparency and rigorous respect for the requirements of public health.
It can defend itself by pleading not guilty a hundred times, but the general public will see only the permanence of the institution and not the succession of individual officials.
The Socialist Group will examine very carefully and calmly the explanation which the President of the Commission has just given to Parliament.
I should like to thank him for that explanation, since I believe that it is extremely important that he has provided the House with this very precise information.
We shall, of course, be adopting a resolution, but that is not enough: our group will be considering the appropriateness of calling for a committee of inquiry.
In any event, it could be said that if there were ever a case in which, pursuant to Rule 136, a committee of inquiry should be set up, it is this - in order to investigate whether there has indeed been an instance of maladministration, or even negligence, in the treatment of this matter by the Commission and the Member State in question.
It is in everyone's interests to ensure maximum clarity, in order to restore confidence in the European and national authorities: the confidence of farmers, but above all the confidence of the Union's citizens and consumers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as early as 1988 the Southwood Commission, a group of independent British scientists, said about BSE: ' We do not believe that there is a risk for man, but if we are wrong, the risk will be extremely high.'
In the debate in this House on 12 June 1990, I called for all BSEinfected herds to be destroyed.
My experience of the continuing saga of BSE is that what we have to deal with here is not only the question of disinformation, which is actually of secondary importance, but something else.
We have to deal with the fact that the Commission, the Council and the trade organizations, as well as some sections of this House, have in a sense failed to appreciate the situation and were not prepared to give priority to consumer protection in the interests of prevention.
Of course, we have to see this in the light of the scientific advice, because the scientists' findings have emerged only in a piecemeal way, and as yet we have no definite conclusions.
In this respect, it is not just a question of the note by Mr Castille - and I also heard the smug remark being made at the time in various quarters that if the whole thing was so dangerous, it was best to say nothing at all!
Not only the scientific dimension, but also the impact of consumer reaction, was simply underestimated.
Mr Santer and Mr Fischler, you have been in office now for a year and a half, and I would ask just one thing of you: do not make the mistake of seeking to cover up any past omissions and possible misconduct by Commission staff, or misconduct by the Council.
You have been right to bring pressure to bear through the decisions you have now taken.
I should like to stress that point in particular, and to express my approval.
However, there has also been a series of gaffes, such as the failure to implement in good time the standards for disposing of animal carcasses.
The decisions taken in 1990 should have been implemented by December 1991, and you know what has happened up to now.
In my view, a number of factors justify continuing with internal inquiries within the Commission to determine to what extent the officials who were involved and responsible really acted on behalf of the Community - or failed to do so.
But I would also say this: as far as I am aware, a committee of inquiry would bring nothing new before the House.
As regards animal-based meal and monitoring, we are discussing facts which have been available to everyone concerned with the issue since 1990, 1991 or 1992 at the latest.
A committee of inquiry could provoke another over-reaction by consumers and the media, and in the end that would mean the farmers affected having to pay dearly for this a second time.
For that reason, Mr Santer, I would ask whether you can give the House an assurance that, as well as the internal inquiries which you have made about the written note, you will also examine whether the Commission staff have actually done all they could in recent years to secure implementation of the directives and regulations that have been adopted, and to what extent the necessary controls have been carried out in the Member States.
I would also ask for your assurance that the programme of culling is being carried out systematically, and that the interim research results will be made available promptly to the parliamentary committee responsible.
I believe that this would be the best means of making good past omissions.
Mr President, the Commission's first objective must be to restore consumer confidence in beef, but it will never do that if documents keep emerging which cast doubt on the Commission's position.
I therefore agree with what other speakers have said in this debate, that there must be an internal investigation and an internal report published to put an end to all these rumours.
We need to be open and honest.
My group will wait to see this report before it decides whether to support the calls for a committee of inquiry to be set up.
The second question is what the Commission should do next.
There are still so many unknown factors associated with BSE, and more research is needed.
What role should the Commission play here?
What role is it already playing in coordinating all the research that is currently being done in Europe, and what will the financial implications of this be?
The third point my group feels is important is to restore the balance in the market for beef.
This could be a difficult process, but one of the things that might help would be the introduction of a European quality mark for beef.
Customers need to know how beef is produced, and for this a German, Dutch or Bavarian quality mark is not enough, we need a European quality mark to ensure that there is fair competition throughout the Union. There must also be fair competition with other measures.
Germany has now announced that it will not abide by the Commission's decision concerning the export of certain products from the United Kingdom. What does the Commission intend to do about this?
What does it think about France's decision to ban the use of meatbased meal in cattle fodder? We need to have fair competition everywhere.
Mr President, this statement and debate were motivated by the revelation of the existence of the now infamous internal Commission note - or, if you like, note by a Commission official - concerning the disinformation strategy to be pursued with regard to the issue of mad cow disease.
However, the main problem is not the note, but the fact that at the same time, the inspection missions by the Office of Veterinary Control were suspended and the Commission failed to exercise its function as the initiator of legislation.
That situation continued for four years, during which almost 75 % of the declared cases of BSE were recorded.
If risks existed, it was during this period.
If legislation was necessary, it was during this period.
If there was a need for inspections, it was never so acute as during this period.
The Commission must explain the reasons for its lack of action during the period from 1990 to 1994.
If we wish to avoid the word disinformation, we must talk about transparency, and it cannot be argued that the Commission's conduct has been transparent.
The scientific basis for lifting the ban on gelatine is unclear, and the Commission has not provided us with the information requested in paragraph 6 of Parliament's resolution of last June.
It is essential to compare the report submitted by the European Association of Gelatine Manufacturers, on which the Commission based its proposal for the partial lifting of the ban, with independent scientific opinions.
As long as the impression exists that decisions are based on information supplied by interested parties rather than on independent scientific data, and that the European Parliament's requests for information are not being met, it will not be possible to restore consumer confidence.
We must learn from experience: deregulation and the pursuit of competitiveness by the intensification of farming have created this problem.
Experience has shown that when decisions are determined by economic - or indeed political - considerations, the consequences are grave.
In the past, important decisions have been determined by the will to complete the single market or ensure the success of a summit.
The public is aware of this, and we cannot expect to restore consumer confidence with such a record - even less so if the suspicion exists that economic interests have been put before public health in the taking of certain decisions.
We must not fall into past mistakes.
In all future decisions, the slightest risk must be eliminated.
In this affair, there are interests, winners, losers and economic costs - but above all, risks to public health.
And there are also responsibilities.
In the view of the European United Left, there is a need to set up a committee of inquiry to establish responsibility for the creation and development of this problem, and especially to ensure that the decisions taken in the future safeguard public health.
Some might say that the work of a such committee will produce new headlines in the press which have a damaging effect on consumption.
However, we already have experience of what happens when decisions are postponed or adopted in a half-hearted way.
Moreover, the long incubation period of this disease and the dangers already recognized will ensure that the press will continue to be provided with headlines in the immediate future.
For all these reasons, the European United Left will support the setting-up of a committee of inquiry which focuses on the political decisions adopted, with a view to safeguarding the public interest.
I am coming to an end, Mr President.
As Mr Fayot said, we wish to contribute to ensuring that the market is made subject to the laws of democracy and the need to protect public health.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioner Fischler, the BSE disaster is a chain of misconduct, political misjudgement, and failure to assume political responsibility.
This is not a plague; it is a disaster brought about by mankind, namely by the British Government's decision to change the temperature and pressure at which animal-based meal was manufactured.
We all know what the result was for the cattle.
However, there was also a failure of judgement on the part of the Commission in thinking that this disease would not take on such proportions, but would gradually die out.
It is true that the Commission has now taken action - and I acknowledge Commissioner Fischler's consistent approach - but it has been an emergency response rather than a policy of prevention, because some two million infected animals had already entered the food chain before the Commission intervened.
Animal-based meal that was manufactured at temperatures too low to halt BSE infection is still in circulation, and animalbased meal is also continuing to be used as fodder while it is still unknown whether temperature can, in fact, halt the infection.
According to you, Mr Santer, the Commission had no official line, and the Italian Government said that if the Commission had made the proposal in question, it would have rejected it.
In saying this, you are either making a joke or being cynical.
If you had come clean about it, we would not have needed a committee of inquiry.
The problem is that you did not come clean.
What is at issue now is not only a cure for this disease, but the reputation of the European Parliament and the reputation of European politics, which has been tarnished by all this sloppiness.
It is important that the European Parliament, which has been consistent in its approach, is not lumped together with a Commission which failed to recognize the signs when it should have done, which relied on scientists who minimized the danger, and which played along with the strategy of minimizing the danger.
That is what matters now, and that is what must be resolved.
And if we are unlucky and this disease proves to be transmissible to humans, we shall have to ask ourselves why, even at this stage, we failed to draw the necessary conclusions.
The question of a committee of inquiry is also a question of how rigorous future measures will be.
What matters is not just that amends should be made for past errors, but that the House should use the powers it has recently acquired in relation to agriculture, and that it should be incorporated in the Treaties that the House can have its say and require you to take action if we believe it to be necessary.
That is what matters, and that is why our group is in favour of setting up the committee of inquiry.
And the flabby line taken by Mr Böge, on behalf of the PPE Group - ' Go ahead and investigate it yourselves, it's all right by us' - is not the stance of the European Parliament.
We must do our duty, Mr Böge!
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, this week, Parliament will decide - or at least I hope so - to set up a committee of inquiry to shed light on certain aspects of the issue of so-called mad cow disease.
For whatever the merits of your statement, Mr President of the Commission, there is a need for persons outside the Commission to carry out an investigation - and through a procedure in which both sides are heard.
Today, Parliament is beginning to respond in the manner that is required.
It was necessary for an internal Commission note of October 1990 - published by a number of newspapers - to reveal what are seemingly astonishing cases of negligence within the Commission for it to do so.
This note reveals what is, to say the least, the inefficient organization of rules and practices within the Commission, and in the Commission's relations with the Member States.
Quite rightly, the public wants to know, and it wants transparency.
I was Minister for Consumer Protection for three years, and I know very well that once consumer confidence has been lost, it cannot be restored unless consumers are convinced that they are dealing with competent, honest and impartial officials.
That is why stalling tactics used to delay inquiries or limit their scope are based on a complete misjudgement.
If we wish to protect the breeding sector - and especially the quality breeding sector, in which animals are fed on grass or cereals - there must be transparency, identification of the origin of animals, quality labels, and controls carried out by services which are independent of the farming industry and which represent consumers.
If we wish to protect the wholesale and retail distribution networks, there must be effective supervision of the whole chain from producer to consumer.
And if we wish to maintain the credibility and authority of the Commission - and our group very much wishes to do so, Mr President - it is essential not only for an inquiry to be carried out to investigate past events, but also to provide for reforms within the Commission and in the Commission's relations with the Member States, in order to ensure that similar cases of negligence or mistakes do not occur again in future.
Mr President of the Commission, Mr President of the European Parliament, ladies and gentlemen, for the third time since 27 March, we are required to debate in plenary the problem of mad cow disease and its consequences.
In her speech on 27 March, my colleague Mrs Poisson read out an extract from Sir James Goldsmith's book, which was written in 1992, and in which all the evidence that BSE could be transmitted to humans was already described.
And Mrs Poisson asked the Commission a single question: what has the Commission done since 1990? The reply was unequivocal: your predecessor, Mr Delors, had said that the Commission was not well informed on the subject and could do nothing.
On 3 June, my colleague Mr des Places made a call for genuine solidarity with cattle breeders, and for those responsible - in the cattle-feed manufacturing industry, in governments and in the Community institutions - to be identified.
Commissioner Fischler did not furnish him with a reply on this point.
The Commission's planned measures will cover only 20 % of the losses suffered by our cattle breeders.
In France, for example, losses in the beef and veal sector are currently in excess of FF 15 billion, but the planned compensation amounts to only FF 3 billion.
Who will pay the difference?
When I lodged a complaint before the European Court of Justice, with the support of a cattle breeders' union, I was told: ' No, the Commission is not responsible; it did everything in its power' .
However, in the now infamous internal Commission note of 12 October 1990 - which, as Mr Pasty has just told us, was forwarded to the Commissioners' office, so to the political authorities as it were - it is written in black and white: ' This issue must be played down by exercising a policy of disinformation' .
Earlier, President Santer, you said that this document was no more than an internal note written by an official now in retirement, and that its contents were belied by the Commission's actions.
No, Mr President, it was not an insignificant note.
We all know - from being familiar with the mysterious workings of the Commission - that such internal papers indicate the broad outlines of policy.
In conclusion, Mr President of the Commission, in the face of these failures to reply, you oblige me to assume my responsibilities.
Pursuant to Rule 34, entitled 'Motion of censure on the Commission' , I shall therefore begin, this very afternoon, to collect the 60 signatures required, so that Parliament can vote on such a motion of censure at the September part-session.
Of course, you will say that the Commissioners responsible are no longer the same.
I would point out, however, that Commissioners are responsible for the actions of the Commission as a whole, and that if there was a breakdown in the operation of the Commission, then the College of Commissioners currently in office is responsible.
The Europe of Nations Group will call for a parliamentary committee of inquiry to be set up, but Parliament must assume all its responsibilities...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President it is not often I share a short straw with my colleague, Ken Collins, but following the previous speaker, I not only contradict him, but I contradict some of the points that Ken Collins has been making.
But first of all may I, contrary to some of my colleagues, thank the President of the Commission for his statement, thank him for the work that the Commission has been doing and is doing at the moment in trying to deal with the many problems that have arisen as a result of this whole beef crisis.
We have to look where we are and, following the agreement that we were relieved to receive from Florence on the framework programme, there has been considerable progress.
We should be encouraged by the fact that the issue is back where it belongs, that is at scientific and at veterinary level.
Many Members may be interested to hear what is actually happening at the moment and to note that nearly a quarter of a million cattle under the 30 months scheme have been slaughtered since the scheme began, a quarter of a million cattle, and they are still moving at the rate of 30 000 per week.
In addition every effort is being made to carry out a selected cull among the dairy herds that have suffered from BSE.
This of course has had a devastating effect on cattle farmers, cattle farmers throughout Europe, and the clean beef prices have been dramatically affected in the market place.
The fact that such action has been taken, together with the quite substantial reinforcement of existing legislation on the composition of feed and the exclusion of any tissues that may be contaminated, should start to satisfy customers, should restore confidence amongst consumers, that beef is as safe from infection as many other foods we consume.
Irrespective of this of course we have seen - and reference has been made to this by almost every speaker - that assertions on the existence of an internal Commission paper from October 1990, referring to existing health risks concerning BSE, appeared in the media of several Member States, as well as reports on illegal exports of beef from the United Kingdom.
The President of the Commission has given us a very firm answer from the Commission on these two points, and therefore I would not wish to dwell on them.
It suggested that the United Kingdom should not publish the results of research.
Well as the President of the Commission said, quite clearly, that could be regarded as a joke but certainly it was not a paper that was received by the United Kingdom Government.
So the present crisis and the slaughter of thousands of cattle to restore confidence has proved perhaps how wrong that advice, if it had been given, would have been at that particular time; but it was a file note, merely a declaration to the Veterinary Committee and not a formal recommendation to the government.
So I would like to thank the Commission for doing all in their power to show financial solidarity with farmers, particularly those farmers who have been hardest hit by this crisis. I would like, if I may, to thank Commissioner Fischler for his contribution and in particular, if I may say so on a more personal basis, for his contribution at our Royal Agricultural Show a few weeks ago, when he was able to meet many farmers and was able in meeting them to restore some confidence among them about what the Commission was doing.
The additional intervention measures which have been taken are helpful, and the funding of research is crucial.
Indeed, if scientists could find a foolproof test to diagnose the disease, then it would be a major breakthrough in animal science.
Perhaps I might ask Mr Fischler if there is any progress made in this direction.
He might also care to comment on the availability of the rendering facilities since much of the product is presently going into cold storage.
I support also those who call for a European quality assurance scheme on beef and I support the call for the full identification of all animals.
Mr President, I have followed this matter since March of this year.
I represent the biggest beef-producing constituency in England and the area with the highest number of BSE cases.
I sometimes wonder if excessive concentration on detail is not turning our brains spongy.
Clearly we must have tight controls on the export of meat and meat products from the UK.
Clearly it is likely that some would have been in transit at the time of the ban, perhaps to third countries, and may have escaped those controls.
I am pleased that the Commission has asked the anti-fraud unit to investigate any cases of fraudulent trading.
But on the overall issue and the question of the cover-up, we need to take a wider view.
This issue in a sense has been the United Kingdom's Chernobyl.
Our failure to act at the first warning signs meant that the problem became worse.
It got out of control.
We do not know its effect on human health if any.
But clearly there is substantial public concern and that public worry has been affecting us all.
As a result, safety procedures have been improved.
Measures have been put in place to eradicate the disease.
But what some people have still not realized is that this is truly a European problem.
If we want our beef market to recover we must match our resolute deeds with reasoned words.
You said, Mr President, that we must not get carried away with emotion.
I am pleased that you have written to Mr Seehofer to question him about his actions.
Yes, let us have an internal inquiry in the Commission.
That is surely only proper.
But let us not blow up the problem, let us clear it up.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, dura lex sed lex .
When it comes to tackling a disaster such as the BSE crisis which has afflicted the United Kingdom, especially when this disaster affects a community as large as Europe, one must disregard one's own interests and be resolute, mature and worthy of living in a civil and democratic environment, especially when that community - in a spirit of cooperation - has attempted to assist the Member State concerned, albeit somewhat late in the day.
That has not been and is not the case.
Time does not permit me to tell the tale of the so-called mad cow; I would merely remind the House that, way back in January 1995, the president of the Alleanza Nazionale , Mr Muscardini, asked the Commission what was the truth about the disease affecting cattle in the UK.
This question received an evasive and untruthful reply from Commissioner Fischler.
So what can we say? Should we play cat and mouse?
That is no use to anyone. The lack of proper information - as stated in an internal, not to say secret Commission document, which concluded that the problem should not be aggravated - and the lack of controls are fuelling doubt and suspicion.
I would point out that the worldwide embargo on British beef is being circumvented by illegal, clandestine exports of beef from that country and, furthermore, that Parliament is still awaiting the outcome of the Commission's inquiry into these accusations.
All these accusations create a climate of distrust in the public authorities whose duty it is to regularize this immensely difficult situation, which is affecting all of us and not just the Member State most directly concerned.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, firstly, I should like to say that we welcome this morning's statement.
With the benefit of hindsight, however, I believe that it is clear that the Commission's approach should not be imitated in the management of this issue.
The public has the impression that we have continually been dragged along by events, and certain information seems to confirm this - in particular, the note from the Consumer Policy Service which we are now discussing.
To suggest that not talking about BSE would prevent unfavourable market reactions is quite simply to show contempt for Europe's citizens.
To ask the United Kingdom officially not to publish the results of its research, or to implement a policy of disinformation with regard to BSE, is quite simply to commit an act of madness that is totally out of place in the community based on the rule of law which is the European Union.
However, the solution must not lie solely in rectifying matters for the future.
There is also a need to look back and provide political remedies for the mistakes of the past.
We can express our regret at the situation in the beef and veal sector, the growth of stocks by 600 000 tonnes and the 11 % fall in consumption.
However, any measures taken will be useless if consumers believe that they are being deceived by the Community authorities.
Whoever drew up this note considered that market imperatives were more important than public health.
Today, six years later, and in spite of this policy - the duration of which, and who was responsible for it, must be established by the inquiry for which we are calling - we are faced with a much worse situation.
The disinformation measures have only served to aggravate the problem.
The only thing which can truly restore balance to the markets is the confidence of consumers in the fact that those markets are governed by specific rules, and that the products - beef or otherwise - are not harmful or dangerous to public health.
The content of the note in question amounts to turning immorality into a commercial rule.
Let us hope that this unfortunate episode will enable us to ensure that, in future, the protection of public health is placed before any other consideration.
Mr President, very briefly, I should like to respond to a number of the speeches which have been made and first of all to thank those who took part in the debate, since even if their remarks were highly contentious, they at least had the merit of making clear Parliament's current feelings.
Commissioner Fischler will answer shortly on the more specific aspects of this issue.
This is now the fourth time that I have appeared before Parliament to talk about the so-called 'mad cow' crisis.
In all my statements, I have been guided by a single consideration: the need to protect public health on the basis of the scientific information currently available.
It is in this spirit that we have encouraged the British Government to propose a set of measures designed to eradicate BSE - essentially so as to restore consumer confidence, which is necessary before a progressive lifting of the ban can be considered.
That is the approach which this Commission - and the previous Commission - has always followed.
I say this quite plainly, because if certain documents may perhaps bring discredit upon the Commission's actions, it should be clearly understood that those actions are quite different from the kind that would result from a note by an official.
This statement can be backed up, moreover, by some very specific facts.
The note in question dates from October 1990.
As I said earlier, less than a month afterwards, a conference which brought together 200 scientists from throughout the world was held in Brussels, with a view to determining the implications of the BSE crisis.
It was following this conference that the scientific research was started.
The Commission has contributed financially to this research, and it was the research centre in Edinburgh - partly financed by Commission funds - which initiated the crisis of 20 and 21 March this year.
Furthermore, a number of measures were taken by the previous Commission in this respect.
Parliament itself endorsed these measures, and here I would only refer to Parliament's resolution of 22 January 1993, which contains the words: ' having regard to the numerous Community legislative acts concerning Spongiform Encephalopathies, in particular Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy' .
Parliament has therefore supported the Commission in the action that it has been taking in this context since 1988. I believe that I am able to say, therefore, that the previous Commission did everything in its power to curb the crisis, given the scientific information available at the time.
Moreover, Parliament itself states in the resolution which I have just mentioned that it considers that there is a need to continue manufacturing medical products for human and animal use from the brain and spinal cord of cattle.
It is in Parliament's resolution, not in an internal Commission document, that these words are to be found.
Let us turn now to the document in question.
It was, as I said earlier, a note from an official.
Mr Pasty said that perhaps we did not conduct an inquiry in which both sides were heard. However, I should like to draw the honourable Member's attention to the fact that it was the chairman of the BSE interdepartmental working party who, on our instructions, carried out the inquiry.
His investigations led him to contact directly the author of the document, the persons to whom it was addressed, colleagues in the Consumer Policy Service and DG VI, as well as former staff of the private office.
My statement was based, therefore, on the results of the inquiry carried out by the chairman of the BSE interdepartmental working party, on our instructions.
It will therefore be clear to the House that we desire transparency.
Nobody has anything to gain from a lack of transparency in this matter.
Mr Fayot was right to call for openness and to say that it is the credibility not only of the Commission, but of all the Community institutions which is at stake.
As a result, it is in all our interests - Parliament and the Commission - that there should be as much transparency as possible on this issue, in which the Commission genuinely has nothing to hide.
We would urge you - as Members of Parliament, and leaving aside your contentious speeches here - to display the same trust with regard to this matter as you have demonstrated in respect of the Commission's actions.
With your permission, Mr President, I shall now give the floor to Commissioner Fischler, who will go into detail on certain matters which concern him more particularly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking you for today's debate, because I think that we urgently need to clear this matter up completely.
We cannot effectively discuss ways of regenerating consumer confidence while that confidence is being shaken by unresolved suspicions.
I have taken all the measures available to me to help resolve matters.
As regards the suspected breach of the export ban, President Santer has already told you that we wrote to all the Member States asking them to inform us of any suspicions of which they were aware and, in particular, to let us know if they had anything stronger than suspicions.
So far, no Member States have informed us of anything more than suspicions.
However - and I think this is important - I have also asked UCLAF to investigate the suspicions and, in particular, I have asked the British Agriculture Minister to look into the suspicious circumstances once again.
You know, too, that on previous inspection visits to Great Britain - on which the Member States have also been invited - we have already been investigating how the export ban is being observed on the ground, and there will be another of those inspection missions next week, when our programme will again include such investigations.
Turning now to the second accusation, about the note by a Commission official, I would say that both the holding of a major conference one month later and the fact that between 1990 and 1992 the Standing Veterinary Committee and the Scientific Veterinary Committee dealt with BSE-related issues on more than twenty occasions are indications that the Commission could not have intended to take the approach which has been suggested.
You yourselves are also aware that in the Council's conclusions and the Commission's decisions it has been stated clearly on every occasion that health interests have absolute priority.
I should like to make a further point in this context, because it concerns something which often causes confusion among the public: the fact that the committee is known as the Veterinary Committee does not mean that it is solely concerned with animal health issues: the vets have a worldwide responsibility for ensuring meat hygiene and, consequently, public health.
Finally, I should like to point out that our Scientific Veterinary Committee includes not only vets, but also representatives of other branches of science, particularly human medicine.
I shall be glad to take up the suggestion that was made today of pursuing the internal investigations and reporting back to the House.
Indeed, I am firmly convinced that it is high time we produced a coherent document about what has been done in this area, so that everyone can be convinced about all the steps that we have taken.
However, I also believe it is important - as was said earlier - not just to resolve what has happened in the past, but to concern ourselves with the future.
And here too, top priority will again be given to health measures.
With your permission, I shall deal briefly with a fact which was reported in the media today and which concerns our decision on gelatine.
Mr President, I should simply like to point out that the decision reached by the Commission was based on the scientific documentation available at the time, and the Scientific Veterinary Committee also delivered its opinion on that basis.
In the meantime, on 26 June, we received a new, additional report.
I immediately forwarded the new report - which differed on certain points from an initial report that played a part in April's decision - to the experts and, in the interests of safety, I have also arranged for the whole question of gelatine to be discussed once more by the newly established multi-disciplinary committee.
It will be considering the issue in depth tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Scientific Veterinary Committee has already discussed this question many times.
Clearly, we can only have the latest scientific basis available at any given time, and we have to base our decisions on that.
One further important point is the reorganization of our rendering industry in all the Member States.
A decision has been taken on this too, and the rendering industry throughout the European Union will have to be reorganized by 1 April 1997 at the latest - so all plants which process animal carcasses will be affected.
Measures have also been announced for the transitional period to ensure that no potentially hazardous animalbased or bone meal can find its way into human food or animal feed.
Another very important step, in my view, will be the improvement of our stock identification systems as soon as possible.
We know that there have also been some major scientific breakthroughs.
Yesterday, I gave the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development a comprehensive report on the Commission's deliberations, and in order to save time, I should therefore prefer not to cover that ground again now.
It is quite clear that we have an extremely long way to go with research into the transmissibility of CreutzfeldtJakob syndrome between different types of animals and between animals and human beings, and also with tests on living animals.
And for that reason, I have invited one of the world's leading scientists, Professor Weissmann, to submit a comprehensive research plan in which the individual research projects will complement one another.
We are due to receive a proposal from his research group in the early autumn.
This will allow us to demonstrate quite clearly that the Commission's promise holds good - health is the priority - and that we are acting on that basis.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I have received eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Votes
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at this moment I am unable to withdraw the proposal, as I have no mandate from the Commission to do so.
I would, however, make one point: at the February part-session, Parliament referred this proposal back to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Since then, I have been engaged in regular, useful contacts with that committee, as the rapporteur, Mr Langen, was kind enough to say yesterday. These constructive contacts have made it possible to identify a number of specific changes to the proposal, which take account of the concerns that have been expressed.
If these changes had taken the form of amendments, I would have suggested that the Commission should accept them; however, since no such amendments have been tabled, the best and quickest way of reconciling the views of Parliament and the Commission - in other words, making those changes on which there is a broad consensus - is as follows, and this, Mr President, is what I intend to do: in the light of today's vote, I will suggest that the Commission should adopt an amended proposal, and I shall do so on the basis of the constructive dialogue already under way - and which I shall gladly continue - with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Mr Langen, as rapporteur, do you now wish to vote to reject the draft legislative resolution?
If I understand it correctly, we have just rejected the Commission proposal.
That quite clearly means that the vote has taken place, and it would be mistaken to call another vote.
In my view, the issue has been dealt with.
The Commission is going to submit a fresh proposal, and our vote was quite clear.
Mr President, I agree with the two previous speakers that what the Council of Ministers is doing here is wrong.
It is not right that the Council should be brewing up its own little schemes while we are still debating a directive as part of the procedure.
What should Parliament do? We must not panic.
We must realize that postponing a decision today will not help at all, since the Council will simply go ahead with its plans, and we must not give it the chance to do so.
Instead, we must seize this opportunity to confront the Council with a joint position adopted by both the Commission and Parliament.
Sometimes you have to show that you mean business and take your responsibilities, and the Liberal Group feels that we should therefore simply proceed to a vote.
(Parliament decided to refer the reports back to committee)
Directive 82/501/EEC concerning major accident hazards - the socalled Seveso directive - has been amended on numerous occasions by the Commission and the Council without their having paid proper attention to important factors and parameters relating to the hazards posed by industrial plants and to accidents involving dangerous substances. The inadequacy of the directive, as regards the protection it gives to workers in the event of an accident, to residential areas in the vicinity of installations and to the wider environment, has been highlighted in the most dramatic fashion by the serious and often fatal nature of the accidents which have occurred.
In the Thriasos plain area in Greece, where there is a concentration of large and dangerous installations in centres of population, there have been major accidents with many fatalities. Thousands of local residents are exposed to danger on a daily basis and the environment is being damaged terribly.
The numerous exclusions provided for in the directive render it ineffective and incapable of providing an adequate response to the seriousness of the problem.
The directive does not apply to installations engaged in the manufacture of explosives and weapons, military bases and military storage installations at which, by definition, large quantities of hazardous substances are concentrated and there is a high level of risk. As a result, such installations are exempted from having to submit a danger study and a major accident emergency plan, even though they are not covered by any other Community directive.
Despite the fact that even some urban areas have been turned into virtual powder kegs as a result of the concentration within them of installations using dangerous substances, with incalculable risks for the safety of their inhabitants, the Commission proposal makes no provision, in the framework of the control and planning of land use, for establishing perimeter safety zones around high risk installations for the purpose of protecting local residents, or for prohibiting the siting of new installations or for promoting the removal of hazardous installations from urban areas and centres of population.
The drawing up by each operator of a document setting out an effective major accident prevention policy is of the utmost importance.
The establishment and implementation of high safety standards and the putting in place of credible preventive measures and technical systems are vitally necessary, as are strict and regular checks to ensure that all such measures to protect employees, local residents and the environment are being implemented and the imposition of heavy penalties for non-compliance.
Operators of high-risk installations must be obliged to provide their employees with the information, training and equipment that they need in order to respond adequately to the special demands of their work in normal and abnormal conditions.
They must also be obliged to provide local residents with full and clear information about the hazards to which they are exposed and on how to react in the event of an emergency.
Recommendation for second reading by Mr Seal
Mr President, Mr Seal's report on groundhandling at airports raises two serious problems: a social problem and a safety problem.
Once again, the ill effects of unrestrained deregulation and liberalization have been underlined.
At the airports of Paris alone, 3000 jobs are under threat.
In the name of the reduction of costs, airports are resorting to employing outside security firms and getting rid of professional policemen.
Airport security is now the responsibility of young men who are more used to dealing with shoplifters than international terrorists, and this raises a problem of passenger safety.
The reduction of social protection will lead to a reduction of protection, full stop.
Security firms are already employing migrant workers without papers.
This means that terrorists will be able to infiltrate them at will.
So let us not hear from the Commission tomorrow that they did not know.
After the scandal of contaminated meal, we shall soon be seeing aircraft falling from the sky.
We abstained in the vote to reject the Council's common position intended to open up groundhandling at major airports within the Union to competition.
We did so because we feel that competition in ticket and baggage handling at airports will benefit consumers.
Experience in those countries, such as Sweden, which have opened up groundhandling to competition has been good.
Those who wish to prevent competition sometimes maintain that workers' rights and employment are at risk.
This argument does not hold water.
Legislation governing workers' rights is not at all affected by increased competition.
Jobs have never been created by the preservation of monopolies which serve no social purpose.
Those who will ultimately have to pay if monopolies are preserved are the consumers, through more expensive air transport.
Last November, Parliament delivered its opinion at first reading on the Commission's proposal for a directive on the liberalization of groundhandling services.
That proposal was, in our view, unacceptable, since it did not take account of the realities of this sector - not to mention the absence of social provisions.
In its common position, the Council of Ministers has totally ignored our views.
I shall therefore be voting for the rejection of that text.
I simply wish to ask the Commission to consider the possible consequences of the liberalization of this sector.
For example, the safety of aircraft, and above all that of passengers, will be called into question.
And what can be said as regards the situation of airport employees? There is the possibility of social dumping, redundancies, the replacement of qualified jobs by insecure jobs, and so on.
Such an employment policy will not meet the aspirations of Europe's citizens.
This is not our policy, and it is not my idea of employment.
The Green Group is disappointed that the European Parliament has decided not to reject the common position established by the Council on groundhandling in EU airports.
The Committee on Transport voted recently that the position should be rejected and in our view Parliament should have voted likewise.
The Council has shown itself to be completely unwilling to take on board the concerns which Parliament expressed during the groundhandling debate last year.
As a result, the proposed directive is vague and weak from the point of view of social protection of workers and non-committal in terms of guaranteeing uniform safety standards.
Market liberalization for groundhandling services is not an idea which originated with users of airports or from workers but from the larger transport companies who are eager to reduce costs and operate more flexibly.
The rights of workers are playing second fiddle to the interests of employers.
As a bare minimum, it is necessary that workers are consulted before decisions affecting them are taken.
However, the Council does not guarantee such consultation.
It proposes that each Member State set up a user committee to oversee implementation of the directive in each airport affected but there is no provision for workers in groundhandling services to be represented at that committee.
Moreover, the directive could become a charter for low pay and unsatisfactory job conditions.
Third party handling licences could be limited for a small number of years after which they may be retendered.
Workers would therefore have no job security and no safety net to stop them falling into the dole queue once their contractor's licence has expired.
Market liberalization also cannot be allowed to usher in a more liberal safety regime in EU airports.
If costs are to be cut, then safety standards must not be one of the areas affected.
From my contacts with workers in Dublin Airport, I have heard of instances where they have been put under undue pressure by some of their employers and expected to undertake tasks for which they were not strictly qualified.
One trade union representative has told me of his fears that workers would not be equipped to deal with emergencies such as an engine fire while an aircraft or another vehicle was on the terminal.
For that reason uniform safety standards must apply.
The Council, however, simple states: ' the provisions of this Directive in no way affect the rights and obligations of Member States in respect of law and order, safety and security at airports.' .
It is patently obvious, therefore, that vital issues such as safety and protection of workers have not been addressed by the Council.
We need to reach a common position on groundhandling that is efficient and good for all involved in the airport system.
I know there is great concern felt by many working in the industry in the areas of cleaning, baggage-handling and maintenance.
They are right to be concerned and we must ensure their concerns are heard.
We need a balance between all interests, but security and safety should not be overlooked or diminished in any way by any proposal that is eventually adopted.
We agree entirely with the proposal by the rapporteur, Mr Seal, to reject the Council's common position.
Deregulation does not generally result in greater effectiveness.
Rather the consequences of deregulation are poorer terms of employment and reduced wages for those employed in the deregulated sector.
In Sweden we have many good examples of sectors which were previously state monopolies and in which we were highly innovative and competitive on the international market.
Langen report
I have voted against this report because I do not believe that the option of local and regional purchasing and procurement for local needs is sufficiently provided for.
This option must be provided for to a greater extent than it is in this report.
In this report, Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is recommending the rejection of the Commission's proposal to amend the existing directive coordinating the procurement procedures in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors.
It should be emphasized that this recommendation does not stem from a rejection of the principles of the Government Procurement Agreement concluded in connection with the Uruguay Round.
Nor is it due to a rejection of the basic principle of the Commission's proposal, which is aimed at countering discrimination between undertakings and sectors that must be seen as rivals, regardless of whether they are covered by the provisions of the GPA.
The committee's recommendation is solely based on a wish to make it entirely clear which undertakings and sectors have to respect the guidelines on procurement proposed by the Commission, without being covered by the GPA.
This wish seems a legitimate one in every respect, and the recommendation should therefore be followed, with the Commission being called upon to bring forward a proposal for a supplementary directive which will specify the exemptions and special arrangements in connection with the implementation of the GPA and will refer to the existing EU directives on public tendering.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Trans-European transport network
The next item is the report (A4-0232/96) by Mr Piecyk, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision (C4-0364/96-94/0098(COD)) on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Parliament's rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, our cochairmen, Mr Imbeni and Mrs Fontaine, for their work within the conciliation committee, which was very much appreciated, and the Commission, because it worked extremely hard in trying to get an agreement that we can vote on tomorrow.
It is very unusual for me, as I am sure you can appreciate, to congratulate the Council and, in this instance, it is the Italian Minister Mr Burlando, who worked extremely hard and was a very important figure in reaching an agreement.
One could argue that if the Council had shown Mr Burlando's willingness to get an agreement perhaps relationships would be on a far better footing than they are at the moment.
My group will support the conciliation agreement reached after long, tedious hours of negotiation.
These included all-night sittings, which I thought were reserved for national parliaments, which just shows how wrong I was.
We have, as the rapporteur says, an environmental article that was important to my group and to Parliament.
We have the priority projects, something else that was important to my group and to Parliament - and the indicative list of other projects that the Commission will consider in the other annexes.
It is absolutely true that Parliament did not get everything it wanted from conciliation, but I would suggest that conciliation is not about getting everything that you want: conciliation is about that very word 'conciliating' !
Parliament was very keen to get an agreement and the Commission helped in this.
We see the importance of the TENs, not only in transport infrastructure terms but also in terms of job creation for the people of the European Union.
The Council's attitude at times left a lot to be desired.
I would say to the Council that in future it is important that it works with Parliament rather than going off at a tangent and doing its own thing.
Relationships with the Council at the moment, whilst cordial, are fragile.
The Council should be aware of that and should also be aware that Parliament has its rights under codecision and expects those rights to be respected.
We have to be practical; we have to be aware of the need for TENs, in infrastructure terms and in job-creation terms and in getting people and goods moving throughout the European Union.
We have an agreement that we can live with.
It is not perfect, it is the best deal in town and, therefore, my group will support that deal that we gained at conciliation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the common position which the plenary is being asked either to approve or reject tomorrow contains certain positive elements which the European Parliament delegation to the conciliation procedure, under the excellent chairmanship of Mrs Fontaine, succeeded in prising from the Council after a hard struggle.
I must mention the substantial assistance to the promotion of Parliament's positions provided by the Commission, and by Commissioner Kinnock in particular, and the Italian Minister of Transport in his capacity as President-in-Office.
However, ladies and gentlemen, the question facing us in tomorrow's vote is not whether the common position is good or bad, or rather not just that.
The fact is that the common position as finally formulated creates a serious institutional problem which is harmful to relations between Parliament and the Council, given that via the common position the Council is refusing, in breach of the letter and spirit of Article 129 of the Maastricht Treaty, to grant Parliament the right of co-decision in the establishment of priorities for the major projects of the trans-European network.
In the joint text the word 'priority' appears only in the recitals.
In the common position the Council has gone back on its word and thrown out of the window the political commitment entered into by the heads of state and government at the Essen European Council in 1994 concerning the 14 top priority projects.
It has agreed only, after much pressure, to an historical reference to the Essen conclusions.
However, ladies and gentlemen, the Council's credibility or lack of credibility is its problem.
The determination of the governments to act and conduct themselves politically as true heirs and standard-bearers of the ideals and methods of the Congress of Vienna in 1915 is, likewise, their problem.
It is not ours.
Our problem is the diminution of a right conferred on us by the Treaty.
They are depriving us of the right of co-decision with regard to whether or not particular large projects are priority projects.
That is the situation that you are being asked to accept or reject tomorrow.
You will thus be asked, ladies and gentlemen, to decide according to your consciences and to take responsibility for approving or rejecting the common position in the full understanding that the European Union must not become an inter-state alliance, I repeat, an inter-state alliance , of economic interests in which the voice of Parliament, which expresses the expectations and interests of the peoples of Europe, can be neutralized by the presumptuousness of each and every government.
The European People's Party, for which I speak, will decide on its voting intention this evening.
Mr President, Mr Piecyk worked very hard for a long time in collaboration with us, with the Members of the European Parliament, that is to say, and before being sent to the conciliation committee the final text of his report achieved the impossible in that it was deemed satisfactory by nearly all sides.
It set new horizons with regard to the political, economic and social criteria for the trans-European networks and accorded particular importance to protection of the environment.
I therefore wish to offer Mr Piecyk very warm congratulations.
Then the Council changed it all. At least, it has left nothing of Mr Piecyk's initial report as far as the general tenor of that report is concerned.
There were - I remind you, ladies and gentlemen - 78 points of dispute, 78 differences between us and the Council.
And what have we ended up with? Of the 78, the Council has conceded only on 28, so how can the European Parliament be satisfied?
Is that what they mean by compromise? That is not a compromise, ladies and gentlemen: it is the product of yet another act of political blackmail by the Council against the European Parliament.
That, rather than a satisfactory compromise, was the outcome of the conciliation.
And the explanations given - and Mr Sarlis is absolutely correct - both by Commissioner Kinnock, who did what he could, and we thank him and commend him for that, and by the new President-in-Office have reinforced our anxieties instead of alleviating them.
Because, in fact, the Council can change the order of priorities without consulting anyone, and the money it gives - and Mr Sarlis stressed this point - is not from its own pocket but from the pockets of the peoples of Europe, and the Council, together with the two other institutions, ought to be representing them rather than representing a group of economic interests!
Because that is what it is doing with the changes that it has brought about in the trans-European networks.
Its reasoning was not political or social, or concerned with the environment or with the development of the European Union's networks.
It was purely a representation of the economic interests of a specific group within the European Union.
Mr Piecyk, I personally congratulate you sincerely on your efforts, on the spirit of cooperation that you have displayed and on the wonderful report that you have drawn up.
However, for reasons of political principle I shall vote against the report.
I will make no concession of political principle for the Council of Ministers.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the delegation to the conciliation committee, represented by its chairman, Mrs Fontaine, and Mr Piecyk, on their excellent work.
Two years elapsed between the first Commission proposal on the trans-European networks - in which time Parliament and the Council expressed their views and discovered their differences - and the meetings of the conciliation committee which resulted in the adoption of a compromise text, albeit with some gritting of teeth.
The text we have before us today certainly does not live up to the expectations of Parliament, which could perhaps have achieved more and pushed through the proposals it considered best for the territory and the citizens of the Union which it represents.
Nevertheless, in keeping with the principle of the half-empty glass, I too am pleased that the final text emerging from these lengthy negotiations refers to the environment and to Annex III on the priority projects, even though its legal status remains questionable, to say the least.
Article 20, on combined transport and new traffic management techniques, is particularly welcome.
I believe, in fact, that we must now move towards new solutions, such as the use of inland waterways, which will give a boost to regions such as northern Italy, to which I am particularly attached.
Although the final text is not quite what we would have wished for, largely because of the lack of cooperation from the Council, which is reluctant to accept the new role of the European Parliament and is not adjusting to the codecision procedure, my group will vote in favour of this project, since we believe it is important that Parliament should support this joint decision.
Voting against, which would block all the TENs, would not only make the House responsible for the failure in the eyes of public opinion, but would deprive us of the possibility which we now have of making a positive contribution to solving the problem of employment and to building a better Europe.
Mr President, this Parliament quite rightly demanded that binding environmental provisions be introduced in respect of the trans-European transport networks.
This has come to nothing, however.
All that has been introduced are the, in my opinion, usual old paragraphs which, as we have seen often enough, are in no way binding.
The trans-European transport networks are also a mixture of national and transnational projects, a mixture of positive and negative projects.
I should like to take the opportunity here to give an example of one of the most unnecessary and worst projects: the Øresund bridge between Denmark and Sweden.
In terms of cost, the bridge will be an inescapable burden on generations of Danes and Swedes; moreover, it could become an absolute disaster in environmental terms if things go badly.
I should also like to mention employment.
I believe that those who advocate trans-European networks as a means of solving the unemployment problem are wrong.
In my view this is a very old-fashioned way of thinking.
When we built roads in the 1930s it was individuals with spades that were involved.
However, my experience today, in Sweden at least, is that road building involves five machines and three men.
We construct a motorway at enormous cost but without creating an especially large number of jobs.
There has been a great deal of talk about responsibility.
The Council has refused responsibility for the environment.
The Nordic Green Left accepts that responsibility.
We intend to vote against the compromise tomorrow.
We hope of course that there will be many who do the same, because the environment is the future, whether we like it or not.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally reached the end of this lengthy and complex conciliation procedure.
I should like first of all to pay a sincere and heartfelt tribute to my colleagues Nicole Fontaine and Renzo Imbeni for their handling of the conciliation committee, and for having enabled Parliament to conclude this procedure at long last.
Thank you so much for your organization of our work.
Having said that, we can adopt one of two attitudes today.
The first is to put a brave face on it, and to point with satisfaction to what Parliament has achieved.
The second is to admit - and I should like us to discuss this among ourselves - that we have been left empty-handed, as the saying goes, and that - to use the language of the Commissioner and the Council - this whole business greatly resembles Shakespeare's 'Comedy of Errors' .
I think that Parliament wished to flex its muscles, in the belief that the decisions regarding some of the fourteen priority projects, including the one at Malpensa, were within its gift; by acting in this way, however, it further heightened the concerns of the Council, which immediately ran for cover as soon as it saw these rather overambitious aims on the part of the Committee on Transport and Parliament.
The result is that we have practically nothing to show for all our efforts!
I think that we should learn an important lesson here.
To my mind, we have discovered the limits of codecision and, above all, of our wish to take on powers which were not, seen objectively, ours to exercise.
We could easily have realized the impossibility of doing this.
We might perhaps have adopted a more prudent strategy, without referring back specifically to the political decision taken at Essen; doing that - in my opinion - allowed the Council to adopt its position, with the result that for a moment we actually believed the words of the President-in-Office, Mr Dini.
Mr Dini is a liar: he lied to us as he has done in so many other matters of domestic policy, and as President-in-Office; unfortunately we can only note our lack of success.
Even though our group will vote in favour of the Piecyk report, it recognizes that we have achieved very little.
I rise on a point of order because I am becoming a little concerned about the number of Members going over their speaking time.
Furthermore, I really would ask Members to think very carefully before they stand up in this public chamber and accuse anybody, never mind a President-in-Office, of being a liar.
That is what came through my headphones.
That is not the type of parliamentary language that I am used to, and I would also assume it is not the type of parliamentary language that this European Parliament is used to.
There are ways and means of objecting, there are ways and means of expressing your objection.
Calling somebody a liar is not one of them.
Thank you very much for your comment, Mr Simpson. Coming from you, as one who defends his opinions with great vigour in this Chamber without going over the top, it is especially pertinent.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur deserves thanks for his efforts to achieve a compromise in the conciliation committee, and thereby take the construction of the trans-European transport networks forward.
However, the question arises of whether Parliament can approve the Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network when Parliament has had little say in the matter, when not even 30 % of Parliament's amendments have been accepted by the Council, and when the compromise reached gives precedence to the large number of projects listed in Annexes I and II over the fourteen most important projects selected by the European Council at the Essen summit of 9 and 10 December 1994, thus applying the principle of giving everyone a slice of the cake.
Indeed, the legal character of Annex III, which deals with these priority projects, is seriously undermined by this new approach.
Thus the Brenner Tunnel project, which is so important to Austria, is also called into question.
By virtue of Article 1(2), moreover, the common guidelines totally ignore the basic financial requirements of both the public and private sectors.
And in addition, Article 2(1) refers to the achievement of the objectives up to the year 2010.
Ladies and gentlemen, without agreement on financing, these guidelines have no concrete significance, since they will be impossible to implement on time, if at all.
In the case of the Brenner Tunnel, for example, this means that fundamental preliminary work, such as test drilling, is not being carried out.
Such work is essential, however, in order to be able to make statements as regards the amount of financing required.
Without specific financial estimates, it will be virtually impossible to attract private investors.
Private investors are vital, however, since the Brenner Tunnel cannot be financed by public money alone.
Because of this, the realization of the trans-European networks will meet with further delays, and the Commission's desired effect of job creation through the construction and rapid completion of the TENs is seriously called into question.
Mr President, my main reason for asking for the floor was to make a comment of a political and institutional kind.
First, however, I too - like Mr Simpson - wish to express my appreciation of the conduct of the Italian presidency. I do not in any way mean this ironically, since - however strongly we in this House might criticize the Council - we cannot ignore the role of the President-in-Office, without whom we should probably not have reached a conclusion; my thanks also go to Commissioner Kinnock for having acted as a shrewd mediator and played a perhaps even more important role throughout this phase.
The Council and the Commission found themselves confronting a parliamentary delegation which was authoritative, intelligently led by Mrs Fontaine and - in my opinion - determined; it was thanks to our determination, admirably displayed in particular by our rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, that we achieved certain results.
However, these results were not entirely satisfactory, not least as regards the environment and various amendments.
Whichever way we choose to put it, the final result is unsatisfactory for Parliament, and our opinion on all aspects of the matter remains unchanged: it was our impression that the Council did its utmost to provoke the European Parliament into voting against the trans-European networks.
This was my impression, at least, when the Council first refused even the slightest change to the list of fourteen priority projects, and then let it be known at the Florence European Council that two countries wished to change that list.
I do not believe that this House should change its mind according to the mood-swings in the Council.
The European Parliament must insist on the need for real codecision on the priority projects of common interest.
Personally, I am deeply disappointed by the conduct of the Council and the negative outcome of the Florence summit.
But on no account - and I would invite colleagues to consider this point - should our disappointment be turned into a vote against, which could serve as a pretext for the Council to shift onto us the blame for its own difficulties and divisions.
The problem now for the Irish presidency and the Intergovernmental Conference is that codecision cannot continue in this form.
Although codecision is a procedure between Parliament and the Council, the Council - to our minds - understands it as being between Parliament and COREPER, and this means that a certain irritation becomes apparent at Council level.
It would therefore be helpful if those within the Council were to read the Maastricht Treaty thoroughly; if they have not yet done so, it could be pointed out at the forthcoming summits, and at the special summit in Dublin, that we cannot go on accepting codecision between ourselves and COREPER.
That is not what the Treaty stipulates.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, previous speakers have recalled the events leading up to this decision on Community guidelines on the trans-European transport network, as well as the lengthy discussions that preceded the compromise agreement.
I commend the rapporteur and our colleagues who took part in the many meetings of the conciliation committee on their dedication and their excellent work.
Like all compromises, the text before us today is satisfactory in some respects and less so in others.
Like everyone else here, I feel aggrieved that many of the amendments we approved were not adopted by the Council.
It is particularly disappointing that the ports issue has not been dealt with in this document and that we will have to wait until 1997 for a specific proposal on this from the Commission.
Meanwhile, our group will do its best to ensure that the Commission has a text ready within the agreed timeframe.
However, in view of the complexity of the issue, this is a satisfactory compromise overall, and one that should be approved by Parliament.
We cannot let this develop into an endless process.
Instead, we need to establish a firm legal base so that we can tackle the crucial issue of financing the network.
At a time of economic slowdown, the stakes in terms of jobs are considerable.
It is a pity that this important element has all too often been underestimated by the Member States and that projects which have been in the pipeline for several years have not progressed further.
We therefore need to attract public as well as private investment, so that work can begin as soon as possible, thereby giving a definite signal to the socio-economic players concerned.
As a first step, it is vital that these guidelines are approved.
I shall therefore be voting in favour of the joint text drawn up by the conciliation committee, and I hope that many others here will do the same.
I see from the list that at least ten speakers have only one minute, and I must tell the political groups yet again that I consider one minute's speaking time to be unacceptable.
They must arrange things so that their speakers have at least two minutes.
It is quite disgraceful.
No one can express a set of opinions in one minute. It is only enough for the basic courtesies.
And there are ten Members with only one minute.
For goodness sake!
Mr President, I shall try to say what I have to say in a minute, even though you have already taken part of that time.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, and the chairman of the conciliation committee for their efforts in securing a satisfactory outcome.
It is good that the discussions on the trans-European networks should finally have produced an outcome, although I am not satisfied with the various stages of the process and, in particular, the Council's decision taken at the Florence Summit, to step back from financing the trans-European networks.
In addition to the codecision procedure, we must also remember that in the sparsely populated Nordic countries in particular due note must be taken of the subsidiarity principle when determining communications and transport needs.
I endorse the conciliation committee's decision to approve also Finland's route 5, the lifeline for the whole of Eastern Finland.
In truth it must be said that Finland should itself have taken a more active line on this matter in the Council.
It is ironic that route 5 was included on the list only thanks to the determined efforts of the Swedish Government.
Fortunately, the Finnish Government at least understood that it should jump on the bandwagon, although once again independent action was beyond it.
On the basis of the above, I endorse the outcome of the conciliation procedure.
Mr President, as has already been underlined, criticism must be made of the lack of balance in the conciliation committee between Parliament and the Council.
Nor are we entirely satisfied with the conciliation committee's joint text.
We are aware that some Member States will have to reappraise or review the conditions in which the projects will be carried out, particularly as regards the environment. All the environmental impact assessment directives - which, in many cases, have not even been transposed into national law - must be complied with.
Despite these shortcomings, however, we must pay tribute to what is, in many respects, the historic impact that this joint text will have on many countries and regions.
In the Iberian peninsula, for example, infrastructure deficiencies which we have been suffering since the nineteenth century will be made good.
Many human lives will be saved as a result of these road and rail infrastructure projects.
We must take account of the overall significance of the joint text, and this obliges us to try to ensure that the environmental requirements - and all the others, including the institutional requirements - are complied with.
In view of this overall assessment, therefore, and whilst respecting and understanding the reasons of those who will be voting against, many members of the Group of the European United Left will be voting in favour of the conciliation committee's joint text.
Mr President, as my colleague Nel van Dijk has already said, we Greens are opposed to this conciliation agreement, both because of the short shrift given to environmental protection and because it has not been possible to discuss the priorities currently being attached to the various projects which have been proposed.
But the situation has changed since the Essen Council took its decision, and several countries have already proposed substantial changes, or at least variations, dictated by political, economic, social or financial changes in those countries.
The high-speed rail network between Munich and Verona is a case in point: the cost and the environmental impact of the Brenner tunnel are such that this project is not feasible, even according to the governments of the countries concerned, Germany, Austria and Italy.
But there are other ways of linking northern and southern Europe.
Clearly, then, the intention is to approve a text which we already know to be impracticable.
However, there is no desire at all to guarantee the European Parliament any real role in deciding on the changes.
That would be a dangerous departure from the codecision procedure laid down at Maastricht, and I would ask for some assurances and clarification from Commissioner Kinnock in this respect.
Mr President, Commissioner Kinnock, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of the guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network has come before this House once again, thanks to the efforts of Mr Piecyk and the conciliation committee, which has arrived at a decision potentially acceptable to everyone - although quite frankly I have my doubts.
Everything has its price.
Is it possible to amend all fourteen priority projects? Mr Dini did indeed say that the whole package must be subject to codecision with Parliament.
All of Europe is involved; but the various Member States, the main players and the principal advocates of the priority projects, need to do their sums.
Whatever can be done must be done.
In my opinion, the priority projects should not be changed on any account.
What happens subsequently will of course depend on the timescales, and on national and European exchange rates.
So when this problem is discussed in the House, I shall urge that the priority projects should be respected.
The rest will come later.
Mr President, are we not considerably further ahead with the development of the common transport policy than today's debate would seem to indicate? I believe that the Council has been somewhat isolated.
It has essentially been the Commission and Parliament which have taken this matter forward since the beginning of the 1990s, whilst once again, the Council has had to be dragged to the ball.
Clearly, the construction of the trans-European transport networks is an essential precondition for the further development of the Union.
We are assuming that we are finally reaching the design and development stage and will soon be able to take the next step: making firm statements on financing.
Indeed, all the talk about private-sector financing and so on will not take us any further until hard and fast investment and implementation plans are drawn up, on the basis of which we can gradually make further progress and move towards a common objective in respect of the various forms of transport.
This is the message which must go out from today's debate.
I received the impression from the conferences in both Prague and Crete that there is a common will in this respect.
At both conferences, the common desire to move forward was expressed and emphasized.
We must create the financial base and then address this matter again at the Helsinki conference next year.
We must discuss once again the trans-European transport networks, the possibilities of financing and the steps which have to be taken. And that conference may in turn represent a milestone.
In the budgetary procedure for 1997, Parliament will have to consider carefully whether it is again prepared to allocate 75 % of the overall budget for transport policy to the trans-European transport networks or the fourteen priority projects.
I believe that this will become extremely difficult, and that we must create an additional financial framework, in order to contribute to the realization of the networks.
Mr President, the essential thing today is to highlight the political importance of the fact, in itself, that Parliament and the Council have reached an agreement in terms of the future of our transport policy and our policy on cohesion and solidarity.
I should like to set out the four reasons why, in my view, we need this agreement.
Firstly, if we had not reached this agreement, we would have to start the process of laying down Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network all over again, without any guarantee that, in two or three years' time, Parliament would not be required to approve an agreement which is similar to, or worse than, the one we have at present.
It goes without saying that the enormous political and public relations cost of such a delay would be borne by Parliament, since our citizens would not understand why, having repeatedly stressed the need to build this network and insisted that it would lead to the creation of countless jobs, this House should now decide to reject the agreement reached or, in other words, to perpetuate the infrastructure deficiency, which in some Member States is very great, thereby delaying the creation of jobs.
I should like to give the House a statistic regarding the job-creating potential of transport infrastructure construction - and I would say this to Mrs Eriksson, who maintained that this was something from the last century: for every 2 500 000 euros invested, 100 jobs will be created.
And that is today, not in the last century.
And it is not counting indirect jobs.
If Members calculate the infrastructure needs, they will see that many millions of jobs can be created.
Secondly, our transport infrastructure deficiencies and associated costs are enormous.
In this context, the competitiveness of our economy, faced with the increasingly tough challenges of the international market, is at stake. And this requires immediate action - action which cannot wait for a hypothetical perfect future agreement between Parliament and the Council.
Thirdly, we are all convinced that besides improving our competitiveness, the trans-European transport networks will help to strengthen the Community's cohesion and rectify its obvious territorial imbalances, thereby facilitating the future enlargement of the Union to include other European countries.
And fourthly, on a pragmatic level, given the present and future budgetary constraints of the Union and the Member States, and with the knowledge that nothing is more elusive than money, the European Union and its Parliament need this agreement today, because at the least sign of hesitation or differences of opinion over criteria or objectives between our institutions, the private capital which we unquestionably need to finance the development of the trans-European transport networks will go to fund projects in other parts of the world which are or will become our competitors.
I was able to verify this on a recent visit to China.
For all these reasons, ladies and gentlemen, I would urge you to vote in favour of the agreement reached by the Parliament and Council delegations on the Community guidelines for the trans-European transport network, in the secure knowledge that, in doing so, you will be rendering a service to the cause of European integration.
Mr President, we shall say yes, tomorrow, to the work of the conciliation committee, in the spirit of someone closing a major chapter of that book of dreams entitled 'trans-European routes' . But the story is not complete.
Who will write the next chapters? This is where there are grounds for concern, and although it is true that we should be celebrating this outcome - albeit with the reservations already voiced by colleagues - we are also rightly concerned about the future.
Commissioner Kinnock has confirmed today that the priority attached to the famous fourteen projects of Essen is not set in stone; and that is quite right, because it can happen that someone who feels too secure becomes lazy during the second phase, that of implementation, which is the more sensitive one, Commissioner.
That is why I would remind you of the need to take action, in terms of launching the work programmes and the financial plans.
The partnerships so far tested between Member States, regions and private operators are becoming nothing short of cattle markets, where the rules are continually being changed and promises retracted.
Such is the case with the Munich-Verona route.
A few days ago, just as Italy and Austria were launching the EEIG, the European interest group which was to plan the entire funding scheme, Germany announced that it was no longer prepared to pay its share of the Brenner base tunnel.
So here is an indication that we also need to make arrangements for the second phase, which could compromise everything.
You, Commissioner, said to us one day: ' Tell your fellow citizens that joining in a partnership could well turn into a business' .
I repeated this sentence at various seminars on the Munich-Verona route.
I must say, quite frankly, that I did not encounter much enthusiasm, mainly because some people suspect - or fear - that this freedom being granted to Member States, regions and private operators might just be hiding certain pitfalls.
I wish you every success in your work!
Mr President, the matter has to a large extent been covered. Allow me simply to say that we are at just about the same point as we were at yesterday on the subject of groundhandling.
The co-decision and conciliation mechanism has led us into an impasse.
Either Parliament accepts the position formulated by the conciliation committee, which will mean relinquishing, if not all of the amendments, at least the two main positions, namely on the environment for all of the projects and on the priorities and their alteration via codecision, or it rejects the position of the conciliation committee, which will mean that it will risk losing some of the compromises that it has won, or that those projects will be delayed or that the Council's decision may finally be imposed in its entirety.
I have to say that although the Commission appears to be supporting Parliament up to a point, it is playing the role of the wise teacher at the last minute and trying to get the Council's position approved.
At the same time, even the governments - including mine - which largely accepted Parliament's positions are pressuring us to support this common position of the conciliation committee for the sake of delaying the projects.
It is an extremely difficult position.
Parliament has fallen into a trap again, and I feel that the situation must resolved via the intergovernmental conference.
Having said that, however, and as far as the issue in question is concerned, if we wish to be true to ourselves and to the positions that we have set out, and if we want a Parliament with genuine powers, I think that we should take up the recommendation of Mrs Eriksson and others and reject the position of the conciliation committee.
Mr President, Commissioner, we must not allow ourselves to be annoyed by the discreditable events at the Florence summit, however difficult this may be for many of us, especially our excellent rapporteur.
For indeed, the plans for the trans-European transport network have opened a new chapter in the history of European transport policy.
The launch of this project will represent a first attempt to create, at European level, a sustainable transport infrastructure for the whole of Europe.
The investment made to this end will have a twofold benefit: the development of a more environmentally compatible transport infrastructure; and the creation of new jobs for Europe's citizens.
Nevertheless, our work on this project will not end with tomorrow's vote.
Following the Council's display of ignorance and arrogance, it must be made clear that we shall continue to pursue our aims with all means available.
In particular, it will be up to the members of the Committee on Budgets to ensure that what is now the indicative stipulation that the fourteen Essen schemes are priority projects is actually adhered to, and that Community resources are used to secure a new trend in favour of environmentally compatible forms of transport.
Furthermore, we shall be required to check carefully that the environmental requirements set out in Article 8 are complied with by all the Member States.
I wish to stress the fact that I and the other Austrian social democrat Members regret the deletion of the ParisVienna route as a priority project.
Nevertheless, in view of the planned swift commencement of work on the Munich-Verona route, I shall be supporting the compromise reached, since this project is of the utmost importance to the Länder of western Austria.
With regard to financing, I should like to draw attention to the fact, in conclusion, that the Austrian Parliament recently decided, on the initiative of the social democrat Transport Minister, to invest some ÖS 60 billion in transport infrastructure in the near future.
This is a measure which should set an example to all the Member States of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the outcome of the conciliation procedure can be viewed in various ways.
For me, the glass is not half full: it is more than half empty.
An overall assessment must be made, and I believe that, for a number of reasons, the legitimate expectations of the citizens of Europe have not in the least been fulfilled.
The listing of the priority projects in Annex III is partly not meant seriously by the Council - please listen, Mr Farthofer - partly overtaken by events, and partly incomplete.
It is partly not meant seriously because neither the Austrian nor the Italian Government is prepared to provide the necessary resources for the genuinely European project of the Brenner Tunnel in the next few years.
They will not provide the resources!
I agree with you, however, that it is a disgrace that the European Union has not included the extension of the West-East high-speed train via Karlsruhe to Munich and Vienna, with a continuation to Budapest.
That is why I regard this listing as completely unacceptable.
It is no surprise, however, that it has been incorporated in the text in this way, since the Council was not prepared to negotiate seriously with Parliament about the list of priority projects and to take a joint decision.
As previous speakers have already explained, the Council simply said that we should refer to the Essen list.
Unfortunately, the majority of Parliament's delegation was satisfied with that.
In my view, that is completely unacceptable, firstly since the Council - or at least the majority in the Council - has denied Parliament the right of codecision conferred upon it by the Maastricht Treaty, and failed to agree to a single paragraph of Parliament's relevant amendments and additions.
And, secondly, the Council has failed to provide the citizens of the Union with a clear and honest decision as to which are, in that case, the priority projects that are soon to be launched.
According to the statements by the President-in-Office of the Council, the Essen list is henceforth fixed and immutable, and thus we have allowed ourselves to be deprived of the right of codecision on these essential projects.
However, let us move on from the institutional questions.
A second point of criticism concerns the fact that, at the recent Florence summit, the majority of Member States made it clear that they have no intention of following up their fine words with deeds.
The Member States' governments neither agreed to make additional resources available for the development of the transport network through the redeployment of funds in national budgets, nor even took the fundamental decision to release further resources through the transfer of funds in the Community budget.
Whilst we repeatedly remind our citizens that 95 % of the finance for these European transport projects will come from national budgets, including loans and private-sector transactions, and that only preliminary studies, interest rebates and small subsidies will be funded from the Community budget, it is becoming clear that the Member States' governments wish to content themselves with merely designating priority projects - on the basis, moreover, of the 1994 evaluation.
Parliament should not lend this political manoeuvring by the Council the appearance of success through its consent in the conciliation committee.
Our citizens are expecting that, following the decision on the transEuropean transport network, work will now actually begin on the construction of the genuinely priority European projects in the near future.
Only in this way will it be possible to combat the impending collapse of transport systems, enhance the safety of transport users, reduce environmental pollution and contribute to job-creation and growth.
However, none of this is contained in the compromise, and I can therefore only agree with those colleagues who say that it should be rejected.
Mr President, it is now almost two years since the Essen European Council meeting. Little, if any, progress has been made in the development of the trans-European transport network which, as we understand it, forms the backbone of the European transport infrastructure into the next century.
I am thinking of my own constituency of Connaught/Ulster in which five of the counties are border counties where we require a much improved infrastructure.
In view of the fact that in those peripheral areas we depend very much on an improvement in our road infrastructure, it is vitally important that this work should commence at a very early date.
I welcome the appointment by the Irish presidency of a former Director General of Fisheries, Eamon Gallagher, who has been appointed by the presidency to break the deadlock over funding of the trans-European networks.
I believe his experience as a negotiator at the highest EU level will bear fruit.
But while we speak of TENs, I would also like to refer very quickly to the responsibility which we have for all parts of the Union.
I am thinking in particular of the west and the northwest of Ireland where we require a major investment to bring our road networks up to an acceptable level.
Until we have this, we will not be in a position to provide much-needed jobs in those areas.
Mr President, there are four comments that I should like to make.
I should first of all like to congratulate Mr Piecyk on his powers of endurance, together with all those who have provided their political and administrative support.
Secondly, I would point out the simple fact that once this procedure is concluded, the TENs will finally have been adopted.
I think it will still take a long time before we get the genuinely lasting and coherent European transport policy that we want.
It will take a good deal of hard work and there will be many barriers to bring down, barriers between countries and regions, and also between transport techniques and in the way people think, because transport affects more than just economic growth.
My third comment concerns the conciliation procedure, which I think would certainly benefit from being given a little more substance and weight, particularly in the informal phase.
The parties involved, the Council, the Commission and Parliament - but in this case particularly the Council - need to have more confidence in each other and put their arguments forward in open debate.
Once this happens, the formal conciliation procedure can be kept purely as a safety net and will really hardly be needed, which will be a great advantage when you think of how much trouble it causes, not to mention how much it all costs.
Finally, I would just say that I think there is no point in voting against at the moment, since that will not help anyone, nor indeed the environment.
If we do vote against, the world will not stop and wait while we go away and think again.
The compromise should, in my opinion, be the start of a whole new approach with the emphasis on policy rather than procedure, because we still have a great deal more to do.
Mr President, when Parliament votes tomorrow on the joint text from the conciliation committee on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network, a long legislative process will come to an end.
This will provide proof that the codecision procedure is workable, even for the most difficult issues.
We all know that it is in the very nature of a compromise that, in many areas, solutions will be reached which do not completely satisfy everyone concerned.
As a Member of the European Parliament, I am certainly not happy with the way in which the Council acted.
The European Parliament must not be excluded from participation in decision-making on transport issues.
However, we must not forget our responsibilities with regard to these projects or, in particular, with regard to the citizens whom we represent in this House.
A quick decision will mean, I hope, the rapid start of construction - and with it, an important boost to the labour market. And in view of the fact that there are 18 million unemployed people in Europe, the Union is urgently in need of such a boost.
In the case of Austria, two projects are very much to the fore. Firstly, the extension of the Brenner axis - the importance of which cannot be stated often enough or overemphasized - is essential for our country.
In the interests of our hard-pressed neighbours, a rapid start to construction is vital, to say nothing of the environmental problems which can to some extent be resolved by the building of this route and the introduction of combined transport.
I would draw attention once again in this context to the special problems hitherto involved in long-distance transport and the particular geographical situation of the Brenner pass.
The transalpine Munich-Verona route must be a matter of concern to the whole European Union, not only to the countries immediately affected.
Of equally great importance to Austria is the construction of the high-speed route for combined transport from Paris, via Munich, to Vienna and Budapest.
This project does not figure among the fourteen Essen priority projects, but must be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
At a time when the enlargement of the Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is taking concrete form, infrastructure projects which bring this region closer to the existing Community must be particularly encouraged.
I would point out in this respect that Austria has only been a Member of the European Union since 1 January 1995, but that its legitimate demands must be taken seriously.
If we are to be able to pursue effectively the objectives laid down in Article 2 of the EC Treaty in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, there is an urgent need for a modern, fast and economical transport network with appropriate capacities, which also reflects the modern attitude towards the environment.
The trans-European transport network represents a great challenge to the European Union, but also an opportunity: through targeted investment, projects which are urgently needed can be realized.
In this way, Europe will grow a little closer together and become more competitive, and jobs will be created.
The decision on the trans-European networks can be a major step towards the further development of the Union.
Let us seize the opportunity offered to us!
Mr President, I have two comments. Firstly, there is the institutional side.
Many Members have congratulated one another today on the result we have produced and will be voting on tomorrow.
To my mind, the praises should be muted.
On the other hand, that is how things are: this is a compromise, and I shall naturally vote in favour of it.
At the weekend, I had the pleasure of visiting a trans-European project from the old Roman Empire, the first road from Rome to the Adriatic, and touching the wall built by Caesar Augustus out on the Adriatic coast.
One cannot help thinking of the Treaty of Rome and the trans-European networks when one visits such a historic monument.
One cannot help thinking about what we decided at Maastricht.
And I cannot help thinking how we spent time doing battle with each other over our own projects, the so-called 'imby' projects - in my own backyard.
We were not thinking in a very European way, and the same thing happened in the Council.
These 14 projects have been created to bind Europe together and to sell the scheme.
So, ladies and gentlemen, let us now stop flexing muscles which perhaps we do not have.
That was my first point.
My second point is that the trans-European networks are also connected with employment.
It is not just a question of building a road or a tunnel, or whatever it may be, but of binding Europe together, just as in the Roman Empire, but in rather different terms.
I do have my own pet project, though it is a European one.
I am pleased that in this discussion, we have succeeded in raising the profile of the maritime sector.
I know that the Commissioner and the Council agree that the maritime sector is an area of potential in the development of the trans-European networks.
Let us build on that together.
It has the environmental angle, it has the right element of European policy.
We should take the decisions together - Council, Commission and Parliament.
My wish is that the increase in traffic should benefit Europe, and not just individual countries.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this conciliation will leave a bitter taste in the mouths of all those who have taken part in it.
We believe that codecision is an essential instrument for reducing the democratic deficit, but one that means little or nothing to the Council or the Commission - which sadly, in this case, has been its over-enthusiastic follower.
We are not going to pull our punches here. The Council has repeatedly tried to wreck the codecision process by imposing an unreasonable number of conditions for identifying projects of common interest, thereby depriving the agreement of any substance.
I would also take the Commission to task for being, in the words of an illustrious British stateswoman, the Council's lap-dog.
Barely a fortnight ago, Commissioner, on 1 July, you sent a letter to the chairman of the Committee on Transport and Tourism in which you said, firstly, that Parliament should be involved in any changes made to the list of priority projects; secondly, that your intention was to consider whether such an amendment to the guidelines for the network would be appropriate - which means, if that last phrase makes any sense at all, that you wanted to consider whether or not an amendment to the list of priority projects was required; and, thirdly, that this amendment should be approved by codecision.
Now you tell us, in your letter of 12 July, that in the event of any possible changes to the Essen list being proposed, you would ascertain whether or not these had been identified in Annexes I and II.
If this is indeed the case, then any changes to the list would be carried out without Parliament's involvement.
What kind of a joke is that!
Mr Simpson said that we must not call you a liar.
I have too much respect for parliamentary customs in Britain not to comply with his request.
Instead, I will talk about hypocrisy and lack of integrity.
But in spite of everything, we shall vote for this text because we know that too many people are waiting to castigate us for our lack of commitment to the networks, with a view to opposing any extension of codecision.
But in voting for it, we cannot forget the humiliation to which we have been subjected.
I am a Christian Democrat and, to quote François Mauriac, ' I forgive trespasses, but I remember the dates' .
Mr President, Parliament wanted a binding clause on environmental protection in this legislation, as reflected in our second reading amendments.
I want to thank Mr Piecyk and Commissioner Kinnock for their help in winning this clause.
We want an emphasis on rail and water networks rather than massive motorway building and we want rigorous environmental impact assessments.
It was astonishing to meet such blinkered resistance on the part of the Council on this crucial issue.
We have ended up with just the bare minimum which can be accepted.
Having sat through all those long nights of negotiations, I have to say that it is a grudging and minimalist concession on the part of the Council.
It is not as good as we would have liked but, in the spirit of conciliation, it is much better than what we started with.
It does not guarantee that Member States will necessarily choose the least environmentally damaging option and therefore it will require extremely tight vigilance on the part of European citizens and environmental NGOs as these networks begin to be planned and implemented to make sure that this happens.
It will be up to this Parliament to ensure that there is no backtracking on the environment article, which we have won under such difficult circumstances, by the Member States and we will continue to watch the trans-European networks very carefully.
In the spirit that we have ended up with much more than we started with, this House should approve the networks.
Then let us get on with trying to find the money to build them and to create the jobs which we so sorely need in this Community.
Mr President, in this connection I should like to thank Mr Piecyk and the other Members who have succeeded in achieving this compromise.
The development of the trans-European transport networks is essential because the networks will further European integration and boost employment.
From Finland's point of view, the proposal concerning the trans-European transport networks has got better and better.
All the important parts of the network, from the point of view of our country, have been incorporated into the proposal.
Due note has also been taken of our speciality, icebreakers.
The list of priority measures includes the Nordic triangle, which in Finland involves the construction of the corridor comprising high-quality railway lines, motorways and harbours between Turku and St. Petersburg in Russia.
We thank Parliament for its understanding of our special situation.
The Union must now resolve the problem of the funding of the transport networks in such a way that the required investment is not withheld for fear of adding to State deficits.
The system for calculating public finances should be changed in such a way that when the productive investment in connection with the trans-European networks is calculated, account is taken only of the costs which give rise to interest and amortization.
This would mean that at present those investment costs would represent only one-twentieth of the public investment costs under the current system.
Because account would only be taken of 5 % of the cost of such measures, in the form of annual amortization, and because at present full account is already taken of interest-rate costs, the issue is the current focus for the development of the transport networks.
Mr President, according to Article 129b, the trans-European networks must contribute to the strengthening of the Community's economic and social cohesion.
The Union's actions in this field are required to promote, firstly, the harmonious development of the Community as a whole, and secondly - and in particular - the linking of the island, landlocked and peripheral regions with the central regions of the Community.
From the point of view of the coastal regions, this second requirement was not at first given adequate consideration.
In the end, the Committee on Regional Policy managed to ensure that it was taken more into account.
The joint text now provides for the sea-side continuation of transport infrastructure, in accordance with the 'road to sea' concept, which includes the integration of seaports and short-sea shipping.
From the point of view of regional policy, this is a success.
These two aspects of the guidelines must now be translated into action.
If just the major projects are implemented, only the economically strong regions will be interlinked.
That will mean that the economically weak and peripheral regions will miss out on the economic boost that is intended to result from the development of the trans-European transport network.
Furthermore, provision must be made for an adequate number of stopping-off, approach and departure points.
This is the only way to prevent a large number of regions from becoming purely transit areas.
In the view of the Committee on Regional Policy, this is a classic conflict between transport policy and regional planning policy, which can only be resolved by means of solidarity between the regions.
However, there is also a need for solidarity with regard to the codecision procedure.
The impression has been strengthened that the Member States need to be shaken up in this respect.
Parliament will no longer allow itself to be deprived of the democratic rights conferred on it by the Maastricht Treaty.
Mr President, first of all I endorse the hearty thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, who has guided us all for so long on this very complex and challenging issue.
I would also like to welcome in the most positive terms possible trans-European networks.
They are, in my view and that of my group, a clear rejection of the laissez-faire approach to transport policy in Europe which has resulted, as we all know, in record congestion and pollution and cost ECU 100 billion a year in delay costs alone.
In its place now, because of trans-European networks, we have the framework for a planned, coordinated attempt to switch traffic from the roads to the railways, the maritime sector and to inland waterways.
We are doing that by harnessing the resources of both the public and private sectors.
I would like to welcome all of that.
Secondly, I condemn the resistance of some Member States to our positive proposals to put our environmental concerns at the very heart of the trans-European network guidance.
But I would, in so doing, like to thank the Commissioner for his positive contribution to this very issue.
I think he would agree with me that its a real pity that some Member States at least say one thing in public about the environment, but do another when it comes to Council meetings.
The debate today represents real progress, a real attempt to take the environment into account.
For the first time ever we are committing ourselves as a European Union to a strategic environmental assessment.
Yes, it will take three years to influence the revision of the guidelines, but that major progress which was resisted for so long by the Council should be welcomed by us all.
Yes, we must all remain vigilant, but we must also all work together positively to make sure TENs meet our objective of ensuring we have environmentally sustainable transport policies to pass on to future generations.
Mr President, how can we fail to greet with optimism the launch of the fourteen projects now under discussion?
Without doubt, the trans-European transport networks will represent the main arteries of a modern, competitive and job-creating European Union. At present, there are few such arteries, and they are relatively congested.
Transport is an economic, social and political factor of the utmost importance, and not only is there a need for transport networks that are geared to realities, but those networks must function at a European level, with the interoperability that is necessary and only logical.
Furthermore, we should not dismiss the result of this trial run of the codecision procedure.
I have to say that my personal observation of the Commission leads me to believe that it has been engaging in double talk on this issue.
According to its discussion partner, it has been using double talk - although, of course, in the wake of the relative failure of the conciliation procedure, Parliament does not have the best possible perspective.
Financing, Commissioner, is another key aspect of the trans-European transport network project.
The financial perspective is inadequate: it lacks balance in terms of the priority given to the objectives that we are setting. And this will have to be put right, if we do not wish to fall into the kind of rhetoric and populism which talking a great deal and failing to provide the necessary resources ultimately represents.
Let me end with a warning, however: the Community's infrastructure policy, Commissioner, its trans-European networks policy, is not contributing to the strengthening of economic and social cohesion which is required by the Treaty.
According to the Treaty, all policies are to contribute to the strengthening of economic and social cohesion.
I have to say to you today - and I hope to be able to speak with you at greater length on another occasion - that this policy is not helping to strengthen the European Union's economic and social cohesion.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for my part I should like to congratulate our rapporteur and the Members of the European Parliament who are members of the conciliation committee chaired by Nicole Fontaine, for the competence, balance and good political sense demonstrated in these difficult negotiations, bearing in mind that the agreement reached was overall a positive one and that we now have the conditions for making decisive progress in the process of constructing the trans-European networks in the transport sector, something which is vital for the proper functioning of the internal market, for strengthening economic and social cohesion and for creating new jobs.
The achievement of these projects constitutes an important contribution to efficient and diversified links between the peripheral regions and the centre of the European Union, a vital condition for the existence of equal opportunities for all the citizens and undertakings in the Community.
Some aspects of this issue have to be emphasized, however: first of all the financing of the trans-European networks must be carried out outside the structural funds and the Cohesion Fund which had already been allocated for other purposes.
For us it is quite clear that we should now earmark extra credits and add those to the ones which have already been agreed upon.
Secondly, the priorities to be given to the projects must be borne in mind within a perspective of political dynamics and we should also apply the philosophy proposed in the report which we are now analysing.
In the case of Portugal, the proposal presented at the last European Council in Florence to integrate the project for a motorway from Lisbon to Valladolid into the inter-modal links between Portugal and Spain seems to us far more in keeping with the philosophy approved by the European Parliament and will actually contribute to a more balanced development of this region.
I therefore think, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that we should vote in favour of this agreement and I call upon the Commission to put it swiftly into execution.
Mr President, it is not easy to shape a policy of economic and social cohesion.
Sometimes we take several steps forward, at other times we go through a phase of stagnation; in this case we have taken a small step forward.
That is my assessment of the conciliation procedure.
Nevertheless, we should commend the successful work of the Commissioner and the rapporteur, as well as the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the technical teams supporting all their efforts.
Our task now is to find the financial resources to ensure that this document can be appreciated by our citizens, so that economic and social cohesion can become real and tangible.
In spite of the meagre resources, we have to fight an important battle: the continual references to private funding could in some ways be ideologically inspired, in that to my mind, major infrastructure networks linking areas which include some on the periphery have a real need of public resources, and these can be made available through joint efforts from the EU budget and national policies.
There is much that we can do in this respect, I believe, to invest in jobs and take due account of the environment.
Planning decisions have been made: for the first time, we have projects which are defined as being of common interest, whether they are priority projects or not, and they are binding on the national governments.
In this context, I welcome the statement by the Commission that it wishes to prioritize projects with a lesser impact on the environment and which promote combined transport.
Here, I think that certain projects to link north and south would correspond with the Commission's principles.
I wish you every success in your work!
Mr President, the conciliation procedure on the trans-European networks has produced little in the way of results, particularly on the subject of priority projects.
Despite all its fine words, the Council has done its best in this particular case to flout the codecision procedure agreed at Maastricht, and we shall now have to consider very carefully whether we can accept the poor results which have been produced.
In order to do so, we must look at the political implications.
Firstly, rejecting the compromise would mean postponing the implementation of the networks and thus delaying the anticipated benefits for the economy and employment.
This is certainly not what people want.
Secondly, it would seriously damage the attempts being made to find more funding for the networks from the Union's budget and other sources.
I therefore think that it would be better to hold the Council and the Commission to their promise to involve the European Parliament in an appropriate way if the priority projects are to be substantially amended.
I would refer to the statement made by Mr Dini during the debate on 3 July, I think it was, and to Commissioner Kinnock's letter of 1 July, both of which are quite clear on this point.
I would point out that the budget procedure offers us a very practical way of ensuring that these promises are carried out to the letter.
I should like to make one further comment about the air crash at Eindhoven.
The President of the House this morning sent his condolences to the families of the victims who were killed or injured when a military aircraft crashed at Eindhoven airport.
I hope the relevant authorities will carry out a detailed investigation into the causes of the crash, and I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he thinks that the Commission should be involved in the investigation, simply so that we can learn as much as we can from this tragedy in which 32 people lost their lives.
I should like to end by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Piecyk, and Mrs Fontaine and Mr Imbeni for all their hard work in the conciliation committee, and of course our thanks also go to Commissioner Kinnock for his tireless efforts to find a compromise.
Mr President, I should like to begin by supporting Mr Cornelissen, speaking on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, in offering the condolences of the Commission to those bereaved by and injured in the appalling air tragedy in Eindhoven yesterday.
In response to the question raised by Mr Cornelissen I have to say that I confirm that the Commission does not have the legal competence to undertake investigation.
However, he can be absolutely certain that, as on all occasions, we seek to secure the fullest possible information and analysis in order to learn any lessons to be drawn from air disasters of any description.
On the issue of the trans-European transport network guidelines, I would begin by expressing my appreciation for the constructive efforts made by Mrs Fontaine and other members of the conciliation committee from all parts of the House on this important piece of legislation.
As rapporteur, Mr Piecyk clearly had a special responsibility - and I commend him for his work - over a time span that turns out to have been two months longer in total than the gestation period of an elephant.
I know that he has produced something which, in the European context at least, is not as beautiful but is certainly more functional than the average elephant.
The process of adopting the guidelines for the trans-European transport network is now moving towards its conclusion and, as the House may know, the Council gave its agreement yesterday.
I am sure that everyone who has had direct involvement will share my view that, quite apart from the significant interinstitutional issues, efficient trans-European transport networks - as several Members have said in the course of the debate - are vital for jobs, growth, competitiveness and economic and social cohesion.
They must be developed systematically and in the interests of the Union and, indeed, the whole of our continent, as some Members also reminded us in the course of this and other debates on the guidelines.
It is no exaggeration to say that the adoption of the guidelines is a significant event in the history of our Community.
For the first time and in accordance with the Treaty, the Community has established, legislated policy for the medium and long-term development of the overall international transport infrastructure network.
That will prove to be a practical binding process for our Community, as Mr Sindal suggested.
In addition, this is the first occasion on which the Member States, through the Council, have considered transport infrastructure networks in a codecision process with the European Parliament.
I am certain that will prove to be an important development in the relationship between the democratic institutions of the Community and, as several Members have suggested, this should be regarded as the beginning of the evolution and not in any sense the end.
It is a matter of fact that in general the Member States have to secure the provision of over 90 % of the funds needed to undertake projects and the codecision process only covers the guidelines for the TENs, not their implementation or financing.
It is also clear that subsidiarity is properly secured by the provision under Article 129 of the Treaty that guidelines and projects of common interest which relate to the territory of a Member State shall require the approval of the Member State concerned.
The task of codecision, therefore, had to be undertaken against the background of those legal, economic and political realities.
And whilst that naturally increased the complexity of the work, the joint text on the guidelines, as it now stands, is a satisfactory result for the whole Community.
In the course of achieving that joint text, there have been significant changes, as Members reminded us, in the course of the debate.
First, the principle of specifying environmental considerations in the guidelines has been achieved in a new article, and that provision opens the way to the development of two new means of ensuring adequate environmental safeguards: strategic environmental impact assessments and corridor assessments.
Naturally, the Commission takes these provisions seriously and will strive to ensure their useful implementation.
In answer to Miss Eriksson and Mrs van Dijk, under Article 7 of the Financial Regulation I have to remind them that the projects financed under this regulation shall comply with Community law and Community policies, in particular in relation to environmental protection, competition and the award of public contracts.
Of course, the habitat Directive, which was referred to by Mrs van Dijk, is the law of the Community and must be complied with on pain of prosecution.
In both respects, therefore, and whilst I would not claim an immaculate provision to save the environment in the context of the TENs guidelines, very significant progress was made, thanks largely to the work of Parliament so far as the safeguards for the environment are concerned.
The second change concerned the identification of projects of common interest and the amendments to the maps in Annex 1 and the specifications and criteria of Annex 2, where the Council accepted 18 further amendments in the conciliation procedure, in addition to those accepted after first reading.
Third, on the remaining amendments, the Council and the Commission made a joint declaration with Parliament that they take note of projects supported by Parliament in second reading with a view to the future development of the trans-European transport networks.
In addition, the Commission has declared that it will examine the projects voted for by Parliament in second reading and that examination will be undertaken as part of the revision procedure which is set for July 1999.
On the subject of ports, which I know rightly exercise several Members of this House, there are clearly very real questions of competition between these essential parts of the maritime infrastructure and, for that reason, it has not yet been found possible to achieve an approach to ports which is similar to that established for airports.
The Commission intends, therefore, after consultation with the interested parties and naturally the Member States, to present a report next year to identify eligible ports and consider whether it is appropriate to make a proposal that is comparable to that relating to airports in the Community.
Parliament also achieved changes in another area, where there was significant contention: the so-called 'priority projects' and Annex III.
It is obviously well-known that Member States objected right from the beginning to the setting of priorities for projects in the guidelines decision.
They were convinced that the setting of priorities for projects of common interest is strictly a matter for national governments.
I know that Members of this House understand that view when more than 90 % of the costs of these major infrastructure developments have to be financed through the action of Member States.
Through negotiation in the conciliation procedure, Parliament succeeded in including a special provision - Article 19, referring to Annex III and the 14 projects of common interest to which the Essen Council attached particular importance.
Another provision - Article 20 - is directed towards projects of common interest in combined transport and new traffic management techniques.
As Members will know, they can take satisfaction from those developments and from the joint declaration by Parliament, the Council and the Commission calling on Member States to give the greatest importance to the implementation of these projects.
Members of the House will know that at the recent Florence European Council the new Portuguese and Spanish Governments proposed modification of Project No 8 on the Essen list.
No-one will need to be told that this is a multiple development and it is clear that consideration of the issue must be undertaken with strict observance of the letter and the spirit of the compromise achieved in the conciliation committee and now recommended to this House.
We in the Commission will naturally be examining the project further and clearly we do not yet know what the political orientation of the European Council will be.
If some modification of Article 19 and Annex III of the guidelines decision was to appear to be appropriate the Commission would have to consider whether to make a corresponding proposal.
The procedure for amendment in that event, as Mr Dini for the presidency has already suggested, would be codecision.
I heard Mr Bourlanges' contribution on this point. Indeed I took a note of it.
I think the kindest thing that I can say about his rather immature intervention is that the name-calling that he indulged in did nothing at all to enhance his reputation.
All it did, indeed, was to demonstrate that in politics at least, it is possible to be both heavy and empty at the same time.
In conclusion, I think that the work involving Parliament, the Council and the Commission has produced an outcome for the trans-European transport network guidelines that is generally positive, economically realistic, socially responsive and helpful to the needs of the peripheral regions and to environmental protection.
Clearly the guidelines are, as I and Members have said - wisely in my view - in the course of this debate, a first attempt for the Community and no doubt there is capacity for improvement as policy evolves.
When we undertake the first revision of the guidelines over the next three years - indeed we shall be reporting in three years' time - I am certain that the lessons from this initial experience will offer valuable instruction.
Meanwhile, for the sake of the Community in all its parts, I believe that we must make progress with the implementation of the transEuropean transport network.
I therefore strongly commend the guidelines to this House as worthy of strong support.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Biology and medicine (Bioethics Convention)
The next item is the report (A4-0190/96) by Mr Pelttari, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Draft Convention on the protection of human rights and the dignity of the human being with regard to the application of biology and medicine (Bioethics Convention).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the planned Council of Europe convention also has implications for research within the European Community.
Research will be made subject to legal limitations, especially in areas in which social or third-party interests might be given priority over the protection of the dignity and rights of individuals.
Consequently, as long ago as last April, Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy delivered its almost unanimous opinion.
The committee responsible has agreed to all the most important aspects of the Research Committee's proposals, and considers it essential for the European Parliament - partly in view of its role in the allocation of research funds - to monitor critically the work on this Council of Europe convention.
The European public has been taking an increasingly lively interest in the development of this text.
It is therefore all the more regrettable that access to it has at times only been possible as the result of indiscretions.
In response to this situation, the Committee on Research is calling in its opinion for the broadest possible public debate and participation in policy-making, as well as the holding of public hearings and the establishment of publicly accessible data bases.
This request has been incorporated into the report of the committee responsible.
It will be further emphasized in an additional amendment tabled by my group.
The present draft convention represents a considerable improvement on the 1994 proposal.
Nevertheless, it still covers only a small proportion of the issues that need to be regulated, and it will have to be supplemented.
Care must be taken to ensure that this process of adopting supplementary protocols does not undermine the actual objective of the convention, however.
There is also a need for a stricter legal framework for research on persons who are incapable of giving consent, and to ensure that such research is permitted only if it is closely linked to the illness of the person concerned and likely to benefit his or her health.
Finally, with regard to in vitro embryo research, the draft convention represents a compromise - a compromise which is less stringent than the legislation in force in Germany and other European countries.
In any event, at least the production of human embryos for research purposes will now be prohibited.
The European Parliament should call for a ban on any type of consumptive embryo research, as well as for more precise rules on embryo protection in the case of in vitro fertilization.
The report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights makes an important contribution to the debate on this issue, and Parliament should adopt it by a large majority.
In conclusion, I should like to point out for the record that I was not amongst the signatories of Amendments Nos 16 and 18, as is wrongly indicated in Document A4-0190/96.
Mr President, we have before us today the Council of Europe's important and ambitious draft text which seeks to establish a general framework for the protection of human rights with regard to the application of biomedicine - which, if I have understood it correctly, has since become a convention on bioethics.
I should particularly like to draw your attention to the dangers of over-ambitious titles, which might lead one to believe that all the problems associated with bioethics are dealt with in this document, which is obviously not the case.
The Member States have had as much trouble in reaching agreement on these issues as our own Members.
The difficulties have been accentuated by the enlargement of the Council of Europe - and hence the scope of the convention - to cover Central and Eastern Europe where, as we know, some dubious medical and genetic practices may have been followed on occasion.
This, however, provides an additional reason for establishing a common reference framework.
I would even go so far as to say that it has become the principle aim of the convention - all the more so since we shall not be acceding to it.
In my view, the opinion delivered by the Court of Justice on 28 March 1996 ruled out any possibility of accession.
Even though this opinion relates to the European Convention on Human Rights and not to the draft convention on bioethics, it seems clear to me that the grounds identified by the Court of Justice in the former case apply mutatis mutandis to the draft bioethics convention, in particular paragraph 27 of its opinion: ' No Treaty provision confers on the Community institutions any general power to enact rules on human rights - in this instance bioethics - or to conclude international conventions in this field' .
To my mind, this applies just as much to the field which concerns us here as to the more general one of human rights.
In fact, both Parliament's legal service and the Commission have confirmed my view of the situation.
I am referring here to the Commissioner's statement to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
It would be helpful if she could let us know today what she now thinks, after looking at the matter once again.
That is not to say that our opinion is redundant or that we are no longer concerned about the issues.
But because its consequences have lost some of their immediacy, it will be regarded as being more academic in nature and carry rather less weight.
And I am not sure if this may not be the best outcome.
Despite the considerable efforts of the rapporteur - and I pay tribute to Mr Pelttari, who took over from Mrs Rehn, for all the hard work he has done - there seems to have been a kind of reverse development in the quality of the texts.
To my mind, the Council of Europe's draft convention improved on successive readings, whilst the quality of Mr Pelttari's text gradually deteriorated as it was voted on in the Legal Affairs Committee.
We have found it very difficult to reach a consensus, to establish a delicate balance between respect for life, the dignity of human beings and the demands of advances in medicine, women's liberation and their control over their own bodies.
We are only too well aware of a renewed assault from a reinvigorated, hard-line right, which in America operates under the banner of the Christian Coalition, in France as the anti-IVG brigade, and which is even finding an echo in Rome in the form of a return of obscurantist theories.
All of this calls into question the advances made during the 1970s in the field of women's rights.
The amendment relating to the origin of life which was very nearly approved in the Legal Affairs Committee, and was in fact only rejected on a tied vote, is just one illustration.
A second example is to be found in the amendment on in vitro fertilization, typical of certain views, which condemns both the principle of IVF and those women who wish to make use of modern medical techniques in order to become pregnant.
In this context, the new wording proposed by the Green Group in Amendment No 25 does not seem to me to be acceptable as it stands.
It should allow for enough embryos to be preserved so that a reasonable number of attempts at implantation can be carried out without subjecting women to unnecessarily traumatic, painful and possibly dangerous interventions to remove more eggs.
As a result, my group believes that the text adopted in the Legal Affairs Committee is unacceptable in its present form. Despite the efforts of Mr Pelttari, it seems to represent a retrograde step, in the etymological sense of the word, and we therefore cannot approve it.
If these amendments were to be upheld in plenary, we would vote against Mr Pelttari's report without any hesitation, though with apologies to the author.
Mr President, the draft Council of Europe convention on human rights and biomedicine has rightly met with criticism from associations for the disabled and the Church, as well as many parliamentarians throughout Europe.
I welcome the fact that the European Parliament is examining and delivering an opinion on the draft convention, even if the legal situation is far from clear.
Mr Pelttari has submitted a good report.
I should like to thank him for his work.
His report uses clear wording and undoubtedly gives greater emphasis to the protection of human rights than does the Bioethics Steering Committee's draft convention.
It is to be regretted, however, that Mr Pelttari's own group wishes to remove some of this clarity, and has tabled a number of amendments which would water down the report.
As regards the content of the report, the PPE Group supports it in the form in which it was adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
We believe in clear wording and the absolute primacy of human dignity.
Firstly, I should like to address the controversial issue of modification of the germ cell line.
It is to be welcomed that the Steering Committee has pronounced itself against intervention on the germ cell line. However, in my view and that of my group, the necessary clarity is lacking.
The European Parliament must declare its clear support for a ban.
We do not wish to see a moratorium - which may be technically justified - but a ban based on fundamental ethical considerations.
Modification of the germ cell line is not a question of therapy but of the breeding of humans, and under no circumstances can we accept the vision of humanity which underlies this.
The technique itself must also be rejected, since research into modification of the germ cell line requires embryo research in which embryos are consumed on a massive scale.
And the Steering Committee's draft is also insufficiently clear on the question of embryo research itself.
Reference is made to adequate protection, but consumptive embryo research is not unequivocally prohibited. I ask myself: what sort of protection is it when the object of that protection ultimately dies?
How we can talk about adequate protection then? We therefore wish to see clear wording here as well.
Nevertheless, the rejection of consumptive embryo research - and on this point we are agreed - requires consistency.
We must take care to ensure, I believe, that surplus embryos are not produced.
These would then either be used for research purposes or - and this also raises ethical problems - would have to be allowed to die.
Many universities are currently faced with the dilemma of what to do with the hundreds of thousands of frozen embryos on their hands.
A number of Member States have rules designed to address this problem, and these rules have not met with the opposition of women's movements - at least, I have not heard of any such opposition, although I have asked colleagues to provide me with evidence of it on several occasions.
Consequently, I believe that the wording of paragraph 12.5 - as adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs - is extremely important.
As regards research on persons who are incapable of giving consent, I wish to say that the original 1994 version of the draft convention rightly gave rise to protests.
I also ask myself why it was not made clear from the outset, by means of a ban on discrimination against disabled persons, that no abuses would be permitted in this respect.
The Committee on Legal Affairs is calling for such a ban, and I believe that we should endorse that call.
The PPE Group is not opposed to a ban on research per se , but we wish to see strict rules.
That also applies with regard to persons who are incapable of giving consent.
Indeed, if we were to advocate a total ban, research in the fields of childhood diseases or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, for example, would not be possible. In my view, therefore, we should adopt the report in its present form, with a few changes of wording, but no changes of substance.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the resolution which has resulted from the committee's work is a clear step backwards in several respects compared with the draft convention.
Firstly, in the area of scientific research, the resolution envisages the setting of absolute limits before any new research work is undertaken, in other words an obscurantist moratorium on science.
The majority in the committee thus believes that there should be no further research into genetic diseases until the convention has been adopted and then ratified by a majority of the states concerned.
This would mean a delay of five or six years in combatting diseases.
All advanced research would come to a halt, and we would lose out to Japan and the United States, not least in the field of patents.
With regard to in vitro fertilization, the text approved in committee is unacceptable, as has already been stated.
It imposes theoretical limits on the production of embryos for reimplantation, when in fact it is still not possible to avoid over-production of embryos.
Above all, however, it imposes a virtual ban on the conservation of embryos by deep freezing, except where there are medical grounds for doing so.
All research on embryos is also prohibited.
I should like to ask one simple question.
Who are we, the legislators, often geographically far removed from the people we serve, to say what is good and what is bad with regard to what most intimately affects a person, namely his or her sex life and reproductive activities? At a time when, quite rightly, we are calling for equality of the sexes, how can we simultaneously deny women control over their own bodies?
If there is a surfeit of embryos, then we should let women have the choice of whether to preserve or destroy them, or donate them to science.
Lastly, the almost complete ban on tests for predicting genetic diseases is also unacceptable. The possibility that such information might be misused could be avoided by authorizing such tests for medical or research purposes, and with the consent of the person concerned.
In fact, this opinion contains two serious defects.
Firstly, instead of devising a framework for controlling research, it seeks only to prohibit it.
To put it simply, those who are afraid because of some of the horrific experiments carried out during the past 50 years should remember that these only took place because they were authorized and even encouraged by inhuman and perverse policies.
But in today's political democracies, controls exist, research is done openly, new discoveries are published and medical ethics committees abound.
So we need have no fears concerning research, which is a source of progress, as long as there are clear markers to prevent abuse.
Secondly, would 626 Members of Parliament seriously claim they had the right to define what is morally correct private behaviour for men and women? When establishing general rules to ensure the smooth running of a liberal society, there should be no interference in individual choice, when it evidently does not conflict with the established social order.
Like the two previous speakers, I would say that if the amendments which we in particular have tabled are not taken into account, that will be what the European Parliament has done.
In which case, I hope the Council of Europe will reject Parliament's opinion.
Mr President, one can easily concur with the central theme of Mr Pelttari's report.
The development of biology and medicine demands that certain borders be drawn within the legal system for the protection of human dignity.
Great caution is necessary in dealing with genetic material.
People must have the right to be different.
We should today be directing much more of our efforts towards changing society to enable people to live life as fully as possible in spite of their individual illnesses and disabilities.
However, arbitrary limitations should not be placed on discovering the origins of diseases and disabilities, and on curing and preventing them.
Paragraph 12.10 of the report is in my opinion ill-considered.
This paragraph proposes that tests which are predictive of genetic diseases or which may identify genetic predispositions to disease or disability should only be authorized for life-threatening conditions for which effective treatment is currently possible. What tests are being referred to?
If the proposed wording were adopted, would many existing tests have to be discontinued? For example, it is already possible to predict certain conditions by means of blood tests, and thus to prevent the person developing symptoms even if only by changing his or her lifestyle.
For example a predisposition to adult (II type) diabetes is highly hereditary as is a predisposition to many other diseases.
It is already known that if one parent has diabetes, the child has a 40 % chance of having II type diabetes.
If both parents have diabetes it is known that the child has a 60 % chance of having diabetes.
However, this form of diabetes is not regarded as life-threatening although if untreated it can, like many other diseases, lead to premature death.
Such hereditary diseases are frequently the result of 'genetic defects'.
In this way, it has been possible to eradicate many diseases from the world.
They have caused a great deal of suffering, and much still remains to be done.
Should the use of insulin have been forbidden 75 years ago? Was not the administration of bovine or porcine insulin to human ethically dubious?
Would it be permitted today?
Fortunately it was permitted then. These questions require deep consideration.
I hope that Parliament will not adopt the first sentence of point 12.10 but will adopt, for example, Mr Pelttari's amendment instead.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, upholding and protecting the universal validity of human rights is one of the political priorities of our times.
The difficulty of this task lies in the fact that this validity is not only global and horizontal, but also individual and vertical: it extends from the Nobel Prize winner to the totally defenceless embryo, from the brain to individual body and gender cells.
Whatever form this protection takes, it must satisfy a fundamental requirement: the task of our society, which lives with the realities of nuclear physics and molecular biology, is not to establish a new code of ethics, but to confirm and clarify the consensus on the absolute validity of human rights - reached in reaction to the barbarity of world war and genocide - in the area of biotechnological research and therapy.
This draft convention on human rights and biomedicine contains exemption clauses in the areas of the right to consent, research on persons incapable of giving consent, germ cell line and embryo research, and organ transplants. These exemptions jeopardize the physical and genetic integrity of the persons concerned.
Furthermore, in comparison with the European Convention on Human Rights, the draft convention is characterized by a striking lack of actionable binding force, in that it confines the jurisdiction of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights to supplying preliminary opinions.
Biologists, doctors, lawyers, philosophers and theologians have a great deal of work ahead of them to uphold the horizontal and vertical validity of human rights in the area of biomedicine.
Mr President, research in the fields of biology, biotechnology and medicine and the applications of this research offer untold possibilities, while at the same time confronting us with fundamental ethical questions.
It is therefore most welcome that the Council of Europe should be working on a convention for the protection of what is referred to as human dignity.
We must not say yes to every possibility: science, research and medicine must have their limits.
The proposed Council of Europe convention offers an excellent opportunity to establish the necessary legal framework for this, but it appears from the draft text that the Bioethics Steering Committee has wasted this opportunity, since the provisions on crucial points such as the protection of those who are unable to give their consent, the protection and use of embryos and the question of genetic therapy are entirely inadequate.
We are pleased that the European Parliament is stating its position in this report by Mr Pelttari.
However, we do not think that the European Union should accede to such a convention, since this must be a matter for the Member States to decide.
The Pelttari report makes substantial improvements to the draft convention, working on the basic principle that the direct protection of the dignity and rights of the individual must come before the interests of society or third parties, whatever they may be.
The report does not have all the answers, but certain clear limits are established as matters of principle.
Human dignity must be the first consideration, in acknowledgement of the fact that man is a unique creation of God.
This means that every life is entitled to total protection and respect from the very beginning to the very end, irrespective of whether or not it is perfect or able to give its consent.
I would therefore urge the House to adopt the Pelttari report as it stands, and to vote against the amendments which restrict the protection provided.
Mr President, in the final version, the term 'Bioethics Convention' has been replaced by 'Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine' .
It thus becomes clear that the draft under discussion is based on the primacy of the human being, excluding techniques relating to animals and plants.
The fundamental principle of the patient's welfare, in the broadest sense, in any kind of intervention is generally welcomed, but on this note we would recall, firstly, that no medical intervention may be carried out without the free and informed consent of the person undergoing it; and, secondly, that no research may be carried out on a person incapable of giving consent, unless it is for that person's certain and direct benefit.
This position is in conflict with legislation and current practice in many European states, where the majority opinion is that the requirement for direct benefit would make it impossible to carry out a great deal of basic research on conditions relating to child development, childhood diseases or mental illness.
In any event, we do not consider these systems to be strong enough to permit any major advances.
Genetics is the most promising discipline with regard to combatting disease, in particular cancer.
For this reason we maintain that an intervention on the human genome may only be undertaken for preventive, therapeutic or diagnostic purposes, and only as long as there is no intervention in the human germ cell line.
Although some consider that this prohibition is based on fundamental ethical considerations, for others it is an elementary precaution in view of the fact that we are a very long way from possessing sufficient expertise to ensure acceptable safety conditions.
Having said that, we are broadly in favour of the draft convention for the protection of human rights and dignity of the human being with regard to the application of biology and medicine.
We particularly welcome two passages: recital L, which reads 'convinced that such forms of treatment should be prohibited because no technical controls on their effects are possible for the foreseeable future, there is no possibility of securing the consent of future generations and such forms of treatment would finally push open the door to eugenics - using humans for specific purposes' ; and paragraph 11: ' considers that the direct protection of the dignity and rights of individuals is of absolute priority as compared with any social or third-party interest and that the results of human genome research work must be freely available' .
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-0681/96).
The Commission is following the steps taken towards implementing resolution 986 of the UN Security Council which permits the sale of petrol in order to allow the purchase of food and humanitarian products.
The implementation of this resolution will require that all conditions, such as establishing purchase programmes and setting up adequate structures, are fulfilled several months in advance.
With this in mind the Commission will maintain its humanitarian aid to Iraq throughout 1996.
ECU 9m has been allocated in the first budget and the second amount of ECU 14m could be allocated, if needed, depending on the availability of ECHO funds.
When resolution 986 actually comes into effect the Commission will examine the need to revise the programme and Member States and Parliament will be informed.
The question arises of what will happen to the humanitarian aid in that case, Commissioner. Since Iraq will now have far greater sums of money at its disposal, the resources could be made available for other international emergencies.
Or are there plans to take much more specific action, in view of the fact, for example, that the rate of child mortality in Iraq is alarmingly high?
For the moment the money is not in place and, as I have said, there are quite substantial conditions that have to be fulfilled.
When those conditions have been fulfilled the moment will come to consider re-ordering the programme whether in Iraq or elsewhere.
Question No 30 by Gerard Collins (H-0560/96)
Subject: Europol
Can the Commission indicate the amount of financial support it is making available to Europol, the amount of funding Europol is receiving from the Member States and when it expects this agency to become fully operational as an information resource on the illegal drugs trade for the national authorities charged with direct responsibility for combatting international drugs smugglers?
Mr President, neither the Europol Convention nor the joint action on Europol's extended mandate, which was adopted in March 1995, provides for financing from the Community budget.
On the contrary, both these documents state explicitly that the expenses of both EDU and Europol must be borne by the Member States, in proportion to their Gross National Product.
The Commission has no information on exactly how much each Member State is paying.
That question must be put to the Council.
The European Parliament has created a special budget item in the 1996 budget for EDU.
The reason for this is that at the Essen summit the Heads of State and of Government expressed the wish that the EDU mandate should be extended to cover not only drugs but also trafficking in human beings, radioactive material and stolen vehicles, plus associated crime.
A decision to this effect was also taken at the Council of Ministers of Home Affairs and Justice which took place on 9 and 10 March 1995.
The amount that the European Parliament has set aside for EDU's new areas of responsibility comes to a total of ECU 7.5 million, half assigned to the budget item and half placed in the reserve.
In accordance with the Treaty it is the Council of Ministers that is to decide whether these resources should be used or not.
No such decision has as yet been taken.
I naturally welcome the fact that a solution to the jurisdiction question was found at the Florence summit.
I now hope that the Member States will ensure that the Europol Convention is ratified as quickly as possible, as this will determine how soon Europol will be able to start working seriously.
I thank Commissioner Gradin for her answer.
This clarifies the situation very considerably for me.
Question No 31 by Graham Watson (H-0397/96)
Subject: Uniform electoral procedure for elections to the European Parliament
What measures is the Commission taking to ensure that the undertaking given by the signatories to the Treaty of Rome on the establishment of a uniform electoral system will at last be honoured?
In its opinion for the Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission underlined the fact that, in its view, the introduction of a uniform electoral system for the European Parliament was an important matter.
But the procedure laid down in Article 138 of the Treaty is quite clear that it is Parliament and not the Commission that exercises the legislative initiative, and that has been done, as the House knows.
After that, the Council has to take a unanimous decision after receiving the assent of the European Parliament.
Unfortunately, the necessary unanimous agreement in the Council is not at present forthcoming.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his answer.
I realize that the Commission recognizes, firstly, that the current balance in this House is skewed by the operation of the electoral system in just one Member State, so that we do not reflect here the will of the people of Europe when they vote.
I am sure that the Commission also recognizes that we may well go into the next European election with 15 Member States and 16 different electoral systems.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his assurance that he recognizes the de Gucht report as Parliament having exercised its initiative.
Will the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, consider taking action against the Council for its failure to act on this matter?
I do not necessarily agree with every comment the honourable gentleman has made in the supplementary question, but it is the case that Parliament has exercised its right and functions as prescribed.
I am not persuaded, however, that there is any legal obligation on the part of the Council of Ministers that has not been met.
It has simply failed to reach an agreement by the necessary provision of unanimity.
That is not unique.
If every time the Council failed to have unanimity and a proposition was not agreed to, it was taken to court, we would have to have a hundred courts sitting every day of the week.
I wonder if the Commissioner could clarify what is meant by uniform electoral system.
Is it the intention to have exactly the same system in every Member State, which is clearly neither achievable nor desirable, in which case it will probably be best to amend the Treaty of Rome?
As for Mr Watson's point about the balance of the house being skewed by the electoral system in one Member State, would the Commissioner agree that there is no proportionality across the European Union as a whole, nor any intention of having proportionality, because smaller countries get proportionally more seats than bigger countries, in which case the position in the United Kingdom is not the main factor skewing the balance of the House?
I did not say anything about skewing the balance of the House, I merely said that there was a commitment and belief that there should be a uniform electoral system.
As to what a uniform electoral system is, there may be some room for argument but the Parliament put forward a proposal which certainly we recognize as containing a uniform electoral system.
The question of over-representation or under-representation of particular countries seems to me to be a wholly separate matter.
It does seem to me to be extraordinary that this Parliament, which keeps making a song and dance about having more powers given to it, fails to address the fundamental democratic deficit at its heart, which is that it does not represent properly the political views across the continent of Europe.
I take issue with my colleague there from England, who seems quite complacent about this, and I do trust that the Commission does not share this complacency, that frankly it does not matter very much.
I suspect there are those in the Council of Ministers who do feel that, who feel that the less democratic legitimacy Parliament has the better, and one way of demolishing our democratic claim is to point to the fact that there is not this spread of opinion.
Nor equally in those countries which do not have any kind of territorial aspect of the electoral system is there any fairness built in, because it is quite possible that the French delegation would not contain a single Breton or single Corsican.
It is only now for example that French Guiana has representation in this House because of membership of that list.
I cannot believe that this is in the interest of Parliament, but I would like the Commission's reassurance that it is not complacent about this democratic deficit.
When electoral matters come to be discussed by parliamentarians the temptation to range wide and far is irresistible and I can certainly plead guilty to not having resisted it on various occasions in the past, but as far as the Commission's position is concerned, we have not taken up broad positions relating to every aspect of the points that have been raised by the honourable gentleman who has spoken, but have underlined our view that, on the simple question on the introduction of a uniform electoral system, we think that that is desirable.
It does not deal with all the problems that have been raised and it has been difficult enough to get agreement on that one, so let us focus on that and see how we get on, if necessary, in the Intergovernmental Conference.
Question No 32 by Luciano Vecchi (H-0520/96)
Subject: Revision of the medium-term social action programme
What are the Commission's plans for revising the medium-term social action programme on an annual basis?
What form will the action programme take? What consultations has the Commission entered into and what procedures have been followed for revising the action programme?
The process of updating this programme, which was adopted in April 1995, is currently under way in the Commission.
The Commission welcomes the views of interested parties as contributions to this work.
That includes the views expressed by the other European institutions, for example, in their respective opinions and debates on the programme and of the social partners.
The views of CEEP, ETUC and UNICE in this respect have already been communicated to Commission officials and I understand that contacts on the matter are in progress between my colleague Mr Flynn and the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and the Working Environment.
The outcome of this process will be published after the summer.
I take it from your laconic reply, Commissioner, that the Commission is not yet in a position to provide a substantive answer to my questions, that only consultations are under way, and therefore no decisions have been taken as yet.
Question No 33 by Juan Colino Salamanca (H-0517/96)
Subject: Dismissal of a senior Spanish official
Can the Commission explain the reasons for the dismissal of Mr Fernando Mansito, a senior Spanish official?
Has his dismissal anything to do with the 'mad cow' crisis?
A restructuring of the responsibilities of the deputy directors-general in the Agriculture Directorate-General is under discussion.
It is not linked to the current discussions on BSE.
No decision has yet been taken by the Commission on the position of Mr Mansito.
Notwithstanding the Commissioner's answer, I should simply like to point out that this matter has hit the headlines not just at any time, but precisely when the Standing Veterinary Committee is discussing the 'mad cow' crisis.
Until his dismissal, Mr Mansito chaired the Standing Veterinary Committee, and now he is being replaced by a new official, without any kind of explanation being given.
Consequently, we cannot avoid connecting Mr Mansito's dismissal with the 'mad cow' crisis.
In any event, I welcome the fact that a wide-ranging restructuring of DG VI is under discussion. Naturally, we hope to receive more detailed information in this respect.
The proposed new organigram has been sent to Commissioner Liikanen who is responsible for staff matters.
It has not been finalized.
When this has been done it will be announced in the normal way.
Question No 34 by Irene Crepaz (H-0567/96)
Subject: WTO
There is some movement on the issue of child labour, in so far as the United States (see Financial Times of 13 June 1996) has now also proposed to extend the rugmark label to sectors in which the problem of child labour continues to exist.
Does the Commission think this should be interpreted as a sign that the United States will take a positive view on discussion of the social clause at the WTO Conference in Singapore?
The United States is amongst those countries advocating discussion in the WTO framework of this issue and the setting up of a working party.
Their proposals on this point are quite close to the Commission's ideas, that is to say, the need to promote internationally recognized labour standards in order to bolster every country's economic performance in the long term and the link between trade liberalization, economic development and social progress, as part of an open and nondiscriminatory trading system.
Thank you for your answer, Commissioner.
I should now like to ask you what form the Commission believes the treatment of social issues at the WTO Conference in Singapore might take, and whether the Commission intends to advocate the establishment of minimum social standards - for example on the question of child labour - within the framework of the WTO agreement.
There is a proposal for a Council directive on a four-year scheme for a generalized system of preferences.
This proposal provides for the possibility of granting preferential treatment to third countries which endeavour to protect workers' rights, prohibit child labour, and so on.
What measures is the Commission taking to secure acceptance of this social clause at international level, for example in the framework of the WTO?
The Generalized System of Preferences is, of course, something that we apply autonomously.
The European Union has the right to decide on what principles it will confer preferential treatment of a unilateral kind to developing countries, and the broad principle that account should be taken of their observance of labour standards of that kind is certainly one of the common features of such an arrangement.
Within the WTO, however, what we are talking about is the discussion of a link between trade and the observance of fundamental labour standards.
We do not regard low pay as an unfair trading practice: it is a natural advantage of poorer countries.
But, on the other hand, observance of internationally agreed norms with regard to such matters as child labour is a legitimate subject for discussion in the WTO.
It is a very sensitive question.
The European Union as such has not formulated its position; it was discussed in the Council of Ministers only this morning.
The Commission will, in due course, put forward its views.
We hope then that the Council of Ministers will adopt them and that that will be the basis for the position taken by the European Union in the Singapore Conference.
Question No 35 by Wolfgang Nußbaumer (H-0570/96)
Subject: Protection of intellectual property
The danger that protection measures for intellectual property will be circumvented persists, particularly in developing countries.
What measures does the Commission have at its disposal to protect the intellectual property of European enterprises?
What sanctions can the Commission apply to countries which do not respect European intellectual property rights?
Following signature of the Uruguay Round, how much progress has so far been made in reducing tariff rates and removing non-tariff barriers in the developing countries?
European industries and enterprises can complain to the Commission pursuant to the trade barriers regulation in relation to alleged obstacles to trade which involve the protection of intellectual property rights.
Then, after investigation, commercial policy measures can be taken vis-à-vis the third country in question.
Such measures must, of course, be compatible with existing international obligations and procedures, but they may include the suspension or withdrawal of concessions resulting from commercial policy negotiations, the raising of customs duties and the introduction of quantitative restrictions.
Individual problems of European industries can also be brought to the attention of our trading partners during bilateral meetings with the Commission, and we have negotiated cooperation agreements with a substantial number of countries containing special provisions relating to the protection of intellectual property rights.
In the framework of the WTO we can launch formal consultations and request a panel if there has been a breach of the TRIPS agreement.
It should also be underlined that European industries are granted protection of their rights in third countries through the existing network of international conventions.
And, of course, the individual enforcement of property rights as private rights is something which the rightholder himself can undertake by appropriate judicial or other action.
With the conclusion of the Uruguay Round negotiations, developing countries undertook significantly to extend the part of their tariffs subject to bindings and also to reduce duties applied to imports.
The reduction commitments will be implemented by stages over a period of five years, starting from January 1995.
Two-fifths of the reductions have already been made on non-tariff measures.
Adoption of the results of the Uruguay Round meant that all developing countries adhered to all the codes and became subject to the stricter WTO disciplines, so that the majority of non-tariff measures were addressed.
The position is very simple.
There is no obligation to commence negotiations with regard to agriculture until roughly the turn of the century, and we have no intention of doing anything before then.
On the other hand, it means that we cannot expect other countries to lower their barriers in relation to our industrial products over and above what they have already agreed to in the Uruguay Round unless we are able to make some kind of special arrangement with them in a particular sector which is regarded as mutually beneficial.
I do not think we should exclude that possibility because it might be in our interest to do so.
As far as intellectual property is concerned, China is not a member of the WTO.
We seek to make China a member of the WTO to negotiate that, and then the full obligations will have to be kept.
Nonetheless, China is committed to the protection of intellectual property and at every meeting that I have with the Chinese, whether in Europe or in China, I underline the importance of their complying with the agreements that they have entered into.
In addition to stressing and repeatedly stressing the importance of compliance with what they have agreed, we also have to help them.
I myself signed an agreement giving them technical assistance for complying with intellectual property rights, which is not always easy for developing countries, and I hope that, too, will ease the situation.
If the honourable gentleman has in mind particular complaints with regard to the chemical industry, it may be that those are ones that we are already familiar with.
If by any chance he thinks we may not be, I would very much like to have the details so that we can take the particular complaints up if we have not really done so.
The Commission has no jurisdiction to deal with this matter. It is solely for the national authorities concerned.
I was afraid that would be your answer, Commissioner.
However, I would draw your attention to the fact that the EU Treaty clearly provides for protection and respect for human rights to be one of the aims of the common foreign and security policy.
Later this morning, we shall be debating the report by Mr FernándezAlbor, which states - and the entire Committee on Foreign Affairs is in agreement with him - that the Commission is taking far too few measures in this particular field, and I think this is a perfect example of what he means.
Everybody is entitled to their own views, but I find it very difficult to believe that the decisions of individual Member States, as part of their defence arrangements, to engage in flights of this kind over a nonEuropean Union country is something which the Commission has jurisdiction over.
We are not normally accused of being lacking in ambitions to extend our competence, but I think this one really goes beyond what we could be expected to do.
We turn now to questions to Mr Liikanen.
I shall be reasonably indulgent because we are running ahead of time because of the excellent and short answers by Sir Leon.
As the author is not present, Question No 37 lapses.
Question No 38 by MaLou Lindholm (H-0568/96)
Subject: Equal treatment of men and women
The Union says that it wants to achieve equal treatment of men and women and that the Member States should improve their legislation.
Does the Commission think that the EU's own institutions, which can take independent decisions, meet the standards that the Commission requires of the Member States in this respect? If not, what does it intend to do to improve the situation?
The Commission regards promoting equality as a very important objective and wishes to promote it in its recruitment policy too.
The situation has not been good as regards the number and position of women officials.
The proportion of women has been particularly low in category A. To remedy this situation, the Commission decided in 1995 to set annual targets for increasing the number of women in category A and particularly in leading positions.
The targets related to both the new and the old Member States.
I am glad to be able to state that since the beginning of last year there has been clear progress.
There were far too few women directors-general.
There are still too few of them.
At the beginning of last year, there was only one - now there are three.
At the beginning of 1995 there were five women at director level (A2), now there are thirteen.
At middle management level, that is heads of department and senior experts, there were around 10 % of women.
The new Member States have brought about a notable improvement in this situation: 41 % of those selected as heads of department and/or central advisers were women, whereas the old Member States only achieved 15 %. The reason is that the appointments had to be made from those officials who were already serving.
The percentage of women among the applicants was only 10 %.
In the new Member States, on the other hand, it was possible to hold a competition open to all, and in these countries the position has been better than in any of the original Member States.
The position has improved most of all for young officials.
By this I means officials in A7 and A8 positions and it is at this level that recruitment has been busiest.
The proportion of women from three new Member States among the staff recruited was 51 %, more than half.
The proportion in the old Member States was 28 %.
All in all we can say that the trend is clearly in the right direction as regards the recruitment of category A officials, officials in the A grade pay bracket, but it will take some time before the overall figures change because recruitment has of course taken place over several decades.
The Commission will monitor the achievement of the targets closely and will continue to promote equality in its recruitment policy to enable the proportion of men and women in various career brackets to continue to be evenly balanced.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Liikanen for that exhaustive reply.
There has certainly been an improvement in recent years, not least since the accession of the new Member States.
This issue is an old one, however.
Equality has long been a priority issue in the EU. The question of positive measures to promote equality between women and men was taken up as long ago as the 1980s.
I wonder somewhat whether it is intended that these measures should be more specific and whether there might be some positive discrimination - in the broadest sense - as regards the appointment of women in the future?
It is our intention, in addition to recruitment, to promote other measures to facilitate women's recruitment and career development.
I wished to deal only with the recruitment of officials into A grades because I know that the low proportion of women among these officials (only 15 %) has been an uncomfortable fact for the Commission and that it is this situation which must be changed first.
We are currently discussing with the staff organizations and in the Equality Committee what special measures would be appropriate to enable equality between women and men to be improved at all levels.
It is also characteristic of the Commission that the proportion of women in C grades - secretaries and auxiliary staff - is 85 %, which is also a negative feature.
We must go on thinking.
We must promote the position of women among officials with a degree, while in the C grades, for which A levels or equivalent, are mostly required, we should try to increase the number of men, so that both sexes are in an equally favourable position in all categories.
I am sure that to support these measures as a whole, the Commission will also have to draft a new equality promotion programme when the last one is finished and that it will wish to find the best means of putting it into practice.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for fighting - despite the Kalanke ruling - for positive measures and firm quotas.
I am also familiar with the figures, and I know of course that for women, the glass ceiling will be reached at some point, and that despite the Commissioner's efforts, not everything has yet been achieved.
There is another source of bitterness which I would ask the Commissioner to address.
There are age limits for recruitment to the Union's institutions, and those age limits should undoubtedly be abolished. Considering that the retirement age is being raised from 60 to 65 in virtually every Member State, I believe that we must also eliminate these age limits for recruitment to the Union's institutions.
The question of age limits is extremely tricky.
The first problem is that when we last arranged a general competition for A grade officials, there were 50 000 applicants in all the Community languages in spite of the age limits, of whom a couple of hundred could be placed on reserve lists.
When the next joint competition is held for 15 Member States there may be even more applicants and even fewer posts available.
We must rethink the whole competition seriously.
I am prepared to reconsider the age limit openly.
It is however notable that there is not necessarily any direct correlation between the age limit and equality between the sexes.
When we looked at the recruitment policies in the new Member States it appeared that slightly less than half of those recruited were under 35 and slightly more than half over 35.
On examining these figures it appeared that the majority of the under-35 group were women whereas, disregarding the age limit, the majority were men.
This is because in these societies the position of young women is clearly completely equal.
On average, indeed, women are slightly better educated than men.
When we look at the older age groups the social equality situation is not quite the same.
Question No 39 by Lis Jensen (H-0601/96)
Subject: Relations between the Commission and the Court of Auditors
On 14 November 1995 Commissioner Liikanen made the following comments in Plenary with regard to the Court of Auditors' annual report: ' .. relations between the auditor and the auditee are never easy.
With the European Union they are particularly sensitive.. the new Commission has made it an immediate priority to improve relations between the two institutions.
Improvements were required in style as much as in substance' .
Can the Commission explain what is meant specifically by the terms 'style' and 'substance' in this context? According to a report in the Danish newspaper on 12 March, at a meeting on 11 March 1996 the new President of the Court of Auditors and the Commission apparently agreed a type of code of conduct based on the idea that 'in future the Court of Auditors will write its reports in such a way that the figures cannot be distorted for political ends as at present' .
Does the Commission not think that its influence on the conduct and report writing of the Court of Auditors is unacceptable both morally and in terms of the Treaty?
At the beginning of 1995 the Commission and the Court of Auditors agreed on the Court's initiative, the main substance of which was, as I see it, how to improve the dialogue on the Court's annual report, known as contentious proceedings (procédure contradictoire) between the two institutions.
The objective was to develop an approach based on expertise and impartiality.
For this reason both the form and the content of the Court of Auditors report and the Commission's reply were examined.
A joint effort was thus made with the aim of giving the authority granting discharge, in this case Parliament, more precise documents concerning the Commission and the Court of Auditors.
The honourable Member also asked in particular what I meant by 'style' and 'substance'.
By 'style' I mean that only two or three years ago there were considerable tensions and perhaps too much sensitivity in the opinions and exchanges of letters between the Commission and the Court of Auditors.
This was not a natural relationship between an authority exercising public power and an external auditor.
We have tried to remove this tension and create a businesslike cooperation.
As regards the substance we tended sometimes in the past to defend everything irrespective of whether it was defensible or not.
Now we have tried to ensure that the failings and shortcomings which have appeared in our activities are acknowledged and we will try to remedy them in future.
If we consider that the Court of Auditors report contains political views, we will defend the Commission's - and the Parliament's and the Council's - right to decide on political guidelines.
These are the changes relating to the substance.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for his rather unspecific reply.
I am obliged to ask whether what the Commissioner calls initiative is the same thing as entering into a kind of code of conduct? To my mind, that is a central issue.
I would also draw the Commissioner's attention to Article 188b(4) of the Treaty, which reads: ' The members of the Court of Auditors shall, in the general interest of the Community, be completely independent in the performance of their duties.
In the performance of these duties, they shall neither seek nor take instruction from any government or from any other body.'
I have to ask the Commissioner if he does not regard the Commission as another body?
I should like to state that my aim has been to make the Court of Auditors' position easier.
For example, the Court proposed cooperation in order to obtain all the information it needed in the most appropriate form.
We are prepared to help it in this matter.
The matter is currently under discussion.
Concerning the discussion on procedure held at the beginning of the year I can say that if the Court of Auditors wishes to add its remarks to the preliminary comments and discuss the matter with a Member of the Commission, we will arrange a meeting at which it can put forward urgent questions and additional explanations.
It is up to the Court of Auditors' what it writes in its own report.
It is of course important that all the facts put forward are accurate and that both sides are heard.
Conversely we are entitled to write what we ourselves see fit by way of comment on the Court of Auditors report.
It is to the advantage of both sides that there should be no errors of fact either in the report or in the comments.
Such errors can be avoided by holding this kind of discussion.
I can assure the honourable Member that the President and Members of the Court of Auditors are sufficiently independent and reliable that we cannot influence their reports.
They decide what they write, but it is of course important to them to be able to avoid errors of fact in advance.
Question No 40 by Vassilis Ephremidis (H-0426/96)
Subject: Funding of an unplanned conference centre in Liberty Park (Parko Eleftherias), Athens
The Commission intends to fund an 'Athens Conference Centre' under measure 7 of the culture and tourism programme of the second Community support framework, with the Organismos Megarou Musikis as the organization responsible.
The measure includes the construction of a multi-purpose hall for conferences and ancillary rooms to support conferences, etc. The aim is to upgrade conference tourism with an attendance of 190 000 delegates a year.
Is the Commission aware that the last Presidential Decree on the subject (Official Journal 1061/95) does not make provision for the conference centre in question and the Greek authority responsible for tourism policy (EOT) has not received any application to fund or approve the operation of a conference centre in Liberty Park (as also stated in parliamentary answers on the subject made by competent ministers)? Does the Commission intend to fund a project which is not envisaged, whose creation and operation has not been approved, for which the source of national funding is unknown and which, as local organizations and inhabitants complain, will have a catastrophic impact on the environment and congestion in the centre of Athens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission confirms that it intends to co-finance the building of the cultural centre referred to in the Presidential Decree mentioned by the honourable Member, within the framework of the culture and tourism operational programme.
The Commission's contribution will serve exclusively to fund the equipment and facilities necessary for the holding of conferences.
This function is explicitly provided for in the Greek law on the founding of the 'Athens Concert Hall' organization.
According to our information, the approval of the EOT is not necessary.
Greece's financial contribution to the project, moreover, will be funded from the budget of the Ministry of Culture, and not from the budget of the Greek authority responsible for tourism policy.
With regard to the project's environmental compatibility, it should be said that the relevant Community provisions are being applied.
Furthermore, the underground car park that is currently under construction will contribute to relieving traffic congestion in Athens city centre.
Madam Commissioner, you have said that the Commission confirms the funding of this project.
When we speak of co-financing we have to be sure that there is a source of national funding for you to co-finance with.
In my question I say, and I will say it again in case you have not fully understood, that over the course of these developments two competent ministers have stated categorically in the Greek parliament that they are unable to lodge any document on the matter because there is no provision for the creation and operation of this project and that there is absolutely no funding.
I request you to give a precise answer to this question: are you planning to fund a project for which Greek legislation makes no provision? For which the relevant decrees make no provision and for which there is no national funding?
Moreover, when the project has provoked great resentment in the specific area of Athens because it will destroy...
(The President interrupted the speaker) ... give a precise answer because the whole of Athens is up in arms about it.
I should like to make two comments on the honourable Member's remarks.
Firstly, Greece's financial contribution will be funded from the budget of the Ministry of Culture.
The honourable Member did not say if the Greek Minister of Culture has stated otherwise.
If that is the case, we shall have to investigate the matter - and I shall see to that.
Secondly, with regard to the question of traffic problems, I have already indicated that the co-financing of the construction of an underground car park will undoubtedly help to resolve some of these problems.
Question No 41 by Hugh McMahon (H-0539/96)
Subject: Delays in agreement of the URBAN initiative
With the exception of Northern Ireland no URBAN projects have been agreed for the UK.
Can the Commission inform Parliament when agreement will be reached? What advice does it give to local authorities which are awaiting URBAN funding, in order to implement community projects for the long-term unemployed and socially excluded in many cities and large towns?
Will the Commissioner seek on urgent meeting with Minister David Curry in an attempt to ensure that local authorities are not impeded in implementing projects by Eurosceptic attitudes within the UK administration?
Mr President, there have indeed been certain delays in the approval of the URBAN initiative in the United Kingdom.
Initially, this was because the British authorities had to decide which towns and cities should be chosen for the initiative, and what funding those towns and cities should receive.
In the subsequent negotiations on the individual programmes, the Commission sought to ensure above all that the latter would concentrate on the needs of the disadvantaged towns and cities themselves.
We therefore endeavoured to make sure that the local authorities concerned would themselves be able to decide on the use of funds.
The Commission and the British authorities are at present discussing the establishment of administrative rules that will make possible both a new approach to decision-making and adequate control of the spending mechanisms.
The Commission is endeavouring to secure an agreement on these rules, so that all the URBAN programmes can be signed as soon as possible.
I thank the Commissioner for her answer.
I think the Commission is being very leisurely in this.
After all, given that the final discussions, between the Commission and the Scottish Office were in November 1995 and they were perfectly satisfied with the scheme, and as I understand the Welsh Office are also satisfied with the Swansea scheme, would the Commission be in favour of allowing those schemes where there has been agreement between the local authorities and the civil servants to go ahead? Scotland and Wales should not be dragging behind because in certain areas of England there have been problems between the UK Government and the Commission.
Would the Commission treat this matter with some urgency, given that Parliament did increase the amount of money for Community initiatives at a recent plenary session in Brussels.
Mr McMahon, the problem lies in the fact that we must of course also reach agreement with the British Government, and there was indeed an extended exchange of letters on this subject, during which, in the interest of the inclusion of the local authorities, amongst other things, the Commission requested changes.
On 22 April, the Commission once again made its position clear.
At the end of July, further discussions took place, and we hope that the British Government will now give a swift answer, so that the programmes can finally be approved.
Nevertheless, I would ask the honourable Members to appreciate the fact that we also wish to ensure that the local and regional authorities and local partners are included in the implementation of these programmes as far as possible.
I too want to thank the Commissioner for the work that she has done in this area.
Indeed I think other Members of this House, if there were any here, might want to know whether there is a fundamental cultural problem with the UK Government's attitude to structural funds and regional policy?
Is this another aspect of the policy of non-cooperation? I think it is very difficult for many people in our inner city areas to understand why they cannot get access to money - over 120 million pounds - which is very badly needed.
I have just come from a committee meeting where we voted on the principle of partnership and involving local partners.
I would like to encourage the Commissioner in her work in this area, but of course the reality is that in inner-city areas it is the voluntary sector, the community groups which are taking the strain of the government's lack of commitment to urban areas.
For us it is not just the principle of involving the local partners - it actually makes good sense because they know the issues on the ground.
So I would like to encourage the Commissioner to ensure that we get a speedy agreement.
I also think it is rather bizarre that last week the DTI produced a press release celebrating the massive amount of funding they would be getting from Objective 2 - a bumper share of funds - when in fact they seem incapable of spending it.
This kind of behaviour in spending funds strains subsidiarity to the limit and, because of the inaction of Member States, inner cities are not benefiting from funds.
It strains my belief in the principle of subsidiarity.
I can only express my thanks for the support for our position.
I do not believe that this has anything to do with the general political climate, but that we have problems agreeing on a procedure which will include local representatives in such a way as to ensure that they are able to promote their main interests in the implementation of the programmes, whilst guaranteeing, above all, that the neediest sections of the population and the urban areas gain the greatest benefit from the programmes.
We shall continue with our efforts in this respect.
Taking up what the Commissioner has said in the last few moments, the problem seems to be not so much with the Scottish or Welsh Offices which have both agreed to the projects submitted.
On the other hand she mentioned that in the interests of the local bodies, the Commission would be asking for changes.
I would hope there would be no request for changes with the Swansea or the Scottish submissions.
In other words it is an English responsibility.
I am unable to give a direct answer to your specific question at present.
However, we shall look into the matter and, in keeping with the views expressed by the honourable Members today, continue to seek a reasonable settlement.
I hope that we can achieve such a settlement in the near future.
Question No 42 by José Apolinário (H-0540/96)
Subject: Bureaucratic delays on the part of the Commission in transferring Community funds to Portugal
In the first few months of 1996 there was an intolerable delay in transferring Community funds to Portugal, for bureaucratic reasons.
One of the most badly affected programmes/initiatives was INTERREG. What is going on?
How does the Commission justify this situation?
Mr President, generally speaking, this criticism does not hold good for Portugal.
On 15 July 1996, Portugal was the chief beneficiary in the commitment of funds for Objective I regions, and in the front rank in terms of payments.
Hence the payments to be arranged by DG XVI alone amount to more than ECU 1 billion.
That is a considerable sum, in my view.
However, the transfer of funds is subject to numerous requirements.
As far as INTERREG II is concerned, the amounts indicated in the requests for payment submitted by the Portuguese authorities are not yet sufficient for the 1995 tranche of the programme to be opened and for payment of the first and second advances for 1995 to be effected.
For these payments to be made, spending for the programme as a whole - and this means for Portugal and Spain - must reach the amount required in the current regulations.
In general terms, the Commission is currently examining the possibility of speeding up its internal checking procedures, so that in cases where all the requirements are met, payments can be made more quickly.
This forms part of our joint efforts in the context of SEM 2000 - although it is also a general matter of concern, since we naturally wish all funds to be transferred as swiftly as possible, once all the checks have been carried out.
Madam Commissioner, thank you very much for your reply but we should look here at three political points.
First of all, there are delays in transferring Community funds to Portugal.
In respect of the second Community support framework the processes should be unblocked after two months and at this moment in time there are processes involving around 109 million ECU, in other words 21 billion escudos, processes which have been pending before the Commission since July 1995.
Secondly, and again in respect of the first Community support framework, there are at this moment in time processes still pending worth around 35 million ECU and that first Community support framework was concluded in 1993 - yet the process for presenting some of them was meant to be completed in 1994 or 1995.
I acknowledge the efforts made by the Commissioner and her departments in speeding things up but I think that the Commissioner must understand that unless there is a further speeding up of processes in DG XX, the Commission will have to be responsible for the lesser use of Community funds and the lower rates of execution in the second Community support framework.
I hope that we can manage to resolve the problems which exist without engaging in mutual recriminations.
During Mr Cravinho's last visit, we explained when the next payments could be expected.
However, I must ask the honourable Member to appreciate that in managing the enormous amounts of money involved in the Structural Funds, we give priority not only to flexibility and speed, but also to rigorous financial control.
The Commission and Parliament cannot, on the one hand, constantly attach importance to the necessary checks being carried out with the utmost care and, on the other, complain about those checks when amounts are owing.
We are endeavouring to speed up our procedures but, unfortunately, careful checks sometimes take longer than we would wish.
We acknowledge the problem, and we have discussed the outstanding difficulties with the Portuguese Government. In these talks, moreover, I had the impression that there is complete understanding for our position.
Question No 43 by Mihail Papayannakis (H-0546/96)
Subject: Diversion of the River Acheloos
The diversion of the River Acheloos is one of the 'major projects' which will be financed in Greece from Community funds.
In response to a number of questions I have tabled over the last seven years regarding the environmental compatibility and economic usefulness of this project, the Commission has systematically postponed giving a definite answer, stating that its assessment would depend on the findings of successive studies, ongoing negotiations with the Greek Government and even the final form of the project which is sometimes presented as an irrigation project, sometimes as an energy project and sometimes as a water supply project.
It has been announced over the last few days that the Greek Government is at the last stage of the decision-taking process concerning the final approval of the project.
Can the Commission say whether it considers that all the legal procedures concerning the drawing-up and approval of the project and the awarding of the construction contract have been respected, what this project consists of exactly and what (sustainable...) development strategy it forms part of, whether the overall assessment of its environmental consequences is positive and, finally, whether its economic profitability is ensured, both at national level and as regards the development of the regions concerned?
Mr President, I am afraid that I must disappoint you once again, Mr Papayannakis, since the Commission still does not have a complete file on this subject, and therefore cannot make a definitive statement on the possible co-financing of the River Acheloos project under the second Community support framework for Greece.
This concerns in particular the results of the comprehensive environmental impact assessment commissioned by the Greek Government and a cost-benefit analysis of the project.
I must ask for your understanding, therefore, since these are first and foremost matters which the Greek Government has to clarify.
Then the Commission can adopt a position, and not the other way round.
You say, Madam Commissioner, that you have absolutely nothing to hand which permits you to judge the project. I take note of that, but just for your information I can tell you that in Greece we are hearing that everything is ready and that the project will shortly be presented to the Greek parliament for approval.
It is one of the major projects. I should like to ask you whether, in view of the fact that the amounts provided for in the older plans for the Acheloos which were discussed with the Commission are enormous and roughly equal to the amounts that the Greek Government is unable to find for completion of all of the major projects of the Community support framework, you would agree that it would be a good thing to abandon this project, for which no one wishes to assume responsibility, so that a healthier level of funding can be provided for the other major projects?
Mr President, it is indeed true that there are a host of unanswered questions with regard to this issue. And I am quite unable to say when those questions will be answered, let alone whether the answers will be satisfactory.
That is why we have asked the Greek Government to reconsider the priorities for the second Community support framework.
I would underline the fact, however - and this is the point the honourable Member is making - that the Community support framework is, in any case, at present totally oversubscribed.
This means that, one way or another, we shall have to reconsider which projects are most important and must definitely be carried out.
The honourable Member will be aware that the two major motorway projects - Pathe and Via Egnatia, as well as certain others - are still unresolved.
Consequently, I believe that the right approach is to establish the priorities and determine what can be funded successfully up to the end of the support period, and what needs such careful clarification that it is perhaps no longer feasible.
We are currently engaged in such discussions with the Greek Government.
Question No 44 by Sören Wibe (H-0550/96)
Subject: Changing regional support arrangements
Administering the structural funds and Community initiatives will require considerable changes in Sweden's regional policy arrangements.
The fragmentation of structural fund programmes, among three funds and one financial instrument (fisheries), has led to a corresponding fragmentation between various authorities at Swedish national level.
These authorities have yet to achieve the coordination of their activities.
It is to take place at regional level (county authorities).
This however brings its own complications, as our objective areas do not coincide with administrative borders.
At the same time we are attempting to avoid creating new administrative structures.
I believe that the EU's regional policy arrangements are far too complicated.
Would it not be simpler if the Member States were granted a sum of money allocated on the basis of per capita GNP, taking account of levels of unemployment, population density and climatic conditions? It would then be for the Member States to apportion it among what they regarded as the most appropriate purposes and regions.
Would this not be a much simpler arrangement than the present muddle?
Mr President, administering the Structural Funds is undoubtedly far from easy: firstly, the Structural Fund system has developed over a period of time; secondly, what are sometimes very different problems in the various Member States have to be addressed by means of the Funds; and thirdly, the Structural Fund regulations represent a political compromise and must be adopted unanimously by the Council.
The aim of Community structural policy is to promote sustainable regional development.
This requires an analysis of the economic situation of the different regions and their endogenous development potential, as well as concerted action on the part of the European, national and regional authorities.
That is why the Commission attaches such great importance to the participation of local and regional players and the representatives of the social partners in the planning and implementation of structural measures in the advisory committees.
Simply equalizing the budget, as advocated in the honourable Member's question, would not achieve this aim and is not wished for either by the Commission or Parliament.
Furthermore, the legislation in force would not permit it.
In the new Member States, moreover - and this is also true of Sweden - the Commission's structural policy experiences have been absorbed in a very positive way: they have been felt to enrich national regional policies and transposed to local conditions - although creating appropriate national and regional structures for this purpose has certainly given rise to problems on occasion.
However, I am convinced that it is in our common interest to simplify the administration of the Structural Funds.
The Commission is currently trying to simplify and speed up its own procedures.
We should all be aware, however, that in view of the large amounts of money involved in the implementation of structural policy, there is a fine line to tread between simplification, transparency and flexibility on the one hand, and optimum financial management, efficient control and effective evaluation on the other.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for her answer. I must say that the Commissioner's answer was both concise and to the point.
I am not really used to that but I consider it a good thing in this context.
There were two considerations which gave rise to my question.
Firstly, I have seen at close quarters how the Structural Funds are operating in my country and have thus witnessed the enormous administrative burden imposed on our authorities.
I believe in fact that the administrative costs could amount to a large percentage of the support received by Sweden.
Secondly, there is the analysis of the effectiveness of the Structural Funds which was recently presented in the Committee on Regional Policy, which concluded that their effectiveness was exceptionally poor; with the exception of Objective 1, the resources involved did not to any great extent go to regions of high unemployment or regions with a low per-capita income.
I believe the funds need to be reformed and I also consider that they should be reformed in the manner that I have suggested, that is to say that they should be brought closer to those who manage the money.
My question to the Commissioner is thus the following: should the simplification which you are now talking about and which you are endeavouring to achieve not go in the direction I have outlined, that is to say ensure that those most directly involved in decisions are given a greater say in how resources are used?
In the first place, the Structural Fund regulations are valid until 1999.
They were approved by all the Member States and cannot by changed by a stroke of the pen from the Commission.
Secondly, the new Structural Fund regulations have been in force since 1994: in other words, they only recently came into full effect, after a difficult period of approval.
I believe that is important to gather experiences first, before making changes on the grounds of initial difficulties or problems of adaptation.
Thirdly, it is indeed our aim to integrate the local and regional levels into structural policy to a greater extent.
In this respect, however, there are problems within Sweden which we cannot resolve, but which can only be sorted out by the Swedish Government, in partnership with the local players.
As far as any administrative muddle is concerned, we must always bear in mind that there are two kinds of muddle: that caused by the Commission, which we are now trying to clear up within the framework of the regulations currently in force; and the muddle at national level.
After all, nowhere is it stipulated that, for example, four ministries must be involved in managing a Structural Funds project.
There is clearly room for simplification at national level in this context too.
Thank you, Commissioner.
That was certainly a specific and convincing reply, but there is a minor sticking-point in this respect: there is the tendency of the Member States to work out precisely what each of them can get - and this is circulated in the form of lists - and act as if it were their share of the money.
Would it not be appropriate to take a further step in this direction and, after 1999, to develop the principle of partnership in such a way as to introduce direct cooperation between the Commission and the regions concerned, without the various Member States setting up yet another special intermediate body?
That is possible in theory. In practice, however, I doubt that the majority of Member States would allow structural policies to be agreed between the Commission and the regional or local authorities alone.
The interpretation of the subsidiarity principle hitherto has, of course, principally concerned subsidiarity between the Commission and the Member States.
However, we have always laid great stress - admittedly, not always with success - on the need to extend application of the subsidiarity principle from the level of central government to the lower levels, and to establish a genuine, practical partnership in the implementation of the Structural Funds.
And this is not because the Commission is interested in bypassing anyone, but because our experience has shown that the more the people on the ground for whom these policies are devised become involved, can contribute their ideas and also help to monitor efficiency, then the more success we achieve.
Question No 45 by Edgar Schiedermeier (H-0551/96)
Subject: Future of the Structural Funds
What are the prospects of support from the structural funds for the post-1999 period?
Mr President, I wondered whether I should say that we had a very intensive discussion on this matter at the last meeting of the Committee on Regional Policy, since this is indeed an issue which would warrant a statement of at least an hour.
Leaving aside the discussion in the Committee on Regional Policy, however, I would simply say that the Commission's proposals for the future of the Structural Funds can certainly not be expected before the end of 1997 or early 1998.
Naturally, this applies to the financial issues as well as demarcation of the assisted areas.
For the moment, the Commission will produce its report on economic and social cohesion in the European Union in late autumn of this year, thereby creating a basis for further discussions at national and Community level.
I am sure that we shall debate this report extensively in the Committee on Regional Policy - and possibly also in plenary - and that we shall be able to take the necessary elements from these debates and incorporate them into structural policy for the period after 1999.
Mr President, I readily admit that I enjoy listening to the charming Commissioner, as well as seeing her here.
When I tabled this question, however, I was unaware that she would be speaking on this subject in the Committee on Regional Policy.
I should like to put a very specific supplementary question: will the Commissioner seek to ensure that, when the Structural Funds are reorganized, the Objective 1 regions lose some of their spare fat? I come from an Objective 5b region, and I am concerned that those regions sometimes lose out because all the other regions insist on keeping what they have.
Mr Schiedermeier, if by the 'spare fat' of the Objective 1 regions you mean support for achieving or surpassing the goal of having a GDP which is 75 % of the Union's average, then I believe that we must examine very carefully how we are dealing with these regions. Indeed, the aim of structural policy is clearly to help the disadvantaged regions - and one way in which we define being disadvantaged is in terms of a percentage of the Union's average GDP.
If this criterion is to be retained in future, then we must draw the necessary conclusions.
I believe that we must have a far wider-ranging debate on this subject.
This is one element of that debate, and we shall have to discuss it further.
Question No 46 by Joan Vallvé (H-0563/96)
Subject: Cohesion funds and public deficits
The failure by Member States to comply with the convergence criterion laid down in the Maastricht Treaty concerning public deficits as a percentage of GDP will entail a suspension of Cohesion Fund aid as a means of mitigating the adverse effects thereof.
How does the Commission intend to introduce this measure? Will it temporarily halt the aid which comes under this fund until the criterion is complied with once again?
Mr President, the legal situation is clear.
Pursuant to Article 6 of Regulation 1164/94, decisions on the continuation, suspension or resumption of Cohesion Fund payments are taken on the basis of the yearly targets for public deficits recommended by the Council under Article 104c(7).
It should be pointed out that the Council addressed corresponding recommendations for 1995 to the governments of Greece, Portugal and Spain.
The Commission examined the budgetary situation for 1995 in the Member States concerned, and established that the public deficits of all three lay within the targets for 1995 recommended by the Council.
Consequently, the Commission is continuing to authorize new Cohesion Fund projects or project phases in Greece, Portugal and Spain.
A new assessment of the public deficits of the Member States concerned will be made in autumn 1996, and subsequently every six months.
I thank you for your answer, Commissioner, but my question went a little further than that.
It did not refer so much to the legal situation as to the criteria which the Commission is currently applying for the suspension of Cohesion Fund aid, if Member States fail to comply with the criteria for convergence.
Mr Vallvé, the payments will only be suspended if the reference values laid down by the Council in its recommendations are exceeded.
For 1995, those values were - as a ratio of public deficit to GDP - 10.7 % for Greece, 5.8 % for Portugal and 5.9 % for Spain.
All three Member States stayed below their respective reference values, and it was therefore not necessary to block the funds.
However, the Cohesion Fund regulations do contain an element of conditionality, and so we have no choice but to act accordingly if the reference values are exceeded.
The Commission has no other decision-making options.
Mr President, the Commission takes the view that the progress of the Peace and Reconciliation Programme for Northern Ireland has been satisfactory.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the political aspect of the peace process.
It is true that the programme approved by the Commission on 28 July did not give rise to a great deal of expenditure in 1995.
This slow start was mainly due to the fact that a network of decentralized bodies had to be set up to distribute the funds.
Not until December 1995 was the Commission able to sign the corresponding contracts with the intermediate financing institutions and, as the honourable Member will be aware, agreeing on the composition of the partnership committee for Northern Ireland and the regional partnerships was also far from easy.
According to our estimates, ECU 70 million of the total ECU 240 m of Community funding for the programme for Northern Ireland should be disbursed in 1996.
A further ECU 28 m out of a total ECU 60 m should be disbursed in the Irish border regions.
So we believe that almost a third of the total funding for the programme will be committed by the end of the year.
Apart from the figures for expenditure effected, the Commission is satisfied with the progress of the programme's implementation on the ground.
Thus the progress made with regard to the 26 partnerships is particularly encouraging, in the sense that people who were previously unaccustomed to discussing and taking joint decisions on the future development of their region are now working together in this context.
With regard to the financing, I would underline the fact that the bodies appointed to run the programme have carried out numerous financial controls.
The quality of these controls has been satisfactory.
The ability to carry out adequate financial management was, moreover, a key criterion in the selection of these bodies.
The Commission and the relevant governmental departments are providing those who are less familiar with the Union's financing methods - the intermediate financing institutions and the partnerships, for example - with technical assistance where necessary.
I wish to thank the Commissioner for a very full response on this particular fund.
Of course, when I tabled the question a number of weeks ago, Commissioner, times were different.
However, I would prefer to deal with this at this moment of time.
You would probably agree with me that it has taken a long time to get the fund up and running and for it to be seen as real finance that is coming into the province.
It also seems to me that there is excessive officialdom and red tape.
Some of that is the responsibility of the United Kingdom Government, but some of it is also the responsibility of Brussels.
There appears to be a difficulty in arriving at a meeting of minds which leads to a tremendous degree of confusion, and projects are slowed down as a result.
Will you ensure, as the Commissioner, that European officials - which is your responsibility and my responsibility - do not make unrealistic demands on projects, ultimately rendering them useless? Is the Commissioner further aware that substantial amounts of the funds are going to consultants to prepare glossy brochures and reports?
Surely this is not the aim and object of the exercise?
Mr Nicholson, you will be aware that I personally have been pressing strongly for swift action, and that I also take great pains to ensure that we actually decide on projects.
I therefore regularly ask to see the lists of approved projects, which then lead to corresponding payments.
When I look at the host of activities that are now being initiated - and I asked to see a schedule of the decisions once again today - my feeling is that we have been making considerable efforts. I would even go so far as to say that we are acting more swiftly in the case of Northern Ireland than in the case of other regions.
A short while ago, we were discussing the implementation of the URBAN initiative in United Kingdom, where the approval and implementation of the programme for Belfast, for example, is viewed with some envy. You will see, therefore, that there is a considerable difference between the normal procedures and the efforts being made to implement the programme for Northern Ireland.
Nevertheless, I shall continue my endeavours, and I should be grateful to the honourable Member for any specific indications as to where snags may be occurring.
And if he thinks that these snags are the fault of the Commission, then he must let me know directly.
With regard to the question of consultants, we are, of course, frequently faced with the problem that those who do not know their way around so well depend on the help of consultants.
I would stress, however, that enlisting technical help does not necessarily mean employing consultants and spending part of the funds on consultancies and similar bodies. On the contrary, the local partnerships and community groups, for example, can use the technical assistance which is available to help them draw up their proposals.
I listened to the Commissioner with interest and of course to Mr Nicholson beforehand.
Today like other Members I received a copy of the priorities for the Irish presidency.
There are chapters in this entitled 'A Europe based on Equity and Tolerance' and 'A Europe contributing to International Peace, Security and Solidarity' .
Like Mr Nicholson's question, this was written before the recent developments.
Does the Commissioner feel that greater priority ought to be put into the peace initiatives in Northern Ireland by the Irish presidency than hitherto and will the Commission lend its support to specific programmes to assist the situation in Ireland as a whole?
Mr Evans, you will be aware that the Commission's programme for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the border regions of Ireland is geared to rapid help and support for the peace process.
We know that the people of the region want that process, and that with the help, amongst other things, of the Commission's programme, they are learning to cooperate with one another.
And even if it has sometimes taken rather a long time for the funds to become available on the ground, the process of bringing together groups from different religious and cultural backgrounds to engage in joint discussions has already helped to create a substantial part of the structures which the funds are designed to support.
I shall therefore greatly welcome it if the Irish presidency - and, in view of the events of last week, I am sure that it will do so - places a new, additional emphasis on these initiatives and gives them its full political support.
Question No 48 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0579/96)
Subject: Specific support and advice for human resources projects for women in disadvantaged regions
Although there is a clear will to extend the application of the equal opportunities principle, women in disadvantaged regions in practice receive less favourable treatment with regard to benefiting from regional support policies; a lack of entrepreneurial tradition, a climate of social precariousness and a lack of knowledge of complex procedures between different administrations are some of the major obstacles which make it difficult or impossible for many European women from disadvantaged areas to benefit from these support measures.
Would it therefore be possible to provide specific technical support, direct advice services and simpler administrative procedures? What action could be taken?
Mr President, access to information and services is indeed very difficult for undertakings in the Union's disadvantaged regions, which are the priority target of Structural Fund assistance.
In these regions, women as a whole participate in working life to a lesser extent than in other parts of the Union.
In rural areas, moreover, they are included to a lesser extent in agricultural groupings and professional associations.
In Spain, for example, the supply of financial services and services for undertakings is particularly limited in rural areas.
However, the entrepreneurial tradition is not necessarily less pronounced in the countries of southern Europe than in the north.
The proportion of self-employed women in the southern Member States - Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy - in the agricultural and services sectors is actually higher than the Community average.
In Denmark, for example, only 3 % of working women are self-employed, compared to 21 % in Portugal, 20 % in Greece, 18 % in Italy and 16 % in Spain.
So with a view to incorporating the equal opportunities dimension into all Community policies, Structural Fund assistance must be geared to harnessing this potential, by encouraging and helping women to set up businesses or become self-employed.
The support measures in favour of women are aimed at bolstering their entrepreneurial spirit and providing incentives for business initiatives.
Hence in the regional development programmes, as well as at inter-regional level, there is provision for specific measures to facilitate women's access to information.
In certain countries of the Union - for example, Sweden - this is already more or less a reality.
Experience with such advice centres in Sweden - as well as in Ireland and Spain - has shown that specific advice is especially important in the startup phase, and that the dissemination of positive experiences has an encouraging and motivating effect.
The Commission is endeavouring to identify and encourage practices whose effectiveness is proven.
It therefore recently published, for the first time, a brochure on women as players in regional development, so as to demonstrate what can be successfully achieved in the various countries and regions of the Community.
The Commission's guidelines for the new Objective 2 period refer for the first time to equal opportunities as one of four key goals of support policy.
Furthermore, in the context of pilot projects, the Commission will promote the setting-up and expansion of regional information and business centres for women.
In the URBAN pilot projects, under Article 10, there is provision for specific measures to promote equal opportunities through the strengthening of partnerships and involvement of the public.
The URBAN II Community initiative includes support measures for the promotion of equal opportunities and the creation of jobs for women.
And although equal opportunities are not specifically referred to in the pilot projects under Article 10 in terms of regional planning, I have instructed my services to take this criterion into account in the process of selection and evaluation.
In future, consideration could also be given to promoting, through the Euro-partnerships, the development of commercial cooperation between undertakings owned or run by women, and placing particular emphasis on these businesses in the list drawn up for such arrangements.
I believe that over the last few months, we have demonstrated that we are not simply using the concept of 'mainstreaming' as an embellishment for our policies, but also wish to translate it into practice.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for her positive answer to my question.
Indeed, the problem with which we are faced is how to make this support for women a reality.
I agree with what the Commissioner said, but I should like to draw attention to something else: in these very disadvantaged regions - those covered by Objective 1 - there is a prevailing culture of 'machismo' .
The situation of women in these regions cannot be compared to those of women in Denmark or the other Nordic countries, where 'machismo' is less pronounced.
Furthermore, they live in the poorest regions of the poorest Member States.
Everything is stacked against these women, who are in need of this support.
So I believe that the Commissioner's answer will pave the way for a joint effort - an effort which, as far as the regional aspects are concerned, the women of Andalusia must carry out jointly with the Commission.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your positive reply, which makes clear your readiness to promote the situation of women.
I should like to make one specific comment: the extent to which a region is disadvantaged is naturally taken into account in deciding the amount of Structural Fund aid to be provided, and Andalusia - which the honourable Member mentioned at the end of her speech - therefore rightly receives a large proportion of the support funds.
If I see things correctly, however, there are many very enterprising women in Andalusia - not least at the political level - and I have come to the conclusion that it cannot, in general, be said that the women of the southern Member States are less active in certain fields than those of the northern Member States.
I believe that in terms of the Union's support policy in this area, the important thing is to create networks so that women can learn from one another.
This also facilitates exchanges of experience as regards successful projects and the ways in which the activities of women in quite different situations in both rural and urban areas can be supported.
If the honourable Member looks at the brochure to which I referred, she will see that it contains some good examples not only from the northern, but also from the southern Member States, and we shall continue to take advantage of this situation to promote these policies and support women in their endeavours.
Question No 49 by Inger Schörling (H-0598/96)
Subject: Support for businesswomen
In connection with Commissioner Wulf-Mathies' visit to Sweden, there have recently been reports in the Swedish press of a promise of fresh support for businesswomen.
The scheme was to be set up this autumn and the aid paid direct to women's networks by the Commission.
What form will this support take? Who can apply, and what amounts will be involved?
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for her reply.
Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the conference in Luleå but I understand that a great many exciting issues were discussed there. As I wrote in my question, various reports have appeared in Swedish newspapers concerning the promised support.
As a parliamentarian and former advisor to small businesses and cooperatives and to businesswomen and women's networks I receive many questions concerning what kind of support exists and now of course also about this new support. I have been unable to provide any correct answers as to what support exists.
I must therefore have a clear answer: is there new support?
Has new money been made available or has 'old money' been reallocated and turned into a new form of support? If so, should this money be paid out directly by the Commission and not through the Member States?
The funds for the specific pilot projects to which I referred are resources which are at the Commission's disposal in the context of Community initiatives and pilot projects.
They represent new resources for the Member States in that they have not been distributed hitherto, but have been released in tranches.
However, in view of the fact that we have at our disposal around ECU 170 billion for the period 1994 to 1999 for the Union's structural policies overall, they do not represent new resources as such.
In any event, they do not form part of the established programmes for the Member States; the Commission will publish invitations to tender for these resources in the Official Journal of the European Communities, which will then make it possible to apply directly to the Commission.
Biology and medicine (Bioethics Convention) (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0190/96) by Mr Pelttari, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Draft Convention on the protection of human rights and the dignity of the human being, with regard to the application of biology and medicine (Bioethics Convention).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, some people have questioned whether the European Parliament should become involved with the draft Bioethics Convention on which the Council of Europe has been working for so many years.
Some people have also said that we could save ourselves a great deal of time and unnecessary work, since the convention will, in any event, have no legal force.
Both these views are wrong.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights did not undertake to produce this report lightly.
On the contrary, despite our different experiences of life and our different political standpoints, we all agreed that Parliament has a certain responsibility in this area.
The Bioethics Convention establishes certain pointers and guidelines in important scientific and medical fields.
Many people have placed great hopes in these fields, so we must ensure that the pointers and guidelines are the right ones.
As the only directly elected representatives of 370 million people in the European Union, it is our duty to say what we think about protecting human rights and human dignity in applying biology and medicine, and to try to influence what a convention like this actually says.
This is why this detailed report by Mr Pelttari is so important.
My group will be voting for the report, provided one thing is clear: that human dignity is paramount.
It will not do to leave fundamental questions open.
It would be criminal if we allowed for even the possibility of unscrupulous human testing.
Consider the question of tests on people who are unable to give their consent.
They could be sick, disabled or young children.
Let me give you an example from the past.
In my home town in Germany, there is a children's home run by the Church.
At the beginning of the 1940s, 50 gypsy children living there were tested to identify any special racial characteristics.
When the doctors were satisfied with their results, the children were taken to a concentration camp and killed.
There are various points in the Council of Europe's draft Bioethics Convention where the possibility is not entirely ruled out that such terrible things might be repeated, and Mr Pelttari has not come down on these points heavily enough.
Some of the amendments he proposes even take a more moderate line, and the Group of the Party of European Socialists refuses to go along with this.
We have tabled amendments with three basic objectives.
We wish to see unconditional protection for human dignity; we wish to prevent life in any form from being treated as a commodity; and we want a public debate on forward-looking ethical issues in the fields of biology and medicine.
What does unconditional protection for human dignity mean in practice? It means, for example, that we will spare people terrible pain if it is of no benefit to them.
It is therefore right that we should allow medical tests to be carried out on those who cannot give their consent only in certain clearly defined and exceptional cases, as specified quite clearly in paragraph 12.1.
Parliament must make it quite clear to the Council of Europe that there can be no way round this.
Next, what do we mean exactly when we say that human life must not be allowed to be treated as a commodity? I am thinking here, for example, of in vitro fertilization, which places an enormous physical and psychological strain on women.
This is where we need to tighten up Mr Pelttari's proposals.
We must make it quite clear that the embryos produced are only to be used for the treatment of the individual woman concerned.
This should not mean, however, that a woman has to go through the whole medical procedure every time she wants to attempt an in vitro fertilization, which is why it must be possible for as many embryos to be created as are necessary to complete the woman's treatment.
If we do not specify this, there is a risk that any embryos left over will be used for tests, so we must make it clear that this is not allowed.
The third of my group's demands is for a public debate on the Bioethics Convention.
The people of Europe must be allowed to have their say on matters of such importance.
The secrecy which has surrounded the work on this convention in recent years is extremely suspicious, and we, as the elected representatives of the citizens of the European Union, must make this point quite clear.
There will then be a good chance that the Bioethics Convention produced will be one to which the European Union is prepared to accede later.
My group has proposed amendments to clarify the commendable work already done by Mr Pelttari, and I would ask you to support them.
Mr President, it is important that the Council of Europe is drawing up a convention on the protection of human rights and human dignity in the application of biotechnology.
It is also good that the European Parliament is taking up a position on this matter.
Biotechnology is an up and coming area of science, research and industry.
We must support its development in the interests of increasing Europe's competitiveness in its fight for markets with Japan and the United States.
In this connection it is important to take account of the common European ethical viewpoints and the respect of human dignity, because biotechnology combines both ethical and economic interests.
I should like in this connection to thank Mr Pelttari for his very good report and for the amendments which he has made.
This reflects the Finnish ethical view which quite unambiguous and transcends party boundaries.
At the same time it also generally reflects the views of my own EPP Group.
The Council of Europe's conventions acquire the force of law when the States have ratified them.
They create guidelines for worldwide activity and in my opinion they have an important role in laying down the foundations and the framework for the way in which legislation in this area should develop.
The European Union cannot accede to this convention as a legal entity, but this could still be changed, for example at the IGC.
In my opinion the Parliament should stress this possibility, as Mr Pelttari mentioned in his speech today.
The drafting of legislation on biotechnology is currently a topical and indeed urgent subject, because the applications of biotechnology are arising at an ever increasing rate both in medicine and in other areas of research which make use of biotechnology.
Similarly in many countries, including Finland, legislation is currently being drafted on this subject.
Applications of biotechnology, for example genetic technology, are used in medicine to help people, e.g. cancer patients.
One of the best known applications is in-vitro fertilization or artificial fertilization outside the womb.
It has helped many childless families to overcome their problem.
Biotechnology has also opened up many new prospects for the early diagnosis of particular diseases at the embryo stage and for treatment at the same stage.
This possibility must not be overlooked.
Biotechnology, when used in accordance with legal and ethical standards, is a great boon to humanity, and benefits mankind in many ways.
Used in the wrong way it presents many threats, which at worst could lead even to the manipulation of the human genome.
This gives rise to fears among the general public and must be prevented without delay.
We know that, in accordance with the Hippocratic oath, doctors on the whole have high moral and ethical standards and accept their duty to protect human life and promote health by all possible means.
But there are those working in biotechnology who are not bound by that oath.
That being so, common standards must be created.
The Council of Europe's convention and the opinion being drafted by Parliament are founded on an ethically and morally sustainable basis in contemporary form. However, they do not go so far as to hinder, for example, the applications of genetic engineering from being used to prevent and treat diseases.
That being so, from a medical point of view, this proposal provides a basis inter alia for the work of doctors and at the same time it protects patients and society from the abuses they fear.
In my opinion, this reflects the opinion of the EPP and public opinion in Finland.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, I too should like to congratulate Mr Pelttari on his work in conjunction with this report on the Bioethics Convention.
In committee, we voted in favour of this report, because we believe that certain crucial aspects of it deserve our full support.
I shall mention some of these: trading in human embryos, foetuses or foetal tissue must be forbidden by law, as must research into human embryos and production of them for the purposes of research; only as many embryos should be produced as are required for transplanting, and not more than three; the preservation of embryos by deep freezing should be permitted only in exceptional circumstances for medical reasons; intervention in the human genome for the purpose of changing, or bringing about a change in, the germ line must be forbidden by law; any transmission of the findings of genetic tests should be prohibited; predictive tests should only be authorized for life-threatening conditions for which effective treatment is currently possible; research on persons who do not have the capacity to consent should only be permitted in exceptional circumstances, if the legal representative has given his assent freely and in full knowledge of the facts, if the person concerned does not object, if the research is closely linked to the subject's illness, if the research cannot be carried out on persons able to give consent and if the research is likely to benefit the health of the person concerned.
Further, the protection of the dignity and rights of individuals is of absolute priority as compared with any social or third-party interest, and the results of human genome research work must be freely available.
Finally, as the report states, it is desirable to establish publicly accessible data bases containing details of the legal texts and revealing the existence of research.
My group fully agrees with all these points; therefore, just as it did in committee, it intends to vote in favour of these principles in plenary too.
Naturally, much will depend on which amendments are adopted: in fact, our group disagrees with some of these.
In conclusion, I would commend the rapporteur once again and thank him on behalf of the Union for Europe Group for all his hard work.
Mr President, I should firstly like to say that the Confederal Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left supports this report in principle, provided certain amendments which seek to safeguard human dignity and the right of women to decide for themselves with regard to this issue are adopted.
Secondly, we believe that this report represents a step forward.
However, two sets of considerations have to be balanced: on the one hand, the interests of the biotechnology industry, which wishes to patent genes and a whole series of processes - and here we can set an example to the United States as regards respect for human dignity, taking the United Nations as a reference point; and on the other, the need to safeguard the right of women, of human beings, to decide their own future, without being subjected to tyranny of any kind.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is worth reminding ourselves that we are discussing an own-initiative report, and hence a resolution with no legal value whatsoever.
In other words, there is no legislative procedure under way; this House is not commenting on a proposal from the Commission.
No, this is merely an opinion offered by the European Parliament to the Council of Europe, which is drawing up a convention on bioethics.
What prompted Parliament to express its views? Was it perhaps to encourage the Council to conclude its work without delay, in order to have the convention as soon as possible?
Unfortunately not. If one reads the text approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs, despite the dissenting votes of the PSE Group - to which I have the honour of belonging - the Greens and the United Left, and the abstention of the ELDR Group, including the rapporteur, the spirit of this resolution becomes crystal clear.
The intention is to place a series of restrictions on scientific research, focusing in particular on artificial insemination: limitations and restrictions inspired by a moral code which not all of us share.
The Council of Europe will follow its own course; it will, in its wisdom, leave in the protocols anything which cannot easily be accommodated in the convention itself. The convention will be approved - as soon as possible, we hope - and, like all conventions, it will undergo the usual signatures and ratification by various Member States.
In the meantime, what purpose will this resolution have served? Unfortunately, if it is approved, and especially if drafted as at present, it will merely serve to lend weight to attitudes which I do not hesitate to describe as reactionary, and to die-hard attempts to reopen the debate in our countries regarding legislation on abortion - for which women have fought long and hard - and to limit access to artificial insemination.
If that is the case, with the greatest respect and esteem for the rapporteur, Mr Pelttari, and above all for the commitment and passion of Mrs Gebhardt, it will be far better if this resolution, especially in its present form, is not adopted.
Mr President, the Pelttari report is a good one: it is just as rigorous and thorough as the European Parliament's previous resolution of 16 March 1989.
In this field as no other, ladies and gentlemen, the texts of the European Parliament and the Council of Europe are taken as guidelines for national legislation.
In fact, the sensitivity and difficulty of the subject, scientific uncertainty, the unprecedented nature of the moral questions confronting us all, and the risk of restricting and sacrificing research, confer on the two European parliamentary assemblies an extra degree of responsibility and trust, for the very reason that they are broadly representative of different cultures, diverse sensibilities and the richest, widest-ranging ethical values.
Mr Pelttari's report has the merit of not avoiding the most insidious question: might not this convention and its protocols place too narrow a strait-jacket on medical research, in view of the purpose of such research, which after all is beneficial to mankind? The answer is no.
The age in which we live, so rich in achievements in every field, confronts us with an alarming discrepancy between what is technically possible and what is ethically acceptable - namely what does not damage human dignity, rightly defined by the rapporteur as indivisible.
There is of course no intention to halt scientific progress, just as science was not halted by the Nuremberg Code or the Helsinki Declaration.
It is a question not of pitting ethics against progress, but of preventing the misuse of technical potential from rebounding against mankind.
That is why, in most countries, ethics committees are drawing up what are real ethical protocols and - as in Italy within the past few days - a legal statute of the embryo, which at last is no longer ambiguous, setting out the need for the legal protection of embryos, equal to that for each and every one of us.
We know that a parallel humanity exists in refrigerators the world over, which is waiting to be welcomed into our midst.
It is difficult to come to terms with an entity so tiny and complete as an embryo.
But only if we acknowledge the human wholeness of the embryo, a purely scientific and thus objective concept, will we be able to define its human dignity, the legal protection to which it is entitled and, ultimately, the respect which it deserves from all of us, including researchers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, is the human embryo a fully-fledged human being? The Italian bioethics committee has declared that the embryo is one of us.
So there we have it: it is a form of life and deserves protection, rights and respect.
The committee has produced and published a document entitled 'Identity and statute of the human embryo' , and for the first time, we in Italy can state decisively that the embryo - or the female egg fertilized by male sperm - is not a thing, but forms part of humankind, and that its personal identity exists from the moment of fertilization, in other words as from conception.
As always, the question arises: when does an embryo start to be one of us, a European citizen in fact, and in what ways can it be used? Once again, the committee repeats that a human being becomes one at the moment of conception, and allows science to work only with dead embryos.
Although many people think that an embryo is human as from the fourteenth day, the document drawn up by this Italian committee of experts states that the various nuclei of life which precede the formation of the single embryo are themselves already individuals and are therefore untouchable; right from the moment of conception, that is to say.
I think that the Pelttari report merits a good deal of attention: in a very responsible and capable way, it outlines the arguments for life and the need to protect the embryo; for my part, I shall vote in favour of it as it stands.
Nevertheless, we have to catch and run with this ball once and for all, go beyond the bounds of this report, and resolve to draw up a statute and a law designed exclusively to protect the embryo.
Again and again, of course, we are confronted by the problems of industry which, in championing the cause of human health and our right to treatment, urges us to come out in favour of the directive which would make it possible to patent living and non-living beings, including man, by enticing us with arguments about increased employment and raising the spectre of an invasion, in the field of biotechnology, by American and Japanese multinationals.
Yet again, however, the European Parliament is refusing to face the facts, namely that in the UK 9000 embryos - 9000 human beings - are soon to be slaughtered like mad cows, if no one comes to their rescue.
I did ask for an urgent resolution on the subject at this part-session, but my request was completely ignored.
What is certain is that we must come to a final decision, in all consciousness, as responsible citizens.
Certainly, once we decide that embryos are human beings, we shall have to revise our attitude to abortion and - why not - begin to clamp down on all moves towards euthanasia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Pelttari report looks, amongst other things, at the dilemma of freedom of research and the ethical restrictions imposed on it.
The question remains as to whether everything that is technically possible in biological terms is also desirable, both from the point of view of protection and the rights of the individual.
The report contains two points, paragraphs 12.5 and 12.10, from the opinion of the Committee on Research and Technology, both of which place the rights of the human embryo above those of the individual, in other words the genetic parents.
In my view and that of the Liberal Group, this is going too far.
Paragraph 12.5 states that the preservation of embryos by deep freezing should be permitted only in exceptional circumstances, and only on medical grounds.
This means that women will be forced to undergo further painful medical treatment unnecessarily even where multiple fertilization has occurred.
A clear case of male morality.
If we approve biomedical techniques such as in vitro fertilization, then we also have to accept the consequences and give parents the right to self-determination when it comes to the preservation of embryos.
Paragraph 12.10 denies future parents the right to have genetic tests to detect serious congenital defects, and we have to wonder whether this is really in the interests of the unborn child.
Mr President, the idea of establishing a regulatory framework for biomedical research applications which will ensure that, as they are developed, the rights and dignity of persons are taken into account, undoubtedly represents a step forward.
The aim of the convention which is the subject of this report is to remove from the discretion of the major pharmaceutical and health industries the ability to set the limits of those applications, on the grounds that they may be tempted to do so on the basis of their own interests.
However, there are still some loose ends, to which attention should be drawn: for example, the encouragement of technological research and development is not made totally subordinate to the need to protect the rights, independence and freedom of choice of persons. Certain amendments would severely restrict that freedom of choice - and especially the freedom of choice of women - as regards the ability to benefit from scientific progress.
Moreover, not enough consideration is given to the harm which may be caused by genetic engineering, and this concern cannot be dismissed with the argument that technological backwardness which is damaging to industry must be avoided.
Science is a means, and not an end.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking in my personal capacity, but reflecting on a very intense discussion of this report within the delegation of the Partito Democratico della Sinistra to the Socialist Group.
I must confess that I feel a deep sense of unease.
It is my impression that we, the European Parliament, have embarked on a road which could lead to a hasty and inadequate result, and which with no doubt at all will bring us face to face with a complex set of issues and questions which are in all our minds.
As I see it, at least, these are issues and questions which do not and cannot have any immediate, easily identifiable, clear-cut political or legal value.
One cannot discuss these matters without bearing in mind, in general terms, the current state of scientific research, without taking account of the moral dimension, of religious and philosophical beliefs, and of our culturally determined, intrinsic sensibilities and points of view, which caution us all to be circumspect and respectful in a Europe made up of religions, sensibilities and points of view, and which has not one but many cultures, many outlooks, to cherish and protect.
I wonder, then, if it might have been more worthwhile to await finalization of the draft currently being drawn up by the Council of Europe, and then to subject it to careful appraisal. Is it a good idea to become involved here and now, on the basis of a draft which has not yet gone before the Assembly?
Is this a good idea, given that a Parliament might take - or believe that it has taken - highly complex decisions on the basis of political alignments or votes, cast perhaps without full knowledge of the facts, or in any event in ways which leave inadequate scope for personal conviction? I believe that full freedom of conscience should be allowed in the vote on the report which is before us, bearing in mind - as far as the so-called statute of the embryo is concerned - that nothing can be done while some claim that embryos are mere clusters of cells, to be produced and used at will, and others recognize them to all intents and purposes as persons, with a statute and rights equal in all respects to those of fully-formed individuals.
In any case, we must be aware that our vote will not put an end to this debate, which will remain open and which is above all a matter for cool and reasoned appraisal.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as shadow draftsman for the PPE Group in the Committee on Research, I should like to comment on some of the amendments which secured a majority.
The Bioethics Convention is the first international agreement to give a clear definition of the limits of research and medical intervention in humans and to confirm the rights of the individual in relation to science.
It also guarantees that medical and scientific ethics are respected.
But although every country might be calling for a proper balance between human rights and scientific progress, the different philosophical and cultural sensitivities involved make it very difficult to produce rules which are universally acceptable.
This is evident from the very fact that the title of the convention has been changed to the Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.
Biomedical research is not an end in itself, it is for the benefit of mankind.
The preservation of health and the reduction of suffering are high ethical values which form worthy objectives.
It should be made clear that these ethical values are being upheld.
Biomedical research on humans is normally carried out only on those who have been clearly informed about what is involved and have expressly given their consent.
Only in exceptional cases does research have to be carried out on those who are unable to give their consent, mainly in paediatrics, psychiatry, neurology, and in the case of research into age-related diseases.
In such instances, it is often not possible to use people who are able to give their consent, so the tests must be carried out on those who cannot.
If we want to help those suffering from Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease in the future, for example, we need to be able to do tests on patients with these diseases.
They may be just blood tests, a computer tomography or simple psychological tests, and these really should be allowed.
The problem here is how to distinguish between ethically justifiable tests and improper tests in a legal document which is necessarily very general and inflexible.
Would it not be better for the wording of the convention to be more liberal, and to have implementing provisions which go into possible abuses in detail, rather than for the convention alone to be formulated so inflexibly? These are considerations which I have covered in my amendments.
On in vitro fertilization, the motion for a resolution says that no more than three embryos should be implanted into a woman in a single menstrual cycle, and that the preservation of embryos should be permitted only in exceptional circumstances if the planned implantation within the cycle is not possible for medical reasons.
This is the same wording as is used in Germany's Embryo Protection Law of December 1990, which Germans have found entirely acceptable.
I would also stress in this context that only research which is for the direct benefit of the embryos concerned is justified, and that consumptive research of any kind using living embryos should be totally prohibited.
We support Mr Pelttari's report and his motion for a resolution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Annex I of the Rules of Procedure - Lobbying
Mr President, here we are, or rather, here we are again, since this is in fact the second report of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, following my request last January for referral back to committee because of the problems raised by Mr Ford's report.
Since January, work has been done: a working party made up of representatives of the various political groups and chaired by Mr Cot, whom I should like to thank, drew up guidelines for our committee.
In fact, a broad consensus is what is required for this kind of discussion, since we shall only be able to reform our Rules of Procedure and introduce greater transparency if we obtain 314 votes tomorrow!
We therefore need the support of the groups and, to make the point quite clearly, the support of the two large groups whose vote will determine this majority.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities has carried out its work with this end in view and on the basis of the guidelines that were presented to us.
I think I can safely say that it has respected the guidelines drawn up by the working party and even improved their wording, since some of them were rather obscure in places, not to say contradictory.
This has led us to make the following proposals. Firstly, the scope of the declaration should be extended, not only to cover professional activities, but also any support from which Members might benefit, whether financial or in terms of staff or material, provided by third parties not belonging to the institution; both the support and its origin should be disclosed.
Secondly, there should be a ban on accepting other gifts or benefits.
Thirdly, the declarations should be entered in a public register; and, finally, national legislation should be complied with as regards declarations of assets.
These are the essential ingredients of this report and its conclusions.
I am aware that these proposals present difficulties for some people, particularly as regards the ban on accepting gifts other than declared income.
Some of them, whose opinion I respect, wonder if it would be appropriate to establish a threshold above which the ban would take effect.
We did not wish to become involved in a debate that has been the source of Mr Ford's difficulties, and we have therefore settled on a more general form of words.
Yesterday, during the kind of mini-debate which marked the reintroduction of my report, some people called for the Bureau to be responsible for resolving any difficulties.
To this effect, I have tabled a proposed form of words which could extend the powers of the Bureau provided for in our report.
That proposal is now on the table, its only purpose being to secure the support of the two major groups.
In Rules 162 and 163, provision has been made not only for changes, but also for ways of applying and interpreting the Rules should anyone try to reduce the proposals to absurdity, for example by evoking the famous case of the cup of coffee that it would no longer possible to offer one's visitors.
But let us not go into that tonight.
While our proposals are too tame for some people, for others they go too far.
No doubt they strike a happy medium.
I would therefore appeal to the House's sense of collective responsibility.
If we fail to achieve a positive result, Parliament's image will be seriously tarnished.
That is why I hope we can forget ulterior motives and wrangling between political groups.
Above all, I hope that in tomorrow's vote each Member will at least have the courage not to abstain!
Mr President, in an opinion which was unanimously adopted, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment declares itself in favour of the regulation of the activities of pressure or lobby groups, on the basis of the following points.
It should be stressed that these groups enhance the fundamental role of mediation and political representation played by the political parties, by providing Members with information and helping to bring Europe's citizens and the European Parliament closer together.
Consequently, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment does not a have a negative attitude towards these groups, which contribute to the dialogue to which Mr Ford has referred. However, it wishes to underline the fact that increasing the transparency of the activities of these groups is essential to ensuring that their contribution is a genuinely positive one.
By the same token, our committee emphasizes the need to facilitate the activities of non-profit-making lobby groups, not only for reasons of equal opportunities, but because it is right that these groups should be able to operate in this House.
It recommends a gradual approach to the issue - starting, that is, with the establishment of certain basic rules regarding conduct, identification and movement, which will make it easier for the activities of Parliament, its Members and officials to be carried out and ensure that the lobbies themselves behave responsibly.
This is the approach advocated in the report submitted today by Mr Ford, whom I would congratulate on achieving a result that will enable the first steps to be taken down a long road: namely, establishing a register of natural and legal persons who wish to have permanent access to the premises of the European Parliament in order to provide Members with information, and making those persons subject to a code of conduct.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure is asked to draw up that code, so that it enters into force at the same time as this new text.
In this way, the activities of the lobby groups will be made subject to serious and responsible rules.
The Committee on Social Affairs and Employment likewise supports Mr Nordmann's report on transparency and Members' financial interests, which is also being debated in plenary for the second time today.
Both reports must be adopted, since they adequately reflect our committee's views, which I have expressed as draftsman in the firm belief that the European Parliament must take this step towards increased openness and transparency.
Furthermore, this decision cannot be postponed.
We have all made a great effort to achieve formulas which are capable of securing a broad consensus.
Now those formulas must be applied.
Time will tell if they are suitable or if they have to be improved.
Like all rules, they will probably need to be supplemented - as indicated by Mr Ford a few moments ago - and improved and adapted.
But that is not the main point.
The main point, Mr President, is to begin taking steps down the road that will ensure Parliament's credibility and moral authority.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I would point out that in recent years there has been an enormous increase in lobbying of the European institutions, with some 3000 to 10 000 lobbyists now said to be working around the European institutions in Brussels.
Clearly, if there are no rules, this kind of thing is bound to mushroom, and that is why my committee feels that regulation is urgently needed.
On behalf of the committee, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Ford, for the solutions he has put forward and all the hard work he has done.
His second report meets all the objectives our committee had in mind and takes account of criteria we felt should be met.
Lobbyists must now be entered in a public register, follow a certain code of conduct and carry a personal pass.
There are three comments I should like to make here.
Firstly, the cornerstone of this entire set of rules is, of course, the code of conduct, which needs to be drawn up as quickly as possible, otherwise none of the rules can be put into practice.
I therefore think we must aim to reach a decision on this by the end of 1996.
Secondly, if these rules are to work they must be applicable and enforceable in practice, and there must be checks on how they are applied.
These are three aspects that are going to have to be organized here in the House.
Thirdly, it is absolutely essential that parliamentary assistants should be given a proper status, but the question is whether this should be extended to include lobbyists.
I think this is something else we shall have to look at very carefully.
I should like to turn now to the Nordmann report.
The proposed amendment to the Rules of Procedure concerning transparency and Members' financial interests is, I think, a successful compromise, on which I should like to congratulate Mr Nordmann.
I wholeheartedly support this compromise.
I feel it is essential that there should be total clarity as regards the professional activities and all other paid functions of Members of the European Parliament.
Secondly, Members must also refrain from accepting gifts or other benefits in the performance of their duties.
And thirdly, it is absolutely vital that a careful record should be kept of all these details in a register.
Then there is the declaration of assets.
Pending the introduction of a uniform statute for all Members of the European Parliament, we have, I think, no choice but to go on declaring our assets in accordance with the national rules.
It should be pointed out here that the Belgian Council of State has taken a different view of this matter, but I hope that the Belgian legislation currently in the pipeline will make this possible.
Speaking for myself, I shall certainly be making my declaration of assets in accordance with this forthcoming legislation.
Like earlier speakers, I too would point out that this is the moment of truth for the European Parliament.
We cannot afford a second postponement.
This is our chance to let the people of Europe see that we want nothing to do with corrupt practices, and that as Members of Parliament we wish to stand up for the general interest, not for the interests of pressure groups.
Some people have said that there are still details to be worked out, but this is no reason to vote against the proposal.
There may not be rules covering bunches of flowers or bottles of wine, but the most important thing is that these reports we are discussing today lay down rules on everything else.
Mr President, it is finally beginning to look as if we are at long last going to have an official register of lobbyists and a code of conduct for them, seven years after I first proposed this to the Bureau.
As it stands, however, the Ford report does not provide very much more than a framework.
The code of conduct needs to be spelled out in detail in another report, but this is not such a great problem, since we can carry on using the unofficial register and code of conduct that the quaestors have introduced for the time being.
The next report needs to tighten up the existing code and establish a legal basis for it.
In my view, it should cover at least what is desirable and what is unacceptable behaviour for lobbyists, with an absolute ban on the use of excessive pressure, with or without material inducements.
Lobbyists should also be required to submit an annual report in order to have their passes renewed, giving details of who they have lobbied, on whose behalf and using what financial or other means.
Although there is to be another special report on parliamentary assistants and intergroups, certain rules already apply here too.
Registered assistants are required to declare at least any secondary activities they carry out, such as lobbying, and other assistants will be classified as lobbyists and must be registered as such and agree to respect the code of conduct.
Unfortunately, this is a very relevant requirement, since it appears that untold numbers of assistants are being paid by interest groups.
I myself do not think that this is a very desirable development, but introducing transparency could at least help to restrict such practices.
As regards the intergroups, the group chairmen have already ordered that each intergroup must declare whether it has external sources of funding, and which Members from at least three groups are its sponsors.
This should shed some useful light on the situation, since intergroups are currently degenerating into a kind of institutionalized lobby within Parliament.
Unfortunately, the register is not yet working exactly as the group chairmen agreed, and needs to be improved.
We are quite happy with the Nordmann report as it stands.
Firstly, the register of Members' interests is to be public, without any appendices which then undermine the public nature of the information it contains.
Secondly, it is to be updated annually, rather than letting the information become outdated.
But the most important thing is, of course, what the register contains, since all paid functions and activities and any financial, personal or material support from third parties will have to be declared.
Finally, all other gifts or benefits are prohibited, and thus, in one fell swoop, the European Parliament is exchanging a set of weak and unsatisfactory rules on Members' interests for the most far-reaching rules of any parliament.
This seems to me to be a sound basis on which to clean up our image and to tighten up the rules governing assistants and other third parties.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating the two rapporteurs, not merely on the excellence of their reports but on the patience and tenacity with which they have gone about their work.
I sometimes have the impression that in certain delicate matters such as that which we are discussing today the European Parliament provides 626 rapporteurs for reports coming from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
While contributions from outside are always very enriching and welcome it makes the coming to consensus a little more difficult.
But I am quite confident that tomorrow we will have come to the end of this particular long road and I think it will be to the great credit of all involved.
I should like to begin by referring to Mr Ford's report and I am sure he will not be offended if I describe it as the less controversial of the two.
It is, as he has said, little more than a recapitulation of elements that were already voted earlier in this year and that is the basis on which they will be coming forward tomorrow.
We in the EPP have some residual doubts about the appropriateness of referring to assistants in this particular report. But in the interest of bringing the matter to a successful conclusion we will be voting for the totality of Mr Ford's report.
We point out that Mr Janssen van Raay will be producing a separate report for the Rules Committee precisely on the question of assistants. We look forward to that very much.
Turning to Mr Nordmann's report I should begin by underlining that as Mr Nordmann himself said, he has faithfully and honourably transposed and implemented the conclusions of the working group set up by the Conference of Presidents.
For that reason, if for no other, his report would have the greatest possible claim to be voted tomorrow.
I personally will be voting for it even without amendment though I did put down an amendment.
I wish to speak briefly about the reasoning behind that.
What has worried me and a number of colleagues in the EPP and other groups as well has been the particular phraseology of Mr Nordmann's report: ' that Members of Parliament shall refrain from accepting any other gift or benefit in the performance of their duties' .
I am worried about the possible vagueness and difference of interpretation that such phraseology can provoke.
I have spoken to a number of individual colleagues and in some cases they might regard a book given to a Member who has spoken in the constituency of another Member as being a gift and therefore potentially unacceptable.
Others would say 'No, it is not a gift.
It is simply a courtesy which is offered to a friend within the European Parliament.'
I regard that as being potentially undesirable.
I have had put to me two possible ways of tackling this problem, one of which has been referred to by Mr Nordmann already: a compromise amendment which would ask the Bureau to set down guidelines as to how this particular proscription is to be interpreted.
If that receives a lot of support then I will happily withdraw the amendment which I put forward, which went more in the sense of saying that only those gifts that could potentially compromise the independence of the Member should be regarded as unacceptable: two ways of getting to the same goal.
I repeat, even without either of these amendments, I shall personally be voting for the Nordmann report tomorrow but I think it would be a little clearer and a little more precise if we could find some way of making more exact what the Nordmann report has in mind.
In conclusion, let me say a word about transparency.
I agree very much with Mr Ford that the enormous majority of colleagues in this House behave honourably, conscientiously, and that what is important is to convince the European electorate that is the case.
I do not regard there as being enormous skeletons in the closet, terrible secrets to be uncovered.
But we rightly in this European Parliament demand transparency of the Council.
We regard the Council as having the obligation to be seen to be acting fairly and constructively.
In demanding more transparency of the Council we are not accusing the Council of corruption.
We are merely saying that that is something which all the electors of Europe have a right to see and to have firmly established.
What is right for the Council, it seems, is right for the European Parliament.
That is why I and my group support the general underlying philosophy of the Nordmann report.
One final thought, if I may.
Oscar Wilde once said that when two people had the same opinion, one at least of them is superfluous.
In agreeing with the philosophy and opinions of Mr Nordmann, I hope very much that I will render neither him nor myself superfluous, but I wish him all the best of luck for tomorrow and I am quite confident he will get the majority he deserves.
Mr President, we have never concealed the fact that we thought the consensus that was reached on transparency, which proved later to be a far from general consensus, was wholly inadequate.
We felt that if you want to exercise political control to ensure that political office is not used for personal enrichment, you basically need to know two things: firstly, what other income the Member receives from other functions or activities apart from his parliamentary income and, secondly, exactly what assets he possesses.
In the report as it now stands, the activities, functions and so on have to be declared, but not how much the Member earns from them.
For declarations of assets, reference is made to national legislation, but we know that thirteen of the fifteen Member States do not have any rules as regards Members of the European Parliament declaring their assets, so in other words the whole thing will be shelved and nothing will happen.
With regard to gifts and benefits, the original text says that these are automatically banned, and I hope that this remains the case and that the PPE amendment is rejected.
However, alongside the prohibited gifts and benefits, this second version of the Nordmann report creates a new category of income not provided for in the earlier version, namely financial, staff or material support granted by third parties in connection with a Member's political activities. How can you tell the difference between a gift and financial support?
In our opinion, this is deliberately designed to blur the issue so as to make it possible to receive financial, staff or material support from third parties, which is totally unacceptable.
The Ford report as it stands is clearly simply a framework which outlines relations between lobbyists and Parliament in general.
We agree that it should be supported, since it specifically states that a code of conduct for lobbyists must be adopted in the current parliamentary term; Parliament may not exactly be helping things along, but it would be disgraceful if we could not draft the code of conduct during this parliamentary term.
Secondly, we can see from the statements made by various Members - just as was the case in committee - that the political will exists to introduce rules for assistants and the intergroups.
If all these things are to be sorted out in this parliamentary term, the Ford report is the launching pad, and we are happy to give it our support.
Mr President, the Europe of Nations Group will vote in favour of the Ford report, which regulates the activities of persons and groups from outside Parliament and does not present any special problem.
On the other hand, the Nordmann report, which deals with Members themselves, seems to us to be clearly inadequate, for two reasons.
The first is that our group takes the view that, under their mandate, MEPs cannot accept gifts, nor financial support, whether in terms of material or staff. How can one remain independent or claim to be combating corruption if, at the same time, one is in receipt of largesse, obviously with strings attached?
It is a question of ethics which, for us, is a fundamental issue. We cannot accept that certain gifts or benefits may be permissible, nor financial support allowed.
The second reason for our dissatisfaction is the complete lack of any real obligation concerning the declaration of assets.
Amendment No 3 states that while we are waiting for a statute for MEPs to be introduced - which has now been postponed indefinitely - Members are subject to the obligations imposed on them by the legislation of the Member State in which they were elected as regards the declaration of assets.
Admittedly, my group, which has frequently had cause to state that national identity must not be ignored in the building of Europe, might, just this once, be content to say that it was now up to national governments to do something constructive.
But how, in all honesty, can one fail to denounce the hypocrisy of a proposal which shows such a blatant lack of courage? Given the wording, it might as well not have been written at all.
In this particular case, our own Rules could have gone further than the provisions in force in individual Member States.
As has been quite rightly stated on page 19 of the annex to the second Nordmann report, the thinking behind the arrangements in the Member States is aimed at enabling the situation of MPs in terms of assets to be judged from the time when they begin their parliamentary duties to the time their mandate expires, in order to ensure that, while they are in office, they do not make excessive profits as a result of the positions which they hold.
That is the approach we should be adopting. We should be guided by the same thinking that produced the first Nordmann report and inspired the working group.
Mr President, we often make anodyne statements, but seldom take decisive action.
This new debate on financial interests presents a challenge, which the Nordmann report in its present uncontroversial form does not meet.
Our group, however, is ready to do so.
Mr President, broadly speaking, the amendments to the European Parliament's Rules of Procedure proposed in the two reports under discussion today are designed to guarantee the necessary transparency in the activities both of Members and of people interacting with them, in other words lobbyists and assistants.
As far as Members of Parliament are concerned - as other colleagues have already said - they will, in essence, be obliged to declare any sources of funding of their political activities, and must refrain from accepting any gifts that could potentially influence their actions or positions.
As for lobbyists, their names must be entered in an appropriate register, they must abide by a code of conduct and must identify themselves by means of a pass, to be worn visibly at all times on Parliament premises.
Such is the matter under discussion.
Two questions need to be asked in this context: are these new rules a positive move, yes or no? And, secondly, are they adequate, yes or no?
I would not hesitate to answer the first question in the affirmative. Despite the difficulties caused by the coexistence of differing penal and fiscal legislation in the various Member States, the European Parliament is taking the lead in establishing rules on transparency by laying down moral provisions such as the ban on the acceptance of gifts, so as to increase the citizens' trust in their elected representatives.
In my view, however, these new rules cannot be regarded as adequate, but merely as a first step towards a more comprehensive and coherent set of provisions in this area.
We are aware that opposition from certain parliamentary groups prevented the introduction of more restrictive rules, especially with regard to the provisions governing lobbyists and Members.
Unfortunately, we must take account of this and try to remedy the situation in future; to that end, however, those measures capable of obtaining the necessary qualified majority of Members must be approved now.
In our opinion, the reports by Mr Ford and Mr Nordmann, as approved by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, represent a framework which, in the circumstances, is sufficient and satisfactory; I therefore believe that this House would be well advised, tomorrow, to reject all the amendments seeking to alter or distort these two sets of rules, which can now be approved at last, sending out an important signal both within this House and, above all, to our electorate and to public opinion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Austria is to hold its first direct elections to the European Parliament on 13 October, and there is currently a great deal of debate as regards what Parliament can achieve, what individual Members can achieve, and who are the winners and losers in the European Union.
There is also some discussion in Austria of how Members are paid and who pays them, both of which are, in my opinion - and let me make this quite clear - entirely legitimate topics.
He who pays the piper calls the tune, as the old saying rightly has it.
So financial transparency is an important issue when people come to consider who is best able to defend their interests.
Both the reports before the House today suggest ways of guaranteeing our citizens the financial transparency that is required.
They both have a lengthy history, which has already been discussed.
I would simply say here that there were important and objective reasons for the problems that have arisen in drawing them up.
The different legal traditions in the fifteen Member States have made it almost impossible to persuade the necessary number of Members to commit themselves to a common solution.
Now, however, we have found a common solution, but I have to say that it is far from perfect, not because the main ideas present any difficulties, but because there are still certain side-issues concerning problems of definition.
We hope that the compromise will produce sound, workable and transparent solutions for the future.
We also hope that over the coming weeks and months in Austria and Finland - where elections are also to be held - and indeed throughout the Union, people will judge the work done by Members of the House not just on financial criteria, but also on other issues, such as the central question of who best represents their interests.
Mr President, after so much reluctance on the part of so many Members, the Nordmann and Ford reports, determining rules of conduct and further improving the work and the role of MEPs, have finally reached the plenary.
I endorse these reports, the aim of which is to achieve clarity and transparency in the way politicians perform their duties; I believe that they should be supported, and perhaps amended to make them more explicit.
I am in favour of the proposal to establish a public register listing assets, and I think that what is said in certain dubious amendments - that this instrument of transparency could be exploited by illintentioned people - is not a good premise for demonstrating to public opinion our good will and the propriety of our procedures.
For all too long, our citizens have been waiting for us, the politicians, to make a move; for our part, these minor disciplines will allow us thoroughly to rebuild our image as upright politicians, an image all too often tarnished by corrupt or ill-intentioned colleagues in this Parliament or other institutions.
I believe that the additions to Rule 9 and to the provisions governing its application must be as clear as possible, and that these reports do in fact serve this aim.
But that is not sufficient; I would emphasize the need for us to equip ourselves as soon as possible with a detailed statute of the MEP.
Obviously, in view of the time taken to bring these two reports before the House, I do not harbour too many illusions that such a statute could be drawn up within the near future.
If we wish future generations to consider that Members of Parliament perform a socially useful role, worthy of emulation, let us set an example now by voting in favour of these reports.
I fully subscribe to my group's recommendation to express a favourable opinion by roll-call vote.
Mr President, basically, the issue we are now debating concerns our credibility as parliamentarians.
We are elected to represent those who voted for us.
It is vital that we act always in the interests of the voters, using political programmes and our own views as tools.
If we allow others to affect or guide our actions, we offend against the spirit of the task we have undertaken.
The same can be said if our own economic interests guide what we do.
Two things are needed for us to retain our credibility here: the first is openness.
Our financial conditions must be accounted for openly.
The lobbyists who try to influence us must also act openly.
The second requirement is that gifts from lobbyists, to us, towards our equipment or to our staff, cannot be accepted.
Bearing this in mind the draft reports from Mr Ford and Mr Nordmann are a disappointment.
The Ford report does not mention the important issue of gifts from lobbyists.
This is not good.
It should be established here that in order to obtain access to Parliament lobbyists must undertake not to offer gifts.
We have submitted an amendment to this effect.
The Nordmann report also has serious flaws.
It proposes in practice that the payment of parliamentarians' staff and payments for their equipment by lobbyists should be legalised.
This is unacceptable and incompatible with our independence as parliamentarians.
Moreover, we already receive generous allowances for precisely those expenses.
The amendment by the PPE Group, which would make it perfectly acceptable to make gifts to parliamentarians but maintains that this does not affect how they vote, is still more unreasonable.
It is of course precisely in order to affect votes that such gifts are given.
In order to put right these flaws we have submitted amendments to oblige Members not to accept gifts, whether they are personal gifts or gifts to their offices.
We have also proposed that expenses payments should be public, in order to avoid any misuse of travel allowances.
If the proposals are not amended in the manner suggested by us it will be impossible for me and for many others to vote for them.
Mr President, it will be really very difficult for us to carry out our work as Members of Parliament if we do not exercise transparency regarding our economic interests.
Moreover, it is a very serious problem if Parliament is happy to talk about openness and demands it from other Institutions but has a blind spot in this respect.
The worst problem about Mr Nordmann's new report is that it merely increases the range of possible interpretations of the proposals.
This leads us to conclude that these proposals are unlikely to be realised even to the extent stated.
For example, the report proposes a distinction whereby gifts and services are divided artificially into different categories but whereby financial support obtained in connection with political activities is in a category of its own.
This is an artificial distinction and makes monitoring more difficult.
On the other hand there is clearly no prospect of any European Parliament rules permitting the notification of MEPs' property.
In this connection Mrs Aelvoet already said that only in two Member States are there rules of this nature on the notification of property and Mr Nordmann's report is quite insignificant in this respect.
Mr President - and fellow countryman - being elected by the people is a position of trust, not one of providing services which are for sale to the highest bidder.
Those elected by the people should be paid by them as well.
We are here because people have put a cross against our names, and we must live up to this trust and work in an open and transparent way, so that the voters can judge whether they have chosen well or need to make a better choice next time.
By standing for election, we have declared ourselves ready to work for the remuneration offered by the state, and if we have other sources of income, those earnings should be declared, so that the voters can see what they are getting for their money and what other interests we might represent.
Gifts from firms and interest groups are not compatible with positions of public trust.
And it should create a scandal everywhere that gifts are now being legalized by the proposal to amend the Rules of Procedure which the majority in the House is recommending should be adopted.
On the other hand, it is nevertheless a step forward that openness is being introduced as regards this unacceptable practice, and we are requesting a separate vote so that we can vote in favour of openness and against accepting gifts.
It is particularly interesting that the Christian Democrats are able to distinguish between those gifts which have an effect on votes and those which do not.
With gifts of alcohol, it may be possible to measure the effect, but how can one decide whether 14 days on a Turkish beach has an effect on votes on torture in Turkish prisons?
Perhaps 14 days in a Turkish prison would make a stronger impression, but that can hardly be called a gift.
The June Movement is proposing that gifts should be prohibited, and that a copy of every approach from lobbyists should be supplied to the library, so that there is openness as regards approaches to elected representatives.
It is all very well for the tobacco industry to argue in favour of smoking, but the arguments must be accessible to those campaigning against cancer, so that they can provide evidence of the further damage to heath which can be caused by allowing tobacco advertising.
Lobbying and closed doors are a dangerous mixture, whilst openness and lobbying from different quarters is a basis for well thought-out legislation.
Mr President, the reports we are now considering concerning the regulation of lobbying and of MEP's economic interests are aiming at a legislation which should be self evident.
Lobbying should be open and susceptible of monitoring.
At the same time it is appropriate that any economic connections MEPs may have should be listed.
It is equally natural that we should start from the assumption that Members should not receive gifts or services for performing their duties.
I earnestly hope that Parliament can adopt the Ford and Nordmann reports as they stand.
If either report were rejected this would be a regrettable commentary on our inability to draw up common rules.
At the same time it would cast a shadow on those Members of Parliament for whom no such regulations are needed.
I believe that the vast majority of the Members of the European Parliament perform their duty in a morally unexceptionable manner.
Questions relating to the rules and openness of politics are important for the functioning of democracy.
What is just as important is the way in which we are able to hold a sensible discussion with our countries' nationals in the complicated conditions which exist at present.
Our nationals have a right to know what view of the world their representative holds and how he or she aims to find solutions to its central problems.
The world has changed, and the fact that a person belongs to a particular political party does not, for example, tell us everything about his political philosophy.
The boundaries on many important issues cut across party lines.
Since we are now hopefully going to get the question of interest groups and Members' economic interests off our hands, at least for a time, we may perhaps be able to go on to consider how we can develop a genuine national dialogue in Europe.
I would wish to include in this discussion the media who are now closely following the discussion of the Ford and Nordmann reports.
Mr President, it is obviously no easy matter to fight your way through issues like this, and I hope and have every confidence that we shall still reach a successful conclusion tomorrow.
The solution found for the lobbyists is a reasonable one, provided that the code of conduct is sound, that it is introduced quickly, and that the lobbyists keep to it.
The only mistake, as far as I can see, is to include assistants in a report on interest groups, and the assistants' association has rightly asked for this passage to be dropped from the Ford report.
Assistants are our personal aids, and are entitled to have rules of their own.
As far as our ethics are concerned, I shall be happy with any solution which guarantees transparency, legal security and privacy.
If Amendment No 3 is adopted, I would repeat what I said in January: that Members who are not subject to the same requirements as their national counterparts must themselves ensure that they do not slip through the net, and must voluntarily agree to respect the same rules as their national colleagues.
This is still the case for Members from my own country.
Mr President, public confidence in the work of Parliament is completely dependent on the system being open and democratic.
This applies equally to the relationship of parliamentarians with individual interest groups which wish to influence the decisions of Parliament.
The proposals in the Ford report are good, as far as they go.
Lobbying must be regulated, partly to prevent improper influence through gifts and financial advantages but not least in order that all individuals and interest groups should have the same opportunities to influence the work of parliament, irrespective of their size and financial strength.
Verifiable passcards which facilitate registration and checks based on the principle of public accountability constitute the only system which meets the requirements of openness, democracy and equal conditions for all.
This is particularly important for organisations concerned with issues of principle, which must be given the same conditions as industry and interest groups with considerable financial resources.
The proposal does not go far enough, however.
There is no need for lists in which donations of money or in kind to Members can be published.
Such donations and gifts should quite simply not be allowed over and above a purely token level.
There is also some ambiguity concerning the access the general public may have to the lobby register.
The solution is just as clear as with the previous point: the register should be open to the public and anyone who so wishes should have access to it.
The Nordmann report is much the same.
Strict rules for gifts and other inducements are absolutely necessary if public mistrust of the EU and the advantages enjoyed by MEPs is to be transformed into increased confidence.
The Nordmann report too points in the right direction but does not go far enough.
It ought, for example to be self-evident that industry and organisations should not be able to offer financial advantage to MEPs indirectly by appointing staff formally to positions within the company or organisation who are in reality carrying our work for individual MEPs.
My conclusion is thus that we have two proposals which are a step in the right direction but do not go far enough.
The proposals should nevertheless be supported as an initial measure.
Mr President, a good many people in this House have been angry with the Greens for criticizing Members' undeclared income and the lack of clear rules governing their expenses, and people have been quick to accuse us of currying favour with the public.
However, I think that if there had not been criticism from within the House, it would soon have come from outside and would have weakened Parliament's standing.
How can we try to explain why there has been this endless tug-of-war about banning the acceptance of gifts?
How can we explain why Members make up to 50 % profit on their travel expenses?
How can we explain why travel expenses are paid even if Members have not made the journey and even if they live in Brussels anyway? How can we explain that some people claim allowances for attending meetings of committees of which they are not even members, that meetings are deliberately extended to the following day so that Members can claim a second day's allowance, and that Members employ their relatives as assistants?
I could easily go on with this list of abuses, and only my lack of speaking time prevents me from doing so!
Mr President - and fellow countryman, as I can say like Mr Bonde - there are many lobbyists in the European Parliament.
They form a natural part of our work and contribute views and information.
They probably cannot be dispensed with, but we should have rules governing their activities.
The Ford report is a good attempt to create a set of rules which are workable.
I should have liked to see the rules made stricter - everything which a business gives a Member ought to be registered, but I appreciate that there is a balance to be struck here, and that it was not politically possible to achieve more, because the right wing in Parliament would not go along with it.
The most important thing is that now, for the first time ever, we have rules on the activities of lobbyists, and we can always make them tighter in the future.
I welcome the fact that in line with my own amendments, Members will have to declare in a register what financial interests they have apart from representing Europe's citizens.
It should be a matter of course that there is public access to this register, in keeping with our idea of openness.
We hope that these rules will make the lobbying firms more transparent, but let us be under no illusions.
Even the new rules can be got round.
If a Member wishes to cheat, that can always be done, but we must hope that the new rules bring into focus the relationship between Members and lobbyists, and that they will also serve as moral guidance for Members.
The new rules say to Members that it is wrong to use one's status as a Member for personal financial gain, whether by letting oneself be bribed by lobbyists or by selling information.
Openness should prevail.
We have waited a long time for these rules.
Today we can take a step in the right direction, and I really do hope that the right wing will therefore change its mind and that we simply declare what we are now concealing.
Why will they not go along with this? The reason could of course be a guilty conscience.
I hope that that is not the case.
Mr President, I did not wish to speak as rapporteur, I was replacing Mr Wijsenbeek, but that was indeed rather ambitious.
I think I have three minutes in which to say that the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party approves the two reports whose preparation it has been closely involved with.
It also gives me an opportunity to offer my personal congratulations to Mr Ford for having come up with some provisions which, though they may not go far enough for some people here, nevertheless allow the process of clarification to begin on a sound footing.
In the case of both reports, the Liberal Group is all the more pleased to lend its support because they provide for a general approach of transparency based on trust, rather than on distrust.
We do not need procedures for officiously inquiring into anyone's affairs, we need instead to encourage a spirit of openness and confidence. That explains why subparagraph (b) of Article 2(1) is phrased so economically.
We are well aware that financial support or support in terms of staff or material additional to that provided by the institutions is sometimes given.
Some of our colleagues are supported by their political party, especially parties which have been institutionalized at European level by the Maastricht Treaty.
It would therefore be extremely hypocritical to claim that the only material support is provided by Parliament and its budget.
We in the Liberal Group believe that although this is only a small step, it is not one without significance. We are therefore concerned that those who are calling for a more radical text may be trying to alter or delay the introduction of measures to increase transparency because these might bring to light some means of support which they themselves are currently enjoying.
The best is the enemy of the good. This maxim is especially true where a spirit of moderation is required.
The Liberal Group therefore commends the moderate nature of this compromise.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Restructuring in the steel industry
The next item is the report (A4-0213/96) by Mr Caudron, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament 'Fresh impetus for restructuring the steel industry in the Community' (COM(94)0265 - C40060/94).
During the 1950s, the steel industry together with the ECSC were the basic elements in the process of European integration.
Twenty years later, as a result of the drastic restructuring programmes and their terrible social cost in the 1970s and 1980s, it almost caused the downfall of this same Union.
We should be aware that in many areas and for many of our fellow citizens, the damage is irreversible.
They have lost heart.
As a Member from northern France, a traditional industrial area, I speak from first-hand experience.
May I remind you that in less than 20 years, the number of jobs in the steel industry has fallen from 850 000 to 350 000.
Fortunately, the situation today is somewhat better: the market for steel is quite good, even if it is still unstable and continually at the mercy of crises in other sectors - armaments, automobiles, and so on.
Nevertheless, the European steel industry is a net exporter and makes a profit.
But is this a reason for doing nothing, for allowing the markets carte blanche , for crossing our fingers and hoping that all will be well? This is what some industrialists would have us do, and sometimes they tell us so in no uncertain terms.
For our part, we do not think so, and I refuse to sit back and do nothing.
On the contrary, we must take advantage of this respite to plan for the future, to maintain the performance of our steel industry and thus avoid further traumas. That is how we shall be able to cope intelligently and humanely with future changes.
That is the approach I have pursued with my colleagues from different groups for nearly a year, and my thanks to all of them.
I have also sought the advice of all the economic players, businesses and trade unions.
In my report, I go on to make many specific proposals affecting four main areas.
Firstly, the competitiveness of the European steel industry must be strengthened by developing new products and markets, and giving ourselves the means to do this.
In a restricted market, Europe's share must not be allowed to contract.
It must therefore be expanded.
To ensure that the necessary restructuring measures are carried out in a totally transparent way, we must not penalize those who have worked hard, nor excuse those who have been late in meeting their obligations.
More money will have to be spent on research to ensure that our industry remains competitive on the global market. That is an absolute precondition.
Secondly, social policy in this sector needs to be improved.
A qualified workforce is of prime importance to the European steel industry.
We should definitely rid ourselves of the idea that it is a burden. On the contrary, it is an asset!
We should therefore reassure our workers in order to avoid further traumas.
The effects of future changes should also be managed from within, and it is important to convince the workers of this fact!
Thirdly, as regards relations with third countries, we should remain firm in our dealings with the United States, but be very cooperative in our relations with the countries of Eastern Europe, in order to facilitate their essential restructuring and transition processes.
Most of them will be in the Union one day, and now is the time for them to be preparing for accession.
Finally, our industry must remain or become large enough to compete worldwide, and we must give ourselves the means to achieve this, including regroupings.
We must stop burdening ourselves with constraints that our competitors do not have.
Lastly, we should already be preparing for the post-ECSC era in 2002 in order to ensure a smooth transition, in particular by incorporating measures and mechanisms into the Treaties during the IGC.
Such mechanisms are needed to ensure greater transparency in the markets and in state aids and other types of aid, as well as to step up research, with active and intelligent social policies designed to bring about increased productivity and with a long-term commitment to avoid jeopardizing the future for the sake of short-term gains.
Finally, the European steel industry was the driving force behind the Union before turning into one of its worst disasters.
Today it is in a good state of health, and with this in mind, we should be planning for the future.
That is the essence of my report.
I hope it will receive overwhelming support, and also that it will raise awareness and lead to rapid measures so that it can be of lasting value.
Mr President, after all the painful restructuring of the last 20 years and after the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, the steel industry is still a sector with a future.
That is the message which the rapporteur, Mr Caudron, wishes to convey to us.
I commend him for having treated the steel issue with the sensitivity of someone who comes from one of the many areas stricken by unemployment, and for having put forward practical proposals that avoid the pitfalls of unfettered liberalism and sterile economic intervention.
He has come up with a whole series of interesting proposals.
I should like to highlight one or two of them.
The first advocates an offensive strategy for steel consisting of greater product diversity, a broader range of uses, particularly in construction and public works projects, as well as naturally stepping up research in various areas.
Of course, such a strategy will only work if competition is not distorted.
State aids, whether open or concealed, are therefore placed under scrutiny.
On these issues, I am in agreement with the rapporteur, who defends the code on aid and the policy instruments, but who is opposed to state aid for individual businesses. He does, however, make an exception for regional aid in special circumstances.
Secondly, where restructuring has been carried out, in other words where there has been a dramatic fall in the number of jobs, we must stop the haemorrhaging once and for all. Often, in the wake of the rationalization and the frenetic attempts to increase productivity of recent years, labour has been casualized in various ways.
Our industrial policy must safeguard stable jobs, a task always met by long-term renewal through the employment of young people.
Finally, I should like to say a word about the ECSC Treaty, which expires in the year 2002.
The crisis in the steel industry showed the value of the instruments it contains. These include the aid code, the statistical system for monitoring market development, the Consultative Committee - of paramount importance for social dialogue in this sector - and the research carried out by using the funds available.
We now recognize that this Treaty has a more pronounced social spirit than those which followed.
Like the rapporteur, I too believe that in making the transition, we should preserve this spirit as well as the more positive elements in the ECSC Treaty, whilst adapting it to suit recent economic and social developments.
In particular, I should like to support the establishment of a structure to accommodate the ECSC reserves, which could be used for joint technological and social research.
In conclusion, Mr President, my group broadly approves this report, which lays down guidelines for a competitive steel industry in the future.
Mr President, we began with a rather weak communication from the Commission, but Parliament and Mr Caudron have transformed it into a vision of the future, a proper industrial policy for the steel industry.
I think Mr Caudron deserves our warmest congratulations, and his report should be adopted as it stands.
Everyone knows that as well as making a major contribution to the economies of the Member States, the steel industry is also an extremely important source of employment, both direct and indirect.
There is often a misunderstanding here.
Businesses do not create jobs, and have only one choice: to operate as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible against cut-throat international competition.
In our western society, cost control almost inevitably means job losses.
The steel industry has always depended heavily on the regions around it, and I therefore greatly regret that a programme such as RESIDER, designed to help the regions diversify, is drying up.
The steel industry is still in the act of developing into much smaller but more widely distributed units, and halting this trend will only harm the industry's competitiveness.
The fact is that, internationally, the price competition is absolutely ruthless.
There are a few extremely important elements that need to be included in our industrial policy for the steel industry after the ECSC expires.
This is the first report that actually looks beyond that point.
First of all, the new aid operations under Article 95 will need to be strictly monitored.
Every case of aid under Article 95 is by definition a distortion of competition, in my opinion, and the industry itself has also come round to this point of view.
Some Members have already tabled amendments which take quite a different line, and I only hope that Mr Fayot is trying to keep his group in check as I am with mine.
Secondly, the 1997 revisions must introduce more rapid and transparent inquiry procedures, so that effective sanctions can be imposed where the support rules are infringed.
Thirdly, it is vital that European trade statistics should be made available more quickly.
Full American trade statistics on volume and average import prices are available within two months, whereas the European figures take eight to twelve months.
This completely stymies our dumping policy, since the WTO insists that complaints about dumping must be based on official trade statistics.
This is certainly a more important priority than encouraging mergers, which are in any case contrary to the current trend.
Fourthly, the steel industry also feels that it is very important to have a research fund based on the ECSC model for the period after the ECSC expires, in order to promote the dissemination of technological innovations.
And, last but not least, I think the Commission should work hard with the Americans to try to reach a multilateral steel agreement or MSA.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are considering today deals with measures designed to relaunch the restructuring process after the ECSC Treaty has expired in 2002. The aim is to strengthen the competitiveness of the industry, its social policy and its relations with third countries, and to ensure the retention of certain mechanisms contained in the Treaty which is to disappear.
It should also be borne in mind that the future of the Treaty and its financial role are due to be examined under the Irish presidency, and that we are expecting a draft text from the Commission towards the beginning of September.
In addition, a discussion is currently taking place on the draft aid code for 1997-2002, with a view to a decision being taken by the Council of Industry Ministers in November.
Mr Caudron's excellent report will be endorsed by all our group.
It deals with recent developments in the European steel industry and considers its future as effectively as is possible at the present time.
A wider definition of steel products put forward in the resolution, such as the declassification of scrap metal as waste, and attempting to reach a bilateral compromise with the United States, with a view to a multilateral agreement, are both moves in the right direction.
Lastly, like the resolution, we too would welcome the creation of a structure to accommodate the ECSC reserves.
Clearly, however, these reserves, together with the interest accruing on them, should be used to finance Community steel research programmes and be subject to adequate controls, once the levies on the steel industry have been ended.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we too would like to congratulate Mr Caudron.
His report deserves our support, but it also requires some modification, since there are obviously two sides to the ECSC.
On the one hand, it is an example of a robust industrial policy with its own research and social arm, whose carefully regulated and focused long-term strategy has, broadly speaking, succeeded in bringing structural change to the sector.
On the other hand, it is also a prime example of an industrial model which we all know started to give us problems a long time ago.
It is highly monopolized, with cartels and a die-hard aristocracy among the workers.
It pursues an aggressive external trade policy.
These are the less favourable aspects which the Community cannot afford to allow to continue in the longer term.
So what we need to do is to carry on with the positive side of the ECSC while at the same time making it more open and less privileged.
The ECSC reserves, for example, cannot be treated as some sort of private fund for the coal and steel industries.
Raw materials and energy are more general issues, and we are going to have to discuss exactly how we want them to be used.
Mr President, although the European steel industry is relatively healthy at the present time, let us not forget the debilitating effect of the loss of nearly 600 000 jobs over the last few years.
In 20 years, jobs in the steel industry have been cut by two thirds. As a trade union official at the time of the major restructuring programme in France, I witnessed the havoc which this caused.
Whole regions were ruined, and families torn apart. But there were also fiercely determined battles, in spite of everything, to save an industry of which several generations of steelworkers were justly proud.
Today, the steel industry has been modernized. And, if we are to be honest, the increased productivity has largely been due to new technology and new production methods which, in turn, have led to massive lay-offs.
Whereas in 1986, it took five hours to produce a ton of steel, nowadays it takes only three.
It goes without saying that the competitiveness of European steel depends to a large extent on our capacity for research and technological innovation.
New procedures have been introduced which allow for greater flexibility, both in terms of diversity of supply and production volume.
Links between producers of steel products and downstream users have been strengthened, and joint research and marketing ventures have been established.
But I wonder how much further this process can go - even though it is one that all modern industries undoubtedly require - without resulting in further massive job losses, unless it is accompanied by a reduction in working hours and by new working methods? Research in the steel industry will also be a campaign which it is essential for us to wage.
The expiry of the ECSC Treaty and the integration of steel research into the fifth framework programme of research and technological development present a serious problem.
We should indeed therefore be considering the creation of a structure to accommodate the ECSC reserves, the interest on which would be used to encourage technological innovation and to develop a social policy covering training and working methods.
On a more general note, Mr Caudron, whom I should like to congratulate, has stressed that when the ECSC Treaty expires, there must be no systematic abandonment of a sectoral industrial policy.
Yet this is what may well happen.
Lastly, the future of the European steel industry is linked to the development of other industrial sectors such as construction, automobiles, and so on.
As we know, these are experiencing severe problems, mainly because of restrictive policies imposed by the convergence criteria.
I am afraid that such a policy may well force us to sacrifice our Community industry, unless we are on our guard.
Mr President, I shall conclude my speech by highlighting a similar need for vigilance with regard to the United States and its anti-dumping measures.
However, I am confident that, in this respect, the Commission will protect the interests of the Community steel industry.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Caudron's interesting report has two themes.
It examines the restructuring of the Community steel industry, and outlines the course the industry must take to safeguard its future.
As emphasized in the report, the future of the steel industry already depends and will continue to depend on global competition.
Today, 320 000 people in the Union are employed in this sector.
We entirely support the guidelines set out in this report for giving the industry a lasting chance of success.
To this end, everyone, including our competitors, must abide by the following rules. State aid must never be used as a subsidy to artificially revive uncompetitive producers.
The Union must not allow unfair trade practices, such as any kind of dumping, not least on the part of the countries of Eastern Europe.
The same applies in the case of unilateral protectionist measures taken by some non-Union countries against the latter's products.
The most vital element in the future of the steel industry is research.
We must ensure that it is adequately financed after the expiry of the ECSC Treaty in 2002.
Another element is innovation - hence the overwhelming importance of research.
Only on this basis will we forge a future for ourselves in the third millennium.
Mr President, it has already been pointed out today, and it is something I would like to emphasize, that the steel industry is undoubtedly a symbol of the construction of Europe.
I think any follow-up to the ECSC Treaty needs to focus on two things: technology and a proper social policy.
The problem of how to ensure that the European steel industry remains competitive in future will be difficult to resolve.
We have to realize that just producing iron and steel will not be enough, and that the survival of the entire steel industry in Europe will depend on things like integrated plant construction and the further development of iron and steel products.
Let me give you an example from my home state. More than 40 000 jobs were lost at Voest Alpine, but since privatization the firm is now back in profit and is certain to...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, like many others here, I should like to congratulate Mr Caudron on his excellent report, which draws attention to the suffering and concern of those regions and peoples that are heavily dependent on steelmaking.
They are concerned because in the year 2002, they see the only industrial policy currently in force in the European Union coming to an end. That policy stemmed from a Treaty which was one of the models for the European Community and which has scarcely been replaced.
Hence there is a danger that it will be overwhelmed by the policy of unregulated competition governing the single market, with consequences similar to those experienced in other sectors.
And there is concern too because some workers are being discriminated against, as often happens in public-sector industries. The Forges de Clabecq in Belgium, which is currently being subjected to an inquisition by the Commission, is a good example of such discrimination.
On this point, I would add that Mr Caudron's report has not completely escaped the liberal influence of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, since it acknowledges the crucial importance of the codes on state aids.
Whilst we share this view, we question the indulgence that is shown towards currency drift and the laxity of fiscal dumping.
In short, we are facing a situation that will affect the future of sectors where employment levels are still high.
I therefore await with considerable impatience the Commission's forthcoming proposals on industry, as well as on research, where there is a lack of consistency as regards the wealth of ideas and initiatives.
Mr President, thank you for your report on the European steel industry, Mr Caudron.
This is an industry which has undergone a tough restructuring process and suffered the loss of half a million jobs over the last twenty years.
In this restructuring process, the amount of state aid received has been unequal, and this is something which should also be borne in mind for the future.
By way of example, the steel industries of some Member States have closed down up to 30 % of production capacity, whilst receiving less state aid than the industries of other Member States, some of which - curiously - are now protesting vehemently against state aid.
This effort has had, and is continuing to have, a considerable social cost.
The most recent restructuring operations should be carried out in the best possible social conditions, using the available financial resources and the ECSC reserves to finance not only R&D programmes, but also social measures, such as early retirement schemes and compensation for redundancy.
Let us not deceive ourselves with the euphemism 'funding for social research' , which accounts for no more than 1 % of overall research in this sector.
It is not social research which needs funding, but the necessary social measures connected with the large-scale reductions in production capacity.
State aid regimes must be rigorously applied, but no more rigorously than they are for productive sectors which are competing with the steel industry.
Hence the Community framework for R&D support must be equally valid for the steel sector.
We cannot penalize this sector in relation to the others.
One final comment, Mr President: imports from third countries - especially those from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which frequently take place in conditions of dumping, and above all those which enter the Union via countries which are not subject to quotas - must be controlled.
The controls must be strict, since otherwise Europe's steel industry will be harmed. And, lest anyone should think that permissiveness with regard to dumping by third countries is somehow connected to internal competition in the Community steel industry, I would add that the steel sectors of some Member States will be harmed more than those of others.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Caudron, who has drawn up a very complete report which addresses all the scientific and social aspects of competition policy in this area.
I am sure that he will forgive me, however, for raising three objections to his excellent report.
We would hope to see these three objections resolved when it comes to the vote, although I appreciate that the rapporteur himself is willing to accept some of these points.
I also welcome the fact that Mr Bangemann is present, since I should like to put a question to him.
These painful restructuring operations have been carried out throughout the length and breadth of the European Union.
Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost, not only in northern, but also in southern Europe.
The countries of northern Europe began the restructuring process before those in the south, because the former joined the European Community and benefited from the ECSC approach before the latter did so.
The latecomers began their restructuring process in the 1970s, without the help of the Community aid provided through the ECSC.
Consequently, I do not think that anyone is lagging behind.
Everyone has done their duty and made the painful cut-backs, which have also meant reductions in capacity: from the United Kingdom to the new German Länder , and from north to south.
And all with the help of state aid - and massive state aid, as Mr Imaz pointed out.
Let us therefore stop beating about the bush and talk about state aid.
The ECSC Treaty is expiring, with all its advantages and disadvantages. We fail to understand, however, why one industrial sector will be penalized in relation to the others.
Consequently, the code on state aid must be brought into line with the general system of the industry's competitors.
Finally, Mr President, let us not forget that the adjustments and the need for social measures will continue everywhere.
Mr President, as in many other cases here in Parliament, we are in a situation today where we are good at identifying areas where there are problems, but may well disagree strongly on how to solve them.
Several speakers have said how the steel industry has been through a major upheaval.
The decision taken by the Council in 1993 on structural change, reorganization and the adjustment of capacity was then backed by a number of initiatives from the Commission.
We often judge matters on the basis of our own home areas.
Earlier today, I spoke on the trans-European networks.
I feel like saying the same things again now.
We are in a situation where we need to see ourselves in relation to worldwide, not just internal competition.
We have often used a good deal of energy discussing how we are applying state aids within the Union, how we may be cheating one another, rather than using our efforts to see how we can make some impact on the world market, so that we can cope with competition in the future.
Many good things have been said about the future.
I would stress that research and product development are vital, as I see it.
We talk about adjusting to the market; we could also talk about expanding the market.
All in all, international trade agreements are crucial for us.
One point which I would highlight in Mr Caudron's excellent report is the situation after 2002.
There is a need for strict controls on what takes place internally, so that we can pursue a common policy and not devote our energies to investigating whether we are cheating one another.
The proposals from the committee are good ones, but the Commission should perhaps not...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Mr Caudron has given us a very accurate description of the current situation and has made a number of very useful proposals on how to meet the challenges of the next few years.
We are fortunate in being able to hold this discussion at a time when the situation in the steel industry has, generally speaking, stabilized, though it is quite true that there have been job losses in the steel industry, just as in other primary industries which are having to face up to both technological change and increasingly strong competition.
However, the steps taken by the Commission and the steel industry itself in recent years have at least brought us to a point where prices are fairly reasonable and the jobs that remain are fairly secure, even though the modernization process is, of course, still ongoing.
Our main achievement, and one which should not be underestimated, has been privatization, which, particularly in those Member States where the industry was previously almost entirely nationalized, has meant that every firm can now think and work for itself in order to remain competitive.
This is absolutely crucial, because competition is set to become increasingly globalized.
We are going to have to compete more with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and this is why it is vital that we should not go back to needing state aid to compensate for poor competitiveness.
I have to tell Mr Desama that his comments this evening are hardly helpful to either Clabecq or the steel industry in general, and nor is that the way to solve the problem.
We have not begun an inquisition there, but we have to do what the law requires.
If we want to protect jobs in the steel industry, we have to ensure that competition is not distorted by the payment of illegal state aid.
Jobs throughout the entire steel industry are at stake, so no one should make wild claims that the Commission is conducting an inquisition.
The expression really is one which I refute.
We are simply doing our duty, and if you do not believe me, the people from Clabecq have asked Mr Gandois to produce a report on how to make the company competitive again, and there is only one way of doing this, which is to invest in modernization.
If it does invest in modernization, then Clabecq can be expected to recover its competitive position.
But you have to ask, of course, whether anyone is likely to do this if they cannot be sure of ending up with a viable company? This is the six million dollar question.
We cannot simply carry on as before, when aid was paid out and healthy firms went to the wall because unhealthy firms put up unfair competition.
I would ask you to try and be a little more realistic before you make such statements, Mr Desama.
The same applies to the claims that the ECSC Treaty is the only possible policy for the industry.
I am very sorry to have to say it, but this is totally wrong.
As an industrial policy, it is terribly outdated.
It is an interventionist policy based on quotas, price controls, controls on trade flows and so on, and when we applied it in earlier steel crises, it never solved anything.
Only when we applied the modern industrial policy which the Commission has been successfully promoting for a number of years were we able to find reasonable solutions, and we are now able to adopt a more relaxed approach when new problems arise.
I cannot give you any further details of the transition from the ECSC Treaty to the general rules.
It is absolutely certain that we will not be extending the Treaty, though we shall carry over some of the mechanisms which fit in with our modern industrial policy.
We have yet to decide what to do with the reserves, in other words the money raised by the industry.
The Member States seem to be quite keen to pocket this money, but they are forgetting that it has come from the industry itself.
We should try to find a solution which will enable at least some, if not all, of the money to be ploughed back into the steel industry, such as for modernization or research.
The Member States have other ideas here, but I hope that with Parliament's support we can find a sensible solution.
I also hope we can resolve our problem with the USA.
We are, of course, all in favour of a multilateral agreement as the only way to solve such trade disputes, and we still have our sights on this once the elections in the USA are over.
We have entered a new phase in the restructuring process and are more or less back to normal, with an industry that is once again competitive and now only needs to maintain its position.
We do not need a completely new set of rules, we simply have to ensure that we remain competitive in the years to come.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Trans-European telecommunications networks
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0222/96) from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position established by the Council (C40225/96-95/0124(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision on a series of guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks (rapporteur: Mr Hoppenstedt).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I once again have the good fortune, as I had at the last plenary, to be speaking to you shortly before midnight.
I must say I feel really sorry for those who cannot be with us, and who are sitting out on those hard chairs in bar gardens drinking chilled beer and wine.
We are really much better off here.
But we are not here to talk about that, we are here to talk about the trans-European telecommunications networks.
We are here to deliver our opinion at second reading and to look at the common position and the amendments which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has unanimously adopted.
For those who are not familiar with the subject, I would point out once again that in a single market without frontiers, there has to be free movement of goods, people, capital and services.
The Community measures already adopted and others still in the pipeline will require considerable amounts of information to be exchanged between individuals, economic operators and public administrations, and work is already being done on this.
The trans-European telecommunications networks are the way to ensure that this exchange of information takes place.
Article 129d of the EC Treaty lays down guidelines covering the objectives, priorities and broad lines of measures envisaged in the sphere of trans-European networks.
These guidelines provide for projects of common interest.
And the trans-European telecommunications networks cover the three levels that are involved: applications, basic services and basic networks.
The common position supports the linking of networks within the telecommunications infrastructure and the development of interoperable services and applications and access to them, in order to facilitate the transition to the information society, improve industrial competitiveness and consolidate the Community's economic and social cohesion.
One way to achieve these objectives is to select projects of common interest, and it is a priority in our amendments - and one which we insist on keeping - that an order of precedence should be established.
Other priorities include educating the public about the advantages of using the trans-European networks and transEuropean telecommunications services, promoting joint initiatives to organize projects on trans-European telecommunications networks, providing funding for applications, particularly those of common interest, promoting partnerships in the public and private sectors, and promoting the supply and use of services and applications among SMEs.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has identified Articles 3, 6 and 7 as being in particular need of amendment.
What we really want to see is a trans-European telecommunications network that will guarantee the development of the information society.
But our amendments and list of priorities are also designed to take special account of the man in the street and his concerns, such as common interfaces or the weaknesses of the system.
I think it is important that we should have not just information highways in future, but also information walkways and information pedestrian areas.
We also feel that transfrontier, inter-regional initiatives are particularly important, as is linking up with telecommunications networks in the Mediterranean basin, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the CIS and Latin America.
All of these are important aspects which we underline in our amendments.
I feel it is absolutely vital that the Council should accept our opinion and the decisions we reach at second reading without delay, because we feel that there is huge employment potential just waiting to be exploited in the steel industry and in information technologies.
There would not be any additional jobs, but there would be new ones, and I think we need to do everything we can to take advantage of this.
It is not enough simply to produce white papers and take weighty decisions about securing existing jobs or creating new ones. We really need structures which are specifically able to provide support for employment.
We must put an end once and for all to this endless talking and get down to work and do something.
I think the approach the Commission has proposed in the common position before us provides some extremely good opportunities.
The information society will develop on its own anyway, but if we fail to act as I have suggested, the man in the street is probably going to be left behind, and this is something we must not allow to happen.
I therefore commend the proposals of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to the House, and I am confident that they will be adopted more or less unanimously.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all to remind you that the proposal before us, the legal basis for which is Title XII of the Treaty, requires the Union to establish guidelines, objectives, priorities and broad lines of measures envisaged to help implement projects connected with the trans-European telecommunications networks.
In particular, the aim is to compile a list of sectors in which calls for tenders will be issued with a view to eliciting projects, some of which will be designated as being of 'common interest' and hence eligible for financial support from the Community.
In February of this year, Parliament delivered its opinion at first reading with a number of amendments, some of which were not accepted by the Council.
Mr Hoppenstedt's report, which we are discussing today, includes a good many amendments that our group will be unable to approve.
I would draw particular attention to the problems of comitology and the division of responsibilities between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, the definition of suitable projects, the joint adoption of the work programme with Parliament, and the transformation of the management committee into a mere advisory committee.
As regards the selection of projects, Parliament's proposed amendments would mean that decisions would be made jointly by the Council and Parliament.
We cannot, however, agree to this.
Likewise, we are also against the compulsory transnational element in the identification of projects, firstly because it is not a Treaty obligation and, secondly, because we feel that projects listed under the heading 'information superhighways' in the call for tenders could not be developed on a European basis.
Lastly, in addition to the points I have just mentioned, no account has been taken of the principle of subsidiarity, nor of the new requirements concerning selection priorities and deadlines for implementing projects.
Moreover, new priorities have been included which do not seem to us to have been legitimized by any earlier decision.
Our group therefore reserves the right to vote as it thinks fit tomorrow with regard to certain amendments.
Mr President, the amount of information in society is increasing to an inconceivable level.
Having the right information or knowing how to obtain information is an important skill for most people who will work in the labour market of the future.
Two essential tasks stand out if the information society is to develop positively.
The first concerns democracy and the right of all to participate in and benefit from the opportunities offered by the information society.
The second is a question of exploiting technology in the right way and coordinating networks to make the best possible use of their operation, that is to say putting the needs of users, consumers, first.
The present report is primarily concerned with the latter.
It is after all important that as representatives of the public we always take into account aspects such as democracy, and fair and equal conditions, when we are discussing technical issues too.
Effective coordination of telecommunications networks facilitates the transition to the information society.
Coordination of networks is also important for the implementation of various Community programmes concerning research and technological development and support for small and medium-sized businesses, which include programmes particularly concerned with information, such as INFO 2000 and MEDIA II.
Allow me to mention some other aspects which are important in this connection.
Applications should make use of local languages.
They should also take into account the special needs of sections of the population who will perhaps not initially use systems.
These may include women, uneducated people, people in sparsely populated areas or disabled people.
Steps must be taken to ensure that these groups have the same access to and opportunities to use the financial and technical networks and systems.
As regards the construction of masts and design of telephones and other equipment, it is also important that use is made of the best possible environmental technology for recovery and recycling and to ensure that damage is not caused by the use of systems.
Attention should also be devoted to the social consequences and applications and to the use of telecommunications technology and networks.
The important areas of application for telecommunications in the future include education (e.g. distance learning), generally improved communications in both the public and the private sphere, the use of smart-cards of various kinds, electronic means of payment, electronic mail and video services.
In the somewhat longer term I can also see that undreamt of possibilities will emerge for the use of trans-European telecommunications networks for general and commercial services and the simplification of routine procedures in such sectors as transport, procurement, purchasing, invoicing and the postal, banking and insurance industries, which will be to the benefit of us all.
The opportunities for improved telecommunications involving sound and pictures will also facilitate decentralisation, with the spread of employment to new regions.
Properly used, Mr President, this could yield benefits to society through a reduction in environmental damage.
Finally, I should like to express my satisfaction at the unanimity of the committee.
Mr President, Commissioner, the second reading of this common position, prepared by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, raises the question of comitology, requiring that the European Parliament should have a greater role and more say in decision-making when it comes to selecting projects for the trans-European telecommunications networks.
How could I fail to agree, in principle, to making the European institutions more democratic?
As regards the telematic networks, however, let me stress the need for rapid and flexible decision-making procedures; it is precisely because of this need that I find Amendments Nos 8, 9, 10 and 11 inappropriate, even though the underlying principle is fair.
We are faced with a phenomenon - the information society - which is growing and developing continuously.
I would refer to just three points from a speech by Mr Hundt, President of the Federal Communication Commission, which I heard as a member of the European Union/United States parliamentary delegation: over the past three years, the FCC has done nothing less than deregulate the US market in telecom services, causing it to grow exponentially; the FCC has engaged in the somewhat novel policy of auctioning off the spectrum, earning the sum of USD 20 billion, effortlessly and without any loss to the taxpayer; and USD 1 bn, or 5 % of the proceeds, is to be invested in a project to connect all secondary schools in the United States to the Internet.
This pragmatic approach is well suited to a sector undergoing continuous change, in which technological progress is unstoppable and investment cycles often very short.
Even though, according to some, the American example should not necessarily be followed - if it were, we would have to concern ourselves more with installing the infrastructure and less with applications - I am nonetheless inclined to believe that the success of the Internet is based to a large extent on the investment by the Department of Defense in the DARPA network, just as - by analogy - the Global Positioning System, or GPS, is an offshoot of the 'Star Wars' programme, the SDI.
In conclusion, misgivings are justified in one respect: by dwelling on the defence of linguistic pluralism in Europe, or on procedures for the selection of our preferred applications, we are wasting valuable time in the race for new opportunities: I therefore hope that the views of Parliament and the Commission will soon be reconciled and, at the same time, that measures to promote the information society will be introduced without delay.
Mr President, Mr Hoppenstedt and all the other speakers are well aware that these are more or less the same amendments that Parliament proposed at first reading, which were rejected by the Council and have now been tabled again.
They basically concern the question of Parliament's involvement, and this is really what today's debate is all about.
I can understand Parliament's position, but I can tell you here and now that the Council will not accept it, and you will then be faced with the problem of deciding in the conciliation procedure whether you are prepared to retreat at least partly from your position, or whether you intend to delay this entire programme, which is rightly regarded as being of vital importance.
I am sorry to say that this is the situation in which Parliament finds itself.
We will help you as much as we can, but I do not think you will be able to persuade the Council to accept everything you decide tomorrow.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Pressure equipment
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0217/96) from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position established by the Council (C40226/96-00/0462(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States concerning pressure equipment (rapporteur: Mr Meier).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the certification and testing procedures for pressure equipment in the Member States still vary, so that gas cylinders, for example, cannot yet be transported and used throughout the Community.
However, the internal market is an area without frontiers, and free trade should not be restricted by such differences.
Harmonization eliminates restrictions, and that is what this directive is designed to achieve.
It is, of course, not yet complete, and covers only equipment with a pressure of over 0.5 bars.
Simple pressure vessels are covered by Directive 87/104.
The transport of dangerous goods is currently regulated by international agreements, and military equipment, equipment for use in nuclear plants, oil pipelines and underground oil and gas storage vessels are also excluded from the scope of the directive.
This does not mean, however, that the dangers associated with these sectors have not been recognized: on the contrary, they call for especially detailed regulations and test procedures, and were only excluded from this report because of their special requirements.
The current legal provisions therefore still do not cover certain areas, but this new directive is intended to improve conditions on the internal market without reducing the existing safety standards in the Member States.
The basic requirements regarding safety, health protection and hygiene for human beings and safety for animals also need to be given strong consideration.
The pressure equipment sector in Europe always has been and will continue to be a major market, ensuring jobs and, with its stringent safety standards, successfully matching up to competition on the world market.
This report deals with the following points, on which we have also tabled amendments.
We need to examine how effective this directive will be in practice, and we should also consider whether Directive 87/404 on simple pressure vessels could not be incorporated at some later date.
We should look at the areas currently excluded to see whether they need to be regulated at Union level.
It would be advisable to include technical experts in the Commission's standing committee.
We lay particular emphasis on the safety aspects, which are the main concern of many European standards organizations, consumers and users and those working with pressure equipment.
Safety must be guaranteed by testing at official centres, recognized independent test centres and operators' test centres.
We also consider the advantages of CE marking.
In order to highlight the safety element - and no one can actually be against safety - I would also recommend the adoption of Amendments Nos 10 and 12.
Equivalent overall safety standards should also apply to new materials to which harmonized standards cannot be applied.
I would point out that we have specifically proposed that there should be cooperation between the Member States and the relevant authorities here, because we feel this is extremely important.
Regarding the last amendment concerning the diagram, I would point out that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy failed to reach a compromise on this, and it should therefore not be adopted so as to maintain the overall compromise in the committee.
I therefore commend this report to the House for its approval, together with the comments I made at the start about the need for further development and the exclusion of certain specific types of pressure equipment until further directives appear necessary, .
Thank you for your attention at this late hour.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive on pressure equipment is intended to harmonize the national regulations in this field which have been in force up to now.
The very scope of the directive - from fire extinguishers, pressure vessels and valves to entire chemical plants - indicates the wide range of subjects to be covered.
It is in our economic interests to have a harmonized system of European rules providing a high degree of safety, and that is what this common position gives us.
The directive covers only products which present a high potential risk of danger, and I think this is the only sensible approach here.
I would point out that any alteration to the directive could jeopardize the compromise which it has taken two and a half years of hard bargaining to reach, and I therefore feel it is vital that we should exercise some restraint when it comes to proposing amendments.
At the same time, I think we have to take another look at Annex I, section 7, which is simply a list of technical numerical values.
The PPE Group feels that this departs from the agreed line, which was that annexes containing only technical figures should be avoided in this kind of directive.
We therefore intend to ask for a separate vote on this tomorrow, in order to ensure that the directive can at least be discussed again through the conciliation procedure.
I hope that the PSE Group will be able to support this move, so that we can at least go to conciliation.
One further point in the directive which I feel I should mention is the aim of giving manufacturers more responsibility in risk evaluation, which I know the technical monitoring institutes are not happy about.
We feel, however, that it should be one of the manufacturers' responsibilities to identify any risks associated with the manufacturing of equipment and to take these risks into account in the design and assembly processes.
We therefore feel that this directive both increases responsibility and helps towards deregulation, which is something that the PPE Group welcomes.
Mr President, I should like to offer Mr Meier my sincere thanks for his report on what is a most difficult and complicated subject, which the Council has also taken a long time to deal with.
I looked into this and discovered that the Commission took its first decision on the matter in mid1993.
Not that I am blaming the Council, but it shows just how complicated the subject is, particularly when you consider the modern procedures we wish to use to guarantee safety.
That is, after all, the aim of the directive: to identify procedures which ensure a high degree of safety, while at the same time avoiding imposing an unnecessary burden of bureaucracy on the industry concerned.
Mr Konrad did indeed refer to one of these conflicts of interests.
Some of the amendments improve and clarify the text.
This applies to Amendments Nos 1 to 7, 9, 11, 12, 14 and 15, which we therefore accept.
We cannot accept the remaining amendments, Nos 8, 10, 13 and 17.
Amendment No 8 calls for the product inspection in the higher categories to be carried out in all cases by an independent third party.
This conflicts with other provisions in the directive and with the Council decision on the conformity assessment procedure, which provides for the use of quality assurance systems as an alternative to such procedures.
This decision has been successfully applied for some time, and we do not wish to depart from it.
Amendment No 10 calls for the promotion of the application of harmonized standards.
Since this is already guaranteed in principle by the new system, there is no need for the additional special report required by this amendment, which we feel would not improve safety, but simply add to the bureaucratic burden.
I hope that we can now make faster progress than before, because as Mr Meier and Mr Konrad rightly pointed out, this is a most important directive which affects a large section of the internal market and should have been introduced years ago.
Now we have it within our grasp.
I have made an effort, for the sake of both the House and, in particular, the interpreters, not to let my speech go on after midnight.
I have indeed left the President a minute to spare so that he can close the proceedings.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12 midnight)
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, on 23 June 1996 Andreas Papandreou died.
Five months previously, his chronic illness had forced him to resign as Prime Minister of Greece in the middle of his third term of office.
For ten years he had set his seal on Greek policy as Prime Minister and during that time had established his country's place in the European Union.
He was not an easy partner to deal with - not even for his friends - but there again he was not the Prime Minister of an easy country either.
The positions he adopted did not always meet with approval.
That has to do with his country's difficult neighbours and with a history full of disruptions and antitheses.
But as President of the European Council he was also able to achieve integration at crucial moments, thereby helping the Community to make vital progress: in 1988, when the Council adopted the financial package that was needed to achieve the aim of the Single European Act, and in 1994, when the last remaining institutional questions were resolved to pave the way for the accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden to the European Union.
Andreas Papandreou heightened our awareness of the significance of Greece and of the Mediterranean region, with its great strategic importance to Europe.
Andreas Papandreou played a vital part in restoring freedom and democracy in Greece after the dark years of military rule.
He was one of the fathers of democratic Greece, who led it into the community and solidarity of the European democracies and irreversibly embedded it there.
Andreas Papandreou had a gift that few people possess, namely the ability to captivate others through his personality, his life and his work.
For Greece and its people he was greater than the sum of his numerous public offices and political achievements.
The overwhelming grief of the many thousands of people who paid their last respects to him on the day of his funeral reflected the esteem in which he was held.
We sense the loss felt by his country at his death.
Our sympathy goes out to his family, his party and his people.
(The House rose and observed one minute's silence.)
You have risen to honour the memory of Andreas Papandreou.
I thank you.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Bourlanges, that was a personal statement under Rule 108.
We shall, of course, communicate its content to the Commissioner; that goes without saying.
Besides, let me say that this entire House consists only of mature persons!
(Laughter, applause)
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Programme of the Irish presidency
The next item is the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the programme of the Irish presidency.
It gives me great pleasure to welcome Mr Spring, Tánaiste and President-in-Office, to make a statement on the Irish presidency.
The Irish presidency faces formidable tasks, but it has been well prepared.
We, in the European Parliament, are looking forward to active cooperation with you and your colleagues throughout the next six months.
But, allow me to add, we in the European Parliament are deeply aware of your preoccupation with the concerns of all the Irish people at the latest developments in Northern Ireland.
The peace process, which was initiated two years ago, thanks to the courage and resolution of the Irish and British Governments and of leaders of the community in Northern Ireland, has suffered severe setbacks in the last few weeks.
We, in this House, have already placed on record our abhorrence at the recent resumption of terrorist activity by the IRA and we do so today once more.
In the last few days rioting and violence have returned to the streets of Northern Ireland; sectarian confrontation has jeopardized the onward march of peace.
We, in this Parliament, remain steadfast in our support for you and all those like you in your efforts for peace and reconciliation.
We strongly urge all the democratic forces, the two governments and community leaders, to redouble their efforts and give a new signal of hope for the peace process through the all-party talks.
Last week two of our Member States, France and Britain, welcomed Nelson Mandela on a state visit.
The huge public outpouring of affection and respect for the South African President was, of course, to salute his role as an architect of a new democratic and free country, but it was also recognition of the reconciliation that he has brought to his country.
After years of persecution and violence and discrimination he preaches peace and friendship and forgiveness.
He does not - he cannot - forget the past but he is building for the future.
It is the most powerful message of reconciliation and hope; it is a message that we in Europe must not ignore; it is a message that the whole community in Northern Ireland must hear.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before I begin my statement on Ireland's presidency of the Council, I should like to thank you for your words of support in relation to Northern Ireland.
This is a matter of the utmost concern to me not only as Foreign Minister of Ireland but also as Presidentin-Office of the Council in which capacity I address you today.
As Members are aware, events have taken place over the last ten days which have led to serious instability in Northern Ireland and have placed in peril the substantial achievements of the peace process over the last two years.
The origins of the recent disturbances are deeply rooted in the fundamental divisions which exist within Northern Ireland and which must be addressed by achieving a new beginning for relationships within Northern Ireland, within the island of Ireland and between the peoples of Britain and Ireland and by agreeing new institutions and structures to take account of the totality of relationships.
Nothing can excuse the widespread violence and intimidation of the last ten days.
Violence may be an outlet for frustration but it can only worsen an already bad situation and will not solve the problems which lie at its root.
Solutions will be found exclusively through dialogue, negotiation and compromise.
It is essential that the supremacy of politics over street violence should be quickly re-asserted, the rule of law must be seen to prevail and to be effectively policed in an impartial manner.
A solution must be found to the issue of contentious parades which serve to provoke the recent unrest.
The Irish and British Governments have agreed to hold a special meeting of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference tomorrow at which recent events and the parades issue, including the review announced by the British Government, will be discussed.
The two governments will continue their joint efforts to bring about a comprehensive political settlement based on a lasting peace and to build on the foundations of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Joint Declaration and the framework document.
The multi-party negotiations launched by the two governments on 10 June offer an unprecedented opportunity to achieve such an agreement.
The Council urges the parties to the negotiations to negotiate in good faith on the basis of exclusively peaceful means and the rejection of violence.
It calls on all those involved to open their minds to the building of new relationships based on equality of treatment, parity of esteem and the accommodation of the rights and traditions of all.
May I conclude these brief remarks by expressing the hope that the inspiration which sustained the founding fathers of the European Union, their determination to build peace in diversity and to banish for ever the violent divisions of the past may also serve to inspire the peoples of Northern Ireland and the British and Irish Governments in the challenges which now confront us.
The Irish presidency of the Council of Ministers of the European Union began on 1 July.
However, no presidency has really begun until its programme of priorities has been launched before the European Parliament.
I come here today to launch the priorities of the Irish presidency. And I come here today to commend these priorities to you, which I know you share.
The Irish presidency takes place at a time when the European Union faces exceptional challenges.
We must translate growth into jobs.
We must tackle the challenges of globalisation and ensure we are prepared for these challenges.
We must address the concerns of citizens as to their personal security.
We must manage the move to Economic and Monetary Union.
We must prepare for enlargement.
We must advance the work of the Intergovernmental Conference.
And, most fundamentally, we must maintain and reinforce the enormous achievement that the European Union represents.
The European Parliament will have a significant role to play in the task of ensuring that the Union can meet the challenges it faces over the next decade and more.
In our programme of priorities for the next six months we emphasise the concerns of citizens.
As politicians elected by the people you know what these concerns are.
You know that our constituents are entitled to secure employment.
You know that our constituents are entitled to safer streets.
You know that our constituents are entitled to sound management of their money.
And most fundamentally, you know that our voters want a peaceful Europe.
You know what our people want and are entitled to.
And on the most fundamental question the European Union has delivered.
Europe is at peace.
It has been at peace for 50 years now.
As I look around this room from left to right I know that it is inconceivable that Europe should ever be at war with itself again.
The European Union, therefore, passes the first and basic test.
It has set itself additional goals.
The Single Market has reinforced the logic of Economic and Monetary Union.
1 January 1999 has been confirmed as the start of the third stage of EMU.
The benefit of currency stability has been seen in low interest rates.
The message that sound money has a huge impact on creating a sound economy is accepted.
What we must do now is translate these benefits into secure jobs and put more resources into creating safer streets.
The Irish presidency will place great emphasis on employment.
Employment is in the first place a matter for national action.
However, acting together we can achieve a significant reinforcement of national efforts.
This is especially the case in an increasingly global economy, as the conclusions of the G-7 Summit attest.
The European Union provides an ever wider field where Member States can cooperate, coordinate their efforts and learn from each other's experience.
Job creation is the overriding challenge for all of our Governments. It is the single greatest concern of our electors, as you will be well aware.
The Commission's White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment sets the guidelines.
Successive European Council meetings at Essen, Cannes, Madrid and Florence have provided the framework.
We will prepare the second joint report on employment for the Dublin European Council in December.
We will emphasise, in particular, the needs of the excluded: of young people, the long-term unemployed and unemployed women.
The Irish presidency will also develop the ideas in the Pact of Confidence on Employment initiated by President Santer.
We will draw on our own national experience in the local employment area.
We want to see the adoption of the multi-annual programme for small and medium-sized enterprises.
We will actively promote competitiveness in industry and promote adaptation to the information society.
Organised crime is the scourge of modern societies. The drug trade is one of its worst manifestations.
This was brought home to us in Ireland very recently with the shooting dead of a brave journalist who fearlessly investigated criminal wrongdoing.
Veronica Guerin's murder is a testimony to the power of words and truth.
She uncovered evil. Evil people murdered her.
The expressions of grief in Ireland and beyond at her murder bring home the need to pursue with ever greater vigour the evil people who perpetrate these deeds.
Justice and home affairs issues remain largely within the national competence of Member States.
Nevertheless we need to ensure that the Union adds to the efforts taken at national level to counter crime and especially the trade in drugs.
We must ensure that the four freedoms of the Single Market are not abused by criminal elements and that they do not become freedoms from law.
We must ensure that the instruments available to us nationally, internationally and at the level of the European Union are used and coordinated to the full.
The Irish presidency will focus on a number of activities over the next six months.
For example, we want to see the Europol Convention completed, the Extradition Convention signed; we want more cooperation between national forensic laboratories; more cooperation in the external borders area; we want serious drug trafficking offences to carry penalties within the highest range available in each Member State; we want greater cooperation between police and customs services and we want enhanced cooperation between customs services and the private sector.
We have every confidence that the European Parliament will play its part also in a determined European level response to the drug problem.
In particular, I hope it will expedite its consideration of the Community Programme on Drug Dependence so that it can come into effect quickly.
On other justice and home affairs issues the Irish presidency will seek to improve collaboration between the Member States in such areas as policing, customs, immigration, asylum policy and judicial cooperation.
In response, in particular, to the concerns expressed by the European Parliament, the presidency will build on the conclusions and recommendations of the Conference on Trafficking in Women held in Vienna in June 1996.
We will continue work on the Action Programme on Immigration and Asylum.
And in both the drugs and the other justice and home affairs areas we will look closely at the funding arrangements available.
Both drugs and employment issues are of great and immediate concern to everyone in Europe.
But the European Union is also playing its part in ensuring an equitable, tolerant and inclusive society, a society that cherishes its weakest members including people with disabilities.
It has responsibilities in the areas of public health, social affairs and cultural cooperation.
It also has responsibilities in the education, youth and research sectors.
We will seek progress in all of these.
The Union's role in the environment policy is effective and worthwhile.
My own country has benefited substantially from the development of the Union's activities in this area.
Standards have been raised.
Awareness has grown.
Citizens have a better grasp of their rights and obligations.
The environment is therefore an area of particular concern to our presidency.
Economic and Monetary Union is on course.
The Irish presidency will aim to show further substantive progress by the end of its term.
The maintenance of stability in the Third Stage and the exchange rate relationship between the Euro and the other EU currencies will be the main focus of attention.
We aim to complete the technical preparatory work on the legal framework of the Euro before the end of 1996.
And the Dublin European Council will reconfirm 1 January, 1999 as the beginning of the Third Stage of EMU.
The Single Market is one of the great success stories of the European Union.
The White Paper programme has been practically finalised. But the Single Market is not complete.
To consolidate growth and employment we must remove the remaining areas of divergence in our economies.
The Santer Pact of Confidence on Employment has emphasised the need for internal market consolidation to create jobs.
To this end the Irish presidency will seek to expedite the adoption of the statute for a European Company and the legal framework for biotechnological inventions.
We will also advance work on the internal market in electricity and in the gas and telecommunications sectors.
The Union must ensure strict implementation of the policies of the Union to ensure fair competition by preventing the granting of illegal state aid and preventing monopolies from developing.
Work arising from the Commission's report on the effectiveness of the Internal Market will be pursued actively as will the Citizens First Initiative.
The Common Agricultural Policy remains a keystone of the Union and we have a considerable agenda to pursue here.
The restoration of confidence in the beef sector will be a major focus of attention during our presidency.
My country exports 85 % of its beef production.
Consequently we realise the importance of the establishment at Florence of a route map for the resolution of the BSE crisis.
The successful management of this issue will require cooperation and solidarity from all Member States.
We will seek to ensure that the issue is dealt with according to scientific criteria outside the political realm.
Since the last Irish presidency in 1990, the context in which the European Union operates has changed dramatically. The Union has enlarged to fifteen Member States.
It has received applications for membership from an additional twelve States.
The external challenges and responsibilities which the Union has had to address have also become more complex and demanding.
The Union has sought to respond primarily by engaging in building relationships of partnership and mutual respect with its neighbours in Europe and other regions.
The establishment of a Common Foreign and Security Policy by the Treaty on European Union represented a significant step forward in equipping the Union with the capacity to pursue these objectives more effectively.
While the tasks which Ireland now inherits as presidency in the external relations area have become more daunting, we draw inspiration from the work carried out by preceding presidencies and by the role played by the European Parliament.
It is our aim as presidency to foster the development of a Europe that is open to the world and actively contributing to international peace, security and solidarity.
Advancing the CFSP's objectives in relation to the promotion of democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights will be important in this regard.
One of our major priorities is to pursue the Union's active support for the full implementation of the peace initiatives in former Yugoslavia and to contribute to efforts to prevent a return to the tragic circumstances which have shattered that region in recent years.
Crucial issues will include the holding of free and fair elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina under OSCE auspices, economic reconstruction, creating conditions for the return of refugees and ensuring full respect for human and minority rights.
We will seek to develop political dialogue with partners in the security area.
We will also pursue the continuing and effective development of EU-WEU cooperation on the basis of the Treaty on European Union.
At its summit in Lisbon in December, we will work to strengthen the role of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe as a pan-European security forum.
Fundamental to our system of global security is a reformed and financially secure United Nations system.
Nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, reinforcing prohibitions on chemical and biological weapons and highlighting conventional arms issues will remain areas of priority for the Union during our presidency.
To the maximum extent possible, we will also seek to develop the international momentum in support of the elimination of anti-personnel landmines.
In the light of the Union's support for the reform process, we will give priority to developing further the Union's relations with Russia and to assisting in its political and economic transformation.
The situation in Chechnya will continue to be monitored closely.
We will also devote attention to the Ukraine, given its pivotal position in the region.
We will give high priority to continuing the EU's efforts in support of the Middle East Peace Process, in close cooperation with the co-sponsors of the process.
The EU's role in this area should be commensurate with the scale of the economic resources which the Union is committing in support of the peace process.
We will also seek to advance the Euro-Mediterranean partnership which offers opportunities for wide-ranging dialogue and cooperation with countries of the Mediterranean region.
Transatlantic relations are of fundamental importance to both the EU and US and for peace and prosperity worldwide.
Consequently, we will attach particular importance to the effective implementation of the EU-US Agenda and Action Plan.
We will seek to ensure enhanced cooperation on a range of foreign policy issues.
The multilateral trading system is of vital importance to all of us.
We will work closely with the US to strengthen the system - especially in the context of the First WTO Ministerial Conference.
And we will cooperate with the US on a range of other areas including the fight against crime.
We will work to continue to strengthen and develop relations with Canada.
Preparation for the first Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation in Singapore next December will be a major responsibility for us.
We need to consolidate and develop the multilateral trade system.
The European Union must make its contribution towards that end.
Conflict prevention and the development of our institutional relationship with regional organisations such as the Organisation of African Unity and Southern Africa Development Community will be the major focus of our efforts in respect of Africa.
We will also attach importance to strengthening the Union's economic and political relations with Asia, to developing closer relations with the countries of Latin America and Australasia and to continuing efforts to narrow the gap between rich and poor on the basis of sustainable development.
Enlargement is a historic opportunity for peace and prosperity in Europe.
The European Union has demonstrated its willingness to seize this opportunity.
The process of preparing for enlargement is now underway.
The Madrid European Council, building on Copenhagen and Essen, took a series of decisions of the first importance.
The Commission was requested to expedite preparation of its Opinions on the membership applications.
The Commission was requested to embark on the preparation of a composite paper on enlargement.
And the Commission was requested to deepen its evaluation of the effects of enlargement on the common policies and to undertake a detailed analysis of the Union's financing system post-1999.
The principle that applicant countries be treated on an equal basis was set out at the Madrid European Council.
As presidency, we will give every support and encouragement to the Commission in its work in these areas.
We look forward to the Commission's report on work-in-progress at the Dublin European Council in December.
Meanwhile, we will use to the full the opportunities offered by the Union's pre-accession strategy and in particular the structured dialogue mechanisms.
We will ensure that the applicant countries continue to play an important role in discussions on matters of mutual interest and common concern.
I come now to the Intergovernmental Conference.
Our presidency is not just about managing the Union as it is but also about helping to shape the Union of the future.
The Florence European Council set a challenging mandate for the Intergovernmental Conference during the Irish presidency.
In line with Florence, our aim will be to bring forward to the Dublin European Council in December a general outline for a draft revision of the Treaties.
The general aims of the IGC are:
to bring the Union closer to the citizen; -to strengthen and enlarge the scope of the Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy, and-to assure the effective functioning of the institutions while respecting their balance, and the efficiency of the decision-making process.The Irish presidency will work ambitiously to achieve these aims building on the good work of the Italian presidency.
We depend, of course, on the commitment of all partners.
What we want is to enter right away the stage of substantive negotiations.
Indeed this process has already started and we are seeking already to focus discussion where possible on draft Treaty texts.
I know that the European Parliament fully supports the aims of the IGC.
I know that the European Parliament supports the presidency's approach of moving now into the negotiating phase with a view to an ambitious outcome of the IGC which will serve the interests of the European Union as a whole.
I should emphasise our appreciation of the contribution to the IGC which is being made by the European Parliament.
The Irish presidency looks forward to working closely with the European Parliament during its term.
The need for transparency in the IGC and in other areas of the Union's activities remains a major focus of attention.
The Irish presidency will do everything in its power to ensure the maximum openness and transparency.
We now face the task of explaining to our citizens the outcome of the IGC and the implications of enlargement.
We must also ensure that EMU is fully understood.
As politicians we know that communication is vital if citizens are to accept the many changes which will come about in the Union between now and the end of the century.
The Irish presidency agenda is complex and multifaceted.
Amid all the complexities, however, we must realise that we are a Union of fifteen Member States each contributing in its own way to the overall progress of the common enterprise.
It is very much in that spirit that the Irish presidency will carry out its responsibilities.
For the next six months Ireland has the challenge and the privilege of being a presidency of the Council of Ministers for the fifteen Member States.
The European Parliament is a Parliament for people throughout the European Union, for the people of all the Member States.
Together, you Parliament and we the Council of Ministers, represent the common interest and the interests of all.
We must work together to achieve the common end of defending the interests of our citizens.
The European Union rightly looks forward to the prospect of a membership of twenty seven or more Member States.
As part of the preparation for enlargement, we are engaged in the IGC process.
Enlargement and the IGC are the appropriate focus of the European Union's attention.
They are the focus for a community of Member States.
We must not lose sight of the spirit of what we are and what we will be.
We must continue to recognize our shared interests.
We must together move towards our common goals.
We must work with each other cooperatively and in the interests of all, and in the interests of those who want to join us.
If we lose sight of this spirit of common endeavour now, how can we hope to create a community or Union of twenty seven or more Member States? The strength of this Union of ours has been our willingness to listen and to learn, to urge and to accommodate, to share and to support.
Without these attributes the European Union - with however many Member States - will have little future.
I have set out for you our priorities for the next six months.
These priorities represent the priorities of the European Union as a whole.
I know that the European Parliament shares the common goals which have been set and towards which we will aim during the next six months.
In setting the priorities, we have consulted widely with the institutions of the European Union.
We have striven to ensure that the views of the Commission and of European Parliament are taken into account.
We will work closely with the European Parliament.
We will continue to ensure that the European Parliament's crucial role is acknowledged.
As presidency of the Council of Ministers of the European Union, I also ask you in the European Parliament to help us to ensure that the agenda of the Union is advanced during the next six months.
We cannot achieve the goals we have set ourselves without you.
We seek your continued support and assistance to achieve our mutual goal: a Europe that works for all.
D'fhás agus d'fhorbair an tAontas Eorpach ón mbun-smaoineamh 'Comhphobal' .
Ó na caogaidí anuas, rugadh agus tógadh fís na hEorpa le spriorad na meithle, sé sin le rá, tíortha móra agus beaga ag comhoibriú le chéile mar dlúth-chomharsana.
Tá príomh-aidhmeanna Uachtaránacht na hÉireann socraithe agam do na sé mhí atá le teacht; déanfaimid ár ndícheall i dtreo Aontais níos fearr a bhunú don todhchaí.
I spiorad an chomhphobail 'is ar scáth a chéile a mairimid, ' agus is mar thoradh ar ár gcomhoibriú laethúil go bhfuil Aontas cruthaithe againn anois atá níos treise ná iomlán a rannpháirteanna.
Ní hé sin le rá gur féidir linn anois ár scíth a ligean, caithfimid leanúint ar aghaidh leis an dea-obair ag tarraingt ar Eoraip atá níos éifeachtaí fós, Eoraip atá ag obair don uile dhuine.
(Translation: The European Union has its roots in the concept of community.
This spirit has permeated the vision of Europe from the 1950s to the present day, a Europe of good neighbours and good neighbourliness, countries large and small working together.
I have set Ireland's priorities for our next six months as presidency; we will make our contribution to the building of a better Union for the future.
In the best traditions of the community we will not be alone in this task - it has been through working together that a Union has been created that is greater than the sum of its parts.
We should not rest on our laurels, but continue the process towards a more effective Europe, one that works for all.)
Mr President, it is a pleasure for me to address you in a great language.
Thank you.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
We also thank you for this example of cultural and linguistic diversity in Europe that you have given us.
Ladies and gentlemen, we come now to the debate.
Mrs Malone will begin on behalf of the Party of European Socialists.
Mr President, I should like to tell the President-in-Office of the Council that our group feels very much in agreement with the presentation that he made of the Irish Government's six-month programme and in respect of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Like the other groups, we are also very much aware of the awfulness of violence in Northern Ireland.
This is not something affecting Ireland alone, it is something affecting the whole of Europe and we wish to lend our support to the Irish presidency to try and resolve the problem - our eventual aim should be peace, solidarity and cooperation between all parties involved.
Undoubtedly, this is a vital time to take a look at the Intergovernmental Conference and assess the results.
As you said it is necessary to begin the real negotiations so that a Treaty programme can be presented at the December Summit in Dublin.
We cannot have any transitional presidencies.
The Irish presidency cannot be seen as a transition to the Dutch presidency and therefore we very much appreciate his courage, the clarity of his ideas and the fact that he has set objectives already for the December Council.
We should also add dialogue and cooperation with the European Parliament and bring European construction closer to the citizens and social protagonists.
A dialogue, in particular, on the social model and problem of unemployment.
We also give our support to the presentation and approval of a constitutional framework which includes a declaration of fundamental rights and duties and the inclusion of a chapter on employment in the Treaties.
We must give employment the same importance as EMU.
We refuse to consider employment as a rare commodity on the market of which we are difficult consumers.
It is another philosophy the lack of jobs for so many European citizens is also costly.
In terms of regional policy and, more particularly, in terms of the structural funds, we reject any linking of the structural policies with the accomplishment of the indices of convergence through conditionality clauses.
Cohesion and enlargement have to be re-enforced head-on.
We agree with the measures proposed to combat drug abuse, delinquency and the white slave trade.
The Irish presidency will also show special sensitivity to the treatment of immigrants.
The Irish people has always been a people of migration and it has helped to build new countries, it has taken its culture around the world and it should know how to deal with all immigrants, including the so-called legal immigrants and those without immigration papers.
I must say, I am surprised that there is so little determination to fight the Helms-Burton Act.
We have asked for the Act to be rejected clearly and energetically, not only the third chapter - but obviously the third chapter in particular, which contaminates international relations.
As for Turkey, our question is whether we are going to demand that Turkey respects human rights and fulfils international resolutions. Will pressure be put on Turkey to free Leila Zana?
I return to an internal problem because this is still a global problem which concerns us all: the problem of mad cows.
In our opinion, this is now, above all, a problem of public health.
But we also know that it is a problem facing the beef market and, therefore, we are asking for transparency and efficient action - and for that you can count fully on our support.
.
I am your Celtic sister from Scotland and you have a lot to live up to because the previous Irish presidencies have been such a success.
I speak also for my group and I am proud to do so.
Recently your President Mary Robinson came and made time to visit Scotland.
She said that Europe deepens Irish identity and this is a matter well understood in Scotland.
I would just like to say that - and I do not think the Irish presidency needs to be reminded - there are 40 languages, 40 minority cultures in our Union, and all of them hope that Europe will deepen their identity too.
But they often need a helping hand with funding.
The Committee of the Regions which was not mentioned - you could not mention everything in your basketful of dreams - has a very important part to play.
On reading your priorities I found myself almost in tears because I know this was drafted before the troubles reemerged.
A peaceful Europe.
There is not much sign of peace in the north part of the island of Ireland.
I have to say something which is perhaps a little drastic.
Yesterday Mr Crowley, speaking from the heart, said this part of the European Union is now ungovernable.
That is indeed the position.
In view of precedents in the Middle East and South Africa where the coming together of people has been achieved despite enormous animosity, perhaps we should look at another solution such as the United Nations. Or let us stop this talk of preconditions that the British Government keeps on about.
In the precedents of South Africa, Kenya, Rhodesia and the Middle East, no such preconditions were made.
Unless we get rid of this we are never going to get the talks going.
I was glad that mention was made of Nelson Mandela.
For ten years I have been involved with the Lomé Convention and I am so proud to think that the world has recognized this man.
But are we going to make sure that the funding for the Third World is not diminished because we have so many other demands on our funds? We want to help Eastern Europe but please do not let us allow any diminution of the funds for the Third World.
Recently I was privileged to be in Ireland with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and meet many of the Irish Ministers.
It was very interesting that Ireland is one of the four Member States that can meet the criteria for entry into EMU.
Yet, as the Minister of Finance told us, there is, as everywhere else, a problem of unemployment.
I am glad that this is a priority of the presidency.
I also come from a peripheral region - the Highlands and Islands of Scotland - and we have to look to the SMEs, particularly the very small ones.
And we have to look at that sleeping giant, tourism, which can create so many jobs.
Perhaps we have to look at more funding for the upgrading of tourist facilities and marketing the lengthening of the season in those northern climes that do not necessarily have assured sunshine.
We have to look at late payments and access to cheap money.
There are many practical ways where we can translate the hopes of reducing unemployment into reality.
On discrimination, perhaps the President-in-Office should lean on some of the EU institutions to make sure women get to the top.
On fishing, let us have some attempt at regional control and on beef let us try and remove the ban, bit by bit, starting with quality herds in Northern Ireland and Scotland.
On the IGC, let us make sure that this Parliament us very fully involved.
(Applause)
Mr President, the Italian Alleanza Nazionale Group would like to welcome Ireland, which is to represent the European Union over the next six months; and we should also like to express our hope that peace will be restored within Ireland.
We are confident that Ireland's courage will, during these next six months, help to solve at least some of the many problems that are currently dogging the European Union and have remained unsolved over several presidencies.
We are sure the European Union understands the need to strengthen itself, in complete political unity, before opening its doors to nations that have yet to achieve, within their own borders, the necessary conditions for aspiring to become part of the broader consensus of the European Union, itself suffering from considerable problems, including the very serious one of unemployment.
I say this, not out of narrow-minded egotism, but because I am sure that the sum of the weaker parts does not make a strong whole, it makes a weak whole, and also because the stronger Member States of this Union must not be permitted to create for themselves an area of even greater power in the more extensive jigsaw of old Europe.
Good luck to Europe and good luck to Ireland.
Mr President, allow me to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his presentation of the Irish presidency's ambitious programme.
In the long term the most important priority is, of course, the intergovernmental conference, to which the Irish presidency has already given a lot of attention. That and the development by this presidency of a common security policy with other countries which do not belong to the Western European Union.
The European Union has common values and a single economy and shortly it will also have a common currency. It has already displayed solidarity via a series of common policies and it must now turn its attention to the sectors of defence and security.
It is comforting - and I should like the presidency and Mr Spring personally to note the fact - that the Fernández-Albor report on the CFSP states that the external frontiers of the Member States should be considered the frontiers of the European Union and that solidarity should be shown where these frontiers are not respected.
This is a subject in which the countries on the periphery, such as your country, Mr Spring, have a special interest.
The credibility of the Union in the eyes of Europe's citizens depends among other things on making tangible progress on this specific issue in the framework of the intergovernmental conference.
One of the presidency's objectives is the presentation of a first draft of the new treaty prior to the European Council in December.
That text must match the aspirations of the Member States which want substantial results from the intergovernmental conference.
It must not be a minimum compromise.
Of course, the most important immediate priority - but with long-term significance also - is employment.
I welcome everything that you have said about employment, but I feel obliged to point out that we have heard it all before and often it has turned out to be just empty words.
Let me remind you that very little of what was envisaged in the White Paper of Jacques Delors has become reality.
I hope that the same will not happen with the Irish presidency.
The funding of the trans-European networks, the research programme and other measures which would help are slipping behind.
Other Members will raise a whole host of other matters but I wish to mention just two. The unacceptable situation that has been brought about by the US administration's decisions on Cuba - and the delay of six months means nothing - and the continuing refusal of Turkey to protect the rights of its citizens and to respect the international rule of law.
I think that you, Mr Spring, and your presidency, can achieve a great deal on those two matters also.
On behalf of the Socialist Group I welcome you and wish you good progress and every success.
Madam President, firstly, on Northern Ireland, it is clear that force and the threat of force have overcome the rule of law in Northern Ireland.
During the Irish presidency the government should be seeking support from other Member States for an urgent reform of policing structures in Northern Ireland.
It can no longer simply be argued that this is an internal matter for the British.
The marching season is not over in Northern Ireland yet.
There will be the Apprentice Boys' March on 12 August in Derry.
If this Parliament wants to show solidarity with the people of Northern Ireland it should perhaps consider sending a delegation there for that march.
Moreover, the Irish Greens have always argued that a neutral and impartial player should be brought in, like the United Nations.
Now is the time for this to happen.
As regards the Irish presidency, the programme of the Irish presidency states that, on security and disarmament, it will pursue the continuing and effective development of EU/WEU cooperation on the basis of the Treaty on European Union in cooperation with the Belgian WEU presidency.
Ireland is not even a full member of WEU, so why does it need to cooperate more with the WEU presidency and on what issues will it be cooperating? Minister Spring, you stated last year that WEU's nuclear policy was unpalatable for Ireland.
Last week the International Court of Justice found, much to the vindication of Ireland's position, that nuclear weapons were the ultimate evil.
Why then is Ireland gradually forging closer and closer links with an alliance committed to, and endowed with, a nuclear capability?
The Irish presidency also pledges that it will be highlighting conventional arms issues.
I wonder, Minister, if that means that you will be publicly putting pressure on Britain, Sweden and Finland, among others, to cease selling arms to places like Indonesia where they have been used in genocide campaigns against the East Timorese.
As a non-aligned country, Ireland should be promoting the right of the four Member States of this Union to maintain their non-aligned status within the Union instead of toeing the EU pro-military line.
Mr President, a new presidency marks a change.
Change brings hope, and we are hopeful, but we are also anxious let me say to the Irish Members, anxious about the past and about plans for the future.
First, the past.
You say that one of your priorities is to combat Alzheimer's disease.
Well, there is nothing wrong with our memories.
We remember Mr MacSharry, first of all, with the sinister Blair House agreement, the negotiation of the agricultural GATT, and most of all we remember Dublin.
For the wine-growing people of Europe, and especially for my wine growers in Languedoc-Roussillon, the memory is of 'Black Dublin' , compulsory distillation (in Catholic Ireland!), the grubbing-up of vines that are one of the symbols of christianity, the freezing of prices, the change of course towards globalization, which Mr MacSharry was to confirm.
And so we wonder what the viticultural CMO plans may yet have in store for us, and we cannot help worrying.
Then there are your plans for the future.
We note first of all the 'Spinellist' atmosphere of those plans - constitution, new Union Treaty - but also, and especially, we note their content.
It is formal, conventional in appearance.
You offer, no doubt speaking for President Santer, a Pact of Confidence for employment.
The only thing missing is confidence, because there is no analysis of causes and so, as a consequence, it is difficult to treat the effects.
It is true that you do have plans that attract me in fiscal matters.
Although here again there is a snag: your legislation on excise duty.
No one can accuse you of doing things by halves: 17 francs tax on a litre of wine, but a mere 6.50 francs on a litre of beer!
Even so, you are trying to lighten the tax burden, I grant you that.
I will propose to you two rules which I have proposed n times to President Santer.
Rule one: compulsory deductions must not increase faster than the growth of GDP.
Rule two, to fit in with your European ideology: establish the principle of free choice of the least taxed geographical route.
Madam President, Ireland has taken on the responsibilities of presidency.
I wish Ireland success.
A great many hopes and expectations are placed in a new country holding the presidency, even now.
The last presidency left a feeling of disappointment because no progress was made on employment.
This increases the expectations placed in Ireland's presidency.
I note with satisfaction that the first of Ireland's priorities mentioned by name was unemployment.
The programme continues in this vein by considering as a priority new job seekers, the long-term unemployed and unemployed women.
Youth unemployment and long-term unemployment are indeed high on the list for the Union's attention.
Mr Spring said just now in his speech that he would stress the concerns of the citizens and would invest in job security.
Improving the unemployment situation is indeed the most important of the Union's tasks at present in Parliament's view.
In my opinion, as far as citizens are concerned, it is the decisive issue, for the whole credibility of the European Union.
Hitherto programmes and reports have been drawn up, but decisions to create jobs in practice have been lacking.
In my opinion this will also be the acid test of Ireland's presidency.
Our citizens expect action, not programmes or reports.
Employment, as the President Spring said, is an area for action at national level.
However, we have included employment for so long in other contexts as one of the areas of priority action by the Union that expectations of the Union have increased.
I may remind you of the conclusions of Cannes, Essen and Madrid.
According to these conclusions it is possible, by means of decisions at Union level, to have a positive influence on employment in the Member States.
Mr Rasmussen, Prime Minister of Denmark, asked a few weeks ago whether we were so well off that we could afford to manage without the work contribution of 18 million people, and he replied that we really were not.
I would give the same answer.
On that basis I appeal to Ireland for a chapter on employment to be prepared now, at the beginning of its half-year presidency, for inclusion in the Treaty.
It would ensure the continuation of serious efforts to remove unemployment from Europe for we will not achieve a good employment situation without serious joint efforts.
This is referred to in the OECD's most recent report which regards the alternatives as being continuing high employment or freer labour markets which would leave a section of the population in permanent poverty.
In preparing for enlargement, we did not desire this development.
Our only alternative must be to organize jobs for our nationals.
I wish to thank the President-in-Office for outlining the priorities of the Irish presidency.
The important tasks of this presidency have, however, been overshadowed by the crisis in the peace process in the north of Ireland.
We want to deal with unemployment and the social crisis we are faced with. We cannot do so while anarchy is permitted to rule in any state of the Union.
It is fundamental to civilized life that people enjoy equal rights under the law.
Last week in Northern Ireland the forces of the state capitulated in the face of lawlessness.
It is unacceptable in any state of the Union that an organization should impose sectarian intimidation of citizens.
If we cannot protect women and children from being intimidated from their homes and if people are forced to flee, then the evils of lawlessness and terror will be loosed again for another generation.
We cannot go back to burying people, we have to move forward in peace together and to do that we have to maintain political authority.
We in the EU have failed to do that in Ireland over 25 years.
I ask the President-in-Office to try once more, otherwise we will have to ask the UN and the Americans to help us out.
Surely we should not be faced with that within the borders of the European Union.
I do not want to see any more people buried in my country on either side.
Remember that people are intimidated on both sides within their own communities: Protestants are intimidated by Protestants, Catholics are intimidated by Catholics.
We can call them unionists or nationalists.
That is a terrible side to it which we do not refer to here.
I also wish to ask the President-in-Office to deal with the nuclear issue.
Many citizens are critical of nuclear power and the non-nuclear states have a right not to be polluted by emissions from nuclear states, such as those in the Irish Sea from Sellafield, now much increased by THORP.
I would ask the President-in-Office to foster a coalition of nuclear-free states within the European Union.
He talks about cooperation and the WEU, but we want that cooperation to extend to the neutral and non-nuclear states of this Union.
Madam President, it is very gratifying to note that tourism also features in the list of priorities of the Irish presidency.
I should like to point out that the entire European tourism and travel industry has great expectations of the Irish presidency.
The substance of these expectations is that this industry should finally be granted the official and legal status commensurate with its actual social and economic importance and with its contribution to the maintenance of peace and international understanding.
A few months ago, a majority of the European Parliament voted in favour of tourism having its own legal basis in the Treaty.
It would be very good and very gratifying if, under the influence of the Irish presidency, the Council also endorsed this position, which has important implications for the preservation and creation of jobs.
Madam President, may I congratulate the President-in-Office on the priorities of the Irish presidency for a Europe that meets the needs of its people.
The first and surely the most important priority to everyone in Europe relates to employment and in particular to the continued development of a Pact of Confidence on Employment in which special attention is to be focused on the problems of young people, the long-term unemployed and women.
Since declarations of intent are virtually all we have seen so far, it is now time for practical implementation, and I can only reemphasize your statement, President Spring, in which you stressed that job creation is the overriding challenge for all of our Governments.
I consider it especially important that the Irish presidency has emphasized the role of the partnership between management and labour, the importance of small and medium-sized businesses and the promotion of local employment and development initiatives.
Our efforts to underpin the EMU project in particular need to be accompanied by energetic labour-market strategies.
But as someone involved in education policy, I am especially pleased when I hear lifelong access to education and training being mentioned in the same breath as employment, and I am delighted that a separate chapter on education and young people has been included in the programme.
As you know, we are currently discussing the Commission White Paper on teaching and learning, a sequel to the Delors White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment.
As with your priorities, Mr President, what we are concerned with here is the quality of education, a lifelong learning process and teacher training.
Unimpeded lifelong access to general and vocational education is the best weapon in the fight against marginalization and the division of European society into a society of 'knows' and 'don't knows' .
I am also pleased that a point about cultural cooperation is contained in the programme and that there are plans to conduct a debate during the Irish presidency on European cultural policy, including media policy and the Community's cultural action programmes.
Although culture is the very soul of Europe as well as an important means of bringing the Community closer to many of its citizens, its significance is still underestimated.
In addition, it is important to find ways of helping our young people to identify with European ideals.
The third priority after employment and the fight against drug abuse is the creation of a Union based on equal treatment and tolerance, which is why precedence must be given to addressing issues such as equality of opportunity, social exclusion, transparency and the fight against racism and xenophobia.
This is an important aspect of our policies for peace and security, whether they seek to promote the process for peace in Northern Ireland, which all of us in Europe so fervently desire, or to establish an outgoing Europe that plays an active part in the quest for peace, security and solidarity.
Madam President, the Irish presidency has chosen employment as the number one priority for its presidency and that is nothing new.
Its wish to translate the many pronouncements of European Union summits into deeds is nothing new either but it merits our support.
I warmly endorse what the Irish prime minister said in an interview, namely that if we want to demonstrate the benefits of a single currency we can only do so if we also demonstrate that it will be good for jobs.
And it is good that the Irish presidency has already, straight away, started a concrete debate on measures to combat long-term unemployment.
Here too I warmly endorse the prime minister's claim that a measure of unemployment may perhaps be good for healthy competition in the labour market but that certainly is not true of long-term unemployment which reduces workforce mobility and the willingness of workers to take risks.
I would add that it also wastes one of our most important resources for the future, namely human resources.
You cannot read anything about the information society without constantly being reminded that people are the most important resource for the economy of the future.
We currently waste millions' worth.
Regrettably, I have to tell the presidency that the dangerous possibility looms of a discrepancy between word and deed.
Under the current Union budget it is likely that far too little of those budget funds will directly benefit the citizens of Europe.
I urge the presidency not to accept this under-use, but to encourage their colleagues to view the Union budget as a task-setter, a means of ensuring that this money is actually spent on human resources, rather than arguing that it enables more money to be spent on the TENs.
The same discrepancy between word and deed threatens the plan for EMU.
Ireland has made enormous and successful efforts to modernize itself in all manner of areas thanks to billions in aid, from the Union, it has to be said, but that in no way detracts from the achievement.
And Ireland is now one of the likeliest qualifiers for EMU.
Yet unemployment there, at 14 % or so, is well above the EU average of 10.9 % and nearly twice that in the 'best' Member States.
In my view that reinforces the argument that one should not believe that EMU will automatically mean jobs.
I think it also provides evidence to support the European Parliament's view that the criteria for EMU are more flexible than the ECOFIN ministers would often have us believe.
As I understand it your minister Ruairi Quinn intends primarily to put the criterion of budget deficit into perspective and to split it into investment costs and current budget costs.
I wish him success in that.
It is, I think, the only thing which may succeed in convincing our citizens that EMU is a plan designed to benefit them and not a measure of purely financial discipline.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, the initial contacts we have had with your Ministers within the various committees give us high hope of the Irish presidency.
We have been able to see for ourselves their goodwill, their availability and their attentiveness to Parliament's concerns, which only reflect those of the public, and all that is reflected in the priorities you have laid down.
The only comment I would make is that there are rather a lot of priorities: American business has a saying that if you have more than three priorities you have no priorities.
In other words, we know that the presidency is subject to constraints, to limitations.
The President-in-Office is surrounded by large numbers of people who do not all have the same objectives, and we know that the Council can have trouble reaching a ruling on certain difficult subjects.
When we have conciliation talks with the Council, the talks do not always take place with the Council itself but sometimes with COREPER, and often three or four levels down.
In other words, we know the kind of difficulties you have.
That is why, by placing the emphasis on certain priorities, you are running the risk of developing a credibility gap .
We know that when it comes to unemployment the main responsibilities and the main activities are at Member State level.
What little can be done at European level is established and solemnly proclaimed by the European Council, and then three months later ECOFIN meets and does exactly the opposite, or near enough.
The only thing that can be done at European level to combat unemployment is to finance the intra-Community infrastructures. And then what happens?
When you decide to do it everyone thinks it's going to be done, but your Finance Ministers meet a little later and do exactly the opposite.
So it is no surprise, in these circumstances, that the citizen has difficulty believing in Europe and in the capability of Europe to solve his problems.
As far as organized crime is concerned, it is all very well wanting to draw up a program to combat it, but that involves other resources than mere inter-governmental cooperation.
Well, that is what we are reduced to nowadays, and we know that in order to fight international organized crime we are going to have to adopt the same weapons as the organized criminals themselves.
They have organized themselves internationally, while you are hesitating to do so.
When they read your communications and when they see what we are doing, they must be saying to each other that the good times are not over yet!
That, Mr President-in-Office, is why I would like to concentrate on essentials, and especially on the work of the IGC, where we will need to start thinking about forms of differentiation.
Madam President, I would like to deal with two issues very quickly in the time that I have.
The first one is in relation to the Helms-Burton legislation and our relations with the United States.
As one of my colleagues mentioned earlier, the European Parliament delegation was in the United States last week for the annual meeting with the US Congress.
I hope the presidency of the Council understands the seriousness of the situation that we now face with a Congress that is increasingly protectionist and increasingly hostile to the multilateral arrangements that it has entered into.
It is essential that this morning, when Mr Spring winds up this debate, he should state very clearly that we will not simply have an exchange of letters with the United States on the unilateral and illegal action being taken, not only in Helms-Burton, but the threatened action on Iran and Libya; that there will be firm and decisive action taken as a reprisal against the United States because of the likely injustice that will be meted out to European citizens.
I do not think letters are sufficient.
Congress goaded us last week, Mr Spring, and said that all it expected from Europe was a strongly worded letter from President Santer.
We will actually not get any action unless we act on HelmsBurton, unless we make it clear that US interests will be damaged, that we will take a calculated decision to damage US interests.
Failing that, we will get the D'Amato legislation on Iran and we will get legislation on Libya.
The other issue I want to deal with very briefly is the way in which your presidency will deal with the Essen conclusions and the whole approach to employment.
What we really want to see in Dublin is a target to tackle a manageable aspect of employment.
We do not want these glorious resolutions passed at the end of summit meetings.
We want something done about unemployment.
The best thing that the Irish presidency could do, given its own problems with unemployment, is to tackle one section of the labour market.
The area that we would like to see you tackle is the question of youth unemployment.
In Dublin, at the end of your presidency, we would like to see a determined practical commitment by the Council actually to reduce dramatically the numbers of young people on the unemployment market.
Unless we do that I believe that all these statements that come from summit meetings are increasingly going to make the population in Europe cynical about what Europe is going to try to achieve.
I hope that we can single out one section of the labour market and ensure that by the end of the six-month presidency - and I hope it will be a very successful presidency - there is a very clear light at the end of the tunnel, particularly for the young people in Europe who really do still have faith in the whole project of building a strong European Union.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, I welcome the priorities of the Irish presidency put forward here today.
The battle to reduce unemployment is and must remain our first priority.
The emphasis given to coordinating and developing all services involved in the elimination of drug trafficking and organized crime is also welcome.
Drug addiction is one of the greatest threats to modern society.
Therefore, every possible effort must be made to destroy it and also the related crime of money-laundering.
I do not wish to repeat all the comments made on the situation in Northern Ireland, but I believe it is important to realize that events there in recent days are an offence against the European ideal.
We depend on democratic institutions and respect for the rule of law.
There can be no excuse for any government to apply the rule of law in a purely partisan way.
I welcome the attempts, in very difficult circumstances, by both governments to restore the peace process.
We must never lose hope.
Let me briefly turn to two important issues mentioned by the President-in-Office, Mr Spring: enlargement and institutional reform.
The enlargement of the European Union to include all the applicant countries is an ambition that will be achieved over a period of years.
However, the conditions must be right.
All the applicant countries are in need of substantial help to develop industry and infrastructure.
We must make realistic estimates of these costs and agree to provide the extra finance in the European budget.
Enlargement with the current restrictions on our budget would be disastrous for the new Member States and would also destroy much of the success in achieving economic and social cohesion between the existing 15 Member States.
An under-financed Union cannot be successful.
Similarly, an enlarged Europe needs wide-ranging institutional reform.
In this Parliament the decision-making process must be reformed.
There are at least 15 different procedures for making decisions in this House.
Such complexity is wasteful of resources and cannot be reasonably explained to the general public.
In the Council of Ministers the unanimity rule must be removed in almost all areas.
We have seen the destructive power of this rule recently when Britain, in a very misguided policy decision, held up most decisions for several months.
This type of behaviour has no beneficial result and must be prevented.
The Irish presidency has made good preparation for its period in office.
We know the Irish Government is determined to make progress on a wide range of issues over the next six months.
Can I wish all my colleagues every success.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a Member of the House referred this morning to the idea that, when they hold the presidency of the Council, the small Member States of the European Union do not possess the clout to galvanize the other States into action.
Nevertheless, I am very encouraged by what we have heard this morning.
For that reason I ask the Irish presidency to channel some of the energy to which the President-in-Office bore witness this morning into addressing a problem currently under discussion at the Intergovernmental Conference and about which our group is increasingly concerned, namely that of the democratic deficit within the European Union.
When we fight crime, when we proceed now - as Mr Poettering very lucidly and rightly said - to bring certain domains such as asylum or immigration under the Community umbrella as a matter of urgency, we not only need to intensify cooperation among Member governments, as the President-in-Office advocated.
We certainly need to do that, but we must also intensify cooperation between police authorities in the fight against crime and create a European police organization.
This, however, must not be done at the level of intergovernmental cooperation, for that would give rise to a dangerous development.
The fact that only executive bodies cooperate with each other and try to come up with European solutions means that the national parliaments - as we have all heard from parliamentarian colleagues in our own countries - are told with increasing regularity that they need no longer concern themselves with this particular issue because it is a European matter.
This domain, in other words, is being surreptitiously prised from the control and participation of the national parliaments.
At the same time, however, because of the structure of the Treaties and the current interinstitutional structure, the power to legislate on these matters has not passed to the European Parliament.
So an uncontrolled democracyfree zone, as it were, is emerging, precisely where decisions are taken which affect the personal rights of the individual citizens of the European Union, as we saw here yesterday in our debate on freedom of movement.
Parliament and the Commission are endeavouring to eliminate the deficit in terms of the remaining restrictions on freedom of movement, but we hear that, behind the backs of Parliament and the Commission, the Council under its present Irish presidency is planning a draft joint action, in other words a joint measure on the basis of Article K.4 of the Treaty, which means that neither the Commission nor Parliament are involved in it.
That is no way to foster democratization and amounts at best to a contribution to closer intergovernmental cooperation.
That is why I ask the presidency to lend impetus to the democratization process by ensuring that Parliament is strengthened.
You can set a good example, Mr President-in-Office, if you can ensure that, at a joint meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs in September, the competent Minister helps to allay the irritation that has arisen in connection with the Monti initiatives and the debate on freedom of movement.
Madam President, could I also give a word of welcome to the President-in-Office, I wish him well for the time that he holds that office.
As I represent a Unionist point of view, I am not going to mince my words with you because you know me well enough and you would not expect anything else.
Northern Ireland has come through many difficult times during the past 27 years.
Last weekend we faced an abyss so deep we could see no bottom.
It is not my intention today to respond to earlier comments in this House, although I just wish a lot of people would be aware of the full facts before they make some wild statements.
Drumcree and Garvaghy Road manifest our divisions in Northern Ireland. I have to say the Chief Constable got everything totally wrong and he now holds the trust of very few in the Province.
In the interests of accuracy I must make some points very clear.
Garvaghy Road is a main arterial route, no houses fronting the road.
That march would have taken between 10 and 14 minutes.
The route was an agreed compromise many years ago.
There is now only one parade which goes down that road, where 10 years ago there were 7, and that is the bottom of the problem that was faced.
The return of megaphone diplomacy by the Dublin Government was extremely unhelpful and was quite frankly like pouring petrol on a raging fire last weekend.
I wish to remind this House and the President-in-Office of the Council: Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, the people vote, time after time, in free elections, to remain within the Union.
The views and the wishes of the majority community have been set aside and dismissed, and they have observed terrorists being rewarded and lauded for their atrocities.
Both governments stand for overlooking and taking for granted the views of the majority community - I hope you will give that consideration in the future.
We have in Northern Ireland the clear ability within both communities to thwart each other, yes, and unfortunately we have the power to bomb and kill each other, as we have shown.
Only when we genuinely respect each other's traditions and principles will we begin to understand and promote reciprocal tolerance which will genuinely respect each other's traditions, we will begin to find a real long-term peace.
The people of Northern Ireland have experienced, since the original ceasefires, a period of uncertain peace, and they have enjoyed that time.
The last two weeks has brought home to them, in the most vivid way, the options they now face.
I pray the people of Northern Ireland will choose wisely.
Madam President, the US President has made use of his right to defer Title 3 of the Helms Burton Act for six months.
So there will be no court cases for the time being.
But the US can refuse visas to employees of the firms concerned, their spouses and children.
Even though the US has now eased this extraterritorial law, it is still totally unacceptable and a flagrant breach of international law.
It is the EU's fervent hope that working together with the US, we shall get true democracy and human rights restored to Cuba.
Let there be no misapprehension about that.
But we want to decide for ourselves what route the EU will follow in pursuing that goal.
We do not wish to be pressurized by the US.
The United States should realize that you don't beat your enemies by hurting your friends.
We call on the new Irish presidency resolutely to counter any move by the United States which will be disadvantageous to the citizens of the EU.
Following the example of the Canadian Government which reacted strongly and proposes among other things to refer the US to the conciliation machinery of NAFTA.
We should do the same with the World Trade Organization.
We must retaliate swiftly and not be content with spoken or written protests.
By its very existence, however, the Act has already done great damage to the more than 150 firms which feature in what the Americans so graphically call Cuba's 'Hall of Shame' .
One Dutch bank has already been forced to withdraw from financing the sugar industry in Cuba.
Where can that bank go for compensation? There is only one Member State of the European Union which has legislation to indemnify companies and individuals against the consequences of extraterritorial legislation.
Is it not time, Mr President-in-Office, for the European Union to accept its responsibilities and enact framework legislation under which Member States can pass desirable and harmonized laws to protect citizens and companies? The exclusive powers which the EU enjoys in trade create obligations too.
Because the US has plans for countries other than just Cuba.
Extraterritorial laws against Iran and Libya are also at an advanced stage of preparation.
In the corridors of Congress there is talk too of other possible target countries where there is a high level of European investment.
So with an eye to the future, Mr President-inOffice, the EU's reaction must be prompt, clear and tough.
A tough response by the Irish presidency will make an impression during this pre-election period in America.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I am very concerned at the attendance and surprised that there has been so little participation in this House by our British colleagues during this whole debate on the Irish presidency.
In fact, only one Member spoke and he did not address the issue of Northern Ireland. I do not know what kind of a message that will send to people in Ireland.
Are they not concerned? Do they not worry?
Is it contempt, or what? For the first day of a presidency, I have never seen this before and I am quite concerned that not one has participated.
The debate is closed
Welcome
Before proceeding with the agenda, I would like to welcome on your behalf a delegation from the Sabor, the Croatian Parliament, which is in the gallery and is being shown round by the President of the Parliament, Mr Pavletic.
I hope your work will be beneficial, and we are certain that it will be.
I welcome you on behalf of Parliament.
(Applause)
Progress in CFSP
The next item is the report (A4-0175/96) by Mr Fernández-Albor, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the progress made in implementing the common foreign and security policy (January-December 1995).
Madam President, my presentation of Ireland's priorities earlier today gives a flavour of the increasing scale of the European Union's external engagement.
The Union's activity in the foreign policy area has intensified considerably since the establishment of the common foreign and security policy.
The Treaty on European Union expressed the Union's ambition to act coherently and effectively on the international scene.
It provided, for this purpose, a mechanism for the definition of a common policy.
The European Parliament's resolution, which is the subject of this debate, aptly describes the common foreign and security policy as an evolutionary process which must progress slowly but steadily in the direction of the objectives clearly laid down in the Treaty on European Union.
Since the Treaty came into force, the Council has worked to develop agreed approaches to the major challenges confronting the Union and the procedures necessary for their implementation.
The Intergovernmental Conference's review of the CFSP provides a timely opportunity to take stock of the progress achieved and to consider aspects which may require improvement.
The deliberations of the Reflection Group last year helped to identify and clarify the issues to be addressed at the IGC.
I would like to salute, in this regard, the invaluable contribution made to the work of the Reflection Group by the European Parliament's representatives, Mrs Guigou and Mr Brok.
The concern expressed in Parliament's resolution about the lack of an identifiable analysis centre capable of evaluating risks and threats is broadly shared by its Member States.
The IGC is considering the modalities for the possible establishment of a planning and analysis capacity at Union level which could serve as a focus for the identification of the common interest on foreign policy issues and facilitate the formulation of rapid and effective responses to these challenges.
The Conference is also reviewing the procedures for the adoption and implementation of foreign policy decisions and the Treaty provisions on security and defence policy.
Parliament's resolution correctly observes the establishment of the CFSP is not an end in itself but rather a means to promote the Union's objectives in relation to international peace and security, the development and consolidation of democracy, respect for the rule of law and fundamental freedoms.
These objectives are pursued in a range of international fora, in particular the UN and the OSCE, and through the development of the Union's relations with its third country partners.
Various means are used for this purpose.
While joint actions and common positions are important CFSP instruments, they are by no means the sole measure of the scope or effectiveness of the Union's foreign policy activities.
The new trans-Atlantic agenda and the action plan adopted at Madrid in December 1995, for example, represent a detailed strategy for closer EU-US cooperation in promoting international peace, stability, prosperity, democracy and human rights.
Comprehensive political cooperation mechanisms have been developed with the European associate countries within the framework of the pre-accession strategy and structured dialogue.
Notable progress has been made towards aligning the foreign policy positions of applicant countries with those of the Union in preparation for enlargement.
The stability pact initiative of the Union, which was concluded last year, provides a framework for the development of cooperation and good neighbourly relations between the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which are party to it.
A more profound relationship is being developed with the countries of the former Soviet Union; the European Union is committed to negotiating partnership and cooperation agreements with Russia and each of the newly independent states, based on the principles of partnership and mutual respect.
A number of agreements have already been negotiated.
They are wide-ranging in scope and include important provisions on political dialogue, support for the consolidation of democratic structures and protection of human rights.
The first parliamentary elections to the state Duma, established under the 1993 Constitution, and the recent presidential elections - both of which were observed by the EU - were important milestones in the process of democratic reform in Russia.
The situation in Chechnya, however, remains a cause of concern, especially in the light of the recent resumption of fighting.
The Union is continuing its support for the efforts of the OSCE to promote a negotiated settlement for this conflict.
The declaration adopted at the Barcelona Conference in November 1995 represents a major step in the development of the Union's relations with its neighbours in the Mediterranean region, including the core parties to the Middle East peace process.
The declaration established a process for deepening cooperation and partnership in the political, security, economic, social and cultural fields.
It sets out a number of principles and objectives, together with a work programme, which is being actively implemented.
The progressive development of all aspects of the partnership is a key objective of the Irish presidency.
I am very pleased to be able to report in this context that the General Affairs Council this week adopted the MEDA regulation.
This will give effect to our cooperation in the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
In 1995 the Council agreed general guidelines for the cooperation between the Union and Latin America for the period leading up to the 21st century.
The political objectives of such future cooperation relate to institutional support for consolidation of democratic processes and respect for human rights with the involvement of civil society and in a context of open regionalism.
With a view to redirecting its institutionalized dialogue with all countries in the region, the Union entered into a number of innovative dialogue arrangements.
These included the signature of an interregional framework cooperation agreement with Mercosur at the Madrid European Council, preparation of an agreement with the Andean Pact countries - a political declaration was signed recently - and the signature of joint declarations with Mexico and Chile.
These provide a dynamic framework for strengthening relations between the European Union and Latin America.
Asia is now a major player on the international scene, in political as well as economic terms.
The European Union is giving due priority to developing the dialogue between the Union and Asia and its countries and leaders.
The Bangkok Summit established a new comprehensive Asia-Europe partnership aimed at strengthening links with a view to promoting peace, global stability and prosperity.
The meeting agreed a number of specific follow-up measures in the political and economic areas.
The Asia-Europe process provides the Union with an enhanced framework to develop mutual understanding with its Asean partners and to pursue its foreign policy interests and concerns in the region.
As well as developing its external relations, the Union has continued its involvement in international efforts to address the major contemporary challenges to peace and stability.
The peace agreement on Bosnia-Herzegovina, concluded last December, was a culmination of a sustained commitment by the international community, to which the European Union contributed substantially.
The Council has at all times been concerned to ensure the Union's capacity to respond rapidly and flexibly to the evolving situation on the ground, in close consultation with its main international partners.
It has used the instruments available to it under the Treaty on European Union for this purpose.
The challenge now is to develop the structures necessary to secure and consolidate the peace.
The Union is playing a key role in the implementation of the civil aspects of the peace accord through its contribution to economic reconstruction and its joint actions in support of the high representative, Mr Carl Bildt, the electoral process in Bosnia-Herzegovina and humanitarian assistance, including de-mining activities.
The Union is also pursuing its support for the Middle East peace process on the basis of the approach set out in the Florence Declaration.
The Union has played an active, constructive and even-handed role in cooperation with the co-sponsors of the process and the regional parties.
It has been the principal provider of economic assistance to the Palestinian authority and has participated actively in the development of Palestinian institutions.
The major role played by the Union in the organization and supervision of the January 1996 elections which led to the establishment of Palestinian institutions on a democratic basis was widely appreciated in the region.
The continuing violence in the Great Lakes region and in particular Burundi has been a matter of serious concern to the Council, reflected in the series of steps taken with a view to alleviating the crisis.
The common position on Burundi adopted in March 1995 expressed the EU's support for the process of national reconciliation and for dialogue between the local parties.
This instrument also provided a framework for EU assistance in the form of support for the OAU military observer mission in Burundi and for the sending of human rights observers by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
In the light of subsequent developments the Council appointed an EU special envoy to the region. He is actively supporting the ongoing peace efforts of the UN, the Organization of African Unity, regional leaders and other mediators such as former Presidents Carter and Nyerere.
The Council supports the objectives of the security assistance process recently initiated at Arusha and hopes that it will help to create the conditions for an inclusive and substantial political dialogue between the parties.
The Council strongly condemned the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa in November 1995 and subsequently adopted two common positions on Nigeria, both of which were designed to encourage respect for human rights and a return to civil democratic rule there.
These included measures such as restrictions on visas to members of the security forces, an arms embargo and a suspension of development cooperation.
The Union has continued to monitor the situation in Nigeria closely and intends to pursue its examination and identification of possible further measures against that country.
The primary objective of the common position on Angola adopted in October 1995 was to assist its government in firmly establishing democratic structures and the rule of law.
Other provisions included pursuing EU participation in efforts to alleviate the suffering of refugees and to encourage respect for human rights.
The Union supplemented its activity in this area with a pledge of almost $ 800m in humanitarian rehabilitation assistance at the UNDP round-table last year.
In the context of its joint action on mine clearance the EU has contributed ECU 1.5m to mine clearance projects in Angola.
Early completion of the military demobilization process is crucial to the long-term underpinning of the peace process.
As well as responding to immediate crises, the Union is also seeking to address the underlying causes of conflict in Africa through its ongoing practical dialogue in cooperation with the Organization of African Unity.
In its conclusions of 4 December 1995, the Council reiterated that preventive diplomacy, peacekeeping and international security are priority aims of the CFSP.
It outlined the principles behind the Union's contribution in support of action taken by African bodies, in particular the OAU, to establish conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms.
These principles are now the basis of the EU's ongoing dialogue with the OAU in this important area. They are aimed at assisting the OAU's efforts to create its own effective conflict prevention and resolution mechanisms by providing training, expertise and logistical support in the areas of early warning, preventative diplomacy and peacekeeping.
The joint action on anti-personnel landmines, adopted on 12 May 1995, was a significant step in the European Union's efforts to address the tragedy caused by the indiscriminate use of weapons of this kind in many countries.
The joint action established a common moratorium on the export of anti-personnel landmines and made provision for active preparation of the review conference of the 1980 Inhumane Weapons Convention and a contribution to international mine clearance.
While the joint action did help to give some impetus to the work of the review conference, the outcome fell short of our expectations, and some of the goals set out in our joint action in a number of important respects.
Our objective now is to reach agreement on an updated joint action in order to maximise the European Union's contribution to the international movement for a world-wide ban on these weapons.
I welcome the emphasis placed by Parliament's resolution on the protection of human rights in its endorsement of the efforts made by the Council to uphold this principle.
The Council's annual report to Parliament on the Union's activities in the human rights area was presented earlier this month by President Hänsch.
The Irish presidency will pursue the Union's efforts to advance respect for human rights and to ensuring this objective remains at the heart of the Union's policies in general and its common foreign security policy in particular.
I would like to thank the European Parliament for providing the Irish presidency with an opportunity for an early exchange of views on CFSP.
I would like to assure you again of our commitment to keep Parliament informed of developments in the CFSP area over the coming months, and I look forward to a constructive working relationship between the Council and the European Parliament, which will enable the Union to effectively meet the challenges which lie ahead.
Mr President-in-Office, thank you.
We are suspending the debate on this report; we shall resume at 3.00 p.m.
Votes
The next item is voting time.
I propose that we change the order of voting slightly, if only because of the Members who are present in the Chamber.
We shall start with Mr Wolf's recommendation and then vote on Mr Piecyk's report, Mr Hoppenstedt's recommendation and Mr Meier's recommendation.
We shall then move on to the reports, or rather votes, which require an absolute majority, but before that we ought to vote on the calendar of part-sessions.
Are there any comments on this slightly amended procedure?
Mr President, the vote on the calendar is precisely the point on which I would like to comment.
My request is a simple one: I would like you to declare inadmissible all the amendments relating to the number of plenary part-sessions at Strasbourg, for two reasons. First, in order to comply with the Edinburgh compromise, and secondly because we should await the judgment of the Court of Justice, which has been asked to rule on this question.
Mr Wurtz, would you be good enough to put on your headphones so that I can say something to you!
I have just made a proposal to change the order of voting.
That has to do with the Members who are present in the Chamber.
I shall announce the calendar of part-sessions at a later point.
When I announce the vote on that item, you and anyone else who wishes to speak on it will have the opportunity to do so.
It is more efficient to do that when the item is announced.
Mr President, in yesterday's debate there were a couple of ambiguities, which is why I wanted to say a few more words of clarification.
First of all, our vote today does not conclude our work on the trans-European networks, because they are, of course, subject to revision at regular intervals.
Secondly, some Members pointed out yesterday that a number of amendments to Annex I had not been considered.
That is true, which is why we have agreed with the Commission that a separate proposal will be submitted for the ports, for instance, and that other parliamentary amendments which have not yet been considered will be taken into account by the Commission in the forthcoming revision.
Thirdly, the conclusions of the Florence Council caused annoyance here in Parliament, and in that respect I am very pleased that Mr Dini, in his capacity as President-in-Office of the Council, set the record straight in our Brussels Chamber.
He stated that the Council had not made any unilateral amendments in Florence.
It was merely a question of acknowledging a proposed amendment to project No 8; any actual amendment would naturally be made through the codecision framework.
You know that we have both discussed the matter too, and under these conditions, Mr President, I can recommend to the House that we approve the joint text today.
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Mr President, my point of order, like the one just raised by Mr Wurtz, is also based on Rule 125. It concerns the vote on the calendar for the plenary part-sessions for 1997.
Now, Rule 125 stipulates that the President shall decide whether amendments are admissible.
The fact is that Amendments Nos 27 and 34, proposing the elimination of one plenary part-session in Strasbourg, are in flagrant breach of the Edinburgh compromise - a decision taken in Edinburgh which you, Mr President, if I may remind you, ardently defended on your recent visit to Paris.
We know, Mr President, that you are not a man to say one thing and mean another - that you stand by your word.
That, Mr President, is why we are asking that Amendments Nos 27 and 34 should not be put to the vote but should be declared inadmissible.
Mr President, I am grateful to be given the floor, all the more grateful because I didn't ask for it.
As it is not a frequent occurrence for you to give it to me when I do ask for it, I would like to pay this small tribute.
Mr Striby spoke on my behalf.
Ladies and gentlemen, before we go any further with interventions of this nature, let me say the following: of course I have given thought to the question whether it is permissible to vote on this amendment today for the removal of an October part-session from the calendar, and I have examined the matter carefully.
Firstly, in the history of Parliament there are several precedents, and my predecessors have always considered amendments of this type to be admissible, and these amendments have always been put to the vote here in the House.
I should not like to deviate from that practice.
Secondly, last year we voted on a similar amendment.
It is now the subject of proceedings before the European Court of Justice.
Last year, by adopting the amendment, the House confirmed its de facto admissibility.
I shall not therefore proceed to complicate the case before the Court by deciding differently this year.
Thirdly, the House is free to adopt or reject the amendment.
Whoever considers it inadmissible must vote against it.
So the issue is in the hands of the House, and that is where I shall let it rest.
Mr President, I should like to make the point that we cannot accept your arguments, because the matter of admissibility is not a matter of fact but a matter of procedure.
Now, you are required to apply the Treaties and the Rules of Procedure, and having due regard to the Treaties and the Rules of Procedure - and the Treaties are definitive, since they represent a decision by the Heads of State and Government - you must declare these amendments inadmissible.
Ladies and gentlemen, you know every bit as well as I do that there are differing views in this House on the extent to which the Edinburgh decision is contractual in character.
The Court has yet to rule on the matter, so as long as there are differing views I shall apply the selfsame rule that Mr Striby quoted: ' The President shall decide whether amendments are admissible.' That is the wording of Rule 125(3), and I have communicated that decision to you.
Mr President, thank you for giving me the floor on a point of order.
I am aware that you have difficulty in noticing certain people on your right, and so I am grateful for being given the floor.
I also wish to raise a point of order, in connection with the same points mentioned by previous speakers, Mr Pasty and Mr Striby in particular.
My own view is that the amendments are inadmissible.
I know you don't agree with me, but even so I am bound to say that at a time when the intergovernmental conference is in session, it seems to me - irrespective of strictly legal questions, it seems to me, as I say - that, politically, it would be weakening Strasbourg to accept the symbolic submission of the European Parliament to the Council and Commission by deporting the sittings of the European Parliament to Brussels.
I believe that much of Parliament's independence depends on the fact that its principal seat is located in a city other than the place where the Commission and the Council have their seats.
This submission, in my view, is quite deplorable.
I wanted to make that point to honourable Members before the vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall now proceed to the vote.
So that the matter can be properly resolved, you should refrain from trying to prevent or delay the vote by procedural ruses or interventions on points of order.
All Members have the opportunity to use their vote to express their views on the issue we have to decide here.
Mr President, it has been hard, but it has been worth the effort; we are finally being heard in this House.
I do not wish to delay the vote, Mr President, I should simply like to ask you not to intervene every time a Member speaks, since you have now spoken five times on the same issue, whereas we can speak only once, and that with difficulty, because you rarely bother to look at either the far right or the far left.
I should therefore like to ask your collaborators to take more heed of Members' requests to speak.
As regards the subject of our intervention, you have said that what happened with your predecessors was that only amendments of a certain kind were accepted, and yet you are doing just the same.
What comes to mind is the old Latin saying, errare humanum est , but it is a shame to see the same mistake being made again and again.
As for the special pleading for Brussels, I should like to denounce in this House the strange goings-on concerning the assets of both the Commission and Parliament, a problem on which we should like to see light shed, since somebody somewhere is getting shamefully rich at the expense of Parliament and of democracy.
Mr President, much has been made in this Parliament about the supremacy of this Parliament and also about observing the Rules of Procedure and the Treaties and so on.
Let us not forget that when Hitler wanted to take over, and impose Nazism on Germany he used so-called parliamentary democracy to this end.
What is happening here is that, by refusing to allow people to speak in this Parliament, by refusing to ensure that people abide by the Treaties and constitution of this Parliament and of the European Union, we are failing to fulfil our duty to set an example to people.
It is quite clear from the Treaties that Strasbourg is the seat of Parliament and, despite what the Members over there may try and say and despite what they may try and do, they are flying in the face of law, of constitutional law and of the rights of the people of Europe!
That is not a point of order!
Now please listen very carefully and concentrate on the vote!
Mr President, the comments of Mr Crowley are a disgrace to this House!
I would ask him to withdraw them straight away!
Mr President, with all the respect due to any honourable Member, I believe that making a comparison between a Parliamentary debate on the calendar and the political problem of Hitler's Germany is not just a disgrace but also stupid, and unworthy of the European Parliament.
(Loud applause)
Mr Crowley, you can consider yourself fortunate that I did not hear what you said because of the noise in the House.
But I shall not permit any further debate on this question.
After the vote on Amendments Nos 1 to 7:
Mr President, what you have just done is scandalous!
You have given proof of irresponsibility, and on top of that you have just violated the most elementary principle of democracy.
We are the authors of the amendments which you have just put to a block vote.
I ask you for the floor to withdraw some of those amendments. You refuse to give it to me.
Not only are you showing yourself to be totally irresponsible, you are also treating with contempt the right of each of us here to express an opinion.
When a Member tables amendments, he always has the right to speak before those amendments are voted on!
After the vote:
Mr President, thank you for giving me the floor, and I shall be very brief.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, now that things have calmed down, I would like to say a word about the majority in this House which is, as it were, legally empowered to do everything and anything.
Mr President, my point of order is based on Article 216 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, Article 77 of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community and Article 189 of the Treaty establishing the European Atomic Energy Community.
All these articles, Mr President, most explicitly provide - and they are available to you - that the seat of the institutions shall be determined by common accord of the Governments of the Member States.
The Edinburgh declaration, which is an international treaty, also forms part of the references.
If you create the principle that the parliamentary majority can violate the rules which determine that power, it can also violate the treaties on which that same power is based thus, as it were, sawing through the branch on which it is sitting.
Mr Gollnisch, the seat of the institution was not in any way the subject of this debate and vote.
At the Edinburgh Council, Strasbourg was designated as the seat of the institution.
Our vote here has merely been about holding a week's part-session and nothing else!
Mr President, I was just looking at the text of Amendment No 21, which we passed a few moments ago, which concerns changes to weeks 37 and 38.
I note that it says week beginning 8 September and week beginning 15 September.
If you look at Parliament's diary for 1997, you will find that 8 and 15 September are actually Sundays and week-ending days, not week-beginning days.
Mr President, at its meeting on 24 June 1995 the Committee on the Rules of Procedure gave a mandate to its chairman and to the rapporteurs to recommend a vote on the Nordmann and Ford reports, pursuant to Rule 114 of our Rules of Procedure.
The rapporteurs, and the chairman of the committee, recommend the House to reject all the amendments except those which were adopted in committee.
To the authors of the amendments whose rejection we recommend, I would say that our only purpose is to respect the commitments entered into by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, and that no value judgement is implied regarding the amendments whose rejection is proposed.
Some of the provisions contained in their amendments have, in any case, already been the subject of lengthy discussions within the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, and furthermore they will be discussed again during the preparation of subsequent reports which will be necessary for the continuation of our work.
I repeat, therefore, that the rejection of these amendments, some of which contain interesting ideas that will be useful for the further work of the committee, does not imply any value judgement.
Mr President, following on Mr Fayot's very fair presentation, I would like to withdraw my Amendment No 4 in the interests of Amendment No 10, which has been put forward by Mr Nordmann.
Amendment No 4, if I understand correctly, is thereby withdrawn.
Mr President, I owe our colleagues an explanation regarding Amendment No 10.
I naturally endorse in its entirety the declaration by Mr Fayot, which relates to the other amendments.
Amendment No 10 is somewhat special: it is a formula which I proposed following the mini-debate that took place on Monday, when my report was restored to the agenda, in order to make it easier to arrive at a consensus.
Of course, this amendment only has any prospect of being adopted - as demonstrated by the previous votes since the debate at this sitting - if it is supported by the majority of the groups, and especially of the major groups.
It would appear, from information I have received, that one of the major groups is not endorsing this amendment.
In the circumstances, in my capacity as a rapporteur interested in achieving a consensus, all I can do is withdraw it, though I still hope - since our Rules of Procedure provide such a possibility - that it may eventually be taken up again by one of my colleagues!
Mr President, I should like to follow the very broad hint given by Mr Nordmann and adopt the amendment on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
Before the vote on Amendment No 10:
Mr President, this amendment was not tabled in due time and is therefore to be regarded as an oral amendment.
I oppose it for two reasons.
The first is a formal reason: we have been discussing this text now for a year and a half and this is no time for last-minute compromise amendments.
My second reason concerns the merits.
There is no need of detailed rules for the application of provisions that have been adopted hitherto.
If anyone wants detailed rules of application it is because, in point of fact, he wants to oppose the reform.
In the interests of transparency and in the desire to ensure disclosure of all the financial provisions affecting us, I therefore oppose this amendment and I have no doubt that I shall find twelve other Members to oppose it with me.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the fact is that this is a compromise amendment which was tabled in the proper manner.
It is also available in all languages.
The amendment was withdrawn, and the Rules permit another Member to take over the amendment, which thereby becomes a compromise amendment.
That is how we have proceeded.
I cannot see even the slightest error in that course of action, and so we shall now vote on Amendment No 10.
After the vote on Amendment No 10:
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I shall try to choose my words more carefully in future.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Madam President, on behalf of our group I should like to reemphasize that it was a matter of great importance to us to vote against the trans-European networks.
We consider it absurd to want to fight unemployment by means of expensive showcase projects and to seek at the same time to use the structural funds for that purpose, funds which are actually intended to improve local infrastructures and create jobs.
In addition, it is now undisputed that readiness to finance these crazy projects is declining.
It is also undisputed that their disadvantages far outweigh their advantages.
As the Spanish Minister of the Environment made clear when he addressed our Parliament last year, such enormous central roadbuilding projects make no sense whatsoever, because they concentrate wealth to the detriment of the underprivileged and remote regions, since these transEuropean networks link large population centres which already enjoy a high level of development, these being the only areas in which it pays to engage in such expensive flagship projects.
The underprivileged regions derive no benefit whatsoever from them.
Anyone who suggests otherwise is lying, for Europe 2000-plus has already demonstrated this to be the case.
The underprivileged regions will be further depleted, and their social infrastructure will continue to decay.
This in turn would mean that we should have to inject more structural funds, but these would no longer be available.
In other words, such regions will be cut adrift.
The environmental clause with which Parliament sought to redress the balance in certain respects has been watered down in the compromise.
So the projects as they now stand do not even meet the requirements of the negotiated environmental clause; in other words, the clause is mere window-dressing in which the Council is now engaged.
I am pleased that we shall be voting by roll-call.
And I should also be pleased if the Members did not only have to answer for their vote to the present electorate but also to future generations.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is simply out of a sense of responsibility that I am voting for the common project.
Although, on the one hand, Article 20 pays special attention to projects concerning multi-modal transport and priority attention to the 'Adriatic Corridor' and a reading of Article 19 reveals the purely indicative nature of the list of 14 Essen projects, on the other hand, the entire affair, which has now been dragging on for years, bears witness both to the terrible behaviour of the Council, which has often taken action in total disregard of Parliament, and to the negative outcome of the Florence Summit.
I find it especially mortifying that this occurred during the Italian presidency.
It also emerges from a reading of Article 18, and this is extremely worrying, that the Committee on the Exchange of Information and Relations does not include a representative of the European Parliament and that the individual Member States are not in a position to guarantee the funds needed to implement a serious transport policy, so as to create the infrastructures required to help the development of Europe's peripheral areas.
It is now up to the individual Member States and especially, in my opinion as a representative of southern Italy, the Italian Government.
I hope the Italian Government, together with the Government of the Union, will be able to guarantee the effective implementation of projects that could, especially in the case of multi-modal transport, really bring the peripheral regions into closer contact with central and northern Europe.
Madam President, following all the excellent points made in the debate by my colleague Mr Le Rachinel, I shall confine my intervention to three points of more specific relevance to France.
The first relates to the Rhône-Saône-Rhine wide inland waterway.
This link is shown in the documents supplied by the French Authorities, but it is high time they told us clearly whether or not they believe that this waterway - which has been delayed for nearly a quarter of a century - is still profitable today, and whether its completion is compatible with environmental protection.
If not, of course, it would be completely ridiculous to create it bit by bit.
My second point is along the same lines, but in this case I refer to the high-speed rail link.
I would hope that, for once in a way, Europe might actually achieve something and that we could avoid what has been done up to now, which is that all rail traffic has been concentrated around Paris.
So I am glad to see this proposed link appearing on the documents that have been supplied.
Finally, my third and last point relates to the airport map we have been given.
The French and European Authorities refer to the cities of Toulon, Perpignan and Nantes as having regional airports.
One of them, Toulon, was actually proposed as a future international airport.
I have just learnt that the national airline was not only refusing to serve these cities but was even intending to prohibit any other airline from serving them either.
This is a completely unacceptable practice.
The joint text approved by the conciliation committee regarding the trans-European transport network can only be seen as a defeat for Parliament.
The environmental article will not secure the necessary environmental protection.
On the contrary, the proposed guidelines on the transport network will result in an increase of CO2 emissions by 15-18 %, to be added to the already expected increase of 42 % until the year 2010.
This is not consistent with the decisions made at the Rio Conference.
If we are going to take responsibility for future generations, we must combine job creation and environmental protection.
This proposal will not create these necessary jobs.
The transport projects in the TENs are a mixture of necessary infrastructure investments, especially in the southern regions, and questionable projects of prestige in regions with an already developed infrastructure.
The trans-European transport network should be a modern, sustainable network adapted to the demands of citizens and the environment.
This proposal is not such a network, and therefore we are voting against the proposal from the conciliation committee.
The major trans-European transport networks are one of the most ambitious projects of the European Union, fundamental for strengthening the internal market, the movement of persons and goods and for economic and social cohesion.
That is why we welcome this general plan to be put into execution by the year 2010.
However, in respect of Portugal we have to raise some reservations.
The first refers to the policy on sea-transport and renovation of the port network which is not exactly highlighted.
We hope that in 1997 the Commission will make more explicit its policy on this sector.
The second refers to the motorway link between Valladolid and Lisbon which was introduced at the Essen summit.
In 1995 the Portuguese government showed an interest in building this link on a route between the IP5 and IP3 highways with an extension across to the north-south motorway somewhere between Lisbon and Oporto.
This solution seems to us right as it serves the whole of the national territory.
The intention which is now being announced to link this motorway to the Portuguese capital seems to us unacceptable because it forgets about the northern hinterland, the centre of the country and the coastline.
This solution does not serve the objectives of harmonious development of the national territory as a whole.
If we only serve the capital there is no doubt that regional imbalances will only increase.
We will not be able to support this new solution since it does not clearly define the simultaneous purpose of benefiting the interests of the coastline and the centre of the country by doubling up the IP 5 highway.
It should also be added that since the Portuguese government announced at the Florence Summit that it could replace the Valladolid-Lisbon axis by a system of inter-modal transport, we are not certain at the moment which concrete project will comprise that system.
Without calling into question the possible merit of this project we think that the details should already be defined so that we can actually vote in knowledge of all of the facts.
For these reasons, I am unable to give my full support to this proposal as I would have liked.
I am voting against the conciliation committee's proposal, which would entail the Union continuing to waste money on unnecessary and expensive motorway projects.
In view of the fact that the countries of the European Union are supposed to achieve the objectives of the UN's Rio Declaration concerning the significant reduction of carbon dioxide emissions this proposal is a step in the wrong direction.
The Commission has itself pointed out that emissions of carbon dioxide will increase by almost 40 % under the 'business as usual' scenario.
The proposed motorway projects are harmful to the environment and will of course increase emissions still further.
The proposed rules on environmental protection appear largely to be empty political rhetoric and are far from sufficient.
The Øresund bridge is a typical example of how you can try, using calculations which are not serious, to prove that there will be environmental benefits.
The economic calculations are even more laughable!
The problems of traffic jams can be solved more simply and in a more environmentally friendly manner through economic management systems, primarily through the introduction of a high carbon tax which can persuade transport users to switch from private cars to public transport.
In terms of energy consumption rail transport is more effective and should be supported today.
If all types of transport had to pay their own environmental costs rail transport would automatically become competitive.
Investment in motorways is also a bad thing in terms of equal opportunities.
It is almost exclusively men who will get the jobs.
The EMU convergence criteria have compelled the Member States to make panic savings in health care and care of the elderly and this has resulted in many women becoming unemployed.
The proposal does include some support for certain rail projects but this in no way compares with the massive contributions to motorways and airports which dominate the proposal.
We have reached the final episode of the long soap opera of trans-European transport networks.
After much shilly-shallying by the European Parliament and Council, we have before us the outcome of conciliation.
But it needs to be said that the lack of respect Council has shown for the joint decisionmaking procedure laid down by the Maastricht Treaty is scandalous.
We had hoped it would be possible to discuss the projects set out as priorities by the Essen Council of December 1994, and perhaps even to replace some of them with more substantial, more useful or simply more feasible projects.
We were told this was no longer possible - for the European Parliament.
But the same did not apply to Council, which, at Florence, announced a very substantial change in one of those projects.
And how can we believe, in this day and age, that it will be possible to find the Lit 25 000 billion needed to build the Brenner tunnel, a tunnel that will moreover serve absolutely no good purpose?
It is not even going to be possible to build the high-speed line between Lyons and Trieste according to programme.
Minister Burlando himself has told the European Parliament that through the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
The two lines added concerning protection of the environment, which are, in any case, inadequate, do nothing to change our negative opinion of this document.
And that is a real shame.
The Greens are not against modernizing or speeding-up Europe's transport networks.
But neither are we willing to sacrifice all the available money and energy on the altar of competitiveness to carry our outdated projects that serve few people and have a very serious environmental and social impact.
First of all a word of thanks to the chairmen of the conciliation talks, the Italian minister and our principal Vice-President, Mrs Nicole Fontaine.
Both of them steered the talks with a great deal of dedication, patience and understanding.
Thanks and praise are due also to rapporteur Piecyk and Commissioner Kinnock.
The outcome is decidedly not as good as it might have been and it has created confusion.
Certainly, after what Council President Dini said at our last part-session in Brussels and following the Commissioner's first letter to committee chairman Cornelissen, I thought that Parliament's power of co-decision was clear enough and what Commissioner Kinnock subsequently told Mr Simpson simply gave rise to confusion and suspicion.
Why was this letter in fact necessary and why was it made public? In football terms this was a one-two which the referee should not have allowed.
The Commissioner's reaction to Mr Bourlanges, who asked a number of perfectly reasonable questions, was certainly not the courteous reply which Parliament would have expected and prompted the VicePresident in the chair to intervene.
Regarding the matter in hand: in line with our criteria giving preference to environmentally friendly modes of transport Parliament adopted an altogether acceptable compromise on Malpensa airport at the second reading, and this was a clear sign of goodwill on our part that we were prepared, in exchange for recognition of our power of co-decision, to accept the list in Annex III without amendment.
The Commission was certainly in no doubt about that.
Given the budget appropriations, the list of networks as such and as shown in Annex I is certainly too long to be taken seriously.
The decision of the European summit in Essen to designate fourteen priority projects was thus understandable and sensible.
So it will not do subsequently to try to undermine Parliament's power of codecision by saying that this list of priorities is 'a matter for the bosses' and sacrosanct.
That was our complaint and the ultimate result of the conciliation procedure, as confirmed by Minister Dini's statement.
In line with my contribution to the conciliation procedure, my Group has thus voted in favour of the result we have now.
Our citizens are now looking for concrete results, especially in view of the extra resources and extra positive effects on employment promised by Commission President Santer.
Those national politicians who believe that Europe cannot help to combat unemployment by carrying out infrastructure projects over and above the national interest have totally misunderstood.
The TENs, which are joint European undertakings, represent a positive contribution to the prosperity and integration of future generations and for that reason we can all be very happy with the result achieved.
Hoppenstedt report
In this report from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, Parliament is maintaining its position from the first reading in January this year.
The point is to ensure that in the selection of projects eligible for support as part of the development of trans-European telecommunications networks, sufficient emphasis is placed on projects which have a practical utility value for both businesses and private users of telecommunications services.
The information society is not emerging of its own accord: it must be developed by exploiting in practice and gradually expanding our awareness of the scope of information technology, as indicated in the Commission's White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment of December 1993.
In this context, Parliament wishes this joint European Parliament and Council decision to be implemented in accordance with Article 129d of the Treaty, whereby Article 189b will be applied.
This request should be supported - not least in the light of the commendable consistency with which Parliament has acted over a number of recent years in its efforts to promote technological development and to strengthen Europe's competitiveness through extensive liberalization of the telecommunications sector.
Meier recommendation for second reading
At the first reading of the Commission's original proposal for a directive, which took place in the spring of 1994, the European Parliament adopted a large number of amendments aimed at increasing the safety requirements for pressure equipment which is produced and marketed in the EU.
In view of the nature of the products, there can of course be no concessions regarding user and consumer safety.
Of the 25 amendments which Parliament adopted at first reading, the Council has so far accepted 14.
Before the second reading, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy therefore retabled ten amendments and tabled another five, with a view to further specifying the requirements to be met by pressure equipment before it is placed on the market.
There is every reason to encourage the committee and its rapporteur to maintain the amendments tabled in the recommendation during the discussions which must now be expected to start in the conciliation committee.
I can therefore fully endorse the recommendation and the amendments it contains as a basis for approving the Council's common position.
I am afraid that safety standards regarding pressure equipment will in time fall.
The need for third party checks on such equipment is an important one and should have been established for even more of the equipment concerned.
The preparations for the approximation of Member States' legislation have, however, been long and complicated (the first reading in the European Parliament took place as long ago as April 1994), and this has greatly restricted my ability to exert any influence over the report at second reading in the European Parliament.
Nordmann report
In voting on the Nordmann report, the European Parliament is initiating a salutary arrangement with regard to transparency and the financial interests of its Members.
This is a first step, though no more than that, towards a definition of the status of Member of the European Parliament defined at Union level.
No doubt it was impossible, as yet, to go beyond this compromise, given the diversity of traditions and practices in force in the various Member States.
That is why, despite its inadequacy, I voted in favour of this amendment to the rules, because, being unable to prohibit any form of financial support, it makes its disclosure compulsory.
I believe this is an advance as compared with the secret nature of the present situation, an advance which I feel sure will reduce the scale of these deplorable practices.
But total prohibition, which is still imposed on the French Members by national legislation and case law, should be our own, and the sooner the better.
The study of the Nordmann report, and the debate and vote on it, as in the case of the Ford report, had only one purpose and one meaning for me: the need to ensure, in conditions of the greatest possible transparency, the greatest possible independence of elected representatives from their economic environment.
In order to carry out his duties (and perhaps ensuring that he does carry out his duties 'effectively' ), a Member of Parliament receives various forms of compensation.
They are justified and they are amply sufficient!
We must, then, prohibit any financial or material gift to a Member from any quarter whatsoever, and we must monitor compliance with that prohibition.
This is clear, it is simple, all we have to do is do it!
This a vital matter for the image of politicians and therefore for 'politics' ... and for the future of democracy!
Mr Nordmann has done his job well, admittedly sometimes creating the feeling in some of his colleagues that he has something of a taste for 'liar's poker' .
Each of us has today had the opportunity to indicate in full public view what he wanted and display his choices.
As far as I am concerned, after twenty years of electoral life, I have only one regret - that we waited so long and wasted so much time before reaching this point.
The politician works for 'the public' . He is paid for it by 'the public' .
He must provide a full accounting of what he has done and what he has earned and what assets he holds.
And that's that!
At a time when public opinion is demanding transparency and rectitude from those who are elected to administer public life, it is high time that the European Parliament emerged from its protective cocoon with a clear statement of support for total prohibition of financial or material gifts to any Member from any person whatsoever.
Those were the conclusions of the working group set up by this institution and adopted by Mr Nordmann, and those are conclusions which I irrevocably support.
Members of the European Parliament, like their colleagues in the national Parliaments, receive allowances - public allowances, which are verified and verifiable - to enable them to perform their duties.
Any external, parallel or other form of remuneration, or any hand-outs of any kind, must be totally and definitively prohibited.
Why adopt a complicated approach when we can adopt a simple one, easy to understand and clearly stated.
I shall therefore be voting for the absolute prohibition of any gift.
Eriksson and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Holm and Schörling (V), in writing.
(SV) For us democracy is synonymous with government by the people.
This means that the people govern in accordance with the principle of one person, one vote.
The rights of citizenship should be exercised through voting rights, rather than being the preserve of wealthy elites.
It troubles us that in the context of the debates on the Ford and Nordmann reports the Members of the European Parliament did not manage to prohibit lobbyists from offering gifts and bribes within the domain of the European Parliament.
It is even more serious that MEPs found themselves unable to decide that they themselves should give written and public assurances that they had not accepted and would refuse to accept gifts, staff support or other benefits other than those financed by their own institution.
Furthermore, Parliament refused to agree to make public payments by the 'Caisse des Députés' , one of its own service departments.
Taken as a whole, this behaviour makes it look to the public as if Parliament has something to hide.
As a result, Parliament's credibility as a driving force for democracy and openness within the institutions of the EU has been dealt a serious blow, and one whose consequences may prove extremely difficult to reverse.
The vote on the Ford and Nordmann reports represents a first step on a difficult road - it involves disciplining the activities of Members of the European Parliament in their relations with the outside world.
First, I would say this: in contrast to political life in certain Member States, European politics has not so far been the subject of any political and financial scandals.
Even if demagogues of all hues do like to moralize and never tire of denouncing supposed scandals, it is fair to say that the European Parliament has so far been free of any 'affairs' .
As this Parliament gains in stature and importance, pressure groups are taking more and more interest in it.
That is the subject of Mr Ford's report.
Hitherto, honourable Members have never really known whom they would meet during a day's work in the European Parliament buildings.
The registration of lobbyists and the observance of a number of rules are going to bring a little transparency into relations between Members and the representatives of interest groups.
The other aspect, covered in Mr Nordmann's report, concerns Members' interests.
My view is that most Members have nothing for which to reproach themselves.
Here again, though, the card is worth playing - maximum transparency on incomes, outside occupations, support received by a Member in that capacity.
We do not want any gifts or hand-outs, anything at all is too much.
Let's be clear about that!
So, this is a first step.
We should remember that the European Parliament is a young institution, taking shape slowly.
By contrast, the national parliaments are a century or even several centuries old, while the European Parliament elected by direct suffrage dates from 1979.
It is having to invent common rules, a common mentality, a European approach to ethics, bit by bit.
This is a first step, an agreement that was difficult to reach.
The next steps are in preparation: European rules for Members of Parliament, rules relating to assistants and intergroups, a code of conduct for interest groups.
Here again, we know that consensus will take a long time to ripen. But it will be essential if we are to construct a consistent, serious and effective parliamentary institution, in the service of democracy and transparency in Europe.
Mr Nordmann's report on transparency and Members' financial interests ought to be resulting in strict rules on the influence of lobbyists on the work of the European Parliament.
However, the rules set out in the Nordmann report do not resolve the difficulties at all.
Amongst other things, they allow support to be provided by third parties in terms of staff or materials.
Gifts of any kind should naturally be declared, but ideally there should not be any gifts at all.
This applies to all kinds of gifts, including meals and travel.
The rules should prohibit gifts completely, but they fail to do so.
That is why I have voted against the Nordmann report today.
I have voted for the Ford and Nordmann reports as first steps towards a system of rules on lobbying and economic openness for MEPs.
The reports are not sufficient, however.
Donations and gifts should not be allowed.
The lobby register should of course be public and anyone who so wishes should have access to it.
Industry and organisations should not be able to offer financial benefits to MEPs by appointing staff within companies or the equivalent who are in reality working for a particular MEP.
The European Parliament's accounts concerning MEPs' travelling and subsistence expenses should be public.
As everyone knows we are governed by the principle of not enjoying personal benefits accruing from the exercise of public activity.
That is why we call - and not only in the European Parliament - for greater transparency and an effective upgrading of the morals of politics.
With the moral authority of someone who not only calls for but also always applies these principles personally.
Therefore, our votes on the reports in question and amendments which have been tabled were determined by the following main aspects:
In respect of the Nordmann report:
The complete ban on Members of Parliament receiving, in the framework of their parliamentary duties, any amounts or other donations in addition to those to which they are institutionally entitled;
The total transparency and guarantee of maximum public information on Members' incomes from all sources.
In respect of the Ford report:
Total opposition to the institutional promotion of lobbying activity even when carried out under the cover of its own regulations;
Total opposition to the growing - albeit relative - obstruction of access to parliamentary activity by persons or entities not organised by the European Parliament;
Total opposition to the explicit or implicit 'legalisation' of the receipt, by Members of Parliament, of any benefits from lobbies.
In all honesty I do not really understand the Clochemerle-style goings-on of the last few days, which ended in Mr Nordmann's report being put back on the agenda.
If this report is approved - even supposing it is tightened up by the most radical of amendments and the Christian-Democrats' amendment is thus rejected - even then we shall have tackled no more than the tiniest tip of the iceberg of Euro-profiteering.
This is mere window-dressing.
It is cosmetic surgery designed to suggest that some real action is being taken against Euro-profiteering; profiteering which in recent months and, in contrast to what Mr Wilfried Martens said yesterday, has very properly come under fire from public opinion.
I note that we have a few hundred honourable Members in attendance today who accepted the offer of a bit of political tourism from the Turkish Government just prior to our vote on the customs union with Turkey.
I know that those who voted for this customs union were subsequently given a gift by the Turkish Government.
I see that this report does nothing to change the more than generous salaries and other remunerations paid to us Members of Parliament.
I see that this report does nothing to change the wholesale squandering by all kinds of European bodies of billions of taxpayers' money, nothing to change the enormous frauds over Community funds, nothing about the scandal of the European Parliament's building in Brussels, which has now cost twice the original estimate and has proved a nice little earner for certain financial groups with links to political parties.
In short, I shall vote for this report - assuming at least that the amendment of the European People's Party is rejected - but without the slightest enthusiasm and in the knowledge that it is nothing more than a political sop.
Obviously transparency is vital if citizens are to recognise themselves in their representatives.
I doubt that this report or any other will make any contribution to this, something that should be a fundamental objective of any politician.
Transparency can only result from a culture rooted in a concept of participatory and widespread citizenship and the concept of the State at the service of the citizen.
Otherwise, it would always be a game of illusion.
That is the case of this report for which I voted out of respect for my colleague and out of solidarity for my group - but without any conviction.
After considerable hesitation I have decided to vote with the Socialist Group on this report.
However, I consider Amendment No 7 by the GUE/NGL Group to be quite clearly better than that proposed in the report.
In Sweden it is perfectly natural that Members' annual declarations to the tax authorities of their incomes and assets should be public documents.
The same is true with regard to share ownership.
This should also be the rule for Members of the European Parliament.
It is wrong that contributions to Members in the form of staff or equipment provided on top of the generous secretarial allowance we receive today from Parliament should be permitted.
There are now far too many rich lobby organisations which provide Members with 'assistance' with their work.
It is only reasonable to suppose that this affects Members' attitudes on the substantive issues of the day.
A lobby organisation does not furnish a Member with staff and material resources out of pure idealism: they consider that they have something to gain from it.
Information on all the payments made by Parliament's 'Caisse des Députés' to each individual Member should also be public.
To summarise, I believe that this report could have gone much further in establishing rules on the ethics governing Members' work in Parliament.
Ford report
After considerable hesitation I have decided to vote with the Socialist Group on this report.
However, I consider Amendment No 4 by the GUE/NGL Group to be quite clearly better than that proposed in the report.
The report could have explained the conditions under which lobbyists are permitted to work in Parliament even more clearly.
The report should also have stated that it is extremely important that the people whose names appear in the lobby register should in some way provide assurances that they have not provided and do not intend to provide any kind of benefit, gift or service to Members, officials or assistants.
Such assurances, where given, should also be public and take the form of documents attached to the register.
I believe it is of the utmost importance that a proper examination is made of Parliament.
It is quite clear that MEPs are influenced by the attentions showered upon them today by rich and powerful pressure groups operating at EU level; these attentions include everything from free lunches to help with the services of assistants and gifts.
Measures must be taken.
Unfortunately it is apparent to me that this report does not go far enough to deal with the problems in the European Parliament at present concerning the behind the scenes influence of lobby organisations on political decisions.
BSE
Madam President, I should like to speak to the few colleagues who are willing to listen, because that seems to me to be the best way of voicing some feelings that could never be expressed on paper.
The joint resolution on which we have just voted has links with two other resolutions on the same subject, which were adopted by Parliament on 31 July and 19 December 1988.
Precisely eight years ago.
Those two documents called for information on the alarming news concerning cases of bovine spongiform encephalitis.
The disease, which had already been identified in 1986 by the UK's central veterinary laboratory, was, in 1987, the subject of epidemiological studies that indicated as its cause the use of meal produced from the meat and bones of ruminants.
It is hard to believe that the results of those studies did not reach the European Union's Veterinary Committee and, hence, the competent commission.
The outcome was that the problem exploded in all its gravity.
But what is even more scandalous is the fact that the sensational news was covered up, in 1990, by a high-ranking civil servant, so as not to damage the market.
The protection of public health and of the consumer was obviously nothing more than an optional item of the Treaties then.
But even though we have, since then, had the Maastricht Treaty, which has helped to increase awareness in many areas, we are still at stalemate as far as any concrete results are concerned.
And the situation is still the same, even after the debate and even after the explanations offered by President Santer and Commissioner Fischler.
Having shrugged off the responsibilities of their predecessors, these two have still not provided sufficient guarantees concerning unequivocal clarification and the punishment of those responsible.
Indeed, the ease with which unscrupulous traders are still managing to evade the embargo is deeply worrying.
I therefore believe that this document, together with the other two, of eight years ago, will end up in the book of records of demagogic outrage, lost opportunities and betrayed expectations.
Madam President, we voted for this resolution, which was drawn up jointly with most of the other groups.
We should have liked it to be more forceful in some points.
We should also have welcomed the adoption of the amendments that called quite explicitly for the appointment of a committee of inquiry.
Nevertheless, we assume that the resolution itself will result in a committee of inquiry being appointed.
Mr Santini, in his explanation of vote, clearly reiterated why this is necessary.
We now hope that this afternoon's Conference of Presidents will recommend the establishment of a committee of inquiry and that Parliament will be able to vote on it tomorrow and institute the committee in due form.
If it is necessary to use this new instrument, which has been available to us since Maastricht, the purpose of its use is not to act against the Commission, be it in the case of BSE or in any other case, but to work with the Commission in its present efforts to identify where faults have occurred with a view to ensuring that both Parliament and the Commission follow a consistent line in future in the implementation of measures against this BSE epidemic.
Madam President, someone - it was Charles Maurras - said that you should never despair in politics, not even of the European Parliament.
For those who remember the atmosphere in Brussels three months ago, I recall that no one wanted to know about responsibilities.
We were the only ones to use the word.
No civil responsibility for the Demulder brothers who manufactured the contaminated feeds in Britain.
No political responsibility for the Commission, and not even any political or criminal responsibility for Jacques Delors.
Today, the matter is resolved.
Everyone admits that we must, at last, talk about responsibility.
Parliament has just taken its first step. It is going to admit, I hope, this afternoon, the Commission of Inquiry.
It still has a second step to take, that of the Philippe de Villiers group, which tabled the motion of censure.
And finally, as a third step, it has to admit its philosophical responsibility, because before contamination through feeds we had contamination through ideas - the ideas of free trade, the elimination of borders, hyperproductivism.
The pathogenic agent has been a philosophical one.
In its handling of the 'mad cow' crisis, the Commission claims that it has always acted, within the limits of its powers and on the bases of the knowledge available to it at the time, in the best interests of public health in Europe.
Unfortunately, we have extensive evidence to the contrary, evidence that reveals radical malfunctions among the European institutions.
President Santer told us that the Commission must be judged by its acts and not on hearsay.
Since that is what he wants, let us talk about acts.
They show that, in the 'mad cow' crisis, the Commission has always been behindhand and has, if anything, endeavoured to restrain the initiatives of those Member States that were anxious to protect the health of their citizens, before following on willy-nilly in their wake.
In this context, the chronology of events is revealing.
Let us take a few examples.
It was 18 July 1988 that the United Kingdom decided to prohibit the use of bone meal in the feeding of ruminants; it was on 24 July 1990 that France took a similar decision; but it was not until 27 June 1994 that the European Commission adopted the same measure, although it had had all the necessary powers since the directives of 1989 and 1990.
The same applies to the imposing of the ban.
In May 1990, when France wanted to prohibit the importing of certain British beef and veal products, the European Commission threatened to bring proceedings against France before the Court of Justice, as recently recalled by Henri Nallet, the former Minister of Agriculture.
That action would have been brought on charges of interference with freedom of trade.
Indeed, the Commission later repeated its error: in February 1996, when five German Länder unilaterally prohibited imports of British beef and veal into their territory, the Commission dared to bring proceedings against the German Government, once again for obstructing the free movement of goods, which seems to be its one and only obsession.
It was not until the following March, when thirteen Member States in succession prohibited the importing of British beef and veal on their own initiative, that the Commission eventually gave way.
Consequently, if we judge it by its acts, as its President wants us to, the Commission has to be found guilty.
It is quite obvious that at every stage it was more concerned with pursuing its utopia of a European super-State with no internal frontiers than with the health and safety of its citizens - exactly as it is still doing today in another area, the area of border controls on individuals.
There is nothing accidental about this deplorable attitude: on the contrary, it reflects the constant priorities of the Commission, those same priorities which have isolated that institution from public opinion.
Conversely, it must indeed be recognized that the Member States, more in touch with the concerns of their populations, have at every stage done the right thing, even though the Commission obstructed them on each occasion before eventually trailing along behind.
This is the context in which we need to see the disclosure of certain internal Commission matters, such as the unacceptable pressures brought to bear on the experts of the Scientific Committee for Food, as disclosed by the press, and the astounding meeting of 12 October 1990, where European officials calmly discussed campaigns of disinformation to deceive the consumers.
These facts are not anecdotal. They confirm the priority that the Commission attaches to free trade, even at the expense of human health, and its determination to conceal the failures attributable to its misdirection of the movement towards European union.
These manoeuvres also show that a very worrying state of mind prevails within the Commission: the Commission believes it is the keeper of a higher truth - higher than the nation states, higher than Europe's citizens, and ultimately even higher than democracy.
This state of mind is all the more dangerous in that the Commission has exorbitant powers, such as the monopoly right of initiative.
We believe that, as things stand, the European Union can no longer tolerate this situation if it is not to be plunged into the abyss.
That is why we demand that the intergovernmental conference should at last remind the Commission of its true role, which is a subordinate one.
BSE is just one disease brought about by a sick agricultural policy, and the Commission should take the opportunity to restructure this policy systematically, so that taxpayers' money is only used in future to support production conditions which we can justify in terms of an environmentally threatened planet, animal welfare and human health.
At the moment, we are directly encouraging the spread of animal disease through our systems of support.
We are paying extra for animals to be mistreated, and making extra payments to those who are polluting our groundwater by using more fertilizer, thereby posing a threat to the health of future generations.
The more that is produced, the more support is triggered.
The more that goes into surplus stocks, the greater the support.
The more that is destroyed, the more support we provide.
The more allergyproducing colourings that are added to conceal the lower quality, and penicillin to increase the shelf life, the more is milked from the EU's coffers.
We should be calling a halt to this madness and reorganizing things, so that any support only encourages decent goals such as animal welfare, human health, the cleanliness of our planet and farmers' incomes.
A new agriculture policy would hardly give landowners with 1000 hectares ten times as much subsidy as farmers with 100 hectares, ecological landowners would hardly receive less subsidy than those who use pesticides, and there would no doubt be fewer animal diseases among livestock which are not farmed as intensively as they are today.
That is what we should all be thinking, now in the era of BSE.
I voted in favour of the resolution on BSE, because of the assurances given by Commissioner Fischler that full background information would be made available on all measures taken by the Commission and other EU authorities since the early 1980s and because of the further research which has been announced.
In the interests of public health and of beef as a safe product these investigations must not, however, be an excuse for delaying tactics in the handling of the BSE affair, behind which the Commission can take refuge.
I would thus ask you to give Parliament a time scale for the management of this affair.
The scourge of BSE is destroying the beef industry throughout Europe.
The Florence agreement gives us the opportunity to rebuild the industry but it will take some time yet.
We must proceed with haste to eradicate BSE from Europe, but we must above all return confidence to the consumer and this will only occur with the progress of time.
The Commission must bring in immediate new proposals to prepare for what will be a very difficult trading period in the autumn.
I do not believe we need or require any special committee, the present proposals are sufficient and capable of restoring confidence.
All such a committee can achieve is further public debate.
Contrary to the statements made by Mr Santer, scientific information existed from 1990 onwards suggesting first that BSE could cross the species barrier and secondly a connection between Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans and BSE in ruminants.
As evidence, I cite a neurological textbook dating from 1978, used by French medical students, which was already putting forward strong presumptions of similarity between the illness detected in man and that found in monkeys.
We all know that medicine is not a cartesian science, like mathematics.
Experts have never been able to establish any certainties about the risks associated with this illness. But the Commission at the time, under Mr Delors's presidency, should have been the guarantor of consumer health protection and should therefore have taken radical steps from 1990 onwards.
And today, what has been done?
For example, has there been any serious research into possible transmission through milk? You must understand that we can no longer settle for vague replies - we have lost the confidence of our constituents.
The European Parliament's Commission of Inquiry is an obligatory step.
It will have to determine responsibilities at all levels: European institutions, governments, the animal feed industry, etc.
The Court of Justice will have to impose exemplary penalties, and only then will we be able once again to think in terms of confidence and of relaunching the consumption of beef and veal.
Madam President, I am amazed that there have been no explanations of vote on the calendar of part-sessions.
I recall perfectly that there were such explanations last year, and I draw my authority from the case law of President Hänsch, who said just now that the example of what happened last year must be followed in every detail.
Well, last year there were explanations of vote on the calendar and I want to make one on behalf of my group.
There was no final vote on the calendar.
For that reason there are no explanations of vote on the calendar.
I quite understand, Madam President, but last year the practice was different. There were explanations of vote on the calendar, and I cannot see why we are not following the same course this time.
Madam President, one thing you said was very important.
There has been, as you say, no final vote on the calendar.
But as this item appeared on the agenda, I think that this vote should be taken now.
And I hereby call for the vote to be taken.
There has never been a final vote; we have always simply voted on the individual part-sessions.
The draft calendar was on the table, and amendments may be made to it, but as a general rule there is no final vote.
Amendments can be tabled.
If a specific amendment is adopted, the calendar is altered accordingly, but there is no final vote on the calendar in its entirety.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, pursuant to Rules 127 and 108 of the Rules of Procedure of Parliament I wish to beg the indulgence of yourself and the House, if possible, to clarify remarks which I made this morning.
During the lunch break several Members from different groups across the House came to me and gave a different interpretation to what I had said, stating that they had felt personally insulted and aggrieved by my remarks.
To that end I wish to put on the official record that I intended no insult or aggression to any individual Member within this House and I wish to apologize unreservedly if my remarks were open to a different interpretation.
My main point was that this Parliament must not only uphold democracy and freedom of speech - it must be seen to do so.
My analogy with particular types of political movements was an attempt to reinforce my argument that this Parliament and this House in particular must abide by the balance of powers and the different competencies attributed to the different institutions in the European Union.
I wish to apologize unreservedly to all Members for any personal insult they may have felt.
Thank you very much, Mr Crawley.
I am happy to take note of the rectification which you have pointed out and today's minutes will be amended accordingly.
Progress in CFSP (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on report (A4-0175/96) by Mr Fernández-Albor, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on progress in implementing the common foreign and security policy January-December 1995).
Mr President, do not worry because I am not going to deliver a long speech: there is no time for that.
But, first of all, I would like to say that I am pleased with the declaration which I have just heard because I think that it is wise to amend one's mistakes.
In respect of the Fernández Albor report, I should like to say on behalf of the group of the party of European Socialists that, in our opinion, this report is a fairly complete and balanced assessment of the European Union's activity in the field of the CFSP in 1995.
On behalf of my group, I should like to take note of the important declaration made by Mr Fernández Albor at the end of his speech, about his position on the subject of deterrents - something he is right has never been dealt with and I think that we ought to deal with it separately in due time; as far what was said by the Council, I should like to thank, although the President-in-Office of the Council is not here, but he was here this morning, Mr Spring, who read out to us a very complete report of everything that the Union did in 1995 and so far in 1996.
I was very pleased to hear that.
We already knew it but it is always good to hear people say that we are doing something.
In that respect I should like to point out that the Council's enthusiasm for developing the CFSP should also, however, lead it to support not only the considerations given to it in the Intergovernmental Conference but also developing and applying the Treaty; I think we must therefore call seriously upon the Council to support fulfilment of Article 7.
But we should not only criticise the Council and the Commission and if you allow me Mr President, in the time which remains, I must also criticise Parliament and the presidency, because I had the honour and responsibility of adding to the Fernández Albor report a recommendation which, I know not why, the presidency of the European Parliament has referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
What is planned by the Committee on Foreign Affairs is something very simple: what can be done by the Intergovernmental Conference is very good but progress has to be made.
In order to make progress and to learn from our mistakes and to meet the expectations of our fellow citizens in the European Union, what we have to do is make sure that the CFSP is governed by majority and is included in the Community budget and, as far as possible, that we develop our abilities to apply preventive diplomacy in our own camp.
Mr President, I have to say that it makes a great impression on me when there are many people in the Chamber, because sitting here there are indeed representatives of nations which have fought each other over hundreds of years.
Now at least they are sitting down and talking to one another.
One might well call that progress in terms of security policy.
And then we read in the newspapers that Europe is moving into a crisis once again.
It is going from one crisis to another, according to the newspapers, but at least that is better than before, when the countries were going from one war to another.
All things considered, one may wonder at the fact that Europe has survived.
Europe, this damsel in distress - and as a Phoenician princess she was indeed a member of the female sex - has been mutilated time and again by its inhabitants, and after the last major war in this part of the world, in 1945, she actually became the lady who is sawn in two, with one half in the East and the other in the West.
Since then, she has been sewn together again to some extent, but she has not emerged from the experience unscathed.
New confrontations lie in wait for us on the map.
The constant task for Europe and the EU must now be to detect and counter new dangerous situations, before they end up as full-scale confrontations such as that in the Balkans.
An analysis centre such as that envisaged in Brussels is important.
It could also be called a look-out post or a watch-tower.
Using such means, we should be better equipped to help stabilize dangerous situations, and certainly to recognize them in time.
I also see this as the philosophy behind a reinforced common foreign and security policy in the EU, but such a policy cannot just be seen as one of fire protection, designed to extinguish the fire after it has broken out.
It must also be an instrument for creating a whole culture of preventive security - a culture of security for the old world, for Europe, and that is why I am in favour of working further in that direction through a general, reinforced foreign and security policy which is aimed at the whole of Europe.
I have to express my reservations regarding one point, however.
This concerns paragraph 21 of the report, which refers to a common system of deterrence.
This must be taken to mean nuclear weapons, as I read it, and I do not feel that I can agree to this, at a time when we are constantly trying to do away with nuclear weapons, and when we are talking about nuclear non-proliferation agreements in Geneva and elsewhere.
Moreover, in the view of the Conservative People's Party, nuclear weapons are a matter for NATO, and that is why I have reservations concerning paragraph 21 - and I am pleased to see that I am not alone, but have the support of my fellow Scandinavians, as I might put it.
As a little twist in the tail, and with your permission, Mr President, I should like to present the compliments of one of my fellow countrymen.
He is pursuing a more European policy than most, at least just at the moment.
His name is Bjarne Riis.
He is Danish, and he is currently leading the Tour de France .
He is riding for a German firm, and his family lives in Luxembourg.
You can meet him on Friday in Paris, and I wish you all a good time!
Mr President, firstly I would like to convey a very warm and hearty welcome to the Irish Minister for European Affairs on this, his first visit to a plenary session of the European Parliament.
It is not his first visit to Strasbourg - he has been here on quite a number of occasions to prepare the groundwork in a careful way for a successful presidency, which I very much hope and am sure will emerge.
It is not yet clear if any decisive moves will be taken in 1996 to start serious work on what the Maastricht Treaty describes as the eventual framing of a common defence policy.
It is not yet clear, for that matter, how far Member States are prepared to go in framing a common security policy.
Recently, when asked how far I thought certain Members would go in foreign policy, I said I would be convinced of the intentions of colleagues when I saw Members of the Union who hold permanent seats on the Security Council of the United Nations offering one of those seats to Europe.
That in itself would be a test of how far countries are prepared to go.
In the field of defence, regardless of what common policy elements are adopted, I believe that Member States will continue to play different roles.
There is no suggestion to hand at yet, for example, that France or Britain is ready to hand over its independent nuclear deterrent to the WEU or to some new European defence organization.
For my part I believe that Ireland would be very reluctant to become part of a defence alliance still committed in certain circumstances to the use of nuclear weapons.
On the contrary, we want to see the dismantling of nuclear institutions which, if they are involved in bad accidents, could certainly bring a lot of ruin and disaster to the Member States of the European Union.
I believe that we have a duty to contribute to the upholding of peace but I think it legitimate to do so in a manner true to our own traditions.
The eventual framing of a common defence policy should allow Member States to play different roles - which they will do in any case - and to make different contributions.
Mr President, we are grateful to the rapporteur who is, moreover, the new chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, for his excellent report.
He unerringly picks out the weak points and proves once again that the Community structures of the first pillar are far better able to manage foreign policy than the intergovernmental CFSP.
1995 was a successful year for international agreements but an extremely poor and depressing year for the CFSP.
The report says that very clearly.
Both the quality and quantity of common positions were significantly poorer than in 1994.
Of the ten common initiatives only three were truly new.
The others were continuations or amended versions of initiatives taken in 1994.
Full use is not being made of the potential which the common foreign and security policy offers.
Although the Commission has had joint power of initiative since Maastricht, it made no use of it at all in 1995.
Even though Maastricht sometimes allowed qualified majority voting in the Council, all decision taken in 1995 were reached on the basis of unanimity.
Moreover, the Council gave no response at all to the European Parliament's recommendations concerning the common policy and our call for a common defence policy is being totally ignored.
Disappointing results on the common foreign policy front meant that the Union continued to be unrepresented on the world stage and it meant that the expectations awakened in the public mind were disappointed.
It remains to be seen how the Union will act over extending the mandate of IFOR to identify and arrest war criminals in former Yugoslavia.
The IGC must equip the European Union with a proper common policy as promised during the Maastricht summit.
Mr President, the actions of the EU Member States and the European Union are of course crucial to security in Europe.
It is also crucial that a real analysis should be conducted of where exactly the insecurity lies as regards threats to security from the rest of the world.
We can see several such areas of insecurity, such as the situation in the Balkans with the terrible war which has been conducted there and the need for the war criminals to be condemned by a lasting peace.
We can see that certain countries in Eastern Europe, such as Albania and Belarus, are sliding back into authoritarian forms of government.
This can even be said to some extent of countries like Croatia.
We can see enormous social and economic problems on our doorsteps, such as in Ukraine, and in North Africa.
This situation holds considerable risks for us and these include major security risks which must be dealt with using methods which are truly effective and which are in proportion to the risks.
Against this background the present report is to some extent a disappointment, because it argues very traditionally along military lines.
Common defence is discussed.
Paragraph 21 talks of a common system of deterrence.
This cannot be interpreted as meaning anything other than a common nuclear defence.
I do not believe this line of thinking provides any solution to the problem facing us, rather it is what one might call a 'non-solution' .
What is needed is stability, social and economic development in Eastern Europe and North Africa.
Real pan-European cooperation within the UN and within the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is required.
This is the only way that cooperation with the countries concerned can be achieved.
I believe that the military course represents the vestiges of an old Cold War mentality which is actually obsolete and which cannot survive.
We will therefore support the amendments by the Socialists and the Greens.
The most important of course concerns paragraph 21.
I hope that my children and other people's will grow up without the nuclear threat with which we grew up.
If we review the progress made towards a common foreign policy we see that 1995 was a year of very intense activity, especially as far as treaties and agreements are concerned - I am thinking of MERCOSUR, the Barcelona conference and so on.
But if we analyse the instruments which the Union deployed to this end, we have not really moved forward much from European Political Cooperation.
We have not made use of the opportunities afforded by the Maastricht Treaty.
Specifically on current events, of which European Union citizens have some expectations - either events on our own doorstep, former Yugoslavia for instance, or further afield, above all the Great Lakes region in Africa - we see that there was a spectacularly effective Union presence, with humanitarian aid, but that sadly the Union was unable to exert any influence in bringing a political solution any closer.
It is precisely this, a truly constructive presence and the ability to help bring about a political solution, which will give our citizens a positive picture of the Union's foreign policy, which sadly they do not have at the moment.
On the one hand, of all the reports I have ever seen, there has never yet been one which paid as much attention as this does to preventing conflicts and as far as possible using peaceful means to obtain political solutions.
In this respect I find the report most encouraging.
On the other hand there are still of course a number of things which are hard to swallow and paragraph 21 is the hardest of all.
Primarily because it talks unashamedly of deterrence when it clearly means nuclear power.
We hope that Mr Sakellariou's amendment will be accepted here because it makes a correction in respect of these proposed deterrent systems, and secondly because it calls for action to be taken on the demand made in Mr Rocard's report for a centre providing analysis and proposals for active involvement.
Agreement on the feeble achievements of the Common Foreign Security Policy for 1995, disagreement on the necessary steps to correct current practice - this is the dual judgement by the Europe of Nations Group on the Fernández-Albor report.
We have embarked upon a process which generates both inconsistency at Community level and the undermining of national diplomacy, since the theoretical existence of a common foreign policy tends to provide an alibi for inertia and a desire to reduce national resources.
How can we prevent this dual process of drift, and return to the straight and narrow? Certainly not by communitizing the CFSP, nor by trying to define a single foreign policy, the only result of which would be the adoption of totally artificial and anti-democratic objectives.
The establishment of a genuine CFSP would involve, according to the report, and I quote, learning to share sovereignty equitably.
This expression is an outrageous one: sovereignty is not for sharing - at the very most it may be delegated in some cases when nations so decide.
If any attempt is made to bring into existence a genuine CFSP, utilizing the community method and calling into question its intergovernmental nature, even though that is enshrined in the Treaties, and setting up a European corps diplomatique which is dependent on the Commission, failure will inevitably result.
Let those Member States which desire a genuine CFSP start by controlling the galloping inflation afflicting the self-proclaimed embassies of the Commission's external services, while the real embassies, vested with powers and networks which should make them the effective channel for implementing the CFSP, see their resources eroded.
In order for a genuine CFSP to come into existence, it is necessary to start from the facts and, as a first step, compile an inventory of those interests and needs which are genuinely common.
Next, it is necessary to measure the degree of political will that exists to defend those interests jointly.
The result may be a multi-track system, depending on the areas in question.
Where should this permanent inventory of interests shared by our countries in the field of foreign policy be kept? The institutional device best capable of providing this function will be one that strengthens its intergovernmental character and gives it its full effectiveness while reinforcing the part played by the institutions that represent the wills of the Member States.
In these fields of foreign and defence policy, which are at the heart of the sovereign powers of the Member States, it is therefore essential to strengthen the role of the Council and of the national Parliaments.
This reorientation is equally essential in the context of the enlargement of the Union to include nations which certainly have no intention of abdicating the essential powers of sovereignty that they have just recovered at the end of a long ideological winter.
This is why we have proposed the appointment, within the Council and under its authority, of a permanent VicePresident responsible for the CFSP and possessed of a sufficiently long-term mandate.
We would also like to see an end to the artificial separation between foreign policy as such and trade policy, which is an essential part of it.
The minister responsible for the CFSP would therefore also have to be responsible for its trade aspect.
This adjustment of the institutional balance would need to be one of the priorities of the intergovernmental conference.
This is a necessary condition if a genuine common foreign policy is eventually to come into being, the sufficient condition naturally being the political will of the Member States, the absence of which cannot, quite obviously, be compensated for by any institutional device at all.
Mr President, the report on progress on the Common Foreign and Security Policy gives Parliament a welcome opportunity to discuss this important topic.
A large majority here approves the objective of making the EU's foreign and security policy more effective, to enable us to strengthen peace and security both in our own Continent and throughout the world.
At the same time, however, we come up against the differences arising from different countries' different historical experiences.
Three new Member States, Finland, Sweden and Austria, which do not belong to any military alliance, bring a new approach into the Union.
It has sometimes been hard to explain, for example, that Finland's non-aligned status is not just a way of getting a free ride in security terms but, in our view, increases the security at this time in Northern Europe, and in particular the Baltic.
Neither must our non aligned status hinder our active involvement in designing and bringing about a common foreign and security policy.
In life as in politics, clean cut solutions are rarely sensible.
It is necessary to do what is unavoidable and possible.
We must beware of solutions which may lead to an increase in tension and a new military division.
Getting stuck in a traditional military political viewpoint does not benefit us.
At the same time if the common foreign and security policy is to be made more effective in the EU, particularly in the fields of crisis prevention and crisis management, we must develop cooperation on the basis of the NATO Partnership for Peace Programme.
I am glad that my own Social Democratic Group uses a wide interpretation of 'security' and understands different approaches.
I warmly support the amendments made on behalf of Jannis Sakellariou.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we can welcome the fact that Article J.7 of the Treaty on European Union allows us to have an annual debate on the implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Unfortunately, our finding is that the implementation is not entirely satisfactory.
First, we can recall with pleasure the fact that the Union has adjusted the balance of its medium-term collaboration with Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, and that it has signed agreements with Morocco, Tunisia, Israel, South America and certain Asian countries. We can recognize a degree of inefficiency in the negotiations on the former Yugoslavia, where America still holds the diplomatic initiative, with Russia, where the Chechen problem remains untouched, and with Turkey, the Middle East, Burundi and Rwanda.
All of these, as the rapporteur emphasizes, and I congratulate him on his carefully documented work, result from the fact that declarations by the Council do not involve any specific decision by the Member States.
The fact is that there is no genuine political will in the Union within this area, and that is linked to our permanent vacillation as to what we want our Europe to become!
Secondly, as far as common security is concerned, the only decisive action is still the prohibition of antipersonnel mines, while in the field of human rights, we, personally, would prefer to see the European Union doing more about the constantly threatened security of its own citizens before worrying about what is happening outside its common borders.
In conclusion, we can only deplore the way our Parliament is disregarded by the Council, which makes no political response to our recommendations and supplies us with no regular written information - something which is essential for better cooperation between institutions and a better definition of a genuine common policy with clearly defined objectives.
Mr President, it is a little late in the day to be discussing progress in the Common Foreign and Security Policy more than six months after the end of 1995.
However, have we made any progress in this field and, if so, what have we achieved?
The customs union with Turkey is a partial victory for the European Union because some of the conditions we set for approval were met.
The human rights situation in the country is still far from satisfactory, however.
The human rights clauses in international agreements are a major step in the right direction but they will continue to be worth no more than the paper they are written on if they do not result in practical action.
We in the European Parliament can certainly congratulate ourselves on our commitment to the reconstruction work in the former Yugoslavia.
However, should it not have been the object of CFSP to prevent the human tragedies which also occurred in 1995? You only have to think of Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Krajina and many other places.
CFSP must entail preventive action, not just a response after the event to assuage our guilty consciences.
Experience shows therefore that what is really needed is an extension of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
In my view NATO will continue in the future too to form the basis of our continent's military security - and this will include a US presence.
Of course consideration needs to be given to the shape we, with the help of the WEU, will give to the European pillar.
In any event, there must not be still more bureaucracy to demonstrate our ability to manage by ourselves.
It is important that in the future too NATO should move more in the direction of crisis management, which might perhaps enable those countries, including mine, which are at present militarily nonaligned to join in due course.
I should also like to say that IFOR is an example of how NATO countries and non-aligned countries can together carry out a military operation in an atmosphere of excellent mutual understanding.
Mr President, despite certain reservations we welcome the content of these documents, with which we can identify to a great extent.
For that reason we also regret the minimal progress that has been made in developing our common foreign and security policy, especially in the sphere of defence policy.
For the same reason we especially regret the indecision of the Austrian Federal Government in this matter, because it ought to have recognized long ago that neutrality has no place in a community such as the EU and results in a free ride for some Member States, reflecting a lack of solidarity.
We are not happy with the practice of the European Parliament, in which it also indulges to some extent in this report, of putting forward too many utopian demands and resolutions that bear little relation to realistic foreign policy, which is primarily a means of asserting and safeguarding Community interests rather than an instrument for improving the world.
In the domain of CFSP, we are more in favour of restricting ourselves to a few priority areas of particular importance instead of pursuing a watering-can policy, which may be visible everywhere but is not effective in any single area.
Mr President, my Group and I also compliment Mr Fernández-Albor on his report.
It is a competent analysis and shows that the Union and above all the Commission were very active last year in a wide range of areas.
The rapporteur's account is in part highly critical of the CFSP and it covers the period 1995 when the Union showed itself incapable of taking a lead over the situation in former Yugoslavia.
That role was left more or less to the United States.
I think that did little to imprint the Union's identity on the minds of the rest of the world, an identity which is largely recognizable only to citizens of the EU.
The rapporteur rightly notes that a lot has been said on a lot of subjects, but that little has been done in the area of security.
Unfortunately the rapporteur thinks that only a number of giant steps will get us out of this situation.
Only if the Union has a common defence policy and a common system of deterrence can it develop a true CFSP.
That includes too a kind of obligation to provide assistance.
He also wants a European Civil Peace Corps.
We think he should have mooted this peace corps earlier.
A Union which has the decision-making machinery and the capacity to conduct peace-keeping missions is already one step ahead.
This, rather than far more ambitious objectives like a common system of collective defence, should be the focus of attention in the immediate future.
Priority should be given to an IFOR-style peace-keeping force of the kind we have in Bosnia and to a EU planning and analysis unit.
The Union may perhaps be put to the test next year in Bosnia.
I think, for example, that NATO's Berlin declaration offers a good starting point on which to build a development of this kind.
My view is that defence cooperation should be devised primarily on an empirical basis along the lines I suggested and not by formulating objectives which will prove unattainable in the years ahead.
Mr President, without oversimplifying things, a judgement of common foreign and defence policy could be summarized thus: we do what we can, but not always.
The boundaries within which CFSP can operate are necessarily tight and prevent us from speaking of any real foreign policy, just as the ambiguous relationship between the European Union and WEU prevents us from speaking of any real common defence policy.
To be able to do either, there would have needed to be a real defence community, but plans for that fell by the wayside some forty years ago.
So, we must now content ourselves with taking potluck, and the pot must be pretty empty if foreign policy is hopelessly inconsistent, or downright non-existent, at times of dire crisis or when a deterrent is needed.
Harmonization of the individual Member States' foreign policies is undoubtedly a laudable expression of good will, but, when it comes to major issues, it comes to a grinding halt, blocked by the disparate interests of the individual Member States.
WEU, which could be one of the strong points of a hoped-for foreign policy, is little more than a paper army and, what is more, not all Member States of the Union are members of WEU.
How can we implement a CFSP that is in danger of remaining a non-entity without a common defence policy and a common system of deterrence?
How can we implement a foreign policy when the concept of European sovereignty is clearly absent? It is on the answers to these questions that the future of Europe depends, if Europe is to be more than a monetary union, which is already difficult enough and is most certainly important, but like a single swallow it does not make a summer.
In the meantime, I call upon the Commission to take courage and seize all the opportunities offered by the Treaty - something it has not always done because, in its timidity, it is aware of national governments' relentless watch on its powers.
But forcing the issue is the duty of any body called upon not to be the agent of national governments' will but to serve as part of an embryonic European government - for embryos can and must grow if they are not to be still-born.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to compliment the chairman of the committee and my dear friend, Mr Fernández-Albor, on the well drafted report he has presented us with.
This report deserves our full agreement since it refers to the significant development of the conventional activity of the European Union in foreign policy and at the same time, unfortunately, with reason, it refers to the fact that after more than two years we have got no further in defining the instruments of a Common Foreign and Security Policy.
My agreement with this report is strengthened since it refers to and emphasises the fact that, without a common defence policy, the European Union cannot have a strong, effective and credible foreign policy.
I should like to make a short but special reference to paragraphs 20 and 21 of the report.
A common defence policy, which is the very basis of an external policy of the European Union, calls for universal active cooperation by all Member States of the Union.
Neutrality or non-participation by certain Member States are positions which might be pleasing for a time and politically convenient, as well as economically comfortable, but they are far away from the principle of solidarity which cannot not only be applied to economics and which is now the very basis of the Union.
I should like to end with a slight dig at the report.
Although it is fashionable to forget and even condemn our allies in certain circumstances I think that, since it deals with defence policy, it might be right and proper for this report to spare a small word for our allies.
It seems that we only remember our allies when our own house is at risk.
This report has two sides to it.
It can be unreservedly supported in its criticism of the shortcomings, restrictions and limited effectiveness of the Union's common foreign-policy stance.
As far as my own country is concerned, I can say that our neutrality has neither prevented us from participating in any previous initiatives nor will it prevent us from not only actively supporting but also helping to shape this common international policy of the Union.
But there is also a second side to this report, and that is the presentation of its strategy for defence policy, with which I - and no doubt others too - have certain problems.
Talk of Europe as a power with a deterrent capacity sends a shiver down the spine, not of the potential enemies of Europe but of the peoples of this continent.
I consider it wrong to want to make the Union into a nuclear power.
The potential strength of this Union is a broad security partnership with those States that are not yet Members or that may never become Members.
Austria, with its neutrality, has no problem at all in participating in the dynamic further development of the Union.
But a warning needs to be voiced in good time against any development that could ultimately result in this whole Union also assuming the status of a military pact.
Mr President, I do not know whether Mr Kone&#x010D;ny was with us when the rapporteur, Mr Fernández-Albor, was speaking, because he expressly pointed out that the report did not relate to nuclear weapons, and for that reason I can give it my wholehearted support.
One thing is clear, namely that Europe must have the means of acting in a timely and effective manner to prevent future crises.
Nothing has done more to harm the European ideal and the good name of the European Union than the lack of such means in the case of the former Yugoslavia.
That is why this shortcoming has to be rectified, which is one of the paramount tasks of our foreign and security policy.
In so doing, we must not create a situation in which a qualified majority can be prevented by a minority from engaging in peacekeeping and peacemaking operations.
That implies, of course, and cannot but imply, that the outvoted minority, whose parliaments and governments have good reason for being unable to participate in such operations, cannot for their part be compelled to assign troops to the task force.
This, needless to say, does not affect the obligation to show solidarity with the other Member States of the EU: any aggression against the Union is tantamount to an attack on each and every Member State.
The solidarity obligation is necessary here and must also be incorporated into the Treaty on European Union.
The delegation of the Austrian People's Party therefore supports the motion for a resolution, and we also believe that we are thereby fulfilling the terms of the declaration made by Austria on its accession, in which it expressed its interest in a common foreign and security policy as well as its willingness to cooperate in the creation of this common foreign, security and defence policy.
The present coalition Government of Socialists and People's Party have stated in their working agreement that we as Austrians intend to be among the leading proponents of further development of the Union.
That applies to the Schengen Agreement, it applies to economic and monetary union and it applies to the common foreign and security policy, because here too we want to play a creative role and because we see this as the great advantage of our membership, which we want to be an active and cooperative contribution with all our partners to the development of Europe.
Mr President, in my opinion Mr Fernández-Albor's opinion expresses an outdated, cold war thinking.
It is based on threats which belong to the past, and it seeks security solutions which cannot possibly promote security.
Europe's current fundamental security structures are fulfilling their tasks well.
One positive feature of these structures is the neutrality of four EU Member States.
There is no military threat on the horizon which would be a reason for the European Union changing into a military alliance by uniting with the Western European Union.
NATO and the WEU as at present constituted make a positive contribution to the security of Europe as a whole.
However, we have before us the question of the enlargement of NATO.
We must of course respect the right of every European State to apply for membership of NATO and NATO's right to accept new members.
On the other hand we must ask whether there is a real need for the enlargement of NATO and whether it would increase the security of Europe. Would joining NATO really strengthen a State's security?
What effect would such enlargement have on those States which remain outside? Would it increase or weaken Europe's military stability?
In my opinion, Europe's security can best be promoted by preserving the current basic military security structures and by developing pan-European and transatlantic security cooperation on that basis within the framework of the OSCE, the NACC and the Partnership for Peace.
On the other hand it is important to develop peaceful cooperation which will promote stability and democracy in the Eastern parts of our Continent.
The European Union must tighten its cooperation with all the States of Europe and must promote pan-European integration by exploiting, inter alia , the possibilities offered by the OSCE and the Council of Europe.
The EU's common foreign and security policy must be developed but it must be based on unanimity among the Member States, and it must respect the differing security policy choices of the Member States.
Mr President, broadly speaking, I welcome this report, which is an improvement on last year's attempt by Parliament to build elaborate and ambitious castles in the air.
Mr Fernández-Albor has stuck much more closely to the practicalities of the issue and, as a consequence, has made some telling points.
Even this report, however, sometimes slips into discussing the grandiose and the theoretical.
Foreign and security policy is the most sensitive area of national sovereignty.
We have, therefore, to learn to walk before we can run and we should be getting the basics right before we start constructing more ambitious models.
Firstly, we need a clear understanding of the purpose and objectives of a common foreign policy.
At the moment we have 15 national foreign policies.
Recently a German Council official told me that his Brussels office might as well be in Bonn, as his main point of reference was the German Foreign Ministry.
Secondly, we need a proper mechanism for day-to-day decision-making in foreign policy.
Too often in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy we ask the CFSP secretariat what the EU stance on a particular situation is, only to be told that we do not have one because the Foreign Ministers have not met yet to discuss the matter.
I am afraid crises do not wait for the convenience of EU Foreign Ministers.
No wonder Richard Holbrooke recently boasted that Europe slept while President Clinton resolved a particular European crisis.
Thirdly, the current chaotic situation regarding finance must end.
Operational expenditure must come from the Community budget.
Unfortunately, the Fernández-Albor report's biggest weakness is the call for a common deterrent.
This is, frankly, nonsense.
Just when we are coming to grips with the changing security demands of the post-Cold War world; just when people are beginning to understand that security is as much about economic and political stability as diplomatic and military action; just when the Petersberg tasks on humanitarian aid and peacekeeping were agreed as an objective of our security policy, Parliament comes along with a demand for a common deterrent.
That is not the way to build a new security framework for the new European situation.
Mr President, too many dysfunctions, too many discords, too many repeated false notes!
CSFP is still an unfinished symphony, and as such it is much more a source of disappointments and frustrations than of satisfaction or pride.
In 1995, Richard Holbrook took charge of things in the former Yugoslavia, showing the way in terms of determination and high profile.
He also derided the Europeans to the extent that some have seen it as a model of the leadership which Europe should be providing in its own backyard.
Clearly, the suggestions regarding a Mr CFSP take their cue from this American example.
The fact that Mr Holbrook has been back on duty since yesterday should really give us something to think about.
The CFSP is certainly one of the areas to which public opinion is - and has been made - highly sensitive.
It expects an affirmation of Europe's international role, greater resolution and more capacity for action.
But his expectations are often disappointed, because - apart from a declaratory diplomacy which usually trails along behind the course of events - we too frequently offer a distressing spectacle of endless domestic strife and paralysis when it comes to action.
Failing some radical and sudden improvement in our performance, it would surely be appropriate to change the title of our report: rather than referring to progress in implementing the CSFP, it would I fear be more appropriate to place the emphasis for the present on the problems of getting it started.
And yet we know the answers. First, we should equip ourselves with a common analytical and planning capability.
Next, it would be valuable to take more advantage of political and financial solidarity.
And finally, we absolutely must improve the decision-taking mechanisms so as to increase the prospects of reaching agreement more frequently on joint action before it is too late.
In short, the time has come to acquire the resources to match up to our ambitions!
Mr President, progress on implementing the CFSP has been very meagre. In fact, in the public mind the European Union does not have a common foreign policy.
It is indicative that the Council has not made use of the instruments and mechanisms specifically provided for in the Maastricht Treaty.
In the last year it has adopted only three common measures and five common positions, and the Commission has not exercised its right of initiative at all.
The Council has, in addition, ignored recommendations from the European Parliament on crucial matters including the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, Turkey, in relation to which the European Union continues to display insufficient sensitivity on human rights issues, and on the Cyprus question, on which - despite the European Parliament's resolution - the Council is essentially refusing to undertake an initiative in the form of joint actions which could help towards a solution of the problem.
The European Union must develop a coherent foreign policy of its own if it is truly serious about welcoming in new members and about playing a viable role on the world stage.
It must have a foreign policy which can contribute to the promotion of peace, stability and security and respect for human rights, international law and the territorial integrity of the Member States.
A policy which can set a new standard in international relations.
To that end it will be necessary to put in place the requisite institutions and mechanisms, and above all else, to elicit the requisite political will from the leaderships of the Member States, and from the leaderships of the powerful Member States in particular, and to ensure that those states understand that they cannot play a role by themselves on the world stage in disregard of the other partners or work for the creation of a controlling group of just a few countries for the purpose of imposing their views and positions on the remainder.
The IGC which is now in progress is a challenge. It offers the European Union an opportunity to make progress on the CFSP and, at the same time, to formulate a security and defence policy and strengthen its supranational institutions.
In concluding, Mr President, I wish to say that the Fernández Albor report gives a clear presentation of the situation and offers a number of interesting ideas and proposals.
Mr President, even the Roman Cicero knew, two thousand years ago, that there are two ways of resolving conflicts: through negotiations or through force. As he said, the former is intended for people, the second for wild beasts.
This piece of wisdom still applies today.
How we resolve our conflicts reflects how far we have come in our development, as people where we choose negotiation, as wild beasts where we choose force.
In shaping Europe's security policy for the next century we must learn from this.
We must learn from history, not repeat it.
Conflict resolution, international relations, economic relations, trade, aid and cooperation with neighbouring countries are much more important parts of a common security policy than a common military defence, that is to say we must resolve conflicts rather than bring military might to bear on them.
The Cold War resulted in insane nuclear armament, which could annihilate all of humanity.
Nuclear arms have reduced, not increased, security for all countries, including those with their own nuclear arms.
Now, in a new era, with the Cold War over, we have the chance to construct a security policy without nuclear weapons.
To suggest in 1996 that a security policy for tomorrow should depend on nuclear deterrence is not only an obsolete way of thinking but also extremely dangerous.
The proposal in paragraph 21 of the Fernández-Albor report must be rejected and replaced by Amendment No 10.
The Socialist Group considers this to be so important that we will vote against the report as a whole if our Amendment No 10 is not adopted.
It is a common peace policy with a common system for the prevention of conflicts that we need in Europe. It is time for a security policy based on negotiations and not on force.
Mr President, this report, in so far as it is a survey of the progress achieved to date in implementing a common foreign and security policy, has much to commend it.
It covers a whole range of the Union's activities in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Africa, Latin America and elsewhere.
The report underlines the importance of common action on human, social and democratic rights and it emphasizes the central objective of peace.
It underwrites values such as the idea of the democratic welfare state and the need for common action to eliminate anti-personnel mines.
It is therefore very unfortunate that the report also puts forward proposals for a common defence policy which are not acceptable in a number of Member States and go further than public opinion would be prepared to support.
Without widespread public support across the Union, such a policy would not be viable, above all at times of stress and strain.
We also have to consider the kind of Europe we wish to build.
We should not be seeking to create a new nuclear power in the world, but paragraph 21 declares that without a common defence policy and a common system of deterrence the Union will never be able to implement a common foreign and security policy.
At a time when we are pressing for support for the principle of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons it will give the impression that we are in favour of creating a nuclear Europe while objecting to others doing likewise in their areas.
This would not only undermine our credibility and detract from our standing in the world as a force for peace and progress by peaceful means but it would in fact make very much more difficult achieving the objectives we have in view.
Unless paragraph 21 is changed or withdrawn, and there is a Socialist Group amendment, the report as a whole would be quite unacceptable despite the very positive proposals which it contains, I hope the rapporteur will bear this very much in mind.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is a good report.
It pays a just tribute to a number of positive achievements, rightly reminds us that all this falls very short of convincing public opinion that there is some substance behind the terms 'foreign policy' and 'common security' , and rigorously criticises the serious conceptual, institutional, political and practical inadequacies reflected by the fact that our handful of common positions and joint actions are nowhere near sufficient to give evidence of a genuine common foreign and security policy.
I myself, together with the French socialist delegation on whose behalf I speak, sincerely agree with this general view of things, which is why we are preparing to vote in favour of this report.
There is a political problem, however, reflected by problems with wording and with voting on two amendments.
Our rapporteur is inspired by a European ardour which some would call federalist, others integrationist, and I myself simply vigorous, because it is consistent.
Basically, then, I share this enthusiasm, but our rapporteur allows himself to be carried away by it in two areas: that of vocabulary, as regards both courtesy and diplomatic caution in his report, and that of the conceptual relationship linking foreign policy, security and defence.
As to the first point, the fact that some governments and - as we have just heard -some national public opinions in the Union do not in fact propose to take part in the implementation of an effectively common foreign policy should prompt us to understand them and endorse their awareness of strategic and diplomatic issues that concern us all, rather than harassing or denouncing them.
I regret, in Article 9, the adjective 'discouraging' .
The phrase in Article 20 to the effect that there is a lack of the necessary political will for integration among certain Member States is more likely to be perceived as aggressive than as an attempt at persuasion.
The rejection by some Member States is explained by the nature of the national security consensus in each one of them. Neutrality here, absolute submission to NATO as the sole guarantor there, independent nuclear deterrence somewhere else.
For my part, I believe that nuclear deterrence is entirely meaningless since the disappearance of the communist threat, that neutrality is entirely meaningless in a fully interdependent world, and that the dominant reference to the Atlantic Alliance is totally inadequate when the dangers threatening us are primarily linked to the geographical spread of regional conflicts, conflicts that exist everywhere in and around Europe while they affect America very little.
We would therefore lighten the burden on America by being more aware of these things in Europe.
Understanding that is the key to our future common foreign and security policy.
Let us allow everyone time to come to appreciate this point.
The second consequence of our rapporteur's ardour is that he talks about defence rather than security.
This is perceived in some quarters as a provocation.
In Articles 9 and 21, the concern expressed is for a common vision of the security of foreign policy.
The definition of institutions, procedures and means of defence can only be a consequence of it.
I must say to the rapporteur that this is an area that calls for persuasion and conviction, and the necessary time to achieve them.
Denunciation is no help at all.
Finally, the same enthusiasm leads the rapporteur to speak of a common system of deterrence.
You have all heard this, you heard it just now.
It is not within our power to dispel the common but incorrect notion that deterrence means nuclear deterrence.
Nuclear deterrence is obsolete, and does not arise here.
The first purpose of any defensive force is to prevent the other party from attacking, even by conventional means - that is what deterrence means - and only to defeat him if that fails.
But we must dispense with this word, which is unfortunate as regards what it means in non-nuclear terms.
I would prefer this renunciation not to dispel the idea that we have a common need to serve the United Nations' peace-keeping missions, and to begin, at least, to equip ourselves with the intellectual resources of common security thinking before we draw any conclusions from it about defence.
Mr Fernández-Albor, you need to pursue a more educational line, even though your European ardour agrees with us.
Mr President, the excellent report presented by Mr Fernández Albor on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs might give rise to some specific comments and a few examples.
First of all, we now have a notorious example, that of the partial withdrawal of the Helms-Burton Act by President Clinton, which is undoubtedly a consequence of a common external policy exercised - and this is rare - by the European Union through the Council.
That means I can only point out the important function played by the Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister, something which is normal given the very special links between Spain and Cuba, links of a historic, cultural, linguistic and human nature.
Therefore, I was very much surprised this morning to hear a representative of the Spanish Socialist group criticising Mr Matutes for having received Mr Mas Canosa.
It must be pointed out to the honourable Member that Mr Mas Canosa was also received by the former Prime Minister, Mr Gonzalez, and by the former Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Solana, who is now Secretary General of NATO.
The only difference is that they received him in secret and not in the transparency which we have always tried to apply to our own external policies.
This just shows that losing power also produces a certain loss of sense of humour in certain political parties.
The second practical observation refers, on the contrary, to failure rather than success.
In the first case this was a sign of the success of diplomacy based on economic reasons, the defence of legitimate interests, without any doubt, but perhaps slightly forgetting the dramatic situation which the Cuban people are experiencing.
But in the second practical case to which I wish to refer, it is surprising and sad for everyone that Mr Holbrooke should have to come back and sort out a situation which was supposedly dealt with at Dayton through US mediation.
This says nothing against Mr Bildt, but does seem to be clear proof that there is not sufficient solidarity in our foreign policy.
Finally, and here I direct myself again to the Irish presidency, I should like to call upon that admirable country to make progress in a policy for setting up genuine common diplomacy.
This is not only a matter of the external representation provided by the generally very efficient offices of the European Commission, but a genuine integration of diplomatic services.
The British and Germans have just made some steps in that direction by exchanging diplomatic employees.
But once again, as I have travelled around the world I have asked myself and now I am saying it before the European Parliament whether it might not be possible to consider setting up joint embassies, in other words bringing together our diplomatic services so that we can be represented jointly in other countries.
Therefore a country like Ireland, which has such an admirable tradition but which naturally cannot have diplomatic representation in every country in the world, might take steps which perhaps nations with bigger populations would not, on the other hand, be able to take.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the only consistency to be found in the Union's foreign policy is its fairly automatic support for the policies conceived by the American superpower.
What, for example, is the European Union's grand policy for dealing with the historic movement represented by the growth of Islam to the south and east of the Mediterranean? A single incident will show how blind we are: the incident of customs union with Turkey.
On this matter, we prefer to obey diplomatic instructions from beyond the Atlantic rather than think about the geopolitical and geocultural situation of the great Turkish state, which demonstrates that in fact it will never be European.
Another example: what is the European Union's grand policy towards the great eastern power of Russia? Russia is a great independent nation which deserves a genuine spirit of partnership, because Russia is an essential element in the establishment of a balanced multipolar world.
It is not right that everything should be subordinated to a single world power.
That is precisely the type of thinking which the European Union refuses to adopt.
And that is why the results cannot be satisfactory.
Mr President, following the detailed presentation by the Council President Minister Spring this afternoon, I offer a number of brief comments of my own.
First of all the Commission too must compliment the rapporteur on his extremely clear report, which I have already had the privilege of discussing on a previous occasion with the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
It is perfectly clear that the rapporteur too appreciates that when we speak of the common foreign and security policy we may do so in a very broad sense and also in a narrow sense.
In the broad sense he points very clearly to a number of exceptionally good initiatives and activities of external policy pursued by the Union over the past year in the conclusion of agreements with a large number of third countries and regions which are politically, strategically and economically of great significance and which contribute to stability and security.
I am thinking not least of our relations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe which have been further widened and deepened and which are ultimately aimed not only at those countries' accession and full membership but also at furthering the security, stability and development of those countries.
The Commission has recorded its views on the shortcomings of the common foreign and security policy, which are readily admitted and pointed out, in the report submitted to the Intergovernmental Conference.
Minister Spring has also discussed them in detail this afternoon.
So I will not go over them again, even the main points, since they are already familiar to you.
I hope at any rate that the intensive discussion now going on in the Intergovernmental Conference on our policy under the second pillar will prove successful.
Today's in-depth debate has shown once again how much this is needed and how much agreement there in fact is about our current machinery and perhaps also our political will is not great enough to give the European Union a political weight on the world scene which matches the huge economic weight it carries.
Looking at the progress of the Intergovernmental Conference I think in all honesty that we have to admit that positions held for some time have relaxed further and that the time is now beginning for real talks between the delegations.
We are not without hope on this, especially as it is fair to say, as far for example as the preparation of foreign policy decisions is concerned, that there has already been movement towards consensus on the setting up of a multidisciplinary preparatory body which will further facilitate decision-making.
Ideas are also developing further on the visible external representation of the Union in international policy.
More encouraging still is the clear impression, certainly following the NATO conference in Berlin, that progress is being made towards a common defence policy.
In response to the honourable Members who expressed concern that this was going too far I would say that it was already agreed at the time of Maastricht that a common defence policy would be devised, the exact form and content to be determined later.
But I very much agree with those who have said that we should not hamper a debate of this kind by getting so far ahead of ourselves and talking about things like nuclear deterrence, whether or not that was intended in the Fernández-Albor report, that we forget that in addition to the more common diplomacy which we pursue we also need a degree of muscle behind that policy which we can flex in crisis situations or in order to prevent crisis situations.
We fervently hope that there will be further concrete acknowledgement of this need and that decisions on it will be taken at the Intergovernmental Conference.
The European Commission at any rate will continue to play its part.
Naturally, it has no powers of its own in the area of defence, but is very closely associated with the Union's common foreign and security policy and also has a joint power of initiative which it will use.
We hope that in the year ahead, that is to say the remaining period of the Intergovernmental Conference, there will be constructive discussion of this with the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, under the chairmanship of Mr Fernández-Albor, and with the plenary too.
This is enormously important to the future of the Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on this my first occasion to address the European Parliament in its plenary session, may I thank those Members who welcomed the Irish presidency programme here this morning and who welcomed me personally.
In particular I should like to thank Gerry Collins for his warm welcome.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on bringing forward a very fine report.
It has been very interesting to listen to this debate.
We should remind ourselves that the Union - at least the Union and what preceded it - is less than half a century old.
Not only is it evolving in size but it is also evolving in its institutions and in its institutional capacity.
It has been a success beyond the wildest imagination of its founders.
If we do not accept that, let us remind ourselves that over 100 million people are kicking on the door waiting to join this Union.
So as the Union evolves and is refined we should not be pessimistic.
We should be optimistic and thankful for what we have achieved.
I was a member of the Reflection Group and, when we debated the common foreign and security policy, on a number of occasions people said Henry Kissinger asked: ' Who do you ring in the European Union if you want to talk about common foreign and security policy?' My answer is that Henry Kissinger should have been asked: Who do you 'phone back' ?
Is it the President or the Vice-President or the Secretary of State or is it the Chairman of the National Security Council, or is it Congress or is it some special envoy? We should not design our common foreign and security policy institutions to suit any foreign viewpoint.
We should design them to suit this evolving Union.
And it is an evolving Union. That is a very important point.
Secondly, we must think in terms of security in its broadest sense.
I wonder if this House is satisfied - neutrals and non-neutrals alike - at the sort of security cooperation that exists in dealing with, for example, the curse of the drugs problem.
Every Member of this House knows the source of these drugs.
We know the source of them and do we protect our external boundaries and do we cooperate? No, we do not.
That does not necessarily mean huge structures.
It could be as loose as, for example, the RAF/Irish Air Corps cooperation in search and rescue, which has operated for a long number of years.
Or it could be something more structured.
But our collective action in dealing with the problem is nothing short of outrageous.
This does not involve defence. It involves security, and neutrals and non-neutrals alike have an interest in this question.
There is one other point I should like to raise.
It concerns the EU-WEU relationship.
The neutrals have made all the running in closing the gap between the neutrals and the non-neutrals.
That should be recognized.
It started under a previous government in the case of Ireland but we recognize that our observer status at WEU has been very useful.
In the context of the IGC we are examining the Peterberg tasks as a whole as a possible area for cooperation.
But there is an Article 5 commitment in the WEU Treaty.
That Treaty expires in 1998 unless the signatories to the Treaty decide otherwise.
In other words it is possible to reform that Treaty in the same timeframe as the examination and reform of the European Union Treaties.
The suggestion has been put forward that Article 5 could perhaps be looked at in the context of a protocol to a new Treaty, as was done recently by the President of Parliament in a contribution to the IGC debate.
This is at least something which is worthy of exploration.
The WEU can in some ways also close the gap by accommodating neutrals and there can be closer cooperation between neutrals and non-neutrals if we are prepared to be imaginative and to take off the blinkers and look at security and cooperation in a broader sense without getting into name calling and by looking at the real needs of the European Union and its Member States.
In conclusion, the role of foreign and external relations which Ireland, as a small Member State, has to conduct on behalf of the presidency in this our fifth presidency is a far greater role than in any of our previous four presidencies.
That in itself is an indication of the growth in the whole evolution of the role of the European Union in the common foreign and security policy area.
This debate has been very worthwhile and timely and the presidency has listened to it with great interest and believes it to be a worthy contribution to the evolution of the European institutions currently under way.
Thank you very much, Mr Mitchell.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Broad economic policy guidelines
The next item is the statement by the Council on the broad economic policy guidelines of the Member States and the Community.
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Ecofin Council for his presentation today but also for the way in which he has already given an undertaking to the European Parliament on ensuring that we have a better relationship with Ecofin than we have in the past.
I should like to deal very quickly with four issues and hope that the President-in-Office of Ecofin will have the chance to respond to these.
First there is an issue I raised with the Italian presidency regarding the broad economic guidelines and that is the reason for the change that was made by Ecofin to the Commission's proposals.
I wish to refer in particular to the dropping of the reference to a better economic policy mix more favourable to growth, which was taken out of the Commission text, and also concerning the convergence programmes - the reference to the fact that these programmes should clearly indicate that the measures aimed at improving convergence go hand in hand with the promotion of growth and employment in the medium term.
There are many more examples of the way in which these guidelines produced by the Commission were changed.
I am led to understand that in fact the document that was presented at the Ecofin Council was not the text from the Commission but the text that had been produced by the Monetary Committee.
Could the President-in-Office explain to us the role of the Monetary Committee here? Surely it is the obligation of Ecofin to consider the Commission text and not to allow the interference of central bankers in a text which should of course have been presented to it first for consideration.
My second point concerns the relationship with Parliament.
We do not have a very good relationship with the Council on economic and monetary issues.
We have a better relationship with the Commission where we meet regularly with Commissioner De Silguy.
Would the President-in-Office of the Ecofin Council, be prepared to meet with a delegation of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee perhaps early in September to see if, during the early weeks of the autumn, we can thrash out a new relationship which will strengthen the relationship between Parliament and the Council during the crucial period running up to the conclusion of economic and monetary union?
The third issue relates to this idea of budgetary consolidation.
In the speeches I have heard recently no-one actually differentiates between borrowing for investment and borrowing for current expenditure.
Can the Presidentin-Office, during his term of office, ensure that Ecofin, particularly in the context of the stability pact, makes the distinction between borrowing for investment, which surely must be acceptable under carefully defined circumstances, and borrowing for current expenditure?
The fourth issue is in relation to the stability pact.
We in this House are very nervous about the fact that there are those who want to promote a stability pact outside the Treaty on European Union.
They want some new intergovernmental arrangement.
We want the President-in-Office's assurance that the stability pact will fit exactly with the terms and the spirit of the Treaty on European Union and also that when he presents that stability pact to this House during his presidency he will ensure that it also fits in exactly with the priorities of the Essen Summit.
Mr President, I would like to thank, on behalf of my Group, Mr Quinn, the President-in-Office, for the full and comprehensive way in which he set out the Council's reactions to the broad economic guidelines.
I was particularly pleased that he raised and played back to us a number of items from our resolution of 19 June.
There are one or two issues which I would like to develop further with him, but may I first of all most sincerely thank him for taking note of our paragraph 11, which states that the European Parliament considers it very important that the Irish presidency should be present at Parliament's July part-session in order to present recommendations under Article 103(2) of the Treaty.
Thank you very much indeed, President-in-Office, for taking note of that particular suggestion.
On the other hand, I think it is true to say that the Council and, if I may also say so, the Commission, are still operating in what Parliament considers to be an area of wishful thinking.
We refer to this in paragraph 4 of our resolution, the fourth indent, where we specifically state that the current approach is based on wishful thinking.
There is nothing either in the communiqué from the Florence European Council, or indeed in the Ecofin recommendations and the Commission recommendations, which leads us to vary that opinion expressed by Parliament.
We would also perhaps have liked to have a little bit more attention paid to the questions raised elsewhere in paragraph 4 of our resolution, particularly in the sixth indent where we refer to the creation of an environment where employers in the European Union are encouraged to take on workers.
I think there was an implicit acknowledgement of that in the President-in-Office's references to moderate pay increases.
I would have liked, as rapporteur, to have had something more specific, drawing attention to the burdens imposed on employers, because we did draw attention in our resolution, paragraph 8, to the need to reduce non-wage labour costs, particularly at the lower end of the wage scale.
That indeed is referred to as well in our paragraph 4, sixth indent, because it is the impact of high social costs or taxes on jobs at the lower end of the wage scale which is contributing to maintaining uncomfortably high levels, particularly of youth unemployment.
On the question of uncomfortably high levels, I would like also to draw attention to the points that we made in our resolution, recital B, to the historically high levels of unemployment here in the European Union: currently 18 million people unemployed with 50 million suffering from social exclusion.
Not a very creditable reflection on the famous European social pact.
There is one other point which I would have liked the President-in-Office to have raised, because it is something which I included in our original resolution, and that is the reference in paragraph 4, seventh indent, to the need for us to study the best practice in the 15 Member States and elsewhere, particularly in the United States, to identify policies which can achieve results in bringing down unemployment.
Having said all that, however, I congratulate the President-in-Office, thank him once again for his courtesy in responding so promptly to our request in June and wish him a successful six months.
Mr President, two of the four main priorities the Irish presidency of the European Union has set for this six-month period concern economic issues: efficient finance and employment.
This means that 50 % of what is to be done or improved concern the economy.
In fact, half of our activities should concern social and policy issues, whilst the other half should concern economic matters.
This is why the broad guidelines the Council is required to set out in this area are of at least equal importance on the European stage.
The Community was born of the economic sector and has grown to include the social sector; it must now seek a fair balance between the two.
That said, we believe that today's broad economic-policy guidelines should focus primarily on small and mediumsized enterprises: although, individually, these enterprises are representative of the micro-economy, together, they are of macro-economic importance, because of their number, which amounts to some 18 million in the European Union.
Eighteen million, Minister Quinn, is also the number of people unemployed in the Community.
I shall leave you to do the simple equation concerning new jobs.
It is not simply a question of size; it is not simply that small and medium-sized enterprises have greater employment potential than large industrial undertakings, which are replacing workers with machines; it is also a sectoral issue, a question of directing more effort to sectors that offer major opportunities.
I am referring, in particular, to tourism, which the Irish presidency has rightly included among its priorities, but I am also referring to the crafts sector, services and the commercial distribution system.
We should like to see increasing attention, matched by appropriate resources, being paid to these four sectors - commerce, tourism, services and the crafts sector.
We feel sure that Commissioner De Silguy has this clearly in mind.
Large and small companies should be working together.
The objective is common growth of the European economy, growth of the Community itself.
Our thanks and best wishes to our Irish colleagues.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to welcome the beginning of the Irish presidency and the Irish presidency's good will to cooperate with the European Parliament.
I should like to make a general remark, given that Mr Cox and Mr Watson have referred to much more specific subjects.
The President-in-Office of the Council mentioned four areas - monetary, budgetary, labour markets and structural reform.
However, we in the Liberal Group in a debate held a month ago on the guidelines of economic policies in the Union, expressed our concern that there was an excessively monetarist slant to the guidelines in economic policy in general, perhaps because money supply is one of the easiest parts of the economy to control.
On the other hand, we were asking for an effort to be made to reduce interest rates, as the OECD has called for, in order to offset the negative aspects of the economic climate brought about by budgetary cuts, in order to boost economic growth, without which it would be very difficult to achieve EMU which, as the Irish presidency and the European Parliament have shown, is our end objective.
This means we have to find ways of striking a good balance between the correct application of monetary policy and the necessary structural reforms, including proper measures in the other three areas which the President-inOffice of the Council mentioned.
Mr President, the Council appears, without justification, to be optimistic about the future.
Its assertions are the same as those of a year ago when the previous proposals were adopted and simply bear out the fact that the expectations expressed at that time have not been met and that since then economic activity in the Union has slowed down markedly, unemployment has risen again and the gap between the actual level of economic and social prosperity and the level that was projected remains in broad terms undiminished.
The point is that the approach to those problems is to remain unchanged and that still the Council is optimistic.
Resolute in its perception, the Council intends, according to the latest proposals and the general content of the convergence programmes, to continue with and harden the policy pursued in the previous period and to impose reductions in public spending, especially in social spending, the increasing of taxation revenues, a reduction in real incomes, deregulation of the labour market and a continuation of the privatization policy.
The Council seems not to understand the problem.
The problem is not that the proposals have not been implemented with sufficient determination and consistency. The failure of confidence in the European Union, which the Council itself acknowledges, can be traced to the philosophy and ideological choices pursued by the Union in determining the actual content of those proposals, in shaping out the content of the economic and social policy which it and the Member States have been implementing for many years.
Reality shows that the objectives are specious and the means ineffective and that a radically different approach is needed.
Yet again, the European Union is refusing to draw the necessary conclusions.
The workers, who are the main victims of its policy choices, will denounce the policies which are impoverishing them and driving them to the wall and will fight, with the support of others, to get them changed.
The delivery of the people's verdict via referenda on the course imposed by the Maastricht Treaty, on economic and monetary union and on the changes that will result from the intergovernmental conference will, I feel sure, make clear the general disapproval of these policies. That is the conclusion that the Council should be thinking about.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you say that you do not wish under any circumstances to relax monetary policy and that you continue to be concerned about inflation.
But is not the real problem area the fact that the economy has moved rather in the direction of deflation?
You clearly wish to rush the economy along at such a speed that over-rapid and violent convergence will only increase unemployment and social exclusion.
Do you really believe, Mr President, that under these conditions it is sufficient merely to have the courage to hold to the EMU timetable? In my opinion this does not seem even advisable.
It is, however, clearly not possible to admit this in the face of market forces.
Secondly I should like to say that the Council does not seem to care at all that the Union is incapable of taking any decision relating to taxation.
Does Ireland intend to do anything about this serious problem? Do you intend to contribute to altering the priorities of taxation so that the exploitation of natural resources and the pollution of the environment are taxed more heavily and employment and labour less heavily?
Thirdly I would like to ask whether you have any initiatives in mind regarding the preconditions for international action on the economy?
Do you intend to take any new initiatives towards coordinating monetary policy at international level? From more and more quarters, serious proposals are now being made for a speculation tax which would prevent the economy from becoming detached from reality and moving off into a sphere of its own, and would return it to a much closer relationship with the real economy.
I should like to hear whether the Council is considering any initiatives to this end.
Mr President, we were all delighted to hear the Irish presidency this morning, and Mr Quinn just now, saying once again that the matters of employment and growth would be given priority. At the same time, though, it is impossible not to be struck by a contradiction between this declaration of priorities and the content of the guidelines proposed by the Council of Ministers regarding the economic policies of the Member States.
As far as those guidelines are concerned, in fact, they amount to no more than a restatement of those previously announced in earlier years which, to summarize, comprise monetary stabilization as a foundation for a policy of reducing public spending and a policy of imposing a ceiling on wage costs, or even reducing them.
Does that sound like a recipe for renewal of growth and increased employment? We think not, and to judge by the results of the economic policies pursued in recent years - especially in the year that has just ended - the opposite seems more likely to be the case: a slow-down of growth and worsening unemployment.
We believe that, on the contrary, pursuing and strengthening these guidelines is likely to trigger a kind of deflationary spiral which could be dangerous for the economy of the Union, for social peace in Europe and for the European idea as such.
What Europe needs is confidence - not just market confidence but consumer confidence, too, and the way to consumer confidence is through a future without unemployment.
Yet we see nothing in the proposals by the Council of Ministers specifically designed to provide a swift cure for the drastic employment situation in the European Union.
Furthermore, we are also struck by a growing contradiction between the march towards monetary union - however desirable it may be - and absolute inertia regarding the definition of other instruments of economic policy which would be necessary supplements to the monetary instrument in order to enable the Union to steer its economy efficiently.
In this context, we believe it to be entirely desirable that supplementary instruments should be defined as a matter of urgency.
In the budgetary area, first of all, we should - without awaiting the end of the application period for the Delors II package - begin to give thought to what the Union's budget will be at the time when monetary union is in force.
Additionally, as regards taxation, which was mentioned just now, this is another area where action needs to be taken to move towards harmonization, first the harmonization of direct taxation.
Mr Monti recently gave an excellent account of the way labour in Europe has been overtaxed for several years: how can this be remedied without a policy of harmonization of direct taxation? And, over and above that, we should no doubt give consideration to a Union tax, a Community tax, which would enable the Union to be a union of citizens also.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I very much welcome the fact that the Irish presidency has emphasized that the Maastricht Treaty not only calls for the achievement of monetary union but also for European union in the fields of economic and social affairs and employment, and so the challenge of combating mass unemployment has rightly become a priority of the Irish presidency.
However, if we consider, analyse and evaluate the economic policy guidelines of the European Union, we really do start to wonder to what extent they represent an appropriate policy mix.
And since rigid monetary policy is not being subjected to critical scrutiny as the European Parliament has requested, I wonder just how monetary policy, along with economic policy, employment policy, structural policy and industrial policy, is supposed to achieve investment-led growth that will create jobs.
This question cannot be answered if we do not also take stock of our monetary policy, which is why I hope that the Irish presidency will step up its efforts to find an answer, because it simply cannot be in the interests of Parliament to speak here of a lax monetary policy.
On the contrary, we have to ask how monetary policy can help to achieve the objectives of economic and monetary union, namely greater growth, sustained growth and above all higher employment levels.
We do not want economic and monetary union to be merely a milestone in our monetary history; we want it to benefit the people of this European Union.
When I assess the underlying economic policy principles, I also wonder how the years that still lie ahead can be used to make it even clearer, by means of the economic policy guidelines, that we need a political strategy at European level for the things we can no longer regulate at national level.
The globalization of markets has not left Europe untouched, and even though the single market and monetary union are appropriate responses to this challenge, there is still a pressing need to establish a framework governing the operation of the social market economy at European level.
I should very much welcome the Irish presidency coming up with a strategy for action in this area as part of its efforts to develop the economic policy guidelines.
In addition, may I also ask the President-in-Office to take another look at the question posed by the European Parliament about how the democratic deficit in the domain of economic and monetary policy can be overcome.
Can we not expect an interinstitutional agreement at some stage, laying down procedures for the multilateral monitoring of the excessive deficit? What is the Irish presidency's position on this point, which is of great concern to the European Parliament and ought to be resolved at long last?
A Uachtaráin, ar an céad dul síos ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh Aire Airgeadais na hEireann agus Uachtarán in Oifig, an tUasal Ruairí Quinn, T.D. chuig Parlaimint na hEorpa.
Guím gach rath ort agus tá súil agam to n-éireoidh go geal leat na haidhmeanna atá curtha romhaibh le linn téarma Uachtarantacht na hEireann a bhaint amach.
(Translation: At the outset, I would like to welcome Mr Ruairí Quinn, T.D., Irish Minister for Finance and Presidentin-Office to the European Parliament.
I wish you every success and I sincerely hope that you will achieve the aims you have set out during the term of office of the Irish presidency) .
President-in-Office, welcome and congratulations on your speech here this afternoon.
While Ireland has generally benefited from European funding, there are pockets of that country that are disadvantaged, whether it be the North-West, the West or indeed the border counties.
I believe the Economic Commission must now do the necessary studies in relation to the regions that continue to be disadvantaged - and disadvantaged irrespective of the economic indicators applied - where there is a high rate of unemployment, depopulation, a weak industrial base and poor rural infrastructure.
Indeed, in many parts of my constituency we must travel two hours before we meet these proposed TENs or national primary roads.
We cannot continue to ignore large regions or indeed any region within the Union.
We must learn from the Minister and President-in-Office precisely what he is doing to prepare the economy for the next round of structural funds.
While we might know what is in the financial envelope, it is not good enough.
It is important that we should know the strategic priorities that will be put in place.
As a representative of the NorthWest and the border counties, I must of course make the case for continuing support for a region lacking in infrastructure.
The border counties have suffered more than any other region in Ireland and possible more commercially than Northern Ireland, remembering that the national plan was in place prior to the cessation of violence.
In conclusion, can I say that the marine industry is the backbone of the coastal regions.
The industry is concerned about the slowing down of structural funds.
It is for another Minister to address the reduction in capacity.
The rural areas require funding from cohesion funds that should have a rural, a social and a regional factor and not just an economic factor.
Mr President, in its priorities for the coming months the Irish presidency has made it clear that it is in favour of virtue and firmly opposed to sin.
A solid commitment to monetary union; firm and fair enforcement of Union law across all Member States; completion and entrenchment of the single market; few in this House would argue with these objectives.
But, as we all know, the real world has a way of making life more complicated.
As ever, my own country throws up the most paradoxes.
The government proclaims its staunch support for the single market, but threatens to exclude the UK from the single currency.
What it fails to realize is that an opt-out from the single currency, taken to its logical economic conclusion, will lead to a lock-out from the single market.
I hope that the Irish presidency will devote time and energy to explaining these facts of life to the British Government.
In so doing, it may finally turn on its head the old Anglo-Saxon misconception about the intellect of England's Celtic neighbours.
My group is firmly committed to the achievement of EMU within the timetable and the convergence criteria laid down in the Treaties, but we will not find the political support necessary for such a move unless we show greater concern for the welfare of our citizens.
18 million unemployed and 50 million living in poverty provide a damning verdict on political leadership and government responsiveness in democracies which depend on political consent.
We must not allow the pain of transition to undermine the whole European project.
The cost of a palliative is small, the absence of it will cost us much more and if the Irish presidency can achieve one thing, it should be to administer the painkiller.
Mr President, it is obvious that the fundamental concern of the economic policy of the European Union and its Member States is the application of convergence plans in order to arrive shortly at a single currency, whereas the subject of employment seems only to be a consequence of arriving at the single currency. In other words, it is not a fundamental objective.
What is also clear in my view is that, during the years when we are applying the convergence plan, there is neither a resolve nor an effort to resolve the problem of unemployment.
I wish all the best for the Irish presidency but I would call upon it, since I think that the Florence Summit was a failure, to give serious thought to reorienting the macro-economic aggregates so that unemployment is made a fundamental objective which should be overriding all of the other economic policies.
From this point of view, I should like to make this remark, Mr Quinn, about the way in which the convergence policies are being applied in different countries.
Mr Quinn spoke about budgetary adjustment and consolidation.
That is all very well but in my country moves are afoot, with the blessing of the economic authorities of the Monetary Union, to privatise the most profitable undertakings in the public sector and in the medium and long term we are going to de-capitalise and it will not be possible to maintain low enough public deficits in the future.
Mr Quinn also spoke about wage restraint policies.
Yet demand is depressed because we are deliberately depressing it and we are keeping salaries down and demand is needed to reactivate the economy.
I could continue this list of contradictions in the application of the convergence plans ad infinitum.
In any case, I do wish the Irish presidency good luck and I would like to make a request on behalf of my group: I would like the presidency to give serious thought, in the chapters on economic policy, to the need for implementing an internal market and not only a single currency by means of fiscal harmonisation of profits, a thorny and complex issue but a fundamental one.
We cannot continue to develop the internal market unless we look at this aspect in a decisive way.
Mr President, once again the mounting unemployment in Europe has been cited, yet once again few speakers have acknowledged the real causes.
The President of the ECOFIN Council is also trying to pretend that the EU has nothing to do with the loss of millions of jobs, that the neoliberal crash course we have triggered off with the convergence criteria, and which is apparently to be pushed through at any price, simply does not exist.
It is almost cynical to speak of the responsibility of the Member States for employment policy in full awareness of the fact that the convergence criteria have deprived the Member States of their last vestige of control over their own employment policies, that they are practically forced to consolidate their budgets with fast, hot money from the social security budgets instead of through necessary structural reforms.
On the other hand, however, there is no competent body and no money to pursue a European employment policy.
We are rushing headlong into monetary union without first creating a social union.
We have mounted the horse before bridling it, and we should not be surprised if we suffer a nasty fall.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no denying it, it has to be said: despite the improvement in inflation, monetary stability and interest rates we are having great difficulty producing the necessary growth to stimulate the jobs market.
A number of theoretical mechanisms described in the guidelines are not currently working.
A number of mechanisms which are not working are the reason why growth is recovering only very slowly and why there is no visible fall in unemployment.
I thus call for a far more resolute policy on jobs.
I should like to address myself primarily to the President of the ECOFIN Council.
The ECOFIN Council has a bad reputation as regards measures to combat unemployment.
It is overwhelmingly the fault of the ECOFIN Council that Jacques Delors' White Paper has so far largely remained a dead letter as far as the funding of trans-European networks is concerned.
I urge the new President of the ECOFIN Council, and I am counting on him, to do his utmost to make the funding of the trans-European networks more than a symbolic battle, but rather to come up with a powerful instrument of revitalization as a counterweight to the inevitable, and possibly deflationist, repercussions of the necessary revision of the convergence criteria.
In conclusion may I draw attention, particularly the attention of the Commissioner and Council President, to the current debate on the stability pact.
I appreciate that a good, sound Euro requires the consolidation of convergence.
But I would warn against us consolidating the deflationary effects of this.
Like Alan Donnelly, I thus advocate specific treatment of investment spending.
I advocate a sufficient degree of flexibility to accommodate short-term economic conditions.
I also advocate a discussion of fiscal erosion in the context of the stability pact.
If fiscal erosion continues the stability pact will put increasing pressure on social security systems and this will impart further deflationary impulses to the economy as a whole.
Mr President, I wish to welcome Mr Quinn here to the European Parliament and to congratulate him on the seriousness and skill of his efforts to date to work himself into the whole business of organizing the affairs of the Union for the next six months.
I welcome the fact that he has made unemployment and sound money his priorities.
In fact, these two are the same priority.
I am amazed that so many people are arguing that by being lax with monetary policy we can help to create jobs or improve the economic environment.
In fact, if you look around the European Union and look at the countries which have done well over the years, the ones which have created a lot of jobs and given their people higher standards of living, they are all the countries which have pursued sound money policies.
If they have unemployment - and it is, I have to say, then new to them - they look after their unemployed better than do other countries.
I can therefore see no good reason behind the demand for lax monetary policies so far as unemployment as a priority is concerned. Obviously, it is an admirable priority.
The European Union can do some things.
The completion of the internal market made this Union more competitive.
It led to better business and greater confidence and competitiveness.
Consumers were able to get better value.
But it did not necessarily or automatically resolve the unemployment problem.
The same is true of the single currency.
We should not claim that a single currency will resolve unemployment.
It will make business more convenient; it is a further step towards making the European Union more competitive and more efficient; but it does not necessarily resolve the unemployment problem.
There is a danger in going out to the citizens of the European Union and saying to them that Maastricht was about unemployment, the single currency is about unemployment and then saying - if we fail - that Europe has failed us and let us down.
Today most of the instruments which affect employment prospects for their citizens are still in the hands of the Member States - rates of wages and social welfare, the length of hours worked and infrastructure within the individual states.
I hope that interest rates will be harmonized as time goes on.
But most of the instruments which can affect the growth of employment are still in the hands of the Member States.
We set the framework at European level and, as time goes on, there will be an evening up.
The single currency will be another step.
We worry unduly about the countries which will stay out and pursue soft currency policies in order to gain competitiveness.
Experience shows us that in the very short term they may succeed but the only thing those countries can do is to provide their own workers with lower standards of living.
The only thing they can gain from a soft monetary policy, devaluing their currency in order to gain competitiveness, is to reduce the wages of their own people and create greater poverty for the low paid.
In the end the single currency will prove an asset to the Community.
I wish to thank the President-in-Office for his resolve.
Mr President, on the broad economic policy guidelines of the Member States and the Union little could be hoped of the declaration of this Council whose presidency, on the other hand, is the cause of some hope.
This is yet again an illustration of the much talked about squaring of the circle.
In truth, it is with some expectation and hope that this presidency is regarded as one which will take a multi-faceted look at political activity considering that it should not only be economics, and its monetarist form, that affects social life and cannot only be the big states which are in charge of the game.
Ireland would be in an excellent position to put such a perspective into practice.
It is a small state and it has shown acknowledged positive national economic results nor does it seem at all likely to forget or belittle social issues, especially that of unemployment.
But will it be possible even to do this given the broad economic policy guidelines to which it is subjected?
Basic priorities with which we have to agree have been set out: employment, security, financial solidity and peace.
But I wonder whether those basic priorities are compatible with a fundamental and vital priority, namely the entrenched guidelines of economic politics, that road to the final stage of economic and monetary union all of which is conditioned by magic numbers and inflexible dates which impose on both States and the Union economic policies which are more than anti-inflationary, they are deflationary, and which stop growth and prevent the fulfilment of social needs. All they do is multiply and concentrate financial capital while aggravating inequalities and imbalances.
It is strange that we should be debating the broad economic policy guidelines since, by definition, they cannot be discussed.
Therefore, we think that something has to be done, and done urgently. It is this: we must discuss the broad economic policy guidelines not only for the Union; it is very important that we discuss the economic policy of the Member States, seeing that there are different realities that are juxtaposed and which must co-exist in cooperation.
Mr President, I, too, wish to welcome my Dublin colleague, Ruairi Quinn, the Irish Minister for Finance and the President-in-Office of Ecofin, to Parliament this afternoon.
As indicated this morning by Dick Spring, the President-in-Office of the Council, maintaining the momentum towards Economic and Monetary Union is one of the main priorities of the Irish presidency.
So, by the end of the year, I hope that we will see real progress on issues such as the maintenance of stability in stage 3, the exchangerate relationship between the Euro and the pre-in currencies and, especially, on the technical preparatory work for the legal framework of the Euro.
A major part of this work will be ensuring greater economic policy coordination between all 15 Member States.
In this regard, I have two main criticisms to make of Ecofin and European Council work so far - and I mean this in a very constructive way.
Too much attention has been given to the monetary aspect of EMU and not enough to the economic provisions.
I am not arguing for revision of the Maastricht convergence criteria, but I feel greater acknowledgement should be given to the 'E' in EMU.
A more balanced economic policy mix is required.
EMU must meet the needs not only of central bankers but also of the millions of unemployed throughout the Union.
The President-in-Office has heard that from the Members here this afternoon.
I know that there are not many here, but others are following in their rooms on their monitors. They will read the text.
So what we require of him is to look after those millions of unemployed and to take that into account.
Secondly, the Council is paying little or no attention to Parliament's legitimate and legally enshrined role in the moves towards EMU.
I would specifically like an assurance from the President-in-Office that the key decisions will not be taken by the Irish presidency until we in Parliament have been given the chance to offer our own opinions.
I, too, want to wish him well in the work he is going to do for us in the European Union over the next six months.
Mr President, the Council admits in its text on the broad economic guidelines that since it presented its broad economic guidelines to Parliament in July 1995, the situation in Europe has deteriorated in contrast to what was expected.
Growth has been below expectation and unemployment has continued to rise.
Yet once more the Council continues to argue for the continuation of the current macroeconomic policies given the 'fact' that the fundamentals remain sound.
When Europe has such a high and rising unemployment rate and social welfare burden, can the Council really argue that the economic fundamentals are sound? What does soundness mean in this context?
When the OECD is forecasting in its annual employment outlook, published last Monday, a deterioration in the levels of employment in European countries such as France and Germany over the next 18 months, can the Council really be arguing that Europe should carry on the same policies regardless of the results, in the hope - not in the reasoned expectation, but the hope - that things will somehow turn out to be all right? Furthermore, one has to contend with the problems faced by governments and by business as governments pursue the current form of fiscal strictness.
A report by the European Construction Industry Federation - by the business sector, not by politicians, indeed not by socialist politicians - estimates that the restricted economic policies of the Union will cause the loss of more than a quarter of a million jobs in the construction sector by the end of next year.
Since these policies inevitably undermine the perception at the grassroots of the well-foundedness of the common currency project, the German building federation believes that the Maastricht deficit criterion should be relaxed or monetary union delayed in order to ease pressure upon this sector.
Fiscal strictness undermines our march towards the common currency which I, at least, support.
Despite that, we have had from Mr Waigel the proposal that not only should there be no relaxation of fiscal strictness but that we should have an additional dose of even greater fiscal strictness after we have reached a common currency.
A high level of growth, increased employment, social protection and economic convergence can be achieved only through long-term investment, especially in infrastructure projects.
Here we see exposed the non-fulfilment of the White Paper on Growth Competitiveness and Employment.
Public investment must be encouraged and conditions for private investment must also be improved through the reduction of interest rates.
I am surprised that the President-in-Office, whose serious attitude I absolutely honour and salute, seems to have so misunderstood the tenor of Parliament's resolution regarding monetary policy.
What Parliament was saying with reference to an easing of monetary policy is that there is no chance of reducing unemployment if the policy mix remains so unidirectional as it is now.
It is the frightful one-sidedness of the guidelines that Parliament wished to escape from. But I am afraid, from your reaction, that we have missed our target.
The Council is essentially single-mindedly pursuing one target: control of inflation below 2 %, below 1 % - even below zero % perhaps - forgetting that there might be such a thing as a natural rate of inflation.
I am surprised that the hardened monetarists who write those papers and are so ready to accept that there is a natural rate of unemployment have forgotten that there might be a natural rate of inflation and that if you try to squash prices below that you might cause a reaction in the economy analogous to what happens when you go below the natural rate of unemployment.
This one-sidedness of policies is what really frightens us and what we have to escape if we are to have anything more than ritualistic reference to the reduction of unemployment.
Mr President, I understand the constraints of time, and colleagues will bear with me if I do not address in full all the questions posed to me.
At the outset, in response to Alan Donnelly's question, the changes made by the Monetary Committee were made on behalf of the Ministers who are represented in Ecofin.
So, between the Commission and the Ecofin there is this technical working group on which both Ministers from the various Member States and the central banks are represented.
In his second question he suggested that perhaps the relationship between ECOFIN and Parliament needs to be reviewed and suggested that in September or early October we could meet to discuss in what way that relationship could be improved from an institutional point of view.
On behalf of the presidency, I am prepared to have such a meeting and to investigate it.
It is in the interests of all our citizens and the necessary political support to which I will address myself in a few seconds that a better understanding and a better form of communication between us should be established.
Therefore, anything that encourages and improves this communication has to be welcome.
So without prejudice to whatever conclusions may be arrived at and without in any way committing Ecofin during my presidency to a particular form of institutional change, I can certainly say that we will meet to discuss what Mr Donnelly suggested.
With regard to the stability pact, I have to say that it is my impression that a clear majority of the members of Ecofin are committed to a stability pact being framed within the context of the Treaty and consequently accountable to all the institutions of the Union.
There is a wide-ranging debate in relation to this and I will not go into it because of time constraints, but the Union can only move forward on a Treaty-based premise and we have to ensure that the concerns of those people who feel that the Treaty may not be strong enough to provide us with the sort of pact we require are also addressed and we have to seek within the framework of the Treaty the sort of pact that will bring about its objective, namely permanent monetary stability and sound finances.
I agree with Mr Cassidy that we have to look not just at best practices in employment terms within the European Union but also at the other two pillars of economic activity in the global market, the Asia-Pacific rim and North America, to see if we can transpose from those totally different cultures best practices that are suitable to adaptation within the European social model.
I have long held the view that the European social model of social protection which I, as deputy leader of the Irish Labour Party, fully support, cannot safely transpose itself into the next century in the context of a global market.
We do not have to abandon the principles which brought about the construction of the social model of protection, but we certainly have to redesign it to the new reality which it has to confront.
Coming from the Left in Europe I have an obligation - and I have said this elsewhere in this building over the last twenty-four hours - to ensure that we address that issue honestly and frankly without in any way appearing to compromise on our principles.
The general question centred around whether monetary policy can be relaxed or whether in fact Ecofin is too obsessed with monetary policy. To some speakers - our Finnish friend from the Green Group - I would have to say that if spending money made countries wealthy, an awful lot of the highly indebted countries in the European Union at the present time would be immensely wealthy, including my own, which under the leadership of Mr Gallagher's party thought it could spend itself into a fortune at one stage - my children's children would still be paying off the debt of that mad escapade of crazy economics!
Sound monetary policy is the prerequisite.
The fact that we are moving slowly but inexorably towards economic and monetary union is the sole policy objective that is driving the broad consensus within Ecofin and, I dare say, within this Chamber as well.
The fact that we have 18 million unemployed is an absolute tragedy but I would put it to you that if we had loose monetary policy without the completion of the internal market, given the reality of the global market competition to which Mr McCartin referred, this figure would be higher.
In conclusion, I have heard clearly what this Parliament has said in response to the debate on the broad economic policy guidelines.
I have heard Mr Cox and others refer to looking at a range or a better mix of policy instruments other than the one set out in the economic policy guidelines.
This is the start of the Irish presidency.
This is the month of July and I should like to be able to come back at some stage between now and the end of the presidency.
I will carry a very clear message to my colleagues in Ecofin, namely the concern of this Parliament that while being fully committed to EMU and to the project of the single currency, you are concerned about the failure in relation to employment and the consequent lack of popular support to live with the discipline necessary to create the single currency. We all ignore that lack of support at our peril and therefore we have to find ways within the framework of budgetary discipline, within the framework of the convergence criteria to address a concern which you, as elected representatives, are properly conveying here in this democratic assembly.
The debate is closed .
Abduction of children
The next item is the oral questions by Mrs Banotti, Mrs Green, Mr Martens, Mr De Vries, Mr Newman, Mrs Ahern, Mrs Bennasar Tous, Mr Bertens, Mr Bowe, Mrs Cederschiöld, Mr Christodoulou, Mr K. Collins, Mrs Crawley, Mr Crowley, Mr Cushnahan, Mr Dimitrakopoulos, Mrs Fouque, Mr Gahrton, Mr Gillis, Mr Harrison, Mr Hendrick, Mr Kellett-Bowman, Mr Killilea, Mrs Kinnock, Mr König, Mr Lambrias, Mr McCartin, Mrs McIntosh, Mrs McKenna, Mr McMillan-Scott, Mrs Miranda de Lage, Mr Perry, Mr Rack, Mr O. Rehn, Mr Rothley, Mr Rübig, Mrs Schmidbauer, Mr Stenmarck, Mr Tannert and Mrs van Dijk, to the Council (B4-0671/96-0085/96) and to the Commission (B4-0672/96-0086/96) on child abduction in the Member States.
Mr President, I hope colleagues will indulge us for a few minutes if we eat into question time, but I hope we can hold at least part of this debate with the President-in-Office and the Commissioner present.
It is now 12 months since President Hänsch appointed me as his special mediator on transnationally abducted children.
In that time I have dealt with 12 cases and almost daily requests for information and for help.
He has also appointed Ms Ann Hennon to assist me and I am also happy today to acknowledge the presence, in the gallery, of Mr Adair Dyer, who is the deputy secretary-general of the Hague Conference on private international law, specifically charged with the Hague convention dealing with this issue.
In the last few years happily, there has been an increase in marriages between citizens from different countries, but this brings with it also its own problems.
When these marriages break down there is often an anguished debate about who the children will live with afterwards.
We have two pieces of international legislation to deal with this issue: the Luxembourg Convention and the Hague Convention.
The Hague Convention is a good piece of legislation, though it is not quite good enough.
The main problems which exist with its implementation are the slowness of the procedures, the lack of free legal aid in some of our countries, and the excessive recourse to the use of the exemption clauses.
For these conventions to be effective the implementation of the procedures must be extremely rapid and almost automatic.
Another problem is the lack of knowledge of the procedures among some lawyers and judges who only deal very rarely with these cases.
In some cases the children are never found.
Figures from Interpol show that at the moment there are 60 children reported missing in the European Union and none of them have been traced.
Many of these may not in fact be cases of parental abduction, but may be simply criminal abduction.
There is a need for an independent, centralized European organization to which all missing children should be reported.
I say this having visited in the United States last week the Institute for Missing and Exploited Children.
Every year in the United States, with a population less than the European Union, they deal with the disappearance of approximately 367, 000 children, I repeat 367, 000.
A great proportion, though by no means all of them, are parentally abducted children.
Many of them are run-away children, sometimes running away with adults, not their parents.
Many of them are children who simply disappear and are murdered and are never found again.
We have a problem in Europe because we simply have no idea of the numbers of children affected.
I believe, as I have said, that we need a centralized system.
I would suggest that Europol would be a very appropriate place to have this centralized agency capable of responding within 24 hours.
I must stress again the need for rapid action on these issues.
The police have all too often been reluctant, unable, or unwilling to actually start looking for these children until tragically sometimes it is too late.
We need recognition between Member States of custody orders given in each country. This would cut down a great deal on abductions.
We also continue to have a serious problem for abductions outside the Community.
You will recall that the first mediator on abducted children was appointed in response to the Algerian mothers' campaigns in Belgium and France.
Parents need to be aware of some of these issues before they marry or before they create children.
It is all very well to fall in love on your holidays, but when the realities of life begin to strike home the romance wears off very quickly and sometimes at considerable cost to the parents and to their children.
Premarital arrangements might be a good idea simply to concentrate the mind.
All too often when there is one abduction there is a re-abduction by the other parent.
We need specialized, centralized courts in all our countries who will be well briefed and will deal with these cases within 24 hours of them being brought to their notice.
We also need more adequate training for our lawyers and for our judges.
Remember that at the heart of all these issues there is fear, love and all too often, unfortunately, revenge.
A great many of our children have suffered. I have been totally and absolutely devastated by some of the stories I have heard over the last year.
I look forward very much to hearing what the Council and the Commission propose.
Mr President, the abduction of children across national boundaries is a matter of great concern and an issue that is now being addressed by the Council.
I would like to acknowledge the role that the European Parliament played in bringing this issue to the attention of a wider audience in Europe.
In particular, I would like to acknowledge the role played by our own Irish MEP, Mrs Banotti, as Parliament's special mediator on transnationally abducted children.
A draft convention on the scope, jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters is currently under consideration by the Council.
It is the view of the Council that this instrument, when it comes into force, will greatly help many citizens in the European Union.
Discussions are ongoing on the draft convention.
It is proposed that the convention, when it comes into operation, will apply to civil procedures relating to the invalidity of a marriage, divorce, and the legal separation of spouses.
In addition, it will apply to civil procedures on parental authority for the children of both spouses undergoing matrimonial proceedings.
Regarding jurisdiction, the draft convention provides that the authorities of a Member State shall be competent to rule on matters relating to the invalidity of a marriage on the basis of certain criteria founded, on the one hand, on the habitual residence of one spouse or both spouses subject to certain conditions and, on the other hand, on the nationality of both spouses or the joint domicile established on a permanent basis.
It is also stipulated that the authorities of the Member State in which a ruling is given on actions relating to the annulment of the marriage, divorce or separation of the spouses shall be competent to take decisions on the exercise of parental authority over every child of both spouses on certain specific conditions, particularly where the children have their habitual residence in the same Member State.
Subject to the working party's discussions, the draft convention provides that the competent authorities shall rule on the exercise of parental authority in conformity with the Hague Convention of 1980 on the civil aspects of international child abduction.
Regarding recognition and enforcement of judgments arising from these cases, the draft convention provides that any judgments given concerning the invalidity of a marriage, divorce or the separation of spouses shall have legal effect in the other Member States of the European Union.
This is also the case in judgments relating to the exercise of parental authority over the children of both spouses.
It is clear from what I have said that the adoption of this convention will make it possible to establish a more open legal regime in this area.
This will be a regime in which judgments given in one Member State of the Union will normally be recognized and enforced in another Member State.
The aim is to adopt the approach provided for by the Brussels Convention of 1968 which determines the jurisdiction of Member States' courts in civil and commercial matters to facilitate recognition of judgments and to establish a swift procedure for the enforcement of judgments.
No special procedure will be necessary for recognition of judgments.
The honourable Members of the European Parliament will wish to be aware that the Council has examined the provisions in the draft convention on jurisdiction.
At present Council work is focusing on recognition and enforcement provisions of the draft convention.
Due to the complexity of the legal issues involved with this draft convention, it is not possible at this stage to estimate with any certainty when work on the convention will be completed.
However, I would like to underline that the Council regards conclusion of this convention as a major priority in work under Title 6 of the Treaty in the field of judicial cooperation in civil matters.
May I add that I note the specific suggestion of Mrs Banotti that Europol or some such agency should have a specific role.
This is a suggestion which has much merit and I will communicate this suggestion to the Irish President-in-Office of the Justice and Home Affairs Council.
I will say that, in pursuing this, I believe that the European Parliament and those Members of Parliament who have taken a particular interest in it have done a signal public service.
Mr President, custody questions are sensitive ones. They concern our children's future.
They also concern the conditions under which parents can fulfil their role as parents properly.
Traditionally, responsibility for decisions on custody has rested with national authorities.
There are no intergovernmental instruments governing situations where the dispute is between parents from different Member States.
In many cases this has resulted in legal disputes which were heart-rending for both parents and children.
Nevertheless, it would be natural for children to have both a father and a mother even after a separation.
It is against this background that the Commission has been working actively to ensure that the custody issue is governed by the convention on family law issues, the Brussels II convention, which is currently being debated by the Council.
The intention from the outset was that the convention should lay down clear rules on jurisdiction and the procedures for the execution of decisions in respect of marital disputes involving more than one Member State.
As a result of the study which the Commission presented in September 1995, among other things, the field of application has been expanded to include custody issues.
The study demonstrated shortcomings in the existing international legislation and showed that there was a clear need for a future Community instrument to regulate custody issues.
Under the draft of the convention which is now being debated by the Council the court which is competent to decide on issues such as divorce, separation or the annulment of a marriage should also be competent to decide on custody. One principle is that the children should have to be resident in the country where the issue is decided.
If this is not the case the court would still be able to decide the matter if this was not contrary to the children's best interests and if neither parent was opposed.
I really do hope that work on the convention will be concluded soon.
For its part, the Commission will work actively to ensure that solutions can be found to the remaining issues. Once the convention is in place it will be possible to avoid conflicts resulting from the fact that courts in different Member States arrive at contradictory decisions in the same cases.
Finally, Mr President, as the Europol Convention stands today, it does not include any provision which would allow Europol to take on cases involving abducted children.
However, as the honourable Minister said, there is nothing to prevent the presidency taking an initiative on this.
I just wish to ask the Commissioner: if a child is abducted by a non-parental person, surely that is a criminal offence and should be dealt with by Europol? I know there is a different set of criteria for abduction by parents, but surely we should not make so great a distinction between criminally and parentally-abducted children?
It is difficult to answer that question.
As the Convention stands today Europol's competence covers trafficking in people, which can of course include trafficking in children, but it does not cover disputes. These would require a special initiative, as I see it.
However, as I said, it is important that the Council should take an initiative on this.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
The debate is suspended and will be resumed at 9 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-0681/96).
Question No 1 by James Nicholson (H-0573/96)
Subject: Peace Policy
Will the Council define the present policy objective, in view of the current tension in Northern Ireland and the continued refusal by the IRA to reinstate a ceasefire?
In reply to the honourable Member, on behalf of the Council, I should like to say that all Member States wish to see a lasting, peaceful settlement in Northern Ireland and a renewal of the ceasefire.
The European Union has always unreservedly supported the process of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
In Essen, moreover, the European Council confirmed the European Union's commitment to providing its support for reconciliation and the restoration of sound economic foundations.
Having said that, it is not for the Council to comment on the conduct of the peace process and the positions of the parties involved, which are matters coming outside its sphere of responsibility.
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
Although he has, to a large extent, given me the answer I expected, I have no doubt he would also agree with me that many people were devastated when the IRA called off its ceasefire - which was so welcome for that period of time.
Would he also welcome the fact that, through the trying circumstances of recent days, the loyalist ceasefire has still held in Northern Ireland? That has been very crucial over the past few days.
Would he also further agree with me that we cannot forget the bombs at Canary Wharf and Manchester and the wanton destruction and loss of life that that entailed, or, indeed, in his own country, the discovery of the bomb factory in County Laois and the worry that gives, because people just do not make bombs or hijack lorries to plant bombs without serious intent?
Would he not agree with me and urge everyone - including the Provisional IRA - to accept the Mitchell principles as laid out by other parties in the talks in Northern Ireland and allow a way for dialogue because, as we all know, dialogue must take place in the long term. That is the challenge to them.
There is no one keeping them away: they are keeping themselves away.
The opportunity is there for them.
Would he not agree with me on that?
This whole area falls outside the remit of the Council.
But perhaps I may, on a personal basis, respond to the honourable Member.
Firstly, I agree with him that everybody in the island of Ireland was devastated when the IRA called off its ceasefire.
I certainly welcome the holding of the loyalist ceasefire and would look forward to a full restoration of the IRA ceasefire at the earliest possible time, which is something we are all working to bring about and hoping and praying for.
We certainly cannot forget what happened at Canary Wharf and Manchester or in County Laois, or the murder of a Detective Garda in County Limerick in recent times, for that matter.
I would say to the honourable Member, who I know to be an honourable man, that the problem of Northern Ireland is a problem of double minority.
I do not know whether you have ever heard it described in that way: it is my personal description of the problem.
In my view, nothing can be done without bringing both minorities along.
The unionists are a minority on the island of Ireland, the nationalists are a minority within Northern Ireland.
We have come a long way, over a long number of years, in trying to change the view that nationalism in Ireland has of itself.
But when we see a nationalist minority being treated in a way that is contemptuous of their minority status, it makes our role very difficult.
What I would say to the honourable Member is that both sides must work to respect minorities on the island so that we can respect each other's traditions and bring about a lasting peace in which we do not threaten each other.
I certainly, on behalf of the presidency, will take into account and bear in mind the comments which the honourable Member has made in a very balanced and evenhanded manner, which is his usual mode of communication.
All of us, as Labour MEPs, have been enormously saddened by the events of the past week or so.
The bombing at Enniskillen, the rioting across large parts of Northern Ireland, and a clear attempt by the IRA to mount yet another bombing campaign in the mainland of the United Kingdom: all of these events must stand condemned.
The rule of law must be upheld without any equivocation.
But also we must ensure that these events - horrible as they have been - do not deter us in our determination to keep going with the peace process.
Clearly one of the most emotive issues over the last week or so has been the Orangemen's marches.
My question to the President-in-Office is: in his view, would it be helpful if the United Kingdom Government set up an independent commission which would examine the conduct of parades in Northern Ireland, help to ensure that the routes for such parades are fair and consistent, and would also examine the existing law relating to such parades? Would that be helpful?
In response to the honourable Member I should like to say that the position of the Irish Government is well-known in this regard, but I am here today answering questions on behalf of the Council of the European Union.
I reiterate what the Tánaiste said earlier in the House.
Events have taken place over the last 10 days which have led to serious instability in Northern Ireland and have placed in peril the substantial achievements of the peace process over the last two years.
The origins of the recent disturbances are deeply rooted in the fundamental divisions which exist within Northern Ireland and must be addressed by achieving a new beginning for relationships within Northern Ireland, within the island of Ireland, between the peoples of Britain and Ireland, and by agreeing new institutions and structures to take account of the totality of relationships.
Nothing can excuse the widespread violence and intimidation of the last 10 days.
Violence may be an outlet for frustration, but it can only worsen an already bad situation and will not solve the problems which lie at its root.
Solutions will be found exclusively through dialogue, negotiation and compromise.
It is essential that the primacy of politics over street violence should be quickly re-asserted.
The rule of law must be seen to prevail and be effectively policed in an impartial manner.
A solution must be found to the issue of contentious parades which served to provoke the recent unrest.
That is what the Tánaiste said to the House this morning.
I think if people reflect on that they will find it deals with the matter raised by the honourable Member.
Mr President, I should like to say to the President-in-Office of the Council that if people are treated equally under the law and if political authority holds as it did not hold in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland this last time, it does not matter how many minorities there are on an island or indeed a continent: we can all enjoy our identities and indeed, our allegiances, provided we are all treated equally under the law.
Can he not answer the question of the honourable Member and state that the Council does abhor violence under all circumstances, that the Council does want to see the IRA cease-fire restored, can encourage the IRA cease-fire to be restored and indeed congratulate the Loyalist cease-fire for holding in these very trying circumstances? The events of the last 10 days have been absolutely terrible for those of us who have held to non-violent and to political traditions over the past 25 years in the most terrible and difficult circumstances.
We cannot continue to maltreat - indeed, crucify - people who have held to the political process, who have tried to maintain peace at all costs, political activity at all costs and to hold violence at bay.
We must now support that in whatever way we can. I ask the Council here today to answer the question properly.
As the record will show, I have answered those questions unequivocally and properly.
I reject any suggestion that I have not done so.
I am sure the honourable Member who placed the question heard me quite clearly say how much I wanted to see the IRA cease-fire restored, how much I condemn the IRA activity, and that I did share with him and welcomed the Loyalist cease-fire.
Perhaps if Members listened to the debate they might contribute more light than heat.
This is a very important and delicate situation and one to which we should all do our best to contribute a solution, not to be seen simply to utter words, but to make a contribution to solving the problem.
It is a very complex problem.
I am probably the only Member here present who has studied Irish politics at Queens University in Belfast and who has been a practising politician for 17 years now on the island of Ireland.
I am sure the honourable Member from Northern Ireland who placed this question heard me unequivocally answer the question that he has put.
I hope that the record of this House will show very clearly where we stand in relation to this question.
Question No 2 by Saara-Maria Paakkinen (H-0513/96)
Subject: Continued joint funding for NGOs
For more than 20 years the European Union has allocated funding to NGOs involved in development cooperation to cover projects implemented in the developing countries and information programmes dealing with development issues.
Efforts have been made to establish a legal basis for this cooperation, which has produced excellent results, but the Council has failed to reach a unanimous decision on the proposal for a regulation at its last two meetings.
What measures does Italy, as the country holding the Council presidency, intend to take to bring an end to this stalemate and guarantee continued joint funding?
Since 1976 the Community has been co-financing development projects with non-governmental organizations.
The funding has gradually increased over the years and in 1996 amounts to ECU 174 million in commitment appropriations.
Until now, funding has been executed by the Commission without the adoption by the Council of a legal basis.
However, in 1995, following an agreement between the Council, Parliament and the Commission on the necessity of a legal basis for budget lines, the Commission made a proposal on this issue.
Unfortunately the Council has not yet been able to adopt a common position on this proposal.
The Irish presidency intends to do all it can to ensure that a common position on the nongovernmental organizations co-financing regulation is adopted as rapidly as possible.
Question No 3 by Otto von Habsburg (H-0515/96)
Subject: Validity of European Parliament identity cards
For many years, the identity cards of Members of the European Parliament have been accepted at Swiss borders for crossing into and out of Switzerland.
Now this is no longer the case, at least at airports such as Zurich.
According to local officials, these documents are no longer recognized.
Is this information correct?
If so, what has brought about this change? If not, will the Council draw the attention of the Swiss authorities to this matter, so that the previous situation can be restored?
Under Article 7 of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities annexed to the Treaty, the Commission may conclude agreements for the laissez-passer issued to Members and servants of the Community's institutions to be recognized as valid travel documents within the territory of third countries.
There is an agreement between the Commission and the Swiss authorities in effect since January 1975 recognizing the validity in Switzerland of the laissez-passer for Members of the European Parliament.
There has been no change to that agreement.
It would appear that the incident in question was an isolated one.
However, may I suggest that the honourable Member put his question to the Commission which, having negotiated the agreement in question, is best placed to give a definitive answer on this issue.
I thank the President-in-Office for his answer.
But, after all, it is also the Council which is competent for countries outside our European Union and especially for a question which has political connotations.
My question is simply: has the Council been informed about the changing attitude in Switzerland? It is not the first time this has happened.
Recently it has happened several times.
Would it not be useful to inform the Swiss authorities that they should inform their own people that there has been such an agreement made with the Commission?
There has been no change in the agreement.
If there has been a change in attitude I will undertake to communicate the concerns of Parliament to the Swiss authorities.
Question No 4 by Thomas Megahy (H-0531/96)
Subject: ' Irreversibility' of EU membership
In a summary of proceedings at the Intergovernmental Conference presented to Members of the European Parliament on 5 June 1996 by Elisabeth Guigou (Fr-PSE) and Elmar Brok (Ger-EPP), the following statement was made:
' On the issue of a Member State repeatedly and deliberately violating human rights, or ceasing to be democratic, most representatives agreed that it should be possible to sanction such a State... without, however, going so far as to expel a Member State as this would undermine the irreversibility of membership.'
Does the Council agree that membership of the Union is 'irreversible' ?
If so, could it indicate where this principle is enshrined in the Treaty of Rome?
Does it agree with the view that the curtailment of human rights and democratic norms in a Member State would not, under any circumstances, result in expulsion? Is the general belief that membership of the Union is a voluntary matter, which can be terminated by the democratic decision of a Member State misplaced?
In reply to the honourable Member's question, I should like to emphasize that under Article N of the Treaty on European Union, the Council is not party to the Intergovernmental Conference responsible for amending the Treaties.
Thus, the Council is not empowered to adopt any position on the ideas raised in the honourable Member's question.
He will therefore appreciate that the Council has never discussed the question of the irreversibility of EU membership.
The honourable Member will appreciate that it is for the Intergovernmental Conference alone to consider any possible amendment to the Treaty in this respect.
Mr President, I must congratulate you on a perfect Council answer.
I wondered what kind of answer I was going to get.
Quite obviously, as you have never talked about it, you do not have a view about it, but it is very, very strange that the representatives of the various countries who are taking part in the preliminaries for this seem to be expressing views, so they must be lurking around in the Council somewhere.
Would the Presidentin-Office take back this message to the Council from me, just in case they ever get around to talking about these things?
Would he say that this view of irreversibility is totally wrong, is not to be found in any of the treaties, and therefore, as in fact we have already seen in the case of Greenland - part of the Danish State - which has already seceded, there is no legal obstacle, whatever other practical obstacle there may be, to any country deciding voluntarily to leave the Union? I would hope also that there might also be a precedent whereby there might be some chance of expulsion of countries exercising undemocratic practices over a long period of time.
I am surprised that this was ever said, because I got the feeling that some other countries were so fed up with the present actions of the British Government at the moment they were actually talking about booting them out.
I dare say that that has never been discussed either in the Council of Ministers.
I am not in a position to comment on the last proposal put forward by the honourable Member, but may I say that the Council of Ministers has been preoccupied not with expelling or allowing countries to leave the Union but with the 12 countries which are knocking on the door wishing to join, so attractive does the Union seem to them.
Having answered the question on behalf of the Council, may I say in a personal capacity that Ireland is open to considering positively the development of sanctions in the event of a Member State consistently violating human rights.
This is a sensitive issue with far-reaching political implications and one which needs further reflection.
I may say also that, as the Irish Member of the Reflection Group, I do recall that matters of this kind were discussed by the Reflection Group and if the Council ever does get around to discussing it, it will be as a result of the report of the Intergovernmental Conference and I am sure that the honourable Member's views that he has communicated so well here today will be taken into account.
Mr President, I am aware of the concept of irreversibility of membership of the European Union.
The supplementary question that I want to put is this: would the Minister agree with me that it is an abstract term and that it refers to the knitting together in an interdependent way of the economies of the European Economic Union, so that it becomes very difficult for countries to withdraw, while at the same time recognizing that it is a voluntary organization and whoever wants to leave can do so? I have often said in reply to people from the United States asking about the lack of solidarity that is observed sometimes in the European Community that we do not have a National Guard that we can call out; and if we can build a European Union without the necessity to force anybody to stay, then it will be all the stronger and will have a better chance of becoming, in moral terms, irreversible.
I hope the Minister would agree with that.
I have known the honourable Member for a long number of years and I find very little to disagree with him about.
As usual he has crystallized this whole idea and put it very well.
I would like to - just for the sake of debate perhaps - raise one point which certainly entered my mind during the discussions of the Reflection Group. That is this that the European Union is open to democracies only.
What would happen, for example, either now or some time in the future if a general turned up a European Council meeting in place of the Head of Government or State?
Should the Union be in a position not only to allow a Member to leave but also to expel a Member because it no longer meets the criterion, which is that it must be a democracy? The whole question then of human rights sanctions was also considered by the Reflection Group.
These questions and practices have not arisen so far in the Union and certainly what Mr McCartin has said here today is something that I would very much identify with and support.
As the author is not present, Question No 5 lapses.
Question No 6 by Georges Berthu (H-0538/96)
Subject: Free-trade area
At the working meeting of the European Union's Ministers of Agriculture of 7 May 1996 in Otranto (Italy), the President-in-Office of the Council presented a document warning of the risks of a proliferation of free-trade areas while observing, according to the press, that this policy failed to take any account of the sectoral consequences of such agreements, or took it for granted that entire production sectors could survive the opening up of the markets.
Does the Council intend to publish this document and forward it to all Members, and more particularly the members of the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on External Economic Relations?
Does the Council not consider it appropriate to launch an impartial and pluralist study (for which the Commission would have no remit in respect of the implementation, award or signature of contracts), on the ramifications of the Community's free-trade policy?
How does the Council propose to bring the Commission back to its role of strictly applying the guidelines it lays down? Could it not take the opportunity afforded by the IGC to remove the ambiguities raised by Articles 113 and 228 on the Commission's degree of autonomy in this matter, by increasing the transparency of international trade negotiations and by clearly denying the Commission any power of prior signature capable of committing the Community de jure or de facto?
The document presented by the presidency at the informal Agricultural Council in Otranto, Italy, on 7 May 1996 regarding the establishment of free-trade areas and their effects on Community agriculture retains the status of an informal presidency working document and has neither been adopted not endorsed by the Council.
With regard to the official Community position on the establishment of free-trade agreements with third countries, as adopted by the Council on 22 June 1995, the Council decided that before taking any future steps the Commission should assess the compatibility of all planned agreements with World Trade Organization rules.
In addition it should assess the impact of such agreements on the common policies and on relations with the Union's main trading partners.
It was also agreed that such assessments be examined by the Article 113 Committee, COREPER and the Council before approval of corresponding negotiating directives.
Furthermore, the Florence European Council, on 21 and 22 June of this year, invited the Council to present the report on the development of the commercial policy and the preferential agreements of the Community to the Dublin European Council in December.
Finally, the Council is not party to the Intergovernmental Conference responsible for amending the treaties.
Thus the Council is not empowered to adopt any position on any possible revision of Articles 113 and 228 of the Treaty, such as suggested in the honourable Member's question.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for that answer, though I find it only half satisfactory because, underlying the specific points I was making, there was a general question, which is this: at the start of this Irish presidency, has the Council decided to change its policy towards the Commission? Has it decided to reassert control of the Commission and no longer allow it to act as it pleases, as it has been doing for several years and especially since the signature of the GATT agreements?
We can see today that the Uruguay Round contains very substantial shortcomings in monetary, social, environmental and agricultural matters.
We are wondering today how we are going to be able to turn back the clock, and this at a time when the Commission is launching free trade initiatives in all directions and even, as Sir Leon Brittan announced recently in Geneva, seeing a need to go even further in the liberalization of world trade.
Well, Mr President, liberalization by all means, but on a sound basis, taking account of all the unquantified external effects, whether favourable or adverse for the economies, and especially the external effects on employment which Ireland has rightly made the first priority of its presidency.
This, then, is an essential matter, and that is why we believe that Ireland must reassert its grip over the international negotiations and reassert its grip over the Commission.
That is why, for every case of free trade put before us, we absolutely must have a quantified and objective impact study, so that in future the European Parliament should no longer have to deliberate blindfold.
I note what the honourable Member has said in his contribution.
The Florence European Council on 21 and 22 June did invite the Council to present a report on the development of the commercial policy and the preferential agreements of the Community to the Dublin European Council in December.
That will obviously take place under the Irish presidency.
I note that there are concerns.
The respective roles of the Council and the Commission, like all the institutions, are being examined by the Intergovernmental Conference.
In that context perhaps the institutional arrangements need to be examined.
But I wish to point out that there already has been discussion of the increased importance of regionalism within the World Trade Organization.
The WTO has set up a committee on regional trade agreements to monitor new and existing regional trade groupings.
Discussion of regionalism at Singapore has already been called for by a number of World Trade Organization members and will probably be discussed there.
So there is an opportunity to consider this matter in Singapore and at the Dublin European Council meeting in December.
Question No 7 by John McCartin (H-0548/96)
Subject: The EU wool industry
Has the presidency any plans in the coming six months to place the serious situation of the home-produced wool industry on the agenda of the Agriculture Council?
I can only stress that at this point the Council has not received any Commission proposal relating to the wool industry sector.
The presidency notes the Member's concern and will give careful attention to any proposals which the Commission may bring forward.
I welcome the President-in-Office to Parliament officially since it is the first time I have had this direct contact with him.
I appreciate not only his efforts in helping to prepare the Intergovernmental Conference but his long-standing interest in European affairs and his long-term efforts to promote the integration and the union of Europe.
I want to put it on record that he has been one of the most constructive politicians in the Irish Parliament in so far as Europe has been concerned.
It did not just occur when he became directly involved through the presidency.
I have raised this question because representations have been made to me by an organization at European level that is interested in the wool industry.
We had a previous report in Parliament by Mr Hyland, an Irish Member.
I would like to suggest to the Minister that this is potentially an important industry within the European Union.
European Community policies have promoted the development of the sheepmeat industry, but wool is another product that it is possible to develop and add value to.
Within the European Union we have 60, 000 farmers depending on sheepmeat and milk.
Those farmers get ECU 2 billion from the Union.
Would the Minister think that it might be a good idea to promote the development of the wool industry so that farmers would have a better income and perhaps would need less of the ECU 2 billion subsidization that we pay annually?
As I have just said, the Council has not received a Commission proposal and if we do the Council will certainly act on such a proposal.
May I say in reply to the question posed by the honourable Member that I am very well aware of the difficulties faced by sheep farmers, not just in Ireland, but in Europe generally.
I am aware of the report brought forward by Mr Hyland which he has referred to.
I will certainly draw the exchanges in this Question Time to the attention of Minister Yates, who is President-in-Office of the Agriculture Council to ensure that he is aware of the concerns of the honourable Member.
President-in-Office, I would like to join Mr McCartin in extending a very warm welcome to you.
We had the opportunity of meeting you in the lead-up to the presidency and we found our working relationship with you quite cordial.
I am pleased with your response, but could I urge you through the Agricultural presidency to make contact with the Commission to ensure that the request is put on the agenda so that it can be dealt with during the Irish presidency.
I say that particularly because of the commitment of the Irish presidency to job creation and, hopefully, also to rural development.
The wool sector provides the potential to generate good employment in rural areas, provided we have proper structures in place.
Can I ask the President-in-Office to initiate a move himself with the Commission to ensure that a proper request is put before the presidency to be dealt with during your term of office?
I will endeavour to be of assistance to the honourable Members in this regard and I will draw this matter to the attention of Mr Yates, President-in-Office of the Agriculture Council.
I should also like to thank Mr McCartin and Mr Hyland for their warm wishes at the commencement of the Irish presidency. I very much appreciate this.
As the author is not present, Question No 8 lapses.
Question No 9 by Brian Crowley (H-0558/96)
Subject: Combating drug smuggling
Is the Council satisfied that Member States responsible for combating the activities of drug smugglers along the Union's external frontiers, particularly maritime frontiers, are allocating sufficient personnel and equipment to undertake this task, and will the Council consider allocating funding from the EU budget towards assisting those Member States responsible for policing the Union's extensive maritime frontiers to discharge their responsibilities on behalf of the Union?
It is one of the major priorities of the Irish presidency to secure more coordinated and effective action at European level against drug-trafficking and drug abuse.
One of the important tasks which the presidency will undertake in this area is to set in motion a thorough review of the adequacy of cooperation in protecting the external borders of the European Union against importation of drugs by land, sea and air.
The presidency has already initiated a discussion on the external frontier customs strategy.
It has put forward proposals on training, technical aids, control equipment, intelligence, risk analysis and improved communications.
It intends to propose a joint action to serve as a legal basis for the allocation of funds from the budget of the European Communities.
These proposals are aimed at achieving a more effective level of cooperation against drug smuggling and will fulfil one of the action points on the list adopted by the Madrid European Council in December 1995 with regard to drugs.
The Council will also give priority to the review of the Naples Convention on mutual assistance between customs administrations and the Customs 2000 strategy programme for the third pillar as well as EU participation in the strategic plan of the world customs organization for implementing an operative measure on the Balkan drug smuggling route.
The presidency will also bring under scrutiny the present arrangements for joint customs surveillance operations at external frontiers.
This examination will be with a view to improving their efficiency.
A global mandate will be sought from the Council for these operations so that Council approval does not have to be obtained each year as at present.
It will also seek to encourage cooperation between Member State customs authorities and private trade and shipping interests in the fight against drug trafficking.
I thank the President-in-Office for his response.
I also congratulate him on ensuring that this matter is dealt with at the highest level during the presidency.
However, it is with some concern that I read in some newspaper reports back in Ireland that the Taoiseach is putting forward a suggestion for a European coastguard.
My fear with regard to this is that monies that are badly needed for the Irish naval service to upgrade its fleet and to cover 140, 000 square miles of territorial waters, not only protecting the Irish coastline but also protecting a European frontier and European fishing ground, would be diverted into some other area.
Could we ask for a commitment from the President-in-Office that monies will not be diverted from the existing agencies that are operating very efficiently but unfortunately are being under-resourced.
As I said, the presidency and the Council's concern is with cooperation and the protection of the external frontiers of the European Union.
Drugs come in by land, sea and air.
Different routes are used, depending on the nature and origin of the drugs.
Drugs are brought in by various means - by people in unaccompanied cargo, hidden in cars, ships and containers and, especially in the case of cannabis, in small craft.
That is why it is important that there be a review of cooperation so that we can determine how the resources of the European Union and the Member States can best be deployed.
While thanking Mr Crowley for his kind wishes, which I very much appreciate, may I add that I would see any suggestion which the Taoiseach may have floated as being additional to and not a replacement of existing arrangements.
I might just mention that, for example, for a long number of years, as Mr Crowley knows well, coming from a part of Ireland which has often had maritime disasters, there has been cooperation between the RAF and the Irish Air Corps.
This is very loose but effective cooperation.
So coastguard cooperation might be very loose or it could be something more structured.
But the idea itself is worth exploring.
I emphasize, however, that it is not a question of diverting existing resources.
Any possible evolution in this area will be by way of additional resources and additional assistance.
I welcome our President-in-Office here this afternoon.
I must say that I disagree fundamentally with Mr Crowley.
The fact that the Irish presidency has highlighted the drugs issue and that all of the Members who spoke here this morning, nearly the majority, considered drugs a priority issue to be tackled by this presidency in an effective way gives carte blanche to the Irish presidency to go ahead and deal with this issue as they see fit.
I think the idea of the coastguard for Ireland is particularly important because we are an island.
It has been repeated here so often that is what is needed.
I am delighted to hear that Mr Mitchell has now said that discussions are already in place in regard to the review of external borders and the land, sea and air services, etc.
I would like him to clarify for us now exactly where this funding for the coastguard service will come from.
We had, unfortunately, a terribly long delay with regard to the agreement for the funding on the TENs.
I hope that we do not anticipate the same delay in relation to this very vital service.
I also thank Ms Malone for her good wishes.
On my first day in Parliament the good wishes and support of the Irish Members of the European Parliament are particularly welcome and have been a great source of help to me.
In relation to the question that the honourable Member has asked, as she will be aware, a joint action is an enabling statutory procedure under the Treaties, specifically the second and third pillars as provided for in the Treaty on European Union.
The Irish Government intends to propose a joint action to serve as a legal base for the allocation of funds from the budget of the European Communities.
Of course this is not something that we can act on alone and we hope we will win the support of other Member States for this approach.
It is certainly something which needs to be attended to, in my view.
I said earlier in response to another debate in the House on the common foreign and security policy area that I believe that we need to do much more as a region in a coordinated way to tackle this problem.
Each Member State is trying to deal with the problem as best it can.
The Member States must primarily have the role to respond to Member States' needs, but collectively the European Union, as a region, is very weak in dealing with this problem.
This is the approach that the Irish Government intends to take in its role as presidency.
Mr President, the battle against crime and drugs is an issue close to the hearts of the general public.
People understand that there is a need for cross-border cooperation in this area.
It is positive that the presidency attaches such weight to these issues and we look forward expectantly to an initiative on drugs, not least concerning police and customs cooperation.
I should like to take the opportunity as a Swedish Member to offer you my good wishes.
My question concerns an area where improvement is possible and which could be included in such an initiative.
Why have the same opportunities for practical, everyday cooperation and exchanges not yet been created for police officers as we have for the immigration and customs services? As far as customs are concerned, the Mattaeus programme includes some good proposals and if one examines the plan of action in this area it is concerned primarily with exchanges between police training colleges.
Why not consider developing police cooperation to the same standards as represented by the Mattaeus programme?
I thank the honourable Member for her kind words, which I appreciate.
In relation to the question she poses, the third pillar is very much in an embryonic stage.
It has not been very long in existence.
I certainly hope that with the passing of the Europol Convention we will now see greater cooperation under the third pillar.
The issues raised by the honourable Member have much merit and should be examined and advanced at an early stage.
We need collectively to do much more than we are in dealing with this problem.
I might point out that in the presentation of the European Union priorities of the Irish presidency, which was made by the Tánaiste in the House this morning, one of the priorities which we set out under our drugs and organized crime proposals is an exchange and training of law enforcement officers.
I am very pleased to concur with the suggestion put forward by the honourable Member.
I would like to take questions tabled by Mr Collins, Mr Apolinário and Mr Torres Couto together as, despite dealing with different aspects of the employment issue, all three questions concern ways and means of meeting the major challenge posed by unemployment.
Europe has benefited from the evolution of a particular model of society on our continent - an evolution achieved often at the cost of great sacrifice.
It is this model which characterizes our free and democratic societies, giving them a special place in the worldwide concert of nations.
The continuation of the European model of society would be strengthened by a successful response to the questions posed by unemployment.
We must wage the campaign against unemployment now so that we do not condemn our children and our children's children to continuing suffering and injustice.
The employment of young people is particularly important.
In principle, I share Mr Apolinário's assessment and consider, like him, that we must do our utmost to promote the employment of young people, for they will take our place and be charged with responsibility for advancing European civilization.
As the Commission has made clear, the Confidence Pact on Employment is a flexible process which aims to enable all those concerned to enter into specific commitments in order to create a macroeconomic framework favourable to employment.
It aims to exploit to the full the potential of the internal market, to speed up the labour market reforms and to make better use of the Union's policies in the interest of growth and employment.
The European Council in Florence last month indicated its conviction that the trans-European networks, the development of small and medium-sized industries and scientific and technical research can make a vital contribution to job creation and competitiveness.
In this context, it took note of proposals submitted by the President of the Commission to the effect that, firstly, the coverage of the agricultural guidelines will remain unchanged and the structural funds heading will also remain untouched.
Secondly, the expenditure commitment ceiling in heading 3 - internal policies - will be raised by ECU 1 billion over the period 1997-1999 and will be mainly intended for priority transport infrastructure networks.
However, the related budgetary payments will be settled within the current limits of the overall ceiling previously agreed for actual expenditure.
Thirdly, this raising of the ceiling will be accompanied by a further effort to redeploy the available appropriations within heading 3 to help the sectors concerned, allowing an increase in the total available funds of ECU 1.2 bn.
These proposals represent an integrated approach designed to make the best possible use of existing resources in order to achieve tangible results in terms of employment, while also finding new sources of funding.
For the sake of completeness, I wish to add that the aim is to pursue a policy which fully respects and reflects the principle of subsidiarity.
I wish to thank the President-in-Office for his very comprehensive reply.
The comments and the good wishes offered to him are well-merited because, in my experience, no one has done more to ensure a quicker, effective presidency than Ireland's Minister for European Affairs.
We wish him well and we want to see him succeed.
In five months time or so, when the Irish Prime Minister comes to this Parliament to report on Ireland's presidency, he will be judged on one aspect in particular and that will have to do with the effectiveness of the measures taken during the presidency to deal with the unemployment situation.
The President-in-Office is aware that in Florence we had political endorsement of the Santer Confidence Pact but we did not have any financial endorsement.
Unless the finances are provided, that Pact will, regrettably, still be left hanging.
We have had the Delors plan for the unemployed.
No subject has been spoken about more often in this Parliament by those who are talking for the unemployed of Europe than this particular issue.
We have had much talk but we have had no great success to date.
I urge the presidency to do everything possible to get those Member States who reluctantly withheld financial support from President Santer in Florence to come on stream, having regard to the 18-22 million people who are unemployed and who are depending on us to do something for them.
I have already thanked Mr Collins in his absence for his kind words earlier and I appreciate his introductory remarks.
The Irish presidency will progress as far as possible the measures adopted by President Santer in support of job creation in accordance with the conclusions of the European Council.
In addition, a central task of the presidency will be to prepare the second annual report on employment for the Dublin Council in December.
This will analyse the effectiveness to date of the Member State's implementation of the Essen guidelines to their multiannual programmes on employment.
This will also provide pointers for the future.
In this process particular emphasis will be placed on groups requiring special attention, such as young people seeking their first job, the long-term unemployed and unemployed women.
As a general political philosophy I support the whole concept of enterprise and competitiveness and the need to reward effort and initiative and that has to be at the core of job creation.
But throughout the European Union now, we have unprecedented levels of material wealth, unprecedented at any period during the history of Europe, and yet there are a large number of people who do not share in the progress which has been achieved.
I make no apology to anybody for the second principle which I think has to be present and that is the principle of social justice.
When we create wealth we can distribute it, but we must create it first and we must encourage those people who can create it.
I would commend to the House an examination of the Irish Government's programme on local development which is an effort to redistribute some of the wealth in such a way that it helps the poorest urban and rural communities.
It is specifically targeted at job creation, education, training, environmental improvement and state management training because the living conditions of people can actually add to their handicap.
This is an integrated approach which I hope to address in a later question by another Member of the House.
I do not think it is all simply down to enterprise.
We must encourage enterprise, we must facilitate enterprise but we must also at the same time have a sense of social justice and those two, so to speak, must go hand in hand.
Certainly this is something which we as a presidency will try to advance as best we can during our six months in office.
I might also inform the House that we are awaiting the Commission detailed proposal on the TENs issue which the honourable Member has addressed.
At the meeting on 8 July, finance ministers agreed to the setting up of a high-level group, as the Members of the House will be aware, to examine this issue.
The Irish presidency will explore through this group the extent to which the basis for an agreement exists among partners and will endeavour to secure a decision.
Mr President, thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, for your kind words.
I should just like to follow up by expressing a couple of concerns.
The first one is of a general kind: employment is undoubtedly one of the great challenges for the European Union and it would be by working on the employment aspect that the Irish presidency would attain - or not - its objective.
In the case of young people aged under 25 years I should like to point out that Eurostat data show that the unemployment rate for that category is double the overall rate - April statistics showed 21, 5 % unemployment for young people aged under 25 compared with 10, 9 % for overall unemployment - which means we must step up our effort in initiatives for local development and support to small and medium-sized undertakings in connection with questions relating to the environment, social welfare and social benefits, as well enabling special action to be taken to create jobs for young people.
The second aspect of my supplementary question refers to policy on the structural funds and I should like the President-in-Office of the Council to give a fuller explanation of what he said. Am I right in saying that he promised that the Council's position would be to stick to all agreements already included in the financial perspectives?
I think that this was the promise which he gave, in other words no changes to the financial perspectives for the structural funds.
I should like him to confirm this.
What I said in reply to the question was that the expenditure commitment ceiling in Heading 3, internal policies, will be raised by ECU 1 billion over the period 1997-1999 and will be mainly intended for priority transport infrastructure networks.
However, the related budgetary payments will be settled within the current limits of the overall ceiling previously agreed for actual expenditure, that is payment appropriations.
I also said that this raising of the ceiling would be accompanied by a further effort to redeploy the available appropriations within Heading 3 to help the sectors concerned, allowing an increase in the total available funds of ECU 1.2 billion.
Can I say in general terms, that we are all very concerned about employment, but the reality is that we do not do what we should do.
We should make the creating of a job the most attractive thing that anybody with any sense of entrepreneurship can do.
The reality is that if any of us here won our national lotteries the likelihood is that we would invest it in property or something of that kind which we would get a return on and which would not require us to take on the difficulties of employment.
We give tax incentives for machines and we put payroll taxes on employment.
So I think there has to be a fundamental rethink which encourages enterprise and rewards effort and one which has to deal with, as the honourable Member said, some of the structural problems which exist.
Mr President, the question is very simple.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am extremely satisfied with the head-on way in which you tackled this subject and I hope you will forgive me if I am slightly acrimonious in respect of the supplementary question which I am putting - but I have been here for some years now and when these questions are put to the Council about employment it seems to me that they are beginning to become an exercise in sadomasochism because these questions were first put by me and other colleagues when unemployment in Europe was reaching a level of 11 to 12 million.
Declarations of intent and other promises by successive presidencies have been quite solemn and constituted exercises of all seriousness.
But it happens now that we are facing 18 million unemployed and 50 million marginalised citizens in the European Union and I think that this question is well answered by the phrase you uttered at the end of one of your speeches: ' We have to create wealth first and then we have to distribute it.'
But I think that this question has now become a fundamental one.
Do you think that this practical and exclusively monetarist approach which has been taken in relation to employment questions is the way that you have found to be most reasonable and most positive for creating jobs? Do you think it will be possible for us to think of a concrete way of fighting unemployment simply by means of monetary policy without taking into account very effective measures in terms of the labour markets, active employment policies, support for small and mediumsized companies or selective aids to dynamic sectors which call for support?
I think that these are the fundamental questions and there is another one: a few years ago, when Jacques Delors presented here the White Paper on Competitiveness and Employment, he said that there are no national solutions for the problem of fighting unemployment.
What is happening now is that the ideas which are being put to us seem to claim that the solution for fighting unemployment cannot be specifically European but has to be dealt with on a national basis and that the principle of subsidiarity must be respected.
I think that this is what divides us and this is what could lead to yet another failure in the case of the Irish presidency, in relation to the urgent fight against the problem of unemployment.
I do not know where the honourable Member has been for the last few minutes but he certainly has not drawn that conclusion from anything I have said here.
I hope he will forgive my forthrightness because this is an important question.
I have been very clear on what I have said.
I have spoken about employment and entrepreneurship and social justice.
I have spoken about redistribution.
I have spoken about the local development programme in Ireland.
I am sure there are similar programmes in other countries, but the OECD report on local development in Ireland is one which I would commend to Members of this House.
I have not spoken about any monetarist approach.
Furthermore, the local development programme in Ireland is a partnership, first of all between the European Union and the state, and secondly between the state and the social partners: business, trade unions and the rural area's farmers.
I am sorry that the honourable Member did not pick up what I said on the first occasion but I hope he will now.
Furthermore, we should get it into our heads that we are not running economies, we are running states.
Jobs have a therapeutic value as well as an economic value.
Far from not wanting new ways at European or Member Statelevel of approaching this problem, I am one of the most ardent supporters of new approaches and I am the Minister responsible - as it happens, at the Prime Minister's office - for local development in my own country.
I would welcome some opportunity to discuss this matter of local development and the contribution it can make, not just to employment creation, but also to tackling social injustice throughout the European Union more generally.
Question No 13 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0564/96)
Subject: The 'Journalisten' affair
In the pleadings it submitted to the Court of Justice in the case, shortly to be decided, between it and the 'Journalisten' newspaper, the Council explained its position on openness and the principle of public access to official records.
What legal force do the Code of Conduct and the decisions taken by the Edinburgh Council have as regards openness?
In the Council's opinion, what force does the declaration on openness made by Sweden during the membership negotiations have?
The honourable Member will be aware that my response to his question must be somewhat circumspect as the case of the Journalisten newspaper v. the Council, which is currently before the Court of First Instance, renders some matters sub judice .
Nonetheless I would make the following comments.
The statement of defence in question was brought into the public domain by the Journalisten newspaper via the Internet.
Following that incident the Court of First Instance decided to suspend proceedings in the case.
In reply to the first part of the question, I would refer the honourable Member to the judgment of the Court of Justice on 30 April 1996 in Case No C-58/94, Netherlands v. the Council.
In that case that Netherlands sought the annulment of the Code of Conduct concerning public access to Council and Commission documents.
This action was ruled inadmissible by the Court on the ground that the Code of Conduct is a voluntary expression of coordination made by the Council and the Commission and 'is therefore not intended in itself to have legal effects' .
This is also the case for declarations adopted by the European Council.
The Court of Justice gave a ruling on 13 January 1995, in Case C-264/94P, that European Council declarations are not acts whose legality can be governed by Article 133 of the EC Treaty.
Regarding the honourable Member's second question, it involves a political assessment which the Council was not required to make.
It simply states that the declaration in question was accompanied by another declaration made by all the Member States.
Mr President, I would thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his reply which I thought was both clear and unambiguous. I have here the pleadings, marked 'secret' , which are concerned in this case.
In this document the Council of Ministers argues rigorously against openness and quite rightly states that the Code of Conduct does not imply any legal right to obtain a document, simply what is called a 'policy orientation' .
My impression is that you confirm this standpoint.
My question concerning the Swedish declaration during the membership negotiations was whether you regard that declaration as having any legal force whatsoever. Is it possible to refer to it in the course of legal proceedings?
Further to this I have two other questions.
The Council writes in its pleadings that in making available a document which is secret within the EU Sweden is violating Community law.
My first question is this. Is it the view of the Council that countries which apply national principles on openness which are more radical than those of the Union are violating Union law?
My second question concerns the fact that some months after the case involving the 'Journalisten' newspaper another Swedish journalist asked for the same document which the Council had previously refused to hand over to the 'Journalisten' newspaper and on that occasion the document was provided.
I wonder why.
Have views changed on the matter? On what judgement and on what policy was this based?
Like many others here I should like to wish the Irish presidency a warm welcome and every success.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, given that the Council's obligation of transparency differs according to whether it is acting as legislator or as executive, could the Council confirm that when a document is submitted it is without any real political value and can therefore be published, something that did not take place when the first request was made?
My second question is whether or not the European Union must take into account all of the constitutional traditions of all Member States, on the basis of mutual respect - given that in Sweden there is a greater tradition of transparency - and that when a given Member State receives a document affecting another Member State it should observe a code of ethics, especially if that document is then disseminated over Internet ?
The honourable Member raises some interesting questions.
In relation to the particular case it is sub judice so I do not wish to say more than the comments I have already made.
The constitutional position in each Member State has to be taken into account.
However, in the case of Sweden, they have nudged the Community more towards the whole question of openness and transparency and have been among the leading Member States in putting this item on the agenda.
The honourable Member invites me to comment on the role of the Council as legislator and in its administrative/political role.
Of course there is a difference.
As I said earlier, when it is acting in the latter role, there is clearly a difference than when it is acting in its role as legislator.
Mr President, I know that the previous questioner received a reply on an issue of some importance to us from Sweden.
The reply is extremely important in that the requirement of openness was included in the Swedish declaration and the question was as follows: does the Council of Ministers consider that Sweden would be violating Union law if we handed over a document classified as secret in the EU?
It is extremely important that we receive an answer from the Council of Ministers, since it is a matter of whether arrangements made and agreements reached during the negotiations have any force or not.
I am in some difficulty regarding a particular case because it is sub judice .
I know Members are making comments for reasons other than that they expect me to respond.
Can I assure the House, not simply on behalf of the presidency, but also as the Irish Member on the reflection group which went into a lot of these issues, that this matter is being examined in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference and the presidency will do everything in its power to try to advance openness and transparency, while at the same time recognizing the right of Member States to have their business conducted in a way which is agreeable to everybody through a code of conduct.
- The Council attaches the greatest importance to respect for human rights and democracy in Turkey and does not hesitate to condemn violations of them in its contacts with the Turkish authorities.
The Council has repeatedly made it clear to the Turkish Government, and will keep on doing so, that observance of a state of law and basic liberties, to which all citizens of Turkey are entitled, underlie closer relations between Turkey and the European Union.
The Council continues to monitor carefully the situation of human rights and democratic development in Turkey.
I add my welcome and my best wishes to the Irish presidency.
The Scots are here to welcome you as well, President-in-Office.
I am afraid I am rather disappointed in that response.
My supplementary question is: Can the President-in-Office foresee a position where we would go beyond mere condemnation of continued violation of human rights to the point where the Council will actually take some action such as suspending cooperation agreements if violations of human rights continue on the scale which exists at the moment?
As we speak the Tánaiste Mr Spring is meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister in Dublin.
I can assure the House that the concerns which Mr Smith raises here - and I appreciate his comments and may I say go raibh mile maith agat - are issues which are regularly raised when meetings of this kind take place.
This is a very fine judgment.
The question really is: can we best advance our influence in the sphere of human rights by continuing to conduct the sort of relations we have with Turkey as we do at present and the judgment has been that we can.
We can have more influence over them through the present vehicle than we could have otherwise.
In other words we can get more from the carrot than from the stick.
The Union has made a judgment in relation to the customs union for example which this House has ratified and endorsed.
By bringing Turkey into the Western way of thinking in relation to issues such as human rights, we can best influence them.
Please rest assured that the matter raised by the honourable Member is very much in the minds of the Council and is being raised at every opportunity.
I should like very much to share in offering congratulations to the President-inOffice, because he is a young man and Irish.
Sadly, however, the answer that he has given me on this matter obliges me to express pity for him, because all he has done is repeat the fairy tales that we have been fed for the last 15 years.
Mr President-in-Office, no part-session goes by without some discussion of concrete instances of violation of human rights in Turkey.
No part-session goes by without mention of the slaughter of Kurds, of the erosion of the Turkish people's rights, of their not being allowed to form political parties, or of the dissolution of the political parties that they do form if Mrs Çiller or the military disapprove.
And you come here, as an Irish president-in-office, as an Irishman, and show not one iota of sensitivity, when you ought to be more sensitive than others about such things, and give an answer like that!
Forget about carrots and suchlike - just do what you say. If a general came to the Council and said that he wanted to join the Union, not only would you not listen to him, you would throw him out.
Yet along comes a woman, all dressed up, along comes an Islamist, and you give them the customs union and the MEDA programme with large amounts of funding.
That is what we are getting at.
It is measures like that that we are talking about.
Not carrots and sticks, but the suspension of those measures which benefit Turkey, which benefit that regime. Can you do that?
It is your obligation. Forget the fairy tales and all the talk about respect for human rights and observance of a state of law and the importance that you attach to them.
I should inform the House that Turkey is not a member of the European Union and therefore we are not in a position to dictate to them how they conduct their affairs or to share with them, in the way we might share with Member States, a pooling of consensus on the way we approach problems.
It is a very finely balanced question which is a very genuine one and a very important one.
I thank him for his very kind wishes.
I wish to assure him that the aim of the European Union is to encourage progress in the process of democratization and the protection of human rights in Turkey.
While I was speaking I said that the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs is in Dublin this evening meeting with the Turkish Foreign Minister.
The House can be assured that on every occasion that meetings of this type take place, these issues are raised.
In my view true diplomacy, by opening and keeping open channels, is our best hope of advancing our views in relation to dealing with these problems.
That is the road the presidency intends to continue going down.
Question No 16 by Kirsten Jensen (H-0572/96)
Subject: The situation in Burma
This week Danish consul James Leander Nicols died in a prison in Burma.
The cause of death is unclear: the Danish authorities are now trying to obtain clarification of the detailed circumstances of the death and have asked for a post-mortem examination to be carried out on the body by forensic experts independent of the Burmese Government.
How does the EU intend to react to this tragic incident and does it intend to implement sanctions against Burma?
On behalf of the Council I should like to extend sincerest sympathy to the family of the late Mr James Leander Nichols who died on 22 June 1996 whilst in custody for the unauthorized use of fax machines and telephones.
Mr Nichols was the honorary consul of Denmark and he also represented Finland, Norway and Switzerland in Rangoon.
On 5 July 1996 an EU declaration was issued which expressed deep concern at the continuing deterioration of the political situation in Myanmar, Burma.
In that declaration the EU indicated that it expected a full and satisfactory explanation from the Burmese authorities of the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the death of the late Mr Nichols.
In addition, the EU called for an investigation by the United Nations' special rapporteur on Myanmar into the death of Mr Nichols.
The situation and possible EU action has been the subject of lengthy discussions at the CFSP Asia-Oceania Working Group on 2 July last and subsequently at the Political Committee on 5 July last.
Furthermore, the issue of coordinated EU action is being discussed at an extraordinary meeting of the CFSP Asia-Oceania Working Group in Brussels today in the light of discussions by Ministers at the General Affairs Council on 15 and 16 July earlier this week.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for what has been done so far.
However, the fact is that everything which he described lies in the realm of what might be called diplomatic censure.
The President-in-Office said in connection with Turkey that it was a question of keeping the diplomatic channels open, but in this case the diplomatic channels have already been blocked.
According to a Burmese newspaper, Mr Nichols was a scoundrel who deserved to die.
But he was one of the diplomatic links we had with the regime in Burma.
He is now dead, and what the opposition, the democratic movement, is calling for is that we should take economic sanctions.
I think that the situation is very much as it was in South Africa.
All the opposition is asking for economic sanctions to be applied.
So it is not as if we would be taking them against the will of the people in Burma.
I would therefore ask the President-in-Office once again to consider whether we should not meet the wishes of the opposition in Burma and introduce sanctions against the illegal junta which is now occupying the government.
May I inform the House that this is an issue which has been very strongly raised by the Danish Foreign Minister and with me personally when we had occasion to meet recently in Sweden.
I know it is of concern not only to Danish Members but to the House generally.
Concerning the comments by the Burmese Government, they are wholly unacceptable and uncivilized in the circumstances.
I assure the House that this matter was discussed only two days ago by the General Affairs Council and that it is being pursued by the CFSP Asia Oceania Working Group in Brussels today in the light of what was discussed at the General Affairs Council, and that it will be a matter which we will pursue in every way possible.
Could the President-in-Office be more specific on the question of economic sanctions.
Is he aware that Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the democratic opposition in Burma, has called for practical economic measures, which, she says, is the only way that we will see political change in her country? Should we not listen to her in the way that we did not listen to the calls from the ANC in South Africa for economic sanctions during those apartheid days?
In Aung San Suu Kyi's view, the poor people of Burma are suffering enough already and economic sanctions would just hasten the day when we could see the return to democratic, accountable government.
I would like to ask you, President-in-Office, what your position will be in Djakarta at the Asean Conference next week when the Council will be represented?
What will you say to the Slorc, who have been given official observer status at that Conference - much to the disgust of the international community? What, indeed, will you say to those Asean countries, those neighbouring countries, who are rushing in to reinvest in Burma where Heineken, Carlsberg and others have pulled out?
The working group is considering all issues: nothing is ruled in and nothing is ruled out, and the Council does not rule out sanctions; all issues by way of response are under examination.
I can further confirm to the House that the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Spring, who will be in Djakarta, will raise this matter in a very forceful way and will ensure that the views of both the General Affairs Council and this House and, indeed, the people of Europe are communicated in a strong way so that nobody is left in any doubt as to our rejection and abhorrence at what has happened in these circumstances.
Mr President, can the presidency tell me why it is considering sanctions against Burma, a move for which I have a certain amount of sympathy, whereas sanctions against Cuba, for example, are felt to be counterproductive? I should like to know basically whether there is a general political line on sanctions.
We want to enforce respect for human rights.
We have economic interests.
We must strike a balance between these, but we should not apply double standards.
I remind the honourable Member that what I said is that the Asia-Oceania Working Group is examining the issue in the light of discussions held by the ministers at the General Affairs Council earlier this week.
I ruled nothing in, and I ruled nothing out: the matter is still under examination.
As the honourable Member will be aware, the current legislation on the use of driftnets prohibiting the use of nets over 2.5 kilometres long in Community waters was adopted by the Council in 1992.
In April 1994 the Commission submitted to the Council a proposal for a regulation to ban such fishing gear.
The Council has considered that proposal on a number of occasions in the light of the opinion delivered by the European Parliament in July 1994, without coming to any decision on the matter.
The subject was last discussed at the Fisheries Council meeting on 22 April 1996 when the Commission did indeed say that it wanted to see progress made and would be prepared to welcome any constructive ideas put to it by delegations in order to arrive at a qualified majority on its proposal.
On another point, the discussion also enables the Council to reiterate the importance it attaches to compliance with the present Community legislation and to express its satisfaction at the progress made in the implementation of provisions.
Proceedings on the proposal for a regulation are taking their course and the matter is still before the Council.
It is not possible at this stage in discussions to pre-judge the position that will be taken by the Council.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, could you tell us whether the Spanish Government, if it wanted to, could present a new proposal taking into account the new situation in Italy and taking account of the possibility of differentiating the Baltic Sea and changing the current situation? In other words, given that if the Spanish Government has that power and does not use it this is something to be condemned, can the Council state whether the Spanish Government could present a new proposal?
As the honourable Member will be aware from my reply, the Commission did submit a proposal for the regulation to ban fishing gear.
These proposals have been under discussion.
It is up to any Member State in response to the proposal to make whatever proposals it considers would be helpful in all the circumstances.
I would hope that the arrangements on surveillance on monitoring which operated in the tuna fishery in 1995 ensured that most of the difficulties of previous years were eliminated.
The same arrangements in 1996 will ensure the continuation of at least an orderly fishery and the tuna fishery is now one of the most closely monitored fisheries in EU waters.
So some progress has been made in that regard.
But it is up to Member States, if they wish to respond to the Council proposal, to put forward their reaction for other Member States to consider and for the Commission to react to.
Question No 18 by Susan Waddington (H-0585/96)
Subject: Irish presidency - social exclusion
The Irish presidency has put social exclusion at the top of its agenda.
Given that the fragmentation of policy instruments across the Commission services (Employment - DGV, Socrates & Leonardo - DGXXII, Urban - DGXVI), and the portfolios of several Commissioners (Flynn, Cresson, Wulf-Mathies, Fischler), is a major obstacle to integrated action, will the presidency ask President Santer to establish an internal 'Task Force' , of all Commissioners involved, with a common purpose to develop strategies and coordinate resources to combat social exclusion in Europe? And does the presidency agree that the Task Force's first priority should be to present a report to the Dublin European Council in December?
Social exclusion and long-term unemployment, though not synonymous, are related.
Therefore, policies, both structural and programme activities, which target long-term unemployment, have a direct impact on social exclusion.
As I said earlier, in my own country we have put in place exciting new structures to counteract social exclusion in two ways.
Firstly, by involving local communities and empowering them to address their own needs in partnership with the statutory authorities and the social partners.
Secondly, we are resourcing these partnerships to address in a flexible, targeted and integrated way the complex interaction of factors which generate poverty and social exclusion.
Through a strategic approach which links education, training, enterprise, employment and estate management, especially in urban areas, we are empowering the communities themselves to put a virtuous cycle in place of the vicious cycles of long-term unemployment and social exclusion, and this has both an urban and rural application.
The Irish presidency is supportive of developing in the IGC a more secure basis for tackling social exclusion.
In the short term, we have much to learn from each other and the Irish presidency is very anxious to give a lead in this exchange of ideas and experiences.
I also wish to thank the President-in-Office for the very interesting reply he gave us about the Irish experience.
Will he use that successful experience as a means of persuading the different Commissioners and the different directorate-generals to work together to develop a common purpose and common strategies, using their common resources to combat both social exclusion and long-term unemployment?
I believe one intriguing question concerns the extent to which the presidency considers it possible within the framework of the Essen guidelines to expand the consultations between the Member States on their employment policies to include a discussion of the ways in which structural funds are used.
The second question concerns the part played in these consultations by genuine discussion of the macroeconomic policy options and by the presentation of a new policy mix for discussion, as requested by the European Parliament, a policy mix going beyond the tautological old argument that a sound economic policy will eventually lead to a sound employment policy.
One of the things which concerns me very much is the fact that when we have had phenomenal growth rates, these have not converted into employment.
This is something that certainly needs to be studied.
I hope it is something that will be addressed in the context of the second annual report on employment which will come before the European Council in Dublin.
I reiterate something I said earlier.
A job is not just of economic value. It is of therapeutic value.
We have to start thinking in new ways because unemployment is not just bad for the person who is unemployed, it creates terrible problems for society and for communities.
It is our job, the job of politicians, not economists, to try to find ways - new ways and novel ways - of raising this particular issue.
The issue of social exclusion is a matter to which the presidency attaches a high priority.
One of the issues which the honourable Member raises is the question of the Essen strategy which included, incidentally, a report on local initiatives and the contribution they can make.
At an informal Council of Social Affairs Ministers on 10-12 July in Dublin the general issue of social protection and long-term unemployment was discussed with particular reference to making social protection systems more effective in helping the most disadvantaged members of society to gain access to employment.
Further debate on these topics will be led by the presidency which will seek to build on the experience and expertise gained to date and will try to construct a common approach to social exclusion and poverty.
In addition, the legal basis for Community action to combat social exclusion is a matter for the Intergovernmental Conference.
It would therefore be premature to draw any conclusions on the outcomes of the deliberations of the Conference.
Nonetheless, I do think that there is a point in the phrase which the honourable Member used.
I do not know whether we should rely on old macroeconomic ways for tackling this problem.
I think we have to look at solutions to the problem without boundary.
To some extent we have a blinkered approach.
It needs more imagination and more innovation.
I certainly would like to see this being explored to a greater extent.
I hope during our presidency we will be able to contribute in some way to that.
As the time allowed for Question Time has been used up, Questions Nos 19 to 28 will be answered in writing.
Mr President, I would like to raise a point of order with regard to the speed with which written questions are replied to by the Council.
I understand that there is an undertaking that the Council will reply to MEPs' questions within six weeks, but quite often replies come two, three or even four months late.
I know that the Council actually lacks staff perhaps to deal with these questions, but I hope the Irish presidency will give priority to answering the questions as quickly as possible and preferably within the six-week deadline.
This is a matter which concerns me.
I am not too sure that we can solve the problem during the Irish presidency, which is a relatively small state, but we will look at how the situation can be improved.
It may well be that in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference we will have to do something more structural to deal with the problem.
But I realize that a problem exists.
Quite honestly I am not too sure what I can do about it, but we will look at it and see if some improvement can take place.
Thank you very much, Mr Mitchell, for your cooperation.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.35 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Abduction of children (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the oral questions on child abduction in the Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the abduction of children is a phenomenon which frequently occurs, and in which the children are the main sufferers.
They are snatched from their familiar surroundings and plunged into a situation of conflicting feelings which may have serious consequences on their further development, which can then be put right only with a great deal of difficulty.
I have had plenty of conversations on this subject with many of the people involved and also with NGOs, and I also know what it is like for the children.
Yet in these various processes the children involved are not sufficiently listened to and taken seriously.
We cannot close our eyes to the fact that very often the family, in the traditional sense of the word, no longer exists.
The statistics in every country, and in the Union, show us that the number of single parents is increasing.
In order to be fair to the children in such cases, statutory provisions are necessary.
I should like to see the Convention on the Rights of Children added to the existing conventions mentioned in this motion for a resolution.
Furthermore, I should like to point out that the existing conventions have not yet been ratified by all Member States and incorporated into their own legislation.
In addition, I would ask the Commission to inform us about all forms of cross-border abduction of children within the Union, and not only about the type that we have been talking about today.
On this subject an appropriate investigation should be set up, financed and coordinated, in order to determine what the results of the European integration process are as far as children are concerned.
I would also ask the European Council, at the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference, to designate children as an independent group of persons.
I believe that it is important that children should be given independent rights.
Mr President, the question raised by Mrs Banotti and Mr Green and the associated resolution raise a specific human and legal problem that is of major concern, and I should therefore like to thank them for raising this question.
The subject is the protection of children of mixed marriages so as to prevent their abduction and protect the rights of their parents in the event of divorce.
The most important feature of this resolution is that it looks for a practical approach to a problem that is bound to grow, as Mrs Banotti pointed out earlier.
In seeking solutions to these problems, major difficulties concerning rights and guarantees have to be tackled, but what I feel most strongly is that, for the first time, the concept of citizenship is beginning to emerge in concrete form.
This is a problem for which the right solution must not only protect citizens from trauma and misunderstanding but must also demonstrate the usefulness of European citizenship, its true meaning and its capacity to guarantee citizens' rights.
In my opinion, however, European citizenship can exist only within a common legal area, as this resolution shows.
This common legal area approximately corresponds to what is referred to as European value added, when European programmes are being drawn up.
I believe that this legal area must be guaranteed if we are to achieve at least three objectives: first and foremost, to ensure that international conventions, such as the Hague and Luxembourg Conventions, signed by Member States are applied in a uniform manner, since there are still procedural differences that the courts are not always able to assess appropriately.
The second objective is that this legal area should also constitute a Community legal instrument - the draft agreement that we have discussed here today, which the President of Council mentioned before - that makes these proceedings both easier and more secure.
The third objective is to guarantee the possibility of avoiding all uncertainty and ensuring a degree of consistency between the conventions themselves, the Hague Convention and the one we are about to sign.
I believe that if we can achieve this legal collaboration in practice and truly create this common legal area, we shall certainly have moved European citizenship forward.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mary Banotti for having drawn our attention to children and the psychological and physical abuse they can suffer.
The question of appropriate legal instruments to protect children is now being seen as fundamental to the development of our society.
Application of the 1989 Council of Europe Convention on Minors and of the UN Convention on Children is frequently discussed at meetings and conferences and receives regular media attention.
Many national voluntary schemes have, over recent years, increasingly tried to bring the subject to the public's attention and to offer young people specific and timely help when nothing is organized.
One example, that I should like to mention, is that of 'telefono azzurro' , a spontaneous Italian initiative run by specialists and volunteers, who, with the help of private donations, have set up a free telephone helpline for all children and young people.
At international level, a great deal of work is being done on legal texts for the recognition of children's rights and duties, that both offer specific protection and serve as valid instruments for the appropriate protection of human potential.
As promised by the Italian presidency, the Justice and Home Affairs Council of 4 June studied Member States' positions on a proposal for a common position on the Hague Convention and the protection of children.
The Italian presidency also wanted that Council to examine the progress of work on revising the Brussels Convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of foreign court orders under family law.
The proposed amendment provides for, among other things, coverage of cases concerning children.
As national representatives failed to reach agreement, the Irish presidency has undertaken to include the subject on the agenda of forthcoming Justice and Home Affairs Councils, particularly as regards the provision of cross-reference clauses in the two texts to avoid legal overlaps.
These steps are useful and important, but are not enough.
Children need to be seen for what they are: our society's greatest resource in terms of human capital.
It would be a crime, sheer suicide, to neglect our children.
The problem we are discussing here - the abduction of children - is just one small aspect of the whole issue.
Children are in fact disputed between two people of different nationalities who no longer share the conjugal home; they have lost the right to the human relationships that are vital to their happy development; they suffer because of conflicts between their parents; they have become a kind of 'lost property' .
In the specific case of abductions, they undoubtedly also suffer both psychologically and physically, and may even be taken by force.
The European Union must be able to look to the future and assume a small but important exemplary role.
I should like to think that this will be just one of the plenary sessions at which European Parliament will truly give its attention to children.
Mr President, a British friend of mine lives in fear that her Greek ex-husband will snatch their small son and take him to Greece.
The child is thoroughly confused and lives shut up in a cellar.
One of my Dutch friends is terrified that his French ex-wife will abduct the children and he will never see them again.
The children are undergoing psychiatric treatment.
These are examples picked at random.
That we, as adults, make a mess of things is our problem.
But we must not make the children suffer and we must limit the damage as far as possible.
Children are entitled to both parents.
Also in our frontier-free Europe where the parents are resident in different countries after a divorce.
Our own Irish colleague, Mary Banotti, as a European conciliator, is snowed under with all the desperate problems she has to deal with in such cases.
For this reason too the Liberal Group believes that Europol must be empowered to keep a register of children who have disappeared and been abducted.
I urge the Irish presidency, jointly with the Dutch, whose turn it will be next, to take this initiative and set up structures for cross-border cooperation and information exchange between police and justice authorities.
I was pleased to hear such positive noises this afternoon from both Minister Quinn and Commissioner Gradin.
We would also like to see harmonized procedures and specialized courts to implement the conventions of The Hague and Luxembourg. And then European legislation containing procedures for the automatic enforcement of court orders.
Here too it is splendid that a new Brussels II convention is currently in the making.
The sooner the better.
But this must also include European legislation on visiting rights for natural children and guarantees of legal aid.
Lastly, we want a clause on cooperation in abduction cases to be included in agreements between the European Union and third countries.
Prevention is better than cure.
Through clear and harmonized legislation, cooperation between police and justice authorities and Europol, we can prevent an awful lot of misery for an awful lot of children.
Mr President, I wish to thank Mrs Banotti for raising this very important issue in the House.
There are few more traumatic experiences for children than to be the subject of disputes between parents.
If, added to that, is the experience of being taken from one jurisdiction to another and denied access to a mother or father - indeed, to grandparents and extended family - then the trauma is magnified.
The European Union would make an important contribution to taking the deepest concerns of people everywhere in the Union seriously if it could produce a binding framework for the Member States.
Let me put on record that it is important that we tackle issues of real importance to people in Europe, not just the global issues, not just the grande politique , but real issues that affect real people's lives.
If we regard these issues as merely domestic, as has been reflected in national legislation on many issues regarding the family, then we do ourselves and the people of Europe a gross injustice.
I am pleased that Mrs Gradin said that the Commission would deal speedily with this, but I am dismayed that the Council says that it has no timetable in its agenda.
That is no reflection on the current President-in-Office of the Council.
I realize the situation but, for the sake of people everywhere dealing with this issue, please speed this up.
I have experienced this myself and I know how urgent it is to get this resolved for people in Europe.
Mr President, as is highlighted in the resolution on the protection of children, child abuse - from maltreatment to the abduction of, and even trade in, children - is often associated with poverty and social marginalization.
As a recent European Parliament report showed, poverty in Europe is on the increase, and worryingly so, and it is the weakest social groups, and especially women and children, who are the first to suffer the consequences.
In Italy, for example, there are 1 200 000 poor children, that is, one child in six is living in absolute poverty, in families that are often families only in name.
It is, therefore, vital that the Commission and Council should, in collaboration with individual Member States, promote a set of measures to combat poverty and, of course, to combat unemployment.
As regards the specific issue of child abuse, the first thing we need to do is to draft serious European regulations to protect children's rights, with particular attention being given to legislation on adoption.
Secondly, we need to launch an information campaign to increase awareness of the causes and results of child abuse.
Thirdly, we need to provide economic support to ensure that children who are the victims of any kind of abuse, as well as their families, receive the health care, psychological support and legal help they need.
And finally, we need to encourage the forces of law and order in the various Member States to work out a joint plan for collaboration to contain, at international level, the problem of child abduction and, as I said before, the trade in babies and children in general.
Mr President, this debate deals with the harrowing and distressing circumstances of tug-of-love, transnationally abducted children of separated parents living in different countries.
We have had over the years a number of petitions from people affected by this.
Many MEPs have raised cases from their constituencies and those cases are increasing.
The European Parliament has no powers in this area and should not pretend to, but our handling of this issue has been improved by the appointment and work of Mary Banotti who has a serious and realistic approach.
Movement on the Brussels Convention is important, as has been said.
We need to ensure that custody orders in the court of one Member State are not defied by the illegal abduction of children to the jurisdiction of another country, sometimes even another Member State.
Putting it bluntly, why should, for instance, British courts cooperate in the removal of transnationally abducted children from their Britishbased parent, if the court of another Member State contravenes the spirit - and sometimes the words - of the Hague Convention and the Luxembourg Convention and refuses to do the same when a child is abducted to its jurisdiction; or, as we see quite often, when the police and authorities do not seriously seek out the kidnapped children and their abductors. The welfare of children must come first, not nationalism, not machismo but the welfare of the children.
Everything should be done so that children of separated parents have the best possible chance of contact with both their parents, providing one of the parents is not going to try and abduct them, with the likelihood of a loving and secure upbringing.
The work that Parliament and its appointed mediator, Mrs Banotti, do in this area needs the serious encouragement of all Members, and I hope that the response we heard from the President-in-Office and that of the Commission point us in the right direction and that the powers-that-be will take this issue seriously for the benefit of our children.
Mr President, I welcome the initiative by Mrs Banotti on this issue.
This debate on the abduction of children is very important.
However, I want to concentrate on another aspect, namely, violence against children.
I urge Parliament to hold a full and open discussion on violence against children in the autumn.
Violence against children takes many forms. It is a shocking indictment of our society.
Revelations about the abuse of children are now all too frequently the subject of media headlines.
Some who were entrusted to be guardians of our children have shamefully betrayed that trust.
The European Union is now engaged in a fundamental reassessment of the Treaties.
Appropriately, today I call on the President-in-Office to indicate what he plans at EU level concerning not only the issue of child abduction but the protection of children against all forms of violence, including the sexual exploitation of children, child abuse and the misuse of technologies, such as the Internet, by paedophiles who have furthered their own discreditable actions through the new technologies.
In addition, I ask the presidency to give a clear commitment today that, through the IGC negotiations, it will work for the inclusion of a chapter containing provisions relating to the human rights of minors, whereby they will be entitled, in the same way as any other citizen, to enjoy fully the fundamental rights and freedoms recognized by the Community - barring those restrictions, of course, laid down by law specifically where children are concerned.
We need a crusade for children aimed at ensuring that their rights as European citizens are fully safeguarded.
Finally, I take this opportunity to welcome my constituency colleague, Gay Mitchell, to the presidency of the Council and I wish him every success in the coming six months.
Mr President, in the European Parliament, the room for young people and children is still, even now, equipped in only a very Spartan fashion.
The rights of the next generation are weak, and the political realization, on the part of Member States, that the European Union should be given more powers in this field, is only growing slowly.
I think that the Intergovernmental Conference offers us the chance to make progress here.
One particularly sensitive area is that which concerns all forms of force used against children, and particularly the abduction of children, which we are discussing here today.
When marriages break up, there is often considerable dispute about custody rights, and often this escalates into a power struggle between the parents.
In binational marriages, there is an additional potential for conflict arising from differences in tradition, language, culture or even religion, and in this emotional stress situation extreme cases, in which children are actually abducted, are increasing at an ever more alarming rate.
Back in 1991, in my report to the Committee on Youth and Culture, I pointed out this phenomenon and asked for a record of children who had disappeared, and I gave a warning about the lack of cooperation between Member States.
In the 1993 report on measures to prevent the abduction of children, it was again proposed that there should be better coordination and use of the International Conventions of Luxembourg and The Hague.
Since the completion of the internal market and as a result of increasing mobility, which is also linked to international migration patterns, the number of binational life-partnerships is increasing, but so are the cases of conflict.
Mrs Banotti, as the person specially responsible for this question, has given a very graphic report on this situation.
But now we want to see some results at last.
We are asking the European Commission to give us information on all aspects of cross-border child abduction, and also on the measures that can be taken with regard to third countries.
Here in Parliament, we have on several occasions put forward very specific proposals concerning various aspects, including the harmonization of procedures, facilitating the return of abducted children, support measures for selfhelp organisations, better information, and the automatic provision of mutual assistance between courts.
As far as the people involved are concerned, they need help, and they need it now.
We are placing great hopes on the initiative announced by the Irish presidency of the Council, which aims to set up a corresponding EUROPOL register.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mrs Banotti.
I shall begin be referring to the fact that this very serious problem of the abduction of children, which has got worse in Europe in recent times, is a consequence of the break-down of families which itself is a result of a worsening social situation, a moral, cultural, economic and social crisis, which has affected us all and which has not been paid the proper attention it deserves by Community authorities.
I think this is a challenge which is facing us all and which imposes on us especially serious responsibilities.
I should like to say, in fact, that facing this new situation, it would be very hypocritical for us to stand by and hope that problems of this type and with such impact can be dealt with by national legislation.
It is fundamental that there should be considerable effort for convergence and extremely close cooperation in the scope of the third pillar.
I think that this problem, which is covered by the Brussels Convention, is one way which could help in fact to give a new legal framework to safeguard the essential rights of children to prevent situations of this kind from continuing to develop, with all the tragic consequences for children's upbringing - as they suffer irreparable damage in these situations.
It is obvious that we need a new legal framework and I also think that, in debates of this kind, we should not be prisoners of legal solutions because these problems also call for a fresh approach to economic and social questions on a European scale.
Families have been deeply affected and it is families which are at stake as an essential kernel of a dynamic and healthy society. Therefore we must create all of the right conditions so that families stop suffering the kind of attacks that they have in recent years.
Initiatives like Mrs Banotti's are fundamental.
I think that we are on the right track and the Council and Commission must, on the basis of our debate, waste no more time. They must create a proper legal framework to deal with problems of this kind.
Mr President, we have had a lot of valuable debate today on issues such as CFSP, HelmsBurton, the IGC and so on - very important issues in their own right.
But this issue, concerning the physical, psychological and physiological safety of the Union's children must be seen by our citizens to command a priority position on the Union's agenda.
I have practised in family law myself for a number of years and I have seen the difficulties and delays suffered by couples of mixed marriages involved in child-abduction cases.
While the rise in the number of bi-national marriages within the Community is certainly to be welcomed - indeed they promote cultural links between Union citizens - it is very clear that this increase in bi-national marriages - and this has been mentioned by many speakers - has led to a corresponding rise in the level of child abduction within the Member States.
For example, statistics from Ireland - the country that myself and Mr Mitchell represent - reveal a significant increase in such cases, with 70 children abducted from the state last year, and I understand that 16 of these cases have yet to be resolved.
From my experience, the main problems stem from a lack of uniformity of laws under the two existing international conventions in this area, together with a lack of cooperation at intergovernmental level.
On this latter point, I note that Belgium is the only Member State still to ratify the Hague Convention of 1980 on the civil aspects of child abduction and I would urge it to do so immediately.
Finally, it is clear to me that, due to wide divergence in national laws, the resolution of this type of case requires expensive, specialist, legal advice.
While I welcome the current Commission proposals concerning consumer access to justice, I am very disappointed to see that family access to justice, which is a human right, has not yet received the same level of attention.
So I would ask the Commission and the Council to address this issue of the harmonization of national laws on access to legal aid for all.
I look forward to heaving from the Council.
I just hope he is going to heed the calls from many of us.
He has already responded in a most clear and positive way.
I wonder whether he hopes to come back to Parliament before the end of the presidency with some clear indication that action has been taken.
He has committed himself to that and I hope he will.
I am particularly interested in the issue of a central registry where all children abducted - whether they are parental or criminal abductions - will be notified and action taken.
As I mentioned in my own speech this needs to be done with great speed.
With every day that passes it becomes more difficult to find these children.
Mr President, I have very little add to what I said in response to the debate earlier this afternoon except to say that Mrs Ahern must have missed by speech.
She clearly did not get the points I made earlier on.
I should like to join with those who have thanked Mrs Banotti for the way she has pursued and raised this issue and to thank Mr Andrews for his kind words of welcome and encouragement.
I have listened to this debate with great interest.
I understand the sentiments and concerns expressed by those interested in this matter.
It is an important and sensitive issue and it is one on which the Council is taking action, as I said earlier in the debate.
I will report what I have heard here today to my colleague, the Minister for Justice, Mrs Nora Owen, who is President-in-Office of the Justice and Home Affairs Council.
I know that she will be reporting in detail to the relevant committee of this House in the coming weeks.
I have no doubt it is one of the issues that will be raised. I will draw her full attention to this debate.
I hope it is not a sexist remark to say that I was very struck by the number of women Members who contributed to this debate.
As it happens, we have a woman Minister for Justice in Ireland who is President-in-Office of the Justice and Home Affairs Council and would be particularly sensitive to the issues which have been raised here.
It would fall to her to ensure that the response of the presidency and the Irish Government will be made to the relevant European Parliament committee.
I will certainly ensure that this is drawn to her attention.
I do not know if the House knows that Mrs Owen is Mrs Banotti's sister and that is a happy coincidence.
It is very useful on this occasion that the Member who is pursuing this so vigorously has the ear and direct access to the Minister.
I have been very taken with the debate today and I will be sure, on behalf of the presidency, to make sure that what has been said here today is drawn to the Minister's attention.
Mr Andrews raised a broader question which in turn is worthy of examination.
I would encourage him in his endeavours to raise this matter again in the autumn.
Proposals coming forward from Parliament in this regard would be welcomed by the presidency.
It is an issue which for far too long we have either chosen to ignore or for one reason or another have not been aware of.
The debate today has been a very useful and helpful one and it will inform the presidency in our approach to pursuing this issue in the Council of Ministers.
I assure the House that the President-in-Office of the Justice and Home Affairs Council will be made fully aware of the concerns of the House by me and by my department following tonight's debate.
Mr President, I would just like to say for clarification that I wanted Council to set a timetable.
They did say earlier that they could not do that.
I am glad that the Minister has now given assurances that it will be dealt with speedily and perhaps in view of the exchanges that we heard just now, the relevant Minister for Justice could appear before this House to give her personal assurances on the issue before December.
I thank Mr Mitchell for his sensitive reply.
This House looks forward to having him with us during the Irish presidency.
I have received two motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Customs union with Turkey
The next item is the report (A4-0197/96) by Mr Kittelmann, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision laying down the procedure for adopting the Community's position in the Customs Union Joint Committee set up by Decision No 1/95 of the EC-Turkey Association Council on the implementation of the final phase of the Customs Union (COM(96)0018 - C4-0126/96-96/0020 (CNS)).
Mr President, first of all I should like to present the Kittelmann report, and then I should like to explain the position of the Committee on External Economic Relations with regard to that report.
On 1 January 1996, the Customs Union with Turkey came into force.
It has now been operating for almost seven months.
Today, Parliament is being asked to approve a Council Decision laying down the procedure for implementing the Customs Union, a decision which we should actually approve.
This will take place in a committee known as the Customs Union Joint Committee, which was set up by Decision No 1/95 of the EC-Turkey Association Council, on the implementation of the final phase of the Customs Union.
It is a question of making sure that the Customs Union operates in accordance with the rules, and of guaranteeing the free movement of goods between the two partners.
The Council is to be responsible for defining the Community's position, while the Commission is to define the Community's position on the technical provisions and on anti-competition practices, so as to be able to negotiate with our Turkish partners afterwards.
Both the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on External Economic Relations have unanimously approved the proposal.
I would just like to emphasize once again that the purpose of this procedure is to ensure that the Customs Union operates correctly from the point of view of trade policy.
In doing so I should like to make it quite clear that this particular procedure has nothing directly to do with financial cooperation or with issues of a political nature, for which it is not the Joint Committee that is responsible, but the Association Council.
What we are looking at here is a technical regulation, in other words a provision for the implementation of the Customs Union.
As far as the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations is concerned, the committee also regards this Council Decision as a technical measure, but a measure which is necessary in order to implement the Customs Union.
It would like, by means of its opinion, to help to make the work of the Customs Union Joint Committee as correct and as transparent as possible, and at the same time to give the European Parliament a comprehensive update on the technical aspects.
The opinion contains two amendments proposed by me, as rapporteur.
On Article 1, the Committee on External Economic Relations proposes that reference should be made not only to Article 113, i.e. trade policy, but also to the various other relevant statutory provisions, for example those concerning intellectual property and industrial property.
It therefore seems to me to be necessary to propose a slightly different form of words for Article 1, laying down that a Council decision should be adopted in accordance with the procedures laid down for the adoption of internal rules for the area in question. The other amendment concerns Article 2.
Here, a sentence should be added to the effect that the European Parliament should be kept regularly informed of the decisions taken by the Joint Committee.
I would remind you that in all aspects of the Customs Union the European Parliament's controlling and advisory function should be guaranteed.
Both amendments have also been approved by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and included in Mr Kittelmann's report.
As the draftsman of this opinion, may I therefore ask you to adopt this report, and in doing so I would deliberately emphasize the technical quality of this proposal.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I can say that the report on the Community's position in the Customs Union Joint Committee presents no special difficulties and can be supported provided the amendments are adopted.
However, I wish to take this opportunity to emphasize that adoption of the customs union with Turkey by the European Union has been made subject to a number of political conditions relating to respect for human rights, the democratic process, the rule of law and international law and for the maintenance of good neighbourly relations and the territorial integrity of the Member States.
In other words, if that country wishes to benefit from cooperation with Europe, it must operate within the framework of the international legal order and not outside it.
Unfortunately, Turkey's conduct so far has been very disappointing.
In addition to continuing with violations, it is persisting with provocative political claims against Greece and Cyprus - the one a Member State and the other a candidate for accession to the Union.
This behaviour, which poses a threat to the peace and security of the region, must change.
To assist towards that, the Council, in approving the MEDA programme a few days ago, issued a stern warning to the new Turkish government of Mr Erbakan.
We await its reaction, and our action in the European Parliament and any possible initiatives will be dependent on that reaction.
In that regard, Mr President, I think that it would be advisable for the Council and Commission to keep us informed about the progress of implementation of the customs union with Turkey, particularly now when the government of the new prime minister of Turkey has expressed reservations about the customs union, whereas previously it supported a renegotiation of the agreement.
Mr President, Mr Kittelmann, I know that this is really more of a technical report, but nevertheless we must also look at the political background, as the previous speaker has already said.
Last December, we, the European Parliament, took an important decision regarding the EU's relations with Turkey.
That decision was based only partially on real changes, for example in the constitution.
Much of it was based on promises and hopes which the European Parliament expressed at the time.
Mrs Çiller, who was then the Turkish Prime Minister, appealed to us to support her in keeping the fundamentalists out of power.
Yet now all that has been forgotten.
She shares the government of the country with them, and is now Foreign Minister.
Promises, such as respect for human rights, and the positive revision of proceedings against those members of parliament who were condemned on the basis of a very problematical law, have been forgotten.
How will Turkish women retain their equal rights?
Why are people still being tortured?
Why do people disappear, and why are people still dying after being tortured in police stations or after being interrogated? What, if anything, has changed, and what, if anything, has improved?
I feel that Mrs Çiller has disappointed my hopes of a Europeoriented Turkey. If things go on like this, I shall no longer need to worry about what basis the Joint Committee should work on, but I have to ask myself whether the money that the EU is making available might not be better invested in other countries.
Mr President, we could agree to the changes to the Commission's text proposed in Mr Kittelmann's report, but only if we ceased to be aware of their context, i.e. the customs union with Turkey.
In this false framework, however, such proposed technical improvements, which in practice are sensible, would not produce any better result in substance.
I can still remember very well how seven months ago, in this house, we voted in favour of a customs union with Turkey.
Now the Islamic fundamentalists are in government, and Mrs Çiller has helped them to get there.
So what lessons have those who once recommended the customs union learned from the failure of their strategy? It seems to me that instead of drawing certain conclusions they are now simply sticking their heads in the sand and acting as though nothing has happened.
But this ostrich-like policy, this strategy of going ahead with our eyes firmly closed, is probably something that we shall very soon come to regret.
There must be no preferential treatment for a state which does not even respect the most elementary fundamental rights, such as the right to freedom of opinion, and which is waging a dirty war against a section of its population, namely the Kurds.
The European Parliament should therefore take no further steps in the wrong direction, and should forget about any decisions to push ahead with the customs union - and here I am talking only about the financial protocols - until democracy and peace have been restored in Turkey.
I would ask all those who agreed at the time to review their decision again, and to think about the reasons for their agreement.
Mr President, the Kittelmann report touches on legal and institutional questions.
First of all, it expresses the desire for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights to be consulted about the legal basis.
I deplore the fact that this did not happen.
Next, the report refers to the consultation of Parliament.
However, following the example of previous speakers, I would like to speak mainly about political aspects.
I recall the arguments that were put forward at the time the customs union agreement was ratified.
I personally, and the whole of my group, were opposed to that ratification for four reasons: the non-recognition of the Armenian genocide by the Turkish government at the time, the Cyprus situation, the human rights situation and, fourthly, the fact that Turkey, however hard it might try, could not become part of the European Union, whereas customs union was apparently perceived by many of its sponsors as a first step towards accession as such.
There has been no fundamental change, and I regret that the majority in the House failed to stand by its initial position, which was to refuse consent to customs union.
Today there is an Islamic government in Turkey, although we were told that by voting in favour of customs union we would prevent the Islamic faction from coming to power.
The Turkish Government has adopted an aggressive posture towards two Greek islands.
Has the situation changed, or were those who expressed their opposition to customs union right after all? I could have simply read out the explanation of vote which I gave at the time.
It ended in these words: I am not unaware of the commercial aspects of the agreement before us, but I cannot in all conscience vote in favour of it, for the reasons I have just mentioned.
For the same reasons, further reinforced by the events of recent months, our group will be voting against Mr Kittelmann's report.
Mr President, the report - and Mr Schwaiger has emphasized this point - says that this is primarily and exclusively a technical regulation.
Of course we should agree with that definition, and therefore I shall also give my full agreement to this decision.
However, I did not, at the time, agree to the customs union with Turkey, and I feel that subsequent developments have more than vindicated my decision.
I am sure that many of the people who said yes at the time must now be looking at their decision with increasing doubt and growing dissatisfaction.
Let us just remember, it was made emphatically clear to us at the time that the conclusion of the customs union would be a crucial argument in preventing large sections of the Turkish electorate from giving the fundamentalists the majority in that country.
And yet that politician, who at the time stated so emphatically that she wanted to halt this fundamentalist upsurge, has now formed an alliance with that party, which in spite of everything was successful in the elections.
I do not know whether it is true, as a Turkish opposition politician has stated, that this is a joint venture, the main purpose of which is to prevent the surprising wealth of both party leaders from being investigated by parliament.
One thing, however, is clear: what is being done is to make possible all those things that we were told, before the election, were going to be prevented.
We have already been told how many promises Turkey has failed to keep, and it is now time that we asked ourselves seriously whether the present government really wants to take Turkey along the path to Europe.
Mr President, the customs union with Turkey is a reality.
And I can only agree with the previous speaker in saying that I am already experiencing a certain amount of disappointment, when I hear that the current prime minister, an Islamic fundamentalist, believes that he no longer needs this customs union, this agreement with the European Union.
I therefore believe that, in addition to the technical adjustment that the present decision is concerned with, we should ask ourselves what the customs union with Turkey has actually achieved, in economic terms, in the last ten months.
I believe that in setting up this customs union we have failed to grasp the problem of increasing unemployment in Turkey.
I also believe that this customs union as a whole has helped only a part of industry and a part of the economy, but has not, to a large extent, helped the entire national economy of Turkey.
The technical adjustment that we are dealing with today must therefore be examined from this angle, and we shall have to see whether this amendment, this technical adjustment, and the continued operation of this customs union with Turkey, will really ensure prosperity and freedom in that country.
Mr President, in his report Mr Kittelmann proposes two amendments which the Commission cannot, however, approve.
The reasons are these: regarding the first amendment, we must remember that the Joint Committee on the customs union is purely technical and commercial in nature.
It monitors compliance with the free movement of goods in the area of the customs union and ensures in particular that Turkish legislation is constantly harmonized with Community legislation in those areas relating directly to the activity of the customs union.
The Joint Committee can make its recommendations to the Association Council, which makes the necessary decisions while observing the procedures in accordance with the Treaty establishing the European Community.
The powers of the Joint Committee fall within the scope of Article 113.
Therefore, in confirming the common position of the customs union in the Joint Committee, the Council does so by qualified majority.
In its second amendment, Parliament asks to be given information on the decisions of the Joint Committee.
It should be noted that Parliament is already given information.
When the Commission sends the Council a proposal for a common position, this is also sent to the European Parliament for information.
The same procedure is followed in cases in which proposals for a common position are discussed in the Joint Committee.
It should also be stated that the recommendations of the Joint Committee approved by the Association Council are published in the Official Journal of the European Communities.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Draft supplementary and amending budget No 1 for 1996
The next item is the report (A4-0245/96) by Mr Elles and Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft supplementary and amending budget No 1 for the 1996 financial year.
Mr President, can I thank both rapporteurs, Mr Elles and Mr Miranda, for the reports they have put in front of us.
Can I especially thank Mr Miranda for being here.
I want to talk to the general budget rather than Parliament's budget.
Three things are worth mentioning when we look at the figures within that budget.
It will be remembered, certainly in my mind, for three areas.
We could actually call it the UK rebate budget; the UK gets its rebate of about ECU 2.8 billion, but this has been corrected downwards.
Within that rebate was hope of a payment from the social lines B3-4004 and B3-4003.
Thankfully, a touch of genius from our colleagues in the Social Affairs Committee has meant that the Budgets Committee amendment that will be put forward will ensure that the people who those lines are aimed at are not disadvantaged.
The Commission did their best to make sure that they were not disadvantaged but the tactic that has been adopted by Parliament is to be commended.
Even though the UK will get its rebate, and quite rightly so, those lines will not contribute towards that.
Secondly, we can say that it is the 'mad cow' supplementary and amending budget.
The fact is that ECU 1.2 billion will be reallocated within Category 1 because of the effects of the mad cow disease.
That is a lot of money, which in one sense, could have gone back to the Member States.
In another sense, if the Commission had succeeded in what it was trying to do, it could have been reallocated to trans-European networks, to research and development and to small and medium enterprises.
That was not to be and therefore we have a supplementary and amending budget where we see a figure of ECU 1.2 billion being reallocated because of mad cow disease.
The third aspect of this particular budget is that it could be called the Member States jackpot budget because the Member States really have landed lucky.
When we look at the carry-overs from 1995, we have something like ECU 9.2 billion of unused resources in 1995, now being carried over into 1996, which means that when Member States have to pay their own resources there will be ECU 9.2 billion less that they have to pay for this year's budget.
This sounds fine and I am sure the Member States will welcome that.
The tragedy is, certainly in one area, that we find that the structural funds are underspent in 1995 by ECU 4.4 billion.
Whilst it might be the Member States jackpot budget it is not something we should be celebrating when we look at the structural funds.
Mr President, this supplementary and amending budget was born under the star of the decision on own resources, which has now finally been ratified, and we have ECU 81.94 billion at our disposal in the 1996 budget.
At the same time we have a balance of ECU 9.21 billion left over from the previous year.
This money either does not need to be paid by the Member States, or else it goes back to them.
However, that is still more than 10 % of the present year's budget.
If we had not had BSE and a number of corrections in individual categories, for example those that were made necessary by enlargement or by the newly created Ombudsman's Office, then the figure would have been far more than 10 %.
Now it is not Parliament that is responsible for this fact.
Surely it is mad to commit resources to the agricultural sector and the structural funds, and then not use them, whilst in sectors which are important for the future of Europe, and which require close cooperation between undertakings within the region and the citizens of Europe, both the Commission and the Council are being stingy. And this is particularly true in Categories 3 and 4.
The Commission and the Council must ask themselves the following question, "Can't you do any better, or is it just that you don't want to?' As far as the 1997 budget is concerned, there are signs that it is indeed a question of not wanting to.
Our group will be approving the supplementary and amending budget, and it emphasizes that in so doing it is also expressing its solidarity with those affected by BSE and its consequences.
One of the main points of interest to our group is also the supervision and control of expenditure on projects under the MEDA, PHARE and TACIS programmes.
However, the Commission should know that we would not fall in with its proposals if it were to use the room to manoeuvre, provided by us, in order to re-introduce mini-budgets.
The administration of the European Parliament should also know that decisions by the Committee on Budgets and the European Parliament - and I am referring here to the Miranda report - are law, and should not be open to interpretation.
Our group will be approving this supplementary and amending budget.
Mr President, at the time of the vote on the original budget for 1996, my group could only protest against a draft budget that was irresponsible because it was constantly increasing.
For the same reasons, we cannot support the supplementary and amending budget which is now before us.
Let me cite just three examples.
First, the use of this supplementary and amending budget to distribute, in the first instance, an additional ECU 31 million, adopted by Parliament, to reduce the extent of property investment.
This end-of-year bonus sanctions a ruinous property policy (ECU 217, 900 million for 1997), which is still being pursued on the sly through year-end transfers and supplementary and amending budgets.
This approach is intolerable for Europe's tax payers, and anything but a credit to Parliament.
A second example: the report envisages, as we previously complained at the time of the discussion of Parliament's draft estimate, giving the Ombudsman - yet another supplementary institution created by the Maastricht Treaty - three additional jobs, although negotiations on this matter with the Council and the Commission have barely begun.
Finally, my third and last example illustrates the principle - endorsed by this House - of a continuous and continuing increase in the Community budget at a time when the governments of all our countries are struggling to reduce public spending.
We note that more than ECU 9, 215 million out of the 1996 budget has not been spent: it is high time to stop this spending spiral and pay more attention to existing and underused resources.
A word, too, about the Brinkhorst report - somewhat previous, but I hope you will forgive me - to deplore the rapporteur's intention to reduce the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditures.
Mr President, you seem to be trying to tell me that my time is up.
So I shall leave it to other Members of my group to say what they think about this second report.
Mr President, I, too, should like to thank the rapporteur for his report and make a comment on the general budget, focusing on the specific aspect of social dialogue, to which my colleague, Mr Wynn, has already referred.
As the Commissioner well knows, the UK's opting out of the social protocol has this year already blocked execution of the budget line concerning transnational meetings of workers' and employers' representatives; as in the case of the preliminary draft budget for 1997, the executive committee is therefore proposing to divide the line in the amending budget, with the specific intention of distinguishing meetings involving representatives of fourteen Member States from those involving representatives of all fifteen Member States.
But the European Parliament cannot accept this approach, for various reasons.
On the operational level, it would be extremely difficult to manage and the social partners have already pointed this out.
Furthermore, by introducing into the budget the possibility of 'made-to-measure' funding based on the interests of the various Member States, it represents a dangerous challenge to the principle of solidarity of the Union.
The Committee on Budgets is, therefore, asking Parliament, which will tomorrow be voting on the amending budget, to adopt an amendment that avoids these problems and most importantly makes it possible to use the available funds.
There are already plans for meetings of workers' and employers' representatives, which are simply waiting for the go-ahead from the competent Directorate-General of the executive Commission.
It would, therefore, be absurd for the Union not to be able to allow this.
Certainly, we attach considerable importance to social dialogue, but we must also demonstrate that in our choices concerning budget management; I believe that this amendment will enable us to do that.
Mr President, I have to tell you the bad news that I am also deputizing for the author of the report, Mr Elles, who is supposed to be introducing the joint Elles-Miranda report.
Since Mr Elles cannot be present, he has asked me, as chairman of the Committee on Budgets, to introduce his report, but the debate on that report had already started before I was able to reach the building.
I should therefore like, before I go on to give my comments as a representative of the Socialist Group, to make three comments on behalf of Mr Elles.
You have seen how good the cooperation is between the Christian Democrats, the Socialists and all the others in this Committee on Budgets.
The first comment is that I should point out that this budget makes a spectacular repayment, which might have been even bigger if we had not had to take BSE into account.
Therefore all the balance sheets and calculations that are being drawn up in the Member States on the subject of the net-payer function will now have to be scrapped.
Because with this repayment, which amounts to more than ECU 9 billion, my country alone will receive 28 % net paid back into its national budget, or 28.2 % to be precise.
And this applies to all the other Member States as well.
Therefore the balance sheet will not be correct until these repayments, which are not one-offs, but will also play a role in future years if spending develops as anticipated, are taken into account, and a balance sheet is drawn up on the basis of this repayment.
Secondly, I should point out that the rapporteur is very anxious to expressly draw attention to the fact that, following the Council's decision on the MEDA, TACIS and PHARE programmes, to delete the expanded comments which were intended to make it possible to evaluate the projects being carried out in these countries, we disapproved of this deletion of the comments and therefore the rapporteur has proposed that they be reinstated.
Therefore - and I shall explain this tomorrow before the vote takes place - there is a mistake in the motions that we adopted on Monday, namely an expression in brackets, in which the headquarters is named.
This was not intended, but we shall correct the mistake early tomorrow in the various language versions.
Thirdly, I am to point out that the apportionment of resources between 14 or 15 Member States - as Mrs Ghilardotti has just explained - is not in line with this House and with the ideas of this House.
We have therefore thrown the ball back to the Commission, by drafting two budget lines, one for the 14 Member States with a p.m. and one for the 15 Member States with the total figure in the column.
We have amended the comments accordingly.
However, I would like to make one thing clear. We could have made things so difficult for the Commission that it would have had to ask us if it thought it should have entered a figure in the p.m. column.
Then we would simply have put the p.m. column into another chapter, and then there would have had to be a transfer from chapter to chapter, with the corresponding transfer of resources by us.
We did not want to go that far - we trust the Commission.
And therefore we put the p.m. column in the same chapter.
But we expect that the Commission is very much in line with the new comments, which no longer make any reference to the Directive on joint works committees, or to the Euro-Works Commission, but make it clear that we carried out this activity at a time when there was neither a social protocol nor a Directive on Euro-Works Committees.
We therefore expect that this will be taken into consideration for the 15 Member States in the corresponding column.
Now, as speaker on behalf of the Socialist Group, let me just make a comment on the accusation levelled against the Socialist Group by Mrs Müller.
Mrs Müller, I should like to say to you quite clearly, that we are now standing, in fact, at a critical point in the development of the Community's spending policy.
And it is just resorting to cheap polemics to try to give the impression that the great Group of Socialists in this House is of the opinion that we should not support the proceedings before the Hague Tribunal.
The Hague Tribunal is an organ of intergovernmental cooperation.
It is run by those who are responsible for the intergovernmental financing of this undertaking.
We in this House - and that includes your group, Mrs Müller - have always emphasized the fact that we only participate in matters in which we as the Community have decision-making powers.
And this is the difference between, for example, financing projects via Echo for the UNHCR, where we have the final say as to whether we are prepared to make these funds available, and a case like the present one, in which, if we leave the door open for the financing of intergovernmental organizations where we would be making our contribution in the form of a blank cheque, in which case we would be doing precisely what we are constantly accusing the Council of doing, and what has now proposed again as a transfer of resources, in which the OSCE is to be given a subsidy of 3 million, without the competent staff of the Commission having to change anything, except for the handing over of the cheque.
Yet this cannot be the purpose of our work.
Therefore we have said that we are against this amendment, not because we do not want to support the work, but because we do not want to open this door any further.
I will immediately support you if, in your amendment, you demand that we should invite the Member States of the European Union to make the necessary resources available intergovernmentally, so that the Hague Tribunal can carry out its work properly.
I believe that this is an invitation that the whole House - or my group at any rate - will support.
Mr President, as previous speakers have pointed out, by means of this proposed supplementary and amending budget we shall, as it were, be paying back to the Member States over ECU 9 billion.
Since we, as the elected representatives of these Member States, know all about the budgetary problems that all our governments are having to cope with - amongst other things in order to meet the much-quoted Maastricht criteria - I welcome this enormous sum which we are in fact making available to our countries.
By so doing we are also clearly demonstrating the fact that there is no such thing as a Brussels operating quite separately, but that we can, and will, bring about the construction of Europe only on the basis of our Member States and only with those States.
I should also like to emphasize the fact that we, the European Parliament, are trying to bring this about as quickly as possible, inasmuch as we have made it clear that we do not need a second reading in order to adopt this supplementary budget.
I hope that the Council, as the representative of our Member States, will give a correspondingly positive response to this signal.
What strikes me, however, when I read the Elles-Miranda report, is the listing of the resources not used in 1995, according to the various budget categories.
When I read, for example, that over 15 % of Categories 3 and 4 was not spent last year, then I ask myself whether the Commission is unwilling to carry out the wishes of the budgetary authority, or incapable of doing so.
I hope that on this point the Commission will be able to give us a satisfactory explanation during the current consultations on the forthcoming 1997 budget.
Mr President, I will be brief and just give a few elements of the supplementary and amending budget for 1996.
First, this supplementary and amending budget for 1996 will finally implement a new own-resource decision which goes back to the Edinburgh European Council in December 1992.
With the new decision, burden sharing among the Member States is fairer and the Union now has a significant margin of resources to finance its current obligations and quite a few future ones as well.
It has been a very slow process, and without pressure from the European Parliament we might still be waiting.
But the slow ratification process also shows that it becomes more and more difficult to convince national parliaments of the additional financial needs of the Community.
This experience underlines the importance of using the resources which the Community now has available as rigorously and productively as possible.
Secondly, the SAB makes it possible to budgetize significant reductions in the estimated needs for a number of agricultural sectors.
These reduced needs have so far made it possible to finance the meat measures which were decided to address the BSE crisis while respecting the agricultural guidelines.
Further, with the SAB, the Community also fulfils its obligations under the Treaty of Maastricht - whatever we think of this part of the Social Protocol - to provide a mechanism permitting the financing of actions based on the Social Protocol by those Member States signatory to it.
As long as the United Kingdom is not a participant these measures have to be taken over by the other Member States.
Finally, the additional budgetary commitments for PHARE, TACIS and MEDA will improve transparency and permit improvement in the quality of execution of these programmes as well as their control.
Experience will show whether the formulations to be adopted will correspond in all respects to these objectives.
If problems remain we must come back to this in future budgets.
The Commission will also support the budgetary authority in its review of ECHO operations in order to assess the effectiveness of the existing monitoring procedures as requested in your resolution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
1997 budgetary procedure
The next item is the report (A4-0246/96) by Mr Brinkhorst, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the 'ad hoc procedure' for the 1997 budget provided for in Annex II on interinstitutional collaboration in the budgetary sector to the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993 on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure.
Mr President, I refer to paragraph 11 of the motion for a resolution of the Brinkhorst report.
While the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development certainly considers it necessary to review some of the Commission's forecasts, we will comment on the draft budget after 25 July, when it is published.
The Committee on Agriculture has not discussed the actual draft budget and, therefore, cannot concur with the figures in Annex II.
However, we agree that there ought to be a reserve and monies from lower forecasts be put in this reserve with any money which becomes available from wherever we can get it.
Any surplus money in a reserve should be reallocated to aspects of rural economy by Members of the European Parliament.
I congratulate Mr Brinkhorst for his efforts to include all interests in his decisions and I feel we have developed areas where agriculture interests and budget interests can combine to negotiate with the Commission and with the Council when they attend.
He has improved procedures. We should thank him.
Mr President, no-one should underestimate the importance of this report, because when Parliament votes on it tomorrow, we may well kill the idea that it is just the budget mafia that comes forward with these proposals - it will be Parliament that gives its backing to what Mr Brinkhorst has put forward.
The Council of Ministers may well have thought that this issue was dead and buried last December when the Court of Justice made its ruling.
Whilst Parliament did not win its case, it did not necessarily lose it, because what the Court of Justice said was that Parliament and the Council together have to reach an agreement on what is and what is not compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure within category 1.
Unfortunately, the Council has just ignored that ruling and has gone on its own sweet way and that means that it has ignored the ad hoc procedure.
What Mr Brinkhorst is now proposing is something which, in effect, says: look, Council, we are serious about this issue and unless you begin to take the ad hoc procedure seriously we are going to have major problems again, as we had with the 1995 budget.
Do not take them as veiled threats: they are actual threats, because we need a resolution to this.
I hope we will get a reserve, as proposed, and will be able to allocate that reserve from the resources within category 1 and that we will get cooperation with meaningful discussions with the Council when we are doing this.
But the Council has to realize that this is a genuine fight on behalf of Parliament - a fight for what we believe to be right.
What is right is that not all expenditure in category 1 is necessarily compulsory expenditure.
We have to bear in mind that expenditure which is non-compulsory has a direct effect on the maximum rate of increase, which has a direct effect on other areas of all our policies.
This report will be voted on tomorrow.
I am sure it will be successful.
Once we have that backing from Parliament, I hope the Council will take note of that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament, at the initiative of its general rapporteur, has thus instituted the ad hoc procedure, on which we are now being asked to pronounce, since we indicated our disagreement with the Council on the preliminary draft budget for 1997.
The main argument put forward by the rapporteur, our colleague Laurens Brinkhorst, is based on the substantial volume of unused appropriations in the compulsory expenditure sector which lead him, through the device of a global appropriation reserve intended exclusively for agriculture, to foresee even today that the price situation in 1997 could be as favourable as in 1995 and that, consequently, the possibility exists of accepting immediately that, since some of the appropriations are of no use, these could be transferred to a special, single reserve from which funds could be drawn in due course.
I am bound to say that I am impressed by the way in which the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has gone along with this brilliant reasoning, to the point of having accepted the establishment of this reserve.
Even so, I would like someone to tell me how appropriations, which cannot be carried forward, can be placed in reserve, since the financial rules of our institutions forbid it.
It might be as well to recall from time to time a few fundamental budgetary rules, such as the yearly-review rule, which will not be observed.
This House does in fact have a degree of latitude with regard to non-compulsory expenditure, although it has none with regard to compulsory expenditure, which of course includes agricultural expenditure.
I hope that in plenary session tomorrow, at voting time, the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development will get a grip on themselves and see how seriously they have been misled.
As far as our group is concerned, we have no intention of accepting the idea that this reserve is possible on the grounds that part of the EAGGF guarantee would not be compulsory.
We are therefore firmly opposed to the setting-up of a general reserve, the legal bases of which seem to us to be highly dubious.
I would now like to consider the question of the 1997 budget perspectives as a whole, because I believe this is the crux of the debate.
Next year is a crucial year for all the fifteen nations that constitute the European Union. Because it is upon that budget year that the definitive arrangements for certain States to move forward to the single currency will be based.
Each nation has therefore embarked upon an extremely rigorous budgetary policy, and it is hard to conceive that the union's budget - which is exclusively fuelled by money raised from the tax payers in the Member States - can be significantly increased at a time when the national governments will be unable to look any further than just doing the best they can.
In recent years, the strategy of placement in reserve has become the guiding principle of the Committee on Budgets, by hunting down wrongly estimated appropriations and underutilization.
This praiseworthy effort now reaches its apotheosis in the Council's intention of reducing appropriations because there is no point, at a time of restrictions, in retaining obvious overestimates in a budget. This is an illustration of the principle of the punishment fitting the crime.
In conclusion, let me make one final observation.
The Edinburgh decision of December 1992 gave our Parliament a power of codecision which is valuable in principle though difficult to implement.
I would like to caution the general rapporteur about his responsibility in the conduct of affairs during this year.
The pass that we have to negotiate is littered with pitfalls.
Our group, naturally, as you will have realized, is going to reject his report.
Let him draw the appropriate conclusions and, in particular, let him understand that a period of crisis is no time to launch a vigorous attack on the foundations of the structure. As we see it, the common agricultural policy is one of those foundations.
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that I am extremely critical of this report. I should also like to emphasise straight away that if the vote which was taken in the committee is repeated in the Plenary and if the vote which we held in the Plenary is repeated in the vote on the 1997 budget there is no way that we shall have a budget.
I would draw attention to this aspect and the need for greater consensus on this matter.
What is at stake with the Brinkhorst report is not only the important question of classifying expenditure or the question of our positive influence on the management of agricultural spending.
What is at stake is a matter of far greater importance, ranging from enlargement to the question of EMU, from structural funds to economic and social cohesion - that is what is at stake in this report and it is necessary for us to deal with this question clearly.
The first question which arises is this one: How is it possible for us, without any transparency, to discuss issues of this importance by means of an ad hoc process. Of course, I cannot accept this situation.
This is obviously the wrong way to do things and obviously I cannot accept it.
But more than this: the very substance of the report.
By this I mean that this is the first time I have had to face such a question in ten years of activity at the European Parliament.
The central question of this report is not set out in the resolution but is put into the appendix, where of course it is placed as an indicative question.
This I find unacceptable!
I cannot accept that the substantial question of this report is in the appendix and put as a mere indicative question.
I think that this is a total perversion and this has never happened before as far as I can remember in the ten years in which I have been a Member of this Parliament.
I, therefore, think that the whole process has been contaminated by a lack of transparency and was bound to go off the rails as I suggested in the committee, in particular, now that we know the intentions of the Council following this report, the only correct position for us to take would be to stop even looking at this report and not go down this dead-end, which only covers up the fundamental fact which is at stake at the moment.
Not even the rapporteur himself had the courage to speak openly about what is really at stake in relation to this report.
Dear Mr Brinkhorst, it is not true that, for example, two new budgetary lines were created for enlargement. What are the intentions lying behind this attitude?
It is so that by means of an ad hoc process what has to be discussed in another way has already been politically conditioned when instead we should be having a much more serious and rather more transparent debate on the same subject.
Obviously, this means we are going to oppose this report.
We are going to oppose it because of its implications as I have already said and, in particular, the reactions to it from the Council in particular the intention to reduce the structural funds by one billion ECU, something which we are not going to accept and something which actually stems from this report.
This is something which has to be said!
We cannot accept the withdrawal of one billion ECU in this underhand way.
This is the issue and we are calling into question this lack of transparency and we think that the whole matter calls for a re-think.
Mr President, the Brinkhorst report stubbornly continues along the line adopted by the majority in the Committee on Budgets: proposing economies or the establishment of reserves in areas where the Treaties give Parliament no jurisdiction and, by contrast, proposing additional expenditures in sectors where Parliament does have jurisdiction.
Thus, while the Maastricht criteria compel the Member States to pursue rigorous budgetary policies, the European Parliament is heading off in the direction of ever-increasing expenditure.
Because agricultural expenditure, where 95 % of the appropriations were used up in 1995, is not the only area in which major economies could be achieved.
If there is a need to seek out and find potential economies, the place to look is among the structural activities, where only 81 % of the appropriations were used; in internal policies, which are generally contrary to the principle of subsidiarity and where only 85 % of appropriations were used; and in external schemes, often delegated without control to NGOs, experts and private firms, where only 82 % of the appropriations were used.
So, instead of indulging in legal squabbles with the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament would do better to defend the tax payer by suggesting realistic economies in areas where it has jurisdiction - non-compulsory expenditure.
There are plenty of promising avenues to pursue there: savings on the countless micro-subsidies; savings on the expenditure on expert reports, congresses, expenditure scattered over more than one hundred budget lines; better arithmetic in awarding the structural fund appropriations; reconsideration of the value of certain internal policies which, once again, are contrary to the principle of subsidiarity; and finally, better control of external schemes.
In other words, our Parliament can fulfil its function as a defender of the tax payer, but only by taking action in areas where it has jurisdiction, and not in areas where its jurisdiction is limited by the Treaties.
Mr President, Mr Sonneveld should have been speaking now, but unfortunately he is unable to be here and has asked me to give his speech for him.
So if I appear to know a lot about agriculture the credit is Mr Sonneveld's and not mine.
Under the interinstitutional agreement July is the time when we must debate the 1997 draft budget, when the institutions responsible must look at compulsory expenditure.
The judgment of the Court of Justice confirmed that both arms of the budgetary authority must, on this occasion in particular and on the basis of their powers, deliberate and reach agreement on compulsory expenditure.
This year Parliament has prepared more carefully than ever before for this ad hoc procedure.
This is thanks to the determined and laudable work of the rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst - and I am anxious to say that this evening because he has been the target of a lot of criticism - who undertook to bring about a consensus between the Agriculture Committee and the Committee on Budgets.
Rapporteur Elles initiated this procedure during the 1996 budget debate.
This year the procedure has worked fully for the first time.
The big question is whether the other arm of the budgetary authority will take the same notice of the Court of Justice's judgment.
Parliament has said what it wants, namely a more up-t-date estimate of compulsory expenditure, to be reached in close cooperation with the Commission.
On the basis of that a reserve of 556 million ECU has been agreed, available for programmes for the development of agricultural markets and support for rural development.
It should be borne in mind that it is still difficult to estimate a large proportion of compulsory expenditure.
And certain savings, on export refunds for example, will certainly not improve the lot of farmers in the European Union.
Anything but; the cutting of export refunds for cheese will cause cheese prices in the Union to fall and put greater pressure on the dairy industry.
So diversification remains a permanent imperative.
It is thus necessary for all the different elements of agriculture policy to be integrated.
My Group would like to see important instruments of agricultural and rural policy from the other budget categories also regarded under category 1.
Ultimately European policy on rural development will have to apply to the 15 current Member States and later to the new members.
That requires a creative approach.
This is the essence of the position agreed jointly by the Agriculture Committee and the Committee on Budgets.
I fear that the Council is thinking along totally different lines, namely a sizeable curtailment of the farm budget.
This would be a singular move which would not help the development of agriculture.
It would be even more remarkable to see a number of French Members siding with the Council and thus depriving agriculture of even more money than the Commission is proposing.
If that does not happen spending will fall short of the ceiling for agriculture.
The European Parliament's Agriculture Committee will then be swift to come up with initiatives for rural development and market developments during the budget negotiations in October.
Mr President, Parliament seems to be willing to help Member States to pass the EMU test at the beginning of 1998 by accepting cuts in the budget for 1997.
General rapporteur Brinkhorst has introduced a number of new elements in his coverage of the subject: a more effective ad hoc procedure, early involvement of the committees and the concentration of all agricultural activities in category 1.
Initiatives of which I approve.
But I do not feel the same enthusiasm for his efforts to make savings by reducing compulsory expenditure and putting part of those savings into the reserve.
I agree with the rapporteur that the sizeable surpluses there have been in the budget on several occasions suggest that these appropriations need critical scrutiny.
But it would have been reasonable to expect that we would be told exactly what caused these surpluses.
A reserve might then be used to absorb effects such as changes in the market situation or exchange rate fluctuations.
But there is nothing about this.
More important than this question is the question of whether it is in fact possible to make savings in this way.
The expenditure in this category is after all compulsory and I find nothing in the reports about inappropriate spending.
Surpluses are now being given back to the Member States, but the Brinkhorst report wants all appropriations for the reserve spent under heading I. This makes the reserve a fixed element of the budget which may perhaps be used to fund less vital activities.
So there is no saving here.
There is a considerable risk that the Council will use this fixed element as an excuse for immediate cuts in the budget.
Lastly I object to the idea that appropriations in the reserve can only be released after Parliament has been consulted.
Last year the Court ruled against the European Parliament on the matter of compulsory and noncompulsory expenditure.
Manifestly Parliament is now seeking compensation for that defeat by arrogating new powers to itself via the budgetary reserve.
I cannot condone that tactic.
Mr President, maybe I am wrong but I have the impression that we are discussing this important issue without a representative from the Council.
Is this true? If so, I think this is lamentable and lament it.
Mr President, our group supports the Brinkhorst report, as Mr Pronk has already said.
We consider it to be sensible.
We know that in agriculture things are not so predictable as in other areas.
For many years it has emerged that the Commission has always grossly overestimated requirements.
It is therefore sensible, if we are making another proposal regarding the uncertainties that continue to exist, to set aside an appropriate reserve.
That is a precautionary measure and at the same time it is a realistic measure, because the figures that are used here have not simply been plucked out of the air.
I find that Mr Giansily's complaint about the Committee on Agriculture misses the point, because as long as something is put into the reserve, then we have a guarantee that, if expenditure is increased - and this could certainly be a risk in the wake of BSE, and in fact is highly probable - then we shall still have funds available.
In the case of a general reduction, however, such as the one being considered by the Council, this is no longer possible.
Therefore this is a sensible procedure, which we go along with, and therefore we support this report.
Mr President, last year, Mr Wynn, the rapporteur on the budget, tried to convert compulsory expenditure into non-compulsory expenditure.
I personally was opposed to it.
The Council had to appeal to the Court in Luxembourg.
This year, in practice, we are facing the same situation.
The tactics have changed, that is all.
The arguments are different, but the objective is the same.
I am firmly opposed to this reserve, quite simply because the calculations carried out by the rapporteur in the preparatory documents drawn up are, to a large extent, highly random in nature.
After all, can he tell me, for example, what the size of next season's wine harvest will be? The wine growers themselves cannot yet answer that question.
Does he know, for example, that for two years there has been virtually no compulsory distillation because of the drought that occurred in Spain and Italy? Another example: does he know what the world cereal prices are going to be next year?
If he does, all the world's traders would be glad to know. Does he know, for example, that since December 1995 there has been a tax on cereal exports, which now amounts to ECU 45 per metric ton?
These exceptional revenues are the result of very high prices. Forecasts are impossible, therefore.
All this is unrealistic.
Our rapporteur should know that the first thing a farmer does, every day, is to see what the weather is like, because agriculture is one of those rare activities that depend on the vagaries of the climate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 11.30 a.m. tomorrow.
Guarantee to EIB for loans
The next item is the report (A4-0205/96) by Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision granting a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects of mutual interest in Latin American and Asian countries with which the Community has concluded cooperation agreements (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, El Salvador, Uruguay and Venezuela; Bangladesh, Brunei, China, India, Indonesia, Macao, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam) (COM(95)0742 - C4-0100/96-96/0015(CNS)).
Mr President, as you said this report concerns a communication from the Commission and a proposal for a Council decision on the renewal of the Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects of mutual interest in Latin America and Asian countries.
The current lending programme which was agreed on 15 February 1993 amounted to a maximum of ECU 250m and had a duration of three years and expired in February 1996.
At various meetings of Heads of State and Government - at Corfu, Essen and Cannes - the European Council expressed its support for a continuation of these programmes.
The lending in Latin America and Asia has been successful.
It is an area where there is economic growth, where it has been strong and where it is expected to strengthen.
In those circumstances, the bankers had no difficulty in reaching the annual ceiling of ECU 250m and could have executed loans to a much higher level than that.
The demand was sufficiently strong.
The projects have been successful and it is against that background that we have today the report on the proposal for a renewed loan and a new guarantee arrangement.
The present Commission proposal calls for a continuation of lending. It is under the usual terms and conditions of the first mandate.
But the loans signed through the Guarantee Fund will grant a guarantee in respect of 100 % of all loans signed but they will remain within a ceiling of ECU 410m over an indicative period of one year, the one year presumed to be beginning from February 1996, the point at which the previous arrangements expired.
Concerning the amount of ECU 410m, the Committee on Budgets generally welcomes this increase in the loan activities in the Asian and Latin American countries, particularly against the background that I have already described where the demand for loans has already exceeded the available funds and major cooperation agreements have been concluded.
There are, however, quite clearly a couple of problems.
The Commission and the Committee on Budgets are equally well apprised of the problems, and in five minutes it would be expecting too much for us describe fully the difficulties the proposals - as they are formulated - present for the Guarantee Fund.
Suffice it to say that in the explanatory memorandum of my report paragraphs 8 through to 12 adequately describe the difficulties there are in relation to the Guarantee Fund, though some of those difficulties may well be capable of being resolved in the light of the report that has recently become available.
This report has not taken into account a report that had been requested by the Council and just become available on the basis of a study undertaken by the Commission.
However, the present position is that there is the major problem about the suggestion in Article 1 of the proposal that the loans granted by the Bank, if they have not attained the overall amount referred to in the one-year period, could automatically be extended by six months.
We think this is superfluous because there has never been a shortage of demand for the available funds and so we do not want that hypothesis actually contained within the proposal for a decision.
That is reflected in the amendments which I turn to briefly.
Just before doing so I would express my thanks to both the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on Development and Cooperation for their opinions.
The REX Committee opinion is very clearly reflected in the amendments - this is invaluable advice.
There are now six amendments tabled to the report.
Five are tabled by the committee and reflect the advice of the REX Committee.
However, I am not commending the sixth amendment to the House and I want to say just a few words about it.
The amendment expresses a worthy sentiment, and for the sake of clarity I shall read it: ' This guarantee may only be granted subject to respect for the principles and decisions relating to human rights and compliance with the obligations entered into under international law' .
But that is both a very subjective and highly political condition and to put it as something that the European Investment Bank should have to form a judgment on is, in our opinion, an obligation being placed on the Bank that is outside its competence.
It is a political decision, not a banking decision.
So, although it expresses a worthy sentiment, the recommendation of the rapporteur will be to oppose Amendment No 6.
With those brief remarks, I commend the report to the House and look forward to the debate.
Mr President, we support Mr Tomlinson's report.
We must admit that this is only a temporary solution, and the rapporteur is right to point out that it is questionable, and indeed to be doubted, whether the European Investment Bank will in any case be in a position to make this loan available within the pre-set time-limit.
He also indicates, in points 12 and 13, that in November 1995 the Council had already asked the EIB - and also the Commission - to set up a study regarding a new guarantee system, and in doing so to take into account considerations concerning the sharing of risks between the banks and the guarantee fund.
This has not happened.
It is not available.
Therefore I should like to say, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, that we think that there are two measures worth considering. On the one hand, where it is possible in the cooperating countries, and also where the projects allow, the 100 % guarantee should be reduced to a 75 % guarantee.
Secondly, as far as payments into the guarantee fund are concerned, these should be based on a risk analysis that is appropriate to the banks concerned.
With the present automatic payments, all at the same level, there is a risk that the fund will be eroded, and in particular the high credit levels for Russia and the CIS countries make this danger a very real one.
It would therefore be sensible to switch to a system of graded contributions, determined on the basis of a risk analysis carried out as appropriate to the banks.
Those are our proposals, and with them in mind we support this report.
Mr President, my compliments to the rapporteur on his report and his presentation this evening.
We are dealing with an important subject here.
It is good that more cooperation agreements have been concluded with countries in these regions, in the event Latin America and Asia.
But my Group believes that the Union has to play a far more visible role in projects.
This will give people in these countries a clearer understanding of the Union's role in carrying out investment projects.
The Commission and the European Investment Bank must devise a method for achieving this.
But I have one small word of criticism of this report.
The report deals with an extension of loans which were originally for the period 1993 to 1996.
The sum for this three-year period was set at 250 million ECU per year.
The Commission now tells us that in the first two years a total of 277 million ECU has been spent.
An excess of 27 million ECU.
And that is not counting loans for the final year.
In effect the Commission is assuming that this excess will offset against loans to be granted for the new period of February 1996 to February 1997.
That is of course no way to do things.
The European Parliament approves a given amount for a period of three years.
After that we have to look again to see how much loan capital is available for a subsequent term.
One cannot jump the gun, before the decisions have been taken.
So I think the rapporteur was rather too gentle in his verdict on the sums approved by the EIB as loans.
I know John Tomlinson always takes that as a compliment.
I would appreciate an explanation from the Commission and the EIB of how it is possible for loans to be given to a value greater than initially envisaged.
A further criticism is that the European Parliament was consulted very late in the proceedings.
The previous loan period expired in February of this year.
And in February Parliament was asked for its opinion on the new loan period.
That is cutting it very fine indeed.
The loan periods have been fixed for three years now.
So the Commission knows when the time is approaching for a new decision to be taken.
This late consultation raises the question of whether 410 million worth of loans can now be granted.
Or has the Commission already offset these against the previous period?
A last point is that the Commission has decided to place all loans to third countries on the same footing as of the beginning of 1997.
The Commission chose that time because this is when loans to countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean will run out.
It is a good thing to have just one policy for loans to third countries.
But the Commission is now proposing to extend its loans to Latin America and Asia by another six months if the 410 million ECU have not been allocated in full.
The question of course is what exactly does the Commission want?
It is quite right that the rapporteur comments on this.
My compliments on the report.
But I think the Commission is very late with all these proposals; it puts us in a difficult position and has briefed us too little and too late.
I urge the Commissioner to improve things.
It is not just a question of this report.
I have had a few reports myself.
All rapporteurs come up against this problem and it would be better if the Commission anticipated rather more and planned ahead.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes the inclusion of Mr Tomlinson's report on the agenda for this part-session.
I can tell Mr Pronk that this report has not come too late: to my knowledge, the decision is still far from having been taken.
I congratulate Mr Tomlinson on the quality of his report.
This is an important subject, because the mandate given to the European Investment Bank for operations in Latin America and Asia expired at the end of February.
That mandate, as you know, allowed for a review at the end of the period, in other words at the end of February 1996, of the annual ceiling of ECU 250 million which is guaranteed by the Community budget.
In its proposal, presented on 12 January this year, nearly six months ago in other words, the Commission suggests to the Council that the total EIB loans to these regions should be increased to ECU 410 million for an initial period of one year.
These loans granted by the Bank, on the basis of its usual statutes and criteria, would be one hundred per cent guaranteed by the Community, in accordance with the conclusions of last November's Ecofin Council, and I can assure Mr König that the Commission is sparing no effort in order to obtain from the Council an agreement to revise this hundred per cent guarantee downwards.
For the present, I must admit that the division within the Council has not allowed us to reach a conclusion on this point, but we will spare no effort to progress in the direction you desire.
I would like to make two brief comments.
The first relates to the ceiling on the loans.
The ceiling of ECU 410 million, proposed for a period of one year, is admittedly a substantial increase over the previous mandate of ECU 250 million over three years.
But, as was quite rightly emphasized by your rapporteur, Mr Tomlinson, this increase is justified because the activity of the EIB is reinforcing the European Union's policy of cooperation in Latin America and Asia, and also because the activity of the EIB is a response to the invitation issued to the European Investment Bank by the European Council in Madrid to intensify its activities in Latin America, and finally because the activity of the EIB supports European enterprises in their efforts to penetrate these emerging markets, many of which, incidentally, are a long way away.
My second comment concerns the duration of the mandate.
The initial period of a year proposed last January by the Commission is exceptional.
Mandates for such operations, as you know, are generally multi-annual.
As far as the Commission was concerned, it was necessary to gear the renewal of this mandate to the multi-annual budgets for EIB loans to other third countries, such as the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, and the Mediterranean States.
Well, this renewal, for these two categories of country, will take place towards the end of this year.
The Commission's objective is to achieve a fair breakdown of the loan arrangements over the various regions, having regard to the room for manoeuvre available for these loans within the framework of the guarantee fund, which you mentioned just now, Mr Tomlinson, for the Union's external activities.
I would like to conclude by emphasising that the Commission has no problem at all in accepting Amendments Nos 1 and 4 of your report.
Amendments Nos 2 and 5 cause no problem in principle, but no longer seem to me to be of any essential value.
On the other hand, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 3, relating to the clause to extend this mandate by six months, quite simply because such a clause traditionally exists in the EIB's other mandates, and because the EIB considers this clause necessary to ensure, in particular the flexibility which is essential to the commitment of the loan programmes.
Mr President, we do not want to become difficult about Amendment No 3, but I merely ask the Commissioner to reflect upon it before we come to the vote tomorrow.
It is all very well to say that this clause traditionally exists but traditionally we are not in the process of trying to align dates.
And it seems nonsensical simultaneously to try to align dates and then also provide for the possibility of a six-month extension of the period which will then unalign them.
I hope that he might reflect on that because Parliament will persist in its vote on Amendment No 3 tomorrow.
It is rather late in the day, Mr Tomlinson, to embark upon a debate on this interesting subject.
What I can promise you, because I have myself carefully considered all the loan budgets and all the periods in question, is that there will be no problems, whatever the date on which the Council reaches its decision.
We shall therefore act so as to ensure that there will be consistency between the three regions concerned by the loan programmes.
That is why I do not believe that the possibility of a six-month extension should cause you any problem, bearing in mind the objective you are trying to achieve, because we are aiming at that same objective.
I believe that, as far as the Bank and the other countries are concerned, excluding this clause could possibly have a discriminatory effect which might be unpleasant.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Market organization for sheepmeat and goatmeat
The next item is the report (A4-0221/96) by Mr McCartin, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 3/95 on the implementation of the intervention measures provided for by the organization of the market in the sheepmeat and goatmeat sector (C4-0592/95).
Mr President, my report is about counting sheep.
When I was brought up in the west of Ireland if you could not sleep late at night it was recommended that in your imagination you should count sheep.
But, at this time of night, our staff and interpreters here will not need any sheep therapy to go to sleep.
I do not think the Members who are here ever sleep.
I will be as brief as I can.
This report arises out of a report by the Court of Auditors on the sheepmeat regime, which was quite critical of the way the regime was policed by the Member States and critical also of the policy itself.
I just wish to recall that the common organization of the market came into existence in 1980 and was intended to stabilize prices and provide a reasonable standard of living for the people engaged in the production of sheep and goatmeat.
At the time the Union was only 60 % self-sufficient in sheep and goatmeat; today this figure has risen to 82 %.
There are about 0.7 million producers in the Union and the cost of the regime is about ECU 1.8 billion, which comes to about ECU 200 per month, per individual producer.
It is a relatively small amount of money: less than a single payment of social welfare to a single person.
The UK, Spain, Italy, Greece, France and Ireland - in that order - are the main producers.
The aid is paid by fixing a guide price, and if the market turns out lower then compensation is paid.
This compensation is called a premium.
If sheep are used to produce milk, as well as meat, then only 80 % of the premium is paid.
The premium works out at between ECU 17 and 25 per annum.
Since 1991 a special premium has been introduced which gives an advantage to the poorer areas of the Community.
I just wish to make the following points in support of the policy.
80 % of the producers live in the less-favoured areas and, therefore, have very limited possibilities for land use which is, by definition, mostly mountainous and always poor land.
Sheep and goat farming is always carried out by extensive grazing systems and is, therefore, environmentally friendly.
Given the level of profitability in the business, we can say that without this system of aid the entire production would cease.
The Commission estimates that between 80 and 90 % of sheep and goat farmers' profit comes through the premium, which means that without this premium there would not be anything left.
The Court of Auditors, in a special report on this sector completed in the middle of 1995, was critical of the control system by the Member States, and this criticism is accepted in my report.
Indeed, we find that in spite of efforts by the Commission and the improvements it has made, there are still some improvements that can be made.
The system can never be made perfect without the assistance of some electronic device which makes it possible in difficult conditions and difficult terrain, to count the sheep and to record them accurately.
At the moment a system has been researched and is being tried out in Spain and Portugal in the hope that it will introduce a lot more accuracy into the system.
Another criticism was that, by comparison to the cost of beef, it costs three times as much to subsidize sheepmeat.
But, of course, the Court of Auditors missed the point that is not a food subsidy: it is an income supplement for farmers and an effort to maintain population in the rural areas.
The Court of Auditors also felt that the premium was interfering with the market for beef and veal. That criticism is not valid.
If you take away the premium from sheep and goatmeat, then it will not be consumed any more and the slack will be taken up by very intensive systems - poultry and pigs - which are less environmentally friendly and will employ a lot less people than the sheep sector.
The Court of Auditors said that the numbers and cost have been continuously rising.
That was true in the 1980s.
In fact, the numbers have started to reduce and have already gone back 6 % in recent years, which bears out what I say, that it is not a very profitable business; it is not very lucrative.
The Court of Auditors also makes the point that this should be confined to the hill areas.
When we remember that the hill areas are getting an extra subsidy - they already have 80 % or more of the entire production - the element that is left for the lowlands is very small. In any case, it is not a matter of accounting: it is a political decision and, as such, it is for the politicians - Parliament and the Council - to make decisions on whether this subsidization scheme applies to the lowlands or not.
In social and environmental terms we get good value out of this policy.
It does no harm to recall that in the early years when it was first introduced - because Britain was a major producer - it was seen as a policy which would help to redress the imbalance which the United Kingdom always claimed existed in the finances against their particular state.
So it served a number of purposes: to help the disadvantaged mountain regions, to keep people there, to maintain environmentally friendly farming and to solve that political problem of giving back a little bit of money to Britain for a particular form of production in which they specialized.
I commend the report to the House.
Mr President, we are doing very well to be here at just after half past eleven on a Wednesday evening when we could probably be doing other, rather more pleasurable things.
I should like to thank Mr McCartin for his very erudite presentation.
However, in his review he is concealing a little - applying legerdemain - with regard to the sheep and goatmeat report.
Certainly the provisional cost for 1995 was ECU 1.78bn.
I know, as a member of the Committee on Budgets, that this is going to increase by another ECU 94m next year.
Perhaps we could look at the Court of Auditors' criticisms particularly.
They highlighted that there was a problem in distinguishing between milk and non-milk producing sheep which poses a problem for the Committee on Budgetary Control and also in terms of payment of premiums.
Secondly, there is a problem with the definition of less-favoured area.
The Court found that only Scotland and Ireland had clear land registers and this allowed the definition to be checked.
Therefore there was a problem in counting the size of flocks in other Member States to work out the payments.
The Court of Auditors quite rightly, in my group's opinion, said that this posed a problem as regards abuse on the part of Member States.
Thirdly, the Court also found that statistical information forwarded by the Member States was inadequate.
I have had conversations with Member States which operate a counting regime on the basis of regional, Länder or local accounting methods.
There were problems here in terms of accumulation and accounting.
This has to be addressed and I am sure Mr McCartin appreciates that.
Finally - and Mr McCartin has touched on this - one kilo of sheepmeat costs ECU 1.7 to produce. That is three times the cost of beef.
That seems incredible in terms of the subsidy we offer under the common agricultural policy.
In terms of the amendments, the Group of the European People's Party has tabled two amendments which are designed to weaken the report.
Probably the Socialist Group, the Green Group and the Liberal and Democratic Reformist Group will oppose them.
The first amendment seeks to weaken the criticisms of the cost of the whole project and the second seeks to keep all areas eligible for aid, not just the less-favoured areas.
We cannot support that.
But apart from those two criticisms, our side will be supporting the McCartin report.
But in terms of the common agricultural policy, I find it difficult to be broadly supportive of the use of European taxpayers money for programmes like this.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like the section of the Minutes concerning the vote on the calendar for part-sessions in 1997 to be corrected regarding my vote on Amendment No 27.
I voted against, and so informed President Hänsch yesterday in writing.
I voted against deleting the Strasbourg sittings for the week of 6 October, like all my fellow citizens and many others.
An error in transmission ascribed the opposite vote to me.
Since machines are said to be infallible and humans are said to make mistakes, the mistake would therefore be mine.
I disclaim all responsibility for the mistake, but I should like to stress that I have no wish to stir up controversy about it in Parliament.
The vote, apart from this mistake, apart from this single vote, quite clearly proves that Strasbourg should remain the seat of Parliament and should retain its rights. Besides, it is only a point of law, as several of my French colleagues reminded us and demonstrated to us before the debate.
Thank you, Mrs Fouque.
I have noted that you intend to vote against Amendment No 27 to the calendar of Parliament's part-sessions for 1997.
Your intention was duly recorded in the Minutes (Minutes of previous day's sitting).
However, I have to say to you - as I shall probably have to do to other Members - that the outcome of the vote does not change given that Rule 123(5) states very clearly that 'the President shall decide whether the result announced is valid. His decision shall be final' .
Thank you Mr Striby and Mr Pasty, I have taken note of your remarks.
Mrs Fouque's intention and good faith are obviously beyond doubt. She in fact made the point yesterday, immediately after the vote.
As regards any mechanical error, I have to state that the technicians have checked Mrs Fouque's voting machine and have established that it was working properly; it is only right that Parliament should be given this information.
Mr President, I should like to intervene in application of Rule 133 of the Rules of Procedure.
You have just taken a stand on the subject of disputes.
But when there is a dispute about the Minutes, it is for Parliament to decide.
I challenge paragraph 12 in its entirety; in other words, from the end of page 9 to the middle of page 11, the whole of paragraph 12.
In accordance with Rule 133(3), I request that, since these Minutes are challenged, Parliament should decide on the following change: ' Delete Item 12 in its entirety in application of Rule 133(2) and (3)' .
I should like Parliament to decide on this request for an amendment to the Minutes.
Ladies and gentlemen, I understand very well the importance of the discussion we are having here, but I should now like to close the vote on the Minutes.
Since there are still three Members who wish to speak, I shall, with your consent, invite those three Members to speak and then make a proposal.
Mr President, just a word to say that I have noticed that my name did not appear in the Minutes whereas, as the roll-call votes testify, I was in fact present yesterday.
This is undoubtedly an omission on my part.
I feel I must repeat what I said earlier about Rule 123, which is very clear and has always been followed, as several Members have pointed out.
There is a difference between intention and act: there have been frequent occasions when Members have said they made a mistake, but this has never led the House to change the result of a vote.
However, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy and Mr Gollnisch have put forward a request under Rule 133.
I accept their request and, since voting is due to start at 11.30 a.m., I shall ask the President in the Chair to put the Minutes to the vote at 11.30 a.m., at the beginning of voting time.
This is my proposal, which I think can be taken as a decision.
Mr President, I shall say nothing about what has just been said.
I shall simply express an opinion about the proposal you have just made.
You are sovereign, Mr President, but you are sovereign within the limits of the Rules of Procedure.
Rule 133(2), to which I refer you, says that 'at the beginning of each sitting the President shall place before Parliament, for its approval, the minutes of the previous sitting' .
A clearer paragraph does not exist and I am sure that you would agree with me about this for you are, I am certain, an honourable man: Parliament must decide at the beginning of the sitting, otherwise the vote would be null and void.
Thank you, Mr Gollnisch, for your suggestion and for the precise reference to the Rule.
As you so rightly say, Paragraph 2 states that: ' At the beginning of each sitting the President shall place before Parliament, for its approval, the minutes of the previous sitting' .
Paragraph 3 adds that: ' If any objections are raised to the minutes Parliament shall, if necessary, decide whether the changes requested should be considered.'
It also adds, and I quote for everyone's benefit, that: ' No Member may speak on the minutes for more than one minute' , but that is of secondary importance.
Now, let us be precise: the Minutes are placed before Parliament, for its approval, at the beginning of the sitting, and it is then up to the President to decide, if any objections are raised, whether a vote should take place at voting time.
There are already precedents in this respect.
Mr President, what is being objected to here is not the Minutes themselves, though these provide the pretext; the aim is to challenge yesterday's vote in favour of Strasbourg at all costs.
Rule 123 of the Rules of Procedure says that the President shall decide whether the result of the vote announced is valid.
I would make the point to the honourable Members concerned that I have not heard the President himself challenging the result of the vote.
So as far as we are concerned this means there is no need to amend the Minutes.
You approved the vote yesterday.
We all did and we must stand by that.
The result is your doing.
Thank you very much, Mr Pasty; however, in responding to you and other Members, I should like to take up the point made by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
We have two separate issues here: the Minutes are one issue and the result of yesterday's vote is another.
This is the whole point!
The outcome of yesterday's vote is no longer an issue, in accordance with Rule 123: it cannot be changed, and that is final.
We cannot change the Rules simply to suit ourselves.
As for the Minutes, I repeat what I said earlier: they will be put to the vote at 11.30 a.m., at the beginning of voting time.
Mr President, yesterday evening we saw on the news pictures of the memorial service for those killed in the accident involving a military aircraft at Eindhoven airport at the beginning of the week.
This morning we learned with horror that TWA Flight 800 en route from New York to Paris had crashed into the sea off Long Island after an explosion.
More than 200 people are feared dead.
May I ask you, Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, to convey the condolences of the European Parliament to the victims' families.
These tragic accidents require all of us to give greater priority to improving aviation safety.
Thank you, Mr Cornelissen.
On behalf of Parliament as a whole, the President would like to offer condolences to the families of the victims.
Mr President, during the May sittings, Parliament adopted, as I assume that everybody remembers, a resolution condemning the violations of human rights in Tunisia.
This resolution drew particular attention to the case of Mr Khémaïs Chammari, member of parliament, head of the Mouvement des Démocrates Socialistes, who had been arrested and committed to the civil prison in Tunis.
I have just learnt that Mr Chammari was sentenced yesterday evening to five years imprisonment.
This is a new violation of human rights, which particularly hits opposition parties, journalists and activists in human rights organizations.
The need to combat fundamentalism should not be used as a pretext to undermine freedom of opinion and expression.
Mr President, I propose that you use Parliament's resolution to protest to the Tunisian authorities against the sentencing of the member of parliament, Mr Khémaïs Chammari.
Mr President, as the originator on behalf of my group, of the resolution on Tunisia to which Mrs Pailler has just referred, I should simply like to say that, in a personal capacity, I associate myself with her request.
Mr President, I should simply like to appeal to the Rules of Procedure to indicate that, for Amendments Nos 1 to 7, block II, I did not cast a vote against, but a vote for: in other words, I was in favour of them.
I wish this to be recorded in the Minutes.
The necessary correction will be made.
Mr President, I propose, in order to put an end to a debate which threatens to drag on indefinitely, that, notwithstanding the reservations that have been expressed about the Minutes, we immediately pass to a vote on them in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
Thank you for your suggestion, Mr Le Pen, which is not the first I have received. However, I have already said how we shall proceed: the vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Mr President, you have called on certain Members to speak several times: you may of course call on anybody several times.
But you are calling on some speakers several times while we are discussing one item on the agenda.
Exercise your role as chairman properly.
We come to one item on the agenda, then we pass on to the next.
I wished to make it clear to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that the request I made referred to Item 12 in its entirety and not just to Amendment No 27 that we have talked about.
And if I contest the whole of Item 12, it is also because, as I said yesterday at the sitting, even though I asked to speak before the vote on the amendments that I had tabled on behalf of my group, I was not called.
I wished to speak to withdraw some of the amendments which were then put to the vote.
This was a basic infringement of the right of every Member of Parliament to speak before the vote on amendments.
I therefore ask, Mr President, for the vote to be taken on the whole of Item 12 in order to withdraw it and you should put this to the vote immediately because you have opened discussion on the adoption of the agenda and if you alter the agenda you must have the agreement of Parliament.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I have already answered your question and my answer has not changed.
Mr Blak, in some particularly delicate situations, a little patience is required .
Cooperation with South Africa
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0214/96) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on development cooperation with South Africa (rapporteur: Mrs Günther).
. (DE) Mr President, I am grateful now, albeit half an hour late, to be able to introduce this item on the agenda and will not hide my feeling that, with all the interest shown in the preceding debate, it might not have been such a bad thing to cut it short.
We now come to the Regulation on arrangements for cooperation with South Africa, which forms part of a series of similar regulations under which we place development cooperation on a legal footing.
This recommendation for second reading is concerned with the regulation of the favourable relations that exist between the European Union and South Africa.
In line with the negotiating directives adopted by the Council in June 1995, the European Union and the Government of South Africa have agreed that future financing for development projects will be channelled through a special financing facility of the European Union and not through the European Development Fund.
This gives Parliament other possibilities of involvement in the process.
The explanatory memorandum to the draft regulation at the time recognized the key role played by the European Parliament over the years in support for South Africa.
Excuse me, Mr President, but it is extremely difficult to speak when an argument is going on in the background.
Could you please ask the colleagues concerned to hold their debate outside the Chamber?
You are quite right, Mrs Günther.
Some Members are behaving particularly badly at the moment.
I invite you all to pay attention or, if you do not wish to listen, to leave the House.
South Africa has undergone gratifying development in recent years and has largely achieved its re-entry into the family of nations.
Hence it is also important to remedy the existing deficiencies in our cooperation as quickly and as completely as possible in order to clear the way for a course of sustainable development.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation has endeavoured to bring about a long-term solution which measures up to the significance of this cooperation.
The earlier draft for the Regulation itself was to a large extent satisfactory.
A number of changes have been made, however, in order to bring the Regulation more closely into line with actual needs and, more especially, in order take proper account of the situation that has arisen since the free elections in South Africa and under the new government since April 1994.
It had become apparent early on that priorities different to those of the past needed to be applied, in the use of resources too.
From this point of view, it is to be welcomed that the common position already contains a number of the amendments proposed by Parliament on first reading.
That applies in particular to the demand that the measures pursued be geared not only to lasting development, but also to environmentally sound development, and that environmental protection projects also be systematically covered by the Regulation.
In the development field, we are occasionally confronted with the fact that the resources available are not always used quickly enough.
Hence, from the point of view of Parliament, it is to be welcomed that the demand for an indicative programme is formulated in a more detailed manner than was the case on first reading.
A further amendment that, in our view, can be accepted consists in the fact that the involvement of the South African National Development Agency has been broadened to the point where we can now speak of a permanent dialogue.
A key point, however, which had been demanded by Parliament but does not appear in the common position, is that more powers should be given to the Head of Delegation in South Africa.
With a budget line of about ECU 130 million a year - and that is not really a huge sum - it makes little sense, in my opinion, to make practically every project subject to approval in Brussels and to leave part of the decision-making to people in the field.
The Regulation in any case covers everything precisely and in detail, so that it would certainly be possible to ensure proper monitoring here too.
I strongly urge the Commission to back Amendment No 4, perhaps with a reduced amount in order to show willingness to compromise here.
This point is not without relevance to the effective implementation of the proposed Regulation.
The improvement of the financial management of aid programmes must quite simply be taken more seriously.
The European Parliament has repeatedly pointed out that staffing needs to be increased for the implementation of programmes in South Africa.
At the same time, it is necessary to streamline decisionmaking procedures.
The Court of Auditors has also raised this matter and has given a clear indication of the importance of programmes in South Africa.
I am completely at a loss to understand why the Council decided to reject Amendment No 6 from first reading.
Again and again we hear that decisions taken at European level are incomprehensible and often impossible to implement for those concerned.
Through the amendment tabled on first reading we had called for more transparency - in vain, as it turns out.
In the cumbersome procedure laid down in Article 8 of the common position, decisions for prompt action will certainly not be capable of implementation, and the text has been so radically altered in its new formulation that, in my opinion, the conciliation procedure should be brought into operation if no amendment results from the second reading.
In this context, I would like to thank the coreporting committees once more for the constructive dialogue.
Their contributions should, in my opinion, also have been reflected in the common position.
For the reasons stated, I urge support for the amendments we are now proposing for the second reading.
Mr President, as Commissioner Pinheiro will be well aware, there are many stories coming from South Africa of bureaucracy, confusion, delays and, indeed, of missed opportunities in our dealings with NGOs in that country.
We know, in fact - and I spoke to NGOs in South Africa only yesterday - that the first provisional decisions concerning expenditure in the 1996 budgets were only taken this month.
We know too that the transitional National Development Trust which is responsible for working with NGOs in South Africa only received its first tranche of money on 24 June.
That means that the money will not get through to NGOs until August.
South African NGOs are going to the wall.
They are extremely confused and the EU's proceedings are misunderstood, as you know, Commissioner.
They are in desperation, forced to take out loans with high interest rates, and that increases their difficulties.
The lessons for us are clear and the amendments which Mrs Günther has referred to reflect the concerns we have about our work with South African partners.
Our amendments are aimed, above all, at ensuring that the European Union can be, as it should be, a properly responsive partner.
Our first proposal is that the European Commission delegates in South Africa be given the power to authorize expenditure on projects up to a maximum ceiling of ECU 500, 000.
One facet of this is that it would mean that we would have a much more rapid response and it would be a more effective European Union relationship with our NGOs.
The Development Committee is also extremely concerned with the imposition of a III(a) committee procedure by the Council.
It is quite clear that this will cause enormous difficulties and the situation will undoubtedly deteriorate even further.
The limited staff resources available to the Commission in this area will indeed be stretched to breaking point.
The paper work will mount even as the lines of responsibility and decision-making in the Commission become even more confused.
I see only one outcome to the Council's determined and obstinate insistence on maintaining its pre-eminence in every single decision. The outcome, I think, clearly will be further delay and damage to the European Union's reputation in South Africa.
For many years the Union has worked to give the poorest people in South Africa the best kind of support.
The proposal before us today provides us with a much valued opportunity to take this work forward.
I certainly hope the Commission will play its part in persuading the Council not to undermine the possibilities we have here to make that kind of contribution in South Africa.
Indeed, as Mrs Günther has said, I call upon the Council to come to conciliation in order to negotiate with Parliament on these matters.
I can keep it short, Mr President.
Mrs Günther's report is an excellent one.
She did a very good job in the first round, receiving very broad support in the Committee on Development and in our Group too, of course.
Nevertheless we are not happy with the situation as such.
I refer not to Mrs Günther's splendid report, but to the way in which the European Commission handles aid funds for South Africa.
The situation in South Africa is good at the moment, but it is certainly not without its dangers and that means that a lot of effort is required to improve prosperity in the country quickly so that potential political risks for the future can be eliminated as far as possible.
It is thus a serious matter that there are so many delays in the aid projects being managed by NGOs and that European Union red tape is responsible for adding to those delays.
We really must urge the European Commission to be more flexible and more helpful here and to ensure that projects are moved forward faster.
My second point is that the approval of small-scale projects is most important.
The Netherlands has many years' experience of this practice.
Embassies can approve small-scale projects on their own initiative and it always works very well.
It also works often when bridging arrangements are needed.
So we think this provision should be available.
My third point is that transparency is exceedingly important in all aid projects.
This is needed not only in South Africa itself, where in general it is very good, but also in the decision-making processes of the European Commission.
It is these which pose a number of problems, and it is these which Mrs Günther rightly highlights.
We are with her on this and we call on the Commission and the Council to ensure that these kinds of procedures and these kinds of aid programmes are carried out better and in a more flexible manner.
Mrs Günther's report, on which I too must compliment her, deals with the setting of the legal basis for development cooperation between the EU and South Africa.
The problems so clearly outlined by Mrs Kinnock are very real and I thus hope that a large majority of the House will support the amendments so that we can secure a change in the EU's policy and introduce greater flexibility into its workings with the NGOs in the field.
But one of the most important points to be considered at present in our review of development cooperation overall is the specific status which South Africa should have vis à vis the Lomé Convention.
In this context we would point to a problem raised a few weeks ago in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, namely the apparent desire amongst some of the South African negotiators to seek exemption from Article 39 of the Lomé Convention which bans the importing and exporting of toxic waste.
There have been great problems with this in South Africa in the past, with the British multinational Thor Chemicals in particular playing a dubious role.
It would be most regrettable if South Africa did not sign up to Article 39 because despite the claims of official spokesmen at the talks she really cannot guarantee to manage toxic waste adequately.
There is no adequate legislation.
1000 of the 12000 dumps are illegal and thus not subject to licensing controls.
I call on Parliament to put pressure on the Commission and the South African Government to end this situation.
Mr President, in March of this year I was privileged to be in Lesotho and to visit South Africa, Namibia and Botswana as a European Parliamentary representative.
It was tremendously encouraging to go back after 20 years and see the transformation that had taken place in South Africa.
It behoves us all to do everything possible to encourage the process of economic regeneration in South Africa so that the democratic gains which have already been made and which have so delighted us are not put at risk.
That is a fundamental point.
In a month in which we have seen Nelson Mandela fêted - and rightly so - in London and in Paris there is all the more reason to be pro-South African and do everything we can to support South Africa and the neighbouring countries, which are very much dependent on the prosperity of South Africa.
I would like to make one particular point in support of Mrs Günther's excellent report.
It seems to me to make all kinds of sense to delegate the responsibility for small-scale projects to the Commission's representative in South Africa.
This is the kind of thing, as Mrs Kinnock has rightly said, that will make a tremendous difference.
Instead of these horrendous delays, waiting half the year to know if your project is going to get the go-ahead, let that be given to our man in Pretoria, Cape Town, or wherever he is, so that he can authorize and they can get on with development.
I am delighted to see the broad support in the House across the political groups for this.
I hope the report will be totally supported.
We thank Mrs Günther and should back all her amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Günther's good report shows up what, to me, is a significant weakness in the implementation of all cooperation projects with third countries, namely the need for an increase in staff resources for the conduct of programmes in South Africa.
The implication of this, of course, is that many projects which have been put into effect were not carried out efficiently enough.
The conclusion that an improvement in financial management is needed is to be welcomed.
I think it right to demand that responsibility for approving commitments and payments in respect of projects be transferred to the Head of Delegation in South Africa, but that alone will not solve the problem.
It is much more important only to release projects for implementation when human resources are up to proper strength.
I therefore oppose the proposal of the Commission to create a special South Africa committee, since such a committee can do no more than the Court of Auditors, i.e. to note in retrospect that project resources were not used efficiently enough.
Mr President, I think that only when we have fewer commissions and, instead, more competent implementation capacity will it be possible to achieve the necessary efficiency.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Günther for the high quality of her report which, of course, we expected.
The world has been inspired by the courage of the people of South Africa and the decisions that they have taken during the last few years.
We have been especially inspired by the quality of the political leadership in South Africa which, I have to say, is in contrast with the performance of some politicians in Europe and the behaviour of some Members in the European Parliament this morning who attempted to change their votes: I have often had cause to complain about people abusing the right of one-person-one-vote in this way.
I say that with some feeling, having spent a lot of time travelling backwards and forwards between Europe and South Africa over the last 25 years and had the privilege of being an observer at the elections.
The European Union, and Parliament in particular, has a proud record of support for the democratic process.
It is important that we make the best use of our resources and contacts and do everything to make our work more effective and more efficient.
The special programme for the victims of apartheid has been the most successful programme of the European Union.
It was our biggest programme and the biggest overseas programme for South Africa itself.
It was administered very efficiently by the Commission, particularly in the early days, supporting small projects - including, for example, small projects supporting an independent media.
Cooperating with our partners, we built up an incredible fund of experience of working with churches, trade unions, and a special trust.
Many of us are anxious that experience should not be squandered or put on one side, but should be built on.
But clearly there are areas where we need to be more efficient and more effective.
The amendments that we are tabling seek to ensure that our Commission team in South Africa, which is very impressive indeed, is given a free hand in a new and very difficult situation.
Whilst we are celebrating the visit of Nelson Mandela to Europe, which has been an inspiration in so many ways, it is very important that we continue to show solidarity with the people of South Africa.
Unfortunately, he is returning to South Africa in many ways empty handed, partly because of the lack of progress that has been made in the trade agreement.
I would like to ask Mr Pinheiro, in particular, to use to the full all his experience and ability and knowledge on the college of Commissioners and in the Council itself.
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Günther on the work she has done on this report.
I share her worries which were also expressed by Mrs Kinnock.
President Mandela recently visited London, and it was one of the most moving state visits the United Kingdom has seen for decades.
The humility of this man is an example to the world of how someone who has endured so much suffering over so many years can show so much forgiveness and become such a respected world leader.
He needs total support.
South Africa - and its peaceful future - is the key to stability for the whole continent of Africa.
If we can see a steady transition from the old oppressive regime to a new democracy supported by the European Union, not just in financial terms, but in genuine moves to rebuild a fair, equal and peaceful society as an example to the other African nations, then the European Union will have played its part in that new stability.
The whole question of the future of Lomé is in the melting pot.
South Africa's position is being carefully examined.
But South Africa is already in cooperation with her neighbouring states on a regional basis, and I look forward to a strengthening of those frameworks.
Careful consideration will have to be given to see how South Africa will fit into any new organization that replaces Lomé if this can be negotiated.
It is a major step forward that funding will be channelled through a special financing facility and not through the European Development Fund. This improves budget control and transparency.
The whole emphasis of the new government must be to provide basic provisions for the people and this is what they are trying to do under difficult constraints.
This means a rapid development in housing, health and education if the expectations of the people after the elections are to be fulfilled.
NGOs will still have a major role to play.
I support this report but I believe that further discussions should take place.
Mr President, I also wish to go along with those who have congratulated Mrs Günther on her brilliant work.
From my point of view, her work is also an ideal legal basis and not only in order to set up a framework for a harmonious and efficient regulation of the relationship between the European Union and South Africa. South Africa is a country where, in recent years, fantastic changes have taken place which deserved our applause and which have been a source of great emotion.
But it would be foolish and irresponsible of us to think that what has happened so far in South Africa is already enough to guarantee the future and stability of this great southern African nation.
What has been done is huge.
But what still has to be done is a Herculean task and we are all responsible and are obliged to set up a framework for a pragmatic relationship as well as one which is flexible, rigorous and transparent.
In order for all of this to take place it is fundamental, in a new type of relationship, that the European Union should, if possible, pay even greater attention to ensure that bureaucracy is not a factor of restriction and impediment and that, with our cooperation, we achieve swift and effective results.
Nor shall we forget that, after the success of President Mandela's visit to Europe, the situation in South Africa is at this moment in time full of uncertainty and a great number of imbalances.
We also know that, from a political point of view, President Mandela is preparing for his own succession and consequently it is necessary for us to create all of the objective political conditions and also to orient our relationship in the field of cooperation. Europe must lead the way in terms of the support that the western and developed world must give to a country which has undergone fantastic changes and which has a fundamental role to play, not only in the development of southern Africa, but also in effectively helping this country to play a part in tackling many of the problems which exist in the African continent and which must be eradicated.
I think that, despite resistance by the Council, the work done by Mrs Günther, together with the sense of responsibility shown by Commissioner Deus Pinheiro (he is a man who has dedicated much of his political life to the subject of South Africa and has done so with a great sense of responsibility), is essential. We must give them all of our backing right now so that Europe can make a positive response, as is required and vital for this great South African nation and for the people of South Africa who are our friends.
Mr President, for the great majority of European citizens, South Africa is no longer a problem: having got rid of the odious apartheid system, it has irrevocably committed itself to the path of multiracial democracy and economic development under the leadership of an outstanding man, President Nelson Mandela.
Having myself visited South Africa several weeks ago in order to launch a policy of partnership between French and South African towns, I became aware, however, that the situation was in some respects disturbing and that the future was threatening.
For although the black population representing 75 % of the total population, now enjoys civil rights, its living conditions have not improved very much and the average income of Whites is eight times that of Blacks.
I believe we can say, without lapsing into pessimism, that, if the living conditions of the black population do not improve significantly in a reasonable time as regards security, employment, housing, public services and education, we can anticipate some unrest.
This would be serious, not only for South Africa, but also for the whole of the African continent because many Africans, both peoples and governments, are turning their eyes towards South Africa.
They expect South Africa to be a model for democracy and also to contribute actively to the economic development and political stability of the African continent.
This means that what is at stake in South Africa is more than the future of South Africa: the European Union should take full responsibility for giving South Africa every opportunity to accept the challenge of building a new democracy, so that it can respond to the expectations of the African continent.
What is at stake in South Africa is a good part of the future of the African continent in the years to come!
I very much appreciate the work put in by Mrs Günther and, of course, I approve her report.
Mr President, the instruments the European Union is setting up for cooperation with the new democratic South Africa are of two-fold strategic significance.
Firstly, because South Africa is an African country that has actually experienced, and is still living, the drama of under-development.
A considerable proportion of the black population is living in terrible socio-economic conditions, has difficult and sometimes nonexistent access to basic services and is concentrated in suburban areas with very high unemployment and crime rates.
Secondly, because South Africa is nonetheless the continent's strongest economic unit and is in a position to serve as a driving force for development in neighbouring countries and, more generally, throughout Africa.
This role is, of course, an important one as regards its positive impact on political stability.
The European Programme for Reconstruction and Development, like the special programme before it, is, together with the trade agreements currently being negotiated and South Africa's accession to some parts of the Lomé Convention, the basic instrument for cooperation with South Africa.
The legal basis we are discussing is obviously broad enough to include interventions of various kinds.
But two basic requirements must be met during the operational phase.
The first concerns the need to continue to involve not only the South African Government and authorities but all the possible agents of development, that is, non-governmental organizations, local authorities, grassroots associations and even European non-governmental organizations, because of the important contribution they can make, both on the technical side and in terms of partnership.
The second is that, in contrast with what has happened in the past, management of the programme must be marked by maximum publicity and transparency, which means that, as our amendments propose, there is a need to reinforce the European Parliament's democratic control of the programme.
Finally, I should like to thank Mrs Günther for her exceptional work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank personally, and on behalf of the Commission, Mrs Günther, the rapporteur of this report, for her excellent and highly constructive work in respect of this draft regulation which we hope, once approved, will act as a solid legal basis for a European programme for reconstruction and development in South Africa.
The amendments proposed after the second reading confirm that the European Parliament and the Commission share many points of view which are fundamental in terms of identifying and executing cooperation activities for development in South Africa.
First of all, we want to strengthen those processes which are already under way in South Africa in a crucial phase of transition both in the framework of public institutions -parliament, government and public administration - and civil society, a society where South African NGOs in the past conducted noteworthy activity in particular when apartheid prevented them from having direct interaction with the government.
South African society as a whole is endeavouring at the present moment to get over the inheritance of apartheid so that all of its children can enjoy the concrete benefits of democracy.
But as Mr Torres Couto was saying, what has been accomplished is fantastic but what remains to be done is almost frightening.
On the other hand, the European Parliament and the Commission consider that the European Plan for Reconstruction and Development can contribute to the diffusion of those benefits through flexible processes which reflect the basic principles of sound financial management and working methods used in cooperation programmes for development and executed in the framework of the Lomé Convention.
Against this background, the Commission is continuing to make every effort so that execution of the European Plan for Reconstruction and Development can make progress in a way which is similar to that of the national indicative programmes in ACP states, given that the parallels between this European Reconstruction and Development Plan and the European Development Fund might allow a valuable contribution to be made by the Commission and the South African government as well as South African companies in ACP states and the Member States of the Union.
As for the amendments, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in respect of Amendment No 1 the Commission welcomes the new reference to the regulation project in terms of political dialogue with the South African government which, in the opinion of the Commission, is the sole possible interlocutor in the framework of a political dialogue which could prove productive.
As far as the National Development Agency is concerned, the Commission feels that this body, which has not yet really been set up, cannot be the Commission's partner in terms of policy but, once it is created, it could act as an appropriate organisation for coordinating South African and European NGOs. It might also be a useful organisation for channelling financing into NGO projects which are compatible with the sectoral priorities defined by the legitimate and democratic government of South Africa.
In respect of the important question of NGOs, the Commission would like to emphasise once again the decisive role which they played in the fight against apartheid and the importance of not letting them disappear in the context of transition towards democracy and development.
However, I should like to say that some of these NGOs have already played an important role in the execution of the European Plan for Reconstruction and Development in 1995 and 1996.
What might be useful is finding ways, jointly with the South African government, of determining methods which are more flexible and of interest for NGOs and, following the recent reshuffle of the South African government, I think that this might well be possible in the near future.
In respect of Amendment No 2, I should like to say that the Commission is not in favour of a specific reference to a maximum amount up to which the head of the delegation can authorise expenditure and operations since, in our opinion, such questions should not be covered by a regulation.
That said, I should like to add that, in the past, responsibility for this and other matters was left to the head of the delegation in the Republic of South Africa; here I must say that the Commission is considering, at this moment, increasing those responsibilities quite a lot and it has not done so, so far, not because the head of the delegation is not of high quality - quite the contrary - but because we have suffered from a very considerable lack of human resources at our delegation in South Africa.
It would not be right to ask the head of our delegation to take on further responsibilities given the staff shortage but I should like to tell you that it is our intention to substantially increase the responsibilities of the European Union delegate to the South African Republic.
In respect of Amendment No 3, the Commission has to welcome the fact that, in terms of the committee arrangements planned for monitoring the European Reconstruction and Development programme, the European Parliament is still backing the position taken by the Commission, which is in favour of a 2A-type committee; this is the right one for quickly dealing with questions concerning this very programme.
In respect of Amendment No 4, the Commission also agrees with the European Parliament that there should be no reference to a period of effectiveness nor to a financial appropriation given that this question is the responsibility of the budgetary authority.
Again, I should like to tell you that, in Brussels on 8 July 1996 - in other words, about 11 days ago - the Commission presented to the representatives of the Union Member States eight finance proposals relating to the European Programme for Reconstruction and Development, totalling around 88 million ECU.
All of these projects, prepared together with the South African government, by NGOs and the Commission, with the object of a favourable opinion by the Member States of the Union.
Bearing in mind projects already approved or being approved, this means that, at this moment in time, we have now achieved authorisation of 95 % in terms of the available resources for the European Reconstruction and Development programme.
It might be argued that, given the situation in South Africa, it would be good to have those authorisations by the beginning of the year.
What I can tell you is that we hope that by February or March 1997 we will be able to come before the European Parliament and tell you that we have 95 % of all authorisations for that year.
Once again, I must thank Mrs Günther and the European Parliament for the support which you have given us in respect of execution of European programmes on South Africa.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Respect for human rights in the European Union in 1994
The next item is the report (A4-0223/96) by Mr De Esteban Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on respect for human rights on the European Union in 1994.
Given the short amount of time left for the debate on respect for human rights I should like, as rapporteur, to hear from Members about how to proceed on this report.
Do you have any proposal to make?
I would prefer first to hear from the political groups.
There is a proposal for referral to committee.
Does anyone wish to speak in favour? Mrs Roth.
Thank you very much, Mrs Roth.
Since nobody has spoken against, I put the request for referral to committee to the vote.
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to the committee responsible)
Mr President, if I may take up your time once again, I am glad we have adjourned this report.
But I appeal to colleagues from all groups to exert their influence on the Bureau in order to ensure that the matter is not simply tacked on to the end of the agenda in Brussels, but that the report can be debated at a prominent stage in the proceedings.
I consider that to be very important.
Also, Mr President, I ask that this be recorded in the minutes and that you take the matter up with the Bureau.
Mr President, I think it would be quite all right to start the debate now.
Reconstruction aid to former Yugoslavia
The next item is the report (A4-0247/96) by Mr Cars, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation relating to aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (COM(96)123-8256/96 - C4-0333/96-96/0096(CNS)).
Mr President, the report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on which Parliament is now to adopt a position concerns the rules which should govern the disbursement of EU resources for the reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia - just that, nothing more and nothing less.
Our starting point is the Council of Ministers' preliminary decision on the issue.
This in turn is based on a proposal from the Commission.
In accordance with the Union's decision-making procedures the Council should, before reaching a final decision on issues such as this, seek the views of Parliament.
It is surely good for us in Parliament to be reminded of the fact that ultimately it is the Council alone that takes the decisions.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs' proposal contains some valuable ideas, including those on the political conditions for EU aid, on the option of withdrawing aid if the recipients cease to meet the conditions, and on a whole range of issues for which I, as rapporteur, would not be so bold as to take the credit.
It would almost be true to say that many of the amendments which were approved in the Committee on Foreign Affairs are more the result of the knowledge and the willingness of certain well-known and prominent members of the committee to improve on even the smallest details.
Please permit me also to express my appreciation of the efforts made by the others who worked on the report with me and by the committee they represent. Nevertheless, Mr President, it is one issue and one issue alone which really dominates the present report.
I know that what I am now saying has the support both of the people who worked on the report with me and of a broad majority of the committee.
It is a matter of which countries should be given the right and the opportunity to submit tenders and obtain contracts as part of the current aid programme.
Let me remind you that for the years 1996-1999 this amounts to ECU 400 million, a far from insignificant sum.
At the suggestion of the Commission the Council of Ministers' preliminary decision was that only companies and organisations in EU Member States and from countries in the former Yugoslavia should have the right to submit tenders.
Following a proposal made by myself and the others who worked on the report with me the Committee on Foreign Affairs would like to extend this right to include the PHARE countries as well, that is to say those countries of Central and Eastern Europe which have concluded Europe Agreements with the EU and which are now seeking membership.
There are three strong reasons for this proposal.
Firstly, tenders could come from PHARE countries which would make it possible to provide more assistance using EU funds for the reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia.
Secondly, companies and economic development in Central and Eastern Europe would receive a boost, and thirdly, some of the funds which the EU is now using for aid to the former Yugoslavia came out of resources which were originally intended for countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
I should stress that the Committee on Foreign Affairs attaches very considerable importance to this matter.
The Committee calls for a conciliation procedure to be opened with the Council of Ministers on its amendments.
However, the Committee has, at my suggestion, unanimously agreed that if the Council can accept what the Committee and Parliament propose concerning the PHARE countries there would be no further need for the conciliation procedure.
If, on the other hand, the Council is unable to agree with Parliament on this issue, it would be particularly appropriate for representatives of Parliament immediately to be informed of the Council's reasons and to have the opportunity to discuss the matter with the Council.
All the amendments now being put before the House have already been tabled in committee, debated there and rejected.
I therefore propose that the House rejects the amendments and approves the proposals made by the Committee on Foreign Affairs and myself as rapporteur.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the way the European Union organizes its reconstruction aid to former Yugoslavia leaves much to be desired.
We have discussed this problem many times before, and it crops up again in the draft Regulation before us.
The Regulation seeks to provide the legal basis for rapid and effective aid.
Not only has it come rather late, when one considers that the money has been available in the budget since the beginning of this year and it has not been possible to spend it!
Worse still: this Regulation will make it difficult to provide really prompt and effective aid.
Anyone who wants to act meaningfully and effectively in aiding former Yugoslavia must seek cooperative and trustworthy partners at local and regional level.
For example, anyone wishing to help Mayor Radic of Banja Luka to hold out against Karadzic must find a way of supporting him directly.
That is something the Regulation does not make provision for, and it is a fundamental design fault that it gives precedence to an aid programme directed centrally and organized on a centralized basis.
The reasons for this can be traced back to the underlying policy.
The theory is apparently that this is the only way to make the political conditionality of the aid effective.
I have nothing against this conditionality.
It is an unavoidable necessity.
The only thing is that this approach overlooks the fact that the basic prerequisite is missing.
There are no central political structures and central administrations in operation.
It is to be hoped that such structures will ultimately be present, as a result of the reconstruction process.
But they cannot and must not be made a prerequisite of reconstruction.
Hence conditionality must be applied in a meaningful way in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in particular on a local and regional basis.
For that reason, a high profile on the ground, in terms of the presence of Commission agents, is absolutely indispensable.
The Committee on Budgetary Control unanimously adopted a proposal to amend the Regulation on those lines.
Unfortunately, it did not attract majority support in the main reporting committee, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
My group has therefore reintroduced the amendments in question, and I appeal to you to support them.
The same applies to our amendment on the annex introduced by the Council, which will turn the Regulation into a complete monster of bureaucracy.
Instead, the Committee on Budgetary Control recommends that the rules of the Financial Regulation should apply without restriction where invitations to tender are concerned and should also be considered sufficient.
Thank you very much, Mr Wiersma.
The debate is suspended and will resume at 3 p.m. We shall now proceed to the vote.
Votes
For reasons of which some of you will be aware, the approval of yesterday's Minutes was postponed.
I therefore put them to the vote now.
(Parliament approved the Minutes of the previous sitting)
Madam President, given the importance of this subject I should like to make a few specifications about the Spanish version.
In paragraph 12.4 of the Spanish version there is a sentence missing from the beginning which in Spanish would come out more or less as 'toda actividad de investigación sobre embriones humanos, así como la producción...' .
I should also like to draw attention to the translation of Amendment No 21 which was originally drafted in German, for which the translations into Spanish and Italian, at least, are really quite strange and cannot be accepted.
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, thank you for your intervention.
The same perhaps arises for other language versions, particularly for the Swedish version which also requires several corrections.
It should be made very clear that all the versions will be checked and brought into line with the original version, i.e. to the German version.
After the vote on Amendment No 32:
I should like to say, Madam President, that my machine is not functioning and that I wish to vote for.
Mrs Poisson, that was only an electronic check and most fortunately has no effect on the vote.
Having said that, I would be obliged to you if you would let me know immediately when the machines are not working before I declare the vote closed.
Madam President, I am very pleased to propose this oral amendment but have to make it clear that it concerns more particularly Amendment No 11 from the Liberal Group.
The principle of the oral amendment is that any research on the embryo must be forbidden unless its aim is to help the embryos development.
And, since I heard just now another oral amendment which must have been submitted to you the words 'and it is forbidden to destroy the embryo' could be added.
Thus, the oral amendment becomes: ' research on the embryo is forbidden unless it allows the later development of the embryo' , which is logical from the time when only three implanted embryos are authorized.
And there should also be added: ' destruction of the embryo is forbidden' .
Madam President, as this is a fundamental question which concerns the conscience of each individual, my group has decided that everyone should vote as he thinks fit.
Very well, Mrs Gebhardt, it is true that this is an important problem and we are all voting according to our consciences.
Madam President, our main concern through this report and through this vote was, once more, to make it clear to the Commission that we will not accept further cuts in spending on development.
We see from the supplementary and amending budget that the agreements we reached with the Commission are simply not being applied.
We have reinstated the budget lines which had been deleted - women and the Third World, environment and the Third World.
We had agreed with the Commission that further posts should be filled in DG VIII and that the money for these posts, on which we cannot take a decision, should be used by the Commission for DG VIII, so that NGO projects, which at present cannot be implemented because of lack of staff, can go ahead.
We have to note that these posts have not been created.
On the contrary, in the next financial year these very posts are to be transferred to DG I. I think that these arrangements must be queried once again in the supplementary and amending budget procedure.
They conflict with what Parliament has discussed with the Commission.
This whole process suggests that we are being drawn into something we prevented last year: the Commission is cutting back on funds for development policy in order to promote what I would call a militarized foreign policy.
Our group does not want that, the Committee on Development and Cooperation does not want that and I personally was opposed to it. I have therefore cast my vote accordingly.
Brinkhorst report
Madam President, I voted against Mr Brinkhorst's report because in reality it seeks yet again to call in question the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
Contrary to what has been said, both by the Committee on Budgets and in this Assembly, the decision of the Court of Justice does not mean that the Council is obliged to come to a decision and to reach agreement with Parliament about this classification.
By creating a EAGGF reserve of close to ECU 1.4 billion, the rapporteur's real aim this year was in reality to allow the redistribution of unspent appropriations to programmes qualifying for non-compulsory expenditure.
Now, the wish of the Council of Ministers, which is to cancel these unspent appropriations, should be supported at a time when considerable sacrifices are demanded of Member States - ECU 1 billion refunds for the all 15 Member States, a billion francs for France for example - should be supported, I repeat, in order to play a part in the overall effort to reduce public expenditure.
Mr Brinkhorst's report has unfortunately the same objectives as Mr Wynn's report last year.
Its technical objective is simple: rapporteur Brinkhorst wishes to create a reserve from the unused funds of the EAGGF (Guarantee Section).
This is a disguised transfer of compulsory expenditure to non-compulsory expenditure, in spite of the opinion of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Politically, the consequences of creating this reserve are disastrous for agriculture and fisheries.
In effect, the European Parliament wishes to be the decision-maker for part of the budgetary funds of these two sectors, accounting for more than 50 % of Union expenditure.
We all know that agriculture now represents no more than 5 % of the electorate in the Union.
As a result, Members of Parliament will tend to favour interests other than those of agriculture.
We have to insist here, to all Members present, that agriculture has always been a pillar of Europe.
Of course, the Common Agricultural Policy is not exempt from criticism.
Far from it!
But would no agricultural policy at all be any better? We do not think so.
Rather than take away agricultural funds to the advantage of other policies, it is absolutely necessary to use all available Community funds and to use them to best purpose, so that the European Union can continue to be a major world agricultural power and at the same time preserve the unity of its rural communities.
The balance of our society is at stake.
Like the rest of my group, I voted against the whole of Mr Brinkhorst's report because it follows the deviant line that part of Parliament is seeking to impose and that we denounce: a deviant line whereby more and more compulsory expenditure is slipped into the category of non-compulsory expenditure and the distribution of powers laid down by the Treaties is surreptitiously changed.
After all, it is not up to Parliament to replace the Council in deciding the allocation of agricultural and fishery budgets.
The composition of the European Parliament is such that farmers and fishermen are under-represented in it, whereas the importance of these social categories in terms of direct and indirect employment, economic production, social equilibrium, national and regional development and preservation of the countryside, is absolutely decisive for some of our countries.
There is thus a great risk that the majority of Members of the European Parliament will give priority to interests other than those of the rural and coastal communities.
I have a second reason for firmly rejecting the principle of creating a reserve: this is a proposal based on preliminary documents whose data are completely arbitrary: they do not, and cannot, take into account uncertainties in the weather, variations in world currencies and the results of free trade agreements.
Kittelmann report
As we voted against the establishment of a customs union between the EU and Turkey we have, for the sake of consistency, abstained from voting on this report.
We see no reason to reverse our decision since we can see that political prisoners still exist in Turkey and that the torture of political prisoners continues there.
The establishment of the customs union has unfortunately not moved Turkey to cease its violations of human rights.
The EU should impress upon Turkey that it is bound to carry out the pledges it made concerning democracy, human rights, freedom of expression and the release of political prisoners, in response to the requirements set by the EU in connection with the approval of the customs union with Turkey.
I voted against the customs union in order to have some leverage in negotiations with Turkey on the issue of human rights.
The conditions imposed on Turkey by the European Parliament when it voted for the customs union on 12 December 1995 must now be met.
The conditions imposed on Turkey by the EU in connection with the customs union have not been fulfilled.
I have therefore voted against the report.
The Green Group in the European Parliament voted against Mr Kittelmann's report, not because we are against the amendments to the Commission text proposed by the rapporteur, but because we are more than ever opposed to a Customs Union with Turkey.
Technically the amendments, which the Committee on External Economic Relations also approved in its opinion, are perfectly sensible, if we do not wish to leave the Commission and the Council free to take autocratic decisions on the Joint Committee, but seek to ensure a minimum degree of control by the European Parliament.
But these proposals for technical improvements, which make sense within the framework stated, do not alter anything of substance in the politically wrong premise of this Customs Union.
The last time this House voted on the Customs Union - seven months ago, in the middle of December last year - is still fresh in my memory.
The chorus of voices from almost all political groups, including the Social Democrats, was in favour of the Customs Union, because it was the only way to support the Çiller Government in the elections and to prevent Turkey from sliding into Islamic fundamentalism.
Today the Islamists there are in the government - and Mrs Çiller has smoothed the path for them into it.
Even before the passing of power to the Islamists, Turkey was a police state with some of the distinguishing marks of a military dictatorship.
Now it is becoming a religious dictatorship as well.
A further factor of oppression has been added, but it is apparently not thought that that will have any consequences.
I was in Istanbul myself from 1 to 3 June, with a delegation of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the occasion of the HABITAT II Conference.
We wanted to shield the Human Rights Association, which seeks to highlight the brutal repression of the autonomy movement in Kurdistan, by our presence and support it publicly.
Even as parliamentarians, we were constantly spied upon and harassed in Istanbul.
Claudia Roth was questioned by the police for over an hour after she had held a press conference.
One group worker was detained for over an hour because she had distributed information about our events at the NGO Forum.
There must be no customs union with a state which does not respect even the most basic rights, such as freedom of opinion, and which wages a dirty war against part of its own population, against a whole region.
The European Parliament should therefore take no further steps in the wrong direction and wait until democracy and peace have returned to Turkey, before taking any decisions that will give effect to the Customs Union.
Pelttari report
Madam President, its failure to adopt the Pelttari report brings shame on the European Parliament.
This is a black day for Parliament.
The fact that the House has failed to address a question of such importance as the draft Bioethics Convention is a disgrace.
The draft Bioethics Convention, as originally conceived by the steering committee, meant a relativization of human rights.
It rightly unleashed a wave of revulsion in the Member States.
It is a sign of moral destitution that we did not take a stand on a convention under which, for example, research on persons incapable of consent would continue to be allowed.
For this opens the way to the circumvention of human rights.
There are also no clear provisions in the draft Bioethics Convention to prohibit research on genetic determinism.
This leaves the door wide open to the breeding of laboratory human beings.
Also, the draft Bioethics Convention allows scope for disposable embryo research by the back door.
Of course, it is only to be permitted when adequate safeguards are provided.
This does not go beyond vague assurances, however, since the draft convention says absolutely nothing about the form these safeguards would take.
The Pelttari report would have been a chance to send a very clear signal to the parliamentary assembly and to the Council of Europe, saying that this draft convention must be rejected.
By failing to adopt the report, we have unfortunately thrown away this chance.
We could have made it clear through our resolution that we intend to oppose the devaluing of human rights, for established human rights must not be called into question.
The draft Bioethics Convention, on the other hand, does not safeguard human rights; on the contrary, it positively legitimizes their devaluation.
Hence I think it is a scandal, a sign of moral destitution and a disgrace to the European Parliament that we have failed to adopt this excellent report, which would have sent a clear signal for the rejection of the convention.
Madam President, it is a great pity that Parliament has not adopted the Pelttari report, which expressed reservations about this draft convention, so very dangerous in its present state.
There are undoubtedly some excellent principles to be found in this draft convention, but it refers the most important questions to protocols whose ultimate contents are not known to us and which arouse the deepest concern, particularly as regards the consent of incapacitated people.
Parliament had expressed reservations, which the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights supported, and it is a great pity that, when we voted, we did not endorse these reservations in order to protect the consent of incapacitated people.
Similarly, in the case of the protection of embryos, the question is again referred to the protocol.
So what will the CDBI, the body responsible for drawing up the protocol, do? We do not know.
I associate myself with what is said in items 3, 4 and 5 of paragraph 12: these should be used as guidelines in drafting the protocol, failing which there would effectively be a real violation of human rights in a matter of the greatest importance.
In the case of artificial insemination, the Pelttari report emphasizes a very important point: only embryos for implantation should be generated, otherwise it will really be a matter of the freezing, or frozen preservation of human beings, of actual experimentation, even though we know that, for mice themselves on which experiments are carried out, there are after-effects and problems resulting from the freezing.
As for the genome, here again it is not possible for a few human beings, be they experts or scientists, to have the outrageous power to intervene with the germ line, thereby calling into question the very future of the human species.
As regards action on genes concerning organs, we are in total agreement but, for genes involved in the transmission to descendants, it is unacceptable that any human being whatsoever should have the power to act.
This is exploitation of human by human and is much more serious than economic, social or any other type of exploitation.
In conclusion, I should like to say that, here, it is really a question of civilization, of basic human values, on which the European Parliament, like the Council of Europe, has a duty to take a stand.
We should not err by doing nothing.
Science and our consciences are at one on this issue: the Pelttari report made it possible to honour both.
As a result, I am expressing great regret and great sorrow on behalf of my group.
As politicians we have a responsibility to pose the questions and to suggest answers but the implications of human gene technology reach into every corner of people's private lives.
These are not matters which the European Parliament or the Council of Europe can simply pronounce upon from on high.
They are matters which require the consent of society.
The report calls for the widest possible public debate and participation in order to form a consensus.
This debate should take place before, not after, we produce a statement of what is right and what is wrong.
The debate has shown that the issues go to the core of the way society chooses to view itself and the conflict which this technology introduces.
Reproductive rights, abortion, genetic testing, embryo research, gene therapies, genetic privacy, the rights of incapacitated people - all these and more are delicate and sensitive questions.
We will be offered simplistic solutions to problems that we may not even know we had.
Genetic determinism - the concept that everything about our physical and mental make-up can be identified by reference to our DNA - is a most dangerous road.
We will be under pressure to use the technology to 'normalize' humankind by selecting only those characteristics and traits which reflect some 'ideal' notion of humanity.
We risk creating a 'monoculture of humankind' .
It is unacceptable to trade in human embryos or to create embryos for research.
Research on human beings without their consent must only be carried out for their direct benefit.
The rejection of this report by Parliament is shameful.
The use of biology, biotechnology and medicine and research in these fields confronts us human beings with some difficult ethical questions.
In biotechnology developments are proceeding extremely quickly and it is a field which is so complex and advanced that there is no public debate on the subject - dialogue and debate remain the exclusive preserve of researchers (who often disagree).
If we are to have a broad public debate - and this is essential in respect of an issue as crucial for humankind as genetic engineering - more time will be needed - a moratorium, especially as regards applied research in genetic engineering.
The precautionary principle - concern for future generations - must weigh more heavily than the rapid development of genetic engineering.
I am voting for the report, which deals with very important ethical issues surrounding an area of research which is expanding extremely rapidly.
If the new technology concerned is not to escape from our control it is now high time that a proper, strict framework was established for the conduct of the research involved.
Research involving embryos in particular is an area where ethics and not technology must determine the limits.
It is also totally unacceptable that genetic screening should be carried out in order to produce offspring with 'desirable' aptitudes.
Undoubtedly genetic engineering can help people with serious, at present incurable illnesses, but to modify human beings' genetic make-up for other reasons is completely reprehensible and risks undermining the principle that all people are of equal worth.
The precautionary principle should obviously be applied in the genetic engineering field.
Finally, I should like to stress that the debate on bioethics which concerns so many people must be conducted openly and with the involvement of the public at large, so as to ensure that any committee of experts which may be established does not drift away from generally accepted ethical principles.
There was a time when people were the masters of technology and when the needs of mankind controlled the development of technology and research.
Today, in 1996, the situation is often reversed.
Technology and research lead a life of their own - often irrespective of whether any real need has been established.
Research into genetic engineering is one example of this.
It is also a cautionary example of a 'development' , the consequences and risks of which we today have no way of knowing.
Perhaps our children and grandchildren will have every right to curse us in the future.
In the current situation a moratorium would be the best way of creating the time and space for a broad, public debate, before any further decisions are taken.
The Pelttari report was an attempt, in the present situation, to curb and gain tighter control over developments and I therefore voted for it.
It is extremely regrettable that the report did not receive the support of Parliament.
The subject on which the European Parliament has to vote today is a very delicate one that has, in various ways and at various times, stirred the imagination and, of course, also the conscience of many scientists, artists, philosophers and writers. The story of Faust and his pact with the devil, the tale of Frankenstein, the wizard's apprentice, and the film 'Blade Runner' all come to mind as just a few of the more outstanding examples.
And a passage of the Bible also comes to mind: ' Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth' .
Of course, new experimental techniques based on a deeper knowledge of the qualities and weaknesses of our genes and those of other animals open new and enticing horizons for medical research.
But they also allow the possibility of aberrant developments that are a threat to humanity and the entire earth and are difficult to control.
For this reason, I welcome any attempt to establish a code of conduct in the field of bioethics.
And the Greens have, in committee, made a practical contribution to adjusting the sights.
More specifically, we believe:
that the production of human embryos should be absolutely prohibited on all grounds and not just for research purposes; -incapacitated people must be guaranteed protection against all forms of exploitation; -as regards antenatal treatment, women must have the ultimate and sole right to decide; -the intimate genetic make-up of each individual must be rigorously respected.Hopefully, the Bioethics Convention will help ensure that the 'gothic' fantasies I mentioned earlier remain nothing more than powerful literary inventions.
It is because of our knowledge of history that the establishment of rules for bioethics is still a problem for society at the close of the millennium, and a most passionate problem, because it touches the unconscious roots of life and death and, especially, the view that human beings have of themselves.
The future path of human gene technology is full of ethical and practical problems.
In the next few years we will have almost complete technical knowledge of the make-up of the human genome, but we will probably still not have an understanding of the complex interactions of the human mind and body or of the inter-relationship between people and their living environment.
The debate has shown that the issues go to the core of the way society chooses to view itself and the conflicts which this technology introduces.
Reproductive rights, abortion, genetic testing, embryo research, gene therapies, genetic privacy, the rights of incapacitated people - all these and more are delicate and sensitive questions.
We will be offered simplistic solutions to problems that we may not even know we had.
Genetic determinism - the concept that everything about our physical and mental make-up can be identified by reference to our DNA - is a most dangerous road.
We will be under pressure to use the technology to 'normalize' humankind by selecting only those characteristics and traits which reflect some ideal notion of humanity.
We risk creating a 'monoculture of mankind' .
It is a feature of our obsession with technical progress that if we have information and new techniques, we must use them.
It is true that we cannot unlearn knowledge, but in a mature society it would be good to think that we can exercise a high degree of responsible choice over what we do with it.
Put simply, even if we can do something, should we?
As politicians we have a responsibility to pose the questions and to suggest answers but the implications of human gene technology reach into every corner of people's private lives.
These are not matters which the European Parliament or the Council of Europe can simply pronounce upon from on high.
They are matters which require the consent of society.
The report calls for the widest possible public debate and participation in order to form a consensus.
This debate should take place before, not after, we produce a statement of what is right and what is wrong.
I believe that we have only just begin to scratch these issues and although this report defines some of the ground, it is a long way from producing an ethical and philosophical framework which will guide us into the next century.
For all these reasons, it was of paramount importance for the European Parliament to take up a position on this subject - even though I was not unreservedly happy with every point in the report.
The disappointment at the fact that, once again, we stand without a voice before a subject on which we should have been heard loud and clear is consequently great.
And I do not understand the reasons why those colleagues, particularly from the ranks of the PSE, who voted against it, have denied this House a critical standpoint on the draft Bioethics Convention of the Council of Europe.
As a result, the convention has gained validity, and the painstaking detailed work to improve it has suffered a grave setback.
Despite this, that work will continue.
The discoveries and perspectives laid open by scientific developments and their applications create an urgent social need to protect human rights and dignity.
This necessity applies particularly to scientific achievements in the field of biotechnology, especially in the field of genetics, which on the one hand offer vast possibilities in the area of health for the prevention and treatment of disease, but which at the same time harbour significant dangers of deviating from the true mission of medicine and science, with incalculable consequences for the future of mankind itself.
Interventions in the genetic code aiming to develop selected properties for the creation of individuals and populations suitable for particular uses and services can be described as a form of eugenics and create huge issues of deviation from mankind's destiny, with unforeseen results for the future of humanity, since the results of scientific experience so far are not enough to be considered trustworthy in relation to the compatibility of genetically modified organisms with the environment.
It is of particular concern to us that a subject such as this, with extremely serious consequences and ethical dimensions, is mainly approached from the standpoint of economics and commerce.
Biotechnological products are used not solely on the basis of scientific criteria, but also to serve the need for movement of the available capital and to make profits.
Biotechnological development is already taking place in major centres of large economic potential where the participation of specialist scientists determining in the final utilization of discoveries is not always definitive.
The procedures and legal framework are formulated on the basis of business criteria and are essentially concerned only with the multiplication of economic activities, the creation of a market and the securing of competitive investments.
We think it is essential that in parallel with biotechnology, branches of research should be developed and supported to assess and study the probable risks associated with biotechnological and genetic discoveries in relation to man and the environment. Detailed studies should be carried out and ethical rules formulated, which govern both research and applications in the field of biotechnology, and regulatory orders should be established within the scope of a legal framework that will protect humanity against unreasoned and improper use of the results of biotechnology and genetic engineering.
The European Union is a moral entity with heavy responsibilities to its own citizens and the citizens of other countries, both those countries which have applied to join the European Union and other regions of the world, which look towards it.
Given that the respect of the human being lies at the very heart of the democratic spirit of the West it is unjustifiable that we should continue with a situation whereby the European Union is not a party to the European Convention on Human Rights or the Bioethics Convention.
Laws and treaties exist to serve people and not the contrary.
If the Treaty does not allow for accession then the Treaty should be changed and this is the moment to do so.
What is important is that we should not continue to put on for the world the sad spectacle where the Union is very swift to defend its interests but very slow to defend its principles.
The vote against by the European Parliament, given that this text is unsatisfactory, should not be confused with our duty to make an active contribution to the regulation of a vital matter for European research in the coming years.
Many a colleague, particularly from the south of the EU, will find it unenlightened to argue in terms of categories such as respect for creation, the humanum , and the like when discussing this question.
I on the other hand - after the emergence of the ecological paradigm - consider it to be quite the opposite: a central category of an enlightenment, which also strives for enlightenment about itself and which, in respect of the dangers and risks incurred by it, can no longer rely on a metaphysical belief in future technological problem-solving.
Rather it is important, here and now, to furnish sufficient proof that illimitable risks can be positively excluded - instead of being somehow concealed within the ill-defined category of the residual risk.
The core of responsible scientific rationality lies precisely in this conscious and responsible acceptance of the burden of proof - not in taking comfort in some blind faith that future technical advances will be able to solve all problems!
Caudron report
The dramatic situation in the steelmaking sector, which was in the past one of the cornerstones of the development of Europe's economy, cannot be doubted.
During the past twenty years over 500, 000 jobs have been lost in the branch, and thousands of enterprises have closed down.
In my country, just recently, within the scope of a new and broad restructuring, the largest firm in the branch announced the closure of two departments and the redundancy of 250 workers, with the result that those still employed number only 500, compared with 3, 000 before the successive restructurings that have taken place.
There are also fears that the company may close down entirely.
What is the attitude of the EU towards this situation?
In this sector too, the EU is pursuing a policy of non-support and essentially contributing to the dissolution of the branch, to the benefit of major monopolistic interests in third countries.
On the other hand, it forbids Member States to adopt a branch policy.
Within the framework of the policy on State support, it makes approval of such support depend on the adoption of restructuring programmes whose basic aim is to reduce further the productive capacity and to bring about drastic cuts in jobs.
At the same time, it adopts no measures to deal with the problem of uncontrolled steel imports from third countries that are implementing dumping policies, with the result that situations of unfair competition are created to the cost of Community production.
Action to deal with existing serious problems, such as the development of productivity and competitiveness, cannot be used as an excuse to do away with any notion of protection for working people, or to justify widespread recourse to part-time working or subcontracting.
Experience shows that restructuring which does not take into account the rights of working people, can have no substantive results.
The EU must adopt direct measures to deal with the problem of mass imports of steelmaking products in the branch from countries that implement dumping practices, either by concluding related agreements or by applying the defensive measures recognised in the context of international trade exchanges.
It must make use of the possibilities existing at an international level to develop exports, mainly to the developing countries.
It must adopt measures to support investment in the branch, mainly in sectors related to the production of new products, and measures to encourage demand for Community steel products, mainly in sectors such as building and public works.
The stubborn continuation of practices and choices condemned by experience can only result in an exacerbation of the crisis and in the withering of one of industry's most dynamic branches.
I agree with the rapporteur, Mr Caudron, that a restructuring of the steel industry is necessary, inter alia in order to solve environmental problems and the social dumping and unemployment which accompany industrial decline.
However, it is my opinion that it is up to each Member State itself to judge and decide whether it wishes to support its steel industry or not.
Member States must be able to draw the dividing lines as regards social, regional and/or production support.
Fernández-Albor report
Madam President, I was forced to abstain, although in my opinion the basic premise of the report is correct.
The European Union's power to act in the areas of foreign and security policy must be reinforced, as the sad example of Bosnia shows.
However, the report suffers from two failings: firstly, it does not admit NATO's position as the cornerstone of Europe's security structure.
It is rather remarkable that the report on the CSFP does not mention NATO at all.
It is distant from reality, particularly since I-For and the CJTF are such important parts of the European security structure and since France has returned or is returning to the administrative structures of NATO.
Secondly, the report does not make sufficiently clear the importance of neutrality as a part of Europe's developing security system.
Neutrality is not necessarily an ancient dogma carved on stone tablets, but in the current situation it is a positive element in the stability of Europe, particularly northern Europe.
From this point of view the report also contradicts Mrs Maij-Weggen's report on which we voted when we discussed the Intergovernmental Conference.
Madam President, we Austrian Social Democrats are very pleased finally to have been able to vote for this report because, after the adoption of amendments, a security policy perspective which in our opinion is dangerous, risky and, more especially, unacceptable to our country no longer represents the opinion of this House.
We are not in favour of the continuation of the Cold War by other means; we favour a new start in security policy free of preconceptions.
This new start must not lead us into military blocs bristling with weapons, but only to a new kind of common security system for Europe.
This text now explicitly recognizes that we can learn from different forms of security policy experience, especially that of the neutral states, and that has enabled us to vote for this report.
Madam President, the Austrian Social Democrats are convinced that the solution of the security problems Europe undoubtedly has can only be reliably sought in the doubtless difficult creation of a pan-European security system.
Such a system, in particular, must not regard Russia as an adversary but as a partner, and it must be applicable to Europe in the geographic sense.
Such a system will be capable of achieving what, in the view of all the experts, simply extending the existing military blocs and tying them in with the common foreign and security policy will certainly not bring about, namely the creation of greater security for Europe.
A European military bloc extending to the Russian border, on the other hand, will mean less, not more security for this continent.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the fundamental question we must ask ourselves is: what kind of Europe have we in mind for the future?
Is it a Europe vying for the possession of nuclear weapons, which regards the countries surrounding it as dangerous foes and deals with them accordingly?
Is it a Europe that behaves as though the Cold War had never ended and now rejoices in the fact that the line of defence against the 'enemy' has receded a little? Or is it a Union functioning as the strong core of a comprehensive European security system and pursuing an effective common foreign policy which regards neighbouring states, not as hostile powers, but as security policy partners?
This is the only security policy concept that we Austrian Social Democrats can consider - not least on the basis of the experience we have had with our nationality policy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Austria has a good and successful tradition of neutrality.
We Social Democrats have never regarded neutrality as a strategy of remaining aloof from developments, but as a political duty to act even in difficult conflict situations on the basis of a commitment to peace without loss of independence.
We also do not view our neutrality as constituting any barrier to active participation and initiative-taking in a common security policy of the Union and to honouring those obligations of solidarity that are incumbent on every Member of this Union.
We know only too well that the outline conditions of world politics within which our neutrality functions are different to what they were a decade ago.
But, to us, neutrality does not mean inflexibility, and I think we have demonstrated in our approach to the European conflicts of recent years that neutrality in the new circumstances is also capable of redefinition.
Madam President, the Austrian Social Democrats are convinced that the security policy experience gained by our country and its people from our neutrality stance has been positive, not only in historical terms.
This experience still has its value in present-day terms and, by dint of that updated value, is still able to determine our security policy.
We Austrian Social Democrats concede that other countries, like us, have gained security policy experience of their own, which they also consider positive and on which they intend to draw for future needs.
But it is just not the case that one security policy concept, namely NATO membership, has since 1989 more or less won the contest and the other, namely neutrality, has lost.
Europe must learn from both concepts, and I believe it will gain from that.
Madam President, it is already worrying enough that the Budget Office of the US Congress, in the event that NATO is enlarged to extend as far as the borders of Russia, estimates the additional costs arising up to the year 2010 at $18.9 billion for the USA, $54 billion for the existing NATO members in Europe and $51.8 billion for the new members in Eastern Europe.
It is even more worrying, however, when the Budget Office then notes that, even with this enormous cost burden of over $124 billion, effective military protection cannot be provided at all for the Baltic States, Romania and the Ukraine and only limited protection for the other Eastern Europe states.
Such an admission of the non-viability of a security policy concept of this kind must surely encourage us to seek alternative concepts.
We Austrian Social Democrats in the European Parliament regard this search for a new security policy concept for Europe as one of the main tasks of European politics.
Madam President, we Austrian Social Democrats want to see the European Parliament make an effective contribution to the search for a comprehensive, forward-looking security policy concept.
Today's vote was a step in that direction.
By adopting the amendments of the Social Democratic Group, this House has turned aside from continuing the outworn concept of the Cold War.
We are happy that reference to a common nuclear deterrent could be removed from the report, that the report reflected not only the historical experience of NATO but also the positive historical experience of neutrality and that no one-sided emphasis was placed on military security.
We Austrian Social Democrats advocate a modern comprehensive security concept.
We will participate actively and in a spirit of solidarity to the further development of an effective common foreign and security policy in Europe, but on the basis of a comprehensive security policy.
We are pleased that our standpoint on the amendment of paragraph 21 was listened to. This was crucial if we were to vote for the report as a whole.
On the other hand, it was a shame that our Amendment No 7 was not sympathetically received.
The proposal of course explained that security policy, including international relations, economic relations, trade, aid and cooperation with neighbouring countries, comprises much more and is much more important than defence policy.
A common security policy should be aimed at resolving conflicts rather than fighting them out militarily.
We should like once again to state that it is a common peace policy with a common system for the prevention of conflicts that we need in Europe.
Although the European Union may be an economic giant, it is regrettably a political dwarf on the world stage.
The reason for this contrast is quite simple.
We have a defective procedure for developing a cohesive and coherent common foreign and security policy.
This current procedure requires unanimity.
This means that one Member State can effectively ensure that no common policy is agreed.
The emphasis is therefore on the brake rather than the engine room.
The consequence has been that at times of international crisis the EU has been totally impotent.
Either we had a weak, ineffectual policy or no policy at all.
And to make matters worse Member States often spoke with different voices.
I hope that the IGC resolves this matter by agreeing on the introduction of qualified majority voting in the CFSP area to ensure that in fact we do have a policy and are able to implement it.
Eriksson and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), in writing.
(SV) We have nothing against constructive civil intergovernmental cooperation between EU Member States where this is better able than other forms of foreign policy cooperation to foster peace, democracy and human rights in the rest of the world.
However, we cannot support the manifestly all-embracing objective of the Fernández-Albor report which is evidently to establish the EU as an interventionist military superpower (and a nuclear one at that) which, using a modern variation on the gunboat diplomacy of the past, is intended to participate in a kind of competition for world domination.
We also oppose the ambition which is evident from this and from other reports to charge EU institutions with international responsibilities which are already vested in existing international organisations of which all the EU Member States are members, such as the UN, OSCE and the Council of Europe.
The Member States of the EU should instead work constructively within these bodies to make them better able to carry out their responsibilities.
We consider it obvious that the international peace system should be a comprehensive one, which is true in respect of the UN and OSCE (within its field) but can never be true of the EU. An effective peace system for the over 50 states in Europe cannot be based on an EU with 15 Member States or for that matter on an EU enlarged, in accordance with current plans, to at most 27 Members.
We believe that it is a strength that the Member States of the EU can unanimously adopt common positions and decide on common measures.
Clear and unanimous action by the EU in favour of peace, reconciliation, conflict management, cooperation and support for sustainable development is a positive thing for Europe and the rest of the world.
We do not share the view of the majority that 1995 saw far too little progress on the common foreign and security policy. That the EU's 15 Member States agreed on 106 declarations, 13 common positions and 10 joint actions should be seen as a positive result of intergovernmental cooperation founded on the unanimous decision-making procedure.
The European Parliament's decision in connection with the Fernández-Albor report demonstrates a lack of respect for the non-aligned Member States.
The European Parliament should rather set great store by and respect the Member States' different security policy choices.
We vehemently oppose turning the EU into a military alliance.
We believe that in the report the European Parliament is seriously over-interpreting the EU's objective as regards the common foreign and security policy as laid down in Article J.4.
We consider that the plans to create a military alliance with mutual defence obligations within the framework of EU cooperation are completely the wrong way to go.
This is all the more evident as a result of France's decision once again to participate fully in NATO cooperation.
The responsibility for issuing binding military security guarantees in respect of its member countries should rest with NATO in the future too.
We do not believe that a successful common foreign and security policy requires a common defence policy, let alone a common defence, in order to be successful.
On the contrary, the common foreign and security policy is strengthened by the different choices made by the Member States as regards security policy.
Lasting common security can only be established through cooperation between democratic states which is based on trust.
Common security in Europe can only be established in collaboration with a democratic Russia and with the USA.
The fora for cooperation where the USA, Russia and the other countries of Europe meet, such as the OSCE and the Partnership for Peace should therefore form the basis for the establishment of common security in our part of the world.
As the Fernández-Albor report on progress on the common foreign and security policy approaches the subject from a perspective completely different to that we have described we voted against the report as a whole.
Abduction of children
The increasing number of abductions of the underaged is yet another of the many problems faced by children both in the European Union and in other countries.
Children are the citizens of our present and future society.
No geographical boundaries can be placed on their prosperity.
Society has a long-term responsibility to extend, support and protect the rights of children.
The development of activities related to the rights of children and to satisfying their needs must be a political priority.
The increase of sex tourism, the sale of organs for transplants, the development of pornography via electronic computers, the exchange of pornographic material with underage protagonists and in many cases the trade in children themselves for the purpose of sexual exploitation and brutalization by members of international networks, are issues of daily concern to twentieth century society.
The freedom of movement and establishment of working people between the Member States of the EU and the continually increasing flow of immigrants from third countries, have led to the birth of more and more children from parents of different nationalities.
In the event of divorce, existing national family laws are unable to solve issues relating to custody and the protection of children, and to the rights of children to maintain contact with the parent that has not undertaken custody, with the result that we often hear about the abduction of children by their own parents.
The UNO Convention on the rights of children, in common with the recent Conventions of the Hague and the Convention of the Council of Europe in Luxembourg on the abduction of children, have proved ineffectual.
Children are the first victims of armed conflict, economic recession and cuts in the economy.
Activities should concentrate on the prevention of difficult situations instead of trying to deal with the exceptional circumstances and problems that arise every time.
We must adopt all necessary measures to protect children particularly in former Yugoslavia, to avoid a repetition of the appalling trade in children that happened in Greece during and after the end of the Civil War when an entire network was organised for the abduction of children who were to be sold in America.
It should be our concern to cover the basic needs of children, to adopt all necessary initiatives at national, Community and international level for the promotion of harmonised policies to safeguard the rights of children, and to make available resources sufficient for the promotion and support of those policies, so that the rights of children will become a reality both in Europe and in the rest of the world.
The Danish social democrats support the idea of extending the Brussels Convention to include the area of family law.
We are not in favour of harmonizing the rules of family law, but we should agree on some fundamental matters, for example that cases should be dealt with where the child is living, so that the child is able to be heard.
Our starting-point should be that the interests of the child are taken into account as far as possible.
We should also ensure that cooperation agreements are established with third countries in this area.
I wish to explain my vote for this joint resolution because I think it is absolutely necessary to harmonize legislative procedures Community-wide on such a delicate subject as that of the abduction of children, as a result of the violation of custody in Member States.
Especially since this is the sector of the population whose rights are most vulnerable and who very often are totally dependent on court decisions which cannot always take account of all the circumstances surrounding a particular case, I insist on the need to give greater scope to this resolution, calling for the revision and extension of the legal instruments at our disposal and making them explicit in this resolution, such that they include extremes such as leaving the conjugal home or even the country of residence because of ill-treatment, harassment or discrimination, directed either against the child or children or the parent, and that special attention is paid to the causes behind each case of abduction so as to guarantee legal aid based on the respect of human rights, women's rights and children's rights.
The harmonization of these laws and rights must be the basis of all legal provisions for this purpose.
McCartin report
Madam President, I should first like to congratulate Mr McCartin, who has produced an excellent report on a subject which should be close to our hearts, not simply because it concerns 600, 000 producers whose income is still falling, but because there has been great injustice to shepherds who are part of our identity - and I am not thinking simply about Giono, Alphonse Daudet, about transhumance, sheep tracks and causses - and who play a fundamental role in the balance of disadvantaged regions, whether it be in Larzac, la Mancha in Spain or Deux-Sèvres with goat rearing.
It is very unjust because we are short of sheep.
The French herd has fallen from 30 million head of sheep to 8 million head.
In France, we are only 50 % self-sufficient, and in the European Community only 80 %.
We import 250, 000 tonnes against exports of 5000 tonnes, and we have created an anti-sheep mechanism!
When there are more than 63 million head of sheep, there is a stabilizing mechanism, there are penalties, and quotas.
Mr Debatisse even proposed fixing an electronic chip in the ear of every sheep to monitor them by satellite!
The European Community Court of Justice refused to consider that the wool from sheep was an agricultural product, which would at least have produced some additional income.
So I ask that we do justice to the shepherds, who had managed to make a move towards what was going to be a fundamental part of our identity, and I also ask the European Court of Auditors in its turn to stop thinking that ECU 1 per kilo is too dear.
For sheep are firebreaks and contribute actively to both organic farming and a balanced environment in the most disadvantaged regions.
We do not agree with the basic criticism by the Court of Auditors of the alleged explosion in spending.
On the other hand, we do agree with the criticism that the Member States have failed to meet their obligations, making it almost impossible for the EU to administer the market organization.
Against this background, we regard a general tightening-up of the market organization as essential to enable intervention measures to be implemented within it.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Mr President, I am delighted to step into the breach.
I thought that in your generosity you would give me the Liberal Democrats' allocation of time as well, seeing as I had helped to save their bacon.
However, seriously, I think this is one of the issues on which a very wide spectrum of this House, if not the entire House, can unite.
Even those of us who are very critical of the nuclear powers within the European Union, the French and the British, can, I think, make common cause on this issue.
I have many times asked people who support the nuclear deterrent held by the United Kingdom, who they were going to use it against, and the answer is usually 'nobody' , in which case I ask them why they don't just abolish it.
The same argument applies to the French nuclear deterrent.
However, the justification is always given that with the nuclear deterrent, with the nuclear weapon, you have a seat at the top table, you can influence events in the wider world, and so I think in the European Union we want in particular to ask the UK and France to use that influence and, with all of us behind them, to say, in particular to the Chinese that they must stop testing nuclear weapons.
This testing of nuclear weapons is an abomination, it threatens the environment, it threatens the vulnerable communities on the periphery of their own country, and just as we condemned Jacques Chirac when he came to this Chamber in unequivocal terms for what was happening in the French Polynesian testing, we do the same to China.
Let us have a united front on this and I would be very happy indeed to either propose or second the joint resolution.
Mr President, I also wish to sign up to this joint resolution since from the beginning it was a serious mistake to make nuclear weapons and they are a danger not only when they are used but also because they affect many generations after.
It is inconceivable that, after the end of the cold war, we should continue to test nuclear bombs when it is clear that they are a hazard for the whole of mankind.
It is inconceivable that France should have continued its nuclear tests and that the United Kingdom should continue to take part in US nuclear programmes or that China should still explode atomic bombs.
That is why it is urgent that, within the timetable set by the General Assembly of the United Nations, there should be ratification of the full test ban on nuclear weapons.
In a climate as negative as the present one, we must shed a ray of hope for mankind.
The European Parliament would be making a primordial contribution to that step if, by adopting this resolution, it made it known to the General Assembly of the United Nations so that a new step for mankind can be taken.
Mr President, these dreadful weapons of destruction have hung over all our heads for a very long time now this century.
Many of us have been involved in trying to find some way out of the planetary catastrophe that could ensue.
Therefore, it is really important that we pursue in good faith to bring the negotiations for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to fruition.
It is really important that we send out a signal from this House to ensure that they move speedily, because we are concerned at the failure of the Conference on Disarmament to meet the deadline for the conclusion of negotiations.
This House must send out a clear signal here today that we in the European Parliament, representing the citizens, want them to work in good faith.
I particularly would like to ask the UK, France and the United States - although we only have the opportunity in this Parliament to directly address the UK and France - to constrain and curb nuclear weapons development.
We do not need to develop them: we already have these weapons of destruction.
Why were we testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific last year? We already had all the knowledge necessary.
It was an outrage, and continues to be an outrage, that we develop these weapons.
We need to constrain them, not develop them.
I would ask this House, therefore, to send a clear signal by adopting the resolution and to urge all the Member States to speedily conclude the negotiations, because it is even an outrage that it should be suggested in the negotiations that there could be 'peaceful' nuclear explosions.
There cannot, and we must stop this exploding of these toxic materials in the atmosphere for the good of the citizens of the world and for the sake of the planet.
Mr Bertens, I have taken note of the remarks you made at the beginning but please bear in mind that to err is human and that the agenda is not amended unless a vote in plenary has authorized any changes.
I fully understand, Mr President.
To err is indeed human - very human.
Mr President, a full year ago agreement was reached in New York to extend the NonProliferation Treaty sine die .
Following several rounds of talks in which the European Union presented a united front agreement was finally reached on an unconditional extension sine die .
Many reluctant states were persuaded by the promise that a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing would soon be forthcoming.
Talks on that ban are currently in progress in Geneva.
But the earlier deadline of 28 June as the date for an agreement has regrettably not been met.
The talks are to resume at the end of the month.
The new deadline has been set for 12 August so that the treaty can be submitted to the 51st General Assembly of the UN.
The impasse caused by India's refusal to sign unless the preamble contains provision for a reduction of the nuclear weapons arsenal of the nuclear states is a cause for concern.
If India does not sign, Pakistan most probably will not either.
That will mean that a chance has been lost of getting the 'threshold' countries signed up to an international treaty which opposes the development of nuclear weapons.
Because these countries are not bound by the Non-Proliferation Treaty since they did not sign it.
The British reaction, that unless India signs the treaty is pointless, is regrettable.
It has heightened the tensions and offers no solution.
We urge all the parties concerned to sign the treaty and halt the negative spiral which has begun.
We urge the Union too to take action.
Nuclear states which claim that the nuclear test ban treaty is concerned not with nuclear weapons but with nuclear tests are of course right in theory.
Notwithstanding this there is a direct link between the NonProliferation Treaty and the ban on testing.
As we have said, nuclear testing is the best way of halting the further spread of nuclear weapons.
The question is whether one cannot find a formula, for example a reference to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to Article 6, which everybody could accept, so that the problem of India could be resolved.
The five official nuclear states which have pushed for signature of the Non-Proliferation Treaty have undertaken to make their intentions on further nuclear disarmament clear and to continue making them clear vis à vis the threshold countries.
Even if no agreement can is reached on the passage which India wants - and again, I think it should be possible to find a solution - I think the treaty should in any event be signed by the nuclear states and by Great Britain too, so that we do at least have something in the bag, a treaty signed by as many countries as possible and hopefully by some of the threshold nuclear states too.
In conclusion, this treaty must be signed, ratified and brought into effect as soon as possible.
The debate on it has gone on for too long.
Mr President, in a few weeks' time, the international community will have the opportunity to take a major step towards nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament with the signature of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
This Treaty will succeed the decision of May 1995 in favour of the indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons for which the European Union has been very actively working.
The Commission regrets India's decision not to sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
At a time when the Commission is encouraging the European Union to strengthen its partnership with India, the signing of this Treaty by India would have been seen by the Commission and by the Member States as an extremely positive sign.
The Commission wishes to pay tribute to the efforts of the ambassador, Mr Ramaker, who proposed a text on 28 June allowing Member States for the first time to consider the conditions for an agreement.
Like the European Parliament, the Commission hopes that the members of the Conference on Disarmament will reach an agreement before 12 August 1996 allowing the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty to be signed before the end of the year, and so help to strengthen the conditions for international security and hence the security of the European Union.
Thank you very much, Mr de Silguy.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0872/96 by Mr Cars and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the need to arrest indicted war criminals in former Yugoslavia; -B4-0887/96 by Mr Stewart-Clark and others, on behalf of the European People's Party, on the need to arrest war criminals Karadzic and Mladic.
Mr President, I have here before me a small cutting from a Swedish newspaper. It refers to what the French Minister of Defence, Charles Millon, said in Sarajevo on Sunday.
On behalf of France he calls upon the UN Security Council to give IFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force in Bosnia, a clear mandate to arrest people accused of war crimes.
He stresses that France is concerned that people such as Karadzic and Mladic are still at large, despite the fact that both of them stand accused of genocide, among other things, and that the UN's war crimes tribunal in The Hague has issued orders for their arrest.
It is precisely this, Mr President, that lies behind the resolution we have tabled.
I am convinced that if we really want peace in the former Yugoslavia and want to get people to understand that they must be reconciled with one another we must also find those who should be held to answer for the crimes committed.
I believe that it is very, very regrettable that IFOR at present lacks the clear mandate that I hope, after today's debate, Parliament will demand, just as the French Minister of Defence has.
It is my hope, Mr President, that after this debate Parliament will adopt a clear standpoint to the effect that war criminals, be they in the former Yugoslavia or elsewhere, should not be allowed to remain at liberty.
Mr President, the International War Crimes Tribunal was set up to bring war criminals to justice.
From the outset Judge Richard Goldstone made clear that his mission would only be meaningful if the top culprits in Bosnia and elsewhere were brought to justice.
Accordingly, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were indicted on 24 July last for crimes committed between April 1992 and July 1995, including, and I quote: ' The shelling of civilian gatherings in order to kill, terrorize and demoralize the Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Croat civil population; the creation of numerous detention camps, where thousands were held in inhumane conditions; the systematic destruction of Muslim and Catholic places of worship; the appropriation, plunder and destruction of property.'
What have we done to bring these men to justice? Nothing!
Take Karadzic: Carl Bildt threatens to reimpose sanctions unless Karadzic gives up the presidency of the Republic of Srpska and retires from public life.
And then what happens? He steps down and becomes Secretary-General!
I recall that Stalin held that title.
Mladic continues to hold military power.
When he was colonel, he was the person who flattened and raped Vukovar before Milosevic promoted him to general for his valour.
The man who took 25, 000 inhabitants of Srebrenica, over 50 % of the entire population, and had almost all of the males massacred, whilst the United Nations looked the other way, desecrating the name of safe haven.
Karadzic and Mladic will only surrender if they are forcefully arrested.
If this does not happen now, elections in Bosnia in September will be a farce!
Democracy and the rule of law will become meaningless.
Hardliners and moderates alike will judge that looting, aggression, bestiality, ethnic cleansing: all pay.
We will eventually pay the price.
Vukovar, Dubrovnik, Srebrenica and the War Crimes Tribunal will be our tombstones.
IFOR must be enabled to act before it is too late!
Mr President, the important thing now in Bosnia-Herzegovina is to establish democracy and the rule of law, because only in that way can the fragile peace be secured.
The implementation of the terms of the Dayton Agreement and, in particular, the unhindered staging of the free elections planned for 14 September, must make way for an auspicious new beginning for this tortured country and its people.
An essential element in this new beginning is that the disastrous fragmentation of the population on nationalist lines should be halted.
It is therefore crucial that the traditional parties, some of which are heavily implicated in the atrocities of the war, should not be the only ones within the national groups to put up candidates.
Those which represent other forces in the political spectrum that is also present in Bosnia-Herzegovina must be free to put up candidates without hindrance, especially those which stand for a perspective cutting across individual ethnic groups.
A particularly important point is that by no means the whole of the Serbian population group supports the disastrous and bloody policy of the leadership dominated by Karadzic and Mladic.
As long as these two are performing key functions and are able to exert pressure on their fellow citizens, the possibility of free and democratic elections will be in doubt.
This and growing evidence of the involvement of Karadzic and Mladic in the terrible atrocities of the war make it urgently necessary that the international arrest warrants against both be executed as soon as possible, at all events before 14 September.
Mr President, the former Yugoslavia and Bosnia-Herzegovina are really an open wound in the EU's conscience.
When I visited Banja Luka in Bosnia last week, and also Croatia, I observed that the elections to be held on 14 September cannot be implemented unless those indicted of terrible war crimes are brought before the Court of Justice in the Hague.
The debate has centred on Karadzic and Mladic but I am not so naïve as not to see that there are some 30 people on all sides in this war, as Carl Bildt mentioned, who should be brought before the Hague Court.
I-For's mandate, and the respect in which it is held, now depend - and this is the EPP Group's opinion - on whether those indicted of war crimes are actually brought before the Court in the Hague.
In my opinion, it is not possible for a person to act as president of a party if he refuses to come before a court to be tried or to demonstrate his innocence.
For the rest, I-For's operations are in my opinion a good example of the fact that, although we have not yet got common defence policy guidelines, because some of us are neutral countries - not non-aligned, but neutral - we have all worked together in the I-For troops, our neutral Finland as well as the NATO countries.
Now we really expect that all those indicted of committing or ordering atrocities during the war, should be brought before the court.
Thank you, Mr President, I know you understand Finnish.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I should first like to recall that three years ago, when the International Tribunal was set up, there were many Members of this Parliament who criticized this initiative or expressed scepticism about the first serious initiative by the international community regarding Yugoslavia.
Today, thanks to three years of unremitting work, but also thanks to the tenacity of the President of the Tribunal, the public prosecutor, the judges and the investigators, Parliament is in a position to support the request for the arrest of the two main people responsible for organizing the ethnic cleansing policy and, in particular, for the tragedies of Srebrenica and Zepa.
There is now every possibility that Parliament will be supporting a similar request very soon, this time concerning the 'planner in chief' of the ethnic cleansing policy and the tragedies I have just mentioned who, as we all know, lives in Belgrade.
So many very good reasons, therefore, to vote with conviction in favour of this resolution.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, the circumstances surrounding the death of consul Nicols in Rangoon are typical of the totally unacceptable way in which the SLORC oppresses and rules Burma.
The international community must take action to tackle the continuing human rights abuses in that country and the total suppression of any democratic forces.
250 parliamentarians belonging to the National League for Democracy who are held in detention must be freed.
A new law making political dissent punishable by a 20-year sentence must be withdrawn and the election result which plainly showed that the now banned NLD was the most popular party must be honoured.
The Union must send out a very tough and unequivocal signal and must take action.
Following the worthy decision by Heineken and Carlsberg - commendable decisions prompted by the work of a number of action groups - following the decisions of these two companies a commercial and economic boycott must be imposed on Burma.
It must be made plain to the countries of ASEAN, which as we know are keen to admit Burma to their number, that they must not fill the gaps vacated by European firms in Burma.
The Regional Forum of ASEAN is an excellent stage on which to deliver this message.
It must be made clear that the proposal to admit Burma to ASEAN is altogether unacceptable and inopportune at the moment.
It is most important that the world community should present a united front here.
It is through economic sanctions that we can hurt the SLORC given that the SLORC, the regime, itself has major interests in the economy.
I wish also, on behalf of my Group and on my own account too, to express my support for the persistence and courage of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Despite countless threats against her, her supporters and her party she continues with these weekend meetings which have become famous and which have become an important signal.
We should respond to that signal!
Mr President, the situation in Burma continues to attract the maximum attention on a worldwide scale.
It is crucial and of major importance that we work hard to secure democracy and human rights in this country which is ruled by a dictatorship.
In Scandinavia, we are deeply shocked by the death of our consul, James Nicols, in a Burmese prison.
All the diplomatic efforts to clarify the circumstances of his death have been dismissed by the regime in Rangoon.
The Burmese ambassador in London has been summoned to Denmark, where he is also accredited, but he has simply not come.
The body of the Danish consul has not been released to his family.
A post-mortem examination has been refused, and there has been no explanation as to why he was convicted and imprisoned.
It is simply claimed that he had too many fax machines in his office in Rangoon.
What an explanation!
In my view and that of the PPE Group, the time has come for the EU to take steps to apply sanctions against the regime in Rangoon.
Dialogue and requests are leading nowhere.
Firm action is the only thing that will command respect, so with the PPE Group, I am asking for Denmark's calls for specific measures to be followed, such as the suspension of Burma's trade preferences with the EU.
Like Mr Bertens, I also wish to appeal to the ASEAN countries to block full membership for Burma.
I would endorse Commissioner Marín's view that the ASEAN countries should be helping to move Burma in the direction of democracy.
Otherwise, this could have a direct bearing on the EU's relations with ASEAN.
I also welcome the fact that all the groups in Parliament have worked closely together to increase the pressure on Burma.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the death on 22 June of James Nicols, Consul of Norway, Denmark and Switzerland, after being held in prison for six weeks, is shattering news of the greatest concern to us.
The Consul's arbitrary arrest by the Burmese authorities for operating telephones and fax machines at his home without permission, the authorities' refusal to allow him to be attended by a doctor, his delicate state of health and, above all, the serious violations of human rights that are going on in Burma, all call for urgent special investigation by the entire international community.
The European Union must make every possible effort and officially request the details needed to establish the responsibility of the Burmese authorities, who are continuing to pursue a policy of repression and violation of human rights in the face of all opposition.
Furthermore, the inhumanity of the SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) in refusing to release the body of James Nicols to his family or allow them to attend his burial, and the arrest of more than 250 members of the National League for Democracy, led by Nobel and Sakharov Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi, are evidence of how serious the situation in Burma is as regards respect for human rights and democracy.
The European Union must implement strong and urgent economic and political sanctions against Burma, including suspension of the Generalized System of Preferences and concessional finance.
All economic links based on trade, tourism and investment by European organizations operating in Burma must be broken off.
Finally, we must make Burma understand clearly that its request for full membership of the ASEAN Regional Forum will be affected by the trade relations that ASEAN is developing with the European Union and the West.
And, lastly, let us express our full solidarity with James Nicols' family and our hope that they have not suffered in vain.
Mr President, the military dictatorship in power in Burma is once again becoming notorious for its cruelty, its inhumanity, its despotism.
The specious grounds for the arrest of Consul Nicols, the conditions of his detention, the treatment inflicted on him which certainly led to his death, the inhumanity of this National Council, which has refused his family the right to attend his burial, must demand from us a vigorous reaction, going beyond simple condemnation.
This case is added to the long list of oppressive acts that we have unceasingly denounced.
For democracy has not advanced in Burma, and even though the situation of Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Prizewinner, has improved, she herself is continuing to alert world opinion to the increase in violations of human rights in her country.
Political expression is a criminal offence, forced labour is current practice.
All these machinations merit sanctions.
In the first place, questions should be raised about the observer status granted to Burma in the ASEAN Regional Forum.
It would be desirable for the Commission and the Council to denounce this decision at the next meeting of this Assembly.
Next, economic sanctions must be applied to Burma.
Let us decide to break off all relations with that country, whether it is over investment, trade or tourism.
Let us follow the example of the Carlsberg and Heineken Companies and make the Burmese government face its responsibilities.
This is the stance my group wishes the Council and the Commission to take.
Mr President, I should like to address the Commissioner, because what we are calling for in this debate are measures that European Parliament has been calling for unanimously for several months.
But the Council and Commission have done nothing, absolutely nothing. The Council has even refused to make a statement on the sanctions proposed by Denmark after the murder - and that is what it was - of James Nicols.
We want to see an end to diplomatic shilly-shallying and we are asking for the economic and political isolation of the Rangoon government, as every group in this House has requested today; we also call on the Commission to remove Burma immediately from the list of countries benefiting from the Generalized System of Preferences.
This would be a political signal of Europe's resolve in respect of Burma.
If the Commission refuses to move in this direction, it must at least explain its reasons, Mr Commissioner.
We call upon the Council to take immediate action to urge the ASEAN countries not to accept Burma as a full member, because of the very serious human rights situation.
Failure to do even that would be a sign of complicity.
Mr President, I do not see that as a threat.
Some months ago we discussed Burma, last month we discussed Burma, and now we are doing so again.
We are disturbed by the death of James Nicols, the Consul for Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden.
His death is evidence of torture in that country.
He was prevented from sleeping, he was not given medical care.
We can no longer tolerate this inhuman behaviour, this inhuman treatment by the SLORC.
According to information from the IMF, 3.1 % of the gross domestic product of Burma in 1994 was generated by forced labour.
That is a measure of this tragedy, which we cannot simply stand aside from.
Perhaps it was our protest, perhaps it was also the commitment of the NGOs that has so far prevented Heineken and Carlsberg from investing there.
There are other potential investors, such as BMW, who we hope will adopt the same stance.
We, particularly the Commission and the Council, are also being called upon to react.
I do not think the Commission should grant any more preferences.
We must make it clear diplomatically that relations will be suspended if the situation does not change.
The Council must also make that clear, particularly in the context of relations with the ASEAN states.
In conclusion, let me say that we must continue to support Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, and I hope that diplomacy will bear fruit in this matter.
Mr President, you recognize of course, just as the Commission does, that what we are dealing with here is one of the most barbaric regimes in the world; a regime which relies upon child labour, forced labour and slave labour for its very existence.
In fact Amnesty International very recently published a report which clearly said that people are being held in leg-irons, in chains and beaten into unconsciousness as they work on the railways and roads of that country.
The SLORC and military junta is clearly a regime that we cannot deal with or indeed make deals with.
Aung San Suu Kyi has today, in a video in this Parliament, spoken unequivocally about the need for economic sanctions, for a stop to all investments, an end to tourism, and for every possible measure to be taken to isolate that regime.
The fact that she, as the democratic leader of the opposition in that country, is asking the European Union to do that should surely be a signal to us to take action immediately.
Nelson Mandela has been visiting Europe recently and it was that kind of economic pressure that brought the apartheid regime in South Africa to its knees.
These are the kind of practical measures, economic measures, which will bring the political change that Aung San Suu Kyi wishes to see.
We recognize in the European Union, as the Commission well knows, that in our dealings with third countries we should work for the promotion of democracy and human rights.
So if that is the case, and if that is our guiding principle, then that has to be an essential element in our dealings with Burma.
We are, of course, as others have said, very encouraged by the fact that Heineken, Carlsberg, Levi Strauss and to a certain extent Pepsi Cola, have, as a result of citizen's pressure, pulled out of that country.
That kind of investment needs to be discouraged and from this Parliament we urge European Union citizens also to put pressure on Total, a French company, to take similar measures.
I would like to ask the Commission what they intend to say in the ASEAN Conference next week in Jakarta, where they will be present.
I would like to ask the Commission to state very strongly that they abhor that regime.
I would also ask the Commissioner to tell us when we are going to see that report on forced labour, which we are waiting to see, because it is only on the basis of that report on forced labour that we will see the leverage that we need to withdraw the GSP privileges from Burma.
Those are two categorical questions where I would like answers from the Commission.
The legitimate leaders of Burma are asking Europe to introduce economic sanctions against the military junta which has unlawfully taken power in the country.
We should take heed of this request.
As in the case of South Africa, sanctions should be implemented if they are supported by the opposition and accepted by the population.
Today, many national leaders are queuing up to take the credit for the sanctions policy against South Africa, but they were by no means so full of confidence when the sanctions had to be applied.
Burma gives those leaders a chance to do the right thing once again.
We received Aung San Suu Kyi's son and husband here in the European Parliament on her behalf, and we admire her for her courage, vision, love of her people and historical awareness.
We must listen to this woman.
She is asking us to introduce economic sanctions.
I cannot see how we could say no to this.
Let me explain the vile nature of the present regime in Burma.
It is waging a war against its own people.
It has introduced forced labour, so there is slavery.
It has ignored the landslide victory of the democracy movement in 1990.
It has imprisoned the leaders or placed them under house arrest.
And it is imprisoning diplomats.
How can the western world be content to respond to the despicable actions of the Burmese junta with diplomatic censure, when the regime is imprisoning those who represent us? How can we be diplomatic with people who are throwing diplomats in prison?
James Nicols was the representative of Denmark and other European countries. He was imprisoned because he had too many fax machines; he was subjected to hardships, including long periods of interrogation, and was deprived of sleep.
He did not receive his medicine, and his burial was kept secret.
A Burmese newspaper has written of Mr Nicols that he was a petty scoundrel who received his well-deserved fate, because he was a glutton for food and an idler with a taste for luxury.
Any newspaper which is allowed to publish in Burma is approved by the junta, which is thus turning the knife in the wound it has tried to inflict on us through Mr Nicols' death.
I am grateful to Carlsberg and Heineken, because they have pulled out, but how can anyone bring themselves to embark on a joint venture in a country where their partner will be the Defence Ministry in a military junta?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to Mrs Kinnock we were able this morning to see a video of a question and answer session with Aung San Suu Kyi.
I was profoundly impressed by it, to see how someone who has to endure such difficult personal circumstances, such miserable conditions, has the courage, the energy and the strength to fight for democracy.
I regard myself today simply as a mouthpiece.
We have a chance here to voice her demands for her.
In the first instance, and this is a question which I put on her behalf to the Commission, what exactly does the Commission understand by a 'critical dialogue' on trade, foreign investment and tourism, in the light of worldwide calls for Burma to be isolated? I received a fax this morning in which 46 NGOs support this remarkable woman's request, 46 NGOs from Europe and America.
Let us isolate Burma.
Let us stop investing there.
As paragraph 9 of the resolution states, we are of course extremely glad that Heineken and Carlsberg have pulled out.
But yesterday's papers said that Heineken had not in fact pulled out.
Spokesmen in Burma dispute it.
I would like the Commission - and this is my second request - to investigate the truth or otherwise of this rumour.
Lastly, in line with paragraph 10 of our resolution, I would ask the Commission to ensure that others do not step in to fill the vacancies created.
It would be very cynical if some investors pulled out, only to have other European firms seize the opportunity and speedily move in there themselves.
That would be appalling.
Cyprus
Mr President, the Cyprus problem is an issue of human rights for both Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
The presence of 35, 000 Turkish troops occupying over one-third of the island of Cyprus denies the human rights of Greek Cypriots but also of Turkish Cypriots.
The situation in the northern part of Cyprus has been made deliberately worse by the illegal settlement of many thousands of mainland Turks, in itself a clear contravention of the Geneva Conventions.
Progressive forces in the occupied area are recognizing, with the support of the European Commission and this Parliament, that membership of the European Union for Cyprus and the imminent accession talks provide not just the right future for Cyprus but also a window of opportunity to solve the Cyprus problem.
Increasingly, over the last two years there has been an escalation of terrorist activity often focused on those very progressive forces promoting and discussing the future of a united Cyprus as a member of the European Union.
Kutlu Adali, a distinguished Turkish Cypriot intellectual, author and respected journalist has paid with his life for openly expressing and defending these views.
He was murdered on 6 July in occupied Nicosia.
Nobody has yet been brought to justice for this terrorist act nor the many bombings of offices, houses, cars and political offices in the occupied part of Cyprus.
We are told that one in five people in occupied Cyprus is a member of the Turkish security forces.
Yet it seems they cannot catch anybody responsible for these acts.
The illegal regime and the Turkish security forces must act to find the perpetrators of these acts and the person or persons who murdered Kutlu Adali.
We all need to remember that the voice of the illegal regime is not the only voice of Turkish Cypriots.
There are other distinguished and courageous Turkish Cypriots whose voices need to be heard.
Kutlu Adali was one such.
Mr President, what is needed in Cyprus today, is peaceful coexistence of the two communities, the Greek and Turkish communities.
Though the Turkish Cypriot side is unyielding, I must say that there are indeed democratic progressive forces which favour a closer approach between the Greek and Turkish elements.
Kutlu Adali, who was murdered under mysterious circumstances a few days ago, was one of the moderate Turkish Cypriots and his murder was clearly a political act, bearing in mind his activities and the nature of the Denktash regime.
Kutlu Adali, a distinguished author and journalist, had in the past repeatedly written articles severely criticising the Denktash regime, and condemning in particular: first, the mass introduction to the occupied part of Cyprus of colonists who constitute a foreign element of Turkish Cypriot society, and secondly, the systematic terrorisation of Denktash's political opponents.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the occupied part of Cyprus a regime of military and police rule has been established which is particularly harsh towards dissidents and the Turkish Cypriots.
It is characteristic that numbers are declining in Turkish Cypriot society, which from 120, 000 people in 1974, numbers barely 85, 000 today with more and more Turkish Cypriots leaving all the time.
It is indicative of the violence of the regime that prevails in the occupied areas that among a population of 160, 000, approximately 35, 000 are soldiers or security forces, in other words one in five of the citizens, as the President, Mrs Green told us, is under arms.
Today, Cyprus is the most highly militarized place in the world, in relation to its size.
With today's resolution, we of course are saying that this situation must be brought to an end and a process should begin of bringing the two societies closer together, which was also what Kutlu Adali wanted.
Mr President, more than ever Europe should make amends for what it has done since the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922.
Indeed, it is important that Cyprus should become a part of Europe as soon as possible to avoid a continuation of the situation of violence which has lasted for 20 years.
The murder of an intellectual like Kutlu Adali, a writer who was known for his tolerance and seems to have had the confidence of the people on that island and ended up being punished with his death, while the Turkish authorities in Cyprus stood aside, is a form of violence which we witness every day whether it is in Cyprus, Bosnia or anywhere else; it all results from the fall of that other empire, the Soviet empire.
This is a historic moment when Europe could help to change the situation but fails to do so because it prefers to grant economic benefits to countries which depend on it for economic reasons and continues to turn a blind eye to violence which, in my opinion, is unacceptable.
We have arms but not only arms in the real sense.
We have other arms in our arsenal to prevent war from continuing in this localised and regional form and which respects the Geneva Convention.
Mr President, in the occupied part of Cyprus political crimes are rampant and on the increase.
Statistics bear that out.
There appears to be a pattern.
Turkish Cypriots who speak out for the preservation of Turkish Cypriot culture are systematically trampled on, both literally and figuratively, by the tens of thousands of Turks imported by Denktash but also, as Mrs Green has said, by Turkish troops and secret servicemen.
Those who criticize are silenced.
All efforts undertaken by the international community must be aimed at halting this.
The entire island of Cyprus deserves stability and peace.
I urge the international community to put pressure on the so-called Turkish Cypriot Government not to endanger the safety of its critics.
The tragic killing of Mr Adali is bad enough.
Let us not forget: this is a country which will soon be represented here by a number of spokesmen.
So I think it is a good thing we are having this debate on Cyprus in the House and I hope it will not be the last time we do so.
Madam President, since appeals to respect human dignity have failed, and since strong condemnation of the use of violence against asylum-seekers are being added to the list of similar actions, already, alas, too long, the time has come to change to action.
Apart from the various types of pressure available to us to remind all those directly or indirectly involved of the misery of the boat people, we must show a solidarity that goes well beyond simple declarations of intent.
Our condemnations are addressed of course to China, to Hong Kong and to the Vietnamese authorities, who are not doing all they could to provide a decent welcome for these former refugees, but we must also be ready if necessary to share the burden created by the almost insoluble problem of the boat people and to accept into our countries any refugees coming to us as part of a fair distribution of the load.
I believe that, if we do not wish our declarations on respect for human rights and on the right of refugees to humane treatment to remain hollow words, we owe it to ourselves to move on to a very clear policy of solidarity.
Madam President, on 10 May there was a mass break-out of Vietnamese refugees from the Whitehead Detention Camp in Hong Kong.
This highlights a worrying situation.
There are still 25 000 Vietnamese 'boat people' in Asian camps, 15 000 of them in Hong Kong.
Nevertheless, 50 000 boat people have returned voluntarily under a UN programme.
In Hong Kong, however, about 2 000 people were also forcibly deported.
I criticize that, because we also have Vietnamese people in the Federal Republic of Germany who are due to be deported.
I do not think that people can be simply expelled in this way.
The right thing to do is to set up programmes and help them with their repatriation.
For that reason, we oppose the deportation of these people from Hong Kong.
On the other hand, we call on the Commission to use its efforts in international fora in order to ensure that funds are made available for new repatriation programmes under which people from Hong Kong and other Asian states or from Europe can settle in Vietnam, if that is what they want.
No asylum-seekers must be expelled from Hong Kong or from the Federal Republic of Germany, and I think that the Commission should promote a programme for Vietnam, making use of the 17 million budgeted.
Madam President, the refugees in the detention centres in Hong Kong are being treated like criminals: their custody has been transferred from the Hong Kong housing services to the correctional services; they are being dealt with by staff who are trained to look after prisoners, not families in need of help; they are left in their cells, individually isolated from the world for 23 hours a day.
In the May riots 2, 000 cans of teargas were fired and, following that, 200 people were moved directly into prisons, including, disgracefully, one five-year-old girl who was kept in isolation for 12 days whilst the prison authorities lied to the parents about her being held.
What crime are these people guilty of? The crime of fear: fear of returning to Vietnam where each and every one of them would face three to four days of intensive interrogation about any political contacts they may have had within the camps; where they would face harassment; where they would face surveillance and where there are clear reports of arrests and of disappearances.
Today this Parliament must stand out against these forced repatriations - 600 in the last 4 weeks alone - as there has been a completely arbitrary denial of refugee status since 1988 in Hong Kong: these people are being denied their rights under the Geneva Convention.
In its answer today the Commission must stop condoning this breach of international human rights and ensure that our European aid goes to supporting the human rights of these people, not trying to sweep them under the carpet.
Ethiopia
Madam President, a few months ago during a hearing on freedom of the media organized by the Committee on Foreign Affairs I met members of the Ethiopian journalists' association who told me to my amazement that there were more journalists imprisoned there than in any other country and that they were maltreated almost weekly.
Clearly there is much still to be done in this country which was freed just a few years ago from Mengistu's dictatorship.
It looks as if too many of his mini-despots are still in charge there.
The secession of Eritrea proceeded remarkably peacefully, but the democratization process has been very much a stop and start affair.
Mr Woldesmayat, the president of the Teachers' Association who is under arrest, must be freed immediately, if only as a symbol of hope for the other hundreds of political detainees who still languish in the country's jails.
I hope the Council and the Commission too will press for this.
Madam President, my Group has been following with interest the political developments in Ethiopia, where the Addis Abbaba government has, over the past few years, taken some significant steps forward as regards democracy and human rights.
We believe that this process should be supported by the European Union.
It is, however, precisely for this reason that the news reaching us is so worrying, and especially the news of the arrest of Mr Taye, Chairman of the Ethiopian Teachers' Association.
He was arrested without charge, which raises the probably well-founded suspicion that he was arrested for political reasons.
We therefore request, as does the resolution, that he be released and that his case be dealt with with all due guarantees, because a political arrest is completely unacceptable.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am also concerned over the situation of Taye Woldesmayat, Chairman of the Ethiopian Teachers' Association, about whom we have been hearing here.
He was arrested at Addis Ababa Airport without charges.
I tried to do something for him and received a letter from the Embassy stating that he had been arrested on legitimate grounds.
Detailed charges were not given but, basically, he is being accused of clandestine activity.
As he cannot engage a lawyer and has no contact with his family, legitimate conditions for detention under the rule of law do not apply.
We must make it clear to the Embassy or the Government that we do not approve of that.
The Ethiopian Teachers' Association is constantly harassed and persecuted.
We witnessed a similar case back in December 1993, when Mr Abera Yemane Ab was arrested in similar circumstances and legal action was taken against him without any indication of charges.
We cannot accept this situation.
We seek to defend human rights.
For this reason, the Ethiopian Government should explain what these people are charged with, or it should release them.
Philippines
Madam President, many Irish priests have gone to work in the Philippines and have distinguished themselves in their fight for human rights and for bettering the lot of the people there.
Father Shay Cullen is in a very rich tradition.
He has been campaigning and gaining worldwide attention for his campaign against the paedophile sex tourism in the Philippines.
In the past few years he has rescued many children and has set up the orphanage in Olongapo City in the Philippines.
While protesting peacefully against the erection of a high-tension electricity pylon right beside the orphanage, he was most viciously attacked by the police, arrested, denied medical attention and subsequently had great difficulty in obtaining medical treatment, as no doctor in the city was prepared to help him.
Clearly Father Shay Cullen's campaign against this vicious tourism, which Parliament has condemned many times, is causing considerable worry to the powerful and corrupt circle in the city in which he is campaigning.
I believe his own personal safety is at risk and I hope that when Parliament votes on this resolution that the Philippine Government will be made aware of the serious concern we have for Father Cullen's personal safety and for his campaign to protect these very much at-risk children.
Madam President, I have little to add really to the points my colleague Mrs Banotti has outlined so well.
Perhaps just this: this is one of the forms of exploitation, child prostitution and child pornography, which are found wherever the difference between rich and poor is extreme.
We know that despite all our efforts this difference between rich and poor has increased in recent years and as a result so have these abhorrent forms of exploitation.
Those like Father Shay Cullen who take it upon themselves to do something about it deserve our support.
I venture to hope that Mrs Banotti's resolution, which will undoubtedly be adopted this afternoon, will ensure that such people are helped rather than penalized for the useful and essential work they do.
Madam President, I would like to join with my Irish colleague, Mrs Banotti, in expressing our concern for Father Shay Cullen. He has been a tireless campaigner against the evils of child prostitution and child pornography in the Philippines.
In the face of intimidation and threats he has fiercely defended the most basic rights of the most vulnerable in any society, the children.
Given the value of this work, it is inexplicable that he should have been treated so aggressively by the Philippine authorities.
Father Cullen was engaged in a peaceful protest when he was violently arrested, kicked and handcuffed by the police.
Neither Father Cullen nor his colleague were given adequate medical treatment in police custody and both had to be taken for medical treatment at a later stage.
Most ominously, the lives of Father Cullen, his assistant and legal adviser have been threatened.
This is utterly unacceptable.
Instead of harassing Father Cullen, the Filipino authorities should welcome the work that he has been doing in their country.
The work of Father Shay Cullen is typical of the work carried out by Irish missionaries not only in the Philippines but throughout the world.
For many years now he has been a powerful advocate of children's rights and an implacable enemy of child abusers.
He has acted as whistle-blower against those who engage in the vile practice of child abuse and he has been central in bringing such individuals to justice.
He has railed against the sex tourism so predominant in the Philippines.
This House should learn a great deal from the work and commitment of Father Shay Cullen.
There is a pressing need, in my view, for the introduction of international legislation to bring the perpetrators of child sex abuse to justice.
It is clear that such individuals visit countries like the Philippines to carry out their vile practice.
Each EU country, with the wholehearted support of this Parliament, should have legislation to ensure that, when child abusers return from their travels, they can have the full rigour of the law applied to them in their country of origin.
My own party in Ireland has pioneered such legislation.
I hope that the House lends its full support to this important resolution.
Algeria
Madam President, the Algerian government does not accept critical journalists.
In the name of the just and necessary fight against terrorism, muzzling the press is unfortunately the order of the day and freedom of speech is being threatened.
On 4 July, many European journalists could not obtain a visa to take part in a meeting to express solidarity with Algerian journalists.
On the same day, the cartoonist Chawki Amari was imprisoned, his newspaper 'La Tribune' was banned and his management was placed under legal restrictions.
Algerian journalists are in an unenviable situation.
On the one hand, they are under permanent threat of terrorist attacks - 53 of them, may I remind you, have been murdered since 1993 - and on the other hand they are subjected to pressure from the authorities.
Our group supports their fight for press freedom.
In our opinion, censorship and control of information can only weaken the battle for democracy and against fundamentalism.
That is why we are asking the Algerian authorities to release Chawki Amari, to allow republication of 'La Tribune' and to respect freedom of speech and information.
At the same time, we are pleased at the continuation of the dialogue with democratic forces that is currently in progress, and we hope that this will lead to the settlement of a crisis which has lasted only too long.
We are also pleased about the opening of negotiations between the European Union and Algeria but, going by previous association agreements that we have voted on in Parliament and that have considerable consequences for the economy and employment in Mediterranean countries, we ask that democratic forces and trade union and professional organizations should be regularly consulted during these negotiations.
Madam President, I belong to the generation who came to understand what was going on in the colonised parts of the world through the Algerian war and I actively supported the Algerian freedom fighters.
Many of us had very great hopes that Algeria would lead the way in respect of democracy, freedom and human rights in the Arab world.
It was not long before we realised that it would not be so easy.
As late as the 1970s and 1980s I visited Algeria a number of times.
There was then certainly no democracy but there was nevertheless a certain sense of hope. When elections were then called there a few years ago we hoped that they would lead to democratic development.
As everyone knows, events took a very different turn.
The arrest of Chawki Amari on 4 July is simply one of the most recent pieces of evidence that the Algerian regime is unable to deal with the problems in a democratic manner. As the previous speaker also emphasised, a great many journalists have been killed or arrested or have met with problems for having wished to carry out their democratic, journalistic obligations and report on what is really happening in the country.
A dialogue is now being conducted which still does not include all the parties in Algeria.
Of course we are in no way supporters of the Islamic Salvation Front but I find it extremely difficult to understand how the dialogue which President Zérroual resumed yesterday with delegations from four parties can lead to anything if one does not in some way attempt also to include the other forces, even if they are in themselves not approved of.
We believe that the European Union has a considerable responsibility to support democratic development in Algeria.
Madam President, at these times the European Parliament's message must be one of solidarity with Algerian journalists and a call for the release of the cartoonist Chawki Amari.
We should also recognise that in Algeria - especially in Algeria - as in all countries in the world, the national flag arouses feelings of deep respect and pride.
Our message of solidarity from the European Parliament, firmly in favour of press freedom and calling for this journalist's release, must not in any way be seen as alien but as a point of departure for an attitude of dialogue and joint action as Euro-Mediterranean partners, since we share the same aims of peace and democracy.
Algeria is going through very difficult times but there are the multilateral talks which are hopeful and the start of negotiations on an association agreement.
It is precisely the old, obsolete and outmoded code that President Zérroual has proposed to change.
We must lend political support for the country to go down the road to pluralism and peace.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, freedom of expression and freedom of information should always be respected where respect for the rule of law and democracy is demanded.
We cannot accept direct and indirect censorship measures and information controls affecting the press, which should be able to operate properly, free of controls.
It is important that such freedom be established in Algeria and in some other States, where freedom of the press is being seriously violated.
The European Union should support measures and projects to help the Algerian media, which are currently in need of sufficient economic support to enable them to continue supplying the country with the information it needs.
In any case a political dialogue must be established as soon as possible with all the Algerian authorities and democratic powers, to find a solution to the current crisis and, hence, restore as quickly as possible the civil peace needed for the forthcoming legislative elections.
Everyone in the country must join forces to launch the peace process that unfortunately has yet to begin.
Finally, I should like to express my full solidarity with all those who are being deprived of their freedom because of violations of human rights and democracy, but especially because there is no freedom of expression and opinion.
Madam President, the arrest and imprisonment of the cartoonist Chawki Amari and banning of the publication of his newspaper are only another indication of the predicament the Algerian political authorities find themselves in.
The attack on the freedom of the press can only, and even then with difficulty, mask the powerlessness of the authorities to overcome attempts at destabilizing their country.
Moreover, attempts to control information are stupid because they are anachronistic.
Anachronistic because nothing can any longer prevent ideas from circulating.
There are, fortunately, many examples to prove that attempts to deprive public opinion of information, embarrassing or not for the ruling regime, are doomed to fail.
This at least is one of the positive aspects that can be credited to the worldwide information society.
The Algerian authorities would thus be well advised to use other means to re-establish the rule of law in Algeria and not to attack the powers of the press, one of the pillars of the new society they are preparing to build.
Salman Rushdie
Madam President, the Council of Ministers is currently holding discussions with Iran on a number of issues, including Salman Rushdie.
We have no objection to this in itself but some of what has leaked out concerning these discussions gives cause for concern.
The aim of the Liberal Group's resolution is to make it quite clear to the Council where Parliament stands and we hope that Parliament will support this resolution.
This must occur before the discussions between the Council and Iran result in any form of agreement, of whatever kind it may be.
We in the Liberal Group hope that Parliament, like us, will oppose anything which Iran can interpret as any kind of recognition - silent, implicit or indirect - of Khomeini's fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
No religious leader or movement should be permitted the freedom to urge supporters in some kind of fatwa to commit murder.
That, Madam President, is outrageous behaviour which must be exposed and combatted to the end by every true democrat.
Arrest of Father Tomislav Matanovic
Madam President, as you know yourself, our group was in Banja Luka exactly a week ago today.
We saw there what is really going on in this so-called Serbian Republic.
I can only say that, on the basis of our conversations with the local representatives and spokespeople of Mr Karadzic, I felt as though time had rolled back fifty years. Indeed, the way people talked and the arguments they used reminded me strongly of the most terrible Gauleiter of the Hitler period, quite apart from the Stalinists who were also represented there.
We really are talking about a gang of brigands, and the chief brigand, Karadzic, really has fomented infamy here.
One of the worst cases was reported to us by the Bishop of Banja Luka, that of a priest who had been held in detention for nearly a year, since 24 August last year, together with his parents.
The Serbian authorities maintain that they would have intervened on his behalf but that the local police chief will not authorize his release, although he has not been charged with anything - he has simply been thrown into jail.
When the Bishop asked for our authorities and representatives to intervene, promises were made to him, but nothing has happened.
Hence it is high time that we, the European Parliament, took clear action on this situation, which is in direct breach of the Dayton Agreement, and demand that our representative, Mr Bildt, who after all is obligated to us, finally do something to ensure that Father Matanovic and his parents are released, which is their right.
If we cannot achieve that, it would again be apparent how incapable we are of taking effective action.
That would be a grave danger to peace.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I will take the topics in the order in which Parliament has dealt with them, and I begin with Burma.
The Commission shares Parliament's concern about the deterioration in the political situation in Burma.
It deplores the death of Mr Nichols in prison.
The defamatory remarks recently published in the official Burmese press have particularly offended the Commission, which supports any initiative that might bring the Burmese government to adopt a line of conduct more in keeping with international practice.
At the same time, it calls the attention of Parliament to the very limited effect any possible economic sanctions could have, given the small volume of trade between the Union and Burma. In 1995, this amounted to less than ECU 200 million, 66 for imports, 113 for exports.
As for the suspension of the Generalized System of Preferences, no decision can be taken on this until the investigation currently being carried out by Mr Marin's services is complete.
I can assure you that the Commission is conducting this with due speed, due rigour and due vigilance.
It will be finished in September.
The Commission supports the proposal from some Member States to use the next meetings with ASEAN, particularly in the Asian Regional Forum, to insist on the need to renew the dialogue between all democratic and ethnic forces in Burma.
Secondly, Cyprus.
The Commission is deeply concerned at the escalation of violence observed during the last few months in the Turkish Cypriot community.
It was shocked by the murder of Mr Adali, an eminent Turkish intellectual and journalist.
The death of this highly respected person, well known and appreciated for his outspokenness and his defence of the identity of Turkish and Greek Cypriot values, and highly regarded for his attachment to human rights, can only be strongly deplored.
The Commission will continue its efforts at conciliation in Cyprus by making contact with the Turkish Cypriot community about the prospective accession of Cyprus to the European Union.
I would remind you that European Union policy on Cyprus was reaffirmed at the last EU-Cyprus Association Council.
It was reiterated that negotiations on the accession of Cyprus will get under way with a Commission proposal six months after the end of the Intergovernmental Conference, taking into account the results of that conference.
On that occasion, the Union also declared itself in favour of a global settlement of the Cyprus question along the lines of United Nations Security Council resolutions and based on the formation of a two zone and two community Cypriot federation.
Thirdly, the Vietnamese Boat People.
While of course sharing the concern of the European Parliament, the Commission wishes to direct your attention to the following items of information: in March 1996, the Steering Committee responsible for the global plan of action of the International Conference on Refugees from IndoChina removed the principal remaining obstacles to a humanly acceptable solution to the tragedy of the Vietnamese Boat People (this agreement should now end this tragedy); Malaysia and Singapore closed their camps at the end of May and June 1996 and the same thing will happen in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines; in the case of Hong Kong, the majority of the repatriation operations have been progressing normally; Vietnam has accepted the return of some 70, 000 of its citizens and their situation is being closely monitored by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, which has not observed any cases of discrimination.
Lastly, the European Commission shares Parliament's concern over the destination of Community aid. Such aid should be given directly to the Vietnamese returning to the country.
It may be mainly in the form of support for starting up production enterprises, of grants for specialist training and of help towards micro-projects aimed at improving living standards in the communities into which the former refugees are being reintegrated.
May I end by adding that, for the majority of non-refugees known as Vietnamese economic migrants, the only viable solution is a return to their country.
The repatriation operations are progressing smoothly.
Fourthly, Ethiopia.
The Commission and the Member States are increasingly concerned by developments in the human rights situation in Ethiopia.
The Commission Delegation and the Heads of Missions of Member States, in close contact with the International Committee of the Red Cross, are monitoring very closely the situation of certain prisoners, such as Mr Abera Yemane Ab.
I should stress that the Commission and the Member States are fully aware that for them to act effectively, the human rights situation must be painstakingly assessed and evaluated on the basis of individual cases.
It has also been decided, in the context of coordination between Member States and the Commission in Addis Ababa, to undertake common action to collect, compare and verify data relating to violations of human rights and, of course, to speak to the government about this.
Fifthly, the Philippines.
The Commission is engaged in open dialogue with the government of the Philippines and other governments in the region about human rights.
As regards the particular case of Father Shay Cullen, the Commission is in a position to state that he was actually arrested on 13 June last but was quickly released.
The Commission, which has had the opportunity to take part in some of the activities of Father Shay Cullen's Preda Foundation against child prostitution, nevertheless immediately asked that an enquiry be quickly carried out on the spot.
The Commission will of course keep Parliament fully informed of the results of this enquiry and the conclusions to be drawn from it.
Sixth point, Algeria.
Sadly, Algeria is in the throes of a crisis which is putting the political normalization of the country to the test.
Several sectors of Algerian society are suffering from this, particularly the press.
Since the signature of the Barcelona Declaration in November 1995, the Algerian government has already committed itself multilaterally, and I quote: ' to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to guarantee the effective and legitimate exercise of these rights and freedoms, including freedom of speech' .
The Algerian government has also shown that it is keen to negotiate an association agreement with the European Union, in which respect for human rights and democratic principles will form an essential element.
Internally, the Algerian government has published a memorandum announcing a national conference, a referendum on revision of the constitution and parliamentary and local elections.
The Commission is actively encouraging the Algerian government to implement its multilateral commitments and national measures that could lead to the political normalization of the country.
In addition, the Commission will soon be in a position to announce the first projects for financial aid to the press, adopted as part of the media-democracy programme created on the initiative of the European Parliament in 1996.
Point 7: the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
The Commission shares the profound concern of the European Parliament over the adoption and continuation of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie.
The pronouncement of a death sentence on a citizen of a Member State of the European Union for having written a book is totally unacceptable and contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Commission therefore welcomes the declaration of the G7 Summit at its meeting in Lyons last June, calling on the Iranian government to abandon the path of terrorism and to stop supporting the death threats hanging over the head of Salman Rushdie.
I should also remind you that the General Affairs Council of 22 April 1996 decided to make the dialogue with Iran more critical.
For the Commission, the continuation of a critical dialogue with Iran is an effective instrument for producing a change in Iran's behaviour sooner or later.
The eighth and last point is the arbitrary arrest of Tomislav Matanovic.
The Commission is as concerned as the European Parliament by the arbitrary detention since 24 August 1995 of Father Tomislav Matanovic and his parents at Prijedor in the 'Republika Srpska' .
The Commission has enquired about this case.
It has raised the matter several times with the NGOs in Sarajevo and will be discussing the case with the competent Bosnian authorities, particularly with the mediators installed under the Dayton Accord. I can assure you that the Commission will also urge Mr Carl Bildt to intervene with the official institutions in the 'Republika Srpska' with a view to obtaining the immediate release of Tomislav Matanovic and his parents.
As regards the generalized system of preferences, I would remind you that there are Community procedures that the Commission must comply with, that these procedures begin with investigations, that these investigations are taking place, that they are confidential and that they then lead, depending on the situation, to proposals and decisions of the Commission about maintaining the generalized system of preferences.
I repeat that the Commission is currently carrying out these investigations.
As they are confidential, I cannot of course reveal their contents.
What I can say is that these investigations are being carried out speedily since they have to be completed by September and that the Commission will draw from them all the necessary conclusions.
I can assure you that the Commission will take into account the essential elements concerning human rights and democracy, in accordance with the powers vested in it for the application of these regulations.
Madam President, I put questions which have not been answered.
I think I am entitled to an answer to the two other questions concerning investment and the report on forced labour.
If the Commissioner is not able to reply at this moment would he be good enough at least to give me a reply in writing?
Mr Moorhouse, I take good note of your request.
I cannot answer you today, but we shall reply to you very shortly and directly.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0877/96 by Mr Haarder and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democratic and Reformist Party, on Taiwan's role in international organizations; -B4-0881/96 by Mrs Laurila and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Taiwan's role in international organizations; -B4-0904/96 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance in the European Parliament, on Taiwan's role in international organizations; -B4-0926/96 by Mr Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on Taiwan's role in international organizations.
Madam President, the Liberal Group is a cosignatory of the joint resolution on Taiwan and this is not the first time that Parliament has been called on to stress the positive role played by Taiwan in the development of the Far East and its contribution to aid for developing countries.
This is not the first time, either, that we have to highlight the progress of democracy enabling the Chinese population to have a democratic Chinese state, which is a very happy state of affairs.
The aim of this proposal is to go further.
Chancelleries are petrified by any relationship with Taiwan.
The European Union has the advantage of more flexible formulae.
Complaints are sometimes heard that Information Offices are not true ambassadors.
Let us turn a handicap to advantage: the opening of a Commission Information Office in Taiwan would make it possible to develop and strengthen fruitful relationships and to do so without too much trouble.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, by voting for this resolution today Parliament will show that it is appalled by realpolitik .
By voting for this resolution, Parliament will affirm, admittedly with moderation but with a great sense of responsibility, that the exclusion of Taiwan from the international community is unacceptable.
Yes, such exclusion is an example of the hypocrisy of the whole Western world and we must put an end to it as quickly as possible!
Today Taiwan is an unquestionable democratic reality, whereas we are very far from being able to say the same about a neighbouring country, which day by day steps up its policy of repression but still has a privileged relationship with a Europe incapable of reconciling its essential commercial aspirations with the will to affirm respect for human rights and the promotion of democracy all over the world.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance will vote with conviction for a text which has had, as our colleague Mrs Laurila has reminded us, to surmount many obstacles before being put to the vote in this Parliament.
Madam President, the Green Group in the European Parliament has joined in tabling this joint motion for a resolution, since we support the legitimate desire of Taiwan to be admitted to the international community of nations.
Taiwan has made significant progress over the past year towards democratization.
We want to give active encouragement to this process so that further advances will be possible, particularly in respect of human rights, employee rights, equality of opportunity for women and environmental protection.
We think that democratic advances will be boosted by Taiwan's participation in international fora.
No country in the region is threatened by Taiwan.
The Taiwanese Government has for some time taken a serious interest in achieving détente in its relations with the People's Republic of China.
This gave us all the more reason for concern over China's sabre-rattling at the time of the elections in Taiwan.
Next year the currently British colony of Hong Kong will be given back to China.
The handover may prove to be a test-case to determine whether the People's Republic is willing to respect established social and political structures or whether China can only impose its authority by coercion and repression.
The EU should exert its influence on the People's Republic of China in order to promote the process of détente in the region.
This state has long since ceased to meet the criteria for the label 'Red' China as, in economic policy terms, the Peking Government has for years been pursuing a muscular form of industrialization reminiscent of the early days of capitalism.
The European Commission has over the past two years been systematically promoting economic relations with China.
It should now develop its cooperative links with Taiwan.
A first concrete step would be to open a European Union information office in Taipei.
This step, which would be a very important gesture in signalling the European Union's interest in the development of Taiwan, should be taken as soon as possible.
I hope soon to get an answer from the Commission which will give the lie to the slogan which has become current: MEPs ask questions, Commission gives no answers.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, ever since the nationalists were forced to flee the Chinese mainland and seek refuge in former Formosa, now Taiwan, an enormous amount has been achieved on that island through hard work and intelligence and with the support of overseas Chinese elsewhere in the world.
Taiwan, with only 21 million inhabitants, is an economic power to be reckoned with in the world economy.
Despite the widening political differences between China and Taiwan, Taiwan is one of the leading investors on the mainland.
The Chinese Government's recent aggressive sabre-rattling just before the elections did not inhibit progress towards democracy in Taiwan.
Anything but!
This aggressive action did, however, lead to a build-up of arms in the region, according to reliable sources.
Immediately after the elections Taiwan made a gesture of peace to resume the interrupted negotiations with Beijing, but never received an answer.
So today's resolution is on the one hand a tribute to democratic Taiwan, clearing the way for its membership of international organizations.
It is also a call to encourage Taiwan to cooperate with the mainland.
I fully endorse this resolution.
And I voted for it in the Foreign Affairs Committee, as Mrs Laurila said.
But a sizeable proportion of my Group is not in favour of points B and D concerning an EU information office in Taipei and the consideration of possible membership of UN agencies.
My Group will request a split vote on these points.
Madam President, I heartily concur with what the previous speakers have said, particularly the remarks of Mrs Laurila, for whose report I also voted in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
I would like to add something, however.
It is somewhat rare today that such matters have to be dealt with in a topical and urgent debate.
It had been the long-standing custom of the European Parliament to draw up reports on the political situation in particular regions through its committees, especially the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
In those committees, we were able to examine and discuss situations in all their aspects.
Suddenly, that is becoming increasingly difficult and, in this case, quite impossible.
So we have to use any opportunity we can get to put out an opinion of the European Parliament.
What is the actual reason for this opposition of the Social Democratic Group? They are otherwise always so keen on autonomy, self-determination, democracy and human rights.
Why are they giving way to pressure from a country, which has incidentally put severe pressure on the rapporteur because of this report on Taiwan? Are they so eager to show deference to China?
I really do not know.
Why should the European Union not support a country which has great economic significance in the region, which is on the road to democracy, which in other words is also a factor of democracy, in a way which after all does not alter the political situation? Why do we seek to prevent a nation from realizing the capabilities and possibilities it possesses in the great network of international organizations?
It is really incomprehensible, for we have had links with that country going back many years.
We should above all remember who is exerting pressure here. Again and again, we find that human rights and concepts of democracy are at stake, and we should really not set a bad example here.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, what is the problem with Taiwan as regards international law?
It is that of the recognition of a government. After a terrible war, both parties claimed to represent the whole of China.
The authorities in Taipei did not lack arguments on this point: they were set up by the last legal government; the Communists had seized power by force; the Taiwan parliament resulted from the last free Chinese elections, imperfect as they were.
Today, forty-eight years after seizure of power by the Communists, the terms of the problem are different.
It must be accepted that we can no longer be content to choose between the two Chinese authorities.
Even States which maintain diplomatic relations solely with Beijing have to take account of this large island with a population of 20 million ruled by a genuine, effective, stable and peaceful power.
Establishing international relations with Taiwan is in the interests of the international community and it is also in the interests of the whole of China, until continental China and the billion human beings living there are finally liberated from the bloody, totalitarian Marxist-Leninist dictatorship, which not long ago had, we should remember, so many ardent defenders even in this Chamber - and not only on the benches of the left, alas!
Is it necessary to remind you, Mr Nordmann, that Mr Giscard d'Estaing once really believed that Mao Tse Tung could be described as 'a beacon of world thought' ?
So, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, what satisfaction it is today to see the joint resolution catch up, after several decades, with the solutions proposed by the European Right to the problem of Taiwan!
Madam President, I am glad to be able to restate a number of arguments.
In my view Taiwan is a sovereign state.
Taiwan is a democracy.
Taiwan upholds human rights.
Taiwan is an important partner in the world economy and a significant trading partner of the European Union and most of the Member States.
But Taiwan plays no official part on the world stage.
21 million people are deprived of a voice in the United Nations.
21 million people are unable to benefit from the information, expertise and experience of the World Health Organization.
The people of Taiwan cannot benefit from UNESCO.
Taiwan's children cannot benefit form the services of UNICEF.
Taiwan respects the terms agreed for international trade.
Taiwan is not a member of the World Trade Organization.
Her membership of the World Trade Organization is in our interest too.
So Taiwan should be made a member forthwith, and so should China.
Membership of UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Trade Organization must not be withheld from the people of Taiwan.
Nor must membership of the United Nations.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has taken careful note of Parliament's call to open an information office in Taiwan.
Today, and for the time being, the Commission has no intention of opening such an office.
However, the question could be re-examined in the event of Taiwan acceding to the World Trade Organization, since that would bring a new element into the trade relations between that country and the European Union.
The question of opening an office once Taiwan becomes a member of the World Trade Organization could be re-examined, provided of course that there are sufficient budgetary resources.
Any possible office of this type would not be a delegation with diplomatic status, but an office responsible for defending the interests of the Union.
I would remind you in any case that the European Union's interests in Taiwan are mainly of a commercial nature, so that the work of the office in question would inevitably be centred on commercial matters, but could of course also be extended to areas such as information and culture as many European universities have links with Taiwan universities.
Eventually, the office would be very similar to those that some Member States and a few third countries have already opened in Taiwan.
The decision to open such an office would therefore be in accordance with the policy long pursued by the Union in that part of the world.
Consequently - and I emphasize this point - it would contribute nothing to a possible recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state.
First, I should like to say to Mr Gollnisch that if we had both to take part in a debate on our relationships with Mr Giscard d'Estaing, it should not be limited to the latter's judgement of Mao Tse Tung.
But I have asked to speak in order to put a supplementary question to the Commissioner, who linked the opening of a Commission Information Office in Taiwan to that country's accession to the World Trade Organization.
Is this a necessary or a sufficient condition?
I have not so much a question for the Commissioner, Madam President, more a comment in reply to Mrs Lenz.
We had absolutely no wish for urgency on the subject of Taiwan.
Nor did our Group put down a motion for a resolution.
Really we wanted things to proceed in the usual manner via the Committee on Foreign Affairs and your colleague's report.
I now have the impression that we are being reproached for our coolness on this resolution which does not really concern a matter of urgency.
But to make things perfectly clear: we voted against urgency for Taiwan on Wednesday evening and we would far rather see the subject dealt with in the normal manner via a normal report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Just to clarify matters, Madam President.
Very briefly, Madam President.
On this point at least, we are in agreement with Mr Nordmann. I do not understand the Commissioner's reply very well.
Why wait for the green light from the World Trade Organization? Does that mean, to put it bluntly, that we await the permission of the Americans?
While on its side the World Trade Organization is itself perhaps waiting for the European Union to take the initiative? If that is so, it could be a very long wait and since the Commissioner has told us very clearly that there is no question of diplomatic recognition, I do not really see why we are so afraid of the prospect of opening up trade representation.
Madam President, may I ask the Commissioner if the European Commission will be closing its delegations in all countries which are not members of the World Trade Organization?
Madam President, I should like to state very briefly that we should not be hypocritical and two-faced in this house but should discuss matters openly.
We may disagree, but we must speak openly.
We all know that the Socialist Group prevented the Foreign Affairs Committee from approving the report coming for debate.
And that is what we are talking about today - not about the fact that the Socialist Group wished at all costs to prevent the subject of Taiwan being discussed as an urgent question.
In any case, I refer to the procedure which has been in force in the Bureau.
In my opinion we all benefit from the fact that we speak openly and call things by their real names.
If we oppose something we must oppose it openly instead of saying that we have never opposed anything but its being debated as an urgency.
We would have liked this to have become a normal report adopted by the Foreign Affairs Committee in the normal way.
The Socialist Group has prevented this.
Madam President, necessary or sufficient condition? I repeat what I said very clearly: an essential condition for the re-examination of the question.
Do not worry, Mr Gollnisch, we are not waiting for the green light from the WTO, but the European Union has very precise powers as far as trade is concerned and hence it seems obvious that the day when Taiwan joins the World Trade Organization will have an effect on trade relations between the European Union and Taiwan.
That is why, given the powers of the European Union, the WTO is taken into account; it is, of course, certainly not because we have to ask for authorization from the World Trade Organization, an authorization that in any case it would have great difficulty in giving us.
To answer another question that was raised, it is not a matter today of closing delegations.
We are now engaged in a process relating to the World Trade Organization which dates back to the Marrakesh agreements two years ago.
Under the terms of these agreements, we are now negotiating the entry into the World Trade Organization of a number of countries, which requires several conditions to be met, and we see in the enlargement of the World Trade Organization a strengthening of the 'multilateralization' of trade which is a good thing for the European Union which has every interest in preserving an open and multilateral trading system.
I therefore think that the question on the agenda today is more that of the enlargement and opening up of the WTO to non-Member States rather than that of its closure.
Madam President, I have to say again that to argue in terms of the WTO, Commissioner, is not actually an answer.
I could understand the social principles of the ILO being quoted.
But the WTO is not exactly the personification of democracy.
So this answer did not convince me at all.
The European Union should pursue an independent policy; bringing the WTO into the discussion is really ridiculous.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0981/96 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democratic and Reformist Party, on the escalation of the fighting in Chechnya; -B4-0901/96 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the resumption of the fighting in Chechnya; -B4-0920/96 by Mr Puerta, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the situation in Chechnya; -B4-0925/96 by Mrs Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the attacks of the Russian military on Chechnya; -B4-0948/96 by Mrs Hoff and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Chechnya; -B4-0951/96 by Mr von Habsburg and Mrs Oomen-Ruiten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on developments in Chechnya.
Madam President, the tragic events in Chechnya mean quite simply that Yeltsin is rather less trustworthy than he purported to be at the time of the elections.
Many Chechen citizens have already been killed.
Many, many more have fled, and this is not only a slap in the face for the Chechen negotiators and the people of Russia but also a flagrant breach of the agreement which currently exists between the Union and Russia.
A clear signal from our Union is thus called for, and I would remind the House that it is this same Russia which has just been admitted to the Council of Europe amid great fanfares and trumpeting.
The intention in admitting Russia to the Council of Europe was to exert rather more influence on the situation on the ground.
So we must make quite sure we convey our grave displeasure to Yeltsin, the duly elected President.
It should also be a signal to General Lebed, whom we cannot exactly be sure of either.
His main election pledge was to end the war in Chechnya but now, after the bombing, he has pledged full support for Yeltsin's policy.
Does that inspire confidence? I think not.
Madam President, what has happened in Chechnya is precisely what was very easy to foresee.
Without even waiting for the official announcement of the result of the presidential elections, Mr Yeltsin went back on his statement that he wanted a peaceful solution to the Chechen problem and immediately ordered a new military offensive that has already caused hundreds of deaths over the past few days.
In just a few short hours, all President Yeltsin's electoral promises went out of the window.
We even begin to wonder how much real power President Yeltsin has in ruling Russia.
Mr Bertens' reference to General Lebed seems pertinent.
My Group feels that the unilateral resumption, by the Russian army, of the military offensive in Chechnya is incompatible with the spirit and letter of the agreement currently in force between the European Union and the Russian Federation.
We cannot sit back and watch the elimination of an entire population and the destabilization of an entire area, the Caucasus, which, because of the Chechen conflict, is again at risk of exploding with all its problems.
We therefore call on the Commission to use its legislative powers to propose suspension of the agreement between the European Union and Russia.
I think this is the only way of exerting pressure, especially as the United States and the entire international community have already roundly condemned the resumption of hostilities in Chechnya.
My Group also demands that all possible steps be taken to ensure that President Yeltsin withdraws Russian troops from Chechnya, in accordance with his own decree of 25 June 1996 and with the two cease-fire agreements signed by him before the elections, just a few weeks ago.
Madam President, my colleague is quite right.
For a year and a half - with very few interruptions - Russian troops have been bombarding Chechen settlements.
Thousands of civilians have fled, without recognition and without rights.
Human rights violations in the filtration camps are hardly even mentioned.
And western governments look on, pat Yeltsin on the back and praise his democratic reform process!
I cannot help thinking of the Council statement after the elections.
What a democracy!
And what mendacity! Instead of the expected peace talks, Yeltsin again deploys heavy artillery against the civilian population one day after the elections.
In so doing, he destroys the confidence of all the voters in his country.
There is not much hope left for a democratic development.
Yet the agreement we have concluded with Russia sets democratic development and respect for human rights as preconditions.
I remind the Commission that that was the basis for the interim agreement; you said that we could exert greater influence through the interim agreement.
But, as I see things, absolutely nothing is happening.
At this point, I would like to ask the Commission: will it propose to the Council that the interim agreement be suspended? Will it ensure that a conciliation committee, as provided for under the interim agreement, is brought into operation?
Has the Commission formulated a basis for concrete steps to be taken against the Russian Government? Or does the Commission accept these attacks on the civilian population in the northern Caucasus?
Will it continue to look on?
I would like a very concrete answer to these questions for, in this Parliament, it is our job to support democratic forces Russia, and they are growing ever weaker. We hope that we can support the soldiers' mothers, the peace groups, because they are the hope for that country.
Madam President, it is unfortunately not the first time the European Parliament has had to consider the war in Chechnya in a topical and urgent debate.
After the start of negotiations and President Yeltsin's promises during the election campaign, we had every hope that this bloody and tragic conflict would be ended by a political solution and that actual peace negotiations would begin.
That is what both the Russian and the Chechen people want.
Sadly, however, that hope was short-lived.
One increasingly gets the impression that the lofty promises were merely part of a coldly calculated election strategy.
That kind of thing is cynical and shows contempt for humanity.
The European Parliament cannot and will not remain silent in the face of such conduct.
Of course, we know here that there are plenty of groups on the Chechen side whose readiness for violence is not slow to manifest itself.
But that does not excuse the behaviour of Russian soldiers who turn their guns on Chechen villages and destroy them and whose main victims are, once again, the civilian population.
The European Union supported President Yeltsin politically and materially during the election campaign.
That was a pledge of confidence in advance, which must now be justified politically.
Our message to the Russian President and to Russian politicians is quite clear: Russia cannot be admitted to the Council of Europe and demand the expansion and deepening of relations and cooperation with the European Union and, at the same time, fail to end the bloody war in Chechnya and the continuing violations of human rights, despite all protests, appeals and warnings.
This is also a call to the new Russian Government.
The great majority of Members of the European Parliament are interested in good and intensive cooperation with Russia.
We are doing good preparatory work on this in the Delegation for Relations with Russia, but we cannot continue to do so regardless of the circumstances.
Cooperation is a two-way street, and shutting our eyes or looking away from the bloody events in Chechnya cannot be allowed to become a principle of our policy.
There will be no military solution to this conflict. I therefore call on everyone concerned, on behalf of the Socialist Group, finally to work seriously for a political solution that justifies the term peace negotiations.
Commissioner, I am afraid that we are repeating ourselves, but well, in this case I think it is not excessive.
Those of us with little faith in Mr Yeltsin's democratic spirit felt, back in May, that the signing of agreements was no more than an unsubtle political manoeuvre.
Unfortunately we were right because no sooner were the election results known than the bombings started and, as others have said, hundreds of civilians were killed and hundreds and thousands of civilians were forced to take flight.
It seems to us that, once and for all - and not only in the case of Chechnya but also Turkey and many other countries - the European Union must use the means of pressure at its disposal in its agreements, thanks to the democratic and human rights protection clauses, to avoid such massacres.
The European Union, including the European Parliament, must be told that this pressure is absolutely necessary if we want to bring an end to killings in Chechnya and if we want to end the violations of human rights in so many countries.
We in the European Parliament are aware of what is happening all the time to human rights in many other countries.
All we can ask, Commissioner, is that pressure be exerted to stop killings.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have listened to your debate with much interest and I have taken careful note of what speakers said.
For the most part, I share your anxiety and I can assure you that the Commission is seriously concerned by recent developments in the situation in Chechnya.
The Commission regrets that the two parties have not fulfilled the undertakings they gave in the cease-fire agreements of 21 May 1996 and 10 June 1996.
The Commission is particularly worried about the difficulties experienced by the OSCE assistance group in Grozny, commissioned to mediate between the two sides.
The Commission is also concerned about the working conditions of the humanitarian aid organizations.
The European Union is by far the largest provider of humanitarian aid to Chechnya.
The aid teams do not have free and completely secure access to all Chechen regions.
The Commission is monitoring the situation in close collaboration with Member States and strongly reiterates its disquiet over the new outburst of violence in Chechnya.
The Commission calls on Russia to honour the commitments it has made, particularly at the time of its accession to the Council of Europe.
It is convinced that the only way to settle the issues in dispute between the parties is through negotiation and, in this respect, no efforts should be spared to achieve this objective.
Madam President, I have just one request, namely that the Commissioner answer my questions.
I am not going to repeat the words of the statement I made on behalf of the Commission, but I have taken careful note of Mrs Schroedter's statement which I will pass on to the responsible Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We will now take the vote.
Reconstruction aid to former Yugoslavia (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0247/96) by Mr Cars, on the proposal for a Council Regulation relating to aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Mr President, Mr Cars' report is most important in that it opens up new and improved perspectives for the whole of former Yugoslavia and Bosnia-Herzegovina in particular.
The report properly details what needs to be done and on what conditions measures need to be tackled.
I am especially pleased that a number of additions were made during the deliberations in committee which certainly deserve the support of my Group, the Christian Democrats.
A notable omission for us is the position of Vojvodina which is not actually mentioned in the report.
We discussed this in committee too and the Christian Democrats' amendment is worded in such a way that I think it will meet with the House's approval.
The fact is that the cultural and political rights of the national minority in Vojvodina must be respected, and this must be one of the criteria for granting aid in the territory of the Republic of Serbia proper, for example, or the rump Yugoslavia.
So reconstruction in Bosnia-Herzegovina is tied to all manner of political considerations and conditions.
That is not just a political idée fixe , or an excuse for steering people in a certain direction.
Travelling round, in the Banja Luka area, for example, where there is no devastation, you see that the only things which need rebuilding are mosques and catholic churches.
It only makes sense to rebuild these if the refugees who fled are coming back.
There is thus a total overlap, between political considerations and the practical necessities.
So it is most important that we make sure to help where help is needed and not where there is little actual damage.
And the same goes for the East and West sectors of Mostar.
There is no point putting money into West Mostar where hardly anything has been destroyed; East Mostar, however, has been flattened, so it makes sense to concentrate on rebuilding East Mostar.
And to focus on activities which impel people to work together across ethnic lines.
In the Neretva valley there are also many villages which have simply been devastated; here too, reconstruction must be directly conditional on the return of refugees.
The Cars report raises an important question concerning the overseeing of policy.
It is particularly regrettable that the Council has favoured Article 12 as a means of clipping the Commission's wings completely.
This is something against which every parliamentarian should really protest vigorously.
I think it is most important to get Article 12 changed, as Parliament wants.
We are not going to have our supervisory powers taken away by a bunch of cowering despots whose only concern is to interpose extra red tape between the Commission and the job to be done.
I think this is a most important point and I hope the Commission and by extension the Council will act on our requests to change this article so that Parliament's powers of scrutiny remain undiminished.
Mr President, following the many political pronouncements on the form which aid to former Yugoslavia should take it is now time to discuss the regulation on the basis of which that aid may be given.
It is high time the decisions were implemented.
The six months' delay caused by the Council and Commission is most regrettable.
Rapporteur Cars rightly castigates the Council for unnecessarily complicating the procedures by introducing a regulatory committee, and Mr Oostlander is also right in the points he makes.
I compliment Mr Cars, who should have been sitting next to me but is, as we know, already busy elsewhere, on his alertness and his fresh ideas.
I think it is important that this regulation too should include the conditionality to which we have already given so much attention in this House.
No chance must be missed of ensuring that the parties punctiliously carry out the Dayton Agreement.
I warmly endorse the rapporteur's idea of allowing PHARE countries to submit bids within the limits of available funds.
Given that some of the money for Yugoslavia comes from PHARE it is a good idea to allow the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to tender for contracts in former Yugoslavia.
It will be good for all of us.
Finally I urge the Union institutions to get this regulation brought into effect as soon as possible.
The building and sowing season is starting in Bosnia and it is most important, moreover, that the people of former Yugoslavia should see visible signs of progress in advance of September's elections.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, reconstruction aid for former Yugoslavia has to satisfy two criteria: it must be possible to deploy it quickly and efficiently.
Unhappily the sad reality is that this is not the case.
As a number of honourable Members have said, the money has been available since January but so far nothing can be paid out.
That is an utter disgrace.
To our mind the regulation as it currently stands focuses too much on a centrally managed aid programme, when the central structures in former Yugoslavia are still not functioning at all.
Like Parliament's Committee on Budgets, we are very much in favour of having this aid deployed regionally and locally, naturally with the necessary guarantees of conditionality.
The Green Group in Parliament has thus retabled the amendments of the Committee on Budgets in the hope that they will be supported by the plenary.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, of course the Commission proposal is rather late in coming.
Something is not right with the bureaucracy in Brussels.
I fear that this delay will continue in the field.
With these aid measures, the reconstruction in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia could be ready for take-off if the conditions demanded by Parliament were really enforced.
One of the preconditions is of course that the refugees can return. Another is that freedom of movement in Bosnia-Herzegovina should be restored - something that should have happened by the end of March, but did not.
When the former Foreign Minister of Bosnia and current UN Ambassador can only travel to Banja Luka after three years under the protection of European parliamentarians, how can an ordinary mortal move around freely in that country?
How do our EU authorities in the field act in the event of violations?
I wonder whether indeed they do support projects the benefits of which only go, if at all, to part of the population or end up completely in the pockets of war profiteers. And, if we take our principles and conditions seriously, we must be able, wherever there are ruined houses, to force the local authorities into allowing the owners to return and then to help these people financially in the rebuilding work.
In order to secure such an accommodating attitude on the part of the local authorities, supplementary economic or training projects could be financed on a local basis.
In this way, our taxes could be very well spent and achieve optimum benefit.
Such aid in the field would enhance the possibilities of repatriation for refugees currently living in our countries, which would in turn ease the financial burden on our communities.
The approach which seems to be adopted only too often by the High Representative, namely to give even-handedly to everyone and rather to turn a blind eye to gross violations of the Dayton Agreement, is the wrong one in my opinion and does not hold out much hope of really achieving our current aims.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Regulation under consideration today and submitted for the opinion of Parliament, is an important contribution to the efforts towards reconstruction undertaken as part of the peace process.
To consolidate the peace, the effects of war have to be obliterated.
Reconstruction, which also has reconciliation as its aim, is therefore essential.
Last January, the reconstruction effort was started with the programme of essential aid, financed from PHARE appropriations.
In 1996, about ECU 125 million will be allocated to this effort.
Community programmes involve all the priority sectors: housing, employment, transport, energy, water supplies, telecommunications and health care.
High priority is being given to the return of refugees.
The adoption of the Regulation now before you should provide the Union with the additional resources necessary for these activities.
On the initiative of Parliament, three budget headings have been created, allocating a total of ECU 92 million.
In view of the urgent nature of the reconstruction effort, a first instalment of ECU 27 million can already be committed.
In the meantime, plans have been worked out for the remaining amount.
The budget heading 'aid to refugees' provided with ECU 30 million will be allocated as soon as possible, in consultation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Member States.
As for the proposed amendments, I should like to make the following brief comments.
First, the Commission shares the wish of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to bring the consultation process to a conclusion as quickly as possible so as to ensure speedy distribution of aid for reconstruction.
In this connection, the Commission is wholly in favour of Amendment No 17 which allows invitations to tender and markets to be extended to countries benefiting from the PHARE programme, as is already the case for the TACIS programme.
The Commission is also in favour of the amendments on: the duration of application of the Regulation, Amendment No 6; the transparency of its implementation, Amendment No 7; the conditions for the granting of aid, Amendment No 10, which also corresponds to the initial Commission proposal.
It is also in favour of the principle of decentralization expressed in the first part of Amendment No 14; of the regular briefing of Parliament, of course, Amendment No 21; and of the comitology procedure, Amendment No 19.
The Commission is also in a position to accept the principle of inserting a special suspension clause for cases where the conditions for the granting of aid are infringed, Amendment No 11.
However, it is of the opinion that the proposed procedure is cumbersome and probably has little applicability.
Wishing to reserve the full role of Parliament in this area, the Commission intends to make a statement to the Council about the rapid briefing of your Assembly using a procedure identical to that agreed for financial cooperation with Turkey.
On the other hand, the Commission cannot accept a new budgetary formula - that is Amendment No 9 - it prefers to retain the traditional standard formula of the trialogue; neither can it accept a general relief from taxes and customs duties: Amendment No 16, which would pose other problems.
The additional comment relating to elements of control and evaluation - Amendment No 20 - seems to us no longer necessary.
Lastly, and I shall end with this, the Commission notes the points made concerning the political process in the former Yugoslavia.
This is the subject of Amendments Nos 1 to 5, 8, 12 and 13.
The Commission is of the opinion however that these points are already sufficiently taken into account in the Regulation proper and in the many statements by the Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow, at 9 a.m.
Petitions in 1995/1996
The next item is the report (A4-0191/96) by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions in the parliamentary year 1995-1996.
Mr President, I am presenting to this Assembly the report on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament for the period 14 March 1995 to 11 March 1996.
This report sets out the work carried out not by the committee as a whole - that would not be accurate - but an active core, with the task of monitoring with rigour and out of a sense of service, I would say, presided over with authority and with rigour by Mr Newman.
Mr President, the Committee on Petitions is one of the European Union's bodies that brings us closest to European citizens.
At this moment in time, as we are examining the Union Treaties at the IGC, where one of the main concerns is the notion of European citizenship, the practice of the right to petition is one of the clearest expressions of the condition of European citizenship.
This we were able to ascertain through our work, given the number of citizens who approach the European Parliament to voice their complaints, concerns and denouncements.
Although this number is modest, I wish to point out that we have examined 1169 petitions over the last year, of which just over 600 were declared admissible; however, if you bear in mind that many of these petitions are signed by large numbers of citizens - in the case of collective petitions - we see that more than 700, 000 citizens expressed their confidence in the European Parliament to voice their complaints and to ask it to act as go-between.
Therefore, this is an important question which the European Parliament is obliged to act upon with justice and speed.
Here is the first question: at least the Committee on Petitions - through its chair, Mr Newman - should turn to other committees or delegations in the European Parliament and inform them of the content of these petitions and seek their support, information and opinion.
From this point of view, I must emphasise the need for all committees and delegations to realise the importance of the concerns raised by the Committee on Petitions because this is really a way of responding to the confidence that our citizens have shown in us.
These petitions are a way of gauging what concerns European citizens in respect of European legislation.
But not only that.
It also enables us to see where there are vacuums in European legislation, by looking at those petitions that cannot be answered because we lack the legal base; we should perhaps then think of the need to create European legislation to respond to those petitions.
Mr President, the problem is more important when we cooperate with the Commission.
Indeed, we greatly depend on the Commission so that our committee can respond to this cooperation.
This is carried out more slowly and with more difficulties because the Member States' governments fail to cooperate and the Commission, Commissioner, is too soft on them.
It usually refuses to take proceedings for failure to respect European Directives.
Mr President, I think it is important for the Commission to be aware of the importance of the work carried out in the Committee on Petitions, which is now being backed up thanks to the cooperation of the European Ombudsman.
Finally, Mr President, there have been five amendments to the report.
These amendments have been tabled by highly qualified members of the Committee on Petitions.
I must say that I regret that they were not tabled within the Committee itself, which would have enabled us to discuss them and improve the text.
In any case, Mr President, I wish to conclude by saying that I agree with No 1, with an amendment to the wording, by an oral amendment which I shall table when the vote takes place.
But I agree with all the others, especially No 4, tabled by Mr Santini, which is important if we are to get information across to the citizens.
But I cannot accept the last, No 5, also tabled by Mr Santini, because I think its interpretation would restrict the principle of the right...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, during the 1995-1996 parliamentary year the European Parliament received 1169 petitions.
At the end of that parliamentary year the Committee on Petitions has 823 petitions still outstanding.
The outcome of those petitions is detailed in the remarkable report by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, who has produced a very readable account.
It seems our citizens have quite a few problems with the functioning of the single market.
It seems that our fellow-citizens complain about the poor functioning of freedom of movement for individuals, for example in the exercise of the right of residence, for example in the equivalence of qualifications.
It seems that our citizens submit a lot of petitions on environmental protection, more specifically non-compliance with the directive on environmental impact assessment.
Some petitions bear many signatures.
One petition from my own region of Limburg obtained 37 000 signatures in connection with the difficulties of discrimination between frontier workers from Belgian Limburg working in Dutch Limburg.
The Maastricht Treaty introduced the notion of European citizenship.
One of the most concrete rights for European citizens is the right to petition the European Parliament, and/or the European ombudsman.
I should like to make three points in relation to this, Mr President.
Firstly, what is the use of conferring a right if the person enjoying that right does not know he has it? In other words, what use is the right to petition the European Parliament if Parliament does not publicize that right?
For this reason Europe's citizens need to be informed more thoroughly and more extensively about Article 138d of the Treaty.
But information and communication are not enough of course if they merely state the existence of the right to petition as such.
It must also be made clear in what cases petitions may be submitted and on what conditions. I think there is a pressing need for Parliament's offices in the Member States to be involved in the provision of this information.
Secondly, there is no point announcing and publicizing a right if the exercise of that right is hampered by a lack of resources, both material and immaterial.
In other words, petitions must be dealt with within a reasonable period of time, and it is here that we encounter problems.
It is not just a question of infrastructure and logistics, though these too need to be improved; we should like to see the facilities for the secretariat expanded in terms of both staff and other necessary infrastructure.
And we want the citizen submitting a petition to have that petition dealt with in the best way possible.
So let us take a good look at the present situation.
We still have 500 petitions under consideration which are more than a year old.
So we have a whole year's worth of backlog to make up and that means we need to increase not only our staff but also the rhythm of our meetings.
So I think we have to agree on a more efficient pattern of meetings, so that we do not overlap with Parliament's other committees, and we could do that on Thursday afternoons and Friday mornings, because there are no other committee meetings then.
In other words we have to take the citizen seriously, we have to take his petitions seriously and we as Parliament must undertake to clear as much of the existing backlog as possible quickly and take the measures needed to make this possible.
One again my thanks to the rapporteur for his excellent report and I commend our amendments to the House.
Mr President, the right to petition is very popular in the literal sense of the word, especially if you as a citizen can demonstrate serious infringements of a right, in this case Community law.
The report compiled by my colleague and friend and occasional chairman, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, is a reflection of that popular right.
I have to say I am disappointed at the number of petitions received last year, more than a thousand.
But it proves that a need is being met.
Mr Chanterie rightly said, as did earlier speakers too, that the speed at which they are processed leaves much to be desired.
Every effort must be made to clear the backlog created by the procedure for appointing the Ombudsman and I fully endorse what Mr Chanterie said about the meetings of the Committee on Petitions.
Mea culpa, mea culpa , Mr Newman, you do not see much of me. You see me here, but not at your committee meetings, because they always clash either with the Committee on External Economic Relations or with the Foreign Affairs Committee for which I am the coordinator, so sadly I cannot always attend.
The single market does not always seem to work smoothly, certainly not as it should, and the environmental directives too seem to present problems here and there.
Consequently many people use the petition route as an additional means of scrutinizing the quality of legislation on a given matter or of verifying its implementation.
There are two useful sides to the work of the Committee on Petitions, I hardly need to tell you that: the Annual Report records progress here and there and quite properly identifies shortcomings.
The processing of petitions takes too long, as I have already said, and the response from other committees is disappointing.
Your rapporteur is right to advocate greater readiness to take things to the Court of Justice when Member States are clearly at fault.
That is the basis of the European legal system.
The Commission, Commissioner, is not the guardian of the Treaties for nothing.
Lastly, the Ombudsman.
We have already discussed his Annual Report.
But it is worth emphasizing the value of close cooperation with him in the interests of the Union's citizens and the residents.
This is essential to the future of the Union.
Once again, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, my compliments on your report.
Mr Newman, I hope we shall see more of each other in your Committee on Petitions.
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that I personally and the Green Group approve Mr Gutiérrez Díaz' report.
The work of the Committee on Petitions, which has until now provided one of the most important links between citizens and the European Parliament, constitutes, together with the appointment of the European Ombudsman, a major element in the right of Union citizenship established by the Treaties.
The petitions reaching the Committee give us an insight into citizens' problems; for example, they have in the past often brought us face to face with important problems, concerning in particular the environment and freedom of movement.
I fully support the proposals in the report and would stress especially the following points: closer interaction between the Committee on Petitions and the other committees, with a follow-up including legislation, on major issues raised in petitions; the need for a good collaborative relationship between the Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman; greater commitment by the Commission and Council to follow-up problems raised by the Committee on Petitions and the content of petitions submitted to it; criticism of delays and inadequate collaboration with the Member States named in petitions; finally, the need to deal with petitions speedily and effectively.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the parliamentary year 1995-1996 was marked by the long procedure involved in electing the European Ombudsman.
A few weeks ago, Mr Söderman also presented his first activity report and it has been possible to see a real willingness to cooperate between the European Ombudsman, a new body set up under the Maastricht Treaty, and our Committee on Petitions, which can pride itself on its long experience.
Such experience enables us to evaluate and appreciate the task of the European Ombudsman, and it is in the light of this that the rapporteur mentions the longer times taken to deal with petitions.
Even if such delays can be attributed partly to the length of the procedure for electing the Ombudsman, we should nevertheless be very vigilant to prevent the right of citizens to petition from being undermined by procedural obstacles.
May I therefore make a suggestion about the organization of our work.
As the European Ombudsman works from Strasbourg, the official seat of this body, we could well envisage holding meetings of our Committee in Strasbourg in order, firstly, to shorten the delays gradually and, secondly, to mark symbolically the close cooperation between the European Parliament and the Ombudsman in Strasbourg, their common seat.
The rapporteur rightly emphasizes - and I am still talking about organization - the effectiveness of the collaboration with the European Commission, which unfailingly expedites the complaints transmitted to it.
It is regrettable that, in the case of Member States, this cooperation is somewhat grudging, particularly when the complainant alleges infringement of Community law by the Member State in question.
However, I do not support the rapporteur's wish that the Commission should proceed further against recalcitrant Member States before the Court of Justice by invoking Article 169 of the Treaty.
This is because it is important for our citizens to avoid long and complex stages of litigation, when very often a favourable outcome can be achieved by negotiation.
The Ombudsman should play a major role here.
Turning to the basis of the petitions recorded and dealt with, we see that a large number of complaints citing serious breaches of Community environmental legislation have been filed this year.
You know that my group is very concerned about the full preservation of national sovereignties and a very strict respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
Nevertheless, in environmental matters, it is important for the European Union to exercise wider powers in a field which, by definition, is not confined within national boundaries.
Recent events, like mad cow disease or the disastrous situation of the nuclear submarine bases at Murmansk, clearly illustrate the need for strong restraining action at European level.
As the Member for Alsace, I am also very alive to the problems facing those who have to cross frontiers to work.
Many of these workers suffer discrimination, particularly those working in Switzerland.
I shall continue to keep a close watch on such difficulties and I hope that eventually this type of obstacle will be overcome through bilateral agreements.
In conclusion, I hope that the appointment of the Ombudsman will provide even more effective protection for citizen's rights.
It is in this way that public opinion in our countries will appreciate the real nature of European construction which, I have to say, too often appears ponderous and remote.
Mr President, as chair of the Committee on Petitions I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, on our latest annual report.
Mr Gutiérrez Díaz is a very active and senior Member of Parliament in a range of areas, including the Committee on Petitions.
He has put forward this report backed by a great deal of experience and knowledge of our work, of the issues raised by petitioners and of how we try to assist them.
The quality of the report reflects his experience and involvement.
It is widely recognized that the European Union is too remote from ordinary citizens and that is why our Committee on Petitions tries to break down the barriers by giving all citizens and residents the right to put their views on any matter or their complaints on any grievance which falls within the competence of the European Union.
I do not want to repeat things which have already been said by the rapporteur and other speakers in the debate.
Quite clearly the kind of issues we deal with concern agriculture, social affairs of various kinds and customs issues.
There are a large number of environmental petitions usually alleging contravention of European Community environmental legislation.
There are petitions concerning taxation matters, freedom of movement and recognition of diplomas, access to education, access to work, conditions of work, residence permits, transfer of social rights, border controls for all the people who are trying or have tried to exercise their rights of free movement, their rights within the European Union.
So we try to assist the petitioners.
But we have some problems which we should try to resolve. I have tried to give a lead in helping to resolve them with the support of committee members over the past period.
The committee is much more open than it used to be.
It is the exception rather than the rule that we deal with petitions in private now.
Most of our work is open to the public.
It is very important that Parliament's external services, in particular Parliament's external offices take seriously the provision of information, informing citizens and residents of the Member States of their right to petition.
Not enough is done there and it is important.
In the recent past a number of Members of Parliament who are not on the committee have realized the role and importance of the Committee on Petitions: when their constituents have put forward petitions they have come along to support them and have appreciated the opportunity to do that.
My last point is that our main problem is with the Member States.
The Ombudsman deals with allegations of maladministration in European Community institutions and bodies.
Our petitions usually deal with the fact that Member States do not implement European Community rules, regulations and laws properly to the detriment of citizens and residents.
We do not get cooperation from the Member States.
We do not get representatives of the Council or from the Permanent Representatives attending committee meetings.
We have problems with the Commission but our principal problems getting assistance to citizens derive from the Member States and that is one of the reasons for the delays.
One of the reasons why petitions sometimes stay open for two or three years is because we are batting them back and forwards to the Member States either via the Commission or directly, trying to get a response, trying to get assistance and support for the petitioner.
The best way citizens can get support and we can get help in our work in assisting citizens is if the Member States take the right to petition the European Parliament - which they have agreed to in an Interinstitutional agreement and in the Maastricht Treaty - more seriously.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament's annual appraisal of petitions addressed to it by European citizens provides an appropriate moment to reflect on the relationship existing between these citizens and the European Union.
When addressing a petition to the European Parliament, a citizen of the Union complains of the faulty application of Community legislation but by so doing, he also expresses his confidence that the European Parliament, together with the other institutions, will redress the injustice he believes he has suffered.
Dealing with petitions thoroughly and doing everything possible to satisfy citizens' complaints without delay: this is what is essential if we do not want the confidence of our citizens to be disappointed and if we wish the exercise of citizens' rights in Europe to have meaning in their eyes.
At a time when a debate is taking place in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference on ways of bringing the citizens of the European institutions closer to each other, such a direct relationship between the citizen and Parliament must be preserved and encouraged.
The excellent report by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz shows once again that citizens address a very large number of petitions to Parliament and I associate myself here with the many congratulations offered to the rapporteur and to his work.
These petitions are concerned with such sensitive areas for our citizens as social security, the environment, taxation, freedom of movement for persons, recognition of diplomas and degrees, to quote only a few of the principal ones, but a few that undoubtedly concern the citizen most deeply.
To guarantee full respect for Community legislation in these areas and to strengthen this legislation for the benefit of the citizen: these are tasks that the Commission considers to be essential.
The Commission is pleased that Mr Gutiérrez Díaz's report instances progress in cooperation between the Committee on Petitions and the European Commission.
The inclusion of the right to petition in the Treaty was, for the European Commission, an additional encouragement to reply as quickly and pertinently as possible to requests from the European Parliament relating to petitions.
Mr President, a few words now, if I may, on monitoring the application of Community law and on the information given by the European Commission to the Committee on Petitions.
I will start with the infringement procedures since this question was raised several times during the preceding debate and since the question is, of course, also raised in Mr Gutiérrez Díaz's report.
In expressing its opinion on the annual reports of the Commission relating to the application of Community law, Parliament has recognized the progress made in this area as well, but it has expressed wishes, of which the Commission has taken careful note, particularly as regards speeding up the infringement procedures: I can tell you that the Commission will be very willing to agree to make additional efforts to shorten the time taken for the transmission of these communications to the Committee on Petitions.
Among the criticisms habitually directed at the Commission are the length of the infringement procedures and, I would say, what is considered to be the over-cautious approach of the European Commission in this area.
I should point out, however, that in this area the European Commission has a discretionary power as regards infringements and that it does its best to act consistently in the exercise of its discretionary powers.
The Commission is also endeavouring to improve its procedures in order to make its actions consistent and effective.
As for the length of these procedures, mentioned several times by Members of Parliament, I can only repeat on behalf of the Commission that, as guardian of the Treaties, it does everything it can to ensure respect for the application of Community law, solely in accordance with the criteria of objectivity and of law.
The time taken by infringement procedures reflects both the complexity of the matters dealt with, the thoroughness of the examination the Commission is required to carry out of the arguments put forward by the Member States and the constant care to achieve, if possible, the correct application of Community legislation without necessarily going before the Court of Justice.
Parliament receives detailed information on the actions of the Commission in this area through the Commission's annual report on the application of Community law. It also draws up a very interesting and very instructive report every year on the subject of Community law.
As regards briefing of the Committee on Petitions, I should like to emphasize that the Commission has always given it complete and detailed information.
In particular, it reports contacts made with national authorities.
However, that does not mean that the Commission has the right to transmit confidential documents emanating from Member States, particularly in the context of preliminary legal procedures relating to the application of Community law.
I can assure you that the Committee on Petitions will continue to receive from the European Commission all the information necessary for the effective treatment of citizens' petitions.
Mr President, there is something missing from the conduct of this sitting and it is for that reason that I asked to speak.
We have looked at an excellent report, and you have heard an excellent account from the rapporteur and from the chairman of the Committee on Petitions too.
You have also heard an excellent account from the Commissioner.
But the person we have not heard from is the one responsible for the great hold-ups in the work of the Committee on Petitions, namely the President of the Bureau of Parliament who is also responsible for the Secretariat-General.
All the questions asked so far about improvements to the situation have either not been answered or have not been answered properly.
I would have appreciated it if the Bureau of Parliament had replied at this sitting to all the substantive arguments put forward here concerning the organization of Parliament itself, organization of the secretariat, the registering of petitions.
There is not much that is right about this House and there is no point meeting again next year, debating another excellent report and then concluding that once again nothing has changed.
That is what I wanted to say, Mr President, and I hope you will pass it on to the Bureau.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow, at 9 a.m.
Scientific and technical cooperation with Israel
The next item is the report (A4-0250/96) by Mr Stockmann, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technical cooperation between the European Community and the State of Israel (COM(96)0205 - C4-0311/96-96/0134(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this House has been asked for its opinion on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding an Agreement for scientific and technical cooperation between the European Community and the State of Israel.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy on Tuesday approved the Agreement by a large majority, and I expect - or at least I recommend - that Parliament will approve it tomorrow in plenary sitting.
The Agreement raises the long-standing and successful cooperation between Israeli scientists and research establishments and those of the European Community to a new level.
Israel can participate in programmes of the Fourth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, except in the fields of nuclear safety and nuclear fusion.
Scientists and research establishments in the European Union are free to participate in Israeli research activities.
Israel's financial contribution corresponds to the contributions of the Member States of the European Union in proportion to their respective gross domestic products.
Hence, for the first time, a non-European country is participating extensively in the Community's framework programme for research in a relationship based on balance and reciprocality.
The Agreement is in the interests of European research policy; I would like to stress that here.
In the Community and worldwide, we are witnessing the increasing internationalization, indeed globalization, of the research process.
This development is within the logic of the differentiation and increasing specialization of research itself and its growing financing needs.
At the same time, however, we are unfortunately witnessing a decline in national efforts to promote scientific activity.
For that reason, we must, today more than ever, seek synergy effects through improved international research cooperation.
Israel has outstanding competence in a number of research areas.
I expect new developments to be generated by increased cooperation in the fields such as information technology, for example data compression and image processing, and in medical research, for example immunology, epidemiology and cardiovascular diseases, to mention only a few.
I also expect new impetus in the field of biotechnology, for example in neurobiology and biological water treatment, and in the development of technology for systems to harness renewable energies.
The research cooperation Agreement follows the Mediterranean Agreement recently concluded with Israel, which regulated economic and cultural cooperation and placed regular political dialogue on an institutional footing.
Through both Agreements, the European Union seeks to contribute to the development of the Mediterranean region and to stabilize the peace process in the Middle East.
Our political message is: we seek to deepen relations and to promote continuity in political action by means of binding agreements and treaties.
And that is also what we expect from our partners, indeed in every area.
I should like to add a few comments addressed to the Commission.
Firstly, in future negotiations, the Commission should adhere to the existing arrangements under the Luns-Westerterp procedure and keep us continuously informed on the status of the negotiations - that did not happen in this case.
Secondly, Israel should be involved in the assessment of the Fourth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development and in the discussion on the direction of the Fifth Framework Programme.
Thirdly, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy wishes to have regular contacts with the members of the Knesset's Economic Affairs Committee, whose remit covers research policy.
Fourthly, in order to promote peace and reconciliation in Israel, Israeli and Palestinian research establishments should be especially encouraged to respond jointly to invitations to tender.
Fifthly, I hope to see a broad information campaign on the new possibilities for cooperation in our countries.
The negotiation of measures to be covered by the Agreement took a long time; we now hope that it will be made operational in practice as quickly as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the excellent report by our colleague Mr Stockman on scientific and technical cooperation between the European Union and Israel explains clearly what this agreement is and why it is therefore necessary to vote for it without reservations and without uncertainties.
This is a good agreement which has been reached through lengthy negotiations between the Union and Israel and which will be advantageous both for Israelis and for Europeans, since everybody will benefit from their separate and joint efforts.
It is an important partnership agreement, cofinanced by Europe and Israel as part of the fourth research framework programme.
This is also the first time that a non-European country will be able to take part in Community research.
In return, Europe will have access to Israel's research and research programme.
As chairman of the Delegation for relations with Israel, I am happy with this and I approve of it.
As a French socialist, I shall unhesitatingly vote for it.
As a representative of the Party of European Socialists, I bring the support of my group.
Should we, for all that, ignore the questions of some of our colleagues about the peace process after the recent Israeli elections? Certainly not!
Their concern, and ours, is justified when we read the programme of the new Prime Minister, when we look at the composition of his government and when we hear some of the statements being made.
Having said that, it is clearly not for Europe to judge the results of a democratic election in a democratic country.
Nor does anything today entitle anybody to prejudge the results of discussions which are only beginning between the new government and its neighbours.
Lastly, and most importantly, is not the best way of helping the peace process to increase the European presence in the Middle East, its partnership with the Israelis, with the Palestinians and with their Arab neighbours? Our scientific cooperation agreement fits perfectly into this process.
We must therefore implement it quickly, give it full scope, and form a partnership between the European Parliament and the Knesset through Parliament's Delegation for relations with Israel in order to monitor it.
We must look for ways of encouraging the Palestinians to participate in these efforts and their results.
Peace has undoubtedly been declared but, above all, peace is alive!
And for the survival of peace, all possible partnerships must be developed between us.
Is not the agreement on the search for better living conditions today particularly symbolic? I think it is, and above all I think we must do everything we can to support it: I repeat my congratulations to Mr Stockman and I urge all my colleagues to approve the agreement of 25 March tomorrow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by quoting Professor Markel, the newly elected President of the Max Planck Society, who wrote about the shifting borders of Europe in the following terms: how important it is that, precisely as representatives of science and research, we avoid as far as possible speaking of Europe in terms of clearly defined geographic areas; we need no further argument for this than to single out the example of Israel today which - whatever else it may be - is also European.
In this context, I heartily welcome, on behalf of my group, the Agreement now to be concluded with Israel.
Through it, we shall receive new impetus for our research and benefit from the outstanding competence of Israeli researchers.
The Weizman Institute, an excellent academic institution which has maintained an office in Brussels for years, bears witness to the European direction of research in Israel.
Israel is the first country that will not pick and choose its topics.
With the exception of programmes on fusion and nuclear safety, it works in all the fields covered by the Fourth Framework Programme.
Israel will be able to participate straight away in invitations to tender for specific programmes.
There is one Israeli demand which the EU cannot accommodate - and my group supports this view.
As a nonmember country, it cannot claim voting rights in the programme committees.
Israel will be able to put forward experts for project assessment and selection and to present its concerns and preferred areas of research in a joint committee, the EC-Israel Research Committee.
As we are now embarking on the preparatory work for the Fifth Framework Programme, Israel will be able from the outset, on a consultative basis, to exert its influence on the direction of programmes and to assist in shaping cooperation agreements for the future.
In parallel with the cooperation process, the parliamentary level, especially the two committees concerned in the Knesset and in the European Parliament, should establish regular working contacts.
Arrangements for the protection of intellectual property have been included in the Agreement.
Whether they will always be satisfactory to both parties, experience in practice will show.
As we are constantly refining our own legislation in this field - witness the hotly debated Directive on the patenting of genetically modified organisms - this point, i.e. protection of intellectual property, may need to be renegotiated for the next agreement.
The Water Task Force which has been set up will certainly be of great interest to Israel.
Proper water management in the Mediterranean region, especially in the Middle East, contributes to peace among the nations of the area.
Israel's experience in this field, amongst other things with desalination plants, will help us effectively to solve one of the greatest problems of the next century, i.e. the efficient supply of water to the population, and hence contribute to the wellbeing and peace of peoples throughout the region.
I should like to conclude these remarks on the Agreement with a word of thanks to the rapporteur for his good and agreeable cooperation and by quoting Professor Markel for a second time: there really is such a thing as a world scientific community, and it can span a cohesive network of intellectual and inter-personal relations which holds fast even where national differences, ideological divergence, hostilities between nations and competitive clashes over economic interests mercilessly separate most human beings.
I hope this research Agreement will bring not only economic benefits, but also advances for the peace and wellbeing of peoples.
Mr President, Commissioner, under the agreement we are examining, a non-European country - Israel - will for the first time be extensively associated with the Community framework programme for research and technological development.
The agreement grants Israel privileged status, because it will be the only non-European country to have direct access to a highly strategic Union programme, without even being part of the European Economic Area.
This agreement will therefore allow Israeli laboratories to participate on an equal footing with European laboratories in competitive bidding for European Union research funding.
The excellence and competence of Israeli laboratories are known, as is the quality of technicians and researchers in Israel, a country that has already attracted investment and the establishment of high-technology installations by private multinational companies.
In granting Israel such a, shall we say, exceptional position, the European Union has taken account of the advanced state of research in Israel but also, and particularly, of the political importance of this association in the context of the Middle East peace process.
The peace process is obviously a cornerstone of all the Union's effort to collaborate in the development of countries bordering on the southern Mediterranean, an effort to which the Union, and this Parliament in particular, have given their full support.
It seems to me that this agreement should therefore be seen by Israel and by its recently elected government as another important dividend of the peace process and as further encouragement from the European Union to pursue the path it has bravely taken towards developing good relations with neighbouring countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, cooperation in science and technology is the key to greater innovation.
Israel has highly sophisticated scientific research and is technologically very advanced so can be profitable to the European Union.
Of course a reciprocal interest is needed if cooperation is to be successful.
Clearly there is such an interest between Israel and the Union.
Technology cooperation with Israel may provide a stimulus to industry and the small business sector and may open up new markets in the emerging information society and multimedia.
This may create more jobs.
So the Liberal Group welcomes this cooperation.
But I have a number of questions to the Commissioner.
Firstly concerning the financial memorandum.
The largest single cost item is business travel by officials and European experts.
This makes quite a hole in the budget for the specific programmes which make up the fourth, and shortly the fifth, framework programme.
Parliament regularly points to the high costs of administering the programmes.
I would like to ask the Commissioner why it is that these officials and experts have to fly business class, when even Dutch government officials and scientists regularly fly economy class.
I myself flew economy class to the United States two weeks ago and I can tell you that it is just as quick and just as safe as business class.
My second question: has account been taken in the budget of the cost of translating all the forms, brochures and project presentations into Hebrew? This is not a European language and will be expensive.
And lastly I should like to challenge the procedure followed.
The cooperation agreement was concluded by the Commission and representatives of Israel.
During those negotiations Parliament was neither consulted nor informed even though this cooperation significantly affects the fourth framework programme.
Decisions concerning the fourth framework programme are taken jointly with Parliament using the co-decision procedure.
Why was Parliament not involved and not even informed, despite the existence of agreements in accordance with the procedure devised by my distinguished compatriots Mr Luns and Mr Westerterp?
Mr President, the issue of an agreement between the EU and Israel on research is not an entirely simple one.
Nevertheless, the important parts which are very positive have been singled out.
It is also good that EU research should not be geared solely to EU Member States and that the EU should open its eyes to the fact that a world exists outside the Union - this is tremendously important.
It is also good that the conclusions mention how important it is that this should be seen as support for the peace process.
On the other hand, I am concerned about some of the content of the agreement.
Even though the programme on fusion and nuclear safety is excluded from the agreement one must be aware that Israel undoubtedly has nuclear arms, despite its denials.
It is therefore important to ensure that no resources go to nuclear research 'on the quiet' .
In this connection I would also like to mention that it will soon be ten years since the researcher Mordechai Vanunu was imprisoned after having spoken out about Israel's nuclear research programme.
It would now be appropriate for Israel to release Vanunu as soon as possible.
We have our doubts about a number of the research sections of the fourth framework programme.
These include biotechnology and research into space travel.
This research appears harmless but may quite well be developed and used in areas which are far from being in our interests. We no more want such research to be carried out as a result of agreements with countries outside the EU than we want it to be carried out within the EU.
We do not intend to vote against the agreement but to abstain.
Mr President, I am very much in favour of EU research cooperation.
I believe that those who favour a fortress Europe policy, limiting cooperation to within the Union, are making a mistake.
We need to use the best researchers wherever they are in the world, let alone in Israel.
Therefore I am very much in favour of the well-prepared report by my colleague, Mr Stockmann, where the Israeli Government is putting ECU 100 million, a third of its total research budget, into the programme.
It is actually paying to join in this programme.
However, in respect of this report I have two concerns.
One, which Mr Stockmann has raised, is the failure of the Commission to adequately consult and follow the Luns Westerterp procedure.
I raised this issue in committee yesterday and was told that I would get a reply from the Commission in writing.
I presume the Commission has not been struck dumb and that I might actually manage to get one this afternoon.
Secondly, flowing from this lack of clarity in terms of consultation, there are problems in a couple of areas.
Firstly, in view of the secretive nature of the Israeli nuclear weapons programme as revealed 10 years ago by Mordechai Vanunu, I have reservations on Israeli participation in the nuclear sectors of research.
The report says that nuclear safety and fusion power are excluded. But that does not cover all the areas of nuclear research, as I understand it, that are done in the European Commission.
I am very much in favour of the peace process.
It is going through a rocky period at the moment.
I am happy, of course, that we have research in other than non-nuclear areas in Israel proper, but it would, in my opinion, be inappropriate for EU money to be allocated to research centres in the occupied West Bank or as part of an Israeli research programme without agreement from the Palestinians.
It would be as inappropriate as for EU money to be given to Turkey, which would be spent in Turkish Northern Cyprus.
These points that I have raised give me pause for thought.
I hope I can be reassured on these issues by the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this agreement represents a great opportunity both for Israel and for the European Union.
I would single out two areas in particular: Israel has a world lead in the field of computer security and anti-virus technology.
Israel also points the way in the production of educational software.
Several multinational software houses maintain research and development establishments in Israel.
As a member of both the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I have a strong interest in the link between research and education, training and continuing education.
The particularly favourable position of Israel as regards educational software, which I have referred to, represents an ideal field of cooperation for the European Union.
This sector, which is so important to training and continuing education in the future, more than any other offers a suitable field for combining the aspects of research and education in a very concrete way.
The Task Force on Multimedia and Educational Software, set up by the European Commission, has already taken on a supporting role in relation to possible projects in this field.
Representatives of both the Government and companies in Israel are already taking part in meetings of the Telematics Committee of the European Commission.
Israel is also participating in the preparations for joint projects.
The Task Force is further planning to initiate joint workshops during the current year.
The second field is biotechnology.
In this field too, which is of outstanding importance to Europe, Israel has made great advances.
Europe can only benefit from cooperating in this area with Israel, which is particularly active in fields such as seed production and environmental biology.
I particularly welcome the intention of the rapporteur to bring about regular contacts between the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy of the European Parliament and the Economic Affairs Committee of the Knesset, whose area of concern covers research.
This would provide the means for efficient monitoring of the cooperation and for the evaluation of results with the aid of the European Parliament's Science and Technology Option Assessment (STOA).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I first thank you, and particularly Mr Stockman, for Parliament's hard work on the subject and for backing the Commission proposal.
For the European Union the conclusion of such a scientific and technical cooperation agreement is an important step on the road to increased cooperation with Israel.
In this connection, I should first like to emphasize three particularly important points.
Firstly, this agreement is of benefit to both parties.
As your rapporteur has explained, it will enable European researchers and engineers to strengthen their capabilities and to develop synergies with first-class teams in many areas.
Alongside the opening of the fourth outline research and development programme, it offers the Israelis access to a volume, a potential and results of extremely important research.
Secondly, this agreement represents, as Mr Stockman very rightly also stressed, the first association of a nonEuropean country with research activities in the Union.
As such, it marks all the importance the Union attaches to strengthening its reciprocal ties with Israel, particularly in the field of science and technology.
And to reassure some speakers, I shall add that this agreement relates to non-nuclear research, Mr Holm, and to non-nuclear research only.
The agreement will have considerable industrial and economic spin-offs.
Thirdly, this agreement falls within the framework of the European Union's new policy towards Mediterranean countries.
Allow me to reply to a number of very intelligent questions raised quite rightly by several speakers.
Firstly, as regards the information to be provided about the progress of the negotiations, I am told that the services of the Commission had already been able to brief the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy about the progress of the negotiations with Israel.
Nevertheless, I can make the commitment to you that the Commission will not fail in future to keep Parliament as well informed as possible about the conclusions of future negotiations.
Secondly, concerning the encouragement of Israeli and Palestinian researchers to cooperate in order to participate in invitations to tender, I can say that the Palestinians and the Israelis can already participate jointly in the international programme for scientific and technological cooperation.
This is activity 2 in the fourth Community outline programme and four large areas are therefore open to such cooperation: renewable natural resources, agriculture and the agri-industry, medicine and health, and advanced technologies such as information technology, biotechnology, materials and energy.
The third question concerned the participation of Israel in an evaluation of the fourth outline programme, which will be carried out by independent experts.
As provided for in the agreement, the Commission will be able to call on Israeli experts as on experts from Member States of the European Union.
The scientific and technological cooperation agreement with Israel will have been in force for only a short time when the preparation for the fifth outline programme begins.
It is therefore likely that, at that time, we shall still only have a few results from the cooperation.
Nevertheless, the available results will certainly be taken into consideration, together with those from other cooperation frameworks, for example, activity 2 of the fourth outline research programme.
The fourth question was about relations between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Knesset.
It is not within the province of the Commission's representative to express an opinion on this point.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I can assure you with regard to travelling and management expenses, that the rules to be applied are those normally applicable to Commission officials in all their activities and that there will be no departures from this nor any special treatment.
I can also reassure you by saying that the costs of translation into Hebrew will be an Israeli responsibility.
Concerning the sixth question, the problem of the Occupied Territories: the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and the Golan Heights are not considered to be part of the territory of Israel.
This is the official position of the European Commission and the European Union. It is also that of the Israeli government.
As a result, the scientific and technological cooperation agreement does not apply to these territories.
I think I have replied to all the question raised.
May I say, in conclusion, that, beyond science and technology, the strengthening of cooperation between the Union, Israel and the other non-member Mediterranean countries helps to improve good neighbourly relations between those states.
Such an agreement therefore represents a further step on the path to peace in that part of the world.
Like your rapporteur, I also want to see scientific and technical relationships being developed between the Mediterranean countries themselves.
Only cooperation like this will enable peace efforts to be given lasting and concrete expression.
Mr President, I asked a series of questions of the Commissioner.
He went some way towards reassuring me.
I was not entirely happy with all of his answers, but can I congratulate him at least for doing something that is unusual for some Commissioners - actually trying to deal with the questions rather than read out a prepared speech.
Thank you very much, Mr Ford.
That was not really a point of order but I think that at this time of day - and as we are virtually en famille - we can interpret the Rules loosely.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.35 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, exactly the same thing has happened to me today as happened yesterday when it came to the minutes.
For the second time in succession I have not had a chance to speak.
I wanted to say something about yesterday's minutes. Yesterday, Mr Blak said that we should put an end to the circus.
Even yesterday I wanted to object to the word "circus' .
The item "Approval of the Minutes' was on the agenda, and we had come to that item in the plenary session.
This is a parliamentary right, not a circus!
I wanted to reject this formally, and I would therefore ask that this should be done in future, whenever the approval of the minutes is on the agenda.
Mr President, on a point of order, before we discuss nominations for the Temporary Committee of Inquiry.
At the Florence Summit an agreement was reached between the Commission and the United Kingdom Government on trying to break the impasse created by the United Kingdom Government and its decision of non-cooperation.
As part of that agreement the United Kingdom Government agreed to implement measures to deal with the BSE crisis in the United Kingdom on 1 August.
It now appears that this will not be the case and the earliest possible time it estimates it will be able to do so is October of this year.
If this is the case, does that therefore mean that the whole agreement reached at Florence has been breached and, therefore, no longer applies?
If so, does that mean that the Commission will not provide the additional funding to deal with the problem throughout the European Union? And if that is the case, should your office not write to the Commission and the United Kingdom Government for clarification on the point to help the industry and the farmers who are likely to be affected by the persistent inability of the British Government to deal with this matter?
Mr Thomas, you are not raising a point of order but have made a political statement.
Votes
Mr President, I do not want to talk about the content, but about BSE.
The current debate is about the fact that gelatine is not safe.
And we should like you to tell us...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, there must be a mistake in the information you have been given.
I am against the wording of this amendment and I have personally told Mr Santini.
I understand the value he gives to the amendment but, in the explanatory statement - at the bottom of page 9 - the limits are well explained and I think it would be excessive to introduce it into the text, by a procedure that we think is too farreaching, without its being discussed beforehand in the committee.
Mr President, after an exchange of views with the rapporteur, I should like to withdraw this amendment, which was perhaps badly worded and has become even less clear in translation.
Since, on the other hand, the report is extremely coherent and straightforward, I withdraw the amendment to avoid confusion.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I have given my agreement to Mr Cars' excellent report, although I have serious problems with the Council regulation, because I am bound to say that reconstruction in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is absurd, since nothing has been destroyed there, and large groups of refugees have come only out of Kosovo.
Therefore I believe that there is absolutely no point in giving aid to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, unless it is made conditional upon the autonomy of Kosovo.
This must not merely be attached to the aid in the form of a vague hope: it must be a condition of that aid.
That concludes voting time. .
Support system for producers of certain arable crops
The next item is the report (A4-0236/96) by Mr Gillis, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation derogating from Regulation (EEC) No 1765/92 establishing a support system for producers of certain arable crops as regards the set-aside requirement for the 1997/98 marketing year (COM(96)0285 - C4-0351/96-96/0162(CNS)).
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I propose that Parliament gives its approval to reduce the amount of land that must be set-aside in the cereals sector to 5 % from the current level of 10 %.
Members will be aware that production of cereals in Europe - indeed throughout the main cereal-producing areas of the world - has fallen in recent years, mainly due to adverse weather: severe drought in the southern hemisphere, for example.
In these circumstances maintaining a 10 % set-aside requirement would be wrong.
Prices for cereals are at historically high levels on the world market and this is causing some hardship in poorer countries dependent on imports.
It is worth looking at the possibility of eliminating the set-aside requirement altogether for future years.
But, at the moment, the most prudent course of action is to set the level of set-aside for the next marketing year at 5 %.
I wish to thank the Commission for coming forward with its proposal this year in good time.
In a similar report last year we had requested an early proposal from the Commission and I welcome the fact that Commissioner Fischler was able to respond to our wishes in this regard.
I turn briefly to a specific problem we have in Ireland with the administration of the set-aside regulation.
The application of Article 9 of the set-aside Regulation 1765/92 in our country has resulted in an unforeseen and damaging reduction in the cereal area.
From a very small national base area we have lost production on 50, 000 hectares - 125, 000 acres, to speak in Irish terms - in other words, a 19 % reduction.
The reason for this is quite simple: 50 % of cereals in Ireland are grown on rented land and many owners of rented land withdraw the land from the rental market and use it for other purposes. For example, rotation to grassland, to forestry, to animal production and, indeed, for other forms of development, making it impossible for traditional cereal growers to find alternative eligible land.
Hence the amendment I have tabled in the report.
I want to point out at this stage that this amendment was defeated in the Agriculture Committee.
The reason I am discussing this now is that I feel it was as a result of a misunderstanding and I just wanted to be sure that that misunderstanding was cleared up before we vote on this report.
I want to make it quite clear - and it is important that the House should realize this - that I am not seeking to increase the cereal area above the agreed national and regional base areas already decided in Regulation 1765/92, I merely want to ensure that those farmers growing cereals on rented land be allowed to continue in business within that agreed base area.
I am sure you will agree that, because of the very necessary employment involved and considering the dire shortage in the European Union and, indeed, in the world at large of stocks of grain, this proposed set-aside reduction to 5 % is very desirable.
This also is a very desirable amendment to that proposal.
I would ask the House to accept this proposal and, indeed, to accept that amendment as well.
Mr President, may I take the Gillis report on set-aside as an opportunity, to point something out to you, ladies and gentlemen, to the Commission, and above all to the Council. In 1993, the Council and the Commission increased the base area in the new Länder of the Federal Republic of Germany, in the long term by 180, 000 hectares and temporarily by 150, 000 hectares.
This had been preceded by a spectacular abortive development in the processing industry, and enormous areas of arable, fodder and potato land became grandes cultures .
In spite of this 1993 decision, by the time the 1994 harvest came round, even the increased base area had already been clearly exceeded again.
In 1996 it is likely to be exceeded again.
This process will worsen if, as planned, from 1997 onwards this temporary 150, 000 ha of base area has to be given back in four stages.
Since today there are already about 160, 000 ha missing in the territory of the new Länder, this missing base area would be increased to over 300, 000 ha, and that would be approximately equivalent to an 8 % risk of sanctions.
That is intolerable.
This kind of excess cannot be observed in any other Member State of the European Union, but then no other Member State was experiencing such a fundamental restructuring process at the time when the base areas were defined.
For that reason it was only possible to make forecasts about developments in agriculture in the new Länder.
Now it has been shown that some of these forecasts do not correspond to what has actually happened.
In view of this situation, any dismantling of the base area temporarily allocated cannot be justified at the present time, especially when this would lead to considerable displeasure and lack of understanding among the farmers affected by it.
Therefore, against the background of the debate about a further lowering of the set-aside rate to 5 % from now on, I should once again like to draw attention to the amendment that I proposed at the time of the Gillis report, at the November 1995 part-session, in which I asked for the suspension of the dismantling of the base-area allocated to the new Länder at a level of 150, 000 ha, for a specific period of two years.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Gillis, who has done everything in his power to write this report in a few days.
That has enabled the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to respond favourably to the Council's request for urgency.
However, Commissioner, we know that we always have a number of deadlines: for the budget, the price package, the set-aside rate, etc.
This is how it is, and the Commission services must take into account the time which Parliament's work requires.
We needed at least two months to do this work with the required care, even at maximum speed.
We should therefore thank our colleague, Mr Gillis, who has managed to produce the report in the shortest possible time.
May I also thank you in advance, Commissioner, since I know that you will convey our request to your services.
As regards the actual subject, the Commission proposes fixing the compulsory set-aside rate at 5 %.
This is of course the minimum rate for farmers, who can always voluntarily set aside up to 30 %.
So, Commissioner, I urge you to reduce this rate to 0 %.
Farmers wishing to set aside 30 % can always do so voluntarily.
Why this proposal?
Firstly, the situation as regards European grain stocks and the world market: the particularly adverse weather conditions for two years in southern regions have reduced European production; the economic difficulties in Russia and the very substantial increase in Chinese consumption have put pressure on the world market and therefore on world prices; in Europe, you have been forced to introduce export taxes from December 1995; the dramatic fall in beef consumption as a result of the BSE problem has increased demand for poultry meat and pigmeat, whose production consumes large quantities of cereals; and, lastly, the compulsory set-aside rate of 0 % would also result in a small reduction in Community expenditure and would thus make possible a small increase in the compensation to beef producers.
Commissioner, the zero rate should not be rejected for administrative reasons when our budget has to be slanted towards stockbreeders without penalizing European producers of arable crops and consequently the whole of farm and food production.
To my colleagues who are concerned about biomass fuels, I would like to say that there will be enough voluntary set-aside to cover all our current requirements!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we do not agree with this report and with the direction proposed by the Commission.
Cereal stocks in the EU have been reduced.
That was the aim of the Commission's policy, or at least that is what it said at the time.
Now we have reduced the cereal stocks.
Prices on the world market have recovered, because the EU, amongst others, is not acting so aggressively in the market, and also because there is greater demand.
Now the area of cereal-growing land in the EU is to be expanded.
Production will increase by 8.5 million tonnes.
That means that the surplus situation will once again worsen.
As the Commission says, 38 million tonnes are to be taken into storage and will be available for export, but not at the prices that can be obtained on the world market, but at prices more redolent of the old familiar dumping system.
It is also clear that this reduction from 10 % to 5 % - as calculated by the Committee on Budgets - will cost 17 million in the first year, 50 million in 1996/97 and a further 30 million in 1997/98.
In other words, tax-payers' money will be used to bring cereals onto the world market, cereals which are not necessary and which do not need to be grown.
If, in spite of all this, we agree to the report anyway, it is because we have succeeded in inserting an amendment to the effect that pulses, i.e. fodder, can be grown on set-aside land, and that this fodder can also be used by farmers to feed their own livestock.
The bigger groups have made it clear that they will approve the report.
That makes it possible for us to approve this resolution and this report because, within the framework of the 30 % voluntary set-aside rate, fodder can still be grown.
We now hope that the Commission will take this on board, and that in future we shall be able to grow fodder on this land.
After all, fodder is in short supply in the EU, and it should be grown in a way that makes crop rotation more ecologically acceptable, by increasing the soil's nitrogen content by growing pulses and clover/grass leys, thereby reducing the use of chemical fertilizers.
In this case, we shall approve the resolution with a somewhat guilty conscience, and afterwards we shall ask the Commission, before the vote, whether it is prepared to accept our resolution. I hope that it will do so!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the set-aside principle established by Regulation in 1992, was designed as a flexible instrument for regulating the markets.
Entirely logically, it recommends a possible revision of the set-aside rate in line with trends in market production and grain stocks.
The Commission proposal submitted to us today, with a set-aside rate of 5 %, comes into the picture because of very low stocks and world prices which are still holding up.
Although the proposal is along the right lines, it does not go far enough.
This system, even if it is effective in limiting over-production, is still absurd in the eyes of most consumers and farmers and we, the elected Members representing them, should take account of the legitimate concerns of our fellow citizens.
In concrete terms, set-aside is creating untilled land all over the European Union and the socio-psychological impact of this is becoming a total disaster for farmers, who wish neither to be paid for doing nothing nor to contemplate their land lying fallow.
From this point of view, the CAP is looked upon as wrong-headed and is criticised unfairly in the light of the advances it has made possible.
The fact that the volume of production has been so successfully controlled does not mean that it can no longer run into problems and therefore be modified.
Furthermore, this system acts as a brake on policies for protecting the rural environment and on policies for improving the quality of produce since, globally, with set-aside, environmental pollution increases proportionally to increases in the output from the fields still under cultivation.
In addition, the system is still adding to the difficulties of small farmers and is thus contributing to the drift from the land, particularly in southern Europe.
All this is not really directed towards reform of the CAP for, although it recommends an increase in the competitiveness of European agriculture at world level and the adjustment of the potential production to market demands, it does not really ensure protection of the environment and the development of underprivileged rural areas.
We must therefore resolutely direct our efforts towards plans for the lasting development of farms centred around the maintenance of the agricultural workforce, a vital element of the rural world and of regional development.
This means farmers' families living on profitable farms in a well populated and active rural environment.
It means a very limited and more flexible set-aside of cultivated land in order to adapt to market conditions, to restore the balance between export capacity and farmers' incomes, and not to interfere with the emergence of new agricultural products which are not being over-produced.
It means a policy of quotas based mainly on limiting yields per hectare to improve the quality of the produce and on limiting the total available aid per agricultural worker so that concentration of agricultural land and intensive production are no longer encouraged.
It means sensible environmental measures, encouraged by new and sufficiently incentivising Community aid which, in practice, have the effect of protecting the rural landscape, the soils and the farmed land.
It means, lastly, human thought for the relationship between the farmer, his work and his environment.
You will understand, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that it is in order to show our disapproval of the present set-aside system that, on behalf of my Group of the European Radical Alliance, I have tabled an amendment to 0 %, which would abolish the compulsory set-aside of 5 % of arable land and replace it by a flexible system for producing biomass for fuel and crops intended solely for animal feed, related more closely to environmental constraints. This new system, replacing the unproductive system of set-aside, would give European agriculture the durable quality it still lacks, namely: the ability to produce at a lower cost so as to increase long-term productive capacity.
We can therefore no longer support such a conservative system, that is blocking all progress towards a really durable agriculture.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like at this point to thank Mr Gillis, our rapporteur, for the speed with which he has written his report so that we can accept the urgency required by the Council, and can do so after having adopted his report in committee.
Like many of my colleagues, Commissioner, I should like you to ask your services to take due account of the time required by Parliament to do its work under the best conditions.
I venture to indicate this to you, because the proposal for a regulation that we are now examining is an annual event since it aims to adapt the set-aside rate to the level of our grain stocks and to the trends in consumption.
Our group has tabled an amendment proposing a zero compulsory set-aside rate for land.
Before explaining the reasons for this amendment, may I say that this zero rate does not call into question the principle of a voluntary set-aside that may go up to 30 %.
The justification for our amendment is simple.
First, world stocks of cereals are very low with only 42 days of world consumption remaining and, in Europe, with Mediterranean countries having experienced two years of exceptional drought, production is very low.
You have even been forced, Commissioner, to introduce an export tax on European cereals as from the end of last year.
This reveals the limitations of the very principle of set-aside for, at the same time as we are forcing all farmers to set aside part of their productive land, we are destabilizing the basic principle of secure world supplies of food.
We can understand a principle of voluntary set-aside in order to compensate for agronomic differentials of arable land in Europe, but the principle of compulsory set-aside should be abandoned.
All economists, including American ones, anticipate a very significant increase in Chinese cereal imports while, looking more at the state of their economies, the difficulties of Russia and Ukraine mean that these countries are far from being able to achieve their potential levels of production.
My last point concerns consumption trends: with the fall in beef consumption as a result of the BSE problem consumption is being transferred to pigmeat and poultry meat.
These two types of produce, may I remind you, consume great quantities of cereals.
Finally, Mr President, may I finish by saying to you that the European Union should have a policy which respects the rural fabric, a balancing element indispensable to our European society, and which at the same times preserves the predominant position of European agriculture in the world.
Mr President, in politics, we have to learn to wait... for years, we have been asking here for a zero rate and everybody thought we had eaten too much British-made animal feed!
The outcome has shown that we were right.
We are therefore happy to have nearly two million hectares extra and to have nearly eight million tonnes of additional production, hoping that it is not too late: will the market share lost to the Middle East or North Africa be recovered?
What is important now is to learn lessons from this so that we do not make the same mistakes again.
First lesson: the stubbornness of the Commission.
It does not want to take into account the explosion in world prices, the speculation on the Chicago stock exchange, or the pension funds playing around with cereals.
It does not want to know about the collapse of stocks.
It does not want to take into account climatic factors.
After all, everybody knows that there was an El Niño effect in the Pacific which caused both droughts and torrential rain and which, over North America and even over South America, brought about large variations in production.
Second lesson: the statistical error of the Commission.
It was mistaken about structural factors (Mr des Places spoke about these): the Chinese population figures, the rise in the Chinese standard of living, the climatic factor that I have already mentioned, the political factor in the collapse of the USSR, all of which mean that cereal consumption can only increase in the long term.
And anybody who has made mistakes will make more!
Have you not made the same mistakes over wine production? This time there is no possibility of correcting them, because when vines are uprooted they are uprooted!
The third and last lesson is the philosophical one of your reactions: when confronting a problem, your reaction is still the restricted outlook, Malthusianism, quotas, reduction in working hours and with Mr Rocard, set-aside.
Basically, as the market expands at world level, you contract mentally.
Your anthropology has a little of LeviStrauss in it: for him, it was the raw and the cooked, for you it is the open and shut!
Mr President, first of all let me say that we very much welcome the fact that this report has come forward at this time of the year - in previous years we have been scrabbling around on Friday mornings in October or November to try and set a set-aside rate.
That is to be welcomed and it will enable our farmers to plan.
I would like to thank Mr Gillis for his report.
He always makes it seem amazingly simple.
We appreciate that very much and thank him for his work.
Set-aside is not a popular tool of agricultural policy.
One of the problems with it is that it is actually visible.
But where you have a system of quotas and where you have a system of subsidies, you need to be able to put a brake on production.
So we have a brake on production called set-aside.
Personally I would prefer to see a nought percent set-aside.
I will take the advice of the Commission on this occasion, but I hope that we get it right.
I certainly would be very concerned if, later next year, we had a very serious grain shortage.
I would like to speak on one point in Mr Gillis' report: his amendment concerning the Irish situation.
We have discussed this quite thoroughly in the Socialist Group and our understanding is that the Irish Government and any other Member State government already has the power under existing legislation to make the changes that Mr Gillis wants.
Perhaps the Commission would be able to enlighten us at the end of this debate because it would help guide the way in which we would vote.
Can I make one point about the Greens' amendment?
We think this is a good amendment because it gets right to the point.
A friend of mine who is a psychiatrist made the remark that it must be very frustrating for farmers who are denied now, particularly if they are in the pig and poultry area, the opportunity to grow their own food, additional food which they desperately need now that they are unable to have access to bone-meal which has traditionally been part of poultry and pig diets for many years.
In my view, this amendment from the Greens goes some way to meeting that.
I would ask that we vote for this now.
I hope that we make progress and I look forward, like everybody else in this Parliament, to the day when set-aside will be a thing of the past.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament and the Council have decided on a uniform set-aside rate of 10 % for the 1995/96 crop year.
This rate also applies from now on to long-term fallow. Now there is some discussion about cutting this rate to 5 %, because world cereal stocks have gone down and the prices of maize and wheat have risen, and I think that we need cereals.
At the same time, I welcome the fact that the proposal has been made earlier than on previous occasions, because farmers need this information in order to draw up their crop plans, which they have to do very soon.
For this reason, it is particularly important to have the information in July, so than they can plan in good time.
Set-aside has proved its worth as a means of doing away with market surpluses and restoring market equilibrium.
I too am not in favour of high set-aside rates, but I am in favour - and I am addressing our French colleagues here - of our using this land to grow renewable raw materials.
In Germany we now grow almost 5 % of renewable raw materials.
Nature offers us a wide range of substances that can be used for many different purposes: carbohydrates, oils, fats, proteins, fibres, dyestuffs, and certain ingredients needed by industry.
I also foresee good opportunities for biodegradable and recyclable materials for packaging and for internal parts of vehicles, and in agriculture for the combustion of solid biomass for heating and power generation.
But we should also not forget the use of set-aside land to grow clover/grass leys, with the proviso that the farmer would be obliged to use these to feed his own livestock.
Finally, the positive environmental aspects of renewable raw materials, such as carbon-dioxide neutrality and biodegradability, should be counted as advantages.
I am therefore not in favour of set-aside in itself, but I am in favour of farmers producing raw materials that industry will be able to use in future, because we shall very soon have enough cereals again, and I can tell you that with absolute certainty!
Mr President, like my colleague, Mr Hallam, I should to thank Mr Gillis for his report and welcome the fact that we are making this decision on the level of set-aside for certain crops well in advance.
One of the great complaints from our farmers has been that in the past they have not been given sufficient time to make sensible decisions.
I also welcome the amendment to allow increased production of crops for animal feed so that we can get away from the unnatural practice of feeding ruminant animals on animal remains.
I think it is right to reduce set-aside from 10 % to 5 % in certain areas, and hope this will be extended soon to other producers of crops which are subject to growing world shortages.
This should include financial encouragement to use both land already in use and the additional land in an environmentally friendly way with reduced inputs and encouragement for woodlands where appropriate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Gillis, for his report and the speed and efficiency with which he completed his work.
I would also like to thank the European Parliament for giving priority to this Commission proposal.
Since Parliament is expressing its opinion, the Council will be in a position to publish the regulations.
Thanks to this, farmers will be better able to plan their work, since they will be fully aware of their obligations, so far as temporary set-aside of land for the year 1997-1998 is concerned.
It is still too early to estimate the harvest of cereals for 1996, either at Community or at world-wide level.
At any rate, the Commission considers that the state of the market, which is characterised by an unprecedented low level of stocks, enables it to submit from now its proposal for an appreciable reduction of the compulsory quota, in parallel avoiding the risk of accumulating stocks to the level they had reached before the reform.
The Commission considers that if the quota is set at 5 % for the 1997 harvest, this will achieve a balance between on the one hand the forecast level of production, and on the other hand the possibilities for disposing of cereals.
Besides, the Commission considers that in parallel this will make it possible to build up stocks again to an acceptable level.
If we went any further, or if we set the quota at zero, the risk of building up stocks too far would become excessive, and in this I refer to Amendments Nos 2 and 5.
In addition, to set the proportion of temporary setaside provisionally at zero would have severe consequences for the long-term viability of the existing situation relating to agricultural products not intended as food products and related directly to compulsory temporary setaside.
That situation could not be put right by any system of special support, because it would conflict with our international obligations.
As for Amendment No 1, which aims to suspend the implementation of exceptional temporary set-aside, the Commission can accept the idea of refraining temporarily from that kind of temporary set-aside as a means to control production.
As for the request to make the application of Article 9 of Regulation 1765/92 optional in relation to the selection of land, the Commission regrets that it cannot agree.
Indeed, if we were to accept Amendment No 3, we would call into question one of the basic aspects of the 1992 reform.
As for Amendment No 4, which envisages permitting the production of protein-containing products for selfconsumption in areas subject to temporary set-aside, the Commission again cannot agree.
And this, because it would call into question the very purpose of temporary set-aside for arable land, an aim based mainly on the adaptation of supply and demand for arable crops.
Mr President, before the vote on the legislative resolution I should like to ask the Commission once again whether it is prepared to accept Amendment No 4, after this House, by a large majority and with the agreement of almost every group, has accepted Amendment No 4.
For me, the grounds that you have just read out - but perhaps I am asking too much of you, because it is not your field - are not valid, because fodder is being grown on this land anyway, particularly since we are talking about the cultivation of renewable raw materials where the subsequent products can be used as animal feed.
Therefore the Commission's arguments do not hold water.
And therefore I should like to ask you once again, before we vote, whether you will now accept this amendment.
It seems to me, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, that the Commissioner has already expressed his opinion; however, I invite him to speak again.
Mr President, what I can assure the honourable Member is that in future, the Commission will give careful consideration to the issue he mentioned and which Parliament has just adopted.
However, what we cannot do at this time is to adopt that amendment.
And this, because as I said earlier, it would call into doubt the very purpose of temporary set-aside for arable land, an aim based mainly on the adaptation of supply and demand for arable crops.
For that reason, the Commission cannot accept this amendment now.
However, we take note of Parliament's wish and I can of course promise that my colleague Mr Fischler and the appropriate services of the Commission will examine the matter presently, with all the goodwill for which the Commission is noted in its cooperation with Parliament.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my pleasure in knowing that at least we have now approved Amendment No 4 in Parliament, to the effect that the ecologically acceptable cultivation of fodder, which is essentially what is intended, is now possible on set-aside land.
I should like to explain, however, why our group did not refer the amendment back to committee after the Commission did not accept it.
We are of the opinion that Parliament has always tried to give farmers information about the set-aside rate in good time for sowing.
This time it has succeeded.
Therefore we do not want to cause a delay now, although we are of the opinion that it is necessary for this amendment, introduced by us, to be adopted.
I now have confidence in the Commissioner's word, that he will ask his colleagues to examine it.
When the next round of amendments is due, which will be soon, we shall propose our amendment again, and then, if you say that you will not accept it, it will be time for the gloves to come off.
We are confident that the Commission will accept this amendment.
Therefore we have let it go this time, quite apart from the fact that it is also doubtful whether we would have obtained a majority for our amendment.
Unit of account and conversion rates
The next item is the report (A4-0192/96) by Mr Jacob, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 3813/92 on the unit of account and the conversion rates to be applied for the purposes of the common agricultural policy (COM(96)0040 - C4-0155/96-96/0037(CNS)).
Mr President, I shall be very brief since there are, I believe, only two amendments to this report.
I should simply like to recall, as a preamble, that since the GATT agreements, as all Members are aware, Community preference has been widely flouted and has fallen very much behind through the abolition of variable duties, converted into fixed duties.
The only two elements of Community preference that really remain are the policy of standardization, with its well-known imperfections (particularly the UN standards which are increasingly in evidence rather than Community standards), and the monetary lever.
We are keen on this monetary lever and I am personally keen on keeping the agricultural conversion rate.
We have in fact two conversion rates, which involve administrative difficulties for the Commission.
I understand this very well since it is true that for certain products one conversion rate will be used rather than another, depending on the way they are classified.
The agricultural conversion rate, being greater by 5 %, provides better protection for the market and the Commission's proposal, which I largely support, is to use a single rate.
In simple terms, what I should like personally is for the agricultural conversion rate to be used rather than the other one, because it protects the market better.
I confess to being surprised that the Commission has chosen to use the normal customs rate as the single rate since it provides less protection for our market, when we know very well that currency fluctuations produce very great instability in the market.
Look at what is happening in the USA with the dollar.
Between one dollar to 5 francs and one dollar to 10 francs, we can clearly see how far the penetration of our market by our competitors can go.
Thus, the first of the two tabled amendments has the unanimous support of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the executive Commission since it aims to use a single rate.
The second amendment, for which there was no majority in the Committee on Agriculture, aims to use the agricultural conversion rate as the single conversion rate rather than the customs rate.
Mr President, what we are discussing here is one of the subjects I believe our citizens use as a yardstick to measure our ability to adapt and apply purely economic rules to the practicalities of everyday life.
I would, therefore, like to congratulate my colleague, Mr Jacob, on the skill with which he has managed the intricacies of this debate; but, since he is not listening to me, I shall congratulate him personally, in private.
So far, we have been told that, in accordance with a temporary rule that was in force until 30 June of this year, two rates have applied: a monthly customs rate, on the basis of which annual rates have been applied, and the annual rates themselves, which certainly do not reflect the constant exchange-rate fluctuations.
Now, instead, we are going to apply agricultural rates to a whole range of imports that can, by and large, be linked to the instruments based on Article 43 of the Treaty, that is, to the common agricultural policy.
Since they do not work well together, these two conversion rates have given rise to much uncertainty as regards their application, which has led the Commission to draft a proposal to amend the basic agri-monetary regulation to eliminate the disadvantages of this dual conversion system, and so give taxpayers something they can understand, and to do away with both economic inconsistencies and complicated legislative procedures.
The proposed new system provides for application of the monthly customs rate to all imports of agricultural products.
The Commission itself thinks that the application of its proposals would mean a very small reduction in Community preferences.
Many Council delegations do not approve of a reduction in Community preferences and have called for consideration of the possibility of universal application of the green rate.
This could lead to both political and legal problems, because universal application of the agricultural rate to all imports of agricultural products could, in turn, involve the risk that the Union's trading partners would demand new negotiations on account of border protection.
Which means the debate would start all over again.
Mr President, the report we are dealing with on the proposal for a regulation on the unit of account and conversion rates applicable in the framework of the Common Agricultural Policy simplifies a situation that had introduced serious complications.
Not that complicated situations are infrequent in the context of regulations concerning the CAP and, therefore, any simplification is to be welcomed, but I shall explain later on in what this simplification consists.
The current situation produces economic incoherences and generates administrative complexity that leads to errors and creates situations that are not always legally very clear.
From that point of view the Commission's proposal presents certain advantages through the simplification that it introduces.
First of all, it would facilitate a situation that would be legally surer and the risks of dispute would be reduced.
Furthermore, monetary fluctuations would also be reduced and experience shows that those fluctuations, with the system of monthly customs rates, are only significant for those Member States which are not in the EMS.
Moreover, administrative complexity will be reduced and that will facilitate the management of small and medium-sized undertakings.
As a consequence the system will be more transparent.
A combination of legal uncertainty and complexity had led to many mistakes and, therefore, increased economic costs.
However, the Commission proposal presents a problem which comes from confusing farming conversion rates with the monthly customs rate and, since the latter tends to be lower than the farming conversion rate, the Commission proposal will bring about a reduction in frontier protection and, thereby, Community preference.
However, two questions have to be borne in mind: on one hand, that the system proposed has a general scope for all farm products.
However, there are farm imports which are insignificant for the European Union and therefore the most important ones are concentrated in a restricted group of crops, which poses problems for that group of products.
However, it would be naive to think that this proposal can worsen still further the already deteriorated European Community preference.
The real problem lies in the signing of preferential agreements with third countries by the European Union.
The reality is that most farm products, those where imports are considerable, enjoy a preferential share that puts heavy limits on this factor.
Community preference is being deteriorated and I should like to recall that this is a basic principle of the CAP.
Yet the problem does not lie only in conversion rates but also in the signing of preferential agreements.
The genuine problem, from this point of view, is that farming is bearing a considerable share of the cost of the European Union's foreign policy, and this situation is all the more serious in the case of fruit and vegetables, products from the region of Murcia - from where I come; these crops are most affected by the conclusion of preferential agreements and this has knock-on effects, which are worse in the case of Mediterranean farming areas.
In the Commission proposal there are some scandalous aspects.
It is scandalous that the Commission, in its proposal to reform the COM on fruit and vegetables, should have proposed a market management financed in part by the farmers themselves, when imports definitely are to blame for the hold-ups occurring in those markets.
That is why I think that this type of problem must be borne in mind.
The simplification of farming regulations is desirable when it is a genuine simplification and here, Mr President, this is a simplification.
That is not the case of the ideas communicated by the Commission for the simplification of the CAP, translated in practice into the dismantling, re-nationalization and experimentation with policies of dubious effectiveness and that have never yet been tried out.
Mr President, we should now be trying to defend Community preference or prevent the disappearance of the CAP.
In this particular case, I think that changing the conversion rates will simplify matters and offer transparency while the negative effects will be very small.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the subject we are dealing with today is particularly difficult because it is technical and that is why it was entrusted to a distinguished rapporteur in the person of Mr Jacob.
I have much sympathy for his arguments and more particularly for those relating to administrative simplification: the coexistence of two conversion rates, in this case the customs rate and the agricultural conversion rate, poses problems for importing companies in its application.
This is the sense of Amendment No 1 which our group has tabled and which I hope will be adopted by Parliament, since it has the advantage of completing the wording of the second recital in the Proposal for a Regulation.
But, Commissioner, why choose to abolish the ACR in favour of the customs rate? On this point, I do not understand you.
After all, the difference between the rates is 5 %: why, therefore, choose the rate most unfavourable to European Union agriculture?
Once again, we are choosing the solution which reduces the advantage of Community preference.
The Commission is the only organization worldwide which systematically favours imports from non-member countries.
Amendment No 2 proposed by our group seeks to alter the choice of the rate.
We say 'yes' to the agricultural conversion rate and 'no' to the customs rate.
To put it plainly, we wish to favour the principle of preference.
Many of my colleagues here present are members of the Committee on Agriculture.
They very often talk about Community preference, but I believe that when it comes to voting they put the Commission before the interests of farmers.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, my group asks you to adopt our Amendment No 2 in order to show our farmers at least this once that the European Parliament wishes to protect them.
May I remind you that agriculture and the rural world as a whole are a vital balancing element in our European society.
Mr President, here, we are of course all in favour of administrative simplification for all economic operators, but administrative simplification should not be used as an alibi for deliberately weakening the principle of Community preference still further.
In the present system, there are two rates for calculating import duties on agricultural products: the customs rate and the agricultural conversion rate.
It seems to me logical to want a single rate, but why choose the customs rate which, by its very structure, is significantly different from the agricultural conversion rate?
I shall therefore support the two amendments which have been tabled, since they seek the same administrative simplification as the Commission's proposal, but still preserve the principle of Community preference and equity between Member States.
Finally, Mr President, may I say that the Commission's proposal is a serious precedent harmful to the European agri-monetary arrangements.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and the rapporteur Mr Jacob on their support for the Commission's proposal.
In the exceptionally complicated sector of agricultural finance, it is seldom possible to simplify matters without affecting important interests.
This is certainly true of the present situation, which proposes a significant administrative simplification and eliminates an erroneous economic practice.
This concerns the use of a single conversion rate for the conversion to national currencies of all expenses relating to the import of agricultural products, which are expressed in ECU.
In that way, the present dual system, in which expenditure is converted on the basis of one or other of the conversion rates, will be abolished.
Though this would lead on average to a very slight reduction of certain duties in terms of the national currency, the cost of the measure would be insignificant in relation to the fluctuations caused by the markets, which influence own resources of agricultural origin.
From the standpoint of Community preference, this measure has no practical consequences, granted that its minimal effect cannot influence decisions on whether or not to bring in imports.
Finally, the solution proposed by the Commission involves no difficulties either at legal or international level.
So we now have an opportunity which must not be missed, for an administrative simplification that business men are waiting for and which does not affect Community interests.
Besides, we must not forget that this simplification will avoid many errors and much litigation.
There is always the question why agricultural conversion coefficients are not used more generally in place of customs duties.
Such a solution, however, would bring no advantage for the Union, since the use of one or another conversion coefficient does not influence Community preference; on the contrary, it could be regarded as provocative by our trading partners and create unnecessary difficulties with third countries.
Mr President, I am sorry to say that the amendments tabled cannot be accepted by the Commission.
The first, because it eliminates the motive for which it was proposed, without in any case affecting the present proposal, and the second because it restores the present system and so deprives the Commission's proposal of any effect.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Supplementary premium to sheep producers in Ireland and UK
The next item is the report (A4-0209/96) by Mr Gillis, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation fixing a supplementary premium payable to sheep producers in non less-favoured areas of Ireland and the United Kingdom in respect of Northern Ireland (COM(96)0152 - C4-0315/96-96/0102(CNS)).
Mr President, I would like to say a word of thanks to everybody for the report on setaside, I think we dealt with it very speedily.
This being Friday morning and everybody wishing to start the long journey home I would hope that we could dispense with this one quite quickly as well, it is a very short report.
In the spring of 1995, there was a complete collapse of the sheep market in Ireland.
Prices collapsed totally; producers suffered a severe price drop, especially for their early lambs.
These producers are a very necessary part of sheepmeat marketing, as their lambs are produced and brought to market out of the main season, thus producing a continuous supply of quality product all the year round.
This eliminates seasonality, it eliminates the need for storage and in fact it is based on a natural form of production.
These lambs are usually born out of season during November, December and January and for this reason they are very costly to produce.
They require cereal feeding and they require housing.
The proposal before you seeks to provide a supplementary premium of ECU 6.5 per ewe in the lowlands. That is in the non-disadvantaged area.
Mr President, I think when you were introducing you said in the less-favoured areas, it is actually in the non-less-favoured areas and it applies for one year only, that is for the 1995 spring.
It will affect approximately 10, 000 sheep farmers in both southern and northern Ireland and will alleviate some of the losses incurred in 1995.
It is hoped that this measure will encourage farmers to continue with this type of lamb production and it should encourage them to continue supplying a valuable market on an all-year-round basis.
This is something we have being trying to stimulate right across Europe for a very long time, to remove the seasonality.
It is very important that Parliament gives its approval as quickly as possible, so that that money can be paid to these farmers without delay to encourage them to continue within this production.
Otherwise they will slip back to a cheaper form of production and we will lose those valuable markets.
Mr President, I want to express my appreciation of the way the Commission brought this proposal forward.
It is an exceptional measure for Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Farmers and sheep farmers in Ireland have always made the point that the sheepmeat regime does not create common conditions throughout the European Union.
We fix the guide price and then base compensation on the average market price.
But the Community is a big place and Ireland is an island and far away from its main markets.
Therefore, the price in Ireland can often be very different from that in the rest of the European Union.
That is what happened in this case.
Sometimes the sheepmeat regime is severely criticized because of the cost per kilo of meat produced. But to look at it that way is to misunderstand the policy.
There are 70, 000 sheepmeat producers in the European Union and 80 % of them live in disadvantaged areas.
It means that in those areas there is very little else that they can do.
Their only alternative would be calves from suckling cowherds.
If you look at the stocking rate you will find that if you replace the four or five ewes with one cow - which is the equivalent stocking rate - it will be more expensive to stock this land with cows and you will be producing a product of which there is a one-and-ahalf million tonne surplus.
So, the sheepmeat policy is a very good one.
It supports difficult areas both in the south and north of the Community. At the same time, it contributes to a reduction in the amount of beef produced.
I congratulate the Commission on its flexibility in coming forward with this.
It does not add to production in any way and it is a relatively small amount of money.
It shows that big as the European Union is, we have institutions that are capable of dealing with the problems which arise from day-to-day.
That gives confidence to people, particularly in the peripheral areas.
Mr President, I should like to join with my other Irish colleagues in acknowledging the Commission response in helping to alleviate what was a very serious problem for Irish early lamb producers.
If we are to maximize the full potential of Europe's agricultural resources, we must add value to the greatest possible extent to the indigenous resources of rural areas.
Nowhere has this opportunity been more ignored than in the processing of wool.
There are almost 100 million sheep in the Europe and yet we do not have a sustainable EU wool sector.
Ireland is the fifth largest producer of sheepmeat and wool.
Yet we export all that wool unprocessed.
Why should we in Europe hand over this opportunity and this potential to New Zealand and Australia. The wool sector report, which was recently approved by Parliament, puts forward reasonable and achievable proposals for a structured and cost effective programme to develop the EU wool sector and Parliament must bring pressure to bear on the Commission to bring forward its proposals at an early date for the establishment of that sustainable wool sector within the European Community.
Mr President, the green fields of Ireland made a great impression on this Finnish Member when I visited Cork and its surrounding countryside a little while ago.
I understood how important agriculture and sheepmeat production are to the Irish and to Irish agriculture.
I also agree with the rapporteur, Mr Gillis and the Agriculture Committee fully that a disaster which affected sheep-rearers as a result of a sudden drop in prices should be compensated responsibly.
In any case the continuation of traditional production is in the balance, and it is at any rate hard for me to imagine Ireland without an important sheepmeat sector.
The situation in Ireland and Mr Gillis's report demand a comparison of sheepmeat production in the various peripheral regions of the European Union and in particular the Union's less favoured regions.
It is rather difficult to understand the Council's line on sheepmeat production.
While it justifiably considers additional support to sheepmeat production in Ireland, its policy seems to lead to a collapse in sheepmeat production and clearly to its abandonment in Finland.
Finland has not hitherto been self-sufficient in sheepmeat, but now in addition to the collapse in profitability, wool is now only being accepted if it is given away.
It is clear that if sheep-rearing is to continue in Finland urgent special measures are needed.
Unfortunately, sheep rearing is only one example of the unfair approach of the common agricultural policy to the most northerly regions of the Union, north of Stockholm and Helsinki.
In southern Finland there is a danger that farmers in what have traditionally been among the EU's most purely agricultural areas will have to give up production because it has become unprofitable.
Normal support for production is unfair in northern regions because the harvest level is always lower there.
Mr President, I therefore look to the Agriculture Committee to treat the Member States logically, since there are particularly serious difficulties affecting their agriculture, as has now happened in Ireland and similarly also in Finland.
How is it possible that the committee has not noticed that Finnish farm incomes fell last year, in the first year of EU membership, by over 25 % on average, on some farms as much as 40 % and in wheat, egg and pigment production even more than that?
In spring 1994 the European Parliament ratified the accession treaty between the European Union and the Finnish Republic.
In Article 141 of that Treaty it is laid down that compensatory support may be paid to agriculture in southern Finland in accordance with its special conditions where serious difficulties are noted.
Should not the European Parliament, since it ratified the membership treaty, ensure that the letter and the spirit of the treaty are not trampled under foot? I look to the Agriculture Committee to support the Finnish smallholders as energetically as it is now supporting the Irish sheep rearers.
Mr President, Mr Gillis, when it is a question of the farmers of Europe receiving support, then you have me on your side, even if, as in the present case, they are Irish sheep farmers.
However, I do not think that this type of support is the right way of going about it.
We shall therefore abstain from voting on the regulation.
What you are proposing is not forward-looking.
We have just been told that by our Finnish colleague.
When there are subsidies on one side, and when the market prices collapse, then that means that there is a chance for these sheep farmers to continue to exist, after a fashion, even when market prices are low, while other farmers, who do not receive support, then get into serious difficulties.
In addition, you have not proposed any system of staggering, such as the one that applies to less-favoured areas.
This means that if you pay a premium per sheep, then that premium will most probably not go to the farmer, because the dealers will include the premium in their calculations and will put even more pressure on prices, which again will result in difficulties for Finnish farmers and sheep farmers.
A further point concerns the assertion that the value of sheepmeat will be enhanced.
The value of sheepmeat will not be enhanced by EU premiums, by public money.
All that this can do is to make up for a loss.
The value of sheepmeat is enhanced by its having a value in the market, by Irish sheepmeat's having a reputation in Europe.
Consumers are prepared to pay for that.
We are going in the wrong direction if we think that we would be able to stabilize the market this way, by pumping public money into it.
This is the wrong direction, and it has nothing to do with quality.
Nevertheless, I do not begrudge the Irish sheep farmers the money that is now being paid to them by the EU.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and the rapporteur Mr Gillis, as well as the Committee on Budgets and the rapporteur Mr Gallagher for their cooperation.
The issue we are debating today relates to the unfortunate situation of the sheepmeat market throughout Ireland during the critical period at the end of Spring, 1995.
The production of sheepmeat in Ireland is seasonal.
Its productivity at the end of Spring depends on good market prices, given that the cost of animal feed tends to be very high at that time of year.
In the spring of 1995 a combination of factors, including a much greater availability than usual in Northern Europe, led to low market prices all over Ireland.
Although the Commission reacted by activating a number of support measures for the formation of private stores, the markets recovered very slowly.
In fact, the Council expressed its concern about sheepmeat prices in Ireland, in the context of the bundle of measures concerning 1995 prices.
Later, in December 1995, it announced that it was ready to decide on a Commission proposal to grant supplementary premiums, which would be strictly limited to the marketing period 1995, in full awareness of the economic consequences for the producers involved in Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The present proposal is a response to the Council's concern and its readiness for action.
It proposes a supplementary premium of 6.5 ECU per female animal, payable only for the marketing period 1995 to producers in non-disadvantaged areas of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
The cost of this one-off supplementary support will be less than 10 million ECU and is allowed for in the budget for 1996.
Now, as for the comment by Mr Olli Rehn, I would like to say concerning the problems faced by Finnish animal breeders, that the Commission is aware of the situation and has already begun making appropriate efforts in that direction in Finland.
The European Commission is watching the situation closely and can cooperate with the Finnish authorities in any eventuality.
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
We have chosen to abstain in the vote on this report.
It seems absurd now to spend ECU 9.5 million because sheep farmers suffered a fall in prices in spring 1995.
There are many industries which suffer falling prices and whose operational costs are higher at certain times of the year.
Purely as a matter of principle the EU cannot start financing all sectors which suffer these problems.
It therefore seems absurd to us to support this report.
Protocol to Agreement with Andorra
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0241/96) by Mr Galeote Quecedo, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the Protocol to the Agreement in the form of an exchange of letters between the European Economic Community and the Principality of Andorra following the accession of the Republic of Austria, the republic of Finland and the Kingdom of Sweden to the European Union (COM(95)0745 - C4-0383/96-96/0009(CNS)).
Mr President, Mr Galeote has worked intensively on this report and on this agreement.
All the more reason, then, why he regrets not being able to present his report in person here today.
However, it is for me a pleasure and an honour to be able to deputize for him, and for two reasons. The first reason is that I come from a Member State from which Andorra is probably a long way distant.
But we ought to recognize that we in the European Union are a community in which Spain borders onto the Czech Republic, and in which Bavaria also borders on Andorra.
And I believe that this community, in which we are not only regionally oriented, but also able to see problems as a whole, is important for the future.
Secondly - and I believe that this is important too - Andorra is a state which has special connections and relationships with the European Union.
Both of its Princes are citizens of the European Union, and one of them is even the President of a Member State of the European Union.
Of the 64, 000 inhabitants of Andorra, only 13, 000 are Andorrans; the others are citizens of EU countries, namely France, Spain and Portugal.
Not for that reason alone, but also because of all the historical and economic links between the European Union and Andorra, we should accord great importance to this country, even though it is such a small one.
This country has succeeded, in a poor, barren region, which has not been blessed by nature, in achieving an amazing level of prosperity.
The per capita GDP is $ 15, 000, which means that the people, by their hard work and inventiveness, in a difficult situation in which one might think they could only exist by living on charity, have actually created something out of their predicament, and have developed this country in an amazing way.
I believe that this means that we should speak with more respect than we have done hitherto about the small countries of Europe.
If Europe is structured in the way we want it to be, then it should not be centralist, but rather the regions and ethnic groups should be protected as communities with rights, and the small countries must be given their place as well.
So often, on the subject of Slovenia, I hear people say that it is not really ready for accession because it is small - and yet its capital city alone has more inhabitants than one of our Member States, a state which I also rate very highly.
And it is said that Malta is too small to be represented in the European institutions. If these things were true, then of course the same thing would apply to the really small countries of Europe.
But I believe that they are very important, not only because of their historical and cultural role, but because they are a symbol of liberty, because they are manageable areas in a Europe that so often tends towards a mania for the huge and spectacular.
And I am of the opinion, precisely because I represent a very large Member State, that we should attach a new importance to the small, manageable state within Europe.
For this reason, I welcome the fact that this adjustment, which is essentially a technical one, and which is necessitated by enlargement, offers us an opportunity, for once in a while, to sing the praises of the small country in Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I am pleased to be able to announce the vote in favour by my group, the Liberal Group, to the Protocol to the agreement with Andorra since the latest enlargement of the European Union.
It is very important to bear in mind the reality of Andorra in the European framework and its relations with the European Union.
Andorra is a political, social and economic entity that has undergone a very interesting evolution in recent years, since conversion into a sovereign State in 1993, when the country gave itself a democratic constitution and joined the United Nations and the Council of Europe, as well as other international organisations.
The present government, led by Mr Marc Forné, of the Partit Liberal Andorrà, is concluding an important process of international and European planning, as well as the modernisation of the Andorran economy according to the strictest rules of western European economies - as such it is not possible to apply the term 'tax haven' as the explanatory statement of this report does.
On the contrary, one of the most important efforts of the Andorran government has been to ensure a proper functioning of its institutions and the machinery of the Andorran State, fully in keeping, as I have already said, with the States and economies of the European Union.
This is an activity also being carried out by other operators in the economic and social fields such as, for example, the Banca Andorrana, which now has a code of conduct similar if not practically identical to that governing the Association of Banks of the European Union.
The European Union must cooperate intensively with the Andorran State so as to implement the agreement reached at the Madrid Summit in December 1995 to set up a cooperation agreement enabling, inter alia, the achievement of joint projects with the European Union in the field of transfrontier cooperation, in the areas of special rural, touristic and economic interest, such as the highlands of the Pyrenees - where it is in the European Union's special interest to develop communications and improve rural areas and inter-regional cooperation, as pointed out by Mr Posselt; we must promote progress in highland areas, progress that would be consolidated with the help of the Andorran State.
To sum up, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we should support a very interesting process in a State which goes back to the Middle Ages, which until 1993 was a co-principality run by the French President and the Bishop of la Seu d'Urgell and which, in a short time, converted itself into a modern and democratic State, within the geographical framework of the European Union - after all its borders are those of the European Union.
Obviously this process means that we should support this protocol and call on the Council and the Commission to conclude that cooperation agreement which was already agreed upon at the Madrid Summit last year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I first want to thank Mr Posselt and Mr Gasòliba i Böhm for their speeches and to agree with them that our debate today gives us the opportunity to stress the importance of cooperation with Andorra.
I also agree with the comments by Mr Posselt concerning respect for small Member States, as a basic ingredient of European political philosophy.
Mr President, the subject of the protocol you submitted to Parliament for its approval is a simple one: to adapt the agreement signed in 1990 with the Principality of Andorra as necessary to take into account the accessions of Austria, Sweden and Finland to the European Union.
The Act of Accession by those three countries to the European Union envisaged that certain agreements concluded by the European Union with third countries should be subject - if necessary - to adaptation measures that would take enlargement into account.
The agreement with Andorra was one of those agreements.
That agreement is of essentially commercial nature and establishes customs union with Andorra for industrial products.
The Commission has examined the orders of the agreement to determine which of them required adaptation and it concluded that the orders of the agreement with Andorra could essentially be implemented as they stood for the three new Member States as well.
Consequently, customs union with the Principality is extended to the three new Member States immediately after their accession.
It is only necessary to make certain adaptations of minor importance to the agreement with Andorra, mainly ones of a linguistic nature, and to a transitional order which in any case no longer applies, so far as Austria is concerned.
That is precisely the subject of the protocol submitted to you.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr Hallam, you have the floor for a point of order.
Mr Hallam, I imagine they must be holidaying in Andorra - it is a wonderful place to spend a weekend.
Mrs Lulling, you have the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I should like to return to what Mr Hallam has just said.
I believe the Treaty provides for 12 plenary sessions in Strasbourg.
We have already voted, within one vote, against the twelfth sitting in Strasbourg, which is contrary to the Treaty.
Those who wish to scrap the Friday sitting do not really know what they are doing.
For why all this upheaval, all this travelling to come and sit here for only four days, when we have ample work for five days? We have a lot of work, more and more work, otherwise the part sessions in Brussels would not be justified.
I should like to protest.
It is wrong to attack those who are always here on Friday, like Mr Posselt and others and myself.
If others do not come, that is their problem, but it is not a reason for scrapping the Friday sittings in Strasbourg.
We should instead have fewer sittings in Brussels and work on Fridays.
Moreover, other people have to work on Fridays, and not to want to work on Fridays sets a very poor example to everybody.
There are eighteen million unemployed in the Community who would very much like to work on Fridays.
In my opinion, speeches like Mr Hallam's are a disgrace and I wish to protest about it.
Mrs Lulling, I did not cut you off out of parliamentary courtesy and the respect in which I hold you.
But this is not a point of order and this is not the time to open that debate.
It is up to the President to tell Mr Hallam whether he had the right to speak or not and he had one minute to speak and did so as he saw fit.
However, Mrs Lulling, we are not going to open that debate on this issue especially now that the holidays are upon us.
I voted for Fridays because otherwise I would be without a job.
I must thank all those who voted for Fridays.
The vote was held according to the rules and so we are not going to re-open that debate.
Mr McCartin, you have the floor on a point of order but if you are going to speak on this subject I shall stop you at once.
Mr President, you would be perfectly right.
I do not take advantage in that way to make a point of order which is not relevant.
I just wanted to reply respectfully to our colleague who drew attention to the small attendance.
Is that in order?
I wanted to defend this Parliament...
Mr McCartin, we have discussed this subject until we are blue in the face. I cannot accept any more speakers on that subject.
Mr Posselt has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I asked to speak before Mr Hallam asked.
I wanted to say something that you could certainly not object to.
I am delighted that the Friday meetings were not scrapped, because the best part about the plenary session is its Friday Presidency.
I just wanted to thank you for that, and to wish you a pleasant holiday.
Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. But bearing in mind what you have decided this week, I would rather not accept any gift of any kind.
Mr Papoutsis, you have the floor.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, the agenda has been completed.
May I first of all wish the Commissioner, President Santer and the Commission and their colleagues a well-earned holiday.
I wish you all the same and must tell the interpreters and translators that we think highly of their work and hope that they, too, will enjoy their holidays. May I recommend that they speak very little and only in intimacy and in a whisper.
Over the holidays I recommend that all the ushers forget the word 'President' and that all our colleagues forget about the rules and live freely.
Ladies and gentlemen who accompany me on Fridays, I hope that you will have double rest on the Fridays over the vacation.
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 11.05 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament, adjourned on Friday, 19 July 1996.
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my sad duty to inform you that our colleague Ken Stewart died this Monday 2 September.
Mr Stewart was a Member of the European Parliament for Merseyside West from 1984.
He was a member of the Socialist Group and of the Committees on Transport and Petitions.
He served in the British Army during the last war and was decorated for his services.
After the war he was a long-serving member of Liverpool City Council and devoted himself to tackling the problems of housing in that city.
He was always on the side of the underprivileged.
He fought for social justice and his experience during the war made him an ardent supporter of peace.
On your behalf I have sent a message of condolence to his widow.
I invite you to join me in observing one minute's silence.
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
Statement by the President on child murders
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a day of mourning.
Indescribable crimes against children have been discovered in this country.
We mourn together with the people of this country and beyond, who are overwhelmed by shock and shame, and we remember the countless children who have been abducted and sexually abused and forced into prostitution by criminals here and elsewhere.
On a day such as this the European Parliament cannot remain silent, which is why I propose that we amend the agenda.
We will begin as scheduled with a statement by the Commission on urgent political matters, namely on the European Union's reactions to the Helms-Burton law on trade restrictions.
Then I suggest, after consulting the groups, that the Commission should make a statement on or after 4 p.m. on child abuse, followed by a brief debate.
Finally, I suggest that we postpone the report by Mr von Wogau on consumer taxes, scheduled for this evening, to a later part-session.
The remainder of the agenda will not be affected.
Since you obviously all agree, that is how we will proceed.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, on behalf of the Members of PASOK I wish to raise a separate matter.
I wish to condemn the murder in cold blood of two young, unarmed, Greek Cypriots and the wounding of dozens of others as a result of the indiscriminate shooting engaged in by the Turkish army of occupation in the buffer zone in Cyprus between 11 and 14 August. In registering this condemnation I believe that I speak for the Greek Members of this House and for other Members generally.
Those killings were a deliberate response by the occupation force to peaceful demonstrations.
Not only does Turkey's conduct violate every legal precept; it also constitutes a violation of the customs union agreement to which it and we are signatories.
I believe, therefore, that the European Parliament must address the matter, condemn the actions in question and take such measures as are appropriate.
We will not start up a discussion on this!
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The Conference of Presidents has proposed a number of changes.
Mr President, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development did in fact reject the request for urgent procedure made yesterday by the Council because that request reached us yesterday morning and it would have been necessary to reach a decision on the entire reform of the 'beef and veal' CMO and its financing in 24 or 48 hours.
On the other hand, and this is why we rejected the request for urgent procedure, I believe it is now a matter for the Council to reformulate a request, if necessary, for the plenary in Strasbourg and to divide that request into three parts. We will be able to reconsider it at that time.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Urgent political matters
The next item is the statement by the Commission on urgent political matters of major importance concerning action taken on the Helms-Burton law.
I call Sir Leon Brittan.
Mr President, I think we all agree that we have to adopt a twin-track policy towards this latest piece of American legislation.
Firstly, we must maintain and reiterate our firm position because what the Americans have decided on and propose to enforce is unacceptable to us. Secondly, we must avoid escalation.
We need a trade war with the United States like a hole in the head.
So my first question is this: how best to reconcile these two objectives? Can it be done, and by what means, methods and/or procedures?
My second question: has the Commission consulted the other countries affected, particularly Canada and Mexico? Is it possible to pursue a closely coordinated approach to this matter, giving prime concern to democracy and observance of the rules of international trade?
I agree with the approach commended by Mr De Clercq.
It is right that we have to be firm but it is also right that the situation should not escalate.
How can we combine that? The answer is to take those measures which directly defend the interests of European companies as affected by this legislation but not to extend the action to areas which have nothing whatsoever to do with this legislation.
That is the way in which we can combine the two principles Mr De Clercq referred to.
We have consulted Canada and Mexico.
We are, in a sense, working with them.
They, of course, have one further avenue and that is the NAFTA provisions and they are pursuing their complaints through the NAFTA machinery as well.
We are in close touch with them.
I agree with Mr Donnelly that it is necessary to stand up to this, not only to protect the interests attacked directly but also to deter further action.
We have in the course of this legislation made repeated representations to Congressional leaders in a variety of forms through demarches, letters and in other ways.
I am very happy to ensure that Congressional leaders receive a copy of the statement I have made today.
Mr President, my compliments to the Commissioner for the way in which he is safeguarding European interests over this.
I have the following question for him. Has the Commission made provision for any problems to be reported to a central location so that they can be recorded and if possible resolved?
Thank you for your kind words.
As far as relations with European companies are concerned, we are always in close touch with UNICE which is the body which is perhaps best able to coordinate and analyse the extent of the problem.
We have also of course had direct contact from a number of companies that either had been affected or fear that they will be affected.
I should like to consider whether there is any further step that we can take which will ensure a comprehensive view of the nature of the problem.
That is something which should in the first instance be discussed with UNICE but I am extremely grateful to Mr Pex for his constructive suggestion.
Mr President, it is wonderful to be noticed by you, thank you very much!
Commissioner, the current policy of the USA is, as you noted, destabilizing political and economic transatlantic relations generally, and this is all the more regrettable, as you pointed out, in view of the new hopes we had in the context of the transatlantic agenda.
I strongly regret that and I would emphasize that extra-territorial actions should be condemned in general.
Otherwise the credibility of international law and international organizations and institutions as a whole - here I need only mention the UN and of course the WTO - will be put at risk.
We cannot afford that.
It leads to international political and economic destabilization.
Commissioner, when will Parliament officially be consulted on a Community regulation? I know you have put a proposal before the Council, and the question belongs with the Council.
When will the Council consult us?
Second question: are you considering taking the matter to The Hague?
I entirely agree that, quite apart from the damage to European economic interests, it is the principle of extra-territoriality that is most objectionable.
I believe that the history of modern civilization implies a move to resolve disputes of all kinds, but in particular commercial disputes, by recourse to international bodies such as the WTO and not by taking the law into your own hands.
That is absolutely crucial.
I entirely agree with Mrs Mann as far as that is concerned.
We have identified the WTO as the principle forum to which complaint should be made.
It is also right to say that in OECD discussions on the investment proposal the point has indirectly been raised and we will consider all other fora.
I mentioned the fact that Canada and Mexico are using the NAFTA forum.
I am not sure myself whether The Hague court is the most rapid and effective way of dealing with the situation but we are open to all suggestions.
Mr President, as a member of Parliament's delegation to look at Cuba's problems, I visited the island at the end of June.
I should now like to say a word in favour of its people by clearing away an old misconception: that everyone who is in favour of Cuba is necessarily pro-Castro; that those who criticize it are against the system; and now that those who are against the Helms-Barton legislation must of necessity be against the United States.
The real subject of this diatribe must be the people, which is paying, more or less for everybody, the price of a situation which, to put it mildly, is unacceptable.
In Cuba, Mr President, there is starvation today.
This is not the time for the old lamentation about the poor Cuban, but this is the spirit in which, in my opinion, the European Parliament should intervene, including from the economic angle: we should indeed defend European enterprises seeking to stimulate activity on the island, but first and foremost so as to help the people of Cuba to recover from a situation of which they are partly the cause but above all the victims.
I therefore ask the Commissioner: what do you propose to do to protect firms which are held to ransom by the United States on their own territory?
I entirely agree with Mr Santini.
We of course have to protect our own interests but also we have to ask ourselves what will help the Cuban people.
We are as enthusiastic as anyone in the United States or anywhere else about democracy and human rights returning to Cuba.
We spend a considerable amount of European money on humanitarian relief in Cuba.
We do not differ with the United States about the ends.
We differ about the means.
That is a message which should go to the Cuban people as well as to everybody else.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the people of Cuba are suffering now, as the people of South Africa did in the past, from intolerable boycott measures. But the same applies to the people of Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of new-born babies and children are dying under appalling conditions.
Is it not time to terminate our agreement with the United States? That country is sentencing the people of Iraq to death, in the long run, and is now interfering not with a violation of international law, as in the past, but with an internal arrangement which is of no concern to the international community.
That does not happen to be my opinion nor is it a consensus in the European Union or in the European Commission but no decisions have been taken relating to that question in recent days at European level.
I too was in Washington recently and took part in the rather heated discussion which members of the delegation had with members of the United States Congress.
It was apparent that the Helms-Burton Act causes a great deal of anxiety among certain members of Congress.
My question to the Commission is: first, what does he think the possibilities would be of a successful challenge to certain aspects of Helms-Burton in the United States Supreme Court, especially that part of the Act which punishes spouses and children by executive action, by withdrawal of visas, residents' facilities and so on - the biblical principle that the sins of the parents will be visited on the children?
I would not on the basis of a rapidly receding and distant year spent at the Yale Law School give an instant personal view on American constitutional law.
All I will say is that there are people who are better qualified than I who take the view that Mr Cassidy has given voice to and take the view that quite apart from the provisions he has referred to being objectionable in principle they are of doubtful constitutionality.
There are certainly voices in Congress, which wish to introduce amendments to the legislation to remove those objectionable features. I fear many others would still remain.
It is not for me to consider why we did not introduce legislation about some other law four years ago but I do not think anybody can reproach the Commission for lack of urgency in putting forward a legislative proposal to the Council of Ministers immediately before the summer break.
I was asked earlier on when it would come to Parliament and I apologize for not answering that specifically.
It will come to Parliament as soon as the Council of Ministers has reached the appropriate point in its deliberations.
But we were a great deal more rapid in producing that legislation than most people expected.
Commissioner, two months ago a seminar was held in Sitges, convened by IRELA, an institution known to this House, and the Washington Centre for International Studies, and all the experts there, including the Americans, considered, as you do, that this law is contrary to international law and to international trade, and hence to the sovereignty of nations.
There are countries which have taken rather mild measures and others which have acted more energetically.
It would be advisable for the European Union to take steps which are vigorous enough to ensure that the United States does not bank on its and our friendship to infringe something which is a sacred principle: the sovereignty of nations and peoples and their freedom to trade with whomsoever they wish.
If this does not happen, if there is no vigorous response from the European Union, the United States will believe that in future it can take whatever decision it likes as regards other countries.
Commissioner, how far would the European Union be prepared to go, within the bounds of friendship, to avert the pernicious effects of this law?
In your introductory statement you yourself pointed out that Helms-Burton is merely the tip of the iceberg, that the United States is also drafting legislation on a number of other states which, geographically at least, are closer to Europe.
However important it may be to keep the effects of the Helms-Burton legislation on the European economy or on Europe and the world in general within bounds, in my view it is just as important, not to say urgent, to ensure that the Americans - regardless of their concerns in this matter and the understanding we have for these concerns - do not start including other countries and other economic areas in their legislation too.
What is the Commission doing in this regard?
I very much agree with that.
We cannot deal with legislation which has not been enacted.
We have on the statute book so far the Helms-Burton legislation and the D'Amato legislation.
That gives us quite a lot to deal with and we are dealing with it rapidly and I hope vigorously - certainly as long as the Commission has anything to do with it.
But I actually believe that taking this action is in the best interests not only of the European Union but of the United States as well.
There are many people in the United States who realize that what has been done was done in haste and things done in haste are very rarely wise.
They also realize that it damages the American leadership role in the world.
I believe the world will be a better place if Europe and the United States can work together and anything that damages that cooperation is not only against the interests of Europe but also against the interests of the United States.
Therefore, standing up to the United States, discouraging such future legislation, is something which will help us in the long term to work together better.
I do not expect it to be seen exactly like that in Washington today but I believe it to be the truth.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for his statement and congratulate him on the measures which he has taken.
I believe he will know that Parliament has gone on record against the Helms-Burton legislation on a number of occasions, once in a report which I introduced here.
We have made it very clear at the same time that we believe in progress in democracy in Cuba.
This, however, is the worst possible means of seeking to achieve that.
Does the Commissioner agree that it is important that we should put all possible pressure on at the present time because after the American presidential election this may be looked at in quite a different light? In those circumstances, will the Commissioner consider what other actions can be taken through the World Trade Organization, through GATT and in other respects which some of my colleagues have mentioned this afternoon?
The pressure put on now is absolutely vital for the final result we wish to achieve.
I entirely agree with Mr Newens.
We are proceeding through a process of consultation, which is a necessary preliminary to going to a panel, so the Commission has already gone ahead as far as the WTO is concerned.
But I am not just being ordinarily and customarily polite in saying that the role of this Parliament is important.
This legislation comes from Congress even though the Administration has to take the responsibility for not vetoing it.
That means that when the next Congress is elected it will be vitally important for all of us, but obviously most particularly for members of other legislatures, to establish early contact with the members of that Congress.
Whatever the outcome, there will be lots of new members and one of the problems in the past has been a lack of knowledge and sometimes a lack of interest in European affairs by the recent, rather radical Congress.
I hope, therefore, when the new Congress is elected, that we can all in our different ways make a real effort to explain the true path of cooperation between Europe and the United States and the pitfalls that must be avoided.
I am sure they will tell us the pitfalls that we also should avoid and we should be ready to listen to them as well as tell them what we think should be done and should be avoided.
Mr President, we readily endorse the Commission's opposition to the American measures and I am grateful to Sir Leon Brittan for his statement.
But I think there is a clear distinction to be drawn.
Cuba is primarily an American problem, but Libya and Iran really represent the same problem to both the US and the Union.
Indications that these two countries are sponsors of international terrorism are increasingly clear.
They are also hampering the peace process in the Middle East.
It is thus deplorable that the US and the Union should be ranged against one another in the fight against international terrorism, especially in view of the speed at which Iran is building up her arsenal of weapons.
My question is what justification is there for continuing the dialogue with Iran and Libya unchanged and what is there to stop us from pursuing a coordinated policy towards these two countries jointly with the USA?
To be quite honest I do not think it is practical to talk about a single, simple approach to terrorism.
In a previous capacity I had to consider issues relating to terrorism and I can assure you that its international complexity is considerable.
So I do not think it is fair to castigate either the United States or anybody else for not coming up with a magical policy which will solve the problem.
If one is being brutally honest, the truth of the matter is that the American policy of sanctions and confrontation has not stopped terrorism. Nor has the European policy of dialogue stopped terrorism.
We should be honest about that.
Mr President, I still have a lot to learn.
But you must tell me how sixteen eyes looking out from different corners, some of them short and some them long-sighted, can always take the right decision!
Mr President, I also want to thank the Commission warmly for the practical position it adopted and for demonstrating its ability to act.
Since Parliament took a very detailed decision on Helms-Burton very early on, and also on Iran/Iraq, the content of which basically is still entirely consistent with the situation there, I believe it has fulfilled its obligation and that it will continue to do so.
I would be interested to know what legal differences you see between the D'Amato legislation and the Helms-Burton legislation because my impression is that there are differences of view on this within the Commission too, at least from what emerged in the Committee on External Economic Relations this week, with which I do not agree.
Both laws are contrary to international law and Mr Eizenstat referred to political reasons that cannot be recognized by the WTO.
What is your position on this?
We do not accept any kind of exclusion of the WTO.
It is unacceptable to say that here is something the WTO cannot even consider.
Whether we go to a panel is something that has yet to be decided because we are still in the process of consultation.
But that is quite unacceptable and not a position we could go along with at all.
As far as the differences between Helms-Burton and D'Amato are concerned, the major differences are firstly that Title 3 at least of Helms-Burton, although it has been suspended for six months, in principle allows private action to be taken by individual Americans and individual American companies.
That is not the case with the D'Amato legislation.
The other main difference is that whereas the President has a discretion to suspend or partially suspend the operation of Title 3 of Helms-Burton for six months at a time, in the D'Amato legislation he has a much greater discretion as to how to apply it, whether to apply it and the extent to which it should be applied.
Therefore the scope for protest of a reasoned kind is much greater and, as the legislation has only just come into existence, that is the appropriate course to follow.
So there are significant legal, practical and economic differences between the two pieces of legislation.
I should like to congratulate Sir Leon and the Commission on their firm stand on this question.
It seems to me that the US concern about democracy in Cuba is rather like their concern about peace in Iraq where they are delivering peace by Cruise missile.
Having visited Cuba and the US a number of times, I have to say that in many ways Cuba is a more democratic society than the USA where both major parties are owned by corporate America.
Perhaps we could best bring it home to the US by suggesting that it thinks about a blockade policy towards Saudi Arabia and other client states of the US where no democracy and human rights exist and very little concern is expressed by the Americans about them.
Some of the points the honourable Member has made would carry greater force if he did not say something which is manifestly untrue about democracy in Cuba.
There is none.
It is as simple as that.
Commissioner, we are all agreed on a rejection of the Helms-Burton law because of its extra-territorial effects, and of course not all of us - far from it - share the extraordinary views we have just heard about Cuban democracy.
But the question I should like to put to the Commissioner is this: since the Helms-Burton law applies only to cases involving property formerly owned by American subjects which was confiscated by the Castro government without payment of compensation, and is now passing out of the Cuban government's control to be handed over to a foreign entrepreneur who likewise receives it without paying compensation to its rightful owners, can the Commission tell me whether or not any specific cases have so far arisen of European Union companies or individuals being referred to US courts because they come within the scope of the prohibitions contained in this law, or are we still confronting a theoretical situation in which no actual cases have occurred?
Under Title 3 - the one which has been suspended as far as action is concerned - obviously there has been no legal action by individual companies because the President has suspended that.
But under Title 4, which is the provision which requires the United States Government to exclude individuals from entering the country if they are targeted under this legislation, and you have heard from Mr Cassidy that applies to families of individuals, individual companies have received letters from the United States Administration indicating in some cases that they are suspect, in some cases a little bit more than that.
I am sure that Parliament will tell Sir Leon Brittan that it very much values the relationship between the European Union and the United States of America.
He is also aware that the European Parliament has been concerned for a very long period of time, even before-Helms-Burton, about the isolation of Cuba.
In the area, for example, of development cooperation, we do not have any formal relationships with Cuba, unlike the whole of the rest of the Caribbean and Central and South America, so there are very great problems.
I wonder to what extent the Commissioner feels it is possible to use this particular issue to make progress rapidly to formalize relationships with Cuba.
This would be in the mutual interests of Cuba and the European Union.
This is the direction in which we were moving and indeed the Council favoured the entry into negotiations with Cuba.
But then my colleague Mr Marín visited Cuba, had meetings with opposition leaders and very shortly after that the vast majority of those leaders were arrested.
The Council therefore decided that it was not opportune to continue negotiations at this particular moment.
I share that view.
Child abuse
The next item is the statement by the Commission on child abuse.
I call Sir Leon Brittan.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the Radical Alliance I wish to extend my deepest sympathy to the parents and families of the girls murdered in my country.
The things which happened truly defy description.
The appalling facts came to light just as the world conference was being held in Stockholm on the rights of the child and the sexual exploitation of children.
On the very eve of the 21st century it seems that anything is possible and that there is a market for everything including children.
That is the law of supply and demand taken to an obscene extreme.
We know about the exploitation of children in Asian countries, but in fact we have done very little about it.
We have, furthermore, put commercial concerns above children's rights.
We also know about child prostitution, in our own big cities too.
Ultimately we have done nothing about this either, even though Article K of the Maastricht Treaty now specifically empowers us to.
If we really want to demonstrate our sympathy we should look for social responses which Europe itself can provide, for example the creation of a register of missing children, more police cooperation across borders and the pooling of experience of policy on prisons and sentencing. Children's rights must be placed on our statute books and enforced against third countries too.
Extraterritorial penalties must be introduced for sexual crimes committed outside our borders.
The Commission has announced initiatives.
Not everything needs to be done today, but please let us not wait too long.
Mr President, the whole of Europe has, albeit belatedly, realized how widespread the criminal phenomenon of paedophilia is.
At this point - and not only moved by the emotion felt by us all, but rationally - the European Union must exercise its power to stimulate, urge and spur on in order to induce the Member States to find a single legislative language to prevent and repress this shameful phenomenon which hits the weakest part of society: children.
We believe that this call by the European Union should be included in the annual report on human rights.
Mr President, looking beyond the tragedy which has put Belgium in mourning and which concerns us all, we must also consider the growth of this exploitation of children for sexual purposes, with all the crimes, murders, kidnappings and prostitution that follow from it.
These things must provide food for thought, and prompt us to react.
First, it would be appropriate to incorporate into the Treaty on Union a genuine charter of children's rights and then ensure compliance with that charter, not just in Europe but elsewhere, too, especially through the agency of Europol.
Because, as we know, globalization is having perverse effects on the growth of the traffic in children.
It has allowed the setting-up of nothing less than organized networks of sex tourism in Asia, in South America, and on our own doorsteps, especially in Eastern Europe.
As for the Internet, we know that it provides an ideal cover for the propagation and encouragement of paedophilia.
That is why, ladies and gentlemen, just as it was our duty to have this debate today, so it is also our duty to go ahead with positive action to protect our children and give them back their childhood.
Mr President, today we are talking about child abuse against the background of a particularly tragic and odious event so horrible that it is beyond the power of words to condemn.
I concur with what has been said by my colleagues, but I want to say quite clearly that it would be hypocritical to confine ourselves to moral condemnation: hypocritical and too late.
The Stockholm Conference has provided chilling and terrible data.
To quote just one example: every year, all over the world, one million children under the age of twelve are led into prostitution.
It seems incredible: one million children under twelve years of age!
It seems incredible, but unfortunately it is true.
Faced with these figures we cannot confine ourselves to talking about moral questions or pornographic cassettes.
I agree with all the proposals, including those made by the Commissioner - concerning the Internet, pornography, etc. but we know, all of us in Europe know, that this is not enough.
We must also discuss and take action on the major economic interests on which this exploitation of children is based.
Not only that: also of the connivance of institutions and even governments of the countries which accommodate so-called 'sex tourism' .
I believe that Europe must equip itself to act immediately from both angles: to attack those who practice, who develop, ' sex tourism' , which is a matter of policing and police cooperation, but also - and Europe can do it - to attack strongly the economies of the countries which thrive on the exploitation of children, and, I repeat, of children below the age of twelve.
It is beyond belief!
The debate is closed.
Public services
The next item is the statement by the Commission on public services.
I call Mr Van Miert.
Mr Van Miert, we very much hope you have not lost any of your punch!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what I am going to say may seem harsh, but keeping a debate like this on the agenda seems to me to be eccentric, not to say irresponsible.
After all, how can we hold a serious discussion with the Commission on a subject regarding which it has still not sent us a communication which was initially scheduled for June 1996? The Commission's delay, deplorable though it is, is not a disaster in itself.
All that was necessary was to schedule this debate for a later time.
By accepting this debate under these conditions, and on a subject so crucial for our fellow citizens, this House is making itself ridiculous.
Consequently, since we cannot debate the Commission's ambitions and have no basic data on them, I will settle for recalling a few principles to which my group adheres.
They are three in number.
The first is to preserve solidarity among our citizens.
That solidarity is based on five major planks: equality of individuals, the security of individuals, aid for the most underprivileged, social cohesion and regional development.
The values of equality and solidarity may sometimes seem to be jeopardized by technological change and the primacy too often given to competition within an ultra-liberal system.
It is up to us to regulate that system.
This brings us to the second principle of the proper administration of the public services.
Let us accept the idea of competition for public enterprises associated with the competitive sector.
It is essential for some public sector activities, in order to prevent hardening of the arteries affecting whole sections of the economy, and in order to strengthen their competitiveness.
But let us not go too far along these lines; let us organize the competition on a transparent basis.
The third principle comprises guaranteeing the States freedom of choice.
The keystone - I almost said the safety valve - of European intent in the field of public services, is a consistent application of the principle of subsidiarity.
To make my point, let me take the example of France, where the very essence of the republican pact, the symbol of its own existence, lies in its public service structures.
Without ruling out the changes necessary to adapt to modern realities, it will be impossible for the French Republic to sacrifice its own public services, services desired by its citizens.
I am not talking about imposing French values on other states but about allowing those states which wish to do so, by virtue of subsidiarity, to preserve their social models while nevertheless respecting Community law.
Although I regard it as essential to continue adapting and modernizing the public service, it is important to confirm its existence in Community law.
The revision of the Treaty must give us the opportunity to do that.
It should provide an opportunity for an amendment to Article 90, to ensure that the Commission, when it comes to competition in the public sector, exercises only a supervisory power which rules out the possibility of taking unilateral decisions.
Mr President, with the Commissioner's permission I shall speak in my own language.
It will of course be nice to have the Commission's communication, but I am not exactly happy at the way in which the Commissioner is showing his political colours here.
Rarely have I heard a more blatant misuse of Article 222, because ultimately, and the Commissioner knows it, Article 90 takes precedence over Article 222 and more importantly still, Article 90 makes explicit reference to Articles 85 and 86 for which this Commissioner has responsibility.
And what does the Commission do? It constantly flouts its own principles.
Parliament is not altogether without blame either, of course.
Indeed, Mr Fayot rightly points to the disgraceful way in which the Commission's proposals on postal services were buried here.
Really, this is a good example of how political determination and a state monopoly can block a true public service.
We have seen that where services are privatized, for example in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, it is possible to make the post office profitable too and to provide the whole population with a good service.
In short, what is the left side of the House ultimately after?
Power for the trade unions and the ability to play politics with jobs at the taxpayer's expense? That is not what the universal service or the public service are about.
Who is to say, Commissioner, that social benefits cannot be provided just as well by private insurance? In general it appears that health cover provided by private insurers gives a better service than the state system.
Look at the United Kingdom's National Health Service.
A total disaster!
I thus look forward eagerly to the Commission's communication and I should like to start this debate afresh with a number of questions.
Which services does the Commission deem essential? To what extent should government resources be made available to private concession holders, for universal service, and the most important question, Mr President, which services really are essential to the citizen?
Mr President, the Commission statement on public services had raised a certain expectation.
But why did we still have a statement when there was no document ready - even if it will soon be ready? Why we still have a debate, without a document and without a basic text?
All that remains for us to debate are the general drift of a guideline.
But we all know what that is already. We must state out our disagreement and highlight the importance of this subject, one that can not be discussed too often, even in these general lines, although we should take care not to over-discuss it and therefore to remove its value.
In our opinion, any declaration of principle should assert the concept of public service and the fact that it is always relevant, even in the etymological sense.
At the same time we should avoid this discussion appearing to be a smoke-screen, hiding the fact that market forces are destroying public services and doing away with 'public service' as an operative concept.
We are going through a period of history, albeit a fleeting one, like them all, in which commercialisation is being taken to an absurd extreme, leaving no room for activities which cannot be boiled down to an evaluation according to economic or competitiveness criteria, in which many activities are considered unviable even though many of them are vital and can only be provided as a public service.
In the so-called 'European Construction' we think that the concept of public service should be dealt with, not just as statements of principles, by means of their careful assessment of developments, in wariness of changes to names such as 'universal service' , and, in particular, by moderating practices and trends which see privatisation as a panacea for economic ills, as if all social ills were done away with by a properly working economy, and forgetting the fact that the purpose of the economy should be the rational organisation or use of resources in order to meet satisfy social needs.
Given that we are in that historical period, in its statement, with or without a document, the Commission should have said what it intends to do to contribute to ways of making technical innovation, such as the information super highways, compatible with operations and a vital concept such as that of public service.
Mr President, I would like to remind Members of this House that we actually asked for this statement.
It is not the Commission who is insisting on it. We asked for it because we believe that we are able to think for ourselves about what we want from public services within the European Union.
We are hoping, thereby, to have an influence on what comes out of the Commission.
So as some Members here seem to be confused about that, I thought it was important to stress that we asked for the statement.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, indeed our understanding of democracy is that this House should consider matters and then put them to the Commission in the expectation that the Commission will indeed listen very carefully and draw the appropriate conclusions.
That is of course a problem, against the background of the debate on the postal services and the resolutions we had drafted on them, to which we received no very clear response in the Commission's further deliberations.
But I hope things will improve this time.
We must realise that in view of the forthcoming, very far-reaching changes in our economy and our societies the production of public goods really must be established as an independent task and that we must counteract what I might call the neo-liberal frenzy to turn everything that can promote private wealth into goods.
This must not just be an exceptional clause or a residual category, as it currently is in the Treaty.
In that respect, the European Treaty really does need to be amended.
The charter for the European public services really must be taken seriously in it.
But this question also deserves serious consideration in the chapter on employment.
A universal service would indeed not suffice.
A universal service is what one might call a residual category, which may be sensible in some areas that are in a sense situated between the private economy and the public sector, but is not so in the key areas of the public services where the issue really is the production of public goods and where we do indeed need to renovate.
Of course we cannot continue with the kind of centralized state monopolies that exist in some areas and which do in fact belong to the past.
But nor do we want to replace them with worldwide or transnational private monopolies or prepare the market for such private monopolies.
As even Mr Bangemann has said on occasion, that is indeed the real danger in some central areas.
So we must make it clear that our Parliament has definite ideas about the real tasks of the public services - I have described this in the abstract and cannot go into details here.
Specific targets must be set here.
The responsibility for these tasks should lie with operators and regulators of all possible kinds, with the necessary degree of democracy and variety.
People must realise that the public services have to carry out a whole range of official or governmental tasks, including those relating to the third sector of the social economy, that they have to look seriously at the major tasks of our time - environmental reform, feminization and popular attitudes - and make real progress in these areas.
Then the public services can become an important factor in the construction of a meaningful Europe that is also accepted by all the Member States.
Mr President, for a long time, despite the Commissioner's optimistic suggestions, very little has been said about public services in the Community.
Today, something is being said, and above all more and more should be said.
But we must not approach this question from a purely technical, legalistic standpoint.
Admittedly, there are many questions about the activities which need to be set up in the public service sector when the market is incapable of supplying the appropriate services.
There are also many questions about the way in which the public services should be organized - with or without a monopoly, for example - and about the rules which should be applied to them, the user system to be applied, the personnel regulations, etc.
But leaving aside these technical or legal questions, a political choice arises - a choice of the way in which we conceive society and the role of the European Union.
Following the logic of the Treaty of Rome, reinforced by the dominant ideas of the last fifteen years, competition, the market and economic liberalism were the key words of Community policy.
We are not against the market, or against competition.
They can open the way to dynamism and competitive spirit, ultimately resulting in lower prices and better quality products and services.
What we are against is a Europe which would have only a single aim: a single market based on competition alone.
Europe must have other objectives too.
The crisis of confidence which is eroding the unity of Europe and jeopardizing the future of the Union has much to do with the impression people have of dealing with an inhuman machine concerned only with economic and financial profitability, and abandoning people to their fate.
We need to construct a Europe which is in the common interest, and which is concerned with eliminating inequality - not only inequality between individuals but also inequality between the various parts of a territory.
The public services may provide one way of eliminating these inequalities, because they have the specific purpose of supplying a service to everyone under conditions of maximum accessibility, whereas the market is interested primarily in what is profitable.
Some will point out that, in many countries, the public services have functioned badly or been badly administered.
In those cases, obviously, reforms are needed.
Furthermore, there are also cases where the course of events shows that there is no longer any reason to make a public service out of what has become a commonplace and everyday activity.
In these cases, privatization is the better option.
But that still leaves a great many cases - especially though not exclusively in the vast arena of social services - where the initiative and supervision of the public authority are essential.
Total privatization, then, a complete break with the State and the local authorities, is not a step forward but a step back.
There are recent examples, some of them tragic, to prove as much.
The European Union needs to understand this, Commissioner, and to devise - on the occasion of the IGC, for example - a European concept of public service which is not reduced to this very minimalist notion of a universal service of which we hear so much nowadays.
The Union, and especially the Community, must have a policy based both on competition and on the public interest.
The Union, too, must itself have public services which are genuinely European.
We shall have occasion to talk of this again, Commissioner, on the basis of the work to be done under your supervision.
Mr President, the Commission's statement on public services, to which we have just been listening, is anything but reassuring.
Admittedly, we have noted the fact that, recently, the idea of public service has finally been recognized both by case law and in some of the practices of the Community institutions.
However, these positive changes have to be seen in the context of a broader trend which still gives much cause for concern.
The fact is that if the Community institutions, until very recently, had no doctrine of public service, the reason was that it was very generally and spontaneously felt that this area, in a spirit of healthy subsidiarity, was a matter for the Member States.
Today, however, we are seeing constant pressure by the Commission, based on the rules of competition contained in the Treaty, to usurp the prerogative of the Member States by defining what the limit of the public service sector should be, in other words what its nature should be and what the instruments should be that can be used by the nation states for the benefit of their citizens.
Worse still, an attempt is being made to provide standardized definitions, on the pretext of creating fair competition, whereas the fact is, of course, that national situations and national intentions differ greatly from this point.
There are at least two reasons why we cannot accept this approach as it stands.
First, while it is true that the Treaty makes very little mention of the public services, such mention being largely confined to Article 92(2), where services of a general economic interest are mentioned in passing as an exception to the rules of competition, the reason is that it was quite naturally felt at the time that such activities were not a matter for the powers of the Community.
As far as I know, no subsequent treaty ratified by the nations of Europe has reversed this position.
In any case, and this is my second reason, that position is entirely justified since the national public services are the instruments available to the Member States to enable them to apply the policies democratically decided upon by their populations.
To abolish the freedom of nations to define their public services would help to diminish the States, and eventually even to cause their disappearance, a policy so crazy that I doubt whether anyone here would support it.
In these circumstances, although we do not intend to challenge the idea of European consultation on these matters, we would like the Intergovernmental Conference to state very clearly that each sovereign nation is free to define the limits of its public service, exactly as the Treaty envisages, and that each is free to define the limits of public ownership of undertakings.
For us, the issue is not to try to remove these sectors from any form of competition, because in any case, as things stand, the States themselves are subject to global competition and can no longer do anything they like.
There are also many of us, myself included, who think that it is in the public interest that private sector methods should always be preferred when possible, and that the public services should always incorporate such methods as far as possible.
But what we want most of all here, and what we are going to emphasize in this debate, is the enduring preservation of the conditions of sovereignty of the nations of Europe.
That means, of course, that unanimity must be required within the Council whenever the question of competition affects the public service.
At the same time, the power to regulate competition should be removed from the Commission and handed over to a separate agency, in order to separate technique from policy and ensure that those powers cannot be used in the future, in an underhand manner, for the purposes of constructing a superstate.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are here to take part in a dialogue between Parliament and the Commission, and so I am going to start by telling you the points on which we agree with you - points on which, although it would be an exaggeration to speak of two minds with but a single thought, we can at least speak of two minds with fairly similar thoughts.
Like you, we naturally believe that general interest services are necessary in order to promote the so-called European social model.
Like you, too, we believe that the debate on the form of organization and legal nature of those public services is an obsolete debate.
After all, our national cultures and histories contain roots that grow into particular forms of legal natures of public services, and that is as it should be.
Thirdly, we agree with you when you say that, like all European undertakings, the public services have to face up to technological change and the requirements for completing the single market.
And finally, we share your belief in modern, efficient, dynamic public services which will be the key elements in the European economic development of tomorrow.
Having heard you speak, however, I believe that you are to some extent the incarnation of the principle whereby the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
To put it another way, the Commission's left hand is all too often unaware of what its right hand is doing, as we can see from the way in which you approach telecommunications, but also, and especially, the way in which you approach the risks that threaten the postal service and other public services.
So why is there this discrepancy between the Commission's undoubted intentions and its actions?
Since we cannot reasonably accuse you, of all people, of political schizophrenia, there must be a number of objective reasons for this situation.
What are they?
First, listening carefully to what you have to say, I note that we are not in complete agreement on the scope of application of the public service.
First, of course, there is the concept of universal service. Other Members have already said how restrictive we find that concept.
But there is also the fact that the public service is more than just a service for the consumer or a selection of approaches to regional planning - it is also an essential factor in environmental protection, an essential factor in economic and social cohesion, an essential factor in employment policy.
That factor is absent from your statement, and I assume that it will be equally absent - though you still have time to correct it - from the Commission's communication.
Secondly, we are aware of the fact that making a distinction today between the market economy on the one hand and the public service economy on the other is to make an illusory distinction. More and more sectors which, traditionally, were the preserve of the public service are now subjected, rightly or wrongly, like it or not, to the constraints of the market economy.
Hence, it is necessary for us, much more necessary than it was twenty or twenty-five years ago, to make a distinction within these economic activities between something which can be regulated by competition in the interests of the citizen and something which needs to be protected from the upheavals and excesses of competition. And that distinction is one the Commission is not making.
The Commission believes that everything, if possible, should be regulated by competition. You credit competition with virtues it does not have, and indeed never did have, but by doing so you are reducing activities which are pure matters of public interest to extremely marginal ones, as witness your interpretation of universal service in, for example, the telecommunications sector.
This is clearly an aberration, where you are becoming involved in a way of thinking which credits competition with regulatory virtues that it does not in fact have.
On the other hand, you have also defended the conviction that modernization and organization could only be achieved by way of competition, as if only undertakings in the competitive sector were capable of modernizing, of being at the leading edge of technology.
That is indeed the case with a number of undertakings, but we can quote just as many examples where undertakings in the monopolistic public sector achieve extremely high levels of technological and economic performance.
To summarize our viewpoint, then, you are clearly underestimating the scope of application of the public interest, seriously underestimating the social cost of regulation through competition, and at the same time clearly overvaluing the role of this competition as a factor in modernization and progress.
Our view is that the Treaty provides an insufficient defence to this. So the Treaty will have to be amended, as others have said and more will say in due course.
As to finance, your proposals on this are entirely inadequate. If we go no further than what is authorized by the Commission at present, we are leading public service straight down the road to privatization, contrary to the intentions of those who compiled the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
Finally, as far as competition is concerned, we say that although you, Commissioner, are indeed the guardian of competition and of the Treaty, you must also realize that in addition to the Treaty you are the guardian of something else, something more precious - the European social model desired by the authors of the Treaty of Rome. It is from that role, as guardian of the social model, that you derive your legitimation.
Never forget that.
Mr President, public services exist for the public.
As long as you agree with that, we shall agree with you.
But they cannot be, as they often are, the exclusive preserve of a self-elected technocracy, a syndicate of civil servants or, worse still, the coalition of political parties.
Ask all the users of the Belgium telephone system to compare their situation with that of consumers in countries where more has been done to break the monopoly of the telephone service, and you will see what differences exist in terms of service and price, and how repairs are taken into consideration.
Then let everyone make a choice, and we shall see which of the two is right.
As far as I am concerned, personally, I entirely support Mr Van Miert's argument, and I am delighted by it.
No one can deny Mr Van Miert's socialist and social convictions, and that is why I am in complete agreement with him.
I would also call the attention of all our socialist friends to what was said by Mr Berthu, because Mr Berthu said exactly the same thing as you on certain points.
The Commission must be deprived of the powers it has in this area. But in order to do something quite different: to give the States the power to do, once again, whatever they want, to the detriment of the citizen and the benefit of the national technocracy.
That is Mr Berthu's argument.
So what I say is, handle with care.
And, Mr Van Miert, I would call your attention to this: you said the Commission was very receptive to discussions regarding amendments to the Treaty on this subject.
Remember that.
Everything I have heard so far, both from the German Federal Government, which considers itself highly federalistic, and from other governments is aimed at depriving the Commission of the powers it holds.
And I would hope at least to find, in this Parliament, a majority willing to support the Commission on that point.
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate today on public services.
I want to begin by placing emphasis on the question of employment policy, in particular to focus on traded public services - as distinct from the public service in general - and the way in which in employment policy terms they are critical to the creation of sustainable jobs in the Union.
Those working in public enterprises are the concern of many colleagues here.
But those working in general and the capacity of those out of work to get a sustainable job are in part tied up with this question because telecoms, energy, transport, and post are all essential cost structures within the private sector, for which the traded public service sector is critically important in efficiency terms.
If we truly believe in job creation, and I know in this House there is a great commitment to that as a policy objective, public service protectionism, as distinct from a public service ethic, must play no part in our policy package.
On competition policy, the Liberal Group believes the public service providers must continue to be subject to competition policy through Article 90.
This article should not be changed or watered down into a Trojan horse to halt or hold back the process of the completion of the internal market.
This will remain so whether public service providers are in the public or private sector.
From the point of view of consumers, the Liberal Group believes, subject to the observations I have already made, that consumers should be assured of quality and accessibility of public services and we respect and commend the principle of universality.
When we come to growth, job creation and sustainable jobs, then cost efficiency, high quality and accessible traded public services are at the core of that enterprise.
Anything less would be damaging to the public interest and no less damaging to the ultimate sustainability of a proper public service capacity within the Union.
Mr President, I very much welcome Mr van Miert's remarks and his positive, vigorous approach to the subject of public services in the Union.
His remarks, in my opinion, have given us a flavour of what we may expect in the forthcoming Commission paper.
All of us here today have said so far that we recognize that public services, like many other European economic sectors, are undergoing and will continue to undergo, structural change as the European economy integrates and as technological change continues to advance.
In addition, we have to confess that we have all also seen demands for change in the public service brought about by failures and dysfunctions in that sector, for a variety of reasons.
With a situation that is so variable, with great plurality and differences in services across the Union, I find it very difficult to understand why the Commission is seeking one simple solution to the current problems of public service.
The solution it proposes, namely liberalization and privatization of services and the introduction of market mechanisms into those sectors, is one of which there has been some experience in some countries in this Union already.
I have to tell you, on the basis of that experience, that I would not guarantee that it would produce better, more efficient or cheaper public services.
All too often it has produced no services, it has produced a worse service or it has produced a paid-for service that is no longer a public service, no longer comprehensive or affordable and often privately-owned and usually profit-motivated.
We have to recognise that there are public services within the Union that are of general interest and cannot simply be subject to liberalization and privatization but instead must be made available as public services for the public good.
This can only be achieved if we accept and recognise this fact by making a change in the Treaty on which the functioning of this Union is based.
There are a variety of ways in which it can be done, either changing articles, like Article 90 or Article 3, or by new additions.
However it is done it must be a concrete expression of our belief that public services have an important role to play in a dynamic, wealth-creating European economy that creates jobs and facilitates the efficient operation of the economy but also underpins social justice and creates solidarity.
If these are the objectives of the Commission communication when presented to this House, it will be welcomed, if not we must take up serious arguments against the Commission.
Mr President, I too welcome the opportunity to have this debate with the Commissioner.
I want to ask one question, at the beginning: will public service broadcasting be included in your communication, Commissioner? In this age of increasing unemployment and social confusion, public services, as many in my Group have said, constitute a basic common structure binding society together.
This is all the more the case for public service broadcasting which is so crucial to our democracy.
It is basically essential for the preservation of our political freedoms that citizens receive the full range of information, debate and expression that allows them democratic participation in our society.
I would maintain that only independent public service broadcasters can fulfil this role.
Broadcasting, like other public services, is however a hybrid; the market has a role but the market can also be, and is, flawed.
Governments at a national and European level cannot abdicate their responsibility for ensuring that all citizens receive independent, impartial news and information, as well as the full range of programmes, from distance learning to high-calibre drama, that our democracy demands.
Yet, Commissioner van Miert is confronted at this very moment with a whole range of legal complaints against the very nature of public service broadcasting.
What does he have at his disposal to make a judgment? Competition rules pure and simple.
It is not good enough that rulings about broadcasting should be based exclusively on exceptions to competition rules and internal market policy.
We need a new basis and, as many have said, that means changes to the Treaties, be it Article 2, Article 90 or indeed any of the articles on citizens' rights.
This would allow positive policy proposals on public service.
For example, in the domain which I have mentioned why not a proposal for a European BBC - please excuse momentarily the chauvinism.
Citizens need to know that Europe is not a simple free market.
Citizens want and deserve a commitment to public service, enshrined clearly in Europe's constitution.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to offer my sincere thanks to all speakers, although I had the feeling that I have only one unconditional supporter, Mr Herman, and I must say a special word of thanks to him, because I was beginning to feel rather lonely.
Having said that, I can confirm, since some of you again asked the question, that in normal circumstances the Commission will adopt its communication next week, but of course the debate will continue.
I assume that Parliament will produce a report, that there will be discussions in committee, etc. so the process will go on.
The Commission, for its part, regards this document as a contribution to the Intergovernmental Conference, and will consider the time at which its nature should be determined.
I, personally, have quite often talked in terms of a charter.
I do not know whether the Commission will adopt that idea.
Again, we may discuss other alternatives.
We shall see in due course what form this type of communication will take.
To ensure that there is also no misunderstanding, Mr Herman, regarding the amendments to the Treaty, I recalled the Commission's position regarding Article 90, and the open-mindedness of the Commissioners, who are holding discussions - the final outcome of which I cannot at present predetermine - with a view to determining how much reason there is to amend particular articles.
That debate is continuing.
I am cautious, as you will have seen, but you are right to feel that I am indicating a spirit of open-mindedness in this respect.
Next, I would like to clarify the situation between us.
We are talking about the powers of the European Union and of the Commission, not about social security.
But it must also be said that, in a communication of this kind, we are not acting at that level.
And, Mr Wijsenbeek, you may have your ideas on this, and I have mine, and I am telling you mine because I am talking outside the framework of the Commission communication.
I am against the privatization of social security, clearly, because it is the very heart of solidarity within a society.
I am entitled to hold this opinion, but that is not what we are discussing here.
We are discussing public services and universal services - call them what you like - within the framework of Community competencies.
And we should stick to that.
Then there is Article 222.
Some speakers have referred to that article, especially Mr Wijsenbeek.
The Commission has to remain neutral on this.
That, Carole, explains why the Commission cannot become involved in the internal deliberations of the Member States to determine whether a public or private channel should be retained.
Here again, my personal position is that I hope the BBC in the United Kingdom will remain as it is.
I am a devoted supporter of the BBC and the quality it offers. But the Commission cannot intervene in the United Kingdom's internal policy on this, or impose any solution, one way or the other.
On the other hand - and we have proved it, because too often, as I said before, your Parliament does not know what we have done - take the case of the broadcasting rights to major events.
The Commission, on the basis of Article 90 - please note - found that a form of cooperation existed which, in reality, was a cartel set up among public broadcasting channels, together with one private channel, TF1, which had combined to purchase the rights.
We felt, taking the concept of public interest as our basis, that we could accept that.
Thereupon, other channels lodged complaints and the Court, unfortunately, held that we were wrong.
We shall be taking further action here, because I believe we should stand by that policy, making corrections to a number of things, but there are still good reasons for maintaining that policy.
Well, you can see that the Commission, specifically, is indeed incorporating these ideas in its policy.
And it would be unfair, would it not, to make accusations against the Commission regarding this. We will have many opportunities to discuss this again, because there are many problems.
I receive dozens of complaints in this area, private channels against public channels, regarding State aid, etc.
There is no end to it!
So we shall often be returning to the subject.
As regards the universal service, ladies and gentlemen, here again a distinction has to be made.
I could give you at least ten examples of public service monopolies which nevertheless do not provide a universal service.
It was necessary to wait for months to have a telephone installed, as Mr Herman said.
Is that a universal service? No, our idea of universal service is to provide people with a rapid response and good quality at affordable prices, something that was not always guaranteed by the public institutions.
Let us recognize that fact.
That is the reality of the situation.
So let us make a distinction.
Many of you have also drawn attention to another point.
Today, the consumer has a say in things.
He no longer accepts a situation where a ruling class - which is often what it amounts to - makes decisions for him and he has no say in it.
That is the real situation.
Things have changed, and the Commission is trying to incorporate that change into its policy.
The idea is to provide the public with a maximum of service, and if competition enables us to do that, then I am in favour of it.
Because today, at last, you can opt to have a portable telephone, whereas in the past you could not.
And did people have access to that technology? No, because they were unable to pay for it.
That was the way things were.
Competition does in fact ensure that far more people get a better service at more affordable prices.
But I am not in favour of competition at all costs, because one can have too much of a good thing.
I could give you examples.
Even so, demonizing competition, as some of you are doing, is really no way to serve the public.
(Applause) There are many areas in which a little more competition would be in the public interest.
Let me give you another example, since somebody referred to transport.
In twenty years, freight transport, the carriage of goods, has lost half of its market share, for a variety of reasons, one of which is that it doesn't work very well. Are you going to retain that system?
Or are you going to change it so as to try to move more goods by rail than by road? Please, have the courage to face up to this debate, not just to retain structures as they are but also to change things, trying to institute a genuine transport policy on this.
These are the questions which arise.
It is important to remember that.
In conclusion, I can say that I do share some of your concerns.
There is one thing worse than a public monopoly, and that is a private monopoly.
But, here again, you should recognize that the Commission does attack that, by avoiding the creation of dominant situations through its merger policy. That applies in your country too, Mr Wijsenbeek, because when the private channels pool their resources to try to dominate the market, we step in.
Is that such a bad policy on the part of the Commission? Let us at least be honest with each other.
(Applause)
The debate is closed.
Annual report on the structural funds 1994
The next item is the report (A4-0211/96) by Mr Teverson, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Sixth Annual Report on the Structural Funds 1994 (COM(95)0583 - C4-0009/96).
Mr President, the structural funds report is specifically about 1994 but it is the first year of a six-year programme up to the year 1999 and it is an Ecu 141bn programme over that time, accounting for some 30 % of the European Union's budget.
For that reason, I have produced more a strategic report than one that just looks at 1994 in isolation, given that 1994 is now ancient history as far as many people here are concerned.
I want to make it clear that although this report is critical of a number of things, it is not specifically critical of the European Commission.
In fact, there are many good points that come out in this report: the fact that there is relatively little fraud in structural funding; that the new single programming document has worked successfully; and that there are a large number of successful programmes that have rolled-out in the regions of the Union.
The bad characters are more the Member States themselves, and the European institutions together have caused a number of strategic problems in this area.
Perhaps I could go through those and then come on to some of the solutions that I would put forward before the Commissioner here in this Chamber.
Going back to 1992-1993 and the setting up of these funds, they were characterized particularly by secrecy; the usual secrecy of the Council of Ministers, the fudging of the budget process, and that included this body the European Parliament.
But generally Parliament was excluded from the whole process of setting up regional funding.
When we are talking about a large proportion of European expenditure that is entirely unacceptable.
Secondly, when trying to find what the structural funds were trying to achieve I was unable to find targets anywhere for this expenditure.
As a result, it is almost impossible to assess their success or their value.
I see this as a major flaw in the whole programme.
Thirdly, complexity.
As an MEP advising my own constituents I find it sometimes very difficult to give them details about particular European funds they should go for.
We have many directorate-generals involved, three different funds, six different objectives and a number of programmes that go from Community initiatives to Article 7 and Article 10 through to the main structural funding itself.
It is not understandable and if we tried to invent something that was specifically supposed to be complex and difficult to understand for our citizens, then we would have something here.
That is unacceptable.
One of the other things that particularly struck me was that although this is a European programme, and accounts for such a large proportion of the budget, there is very little of it that is actually trans-national.
It is actually 15 different national programmes.
Apart from perhaps Article 10 and 7 areas, and to a small degree the Community initiatives, we lack and we miss the many synergistic benefits that are available from trans-national cooperation and building up the regions of Europe.
Structural funding does not allow that.
It will never be a fully European programme, it will always largely be nationally oriented but we take this too far.
I am depressed by the fact that in terms of tracking payments there is some jubilation in the report that perhaps 75 % of the budgeted payments actually went through during the year.
Well 75 % is not very good in terms of performance but the worst thing to me is that this only measures payments from the European Union to Member States, it does not measure when those payments were actually received by the end-user where employment is created and regional development takes place.
There are no statistics for that whatsoever, so our key measure for how these funds are being used and how quickly they have been applied is not available to us anywhere in this report nor in any information that the Commission has.
Moving on to the environment: once again, we have in the Court of Auditors Report examples where structural funding money is used to undo environmental damage that has been created by previous structural programmes.
That is still a disgrace to me and is something that needs to be put right very quickly.
I know that action has taken place but that needs to be even better.
We move on to what I would call best practice.
We have a wealth of experience of structural funding and of the regions doing good work in terms of development and yet we seem not to make the most of spreading the experience of best practice between the different regions.
The Commission says that it is doing this and I accept that but it does not give it one mention in this report and that speaks volumes in terms of its real priority.
Lastly, in terms of problems. I would criticise our own institution, the European Parliament.
When we are talking about such a large proportion of our total expenditure, then we need to give far more scrutiny to our consideration of this area than we do at the moment.
We should go out and see what is working and what is not and should bring witnesses forward and have hearings, we should actually treat this far more seriously and comprehensively than we do at the moment.
I will finish by saying that we have solutions available to us: simplification, sweeping away bureaucracy at national level, tracking expenditure but most importantly preparing for next time.
The structural funds are a valuable and essential programme, on the whole they are working well but they do not yet have the full confidence of the public.
We need fundamental changes for the future and we need to take those first steps now.
Mr President, we should like to emphasise, as we did in the explanatory memorandum to the opinion of the Committee on Social Affairs, that the year to which the report refers was the first of the new programming period following revision of the Structural Fund regulation.
We called for greater interest to be shown and more thoroughness to be applied to the analysis of ways in which the resources transferred were actually applied and, at the same time, a certain amount of leeway to be given for aspects concerning the transition, which was perhaps too sudden.
Therefore, we must, first of all, take advantage of that year and learn certain lessons from it in order to improve the new system in operation until 1999.
We were surprised therefore to note that no such thought was given to this idea.
It is really quite unacceptable that the way in which the system worked in its first year of application is being used as a pretext for judging not the system and its execution but the whole philosophy lying behind the Structural Funds and the role they play in pursuit of the objective of economic and social cohesion.
We must congratulate the rapporteur on adopting our proposals and those of the Committee on Social Affairs and we should like once again to submit our request to the Commission so that, in future, a better assessment might be carried out of the repercussions of structural intervention on employment, in particular in respect of stable employment and women's jobs.
We also repeat, more forcefully, our demand for more indications as to the impact of the criteria of economic and monetary union, in particular with reference to the additionality requirements, and we also point out that there should be attempts at establishing links of conditionality between implementation of regional policies and respect for those criteria, which we consider to be both significant and inappropriate.
We should like once again to assert, in defence of the objective of economic and social cohesion, what, in the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, was highlighted and integrated into the report, as concerns the difficulties concerning the absorption of budgetary financial appropriations in the hope that, in keeping with that position, that committee will not propose guidelines and positions which concentrate on unsatisfactory execution rates and ignore the difficulties experienced in 1994, now recognised, and which have not been exceeded since.
Mr President, last year when I spoke in this debate, I said that annual reports provide an opportunity not to look backwards, to assign blame and criticize, but to look forward and learn from the difficulties that we have had in programme implementation.
In short, we should not be revisiting the same old problems when we have this debate.
Unfortunately, that seems to be too often the case.
The key problem that I want to highlight today in connection with the Teverson report, in the light of the budgetary debate in 1997 and Council's decision on 25th July to cut structural fund payments in some areas, is the perceived problem of under-utilization of structural funds.
We urgently have to take this issue on but what I fear is happening is an attempt by some Member States to renege on agreements that they made in Edinburgh and fail to meet the targets they agreed.
That is something that we have to take up because it could result in a long-term discrediting of regional policy.
I would like to commend the Commissioner for her decisive action in putting a proposal to the Venice informal Council to improve the efficiency of structural funds.
I would like to commend the Commission on its SCM 2000 programme and of course, in the context of the Teverson Report I would like to thank Mr Teverson for taking on board my own Group's amendments in committee to this report.
There are, of course, areas where I believe we can improve performance: better training for administrators through exchanges; streamlining administrative processes; strengthening the role of regions and local authorities; combatting the irregularities in fraud by establishing clear audit trails; better access to information.
But some of his proposals would require a bureaucracy in Brussels ten times the size of the current Commission.
It is simply not realistic to ask the Commission to monitor every individual payment to final beneficiaries.
Member States must take their own commitments in these areas seriously.
I fear that the proposals will come to nothing without a change of mind by several Member States, my own of course included.
They now seem to specialize in putting new obstacles in the way and of course the latest one is meeting the EMU convergence criteria.
We cannot stress enough that closing the gap between poor and rich Member States - achieving cohesion - means Member States must take the responsibility seriously.
I am very unhappy that the non-take-up of funding has been a dominant theme in the media and is discrediting the good work that we do in structural funds.
I believe that the Member States are now moving towards self-imposed nonutilization of funding and slowing-down our processes, which will lead to problems in the longer term.
When Member States signed up to the Edinburgh Agreement, they knew the commitments they were entering into; they knew they had to meet the convergence criteria and it is simply not good enough now to make a linkage which is not in the interests of our regional policy programmes.
I therefore say, on behalf of my Group, that we reject the attempt by the French Government to link structural fund spending to EMU criteria.
We cannot change the rules half-way through the programmes and we must denounce the hypocrisy of the Council of Ministers of paying lip-service to launch actions on unemployment and then reneging on their commitments to tackle unemployment through structural funds.
The real threat to implementation comes from the Member States themselves.
We need more accountability, we need more transparency, we need more devolution but we above all need more commitment.
I would like to ask the Commissioner to continue with her annual reports but to come to us on a regular basis so that we can help her improve utilization by putting pressure on the Member States, so that we can take swift action when bottlenecks and obstacles occur.
We must not get to a situation where Member States are able to draw false conclusions, undermining our spending programmes where we know that they are vital to citizens' opportunities.
I therefore would like to encourage the Commissioner in her work, to support her in making the case for a strong regional policy and for keeping the focus on our goal of economic and social cohesion.
Ladies and gentlemen, the subject area covered by this report is particularly interesting because 1994 was the first year of the new programme planning period after the review of the structural funds regulation.
At that time, this review was intended to make programme planning simpler and less time consuming.
But some of the facts that emerge from the 1994 reports tell a different story and now that we are approaching mid-term in the planning period we should take the Sixth Annual Report as an opportunity to include strategic aspects in the next planning period, for after all - leaving aside agriculture - we are looking at the largest item of European Union expenditure.
So the annual assessments of the structural funding programmes represent a major task for Parliament and in particular for the Committee on Regional Policy.
The Commission report is very comprehensive.
It contains good ideas on how to link up the structural funds with other EU areas, activities and policies.
Yet my group very largely agrees with the rapporteur that in future the procedures need to be simplified at administrative and political level.
After all, we MEPs see day after day and in the field how the complexity of the funds and their complicated administration creates incomprehension and uncertainty among Union citizens and other potential beneficiaries in the assisted regions.
One example is that the responsibility for the three existing funds, whose objectives are not always clearly demarcated one from the other, is in fact shared among different directorates-general within the Commission and a large number of national and regional bodies.
We therefore agree with the rapporteur that this stock-taking in the first year after the review shows that the formulation and evaluation of the programmes and the financial proposals remain just as complicated and not sufficiently transparent.
Secondly: there is a need to improve the situation of all potential beneficiaries of the funds, not least in the disadvantaged regions and peripheral regions, who often receive information slowly or belatedly.
Thirdly: the aim must be to make these programmes more comprehensible and simplify the language, for otherwise we will always have to provide assistants to explain the content of these programmes to those who want to apply for them.
Fourthly: a further outcome of the Sixth Annual Report should be that the Commission changes the criteria and methods of implementing the structural funds, with particular reference to the administration of the resources, in order to simplify the financial transfers.
I am thinking in particular here of the need also to establish more flexible criteria for fixing the level of Community co-financing.
Like the rapporteur, we regret the lack of participation of Parliament in determining the Financial Perspective - for the period 1994-1999 - for the structural funds and emphasize the need for it to be genuinely involved in the forthcoming decisions on the next programme period for the years 2000-2006.
Let us therefore draw overall conclusions from the annual assessments of the structural funding programmes; then reports of this kind will no longer just take stock but also serve as good pointers for future action!
Mr President, we are assessing the application of one third of the European Union budget, that concerning the Structural Funds, which in our opinion are justified because they are helping to bring about application of the principle of economic and social cohesion.
That principle of economic and social cohesion which - in my opinion and I believe everyone's - is essential for consolidating the European Union itself.
Obviously, I should like to emphasise that economic and social cohesion cannot only be seen in terms of approximation or convergence between the Member States but also between the regions of Europe, because it also involves a fight to rectify regional imbalances.
I should like to compliment Mr Teverson on his excellent assessment of the Commission report and for having gone further than a pure and simple commentary of that report. I wish to refer to three aspects:
First of all, our need to go further in the follow-up procedures of both the Commission and the European Parliament in relation to the impact and the results of the European Union's policies, in particular through the Structural Funds.
We need information - quality information but also timely information.
Remember that in the documents we are going to discuss in a few minutes, concerning the Structural Funds, for example in Portugal, the figures at our disposal in the document date back to 1991 and do not cover all Portuguese regions.
On the other hand, this follow-up should enable us to find ways of putting that right, and actually acting upon the findings of our assessment of the application of the Structural Funds, in particular by having a secure working basis for reformulating them for a new period of economic and social cohesion beginning in 1999.
I should like to conclude by emphasising the need to articulate policies in the European Union, policies on the environment, transport, the building of infrastructures, and the need for more articulation of the policies which help to rectify imbalances which are on one hand, the responsibility of the European Union and, on the other hand, the responsibility of the Member States which also must bear those responsibilities.
Mr President, our Group feels, as Mr Teverson has said in his magnificent report, that the structural funds are the main instrument for reducing inequalities between the various countries of the European Union and strengthening economic and social cohesion.
Hence all the programmes need to be simplified so that citizens of the Union can understand the benefits of solidarity among its component nations.
However, we believe that the projects in which women participate have been and still are inadequate, and this must be a requirement in the remaining programmes and in future ventures.
Equality between men and women is a commitment acquired by the European Union in Beijing at the Fourth World Conference on Women, and in the Fourth Action Programme on equal opportunities, which means that Member States, the Commission and this Parliament have a duty to include it in the structural funds.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the fact that the gap between poor and rich regions is continuing to widen and in view of the fact that the drastic cuts inspired by monetary union are destabilizing the entire system of economic and social cohesion, it is urgently necessary to make every effort to use the structural funds effectively!
The new structural funds regulation certain suggests means of giving impetus to sustained development in the disadvantaged regions.
But although that is one criterion of the regulation, the Commission did not examine, either in the programmes or in their implementation, whether the sustained development that the structural funds are to promote in these regions also takes account of the need to protect natural resources.
Other rules were not referred to either in the report, such as respect for the principle of equal opportunities.
For example, the Member States did not have to prove that they involved their environmental partners in the planning and implementing stages in good time.
Here the Commission must assume more responsibility: it must make checks and, in particular, it must intervene.
Parliament cannot accept the fact that the SMEs still have such a hard time obtaining the funding.
What is the use of wonderful strategies to assist SMEs at European level if, as in the case of Germany, the Member States make access more difficult for them by cutting the European resources for such assistance? Why is the Commission allowing the rules of the new structural funds regulation to be so crassly disregarded?
What is it doing to stop this?
Mr President, good work has been done by the rapporteur Mr Teverson and by the committee as a whole, and it seems to me that the report contains very useful suggestions and criticisms.
In our discussions, however, we have gone further - rightly - than analyzing 1994.
To think in more general terms: we started from the fact that - not only in 1994 - the use made of structural funds is not satisfactory.
We know that there are differences between States, between regions, between objectives, that the situations are not all the same, but overall it is not satisfactory.
The States, the regions, the nations still have particular responsibilities known to us, about which some fundamental points have been made: among other things it is the States themselves - and Mrs McCarthy is right here - that go on to propose cutting down the budget of the structural funds.
The matter is therefore extremely serious.
In the discussion of the Teverson report we have also dealt with two questions which I want to recall here: firstly, the mechanism of the Structural Funds is now too complex, too difficult, too cumbersome, and must be simplified.
We must set ourselves this aim: we must start at once and try to change the programming and management of these funds wherever possible immediately, and must also follow the lines already taken, on 3 and 4 May, in the Council of Ministers on these questions, precisely with a view to the simplification and transparency of the procedures.
Secondly, we must begin to think about the regulations to be revised and reshaped for 1999 in order to make them more productive and better suited to the new phase of the European Union.
It will in any case be obligatory, but all the more justifiable if they are added to.
The Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, has already said some interesting things on this point on a number of public occasions.
Perhaps we should now begin to translate them into documents and to do some precise thinking among ourselves.
We must however say one thing clearly: there are too many funds, too many bodies dealing with them, too many Directorates-General; there is too much complexity and therefore a danger of overlapping of objectives and instruments.
This is a question which we can no longer avoid; we shall not be able to settle it before 1999, of course, but we must start dealing with it now, including the role of the European Parliament in the regulation of the structural funds and also in the financial prospects, which is a fundamental aspect.
I believe that these are the questions which we must start to discuss.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen: strengthening economic and social cohesion is one of the basic principles of the Maastricht Treaty.
The Treaty specifies in particular that the Community should seek to eliminate differences in the level of development of different regions.
The relevant provisions seek to ensure that people can live and earn a living even in the remotest regions of the Union.
The Union's regional and structural policies can provide substantial support to help overcome regional differences in development, as regional policy appropriations already comprise a third of the Union's budget.
The proportion of national regional policy accounted for by EU programmes of Community initiatives could be further increased, for example by linking the implementation of the Interreg 2 programme and local cooperation and by improving the exploitation of other programmes in urban and rural policy.
It would be perfectly possible to improve the interaction between the various programmes, for example within the framework of the Urban and Leader programmes.
From the point of view of Finland, following its recent accession, the growing significance of the Baltic region is important.
In practice this means that the EU's Baltic policy should support regions' spontaneous interaction.
Together with the Baltic peripheral areas, greater use should be made of the scope afforded by the Interreg 2C programmes and links between Phare and Tacis aid and Finland.
For example, by designating areas of NorthWestern Russia close to the Finnish border Tacis target areas and by allocating funds for the actual implementation of projects rather than just for planning and consultancy, it would be possible to promote the development of SMEs in border regions better than at present.
I believe that the proposal put forward in the Committee of the Regions that the Commission should draw up a separate programme of principles and activities for the Union's northern regions deserves every support.
I hope that these points of view can and will be taken into account when the principles of regional policy are reviewed, at the latest in 1999.
As you know, twelve European states are currently seeking accession to the Union, and when they join this will hugely increase expenditure.
Although enlargement is of course the Union's response to the new challenges facing Europe, it is quite possible that the EU's regional and agricultural policies will have to be reformed before enlargement.
For this reason and above all in order to avoid a crisis both in the applicant countries and in the present Member States, enlargement and the decisions associated with it must be very carefully planned.
Mr President, the report on the Sixth Annual Report on the Structural Funds in 1994 rightly criticizes the structural funds' weaknesses and confirms our view that the structural funds need to be tightened up and that the funding needs to be reduced for the time being.
The lack of transparency of the organizational structure, the inadequate cross-frontier dimension of the structural programmes, the lack of information on the flow of money to the Member States and the poor cooperation between national authorities are an obstacle to concentrated and therefore efficient administration and to the optimization of the monitoring systems, which therefore opens the doors very wide to abuse and fraud.
The Court of Auditors is indeed complaining that the countries concerned did not listen to its proposals for improvement.
But the fact that the structural funds are co-financed by the individual Member States is also an anachronism, given the need to observe the EMU convergence criteria on the one hand and the additional resources needed to co-finance the structural programmes in the national states on the other.
In their present form the structural funds will in the end create no or only a few new jobs.
At most, existing jobs will be redistributed.
We will certainly have to consider this.
Mr President, Commissioner: unemployment is the biggest problem throughout the EU.
In nearly every Member State unemployment and particularly the growth of long-term unemployment has assumed unacceptable proportions.
The whole EU budget amounts to only about 2 % of the Member States' combined Gross Domestic Product.
The appropriations for the Structural Funds represent about a third of the final annual budget.
It is easy, therefore, to calculate that the funding available to solve structural problems and hence unemployment is very limited.
For this reason too, therefore, attention increasingly needs to be devoted to how this funding is used and how effective the programmes adopted are, so that unemployment can be reduced and particularly new jobs can be created.
It is important to analyse past structural policy programmes, but - as has already been pointed out here - it is equally important that we should be able to learn from them and create new and better programmes.
Regional programmes are implemented in accordance with the subsidiarity principle.
However, all of us - Parliament's Committee on Regional Policy, the Commission and the Council too - should ensure that European regional policy achieves certain objectives.
Projects carried out with European funding should not only promote employment but, above all, assist social progress and promote development.
Projects should meet the needs of citizens and of society in the future.
Thus for example those issues which the Commissioner referred to earlier, concerning, inter alia, the new jobs provided by culture, the media, education and the information society, should increasingly be included in new programmes so as to create genuine new jobs in the European region.
Mr President, I believe that the Teverson report, assisted by the amendments proposed by many of us in the Committee on Regional Policy, is a good document and that it sets out the European Parliament's position on the implementation of the structural funds in 1994 in a clear manner.
Nevertheless, there are four or five points in connection with the report that I regard as particularly important and that I feel that I ought to mention.
Firstly, the delay in the submission of the Commission's report.
It has come more quickly than did previous reports and I acknowledge the improvement. I mention the point simply in the hope of stimulating earlier submission of reports in future years, because now, in 1996, we are talking about things which took place two years ago in 1994.
Secondly, I think that more emphasis needs to be placed on the trans-European element in the implementation of the structural funds via support for cooperative actions between regions and Member States as a means to bringing the regions and, indeed, the citizens of Europe into closer involvement.
In addition, given our concern about assessment of the structural fund actions, I think that a clear, easily applicable and consistent methodology for ex-ante, ongoing and ex-post assessment of the actions must be devised.
I know that it is not easy, or something that can be achieved by tomorrow morning. Speaking for myself, I simply want us to be able to conduct our deliberations on a more reliable basis.
I believe, also, that the on-the-spot checks carried out by the Commission to verify that projects are being correctly executed should be extended and made more stringent in order to ensure swifter and better realization of projects that are funded through the Community budget.
Lastly, from my own standpoint, I should like to stress the importance of looking for ways of promoting greater private sector involvement in structural fund actions. As you can easily understand, the greatly increased resources that would thus be made available would bring a very substantial improvement in the results of the implementation.
Mr President, I begin by congratulating not only the rapporteur but the Commission itself.
The report produced takes careful note of the recommendations made last year by my esteemed colleague Mrs Frutos Gama and the resolution passed by the European Parliament.
Therefore, what remains of concern to us is not in the main the contents or analysis within the report but what it says and does not say about the performance of the structural funds programmes themselves.
What the report does say is that there are significant and damaging delays in payments to localities and regions and that some governments deliberately ignore the principle of additionality and use structural fund moneys to pay the wages of their own civil servants.
This is a familiar story to those of us from the UK and one which should redouble our determination to ensure that the moneys reach quickly those on the ground for whom they are intended.
What the report does say is that money is allocated for Community initiatives and innovative measures, some of which are outside the main objective areas and that it was not spent or only beginning to be spent during the year in question.
The Commissioner knows that I was pleased to act as the rapporteur on the latter programmes known collectively as Article 10.
What the report does not say is that the delay in these programmes specifically harms localities and regions which are suffering real economic problems, for example in industrial sectors or in new and different ways, but who are not eligible for other forms of European assistance.
This delay in payment must not be used as an excuse to attack the budget for these important measures or be allowed to discourage those new to European programmes from fully benefiting.
In the quite proper debate on concentration, these points must not be lost.
Finally, what the report does say is that consultation has taken place with the social partners.
What it does not record is the deep concern we have expressed about misuse of structural fund moneys to benefit privatized services including Anglia Water in my own constituency in Essex in the UK.
The Commissioner is asked to maintain her enquiries in this respect and I would be grateful if she could address this point in particular in her reply.
Mr President, I should also like to join in the congratulations offered by my colleagues to the rapporteur, who has certainly done an excellent job, with which we agree; hence it is unnecessary to repeat many of the questions which are already included in the report, which we also endorse.
I can understand that, for the Commission as well, it must be rather wearing to hear the same questions from Member after Member.
But I believe that this should show the Commission that, from one end to the other of the full parliamentary arc, we are all more or less agreed on the criticisms, assessments and also on the proposals.
I also believe that it is most important to bear in mind the general approach of all our interventions.
In general they are not directed against the Commission's work, but often against the actual system we have and the inadequacy of the means available to both Commission and Parliament.
And this too should be very clear.
Parliament and Commission have been working in these areas for many years in a very coordinated and positive manner.
Having said this, it must be added that annual the reports are not sufficient for our Parliamentary work and our responsibility for monitoring and checking these funds.
And it has to be remembered that these funds are very large.
After agricultural investment this is the biggest item in the Community budget.
And the only thing we do every year is to approve a budget heading and then receive reports two or three years late.
I do not believe that this Parliament can work with this kind of report.
Although it must be acknowledged that the reports have gradually improved, I believe that we must move beyond the accounting stage and make a start on assessments, which for our purposes are essential and which we have been demanding year after year.
A possible example is the assessment which needs to be made of additionality, one of the essential requirements of structural fund organization, which in the Commission's own report is very disappointing.
For any one of us it is disappointing to be working on a 1994 report which contains on page 174 a section stating that no suitable assessment of additionality can be given because the data will not all be available until late 1995.
But we are discussing these matters towards the end of 1996.
This is not helpful either to the Commission or ourselves when it comes to making a positive evaluation.
I think we also need to have access to the monitoring reports.
I have seen some.
I sincerely believe that they are unsatisfactory both to the Commission and to this Parliament.
They are simply administrative reports, which say hardly anything and are disappointing.
I think we can and must require these monitoring reports to have substance.
Mr President, there are other matters on which I should have liked to dwell, particularly in connection with the European Social Fund, to which some of my colleagues have already referred, but we are very concerned about monitoring the European Social Fund and will have to exert combined pressure to arrive at a much more positive and detailed evaluation.
Mr President, the Teverson report refers to the year 1994.
At that time Austria was not yet a Member State of the European Union.
Nevertheless, or perhaps because of that, the Teverson report is important for us too, for it does not just take the weaknesses that have been uncovered as grounds for criticizing past performance, it also calls for things to be improved.
Over these first two years in which we have not only been a Member State of the European Union but have also been cooperating in European regional policy, we in Austria have also noted these weaknesses, and from that point of view we can also identify some aspects of this report as relevant to us.
There are two particular points I want to take up. In my view, paragraph 9 rightly criticizes the fact that the structures of European regional assistance are far too complicated.
Both the administrative procedures and the general structures are so complex that in the end no-one can pretend to be truly well-informed on the subject.
To put it more simply: many people do not understand how the individual funds and the administrative units and the whole thing still works with national co-financing.
Paragraph 17 notes that noone, not even the Commission, knows where and how EU funding is actually used, because there is obviously a serious lack of information here.
Both these criticisms also apply to the first experience we in Austria have gained in the field of regional assistance, and from that point of view we too will have to learn from our mistakes.
In particular, as a country that is after all one of the net contributors in the Union and which therefore certainly has a duty to justify the use of these monies, we must not make the mistakes that have been shown up here, for that could only overturn the feelings of sympathy for the European Union, and it could overturn us, especially a few weeks before the European elections in our country.
There are a few things we can be proud of in regional policy. We do not need to hide our light under a bushel.
The Commissioner herself came to our country twice and was able to ascertain that.
A delegation from the Committee on Regional Policy also came to Austria, to Styria, and found that we are in fact doing very sensible things with the money, both our own and the money from Europe.
The important point here is to make this apparent to our citizens too.
There is a principle which I believe should be followed in politics in general and also and above all in politics during election times: do good and tell about it!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to thank Mr Teverson, the rapporteur for the Committee on Regional Policy, and the draftsmen of the opinions of the other committees for presenting Parliament with a very comprehensive motion for a resolution on the Sixth Annual Report from the Commission on the Structural Funds in 1994.
I understand your criticism about our tardiness, but I also regret the fact that we were not able to discuss what happened in 1994 until September 1996 in Parliament.
Here I really think in future we could coordinate our working procedures rather better to ensure that comments can be taken into account very quickly.
The Teverson report shows that the European Parliament is very interested in cohesion policy and strongly supports it.
The European Parliament rightly calls for structural policy resources not just to be used effectively but for the people also to be given comprehensive information on this assistance.
The motion for a resolution and the opinions of the committees raise some important questions of principle in relation to structural policy, which go beyond the brief and the time-span of a single annual report.
So there are important ideas to be considered in our future work, even if we will certainly not manage today fully to clarify all the ramifications between European and national regional policy and the effects of monetary union on cohesion.
I regard the motion for a resolution as part of a continuous dialogue between Parliament and the Commission, which we will have to deepen in coming months, particularly on the occasion of the mid-term review of structural policy in the cohesion report.
The motion for a resolution rightly refers to the Member States and their responsibility in these cases.
I consider it important for the European Parliament to support the Commission in its attempt to agree on solutions with the Member States that will further improve financial control and the implementation of the budget, ensure systematic evaluation and further strengthen the partnership principle in the implementation of structural policy.
Let me go into a few other questions in more detail.
The rapporteur regretted that Parliament was not sufficiently involved in the setting up of the structural funds for the period 1994-1999 and called for greater participation in future.
You know that I have supported this demand from the outset and meanwhile, in its opinion for the Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission has also called for the co-decision procedure with Parliament be extended to include the structural funds because I believe that is a clear and direct solution that will avoid the need in future for desperate attempts to obtain information or to draft reports after the event.
The rapporteur calls for the aims of structural policy to be specified and quantified more clearly.
I do not agree with the basic criticism expressed in the report, that the goals are not at all clear, for first of all there are of course objectives 1 to 6, which do indeed overlap slightly, but which certainly clarify the aims, and secondly the programmes do set out targets which are evaluated ex ante by independent experts before the Commission approves them.
Here too, of course, we find that one speaker says that he would like to know exactly, while another has called for more flexibility; I believe we have to find a sensible middle road between clear basic aims, but also the possibility of flexible reactions to particular regional features, for what we are trying to do is not to sit round a green table in Brussels and plan a programme, either in the Commission or in Parliament, but to ensure that the regions also have opportunities to participate in planning and to make changes during the programmes.
Nevertheless I think it is important for the Commission to continue trying to concentrate the structural measures on priority objectives such as combatting unemployment, within the framework of the current structural fund regulations.
In response to my proposal the Commission has set out guidelines for drawing up the new objective 2 programmes after detailed discussion in Parliament's Committee on Regional policy and I think you will find these in the report in question.
For the rest, this has also meant that we will be able to speed up the procedure for deciding on objective 2 programmes by also making it possible to continue current programmes in agreement with the Member States.
We have also made progress on quantifying the structural policy objectives.
But I do agree with you that this is not yet sufficient, and that applies in particular to the number of jobs that have been created, to their permanence, to the measures to ensure equal opportunities and to environmental effects.
I think we will have to be more specific here in future annual reports.
But we have improved the evaluation methods, in consultation with experts.
I believe that there has been a growing understanding in the Member States of the need for evaluation and I hope that this will also lead to an improvement in future programme proposals.
The motion for a resolution also refers to the importance of trans-national measures, and I agree with that.
On the basis of the structural policy aims set out in Edinburgh we have made use of existing possibilities here, for instance in the allocation of the reserve for Community initiatives, in agreement with Parliament, and we have not just stocked up INTERREG but also created new possibilities of inter-regional cooperation with INTERREG C. Article 10, pilot measures, has also been geared more closely to trans-national projects, urban networks, trans-national exchanges of experiences and best practices.
I admit that if we do useful things we should also talk about them more, as I have just been told.
But let me also say one thing: the fact that structural policy is regional by nature is certainly justified when it is a question of helping disadvantaged regions to catch up on the Community average.
Because of the delays in payments in 1994 that were mentioned, I urged both the Commission departments and the Member States to decide and implement structural measures more rapidly.
Nevertheless, the marked improvement in the execution of the 1995 budget and the greater speed of payments to be expected in 1996 still give no reason to sound the all-clear.
The competent national and regional authorities must also become aware of the risk that delays in carrying out the programmes may lead to an accumulation of payments that have to be made at the end of the planning period.
At the same time, the necessary financial absorption must not affect the quality of the programmes.
That is why we have to find a way of reconciling the need for solidarity with the structurally weak regions of the Union with the European tax-payer's right for his tax monies to be used in the most economical and effective manner possible, and I would also ask you to take note - and here I thank Mrs McCarthy for her support - that we in Brussels cannot build up some kind of super-bureaucracy but that in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity the Member States must assume their proper responsibilities.
We should not try to build up an even bigger bureaucracy here but make the Member States take on more of their responsibility via our efforts in relation to SCM 2000.
On environmental policy, I would ask Parliament to take note when it comes to take its decision that the Commission has reacted to the calls for an environmentally compatible structural policy.
In the letter of understanding that the Commission forwarded to Parliament, and in its communication on cohesion policy and the environment, the Commission has listed a great many measures in relation to which, as the latest discussions with the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection have shown, we have definitely made some progress, although this can only be recorded in future reports.
In conclusion, let me assure you that the Commission will take your resolution on board, with the aim of making the 1995 annual report even more informative.
Let me announce at this point that it will include a separate chapter on environmental policy and I hope that it will not take until the start of the new programme period in 2000 for us to have achieved some improvements but that we can also do so now within the realm of the possible and that you will be able to ascertain this from future reports.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Structural measures in Greece, Portugal and Spain
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0240/96 by Mr Klironomos, on the Commission Decision (C4-0036/96) on the establishment of the Community support framework for Community structural assistance for the Greek regions concerned by Objective 1, which is the whole country; -A4-0087/96 by Mr Chichester on development issues and Objective 1 structural measures in Portugal (C40035/96); -A4-0163/96 by Mrs Sierra González on development problems/structural measures under Objectives 1, 2 and 5b in Spain (1994-1999) (C4-0053/96 - C-0054/96).
Mr President, the establishment of the Community support framework for Community structural assistance for the whole of Greece as an Objective 1 area will be an important tool for Greece in its efforts towards economic and social development and will provide it with support on the road to economic and monetary union and help it to assume the role that it can and must play throughout the Balkans and the south-eastern Mediterranean basin.
The strategy of the regional development plan submitted to the Commission by the Greek Government, which the Commission adopted on 13 July 1994, dovetails with the main objectives of the White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment and centres on five main areas of development: the modernization of basic infrastructures, improvement of the quality of life by means of integrated action in the sectors of urban development, health and social assistance and the environment, the development of human resources, strengthening of the competitiveness of the economic fabric and the reduction of regional disparities and inaccessibility of island areas by means of 13 regional programmes.
For the period 1994-1999 there is provision for the allocation to Greece of ECU 13, 980, 000, 000 by way of CSF funding.
This does not include resources from the Cohesion Fund or funding provided through other Community initiatives.
Not only the Greek authorities but also the Commission are optimistic that the second CSF will make a major contribution to the overall economy of Greece.
It is estimated that Community resources will, on annual average, constitute 4.2 % of gross domestic product, that GDP will increase by 0.9 % annually and that, with regard to employment, without the CSF framework the number of jobs at the end of the period under consideration would be around 100, 000 less.
I think that I should mention certain main features of the Greek economy in order to convey an understanding of the wider strategy of the regional development plan.
The country's basic infrastructures are regarded as inadequate and have huge shortcomings in all sectors.
Agriculture, representing 20-22 % of GDP, is the major sector in the economy.
The industrial and processing sectors are very slowly increasing their contribution to the national economy while the services sector, of which the main focus is tourism, has developed significantly in recent years.
However, tourism, together with the Greek economy as a whole, is confronted with extremely serious infrastructural problems particularly in the transport and telecommunications sectors.
The Greek economy is restricted in size and the low output in the main economic sectors, in particular industry and agriculture, the inadequacy of infrastructures and facilities and the low level of vocational training of the working populace are also factors holding back the development of the country.
Despite this, the Greek economy has a number of valuable assets, such as considerable natural resources which can be developed, favourable climatic and environmental conditions, a rich cultural heritage, a strategic geographical position and a large number of dynamic entrepreneurs who are well placed to take advantage of the country's strategic position.
The need to implement the CSF has revealed the extent of the inability of the Greek public administration to plan, administer and realize the major public projects included in the programme, and has forced the Greek Government to create and activate a new institutional framework for planning and tendering and for the execution of the major projects, and, at the same time, obliged it to put in place the necessary mechanisms, such as a unit for organizing the management of the second CSF, a joint guidance committee and a Greek investments centre, to facilitate the task of implementing these major works.
The public administration shortcomings and the decisions that the Greek Government has had to take have delayed commencement of the realization of the major projects and have resulted, consequently, in an unsatisfactory rate of take-up and utilization of the Community resources.
Generally speaking, the picture with regard to implementation is mixed.
In certain sectors the picture is unfavourable, with the take-up rate of funding being extremely low or non-existent, while in other sectors it is encouraging: for example, the progress made with major infrastructural projects in the transport and energy sectors and with regard to the environment, research and technology.
On the other hand, the situation is unfavourable in the fields of industry, health, public administration, teaching and employment. It is, therefore, imperative to implement the programmes more rapidly in order to achieve a faster rate of growth in GDP in so far it is influenced by the CSF.
Failure to do so will mean that the objectives of economic and social cohesion and genuine convergence will disappear into the distance.
Persistent delay in implementing the second CSF will prove very costly, not in terms of lost Community resources but because the anticipated benefits from the completion of the CSF programmes will take a long time to appear.
A factor that ought not to be ignored is that the efforts of the Greek Government to achieve the goals of the CSF and the economic sacrifices of the Greek people as a result of the implementation the very painful programme aimed at achieving economic convergence, which are consonant objectives, are being made against a background of conditions more adverse than in any other Member State of the European Union, given that Greece is the only Member State whose territorial integrity is under threat and is forced, as a consequence, to spend a much greater percentage of its - already low - GDP on defence than any other country of the Union.
The overall scale of the Community funding allocation for the programme is considered to be, and indeed is, very substantial, but even so it is insufficient to meet the great needs of Greece in terms of basic infrastructure projects.
And if account is taken of the fact that the biggest portion of Greek national resources goes towards covering the enormous public debt, and that only a small percentage is available for public investment, the importance of utilizing the available money as productively and effectively as possible becomes very clear.
Mr President, perhaps I should start by pointing out that I am rapporteur but from a country other than the one which is the subject of this report.
I wonder whether this could or should be a precedent.
The first point I should like to make is to draw attention to the very real progress made in Portugal to reduce the gap between her domestic product per capita and the EU average during the life of the previous Community support framework in 1989-1993.
Secondly, I would point to the current programme involving a very substantial transfer of funds from the EU budget to Portugal - an amount including loans from the EIB of almost ECU 24bn.
This is serious money in anyone's language.
Yet preliminary results suggest that there has been a slow start to the programme and a lower drawdown of funds in the early years.
This phenomenon seems common to all structural fund programmes, certainly going on our experience in my constituency in Devon with Objective 5b.
I suggest that this is partly due to the Commission calling the programme 1994-1999, when usually the first year is taken up in negotiating the details of the framework and applications can only be made after the document has been agreed.
This can lead to confusion and disappointment among those not familiar with the system.
Another problem in the Portuguese programme has been that of monitoring and evaluation.
It is essential that proper control is exercised over the expenditure of European funds by Member States to ensure that it goes on the correct objective and that value for money is achieved.
This report, paragraph 3, calls on the authorities in Portugal, as well as the Commission, to take note of the comments of the Court of Auditors in this regard in their special report.
This report also makes several references to education, in particular paragraphs 7 and 9, and it is noteworthy that Priority 1 of the framework programme is developing human resources and promoting employment, with the emphasis on education and training.
My concern here is that the targets set for improvement are ambitious, such as to increase the proportion of young people in higher education from 19 % to 34 %, 35 % to 40 % within the time-frame of the programme.
This is difficult to achieve and it would be a pity to raise expectations for them only to be disappointed.
Likewise, in priority 3, which is for improving the quality of life and social cohesion, there are some very ambitious goals in the field of water supply and waste treatment.
They include increasing the proportion of connections to the public water supply from 77 % in 1990 to 95 % in 1999.
They include those served by urban waste treatment systems to increase from 43 % to 98 %, quite a jump; those served by sewage treatment systems throughout the country to increase from 21 % to 90 %, an enormous jump.
These are worthy ambitions, they are essential actions for public health and quality of life, yet they seem almost hopelessly ambitious within the time-scale set.
I have one other observation to make.
Portugal is very dependent on imported energy.
This report calls for a fundamental review of energy supply by the Portuguese Government.
The Socialist Group in the Regional Committee rejected my suggestion that this review should include consideration of nuclear energy as an option.
I hope that Portugal, particularly with its new Government, will be less blinkered than the Socialists and at least give consideration to this prospect.
I believe there are no amendments, Mr President, and I have great pleasure in commending this report to the House.
Mr President, I have the following comments to make on the development problems examined regarding the advisability and effectiveness of the proposed structural measures in Spain for the period 1994-1999.
Firstly, the Community support frameworks for Objectives 1 and 2 and the single programming documents for Objective 5b) for this period in Spain basically represent continuity with the previous programming stage as far as the strategies adopted are concerned, since the problems existing in the previous period are, to a large extent, still there.
Secondly, it has to be pointed out that the most pressing problem is undoubtedly the high unemployment rate in Objective 1 regions, which cover a large part of north-western, central and southern Spain and the Canary Islands.
In the Islands unemployment stands at an explosive 25 % of the economically active population, which in my view is indicative not only of major imbalances in the system of production but also of the educational and vocational training policies followed until now.
As a partial solution to this serious problem, particular attention has been paid within the new Community support framework for Objective 1 to improving and adjusting the production system, and to human resources, with greater emphasis on vocational training, although still below the level of the integrated measures of the ERDF and the European Social Fund.
Thirdly, it has to be said that in general terms Spain is still marked by great disparities which have not been substantially reduced since the first programming period of 1989-1993, and that measures such as those scheduled in the current period continue to be needed.
As regards the persistence of these disparities and the current need for such measures, I regret that a complete balance sheet of the results of the first Community support frameworks was not available when the programme for the present period was drawn up, since a more informed appraisal of the advisability and effectiveness of the measures would then have been possible.
Nevertheless, examination of the measures shows that the structural funds have served to promote social and economic cohesion, although greater coordination with other Community financial instruments would have been desirable, and the preparation of forecasts taking account of the contributions of the EIB and Cohesion Fund to the Community support framework for Objective 1 would have been particularly useful.
Fourthly, as regards the prospects of success of the current measures, we must bear in mind that in the period 1994-1999 the structural funds will be used in a context of budgetary austerity in Spain, marked by the plan for convergence towards the single currency, and the adjustment policies are bound to affect the results of the planned structural fund measures in one way or another.
Moreover the poor level of integration between the various funds, indicative of excessive compartmentalization of the various Spanish government departments, and in my view inadequate cooperation between the latter and Directorates-General V and XVI lessen the chances of achieving optimum results from these measures.
Turning now to different matters, I should like to make a few final comments on programming and monitoring of its implementation.
There needs to be greater participation in programming by local authorities, which have encountered difficulties in gaining access to information, and no account has been taken, in terms of resource management, of the extent of the powers of the autonomous regions.
Their presence on the monitoring committees should be strengthened, which has not been the case during programming.
Greater environmental vigilance would also be desirable, particularly where investments are made in road infrastructures.
Finally I should like to add that although Spain is, in absolute terms, the largest recipient of aid, this does not make it the main beneficiary of the structural policies.
If we look at the indicator of structural funds received per capita, and note the contributions of the various countries to the Union budget between 1989 and 1993, whereas Spain's contribution represented 1.09 % of its gross domestic product, those of countries such as Germany, France, Denmark, Italy and the United Kingdom are below this figure.
Any analysis of the effectiveness of the structural funds in Spain must certainly take these statistics into account.
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Klironomos for his report and also to pay tribute to the Commissioner and to her staff for the assistance they gave to me in the drafting of the opinion for the Social Affairs Committee on the CSF for Greece in the Objective 1 area.
In particular, I should like to focus on the social dimension of the benefit of the CSF to peripheral and outlying regions within the European Union.
In Greece with its proliferation of island communities within the Greek Archipelago and given also the mountainous nature of much of the country, there is a geographical disadvantage that can be overcome and assisted by the Community support framework.
It has been highlighted in every country where Community support has been available is that when the money is spent efficiently and when it is done in consultation with local partnerships and with local authorities, the benefits are enormous not only in economic but also in social terms.
It is particularly important that we in Parliament recognize that there are not only economic benefits of cohesion within the European Union by bringing areas that are underdeveloped closer to, or even above, the European average, but also social benefits in showing each and every citizen that everyone has a right to access the benefits and the magnificence of the European Union.
In particular, I should like to emphasize the Social Fund aspect and access to education, ongoing training and vocational training in particular.
We have seen frightening figures on the number of young people who have been denied access to education simply because of their geographical location or the economic imperatives in the Member States in which they live.
It is essential that we as a Community work together to bring more funds to those most marginalized groups.
I would ask for this Parliament to give whatever support is necessary to the Commissioner. She has a vision of how the European Union ideal is best encompassed by the cohesion and structural funds.
If she can bring that about we should give her our total support.
Mr President, Mr Chichester, I must congratulate you on your report and your attempt at understanding the Portuguese economy, and the way in which you have tracked down the structural weaknesses in the Portuguese economy and the flaws in its productive capacities, but I should also like to make one remark.
The structure of the Portuguese economy is not quite as old-fashioned as your report makes out.
Portugal no longer has 20 % of its population working in agriculture, but that figure has gone down to 9-10 %.
As for education in Portugal, albeit still a major national problem, the situation is not quite as bad as the picture you have painted in your report.
Compulsory schooling in Portugal now lasts nine years, and higher education has an extraordinary attendance in the country; the main problem now facing us is to give the bountiful supply of higher education higher quality standards.
I should also like to say that Portugal has gone through three fundamental stages in the use of Community funds.
The first stage was a successful one which coincided with the first Community support framework.
Portugal converged, unemployment was reabsorbed and there was a period of convergence.
But in terms of economic development this is deceptive.
There was a second stage, beginning in 1993, when Portugal showed weakness in its economic growth compared with the European average, despite the second Community support framework which was both very ambitious and optimistic.
Whereas between 1985 and 1994 Portugal made up 3 points in terms of convergence, in just three years, 1993, 1994 and 1995 it lost 2.7 points.
1996 saw the beginning of a third stage.
Another stage of hope in which Portugal seems to have got back on to the road of convergence with the rest of the European Community.
Although economic growth in Portugal this year is only moderate it is bound to be higher than the Community average.
At the same time we have been able to balance the state budget and bring down inflation without any spectacular increase in employment, although unemployment is a dramatic phenomenon.
This means that, in applying the second Community support framework, there are great hopes that Portugal can once again begin to converge with the rest of Europe and that social justice in the country and within the Community can be increased.
Mr President, there is one thing that unites the rapporteur and me and one thing that separates us.
The thing that unites us is our origin. We are both from Crete.
The thing that separates us is our political affiliation.
And, indeed, I have to say that Mr Klironomos has produced a text that I would not have produced.
I would have approached the job from a different standpoint. Even so, he has done a good job basically and has not let party political considerations blinker him - I said that in the committee and I say it again here.
As far as the substance of the report is concerned, I must say that European Union assistance to Greece through the CSF certainly is essential. Greece is lagging behind in terms of development and has the lowest GDP of the 15 countries, and in striving for convergence, as it has to do, it needs to obtain money - which is available through the CSF - without putting pressure on the deficit or fuelling inflation.
There is also the problem of defence spending. Our defence spending in Greece, as a percentage of GDP, is by far the highest in the European Union.
If the CSF money that is available up to the year 2000 is fully taken up, Greece will see tremendous changes: the motorway network will be doubled, railway electrification will be increased from 3 % to 21 %, natural gas will be developed to generate 12 % of electrical energy and tens of thousands of jobs will be retained or created.
However, I feel obliged to say that the delay in the take-up of the CSF appropriations is a source of worry to me. The rapporteur has expressed his concern about this, too.
I do not want, of course, to appear unheedful of several helpful developments that the Commission has insisted on, such as the unit for organizing the management of the CSF and the establishment of the Greek investment centre to help foreign investors, but there are serious problems that must be resolved because the overall take-up rate stands at less than 50 %, and in crucial sectors, such as health and education, where there is total non-take-up, and industry, where the take-up rate is extremely low, there are very special problems.
What needs to be done? In my view, efforts should be concentrated on three areas.
First, more, much more, needs to be done in connection with the public administration, because it is that which is a major impediment to the realization of the CSF at the present time.
Second, we need to look again at the institutional framework for public works.
Some modifications have been made, but I consider them insufficient.
In order to be able to proceed with greater speed and transparency we need to look at what has been done in other countries where things are going well.
Third, we need to look for ways of drawing in the private sector as a means to increasing the overall result, just as we did at Spata airport. This needs to be attended to immediately, without animosity towards the private sector and without bias.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by reminding Parliament that we are going to be assessing this report three years after the approval of the Regional Development Plan presented by the Portuguese government and halfway through its execution, which means that it is already, therefore, possible to analyse its development and its adaptation to the current socio-economic reality.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur.
I think that his work quite closely reflects and fairly thoroughly analyses the situation in Portugal.
However, I would like to point out some aspects which seem to me to be worthwhile.
This Community support framework is being worked out at a time of increasing economic growth, in other words the plan is being carried out in a different economic background such that some of the measures in the programmes may not be tailor-made for today's realities.
I think that we might have to adapt and readjust this plan and we hope that the Commission will understand this.
I think that we urgently have to cut down the complexity of the whole system of funds and its management - this is a subject which has already been aired today - and that there should be greater flexibility so that it can take account of and react more swiftly to meet the needs of the people at whom these measures are directed.
There is no need, of course, to point out here the importance of this Community support framework for Portugal, for its economy and for the Union's economic and social cohesion, nor do I have to point out the efforts made by Portugal and the success achieved in making use of Community funds.
However, as the report rightly points out, there are structural deficiencies which continue to call for a huge effort both by Portugal and the Union.
I should like to highlight two or three ideas in the report which seem to me particularly important.
The first refers to the importance of the participation by local communities in promoting initiatives, defining economic development strategies and, consequently, creating employment.
Experience shows us that operational initiatives and programmes set up locally and managed at a local level have a greater rate of execution and effectiveness than those devised and managed in a centralised way.
Finally, I should like to thank the rapporteur for referring to a particular element, one that is both positive and important for economic and social development, namely the geographical and strategic potential for relations between Europe, Africa or the Americas, with the possibility of developing particular industries or maritime services.
In my view this is an area where Portugal can play a role which is in keeping with its history, linking Europe up with cultural and economic areas which are of interest not only to Portugal but also to the European Union as a whole.
Mr President, with reference to Portugal, I should like to compliment Mr Chichester on his work and the way in which he was always willing from the beginning to work with his colleagues.
This report shows the satisfactory results for real convergence achieved in Portugal over recent years but also points out the need for continually monitoring those developments in great detail, and to find out more accurately the impact of financial measures taken through the Structural Funds as well as the results obtained, and finding out exactly what those results were.
I raise this point because it is extremely difficult to obtain all of the facts and figures needed - our colleague endeavoured to do so.
For example, there are blanks in his report (on page 15) concerning the two Portuguese island regions which are precisely the most peripheral regions and which therefore face the most difficulties.
Furthermore, the facts and figures which are reproduced date back to 1991, in other words five years ago.
If the Commission does have these facts and figures to hand then it should let us have them and if it does not then it should do something about getting them.
From the statistics which we do have available it is possible to conclude that regional imbalances have only become greater.
Portugal has become closer to the European average but not all of its regions have done so.
There are two ways of tackling these disparities: focusing resources more, on one hand, on regions facing greater imbalances and on actions which are more specifically targeted at special problems, bearing in mind that different answers are needed for different problems.
On the other hand, the actions financed by the European Union should be better liaised with those carried out by the Member States since they, too, have responsibilities for reducing imbalances and dealing with those problems.
We see the question of economic and social cohesion in a broader perspective.
Our work will only have effects if we tackle the imbalances within the European Union and if we also tackle those which exist within the Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this analysis of structural actions in Portugal shows that, essentially, the objectives which had already been agreed between the Commission and the Portuguese Government have been achieved, either during the first Community support framework or during the first two years of the second.
This does not mean, though, that we should not call again for greater transparency and controls of Community expenditure which should, therefore, be extended to all sectors and not only focus on structural expenditure in a special or particular way.
A point which has become very obvious in the discussion of this report and one which is topical in Portugal is that the participation of both sides of industry and the participation of local and regional authorities - in the latter case heightened by the revelations of democratic illegitimacy in five of the seven regions presented by the then Portuguese government to the Community authorities - has been very limited in the definition of regional development plans and their monitoring.
This alone, but not only this, justifies the calls for a review of the priorities defined so that we can actually better adapt our structural actions to the real needs of sustainable development in the whole country - and this calls for by full participation by those bodies.
Despite the overall effects of the Community support frameworks we have also seen that structural actions have not prevented the worsening of regional imbalances between coastal and inland areas, between conurbations and villages, between most of the mainland and the ultra-peripheral islands.
We have stated time and time again that this shows that structural appropriations, despite everything, are qualitatively and quantitatively insufficient for promoting the much mentioned objective of economic and social cohesion, as it calls at least for a thorough compliance with the Edinburgh Agreement which, in 1992, called for 1, 27 % of the Union's GDP to be set aside for the Community budget.
Finally, we can only remedy the delays in the execution of the last two years of the second Community support framework - the result not of incompetence, a lack of projects or, even less, because there is no need - or in the fulfilment of global objectives in 1999, if the national budget can spare its own appropriations so that it can meet the additionality required by the structural actions and that will not happen without an increase in the tax burden. This will be even truer if, as the current Portuguese government is doing, we insist on a strict and blinkered fulfilment of the Maastricht nominal convergence criteria.
I should like to end by complimenting Mr Chichester and making it clear that I am happy with his willingness to cooperate with his colleagues on the committee, and to accept many of the amendments which I tabled on behalf of my Group.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although we Members of Parliament welcome the diversification of the new programme planning in the three countries Greece, Spain and Portugal, especially the concentration of investment on important infrastructure measures, the more broadly-based assistance to services and the more broadly-based assistance to employment, we nevertheless call for urgent improvements in the implementation of the structural funds in these countries.
That applies to Greece.
As in the past there are obstacles to innovative projects in Greece because of its inefficient and insufficiently transparent administration.
Those responsible for small projects find the situation particularly difficult.
It is also urgently necessary for the Greek authorities to implement the provisions of the regulation, to include regional and local authorities in the planning and implementation of projects and to insert the projects, in particular the transport projects, into an integral, sustained development strategy in order to avoid any adverse effects on regional planning and the environment.
For Spain, the use of water is increasingly becoming a key development issue.
That is why the protection of this resource must be a major factor of project decisions.
In the case of Portugal, it is energy resources.
Overall, the statement made in the tenth chapter of the Delors white paper has proved true: that the EU will remain inefficient as long as it is geared to the exploitation of finite natural resources and disregards the potential of labour.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to congratulate Mrs Sierra on her good work, and also to say that I agree with her report as a whole.
It is true that there are still great regional disparities in Spain, but it is also true that our GDP is moving ever closer to the Community average.
In this connection the structural funds have contributed very substantially, not only to this process of convergence, in terms of income per capita, but also to the major change which has taken place in the Spanish regions in terms of modernization of the production base, better linkage between areas, vocational training and generally improved levels of wellbeing.
Spain is making a great effort to achieve the nominal convergence objectives required for access to the single currency.
Clearly such an approach to the convergence objectives demands a very stringent monetary and budgetary policy, and the weaker the region the greater the negative impact of such a restrictive policy.
The structural funds and the Cohesion Fund are thus of inestimable help to the process of real convergence of the least developed Spanish regions.
I should like to add that I agree with Mrs Sierra on the need for information to reach potential beneficiaries of the structural funds fully and promptly, so that we never have to be told that such or such an aid has not been applied for because its existence was unknown.
I regard any step taken by the Commission along these lines as highly positive, particularly as regards local authorities, which are closest to the citizen, and also the social partners.
And I entirely agree with the rapporteur that the effort to overcome regional disparities within the European Union will only achieve success when the objective of economic and social cohesion is included in the formulation and implementation of all Community policies.
Mr President, may I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Sierra, on her work and on the tactful and understanding way in which considerations and opinions to which she was not a party have been incorporated in it.
The importance of economic and social cohesion to the European Union project is beyond all doubt.
There will be a Union to the extent that there is genuine cohesion.
This is why we must focus our attention and efforts on the instruments which will make it possible, and on improving their real, and not just their statistical, efficiency.
This would represent a major contribution to the construction of the European Union.
Hence it essential from every viewpoint to evaluate the regional impact of the structural funds.
The evaluation is needed, but as a measure serving basically to draw conclusions to be taken up where possible in order to improve both the scope of the Funds and the actual evaluation system.
Mrs Sierra's report shows that, whilst the Funds have contributed to Spain's convergence with the other Member States, the process has been slow and uneven: slow overall and uneven as regards the regions, to the point of increasing regional inequalities and differences.
This ought to make us think seriously.
As instruments for achieving cohesion between regions the structural funds are intrinsically good, but their effectiveness depends both on the amount of money and on the human factor; it is just as dependent on attitude and culture as on economics.
In the last resort, each Member State is responsible for using the instrument to achieve cohesion.
In Spain regional and local powers are of particular relevance in terms of effectiveness.
The new Community support frameworks reflect the importance for economic and social cohesion of developing and training human resources, which should prompt us to set up an educational system with creativity and development of the ability to learn and adapt as its main objectives in a continuously changing society, plus completely non-academic vocational training which is socially valued and suited to the context of the day after tomorrow.
Why is this only relatively effective? We need to improve information, and above all the transparency of such information.
It must reach - and really reach - local bodies and the actual potential beneficiaries.
Because of their own size and range, and the complexity of the Funds, local bodies have great difficulty in designing and managing projects, and need advice and technical help.
The pump in the basement has to raise water to the top floor, but on the top floor there must also be a tap to turn on and a glass with a capable hand to hold it.
We are talking about making the European Union possible.
We are talking about getting its citizens to create it.
I assume no one will object if I suggest to the House that we keep the debate going for a little longer, without having the suspension during it, in order that the three Members who are still waiting to speak can do so and to allow time for Mrs Wulf-Mathies to reply. She will be not be here after 9 o'clock, and I would not like the debate to come to a close without a reply from the Commissioner.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this evening's debate on the structural funds is of great importance, and I should like to stress that, although these funds account for almost 30 % of the European Union budget, this budget is less than 2 % of the gross domestic product of all the Community Member States.
Hence we may expect good results from the structural funds, but we must also be aware of their amount in relation to the Community's gross domestic product.
I should like to congratulate Mrs Sierra González for her magnificent work on the effect of the structural funds in Spain, and their influence on regional development throughout these years.
I believe progress has been made here and that the participation of local and regional authorities, in strict and intelligent application of the principle of subsidiarity, can contribute to a more effective use of the structural funds.
In this connection is has to be recognised that each State of the European Union has a different internal structure and that in some the powers of regions and local authorities will allow more effective use of the money assigned to the structural funds.
I should also like to comment on something already mentioned here by the chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, Mr Speciale, concerning the influence which the new composition of the structural funds may have from 1999 onwards, particularly within the framework of a possible expansion of the European Union.
Commissioner Mrs Wulf-Mathies has already spoken several times of the prospects for such structural funds, which I believe to be a subject we cannot overlook but must begin to consider, since Spain, today the largest recipient in absolute terms of money from the structural funds and the Cohesion Fund, may of course see its position change in future; this is a matter which must be considered sufficiently in advance in order to anticipate any possible consequences.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to congratulate Mr Chichester on his balanced, conscientious and consensual work.
Indeed I go along with his over-all judgment and think that these reports are very much a judgment of what has happened in the past, a kind of stock-taking; I would go as far as to say that their most important aspect is that they clear up any doubt as to whether the Structural Funds have been well applied.
There are plenty of rumours that the Structural Funds are corrupt, and vested interests have used arguments in the European debate to fight the Structural Funds. Every time we assess the Structural Funds in this Assembly we find out that sometimes occasionally money has gone astray and sometimes that has been done in an underhand way but we have to see the wood for the trees and the wood is a positive one in this case.
For example, in my country, to which Mr Chichester referred, it is obvious - and there is a general consensus - that we have achieved growth which we had never previously achieved and, at the same time, that far-reaching reforms have been possible. As a result, Portugal now has a competitive economy which can compete in the 21st century.
It could be said that, if the country had had the same growth rate, in other words around 1 % greater than the European average, since the beginning of the century as it has had in recent years it would now be one of the most highly developed countries in Europe.
This is sufficient proof of the usefulness of these Funds which have not only benefited the Portuguese economy and the Portuguese people.
Many European companies which have invested in Portugal have also benefited and have increased their markets - we are not dealing with some kind of Far West here - and many a European company such as Ford, Volkswagen or Siemens, to name just a few, have realised how much profit they can make from these Structural Funds; all of this, in the end, has actually boosted the competitiveness of major European undertakings, and helped them to increase their markets. They have even made investments showing that, at the end of the day, some of these peripheral economies were much more dynamic and far more able to develop than they seemed.
We might also say that perhaps too much emphasis was laid upon basic infrastructures and that there are still serious sectoral weaknesses; it is also true that there are still regional inequalities but, after all, neither Rome nor Pavia were built in a day and the second Community support framework was quite rightly negotiated in order to offset some of those weaknesses and introduce qualitative factors, including calls for investment in science and technology in a country such as Portugal.
Perhaps it might be a good thing to stop thinking of science and technology as something which is reserved for the more advanced countries whereas less advanced countries should only have their infrastructure improved. That is the best way of going about creating new inequalities in Europe.
We have to deal with new development in a more positive way.
And here you have to call a spade a spade and we have to point out that since enlargement the very positive cohesion policy, which has borne excellent results, obviously needs another Community budget.
Nobody is allowed to speak of another budget.
It is true that, for example, in European Parliament reports on the IGC no-one could refer to the budget because money was a taboo word.
Unless we look at this problem seriously and realise that the word 'money' is a vital one we will not resolve the vital problems, for Portugal, Spain, Greece, or for the whole European economy.
Unless we have a cohesion policy there can be no enlargement.
It would be a very poor start, for example, if the enlargement of the European Union had to be financed by the cohesion appropriations as was hinted at recently.
The truth is that enlargement itself should also be a cohesion instrument and should be seen from that viewpoint.
That is why I think that the fundamental conclusion that we have reached is that, although development brings new problems with it, we cannot slide back into nostalgia for underdevelopment and the policy of cohesion is essential for European unity.
Mr President, I think the discussions and studies in committee are very relevant for us, as is this general debate on the position and application of the structural funds in three 'cohesion countries' , as we usually call them.
I believe that we all agree in general terms with the report prepared by Mrs Sierra González, who has helped us all considerably and whom we should congratulate.
We must try to draw some conclusions in addition to those pointed out by other colleagues.
I think one is that inequalities persist and we shall have to draw conclusions from that.
The Commission could do the three 'cohesion countries' great service by producing a thorough evaluation report which could be used by governments to correct policies.
In the case of the Spanish Government, another key conclusion is that the tendency on the part of previous governments to develop a national policy not consistent with the objectives laid down by Community policies and the support frameworks must be corrected.
Such an evaluation document could be of great importance in this context.
We must get across the message that the European dimension of national policies must be present in all areas.
We should like, Mr President, to remind the Commission of something we have said on many occasions: the Commission must evaluate the quality of works carried out.
We have put questions on this matter on several occasions, since construction work carried out two or three years ago are now in very poor shape.
On more than one occasion I have recalled the case of 'Motorway 92' in Andalusia, which was completed in 1992 and is currently unusable.
I think the Community budget may have been defrauded here and the Commission should set up an inquiry.
We have all stressed the need for the people, the social bodies which have to start investing and, of course, the local authorities to be informed.
Why do we say this? Because, as an example, the Community support frameworks in Spain were not even discussed with certain regional parliaments, and this trend obviously needs to be changed.
Finally, Mr President, Commissioner, it has to be said that, looking to the future, these structural funds are tremendously important to countries with a low level of development, despite problems of management and evaluation, and we hope that, between Council, Commission and Parliament a formula will be found for them to continue after 1999.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.25 p.m and resumed at 9 p.m.)
1995 annual report on R & D activities
The next item is the report (A4-0195/96) by Mr Lange, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the 1995 annual report on the research and technological development activities of the European Union (COM(95)0443 - C4-0437/95).
Commissioner, the 1995 R & D report we are discussing today is the first the Commission has submitted under the provisions of Article 130p and we agreed in committee that this report is acceptable as a first attempt of its kind.
But we expect a little more in future.
We expect that in future this report will provide a structured overview of research activities, which will help us to evaluate them.
Until now, and that is certainly a positive aspect, this report has provided a broad overview of research activities, a broad and good overview.
But the analytical aspect is still missing from this report.
It does not provide adequate justification for the new priorities that are being proposed.
That is somewhat regrettable given that we are constantly discussing the expansion and further development of R & D activities.
Following the refinancing of the Fourth Programme we are now discussing the Fifth.
There is no consistent analysis of what we have done so far.
Let me refer to another area.
It is certainly curious for us to be discussing the evaluation of the transport programme for the Third Framework Programme while at the same time we are drawing up the Fifth Programme.
So in general we need a more consistent and speedy evaluation and analysis of the Commission's research activities to enable us to really draw on these experiences for the next programme.
That is why five simple and clear criteria must be established for the 1996 research report on the basis of the experience gained from the 1995 report.
One: we need a standard system of evaluation to make the individual programmes a little more comparable and make what we have achieved with these programmes more comparable over the years.
Two: we must make greater efforts to evaluate the actual effect of these programmes.
Instead of a mere description, we also need an attempt to evaluate them and then draw the appropriate conclusions.
The problems can certainly be highlighted too.
Of course it is a pleasure to submit a research report telling of the positive side, but an honest approach also means identifying and discussing the problems.
Three: research funding must be integrated more closely in the other European Union programmes.
We need closer investigation of areas where the programmes overlap and also of where they might need to be supplemented.
Four: it must be made clearer what sort of practical problems have arisen in relation to support for research, whether in relation to applications, approvals or implementation.
On the basis of this analysis of the practical difficulties, we then of course need proposals for solutions in order to improve matters.
Five: we have monitoring reports on the specific programmes.
Both I and the committee think that the findings of the monitoring reports should be incorporated in the next annual report, but in the form of findings with comments by the Commission, not of a 700-page document.
If these five criteria are respected, the report really can make a substantial contribution to the European Union's further research activities.
The 1995 research report was submitted rather belatedly.
This was of course due to the fact that it represented a transition from the third to the fourth report and was the first of its kind.
I hope that the reports drawn up at the beginning of each year can be submitted rather sooner in future to give us sufficient time to debate them and reach conclusions.
Commissioner, would you please take these five suggestions for the next research report on board!
Thank you for your attention.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in 1995 we received an evaluation report on the transition from the third to the fourth framework programme.
And at exactly the same time we are moving full steam ahead towards the fifth framework programme.
Unlike the previous speaker I must say that our group can understand why a certain time elapses between execution and evaluation.
However, I really do wonder how we can learn from experience if we plan the future before we have taken a proper critical look at the past. Surely we should approach things rather differently here.
Secondly, as has been said, but I want to go a step further: the links with the research aspects of other programmes, whether programmes of aid or TACIS and PHARE, or all our cohesion programmes - and much has been said about structural policy today - the links between the research aspects of these programmes and the purely research programmes should be identified more clearly.
This year in particular the Commission has talked a great deal about coordinating the various research policies.
It would be very useful if the Commission tried to begin by coordinating its own activities properly.
It is always best to start at home.
Thirdly: in my group's view, evaluation should not be based on the idea that we continue to go on as before.
We have seen over the years how specific programmes keep being drawn up in the same way because that is how it always was.
Instead, strategies should be defined for improving efficiency and then these same strategies should be reviewed in subsequent programmes and whatever successes or failures emerge should be examined more clearly and in depth.
Last point: I wonder whether we should not as a matter of principle and in view particularly of the fifth framework programme also give some thought to whether evaluation as it currently stands makes any sense or not.
We need objective criteria, comprehensible criteria, however difficult this may be.
Nor do they need to be generally applicable throughout the world, they need only create some sort of continuity for us from one year to another year.
At present each evaluation report forms a separate entity.
There is little chance of comparing them.
To return to the beginning: we can only learn from the mistakes of the past if we constantly re-examine them, and it is extremely urgent that we do so in the context of the fifth framework programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate Mr Lange on the high quality of his work.
His report will enable us to improve the transparency of the fifth R & D programme, or at any rate for the time being of the fourth framework programme on research and development.
It also complies with a specific commitment laid down by Article 130p) of the Treaty on the European Union.
This report includes a number of specific data relating to various programmes, but without adding any appropriate analysis.
What is lacking, then, is any specific data regarding the evaluation of the various programmes and the information relating to the break-down of the funds allocated, respectively, to universities, undertakings and research institutions.
Furthermore, I must stress that the report also fails to deal with the most important problems.
There is, for example, a clear increase in the number of unsatisfied applications for participation, because the Member States have reduced part of the funds intended for research.
In this context, and in order to limit applicants' wastage of time and money, it is essential to make an effort to simplify applications for access to the programmes.
This is fundamental in order to allow access by small and medium-sized enterprises, whose financial resources cannot stand such additional costs.
I believe that the Community budget allocated to research must not be reduced.
The European Union's research and development policy is, indeed, the key to the future development and competitiveness of our undertakings by comparison with our competitors - especially by comparison with our natural competitors, the United States and Japan, but also by comparison with the new emerging countries whose capacities for production and marketing must in future be taken into account.
Moreover, it will be necessary to encourage the participation of certain laboratories engaged in basic research.
Hitherto, they have derived little benefit from the programmes proposed by the Commission.
Basic research, apart from the fact that it broadens the area of existing knowledge, makes it possible to prepare for the future and even to avoid tragedy, mad cow disease being an excellent example of this.
Finally, an effort at coordination should be made between the Community programmes and the Member States' research activities, for example encouraging appropriate distribution of the results.
I therefore endorse the conclusions of the rapporteur when he stresses the need to institute a uniform system of evaluation. Its purpose will be to allow a comparison between the implementation and the results of the various programmes.
Allowing for a system of this kind will require the preparation of follow-up reports by independent experts, which incidentally do not appear in the annual report.
In the absence of such a measure, a posteriori evaluation will be difficult.
The Commission will lack the evaluation necessary for the perspective, a lack which will also affect the preparation of the political decisions appropriate to the responsibilities of our Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it amazes me that time after time the Commission tries to hoodwink the European Parliament by fudging data.
Take this report.
It addresses not the annual report for 1995 as the title would suggest, but the report on Union research activities carried out in 1994 and the third framework programme.
I ask myself, as previous speakers have done, why it is that evaluation reports always reach Parliament so late.
After all, in order to shape good policy for future research one needs to know the results of research done under earlier programmes.
I urge the Commission to take due note of conclusion 12 that in future annual reports should be considered as soon as possible in the following year and by 31 March at the latest.
The Union's prime role in the area of research and development is to promote cooperation and not to promote projects and programmes.
The research policy of Member States can only be coordinated if there is cooperation.
In future annual reports the Commission should include a specific section on the relationship between the research activities of the Union and those of individual Member States.
In this way duplication or aberrant strategies can be avoided and the best possible return can be obtained on the research funds deployed.
Preparations for the fifth framework programme are already well under way.
The Commission has even produced a document giving draft guidelines.
Splendid.
With an eye to the political decisions required it is necessary for the individual programmes forming part of the fourth framework programme to be subjected to regular critical analysis using a uniform set of methods.
Annual reports, evaluations by the Commission, are not just a requirement but documents of material importance when it comes to setting the priorities for future research.
Mr President, I am very glad that this first annual report from the Commission has finally reached Parliament - better late than never.
As a Member of the European Parliament, I think it is of the utmost importance that we have such a report available to us, since we need to assess the activity on which the decisions we take concerning various research projects later on will be based.
It is important above all in view of the enormous sums of money involved.
The Fifth Framework Programme involves billions of ECU scaled over five years, and we must know what we are spending that money on.
Against this background, it is regrettable that the report does not live up to the expectations raised when one reads Article 130p of the Treaty.
The annual report is written in exclusively positive terms, there is nothing about the problems that reasonably arise in this type of activity.
I cannot find any analysis in the report or proposals from the Commission as to how the problems that exist are to be remedied.
The Swedish group of experts investigating public finance in February this year published a report which, amongst other things, said that the EU's own assessments were often defective.
This annual report from the Commission thus confirms the conclusion of the Swedish report on that point.
I therefore hope that the next annual report from the Commission will include an evaluation of the results and conclusions with regard to them.
The Swedish report also contained some swingeing criticism of the EU's research, particularly as regards the dissemination of research results.
The EU must do much, much better here in future.
Finally, I hope that the Commission will take to heart what is in this report from Mr Lange, which we in the Green Group will be supporting, and that the Commission will learn from its experience and, next time, present a better annual report.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Common system of value-added tax
The next item is the report (A4-0225/96) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC on the common system of Value Added Tax (level of the standard rate) (COM(95)0731 - C4-0153/96-95/0362(CNS)).
Mr President, the Commission proposal amending the directive on the common system of value added tax was discussed in detail in recent months in the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy as the committee responsible.
In a total of four meetings that committee examined the Commission proposal and the committee members gave their views on it.
The legislative proposal before you was adopted on 26 June 1996.
The purpose of this proposed directive is to prevent the different rates of value added tax and tax structures in the Member States from drifting further apart.
Since the transition to the levying of value added tax in the country of origin of a commodity can no longer be implemented on schedule, the Commission is rightly attempting with this minimal proposal to limit further distortions.
In order to prevent the value added tax rates from drifting further apart, a future maximum tax rate of 15 % is to be fixed alongside the minimum tax rate of 15 % currently in force.
Since all standard value added tax rates in the Member States of the European Union - there are many exceptions, not just for agricultural products but also for others, such as books - now lie between 15 % in Germany and Luxembourg and 25 % in Denmark and Sweden, this fixing of a maximum rate, which is to apply from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 1998, i.e., for two years, will not directly cause any changes in particular tax rates in the Member States.
Although that is the case, the Commission's proposal is a good one because it ensures that tax rates cannot drift further apart during a period when no decision could be taken in the past.
Under the Commission's proposal the Council, however, will have to decide not later than 1998 whether the spread of value added tax rates should be further reduced.
In July, Commissioner Monti presented a programme on this for the single market with a precise time schedule which is very ambitious and which we for our part unconditionally support.
The Commission's present proposal, which is basically designed to maintain the degree of harmonization achieved hitherto, must not be allowed to conceal the fact that hitherto the Council, which is responsible - and not the Commission - has blocked any furtherreaching harmonization of tax systems through the unanimity principle and that it is not certainly not impossible that it will continue to do so.
It is crucially important to harmonize tax systems in the Union with a view both to the third stage of economic and monetary union and to an effective employment policy.
That is why a closer approximation of tax rates is urgently needed to ensure the sound operation of the single market and to prevent distortions.
Only with the early creation of a highly uniform European tax area can we remove many of the administrative barriers to trade and create and protect jobs in the long term.
In this connection I would like, as rapporteur, to give my views on the amendment tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which rejects the 25 % ceiling.
A similar proposal did not obtain a majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and was rejected by a majority and I would ask Members to do the same now in plenary.
The Commission has done its homework now and I would urge you to really change the current transitional rules on taxation in the country of destination to taxation in the country of origin, for the administrative outlay, the opportunities for tax evasion and the many problems faced by small and medium-sized enterprises should not be underestimated.
I would thank Mr Monti personally for not losing sight of the objective of tax harmonization in spite of a rather sobering interim balance sheet and for not being discouraged from making constructive proposals in spite of the manifold opposition from the Member States.
It is now up to the Council finally to get on with the harmonization of value added tax.
Mr President, I shall concentrate on the amendment put down by the Socialist Group to the effect that there should be no ceiling on VAT rates.
I think we should take as our defining framework the economic stage which Member States have reached at the moment, and the economies which Economic and Monetary Union will necessitate.
Then we have to look at Delors' White Paper to which Commissioner Monti also referred in a recent communication in March. This says that Member States need to shift the burden of labour costs on to other factors.
If we start with this last thing and look where that burden might reasonably be shifted to, we see that capital, which is certainly not possible in the immediate future, capital which is nevertheless the most mobile factor, and perhaps an increase in excise duties but certainly in VAT, really offers the only realistic opportunity for Member States to shift the tax burden from labour to other factors.
The Commission really admits as much in its document of March last when it cautiously proposes that when the definitive system is adopted one should perhaps opt for a percentage a few points higher than the average in order to compensate for labour costs.
If you look at the background the Commission's thinking is to say the least inconsistent here, because the Commission is in fact, and without real need, limiting the Member States' room for manoeuvre in fiscal policy.
Mr Langen made the point earlier that at least two Member States are already very close to that 25 % threshold.
Why is there no immediate urgency? Because the only reason for aligning the rates more closely would be a move to the definitive system.
Because under the current system, as a study conducted for the Commission reveals, there is no fundamental distortion of competition between Member States.
In other words, convergence of the rates is only needed really when we change to the definitive system.
But when is the definitive system going to happen? The Commission has not even got as far as submitting a proposal.
All they have submitted is a discussion document, which I have not yet received, incidentally, but it has since become clear that if the system does come, it will not come before the year 2000.
My own feeling is that unless the present system throws up so much fraud that it really becomes unworkable, all Member States may perhaps be persuaded to move to the definitive system.
But reports reaching me so far are that there is no evidence of such large-scale fraud.
To my great surprise, I have to say.
I shall be very curious to hear what arguments the Commission uses to insist that the present system is so very unsatisfactory that we have to change.
In short, given that we still have no exact information on when we shall be moving to the definitive system and what the situation will be, I think it is very premature, in these years before Economic and Monetary Union when all the Member States are under enormous fiscal pressure, to restrict the Member States' room for manoeuvre in fiscal policy and for this reason we of the Socialist Group have put down an amendment to abolish this ceiling.
Mr President, first I want to give warm thanks to Mr Langen for his clear and convincing report, which of course deserves our approval.
Today we are taking a major step forward towards the closer approximation of taxes in the European Union.
Just because we want competition between the different places and systems of the European Union, we need common rules of play which everyone observes The proposed rate - from a minimum of 15 % to a maximum of 25 % - fully reflect the needs of today.
The German Social Democrats have even objected to the possibility of an increase from 15 % to 16 % and they certainly consider it totally wrong to cease to apply the ceiling rates.
That is why I cannot understand, Mr Metten, why you are even questioning the 25 % rate today, which would of course mean that even higher rates than this one would be possible.
Without the restrictions and rules proposed by the Commission, there could not be any competition between the different systems in Europe and we would end up with a kind of catch as catch can.
We cannot and do not want that; quite the contrary, I am convinced that the European Union must in fact take further fiscal measures in the coming months and years in order to put an end to tax evasion.
Surely we cannot accept that large earners, for instance, should pay lower taxes simply because they have moved their place of residence from their home country to a neighbouring EU state.
If we want to put a check on tax evasion, then we need not less but more European cooperation in this area.
One particularly serious disadvantage of the capital gains tax is that nationals are treated worse than foreigners.
As soon as we treat nationals and foreigners the same in relation to capital gains tax throughout the European Union we will have overcome the main cause of tax evasion and taken a major step toward fiscal justice.
Mr President, the harmonization of value-added tax is both wrong in principle and unworkable in practice. value-added tax varies greatly in both its contribution to and its purpose in the budgets of the Member States.
Harmonization will create chaos in national finance.
A reduction in the top rate of taxation is a further threat to public infrastructures in countries where the tax is a significant source of revenue.
Tax harmonization also violates an important principle in all democratic systems, namely a people's right to tax itself.
We should therefore realize that a common taxation policy is not politically workable. Nor is it necessary in European cooperation; on the contrary it can damage that cooperation.
Mr President, I am among those who are critical of this report in its present form, and that for several reasons.
Firstly, I do not consider that different rates of value-added tax represent a significant barrier to trade.
Economic barriers to trade which distort competition arise when goods from a country or region are discriminated against, for example by imposing a tariff targeted at another country or the rest of the world in general.
In this case, other countries' goods are penalized in favour of those of the country imposing the tariff, and the relative advantages of trade do not benefit the consumers.
Where different rates of value-added tax are concerned, this discrimination does not operate.
If a country has high rates of tax, they are aimed at all production and not to a specific area.
Thus, Mr President, different rates of tax do not mean a distortion of competition.
Every country in a democratic system should be able to decide on its own taxes.
Political views, for example as regards how large the public sector should be or how comprehensive the social security system should be, vary from one country in the Union to another.
It should be possible for these different appraisals to be reflected in different taxes.
Furthermore, I entirely agree with the amendment tabled by Mr Metten.
We have a situation of serious budget deficits in our Member States.
Many governments are now seeking to bring down these deficits by cutting back on public services.
But a budget can also be improved by boosting revenue, instead of cutting expenditure.
Member States must have the right, if they consider it appropriate, to increase value-added tax to a rate above the proposed limit of 25 %.
Imposing this upper limit is tantamount to putting an upper limit on public services.
Finally, Mr President, I consider that the proposals on absolutely identical rates of value-added tax is wrong for the simple reason that each country needs to arrive at its own optimum mix of taxes (income taxes, value-added taxes etc) in order to achieve economic effectiveness.
I believe that the proposal for identical rates of value-added tax is economically ineffective, not effective.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Driving licences
The next item is the report (A4-0206/96) by Mr Farassino, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 91/439/EEC on driving licences (COM(96)0055 - C4-0207/96-95/0040(SYN)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report proposes that Directive 91/439 be amended in order to adopt a basic harmonized set of codes for the additional information to be included on driving licences and the principles governing their use in accordance with the provisions of the Directive, as can be seen from Article 1; to set up a committee to advise the Commission on all questions relating to the annexes to Directive 91/439 and to scientific and technical progress (Article 2); to adapt Article 3(3), third indent, of Directive 91/439 to bring this provision more into line with the trade description, including a reduction in the maximum design speed for motorcycles from 50 km/h to 45 km/h.
As rapporteur I have favourably received the Commission's proposal, which harmonizes the system for codifying on driving licences the wording of the conditions under which the licence has been issued.
It will certainly facilitate the free movement of persons in the Community, particularly disabled drivers, and will contribute to road safety by making it easier throughout most of Europe to check driving licences where so required, whatever the issuing Member State, the nationality of the official checking them or the administration managing them.
The system of harmonized codes will also apply to the Member States of the European Economic Area.
This having been said, as rapporteur I have sought to meet the specific requirements and requests made by certain Member States in the amendments brought to the attention of the Committee on Transport and Tourism and which I now present to Parliament.
Firstly, in addition to the information codes, the Commission should also propose in the near future the subcodes already worked out in meetings between the Commission and national experts, particularly for codes 04 (medical certificate), 05 (restrictions for medical reasons), 44 (modifications to motor cycles) and 55 (combination of modifications to motorcycles).
Secondly, provision should be made for a new universal code 00, to make provision for very special cases, such as those cited by Mrs Muscardini in Amendment No 8.
Furthermore, the additions requested to codes 70 and 71 concerning the indication of the symbol of the third country in accordance with the harmonized EEC/UN list would make for a better understanding in cases where a holder is exchanging a driving licence obtained in a third country.
The addition of a code 79 is therefore intended to meet the requirements of certain Member States.
This would make it possible to cater for cases of equivalence between the categories of licence issued before 1 July 1996 and the categories defined in Article 3 of Directive 91/439.
The use of this code 79 would be restricted to cases where the rights acquired by holders of a licence obtained before 1 July of next year might need to be maintained.
The other changes set out in Amendment No 5 - to codes 02 (hearing aids) and 03 (prosthesis/orthosis) - are intended to introduce greater clarity.
Further, since Directive 91/439 deals only with the issue of driving licences, action should be taken at European level to harmonize provisions governing their withdrawal in connection with offences committed in a Member State other than the Member State of issue; these problems are closely linked to Parliament's repeated calls for the introduction of a European penalty points driving licence system.
On the last-mentioned subject, Amendment No 3 sets a deadline (31 December 1996) for the completion of the work of the working party which is to study the practical arrangements for such a system.
On the basis of this working party's conclusions, the Commission could table a legislative proposal by 31 March 1997.
Finally, Amendments Nos 2 and 6 are designed to replace the management committee (type IIa) for the adaptation to technical and scientific progress of Annexes I and Ia (model driving licences), II (driving test requirements) and III (physical fitness for driving) of Directive 91/439 on driving licences by a more flexible technical advisory committee, as suggested by the Conference of Presidents, for the application of the modus vivendi on comitology.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as a politician I am always pleased when we adopt legislative proposals that officials can actually apply without too much difficulty.
The harmonization of the rules on driving licences can certainly also help ensure that every security officer in the European Union can at a glance implement and check the driving licence provisions applicable to drivers from all the Member States.
It cannot be repeated too often that the harmonized European driving licence will improve the mobility of Union citizens while at the same time contributing to transport safety.
But I do have some doubts about the practical implementation of Directive 91/339.
As from 1 July 1996 all Member States were supposed to implement the provisions on the European driving licence.
But it is only now that we are deciding at first reading on a not inconsiderable component of this driving licence, namely harmonized codes.
If Member States do not want to issue new driving licences every year, it is therefore impossible for them to implement the directive.
So what I would expect of the Commission is that it finally submits consistent proposals for directives rather than presenting us with new piecemeal rules every six months.
For after all it is we politicians who have to explain this to the EU citizens and sometimes also justify it.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for once again proposing the penalty points driving licence system which this House has long advocated.
I know from countless discussions in my home country of Austria how many arguments are put forward against this, including those from drivers' organizations that pretend they are protecting drivers' interests but are in fact totally disregarding the urgent need to ensure safety on the roads.
The example of France has made it impressively clear how the number of road accidents can be reduced by 10 % in the space of one year.
Every 1 % reduction in road deaths should act as a spur.
That is why I would urge the Commission to support the demands set out in this report.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists endorses this report.
The only difficulties are in relation to Article 8.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking Mr Farassino for the excellent work he has done on this question of harmonizing the rules for driving licences in the EU.
The conditions for freedom of movement were already laid down in the Treaty of Rome.
This also gave rise to the need gradually to harmonize the Member States' provisions in a whole range of different areas, not least that of traffic and transport.
One such concern was the need for common rules on driving licences.
This was also referred to by the European Court of Justice in a judgment dating back to 1978.
The grounds cited by the Court were that different rules for national driving licences could constitute a direct or indirect restriction on freedom of movement for persons.
A number of initiatives were subsequently taken to ease the mobility of persons establishing themselves in a Member State other than that in which they obtained their driving licence.
All initiatives facilitating this are clearly worthwhile.
The Commission has now put forward further proposals on these lines.
We have reason to welcome the proposals aimed at harmonizing the coding of information to be included on driving licences concerning the conditions under which the driving licence was issued.
For many different reasons, this is good, not least because it will ease mobility, in particular for disabled drivers, since the licence will then clearly show the conditions subject to which it was issued.
Harmonization will also help to improve traffic safety by making it easier to check a licence, whatever Member State may have issued it.
In my opinion, such checks will be eased still further by the fact that the harmonized coding system will also be applied in the EEA countries.
I would also like to highlight some additional advantages that stand to be gained by harmonizing this coding system. People who perhaps suffer from a particular illness or who are involved in a serious accident in another country often have difficulty communicating with staff at the hospital they are taken to.
This may be the position of a person who is in immediate need of a special medicine and cannot convey the fact to the hospital staff.
This type of information can in future also be included in an international, harmonized coding system by entering, in coded form, the illness a particular person suffers from or the medicine on which he or she vitally depends.
This could save a great many lives.
I think that the totality of what we are debating here is extremely positive.
In the PPE group, however, we will be voting against some of the amendments that have been tabled.
This applies to Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 7.
Whether we can vote for the report as a whole will depend crucially on the outcome of these votes.
Mr President, since 1980 there have been a number of steps towards a Community driving licence, all of them aimed at better road safety and freedom of movement for individuals within the Union.
The recent amendment of June this year marked Parliament's advocacy of an alternative model in the form of a 'credit card' -type licence in addition to the paper licence.
The proposal now under consideration defines in greater detail the conditions under which the holder can drive a vehicle.
The rapporteur has put down a number of good amendments which we are able to support.
But we would make an exception in the case of Amendments Nos 4 and 7.
In these the rapporteur suggests it should be possible for the legal consequences of an offence committed in one Member State to be transferred to the Member State in which the licence was issued.
Although there are good arguments in favour of this, this legal question belongs under the third pillar and not in this directive on the issuing of driving licences.
My thanks to the rapporteur for the excellent text he has put to us.
Mr President, may I first of all thank the rapporteur Mr Farassino for his report and in particular the very clear way in which he has analysed the obvious benefits of this Commission proposal: a proposal to harmonize the system of codifying the information to be included on driving licences, considering the conditions under which that licence has been issued.
I too believe that the proposal will contribute to the free movement of persons in the Community, particularly persons with disabilities and will contribute to road safety, by making it easier throughout most of Europe to check driving licences where so required.
However, this evening I would like to highlight Amendments Nos 4 and 7, which seek the mutual recognition of the disqualification of driving licences.
At present, bans imposed for dangerous driving are only enforceable in the Member State where the offence was committed, not elsewhere in the European Union.
This means, for example, in the case of the United Kingdom, non-UK citizens banned for a serious offence whilst on holiday in the UK, will have their licences returned once their holiday ends and can then drive freely elsewhere in the rest of the European Union.
Similarly, for example, a British driver who commits a serious offence whilst on the Continent on holiday can ignore a ban and then return home, potentially free, I fear, to commit the same offence.
The amendments tabled by the Transport and Tourism Committee seek to close this very serious loophole.
Whilst not in any way underestimating the serious hurdles that we need to overcome, we must legislate for the mutual recognition of driving licences throughout the Union.
We must also seek to ensure that where these licences are revoked in one Member State, the ban applies in all.
I would also like to comment on an amendment that my Group will not be able to support, namely Amendment No 8 from Mrs Muscardini and 28 others.
Whilst we sympathize with the need to clarify the situation regarding drivers with diabetes, we believe there are many other conditions that could also be cited.
Moreover, we fear that the wording so drafted would not actually secure the objective that I am sure those tabling the amendments aim to secure.
For my final point, we hope the Commission will consider the points that the committee has made tonight, the serious point about disqualification, and comment on whether or not they feel proposals can be brought forward in the future to close that serious loophole.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's discussion about driving licences is not in fact a major issue.
We are defining the code numbers of a driving licence that is to be applicable Community-wide in future.
So it is not a major issue, but as always it is the small things that cause problems and I would say to Mr Farthofer and Mr Watts that we should be clear in our minds about what we actually want.
At one time indeed some Members of this House wanted a driving licence with time limits.
Then there were some who wanted a driving licence that served as a universal document, if possible also acting as a credit card.
Thank God we have managed to avert all that.
Now we are dealing again with two very specific aims.
First, a European penalty points driving licence is to be introduced.
I can really only warn you against that.
We do not need a central office for the whole of Europe which centrally compiles all the offences that have to be entered in the record of penalty points! Why do we not leave that to the Member States, where it really belongs!
Secondly, we do not need the possibility of people losing their driving licence for the whole of Europe. Once again we should not get carried away.
I am not even talking about driving on the left or the right.
What is a tourist from the UK to do if he happens to drive on the wrong side on the first day of his holiday and is therefore committing an offence?
Then he will not be allowed to drive in the United Kingdom either. If the English are so keen on this, perhaps we should introduce driving on the right there too!
So long as we do not have uniform systems of fines we cannot take away driving licences for the whole of Europe on a uniform basis because the offences that may involve the withdrawal of a driving licence tend to be committed on holiday and not at home.
People seem rather less enthusiastic about that.
I thank the rapporteur for his work and would merely urge Members not to vote for Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 7.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Community model of what will continue to be national driving licences is finally being perfected.
After adopting the first supplementary provisions to the 1991 directive on driving licences, which relate to plasticized driving licences in credit card format, some weeks ago, we are now discussing a second set of supplementary provisions.
They concern the additional but no less necessary information that is to be included on driving licences regarding the conditions of use for drivers and vehicles.
This information is to be set out in a uniform, codified form.
That is a good idea, for if the driving licences issued by the various Member States continue to use different codes for the information given, practical problems will continue to arise between the various countries for drivers, firms, administrations and the police.
I therefore welcome the creation of standardized international codes and I also think it is sensible to split them, with the numbers up to 99 being harmonized Community codes and the numbers from 100 remaining national codes in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
This system of codes will definitely lead to greater freedom of movement for the individual, especially for the handicapped in the EU, and to greater road safety and legal certainty.
That is something our people will perceive directly, for it will benefit them directly.
For instance they will no longer be exposed to possible arbitrary police decisions.
The simplifications in the control, checking and administrative systems will also make the rules more transparent and citizen-friendly.
We should not ruin that again by establishing Community-wide procedures for the withdrawal of driving licences or the introduction of a European penalty points driving licence.
In my view only the country issuing the driving licence should continue to be responsible for doing this.
Mr President, this is the first occasion on which I have had the pleasure of addressing Parliament since the lamented death of Ken Stewart who was a Member of this House and of the Committee on Transport and of the party which I was once privileged to lead.
I should like to pay tribute to the memory of Ken Stewart.
He will be sadly missed by his many friends and colleagues not only here in this House but also in the United Kingdom in the Labour movement particularly and most of all in his beloved Liverpool.
Mr President, the House will be aware that the 1991 directive on driving licences entered into force on 1 July this year.
When the Commission made its proposal, however, it was well aware of some practical difficulties that such a provision would generate for Member States.
We therefore proposed that any addition or restriction put on the licence would be in code form instead of in words so that the Greek police, for instance, would be able to cope with a Danish licence, not only for tourists but for people who had taken up permanent residence in their country.
The list of codes has been thoroughly discussed both in this House and in the Council and I am pleased to see that there is broad agreement, as has been evidenced by the contributions made in this debate again, on the basic formulation.
The new committee established for this directive will update this list of codes where necessary and that committee will also be useful in helping to solve potential problems like those which could arise for example out of developments in medical standards for drivers.
I am glad to inform the House that since several of the amendments to the proposal are consistent with these aims, the Commission is able to agree to them.
Amendment No 1 and most of the changes proposed under Amendment No 5 are therefore accepted.
We cannot, however, support a universal code OO, which by its very nature could not be understood and neither can we agree to any deadline for setting a sub-division of the codes by the proposed committee.
I agree that the committee should proceed to sub-divisions as soon as possible, while recognizing that further sub-divisions may appear necessary after a time.
As to the other amendments, Amendment No 2 is an unnecessary addition since the Commission will naturally respect the agreement on the code of conduct.
Amendment No 6 is not in conformity with Council Decision 87/373 on comitology and therefore cannot be accepted.
Amendment No 3 is not appropriate for inclusion in this text.
However, the Commission will give further consideration to issues relating to penalty points in its work in the framework of the experts group which will be established in order to consider the implications of any microchip being incorporated into the credit card driving licence model.
However, I repeat only to emphasize that this House will have the opportunity to give its opinion on any such development in line with the cooperation procedure.
Clearly, I and my colleagues are in sympathy with the arguments in favour of developments - and of what would be Amendment No 3 - that have been offered in the course of this debate.
Amendments Nos 4 and 7 fall outside the scope of the proposal.
Directive 91/439 already effectively extends the consequence of a disqualification, whether in the form of suspension or withdrawal of a driving licence, to the whole of EU territory if the disqualification is imposed by the Member State of residence.
Mutual recognition of a disqualification that is imposed by a Member State, other than the state of normal residence is, as some have said tonight, a complex legal matter, sometimes involving constitutional difficulties.
It is currently, however, under discussion in the third pillar with the aim of drafting a convention relating to judicial cooperation.
Clearly, it is best left in that setting where, I must say, I hope it will have positive results, since I have considerable sympathy with the kind of points offered this evening by, for instance, Mr Watts.
I recognize that there is an argument against centralization.
I also recognize that there is an argument against habitual breakers of speed limits or habitual drunkards behind the wheel of a vehicle.
I do not really care where they committed their original offence, I should like to see that any suspension inflicted on them has effect across the Community.
I hope therefore that the discussions under the general aegis of the third pillar will have the consequence of making our roads safer from those who have committed serious offences.
Should the position evolve on this point, the committee provided for in Article 2 will be empowered to introduce the necessary changes.
In conclusion, may I thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism and in particular the rapporteur Mr Farassino for the rapid and very thoughtful consideration that has been given to this particular proposal.
I also thank you, Commissioner, for your words in remembrance of our colleague, Mr Stewart, to whom tribute was paid by our President when he spoke at the beginning of this afternoon's sitting.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Safety rules for passenger ships
The next item is the report (A4-0230/96) by Mr Stenmarck, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on safety rules and standards for passenger ships (COM(96)0061 - C4-0208/96-96/0041(SYN)).
Mr President, over a period of many years the European Parliament has taken several initiatives to improve safety for passengers on ferries.
In many respects, this is of course the consequence of a number of very tragic accidents that have cost many people their lives.
Not least in connection with the Estonia tragedy a few years ago, the European Parliament acted in a particularly decisive way in demanding proposals and measures from the Commission.
I think many are grateful for that today.
We may of course differ on the point of how much power and influence the European Parliament should have.
But as a pressure group and when it comes to demanding standards, not least for the improvement of safety in different areas, one could say that this Parliament is pretty well unbeatable.
I think we should actually make use of this power much more in order to tighten up safety standards in other areas too.
As regards requirements for increased ferry safety, the aims pursued are clear.
The waters around the Member States of the EU must be the safest in the world. With this as our starting point, we must then work for improvements on other aspects too.
Passengers must feel able to travel on ferries sailing between EU Member States with confidence and a sense of security.
Parents must feel safe in allowing their children to travel on these ferries. In view of the need to get a working set of rules in place as quickly as possible, I was keen to work as fast as possible on this matter, all in the interests of demonstrating the importance of safe seaways and safe ferries.
The report we are debating here covers so-called 'non-SOLAS vessels' , i.e. vessels which sail mainly in national traffic. This traffic is not covered by the SOLAS Convention adopted by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO).
This field is currently only covered by national legislation, with laws of very variable quality.
The Commission proposal now aims to apply the comprehensive rules of the international Safety of Life at Sea Convention to national ferry traffic too.
I think this is an excellent thing, and it is supported by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
The outcome of the work is that we go along with the Commission proposal to a large extent.
Let me briefly mention some areas in which we go further than the Commission on safety requirements, and I hope that Parliament will give us its support on these points today.
1.When safety rules are harmonized, there is a risk that the standard of safety in one country may be lowered.
We think this must not happen.
We therefore say that a country which, in any respect, already has a higher standard of safety must be allowed to retain it.2.As part of the work of increasing safety, it is vital that the training given to shipboard personnel be effective.
As this is to a large extent regulated by other measures, we have chosen to refer to those measures in the report.3.The environment is important in this context, not least the fact that improved safety is also good from an environmental point of view.
However, this is also dealt with elsewhere, namely in the MARPOL Convention, which regulates questions relating to the marine environment.
On this point too, therefore, we have chosen to refer to the relevant Convention.4.We go further than the Commission with regard to the documentation that must be available for inspection demonstrating compliance with safety standards.
We propose that there should be a Passenger Ship Safety Certificate.5.We also want to introduce a requirement that survival gear be carried on ferries sailing in waters where the water temperature often drops below a certain level.
I think I speak for many when I say that the Commission should come back with proposals on this point.Finally, Mr President, over a period of years there have been a large number of accidents in waters around the EU Member States.
Many people have lost their lives.
It is our duty to all these people and to their survivors to do all in our power to ensure that such accidents never happen again. Let me also put the following question to the Commissioners who are here this evening: what further initiatives will the Commission be taking to achieve even greater improvements in ferry safety?
With that, Mr President, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to this report and the Commission for a particularly constructive dialogue.
Mr President, I congratulate my colleague Mr Stenmarck on his report.
To pick up on Commissioner Kinnock's words, I should also like to pay tribute to my comrade Ken Stewart.
It is ironic that we are discussing safety at sea tonight because, as many people here know, that was Ken's main interest within Parliament.
For many years he worked on the safety aspects of sea-going vessels.
If Ken had still been alive he would have been in my place tonight conducting this debate.
But if he had been then like myself I am sure he would have been delighted to see somebody from the right of this Chamber actually taking a serious view on the safety rules and standards for passenger ships.
Over the last few years we have witnessed a number of tragedies at sea.
As Mr Stenmarck remarked, we have had the Estonia .
We have also had the Herald of Free Enterprise .
They are two which spring to mind immediately.
But every day there are scores of accidents at sea, many of which are never reported, either because there has been no loss of life or the vessels involved were so small that it did not warrant a mention in the press.
Safety of life at sea, however, should be our priority.
As this report correctly points out, the advancing age of many sea-going vessels and the rapid deterioration in maintenance standards means that safety standards are becoming harder and harder to uphold.
Couple this with the registration of many ships under flags of convenience, especially in those countries which have very poor safety records and the risk of loss of life at sea is increasing rather than diminishing as one would have hoped.
The report makes clear that the safety of seagoing vessels is not solely the responsibility of the states.
That is true.
But the maintenance of the safety standards and the implementation of those standards are the responsibility of the state and that is a responsibility that they must not evade.
However, while the state can uphold the various safety regulations, the greatest responsibility lies with the owners whether they be private individuals or companies.
It is here that we are going to have to bring greater pressure to bear by whatever means possible.
Too many companies are flouting international safety standards and escaping prosecution.
While we have a duty to tackle this problem within EU waters, ultimately this a problem which requires international action.
Turning now to the amendments which have been tabled by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, the Socialist Group will be supporting all the amendments with the exception of Amendment No 16.
We welcome the commitment to a minimum level of training for maritime occupations, the introduction of survival clothing for passengers and crews on passenger ships operating in water where the temperature is low, i.e. under 15o Celsius.
The only amendment we have some difficulty with is Amendment No 16.
I mentioned at the start of this speech the ongoing everyday accidents which happen at sea, many of which are never reported because many of the vessels involved are so small that they do not warrant attention.
That is why we opposed Amendment No 16 tabled by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
We believe that the Commission text is far stronger and encompasses all the vessels and therefore nobody escapes.
That is why we will be opposing Amendment No 16 while supporting the rest.
Mr President, I would like to endorse what the Commissioner and the previous speaker said.
I always held Ken Stewart in particular esteem.
We agreed that human beings play a particularly important role in shipping and need to be protected, be they passengers or crew.
I think we will always remember Ken Stewart and it is most important to have people such as him among us, to remember them and, we hope, to find successors with the same greatness of mind.
Unfortunately we come now to the sad question of passenger ships.
I think the Commission has made good proposals.
I think it is a good idea to have uniform safety standards for passenger ships in domestic waters too, for our citizens find it inexplicable why there are different standards in a Community of fifteen states.
Commissioner, what we are not so happy about is the long transitional provisions, which extend up to the year 2010 in the case of some details.
I hope you and we in this House will agree to call on the Member States not to apply these transitional provisions in any part of the Union, for if we believe that minimum safety standards are necessary, then these must apply in every part of the Community, because people and tourists have the same right to safety when they use a passenger ship in every part of the Community.
Perhaps the Commissioner could say a few words on this.
Secondly, I want of course to thank the excellent rapporteur, Mr Per Stenmarck, for his report and ask the Commission to take on board a particular request he made and to defend it vis à vis the Council; this special request, which the Socialists also support, reads as follows: ' such common standards should not impair the implementation of existing higher standards of safety in Member States' .
We all agree that no Member State should use this directive as a means of lowering existing higher safety standards and here too I would be grateful if the Commissioner gave his views.
Mr President, no-one wants another Estonia disaster, no-one wants any more accidents at sea at all.
Yet on average 230 vessels are lost each year, claiming thousands of lives.
We, as elected representatives, must do all we can to prevent future seafaring disasters.
This report is a contribution to that work.
It is a good report, and the Liberal Group supports both it and the proposal for a directive.
Apart from the improvements to vessel standards that the report addresses, the risk of human error must also be minimized.
Better training, life-saving equipment and working conditions, regular inspections, checks and safety exercises are examples of this.
Finally, Mr President, the directive must obviously be formulated in such a way that common standards, as the rapporteur has said, do not mean a lowering of existing standards and do not prevent new standards from being introduced.
This means Amendment No 1 must be adopted.
Mr President, there have been a number of Commission proposals in recent times aimed at improving safety at sea.
Today's proposal concerns safety rules and standards for passenger ships and is a further contribution to that objective.
Most of the rules applicable to sea-going vessels are set by the IMO, but even so major differences still remain between Member States.
It is thus necessary that the international IMO rules should be applied consistently by all the signatory countries.
But the terms of the SOLAS Convention do not apply to passenger ships used for domestic voyages which are outside the international area of application.
The Commission's attempt to close this loophole through this directive is thus to be welcomed.
But in our view this should not mean that Member States whose national legislation imposes safety requirements stricter than those of this directive should be obliged to relax their standards.
We thus support the rapporteur's amendments which want Member States to be able to retain these higher safety standards.
I can also endorse the other amendments to Mr Stenmarck's excellent report.
I also applaud the importance he attaches to rules on working and rest periods, working conditions, training, safety inspections by classification societies and so on.
In the interests of safety all measures must ultimately form one cohesive whole.
Mr President, every year millions of Europeans use passenger ships.
In the view of my group they should all meet a high level of safety.
Yet passenger ships on domestic voyages do not enjoy the same high level of safety required for voyages between Member States.
As a result two similar ships operating at times in the same sea area are subject to very different safety requirements.
Indeed, the results of investigations into recent tragic events at sea confirm that those ships operating on domestic voyages are exposed not surprisingly to the same risks as similar ships on international routes.
Moreover, passenger ships on international voyages can also be exempted from safety requirements in certain circumstances and new types of high-speed craft are subject to inadequate and vastly different rules in the various Member States.
All of this creates a confusing and complicated two or even three-tier system.
Therefore, I warmly welcome the Commission initiative to ensure a high level of safety for all passenger ships including high-speed craft plying to or from the ports of any EU Member State irrespective of whether or not they were engaged on domestic or international voyages.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Stenmarck for producing a comprehensive report which not only positively endorses the Commission proposals but attempts to build on them in a constructive way.
I should also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to our colleague Ken Stewart who died earlier this week.
Mr Stewart had a justifiable passion to make our seas safe and reduce the appalling toll of over 200 ships and countless lives needlessly lost each and every year.
His safe seas report highlighted the need for action in areas such as the one we are debating here this evening.
His report, in my view and in the view of many people in this House, will continue for many years to act as the benchmark against which we judge progress in this area.
In conclusion I should like to endorse Mr Stenmarck's report which will contribute to a higher level of safety for both seafarers and passengers.
With the exception of Amendment No 16 as outlined by my colleague Mr Miller, it deserves the full support of this House.
Mr President, I am very glad to note that there is common understanding on this proposal and that its main objective - the harmonization of safety standards for passenger vessels operating on domestic voyages - has been endorsed and every speaker in this debate has made that very clear.
I am sure we all share the view put by Mr Stenmarck and by others that when implemented this measure will provide further support for our efforts to try to ensure a high and uniform level of protection of human life in Community waters and to avoid the distortion of competition that would arise from cutting corners on maritime safety.
I would like to respond the question put by Mr Stenmarck about further steps being taken by the Commission to add to the list of initiatives we have taken to improve safety standards.
I would simply mention that our proposals on the roll-on/roll-off ferry licensing system will be put to the Commission before the end of this year and then go into the procedure which clearly will involve this House.
Within a couple of weeks we will be putting to the Commission our proposals relating to the registration of passengers on passenger vessels.
In addition to that there will be activities taking place as a consequence of the very important Stockholm Agreement earlier this year, in which the Commission was a very active participant.
I am glad to say that a number of amendments adopted by the committee are consistent with the main principles of the Commission proposal and provide added value by clarifying some of the provisions of that proposal.
Therefore, the Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 14, 15, 20 and 16, Since No 16 has been a matter of some concern, for reasons I well understand, in some parts of the House, may I say that the Commission considers that the amendment provides acceptable clarification on the 24 metres length limit but we do not accept any proposal that excludes class C and D ships from the requirement on intact stability.
Consequently, I hope that on reflection the Socialist Group will give further attention to its position and hopefully be able to conclude that the Commission's position in response to that amendment is satisfactory.
Further, the Commission can accept Amendment No 17 postponing from 1 July 1997 to the year 2000 the implementation of some of the requirements in the technical annex.
On the subject of postponements, derogations and the long period for full implementation raised, for understandable reasons, by Mr Jarzembowski and his view - not for the first time - is one which finds sympathy in this quarter, I would just say that the reason why there is such a long period for full implementation is a very practical reason on this occasion.
Clearly, in order to satisfy the requirements of this law, there will have to be major structural modifications to existing ships in many cases.
That is likely to involve considerable expense and therefore it is not unrealistic or unjustified to have a relatively long transition period.
Secondly, the timetable in this measure is completely in line with the timetable in the safety of life at sea convention.
Consequently by having a similar period of transition, there is no danger of distortion between international and domestic considerations.
Naturally I would share Mr Jarzembowski's hope that, regardless of the provisions of this measure, there will be the most rapid practicable implementation of the principles of this legislation by those who are engaged in the operation of vessels in domestic waters.
The Commission can also understand the basic concern behind Amendment No 18.
We accept that proper consideration should be given to the suitability and practicality of applying the technical requirements of this proposal to smaller ships.
To meet that concern, therefore, as I mentioned earlier, the Commission is first proposing that existing ships of less than 24 metres in length be excluded from the scope of the proposal.
Secondly, the Commission is prepared to request that the committee established for this directive examines and amends the technical annex with regard to the application to new ships of limited size.
An amendment to Article 8 will be necessary to empower the committee to undertake the task of re-examining the technical annex.
The Commission welcomes in particular Amendment No 12 and the second part of Amendment No 11 which provides for a more active role by the host Member State in cases where existing class C and D ships flying the flag of another Member State are to be engaged on domestic voyages in the host Member State.
The Commission believes that this approach is far more appropriate than the request to change this proposal into a minimum standard directive.
There are some amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
I hope the House will understand our reasons.
We cannot agree to Amendment No 1 or to the first part of Amendment No 11, or to the words 'at least' being added in Amendments Nos 6 and 8.
In our view, these amendments would weaken the proposal and be detrimental to the envisaged harmonization of safety at the highest possible level.
Additional safety requirements can only be imposed if they are justified by local conditions and provided they are submitted to committee scrutiny in accordance with the procedures of Article 7(1).
Only this approach will guarantee a fair implementation of additional safety measures in the Community to all ships operating in the same conditions.
If this approach is supported by this House, the Commission can accept the principle of Amendment No 8 provided it is transferred from paragraph 1 to paragraph 2 of Article 5.
I hope the House is entirely clear about what I am proposing.
In this same context, I cannot accept Amendment No 19 requesting the mandatory carriage of survival clothing for passengers and crew on board ships operating in water temperatures below 15o Celsius.
This is a clear example of an additional safety measure which might be justified by local conditions and for which Article 7(1) should then be applied.
There is a facility for covering the point raised specifically by Mr Miller in the terms of this legislation.
It appears to us that the amendments requesting additional references to other Community legislation are superfluous and therefore Amendments Nos 4, 9 and 13 cannot be accepted.
With regard to the request in Amendment No 5 to mention protection of the environment as one of the purposes of the directive, I have to draw the attention of the House to the fact that prevention of pollution from ships is regulated by the International MARPOL Convention which also applies to passenger ships engaged in domestic voyages.
I therefore see no need for duplication of these international environmental obligations in our proposals and I suggest that the amendment is therefore withdrawn.
The same reasoning applies to Amendment No 3 which requests high-speed passenger craft to comply with special rules in addition to this directive.
It should be noted that these special rules are already clearly defined and referred to in this directive and that the proposed amendment would only create confusion.
With regard to the establishment of the sea areas, the proposed reference to nearest safe landing point in Amendment No 7 is in our view too vague and cannot be supported by the Commission.
Further, I do not see the need for the addition proposed in Amendment No 10 since sea areas are clearly defined and explicitly referred to for the application of each single requirement in this proposal.
Summing up, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20 and the second part of No 11 and can subscribe to the principles of Amendments Nos 8 and 18 provided they are redrafted to take account of the suggestions I have made.
I conclude by thanking the House for facilitating the early adoption of a common position on this important measure which will have direct and considerable impact on the safety provisions for our fellow citizens travelling in Community waters.
May I express my particular gratitude to the Committee on Transport and Tourism and specifically the rapporteur Mr Stenmarck for the excellent report on a very detailed proposal.
Indeed, it is the detail of that proposal which offers me my only excuse for taking up so much of the House's time.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Citrus fruit, fruit and vegetables
Mr President, I should first of all like to congratulate the Commission on the proposals put to us, despite minor differences which have emerged in the amendments.
I regard the separation of the system of aids to citrus processing from the common organization of markets in fresh produce as of great importance, since it will surely foster responsibility in the sector and encourage competitiveness and the search for proper sales outlets.
It will also enable the industry within the European Union to diversify into products such as freshly pressed or pasteurized juices, where we can surely be more competitive.
Abolition of the minimum price and a more active role for producers' organizations should also be seen as positive proposals.
For producers' organizations to enter into contracts with industry, allowing for multi-annual contracts where appropriate, should result in a concentration of supply, as it has already done in the case of satsumas.
Finally, the inclusion of segmented clementines in the processing aids is welcome, since it has long been called for by the processing industry.
The Commission's proposal does, however, contain some features which need improvement, and the Committee on Agriculture has approved various amendments which I should like to put forward.
Firstly, we accept the gradual reduction of processing aid over five years until it is set at the level of aid for clementines in the season 2000-2001.
However, we think it essential for such aid to remain in proportion to the withdrawal compensation for fresh produce, if only to encourage processing rather than withdrawal or destruction.
Secondly, the threshold level proposed by the Commission, particularly in the case of secondary citrus fruits (265, 000 tonnes) seems too tight, since the average of the last five seasons was about 264, 000 tonnes, and the Committee on Agriculture has therefore felt the need to raise it to 365, 000 tonnes.
The third adjustment sets a certain limit to the penalties provided for in the proposal.
We accept 1 % loss of aid for every 1 % by which the threshold is exceeded, which is the present system, but the Committee on Agriculture proposes that the penalty should never exceed 20 % of the amount of the aid, since we believe that if this limit were exceeded the aid system would become non-viable. This would also confirm a provision now in force that penalties for exceeding the threshold should not go beyond 20 %.
I should add that the Committee on Agriculture accepted all the amendments put to it by the Committee on Budgets in respect of monitoring systems and their implementation, and these are incorporated in the report of the Committee on Agriculture.
We believe the Commission should adopt these amendments which, in our view, improve its wording and may ensure the future of the citrus fruit processing sector, bearing in mind the risks now facing it; on one hand, the opening up of our domestic markets to imports as a result of both the GATT accords and bilateral agreements, and on the other (an important factor) the recently-approved reform of the common market organization for fruit and vegetables, which has considerably reduced the volume of withdrawals and the amount paid for them.
For these reasons I think the Commission should take account of this contribution by the Committee on Agriculture in the citrus processing sector.
Finally, I must say that encouraging the use of processing will always be preferable to a policy of withdrawal or destruction of the product, and on this point we could not be more in agreement with the Commission's proposals.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a discussion in which, apart from a few minor points which I shall now explain, we are in agreement with the Commission's proposal.
In the citrus fruit sector there are varieties which, although intended for consumption as fresh produce, generate surpluses which are either sent for processing or else would be withdrawn.
Our view is that the system of aid should be broad and attractive enough to prevent withdrawals with the many attendant economic, environmental and social image problems resulting from destruction, and that a system of processing aid should be promoted which creates added value and encourages the launch of innovative and competitive products on the markets of the European Union and other countries, such as freshly pressed and pasteurized juices or clementines in segments, for which our sector has traditionally called.
We urge the Commission, as proposed in our Amendment No 10, to increase the processing threshold by 190, 000 tonnes for oranges, 64, 000 for lemons and 110, 000 for mandarins, clementines and satsumas.
The Commission ought not be so parsimonious in setting the price, having taken that of clementines, the lowest of all.
We also deplore the fact that the scheduled aid declines by ECU 10 million over five years, i.e. up to the year 2001, whereas this is not the case in other sectors.
We do agree with the proposal on Community withdrawal compensation, and support the amendment put forward by the rapporteur adjusting such Community withdrawal compensation upwards or downwards according to the prices fixed by the Council at the appropriate time for fresh produce.
Mr President, as the House will know, the draft reform of the Community support regime for the processing of citrus fruits is the final phase of the reform of the common organization of the markets in the fruit and vegetable sector.
The Agriculture Council of 23-24 July, as the House will also know, reached political agreement on the projects concerning fresh fruit and vegetables and processed products.
Last May, in order to finalize the complete reform of the sector, the Commission presented two draft regulations which this House is giving consideration to now.
One proposal sets up a new aids scheme for producers of certain citrus fruits and, following on from that, the other modifies the draft in the fresh fruit and vegetable sector.
These two proposals are to be examined at the same time by the Council.
Before the House decides on the proposed amendments, I would like to indicate the position which the Commission takes on those amendments.
The first two amendments relate to the 'whereas' clauses.
They aim to set out general principles, one concerning the commitments of the Council of September 1993 for financial solidarity and Community preference, the other concerning the need to direct the European citrus processing industry towards the manufacture of new products.
The Commission offers two comments on these amendments.
Firstly and obviously, the final text of the 'whereas' clauses will only be drawn up when the text of the regulations themselves has been finalized.
It would be most appropriate to take these suggestions made in the amendments into account at that point.
Secondly, however, the House will know that the drafting of 'whereas' clauses must only take account of legal needs.
This is the reason why the Commission considers that the statement of principle or of objectives which are not legally necessary, should not appear in the 'whereas' texts.
As far as the draft amendments on the regulation text themselves are concerned, I respond with the following:
Amendment No 3 proposes the automatic adoption of aid as set out in the annex of the current regulation according to the Community withdrawal compensation for fresh produce.
Such a modification of the regulation arrangements seems unnecessary but the Commission will nevertheless seek to ensure that the final decision by the Council on the amounts in the annex takes account of the decision of the 23-24 July Council on the Community withdrawal compensation.
Amendment No 4, which proposes to increase the threshold for mandarins, clementines and satsumas by 100, 000 tonnes cannot be accepted because it goes against the principle used to fix the threshold of other citrus fruits, which is based on the quantities usually processed.
Amendment No 5 limits the decrease of aid in the event of overshooting the threshold.
The Commission cannot accept this because any limitation of the decrease in aid harms the efficiency of the threshold system and moreover might actually provoke budgetary overshoots.
Amendment No 6 is already in the current proposal, given that in the case of overshooting the threshold the aid is reduced and therefore available credits will always be respected.
As far as informing Parliament of implementing arrangements is concerned, that is already carried out, as Members will know, according to the existing institutional procedures.
Amendments Nos 7 and 8 are superfluous because they are already covered in Article 6 of the proposal.
In conclusion, I express the wish of the Commission that this reform will enable the Community's citrus sector to face up to the development of the market by further enhancing its creativity, its efficiency and its competitivity to the mutual benefit of producers, processors, the trade and, of course, customers.
In commending the two proposals to the House, I express my appreciation to Mr Salamanca for his work and of course for the efforts of the Agriculture Committee as a whole.
I also express my appreciation to my dear colleague Franz Fischler, whose unavoidable working absence tonight gave me the great honour and opportunity to contribute to an agricultural debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.05 p.m.)
Local development and employment initiatives
The next item is the report (A4-0231/96) by Mr Schiedermeier, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and European Parliament on a European strategy for encouraging local development and employment initiatives (COM(95)0273 - C40289/95).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in this document, local development and employment initiatives have finally achieved Europe-wide recognition of their importance as an essential instrument in combatting unemployment.
If the obstacles that often help to make those initiatives so short-lived could only be removed, and if the initiatives themselves could be encouraged as described in the strategy document and enlarged upon in Parliament's report, then the unemployment rate could be halved by the year 2000.
For the last fifteen years, local development and employment initiatives in areas of industrial decline have been preventing regions from dying out, by means of effective management and innovative projects.
We are now asking Member States to delay no longer in implementing this strategy, and to include capital for local employment and development initiatives in all their multiannual employment programmes.
Seventeen service areas, in which local authorities have been involved up to now, must not, however, lead to a situation in which women are dismissed from occupations requiring a high level of qualification, and forced to work in badly paid sectors.
It is essential, therefore, that in these areas identified as options for employment initiatives there should also be appropriate remuneration, and it should be possible to obtain vocational qualifications, and also, it goes without saying, people should be able to operate independently and responsibly.
The 10 % that has so far been spent on local employment initiatives is nowhere near enough.
We are asking for a significant increase.
I would be looking for a figure of 25-30 %.
However, it must be emphasized that the whole problem of mass unemployment cannot be solved by local employment and development initiatives alone, even though they are an important factor.
Nevertheless, it is disappointing that the paper by Mrs Wulf-Mathies, Mr Flynn, Mr Fischler and Mrs Bonino does not include a substantial section on local employment initiatives, despite the fact that it is important that even now, within the current structural-funds period, a move towards more employment should be made possible, by means of precisely such innovative projects.
We are asking the Member States to rapidly demolish the obstacles that they have so far set up in the way of such local employment initiatives.
There are legal and administrative obstacles, and above all there is the sectorallyoriented thinking on the part of the administrative authorities.
Above all else, we are asking the Commission finally to change its policies, which have to date had a deleterious effect on local employment initiatives, and we are asking that this type of policy, which has had the effect of concentrating and polarizing economic power within central authorities, as a result of the trans-European networks, will finally be reconsidered!
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating and thanking the rapporteur for the report that we are now debating. The report manages to blend in the opinions of our other interested and competent parliamentary committees, and it comes before the House in its present form after a great deal of discussion and many amendments in the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on behalf of which I speak.
In addition, I think that I should say at the outset that the Commission communication that we are discussing and being asked to pass judgment on today - a communication, Mr Flynn, with which we are all very familiar - is the tip of an iceberg, the fruit of much analytical work, of work which is not only, or not chiefly, an exercise on paper but which is based, essentially, on an inventory of endeavours embarked on in every corner of Europe.
Yes, unemployment certainly is the biggest threat to the social cohesion and development of Europe, and combating it, therefore, is - must be - the top social and political priority.
At the same time, developments in society the length and breadth of Europe, which of late have been very profound or come with great rapidity, have clearly altered the needs of the citizen.
Many of those needs, the needs today of our citizens, of three-quarters of society, are not catered for by the conventional forms of employment, and I believe that this approach, the encouragement, that is, of local employment and development initiatives, makes it possible to pursue these two major objectives in combination.
The 17 closely analyzed fields are not mutually exclusive, of course. They are linked and can have effects one on the other, and I would describe them as indicative in that it is possible that other, new, forms of work will emerge.
They are obviously directed in the main at working people who are under-privileged and their real value will show in areas of deprivation.
I believe that this approach, with this communication, this text and this contribution today by the European Parliament, really can provide the key to getting to grips with the unemployment problem.
What is needed, of course, is for this mainly theoretical piece of work to be put into practice, to be given expression and real shape in society, to become a common conception throughout the European Union. There are opportunities already in place: ongoing programmes such as LEADER and URBAN.
There is Article 10 of the Regional Fund.
And there are new possibilities as well - I go to the other end of things - such as the carbon dioxide tax. Allow me to say, in concluding, that we consider this approach to be truly creative and that we are therefore looking forward to the next phase from the Irish presidency, which has declared its interest, and in particular to the conference to be held on the matter in November.
Madam President, culture creates jobs.
That is a fact which, despite being pointed out by many professionals in the sector, has only recently been given recognition in the Commission's official documents.
I am thinking of, for example, the documents presented by Mrs Wulf-Mathies to the Council of Ministers on Regional Planning in Venice and the first Commission report on the cultural impact of the Community's policies.
Furthermore, the governments of some Member States, France in particular, are now sending out strong signals of recognising the potential of local employment and the role of small companies, where culture takes pride of place.
I should like to mention here new areas of services such as maintaining local the heritage, making proper use of urban public spaces, information technologies, leisure and activities for young and elderly people.
These are areas which are appropriate for women's jobs, and also are areas where women can find innovative solutions.
I must point out that in 1991 Portugal was the country which made the biggest commitment to launching a European strategy for promoting local development and employment initiatives, something which is now beginning to bear fruit.
Why do I attribute such importance to culture as a job creator? It is because the 'employment' priority only makes sense if we link together two fundamental concepts of the European Union: citizenship and social cohesion.
Cultural employment improves living standards, increases people's self-esteem, creates the conditions in which we can finally attain the ultimate objective of the European Union: the well-being of its citizens.
On the other hand, we must bear in mind that employment must not be created at the cost of company competitiveness nor by means of a return to huge unwieldy public sectors which we did so much to rid ourselves of.
We must avoid the perverse effects which job creation can bring with it.
That is why we must involve local authorities and encourage, as far as possible, partnerships between the public and private sectors and between authorities and companies.
Support under ERDDF for innovative action and inter-regional activity in the social and cultural areas, under Article 10, is one example which must be strengthened and broadened.
This Commission programme might be the manna we were waiting for and help us to create employment and consolidate popular participation.
Let us hope we can recognize its importance and use it intelligently.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, unemployment is still a crucial problem in the European Union.
The unemployment level - the rapporteur, Mr Schiedermeier, has referred to it - is currently running at 10.8 %.
There is therefore an urgent need for action.
The Commission's current idea is to regard local development and employment initiatives as an important and valuable aid towards the creation of jobs, and calculates that, on an EU-wide basis, up to 400, 000 new jobs a year can be created.
These will be jobs in the regions, jobs in rural areas, which we must create if we want to maintain and strengthen rural areas in the long term as places in which people can live and work.
The Group of the European People's Party supports the Commission's proposal.
In the document, seventeen areas are defined in which new jobs could be created.
I should just like to mention a few of those areas that appear to me to be of particular interest.
Stronger support must be given to shops in rural areas.
Shopping for food and other everyday requirements can often be a problem, not only for the elderly, but also for young families living in a village, where the husband needs the family car to get to work, because there are no longer any shops in the vicinity.
Structures in rural areas must be expanded and consolidated.
Only in this way is it possible to offer young people an incentive to stay in the region.
This includes expanding public transport facilities and also extending the road network.
In addition, I welcome the fact that domestic work is to be given recognition.
A job in a household is worth just as much as a job in industry.
Therefore adjustments need to be made in areas such as taxation and insurance law.
These jobs must be brought out of the grey area.
The Commission is planning to introduce service vouchers, along French lines, as a local method of payment.
By means of these vouchers, private individuals can obtain services on an hourly or a daily basis.
One private household rarely provides a full-time job.
Women work in several households and in none of them are they subject to national insurance, so they are unable to obtain pensions insurance and social security.
Service vouchers would make it possible for several workplaces to be combined together to make one job that would be subject to national insurance.
The constant challenges and changes in the economic position of a business mean that employees are often forced to look around for other opportunities.
Nowadays, hardly any employee will spend his or her whole life working in the same career, for the same employer.
Only by means of a broad-based basic education system is a change of career possible.
Therefore we must make sure that those who are educated in future are provided with a broad spectrum of basic knowledge.
The world of work today has many different aspects.
Job sharing, multiple skilling and the combination of self-employed activities with activities that are subject to compulsory insurance.
In other words, it is a question of making adjustments to the legal conditions in this area too.
We must do everything in our power to combat unemployment in Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, going beyond the Member States' need to develop economically and socially, with the eternal objective of improving the living standards of their people, we must now tackle urgently, and with special attention, measures and practical and efficient actions to combat unemployment, that scourge which is unfortunately growing in the European continent and threatens to increase further in the future.
These measures should include, in particular, local development and employment initiatives which the Commission hopes to encourage and to which the Schiedermeier report has made a special contribution.
There is no doubt at all that these local initiatives are of great importance for creating jobs and it would be a good thing for small companies, including very small ones, to mushroom in all the Member States and their regions, with subsequent results in terms of job creation.
In general, the UPE Group is completely in agreement with the Commission communication on the European strategy of incentives for local development and employment initiatives and the well-drafted Schiedermeier report which fleshed it out and improved it.
In truth, the Commission - fulfilling its role of carrying out research into the interest and operations of these initiatives and the creation of the necessary stimuli for their creation and development in the Member States and defining the most appropriate areas, especially in the tertiary sector, where new opportunities for employment could best be explored - has made a major contribution to the necessary search for local job creation potential.
Along the same lines, this report calls for more Commission intervention, either by coordinating actions, disseminating or exchanging past experiences or acting as the main vehicle for bringing about fresh employment initiatives, or else by lending financial support for the creation of small companies on a local level, for their material needs, infrastructure and developing and training the management.
It is precisely this financial support which has to be increased just as we must try and eliminate any administrative or other obstacles which come in the way of the development of local initiatives or make them more difficult.
Since we know the main obstacles which crop up when setting up small local companies, especially in terms of the cost of necessary funding, we have to have an overall strategy in which these aspects can be considered and which do not prevent us from attaining the final objective, in other words, at the end of the day, fighting unemployment.
Finally, I should like to point out that, if we take a closer look at this report, we can see some less positive aspects which, without lessening the overall effects or the ultimate objectives, make the report less satisfactory and more controversial.
I am thinking in particular of point 10, which proposes approval, with little or no serious basis, of the famous CO2 energy tax which should never be decided at Community level alone, otherwise we might only worsen the situation of the European economy, especially its industry, which is already so uncompetitive.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we have here an interesting communication from the Commission. The Social Affairs Committee responded creatively to it and Mr Schiedermeier worked hard to produce a good report on it.
I think this report deserves to be acted on. But I fear it will hit a bottleneck.
What we need to get this report acted on is cooperation from the Member States and cooperation from the regions.
As I see it, the regions will respond positively, the local authorities, the provincial authorities, but there will be a bottleneck in the Member States at national level because there is scant enthusiasm for cooperating on European policies over matters which are to some degree perceived as areas for subsidiarity.
So it will take a lot of persuasion to get the national Member States on board, financially as well.
Looking at the budget we find that Member States are busy cutting back on the very budget lines which might be used to fund this.
So I would ask the Commissioner to make an extra effort here.
There are a few more points close to my heart.
I, together with my Group, am not so hostile to a Europe-wide carbon tax.
I think if one introduces that kind of fiscal measure one must do so for the whole of Europe and then one has a certain level of financing available.
For the rest I would draw your attention to the role of insurance companies.
In my country insurance companies sometimes conclude contracts with companies providing services which then form part of the terms of insurance.
I think these are also points which we might encourage, for example in pilot projects.
In my country the Minister for Economic Affairs has calculated that a third of jobs in Belgium come from start-up companies and a third from creative initiatives on the part of existing companies.
I would urge the Commission to give real additional opportunities here both to profit-making and non-profit-making bodies, but in any event to the private sector.
Lastly, Madam President, I think we should also take an in-depth look at the Commission's agricultural policy.
There are excellent things in the report about protecting areas of natural beauty and I think we shall have to move towards switching funds in the farm budgets into the preservation of areas of natural beauty.
That can in principle be done, but we shall need to deal creatively with the funds which Europe itself already has.
Madam President, the gradual elimination of the mass unemployment which exists in the EU Member States calls for a great many different measures.
The report rightly stresses that the basis for local employment initiatives - partnership, participation and autonomous planning - is very important in combatting unemployment, and it should be strengthened.
It is important to promote innovative ideas such as, precisely, employment agreements among the various parties at local level.
I should like very briefly to outline my home town's efforts to resolve the problems, as they are very similar to those in many other towns, and the problems they face are similar.
Last year an employment project began in Tampere one element in which was an agreement of intent to preserve employment.
The parties to the agreement are the town authorities, the employment exchange and the labour district.
The short-term aim is that the agreement should be endorsed by entrepreneurs, organizations representing them, voluntary organizations and the unemployed.
Special attention has been devoted to the long-term unemployed and the young.
The means of preventing exclusion is to offer permanent or temporary work, vocational training and/or apprenticeships, traineeships and specialized training as an employment measure.
Despite its high unemployment rate - 23.6 % - Tampere belongs to the European Union's so-called white area.
The EU has imposed significant limits on economic aid to the projects I have just described.
The vertical organization of society and the sectorization of public administration have also impeded the development of local employment initiatives.
Partnership particularly requires horizontal cooperation, cutting across administrative fields.
Like the report, I consider it important to develop Member States' judicial and administrative practices in such a way that they support partnership at local level.
The Commission's new measures to support local employment initiatives are welcome, and I hope that all towns will receive assistance from them soon.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday Mr Schiedermeier gave us an excellent example of a non-factional, expert piece of work, reaching, as we saw in yesterday's debate, from Portugal to Finland, and this is all the more remarkable if we bear in mind the fact that a number of Member States - Mrs Boogerd-Quaak has mentioned this, and of course I am thinking mainly of Germany here - have tried to block the Commission's initiative in this sphere in the name of subsidiarity.
I share the view of Mrs Schroedter, but I should just like to point out that progress on the subject of the social economy, which is closely related to the present subject, was made in this House during the earlier legislative period, by Aline Archambaud.
I should just like to make a few necessary comments on the subjects covered by this report.
Firstly, we must take care to ensure that local employment initiatives do not fall into the trap of duplicating other work, on normal working conditions, access to the employment market, qualifications etc.
Secondly, we must incorporate them into more far-reaching objectives which must be pursued at the same time, such as: halving unemployment levels by the year 2000, decentralization and local and regional development of the economy, culture and society, as our Portuguese colleagues have pointed out, as well as economic and social reform, and feminization, and that means the balanced redistribution of paid and unpaid work, and not the creation of a new servant class of housemaids and car-park attendants.
Seen as a whole, this is an important contribution towards replacing the status of women employees with that of female working citizens, and in quantitative terms it is a significant contribution.
In the Federal Republic of Germany alone - and you can work this out - with about eight million people affected by unemployment, about one million new jobs will have to be created in this sector, meaningful, future-oriented jobs, which really will enrich society.
In this sense, the implementation of the Commission's initiative is an urgent demand, which we must make together.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, before anything else I must compliment Mr Schiedermeier on his report and thank him most warmly for the cooperative way in which he went about compiling his report.
I share his appreciation of the Commission's communication on local employment initiatives which, in our view, have been and still are far too much of an underdeveloped and even undervalued part of a European strategy on jobs.
Because, as other speakers have already said, all the research shows that local initiatives do far more to create jobs and do so at a lower cost than the large-scale infrastructure policy which we seek to defend. Because the Socialist Group does not see local initiatives as an alternative to trans-European networks, although we sometimes have difficulties with the nondescript colour of many proposals, but as a necessary complement to these trans-European networks and we hope that they will have a rather better chance of completion than the TENs with their long and painful progress so far.
It is obvious that if we want to give this sector the chance to develop, we must provide not only a European framework of support but also European financial incentives.
That much is clear from a whole raft of initiatives and experiences from the various Member States.
In Belgium, for example, a start was made some time ago on an initiative known as local employment agencies, whereby the unemployed can do odd jobs in addition to receiving unemployment benefit and which uses a system of vouchers.
The system has clear merits but at the same time a number of risks in the formula have also surfaced.
First and foremost, if these local employment initiatives are to be expanded into a promising sector offering employment opportunities for women, who take them up on a huge scale, the long-term unemployed and young unemployed people, then it is important that we do not leave them to rot, working in hamburger joints with poor conditions of employment and welfare levels of pay.
Secondly, it would be a real shame to limit this promising sector to odd jobs, to casual jobs.
The seventeen areas mentioned by the Commission offer potential for development to a large number of projects in the social economy and independent firms which may indeed prove wholly or partially profitable and which may benefit very much from the demand and high purchasing power which still exists in society.
I hope, Commissioner, that we shall get more than just a communication.
We need a European programme of action, a coherent programme, a global programme which is equipped with European instruments.
You are very well aware that the European Union can play a part here.
It has already done so in experiments financed through the European Social Fund and above all URBAN.
I agree with other honourable Members that we must do everything possible to ensure that there are no cuts at all in the budget for the European Social Fund or other structural funds but that we should on the contrary think in terms of increasing these funds for the purpose of these initiatives too.
I will say just this: we have to do more.
Why not think about creative combinations with large-scale capital projects; to my mind, Commissioner, these is no point in a high-speed train unless it meshes seamlessly into a large-scale public transport network.
I would thus ask the Commissioner to put a proposal to the Council to widen the mandate of the European Investment Fund to include urban initiatives and not just trans-European networks alone.
And I agree with Mrs Boogerd-Quaak that the carbon tax might go a very long way towards developing this sector.
In conclusion, Madam President, I congratulate the Commission on its initiatives but I hope it will now think creatively and come up with a concrete programme of action.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, how many people are unemployed in Europe? Eighteen million?
Twenty million? The battle over statistics will not create a single new job.
All this moaning about structural weaknesses and past mistakes, that is nothing more than a lament now. Accusations of mismanagement and redundancy therapies on the one hand, and a lack of flexibility or quality deficit on the other, this reciprocal mud-slinging may well fill the newspapers but it will not fill people's stomachs.
It is clear that we need to take practical action, and achieve changes at local level.
Local employment initiatives make it possible to improve living and working conditions.
Local work for local people using local resources means, in the first place, services.
For example, there is the environmental sector, from waste management to the maintenance of natural areas; there is the housing sector, from security to urban renewal; the everyday-life sector, from health protection to child care; and finally the leisure sector, from tourism to cultural initiatives.
The potential which can be achieved at local level, but which is all too seldom used, or is even transferred elsewhere, must be exploited to the full.
This spatial proximity makes it possible to have a precise knowledge of special circumstances, supplies and needs.
We can see who the target groups are, from women to young people with problems to the elderly, those who are difficult to employ, and other disadvantaged workers.
We can also see what the framework conditions are.
Private job providers and public agencies should stop blocking each other's initiatives all the time.
They should cooperate, and agree to have the courage be creative and develop in new directions.
Let us not deceive ourselves: the obstacles are still enormous.
The rapporteur, Mr Schiedermeier, who received the unanimous support of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, has shown us what is missing: a willingness to cooperate on the part of government bodies, public resources to finance orders and start-up capital, and qualifications for those who might be involved in these initiatives.
We need a coherent framework for action, plus financial incentives for development, the removal of administrative and legal obstructions, and target-specific consultation.
It is high time that the coordination of specific measures by the Community and specific measures by the Member States, the encouragement of small and medium-sized enterprises, the more effective use of the structural funds, and the effective implementation of educational programmes, from LEONARDO to LIFELONG LEARNING, were expanded so as to include an important area, namely that of local development initiatives.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are now debating on a European strategy for local development and employment initiatives calls for our full agreement.
I would actually say it is stimulating for anyone who deals with local and regional development in our countries.
Acknowledging the importance of the regional and local levels as a fundamental nucleus of the social and economic fabric might be one of the most humane and effective ways, among the wide range of solutions which can be adopted for this very serious problem, unemployment.
It means encouraging people themselves to identify and develop employment at a local level and it means making the most of the job-creating opportunities that exist in some major areas such services linked to daily life, services linked to leisure and culture, those linked to the environment and housing, as well as many other areas which might appropriately meet the new needs and thereby help to slash unemployment in Europe.
It is worth pointing out the demand to the Commission to bring about framework conditions which are favourable for local employment initiatives as well as compulsorily introducing financial resources for local development and supporting local companies in as many different ways as possible.
The Commission should encourage and promote an exchange of experiences between Member States where local employment initiatives of interest have already been implemented and also will have to play in full the role of dynamic force in encouraging any credible and effective solutions that might help to tackle the social scourge of unemployment.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Schiedermeier's report, the opinions of the various committees, and European Union studies appear already to have recorded more than 17 areas of job creation potential, primarily in social, cultural and environmental fields.
I am very interested in the environmental areas, since I am a member of the Committee on the Environment.
There are very worthwhile possibilities in water and waste management and protection of natural habitats.
The rapporteurs note, however, that there are legal and tax obstacles as well as obstacles relating to educational background; most workers come from industrial restructuring in Europe.
We believe we also have to consider better management of resources, and locate jobs in old trades and in craft industries.
But I should like to place some emphasis on the opinion expressed by Mrs Marinucci as representative of the Committee on Women's Rights.
Mrs Marinucci highlights the contradiction between competitiveness and job creation.
Europe cannot compete with the very low wages and abysmal working conditions of the Third World.
And this contradiction is unresolved.
I should also like to signal the continuous creation of insecure jobs.
I live in a country where 34 % of jobs are insecure, a situation mainly endured by women.
It is not enough just to create jobs. We need to create jobs with some degree of security.
And we are worried that the public sector may cease to finance most welfare benefits.
We are therefore concerned over the replacement of public by private action, since there are poor and scattered populations in which private enterprise would find no profit.
To conclude, I believe the obstacles and contradictions have to be overcome so that local job initiatives can go forward, since they are of real importance.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the creation of jobs is becoming one of the most important tasks for the immediate future.
Mr Schiedermeier's comprehensive report makes this absolutely clear, and I am able to agree with his ideas in many areas.
However, I do not think that job creation in any of the seventeen fields in the services sector will create jobs on a long-term basis, if it is not preceded by the creation of value-creating jobs.
In order to do this, innovative people and businesses must be motivated and supported by framework conditions which will trigger a business-creation offensive.
This is the prerequisite for the creation of jobs in the tertiary sector, because without businesses, information and communication technology in particular will not be used at all, and tourism will be unable to develop further because of a lack of tourists with money to spend.
If fourteen studies on the subject of employment initiatives have already been carried out, and a fifteenth study has been commissioned, then the Brussels bureaucrats have not yet grasped the idea of how the value-creation chain operates, and they are just frittering away the subsidy funds.
Therefore I should like to point out that regional and local employment initiatives must be encouraged before anything else.
This means that the framework conditions of national governments must be oriented towards enabling businesses to develop at local level, businesses with innovative products, which can be competitive at international level too, businesses whose activities are not continually thwarted by overregulation.
This will only be successful, however, if the nation states are made to see that performance does pay off, and if they do not interpret development policy as meaning the redistribution of capital, but rather understand that success and competitiveness can be improved if they reinforce regional strengths and encourage local creativity.
Only if these conditions are met will we be in a position to create jobs in the long term!
Madam President, housing cooperatives, women's employment projects, new media and cultural industries, environmental regeneration projects are known to many of us in our local area.
They are at the heart of local economic development strategy and they often arise, when traditional mass employment in an area declines, to develop new services and to offer hope of work to people not getting a fair deal within the labour market.
They should be at the heart of Europe's attempt to support new employment, to combat discrimination and to facilitate change in the economy which is sensitive to need and fair to those in work.
There has been a lot of talk in this debate about the legal and administrative obstacles to local employment in the Member States.
But what does Europe itself do for those at local level who seek its support? Only a small fraction of the structural demands are aimed at innovatory projects.
There is a periodic newsletter and a methodology for the Member States to use if they wish.
This is not bad in itself but the truth is that in the over-long, overcomplicated, over-bureaucratic processes used for agreeing the structural fund programmes, local employment projects are often last in line.
The fact that they are new and different means that all too often they will not have the local contacts, the track record, the knowledge and especially the time it takes to come to terms with the rules that Europe lays down for access to its support.
As this Parliament's rapporteur for Article 10 funding, the innovative projects, I know there is a great demand in the localities and regions to harness European support for their endeavour.
I do not want to see this limited to a few demonstration projects.
I want local economic development to be first in line when European programmes are planned, managed and implemented.
Then the 150, 000 to 180, 000 new jobs a year the Commission projects - the ambitious plans laid down in the Delors White Paper - will be much closer to becoming a reality.
Madam President, the debate on this report has been encouraging.
Given that we are fighting massive unemployment in my country, we study with interest all ideas which can improve employment.
We all know that economic growth is necessary but not sufficient.
All the special measures are therefore needed.
Our country does not have a long tradition of small enterprise and private service provision.
Many of the welfare and non-profit-making services mentioned in the report are provided at local-government level in Finland.
Their impact on employment is very considerable, and their development accords with the ideas mentioned in the report.
Privatization does not create new jobs: on the contrary.
It is true that private services are needed as a supplement to public ones.
Experiences from elsewhere naturally interest us and we hope that we can progress by exchanging information and that we will receive from other areas of the Union good indications and ideas as to how we could improve the employment situation.
When trying to identify such measures, frequent reference has been made to cooperation among the various parties, and this should be secured locally, including by means of the famous tripartite model.
Government could be represented by local government; the second party could comprise entrepreneurs, employers and enterprises, while the third would comprise the trade unions.
They could tackle this serious employment problem with local resources.
Part of unemployment benefit should be used for this purpose.
More could be achieved than at present using these resources.
The trade unions would certainly be interested in the idea and would set to work on behalf of the unemployed.
We could find ways of working close to the unemployed.
If the Union also actively supported such measures, this would provide an effective and practical model which would emanate from the Union and operate at local level.
Madam President, I would like to repeat what I said in my report.
I am worried about two aspects of the Commission's work, which I otherwise appreciated because it was preceded by an excellent investigation, excellent research work and a very interesting cultural study.
The first is in a way connected with yesterday's discussion on public services in this House: the Commission is pursuing a number of courses leading to a weakening of the public services, which are on the other hand the characteristic European model we are constantly claiming that we want to defend.
Furthermore, if it goes on presenting employment proposals which do not complement but replace facilities currently provided by the public services, it seems clear that the financial resources, which are shared among a number of channels, would not even be sufficient to create genuine additional work.
On the one hand, therefore, loss of jobs, loss of services to citizens, loss of the European social model, and on the other not even more work and, probably, not even enough replacement work.
The second aspect that worries me is that this approach, which is very interesting and ought in any case to be incorporated into a kind of guide and ought, that is, to be given greater organic unity by the Commission, badly ignores the 'question of women' .
We have previously, and again yesterday in this House, deplored the fact that, where jobs for women are concerned, there has been little but talk in the Regional Development Fund and in URBAN II: programmes have been drawn up, but they are not actually being implemented.
On the contrary, one programme - called ILO and including local employment for women - has unfortunately been cancelled.
In this case, therefore, as regards this subject, this project is not giving employment to women, whereas women are the main beneficiaries of these services, including in particular those women who normally provide them because they possess skills which they can then make available to society.
For these reasons I believe that we should think carefully and consider the desirability of going further in this direction or of improving the Commission's position.
Madam President, I would like straight away to thank Mr Schiedermeier, the author of this report, for the excellence of this report and also thank the Members of the committee who contributed in the process.
A very high level of debate has taken place here this morning and it is very encouraging for me and for the Commission to get such strong support from the House for our proposed European strategy to encourage local development and employment initiatives.
I am very taken by the standard of the contributions here this morning on this matter.
As you know, following from the Commission's White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment of 1993 the Essen Summit defined an action programme and a structured approach to fight unemployment.
This strategy has now been refined during successive European Summits from Cannes to Florence last June.
The promotion of local development and employment initiatives is an important component of this integrated framework and this is the strong point being made by Mrs van Lancker this morning: we need such an integrated framework approach.
From our point of view, these local initiatives are, of course, of major importance for several reasons.
They provide new job opportunities for people, including the long-term unemployed, young people and unemployed women.
I would like to assure Mrs Marinucci that women, in so far as these local employment initiatives are concerned, are of paramount importance to us all.
I would like to remind you that the economic analysis which has been carried out supports the view that local initiatives, if adequately supported, could create a possible 140, 000 jobs leading to a possible 400, 000 new jobs annually in Europe.
Mrs Klaß made the very important point that of the 17 areas of potential that had been identified the care sector, in particular in its reference to rural development, is a very important feature.
These initiatives also provide a response to the new requirements of our societies, by generating new types of jobs in services for day-to-day living: services that improve the quality of life in the cultural and leisure sectors, as well as in the environment sector.
This was very much brought home to us in the debate by Mrs Schroedter and by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, who talked about the potential that was there in these new areas and the need to take action in all of them at this time.
These initiatives are also frequently part of a local process, which includes public and private partnerships involving various players within society, such as local business, social partners, voluntary bodies and what we call the promoters of the social economy.
However, this important new job-creation potential does face some difficulties.
There are obstacles which need to be dealt with and they were referred to generally throughout the debate this morning.
I would like to list some of those obstacles.
Firstly, the financial obstacles.
There are very often excessive direct and indirect labour costs; the difficulty of gaining access to capital and to loans; the low purchasing power of the poorest households and the unattractive level of return for certain types of services.
Secondly, there is the question of training and technical problems which arise, amongst other things, from inappropriate initial training, outdated skills and working conditions in certain traditional sectors and a lack of training in new technologies.
I would like to highlight that for the House, and some of the contributions to the debate reflected the need for better skills and better training in the new technologies that are going to dominate all our lives in the future.
Thirdly, legal and regulatory obstacles.
These stem from the absence of proper legal status for partnership between private and public organisations and the absence of quality standards in the service sector.
Finally, institutional obstacles.
These arise from a failure to appreciate the job-creating local development process, sectoral and hierarchical bureaucracies and excessively restrictive short-term financial support which does not enable the long-term survival of initiatives.
I support Mr Howitt's point of view in this matter and he carefully stated it here this morning.
Ladies and gentlemen, you know that jobs cannot be wished into existence.
They are the result of investment and they are the result of investment by very many people.
We believe that public authorities and administrations have an important role to play in establishing a framework favourable to the creation of new jobs.
We believe that institutions, at all levels, can and must play their part in the creation and promotion of that coherent framework to encourage the development of local employment initiatives.
On the one hand, national and regional policies must concentrate on removing structural obstacles, whether financial, technical, legal or administrative.
Of course, on the other hand, the added value of the Union is provided, particularly through the promotion of experimental and pilot projects and their evaluation, the dissemination of good practice and encouragement for the exchange of experience, notably through cooperation and support of transnational networks.
Not enough is known of things that are succeeding and things that are being done well in many Member States.
We have to pinpoint what is good, isolate it, tell others about it and encourage people to adapt it to their own circumstances.
There is support being given to national measures which benefit local initiatives, particularly via the structural funds.
A lot of comment was made this morning about better use being made of our existing financial resources and I support that point of view strongly.
The strategy for encouraging local development and employment initiatives was conceived as part of the larger framework designed by the Essen European Council to fight unemployment.
Some Member States had begun to translate this support for local initiatives into concrete measures in the context of their multi-annual employment programmes.
We are going to hear more about that later this year when we see at first hand in these programmes what the Member States have done to implement these initiatives and what they propose doing over the next couple of years.
Even though much remains to be done, I am convinced that this strategy for encouraging local development initiatives is a promising way to fight unemployment.
For far too long it remained in the shade, that is true.
We have often looked at the bigger issues; now we are coming down to recognize that the great potential exists in local development, local initiatives and the encouragement of voluntary and smaller groups in our Member States.
These have often been outshone in the past by the macro-economic strategy but today we find that there are a lot more active policies coming forward to develop local initiatives.
The Commission is aware that more has to be done.
You have called for this to be taken on board and that it must be done better and quicker than in the past.
It is for that reason, following our action for employment in Europe, our confidence pact, that the Commission presented its communication on Community structural assistance and employment.
The aim of this communication is to provide markers for the negotiations currently under way in the use of Community structural funds.
It has a special place in the promotion and the development of local initiatives.
In keeping with the Commission's proposal concerning territorial and local pacts for employment, the Florence European Council also stressed the importance of local employment and development initiatives.
Finally, I would like to thank you, Mr Schiedermeier, for the encouragement that you have given us all at this time, the widespread unanimous support that is here in this House today for what we seek to do in encouraging local development.
As an instance of good faith, with the limited funds available to me, I have initiated better use of part of the Social Fund and I announce my decision to grant a budget of Ecu 25m under Article 6 of the Social Fund for the promotion of innovatory projects and job creation and I am pleased that Mr Nußbaumer has highlighted the need for innovation.
This Article 6 money is pointed directly at new job opportunities, new innovatory ways of doing things and I feel that we have here the genesis of something special and long-lasting and effective in so far as job creation is concerned, and I thank the House for their support this morning.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
Extension of common transit system
The next item is the oral question (B4-0682/96-0-0163/96) by Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into the Community Transit System, to the Commission, on further extension of the common transit system.
Mr President, this is an unusual oral question insofar as the majority of the Members of the House are actually interested in the answer.
So I will assume that the oral question is asked.
I will listen with great eagerness to the answer as will other members of the committee of inquiry into transit fraud.
In the light of Commissioner Monti's answer and with your permission Mr President, perhaps we can ask further questions so that we can do justice to the answer itself.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Tomlinson's question gives me the opportunity to provide clarifications on some important points, and is therefore welcome.
Transit systems are a measure for facilitating trade; commercial operators have well understood the usefulness of this instrument, because in 1995, two years after the creation of the single market, 18 million documents were issued to cover transit operations in the Community.
The simplification of the formalities, combined with considerable flexibility in the use of the procedures, explains the success of these systems in business circles.
They constitute a factor of primary importance which assists trade between the Community and third countries.
It is in this context that on 1 July 1996, as part of the pre-accession strategy of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech Republic, the Hungarian Republic, the Polish Republic and the Slovak Republic became contracting parties to the EC/EFTA Convention of 20 May 1987 on a common transit system.
This first extension of common transit was explicitly provided for by the European agreements, on which the European Parliament expressed a favourable opinion, within the framework of cooperation aimed at bringing the customs systems of these countries closer to those of the Community by the introduction of a 'bridging' system between the transit regimes of the Community and of these countries.
The accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to the Common Transit Convention is therefore fully in line with these countries' strategies leading up to accession to the European Union.
During the three years preceding adhesion to the common transit system, the Community, together with the other parties to the Convention, contributed significantly to the preparation of these candidate countries in order to ensure that the customs administrations and operators were fully briefed about these systems and trained and prepared for their use.
The decision to extend the system was taken only when the Community and the other contracting parties were convinced of the ability of the Visegrad countries to assume all the obligations of the common transit system.
The technical assistance supplied to the four new contracting parties is therefore an important acquisition of experience in preparation for the future extension of the Common Transit Convention to Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic states, with which the Community has concluded a European association agreement.
These candidate countries will of course receive the same technical assistance as the new contracting parties which enabled them to accede to the Convention on 1 July last in the best conditions of preparedness.
The first measures to assist the new candidates are due to begin next autumn, but without prejudging in any way the possible date of future extensions of the common transit system.
In any case, as far as the Community is concerned, the decision to issue a formal invitation to accede to the Convention will be adopted only when it has been duly established that the candidate countries have reached a level of preparation which will enable them to ensure correct application of the transit procedures.
In view of past experience, a preparatory period of several years is to be expected.
Consideration also needs to be given to another important aspect: the plans for reforming the transit system.
In association with the Member States, the parties to the Common Transit Convention and the economic operators, the Commission is in fact preparing plans for reforming the transit system in which a great deal of attention is being given to the work of the European Parliament's temporary committee of inquiry under the chairmanship of Mr Tomlinson.
As a result, the transit systems which the candidate countries will join will by then very probably have undergone various further changes, designed to strengthen their management and safeguard them against fraud, especially through the computerization which should be completed in 1998.
It is thus clear that, in order to become contracting parties to the Convention, the candidate countries will have to be capable of meeting the obligations of the transit system as it will be when it has been reformed.
Lastly, in the context of the battle against transit fraud, I wish to emphasize, as I reminded the Ministers of Finance of the Community and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe on 8 July, that every European association agreement is accompanied by a special protocol on mutual assistance in customs matters.
Together with the customs provisions of the Common Transit Convention and the collected administrative agreements on transit, this protocol constitutes the legal and administrative framework for cooperation between the customs administrations of the contracting parties.
It is in this context that the customs authorities of the contracting parties implement the administrative cooperation which is essential for the proper application of the systems in question, particularly by using the fraud-prevention machinery placed at their disposal.
Mr President, we have heard from Commissioner Monti that the decision to extend the Common Transit Convention to the Visegrad countries was taken by the EC/EFTA Joint Committee in 1996 in Interlaken.
I have four specific questions to Commissioner Monti concerning that.
At what political level was the Commission represented on this committee?
Did the Commission seek explicit prior consent of Parliament and Council to the extension before it was finally agreed?
Was the decision the subject of unanimous agreement in the Joint Committee? And was the Joint Committee itself bound by the terms of the Europe Agreements between the EU and the Visegrad countries and did they specify a timetable for extension?
My second question to Commissioner Monti asks specifically whether the Commission apprised the Visegrad countries themselves of the difficulties being encountered in managing the Community and the common transit systems before accession.
Would the Commission agree that the economic and financial risks associated with accession were subordinated to the political commitment to extend the system itself?
Thirdly, has the Commission undertaken any negotiations with any other associated countries with a view to their accession to the Common Transit Convention and will these countries be required to wait longer than the Visegrad states before acceding to the common transit system? If so, with what justification?
My final question is to ask the Commission to give us an undertaking.
It presumes that the reform of the transit system will be completed before the next extension of the common transit system.
Will the Commission therefore commit itself to subordinate further extension of the system to the completion of the reforms that Commissioner Monti referred to?
Finally, I criticized the Commission publicly yesterday in committee for not having sent us some information they promised.
Commissioner Monti has today shown me a letter which shows quite clearly that the Commission did despatch the information and as publicly as I criticized them yesterday I should like to say today that I accept that without reservation.
Unfortunately, however, just as we have problems in the common transit procedure, we clearly have common transit problems between the Breydel and the Berlaymont that we must sort out.
Mr President, the questions that Mr Tomlinson has raised on behalf of the committee are questions that I had hoped the Commission would have dealt with in its reply. Of course, they are also questions that are not being raised for the first time here today.
In the course of the work of the committee of inquiry we have repeatedly raised them, right from the start, and with exactly the same degree of clarity and precision, and yet we have never received an answer to them.
If we had received answers to these questions, at least answers that we could understand and perhaps even accept, then this debate, or this question about future extension, would not have been necessary.
Of course we do actually receive replies, Commissioner Monti - please don't misunderstand me.
Of course the Commission has sent us replies, but the replies are such as to raise yet again the question that had already been asked, and we cannot really tell who is failing to express themselves clearly, the people asking the questions or the people giving the replies, or indeed whether we are simply talking at cross purposes, so that we are really no longer able to communicate at all, because obviously such difficulties in communication do not occur only in the postal services.
As I see it, the question that lies at the bottom of everything else, and therefore the question that I am now going to ask - since Mr Tomlinson's questions, as I have said, are very comprehensive - the question that kept cropping up in committee, was not whether it was right to invite the Visegrad countries to join, or whether it was right to accept their applications, but whether it was right to do so at that particular moment.
I believe, and I am sure that no one would dispute it, that of course it is part of our accession strategy that those countries which want to join the European Union should gradually, bit by bit, be introduced to this system and integrated into it.
The question was simply, when the Commission itself had recognized what a bad state the Transit System is in, was it necessary, at that moment, to complete the accession process, even when the situation in the candidate countries had been reviewed? That is the key question that lies behind all this.
It is not a matter of the principal question: ' Should we or shouldn't we?' .
But we simply cannot have a situation - and nobody has yet given us an answer on this point - in which one part of the Commission is sending out a sort of dunning letter, saying 'The Common Transit System is collapsing. Do something!' , while another part of the Commission is actually extending this collapsing system.
Then, of course, we are told that reform and extension are not mutually exclusive, that somehow we shall manage to do everything at the same time.
But one phase of the extension scheme has now been completed, and - as you have just explained to us - we are in for the next phase.
This is not going to do anything to reduce the problems, and the longer the committee of inquiry lasts, the more we are convinced that this step, at this particular moment - and I emphasize at this particular moment - was the wrong one.
Mr President, I too find it easy to echo the questions raised by previous speakers.
One of the hardest things for me to understand is this: if Parliament decides at the beginning of this year to set up a parliamentary committee of inquiry because customs services in the countries of the European Union are not working properly, despite the fact that these customs services have years of experience with all manner of regulations, if things are still not working properly why is it necessary to extend the system? Could the Commission not have waited?
At the moment the position is that the agreements stipulate conditions. If it is true that in one of the Visegrad states things are in a total mess, what can the Commission do to put things right?
Can anything now be done?
I have the vague feeling that perhaps nothing can.
The big question then is what can be done to improve matters?
And my big question is this: how are the PHARE funds being used? What influence has Mr Monti over the way in which PHARE funds are used?
Does he receive regular reports on the length of waiting times at border crossings? Is he able to influence the way in which funds are used for new buildings, training courses and all that kind of thing?
I think that if it is too late to unravel the mess then all we can do is try to improve things and we can only do that by an active use of PHARE funds. I should appreciate a reply to these questions.
Commissioner, would you agree with me that the Commission is not simply the custodian of the Treaties, but that it must do everything imaginable in order to protect the financial interests that we administer in the European budget? If so, then I should like to ask you how I am supposed to understand your reply to my question of June 5th, as to how the Commission came to decide to extend the Transit System to include the Visegrad countries.
On July 24th you replied to my question, to the effect that the Commission took the decision to extend the Transit System to the Visegrad countries - and this is the astounding part - by means of the written procedure.
Am I therefore correct in assuming that the Commission did not hold any oral debate in committee at that time with regard to the possible financial repercussions that we shall have to accept as a result of fraud in the Transit System? Am I right in assuming that even beforehand the Commission did not hold any collective discussions about the question of extending the Transit System?
Can I therefore conclude that until the setting up of the committee of inquiry the Commission never, at any time, collectively - and here of course I mean principally you and the other Commissioners - came to any political understanding of what it would mean if we extended this system?
Finally, Mr Monti, my last question is this. Why is it so difficult for you and the Commission to admit, for once, that at a given moment you did not take into consideration something that really ought to have been taken into consideration?
Mr President, the Commission rightly maintains that widening of the Community to encompass Eastern and Central Europe is not possible unless there has first been deepening.
At the same time this same Commission thinks, and this is the nub of our debate, that the Community transit system can be extended beforehand and unconditionally.
That is indeed strange when we are talking, as has become manifest here, about a system in deep crisis.
What I am now hearing from the Commissioner is one of the arguments that the Eastern Europeans or the Central Europeans of the Visegrad countries have all the technical preparation required to introduce the system and that this is also the background to the decision taken at Interlaken.
But I would like to know what percentage of all customs officials in those countries are trained to operate this kind of system.
I have a second question in addition to all the other questions already raised, namely whether it is true that talks are currently in progress with Turkey, under the customs agreement we have now had with Turkey since the beginning of this year, with a view to concluding an agreement whereby Turkey will form part of the Community transit system and our external border for transit will thus be moved to Northern Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan.
Mr President, Mr Monti himself has told us on previous occasions that the Common Transit System is going through a difficult period because of a loss of efficiency in national Customs authorities coinciding with the arrival of the single market.
This is where the main cause of the transit problems seems to lie, in Customs and in the delay in, among other things, harmonizing taxes throughout Europe.
The handling of VAT, which is paid at source rather than at destination, may add incentives for transit fraud.
The structure of the Common Agricultural Policy, with its export refunds, has also encouraged the fraudulent use and abuse of the transit system.
Freedom of trade is not something which can be exported, it is something which must grow from roots within the national economic systems.
Even in national economic systems such as those of Europe, where the market economy is linked to these nations' history, we find that freedom of trade encounters serious problems and obstacles, and that a system as potentially excellent as the common transit system meets with instances of misuse and fraud.
To hope, as Mr Monti does, that an extension of the transit system to countries which are just really starting their transition to a market economy will not cause major disruption of the already weakened transit system is a very risky venture on the part of the Commission, which could only be conducted successfully in two ways: firstly, with a huge effort on the part of the national authorities of the Visegrad countries, and secondly with a huge financial effort on the part of the Commission to strengthen the chaotic Customs systems of those countries.
I very much doubt whether the Commission currently possesses the resources and commitment to set about strengthening, as other speakers have already mentioned, the Customs systems of these Visegrad countries.
So the question I should like to put to Mr Monti is this: does he actually have the financial resources and commitment needed for an improvement of the Customs systems of the Visegrad countries?
Mr President, the EU's transit system is in crisis, with rampant fraud and organized crime.
How is it possible for the Commission to extend the transit system to other eastern countries before a system in collapse has been completely reformed in order to curb fraud?
After all it is clear that the Commission has been aware of this situation ever since 1988.
How then is it possible to extend such a system before it has been properly reformed? I await your answer with interest as I am keen to learn on what level the decision was taken to extend it.
If it was taken at political rather than administrative level - perhaps by the customs authorities getting together and making it a matter of EU policy - would it not be better to acknowledge that, take political responsibility and change such a patently wrong decision?
Organized crime is a step ahead.
There is a need for clarity in the action of politicians.
They must not be afraid to acknowledge mistakes and must reform the entire system first.
There will be a need for cooperation between the customs authorities and for very clear administrative rules.
Obviously, new technology will be needed, very advanced technology, and above all there will be a need for effective control.
What is Commissioner Monti prepared to do?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my warmest thanks to the various Members of Parliament who have contributed and particularly to Mr Tomlinson for having, shall we say, acknowledged receipt and having drawn attention to a problem of internal communication to which we shall continue to seek better solutions.
There is a general fundamental point to which I ask you to give close attention: I am not an optimist - as has been said - I do not close my eyes to the serious problems of the transit system; when I am convinced that the Commission has made mistakes, I have no difficulty in admitting it, but I do ask that the matter be properly looked into.
For instance, I am happy to answer the question put by Mrs Müller about her letter, to which I have already replied.
In her letter she asked me for the minutes of a decision of the Commission: I replied that there are no minutes, because this decision was taken by the written procedure.
But this does not in the least mean - I do assure you, Mrs Müller - that the Commission is any less aware of it.
There are decisions, some of the greatest importance, which the Commission takes by the written procedure, which requires the agreement of all its members.
Naturally there are no minutes in that case.
I am certainly willing to admit mistakes made by the Commission when we become aware that mistakes may have been made - and naturally there are some - but in a case like this, I do not feel that I have to do so.
Mr President, this has been a sitting for oral questions which has developed in a very interesting way, because the question has received an answer from me, on which I am furthermore willing to enlarge, but the opportunity has moreover been seized - understandably and usefully, I would like to say - to discuss not only the future, that is, extension or non-extension to new countries, but also the past, for example through the detailed questions put by Mr Kellett-Bowman, concerning when, how, by whom and where the decision about the Visegrad countries was taken.
On these subjects, as the members of the committee of inquiry will recall, we - either I or my services - have had talks at meetings of the committee and we have given very careful answers on the basis of the position as then known.
It may very well be that some answers are not considered satisfactory: I am willing to look back to provide further details, but it seems to me that today's sitting has been directed rather towards the future, and it is concerning the future that I have sought and wish to confirm the Commission's assurances with regard to the concerns expressed by Mr Tomlinson.
I would like, however, to give some details on a few points concerning the future generated, as it were, by the past.
For example, it has been asked how the Commission might react if proposals for reforming the common transit system ran up against the veto of one of the contracting parties.
I have to say that, up to the present, the negotiations within the working group have always made it possible to arrive at a consensus; if, in the process of the reform which we will have to undertake, there were in fact a blocking move from someone, the problem of revising the rules for decision-making would then undoubtedly arise.
With regard to the question of the present and the future, I would like to revert to the point raised on how we at present monitor the Visegrad countries.
I have to say that the services of the Commission and the Member States are continuing the close cooperation entered into with the customs authorities of the Visegrad countries to accompany the introduction of this system and to ensure effective supervision.
On 10 October 1995, at the last meeting in Brussels of the task force which organized the technical assistance to the Visegrad countries, agreement was reached on a number of additional measures to assist the four contracting parties from 1 July 1996 onwards.
These are multilateral meetings between the Commission and the Visegrad countries to deal with problems connected with the application of the system; visits by Community customs experts to the Visegrad countries and vice versa, and other measures which I could detail and which were detailed in the committee of inquiry.
I would like to add something about the future, which is the direct subject of your questions, Mr Tomlinson.
First of all: what line do we propose to take with regard to the reform of the transit system, independently of future extensions? As Director-General Currie said when he came to the committee of inquiry on 17 July, the task force on transit will during the next few days complete its interim report, which will be forwarded to the European Parliament.
This report will comprise an analysis of transit, identification of the problems, suggestions for reform and the conditions for successful reforms.
In what way then - and I turn particularly to you, Mr Tomlinson - will the Commission make use of the results of the committee of inquiry? As I have said, the report which the committee is about to present is an interim report: it will be distributed during the next few days to the European institutions, the Member States and operators; it will be followed by a final report - towards the end of January 1997, we expect - which will incorporate the contributions made during the consultations and will list the options which the committee considers appropriate.
All this work will take - and is already taking - great account of the points to be developed and of what will then be the final report of the committee of inquiry.
Now what are the reforms of the transit system on which we are actually working? Computerization, the strengthening and extension of the customs union in order to improve cooperation between the customs services and the quality of the checks, especially 'Customs 2000' , the overall management of the system, the strengthening of cooperation between customs and operators, clarification of the responsibilities of the users of the transit system and of the customs authorities.
Lastly, with regard to the resources, it has been asked what resources are available to the Commission.
There are those connected with the 'Customs 2000' programme and there are, as far as the associated countries are concerned, the resources of the PHARE programme: in particular, this programme includes ECU 800 000 for technical assistance to the countries of central and eastern Europe (CCEE) for customs questions for the period from 1 September 1996 to 1 September 1997.
I would like, in conclusion, to repeat that this was my reply to your question, Mr Tomlinson; in view of the wider scope of the debate, I would not like this reply of mine to pass unnoticed.
There will not in the meantime be any extension of the transit system to other countries and, as I have stated in detail, other countries will have to show that they are able to adjust themselves effectively to the transit system not only as it is today but as it will have been reformed as a result of the work now in progress.
Mr President, I should just like to say - and I am sure in this respect I speak on behalf of all members of the committee who asked questions today - that whilst we might all agree with Commissioner Monti that he gave a comprehensive reply, it was a reply to almost everything except the specific questions that Members asked.
That is part of the frustration of our committee of inquiry.
Questions are asked specifically on the subjects on which we want information.
We do not want the generality of information, we want the specific detail.
I hope now that Commissioner Monti will read the specific questions, will read the inadequacy of his reply as answers to those questions, interesting as it may have been in other regards, and will then answer the questions.
We approach this with a totally open mind.
The committee decided not to have a motion to wind up the discussion on the oral question because we did this unusual thing of asking questions to get answers.
For the next plenary we might have to consider how to respond to the inadequacy of the responses.
Mr President, I say to Mr Tomlinson that I am really sorry but I cannot agree with him.
I would like to read out the text of the oral question to which I was asked to give a reply.
' On 1 July 1996 the common transit system was extended to Poland, Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Republics, despite the Commission admission that the system is in a state of crisis, that there are rising levels of fraud and that the system is in need of fundamental reform' .
And then the question: ' Will the Commission give an undertaking that it will not seek to extend the common transit system beyond the four Visegrad countries until such time as the system has been reformed and that these reforms have been shown to be effective in reducing fraud against the system' ?
I have articulated, as well as I am able, a response and given an undertaking.
I am fully prepared to answer, as is my duty, any other questions concerning the past and the Visegrad countries within the context either of the committee of inquiry - I am always at the disposal of the committee - or here in response to specific questions pertaining to those matters.
Mr President, it is very kind of Commissioner Monti to read me out my question.
I understood it quite well because I actually wrote it.
I also understand quite well the first answer.
We then had a series of supplementary questions and it is the latter I was speaking about when I said that they were not answered.
We do not have time for me to go through the six specific questions I asked but I have to say that my luck with the Commissioner is rather like my luck with the United Kingdom lottery.
I choose six numbers every week and none of them ever comes up.
I asked the Commissioner six supplementary questions and had the same success rate as I have with the national lottery.
Mr President, regarding this controversy between Mr Tomlinson and Mr Monti, it is necessary to point out that John Tomlinson is not talking only on behalf of his political group but on behalf of my political group and I believe he is talking on behalf of all members of the committee of inquiry.
And that is what makes the matter so serious, Mr Monti.
Mr President, I merely wish to confirm my total readiness to cooperate with the committee of inquiry, both in giving a detailed answer to all questions asked for which we have prepared elements of a reply and in taking full account of the committee's future conditions, criticisms and proposals.
The debate is closed.
Votes
Upon several occasions, this House has called for stricter safety standards for passenger ships.
In 1994, after the terrible accident to the ferry 'Sea Empress' , we called for a European regulatory framework to be set up which would be consistent with the international rules.
Today, we have before us a proposal for a directive which reflects our wishes.
It makes good existing defects, such as the multi-track application of national safety standards.
It also has the virtue of attacking the systems of navigation and exploitation of vessels.
We cannot close our eyes to passenger safety, and, in giving my support to Mr Stenmarck's report, I must congratulate him on his efforts.
After all, we should remember that since 1986 the average number of vessels shipwrecked each year has been 230, with the loss of more than a thousand people.
It is our responsibility, therefore, to take the necessary steps.
Langen report
My position of principle is that the rates of value-added tax must be allowed to vary from one Member State to another and must not be harmonized.
The European Union must not interfere in this area; this is a question solely for the Member States acting at national level.
Just as the report says, there are at present differences in levels of value-added tax, the explanations for which are of course to be found in the Member States and in the ways they finance their public sector.
In my own country, a relatively high rate of valueadded tax is levied to finance parts of our social security system, which I think is good.
Value-added tax is also used as a policy instrument to control the supply and demand of goods/services, depending on the priorities adopted.
This possibility and the right of Member States to make use of it must, I believe, continue to be available in the future.
The idea that value-added tax should only be collected in the country of production poses the risk of further distortions of competition, since the country of production can be switched at short notice in response to changes in tax rates, whereas consumers have less freedom of choice when it comes to choosing the country in which to consume.
Colino Salamanca report
I voted in favour of the report because it gives a good presentation and summary of the advantages and disadvantages of the structural funds.
In the longer term, the entire regional policy of the EU must be reformed.
The EU Member States must decide for themselves how regional policy efforts are to be deployed, without having to go through Brussels.
By reducing taxes and duties in regionally sensitive areas, the EU structural funds can be halved and the number of objective areas and programmes can be reduced.
That would increase effectiveness, simplify the support system and reduce bureaucracy both in the Member States and in the EU.
Klironomos report
First of all I should like to stress that the extravagant optimism, assessments and declarations about the role of the structural funds in Greece, both generally and specifically, cannot conceal the fact that the measures in question do not match up to the words and cannot reverse, or even begin to rectify, the damage done by Community policy overall.
The main lesson of experience as regards Community funding in Greece is that the appropriations have not been equal to the country's needs. In recent years those needs have become more acute as a result, let it be said, of policies imposed by the European Union itself.
They are being further increased by the procedure for the pursuit of EMU and the severe fiscal burdens being forced on us in the name of convergence.
We should also mention the higher level of need imposed by our country's particular geographical configuration and the requirement for Greece to strengthen its position in view of the situation on the frontiers with Turkey and for the purpose of contributing to peace in the wider Balkan area.
With reference to the effectiveness of the European Union's structural measures, I have to point out that Greece was the only one of the Objective 1 countries whose GDP, expressed as a percentage of the Community average, fell over the course of the implementation of the first CSF from 50 % in 1989 to 40 % in 1993.
Unfortunately, as far as the second CSF is concerned, we doubt whether it, too, will do very much to assist the development effort in Greece.
For it to do so, the main eligibility criterion would need to be the contribution made by projects to local and regional development and to the combatting of the structural problems of the economy, rather than to the achievement of the objectives and policies of the European Union.
One serious weakness of the second CSF, for instance is the very low allocation of funding for the Greek islands.
We believe that the resources should be increased in line with the problems and needs of our country and that measures must be put in place to speed up the absorption of funding and to monitor its use.
Without those conditions, regional inequality and decline and divergence will worsen.
This situation for Greece is one consequence of the Community's regional policy, and it is being exacerbated rather than improved by the much-vaunted reform of the structural funds carried out by the Council and the Commission.
Without in any way wishing to call the rapporteur's objectivity into question, I consider it inappropriate in principle that Parliament's rapporteur should come from the same country as that in which support is to be assessed.
For reasons of principle, Parliament should always endeavour to appoint a rapporteur who does not have any special interest in connection with the question under discussion.
There has also been much debate in the European Union as to whether the EU should have a 'greener' budget.
I think it would be desirable to pay greater attention to this and to commit more resources to railway and metro developments in Athens than to the motorway works which are mentioned briefly in the explanatory statement to the report.
Sierra Gonzáles report
Without in any way wishing to call the rapporteur's objectivity into question, I consider it inappropriate in principle that Parliament's rapporteur should come from the same country as that in which support is to be assessed.
For reasons of principle, Parliament should always endeavour to appoint a rapporteur who does not have any special interest in connection with the question under discussion.
While paragraph 6 of the resolution does criticize the fact that a greater share of the investment in transport networks has been in road rather than rail infrastructure, I think this criticism could have been more strongly worded.
Support from the structural funds to the Member States is criticized in many quarters in the European Union.
Amongst other things, it is felt that the support benefits the rich regions of those countries which receive it more than the poor regions.
The results achieved by support from the structural funds are also insufficiently evaluated.
These problems are only covered superficially, and it is my impression that the positive aspects are overemphasized at the expense of justified criticism.
Schiedermeier report
The Commission's communication on the European strategy for encouraging local development and employment initiatives is a very positive document which usefully illuminates and supports the activities pursued by all of us, as elected representatives, in the fertile area of local job creation.
Mr Schiedermeier's report on this document is a good report, too, as it supplements, elucidates and enriches it.
I myself and the Socialist Group, on whose behalf I speak, will certainly be voting for this report.
All this prompts a few thoughts on my part, which I shall offer you in a light-hearted way, to cheer up our glum proceedings a little, though they are quite far-reaching for all that.
What next!
All our countries, to differing extents, are being crippled by unemployment.
We can't do very much about it, mainly because we can't agree on the diagnosis.
Those political forces in Europe which argue in favour of liberalization, strongly represented in this parliament, consider the situation mainly attributable to malfunctions of the market, excessively rigid structures and what they perceive as an excessive degree of regulatory and social protection.
The course suggested by this analysis is to restrict state intervention wherever possible - a maximum of deregulation, delegalization and desubsidization.
I think this analysis is wrong and that course of action ineffective.
But it does sometimes find majority support in this Parliament.
The other line of argument, my own, the social democrat line, holds that even - or especially - in a market economy, the public authority, whether it be national and/or European, still has a function of regulation and stimulation.
The fact that we are living through such a serious situation is largely attributable to the under-use of that function, the inhibition of this responsibility by the forces of conservatism in Europe.
And here we have the Commission, where the forces of liberalism carry a lot of weight, calmly telling us that in the limited but important sector of local job creation initiatives, government regulation, government stimulation and even, here or there, government subsidies do all have a place.
And, what's more, it is undeniably true.
This is wonderful.
Positions are changing.
We are beginning to see glimmerings of understanding.
And it is our friend Mr Schiedermeier who produces this report.
And this report is not a torpedo.
Wonderful.
Perhaps I may lose a few votes for our common cause by talking like this.
Well, so much the worse: nothing is more important than thinking about what one is doing.
All this debate about one small subject opens the way to very large issues.
There is a juicy lesson to be learnt, too.
When the forces of liberalism find that there are a few cases, after all, where we need the State in order to do something intelligent, they are out of their depth.
Thinking about the right way to use the machinery of government is not their cup of tea.
And so, like the Commission's document, the report did show signs of confusion.
It is essential to distinguish between market situations, in which an initial handicap has to be offset, and intermediate situations where government aid is needed temporarily to support the effort to enable new services and previously marginalized workers to become viable in the market, and finally the permanent aid needed to make unprofitable services viable.
Not all these things can be dealt with in the same way.
Clarity of thought is essential to effective government action.
We believe we have made a useful contribution to it.
We thank the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment for having understood and accepted that contribution.
And, ladies and gentlemen, we recommend that you should vote as unanimously as possible in favour of this excellent report.
To begin with I agree with the position adopted in this report, namely that employment initiatives are best taken at what the report calls 'local' level, which I would call national or regional level.
European cooperation can help to build a framework and infrastructure, but really nothing more than that.
If this were not so it would be impossible to explain why, within a European economic area a country like Belgium should have an unemployment rate - almost 15 % - more than twice that of its neighbour, the Netherlands, which has less than 7 % unemployment.
Lest there be any doubt I would add that employment in Belgium is being ruined by a Social-Christian Democrat government which does nothing but think up new taxes and levies and which has already succeeded in pushing up gross wage costs to the highest level in the European Union.
A second comment is one which I think applies to all the reports on employment considered in this House.
Once again I deplore the absence of the essential choice in favour of national and European preference.
I know that Mr Schiedermeier's report addresses a very specific topic, but even in this case it seems to me a most unfortunate tradition of this Parliament that unemployment and jobs are debated without at least touching on the taboo subject of immigration and foreign labour - a major element of national and European preference.
It is a matter of common sense to ask whether a European Union which has so many millions of people unemployed does not have an equal excess of non-European foreign workers, and incidentally that has nothing to do with xenophobia or anything like that.
That concludes the vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare closed the sitting of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 11.25 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament, adjourned on Thursday, 5 September 1996.
Order of business
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is to meet from 23 to 27 September and will be looking at the draft Bioethics Convention, among other things.
Parliament has already held lengthy and detailed discussions on this extremely important issue, but we have unfortunately not yet delivered an opinion on the subject, having failed to adopt the Pelttari report at the July partsession.
We feel it is absolutely essential for the European Parliament to state its position on this issue, which has such far-reaching implications for the future of mankind.
We are therefore proposing that our group's oral question should be put on the agenda for this week, and I also hope that the Christian Democrats will propose the same for the PPE Group's question.
The European Parliament must say something, otherwise the Council of Europe will simply decide what it wants and we shall be left without any official position whatsoever, which would be completely irresponsible of us.
We have requested, pursuant to Rule 96 of the Rules of Procedure, that the vote on this motion today should be taken by roll call, in accordance with Rule 119.
It is up to you to decide when the debate should be held.
It was not our intention for us to start the discussion today; we simply wanted to ensure that the issue is debated and voted on at some point during this week.
Mrs Roth, I have a written request from you for the subject to be included on the agenda for the week at 5 p.m. on Monday, 16 September.
I see that you meant this differently.
You meant that it should be taken during the week.
So the request is for this oral question to be added to the week's agenda.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten wishes to speak in favour of the request.
Mr President, I find it rather strange that one group has tabled an oral question, but another is allowed to speak first.
Be that as it may, it is extremely important that we should decide on our position on the Bioethics Convention as a whole.
We failed to do so in July, as a result of a number of misunderstandings, and I would now urge you and all the other Members of this House to decide what Parliament's position on the subject should be, since having no position at all is the very worst thing we could do.
I would therefore urge the House to support the inclusion of this oral question at some time during the week.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to express our opposition to the request that has just been made.
We are well aware that bioethics is a contentious issue which causes divisions among the various groups and gives rise to questions of conscience.
But this is not the problem. We are opposed to this request for three reasons.
Firstly, there has already been a decision and a vote.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights debated these issues at some length, under the guidance of Mr Pelttari, and other committees were involved in the discussions too.
These culminated in a vote, and we cannot start using oral questions to cast doubt on the validity of a vote against. No parliament in the world can operate in that way.
Secondly, contrary to what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has said, there has not been any confusion.
In any event, as the coordinator of the Socialist Group for legal matters, I take it upon myself to say, on behalf of my group, that we had set a minimum level below which basic rights as we see them, in particular women's rights, would no longer be respected in the document that was before us.
The series of votes led us to take the responsibility of voting against it.
As far as we are concerned, there has been no confusion.
The vote was perfectly clear.
Thirdly, our opinion will be irrelevant in any case.
The European Court of Justice clearly indicated last March that the Community could not be a party to the convention.
The Commission refused to ask for a negotiating mandate, and Mrs Cresson has explained...
(The President interrupted the speaker) Our vote would therefore be no more than a pious wish which the Council of Europe would, of necessity, have to disregard.
(Applause)
I now put the request to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request)
For Tuesday to Friday, no changes have been proposed.
I would point out, however, that Question Time to the Council has been removed from the agenda for Wednesday.
Members will therefore receive written answers to their questions.
The reason for this is clear, and as you know is due to the large number of items that we have to deal with on Wednesday afternoon.
Mr President, our group too has just had a meeting with Mr Matsis, the party leader from Cyprus, and we had a very interesting discussion with him.
I entirely agree with Mrs Green that we should try to include Turkey and Cyprus on the agenda, on Wednesday afternoon at least.
I did not quite understand what she said about having an urgency debate on Thursday.
I think if this is what is proposed, then we could also consider having a longer debate on Wednesday afternoon and two resolutions, if necessary. It is not really important, but we would at least have Thursday free to look at something else.
Before further divisions develop among us - and we are still on the order of business - I shall make a proposal to the House, on the basis of what has been said by Mrs Green and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
The groups are of course entirely free to mention any issues relating to Cyprus in the context of the statement by the Council on the political situation in Turkey and the statement by the Commission on the implementation of the customs union.
That depends on how you organize the debate.
It is also a question for the groups.
You decide what you wish to include in the resolution.
Moreover, you have an opportunity, if you agree on this procedure, of changing the list of urgencies on Wednesday morning and replacing the first item, ' Cyprus' , with a different subject.
That can be done without any difficulty.
Should there not be enough time on Wednesday afternoon, I am also prepared to say that the sitting will continue until 8 p.m.
If you are in agreement with that, we can proceed accordingly.
Mr President, I am speaking for my Group, since its chairman cannot be here at this time for reasons beyond his control.
And in expressing my Group's view, I want to say that we agree with the proposal that reference should be made to the Cyprus problem on Wednesday in the statements by both the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, granted the experience we have, it is unthinkable to debate the situation in Turkey, to discuss whether and to what extent Customs Union has been implemented, without also mentioning the Cyprus problem which is absolutely linked with both those subjects.
In that way, the debate can be more complete and there can be a resolution which, of course, will refer to all three issues: the situation in Turkey, Customs Union, and the Cyprus problem.
The issue is different under the urgency procedure: in that case the Cyprus problem stands alone because of the murders that took place in the middle of August.
That is another matter.
We should not let one issue get in the way of the other.
So, we are agreed on the procedure.
The groups will mention what they consider necessary on Wednesday, and you will decide on Wednesday morning whether or not to leave the item 'Cyprus' on the list of topical and urgent subjects.
Mr President, I hope the cancelling of Question Time to the Council is an absolute exception.
I would like to point out to you that when it was decided to move Question Time from its late evening position to an earlier slot, we were assured that it would not be pushed off the agenda.
So, may I have your assurance that this is an exception.
This is really only intended as an exception, Sir Jack.
The group chairmen were agreed, however, that in the special circumstances which we have this week, Question Time could not be held for reasons of time.
Mr President, a small correction to Tuesday's agenda as regards the Rocard report.
At the Conference of Presidents last Thursday, it was agreed to start the debate at 4.30 p.m. to comply with the Council's request, but not that it should only go on for an hour, till 5.30 p.m.
Granted that the Rocard report will start at 4.30 p.m., it could also continue into the evening if necessary, given the importance of the issue.
I think that simple correction is in line with the Group Presidents' decision.
That is correct, Mr Dell'Alba, the debate on the Rocard report can be continued after Question Time to the Commission.
Our aim was to have another hour on Wednesday afternoon in the presence of the Irish presidency; this would therefore be from 4.30 to 5.30 p.m., as set out in the agenda.
Mr President, it is not unusual for Question Time to be cancelled, unfortunately.
Since it was moved from its evening slot, it has been postponed or cut short on a number of occasions and this is now the second time it has been cancelled, if I am not mistaken.
I am afraid that it will carry on like this, because no one bothers to turn up for it now that it is no longer held in the evening, which is why I think it should be returned to its old place.
The only disadvantage with this is that it means the Council has to work another hour and a half after dinner, but that should not be too much to ask.
We should now bring this item to an end.
All Members have received the documents to which you refer, Mrs Berès.
No, I shall not allow a debate on the matter now.
We have established the order of business.
That was a point of order based on Rule 103.
I am not allowing a debate on the matter now.
Amendment of Rule 80(1)
The next item is the report (A4-0208/96) by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the amendment of Rule 80(1) of the Rules of Procedure on conclusion of the assent procedure.
The report which it is my privilege to present to you today on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure marks a step towards the further revision of parliamentary procedures.
This is not just a natural process which every Parliament has to go through from time to time to keep up with changing responsibilities and ideas, it is also necessary to prevent us from becoming bogged down in procedures which are often not entirely clear to those whom we are here to represent.
The European Parliament sometimes finds it very difficult to get through to the general public properly, partly because of our unfortunate position of having two seats.
When we meet here in Strasbourg, there are sometimes so many interesting things going on in Brussels that the press prefer to stay there.
And if we have something important on the agenda, you have to be very familiar with our procedures and be here all the time to understand how everything works.
We have 20 different types of powers, each with their own characteristics, ranging from simple consultation in one reading to codecision, which can involve three readings and conciliation, or the budget procedure which, including the discharge, involves five different stages.
It is to be hoped that the IGC can simplify matters a little.
However, this is not the subject of this report, which deals with just one of those procedures, the assent procedure, under which Parliament is required to grant final assent for an international agreement or legislative proposal.
Rules 89 and 90 set out more detailed procedures for the accession of new Member States and international agreements.
These two, like Rule 80, state that the vote is always to be taken, as is customary in Parliament, on the basis of a report drawn up by the committee responsible.
Let us assume that the committee responsible decides that the agreement, accession treaty or legislative proposal in question is not worthy of assent.
If the House agrees to reject it, it must vote 'yes' , which means that the agreement, treaty or proposal will not be adopted.
If the House supports the proposals in question against the advice of the committee, it must vote 'no' .
Ladies and gentlemen, believe me when I say that I have no desire to cast doubt on the intelligence of Members of this House, or of the journalists who have to report on everything we get up to, or of the voters who elected us, and who must therefore be extremely intelligent.
But this procedure can be confusing, even for someone with a high IQ, and this was why our committee, at your request, Mr President, instructed me to present this report to you.
These proposals will prevent any possibility of an agreement, treaty or legislative proposal being adopted or rejected by mistake on the basis of committee reports.
From now on, we shall be able to vote 'yes' when we agree with the proposal and 'no' - or 'kata' for those who know Greek - when we want to reject it.
If you approve this proposal by the required two-thirds majority, Parliament will be helping to make its procedures more transparent for the press and for the public.
In conclusion, I would just say that I hope the Council and the Commission will follow our example and make their own procedures more transparent.
Mr President, I can be very brief.
First, I should like to thank Mr Wijsenbeek for his report.
It is a technical revision of the Rules aimed at simplifying and making clearer the Rules as they currently stand.
Mr Wijsenbeek himself summed it up in his own explanatory statement where he said: how are the media, to say nothing of the citizens of the Community, supposed to understand and keep abreast of a procedure in which in order to say Yes, one has to say No? Under the Rules revision if we mean to say Yes we will vote Yes, if we mean to say No we will vote No.
On that basis the Socialist Group commends and will be supporting the Rules amendment.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Human Rights in the European Union
The next item is the report (A4-0223/96) by Mrs De Esteban Martín, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on respect for human rights in the European Union in 1994.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to thank Mrs De Esteban Martín for all her hard work over the last few months.
I hope - and this is repeating the call she herself has just made - that Parliament will now be able, this year at least, to adopt a report on the human rights situation in the European Union.
We failed to do so last year because our discussions were far too ideological, and we lived to regret it, because the House really has no place discussing and passing resolutions on human rights violations outside the Union when it cannot even draw up a report on the situation within the Union because it is unable to agree on a definition of what human rights are.
I should therefore like to stress that the report as it now stands - thanks once again to Mrs De Esteban - is very much in line with my group's ideas and is something that we can broadly subscribe to.
We are most grateful to the rapporteur and the committee for adopting it.
The fact is that as we go into the twenty-first century, we need to set about extending the traditional 18th- and 19thcentury concept of civil human rights to include a number of basic rights which are of fundamental importance to people in Europe and throughout the world.
There are rights associated with the environment, because the inviolability of man also involves environmental considerations.
There are social and cultural rights which advanced societies such as ours in western Europe should be able to guarantee.
These are all ideas which should be included in the report as new perspectives generated by our discussions.
We hope that our colleagues in the PPE Group in particular will support the rapporteur, who has suggested in her report that we should work together to try to extend the concept of human rights, whilst still carrying out our traditional review of the human rights situation in the European Union.
You would be playing a vital role in ensuring a majority for the report, on which there is already broad agreement, rather than its rejection, which is what the result might be if you voted against it with the extreme right.
We must not allow a repetition of the events of last year, when the human rights debate foundered because the extreme right used their votes to prevent the House from adopting a report on the human rights situation.
Or do we really want to allow people who sit in the House but should really be in this report to determine how the human rights debate in the European Union should develop? Do we want to let Mr Le Pen, a racist and fascist extremist, have a say in how the human rights debate is conducted?
He can try to sue everyone who calls him a racist and a fascist in France.
He is welcome to try to sue me.
That is what he is! The far right-wing parties in Europe are trying to use the kind of fascism we saw in the 1920s and 1930s to appeal to people's baser instincts and to bring the oppressed minorities even further under the yoke.
And these people are sitting here in the House voting on this report.
It is up to you, the members of the UPE and PPE Groups, to help us to ensure that this rabble are not given the opportunity to decide what human rights should be in the European Union.
That is why we welcome this report as it stands.
We intend to vote in favour of the amendments we have tabled, and some of those proposed by Mrs De Esteban.
I am addressing my colleagues from the conservative groups when I say that I hope we have finally found a common platform on which we can conclude the human rights debate in the European Parliament with dignity.
Mr Schulz, I cannot let the word 'rabble' pass as a description of Members of Parliament.
Mr President, we must not allow the human rights report to be used as a cudgel in our internal political wranglings, and I am afraid that your speech, Mr Schulz, showed distinct signs of doing that.
How can you talk about human rights in a way which is bound to earn you a reprimand from the President?
We want to see Mr Le Pen and his colleagues out of Parliament just as much as you do, but this is a matter for the voters, not for you as an individual!
Mrs De Esteban Martín has done an excellent job on her report, and made an outstanding speech on which I warmly congratulate her.
This Parliament has not had much fortune up to now - to put it mildly - with its human rights reports, which have either failed to be adopted or been highly controversial, for the most part because they were not so much a reflection of the human rights situation in Europe as of the internal political disagreement on the concept of human rights.
As long as this remains the case and we are unable to find a common definition of human rights, we cannot claim to speak about them with any credibility or legitimacy.
We cannot allow the concept of human rights to be expanded indefinitely.
The previous report called for it to include things like the right to housing, work, a healthy environment and life-long education, which are all entirely legitimate political demands, but as Mrs De Esteban Martín rightly pointed out, they are not human rights, they are a political manifesto.
Manifestos are there to be argued about: human rights should not be.
That is why we need to restrict ourselves to the concept of human rights and leave manifesto demands alone.
The simple key to the problem lies in the Convention on Human Rights, which everyone has signed, and the European Court of Human Rights here in Strasbourg.
The issues which can be brought before the Court are human rights matters, and everything else should be excluded.
Mr President, a debate on human rights in the European Union should be an occasion to highlight issues of major importance.
However, many elements of the report which we are now considering, not through any fault of the rapporteur, are unacceptable.
I will come to these shortly.
I have no difficulty in supporting the request to the Commission to submit a communication on instruments aimed at combating trafficking in human beings, a subject which we will have an opportunity to consider later this week in the context of our group's oral question on the need for EU measures aimed at tackling violence against children, which is particularly and tragically topical in the light of recent events in Belgium.
Equally I have no difficulty in endorsing - and indeed emphasizing - the need for effective cooperation to combat drug gangs whose members, if they care in any way, have so many deaths and ruined lives on their hands.
Existing policies on drugs have failed to prevent illegal drug trafficking, which is now more intense and more deadly than ever before.
The days of kid-glove treatment for drug pushers and the unseen drug barons must end.
It is a question of who represents the law: the drug barons and the murder squads or the police and the justice department or the politicians.
In my own country gang warfare, intimidation and shootings are becoming all too frequent an occurrence, particularly in my own constituency.
In West Dublin, in my own constituency and in the inner city the drugs crisis and heroin addiction have reached epidemic proportions.
The people appear in certain areas to have resolved to take the law into their own hands in an effort to protect their own children and go beyond the law in some cases.
The cold-blooded murder of an Irish journalist, my friend Veronica Guerin, by one of our drug barons whose identity is known but who is evading prosecution is only one recent case.
These evil men who toy with and destroy the lives of adults and children alike, who pay no respect to human rights, must be brought to book and the full rigour of the law brought to bear on them.
Their ill-gotten gains must be frozen. They must be prevented from transferring their assets anywhere within the Community.
The necessary police and judicial cooperation must be forthcoming at European level, and urgently so.
One has to ask who rules society.
Many of our citizens are asking this now.
Is it the legitimate forces of law and order or the drug barons operating throughout Europe with their vast fortunes and their hit-men striking terror into our towns and cities?
As a result of the vote in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and the adoption of many amendments, the balance of Mrs de Esteban Martin's report has been overturned.
On the one hand we are calling for effective cooperation to combat drug barons and on the other we are turning the report into a charter for prisoners, with scant reference to the needs and rights of the victims of crime.
Many of these prisoners are the very people who are responsible for organized crime, murdering and terrorizing elderly people in their own homes.
No reference has been made to the need for the transfer of prisoners which could go a long way to restoring the IRA cease-fire.
There is an awful lot to be said for this report.
I congratulate Mrs de Esteban Martin on the immense work she has put into it but I think that when it comes to voting we will either have to abstain or vote against because of the complexity.
Mr President, I should like to begin by sounding a warning note in this debate.
The world has never seen such long lists of human rights as in the constitutions of the former communist states.
Page after page, they set out all the rights which people had in the communist people's democracies, and because there were so many rights, it was always possible to suppress one by referring to another.
Social rights were used as an excuse for suppressing political freedoms, and without political freedom, it was impossible to check whether social rights were being suppressed, so they were naturally suppressed too, with the result that people had neither one freedom nor the other.
That is why we have had these repeated disputes concerning human rights reports here in Parliament.
Some of us quite seriously take the view that human rights in Europe are damaged by including everything possible from our domestic party programmes.
If Mr Newman never had his human rights reports adopted, it was because he could not refrain from adding every possible item from his domestic party programme in the United Kingdom - reasonable points, no doubt, but items which do not belong in a report on human rights.
This report by Mrs De Esteban is much better.
It is shorter, and therefore more powerful.
I am pleased that it also addresses the question of trade union freedoms.
We should not just be stressing the freedom to form unions and associations and campaigning for such rights; we must also emphasize the freedom to remain outside these organizations without a threat to one's trade or occupation.
I also think it is necessary for us to have a separate clause on the need for the Member States to punish offences against children, even if these are committed in countries where they are not prohibited.
And the right to life was, after all, referred to as the very first right in the American declaration of independence.
We in the Liberal Group will be voting against several paragraphs in the report.
I would ask the House to appreciate that we are also voting against some things that we may well agree with, but are doing so because we do not feel that they belong in a report on human rights.
We hope the Socialist Group will change its mind and not vote to include so many party political items in the report that we are obliged to vote against it at the end.
We would vote in favour of the report as it is now, but there are limits to what we can accept being included, and we think there are a good many paragraphs which should be taken out of the report as it now stands.
As Liberals, we are ardent supporters of human rights.
We value them so highly that we do not wish to have them mixed up with everything else.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the area of human rights involves enormous problems, and without wishing to neglect all the other issues associated with human rights, which are often flouted in the Member States, I shall confine myself today to talking about the predicament of those families without papers who are suffering violence at the hands of the French Government.
These families are hoping that their problem will be resolved without delay.
This House can help by supporting their campaign.
In France, the Pasqua laws of 1993 on immigration have 'clandestinized' - if I may use the term - many immigrant families and put them in a situation of permanent legal insecurity.
Parents of children born in France are being refused the right to stay and threatened with expulsion.
Asylum-seekers are being herded shamefully onto chartered aircraft, and the Minister of the Interior regards these expulsions with the same satisfaction as if they were the tally of a successful day's hunting.
Since March, these people without papers have been conducting an admirable campaign, and I would pay tribute in particular to the courage of the hunger strikers.
They have had the support of associations, churches, trade unions and political parties, like it or not.
A large delegation of people without papers will be in Strasbourg on Wednesday to inform Members of the reasons for their actions and their objectives, and to breathe the spirit of the church of St Bernard into our Chamber - which for some of us would be no bad thing.
The French Government has responded to their quest for recognition and justice with contempt, excessive violence or an entirely arbitrary approach to dealing with individual cases.
Our group supports these people without papers in their fight against a government whose immigration policy has been reduced to a low-grade policing operation for sordid political ends.
Although we need to combat clandestine immigration, its networks and traffickers, we cannot do so by disregarding people's rights.
We are asking for the position of those without papers, who have settled in France legitimately, to be regularized without delay, out of respect for both human rights and international conventions.
By the same token, I welcome what is happening in Spain and Portugal.
By contrast, at European level, I deplore and condemn the recommendations and resolutions adopted by the Council, which are always more restrictive and discriminatory as regards immigration and asylum.
Let us say no to fortress Europe!
Let us say yes to a Europe of brotherliness and solidarity!
It is a matter of urgency to bring this strategy of scapegoats to an end. Using immigration for political purposes is dangerous, and only serves to strengthen and lend credibility to those who favour a populist policy based on exclusion and xenophobia.
The axes wielded by the French police in the church of St Bernard prepared the ground for Mr Le Pen - who I believe is a Member of this House - to make his disgraceful racist comments about the races being unequal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we start talking about human rights here in our own back yard, as it were, I really do have the impression that there are a good many among us who think the same as the Pharisee in St Luke's Gospel, Chapter 18, verse 11: ' God, I thank thee that I am not - that we are not - as other men are' .
Everyone seems to think that human rights violations always happen a long way away, anywhere except here.
This is a very two-faced view of things: we make a great deal of noise about human rights, but are very selective when it comes to putting them into practice.
Human rights policy here is always primarily a question of protecting interests.
A political theory of relativity seems to apply in our dealings with countries which commit classic human rights violations: the bigger and more important these countries are, the quieter our anger.
It is always - and this brings me back to where I started - easier to condemn crimes in others than to acknowledge one's own wrongdoings, but this is exactly where the question of credibility comes in.
We must all take a long, hard look at just how good the human rights record is in the European Union.
For the sake of our own credibility, we must not just concentrate on defining human rights on paper, as has been done so often in various protocols, conventions, final acts and declarations.
We also need to find out what the situation is in reality, and assess it using a very broad and comprehensive definition of the concept of human rights, rather than a narrow, restrictive interpretation.
So when I talk about human rights, I include the right to a healthy environment, I include poverty and exclusion, I include the rights of women, children, the elderly, disabled persons, homosexuals and lesbians, foreigners and refugees.
The conservatives have scorned this as being what they call a watered-down version of the traditional concept of civil human rights.
So including social and ecological rights is meant to be wateringdown?
This is what the developing countries have been criticized for doing for years: demanding social rights to help their poor and suffering people out of poverty.
But what has Europe been doing? It is the EU countries themselves which have been watering down traditional agreements such as the Geneva convention on refugees by failing to apply them correctly.
So the main danger for human rights is that they will gradually cease to be binding, not because they have become so all-embracing, but because of the European Union's failure to apply them.
Only if we in the House are prepared to tackle the existing abuses as a domestic policy issue will the annual human rights report be anything more than just lipservice.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for adopting a genuinely broad and comprehensive definition of human rights, and I hope that this report on the human rights situation in the EU in 1994 will now finally be given the necessary majority in the House in September 1996.
Mr President, our group will of course vote in favour of Mrs De Esteban Martín's excellent report.
However, in discussing human rights in the European Union, we cannot confine ourselves to the behaviour of the Member States and their governments towards their own citizens.
Here in Parliament, we ought also to be discussing our behaviour towards the citizens of third countries, and how such behaviour should be firmly incorporated into our laws, regulations, the attitude of the authorities, and everyday life and practices.
But what does fighting for human rights really mean in practical terms? It means being opposed to battering down the doors of a church with axes in order to seize hunger strikers confined to their beds.
It means obliterating the disgraceful assertion which would have us believe that men are not born equal before the law.
Of course, the volley of warning shots which has been fired recently in France by militant fascists has only a limited range.
But let us be on our guard!
The way in which we now treat people from Africa, Turkey or the Arab countries, and the inhumanity we have shown towards them, certainly foreshadows the way in which we, the citizens of the European Union, will be treated if we leave the way clear for the nationalists. They are enemies of democracy who can easily turn into assassins, as they have already shown recently here in Europe.
Mr President, respect for human rights, which has its roots in our commitment to the dignity of the person and thus in our oldest spiritual traditions, deserves the utmost attention from the countries of Europe.
That is why the Member States of the Union are particularly vigilant in this context, especially France, which has respected human rights perfectly well in the case of the immigrants without papers who, whether Mrs Pailler likes it or not, have after all broken our laws.
It is in order to protect these rights that the Member States have acceded to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
We are today considering the question of whether the European Union as such should accede to the Convention.
The Esteban Martín report answers this in the affirmative.
We do not share this view, since accession, which would be of little practical use, would cause the Union to take an institutional leap forward which it did not control.
The fact is that Article F of the Treaty already states that the Union is to respect fundamental rights, as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights and, for its part, the Court of Justice has integrated them into its caselaw.
In reality, the only outstanding issue is the possibility of a divergence of view on matters of Community law between the court in Strasbourg and the court in Luxembourg. However, this is of secondary importance, and does not present any difficulty which could not be resolved in the course of time.
On the other hand, the accession of the Union to the Convention would involve a complex set of legal arrangements which would be slow to use, since on top of the delays in our Court of Justice, there could be an appeal to the court in Strasbourg.
In these circumstances, the only advantage of direct accession by the Community would be to bring it a little closer to a goal at which it has long been aiming, namely to pass itself off as a state.
Moreover, if the Union were to accede in this capacity, it would first have to be given legal personality. This would once more lead us into uncharted territory.
Finally, if the Community, or the Union, were able to conclude international conventions on human rights, this would doubtless mean that, in this area, it would henceforth have a general competence that has always been denied it in the Treaties.
This would obviously be even more true if one were to include a list of basic rights in the Treaty, as some have been demanding.
Should there be such a swing from technical to general competences, we would not be very far away from a change in the nature of the European institutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is strange to hear Parliament discussing human rights when just now the President twice refused to let me speak so that I could reply to Mrs Berès and Mr Schulz, both of whom had directly insulted our colleague Jean-Marie Le Pen and thus indirectly the other ten National Front Members of the House, including myself.
Furthermore, I am bound to say that the people have already decided on that particular issue. Last night, four byelections took place which showed the National Front making very considerable progress, in spite of the debate that has been raging in the media throughout the past week.
So Rule 108 of the Rules of Procedure has not been observed.
Point noted.
Human rights are, it is true, the most appropriate basis for the worship of a particularly obnoxious vice, called hypocrisy. Unfortunately, the report we are debating here today has a grave historical tradition behind it, since as long ago as 1793, Robespierre had a particularly demagogic declaration on human rights approved by the Convention, and accompanied it with a brand of state terrorism known as the Terror.
Another example referred to just now by a colleague is the USSR under Stalin, who, without batting an eyelid, signed a splendid Universal Declaration of Human Rights at the San Francisco Conference.
Having a Gulag that contained millions of prisoners did not embarrass him in the least.
Furthermore, the great philosopher Hegel, in his writings on the French Revolution, very ably showed how modern totalitarianism was founded precisely on applying general legal and philosophical norms, which we call human rights, in order to crush the individual.
Leaving aside this philosophical debate, I note that the report fails to mention certain breaches of human rights which nevertheless cannot be denied. A case in point is the infringement of the right to free speech.
I cite the example of my own country because I know it best.
Our movement, the National Front, has been the victim of some extremely serious violations of the right to free speech. These have occurred not only as a result of the sometimes arbitrary behaviour of the media and the government, but also as a result of a communist-inspired law - the Gayssot law - a totalitarian measure which has no place in a democratic country.
Moreover, the Justice Minister recognized its totalitarian nature at the time it was adopted.
Another example is the violation of the freedom of the nations of Europe to decide by referendum whether or not they really wish to become countries of immigration.
In this context, I would refer you to the works of Kant, who states in his plan for everlasting peace that the native people of a country have always had the right to say whether or not they would accept immigrants.
I should mention that Kant was particularly concerned about protecting the American Indians. That unfortunate race has had to suffer immigration to the point where it has now almost disappeared, at least as a sovereign people.
Violation of the safety of the individual is yet another example. Strangely enough, this report has very little to say on the subject.
I see that five times as many crimes are now committed in the European Community as in 1957.
As is usual in cases where human rights are violated, it is the poor who are the victims.
Infringement of the right to work, as mentioned by the rapporteur, represents another very serious assault on human rights. However, she was careful not to say that massive unemployment is the result of European policy on reducing inflation and unbridled free trade.
Amongst the 20 million unemployed it is once again, as if by chance, the weakest who are affected, as they are by immigration and insecurity.
All these violations, which are neglected or ignored in the report, obviously affect the weakest of our fellow citizens and represent a decline in civilized standards in everyday life, even though, day after day, people are frantically publishing texts on human rights.
All of which goes to prove that an internationalist Europe is an oligarchic idea designed to protect the interests of an extremely arrogant ruling class which has taken over the reins of power in Europe and is pursuing policies that show contempt for people's interests.
I was particularly shocked by several specific examples of this attitude.
Firstly, I am astonished that there is nothing in the report about the right to life of the unborn child, which is quite plainly not recognized. Such an omission makes a mockery of two thousand years of Christian tradition and two and a half thousand years of humanist tradition, since Hippocrates himself had already acknowledged this right five centuries before Christ.
The attitude to immigration is yet another example.
The report does not mention the need for a democratic provision, once again, to enable people to decide whether immigration is justified.
I should also like to condemn paragraph 60, which criticizes the attitude of the Greek Government.
I regard this as an infringement of Greek sovereignty which I find hard to countenance on the part of the European institutions.
With regard to the condemnation of racism in paragraph 86, I note that no mention is made of the need to protect members of the native population who are the victims of racism on the part of certain immigrants.
One has the impression that it is always the same people who are the victims of racism. However, any group of people can experience racist attacks.
This has indeed happened to the native population in most European countries, but there is nothing about it in the report.
Finally, paragraph 93 states that the extreme right-wing parties advocate xenophobia.
I would make the point that xenophobia has existed throughout history, both on the right and on the left.
The Hébertistes were xenophobes during the French Revolution; Blanqui was a xenophobe.
Nowadays, all the television channels are guilty of xenophobia against Iraq, to say nothing of the anti-Russian xenophobia to be found in some French newspapers, such as that prestigious daily 'Le Monde' .
As regards the right of family reunification, it should have been made clear that this is to take place in the host country.
I have one final comment to make, namely that current economic policies in Europe show no respect for economic rights, but I have already said as much a few minutes ago.
As a result, I believe that there are huge gaps in this report, which is immensely hypocritical and thus reflects the present state of the political debate.
Mr President, it is very distressing to hear what we have just heard when we still...
Is this what you call free speech!
Let me express my views - I said nothing at all while Mr Blot was speaking.
I was saying, Mr President, that it is very distressing to hear what we have just heard when we still have in our minds the pictures shown on French television last night of a demonstration by Mr Blot's party that was no more than a sordid exploitation of a human tragedy being acted out in France.
(Heckling) Free speech, Mr Blot, free speech!
This is not a personal attack on Mr Blot. It is simply an attack on the exploitation of this tragic event in France by a political party for purely racist and electoral reasons.
And why? Because the decision to hold a demonstration, Mr Blot, was taken...
(Applause) The decision, as you well know, was taken only after the members of the National Front had received confirmation of the origins - I did not say nationality - of the perpetrator of the crime.
He was of Moroccan descent, and last night on television, Mr Le Pen referred to a Moroccan.
To Christine Ockrent he insisted: ' No, he was not French, he was Moroccan' .
Whereas we know that he was French, with a French identity card.
Unfortunately, he had a Moroccan mother.
But enough said about intentions.
What this really means - and this is what the National Front has said in a number of past statements, I would point out - is that if you were to come to power, you would not beat about the bush as regards nationality and you might well, as happened under the Vichy regime, simply turn the clock back.
I am sorry, Mr President, I shall now return to what I really wanted to say, which is that Parliament devotes a considerable amount of time to condemning human rights violations in third countries, and quite rightly so.
There is a French saying that if you climb a coconut tree, you need to be wearing clean trousers. So are we really in a position to be lecturing people, when human rights are not universally respected in the European Union, and when we all know very well that there are indeed numerous infringements?
In the time I have left, I shall give just one example. It concerns the tragic way in which the right to asylum in Europe is becoming more and more exclusive every year.
Under the Geneva Convention, however, the European Union has a duty to protect those who are being persecuted which cannot be abandoned.
But as a result of some restrictive interpretations of the Geneva Convention, this protection is no longer guaranteed, and the number of people receiving immigrant status is currently declining, even though not a great deal of progress is being made in the world towards improved respect for human rights.
For instance, among those without papers in Paris, there were some who had been refused asylum, even though the UNHCR had recognized that they were genuinely at risk in their own countries.
I would end by saying that it is essential for us, at the very least, to condemn violations of human rights within the European Union as we do in the case of third countries.
That is the subject of the report we are discussing today. Last year, however, we were not even able to approve and agree on the 1993 report on human rights.
Our refusal to do so sanctioned the opposing stance of two different views of human rights: a static view, rigidly based on fundamental rights, and a broader, progressive view, in touch with changes in our society.
This distinction still persists - as we have just seen - and threatens to lead to the same outcome.
I too would therefore draw attention to the remarkable achievement of the rapporteur in managing to reconcile these two disparate points of view.
She has shown great courage under extremely difficult conditions.
I hope that her efforts will not have been in vain.
A positive vote might lead to a calmer approach in future years.
Our credibility outside the European Union is at stake.
Mr President, I must protest about the way in which you have applied the Rules of Procedure, or rather not applied them.
It is quite disgraceful that, regardless of the subject under discussion, a speaker on the list who has a speaking time can in fact have it virtually doubled to enable him to hurl abuse at another Member, before going on to make his speech.
This cannot be allowed, and I would ask for this point to be noted in the Minutes.
Mr Bazin, your comments will be entered in the Minutes but I was generous because of my interpretation of the facts.
Our colleague was, it seemed to me, wrongly interrupted and so I gave her an extra twenty to thirty seconds. I do not see that as a violation of our Rules.
Let us continue our debate calmly, I hope. Mrs Colombo Svevo, you have the floor.
Mr President, we need a report like this and we also need to think carefully about its coverage.
Year on year we need to take stock, in summary, of the standing of these rights within the Union.
In my view the rapporteur has made a very good effort at that, but every year there is the recurring diatribe from those who believe that the report should concern itself strictly with fundamental human rights and those who want it extended to economic and social rights.
There are many arguments on either side, but if we were to keep strictly to the position of those who concentrate exclusively on fundamental rights, we would have to succeed, together with the Council of Europe, in pinpointing increasingly scrupulously every violation and shortfall in that area.
For example, we ought to think carefully about the right to life and human rights as regards what is going on in the field of bio-ethics, finding free expression and new language so that new ways of thinking can be continually opened up.
This would not mean cutting back, but we should honestly say that the other rights ought to be the subject of a parallel report on social and economic rights.
If we do want to try to include them in a single report, and I think it is possible, then clearly social and economic rights, within the report on human rights, cannot be confined to a repetitive list of all the objectives we are raising to the level of rights but which are not rights in the legal sense.
We will also have to find the right point of convergence for the coverage of this report, and that point can be identified because court judgements emphasize that, while the Convention on Human Rights essentially sets out civil and political rights, most of these do have economic and social repercussions and there are no hard and fast walls dividing them.
In fact the Convention is intended to uphold actual rights as well as theoretical rights, which is why the practical application of these rights by the State confirms the interdependence between civil and political rights.
So I call for a debate on this issue of possible convergence before the next report on human rights so that Parliament can approve it much more widely.
It is important for all the countries to reach the widest consensus on this. That is the target our rapporteur set herself and I thank her for the work she has done.
Mr President, I may not have been present for the whole debate, but I did listen very carefully to the last speech and I think it pinpointed the problem we are dealing with.
Mrs Colombo Svevo's experience has in fact enabled her to encapsulate it perfectly: at the moment the report is again in the eye of the storm because we cannot get agreement on the concept of 'human rights' in this Parliament, nor can it be established whether we can or cannot effectively bring violations of the civil and general rights of Union citizens to general attention within our Community.
In our view the problem is that the concept has actually been stretched to an extremely risky and dangerous extent.
When people start talking about social rights, economic rights, union rights, the right to a home, work, health and so on, we are really getting into a minefield, and I think we have to give some thought to this.
For instance I do not believe we can talk about a right to work, but rather about a right to access to work; I do not think we can talk about a right to a home, but rather about a right to shelter; I do not think we can talk about a right to health, in the strict sense, but rather about a right to choose between different health systems.
Mrs Colombo Svevo is quite correct when she says we must reach agreement.
I fear we will end up arguing again, or perhaps failing to approve - again - this report on human rights in the Union in 1994, demonstrating for the nth time that we are not even capable of reaching agreement on what constitutes a violation of citizens' fundamental civil rights.
I present just one symbolic case: the issue of justice in our countries.
Well, if we do not agree on the starting point, namely this point, we will never get a result.
So I would suggest that on this occasion - and I make this a formal request - we look for the lowest common denominator of drawing up an internal self-regulation code for Parliament so that we can finally come to an agreement on what constitutes human rights.
Without this internal regulation code we will continue to argue, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, and we will go on failing to pass any report on human rights in 1993, 1994 or 1995.
Mr President, Mrs De Esteban's report is the first to succeed in showing a certain respect for human rights within the European Union, and I should like to thank her for that.
However, there is one point with which I would take issue, and that is the point about the right of association for conscripts and regular military personnel, which is something that I myself and many others in the House fought for a number of years ago.
This right of association may now be recognized in the resolution, but there is still far too much scope for preventing soldiers from exercising it.
Reference is made, for example, to special characteristics of hierarchy and discipline and any restrictions considered necessary because of the role they play in guaranteeing national security.
Any ordinary soldier out on patrol knows that there is no point in even thinking about what we call human rights.
The right of association is a fundamental right in any democratic state, and I reject the tough conditions which the rapporteur is proposing to apply here and sincerely hope that the amendment on this point will be adopted.
It is high time that the Member States started talking about what the right of association means in the European context, now that multinational military forces are being set up and Europe's defence policy is set to develop further.
Mr President, I should like to begin my speech by congratulating Parliament on the step forward which it is taking and the political maturity that it is displaying in debating a report on respect for human rights in the European Union; because the fact is that human rights are being violated in the Member States of the Union, and not only the so-called 'modern' or social, economic and environmental rights, but also - and this is more serious - those enshrined in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
I am confident that tomorrow, without further delay, we shall prove capable of adopting the resolution contained in Mrs De Esteban's report, and that consequently we shall display sufficient political courage and consistency to engage in open self-criticism which leads our respective Member States to take the necessary measures to eliminate these violations of human rights.
I should like to remind the House that the motion for a resolution on the illegal deportation of 103 immigrants without papers from Melilla, Spain - which was included in the topical and urgent debate at the July part-session at my instigation - was roundly rejected. A golden opportunity was thereby lost to condemn publicly a specific case of the violation of human rights: that committed by the Spanish authorities in the form of the deportation of the immigrants in question, with total contempt for the European Convention on Human Rights and even Spanish laws, as indicated recently by the Spanish Ombudsman.
Today, in contrast, I welcome the fact that the issue is being addressed at this part-session, and that the House is finally displaying some consistency - since it would make no sense to hold this debate and disregard previous events.
Indeed, Mr President, in our resolution, we call on the Member States to ensure that detention prior to deportation is ordered only for a short period, and we maintain that the return of a person to a country where he or she risks being persecuted constitutes a violation of human rights. Both these factors came into play in the Melilla case, especially in the sense that the majority of the deportees were waiting to receive a formal reply to their application for asylum.
Consequently, I believe that it is time for us to leave the rhetoric behind and address specific cases.
It is time, as we say in my country, to replace words with deeds - and I am sure that our concern at human rights violations will not only be displayed when such violations occur beyond the borders of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs De Esteban Martín's excellent report should arouse a feeling of humility on the part of us MEPs who are so quick to condemn human rights violations in other parts of the world.
It shows to what extent the fundamental rights of human beings are being flouted in our own so-called democratic countries.
Of course there should be a more refined interpretation of the concept of human rights in the European Union.
Unemployment, exclusion and poverty, which are the lot of a growing number of our fellow citizens, open up an area where respect for individual rights should be improved, and the European Social Charter is a response to this new demand.
We cannot, however, classify everything neatly under the heading 'human rights' .
To do so would be hypocritical and ineffective. The gaps we have noted in social justice require policies based on an act of will, which is not quite the same thing as dealing with these problems of infringements of civil liberties.
This is all the more important since - no doubt not by chance - it is an area in which the European Union has kept a low profile, probably for reasons of subsidiarity.
Be that as it may, recent events have demonstrated just how flimsy our achievements are with regard to human rights, especially in my own country.
I will not dwell on the outrageously racist nature of certain statements.
Nor will I dwell on the recent expulsion from France of the people without papers.
The brutality with which they were treated is particularly unacceptable, since I would point out that deporting people en masse is a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Finally, I should also like to say a word about the rights of the child.
The violations of these rights make it a matter of urgency to include a charter of children's rights in the Treaty on European Union.
Mr President, there are sound reasons for arguing that human rights are indivisible; in principle, however, the traditional fundamental rights should be distinguished from socio-economic objectives, and this is where the report by Mrs De Esteban Martín falls down.
In recent decades the spotlight has been very much on social rights, but at the same time we seem to have forgotten that rights, when acquired, create just as much responsibility.
The report illustrates the spirit of our culture: we have rights, therefore we make demands.
However, we are not yet in a position to make any fundamental statements about human life.
The report is against the death penalty, but says nothing about unborn life, which is meant to be covered by national legislation in the Member States.
In my country, we now have an absurd situation where anyone performing an illegal abortion is liable to 12 years in prison for violently terminating a human life, which is classified as murder.
However, if a pregnancy is terminated at the request of the woman herself, the social system will cover all the costs because she is exercising her right to self-determination.
Fortunately, a great deal has already been achieved in the social field, and it makes sense to establish clear objectives for the many social problems in our society.
But we should not forget that society cannot exist without fundamental spiritual rules and values.
The fact that we have never before had such prosperity, such high levels of education, social services and health care, and at the same time so much crime, violence and drug addiction, is surely food for thought.
In a society which seems to have abandoned God and the Ten Commandments and in which people's aspirations do not extend beyond the here and now, it has been suggested that true happiness in life lies in acquisition and our right to independence.
However, it should therefore come as no surprise that so many people struggle to find a meaning to life, or that greed, crime and racism are eating away at their rights.
Mr President, there are different approaches to human rights in the European Union.
Those of us who raise social rights and rights at work as human rights are accused by some of resorting to the Stalinist demagogy which uses social or collective provision as an excuse for suppressing human rights.
This was true of the former Soviet bloc but it is certainly not true of me and those of us supporting the amended report.
All the usual items listed as human rights - including the right to life, freedoms of conscience, religion, speech and private life, democratic rights, pluralism, the rule of law - are included and supported by me and those who think like me.
The fresh approach we take is to include such matters as social rights, ecological rights and cultural rights, and to regard these as fundamental human rights too.
What about the approaches of the two main groups in this Parliament opposing this fuller concept of fundamental human rights? Liberals have strong policies on certain individual rights linked to their support for individual liberty and freedoms.
However, pre-eminent for the Liberals seems to be laissez faire economic freedom for individuals to do in the economic marketplace whatever they want without too much concern about the effects on people with fewer entrepreneurial inclinations or abilities or less economic power.
In this ideological approach the Liberals are supported by other economic liberals, including most British Conservatives.
For Liberals individuals have the fundamental right to seek to become millionaires or to seek to create a large business or to live in a mansion, but individuals do not have the fundamental rights to live free from poverty, to have a job or to reside in decent housing.
When Mrs Thatcher claimed that there is no such thing as society, just individuals, she crystallized this philosophy.
The other main group opposing a full inclusive definition of human rights is the Christian Democrats.
In western and southern Europe Conservatives have not been at the forefront of the struggle for individual liberty and freedoms. Certainly they now accept them and the democratic norms which exist in the EU.
Christian Democrats appreciate perhaps more than Liberals the idea of social solidarity in collective values and that there is such a thing as society which has a duty to support weaker individuals, yet when it comes to specific commitments in this area the Christian Democrats always seem to find reasons to vote against and, at best, just to resort to paternalism.
Society has a duty to organize itself - ourselves - to provide work for all, decent housing and free education.
And, yes, that involves planning and intervention, not just leaving everything to the anarchy of the untrammelled free market.
Will the Christian Democrats support these fundamental rights if they are described as fundamental duties? - because they are duties as well as rights.
In conclusion, I call on all democratic Members of this Parliament to support this report and to have the courage to support full human rights in the European Union as we enter the new century.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, strong protection of human rights is one of the most important elements in the Union's foundations.
Respect for human rights is a qualification for membership of the European Union.
Our Parliament is also demanding more participation in decision-making.
It must show itself worthy of that influence.
If Parliament cannot manage this, it deserves to remain stuck in the sometimes abnormal constitutional situation it finds itself in.
More legislative power places greater demands on seriousness.
Not everything can be solved by politicians, not everything can be solved at European level.
There is a private area, which lies outside that of politics, an area which is set to grow in many countries.
Our President, Mr Hänsch, who is a staunch defender of our Parliament, put it in the following terms in the Committee on Institutional Affairs: we must not assign to the EU tasks which we know the EU has neither a mandate nor the means to carry out.
Precisely. But the red parties propose rights which cannot be upheld, for which no-one knows whether resources can be found and for which there is no legal basis.
In this way, the left threatens Parliament's ability to function as an effective legislator.
There is a risk that its influence may be damaged and, most serious of all, that protection of human rights may be drained of all substance.
We in the PPE Group stand for basic human rights that can be enforced through the European Court of Human Rights.
But anyone who violates the wish-lists of the left risks nothing.
These political wish-lists are nothing more than a bid to exploit human rights for selfish political purposes, a means of securing the release by the back door of economic resources which will not gain approval at national level.
The heroic efforts of the rapporteur to establish basic human rights has been in vain.
The 126 rights in the report make for some painful reading and provide a sorry but striking example of the fact that Parliament must not concern itself with everything.
If Parliament is to present these annual reports at all, the red parties should ponder on a couple of sayings we have in Sweden that go something like: ' true mastery lies in moderation' and 'reach out for everything, gain nothing' .
Let today's business serve its purpose as a cautionary example for the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, protection of human rights is perhaps the most important opinion-forming issue that we, together with the Council of Europe and the national parliaments, have to deal with as elected representatives in the European Parliament.
It covers everything from the right to life, through condemnation of the death penalty, torture and violence against detainees and prisoners, to the right to asylum.
On this point, Mr President, I am rather concerned at the fact that especially policy on refugees, immigration, asylum and visas is being made more restrictive and that the EU is on course to erect a wall against countries which are not Member States of the Union.
This must not happen.
The Schengen Agreement is a regrettable example of things moving in that direction.
This can create a fertile ground for the spread of the very racism and xenophobia which we want to prevent and which is one of the main themes of this report.
Perhaps the most important thing in this debate, Mr President, is that we should review past years and that present Member States and countries that have applied for membership and have agreements with us, such as Turkey, meet the demands we impose and that we should show the rest of the world that we are serious in our insistence on respect for human rights.
Mr President, this report on human rights has had a troubled past and a difficult path.
So we can only congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Estebán Martin, for completing such an arduous task - already attempted in vain, with great courage and dedication by our colleague, Mr Newman - and she has our appreciation and our gratitude.
The Estebán Martin report is sound and positive in many respects. It is an all-embracing report which leaves no stone unturned in its general approach and in the particular issues dealt with, even if we would have preferred a more distinct identification of violations of human rights, both inside and outside the Community.
While it is appropriate that the preamble to the report lists at least seventeen existing agreements on human rights, it is equally a duty to highlight, with growing consternation, how many of these declarations of sacrosanct principles have remained dead letters for years.
That consternation is certainly not relieved by the fact that the right-wing lineup of this Assembly repeatedly prefers to skate over violations involving their own countries.
A few examples: the law passed by the Italian Parliament which violates the rights of immigrants; in France, the expulsion of stateless persons by executive decree, a point Mr Pailler has eloquently covered; in Germany, the policy of persecution and discrimination against thousands and thousands of ex-citizens of the DDR.
And how can we ignore the fact that Turkey has been provisionally welcomed into the customs union while it continues to imprison political opponents of the regime - events that took place only last week?
We would also have preferred the report to make some reference to violations in countries aspiring to join the Community or which have long influenced decisions positively or negatively through their power and specific weight.
We are talking about the recent massacre in Chechnya, the tragedy of the Kurdish people, the 560 thousand deaths, mostly of children, caused in Iraq by the prolonged United States economic sanctions, sanctions aggravated by military intervention already carried out or being carried out at this very moment.
We recognize that Mrs Estebán Martin's report retains its validity and we shall vote to approve it.
Mr President, I know what human rights are.
This report was preceded by the controversy which accompanied the report that we produced last year.
If we lose this opportunity, we shall let slip a second chance to look inside the European Union and see what is happening with regard to human rights. And I believe that - if we are honest - we all know what we are talking about, even if only intuitively.
We are talking about drawing attention in this report to situations in which respect for human rights - the meaning of which is quite clear to us when we refer to third countries - is deteriorating or simply does not exist.
We must therefore make an effective effort to tackle such situations, since I believe that no citizen of the Union will be secure as long as the human rights of the weakest and most vulnerable sections of the population are being eroded.
I am aware that many Spanish socialist Members abstained in the vote on last year's report.
Contrary to what some members of my group seem to think, I believe that it is sometimes necessary to make an effort to achieve a result, and that this report must be safeguarded as a report on the subject it seeks to address - and I repeat, I believe that we all know what that is.
We must therefore make an effort and not lose this second opportunity.
And I would call on the other groups to do the same, since I think that it would be most frustrating to emerge from the vote without having adopted the report and, moreover, that this would jeopardize our work in this field in the coming years.
Mr President, we have had considerable difficulties over the last couple of years with these reports on human rights because of differences of view as to what constitutes human rights and other similar problems.
But I believe this time we have a report which, though it might not be what all of us would have wished in every respect, nevertheless commands very wide support.
We have worked very hard in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs to produce a report that goes a very long way towards facing up to many of the injustices and abuses of human rights in our Community.
The European Union would be a vastly better place if all the proposals enshrined in this report were to be adopted.
It would be splendid if this report could be adopted by a large majority in Parliament.
I am one of those who believe that such injustices as poverty, homelessness and unemployment are denials and abuses of human rights.
I would say to those who have doubts about this that you cannot really enjoy even the narrow legalistic conceptions of rights such as freedom of expression or religion and so on unless you have employment, a home and the other basic requirements of life.
We could all perhaps agree that the right to health is one of the most important, but all the detailed statistics show that people who are homeless, who are unemployed, who are in poverty, live much shorter lives and have much poorer health, than those whose social rights are safeguarded.
I would particularly like to comment on two of the many good points in this report.
Recital p and paragraph 34 deal with the plight of domestic servants in my own country and a number of others.
Certain wealthy people are allowed to bring in domestic servants who have no rights whatsoever.
They must be guaranteed the same employment and civil rights as all people resident in those countries.
Paragraph 51 refers to the right of people who are arrested and imprisoned abroad not to have their trials indefinitely delayed and to suffer thereby because of technicalities like lack of translation facilities and lack of understanding of the legal systems in other countries.
These are just two of the many very valuable points enshrined in this report which I hope will receive very broad support in Parliament.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I should like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs De Esteban Martín for her report and to stress once again how important it is and how much I welcome the fact that such a report is discussed here in the House and given the attention it deserves.
The European Union is first and foremost a community founded on justice in which human rights are accorded great importance, as they are in our external relations.
I am therefore pleased to see that Parliament is to debate the report by Mr Carnero González on human rights clauses in treaties with third countries this coming Friday.
Most of what this motion for a resolution calls for actually concerns the Member States, since the Treaties do not in fact give the Union the power to enforce respect for human rights in the Member States.
What the Community can do is apply Community provisions relating to human rights.
I shall therefore focus in my reply on the comments that were addressed to the Commission.
Before I look at the specific points raised by this report, I should like to say a few words about the discussion which the Foreign Affairs Ministers had at their informal meeting in Tralee on the sexual exploitation of children.
The Commission supports the various initiatives which the Member States have put forward for combating this terrible phenomenon, and has itself proposed three practical measures directly or indirectly related to the problem.
First of all, following the conference on the trade in women held in Vienna last June, the Commission intends to forward a communication to Parliament and to the Council proposing measures in this field.
Secondly, it is to present a proposal in the autumn designed to clamp down on sex tourism.
Thirdly, it is to put forward proposals designed to combat paedophile networks, such as on the Internet.
It hopes that these practical measures will help to provide rapid and effective solutions to the problems, and it is pleased to see that Parliament is also scheduled to discuss the issues involved on Wednesday.
As you know, the Commission has in the past strongly urged that the Community should accede to the European Convention on Human Rights, and the issue is to be discussed again at the Intergovernmental Conference.
However, I have to say that, in view of the opinion delivered recently by the Court of Justice, I think it will be very difficult to make any progress in this field.
It is something we have been talking about for years, but the majority of the Member States do not appear to feel any great urge to take such a significant step.
On the subject of equal treatment, the Council recommendation on the equal right of men and women to participate in decision-making has still not been adopted.
The Commission put forward a revised proposal on 30 May 1996 which reflected Parliament's amendments.
It should be pointed out here that the existing directives in the field of equal treatment - seven in total - have already gone a long way towards improving working conditions for women and men in Europe.
The Commission also intends to introduce a number of specific measures to improve equality in the legal position of women and men.
With regard to combating racism and xenophobia, the Council of Ministers has, as you know, officially declared 1997 to be the European Year against Racism.
This is a milestone in the history of the Community.
For the first time the institutions of the Community, acting on a proposal from the Commission, have agreed on practical measures to combat racism within the current institutional framework.
This sends out an extremely positive signal.
The European Year is, of course, only part of our strategy to combat racism, and a great deal of progress has already been made since the Cannes European Council.
Two resolutions have already been adopted as part of the shared responsibilities and joint action under the third pillar, and we are optimistic that a racism monitoring centre will be set up in the near future.
In its report for the Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission recommended the inclusion in the Treaty of provisions banning any form of discrimination and condemning racism and xenophobia.
It believes that the adoption of Community legislation offering at least a minimum level of protection against discrimination in the Community could be an extremely important step towards achieving the aims of the Treaty.
It is to review this whole issue again in the light of the progress made at the Intergovernmental Conference.
In conclusion, I would point out that the Council has launched various programmes over the last 20 years to tackle poverty in all its manifestations at European level.
It is another issue which has been discussed a great deal in recent times and has received the attention it deserves.
I should like to thank the rapporteur once again for her most detailed and comprehensive report.
I am sure that, as in previous years, Parliament's report on human rights in the Union will play an important part in ensuring that we maintain a consistent approach towards human rights, and will also, and equally importantly, help to improve the credibility of the Union's position on this issue in the eyes of third countries.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Rail, road and inland waterway transport
Mr President, can I thank Mr van der Waal for his report and his contribution today.
There is no doubt that my group is concerned with the crisis in the inland waterways sector, and indeed we support Mr van der Waal's report and his efforts to reduce the existing overcapacity.
We support the scrapping programme and the finances to be made available for it.
It is a sad fact that within the transport sector the inland waterways are underutilized throughout the European Union, just as our railways are underutilized, mainly because the vast majority of freight is now transported by road; and the congestion and the environmental pollution that causes is there for all to see.
So our group is always supportive of any moves to help sectors that would take freight off the roads, be it railways or inland waterways.
There is no doubt that for many years inland waterways have been a Cinderella of the transport industry, but that does not mean that we should forget about them and that we should not invest in them, because that is what is needed.
Investment is needed in order to reduce the overcapacity, and that means helping in the scrapping programme.
It also means helping small businesses to actually go into the market.
But we also need investment in port infrastructure within our inland waterways network, and until we get that I fear that the inland waterways sector will continue to suffer, to be the Cinderella service, and will have to make do with the crumbs from off the table of the road haulage industry.
Our group would like to see the inland waterways sector flourishing.
We support Mr van der Waal's report because we believe that his principles are right, that his views are right and that that is the only way the inland waterways sector can go forward.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the PPE Group also regards inland waterways as an environmentally-friendly and safe element of the transport sector.
This may be underrated as a means of transport, but it deserves the support and respect of Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Mr van der Waal's report and the Commission's proposals were, quite simply, a joy to read as far as we were concerned, because of the very positive approach they adopted towards the subjects of chartering, pricing, restructuring and the rules on aid.
We welcome the fact that market distortions caused by the chartering by rotation system, for example, and overcapacity are to be eliminated by the scrapping fund and the 'old for new' system.
But we also need to provide aid to improve or modernize our inland waterway transport.
The Commission's attitude and Mr van der Waal's work on this issue were very encouraging, but we have been very disappointed at the Council's refusal to adopt so many of our amendments.
However, we are prepared to do what the rapporteur has asked by being sensible and not retabling all our amendments again.
We would, of course, have been delighted if the Council had allocated more aid for this extremely important but underrated sector.
The chartering by rotation system, which distorts the market and in some areas even means that the prices charged for carrying the same load over the same distance differ by up to 100 %, could also have been phased out earlier.
However, we are convinced that what we are doing now is an important step.
We still insist on keeping some of our amendments, and we feel that any firms which leave the sector voluntarily should be given some kind of social assistance to help them.
The aid which the Member States currently provide for the transport sector, which faces such fierce competition, could also be supplemented by aid from the European Union.
Working on the principle that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, we are prepared to accept these proposals and do as Mr van der Waal suggested.
Mr President, a few years ago we had a debate on inland waterway transport in which Mr van der Waal and Mr van der Lek spoke, and Mr van Rijn from the Commission's Legal Service replied.
From his name, Mr van den Broek should know a good deal about water, although it is swampy water and that makes for hard sailing, but nevertheless we are curious to know what the Commission will have to say.
We should first of all assure the rapporteur, who has already prepared many reports on inland waterways for us, that he once again has our support.
However, there is one problem which I should like to ask the Commission about, and I hope we shall be given a proper answer.
Aid and scrapping schemes are all well and good, we all support inland waterway transport, it is environmentally-friendly, it offers plenty of capacity, there are new facilities for containers and storage, port installations, inland ports and so on, all absolutely fine.
But the problem is that inland waterways are mainly used for transporting goods in bulk and, in particular, petroleum products.
Now that NATO no longer needs as much benzine, its pipelines are being used for the commercial trade in petroleum products instead.
This is all well and good, and much less dangerous, but it has resulted in overcapacity in the tanker fleet which needs to be dealt with by the scrapping scheme, as the rapporteur says.
The problem is that it will be mainly the smaller vessels that will be scrapped first under the scheme, and this will be counter-productive, because it will mean that all kinds of smaller ports will no longer be used and only the larger vessels will remain, sailing between Basle and Rotterdam.
So I should like to ask the Commission whether there should not be some sort of differentiation in the scrapping scheme, so that it is not just the smaller vessels that are taken out of service, since this would limit the scope of the inland waterways?
Mr President, we Greens set great store by development, reconstruction and incentives for inland waterway transport because, as honourable Members have said, this is an ecologically compatible form of transport, provided it does not presuppose massive infrastructure projects which can sometimes have a strong environmental impact.
But we definitely regard this form of transport as very valid.
In fact we are convinced of the need to restore balance to transport, moving goods and passengers away from road transport towards rail, sea and river, and inland waterway transport is also less risky for dangerous goods.
For these reasons we think it was very negative of the Council to reject the majority of the amendments approved by Parliament at first reading.
But we understand and support the reasons given by the rapporteur, Mr van der Waal, and we invite the European Parliament to vote in favour of the few amendments that have been presented again.
We certainly expected something different from the Council.
The crisis in the sector requires that liberalization be accompanied by social security standards, especially as regards tankers.
We think it is right to retable the amendment which provides additional measures for the sector.
Finally we take note that as regards granting incentives for inland waterway transport, the Council has in fact accepted the position of the European Parliament.
I believe this may also constitute a precedent for the measure to grant incentives to the rail sector, for which I am rapporteur.
In conclusion, I support a vote in favour of Mr van der Waal's amendments and proposal.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr van der Waal on his patience in recommending this second reading on a common position.
I would inform colleagues that on this occasion it appears that New Labour coincides with Old Conservatism.
The emphasis has to be on dealing with the problem of over-capacity and in this regard I welcome Mr van der Waal's comments that we must ensure that the amount of funding is secured not just for 1996 but for 1997 and 1998 and indeed urge the Council to extend the scrapping programme right up to the end of 1999.
We must ensure that the fund will apply until the position of over-capacity has been resolved.
As has been mentioned overcapacity is possibly as high as 20 % in the European tanker sector.
Therefore, I particularly support the extra scrapping system in this sector with the aim of removing at least an extra 10 % of capacity in the first year.
I would remind colleagues that the provisions in this common position are to liberalize and open up the market.
There are three parts to the common position: liberalizing, re-structuring and promoting the inland waterway sector.
I hope that all three will carry equal weight.
With regard to the last common position on the granting of aids for transport by rail, road and inland waterway, this is particularly welcome as it will streamline decision-making and reduce bureaucracy.
My one concern is that while we welcome an emphasis on combined transport, and particularly in the UK under a Conservative government trying to transport more freight by rail and take it off the roads wherever appropriate, it must not be to the total detriment of conventional freight operations.
Let us not lose sight of the good old lorry.
Perhaps the Commissioner would like to comment on that.
Mr President, it is a question of taking a final decision on what we considered in February in Parliament, when we delivered our opinion on a package of measures for inland waterway transport.
The most important concern of the amendments in my view is that ways are now being proposed to stimulate and develop inland waterways in all Member States, not least my own country, Sweden, which has a lot of water and many lakes.
Transport by rail and transport by inland waterway are more environmentally friendly alternatives to road haulage, which has grown alarmingly in recent years.
We must do something about this, because road haulage vehicles emit exhaust gases in an entirely different way.
We therefore support this report.
Regeneration programmes of various kinds and incentives are important if this route is really to be taken and if the volume of road haulage traffic is to be reduced.
The amendments proposed point in that direction.
In this context, severe criticism of the Council is warranted, since it has not understood this.
We therefore vote for the amendments tabled since, in our opinion, they will lead to more and better transport using environmentally friendly methods.
Mr President, as Commissioner Kinnock unfortunately cannot be with us, let me say how delighted I am that it is Commissioner van den Broek who is standing in for him, since inland waterway transport is an area where Dutch bargemen in particular have long distinguished themselves.
I too would like to offer my congratulations to the rapporteur for working so quickly and for producing a report which not only recognizes the very serious problems currently facing inland waterways, but also offers prospects for the future.
It is perfectly clear that the inland waterways can and must play an important role in our long-term transport policy.
It is, of course, mainly up to the inland waterway sector itself to make the best of the new opportunities available, but the governments can and must offer it a helping hand here.
I would ask for special attention to be given to the tanker sector, where many firms are already in deep water.
The two letters which our committee sent to Commissioner Kinnock form an important element in our approach.
Following earlier talks, I regard these letters as a gentlemen's agreement between the Commission and Parliament. Can I assume that the Commission also sees them in this light?
Can Commissioner van den Broek assure us that the Commission is aware of the need to prevent unfair competition and market distortions from inland shipping companies in Central and Eastern Europe? When can we expect agreements to be signed with the countries in question?
What form will they take?
Will Parliament be involved?
Finally, could Mr van den Broek perhaps also take this opportunity to tell us what he intends to do about the insuperable problems that still exist at the frontiers with the countries of Eastern Europe, particularly for road transport?
I should like to start by saying how pleased I am to have the honour of standing in for Commissioner Kinnock this evening, and I should particularly like to thank Mr van der Waal for his words on the subject.
It is indeed a matter of particular interest to me, because I actually began my career as a lawyer dealing with collisions on the inland waterways.
Mr van der Waal will be pleased to hear that the first case I had to deal with - cases were always called by the names of the vessels involved in the collision - was 'The Lord is king' versus 'It always happens to me' . I am sure this is how things will continue on our inland waterways for a long time to come.
As honourable Members are aware, the proposals under discussion today form an integrated package of measures designed to increase the competitiveness of the inland waterway sector. This answers Mr Cornelissen's question: the Commission is indeed aware of the need to make this sector more competitive and to clamp down on unfair competition as much as possible.
I hope he will understand that I prefer to leave it to Mr Kinnock to explain exactly how the Commission intends to step up its efforts in this field and how Parliament can be involved.
The measures we are discussing are designed to enable the inland waterway sector - which is having to get by under its own steam, as it were, in a liberalized market - to maintain and increase its share of the total European transport market.
This is very much in line with our ideas on 'sustainable mobility' .
The first proposal, on the systems of chartering and pricing in national and international inland waterway transport, aims to liberalize inland waterway transport by harmonizing the legislation which the Member States concerned are currently introducing, with full liberalization by 1 January 2000.
The second proposal concerns the expansion of structural improvements over a three-year period from 1996 to 1998. These measures will operate in tandem with the process of liberalization and also enable the Community to provide financial assistance for the national scrapping funds in the Member States concerned.
The third proposal, on aid for transport by road, rail and inland waterway, will provide the Member States with subsidies for investment in inland waterway terminals and fixed and mobile loading and unloading equipment up to 31 December 1999.
The new provisions which the Council has included in its common position are in line with the aims of the Commission proposals.
On the second proposal, the Council felt that the Community's contribution towards the cost of structural improvements should be limited to 1996.
The Commission has no problem with this, since the aim is still to reduce the fleet capacity by around 15 % in three years.
It is up to the Member States collectively to ensure that adequate funding is provided to achieve this objective.
The Commission has therefore accepted the Council's amendments, and on behalf of Mr Kinnock and the Commission, I would now ask Parliament to approve the common position.
The Commission has examined the two amendments tabled by the Committee on Transport at second reading very carefully, but I am sorry to have to tell you that Mr Kinnock and the Commission are unable to accept them.
Let me explain why.
Amendment No 1 is intended to enable the Member States to introduce accompanying social measures for operators leaving the inland waterway transport sector voluntarily.
This was rejected by the Council, a decision with which the Commission agrees, since this possibility is already provided for in Article 9 of Council Regulation No 1101/89.
Amendment No 2 concerns the Financial Statement on the budget line for scrapping schemes in inland waterways transport, and the description and general purpose of the measure.
The Committee on Transport considers that there is at least 20 % overcapacity in the tanker sector.
This is why it is proposed that an additional scrapping scheme should be carried out in the tanker sector during the first year of the Commission programme, to reduce the tanker fleet by at least an extra 10 %.
The Member States concerned are to set up separate scrapping funds with new funding arrangements.
The Commission considers this amendment superfluous, since it already has the opportunity under the existing regulation to allocate more of the funding available for scrapping tankers, if it feels this is necessary.
Furthermore, amending the Financial Statement would, from a procedural point of view, have no effect on the actual text of the legislation.
In my opinion, the common position is consistent with the objectives pursued in the Commission's proposals, and I therefore feel I must call on Parliament to support it.
At the same time, I should like to express my appreciation for all the work that Mr van der Waal and the Committee on Transport as a whole have done.
Before I end, I should just like to come back to three questions that were raised by speakers.
Mr van der Waal referred to the letters which the Committee on Transport wrote to Mr Kinnock, one of which suggests that a new group of experts should be set up on inland waterway transport.
The committee will be receiving an answer in the near future, the gist of which I already know.
Suffice it to say that Commissioner Kinnock does not feel that this new group of experts needs to be set up just at the moment, and he will certainly wish to give you further information on this when he can.
However, he also said that the Commission will, of course, be remaining in close contact with the socio-economic sector which covers inland waterways, and that it will be consulting the sector within the existing committees and ad hoc groups in order to find out its opinions, recommendations, and so on.
In other words, Mr Kinnock sees no particular reason to intensify contacts with the sector by setting up a new group of experts.
The second question you put to him in writing was whether the 'old for new' system could be extended for a further five years.
He will be informing you that the Commission does not necessarily oppose extending the system, but he feels it is a little premature to be talking about it and deciding on it now.
He would prefer to let his decision on this depend on market developments, and he would agree with the committee that the report on market developments which it has asked the Commission to draw up during the first half of 1998 could be used as a basis for deciding whether an extension of the system is justified.
That is all I can tell you from the information I have available.
I have certainly not been able to explain things as clearly as Commissioner Kinnock would have done, but I think I have at least given you some idea of what he is thinking.
Mr Wijsenbeek asked whether we can ensure that it is not automatically the smaller tankers that are the first to be scrapped, now that the NATO pipelines are being used for commercial purposes.
Mr Kinnock's experts alongside me here have assured me that the current system is based on the principle of first come, first served, irrespective of size, and that differentiation does not need to be applied artificially, since it is simply a question of who is first in line, large or small.
Finally, Ms McIntosh asked about the question of funds for the scrapping scheme. I am informed that the Member States have given assurances that the funding needed will definitely be made available.
That concludes my reply.
I should like to apologize for any points that I may not have explained entirely clearly, but Commissioner Kinnock will certainly be more than happy to provide you with any further information which you may require.
With all due respect to Mr van den Broek, we are aware that the system will operate on a first come, first served basis, but the problem is that it will be the larger vessels which come forward first, because they are worth more.
That is why I should like to know whether Commissioner Kinnock will consider introducing differentiation in future schemes stretching beyond the year 2000, so that it is not just the larger vessels which are taken out of service, since this simply reduces the scope and effectiveness of inland waterway transport.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner van den Broek for doing his best to answer our questions.
Since one or two letters of reply to us have been drafted, I would ask him to urge Mr Kinnock to read our two letters through again very carefully.
I do of course know what these letters say, since I signed them on behalf of the committee, and I would point out that we are not asking for a new committee to be set up - in fact we specifically say that this is not what we want - we simply ask whether our objectives can be achieved through the existing committees.
To avoid any unnecessary correspondence, I would ask Mr van den Broek to take the matter up with Mr Kinnock and ask him to read our letters once again.
Mr President, I will faithfully pass on these requests, of course, together with the question that Mr Wijsenbeek raised.
I think I know what the answer to that will be, but I would prefer to leave it to Mr Kinnock to reply, as would Mr Wijsenbeek, I presume.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Air carrier liability
The next item is the report (A4-0228/96) by Mr Sánchez García, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(95) 0724 - C4-0209/96-95/0359(SYN)) on air carrier liability in case of accidents.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, air carrier liability in the case of accidents in international carriage by air has hitherto been covered by the provisions of the Warsaw Convention and other supplementary instruments, which together make up the so-called 'Warsaw system' .
This convention provides that the airline is presumed to be liable for damage and sets the limit of liability at USD 10 000.
However, it also provides that the airline may be exempted from liability if it proves that it took all necessary measures to avoid the damage, and that it may pay a lower amount of compensation if it proves the contributory negligence of the injured person.
The inadequacy of this system of subjective liability and the lack of an automatic mechanism for adjusting the amount of compensation paid have given rise to unilateral action on the part of many signatory states, whereby the limits established have been raised.
For example, the Montreal Agreement of 1966 increased the limit to USD 75 000 for all flights to, from, or with a planned stopover in the United States.
Similarly, over the last few years, the majority of European countries have introduced liability limits which are higher than those provided for under the Warsaw system, for both national and international flights.
The result of this unilateral, albeit necessary action has been a growing disparity of national rules concerning air carrier liability - a situation which threatens to lead to the fragmentation of the present internal civil aviation market.
Furthermore, the aim of Community air transport policy is to ensure that flying is perceived to be the safest way to travel, and this objective is undermined by the current system regulating liability, whereby the passenger is viewed as someone who must necessarily take a risk.
There is also an inconsistency between the rules on liability and the Community's consumer protection policy, in that passengers and their families are forced to endure situations of uncertainty when they attempt to claim amounts of compensation which are higher than the established limit, apart from having to face long and costly procedures.
In these circumstances, the Community considered it necessary to take steps to create acceptable conditions for the air transport sector, ensuring common liability rules and guaranteeing fair treatment for users.
The proposal for a regulation which is before us today reflects this commitment.
In its proposal, the Commission has retained the essential features of the present system, since despite its inadequacies, the Warsaw system constitutes an internationally recognized and uniform legal basis.
With this as its starting-point, the Commission has attempted to adapt the regulatory provisions to current needs, eliminating all limits and ensuring simple and rapid procedures, thereby substantially improving the protection of users and the position of carriers.
I agree with the substance of the Commission proposal.
The aim of the amendments contained in my report is to make a number of improvements and refinements, though of course without changing the underlying philosophy of the text.
In this sense, I believe it is appropriate to increase the limit for objective liability proposed by the Commission from ECU 100 000 to ECU 120 000.
In fact, this amendment does no more than reflect in legislation what has long been the practice of most airlines.
In no case will this increase be to the detriment of the airlines, not even in terms of insurance premiums, as was demonstrated by the Commission's prior studies. Moreover, ECU 120 000 is an amount which is more appropriate to present times.
As regards the elimination of all the liability limits provided for in the convention, I believe that such a measure is consistent with the goals of minimizing risks in the air transport sector and enhancing consumer protection - bearing in mind, moreover, that for the airlines, it will involve only a minimal increase in operating costs.
Likewise, I considered it appropriate to delete the reference to the amount to be paid to meet initial costs, in the belief that the provisions to that effect of the plans of the individual airlines are more advantageous than the Commission's proposal for a sum of ECU 50 000.
Finally, I wish to highlight an issue which I believe to be of the utmost importance: because of the structure of the Warsaw system, any amendment of the rules requires a prior agreement between the contracting parties.
The effects of the Community's action will evidently be restricted to Community airlines, with third-country carriers operating within Community territory being excluded.
Given the legal impossibility of extending application of this legislation to third countries, I am calling on the Commission to step up its efforts in the negotiations on the Civil Aviation Agreement.
Let me take this opportunity, Mr President, to bid farewell to Parliament, since I am leaving tomorrow.
I should therefore like to thank everyone, and especially the members of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, for treating me with such courtesy.
I am returning to the Canary Islands.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr Sánchez García.
We wish you every success in your future professional or political career.
Mr President, I would join with your good wishes for the rapporteur and congratulate him on his report.
At least his name will be enshrined in Parliament even if he goes.
I hope that he has a good journey and does not need to avail himself of any of the provisions of this carrier liability.
This is a complicated report, as anyone who has listened to the rapporteur would agree.
It is an attempt to update the Warsaw Convention of 1929 and to harmonize existing voluntary agreements amongst European airlines, as the rapporteur has said.
There are a great number of agreements here.
The Warsaw Convention is very much outdated because it was adopted at a time when air transport was thought to be a very risky business.
You can tell just how long ago that was because 1929 was the year I was born.
Nobody ever thought much about flying in aeroplanes in those days.
I welcome the Commission proposal because it improves the situation for people who need to claim compensation in the event of an accident, both in terms of the amount they will receive and the speed with which they will be helped.
To do this, the Commission proposes abolishing the Warsaw Convention limits which, as I said, are completely out of date, bringing in a more objective definition of liability rather than a subjective definition - although here, I agree with the rapporteur when he suggests that the figure should go up to ECU 120, 000 rather than ECU 100, 000 because that brings it more into line with existing IATA agreements and would cause less confusion.
I also welcome the provision for emergency payments and, in particular, the widening of the area in which one can take action, allowing people to take action in the courts of the Member State in which they are domiciled.
That is a big improvement.
I support the various arrangements the rapporteur has mentioned, including the amendments asking for full information rather than just adequate information to be given to passengers and others.
One issue that caused problems was the case of third-country carriers.
Ideally I would like to have seen all of them subject to the new EU regulations.
We have some precedent for this in areas such as denied boarding compensation.
As the rapporteur has said, the Montreal Convention, although it applies to the United States, does in fact include air carriers from outside the United States.
Nevertheless, when this was fully discussed in committee, we had to accept the very strong legal view of the Commission that this would not be possible.
But in conjunction with the rapporteur, I put forward amendments which were accepted, suggesting that the Commission should seek to incorporate in its negotiations for civil aviation agreements with third countries a commitment to applying the provisions outlined in this regulation.
If this is successful I feel that, as most airlines offer reasonable compensation on a voluntary basis and many of them are signing up to the IATA agreement which their own regulation overlaps, there will eventually be not only uniformity in what is offered to European Union passengers, but also a more realistic level of compensation, no matter which airline they use.
Mr President, I would also like to add my congratulations to the rapporteur and wish him every success for his future career, and just say to Mr Megahy that, obviously, 1929 was an extremely good year.
There is a general consensus that the Warsaw Convention needs to be modernized and there are various attempts to do so.
If the Commissioner or any one has any doubt why there is an urgent need to so, I would simply remind colleagues about the Lockerbie disaster.
Pan Am aircraft No 101 was bombed and destroyed over Scotland.
The bereaved are still trying to sort out compensation claims, subject to the Montreal Intercarrier Agreement.
Compensation has not yet been fully paid out.
Pan Am subsequently went out of business.
I heard particularly disturbing news through the newspapers recently that Pan Am may be resurrected as a different company but maintain the same name.
In all honesty, we in this House must ensure that all outstanding claims should be met before another airline by that name should be allowed to carry passengers - certainly in the European Union.
The lack of uniformity in arrangements for air carrier liability across the European Union is a particular point of concern, not just to the Commission but also to the European Parliament.
I wish to look in particular at the Commission proposal and a number of our amendments.
I regret to inform the rapporteur that as far as Amendments Nos 3, 6 and 16 are concerned the Commission text is much clearer.
I understand that there may be some confusion, particularly as it is very much a legal text, between what is meant by both 'domicile' and 'permanent residence' .
The Commission text for both Amendments Nos 6 and 16 is much clearer.
It is quite right that we introduce what is known as this fifth jurisdiction for those who currently have their domicile or permanent residence in a European Union country.
It would be quite wrong for this House to seek to remove that jurisdiction.
Amendment No 4 raises the strict liability of European Union carriers to the sum of ECU 120, 000 rather than the Commission proposal of ECU 100, 000.
I certainly support that figure as being more realistic.
We should remember that total liability would be unlimited.
But over this figure the claimant would have to prove that the airline was at fault.
My direct question to the Commission is: how would this new situation change, i.e. that of unlimited liability? Where we can prove an airline was at fault, how would that situation be so different to the situation with Pan Am where so many difficulties compounded the question of compensation?
In conclusion, I welcome the provision that this would apply to domestic as well as international travel, fifth jurisdiction and domicile and permanent residence.
The fact that the European Union action reflects that already undertaken by IATA and to be followed by ICAO will enhance consumer protection and fair competition in the European aviation sector.
I congratulate both the rapporteur and the Commission on bringing forward this proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the text before the House today on air carrier liability in case of accidents represents a very interesting step forward.
I therefore thank the rapporteur for it.
This proposal for a regulation in fact achieves a quite satisfactory balance between the parties: on the one hand, the position of the air carriers will be strengthened by a precise redefinition of liabilities on both sides; and on the other, the rights of air passengers will be better protected by the introduction of the principle of objective liability of the carrier.
In addition, this proposal introduces a system of emergency payments and extends the possibilities of legal recourse.
Of course, it is regrettable that it is purely a Community regulation and that there has been no in-depth revision of the Warsaw Convention.
Such a course of action is still desirable to improve the level of compensation available to passengers.
It is also to be hoped that this move will serve as an example for improving passenger protection on a worldwide scale.
While we are awaiting the revision mentioned above, the report before us today puts forward a number of improvements to the Commission proposal, with a view to ensuring greater consistency between the Community document, the Warsaw Convention and the IATA agreement of 31 October 1995.
For this reason, my group will vote in favour of the report.
Mr President, I can be brief as much of what I wanted to say has already been said by the rapporteur and by my colleague Tom Megahy.
It is true that the Warsaw Convention is outdated and needs upgrading.
There is also a need to harmonize the various agreements that exist at present.
One of the problems with regard to air carrier liability is that passengers do not seem to be the primary concern.
They seem to be a secondary issue when there is a major accident.
For example, Miss McIntosh has quite rightly pointed out that the Pan Am victims' relatives are still awaiting compensation.
And there is no guarantee that the relatives of the victims of the TWA aircraft which crashed in the Atlantic will not have a similarly long wait for any compensation they may be entitled to.
That is an intolerable situation as we approach the next millennium and nearly 100 years of aviation.
The Warsaw Convention seems to be biased towards the airlines.
I agree it is important that in any negotiations third countries must accept EU legislation and practices.
There I echo the point made by my colleague Tom Megahy, because in civil aviation at the moment we are seeing a growth in a kind of flags of convenience situation.
What are known as flags of convenience in the maritime sector are now spreading to the aviation sector.
In particular, Eastern European registered aircraft are now plying their trade on a regular basis within the European Union: what are the rights of people involved in an accident in one of those aircraft? That is something we need to clarify with any country which decides it wants to join the European Union.
I thank the rapporteur for his report.
I know it will get a lot of support and it deserves a lot of support.
I wish him well, back in the Canary Islands.
Mr President, I appreciate that this is not Commissioner van den Broek's area, but one thing which concerns me is that the Commissioner has indicated his willingness to replace a reference to values in Amendment No 9 and a subsequent amendment with a reference to financial amounts.
Secondly, he has also indicated his willingness to change the reference in the proposal to the claimant's domicile or permanent residence with a reference to his place of domicile at the time of the accident.
As I indicated in my speech I would much prefer that we kept to the original Commission text unless the Commission gave us some extremely compelling reasons for those two changes.
The key point about consumer protection should be where I, as a claimant, have my domicile or permanent residence at the time of the claim.
Why would the Commission seek to change that?
Very briefly, Mr President, Commissioner Kinnock has followed the legal advice he was given on this point, which was that the definition supported by Parliament is probably clearer and better.
That is why he chose it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.05 p.m.)
Madam President, on a point of order under Rule 136, concerning committees of inquiry: yesterday evening I and two other colleagues attempted to have access to the meeting of the BSE inquiry.
Politely but firmly that was refused.
I should stress that what we were seeking was simply access: we did not want to participate in the deliberations or to vote at the committee.
Having looked again at the Rules of Procedure, the position is not entirely clear as to whether the committee had the right to exclude other Members as opposed to the public at large from its deliberations.
I just want to mention to you, Madam President, that I will be writing to you asking for an interpretation from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities of this matter.
Until that is clarified, I will make a political appeal to colleagues on the committee as far as possible to allow their colleagues to participate, in the sense of observing, what obviously is politically and agriculturally a very interesting and delicate question.
I have noted that, and we await your letter.
Madam President, I was dismayed to find out this morning that the only Dutch television station we can receive here in Strasbourg has disappeared from our screens.
Today we have the opening of the States-General and the Queen's Speech in the Netherlands, and now we cannot watch them.
I would ask you, Madam President, to ask the mayor of Strasbourg whether she might be able to arrange for us to receive a Dutch station here in Parliament, so that we can follow the news in the Netherlands.
We take note of that.
Decision on urgency
Madam President, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has given a favourable opinion on this first request for urgency on Regulation No 805/68, and the report will be ready for tomorrow.
Madam President, on a point of order.
You cannot really take the one request for urgency on its own; you need to take the three together.
I am speaking from a budgetary point of view.
Whichever way you do it is immaterial but if we vote 'yes' for the first one, we need to vote 'yes' for the other two.
Parliament will make a fool of itself if it votes 'yes' on the first and 'no' on the second two.
Madam President, there are three separate reports involved here, and I would ask Members to look at the documentation.
You will see then that we are dealing with three reports with three different numbers, which were also drawn up at different times.
Yesterday evening, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development decided by a large majority in favour of urgent procedure for the proposal on the common organization of the market in beef and veal.
By a similarly large majority, the committee rejected the request concerning amendment of the support system for producers of certain arable crops, since this is not an urgent matter.
The funds in question will not be needed until 1998.
That was confirmed to us by the Commission representative who was present.
Lastly, the committee also rejected by a large majority the request for urgent procedure on improving the efficiency of agricultural structures.
I would repeat: urgency for beef and veal, but not for the other two reports.
That was decided quite clearly by the committee.
The recommendation from the committee is to take three separate votes.
I shall now put to the vote this recommendation from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to vote separately on the requests.
(Parliament agreed to the proposal)
We shall now repeat the vote concerning the regulation on the common organization of the market in beef and veal.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Madam President, you have followed the rapporteur's proposal and put the first item to the vote.
That request for urgency was approved.
According to his recommendation, you should now also put the other two items to the vote.
We wish to reject urgency for these, so that it is made clear to the Commission that we do not see this link between beef and veal, the support system, and the general pursuit of agricultural reform.
Madam President, I think this regulation requires us to balance our accounts.
Perhaps a former agriculture minister could be allowed to ask Parliament not to make itself look ridiculous.
The regulation on beef and veal deals with the expenditure side, while the other two concern revenue.
We cannot vote for the one without the others, unless we wish to appear irresponsible again, and I am afraid the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has already given that impression here.
There is something rather tragic in this attitude.
I would urge Parliament to be logical and responsible, so that this is reflected in our regulations, Madam President.
Madam President, I would simply point out that in view of the scale of this subject, we feel it is important to discuss the matter calmly, outside urgent procedure. This would enable us to hold talks and work constructively with the Committee on Budgets, rather than making adjustments to a budget of ECU 1 billion in just a few hours, as Mr Rocard has suggested.
We therefore propose to take the matter seriously and follow the normal procedure.
Consequently, we wish the House to reject urgency.
Proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0422 - C4-0448/96-96/0212(CNS)) amending Regulation (EEC) No 1765/92 establishing a support system for producers of certain arable crops and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 1872/94
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
The information society - copyright and related rights
Madam President, the future of the global information society is as fascinating as it is disturbing.
We are only at the beginning of an extraordinary adventure and I am not going to repeat the more or less apocalyptic assessments bandied about every day.
It is our task as politicians and Members of Parliament, and I say this to Mr Herman too, to identify what needs to be done now and immediately.
I think we are all aware that we are seriously behind the times.
Technology is advancing and every day it throws up a confusing panorama which is difficult even to analyze; liberalization is proceeding, frequently in a wild unregulated way, but there is a risk of policy standing idly by and watching.
The essential rules for healthy development to counter disequilibrium and inequality are weak, or there is delay in specifying and implementing them.
Faced, for example, with pervasive networks like the Internet, faced with multi-media weakening and obliterating the distinct boundaries between personal computers, television, traditional broadcasts, telephone, satellite broadcasts, and faced with the greater and greater blurring between private and public, between personal and collective, that results from all this, the governance of information must make a very courageous leap, but so far there is no glimpse of this, at least no appreciable glimpse.
The report I am presenting on copyright and related rights, drafted over a long period on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, may look limited but actually it is not.
The harmonizing dynamic of global information threatens to give rise to a shredder which regards every message as a product or text to be used for purely economic ends, not something to be respected for its invention, language, creativity and art.
That is why the Committee on Legal Affairs emphasizes certain points which I would like to draw to your attention: first, if there is to be protection of an author's work and of right-holders, this protection should be available regardless of the way the work itself is broadcast.
A film is a film, a musical performance is a musical performance, they create certain rights and require a certain kind of management and so on.
So we cannot be tied to the categories and instruments of the past.
Secondly, citizens must be guaranteed parity of access - that is in the text of our resolution - to works and services deemed to be of public interest.
Thirdly, which law is applicable to govern such a complex sector?
Responding to the excellent Commission Green Paper which put this question, we consider, and it is a crucial point, that protection cannot be guaranteed merely by applying the law of the country of origin. The solution given in the cable and satellite directive, for example, is deficient because the criterion is inadequate in a global perspective.
Paragraph 14 is carefully drafted and we do not want to adopt forced and simplifying formulae. The law of the country of reception must be taken into account as well because this is fundamental if we are to prevent any undermining of the protection of works and avoid unscrupulous relocation manoeuvres.
Fourthly, the moral right of authors is, in our view, a fundamental masterstroke of the European model for protecting works and messages, because it establishes a relationship between author and work which is renewed every time the work is used and qualifies the work not as a thing or an object, but as a continual creation.
Finally we are aware, fifth point and here I will close, that to resolve the questions already mentioned, we need more than a careful and precise set of legal standards, which is necessary, more than the consistent application of the international conventions - I am thinking of the Berne Convention, Article 6b, and the need to ensure that every country conforms to it - we need Europe to speak with one voice and act with one will at the international level, especially, but not only, in dealings with the United States, to ensure that these Conventions are applied. It is also indispensable to implement electronic identification systems for works, because otherwise we do not think protection will be possible.
Experiments are already widespread on these electronic systems for numerical coding of works, which must and will achieve a higher level of protection in the fight against electronic piracy.
We want an international convention, an international agreement, against illegal trade in pirated copies, which is more indispensable than ever today.
May I just add something briefly, because otherwise I will have failed to comment on the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the amendments presented by it as regards the Herman report. We are disappointed that the Commission has not succeeded in agreeing on the proposal for a directive presented by Commissioner Monti, and intended to protect media pluralism in the single market.
This proposal for a directive is another decisive chapter in establishing clear rules during the actual shaping of the information society.
Without European intervention to prevent abusive and abnormal concentration of power, it will not be possible to build an information society where citizenship rights, the sense of belonging, and the widespread demand for knowledge and culture find effective, incisive and genuine responses and are not cynically sacrificed on the altar of an entirely apparent, quantitative and ephemeral growth, ultimately empty and impoverishing.
Madam President, in contrast to the previous reports, where we are in the process of forming the law, I would say that with the report which I am presenting today, we are on relatively solid ground, because Community legislation already exists in this field.
I refer here to Directive 92/100 on related rights and Directive 93/83 on intellectual property rights in the field of cable and satellite broadcasting.
I was appointed Parliament's rapporteur for the report on the directive on rights in the field of cable and satellite broadcasting, and in the debates in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights we had the opportunity of an exchange of views with the Commission on the appropriate procedure for the approval of this convention.
In view of the fact that under the previous directives, the European Union does not exercise exclusive competence with regard to these rights, we are required to apply the procedure for so-called 'mixed agreements' .
Since the European Agreement on Road Transport - the Court of Justice's judgment in the EART case, that is - there has been the idea that there has to be a special procedure for mixed agreements.
It should be recognized that the Commission has acted quite reasonably in this context, and the procedure it has proposed is regarded as acceptable by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights. I believe that Parliament should also consider it acceptable.
The proposal for a Council decision provides firstly for the signing of the convention on behalf of the European Community, subject to approval, with the opinion of the European Parliament then being required before ratification.
I believe that this is the correct procedure. In this case, moreover, there are no problems, since not only is the European Convention on the protection of copyright compatible with Community law, but it also contains a special reservation, in Article 9, whereby parties which are members of the European Community are to apply Community rules amongst themselves.
In other words, this convention will not require any modification of Community law.
It will strengthen Community law, and in fact the Council of Europe took account of the acquis communautaire in this field when drawing up the convention.
From the legal point of view, I regard the strengthening of the Community's rules by the Council of Europe's European Convention as a positive move.
With reference to certain legal aspects - and Mr Barzanti, for example, mentioned the principle of the jurisdiction of the country of origin of the broadcast - it seems that in the area of the information society, in view of the progress of digital telecommunications, whereby there is a kind of relationship between supply and demand, a kind of contract between disseminator and recipient, the law of the country of reception may be taken into account.
In the area of satellite and cable broadcasting, however, the principle which applies must be that of the unity of the act, whereby the law of the country of origin of the broadcast is taken to be the only applicable law, despite the problems which may arise from the point of view of relocation.
Indeed, I believe that the appropriate way to deal with the issue of relocation is not intellectual property law, but fiscal harmonization measures which prevent a company from taking refuge in the legislation of a given country, for example, while we continue our efforts to harmonize the law on intellectual property.
Finally, another important aspect of this convention is its conformity with the Berne Convention - as Mr Barzanti said, the Berne Convention is the cornerstone of this entire sector - and the 1961 Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations.
I believe, Madam President, that the European Parliament must approve the conclusion of this convention, so that it can be ratified without delay.
In this case - as in many others at the moment - I should like to emphasize the goodwill and spirit of cooperation between the Commission and Parliament on issues of a particularly legal nature, where it is always desirable for the Community institutions to act together.
I should just like to respond to what Mr Herman said.
He seems to feel that the whole debate is about getting everyone involved in the information society, but I think everyone already accepts that, and the real question is how we go about it and what role the authorities should play, including this House.
I also think, Mr Herman, that your report lays too little emphasis on the fact that as well as being the product of market forces, the information society is also man's handiwork, and it is what the authorities decide to do with it which will determine whether it brings benefits for ordinary people and workers.
I would remind you of one of the main points made in the report by the high-level group of experts set up by the Commission, namely that the biggest problem with the whole of the information society which we are busy creating is how to ensure that the benefits are shared fairly, and the need for the authorities to be actively involved in the market on a regular basis.
And one of the problems here is that it appears extraordinarily difficult to juggle several long-term considerations at once.
The first thing we focused on when the single market was created was liberalization, and it was only later that we started thinking about the social dimension, and later still the social impact, and this is exactly what Parliament is doing now.
It seems to find it extremely difficult to bring all the strands together, and to stop looking at things in purely economic, social or legal terms.
It is now time to adopt an integrated approach, and I entirely agree with Mr Herman that the 'Gomes' procedure is by no means the right one to use here.
But I have to point out, Mr Herman, that if you had been a little firmer in directing the procedure and not allowed it to drag on for so long, we could have dealt with the whole issue in Parliament months ago, instead of waiting until after the Commission had published its Green Paper on social impact.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the differences in the ground covered by the individual committees and in their contributions to this report already indicate the difficulties of coming to an agreement within Europe on the structuring of the information society.
It is not just a matter of procedure in committee; there are also the different cultural and national experiences which become clear from the draftsmen's various contributions.
What are the main points highlighted by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media?
Firstly - and this will come as a surprise to many people who have a fixed idea of the committee - we took a basically positive view of the information society. It is not seen as a wrong turn, culturally speaking, but as a great opportunity for cultural enrichment and a chance to increase democratic involvement.
Just as reading was not superseded following the emergence of radio and television - and nowhere does so much reading take place as in the societies which now have radio and television - the information society will in future only serve to create a new range of possibilities, with traditional modes of culture continuing to exist and not being suppressed.
Of course, the means by which these new opportunities are handled will have to change.
There will be changes in the role of teachers in education, for instance.
But in how many societies does teaching still look the same today as it did when you and I were at school? These changes are perfectly normal.
What the committee and I do not believe, however - in contrast to many public statements by Mr Bangemann and others - is that the information society and broad involvement in it are best achieved by unlimited commercialization and the dismantling of special regimes for radio and television, for example.
We are therefore making the point that there must continue to be a separate legislative arrangement for radio and television, with special criteria which may very well be graded.
Discussions must then take place on individual cases in this respect.
There is a need for continuity in decisions of the kind we have already taken here in the House on telecommunications infrastructure.
Madam President, the information society gives enormous opportunities.
Certainly in my constituency, which has large rural areas close to the Welsh border at Kington, in the Golden Valley and at Newcastle on Clun, I have seen at first hand the way in which new technology is being harnessed to create new opportunities and new jobs for ordinary people.
It is exciting, a lot of good things can happen, but there are some fears.
There are some very real fears that what we could actually be seeing is the concentration of power and privilege in the hands of the urban areas.
It is all very well saying that the massive liberalization of telecommunications and the information society will make jobs available. The thing that worries many people is that these opportunities will be concentrated in just those few hands.
I read the report from Mr Bangemann.
It worried me.
It had a sort of macho liberalization about it: we must liberalize, because if we liberalize it is going to help and it is going to work.
There are many people in rural areas who fear that what we are going to see is exactly the opposite to what that report suggests.
We need to make sure that there is a universal public service.
We need to make sure that there are adequate incentives, that there is good funding for local schemes which can work, that all corners of the European Union are strategically linked; and we need to ensure that all tariff barriers are at a flat rate within the European Union.
My great fear is that all we are going to do is to give to the favoured few and take from the many.
Madam President, I would like briefly to draw attention to the potential impact of the information society on equal opportunities.
I am speaking for the Committee on Women's Rights in this respect.
Although there are obviously positive and new opportunities which must be welcomed and exploited, there are dangers for those who may become second-class citizens of the information society.
Many women in particular may be excluded from the benefits because they do not have access to the training and the technology.
For example, recent studies have shown that only one in seven of Internet users is a woman.
It will therefore be necessary for awareness and resources and programmes to be aimed specifically at women and girls, taking into account their interests.
Secondly, the impact of the information society on the nature of work will create new employment and working practices which will have a particular impact on women: for example, an increase in tele- and home-working.
Social protection for home workers therefore becomes more necessary.
That should take into account health and safety aspects and the potential for social isolation and insecure employment situations.
The Committee on Women's Rights expects that the Commission and the social partners will address the issues of home- and teleworking and prepare proposals which recognize the effect of these new working practices.
Thirdly, since we know that information technology is being exploited for the portrayal of violent and interactive forms of pornography and racism, we must recognize that efforts at a global and European level are required to combat this.
In this Parliament and in the Commission we have the opportunity to plan so as to ensure that the citizens of Europe - men and women - benefit from the developments of the information society and from information technology.
I hope we will ensure that equal opportunities are at the forefront of our planning.
Madam President, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy expresses its satisfaction with the Commission's Green Paper on copyright and related rights in the information society.
We would like to stress that determined protection of intellectual property rights, and an approach based on the principle of equal treatment to the rights of all those who participate in the market, are prerequisites for the broadest possible development of the information society.
Within that framework, I believe the existing situation concerning copyright and related rights should be the cornerstone of the information society, and that in addition, the importance of the principle of national treatment, the principle of freedom to conclude contracts and to choose the applicable law that will govern the contract, is extremely great.
However, I would also like to stress that there is a need for some level of harmonization - or indeed clarification - of these matters, such as:
the principle of the exhaustion of rights, so that copyright will not be exhausted internationally, -the principle of distribution rights, so that the exhaustion principle will not apply to the transfer of intangible copies of works, and finally, -the principle of reproduction, to cover digital reproductions and exclude exceptions related to private use.The committee would also like to stress the importance of voluntary licensing schemes in the management of rights and in technical identification systems.
In that context, we recognize that technical identification systems will facilitate the normal exploitation of digital works and help to counter piracy.
We also recognise the need to establish harmonized rules to prohibit the manufacture, import and use of devices meant to circumvent technical measures for the protection of copyrighted works.
Finally, Madam President, we ask the Commission to collect detailed information on the economic value of activities in Europe related to works covered by copyright.
Madam President, Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the report by Mr Barzanti is a fairly full one and for that reason I will only dwell on some of its points.
First of all, concerning the harmonization of laws in the Member States dealing with authors' rights.
It is of course desirable for that harmonization to take place at the highest level, but being realistic, if we want harmonization to be achieved within the most appropriate time scale, we must begin by aiming at an intermediate level of protection.
Furthermore, provision will have to be made for effective means of monitoring the implementation of and compliance with the laws in question.
Then, concerning the matter of rights acquisition and management, the development of the creation of multimedia works complicates the problem of protecting copyright.
Indeed, the creators of such works will have to secure authorization from each author or rightholder, for all their works that they are thinking of using.
There is therefore a practical problem, that of collecting information about all the rights involved.
This is where the one-stop shop can play a part.
Of course, its precise role does not seem well enough defined.
Whether it is to operate simply as a centre for identification and the collection of information on existing rights, a thing that would simplify procedures for all the likely users, or whether it is to function as a body for the collective management of the rights associated with a given work, is not clear.
I also want to mention the issue of moral rights.
The new ways of using works inherently presuppose special treatment and adaptation.
In that event moral rights must be regarded as an obstacle and will more and more often be the subject of negotiations, because they ought not to be regarded as a source of risk.
Though it is true that contractual freedom must play its part in maximizing the information society's potential, there are risks of infringement, mainly for new authors, who may try to waive their rights and might later regret it.
Perhaps we should consider setting barriers so that this waiving of rights will not be total.
The last point to which I should like to draw your attention concerns private copying.
It seems essential to redefine what this means in the context of the information society, and effective sanctions must be introduced against private copying.
This last point is as fundamental as respect for moral rights, if we want to protect creative richness and ensure correct remuneration for authors.
The Commission's proposals on private copying are therefore awaited with great interest.
Madam President, I should like to thank Fernand Herman for his excellent report and the other rapporteurs for their reports.
I do not want to deal with a retrospective view but to look to the future, as Fernand Herman said.
On 24 July the Commission produced a new communication on the information society from Corfu to Dublin and the new emerging priorities.
And that is what this House should now be preoccupying itself with, not with a retrospective over the last two or three years.
The fact is that in Corfu in June 1994 we set down the programme for the information society.
We worked out the concept but the problem now is that we have moved on two years and we need carefully to audit how far this process has been developed and what needs to happen in the future to set a new agenda for the European Union.
As with so many issues in the European Union we start very well.
There is common cause amongst the Member States, the Commission, Council and Parliament and then, on any issue, a year or two years down the road we find that the Member States start to back off.
They get concerned about budgetary considerations and, as a result, we lose the competitive advantage that we have gained in so many areas.
We are in the same situation now with the information society.
I say to the two Commissioners present today and to Members of the House that we only need to look at what the Council is proposing on the budget for Info 2000 and on the information society to see that the Council's support for information technology does not even stretch to maintaining the budget lines that are necessary for the coming year to really develop information technology for the European Union.
I want to look specifically at the four headings that Commissioner Bangemann identified in his new communication which, no doubt, we will be discussing in this House in two years' time - because of the length of time it takes us to deal with things.
He talks about improving the business environment, investing in the future, putting people at the centre and meeting the global challenge.
These are four clear political agenda items which we in the European Union have to address.
The information technology Council meets on 8 October.
We should be saying to our Commissioners that we want them to come back after 8 October to give a statement to the House, to inform us what the Member States are now saying on information society and information technology developments. Are they going to support the budget line issues?
Are they going to put in place the sort of legislative and regulatory measures necessary to develop information technology? Are they going to provide the networks which will allow people to take advantage of the benefits of information technology in schools and public places?
Let us put to one side the conceptual arguments of the past.
We are beyond that now.
We need detailed, concrete proposals.
We need the support of the Member States.
We need the budget lines for the Commission to implement its programmes and we need a proper coherent strategy in Europe if this programme on information technology is going to benefit our people - our young people in particular.
Otherwise, the United States and the Far East will get that competitive advantage and once again Europe will have lost out.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that here, as on so many other occasions, Parliament is performing its task very well.
Today, we are not considering Parliament's legislative role, but its function as a sounding-board for the social realities which surround us.
These reports, therefore - as general ones, which perhaps have a number of technical shortcomings - reflect society's concerns.
Society is now at an historic crossroads, like few before that come to mind: perhaps the discovery of the Americas, I do not know.
It may be an even more important, more revolutionary situation, since the social realities that we now have to face will have a greater impact on our lives, and will affect our very being in a more intimate way, than any others in the past.
At present, the two tendencies between which humanity has always vacillated are in the process of crystallizing: fear of the unknown and the challenge of discovering new lands. And that is what these reports reflect: noise and confusion.
We have no clear idea of what is going to happen or where we are going.
And the reason why we have no clear idea is because of the emergence of what is undoubtedly the fundamental debate: market forces or legislation?
Should we give priority to the liberalization of the market, the promotion of industry, leaving the rest to come of its own accord? Or should we, on the contrary, take the view that the way to create order is through legislation, since the market left to its own devices will never bring about social order?
And at this crossroads, we must ask ourselves: is the law capable of creating that order? Because there is no doubt that our present legal instruments are unable to provide a response to these new social facts, and are incapable of bringing order to these new realities which are emerging.
And the other major question which we must ask ourselves today is: does it make sense to debate and address, within the context of the European Union, realities which are a global phenomenon and must undoubtedly be examined in international forums? Of course, I realize that, as always, it is the law which will provide our Ariadne's thread, and the thinking must come from a European Union which speaks with one voice.
This is because all these new realities are calling into question the two basic principles of our legal orders: the distinction between the public and the private sectors, and the dual concepts of territoriality and sovereignty - the foundations of our national legal orders, which are now beginning to crack.
And we must seek this Ariadne's thread, in order to be able to find our way out of the labyrinth of social demands: firstly, as regards the relationships between private individuals, by seeking to strike a balance between copyright and the rights of other persons with legitimate interests which require legal protection, as well as addressing the issues of the protection of privacy and public freedoms, especially the right to information.
Also, our thinking must take account of certain general interests which we cannot ignore - beginning with the general interest of promoting creative activity in Europe, of defending what has been the distinguishing feature of European copyright and is inseparably linked, in cultural terms, to European creative power.
Lastly, there can be no doubt that we must take account of other general interests which fall entirely within the concept of public order - especially the interests of groups such as children, who must be protected from this uncontrollable avalanche of new technologies. Society as a whole must be protected from organized crime, which may exploit this unregulated scenario for the benefit of its corrupt interests.
And we must consider the question of international public order in terms of the law that is to be applicable.
I believe, therefore, that the response to all these issues must be to recognize that the European Union constitutes the essential framework for joint action. Because the European Union contains the seeds of a political structure whose purpose is precisely to meet society's new challenges.
And finally, Madam President, in the face of this noise and confusion, we must return to our traditional legal principles: those which enabled the Sabinians and Proclians to respond to the social realities of classical Rome, and which are still relevant today.
Madam President, information is not any old commodity, and perhaps it is not even a commodity. Mr Herman was right to say so in his introduction; he made it clear in presenting his long and painstaking report which is an important document, indeed fundamental, at an important time for information, and which has our support.
In the years ahead it will in fact be information that will make the difference in every area of application. Think of the economic opportunities offered to small and medium-sized enterprises where the development of technology will bring time-saving and efficiency, thus allowing the entrepreneurs to be entrepreneurs at last and create new jobs.
In social policy the new technology already affects a vast range of areas, from health to tax. There are thousands of other encounters between technology and telecommunications, including the organization of the needs of the citizens as consumers, from deregulation - that is, less bureaucracy at public authority counters - to the possibility that the public may finally serve the private.
In this scenario - as Mr Barzanti rightly said - policy threatens to stand idly by and watch.
Our institutional role requires that we do not allow that to happen.
So we must work even harder to preserve respect for private life and for there to be a strict separation between public and private, between the collective and the individual.
In conclusion, there must be certainty about rights: the right to respect for subsidiarity, the right to free movement - arguments so dear to Commissioner Monti - copyright, a moral and material right combined, and ultimately the right of the final user.
Madam President, I shall be speaking about copyright as it is applied to the field of multi-media because it can be considered, as a result of its complexity, as a laboratory where various questions are raised and call for new responses.
Copyright also concerns culture, economics and the question of freedom.
It brings into play diverse interests which need to be reconciled: the interests of authors, those of producers and distributors and those of the consuming public.
Copyright has two aims, and those aims contradict each other: protecting authors and producing new products quickly and in large quantities.
The Commission Green Paper is an exhaustive list of the different issues but it is less secure when it puts forward solutions which have not yet had time to mature.
The Barzenti report, for its part, puts forward some important ideas which are still necessarily general and which need to be emphasised and supported.
It speaks of preserving the richness of the European concept of moral rights as opposed to the American concept of 'copyright' , aimed at harmonising the laws on copyright and related rights in the 15 Member States of the European Union, making progress on a study of technical systems for identifying works which can be rapidly used, already providing for sanctions against anyone who tries technically to eradicate the protection systems that have been created, at promoting cooperation between the Member States and linking their work with the competent international organisations, the WTO, the WIPO and the TRIS, without forgetting the important discussions taking place at the Council of Europe and UNESCO, and including agreements with third countries' copyright protection clauses, in an attempt to make all of the rules on this subject universally applicable.
Some of these points raise difficult questions and I would like to refer in particular to the concepts of copyright concerning employees.
Nana Mouskouri, the rapporteur for the Committee on Culture for this report, emphasizes the role of libraries and cultural and educational establishments, the importance of informing and raising the awareness of small independent producers on questions of copyright, refers to the desirable interdepartmental cooperation at the Commission so that all discussions can be carefully linked on aspects of content and technology, and insists on the urgent need to rationalize all of this work through the collective question of rights.
I shall conclude by saying that we can see that there are, however, more questions than answers but Europe must know that it cannot lose the multi-media battle, it knows that it is lagging behind and it knows that copyright lies at the very heart of the matter.
This is a field where subsidiarity means that this matter must compulsorily be dealt with at European level which is the only efficient way of doing so.
Madam President, the report contains many important observations on societal effects, but also some contradictions and uncertainty as regards the long-term consequences.
The Committee on Regional Policy, for example, fears centralization, while the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, for its part, believes in decentralization.
The Committee on Women's Rights sounds a warning.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy approves of teleworking, but we are not told anything about the risk of weak negotiating positions or the lack of creative contact with work colleagues.
The question is: how are we to guard against the commercial information flow leading to unintelligibility, lack of quality and fragmented awareness?
Finally: who takes power when everything is geared to reducing public control? The Commission's neo-liberal arrogance is scaring to any democrat.
Madam President, I should like to thank our colleague Mr Herman for his very broad approach, which has paved the way for what I consider to be the first genuinely broad debate on the information society in this House.
Clearly, this topic concerns a development which is nothing short of a global revolution.
Its impact on our everyday lives and on global relations is enormous, and it is therefore a good thing that we should have the opportunity to discuss various aspects at the same time.
I myself am among those who wish to stress the fact that these opportunities which are provided by the information society require clear political guidance.
Just as Mr Svensson has said, some believe in decentralization while others perceive the dangers of centralization; there are those who are glad that jobs are being dispersed through tele-working, while others consider this development risky.
Our duty as politicians is to lay down the framework for this.
I myself wish to stress education, to which attention is laudably devoted in this report.
As the Committee on Women's Rights has previously said in these debates, we have no reason to allow the development of a two-speed information society.
The proposal that a tax of half a percent should be imposed on data traffic, in accordance with Mrs Cresson's model, is an interesting one.
I should like to hear what members of the Commission think about this.
It would not be a bad idea if this revenue were to be used for education, to enable women and other people in disadvantaged positions to join the information society.
However, would the tax have to be collected mainly from manufacturers of the information society's technical infrastructure rather than users, since we ought to encourage users to join the information society, to ensure that everyone has the opportunity?
In Finland we used to have a tax on data transmission, but we abandoned it very quickly because in reality it was hampering the development of the information society.
It was levied from users of data communications, not from producers.
Madam President, I would like to thank Mr Herman for working at such speed and trying to guide us through the revolution that we are in the middle of.
I would like to concentrate on the regional and cultural social aspects.
We must have the guarantee of a universal public service reaching into even the remotest places, for example to the 90 inhabited islands in my constituency.
We do not want a two-speed Europe with an information society benefiting only the industrialized regions.
We do not want the marginalization of the peripheries and the over-centralization which could occur.
The information society really can enhance lives for people on the periphery.
Distance learning is developing very rapidly in the UK, for example.
We have hopes that it will help the creation of a highlands and islands university, linking all the colleges right across my vast terrain through this modern technology.
On the cultural side, I welcome the special role for public service broadcasting in minority languages because the cultural diversity of our Union must be one of the things we treasure the most.
Each language is a vital part of Europe's heritage and the information society will assist the nurturing of these precious languages.
I want to see free access to information networks for schools, cultural bodies, libraries, community centres, etc.
We must make sure that this information society makes it possible for people to be in control of information rather than information controlling the people.
Unless we emphasize the social and regional aspects, however, the positive advantages of the information society may be lost to us all.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it appears that the Commission's aim in this document is not really to protect human beings from an information society which can be devastating in terms of people's private lives - as vaguely hinted in the text - but also for the individual who is turned into a labour commodity in the name of this concept which is becoming a ubiquitous one in Community documents: competition.
Are not people allowing themselves be brought to the level of mere service-providers? What kind of protection is to be given to those who work in the media industry, now and in the future?
Are they going to be paid on a piecework basis, as they were in the nineteenth century? A fine advance in social policy that is!
What kind of society are you trying to build?
I am speaking here to the Members of the Commission, naturally, but also to my colleagues.
The information society can be a great asset, as we all know, but it is only available to a small number of people, whereas the benefits should be distributed fairly.
The document we have here, which purports to be in the interests of free competition, will only lead to more inequality.
People will become more and more like commodities.
Through the information society, in fact, an ever wider gulf is being created between the Europe of humanist values and an unrealistic, possibly even suicidal Union that would like to impose a development model on what is an extremely unstable economic and social situation.
Such an approach smacks of a colonialism that no longer seems to me to be appropriate.
Perhaps you feel that colonialism is rather a strong word to use, but it fits the facts.
The idea of competition as advocated by the Commission sits uncomfortably alongside social progress.
In this case, applying ultra-liberal beliefs to Europe is colonialism in disguise. Why?
It is for the Commission to supply the answer.
How? Here, sadly, the Commission has already supplied it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Herman has covered the main views of our group.
I should nevertheless like to point out once again that his report has of course been modified by the others, so that the main features of our position do not emerge.
I think it is a good thing that Mr Herman has now produced a further report, following a two-year gap.
The situation has changed completely in the meantime.
Two years ago, only a few people wanted to speak on this subject.
Today, many people wish to air their views, and in those two years since Mr Bangemann and his group presented a report, an action plan has been drawn up and many changes have taken place.
I believe it is important that we in Parliament should discuss this question, in order to show the public where the path is leading and to invite them to discuss it too.
Mr Herman called on us to pull ourselves together in order to achieve a specific goal, and the reservations must not be allowed to stand in the way of everything.
The development of the information society represents one of the greatest challenges for Europe.
The new services offer our citizens not only undreamt-of scope for information, training, entertainment and use of a wide range of facilities, but are a challenge for our Member States and for the regions in terms of education in schools.
As has been said many times, we really do have a great responsibility here to connect our schools to the Internet, to provide media education in schools, and especially to do all we can in universities to ensure that teachers are trained in media education.
Nothing is more important than to make children and young people accustomed to using the screen every day, even at primary school level, and to eliminate any anxieties and perhaps fears through this media education.
And it is not just in Europe that initiatives are being launched to connect schools to the Internet: in America, they are already the order of the day.
As rapporteur for the report on trans-European telecommunications networks, I am in fact sorry that we spend a great deal of time talking, but hesitate when it comes to implementing these telecommunications networks and then express a large number of reservations.
I feel it is extremely important - and this is made clear in the report - to bind in the weak areas of Europe, the weaker elements in the Community.
By comparison with our international trading partners, the providers of new services in Europe suffer a number of competitive disadvantages, such as high telecommunications costs, partially inadequate bandwidths for networks and a lack of risk capital, as well as Europe's fragmentation into national markets, which prevents European firms from developing sufficient benefits of scale.
Creating and maintaining a truly European internal market for the services of the information society must therefore be our principal concern.
The Commission has recently presented a communication and a proposal for a directive on the establishment of a procedure for the exchange of data on legislative cooperation regarding services in the information society.
This is a welcome move, since fragmentation into national legislative procedures will put Europe at a further disadvantage.
I see it as extremely important that we should pursue this legislative initiative, so that we can then in fact develop uniform legislation in Europe.
We should at least receive information on legislation in good time, so as not to create unnecessary obstacles.
Finally, during the budgetary procedure, we should definitely reinstate the budget lines which were included for Info 2000 or the trans-European networks, because while we can adopt white papers on employment and make fine speeches here, unless we create the relevant budget lines, the preconditions for the development of Europe will unfortunately not exist and will be obstructed.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at this turn of the century, the information society is no longer just a passing fad.
It represents a priority for Europe which should be reaffirmed at both Union and Member State level.
The Commission's communication on Europe and the information society which followed Commissioner Bangemann's report was, we should remember, warmly welcomed by the Council at the Corfu summit in 1994, when it was hoped that the various measures envisaged in the action plan would be carried out on schedule.
We should now commend the Commission on its determination to implement this action plan.
Let us also remember that the question of the information society, which is the key issue in Mr Bangemann's report, has been given priority status, in particular by the German and French presidencies in 1995. It is therefore gratifying to see that some of the initiatives are taking shape in terms of both rules and practical applications in various parts of the Union.
We should also welcome the new partnerships between towns, regions and the private sector.
We are now seeing that the information society has made significant progress at European level.
Here, to refresh our memories, are just a few examples: the approval of a liberal regulatory framework for the telecommunications sector; the adoption and implementation of research and development programmes under the fourth FPRD; in the fields of information technology and telecommunications, programmes have been adopted with the aim of encouraging the development of networks and the implementation of pilot projects under the auspices of the G7; and, finally, there have been many initiatives connected with information superhighways in the Member States, particularly France.
Our group believes that Mr Herman's report is heading in the right direction.
In particular, he stresses the urgent need for an action plan with priorities for implementation: research and development, bringing services on stream and promoting operational applications in areas of public interest - education, health and social exclusion - and standardization.
Similarly, the approach set out in the report in terms of industrial and telecommunications policy, like the description of the legal aspects and social consequences, is well judged.
As a result, the Union for Europe Group will support Mr Herman's report, while nevertheless expressing certain reservations about the creation of a European regulatory body in the communications sector.
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating Commissioner Bangemann on being a champion of the information society that is so critically important for the future of Europe and our competitiveness.
We need that, despite the degrading of focus we have seen over the years, which Alan Donnelly described so well a few speeches ago.
I wish to make two quick points.
Firstly, the information society provides us with an opportunity to equalize the differences that are a consequence of distance in the Union, particularly for rural areas, one of which I represent.
We need to take up that challenge, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises that are particularly prolific in the economies of those regions.
Funnily enough, in many respects I welcome the idea of taxation or a small levy on information, because here we have an opportunity for hypothecation of taxation and actually putting money back in and reinvesting it in an area where it can be spent.
Also, we need to ensure that technologies like ISDN have equal access - in the UK it is very expensive to get access to that.
I would warn Parliament: firstly, we have to be a lot quicker than we have been over this report.
Secondly, would it not be much better if we built a more virtual parliament, rather than the investment we have seen in this building opposite? Billions of ecus have been spent on that, when we should instead be immediately improving our own electronic technology in this Parliament.
Madam President, both the Green Paper from the Commission and the report by Mr Barzanti adopt a stance of critical openness towards the challenge of new information technology.
This is something different from the line of 'we must join in' , as has been pointed out here this morning.
It is a position for which the House owes thanks to both parties, and one which it should support.
One thing is particularly important to me in this context, namely to protect the individual freedom of artists and their works against the interests and technological pressures of marketing.
Certainly, as Mr Barzanti said, what we must do here is to stress and not abandon the achievements of traditional copyright in the Berne Convention.
However, I wonder whether the nineteenth-century copyright geared to the originality of the author and the copyright law based on intellectual property are sufficient to meet the new technical challenges.
Today, in my view, the point is more the individual freedom of the author to assert his rights, together with freedom of public access.
Art cannot and should not become information.
Rather, it should facilitate information and freedom of information.
Only when it is free to do this can we ensure that the information society does not become one of deformation.
Mr Bangemann, I should like to address myself to you directly, and of course to Mr Herman, as rapporteur, and Mr Barzanti.
You, Mr Bangemann, were the main player at European level in the creation of this information society.
We are now in the midst of it, for better or for worse.
What is still a matter for dispute - and I believe we must dispute it very seriously - is what kind of society this should be.
We need to dispute what kind of face it should have in the future.
We need to dispute what kind of responsibility the state should have in this new game.
The responsibility of the state must be different from in the past.
The state will have to take responsibility for regulation, and has already done so.
Regulation is a means of creating stability.
For example, it is understandable that there is a wish to control the Internet at the moment.
It is understandable that people wish to secure more protection for the individual through controls.
What the state should do - and you and we will bear considerable responsibility here - is to ensure this protection on the one hand, without restricting the freedom of speech of the individual and the business world on the other.
This will not be easy.
It will depend on striking an even balance, and on this balance also being established at international level.
It will involve setting up a new moral code which incorporates the old moral ideas which we certainly have throughout the world, but adds something new to them.
And we shall have to fight for that new element.
In this new world, it will not be possible to have the right for everyone to impose their own interests, for anyone to be able to publish as much pornography as they like, for anyone to feed as much violence as they like into the Internet.
But there must be the freedom for anyone to publish views which they consider right and relevant.
This is a border area where it will be very difficult to strike the right balance.
That is one side of things.
However, the state has a second and, to my mind, far more important responsibility here.
It must create a basis on which all citizens - and all regions, as has been pointed out - can have access to this new network and to these new opportunities which are developing at present.
Computers, hardware, software, the Internet, the Worldwide Web - they are all just means of providing access to information.
Access to information is the crucial element, that is what is new.
It will be new to search for things, to obtain knowledge.
It will be new to create a new quality of education in Europe and throughout the world.
And it will be new to create intellectual capital, as the current jargon has it. How will Europe participate in this?
What opportunities are we to give our citizens? Universal service alone is not the answer.
Even with universal service - at least as we understand it at present - the costs are still too high.
How will the future look? How will we connect our citizens and the regions?
Do you not think, Mr Bangemann, that it is time to discuss how we are going to connect all the schools, all the universities and libraries in Europe to this new infrastructure?
Do you not think it is time that we, as political agents of change, gave expression to our responsibility for this process by establishing a European initiative to open up access to these new sources of information for schools, regions and libraries? Do you not think we should ensure that there is no discrepancy at European level, that we do not reach a situation of having some countries which, because of the cost structure or because they are lagging behind in this process of development, cannot become involved as soon as others?
What is your answer to these critical questions, which have yet to be resolved?
I would call for us to embark on this process at an early stage, and to find a truly European answer.
Mr President, the European Parliament welcomes the fact that the Commission has recognized, in its Green Paper on the information society, that if we support the development of the information society, we must at the same time support this being accompanied by a precise definition of the rights of the parties involved. Where does privacy stand in the new information society?
Does the individual have any opportunity of determining what data are entered in the system? And, conversely, who can check that the information which our children, for example, sit and lap up from the Internet should be made public in the first place?
If ordinary people are to be able to choose among information on the Internet, we need to be prepared for this. And that will only be the case when we concentrate specifically on looking after and educating both children and adults.
Another point which concerns me is who can afford to surf the Internet? If it is the same people who can afford to surf in Barbados, then we have a problem.
Ordinary people cannot afford to leave their telephone lines open and connected to the Internet.
The information society is therefore not for everyone, but only for the few.
However, it is a development which is under way, and we should be pleased that it is happening and that we can follow it.
We should simply stay in control of this development - it should not be in control of us.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Herman on an excellent report which I think certainly has captured the imagination in terms of how we must proceed into the information age.
Of course Mr Bangemann's original report was in itself very visionary in that it described the type of future that we want to see here in Europe, because one thing is certain: if Europe is going to be competitive in the next century with the United States and the developing countries in Asia, what we need to do is develop our key technologies, in particular in the information industries, to ensure that Europe and the single market will be a success, not only for the present, but for the foreseeable future as well.
This involves ensuring that the information infrastructure is actually present and can be used freely and cheaply at a rate which benefits businesses, communities and society as a whole.
The freer and the quicker that information can move about the community, the quicker the improvement to the economy can be.
That infrastructure is like the arteries of the economy. The arteries of an economy are like the arteries of the human body.
I would particularly like to draw attention to the emphasis on broadcasting, because in the past terrestrial broadcasting developed in a way which was limited in terms of bandwidth and in terms of the amount of information that could be passed around.
The new infrastructure, whether it is through digital techniques in satellite or through fibre-optic techniques, actually increases the number of channels that can be delivered throughout the Union and this will add to and proliferate the amount of information circulating within the Union.
This in turn will develop the need for software to make it easier for people to access the information they need.
If there are hundreds of channels, people need to be able to access the information they are after quickly and easily rather than flicking through channels in a way which we have done previously with conventional television equipment.
This means that our research and technology institutions and our universities need to be involved in developing this new software if we are to stay in competition.
Unfortunately, at this stage the running is being made by American companies and we are much slower in catching up on development of this software.
With the initiatives that are going on in the European Union in developing this software, I would like to think that we can actually catch up and eventually take the lead.
Mr President, starting out from the premise that the law must be applied for the benefit of all, we are today faced with an issue of crucial importance for the world of culture and communications.
We are in complete agreement with Mr Barzanti when he emphasizes the need to strike a fair balance between the protection of copyright and the protection of rights which may reasonably be invoked by consumers; and we are especially concerned that this balance should be maintained.
It is for this reason that we wish the protection of copyright and related rights to be given priority over any other imperative in the use of these new technologies.
On the other hand, we believe it is unacceptable for exclusive rights to be improperly granted to transmit information which ought to be disseminated by all the communications media to the widest possible public.
This is a debate which is familiar to the House from numerous reports, and in which my group will continue to maintain this stance.
Not long ago, here in the House, the European United Left warned Parliament of the need to be aware of the possible dangers: the new dangers which the introduction of new technologies into the information society might bring.
We thus considered it important to table an amendment providing for a report to be drawn up on public service in the Community, in which account is taken of the effects of the rapid development of the information society, on the basis that protection of the artist is one of the key principles for ensuring freedom of access to the new media.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Role of public service television
The next item is the report (A4-0243/96) by Ms Tongue, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the role of public service television in a multimedia society.
Mr President, I am glad that Commissioner Monti and Commissioner Bangemann are here today, particularly Commissioner Bangemann.
Sadly we have very little time.
I will not be able to answer all the points you have made to us in your reply but I will be making some very key points about how my group and, I believe, an overwhelming majority of this Parliament feel about public service broadcasting.
Television is quite obviously the modern tool for information, education and entertainment.
These were the words that christened the BBC.
They are the principles by which it and other European public service broadcasters have stood.
Let us begin by defining public service broadcasting in its original, first form: television.
It is available to everyone.
It offers a reference for our own national and European identity.
It ensures a range of opinion, debate and balanced reporting.
It broadens the choice of programming, catering to all tastes in our population.
It is independent politically, editorially and financially.
In sum, public service television represents the foundation stone of healthy, interactive, democratic societies.
Television's power lies in its value as a common reference point for millions of people.
Television has the power to unite us, just as it can divide us.
We as citizens can be united through public service broadcasters' endeavours or divided, Mr Bangemann, through niche marketing of hundreds of commercial channels.
Let us remember that public service television's duty is to put quality first and promote pluralism for the public interest.
Commercial channels' first responsibility is to advertisers and to shareholders.
Our duty and PSB's duty are one and the same: to serve all European citizens.
The key is public service broadcasting.
Firstly, why is it a key to our economic success? Dominant global players do not always use their economic power to support the European audio-visual industry, an industry which could employ two million more people by the year 2000.
But public service broadcasters, on the other hand, invest in new European talent, support production, encourage innovation and take risks that would otherwise not be taken by commercial channels.
Public service broadcasters are quite simply Europe's Hollywood.
The BBC alone invests £1.2 billion per year in new programming, more than the total investment in our film industry.
But its considerable potential in Europe's economic portfolio will be lost unless it is properly sustained and nurtured by broadcasters, governments and the European Union.
Secondly, PSBs are the key to preserving our culture, our tradition and our heritage.
Broadcasting is the modern story-teller.
Yes, you had some stories to tell us, Mr Bangemann.
It is the mirror of our society.
Here I attack all broadcasters because they make insufficient reference to Europe.
If, for example, our television makes no reference to our continent, how will future generations learn about our continent? We should be able to depend on our public service broadcasters to fulfil this role.
In contrast, commercial television's often constrained reliance on cheap second-hand American imports will be at the expense of original European programme production and will eventually cost our European civilization dear.
Thirdly, public service broadcasting is the key to democratic free information.
The digital era should, as you have said, Commissioners, herald greater choice, full access to programmes for all audiences, for all citizens.
Instead we are in danger of witnessing a trend toward a society of those who can afford the privilege of impartial information and those who cannot; those who can afford to watch our national sporting treasures and those who cannot.
What will the Commission say to Mr Kirch when it comes to the broadcasting of the next two World Cups? We await that with interest.
We trust they will broadcast on free-to-air television.
Democracies rely on equal access to balanced information for everyone.
This is a basic civil and cultural right which must define the digital age.
Consequently, as my report says, this is what we must do.
First of all I ask the Commission to take note of the vote today and among a number of things, to support public service and public service broadcasting in the future revised treaties; ensure equal access for all using all types of transmission in the digital age; reinforce methods of funding and permit European public service broadcasters to jointly bid for rights.
To sum up, Michael Grade, chief executive of Channel 4 Television, put it in a nutshell: ' A division is growing between channels whose primary purpose is public service and those which are obviously businesses seeking to maximize profit.'
Perhaps the best medicine is to make sure that the public service broadcasters - those who put the public interest first, those who are committed to sustaining a creative, non-derivative production base - are properly supported, sustained and properly funded.
We have to provide for Europe, for our industry, our peoples, our democracy.
We must provide for public service broadcasting within the provisions made for Europe: that is, in our treaties.
(Applause )
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I simply want to express my full agreement with the report presented to us.
I would only emphasize that public service broadcasting, as has just been said, has specific features and particular aims to pursue.
These features and aims need to be updated today in the context of the mixed system and the prospect of globalization of the market.
There is no European model of public service, but there are common problems.
As a public service, the public broadcasters are located in the market and must try to compete without craving unjustified privileges.
They must certainly accept the challenges of competition but if, for instance, - as Commissioner Bangemann pointed out just now - resources seem unlimited and there is no point in maintaining past attitudes, it has to be specified that while this is potentially true, the technological resources are enormous, yet the economic resources have to be there to grasp them and the technical and material resources have to be there to exploit them.
So this is the point: while the public service is part of the market and as such cannot expect monopolistic privileges or some kind of special position, dominating advertising income and so on, because it is a public service geared to society, it has a right to such funding and such support as can further strengthen independence, autonomy and the presence of new services, in the new productive capacities which are necessary today because the public service must be equal to the challenges which it too must take up.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bangemann has already ushered in this debate.
What interests me is how he did in that quiz show, at what point he thought of the name and answered the question.
And I am also interested by his attitude to popular music.
I can remember the popular song 'Join us on the yellow waggon' being a great success some years ago, but now we do not hear it quite so often.
Turning to the matter in hand, there is no doubt that everyone here wishes to have the dual system.
In all the countries of the European Union, we need public service broadcasting, and of course private broadcasting as well.
I know that public service broadcasting - in Germany, at least, but in other countries too - was built on the traditions of the early years, and that this founding period was also an important one for the Federal Republic, especially as regards the emergence of a basic democratic order.
As some of you may be aware, for a number of years I was chairman of the Broadcasting Council of the Norddeutscher Rundfunk , so I know the strengths and weaknesses of public service broadcasting.
And who does not have weaknesses?
I have the impression that this report is trying to highlight the position of public service broadcasting at the expense of others.
In my opinion, it will not help us to make progress in future discussions if we launch an attack on private broadcasting in this report at European level.
Things do not have to be done in this way: the important assets of public service broadcasting can be enhanced without resorting to attacks.
The PPE Group has tried to remove the negative tone from this report, and has partially succeeded.
I hope that we shall have some further success.
For that, our amendments will have to be adopted.
Public service broadcasting is not only being discussed in this report.
We also had an intensive discussion as regards the substance of public service broadcasting in connection with the television directive.
And we shall be doing so again.
It is not a good thing that the public service broadcasting lobby is intervening on such a scale, for example with regard to Article 1, that everything which is emerging there in terms of new services also has to be classed as broadcasting in order to be involved on the basis of national legislation.
I think everyone is entitled to be involved, it is simply not right that it always has to be funded, and so I can only give public service broadcasting the good advice not to operate so superficially all the time here.
That does not help any of us to make progress.
We have also discussed the topic of public service broadcasting in the debate on rights to sporting events, on the basis of the own-initiative report by Mrs Castellina.
I said on that occasion too that it is not very helpful for us to create images of an enemy, and to extol public service broadcasting as the only true guardian of broadcasting culture.
The point has already been made that we can see weaknesses in public service broadcasting which need to be eliminated in order to make it strong in two ways - strong in competition with private broadcasters and strong at European level against the background of the discussions taking place worldwide.
We need rules which apply across the board, which provide scope for all the fields of interest in Europe to be developed.
My advice is to take a far more relaxed approach to the subject - and I say this to Ms Tongue in particular - without making the unfortunate experiences in our own countries the watchword at European level.
Nor do I believe that we can deal with and resolve here the problems which exist in Italy, and perhaps in the United Kingdom.
Our concern should be to develop the pan-European dimension, so as to create a sound position for public service broadcasting in the future and ensure that it has the capacity to survive.
I believe we are on the right track, provided we do not create images of an enemy and do not respond to others simply with prejudice.
Mr President, an own-initiative report by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, as approved by the Bureau of Parliament, is today giving us an opportunity to express our views on the role of public service television in an increasingly media-oriented society.
I would take this opportunity to say yes to public service television, provided that its terms of reference are well defined and that it meets criteria of quality and morality which justify its public financing and guarantee viewers, whoever and wherever they may be, access to information, culture, education, sport and fiction.
Moreover, this does not rule out partnerships between public service television and private, theme-based channels, if such a choice were to be appropriate.
The audiovisual sector cannot be treated as an ordinary commercial product.
The new services are being called upon to expand - and Mr Bangemann will not contradict me - but they will need consumers' money for this, and they will not be accessible to everyone.
The constant spiralling of television rights for sport in general, and football in particular, should make us stop and think.
On the one hand, the cost of these rights plays a part in increasing the price of players and, on the other, it forces the channels into an increasingly frenetic search for ever more profitable advertising, in order to pay for these rights.
Even worse, it also has the effect of leading the channels to show the cheapest possible films, thereby offering us an excess of American productions.
I would ask those of you who advocate a liberal, enterprising and commercial approach if you really believe that you can market everything? Have you ever imagined a world in which education, sport, health and public order would form part of a purely commercial environment, leaving market practices a free hand?
No, ladies and gentlemen, trade and free enterprise are not everything.
Sadly, we have seen how freedom can turn sex into a marketable commodity, no doubt to the point where it has created consumers for the product, given rise to fantasies and generated a trade which, I am afraid, is all too profitable.
We are already seeing racism and xenophobia being marketed on the Internet.
Let us beware of exploitation of the weak by the strong.
The State should be the guarantor of morals as well as public health.
In saying yes to public service television, I am giving it the necessary power.
Mr President, the Tongue report - and how could it be called anything else with such a fervent author? - is a courageous and exhaustive report.
But, in my opinion, it is not a completely balanced one.
Defending public service in television is something which obviously has to be done but confusing public service with public television is both inconsistent and an error.
Public service may and must be performed by public and private operators alike.
It should also be present in all broadcasting systems, be they digital or analogue, by cable or satellite.
It is a duty for Member States to create the conditions which allow this to be so.
And it is the duty of operators to take a social approach to their duties and to fulfil the obligations implied in this.
What are the priorities for a public service in the European Union? To offer quality and diversity, setting up a cultural reference from this point of view.
Informing and stimulating the discussion of ideas, consolidating the sentiment of citizenship.
Contributing to the strengthening of the European spirit, distributing products of various origins and fostering exchanges and co-productions between the Member States.
Promoting means of access for different groups of citizens to the airwaves and not just the traditional approach of setting aside time for political parties and both sides of industry, thereby contributing towards a renewal of the very exercise of democracy.
Public service in television is a fundamental concept in a democratic society.
Reference should be made to this in the Treaty on the Union, which is now being revised.
It is neither fair nor useful that we should limit this public service to public operators.
If private operators also cooperate I think that public television as we know it now will see that its days are numbered.
To conclude, Mr President, I call on the Commission to take a more far-reaching approach to the concept of public service in the Green Paper on new services, and I call for this as an urgent matter because time flies in the world of telecommunications.
I call on public and private operators alike to use the enormous power they have to win over viewers and audiences instead of being won over by them.
Finally, I should like to call on the Member States to assume their responsibilities, setting a solid economic base for the European programme-making industry, now making some progress with the Guarantee Fund, giving backing to Europe-wide distributors already in existence and wholeheartedly assuming the costs of the public service as the best way of revitalising democracy.
Commissioner Bangemann, you are amazed at our concern about the public service and tell us no-one wants to call the public service into question!
Now, if our committee has decided to choose this very issue of public service for one of our extremely rare initiative reports, it is because we are giving notice, in the new situation being created by the new technology and the ongoing processes of liberalization and privatization, gravely threatening the public service, not that there is an intention to eliminate it, but certainly that there is a tendency to marginalize it because it is not in a position to stand up to competition on the global market.
Hence the need to reaffirm its role and importance and demand the measures required to ensure the performance of that role.
On regulatory measures, we are very concerned that the directive on defending pluralism promised us for many years - and the existence of a strong public service is essential here - should have been further adjourned by the College of Commissioners.
And when I say regulatory measures I also mean regulatory measures which allow the public service to be autonomous from the market.
In fact the characteristic feature is being autonomous from the market, more independent, and being able to perform a role which commercial television, dependent on the market, cannot perform.
Commissioner, do you know what market demand is today? It is almost entirely video games and pornography.
Do we want the great information society, with all the new technologies, to have been invented just to provide us with a few video games, some TV shopping and a spot of pornography? Do we entrust the school, with its very important educational role, to the rules of competition of the market?
Certainly we do not.
The television of today has a much greater impact on the education of children than school itself.
Therein lies the delicacy of the problem and the need to preserve a role for the public service which cannot be preserved just by applying the idea of universal service.
To extend the principle of universal service to telecommunications, to confuse that with public service broadcasting, would in fact be a very grave error.
And that is why, Mr Bangemann, this Parliament's Committee on Culture is not raving when it asks for the public service to be strengthened.
The same line is taken in the document from the Information Society Forum, which you yourself created, and it lays great stress on this concept.
The same line is taken in the resolutions from the Assembly of the Council of Europe, extremely concerned, like us, about the marginalization of the public service. The Court of Karlsruhe itself, in your country, Commissioner, pronounced judgement along these lines stating that it is unthinkable that the public service should not maintain a central role because that is a constitutional principle.
Mr President, first of all I want to congratulate the rapporteur for her passionate expression of a point of view which finds wide convergence even inside the Commission.
In a sense this report completes the debate on the Television without Frontiers directive and also the debate in this Chamber on the transmission of major sporting events.
For these very reasons, and following on from the debate which has already taken place inside the European Parliament, it has to be said that it is necessary, and certainly important, to provide guarantees to ensure the future of public television.
It is not a question of limiting the role of commercial television, or having them compete against each other.
They have different roles but precisely because they are different, precisely because there are differences between the various countries, there is a need for measures to ensure that public television is properly guaranteed and supported and can develop an important and crucial function in building European citizenship. In fact in this respect - as the rapporteur said - it fulfils a role that is more than multicultural, that is European, not national, to guarantee education and information independent of the respective governments and achieve the full potential of pluralism.
For these reasons public television should not be confused with commercial television, it must have its own leading role, but nor must it become state television in a negative sense.
The new technology raises enormous problems, but precisely for these reasons there is a need to guarantee a proper future for public service television.
Mr President, maintaining public service television in the Member States is an extremely important issue.
For this reason, we have to thank and congratulate Carole Tongue for taking on this difficult report.
Like her, I believe that we must strive to maintain this very special area of broadcasting. Let us not be naive.
We must recognize that the expansion of the information society has changed the terms of the debate. The main problem today is ensuring equal access to the channels that have increased in number as a result of new technology, which is more important than the power struggle between public and commercial television.
But we all know that geographic, social and cultural differences are hindering open access.
However, I believe that public service television will only achieve its objectives if it meets three requirements.
The first is respect for viewers, regardless of age, origins or situation.
Public television therefore ought to be pluralist and democratic, and should stop imitating the commercial television channels in their mad dash to increase audience ratings.
The second requirement is for public service television to fulfil its educational role, particularly in terms of visual education.
It is all too often forgotten that viewers, especially very young ones, have to learn how to decipher images.
Thirdly, public service television should be helping to instil responsibility in those who watch it.
It is therefore to the viewers as citizens that it should be addressing itself.
Finally, I should like to say once again that in order to establish a truly European audiovisual sector, we need public service television that is open and dynamic.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are indeed having a debate here.
And that is why I now have the chance, for the first time, of taking up Mr Bangemann's final words and turning round this privilege to some extent.
Clearly, Mr Bangemann, we have the same preferences in terms of what we do not particularly enjoy watching.
The key political difference between us, however, is that both Ms Tongue and myself, like the committee, take the view that the European system of public service broadcasting should not be developed backwards so as to resemble the American PBS, with all the rest of the market being served purely on a commercial basis.
That is where the political difference lies.
For this reason, public service broadcasting must also be in a position to offer something across the range of sport and entertainment.
This means that public service broadcasting - I agree with you - must engage in competition, but it must be able to do so on equal terms.
So the Commission, for example, should not prevent the rights to sporting events from being purchased jointly and on a pooled basis, through the European Broadcasting Union.
If each of the national public service organizations had to bid on its own against the big combines - and Ms Tongue referred to the example of the two World Cups in football - then the game would be over once and for all, with public service broadcasting on the losing side.
To enable competition to take place on equal terms, including the financial conditions, the Commission must therefore make it clear that the funding of public service broadcasting through fees paid by the users and/or some form of mixed financing does not contravene the aid provisions of the Treaty.
It must also be clear that public service broadcasting has full access to new technologies.
And a final word to Mr Hoppenstedt: the problem was not the insistence that any new services should automatically be classed as broadcasting.
It was he who prevented a possible compromise from being reached on a sensible basis, but perhaps we can still put that right at second reading.
Mr President, the debate and vote on this issue in committee made it clear that, in general terms, public service television plays - and, I believe, must continue to play - an important role in almost all the Member States of the European Union.
Even allowing for the growth of private sector broadcasting, it seems clear that foreseeable developments will not prevent public service broadcasters from keeping at least some of the functions that might be seen as essential features of the audiovisual landscape.
Hence public service television is necessary, in the first place to guarantee a variety of programming and to ensure that legitimate commercial considerations do not result in broadcasting which focuses excessively on the most profitable programmes with the largest audiences.
Similarly, it must perform the important function of raising the general level of programming quality.
There is no doubt that the necessary and legitimate pursuit of economic returns is an obstacle to the commissioning of quality productions which involve a high commercial risk - a risk which public service broadcasters must be prepared to take.
Likewise, and from the point of view of both government and opposition, we would surely agree that public service television must also play the very important role of providing independent information.
And, to this end, rules must be established in all the Member States guaranteeing such independence and preventing interference by the public authorities.
These considerations should not lead us to conclude that the role of public service television should be restricted to broadcasting minority programmes - in other words, that it should play a marginal role.
On the contrary, the existence of minimum audience levels, the variety of programming, and the guarantee that this varied programming will reach all homes can be regarded as fundamental principles of public service broadcasting.
From this perspective, I should like to highlight two requirements set out in the report regarding the immediate future of public service broadcasting: the need for self-regulation of programming, in order to eliminate any danger of an undesirable influence on viewers; and the need for the public authorities to give a boost to ensuring that public service broadcasters lead the way - as the rapporteur says - in the development of new audiovisual technologies and the provision of public access to those new technologies.
Mr President, we entirely agree with Ms Tongue's report on the fact that public television must exist and must be properly financed.
It must exist, because its voice contributes to maintaining pluralism along with television generally, but it must exist within a system where the public service mission is clearly defined.
It must be financed, because it is a public service with a social mission requiring subsidy.
Our point of disagreement on the report is how this financing should come about.
We do not think a report on public television can ignore funding methods which guarantee the existence of public television and the quality and balance of the vast televisual panorama constituted by private and public television as a whole, because only as a whole can it accomplish a real mission of public service.
This financing should be transparent, directed clearly to each stage of the public service mission that television must accomplish, with year-end losses no longer written off. Paternalistic methods which hinder the growth of public television and the identification of inefficiencies must go.
We must get away from ambiguous forms of mixed financing: fees, subsidies, advertising, write-offs of losses which grant public television privileges it is incapable of profiting from.
I wonder which European countries are really satisfied with their public television. With the exception of the United Kingdom - and I presume that Ms Tongue is thinking of her own English public television - which other country has first-rate public television and been very successful in defining funding methods transparently and separating the funding from advertising, public finance and fees?
On behalf of the Liberal Group, I have to say that the Tongue report is no more than a hymn of praise to public service broadcasting, which it seems to regard as a kind of priest watching over the souls of the viewers, a loving parent in the living room.
If only that were so.
What the report asks in return is that PSB should be exempt from the strict European rules on competition and concentrations of power.
The Liberal Group rejects these proposals.
Let me briefly explain why.
Firstly, the Liberals also support a dual system which has a strong public service broadcasting sector providing information, documentation and individual cultural identity, but which also has room for commercial broadcasting.
Not a concentration of power, but freedom of choice.
Secondly, the same European rules should apply to public service broadcasting and to commercial stations offering capacity for public services.
Thirdly, efficiency and professionalism will make public service broadcasting more competitive than huge subsidies.
The Ververs committee in the Netherlands has already taken the lead on this.
Fourthly, the provision of universal services is not the sole preserve of public service broadcasting, and it is perfectly possible for some of its tasks to be entrusted to private companies.
Fifth, damaging concentrations of power and exclusivity are totally unacceptable, and the Court of Justice's ruling of 11 July reversing the decision to grant the EU the collective rights to major sporting events is to be welcomed.
We must require both public service and commercial broadcasting to be generally accessible and affordable.
Sixth, the breakdown of established roles in the media world, far from driving a wedge between the two forms of broadcasting, is causing great confusion and distortion of competition, with public service broadcasting being more or less forced to become more commercial.
The new commercial broadcasters, on the other hand, who are totally reliant on the market for their income, are finding themselves subject to rules which have nothing to do with a free market, such as quotas and investment commitments.
Commissioner Bangemann, with his forthcoming green paper, and Commissioner Monti have a great responsibility. Which firms are allowed to provide public services?
What are public services, in any case?
What are the national and European rules governing television subsidies, and what are the criteria and restrictions that apply? Finally, let me make it clear that the Liberal Group can only support this report if a number of amendments are adopted and a considerable number of paragraphs are dropped from the resolution.
Mr President, Carole Tongue's report, for which we are grateful, gives us some idea of what public service television could be like in each of the Member States.
It would be independent of political and economic bodies, have high standards of content, and continue to fulfil its role of disseminating democratic values. By the same token, public service television would also provide information honestly - since objectivity in this area has been hounded out of existence in recent years - and in a pluralist way, as well as entertain, improve and educate.
It should not be deprived of the means required for it to become part of the information society, since it represents the only way for citizens to be able to access the new services without discrimination, whether economic, social or geographic.
In view of the Commission's recent refusal to draw up a directive on media concentration and pluralism, this report deserves to be more than an own-initiative one, and I am addressing Mr Bangemann here in particular.
Is there any future for public service television in an environment dominated today and sewn up tomorrow by four or five groups whose restructuring activities show their global power every day, and represent a formidable onslaught on digital broadcasting? So, in order to strengthen the independence and durability of the public sector in Europe, there should be a political will to maintain and expand the means of production.
More specifically, in France for example, the Commission seems to be actively encouraging the government to restructure French companies through privatization.
Ideological blindness on the part of governments and the Commission has led them to ignore important assets such as skills, new advanced technologies in action, and a material and technical heritage - go and see them for yourselves: digital buses, studios and so on - in order to enhance the interests of the financier, Mr Butler.
Mr Butler has hit the jackpot!
For a contribution of 50 million francs, he will receive a gift of 1.4 billion from public funds, in addition to the assets I have just mentioned, in return for axing 660 jobs out of a total of 1040.
After what Mr Bangemann has just told us, I think that there are questions to be asked regarding potential jobs as well as job cuts.
The same thing applies in the telecommunications sector. As you well know, prices for longdistance telecommunications and for big companies are falling, but they are certainly not doing so for the man in the street.
The public service is not yet public enemy number one, but if we are honest with ourselves, it may well be so in the future!
Mr President, I salute Carole Tongue for her commitment and her eloquence in this cause.
I declare my own interest as an occasional producer for public service as well as for commercial channels in the United Kingdom.
I will return to that in a moment.
I would say to those who have spoken in the debate - Mr Arroni and Mrs Larive - that we should remember what the market can do.
We accept that, we accept the vitality and the vigour of the market. But the market gives neither genuine diversity in all circumstances nor universality of service where most needed.
I shall refer just to things happening in my own country.
The BBC and Channel 4 are two entirely different forms of public service: one comes from a subvention (the licence fee), the other is financed by advertising.
One is the first and the other is the latest and perhaps the last innovation in the field of public service.
What is happening to the BBC now? Carole Tongue has referred to that.
The BBC is crawling with consultants telling it to turn towards advertising; telling it to make deals with the very people who are trying to destroy it.
Only today it has announced that it cannot compete in the sports field, because enormous financial resources are now being deployed to take away those staples of the mass audience which the BBC needs in order to preserve its own diversity and, indeed, its own audience.
Channel 4, which has been the best possible way of serving new interests with a public service remit in a public trust without private shareholders, is now being told by elements within our government that it must privatize.
There is no single argument for this in terms of programme quality; no single argument for it in terms of the diversity of services.
It has the morality of a bank raid.
It is a simple attack on the resources which that channel has brought to quality programming in our country.
I apologize for speaking primarily about the situation in Great Britain.
Broadcasting is one area in which we can still take some pride, and we have a deep feeling of shame about the sort of broadcasting that Europe may have to endure within ten years.
Mr President, after listening to what the previous speaker has to say, I ask why cannot we have pride in the television of the public broadcaster and in the television of the private broadcaster? That seems to me to be the sort of television that we want.
I have no doubt at all that public service television has played, is playing and will continue to play an important and valuable role in serving the viewing needs of the public.
I have no doubt this is true in each country of the European Union but I, as a British Member, am happy to pay tribute to the very high standards and the leadership that the BBC has given in public service broadcasting.
However, we must not overestimate the role of the public sector. Nor should we neglect the valid and valuable role that the private sector has played and is playing in television.
If this were a debate about the press we would all have very strong reservations about a public sector press.
I am not too sure why we should make the overstatements that we do about public sector broadcasting.
I abstained when this report came to the committee because I believe it does not achieve the fair and correct balance that is necessary.
Let me deal with just a couple of issues.
On sport, it is wrong to ignore the important financial contribution the private sector is now putting into sporting activity across a whole range.
This helps sport and the public interest in watching sport, I would say, in three distinct ways.
Many more minority sports are now broadcast because the private sector is there.
Sports bodies have more funds, a fairer share of the money, and they are able to put that money back into the sports themselves by developing facilities and training to bring people into those sports.
The sportsmen and women themselves are now getting a fair return for their skills and it is their skills that make the sporting activities worth watching.
On another issue, I support the occasional financial assistance coming from the Community for broadcasters with a pan-European remit, such as Euronews. I am not convinced, however, that this support should be open-ended for all time.
Such programmes need an audience to justify their raison d'être and there is no better discipline to make them seek an audience than the discipline of the marketplace.
High subsidies for high-quality programmes that nobody watches is not a sensible way to spend our money.
We are on the threshold of a major growth in television broadcasting, the age of digital television is upon us, but I am sure that we should not just have controls and regulations that keep the private sector out and allow the public sector to become flabby, lack innovation and fail to keep up with the public's wishes.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking my party colleague, Carole Tongue, for her excellent work, not only on the report itself but also in making it possible for us to debate this very important subject in Parliament today.
As Carole points out, television is still the most influential organ of our mass media.
It is therefore immensely important that the programmes broadcast feature quality, pluralism and objective information.
We must shield our children from violence and pornography and at the same time provide high-grade entertainment and information.
Television must take on its responsibility.
Television sets patterns, not least when it comes to violence.
Well resourced public-service TV companies are a guarantee of this.
Support from the EU and the Member States must be improved.
Television is also an indispensable forum for the seventh art - the film industry.
In a time when so many small, independent cinemas have had to give way to large multiplexes, which make astronomical sums of money showing American mass-market products, television often offers the only chance we get to see alternative and/or foreign films.
The TV companies thus play a very important role in this context too, namely by giving European audiences access to the cultures of their own countries and continent.
What is shown on television reflects the spirit of our time, but it is also part of the opinion-forming process.
Let us therefore fight together to ensure that this opinion-forming is worthy of our democratic and humanist culture.
Mr President, there is one point made in this report which I should like to underline: the public funding of public service broadcasting is legitimate.
And I would add that, in many cases, it is also essential.
The reason for this is simple: public service broadcasting provides a service to society in many areas which cannot be totally funded by the market.
There is a need for a service of this kind, so as to guarantee cultural diversity, encourage linguistic pluralism - especially in small communities - promote European production and bolster cultural and educational services.
And in the multimedia society which is now being created, our citizens must be offered such a service.
If the market is unable to provide this service completely, then it is the job of public bodies to do so.
In our society, there are certain areas which cannot be judged in terms of competition pure and simple. And one of those areas is the obligations of public service broadcasting in relation to society - obligations for which public funding provides appropriate compensation.
I shall give you a good example: the Basque language is spoken by some 800 000 people, in an area in close proximity to 50 million French speakers and 35 million Spanish speakers.
In these circumstances, it is most unlikely that the market will promote the use of the Basque language in the audiovisual media on its own account.
It is for this reason that society must fund public service broadcasting, since democracy presupposes tolerance and respect for cultural diversity; and, in our society, public service broadcasting helps to guarantee these principles.
By providing information at local and regional level, moreover, it serves to foster European integration on the basis of respect for cultural identities, self-government and subsidiarity.
It is important for the European Parliament to send the clear message to the Commission that, on this issue, the rules on competition alone are not enough to build a united and pluralistic Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that we are at a turning-point in the development of broadcasting.
That is why the decisions taken on Parliament's position are exceptionally important, because we are moving more and more onto the defensive, since broadcasting as a cultural asset is increasingly being called into question.
I would refer to the hearing, convened by the Commission, which took place yesterday and dealt with the issue of a regulatory framework for broadcasting and telecommunications, on the basis of a study whose contents can only be described as extremely disappointing.
It attributes hardly any further scope to public service broadcasting, and the 'new vision' set out there relates solely to the multimedia market, which is geared to maximizing profits.
We cannot accept this, and we demand from the Commission the green paper it has promised which is meant to make it clear how the new services are to be structured. The point is that we have to decide what is still broadcasting and what is not broadcasting in an age of multimedia globalization.
The fear which has been expressed here many times, that we have our backs to the wall in terms of cultural developments, is unfortunately not without foundation.
From what we hear, we shall only be dealing with side issues, so we can concern ourselves with the protection of young people, for example, but no longer with general public access, information, education and entertainment, which are among the original purposes of broadcasting, and must remain so in a digital age which may be opening up new technical opportunities, but should not tempt us into giving up old ingredients which have become valuable to us.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our colleague Carole Tongue from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has today put before us an important and much-needed own-initiative report, and I would like to join in praising the quality of its contents.
I should also like to take this opportunity to tell the rapporteur just how highly I regard her work in the audiovisual sector, and Mr Bangemann how much benefit he would derive from listening more to what we have to say on the matter.
We are all well aware of the explosion in the number of television channels offering their services throughout the world.
But no one is complaining about this. A multiplicity of channels ensures freedom of expression and maintains a modicum of democracy.
So it is a necessary part of that freedom, but as everyone also knows, it is not enough on its own.
Like the rapporteur, I am deeply attached to public service television.
It stands for and guarantees access on the widest scale to quality television, whose task should be to promote the cultural riches of the European Union.
It enables all those who do not have the money or the equipment to receive all the private channels to have access to culture.
The European Union must therefore ensure at all costs that public service television is maintained and allow Member States to control its financing, in return for which the public channels would undertake to abide by a clear specification that reflects the reasons why they were established.
A network of European public television channels of this kind can and must become the prime vehicle for broadcasting European productions, and must be a driving force behind private television channels in this area.
This is important for the advent, at long last, of a genuine citizens' Europe.
We would very much hope, Mr Bangemann, that you will listen to us on this occasion.
Madam President, it is naturally a duty, but also a pleasure for me - and I must say this to Mr Caudron - to listen to him and the other Members of Parliament.
We have of course taken account of the report by Ms Tongue in our own discussions, and will continue to do so.
I would only say that, to my mind, the assessment of the role of public service broadcasting in the report - as Mrs Larive pointed out - is a very positive and optimistic one.
I would ask you all to look at public service broadcasting just as critically as private broadcasting.
One cannot allow standards of quality to fall, for example, simply because public service broadcasting is involved.
A critical approach to quality is what we wish to see, and we believe that the simplest way to achieve this quality control is competition with private broadcasters.
Then the viewers or listeners will do exactly what suits them.
But now a point arises - and here Ms Tongue is quite right - namely the question of where public service broadcasting stands at present in this competition.
Here there are both advantages and disadvantages.
Certainly, financing through fees or other forms of public funding is an advantage in competitive terms, but on the other hand, the almost total exclusion of public service broadcasting from private revenue represents a disadvantage for it.
In this context, we have to decide what we wish to have.
Here I would take up what my friend Mr Barzanti said. Of course we shall tackle the question of public service and public broadcasting.
However, I must point out to Members, if they would just listen to a Commissioner - the Commission always listens to Parliament, if you would just listen to me for a moment!
There is of course, as there must be, a debate on public service.
Naturally, the question is to what extent we can produce European rules on this.
For example, public service broadcasting and television is regulated differently in every Member State - Mr Barzanti is right, and Mrs Castellina always sets great store by such national differences.
It would certainly be wrong simply to throw a European solution over them and accommodate everything under it.
I must also correct what was said in the debate regarding controls on media concentration.
The Commission has not rejected these.
We have held a policy debate on the basis of a first draft by my colleague Mr Monti, in which there were not many supporters for the approach.
It was a very European approach, and the point was made that, at least for the time being, media concentration is a problem for the individual Member States.
If it becomes an international problem, it will also become a European one, and so we have to consider what we can regulate on a European basis.
Mr Monti and I are both among the most determined supporters of controls on media concentration.
We have not rejected them, therefore, as Mrs Pailler suggested, but are engaged in a process of discussion, and our wish is to regulate what can be regulated at European level.
Let me make a final comment on the concern of Mrs Castellina - which came through in other speeches too - that public service broadcasting is being marginalized.
First of all, this has nothing to do with the new services.
It all depends on how the new services are defined, and the Commission has opposed the idea of including too many new services under the concept of broadcasting - in agreement with the majority in Parliament - quite simply because the licensing conditions and the controls have to be different.
You cannot make every new service subject to these strict rules, but of course we have no objection at all - and I would say this to Mr Kuhne in particular - to public service broadcasting using the new services, or indeed providing them.
That is not our difficulty.
Our difficulty was only - and I hope it does not become a problem - that too many of these new services are regarded as broadcasting.
One final word on marginalization. I am very sorry, Mrs Castellina, that everything fell over in front of you when you mentioned my name.
That is of course an effect which I did not intend to have.
But I must say that I am pleased about one thing, which is that public service broadcasting no longer has a de facto monopoly on disseminating information and opinions, but now has to compete with other sources.
I definitely cannot complain about the fact that people can now obtain information through private broadcasters and news stations.
Having someone who possesses a de facto monopoly and uses it, even with the best of intentions, cannot be an ideal form of democracy, Ms Tongue!
The Commission is not demonizing either public or private broadcasting.
Like Mr Hoppenstedt, we are relatively relaxed.
However, we should like people to prove themselves, and if public service broadcasting is as good as Ms Tongue believes, then we need have no fears as regards its future.
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
The debate is closed
The vote will take place in a moment.
I am very willing to note your protest, Mr Pasty.
I understand that it is urgent matters which lie behind the meetings of these committees.
That being so, I would suggest that you raise the question in the Conference of Presidents, of which you are a member.
Thank you, Mr Jacob. I am sure that these incidents will not prevent the House from voting quite independently.
Votes
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for an amending directive on a solvency ratio for credit institutions on which we are about to vote is to be welcomed.
Its main purpose is to extend risk weighting at 50 % of mortgage-backed loans in respect of offices or multipurpose commercial premises until 1 January 2001, this provision having expired on 1 January 1996.
The possibility of risk weighting at 50 % has previously applied to only four Member States, and is now being extended to all the Member States of the European Union on an optional basis.
The weighting of credit risk, in other words the backing of credit granted by a bank with own capital, constitutes a basic principle of bank supervision law.
This proposal to retain risk weighting in the Union and extend it to all the Member States is indexed to the economy.
It is justified by a whole range of safeguards against risk and raises no problems as regards the rules of competition.
As for the risk factors, there is a lending limit of 60 % of the value of the property.
This value is established on the basis of strict criteria, and the premises must be additionally secured.
An upward trend is discernible in Europe.
Failure to approve this proposal for a directive would mean an increase of 0.25 % in interest and amortization costs, which certainly cannot be justified at the present stage.
I would therefore ask the House to approve this proposal.
Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, you told me that you wished to make a brief statement.
I would in fact have liked it to be a little more brief.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
We agree with the stance adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs as regards the Commission proposal.
There has always been a need to extend the transitional arrangements in the directive, which relates to mortgage-backed loans in respect of offices or commercial premises.
The business and financial implications are so great that we therefore now support this compromise.
van der Waal report
It is entirely correct that conditions must be created for the inland waterways to take on a greater role as a transport system.
Developments in recent years have unfortunately shown that the greatest growth has occurred in road transport, which is very worrying from the point of view of our common environment.
It is thus of the utmost importance to devote more resources to environmentally friendly transport systems, such as the railway and the inland waterways.
Major structural investment is needed in these areas, instead of what is now happening - billions of kronor spent on motorways and unnecessary bridges, such as the Øresund Fixed Link project.
In this context, the Council has adopted a stance which is, to say the least, a cause for concern, and the European Parliament must react vigorously against it.
De Esteban Martín report
Madam President, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to thank Commissioner van den Broek for his reply to the debate on this report on human rights in the European Union.
He promised a series of measures from the Commission to deal with the sexual exploitation of children within the European Union, to combat sex tourism and to arrange the close monitoring of paedophile networks both on the ground and on the Internet.
Events over the last few years in England and the recent terrible discoveries in Belgium have shown all too tragically the need for these measures.
But such measures can only work successfully if there is a unity of purpose amongst Member States.
I would like to know whether he is confident that he can take with him, when introducing these measures, the representatives of the United Kingdom Government, who seem willing to sacrifice any European measures, no matter of what importance to the people of Europe, on the altar of Euro-scepticism and subsidiarity.
It is necessary that we use Europol, the police and customs liaison organization based in The Hague, to exchange information on these matters.
We need new legislation at European level to control not just paedophile networks, but pornography and neo-Nazis and racists on the Internet.
The question is whether we get the necessary support.
Equally, I would like to congratulate the Commission on the fact that 1997 will be the year against racism and to thank the Commission for its support for the EU observatory to monitor racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism, to be set up in line with the recommendations of the Consultative Commission and endorsed at the Florence summit.
I hope it was a slip of the tongue when he said he hoped that the anti-racist clause will be incorporated in the treaties.
May I point out that Commissioner Flynn has already said that there should be an anti-racist clause within the Community treaty, a far better place than the vague promises of the third pillar.
Finally, human rights within the Community should allow citizens to join and to leave religious organizations freely, without allowing these organizations special tax status which is denied to other cultural and social organizations.
Madam President, the Dutch members of our group voted against the Esteban Martín report for various reasons.
First of all, we feel that there is a clear distinction between the traditional basic rights and other socio-economic and cultural rights, some of which are perfectly justified, but are political objectives, not human rights.
We also object to the fact that many of the paragraphs call for Community action to be taken.
We agree that racism needs to be combatted, but this is something to be tackled at national level.
The Member States have all acceded to the European Convention on Human Rights and are more than capable of making sure that these are respected.
Moreover, some of the freedoms have been interpreted rather liberally, so that freedom of expression, for example, is required to respect the bounds of privacy and personal reputation, but no mention is made of blasphemy, pornography or obscenity.
Finally, I should like to explain in particular why we voted against paragraph 93, since this is something that is only too likely to be labelled as a victory for the far right.
The tendency which the left has of attaching this label to those with less extreme views than their own simply distracts attention from the real problem.
Statements such as that in paragraph 93 show Parliament in just the same extreme and totalitarian light.
The fact that the parties of the far right pursue ideas and practices in this field which we reject does not automatically mean that they should be excluded from politics or government, in our opinion.
There is no need for this, provided that they operate within the rules of our democratic system.
We are not forced to adopt their methods or approach.
Madam President, we have been treated to the annual joke about human rights, since the most basic of all human rights is the right to express one's thoughts and opinions freely!
Yet the French Government, which I believe you support, Madam President, is preparing to hold a vote - in the name of the new dominant and totalitarian ideology, namely antiracism - on a law which judges not actions, words or writings, but in fact the intentions and ulterior motives that are supposed to lie behind them.
In other words, the French Government is going to set up an ulterior motives police, which is an unprecedented step backwards in terms of freedom and justice.
This law is not aimed just at a few National Front MPs, but threatens the freedom of millions of French people.
The parents of pupils - and I believe that you, Madam President, were involved with an organization of this kind - who choose to educate their children at a school with few immigrants, having obtained an exemption from the catchment area, will risk being prosecuted under this outrageous new law introduced by the French Government.
Employers will no longer be free to choose their staff without laying themselves open to prosecution.
The same thing goes for teachers whose freedom will also be threatened...
(The President interrupted the speaker) ... will be threatened by a law on ulterior motives, a law fit to cause civil war that must not be passed, or it will mean the end of freedom for us all.
Thank you, Mr Le Gallou. I would also point out, for your information, that I am here in my capacity as a Member and Vice-President of the European Parliament and President of the sitting, and not in the role in which you addressed me.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, voting on a report devoted to human rights issues should make the House pause and reflect on a dreadful paradox.
Historically speaking, the most generous declaration - that of 1793, in fact - was adopted by the government with the most pronounced terrorist tendencies of the period.
A similar phenomenon occurred after 1945, when the USSR signed the Universal Declaration at the behest of Stalin.
The United Kingdom, on the other hand, which has never adopted a bill of rights, has not committed any crime of the magnitude of those committed by Robespierre and Stalin.
This should inspire a certain modesty on the part of those who draft such declarations.
I would add that the great philosopher Hegel has explained why it is that the quest for perfect freedom, through ever broader declarations on human rights, inevitably ends in terror. According to Hegel, when an individual assumes the role of a universal conscience, he becomes intolerant of the slightest opposition from others.
In this way, a love of all men is effectively transformed into hatred for everyone.
That is why I believe that national declarations on human rights are enough.
We do not need them at European level too.
From the point of view of those concerned with freedom, this report is not a proper report on the human rights situation in the EU, because apart from a few items it reveals hardly any facts; nor - secondly - is it calculated, with its accumulation of 126 paragraphs and 24 amendments which cannot be studied with the necessary care in the short time which is available, to produce serious proposals for improvements.
Thirdly, on many points it dwells too much on questions of implementation, the responsibility for which lies with the Member States, thereby infringing the principle of subsidiarity and undermining the rights of national parliaments.
Fourthly, large sections of it consist of a listing of decisions previously taken and a frequent repetition of demands, so that it comes to represent only a rather confusingly assembled and overloaded catalogue of demands with no relation to reality.
And, fifthly, on some important points it is hardly tenable, in strictly legal terms.
We believe in full respect for human rights, but do not think they will be genuinely served by approving this confused package of demands, which touches on everything from the environment, through armed forces, to the conduct of trials in the United Kingdom, but does not deal with any of it seriously, and we are rejecting the report as a whole.
We did not feel that it made sense to support individual paragraphs in the document, which would often have been appropriate, because they were taken too much out of context.
We therefore abstained from voting in such cases.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mrs De Esteban Martín, who unfortunately is no longer present.
In developing her initial position, she did a remarkable amount to enable many points, not least those raised by our group, to be discussed in connection with this report on human rights.
I am sorry that she has not been supported by her own group today to the extent that she deserved, but we shall have to bear that in mind.
With the adoption of this report today, we have taken a major step forward, since the European Parliament now once again has a basis for its work which entitles it to talk about human rights violations outside the European Union as well, since those who fail to acknowledge what is going on at home do not have the right to criticize what is happening outside.
As for the statements by Mr Le Gallou and Mr Blot, I would only say that they have the right to talk such nonsense as they do, since talking rubbish is a human right as well, and this is after all the human rights debate that we are holding here.
To that extent, their otherwise somewhat disturbed utterances are acceptable today!
Both left- and right-wing extremism should equally be rejected.
In practice, there is often no longer any discernible difference between the two.
Both forms are to be condemned.
The report by Mrs De Esteban Martin on respect for human rights in the European Union covers far too many subjects for us to be able to consider them in depth.
We are therefore being invited to cast a single vote on 125 proposals that are very different in content and very unequal in value, some of them being extremely questionable, such as the one that I complained about in the debate preceding this vote.
This explains our reluctance.
In addition, one essential problem, to which the IGC should now be giving consideration, is not covered although it has recently been raised by several Member States: the absence of any procedure for appealing against the decisions of the Court of Justice when it gives a preliminary ruling, or rules on an appeal for revocation, on the interpretation or validity of a Community act.
After all, the Court's decisions can shed totally new and unexpected light on certain provisions of the Treaty, as we saw recently in the case of the Bosman judgment.
The absence of any right of appeal in such cases seems to us to be a serious violation of a fundamental human right - the right to a fair and full legal hearing.
And the fact that this kind of shortcoming quite often has an impact not on a particular individual, but on an entire nation, is of course an aggravating circumstance.
Admittedly, in the event of a debatable judgment, it might be conceivable for the Council to amend the Community regulation in order to clarify it.
But even then it would be necessary for the case to be referred to the Council by the Commission, which has a monopoly right of initiative and thus a blocking power.
It is easy to see that this is not a healthy situation.
The nations of Europe cannot allow their destiny to be steered, with regard to fundamental points and with no power to react, by a Court of Justice which sometimes interprets the Treaty in a completely different way from what the national parliaments had assumed when they adopted the initial text.
It is thus becoming essential, today, to devise a procedure enabling the most debatable judgments of the Court of Justice to be referred to the national parliaments, and even to the nations themselves.
This report on human rights in the European Union is both comprehensive and extremely important.
It is therefore hardly surprising that it has provoked much heated discussion among Members of the House.
It is very unfortunate, however, that we have not managed to reach even something approaching a consensus.
Of course, there are among us certain Members with whom it is impossible to discuss human rights. They deny their existence, they deride them and glory in the process.
It is impossible to reach an agreement with them, but it should be possible to do so among the democrats who are present.
Certainly, the left in Parliament rightly supports a broader concept of fundamental human rights.
It has no hesitation in including social, economic, cultural and ecological rights.
And it is right to do so, for where are the rights of those without work, a livelihood or a roof over their heads?
Certainly too, the second largest political group in Parliament supports a classical concept of human rights, generally based on the freedoms and the right of property that are the building blocks of liberalism.
However, I regret that we cannot reach agreement on certain basic issues. These include the condemnation of all forms of racial, sexual or religious discrimination, all the forms of physical and moral torture still practised in some Member States, the poverty caused by unemployment, and the lunatic pursuit of profit at any price.
Can we not also agree to condemn absolutely any racist, xenophobic, not to mention anti-democratic ideas or ideologies that we see emerging, sometimes even here in the House?
In France the situation is getting out of hand - the evil beast has awoken!
Democrats in the European Parliament should not be divided on such a fundamental issue as the need to assert and protect human rights.
The matter is altogether too serious!
Let our collective conscience wake up to the real problems, challenges and crises which await us.
If our concern for human rights is ever to become more than simply lip-service, we shall need to adopt a considerably more discerning approach.
Hollow theories and vague ideologies must not be allowed to distort our sense of moderation and reality.
We need to give less emphasis to certain elements, and more to others.
Even if the rights of race and nationhood are, most regrettably, not yet classified as human rights, everyone should still have the right to retain their racial and national identity.
Everyone should have the right, now and in the future, to keep their language, culture, traditions and national identity without fear of discrimination, yet none of this is acknowledged.
Anyone who is genuinely concerned about human rights must ensure that people have a right to security that is more than just an empty promise.
An effective campaign against crime on every scale is urgently needed, and is something which the man in the street above all has a perfect right to expect.
Looking to the future, it is our young people and our children in particular who have the right to protection and to physical and spiritual integrity, and I would add here that the unborn child also has a right to protection and to life.
Anyone who does not recognize this has no right to talk about human rights at all.
Finally, when will we realize at last that we cannot talk about rights without recognizing responsibilities?
Look how much harm has already been done by glorifying rights and scorning responsibilities!
We vote in favour of this report, because we think its content is good.
What we are opposed to is that the EU should take over functions of the Council of Europe.
We do of course think that racist crimes should be punished, but we do not favour a general ban on racist organizations.
We are glad that this report has finally been put to a vote.
We have voted for the report and most of the individual paragraphs, since we consider that the protection of human rights is in principle a general concern of humanity that transcends national frontiers.
We therefore do not think that the EU should become a legal person with authority to sign the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights, which is in any case quite unnecessary as all EU Member States are obliged to have ratified the Convention as a condition of membership.
We have therefore supported Amendment No 19 from the EDN Group.
We also want to stress that the multitude of concrete demands for human rights put forward in the report are and should remain a matter for the Member States exercising their sovereign decision-making prerogative and for intergovernmental cooperation.
While this annual report is good on the whole, I would draw special attention to certain points.
If homosexual persons are under threat of deportation to third countries, where they risk victimization or reprisals on grounds of their homosexuality, these aspects must weigh heavily in the consideration of their cases: the authorities should err on the side of caution and not go ahead with the deportation.
With regard to paragraph 56, I would prefer it if Europol and SIS did not go ahead at all.
But if that happens, these databanks must under no circumstances contain information of a personal nature, for example details of racial, religious and political affiliation and sexual disposition.
I want to stress how important it is that persons who for reasons of conscience refuse to perform military service are not subjected to imprisonment or any other penalty.
An equivalent form of civilian service must be offered as an alternative to military service.
It is important that the EU Member States take any action necessary to ensure that sex tourists can be prosecuted in their home countries and to prevent sexual abuse of minors in the children's home countries.
Finally, I wish to stress the importance of having international provisions on human rights but do not think that the EU should concern itself with these questions, because the EU is not the whole world and the Member States must act for themselves in large international organizations.
The Danish social democrats in the European Parliament first and foremost welcome the fact that Parliament is keeping a watchful eye on the human rights situation in the EU.
Unfortunately, there is still a need for it to do so.
The only way to improve matters is to go on drawing attention to the problems and to show the world how wrongly things are being done.
At the same time, we have to say that we find Mr Haarder's amendment aimed at banning the principle of the closed shop very strange.
This is not because we are against freedom of choice as regards trade unions, but the amendment contains a hidden agenda which stems from a hatred of trade unions and is an attempt to destroy the work which the unions have built up over many years.
Furthermore, we find it curious that a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties should have used a report on human rights to raise the question of trade union law.
He must be aware that trade union law, the right to strike and trade union matters in general are areas which lie outside the scope of the Maastricht Treaty.
I have voted in favour of the report because one of our most important tasks as elected representatives in Parliament is to safeguard human rights and freedoms.
I voted against or abstained from voting on certain parts of the report, for example the right to an abode, which I do not think falls within the field of human rights.
I did not vote against these aspects because I think they are unimportant, but rather because they should not be tied in with the subject of this report.
Madam President, you asked us if we would accept a list of names of people who could give an explanation of vote in writing.
The rule is that Members have to be present.
Clearly today it is very difficult because you gave the names later, but I think we can only accept the names of people who actually voted in the debate this afternoon.
You cannot give an explanation of vote for a vote you did not participate in.
You are quite right, Mr Ford, but we have checked.
We shall indeed make sure that those Members who put their names down were actually present.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.26 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Equal treatment in social security
The next item is the report (A4-0256/96) by Mrs Torres Marques, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 86/378/EEC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in occupational social security schemes (COM(95)0816 - C4-0422/95-95/0117(CNS)).
Mr President, the Commission has proposed to draft a Council Directive amending Directive 86/378/EEC on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women in occupational social security schemes.
First of all, I should like to emphasize that we are not going to deal here with the general social security schemes but analyse exclusively supplementary schemes which certain companies offer to their employees and which in many cases are of enormous importance.
Given that the scope is limited, it must be asserted that this draft Directive is a technically complex and politically controversial one.
Therefore, it has been the subject of a number of debates in the Committee on Women's Rights to try and see if we can find solutions which are more viable and balanced.
The proposed amendments to the Directive which the Commission is now suggesting to us are based on the case-law of the Court of Justice in respect of various cases, the most famous of which is the Barber Judgment, although others since then have fleshed out that interpretation.
The situation is the following: as we all know, Article 119 of the Treaty on European Union stipulates equality of remuneration for men and women.
But since the case-law of the Court of Justice considers that this article is not applied to compulsory social security schemes, where they are directly regulated by law, the same is not true of occupational social security schemes.
As far as the Court of Justice is concerned these cases of occupational social security schemes are considered as part and parcel of remuneration and, consequently, may not be the subject of any derogations or distinctions.
Furthermore, it is worrying that what is happening to the case-law of the Court, as a consequence of the principle of equality, is that this is being used not to guarantee women the same income as men - as many reports have shown this difference is now reaching the order of 20 % less for women than for men - but that certain advantages are being withdrawn from women even those benefits that everyone used to acknowledge they were entitled to: for example, access to retirement at an earlier age.
It is the hard and fast rule that women carry out their occupational duties with a great feeling of responsibility and their value is acknowledged.
But all of society knows that, without any specific benefits, women are given the fundamental role of bringing up children, i.e. new generations, and managing the domestic economy.
The main solution for this subject, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, is for us to take advantage of the Intergovernmental Conference so that, when revising the Maastricht Treaty, we should consider equality between men and women as a fundamental right of all European citizens and that this must include any positive measures needed to turn that aim from a Utopian one into everyday reality.
However, this means that we must, for the time being, work with the Treaty as it stands.
I am, therefore, presenting a set of amendments and I would like to take this opportunity to address my very sincere thanks for all of the support and contributions which I have received from all the different political parties and I think that all of these significantly improve the Commission proposal.
They can be summed up as follows: including atypical and part-time working in this social security scheme.
These are types of jobs which are now becoming quite widespread and which are mostly held by women which is why we must protect them.
A second set of amendments concerns accounting which, on the pretext that statistics show that women's life expectancy is longer than men's, works to the disadvantage of women when carrying out the calculation of contributions and pensions.
Yet it is not proven that women workers live longer than men workers and, therefore, they should not be prejudiced against in this way when pensions are calculated.
Another amendment is aimed at making it possible for women taking part in social security schemes to have access to their pension rights.
One of the proposals which I consider to be the most important is the institution, both for men and women, of greater flexibility in the choice of pension age, in conditions which obviously still have to be defined.
Would it not be more natural and in keeping with the lifestyles we have these days, for people to be able to choose at any time within a fixed period, for example between 60 and 70 years, whether or not to retire early or prolong their retirement age? Why should someone who wants to continue working be forced to retire whereas someone who really needs to stop working much earlier has to carry on until the retirement age?
Finally, I should like to refer to a final amendment which has just been presented by the PPE Group and which I find very interesting and which I agree with fully.
It applies to both sexes and means that anyone who has worked for their whole lifetime should not see their legitimate expectations dashed.
I hope, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that these contributions, as well as those already made by the Committee on Social Affairs, will be accepted and allowed to improve the Commission's proposed text.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating Mrs Torres Marques on her excellent report on a technical subject which is in fact a very topical one at the moment, although it may not immediately appear to be so.
Pension schemes are coming under pressure in various European countries, systems are being reorganized, and equal treatment for men and women is an extremely sensitive issue, especially for women.
I would make the point first of all that Parliament and the Commission must not allow European directives to be used as an excuse for cutbacks affecting women, as already often happens with equal treatment.
This is why I have two reservations concerning the Commission's proposal.
Firstly, women must not be held hostage to the financial interests of the insurance companies.
Employers' contributions for men and women are calculated differently on the basis of actuarial data, making women more expensive to employ, which is a handicap when it comes to recruitment.
Many lawyers disagree with the Court of Justice here, Commissioner, and claim that this in itself is contrary to the Treaty.
We therefore wish to see this discrimination abolished.
Secondly, formal equality of treatment does not automatically guarantee that women will have equal rights in practice.
The unequal situation of women on the labour market is often reflected even more acutely in their pension rights, and this is why they will not have truly equal rights until measures are taken in the context of the pension systems - including the supplementary systems - to compensate the low-paid and to cater for interrupted careers and part-time or atypical work in which women predominate.
Pension calculations must gradually be brought into line and compensatory measures introduced, such as establishing the right to a decent minimum pension with a low threshold, giving even people doing part-time or atypical work decent pension rights, and introducing or ensuring the wider acceptance of equivalent qualifying periods.
My female colleagues in the Belgian Parliament have submitted this package of demands to their government, and hope that they will be considered.
I hope that you too, Commissioner, will be able to support our amendments at European level.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we shall soon be celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty of Rome. However, Article 119 of the Treaty, which provides for equal pay for men and women, is still not being properly applied.
Because this article is directly applicable, because there are always some courageous souls brave enough to test it in the courts, and because it does not allow derogations from the sacrosanct principle of equal treatment, the provisions of any directives containing such derogations are now redundant, I am pleased to say.
For the obvious reasons set out by the rapporteur, whose work I would commend, we now have to amend the 1986 directive implementing the principle of equal treatment for men and women in occupational social security schemes.
On the subject of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Women's Rights, I shall confine myself to the one concerning the fixing of an identical age limit for men and women.
There should be no question of infringing the rights of the sex with the more favourable retirement age in order to ensure equal treatment.
For once, women can claim pension rights earlier than men, but overall these are much smaller, as women have been subject to discrimination in terms of pay for decades of their working lives. The worst affected are those who will soon be drawing their pensions.
And I know what I am talking about, since I myself am a victim of such discrimination.
I therefore hope that Parliament will adopt the amendment in question which I have tabled on behalf of my group, and I would also thank the rapporteur for her positive comments on this just now.
In conclusion, I should also like to take the opportunity of urging the Council to approve, at long last, the proposal from 1987 to amend the 1979 directive on equal treatment for men and women in statutory social security schemes.
Otherwise, we are really going to find ourselves in a comical situation, whereby wage earners will continue to be discriminated against in statutory schemes as regards retirement age and survivors' pensions, while this will no longer be the case in occupational social security schemes. This is because the benefits paid through statutory social security schemes are not regarded as remuneration within the meaning of Article 119.
In some countries, including my own, the vast majority of wage earners and self-employed people draw their pensions from statutory social security schemes, rather than occupational schemes.
It is high time that we tried to end sexual discrimination in terms of survivors' pensions and retirement age here too.
Moreover, it would above all be men who would benefit from the ending of such discrimination, provided women are not penalized in order to ensure equal treatment for them.
Mr President, the aim of our work today is to guarantee greater protection for women in paid employment, in line with the treatment of men.
It is unthinkable today that a woman working in a factory or an office should be discriminated against in terms of social security.
It is six years since the European Court of Justice laid down that all forms of pensions must provide parity of payment between men and women.
Today the Commission is planning to modify the regulations in force so that this principle is fully adopted and consistently updated.
The proposed amendments, which our group will unanimously support, in fact point to the introduction of flexible pensions permitting retirement at varying ages.
In calculating pensions, account must be taken of periods of inactivity in the life of a working woman, due to pregnancy and looking after small children.
It is also necessary to guarantee social security for part-time workers, which is a formula for enormous opportunities to revitalize the labour market.
Part-time is the formula which will soon offer the most job opportunities.
Finally actuarial factors, that is the different life expectancy of men and women, must not be used in calculating social security.
There must be an identical system for the two sexes, while recognizing the greater natural longevity of the female sex.
In conclusion, this directive is a chapter, perhaps one of the most important, in the achievement of total equality in working conditions between men and women.
There are still too many differences and too many punitive restrictions on the other half of the universe, women.
We are not saying women work more or less than men. But we are saying that their work contributes equally to the functioning of society and we demand that they be treated accordingly.
Mr President, the Liberal Group is quite happy with the Torres Marques report.
Commissioner Flynn, you and the Commission have taken all this very lightly, and only seem to want to incorporate the case-law of the Court of Justice into the 1986 directive, without considering the adverse effects of this on female workers, which is why we feel our amendments are particularly necessary.
I am also very disappointed with the Committee on Social Affairs, which has failed to put forward a single amendment and has simply buried its head in the sand.
This, to me, is all the more reason to make the Committee on Women's Rights responsible for the equal treatment directives and the code of good conduct.
The following are the points at issue here.
First of all, the system of having the same, fixed retirement age for women and men must be changed to allow them both to choose more flexible pension arrangements.
Secondly, as Mrs Van Lancker said, the same actuarial system must be used to calculate the employers' contributions for both women and men.
The higher payments make women a more expensive option for the employer and thus constitute indirect discrimination.
I also wonder whether women working outside the home still have a longer life expectancy than men.
Should not the contributions be reduced for women who do not smoke, or for women in general, simply because there tend to be less of them in prison, using up taxpayers' money?
Thirdly, part-time workers must no longer be excluded, since this too represents indirect discrimination.
Fourth, Commissioner Flynn, I hope you will support our amendments and urge the Irish presidency, as I now do the forthcoming Dutch presidency, not just to support our amendments, but also to press on with the Commission proposal from October 1987, which was intended to fill the gaps left by the first two directives.
As we approach the twenty-first century, Parliament must do everything in its power to eliminate direct and indirect discrimination in both the statutory and the supplementary social security systems.
The key words here must be flexibility and choice for both men and women.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the amendment of this directive could represent a further step towards the achievement of equal treatment and the difficult implementation of Article 119 of the Treaty.
The amendments tabled by Mrs Torres Marques, whom I would congratulate, principally concern the inclusion of workers with atypical or part-time contracts in occupational social security schemes.
In view of the fact that this category of worker consists mainly of women, and that the directive to be amended concerns implementation of the principle of equal treatment, it is imperative to include such workers in these schemes, since failure to do so will clearly represent discrimination against women.
If the amendment of the directive is restricted to rectifying the present inconsistencies between primary and secondary Community law, then we shall continue to legislate belatedly and on the basis of faits accomplis .
The amendment of this directive therefore offers us the opportunity to implement the principle of equal treatment with greater consistency, and I believe that we must take advantage of that opportunity.
Commissioner Flynn, this may not be a very kind thing to say, but I have the impression that when you drafted this directive, you were thinking more of the interests of the pension funds than those of equal treatment for men and women.
To be quite honest, I am amazed that you have not taken the opportunity offered by this amendment of the fourth directive to deal with the problem of the actuarial factors, which several people have already mentioned.
The Court has always said that higher employers' pension contributions for women are not covered by this directive and are therefore permitted.
This was your chance to put that right.
Parliament, I am glad to say, has actually taken steps to do so, and I therefore sincerely hope that the Commission will take our proposals on board, because it is absolutely ridiculous that employers should have to pay higher pension contributions for women than for men.
What is more - and I know that the Commissioner is someone who always follows the Court's judgments to the letter - when it comes to the judgments regarding retrospective action and the time from which women, and in particular part-time workers, can claim their pension rights, I have noticed that the Commission is choosing not to apply Article 119, as the Court has done this year, but instead has gone back to the Barber judgment of 1990, which means that 14 years are effectively lost for many, many women.
I wholeheartedly support the proposal to have the same retirement age for men and women, because women find themselves in the vicious circle of being expected to care for their families because they retire early, and therefore being expected to retire early to care for their families.
We have to put an end to this situation as soon as possible.
I entirely agree with the idea of flexible retirement.
Equal treatment means equal rights and obligations for women, men and pension funds.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking Mrs Torres Marques for a very good piece of work on a very complicated question.
There is one area in the report which I would like to comment on in particular, namely the question of atypical jobs.
The term 'atypical jobs' in fact covers a form of labour exploitation prevalent in the cottage industry system that preceded industrialization in the mid-eighteenth century.
At that time, entrepreneurs placed jobs with people working in their homes, mainly women, at very low hourly rates.
There are many examples of this type of employment today in Europe and, with the development of the information society, it is on the increase.
It is mainly women, young people and immigrants who get caught up in this system.
For many it is a first step into the labour market, for minimal wages and with little or no social protection.
It is thus very necessary to take account of this form of work in the social security system and to exempt atypical jobs from any provision for company-based or occupational social security schemes.
It represents indirect discrimination against women and young people, who thus risk becoming the cottage workers of the twentieth century.
Mr President, the fact that we need to address ourselves to the subject of equal treatment for men and women in occupational social security schemes is in itself extremely regrettable.
Campaigning for equal opportunities means nothing other than striving for men and women to be recognized as equals.
All the Member States of the European Union put fine words on paper.
In this report, the Commission too has expressed admirable intentions in the form of fine words.
But these will do little in practice to remedy the lack of equal opportunities; that is why the Commission and the Council must listen to the fundamental demands of the Committee on Women's Rights.
To overlook the particular contribution of women to child-rearing and their self-sacrificing attention to the social needs of dependants, whilst at the same time participating in the world of work, would be to misunderstand the concept of equal opportunities.
For many reasons, so-called atypical contracts of employment are becoming the only way for an increasing number of women to earn a living.
These women are especially dependent on equal treatment in social security schemes.
The same applies to part-time workers, as we have just heard.
I very much hope that, by adopting this report, we shall move one step closer to real and tangible equality of opportunities.
Mr President, equality between the sexes in my opinion is, above all, equality of opportunities and equality of responsibility.
Therefore, I should like to talk of parity rather than equality.
This far better expresses the concept of co-existence between men and women based on a sharing of rights - e.g. access - and duties - e.g. tasks - while leaving intact the differences of outlook and practicalities which might be seen to differentiate the two sexes.
However, nothing justifies the discriminations in legal texts such as those existing in Directive 79/007 and 86/378 which call for derogations to the principle of equal treatment.
Article 119 of the Treaty demands that treatment between men and women be equal.
The Court of Justice confirms this position.
The excellent report drafted by Helena Torres Marques refers to revision of the 1986 Directive.
This is all well and good but it is not enough.
The IGC must amend the Treaty so that it includes the fundamental right of equality between the sexes, but yet more is needed.
Directives are as nothing unless behind them there is the political will, in States, and social awareness, among the public.
Unfortunately, in the case of equality this small detail is as yet lacking.
Mr President, I really have very little time in which to speak so I will not be able to talk about the technical and legal aspects of this question but I would like to make a compliment and three tiny remarks.
I must compliment the rapporteur on a well documented explanatory memorandum and her proposal. I would like to make some remarks to emphasize that social equality is not the same as egalitarianism, and that, in some cases, confusing the two concepts can lead to positions which fail to understand those positive derogations and discriminations which the fight against inequality in society calls for but which egalitarianism cannot accept.
When we mention applying the principle of equality of treatment as one of the main objectives of the European Union's social policy - if such a policy existed - we ought to remember that Article 117 of the Treaty of Rome asserts the principle of equalization in progress which, for example, would prevent the retirement age for women coming up closer to that for men when it would be more favourable to bring the retirement age for men down to that of women, on the basis of arguments of egalitarianism, since in that way we will not achieve social equality and make any progress.
Mr President, Friday this week - 20 September 1996 - will be the 90th anniversary of the day when Tsar Nicholas II signed the declaration guaranteeing Finns - both men and women - general and equal suffrage.
Finland was the second country in the world - and the first in Europe - where women were granted the right to vote.
At the same time, Finland became the first country in the world where women were eligible to stand for election.
This was a step towards greater equality in the Nordic countries and Finland.
Article 119 guarantees equal treatment of men and women in employment in the EU countries.
A directive adopted in 1979 provided for application of the principle of equal treatment in statutory social security systems.
Is it not high time to implement these proposals?
Equality between the sexes is something which we Finns take for granted, but this attitude is not universal.
In many countries, legislation still exists which discriminates against women, for instance in the field of social security.
The EU should now lead the way and eliminate such practices.
The point of departure of the proposals for a directive of 1987 is the individualization of social security.
In Finland the system has operated this way for a long time.
A social security system based on the individual is the only humane option and the only one which promotes equality.
It should also be extended to home workers, both men and women.
In Finland, for example, if one takes the under-40 age group, women are now considerably better qualified than men, and many earn more than their husbands.
Social security systems based on the family detract from the status, freedom and human dignity of the lower earning spouse, irrespective of the sex of the partner in question.
In addition to becoming individualized, social and pension insurance schemes absolutely must be extended to parttime workers and they must be made more flexible.
This would improve women's opportunities to lead more independent and many-sided lives because many women have to stop work completely or reduce their working hours for a longer or shorter period of time in order to bear and care for children.
Many Member States ought to review their social legislation with a view to realizing genuine equality, and the EU should help them to do so.
This report by Mrs Torres Marques, for which I thank her, and the proposals which it contains and which have been approved by the Committee on Women's Rights should be adopted.
Mr President, the social security systems of the various Member States still discriminate between the sexes.
Women are still worse off than men.
It is very good that we have once again been able to use the Court of Justice to promote the equal treatment of men and women, but things should not be taken too far through the Court.
We should ensure that it is not the judges who legislate, but the politicians.
So like the rapporteur, I am somewhat disappointed that the Commission's proposal does not go any further than the case-law of the Court, and that the Commission has not taken any new initiatives and built on what the Court of Justice has started.
We have therefore ended up in a situation where women's rights are, in some cases, being curtailed.
This applies, amongst other things, to pensions and coverage for part-time workers.
I hope that we can rectify this by supporting the amendments tabled by the rapporteur, and that the Commission will take note of Parliament's amendments.
In terms of statistics, women are not those who are most supportive of the EU.
It is our task to show women that the EU is doing something for them, and we can use this proposal to that effect.
Mr President, first of all I would like to take the opportunity of expressing my thanks to you, Mrs Torres Marques, on your excellent report on what you rightly call a very complex and technical matter in the area of occupational pensions.
The Commission very largely shares the concerns you have expressed in your report and in the motion for a resolution before us this afternoon.
The principle of equal treatment between women and men is a fundamental principle of Community law.
It is important to ensure its effectiveness and transparency in order to avoid any possible confusion on the part of national authorities at all levels called upon to apply that Community law.
It is also essential to ensure that European citizens are fully informed of all of their rights in this particular area.
This proposal for a directive aims to ensure that an act of secondary Community law, namely Directive 86/378, on equal treatment for men and women in occupational social security schemes, is consistent with the provision of primary Community law, namely Article 119 of the Treaty, as interpreted by the Court of Justice.
In its Barber judgment of 17 May 1990 and in subsequent interpreting judgments the Court of Justice of the European Communities recognizes that all forms of occupational pensions and, in turn, all forms of benefit deriving from employees' occupational social security schemes, constitute an element of pay within the meaning of Article 119 of the EC Treaty which provides for equal pay for men and women.
Article 119 of the Treaty is directly applicable and may be relied upon by individuals before the national courts against both public and private employers.
It does not permit any derogation from the principle of equal treatment.
Consequently, certain provisions of Directive 86/378 providing for derogations from the principle of equal treatment, particularly with regard to retirement age and to survivors' benefits - that is Article 9 of Directive 86/378 - became invalid as far as salaried workers are concerned, since such persons can invoke Article 119 of the Treaty before national authorities.
This article, as a provision of primary law, prevails over Directive 86/378, which is an instrument of secondary legislation, and it also prevails over any national legislation.
I should clarify, however, that Article 119 of the Treaty does not apply to self-employed workers, in respect of whom Directive 86/378 remains wholly valid.
In the interests of legal certainty and of clarity, and in order to ensure consistency with Article 119 of the Treaty, the Commission presented this proposal for a directive amending Directive 86/378.
The proposed amendments serve only to transpose the case law of the Court, and this proposal for a directive is hence of a purely declaratory nature.
I should emphasize that consistently with the declaratory nature of the proposal the Commission has intended merely to amend the provisions of Directive 86/378 which, in the light of the case law, turned out to be invalid.
The proposal does not aim to be a complete codification of all of the Court's case law concerning equal treatment in the area of social security, nor does it aim to introduce new law going beyond the existing case law.
It goes without saying that it would be impossible to introduce any new provisions inconsistent with the case law since this could be achieved only by a Treaty amendment.
It is important to note that the Commission has on several occasions consulted government experts, Europeanlevel pension funds and actuary representatives, the Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities and the social partners on the proposed amendments of Directive 86/378 in the light of the Barber judgment and subsequent judgments.
There has been a broad consensus for adjusting the text of Directive 86/378 to make it consistent with the Court's case law on Article 119 of the Treaty.
I am very sensitive to your concerns about the possible impact for women of this case law as it is reflected in the proposed amendments.
According to this case law, in order to apply equality of treatment between women and men, the rules of occupational pension schemes could , and I emphasize could , increase women's pensionable age or, in certain cases, provide that in order to ensure equal benefits, contributions paid by the employer in certain schemes - and I am talking here about funded schemes - could be different for women as against men.
But just allow me for a moment to remind you that we are here in an area of social protection where the autonomy of the social partners is relevant and matters such as pensionable age and the organization and financing of occupational schemes are subject to negotiations between the interested parties and, in particular, between employers and employees.
So the Commission's room for manoeuvre is very limited - and everybody knows that - since it is obliged, like any other institution or person, to follow the case law of the Court of Justice.
To go further than the Court's case law is not appropriate at this time because it would be impossible to obtain the necessary consensus and such a step would, in any event, go beyond the purely declaratory nature of this proposal.
Furthermore, the Commission could not propose any measures which did not fall within the scope of Article 119 of the Treaty.
Consequently, it is not possible to accept the amendments concerning the taking into account of actuarial factors - Amendments Nos 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 - because they go beyond the existing case law which specifically states that actuarial factors may be taken into account since their use falls outside the scope of Article 119.
To go against the case law on this point would be to introduce new law and would, in any event, go beyond the scope of Directive 86/378.
The reason I cannot accept the amendments concerning atypical workers - and many of the contributions refer to this, including part-time workers - is that they are unnecessary - only because the case law already specifies that discrimination against this category of workers can constitute indirect discrimination.
Similarly, Amendments Nos 11, 12, 13 and 14 are also unnecessary because they take on board points that are already in the case law and consequently it is unnecessary to deal with them here.
I would like to thank you for your support and commitment in the area of equality of treatment between women and men.
We are allies in this area, but I would like to say that the acquis communautaire at the European level is very important and an example for countries outside the European Union.
Our task is to ensure the full application and effectiveness of a fundamental principle of Community law, and this proposal on which your opinion is requested seeks in every sense to fulfil that objective.
I would like to make a comment concerning what Mrs Lulling said because I thought it was quite relevant.
What Mrs Lulling was asking was whether the Commission would be in favour of extending full equality to areas that are not covered in the directive.
I would answer 'yes' to that.
We did, if you remember, put forward a proposal in 1987, the purpose of which was to complete the implementation of the principle of equal treatment in both statutory and occupational social security matters.
It is still on the table of the Council, Mrs Lulling, and it would be prudent at this time to consider studying the possibility of updating that 1987 proposal.
It is my intention, as a consequence of what I have heard here regarding these matters, to do so.
I thank the House for its attention.
Mr President, I think there must be a misunderstanding, because Commissioner Flynn started out by congratulating Mrs Torres Marques on her excellent report and said that the Commission shared our concerns, but then I heard through my headphones - though it may have been something to do with the interpretation - that despite all the congratulations and the concern felt by the Commissioner, in the same way as everyone else here, he cannot accept our amendments because there is no consensus as to whether they are covered by the Court's case-law.
Can the Commissioner enlighten us on this, because I can understand his concern, but not the fact that he is not prepared to do anything about it?
Mrs Larive, I think the Commissioner tried to explain that, but because the point does indeed leave scope for misunderstanding, it would be as well for Mr Flynn to tell us more.
Mr President, I do not think there should be any misunderstanding about what we are saying here.
We are proposing a tidying-up operation.
There were some inaccuracies in the 1986 directive, vis-à-vis the case law, and this is a declaratory proposal to bring about the changes necessary to satisfy the case law as it has been enunciated.
We are not writing in all the case law but everything is covered so far as all the case law is concerned in the recitals.
I have gone through the amendments and have analysed what their purposes are.
Some are unnecessary because they are already covered while others are not acceptable because they would mean changing existing law. We do not have the authority to do this because of the constraints of Article 119.
For example, Amendment No 1 talks about the exclusion of part-time workers but this is unnecessary because the point is already covered.
Recital 5 also deals with that matter.
Similarly, all the amendments have been analysed in the light of what is possible under the existing Article 119 and whether the case law already deals with it.
In fact, there is nothing that has not been taken on board which the amendments would entitle us to do.
Mr President, I know that time is short, and I do not wish to take up very much more of the House's time, but this is a parliament, where people are supposed to listen to one another's arguments and discuss them.
I noticed that there were quite a few of our arguments which Mr Flynn did not discuss, nor does he appear to see any reason for adopting any of the amendments which the Committee on Women's Rights worked so long and hard to produce.
He says that he does not intend to amend existing legislation: why does this directive have to be amended, in that case?
Existing legislation is being changed in favour of the pension funds and women are losing out, and that is something Parliament refuses to accept.
I should be very glad if the Commission started treating this House as a parliament and gave our arguments proper consideration.
It has signally failed to do so in this debate, but I can already assure the Commissioner that before the final vote tomorrow, we shall be asking for the matter to be referred back to the committee.
Mrs van Dijk makes certain allegations and, as she says, it is here in Parliament that we should exchange views on these matters.
I have looked at all of these amendments in a rather positive way to take on board whatever I could, if I was permitted to do so under the terms of Article 119.
I have looked in particular at this question of atypical work and the nature of atypical work because it is reflected in several of the amendments.
The objective of Amendment No 5, for example, is to include atypical work.
I am simply saying to you that the atypical nature of work is already covered insofar as atypical workers are members of the working population.
If you think and if Parliament feels that Amendment No 5 would give some substance to what you are seeking to achieve and add something extra that is not already covered I would have no difficulty in accepting your amendment.
But I must advise you, as Commissioner, that according to the legal advice I have received, it is an unnecessary amendment because it is already catered for.
That is the only reason.
I would also go one step further.
You have made certain comments about other matters concerning some amendments and a position that you would like to see adjusted.
It was for that reason Mr Blak's point and Mrs Lulling's point were so relevant.
What are we talking about here? We are talking about occupational pension schemes.
We are not talking about statutory schemes.
I was straightforward enough in my submission to state the possibilities where this could be very hurtful to women's expectations insofar as certain types of schemes are concerned.
But Article 119 does not allow me to adjust that at this time.
I would be quite happy to bring the points that you make to the attention of the Council and to defend them, but, although I know that the amendments as they are currently constituted have taken a lot of time to put together and I can see the thinking behind them, the matters referred to are already covered, insofar as the atypical worker is concerned and there is no need to pursue them further.
If it is of some importance to you and you press the question about Amendment No 5 then I will take it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at noon.
Posting of workers
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0265/96) on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the posting of workers carried out in the framework of the provision of services (C4-0327/96-94/0346(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Peter).
Mr President, five years after the first Commission proposal was submitted, the European Parliament is at last able to deal with the common position at second reading.
The credit for having enabled us to do so belongs primarily to the Italian presidency during the first half of 1996, as I have already remarked on other occasions.
The purpose of the directive is to ensure that the principles of the internal market on the one hand - freedom to provide services, in this case - and of economic and social cohesion on the other are not mutually exclusive.
With continuing labour market integration in the EU, the need for rules has become increasingly urgent.
Competition is distorted and it is socially damaging if workers from a low-wage Community country travel to a Member State with significantly higher wages and salaries, and do the same work as local workers for less pay.
The workers concerned receive vastly inadequate recompense for the value of their work; and local companies cannot compete with cut-price offers resulting from wage dumping.
The same applies to the posting of workers from non-Community countries.
The proposal for a directive rightly begins by establishing the principle of minimum rates of pay and the entitlement of posted workers to annual holidays.
The existing legislation of the Member State concerned on safety at work and working hours must also be adhered to when workers are posted, from the very start and with no exceptions.
The fact that the proposal for a directive now enables posted workers to apply to the court responsible for their place of work to have their conditions of pay and employment reviewed is a welcome improvement.
Overall, the proposal for a directive has been much improved during the consultation period.
A good example is the discussion regarding whether or not to set a compulsory threshold.
Whereas the original intention had been to suspend completely the key provisions on minimum rates of pay and annual holidays for the first three months of a posting, a compulsory threshold is now no longer specified. Instead, limited exceptions to the rule are possible.
Firstly, the principle of subsidiarity is taken into account, in that the Member States may, after consulting employers and employees, opt not to apply the provisions on minimum rates of pay for the first four weeks of a posting.
Secondly, it appears sensible, as far as supply contracts are concerned, to grant an eight-day exemption from the provisions on pay and holidays, now that it has been made clear that this exemption does not apply to the construction work covered by Annex 1.
And, thirdly, the provisions on minimum rates of pay and paid annual holidays may be waived if the amount of work to be carried out during the posting is insignificant.
It is for the Member States to determine what is meant by 'insignificant' .
The crews of merchant navy vessels are excluded from the scope of the directive.
The Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, for which I am rapporteur, thinks it important in this context to specify that posted workers engaged in port dredging and in assisting shipping in port fall within the scope of the directive.
Furthermore, the committee calls on the Commission, in connection with the reporting obligation imposed on it by the directive, to pay particular attention to the means whereby posted workers are informed about the content of the directive.
Mr President, as rapporteur I advised the committee to refrain from adopting any amendments to the common position, and the committee concurred.
I would also ask the House to reject tomorrow the three amendments which have been tabled.
There are at least two good reasons for doing so: firstly, in the years of deliberations on this matter, the views of the House have generally prevailed; and, secondly - and more importantly at present - any amendment could jeopardize the qualified majority in the Council.
Surely no well-meaning person would wish to do that; after all, it is high time that the proposal became a directive, to fill out the foundations of the emerging European social union and serve as one of its cornerstones.
Mr President, I wish to thank Helwin Peter sincerely for the detailed work he has done on this dossier over the last five years - he has helped us a very great deal.
Commissioner Flynn gets a great many brickbats in this place, but I would like to praise his role in the successful conclusion we hope will very soon be achieved with this dossier.
At times the flame on this particular candle was flickering fairly badly but he kept it alive until the Italian presidency came along and the Italian presidency managed to bring it forward to a point where a compromise was possible back in June.
So congratulations to him for the valuable part he has played as well.
This proposal on the posting of workers is a very significant proposal indeed, in its own way as important as the earlier directive on works councils.
We therefore feel that if we are to be mature in our dealings with this proposal we should do exactly what the rapporteur has proposed, and that is adopt the common position without any amendment this week.
In fact the common position as it now stands builds upon Parliament's first reading position in some ways.
In relation to the threshold, for example, or the inclusion of third-country nationals, it actually goes further than Parliament's first reading position.
So we want to see this adopted as quickly as possible.
The best way we can help that process is to adopt the common position without amendment this week.
This particular proposal is based on Articles 57 and 66 of the Treaty.
It therefore relates to freedom of movement and freedom to provide services in the single market, which can be very important and positive things in the operation of the single market.
But without the provisions of a directive like this one, they can also be very negative and very destructive.
In Britain we have a long-running comedy show called 'Auf Wiedersehen, Pet ' . It tells the story of a group of construction workers from my own region, a region of high unemployment, who live in a shack on the construction site in which they are working in Germany.
It is a funny saga of the mishaps and adventures of this group of men, who live beyond the margins of German society in the shadowy areas outside German law.
The problem is that in real life the situation is not funny at all.
Many thousands of people in regions like mine are being forced to live in this way and it simply is not funny.
I am not picking on Germany here, or German employers: any combination of Member States could be chosen to make the same point.
Back in my constituency, week in and week out, people who have fallen foul of this situation bring their problems to me and to my office.
People who have suffered injury at work, who suddenly find that they have no legal employer, who cannot seek redress or compensation, people who are not only not paid for the work they have undertaken but find that their social security contributions have not been kept up by their supposed employer, or people who have virtually found themselves trapped, paying extortionate rents on tied accommodation controlled by their employer.
Not all these problems will be solved by the posting of workers directive but it will give us a framework within which people can be protected and can exercise these freedoms: the freedom of movement and the freedom to provide services.
Freedoms are only meaningful if they involve genuine choice.
This directive will provide the ground rules to allow workers to exercise genuine choice in the operation of those freedoms.
It is very much, therefore, to be welcomed.
More than three years after the first reading and more than a year after we debated the issue, the Council has finally come up with a common position.
I think we should congratulate everyone involved - the rapporteur, Mr Flynn, and especially the Italian presidency which did so much to bring this common position about.
The PPE Group supports the Council's decision, because now is the time to decide on this matter.
However, there are still a few points we should like to raise.
We had intended to present our comments in the form of a statement attached to the directive, and Mr Peter has just mentioned these in his speech.
They concern the crews of merchant vessels, the scope of generally binding collective agreements, and the monitoring of minimum requirements by the Member States.
However, the Rules of Procedure make no provision for statements of this kind, which sometimes means that the House is simply gagging itself, I believe.
But we intend to raise these points again in an oral question at a later sitting.
The PPE Group welcomes the fact that European workers are no longer to be discriminated against in comparison with the nationals of the countries in which they are employed.
This is something which the ETUC in particular has long been waiting for.
The construction sector, above all, is hoping that this directive will solve a number of transfrontier problems, and it will be easier to combat social security and tax fraud by illegal contractors.
The posting of workers directive is a fundamental aspect of the single market's social dimension, and is vital for preventing a competition war based solely on wage dumping.
It applies the principle of lex loci laboris , which means applying the law of the country in which a worker is employed.
The inclusion of this principle in the directive, to be applied as soon as it comes into force, means that workers will be assured of equal treatment from their very first day at work.
Foreign workers will be entitled to the same wage as local workers - doing the same work, naturally - and this will prevent employers from bringing cheap labour in from abroad and paying them much lower wages than local workers.
And a particular feature is that the directive also applies to workers and employers from outside the European Union who are operating here.
The PPE Group feels that this directive is so important that it is prepared to adopt the Council's common position without amendment.
It is actually a considerable improvement on the original Commission proposal and is very much in line with the PPE Group's proposals at first reading, which at that point went further than those of the Socialist Group, Mr Peter.
The sooner this directive comes into force, the better.
Mr President, it is easy to understand why maritime goods transport is being excluded from the scope of the directive.
This is in fact a totally international market, and the application of such measures would seriously impair the competitiveness of Community vessels and oblige shipowners, even against their will, to transfer their vessels to flags of convenience.
On the other hand, roll-on roll-off services - ferries - are an entirely different case, and we propose to retain them within the scope of the measure, through our amendment, for the following reasons.
The first reason concerns the principle of fair competition between Community shipowners, as reaffirmed by our rapporteur.
Let us take the example of cross-Channel services.
The annual wage costs of a passenger vessel vary considerably, depending on whether it is a French or British vessel.
The costs for a French vessel are FF 37 million; for an identical British vessel, they are FF 29 million.
However, if you replace half the British crew with Asian sailors, the wage costs fall to FF 19 million.
Where is the fair competition here, if this sum is compared to the FF 37 million?
I shall not dwell on the second reason, which follows on naturally from the first, since it relates to safeguarding the jobs of Community sailors.
I should in fact prefer to spend the little time I have left in dealing with another issue: the effect of a measure such as this on safety.
We have seen this in almost all accidents at sea, some of them with tragic consequences - the human factor is crucial, whether it is the initial cause of the accident or the handling of the crisis caused by the accident.
On board a vessel, however modern it may be, safety is first and foremost a human matter.
That is why the international safety management code calls for the formation of well-knit crews, whose members are properly trained to cope with emergencies and can communicate easily with one another and with the passengers.
Experience has shown that, on a passenger vessel, it is unrealistic to think that some crew members would have no role to play in a critical situation.
The crew as a whole must be trained in safety techniques.
Finally, I would stress that frequent crew changes, as take place on vessels with a rapid turn-round in order to avoid the extreme fatigue resulting from the very special pace of this work, cannot be regarded as an option unless the sailors live in the immediate vicinity of the port of embarkation.
That is why Members not voting in favour of our amendment will bear a great deal of responsibility as regards the on-board safety of passengers.
Mr President, as several speakers have already pointed out, this proposal is a case of take it or leave it.
In 1993, our group supported the compromise which was then on the table, and we intend to do the same with this proposal, which is why we have not put forward any amendments.
However, I should like to draw attention to an issue which a number of colleagues have already mentioned, namely the working conditions of seamen.
The maritime sector is in absolute chaos at the moment.
In the ports near to where I live, it regularly happens that whole crews are given the sack or even walk out voluntarily because of the awful conditions in which they work.
I would point out that we are experiencing a period of globalization in the world economy, when trade is on the increase, and we shall be relying more and more on maritime transport.
This is therefore an issue that is going to have to be addressed in the world trade negotiations, in my view.
We cannot allow chaos to rule at sea when every other sector is well regulated for workers.
Mr President, consideration of the proposal for a Directive on posting of workers has taken an agonizingly long time.
This state of affairs has caused suffering in many countries, as the pay of workers posted to them temporarily has considerably undercut national wage levels.
Posting of workers has made it possible to find work on conditions, as regards pay, which may perhaps have been acceptable to workers from low-wage countries, but in my opinion were unsatisfactory even from their point of view.
The procedure in any case merely transfers unemployment from one country to another and increases pressure for cuts in pay and social security in Member States where levels of wages and social security are high.
This is a bad thing from everybody's point of view.
The Council's joint position does not in all respects accord with the objectives of the European trade union movement.
The exemptions, in particular, weaken the directive and will lead to problems of implementation.
Article 3, which permits exemptions on the grounds that the amount of work to be done is not significant, is ill-defined.
It could be applied very differently in different Member States.
Bearing in mind that the first exemption already permits national decisions to be taken on the treatment of cases where the length of posting does not exceed one month, it could be asked whether this does not sufficiently cover cases where the amount of work to be done is not significant.
Despite this criticism, the most important thing is that the Directive, defects and all, should be adopted.
It will make it possible to establish that certain terms of employment of the country where the work is carried out should apply to workers posted from abroad, and it will also prevent dumping of labour from third countries throughout the territory of the EU.
The general applicability of collective agreements is the cornerstone of Finland's employment contracts system; Finland bases its regulations concerning the terms of employment of foreign workers precisely on this principle, and will now be authorized by this Directive to do so.
I should like to thank rapporteur Peter for his work and express the hope that the Council will bring this Directive into force speedily.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since this is something of a tête-à-tête, I can begin by endorsing wholeheartedly what both Mr Peter and Mr Hughes have said.
But since I am who I am, and I am a Green, I should like to add my pennyworth.
Firstly, there is of course the problem of the exemptions: a huge amount of case-law will be required to make this truly watertight.
Secondly, there is the urgent matter of informing foreign posted workers about their rights; the Member States will have to do something here.
And thirdly, there is the problem currently affecting the United Kingdom with regard to the adoption of a proper definition of posted work, because many ostensibly self-employed British men go to Germany carrying their factories with them in the form of tool-boxes.
There really is still a great deal to be done here.
It is now high time for something to happen, and that is why the common position must enter into force as quickly as possible.
To those Members who are jeopardizing that outcome by tabling amendments, such as Mr d'Aboville, who has referred to the IMO guidelines - that is the International Maritime Organization, for his information - or by discussing European directives on maritime safety and crew levels for all vessels putting in at European ports, I would say that they might do better to cooperate with us, rather than trying to clarify these issues here and now.
They cannot be clarified rapidly, here and now, without serious risk of jeopardizing the solution of what really is a crucial problem.
Ultimately, the only issue at stake here is to re-establish the legal and civil - or occupational - status of posted work, which is currently being attacked and undermined from all sides.
Shipping, with its secondary registers and the use of flags of convenience, has indeed become a test case, and I shall be full of admiration for Mr Flynn if he succeeds in achieving stability in this area.
He would be able to take credit, once and for all, for having begun to redefine the status of posted work as an occupational category, a category with rights and with the appropriate protection. That is what we should all be striving for.
Mr President, it is very understandable that this directive on the posting of workers has given rise to many lengthy debates.
It has been discussed in the Social Affairs Council, where the matter has featured no less than six times on the agenda.
It has been discussed in employers' and workers' organizations, in the Commission and in Parliament, and presumably also in broader circles in the various Member States.
Denmark is known for several things in the EU context, including the fact that in Denmark, there are clear boundaries as to what is the subject of agreements between the parties in the labour market and what is actually a matter for legislation.
There is a concern on the part of some employers and workers in Denmark as regards directives in general and this directive in particular, namely that the directive will undermine the right to conclude agreements in Denmark.
The fact is that every time an EU directive has to be implemented, something is lost from the right to free negotiation, since implementation is never 100 % via the negotiating route.
The rest takes place by legislation.
In Denmark, people in the construction sector in particular are extremely sceptical about the directive.
However, it appears that the Council has made some reservations on this point in its decision.
But how do things look in the other sectors? The directive has not allowed for the problems which, in our view, may arise there.
In the actual report by Mr Peter, it is said that a compulsory threshold is no longer specified, and then a number of provisos are mentioned.
For example, in point 1 of the explanatory statement, it is said that: ' If the period for which a worker is posted does not exceed one month, the Member States may, after consulting employers and employees and in accordance with their usual procedures and practices, opt not to apply the provisions on minimum rates of pay.'
We then have to ask the question: is this not another way of saying that there is still a threshold of up to one month? And we would also emphasize that the role envisaged for the State in this scenario is an encroachment on the right of free negotiation between the two parties in Denmark.
It is further stated in point 3: ' The provisions on minimum paid annual holidays and minimum rates of pay may generally be waived if the amount of work is insignificant.'
Is it the host country or the home country that determines what is meant by 'insignificant' ?
When the FTF in Denmark - the union of officials and civil servants - also declares in this context that it sees the right to take industrial action as being threatened by this directive on the posting of workers, we must entirely agree with them.
The directive is a real threat.
We see this directive as another aspect of further harmonization in the area of agreements and in the labour market sector, and on those grounds we have to dissociate ourselves from this report.
It is absolutely essential to regulate in particular the general financial conditions governing the posting of workers carried out in the framework of the provision of services in another Member State, so as to prevent wage dumping, which has already started to occur in the Community.
Because of the serious undercutting of national wages, an unnaturally small supply of employment is available on the labour market in certain regions, particularly in the construction industry.
Moreover, there are considerable distortions of competition between individual firms.
This Council directive seeks to combat wage dumping and reduce distortion of competition in respect of the freedom to provide services, in order to create a level playing-field for all serviceproviders.
The provision in the directive whereby a Member State can decide whether or not to apply the measures for a onemonth period is therefore an important one.
A Member State must indeed be free to decide whether to introduce such a measure without any transitional period, as soon as the service-provider begins work, or whether to wait for a month at most.
It is important for Member States to have such discretion, because the posting of workers from high-wage countries to low-wage countries, especially on short assignments, does not require any additional red tape; but in the reverse situation, when workers from low-wage countries are posted to high-wage countries, immediate application of the directive will protect local service-providers and shield businesses from distortions of competition.
We need to recognize, however, that this posting directive is only one step forward in the campaign against distortions of competition and to increase the competitiveness of firms, and hence job security.
It is equally important to make working time more flexible and to provide some much-needed tax relief on labour costs, particularly in high-wage countries, which will enable firms to become more competitive.
Mr President, previous speakers have mentioned the amount of time it took for the Council to arrive at a common position on the so-called posting directive.
To my mind, this lengthy decision-making period in the Council is just another sign that social legislation is shelved for as long as possible, if not completely blocked or killed off, in the institution of the Union which represents the national governments.
Mr Peter, the rapporteur, states in his report that Parliament's will has largely prevailed in the course of the deliberations on the amended Commission proposal and the common position.
That is significant.
In the social arena above all, we, the European Parliament, represent the driving force within the Union.
Mr Peter's excellent report is the best example of this: it does not provide the Council with any pretext for delaying further still the entry into force of the directive.
I hope that the entry into force of the posting directive will send out a clear social message, and that the people of the Union will pay heed to it.
I also hope that the directive will help the much-trumpeted European social union to regain some degree of credibility.
At this point, I should like deal at slightly greater length with the problem which in fact made it necessary to draw up and introduce a posting directive.
The livelihoods of workers in countries with high wage levels and high social standards, which are costly to maintain, are being threatened by workers from countries with low wages and social standards, especially in the construction sector, which is labour-intensive and depends heavily on the general economic situation.
We therefore need to make sure that, as a matter of principle, the same wage is paid for the same work in the same place, and if possible as from day one.
The critics of such legislation repeatedly object that it impinges on one of the four fundamental freedoms of the internal market, namely the freedom of movement of persons.
That may be true, but let me make one thing perfectly clear: this directive is a much-needed legal instrument to correct certain extremely negative effects of free competition.
It should protect workers in the host country, whilst at the same time ensuring that workers from low-wage countries do not have to work for peanuts abroad, so to speak.
And I am sure that implementation of the posting directive will not destroy the competitive advantage which workers in countries with low wages have on the free market.
After all, the present version of the directive does not go as far as that; it provides for exemptions in this area.
It is now up to the individual Member States to push through implementation of this directive.
I agree with the rapporteur that its impact in practice will depend largely on the effectiveness of national monitoring instruments.
It is up to the Commission to keep a sharp eye on the Member States during the implementation process, and I hope that the report to be submitted to this House by the Commission a few years from now will state that wage dumping no longer represents a problem, particularly in sensitive sectors of the labour market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the directive on the posting of workers carried out in the framework of the provision of services is one that is urgently needed.
The 'shareholder value' principle is very fashionable nowadays, and is put before human dignity on the spurious grounds that freedom of movement for workers should not be restricted, or on some other such grounds.
I should just like to describe the circumstances of workers who come to Germany from the United Kingdom, Portugal or the countries of Eastern Europe.
They earn between DM 5 and DM 8 per hour, and live in shacks or porta cabins in very cramped conditions.
Since they cannot afford to eat in restaurants, they live on bread and sausage, just so that they have some money left to take home to their families.
What about their human dignity, I ask myself?
In my view, workers within and outside the EU must at last be placed on an equal footing.
What is more, no one mentions the fact that these practices distort competition.
Certain EU countries have already introduced excellent counter-measures; others are filling their coffers because they have not yet passed any such legislation.
To my mind, the Commission must prevent such distortions of competition; that is its job.
At the same time, it would be clamping down on economic crime and the social abuses connected with these practices.
I believe that this directive will brook no delay.
I therefore agree with Mr Peter that neither positive nor negative amendments should be accepted.
We shall reject them all, because we should not hold up the directive any longer and give the Council an opportunity to stall things once again.
I am most grateful to my colleague Mr Peter and to the Commissioner for having set the ball rolling.
I would just say a further word about media interest.
If we had been discussing the European limited company, there would have been several television crews in the gallery.
Unfortunately, when this subject is under discussion, they are not here!
Mr President, the proposal seeks to coordinate the legislations of the Member States with the aim of creating imperative rules which must be respected by companies which transfer their workers to another Member State of the Union.
Certainly such harmonization, which by definition goes beyond the territorial competence of the Member States, implies particular attention on the part of the Union itself.
These standards of protection must obviate that legal insecurity which accompanies the phenomena of transfer and respond to the demands of the workers. They must, in addition, cover conditions of fair competition.
We underline the fact that the directive is not intended to harmonize the material rules of the Member States, relating to the right to work and the conditions in which it is expressed, but it is intended to coordinate the regulations appropriate to determine a list of priorities.
We are of the opinion that the Union must put into operation a Community instrument which governs all the issues.
The directive, finally, deals with the status of the workers and with the tendency to sub-contract which is based on the principle of making to demand the work from non-national firms.
We trust that the Commission will effectively safeguard the industries of the south, so as to preserve their principles of concurrence and exercise it guaranteeing the relative social rights to the workers.
We attribute, finally, great importance to the planned duty of information and cooperation between the states, an obligation which should also be extended to the Member States which did not approve this common position in the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal for a directive - which has, incidentally, been rejected in the Council by the UK and Portugal - is based on the twin assumptions that the construction industry in the so-called high-wage countries is in need of protection, and that the posting there of workers from so-called low-wage countries constitutes wage and social dumping, which results in unfair competition.
The main cause of the wage and social dumping which is evident in some of the so-called high-wage countries is in fact the alarming rise in illegal terms of employment.
The response of this proposed posting directive is to render the legal posting of workers from low-wage countries in high-wage countries uneconomic, by increasing rates of pay.
Restricting legal posting in this way would therefore not make the slightest contribution to combatting the main evil, namely illegal employment.
The adoption of contractual or national minimum rates of pay not only serves to eliminate the wage-cost benefits of posting workers from low-wage countries in high-wage countries; more significantly, it also becomes impossible, or at least much more difficult, for posted workers to find employment in host countries which have higher wage levels.
However, Article 48 of the EC Treaty, in conjunction with Article 7a, second paragraph, of the Treaty, secures the freedom of workers to obtain employment on their own terms in any Member State.
This right of free movement is a cornerstone of the completion of the internal market, and it applies even to posted workers working in another country under the terms of employment of their home country.
This right would in practice become virtually impossible to exercise if the proposed posting directive came into effect.
To impede or complicate the exercising of this right would unacceptably undermine the right to freedom of movement.
Unilaterally excluding wage costs as a factor of competition would suppress competition to the detriment of foreign service-providers in the construction industry, thereby infringing one of the fundamental principles of the European internal market.
Mr President, first of all I would like to offer my thanks to Mr Peter for his excellent report. Also to thank Parliament for its generous response to what we have been seeking to do in so far as the final adoption of this proposal is concerned.
There is very strong support here in the House for the common position adopted by the Council on 3 June on the proposal for a directive on the posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services.
Indeed, Mr Konrad, I think it was your thought that was behind us all, in seeking finally to put this to bed.
That was the question about protecting freedom of movement as a fundamental right and pillar of the European Union and also, as Mr Peter said, to prevent wage dumping, social dumping and all classes of dumping.
I would certainly like to thank Mr Hughes and his colleagues, who set out the value added of this particular proposal and I also think it is appropriate to say thank you to the President-in-Office at the time, Mr Treu, who worked very hard to convince the rest of his colleagues that the final compromise should be put in place.
In approving this particular common position you will of course be opening up the door to a very rapid definitive adoption of the directive.
I would also congratulate you on the improvements that you have made to the original proposal for the directive, throughout the adoption procedure.
One of the Members said it was discussed at six social affairs Council meetings; I think I counted nearly eight where this was being talked about.
As the Commission pointed out in its recent communication to Parliament, the common position now contains a number of important features which reflect the amendments that were proposed by Parliament in February 1993.
In this very complex field of rules governing conflicts of laws applicable to employment contracts, we have managed to arrive at a text which is both realistic and maintains an essential balance between economic freedoms and the rights of workers.
In the light of all that, the Commission cannot accept the amendments before us today whose content is likely to jeopardize what we think is a very hard won balance.
There was reference to the question of ro-ro services, by Mr d'Aboville in particular.
I have to say that roll-on/roll-off services do not involve posting within the meaning of this particular directive.
It is not an appropriate instrument for dealing with any problems arising in that connection and we cannot accept that amendment on that account.
I would like to say to Mr d'Aboville that ro-ro vessels transport goods and passengers from one Member State to another, without any transfer of the vessels' operating base to another Member State, and on completion of operations the ro-ro vessels return to their operating base.
In such a case workers are not posted within the meaning of the directive and, moreover, the law of flag generally applies to ro-ro vessels.
The posting of workers from a vessel flying the flag of one Member State to a vessel flying the flag of another Member State is very rare indeed, so we cannot accept that particular amendment.
Mr Wolf made a very important point about how difficult it might be to transpose this particular directive to national law and I think he has a fair point, but we do have a responsibility that Community law be applied effectively and efficiently.
I would like to say to Mr Wolf and the House that we will be watching the transposition of this particular piece of legislation very carefully, because its application will reflect the transnational nature of the provisions.
I can assure him the Commission is going to go through the provisions as applied in the Member States with quite a fine tooth-comb and also the action taken in the event of failure to comply with the directive.
Similarly, the Commission will also be vigilant in checking the steps taken by the Member States to make the information referred to in Article 4 generally available.
We have done this on a number of occasions in the past, quite successfully.
In addition, the Commission is prepared to help out the Member States in seeking the appropriate means for facilitating the application of the directive.
Finally, I would like to thank all of those who have been very generous in their praise of the Commissioner and of the Council in finally putting to bed this very important piece of legislation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Reduction in working hours
The next item is the report (A4-0207/96) by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on a reduction in working hours.
Mr President, the fair distribution of work is an important objective for my group.
It is entirely unacceptable that in a society where work is held up as such an ideal, at least 18 million people - but more likely more than 30 million - are out of work against their will.
Of course, as the President-in-Office has already said, reducing working hours is not the only way to solve unemployment, and the creation of new jobs is at least as important.
But the information society on which so many people have pinned their hopes can at best be expected to create jobs in the long term, and will actually destroy many before then.
We all know that economic growth will not help all the unemployed, and the civil service and the fourth sector, which are both big employers, are cutting back as part of the efforts to meet the criteria for EMU.
In the short term, therefore, the reduction of working hours and a crackdown on overtime are important measures.
The number of hours of overtime worked in the Union as a whole is now the equivalent of 3 to 4 million jobs, so the solution proposed by Klaus Zwickel, the leader of the German metalworkers' union, and others to pay for overtime with time off makes good sense.
People often worry about productivity with higher wage costs, but research in my country, where as you know, reduced working hours and part-time work are fairly common, shows that the effects of shorter working hours on productivity are much more positive than is frequently thought.
It indicates that people working shorter hours are often more productive, and what they produce is of better quality; they manage their time better; they are better at setting priorities and take a fresher approach to tasks; they are more motivated and, last but not least, they take less time off sick.
All these factors naturally have a very positive effect on productivity and costs.
In the collective bargaining where decisions are taken on reducing working hours in my country, the workers agree to 'pay' for shorter working hours with moderate wage claims and greater flexibility over a number of years.
It is unfortunate that some groups in the European Parliament are trying to equate shorter working hours with flexibility and/or the reorganization of working time.
This is being extremely unfair to the Rocard report.
Unlike those who dogmatically insist that flexibility and reorganization represent the only solutions, Mr Rocard is offering a combination of strategies which could encourage both workers and employers to adopt shorter working hours.
Those who set great store by market mechanisms in particular must find the proposal to differentiate social contributions attractive, together with the financial incentives for employers designed to promote job-creation.
These seem to me to be entirely in keeping with the market.
Those who oppose such ideas are simply afraid of what the outcome of this study might be. This may protect your dogmas, but as politicians you are simply abdicating your responsibility to do everything in your power to combat unemployment.
Mr President, combatting unemployment is the top priority for the Union.
We must find new ways of tackling this major political and social challenge, but we have to ensure that our ideas are practicable.
Mr Rocard addresses himself in this own-initiative report to the reduction of working hours.
He notes with some surprise that this topic has hardly been discussed until now, and presumes that it is too daunting.
He is mistaken!
Many attempts to reduce working time and recruit new staff have proved impossible to put into practice.
The Volkswagen model of a four-day week is not universally valid, neither in the automobile industry nor in other sectors.
Work-sharing is a defensive strategy; to defeat unemployment we need new, competitive jobs.
We need an overall political context which will promote growth and create the right climate for investment and innovation.
Only a competitive economy can provide scope for flexible changes in working time.
All of this is missing from the Rocard report.
Very few countries would be able to carry out the proposal that the funds saved on unemployment benefits should be redistributed by the authorities to compensate for loss of earnings.
If the consequence of this is dirigisme , it is quite irreconcilable with our view of industrial relations.
We believe that working hours should be determined by collective agreements, geared to a company's needs and work processes, and negotiated by the two sides of industry.
Our doubts as to the accuracy of the tidy sum estimated by Mr Rocard at ECU 350 billion have not been allayed.
These funds are not a financial reserve which can be disposed of at will.
Instead, the task of the Member States must be to cut back on unnecessary expenditure, in order to curb national debt and achieve stability.
The idea that it is hard to increase productivity in the public sector is provocative and untrue.
As PPE Group members of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, we have managed to give the Rocard report a facelift.
Moreover, the rapporteur has accepted nearly all the amendments submitted by our group under the heading of 'the adaptation of working hours' .
By doing so, he has departed from the initial idea of a Commission study looking solely at reduced working time.
The original version provided for a recommendation which already set out the conditions for cutting working hours: in other words, the analysis was to have been performed, but its outcome was a foregone conclusion for the rapporteur - that is how an expensive study can turn into a cheap farce.
The attitude of the Group of the European People's Party is unequivocal: we are in favour of a sensible, flexible adaptation of working time.
We favour more voluntary part-time work, geared to company requirements and employment patterns.
We also favour a smooth transition to retirement and part-time work for older workers.
All of this must be included in the Commission study.
Mr President, before I start I should like to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Minister Fitzgerald, to the House.
She is a lady who I have worked a lot with in the past on the National Economic and Social Forum and whose opinion I have great respect for and whose guidance I would take on many occasions.
Also at the outset I want to congratulate Mr Rocard on his tenacity and persistence in getting this report through despite, at times, virulent opposition from certain groups, with myself most virulent and opposed.
It was Thomas Moore who described the land of hope as Utopia.
That is what we are dealing with here today.
We are dealing with an ideal that we would all love to see: a shorter working week, more money, less taxation, more leisure time.
But the reality is something different.
The reality is that unless we are competitive, that unless we allow our businesses and enterprises to prosper, to grow and to compete on the world market we are ultimately doomed to fail; not only in the sense of protecting existing jobs but also in ensuring that we try to find new forms of work for the long-term unemployed.
Even here in the debate today there has been a divergence of opinion as regards how many unemployed we actually have in Europe.
Mr Rocard said over 20 million.
Mr van Velzen - maybe the interpretation got it wrong so I apologize if that is the case - said 30 million.
The Minister and President-in-Office of the Council said 18 million.
There is a huge divergence of opinion just on that point alone.
If we are talking about implementing new forms of work and working time, we must surely know what we are trying to achieve and the basis that we are starting from.
In the report that has been presented there is no impact assessment, not even in respect of what the Commission describes as the engine for economic and employment generation in the Union: the SMEs.
Furthermore, it mistakenly assumes that international studies have said that a reduction in working hours will help to increase employment.
Yet when we look at the most recent OECD report, it says that a reduction in working time will not increase employment.
As well as that we are putting people on the scrap-heap early.
There is a new ageism forcing people to retire early so that wealth of knowledge and experience will be lost to us.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Rocard has succeeded in getting us all to work hard both in the Committee on Social Affairs and in our groups, and I can assure him and other honourable Members that the debate is still continuing, in my group at least.
I can also assure him that I shall be urging everyone to give the report a chance, but not because I think it is the answer to all our problems, far from it.
However, I firmly believe that we have a political responsibility to combat unemployment in Europe by every means possible.
The Rocard report contains an interesting idea that there should be tax and social security incentives based on the number of hours people wish to work, and this is what I think should be given a chance.
I am not entirely convinced that it is a solution.
Mr Rocard painted me as an opponent of his ideas in the Committee on Social Affairs, and I said on a number of occasions that I believed a reduction in working hours had many disadvantages as well.
In my country, which is the same as Mr van Velzen's, there have also been cases where workers gave up some of their working hours and some of their pay, but no new jobs ever came out of it.
I myself have experienced this in the past, so I am not just talking hypothetically.
It also works much better in larger companies where it is easier to organize, whereas its advantages for smaller firms are much less obvious.
I was also the one in the Committee on Social Affairs who called for work to be organized differently in the context of reduced working hours.
As I see it, working hours should not just be reduced per week, but over the course of a year or even one's whole working life, and we must be far more flexible in how we organize work in relation to the means of production, the premises and the weekly distribution of working patterns.
Mr Rocard was generous enough - and I was most impressed by this - to take our arguments in the Committee on Social Affairs on board and to accept a large number of our amendments.
There will, of course, be people who say he should withdraw his report, but I do not agree.
I think that Mr Rocard is someone who is prepared to listen to his colleagues and to give interesting ideas his consideration, and this is precisely what I would call on the Commission to do.
I would also like to thank the President-in-Office for giving this problem a great deal of thought and raising a number of points such as SMEs which need to be looked at more closely.
I shall be commending this report to my group, and while I cannot be entirely sure of success, I still think that many of my colleagues will vote to give the report a chance.
Mr President, the 6 + 6 model has been experimented with in Finnish industry, and it has yielded many benefits.
The operating times of machinery have been extended, and workers remain more alert, in addition to which it has become easier to combine employment with family life and leisure.
All this has also become apparent from the reduction in sick leave and absences from work.
Thanks to increased productivity, it was found possible to continue to pay the same wages to workers in these experiments, despite the reduction in working hours.
So this is quite possible, thanks to rises in productivity.
The majority of our Group, who are from Southern Europe, understandably consider that pay cuts cannot be accepted in any circumstances.
It is difficult to attain in public services all the benefits to which I have referred, which were achieved in the private sector.
Negotiations in many work-places in Finland have been difficult, and agreement has not been reached in all of them, as workers have opposed it.
I therefore myself consider it essential to earmark economic resources particularly for experiments in reducing working time and altering the allocation of work in the public sector, to enable any pay cuts to be compensated - ideally, 100 %.
Cuts in unemployment will permit significant savings in public expenditure.
Employment initiatives should also be promoted, not only by means of subsidies but also by revising the principles concerning the levying of social security contributions.
The model proposed in the report whereby social security contributions would be graduated according to the length of the working day is a good one.
Now practical examples are needed, and must be publicized.
The most important contribution made by this report is that it requires the Commission to collate the findings of the experiments carried out in the various countries and to encourage the Member States and the two sides of industry to negotiate the introduction of new experiments.
This is a very important initiative, and I should like to thank Mr Rocard for his good work.
Mr President, the Greens greatly welcome this initiative and the report's view of working hours reductions as an important contribution to bringing down unemployment. Perhaps it has even paved the way for a completely new approach to the deployment our common resources, i.e. public funds.
Perhaps they can be used to compensate for loss of earnings.
We would of course have preferred a report which had not been so watered down by the more conservative forces in the European Parliament; we would rather have kept the more forthright formulations of situations and proposals that Mr Rocard started out with.
We should have no illusions that high unemployment also means wider divisions in society and that this in turn leads to greater conflicts and provides fertile ground for violence, racism and democratic breakdown.
It would therefore have demeaned us not to come up with something.
What we have before us is, so to speak, the best that could have come out of this situation.
The starting point of the Greens has always been that working hours reductions are beneficial for many different reasons.
Obviously because we must share jobs and bring down unemployment, but also because they lead to greater equality of opportunity, greater fairness, and an increased quality of life.
They also offer possibilities of building up functioning social networks which, in their turn, create security and freedom.
A range of other measures are of course also needed in order to create more jobs and a sustainable recycling society.
I am thinking here, for example, of the 'green' taxation option and investment in new energy and transport systems.
These measures have not been given so much coverage, but they would also really create many, many hundreds of thousands of jobs.
An amendment has been tabled to the effect that the word 'adjustment' of working hours should be introduced into the title.
It is a word that can be interpreted in many different ways and perhaps misunderstood.
I therefore think that 'adjustment' or 'flexibility' should not come to mean that social or labour law rules are invalidated.
On the other hand, the parties involved in the labour market, i.e. employees, employers and the state, must give and take in a common endeavour to ensure that a substantial reduction in working hours can be achieved.
Mr President, the Council and the Commission have really taken a terribly long time over this issue of a reduction in working hours.
There were supposed to be other priorities which prevented them from dealing with it.
There was the Maastricht 3 % rule, which meant an automatic block on social issues.
There were continual complaints from employers about the excessively high social contributions, and the reduction in our competitive capacity.
There was the growing phenomenon of industrial migration to the countries of Central Europe and South-East Asia.
There was also - let us be frank - an ideological stalemate between the progressively-minded and the conservative.
So this debate is a welcome opportunity, and not before time, to give imagination and creativity another chance.
Three years ago, we organized a conference on reducing working hours with our party in Flanders.
At that time, it was regarded as unrealistic and dismissed as impossible.
Now the debate has moved to the appropriate forum for such issues: the European Parliament.
Let us be clear about one thing: a reduction in working hours is not a miracle solution to unemployment.
A number of different approaches are needed, and reducing working hours is just one of them, but what we are trying to do above all is to introduce a new moral dimension.
A reduction in working hours cannot simply be applied across the board, but must be decided on through negotiations in each sector or even each firm, so that account can be taken of local conditions and the competitive position of the sector or firm in question.
There are a number of amendments to this report which talk about a reduction in working hours without loss of earnings.
This seems like a nice idea, but - let us be honest - it is rather unrealistic.
My group will therefore not be supporting these amendments.
In our view, the rapporteur is right to adopt a different approach in proposing that some of the ECU 350 billion currently paid out in unemployment benefits should be used to compensate for loss of earnings.
The Christian-Democratic group has tabled a series of amendments seeking to have the phrase 'reduction in working hours' removed from the report and replaced, euphemistically, by 'adaptation of working hours' .
This, as I see it, violates earlier agreements.
I would point out that in the Coates report produced by the ad hoc committee on employment, we agreed not to spend too much time on the issue of reducing working hours because the Rocard report was in the pipeline. Now it is here.
It is a report which calls for a great deal of very necessary research, which we should start on as soon as possible.
We are standing at a turning-point in history, in my opinion.
Basically, this is a debate on the kind of quality of life and new social developments that we, as politicians, would like to see.
That is what this debate is really all about.
Mr President, unemployment is the key problem, as it says in Mr Rocard's report.
I think we can all entirely agree on that, but the question is, who is going to do something about the unemployment problem?
Is it the European Union, is it the Member States, or is it a case of both one and the other? This report is based on the assumption that it will be the latter.
Let me make it absolutely clear that, in my view, exchanges of ideas should always take place across national frontiers.
That also applies when we are talking about employment.
However, we do not wish a more binding form of cooperation to be established.
I have to dissociate myself from the idea of drawing up common EU proposals to eliminate unemployment.
My own feeling is that the report by Mr Rocard points to some good proposals for solving the problem, including a general reduction in working hours, but this must be something that the individual Member States decide for themselves, either through legislation or as a subject for agreement between the parties in the labour market.
In more general terms, I should like to stress that I think it is quite incredible that there is constantly talk in EU circles about combatting unemployment, when at the same time the EU is eagerly working towards the completion of the third stage of EMU.
The Member States are being asked to pursue a policy of convergence, which means, as we know, an even greater number of unemployed people.
Several experts, even strong advocates of EMU, have said that the completion of EMU will increase unemployment.
The Industry Council of the Labour Movement in Denmark predicts that if the timetable laid down in the Maastricht Treaty is adhered to, unemployment in the European Union will rise by about one million.
To my mind, there is no clear demarcation of the competence of the Member States and the Union in this area.
And I think it is a weakness that no such demarcation has been included in the report.
It is often said in this Chamber how important it is to maintain cultural diversity.
I should like to point out that it is one of the hallmarks of Danish culture that agreements on the conditions on the labour market are something for which the parties in the labour market are responsible.
And we wish that to continue to be the case.
Let us keep the cultural differences among the 15 countries.
We may even be able to solve the problem of unemployment individually.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I regret that Mr Rocard, who was Prime Minister of France for three years, did not exploit that time to eradicate the scourge of unemployment by means of the miraculous remedies which he is proposing today.
Instead, the ranks of the unemployed swelled from one to three million in France during François Mitterrand's two seven-year periods in office.
But Mr Rocard has not moved on in ideological terms, and unfortunately has not departed from his Malthusian and pessimistic economic thinking.
The amount of work available in the European Union, and particularly in France, has not been frozen at its present level once and for all.
Let us protect our markets from fierce competition, let us reform our absurd system of taxation which penalizes work, effort and enterprise, let us abandon the illusions of Maastricht and its overvalued currencies, let us curb government spending, let us turn back the tide of immigration, let us bolster consumer spending; then we shall create new jobs.
Economic logic is not purely arithmetical; it is dynamic, responsive and alive, and will therefore not fit into the totally abstruse intellectual models set out in your explanatory statement.
What becomes of your theories when they are applied to SMEs, to small and medium-sized enterprises with a minimum of ten employees? For it to be worthwhile extending plant running time, and hence increasing production, a demand has to exist.
You say that average working hours are a variable linked to the level of employment.
Why is it then that unemployment is falling in the United States and is so low in Japan when, statistically, workers in those countries work longer hours than in Europe? A reduction in weekly, monthly or annual working time will not, therefore, automatically bring down unemployment.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you give no consideration to the human dimension.
The quality and quantity of human work cannot be confined to your statistical notion of working time.
White-collar staff, for whom there is no such thing as overtime, will work as much as before, even if they are supposed to work 32 hours.
The banning of overtime will deprive blue-collar workers of additional earnings, and they will not be able to make ends meet with their basic pay alone.
No, Mr Rocard, human beings are neither interchangeable nor identical, and they cannot be computer-modelled.
You are in fact turning a blind eye to the causes of unemployment: worldwide free trade, immigration and absurd systems of taxation.
You have tried out all the remedies of a quack doctor, all of them whistling for the wind, but there are actually over 25 million people out of work in Europe.
Your report is nothing but a political gimmick, to which only clueless politicians and conniving trade unionists will give any credence - two groups which are both incapable of squaring up to the economic, social, political, demographic and moral crisis which is afflicting Europe.
Ladies and gentlemen, I shall not take up the comments made by the previous speaker, but I am very surprised by the scepticism within the ranks of the PPE Group.
After all, according to the Delors White Paper, reductions in working hours in the northern Member States led to the creation of 8 % more jobs, even accounting in the Netherlands for half of the 30 % rise in employment.
In Germany too, between 1983 and 1992 a third of newly-created jobs were attributable to reduced working time.
We must nevertheless be realistic about one thing: growth alone will have only a minimal impact on employment.
The Prognos Institute in Basle has predicted, for example, that Germany will have no more jobs in the year 2010 than in 1992, primarily as a result of gains in productivity.
Although we shall see increased employment in the service and information sectors, there will be a decrease in the production sector and further job losses in agriculture.
Of course, as politicians we cannot just sit back and accept this.
Paid work not only provides economic security but is the principal route to individual self-fulfilment.
That is why I am so impressed by the blueprint outlined here by Mr Rocard - and it is a package of ideas, not just a reduction in working hours.
This report will be a major stimulus for debate both in the national parliaments and at European level.
For many years, employers were opposed to reduced working hours and in favour only of flexibility, which meant constant availability around the clock, variable working hours and temporary work.
All this has now changed.
Volkswagen in Germany is just one example; our CDU colleague is mistaken in thinking that there are no others.
Even SMEs have taken to experimenting with modern, innovative schemes regarding working time.
Mr Rocard's proposals represent a significant component of a European policy on employment.
Mr President, today's report on the reduction of working time shows Parliament's ability to make a significant contribution to solving the problems of the day.
I should therefore like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work, his tenacity and his enthusiasm in defending his proposals on all occasions.
His basic premise is a good one, and his proposed approaches are interesting.
I would nevertheless add a rider to the solutions which he offers.
First of all, Europe with all its diversity has an equal need for a reduction and a flexible reorganization of working time, in order to cater for sectoral needs and business circumstances, taking particular account of the specific features of SMEs.
In this context, the amendments tabled by the PPE Group and ourselves would make the proposed solutions far more realistic and acceptable to all the countries and political movements represented in this House.
There is another crucial point, I believe.
This report, which provides a constructive basis for considering, at European level, the possibilities and consequences of reorganizing or indeed reducing working time, must not seek to prejudge the results - positive or not - of the studies and consultations for which it calls.
In this respect, the amendments tabled by the PPE Group making European action in this area contingent on the outcome of the studies commissioned seem to me to be very wise.
Similarly, it is unrealistic to propose as of now a cut in working hours without loss of earnings thanks to automatic compensation by the state.
It is to clarify this point that we suggest linking compensation to the actual fall in the number of unemployed persons and, consequently, the cost to the community.
Mr President, two basic ideas run through the Rocard report: the first is that the number of jobs is a constant, affected only by productivity.
When there are not enough jobs for everyone, they must be rationed and shared.
Moreover penalty taxes must be imposed on those who want to work more.
The second idea is that work is drudgery, something that workers would rather avoid.
These basic ideas lead to conclusions that are completely at variance with the demands of the future.
The age distribution in a decade or so will be such that we risk serious generational conflicts.
It will become difficult for ever fewer gainfully employed people to care for an ever larger ageing population.
We therefore need to get rid of unemployment at the same time as improving productivity and raising pensionable ages.
Mr Rocard is advocating job rationing, when what is needed is an increase in the number of jobs.
Otherwise, in a few years' time we shall be faced with a social trauma of immense proportions.
In ten years, Mr President, our debate today will stand out as hopelessly unrealistic.
Mr President, we think the Rocard report brings up the opposite criticism from the one the conservatives have raised.
The Rocard report reveals a contradiction between analysis and programmed information, and between information and political decisions.
There is no doubt that it is important not to put our trust in quantitative policies, growth, increasing gross domestic product, which have not in fact reduced unemployment, and that it is right, as the report suggests, to identify the central importance of distribution and reduction of hours.
But in reality this valuable analysis remains trapped in certain nineties illusions which have prevented the reduction of working hours being pursued.
One of these illusions lies in connecting the reduction of working hours to the policy of flexibility achieved by firms, usually unilateral and diluted to the point of blurring the reduction in hours.
Even more impracticable is the hypothesis of subordinating a reduction in working hours to a reduction in wages.
If that happens, there will be no reduction in hours.
In Europe and many countries there is now a real wage problem, frequently forcing workers to increase rather than reduce working hours, by working overtime.
When hours are linked to flexibility and there is no integrated policy, as has happened in many countries, there is an increase in effective average daily working hours, instead of a reduction. As if that were not enough, the rise in pensionable age is extending the working life, so in many European countries we are now seeing an increase in production and productivity, an increase in unemployment and an increase in the average hours of work.
There is a need for change, especially today with recession approaching, which leads us to draw the most rational and extreme conclusions from Mr Rocard's analysis.
We need a proposal for a consistent reduction in hours concentrated over time, because only consistency in reduction and concentration over time can establish an employment policy.
If the European Community can set binding targets for reducing deficits and debt for Europe, as it does, then it should also be able to set binding targets for reducing working hours in quantity and over time, so that government action and the work of social forces are concentrated on that objective.
Otherwise the analysis may be valid but the political conclusions will not be.
Mr President, reductions in working time are part of our economic history.
Mr Rocard's report at least has the merit of focusing attention on a real social problem at long last, and I thank him for that.
This is of course a controversial subject, and opponents of shorter working hours have no difficulty in stating that in the United States and the United Kingdom, unemployment is falling steadily and there has never been so much work.
But what kind of work? Much of it is part-time and badly paid; working time is divided between rich and poor, and casualization is proceeding apace.
Nor do I believe that a reduction in working time is the only way of combatting unemployment.
It is one way among others, and is part of an overall strategy incorporating parameters such as growth, a revival of consumer spending and even the monetary situation, because - with both the franc and mark overvalued - unemployment still has a bright future ahead of it.
Rather than being a means of managing a scarce supply of work, a reduction in working hours must result from a change in our relationship with work, which is now losing the pride of place that it enjoyed some years ago.
More than ever before, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, the issues of education, life-long learning, cultural and professional activity and retirement all go hand in hand, and should lead to greater freedom for individuals throughout their lives.
I believe first and foremost in reducing working time on an individual rather than a global basis.
Highly technical, across-the-board measures might not succeed.
Individual reductions, in my view, mean mapping out the aspirations of each employee, beginning with annualized hours and accompanied, naturally, by a not insignificant reduction in working time, with new recruitment as an important spin-off.
Such matters should, in my opinion, ideally be negotiated at company level.
I naturally welcome any reduction on a sectoral basis, but I would point out that various difficulties arise at this level.
Companies, on the other hand, are already starting to produce some interesting results: there are a number of examples, notably at Volkswagen, Philips and elsewhere.
Every effort should therefore be made to ensure that technological innovation no longer causes jobs to be lost, but serves to create new ones.
And it is not right to say that earnings should be eroded as working time is reduced, because the consequence would be to restrain consumer spending further still and reinforce insecurity.
Michel Rocard mentioned the sum of ECU 350 billion paid out in unemployment benefits.
Let us face it: it is time to put these funds to intelligent use, for example by maintaining earnings at their original level when working hours are reduced, and eliminating all the social costs bearing down on low wages.
Finally, one concept by which I set great store is the interplay between training, research and the reduction of working time.
One approach worth following would in fact be to link technological innovation, with the aid of research, to the reduction of working hours.
Whatever happens, nothing will be possible without the trade unions, whose role - particularly through the European Trade Union Confederation - will be crucial.
Mr President, Michel Rocard thought he had invented a machine to reduce unemployment, but he has discovered a time machine, turning the clock back not only to Léon Blum and his famous 40-hour week, but to the debates of Socrates and the sophists 2500 years ago.
There is unemployment; there is confusion.
Michel Rocard has plenty of the latter.
The problem is an economic and political one; the problem is also philosophical because work is creation, it is human.
Look at Michelangelo, whose hand created the Sistine Chapel.
The scientific attitude to such a problem is to seek its causes.
The causes are obvious.
Unemployment exists for many reasons, without a doubt, but one of them is glaringly self-evident: unemployment exists because there are not enough jobs, and there are not enough jobs because, when enough did exist, they were destroyed.
None are created when people want them, and when they are needed they are already taken.
We, for our part, attribute the shortage of jobs primarily to immigration.
You, on the other hand, blame excessive working hours, and you say: all we have to do is cut working time, all we need are new measures.
You say the great law of history is reducing working hours: 3200 hours at the end of the nineteenth century; 1700 hours today, after the laws of 1900, 1902, 1904 and 1906 - and, your friends even add, without affecting GDP.
If we worked 3200 hours today, there would be not 22 million but 11 million jobs.
The reduction in working time has therefore created 11 million jobs.
Ultimately, your slogan is a simple one: working less means work for all.
This is in fact the title of Guy Asnar's book.
The methods you propose are gradual retirement and reducing the length of the working week - the four-Thursday week, as Professor Godet calls it in 'Le grand mensonge ' - phasing out overtime and replacing it with leisure time - which is happening in the police force but is not solving any problems - sabbaticals, short breaks in the working day and a reorganization of work within our life cycle.
It is fine by me if you wish to re-examine Modigliani's life cycle analysis.
But do not forget the role of taxation in our life cycle: it takes 17 years of a person's working life to pay all the compulsory deductions!
Overhaul taxation, and you will reduce working time.
Of course there are problems in following your logic.
Hours were reduced in 1982 and nothing was gained. What are we doing now?
Will wages remain the same? You say yes, there are ECU 350 billion available.
And what do we do about moonlighting, because the more the official hours come down, the more unofficial hours will go up?
What are we doing to natural cost structures? You are triggering a downward spiral.
In reality, Mr Rocard, your method is a well-known one.
It is that of the sophists.
Let me show you why.
Since jobs are created when working time is reduced, then ultimately, for zero working hours, there is an infinite number of jobs.
The number of jobs is infinite, as long as you are operating within a closed economy.
In an open economy, however, vacant posts are immediately occupied.
Your conclusions, Mr Rocard, are those of Malthusian protestantism.
You are like Michel Foucault: you believe that history is static, you believe in structuralism, with your model of the underdog living in poverty.
The fact is that you are neither a socialist nor a liberal - you are a pessimistic internationalist.
You believe in rationing and in quiet poverty. We, for our part, are optimistic nationalists.
We shall adjourn the debate at this point because of Question Time.
It will be continued at 9 p.m. this evening.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-0838/96)
Question No 30 by Ben Fayot (H-0577/96)
Subject: The European Parliament's right of initiative
Article 138b of the EC Treaty empowers the European Parliament, acting by a majority of its Members, to request the Commission to submit any appropriate proposal on matters on which it considers that a Community act is required for the purpose of implementing that Treaty.
Before the adoption of the Joint Declaration on the 1996 legislative programme, the European Parliament had adopted two own-initiative reports on the basis of Article 138b (Rothley report (A4-0201/95)), adopted on 26 October 1995, OJ C 308/95, and Alber report (A3-0232/94), adopted on 20 April 1994 (OJ C 128/94).
In its resolution on the 1996 legislative programme, the European Parliament had called on the Commission to submit legislative proposals on the above two initiatives.
The same request was also contained in the European Parliament's draft for a joint declaration on the legislative programme.
Although the Commission has also undertaken, in the code of conduct of 15 March 1995, to take account of initiatives by Parliament pursuant to Article 138b, it has still not submitted any proposals in respect of those items.
How does the Commission intend to comply with the - limited - right of initiative conceded to the European Parliament since Maastricht? Will the Commission submit proposals in response to the abovementioned initiatives, and if so when?
Mr President, to deal firstly with the resolution contained in the Rothley report, Document A4-0201/95, it is quite clear to us that major difficulties arise when accident victims have to seek compensation for their injuries from insurance companies in other Member States.
The insurance companies are also aware of this, and have taken a number of initiatives.
We engaged in a wide-ranging consultation exercise with all the parties concerned, including Mr Rothley, with a view to deciding how best to proceed.
We would have preferred to see an agreement worked out by those involved.
That proved impossible.
Therefore, we are considering proposing a set of rules whereby, firstly, every European insurance company will have to appoint an agent for claims settlement in each Member State; secondly, it will be up to the Member States to impose sanctions on insurance companies that do not appoint an agent; and, thirdly, information offices will be set up in the Member States to give claimants the name of the agent in their home country.
As regards the Alber report, we have already briefed the House in our half-yearly report.
We have commissioned a number of studies of the liability rules in the Member States and the workings of the different systems of liability.
These studies are likely to be completed by the end of the year, and we shall issue an early communication on the basis of their findings, so that we can then decide, with Parliament, on a sensible way of resolving this matter as well.
Mr President, I am of course grateful to the Commissioner for his extremely precise reply concerning the Rothley and Alber reports.
My reason for putting this question was that we could not see anything in the pipeline.
I should like to know how - in principle - the Commission intends to address the right of initiative conferred on the European Parliament by Article 138b of the Maastricht Treaty.
As you know, Commissioner, this right of initiative is very limited. It is also strictly regulated by our Rules of Procedure, and some very specific conditions have to be met.
I should like to know whether the Commission has a positive or a restrictive attitude towards initiatives from the European Parliament.
The Commission welcomed this provision.
We also supported Parliament in having such a provision included in the Maastricht Treaty.
Of course we take Parliament's right of initiative seriously, first and foremost because the Commission is the body at which it is directed.
It would indeed be quite uncooperative on the part of the Commission if we were to impede the House in exercising such a right, and that is why I gave you the information which I did.
Understandably, the right of initiative is sometimes used in relation to very complex and difficult issues - if they were not so complex they might already have been addressed.
For that reason, the process is sometimes quite lengthy, but there is no question about the importance that we attach to Parliament's right of initiative: we know how valuable it is.
I must say I am very pleased with the reply given by the Commissioner on this occasion.
I wish to point out to the Commission that Article 138b is a right on which I hope we can expect positive cooperation from the Commission.
We, of course, are the elected body and, sadly, you are not, although you received our endorsement when we agreed to the appointment of this present Commission.
I hope that you will take our ideas very seriously, because they are ideas that you can use and we can use with you and they will have a constructive result.
For example, the medical card, which we debated in this House earlier this year.
I have made my own enquiries about that but, again, I do not know what the timetable is. Are you able to help us?
If you are able to assist with the evolution of a European medical card, then that would be something which we and the Commission together could put forward to a wider European public as being of practical use - that is the point.
Can you give us a timetable on the medical card?
I should like to begin by dealing with the general point which you have raised again.
Every year, we discuss with Parliament the legislative programme that we intend to set ourselves for the year, and consider both the Commission's proposals and the wishes of the House.
In the context of those discussions, a number of initiatives are taken up which are handled much less formally than they really ought to be.
To take an example from the discussion in recent weeks: the House regards pornography on the Internet as a pressing problem - as indeed it is - and the Commission has already said that it takes the same view and intends to consider appropriate measures to restrict the scope for pornography, if not actually prevent it.
At the moment, although it falls within my remit, I cannot tell you how far we have progressed with the medical card.
It is one of our pilot projects.
We have a pilot project looking at uses of information technology in health care, and we are working on that.
I would ask you to bear with me, but at the moment I really cannot tell you exactly when the groundwork for this card will be completed.
The problem is not just a technical one, but concerns above all the question of how to keep protected personal data confidential.
I am sure you will agree that if such cards are to list not only an individual's medical history, but also their life history and personal circumstances, care will have to be taken that these details do not find their way into unauthorized hands.
This is one of the problems, and while there are certainly ways to resolve it technically, that will take time.
We will be glad to write to you and give you an update on the situation.
Mr President, this question is unrelated to the dreadful accident that occurred recently in Spain, but that accident was another clear indication of the need for rules in this area, a need which has been addressed until now almost exclusively by the national authorities responsible, or through agreements between organizations of camping and caravan site operators.
There is currently no legislation at European level concerning health and safety on camping and caravan sites.
Where matters are covered by general legislation - for example, every Member State has rules against misleading advertising - it is clear that such laws also apply to camping and caravan sites.
Health and safety on camping and caravan sites, like health and safety in holiday complexes, hotels, discos, amusement parks and so on, represents a general set of issues connected with safety in the provision of services.
These issues are becoming increasingly important in the context of our consumer protection policy.
Indeed, as long ago as 1990, we put forward a proposal on liability for defective services, but it was not approved by Parliament.
We therefore withdrew the proposal at that stage.
However, we are considering submitting a new proposal to deal with this matter.
Thank you very much for your reply, Commissioner.
As you will have anticipated, my question did not stem from the accident that you referred to.
But of course it lends further urgency to the topic we are addressing here.
Millions and millions of people across Europe now depend on caravanning for their holiday.
All of us with families know that one can travel many miles, arrive in a caravan site late at night, maybe with fractious children, and certainly not have the energy to go and check out whether the camp-site is in fact safe.
We have seen the tragic results that have ensued.
So I do think this is a growing need.
This is an area of enormous development and I am interested to hear that this has in fact been through Parliament before and was then withdrawn.
I do hope that, since the matter is now so much more urgent, there could be a possibility of the Commission and Parliament reintroducing it as an issue that ought to be addressed urgently.
We have, as you so rightly said, the three areas.
But those three areas have to be linked, and the only way they can be linked is in an identifiable procedure.
Yes, you may well be right.
As far as the accident in Spain is concerned, we do not have enough information as to whether it was caused by a lack of rules or by failure to observe existing rules and carry out checks.
Unfortunately, the fact is that rules alone are no guarantee of success: only by monitoring how they are observed and implementing them can we ensure, as far as possible, that disasters like this are prevented.
I can only support what you said concerning the urgency of the matter.
Unfortunately, it is often a problem in politics that attempts at regulation are met with reluctance until an incident occurs.
In your own country in particular, there is little support for attempts at regulation before there has been an incident.
Something always has to happen first, and then everyone comes and says that the situation is particularly urgent.
I am thinking, for example, of seat belts in buses.
If I had introduced rules on safety in buses at the time when I was responsible for the internal market, there is no doubt that I would have been heavily criticized in quite a few Member States, including your own.
Then, as soon as something happens, everyone asks why the Commission did not introduce these rules long ago. So this is also something that we have to bear in mind, but on the point at issue there is absolutely no dispute between us.
We are treating this as an urgent matter.
Does the Commissioner not agree that the problem raised by Mrs Billingham clearly illustrates that tourism ought to have a competence within the European Union - as many of us have argued - in the revision of the IGC, so that in the case of the free movement of people, as is exemplified by this problem, we can have common rules which actually ensure the safety of tourists?
In my view, such rules can already be introduced under existing legislation.
We do have a clear competence for the internal market, and services are provided in the internal market.
If services are provided badly and damage occurs as a result, that situation should be dealt with by the Union under the legal provisions which already exist.
I am thinking, for example, of our regulation on liability in the case of defective products.
We have our own regulation concerning liability if a producer manufactures a defective product, and indeed under the terms of that regulation, any producer who sells a defective product is held liable.
That rule was introduced in the context of our general competence in the internal market.
There is no reason why it should not also apply to services.
That is not to say that I am against including tourism in the list of Union competences, but it is not necessary to do so in order to deal with the cases in question.
We can already introduce legislation on these matters now.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 32 and 33 lapse.
Question No 34 by Karin Riis-Jørgensen (H-0700/96)
Subject: OECD agreement on shipbuilding
A secret Council declaration was adopted on 19 December 1995 in connection with Council Regulation (EC) 3094/95 implementing the OECD agreement on aid to shipbuilding.
This declaration seems to be in clear breach of the OECD agreement's ban on aid to the shipbuilding industry and of the Union's policy in the shipbuilding sector, cf. the 'seventh shipyard directive' .
Will the Commission provide an interpretation of the secret Council declaration and confirm that, once the OECD agreement is ratified, it will no longer be possible to grant state aid to the shipbuilding industry in the Union?
We have a strong interest in seeing the OECD agreement ratified: it would let us put our own shipbuilding policy on a firmer footing.
Under the agreement, subsidies would not be allowed.
But the declaration to which the question refers does not conflict with the OECD agreement.
The cases that are the subject of the declaration have to be considered by the Commission, which delivers its opinion and publishes it in the Official Journal.
As provided for in the OECD agreement, such decisions can be raised in the Parties Group if there is any doubt as to whether they are compatible with the agreement.
This means, of course, that everything we do can be checked by our partners, and any problems can be raised.
We continue to hope that the agreement will be ratified.
You know that it is not up to us, nor to Japan or Korea - basically it is up to our American partners, who have been unable to reach agreement in Congress on the text that was negotiated, and who will certainly not address the issue again before the presidential elections.
We hope, therefore, that it will become clear after the elections whether the USA is prepared to ratify the OECD agreement.
Thank you very much for that answer, Commissioner.
Unfortunately, I did not get a reply to the last point in my question, where I ask the Commission to confirm that, once the OECD agreement is ratified, it will no longer be possible to grant state aid to the shipbuilding industry in the Union.
That is the first thing which I should once again like to have answered.
Secondly, I should like to hear what the Commission plans to do to ensure that the United States signs the agreement.
I appreciate that we cannot force President Clinton to sign it, but what strategy is being pursued on the European side to ensure that the United States signs and ratifies the OECD agreement? And finally, as I understood the Commissioner's reply, the declaration by the Commission does not actually contain a very great deal.
Why was it so secret?
Why was it not available to the public? Why was a secret declaration attached to the Council's minutes when - as I understand what Mr Bangemann said - it does not really contain anything?
Protocols have to be particularly secret when there is nothing in them, because it is a way of enhancing their importance.
That should come as no surprise to you.
But in this case, there actually is some substance there.
It is wrong to see this as a meaningless declaration.
In fact, it indicates that other forms of aid continue to be possible outside the OECD agreement: aid for research and development, for example, and regional aid.
For instance, if we consider that it makes sense to establish a shipyard as part of a regional programme, then of course that will still be possible.
The OECD agreement does not rule out that type of aid.
However, all cases of this kind of aid will have to be notified if the aid is granted by a national or regional government.
The Commission will consider each case and publish its conclusions in the Official Journal.
And this may result in one of our partners deciding, in such a case, that the decision is at odds with the OECD agreement.
We shall then discuss the case with the partner in question.
This is essentially obvious - but it is not meaningless.
Since you have now made the matter public, we can discuss it publicly.
It may be, however, that you have made a mistake in making it public - that is also a possibility.
When I saw Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's question, I was deeply shocked.
I was really anxious that something clandestine had been going on, with secret agreements, scandals, and the like.
Now, the fact is that we in Denmark have been mentioned by a report from a firm which Mrs Riis-Jørgensen knows particularly well, and this report also proved to be without foundation.
Mr Bangemann confirmed that there is nothing secret involved here.
This is something you can just look up and read in the Official Journal.
I suspect that you may be confusing something here.
The declaration that was issued by the Commission does not appear in the Official Journal.
What would be recorded in the Official Journal would be if a country - Denmark for example - granted subsidies to its shipyards.
I know that this has never happened in Denmark and never will do.
But if it were to happen, we should of course have to look into it.
We would then publish the outcome of our investigations in the Official Journal.
That is the procedure.
I am becoming more and more confused as to what this declaration is actually about.
The other day, we were told by the Danish minister responsible that the declaration was not important; now I gather from the Commissioner that it really is important, which is why the declaration was adopted and no doubt also why there is a wish to keep it secret.
Can we not have a clear answer as to why this declaration should be kept secret?
Does it mean that it conflicts with the text, and is that why the public must not be allowed to know about it? Does the Commissioner's statement today and the stance which is being taken here mean that he regards secret declarations as acceptable, and does the Commissioner think it is good practice for citizens and businesses to be excluded in this way from knowing quite simply what is in the texts that are being adopted?
Let me try to explain things again - and I must confess that I may have contributed to the confusion here, because when one speaks ironically, the irony is conveyed in the tone of voice, and this may be lost in translation.
So I will explain again, step by step and without any irony.
A discussion took place in the Council about whether the OECD agreement required us to end all shipbuilding subsidies.
On behalf of the Commission, I explained that we interpreted the agreement to the effect that subsidies specifically for building ships were no longer allowed.
Let me give you an example: a ship is ordered from a shipyard, and the country concerned pays that yard 20 % in subsidies in order to reduce the price of the ship to the client by that amount.
Under the OECD agreement, subsidies of this kind are no longer allowed.
I trust that what I have said is clear so far.
Aid for research and development is of course different.
Indeed, we have a programme to modernize shipbuilding which we are implementing together with our G7 partners.
This includes looking at the use of information technology to rationalize the production process, so that suppliers in particular can slot into the production sequence at the right time.
Programmes of this kind are part-financed by us, under our research and development policy.
It is quite clear that what we are engaged in here is research and development.
Or to take another example, let us say that a shipyard wishes to reduce noise levels and is taking steps to do so.
It needs investment for that purpose, and the investment is subsidized.
This has nothing to do with shipbuilding, in fact it may well be an environmental protection measure.
These are the types of aid that are not covered by the OECD agreement.
However, we do keep a check on such aid, which means that anyone intending to grant this kind of subsidy has to report the fact by notifying the Commission.
The Commission investigates the aid and decides whether it is in breach of Article 92 or any other provision of the Treaty, and it is then either prohibited or - if it complies with the provisions of the Treaty - permitted.
The decision is then published in the Official Journal.
That is the procedure in its entirety.
The whole process is therefore important.
There are no secret protocols: all protocols are recorded and may be consulted at any time.
If you have a question for the Council, then put it to the Council, and the Council will give you information about the protocols.
The Commission has even less reason to keep such protocols secret, because what we record in protocols is our opinion.
You are now asking me what our opinion is, and I am telling you, here before the House.
We have nothing to conceal.
Have I made myself clear enough now?
Question No 35 by Hugh McMahon (H-0641/96)
Subject: Registration of the pharmaceutical products Smoltine and Azamethipos
Can the Commission give an assurance that the registration of Smoltine and Azamethipos, which are extremely important for the Scottish salmon-farming industry, will be based on objective scientific criteria and will not be unduly delayed?
As usual, Mr McMahon has drawn attention to a problem.
However, I must begin by saying that the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products in London has not received an application to authorize the marketing of the products that he refers to in his question.
In the case of these substances, applications are made for the Community to fix maximum residue limits, as provided for in Council Regulation 2377/90.
It must be stressed that the fixing of a maximum residue limit is by no means an authorization for a substance to be placed on the market: rather, it is one of the preconditions for authorization.
It must first be established that the maximum quantities allowed in the form of residues are not being exceeded.
Only when that preliminary phase has been completed can a decision be taken on whether the medicinal product can be placed on the market.
Such authorization will only be given if the drug contained in the substance that has already been evaluated also fulfils the criteria of safety, quality and efficacity laid down in Directives 81/851 and 81/852, and if no other provisions of Community legislation stand in the way.
The substances that Mr McMahon refers to are intended for use on fish.
In the case of Azamethipos, a maximum residue limit was fixed on 25 June this year.
As regards somato salm , the position is different because the Committee on Veterinary Medicinal Products has not delivered a positive opinion, and this substance must therefore be the subject of a Council regulation.
A proposal to that effect will be presented to the Commission shortly.
A similarity between somato salm and BST was the reason for the negative opinion delivered by the Committee on Veterinary Medicinal Products.
The Commission therefore asked the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products to supply additional information concerning the risk of illegal use of somato salm .
The Agency has since ruled out that possibility.
That is the present position.
In his last answer, the Commissioner said that the possibility of harmful use has now been excluded.
Because they cannot use Smoltine, which deals with transferring the fish from fresh water to salt water, they have to use hydrogen peroxide, which is very costly and has very serious effects on the life of the fish.
The second product, Azamethipos, deals with sea lice, which are causing considerable problems in the salmon industry, not just in Scotland but throughout the Union, stunting growth and causing problems with stocks.
Now that the problems seem to be solved and given the importance of these products for the Scottish salmon industry, can I have the Commissioner's assurance that he will give quick authorization? The salmon industry in Scotland, Ireland and elsewhere within the Union is very anxious that these products be licensed as quickly as possible, knowing that trial runs have proved that there is no deleterious effect to fish or to human beings.
From my personal knowledge of this case, which I have followed from the beginning, I should like to say this: Parliament rightly values the fact that the Commission takes its investigatory duties seriously when dealing with medicinal products, whether they are intended for human use or for animals.
I believe that is important.
There is no doubt that, as a rule, Parliament would rightly criticize the Commission if we were to take an easygoing approach, so to speak.
That is why, when the question arose as to whether this drug should be authorized, I decided that we would first have to wait for the opinion of the scientific committees and the Agency.
I declined simply to authorize it, although a number of documents and attestations were submitted indicating that somato salm was completely harmless.
I hope that you agree with my decision.
The Scottish industry is an important one, and we do not wish to do anything unlawful.
Nor can we simply prohibit a drug if there is no reason for doing so, but we were very careful to observe the procedure, which was as follows: firstly the matter went to the scientific committee, which said no; then it went to the Agency, and we requested more information there.
As far as the Agency was concerned, there was no reason to prohibit this drug, or whatever one wishes to call it.
But because of the scientific committee's opposition, we could not simply authorize it.
That is how the procedure works, and that is why we have to refer the matter to the Council.
We shall do that, and the Council will decide.
That is the procedure.
We are not an elected body - as one of the previous speakers pointed out - but we are very meticulous in what we do, and I believe that such an approach is also in the interests of the Scottish salmon industry.
Furthermore, salmon are continually switching from salt water to fresh water, and from fresh water to salt water.
You are well aware that salmon spawn in fresh water and then move to salt water; then there is a switch back to fresh water when the young salmon reach spawning age.
The transfer from salt to fresh water, or vice versa, is thus a normal part of the salmon's life cycle.
But I have no objection to a drug that may facilitate the process, provided it is not harmful.
That, however, is now a decision for the Council.
Question No 36 by Lyndon Harrison (H-0649/96)
Subject: Policy on generic medicinal products
What measures is the Commission thinking of taking in order to develop and encourage the production and use of generic medicinal products?
Is it considering submitting proposals to enable manufacturers of generic medicinal products to test and register such products before the expiry of their patents?
We have always regarded both types of medicinal products as important, and that still forms part of our industrial policy for the pharmaceutical industry.
We need an industry that carries out research and develops new medicinal products, which is a costly business and becoming ever more costly, because only a small percentage of such products actually reach the market.
Of course, after the expiry of the patents on these new medicinal products, we also need the generic products; this means that we need the industry which takes up the new discovery and then offers its own similar products, perhaps at a lower cost, which is important to the consumer because these medicines are normally cheaper.
However, we must remember - and I hope Mr Harrison remembers - that without the research industry, we would not have any generic industry.
If we have no new medicinal products, then we cannot have products being manufactured less expensively on the basis of such discoveries.
That is why we have to strike a balance, and I believe that, so far, we have managed to do that.
The Commissioner is absolutely right that we have to strike a balance, but I think he will be aware of the problem that there are firms who are choosing to move to America to carry out the pre-work before the expiry of the patents and thereby they steal a march on Europe because we do not have the ability to involve small businesses, SMEs in the pharmaceutical industry in particular, in the work before the expiry of patents.
I would say to the Commissioner that if we do not do something to help the production work during the expiry of the patents, what we will have is the expiry of the patients who might otherwise benefit from having these cheaper drugs so produced.
Yes, Mr Harrison, I am sure you know that we have already taken a very important step - a step at international level, for the benefit of American and Japanese companies too - by extending the duration of patent protection when the term of a patent is reduced by a long period of trials.
Let us take a practical example: someone has developed a drug, and naturally has to have it approved.
Obtaining approval necessitates a whole series of tests, which are very time-consuming, and it may turn out that half the term of the patent, or more, has elapsed by the time the drug goes on the market.
We have made a rule, and implemented it internationally, to the effect that the trial period is added on to the term of the patent, so that the overall period of protection is the exact term of the patent from the day when the drug is placed on the market.
This is a very important new measure which has considerably improved the position of the research industry.
To that extent, we have already found an adequate solution.
If firms are still thinking of moving to countries outside the Union, it is much more likely to be because of the possibilities which have now opened up for many of them, particularly small firms, in the field of biotechnology.
I do not need to labour this point: hopefully my years of hard-fought struggle with you - not you personally, but with Parliament - in an effort to produce sensible rules on this question too will soon bear fruit, because here - and I would hark back to the debate on Mr Rocard's report - we really do have an industry that is creating new jobs and is competitive.
We are hounding that industry out of the Union, and obviously that makes no sense.
There will be no need for us to reduce working hours, because if we have no jobs, reducing working time is not going to help us.
The important thing is that we should have jobs in the first place.
That is why we need a clear set of rules.
Question No 37 by Mikko Rönnholm (H-0652/96)
Subject: Administrative coordination of the forestry and wood-processing industry
The forestry and wood-processing industry has a significant impact on the economy and employment in the EU Member States and for this reason measures to strengthen its competitiveness at Union level are extremely important.
However, matters relating to the forestry and wood-processing industry are administered by the Commission in piecemeal fashion - responsibility for the sector is currently still split between five different directorates-general.
What steps has the Commission taken, or what steps does it plan to take, to strengthen the coordination of matters relating to the forestry and wood-processing industry in the European Union and within its own administration?
We are in no doubt about the importance of this industry.
Since the last enlargement of the Union - with the accession of Finland and Sweden in particular, but also that of Austria - forest cover in the Union has doubled to more than 120 million hectares.
Cellulose output has more than trebled from 9 to 31 million tonnes annually, and the production of paper and card has risen by more than 50 % from 45 to 69 million tonnes per year.
In other words, we have here a really important industry.
We are also net exporters of paper, not only of the higher-value grades, but also of recycled paper such as newsprint.
But of course there is extensive internal and external trade in most forestry products.
As for strengthening competitiveness, that is one of the aims of EU industrial policy.
In July last year, we set up a department for the wood-processing and paper industry within DG III; it is now fully operational and is becoming the most important point of contact for the industry.
Of course, the broader interests of the forestry industry also affect other areas of competence of the Commission: environmental policy, obviously, for which my colleague Mrs Bjerregaard is responsible, but also some aspects of research and development policy.
These competences overlap, but they are also complementary, and in fact the Commission has never had any difficulty in coordinating the various services responsible. The Commissioners also work well together in this area.
Mr President, there are many different aspects to this forestry policy.
One of these is certification.
Now voluntary nature conservation organizations have started to sell such certificates to the forestry industry.
This possibility is alarming, partly because there is no democratic control whatsoever over this system.
I would like to know whether the Commission - and particularly its member with special responsibility for industry - can conceive of the possibility that the EU might, by means of a decision, develop a forest certificate which would be fair and just and would take account of the different conditions which exist in different countries.
We know that this is a problem, and that is why the new department which I referred to earlier has become actively involved in the discussions on the problems of certification.
Naturally, we are in contact with the relevant groups in the industry, but we have also involved other interest groups in the debate.
Moreover, we organized the first, and so far the only meeting of all these groups at EU level - the discussion forum on the ECOcertification of forests and forest products. So we have been active in this area.
The Commission is currently considering a discussion paper which contains various options for resolving the problem of certification.
We also hope that we shall be able to play an active part in the preparations for the intergovernmental panel on forests, particularly as regards the problems of trade and the environment, and I hope we shall achieve a sensible solution in that context.
Question No 38 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0678/96)
Subject: Computerized numbering of telecommunications
What are the Commission's proposals for adopting an opinion on computerized numbering, and its possible effect on the routing of telephone calls, in the telecommunications industry?
Mr President, this is of course a problem that continues to concern us, because it is very important that the numbering should be implemented sensibly.
So far, we have not introduced pan-European numbers, and have only been able to agree, in two directives, on a common emergency number - 112 - and a common international access code, 00. The Commission intends to publish a green paper on numbering before the end of this year.
We have to look at how numbering is being implemented in the European telecommunications sector, above all with a view to deregulation in 1998.
This will mean more participants in the market, with a wider range of services and more customers.
Customers will be changing from one operator to another, and naturally they will have an interest in being able to take their numbers with them.
The green paper on numbering will tackle this question, as well as the harmonization of national numbering plans, the allocation of free numbers for telephone services, the question of choice of carrier, and the establishment of a long-term numbering plan for Europe.
Customer addressing in a deregulated telecommunications environment is difficult, as you can imagine.
Mr Camisón Asensio's question is in fact a very relevant one.
We have to create the conditions for users to be able to retain their old numbers when they switch operators.
That is our intention.
We must guarantee them freedom of choice in terms of quality, service and prices, and we intend to do so by this means.
Thank you for the information you have just given us, Commissioner, and I was pleased to hear the answer that I was hoping for when I tabled this question - when, that is, the Commission intends to present the green paper on this issue, which you have announced for the end of this year.
This is a matter which affects all the countries of the Union, and which is important because it has implications for the competitiveness of every Member State.
It must be dealt with, moreover, in a manner which is compatible throughout the Member States.
This is an extremely difficult task, therefore, and I welcome the fact that work has begun on it already.
I can give you the exact timetable again, as we see it.
By 1 January 1998, the date of deregulation, we aim to have achieved six objectives: firstly, creating the option of carrier choice; secondly, number portability for local lines; thirdly, promoting national harmonization, in other words we are seeking to ensure the convergence of national numbering plans; fourthly, the creation of a European telephony numbering space and common access; fifth, establishing a common framework for number regulation and management; this will then ensure that divergent national rules are not established.
The next step will be carrier pre-selection by 1 January 2000.
Naturally, this will be much simpler for the user.
We envisage the extension of number portability for users of mobile and personal communication networks as well as for users of generic services and then from the year 2000 the implementation of a long-term numbering plan involving the creation of the European country code with the administration and management of the code transferred to the European level.
(DE) We hope that we shall succeed.
I know that we have the support of the House.
Sometimes the Member States tend to drag their feet, but that, at any rate, is our timetable.
Question No 39 by David Bowe (H-0682/96)
Subject: Extraction solvents
The annex to Directive 88/344/EEC on extraction solvents used in the production of foodstuffs and food ingredients, (revised 92/115/EEC and 94/52/EEC ) does not list the food extraction solvent 1.1.1.2-tetrafluoroethane.
Although the UK Scientific Committee for Food has declared it acceptable for use, the 1.1.1.2 tetrafluoroethane extraction process, or its products, cannot be marketed because it is not listed in the above directive.
Since the mechanism to review the Solvents Directive is so slow and bureaucratic, companies which develop such innovative products face financial ruin.
Will the Commission ensure that there will be an urgent review of the Solvents Directive, a part of which would be the inclusion of an additional article to give Member States the opportunity to allow the marketing and use of new products on a temporary basis, subject to the approval of the Commission?
In the Commission's opinion, considerable delays can occur in the application of Directive 88/344 for the approval of new solvents.
And that is Mr Bowe's fear too.
The main reason for the delays is that amendments to the directive can only be made through the full codecision procedure, with two readings in the House and the adoption of a common position before the second reading.
In other words, Parliament's understandable wish to process these amendments through the normal legislative procedure, and particularly the codecision procedure, creates delays.
We have always said so.
One cannot have it both ways.
If you wish to have decisions taken quickly, there must a different choice of procedure, and that in no way excludes a role for Parliament, as we have repeatedly pointed out.
If, as in this case, you insist on the codecision procedure, it will take longer.
However, we have submitted an amendment to the solvents directive, allowing tetrafluoroethane to be used in foodstuffs.
This proposal, published this year, has already been forwarded to Parliament for an opinion at first reading.
The Commission hopes that the issue can be considered quickly, so as to minimize the financial losses suffered by food producers as a consequence of the prohibition of this solvent.
We agree with Mr Bowe that the solvents directive must be reviewed in order to avoid such delays, but this will mean a change of attitude on your part.
We cannot resolve the matter without you.
If the House insists on the codecision procedure, I cannot promise you that decisions will be taken quickly.
Other directives, such as the one on food additives, set out procedures that the Member States can use for granting provisional approvals.
However, we would prefer that when it is a matter of adjusting the rules to keep pace with technical progress - and that is clearly what is happening here - such cases should be handed over to the Commission, with Parliament, if it so wished, retaining some form of involvement, or a blocking right where it believed that it had to block a Commission decision.
That would probably be the optimum solution, but it would require the good will of all concerned.
I should like to thank Mr Bangemann for what he said and in particular I would like to thank him on behalf of the small and medium-sized enterprises in my constituency which will look very favourably upon this particular proposal for change.
You will have my assistance in ensuring that this passes through Parliament as quickly as possible.
In a personal letter he has written to me he mentions the fact that this has been a slow process of European legislation not being operated at the right speed.
In fact, what we need is not deregulation but correct and efficient regulation.
I can only endorse your thinking.
I hope it will spread around here.
Question No 40 by Marjatta Stenius-Kaukonen (H-0714/96)
Subject: Endotoxin content of breast-milk substitutes
According to information published in the last few days, breast-milk substitutes have been found to contain large quantities of endotoxins. An international research group has stated that there are a number of brands of breast-milk substitutes - including Nestlé's products - on the European market with toxin contents of up to 700 nanograms per millilitre.
This could seriously endanger the health of small children, as even a thousandth of a nanogram can cause symptoms, such as influenza, in adults if it enters the bloodstream.
A maximum level for the bacteria content of breast-milk substitutes should therefore be set as urgently as possible.
Is the Commission aware of the findings of this research, and what measures will it take to protect consumers?
Mr President, I think that we have now gone right through the food chain: this time it is infant food and, of course, that is a very important element of food policy.
We are aware of this matter of endotoxins, and of press reports of the study referred to in the question.
According to the information available to the Commission, the study did not appear in scientific journals, nor was it submitted to other scientists for checking.
Many foodstuffs, including infant formula, contain endotoxins.
These are part of bacteria cells which are naturally present in food.
They are large molecules which, when they have been consumed, do not normally pass through the wall of the intestine into the bloodstream, and therefore scientists do not consider it dangerous for adults or infants to consume milk or milk products that contain endotoxins.
Endotoxins can only cause illnesses if they enter the bloodstream, but obviously they do not do so from food.
Current scientific opinion is that there is no need to fix limit values for endotoxins in infant formula, or microbiological limit values to keep the level of endotoxins down, but we shall continue to follow developments on this issue, and if new scientific findings change the situation, we will take appropriate action.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Bangemann for his reply.
I looked into this issue myself after having tabled the question, and obtained similar answers to the one Mr Bangemann has given here.
However, it has been claimed in the Finnish press that once its packaging has been opened, breast-milk substitute should not be kept for long.
Powdered products should always be mixed with good-quality water and used without delay.
It is therefore important that these breast-milk substitutes should be monitored, as in general should the question of what milk is drunk.
It has also been claimed that these endotoxins were enabled to multiply because poor raw materials were used, hygiene was inadequate and the product was kept for a long time: all indicators of poor quality.
Is there now any need, in general, to check the quality of milk and breast-milk substitutes better than at present, and has the Commission considered any action in this respect?
Of course, if someone is careless with foods of this kind - if they are left open for a long time and standing around unrefrigerated, for example - that is the sort of carelessness which is virtually beyond the reach of legislation.
What might perhaps be considered - and I myself do not know whether this already happens - would be for infant formula to be required to carry a warning, stating that it must be handled carefully, must not be left standing around open, and so on.
We should be glad to check whether there is already such a provision in the Member States, or in our own regulations and directives.
If there is not, then introducing it is probably the only step that we can take.
Legislation is, of course, powerless to prevent people from handling these foods carelessly, in spite of all the instructions.
Question No 41 by Maj Theorin (H-0628/96)
Subject: EMU
The Trade Union Confederation in Sweden has raised the question whether the democratic basis of monetary policy decisions will be eliminated in future.
Other major players in the debate in Sweden have asked whether further steps must inevitably be taken towards a common financial policy following the introduction of a common monetary policy.
Does the Commission consider that the democratic basis of monetary policy decisions will be lost when the power of decision-making is transferred from the Member States' elected representatives to European Central Bank officials?
Does the Commission consider that the corollary of introducing a common monetary policy is that further steps must be taken towards a common financial policy and a common fiscal policy?
Mr President, just like the honourable Member, the Commission sets great store by respect for democratic principles.
I would point out, in this context, that the Treaty on European Union was ratified in accordance with the national procedures of every Member State, in other words democratically.
As regards the content of the Treaty, Article 109a stipulates that the President, the Vice-President and the other members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank are to be appointed by common accord of the governments of the Member States at the level of Heads of State or Government, after consultation of the European Parliament.
This appointment procedure therefore ensures complete transparency and democracy.
Moreover, the protocol on the statute of the European System of Central Banks contains provisions for supervision of the Bank and its operations.
Hence the European Central Bank is obliged to present an annual report to Parliament, the Council and the Commission, as well as the European Council.
The President of the European Central Bank and the other members of the Executive Board may, at the request of this House, be questioned by the committees responsible.
The smooth operation of the economic and monetary union will be based on two decision-making centres: one monetary, the other economic.
The monetary focus will be the future European Central Bank, whose role is to conduct monetary policy in complete independence.
This will guarantee the credibility of the European currency; it will also underpin the fight against inflation, which has a devastating impact on our economies, and especially on the most disadvantaged sections of the population.
The Council of Ministers, composed of members of governments and therefore democratically constituted, will form the economic focus.
It will have a major economic role, since it is to coordinate economic policy.
It will lay down exchange-rate policy - under Article 109 of the Treaty - and will be competent in the areas of employment and economic cooperation.
Economic and monetary union is therefore a well-balanced and democratic initiative, in which each institution will have a well-defined and valuable role to play.
That is also the prerequisite for both its smooth functioning and its acceptance by our citizens.
Thank you for the answer.
In Sweden, an overwhelming majority takes a negative view of EMU.
Certainly, that is for different reasons.
Two of the Government's foremost representatives, the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister, think that EMU and a common monetary policy are not possible without a common financial policy, i.e. a common policy on taxation and expenditure.
The American economist, Martin Feldstein, writes in the Economist that the economic arguments in favour of EMU are so dubious and the risks so palpable that the project would never have been pursued if there had not been strong subsidiary reasons of a political nature.
The two arguments he cites are neo-liberalism and federalism.
In my view, democracy will not increase by taking away from national parliaments and governments the right to take decisions on financial and monetary policy.
Scrutiny, Commissioner, is not the same thing as democracy and policy decided by democratically elected representatives.
Monetary union and its corollary, a common financial policy, are the federalists' dream, but a nightmare for democracy.
I think we need to distinguish between two things: on the one hand, the effects of economic and monetary union, which will be beneficial for the economy in general and for our citizens.
Indeed, it is a good thing to reduce deficits, above all in terms of employment.
Introducing the single currency, in other words eliminating monetary fluctuations, is also a good thing in terms of growth and employment.
On the other hand, there is the question of explaining matters to our citizens, convincing them that EMU is both necessary and a good thing.
In this respect, I believe that the campaign mounted jointly by the Commission and the European Parliament is an excellent model, and all the Members of Parliament and of the Commission should feel themselves involved.
Progress towards full monetary union calls for the irrevocable linking of Member State currencies to the single currency.
I do not know what happens in the rest of the European Union but the principle that the British Parliament operates on is that no Parliament can bind its successors.
Surely asking for an irrevocable linking of a currency, which means for ever, is asking too much.
Or is there some way in the future whereby a Member State which thinks the system is not working could pull out?
You are raising a theological question here.
Under the European system, one can enter at any time, but one can never leave, and in this respect the Maastricht Treaty is no different from the Treaty of Rome or the other European treaties.
Having said that, I believe that the advantages are sufficiently great and sufficiently positive for the population to appreciate the benefits of this Union.
I would add this, which seems a very important point to me: now that capital movements have been completely liberalized, monetary sovereignty will not be diminished by economic and monetary union.
EMU will enable our Member States, collectively, to regain the sovereignty over their monetary affairs which - I am afraid - they are losing further every day.
This is a crucial question which Mrs Theorin has raised.
I should like to ask Mr de Silguy where he can find any economic theorists who suggest that a country which has oil revenues should respond in the same way as one with an energy deficit if the price of oil is halved or doubled.
It is not honest to put forward a proposal for a monetary union which deals with exchange-rate and monetary issues without there also being parallel powers in relation to financial policy, incomes policy and the other forms of economic policy.
One may be in favour of a centrally determined economic policy, but then all the policy instruments must be in place.
One cannot be in favour of a separation of policy instruments such as that contained in the Maastricht Treaty.
By referring to oil, you are taking as your example the country - one of the two countries - which does indeed have the possibility of opting out, and it will be up to that country to decide whether or not it wishes to join in the economic and monetary union.
I note that oil revenue has declined considerably over the past 20 years or so, even in the case of that country, and that we are witnessing a growing convergence between the European economies.
I believe that in order to make monetary union work, it is important for budgetary policies to be well coordinated and for us all to be pursuing the same objectives.
Centralized management of economic and budgetary policy is out of the question.
To my mind, that would conflict with the spirit of the Treaty and with our traditions.
It will be a matter of ensuring, through the measures which are introduced - I am thinking in particular of the stability pact, on which the House is soon to receive a proposal from the Commission - that our economic and budgetary policies are conducted along similar lines, in other words that we decide on common objectives and ensure that the objectives pursued by all the Member States are complementary and coherent.
If that were not the case, moreover, the markets would ultimately penalize such divergent approaches.
That would then result in monetary upheavals and increases in interest rates and, eventually, in slower growth and increased unemployment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this instance the Commission does not share the honourable Member's analysis.
Unemployment does not date from the ratification of the Treaty on European Union; it began to loom large in Europe at the time of the first oil crisis in 1973.
I would add that exchange-rate fluctuations have also had an extremely adverse effect on employment in Europe, as we saw in 1992 and 1993, and indeed in 1995.
What are the causes of unemployment, to put it very simply?
There are two, the first being the state of the economy.
Is it sufficiently well known that the monetary fluctuations of spring 1995 alone cost Europe 2 % in growth and 1.5 million jobs over the two years 1995 and 1996? Only sustainable, non-inflationary growth in the medium term will help to create jobs.
But the causes are also largely structural, and I am thinking in particular of the over-rigidity of the labour market, which is preventing the Union from making the most of growth to create jobs.
In order to make substantial inroads into unemployment, the Commission is proposing an overall strategy, which I have already had an opportunity of presenting to the House.
Even though economic recovery, coinciding with the establishment of economic and monetary union, is now a precondition for job creation in Europe, it is vital that appropriate structural measures should be taken at the same time by the Member States.
Moreover, this is the thrust of the confidence pact proposed by Mr Santer.
The Commission is therefore shouldering in full its responsibilities in the field of employment, which, I would remind you, is the main priority of our economic policy, so much so that in its submission to the IGC the Commission asked that, in the Treaty, employment should be regarded by the Member States of the Union as a matter of common interest, on the same footing as economic policy and exchange-rate policy.
Yes, Commissioner, the two are linked.
The Maastricht Treaty has after all clearly shown that what is regarded as Europe's biggest problem has not been solved.
If the intention had been to prioritize employment, the course then taken would not have been instead to prioritize low inflation and price stability and to leave employment outside the Maastricht Treaty.
That was not regulated.
Some 18-20 million people are unemployed.
In Sweden, for example, unemployment was 2 % when we applied to join the EU.
Today, five years on, it is 14 %.
It will not do, of course, to say that all this is due to adjustment problems in connection with EMU. The reverse should be happening.
Unemployment should be coming down.
My questions have not been answered.
What proposals does the Commissioner have to bring down unemployment? When will these proposals be put forward, and what constitutional and other political proposals will you be making so that those who are without work can feel reasonably assured that this is what is being prioritized and not budgetary principles?
I can no longer call to mind all the figures, but it is interesting to examine the growth in public deficits and in unemployment.
I note that since 1975, public deficits and the number of persons out of work have risen alongside one another in Europe.
Consequently, slashing public deficits will not solve the employment problem.
If public deficits created jobs, then given their level in Europe, we would have surplus employment.
On the contrary, I believe that only a rigorous budgetary policy and an overhaul of public finances can create better and adequate conditions for achieving stronger growth.
Let me tell you that if we brought down Europe's public deficits by 1 %, we would release ECU 60 billion per year, which could be used to fund not debt and deficits, but productive investment.
The first precondition for job creation, therefore, is a return to healthy, stable, noninflationary growth, and this involves an overhaul of public finances.
Apart from that, the bulk of unemployment is structural in nature.
The Commission has on several occasions presented to this House, the Council of Ministers and the European Council its global strategies on employment.
I would point out here that, insofar as unemployment is largely of structural origin, structural measures are the only way to combat it.
There is no miracle cure, and this cannot be done overnight.
I would add that in almost all cases, national measures are what is required.
I am thinking in particular of labour market regulations, rules on working time and reductions in the burden of taxation and social costs weighing down on labour-intensive industries.
So there is primarily a need for national measures here.
In a number of areas, however, we can complete and complement at Community level the efforts required at national level, by strengthening the social dialogue and using the budgetary resources at our disposal.
So let us not reverse the roles in this area.
And let us also not seek to destroy the principle of subsidiarity; let us hope that the governments and the Member States will shoulder their responsibilities alongside the social partners, to supplement what is being done by the Commission.
We have seen during the last week the response by labour, by workers, by trade unions in Germany to the proposed cuts in public services and cuts in public benefits as a consequence of the German Government's determination to meet the Maastricht criteria for EMU.
Can I ask this question, and it is a sincere one: what flexibility do the Maastricht criteria allow and permit? For example, if a particular Member State's government was determined to use its resources to create positive jobs, and that involved what could be considered a breach of the Maastricht criteria, would that kind of determination be regarded as unacceptable by the Commission and the Council itself?
Mr President, for us, creating jobs is inevitably a good thing!
We should not debate the wrong issues.
Single currency or not, at present there is no other way for the Member States to reduce their public deficits.
You quite rightly mention the use of resources to create jobs: well, 50 % of domestic savings are currently being siphoned off to fund the deficits of the Member States and social security institutions.
These funds would be better used if they were earmarked for job creation, and that is precisely why public deficits must be reduced.
There is no other solution: if the Member States did not create jobs, the markets would punish them and, ultimately, interest rates in those countries would rise.
Consequently, growth would fall and it would become even more difficult to create jobs.
So it is not a matter of making the Treaty more flexible.
We shall neither add anything to the Treaty, nor delete anything from it.
We shall apply the Treaty as it stands.
And I am confident that a significant number of Member States will meet the conditions laid down in the Treaty by the end of next year.
Let us not set the entrance examination before the student is in the right class to sit it.
Let us not pre-empt that examination. It would be counter-productive and inappropriate to do so, and the effect would be unsettling whilst the macro-economic priority for the Member States today - even if it is not sufficient to create jobs - is to overhaul their finances and not to live beyond their means.
Although from a legal point of view, economic and monetary union can function with just two Member States, the Commission considers - and it is a simple matter of common sense, to my mind - that without France, Germany and a significant number of other Member States, the benefits and advantages of EMU would obviously be diminished.
Having said that, there is no predetermined list.
Given the progress being made on convergence, the Commission is convinced - as I said a moment ago - that a significant number of countries will be ready to participate in EMU from the outset.
However, in line with the statement by the Heads of State and Government in Madrid last December, the decision to proceed with economic and monetary union will be taken as early as possible in 1998 by the European Council, on the basis of reports from the European Monetary Institute and the Commission, and after consultation of Parliament.
The evaluation process will therefore take place in late 1997 or early 1998, on the basis of the results for 1997.
The Commission can do many things, but it has not yet learnt how to gaze into a crystal ball, so I cannot predict next year's results.
I would point out here that we should not tinker with the timetable; that would be a futile exercise.
Discussion of this subject now can only hinder the process of convergence.
A relaxation of the efforts to achieve budgetary consolidation would be unwelcome, since the present situation still calls for the reduction in deficits to be continued, and in certain cases intensified, because - and I would stress the point, since it is crucial - this helps to boost the savings available for job-creating investment, and hence to bring down interest rates.
Thank you, Mr President, and thank you, Commissioner, for the answer.
The reason why I ask the question is that there is great hesitancy with regard to EMU all across Europe, and that worries me.
If only a few countries are involved when EMU is launched, I think that hesitancy will be prolonged in Europe.
On the other hand, if a large number of countries join and only a few stay outside, I think that public opinion in those countries which remain outside and in which hesitancy is perhaps considerable, including my country, Sweden, will eventually turn, and that those countries will participate in EMU, since the advantages and strength of EMU will be the greater the more countries participate in it.
As regards the relationship between employment and EMU, it is clear that an excessively harsh budgetary policy in a short-range perspective may have a negative effect on employment.
In the longer term, however, I see no conflict between the fight against inflation and the fight against unemployment.
There is at present, it seems to me, a difference in some countries between the public perception of the chances of achieving the single currency, on the one hand, and the actual situation on the other.
I can tell you that the pace is being stepped up, and that we shall have completed the preparatory work for economic and monetary union by the end of the year.
The European Council meeting in Dublin will have to give its verdict - and Parliament will shortly be receiving proposals on these matters from the Commission - on the legal status of the euro, the stability pact designed to ensure sound budgetary management, and the new European monetary system, which will avoid Europe being split in two with, on one side, the countries joining the monetary union at the outset - the 'ins' - and, on the other, those which do not join at the outset and are keen to join - the 'pre-ins' .
I believe that tremendous headway is being made at the moment, and there is a great political and technical determination to complete EMU on schedule.
Furthermore, I would maintain that the economic forecasts which we presented to your Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy last spring still hold good today, 17 September; I have every reason to think so.
Consequently, I can confirm what I said in May: a significant number of Member States - I even spoke of a majority, as regards the famous 3 % reference value - will be ready to come on board by the end of 1997.
There remains the problem of how to explain this convincingly to the public.
You are right, Mr Andersson, this is a particularly delicate matter in your country, but that also applies to other countries besides Sweden.
I believe that an effort will indeed be required to show that, single currency or not, there is no other solution than to curb public deficits, and that curbing public deficits does not destroy jobs; on the contrary, it allows jobs to be created.
It is likewise necessary to prove that monetary stability encourages growth and hence job creation.
I realize that there is public relations work to be done, and in my opinion this should involve all the political, social and economic leaders in the various countries.
Europe is at a crossroads, and we must demonstrate to all the Member States that it will be in their interests to be inside, rather than outside, the monetary union.
As the author is not present, Question No 48 lapses.
Question No 49 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0624/96)
Subject: Environmental rules in the new Member States
During their membership negotiations, Sweden, Finland and Austria secured the right to maintain certain more stringent environmental standards for a period of four years.
During that transitional period, the EU is to review its rules with the aim of tightening them up.
A DG XI document dated 10 April 1996 reveals that the Commission considers it impossible for the EU to raise its environmental standards to match those which apply in the new Member States and that it is also not clear whether the provisions of Article 100a(4) regarding the possibility of continuing to apply special rules are applicable in this case.
Can the Commission confirm that it does not consider it possible to tighten up EU rules so as to match the standards which apply in the new Member States?
Does it consider that Article 100a(4) is applicable to the transitional arrangements if the EU does not raise its standards during the four-year period?
As I have already said on previous occasions, it is very high on the Commission's political agenda to complete the review before the end of the four-year transitional period, with results which are satisfactory for the new Member States.
As regards the Commission document of 10 April 1996 which is referred to in the question, this document does not correspond to the Commission's official stance.
As I understand it, the document was an internal discussion paper intended for use by our services.
It sets out a range of alternative scenarios if the review process is not completed by the end of 1998.
As for my own views on this matter, I would refer to my speech to Parliament on 3 July 1996, in which I made it clear that my position has always been and continues to be that in my sector, in other words the environment, none of the new Member States should be obliged to reduce their health and environmental standards after the expiry of the transitional period.
I was somewhat surprised at the press coverage following the debate of 3 July, but that is nonetheless my position.
I can confirm that the technical side of reviewing many of the provisions involved is making good progress, and that it will probably be possible to complete the review in the course of the transitional period.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for her answer and, especially, for the clarification that this document does not represent the Commission's position.
But this document is very interesting, so I will ask two supplementary questions about it.
The document refers to another document from the Legal Service of 13 December 1995, which states that there are problems in applying the so-called environmental guarantee to the new Member States.
I wonder whether this document is or can be made public, and what kind of problems are there in relation to Article 100a(4), the so-called environmental guarantee?
The document also concludes that it would be difficult to get a majority in the Council if the standards which are the highest in Europe were put forward.
I should like to hear the Commission's views on the matter.
Clearly, the whole procedure means that it will also be a question of reaching a political agreement among a majority of the Member States, and of course I cannot provide any kind of guarantee in that respect.
There may be Member States which have a different view from mine and that of the Commission, so problems may arise along the way.
I would assume that the Member States are fully aware of how the internal procedures operate.
What I can promise is that we in the Commission will ensure that things are ready so that it is possible to have the political discussions, and my own position is that we should achieve the highest possible limits, so that the countries do not have to reduce their standards.
That is what we are aiming at.
Question No 50 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0625/96)
Subject: Environmental clean-up operations on the Kola Peninsula
The environmental situation on the Kola Peninsula may be described as disastrous, with radiation levels, for instance, 500 times higher than normal European levels.
The problems this is causing also affect the Member States of the EU.
Is the Commission investigating the possibilities for the EU to assist with environmental measures on the Kola Peninsula? Are any specific measures planned?
The Commission has no information to support the claim that radiation levels on the Kola Peninsula in the north-west of Russia are 500 times higher than normal European levels.
Large quantities of radioactive waste are being accumulated in the region.
The Commission has recently completed a study which included the collection of data with a view to compiling a register of radioactive waste.
The report on this is about to be published.
In addition, the Commission is currently carrying out a study to assess the radiological effects of the dumping of nuclear reactors in Arctic waters.
At present, all radioactive waste on the peninsula is kept in medium-term storage facilities either on land or on board ships.
Most of these facilities are unsuitable for long-term storage and incompatible with modern safety requirements.
Because of the economic crisis in Russia, the producers of the waste have not been able to build new radioactive waste management facilities.
In 1995, it was agreed that TACIS should support a number of projects in this region connected with the disposal of radioactive waste.
A sum of ECU 5 million was earmarked for this work.
Moreover, a further ECU 1 m was allocated in the 1996 budget for work on removing spent nuclear fuel from the storage vessel 'Lepse' which is berthed in the harbour in Murmansk.
I have dealt with questions on other occasions here in Parliament, and I would simply emphasize once again that we take the problems which have arisen as regards the Kola Peninsula very seriously.
Thank you for the answer, Commissioner.
The situation on the Kola Peninsula is catastrophic.
Waste storage facilities are leaking, and radiation levels are high.
According to a document from the Commission, they are 500 times higher than normal in Europe.
No other country in the world has so many nuclear power reactors in such a small area, and a couple of these are among the ten most dangerous in the world.
According to the Bellona Foundation, 16 nuclear reactors have been dumped in the Kara Sea.
Vessels are rusting apart, and their radioactive cargoes are sinking.
Something must be done.
It is not just the future of the Kola Peninsula that is at stake, but the future of Europe as a whole.
We are all threatened.
In 1995, Norway produced a booklet targeted at the inhabitants. What is the EU doing?
What resources shall we be devoting to this major problem in the future, and is the EU cooperating with other operators?
I share the questioner's concern at these problems, and that is why the Commission is actively tackling the matter.
Let me make one or two further comments as regards the TACIS projects.
The largest project involves the disposal of radioactive waste and will be completed with the building of a depository and a safety assessment of this facility and the location chosen.
This entails expenditure of ECU 3 million.
Other projects cover medium-term storage of radioactive waste, with an assessment of the existing facilities and preparation for the building of new ones; this will involve ECU 500 000.
In addition, there are plans for an assessment of the management and storage of spent fuel in the region, including transport facilities, the development of a radioactive waste management policy for the region, and work of a more general kind to train staff in the management of radioactive waste.
Finally, there is also the 'Lepse' project to which I referred before.
The Commission is therefore active in this sector, and is naturally also seeking to cooperate with other interested parties in the area.
Question No 51 by John Iversen (H-0626/96)
Subject: Eco-label
Does the Commission intend to instruct the environmental organizations to draw up the criteria for the eco-label and thereby restore public confidence in the label?
The Commission is currently changing the arrangements for eco-labelling.
One of the options being considered is the partial privatization of the eco-label by commissioning a European eco-labelling organization to draw up criteria in cooperation with the relevant authorities and other parties concerned.
In its programme of work for 1996, the Commission announced a proposal to amend Regulation No 880/92 on a Community scheme for eco-labelling.
The main reason for the change - as I am sure Mr Iversen knows - is the need to improve the arrangements and make them more effective, on the basis of the experience gained so far.
Under the terms of the current regulation, the Commission itself determines the criteria for the eco-label, with the aid of what seems to me a very complicated procedure.
The Commission is therefore in the process of looking at ways of transferring this task to an appropriate independent body under an amended regulation.
We are still reflecting on the form and composition of such a body.
We believe that independence and impartiality in determining the criteria are crucially important for the credibility and success of the eco-label, and therefore its effectiveness in practice.
Regardless of what solution we finally propose, the Commission will ensure that the proposal makes provision for appropriate involvement of the environmental organizations in the work on drawing up the criteria for the eco-label.
And apart from the amendment of the regulation, the Commission is already ensuring that the environmental organizations are consulted when determining the criteria under the present scheme.
Thank you for that very good answer.
I think it was intriguing to hear that the Commission still has some vision as regards the eco-label.
I am also very pleased with the way in which this is to be done.
I have only one question, which goes a little further.
I am slightly concerned about the development of the eco-label.
I have heard that the Danish Government - and it may be that other governments will do the same - now wishes to endorse a different eco-label.
I really cannot have anything against this, but on the other hand I do not think that the consumer will be better off if there are several different kinds of eco-label.
So I should like to hear your comments on the fact that the Danish view is clearly that you can have the swan as an eco-label and at the same time the EU eco-label too.
Do you think that this is possible? Surely the consumer will be the loser in this game with several different kinds of eco-label?
There are already several eco-labels that exist today.
One of the better known is a label which operates extremely well in Germany in particular, and then there is the Scandinavian eco-label with a swan which has been mentioned.
My impression has been that if we have not become more recognized at European level, it is because our procedures have been so slow.
It has simply taken too long for any proposals to go through.
In a way, that is also why we are still using the present eco-label, and we have tried to make the process we have now so effective that we really can put an approval through, while at the same time trying to improve the system.
It is my hope that when we have these improved arrangements, it will also mean that there is clearer guidance for consumers.
Until then, we are bound to say that it is better for consumers to have some form of guidance than none at all.
As the author is not present, Question No 52 lapses.
Question No 53 by Eva Kjer Hansen (H-0656/96)
Subject: Confidential declaration annexed to the Directive on the disposal of PCBs and PCTs
Can the Commissioner confirm that it was the Commission which insisted on not making public the declaration on the interpretation of the Directive and that the declaration conflicts with the text of the Directive itself?
Does the Commissioner believe that secrecy for such declarations can be reconciled with the 1995 Code of Conduct on openness, and is within democratic principles in general?
Does the Commissioner not agree that this secret declaration will lead to unreasonable discrimination among EU citizens, as the interpretation of the legislation will vary from one Member State to the other?
First of all, I should like to say that I am grateful for that answer, and then I would stress that I am amazed that the Commissioner can now say that she personally is pleased that this is being published. Is it not correct that it was the Commissioner herself and the Commission in general who insisted that this declaration should be kept secret?
The only reason it is being published is because Denmark blocked a continuation of the secrecy over the declaration. I should like to ask what the Commission's position is, generally speaking.
Can the Commissioner give a guarantee that we shall not see any more secret declarations in the sector for which she is responsible? Does the Commissioner believe that, whatever position she might state now, it would be backed by the Commission as a whole?
Can the Commissioner give Parliament a guarantee here that we shall not see any more secret declarations from the Commission? I find it sad that I cannot even get an answer to questions that are put in writing, but I should be glad to have a clear statement here from the Commissioner by way of a follow-up.
I honestly think that the questioner was given a very clear answer the first time.
This was a case where there was a lack of legal consistency between the secret declaration and the proposal itself, and so the Commission felt the matter should be taken up again.
That is what was done. This is an amendment of the directive and it is being published, so I do not recognize the interpretation that this is only happening in the light of a response from one particular Member State.
Moreover, I would entirely stand by what I said in my first answer, namely that we in the Commission naturally wish to adhere to the terms of the code of conduct which we have agreed with Parliament.
Question No 54 by Alex Smith (H-0658/96)
Subject: Hazards of depleted uranium
On 19 September 1994, the Commissioner Mr Paleokrassas wrote to me asserting that in the Commission's opinion the health and environmental hazards posed by depleted uranium were minimal.
More recently, the British newspaper reported on 21 July this year that the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, in a report written in 1993, confirms that there are toxic hazards of depleted uranium and that 'the problem will not go away' .
Will the Commission obtain a copy of this report - entitled 'Kuwait depleted uranium contamination' - and reassess its views on the dangers of depleted uranium?
The Commission is not in possession of the documents concerning the consequences of the use of depleted uranium in the Gulf War which are quoted in the 'Sunday Times' article referred to in the question.
I know there has been extensive correspondence between the Commission and the honourable Member on this subject.
At present, the Commission has no basis for changing the views it has already expressed in that correspondence.
Commissioner, will you endeavour to get a copy of this report and assess its implications? It seems as if the British Government does not take it seriously and subsidiarity has not worked in this case.
Would the Commission be prepared to take a more active role?
Let me add to the more general information on the risks to health and the environment connected with the use of ammunition containing depleted uranium by saying that when it comes to the question of risks in terms of radiological toxicity, this must be distinguished from the chemical toxicity of the material, which is comparable to that of lead, though it may be much greater.
It is different when the material is used in ammunition.
Here, the main risk is associated with the particles which are produced by heat and friction at the moment of impact of a missile.
Such particles will, for the most part, be insoluble.
The risk attached to exposure to these particles is therefore determined more by the low radiological toxicity of depleted uranium than by its chemical toxicity.
One of the possible ways of exposure is by inhaling particles into the lungs, but the resuspension process is very ineffective, and once the particles have settled after an impact, the view is that the risk of inhalation will be much reduced, compared with that in the initial phase.
I shall not go into further detail on this question, but simply say that we shall of course continue to monitor the issue.
That concludes Question Time.
Questions not taken for lack of time will be answered in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.30 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Reduction in working hours (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0207/96) by Mr Rocard on a reduction in working hours.
Madam President, let me begin by thanking Michel Rocard for his excellent report, even though he is not here for the moment.
Mass unemployment is Europe's biggest problem today.
It is an economic cost in terms of passive labour market support and it is a social cost in terms of increased exclusion and the spread of drug abuse and crime.
In the long term, it is probably a cost to democracy, since those who exist outside the labour market lose their faith in the democratic system.
Action on unemployment is needed at every level: at local, regional, national and European level.
No single measure is sufficient on its own; a whole battery of measures is needed.
Above all, we need an economic policy in which the fight against unemployment is given at least equal priority with the fight against inflation.
We need growth, and we need increased demand.
In addition, we need a massive effort of training in order to raise the level of skills across the board in Europe's workforce.
But we also need a reduction in working hours in order to create jobs for those who are without work today.
There is no single measure that will solve this problem, it needs a combination of measures.
In my home country, Sweden, economists, employers and trade unionists are, with few exceptions, vehemently opposed to a reduction in working hours, but I no longer share their view.
I have been influenced by Michel Rocard and his work in this report. I think that a reduction in working hours, together with other measures, will make a worthwhile contribution to the fight against unemployment.
We need more exchanges of experience across national frontiers to find out which of the various models have been most successful in experiments that have been conducted and are still ongoing.
Also needed is an analysis to determine what incentives are required to bring about reductions in working hours.
Michel Rocard has drawn attention to an approach on incentives that may be successful.
It is an important contribution, but it is also important for other contributions to be made.
Apart from the fact that working hours reductions can help to create more jobs, they can of course also improve the quality of life for the individual - for the unemployed person who can get a job, but also for one who already has a job but gains more time for the family and for leisure activities, voluntary service and political work.
These are the ways in which a reduction in working hours can serve us: by increasing our quality of life, but also by creating more jobs.
Madam President, the proposal to use generalized reductions in working hours to try to combat the high levels of unemployment in European Union countries seems to arise from an attitude of surrender.
The proposal amounts to accepting that it is impossible to widen the employment base.
The only positive and credible response to unemployment is to create new job opportunities through new entrepreneurial initiatives.
From this viewpoint there is a need to develop greater flexibility in the labour market.
The thesis that a generalized reduction in working hours would automatically bring about an increase in jobs simply cannot be accepted, because it has not been proved.
Countries like the United States and Japan, which have not reduced working hours but actually kept them longer than in Europe, have recorded job increases.
What is needed is encouragement and incentives to the competitiveness of firms, particularly SMEs and micro-businesses.
A reduction in working time would involve a serious loss of competitiveness. Dreaming up regulations which put constraints on firms' organizational options and production needs would compromise their very existence, not to mention the incentive to take a second job.
To combat unemployment it is necessary to reorganize working time by using various formulae such as the relationship between full-time and part-time, temporary work, part-time forms of entry designed for young people with little experience and part-time separation for older workers.
Reducing working time does not mean creating occupational opportunity, it means making existing labour more expensive.
Madam President, I cannot address myself to all the aspects of the report in one minute.
I shall therefore confine myself to paragraph 2, which is the crux - and, if I may say so, the jewel - of Mr Rocard's report, because this is the most innovative proposal that we have heard for some years.
It has the merit of cutting the Gordian knot between competitiveness and reductions in working hours by showing that such reductions can be compatible with businesses being competitive.
This is the key proposal, because it reopens the debate and is shown to be economically possible and socially appropriate.
It is in this spirit that I should like to offer the support of the Liberal Group for this intelligent and innovative approach, which could represent the kind of device that was sought by Archimedes to lift the heaviest of weights, namely, in today's terms, the absence of full employment.
Madam President, one way of attacking unemployment is undoubtedly by reducing working time for those who are in work.
But that reduction and that aim only makes sense if it is to create more jobs for those who are out of work.
Rocard had that in mind, in other words, reducing working hours to create jobs.
I must compliment him on this initiative.
However, following all of the negotiations and compromises which have taken place, in our opinion he has lost direction and it would be justified to change the title and not just alter it slightly because he has lost direction and has now gone off in search of a new configuration of working time.
This new configuration of working time, via flexibility and precarious working, is aimed at making better use of equipment, increasing productivity and competitiveness without making any guarantee to create new jobs, on the contrary, and seeing lower wages for unemployed workers as a foregone conclusion, possibly to be compensated through complicated machinery.
On the way, the initial aim, the first priority, the only possible aim has been lost, namely that of attacking unemployment and creating new jobs.
We should like, perhaps naively, to have contributed to the recovery of the initial idea and to have stopped the initiative from getting off track.
We think that this might have been possible if we had clearly seen the principle of reducing working time with that aim, by adopting limits on the duration of working periods not just in week terms but also in terms of days, months or years.
By applying this principle and defining practical limits this might have been brought about in each Member State in accordance with the respective situations and industrial relations prevailing there.
I should emphasize that the report has drifted away from its subject - the reduction of working hours - and from its aim - fighting unemployment - because arrangements have been made to serve economic and entrepreneurial interests.
Madam President, neither Mr Rocard's statement nor a good dinner has changed my mind.
The Rocard report starts out from the false premise that Europe exists in isolation and that the jobs available should be shared out amongst all working people.
That is a fallacy to which the Soviet planning bureaucracy adhered until economic neglect brought about the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Europe is not an economic 'island of the blest' ; it is under enormous pressure from trade deals, association agreements and WTO criteria, and is lagging well behind in the international competitiveness stakes.
My own country, Austria, for example, fell back five places in one year from 1994 to 1995, and is now no longer in eleventh but in sixteenth position.
With its 1722 working hours per year, the youngest pensioners and a foreign trade deficit of 100 billion, Austria is a typical example of how quickly competitiveness can be lost because of shorter working hours - amongst other things - and how quickly the unemployment figures can climb.
Surely the only thought behind the Rocard report can be: how do we create more jobs? But the proposed system of part-time work will stand a chance of succeeding only if there are adequate incentives to work part-time, if this is voluntary, and if an individual is able to return to full-time work.
These are enough reasons why only the creativeness and optimism of entrepreneurs, in conjunction with a system of incentives for performance-related work, can improve the prospects of competitiveness and, in turn, the prospect of creating new jobs.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the great merit of this report, in my view, is the fact that it is giving rise to debate at all levels: trade unions, businessmen, politicians, the media, experts and the like are all taking part, in one way or another, in the discussion of how we are to relate a reduction in working hours to the creation of jobs, without losing competitiveness and without provoking a significant erosion of incomes or acquired rights; and how we are to transform the Member States' passive or compensatory policies into active policies on employment.
This is not an easy subject.
If it were, then today's debate would be superfluous.
It is not a question of giving our backing to an across-the-board reduction in working hours through binding legislation.
This report does not advocate the kind of minimal reductions whose effects are quickly absorbed by increased productivity and which have no impact on employment - reductions of the kind that are usual in collective bargaining.
Nor does it attempt to conceal the reality or the need for this debate in our societies.
It does not offer any miracle solutions - since there are no miracle solutions with regard to this issue.
Mr Rocard puts forward ideas, suggestions and proposals, always with respect for the concepts of voluntary action and agreement between the two sides of industry.
There is a great potential for job-creation in these proposals for a reduction in working hours.
The technical formulas for implementing the proposals will remain open to discussion.
Amongst other things, setting out these formulas is not the main objective of this report.
I myself have raised doubts and objections - which I have discussed with the rapporteur - regarding certain aspects of the text that we are debating today, and I believe that is normal.
Mr Rocard's report was drawn up with both rigour and flexibility, and represents, in my view, a significant political contribution, on which I should like to congratulate the rapporteur.
This debate is not coming to an end today, but is only just beginning in this House.
The results of the experiments carried out elsewhere must be examined, and the response of the two sides of industry - and, above all, of a society which is frequently overwhelmed by the enormous problem of unemployment, which cannot be accepted with resignation - must be awaited.
And since it is the most serious problem currently facing us, we must use our imagination, amongst other things, to try to find possible formulas for job creation.
Now, with the traditional formulas exhausted, and in the knowledge that even growth is unable to absorb the available labour, a rational, serious and rigorous debate on a reduction in working hours may enable us to see how jobs can be created in the near future.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of unemployment is a crucial one. We cannot accept that the generalised reduction of working hours is the best, the only and the most appropriate response to reducing it and even less to resolving it.
In many countries, the experiences which have been carried out have not had satisfactory results and have let to far smaller reductions in unemployment than had been expected.
On the other hand, in countries like Portugal the average working hours are still a long way off the limits referred to in this report.
What we do see as vital is that the duration of working hours should be made more flexible so that companies can freely negotiate with their workers with the objective of looking after their common interests.
In the future, if not in the short term, there will be shorter working hours, as history shows.
But at present we have to be very careful since the costs resulting from applying measures to reduce working hours might not necessarily be sustainable for companies or for workers or even for the States themselves.
In any case, I would like to congratulate Mr Rocard on his indefatigable work and the readiness to accept to criticism which he has always shown on this subject, which is one of his hobby horses, I know.
Madam President, it should be recognized that this report contains a number of positive aspects.
Placing on the agenda the question of the distribution of work, at a time when unemployment is the most serious problem facing us, is to my mind a welcome initiative.
There are a number of aspects of the report - regarding the reduction of overtime, early retirement, and the call for the Commission to examine the experiments carried out in this field - with which we agree.
However, there are also a number of fundamental issues on which, regrettably, we are unable to agree.
One of these is the reduction in wages which would accompany a reduction in working hours.
In a country such as Spain, and in the countries of southern Europe in general, where minimum wages of PTA 60 000 are common - pitiful wages, that is - the reduction of wages is unthinkable.
But at the same time other variables, such as the significant increase in productivity, have not been taken into account. Over the last ten years, productivity in Spain has risen by 25 %, but wages have risen by only 7 %.
Why not use the leeway provided by the increase in productivity to reduce working hours?
And why not consider other economic solutions? In our view, there are aspects of Mr Rocard's report which the countries of southern Europe - and specifically Spain - will be unable to accept.
Madam President, the rapporteur has presented a report whose starting-point is a very optimistic one.
The problem, Mr Rocard, is that no public or local authority in the European Union can create lasting jobs; only businesses can do that. And as for the claim that a reduction in working hours creates more jobs, small and medium-sized enterprises, when rationalizing their operations, have proved unable to do so, and large firms are shifting some of their production to third countries.
That does not help us either.
What is not addressed by either the report or today's debate, in my opinion, is the question of what to do about non-wage labour costs in Europe, which are a major element in the cost of labour.
As long as we have huge discrepancies in Europe - from Iceland, with 31.2 % of net pay to Austria with 102.4 %, and an EU average of 78 % - the question of job creation in some European regions will always remain problematic.
I think another aspect must be highlighted too: massive subsidies are needed for SMEs.
There are at least 18 million people out of work now.
If we encourage the establishment of a few hundred thousand or a few million SMEs, we shall make a major contribution to tackling the scourge of mass unemployment.
Madam President, Michel Rocard's report on the distribution of work is an important document.
I sincerely share the hope that it will be acted upon both at EU level and in the Member States.
Conquering unemployment is our most important task.
Only if we succeed in it will the preconditions for European integration exist.
Unemployment causes huge problems to the individual in person.
In addition, the persistence of a hard core of unemployment and its continuing growth represent a threat to balanced social development.
I hope nonetheless that, when we consider the importance of sharing work, we will not forget that Europe's industrial base must be bolstered.
Europe needs to succeed in the global competition for investment.
In order to do so, we need - inter alia - a consistently low interest rate, efficient transport and data communications, a skilled work-force, investment in research and product development and a sustainable energy policy.
Since Europe cannot compete with the rest of the world as regards the cost of labour, we should invest in knowhow.
I would therefore stress the importance of educational leave in the distribution of working time.
I have also observed that young families want flexible working hours while their children are young.
It is also justifiable to give employees who are approaching retirement the option of working part-time.
In addition, there are sectors where it is very convenient to adopt the 6 + 6 hour model.
Models for distributing work need to be considered seriously, to ensure that our societies are not divided into a section which is permanently excluded from employment and another section which feels exhausted by the burden of work.
It is also important that organizations representing the two sides of industry should be involved in this development work.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Rocard quite rightly describes mass unemployment as a threat to the social cohesion of every Member State and the Union as a whole.
I agree with him when he says that there is no miracle cure.
Generally speaking, however, his suggestions concentrate too much on substantial cuts in working hours.
Reducing working hours is not in itself a strategy for growth.
But there are practical examples which show that it has prevented dismissals and distributed the available jobs among a greater number of workers.
Like others before me, I would refer to the working-time model adopted by Volkswagen, which was admittedly geared to that company's own needs.
This prevented several thousand lay-offs.
I would also mention the Commission's confidence pact, the key term in which is flexibility.
What this means is positive flexibility, and that is what the PPE Group is looking for in its amendments aimed at replacing the term 'reduction in working hours' in certain sections of the report with 'adaptation of working hours' .
After all, part-time work and other tailor-made patterns of work organization are relevant here as well.
In recent years, the 'breathing factory' model has emerged, for example at Opel in Rüsselsheim, with its central band of working time allowing for longer or shorter working hours, depending on the flow of work.
We should not raise workers' expectations too high, for example with rigid - but mistaken - mathematical formulae such as: 10 % less working time equals 10 % more jobs.
Nor would it be tolerable in the case of many small businesses if uniform, across-the-board reductions in working time were steamrollered through from Dresden to Porto.
My comments are spelt out in a number of amendments tabled by my group.
But these do not bring us into conflict with Mr Rocard's ideas on social policy, as I have come to understand them over the past two years.
Rather, I am extremely grateful to him for his thought-provoking work.
After all, the problem of unemployment in Europe can only be solved if we all pull together.
I would therefore ask for the PPE Group's amendments to be adopted.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, employment represents one of the principal current and future problems of many of the countries in the European Union.
So it is a categorical imperative for our Parliament to confront the issues and contribute to solving the unemployment emergency.
But to achieve that aim we must build a more favourable environment for greater competitiveness of European firms, particularly small and medium-sized firms, and hence the entire European economy in comparison with the other world economies.
This means increasing the wealth produced by the firms and consequently protecting employment effectively, guaranteeing the social security system and allowing social policy to be maintained in the Union countries. All these objectives run the risk of being lost if firms are not helped to grow in terms of competitiveness and efficiency.
Although Mr Rocard's motion is carefully and capably drafted, it actually tends to reduce those possibilities for firms, because it transforms an important opportunity to make labour relations more flexible into a binding, obligatory, planned proposal, in other words, into a very oppressive direct and indirect burden on European firms.
That is why our group cannot vote for it.
Madam President, in this week's European Voice , German Chancellor Helmut Kohl is quoted as 'urging Germans to work harder, finish their education earlier and retire later' .
So Chancellor Kohl wants people to work harder and longer and Mr Rocard wants them to work for shorter periods and less.
I fear that neither exhortation will actually achieve as much of an impact as the decisions of workers themselves.
Although I appreciate that Mr Rocard's report has an incentive structure in it, I fear that it is also not desirable.
I say this because of the damage which his incentive system would do to the national insurance systems of Member States.
I believe we are moving towards welfare systems which are based much more on a clear relationship between the contributions and the insurance principle and the eventual payment to citizens.
A system which arbitrarily reduces contributions on the first 32 hours of work and then increases them for later hours does not seem to me to be in accordance with that new principle of transparency which we are trying to secure.
My other concern about the Rocard report, which is indeed well argued and full of interesting suggestions, is the suggestion in Recital M which concerns productivity in public services.
It suggests a compensation system there, which has been referred to earlier, because 'it is not as easy to increase labour productivity there...' - in public services - ' ...as in the private sector' .
I must say I am not sure that proposition is correct.
I think that many of us would feel that in the public services there is often more scope to increase productivity and the evidence suggests that through more competition and liberalization those improvements can be quite quickly achieved.
I am afraid, therefore, that the British Conservatives will not be able to support this report.
Madam President, unfortunately abolishing unemployment is not a simple matter of cutting working hours and paying everyone the same as they were earning before.
A reduction in working hours on those lines would raise production costs and lower competitiveness and employment.
Particularly serious difficulties would arise for smaller firms.
To transform the current system of unemployment support into subsidies for firms, so that they can pay compensation for lost earnings to those whose working hours have been reduced and, as well, pay wages to unemployed persons who it is hoped can then be added to the workforce, would give rise to an uncontrolled jungle of contributions and provide new jobs for bureaucrats and inspectors.
The proposal to investigate how and whether working hours reductions can bring down unemployment may appear, if not commendable, then at least harmless.
But the proposal suffers from the weakness that it gives politicians in all countries a further excuse to delay real measures to combat unemployment.
Besides, proper action will be made more difficult by the fact that many voters will be seduced into thinking that there are neat solutions, that less efforts are needed, not more.
Many in the European Parliament rightly speak of the hostages of unemployment.
But the real action bears no relation to all the talk.
Inserting a chapter on employment into the Treaty on European Union and calling for an investigation into shorter working hours are not things of any real substance. What action is needed?
In a Union created to achieve gains through the deregulation of international markets, it should be natural to deregulate domestic markets too; the most important of these is the labour market.
High employment also requires an improvement in general education, a higher standard of training at elite level to promote leading-edge technologies in production, better working conditions for small firms and a reduced tax burden to encourage individual effort, which for many will mean longer working hours.
Madam President, I wish to begin by saying that I am very grateful that Parliament and, in particular, you, Mr Rocard, have devoted an own-initiative report to working time.
In fact, you have successfully given a very high profile to this important issue.
You have talked to me many times about it and, generally speaking, I heard a very big response to your initiative.
It is important to approach the issue from the angle that you have chosen, and you have put the accent on people.
There is so often a tendency to talk about flexibility, downsizing, efficiency and the like and to ignore the human element.
I firmly believe that the aim of economic policy should be to raise the quality of life of all of our people.
I believe I share this aim with the majority of Members of this House and particularly with you, Mr Rocard.
Another important feature of your approach is the accent which you put on cooperation and dialogue.
This is one of the tenets which we need to develop as we move towards the 21st century.
We need to move away from industrial relations that are built on conflict and bickering and towards solutions from which everyone can benefit.
In other words, we need to move from situations where there are winners and losers, or even no winners, to winwin situations, where everybody can and should be a winner.
Mr Rocard, the Commission is currently preparing a Green Paper on work organization, including working time, and it is fair to say that this Green Paper is being prepared as a response to your initiative.
Certainly, in preparing the Green Paper and indeed the Commission's work programme for 1997, we are going to try very much to keep in mind the requests for Commission action as set out in your motion for a resolution.
Many of the speakers today, and indeed the amendments tabled, have sought to contrast flexibility of working time on the one hand and reduction of working time on the other.
I am not going to take sides in the debate today.
What I would like to do is to set it in the wider context, as indeed we shall try to do as effectively as we can in the Green Paper that I have announced to you.
I am convinced more and more that one of the greatest challenges facing us is to adapt our thinking with regard to the world of work to the new world that we live in.
In fact, we in Europe have had few problems in making the necessary capital investment in new technologies.
That has not been a great difficulty.
Where we have very often failed hitherto has been in adapting the way in which work is organized to cope with those new technologies.
This is the theme that we have developed, in particular in the Green Paper, on living and working in the information society - people first.
I believe that this is where we need to start if we are going to achieve the win-win situation that I mentioned earlier.
To my mind the key to the issues facing us is productivity.
The matter was mentioned very eloquently by one of our contributors. For the changes that are taking place in the organization of work will necessarily give rise to improvements in productivity.
We need to use these improvements in productivity in order to improve the quality of life for all of our people.
This was a point stressed by Mrs González Alvarez - I thank her for it.
I turn now to the issues directly relating to working time.
Since the White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment was adopted we have put a lot of effort into working time and arrangements for a considerable number of studies to be undertaken - you particularly asked for this, Mr Rocard.
Some of the studies have been completed and some are quite a distance yet from completion.
Research shows us that a policy of work redistribution will not necessarily be successful.
But it seems to show that working time reductions can have a beneficial effect on employment in certain circumstances, but only provided that a number of conditions are met.
The most important condition is that reductions in working hours must take place in the context of greater flexibility.
It is no use just cutting working hours while maintaining the same pattern of work organization.
So it is not a case of either-or, because you cannot have one without the other.
Another condition is that the redistribution of working time must be accompanied by an active training policy, otherwise skill shortages are sure to arise.
With regard to wages, the most successful reductions in working time in recent years have occurred when working time reductions have been incorporated into long-term bargaining packages.
Such long-term packages have the advantage of making it possible to use productivity increases to reduce working time over a period of several years while, at the same time, reducing the wage increases needed to offset the reduction in working time.
Finally, working time changes need to be seen in the context of equal opportunity policies if further segregation of the labour market is to be avoided.
In your report, Mr Rocard, you put forward a number of ways.
I cannot refer to them all for lack of time but I would like to refer to two of them.
The main solution put forward in your report was the question of using savings in unemployment benefit to compensate for reductions in pay resulting from reductions in working time.
The relationship between reductions in working time, productivity and wages is, however, a complex one which varies from sector to sector and, indeed, from country to country, as was already stated, as of course do the social security systems themselves.
We are going to have to study this in greater detail.
You want us to do this, and it has been asked for across the House.
I also wish to refer briefly to part-time work, because it has been mentioned by many speakers.
This is a subject which has been batted backwards and forwards like a shuttlecock for very many years and, as your report states, successful schemes are very rare and there have been a lot of problems.
But now I genuinely believe that we are well on the way to turning an adversarial situation into a win-win situation; for as most of you know, following the Commission's initiative, the social partners are currently seeking to negotiate an agreement at European level with a view to achieving the right balance between flexibility and security.
We should not underestimate the importance of this particular development.
I would, therefore, like to conclude by saying that the Commission is being asked to do things, and to mention five things that we are doing or that we will do.
Firstly, we are going to prepare the Green Paper I referred to on work organization, including working time.
We have just prepared the Green Paper on the information society, as I have said.
Secondly, working time is one of the elements that has been discussed in the context of the European pact.
Thirdly, we have taken an initiative which has led to negotiations between the social partners at European level on the whole question of flexibility and security of employment.
Fourthly, we are preparing a White Paper on the sectors and activities currently excluded from the working time directive. It is very much in line with point 6 of your resolution.
Finally, we are going to continue to undertake the further studies that have been asked of us in these areas and we will pay very close attention to the points made in the resolution.
Mr Rocard, you have started something!
I know how personally involved in this you are; you have spoken to me many times.
I am glad you have brought it to the floor of the House and we are going to return to this subject.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Ambient air pollution
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0267/96) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0330/96-94/0194(SYN)) with a view to the adoption of a Council Decision establishing a reciprocal exchange of information and data from networks and individual stations measuring ambient air pollution within the Member States (rapporteur: Mrs Pollack).
Madam President, this directive is about establishing a reciprocal exchange of information and data from measuring stations for air pollution.
It is a tool by which it will be possible to assess progress towards improving air quality throughout Europe.
We all know how necessary it is to take steps to reduce air pollution.
Much of the present monitoring of air quality is still insufficient since some pollutants are not monitored everywhere and others are not monitored at all.
Furthermore, the data that Member States have to provide on the basis of the 1982 legislation is not always comparable across the European Union.
A greater exchange of information about air pollution will, of course, not clean up the air we breathe.
It is only when this information is made public that it can be used as a tool for pollution control and subsequently for bettering the lives of Europe's citizens.
The proposal is to set up reciprocal data exchange covering 34 pollutants currently measured in the Member States.
This means that no new measurement stations are actually required and no new costs envisaged.
The problem with this fairly minimalist approach is that one of the aims of the directive is to extend the scope and improve the quality of data transmitted to the Commission.
So what we are asking for in Amendment No 5 is simply that when the initial round of data has been assessed, if what is being supplied by Member States is found to be inadequate, Parliament wants the Commission to be able to consider whether measuring pollutants listed in Annex I (2) ought to be made compulsory.
If we do not take this tiny step towards thinking about improving the system, how can we expect Member States to implement the Framework Directive on ambient air quality? As I said, this directive is actually a tool to move some way to achieving the goals laid down in that very important Framework Directive on which we have only recently had the second reading in this House.
I do not intend to take up a lot of time from the House this evening; in fact, not all of my allotted speaking time because we have had our first reading and made our points then.
I simply want to say that the five amendments to the common position from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are clear, reasonable, quite modest and self-explanatory.
They seek first of all to simplify the title because we are not in favour of the European Union extending its gobbledegook throughout the Union.
We want, very importantly, to allow public access to the data.
In order for that public access to the data to be actually useful to the public we also want it to be published in a clear and understandable form.
As we said in Amendment No 5, we want to tighten up that review process so that when the review actually takes place, if we find that things are not as good as we would like them to be, we can consider the possibility of being able to move to a stricter basis in the future.
I commend the report to the Commission and the Council.
I hope that it will be possible for our amendments at second reading to be taken on board.
Madam President, the increasing prevalence of allergies and other diseases caused by impurities in the air shows that air pollution is a growing problem.
In order to bring about genuine improvements in air quality, we all need to know where we stand.
It should be possible to compare measurements taken in different countries, and this requires the development of common measuring procedures and the adoption of common principles for the selection of measuring sites.
The rapporteur, Anita Pollack, stresses quite rightly in her report that information about air pollution should be public.
This is essential, as the European public should be allowed to know about threats to their health.
If information is comparable between countries, the public will also be able to put pressure on the politicians and authorities responsible in their own country to improve air quality.
Traffic is the principal source of air pollution.
It causes 62 % of carbon monoxide emissions and 50 % of nitrogen dioxide emissions.
The problem is particularly serious in towns and other congested areas.
The EU should make progress on imposing more stringent quality requirements on fuels.
In a market economy it is effective to use the means afforded by that economy - i.e. to provide price incentives.
Better-quality fuel should be priced more cheaply.
In Finland, for example, good results have been achieved in this way.
Now however this approach may be under threat from the EU's rules on taxation.
On no account would it be acceptable for methods of proven effectiveness, which are sensible from the citizen's point of view - in this case, methods of improving air quality - to be debarred from use on the grounds that they do not accord with some framework.
In my opinion, we as Europeans have the right to demand better air quality in all respects.
Madam President, of the five amendments that Mrs Pollack is resubmitting, and which were not accepted by the Commission or the Council, we shall be supporting the first four.
I believe, Commissioner, that Mrs Pollack is right to say that the title she is proposing is much clearer than the one which you have retained.
You say that your title expresses the content of the decision better, but it is too long and complicated, and I believe that anything that we do to simplify the Union's legislation is important.
Furthermore, you say that you do not support Mrs Pollack's request for the information in question to be made available to the general public, since the Member States are already doing this.
Of course the Member States are doing that - there is a directive which obliges everyone to make this information available to the public.
As we said in committee, Mrs Pollack, we shall not be supporting Amendment No 5, since we do not believe that it is realistic.
This decision is closely linked to the directive on air quality, and Annex 1 includes six pollutants which are currently measured in all the Member States, or nearly all of them.
Annex 1.2, however, includes a further seven pollutants which are not measured - except for carbon monoxide, which is also measured in all the Member States. And they are not measured because it is probably unnecessary.
I do not know whether, in all British cities, levels of nickel, arsenic, cadmium and mercury are measured separately, and I do not believe that you can have worked in this field, Mrs Pollack, because if you had, you would know how difficult - and in some cases pointless - it is to take measurements of these pollutants, since they do not exist in measurable quantities, but merely in traces.
You propose two things in Amendment No 5: firstly, that the period of five years proposed by the Commission and the Council for the review of the decision - which in our opinion is correct - should be reduced to three. In just three years, however, we shall not have enough information to be able to determine whether the decision is being effective or not.
We therefore believe that five years is preferable.
And, secondly, whereas the text of the common position states that it will be determined at that time whether or not the decision should be amended, you are proposing to oblige all the Member States to measure the 13 pollutants in question, and many others in certain areas.
It is not possible to generalize, since the problems of industrialized areas are not the same as those of urban areas which suffer from traffic pollution, where different pollutants will therefore have to be measured.
I would call on the Commissioner, once again, to take steps to ensure that there is better legislation, not more.
We are all deeply frustrated with regard to the environment, since there has been a great deal of legislation, but little compliance with it.
Perhaps this is because, in some instances, the legislation has been over-ambitious, as well as too vague and diffuse.
We are hoping that you will review and amend some of that legislation, and that there will be better legislation, not more of it.
Madam President, let me begin by thanking Mrs Pollack for a constructive and good report, which seeks to give people more influence over their own environment.
Ambient air pollution is a growing problem in cities and along motorways, but also for people, animals and plants throughout the Union.
Sweden has suffered from this quite a lot through acid rain, mainly from Britain and Central Europe.
The EU is taking an important step in setting up a reciprocal exchange of information on air pollution between the Member States.
Such a comprehensive picture of the extent of air pollution will facilitate common action for cleaner air.
For many Swedish citizens, the need for cooperation on the environment was and is a major argument for strengthening the EU's power to act.
A common fund of data on air quality in the Union will provide a strong argument for firm action against acidification and eutrophication through air pollution.
But it is only when citizens have such information available that they can force the pace in work on the environment and get the politicians to take well founded decisions to reduce pollution.
It is thus hard to understand why the governments in the Council of Ministers and the Commission do not want to make the air pollution data collected available to the public.
After all, people must know how bad things are, how bad the environmental situation is, in order to put pressure on their politicians.
That is why information on environmental pollution must be made public.
This shows once again that it is here in the European Parliament that we fight for the voice of our citizens to be heard in European cooperation.
I hope that the Council will change its mind and accept Parliament's proposal on this point.
Madam President, the proposed measurements are necessary in order to improve the lives of our citizens in the future, because they will provide an objective basis for taking effective steps against air pollution.
I have no hesitation in supporting the amendments to simplify the title and improve access to the information which is obtained.
In the conurbations of Upper Austria, incidentally, air pollution levels are measured constantly and the readings made available in public places and in the daily press.
What is more, it is right that a reciprocal exchange of data throughout the European Community should be initiated as soon as possible.
Nonetheless, we must take account of the misgivings of the Member States as regards the date of entry into force, since the proposal makes provision for completely new structures, which - in extreme cases - it will not be possible to set up in three years, but only in five.
It is of course our wish that the data should be made available as swiftly as possible, with the assistance of the governments, so we shall see to it that all aspects of the decision are implemented as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I am extremely grateful to Mrs Pollack for making these important points.
Madam President, I should firstly once again like to thank the Committee on the Environment and in particular its rapporteur, Mrs Pollack, for the work they have done on this important but also very technical matter.
I would repeat the point that this proposal and the directive on air quality which was dealt with here in May this year complement one another.
Together, these two proposals represent a substantial and comprehensive package for improving air quality in Europe.
At first reading, the Commission accepted ten of Parliament's eleven amendments completely or in principle.
Five of these ten amendments were incorporated wholly or partially into the common position.
At this second reading, Parliament has tabled five amendments, of which the Commission can accept four either wholly or in principle, while one can only be accepted in part.
Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 4 are an appropriate supplement to the proposed requirements, and can be accepted with some changes of wording.
Amendment No 5 concerns three questions: the submission to Parliament of a report on the decision's implementation, the time limit for this report, and the reviewing of the decision.
The section of this amendment concerning the submission of a report to Parliament is fully in line with current practice, and can be accepted by the Commission.
The proposal to reduce the period in which the Commission is to submit this report cannot be accepted, and several of the speakers referred to this point.
The three-year period being proposed means in fact that the effective period in which the exchange of information has taken place will be only two years.
We feel this is too short for there to be a reasonable basis on which to produce an assessment.
The last part of the amendment is designed to make the measurement of pollutants compulsory if inadequate data has been supplied by the Member States.
We cannot accept this, because it is not in line with the requirements of the decision, which only cover an exchange of the information which is available in the Member States.
The requirement to measure new substances will be included in the directives on air quality.
Finally, I should like to stress the results which have been achieved so far in terms of this proposal.
The common position established in the Council includes a number of important amendments from first reading.
Together with the amendments which the Commission has approved today, this represents a valuable and effective supplement to the policy on air quality which was introduced by the framework directive.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Shipment of waste
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0266/96) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0331/96-95/0107(SYN)) with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 259/93 on the supervision and control of shipments of waste within, into and out of the European Community (rapporteur: Mr Virgin).
Madam President, let me briefly review the background to this issue. Already in 1993, the export of hazardous waste to countries outside the OECD for final disposal was prohibited under an EU Regulation.
This ban did not apply to the export of waste for recycling.
At the third conference between the parties to the Basle Convention, it was decided that the export of hazardous waste for recycling from OECD countries to non-OECD countries should be banned from 1 January 1998.
The Commission therefore put forward a proposal for such a ban just over a year ago.
The proposal followed the recommendations of the Basle Convention.
The definition of hazardous waste according to the Commission proposal is contained in Annex III to the Regulation, the 'amber' list, and in Annex IV, the 'red' list.
In the Environment Committee we considered this insufficient, and found strong support for that in Parliament.
We therefore put forward proposals supplementing the Commission proposal which, amongst other things, contained the EU's own list of hazardous waste under Council Decision 94/904 of 1994.
The reason was quite simply that recycling of material from this list was impossible without risk to the environment.
After many vicissitudes last autumn, including referral back, we managed to reach a compromise with the Commission involving the creation of a new Annex IIa, based on the EU's own list under Council Decision 94/904.
In this connection, I want to thank the Commission for its constructive cooperation in enabling us to reach this compromise.
There is no doubt that our original proposal was not particularly precise, but the reason for that is that Parliament does not have the research resources needed to present a precise proposal.
The compromise means that our proposal can now be incorporated into a more operative proposal.
Parliament accepted the compromise on 16 January this year.
The reaction of the Council of Ministers to this was that, for the time being, it would only back the Commission's original proposal.
In a note regarding the inclusion of waste covered by Council Decision 94/904, however, the Council confirms the need to take up this matter in the continued discussion.
I must say that I interpret this statement to mean that the Council will accept our position, provided we achieve a large majority for it in Parliament.
In practical terms, this position makes for better environmental protection than the Commission's original proposal.
If the matter meets with a favourable outcome this time, it will provide an excellent example of Parliament's role on important issues, an example which clearly shows the nature of the roles taken by the different institutions and which could serve as an illustration of our procedures for the benefit of the Union's citizens.
What this proposal is about in essence is responsibility for hazardous waste.
In a society geared to recycling, the concern to cut back on waste will be considerable.
If it nevertheless arises, methods must be developed to dispose of it in an environmentally sound manner.
Technical development must be geared to this objective.
Parliament's position on the matter we are now debating is in line with this thinking.
I will end with a question to the Commission which relates to this matter: when shall we see a proposal for the ratification of the Basle Convention? It is a question that relates directly to the matter we are discussing, since it will provide, so to speak, a 'legal ground' for the entire operation.
Madam President, problematic waste and its transport are a growing problem worldwide.
It all comes down to money.
Some wish to get rid of their waste cheaply, and others wish to obtain raw materials from it at low cost.
Developing countries cannot be blamed for looking for cheap raw materials.
The developed countries, on the other hand, have a duty to ensure that our waste does not cause problems in countries whose waste treatment procedures are insufficiently developed or where they do not bother about waste treatment at all.
It is laid down in the Basel Convention that waste for recycling must not be exported outside OECD countries.
As the rapporteur, Mr Virgin, has observed in his own amendments and as stated in Parliament's earlier standpoint, the rules laid down by the EU concerning hazardous waste currently fall short of the requirements of the Basel Convention.
As a result, even waste which should be classified as hazardous could be exported to countries which do not know how, or do not wish, to sort it.
The EU and its Member States have a responsibility to ensure that no loopholes endanger the health of people in poor countries.
They must shoulder this responsibility.
In its common position the Council tries to take refuge behind technical problems.
It was good to hear the rapporteur express the view that, here too, the Council once again seems to be coming round to the views expressed in Parliament's report.
It ought to be clear that waste which is classified within the EU as problematic should not be exported to nonOECD countries.
This requirement should be implemented as soon as possible.
In general, it is necessary to be cautious about transporting waste, and the principle should be adopted that waste ought to be processed and exploited as close as possible to its place of origin.
Unless this principle is adhered to between the Member States as well, a situation may arise in which certain countries evade their own recycling responsibilities by selling their waste elsewhere.
This would give rise to unnecessary transport operations and place an unnecessary burden on nature, thereby partially cancelling out the environmental benefits of recycling.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to stress the importance of including category II(a), covering waste which appears on the list of hazardous waste but paradoxically is not declared hazardous under Annexes III and IV.
This distinction is logically incomprehensible in the context of a single, comprehensive regulation.
Furthermore, the categories of waste in question are not always entirely without danger, if we think for instance of the contaminated metal scrap referred to in the report, or arsenic from metal-hardening, or lubricants and coolants from mechanical engineering.
Consequently, it also seems important to me - contrary to the Council's stance in the common position - that all hazardous substances should continue to be covered by the ban on exporting for recycling purposes, until such time as it can be guaranteed that the importing countries are equipped to carry out environmentally sound recycling.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the proposal to amend Regulation 259/93 on the supervision and control of shipments of waste within the Union has been presented by the Commission and provides for a ban on the import and export of hazardous waste, either for elimination or recycling.
This proposal is caught between the need to protect the environment, on the one hand, and to consider the weight of existing commercial interests, on the other. In fact, some non-OECD countries do not want the trade in hazardous waste to be covered by so many restrictions that they cannot use some of the substances as raw materials and some Member States want to go on exporting their waste.
The compromise amendments agreed between Parliament and the Commission represent an important result. They propose a ban on the export of hazardous waste as from 1 January 1998 and call for adjustment of the definition of hazardous waste to concur with the Basle Convention.
This position, set out in Amendments Nos 1 and 2, will be supported by my political group.
Madam President, this problem has been going on for more than ten years now.
I recall 1986, when the European Commission aimed at ending the exports of hazardous toxic waste outside the OECD area.
This scandalous 'tourism' in toxic waste is still being run by a kind of mafia and very often by the Mafia itself.
In Portugal, we have had cases of imports of scrap iron which is contaminated, toxic and hazardous and which has been exported to Portugal from Switzerland, in one case, and Germany, in another, and classified as 'nonhazardous scrap metal' .
That is why I am here to support the excellent report by my colleague, Mr Virgin, because not only from a technical point of view this report is an attempt at ending this scandalous trade in toxic waste and looks at the problem from an ethical and moral point of view too.
First of all, because it sets a final date in accordance with our obligations under the Basel Convention.
Secondly, because it mends a loophole in our rule classifying in Appendix II toxic substances or hazardous substances which were not classified as such; we need tomorrow's vote to be an overwhelming one so that the Council of Ministers will not be able to introduce into this legislation 'subtleties' which could lead to future complications and a continuation of this scandalous 'tourism' of toxic waste.
Madam President, this is an old issue in which the Greens have played a pioneering role.
I remember a book by my Belgian predecessor here in the European Parliament, François Roelants du Vivier, who already drew attention to the trade in hazardous waste ten years ago. Amongst other things, he described how poor countries were lured into taking waste in return for meagre remuneration, which was said to be quite harmless but which was in fact very hazardous.
We are making slow progress, but we are making progress.
As I said earlier, Mr Virgin is taking a 'green' stance on this issue, like a good environmental party man.
This is much to be welcomed.
We have no amendments to move and can support the proposal, which is a step forward.
But it will not solve the problem.
I was in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia the other day.
There is concern in the environmental movement there and in other quarters too, because the rules we are about to decide on will not apply when these countries become members of the OECD and, possibly, the EU; entirely different conditions will apply then.
These countries are afraid they may become the dumping ground for waste from the richer EU Member States.
This clearly means that the proximity principle should apply in principle in the Union too.
It is a question that should be taken up as soon as possible, and I hope that Mr Virgin, and indeed his whole political group, will allow the environment to take precedence over free trade considerations in this case too.
Madam President, this is a very important report.
It is important in its substance, but also as an opinion-forming example of processes in international trade.
It is customary to congratulate the rapporteur using some empty phrase of courtesy, but I do not propose to do that.
I merely say he has done a good job - against the odds, one might well say, since the Council has not agreed to any of Parliament's earlier amendments.
Parliament's proposal is better than the Council's, because it meets the international requirements of the Basle Convention.
This is a good way for the EU to force the pace on an important environmental issue and on environmental business.
On 1 January 1998, a ban on the export of waste comes into force.
There are clear definitions and indications of what waste is meant.
The proposal is therefore clear and concrete, and it is important that Parliament now support it and force the Council to accept it.
I very much hope that this will be the case.
Madam President, the Commission would like to thank the Committee on the Environment and in particular its rapporteur, Mr Virgin, for the work done by the committee on this proposal.
I share the rapporteur's view that this is an excellent example of Parliament taking an active role, and one of good collaboration.
I should briefly like to explain the purpose of the proposal.
It is to amend the 1993 regulation on shipments of waste, which is a very important means of protecting third countries from undesirable imports of hazardous waste from the industrialized nations.
The Commission's aim with this proposal - as all the speakers have said - is to increase and improve the protection by extending the current ban on exports from the Community of waste intended for final disposal.
From 1 January 1998, the ban on exports of hazardous waste will also include exports of waste for recycling and retrieval purposes to all countries which are not members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
As you know, this proposal will enable Community legislation to incorporate a decision on this matter taken under the Basle Convention, and followed by the adoption of an amendment to the Convention on the same lines.
At first reading, the European Parliament and the Commission agreed on four amendments to the original proposal.
The most important change concerned the extension of the scope of the proposal to include not only waste listed in Annexes III and IV of the regulation on shipments of waste, but also waste which is not covered by either of these annexes but appears on the Community's hazardous waste list.
Waste of this kind will be listed in a new Annex IIa, to be drawn up by the Commission as soon as possible.
I can tell the House that the Commission's services have begun the necessary preparatory work to enable a proposal to be forwarded to the technical adaptation committee as soon as the amendment to the regulation on shipments of hazardous waste has been adopted, including the provision for a new Annex IIa.
The Commission will naturally ensure that the European Parliament is informed at the same time as an official proposal is put before the committee.
I should like to say a few words on the amendments tabled by Parliament at second reading.
Although the Council did not include any of the amendments contained in the Commission's amended proposal in its common position, the Commission noted during the discussions that there was a positive attitude in the Council towards considering these amendments after the second reading in Parliament, as the rapporteur and a number of other speakers have pointed out.
The Commission therefore very much welcomes the fact that the same amendments have been retabled, and counts on them being adopted.
Finally, I should once again like to thank the Committee on the Environment for its active and constructive approach to this matter.
As Mr Pimenta said, there is a long history behind it.
I am sure Parliament as a whole will be able to follow the recommendation from the committee, and I think we shall then have taken a very important step in the right direction in terms of environment policy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Protection of wild fauna and flora
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0262/96) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0285/96-00/0370(SYN)) with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on the protection of species of wild fauna and flora by monitoring trade therein (rapporteur: Mrs van Putten).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species was concluded in 1973 and will soon be 25 years old.
A great many of the species that it was intended to protect have not survived that long.
They have been hunted; they have been collected illegally and then transported in conditions where they suffocated, died of thirst or withered away - prestige objects which never made it to their destination.
In reality, the extinction and disappearance of species and the fact that we - let alone our descendants - will never see their return has robbed us all of mankind's common heritage.
We currently make use of only a tiny number of plant species.
We have totally failed to recognize the opportunities that are destroyed when plants become extinct.
The loss of the animals, too, upsets the balance of nature.
A regulation is therefore urgently needed.
I should like to thank the rapporteur warmly for her commitment to bringing that regulation into existence.
I also hope that the Declaration on the Protection of Animals, which is already mentioned in the Final Act of the EU Treaty, will be extended at the present Intergovernmental Conference, in line with Parliament's wishes, so that the protection of animals is properly included in the Treaty.
Much as I value the work that the rapporteur has done, there is one point on which I do not share her opinion.
I believe that documents should accompany the movement not only of plants and animals listed in Annex A, but also of those in Annex B.
We wish to see the Annex A list kept as short as possible, not extended to include other species because we failed to pay enough attention to them.
Given the emphasis which is placed on dismantling bureaucracy, I think that the option of a single accompanying document within the Union is feasible and should be considered.
Madam President, it must be remembered in the first instance that the purpose of the text on the implementation in the Community of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, with which Mrs van Putten's report is concerned, is to replace a regulation dating from 1982.
This is in fact an update, an improved version to take account of developments within CITES, which was drawn up in Washington in 1973.
It should also be remembered that the prime objective of this proposal for a regulation is to protect wild flora and fauna from the negative effects of trade in them, and to ensure that the trade policy instruments set out by CITES are applied in a uniform way.
The current upsurge in the international smuggling of live specimens means in fact that the 1982 Council regulation on the implementation of the Convention is in urgent need of strengthening and improvement.
From this point of view, we can but deplore the repeated delays, ever since 1991, caused in particular by problems concerning the appropriate legal basis for this regulation.
I would emphasize that the main improvements to the text relate to the tightening-up of customs checks, which will facilitate more effective action to clamp down on the growth in smuggling, the imposition of tougher penalties by the Member States where the regulation is contravened and, finally, the ensuring of decent transport conditions for live specimens which are to be traded.
I congratulate the rapporteur on her work to this end, and I fully support her response to the text of the common position.
I would point out, however, that Article 9(1), of the common position poses a real problem for those who engage in falconry.
This is a traditional and very old activity; it is part of our heritage, and we must seek to preserve it.
The pursuit of falconry must not be surrounded by excessive red tape.
Falconers must of course be subject to the general rules concerning trade in the specimens which they use.
They must therefore be able to prove that their bird was purchased legally, as stipulated in the text, but it is unthinkable that they should require prior authorization every time their bird travels on Community territory, even if the falcon was bred in the wild.
Moreover, it must be borne in mind that there are very few falconers in the European Union, that even fewer use birds which were not bred in captivity, and that they do need to travel frequently.
Such journeys are not made for trading purposes, and so in any event they fall outside the scope of the regulation.
That is why it seems to me perfectly reasonable and without danger for the conservation of wild-bred birds of prey used in falconry to allow them to be transported without prior authorization in the Community, provided the birds are taken straight back to their authorized locations.
The common position we are now discussing demonstrates Europe's wish to step up its protection of endangered species by controlling trade in them.
A surfeit of trade bans or restrictions on the movement of animals might, however, run counter to the maintaining of biodiversity.
That is why we are asking you to support two amendments above all: Amendment No 32 which, as Mrs Grossetête has said, allows a falconer to transport falcons from his residence to his hunting-ground, since this ancient form of hunting, falconry, has already been recognized under the wild birds directive.
Voting for this amendment means acknowledging the efforts of falconers, who are cooperating with scientists in research, as well as in the protection, conservation and even reintroduction of certain birds of prey, such as the peregrine falcon.
Secondly, Amendment No 30 calls for research to be allowed on animals in the case of diseases for which there is presently no cure, and where it can only be carried out on these animals.
As is well known, research in this area has led to considerable advances in the protection and health not only of human beings, but also of animals themselves.
That should not be forgotten.
Madam President, perhaps you could arrange things so that we do not always end up discussing environmental issues on Tuesday nights.
It would be nice to be able to talk about such important topics during the daytime for once, instead of tucking them away in the evening.
Less than a week ago, I read in a Dutch newspaper that the police in London had seized a large quantity of rhino horn, the largest haul ever found, it appears.
We all know that rhinos are extremely rare, so I cannot understand why there is only a two-year gaol sentence for such offences in the United Kingdom.
The rhino horn was worth around 10 million, which shows just how profitable the illegal trade in endangered species can be, and it is only allowed to continue because the controls and penalties are so inadequate.
This example was not unusual, unfortunately, and it shows just how far Europe's application of CITES falls short of the mark.
Every day endangered species of animals and plants are traded illegally, both alive and dead, but they are not always discovered because of the shortage of manpower or the inadequacy of the controls.
We in Europe need to fulfil our CITES obligations and introduce stricter legislation which is both enforceable and verifiable, and this is why we support Mrs van Putten.
Over the last few decades, as we all know, many species of plants and animals have become extinct or extremely rare, and that is why this report is so important.
The need to maintain the planet's biodiversity is a matter of life or death.
In this context, finally, it is extremely regrettable that a minor issue such as falconry should receive so much misplaced attention in such a vital debate.
This is Parliament's opportunity to tighten up the terms of this regulation, and it is disgraceful that the discussion is being monopolized by all this pointless and spurious talk, especially as it stems from a misunderstanding.
That is why our group intends to vote against Amendment No 29.
We are also very curious to know what the Commissioner makes of Amendment No 5.
Madam President, in Brussels next week, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection will be discussing the review of the fifth action programme on the environment and sustainable development.
A number of the amendments which have been tabled condemn the disappearance of a large number of species - in some cases up to 30 %.
Mrs van Putten's recommendation seeks to prevent the continuation of this trend, and we believe that it is a balanced and necessary text.
It is unacceptable, in our view, that as Mr Eisma just said, this recommendation should be called into question by an issue which, in the field of species conservation as a whole, is one of minor importance.
In our view, Mrs van Putten clearly expresses in her conclusion the fact that biodiversity and the conservation of species are part of our common heritage, and that it is our responsibility to protect this for future generations as far as possible.
We therefore supported her recommendation in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and we shall also do so here in Parliament.
Madam President, unlike the rapporteur, Mrs van Putten, I do not believe that the proposal before us will bring any improvement.
On the contrary, I think that this could have been one of the last opportunities to put a stop to the international trade in wild plant and animal species which is plundering our planet - but the opportunity has now been lost.
And I think it is all the worse for the fact that the EU is one of the biggest importers and a real consumer market.
After more than four years of negotiations, the Council has adopted a text which departs to a significant extent from the principles of prevention and sustainability.
The only concern now is to plunder and destroy biological diversity.
Worst of all is the present official line that each species has to earn the financial resources needed for its own conservation. I ask you: what kind of mentality produces such an idea?
Is a living thing entitled to survive only if it can earn money? Does this mean that owls, parakeets and hawks can only fly about freely now if they carry a cheque book tucked under their wing?
I find such an idea outrageous! It truly shames civilized people and civilized countries.
Five hundred mammal and bird species and more than 110 species of orchids can now be traded freely in Europe.
And the picture becomes blacker still when I remind you that the decisions we are taking now represent a substantial retreat from Parliament's position in 1993.
This is a step backwards.
That is why I have to propose - on behalf of my group - that we reject the common position.
It will make the situation worse.
It will be no help for us to regulate transport better.
A cage is not a living space.
Before the animals are put into transport, nine out of ten of them have died, and most of the rest perish in transit.
I fear, however, that the House will not be able to bring itself to take this step.
Trade is always the imperative for us now, not sustainability, nor responsibility for the generations that will come after us.
The prime concern is to make money.
That is why, with my colleagues Mrs Graenitz and Mr Pimenta, I have tabled four amendments, and I hope it is the least you can do to adopt them, because they will bring about some small improvement and be some reflection of our responsibility.
Otherwise, I have to say that we will do ourselves no good by approving this common position and adopting this report, because it really will make the situation worse.
We all know that every day, some species of plant or animal disappears for good.
The world is a network in which every element has an important function, and the more we damage this web, the more harm we do to part of ourselves.
We are all interconnected!
Madam President, my group feels that it is absolutely vital that the amended CITES regulation before us should come into force as soon as possible.
If we do not regulate the trade in endangered species of plants and animals, the European Union will simply be promoting the rapid decline in biodiversity.
We know that the trade worldwide is now worth some ECU 3 to 3.5 billion, an estimated one third of it being illegal.
A large proportion of the trade is European, which is all the more reason to eliminate the control and definition problems here in the Union as quickly as possible.
Five years of discussions are already more than enough, I think.
I should like to congratulate Mrs van Putten on the way in which she has handled this whole issue recently.
As she has rightly pointed out, speed is now essential, and every day gained means an endangered species saved, in a manner of speaking.
Transport is a major problem in the trade in plants and animals, and we have all seen the harrowing photographs of mounds of dead birds being unloaded at airports.
Between 10 % and 70 % of all the animals transported do not reach their destination alive.
Nevertheless, I agree with Mrs van Putten that this regulation is not the best place to lay down rules on transport, and I think it is enough that Article 16(f) requires the Member States to impose penalties where animals have been transported under cruel conditions.
Further national provisions can also be introduced on this subject.
Of course, the success of this regulation depends entirely on strict controls and the training of customs officers, which will need considerable investment.
For some bird and plant species, it is almost impossible to tell whether the document accompanying the consignment is correct, but this is the only way to apply the regulation in practice.
We also support the rapporteur's proposal to set up a special working party to deal with any implementation problems.
We thus intend to vote for most of the amendments contained in the report.
Madam President, there are some points where the text should be adjusted to make it easier to implement and clearer for those who apply the law.
The title, for example, should be changed in line with the former Amendment No 16, in order to clarify the content. The way to protect animals and plants is to supervise trade.
And the way to protect us, as the European Parliament, is to supervise trade.
As the European Parliament, we also have a duty to see that the ancient tradition of falconry, which has been handed down and maintained locally, can also continue in future, legally and with due regard for the species concerned, as proposed in Amendments Nos 42 to 47.
It is falcons which have ensured the survival of many birds of prey.
It is unworkable and unreasonable to try to make every movement of a bird of prey from one place to another subject to prior authorization.
Falconers do not keep birds of prey for commercial purposes or as pets.
Keeping these birds in a humane way, appropriate for the species, involves letting them fly every day.
Moreover, making the birds of prey which are used mainly in falconry subject to the strict protection of the regulation would be tantamount to declaring war on falconry.
We would be calling into question the technical competence of the proposal and of Directive No 79/409 on birds.
That is why the text should be changed in line with Amendments Nos 60 and 61.
Madam President, the measures provided for by CITES and the Washington Convention, aimed at establishing international control of trade in species of wild flora and fauna threatened by extinction and on related products, have been applied in the Community under regulation 3626/82.
In February 1994 the Commission presented an amended version to update the 1991 legislation, also incorporating the change in the legal base from Article 100a of the Treaty to Article 100s, and thus from codecision between the European institutions to a procedure which only provides for consultation of the European Parliament.
But this regulation is of fundamental importance not only for the protection of species but above all for properly organized trade, including derived products which represent billions, because alongside the legal market a huge group of illegal operations exists, comparable to the illegal traffic in drugs and arms.
So there is a need to strengthen customs controls and especially to improve coordination between the Member States, and establish the possible sanctions to be applied. It is also necessary to consider the importance of maintaining traditions which allow the conservation of wild fauna and at the same time provide appropriate derogations permitting the transport of certain ornithological species, naturally not those at risk, within the area already defined in other Community legislation, as set out in our joint amendment with the European People's Party in Amendment No 32, mentioned by Mrs Grossetête.
Many political groups clearly support the amendments presented by our group and not adopted in the Committee on the Environment, so they are tabled again in this Chamber, in particular Amendments Nos 33 and 35 which we naturally support as the promoters.
Madam President, naturally we all know that the CITES Convention covers animals and plants threatened with extinction, but may I, as a biologist, express some doubts about this concept of protection of species threatened with extinction.
Actually the problem is no longer to save species threatened with extinction but to preserve the balanced environments which exist in nature, threatened not only by the disappearance of certain species whose numbers are greatly reduced, but also by the reduction of species present in large numbers in certain areas, a reduction which can gravely alter the equilibrium.
We need a more complex and comprehensive approach to the situation and from that point of view the convention itself is unfortunately at fault.
The common position that has been adopted limits opportunities to make positive progress in the future, because it again sets out an attitude we Greens cannot accept: the use of animals and plants as objects, things to be traded, not living beings to be protected for themselves.
This is also the attitude behind transport in cages, through the transport systems, which is at the root of a real massacre, real destruction of living organisms.
That is why we, as Greens, cannot but support the need for extensive amendment of the common position, and will vote for the important amendments proposed by the rapporteur, and in particular those proposed by the Green Group.
Madam President, just a very few words to refer to some aspects of interest in this debate.
Special and very correct attention must be paid to forests and other natural eco-systems of great interest for the European heritage, and also for the whole world, still existing in so many of our areas, some of which are larger than others, for example, in many of the islands which are a part of Community territory.
It has been demonstrated and highlighted for many years now that many of the vegetable and animal species which compose those ecosystems, apart from any other interest, are also genuine relics, the final representatives of a European continental flora and fauna which disappeared many centuries ago.
The special case of islands constituting the biogeographical region of Macaronesia deserves every technical and material support from the Community so that, in cooperation with the respective governments, the many vegetable and animal species which are endemic or exclusive to them and, especially, those which are at risk of or are becoming extinct should have very effective protection and should be helped to survive for the good of science and mankind.
Therefore, let us try and duly carry out that defence, and this should be done in part through the Council Regulation proposed to us, essentially aimed at controlling the trade in wild fauna and flora species; but we should not overlook the fact that this marketing is very often fraudulent, even within the European area, and that smuggling of species of flora and fauna has actually got worse since the practice of free movement, which led to the dismantling of those customs services which used to exercise controls - not always efficiently, it is true - over the import and export of live plants and animals.
It is not enough to legislate or to issue appropriate regulatory standards on respecting or improving the protection of wildlife.
First of all, we must raise the awareness of Member States and their regions to the importance of the problem and make them take rapid and efficient measures; then we must promote, motivate and support the creation of any mechanisms and organisations which can effectively put into practice the principles and measures which we recommend.
Madam President, I have just realized that I have forgotten something, since I was in such a hurry.
I had another question for the Commissioner, which I hope she will answer.
Is it true, as a report by the Committee on the Environment states, that special rules are being drafted for falconry, which a number of speakers have already rightly pointed out is merely a minor detail in a major debate which has been blown up out of all proportion?
I should like to know whether these people are to have special rules to enable them to pursue their sport.
Madam President, I would begin by thanking the Committee on the Environment and not least its rapporteur, Mrs van Putten, who has done a tremendous amount of work on this proposal.
As several speakers have pointed out during the debate, we are dealing here with a proposal dating from 1991.
It has been in the pipeline for a long while, and the old regulation has been operating in the meantime.
This has not been satisfactory, and we need a new regulation.
My impression is that all the speakers are agreed on that.
So far, so good.
But it also appears that some of the agreement ends at that point, so let me go straight to the heart of the problem, namely Parliament's Amendment No 5.
As I see it, Amendment No 5 is a compromise between different views in the House, and it was also clear from today's debate that this did not include Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, who I almost thought was speaking about a different proposal from the one we have before us.
Amendment No 5 is in itself an excellent move, which brings the animal welfare aspect into the proposal we are considering.
I personally therefore have every sympathy for the idea.
However, judging by all the information I have received from colleagues in DG XI, who have been working on this issue for many years, adopting this amendment will mean that the proposal will fall in the Council, and then we shall in fact be back where we started.
We shall end up once again without a new regulation.
The reason why we have come so far, why we have a proposal to discuss and thus a compromise, is that the Council has laboriously reached a common position, which is an important step forward.
This is not least because of Parliament's contribution at first reading in 1993. It played an important role in shaping the text of the common position.
Without going further into detail, I shall simply mention a few points to illustrate how important the new proposal for a regulation is.
Firstly, the existing regulation is limited to species covered by the CITES Convention.
The proposal to amend the regulation opens up the possibility of including non-CITES species in the annexes.
Secondly, the annexes to the existing regulation can only be amended by the Council.
In the new proposal, the Commission is enabled to amend Annexes B to D. And, thirdly, the scope of the Commission's implementing regulation is dramatically extended, so that the Community can respond more quickly and far more effectively to changes in conservation needs.
These are just some examples - others were highlighted in the debate.
The list could naturally be much longer.
Finally, I think that Amendment No 7, which the Commission can accept, is a good alternative to No 5.
Amendment No 7 is an appropriate way of linking the problem of the mortality rate of birds during transport with the commercial and conservation aspects.
You will therefore appreciate that I have weighed up the various political options, and the outcome of my deliberations is that I would prefer to have a proposal adopted, even if it is perhaps not quite as good as one might wish with regard to the animal welfare aspect.
When I say that it is politically justifiable to leave this to one side here, it is because the problem of the transport of live exotic birds whose survival is not in the danger zone is covered by an existing directive, namely Council Directive 91/628.
The question of the mortality rate during transport can therefore be dealt with through the application of that directive.
You will gather from my speech here today that I am concerned as to what will happen if we do not have a proposal adopted.
There really are a great many people who have been waiting a long time for this.
My position on the amendments is therefore as follows.
As I said, I cannot accept Amendment No 5, but will include Amendment No 7 in the revised proposal for the Council.
I would repeat that, to my mind, Amendment No 7 represents a good solution to the problem to which Parliament has called attention.
I can also accept Amendments Nos 1, 14, 15, 17 and 24, and, with some rewording, Amendments Nos 10, 13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 and 30.
Consequently, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 12, 16, 23, 25, 26 to 29, 31, 32, 33 and 34.
At this late hour, I shall not go further into the reasons for this, but I am of course at Parliament's disposal if you wish to have further explanations.
As regards the last question from Mrs van Putten on falconry, my understanding is that the drafting of special rules in this area is not being considered.
Before I end, and last but not least, I should once again like to express my respect for the great amount of committed work done on this question by the rapporteur, Mrs van Putten, and I very much hope that we shall succeed in having a proposal adopted.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Pesticides
Ladies and gentlemen, the European legislation on fixing maximum levels for pesticide residues is to be updated.
The main aims of the proposal for a directive are to extend the scope of the directives being amended, so as to cover processed and dried agricultural products and include composite processed products, and to harmonize provisions on exports, exemptions and monitoring programmes.
The Commission is proposing that the relevant provisions should be based on Article 43, which is known as the agriculture article.
This implies that pesticide residues are regarded as necessary and unavoidable in the production of foodstuffs.
The Commission's main purpose is to increase agricultural production.
Environmental and health protection take second place.
Under Article 43, the European Parliament's only right is to be consulted.
Moreover, a committee appointed by the Commission is to fix the limit values on the basis of a purely toxicological approach.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has therefore submitted a report which gives a higher priority to environmental and health protection.
We know that there are more than 800 different pesticides, and many of these substances have carcinogenic or mutagenic effects and weaken the immune system.
That is why the protection of consumers and the environment must be taken into account when fixing pesticide limit values.
This can be done if the directive is based on Article 100a, as proposed by the Committee on the Environment.
The existing procedure for fixing pesticide limit values is based on animal experiments and the ADI value, and geared exclusively to adults weighing 70 kilos.
In other words, it fails to take account of the actual breakdown of the population and the particular dangers for the sick, children and the infirm.
No account whatever is taken of interactions between different pesticides.
The Committee on the Environment therefore proposes setting a standard maximum concentration of 0.01 mg of active substance per kilogram of food.
The limit value for drinking water is in fact a hundred times more stringent, but we are obliged to permit one hundred times more pesticide in solid foods, such as vegetables, because there is a detection threshold.
Nonetheless, in terms of environmental and health policy, what we are proposing would be a great improvement, because the current permissible level of pesticides in solid foods is up to 10 000 times higher than the level for drinking water.
We take the view that if we afford a high level of protection to drinking water, we should do the same for solid foods, particularly in view of the fact that more than 80 % of our water intake comes from solid foods, rather than liquids.
The Committee on the Environment also proposes a total limit value of 0.05 mg.
This is intended to reduce the dangers to health from the unknown interactive effects of different substances.
Only recently, an American study from New Orleans demonstrated that the interaction of a number of chlorinated pesticides was substantially more damaging to health than the isolated effects of the individual substances.
The proposals from the Committee on the Environment also represent a degree of deregulation and simplification of the procedure.
Instead of fixing a separate value for each foodstuff, whether rhubarb or cauliflower, we propose that there should be a single limit value for pesticides and a total limit value, as is the case with the drinking water directive.
This would simplify matters and make it clear that what we are trying to do here is to improve environmental protection.
Our concern is to reduce the volume of pesticides in order to protect the environment.
Back in 1991, a cost-benefit analysis in the USA showed that 90 % of all pesticides were superfluous.
Pesticide reduction programmes in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands have demonstrated that there is another way.
In Sweden, over five years, these programmes have produced a 50 % reduction in the amount of pesticides used, and in Denmark, reductions of up to 30 % over seven years, depending on the substance.
This shows that the use of pesticides can be reduced without jeopardizing agricultural production.
The report proposes the use of integrated plant protection, to which the EU has already committed itself in the Rio summit's Agenda 21.
Finally, the report calls for a binding definition of good farming practice, based precisely on the commitments which the EU made in Rio.
It seems to me that the only way to overcome the problem of pesticide residues in food is to avoid using pesticides in farming.
Let me conclude by recalling something that Commissioner Fischler said, with which I agree: cynical as it might sound, the BSE crisis is the very thing which could accelerate the process of reflection on a change of course for agriculture in the EU.
I believe that we should be producing for the market, not trying to slip our production past the market.
That is why I would ask you to approve the report of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to refer to Mrs Breyer's final remarks: it is easy to indulge in populism in this House by quoting figures which reflect only a part of the truth.
It is easy to say that pesticide pollution has been reduced by 50 % in Sweden and 30 % in Denmark, but the fact is that we have a totally different climate, as well as different crops and agricultural requirements, in other countries of the European Union.
And, above all, it should be remembered that in some countries of the European Union, an average of USD 300 is spent per hectare, while in others it is only USD 30.
When we are all at the same level, therefore, it will be possible to say that we must all reduce the amount of plant health products used in our agriculture.
With regard to the draft directive, we broadly support the Commission's proposals.
The Commission is attempting to resolve the genuine problems that have been identified in the application of the directives it is proposing to amend, with a view to harmonizing national legislation on maximum residue limits - problems which give rise to serious barriers to the functioning of the internal market in plant products.
It is also seeking to update the earlier directives, improving and making progress with the harmonization of important aspects such as the monitoring of compliance with the maximum residue limits - which hitherto have been left to the discretion of the individual Member States - and making more flexible the procedure for setting Community maximum residue limits.
With the adoption of this proposal, we shall achieve a great deal of harmony between Directives 86/362, 86/363 and 90/642.
This represents a prior step before embarking on the redrafting of those directives - since it seems clear that the Commission either could not find sufficient reason for undertaking this task or encountered significant technical problems with it.
I share the Commission's view that this should be done in several stages, since proceeding in the manner proposed by Mrs Breyer would mean climbing the ladder in one go instead of step by step, as we are all accustomed to doing.
In the event that Mrs Breyer's report is adopted, I would ask the Commission to draw up a single proposal for a directive designed to resolve the technical and scientific problems with adequate legal guarantees.
It can be seen that the format of this proposal for a directive is very different from that of Directive 76/895. The reason for this, I believe, is that the directive does not harmonize the national maximum residue limits of the Member States, but establishes Community ceilings for national maximum residue limits which may be equal to or higher than the latter, according to Article 3(2).
In my view, the only way to resolve this issue is to revise the maximum limits for active substances contained in Annex II and transfer these, as Community maximum residue limits, to Annex II of Directive 90/642. This task has already been initiated by the Commission in the context of Directive 93/58 and, once it has been completed, we shall be able to abolish Directive 76/895.
I would call on the Commission to display speed and flexibility in this task of harmonizing the maximum residue limits.
Another aspect which I should like to highlight is the attempt to bring the criteria for the establishment of maximum residue limits in plant products into line with those for the purity of drinking water, ignoring the fact that there are internationally recognized and accepted scientific bases for the setting of these maximum residue limits. This could lead to barriers to trade - with regard to imports from third countries, and so on - in breach of the WTO agreements.
Clearly, drinking water is not and should not be treated with agricultural pesticides.
But it can happen that, in some water, soil colloids produce readings which are higher than those indicated in the report.
Similarly, there are active substances which occur naturally in plants - for example gibberellic acid - which give readings higher than those set out in the report.
If these requirements are introduced, even the environmentally friendly farming with which we all agree will be made impossible.
Another aspect to which I wish to draw the attention of the House is the reference to dietary products and food for children.
It makes no sense to allow the marketing of fresh food products - carrots, for example - for human consumption, with the exception of babies and invalids.
Where is the consumer protection here? Are these people to be warned that such products are not good for them?
And can these products be consumed by nursing mothers? This is not consistent.
The maximum residue limits must scientifically ensure that there is no risk for any persons from the day they are born.
Let me point to another problem: fixing the same maximum residue limits for fresh products and processed products, for whole products and parts of products, may result in large-scale inconsistencies.
Finally, I would ask the Commission to study carefully the amendments tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which were unanimously adopted. And I would ask the House to study carefully Mrs Breyer's report on the proposal for a directive, for which our group is calling for a change of legal base: the application, that is, of Article 100a of the Treaty.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, how much pesticide will the consumer tolerate? That is the question which the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection had to ask themselves in considering Mrs Breyer's report - a report on four directives on pesticide residues in and on foods and cereals.
In my view, it will simplify administration if everything is dealt with in a single directive, as Mrs Breyer has suggested, and the programmes to reduce the use of plant protection products and pesticides that were mentioned earlier - and are already being implemented in some Member States - can be covered far more easily by a single directive than by four different ones, as the Commission originally proposed.
I think that we really can simplify the administration here.
Now, as you know, I am not a lawyer.
However, common sense tells me that Article 100a, which deals with the internal market, is much more suitable as the legal basis for these measures than the other legal bases that have been mentioned.
What we are talking about today concerns consumers in the internal market.
If we choose the agriculture article, Article 43, we shall exclude some of the people who wish to consume these products.
Article 130s, on the environment, is undoubtedly very important, and this is also an environmental issue, but I think that in this case we should put more emphasis on consumer protection.
The use of plant protection products is certainly an environmental issue, because there is exceptional danger to the environment from an excess of all these products.
We have now received a communication on the protection of water reserves, and there are proposals for a drinking water directive - a directive for the environmental protection of water resources.
I believe that the only honest approach to such directives and limit values for drinking water is to avoid every kind of substance that can find its way into the water from the air or the soil.
Water is a scarce enough commodity in Europe, and we cannot afford to put it at any kind of risk.
I think consideration should also be given to the possible effect that the intensive use of pesticides can have on animal feed, because it is not only the products destined for human consumption that are sprayed, but also many plants that are eaten by animals; and nowadays in particular we have to think very carefully about what gets into the food chain and how.
An integrated approach will produce sustainable development: that is what we all want, and it is already the objective of numerous programmes.
I believe that we shall have to achieve environmentally friendly farming if we wish to see agriculture and the environment surviving in equilibrium.
A balance in nature will also produce a balance in farming, balanced production and balanced demand, and I believe that ultimately we shall also achieve a balance as regards the income of the farming population.
I should like to say, in conclusion, that my group supports the position of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Madam President, we have a proposal for a directive before us here which supplements and strengthens the efforts of years of harmonization in the field of pesticides.
This new proposal will ensure greater protection of consumer health without undermining agricultural production, and it is important to say and reaffirm that.
It will guarantee far more systematic information and make the provisions of the 1991 directive on the marketing of pesticide products a reality by setting corresponding maximum residue levels for the various agricultural products.
Furthermore, it provides for procedures for resolving cases where there are barriers to intra-Community trade.
Over the last few years, Spain has suffered frequently - perhaps too frequently - from such problems in the export of its fruit and vegetables, as well as other more sensitive products such as dietary products for children.
We therefore welcome this new Commission proposal, which will prevent such artificial problems.
This draft directive should have received the general support of the Committee on the Environment.
However, the rapporteur - perhaps through an excess of zeal - has produced some proposals which are well-intentioned, but possibly ill-conceived, and which do not correspond to the real needs.
This prevents us from supporting them in the way that we would have wished.
Many of us are able to support her proposals as ultimate objectives or guidelines for a pesticides policy, but wishes should not be confused with proposals for legislation that has to be complied with.
It is one thing to agree with the ideas underlying the fight to reduce pesticide pollution, but quite another to discuss the current limited scope for applying those ideas.
We also agree that there is a need to take into account the combination effects of the different pesticide products, but it is quite another thing, Mrs Breyer, to seek to classify as pesticide residues all possible products of metabolism, even if they are harmless substances.
This completely changes the way in which residue content is calculated.
Nor can we allow the message to be sent out to the public that Community rules are decided by unsupervised bureaucrats, when - as you know very well, Mrs Breyer - the procedure is quite the opposite: it is a very complex one, with the participation of independent scientific experts, the committees which represent the national governments, the Commission and, indirectly, this Parliament - since we follow closely all the decisions that are taken at Community level.
Finally, Madam President, I believe that we should not forget that there are really only two types of agriculture: that which is able to use pesticides and fertilizers, and that which, unfortunately, does not have these means at its disposal and is therefore unable to become self-sufficient.
I do not believe it is desirable to magnify the potential technological risks of progress but to seem to disregard the real tragedy of our society: the fact that millions of children and adults continue to die for lack of food.
Madam President, the directive we are now discussing serves to standardize the legislation put in place by four earlier directives fixing the maximum levels for pesticide residues in fruit and vegetables, cereals, and foodstuffs of animal origin.
This was necessary because, only recently, farming methods caused too high a concentration of pesticides in foodstuffs and water, particularly through the use of nitrates.
Since then, however, farmers have clearly been doing their best, and scientific and technical assessments of the risks associated with pesticides have been carried out which make it possible to legislate on a case-by-case basis.
That is why we are totally opposed to the opinion of the rapporteur, who wishes to fix a maximum residue level of 0.01 mg/kg for all foodstuffs and farm produce when they are placed on the market, the same limit as applies to drinking water. Yet under no circumstances can foodstuffs be compared with drinking water, and the application of this rate to agriculture would restrict very significantly the number of active substances in use, with far-reaching agronomic and economic consequences for both farming and the food we eat.
Since it seems to us unreasonable to propose rules which are impossible to apply, we therefore feel that it would be inappropriate to adopt Amendments Nos 10 and 11, 14 and 15, and 20 to 24.
Madam President, let me begin by saying that I think Mrs Breyer has done an excellent job and has extended the scope of the directive to include maximum levels.
I will come back to this.
In Sweden, society, farmers and consumers have together led the way in reducing the use of chemicals in agriculture.
It is our task here in the European Parliament to press for a corresponding development.
At the same time, of course, this question should also be taken up in other international fora, such as the World Trade Organization, so that imported foods will not be of a standard lower than those we produce ourselves.
EU cooperation should after all serve as a means of securing drastic cuts in the use of chemicals but, to achieve this, the European Parliament needs to have greater influence over decisions.
We shall get it if we follow up the proposal from the Environment Committee and amend the legal basis to Article 100a.
The use of chemicals in agriculture is of course an environmental issue and a consumer affairs issue, not just an agricultural matter, as it may easily be if Article 43 is retained.
Responsibility for cutting down on the use of chemicals in agriculture cannot be placed on the shoulders of the individual farmer or the consumers.
The pesticide producers are too strong for that.
It is a political task to tighten up the maximum level requirements through legislation and thereby to prevent the occurrence of toxic residues in food. The coordination of several directives on limits for pesticide residues would make for clearer legislation.
It is the dictates of nature that should control agriculture throughout the EU.
Ecological agriculture and integrated agriculture, practised more in harmony with natural processes, must set the future standard for our agricultural production.
It is important for the European Parliament to insist that the Member States follow up the commitments of the Rio Conference on reducing the use of pesticides.
The use of large quantities of chemicals to produce food is not a sustainable route for the future.
It is of course also unreasonable in the long run to allow higher levels of pesticide residues in food than in drinking water; food must not be more toxic than water.
I have great sympathy for Mrs Breyer's proposal for a blanket maximum value of 0.01 mg/kg and likewise for an aggregate maximum value of 0.05 mg.
Unfortunately there is still insufficient scientific evidence to enable such a proposal to be made effective.
We cannot therefore support it.
But I hope the Commission will soon come back to Parliament with a proposal on lower maximum levels.
In Austria alone, fixing maximum residue limits would mean throwing out the vast majority of the residue levels and substances listed in the last draft regulation.
Not only would this make it impossible to produce enough plant-based foods, it would also mean that European business and farming ceased to be internationally competitive.
If these arbitrary and toxicologically unjustified residue levels were observed, fruit and vegetables could no longer be produced by conventional means.
Imports of fresh produce in the winter months would be prevented.
That is why we should recommend retaining the present system for assessing residues individually.
It is based on scientific research, and takes into account the toxicological properties of the substances, as well as good farming practice for the foods concerned.
Under this system, the residue levels are precautionary levels, not danger levels for the consumer.
I should like to ask the Commissioner whether biotechnology or genetic engineering offer any possibilities for reducing the use of pesticides and fertilizers.
Madam President, I recognize that Parliament is considering this proposal after long and detailed scrutiny of the many aspects it involves, and I should first of all like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Breyer, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for the work which they have done on the proposal.
Let me say at the outset that the Commission entirely backs the main thrust of the report, namely that the use of plant protection products should be kept to a minimum, and that production methods such as integrated pest control and ecological farming can help to achieve that goal.
On behalf of the Commissioner responsible, I should also like to say, however, that account should be taken of the fact that the use of plant protection products in conventional farming is strictly regulated under the terms of Directive 91/414 on the marketing of plant protection products.
These provisions mean that the products can only be used in the minimum quantities necessary to achieve reasonable pest control, and in circumstances where they do not present a risk to human health or have unacceptable effects on the environment.
In the Commission's view, the balance between the need for safe and restrictive use of plant protection products and the benefits of these products in terms of effective farming is not adequately expressed in the recitals that are proposed in Amendments Nos 6 to 10.
We are therefore unable to accept these amendments.
However, the Commission can in principle accept Amendment No 43, and is therefore prepared to add a general recital stressing the need for safe and restrictive use of plant protection products in agriculture, at the same time highlighting the positive role played by a number of methods, for example integrated production and ecological farming.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 42, since the proposed recital refers to the principles governing the use of plant protection products in ecological farming, which should, if necessary, be dealt with in the context of Council Regulation No 2092/91 on ecological production methods for agricultural products and their indication on agricultural products and foodstuffs.
As regards the legal basis, the Commission takes the view that if a legislative act serves one or more of the objectives of the common agricultural policy as set out in Article 39 of the Treaty, then Article 43 forms the correct and adequate legal basis, as determined by the case-law of the Court of Justice.
We are therefore unable to accept Amendment No 1.
Amendments Nos 14 and 22 and the subsequent technical Amendments Nos 11, 15, 20, 23, 24 and 31 seek to introduce a quite arbitrary maximum level of 0.01 mg/kg for all pesticides and crops, regardless of the permitted uses and toxicological features of individual agents.
The Commission cannot accept these amendments and the approach behind them for the following reasons: it would disregard the procedure which is being followed internationally, not least in the Codex Alimentarius, and which is aimed at establishing maximum levels on a scientific basis.
The scientific basis for plant health measures must also be respected in the context of the recent procedure for health and plant health measures under the WTO agreement, and the proposed change would lead to conflicts with our trading partners.
Last but not least, if crops cannot be protected against pests with the aid of plant protection products, the competitiveness of European agriculture and the supply of farm products will be seriously jeopardized.
The Commission does agree that it would have made for greater clarity to bring all the legislation on pesticide residues together in a single directive, or at least to codify the existing directives.
However, we feel it is too early to do this, at a time when Directive 76/895 will shortly cease to be valid.
It is also necessary to gain more experience of applying the new procedures being proposed before embarking on new tasks.
At present, the Commission is therefore unable to accept Amendments Nos 2 to 5, 16, 17 and 33, but I can confirm that these ideas will be considered in detail, with a view to a future proposal.
However, the Commission will look straight away at the possibility of regularly sending all interested parties updated and clearly presented tables containing information on the Community's maximum levels for all pesticide-product combinations, where such levels are established.
The Commission takes the view that a number of amendments represent useful technical improvements to the proposal, and can therefore gladly accept in principle paragraph 5 of Amendment No 14, which improves the control measures in Directive 76/895.
The Commission can also accept in principle Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 18, to the extent that they bring the relevant provisions of Directive 76/895 into line with those of the directive subsequently adopted.
Amendment No 21 can be accepted.
The Commission agrees that the conciliation procedure should be applied without unnecessary delay, and may also cover dried, processed and composite foodstuffs.
We can thus accept in principle Amendments Nos 25, 26, 28, 29, 32, 39 and 49.
There are indeed a great many amendments.
The Commission can also accept in principle Amendments Nos 27, 30, 38 and 48, which define in detail how the results of the control measures should be applied.
The Commission can accept in principle Amendments Nos 35, 37, 41, 45, 47 and 51.
We believe that the regulatory committee procedure is appropriate for determining the individual maximum levels, since these are extremely technical decisions, based on scientific assessment of well-defined technical data.
Moreover, the same procedure has already been established for similar technical measures, for example the provisional maximum levels under Article 4(1)(f).
The Commission therefore regrets that it is unable to accept Amendment No 19.
However, we can accept that there should be greater accuracy in the data used as a basis for fixing the maximum levels.
The Commission can thus accept in principle Amendments Nos 34, 36, 40, 44, 46 and 50.
The last part of these amendments is unacceptable, however, since the requirements for data on pesticide residues are laid down in Directive 91/414.
We are sure that this measure, when adopted, will substantially improve the application of current EC provisions on maximum levels for pesticide residues in agricultural products.
Together with Directive 91/414, which governs the marketing and use of plant protection products, it will further help to see that maximum levels are determined in an effective way, in keeping with the scientific methods used internationally and taking account of the high degree of protection for human and animal health which EC legislation on pesticides is generally seeking to achieve.
I must apologize, Madam President, for giving such a lengthy answer.
Commissioner, I should be very grateful if you could explain to us how it is that the values for residue levels have been continually reduced over the last ten years, and on what scientific data these reductions have been based.
And let me deal with the observation, also made by Mrs Redondo and Mr Valverde, that the value of 0.01 mg is arbitrary.
I have in front of me the German regulation on maximum residue levels, which was adopted on 1 September 1994.
It stipulates that precisely this value - 0.01 mg per kilogram of food - should apply in the absence of other residue values.
I trust that Germany will not now be accused of having lost touch with reality because it is making this very same proposal.
A final point, Commissioner, and one which may also be made in the form of a question: we now have a series of amendments, in particular by Mrs Redondo, which refer to Annex 6 of Directive 414/91, but we all know that this no longer exists.
The European Court of Justice ruled on 18 June, in a case brought by the European Parliament, that this Annex no longer exists.
In other words, we now have a situation in which there are absolutely no criteria for evaluation.
That is why I should like to hear from the Commission how it proposes to deal with this situation if it does not take its lead from the Committee on the Environment, and there is currently no Annex 6.
Because this is a very immediate situation, I think that the question of how we approach it is extremely difficult, and in the light of tomorrow's vote it should perhaps be referred to the Bureau.
I shall not prolong the debate.
On behalf of Commissioner Fischler, I have tried to give a full reply to all the questions arising from the amendments tabled, and I am sure that during the discussions in the various committees there was also an opportunity to go into further detail, for example as regards the well-substantiated scientific results and levels which are referred to in the proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
I should like to thank everyone, including the interpreters, and remind you that our next sitting will be held tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
The next item is the vote on objections to the list of subjects for the next debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance (Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure).
Item I - Situation in Cyprus:
Madam President, as we will have a statement on Bosnia tomorrow, we wish to withdraw the objection.
There are therefore no further objections to Items I and II.
Madam President, we had tabled two resolutions.
The first, about the matter of Bosnia, is withdrawn because it is dealt with elsewhere.
But we are of course maintaining the second.
Therefore we need only vote on the second resolution.
The Union for Europe Group has requested the deletion of the item 'Expulsion of illegal immigrants' .
Justification: all the Member States are facing serious human and economic problems because of the massive immigration from developing countries.
We are not unmoved by the scale of this phenomenon.
Yet we have to seek a solution together and in a considered manner.
It seems totally inappropriate to us to discuss this in the framework of a topical and urgent debate.
(Parliament rejected the request)
I have received two motions, from the Group of the Party of European Socialists and from the Union for Europe Group, seeking to insert a new item 'Support and conservation of the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela' .
Madam President, a point of order to clarify a misunderstanding.
I heard the destruction of pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela mentioned.
I come from that constituency - we have no Socialist Members in that constituency - and I must make it clear that the works do not affect the route to Santiago.
The works are on a road which is not part of the route to Santiago.
So Parliament does not need to take action on this issue.
(Parliament approved the request)
Welcome
Before we begin the debate on the state of the Union with speeches from the Presidents of Parliament, the European Council and the Commission, I would like to welcome a very distinguished visitor to our Parliament today who will be listening to this debate, Sir Edward Heath.
(Loud and sustained applause) Sir Edward Heath was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1970 to 1974.
His many years of public service are very closely associated with Europe and with Britain's membership of the European Union.
He led the British negotiating team in the first round of negotiations in the early 1960s.
He was Prime Minister when Britain joined the European Community in 1973 and since then he has been an unswerving advocate of a strong and effective European Union.
He has never hesitated to criticize those in his country who would wish to take Britain out of the Union and to reawaken the demons of nationalism.
Above all else, he embodies the central fact that there is no contradiction between love of country, loyal service to the national interest, and support for Europe.
Sir Edward, you are very welcome here today.
State of the European Union
The next item is the statements by the President of the European Parliament, the President-in-Office of the European Council and the President of the Commission on the state of European Union, followed by a debate.
Mr President, you said here in last year's State of the European Union debate that the new nationalism leads straight back to the pre-war Europe.
You were absolutely right.
You went on to say in the debate that the greatest challenge at the end of this century is to reform the Union in such a way that it can expand to the east and the south without disintegrating or self-destructing.
Again, you put your finger on the key question.
We owe a huge debt to the visionaries who gave birth to the European Union, one of whom, the late Emile Noël, was last week compared to James Madison, the constitution-maker of the United States, such was the role he played in the development of the Union.
We can best honour the memory of Noël, of Schuman and of Monnet by ensuring that the Union we pass on to our successors continues to be vital, relevant and, above all, one with which our citizens can identify.
We must not take the European Union for granted.
As one of your Members, Mr Spencer, said in the State of the European Union debate last year, support for Europe must be won anew in each generation.
A ritual restating of elite viewpoints and obscure acronyms will not win that support from our citizens.
Mrs Roth, in her contribution in last year's debate, said that at the time of the founding fathers Europe had had a heart and no form, whereas she felt that the Union now had a form, but that its heart was made of stone.
Perhaps that is to overstate the case, but there is a truth there.
People are not sufficiently engaged in a positive way by what Europe is doing.
As governments prepare for the special European Council on 5 October in Dublin I ask the Members of this Parliament in this debate for their views on how we can best - all of us, including the Irish presidency - win support anew in this generation for the European Union.
Political theorists of the nineteenth century assumed that a person could have just one sovereign allegiance to his or her territorial nation state.
That was understandable.
Territorially-based natural resources, like agricultural land and minerals, were crucial to the nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century economy.
So nation and territory did have to be one and the same.
On the other hand, knowledge, instant communications and mobility will be the characteristics of the twenty-first-century economy.
And nationalities will all inevitably be more and more intermixed together over the territory of the developed world.
In many parts of the world a new political model is needed to organize this new social reality, a model that recognizes that people have more allegiances than one and yet can live and work happily together with people of different allegiance.
The European Union today and, in particular, the concept of a developing European citizenship are based on this new model.
In the European Union one can be simultaneously someone who owes allegiance to Flanders, to Belgium and to the European Union and, at the same time, work and live together in the same street with somebody who has a different set of allegiances.
Having said that, we must not ask Europe or the European Union to perform the impossible and then judge it severely if it fails.
In an age of multiple allegiances the Union will never be more than just one of the entities to which people will owe or feel allegiance.
We must put the matter in historical context.
Most nation states were brought together by war, and many were just held together by the pursuit of glory at the expense of others, or by a shared sense of grievance.
Thankfully, the European Union lacks these deep, if negative, emotional bonds.
The European Union was brought together, unlike most nation states, in peace and to do many mundane and practical things.
Furthermore, the European Union is now seeking to deepen its unity while, at the same time, enlarging its membership: an especially difficult task, as any student of the nineteenth-century history of the United States can remind us.
To win the hearts of Europeans at this stage in our history, the European Union must show that it is the best vehicle through which the continent and its citizens can prepare for the world of tomorrow.
The world's population today is 6 billion people - about 2 billion more people on the globe than when the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1958.
There will be an extra one-and-a-half billion people on the globe thirty years from now.
All of these people will need to be fed and clothed and they will need clean water.
There are now 2, 800 square metres of arable land on the globe for every person.
By the year 2025, there will be no more than 1, 700 square metres of arable land for every person on the globe and grain yields are not increasing fast enough to keep up with that increasing population.
Europe's share of the world's population is only 7 % and is going down.
Yet Europe consumes 18 % of the world's oil.
What happens when everyone else's demand for energy in the world rises to our European level? Carbon emissions in the world continue to increase.
Already the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has gone from 280 parts per million in the nineteenth century to 350 parts per million today.
Where will it be by 2025?
These sorts of problems are too big for the nation state - any nation state - to solve on its own.
That is one reason why we need the European Union.
Only a European Union will be big enough to mobilize Europe's resources to tackle the world's problems.
Young people know this well and that is why young people are less sceptical about Europe than their elders.
Last week I had the honour of addressing the United States Congress.
The United States is a great example of the successful integration of a variety of peoples who still remain different.
As we work for closer integration through the Intergovernmental Conference we should not fear that this will mean the end of national or local allegiances.
Closer integration of the European Union and continued identification with one's Member State are complementary to one another and not mutually exclusive.
Closer European integration is, however, a recognition of the reality that the modern global economy is moving towards a more globalized political model.
Only the European Union is big enough to enable Europeans to influence and shape global politics in an effective way.
Mr President, the Union itself must tackle five principal tasks in the coming years.
These are: to make the Union more relevant to its citizens; to successfully conclude the Intergovernmental Conference; to make the single currency a reality on time; to complete the next round of enlargement to the east and to the south; and to secure Europe's place in the world.
The first task is to make the Union relevant to its own citizens.
The ordinary man or woman in the street, whether he or she be in Barcelona, in Berlin or in Belfast, will not judge the European Union by its treaties, by its institutions, or by its policy documents.
The effect of the Union on each person's daily life will be the yardstick that they will use.
Europe must therefore concentrate on the key concerns of citizens, and in July the Irish presidency summarized the concerns of the citizens of Europe in four phrases: secure jobs, safer streets, sound money and a peaceful Europe.
Secure jobs is not an appeal for massive intervention by the European Union; it is not an appeal for simplistic solutions - there are none.
The Union must, however, attempt to tackle the problem of unemployment in a coordinated way.
There are more unemployed people in the Union today than the combined population of the four smallest Member States.
This is a waste of human resources.
It contributes to social problems such as crime and social exclusion.
Europe's welfare systems are being stretched to their absolute limits by unemployment.
We must understand the dynamic of unemployment on a world scale.
The demand price for low-skilled work in the developed world is falling.
When the demand price for low-skilled work falls below the level which society considers to be an acceptable minimum income - what one might call the welfare level - then we have unemployment.
European unemployment is therefore a function of the relationship between the international competitiveness of the skill levels of Europe's workforce and what European society regards as a minimal socially acceptable income.
If the solution is not to be to reduce our income expectations, then it must be to raise the skill levels and thus enhance the competitiveness of our entire workforce.
That requires coordinated European action on basic education as well as on training, on the mutual recognition of qualifications and on infrastructural investments that make our total economy more competitive.
There are distributional consequences no matter what way one looks at this problem.
Either the better-placed contribute to the cost of raising the skill and competitiveness levels of those less well-placed than they or, alternatively, they would have to pay more for welfare.
It is a simple choice.
The Irish presidency is actively pursuing the mandate of the Florence European Council to produce an integrated approach to the creation of employment.
Our objective is that the Dublin European Council in December will draw together the themes of President Santer's confidence pact, the Essen process and other initiatives in an integrated manner.
Millions of Europeans are dependent on farming.
Many are deeply concerned about their future.
Against the background of increasing world population, European agriculture has the challenge of producing food efficiently and competitively for world as well as for local markets.
This requires structural change and enhanced consumer confidence through quality assurance.
The fabric of rural life and the single agricultural market must be preserved, so change must take place in an organized way.
This is an important challenge for the Union particularly in the context of the BSE crisis.
The presidency is committed to finding a solution to the BSE crisis based on the restoration of consumer confidence in the beef sector and the adoption of interim measures to ensure the survival of beef producers.
What is clear is that the BSE crisis can only be tackled effectively at European Union level.
All our societies have seen increased crime over the past few decades.
We do not want the single market for goods and services to become a single market for drugs and crime.
The agreement on the Europol Convention at Florence was a major move in the right direction but we must now urgently make it operational.
Dealing with drug trafficking is a major priority for the Irish presidency.
We hope the Dublin European Council will adopt substantive conclusions in December in the fight against drug trafficking.
Recent events have brought home to us all throughout Europe the obscene and shocking crimes perpetrated against children in our continent.
The Irish presidency is working closely with other Member States to draw up measures at European level to deal with this most evil of crimes.
In particular, the presidency has proposed that the mandate of Europol be extended to deal with trafficking in children.
(Applause) Adoption of this proposal at the earliest time would be a matter of high priority.
I hope that at their meeting next week in Dublin Justice and Home Affairs Ministers will be able to agree to this initiative.
The second task facing the Union is to bring the IGC to a rapid and successful conclusion.
While the conclusion of the IGC is unlikely during the Irish presidency, the Conference is making good progress.
We are moving from the aspirational to the concrete.
We have a mandate to prepare a general outline of a draft revision of the Treaties for the Dublin Council in December.
We will do that.
The draft will address all the issues and will set out the options for Treaty amendments in Treaty form based on the discussions in the IGC.
The new Treaty must equip the Union for the internal and external challenges facing it as it enters the twenty-first century.
It must lay the ground for enlargement.
The functioning of the Union's institutions must be made more effective, more democratic and more transparent.
The IGC must strengthen the role of the European Parliament in the Union.
(Applause) Issues which need to be addressed include the extension of the co-decision procedure, the simplification and reduction of the number of decision-making procedures and the question of a ceiling on the membership of Parliament after enlargement.
I acknowledge the valuable contribution made by the European Parliament to the work of the IGC.
It has helped to keep the IGC focused on the broader picture.
I pay special tribute to your representatives Elisabeth Guigou and Elmar Brok.
The IGC offers us a unique opportunity to bring the Union's work closer to the public by making the Union more transparent and comprehensible.
Transparency without comprehensibility is of little use.
Ireland fully supports inclusion in the Treaty of the general principle of transparency, including access to documents.
But the public will judge Europe not by whether they are entitled to read documents being prepared for European Council meetings but by what the European Treaty does about the problems they face in their daily lives.
Therefore, I am particularly pleased that Treaty provisions in relation to employment, crime and drugs are receiving serious consideration in the IGC.
While these matters remain primarily for Member States there is a European responsibility in regard to each of them and suggested amendments, if incorporated in the new Treaty, will help us carry that Treaty with our electorates.
In institutional matters we must not, however, make the mistake of tackling false problems.
In particular institutional reform should not be based on the unfounded perception that the Union is divided into two camps - one of big and the other of small states.
The new Treaty must also equip the Union to play an international role commensurate with its importance through an effective coherent common foreign and security policy and thereby contribute to peace.
The third task facing the Union is to make the single currency a reality.
Economic and monetary union must commence on time and in line with Treaty requirements.
The single market if it is to be consolidated, must be underpinned by a strong and stable European currency.
The EMU convergence criteria do no more than set out a sensible path for budgetary policy which every state should aspire to in any event.
Stable public finances deliver low interest rates, low inflation, higher investment and, ultimately, more jobs.
In other words, the convergence criteria make social and economic sense even if the project for EMU never existed.
The single currency will eliminate exchange rate risks and transaction costs for trade, tourism and investment between participating Member States.
It will place Europe firmly centre stage in the global economy.
Economic and monetary union will also cement the integration of peoples in Europe and reinforce a European identity.
That sense of identity will be enhanced by the fact that the economic policies of all participating states will be framed within a stable economic environment and will no longer be driven by short-term pressures that sometimes continue to affect individual national currencies.
The fourth task facing the Union is enlargement to include the associated states of Central and Eastern Europe and of the Mediterranean which have applied for membership.
The process of preparing the Union and the applicant countries for enlargement is now well mapped out.
They must intensify their relationships with the Union with regard to the pre-accession strategy, their association agreements and the application of the White Paper on the internal market.
As stated in the conclusions of the European Council at Madrid, enlargement is both a political necessity and an historic opportunity.
While enlargement poses major problems for the Union and for the applicant states, these can be overcome in a spirit of compromise.
Ireland looks forward to holding discussions at ministerial and official level with the applicant countries within the framework provided by the structured dialogue and to welcoming the Heads of State and Government of the applicant countries to Dublin for the European Council in December.
This brings me to the fifth task which we must address, that of building a Europe that is open to the world and a force for development and peace.
Europe must promote democracy and the rule of law and respect for human rights throughout the world.
As you said in your contribution, Mr President, trans-Atlantic relations are of special importance and of some difficulty.
The new trans-Atlantic agenda and the EU-US action plan have both provided the framework for the realization of common policy objectives to the benefit of both the United States and the Union.
They provide a framework to deal with differences which exist from time to time.
And differences exist at the moment with regard to the extra-territorial effects of two recent acts passed by Congress.
I raised these on the occasion of my visit to Washington last week with both the President and representatives of both parties in Congress.
I believe that an amicable resolution to this dispute is in the interests of both the European Union and the United States and can be reached.
A multilateral trading system is of importance to both of us.
We must therefore continue our efforts to make it work in regard to this matter and in preparation for the World Trade Conference in Singapore.
We must also cooperate with the United States in developing more sophisticated methods to deal with organized international crime.
We must also develop political dialogue with our partners elsewhere in the European security area and strengthen the OSCE.
We must support a reform process in Russia and in other countries of the former Soviet Union on the basis of partnership.
We must assist all the parties in the implementation of the peace initiative in the former Yugoslavia and particularly in regard to the Dayton Agreement for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In the wake of the elections of 14 September, the international community must support the High Representative, Carl Bildt, to ensure full implementation of the constitution of Bosnia-Herzegovina, as agreed at Dayton.
That guarantee is the continued existence of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a single state composed of two entities.
In regard to the Middle East, the Union has used recent high-level contacts with the parties there to urge them to re-engage in the peace process and to offer our full support for the pursuit of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace.
Our relations with the Mediterranean regions and with Africa are of vital interest to Europe.
The projected population in these areas will increase rapidly.
We must promote indigenous economic development in those areas and we must implement in full the Barcelona Declaration.
We must enhance the dialogue which has already begun with regional organizations such as the Organization for African Unity and the Southern African Development Community.
We must strengthen our ties with Asia, with Latin America and with Australia.
Ireland holds the presidency of the European Union at a critical juncture in history.
We are determined to ensure that the Union's agenda is progressed in an effective and diligent manner.
Let me sum up the Union's agenda: tackling the problems of unemployment and crime; the successful completion of the Intergovernmental Conference; commencement of economic and monetary union on time; enlargement; and securing an effective voice for the Union in the world.
The European Parliament has a key role to play in all of this work.
The Irish presidency will work together with Parliament to advance that entire agenda.
We are called to develop a new Europe, proud of itself and commanding the pride of all its citizens.
A Europe inspiring confidence by its unity and drawing allegiance through diversity.
It is time to answer that call.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Many thanks to the President-in-Office of the Council.
I call Mr Santer, President of the Commission.
Many thanks to the President of the Commission.
We come now to the debate.
Mr President, I wish to begin by expressing my personal thanks to President Hänsch, Prime Minister Bruton and President Santer for their excellent contributions this morning.
And it is crucial that we begin by saying this: I very much regret that so few of the Members of this House were here to listen to the excellent speeches we have just heard.
There can be nothing else going on in this building that is more important than this debate, and that message will certainly be transmitted to my Group at its meeting this evening.
In our debate last year we looked forward to the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference.
We were then aware that, if we were to prepare this European Union to meet the historic challenge of enlargement to Eastern and Central Europe, the Baltic, Cyprus and Malta, it was incumbent on us all to secure an effective, democratic, open European Union which, more than anything, reconnected with its people, reconnected the vision, the hope and the aspirations which inspired the post-Second World War generation to embrace European integration and reconnected that vision with the people.
Today, six months after the opening of the IGC, there is a general mood of disillusion and depression.
If we allowed ourselves the self-indulgence we would have to admit that there is something to be depressed about.
The Union is dismally uninspiring.
Indeed, to the overwhelming number of people it is completely irrelevant. Yet it should not be so!
With the global trading environment changing so rapidly that even the most poorly trained and inadequately educated can sense in their gut that life is no longer even as it was ten years ago; with the information society introducing anarchic communication potential, which all can see will accelerate the pace and nature of change - given ten or fifteen years to refine and to focus and to develop; with the world moving into regional groupings to facilitate and master the changes, at the same time that the pool of regional and local identities, languages and cultures is asserting itself again, surely our European Union - which is at the fulcrum of these changes, able to operate in recognition and celebration of the diversity of our continent - must have something more inspirational to offer our young people in particular.
But, no!
The last year has been characterized by stagnation and paralysis: stagnation in the fight to create jobs in Europe; stagnation in the IGC process for all to see; paralysis in our desire to defend the common policies which make up the European social model; paralysis in our ability to generate a common will on issues challenging peace and stability on our continent.
I know that I will be accused of undue pessimism and a confrontational approach but can someone explain to me why, when we have a multi-billion ecu surplus on our agricultural budget, we cannot find the political will simply to transfer a proportion of that money to secure funding for tens of thousands of our young people by investing in the funding for the fourth research programme, our investment in the jobs of the future? Why we cannot find the will to transfer a proportion of that money to secure peace on our continent by rebuilding civil society in former Yugoslavia?
That is not European money being spent simply on people and places far away, rather it is money spent to make absolutely sure that our children will not be engaged in a long and bloody conflict for the next generation on European soil.
Somebody tell me why the European Council cannot carry out its side of the bargain on the trans-European networks and find the will to transfer a proportion of that money as it promised.
Somebody tell me why this Parliament, which has done all in its power to support the trans-European network project is now being told that because the governments of the Union want the trans-European networks, but want their money as well, we here must slash the budget for education and training, job creation and consumer protection.
Why some governments in the Council deny the funds for the poverty programme, help for the elderly and the socially excluded.
Somebody, please tell me how it is that we can still talk about the European social model when we are being driven further down the road to the Americanization of European life, a model which I must tell you is rejected by European people who do not want to be a low-wage, insecure, ill-trained workforce.
We are underestimating the determination and will of European citizens.
What is missing in our political analysis and thinking for the future is the recognition of the importance of our culture to our people.
Our aim is surely to preserve and protect that which is precious and unique in each country of the Union, that which gives the people of that country or region their sense of wellbeing, their security within their own cultural and historical identity and, whilst preserving that confidence for all our people, we seek to pool what is common to all of us in the search for the answers to the mounting crises of our age.
Frankly, there is not much time left for us to make this Union a source of pride to its people, through adding value to their cultural and historical life.
Please, Mr Bruton, at the special meeting which you are organizing in Dublin, try to raise the ambitions of the prime ministers.
Ireland has, as you said, a unique opportunity at a watershed moment for the European Union and Ireland has a proud record during its presidencies of the European Union.
You asked us, Prime Minister, to help you to find the answers in securing the support of Europe's people.
Let us have a strong message to Europe's people; let us hear that the leaders of our countries are at least united in insisting that there will be an employment chapter in the new Treaty with real bite.
Let us hear that there will be a commitment not just to economic and monetary union but to people - their economic future and their well-being - and let us hear, as well, that the Union can be united in securing a commitment to fight discrimination against our ethnic minority population.
Let us give to all those living in our countries trust and confidence in tolerance as our first virtue, to give non-European citizens and residents confidence in our humanity.
This is even more important, Prime Minister, given the shameful remarks made recently by Mr Le Pen.
We here abhor and reject his philosophy and we are demeaned, frankly, by his presence in this House.
(Applause) Let us hear that we will preserve the European commitment to a universal public service for all its people and let us hear that our culture, history and tradition, all the diverse strengths and beauties of our continent, are what makes us tick, not just a slave-like devotion to some economic or academic model of society.
Let us hear that the European social model is alive and kicking, is secure in the hands of our government leaders and will be the building block on which everything else is built.
In conclusion, after a year dominated by grubby stories of deception and dishonesty over mad cows, the trauma of the abuse of our most vulnerable young children, the continuing exclusion of 18 million people and the total stalling of any effort to improve the ecology crisis as if somehow with economic problems the environment has ceased to be of concern - after all this, it really is time to demonstrate the positive political will to move forward.
We, on this side of the House, have that will but know it can only be achieved through a rededication to collective and cooperative responsibility which underpins our Europe.
(Applause)
Ladies and gentlemen, the coming two years will determine the future of the European Union: either the Union will develop to become a cornerstone of geopolitical stability on our continent, or it will deteriorate into a centre of instability.
The Monetary Union and the Intergovernmental Conference can decisively strengthen the Union, but they could also bring about a split in Europe between Member States, governments and peoples.
At the moment I see the second possibility as the most likely.
So why this warning?
Because in the eyes of its people the Union has become a sort of autistic organisation.
The Union does not listen to its people.
They are concerned about work, crime and international security, but at the IGC the negotiators talk about other things, such as the number of junior commissioners for example.
Moreover, when the Union talks about the concerns of its people, talk is often all there is.
Words are spoken, but where is the action?
A common foreign policy was promised by the Member States in Maastricht, but in Bosnia the Union was, and is, politically irrelevant, and in the Middle East France plays cavalier seul .
The Member States stated in Maastricht that they considered asylum policy and drugs policy as matters of common importance, but in the matter of accommodating refugees from Yugoslavia most Member States left Germany on its own, while the dialogue between France and the Netherlands about drugs falls on deaf ears.
A common market was promised by the Member States before Maastricht, but the same countries are not taking the slightest notice of what they agreed in Brussels.
In regard to public tenders alone there are currently 35 infringement procedures.
The establishment of a citizenship of the Union was promised in Maastricht, but there is no accountability for policing or juridical activities in Europe - neither through the European court, nor through the European Parliament.
This is how the credibility of the Union crumbles. It threatens to become an organisation of aims without means, of promises without consequences, of words without deeds.
And the less credibility the Union has, the smaller the chance that the IGC will be ratified by all fifteen countries.
This chance is now already small enough, particularly in those countries which will not be permitted to join the single currency.
And if the IGC is not ratified, the admission of countries such as Poland and Hungary will be delayed.
So it is time to act.
It is time for the leaders of our governments to call a halt to the erosion of Europe&#x02BC;s credibility.
It is time our Member States finally permitted the Union to act against the three most important scourges of our time: nationalism, crime and unemployment.
The countries of the Union have not been willing to fight the genocide in Bosnia, nor work against the division of Bosnia along ethnic lines.
There remains only one honourable course for Europe: to ensure that war crime suspects are brought before the tribunal in The Hague. Is the European Council prepared to exert the necessary pressure for this?
Is the Union prepared to consider the exclusion of Croatia from the Council of Europe until President Tudjman hands over Croatian suspects? Will the countries of the Union on the Security Council suspend the lifting of economic sanctions against Serbia until President Milosevic hands over Mr Karadzic and Mr Mladic?
That is what it is all about, action and not words.
The Union is nothing if it is not a juridical community, as Mr Hänsch rightly said.
This also applies to fighting crime within our borders. Nowhere is the amendment of the Treaty more necessary than here.
So my question for Mr Bruton is this: is the European Council prepared to devote the IGC to fighting fraud, drugs and and trafficking in women and children under the first pillar? Only then can deeds follow.
The fight against unemployment is primarily a responsibility of the Member States.
The Union only has a supplementary task, but let it carry out this task.
Is the Council finally prepared to take the decisions the business community has already been requesting for years, such as the harmonisation of corporation tax and the introduction of a corporate statute? The latter alone would represent an annual economic injection of ECU 30 billion.
Financial support from Member State governments is much too high.
The richest country, Germany, tops the list of countries paying subsidies, which distorts competition.
I therefore compliment the Commission on reminding Germany of its Treaty obligations in the Saksen case.
Commissioner Van Miert did excellent work here.
However, where support for ailing airline companies is concerned, the Commission continues to be accommodating.
When will the last intervention actually be the last intervention?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Union talks too much about secondary matters and too little about the main ones.
This also applies to Parliament.
The Commission emphasise more strongly its role as the engine of the Union, but the credibility crisis of the Union is above all a task for the Council.
The Council must listen to the people, who want Europe to ensure freedom, rights and employment.
Not in words but in deeds.
That is what we have to work on, under the Irish presidency, then under that of the Dutch.
Mr President, this debate is certainly an excellent opportunity for the representatives of the people and the European institutions to made a diagnosis of the state of European society and the way its democratic institutions are operating.
We want and we ought to state out loud what concerns, alarms or gives false hope to those carrying on their daily lives, those on the receiving end of the great political and economic decisions.
We want to comment on and assess what is discussed in the parliaments and the communications media of our countries.
At first sight the situation is disturbing.
As we all know, according to the official statistics there are 18 million unemployed - something over 10 % of the active population.
Half of them are long term unemployed with slim chances of getting back into the labour market and with a growing dependence on social services.
A third of them are under 25.
50 million Europeans live on less than the minimum wage.
In plain language, there are 50 million people in poverty, and over 2 million of them are homeless.
Mr President, I do not mean to sound apocalyptic but I am forced to mention all these problems bluntly, and we need to find a solution to them.
We have to speak the language of the man in the street before we talk about macroeconomic policies, dual societies and structural unemployment.
We must understand and share the anxiety and fear for the future of wide groups in society.
We must make sure that these feelings do not become a culture medium for racism and xenophobia suffered by 13 million immigrants, especially those without residence permits.
In this panorama our parliamentary group is very critical of the decision taken by governments to refuse to consider the effects of the current model of monetary union at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Its focus and its rigidity mean that achieving the single currency and implementing a policy which prioritizes employment are incompatible.
This contradiction in the short and medium term must be explained to public opinion, to the European people, so that they can consider it and make a decision.
In a democracy it does not make sense for propaganda to hinder information, fully responsible decisions and, in some cases, reconsideration of decisions.
Mr President, - and I am also speaking particularly to President Santer, whom I have almost give up trying to convince, and to the President-in-Office of the Council - in many Union countries, in order to meet the convergence criteria, the public deficit is being drastically reduced by cutting spending and this is being accompanied by a massive sell-off of public heritage and a deregulation of the labour market.
All this with the aim, laudable in principle, of bringing down inflation.
This logic even reaches as far as the European Parliament, with cuts in the cohesion funds and also on the use of the surplus from the common agricultural policy.
It has to be said that social services are also being cut significantly.
All this hinders the creation of employment and fuels anxiety amongst the population.
But here is the most interesting thing: the paradox is that the convergence criteria are not being met by these measures.
The reason is easy to understand because although in some countries, for example, inflation is falling to a minimum, the extreme competitiveness we are subject to has meant that the existing differential from the convergence levels - which is the average of the three countries with the lowest inflation - has increased.
It is an unending race towards an ever-receding convergence.
Under these monetarist policies jobs come to be regarded as no more than a scarce commodity on the market, with no respect for the values of democracy, which must take the human being as reference, and no account taken of the future cost of unemployment in political, economic and social terms.
In our opinion the right way forward is another way.
We must move towards the single currency with policies of employment and social cohesion, and parallel fiscal harmonization.
That is what would give sense and credibility to a truly single currency for all Europeans.
Monetary union with political union.
We must make progress in the definition and consolidation of the areas of competence of the European institutions, and in building great links with the national institutions to overcome the democratic deficit.
We must not waste the opportunity offered by the Intergovernmental Conference to strengthen the institutions and bring them closer to the citizens.
We support the 'communitarization' of common foreign and security policy, and justice and home affairs, because Europe needs to have one voice in an international scene where the language of force continues to be given priority, in a world where the economy is becoming globalized and where organizations without democratic legitimacy, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, take the principal decisions.
We want and we demand institutions close to the people and responsible to them, European institutions where information, discussion before decisions are taken, and subsequent evaluation of the results of the policies are possible.
That is the only way to revitalize democratic life and overcome the demotivation, demoralization and anxiety of a large part of European society.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I turn directly to you to conclude. We trust in the good sense and the good offices of the Irish presidency to drive forward political union at the Intergovernmental Conference and to propose reconsideration of the economic and monetary framework.
As you are well aware, it is a wise man who can correct mistakes.
Mr Hänsch, Mr Bruton and Mr Santer, ladies and gentlemen, what is Europe, what is the EU really there for? Is Europe there for the people or the people for Europe?
Everyone in this House will say, of course Europe is there for the people. Everyone will say, of course Europe must not instil fear or fright in the people but give them a sense of security and hope.
Of course Europe should be a protective community in which the fundamental rights are guaranteed. Of course Europe should make people's lives more peaceful and safer.
But if all that is such a matter of course, why does this European Union not act on it? Why does the opposite happen, under the guise of the Maastricht criteria?
Can and should we allow social and democratic achievements to be eroded in order to fulfil these criteria? The great majority of people are to suffer so that the economy can flourish and we can keep to an unrealistic timetable.
That is the disastrous continuation of a policy that has led us where we are now.
Europe is very distant from its citizens, anti-Europeanism has grown and will continue to grow because people have the feeling they are no more than chess pieces on the European board in a game which industry and the economy are winning.
The people will ask us: ' What do we need monetary union for if it is doing harm even before being introduced?' Let us beware of turning Europe into a weapon that knocks down the social and democratic rights that have been built up over recent decades!
For in the end it will not just be these achievements and rights that are destroyed.
The Council, the club of national government interests, is playing with fire if it believes it can provide for the urgent need for a more pan-European approach, social ecology, the principle of democracy, which also means participation, transparency and openness, and take the aims we set for the Intergovernmental Conference ad absurdum.
This would not result in a different, solidary Europe but in the renationalization of politics and the re-emergence of nationalism.
Today the political fight to establish civil rights as its foundation is the key to the survival of European integration.
The Member States, the governments will have to learn that democracy does not interfere with the development of Europe but is essential to it.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, President Santer, ladies and gentlemen, the proceedings of the Intergovernmental Conference - of which, incidentally, two thirds of Europeans have never heard - are clearly displaying deep-seated differences about the objectives of European integration and the ways of achieving it.
In point of fact, instead of a Union, with all the virtues you believe it has, what we have is chaos.
Secessionist movements are coming to light.
Belgium is in danger of disappearing. Germany is trying to use the proposal of economic and monetary union to regain its former influence in the East.
France, disorientated by the strategic and tactical errors of some of its leaders, is sinking into a climate of economic crisis and will not meet the Maastricht criteria in 1997, with a real public spending deficit in excess of 4 % of GDP, despite everything you may have heard to the contrary.
Once again, the Commission would have us believe that almost everything is going well, and that those things which are not going well can only improve as a result of the rush to integration.
Yet these optimistic declarations are doing little to conceal fears of failure of the Intergovernmental Conference, whose minimalistic objectives now amount to no more than the introduction of the single currency.
How much has happened since the Lammers report, with its recommendations for a federal Europe!
Despite your desire to enable this conference to end as soon as possible, President Santer, you cannot escape the constraints of the French and British electoral timetables.
The French, in any case, radically reject your supranational conception of Europe and will no longer tolerate this endless moralizing, so remote from their own interests and concerns.
In any case, the French government will be heavily defeated at the 1998 elections because of its European policy.
Do you really believe that the government which follows it - whether left or right - will not feel called upon to renegotiate the convergence criteria and the socalled 'stability' pact, which incidentally is devoid of any legal value?
Mr President, the Union seems to me to be ailing: we have 20 million unemployed; in our countries there is unrest and racist outbursts even, like that of Bossi in Italy where greens shirts are reappearing, rekindling the very grim memory of the brown shirts; and we have governments uninterested in achieving the kind of central Union that leads to political Union.
President Santer, just talking about a change in voting procedures does not amount to taking a closer look at enlargement.
Enlargement will not be possible until political Union has been achieved. Political Union at least involves a common defence policy; a joint effort to tackle unemployment; and the effective operation of Europol, which does not appear to be to be working very well; and it thus requires the surrender of certain national prerogatives to a supreme European body.
None of that exists and so we have no political Union.
We must therefore have the courage to say that enlargement cannot be on the agenda until we have political Union: Europe is not the Franco-German axis alone, we have all to respond to political events.
If we do not, then the same will happen as has occurred in Iraq and other places, with Europe continuing to cut the same old figure.
Those who do not agree with this are actually working to prevent the creation of a European political Union; they are seeking the end of Europe; they are influenced by specific and particular interests linked to certain financial concerns but also to certain countries within and others outside Europe and on the other side of the Atlantic.
We want a Europe that guarantees its citizens greater security, that understands their needs and is not a fundamentalist Europe: a Europe that is at last political and able to guarantee cultural as well as economic growth.
To achieve that, we have also to get rid of the democratic deficit from which this House continues to suffer.
I hope that the Irish presidency will be able to set political Union on track again, even if that involves delaying enlargement and tackling it once more, through Maastricht, in a constructive spirit but one which takes proper account of the true state of affairs in our countries.
We must not go against history and, above all, we must not go against the needs of the people of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this kind of debate is of course always a chance to take a critical look at ourselves and see whether have done everything right in the past measured against our common aims.
If we hear notes of criticism here in Parliament, then that is important and necessary.
But it would also be a good idea for the Commission and Council at least to put something of this critical awareness into words.
It is rather disappointing to know one is in troubled waters but then not to describe it oneself critically and clearly.
After all, we all know, as has been said a number of times, that our citizens are not just becoming more sceptical and critical about Europe but, above all, less interested.
Surely that is far more dangerous!
I much prefer to see people who take a critical look at Europe than people who do not care about Europe at all any more!
For then it is impossible to get through to them.
Europe - who is it? Who is to blame for its state?
Here we cannot ignore reality and it remains the case that the number of Member States is decisive when it comes to the distribution of power.
Parliament has also acquired more power.
But within the triangle of power, the corner taken up by the Council, by the Member States, remains the strongest one.
Here it is easy to name the failures.
We all know what troubles the citizens.
But nothing is moving in regard to employment, in regard to foreign policy or to internal security.
The cumbersome tanker of Europe with its 12 captains - some fatter, some thinner - is not making headway or following a definite course.
As long as this is clearly perceptible, as it is now, and as long as the Member States' main cashiers - our ministers of finance - have the final decision on how much European integration we can actually afford, in other words what kind of Europe is worth how much money to us, we will not make progress in this area.
It is not enough for our governments - including my German chancellor in whom I do believe as a good European - to insist every day on our common aims.
But when his own team - starting with the minister of finance - plunders the cash-desk on the one hand and then criticizes Europe again because this or that task has not been accomplished, then that is bound to reinforce nationalist tendencies rather than counteracting them.
That is the situation we find ourselves in.
What can we do about it? The first thing would be for the Commission and the Council to take stock of the situation in a real, honest and, where necessary, self-critical way.
Now I know that bodies that act together find this difficult.
But, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, since we all know where the problems lie, why not have the courage to name them by name loudly and clearly, even at the risk of being criticized for so doing by others? Nobody can escape the truth.
If the Intergovernmental Conference does not hoist any new sails on our common European ship then we will certainly be putting Europe at risk by not being able to move in heavy weather, in troubled waters.
For God have mercy on us if the international situation continues to go the way it is heading and the treacherous argument of globalization is used to tear apart all the social foundations, and the security policy and the democratic foundations of the Union!
I ask for a little more courage!
Mr President, we are today discussing the state of the Union, as we move closer to two events which will shape Europe's future: the enlargement of the Union and, more especially, the achievement of the single currency.
This is a process that will take some years, two phases during which Europe will finally come into being or will cease to exist!
As we move along this track, we must confer real substance on this process, combatting and fighting, with the resources of a whole continent, the problems of our people face: unemployment; the need for an economy that is close to consumers and entrepreneurs; the need for security founded on peace; the need to protect children from all forms of squalor and to guarantee social justice.
President Santer was right to say that we need to bring politics closer to citizens.
If we do not confer on the European Union the kind of substance that brings it close to citizens, the effect will be that of an egg pierced underneath by a pin and emptied of its content: from the outside it will look perfect but in reality it will be redundant - an empty shell.
One last point linked to the current situation.
There are some people who are now working to divide individual states internally.
That would simply be the first stage in breaking up the whole of the Community, thereby undermining our future.
All of us here in this House should work to combat division and for a united Europe, united in diversity and independence, but united still.
Let us work together on that which unites us, it will always be greater than that which divides us!
Mr President, peace has prevailed on this continent since the 1940s.
Even so, each generation has to find and create its own Europe, and I do not believe that Jean Monnet will be the patron saint of future generations.
However, the fundamental mission of the EU is seriously incomplete, as what peace means nowadays is partly that people should feel a sense of belonging to society, that children should not be abused and that the economy should be brought into line with the requirements of environmental protection.
If EMU is attained too quickly, we shall certainly be confronted with these problems, and it will cost us dear.
Mr President, subsidizing tobacco growers is undoubtedly a sign of intellectual poverty, but it is a far worse one to believe that our continent's problems can be solved by building thousands of kilometres of motorways and supporting very large enterprises.
Sustainable jobs can best be created by means of ecological tax reforms.
We cannot export our own model even to Central and Eastern Europe, let alone to the world as a whole.
It is quite true that only the EU is sufficiently large and capable of changing the global ground-rules, and this is something which the EU will have to consider seriously at the WTO conference in Singapore in December.
It will then be possible to do something about child labour, to improve environmental protection and to make proposals to reduce global speculation.
But citizens should also have the opportunity to influence the Union's constantly increasing activities in the world, so democracy and transparency really must not be forgotten at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, could I suggest a speech of welcome to be made by the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Bruton, at the extra summit meeting in Dublin?
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Dublin.
There are now 21 392 regulations, directives and other legal acts which apply to our citizens.
I propose that we tidy these up, rather than creating even more rules.
How are we to make democracy work for ordinary people, when I cannot find out the legal situation in a sector without expert assistance?
Laws on the same subjects must be codified and made transparent and accessible, so that we can all find our way around them and pick things out.
The newspapers write that secret protocols are still being drawn up which say something different from the laws that are published.
Let us publish all the existing protocols and tell our ministers and Commissioners: secret legislation must now come to an end.
We shall never be able to defend secret decisions.
We all have constitutions which require laws to be adopted in open, democratic assemblies.
The Council's debates and votes on Community legislation must be opened up.
We also need to extend our citizens' right of access to documents.
I suggest that we back the European Parliament's proposal to open up the meetings and provide automatic access to documents, unless there is a two-thirds majority and sound practical reasons for not doing so.
The time has come for us to clear things up, to simplify matters and create transparency, instead of just pressing on regardless.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I want to address myself today to the Irish presidency to express my congratulations and my appreciation.
My congratulations are for the work it is carrying out: in the brief period since Ireland took over the presidency, Ireland has demonstrated its great ability and its government's great responsibility.
And my appreciation is because, on the basis of this work, we expect that at the end of the Irish presidency we will have taken a step forward in the construction of Europe.
I also want to thank you for the speech you have made.
I think it was widely appreciated in this Assembly.
I want to tell you that I identify with your position and, above all, with the leap that has been taken to make the ideals underlying economic union coincide with the concrete objectives we must achieve.
I think you combined a large dose of idealism and a large dose of realism in one speech.
The point you made on the globalization of the economy and the challenges it presents for our competitiveness is important, but at the same time - repeating what previous speakers have said - I do not think we can regard competitiveness as conceivable if it has to be based on social cost.
European practice ever since 1945 has been based on achieving a very high level of competitiveness with an increase in our social welfare and in equality between our citizens.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I want to stress a point I am sure you regard as highly sensitive and highly important.
I refer to the problem of cohesion. The European Union has achieved the present degree of economic development by facing up to a fundamental economic law.
When an economic union is being built, when a territory is being unified, enormous imbalances usually occur.
Perhaps the best example is what happened in the United States after the Civil War of 1861-65, when there was enormous enrichment of the North and enormous impoverishment of the South.
The European Union has managed to avoid that.
It has succeeded in preventing widening differences between the regions, allowing the rich regions to develop but not at the cost of the poor regions.
At this moment we face a major challenge: economic and monetary union.
Economic and monetary union presupposes the demolition of another existing barrier, with the consequent danger that imbalances may occur between the richest and poorest regions.
At this moment there are some who talk of dismantling the structural funds, the structural policies, the agricultural policy and the cohesion fund in order to achieve other objectives.
If this were to happen, Europe would be heading for a social and economic crisis which would put our construction at risk.
I urge the presidency to continue along the path followed up to now, strengthening the elements of cohesion which have made possible the development of our Union and the peace of our continent.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for having the courage to remind Parliament about something we have forgotten, namely that the basic problem relating to the European Union's economic performance is its low level of competitiveness.
The main characteristics of low competitiveness continue being addressed in an inadequate way.
The Single Market is still incomplete.
Basic functions of economic activity, such as telecommunications, energy and others, have not been liberalized.
The requisite structural changes are not being implemented consistently and with coordination, and while some governments are courageously taking the necessary though often unpopular measures towards financial discipline, society's reactions are dissuading other governments from progressing towards a true convergence of the economies of the Member States.
Low rates of development are perpetuating serious social problems, especially that of unemployment, and many of us - even here in Parliament - are seriously considering a reduction of working hours as a panacea for that problem, and instead of trying to make Europe more investment-friendly, inspiring it with a spirit of development and making its human potential more capable of meeting the challenges of new technology and competition, we are seeing how best to share out human misery and indigence more fairly.
Economic and Monetary Union has lost its way in a multilingual and verbose environment.
While the Maastricht Treaty was not very well understood by Europe's citizens because even today it is interpreted in a static and bureaucratic way, the problems raised within the scope of the Intergovernmental Conference are creating the same and perhaps a still more intense feeling of insecurity since they have a disorientating effect on Europe's citizens.
Enlargement is addressed with a narrow, economic rationale, whereas it could be the beginning of a new age of development for United Europe.
And while we are prolific with words, the Union's budget, the instrument that would enable us to establish Community policies with a long-term horizon, continues to be meagre and to undergo cuts by the Council.
In my humble opinion, ladies and gentlemen, that is the situation in the Union today and Europe's citizens are wondering whether there are any leaders who can provide us with enough vision to emerge from the swamp.
Mr President, it seems to me to be appropriate today, as we are debating the state of the Union, to talk about Bossi and his outbursts.
Despite what is said, this is not just an Italian problem, it is above all a European problem and there are three reasons for this: first of all, Bossi is a Member - albeit an absentee Member - of this Parliament and, paradoxically, although illiberal and racist, he is active in the liberal group; secondly, Bossi has asked to for his sham Padania to be attached to the European Union - that request has been refused but it is does constitute a dangerous precedent; thirdly, Bossi's activism, although crude and ridiculous, may attract converts in many European states which are similarly seeing a growth in intolerance, racism and secessionist trends.
We are therefore faced with the risk that while the states of Europe hum and haw and prattle on about constructing Europe, they are undermining their internal legitimacy, thereby destroying themselves and the European dream.
History often moves from the absurd to the tragic, but we must not let that happen now just because we are unable to perceive the gravity but also the global nature of the problem.
Gentlemen of the Council and Commission, you have constructed a fortress of words here today against Parliament's criticisms but above all a fortress of words against the fears and concerns of the people.
President Santer presumed to claim that the convergence criteria of monetary union do not conflict with the requirement of full employment.
He did this in face of every scientific finding and in face of the opinions of countless experts in Europe.
The reality is that this project of monetary union produces unemployment, has strangled growth and is being misused for making cuts in social services.
Gentlemen, do stop confusing your policy with Europe and stigmatizing any criticism of your policy as anti-European.
Destroy the fortress of words and stop closing your minds to the knowledge that the fears, the concerns and the criticisms of millions and millions of people are right and your policy is not right.
In connection with the state of the Union, I would like to say a word about the insecurity affecting the weakest members of our various societies.
This Europe of ours has seen a five-fold increase in crime since its creation in 1957.
The lax attitude to crime which is often fashionable in the various States is not a complete explanation.
The truth is that this Europe is the Europe of cash and the golden calf; it has allowed materialism to deflect it from Christian values; it has allowed egalitarianism to deflect it from the classical humanism of ancient Greece.
What standard remains? Money.
This moral situation was a deliberate political choice, because the politicians wanted to denigrate family values in the name of a cut-price Freudianism.
They wanted to strangle patriotic values in the name of a Masonic-style cosmopolitanism.
They wanted to disregard values of personal virtue and responsibility in the name of a decadent egalitarianism.
And the result: five times as much crime as in 1957.
This is no fault of the nationalists, this is the fault of the cosmopolitan materialists who govern us and who govern Europe today.
Presidents, let me take up the words spoken by President Hänsch, ' people are not against Europe but do not know why they should be for it' , and by Pauline Green, who spoke of stagnation and paralysis because of the lack of progress in the Intergovernmental Conference, and also by Willi Görlach who said that at present the EU is in the hands of the ministers of finance.
Through our activities we must give the people of Europe reason to be pro-European, i.e., we must find solutions to the burning problems and concerns of the people.
We must produce ideas.
What do the citizens want? You know that we will be holding elections in Austria in three weeks' time.
In spite of the high level of employment and high social standard in Austria, our citizens' first wish is to see employment and high social standards in Europe.
So long as we still have politicians here like Mr Voggenhuber from the Greens, who spoke before me, who fuel unjustified fears and tell the people that monetary union means cuts in social welfare, it is difficult for the other politicians here who want to work for Europe.
We need to incorporate a chapter on employment in the EU Treaties with control mechanisms to monitor the Member States' employment policies, but we also need a larger budget.
Pauline Green called for a reduction in the agricultural budget.
That is my view too.
We have to invest in social programmes, in research programmes and above all in educational programmes.
For education, training and further training are very closely linked to employment.
Young people can see the advantages of EU membership in the training and occupational field - as emerged from a survey we recently conducted in Austria.
It is taking increasing part in the European programmes.
That is where it sees the chances for Europe.
So let us also give the young people of Europe a chance by increasing the funding for this.
It is equally important that we resolve environmental questions and set high environmental standards.
And a final point: I am very glad that next year will be the year of combatting xenophobia, racism and nazism.
Le Pen's most recent statements prove how important that is.
Combatting racism and xenophobia is just as important to peace and security in Europe as combatting drugs and crime, as the endeavours to establish a common security and foreign policy.
Mr President, the tripartite interinstitutional dialogue - Council, Commission, Parliament - is the essence of the Community institutions' originality.
We should always congratulate ourselves on these joint deliberations, although we must also remember that the formal debate on the overall political assessment of the state of the European Union must take place under the auspices of Article D of the Treaty which provides for a debate after presentation of a written report from the Council of the European Union, so we will have to put that off for a few months.
But as I said, I think this debate is an excellent opportunity for transmitting our main concerns to the Council.
And it does not matter if every one of us may repeat ideas that have already been expressed or if we express a few rather individual opinions. They reflect the great diversity of this Parliament, where there are vast areas of coincidence but also many points of sensitivity.
I want to highlight a fact that I consider essential at this time: the basic point the President-in-Office of the Council made was that economic and monetary union and the single currency are irreversible, and the decision has already been taken.
This must be made very clear to all the citizens and it is the great message which must go out from this debate.
I am convinced that even those who are reticent about this great objective will be major beneficiaries of the consequences of this great historical step which will give us European Union.
There are also the day-to-day issues, the crises we have to live through.
And I think the BSE tragedy ought to teach us a great deal.
National governments, amongst others, have a grave responsibility to shoulder, not only towards their citizens but towards the whole Union.
Any negligence in the performance of their duties affects all the citizens.
So when rhetorical reference is made to subsidiarity, a poorly understood concept, conclusions should be drawn from such day-to-day events which demonstrate the complete opposite.
We too must mention the implacable challenge of security which both you, Mr President and President Santer, have mentioned.
Citizens must be able to feel they live in a free and safe Europe, so the fight against terrorism and organized crime must pass from rhetoric to action.
A Treaty provision covering the impossibility of political asylum for citizens of the Union is a priority.
Empowering the Court of Justice of the Union in these areas is another necessity.
Looking at the Intergovernmental Conference - and repeated references have been made to it - everyone regards the enlargement as ethically necessary.
It is also an economic necessity, but we must face the great challenge of economic and institutional change it involves.
We cannot disregard that situation and imagine we can take another step forward without deepening our institutions.
At the same time, Mr President, another challenge is to convince the citizens that the project of European Union is worth the effort, that it forms part of our future and that, in spite of the contradictions we may fall into and our stinginess, Europe continues to be the only hope for us all.
Mr President, as this House goes about its usual business - which includes this often sterile debate on the state of the Union - none of our Italian colleagues has sought to focus attention for even a moment on the fact that, on Sunday last, a Member of this House - albeit one who has not deigned to grace the House with his presence for a year now - officially proclaimed the creation of an independent and sovereign republic inside one of the founder countries of the European Union, announcing the setting-up of a provisional government and a paramilitary national guard.
No-one from the Commission, President Santer, wished to respond to the question we put three months ago, expressing concern at the risk of armed struggle and civil war in Italy.
No-one realizes - or perhaps they just pretend not to understand - the extent to which this exaggerated regionalism, based on socio-economic self-interest, may have the devastating effect of triggering all kinds of regionalist irredentism in Europe.
Non-one wants to consider the fact that the legitimate grounds that those voting for the League have in opposing the centrist state which is grasping, bureaucratic and inefficient may be used by Bossi - a Member of this House and an unscrupulous demagogue - to seek out personal power, with very serious risks of instability throughout Europe.
Someone needs to wake up to this!
Mr President, I should like to thank you and the Presidents of the Council and Commission for your constructive statements.
In the debate on the same subject just under a year ago I spoke about employment and aid to shipbuilding.
I could speak about them now too.
Unemployment is still far too high, and no satisfactory solution has been found to the issue of aid to shipbuilding either.
At the beginning of Ireland's presidency I said that improving the employment situation was crucial to the whole of the EU's credibility in the eyes of the public.
I reiterate that.
In Finland we organized a hearing on the IGC for nongovernmental organizations, at which employment was seen as being by far the most important issue.
The organizations' statements reflected a belief that the EU could decisively influence the employment situation for the better.
The trade unions demand that responsibility for employment be clearly enshrined in the Treaty.
The Federation of Municipalities says that the IGC should ensure that greater account is taken of employment aspects in the EU's activities, in accordance with the principle of transparency.
The organization representing the unemployed naturally considered employment and revival of the economy the most important points by far.
A common policy on sustainable economic growth must be adopted, the internal market must be made to operate so that it genuinely promotes employment, Europe absolutely must develop a more stable common monetary system, say the unemployed.
The employment objective is also supported by social organizations and even pensioners' organizations.
At the hearing, it was also observed that the area of forest in the EU and the capacity of its forestry industry had doubled when the new Member States joined the Union.
Representatives of forestry stressed the importance of the single currency and said that the details of forest management in the various Member States should not be regulated by directive.
However, a common strategy, for example with regard to timber certification, could benefit the sector.
Child protection organizations called for systematic evaluation of the possible impact of the EU's decisions, provisions and directives on children and families with children.
Organizations representing the disabled called for a prohibition on discrimination; consumers' organizations wanted consumer affairs to be included in the agenda for the IGC.
Mr President, all these demands have been put forward by members of the public.
It is time to fulfil their expectations.
Mr President, could I say, being thoroughly objective, that the Irish presidency is doing a very good job.
It is providing strong leadership and a clear vision for all of us in Europe on a whole range of complex issues, from drugs and crime through to the difficult preparations for enlargement.
Unemployment remains an open wound: there are 18 million people unemployed and unemployment is bringing despair and poverty to our people; unemployment is depriving our young people of their life chances; it is contributing to rising crime and the instability of our societies; unemployment is breaking up families and fuelling nationalism and racism.
What Europe requires today is coordination and cooperation at a European level to create jobs for all of our people.
But what do we have?
Instead of practical measures to stimulate our economies and generate growth, we have the finance ministers of Germany and France advocating and pursuing measures which will do the exact opposite.
If economic and monetary union is to be a success it must not be associated in people's minds with increasing unemployment and cuts in welfare.
It follows, therefore, that rather than maintaining a blind fixation on a rigid timetable for a single currency, we need to recognize that flexibility ought to be the order of the day.
Equally, when it comes to how this single currency is to be achieved, we cannot ignore the importance of real economic convergence.
Frankly, the essential debate now should not be about a stability pact to enshrine still further the Maastricht convergence criteria, with talk of sanctions against those who fail to keep their deficits low.
This is taking us back to the 1930s, not forward to the new millennium.
What is required is a change of emphasis.
Job creation should now assume centre stage.
The European Investment Fund needs to be expanded, resources ought to go to TENs and to small businesses and the idea of a Delors White Paper needs to be made real and the structural funds have to be used more effectively.
This should be the agenda now and into the future.
This is the way to create the kind of Europe which is truly relevant to our people and I hope that this is what will happen in the future.
Mr President, Mr Santer, I too am delighted to have this opportunity to welcome the Taoiseach here today.
I also want to compliment you, Taoiseach, on your contribution.
This debate is a great opportunity for those of us who are involved in EU politics to get away from the mundane dayto-day affairs and look at the broader picture to review the progress that the Union has made in the past year and to try to chart out a future direction for the Union.
Looking back over the past year we can see that some progress has been made, but it has been very slow and, as many people have said to you here today - and I think you know it yourself, Taoiseach - Europe is not inspiring the ordinary people.
They do not see Europe as having any direct relevance to their lives.
We in Parliament represent over 340 million individuals across the continent, all of whom suffer from the same problem of unemployment.
Now you have heard the repeated calls here today that something be done about unemployment and we are used to this in these types of debates.
We are always hearing that it should be placed at the top of the agenda.
I said to Commissioner Flynn last year and I am repeating it here to you, Taoiseach, that I want to see us getting to the point where unemployment is at the bottom of our agenda, not because we are not interested in solving it, but because it has been solved.
While I compliment you on your good intentions, the European project will not progress if hard decisions are avoided.
We appreciate that no major breakthrough on any of the important issues at the IGC is likely until after the British general election.
However, you must resist the temptation to let things stagnate until then.
Presenting us with your vision of the future is all very well, but actually making it work for the people of Europe is the real challenge.
It is generally accepted that the agenda for the summit in Dublin in October is not a very heavy agenda, so I think that it would be an idea for you to place unemployment on the agenda, to knock heads together and to start taking the important decisions that have to be made.
If you are looking for the respect and the hearts of the people of Europe, and particularly the young people, why do you not start by reversing the 10 % decrease that the Council of Ministers have proposed in the development cooperation budget?
I call Mr Voggenhuber for a personal statement pursuant to Rule 108 of the Rules of Procedure.
Let me remind you, however, of the wording of that rule; I will make quite sure that this really is a personal statement.
Mr President, Mrs Hawlicek has accused me of fuelling fears in my speech here in Parliament and of electioneering.
I most emphatically reject that accusation!
I am not speaking here as an election campaigner but am speaking before the European Parliament as an elected Austrian Member.
I am not fuelling fears but putting the concerns of large sections of the population before this Parliament and the representatives of the Council and the Commission.
It is not a question of fears here.
With regard to employment, in the space of a few years Austria has the highest...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President the predominant theme in this debate was an attempt to answer the question 'Why is Europe not inspiring its citizens at the present time?' .
Mr Méndez de Vigo offered the view that there was no poetry about Europe.
I think that what we lack is a sense of history, a sense of understanding the historical perspective in which we are working.
The fact of the matter is that in this century, 190 million people have been killed in wars, 60 million of those in Europe.
There have been virtually no people killed in warfare in Western Europe since this Union was created and we need to dispel some of the pessimism by reflecting on that important historical fact.
Secondly, it is easy to whip up enthusiasm around nation states, because as I said in the debate, many nation states were created by war or taking advantage of other states.
This Union was created in peace to do mundane things.
Naturally it does not inspire the sort of atavistic passions that nation states sometimes do but that is a compliment to Europe and not a criticism.
Thirdly, we should realise how difficult the task is that Europe is now undertaking.
We are hoping to expand our membership radically, while at the same time making our Union even closer.
Anybody who reflects on what happened in the United States between 1861 and 1865 and who understands the immediate reasons for the American Civil War, will understand that this task is not an easy one.
It is one that was not succeeded in by the United States in a peaceful way.
We will succeed in it in this Union and we should compliment ourselves on our ambition in that regard.
Furthermore, history is on the side of the Union because all the trends of modern technology show that interdependence is the order of the day.
We can not live without one another.
We are affected by one another, whether it be through the Internet, through international communications, or through money moving across the exchanges.
The only way that people can control these things that affect their lives is through a large entity like the European Union.
Nation states simply cannot do the job.
Rather than being so self-critical, as this debate was, and it was far too self-critical of the Union, we should reflect on the fact that history is on the side of this Union.
Furthermore, the problems of the environment, on a world scale, can only be tackled by the Union.
Individual Member States would not have a chance.
I accept very much that we need to focus on real day-to-day concerns.
The need to focus on employment came through very strongly in this debate.
I will carry that message back to the Dublin One Summit and the Dublin Two Summit.
Likewise I will carry back the united view of Parliament that we must act on the drugs menace and we must act on the use of modern technology by criminals and we must adopt legal means of dealing with that at Union level.
But again, there is no case for Euro-pessimism, because it is only a body as large as the Union that will be capable of tackling internationally organized crime.
Individual nation states will not and do not have a chance.
So please, you, the Members of the European Parliament, you are the leaders of European public opinion and if you keep saying in debates here in this House that the Union is not achieving its objectives, that there are grounds for Euro-pessimism, then people will begin to believe you, and your predictions will become the reality.
The truth of the matter is that this European Union is having a problem because of its success.
It is because of the extent of its success that people are taking the Union for granted.
So I would hope that in future debates on the state of the Union we will not have a surplus of pessimism of the kind that we have been listening to in this debate.
I would like to say that one message I take very strongly from this debate is that you are ambitious for the Intergovernmental Conference.
You do not want an unambitious patching together of a few small changes to give people the sense that they have done some work and that they can go home.
I take that message very strongly from this debate and I will take it to Dublin One and Dublin Two.
You want the problems tackled and I will do everything in my power as the presidency to ensure that happens.
But I will need the support of your electorates and of each of my colleagues from the Member States.
I want to say one thing about the Dublin One summit.
There have been some points made here in this debate which suggests that Dublin One should do this, Dublin One should do that and Dublin One should solve this problem and solve the other problem.
Let me put clearly on the record that the purpose of Dublin One is not to take decisions.
We agreed at Turin that Dublin One would not be a decision-making Council.
No conclusions will be issued. Why?
The truth of the matter is that the problems of Europe are so profound that the European Union's Heads of Government need to get together once in a while to talk about those problems in a preliminary way without having the pressure of microphones put under their noses immediately they come out of the meeting and being questioned about what they have been doing for the last hour and a half.
We need time to reflect together at Dublin One if Dublin Two is to be a success.
It is at Dublin Two that the decisions will be taken.
So I ask you not to raise undue expectations about results or decisions from Dublin One.
It is not designed for that purpose.
It is designed to be a preliminary to decision-making at Dublin Two and in other Councils.
Finally, I want to make two points in response to views that have been expressed here in the debate.
Those of you who criticize the single currency should not forget that the single currency will mean that individual national currencies will no longer be the subject of speculation on the foreign exchanges.
That will help protect employment.
Secondly, those of you who call for a vision of Social Europe should not forget that it can only be created if Europe is competitive.
We have to sell our goods in competition with goods from elsewhere.
We can only create a Social Europe if we have the economic means of doing so.
So, we need to tackle the two problems - competitiveness and redistribution together - not one after the other.
We cannot afford to ignore either.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Many thanks to the President-in-Office of the European Council.
The debate on the state of the European Union is closed.
On a point of order, Mr President.
In future the night sittings will be reported not just in one language but in both English and French.
The two language versions will also be published on the Internet.
Why is German not also being used?
Mr Rübig, we are working towards that, but Parliament's network is not yet in a position to be able to satisfy both your request and the requests by other colleagues for other languages.
Votes
Mr President, I will be very brief.
I know that the first amendment we are to vote on is a motion for rejection, supported by a letter sent to everyone which contains complete untruths.
I would sincerely request that you do not act upon this.
Yesterday evening in this Parliament the Commission accepted the most important amendments presented by the Committee on the Environment.
This letter states that more than 510 species are to be dropped from the list.
The number is actually 609.
However, these species are not actually to be dropped from the list: they will go to list B. The Commission has even appointed a special body to study if further protection is possible.
So what is stated here is completely untrue.
My advice is to not accept this.
Thank you Mr President.
No, no, just a minute!
Calm down, ladies and gentlemen!
This needs to be supplemented.
The letter says that rejection is justified because many amendments were not adopted.
The Commission has rejected the decisive amendments which really could be useful to the protection of plants and animals.
(Applause)
(The President declared the common position adopted as amended)
Mr Herman, as you have seen, the order of business specifies the sequence that you have before you.
This was not called into question this morning.
I would just like to explain to Parliament - because I too asked for clarification when I was preparing the votes - that it has always been the tradition to take the votes on legislative proposals first.
After that, of course, the Rocard report was put before the three reports we did not have time to vote on yesterday, namely your own, Mr Barzanti's and Mrs Tongue's.
I have no objection if Parliament would like to take those three reports before the Rocard report.
I fear that we may not be able to vote on them all.
I will put the matter to the vote, and will accept one speaker against the proposal.
Mr President, you have already mentioned the argument, but here we have the habit of first dealing with reports concerning legislative proposals before we vote on the other reports.
I must point out that as the hours go by this House becomes emptier, and there is a report from the Committee on Women's Rights, which I represent, on the agenda.
It concerns a legislative proposal, and voting can quickly take place.
I cannot see why we should depart from our usual procedure, and I would ask you to bring the legislative reports to the vote first.
Mr President you know full well that yesterday they stopped unexpectedly because it was too late and the debate on the three reports was completed.
The press conferences had already been convened and the journalists had all already prepared their articles discussing these issues which are of great interest to them.
If we vote today - and the journalists are waiting for the result of the vote - those articles will appear in the press.
If we vote tomorrow the issue will sink without trace: stale news as far as the press is concerned.
The fact is that not all of the work of this House is so keenly followed: if we then operate in such a way as to make the work of the journalists impossible, our work will be far less likely to attract attention on other occasions!
(Parliament rejected the proposal to change the order of voting)
Welcome
I would like to welcome the delegation of Australian Members of Parliament who have just taken their places in the VIP gallery.
Our Australian colleagues, whose delegation is led by Senator Watson, have come to Strasbourg to take part in an interparliamentary conference between the European and Australian Parliaments.
That conference, which will be jointly chaired by Senator Watson and our colleague Mr Kerr, President of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Australia, is the 20th of its kind and that number clearly reflects the length of time that we have maintained friendly relations with Australia.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you every success in your work and welcome you to the European Parliament.
Votes (continuation)
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commission whether, given the overwhelming support given to these proposals by the European Parliament, it is willing to accept our amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to confirm what Mr Flynn has told you, namely that the Commission can only accept Amendment No 5.
Mr President, in that case, I ask for this report to be referred back to committee.
We think it very important to continue this discussion.
(Parliament decided to refer the report back to the committee responsible)
Mister President, I am sorry but I would still like to speak briefly about this matter, as something peculiar has happened.
We have conducted protracted discussions about this report in the Committee on Women&#x02BC;s Rights which concern pensions for women, and during these debates we have always carefully ensured that the Commission was present.
In all those debates it did not appear that the representatives of the Commission were concerned about these amendments.
I find it extraordinary to only now be confronted with the fact that the Commission finds all of these amendments unacceptable.
I do not think it sensible for the Commission to handle Parliament's work in such a way, as we obviously cannot quickly complete all the proposals that the Council would like approved.
So in this case the delay is not attributable to Parliament, but to the Commission.
I would ask Commissioner Fischler to pass this on to his colleague Mr Flynn.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I will of course pass on what you have said here to my colleague Mr Flynn, and secondly I can tell you on his behalf that he is quite prepared to come to your committee and explain his point of view.
Mr President, I would remind Members that we took a very clear position in committee on the legal basis.
I would, however, ask the Group of the European People's Party to withdraw Amendment No 42 because the maximum residual quantities from organic agriculture are fixed in Regulation 2029/91 and cannot be fixed in this directive because there is a separate regulation on this.
I would also point out once again to this House that Amendments Nos 34, 36 and 40 tabled by Mrs Redondo create problems because they relate to Annex 6 of Directive 91/414.
As you know, the European Parliament was successful in the proceedings it initiated against this annex and on 18 June the European Court of Justice declared Annex 6 to the directive null and void, so that we now have the situation of reference being made to an annex that no longer exists.
I would like to inform Parliament that its technical services have already adapted the wording of the amendments following the decision by the European Court of Justice.
Mr President, we can agree to Mrs Breyer's proposal to withdraw Amendment No 42.
But we do not agree with what she has said on Amendments Nos 34, 36 and 40, because although the directive has in fact been cancelled, the annexe has not been cancelled.
I would like to speak again.
Mrs Redondo, it was not the directive that was declared null and void but this Annex 6.
You just presented the situation as being the reverse, as though the annexes would continue to exist but not the directive.
Since there is serious confusion here, I would ask the bureau to clarify this point so that Parliament can take its decision on the basis of correct information.
After the adoption of Amendment No 40:
Mr President, without referring to any particular person, can I point out that there is a ruling by the Quaestors confirmed by the Bureau, that mobile phones should not be used in the Chamber.
Could I ask that that ruling be adhered to?
Mr Balfe, thank you very much for pointing that out.
That ruling indeed exists, and I hope we will all respect it.
(Parliament adopted the draft legislative resolution)
Mr President, I would like to ask you to interrupt the voting.
We have changed the order.
We cannot just take the Rocard report and then not the following reports.
I also sense that many Members in this House do not approve of this.
I would ask you to suspend the sitting.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Mr President, on a point of order.
Having votes on this basis - we are running well into lunchtime and will not finish - is a nonsense.
It really is time that the Conference of Presidents had a look at the way we time our voting to ensure that we can do these things sensibly.
This is a shambles and it cannot go on.
Mr Hallam, what you are saying is right, but the Conference of Presidents is not to blame for the order of business, which we ourselves determine.
It is we who perhaps ought to rethink our procedure.
Mr President, this may be unusual, but even so I would like to take this opportunity to express my personal regret to Mr Herman about the way all this is going, and to assure him of my friendship.
This is not my fault.
I just wanted to say that I understand his point of view and to show him how I feel about it.
For the first time for a long while social Europe is making positive headlines again with the directive on the posting of workers.
In view of the many risks of social dumping, especially in the building industry, as a result of the temporary posting of workers from EU and third countries, it has become increasingly obvious that free competition in the single market and the policy of openness towards third countries must be flanked by social measures if the entire social system is not soon to collapse.
It is to be welcomed that the Luxembourg Government took a very hard line in the Council, especially in relation to the period of time during which the host country's wages and social provisions did not apply.
That period no longer exists now, which means that barring a few minor exceptions the right to a minimum wage and to a minimum paid annual leave must apply in full in the host country, thus also precluding social dumping.
Controls will be an important question here.
The principle that has been retained will stand or fall on that.
It will also be essential for the EU Member States to cooperate closely in order to establish and protect the rights of the workers.
This directive on the posting of workers, once applied, not only represents real progress for workers but also progress for the single market which clearly and specifically prescribes cross-frontier social absorption in addition to the freedom of entrepreneurs.
That is why the report by Mr Helwin Peter deserves our full and entire support.
It was not easy to reach an acceptable compromise on the question of the posting of workers.
But it was essential to have this kind of compromise in order to close the door to social dumping as a result of the freedom to provide services in the single market.
It is indeed unacceptable for national social legislation (e.g. on minimum wages, social insurance contributions, labour law) to be undermined by the posting of temporary workers from EU states or third countries and for undertakings that respect the legal requirements to be ousted by providers of services that ignore these requirements.
The text before us now makes it possible to prevent this social dumping from the first day of posting.
In that respect the Council followed Parliament, which has to be recorded as a positive step.
However, it was also made possible for either national legislators or national social partners to extend this threshold for a period up to one month.
In accordance with the subsidiarity principle, this possible derogation is to be welcomed, even though it would be better to find a uniform solution for the whole of Europe.
We regret that the common position did not end up being any clearer or more precise but as it nevertheless demonstrates a willingness to go in the direction of benefits for workers we are voting for it.
Pollack recommendation
We all know that good intentions not followed up with action are just straws in the wind.
And that has never been more apt, because greater exchange of information on air pollution, while positive, is not enough in itself to decontaminate the air we breathe.
So the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection reiterates the amendments presented at first reading, because the Council and the Commission must take it on board that the said information must be made public and available to all the citizens for their control.
Even politicians know that air pollution is one of the pressing problems in the cities of the Union, and hence the need to adopt the amendments Mrs Pollack has tabled again. I shall vote for them.
Cooperation in collecting and exchanging reliable data on air pollution in the Member States is an important part of the efforts to identify the major sources of pollution, and is therefore an essential prerequisite for combatting the growth in air pollution on a more systematic basis.
As we know, limit values have already been laid down in the EU for emissions of various harmful substances into the atmosphere, including CO2 , lead and ozone.
However, as the Committee on the Environment pointed out at the first reading of this proposal, the Community's action so far in this area has been all too sporadic in nature, not to say haphazard.
Consequently, there is a need to introduce uniform rules on establishing limit values for emissions of all harmful substances.
It goes without saying that such limit values should be laid down on the basis of the most complete scientific data which can be obtained.
Unfortunately, the present proposal only requires the Member States to report data on pollutants which they are currently measuring.
Through the amendment calling for a review of the proposal after two years, Parliament's Committee on the Environment emphasized its wish to see a tightening of the individual provisions of the proposal at an early stage.
The crucial point here is for the public to have full access to the data that are collected.
It is to be welcomed that the Commission has accepted most of Parliament's amendments from first reading, including in particular one which sought to involve the European Environment Agency in the work on collecting, evaluating and disseminating the measurement data in question.
Virgin recommendation
As regards this recommendation from the rapporteur of the Committee on the Environment, Mr Virgin, it need only be said that, last year and in January this year, the rapporteur made thorough, strenuous and commendable efforts to bring the Commission into line with the European Parliament on the issue of the supervision and control of shipments of hazardous waste within, into and out of the territory of the Member States.
Unfortunately - as it appears from the Council's common position - there was no success in persuading the Council of Ministers of the need for consistent application of the principles of proximity and prevention in this context.
According to the former, waste should be processed as near as possible to the place where it is created.
As things stand at present, Parliament hardly has any alternative but to follow the recommendation of the rapporteur, in other words to reintroduce the amendments which it adopted earlier in the year at its first reading of this proposal to amend Regulation (EEC) No 259/93.
We can thank a non-EU Member State - Norway - for the fact that the Commission has changed its mind and taken on board the proposal that exports of waste from OECD countries to non-OECD countries for recycling purposes should also be prohibited.
However, it is important for me to stress the point that we must continue to work towards a sustainable approach, in which the quantity of waste produced is brought down to an absolute minimum.
At first reading, I proposed that a single list should be drawn up which has only one colour, namely red, and I stand by that proposal.
Nor can I help mentioning again that it is grotesque that the Commission threatened Denmark with legal action for taking it upon itself to propose changes that would ensure stricter rules for the benefit of the environment.
I am pleased that the Commission has now completely changed its stance and is in agreement with Parliament.
I have voted in favour of this recommendation from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, because the adoption of Parliament's amendments is a good step in the right environmental direction.
As the rapporteur states in his report, the categories in the new Annex IIa should not be exported, since there is no guarantee that an environmentally sound use of the waste can be expected in the importing countries.
I hope that the Council will share the views of the Commission and Parliament.
Van Putten recommendation
As draftsman of the opinion on the proposal for a CITES Regulation, I should like to say that I am particularly satisfied, because the Council's common position endorses the opinion tabled at first reading by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The text no longer refers to the keeping of species of wild fauna and flora for non-commercial purposes, as is apparent from the change in the title of the Regulation.
However, the text does still contain one weakness in Article 9, which makes any movement of the specimens referred to in Annex A subject to prior authorization, which would make life difficult if not impossible for the competent authorities.
They would have to deal on an everyday basis with applications for 'prior authorization' from falconers, who quite naturally - and lawfully - move around unimpeded.
My group has tabled an amendment to correct what I regard as an unfortunate chance accident in the common position, because there is no reason virtually to prohibit falconry in the European Union.
I regret that Parliament has not adopted this amendment.
That apart, the common position is acceptable, and there is certainly no reason to reject it.
Our group tabled six amendments to Mrs van Putten's report.
The trade in species of wild fauna and flora must be regulated and controlled.
What is at stake, of course, is the preservation of certain species which may be at risk in the present-day ecological, environmental and economic context.
However, too many constraints, too many obstructions, too many regulations may produce results contrary to those desired.
That is why my group has voted against some amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I am thinking particularly of Amendment No 12, which does away with the possibility of using species of wild fauna and flora for research activities or educational purposes designed to safeguard or preserve species.
It is necessary for our students and researchers to be able to work on real samples rather than on photographs or other so-called 'teaching aids' .
The six amendments proposed by my group are designed to protect the traditional activity of falconry.
We all know that displays take place using falcons and birds of prey.
These displays enable the public to see the extraordinary powers of these animals, and enable them to be appreciated by as many members of the public as possible.
It would be absurd to do away with this educational opportunity and to forget that these animals were for a very long time persecuted because of the negative image they had among the public.
I was pleased to hear - through Commissioner Bjerregaard - the Commission's response, accepting our proposal, because it is very much a matter of common sense.
I hope that this position will be adopted by the majority of my colleagues during the vote.
Breyer report
Mr President, unemployment represents so much wastage for the countries of Europe, and governments' room for manoeuvre seems so limited against a background of free trade, the defensive shrinkage of the various socio-professional categories and, for some of us, over-valuation of the currency that, fatally, people are beginning to look to unorthodox solutions which had previously been discarded unconsidered.
What was a bad idea then is not a good one now.
It is tempting, for example, to feel that the money now being given to the unemployed would be better used to pay companies to reduce their personnel's working hours and take on new staff. Unfortunately, this attractive theoretical balance is more difficult to bring about in practice.
It is typical that the Rocard report, despite all the experience of its compiler, a former Prime Minister of France, proposes not ready-made solutions but mere lines of thought, dubious lines in some cases, which the Commission is asked to consider in greater depth and which, ultimately, serve no purpose except to raise false hopes.
The fact is that this policy bears a heavy burden.
In order not to appear to be a social step backwards or a redistribution of poverty, it ought to include compensation through wages; but in this case, even allowing for the saving in terms of unemployment benefit, it is in danger of proving expensive and so destroying the jobs it hopes to create.
In order to avoid this vicious circle, such an approach has to remain cautious and contractual, and, above all, must not cost the public treasury more than the total saving in terms of unemployment benefit.
After all, we must not lose sight of the overall situation.
The age-old trend towards a reduction of working hours has now been broken in the developed countries by the apostles of free trade and by the entry into the field of competitors who are not governed by the same social standards as ourselves.
Until such time as this problem is solved - either by a deliberate policy or, perhaps in the much longer term, by a gradual restoration of international balance - the reduction in working hours cannot be the subject of a general policy, merely that of isolated experiments.
The European Parliament has today voted to ask the Commission to study how more jobs could be created through shorter working hours with full financial compensation for those whose working hours are reduced.
We - the Swedish members of the PPE Group - have voted against this report.
We believe it is wrong to hold out to the public the prospect of miracle cures for unemployment.
The Socialists have now proposed on the one hand incorporating a chapter on employment in the Treaty on European Union and on the other reducing working hours.
All this does is to give false hopes to the general public which it will then be impossible to fulfil.
We can only achieve increased employment through deregulation of the labour market, improvements in general education, higher education to promote the use of advanced technologies in production processes, reasonable employment conditions for small businesses and lower taxes which encourage people to make efforts on their own behalf.
To put forward the reduction in working hours as a solution to the unemployment crisis in Europe is a proposal which attempts to defy logic.
The new world market in which we now compete makes it imperative that we must be as competitive as possible.
To introduce measures which impose extra costs on the production of goods is something that must be regarded very carefully.
Flexibility in the organization of working hours that will not infringe on workers' basic rights could form part of an integrated solution to unemployment.
However, the proposals put forward by Mr Rocard, deal only superficially with the other mechanisms which could assist in our ultimate goal, i.e. more employment opportunities.
In particular the lack of a cost analysis on the SME and VSE sectors flies in the face of other Community actions to assist this sector, recognised by all as the engine for employment growth and economic growth in Europe, for example the third multi-annual programme for SMEs - Article 118 of the Treaty.
The gradual permanent approach would put on the scrapheap persons with years of knowledge and experience.
More regulation in the employment field will hinder job creation.
As we speak, the Working Time Directive has still not been transposed into national legislation in many countries and surely we should learn from the difficulties that have arisen with this legislation.
To abolish overtime would particularly discriminate against certain sectors where a high level of seasonality would have added cost.
For these reasons I cannot support the whole report although there is much within to which I would subscribe.
My congratulations to Mr Rocard for his tenacity and persistence.
Under present conditions, when the problem of jobs and the spectre of unemployment are at the core of working peoples' concerns, it is urgently necessary to find reliable and effective solutions.
Under these conditions, reduction of the working time without loss of earnings could be a decisive step in addressing the problem, and would ensure the standard of living of working people and the creation of new jobs.
However, Mr Rocard subscribes to the view that working peoples' earnings should be reduced in proportion to the reduction of their working time.
The innovation, supposedly, in his proposal consists in compensating for the loss of income by state expenditure which, he tells us, will come from the savings which Member States make in their expenditure on the unemployed.
This compensation, he says, could take the form either of a direct subsidy, or a reduction of employer contributions, for example for the first 32 hours of work, increasing them after that for any subsequent hours.
We disagree with that view, which in effect exempts employers from any contribution towards dealing with the crisis.
Earlier, we were told that working people would have to bear the cost.
Now, it is to be borne by the social security organizations.
But at a time when those organizations face very serious problems, savings of their expenditure could be used to improve their financial situation and enhance the level of public social security.
In parallel, the second interpretation leads both to a reduction of working peoples' earnings and to reduced employer contributions, in other words the only beneficiaries of such a move would be the employers.
In parallel, the rapporteur proposes a range of measures to promote the dislocation of the labour market and make the organization of working time more flexible.
However, reality shows that on the contrary, such practices lead to increased job losses, lengthening of the working time, and the spread of social dumping.
For these reasons, we will vote against the report.
In our opinion, a policy to deal with unemployment should be based on shortening the working time without loss of earnings, on a reduction and gradual abolition of overtime, on the encouragement of productive investment, especially in labour-intensive branches, and on addressing the problem of relocation to third countries where labour is cheap.
These measures should be accompanied by a policy of income support for working people, consonant with the need to stimulate consumption and other factors related to production and employment.
Although, with unemployment at 3 %, Luxembourg does not have the same employment problems as those affecting other EU countries, the fact is that in my country, too, employment has become a major concern.
That is why Michel Rocard's report should equally be taken very seriously in the Grand Duchy.
The reduction in working hours is a taboo for employers, who fear an increase in their costs, for employees, who fear a reduction in their earnings, and for governments, who take cover behind the contractual freedom of the social partners.
In Luxembourg, the debate on reducing working hours has never really got off the ground, the official line being that, in a small labour market at the heart of a large region with high rates of unemployment, reducing working hours would amount to a job creation scheme for border-crossers!
Despite this, the general approach adopted by Michel Rocard's report must be of interest to us.
It starts by recording, very appropriately, that whereas annual working hours in 1880 totalled 3, 000, that figure had fallen to 1, 700 by 1970, while the same period saw an increase in earned income and a sharp rise in productivity.
No economy has been exempt from this general trend.
What Michel Rocard is now proposing are courses of action which are inevitable even for a country with a low rate of unemployment.
Why?
Simply because, quite apart from all the variables previously taken into consideration for combatting unemployment (economic growth, training, reduction in the secondary wage costs, taxation, labour market management), he is systematically incorporating the 'working hours' variable in all its many aspects - the reduction of total weekly working hours, gradual retirement by stages, ' selected' part-time working, the reduction in overtime, all 'topped' by the systematic integration of lifelong education and training.
It is interesting to note that, as the discussions have proceeded, so Michel Rocard's proposals have dispelled many fears, both among the unions and among the employers, since on the one hand he is proposing to compensate for the burdens on undertakings and on the other he is not requiring any cut in incomes.
The idea is to dip into the ECU 350, 000 million (14, 000 billion Luxembourg francs!) which unemployment benefit costs in Europe in order to compensate for the costs incurred by undertakings in the event of a reduction in working hours, without any loss in income for the workforce and in exchange for the creation of new jobs.
Michel Rocard is opening new avenues, stimulating thought and action.
He proposes but does not impose.
He has discussed things, proved to be receptive to the criticisms and fears expressed in certain quarters.
His overall approach, then, is cautious.
He is asking the Commission to undertake studies and draft a recommendation to the Member States, he is inviting the social partners to the negotiating table, and he is inviting all concerned to bank on an approach which no one, previously, has really taken seriously.
The situation is too serious for us to be able to ignore this opportunity.
Unfortunately, I am afraid this report may be proposing a new 'good bad' idea.
What may the consequences be?
1.Who would pay the 'subsidies' granted to undertakings once the period for payment of unemployment benefit (a few months) has expired?
The taxpayer, with a corresponding burden on the community at large.2.One may doubt whether many undertakings can carry through their reorganization at a reasonable cost.3.The prolongation of the service life of equipment would result in difficult schedules.
The workforce would probably demand wage rises by way of compensation, and these, by increasing the cost of labour, would create unemployment.4.If productivity were to increase sufficiently, who can say that it would be in the interests of undertakings to increase the size of their workforce?For all these reasons - and others - one can only have serious doubts as to the viability of measures of this kind.
5.I should make it clear that I am certainly not opposing a reduction in working hours.
But it is for the undertakings, in negotiation with the social partners, to study the question on the basis of their situations.I say yes to negotiations at company level, an increase in part-time and flexitime working!
But I say no to the kind of technocratic tampering that might have such serious consequences for employment and competitiveness!
I shall therefore be unable to vote for this report. I shall abstain if the PPE's amendments are accepted.
As representative of the Green Group I naturally welcome this report on using shorter working hours as one weapon in the battle against unemployment.
Today's labour market is distorted, since a large number of people are without work while at the same time those who are in work are working a great deal of overtime.
A reduction in working hours is therefore necessary to put this situation right.
Lower unemployment will also improve the state finances of the Member States.
For workers a reduction in working hours can only be a good thing, since their quality of life will improve and the social gulf which exists between those in work and those without it will be reduced.
In connection with a reduction in working hours it is also appropriate to reduce employers' contributions, in order to encourage companies to appoint more staff, and to increase environmental and energy taxes to make it expensive to pollute the natural environment.
This report is a step in the right direction.
However, it is important to point out that I do not support the idea of the EU deciding how this should be done; it is an issue which should be dealt with through intergovernmental cooperation rather than supranational decisions.
I have voted for the Rocard report.
I did not do so because I believed that it would solve the problem of high unemployment in Europe.
However, this is part of the debate which has to be conducted since proposals for the reorganisation and reduction of working hours, flexible working hours and flexible forms of work are just some of the ideas which must be tested.
No proposal should be regarded as unimportant before it has been tested to see if it can help solve the problem of the 18-20 million unemployed.
A reduction in working hours will also improve the quality of life of those in work today - many have long hours and have to work a long day.
20 million unemployed in the 15 states of the European Union, 52 million citizens living below the poverty line: this is a disastrous situation which strikes fear into us and paralyses our imaginations.
We adopt social flanking measures or measures to encourage recruitment, which are costing fortunes to all our countries: ECU 350, 000 million (or more than 2 billion francs, 4.5 % of the gross national product of each Member State, 120, 000 francs per unemployed person per year), yet without creating any jobs, without restoring the dignity of the millions suffering from exclusion, without giving any hope to our millions of young people.
What we need is a different way of organizing society, a different way of organizing working hours.
It is time to be bold, to have new ideas.
For this reason, I can only thank Michel Rocard for having worked so hard on this subject, giving priority to the human aspect of this challenge.
In his report, Michel Rocard makes proposals which will be accepted by a large majority in this Parliament - I have no doubt of that.
The 32-hour working week makes sense in historical terms.
Let me remind you that in 1880 people in Europe worked for 3200 hours a year - today, they work half as long!
And technological changes are forcing us to accelerate this process.
Only a massive reduction in working hours, only a different way of organizing work, more flexible, with more diversification as between jobs, negotiated between the social partners, can meet the challenges of unemployment, with a statute of equality guaranteeing the same rights, the same safeguards, the same career prospects.
10 % more people could be recruited and millions of new jobs created in the European Union!
The critical problem is still the problem of earnings - of wages.
Michel Rocard's original idea deserves our full attention.
The wage compensation could be provided either by direct subsidy based on savings made on the cost of unemployment, or by changing the social security contributions: the contributions could be cut by half up to 32 hours, and multiplied by 4 over and above that. Which, at the same time, would be a strong deterrent to challenging the additional hours, the equivalent of 3 or 4 million jobs in Europe.
The rapporteur favours negotiation between the social partners in order to implement this device.
Will this approach be effective in every country? I doubt it as far as France is concerned, when we see the current stagnation of negotiations on working hours: in all probability, legislative action will be needed.
The 32-hour working week, selective part-time working, progressive retirement, the reduction in overtime will bring a change in lifestyle.
Allowing people two or three days off each week means one more day devoted to a different way of living.
As was clear from the debate here in the House, this report by Mr Rocard has been met with a great deal of criticism and scepticism.
This is not only due to the fact that the fixing of working hours is typically a national matter, and in several Member States one which is the subject of agreements.
It is also because our experience so far with the reduction of working hours, introducing different systems of leave and so on in the individual Member States has not been especially positive.
At best, schemes of this kind could be described as welfare-promoting measures with no stimulating effect on employment.
This applies in particular to the private sector.
In this context, it is worth pointing out that unemployment throughout Europe - despite an accompanying fall in working hours - has kept on rising over the last 20 to 25 years.
The reason for this is not just that the private sector has been forced to offset increasing wage costs - both direct and indirect - through rationalization.
It is also that there has been a steadily growing gap between the skills of the unemployed and those which private firms now have to demand.
The cost in time and money of training a highly specialized workforce is in itself a barrier to maintaining existing jobs, when a skilled worker leaves a firm temporarily or for good.
A general obligation to reduce working hours will have a similar effect.
The problem of unemployment therefore cannot be solved by measures which do not take account of the skills requirements, now or in the future, of what is an increasingly internationalized labour market.
In the light of this, I am obliged to vote against the report drawn up by Mr Rocard.
The customers decide the jobs, politicians can only create fair and just framework conditions.
Austria has the second-lowest unemployment rate in Europe and the lowest youth unemployment rate in the world because of its very efficient dual training and further training system.
Education must not disregard the labour market.
A year after our accession to the EU, we saw a historic employment peak.
First one needs orders, only then can one distribute work, and then performance has to be rewarded.
That is the only guarantee for an ecosocial economy.
In Sweden the number of hours worked annually in a fulltime job has, on average, increased by 100 hours per year.
A normal working week of 40 hours is in reality 40.7 hours.
During the same period 600, 000 people have become unemployed.
What is missing from the Rocard report is any reference to the distribution of work between the sexes.
In Sweden wage-earning fathers of small children work most of all.
It is the endeavour of the Swedish party of the left to achieve a more just distribution of working hours between men and women, between wage-earning and unpaid work.
We therefore regard a reduction of the working week as the best method but share the rapporteur's view of the necessity of shortening working hours as a means of reducing the number of unemployed. We are therefore voting for the report.
It is a challenge to the European institutions, the governments and the social agents to end the waste of one of Europe's most valuable assets, its human resources.
The challenge is complex and unfortunately there are no easy solutions.
It would send the wrong message to the people to say that reducing working hours is going to produce full employment.
The ideas and proposals in the Rocard report are additional factors in the range of measures that need to be mobilized.
It needs to be reiterated that economic growth is necessary but not sufficient.
Technological innovation needs to be socially assimilated.
Man has made major technical advances to liberate himself from the heaviest work and to increase efficiency, but technical advances cannot and must not lead to men sinking into unemployment and despair.
As well as directly productive activities we also have to consider those which improve the quality of life.
It is essential to organize and distribute across those two great sectors.
The resources of social solidarity need to be dedicated to financing work and not just promoting inactivity.
This challenge of distributing work is difficult to meet with simplistic formulae.
Society needs to find its own equilibria.
Firms must be a point of encounter and agreement.
The family, as the basic economic and social unit, is another fundamental pole of redistribution.
To achieve that, certain essential revolutionary fiscal measures can make it possible to ensure sufficient income for each home and allow its members a flexible range of options.
On the other hand, measures like environmental taxes which ease employment cannot be dismissed either.
Changes in habits of production and consumption would be another useful measure.
I consider the report as a whole to be good and have absolutely nothing against the Commission undertaking a study of the situation.
However, I have reservations on the following points.
Recital F: I disapprove of the suggestion made here that taxes and social security contributions hinder recruitment.
Recital M: It is suggested here that public and private employees should be treated differently in any process to reduce working hours, with one category receiving compensation for loss of wages and the other not.
This is completely wrong.
All employees should of course be treated in the same way, irrespective of their employer.
Paragraph 2: This is where the central idea of the report is advanced, that is that social security contributions should be reduced if less than 32 hours per week are worked and increased if more than 32 are worked.
In the Explanatory Statement it is suggested that they should increase to ECU 4.5 per hour if more than 39 hours a week are worked and/or be reduced by ECU 4 per hour if the working week is less than 32 hours.
This would mean that a half-time job (20 hours per week) would cost SEK 50 or 100 less an hour than a full-time job.
I am sceptical about this differentiation because it will result in two part-time jobs being created rather than one full-time job and this is a development that we in Sweden wish to prevent.
Finally, I believe that the rapporteur could have mentioned increased employment in the public sector as an effective means of reducing unemployment.
This is much neglected within the Union and there are many things which need doing in schools, the infrastructure sector, the care sector, health care and in the care of the elderly which could give the EU's 20 million unemployed meaningful employment.
I am nevertheless voting for the report as I believe that its main demand - that the issue should be investigated - is very reasonable.
With the Rocard report I presume Parliament will finally state quite clearly that it will not be possible to tackle the scandal of mass unemployment in Europe, which now affects more than 30 million people, without massive cuts in working time.
The promises made in the past by the neo-liberal-conservative political model, namely that it would fight mass unemployment and social exclusion by means of growth and by a reduction in the incomes of the employed, have proved hollow and impossible to keep.
The fact that the European Parliament is beginning to suggest a clearer alternative to this mistaken approach is doubtless a positive sign.
It remains to be hoped that Parliament will define this approach in more concrete and specific terms in forthcoming reports and resolutions.
But even on the basis of these interim proposals, all the social forces in the Member States who are striving for an economic and social changeover to a new type of full employment can and will give new impetus to the public debate.
However, the amendments by Mr Rocard and the Group of the Party of European Socialists that were accepted during yesterday's compromise discussions show on what a weak political basis these discussions are currently still being conducted.
It was evidently considered necessary rapidly to abandon the central approach of re-allocating at least part of the current ECU 350 000 million spent in the Member States for the administration of unemployment on state support for the reduction of working time.
Moreover, the important task of replacing overtime payment with compensatory leave has been reduced to being merely a matter for study.
During the preliminary discussions on the report, the Greens managed to introduce and emphasize some ideas on integrating the instrument of a reduction of working time into a strategy of transition to a new development model that promotes sustained care of the environment and communication, makes the work process less intensive and hectic and gives women and men more choice in planning their lives fairly.
The Greens have supported this report as a positive signal even in the sadly weakened version now before us for decision, although they have also tried to check some of the worst attempts to water it down.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.40 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Communities' draft general budget for 1997
The next item is the presentation by the Council of the draft general budget for 1997.
Mr President, honourable Members, may I commence by saying how pleased I am to be here today to present to this plenary session the draft budget for the financial year 1997, established by the Council on 25 July this year.
I would stress at the outset a feature of the budgetary procedure this year, namely the cooperation between the three institutions, which, before the Council established the draft budget, united them in a genuine and frank discussion.
That is a feature we would hope to continue with.
The budgetary procedure set up by the Treaty should be the high point of collaboration between the institutions concerned.
The Interinstitutional Agreement of 1993 established the framework for such collaboration.
Since then the importance of cooperation has clearly increased year by year.
The procedure began this year in a spirit of cooperation.
It took account of the need for budgetary discipline which is greater than ever in the exceptional economic context of 1997.
The trialogue on the possible priorities for the coming year prompted extremely detailed discussions between the Council presidency, Parliament and the Commission, making it possible to set down the first markers by reconciling certain approaches.
Subsequently, our trialogue in early July made the Council aware of Parliament's principal concerns, particularly in the area of compulsory expenditure, and thus proved to be a valuable preparation for the meeting and conciliation held on the morning of the Budget Council on 25 July.
That meeting provided an opportunity for all sides to spell out the crucial points of the 1997 budgetary procedure and to take cognizance of the objectives they saw as essential in this particularly testing financial year.
It also allowed your representatives to raise specific issues of concern to Parliament, in particular the possibility of a review of the Financial Perspective, the question of legal bases and some other matters.
The exchange of views on these issues proved to be extremely useful.
The ad hoc conciliation, particularly on agricultural expenditure and the fisheries agreements made it possible to bring substantially closer together the approaches of the two arms of the budgetary authority with the assistance of the Commission.
These talks showed the considerable amount of mutual understanding which exists.
The special economic and financial circumstances surrounding the 1997 budget may well have something to do with that.
However, whatever the reason, such close cooperation can only be advantageous to the Community and is to be welcomed.
In the light of these detailed exchanges of views with representatives of Parliament and the Commission, the Council established its draft budget for the financial year 1997.
In so doing, the Council was guided by the same principles of budgetary discipline and rigour as the Member States have set for themselves in 1997.
To achieve the same objective at Community level, the Council decided to reduce the preliminary draft budget by ECU 1, 000m in the area of agricultural expenditure and to make an identical reduction in the payment appropriations for structural operations.
It is also convinced that these reductions must go hand in hand with savings in internal policies and external measures, amounting to some ECU 550m in payment appropriations, together with corresponding savings in commitment appropriations.
The Council takes the view that these measures are inextricably linked and should run in parallel.
In particular, it is essential that agricultural expenditure and structural expenditure be given even-handed treatment.
These essential measures for the 1997 budget procedure constitute the crux of the discussions at the conciliation meeting on 25 July.
All those taking part acknowledged their prime importance.
Clearly, the Council regards it as absolutely vital that the European Parliament go along with this overall strategy and we hope that it will.
In that context, the Council noted with satisfaction that, when drawing up its guidelines for the 1997 budgetary procedure, Parliament was already aware and supportive of the need for budget entries to be as realistic as possible.
That is precisely the objective of the measures the Council advocates in this draft budget.
To limit the budget allocations to what is strictly necessary with an eye to the likely outcome without, however, impeding important Community policies or reneging on the Edinburgh commitments.
I now turn to the various components of the draft budget established by the Council on 25 July.
Let me begin with agricultural expenditure.
In this area the Council has amended the preliminary draft budget in two ways.
In the first place, under the overall strategy I have just outlined, the Council made an ECU 1, 000m reduction in the appropriations for heading 1 of the Financial Perspective.
This reduction applies horizontally to all budget items under this heading, with the exception of the beef and veal chapter and BSE temporary reserve.
In so doing, the Council entered appropriations amounting to ECU 40, 805m under the EAGGF Guarantee Section, an amount which is ECU 1, 000m under the agricultural guideline laid down for the 1997 financial year.
Account being taken of the monetary reserve expenditure, it amounts in all to ECU 41, 305m, 0.6 % down on the 1996 financial year.
Moreover, in accordance with the conclusions reached at the ad hoc conciliation meeting, the Council agreed to enter appropriations totalling ECU 62m in the reserve, drawn from the three budget headings for which the Commission agreed that its budget estimates could be altered.
Starting with agriculture, therefore, we want to display our commitment to reasonable budgetary proposals and achieve a 1997 budget which remains at the 1996 level.
In the area of structural operation the Council entered the entire amount of commitment appropriations suggested by the Commission, that is, ECU 31, 477m in accordance with the undertakings entered into by the European Council in Edinburgh.
However, as regards the payment appropriations for this heading, the Council introduced the second aspect of its overall savings strategy by effecting a ECU 1, 000m reduction in the payment appropriations.
In so doing the Council wishes to assure you that this measure can be undertaken without jeopardizing the smooth operation of the essential policy funded by such appropriations in the light of the out-turn in the recent past.
On the basis of this criterion the reduction has no effect on Objectives 1 and 6 of the Structural Funds, nor is the Cohesion Fund affected in any way by this reduction.
The Council accepted all the allocations proposed in the preliminary draft budget for the Cohesion Fund, namely, ECU 2, 749m in commitment appropriations and ECU 2, 326m in payment appropriations, which represents an increase of about 12.5 % in commitment appropriations and just over 21 % in payment appropriations over the 1996 figures.
For structural operations as a whole the amounts entered in the draft budget stand at ECU 31, 477m in commitment appropriations and ECU 26, 300m in payment appropriations, increases of ECU 2, 346m and ECU 545.8m respectively.
Where internal policies are concerned the Council has again this year placed emphasis on two of the Community's priority policies, namely research and trans-European networks; that is, B6 and B5.
In that context the Council agreed to all the commitment appropriations proposed by the Commission for sub-section B6, namely ECU 3, 450m, an increase of 8.4 % over 1996.
Where payment appropriations were concerned the Council accepted the allocation suggested for the Joint Research Centre.
For title B6(5) - that is, completion of the second and third Framework Programmes - and titles B6(7) and B6(8), the fourth Framework Programme, the Council has made a 5 % reduction in payment appropriations.
Given the 1995 rate of out-turn a reduction of this nature will not hamper normal funding of these programmes.
With regard to the trans-European networks - that is, B5 - the Council accepted the preliminary draft budget allocations in commitment appropriations for financial support for transport networks, namely ECU 352m, an increase of ECU 72m on 1996.
The payment appropriations entered, while slightly down on the preliminary draft budget, nonetheless show a 25 % rate of growth.
For the energy networks the draft budget is slightly under the preliminary draft budget and in the telecommunications field the draft budget equals the 1996 budget where commitment appropriations are concerned and exceeds it for payment appropriations.
For this title as a whole the Council has entered substantial amounts, namely ECU 489m in commitment appropriations and ECU 346m in payment appropriations, which corresponds to an increase of ECU 79m in commitment appropriations and of ECU 69m in payment appropriations.
In this way the Council has clearly demonstrated its wish to give preference to these two major Community policies which can exercise a direct influence on growth and unemployment.
As a result, where other internal policies are concerned, the Council has had to make some deliberate choices.
For example, it has laid stress on essential policies such as education, vocational training and youth and other social operations.
It has also reserved a special place for policies which are now well established such as that on the environment, consumer protection, the internal market and industry.
The Council has allowed a margin of ECU 348.2m in this heading of the Financial Perspective.
It trusts that the other arm of the budgetary authority, namely Parliament, will approve these or equivalent measures and join the Council in a policy of confining itself to realistic budget entries in the particular context of 1997.
I come now to the last major Community policy area funded from the budget, namely external measures.
To cover the whole of this sub-section the Council has entered a total of ECU 5, 310m in commitment appropriations and ECU 4, 106.5m in payment appropriations.
These numbers are practically the same as the 1996 budget.
The Council considers that the budget authority cannot avoid its duty to accord preferential treatment to those areas that represent high priorities for the Community.
Thus it has entered all the commitment appropriations provided for in the preliminary draft budget for the Central and East European countries and Mediterranean third countries in line with the conclusions of the Cannes European Council.
Regarding international fisheries agreements and in keeping with the conclusions of the conciliation procedure on compulsory expenditure, the Council agreed to insert a second budget heading under the relevant article entitled 'Contributions to international organizations' and to increase the amount transferred to the reserve.
The sustained effort in the field of cooperation with Latin America and Asia continues.
Another essential cooperation policy vis-à-vis the independent states of the former Soviet Union has been allocated ECU 541m in commitment appropriations and ECU 445m in payment appropriations.
The share for TACIS has been increased slightly in relation to 1996.
Cooperation with the former Yugoslavia has also been allocated substantial funding.
Elsewhere the draft budget broadly follows the Commission's requests for other cooperation measures, in particular, in respect of measures in favour of democracy and human rights, whether in Central and Eastern Europe and particularly Yugoslavia, in the newly independent states, in Mongolia, Latin America or in other countries.
Thus, while on the one hand the Council has endeavoured to maintain essential policies by agreeing to substantial commitment appropriations, it also considered that it can be more realistic with the payment of appropriations needed in the light of expected out-turns.
Finally, I come to expenditure on the administrative operation of the Community's institutions.
Aware of the problems which are currently entailing severe restrictions in public expenditure in the Member States, the Council is advocating and implementing a very stringent approach to expenditure in this area.
In providing for an overall amount of ECU 4244.6 million, the draft budget represents more or less the status quo in real terms.
In its decisions the Council has been particularly stringent in respect of certain types of expenditure, such as consultancy costs, and expenditure relating to restaurants and canteens, data-processing and transport equipment.
The Council has not agreed to any new posts, except for the Commission, and in a very restricted sense for the Court of Auditors and the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions' common structure, and then only for requirements arising from enlargement.
Under this heading the Council has left a margin which it regards as essential.
I would stress, however, that, as for last year, the Council considers that this margin should not be used for the requirements of any single institution.
Those then are the main points of the draft budget established by the Council. This draft budget was not easily established.
It required a considerable effort on the part of every Member State and a good deal of compromise.
But it must be said that it achieves the sought-after balance in its measures, which mirror the major domestic objective which Member States must strive to attain in order to implement economic and monetary union on our stated schedule.
This objective cannot but have a significant effect on the Community budget as well.
Moreover, the Council is very much aware that its draft budget constitutes only one stage in the budget procedure.
It is conscious of the fact that close collaboration, and even a shared understanding with your Parliament, is indispensable for implementing a budget which is well balanced.
There is no need to emphasize the exceptional nature of the measures which the Council is proposing in this draft budget, nor is there any doubt that an agreement acceptable to both the budget authorities, achieved with the help of the Commission, would be bound to augur well for the future development of relations between the two authorities and for the well-being of the Community as a whole.
On behalf of the presidency, I should like to say that it will spare no effort in working towards that end throughout the budget procedure in order to obtain, together with Parliament and the Commission, a budget which most closely reflects the Community's interests.
In conclusion, I wish to thank everyone who has been involved in this exercise and who will doubtless continue to be so, within the two arms of the budgetary authority and the Commission.
In particular, I thank the Committee on Budgets, its chairman, Detlev Samland, who unfortunately cannot be here, Laurens Brinkhorst, the general rapporteur, Mr Fabra Vallés, the rapporteur of the institution's budget, also the Commissioner, Erkki Liikanen, and the relevant departments of the Commission and, finally, the Council secretariat, particularly Joseph Lentz, who has been of such assistance to me.
Since assuming the presidency I have come to appreciate the huge amount of time, effort and commitment which all of those people, and others indeed, have brought to this challenging task, and I want to say thank you for that.
Mr President, the Union cannot stand aside from the efforts made in most Member States to work themselves out of excessive budget deficits and public debt.
As the moment of truth for the successful start of economic and monetary union approaches, these efforts have become urgent and inevitable.
The preliminary draft budget presented in April was up to that challenge: growth rate, without BSE, below the rate of inflation, significant margins in Categories 3, 4 and 5, and a growth in personnel down to zero, except for enlargement.
Since then, however, budgetary moves in the Member States have required additional measures both for the current year and for 1997.
It is understandable that Member States in this situation took a hard look at Community expenditure and found a majority for a so-called zero growth draft budget.
For this the Council majority decided to take risks.
It is a safe bet that the unavoidable legal claims in Categories 1 and 2 can each be met with ECU 1 billion less than estimated in the PDB.
Given the sizeable under-execution of these categories in recent years this is not an unreasonable risk.
But as long as the Council does not vote real savings in the underlying regulations, the Commission may have to propose a supplementary budget if credits turn out to be insufficient in the course of the next year.
As far as Categories 3, 4 and 5 are concerned, they cannot escape from exceptional rigour.
But at the same time the Community cannot switch off the lights.
The tighter the budget, the more the priorities have to be right.
The priorities of the draft budget are not the priorities of the Commission.
All activities need to be reviewed.
But the investments in the future of the Union have to be maintained or even strengthened.
Funds for research, for transEuropean networks, in particular for transport, and for small- and medium-sized enterprises are investments in the future.
Numerous European Councils have stressed their priorities and the Commission remains convinced of their importance, as I understood the presidency does also.
The draft budget wants to stop the pilot programme for voluntary civil service without giving it a proper chance, cut the funds for consumer protection, cut funds for the fight against fraud, reduce the information budget by more than half and cut funds for programmes for equality between men and women.
These cuts weaken the fabric of the Union, which needs to be strengthened, in particular in difficult times.
Funds for environmental protection should at least be maintained.
In external policies the draft budget eliminates the contribution to the European Development Fund, which the European Council at Cannes had decided.
It cuts food aid at a time when the list of recipient countries has considerably expanded.
To some extent the Council's draft budget priorities are due to a mechanical and uneven application of the principle of legal base.
This underlines again, as I have pointed out repeatedly, the importance of an agreement between the Institutions on this very question.
Progress seems to have been made at a technical level and this now needs political agreement.
Clarity on this question would be an important achievement of the 1997 budget procedure.
The Commission is ready to contribute as much as it can to this end.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office has just said that he appreciates the spirit of dialogue with Parliament.
He means that personally and I would like to say that I have no doubt that he is a fine man and a fine President-in-Office.
But there is a difference between form and content.
I do not hesitate to call the Council the stalemate Institution of the European Union.
On all the essential points the Council has been very self-congratulatory while making its own life very easy.
Before making some specific comments, I should like to say something about the outcome of the dialogue.
Here not only is it a stalemate Institution but also an Institution which wants to turn the clock back.
On the substance of the matter we are further away than we were a couple of years ago.
Certainly we have had a lot of meetings but the ad hoc procedure has not yet been closed and the Council says, with dry eyes, on fisheries, for instance, that it is clear that it should be compulsory expenditure, when it knows that is not the view of Parliament.
On the legal base, we have made no improvement whatsoever and there is a danger - and the Commissioner has already made the point - that we shall turn the clock back.
We have more than forty budget lines where the Council has either cut back totally or nearly totally on the grounds of the legal base.
That is not the way that the two budgetary institutions can work together and Parliament cannot simply accept this without drawing certain conclusions.
On issues such as comitology, the European Development Fund and the famous issue of compulsory and noncompulsory expenditure, it is a stalemate Institution and a turn-back-the-clock Institution.
I do not see any willingness among a large part of the Council to make any progress.
I now come to the Financial Perspective - perhaps the most sorry development we have seen this year.
President Santer of the Commission has of course made proposals for changing the Financial Perspective - the revision which was wanted by Parliament.
The President-in-Office understood that was the basis of our willingness to work on reasonable margins in the various categories.
As you know, Mr Colom i Naval and myself attended the Council meeting last Monday and since the Council wants to be transparent it is my duty to report on what we heard.
We heard that there was not a chance in hell that there would be any change in the Financial Perspective.
It was said a little more politely and perhaps I did not hear all eleven translations - but basically that is what I heard.
So, we are in a very difficult situation.
We are faced with a situation where Parliament is being asked to undress itself, to undertake a collective striptease while the Council clothes itself in a cloak of holiness.
That cannot be the outcome of the dialogue we want on first and second reading.
The Council is also a pretending Institution - it pretends to save.
Commissioner Liikanen made the point very clearly: ECU 1 billion in structural funds to be saved in agriculture.
But these are not real savings.
This situation has quite clearly been caused by the lack of willingness on the part of Members of the Council to spend structural funds.
In agriculture the so-called reserve has already been eaten up four weeks after the reserve was entered under BSE.
Yesterday there was a suggestion that we should have ECU 1 billion simply thrown over the counter.
All those present here - and unfortunately there are more members of the public than Members of Parliament here - know that ECU 1.3 billion is quite a significant sum for a normal household.
There is no democratic political control at either national or European level so long as it is a question of compulsory expenditure.
That brings me to the question of the priorities and the holier-than-thou attitude of the Council.
How can the President-in-Office say that essential policies were not affected? He mentions consumer policy which was cut - and I have the list here - by 40 %, energy policy by 80 %, transport policy by 62 % and the internal market by 33.88 %.
That is not the way to enter into real dialogue.
I should like to end with two specific questions to the Commission.
I should like to ask the Commissioner, who is very courageous, whether he could say something about his support for non-governmental organizations not only in the A but also in the B part of the budget.
Secondly, because I appreciate enormously what the Commission is doing in terms of reform of the administration, could the Commissioner say what has been done about the transfer of appropriations in respect of posts? 300 people are concerned but if I have understood correctly very little has been happening.
It would be much appreciated if you could reply to these questions.
Mr President, the President-in-Office of the Council told us he was pleased to address the House, and looking around me, I am pleased that at least the interested parties are here.
The Committee on Budgets not only recognizes but praises the fact that the budget reflects the continued climate of rigour and austerity indispensable to achieving monetary union, and follows the lines agreed at the meeting of the delegations from the Council and Parliament.
As regards the 1997 budget procedure, I want to stress the significant agreement achieved in the tripartite dialogue between the Council, the Commission and Parliament on 16 April, which limited the creation of new items within the commitments already contracted in the context of the enlargement.
The Council proposes to strengthen the language departments as regards Finnish and Swedish, as well as persevere in the improvement of the cost/efficiency ratio, on which, of course, we are in agreement.
The Committee on Budgets pointed out that, in the first draft of the 1997 budget and in the area of administrative costs, the limit of heading 5 had been exceeded by ECU 14.55 million.
We note that the Council's draft has not only removed the lack of financial cover, but left a certain margin.
As regards the adjustments made to the credits in Chapter XI - Staff on active service - we think it is right to have incorporated the most recent information available on the evolution of certain economic parameters.
For the information of the Assembly - those present - the forecasts have been adjusted downwards.
As regards the credits in Title II - Buildings, equipment and miscellaneous operating costs - it has to be said that the most striking increase - 49.81 % -relates to Parliament but, in the end, we are all aware of that the Council has taken on commitments which forces Parliament to follow suit with the same commitments.
On the other hand, the credits allocated to the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions have been revised downwards.
Greater precision as regards the Court of justice, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions would not disturb us, Mr President.
We are glad that account has been taken of the report from the Court of Auditors - and as I am mentioning it, I want to pay homage to its good work - on the leasings for the Court of Justice.
This report, which was requested by Parliament, will serve to unblock an entry of ECU 60 million reducing the last instalment on the annexes for the Court of Justice or, through renegotiation with the government of Luxembourg, permitting a reduction of ECU 6 million annually in leasings.
I believe the Court of Justice should also take advantage of the current state of the building market to obtain a general renegotiation downwards of these leasings.
Gentlemen of the Council, I shall not hide from you the fact that, at this stage in the procedure, Parliament is still awaiting additional information on the Palais . What is the state of the building?
What is happening about the equipment?
What are the actual leasings?
Will they be renegotiated? Because they can be renegotiated, as I have just said.
As regards the Economic and Social Council and the Committee of the Regions, I am sorry that Chapter XX - Buildings - of the Council's draft does not consider the needs of these institutions now that the European Parliament has announced its intention of leaving the Van Maerlan building, agreeing to the conclusions and questions I put to it in my document No 5.
I would just mention that in our draft we only have allocations committed for the first six months.
What will happen if this is not brought to a conclusion in the required time and Parliament has to go on finding the rent for Van Maerlan? That is not provided for in our budget.
And finally, it just remains for me to mention the lack of agreement in the system of calculating and invoicing the average cost of interpreting per day.
I agree with you that this is not easy, given that we are not even in agreement inside Parliament, just as we cannot reach an understanding on the increase in pensions costs.
We think there should be further study, thought and information about the fact that a quarter of the allocations authorized in 1996 - ECU 94 million - and intended for redundancy payments is reserved for invalidity pensions.
Mr President, those are the comments from the Committee on Budgets on the Council report.
In spite of great coincidence of view, we find ourselves obliged to present some amendments to protect the proper functioning of the institutions.
You are witnesses to the exceptional difficulty of the 1997 budget.
I want you to know that my only compensation in this budget is working with you, because you are people who, so far, have been very well-prepared and open to dialogue.
Both the President-in-Office and the Commissioner have asked to give a brief response.
Mr President, enough has been said to have a considerable debate here, and I am sure we will have that at a future time.
I thank those who spoke and I have listened carefully to what they have said.
Let me reiterate: we are living in an unusual period where all of the Member States are under varying degrees of difficulty with their own budgets, and clearly that has to be reflected in our work.
That is why this is a particularly difficult year.
The Commissioner spoke about legal bases, as did Mr Brinkhorst; that is a key issue.
We are working constructively with the authorities concerned and we hope during our presidency and in Council to make progress on this issue which, we are all agreed, is not just desirable, but absolutely necessary.
The Commissioner's choices and priorities are of course somewhat different to our own, but as long as he appreciates that this is a time for making difficult choices and having to relinquish some of the things that we would all like, we can work together and, I hope, find a solution that we can all agree with in the end.
Mr Brinkhorst was kind enough to refer to the fact that I have tried - and I will continue to do so - to bridge the gap that does exist, but the Council and Parliament have to have different priorities at times and there will always be a feeling that cooperation could be better and we can but work in that direction.
But I think that the level of dialogue this year was very real and we are not finished yet.
I can say little about the revision of the financial perspective.
As you know, it is down on the agenda for the Ecofin meeting this weekend and I have no doubt that we will return to that subject.
But it is not really for me to deal with it two days ahead of my Minister for Finance, who was dealing with it in Dublin at the weekend.
I have noted what Mr Fabra Vallés has said.
Many of the points were of such a detailed nature that I do not think he would expect me to respond to them this afternoon, but I will note them and I have no doubt that we will have further dialogue on them.
Mr Brinkhorst raised two rather detailed questions.
First of all as far as support to nongovernmental organizations is concerned he took the valuable initiative of organizing a hearing next week in the European Parliament.
We have cooperated with this.
We have sent letters to all the organizations and asked them to be present.
I do not want to make an impromptu analysis of this report today but we are willing, later, to present an assessment to the Committee on Budgets.
The same is true regarding the transfer of credits for employment.
I fully agree with him that if there is a transfer of credits for employment the idea is to decrease the dependence on external work.
If that is not the case then there is no logic or justification for our efforts.
I am prepared to report to the Budgets Committee on how this situation develops.
Finally, to Minister Coveney, the Commission is willing to cooperate on a budget based on the utmost rigour.
But as I said before, when there is great rigour we need to agree on priorities.
This is even more important under such circumstances than when there is a wide margin for expenditure.
The debate is closed.
Events in Iraq
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on recent events in Iraq.
Mr President, I am aware that Members have been carefully watching events in Iraq.
The conflict in northern Iraq has led to a serious humanitarian emergency and there is even the threat of further consequences, with the possibility of military action between Iraq and the United States.
We all know that for many years the Iraqi dictatorship has brought great suffering on its own people and on its neighbours.
Abroad, its expansionist ambitions and seizure of Kuwait caused the Gulf War with all the huge suffering and destruction that entailed, and even now Iraq still continues to threaten the stability of the Gulf.
At home, it has consistently and massively violated the human rights of its own population, in defiance of Security Council resolutions, as well as the international human rights instruments.
In southern Iraq, the regime has devastated the lifestyle of the Marsh Arab people in an attempt to subject them to Baghdad's control.
In the north its oppression of its Kurdish population in the aftermath of the Gulf War was so severe that the international community had to step in and set up safe havens to protect them from the regime.
As a result of the oppression of its own population, the international community felt obliged in the aftermath of the Gulf War to modify the basic rule in international relations of the inviolability of frontiers and to assume responsibility for ensuring, through the No-Fly-Zones, that Saddam Hussein eased the pressure on his own population.
Unfortunately, despite this international protection, it did not prove possible to resolve the bitter and long-standing differences between the two main Kurdish parties of Iraq - the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan - after the Gulf War.
For some reason, a temporary cease-fire in the hostilities between the two factions was established and certain confidence-building measures were agreed between them, but the fragile peace that existed through 1995 has recently given way to renewed hostilities.
The fighting between the factions and the general state of lawlessness in northern Iraq added to the existing pressures on the area's stability, and led to border incursions by both Turkey and Iran.
Turkey argued that its incursions were justified on the grounds that elements of its own outlawed Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK, have been availing of their relative protection in northern Iraq to strike at Turkey.
Iran for its part claimed that a subgroup of the KDP had been mounting attacks on its territory from northern Iraq.
The volatile situation has offered Saddam Hussein the opportunity and pretext for reasserting his influence over the whole of Iraq, which had been denied to him by the establishment of the safe havens.
His incursion into the Kurdish areas upset the element of stability that Resolution 688 and the subsequently-established No-Fly-Zone had brought about and led to last week's US missile attacks.
The situation in northern Iraq was discussed by EU Foreign Ministers at their informal meeting in Tralee on 7 and 8 September last.
As it was an informal meeting there were, of course, no formal declarations, but I believe that on the basis of the Tralee discussion there is a broad measure of agreement among Member States on the central issues of the current conflict.
I would list the areas of agreement as follows.
The Union is greatly concerned at the potential for large-scale deaths and economic and social disruption involved in incursions into northern Iraq by outside forces, including those of the Iraqi regime.
The Union attaches major importance to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq.
The Union remains in favour of the maintenance of a Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq.
There is agreement on the need for the continued existence of a No-Fly-Zone in Iraq as a means of controlling the oppressive policies of the Iraqi Government against the people of Iraq.
The European Union is still willing to pursue contacts with the neighbouring countries in the region with a view to de-escalation of tensions in northern Iraq.
The Union wishes to ensure that steps are taken to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi civilian population, and of children in particular, through the implementation of Security Council Resolution 986, which would allow the sale of Iraqi oil to pay for food as soon as conditions permit.
The Union will continue to pursue these objectives in cooperation with the international community through all available channels.
As Vice-President Marín of the Commission will explain to you in detail, the Union, which has a long-standing commitment to alleviating the humanitarian plight of the population in northern Iraq, intends to respond to the current refugee emergency as generously as resources allow.
The estimates of the number of refugees are currently put at about 150, 000 on the Iraqi side of the border, and about 59, 000 which have been allowed to enter Iran.
The presidency has also instructed the Troika Heads of Mission in Ankara to request the Turkish authorities to remove recent administrative changes in NGOs working from Turkey into northern Iraq, so that the NGOs can be better placed to help alleviate the humanitarian consequences of the current situation in northern Iraq.
We are also concerned that local Iraqi aid workers on EU projects should be covered by the amnesty recently announced by the Iraqi regime in respect of northern Iraq.
The presidency and Commission representatives in Ankara will seek assurances from Mr Barzani, leader of the KDP, regarding the safety of local aid workers employed on EU projects at a meeting in northern Iraq tomorrow, Thursday, 19 September.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council Mitchell, the Commission is naturally very concerned about the increase in tension in northern Iraq and the humanitarian situation caused by the recent military conflicts.
The risk of destabilization in such a strategically important region is a cause of deep concern for all, although the latest information appears to indicate that the danger of an aggravation of the conflict has decreased.
As the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Mitchell, has just pointed out, the European Union reaffirms the need to respect the territorial integrity of all the states of the region, including Iraq, and calls on all the governments in the area to respect this basic principle of international law.
The European Union continues to be firmly convinced of the need to apply in their entirety all the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council relating to Iraq, emphasizing the obligation on Iraq to respect Security Council Resolution 688 and refrain from taking action against the Kurdish people or against other minorities in Iraq.
In this context, the Foreign Ministers condemned the Iraqi incursion into the Kurdish protection zone and called on the Iraqi government to withdraw its forces immediately, and the European Union also welcomed the agreement reached on Security Council Resolution 986 authorizing Iraq to export oil in exchange for humanitarian supplies.
According to available information there has in fact been a large flow of refugees towards the Iranian frontier.
Some estimates put the number of refugees in the tens of thousands on the Iraqi side of the border, and this is in addition to approximately 40, 000 refugees who have already been permitted entry to Iran.
That country has appealed for international aid to cope with supplying food, medicine and shelter for those refugees.
Although tension is still great in the border area with the presence of PDK forces and several thousand UPK refugees who may be preparing for a counter-offensive, the Commission remains committed to alleviating the humanitarian situation of the innocent victims of the conflict to the extent that circumstances permit.
As requested by Mr Mitchell, I shall go on to inform you about the measures the Commission is preparing.
The Community's department for humanitarian aid (ECHO) is actively collecting all possible information through its partners in Iraq.
At this moment, the Commission is working in Iraq through 22 non-governmental organizations and it is expected that the relevant United Nations agencies will shortly draw up their estimates.
All this would allow ECHO to determine the priority interventions, with the aim of responding to the most urgent needs.
There is no need to remind Members of Parliament of the significant aid already given by the European Union to the Kurdish peoples of northern Iraq in the tragic situation following the end of the 1991 Gulf War.
From 1992, the European Union has committed approximately ECU 83 million to humanitarian aid in Iraq and 80 % of this sum has been specifically assigned to the north of the country.
In addition to this amount, the Commission has earmarked ECU 8 million for rehabilitation programmes in northern Iraq, and other amounts have also been channelled to NGOs for the development of decentralized cooperation.
We wanted to demonstrate not our satisfaction but at least our hope at knowing that the PDK forces undertook to protect the members of NGOs from possible attacks after the conquest of Arbil and Sulamainiya.
However, I must make it clear that we are very concerned about the Iraqi government's statement of 11 September that the amnesty promised to the Kurdish population of the north would not apply to Iraqi nationals, described as traitors because they have worked for international humanitarian aid agencies in northern Iraq.
The Commission wants to take this opportunity to point out that both the foreign members and the Kurdish members of the humanitarian aid teams funded by the European Community in northern Iraq have been carrying out purely humanitarian work and therefore the Iraqi regime cannot call them traitors, which is an unacceptable and unjustifiable form of pressure.
So the Commission calls on the Iraqi government to avoid any reprisals endangering the safety of either national or foreign staff members of NGOs in the north of the country.
And here we are pleased to say, as Mr Mitchell has already mentioned, that the President of the PDK, Mr Barzani, has agreed to deal with this issue - guaranteeing the safety and work of humanitarian aid staff in northern Iraq - at a meeting which will take place tomorrow, Thursday 19 September.
We hope this meeting will produce a commitment from the apparent victors of this war between Kurds that will protect Union and Kurdish staff working on the ground.
The Commission also agrees with Mr Mitchell that it is very important - noting that you will be discussing Turkey later - that the Turkish authorities should demonstrate their willingness to cooperate with the European Commission departments to facilitate all necessary measures and effectively allow us to use the Turkish corridor if necessary to channel humanitarian aid via Turkey to the north of the country.
That is very important.
That summarizes the position as I can report it at this moment to the European Parliament.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, let me begin by saying that I appreciate the humanitarian effort that the Commission is making in the region: it is very important and I do not undervalue it.
But I want to consider for a moment the general political aspects.
This is the second time that Saddam Hussein has put the international community, the UN and its resolutions to the test, and there is no doubt in our minds that the international community must respond, both in order to protect the Kurds and to prevent any resumption of the conflict between Iraq and Iran. It must respond with the aim of getting Iraqi troops to withdraw from the UN protected areas, but also by facing up to the variety of reasons which have in a few months wiped out or are likely to wipe out the prospects for what is albeit the difficult and gradual process of bringing peace to the region.
The situation in the region has greatly deteriorated compared to what it was a few months ago.
Many commentators have asked why Saddam Hussein chose this moment to open up a conflict with unpredictable results and assume there to be some kind of link with the forthcoming American elections.
I do not believe that to be the case.
I actually believe that the deterioration in relations between Israel and the Arab countries; the real danger that the measures for peace - taken by Arafat with the support of the moderate Arab governments - may collapse and fatally undermine the political role of those promoting that peace, has reopened the leadership battle in the Arab world.
Since the Gulf War, in recent years Arafat, Mubarak and King Hussein of Jordan have occupied the international political stage by adopting an approach that is strategically opposite to that of conflict with Israel and, in the final analysis, the United States and Europe.
Iraq, Iran, Libya and, although in a very different way, Syria, have remained outside the major political processes in the region.
Saddam Hussein is now relaunching his leadership bid in the face of the possible collapse of the Oslo agreements.
The decision of the Israeli Government to resume the policy of settlement in the Palestinian area instead of gradually withdrawing as provided for in the agreements calls radically into question the strategy based on territories in exchange for peace and has a more general impact on the political situation.
That policy makes negotiations with Lebanon and Syria on the Golan Heights impossible, by driving those countries back into a situation of conflict.
In those circumstances, it is possible that the many causes of crisis that exist in the region may again be triggered.
It is therefore our view that it is not merely a question of taking military action to deter Iraq but of evolving economic and security policy measures and doing so jointly with all countries that have influence in the area: the United States first and foremost, the European Union, Russia, the moderate Arab countries and the UN.
The limit on American intervention is that it is unilateral and partial.
The failure to involve the other protagonists weakens the pressure on Saddam Hussein. That, moreover, has already resulted in a dangerous distancing, including of the most moderate of the Arab states, and makes the UN appear an institution that is dependent - and excessively so - on the United States, and that is in the interest of neither party.
We must reflect on this if we want to tackle the situation generally and respond adequately to Saddam Hussein.
The first thing that is needed is for the European Union to shoulder its responsibilities by seeking cooperation with the United States, Russia and the Arab countries which have so far supported the Middle East peace process.
Mr President, it is good that the European Parliament can agree on the resolution condemning the Iraqi incursion into the Kurdish security zone and demanding the total withdrawal of all Iraqi forces.
The resolution stresses the seriousness of the fact that the Kurds cannot agree among themselves, urges the Council of Ministers and the Commission to arrive at a common position on the conflict and suggests that they should put themselves forward as possible mediators between the Kurdish parties the PUK and the KDP.
Certainly all this is good, Mr President, but on one of the central issues no agreement was reached in Parliament.
All the parties have tabled motions for resolutions. In its proposal the Liberal Group expresses its full support for the American missile attacks - a response to Saddam Hussein's incursion into the Kurdish security zone which he can understand.
We Liberals are glad that there is at least one party which dares to and can act. Other Groups on the other hand sought to distance themselves from or totally condemn the American action.
The only possible compromise was to say nothing at all on the subject in the joint resolution.
We in Parliament were no more able to arrive at a common standpoint than the Council.
Now Parliament is asking the Council of Ministers to try again.
Like everyone in my Group I hope that the Council will succeed.
In any event, Mr President, the Council should feel highly flattered at Parliament's great confidence in it.
Mr President, the statements by Mr Mitchell and Commissioner Marín seemed to us limited in terms of the issues broached, evasive in terms of the refusal of the Commission and the Council to assume responsibility and, as a whole, disappointing in the extreme.
The intervention by the Baghdad regime in the southern provinces of Iraqi national territory has provoked not only the desperate flight of Kurdish civilians and a political and military crisis with unpredictable consequences throughout the Middle East but has perpetuated and aggravated the unprecedented suffering of the whole of the Iraqi population.
While no-one can justify Saddam Hussein's action, similarly unjustified and completely disproportionate is the violent unilateral response of the United States, the long-range missile attacks, the preparations for further and more massive military operations against Iraq and the extension without any UN mandate of the no-fly-zones.
Those are the implicit and explicit conclusions reached at the United Nations itself by the great majority of those governments which participated in the 1991 Gulf War coalition.
We are therefore very surprised, not to say downright dismayed, to hear more or less veiled or explicit declarations supporting the foolish initiatives of the United States made in this House, or declarations that will at any rate be interpreted as such by the Clinton administration which, until yesterday, was able to count only on the support of Kuwait, Bahrain and the British Government.
That is not what we actually want to talk about but about the insensitivity of the House and the promoters of this resolution, which I read a few moments ago, in relation to the crime verging on genocide perpetrated over five years using sanctions as a weapon against the Iraqi civilian population.
There have been 560, 000 deaths from poverty and sickness between 1992 and January 1996-480, 000 of them children under the age of five.
The Clinton administration has now decided to extend those sanctions sine die and not even allow the exchange of limited exports of Iraqi oil for foodstuffs and medicines.
This is an abominable decision that runs counter to the explicit resolutions of the UN, and - over and above the escalation that is taking place - it is a decision that should be condemned by the civilized world and, we hope, by this House also.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we utterly condemn the intervention of the Iraqi troops.
This Iraqi regime destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages in the 1980s and killed and deported tens of thousands of people by the use of poison gas.
But I also criticize the renewed American attacks, for the USA and its allies are at least partly responsible for the desperate situation in this region and in Kurdistan.
The real tragedy, however, is that it is the conflict between the PUK and the KDP, which has cost some 2000 human lives over the past two years, that made the continued interference of the neighbouring states of Iran and Turkey and the most recent Iraqi invasion possible in the first place.
The leadership of both parties bear a heavy responsibility for the destabilization of Kurdish independence, and that is the real tragedy for the Kurds.
But let us also remember that after the Gulf War in 1991 part of the Kurdish territory in Iraq was declared a safe haven.
But under pressure of the economic blockade this area has become one of the poorest and least safe in the whole world.
That too is a cause of the outbreak of conflict between the two major Kurdish parties for power and resources.
For years the Kurdish people have not really been protected against constant attacks, including military attacks, on the part of Iran, on the part of Turkey and on the part of Iraq.
There was no real willingness to create a solid basis for inter-Kurdish reconciliation in the form of economic support and the international recognition of Kurdish selfadministration; for that is in fact the only real basis for a peaceful political solution, which is the only possible solution.
But first and foremost let me urgently appeal to the Kurdish parties finally to agree a cease-fire and to bring this insane war between them to an end.
I thank the President-in-Office for his very succinct and useful analysis of the situation.
However, as the presentations from the Council and then from the Commission rolled on, I came to ask myself increasingly what we were doing in the Kurdish area, or what were we doing in Iraq.
The answer seems to be that the European Union is providing humanitarian assistance and we are doing it very well.
We hope very much that our aid workers will not be touched by the problems, and that the people that have helped them will be immune.
That is a very minimalist ambition indeed.
It is very sad if the European Union's foreign affairs effort is to be limited to picking up the pieces after the damage has been done, however important that may be.
We have to ask ourselves some questions about the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy and where we are going in this year of the IGC.
Would it not be far better if, instead of the post-imperial fiction of having two Members of the EU who maintain that they are nuclear powers with a world role, which entitles them to a permanent seat on the Security Council, we were to get our act together as a European Union and say: let qualified majority voting apply to the CFSP. This would prevent any one state from vetoing action which the majority of Europeans would like to see.
Then we might find that the bizarre situation of people condemning Saddam Hussein and condemning the Americans for attacking him could be abandoned, because then we could say 'if there is something that Europe could do, let's do it' .
We are part of the international community.
All fifteen Member States belong to the United Nations.
The European voice and the European effort are not being maximized.
The last speaker, Claudia Roth, was right when she pointed to a democratic solution.
We have got to put our efforts into self-determination for the Kurdish people, autonomy within Northern Iraq and within Kurdistan in Turkey, all these areas, because that is the only way to a lasting solution.
From the point of view of international law there may be a number of critical questions concerning the recent military action of the United States in Iraq.
The setting up and protection of safe areas for the Kurds cannot be directly traced back to a resolution of the Security Council.
But it is clear that Iraq still poses a great threat to the Middle East.
The country is gradually recovering from the Gulf War.
Military power is being rebuilt, and there are indications that Iraq is disposing of weapons of mass destruction.
To sustain the balance of power in the region no-one would be served by the break-up of Iraq, but this country must be prevented from again having the opportunity to fulfil its aggressive ambitions.
Considered in that light, the American action deserves our support.
The lack of unanimity on the part of the European Union concerning the events in Iraq once again demonstrates the difficulty of putting in place a common foreign policy.
A difference of opinion such as this is not simply resolved by institutions or decision-taking procedures.
The sovereignty, traditions and interests of the Member States always seem to be of decisive significance.
Expectations should therefore not be too great.
This does not alter the fact that the difference of opinion between the United States and a number of European countries puts a great strain on transatlantic relations.
In view of the peace process between Israel and its neighbouring Arab states and vital interests in the Middle East, it is exactly in this region that Western allies must speak with one voice, and the situation must be prevented where the Middle East causes the United States and Europe to be played off against each other.
This would only work to the advantage of the aggression of Saddam Hussein.
Finally, regarding the Kurds, the position of this population is awkward.
The Kurds are once again the victims.
The struggle between Kurdish factions is one of the reasons, but the West cannot shy away from its partial responsibility.
It must act now, by giving priority to the protection of these people against Iraq and by stimulating autonomy for them.
Mr President, for electoral and oil-related reasons the Clinton administration has just ordered several thousand American troops to Kuwait.
In the wake of the recent unilateral attack perpetrated by the US air force and navy against Iraq, this action poses a new and grave threat to world peace.
This gunboat diplomacy is no longer even being concealed behind the facade of the UN.
Clinton cannot forgive the Iraqi government for having thwarted the plot hatched by the CIA to overthrow it and demonstrated that the great majority of the four million Iraqi Kurds would prefer, together with Mr Barzani's party, to remain within their national borders.
Once again, as in the case of the former Yugoslavia, the European Union has demonstrated that it cannot have a common foreign policy.
France, which was Iraq's ally, has admittedly distanced itself to a certain extent from this insane policy.
The United Kingdom and Germany immediately supported the act of aggression, as they have for five years been supporting the criminal, methodical and hypocritical genocide of the Iraqi people.
All observers of all shades of political opinion have denounced the fact that, every day, the blockade kills more than a thousand people in Iraq, including six hundred children.
This criminal policy has already killed more than a million Iraqis.
They have no more drugs, no more anaesthetics, no more medical or surgical supplies, no more books and very little food.
The 'oil for food' agreement has never been implemented and is still subject to embargo.
And you say nothing.
You do nothing!
So who is the racist? That is what I would like to know.
Those who defend Iraq's Muslim and Christian Arabs or those who, like you, are murdering them and starving them in the name of human rights? It is absolutely essential, in the name of justice and human rights, to lift the blockade totally, and even that will not appease your conscience or pay for your crimes!
I would remind members of the public sitting in the gallery that they are not permitted to comment in any way on the debate that is taking place in the Chamber.
They are required to remain silent and listen to all of the speeches, if they so wish.
Visitors should be aware of this because it is stated in the information they are given when they enter the premises of the European Parliament.
Mr President, the return of Saddam Hussein's forces to Iraqi Kurdistan after all he has done over the years to destroy Kurdish villages and oppress Kurdish people is appalling, but it is monstrous that he should have been invited back by one of the main Kurdish parties, the KDP.
Unfortunately, the PUK, the other main Iraqi Kurdish Party is every bit as guilty since it had previously cooperated with Iranian revolutionary guards in attacking the camps of Iranian Kurds who have been mercilessly persecuted by the Iranians and then conducting a vicious military campaign against the Iraqi KDP.
All this demonstrates that the divide between the Kurdish parties at the present time goes deeper than that which divides them from their outside enemies and it is a massive threat to the real interests of all Kurds.
This development has been facilitated by the lack of any permanent settlement in the Gulf to guarantee Kurdish rights in the long run.
Much as all of us long to see a democratic regime in Iraq, delaying the consolidation of Kurdish autonomy until then leaves a vacuum in which the murderous intrigue of recent years can continue.
While there must be no relaxation whatsoever of the embargo on military supplies to Iraq, if arrangements could be reached to lift sanctions on other supplies, which are hurting the population more than Saddam, in return for the stabilization of Kurdish autonomy, this would be a very important step forward.
The KDP now controls the majority of Iraqi Kurdistan and is said to have promulgated an amnesty and allowed the parliament to meet after being paralysed for two years.
Maximum pressure must now be exerted on the KDP to keep Saddam's agents out, to protect NGO workers and to provide the freedom for all and facilitate new elections.
As proposed at the talks in Drogheda, the militias operated by the parties must be dissolved and replaced by a single Kurdish armed force under the control of a Kurdish elected authority.
Military strikes by US forces, apart from other objections, are no substitute for constructive policy and, whatever they are effecting in Washington, in many respects they are counterproductive in the area.
The European Union should never leave it to the United States to take the lead.
The Union should be involved in efforts to resolve the differences between the Kurdish parties and helping to rebuild the economy.
We have a very good record on the aid provided but the position is that we must not allow that area to be left to armed bands to collect illegal taxes and tolls and to carry on in the way they have been doing.
If the NGOs were to pull out, conditions would deteriorate and armed conflict escalate.
There is a very strong case at this time perhaps for Parliament - and certainly for the Union - to send a new factfinding delegation which could also convey our profound concern and help us to make an even better contribution to resolving the problems of that region.
Mr President, the assumption by the United States that it is able unilaterally to resolve problems dating back to 3000 B. C., to Sumerian and Akkadian times, is on a par with Europe's inconsistent approach to crises.
That inconsistency is clearly the effect of conflicting interests in the European Union as well as the absence of a common foreign policy; that both lends support to the assumption by the US that I have just mentioned but it also underestimates the age-old threat from Muslim fundamentalism. That threat should not, however, lead us to ignore that fact that the prime victims of fundamentalism are in fact the peoples of that geographical region.
We have therefore to welcome the humanitarian aid and urge the European Union finally to assume the role of active player incumbent upon it.
Mr President, the members of the USA-Europe interparliamentary group discussed the HelmsBurton legislation in Washington a few weeks ago and criticized the fact that the European Community was not consulted.
Europe forms the basis for a new political culture.
The most important task of politics is to resolve conflicts and not to create conflicts, to try to understand the other side and to seek realistic joint solutions on the basis of rules of play and framework conditions appropriate to the situation at the time.
The trans-Atlantic dialogue is a model of cooperation, of the exchange of information and the definition of common aims.
It is extremely urgent to resolve the conflict by means of financial and material incentives and the creation of an administrative institution responsible for ensuring a continuous dialogue.
Let us consider the alternatives and let us put them before our partners so that they can choose and evaluate them.
Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait the USA took the lead in tabling an international resolution in the UN Security Council.
It is extremely important in our own interests that we speak with one voice.
We must prevent any further escalation and ensure that no nuclear, biological, chemical or other weapons capacity is available for this kind of conflict.
We must make early progress with the 'food and medicine for oil' campaign.
In particular, we need prompt aid for the refugees.
I call upon the Council and the Commission to agree a tactical and strategic common European Community position on the necessary measures.
Over the last decades Europe has demonstrated that it is possible to resolve conflicts on the basis of European culture and European policies, by sitting down together, by discussing the problems, by creating rules of play.
We need new attempts to resolve the conflict.
Escalation alone is no guarantee of future peace.
And the most important aim and motive of political activity is to secure peace for our citizens the world over.
Mr President, I think that the essential comment from a Member of the European Parliament on Iraq must be that, once again, events have taken us by surprise.
Perhaps if we had implemented that mechanism we have so often talked about for analysing possible conflicts this might not have happened.
But there is no doubt that our diplomatic fragmentation and, in spite of the mechanisms of intergovernmental cooperation, the lack of a real understanding between the governments, means that the European Union seems to have been taken by surprise.
That is the kind way we can and must - and above all want to - explain the fact that such varied, fragmented and indeed contradictory responses have already been made by Members of the European Union to an episode which we could have known would occur again some day.
Apart from that, I think we ought to insist on the need for a firm and clear response to Saddam Hussein's action, for rejection of the principles of totalitarianism and implacable dictatorship which he imposes on Iraq and for the rights of the people of that country to be respected first and foremost by whoever governs them.
Of course very sad consequences derive from that situation for the people of Iraq in general and for the youngest groups in particular, as well as for the populations whose historical fate is full of internal contradictions, the peoples occupying that territory.
The right to autonomy, the right of all the variegated peoples of Iraq to express their personalities, must be accepted and recognized, and that certainly does not mean weakness or going against the interests of Iraqi unity.
The desire to maintain that unity is perfectly understandable: other countries in the area do not want to see the unity of a nation endangered when it could have repercussions on their own unity, but I believe the moment has come for the European Union, at last showing solidarity with the action the United States has had to take, to show the same solidarity with the single destiny of this people and with the internal diversity of the various populations that compose it.
Mr President, first of all, I have noted the comments of the distinguished Members in the debate and I would like to assure the House that the European Union is fully committed to the search for a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East in general.
The European Council in Florence reaffirmed that the success of the Middle East peace process remains a fundamental interest of the Union.
The challenge before the Union and the international community is to restore momentum and impetus to the process and we will continue to engage constructively with all the parties in the region in our efforts to support the peace process.
A number of speakers raised the question of the Union's response to the future of northern Iraq and the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi population.
The Union has a number of clear objectives. These are: ensuring the continued safety of the Iraqi civilian population; the de-escalation of tensions in northern Iraq, principally through the withdrawal of Iraqi government forces, as well as through support for dialogue between the Kurdish factions; the maintenance of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the states in the region, including Iraq; and ensuring that steps are taken to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi civilian population, and children in particular, through the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 986, as I stated earlier, which would allow the sale of Iraqi oil to pay for food as soon as conditions permit.
The Union will continue to pursue these objectives through all channels.
I would repeat, as Commissioner Marin has stated, that the Union, which has a long-standing commitment to alleviating the humanitarian plight of the population in northern Iraq, intends to respond to the current refugee emergency as generously as resources allow.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Political situation in Turkey
The next item is the statement by the Council on the political situation in Turkey and the statement by the Commission on the implementation of the customs union with Turkey.
Mr President, I understand it was intended to take the question of Turkey and Cyprus together.
The European Union has long recognized the importance of close and constructive relations with Turkey.
The formal relationship established with the Association Agreement of 1964 has now entered a new phase with the entry into force, at the end of last year, of the Customs Union.
The Customs Union should be seen as a central element in the European Union's strategy to support the process of democratization and internal reform in Turkey.
Notable progress has been made in these areas since the restoration of elected civilian government in 1983, although reform of the legislation inherited from the period of military rule remains incomplete.
A customs union is one of the closest forms of external partnership offered by the European Union.
While it is essentially an economic arrangement, the potential benefits of a customs union extend well beyond the economic sphere.
Economic development, which the Customs Union is intended to stimulate, should contribute to the creation of a favourable climate for accelerating internal reform in Turkey.
Increased economic interaction between the European Union and Turkey should foster greater mutual understanding and awareness on both sides of a shared community of interest.
The closer integration into European structures which the Customs Union entails can be expected to strengthen Turkey's European orientation and enhance the European Union's capacity to exercise a positive and helpful influence on developments in Turkey.
The Council has continued to monitor the human rights situation and democratic developments in Turkey as requested by the European Parliament when you gave your assent to the Customs Union.
We have continued to make it clear to the Turkish authorities that observance of the rule of law and basic liberties are the basis for the rapprochement between Turkey and the European Union.
The process of ratification of the Customs Union, and the clear stance adopted by the European Union in that context, gave valuable impetus to internal reform in Turkey.
The constitutional changes and amendments to Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law adopted by the Turkish Grand National Assembly last year were welcome steps in the right direction.
We were encouraged, moreover, by the assurances that the Turkish authorities saw these measures as a stage in a continuing process of constitutional and legislative review.
Mrs Çiller, when she visited Dublin in July last, assured the Irish presidency that she would pursue in her present capacity the reforms she initiated as Prime Minister.
The Council recognizes the seriousness of the internal security problems which the sustained campaign of violence in south-east Turkey poses for the Turkish authorities.
It condemns all acts of terrorism unreservedly.
Democratic government can best withstand the terrorist threat, however, by remaining true to the values on which it is founded.
The enduring appeal and resilience of democratic society is rooted in large measure in the protection it affords to the individual and the scope it offers for freedom of expression.
It follows, as a matter both of principle and practicality, that the fight against terrorism must be pursued within the law and with full respect for human rights.
The Council believes that the situation in the south-eastern provinces should not be approached exclusively as a security problem.
We are encouraged in this regard by the legislation recently enacted by the Turkish Grand National Assembly aimed at lifting the nine-year-old state of emergency in those provinces.
(Protests) We urge the Turkish authorities to pursue their efforts to improve the situation of the Kurdish minority.
A sustainable solution will require the acceptance and confidence of the broad mass of the people of the area.
It should be imaginative and generous enough to allow for appropriate expression of the Kurdish cultural identity in a manner consistent with full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Turkey.
A lasting political settlement would ensure internal stability and cohesion in Turkey and release valuable resources for economic and social development.
The entry into force of the Customs Union has been accompanied by the introduction of enhanced arrangements for political dialogue between the European Union and Turkey.
This provides a framework for contact on issues of mutual interest and concern where cooperation between the parties can contribute to international peace and stability.
Turkey has an important role to play in the emerging European security architecture and has been an active participant in the international efforts to consolidate the peace process in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Euro-Mediterranean partnership launched in Barcelona in November 1995 has added a new strand to the European Union's relationship with Turkey.
Both parties are now actively engaged in a major initiative which aims to ensure that the Mediterranean region becomes an area of trade and dialogue guaranteeing peace, stability and prosperity.
The adoption of the MEDA Regulation by the General Affairs Council last July, following Parliament's assent, was an important step in developing the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
It established the regulatory and budgetary mechanism necessary to give concrete expression to the Union's commitment to contribute more actively to the socio-economic development of its Mediterranean partners, including Turkey.
The special financial regulation, a complementary measure intended to help Turkey adapt its industrial sector to the new competitive environment created by the Customs Union, remains to be formally adopted.
The draft regulation, approved by Parliament earlier this year, envisages financial assistance of ECU 375 million for Turkey over a five-year period.
The Council issued a declaration in July recalling that relations between the European Union and Turkey have to be based on a clear commitment to the principle of respect for international law and agreements, the relevant international practice and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Member States and Turkey.
The Council considers that disputes should be settled solely on the basis of international law.
Dialogue should be pursued along the lines which have emerged between the interested parties.
It is hoped that this may contribute to the improvement in their bilateral relations as well as to the establishment of a crisis prevention mechanism.
At the request of the Council, the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Dick Spring, presented the declaration to Deputy Prime Minister Çiller during her visit to Dublin in July and asked the Turkish Government to indicate whether it could commit itself to the principles contained in the declaration.
She confirmed that the Turkish Government would give careful consideration to the declaration.
Mr Spring will be meeting Mrs Çiller again...
Mr President, it is very difficult to speak if Members interrupt.
There are few honourable Members present - those few should at least be quiet and show respect for the presidency!
If we all did that, what a spectacle we should present!
Mr Spring will be meeting Mrs Çiller during the UN General Assembly and will be seeking her response to that declaration.
The presidency will remain in contact with the Turkish authorities on the matter.
It hopes very much that a constructive response will be forthcoming and that appropriate conditions for a further development of EU/Turkey relations can be created.
On Cyprus, the European Union has decided that accession negotiations will commence with Cyprus six months after the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference, taking the results of that conference into account.
A structured dialogue has been established with Cyprus as part of the pre-accession strategy.
This innovative mechanism is designed to facilitate in a spirit of partnership the progressive alignment of the policies of future members with those of the Union and thereby smooth the transition to membership.
As well as providing a framework for the adjustment of economic policies, political dialogue arrangements have been developed which allow for the association of candidate countries, including Cyprus, with the foreign policy positions of the Union.
The prospect of membership of the European Union offers an historic window of opportunity to find a solution to the Cyprus question.
It is vital that this opportunity is grasped and that the pre-accession period is used constructively to make progress towards an equitable and sustainable settlement.
The recent disturbances and tragic deaths in Cyprus are matters of deep concern.
They represent the most serious outbreak of violence on the island for some considerable time and have led to an increase in tensions between the two communities.
The European Union has strongly deplored the recent violence in Cyprus and the disproportionate use of force by the security forces in the north of Cyprus in response to unauthorized entry into the buffer zone.
It condemned the brutal killings of two civilians and expressed its deep concern about the injuries sustained by many others, including United Nations peacekeeping personnel.
The Council has called for restraint and calm in the wake of these tragic events.
It has urged both sides to avoid further confrontation and to cooperate fully with the United Nations force in Cyprus in its efforts to defuse tensions.
The immediate objective must be to restore calm and advance efforts to establish a political dialogue between the two sides.
The announcement last week that President Clerides would meet the leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, Mr Denktash, to discuss the demilitarization of Cyprus is a positive step forward.
The Council hopes that this meeting will lead to a resumption of political dialogue and progress towards an agreed solution.
These incidents in Cyprus have highlighted the urgent need to intensify efforts towards promoting a comprehensive political settlement under the aegis of the United Nations.
It is widely acknowledged that the broad parameters for a solution have been identified in the Set of Ideas elaborated by the Good Offices Mission of the United Nations Secretary-General.
The European Union fully supports the Secretary-General's efforts to make progress towards a solution on the basis of a bi-zonal, bicommunal federation within the framework already established by the relevant UN decisions and resolutions in regard to Cyprus.
Close coordination of the activities of the international community in support of the Secretary-General and his Special Representative is crucial.
The various states and international organizations concerned with the Cyprus issue should play complementary roles reflecting the different contributions they can bring to the search for a solution.
The European Union's role in this process flows logically from the accession perspective and its potential as a catalyst for a settlement.
The Union has a natural and vital concern for the stability of countries with which it will engage in accession negotiations.
It also has a legitimate interest in the shape of any internal settlement in Cyprus given that this will have to be reconciled with the acquis of the Union.
The Council, accordingly, is actively engaged in the international effort to find a comprehensive political solution in the framework of the United Nations.
The Irish presidency representative, Ambassador Kester Heaslip, visited the region recently and had contacts with representatives of all the interested parties.
He is also liaising closely with other special representatives, including Professor Han, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN.
The Council is also conscious of the contribution which closer relations with Turkey could make to the promotion of a climate of greater mutual understanding and confidence.
I have outlined in my earlier contribution the Council's efforts to create appropriate conditions for the further development of the Union's relations with Turkey.
Accession by Cyprus to the European Union should bring increased prosperity and security for both communities on the island.
Access to the single market should act as a powerful stimulus to economic development throughout the island.
Appropriate application of Community policies, including the principles of economic and social cohesion, should be of particular benefit to the Turkish Cypriot community.
The Union, moreover, as a community of democratic states founded on the principle of unity and diversity, has the capacity to accommodate different identities.
As well as its economic benefits, membership of the Union could help resituate the relationship between the two communities in a broader international framework and reinforce the existing guarantees of their position.
The Union is actively seeking to ensure that the advantages of membership are understood by all Cypriots.
We will pursue our efforts to convince both sides that there is everything to gain and nothing to lose from the entry of a unified Cyprus into the European Union.
Mr President, following the recent serious incidents in Cyprus, as the President-in-Office has just announced, the European Union has expressed its forceful condemnation of the fatal violence on the Turkish Cypriot side.
The Commission has also endorsed this statement.
The reaction against the Greek Cypriot demonstrators was disproportionate and unacceptable.
Now we have been made aware that a Turkish Cypriot soldier was also killed by an unknown cause.
Obviously this must also be deeply regretted.
It must be feared that the perpetrators of such aggression are attempting to convince public opinion in Cyprus that it would be dangerous to allow the Greek and Turkish communities to live together in a future federal state.
The European Union must not allow itself to be pushed from the path it has chosen.
This means that we must keep to our decision to start the accession negotiations with Cyprus six months after the closing of the Intergovernmental Conference at the latest.
It also makes it necessary to double our efforts in finding a political solution to the Cyprus problem.
The presidency and its special representative, Ambassador Heaslip, together with the United Nations and the United States, must do everything possible to bring life back into the negotiating process.
In this respect a contribution must also obviously be requested from all parties.
This brings me to the Union&#x02BC;s relations with Turkey.
In the month of October I hope to be presenting to Parliament the promised progress report concerning the customs union with Turkey.
This report will also contain our evaluation of the developments in the field of democracy and the protection of human rights.
Mr President, please just allow me to express my amazement about the rumours circulating that in the draft resolution it is stated that the Commission has not fulfilled its obligations concerning human rights reporting.
I must refute this assertion.
When the report appears next month, the Commission will have fulfilled all its promises.
And that is leaving aside information that is regularly given by the Commission at numerous committee meetings or on other occasions when we are asked for information by Parliament about the developments in Turkey.
But shortly before the presentation of the report you will be receiving next month, I would like to say the following.
Regarding the customs union that has been in force since 1996, as far as we can determine at the moment, this is functioning without too many problems, and difficulties which have arisen have been reasonably easily solved by people on both sides.
Exports from the European Union to Turkey have grown considerably, while imports from Turkey have also increased.
The extent to which this has been influenced by the state of the economies is difficult to establish over this period.
But it is clear that, as expected, the detrimental effects of the customs union, namely to the Turkish national budget as a result of greatly reduced customs incomes, has had a serious impact on a Turkish economy that is already under great strain.
With respect to the financial cooperation, Mr Mitchell has just outlined the current situation.
The financial support associated with the customs union agreement of 6 March 1995, the 375 million special aid in the form of gifts and the 750 million loan from the European Investment Bank are still blocked for political reasons.
The same also applies to balance of payments support, the possibility of which was foreseen at the time.
The only one of the five financial contributions for Turkey that is not blocked at the moment is the claim from Turkey for a contribution from the MEDA programme.
As regards democratic development and human rights, I would again, anticipating the report, note that in our opinion the results of the national elections in Turkey at the end of 1995 are still affecting the situation.
We were all able to observe that the Yilmaz/Çiller government after a very short time had to move over for a government with a very different composition, consisting of the Islamic party of Mr Erbakan and the True Path party of Mrs Çiller.
These political changes have had a slowing effect on the economy and politics in Turkey, particularly on legislative work.
Various intentions expressed by former Turkish governments to translate further democratisation into law have not been carried through.
Forcefully urging for them is therefore appropriate.
During the hunger strikes of the Kurdish prisoners, the Commission also intervened with Mrs Çiller.
Naturally we were all pleased about the solution finally reached, but the lives lost in the meantime must still be deeply regretted.
The political situation in Turkey is complicated, and at present it is difficult to draw far-reaching conclusions about the direction Turkey will take as regards its foreign policy, and its relationship with Europe.
We once again powerfully urge Turkey to stop increasing tension with Greece, by new territorial claims, military provocations and so on.
Territorial claims must be brought before the International Tribunal in The Hague.
I underline what the President-in-Office said about this earlier.
We do still have good relations with Turkey.
It is an important country with a significant responsibility for freedom and stability in the region.
We acknowledge and welcome the European orientation of successive Turkish governments.
The customs union was also meant to be an overture from the European Union in this respect.
The Commission does not want to plead for an isolation policy with respect to Turkey.
But the Commission is equally of the opinion that our relations with Turkey urgently require a new, clear impulse from the Turkish side that will contribute to securing a climate in which perspectives are offered for the solution of a number of important issues I mentioned earlier.
These are problems that aggravate the relationship with Greece and also with the European Union.
With the presidency I hope that matters can be discussed with Mrs Çiller on the fringes of the General Meeting of the United Nations next week in New York.
Mr President, thank you very much. Perhaps the point of order I wanted to raise has partly been dealt with, but I will raise it nevertheless, so that it can be recorded in the Minutes.
It is fortunate that Commissioner Van den Broek spoke after the Council's representative and solved for me the problem I had while the Council's representative was speaking, concerning which country we are talking about today.
Because what the Council's representative had to say made me wonder whether I had wandered into the wrong debate and we were talking about Switzerland, not about Turkey.
But Mr Van den Broek put matters right.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr van den Broek for the statement he made about Turkey in his usual measured tones.
However, I must say I am shocked at the statement from Mr Mitchell.
While he was speaking I did not know whether to laugh or cry.
I could not believe we are serious in this House about asking the Council to take on our foreign policy after hearing that statement about one of the countries with whom we are supposed to be dealing in foreign policy.
Mr Mitchell, I must say that I was concerned when you opened your statement by saying you understood we wanted Cyprus and Turkey to be taken together.
You have missed the point entirely.
Cyprus is an integral component of our political relationship with Turkey because Turkish forces are occupying the northern third of Cyprus.
They have 35, 000 soldiers in the north of Cyprus and it was the Turkish Foreign Minister in the Turkish Grand National Assembly who recently admitted that she had released 65 million Turkish lire to pay for the transporting to Cyprus of Turkish Grey Wolf fascists who - as we have seen on video - took part in the murder of the two Greek Cypriots in the buffer zone.
So, how can Cyprus not be considered as part of our relations with Turkey? Of course it is an integral part!
We support the territorial sovereignty and integrity of the island of Cyprus, and Turkey is occupying one-third of it.
Cyprus, we must remember, is an applicant state for European Union accession which has had a positive avis from the Commission.
So, of course we want to consider what has happened in Cyprus as an integral part of our political relationship with Turkey.
I must say to you that we are not talking about Turkish Cypriots.
Forty-five Turkish Cypriot organizations have condemned the murders which took place in the buffer zone in the summer.
These people were brought from Turkey specifically because not enough anger and hatred exists amongst Turkish Cypriots to do what the Grey Wolf went to Cyprus to do.
That has to be an integral part of our discussion this afternoon.
Before we passed the customs union in December of last year, there were many promises, as everyone in this House remembers.
Commitments were given and declarations made by representatives of the Turkish Government that they were going to improve democracy and human rights, that they were going to do something more positive about a solution to the Cyprus problem, that they were going to deal with their own people's human rights.
And we were told it was all because they wanted to do it for the people of Turkey, not because the European Union was forcing it on them.
And we also heard they were going to deal with the Kurdish problem.
Clear promises made.
Well the Turks, the Kurds, the Cypriots have had nothing.
Nothing except oppression, intimidation and blatant denial of their human rights in the nine or ten months since that customs union was passed.
In fact, the relationship has not only not improved, it has got worse in all the areas I have just mentioned.
We have all received a constant stream of faxes, pamphlets, videos and eye-witness accounts of the everyday occurrences in Turkey and most recently in Cyprus.
What do we get from the Turkish Government and the states that support it? Endless faxes bewailing the fact that Turkey is misunderstood and mis-represented.
And I must say that is rather what I thought I heard coming from the Council today.
I know from Turkish citizens, from Kurdish refugees and Turkish Cypriots - many thousands of whom live in my constituency in North London - that they do not understand why Turkish authorities treat them the way they do and why Turkey cannot see that recognizing minority rights, respecting the dignity of their own citizens and removing the occupation forces from Cyprus would be good for Turkey.
Not bad, but good!
The recitals of our resolution make clear the grim reading of what has happened over recent months.
Oppression, murder, intimidation are not European values.
Good intentions, expectations and promises have all been devalued by the actions of the Turkish authorities.
Conciliatory resolutions and double standards have no place in our relations with Turkey.
Words and promises must, frankly, be translated into political will and clear action.
My group will therefore be making every effort to freeze all financial commitments to Turkey.
We call on every political group in this House to support this approach and expect the Commission and the Council to respect our view and to act accordingly.
Only in this way will we get real change in the relationship with Turkey.
(Applause)
Mr President, the crisis in Kurdistan and the growing dispute with Turkey are just two aspects of the same destabilizing and complex situation that embraces, in the eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Gulf.
This is a situation of concern to Europe which feels powerless - and rightly so - as has been apparent in both cases.
Turkey is the key element in this area as demonstrated in different ways by its growing dispute with Greece over Cyprus and the Aegean, the agreement with Israel, the military presence in Kurdistan and the attitude it had adopted to the Iraq crisis.
Turkey exercises a powerful influence over the region, and we must therefore be concerned about its increasingly aggressive stance towards Greece, as well as with the ambivalent nature of a government that vacillates between Erbakan's silences and pro-Islamic displays and Çiller's explicit and sometimes excessive wait-and-see approach.
Though Turkey may be near us, this government is very far away, and we have justifiable doubts as to its ability to act in the interests of Turkey itself.
What should be done at this juncture? We think that we should oppose the halt on the Customs Union because, although an understandable response to these attitudes that are unacceptable and excessive at both an internal and an external level, it could drive Turkey away and isolate it, aggravating the domestic situation and distancing it from Europe to which it has long sought to move nearer.
But we are against continuing with a dialogue which seems to be bearing no fruit and damaging the authority of the European Union.
What is therefore required, as Commissioner van den Broek himself appears to want, is a dialogue founded on very different, rigorous, demanding and strong bases to show that while Europe can understand the crises, it will not be made a fool of.
Mr President, the situation in Turkey is a tragic one.
For nearly two years, Turkey has been experiencing an extremely complex political situation.
There have been ministerial reshuffles, resulting in a government crisis, then legislative elections followed by interminable negotiations and the installation, last March, of a coalition government which was itself replaced last July by a government of Islamic obedience.
And, above all, there was the treason of Mrs Çiller, who is now a hostage of the government.
More than ever, the internal situation is encountering difficulties and criticisms relating to the efforts at democratization, respect for human rights, the Kurdish question and the situation in Cyprus.
Finally, this Monday, Turkey was found guilty by the European Court of Justice of burning a Kurdish village in the south-east, in 1992.
This is the first time that the Court in Strasbourg has disavowed the military operations carried out by Ankara in Turkish Kurdistan.
The investiture of Mr Erbakan has totally changed the foreign policy hitherto pursued by Turkey.
Having been considered an inalienable ally of the United States, Turkey has in fact defied instructions from the White House by signing a gas supply agreement with Iran.
Turkey intends to play the part of a regional superpower, aspiring to greater freedom to shape its own destiny.
If it is going to do that, it will finally have to respect the rules of international organizations which it has joined and the agreements it has signed, especially the European Convention on Human Rights, failing which, Mr President, and here I endorse the words of my socialist colleague, the European Union will have to accept the consequences of the customs union agreement and the financial protocol, and freeze them for as long as it takes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the supposed giant looks huge from afar.
The closer you get, the smaller he gets.
When the Customs Union was adopted the European Parliament was playing that part, and that was the prelude to a play in three acts.
Act one: the European Parliament as a giant. It set out three conditions: democratization, release of the Kurdish deputies, an end to the war and a political solution to the Kurdish question.
An end to a war that drove millions of people into flight, destroyed 3000 villages and cost countless people their lives.
Act two: the vote on Customs Union approaches.
The European Parliament's demands become softer.
The conditions become weaker.
Expressions of opinion die away.
Shortly before the vote Mrs Çiller is presented as a guarantor of democracy and a guarantor of a secular Turkey.
The argument gains ground that he who wants to put a stop to fundamentalism, to Erbakan, must be for Çiller, must support Çiller, must vote for Customs Union!
Act three: Customs Union is approved and what happens? It does not take long at all for the alleged guarantor of democratic reforms to turn into the king-maker of this same Mr Erbakan.
It is most disturbing to find the Council continuing to believe in Mrs Çiller as a trustworthy guarantor.
Of democratization not a trace, of the release of Kurdish deputies not a word.
The entire leadership of the HEP party in prison and on trial last Thursday.
Twelve political prisoners dead from hunger strike.
Mr Mitchell, the state of emergency was not suspended, it was recently extended.
The war is escalating and continuing.
A buffer zone is to be set up and in Cyprus the conflict is becoming ever more violent and brutal.
We cannot accept the Council's strategy of: ' Continue as you were!
You have carte blanche' .
This Parliament agreed to Customs Union and now bears a special responsibility.
Responsibility means: fighting for a peaceful Turkey, for peaceful coexistence and for a democratic Turkey.
For people to tell us now to close our eyes, ears and mouths to reality is a cynical policy geared primarily to the interests of the European Union and not to the interests of democracy and human rights in Turkey.
But that unfortunately has become a tradition!
Mr President, I am speaking today on my own behalf, and I would like to start by saying that there is something deeply troubling to me about the attitude of our Parliament, and of the European Union in general, towards Turkey.
Just a few months ago, our Parliament ratified the customs union agreements. As we said at the time, those agreements made no provision for any accompanying serious political programme, any specific timetable for the reforms that our Parliament hoped would be implemented in Turkey, especially as regards justice, the prison system and the Kurdish question.
Since the agreement was signed, Turkey has had two government crises in succession, and the Islamic party has come to power for the first time, a situation which has not resulted in civil war or in a wave of counter-reforms.
Admittedly, the problems still exist, and the way of approaching them has not changed since the agreement came into force.
Nor has the PKK, for its part, renounced the use of violence.
From an economic standpoint, we already know that it is the European Union which is the major beneficiary of these agreements.
What is clear, in fact, is that the Union does not have and does not want any real policy towards Turkey, because it does not want to pay the price of such a policy - entertaining a serious prospect of full Turkish membership of the European Union and the provision of the resources that would allow that accession to take place.
We must put an end to this hypocrisy.
We must state clearly what we want, and pay the price of it.
Only then will our requirements regarding the functioning of democracy and respect for human rights in Turkey have any real meaning.
When the customs union was being dealt with in Parliament last year, things appeared to be progressing favourably in Turkey.
A number of points in the constitution had been changed in a democratic sense, a number of political prisoners were released, and it was expected that the customs union would further stimulate developments.
Now, however, we see that the situation in Turkey has developed in a very disappointing manner.
The resolutions at hand contain shocking facts in this respect.
It is apparent that the capacity of the Union, by offering economic benefits, to promote changes in a country in which Western democratic values have barely taken root must not be overestimated.
The question for us therefore is whether or not Turkey can now be turned in the right direction with economic leverage.
With respect to Iran, the Council has always defended the policy of critical dialogue.
We still have some doubts on this.
But if good reason should exist, with respect to Turkey a similar sort of critical policy may have to be chosen for the time being, indeed for Middle East policy as a whole, not least for finding a solution to the Kurdish question.
There is every reason for indignation about what is happening in Turkey, but we do not believe that so soon after a change in power in the country our relations with Turkey would be served by economic measures.
We await the evaluation report from the Commission with great interest.
Mr President, ten months ago a majority made up of socialists, Christian democrats, liberals and RPR Members voted in favour of customs union with Turkey.
Many of you claimed at the time that the ratification of this agreement would prevent the Turks from rushing into the arms of Islam.
A fortnight later, the Islamic party won the legislative elections.
Today they are in power, and all Mr Mitchell's fine words make no difference to that.
The agreement on customs union, far from resulting in a reduction of Islamic influence, is going to help increase it.
Not only will this free-trade agreement expose our industry to competition from an underpaid workforce, but it will also destabilize Turkish society, accelerating the rural exodus which is casting millions of uprooted people adrift in the metropolitan areas of Istanbul and Ankara.
Well, it is among these rootless masses that the Islamic party is prospering.
I say nothing of the living conditions of the Kurdish minority in Turkey: they seem to create less emotion than those prevailing in Iraq.
But this agreement, ladies and gentlemen, has a more serious implication.
As laid down in Article 28 of the Treaty of Ankara, it represents a decisive step towards the integration of 65 million Turks into Europe, 65 million more to add to the millions that are already here.
Finally, let me remind you, the Turkish government had promised to find solutions to the Cypriot problem.
Well, the Turks, who for more than twenty years have been occupying one third of the territory of Cyprus, a European state, are now killing Cypriots on that island.
I believe that our governments would do well to revoke this ill-starred agreement.
At all events, for once, I shall be adding my voice to that of Mrs Green - just this once - and I say: ' not another penny for Turkey!' .
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, let me begin my statement by apologizing to the President of Parliament.
Mr President, I confess myself guilty of laughing loudly during the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council.
In this one case I plead mitigating circumstances, for the presidency of the Council really did provoke this loud laughter.
But in future I promise to stifle my laughter even if the presidency of the Council insists on giving us details about the undertakings given by Mrs Çiller.
Mr President, a year ago we agreed in this Parliament, and held passionate debates on it, that we want closer relations with Turkey and that we would also agree to customs union provided certain conditions were met.
These conditions are, let me repeat, human rights, democratic reforms, a solution to the Cyprus problem and also to the Kurdish question.
None of these conditions had been met by the end of December 1995 but nevertheless some of us believed the assurances given by the presidency of the Council, by the Commission and above all by the Turkish Government.
I am still keeping a letter that Mrs Çiller sent me and the other 626 Members of this Parliament in which she asks us to help her so that she can achieve all this.
I have kept the letter because it is not every day that I receive letters from prime ministers.
Rereading this letter today could make one laugh again till the tears come, for no promises have been kept.
It is not just that the situation in Turkey in each of these four areas has worsened, but Mrs Çiller has misused our help in order to actually bring into power the very person she wanted to keep out.
Now the President-in-Office of the Council comes along and tells us that Mrs Çiller has agreed, that she would like to think about what the presidency of the Council said to her.
Surely that cannot be taken seriously any more, Mr President-in-Office!
You forgot to tell us what Mrs André said a while ago, namely that the European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey a few days ago.
You did not say a word about Turkey's intention to set up a security zone in northern Iraq.
After all, the European Union ought to adopt a position on that.
All I can say, ladies and gentlemen, is that we really must show Turkey that we are serious about what we said and the only possibility I think that remains today is to freeze all funds for Turkey.
Mr President, if there were a prize for cocking a snook at the European Union, one country in all the world would deserve to win it outright: the Turkey of that unnatural couple, Erbakan and Çiller.
No other country has ever dared so coarsely and provocatively to ridicule its own promises, disregard its commitments, make fools of governments on both sides of the Atlantic in so short a time, show such shamelessness in violating human rights inside and outside its own domain, and use even dark methods - including murder - to promote its own shady interests.
And no other country has been so rapidly shown up, with its multi-faceted aggressiveness, to be anything but the paragon of stability that the Council envisaged and unfortunately still seems to, but instead, the troublemaker of the international community!
Not even a year has passed since our Parliament, succumbing to appeals by the governments, agreed to Customs Union.
The main argument was to help Mrs Çiller as the pro-Western buttress against the danger represented by the Islamicist Mr Erbakan.
And today, Mrs Çiller is one of Mr Erbakan's ministers, and Mr Erbakan is questioning the value of Custom's Union, while Mrs Çiller is questioning the European Union's declared policy on the accession of Cyprus.
Turkey had promised democratization and the Commission believed it.
Respect for human rights and a political resolution of the Kurdish problem.
And today, Leyla Zana, winner of our Sakharov prize, is in prison with other parliamentarians, while in the meantime dozens of detainees who protested about the inhuman living conditions have died.
The governments also pressed for approval of the MEDA regulation, but our Parliament insisted that the prerequisites for implementation of the regulation should be respect for human rights, the cessation of Turkey's provocations against its neighbours, and its cooperation in solving the Cyprus problem.
And instead of all that, the Erbakan-Çiller pair increased persecution inside the country, as recent reports have stressed, and Turkey became a hundred times more provocative towards Greece.
Besides its illegitimate claim on Imia - which required American intervention to avoid a conflagration in the Aegean - it is now claiming a hundred rocky islets belonging to Greece and instead of a political resolution of the Kurdish problem it is now trying to invade Kurdish Iraq!
The most tragic peak of this shamelessness is this: instead of taking part in a constructive dialogue to find a fair, viable and safe solution to the martyred Cyprus, it is sending 'Grey Wolf' fascists to the northern part of the island occupied by its troops.
I will not describe the result.
The whole civilized world looked on in horror at the television screens showing the bestial way in which they carried out their mission, killing two young Cypriots.
I will only ask you to note the honours Denktash reserved for the murderers.
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office and the Commissioner for making statements to us.
Although it is not my wont to defend the Council and particularly to defend the President-in-Office, who is a member of the opposition party in my own country, I think that some of the comments from the Members here do not do justice to the House, and I would say that the Minister is doing a good job in very difficult circumstances.
I speak here today as somebody who voted against the customs union with Turkey last year because I did not believe the line that I was being given.
I did not believe that Turkey would change overnight because we had a customs union.
I did not believe that the human rights situation in Turkey would improve because we had a customs union, and likewise I did not believe that the island of Cyprus would be reunited because Turkey joined a customs union.
Mrs Green made a very valid point about 35, 000 Turkish troops in the northern part of Cyprus.
I come from an island country, in which we have 35, 000 troops also from another country in part of that island.
I understand the difficulties that creates.
What is required here is cool heads, dialogue, reconciliation and a respect for the equality of each group to have their own viewpoint, to put forward their own beliefs and to put forward their own ideas for the future.
Nothing will be achieved if we take with one hand and give with another.
I think we are wrong now, after our bad decision last year, to be trying to stop the customs union, but I think also we should be more forceful in trying to bring Turkey closer to the democratic family, and supporting one of the Member States, Greece, in its ongoing conflict with Turkey, through dialogue and peaceful means.
Mr President, nine months ago this Parliament voted for the customs union.
We gave Turkey an incentive to promote democracy and human rights.
This support had a clearly conditional character.
Further progress in these areas was required by us, and it was promised by the prime minister at that time, Mrs Çiller.
Commissioner Van den Broek, who has spoken justifiably serious words, promises a report.
Mr President, I do not need such a report to be able to observe that the Turkish Government has absolutely failed to keep its promises, and that instead of the promised changes there is a deterioration in the situation.
Democratisation has been put on ice.
The DEP members of parliament are still locked up.
The human rights situation has not improved at all.
A constantly more aggressive policy is being used against the Kurds, and in Cyprus there is talk of a hardening of the Turkish position with the bloody consequences on the island.
Turkey no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt.
That is why I support the compromise resolution, though my group does not.
The Turkish Government is rightly being asked for a clear explanation of the situation, and it must know that the continuance of the current policy cannot be accepted.
That is why the funds in the financial protocol must be placed in the reserve, and the MEDA funds for Turkey must be blocked, though perhaps not the funds which are to support the democratisation process.
I have submitted an amendment to the same effect for the draft budget of the Union.
Next week voting on this will take place in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
I call on Members to back up their words with action.
Mr President, listening to the debate, one could suppose that Mr Mitchell and the Council collectively are suffering from a serious defect of vision and hearing, and that is why Mr Mitchell spoke as he did about the situation in Turkey.
It seems, however, that such is not the case.
Mr Mitchell and the Council are guilty of disgraceful hypocrisy, overpowering opportunism in favour of unclean interests served by Turkey in this critical area of the Middle East, the Mediterranean.
That is why he ignored everything reported by the other speakers, everything we all know about what is going on, what is happening in Turkey.
I will not repeat it all.
Mr President, a time must come, and let this debate be the reason for it, when we bring an end to the situation of tolerance, support and encouragement for this factor that is destabilizing, provocative, and can create problems and even threaten peace in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, the Aegean and beyond.
From that point of view, Mr President, I want to stress the responsibilities borne by the Council, the Commission, the Union's Member States and especially some of the largest of them, and over and above these, the responsibility borne by the American administration which, in the name of what serves the dominance of the new order of things, in other words the dominance of American imperialism, is encouraging and arming Turkey's hand with both boldness and weapons, and pandering to its militaristic economic regime which has nothing to do with the interests of the Turkish people and those of Turkey in general.
It will be a contribution if we approve this resolution - even paragraph 5 of it, which specifies and calls for specific measures: the freezing of funds for Turkey from Customs Union, from the MEDA programme - as a first step in adopting some specific decisions.
And that, Mr President, would also contribute to the credibility of our Parliament, it would encourage the democratic forces of the Turkish people who are struggling against this regime, and it would contribute towards stability and peace in that dangerous part of the world, which could spark off more general conflagrations.
Mr President, unfortunately, I have not been able to obtain the motion for a resolution.
I have just come from the distribution service, where they still do not have the joint motion.
I think it is rather awkward to have to make a speech without a copy of the text.
But let me move on - I have had to guess at what the motion will contain.
When we delivered our opinion on the Customs Union with Turkey, I was one of those who voted against.
I did not believe that a customs union would begin a process of democracy and respect for human rights in Turkey, and time has unfortunately proved that I was correct.
In general terms, I am in favour of stepping up trade links, and also with Turkey, but until there is respect for human rights, we must in my view suspend the Customs Union and freeze the aid schemes.
This may help the Turkish Government to realize that the situation with the Kurdish minority in eastern Turkey cannot be resolved militarily.
The Kurdish MPs belonging to the DEP are still being held in prison, including the recipient of the Sakharov Prize, Leyla Zana.
Most recently, the events on Cyprus are a further appalling example of the Turkish regime's lack of respect for the UN and its resolutions.
Only today, I received a fax from Amnesty International concerning the suspected torture of a young law student, and one could go on mentioning cases endlessly.
We must at long last set an example, otherwise no one will take our fine words on democracy and respect for human rights seriously.
Mr President, I thank Mr Van den Broek for his interesting report, but the statements by the President-in-Office of the Council were disappointing and they show either that the Council did not have a full picture of the situation, or that it lacks the political will to exert pressure on Turkey.
That duty has therefore fallen on the shoulders of the European Parliament, which has become the real custodian of the principles of democracy, human rights and the protection of law and order.
The situation in Turkey has deteriorated dramatically since the beginning of the year, despite the implementation of Customs Union.
The persecution of citizens for their political notions, beliefs and for their religion has escalated.
Recently, Turkey was condemned by the Human Rights Commission of the Council of Europe for its behaviour towards the Kurds.
The Kurdish problem is still being dealt with by the use of military force.
However, Turkey does not restrict its autarchic and aggressive policy only to the interior of the country. That mentality also governs its international relations and its foreign policy.
It is characteristic that Turkey does not have good relations with any of its neighbours.
More particularly, Turkey's aggressive policy is directed against my own country, Greece, and against Cyprus, a country with which the European Union has special relations.
Turkey's provocativeness in the Aegean is in direct dispute of European territory and frontiers, and is a threat to peace in the area.
In Cyprus, Turkey is continuing its illegal occupation of parts of the Republic of Cyprus and refuses to comply with international decisions for a peaceful, fair and viable solution of the problem.
The recent tragic events in August, when two Greek Cypriot demonstrators who were protesting peaceably against the occupation were murdered by the occupying forces, are being used by the Turkish side to promote the view that the two communities in Cyprus cannot co-exist, and so frustrate efforts to unify the island.
Ladies and gentlemen, I was an eyewitness to the facts and I assure you that it was a premeditated act by the occupying army, aided by extremist paramilitary groups brought in specially for the purpose at the expense of the Turkish government to carry out those barbaric acts.
We must grasp the fact that we are dealing with a country which operates outside the law, a country whose ruling class sets no store by the concepts of justice, respect for human rights and democracy.
So principles which are for us fundamental values of our civilization, have no such content in Turkey.
For that reason, I believe the time has come to send a powerful political message to Turkey.
At this stage the most effective thing we can do is to freeze all funding for Turkey from the Community budget.
That at least is Europe's duty and its responsibility, and it must take the initiative.
Mr President, a 16-year old Turkish girl was detained in Turkey for 19 days.
During that time she suffered electric shock treatment to her body and genitals, beating and hanging by the arms for long periods.
This horrific episode took place in November 1995, just days before our Parliament voted through the customs union with Turkey.
We were told then that the Turkish authorities condemned state torture and that they were making serious efforts to respect fundamental human rights and democracy.
Yet, on 7 March 1996, Yasar Kemal, Turkey's most renowned living writer, was given a 20-month suspended sentence for 'initiating hatred' in an essay entitled 'Dark Cloud over Turkey' .
And then we were assured by Mrs Çiller only nine months ago that Article 8 of the Anti-Terror Law had been changed.
But most of those who have had retrials are still in prison and instead the authorities have been using Article 312 of the penal code under which Yasar Kemal was tried.
People suspected of offences under the Anti-Terror Law can still be detained for 15 days without access to lawyers or to family.
In the south-east it can be 30 days; often it is longer.
Extrajudicial killings are taking place, not only in the troubled south-east but also in Istanbul and in Ankara.
Since 1991 87 people - I hope the Council representative is taking these figures in - have been killed during raids on houses in these cities.
In April 1995 the justice minister admitted that 'unfortunately, these extrajudicial executions are carried out in every field of life' .
So, as has been amply demonstrated by colleagues in this House, far from having improved, the human rights situation in Turkey remains critical and - I would say, as many other speakers have said - has deteriorated.
As at least one speaker has said, Leyla Zana, the current Sakharov Prize holder, is still in prison.
Let us not forget that Turkey is a signatory of the Council of Europe's Convention on Human Rights.
I regret to say that I feel that the Commission's and Council's silence on human rights in Turkey has been deafening over the past few months.
Last August we had the interim report from the Commission, but the final version is still awaited by this Parliament.
It seems to me that there is a lack of political will in both the Commission and the Council to tackle the Turkish Government on their human rights record.
I would urge their representatives to remedy this as soon as possible.
Let them convince us, not least the Council, that they have some principles and they are not always guided by expediency.
Mr President, we are today to implement and bring into effect the Customs Union between Europe and Turkey, an agreement which the House approved last December when Turkey seem on course for a youthful democracy that had left behind the religious and extremist barriers that had hitherto been the hallmark of most of that country's governments.
Now, however, the relationship with Cyprus, along with the events that have taken place and other violent actions by the Turks compel us to reconsider the agreement which, although economic, is bound to have social repercussions.
I shall therefore repeat what I said at the time.
We are today offering Turkey, via the customs agreement, the bases for dialogue with Europe and, therefore, the opportunity to look optimistically to the future.
Turkey has no alternative, other than to revert back to its sorry past.
The European Union must always safeguard the interests of its Member States and Greece first and foremost.
The Turkish nation and people - to whom we wish at any rate to show willing - have great opportunities and responsibilities for the future of Europe and the Mediterranean in particular.
We are in favour of the customs agreement but this could be the last opportunity this Parliament gives Turkish democracy to show that it really is a democracy.
Mr President, today's debate is a painful and sad experience for the three parties involved: Parliament, Council and Commission.
All three were misled, deceived by the commitments which the Turks entered into at the time of parliamentary ratification of the customs union.
Nine months later, there is no escaping the fact that none of those commitments has been met in the field of human rights.
The situation has deteriorated constantly since the customs union came into force.
The Commission will no doubt confirm this shortly when it submits to us its report on the human rights situation in Turkey, as it formally undertook to do at the time of the ratification of the customs union.
There is no sign as yet of any progress, any hope of improvement.
No doubt a simple reminder will no longer be sufficient to persuade Turkey to comply with its commitments.
Strictly speaking, we could have accepted the present situation - deplorable though it is - as a starting point, allowing Turkey the benefit of mitigating circumstances, but only on condition that we demand that improvements should be set in train and - a very important point - that those improvements should be capable of proper evaluation by independent bodies.
This requires, first and foremost, that Turkey should itself take the initiative in renouncing, henceforth, the practice of concealment and the opportunity for it unfortunately provided by certain provisions - especially Article 11 - of the European Convention against Torture.
In a word, it is important that, as a sign of goodwill and in order finally to prove its good intentions, Turkey should now agree to ensure the greatest possible transparency in this matter, renouncing on its own initiative the opportunity to shelter behind that article in order to prevent these indescribable practices from being brought to light.
This is not just a question of putting Turkey on trial.
As far as we are concerned, there is a duty of mea culpa .
By a large majority, this Parliament, together with the Council and the Commission, committed a sin of naïvety last December.
Some, reluctant to believe that they were being led up the garden path, will have understood too late.
Unfortunately, it has since been demonstrated and confirmed that geopolitical ideas, strategic considerations, the fear of Islamic fundamentalism - in short, realpolitik - cannot be used as a pretext for abandoning respect for the basic principles and values of our civilization, which in any case were solemnly accepted by the guilty country.
Our credibility is at stake.
Mr President, today's debate is turning more and more into a debate about the way the European Union sees itself.
Is this Union a common organization for gaining new markets in third countries? If that is the case we obviously have a pretty successful Turkish policy.
Or is it also and above all the endeavour to create a more deep-reaching common European system of values, not only in the Member States of the Union but outside too? If that is the yardstick then - and I believe the Council and the Commission should admit that - we are standing before the ruins of a totally failed Turkish policy.
Our expectation that Turkey, if it could somehow or other be brought into a closer relationship with the Union, would presumably move in the direction of a democratic constitutional state, has been disappointed.
Anyone who has eyes to see must acknowledge that.
We all remember, as many other speakers have said, that at the time Mrs Çiller tried to obtain agreement to the customs union by arguing that this was the only way to check fundamentalism.
Today this same Mrs Çiller is playing the part of breakfast-time foreign policy director to Mr Erbakan, who won the elections.
And it is presumably she who will then have to defend the possible wishes for a revision of the customs union, as announced by Mr Erbakan, before the Union.
An enviable role for this most changeable lady!
And it was this alleged guarantor of democratic progress who, as has been said, then gave 65 million Turkish lire from a secret government fund to the infamous Grey Wolf fascists to finance their punitive expedition to Cyprus, where they killed two innocent and unarmed demonstrators.
In Turkey they continue to torture, murder, close down newspapers, raze Kurdish villages to the ground.
The opposition, and not just the Kurdish opposition, is blocked, people are imprisoned on the flimsiest of pretexts.
The old and the new rulers bear equal responsibility for that.
I do not believe that we can regard them as honest partners although we still wish to accompany and if necessary escort Turkey along the road towards becoming a democratic constitutional state.
We must say that we cannot work with these partners and that on the contrary, without wanting to interfere in Turkish politics, we have to strengthen those forces that represent an alternative, that genuinely offer a guarantee that there is democracy in Turkey.
Consequently: no funds to go to this government and its projects, but funding when it is a question of supporting democratic projects, civilian projects.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 13 December last year Parliament debated and voted on the customs union.
In the debate I declared that I very clearly recognised the political dimension of the customs union, and that there were problems, principally concerning Cyprus, the Kurdish question, human rights and rising fundamentalism.
These are all matters which undermine the fundamentals of a democratic constitutional state.
Taking everything into account, I allowed myself to be very hesitantly convinced to vote for the customs union with Turkey, thereby joining those wishing to take the risk for strengthened cooperation.
Today we feel betrayed and can do nothing but express strong criticism of the situation in Turkey.
The agreements undertaken by Mrs Çiller have not been fulfilled.
The situation regarding democracy, human rights, the Cyprus question and the problem of the Kurds has deteriorated and not improved.
So there are many reasons to be concerned about the situation in Turkey.
Therefore, I am personally in favour of freezing all financial resources, particularly when one thinks of the current events in Cyprus.
Instead of working for a peaceful solution, a pack of grey wolves was released that committed murder.
I therefore share the indignation that is being expressed in this House.
I believe we are clearly dealing with a provocation on the Turkish side.
Turkey has taken up a very hard position here, and in this context we are worried about the customs union.
Commissioner Van de Broek has indicated that the report on the customs union will be presented next month.
In any case I would like to remind of my intervention of nine months ago concerning the situation of the textile and clothing sector, one of the most sensitive sectors in the working of the customs union.
Commissioner, I have received letters from people in positions of responsibility in this sector stating that great attempts have been made by Turkey to slow the imports of textile products from the European Union.
My question is: can you guarantee us within one month that the customs union can function normally and as well as you have presented it today? The doubts are very grave.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the time I actively supported the signing of the Customs Union Agreement between the European Union and Turkey.
Then, and still now, it was my conviction that this Agreement would be - and it will be - apart from the economic aspects, an instrument exerting political pressure, helping and partly obliging Turkey to look for a political solution to the problem of Cyprus, for making advances in the area of democracy and human rights, for going down the road towards finding a political solution to the Kurdish problem.
But I think that we now have very few hopes, given what the compulsory annual report by the Commission tells us of political progress in Turkey in relation to the three points I have referred to.
But still, the recent and terrible events justify our concerns about political developments in Turkey and we should not forget that we should be most demanding of those countries which are still our allies and economic partners.
Even recognising the fact that this report has not been well drafted, with inappropriate and extremist considerations and proposals in political terms, I think that this resolution is timely and would be a serious parliamentary initiative aimed at the Turkish government. It would also show the Council and the Commission - especially the Council, after what we heard today - that the European Parliament is always aware of the need for the Treaty with Turkey to be observed in full - I insist on the words 'in full' - in particular in terms of the various aspects such as political obligations that must be observed as well as the economic side of things.
That is our duty.
Mr President, Parliament's four conditions for acceptance of a customs union with Turkey were as follows: demands for greater protection of human rights, the peaceful resolution of the Kurdish question, constitutional reforms and democratisation, and the resolution of the Cyprus question.
Many of Parliament's Members voted against a customs union as Parliament's conditions were in no way met.
We regarded it as unrealistic to believe that the demands would be met once the customs union became fact.
I regret to say that we were right.
Rather than improve, the situation has in fact deteriorated.
According to the newspaper 'Turkey Watch' , which monitors the current situation in Turkey, none of Parliament's demands have been met and the situation has worsened still further.
Torture is still practised at police stations, people disappear while being transported by the police and there has been police brutality in connection with demonstrations.
The armed operations in the south-east have continued.
Villages have been cleared of inhabitants and burned down.
The number of refugees in the country today is estimated to be three million.
Despite some promising statements from the new prime minister there has been no follow-up with regard to the Kurdish question.
The Kurdish party HADEP was not permitted to conduct an election campaign in rural areas.
The government has not taken up the opportunity for a ceasefire proposed by the Kurds in order to reach a peaceful settlement.
Certain changes were made as regards anti-terrorism legislation but these have not been followed up with other legislation.
The now notorious Article 8 which governs freedom of expression, or to be more precise the lack of it, is still being applied through other articles of the criminal code.
Some writers may have been released but others have been prosecuted.
Political prisoners, including members of parliament, are still in Turkish prisons, among them Leyla Zana.
Nor has there been any progress on the Cyprus question - rather the opposite.
Recently two young unarmed Cypriots were murdered by Turkish soldiers and paramilitary troops.
Parliament must condemn the killing of Anastasios Isaak and Solomos Solomos and demand that those responsible are brought to justice.
The European Parliament must obviously call for a peaceful solution to the Cyprus question in accordance with the UN Security Council resolution.
The continued violations of human rights in Turkey are undermining the customs union agreement and stand in sharp contrast to the special rules on financial aid.
The Commission must therefore immediately stop all loans under the MEDA programme for Turkey, except of course for those parts which support democracy and human rights.
Turkey is committing a serious infringement of international law by its establishment of a security zone in northern Iraq.
Recent developments show that democracy cannot be achieved through leniency.
The EU has the economic and political instruments at its disposal to persuade Turkey to move towards democracy. It is high time for the European Union to use these instruments.
Mr President, we agreed to the customs union with Turkey even though we saw many problems, which have still not been resolved today.
We can quarrel here about the reliability and political statements of Mrs Çiller - at present she has enough to do coping with her own problems - but the fact is that the situation has worsened since the Erbakan government and after Prime Minister Yilmaz, who started out well in my opinion.
The human rights situation has become considerably more difficult, as Mr Moorhouse pointed out.
The new government gives cause for serious doubt about its resolve to make any reliable attempts to improve the human rights situation in Europe.
Our NATO partner Turkey is moving in a new direction and Mr Erbakan does not want to be a hindrance in Europe but would prefer to be a leading power in the Islamic world.
In fact 23 % of the world population does support Islam and the Islamic faith can be found in more than 100 states.
The conflicts with Greece in Cyprus and with the Kurds have become exacerbated and it is our duty not to fan the flames any further in this difficult situation.
Nor has the internal political and economic situation in Turkey itself improved - inflation, unemployment, the problems with the PKK - and we quite simply have to ask ourselves, however much sympathy we have for what our Greek colleagues have said today, how we want to shape our relations with Turkey in future. That is the question.
We cannot dodge that question. Do we want to leave Turkey to make its own way or reject it?
That cannot be in our interests. There cannot be stability and peace in the region without Turkey, only with Turkey.
Nor can it be in the interests of our Greek friends to see Turkey as a factor of instability in an Islamic world, facing away from Europe.
Should we revoke the customs union? Constantly and emphatically call for an improvement in human rights and exert pressure: yes!
Put the customs union in question: no!
I am convinced that today's debate and the proposed freezing of funds from the MEDA programme could perhaps be the consequences following from Mr Van den Broek's report on human rights, but not the premise of his report, which he was not due to submit until the end of September from the outset.
We were already aware of that in early 1996.
Since Mr Van den Broek has always kept Parliament well and comprehensively informed, I do not understand paragraph 6 of the joint motion for a resolution and can only recommend that Parliament votes against it on this question.
We must do our utmost to ensure that even with an Islamic government Turkey keeps the European option open and does not turn away from us.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what Mr Langen implied is dangerous.
We have held a debate once before, at the end of last year, in which everything centred round the consideration that we here in the European Parliament, that the European Union should take care to ensure that our policy does not lead to destabilization in Turkey and therefore to destabilization in the region.
To put it differently: what was decided then was a mistake and it is a mistake today, because so long as Turkey gets what it wants without having to give anything in return it will have no reason to change it policy.
That is the real problem we are discussing today.
That is why I must tell you, Mr President-in-Office, that if Mrs Çiller promised you, as you said, to think about the demands made by the European Union regarding democratization and human rights, then I say, forget it.
As Mr Kone&#x010D;ny very rightly said, Mrs Çiller is by far the most unreliable figure in international politics.
Just imagine if the rapporteur of this House on the fight against racism and xenophobia, Arie Oostlander, proposed Le Pen as President of Parliament next week.
Then you too would say: either he has gone crazy or he is immoral.
But that is more or less how Mrs Çiller is behaving, for she has not only deceived the European Parliament.
The worst thing is that she has deceived her own people in Turkey.
For many people elected Tansu Çiller in the hope of preventing the move towards Islam in Turkey.
This kind of person cannot be the European Parliament's interlocutor.
And nor can Mr Van den Broek be the European Parliament's interlocutor.
Mr Van den Broek and the President-inOffice of the Council have put forward what I call a Machiavellian policy.
Everything that is in the interests of the European Union is good, cost what it may, even at the cost of democracy within Turkey.
We cannot endorse that.
We cannot have the roles divided up in this way: you practice politics à la Metternich and let the windbags in the European Parliament be responsible for human rights. When will you finally visit a prison?
When will you go to Kurdistan, Mr President-in-Office, to see for yourself what is happening in that country? We hear nothing said about that; as long as you just go on negotiating in your government palace, Turkey will look like a democracy to you.
I know that.
I too have been in the government palace.
It is a lovely place.
But I also know the other side of Turkey, the side of torture and contempt and violations of human rights.
You must inform yourself about that too, and if you do so you will come to new conclusions.
It is time for us to stop supporting Tansu Çiller, nor can we having anything to do with Erbakan.
After all, he himself said that he wants nothing to do with us.
It is up to us finally to begin supporting the democratic forces in Turkey, for if Turkey really were democratic, if this country really did respect democratic and human rights, then of course it would be a welcome partner of the European Parliament.
I am fed up with everyone who criticizes this Erbakan government being presented as an enemy of Turkey.
This applies specifically to our Greek colleagues, who come from a country that respects and practises democracy.
I believe that if we do not ostracize those who trample on human rights and support those who fight for people's freedom, for their freedom to express an opinion, their free democratic political rights and their right to selfdetermination, then we will be violating our own principles and trampling on them.
That is why there is no other choice: freeze the funding until Turkey remembers that only democratic, constitutional states can be our partners.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I in turn would like to begin my remarks by restating a conviction and a fact.
Turkey is a great country, of special importance on the world chessboard, a powerful country, a country which is allied to Europe. It must remain so, and we must do everything we can to ensure that it remains so.
It was this geopolitical reality which, at the time, explained a number of our decisions, and which also explains the evolution of our relations with that country.
It is that same reality, today, which justifies, explains and highlights our disappointments and our serious anxieties.
Finally, it is this established fact which justifies our firmness regarding the future, the firmness which the socialists and all the other groups are calling for in this debate.
I have some personal knowledge of Turkey because I was a member of the joint Europe-Turkey committee for five years from 1989 to 1994, and I was able at that time to measure the change in the state of mind of our opposite numbers.
At the start, they were asking for only one thing, membership, whereas at the end they were responding to our questions and queries with verbal aggression and harsh accusations.
It must be said that Islam had progressed in the meantime, and that the USSR had disintegrated, giving Turkey dreams of a dominant position in that region.
It was in this climate of opinion that a year ago, in late 1995, on the eve of the Turkish legislative elections, a fantastic propaganda machine was started up to ask us to accept customs union.
Diplomatic approaches, pressure on cabinet ministers, telephone calls, endless promises about human rights and democracy for the Kurds and even peace in Cyprus, and finally the clincher: unless customs union was voted in, Islam and the fundamentalists would come to power.
So we voted for customs union, as did many others, with a heavy heart.
We voted, we made a choice, and we were wrong, not to say wronged.
Political repression within Turkey is more severe than ever.
The prisons are full and people have died, no effort has been made on behalf of the Kurds, there has been additional, murderous provocation in Cyprus and, to crown all these disappointments, on the day after the elections the secular right was torn apart and Mrs Çiller called upon us in December to help her fight the fundamentalism which has installed an admitted supporter of Islam, Mr Erbakan, as Prime Minister.
It is clear that, today, the political conditions on the basis of which the European Parliament gave its agreement no longer exist.
They must therefore be called into question, and Europe must freeze all the appropriations under the financial protocol and all those within the framework of the MEDA programme.
I should add that the Commission should also study the conditions under which the customs union itself can be questioned.
As I see it today, Mr President, and I am coming to the end, this is the one and only way still open to us to force Turkey to honour its commitment.
It is, ultimately, our one and only way of helping Turkey to remain a great, secular, democratic, peaceful and allied country on the borders of Europe.
' So, even if I saw with my own eyes that the state has burned a village, I would not believe it' .
I hope that that statement by Mrs Çiller will have lost, even for her, its validity after the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights last Monday, which states explicitly that the Turkish Government burns villages and in doing so violates the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocol No 1.
It is important to point to this verdict, because it is a sign that Turkish links with Europe in the long run can be fruitful also for the democratic situation in Europe.
But that demands action, and what I regret in the Council statements is that there is an unwillingness for any action whatsoever, apart from the simple continuation of the customs union.
Then the Council becomes co-responsible for a deterioration of the human rights situation in Turkey, as we can see it today.
There is deterioration, there is no progress, there is systematic torture, there are disappearances and extrajudicial killings and they are tolerated and permitted in a state, to quote an Amnesty International report 'that disposes of all the institutions to establish a stricter rule of law and to improve significantly the human rights situation' .
That is the problem.
When we voted in favour of the customs union last year we did not believe that we would establish full human rights immediately but we were led to believe by Mrs Çiller and a majority of the members of the Grand National Assembly that the Turkish political system at least partially accepted that responsibility and was ready to improve the situation.
We were misled: the reform of Article 8 - Mr Moorhouse, has been rather explicit on that one - did not lead to a real reform of the freedom of expression.
There are no signs of improvement in any area of human rights, only indications of deterioration.
After the debates in December and after the promises made by the Turks we did not get what we were entitled to expect.
Are we now obliged to give Mr Erbakan and Mrs Çiller what they expect? I do not think so.
My Group is determined to continue to block the appropriations for Turkey deriving from the Financial Protocol of the Customs Union Agreement in the 1997 budget.
Turkey has to improve its record first.
We have a more difficult proposal and that is to try to block the MEDA money meant for Turkey but by putting into the reserve sufficient MEDA resources we can do that.
Only if there is serious progress towards human rights should we be ready to unblock the money.
That may still be a long way off but we should exercise our rights in order to remain credible, and that is what I object to in the Council statements!
Mr President, last December the European Parliament approved the customs union with Turkey.
I respected the arguments of Members who assumed that approval of the customs union would strengthen the democratic forces in Turkey and lead to positive change.
In rejecting customs union I had some residual doubts whether I was doing the right thing.
Today we know that not only was no progress achieved in Turkey in relation to the development of democracy or respect for human rights and international law, but that it is more than clear that the situation has regressed and worsened, both in Turkey and in Cyprus, for which Turkey bears the responsibility.
This summer people quite frequently spoke and wrote erroneously about inter-community discussions in Cyprus.
But the fact is that there were no discussions between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and that Turks murdered two unarmed Greek Cypriots who demonstrated along with others against the 22-year occupation of 37 % of the island.
Some Members have pointed to an aspect of particular importance to this Parliament in its relations with Turkey, and I will repeat it: according to statements by the Turkish Grand National Assembly, the fascist Grey Wolf youth organization received 65 million Turkish lire from the treasury in order to go to Cyprus.
Members of the Grey Wolf organization then killed a Cypriot called Isaak.
The Turkish officer who shot the Cypriot called Solomos - and this really is worse than cynical and is really terrible - was appointed minister of agriculture of the self-styled Northern Cypriot state three days later by Mr Denktash, as a kind of reward.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is time we made it unequivocally clear that the European Parliament, the European Union feels it has been deceived, that we make it clear that we do not want good relations with a country that tramples on human rights and international law and that we therefore freeze the financial resources for Turkey.
Mr President, when we voted on the Customs Union with Turkey at the turn of the year, a good many people were in doubt as regards the right thing to do, but the wish to cooperate and to engage in a dialogue with Turkey won the day - not least because we could already see reforms as a result of earlier pressure from the European Parliament, and the prospect of more was held out to us.
Where the Council of Ministers resigned itself, Parliament exploited the situation for the benefit of democracy and human rights.
Since then, however, there have been steps backwards which we cannot ignore.
Elected members of the Turkish National Assembly are still in prison, and other people have been imprisoned because they are calling for a peaceful dialogue between Turks and Kurds.
Legal action has just been taken against staff at a rehabilitation centre for torture victims, because they would not supply the names of these victims to the authorities.
Mr Blak and I were present in Ankara at the trial of a Danish citizen of Kurdish origin, Kemal Koc, who was imprisoned for something he did in Denmark which is legal there and which the Danish authorities do not wish to investigate.
There is concern at the role the Turkish ambassador in Denmark has played in this and many other cases.
On Cyprus, we also have reason to believe that the Turkish Government is involved in stirring up feelings.
We therefore do not wish to release the funds which have been allocated to Turkey under the Customs Union, ECU 375 million over five years, or to use funds from the MEDA programme in favour of Turkey, not because there is no need to support a large number of people in Turkey, but because the Turkish Government itself is spending billions to wage war against people on its own territory, and we have to draw attention to this state of affairs.
Mr President, the position adopted by the President-in-Office of the Council on the state of human rights and democracy in Turkey is cynical, and in any case insults the intelligence of this Parliament's Members.
Institutions are tested at times of crisis. There are times when an institution is called upon to change its views because it has been misled.
When a majority in Parliament voted for Customs Union, it did so on the basis of information which has since been given the lie.
The pessimists were proved right.
The declaration we are to vote upon is not as stern as I would have liked. However, there is no way other than to vote for it, at least, because we must not forget that the European Parliament is the natural protector of human values, and its declarations should therefore be correspondingly strict.
Turkey's attitude towards the European Union is provocative and is encouraged both by the stance of some European governments and by our own tolerance.
In this Chamber, we have heard an unexpected pharisaism, namely that we should be careful lest, by any chance, since Greece is a Member of the European Union, it might be considered that a stern attitude towards Turkey is motivated by philhellenic partiality.
And it is added: ' we understand our Greek colleagues' .
To say that, is a disgrace!
Greece is part of Europe too, but in any case it cannot be used to excuse leniency towards a regime founded on violence against persons and disregard for international law.
And let us not forget: our own insistence on respect for human rights is a source of comfort for democrats in Turkey itself, who are groaning under a regime of violence, and for the Turkish Cypriots who are suffering in the areas illegally occupied by Turkey.
Mr President, with reference to Mr Langen's speech, in which he mentioned the fact that Greek colleagues have asked for the credits to be frozen, I want it to be noted that every one of those who have spoken today called for the freezing of Turkey's credits, for the reasons they gave.
Mr President, I also want it to be noted that this effort to present Turkey and the Cyprus tragedy as an issue between Greece and Turkey, must stop.
These problems concern the whole of the civilized world and the European Union in particular, and that is how they should be addressed.
I have just learned that the French interpreter has translated that I would not sign the compromise resolution.
The opposite is the case.
I have not only signed it, I will also be voting for it.
So, I just wanted to make it clear to all colleagues. I will vote against Turkey .
Mr President, I have listened to the debate with great interest and will certainly take into account the various points which have been made.
There are a couple of factual points I should like to deal with briefly.
First, I did deal with the question of northern Iraq in the earlier debate on Iraq.
I just wanted to put that straight.
In relation to my comments on taking both motions together: that was a procedural comment.
I had been informed that the motions would be taken separately and I wanted to be sure that that was the House's understanding.
I was only told immediately before the debate that that was the case.
At the outset I should like to thank Brian Crowley for his magnanimous comments.
I have taken very careful note of the views expressed by Members here today.
We will report these views to the Council and take them into account in our deliberations.
I will also ensure that the Tánaiste , Dick Spring is fully briefed on this debate before his meeting with Mrs Çiller next week, which will be the second in a matter of weeks.
I made very clear in my statement the Council's determination to pursue the concerns, which we fully share with Parliament, regarding the human rights situation in Turkey.
We are continuing to press the Turkish authorities to fulfil the assurances they have given to the Union and the undertakings they have entered into under international law.
We are strongly urging an approach to the Kurdish situation which will ensure freedom of expression on the politically acceptable approach to the Kurdish problem.
If a Turkish representative had been present here today, I wonder whether he would have criticized the Council for the implications of what we did say in our statement.
The Council's strategy is not - as has been described - business as usual.
What we are trying to do is use the channels available to us to press for and encourage the kind of changes we are all seeking.
We have also adopted a firm declaration setting out the principles which should govern our relations with Turkey.
We will continue to press for a constructive response to this declaration.
Finally, on Cyprus, I would recall that the Council has condemned the recent brutal killings of civilians on the island and we have strongly deplored the disproportionate use of force by the security forces in the north of Cyprus, as I said earlier.
And, as I also said, these tragic incidents highlight the urgent need to intensify efforts to promote a solution under the UN aegis.
The European Union is playing a full, active and committed part in support of those efforts.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Child abuse
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
by Mr Ligabue, Mr Pasty and Mrs Todini, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council (B4-0839/96-0-0154/96) and to the Commission (B4-0683/96-0-0155/96) on measures to protect under-age children who are victims of violence in the European Union; -by Mrs Hermange, Mrs Todini, Mrs Colli Comelli, Mr Crowley, Mr Andrews and Mr Mezzaroma, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission (B4-0841/96-0-0180/96) on action against paedophile networks; -by Mr Monfils and Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council (B4-0842/96-0-0181/96) on the traffic in children; -by Mr Monfils and Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission (B4-0846/96-0-0187/96) on sexual exploitation of children and the campaign against paedophile networks in Europe; -by Mrs Roth, Mrs Aelvoet and Mrs van Dijk, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission (B4-0843/96-0-0182/96) on combatting paedophilia, child prostitution and child abduction; -by Mrs Van Lancker, Mr de Coene and Mr Willockx, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council (B4-0844/96-0-0183/96) on European cooperation in the fight against paedophilia and child pornography; -by Mrs Dury, Mr Schulz, Mr Desama, Mr de Coene, Mr Rothley, Mr Cot and Ms Oddy, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission (B4-0850/96-0-0193/96) on acts of violence against underage children; -by Mrs Pailler, Mrs Sornosa Martinéz, Mr Vinci and Mr Alavanos, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission (B4-0845/96-0-0185/96) on child abuse; -by Mrs Colombo Svevo, Mrs Banotti, Mrs Pack, Mr Chanterie, Mr Martens, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, Mr Deprez, Mr Herman, Mrs Thyssen, Mr Grosch, Mrs Bennasar Tous, Mrs Mouskouri and Mr Tindemans, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission (B4-0847/96-0-0188/96) on acts of violence against minors; -by Mr Pradier, on behalf of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission (B4-0848/96-0-0189/96) on protection of under-age victims of violence in the EU; -by Mrs Seiller, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, to the Commission (B4-0849/96-0-0190/96) on violence against children and paedophile and pornographic networks.
Mr President, I was going to start my speech by saying that emotion, sadness and remembrance have not been forgotten, and I should add that they must not be.
Let us not forget the emotion of last week, because perhaps that emotion should be the mainspring of our actions.
The socialist group has indicated its agreement with the joint motion for a resolution, and I should like to add at this point, unambiguously, that what we want is the communitization of cooperation within the framework of the campaign against the trafficking in human beings, in women and children.
I would like to say unambiguously that Europol must play its part and must include this campaign among its objectives.
And I would like to say unambiguously that, if any State does not want to join Europol, then the others should do so and go ahead without it.
The socialist group is unanimous in this and unanimous in repeating it forcefully to the Council and the Commission.
However, with regard to this motion for a resolution, I would also like to add a few points.
First, we believe that an effort must be made in terms of research and reflection.
In fact, there is very little expert knowledge in this field, because the subject was long regarded as taboo and difficult.
It needs to be examined with care, because we are talking about a system, and because we have to combat that system: this is not just a matter of individual perversions and abominations.
We believe, too, that it is necessary to harmonize the definitions of rape in our various legislations; that we need to harmonize the concept of an offence associated with the exploitation of children and young adults; that we need to tighten our legislation by abolishing, in some of our countries, the principle of double incrimination, especially in connection with sex tourism; and, finally, that we need to amend our legislation to flush out instances of concealed trafficking in children, either in the form of adoption or in the form of sham marriages.
And, finally, we must combat child pornography, in other words the trivialization of the sexual exploitation of children.
What the motion for a resolution does not contain is any reference to the principle of combatting money laundering.
Is it widely known that the Spartacus network, some of whose leaders have been convicted, is pursuing its activities because they are primarily geared to making profits? Well, if that is its strength, it must also be its weakness.
I believe we should also give thought to combatting the laundering of money, and to the penalties to be imposed on banks, even if European banks are involved.
In conclusion, let us also think about the victims, providing victims with someone to whom they can talk.
Let us think about the gathering of evidence, which needs to be more human, which needs to be facilitated in every possible way in order to make it more effective.
Mr President, I must say that the only hope I have in this whole business - which, it is true, has been a shock - is that the shock may prove to be a salutary one and that, apart from the appropriate words, which are certainly useful and necessary, we shall be able, with the assistance of the Commission and the Council, to take all the steps required.
Madam Commissioner, will the Commission make the measures to be adopted against pornography involving children global, so that they can also be applied to other vulnerable sectors of the population like women? Is there going to be further study of the issues underlying the crimes of sexual trafficking and pornography, involving both children and women, to look into what motivates them and call for international cooperation?
I would like a clear and convincing answer which will dispel any doubts about the possibility of taking effective action to prevent the proliferation of this crime. We can never forget who is at the receiving end of sexual violence and we must discover the causes and find ways of eliminating it.
Finally, is there an intention to draw up provisions which include the basic legal foundations for equality and nondiscrimination against boys, girls and women in the Treaty of Union?
Mr President, colleagues, you will recall that in our debate in July I made a prophetic request for a central data base on which details of all missing children would be recorded and my proposal has proved to be, as I have said, prophetically tragic.
It is impossible to get accurate statistics for the number of children who are missing in the European Union.
Children go missing for a variety of reasons: some are parentally abducted; some are runaways, often from violent and abusive homes; some from problems at school, as minor as a school report.
Some children, however, are criminally abducted and are never found.
Some other children disappear because they have had fatal accidents and they are never found either.
What is clear is that the law in all our countries has not kept up with the increasingly horrific crimes against children and the sophistication and evil of those who prey on children.
Paedophiles and evil people have made enthusiastic and skilful use of the Internet for their purposes.
Unfortunately, national agencies, both police and voluntary, have not had the same success.
I told you in July that in the United States they have on record the National Institute for Missing and Exploited Children over 367, 000 children.
We still have not even the slightest idea of how many are missing here in Europe.
Confronting these problems will require a radical reform of Member States' laws to protect our children more effectively.
I hope we will do this following the ratification of the Europol Treaty.
Can the President-in-Office assure us that, in the new Treaty following the IGC, the rights of children will be given the just, legal weight they deserve? Events in Belgium have focused international attention on the many loopholes which exist, both nationally and internationally, in our laws.
If we can respond clearly and effectively to the challenge presented to us, I believe we will provide a fitting memorial to the little girls who were so brutally murdered in Belgium.
We must also hang our heads in shame for the sexual abuse of children carried out by tourists in developing countries.
Most of the clients of the sexually abused children come from Western countries and, because these children are far away, we have succeeded in ignoring what is being done to them.
Extra-territorial legislation to convict those who travel abroad to abuse children is absolutely vital.
A European register of convicted paedophiles may cause concern on the basis of infringement of civil liberties, but I do not believe it is impossible to take into consideration both the protection of children and the protection of individual civil liberties.
We need a system whereby those who have been convicted of paedophile offences are registered both nationally and internationally, with access only available to legal officers or those considering offering employment with privileged access to children.
This register would simply give information to those seeking to employ people in the form of a 'yes' or 'no' about a previous conviction.
For too long assistance to the public has been provided only by voluntary networks.
They have done an exceptionally fine job with very few resources and many of them were initiated by parents who have experienced the anguish of losing their children and, in many cases, finding their children had been murdered.
Since my appointment as Mediator for Abducted Children, I have learned a great deal and much of what I have learned has sickened me.
Mr President, a few weeks ago, in Brussels, we were expressing our outrage against the crimes perpetrated against children in one of our Member States.
Today, we are engaging in a substantive debate on the sexual exploitation of children, because it is urgent that we should react.
After all, how many children will have to be raped, kidnapped, even murdered before we finally come up with the solutions we need?
Even so, combatting these appalling activities is, sadly, not so easy.
First, it seems that forms of abuse directed at children are actually on the increase.
The figures are horrifying.
Secondly, ill-treated children are not always able to react, and it is sometimes very difficult to break this law of silence, this law of impunity, which is so common when these abuses are carried out by close relatives.
Then again, these paedophile networks, which are constantly growing and are one of the causes behind the crimes we are denouncing, are able to disguise their activities and get round the best organized checks.
So what is to be done? In our joint motion for a resolution we mentioned ways of fighting this problem.
For my part, I would have preferred them to be rather more specific with regard to the action to be taken, especially in this programme we are so anxious to see.
When the time comes, we will need to provide it with appropriate financial resources, and the forthcoming budgetary debate should enable us to be more specific about this plan.
In this respect, I would like to have the Commission's position.
That would be a significant step.
Nevertheless, apart from the action to be instituted - I am thinking in particular of the part Europol should play in establishing a common database - we must not lose sight of the fact that globalization is having undesirable effects which must be taken into account.
It has allowed the development of what is literally a traffic in children, using the sex tourism networks.
As far as the Internet is concerned, we know that it offers an ideal cover for the encouragement of paedophilia.
That is why our call for protection for children must be universal.
We must ensure that children's rights are respected everywhere, starting by setting an example.
Moreover, we must remember that the sexual exploitation of children, dreadful as it is, is only one of the many forms of aggression to which children are subjected nowadays.
Too often, in our societies, childhood goes hand in hand with violence.
The news stories we see every day have become an inescapable fact of society.
In public places, in schools, and sadly in some families too, blows are taking the place of dialogue, tenderness and affection.
So, ladies and gentlemen, let us mobilize to push back these walls of shame.
Mr President, the fight against the scourge of paedophilia and the sexual exploitation of children must be carried on at all levels - local, national, European and international.
Each level of authority and effectiveness is important, and must supplement the others.
And it is true that no level must be allowed to delegate its responsibilities.
Little has been said about the local level.
I am going to emphasize it, even so, because I believe we must also take into account the way life is organized within society, at the level of the basic units - families, districts, cities - where children's interests are not a high enough priority.
Too many children are left to themselves, left alone, come home alone from school, spend time alone at home, and are easy prey.
As regards law enforcement and the police, judicial cooperation and other aspects, I endorse all the highly relevant remarks made by other Members.
On the prevention side, however, I want to raise a question which is not an easy one.
We talk about living in an information society.
It is a matter of urgency, then, to initiate at national, European and international level a process of ethical reflection on information societies.
We should also ask ourselves about the status of sexuality in this information society, because if there is a supply to be eliminated, that is because there is a demand.
Why is there such a demand for perverted sexual practices?
We need to ask ourselves about the way in which sexuality is handled in advertising.
Moreover, should all sexual practices be regarded as on the same level, and do they all have the same right to display themselves in every different way? Sexuality is an extraordinary form of human energy, which is beneficial, and which is wonderful when it is associated with affectivity - when there is a profound relationship between two people.
But when it is constantly the focus of the media society, as something disconnected from love and life, is there not a probable risk of every conceivable kind of aberration, including the sexual exploitation of children?
The Council shares the feeling of honourable Members about the tragic events which have taken place recently involving the abduction of children for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
It is determined to do everything in its power to put in place arrangements which will allow for effective cooperation between the Member States and effective international and multilateral cooperation to put an end to this scourge which has caused, and is continuing to cause, so much suffering.
The tragic events in Belgium came to light on the eve of a World Congress Against Commercial Exploitation of Children, which took place in Stockholm on 27-31 August 1996.
The congress underlined the importance of dealing with this particularly appalling form of violence against children.
It adopted a declaration and agenda for action which includes a commitment to make the commercial sexual exploitation of children a criminal offence and to condemn and penalize all offenders, whether local or foreign, while ensuring that the child victims of this practice are not penalized but are assisted.
There is also a commitment to enforce laws, policies and programmes to protect children from commercial sexual exploitation and strengthen communication and cooperation between law enforcement authorities.
The development and implementation of national laws to establish the criminal responsibility of so-called 'service providers' , customers and intermediaries in child prostitution, child trafficking, child pornography, including possession of child pornography, and other sexual activity is also emphasized.
On 6 September 1996, the EU indicated its determination to maintain concerted action to put an end to the sexual exploitation of children by means of a declaration concerning the follow-up to the Stockholm Congress.
The EU Declaration welcomed the outcome of the World Congress in Stockholm and stated that the EU will strive for the implementation of the recommendations adopted there.
It will also continue its efforts to have traffic in human beings made a criminal offence internationally.
As stated in the declaration, Europe's resolve will also be shown through fresh initiatives in all appropriate European bodies.
This resolve is illustrated by the fact that immediately after the events in Belgium, the Irish presidency acted to draft and table a joint action which would extend the mandate of the European Drugs Unit to encompass traffic in human beings.
It would cover the activities of paedophiles and those who supply children to them as well as the trafficking in women for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
In effect, it would confer immediately on the EDU the responsibilities in relation to this form of activity which will be held by Europol when the Europol convention is ratified.
This measure will facilitate cooperation and an exchange of information between police forces and allow the EDU to provide any assistance which it can in relation to these activities.
It will, of course, be up to the Council to ensure that the EDU has the resources necessary to undertake the tasks which will be entrusted to it.
These resources must be provided.
The Council also has before it three proposals which the Belgian Government has put forward for joint actions designed to promote cooperation against the sexual exploitation of children.
These will provide for the establishment of a multiannual programme of training and exchange for the benefit of those engaged in action against trafficking in persons and the sexual exploitation of children; the creation of a directory of competences and specializations in the fight against crime, particularly crime of this nature; and improved judicial cooperation in relation to this form of crime.
The Irish presidency has made special arrangements so that these proposals can be considered quickly.
They will be discussed by Justice and Home Affairs Ministers when they meet in Dublin on 26 and 27 September.
It is intended that concrete measures be in place very shortly after that.
During the Irish presidency, trafficking in persons will be one of the chief points for discussion in the Structured Dialogue between the European Union and the Associated Countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the Justice and Home Affairs area.
These discussions will culminate in a Ministerial Meeting at the end of November, and the opportunity will be taken to engage these countries as far as possible in the international effort to bring an end to this activity.
In addition to its commitment to strengthen police and judicial cooperation, the European Union is conscious of the need to provide physical and psychological support for the victims of such outrages and to promote their recovery and reintegration in accordance with the Declaration adopted in Stockholm.
The Council is aware of the view expressed by honourable Members that the question of the rights of minors should be considered in the Intergovernmental Conference with a view to the introduction of Treaty provisions in relation to them.
This is a matter which is currently under consideration in the IGC.
Please be assured that the presidency will listen very carefully to the views of MEPs and shares their sense of urgency and concern.
Let none of us be in any doubt.
What happened in Belgium could happen in any Member State or any other State.
We in the European Union must empower ourselves to deal with this horrific challenge.
I wish to say, on a personal basis, that while paedophile rings are operating on a highly organized international basis, to date the European Union states have not cooperated sufficiently to ensure a response organized on an international basis.
It is estimated that more than one million children worldwide, some as young as two years of age, have fallen victim to commercial sexual exploitation, been bargained for, smuggled and sold.
A recent British study also revealed that police had identified 31 paedophile rings in an area of just 700, 000 people.
It is happening in Ireland, it is happening in Britain, it is happening in Belgium, it is happening in all our Member States and we will start to deal with this problem when we acknowledge that reality.
The Irish presidency also proposed that the EU takes a common position, as I mentioned earlier.
I had the honour to make the keynote address at the Council of Europe meeting in this building, which was a regional meeting in preparation for the Stockholm meeting.
I suggested there, some months ago, that we needed an international register of convicted paedophiles which should be compiled by the UN.
I feel that is something that should be considered and that we should have regional compilation of such registers.
Perhaps in Europe that could be done by the European Union or the Council of Europe.
I mention in passing that some months ago the Irish Government accepted a Private Member's Bill dealing with sex tourism and that it is currently before the Irish Parliament.
That bill makes it an offence in Irish law for any Irish citizen or person living in Ireland to participate in what is called sex tourism, whether it is in the Far East or any other part of the world - it does not have to happen within the jurisdiction of the State.
I commend that piece of legislation for consideration by all the Member States.
I wish to conclude by saying this: I encourage the European Parliament to push out the boat on this issue.
It is an issue which concerns us all and which Parliament should rightly be concerned about.
I want to assure you that the presidency and the Council of Ministers are indeed so concerned.
Mr President, could we be assured that the Minister will also take on board the question regarding an amendment to the Treaty protecting the rights of children? I feel that we are spancelled in terms of our legal powers unless we have Treaty legitimacy.
Mr President, as I said in my contribution, we are aware of the views expressed by the Parliamentarians here, and this is a matter which is currently under consideration in the IGC.
I have been asked by some Members, and by people outside this House, if we should not extend the Treaty provisions to include a provision for citizenship for children.
The advice I have received on that particular Treaty provision is that the reference to all persons who have citizenship of a Member State covers everybody, including children, but I would be very happy to ensure that it is examined again.
As far as I am concerned, if additional wording would tighten up the provisions in the Treaty and assist us in our campaign, you would certainly be pushing an open door with me.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the sexual exploitation of children is the most repulsive kind of child abuse.
The terrible events of the last few months in Belgium coincided with the first world congress against the sexual exploitation of children for commercial purposes.
This has meant that for the first time the issue has become a proper part of the political agenda.
I attended the congress on the sexual exploitation of children for commercial purposes, which was held in Stockholm at the end of August.
The declaration which was adopted stresses not only the need for further national measures but also the need to support international cooperation.
The congress adopted a comprehensive approach, dealing with preventive measures, the work of the judicial authorities, as well as the need to rehabilitate the children who are victims and paedophiles themselves.
The declaration emphasises the necessity of establishing close cooperation between governments, international organisations and other sections of society.
The plan of action which was also elaborated is intended to highlight those international commitments which already exist.
This must be followed up with practical measures.
We agreed that all countries should now draw up a strategy for national implementation of the plan of action and report on results in the year 2000.
Obviously, the Commission should play an active part in measures to combat the sexual abuse of children.
We have already initiated an analysis of the Stockholm conference's plan of action, in order to ensure that it is also carried out at European level.
In the first instance, of course, the effort must be made at national level.
I dearly hope that all the attention which is now being devoted to the problems means that the battle against all forms of sexual exploitation will be given priority.
National efforts are not sufficient, however.
The problem is often a cross-border one.
There is therefore a need for joint solutions, as regards both the smuggling of children and that of young women.
The groups involved are well organised, with networks covering many countries.
They earn a great deal of money from their activities.
Intensive cooperation is required in order to stop them, at European and other levels.
On behalf of the Commission, may I say how pleased I am that the different political groups in this House have now passed a joint resolution.
Within the framework for cooperation within the fields of justice and home affairs there are excellent opportunities for strong EU cooperation in this area.
It is heartening to see that several new proposals have already been introduced as a result of the recent events.
They are intended primarily to strengthen police and judicial cooperation.
This also shows how valuable third pillar cooperation is.
The current Intergovernmental Conference also provides a unique opportunity to make cooperation on justice and home affairs even more effective.
In this connection I should like to endorse what my Irish colleague said, namely that our Treaty also provides ways of placing the situation of children centre stage in a totally different way than we have to date.
Trafficking in children for sexual purposes is a criminal act.
Europol must therefore be given a decisive role in our work against it.
I believe there are possibilities of establishing a database, a register to deal with both trafficking in children for sexual purposes and trafficking in women.
This means that we must make every effort to have Europol ratified.
In this regard I believe that everyone has an important role to play, we must all work together.
As far as I know no government has as yet started the process leading to ratification of Europol, which is so terribly important if we are to get any further.
The Commission also wholeheartedly supports the Irish presidency's initiative to extend the EDU mandate without further ado to include all forms of trafficking in human beings.
I hope that this will be a joint action, in order that it can come into effect immediately.
This would mean that EDU could begin work straight away on issues affecting trafficking in women and children for sexual purposes; this would be of considerable value.
The issue of an extended EDU mandate will, as I understand, be discussed at the informal meeting of ministers and I truly hope that there will be a unanimous recommendation.
I can assure you that the Commission will play an active part in the battle against the sexual exploitation of children.
Together with my fellow Commissioners I am currently busy drawing up an overview of all the action currently being undertaken in the Commission.
I should like to say a few words about some of the most important activities on our agenda.
As you know, I myself, together with the Austrian government, organised a conference in Vienna in June this year.
The principal theme was the smuggling of women but the conference also looked at the issue of young women who are minors and young girls.
This work gave rise to a number of conclusions and concrete recommendations, one of which stressed the need to adopt a multidisciplinary approach.
Another important conclusion was that close cooperation must be established with voluntary organisations, which can be described as having been active in the field longest.
On the basis of the Vienna recommendations we are now engaged in the preparation of a communication which will be presented to both the Council and the European Parliament.
In it we identify a number of areas where measures should be taken.
As regards activities in respect of children and families in general the Commission's scope for action is to a very large extent limited to no more than research and information.
In September 1989 the Council of Ministers responsible for family issues adopted an agreement on family policy.
In the document in question we stressed the importance of the family for children's upbringing and it was established that the Community has a legitimate interest in monitoring the effect of economic, social and demographic factors on family development.
Within the framework of the Commission's budget item for social policy, B3-4100, the Commission finances the European Observatory for national family policy.
The Observatory's annual reports contain sections on families living under great stress and also cover the issue of child abuse and violence within families.
The annual reports describe how Member States deal with these issues and they are distributed to a large number of key people in all Member States.
A working party comprising senior officials from the Member States with responsibility for family issues meets twice a year under the auspices of the Commission.
The aim of these meetings is to exchange ideas and thoughts on family issues and to discuss what can be done to protect children.
Various models of how child abuse can be stopped have been presented, some at the group's most recent meeting in June this year.
Over the years the Commission has also helped a large number of voluntary organisations with work to change attitudes.
It has been especially important to increase public consciousness of the need to protect minors. We have also financed research efforts and disseminate publications which describe the situation in the different Member States.
The Commission is also very active internationally, not least as regards development work and human rights.
We support numerous projects and activities aimed at strengthening and protecting children's rights.
Examples include the conditions in which street children live and support for voluntary organisations in developing countries which, for instance, combat child prostitution.
In April the Commission made a proposal for a decision on a multi-year programme to support and develop European tourism.
The proposal paid particular attention to the issue of sex tourism.
We point out, inter alia, the need for a code of conduct for the tourist industry and the fact that it is essential that the industry cleans up its own act in this regard.
The proposal also mentions various kinds of concrete support measures to achieve this.
My fellow Commissioner, Christos Papoutsis, has also announced further initiatives before this Assembly to combat sex tourism involving children.
The Commission is now preparing a communication to Parliament and the Council of Ministers on the extent to which recommendations are to be formulated.
It will be addressed primarily to the Member States and cover measures in several important areas.
We mention, for example, prevention, support for voluntary organisations, the international exchange of information and measures to ensure that the tourist industry cleans up its act.
Today's new means of communication bring with them new kinds of problems.
I am thinking in particular about the dissemination of child pornography and the fact that paedophiles use these new media to seek contact with one another.
It has also become easier for minors to obtain access to files containing pornographic or other offensive pictorial material.
In this area too we must take measures.
I wish I could say that the Commission had found solutions to these problems but it is an exceptionally sensitive area and I understand that it is not clear that legislation is the most effective path to take.
Prohibitions can be difficult to enforce but I do not want to exclude any options.
When radio and TV first appeared we succeeded very quickly in extending the legislation and regulations applicable to the printed word.
The Internet is certainly a completely different kind of medium but I hope that we will succeed in extending existing rules to cover it too.
The aim is that those who put this kind of information onto the Internet should be called to account for their abominable actions.
The Commission is at present elaborating a green paper on the new audiovisual media.
Within the framework of this work we will shortly be preparing a special document on the protection of integrity and the protection of minors.
At the informal meeting of ministers with responsibility for culture and communications in Bologna in April the Commission was also charged with drafting a summary of all the problems involving the Internet.
The Commission was asked in particular to investigate the need for European or other international statutory regulation of the Internet.
Finally, Mr President, the Union will naturally continue its efforts to ensure that the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child is ratified.
It has already been ratified by the parliaments of 187 states, among them all the Member States of the EU and the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.
However, ratification alone will not help; it is also a question of the convention being implemented by means of practical policies which work.
At national level the need for further legislation or the updating of existing legislation must be investigated.
The Commission has noted with satisfaction that certain EU Member States have introduced what might be called extra-territorial legislation, making it possible also to bring to justice those who exploit children in other countries.
For my part, I hope that all the EU Member States will introduce this kind of legislation.
The battle against all forms of sexual abuse must thus be continued.
This should be done at national level, at European level and at international level.
The Commission is determined to play a part in this work in every way that it can.
Thus will we demonstrate that the rights of both children and women are also human rights.
Mr President, the Irish presidency has today announced that the mandate of Europol is to be expanded and will also cover trafficking in children.
This is good news.
But we must immediately add that the Europol Convention is still a long way from being ratified by the Member States.
We therefore wonder how much longer it will take before Europol itself can finally get off the starting blocks.
Apparently we are all enthusiastically agreed about this.
The question is if we are also enthusiastically agreed about other aspects.
Cooperation between the judiciary and police is today an exclusive competence of governments.
This does not immediately result in fast and efficient results.
People do not understand why it is so difficult to work together on a European basis in fighting crime, when crime itself has been organised internationally for so long and takes no notice whatsoever of national borders.
What are we waiting for to bring cooperation between the judiciary and police up to Union level, to give the Commission powers, and the European Parliament democratic control?
People in Europe are prepared to shoulder their responsibility.
Internet users trace child pornography.
In the Netherlands, for example, Internet users have set up a special reporting point for this purpose.
Parliament also calls for the putting in place of measures to prevent the distribution of child pornography via the Internet and the latest media.
But specialists point out to us that this is a particularly questionable affair.
That is why the setting up and supporting of reporting points is such an obvious measure.
This sort of neighbourhood watch on Internet does appear to result in efficient social control.
We could begin to create a Europe of the people, using the sincere commitment of the people.
Finally, child pornography and prostitution exist because some individuals have a perverse nature. But it also exists because Mafia and criminal organisations can make huge profits from it.
Today they are working in child pornography, tomorrow in drug trafficking, then trafficking in women or weapons.
They have only one code, that of money.
To fight them we must penetrate the core of their existence, and the abolition of banking secrecy would be an excellent resource for this.
Mr President, a Europol official recently admitted that the trafficking in and exploitation of human beings is becoming the most profitable form of trade for international organized crime and that this is taking over from or at any rate matching profits from drug-trafficking because it is proving to be more profitable and less dangerous.
That is a consequence of the fact that while attention to and awareness of drugs is now very developed in all countries, the trafficking in and exploitation of human beings remains shrouded in silence, complicity and indifference.
I think that should be our starting-point.
This is a trend that will not be defeated unless there is a very great effort and political focus.
I would remind the House that this Parliament drew up a report at time when there was no inkling of this and we cannot wait for other tragedies before reaching conclusions and putting into effect the main lines of the report, as Mrs Gradin was correct to point out today.
The attention needing to be paid to this phenomenon must consist in specific proposals, funding and controls.
We shall not even scratch the surface unless a integrated scheme of measures is adopted, at local and international level, in the various sectors of education, prevention and prosecution, with the different institutional players.
We should be under no illusion that simple or miracle solutions will be able to be found here.
The structure of the report which the House approved on the trade in human beings should be taken up as a whole, even if it needs to be gauged and studied in terms of the specific issue of children.
My third point is that the network affording protection needs to be more robust than the criminal network.
That seems self-evident but it is not in fact easy to put into effect.
We are therefore waiting for the communication from the Commission, and I would thank Mrs Gradin for playing such an active part in the work on these issues, at a time when we were not aware, when few honourable Members thought that this was a problem on such a vast scale.
But if we are to make this a robust network we need, first of all, to make the third pillar more secure.
We shall not be able to defeat this phenomenon unless we have the courage to take robust action, to introduce reinforced coordination between the police and the organs of the judiciary.
I realize that we cannot leave it all to Europol but, since Europol has responsibility for preventing the theft of cars or trafficking in fissile materials, we cannot accept that it should not tackle the trade in human beings which is a growing problem.
Finally, we have resolutely to tackle the crux of the legislation.
The network will be a robust one if we are able to preserve core values.
What is at the root of this treatment of human beings as if they were a mere commodity? It is not enough to continue to proclaim rights if we are unable to enjoy them on a daily basis.
I believe that this is something that we, as a Parliament, should be thinking about.
Mr President we are talking about children being fondled, abused, raped, scarred for life; children disappearing, murdered, never to be seen again!
It is sad indeed that it took the tragedy of the Dutroux affair for this House to debate this problem today and to understand that a million children are caught up in the sex trade each year worldwide, several thousand of them in our continent.
Apart from the figures, though, we are talking here about people and children.
Children have to be recognized not as consumer goods but as genuine citizens.
This is why I support all those honourable Members who have said that the first step must be to take action at the legal level, making good the shortcomings of our legislative systems and harmonizing them in the area of child protection and paedophilia; and that the Intergovernmental Conference must create a legal basis to enable us to pursue a Community policy against the trade in human beings.
Until such time as that happens, it is also important for the European Observatory to be equipped with substantial human and financial resources to enable it to play a real part in the application of the legislation.
But quite apart from this, as I have said, this affects all of us.
It is right that this House should adopt a new philosophical approach to these problems.
Our continent must show the necessary determination to raise children's rights to the status of one of the fundamental values of our European civilizations.
In order to do this, as you have said, we must pursue an appropriate policy on the family.
Today, at a time when some of our colleagues are accepting men and women without papers and becoming involved, perhaps, in a political operation, how can we avoid the thought that, the more the values of our continent are undermined, the less willing we will be to accept those men and women who turn to us in despair for help - material or moral help?
This Europe, ladies and gentlemen, is not the Europe of dealers, it is the Europe of men and women, the Europe which our fellow citizens are calling on us every day to construct.
The Europe of greater humanity, greater dignity.
As such, it necessarily requires a genuine family policy, one which creates a moral, affective, legal and material environment in which every family and every individual can blossom.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Gradin for her communication, but I really must stress that what we are asking for is not just studies but, obviously, action.
We are considering a motion for a resolution which, for once in a way, seems to me relatively precise.
As Mrs Todini has recalled, I tabled an amendment to the budget for the appropriation of the necessary credits - about ECU 5 million - to set up a European Union action programme to combat sex crime against children.
Furthermore, in both the resolution and the amendment, a number of specific recommendations for action were made.
Consequently, we are expecting there to be a debate on this, and we are expecting the competent bodies of the European Union, starting with the Commission, to tell us clearly whether they agree to release the credits that are essential to action of this kind.
We also expect them to say what type of action they are planning to take.
This seems to me to be essential.
I would like to stress a number of activities which seem to me to be useful.
I believe all my colleagues have done so.
I might perhaps add one point which is not included in either the resolution or the amendment: irrespective of everything that has been said, we should also be on the alert to deal with the traffic in organs, surely an equally appalling and perhaps even more secretive practice, which takes place clandestinely and sometimes reaches right to the borders of the European Union.
This is an instance where it is possible to adopt a number of directives on controls, so as to prevent any danger of unexpected events in this area.
Of course, we are going to vote in favour of the resolution.
I hope that the amendment to the budget - in its current form or slightly amended - will be adopted by the end of the year.
We shall then have the weapons to meet the challenge we confront, and I feel that it would be a great thing for the European Union to show that it is not a heartless machine but that it can, lastingly, make a specific extra contribution to the action of the Member States in a field which directly affects the citizen and which focuses our concerns on the dignity and integrity of mankind.
Mr President, we have heard today of the importance of Europe in the world, and of European Culture.
But we have a sickness at the core.
All over Europe we face a violent and obscene abuse of children. How have our values become so degraded that even children can be sold for sex?
Is it the limitless pursuit of selfishness and profit that has eroded our values? Is there a free market even in the abuse of children?
We seem paralysed in the face of this obscenity.
Some of our political, religious, juridical and police institutions have been implicated in corrupt collusion with this evil.
Others have not acted appropriately.
How can we create confidence in our legal and police institutions to identify and prevent the flow of paedophilia?
I was terribly shocked in my own country when I began to read in a serious Sunday newspaper recently an alleged transcript of a criminal and pornographic nature.
I found that I could not continue to read.
I am at a loss to understand how such transcripts of a criminal nature can be published.
I have asked our Minister for Justice for an explanation, as I understand the person in question has walked free.
I would now ask the Council to consider such cases in its delegations of justice ministers in Dublin at the end of this month.
I would like a further response from Council today.
I appreciate the response already given by the Council and Commission, but we need to have this criminal traffic in children and in the portrayal of children in a violent, abusive and obscene manner stopped.
Can we be assured that the legal sanctions against these crimes will operate openly and effectively? It is not only on the Internet that these things circulate.
We in the European Parliament are very much for freedom of speech and freedom of information but we are even more concerned to protect children against criminal and violent abuse.
We must find ways in each case, as it arises, to accommodate both these principles.
Finally, the Council representative has alluded to the fact that the right of citizenship is also applicable to children and minors, and is therefore a basis for common action.
Can Council confirm that this is so and, if not, what proposals does it have to include children in Maastricht Two as a matter of urgency, so that there is a basis for common action?
Mr President, current events have put the fate and exploitation of children in the limelight and people become very worked up about it, until the next shocking pictures flood into our information society.
Resolutions are drawn up and statements disseminated, but are we really helping the victims? As early as 1991, in the report on the situation of children in the European Union, I called for a child action programme and for concrete measures against sex tourism and child abuse.
Meanwhile five committees are working on the subject.
But it took the terrible events in Belgium to rouse the public and focus the necessary attention on this subject.
The non-governmental organizations and government representatives at the conferences in Stockholm and Vienna have now drawn up new action plans and we must call for further work to be done at Union level and for the necessary budget appropriations to be made available.
That is the conclusion drawn by the Committee on Women's Rights yesterday from its activities.
Of course child abuse somehow implies that normal use of children and also women exists too.
Those who have long been dealing with the subject in the Committee on Women's Rights and the non-governmental organizations have known the gruesome pictures for a long time.
I do not believe anyone here can imagine what the victims really had to suffer.
Scenes are photographed with home video cameras, they are fed into the Internet and paedophile networks earn millions from these dreadful things.
The more brutal the scene, the more money can be made out of it.
We have to move ahead rapidly with the initiatives Mrs Gradin has now taken and which the Irish presidency of the Council has followed up.
We must ensure that car theft in the Union is not considered more important than children and to this end I call for rapid, for mega-rapid action, otherwise we are mega-out.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the tragic events in the Dutroux case, which has stunned my country, have just slapped us in the face with a reality which is hard to bear because, in point of fact, we are not just dealing with isolated acts of paedophilia.
What the Dutroux case shows is that there is a form of organized crime targeting children and young people: Dutroux is not alone, and there are many like him, unknown to us as yet, who are also not acting alone.
This was an organized gang which was hunting down girls, little girls, drugging them, abusing them, filming them and then getting rid of them.
This same organized gang then distributed revolting audiovisual products through secret channels which we have not yet unravelled and about which we have yet to learn the complete truth.
And there are other organized gangs, too, in Europe and in South-East Asia, supplying the sex tourists from our own countries with the children they abuse and the facilities to satisfy their desires.
That is why this sickness has to be fought today with the same means that we use to combat organized crime.
I should like to emphasize six points which seem to me essential.
There is an urgent need to create a specialized, centralized register of abducted or lost children.
Such a register has existed in the United States since 1984, up to which time - as still happens here - there was not even any systematic identification of abducted children, and no inquiry was begun until 24 hours had elapsed, long enough for all traces to have vanished.
There is an urgent need to give Europol, the convention on which must be ratified by all our countries, the necessary mandate and means to identify the channels used for the trade in human beings and to dismantle them.
There is an urgent need to legislate, in all the Member States, to combat sex tourism and the trade in videos intended for paedophiles, making it a crime merely to possess such videos.
There is an urgent need, too, to legislate at international and national level to ensure that the modern communication networks are not used to support rings of perverts or organized criminals.
Because they have been useful in our own country, as experience has shown, there is also a need to assist the NGOs specializing in the tracing of vanished children or combatting the sexual exploitation of children.
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a need to consider the penalties.
The bestiality of the activities of the Dutroux gang and the frequency of reoffending among paedophiles must make us think about our scale of values and about increasing the penalties.
We need more guarantees for our children, and less clemency for sex criminals and child murderers.
Mr President, I want to welcome the cross-party support for this debate, initiated by our group and spearheaded by Mrs Todini, on the complex and disturbing issue of violence against children.
The question we have to ask is: what can Europe do to provide an effective response to the need to protect our children from violence, abductions, paedophile rings, Internet abuse and other exploitation? These issues cannot be addressed in a piecemeal manner.
Our European institutions must be courageous and provide leadership on the rights and needs of our children and young people.
I call upon the Council today to amend the Treaty to include a specific, legally sound reference to children and to citizens' rights for them.
Sympathetic utterances are not enough.
We need a clear commitment today from your presidency that before the end of December you will have put the necessary proposal on the inclusion of a special chapter on the rights of children and adolescents in the Treaty to the Intergovernmental Conference.
Inclusion in the Treaty needs to be followed up with responsibility for the wide range of children's issues being coordinated by a single Commissioner and unit within the Commission.
I would ask the Commission to provide an outline of proposals it intends to submit on halting Internet abuse.
Some months ago I asked the Commission to undertake a pilot initiative on this. What role does it see for Europol?
Indeed, why has Ireland not ratified the Europol Convention and why are we not fully participating in it? How can the Member States, including Ireland, contribute more to the fight against all forms of violence against children?
In conclusion, I appeal to the Minister, in his capacity as President-in-Office of the Council to take his courage in his hands and to actively seek the support of all the other Member States in including children specifically, clearly and as a top priority in the Treaty.
Mr President, it is time that this House took a serious and resolute parliamentary initiative to tackle at an early stage the problem of paedophilia and the exploitation of minors.
We very much appreciated the fact that the Commission is preparing further communications and further studies on the trade in women and children for sexual purposes, but only on condition that they are an immediate preliminary to detailed and specific measures to combat this - if not, they will remain solely and exclusively words heaped on other words.
We already have, in my view, a quantity of data, analyses and studies sufficient enough to provide an in-depth understanding of this phenomenon.
We know that at least 15 million children throughout the world are involved in prostitution; we know that many travel agencies do more than good business, in complete freedom and openly, with sex tourism; we are aware of the incredible number of minors who have disappeared or been kidnapped and the veritable trade in newborn babies; we are also aware, despite all of that, of the very limited structures for prevention, aid and psychological help for minors.
We are also aware, above all, of the dreadful crimes - most recently those that occurred in Belgium - which are more telling than many statistics and to which our response can no longer take the form merely of written reports.
For that very reason, we need, in addition to a public campaign of condemnation and increased awareness, to call for a Community fund specifically for the protection of children, in particular minors who have been the victims of violence.
Let me say in conclusion that this will certainly not be an unproductive investment: let us therefore take account of it when debating the budget!
Mr President, child abuse and violence against minors is, unfortunately, not a new phenomenon.
Unfortunately children are abused, abducted or subjected to other violent crimes every day in our Member States too.
The fact that we are holding a debate on this today follows on from the events of last week but also from the Stockholm conference.
This has given the conference more weight.
All the participants agreed that Stockholm would not have gained so much publicity if the terrible events in Belgium had not come to light shortly beforehand.
Many people have realised that sex tourism and sexual abuse of children is not just something that happens in holiday destinations several hours away by plane but that it has come very close and that it also concerns every one of us here to some extent, for here too children are abused every day.
One positive aspect is that the Stockholm conference and its action programme will not be forgotten as quickly as conferences. often are.
Several Members of this Parliament will also continue working assiduously ensure that the action plan is implemented.
For this we not only need to make money available but also to continue working on measures to prevent, combat, rehabilitate and inform.
I welcome the fact that both the Commission and the Council intend to give real consideration to this question on 26 and 27 September at the informal meeting of ministers of justice and of the interior.
But above all, we must insist that the 1989 UN Convention on the rights of children is ratified, implemented and respected immediately, in my country Germany too, for about 30 % of our population is under-age.
That is why it is hard to understand why this population group does not have its place in the Treaty as a separate group.
I hope this will be borne in mind at the conference on the revision of the Treaty.
Mr President, I believe that everything has already been said about this matter but I should just like to recall that when we had a debate about the white slave trade it was quite clearly demonstrated that such traffic involved young adolescents who were abducted and taken off to prostitution centres from European Union Member States and that this traffic did not only hail from third countries.
The recent dramatic events in Belgium show, in my opinion, two things: first of all, the deterioration of moral values in this Christian, humanist and supposedly civilized Europe, a deterioration which could lead to Europe's destruction from within.
Secondly, it shows that we are up against new forms of organized crime apart from those we already knew of.
No-one and no country can now believe that it is immune from the effects of all of this.
We all agree about the fact that we must find solutions and the fact that we must act rapidly; there are two measures which seem to me to be vital here: first of all, as other Members have already said, harmonize criminal legislation.
European criminal codes are excessively concerned by conventional crimes and are very inflexible in dealing with new crimes; this prevents proper justice from being meted out.
On the other hand, finally, Mr President, I think that this is one of the areas where Europol could play a very important, not to say fundamental, role - provided there is the political will to give Europol such responsibilities.
Mr President, the Dutroux case has not only brought to light the existence of an international paedophile ring and revealed complicity between certain political and legal circles in Belgium and the criminals.
The deaths of Julie, Melissa, Ann and Efje have also shown the inertia of the authorities in dealing with crime.
There is nothing surprising about this.
What more can you expect from a country which sacrifices its children to the ideology of so-called human rights, an ideology which has led Belgium to do away with the death penalty for child murderers? If the multiple offender Dutroux had received his just punishment, Julie, Melissa, Anne and Efje would still be alive.
They paid with their lives for the insane irresponsibility of those who argue in favour of a murderer's right to life.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the increase in incidents of abuse and violence against minors and adolescents that has come to light of late, the world trade in minors and the increase in paedophilia in all countries are causes of great concern.
We need to take concrete measures, setting under way a campaign to increase public awareness about these issues with the help of the mass media, so that the European Institutions are able to set in place a system of prevention, involving the specialist public and private services in each Member State.
We need to set up specialist centres responsible for protecting children and adolescents at risk, so as to prevent and identify all forms of sexual abuse, and we need also to provide them with all the necessary medical, psychological and legal assistance.
We need to increase cooperation and the exchange of information between the Member States with the help of Europol whose objectives of fighting international crime include the trade in human beings.
The Council of Ministers should, finally, work towards the adoption of an agenda which has the effect of an invitation to the national parliaments to adopt recommendation R91/11, adopted by the Council of Ministers on 9 September 1991, calling upon parliaments to debate as soon as possible measures on sexual abuse, abduction for libidinous purposes, rape, pornography, prostitution and the traffic in children and adolescents in terms of criminal law and harmonizing national legislation in such a way that the problem is finally resolved.
Mr President, Mrs Seillier said that we must fight crime against children on three levels: the international, the national and the local.
She is correct and I certainly noted her comments during this debate.
In my speech earlier, I spoke mainly of the international response but we must all, as individual Member States, also develop our own initiatives.
This is reinforced by the report of the Stockholm Conference which said that the primary task of combatting the commercial sexual exploitation of children rests with the state and families.
The civil society also has an essential role to play in protecting children from commercial sexual exploitation.
It is imperative to build a strong partnership between governments, international organizations and all sectors of society to counter such exploitation.
That is what the Stockholm Conference said.
I also feel strongly, as I said at the beginning, that the European Union must also act and clearly give leadership at the outset in tackling this problem.
One such initiative would be to suppress the transfer of information regarding such activities on the Internet.
I raised this possibility some months ago when I spoke at the Council of Europe Regional Conference in preparation for the Stockholm Conference and was met with some derision by one particular Sunday columnist in a newspaper in my own country.
I am glad to see that authorities in some countries are working closely with network suppliers, who have a major responsibility in this area, with a view to applying a self-regulating code initially.
It may well be necessary to proceed to legislation at a later stage.
I understand that this is something that is under consideration and may, in fact, be nearing the stage of cooperation in my own country.
This has been done in some countries already and it is important that we all look at the possibility of doing it.
Similarly, we could all legislate in our own Member States to outlaw sex tourism, as has been said during the debate.
I have already outlined the presidency proposals for EU action.
I listened intently to Commissioner Gradin's speech and I look forward to hearing the Commission's proposal regarding the Internet controls and sex tourism.
I commend her for her actions in pursuing this matter over a period of time.
One Member made reference to an article in a Sunday newspaper in Ireland, which I also read and found equally horrific.
The article stated that the person to whom the Member referred was not prosecuted and, I understand, is, in fact, dead.
But I am sure that the Member will get a response from the Minister for Justice, to whom she has written.
Will legal sanctions be applied openly? Well I certainly expect and hope they would be.
Laws should be applied openly.
Both Ms Ahern and Mr Andrews asked about citizenship.
If necessary we will consider new Treaty bases but the Intergovernmental Conference will need to take advice on this matter.
I cannot give an assurance across the floor of the House.
I will ask the legal service of the Council to look at this matter and to advise us and, if it is practicable, it is certainly something we can consider putting forward.
In relation to the ratification of the Europol Convention, it has only been possible to do this recently because the Convention was delayed by one of the Member States.
A number of Members have implied - perhaps unintentionally - that this matter has only been raised as a result of the Belgian case.
That is not so.
The Belgian case has certainly made it more urgent, more acute and has brought it home more to the minds of citizens.
But a number of people have raised this matter.
Mrs Banotti has been raising this and related issues for some time and I replied to a question from her in the debate here in the House in July.
Similarly, as I mentioned earlier, I spoke on this subject at a Council of Europe meeting some months ago, following a presentation that I made to the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe of a series of articles on paedophilia and sex tourism in The Irish Times .
Following the presentation of those articles to him he asked me to be the keynote speaker at that conference.
That took place long before the Belgian case.
I might also mention the Stockholm Conference was planned long before that case.
But the Belgian case has brought home to all of us just how serious this problem is.
I repeat what I said earlier.
This is not a Belgian problem, it is a problem for all Member States and for countries which are not members of the European Union.
We must face up to that responsibility.
There is rarely an occasion when the three institutions - the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers - agree on the seriousness of a problem.
We do now.
But we must translate that into action and I hope the action of the President-in-Office of the Justice and Home Affairs Council and Commissioner Gradin will meet the need.
They certainly have shown that they are going in the right direction.
Mrs Bennasar Tous asked a question regarding European NGO networks.
I am not in a position to reply to that here but if she would write to me about this in detail I will let her have a specific reply.
I am delighted to be in a position to reply to this debate.
Sadly we have to have this debate but it is timely that the European Parliament has raised this important issue which is of concern to every citizen of the Union.
Mr President, I myself have a question which I think I should answer, and it concerns how the Commission generally supports voluntary organisations and how we work together with networks.
I can report that before the conference in Stockholm the Commission provided money to enable voluntary organisations to play an active role and prepare for the conference.
However, we have also supported projects where, for example, women's organisations have worked against child prostitution or to free children from the 'prisons' in which they have ended up.
As a result of the conferences held and the activities we have been involved in regarding the enforced prostitution of women a network has been formed through which women can cooperate.
The network consists in part of women's organisations and in part of women from countries which send women to work in various 'establishments' , that is to say bars and the like, in our countries.
This is a way of establishing a successful network.
I believe that it is extremely important that we stand by voluntary organisations because for many people with problems it is easier to turn to a women's organisation than to a police station.
I have received seven motions for resolutions to wind up this debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Thursday, at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.15 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Guarantees covered by the general budget
The next item is the report (A4-0254/96) by Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the report from the Commission on guarantees covered by the general budget - situation at 30 June 1995 (COM(95)0625 - C4-0064/96).
Mr President, this is one of the times when you feel glad you won a seat in the European Parliament so that you can engage in political dialogue with your colleagues.
After 9 o'clock perhaps we should meet in a telephone box!
It would be more comfortable.
However, this is an extremely important report.
It is a report on a Commission report in relation to loans and the guarantees on those loans.
Loans granted by the Community, whether by the Commission through its borrowings and lendings or by the European Investment Bank need a guarantee.
It has always been to Parliament that institutions have had to look.
Guarantees used to be totally and exclusively by means of a token entry against the budget.
It was pressure from this Parliament that led to the change and led to the introduction of a Guarantee Fund.
It was part of our arguments to protect the Community budget, particularly its non-obligatory expenditure from the risk of being called to pay default on loans.
We won that fund but the Guarantee Fund mechanism, as is shown by the Commission report, is not entirely adequate.
The Committee on Budgets report therefore concerns the report from the Commission on the guarantees covered by the general budget as at 30 June 1995 and it is the ninth report of its kind.
There is a very complicated explanatory memorandum but the explanatory memorandum is just that: it explains all the circumstances.
It explains not only the structure of the Commission report but also the various operations entered into the budget.
It describes the borrowing and lending operations and it describes the European Investment Bank operations.
Anybody who reads about the extent to which we are engaged in covering that lending by guarantees will see something of the economic impact of the European Union in developments not only inside but particularly outside the Community: the developments which are taking place in the Mediterranean, Latin America and Asia; the developments that are taking place in those countries covered by the PHARE arrangements; the lending and borrowing that is particularly related to the CIS countries; our involvement in countries as diverse and as far apart politically as Israel on the one hand and Algeria on the other.
So there is a very detailed explanation of the type of loans we are guaranteeing, the extent of those guarantees and the amount of economic activity in which we are therefore involved.
The motion for a resolution notes that at the European Summit in Cannes there was a conclusion that there needed to be an extension of the lending and borrowing activities of the Community to third countries.
There was a very clear statement from us that we support this proposal in principle.
We, however, have to go on from there and make some critical comments.
If it is true that the Heads of State and Government both value the programme and want it extended, they have to face up to the financial and economic consequences of that political commitment.
We cannot have a European Union in which heads of government sit down in Cannes or anywhere else, make the promise and then fail to produce the mechanisms to fulfil that promise.
At the present time there is a broad expression of support for more borrowing and lending activities but an unwillingness to change the mechanism for providing the resources that are necessary to the Guarantee Fund.
Therefore, if the Commission reads the resolution when it has to react to it in detail, it will see that there are a number of specific criticisms.
There is the specific criticism about the Guarantee Fund mechanism.
There is the declaration that the mechanism needs to be changed but cannot be changed unilaterally by the Commission.
It has to involve the budget authority in those discussions.
Failure to do so is, in fact, going to result in a strangulation of our capacity to guarantee the very programmes that heads of state and government were committing themselves to at the Cannes summit.
There are a number of specific statements - not criticisms because we regard ourselves as working in partnership with the Commission - of either regret or concern and they are covered in the early part of the resolution.
As I say in paragraph 3 we think the report is only a descriptive assessment without a proper analytical approach.
We hope the Commission will look at our comments very seriously, take them on board and will produce a better report next time and, in doing that, will recognize what we say in the report that it must look at the whole question of reporting to Parliament, particularly where our guarantees are at risk.
We must find a method of overcoming some of the problems of confidentiality but as it is Parliament which is the provider of the mechanism and Parliament that insisted on the Guarantee Fund mechanism, there has to be both the willingness to get better systems to replenish the fund on the one hand and advise Parliament on the other about the times when the funds that are in the Guarantee Fund are placed at risk by possible defalcation.
I commend the report.
It is in reaction to the Commission.
We hope that given the constructively critical way in which we have approached the Commission report this time, it will react to it equally constructively and give us a basis on which we can work collaboratively in the future.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for the fine report he has produced.
The Commission report on the budget guarantee is also a very good report, which looks in detail at the situation of the countries for which loans are provided.
Therefore, we can have nothing but praise for the report in itself.
The report raises questions about the reform of the Guarantee Fund, which brings about a number of large risks.
Economically weak countries or countries that are politically unstable have particular difficulties in repaying their loans.
Over a period this results in a great strain on the budget of the Union.
So, the PPE Group believes it is necessary to create new background conditions for the Guarantee Fund. These conditions would have to cover a number of aspects.
Firstly, with the granting of financial assistance, cooperation with the Commission and informing of Parliament will have to be greatly improved.
Secondly, with the allocation of financial help to third countries the Article 235 is still applied, wrongly in my opinion.
This should be replaced because the Budget Committee should have a right of codecision on such an important question, as is not actually the case now.
Finally, the role of the Budget Committee must once again be revised.
The European Parliament must not be kept outside the decision-making process.
Parliament does not have enough of a say in the guarantee risk for the budget. This is unacceptable as well as presenting a very risky situation from a financial perspective.
The PPE Group would therefore ask the Commission to create new conditions for the Guarantee Fund.
It would be a good idea to present a report to this Parliament before 1997, as we are aware that in 1997 all loans to third countries are to be examined.
This is a very good time to remove any faults in the present system, to provide us with a really good system, though we must admit that, thanks to the efforts of people like Mr Tomlinson in this Parliament, it has already been somewhat improved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council is calling for an increase in lending and borrowing activities.
That is well and good.
But what it is not doing is to pay sufficient attention to guarantees.
In view of the expected defaults of several million ecu over the next few years, the Council's proposal to reduce the amounts paid into the Guarantee Fund is irresponsible in budgetary terms.
The only real answer would be to revise the Financial Perspectives.
But since this has obviously been given the red light, the Council will have to have to take responsibility for any increase in the guarantee risk borne by the EU budget over the next few years, which would create incalculable risks for the financing of the EU's internal and external policy.
For this reason alone, we urgently need more transparency in relation to the granting of loans and to payment defaults.
There must be no right of confidentiality about what the tax-payer has to pay for.
Over and above this, we must support the request to the Commission to evaluate the Guarantee Fund more flexibly, taking more account of the concrete risks involved in the loans granted.
I myself have spent two days trying to understand the complex mechanisms that John Tomlinson lists in his report and to work out what it is all about.
I believe that the Tomlinson report makes it clear that we are facing not just a technical problem but a real threat to the EU budget unless clear changes are now made.
In this spirit, I would ask the Commission and the Council to submit proposals to this House.
We have done the necessary with Mr Tomlinson's report, which we support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first let me thank the rapporteur, Mr Tomlinson, for the excellent work he has presented to us here and for the views he expressed and which, I must say, the European Commission largely accepts.
The purpose of the six-monthly report on guarantees is to inform the budget authority about developments in the granting of loans and loan guarantees that affect the Union's budget.
This report presents the annual development of risk up to the year 2002 on the basis of the activities decided upon or proposed by the Commission.
As for the consonance Mr Tomlinson referred to between the guarantee mechanism and the granting of loans outside the Union, let me remind you that the mechanism of the Guarantee Fund and the reserve for guarantees was created, as you yourself said, Mr Tomlinson, in line with a proposal from the European Parliament's, to bring discipline to the policy of granting loans outside the Union.
Consequently, it is pleasing and I think we all could and should welcome the fact that this discipline is prevailing in the operation of the mechanism in question.
Besides, experience has shown that until now the mechanism has helped to combine financial discipline with the maintenance of an appropriate level of lending, amounting to approximately 2.3 billion ECU per year.
However, the Commission has ascertained that the possibilities of the mechanism would not allow the implementation of a more ambitious lending policy, as recommended by the Cannes and Madrid Councils, nor would it easily permit a resumption of macro-economic contribution.
For that reason, in July 1995 the Commission informed the budget authority in a special statement, that the six-monthly report on guarantees is not the appropriate means to assess the operation of the system and to submit new proposals.
Besides, together with the European Investment Bank, the Commission examined the possibility of amending the present details relating to the grant of guarantees by the Union's budget for EIB loans outside the Union.
In September 1995 we submitted a report to the Council, a copy of which was sent to the chairman and rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets, in which we propose reducing the total guarantee proportion to 75 % for EIB loans outside the Union.
Recently, indeed, in agreement with the EIB, the Commission submitted a new report with new amendments.
That report concludes that a reduction of the total guarantee proportion to 50 % is compatible with maintenance of the highest level of solvency available so far for the EIB.
Besides, the Commission and the EIB consider that risk could be shared between the Union and the Bank in one category of programmes.
In such a case, that sharing would result in exemption of the Community budget from what we call 'commercial risk' .
The Commission's proposal will have the indirect result of reconciling the financial discipline imposed by the guarantee mechanism with an appreciable increase in the total amount of loans, in the sense implied by the conclusions of the Cannes and Madrid European Councils.
The Commission will take serious note of the positions expressed by the European Parliament, and what I can promise is that the Commission will so far as possible keep the chairman and rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets informed about related developments, within the framework of flexibility and trust that inspires relations between the European Parliament and the European Commission.
Mr President, I thank Commissioner Papoutsis for his response.
Just as a matter of historical accuracy for the records in our own House: I appreciate that Commissioners have to take advice on these matters but when he says that this was 'in line with a proposal from the European Parliament' then the author of the text ought to be told that is not strictly accurate.
The proposal for a guarantee fund was an insistence of the European Parliament. That was followed.
Unfortunately, as regards the rate at which we said the fund has to be replenished, the advice was not followed and that is why we have the financial difficulties that my report refers to.
But I am very grateful to the Commissioner for the rest of his reply.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Approximation of taxes and excise duties
The next item is the report (A4-0253/96) by Mr von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission report to the Council and European Parliament on the rates of duty laid down in Council Directive 92/79/EEC of 19 October 1992 on the approximation of taxes on cigarettes, Council Directive 92/80/EEC of 19 October 1992 on the approximation of taxes on manufactured tobacco other than cigarettes, Council Directive 92/84/EEC of 19 October 1992 on the approximation of the rates of excise duty on alcohol and alcoholic beverages and Council Directive 92/82/EEC of 19 October 1992 on the approximation of the rates of excise duties on mineral oils (COM(95)0285 - C4-0430/95).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report on the approximation of excise duties in the European Union is in three parts.
I am introducing the report as a whole, as chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Mrs Karla Peijs drafted the section on taxes on cigarettes and manufactured tobacco, Mr Miller the section on excise duty on alcohol and Mr Cox the section on excise duties on mineral oils.
There is one crucial criterion for approximating the duties on these products in the European Union: serious distortions or obstacles to intra-Community trade.
Insufficient harmonization means distortion of competition and the sealing off of markets.
The former leads to protectionism and hinders the free movement of goods.
The latter leads to price discrimination between markets and negates the principle of one market for one product.
But harmonization, let me emphasize, is not a value in itself.
It is not a matter of artificially creating the same conditions throughout Europe.
Often enough that is not necessary and it can even be harmful.
Rather, the European market is based on the competition between systems.
So our aim must not be absolute harmonization but an approximation of excise duty rates.
However, this must be done at a level sufficient to remove the existing distortions.
We are striving to ensure that the differences between excise duty rates in the various Member States at least do not widen.
But there is also a cultural dimension to the harmonization of excise duties.
I think it is quite crucial that we give adequate consideration to the cultural variety in the European Union.
This is particularly important in regard to excise duties on alcohol.
In some Member States, for example, the wine consumption is particularly high.
Others, however, consume more beer, as in Bavaria, or whisky, as in Scotland.
As national cultural components, tastes, customs, life style and social attitudes should not and must not be influenced by tax harmonization.
To show what that means, let me give an example, which may also serve as a criticism of some existing views: it is widely held that alcoholic beverages are in direct competition with one another.
I have always doubted that and once discussed it with a Scottish colleague.
I said to him that surely with the best will in the world he could not say there was any direct competition between whisky and wine because when we have lunch or supper together we drink wine and would surely not drink whisky with a meal!
To which he replied: ' In Scotland we do that every day.'
That shows how different people's habits are.
These different habits are also reflected in different rates of duty and to now try to bring all this into line in the European Community would certainly be a serious mistake.
A number of other aspects have a part to play in this report. For instance the products concerned here also have harmful effects.
They include nicotine addiction, environmental pollution from mineral oils and alcoholism.
The excise duty rates have an effect on this.
Another important point is the value of excise duties as a source of national revenue.
I do not have time to go into this any further.
But I am sure my co-rapporteurs will be saying the necessary on the subject.
In my view harmonization of excise duties can only succeed if the structure of the rates of duty is also harmonized.
This must be accompanied by additional measures to improve the cooperation between the authorities of the European Union Member States.
Mr President, I am acutely aware that over the years the issue of excise duty has divided this Parliament, not on political lines, but on geographical lines.
The debate has ranged between the wine-producing regions and the non-wine-producing regions.
When I undertook to do this report I tried to avoid the old arguments and to approach the subject from a different perspective.
I believe that excise duty should not be seen purely as a revenue-raising exercise, but also as an employment-creation instrument.
However, above all this, the overriding priority should be to bring about the implementation of an equitable tax system where there is no distortion of competition between alcoholic beverages.
The Single European Act set out the principle of harmonization of indirect taxation within the European Union.
We have consistently failed to achieve that goal, and that has led to serious distortion in cross-border trade and a rise in smuggling and fraud.
This problem has to be examined and the appropriate steps taken to rectify it.
We also have a new threat on the horizon.
There is a disease now in Britain worse than BSE - it is called alcoholic lemonade.
It is spreading to the continental mainland.
These drinks are targeted solely at young people.
So you must make sure that these types of cocktail are subject to the highest possible rate of excise duty.
In this report there are also provisions for small brewers and small distillers to have a reduced excise duty rate.
This, hopefully, will aid employment, especially in the rural areas where many of these small distillers and small brewers are located and where, knowing many of the rural areas, unemployment is higher.
So hopefully this will be taken on board by the Commission.
I would also like to draw the Commission's attention to compromise Amendment No 23, which highlights the difference between the rates of excise duty on wine, beer and spirits and says it should not be increased.
If we accept that there is competition between alcoholic beverages - and I know that the Commission does accept this principle, because it formed the basis of its argument to the World Trade Organization when it took on the case of the Japanese liquor tax - we must not allow one country unilaterally to increase excise duty on one beverage, thereby benefiting the other beverages.
This linkage amendment is therefore important to all sectors of the drinks industry.
I now touch on the thorny question of the zero rate for wine.
The reason for our opposition to this has been, right from the very start, that there should be no specific figures in the report.
A zero rate is a specific figure.
The time for specific rates, for specific figures, will be when the Commission produces its follow-up report to this one.
Until then we should stick to the guiding principles which we adopted at the very start in the committee and there should be no specific figures.
Finally, we cannot discuss this issue of excise duty without bringing in the question of health.
It would be irresponsible not to take account of alcoholic consumption within the Member States and of the social, economic and health costs.
It is therefore highlighted in this report, and I hope it is taken seriously on board.
As has been touched on already, in my home country of Scotland to toast one with a glass of whisky we say 'Slàinte mhaith' .
Can I say 'Slàinte mhaith' to yourself, and good health!
Mr President, Parliament has done its best with a report on excise duties from the Commission in which, remarkably, no concrete proposal is to be found.
This is strange for a Commission that claims to be so fond of its right of initiative.
Parliament has had to work hard to have a reasonably consistent report presented to this House.
We would note that the same discrepancies that manifest themselves on this point in Council and Commission are dividing Parliament.
I will briefly present these discrepancies in the form of questions.
Firstly, are there distortions in the system which compel change? This question concerns the working of the internal market, the requirement of harmonisation, the payment of taxes, the so-called cascade effect, and so on.
If the Commission&#x02BC;s answer to this question is "yes' , it must come up with a clear proposal.
Secondly, are we talking about an automatic trigger effect?
This is the effect which can occur if one of the constituent price elements is changed. If the total taxation sum then comes under 57 % of the selling price of the most popular price class, the tax on all other price classes must be correspondingly increased.
This can artificially distort competitive relationships.
Emotions run high with the third question. This question concerns the issue of hand rolled tobacco .
Is a self-made cigarette more unhealthy than an ordinary cigarette? "Yes' , said Mr Metten, "no' , said the rapporteur.
That will not get us anywhere. We have therefore asked the Commission to provide a definite answer, based on an investigation which is apparently under way, and take measures if necessary.
A fourth question relates to the problem of fraud.
The Commission report underestimates the problem in an almost incredible way.
The least that may be expected from the Commission is an acknowledgement of the problem and attempts to estimate the scale in a realistic manner: according to the industry it is at least 5 % of all sales involved, at least 32 billion cigarettes, so 1.3 billion packets of 25 cigarettes.
Excise duty fraud has in this way fatally affected almost entire lines of business with the 100 % guarantee position.
The Commission is working on a new regulation, and maybe the Commissioner can say something about it.
For that matter, I wish the Commission just as pleasant a time as Parliament has had with this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in considering all the products affected by excise duty, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development wanted to favour European agricultural producers, and I was happy to note that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has adopted many of our conclusions.
Whether we are talking about tobacco, alcoholic beverages or mineral oils, I would remind you that excise duty is governed by three principles: structure, rates and circulation.
As regards wine and alcoholic beverages, the conclusions of the Committee on Agriculture are simple: no change should be made, either to the 'Structure' directive or to the 'Rates' directive.
Wine must remain at a minimum rate of excise duty, a zero rate, and must be taxed by volume.
Some of my colleagues, I know, would have preferred taxation based on alcoholic strength and a positive excise duty on wine.
Personally, I opposed this.
After all, to treat wine as any other industrial beverage is to disregard the specific features of wine production. Wine is an agricultural product, made once a year.
The only notable change introduced by the Commission concerns the 'Circulation' directive.
The present administrative system is far too cumbersome and too costly for the wine growers, the regional cooperatives and the local dealers.
This is where the real obstacle to the completion of the single market lies.
It is necessary that the Commission should, at an early date, propose an amendment to this 'Circulation' directive, since it is unacceptable that it should be obligatory to go through an approved operator in order to be able to collect a tax of zero ecus.
Regarding tobacco, the Committee on Agriculture felt that something of a fiscal pause was desirable, but above all it opposes any change in the method of calculating excise duties.
On reading certain amendments, it is notable that some are designed to favour industrial importers of light tobacco.
The disappearance of European tobacco production would result in very serious desertification of less favoured rural areas.
With regard to mineral oils, our committee wanted the use of biofuels to be encouraged, for two reasons: use of agricultural land and the environment, and air quality.
At the present time, many beef cattle farmers are thinking of ploughing up pastureland to produce cereals or other crops.
The area under cereal, oil and protein plants in the European Union and some Member States, including France, is in danger of being extensively exceeded.
The biofuel solution, then, is one possible way of achieving control of European production of arable crops.
Mr President, I am the co-rapporteur for the excise report on mineral oils.
On this area I think it is worth pointing out that the excise tax on mineral oils is tried and tested in all of our fiscal regimes.
It probably has a better chance of success in addressing wider policy issues, like transport environment or economic policy questions, than for example the CO2 tax, which has not really managed to take off and generate the appropriate consensus.
This Parliament, in the current draft of the report if not amended, is prepared to contemplate substantial increases in motor fuel excises, especially for environmental reasons; and believes that such a tax regime should never have a lower rate of tax on a fuel that is more polluting.
We are calling for a comprehensive tax base with regard to mineral oils, and if there are exclusions such as aviation gas or kerosene or natural gas, the Commission should justify these and explain their effect in terms of the operation of the internal market.
A fear that we express: if these duties increase and they are to be the counterpart, taking the White Paper on employment growth and competitiveness, of reducing direct taxes on labour, how do we make the interconnection? We wonder how the Commission would propose to try to induce the Council, with its Article 99 privileges, to do that, and not simply to take more tax and ignore the labour taxation.
On tobacco I wish to support compromise Amendment No 20, on the need to look at the automatic trigger.
On alcohol, I wish to support compromise Amendment No 23, the so-called linkage amendment explained by our colleague Mr Miller, to ensure the distortion should not get greater.
To my colleague and friend the chairman of the Committee, I should warn him that if he goes out to dine with Scotsmen he should not take their yarns about drinking whisky rather than wine too seriously.
But perhaps he was the victim of a few too many glasses of zero-taxed wine himself!
Mr President, alcohol is part of our social culture.
It has its role in gastronomy and in human relations.
However, it has considerable negative effects on public health, on the incidence of accidents, violence and social costs.
The World Health Organisation therefore has a programme to reduce alcohol consumption in Europe.
The European ministers of health back this programme.
It is therefore remarkable that the report attacks high taxes on alcohol.
Sweden pursues a restrictive policy on alcohol, which includes high taxes, especially on spirits.
Sweden therefore has the lowest per capita alcohol consumption of the entire Union.
High prices for spirits reduce drinking.
Now it is being said that high taxes distort the market.
This is not true.
Taxation is just as high on Swedish spirits as on those we import and we import all wine from Member States under the same conditions.
You do not distort the market by drinking less alcohol.
The report also makes a number of false statements.
It claims for example that there is too little research into alcohol in the Member States.
However, there are few subjects in the world which have been so thoroughly researched as the relationship between people and alcohol.
The World Health Organisation report entitled 'Alcohol Policy and the Public Good' , for example, is based on over 700 scientific studies.
This report also lays to rest many myths concerning alcohol.
For instance, it is not true that wine is replacing spirits.
Per capita consumption of wine in France, Germany and Spain is extremely high, but consumption of spirits is also significantly higher than in Sweden, and they have a correspondingly high frequency of alcohol-related illness.
I believe the background to the attack on Nordic alcohol taxes is a very cynical one.
Consumption of alcohol has fallen significantly since 1980 in, for example, France, Spain, Germany and Italy.
Awareness of the risks associated with alcohol, of the health issues and of course road safety has contributed to this reduced consumption.
Alcohol producers thus naturally want to increase their markets in countries where consumption remains low.
Lower taxes on alcohol may lead to more drinking and thus increase markets.
Sweden for its part is not prepared to give up its policy on alcohol.
After all, this is also a tax issue which requires unanimity in the Council of Ministers.
Of course we Swedes believe that each country should find its own special and appropriate combination of information, social policy and, where necessary, taxation, in accordance with its own circumstances and traditions.
Each and every one may have its own model.
We are not trying to export the Swedish model but we should all understand that as far as alcohol is concerned, health and safety must come before market interests.
This Parliament too, Mr President, should act in the spirit of the World Health Organisation.
Mr President, it was very exciting to sit on the committee during this work, because the issue in question is a very significant one, both from the point of view of economic policy and in many other respects.
I hope that the Commission will come to Parliament next year with a more detailed proposal for altering the excise system.
The Green Group is entirely in favour of using product taxation to pursue broader objectives, such as public health and environmental protection.
We consider it quite appropriate for taxation of mineral oils, for example, to be used as an instrument of environmental policy, while taxation of alcohol and tobacco of course can promote health.
Our chairman, Mr von Wogau, has just spoken very warmly about the differences among cultures and the various traditions in respect of alcohol.
I have to admit that I have sometimes had the pleasure of drinking wines brought to Parliament by our chairman from his own region and I have to say that I like wine.
Despite that, I consider that there are no objective grounds for completely exempting one type of alcohol from excise.
The Greens would prefer alcohol to be taxed according to its alcohol content.
This would be an excellent principle on the internal market.
In the case of tobacco there is the strange exception to which Mrs Peijs referred, namely that hand-rolling tobacco is taxed much more lightly.
There is no reason for this, and we have tabled an amendment of our own on this subject too.
Among mineral oils, there is the case of aviation fuel, kerosene.
Why should it be exempt from excise? There are no grounds for this.
Finally, Mr President, while we are trying to meet the convergence criteria, ought not states still to get their tax revenue from somewhere? In my opinion excise is a very appropriate source, also from the point of view of maintaining balance in the public finances.
Mr President, I am not speaking for my group because my group is divided in the same way that Mr Miller mentioned, that is between wine and whisky.
So there will be another speaker later on wine.
The committee's results were not very clear.
It was a controversial set of votes with sometimes just one or two votes in it and then an accusation that the voting procedure was not correct and request for a repeat vote.
So, the committee was also divided.
I am only going to speak about the whisky situation.
I represent the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and have a huge responsibility in representing the bulk of Scotch whisky in the world although others represent constituencies where whisky is produced.
In my 20 years in this Parliament I have seen whisky being treated unfairly time after time, the first time being the absurd proposal by a previous Commission that whisky labels should contain instructions as to use followed by last date for human consumption.
It did not seem to realise that whisky just gets better and better.
Then, there was the recent problem of the cost of storage.
Whisky was to be called a dangerous chemical.
We moderated that slightly because bonds are usually out in fields and are guarded like Fort Knox.
But this recent example is the most unfair treatment.
Wine, as has been said, has the privilege of a zero rate and other forms of alcohol are taxed at different rates.
Mr von Wogau seems to think that there is no competition.
I do not know how much drinking is done in Scotland but I would assure him that if he concentrated not so much on the dinner but the after-dinner drink there is certainly competition between whisky and wine.
I say that there is price-driven tax-distorted competition between different categories of drinks and a zero rate amounts to distorted competition.
The only fair way is to impose excise rates for alcoholic drinks according to alcohol content.
That is what the Commission used to believe.
It used to have an original position of harmonization and it has moved away from that.
I must also say that the places with whisky distilleries in my area are places where there are no alternative jobs and where remote glens and islands depend economically entirely on that industry.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must thank the rapporteur for his efforts, and also my colleague Philippe Martin for his report on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Excise duties are taxes designed to achieve political objectives.
Some of us would like the rates of excise duty to be raised or lowered in order to assist this or that category of economic operator.
Personally, as a member of the Committee on Agriculture, I do not want to take sides in favour of any particular undertaking, but I do want to defend European agriculture as a whole.
Regarding excise duties in the sector of tobaccos and cigarettes, I personally favour preserving the existing status quo, and I would remind the House that some European agricultural regions depend on tobacco production.
Certainly we must not favour the importers and processors of imported Virginia tobacco at the expense of European producers of dark tobacco.
With regard to the excise duty on wine, spirits and alcoholic beverages, I must remind the House that wine is an agricultural product, not an industrial one, and that consequently the zero rating principle must be maintained, along with the principle of taxation by volume and not by strength, as certain lobbyists for the beer and whisky industries would prefer.
As regards mineral oils, the Committee on Agriculture has unanimously adopted the following text, and I quote: ' In view of the ecological benefits and the use of agricultural land for the manufacture of biofuels, calls on the Commission to study a system of taxation that would encourage the use of biofuels.'
At a time when there is talk of reducing agricultural aid, when some farmers, and especially livestock breeders, want to plough up their pastureland in view of the present depressed state of veal and beef production, and when we are in danger of exceeding the European limit, it is necessary to encourage the use of biofuels incorporating agricultural products.
In France, for example, in view of the disastrous beef and veal situation, it is now estimated that we could exceed the limit by 300 000 hectares.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you, through your vote, to develop a system of indirect taxation that benefits European agriculture as a whole.
Our international agreements allow it, and we must have the political will to do it.
This report provides an occasion for Parliament to provide its view on the harmonisation of excise duties, without having to go into details on the various rates.
I would note that we have not made optimal use of the possibility.
The most important functions of excise duties, raising taxes and controlling behaviour, only appear to a limited extent.
That is a pity.
I will keep myself to the former.
The question now is this: are excise duties a good way of providing more income which would make it possible for governments to reduce tax on labour?
The Commission statement on the informal Ecofin council of Verona made it clear that over the last 15 years tax on labour has increased by 20 % and tax on capital has fallen by 10 %.
A reversal of this trend should be our first objective.
But capital in particular is mobile and elusive.
Can excise duties contribute to this reversal?
I should think they can.
Paragraph 4 on the upward harmonisation of tobacco prices; paragraph 20b on a considerable increase in the minimum prices for engine fuels; paragraph 20c on the internalisation of externals costs; and paragraph 20f on an all-encompassing taxation basis for mineral oils and their competing products all clearly point in the right direction.
But there seems to be a taboo in this Parliament on increasing alcohol prices, and particularly on the introduction of a minimum excise duty on wine.
I understand from my southern colleagues that consuming wine is a necessity of life, particularly for retired people and other less prosperous sections of the population who, with the introduction of a minimum excise duty, would be reduced to beggary.
Coming from the Netherlands, where even mineral water has an excise duty, this does seem to me to be somewhat incredible.
What also bothers me is that this report so clearly bears the vestiges of specific lobby activists.
Apart from the paragraph about the zero rate for wine, I will take the proposals for tax concessions for shag, small distillers and biofuels.
If we want to stimulate the use of certain products by lower taxes, I am aware of more useful and favourable products.
Such gifts for specific lobbies do not add credibility to this Parliament.
Finally, I must unfortunately say that some parts of this report are absurd, for example where the direct sale at distance by small producers and small cooperatives is recommended is actually the method to encourage harmonisation to the lowest level of the Union.
So the best thing we can do tomorrow is to vote with my group against large parts of this report.
As far as I am concerned, we could reduce the contents of this report merely to the paragraphs on the upwards harmonisation and the widening of the tax basis.
Mr President, naturally I do not agree with Mr Martinez that we should not levy any more direct taxes, but that is his problem in France.
In my view there is at this time no need to act with regard to the approximation of excise duties on tobacco, alcohol and mineral oils.
The package of measures to harmonize excise duties put together in Luxembourg in 1992 so that the single market could enter into force on 1 January 1993 is not in need of reform, for the single market is not working badly at all, as incidentally has been confirmed in reports by experts.
Of course there are always people in this House who believe they can carry out health policy by imposing exaggerated excise duties, especially on the consumption of tobacco and alcohol.
Tobacco products are made from the agricultural product called the tobacco plant.
Tens of thousands of jobs in agriculture and industry depend on this branch of production.
We cannot tolerate tobacco-growing and even give it a costly organization of the market within the common agricultural policy, only to penalize the tobacco produced with taxes, and in particular to expose the tobacco made from European raw tobacco in the few medium-sized enterprises that have not yet been swallowed up by the multinationals to a competition with multinationals from third countries it cannot stand up to.
In any case, Mrs Peijs, the cigarette smuggling by the large multi-brands is far more troublesome to us in the single market than the fact that the excise duties are not yet uniform.
For who sells the smugglers the tobacco and the millions of cigarettes tax free? That is an additional question.
As for alcohol, I hope the majority in this House will agree with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and in particular with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and not touch the minimum, zero rate for wine, all the more so because the application of the existing directives is causing no problems, in relation to either structure or rates.
On the contrary, I am sure we would have many more problems if we did not manage to persuade the people in the northern Member States of our Union to enjoy a glass of wine with every meal, which would be good for their health, by reducing the confiscatory excise duties.
Since the days of Hippocrates, the father of medicine, who already realised that austerity and melancholy are responsible for many illnesses, we know that wine, drunk in moderation, is very good for people, whether they are healthy or ill.
There is indeed a need for action here, in relation to reducing the excessively high excise duties in some Member States.
That would be health-promoting!
Mr President, in a period of one minute I can only ask for some attention to be given to the amendment tabled by my group, to slowly but surely close the gap in excise duties on rolling tobacco and factory-made cigarettes.
This has been replaced by a compromise amendment which I personally believe is too weak.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I completely disagree with Mrs Lulling.
The exceptionally low excise level, particularly on tobacco, cannot be justified.
If we accept that rolling tobacco is just as harmful as factory-made cigarettes, rolling tobacco must be taxed in the same way.
The smoker of rolling tobacco is in no way warned of the health risks to which he is being exposed, not by the price, nor by any indication of the tar content.
The argument that it is particularly the less prosperous who use rolling tobacco is not relevant, as their health is just as much at stake.
Finally, it is not my intention to tackle only rolling tobacco.
However, this report does not allow us to formulate concrete proposals on the increase of excise duties on factory-made cigarettes.
I hope that this House, with the discussion of later proposals from the Commission, will be guided more by health considerations than by national interests.
Mr President, the excise duty debate is being undermined by fundamental hypocrisy.
The theoretical purpose is to reduce smoking, alcohol use and car traffic.
But in practice what is involved is politicians and policy-makers seeking maximum revenues to be able to provide their national treasuries with sufficient resources.
Much has already been said about the differences in excise duties between the Member States.
I endorse the opinion that harmonisation of the levy structure is of the greatest importance.
The Member States must first agree about the principles.
Only then can actual rates be sensibly discussed.
One argument is that because of structure differences cigarette manufacturers are served by having their products smuggled.
This increases their turnover and profit margin.
The Member States invite this fraud in a certain sense.
Maybe arrangements could be made with manufacturers to ban these practices.
It continues to surprise citizens that, from a health perspective, the price of cigarettes etc. is greatly increased by excise duties, while at the same time tobacco cultivation continues to enjoy large subsidies.
This makes the idea of bringing the citizen closer to Europe go up in smoke.
Regarding excise duties on alcoholic drinks, some colleagues make an impassioned plea for the zero rate on wine, because this would concern a purely agricultural product.
This would be distinct from beer, grain genever and other products.
That is obviously not true.
On this point there is clearly a distinction to be made between democrats and vinocrats.
The interests of winegrowers are evident, but so equally are those of public health.
I would point out the anomaly of the excise exemption on kerosine for air traffic.
This puts more environmentally-friendly products at a disadvantage.
I believe we must do everything possible to stem the fast increase in air traffic.
The ending of this concealed subsidisation is a first necessary step.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are debating relates to the range of measures for the realisation of the internal market.
Article 99 of the Treaty authorizes us to try and harmonize legislation on excise duties, insofar as that harmonization is needed to bring about the establishment and operation of the internal market.
I believe it is also consonant with the spirit of the Treaty and the character of excise duties that we should strive for a narrow interpretation and application of those definitions.
In all events excise duties constitute an anomaly both in the taxation system and in the operation of the market.
This anomaly, however, is deeply rooted.
For centuries, the taxation authorities in our countries have specified a number of products - formerly salt and spirits, nowadays alcohol, petrol and tobacco - in order to raise certain revenues, taking advantage of the particularly inelastic demand for those products.
Neither considerations of fair taxation, nor those of economic rationale have ever been a feature of excise duties.
They are the product of a desperate - not to say tax-obsessive - desire to increase revenues.
From the above, I think the need emerges not to use the harmonization of laws to extend excise duties to new products, no matter how similar they may seem.
By extending the range of application of an anomaly, we do not create harmonization but a still greater anomaly.
That comment clearly applies to the attempt to extend to wines the taxation applicable to alcoholic drinks.
Our aim - and that is all the Treaty authorizes us to do - is to harmonize existing excise duties, not to create new ones where there have been none before.
We must also not be led astray by the effort to harmonize taxes, into trying by means of taxation to achieve a financial, in other words artificial harmonization of prices.
The cigarette trade takes place under exceptionally oligopolistic conditions.
Instead of reflecting production costs, prices are determined by the strategy of market capture and the elimination of small producers.
France and Germany have radically different taxation systems, but the same price for a packet of Marlborough.
Greece and Italy have the same taxation system, but the price of Marlborough differs by 40 % between the two countries.
We must harmonize taxation systems, but it is not our job to facilitate the manoeuvres of the oligopolies via excise duties, the more so since it has been proved that the imposition of a minimum 57 % tax from today has led to a convergence of the burden of taxation and, according to one view and certain figures, of retail prices as well.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, attempts at fiscal harmonization for alcoholic beverages almost always start from an idea of harmonizing the concept of an alcoholic beverage.
This simplifying idea puts products like beer, vodka and wine on the same level within the term 'alcoholic beverage' , ultimately proposing similar treatment for all of them in terms of penalizing consumption or in terms of taxation.
I cannot accept that focus.
Wine is an alcoholic product, but it is an alcoholic product of the European Union which has vast socio-economic incidence both on employment - with two million people working in the sector - and on social cohesion, because the wine business is largely concentrated in certain districts with serious social problems, and it generates activities around it which are in some way dependent on wine.
So wine must be treated differently from other alcoholic drinks produced in the European Union - and not only in terms of fiscal policy.
Because make no mistake, there is a one cultural attitude to wine amongst the producer, and to a large extent consumer, countries of this product: we regard it as an agricultural and nutritional product, often of high quality and beneficial to health when consumed in moderation, and I refer to scientific studies; and another attitude amongst the non-producer countries which, as I said earlier, regard it as an alcoholic drink, full stop.
This means that while we - the former - apply a special zero rate duty to it, others apply taxes which may even triple the price to the consumer in the absence of that taxation.
I therefore think - and I am concluding, Mr President - we should support this report and I congratulate the rapporteur and the co-rapporteurs. The report advocates the maintenance of the zero rate for wine in those countries where it currently exists, because there is no justification based on taxation or fiscal harmonization for countries which account for less than 1 % of wine production and barely 10 % of consumption in the Community to impose an obligatory burden on wine, causing a decrease in consumption in the producer countries and generating economic and social problems in certain rural wine-making areas.
Mr President, I would like to take up part of the Von Wogau report, the part that speaks of the beneficial health effects of alcohol and wine in particular.
It is perfectly true and medically correct that in small quantities alcohol can be useful to certain people in certain situations.
However, it is wrong to conclude from this that for reasons of health one should not drastically limit alcohol consumption.
As total consumption of alcohol is on the increase we know that a significant proportion of the population will experience serious harm.
That harm greatly exceeds the positive effects on health which some may experience.
It is also true that it is not the alcohol as such in wine which is beneficial but the anti-oxidants which exist in all grape juices.
Thus if one wishes to improve people's health one should tax drinks containing alcohol and subsidise alcohol-free grape juice.
As my colleague Mr Svensson said, there are few substances whose medicinal effects have been studied as thoroughly as alcohol.
The conclusions are completely unanimous.
If consumption in a country increases - irrespective of whether we are talking about beer, wine or spirits - the harm caused also increases.
There is a direct and proportional link between alcohol consumption in a country and the damage caused by alcohol.
Whether you drink wine or spirits makes no difference.
It is the quantity of alcohol that counts.
As for Sweden, it is estimated for example that a 30 percent reduction of the high taxes we impose on wine and spirits would result in an additional 1 800 people dying prematurely.
The conclusion is therefore that Sweden must be permitted for public health reasons to retain its high taxes on alcohol.
Finally, Mr President, as regards the debate as to whether wine is an agricultural product and should therefore be subject to a zero rate of alcohol tax, I should like to point out that our Swedish aquavit is made from potatoes, which are also an agricultural product.
Nevertheless, it would never occur to us to classify aquavit as a foodstuff.
Mr President, unlike Mr Metten I believe that Mr von Wogau has produced an excellent report.
Those who know its history know that you personally, Mr Metten, had problems coordinating the three sections, which is why the chairman of the committee had to take over.
Unfortunately Parliament has nothing to do with the tax questions and nothing to say on them.
The less we say have to say - that is my impression - the more we quarrel on specific questions.
Regional and economic interests are dominating this debate.
Basically the three sectors of mineral oil, tobacco and alcohol taxes do not go together since the regional interests involved are so different that they ought really to be treated separately.
Taxes on alcohol are certainly a source of dispute, but there is one principle that applies in the European Union: the alcohol producer countries generally have lower taxes and the consumer countries generally have higher taxes.
If the British and Irish tax their whisky too high, that is their problem and not the problem of the producer countries that do not want to impose taxes on wine.
Second principle: the relationship between taxes on alcohol and alcoholism is obviously not such that lower taxes lead to a higher rate of alcoholism and high taxes to a lower one.
The example of Finland and Sweden - high tax and high alcoholism rates - prove the opposite.
So there is no direct link.
Third principle: wine surpluses and higher rates do not go together.
If we spend DM 1 500 million a year to get rid of the wine surpluses and then want to restrict consumption, there is a risk that we will go off course.
It has been scientifically proven that wine consumed in moderation, half a litre per person per day according to a long-term US study, is good for the heart and circulation, is therefore beneficial.
Projecting that figure, 250 million adults each drinking half a litre of wine a day would mean a consumption of about 440 million hectolitres in the European Union against a production of 135 million hectolitres.
That would be healthier for the individual and cheaper for the European Union and better for a cooperative community than thinking about higher taxes.
Mr President, in my view the excise duty system with its fixed minimum rates in force since 1 January 1993 has largely proved its worth.
There is much need for amendments, especially to individual regulations, and we could certainly give many examples of that here today in the European Parliament, as we could years ago.
At this time it is certainly important to consider to what extent the internal market can now keep pace with further progress.
Great emphasis was laid in the European Parliament's report on gearing excise duties to ecological concerns, which is very right and very true.
More could certainly be done in the area of mineral oil taxes as a steering mechanism; in particular, in my view the studies of the actual tax situations are inadequate.
We must go further here and consider how far the abolition of tax exemptions really can still be a taboo in the present day.
Here I am thinking in particular of the kerosene used in aviation.
I also think that health and environmental aspects rightly play a part in relation to the other excise duties too.
There is broad agreement on the proposals on excise duties on cigarettes and tobacco.
However, the fiscal treatment of tobacco must continue to comply with ecological aims.
In regard to the taxing of alcohol and alcoholic beverages there is certainly no cause to amend the existing regulations.
However, I do consider it essential that we continue to see the connection, Mr President, which is why I call for the same as the previous speaker.
I believe that alcoholic lemonades, the ready-made mixed beverages should also be subject to taxation because these products can encourage young people in particular to consume more alcohol.
Let me conclude with one comment. Everyone regards excise duties as mere bagatelles.
In most Member States, however, they account for more than 10 % of tax revenue.
In this area in particular we find a great deal of suppression of evidence, a great deal of tax evasion, which is why the Commission must combat this tax evasion and aim at further-reaching harmonization.
At a time of budgetary scarcity, there is no room for tax evasion.
For that reason we need the Commission to provide annual reports, so that we can make progress not only with harmonization but also with implementing these taxes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the rapporteur Mr von Wogau and Parliament for their efforts in preparing this opinion on the Commission's review of the minimum excise duties on alcoholic drinks, tobacco and mineral oils.
At this point, I would also of course like to thank the special rapporteurs, Mrs Peijs, Mr Cox and Mr Miller.
As you remember, the Commission's review led to a wide-ranging process of consultations about future policy in the sector of excise duties.
That made it possible for Parliament to extend its opinion to subjects that had perhaps not been covered in detail by the review, but which may well have great and particular importance for the future.
Thus, the Commission encouraged Parliament to concentrate its efforts on the identification of more general policy issues it considered would affect the future development of Community policy on excise duties.
On behalf of my colleague Mr Monti - who was unfortunately unable to attend this evening's debate - and of the Commission, I would like to assure you that we will take serious note of Parliament's opinion during the preparation of the Commission's forthcoming review. Parliament will still retain its right to express its opinion about the review, and about any other related proposals.
I gather that the proposal on mineral oils raised no serious doubts in Parliament.
That fact is encouraging, in that it is consonant with our own position concerning the line to be followed in the context of our commitments to ECOFIN, in relation to the submission of new proposals for a general system for the taxation of energy products.
The comments about alcoholic drinks and tobacco clearly showed that the issue is a complex and sensitive one.
The taxation treatment of those products always encounters objections, and is often influenced by various geographical criteria within the Union, which in turn create different political priorities.
Clearly, Parliament's opinion on those matters will be taken seriously into account in our future work on those sectors, as well as the various views expressed during the consultations.
Parliament's opinion is an important element of the overall consultation procedure that began last September.
I hope you are aware that at the moment, the European Commission cannot give further details, though I can tell you that your opinion will be taken into account together with other representations and opinions we have already received, throughout our forthcoming work in the excise duty sector.
Granted the need to make progress in the mineral oils sector and the fact that a measure of agreement is perceptible concerning how some substantial progress can be achieved, I anticipate that our proposals on energy products will be given top priority.
When those proposals are complete, the Commission will examine the issue of reviewing and making proposals about alcoholic drinks and tobacco products.
As I have already mentioned, each report and package of proposals will be submitted to Parliament for its opinion.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Third SME programme (1997-2000)
The next item is the report (A4-0249/96) by Mrs Thyssen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision on a third multiannual programme for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the European Union (1997 to 2000) (COM(96)0098 - C4-0232/96-96/0087(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if the European Union and the Member States are really to give priority to employment, it is high time we more strongly focused our attention on small and medium-sized enterprises.
In EMAC we have had the time and the opportunity to comprehensively exchange thoughts.
Whoever is still present here now belongs to the hard core of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, is aware of the social and economic meaning of the SME, and has read the proposal for a multiannual programme and hopefully also my report.
So it does not seem sensible to go over the whole programme again now.
You know that many colleagues like myself are well-disposed towards the SME, and that in a general sense we are agreed on both the analysis of the SME issue and on the proposals presented to us by the Commission, which are considerably better than earlier proposals.
For example, we see it as a great step forward that from now on in the multiannual programme reference is made to the new SME definition.
I hope that the Commission sticks to its guns and can convince every Member of the Council of the necessity of the clear indication of the target group for the programme.
Because there is some uncertainty in some sectors, I would ask the Commissioner whether he can confirm that persons of the free professions and SMEs in the tourist sector are not excluded from this programme in relation to the horizontal aspects of the SME policy?
I would also like to underline the conviction that we must also see evidence of the segmentation present in the description of the target group in the evaluation reports.
Only in this way will we be able to ascertain whether everyone, including the smallest enterprises, is benefitting from the programme where necessary.
I would like to say something about committees.
I hear that some Member States are urging for a mixed committee on SMEs and the social economy.
This seems unacceptable to me, not only because the programme for the social economy has yet to begin its experimental stage, but also because this concerns a different world.
I would also like to hear your view on this, Commissioner.
As regards the euro-infocentres we are pleased to hear that the ambitions for the recomposition of the network do not go as far as was initially announced, and we urge for an improvement in quality by means of professionalisation and not by unbridled task expansion.
The specific attention to self-employed women in the multiannual programme is pleasing to us, but we also request this for cooperating spouses who are still waiting for an evaluation of a guideline of 1989.
Otherwise we have nothing but praise for the proposal, on the condition, of course, that it is to be realised in the direction we indicate in the amendments and, where not possible otherwise, in the notes.
This morning we were rightly reminded that the European citizen does not evaluate our work on the basis of programmes and nice declarations, but on his day to day life.
The plan to better involve the SME organisations with policy is a very attractive idea, but it has no credibility whatsoever as long as the Commission passively looks on at the exclusion practice that UNICE and the trades unions apply in the social dialogue.
Should you not intervene, Commissioner, so that an end is finally brought to this undemocratic spectacle? With a nice programme but no cash we have nothing.
The budget for this programme must be repaired as the Commission has proposed, and we would like to hear from the Commission itself what else must perish.
Finally, the execution of the programme will also depend on the proper functioning of DG XXIII.
It cannot work without money, nor without sufficient people.
Thank you in anticipation, Commissioner, for your response.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Research has considered the programme for small and medium-sized enterprises in great detail and put forward a large number of proposals.
During our work we found that the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in framework research programmes for example remains unsatisfactory although 99.8 % of all enterprises in Europe are small and medium-sized, 66 % of all workers are employed in small and medium-sized enterprises and small and mediumsized enterprises account for 65 % of turnover in the European Union.
That is why we have proposed doubling the number of SMEs participating in the framework research programme by the year 2000 and reducing the cost of applications.
That is a most important point, for there is no use calling for research funding if the costs of applying are more or less the same as the funds made available.
Furthermore, we should consider contributing more than 50 % of the costs to SMEs.
It is also important to ensure easy and rapid access to European Union data-bases in the research field, such as the Cordis data-base.
The rapporteur has pointed out how important it is for us to have a single data-base and not a variety, a variety of software or a variety of networks, which in the end are no use to anybody.
The best way to help the small and medium-sized enterprises is by the rational development of the Cordis data-base, which can be accessed via the Internet.
Let me conclude by rapidly giving the view of the Committee on Research on the Green Paper on innovation.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are the motive forces of innovation in our society, and here lies a great potential that should be further supported through this multiannual programme.
Let me warmly thank the rapporteur for her work and hope that our concerns will be taken on board.
Mr President, Commissioners, small is beautiful, especially for Europe's businesses, especially if the big bonus for us is jobs for Europe's jobless.
SMEs are on the inside of the fast track on the EU's menu for beating unemployment, and for that we warmly welcome the Commission's Third Multiannual Programme for SMEs.
That said, the wallet that funds this programme is pretty thin at ECU 180 m.
This is all the more regrettable given the sturdy proposals of the Commission, welcomed by our good colleague Mrs Thyssen.
She welcomes the Commission's new definition of an SME, slashing the top figure of 500 employees to 250.
This is right.
Even within that envelope, distinction must be made between medium, small and micro-enterprise.
We must tailor-make policies for different-sized SMEs, whether for the one-person tailor or the larger clothing firm.
What a pity that the DTI and the CBI in the United Kingdom spurned this sensible change in Europe.
My whole experience of small businesses tells me that SMEs feel squeezed out by big-business representatives.
In this respect I am extremely heartened by the fact that the Dutch practice of tripartite meetings between big business, SMEs and the trade unions is now receiving its British expression in the first tentative meetings between the GMB Union and the Forum of Private Business.
The contagion of cooperation and social partnership has spread to Britain.
The Commission's sizzling attack on red tape, which inhibits SMEs from penetrating the growing and powerful single European market, is warmly welcomed.
But as our rapporteur astutely points out, the biggest sticky fingers applying red tape are national governments, and nowhere is this more true than the United Kingdom, where Michael Heseltine's aspiration for a bonfire of red tape has turned into the ashes of a bonfire of Tory vanities.
How embarrassing for the Tories that the FT reveals another instance of British red tape snagging investors financing small businesses.
Central to the real fight to create the proper and stable legal and administrative environment in which SMEs can thrive, grow and breed jobs is to institute a business impact assessment on EU legislation, to weed out the bramble of bad ideas, whilst protecting high environmental and social standards.
Cool too is the British Government and CBI view of another central proposal of the Commission document, to tackle the problem of late payments which so besmirches Europe's and the UK's business environment, propelling small firms into insolvency, because the Michael Heseltine view of the acceptability of stringing creditors along still prevails.
Sweden has solved such swindles on small businesses by legislating a statutory right to interest.
Introduced to the UK, £20, 000 million would be made available to SMEs to invest and grow businesses and jobs - jobs for the boys and girls, who are perennially ignored by Britain's bankrupt government.
I also commend the Commission's recognition that SMEs need help and a helpful environment in all stages of their development, not just in starting off and growing.
Thus 30, 000 SMEs a year go under, losing Europe 300, 000 jobs because of the weaknesses of the legal and administrative environment for transferring successful businesses on the death or abdication of the founding entrepreneur.
Get this right in establishing Europe's single market, and we are quids in, or should I say euros in?
This brings me to my concluding point.
Europe is now consumed with the single currency, whose advent I fervently believe will electrify the European economy.
But much needs to be done to understand SMEs, fears of EMU and to help them exploit the benefits the euro will bestow.
An in-depth study by the Commission on highlighting the practical aspects of the EMU for SMEs is essential.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will be able to take on that task, but I warmly welcome this new programme for the future of SMEs in the European Union.
Mr President, I will be seeking to round off the excellent work of my colleague, Mrs Thyssen, with a few further considerations, prompted by the fact that while it is true that many programmes of intervention and support for small and medium-sized enterprises - the issue we are this evening discussing - have been set in place, less satisfactory results have been achieved when it comes to improving the context in which those enterprises operate.
That aspect was also mentioned by my colleague, Mr Harrison.
The fact is that the bureaucratic, administrative and fiscal rules governing employment relationships in all of the Member States were devised against the backdrop of the operating conditions of medium to large-scale enterprises, without any attention being paid to the special features of small-scale enterprises.
For instance, a recent study on the administrative costs imposed by the intra-Community rules on VAT has shown that those costs are in inverse proportion to the size of the enterprise, penalizing in particular the smaller enterprises.
I have furthermore to stress very strongly the fact that, because of the dissimilarities that exist from one state to the next, these problems discriminate against operators, particularly when they try to enter the European market.
As a result, although these are apparently issues of internal relevance to the states, they are important at a European level because they violate the fundamental principle of equality of treatment of economic operators and thwart the proper functioning of the internal market.
That is why it seemed to me to be appropriate to table, on behalf of the European People's Party, Amendment No 52 which I wish to bring to the attention of the Commissioner also; its aim is to introduce specific measures designed to encourage the Member States to work effectively towards eliminating those differences.
I think that the Commission will have achieved something very commendable if it moves in that direction and if it considers it appropriate, as seems to me quite apparent, to seek the cooperation of all of the associations in that category, in an effort to collect the most wide-ranging and detailed documentation possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has done some very good work.
It is exceptionally important that the third multiannual programme is set up as a part of the pact for jobs.
It is a case of improving the competitive power of the business community.
A stronger competitive position in turn ensures more growth, and so more jobs.
Moreover, in SMEs job growth is stronger than in large enterprises.
We are delighted that this third multiannual programme is presented together with an evaluation report on the current programme, so a more efficient policy can be presented.
At last something has been done about an improved definition of the SME.
How can you implement a selective policy that is applicable to almost all, namely 99.8 %, of the companies?
With respect to the measures proposed, the liberals have always clearly stated that a favourable enterprise climate is the most important basic condition for growth and jobs.
This was also pointed out by the Irish Prime Minister and the President-in-Office of the Council this morning.
It is, however, in the first place the Member States which must take up their responsibility here.
It is often national legislation that places the greatest burdens on the common markets.
An example is when, in 1994, the Commission presented 250 pages of regulations, the Member States wanted to produce a pile forty times greater of 10, 000 pages.
But the Union also has its task.
We call on the Commission to more carefully evaluate the effect of its legislative proposals on the SME.
The Commission does admit that further improvements in effective reporting are possible.
We must not forget that this is by no means a case of pettiness.
Administrative problems cost the business community more than 150 billion ECU each year.
The pilot project SLIM which concerns more simple legislation for the internal market, and which actually concentrates on four sectors, is investigating the possibility of simplifying legislation.
We look forward to the results of this project, to be announced in November, and to the initiatives the Commission will take in this respect.
Secondly, we cannot accept that the Council of Ministers tarries so long with the approval of the statute of the European Company, the first proposals for which were already formulated by the Commission 21 years ago, namely in 1975.
A European statue for the business community would result in real savings of an estimated 30 billion ECU.
Thirdly, I believe the Union must encourage the development of access to risk capital.
It is the fast-growing SMEs that invest in high technology which most need venture capital.
I also hope that the European display fair, will give a helping hand to our fast-growers.
Finally, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on her report and I support her amendments, in particular those regarding the free professions in the Council Decision.
I would also like to underline the proposal to devote special attention to women entrepreneurs and to cooperating spouses.
I hope these words do not become empty ones, but are actually put into action by the Commission and by the governments of the Member States.
Mr President, this Commission programme for SMEs, which is a good one and with which this report deals, has demonstrated - and continues to do so - that Parliament is committed to improving the position of SMEs.
The consideration of the report has been constructive, and indeed inventive, at every stage, for which I should like to thank Mrs Thyssen.
For us new Member States, which do not have a long tradition of small enterprises, it has been interesting to see how similar the problems are, despite the differences in the points of departure.
In view of this, it is quite understandable that, for example, in my country people had high hopes of the opportunities which would be created by the Union.
However, the fact is of course that not much direct Union funding has been available, for example, to deal with the main difficult problems, when one bears in mind that at present the worst funding problems of all lie precisely in the fields of obtaining equity capital and venture capital and - in my country at least - excessive cautiousness on the part of the banks when it comes to extending credit.
The Union should concentrate on dealing with these matters by means of its measures.
In itself, membership of the Union has brought us stability.
Economic policy has been relatively successful since accession, so that there has been scope for funding of commercial ventures too.
We for our part could very well demonstrate, by way of example, that payments too could be got moving quickly and in a disciplined manner.
Rules can be laid down on the matter and complied with.
Crossborder payments must of course be put in order immediately.
It does not make sense to delay matters.
We are not forgetting, of course, that EMU will eliminate problems and create opportunities.
EMU should not be blocked by formal obstacles.
Once the known funding obstacles have been eliminated, we must succeed in Europeanization.
Advice centres and networking must be improved.
It is quite clear that international cooperation is important in all fields.
We know very well that the Finnish company Nokia would not be the second largest producer of mobile phones in the world if information had not travelled across borders.
Innovation is thus the starting point for all educational activity.
Entrepreneurship is clearly a positive phenomenon, psychologically too.
It means freedom to realize one's potential and to reap reward from doing so.
This accords with our social-democratic ideals, as it involves the concept of respecting other people's freedom.
It would be gratifying if active efforts were also made at European level to establish contacts between SME entrepreneurs and trade unions.
It could also be a new source of added value.
The multiannual programme before us is the culmination of years of endeavours on the part of the Council, Commission and Parliament to put the SME on the European agenda.
Parliament has remained consistent through the years, faithful to the entrepreneur who achieves great economic performances with very few members of staff, and often with the risk of losing everything he or she possesses.
At last the Council has come to the conclusion that SMEs are fully occupied with solving an enormous political problem for the Council, namely the problem of unemployment.
It is very clear that the Council is not able to solve this problem itself, not with the Delors&#x02BC; White Paper or via the European networks.
It is simply not possible for the Council.
Our witnesses are the 17 million unemployed. No wonder that in recent years the Council has expressed constant praise for SMEs, recorded in resolutions of the Council of Ministers.
So today we should be meeting here to festively end an important European discussion and turn words into action.
But we can safely leave the champagne at home, with or without its zero rate .
The Council has decided that the promotion of jobs in SMEs must be at a bargain price. The Council does not want to pay the necessary 180 million ECU, but only 120 million ECU, and we are not going to do this the Santer way - doing less.
Even better, we are going to do more for a bargain, so that it only looks like we are doing more. And en passant the Council is also killing the Elise programme.
It would indeed be a pity if a good and low-cost bureaucracy programme were to continue to exist.
It is clear that the fifteen governments who chose to look forward have not seen ahead, and must now effect all sorts of financial twists and turns to meet the EMU standards they themselves set in 1992.
And the Dutch Government is at the front of them.
Mr President, the Commission has rightly set up a wide programme, which contains many SME aspects.
And the Commission may rightly count on the support of the Council.
But if the Council has its way in a budgetary sense, we in this Parliament will have to carefully deliberate about the programme.
With less money it will come down to the Commission doing much, but nothing well.
We will then have to set priorities and undoubtedly have to revise the programme.
Mr President, the multiannual SME programme provides a legal and budgetary basis for the Community's specific SME policy actions.
I support fully this programme.
It recognizes that small and medium-sized companies are the bedrock of a local, national or even European economy.
In the context of improving the business environment of SMEs, it is recommended that there should be a Europeanization of business strategies of SMEs through the provision of information and support services.
I hope that in a practical sense this will mean that there will be an expansion of the European business information centres programme in my own country of Ireland.
They provide an invaluable service in providing small and medium-sized enterprises with information relating to the workings of the European regional, social, agricultural and fisheries funds, as well as advising on the different European co-financing loan schemes and public procurement contracts.
There should be a business information centre in every county in Ireland.
This would go a long way towards bridging the gap that exists in relation to the provision of information on European funds.
One of the real difficulties for SMEs is the marketing of their products in other countries.
Any European scheme which would provide transnational cooperation opportunities and which would add to the work presently being carried out by agencies such as the Trade Board, An Bord Tráchtala , would be a welcome move.
I support the recommendation that excessive bureaucratic administrative and fiscal rules which penalize SMEs should be combatted at every opportunity.
At its simplest, too much form-filling and red tape results in many employers within SMEs being unable to keep their eye on the ball.
In conclusion, the proposed budget of ECU 144m for this scheme represents an increase of 60 % on its predecessor.
However, I would remind Parliament that this funding should be carefully targeted and used in the most practical fashion possible.
No funding should be utilized for any measure that is not directly relevant to the need of SMEs.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the small and medium-sized enterprises which represent more than 99.8 % of all the companies in Europe, and 50 % of which, sadly, collapse in the first three years because an extremely complex taxation, legal and administrative system; because of difficulties in gaining access to programmes of research; weaknesses in managerial capacity; difficulties in obtaining funding at a reasonable cost and because of the existence of barriers which impede access to the markets in goods and services.
Some Member States have made considerable efforts and have approved measures that will help small and medium-sized enterprises. Italy, however, compels courageous entrepreneurs to anticipate taxation on future hypothetical income, to the level of some 72 %.
Consequently, not only does that jeopardize the opportunity for small and medium-sized enterprises to invest in production and innovative technology, it also diminishes their competitiveness on the national and international markets.
Let us help entrepreneurs by providing them with information and assistance so that they, like the big concerns, are able to have access to the aid that the Union makes available.
Mr President, on arriving in this Chamber a little more than two years ago, one of the first conclusions I drew may have seemed obvious but was very effective.
There were in Europe 18 million small and medium-sized enterprises and there are, take note, some 18 million unemployed.
The equation is a very simple one: if it were possible to put every small and medium-sized enterprise in a position to take on just one employee, we should have resolved the number one problem of the European Union, that is the revitalization of the job market.
On paper it is very simple but in fact it is very difficult.
The work completed by Commissioner Papoutsis and DG XXIII a few weeks ago is very important: the new multiannual programme 1997-2000 which, compared with earlier programmes, I believe introduces two major innovations which make it different and more important.
The first is of a political and organizational nature, that is to say it finally accords the small and medium-sized enterprises the role they merit on the European economic stage; it is no longer a question of size; the focus is no longer on the big companies alone but also on the small and medium-sized enterprises.
The second aspect is sectoral.
We have noted at last with satisfaction that the new multiannual programme pays particular attention to certain until recently undervalued economic sectors which we know to have great potential: I am referring in particular to trade; to the craft industries and, to a lesser extent, tourism also.
I believe that in those sectors above all there are enormous opportunities for professional and operational growth, new jobs, in short opportunities which should finally be seized by the market for the small and medium-sized enterprises. This programme specifically offers opportunities that we shall not be neglecting because the European economy needs greater substance and we need to be closer to businessmen.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am particularly pleased to have the opportunity today, to talk about the Commission's proposal on the new multiannual programme for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
The Commission's proposal on the establishment of this third multiannual programme is an integrated package of measures designed to promote and support SMEs.
The programme supplements activities carried out in the framework of other Community policies, and also supplements activities by the Member States.
As the President of the European Commission Mr Santer also pointed out, this programme is an indissoluble part of the confidence pact for employment.
And as both Mr Harrison and Mr Garosci stressed a short while ago, SMEs play a critical part in our strategy to create new jobs.
The last three European Councils, Cannes, Madrid and Florence, confirmed that policy on behalf of SMEs is among the priorities of the European Union.
I particularly welcome the interest Parliament has shown in this proposal of ours, and on that point, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur Mrs Thyssen on her excellent work, and to thank Parliament for its support during all these years concerning policy on behalf of SMEs.
I also want to welcome the positive conclusions of the Thyssen report, concerning the quality of the Commission's proposal.
I agree completely with the rapporteur that the aid we intend to provide for SMEs is an indissoluble part of a policy whose aim is to combat unemployment, and of course to create job opportunities all over Europe.
This programme does indeed provide the legal and financial base for the Community's special activities on behalf of SMEs.
Let me mention briefly the five priority sectors of the programme, which aim to improve the performance of SMEs.
The first priority is to address the complex administrative environment that impedes the creation and development of SMEs.
Reversal of that attitude requires coordinated and clearly targeted action by the Union's Member States, and of course by the Union itself.
I undertake the commitment to make every effort to increase the Commission's contribution towards reducing bureaucracy and improving the relevant legislation, to simplify the administrative environment.
The programme's second priority is to improve the financial environment of SMEs.
SMEs in Europe are still short of capital.
A short while ago, Mr Moretti made that point very clearly.
SMEs find it difficult to obtain guarantees sufficient to satisfy the banks, and there is also no suitable European capital market.
This new programme aims precisely to promote innovative practices that will improve the financial environment, and to facilitate the access of SMEs to sources of finance.
The third priority is to improve the access of SMEs to the Single Market, and to the opportunities provided by international markets.
The internal market and the increasing level of globalization have begun offering real benefits to businesses, but SMEs still find it difficult to gain access to certain markets.
We want the European Information Centres making up the Commission's well known network, to constitute centres of first contact, ' first-stop shops' , which will be able to direct the various inquiries to the appropriate agencies that provide business services.
Our aim is to improve the quality of services offered by the Euro-Info Centres, as Mr Gallagher rightly stressed a while ago.
Besides, the networking and cooperation between SMEs will be promoted by means of improved networks for the location of business partners and cooperation programmes.
At the same time, we will extend the possibilities for connection to new databases, such as the Cordis network mentioned earlier by Mr Ferber.
At any rate, I am particularly glad that the rapporteur Mrs Thyssen agrees with this idea and supports the concept of 'first-stop shops' .
The fourth priority is to strengthen the competitiveness of SMEs by improving their access to research, innovation and training.
The relatively small number of European companies based on the new technologies shows that there is a great need for a better environment, which will promote this rapidly expanding category of companies.
SMEs also know that they are not investing enough in training.
However, we must not forget that existing training programmes often do not respond to their special needs.
This new programme envisages pilot activities to identify new approaches in these sectors and implement them on a trial basis.
The programme's last aim - which is particularly important in my opinion - is to promote the entrepreneurial spirit, to create a new enterprise culture by a number of special activities concentrated particularly in the area of the crafts and very small businesses.
Entrepreneurs who have good ideas but insufficient resources, will be able to obtain support - and will receive support - mainly at the critical stage when business activities begin.
This relates especially to women, but also to young entrepreneurs and enterprises owned by people who belong to minority groups, a thing which I know the European Parliament is particularly interested in.
In addition, the programme proposes a range of activities, and the more particular measures will be designed to provide opportunities especially in the less privileged sectors and in less developed regions.
However, these ambitious aims of the programme can only succeed if SMEs themselves participate actively in supporting them.
For that reason, we held discussions with the representatives of European organizations for SMEs and I am glad that the Commission's proposals received their unanimous support.
Regarding the liberal professions Mrs Thyssen referred to, they are not explicitly excluded from the programme's field of application, but are covered indirectly in many cases.
We also agree with the need to take into account the special needs of the various types of SMEs, as described and determined by the definition of SMEs presented by the Commission on 3 April 1996.
As for the issue raised by Mr Ferber concerning the relation between SMEs and the programme for research and technological development, this is particularly important.
That is why we insist that this priority must be included in the new framework for research and technology, and we believe that SMEs will have their own part to play in that programme.
Certainly, however, we must put particular emphasis on the future.
At this point, Mr President, I would once again like to thank the rapporteur and the committees involved in formulating the amendments tabled.
Many of the amendments improve the Commission's text and can be accepted.
More specifically, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2, 3, 8, 10, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, 35, 36, 39, 40, 44 and 45.
We can also accept parts of Amendments Nos 4, 5, 19 and 42, 33 and 34.
Now, as for Amendments Nos 1, 6, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 22, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 37, 38, 41, 43, 47, 48, 51, 52 - about which Mr Secchi asked me about in particular -, 53, 55 and 56, we can accept their more general spirit but consider that either they are already covered by the Commission's proposals at the level of principle, or that they form part of other policies included in the integral programme on behalf of SMEs.
In contrast, the Commission cannot accept the following amendments.
First, Amendment No 7, because we do not think this is relevant to the multiannual programme and it also conflicts with the principle of subsidiarity.
Secondly, Amendment No 9, which despite being well founded as a comment, cannot be included in the legal text of the proposal.
The Commission can also not accept Amendment No 24, which concerns the function of the consultative committee, nor Amendment No 25, because we consider that the regular information of the institutional bodies envisaged covers the need for information.
As for Amendments Nos 26 and 46, we consider that the Commission's initial proposal covers that issue sufficiently well.
Finally, as for Amendments Nos 49 and 50, we cannot accept the proposed link with the 'HOSPITALITY' programme, since this would create great confusion for the effective implementation of both programmes.
The Commission can also not accept Amendments Nos 54, 57, 58 and 59.
Mr President, the programme we have presented today embodies an overall package of activities whose approach will enable SMEs to be definitively involved in the challenges of the coming years.
As for the budget, I must stress that its correct implementation depends on the availability of sufficient funding.
I would therefore like to express my satisfaction at the rapporteur's statement that the sum of 180 million ECU is the very least required for correct implementation of the programme.
And I want to thank Parliament for its support in this respect.
Of course, there will have to be an appropriate accounting system and rational utilization of the sums made available.
In conclusion, I should like to stress that it is important to give full support to the spirit of entrepreneurial initiative in Europe and in that way to create a business environment that can contribute substantively to job creation.
That, however, entails coordinated and continual effort by all those involved in business development, and all those involved in the formulation and outlining of policy on behalf of SMEs, and I refer especially to the European Parliament, the Member States, the business organizations of SMEs, and the European Commission as well.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that only in that way will we convert broad political support for the implementation of effective measures for SMEs, into positive and productive action.
I really believe that if the entire range of activities proposed is implemented consistently in this multiannual programme for SMEs, the results will have positive repercussions all over Europe.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Telecommunications and ONP
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0276/96) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on interconnection in telecommunications with regard to ensuring universal service and interoperability through application of the principles of Open Network Provision (ONP) (C4-0329/96-95/0207(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs Read).
Mr President, this second reading is about interconnections, about encouraging competition and preventing incumbents, those with a strong position, from limiting access by other operators.
Underpinning Parliament's deliberation on this matter has been the need to make sure that the European telecommunications industry survives and thrives.
I have been conscious as rapporteur of the need to establish fair, transparent and cost-based interconnection terms and in parallel to establish effective regulation to make sure that this happens.
Just as justice delayed is justice denied, so delay in normal commercial negotiations can effectively deny new network operators a significant hold in this crucial market.
It is somewhat more difficult than that because the whole committee has been conscious that new network operators, new entrants, can be very substantial and influential players in their own country or on a global scale.
Most of the amendments once again reflect the concerns that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy exhibited at first reading, but there are some significant changes and Parliament was presented with a very substantially changed position from the Council for our second reading.
I would particularly appreciate the Commissioner's view on Amendment No 10, which changes the definition of 'interconnections' .
I would appreciate the Commissioner's view, particularly in the context of whether this change, in his view, would serve the goal of opening up the market and would he compare it with the Commission's original position.
There is an important amendment on number portability and my colleague, Mr Whitehead, from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection will comment on this important consumer and business measure.
I am sure that Parliament will need to comment on future occasions on this crucial issue.
On the question of European regulation and Amendment No 8, once again I would welcome the Commissioner's view.
It is not possible, in my view and that of the committee, to envisage the future of interconnections, at least in the immediate future, without regulation.
Once again, the Economic Committee and I are concerned about the latitude given to national regulators in this and other matters.
You will note that Amendment No 8 is carefully phrased to ask the Commission to 'envisage the possibility' and we are aware of the sensitivity at national and Council level about European regulation.
I would appreciate, too, the Commission's detailed view on Amendment No 5 about cross-border disputes, which I hope he can comment on, and also the question of universal service which the Environment Committee are rightly concerned about.
I know that this is going to be considered in a future communication and that Parliament will have another opportunity to determine its view of universal service definition and financing but, as in every telecommunications report, this is a crucial issue for this Parliament.
I commend the report to colleagues and hope that it will command cross-party support, but I would appreciate the Commissioner's views on those matters which I have particularly highlighted before we take a final decision and I make recommendations on support for the various amendments.
Mr President, on behalf of the Members present I should like to say how delighted we are that our colleague Mrs Read is back with us after an illness, fully restored to health and in her customary eloquent style.
She has been identified with this issue longer than I have been a Member of this Parliament, and the whole master structure is now coming together.
We applaud it particularly in the spirit of a liberalized single market in which the new entrant must have fair play against the existing incumbents.
Having said that, however, entry for the newcomer is a necessary but not always a sufficient condition for protecting the consumer, and my few moments must be devoted to the consumer.
When the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection wrote an opinion on Mrs Read's last report on 12 January 1995 it tried to set out what the conditions of universal service should be.
I would simply remark here that in trying to peg what is said in this report to previous pronouncements from the Commission, we are not trying to hold to a nebulous and rather nervous definition, but rather to seek an indication from Commissioner Bangemann and his colleagues of when a proper and acceptable definition of universal service will come forward.
Secondly, I want to say a word about number portability.
Amendment No 25 which Mrs Read has just mentioned attempts - and Mr van Velzen and others have raised this point - to provide, set against a reasonable fee, for the regulator to establish that there is genuine number portability, and that if there is not, once a user has changed the supplier a telephone call to the old number can be re-routed to the user at a reasonable price.
We would hope that undertaking would be given.
Finally, I hope that tomorrow the House will vote for the environmental protection recommendation which Mrs Read introduced at a late stage as an amendment to the report.
I know there has been opposition to it in some quarters but I believe it is the least we can do in order to satisfy the necessary concerns at points of interconnection that environmental considerations may be set aside in the course of negotiations between the old and new players in this market.
Interconnection is one of the most important conditions for the liberalisation of the telecommunication market, to make it operate well.
A third of the telephone price consists of interconnection money, so at European level this is billions of ecus.
Poorly regulated interconnection also leads to the screening off of markets, the disturbance of competition and it is disadvantageous to the consumer.
It can lead to higher prices, a lower level of service and a less varied supply.
It is therefore necessary that fair rules are put in place, that the procedures and cost structure are transparent, and there is no abuse of power.
It is therefore also necessary for access to networks to be provided to newcomers at acceptable prices.
This is the scope of interconnection.
I would like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Read, for her expert contribution, for the cooperation and the fact that we can be here together again today.
This brings me to the definition of interconnection.
You have seen that there is an amendment which has reincluded the original definition, because if the telecom services are excluded, as is now the case in the position of the Council, the value of the regulation would be reduced by some 25 to 50 %.
Indeed, the scope would then be greatly limited and it would mean that access to the networks for realistic prices for newcomers would be threatened.
And I think this is essential.
It is the core of liberalisation.
Many telecom companies now have the fear that when moving into services which do not have their own networks, these will then make a claim on the same high discount.
This is a serious misunderstanding.
In Article 7(2) of the common position of the Council it is rightly pointed out, and I quote "for the prices for interconnection the principles of transparency are to serve' , and "cost orientation to be followed' .
This is the key. Cost orienteering entails that if you have fewer costs, you cannot make a claim on the same discount.
And that is the essence of why we have brought the case back again.
My group is fully behind what is proposed by Mrs Read: emphasis on common guidelines set up by the Commission for interconnection agreements; a good dispute-settling procedure; emphasis on the development of a real, harmonised European telecommunication market.
It has greatly disappointed us that the Council has deviated from this on 6 or 7 essential points.
As an example I would first point to the fact that the extent of harmonisation of the rules by Parliament goes further than is accepted by the Council.
This is most tersely demonstrated in Amendment No 21.
A second point is that we go further on transparency of costs in the interconnection agreement.
We make greater requirements here.
Thirdly, we want a greater say at a European level.
The role of the Commission must be strengthened here.
It is all very well, with a view to subsidiarity, that we give many possibilities to the national governing bodies, but if the Commission cannot play an important role here, I predict that little will come of a European telecommunications market.
We want a cross-border dispute-settling regulation and we want the retention of numbers, because if you go from one company to the other and you do not take your number, you cause an enormous blockade on liberalisation.
And that is a crucial point.
We want to grow to become a European regulating authority.
I hope that the Commissioner will stand by our side, that he will stand firm with us, because I think this is of vital importance.
Finally, we have urged that there be much regulation in this transitional stage.
But we will have to deregulate, and we have indicated in exactly which fields this must take place.
And I would like to ask the Commissioner this: on 1 February you said that the separate competition rules must come before the telecom.
How far are we now?
Mr President, interconnection in telecommunications is important, as is the joint coordination and development of telecommunications in the EU and Europe.
National regulatory authorities should have ultimate responsibility for fostering the development of a telecommunications market.
This should be done bearing in mind the interests of users.
We should ensure interconnectivity between different networks.
If this is done in the right way, it is questionable whether any general guidelines from the Commission or an EU-level regulatory authority are needed.
The need for an EU directive on cost calculation and the financing of universal services can also be questioned.
Disputes should in the first instance be resolved among service providers at national level, and a system of comparison should be established jointly by the various national regulatory authorities.
I believe these issues should be borne in mind in respect of the subject we are now debating.
Mr President, I too want to give Mrs Read warm thanks for the job she has done.
This is one of the most important rules we need if we want to obtain a European telecommunications market that works.
The close cooperation with her and with Parliament as a whole will make it easier for us to deal with the Council, for unfortunately we do not agree with the Council on every point.
Of course the Council is also aware of the two main objectives of this directive: firstly, to interconnect all the networks, for that offers the consumer far more choices, and secondly to monitor infrastructure enterprises that dominate the market so that they are forced to open up their infrastructure in a fair and transparent manner.
Similarly, costs must be calculated in such a way as to enable competitors, especially newcomers, to make use of the possibilities offered by the new market.
That is not disputed.
What is as always disputed is the details, and perhaps I should go into the most important amendments because that will clarify our position.
The Commission has always considered it essential to have a European regulatory authority in these areas of telecommunications because this interconnection, the monitoring and other measures that will become necessary in future concern the entire single market and not just one or two countries as may have been the rule in the past.
The Council is being extremely reticent on this question.
Virtually all the countries are afraid to give up any powers or competences and the prospect that Mr van Velzen finds so inviting, namely that the Commission should take this over, is regarded with some horror by the Member States, for as you know the Commission has kept trying to force all the Member States to take action on the question of telecommunications policy.
We keep trying to persuade the dog to go hunting.
That is all very well, but it does not make one very likeable.
That is why I fear we will not make much headway here, but we shall see what the Council eventually decides.
The same applies to resolving cross-frontier disputes in regard to interconnection.
Here we also support Amendments Nos 5 and 27 tabled by Parliament.
I already said in the debate yesterday or the day before that we are in favour of number portability.
That is one of the most important requirements if we are to have open competition between operators.
It is very expensive for the customer to switch numbers, which is why they have to be portable.
With regard to Amendment No 10 to which Mrs Read made particular reference, we can support it too.
It is just that the wording is rather misleading.
But in the event of conciliation we will be able to sort that out, for this amendment refers to 'linking of... telecommunications services' whereas we are in fact talking about the linking of the facilities of organizations providing telecom services, which is the wording of the original version and which we would prefer.
I think that is also what Mrs Read means.
The question of universal service also arose in some amendments.
That is not just a problem in this case but a general one.
That is why we have to start by tackling it in a general manner.
First of all we have to define universal service.
That seems fairly easy to me.
Universal service means that every customer, in whatever place, can participate in a public service at the same and appropriate conditions.
That is the definition.
We want to avoid linking this definition to any particular technical possibility.
It must to some degree be dynamic.
In the case of the telephone, it is enough to have the technical possibility to access the network.
In future, however, there will be a whole range of additional telecommunications services, value added services, and in principle universal service must also include access to these services, which is to say we must not make our definition too restrictive.
Regarding financing, as I have often said I am convinced for two reasons that we do not need any extra financing. This interconnection will play a major role through the competition between competitors.
Whether a service provider or network operator reaches only a part of the country or the entire country is an important factor of competition i.e., as a result of this competition, everybody will try to reach everybody.
Secondly, and that has not yet been sufficiently understood, the cost structure, the calculation of the costs of the infrastructure or the services offered, depends very much on the number of customers reached.
The more customers can be reached, the easier it is to absorb these costs.
In our view these two arguments are the best way to guarantee that no problems will arise.
But because there are always some people who do not believe the Commission - this might be regarded as a character failing, but they still exist - we have offered two possibilities: to finance the setting up of universal services either through a fund or by charging for the issue of a licence, where one could go so far as to make the issue of a licence subject to the obligation to provide a universal service.
We really want to keep that in reserve, and in that respect we have no quarrel with each other.
We still have to clarify this, as we do the questions of cost calculation and so on, to decide whether we need a directive on this or whether we can do it in the form of a kind of annex to this directive; that is a technical question.
Of course we also need principles on how to achieve this transparency and how to calculate the costs.
That is absolutely clear.
Mr President, I think those were the most important questions to deal with in this short space of time.
Once again I thank Mrs Read and all who took part here.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Protection for occupants of motor vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0275/96) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the protection of occupants of motor vehicles in the event of a frontal impact and amending Directive 70/156/EEC (C4-0326/96-94/0323(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Donnelly).
Mr President, can I say that this piece of legislation completes our work on crash testing.
We have dealt with the legislation on side-impact at crash testing to make cars safer, or the construction of cars better, for the citizens in the European Union.
This second reading on the legislation for new tests for frontimpact for automobiles in the European Union completes the package of two legislative measures.
The amendments that we have tabled in the second reading, and this has been done to a certain extent in consultation with the European Commission, and indeed with the expert committees that deal with vehicle safety, are largely technical amendments to tidy up the legislation.
While I suspect the Commissioner may have some reservations or place a reserve on some of the figures in the amendments that we have tabled, I think he will largely accept the proposals that we are putting forward.
I do not really want to deal with the technical question this evening.
What I do want to say to the many people, particularly in my own country, who question the validity or the usefulness of the European Union is that what we have been able to do in the European Parliament, with the support of Commissioner Bangemann, and through the measures that have been agreed in the Council of Ministers, is to take measures that will come into force in 1998 and will lead to a substantial reduction in serious accidents and deaths on the roads.
This is a tangible example to explain to the citizens either in the United Kingdom, who as you know are debating the whole issue of Europe yet again, or in other countries in the European Union - and we have elections coming up in Finland and Austria in the very near future for the European Parliament - of how Parliament acting in a sensible way in collaboration with the other institutions of the European Union, can put in place legislation, using our codecision powers, that will make some significant differences.
I just want to give you the figures for the United Kingdom.
Once this legislation is in place in the United Kingdom, it will actually lead to the prevention of 9, 000 deaths and serious injuries every year.
It will produce an annual saving, as far as accidents are concerned in the United Kingdom, of £400 m, a very important saving in terms of the financial cost and, of course, there will be a substantial reduction in the number of fatalities across the European Union, particularly from front-impact accidents.
There will be something like 15, 000 lives saved across the European Union simply from the piece of legislation that we are dealing with tonight.
So I would like to thank the Members of the House, because this has been very much a cross-party initiative in this House, and Commissioner Bangemann for his political support at a very difficult time when we felt it was going to be rather hard to get the Commission and Council to accept the approach that we were taking.
This is something that we should try to use, and I know Members of the House will try to use it, as an example of how this institution and how the European Union can actually benefit our citizens.
I really hope that when the legislation comes into force, in 1998, the car manufacturers will ensure that the vehicles that they are building for our citizens in the future fully respect the new laws and therefore protect not only the drivers but their passengers too.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Donnelly has clarified the content of the draft decision and also what can be expected, i.e., the consequences if what we want to adopt at second reading becomes reality in 1998.
All that is really left to point out is that we have worked very successfully with members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on this subject and that everyone took part in drafting this document.
Moreover, it became clear that as in the case of side-impact protection, Alan Donnelly, the rapporteur, has once again achieved good common results from his well-informed work with experts from the motor industry, the industries concerned with safety questions and in particular with the Commission.
That is the kind of outcome I would also hope to see in future in regard to many of the questions that are important to the citizens.
One area for improving car safety in future too is that of child seats.
Until now this area has been one of the major weaknesses in relation to cars.
I hope we will approach it in a similar way so that so that through our work in Parliament, with the Commission, with the industry, and of course also with the Council we rapidly achieve results that will make driving even safer and avoid the many road deaths and the many injured children.
If we continue to work as we have done, we will make rapid progress and obtain good results.
Mr President, it really is not just out of politeness that I return the compliment to Alan Donnelly, because as Mr Hoppenstedt rightly said he has carried out his task as rapporteur in exemplary fashion, as also reflected by the fact that nearly all the amendments tabled by the European Parliament found their way into the common position.
We only have one more stage to go; we have established the details of the certification procedure for using test dummies in a seventh appendix, i.e., we now have a consistent, logical and practical measure.
It is quite right of Alan Donnelly to say it is a pity that successful examples of this kind of collaboration between the European Parliament and the Commission and Parliament are too little known.
That is a particular problem in his own home country too.
On my last visit to our London delegation I found a very useful brochure, which drew attention to one particular problem by listing all the so-called Euro-myths that keep cropping up in the British press and have absolutely no bearing on reality.
That makes it very difficult for a Member or a Commissioner to make it clear to the citizens of the Union that we sometimes do sensible things here too.
Of course we sometimes also get things wrong, but by and large the Union is of great and positive value to the lives of the citizens, unlike some of the things that are often not done in the Member States.
But such is life, we have to keep on trying and I hope that at some point, through joint action with the industry and perhaps also with the associations that represent the victims of such accidents or that campaign for transport safety in general- for there are such associations, sometimes set up by citizens, in all the Member States - we will be able to make all this clear and that attitudes to the Union will then change.
However, we can only achieve that with the support of our national colleagues.
If national prime ministers behave like modern Robin Hoods and give their citizens the idea that if they march into battle against Brussels and violate all the rules of law they are working in the interests of their citizens, we should not be surprised if these citizens suddenly begin to feel negative about the European Union.
But that is a different problem that has already been discussed during the debate on the state of the Union.
So basically we can all be very satisfied.
Alan Donnelly was also right to point out that in the event that other technical details still need to be regulated, those amendments can still be incorporated either through the institutions or through the Technical Progress Committee.
We have to be aware of that if we adopt the legislation today, but that is quite normal for of course this area of technology will also continue to develop.
So, once again many thanks to Alan Donnelly, and we can all be glad we have managed to achieve this!
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Standardization
The next item is the report (A4-0248/96) by Mr Meier, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the broader use of standardization in Community policy (COM(95)0412 - C4-0504/95).
Mr President, Commissioner, Members of this midnight sitting, standardization is of course not do to just with the familiar example of the electrical socket but extends from the video cassette to hotel classifications or the chip card for using tourist facilities.
When I was dealing with this subject it struck me that the Euro would also represent a very important example of standardization, although of course that is not the issue today.
I would like to thank the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on Transport and Tourism, together with their draftsmen Mr Ferber, Mr Pex and Mr Cornelissen, for their opinions.
We have taken very serious account of their proposals.
That also applies to the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Unfortunately we could not deal with the new amendments tabled in committee.
I am very sorry about that, but they are there and I will be saying a few words about them.
Of course the report cannot discuss all the policy areas in detail.
After all, we have four or five new standards in the European Union every day and this would go far beyond the framework of the report.
But who participates in standardization? At national and European level it is business, industry, small and medium-sized enterprises, the consumers and of course the bodies responsible for standardization.
But let us not forget the international level, which goes beyond Europe, and here I would just mention the ISO standards as an example.
This horizontal and vertical structure alone reveals the complexity of the process of establishing standards, for on the one hand people expect standards, on the other hand these standards should not dominate or impose too many requirements.
On the one hand we want adaptation, on the other we do not want too much conformity or uniformity.
Science and research must also play a part and be involved.
But there must also be the widest possible margin for a voluntary approach to establishing standards without any influencing by politicians or authorities.
That shows how complex the standardization process is.
Discussion between the various parties will also ensure that standards are not developed over-hastily or produce results that might prove inadequate.
It is a fact that criticism of the recently decided standards that are being implemented has remained within bounds.
But improvements are still possible.
We must make it possible for all parties concerned to participate and also urge them to commit themselves to this and encourage the necessary training.
Apart from larger industries, this applies in particular to small and medium-sized undertakings, whose representatives we must support.
Of course support always means a certain amount of financial aid.
Consumer representatives should also receive the necessary support.
In this context I would like to say that I have heard that the budget appropriations for standardization activities by consumer representatives are apparently to be cut from ECU 750 000 to ECU 250 000.
That would surely conflict with what we too have decided here.
In paragraphs 8, 9, 10 and 11 we emphasize the need to ensure that small and medium-sized undertakings, which we have already discussed today, are given an opportunity to become involved through training and information measures.
So I would ask for this question to be reviewed, for we do not want to give the impression that the we want to exclude these undertakings from the standardization process.
Of course we are in favour of cooperation between CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, so that we do not have a multi-track system, and of ensuring the internal efficiency of the organizations, to which the CEN optimization programme has indeed already made some contribution.
Another important aspect, as mentioned earlier, is international cooperation with the ISO.
Strong products coming from abroad or from other economic blocs can point the way to future standards.
That means that dominant standards that are developed outside Europe also influence production.
So any group that does not take part in standardization may face economic disadvantages.
Standardization therefore also has an important part to play in improving competition with third countries.
I will now turn briefly to the new amendments, which unfortunately were tabled belatedly and not discussed in committee.
Basically we agree with the content of Amendment No 1.
However, it calls for account to be taken of the Treaty provisions of Article 130 r(2).
Well, that is obvious, given that we all believe in respecting the Treaty and it is simply not possible to list all the provisions of the Treaty again in a single report.
Second comment: of course I am also in favour of the necessary standardization of aeroplane components, but I will try to table an oral amendment so that we do not necessarily have to name the body that is to be set up and made responsible for standardization in Europe at this point.
Of course it is also important to take due account of any relevant environmental aspects, but I do not believe that means handing over any legislative power to the standardization bodies.
I am therefore not in favour of Amendment No 3.
Thank you for allowing me to exceed my speaking time somewhat!
Mr President, I would like to compliment Mr Meier on his report on an important matter which is barely recognised as important by many.
From the viewpoint of trading policy I deem standards in the field of information technology and telecommunications, the environment, energy and standards in the workplace very important.
In all these fields I consider attuning with the international standardisation bodies such as the ISO and IEC of great importance.
It is also of great importance that the matching of European standards with international standards leads to the breaking down of technical trade barriers worldwide, with new barriers being avoided.
My conclusion is that the expansion of standardisation benefits the integration of Europe.
As already said, I believe there must be more cooperation between European standardisation institutes to put Europe in a favourable position for the establishment of worldwide standards.
It is of great importance to European industry that standardisation is effected in the closest possible harmony with the latest technology.
I consider the establishment of a European mark that indicates conformity with European standards as an appropriate tool of quality policy that can contribute to improving our competitive position.
Standardisation relating to the environment and safety at the workplace can also make an important contribution to the debate about social and environmental dumping within the framework of the organisation of world trade.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, naturally the Committee on Research has considered the communication from the Commission on the broader use of standardization in European policy in great depth.
I just want to make a few basic comments, because many sensible points have already been made.
Firstly, we need a standardization policy that is consistent with competitiveness, growth and employment.
We ought to be able to manage no longer to have 15 or 5 main systems of standards in the European Union but to agree on a common system.
Secondly, we need a common legal basis, which we should take time to think about.
It does not have to happen overnight, but at some point we ought to create a common legal basis for CEN, CENELEC, ETSI and EOTC.
Thirdly, the question of transparency and participation by all groups was raised.
Fourthly, we also need pre-standardization research and should include this in the Fifth Framework Research Programme.
Fifthly, we need to achieve a broad consensus between European standardization bodies to prevent certain Member States, certain dominant industries, from defining European standards to the detriment of the others.
Lastly, we continue to need research measures, in the field of criminology too and to develop our laboratories.
I thank the rapporteur for taking on board so many of the comments we made in the Research Committee and I hope that the completion of the single market will not continue to be hindered by national standards.
Mr President, I would first of all like to welcome the Commissioner's communication which, I believe, is both perceptive and sensible.
It identified numerous applications for standardization and we, as representatives of the citizens of Europe, are most keenly aware of the value and opportunities that this aspect of the single market standard can give us.
The rapporteur, Mr Meier, rightly develops this theme in his excellent report, emphasizing both the need for such standardization to be voluntary and to be widely encouraged, and especially in the way in which he singles out small and medium-sized enterprises for assistance in meeting those standards whilst not allowing them to be put to a competitive disadvantage because of the financial implications lodged in there.
Clearly we have here a vehicle which could make European products truly pan-European, where a European quality label could become just as reassuring as the British Standards Institution marks which we enjoy in the UK.
Quality guarantees are what consumers deserve and what they need, and standardization could deliver just that.
Only yesterday in this House, Commissioner, I asked you a question about safety standards on camp-sites in Europe.
We all remember the tragedies which seem to occur summer after summer.
All of us who have travelled with our families to camp-sites know how much we take on trust in those sites, sometimes with tragic results.
Standardization of safety measures both in the siting and the equipment of camp-sites could save lives, and I was encouraged by your positive response yesterday.
This is just one example - there will be many more - of sound practice which can enhance the day-to-day lives of all of us.
I am confident that many more will flow from the groundwork that this report gives us.
It certainly deserves our full support and it is in line with the sort of comments that you, Commissioner, have just made to the previous report, which shows that the European Union is an organ and vehicle for good and for positive legislation.
I believe the question of the delegation of legislative powers is indeed a serious one.
I regard the question of the access of all groups concerned as an important one.
I also think that consumer and environmental groups should be involved and I think it would be a mistake to restrict the inclusion of environmental policy in every policy area to standardization.
It is probably right to include civil aviation, but it will not be possible to control industrial dominance by this means alone.
Mr President, I want to end with a remark that is inescapable at this stage in the debate: ' would the last person to leave please turn out the light' .
Thank you.
Mr President, our communication was designed to draw the attention of Parliament and of course of the general public to the importance of European standards.
I am pleased that Mr Meier's report and the contributions by Members this evening show that Parliament has understood this communication correctly.
I also hope that the general public will come to a greater and better understanding of the important role played by standardization, as also of our forthcoming proposals on, for instance, the role of standards and market specifications in the field of information technology.
The question raised by Mrs Billingham concerning the relationship between quality and standards will also be discussed in our next communication on the competitiveness of European industry.
So we are taking an in-depth look at these questions and I hope we will be able to make it clear that this is not some esoteric subject of concern only to a few techno-freaks but that it really is important for the consumer, the environment, the industry and therefore of course also for the competitiveness of the European Union.
Mr Meier, I have already discussed the question of the budget allocation with the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, who asked me about my priorities, as he will ask other colleagues too.
I hope that with the support of the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets we will manage to avoid any cuts in relation to standardization bodies.
If we want to involve groups such as small and medium-sized enterprises, consumers and environmental organizations, we obviously also need some public funding of their activities, for it will be more difficult for these groups to bear the costs than it normally is for industrial undertakings.
It is surprising, and I too found it astonishing, that there is one sector of industry in which there have indeed been very few common standards to date, namely aircraft construction.
Anyone who gives some thought to it will say: aircraft construction is the very first area where standards should be established; but that is not the case.
That too will surely change with time.
All the excitement there used to be about the competition between national and European standards has also calmed down.
National standardization bodies are cooperating sensibly and I hope that will prove fruitful.
Incidentally, we have regular meetings with CEN, CENELEC and ETSI.
If I may, Mr Meier, I will invite you to the next meeting.
We always meet in pleasant places.
So you can be sure to find yourself in the right environment too.
If Mr Wolf really wants to come, I will consider whether to invite him too, but I will have to think about it first.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12.01 a.m.)
Mr President, I wish to condemn the serious violation of the most basic civil and democratic rights committed by the State police against the movement that I represent in Italy.
This went beyond all limits of decency.
These intimidatory and provocative measures directed against the movement that I represent demonstrate the determination of the State to rise roughshod over all democratic rights.
The State police has never shown such determination in combating organized crime...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Moretti, what you are saying is not a point of order.
You asked to speak on a point of order but you are not speaking on a point of order, which is why I cannot let you continue.
Fight against fraud
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Gradin, before coming to the individual requests I would like to situate this report within a wider framework, even if this may seem presumptuous to the eyes and in the ears of some Members.
This week, and not just this week, we have had detailed discussions on the state of the European Union.
We are conducting a debate on enlargement, a debate on the intergovernmental conference and, often at least with most regrettable undertones, a debate on the future financing of this European Union.
We are conducting a debate with very regrettable undertones in what are called the net contributor countries, and more and more of our citizens are wondering not only: what does this Union cost us, but also: what do we get out of it? Will we be prepared to spend money on it in future?
All these discussions are interlinked.
We have heard that the Union can continue to develop unless only if it is also accepted by the men and women within it, by the 370 million people who live in this European Union, but also by those who want to join it and who must of course also contribute something to it.
Acceptance is not just something intellectual. The President has pointed out again and again that we must also address the feelings, the general perceptions of the people.
We must win the people over to Europe. But if we have to hold this debate at a time when money is short and we have to save everywhere, then of course the question that is asked first is: what does all this cost?
That question is always linked to the questions: are they being careful with our money? Are they doing the right thing?
Are they doing exactly what they should be doing? Not only, are we perhaps paying too much, but what is happening to the money?
Is fraud not occurring throughout Europe? After all, we read about it in the papers every day: fraud and corruption, fraud with subsidies and all manner of other unpleasant things; is this not a European disease?
Firstly, in my view of course the question is wrong, because unfortunately fraud and corruption are not European inventions but occur at every level.
We know it starts at local level and certainly does not end at European level.
It is a battle we must all fight together, which is why we need the public. How can we win over the public?
How can we persuade the citizens to support us in this fight? First, we will win them over by informing them properly about what we are already doing, by giving them comprehensible information and making it clear where the responsibilities lie, who performs what functions and who may also be failing to do something.
Mrs Gradin, the Commission has published this report on your measures to combat fraud in every language in the Internet.
I think that is an excellent idea and hope it will be continued.
It creates the kind of publicity that can never be achieved through pieces of paper.
But if we are addressing this broad public, then we need to formulate things much more clearly in the report, for then it will not be written just for a few experts, not just for the Committee on Budgetary Control, not just as a justification vis à vis this Parliament; then it will be written for 370 million citizens and they have a right to be able to understand what it says.
I will not repeat my requests in detail now, because I kept my report so short in the hope that some of the Members who are unable to be present now may still read it.
It does not take up much time and I have tried to be as clear and simple myself as I expect you to be.
But there are two aspects that I want to emphasize again.
First, it is important that in future the programme of work is recognizably based on the previous year's programme.
Hence my requests, and I know you support them.
I would be grateful if you would take these aspects together.
That would also mean that the programme of work must make clearly identifiable statements so that it is possible to ascertain just as clearly and definitely whether they have been adhered to.
My other request, which may be a new one, goes as follows: in its report the Commission should not only tell us about the programmes to combat fraud it has already carried out, i.e., retrospective measures to combat fraud, but also tell us what preventive action it is taking to check whether its own programmes, its own policy of subsidies, are fraud-proof in those areas where it can formulate this policy itself.
I would like you to give your position on that in the report.
We keep hearing, and Mr Liikanen and yourself also said it during the SEM 2000 discussions, that it is important to preclude the likelihood of fraud from the outset rather than just examining the situation after the event to establish that fraud has occurred.
If you gave your position on this, if you accounted not just to us but to the general public in Europe for what you are doing in this respect, that would gain the European Union greater acceptance and credibility and, I hope, not just in financial but also in political terms, which is what we all so urgently need.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report I am presenting to you today on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control has an interesting history.
At your initiative, Mr President, in April this year members of the national parliaments discussed with Members of this House how to ensure better protection of the European tax-payers' money.
That interparliamentary conference in Brussels was an important and productive experience for all concerned.
Its outcome was the conviction and the resolve to take joint action to protect the Union's financial interests and to stop passing the buck, as has sometimes happened in the past.
The report by the Committee on Budgetary Control incorporates the results of this conference and makes practical proposals for their implementation, entirely in line with the ten criteria for improving measures to combat fraud which you, Mr President, set out at the end of the conference.
My report lists the points that need to be tackled at Member State level.
It says where the Commission has to take initiatives and make proposals with a view to improving the partnership between the Commission and the Member States.
Some of this can also be found in the Commission's programme of work, which Mrs Wemheuer has just discussed.
But many of our requests and proposals are, if I may say so, clearer and bolder than those of the Commission.
I am referring here to the suggestions by Mr Bontempi, whose opinion on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs unfortunately did not reach us in time for us to be able to vote on it in committee.
In a situation where we have to economize in every area, where painful cuts have to be made in the European Union's budget too, is totally intolerable that in a sense we are often tying our own hands in relation to combating fraud.
Please do not get me wrong! It is not as though nothing had been done in this area in past years.
The rising number of cases discovered in all areas makes it very clear that more efforts are being made, especially by Parliament and the Commission, but to some extent also by the Member States who after all manage some 80 % of Union money. Our weaknesses are to be found elsewhere.
How can we get hold of the perpetrators?
How can we take them to court and what are the penalties? That is the crucial question we have to answer.
On that depend deterrence and effective prevention.
Only in a minority of cases are those responsible for fraud actually brought to account.
There will no real change here unless we in the Union review and adjust the entire arsenal of administrative, legal and judicial measures.
In this area we need to harmonize the penalties in the Member States and coordinate the definition of criminal offences so that we have the same jurisdiction everywhere.
We need precise rules on the cooperation between investigating authorities and courts, indeed where possible we need bodies responsible for this, like the Guardia di Finanza in Italy, and judicial bodies or departments.
All this must be interlinked otherwise any gap can become a loophole for organized crime.
In this context, we should also consider the possibility of setting up a European body able to initiate criminal prosecutions against offences detrimental to the Union's financial interests, especially in cases where Union officials have taken bribes.
Another area is the question of how can we, how can the Member States organize the fight against fraud? The Commission's anti-fraud unit, UCLAF, has passed its initial test and achieved some successes.
But UCLAF could be even more effective if it had comparable interlocutors with clearly defined powers and decision-making structures in all the Member States.
Sadly, what we still find too often is a dissipation of powers, which are still jealously guarded today.
The citizens not only expect us to uncover fraud and bring the guilty parties to court. The citizens also expect us to recover the misappropriated funds.
So far, the recovery quota stands at most at 20 %.
We urgently need an action programme here for more and better trained staff and we must remove any legal obstacles such as excessively short limitation periods, which make it impossible to recover the funds.
Lastly, in future we must check our rules and regulations systematically for susceptibility to fraud and where appropriate amend them.
One present-day example is the rules on subsidies for olive oil.
This year we will be spending more than ECU 300 million more on this than the originally earmarked ECU 1 800 million.
We are fully aware that a considerable portion of that will go straight into the pockets of fraudsters.
Here we urgently await proposals for reform from the Commission.
In this context we must also remember the Council decision on budgetary discipline which specifically provides for the possibility of suspending the payment of agricultural expenditure if Community resources have been misused.
A word on the forthcoming reform of the EC Treaties.
Here we expect the Intergovernmental Conference to formulate Article 209a, i.e., the article on combating fraud, more efficiently, which is to say that legal instruments must be found that are equivalent, effective, proportional and deterrent, as was also decided in Judgment 68/88 of the European Court of Justice in the Greek maize case.
Combating fraud should be established as a question of common interest and in future, legislative decisions should be taken on a co-decision basis, i.e., with the full participation of the European Parliament!
Experience to date with co-decision in other areas has shown that this procedure not only represents a gain in democracy but also produces more rapid results.
Unfortunately the Council decided just the opposite - and this brings me to the oral question - in relation to the protection of financial interests under criminal law, namely by deciding on an inter-state convention in the third pillar.
The Council took that decision on 26 July last year, but so far not a single Member State has ratified it.
And if my information is correct, there is no prospect of such ratification if only because the dispute about the competence of the European Court of Justice has still not been settled.
Another open question is that of the additional protocol to the convention, which is meant to regulate the question of bribes, among others.
Here too we have made critical comments and put forward proposals.
It is a pity we do not have a chance today to ask the Council how things stand; unfortunately its bench is not fully occupied.
But Mrs Gradin, you are here as the Commissioner responsible and I would like to remind you of what you said here before this House on 15 March 1995, namely that in spite of Parliament's warnings the Commission would opt for a convention in order to avoid a blockade situation.
But we now have this blockade situation and we are growing impatient. You have this Parliament's full backing.
That is clear from the decisions to date and I would ask you how much longer you will continue to be patient with the Member States?
When can we expect ratification, or will you follow us along the path of the proposed directive on this matter? I would be grateful for an answer and I believe you have our support!
Mr President, the committee on behalf of which I am speaking was very positive in its assessment of Mrs Theato's report, particularly since the clarification of the proposals is designed to give very strong impetus to an activity that Parliament has been supporting for some time now.
Turning to the proposals that I put forward in committee: one is of a general nature but seems to me to be important and concerns the issue of sound legislation.
We run the risk of finding ourselves with a jumble of various instruments in this field, more especially conventions and protocols and, indeed, protocols and conventions on the same issue, such as corruption, with the far from edifying result that they are ineffective because the conventions will remain a dead letter while at the same time helping to generate a great deal of confusion.
These instruments need to be merged and, in relation to corruption for example, we are recommending the adoption of a single independent instrument encompassing both prosecution where the Union's financial interests are damaged and the corruption of foreign officials.
It is clear that there is a gap here in the international legal order.
We have to raise another point concerning our competence in relation to corruption.
We are calling for the new Treaty to refer explicitly to corruption as an issue of common interest.
This is in fact an offence that underlies all acts of international fraud, fraud that damages the interests of the Community budget and which also forms the connective tissue linking organized crime.
Furthermore, other organizations, such as the OECD and the Council of Europe, are taking action.
It is my view that the revision of the Treaty will have crucially to include corruption among the issues of common interest.
On the point of corruption, I wish to point out, to the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin, in particular, who has been involved in this, that preventive measures are also important.
I think we need to look closely at preventive measures also, at transparency and at simplified, accessible, comprehensible and usable mechanisms.
The second point which we consider to be very important concerns the second protocol on the liability of legal persons.
I shall not spend much time discussing why it needs to be tackled, but it is a key point.
Liability is increasingly attributable not only to natural persons but to bodies, to undertakings.
This is a difficult legal issue but it is one that needs to be dealt with because it is clear that only if there are adequate penalties for legal persons, that is to say undertakings, will we be able better to deter fraud and crime.
Finally, a key point which perhaps encompasses all of the others is the adoption, as we are calling for, of a general and horizontal legal instrument covering both judicial cooperation and judicial assistance.
To give just one example, we have the problem of extradition and inter-court relations.
The speed at which crimes are committed is on the increase while the speed at which crimes are prevented is, if possible, declining, despite our efforts.
We have therefore to understand that this instrument may offer a strategy for the future.
Moreover, all of that is contained in the report.
I am only sorry that pressure of time meant that we were unable to incorporate it but I intend to put forward three proposals by way of oral amendment.
If the House agrees, it will be possible to add to the excellent report, presented here by Mrs Theato, these three points which may be very useful for the purposes of prevention.
As far as the question is concerned, I support the concerns and the incentives proposed by Mrs Theato.
Mr President, fraud is not merely a financial crime which cheats the European budget and the European taxpayer.
It is increasingly a cancer in the body politic of the European Union.
In my opinion it is disproportionately eroding our credibility with European citizens and provides opponents of the Union and national governments alike with an easy alibi on which they can blame all evils.
Citizens have a greater negative image from the allegations of the incidence of fraud than for any other reason.
That is why these reports we are debating this morning are so important.
I should first like to congratulate Mrs Wemheuer on her excellent report. It sets out quite clearly and pragmatically the intention to work with the Commission in the new culture which is very evident in the Commission to take the fight against fraud more seriously now than perhaps has historically been the case.
It adds some very sensible, pragmatic proposals as to the sort of things that ought to happen in the Commission's work programme and the relationship between the work programme and the annual report.
I hope that Commissioner Gradin - and I am glad to see her here today - will be able to respond positively to the Wemheuer report.
It is a positive report, supported unanimously in the Committee on Budgetary Control, and I hope the Commission will acknowledge it for what it is - a sensible approach to working jointly to attack the twin problems we have to face.
I now turn to the Theato report.
Before I congratulate Mrs Theato, I really have to congratulate you, Mr President, because the parentage of the Theato report was your own intervention at the Essen Summit.
The Essen Summit laid the basis for a conference which brought together the real parties who must cooperate if the fight against fraud is going to be successful.
We cannot expect Mrs Gradin and the UCLAF unit to do it by themselves.
80 % of the budget, as we all know, is spent by the Member State and the incidence of fraud in the Member State is at least as serious as the incidence of fraud in that money which is organized and spent collectively at the centre of the Union in Brussels.
So we had this conference and Mrs Theato has produced an excellent report which my group supports as a follow-up to the initiative which you started and the conference we had.
We have to see these two reports - the Theato and Wemheuer reports - as a coherent response to a single problem; the Wemheuer report addressed to the Commission, the follow-up to your conference addressed primarily to the Member States.
Unless we all work together we will have failed the citizens of Europe.
Fraud is not only a crime.
Fraud is not only a political disaster. It is also the price every one of us will have to pay next month when we start discussing the budget.
It is the price we pay in terms of opportunity cost for the policies we want to have at the level of the European Union and cannot afford because the money has been leeched out of the budget.
In the fight against fraud we have to accept that the European citizens will not trust us with greater resources until we can demonstrate that we use the existing resources with effectiveness and efficiency.
That is the simple message that comes from these two reports.
Unless we work together the European Union will have failed the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must begin by complimenting both rapporteurs, Mrs Wemheuer and Mrs Theato, and by thanking you, Mr President, for the initiative of the interparliamentary conference we had in Brussels.
Last Sunday the European Parliament held an open day when more than 12 000 people walked round the European Parliament and talked to MEPs.
One of the many things which members of the public asked about time and time again was precisely this massive level of fraud involving Community funds. What happens to taxpayers' money?
What is the Community doing to counter this fraud? Those effectively are the two things our citizens want to know.
We have to explain afresh each time that the battle is waged collectively and that the responsibility too is shared between Community institutions and national authorities.
So we too need to know something: what are the Community's powers here?
Commissioner, I should like to draw your attention more particularly to a judgment by the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.
In a judgment of 24 April 1996, so this year, the judges of the Fourth Chamber ruled that there is indeed a legal basis for action by the Commission to counter fraud.
I do not know if we yet appreciate the full significance of this ruling.
The judgment also expressly says that the European Commission has an essential role to play in the matter.
Without the authority of the Commission the irregularities in question would quite simply go unpunished.
This is fully consistent with the view of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
I will move on to the important matter of the numerous conventions we have to deal with. Some come from the Commission, others from the Council, and others come from the presidency and we end up totally confused.
It really is not easy to know which convention, from which institution, we are dealing with.
Nor are they subsequently ratified.
I would also emphasize that cooperation between European institutions and the national parliaments needs to be improved.
Let me tell you my experience of a few months ago.
I am rapporteur for the Belgian Parliament's advisory committee on European affairs and I report on the scrutiny of financial flows between the Union and Belgium.
In that capacity I organized a hearing in the Belgian Parliament in May on measures to combat European fraud in Belgium.
At that time there was no talk of any serious abuses.
But two months later a Flemish newspaper came up with a Commission report on instances of large-scale European fraud involving farm subsidies in Belgium.
This report, Madam Commissioner, was not forwarded to the Belgian Parliament or the European Parliament, but it appeared in the paper.
So how are we to devise a strategy for collective action? Clearly we have to devise a strategy of transparency, but also a strategy of cooperation, otherwise we shall never achieve anything worthwhile.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the persistence of this House in calling for the problem of fraud to be made a real priority for the Institutions of the European Union has finally reaped positive results.
Fresh attention began to be paid to the problem when the Council signed, on 25 July 1995, the Convention on the Protection of the European Communities' Financial Interests against the background of the third pillar of the Maastricht Treaty.
Another important event was the Interparliamentary Conference on combating fraud, of 23 and 24 April - as has already been mentioned - which increased awareness of the seriousness of the problem, involving the national parliaments and arousing some press interest.
Are we, however, able to say that the results and progress achieved are commensurate with the efforts put in by this House? In taking stock for the first time, we need to consider specifically whether we could have done more - and if so what - and whether and how we could have done things better.
Regulation 307/91 allows the European Union to accord the Member States ECU 20 million annually to help them develop controls on the implementation of EAGGF-Guarantee Section spending within their territory.
We have bitterly to note that in 1994 the take-up rate of that appropriation was barely 30 %.
How does the Council explain that under-utilization?
Do the Member States consider themselves so little concerned in the prevention of fraud in the agricultural sector? And is the Commission is a position to tell us whether it has so far had available to it a general legal framework statutorily laying down its powers of investigation in the territory of the Union?
Are those powers operational?
Are the controls able to be exercised properly and to what extent are they actually effective? Has the Commission taken into account the comments made in the last report by the Court of Auditors and the relevant suggestions contained in the document on internal policies - submitted by me to the Committee on Budgets which approved it - designed to remedy a number of problems identified in the financial implementation of some aspects of internal policies?
For instance, what measures has the Commission adopted regarding project selection procedures and control of the contracts concluded for the projects chosen? And, if it has adopted them, do those measures make it possible to reduce the violations and the fraud and, more especially, to reduce the risk as a result of speedier and more efficient controls upstream of the procedure?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not wish to extend further the list of questions, though it could be continued.
The scale of the problem is such as to justify our concern.
We must not in fact lose sight of the fact that, as the only institution directly elected by the people, we are politically responsible for the use of the Union's public resources.
Once again today - I wish to reiterate this in this debate - I continue to take the same view as always: is the fight against fraud a question of technical resources, of staffing or of legal instruments?
Even with the existing resources more could be done if greater commitment were shown in applying them. The real problem - and let us not try to conceal it - is one of political will: if we are to act, we must want to act; merely proclaiming its importance, as does the Council ritually, is just not enough.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Theato's report on the follow-up to the interparliamentary conference on combating fraud rightly notes - and I quote - that there are still 'important loopholes in the legislation intended, at the national and Community levels, to protect Union finances' .
But these legislative loopholes are preceded by clear loopholes in terms of public awareness.
On several occasions during that conference Member State representatives actually seemed surprised to hear about Parliament's plans, wishes and intentions.
I can only hope that some of these lacks will have been made good at the latest by the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Member States must finally realise that effective measures to combat fraud, also and in particular measures administered by the Member States themselves, can only be effective if we finally create an effective legal basis, undertake the necessary harmonization and give Parliament co-decision power in this field.
Until this happens, all our endeavours will only scratch the surface.
But I doubt whether the Council has the political will, given the proposed cuts in funds for combating fraud in the next financial year and the Council's domination of today's debate.
I emphatically support the request made in Mrs Wemheuer's report for an analysis of the risks already present directives and regulations.
We need to check the susceptibility to fraud in advance.
After all, nothing seems easier - as confirmed by what we found in the Committee of Inquiry into the Community Transit System - than fishing in the troubled waters of the jungle of subsidies and refunds.
Simpler standards and a reduced policy of subsidies are just as necessary as effectively penalizing fraud against the Community.
In the end, as the committee of inquiry found, we should focus more on the dangers of organized crime and the movement of illegal earnings and I would ask the Commission, and in particular UCLAF, to provide Parliament with solid information on this.
Finally, Mr President, I would be interested to know how you yourself, as the initiator of the interparliamentary conference on combating fraud, evaluate the results to date and the measures taken by the Member States.
Mr President, there are quite a lot of people in Europe who think that Europe is pathologically wasteful.
On top of that there are reports that a good slice of the European budget gets into the hands of people and organizations which do not need the monies received or are not entitled to them.
I am a member of the Agriculture Committee and anyone who studies the machinery of export refunds and intervention knows what I mean.
Millions of ECU end up in the pockets of professional fraudsters, criminal organizations and even organized crime.
The sums of money involved are staggering, as witness a few examples from the meat sector.
In 1994, for example, a big network of fraud was uncovered in Italy.
Nearly 200 people were interrogated, 50 were detained and charged.
It transpired they had taken bribes.
In February 1996 a second meat fraud came to light in Italy.
But there are cock-ups over meat in the other Member States too.
Take the infamous revelations about the Goodman International Imperium in Ireland.
Between 1991 and 1994 a special committee of inquiry investigated all the instances of embezzlement in that case.
A European Commission inquiry even revealed that in the period 1990-1992 frauds to a value of 100 million ECU had been perpetrated in Ireland alone.
But Belgium, my own country, was up there with the best of them.
This year an enormous network of fraud has been uncovered there.
Meat normally coming in officially and simply transiting paid no import charges because the meat was repacked in Belgium and exported to other countries such as France and Spain.
Forged customs stamps were used in all this.
Later investigations showed that the accused were at the centre of an ingenious network, with contacts in abattoirs, property companies, front men, the hotel and catering industry. An Irish abattoir was involved.
Accounting firms were involved. There was complex cooking of the books.
These are just a couple of examples out of dozens of such examples.
But they illustrate the importance of the debate.
The two reports we are debating today deserve our full support.
My party and our Group are essentially in favour of Europe, but naturally a different Europe, which is fraud-free.
This dossier places the main responsibility for the disbursement and safeguarding of Union money on the national authorities, and that point must be made very clear.
But Europe has a responsibility too.
So I will recap on the important demands made in the two reports.
The absolute necessity of more transnational cooperation, a single legal framework in which judicial cooperation is very much improved.
The need for changes to administrative law, better cooperation over that too, better training programmes, the involvement of customs and excise administrations in the combating of fraud.
There is far too little of that at present. We also need greater use to be made of the new technologies in combating fraud.
These are two extremely good reports which are most timely and for that reason we shall support them.
Mr President, before I became a Member of Parliament, I was an avid reader of detective novels, and I like to watch crime series and films on television.
Now, I only need to go to work to see fraud running into billions.
I would accuse Europe's governments of complicity in fraud, to the extent that they know how much fraud is taking place, but choose to look the other way.
If we are to combat fraud involving EU resources and ensure that they are used effectively, it must be done at European level.
Fraud does not stop at national barriers.
In many cases, it profits from the fact that the attempts to combat fraud by the national authorities and the EU's inspectors are checked by national barriers which are maintained by Europe's governments on the pretext that they are protecting sovereignty.
If international fraud can be tackled just by us giving up a little sovereignty, then I am all in favour of it.
And that in spite of Denmark's reservations.
Last week, my Danish colleague Kirsten Jensen described Denmark's reservations as political necessities, but said they could restrict EU cooperation, and she was right.
Mrs Kjer Hansen is right as well.
In ten years of non-socialist government in Denmark, not the slightest thing was done.
So I think it is a splendid thing that the Danish Prime Minister has the courage to come out and say that he is ready to step up international cooperation within the EU on combating crime.
A number of other EU heads of state could learn something from that.
The specific point here is that the EU's inspectors should be able to have access everywhere and to pursue matters everywhere.
Crime does not stop at national borders.
Crime knows no borders.
To be able to combat crime, we must cooperate in an international way, from government level to that of the inspectors.
The point is to work together towards a common goal: combating international fraud involving EU resources.
That is something our citizens can understand.
And that is why this question is so important.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Gradin, we keep managing to describe new cases of fraud here in Parliament.
We also keep managing to have them taken up by the media who report on them.
But what we really should manage to do is to establish an effective procedure to deal with it.
The international media pay little tribute to our endeavours in that direction.
However, we must also acknowledge that there are reasons for that.
Several speakers have said that there are considerable gaps in the fight against fraud, considerable gaps in the fight to protect the Community's financial interests, gaps that exist in the Community and in the Member States.
The efforts made by the European Parliament have not been without success, as we know, but often lead nowhere.
What we really need is an overall strategy.
We must not be tempted always just to discuss the details of individual reports.
Otherwise our efforts will go unnoticed.
Article 209a on the protection of the Community's financial interests which provides that the Member States shall take the same measures to protect the Community's interests as to protect their own interests is not sufficient, nor is it being implemented.
We need concrete proposals and we do not need a purely sectoral approach.
However much the convention might help, it remains weak and I am firmly convinced that neither this Community convention nor the additional protocols will be ratified in the next five or more years.
What we really need is a Community directive which establishes a common definition of criminal offences and equivalent forms of criminal prosecution and the participation of the Community bodies in criminal proceedings.
That is the minimum requirement.
I personally give warm thanks to Mrs Theato and Mrs Wemheuer for their reports, which have helped to raise our common awareness of this subject.
In Mrs Wemheuer's report I attach particular importance to the request that work programmes, risk analyses and annual reports be linked more clearly and that in these reports the Commission must very clearly describe the rather slow development of the legal bases.
In any case, we can only take preventive or even deterrent action in this fight - without which the whole thing is pointless - if we really do play the game boldly against the Member States and the Council.
Let it try to stop us!
And then we will say quite openly who is stopping us.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, in fact, the European Parliament has in recent times performed a very important role in fighting Community fraud and has pulled out all the stops to counter the idea that Europe is a kind of sieve that everything gets through, only adding to the insecurity of consumers and investors.
Europe, such as it is, constituted from the point of view of controlling transit, controlling merchandise, offers no confidence.
Because, in fact, it is very difficult to control, due to the ill will of Member States, everything that happens at Community level.
In respect, however, of the actual measures taken, enormous progress has been made here in the European Parliament thanks to the action taken by Mrs Theato, Mrs Wemheuer, Mr Tomlinson and so many others, to try and apportion blame and decide which measures must be taken.
The truth is that since the Inter-Parliamentary Conference of 23-24 April, regulations have been passed on the action to be taken and there are now agreements on both responsibilities and competences; action can now be taken at both Community and national levels, since there is now a far-reaching legislative panoply stipulating all of the criteria concerning sanctions, controls, judicial processes and the means of recovering any money which has gone astray.
But will the Member States cooperate?
Will the Commission be able to take the Member States to court?
Will they actually cooperate?
Are they aware of the problems - and I do not think they are, in that VAT revenue has not been applied to computerising? Are they really willing to take responsibility for the general good and maintaining a certain level of honesty in business?
The truth is that even the criminal world observes certain rules. Yet in Europe these rules are nowhere to be seen!
In my country, Portugal, livestock has been turning up from all over the place without the slightest control, without any health controls, without any funding, and without anyone knowing exactly where it was all coming from.
However, when will Member States be forced to take responsibility for those areas which, together with the Commission and the Council of Ministers, they should take responsibility for, concerning what happens on their territory? Unless honest people show honour, the only honour remaining will be in the criminal world.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as well as congratulating Mrs Wemheuer and Mrs Theato on their excellent work, now a compulsory reference, I should like to emphasize three aspects.
This is a question which by definition has to involve everyone, both in the European Union in general and each of the Members of the European Parliament, as well as all of the Member States, together with everyone representing local and regional authorities.
In other words, it affects every citizen.
This is action which has to be permanent: nobody should think that everything has been done and just rest on their laurels.
We can only be as effective as the action taken at various levels, be they the European Union or local authorities.
Against this background, very special importance lies with ratifying the Convention on the Protection of Financial Interests which will ensure that we have a vision and the consensual action for fighting fraud and an effective division of labour in respect of the principle of subsidiarity.
Given the experience acquired in the field of using the Structural Funds in relation to regional policy, where it should be pointed out that the evolution of fraud situations has not changed, I am convinced that we must simplify procedures, cut red tape and eliminate some stages.
The complexity of the processes are fertile ground for encouraging fraud and corruption.
If we simplify these processes this might be one of the best ways of effectively combating these phenomena.
But where it comes to this simplification there is still a lot to be done.
Madam President, in her detailed report, Mrs Theato points to a series of measures able effectively to translate the political will to combat the fraud that damages the Community budget, by further harmonizing existing provisions and the cooperation between the Community and the national authorities.
Mrs Theato's proposals anticipate the introduction into the Treaty of a legal basis permitting anti-fraud regulations, envisaging a codecision procedure and the establishment of legal machinery requiring the Member States to protect not just their own but Community finances also.
Harmonization of the existing rules needs to take place both at an administrative level - that is to say in relation to penalties and controls - and in terms of legislation, with the speedy ratification of Convention on the Protection of the European Communities' Financial Interests, adopted in 1995, and the signature of the two accompanying protocols, one of which relates to the institution of criminal proceedings against officials guilty of corruption and the other the liability not only of officials but also of members of parliament, national institutions and governments.
That is certainly all commendable, but we must be realistic because we are persuaded that the Commission itself does not really believe that the 1995 Convention will be able to be ratified by all of the Community governments, bearing in mind the objective difficulties involved in coordinating the political will of fifteen countries.
Ratification is proving difficult particularly because it is linked to two additional protocols which relate not only to the liability of officials but also that of members of parliament, institutions and governments.
We think it would be more serious and honest were the Commission to look into establishing a Community instrument able to function as a regulation of the European Community and finally set under way an effective procedure for combating Community fraud.
Madam President, we have heard time and time again in this debate how citizens across Europe are calling for the highest priority to be accorded to the fight against fraud.
I can tell you that those people I represent in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight certainly endorse that demand.
We should not get things out of proportion, however.
Sometimes in the debate I have got the feeling that the European Union is the only body that is being defrauded.
We need to remember that nation states have their own problems.
We must all share in the fight against fraud wherever it occurs.
I want to congratulate the Commission on the work it has been doing, on stepping up its efforts, and to congratulate the President of this Parliament for lending his authority to the establishment of the Assize.
We can all remember the old-style Western films where bandits gallop across the state border while the Sheriff's posse has to grind to a halt on one side.
Are we really that much further advanced? We must get the message over that we have to be able to cross those national borders, and the ratification of the Convention clearly is a very high priority.
I would draw attention to two ways we could perhaps get improvements.
One is in transparency, as other Members have said.
If members of the public know where money is being spent they can act as our ears and eyes.
The Commission has already established the hot-line.
If the public have got information they will be able to make much more practical use of that hot-line. Also, regarding cooperation - cooperation between the Community and national governments, and between national governments and other national governments.
I can tell the House that the British Government certainly takes this need for cooperation very seriously. Indeed, the British Prime Minister has asked me to chair a working party of members of the House of Commons, of this Parliament and of the House of Lords, to look jointly at the problems of fraud and see how we can get better controls at a national level over Community expenditure.
A British Prime Minister came to the European Community on one occasion and asked for her money back.
I think that if we do not resolve this problem it will not just be one Prime Minister from one state demanding her money back, but all citizens demanding all their money back.
That is why we have to get this right.
Madam President, the reports by Mrs Theato and Mrs Wemheuer are fascinating: fraud, corruption, organized crime, white-collar crime.
They could almost be the minutes of a meeting of the Socialist International.
And, of course, we have the fascinating reports by the Court of Auditors, the judgments of the European Court of Justice, olive oil fraud, cereal fraud, expenses fraud, income fraud, ships being loaded at one end and unloaded at the other to collect the refund in the middle, Rotterdam docks - it's all fascinating.
We need to prevent it.
Perhaps we need to cure it by attacking the root causes, starting with the national causes, Greece and Portugal, trafficking in their national accounts to calculate their GDP.
But, as far as the European Parliament is concerned, wasn't there something in this House as well? Wasn't there a president who signed a bizarre contract fifteen minutes before his mandate expired?
At the European Commission, who was it who allowed the VAT fraud? Those who abolished the frontiers!
Who was it who permitted the contaminated meal fraud?
Those who abolished the frontiers!
Wasn't there a gentleman by the name of Andriessen who, in 1992, signed a secret agreement at Blair house arranging for the abolition of the microscopic checks at frontiers which showed up the American fraud with the cereal substitute products? Wasn't there a letter from Mrs Scrivener starting 'My dear Franz, if ever the ministers were to find out that you signed a secret agreement, etc....' ?
Who is it costs the Community budget ECU 25, 000 million every year with the GPS?
Who is it costs us ECU 850 every year for every ton of bananas imported to benefit the multinational Chiquita?
Isn't it the European Commission doing that?
Even if Article 113, or Article 130w, provides a legal basis for the GPS, the fact remains that these things do exist.
Who has not read the book by the Trotskyite Gérard de Celis, a Belgian radio and TV journalist, entitled 'Privé de public' , giving the dates and times and restaurants where the senior officials of the European Commission, the ministers and the representatives of the multinationals meet to negotiate the selling-off of public undertakings!
That book exists!
The truth is that you are happy to take advantage of this fraud to further the cause of European integration.
You want Community law. And in 1995 you signed an agreement on judicial cooperation and police cooperation.
When are we going to have a Community FBI? Incidentally, I think Mr Hoover would find the Belgian minister Van der Biest an excellent head of the FBI, no doubt with Mr Gonzales and Mr Tapie as technical advisers.
The truth is that the greatest fraud of all is the European Union!
You have robbed the people of Europe of their freedom, their independence, their jobs, their currency and their democracy.
You have pulled off the biggest theft in the history of mankind - the theft of our national sovereignties!
Well, you might as well do the job properly and move the European Commission to Palermo!
Madam President, the fight against fraud and organised crime is now high on the Union's agenda.
It was agreed at the Florence summit that these issues should receive priority.
At the big Baltic conference in Visby the need for greater efforts was strongly emphasised, as it was at the interparliamentary conference on fraud involving European Union resources which was, as you know, held at the initiative of the President of this House.
The Irish presidency is also laying considerable stress on the battle against drugs.
And now trafficking in people for the purposes of sexual exploitation has gained a prominent place on the agenda.
I agree with many of the speakers that we must have better instruments with which to meet the major challenges we face in these fields.
Today's debate in this Assembly has shown that Parliament and the Commission are to a large extent agreed on how the battle should be fought.
It is important that we work together to ensure a safer and more secure Europe.
We must, for example, be able to guarantee taxpayers that their money ends up in the right pockets and is used properly.
We must also be able to wage a more effective fight against organised crime, which is not only highly skilled at diverting money from European Union funds but also continues to enjoy success in trafficking in drugs and persons, fraud and money-laundering.
Mrs Theato's report stresses that the current Intergovernmental Conference must change the conditions for work under the third pillar.
I agree with her whole-heartedly.
As you know, the Commission has also proposed that all fields covered by the third pillar, except criminal law and police cooperation, should be transferred to the first pillar.
This would mean that the Union's co-decision procedure would apply and that Parliament would thus be fully involved in the work.
The IGC must therefore establish a fixed legal basis for the fight against fraud, whether it affects the Union's own resources or those of the Member States.
I therefore agree with the proposal in the resolution that as broad a legal basis as possible must be created.
Decisions on how the battle against fraud and crime should be conducted must be taken on the basis of qualified majority voting and co-decision should become the rule.
As far as can be judged it will also be necessary for the new Treaty text to refer to the need for the entire Union to have similar systems to safeguard against fraud.
I have proposed to my fellow Commissioners that fraud involving EU resources should be covered by a larger chapter on home affairs and justice as part of the first pillar.
The Commission supports this and the next step will be for the interparliamentary conference to adopt a position on it.
We have made considerable progress in the battle against fraud but if the fight is to be really effective we must first have better support from the EU Treaty.
In the 1995 annual report we were also able to announce that some progress had been made in combating fraud involving Union resources.
Mrs Wemheuer's report, for which I would offer my thanks, encourages us in our efforts to improve reports and give them greater structure.
I have already promised Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control that in future we will not be publishing two reports.
Next year the work programme and the annual report will be published simultaneously.
To make the report more accessible and readable we intend to make it shorter and make the contents more concise, because the report is often used as reference material for the general public and the press.
It makes no sense therefore to overburden people with a whole lot of extraneous information.
There are also a number of proposals in Mrs Wemheuer's report which I would like to study in more depth.
In this connection I should also like to add that some of Mrs Wemheuer's proposals concerning the management of EU resources will be acted upon through the Commission's project SEM 2000, that is to say the Sound and Efficient Management project.
Intensive work has been started to improve and make more effective the management of Union resources.
This will include improved auditing and checks and examination of EU rules in order to ensure that they are as secure against fraud as possible - preventive work in other words.
I should now like to return to a number of important points in Mrs Theato's report on the follow-up to the interparliamentary conference which imparted fresh impetus to the continuing battle against fraud within the EU.
I am sure that the national parliamentarians also went home a great deal the wiser and that this should produce results in their own parliaments.
The conference had a direct impact on the current legislative process in the Council.
At their meeting in June, the ministers of finance, for example, took a very important decision of principle on on-the-spot controls.
The decision is currently being considered by Parliament and the regulation will mean a significant step forward in several areas.
For the first time we will have a legally binding system, or an obligation, to protect taxpayers' money in the same way in all the Member States.
The conference gave rise to a number of highly practical proposals from President Hänsch.
Mrs Theato's report in turn builds upon these proposals.
I believe it is an excellent report with many interesting proposals which both the Commission and the Council need to study more closely and more thoroughly.
The most fundamental and important point, concerning changes to the third pillar, I have already mentioned.
I will also supplement the regulation on the protection of the Community's financial interests with provisions on sectororiented sanctions and controls.
The Commission has embarked upon some exhaustive preparatory work in this connection.
In particular, we must investigate whether the Member States are observing the new principle of equal protection against fraud.
I expect that the proposal on this will be submitted during the Netherlands presidency at the beginning of next year.
Parliament's resolution urges the rapid ratification of the convention on the protection of the Community's financial interests.
The point is that the convention is a precondition for us to be able to take the issue of fraud seriously in hand in the knowledge that legal proceedings will be instituted against those responsible in the same way in all Member States.
As many of you have pointed out, no country has as yet ratified the convention, though governments have had it in their in-trays for a whole year.
I know that the procedure has started in some countries and that the Irish presidency intends to have serious discussions with the other governments.
At the same time, I believe the difficulties surrounding the ratification of the conventions bring the spotlight to bear on the intergovernmental nature of the third pillar - as some of you have also stated in the debate.
We are now compelled to operate with conventions which enter into force after a protracted ratification procedure, if at all.
We would have avoided this if the Maastricht Treaty had included a more appropriate decision-making system for the third pillar.
The IGC is in fact discussing a very interesting proposal from the Irish presidency on this question.
Parliament's resolution therefore comes at just the right time for the extra summit meeting in Dublin.
The Member States have already started setting up special units with broad terms of reference to deal with fraud.
I agree that they must have a counterpart within the Commission, both in legal terms and administratively.
I understand therefore the wish for UCLAF also to be given a more specific status and for greater weight to be attached to its work vis-à-vis the Member States.
The Commission and the Member States must cooperate to deal with fraud.
This is why we have put forward a proposal for a protocol on increased legal cooperation.
I should like to conclude, Madam President, with a few more words on the IGC.
The Commission is now discussing how the previous proposal in principle on changes to the third pillar should be followed up.
We will submit an integrated proposal aimed at guaranteeing freedom, security and justice for all people.
Drugs, corruption and international crime present a serious threat and what we need is a united front with measures to combat these phenomena.
It is especially important when we think of the serious contempt in which politicians are increasingly held in Europe.
We must therefore work together to develop confidence and meet the public's demands for safety and security.
Madam President, let me extend warm thanks on behalf of our Committee on Budgetary Control and also in my own name and, I think, also in the name of this House, for no amendments have been tabled to the reports.
That means we are taking the same line, Mrs Gradin!
Your words of cheer and your plain statements also encourage us to continue working together here.
We will succeed, of that I am convinced.
To conclude this debate, I have received a motion for a resolution from the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs (B4-1009/96).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Elections in Bosnia
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the elections in Bosnia.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, following a request by the European Parliament, and though it was not on the order of business, the Commission has agreed to make a statement about the elections in Bosnia.
Today we will restrict ourselves to passing on the information we have to date, and as agreed, the European Commission will not take any questions.
The official results from Bosnia confirm that Mr Izetbegovic will be leading the new three-member presidency of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Mr Zubak will represent the Croatians in the presidency, and Mr Krajisnik the Serbs.
The results of those elections were expected.
Unfortunately, however, they confirm the nationalistic tendencies and it is likely that they will make it more difficult for Moslem refugees to return to the Serbian Republic of Bosnia.
The elections also took place to elect the members of the national parliament, the regional parliaments, and also to elect the Presidents of the local regions.
The elections were observed by more than 1, 000 international observers, who covered over 3, 000 election centres.
The European Parliament participated with 16 observers, supported by the Commission's agency in Sarajevo.
Three of the Commission's staff assisted the coordinator of the international observers, Mr Van Thijn, in his activities.
On that point, we must stress the contribution to the preparation and conduct of the elections, by the provisional election committee and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and all the international observers who took part.
From a technical standpoint, there were few problems and thanks to the particularly evident presence of IFOR there were no important disturbances.
Despite all that, few people took advantage of the opportunity to return to their place of origin in order to vote.
That would have required them to cross the border between the national territorial regions.
Special timetables and means of transport had been arranged for that purpose to ensure the safety of those voters, but unfortunately, fear prevailed in the end.
At any rate, many citizens of BosniaHerzegovina came to vote, many of them under difficult conditions.
The freedom of expression during the pre-election period could also be criticized.
Access to the media for the opposition parties and the three national groups was not satisfactory.
The SDA, the HDZ and the SDS predominated, one can say, during the pre-election period.
For that reason it is only barely possible to speak of a politically neutral environment, which was one of the Dayton Agreement's conditions.
We therefore agree with the leader of the international observers, Mr Van Thijn, that these elections have been a first step in the transition between the time of intense and violent conflict and the prospect of a democratic future for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The period that is beginning today will be very difficult.
Now, institutions will have to become more functional, a new central government must be formed, and all the parties must show themselves willing to cooperate.
This will not happen without strong and coordinated international pressure and support.
The conduct of the municipal elections will be an important opportunity to monitor events, I could say a 'test case' .
As you know, the date of 30 November is under consideration, though it is not at all sure that all the organizational needs, including the compilation of the new electoral role, can be completed in time.
That, ladies and gentlemen and Madam President, is all the information the Commission can put before Parliament at today's sitting.
Madam President, I apologize for Mr Imbeni, who was to have spoken.
He has had to return home on urgent business.
There were several different elections: for the presidency of the whole country; the presidency of the Srpska republic; the presidency of the federation; and then also, regional elections.
The municipal elections were postponed.
These elections were unique.
They were unique in that they were administered and organized by foreigners - by us, in fact.
There were some specific complaints.
Some polling stations were situated near graveyards, near killing walls or in minefields.
There was a general complaint that 15-20 % of the people who wished to vote could not because they were not on the electoral role.
Anger was defused because it was agreed that one polling station in each community could stay open until complaints were investigated.
So, congratulations to the organizers and to the European Community mission.
A good job was done in terribly difficult circumstances; not a perfect job, but a good job.
The main problem was that over 50 % of the population did not live in the homes they lived in five years ago.
A quarter of the population live in other countries.
A third of the population are displaced people living in other parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
There were three ways in which they could vote: they could vote in the locality where they lived; they could vote as absentee voters; or they could travel to where they used to live and vote.
This journey was protected by the IFor troops.
To ensure that people could not vote twice - because they could vote, in most cases, anywhere - there was a magic marker put on their finger.
I only found one person who tried to vote twice, an old woman of about 80.
I think the election process was respected by the people.
There will be complaint from the Bosnians that the Serbs did not allow absentee voting etc., but as their candidate will probably be the first president, these complaints might not be as vocal in the future.
All things considered, we must respect the results.
It is only a small step in the peace and rebuilding programme.
What should we do now? There are four recommendations.
Firstly, the troops must stay - I-For must stay there.
It produces stability.
We must not bring them home until there is more security in the country.
We have taught local people how to defuse the six million personnel mines in the ground.
Visit the country but do not ever step off the tarmac.
Secondly, municipal elections will be held, probably in November but maybe next year.
I would ask us to send an observer force because there could be more trouble in those local elections than in the other elections.
Election day was a day when no-one was killed, a rare occurrence in the country.
But the mayors and the local councillors have tremendous power.
The elections for the municipalities will be very important.
We must monitor them.
Thirdly, we should somehow link all the different organizations in the country.
We should have some sort of umbrella which links and coordinates them.
They do work together, but this is something which could be improved.
Fourthly, we must have a special aid programme.
There is aid going in but we need to coordinate it.
In Srpska, which has been ethnically cleansed, there was politics of a different sort.
In the federation everyone voted along national lines.
They have actually voted in the people who we accused of causing the problem in the first place.
The elections have not delivered democracy.
The campaign was not free and fair because the media were biased.
On the day of the election people had freedom, but not freedom of information.
All three big parties are authoritarian.
We should ask ourselves if our future aid should be linked to better attitudes and citizens' rights.
I am sure we will debate this in the future.
Madam President, as leader of the ad hoc delegation that went to Bosnia to observe the elections I would like to summarize our findings on these elections.
Since there is neither freedom of movement nor freedom of information in Bosnia, this election cannot be measured by our yardsticks.
You will therefore not find the words free and fair in our evaluation.
The opposition parties found it very difficult to draw attention to themselves since they were not allowed to present themselves on television in the Serbian and Croatian area.
That is why the election campaign was one-sided.
On election day itself we found that the polling proceeded without difficulties in the ethnically cleansed areas.
This may have been thanks to the sensible approach of the leading parties or to the absence of the other ethnic group, but it was certainly also thanks to the presence of I-FOR.
The failings we all noted were not as minor as we have heard up to now.
But these failings were mainly the fault of the OSCE, which had the task of preparing for the elections.
The inadequate electoral preparations for enabling the refugees to vote in their present place of residence in the federation for their own home area in what is now the Serbian part of Bosnia led to what were at times chaotic conditions for thousands of refugees.
I saw this with my own eyes.
There were also difficulties for the Muslim refugees who dared to cross what is known as the demarcation line in order to vote in their original home area in what is now the Republic of Srpska.
They were deliberately processed so slowly by the Serbs that many of them were unable to vote.
The way the OSCE registered the voters was incredibly inadequate throughout Bosnia.
Up to 20 % of people were not registered.
This could only be corrected in areas where the voters had freedom of movement to complain to the local election committee.
But the Serbs refused to allow the refugees who crossed the border to do so.
They did not have the freedom of movement to go to the local committee.
But in my view the greatest mistake was the OSCE's decision to add a third option to the two original voting options, namely for voters to vote either where they lived now or whether they lived after the 1981 population census.
Now they were also allowed to vote wherever they wanted.
On paper they could vote where they intended to reside, but no-one had to check that.
That led to nationalist manipulation on all sides and stabilized the ethnic division, as for instance in Brcko where 80 % of Serbs voted although in 1991 this area was almost purely Muslim!
Thank God this will no longer be permitted at the local elections, which were deferred for that reason, otherwise the aggressor would have won right along the line.
We call on the OSCE to learn from its mistakes and to prepare better for the elections at the end of November!
That only some 20 % of expelled Muslims voted in their former home area was also due in part to the fact that they could only vote for a Serbian presidential candidate there.
How difficult they must have found it to elect the direct or indirect perpetrator of the massacres in Priedor or Srebrenica for instance!
On behalf of the EPP Group let me nevertheless say that the alternative to holding these elections would have been the persistence of an intolerable situation in which the dominant national or nationalist parties would have continued to have the say without any legitimation.
These elections may represent the beginning of a possible and necessary democratization. They could also be the start of a difficult process of rapprochement between the ethnic groups, who still have no peace after nine months of cease-fire, who still feel hostility, hatred even.
But for the first time there will be a democratic opposition, for some people did vote for the opposition.
For the first time there is a state presidency in which the three representatives of the ethnic groups have to share power.
We will see whether that succeeds.
Since all the ethnic groups took part in these elections there is a chance that if they cooperate in joint institutions it will be possible to build up democratic structures and that a civil society can at last develop again.
Of course there remains the risk of Bosnia-Herzegovina splitting apart again, something which the Dayton Accord did not preclude but which it even encouraged by the strict division of the country and the territorial rewards given to the aggressor.
But, ladies and gentlemen, without these elections the risk would have been considerably greater.
If the newly created democratic structures really are to lead to democracy in an atmosphere of continuing hostility - understandable so soon after the end of the war - if the cease-fire in Bosnia-Herzegovina really is to lead to peace, the international peace-keeping force must continue to provide protection and we must maintain our presence and aid.
I agree with the Member who said the aid must be better coordinated.
We cannot have countless organizations working there side by side.
But our Parliament has tied this aid to certain conditions and now we have to ensure that these conditions are met.
We must also ensure that the war criminals are arrested, specifically Mr Karadzic and Mr Mladic.
And if it is true that Karadzic voted in Pale on Saturday, then I can only ask whether that really was consistent with our call for I-FOR to arrest him at the earliest possible date.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I think that there is an enormous consensus over this matter, both as to the information which the Commissioner has just referred to, and the information given by representatives of the Socialist and PPE Groups.
However, we will probably be referring again to aspects on which we agree but I should like in brief to refer to some aspects which seem to me to be fundamental.
First of all, it was useful - not to say very important - that the election should take place.
Although it meant that we were perhaps slightly reliant on American aid the truth is that it was a first step.
We cannot commit the mistake, as someone has already said, of transmitting the message that the elections were completely free.
From a technical point of view they were - the effective conditions were such that it was possible to vote freely despite the lack of ballots, despite the lack of registers, despite the lack of freedom of movement - and the truth is that in the pre-electoral period there were no proper political conditions for effectively free elections: the electoral commission belongs to all of the main majority parties and the media were also manipulated, quite clearly, by the parties whose interests they served.
However, as the representative of an opposition party said, there is no turning back, which means that the opposition and the more moderate parties will now at least have a voice and this is very important for the future of this whole area of Europe.
Let us look at some of the aspects and some points of discussion.
We have the impression, as has already been mentioned, that it is vital for IFOR to continue there.
Without IFOR, the war will break out again. Without IFOR, democratic institutions will not be able to operate securely.
People were speaking about a one-year deadline but I think we have to acknowledge that perhaps they will have to stay more than one year.
The second remark is the image of the European Union: bad, not to say terrible.
The European Union has been accused of everything that took place despite the humanitarian aid which we have already given.
We had no common policy because the Member States were making bi-lateral agreements and tended to refer to history, according to their various strategic interests, and it is quite true that the image of the European Union suffered immensely.
Mention has already been made of the fact that we must try the war criminals: and I think it vital that we do so.
If they are let off scot-free the international community will only be rubber-stamping the crimes that they committed and the international community will lose face.
However, isolating the Republika Srpska seems to me to be a dangerous policy.
The tendency to isolate the Republika Srpska might only encourage very serious radical movements and harm peace in the whole area.
I should like to end, Madam President, by referring to humanitarian aid, mention of which has already been made.
I agree that we should review the humanitarian situation not only for Bosnia but also the whole humanitarian aid policy of the European Union.
I should like to end on a note of hope: renewal has taken place.
If these democratic institutions can operate I think that, as a representative of an opposition party said, it might be possible to begin to build the house starting with the roof.
The roof in this case is comprised of democratic institutions and if they do operate properly it might be possible to solve the problem of refugees, of displaced persons, and all of the ethical problems.
I think that we can send out a message of hope and I would like to say a word of appreciation for the organisation which I think was impeccable and also a word of congratulations to the head of our Delegation who was also beyond reproach.
Madam President, for the record I was not a part of the observer corps, but I was in Bosnia a week before the elections, visiting nearly all the places where problems were expected.
Technically speaking, as has already been said, the elections in Bosnia can be regarded as a success, in the circumstances at least.
It is clear that the organizers and the OSCE did their best.
And why not? But the elections were peaceful and that is an important fact after so many years of horrendous war.
Not counting technical problems over registration, the people who voted probably did so democratically.
But there are also many people who were not able to vote, or were not able to vote where they wanted to.
Continuing intimidation and disinformation ensured that the interethnic border was a very real border.
Mrs Pack made that very clear.
Only a very small group of muslims voted in the Republika Srpska. And when they did go to vote in the other ethnic area there were mobs lying in wait for them and a lot of police.
So the preconditions for the elections were not met.
Everybody knows it: without freedom of movement and access to the independent media it was not possible to have a genuine and democratic campaign.
Now that ethnic cleansing has actually been made official and legitimate, we have to say that this is a sad outcome of these elections.
The carve-up of Bosnia is now a de facto reality.
The question is whether strong institutions at the level of the unified Bosnian state can reverse the division.
Can we impose multiethnicity on people who have turned their backs on it altogether?
We shall make do with what we have. What should we do now?
What should our counsel be? In any event, as many people have said this morning, IFOR remains necessary.
People want a quiet life, I understand that.
But perhaps we can help with the next elections, not the communal council elections at the end of November, but the elections in two years' time.
Let us make sure that there is access to the independent media, namely television, so that people know what they are voting for and know what the future will be.
Madam President, Commissioner, my group is well aware of the political importance of these first legislative and presidential elections in Bosnia.
I wish, however, to underline that they are certainly not the permanent solution to the problems that persist in the region and that the unity of Bosnia and its inter-ethnic character are certainly not guaranteed by the elections.
Paradoxically, the elections are likely to have a boomerang effect because ethnic divisions in the country may become still more marked and legitimacy conferred on the more extreme positions in the Bosnian political landscape.
This is demonstrated by the important victory of the Serbo-Bosnian candidate, with views akin to those of Karadzic, that is to say a theorist of ethnic division, and - in some respects and with the appropriate distinctions - not even Izetbegovic's victory guarantees the integrity of Bosnia, because his electoral campaign was conducted on the basis of a blend of personalism and nationalism which I consider dangerous.
There are, however, positive aspects which we should not undervalue: I am referring, among other things, to the positive statement of those democratic forces which are calling specifically for inter-ethnic co-existence, severely tested during the four years of war.
The good result achieved by the former prime minister of Bosnia, Haris Siladic, gives grounds for hope because it shows that there are positive forces at work in Bosnian society.
Finally, my group wishes to underline a further aspect of the Bosnian issue which goes hand-in-hand with Bosnia's institutional stability: I am thinking here of the economic reconstruction programmes for that country which the European Union, must, in our view, continue to fund.
There will be no peace without development.
And it is economic reconstruction which will be the measure of the political will of the Commission and Council to promote also the social and civil reconstruction of a country where war has trampled the values on which the European Union is founded.
That is a crucial element in resolving the Bosnian situation and, in my view, an acid test for the European Union which has too often found itself lagging behind and frequently been marginalized at the crucial points in the war.
Madam President, let me straightaway say that in strictly formal terms the elections which we, as a delegation, observed were certainly regular; a problem was identified in three per cent of seats.
But I wish to underline that they were regular in formal terms only, because we have also to consider all the conditions that existed after the military conflict at a social and general political level, during the electoral campaign and during the elections.
We should not conceal the fact that one of the mistakes which undermined the possibility of holding democratic elections was already contained in the Dayton agreements which in fact crystallized a result obtained by use of force.
This inevitably encouraged the spread of nationalistic currents and, therefore, in political terms, the outcome was already predetermined, the sole issue being to establish the extent of the victory of the three nationalist parties in percentage terms.
That is why we have to condemn the circumstances which led to a lack of equality of opportunity and democracy during the election campaign.
First of all, there was the problem of the sources of information which were neither free nor independent.
In that connection, it is also right to point out that we, the European Union, funded aid for that purpose, aid which did not produce the hoped-for results, and I think that it is necessary - and I say this on behalf of the Green Group also - to hold an inquiry to establish how that was able to happen.
That holds good for the future also, because all of the aid supplied for reconstruction will have to be closely monitored, given that that same humanitarian aid has been used by the forces in power, the forces of nationalism, as a means of exerting blackmail during the election campaign, to achieve greater consensus.
In those circumstances, equality of opportunity is not guaranteed.
I wish also to make a further point concerning refugees and the problems they encounter in returning to their country of origin; the lack of freedom of movement; and the fact that the demarcation lines have actually become borders.
In the light of all that I have said, we cannot claim that these were free and democratic elections.
At most, they may constitute a first step towards democracy, but subject to specific conditions, namely that there should now be a commitment, at international level, by the European Union and by the European Parliament, to ensure that the development achieved through these elections brings with it a real possibility of dialogue between the parties.
And so we, the European Parliament and the European Union, together with the international organizations must also guarantee a military presence to safeguard the state of non-belligerence. It is further necessary that aid should be directed towards encouraging independent sources of information, a social and cultural network of dialogue, so that the forthcoming municipal elections, which have fortunately been postponed - the P2 module would in fact have prevented a genuinely democratic system and compounded the division of Bosnia - take place in conditions that provide a better guarantee of democracy and equal opportunity.
Madam President, our mission as observers under the leadership of Mrs Pack took place in surroundings of destruction and desolation, among people most of whom sadly seemed to us to be unwilling to live together any more, and in a general climate in which intolerance, violence, totalitarianism, religious prejudice and, incidentally, corruption are affecting, admittedly to different extents, each of the three major regions of Bosnia.
Against that background, we were able to observe an election that was technically correct but politically not very satisfactory.
In technical terms, voting took place correctly, despite a few incidents - blown up out of all proportion in my view - and despite the obvious inadequacies of a campaign which we ourselves were unable to observe.
There was no intimidation, no violence and no obvious large-scale fraud in the conduct of the ballot, largely because of the presence of the observers.
Politically, the two fears concerning this ballot proved well founded.
The first question was whether the refugees would cross the demarcation line to vote in the areas from which they had been excluded, and none of them did.
The second was whether the democratic opposition parties in each of the zones would be able to challenge the domination of the major nationalist parties.
In actual fact, they were marginalized.
These two dangers were, however, inherent in the Dayton Agreements, which emphasizes - and perhaps we do not emphasize it enough - the responsibility of the western states of the European Union in the development of the Yugoslav crisis.
Today, there is a very real risk of partition.
Bosnia can be regarded as being on the brink.
Paradoxically, the source of hope has been Belgrade, because it was the existence of a candidate supported by Belgrade that prevented a Serb extremist becoming President of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which would have been completely intolerable.
Let us seize upon this fragile hope and pursue four points of action.
First, artificial and conflict-ridden though they may have been, we must at all costs maintain the independence and territorial integrity of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Secondly, we must perhaps take a less black-and-white view in judging the protagonists, and at all events encourage those who are trying faithfully to implement the Dayton Agreements.
Thirdly, we must call - and all the observers are unanimous here, as you have heard - for the retention of IFOR, whose presence is the guarantee of stability in Bosnia at this present time.
Finally, we must call for the municipal elections to be deferred once again, since they cannot be held in the existing technical conditions.
Under these conditions, and under these conditions only, the worst may not necessarily happen.
The elections were controversial, both before and afterwards.
For technical reasons, as has already been said, to do with problems over registration, but in the electoral district I was observing in, for example, there were posters of Dr Karadzic to be seen.
Politically the elections were controversial because of people's limited freedom of movement and expression, and strategically they were controversial because of the legitimization, the virtual legitimization of the de facto division of the country.
But we have to live with the outcome of the Bosnian elections.
As someone has already said, technically speaking it did not go all that badly and strategically of course the de facto division of Bosnia is not the result of the elections but of the Dayton peace agreement, and the peace agreement was needed at the time in order to silence the guns.
Better ballots than bullets, as the British put it.
And that is perhaps a somewhat lame justification of the fact that we now have to live with the outcome.
Bosnia's future looks bleak.
The Bosnian Serbs have obtained a lot for their Republika Srpska.
Their own president and their own parliament, and to me that augurs badly for the cohesion of the country.
The presidency of the new Bosnian state now comprises two potentially separatist co-presidents, the Bosnian Serb president and the Bosnian Croat co-president.
Looking to the future now, the war criminals must be brought to justice.
The elections are over and IFOR is still there.
Not for much longer, and the question is what is to be done with it afterwards?
Lastly, the most important thing is that the hatred has to stop, but that is up to the Bosnians themselves.
The debate is closed.
Votes
At the request of the chairmen of the political groups, all the texts on the agenda up to the motions for resolutions on the political situation in Turkey will be put to the vote during the current voting time.
Madam President, if I have understood properly, we shall be taking the vote this morning only up to and including the situation in Turkey, and so the vote on minors will have to be postponed to a time when it is probable that many honourable Members will not be present.
It seems to me that an issue of that importance has absolutely to be voted on this morning when Members are present.
Madam President, an irregularity occurred yesterday when a particular report was put before others and the agenda that had been drawn up was thus changed.
I would like to see that irregularity remedied today by reintroducing the Herman, Barzanti and Tongue reports ahead of the Thyssen report.
I can assure honourable Members that voting time will continue at least until we have voted on the resolutions relating to Turkey.
In due course, I shall ask you whether you want to go any further.
Madam President, this House is paying no attention to the fact that an elderly and frail head of state is being insulted at this time while here in France churches are being profaned.
I call upon the European Parliament to show solidarity with a head of state who is also the head of a religion.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Barzanti who wishes to apologize to you and to honourable Members for having had to leave unexpectedly.
There are three points which I wish to make.
First of all, a corrigendum has been distributed in all languages and this has to be seen as an integral part of and must therefore be voted on along with the rest of the text.
There are then two important corrections that need to be taken into account: the first concerns paragraph 26, the original text of which refers to problems linked to the 'holding of rights' where the word 'holding' has been translated as 'ownership' in many languages. There is a clear distinction between the holding of rights and the ownership of rights.
We need therefore to consider the expression 'holding of rights' in the original text.
One last point: in paragraph 9, there is a phrase in the middle that needs to be considered deleted.
We shall need therefore to have a split vote on that paragraph to get rid of the phrase in the middle.
We shall see when the time comes.
I shall ask you to take the floor again and table an oral amendment, because I cannot accept it in this form, at the start of voting.
Madam President, on behalf of the author of this joint motion for a resolution I would like to table an additional oral amendment.
After recital A insert the following new recital:
' having regard to the recent ruling of the European Court of Human Rights on human rights in Turkey' .
Are there any objections to this addition?
Madam President, on principle, on these matters it is very unwise to accept oral amendments however worthy they may sound.
I would hope that the House would agree on this occasion not to accept a verbal amendment.
I am sorry, Mr Sakellariou, I do not think it helpful to bring these matters up at this stage.
Mr McMillan-Scott, I did look round at the presidents of the political groups, who seemed to be in agreement.
But, of course, you personally have an absolute right to oppose the tabling of an oral amendment.
That is what Rule 124 is for.
Are there twelve members opposed to this oral amendment?
(The tabling of the oral amendment was approved)
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Madam President, I wish to table the following oral amendment, bearing in mind that yesterday, during the debate in the House, all of the political groups present were in favour of the amendment I shall be presenting, including the Irish President-in-Office.
The amendment is as follows: ' Provide Europol with the resources to enable it to conduct active investigations into criminal networks through exchanges of experience and specialized information, in particular via the creation of specific databases on individuals found guilty of paedophile acts' .
Are there twelve Members who oppose the tabling of this oral amendment?
(Mixed reactions) Ladies and gentlemen, Rule 124 does allow for this kind of situation.
We were not in favour of this motion because what its author said is simply not true.
A great many of us were present during the vote yesterday and no oral amendments were discussed.
We have only just heard about it for the first time, which is why I do not think it is possible to allow this motion.
(The tabling of the oral amendment was rejected)
Madam President, having been present for the whole debate yesterday, I have to say that Mrs Todini did say that she was going to put down an oral amendment.
She did not say what it was, but she certainly signalled that it was going to go in during the debate yesterday.
There can be no argument - Rule 124 is very clear.
Twelve Members object to the tabling of the oral amendment and so it is not admissible, whatever our views may be on its merits.
Madam President, I wish to point out that the oral amendment that I have today tabled and with which - I repeat - the Irish President-in-Office was fully in agreement is reproduced in the verbatim report also.
The honourable Members who have risen bear all of the political responsibility for this.
We are not going to have a debate on the merits when the Rules of Procedure are completely clear.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Madam President, the confusion is brought about by your chairing of the sitting.
My point of order has been up for a very long time and is this: it is becoming an unwelcome practice in this House for oral amendments to be put by Members.
If an amendment is desired then thought should be given to it in advance and it should be placed in writing for the consideration of others.
Therefore I ask you to take this matter to the Bureau to investigate the possibility as to whether one should accept oral amendments as in the case of the last speaker.
That was unwarranted and uncalled for.
If the amendment is worth it, it should be put in writing prior to the vote.
Mr Falconer, you know as well as I do that our Rules of Procedure cannot be changed by the Bureau - it is a matter for the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
This is a written rule, and in the present instance all I am doing is applying the Rules of Procedure.
I would like to express my Group's support for Mrs Thyssen's report on the SME multiannual programme.
May I congratulate Mrs Thyssen for submitting a report which once again demonstrates her knowledge of this important sector of the economy.
I would like to bring to mind the importance of SMEs in the European economy as the entrepreneurial sector which is most dynamic in job creation and adaptation of the open global economy's new requirements.
The Commission has attempted to respond to this positive influence and dimension of SMEs in the Union's economy with various interannual programmes, the third of which we are studying in this part-session.
I would like to express my anxiety and unease concerning the application of this programme by drawing attention to the need to avoid its being applied in a routine fashion.
Over recent years, I have noticed a lack of dynamism and excessive red tape on the part of the Commission's responsible departments, which are not doing enough to expedite the Commission's actions regarding SMEs.
The problem of credit access and receipt under conditions favourable to SMEs has not been solved by the continuation of a system of allocation which does not make it possible for the SMEs precisely to ascertain the origin of credits on account of the method used to allocate the relevant funds.
I would repeat that this situation requires renewed dynamism and more effective action on the part of the Commission's responsible departments in the application of the actions and proposals of the Third Interannual Programme for SMEs in the European Union.
As a keen supporter of small businesses I am glad to vote in favour of this report.
Whilst I welcome the Commission's focus on cutting red tape for smaller companies, making it easier for them to receive financial assistance and - not before time - tackling the big business late payers, I am especially in favour of the promotion of entrepreneurship.
Training is the key to the success of managers as well as their workforce.
Training for small businesses has to be carefully tailored to their needs, however.
Such training can be found in the Small Business MBA course at Bolton Business School in my constituency which I launched this summer.
The way it harnesses public and private resources for the benefit of the small entrepreneurs should serve as a model for schemes elsewhere in the EU.
Of course, it is up to all of us in this Parliament to make sure that the Commission's proposals become a reality, given the huge importance of smaller companies to our economic future.
Herman report
The arrival of the global information society has transformed the international communications systems.
It promises great advantages for remote areas such as Ireland where the cost of communications has been a brake on economic development.
Thanks to huge strides in technical developments these disadvantages are now being removed.
The arrival of the information society has opened up the possibility of direct access to government (local, national and European) decisions.
It can only improve the democratic and open nature of European society.
Unfortunately the best known global communications system 'the Internet' is being abused in one important respect.
There is a massive quantity of pornographic and violent material published on the Internet.
Paedophiles are organizing networks to exchange information and entice children into their sordid world.
This must stop.
People publishing pornographic material on the Internet should be subject to the criminal law.
We must introduce standards to prevent the abuse of the Internet because it reaches right into our homes and is easily accessible by children.
We Greens voted for this report once improvements had been made to various important points.
Yet I would still like to take the opportunity to point out that an 'action plan' in the form of a 'communication' is not in our view the appropriate framework for a general socio-political debate of the trends and alternatives in the implementation of the 'information society' .
We still maintain the need for a directive that brings the many individual Commission directives together in a coherent whole!
On the basis of the Gomes procedure the EP has managed to produce an opinion that is considerably more balanced overall than on earlier occasions when it gave its opinion on the subject in general.
But it remains to be hoped that the Commission (and also the Council) will understand that a number of socio-political decisions need to be discussed and taken by contradictory argument.
It is a question of far more than marketing and creating acceptance of a situation that has already become established.
So, we will not give up hope that we will still manage to conduct a discussion by contradictory argument on these questions of the future, both in this House and among the general public in Europe!
Barzanti report
With the advent of so many privately sponsored television channels, public service television has undergone real and dramatic changes in recent years.
However, for the future, public service television channels must remain the bedrock for the provision of the widest range of services to the general public.
As commercial competition intensifies and mainstream commercial channels become more similar in their mass market appeal, public service television will provide the best method of maintaining the widest range of accessible choice for the public.
I support the call for access by public service broadcasting organizations to major sporting events.
European Parliament's Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media is right when it insists that, where exclusive rights to sports entertainment or other events with particular value and interest to the viewing public are brought to pay television, highlights must be available on television services that are free and available to all.
I share the concern that European society could divide into 'the information rich and information poor' as access to information becomes more expensive with the development of pay television and pay-as-you-view.
Public service broadcasting must remain available to all citizens.
I agree that cable and satellite services should be obliged to provide public service broadcast channels on their services.
In conclusion, public service broadcasting will be under increasing pressure from market forces as pay-per-view and other services buy up more programmes and sporting events but a correct balance between private and public services needs to be struck on this issue.
This own-initiative report on public service television is good.
On the other hand, it is regrettable that so much of the report concentrates solely on strengthening the cultural identity and interests of the EU, as shown by the following quotations: ' serving the collective interests of Europeans' (paragraph 19), ' important European issues' (paragraph 22), ' circulation of European programmes' (paragraph 28), ' reflecting the debates that are going on in society in all Member States of the European Union' (paragraph 30), ' majority proportion of European works' (paragraph 33) and 'encourage a greater European dimension' (paragraph 46).
There is in fact a whole world outside the EU and if we are serious about combating xenophobia, racism and social exclusion it is surely in our own interests to get to know the productions of other countries and other continents.
I do not mean the USA here, but rather for example India, which has a major film industry, Russia, the Arab world and Africa.
I shall not be voting in favour of the report presented to us by our Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media on the role of public service television in a multimedia society, because the ideas defended in that report would create serious distortions of competition.
As you know, there has recently been a sharp increase in complaints to the Commission about State aid to public service television, the reason being that distinguishing between a 'public television service' and 'commercial television' in the European television sector is becoming more and more difficult.
There are ever-increasing signs of a confusion between their roles, because the public service enterprises have reacted to competition with an increasingly commercial service, whereas the commercial broadcasters are being subjected to a great many regulations and obligations.
My reaction to the ideas defended in the Tongue report must be to warn against an increase in public spending which would create even more distortions of competition and jeopardize the creation of jobs in the private sector.
In voting for the Tongue report, we did so in particular in the belief that the public broadcasting service is a fundamental vehicle for disseminating what a country wants for itself.
The concept of public service must not be limited to culture, sport, recreation, health and education but should also include science, the environment, technical innovation, all areas of economic activity of interest to the population; it should also target the whole public however far away they live, even those living abroad.
Nor is it important whether public service broadcasting is carried out over one or more channels or stations or through private operators, on payment for services offered or whether it is exclusively funded by the State or whether there are commercials.
Whatever happens, States must provide it!
For us it is also clear that, in Europe, we must have a set of public broadcasting services, in the plural, and not a single European service.
A good example of this - and we are proud to point it out - is RTP Internacional an excellent example of a national public service which is broadcast to the enormous community of Portuguese emigrants.
However, we must have close cooperation between all of these services, especially when dealing with common problems affecting Europe and the rest of the world.
Finally, I should like to say that the public broadcasting service should not be one but should actually take on multiple forms according to the different target publics to be reached.
We feel that the most important thing is to achieve the main objective: to defend the existence of public broadcasting service(s)!
We Greens welcome and support Carole Tongue's strong commitment to strong public service broadcasting that is able to provide social communication and cultural self-portrayal as important public goods on a permanent basis.
The points we consider particularly important are as follows:
that the necessary broadcasting licence fees are charged and this is not prevented or put at risk by a policy of competition in the audiovisual field that is geared purely to the private sector, and that-important events of what is called mass culture still cannot be appropriated by the private sector or used commercially, i.e., that important sports events, for instance, can continue to be broadcast uncoded and by public sector organizations.Naturally we particularly support several important Green statements, for instance on the concept of broadcasting, which have been incorporated in Parliament's resolution since spring 1996.
Resolution on Turkey
Madam President, we are very glad that the customs union agreement with Turkey has been suspended.
We recall that it was in this very House that our colleague Jean-Thomas Nordmann told us that we must not drive Ankara to despair; it was claimed that by voting in favour of this agreement to integrate Turkey we would prevent the triumph of Islam in Istanbul.
Well, Islam won anyway, and Turkey has now embarked on a path which can be symbolized by the transformation of Hagia Sophia - once a Christian church, already converted to a museum, and shortly destined to become a mosque.
Admittedly, Europe is not a Christian club, as Mrs Tansu Çiller claimed, echoing the remarks made by Mr Attali. But the fact remains that the only end result of our policy of opening-up will be to strengthen the grip of Islam on Turkey, at the very time when that country, in Cyprus, is practising an absolutely unacceptable form of imperialism, in total violation of the rights of nations and human rights.
That was what we wanted to say, Madam President.
Madam President, I voted for the resolution on Turkey because I believed it was important to stress that in many, many respects Turkey really is violating human rights.
I nevertheless deplore the lack of balance in the resolution.
Among other things, I believe that it is unreasonable to mention a number of people on the Greek-Cypriot side who have been killed.
I do not find it unreasonable in itself, rather the contrary.
What I find unreasonable is that there is not at the same time some mention of the fact that similar things have happened to Turkish citizens in Cyprus.
I regard this as a lack of balance.
Where respect for life and for human rights is concerned we must have the courage to show it to both sides.
During the debate on whether or not to conclude the customs union with Turkey we heard more than one naive voice here in the European Parliament.
Yes, all manner of criticisms could be levelled against Turkey. But we had to trust Turkey.
And the concrete manifestation of that necessary trust was the customs union.
Once we had that everything would get better.
The customs union was approved, but nothing has changed and nothing has got better.
For the naive it was a lot of work for no return.
And anyone with an ounce of sense knew that beforehand.
Anyone with an ounce of feeling for political reality could predict it without fear of being wrong.
Ending up empty-handed does not suggest shrewd statesmanship.
But there it is, many things are and have been expected of many European politicians, but political wisdom is not one of them.
That said, one should emphasize the undesirability on our side of creating any tensions at all in relations between Europe and its neighbour Turkey.
We want good relations with all our neighbours, Turkey included.
But firstly it must remain a neighbour.
No more and no less.
And secondly we must hammer home the message that good relations will only be possible when there is an end to the occupation of European territory, namely of a part of Cyprus.
Continuing occupation and massive Turkish immigration into Cyprus can prompt only one demand: for the ending of this customs union.
Resolution on Iraq
Madam President, The Green Group of course voted for the resolution on Iraq.
It goes without saying that strong condemnation of the Iraqi forces' actions in Kurdistan was appropriate but at the same time there should also be some criticism of the US intervention. It is certainly quite justified to defend the interests of the Kurds and to try and help get rid of Saddam Hussein's regime.
On the other hand, we are not convinced that this should be done through unilateral measures by the Americans but rather by means of a unanimous decision by the UN.
Saddam Hussein's regime is without doubt one of the worst in the world.
I myself have had the opportunity of visiting Iraq a number of times while Saddam Hussein has been in power and in comparison with most other dictatorships I have visited Iraq is still a special case.
It is the only country where you will never anywhere meet a single person, not in private, not even in the middle of the desert, who dares to utter a single word of criticism of Saddam Hussein.
We have naturally supported the resolution but we regret nevertheless that our amendments were not adopted, especially that concerning the need to take the initiative to arrange an international conference aimed at solving the Kurdish problem.
This long-standing problem must be solved and it must be solved in a manner which gives the Kurds the reasonable amount of self-determination to which all peoples are entitled.
Recent events in Iraq exposed once again the inadequacies of the European Union's common foreign and security policy.
Member States spoke with different voices in response to the evolving crisis.
The United Kingdom supported United States action; others remained ambivalent, while a considerable number were clearly unhappy with the US administration.
The current IGC must bring to an end this farcical state of affairs.
We need to change the process and procedures to ensure that we have a coherent common foreign and security policy.
This can best be achieved by abolishing the need for decisions in this area to be unanimous. This would prevent any individual Member State (or small minority) from being able to block the framing of an effective policy in a given situation.
Furthermore, although dissenting Member States should not be required to go along with the agreed policy they nonetheless should not be allowed to take a course of action which would undermine the majority view.
Reforms of this type might help create the situation where the EU will be able to exercise the same sort of influence in geopolitical matters that it currently exercises in global economic matters.
Resolution on child abuse
Madam President, I would like to welcome the vote on the subject of paedophilia.
However, one of my disappointments about the resolution which finally emerged is that we only make a glancing mention of the word 'family' in paragraph 1, when we refer to the courage of those families that have been victims of child abuse in Belgium.
It is time, in Western Europe, that we accepted the fact that the best defence for children against the scourge of paedophilia is to understand that the paedophile targets the most vulnerable children.
The most vulnerable children are those who do not have the assets of a stable, loving home.
The time has come for us to say that we must do something to encourage people to live with their children; to make it clear that all children have the right to two parents who love them from birth right through to adulthood.
The time has come for Europe to realize that unless we look very carefully at the way in which we structure our homes and our families, we will reap an awful whirlwind.
The terrible and tragic events in Belgium have focused our minds on the need to protect our children from international paedophile rings and criminals involved in the sex trade.
We are dealing with an international problem and therefore we must respond accordingly.
The role of Europol in particular must be strengthened, especially in the area of providing a central database for missing children and compiling a central register of known paedophiles.
Whatever powers are required must be given to Europol to prevent a recurrence of the sordid and depraved incidents which happened in Charleroi.
The European Union must also take action against child sex tourism.
Each individual Member State must ensure that its laws are adequate so that its own nationals can be prosecuted for participating in this evil trade, irrespective of what part of the world they visited to pursue their perversion.
Additionally, the abuse of the Internet to promote pornography, including child pornography, must be investigated and action taken.
The time for talking has ended - it is action that is required.
There never has and never will be a perfect society.
There always has been and always will be crime.
This is no reason to resign ourselves to human shortcomings, let alone advocate a laissez-faire attitude.
The casting off of all inhibitions causes significant and lasting damage to society, family and individuals.
When all religious standards disappear (often as a result of the activities of 'progressive' clerics themselves); when moral standards are dumped; when permissiveness is taken to excess; when indifference rules supreme; when the idea that 'anything goes' takes on the craziest of forms; when decency is ridiculed and considered oldfashioned and outdated; when values such as order, virtue, inner dignity, discipline, self-control and others are seen as suspect; when the family is undermined; when education is stripped of its status; when abnormalities are praised; when the forces of law and order are not allowed to do their job; when the law makes victims into criminals and criminals into victims; when all efforts to establish a moral and spiritual elite are jeered at as fascist.
Yes, then the way is wide open for all kinds of crime and all manner of perversity.
Then, indeed, it is not just the immediate perpetrator who is to blame; the blame, the responsibility is shared by the society concerned.
The joint motion for a resolution on minors who are victims of violence contains a wealth of good intentions, but overlooks the essential point.
It disregards, or tries to disregard, the overwhelming responsibility of the Belgian Minister for Justice who agreed to the release of the paedophile Dutroux against the recommendation of the public prosecutor.
This Minister is now a judge at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. No proceedings have been brought against him, no measures taken.
And yet Melchior Wathelet is a multiple offender when it comes to this kind of blunder.
In June 1990, in a confidential memorandum to the Belgian Sûreté, Minister Wathelet granted the release of 215 prisoners serving long sentences for robbery with violence, and in some cases rape, although the law required them to be repatriated to their countries of origin in the Maghreb.
On Melchior Wathelet's own admission, several of them have reoffended, while others have vanished from sight.
We are speechless with outrage to find that my colleagues from all three regions of Belgium who have tabled this motion have passed over the flagrant guilt of a former Minister for Justice who regularly commits such criminal acts.
Measures to combat violence against minors must be carried out at all levels, by individuals, by Member States and at international level.
Violence can never be acceptable.
We have therefore supported the resolution but would stress that we distance ourselves completely from those sections concerning Europol.
The battle against paedophiles and violence against minors can best be fought through greater intergovernmental police cooperation through Interpol.
We would like to emphasise that it is important that this cooperation is expanded outside the EU too, to include for example police forces in the Baltic states and the countries of South East Asia.
The tragic events in Belgium have put the issue of the sexual abuse of children in the spotlight.
I believe that all forms of sexual abuse of children are criminal acts and totally unacceptable.
Forceful and coordinated international measures are needed to prevent children being exploited for sexual purposes in Europe and in other parts of the world.
I am therefore voting for the resolution even though I believe there are several other measures which could be taken apart from those whose only aim is to strengthen the EU's third pillar.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0994/96 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the situation in Cyprus; -B4-1024/96 by Mr Kaklamanis and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on Greek Cypriots murdered on the Green Line; -B4-1039/96 by Mr Hatzidakis and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the murder of two young Greek Cypriots in Cyprus; -B4-1043/96 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the slayings that took place in Cyprus; -B4-1058/96 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the murders of two Greek Cypriots by the Turkish occupying forces; -B4-1073/96 by Mr Avgerinos and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the coldblooded murder of two young, unarmed Greek Cypriots by the occupying forces in Cyprus.
The Liberal Group is profoundly shocked by the murders committed last month during a peaceful demonstration in favour of the island's reunification.
Everything possible must be done to stop the situation escalating.
The way in which the Turkish Government is behaving suggests that escalation is precisely what it wants.
We must condemn here in the sharpest terms the fact that the Turkish Government is paying for armed 'Grey Wolves' to move in to stabilize the situation in Cyprus.
The Turkish Government is using criminals from mainland Turkey because the Turkish Cypriots were not prepared to dance to the Turkish tune.
We must insist that the Turkish Government ensures that those responsible for these acts of violence are arrested and tried.
This incident makes it clear once again that the Union will have to work to secure a peaceful resolution to the Cyprus question.
For the umpteenth time I thus urge the Council to devise a collective initiative on Cyprus.
Peace and stability in Europe is after all one of the prime objectives of the common foreign and security policy.
The Irish presidency has made a good start by appointing a further special envoy, ambassador Heaslip, but more is needed.
One element is the stepping up of pressure on Turkey which now openly admits to using public funds to help destabilize Cyprus.
We must stand by our insistence that the island is a single undivided unit.
We must maintain our opposition to the illegal Turkish occupation and continue to uphold the UN resolutions as our guidelines for action.
There is work to be done.
I urge all parties to the conflict to keep a cool head and continue working for a peaceful solution.
The Union must help its would-be member, Cyprus, in this.
These are our international contractual obligations.
Mr President, the whole of Europe and the world saw the barbarous way in which Isaac and Solomos were murdered last August by Turks, and there is therefore no need for me, I think to mention the facts of the case.
What I want to say, is that expressions of sorrow or even indignation by this Parliament about those facts are not enough.
So long as all we do is to express sorrow, not only will the impasse continue, but Turkey will grow bolder, because we have reached a point where the Turkish Cypriot authorities bring in hit-men from Turkey - because the Grey Wolf group are certainly murderers.
We have reached a point where a Minister of the self-styled Turkish Cypriot government - the Minister for Agriculture - himself became the murderer of Solomos, who like Isaac after all, was doing nothing more than calling for the restoration of legality to that long-suffering island.
And I must say that we have reached that point with the help of our own inactivity.
The inactivity of the European Union.
That is why I would say that there is no point in today's debate unless it motivates an active involvement of the European Union in the restoration of normality and international legality to the area.
Despite what I must call the Council's sorry attitude yesterday, today the European Parliament has sent out the message that 'we are not prepared to grant you aid when your human rights situation is getting continually worse and when your behaviour is endangering stability in the area' .
With the present debate, we and the Commission should send a second message: ' Do not think that the tragic events in Cyprus will constitute a reason to relax pressure for a solution to the Cyprus problem.
Do not think that the murders will be a reason to stop the progress of Cyprus towards accession to the European Union. Quite the contrary.
These events are added reasons both for the European Union to involve itself more actively in the Cyprus problem, and for a reassertion of the decision to begin negotiations on the accession of Cyprus to the European Union, a development that could catalyse the finding of a solution to the Cyprus problem' .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Greens deplore the fact that the crisis on Cyprus, which has been dragging on for 22 years now, has once again led to confrontation costing human lives.
Not only must the murder of two young Greek Cypriots by the Turkish occupying army of paramilitaries be condemned in the strongest terms; those responsible for these crimes must be brought to book.
We also think that the killing of the Turkish soldier should be investigated, because someone was murdered on the Turkish side too.
The withdrawal of Turkish troops is a sine qua non for demilitarization of the island.
We think it is truly time to say that given the prospect of talks on Cyprus's accession to the European Union every effort must be made to secure a breakthrough.
A breakthrough which offers guarantees to both population groups in Cyprus.
So great efforts are needed to that end in the immediate future.
It will not happen by itself.
For 22 years we have been muddling along and despite international condemnations, UN resolutions and all the rest of it, nothing has changed.
If the European Union does not manage to exert pressure and force a political solution we shall have a situation where, possibly, one part of a Member State of the European Union is under occupation.
That is politically intolerable.
Mr President, it was with shock and consternation that we witnessed the terrible events in Cyprus this summer.
After 22 years of Turkish occupation, in violation of international law, of more than one third of the territory of Cyprus, the violence has now escalated to a level that was scarcely considered possible.
Some media reports have wrongly given the impression that this is an inter-community dispute.
The fact is that unarmed Greek Cypriots who were demonstrating against the division of their country in the buffer zone were confronted with a massive show of Turkish military force and with members of the Grey Wolf fascist youth organization who had been brought specially.
Sixty-five billion Turkish lire were allocated by the Turkish treasury for the expedition conducted by this extremist organization.
So it was not a dispute between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
Two young unarmed Cypriots were murdered by members of this terrorist group and by a Turkish occupation officer, others were seriously injured.
On behalf of my group I totally condemn these atrocious deeds.
Any constitutional state would automatically track down, arrest and prosecute the perpetrators.
In northern Cyprus, which is not a state and even less a constitutional state, one of the perpetrators was appointed minister of agriculture.
That is quite unbelievable!
These terrible events in Cyprus tell us nothing about the relations between the two ethnic groups.
Greek and Turkish Cypriots have the right to coexist, and they want to do so.
It is up to the European Union to do everything in its power - which means more than before - to put an end to the occupation of Cyprus and bring about a united Cyprus.
As early as June last year the European Parliament called on the Council to decide on common action in relation to Cyprus.
On behalf of my group, I most emphatically reiterate this request.
Only this morning the European Parliament strongly condemned Turkey for its violations of human rights and international law and decided to freeze the financial commitments for Turkey.
Now it is urgently necessary for the Commission and the Council to make it clear in unequivocal terms to the Turkish Government that better relations with the European Union also depend on a solution to the Cyprus problem.
Mr President, both public opinion and the Members of this Parliament have been taken aback by this double murder and the many injuries to citizens, among them two members of the UNO forces in Cyprus.
I do not think this surprise is justified, because these were murders, this was an organized enterprise, whose aim was to promote the idea and cultivate the conviction that it is impossible for the two communities to live together peaceably on the island, even though they did so for centuries.
And why is that? To justify the de facto partition imposed by the invasion and occupation for over twenty years, and the legitimization - as if such a thing were possible - of this situation of occupation.
That is the hothouse from which all these events stem, which will increase as time goes by.
However, Mr President, behind that satanic, devilish and unacceptable plan of Turkish chauvinism there are plans by other powers.
Specifically, it has come to light that the United States have plans and that there are studies by some of their services envisaging the partition of Cyprus - and not just Cyprus, but the Aegean - so that they will be able to control the partitioned area, the oil deposits which they calculate to be present, and the oil outlets from the Efxinon, the Caucasus, the Caspian sea and wherever else they can.
Consequently, this motion of ours is adequate in some degree, though in our view it is not enough because it does not reveal, does not denounce those ulterior motives.
Despite that, however, it is something and we will vote for it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has been following with deep concern the deterioration of the political situation in Cyprus following the various clashes between the two communities and which, as someone has already mentioned, resulted in the death of two Greek Cypriot civilians and, more recently, a Turkish Cypriot soldier.
Soon after the tragic events which took place in August, the European Union issued a statement in which it called for both sides to come together, and deplored the disproportionate violence by the so-called 'Turkish Cypriot security forces' .
For its part, the Commission emphasized that events of this type would not in any way affect the agreement between the European Union and Cyprus and that accession negotiations would be begun, as originally planned, six months following the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Commission also intends actively to pursue its action of information on the European Union among the Turkish Cypriot community in order to inform it of the advantageous of Cypriot accession to the European Union and, also, the principles and rules implied.
These activities are mainly aimed at members of the Turkish Cypriot community, and are carried out both on and off the island.
In respect of a political solution to the Cypriot problem, the European Union will continue to support the mission of good offices undertaken by the Secretary General of the United Nations aimed at finding a global solution and, in more practical terms, the current efforts being made to seek a basis, so that direct talks between the leaders of both communities can be resumed.
The urgent need for a solution was once again illustrated by the tragic deaths which recently took place on the island.
The presence of Cypriot President Clerides, my colleague Mr Van den Broek and the Member States, through their Ministers of Foreign Affairs, at the opening of the 51st General Assembly of the United Nations will, I am certain, be an opportunity for all parties interested in finding a solution to the Cypriot problem to discuss the most recent events in Cyprus and try and re-launch the peace process.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-1010/96 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in Burundi; -B4-1015/96 by Mrs André-Léonard and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on Burundi; -B4-1019/96 by Mr Pradier, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in Burundi; -B4-1033/96 by Mr Carnero González, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on Burundi and the coup d'état of 25 July 1996; -B4-1038/96 by Mrs Baldi and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on Burundi; -B4-1045/96 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on Burundi; -B4-1074/96 by Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on Burundi.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the political situation in Burundi was once again totally reversed in the past two months.
The coup d'état on 25 July showed that the Burundian army will do its utmost to retain absolute power, even if that means ruin for the country.
My group believes that we should strongly condemn this coup.
In that way we will demonstrate our support for the Burundian people in their endeavour to build up democracy and law and order in a country devastated by civil war.
Mr President, a coup must never be worth carrying out.
That is why we should also express our support for the seven African states that are trying to prevent this injustice from becoming internationalized.
The only effective hope for Burundi, however, is that all the parties to the dispute should agree unconditionally to come to the negotiating table.
In that respect, we particularly acknowledge the efforts made by the Tanzanian president to achieve this.
Mr President, since the coup d'état by the Tutsi officers, Bujumbura has been relatively quiet.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the countryside, where guerrilla warfare is raging, making it impossible for the NGOs to work outside the capital.
Despite the tireless efforts of ex-President Nyerere, no solution to the Burundi crisis has been found.
There is a lamentable absence of any desire for national reconciliation.
Even so, Mr Ajello has continued the negotiations begun by the extremist forces, which seems to support the views of those who favour sending an international armed force.
Such a force, made up of Africans, should make it possible to prevent a similar tragedy occurring in Burundi to that which occurred in Rwanda in the spring of 1994.
But we really do wonder, Mr President, whether our resolutions still have any prospect whatsoever of being heeded.
Nevertheless, we must hope that a dialogue can be established so that further bloodbaths can be prevented.
Mr President, it really is disastrous that we should have had more than ten successive motions for resolutions about a country which has just been the victim of another coup d'état.
Obviously, one of our first reactions will be not to recognize the legitimacy of the existing authorities.
Our second reaction, an important one, might be or should be to tighten the embargo, especially as regards all strategic products.
I am thinking especially of fuel, weapons and ammunition, because as far as other things are concerned it is usually the public at large that pays the price of an embargo.
But in this case it would be the armed forces.
Our third reaction arises from the fact that the massacres are continuing. In this context, one can only feel that a new level of depravity has been reached with the deliberate murder of Monsignor Ruhuna, Archbishop of Gitega, who was a man of peace and a man of courage, and a man whose disappearance was in the interests of all the extremists.
For the present, as far as we are concerned at any rate, we must bring pressure to bear for negotiations to begin among all the parties concerned, including those who have so far resorted to armed force.
It is also necessary that the peace-keeping force - regarding which an agreement in principle had been reached at Arusha - should be ready to intervene and, it must be said, should intervene at once.
After all, only a substantial change in the major institutions of the State will be able to bring back peace to that country.
The selective genocide which is still taking place in Burundi, including since the military coup of 25 July which brought Pierre Buyoya to power, is without doubt desired by certain parties wishing to suppress the will and intelligence of the people.
Although the international community is continuing to make every effort to try to re-establish democracy and guarantee peace and national reconciliation in the various countries of the Great Lakes region, the situation is becoming more and more tragic.
We are deeply shocked at the murder, on 9 September, of the Archbishop of Gitega, Monsignor J. Ruhuna, along with other victims.
The military coup carried out by Buyoya and condemned by all governments took place unbelievably at the very time that the OAU, with the backing and logistical and financial support of the European Union and the UN, had decided to intervene in an effort to resolve this tragic situation.
There has to be definite action, given that there is no security whatever in the country and impunity is at the root of the conflict which some are allowing to happen simply because of ethnic hatred, that is hatred between the Hutu and the Tutsi tribes.
The urgent call for aid and the desperate appeal from several parties in the country is addressed to us, asking us to impose economic sanctions and a total embargo, including a weapons embargo throughout the regions of the Great Lakes: those calls cannot go unheeded, and there has therefore to be an arms embargo.
Many questions remain unanswered: why was the military intervention decided upon at Arusha by the OAU, with Burundi present, refused? Why are individuals belonging to specific political groups being killed?
Why has this state of insecurity and impunity existed for more than 30 years?
Why, if there is the will to resolve this situation, has it not been possible to restore the rule of law? Finally, why are the efforts of the entire community not succeeding in making the crucial changes needed to achieve a democratic state without the use of force?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that this resolution of Parliament's is clear, far clearer than the statements of the Council and the positions of various governments, notably France, Belgium and others.
The big difference is that Parliament has had the courage to say that it condemns this coup, and secondly that it not only supports Nyerere but the embargo too.
This is vital if we are to have any influence over those in power in Burundi today.
If we shirk this duty we are fooling ourselves.
So I believe the demand made here that the embargo should impel the two parties to sit down together again and reach agreement on a plan for power sharing is essential, because only if agreement is reached on the sharing of power between Tutsis and Hutus can there be peace in Burundi.
Mr President, I would like to make an oral amendment to the motion for a resolution on which we will be voting.
I am referring to paragraph 7, which states that the European Parliament notes the re-establishment of the National Assembly and the lifting of the ban on political parties. This is a positive, although insufficient, step towards re-establishing the rule of law.
This point must be deleted because, firstly - according to direct information from the democratic political forces in Burundi - it is incorrect to state that the ban on political parties has been lifted.
This is nothing more than an attempt on the part of the regime to gain the support of opposition Members of Parliament.
Secondly, and this is a key point, there is only one way of making progress on the re-establishment of the rule of law after a coup d'état and that is to hand the power that was usurped back to whomever is constitutionally, democratically and legitimately entitled to it.
Currently, this is President Ntibantunganya, who has taken refuge in a western embassy, whilst his family has gone abroad.
Any formula other than one involving the restoration of power to the overthrown authorities or the calling of free elections - like this extremely dubious re-establishment of the National Assembly - is no more than a clumsy attempt at lending legitimacy to the coup d'état we are against.
The National Assembly has been re-established - and I am reading from the communiqué issued by the rebel regime - within the legal context of a transition of the institutional system.
It is my opinion that what the rebel regime says in respect of the re-establishment of the National Assembly speaks volumes.
On the subject of Africa, we in Europe have a tendency to fall for such fictitious democracy, as if this were our ineluctable destiny.
If we applaud solutions such as this one, in which a dictator attempts to manipulate supposedly democratic institutions, we will be helping to lengthen the list of countries governed by regimes which are repugnant to us in Europe but which we cynically find acceptable in the case of Africa.
I therefore propose the deletion of this paragraph 7 as written in the joint motion for a resolution.
I would also like to point out that this House will have an opportunity, next week, to apply the principles we defend beyond the mere rubber-stamping of resolutions.
There is to be a meeting of the ACP/EU Joint Assembly and I would hope, indeed I would like to request now, that the representatives from Burundi are actually those legitimate parliamentary representatives whose mandate was approved by the 1993 elections and not the diplomatic envoys of a regime which the European Union should not recognize.
A massacre is taking place in Burundi in the name of ethnic cleansing, the reason why intervention was necessary in Bosnia.
More than 7000 people, including the Archbishop, Monsignor Ruhuna, whom I had the honour of meeting and speaking to about Burundi, have been killed in that country since the coup d'état on 25 July, which led to Buyoya's seizing power.
The level of violence in Burundi is not diminishing - it is, in fact, increasing.
The only solution is for us to support Julius Nyerere, African leaders and the OAU in their efforts at finding a solution to the grave crisis afflicting Burundi and the entire Great Lakes region.
Thank you, Mrs Sauquillo.
I listened to your contribution with interest, as always, and would inform you that the oral amendment you have tabled will be dealt with in due course at voting time, which, as I shall repeat at the end of the debate, will take place this afternoon at 5.30.
Mr President, yesterday we heard the presidency of the European Union fudge on the issue of Iraq and Turkey.
Today, I have no doubt, the Commission and the presidency of the Union will be aware that Parliament no longer wants to fudge on the issue of Burundi.
The tragedy of Burundi continues with total disregard for human rights, summary executions and the massacre of thousands of people over a long period of time.
There is no embargo on bringing armaments into that region.
I have, along with Mrs Baldi and other members of my group, urged an embargo on armaments in the region because of the scale of the killings and abuse of human rights which is very frightening indeed.
I ask the Commissioner, whom I have personally great faith in and in his ability to achieve things within the Commission, to press for an embargo of this kind in the region.
I would also ask the Commissioner to think again about the whole situation as far as the Organization of African Unity is concerned and its desire to intervene directly in the situation there, to bring about peace and stability insofar as that can be arrived at.
The persistent instability in Burundi, together with the escalation of fighting, has to come to an end and the European Union can no longer stand uncommitted in finding a solution to that particular problem.
One particular problem, Commissioner, is an arms embargo - not just in Burundi - but let us begin with Burundi and then let us look at how we can bring about control of armaments coming from the European Union, which contribute to the terribly sad situations we see occurring in Burundi, in Rwanda and in other regions.
Mr President, the Liberal Group deplores the coup in this unstable nation of Burundi. The coup has led to a further escalation of violence.
A stable and democratic government is urgently needed, to restore control over the army and bring those responsible for crimes of violence to justice.
So a dialogue involving all the parties must be started as soon as possible, as Mrs Aelvoet has pointed out.
Consequently we the Liberals also welcome the pressure which the international community is putting on the new regime.
This should include an embargo on arms and munitions.
And it is the least which can be done to prevent the situation from escalating again.
This embargo must of course apply to Zaire too which is being forcibly persuaded to give support to the extremist gangs.
The international community must not stand idly by.
Mediation will only succeed if an international intervention force is set up for Burundi.
Boutros Ghali's proposal can be implemented swiftly, given that a number of African countries have indicated their willingness to provide troops.
I thus urge the Council to ask the European members of the Security Council to back this idea.
Mr President, the delegation of the Alleanza Nazionale agrees with the substance of the resolution and will therefore be voting for it.
However, we question how effective this can be unless the European Union speaks with one voice and responds on a collegiate basis to the human tragedies taking place all around the world.
My impression is that, now that their elite have abandoned the communist ideals and clearly disappointed by the political and culture message that comes to them from the West, the peoples of Africa are dangerously lapsing into tribalism.
Added to that is the fact that the pulpit from which we hurl anathema and preach such principles is beginning to look unsteady as a result of the tragedies and ethnic divisions that have taken place at the very heart of Europe, and the attempt at secession by the Lega Nord in Italy could be a move in that direction.
A touch of realism and an element of the specific would not therefore come amiss.
And so realistically, what can we Members of the European Parliament do? Next week the ACP-EU Joint Assembly will be meeting and that is the context in which we shall be able to take those measures of economic retaliation which may produce more results than any number of high-sounding declarations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, obviously the Commission is continuing to be very concerned over the current situation in Burundi and once again it must deplore events there, especially the recent assassination of the Archbishop of Gitega.
We share the opinion of the Members of the European Parliament that the only solution to Burundi's problems lies in its own people.
As such talks must be held between all of the parties involved in the conflict, so that an attempt can be made to establish a stable and fair system for everyone belonging to all of the ethnic groups, it is important that we should continue to call upon the parties to put an end to their fight and to start speaking about peace.
The Commission has referred on various occasions to the fact that it is prepared to do all it can to support the reconstruction of Burundi in cooperation with neighbouring states, relevant international organisations and other donors.
We obviously think that it is possible to contribute to the funding of peace observers and human rights monitors as an important measure in the scope of the peace process.
We also wish to continue to cooperate in order to establish national dialogue, to restore the constitution and legal system as well as prepare a sizable package of recovery measures and measures aimed at development, as soon as circumstances in the country permit.
But it is important to say that, having on various occasions called on organisations such as the Organisation of African Unity and other sub-regional organisations to play an active and priority role in discussing the problems of Sub-Saharan Africa, we now have an occasion, and one which we have taken, to support the group of neighbouring countries which, meeting in Arusha, have taken important decisions - and I would even say courageous decisions - aimed at restoring constitutional legality in the country.
Therefore, the European Union unequivocally supports the process and the guidelines which have been worked out by the regional African Heads of State and it should be done through its own statements or through the noteworthy action taken by the special envoy, Mr Aldo Ajello, the European Union's special envoy to the Great Lakes.
Again, I should like to stress that, despite the terrible scenario which reaches us every day from Burundi, despite all of this there are signs of hope.
I have to tell Parliament that I was somehow encouraged to know that extremist groups in Burundi have had exploratory contacts in Rome via the Community of Santo Egidio, a community which has already played a decisive role in the peace process in Mozambique.
These are preliminary contacts but they could be seen as the light at the end of the tunnel and, obviously, they do nothing to stop the rest of the process which has developed more formally but in parallel, probably in a supplementary and very useful way.
I should also like, if you will allow me, to emphasize that the question of an arms embargo has already been discussed in various bodies.
The Commission has never hidden its sympathy for this idea of an embargo but I should like to emphasize that as a consequence of the sanctions which are being applied the arms traffic is at this moment virtually impossible in that there is no possibility of significant physical movement across frontiers.
I think though that, at the General Assembly of the United Nations and the meetings which are going to take place next week, I think, in New York, this is one of the points on the agenda for the contacts, whether with the UN SecretaryGeneral or our other partners, mostly Americans, and also obviously with our African partners. This is one of the main subjects which is going to be on the agenda and which I hope will be discussed.
And I also hope that new guidelines and a new voice might come out of this round of New York negotiations. I should like to conclude, Mr President, by saying once again that the European Parliament has hit the nail on the head in terms of some of the very topical aspects of the Burundi question and I am very pleased that this resolution has been approved.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, the Liberals have always been strongly in favour of a permanent international criminal court.
Universal human rights should be internationally upheld and infringements should be internationally punished.
The ad hoc international tribunals for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia are doing a good job, but it is now time to think about setting up a permanent body.
The time which is constantly wasted in setting up ad hoc tribunals could be saved and it might even be cheaper.
Happily considerable progress has been made and the committee responsible for drafting the statute has completed its work and asked for a diplomatic conference at the end of 1998 to establish the Court.
But there is a lot of work still to be done and the Union must play a leading part in it.
If we are to exert as much influence as possible the Union must agree a common position, as quickly as possible, on the need for a court of this kind and it must voice that common position during the next General Assembly of the UN.
The Union should advocate the renewal of the drafting committee's mandate and press at the General Assembly for a diplomatic conference before the end of 1998.
If the Member States act collectively they can exert a great deal of influence.
We know that. That is the basic idea of the common foreign and security policy to which each of us can subscribe.
So the Member States should apply that policy in practice, certainly when it comes to safeguarding universal human rights and punishing crimes against humanity.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I consider particularly important this debate and the determination of the House, for the third time in as many years, to urge the European Union to promote, as has been the case from the outset, a process which led to the political decision to set up the International Criminal Court.
Commissioner Pinheiro, you are well aware that at the UN, in the preparatory meetings to define the position of the European Union, the agenda clearly includes, among other issues, the question of the Court.
The Sixth Committee of the United Nations will in fact be required to state its view, in November, on the two requests of the preparatory committee: the first involves renewing the mandate to complete work on the statutes, while the other, which is a very important political request, concerns the decision, to be taken this year at the Fifty-first General Assembly, that the constituent conference will, at any rate, be convened in 1998.
Parliament is therefore asking the European Union, the Irish presidency and the Commissioner - and I am therefore addressing myself to you Commissioner and hoping for a positive response - to do all in their power, all that is possible to harmonize the position of the Union and ensure that 15 countries are able to speak with one voice.
We asked for this debate and tabled this resolution because each of us knows that at least two countries still have reservations, countries which were behind the setting-up of the ad hoc tribunal and which have, one of them at least, actually advocated the idea of the permanent court.
That is a matter of concern to us but we hope that, with the help of the Commission, the Council will in fact take this important decision.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what interests me in this discussion is the credibility of this House.
We are calling for an international criminal court, but unfortunately we proved unable, before the summer recess, to make financial resources available for the necessary activities of that court - which is currently engaged in investigating war crimes in former Yugoslavia.
If this House really wants to have an international system to prosecute this kind of war crime and crime against humanity, then we cannot evade our financial responsibility for such projects.
That is why I ask this House to endorse the requests made by the Green Group and the ARE Group under the Notenboom procedure, in the same way as in the future 1997 budget, in relation to the appropriations to be allocated for the activities of the International Court of Justice for former Yugoslavia.
How credible can we be if we set ourselves political aims, only to impede them by not making the funding available?
I hope that, as Mr Dell'Alba said, loud voices will be raised in support of this military tribunal because otherwise the risk is that we will ask for it but not get a hearing.
I think that the international community must set up this Permanent Criminal Court able to try crimes against humanity.
We need to tackle the kind of legal and political impunity enjoyed by those guilty of genocide.
In the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, for example, human dignity and the bases of civil co-existence have been violated and only a court at world level, with so many international tribunals and judges, is able to guarantee justice.
That is why the Council and the Commission must draw up a common action plan within the time-scale provided for in the Maastricht Treaty so that Europe can support the United Nations preparatory committee for the setting up of this criminal court.
I would point out here, and the Commission should bear this in mind, that my country, Italy, has stated its readiness to host the plenipotentiary diplomatic conference.
Mr President, for a moment I thought we were being left out.
On behalf of our Group, and Mrs Lenz who unfortunately cannot be here, I rise to express our total support for this resolution.
I believe we must have a cohesive approach to these international war crimes and there must be no hiding place for those who commit them.
I would also like to say that personally I am very glad that the resolution includes a proscription of the death penalty.
Whatever penalty the courts will decide for these people I do not believe the death penalty is right.
I feel it necessary to say this at this time because there are many calls for the return of the death penalty for certain crimes, and I am very glad indeed that the resolution includes a proscription on that.
Indonesia
Mr President, Mr Deus Pinheiro, ladies and gentlemen, with dramatic frequency the European Parliament denounces and repudiates the total disrespect for human rights shown by Indonesia.
And every time it returns to the subject the situation has got worse and not only in East Timor.
What more has to happen before we stop sending arms to that country, and by we I mean the Member States of the European Union? This is not only a matter of dealing with political pragmatism: but we are actually providing means for repression.
What about all of these words spoken at meeting after meeting in favour of human rights, only to be followed up by this kind of action? The European Parliament's successive demonstrations repudiating the situation in Indonesia are quite right.
However, the European Union as a whole should back the position of the European Parliament or else I think that it will lose all of its credibility.
Given the situation in Indonesia, when are we going to take a common stance that has effective consequences on our political and economic relations with that country?
Mr President, I am saddened to be addressing the House yet again concerning a distinct lack of democracy and human rights in a third country, namely Indonesia.
This is a country which enjoys a booming economy and is a member of the important Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
But of course, as we all know, especially those of us who take part in these debates, such credentials are no guarantor of democracy or respect for human rights.
The unnecessarily violent raid on the Indonesian Democratic Party's headquarters, just days after the ASEAN ministerial meeting in Jakarta, is yet another example of the government's attempt at suppression of any opposition to its regime in Indonesia.
On this occasion, 90 people were injured and over 180 were arrested; most are still in prison.
The Peoples' Democratic Party, another opposition party, has also been criminalized and many of its supporters too are in detention.
Furthermore, prodemocracy activists are being held incommunicado for engaging in peaceful activities.
This cannot surely be allowed.
The Indonesian media have been told to watch out for communist propaganda.
Journalists have been intimidated by the security forces and an atmosphere of censorship prevails.
We contend as a group that we cannot close our eyes to the repression in Indonesia.
The structures for democracy do exist and every effort must be made to uphold them.
I draw attention particularly to paragraph 8 of our joint resolution, which calls on the Commission to keep the establishment of trade relations with ASEAN subject to respect for human rights and invite the Commissioner's comments.
Mr President, the fight for democracy in Indonesia has become even more visible and the oppressive character of the regime has become even more evident.
We must prevent the growing importance of the Indonesian economy and interests linked to that dynamic from being used as a smoke screen to hide the political situation which the international community cannot pretend to ignore.
On the other hand, it is natural that, in a resolution on human rights in Indonesia, there is no room to make reference to human rights in East Timor.
But we must remember that this political regime, which flouts the human rights of its own people, also does so, and even more violently, against the people of Timor by means of a military occupation which has now lasted for two decades; among the human rights which have been violated by the Indonesian regime we should also include the right to self-determination of another country subjected to the process of genocide.
We should not forget this and we should not lose any opportunity to recall that this is the case.
Mr President, when the Dutch East Indies became Indonesia many of us rejoiced at this step in decolonization and towards democracy.
But how sour this dream and this vision have become!
The days of the Bandung Conference, which was a watchword for liberation, seem like many centuries ago, because what we have now is a repressive regime.
The proof of this is not just the attacks on their own citizens but the continued denial of the right of self-determination not only to East Timor, which colleagues have already testified to and which this House has already underlined many times, but also in West Papua or West Irian Jaya.
We have to ask the Commission when it is pushing Indonesia - as we assume it will - on human rights, to let these particular denials of the democratic right of self-determination be to the fore and at the top of the agenda, so that when Indonesia finally achieves a return to democracy these areas can be liberated, just as Catalonia and the Basque country benefited when democracy came to Spain.
Mr President, after what we have just heard from Indonesia, we can establish the following: this is not a democratic state and it is not a state in which human rights are protected.
On 27 July the headquarters of the democratic Indonesian party, the PDI, was stormed by military and para-military troops: 5 people dead, 24 disappeared and 149 injured are the minimum figures to be condemned.
We are outraged that peaceful demonstrators from the democracy movement were pursued in the days that followed.
According to our figures, at least 100 individuals were arbitrarily arrested and are now facing prosecution under the anti-subversion law.
There is no freedom of opinion or of the press; on the contrary, journalists are being prosecuted too.
Indonesia did not subscribe to the international pact on civil and political rights.
There is no agreement on the prevention of torture, which is of extreme concern to us.
That is why we call for three things: first, the release of the people under arrest; secondly, what we have always called for in relation to East Timor and Irian Jaya, an end to all military aid from Europe; and thirdly, the inclusion of human rights in the trade agreements with ASEAN.
The EU has concluded trade agreements without addressing the human rights question.
The Commission must alter that.
Human rights must be protected here.
It is our obligation to do so.
Violent suppression of a peaceful movement in favour of democratic reform in Indonesia, with arrests, restrictions on journalists, injuries and deaths, is something to which this Parliament must react.
This is not an isolated event which is out of accord with the usual policies pursued by the Indonesian Government.
This Parliament has repeatedly gone on record against the human rights abuses for which the Indonesian Government has been responsible.
Worst of all in recent years is the case of East Timor, where a third of the population is estimated to have died.
There are, however, sadly, many other examples of flagrant abuses of human rights on a considerable scale by the Indonesian Government.
The European Parliament must, therefore, demand that all deliveries of arms and military equipment are permanently stopped and that maximum efforts are made to force the Indonesian Government to end its policy of crushing all dissent by force.
Those who are in prison for purely political offences, including Muchtar Pakpahan, should be released, and so should those from East Timor and Irian Jaya.
Legal proceedings against Mrs Megawati Sukarnoputri should be abandoned.
Unless there is a change, the Indonesian authorities must understand that their total disregard of international standards on human rights will have an impact on economic and political relations between Europe and the Indonesian Government, and the Council and the Commission should give careful consideration to what action can be taken on this forthwith.
We want the best possible relations with Indonesia but these can only be achieved on the basis of a very considerable improvement in the sphere of human rights.
This is a message we must make very clear to the Indonesian Government.
Mr President, once again we can see that the political groups of the European Parliament agree about the defence of human rights in Indonesia, hence the need for practical measures to be taken by the European Union and its Member States.
On other occasions, the European Parliament has already assessed and condemned the serious violations against human rights by the regime in that country against its own people and other peoples in the region subject to its illegal domination.
Once again, reference is being made here to the case of Timor, inter alia.
What is new in the situation which took place in July - developments of interest - is the generalisation of protests and the emergence of a broader democratic movement with credible leaders of a genuine opposition calling into question practices and, I dare hope, the very survival of this dictatorial regime and the leadership of its tyrant, Suharto.
The European Union must stop propping that regime up but that would mean exchanging principles and values for business.
The joint resolution on the growth of repression in Indonesia reflects the widespread disapproval in this House of some aspects of policy in Indonesia.
I say some aspects, because we know that some areas of Indonesian policy are to be commended.
But nevertheless we are aware that things are bad when it comes to the upholding of human rights in the country and the country's democratic behaviour.
When I think of the machinations against Mrs Megawati Sukarnoputri and her Democratic People's Party, which effectively make it impossible for any democratic opposition to function in Indonesia, when I think of the arrest of Muchtar Pakpahan, leader of the SBSI labour union, when I think of the numerous political prisoners, when I think of the recent raids, and when I think of the opprobrium in which Indonesia is held over the Timor affair, then we have to acknowledge that very little progress has been made, and indeed, things are getting worse rather than better.
Today I think this resolution is focusing on the position of Mrs Megawati and Mr Pakpahan.
Our main concern is to improve their position by voicing our support for them, and we want to secure the release of these trade union people, and other detainees too.
This means that the resolution contains a couple of points which are not relevant just at the moment and are perhaps not quite so easy to accept and approve.
I am thinking of paragraph 7, but paragraph 8 too.
If we can maybe take those out, I would hope that the resolution might receive the endorsement of a very broad majority which ought to make the Indonesian Government stop and think.
If a loud enough noise is made here in Parliament, the Indonesian Government will hopefully listen and respond.
Madam President, Commissioner, the latest events in Indonesia, which I refer to in the motion for a resolution, only go to vindicate all those who for many years now have denounced what was happening in East Timor.
Against this background, we have heard that the Commission and, in particular, the Irish presidency might play a major role here.
Firstly, they must bear in mind the common position already adopted by the Council and apply provisions on every occasion and whenever necessary, in particular at the 51st Assembly of the United Nations and the meeting of the European Council which will mark the end of the Irish presidency, as happened in Madrid in 1995.
Secondly, we must include the question of East Timor whenever possible in questions of international affairs concerning the European Union.
Thirdly, we must back and promote any action which is aimed at using the resources at the European Union's disposal to improve human rights in Timor and finally, we must promote the publication of a White Paper which brings together witness reports and documentation about human rights violations in East Timor.
Alexander Nikitin
I am glad that our initiative in getting this matter included on the agenda for urgent debate has received so broad a measure of support from other honourable Members.
This House is regularly accused of holding the same debates time and time again, but regrettably we find that there is a very real need to discuss the case of Nikitin, the Russian environmental activist, for the third time in ten months.
Because despite two previous resolutions on urgency by Parliament and despite measures by the European Commission in Moscow, it seems that Alexander Nikitin's position is getting worse.
Not for nothing has Amnesty International declared him a political prisoner.
We must not forget that Nikitin used only publicly available sources for his report.
So in this case there is no question of his having published secret information in a manner prejudicial to state security.
It is intolerable that someone in a country which, incidentally, is a member of the Council of Europe, should be imprisoned on political grounds.
Nikitin should thus be given a fair trial and exonerated by a civil court.
I hope the Commission will give particular attention to this case and make representations to the Russian authorities about it again.
I look forward to the Commission's reply with keen interest.
Madam President, the Nikitin case is important for two reasons.
What we have here is political persecution by the Russian authorities of a former officer who has done his duty as a Russian citizen and as a European citizen without revealing any military secrets whatsoever in doing so.
What has Mr Nikitin done?
He has denounced the state of the nuclear installations in the Kola peninsula: literally, a nuclear dustbin. Much more than a threat - a real, huge and present danger, not confined to Scandinavia alone but spreading through the Barents Sea to a much wider area.
A situation which calls for the urgent setting-up of a joint commission by the Russian and European Parliaments - and, of course, the immediate release of Mr Nikitin.
) Madam President, this House must show its concern for the continuing deterioration in respect for human rights in Russia.
In the case in point, a campaigner on environmental issues has been arrested simply for collaborating on a report dealing with pollution of the waters around the Kola peninsula.
This House gave its opinion in February, but Amnesty International, the High Commission of the United Nations and the Helsinki Committee also regard him as a prisoner of conscience.
I believe we should demand, not request but demand, the release of a man who has been imprisoned simply for fulfilling his duties as a citizen.
It would be good for the environment in Europe, and in Russia in particular, if all citizens were to fulfil their civic duty of respecting our environment.
This House, therefore, must vigorously call for the release of Mr Nikitin, whose health is also deteriorating.
Madam President, the case of Alexander Nikitin is also particularly important to us because he has participated in the EU's TACIS work with the Bellona organization.
Amnesty International has declared Nikitin a political prisoner and, what is more, the first prisoner of conscience in Russia since the collapse of communism.
This is what Amnesty says.
Amnesty has investigated the figures quoted by Nikitin in Bellona's report, and confirmed that they are based on publicly documented sources.
We really have no reason to turn a blind eye in this case.
It is also time for us to debate who should receive our annual Sakharov Prize, and I hope that the various political groups will consider Nikitin.
He is likely to be sentenced in October or November to up to 25 years' imprisonment, and now is really the time to act.
By the end of the year it may already be too late.
Finally, I should like to mention that the Globe environmental network, which has many Members in this Parliament, wanted to visit Murmansk and the Kola Peninsula to investigate these matters about which Bellona and Alexander Nikitin have written, that is, this radioactivity problem.
This trip was scheduled for the end of October, but unfortunately nothing has come of it this time, as it was impossible to establish good cooperation with the local authorities.
The issue is topical, and I hope that Members of this House will be able to familiarize themselves with the matters on account of which Alexander Nikitin has been groundlessly imprisoned.
Romania
Madam President, we hear that Romania has conducted a review of its Penal Code. This has led to the introduction of penalties of up to five years' imprisonment for homosexuals.
The gravity of the penalties envisaged in this review requires that the Commission and the Council adopt measures aimed at demanding respect for human rights in Romania. In this case, rights are being attacked by laws which, in addition to being discriminatory, express value judgements whereby an attempt is being made to criminalize those whose lifestyle and tastes are different from those of the majority, as always happens where respect for an individual's autonomy is non-existent.
It is therefore essential for this House to demand that the Romanian government comply with the undertakings entered into with the Council of Europe aimed at the total abolition of repression of homosexual behaviour.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with its decision to impose a sentence of up to 5 years' imprisonment for homosexuality, the Romanian Parliament has discredited itself in my eyes.
Either the Romanian parliament is clueless about European human rights standards or, as I presume, this is a deliberate slap in the face of all those who are being persecuted in Romania because of their sexual orientation and also all those Romanians who are looking for a rapprochement with the European Union.
In my view we cannot accept either alternative, and they only show the need for a process of democratization in the Romanian institutions.
We must react today, immediately!
It is absolutely essential that we increase the pressure, for we have a chance to ensure that this threat of prison sentences really is averted, possibly through the conciliation procedure or as a result of a constitutional inquiry, and that homosexuality does not become a crime.
Let me stress that I very much welcome the fact that the leader of the Romanian delegation in the joint parliamentary committee has already informed us that he intends to enter this question on the agenda of our next delegation meeting.
Madam President, this motion for a resolution is particularly important, and I believe that the government of Romania considers it as such, and regards it as opportune too.
After all, it is time that the Romanian Parliament - or at least the members of certain parties that specialize in such dubious activities as that which concerns us today - should understand that measures of this kind are contrary not only to the agreements to which Romania freely adhered but also to the values on which the European Union, of which Romania wishes to become a member, is based.
In conclusion, I also believe that this episode and others of the same type should prompt every Member of this Parliament to make greater efforts to ensure that the European Union finally acquires a constitution in which these basic rights are codified.
Madam President, I am a Member of the Romanian Joint Parliamentary Committee.
When we visited Romania some months ago, I must say I was quite appalled by the attitude of leading politicians to the issue of homosexuality.
But now I am utterly dismayed by the recent actions of the Chamber of Deputies in Romania in wanting to introduce even harsher, stricter penalties for homosexual acts between consenting adults.
This is quite unacceptable in a society which claims to be civilized.
As we all know, Romania wants to become a full Member State of the European Union.
The European Union often quite rightly demands that Romania and countries like it embark upon a programme of liberalizing their economies.
That is essential.
But I think it is just as important to demand that, if countries like Romania are going to be Members of the European family, then they must introduce more democracy, they must develop their civil society and, above all else, they must develop their human rights record and improve it dramatically.
I hope that that is the message which will go out to the Romanian Government today, loud and clear.
Madam President, Commissioner, I believe that every human being has the fundamental right to express their sexuality in complete freedom and with full respect for their partner, whatever their sex.
That is why it is important vigorously to condemn - as does my group - the shameful decision of the Romanian parliament to increase the penalties for homosexuality between consenting adults, an action which effectively puts any country at the limits of civilization.
We urgently call upon President Iliescu to veto the law: that is possible and provided for under Romanian legislation.
I would in fact stress that homosexuals and heterosexuals should have the same social, economic and political rights.
That has been the opinion expressed by this House in past years.
I am asking the Commission to undertake to remind Romania of the commitments it entered into when it acceded to the Council of Europe: those commitments actually included the elimination of discrimination against homosexuals.
Let us try for once to get decisions already taken enforced!
In 1995 60 people were jailed in Romania for homosexual acts and the new legislative proposals make the situation worse; they are truly disgraceful and contrary to all existing international human rights law.
A very courageous gay movement known as 'Accept' has recently begun action to change the position of homosexual men and women in Romania.
If the proposed changes in the law go through, these people may be arrested right away since the freedom of gays and lesbians to form organizations will quite simply be banned.
So I urge the Commission to do everything it can to protect the Romanian gay movement against the rabid, crude homophobia which is rampant in Romania.
A country like this should not aspire to membership of the European Union. Existing measures of aid to the Romanian Government should be frozen.
Colombia
Madam President, I well remember Mr Samper coming to this House some two years ago and assuring us that he would do his utmost to devote more attention to protecting and enforcing human rights in his country.
I have statistics before me, which were published by the German church organization 'Brot für die Welt ' (bread for the world), according to which more than 30 000 people were murdered in the year 1995.
Now I know that the situation in Colombia is extremely complex, but I cannot accept, nor can this House, that there have still been no decisive steps towards genuine protection of human rights, especially in the form of setting up a human rights office in Colombia.
That means the government is definitely behindhand.
I ask the House to adopt this resolution and to give it to the delegation to take with it, rather than keeping quiet about our political position on the human rights situation in Colombia out of some over-hasty sense of obedience.
Madam President, for several months, our Group has been attempting to obtain approval of a motion for a resolution relating to human rights in Colombia where many members of the rural population have either disappeared or died.
We support the move to rid the country of its drug crops, but these should be replaced by substitute crops.
It is not possible to take away the farmers' way of life without offering them an alternative, and it is this that is giving rise to a clandestine civil war.
We have heard about the expulsion of a number of families from the Bellacruz estate and are also aware that the Office for Human Rights approved by the United Nations has not yet started to operate - our fear is that this motion will not be adopted.
It would be highly significant if the delegation this House is sending to Colombia were to take with it such a resolution, in other words our agreement regarding Parliament's deliberations on the observance of human rights in Colombia and all these doubts surrounding the attitude of the Colombian authorities, since they are, it would appear, attempting to implement a counter-reform, viewing the army as a judicial police force.
It would be a great pity if this motion were not approved and our delegation could not rely on the agreement of the European Parliament.
Madam President, we have given a great deal of consideration to this motion for a resolution currently under debate and, in all sincerity, find the greater part of the motion very reasonable.
We are just as concerned as the next person about the generalized climate of violence prevailing in Colombia.
However, this motion does contain elements which are debatable.
For example, we are not sure that this is the appropriate time to discuss whether it is the done thing to analyse the soundness of the coca-crop eradication campaign.
However, in the view of our Group, this is more a question of procedure: the motion's manifest inappropriateness is so blatant that we simply cannot support it.
We are well aware that a delegation from this House is about to visit Colombia - next week, in fact, as mentioned by the honourable Member -where it will conduct discussions with the Government, the Opposition, Congress, the Attorney-General and non-governmental organizations.
The logical thing would be to wait for its report before approving this motion.
We should not forget that this is an official visit by a delegation from this House and that one of its most important objectives is to discover the facts about the circumstances reported to us.
If we were to approve the motion now, we would be attempting to sanction before verification.
We should remember that, on many occasions, this House and also Commission institutions have shown themselves to be in favour of continuing the current coca-crop eradication campaign.
Our attitude is therefore that it is totally inappropriate to approve the motion at this time.
Madam President, I shall try and be as brief as possible and respond to everything that was said or at least everyone who has made a statement about this matter.
I shall begin with the question of the International Criminal Court by saying that, apart from some of the arguments already made by many of the speakers, which are relevant, we must look at the examples of ad hoc courts in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda which show that, in terms of time and cost, the option of ad hoc situations is not necessarily the best one.
But it is also important to look at the question of cost which is undoubtedly also one of effectiveness.
The existence of an International Criminal Court with a well-defined statute and a very well-limited scope (and practical actions to take) would certainly be a major deterrent for stopping crimes against humanity and crimes against human rights, all which are taking place in various parts of the world.
That is why the Commission is giving all of its support to the creation of this International Criminal Court.
This is also why the Commission has, over the last two or three years, paid out 3.5 million ecus to set up ad hoc courts in former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as to the question of human rights in Indonesia, this unfortunately is a situation which has existed for some time.
Speaking of the East Timor question, runs the risk unfortunately of becoming something of a cliché because nothing has changed and nothing has improved.
But now that the lack of democracy and violations of human rights are obvious, vis-à-vis the citizens of Indonesia, in particular trade unionists and opposition politicians, the issue - from my point of view - has become an even more urgent one.
That is why this resolution has been passed and is in line with others already approved by the Council and subscribed to by the Commission in terms of the respect of human rights, not only in Indonesia but in general, and the influence that this might have on the Community's political and economic relations. This is definitely an important resolution and I hope that the Council and the Commission together will take account of it, as I do.
Madam President, as far as the question of the case of Alexander Nikitin in Russia is concerned, the Commission has obviously taken initiatives and approached the Russian authorities, and has been monitoring closely events through the appropriate channels.
I think that the legislation to which Russia subscribed when it joined the Council of Europe is certainly one of the main arguments for us to use when demanding, as someone has already said, that the Russian authorities release Mr Nikitin.
Protection of the environment, as someone else said, must not be the preserve of committees or NGOs, however well-intentioned they are, or even the European Parliament.
Everyone must take part, and that includes private citizens.
Mr Alexander Nikitin acted as a citizen and as such he deserves our solidarity, that of Europe and the rest of the world.
As for the question of the rights of homosexuals in Romania, I am pleased to tell you, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, that we have been told of a memorandum published yesterday by the Romanian government in which the Minister for Justice is entrusted with seeing that the Romanian Houses of Parliament do all they can to make sure that the Council of Europe's rules of conduct are respected in full, in particular with reference to Article 200 of the Romanian Criminal Code.
This might mean that the action taken by you, Members of the European Parliament, and may I say so with some immodesty, the Commission, by acting more discreetly, might have led to these first results.
Let us hope that this will have positive consequences very quickly.
Finally, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as for the Colombian question, the Commission as you know has subscribed to the thesis, which you also mentioned, that it is not enough to fight and try to bring an end to coca production: we must also give farmers alternatives to earn their bread.
That is one of the reasons why, at the level of the system of generalised preferences, not only in the case of Colombia but also other Andean countries, we have allowed some supplementary facilities and we think that they are important.
That is also why we think of Colombia as a priority country under the rubric of democratisation and human rights in Latin America.
This is also the reason - but also the violations of various areas of human rights which have been detected - why the Commission has decided to meet the costs for five observers responsible for carrying out on-the-spot appraisals of the human rights situation in Colombia, under the hierarchical authority of the Secretariat of the UNHCR now installing offices in Bogotá, under the auspices of the UN, and also with funding from the Commission and Spain.
Let us hope that the report to be drafted by these experts might give us a detailed indication not only on the issue of Santa Cruz but also other questions which have been reported and which definitely call for a much more detailed assessment.
Just for the record, Madam President, when you are sitting here in the middle at the back of the Chamber you cannot see any of the screens.
May I ask you to get a television monitor installed here as soon as possible so that we can keep abreast of what is going on whilst we are sitting here.
Just one screen at the back here would do it.
I did ask for one two months ago.
If it is too expensive for Parliament I would consider bringing one and setting it up myself.
Just say the word.
But let us get it sorted, please.
Thank you, Mr Eisma.
We are going to consider the situation.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0999/96, by Mr Pailler and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the expulsion of immigrants 'without papers' ; -B4-1023/96, by Mrs André-Léonard and Mr Nordmann, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on irregular immigrants; -B4-1040/96, by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on racist prejudices and the expulsion of illegal immigrants; -B4-1047/96, by Mrs Roth and Mr Cohn-Bendit, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the expulsion of the 'paperless' immigrants from the Saint Bernard Church in Paris; -B4-1061/96, by Mrs Palacio and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the expulsion of illegal immigrants; -B4-1065/96, by Mr Van Lancker and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on practices associated with the expulsion and removal of unlawfully resident third country nationals; -B4-1066/96, by Mrs Dury, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the expulsion of the Vangu family; -B4-1069/96, by Mr Pons Grau and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the deportation of 103 illegal immigrants.
Yesterday, Parliament received a group of immigrants 'without papers' , as I shall refer to them from now on, although some prefer to go on using the term 'illegal' to justify what cannot be justified: the axes of the French government smashing the doors of the churches where they had sought sanctuary.
Contempt, arbitrary handling of cases, challenging the right of family reunification, etc.
They were here - women, children and men - with their faces uncovered.
They were here to bear witness, to explain and fight against laws such as the Pasqua laws, which make an immigrant into an illegal, a human being into a hunted animal, anyone 'different' into an enemy.
Some of them testified to their fondness for France and Europe, after many years spent working here, paying their taxes here, studying here - in a word, living here.
For example, Henri Leclerc, President of the Human Rights League and a prominent advocate, introduced into the discussion the idea of incorporating the presumption of integration into our legislation.
Although the shock treatment was handed out by the French government, the question already concerns - or very soon will - the majority of our Member States.
The situation was described to us yesterday on behalf of the immigrants: it is already very serious in the Netherlands and in Germany and, in a more furtive way, in the United Kingdom, Spain and Portugal, apart from the regularizations granted in the latter two countries.
It is to be regretted that despite the success of yesterday's event - by which our institution granted recognition to these men and women - a number of Members did not see fit to come and meet them and look them in the eye.
Would they then have been able to hold them in contempt, describe them in meaningless terms such as 'illegals' or 'offenders' ? Human beings and human dignity were the keynote of yesterday's meeting at the European Parliament.
Europe must go all the way, must respect its own principles and values, must increase its aid to the southern countries, must contribute to development policies and make no concessions to the dictators. No concessions, either, to the Le Pens and other Mégrets who speak in tones of hatred and often blame immigrants for all our ills.
Too often, the countries of Europe have greeted foreigners by slamming the door.
Let us do what we can to see that the doors are opened again.
Madam President, one of the curiosities of our Parliament is that a signatory to a compromise amendment in the topical and urgent debate can get up and say something which is completely at odds with the spirit of that compromise.
As we have just heard.
As far as I am concerned, I shall defend the compromise.
I shall defend it because it is a reasonable compromise, which does not accuse the government of a Member State by name, and I believe - to be frank - that the French government was right not to let the situation get any worse, with possibly tragic results.
What would people be saying now if one of the hunger strikers had gone all the way and died?
The French government prevented a Bobby Sands situation from happening, and it was quite right to do so.
That is not to say that the legislation is perfect; no legislation is perfect.
Legislation is an ongoing process.
The French laws of 1993 righted certain wrongs.
They may have created tricky situations, individual problems that will have to be examined individually.
But it is important to get things into perspective and remember that a breach of the law cannot, in itself, create any rights.
In consideration of which, the immigrants in irregular situations are not necessarily offenders, comparable to thieves and murderers.
They need to be treated with restraint and humanity, and fortunately that is what happened in France.
Let us get away from these cross-purposes and confusions, and try to find a way in which cooperation between governments might make it possible to solve - or help to solve - this problem of illegal immigration, one which concerns us all and must not be left to the extremists.
Strong feelings are not always wise counsellors.
Even so, how can anyone not be indignant at the way in which these immigrants 'without papers' , as we are calling them, have just been treated in France?
After all, how can we accept a situation where, in a so-called democratic country, brutality takes the place of dialogue and collective deportation by a charter flight does duty for immigration policy? This, then, is a fundamental problem facing France today.
The application of the Pasqua laws has often had very serious consequences because, in the guise of combating illegal immigration, it has resulted in a number of immigrants who were previously in regular situations losing their right of residence and becoming illegal.
In any case, this new legislation which we have so often denounced offers no possible justification for the violence with which this movement was repressed.
I would add that some of those who were expelled have been persecuted and arrested on returning to their countries of origin.
All this is in conflict with the fundamental texts defining human rights; quoting from memory: refugee status, the concept of family reunification, the ban on collective deportation - all principles enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.
We have a duty to react against this generalizing tendency which treats people without papers as illegal, equates immigration and illegality.
We know that this is an open invitation to racism and xenophobia.
There are various notions about racial inequality that prove the point.
So, ladies and gentlemen, let us be on our guard!
Madam President, as a German of my generation I have learnt a lesson from history.
It must never happen again that the possession or non-possession of papers becomes a question of survival, that papers become more important than people.
This must never happen in any place where we have political influence.
I do not want to pillory or accuse the French state now.
This is far more a common problem, which all our bureaucracies tend towards because of course bureaucracies always prefer dealing with papers than with people and as a result trample elementary human rights underfoot.
In a situation where we are all immigration countries in our capacity as a European Community, one thing must be clear, namely that the uncertain legal situations that inevitably occur at regular intervals must be clarified by legalization, that everyone who resides here must be guaranteed the same human rights regardless of their colour or passport.
It must be made clear that we are pursuing a policy of human rights and civil rights, with the simple objective of returning to the beginning of the French Revolution, when the question of citizenship, of citoyenneté , was simply the question: who is living and working in this territory? Unfortunately that has almost become a utopian objective today, but we will achieve it.
Madam President, we are faced, here, with a highly sensitive matter of great concern to the Member States of the Union and European public opinion as a whole.
The economic and political aspects of immigration into Europe are the source of much tension and debate within the countries affected, particularly those forming the Community's outer border or bordering on countries which receive people, sometimes in desperate straits, who are seeking solutions to their problems of work or political persecution.
However, in democratic countries, such as those in Europe, governmental action is obviously set against a background of the application of law which, under the terms of international treaties or agreements and legislation emanating from their own parliaments, they have decided to promulgate and apply.
What is more, the laws are there to be complied with, not only by governments themselves and the courts, but by ordinary citizens - this is what the governments of France and Spain have done.
Independently of this, our political Group believes in and is working for a free Europe where fundamental human rights are respected - not only those of European citizens themselves, but also of those who come knocking on our door requesting asylum or economic aid - and where those with racist or xenophobic motivations for refusing entry to foreigners are repudiated outright.
However, problems require solutions and laws define rules whereby people may coexist.
Individual rights require individual treatment.
The Member States of the European Union grant asylum on the basis of Article 1 of the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees as protection against persecution on grounds of race, political convictions, religion, nationality or membership of a social group.
In addition to the right to defence, those requesting asylum have a right of residence, access to translation services and legal advice as well as a right to basic assistance, in accordance with the principles of the welfare state.
Economic immigration has other connotations: Europe has a high rate of unemployment and, regrettably, cannot take in the hordes of people from third countries who are pressing on our borders, requesting work or sustenance.
We need to implement a policy, to my mind an aggressive policy, to help those countries from where these immigrants originate. An attempt has been made to do this, I believe, with the recent association agreements with North-African countries.
However, at the same time, we have to pursue the organized mafia which is exploiting such people, advising them, at a price, to avail themselves of the law fraudulently, to destroy the papers which prove their nationality and to make their return virtually impossible. The identities of such mafias, Madam President, are well known.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, France is of course not an isolated case, but the way in which the French Government forcibly drove people who had no papers out of St Bernard's church this summer shocked an awful lot of people.
Problems are not solved by truncheons, tear gas and brute force.
Responses of that kind are proof that despite all the conventions on human rights our Western countries, and not just France alone, display an alarming lack of humanity and furthermore lack any coherent vision on immigration.
Mr Nordmann is right to say that Member States have the right and even a duty to take decisions on whether or not aliens have the right of abode, but they must do so in a democratic manner.
Parliament must thus continue to oppose the Council's practice of using recommendations on asylum, immigration and expulsion as instruments of a very restrictive policy which escapes any form of democratic scrutiny either by the national parliaments or the European Parliament.
Illegal immigrants, ladies and gentlemen, are a product of the law.
They are created by the law, by governments of the right and - regrettably - the left as well, which make it difficult for people to obtain the right of abode and to have their families with them, so that people who had the right papers yesterday find that they do not have them today.
Anyone who claims that a complete stop can be put on immigration is blind to war and violence, does not see that there is hunger and exploitation in his world which drive people to flee.
Criminalizing people who do not have papers is grist to the mill of parties which are racist and xenophobic.
A few months ago a Belgian journalist, Chris De Stoop, published a book entitled 'Haal de was maar binnen' (' Bring the laundry in' ) in which he describes the dire way of life of people with no papers: on the run, often from far-right mobs in Germany, from the police or the courts, with no entitlement to health care, no right to a roof over their heads, no education for their children and no income, they are easy prey to racketeers and slum landlords.
He also describes how our governments treat these people: group repatriations using private travel agencies, in Belgium, Sweden and Germany; confinement in detention centres in lamentable conditions, with no privacy or visiting rights, with no information about what is to happen to them and often even without the freedom to return home of their own volition.
Even people with no papers, ladies and gentlemen, are entitled to health care, to education for their children and to humane treatment.
Their position must be considered on a case by case basis, fairly and generously.
They must only be sent back if their safety and ability to reintegrate is guaranteed.
Efforts are urgently needed to regularize the status of those who have been here for years or those who cannot go home.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my Group is happy that we have this resolution at last, and we hope it will be supported by all democratic parties.
We are asking for an in-depth debate.
This subject is too serious to be deemed closed after an urgent resolution.
Madam President, first of all I would like to point out to Mr Nordmann that the idea is not just to signify our agreement to the compromise, publish it, make sure everyone reads it and leave it at that.
What we say here also serves to defend our points of view, which necessarily may lie to one side or the other of that compromise.
There were many of us in Europe, and especially in my own country, who were shocked by the attitude of the security forces and the French government to those they call the immigrants 'without papers' .
In addition, what may have strengthened our feeling that there was a need for a joint action in Europe was an upsurge of solidarity towards these people.
We realized that there still existed, within our countries, men and women who were no doubt living comfortable, problem-free existences but were reacting on the basis of a certain set of values, such as respect for human dignity, the respect for children we have heard so much about in recent days, and the consideration we must show for all those who come to Europe, perhaps seeing it as their only recourse, but also fleeing from the realities of violence, the problems of survival and real economic hardship.
Since this was to a large extent a question of law, it must be said that we should live in States governed by the rule of law - and even in a Europe governed by the rule of law.
Of course, it is necessary to have rules, because rules are one of the guarantees of democracy, but the law is also a living entity: it observes how things really are, and sometimes follows their development.
To take a campaign which I myself conducted, the abortion campaign, the Belgian law has been unchanged for many years.
What we ask is that the law should adapt to people's situations, in other words that fundamental rights should be respected.
What I would like to see, on behalf of all those who come to us appealing for social solidarity, is that they should be acknowledged when they have become integrated, that their children should be protected, that their families should not be broken up and that Europe should be a Europe of solidarity and of the defence of a certain set of values.
Madam President, many thousands of citizens in European Union countries live in what might be termed irregular circumstances and people from other countries are arriving every day from countries where there is armed conflict or truly untenable socio-economic situations.
Despite our wealth, we are incapable of offering a humanitarian response to such situations, nor do we have a common immigration policy.
We make a great fuss about banning the export of radioactive waste and other products, which is all very well, but our reaction to the mass expulsion of illegal immigrants is not so forceful.
We know where the rubbish dumps are located but we have no reliable information as to the destination of those we expel. The question of illegal immigrants is used to stir up feelings of xenophobia and racism.
The recent expulsions from France and Spain are neither an example to be followed nor a solution to the problem.
In the case of Spain, I am sorry to say, the operation was carried out in secret.
The institutions which monitor the undertakings given to such citizens, when some of them submitted requests for asylum, were not notified.
The 103 emigrants were sent to various African countries - in some cases, not to their country of origin - arriving on military aircraft and under sedation administered during the journey. In addition, sufficient legal guarantees were not extracted from the receiving countries.
Spain is a signatory to all international protocols and agreements in defence of human rights, the country's constitution is progressive and tolerant, and there is a law on aliens, albeit a much highly criticized one, but even this was flouted.
It's not asking for much to request that, on the one hand, at least the legal code should be observed and, on the other hand, that a country which is receiving emigrants should promote, within the European Union, a commonpolicy consensus to deal with this type of situation.
I am convinced that this House will assist with such objectives.
Madam President, for your benefit and that of the House I should say that in recent years the Union Member States have one by one made it increasingly difficult to get in as a legitimate refugee.
Unclear concepts such as 'safe third country of origin' or 'safe third country' have led to a situation in which we are frequently at odds with internationally agreed practices or the principle of not sending people back, which we have made sacrosanct.
As a result of all this we have succeeded in recent years in steadily reducing the inflow of legitimate refugees, but at the same time the proportion of illegal refugees has grown.
It is high time the Commission, and the Council, thought about what we are really going to do about the problem.
That they looked at how the problem might be shared instead of offloaded on to someone else.
How we might move from 'burden shifting' towards 'burden sharing' .
What we famously have agreed on, without formal assent, is how to get rid of the illegals.
This happens in an increasingly reprehensible and inhumane way.
It is a scandal, in my view, that such practices occur in this supposedly 'civilized' part of the world.
But it is a good thing for us to be debating the matter today, and I am optimistic.
I regard it as a preliminary to the debate we shall be having here in November on minimum guarantees for asylum, on which I am rapporteur.
I naturally hope that then too we shall be able to agree on a fair and humane course of action towards all those who have been driven out of hearth and home.
Madam President, given some of the contributions made in this House this afternoon, I feel I need to call for coherence, coherence in the sense that everything must be said, not just a small part. If not, we risk misrepresenting the situation and sinking into sectarian argument, even demagogy.
I feel I have to - and will make an attempt to - explain the situation factually and objectively and, to do so, I will simply refer to some newspaper headlines on events in Spain (I am referring to the Spanish case): On 11 July 1992, El Diario de Melilla ran a headline stating 'Reserve police forces to make Africans abandon their rally' .
The next day, ' Reserve police officers violently ejected Africans from government premises' ; ' Thirty-six immigrants were detained at the police station' ; ' Another group was expelled to Morocco across the wire fences' ; Around the same time, July 1992, ' Almost 100 Africans are trapped between Spain and Morocco' ; ' The State Commission for Refugees is taking Spain to the European Court of Human Rights' , and so on.
To end, I would remind the House that the current Spanish government was not in power at that time in 1992.
Madam President, all our Member States, as one of my colleagues has already said, are today confronted by the problem of mass immigration by groups of people who are refugees not so much from persecution by political dictators - increasingly rare today, I am happy to say - as from the economic conditions they face in their countries of origin.
Our Member States, including France, have a long tradition of harbouring political refugees, and they intend to keep it.
That is a moral duty as well as a human one.
However, an immigration policy creates both duties and rights.
Is there anything more difficult in human terms than illegal immigration? Are these people, who have left their countries, their backgrounds, their environments, finding their hoped-for Eldorado as illegal immigrants?
Surely not. So we must oppose any attempt to encourage the continuance of these situations, and the circumvention of the right of asylum through the use of unacceptable political pressure.
The automatic regularization of illegal immigrants would infallibly create two situations that no one wants.
The first would be the harsh injustice done to those who, obeying the rules, have voluntarily returned to their countries of origin, respecting the sovereignty of the State to which they applied.
The second one would be the very serious disservice done to our States which, by encouraging the circumvention of the right of asylum, would inevitably result in more foreign groups embarking on this undesirable adventure.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not going to solve the problems of the illegal immigrants by forming them into associations.
Our duty lies elsewhere.
We must aid those countries which are now experiencing difficulties.
A partial solution is no doubt provided by the Union's development policy.
European programmes deal with these questions.
They are often called into question in this House.
Let us support the European Development Fund, PHARE and TACIS, and let us also support the MEDA programme, because they represent a variety of forms of economic aid to support democracy which will enable people to live happily on their native soil.
The law is made by people for people, and if it is imperfect, let us take action to change it, but let us not exploit human misery for political ends.
Incidentally, I really would not like to see the European Parliament become a platform for opposition to one of the Member States.
Speakers should confine their remarks to European policy.
Madam President, I was unaware that drugging people in order to expel them to countries which were not, in fact, their own is complying with the law in Spain, as stated here.
This has been duly acknowledged by the Spanish Ministry of the Interior.
And, by the way, in the case of Spain, there is more than enough evidence not only that human rights have been violated but also that the law on aliens has been infringed.
At any rate, Madam President, I would like to extend my thanks to colleagues in various political Groups and congratulate us all on having been able to include a debate on the status of those 'without papers' in Europe within a debate on an urgent subject.
Recent events within the European Union reveal that we are faced with a phenomenon which involves more than just national interests.
Melilla and Paris are just two examples - I do not think we would have to go in for mental acrobatics to identify others fairly quickly.
Member States are preparing increasingly restrictive laws regarding the entry and settlement of foreigners on their territory and the Geneva Convention is continually being violated regarding the right of families to live together and join the initial immigrant, the right to asylum and freedom of movement.
Approval of such laws will simply turn the majority of them into stateless persons, snatching away from them the status as citizens - albeit second-class citizens - they have fleetingly enjoyed after long residence in those countries.
Given this context, the European Union must develop a democratic system of laws to protect these minorities, creating the conditions for Member States to tackle problems within a framework of frank dialogue with organizations supporting these groups.
Madam President, there are several lessons we must draw from the many incidents involving the expulsion, or attempted expulsion, of illegal immigrants that have littered the front pages this summer in various European countries.
First, we have found that the great majority of public opinion expected the authorities to behave in a humane manner but also to apply the law.
Constantly, people have said to us, ' Why should I abide by the law if others consider themselves above it?' This question poses the fundamental problem of public consent to the social pact - a consent that can only be obtained if everyone knows that the laws of democracy are being respected.
Well, the first humanitarian duty of governments is to preserve that pact, and with it the society that has elected them.
Lesson two: it is very difficult in humanitarian terms to expel people who, even if they do lack the legal paperwork, have been living in a territory for a long time, because they have naturally established many links there, sometimes including family ties.
On the other hand, when an illegal immigrant is detained at a frontier, or close to one, sending him back causes few psychological problems.
All the experts tell us that a person who crosses a border without authorization is fully aware that he is in the wrong.
He is trying his luck anyway.
If he fails, he regards it as bad luck, but not as a trauma.
This is why the campaign against illegal immigration must first of all be conducted at frontiers.
Admittedly, as we know, a frontier cannot solve every problem, but it is still easier to detain illegal immigrants at this stage than it is later, once they have disappeared into the general fabric of society.
So it would be very harmful if we were finally to abandon our permanent or mobile border checks, even at the internal borders.
Finally, lesson three: irregular immigrants must be entitled to a form of treatment that respects their human dignity and, moreover, complies with the international undertakings which we have all signed. At the same time, though, we should avoid granting any benefits that might encourage new arrivals.
As far as this matter is concerned, I can do no better than refer to the Council recommendation of 22 December 1995, which states, among other excellent proposals, that the demand for state benefits for immigrants should, and I quote: ' be able to be met only once it has been verified that the party concerned and his family are eligible for the benefit, having due regard to their residence and employment status' .
Obviously, exceptions will have to be made to this principle on essential humanitarian grounds, for example if there is a serious risk to the health of those concerned.
However, we do not feel that the need for education can constitute a sufficiently essential humanitarian reason for delaying the expulsion of an illegal immigrant, which seems to be the bizarre suggestion contained in the motion for a resolution upon which we are to vote.
Madam President, Parliament seems to have been shocked by the rather dramatic expulsion of a few dozen illegal aliens.
Though I should say in passing that I find it difficult to reconcile the extent of Parliament's emotion and shock, as expressed in the tone of paper resolutions, with the enormous number of empty seats here when the resolutions are being debated.
But as far as the substance of the matter goes, no one can ignore the fact, certainly in the French case we are primarily concerned with here, that every human and proper legal procedure was followed.
If one allows one group of asylum cheats to stay because that group happens to be occupying a church, one is opening the door to every possible form of asylum deception and those who suffer in the end will be the very small minority of genuine refugees.
I should also say in all honesty that I myself am not all that happy either with these dramatic expulsions.
Not because I do not think them necessary.
I do.
But because the facade of a few dozen illegals, fortunately deported in a humane and properly controlled manner, a facade designed to suggest that our governments are doing something about the problem of foreigners, because that facade hides a quite different reality.
The reality of a huge problem of resident foreigners, of streets and areas which have been taken over, of alienation and small and largescale crime which is inseparably bound up with that alienation.
It pains me to see once again that the great majority of honourable Members of this House are blind to this reality, to this desperate situation in which the weakest of our own people find themselves when they are driven out of their own streets and areas or worse.
Madam President, the action taken against the French immigrants 'without papers' compels us to find a different basis for the problem of illegal immigration, since we have had proof that a purely repressive attitude is both inhumane and ineffective.
Although the French Minister for the Interior was mainly concerned with demonstrating his firmness, the small number of deportees has clearly shown the limitations of the procedure.
After all, there is a choice to be made: either we respect the rule of law and abandon the pretence that any illegal immigrant must be expelled by force of arms, or we follow the method to its logical conclusion.
In that case, though, we will have to renounce the rule of law and accept a shift into totalitarianism, the inevitable result of the radical methods recommended by the far right.
Many of the French immigrants without papers, far from being clandestine, have been forced into illegality by the absurdity of the law, the ill will of the administration, or a narrow interpretation of the right of asylum.
Far be it from me to maintain that any rejected asylum seeker should be regularized on principle. But I do know that, although the number of applications in France has fallen by two-thirds in the last few years, the percentage of cases where refugee status is recognized is still falling.
Nationals of certain high-risk countries are virtually excluded from the protection of the Geneva Convention because of a restrictive interpretation of the definition of the term refugee, which incidentally is supported by a common position recently adopted by the Council.
Yet the fact is that some of these people are in real and serious danger in their own countries, as the HCR has confirmed, which should lead to their situations being reexamined.
France, of course, is not alone in facing this kind of problem, and so I approve the recommendations set out in the motion for a resolution before us, whereby thought will be given to finding solutions at European level.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has been carefully following the events which have taken place this summer, and one of the most newsworthy events has been that some Member States have been taking decisions to expel nationals of third countries without immigration papers.
These decisions and their application have led to a public debate and the Commission would like to say, before anything else, that these measures have been taken by the Member States in the exercise of their national powers.
The events which have been attacked do not result, on the other hand, as it might seem and has been suggested in some of the proposals, from the application of recent decisions by the Council on expulsions; they have absolutely nothing to do with them.
The Commission has also heard - in this debate, once again - criticism from Parliament about the decision-making process concerning cooperation on matters of internal affairs and we have already had the opportunity to emphasize, in various circumstances, that we deplore the lack of consultation of Parliament.
Similarly, we have criticized the Council's constantly referral to texts which are not legally binding.
The Commission has always maintained that decisions in the field of immigration have to be compulsory and there must be some guarantee of controls by European Parliament.
That was why, when the Intergovernmental Conference was coming up, we clearly came out in favour of the 'Communitization' of these matters.
Ladies and gentlemen, the basic problem we are dealing with here, leaving aside the recent events, is that of the immigration policy of the Member States.
The Commission, for its part, has had the opportunity to emphasize, in various circumstances, mainly through its statement to the Council and the European Parliament and what was said by my colleague, Anita Gradin, in the European Parliament, that its approach is based on two principles which must always be kept in mind and taken jointly: on one hand, controls on migratory flows but, at the same time, the integration of illegal immigrants.
It is, therefore, inevitable that, while respecting fundamental rights, we should take measures to expel the nationals of third states whose papers are not in order.
Expulsion is a necessary measure to show that States are set on fighting illegal immigration but this must go hand in hand with a strong commitment to stop illegal entry in the first place and the exploitation of the nationals of third country living in Community countries clandestinely and very often in very fragile conditions.
It is also important to emphasize that some of the practices recently adopted in some Member States to deal with the situation of illegal immigrants could actually be seen as quite positive.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Biescas
B4-0967/96, by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the disaster at the 'Las Nievas' campsite at Biescas (Spain); -B4-1013/96, by Mr Sisó Cruellas and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the disaster which occurred at Biescas (Spain) on 7 August 1996, leaving 86 dead, 1 missing, hundreds injured and considerable material damage; -B4-1030/96, by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the disaster which occurred at Biescas (Spain) on 7 August 1996, which leaving 86 dead, 1 missing, hundreds injured and considerable material damage; -B4-1076/96 by Mr Izquierdo Colado and Mr Cabezón Alonso, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the disaster in Biescas (Huesca, Spain); Floods in Spain
B4-1014/96, by Mr Ferrer and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the storms in Catalonia; -B4-1025/96, by Mr Sanchez Garcia, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the floods in the region of Valencia; -B4-1032/96, by Mr Gutiérrez Diaz and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the floods in the region of Maresme (Catalonia, Spain); Storm in Greece
B4-1035/96, by Mr Theonas, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on major crop damage resulting from high winds in Pilion; -B4-1062/96, by Mr Dimitrakopoulos, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on natural disasters and hailstorms in the Thessaly region of Greece caused by torrential rain; -B4-1079/96, by Mr Lambraki, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on natural disasters in the Thessaly region of Greece caused by hailstorms and flooding; Hazardous waste trade in South Africa
B4-0998/96, by Mr Iversen and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on human rights violations and the devastation of the environment in South Africa caused by the trade in hazardous waste; -B4-1052/96, by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on human rights violations and the devastation of the environment in South Africa caused by the trade in hazardous waste; -B4-1071/96, by Mr d'Ancona, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the devastation of the environment in South Africa caused by the trade in hazardous waste; Pilgrim route to Santiago
B4-1072/96, by Mr Izquierdo Rojo, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on support for the conservation of the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela in the face of the brutal destruction of and assault on the village of Pazos.Biescas
Madam President, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left fully supports the joint motion for a resolution regarding our condolences to families and friends of the victims of the Biescas disaster and the request to help these people and to carry out reconstruction work in the area affected.
However, we wish to point out that the most significant aspect of this disaster was the fact that it could have been prevented.
We advocate the adoption of preventive measures in all European Union countries to prohibit campsites being set up in at-risk areas and that those already in existence be inspected in order to prevent a repetition of this type of accident.
We believe it is important for the European Union to act, firstly by expressing its condolences - as I have stated - but, above all, regarding future prevention, since thousands of European holidaymakers make use of such facilities every summer.
Madam President, I would like to begin my remarks by once again expressing my condolences and support for all the families and friends of the victims and everyone else affected by the disaster in the Pyrenees near Huesca during the afternoon of 7 August.
It was one of the greatest tragedies Upper Aragón has ever suffered and was the result of a storm which released a violent downpour over the Limes range, causing the Arás gulley to overflow. This, combining with the waters of the Betés, which was in spate, produced an avalanche of water, mud, trees and rocks which destroyed and dragged along everything in its wake, eventually bursting over the 'Las Nieves' campsite which was located on the outskirts of Biescas.
It literally swept the site away.
At the time, the campsite was home to several hundred people but, in a matter of moments, tents, caravans, cars and the people who were sheltering were violently swept away. Eighty-six people were killed, one person was never found and hundreds of people were injured to varying degrees.
A glance at the reports giving information about the situation of families affected by the tragedy gives one an idea of its scale.
There are families in which the mother and children were killed, leaving only the father, or in which the father and children have died, leaving the mother, many of those left being in desperate economic straits. Children have lost parents and are alone, parents have lost all their children, and there are even families which were completely wiped out.
In addition, the dead, injured and other people affected did not come only from the Autonomous Region of Aragón, but also from many other regions in Spain and other European Union countries - the painful effects of the disaster have reached far and wide.
In their name, I would request assistance from this House.
I would once again ask that honourable Members demonstrate their sensitivity and pledge support for those in need.
Lastly, I would ask that we vote in favour of this motion for a resolution which can be implemented urgently to alleviate the pain and serious economic situation in which some of those affected find themselves. The Community needs to give as much help as it can.
I would make the same request of each and every one of the Commissioners at the Commission, asking them to be generous in their donations and to make the arrangements for the corresponding budget entry. Above all, I would ask you all to be most diligent in this matter because those affected require our urgent help.
Madam President, I support my colleague's words of condolence and remembrance for those affected by this tragedy. I would also like to pay tribute in the motion for a resolution to the people of Biescas, Jaca and Sabiñánigo and to all those who were of help at such a difficult time and who amply demonstrated their feelings of solidarity with the victims.
This motion for a resolution we are currently discussing is a call for basic, genuine, effective and sufficient aid from European institutions to help the families and friends of the victims, to help the injured and to rebuild the fabric of infrastructures which was damaged in the disaster.
A call should also be made for more sensible and more responsible legal measures to be applied when siting campsites.
Spanish government assistance is insufficient - the assistance of the European Union is required.
Madam President, I did, in fact, intend to speak about the floods in Catalonia and the Region of Valencia and to join with my two colleagues in their expression of sorrow for the tragedy which occurred in Biescas.
Madam President, natural disasters occur every summer in Mediterranean areas - there is torrential rain or devastating fire.
The Region of Valencia has not escaped what one might term nature's revenge.
Just a few days ago, the Baldiña, Sazor, Marina and Ribera Baja areas were the scene of serious flooding which has swept away crops and destroyed industry and infrastructures.
The damage is put at several hundreds of millions of pesetas but this does not take into account the jobs lost in farming and the industries which will have to close down.
The President of the Autonomous Region, Mr Zaplana, made a lightning visit to the area but, surprisingly, decided that it was inappropriate to declare the region a disaster area.
I know the area very well and I am currently wondering how all these companies and jobs which were destroyed will be able to survive without the official help and compensation which should quite reasonably be given as a result of the catastrophe they have suffered.
Floods in Spain
Madam President, the loss of life and physical damage caused by floods which, in this case, occurred in the region of Maresme in Catalonia as well as in the Region of Valencia, moves the Group of the European People's Party to express its condolences to the families and friends of the victims and, at the same time, to request the active solidarity of this House to alleviate the effects of the flooding and to attempt to prevent the recurrence of such a disaster.
We therefore ask the Commission to set up, together with the competent authorities, a plan to rehabilitate the affected region of Maresme and aimed primarily at the canalization of watercourses, to prevent flooding, and the rebuilding of infrastructures, homes and agricultural installations which have been damaged as a result of this torrential rain.
Moreover, given the recurrent nature of this type of flooding in the Mediterranean basin, we would draw attention to the need for a budget line to be used specifically for preventing and making good the effects of this type of disaster.
I believe that, if the European Union can show solidarity with its citizens in times of, albeit natural, disasters, we will undoubtedly be encouraging the creation of the concept of European citizenship, which can be of so much help to us in our efforts to make progress within the Union.
I would therefore reiterate this House's request to the Commission to take account of the damage suffered and the need for action both in the region of Maresme and in Valencia. We can thus go some way to preventing damage of this type in the future.
Madam President, in this, my maiden speech in this House, which I joined only yesterday as a replacement for a colleague, Isidoro Sánchez, I would like to greet all honourable Members and thank them for welcoming me. It is my sincere hope that I will be worthy of their kind welcome and will be able to contribute in my modest way to the work in hand.
Regrettably, my first intervention refers to recent tragic events both in Biescas (Huesca) and in the Mediterranean area of Spain. I believe everyone must be aware of the terrible tragedy that the disaster at the Las Nieves campsite in Biescas represents for the entire European Union.
Eighty-six people lost their lives - I would ask you to reflect on that for a moment. Events clearly demonstrate the need for urgent action on the part of various institutions, as advocated by the Commission.
However, we cannot forget what happened also in the Mediterranean area of Spain, which is ravaged by storms on an annual basis. On this occasion, it was the Region of Valencia which was devastated and turned into a wasteland as a result of the worst flooding for over 14 years.
Rivers and gulleys burst their banks, and containment walls and bridges collapsed. The intervention of Civil Protection forces, the Red Cross, firefighters and even the army and police was, unfortunately, not enough to prevent the disappearance of one person and the substantial damage.
Even now, one week later, there are areas where it is still impossible to quantify the damage because access routes are totally cut off.
Given that serious damage has been caused to all basic infrastructures in the regions affected, to homes, businesses, agricultural crops and installations, it and is therefore essential that urgent measures be implemented firstly to rehabilitate the areas affected and secondly, perhaps more importantly, to set up a budget line, as already stated, to prevent and repair the damage caused by the downpours which come, year after year, to devastate this area.
Mr Nouvo Belenguer, I congratulate you on your maiden speech in this House and bid you a warm welcome.
Madam President, the destruction is unprecedented: floods, hail and gales have destroyed considerable areas of apple orchards in the Pilion region.
Apples are a single crop that provide the sole source of income for their growers, and the destruction took place just ten days before harvesting.
At this time, the growers have nowhere to turn, they have no income at all on which to live, much less with which to reorganise their production.
I ask Parliament, for its part, to vote unanimously for the motion we have tabled, and the Commissioner, for his part, to tell us in his speech whether the Commission is going to institute immediate measures for the economic support of the growers and other, later measures to help them get their production going again.
Madam President, at the beginning of August violent hailstorms struck certain parts of Thessaly, specifically the districts of Karditsa, Trikala, Larissa and Magnisia.
Those hailstorms were so violent that very many crops were destroyed.
I will mention cotton, maize, and apple orchards, which were completely devastated.
I would like to think that our Parliament, with the sensitivity for which it is known, will express its sorrow and solidarity with those who live in the areas affected, and in parallel, that the Commission and the Council will act promptly to provide economic aid, both for the farmers and the residents, so that relief may be quick to come and work may begin to restore the damage.
Hazardous waste trade in South Africa
This urgency relates to a serious case of the export of toxic waste.
It concerns the fact that the British multinational Thor Chemicals, which has exported hundreds of tonnes of toxic mercury waste from the European Union, in particular from the United Kingdom, from Spain and from Italy, to its plant in Cato Ridge, South Africa.
It was first assumed that the waste would be recycled, would be reprocessed in an environmentally compatible manner.
Instead of being recycled it was simply stored.
The result of the storage of toxic mercury waste has been sludge ponds, one death and twenty workers who will suffer for the rest of their lives from the consequences of the health damage that occurred at work.
The drinking water is contaminated, the readings are more than a thousand times higher than the WHO drinking water standards.
The Attorney-General of Natal charged three top management officials with homicide in 1993.
Thor pleaded guilty.
Mandela has now set up a commission of inquiry.
We say to that undertaking and to the European Union: those who produce waste must also dispose of it, which means that 470 t must be repatriated to the United Kingdom, 57 t to Italy and 10 t to Spain.
In particular, we call on South Africa to sign Article 39 of the Lomé Convention.
Let me also refer you specifically to paragraph 4 of our joint resolution.
It is with a deep feeling of shame that I shall say a few words on this resolution concerning the dumping of hazardous waste in South Africa.
Because one would not think it possible that we, a number of countries in the Union, should clean up our own back yard and in the process saddle a country like South Africa, which already has problems enough, with a crisis situation which threatens people's lives and the environment.
It is scarcely conceivable that the British multinational Thor Chemicals should dump 5000 tonnes of toxic waste in South Africa, falsely claiming that this was part of a policy of environmentally sound waste management. In the full knowledge that this would lead to the death or disability of more than 20 people.
But out of embarrassment those who have been duped are not buying anything.
The only thing they want in South Africa is for the waste to be taken back, and financial and technical aid.
And we must make sure that we are never again guilty of bringing about a scandalous situation like this.
I agree with everything which Mrs d'Ancona has said, which means that I can save almost a minute of our time, but I would like to make the point that whilst we are able to shape extremely good legislation on the environment, it will not be very effective if companies do not abide by it.
Happily there are organizations which identify and publicize abuses of this kind.
And that subsequently gives us a better chance of taking action against them.
Only yesterday the House voted on the proposal for a regulation on the supervision and control of shipments of waste substances within, into and out of the Union.
The incident involving Thor Chemicals we are debating today shows once more how urgently this is needed.
But we should not forget that this is just one example and that even as we speak the same thing is going on in numerous other places. So we must work to ensure that the enforcement of legislation in the Union is subjected to stricter scrutiny on the basis of the rules we have, but scrutiny is what counts.
Ladies and gentlemen, the scandal over the exporting of toxic waste was a general scandal involving numerous countries of the South.
But what should concern us here particularly is the fact that in the talks between the European Union and South Africa on South Africa's accession to the Lomé Convention, Pretoria is asking for a derogation from the terms of the Convention so that it can continue to import and export toxic waste.
This really is why we have had to debate this today as a matter of urgency, to ensure that Parliament can send a clear signal to the Commission and of course the Council to the effect that this is not acceptable and at the same time to ensure that Parliament can say to the South African Government please, do not ask for a derogation from an Article 39 which bans the exporting of toxic waste and which is the precursor under Lomé of a call by MEPs and African parliamentarians for this practice to stop.
Pilgrim route to Santiago
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this motion for a resolution is aimed at protecting the Way of Saint James, part of Europe's cultural and architectural heritage, in the heart of Galicia.
Manipulation of the facts or blurring of the issue cannot be allowed, as is attempted by those who would say that the French or Portuguese section of the route is the more genuine, since we are discussing the very core of the pilgrim route to Santiago in Galicia.
I am not speaking on the basis of hearsay - I myself have been a direct eyewitness of the most serious damage that roadworks on the N550 are causing to the route through Pazos, between Iria and Esclavitud.
This is no less than a grave attack against art, and Europe's cultural and historical heritage.
Architecture and the landscape are being laid waste in a brutal attack on the environment and on our ethnological and anthropological heritage.
The laws of Spain and those of the Autonomous Region are being violated, but the Galician authorities, in the form of the Xunta, and other responsible bodies are simply standing aside and allowing this unjustifiable atrocity to take place.
I would ask you, fellow Members of this House, is there any sense in our financing the preservation of the Pilgrim's Way while at the same time consenting to such brutal destruction?
Even the Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela himself has intervened in defence of those affected and of people living in the area.
There are, moreover, Madam President, alternative, better and less costly solutions.
These roadworks must be stopped and the destruction halted. Irreparable damage is being done.
The work must be halted to preserve the heritage of all European citizens.
The joint debate is closed.
Mr President, may I on your behalf ask honourable Members if they are willing to postpone the vote on this resolution till next time? We have had a debate on it.
It appears to be a particularly complicated matter.
A delegation from this Parliament is shortly going to Colombia and it is in view of these exceptional circumstances that I would ask the others to postpone this vote till the next part-session.
Thank you, Mrs d'Ancona.
You will be aware that I would very much like to follow your guidance but I have to tell you that, according to the Rules of Procedure, this is not possible.
We have to put the motion to the vote and therefore, according to the Rules, the Chair cannot accept your suggestion.
I now call upon Mrs González Álvarez to speak on a point of order.
I have asked to speak because my memory is not as good as yours, Mr President, concerning the Rules of Procedure - I was unaware that it was not possible to hold the vote on the motion for a resolution over to the following month.
In the case of our resolution, if possible, before it is rejected, we would prefer to hold the vote over until the next part-session because we want approval to be given to a resolution on human rights in Colombia and, therefore, if this were possible, we would prefer the vote on our motion for a resolution to be held over until the next session.
Mr President, we had asked that Colombia should not be placed on the agenda, precisely for the reasons which Mrs d'Ancona states.
But now that we have a request to postpone the vote, our view is 'better late than never' and we are more than happy to endorse that request.
Ladies and gentlemen, I understand that there has been further reflection as well as an oral request.
Unfortunately, this Chair is bound by the Rules of Procedure, and Rule 47 which applies to this urgent debate does not permit suggestions such as that made by Mrs d'Ancona.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I have no choice but to put the present motion for a resolution to the vote.
Mr President, I naturally do not wish to question the faculties and powers of the Chair, but it is my understanding that this House, on matters which concern it as directly as voting or not voting, is sovereign, and if the House should decide by a majority of votes to hold the vote over, it could do so.
It is my interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, in which I am observing a natural principle, although my understanding of the Rules is not as thorough as yours, Mr President, that parliamentary assemblies are entitled to exercise their powers as and when they see fit.
Mr Robles Piquer, this Chair cannot agree with you.
The Rules of Procedure cannot be amended in the course of debate.
Decisions may be taken but the Rules may not be amended.
What is possible, however, is that the authors of a motion for a resolution can withdraw it, but if the motion is not withdrawn, ladies and gentlemen, this Chair will put it to the vote, with due regard for its duties under the Rules.
However, account has first to be taken of the fact that this motion for a resolution was brought by the Green Group in the European Parliament.
Mr President, I think the House has to abide by its own Rules of Procedure.
They cannot be changed just like that.
Secondly, we gave this matter very careful consideration at the time we tabled the resolution and we are on no account prepared to withdraw it.
(Parliament rejected the resolution)
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall now proceed to the vote on the motion for a resolution by the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left on the same matter, for which no amendments have been submitted.
Does the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left wish to withdraw its motion for a resolution?
We do not wish to withdraw our resolution for one simple reason: we have spent several months attempting to gain the approval of this House of a resolution on Colombia and respect for human rights in Colombia.
As I stated in my earlier intervention, we have also been trying to persuade the delegation to Colombia to say just what this House thinks about the human rights situation in that country.
We cannot withdraw our resolution because we are not confident that it would be realistic for a motion for a resolution demanding respect for human rights in Colombia to be tabled next month.
This is the only reason we are not withdrawing it, although we know we will lose the vote.
(Parliament rejected the resolution)
Votes
Madam President, after this vote let me say one thing quite clearly.
We were dealing here with very difficult compromises, which we managed to achieve.
I very much welcome the fact that the compromise amendments were accepted, although many of us found this difficult.
In the end there were questions about what the two votes actually signified, for two votes were held against the zero-rate duty on wine.
I know this worried some Members.
But we had already decided in advance that the zerorate duty on wine should be retained.
So it would not have been necessary subsequently to vote on it again twice.
That is how this voting situation arose.
I believe it is most important to make this clarification because I know that some Members were worried about the outcome of this vote.
Mr von Wogau, if you feel that the consistency of the vote has been maintained, so much the better.
Madam President, Mr Bontempi, who unfortunately cannot be present now, asked me to put a proposal on his behalf.
He drafted the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties.
The committee unanimously adopted certain conclusions that should be put forward here as oral amendments because they were not tabled in time.
They are conclusions 1d, 2a, 2b and 6b.
Mr Bontempi has informed me that as rapporteur of the report Mrs Theato agreed to this procedure.
Let me therefore ask you, by way of exception, to admit these oral amendments I have just listed and to agree to them.
I also thank those Members who were so impatient in the beginning.
As I said during the debate this morning, the Committee on Civil Liberties saw that I was not able to submit the opinion in time, which meant we could not, as would normally have been the case, vote on these conclusions in the Committee on Budgets as the committee responsible.
I am sure we would have accepted them in committee.
I have studied them carefully.
There is one other conclusion, however, that I cannot accept.
I can accept the ones that Mr Schulz has just presented.
But I consider it important to point out that the document is available, so that everyone can know what they are voting on.
You can read these conclusions, which are attached to my report, and as rapporteur I am quite prepared to accept the conclusions numbered 1d, 2a, 2b and 6b.
We have an answer from Mrs Theato.
There are two solutions: either we accept the rapporteur's suggestion, in which case we can vote if there are no objections, or, if you would rather renegotiate among yourselves, we can delay the vote until tomorrow morning.
(Parliament decided to continue voting)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I have voted against the report.
It is not that I question the Tomlinson report's assertions concerning shortcomings in the budget and guarantee fund mechanism, rather that I oppose giving Parliament greater budgetary powers and the establishment of a compulsory and binding procedure under which Parliament has to be consulted before any guarantee can be granted.
von Wogau report
Madam President, I cannot put this explanation in writing because what happened during the vote on the von Wogau report was certainly not a credit to this Parliament.
I eventually voted against the report because, as the voting happened to go, we diverged, by a single vote, from what was adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs by an enormous majority - the recommendation to the Commission to retain the zero rate for wine.
A single vote was sufficient to eliminate section 11 c), on which we had reached agreement, because the zero rate was mentioned in it and because it was pointless to recall it in section 16.
Unfortunately, a number of Members failed to understand that, since 11 c) had been defeated, it was necessary to vote for section 16.
That is why, now, contrary to everything on which we had reached agreement, there is no longer any reference in our report to the zero rate for wine.
I have no doubt that, things being as they are, as de Gaulle used to say, the Commission will make allowances.
It will understand that, because there were not enough Members present here this evening, a single vote resulted in this Parliament rejecting the zero rate.
And I feel sure that the Commission will know that the majority in this Parliament favours retaining the zero rate.
Unfortunately, not all Members were here to vote.
The differences between the Member States as regards alcohol and policy on alcohol are so important that we believe this issue must remain a national one.
For many countries the production of wine and beer is primarily an agricultural and employment issue.
For the Nordic countries alcohol policy is a public health and social issue.
It is based on the idea of keeping total consumption down in order in turn to reduce the harmful effects.
In these countries prices (regulated through tax policy), alongside information and availability, have been an important part of policy on alcohol.
High prices for alcohol also have a positive effect on moderate drinkers in the sense that they prevent them from drinking alcohol too often.
We believe there is no way that alcohol consumption can be described as 'beneficial in moderation' .
There is no evidence whatsoever for such an assertion, whereas there is an enormous amount of evidence concerning its damaging effects on health.
Road accidents, accidents at work, the abuse of women and children - these are all among the common consequences of drinking alcohol and are often caused by people who regard themselves as moderate drinkers.
On the parts of the Von Wogau report concerning alcohol policy we have voted in accordance with the views outlined above.
As representatives of the environmental party, the Greens, we have voted against the Von Wogau report because we believe as a matter of principle that tax policy should be decided by the Member States.
One example of the negative effects EU decisions on taxes can have is the current attempt by airlines in Sweden to obtain rebates of Swedish aviation fuel tax, which was introduced for environmental reasons, which they seek to justify in the light of current EU rules.
Moreover, we consider that the final resolution, not least because of the rejection of the health-oriented amendments by the Green Group, takes insufficient account of the need to use taxes in an attempt to limit the use of both tobacco and alcohol, which are both certainly highly damaging to people's health.
Meier report
I have voted against the Meier report despite the fact that it contains many positive features.
What makes the report unacceptable is the proposal to make technical standardisation bodies EU bodies.
This is a completely unnecessary measure; the work is being done perfectly well as things stand and involves more countries than simply the Member States of the EU.
I also reject the idea contained in the report that the influence of the authorities over standards should be reduced.
The main problem today is the considerable influence exerted by large private enterprises, not that of the authorities.
Theato report
I have voted against the report by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The committee has, without being asked, taken the initiative to draw up a report on the follow-up to the interparliamentary conference on combating fraud in the Union.
The report lacks both analysis and political judgement.
There is not even an attempt at an analysis of the causes of the increase in fraud.
The causes may be sought in the EU's decision to scrap border controls, the supranational agricultural and Structural Fund policies and the variety of unsupervised programmes involving third countries.
Taken together these causes give encouragement to less scrupulous and criminally inclined individuals to turn to fraudulent activities.
I oppose the proposals in the report to transfer important parts of the third, intergovernmental pillar to the EU's common and supranational part, which would also mean them being covered by the co-decision procedure.
It is precisely these areas that are of particularly vital interest to the Member States.
This is why I voted against the Theato report.
Although, for the time being, fraud is not the number one problem of the European Union, it is now taking on proportions which perhaps have never been seen before.
In other words, instead of recommending measures which have already been taken and defining the resources which already exist or putting forward ideas which have been forthcoming from all directions, what we really now need to do is act.
The Theato Report is nearly always good at locating the problem, at putting forward options, and demanding action.
That is why we should be voting in favour of it.
However, we must also draw attention to one aspect which, although it is not decisive, we think raises some doubts.
We have reservations, for example, about the question of 'Communitization' , defended by the rapporteur, of a large part of the 'third pillar' , which would not be shocking if it were limited simply to aspects connected with fighting fraud, as the rapporteur's intention seems to be, but raises doubts if we look at the fact that this is not really where the problem lies.
We must always fight fraud, it is true, but (apart from admitting the hypothesis that governments themselves might voluntarily or involuntarily be involved in some of this fraud) we do not think that Communitization has a role to play in this fight but we think that, by doing so, we might be giving the European Union a clean bill of health in the matter, as if the Member States did not qualify for one.
What we do need is cooperation, clarification, action, rapidity and effectiveness in relation to protecting the financial interests of the Community, the fight against fraud and the fight against corruption which has been growing in this Europe of ours.
The general public are demanding this and society needs it.
It is a question of security and self-confidence.
Diemut Theato has known how to put this across and she has nearly always done so very well...
East-West cooperation activities in energy and nuclear security
The next item is the report (A4-0242/96) by Mr Adam, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the East-West cooperation activities in energy and nuclear security.
Madam President, the key word in this report is cooperation.
Over the next 20 to 25 years the European Union will become more dependent on imported energy.
The demand for oil and coal and gas, but mainly gas, will increase and will only be met from external sources.
We expect that the additional gas requirements will come mainly from Russia.
Without cooperation there must be some doubt that these supplies would be available, and moreover, influence on technical developments in Eastern Europe, where the West has much to offer, would be weakened.
The report seeks to identify the main issues and to propose a framework for Community action to which we can be confident that the East will respond.
Given that gas imports are of vital interest, the report proposes a joint centre supported by Gasprom and the Community.
It is worth noting that Gasprom is the largest company in the world in terms of annual turnover of some US$ 200 billion.
Energy Centres have been established in all the Eastern countries and it is to them that we should look to encourage cooperation in a wide range of activities.
In particular, I would refer to the encouragement of a culture of energy saving and efficiency and the promotion of renewable energies.
Unfortunately, the Community's administrative arrangements for supporting the Centres are unsatisfactory.
No fewer than four programmes are involved - THERMIE, PHARE, TACIS and SYNERGY.
There can even be more than one office in the same city.
It is little wonder that the PHARE and TACIS programmes have not yet convinced this Parliament that priorities are being adequately addressed.
The report has some hard words directed to the Commission on this issue.
The resolution invites proposals for developing the role of the Centres through adequate financial resources.
It is an urgent matter. Only in the last hour I have had the director of one Energy Centre on the phone claiming that the Centre is to close at the end of the year.
This is not the way to encourage cooperation.
Obviously, we have to have a joint commitment between the Community and the governments of the country concerned if there is going to be success.
But precipitate action by the Community on closures must be avoided.
In fairness, I should mention that the Commission has already started to move along the lines suggested and I welcome the inter-Directorate cooperation which is being put in place.
I also want to acknowledge the help I have received from the Commission in the preparation of this report.
Nuclear power in Eastern Europe accounts for only some 17 % of electricity and in most countries this is less than the fall in electricity produced since the move towards market economies.
In theory, therefore, the nuclear power stations could have been taken out of use.
The reasons why this has not happened are political and financial.
There is an unwillingness to become dependent on imported fossil fuels and a lack of finance to buy these fuels.
The imposition of a 20 % tax by Russia on imports from Ukraine obviously does nothing to encourage the sale of gas or oil to that country.
It must also be understood that Western assessments of safety of nuclear plants are not always accepted by the Eastern countries.
Fruitful cooperation between the European Union and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union can only be successful if it is based on understanding.
The West does not have a monopoly on wisdom.
The West cannot dictate to the East.
The build-up of the market economies will take time.
In the 20 years ahead it is unreasonable to expect the energy problem in those countries to be solved by energy savings, nor can dramatic increases in renewable energies be expected.
Nuclear power will continue to be used and will probably increase.
The Russians have not halted work on reactor design.
The report does, however, set out firm guidelines which should regulate financial assistance in the nuclear sector.
The aim is to encourage by industrial cooperation a safety culture and procedures which are mutually acceptable.
The report and the resolution look to the issues where cooperation is to the benefit of both East and West.
There is no instant solution, there is no magic wand, but Parliament now looks to the Commission to implement the spirit of the report.
Madam President, I shall be very brief, because in his introductory statement Gordon Adam has said what essentially needed to be said about this excellent report, the importance of which is in inverse proportion to the number of Members here to listen to it.
This document is an extremely compact one, which really does define the framework of what should be - and alas is not, or not yet - the European Community's energy policy towards the Central and Eastern European States, and specifically, of course, towards our very large neighbour, Russia.
All too often, we have become bogged down in theoretical debates about sources of supply, about nuclear energy, for nuclear energy, against nuclear energy, etc.
Mr Adam's report, which is full of fine detail, demonstrates, if any demonstration were needed, that a country like Russia, in particular, must necessarily diversify its sources of supply; that it cannot rely totally on gas, and still less on renewable energies or, quite simply, on energy efficiency, but that it must, instead, continue to develop a strong nuclear industry.
Of course, the mention of the word 'nuclear' calls to mind Chernobyl, and hence the absolute need for safety.
This appeal to the 'safety culture' which we are to help spread in Russia is, clearly, an essential point in Mr Adam's report.
Another major point: the statement that we are now to abandon the transitional aid we are granting to these countries.
We are to move forward to a better organized and better planned stage of cooperation, arranging for the PHARE and TACIS programmes, the EBRD appropriations, etc., to be combined within a global plan, a plan for which we have been hoping for several years now, the preparation of which is now becoming - to adopt a term with which you are familiar, Madam President - a burning obligation.
Mr Adam's report demonstrates all this, and demonstrates too that there can sometimes be a wide gap between words and deeds - the fate of the energy centres is one example.
That is what should be emphasized in Gordon Adam's report, and I call upon the Commission to read it carefully and then to define the practical arrangements for its application.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on behalf of the Liberals I too must compliment Mr Adam on his report.
Cooperation between Eastern Europe and the Union is focused on the safety of nuclear power plants in Eastern Europe.
Investing in safety is vitally important both to the people of Eastern Europe and the citizens of our Union.
The down side of all the attention being paid to nuclear safety is that it leaves little room for alternatives to nuclear power.
The Liberal Group believes that cooperation to ensure that our energy is safe can only be successful if it encompasses all energy sources.
So we shall be voting against the rapporteur's Amendment No 5.
If the Union exports only nuclear knowhow and technology to the East, highly dangerous nuclear plants will remain in existence and so will the hazards they present to people and the environment.
Recent research has shown that the Union is a leader in the field of environmental and non-nuclear energy technology.
So we should export this too. It creates a lot of jobs too.
Energy consumption in Central and Eastern Europe has fallen off sharply as a result of economic and industrial depression.
That means that unsafe reactors like the one in Chernobyl can quite simply be closed down.
But it is more profitable for these countries to operate unsafe reactors so that fossil fuels can be exported for hard currency.
My Group wonders whether it is necessary for the Union to spend money on making nuclear power stations safe when these countries are exporting fossil fuels.
We would do better to invest in a more efficient and cleaner use of fossil fuels.
My final point concerns Amendment No 8 put down by the Liberal Group.
It is very disappointing that the United States is not a party to the Energy Charter Treaty and we hope that it soon will be.
I would like, first of all to thank Parliament for its initiative in producing a report on East-West cooperation activities in the field of energy and nuclear safety, and especially Mr Adam, who has drafted a most valuable contribution.
I would like to focus, in my address, on the following items: the functioning of the PHARE and TACIS programmes, EC energy centres, nuclear cooperation, and coordination between programmes.
With regard to the TACIS and PHARE programmes, while the policy might have been insufficiently elaborated in the first years, the Commission services have made considerable efforts to achieve a better concentration of action in areas where there is the greatest need and impact.
This process parallels and is aligned with an evolving understanding in the international donor community.
In fact, the PHARE and TACIS programmes are active in most of the areas highlighted in the draft report.
Particular emphasis is given both to energy savings and related issues and to the reform of the legal and regulatory framework of the energy sector, with a view to creating a favourable climate for investment.
The oil and gas sector, on the other hand, is more inherently prosperous than others, and in a better position when it comes to raising finance from private sources.
Wherever possible, the programme should therefore cede the field to the latter, restricting their activities to legal and regulatory matters.
With regard to the EC energy centres, I fully share the draft report's very positive assessment of their activities.
As you know, financing of EC energy centres through the THERMIE programme had to stop at the end of 1995 and the centres are being temporarily supported by SYNERGY while the Commission is seeking an appropriate solution for their future.
The Commission believes that it has to take into account the evolution of administrative structures in the countries concerned.
In some cases the financing has been taken over by the PHARE and TACIS programmes after careful reviewing and planning, while financing centres that have not been successful will be discontinued.
The financing of successful centres is being renewed on an adequate scale.
The scope of these centres' work is also being changed to increase their role in attracting investment, to give them a regional mission and to encourage the longterm sustainability.
In the nuclear sector the report takes a very important step in placing the use of nuclear power in the context of global energy policy.
It is right in considering the energy dimension and not only the safety aspects.
But let us be clear.
Safety must not be undermined.
We must continue to require an improvement in the installations of the countries concerned, with the aim of reaching a level equivalent to the one we have in the Union.
Safety must be a prerequisite for the use of nuclear technology.
Taking into account the economic and strategic aspects of nuclear power in these countries' energy framework is today essential for the long-term solution of safety issues.
One has to recognize these countries' right to rely on nuclear power if that is their choice.
Taking this into account, we should help them define and set up the structures that will ensure an adequate safety level.
Such structures are based on a safety culture at all levels of the design, manufacture and operation of equipment and facilities.
This ambitious objective will not be achieved by assistance programmes using grant money alone.
They can help initiate the process but longer-term industrial cooperation based on investment and shared interests will probably be the only way to secure in depth the necessary transfer of competence.
In parallel, the assistance programmes and TACIS/PHARE in particular, must continue to target the most critical safety issues while also considering some specific problems of the fuel cycle.
Specific attention will continue to be paid to the safeguard aspect.
Projects should also continue to be defined by considering the long-term perspective and in-depth development of a safety culture in the nuclear industry of the concerned countries.
A framework has to be defined for publishing the results of the programmes while recognizing the intellectual property issue.
The available results must be put to the best use.
Finally, loan facilities should be encouraged where appropriate in support of a global longer-term approach aimed at developing partnership and cooperation between the industrial organizations of the EU and the countries concerned.
Rules and procedures must be respected and a rigorous, open-minded approach must be adopted to loan dossiers in order to integrate the specific problems of economies in transition.
With regard to coordination between programmes, the Commission agrees with the need for improved coordination between the different actions of the Community in this area.
I should mention the efforts already being made by the Commission in terms of the consistency and coordination of these actions.
Two types of coordination ought to be considered: firstly coordination of Community programmes devoted specifically to energy, namely THERMIE, SAVE, ALTENER and SYNERGY.
The objectives of these programmes are different and often complementary.
For instance, THERMIE is mainly concerned with promoting new technologies and SYNERGY with preparing the conditions for industrial cooperation.
Not only can duplication be avoided, but synergies can be, and ought to be developed.
The second type of coordination is between the specific energy programmes and the general programmes for technical assistance.
There is a major difference between technical assistance, which is strongly demand-driven, and synergy in which mutual interest is a central element.
In addition, the services of the Commission work closely together and have set up structures to ensure permanent contact and avoid duplication.
Mr Adam, I would like to conclude by again thanking Parliament, and especially yourself, for this initiative which will help give a global and consistent view of a subject which is of paramount importance for balanced East/West relations.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Cooperation in the Baltic Sea region
The next item is the report (A4-0259/96) by Mr Toivonen, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the Commission report (COM(95)0609 - C4-0017/96) on the current state of and prospects for cooperation in the Baltic Sea region.
Ladies and gentlemen, you all know that both Finland and Austria are in the middle of the European election campaign.
That is why I am sure you will understand why the rapporteur, Mr Toivonen, cannot be present.
Instead, Mr Kittelmann has said he is prepared to present the report on behalf of the rapporteur.
But first Mrs Stenius has asked to speak on a point of order.
Madam President, you say that it is understandable that Mr Toivonen is not here because there are elections in Finland.
Finnish Members of all the other Groups represented in Finland are here.
In my view, your statement that it is understandable that he should be absent when the Baltic is to be debated during the elections is unjustified.
Madam President, I am always pleased to find special cases in which Members of this House do not really show the cooperative spirit that might have been expected.
I am referring to the comment made just now.
I have the honour and the pleasure to deputize for the rapporteur, Mr Toivonen, and since I also have a personal interest in this region as EPP speaker on external economic relations, my cooperative spirit here is also justified by practical considerations.
We have always known that the Baltic Sea has played a major role in the history of Europe, although we were scarcely ever able to make use of this because the dictatorships and isolation of that region prevented us.
The waterways represented the main cultural and trade links, which gave these waters an additional and special political role.
The Mediterranean is Europe's link with Africa and Asia.
The Atlantic is particularly important to Europe's security and trade cooperation.
With the accession of Sweden and Finland to the EU, the Union has acquired a new maritime dimension: the Baltic Sea has come a sea within the Union.
That is why we now need a new Baltic Sea policy.
I grew up in the GDR and I still remember how the Communists kept trying to misuse the potential and chances of this region with their propaganda about the Baltic Sea being a sea of peace; and we should all be glad, and even feel somewhat euphoric, about the new chances and new potential we have.
The report Mr Toivonen has drawn up on the Baltic Sea region is divided into several sections: democratic development and economic growth, environmental considerations, infrastructure and assistance, cooperation and coordination.
Foreign and security policy considerations provide the background to the economic comments.
Security and peace are the ultimate priority.
Mr Poettering will be saying more on this later.
The search for security and peace in Europe is taking on a new and special form in the Baltic Sea region. For the first time the Union has a common border with Russia.
This area, the point of intersection between East and West, has its own special security policy character.
Russia's neighbourhood with the EU imposes special demands on the Baltic Sea region, but also offers an enormous opportunity.
Economic integration in this region is the best means to ensure peace in Europe.
Our aim, and I am sure we all agree on this, must be to integrate the Baltic Sea region in the Community, in both political and economic terms.
That is why we must firmly support the continuation of the radical structural changes occurring in the former Communist states of the Baltic Sea region.
We know that economic growth and political stability are closely linked.
The balanced development of both democratic structures and a free market economy, which is the embodiment of democratic structures, will lead to a rapid development of trade.
Here we should draw particular attention to the fact that the creation of a Baltic free trade area and free access of Eastern European products to the Community market are extremely important but at the same time the most difficult aims to achieve.
The Baltic Sea makes up an important part of the life and way of life of the people of that region.
It also affects the standard of living of the Finns, the Swedes, the Baltic people, the Poles and the Germans.
It is in everyone's interests to resolve the environmental problems in this sensitive area.
Aid to improve nuclear safety is extremely urgent, yet nature and the environment are also exposed to many other risks.
The best way to create the necessary conditions for preserving this varied and special natural area is through common endeavour.
On the part of the EU, there are many channels available for providing finance and aid, for example the various environmental organizations.
The most important infrastructure projects in this region are the links with Central and Western Europe, a network for carrying natural gas and oil from Russia to Central Europe and the inclusion of the Russian inland waterways in the international transport system.
Given the difficult structural adjustment processes in the Baltic countries, we must increase the volume of Union aid for this region.
Compared with the previous five-year period, Commissioner, the increase in the aid granted by the Union is in fact very low, accounting for only a few percentage points.
This cannot be enough!
At the same time, we need to coordinate the existing national and international aid more efficiently.
As a final comment may I once again draw attention to the basic economic aspects of the European Union's Baltic policy.
It is simply not enough just to describe the content of the policy.
It is also useful to take measures to implement that policy.
And here I must mention something the Baltic Sea region is particularly proud of in its centuries-long tradition, namely the principle of subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity means that the centuries-long trade experience in this region is a major factor, that it is important for action to be taken in this region not only in the form of European Union aid but also in order to building on the experience that has been gained there.
If we manage to do that together, we will also be grasping the historic opportunity offered to us to ensure that this region really becomes economically stable, in the interests of the people living there and of all of us in the Union.
Madam President, when one compares the Commission document with the existing level of regional and local cooperation in the Baltic Sea region, which can look back to long traditions and made it possible to keep bridges of understanding even during the Cold War period, we see that this document is inadequate and falls far short of the existing level of interregional cooperation in the Baltic Sea area!
For the European Union then even to announce claims to leadership in this respect is simply ridiculous in view of the document it has presented!
One central demand is therefore that the European actions in the Baltic Sea region must come under the control of the Council of Baltic Sea States and that existing structures must be used in order to set up a coordination centre for regional planning and regional information on coordinated measures.
The Committee on Regional Policy welcomes all the initiatives to create interregional links in which the regions and municipalities of the Baltic Sea area are participating.
However, we are against any tendencies towards centralization.
In this context, the list of EU financial contributions - divided up into national categories - represents a step backwards.
But this also indicates the need for reform within the Commission when it comes to structural policy in an interregional framework.
In spite of the numerous requests by Parliament, the Commission has not made a single proposal in this document with regard to providing for joint financing or for means of carrying out cross-border projects or interregional projects.
The Commission should not pat itself on the back for making general proclamations; they are no use to us at all!
To try and sell the list of the financing measures decided long since under the PHARE and TACIS structural funds as a strategy merely shows that it has not done its homework and that so far there is no sign of progress in this area.
That is why I call on the Commission to take up Parliament's proposals and finally to develop cross-border cooperation for the Baltic Sea region on the basis of model projects and a new budget line - see the amendment tabled by the Social Democrats - in the interests of Europe.
Madam President, may I also point out that the Committee on Regional Policy unanimously adopted the conclusions in Amendments Nos 2, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 but could not table them under the Rules of Procedure.
The Committee on External Economic Relations failed to vote on them; they will now be tabled on behalf of the Green Group and put to the vote tomorrow and I would ask the House to show the same unanimity as the Committee on Regional Policy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our Swedish colleague Mr Staffan Burenstam Linder has asked me to present the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy because he is in the capital of Latvia today, in Riga, taking part in the founding of a Europe-wide faculty of law..
I think that is a splendid and highly practical contribution to linking these countries, in this concrete case Latvia, with Europe.
He has asked me to present the opinion because I was rapporteur for the report on the European agreement with Lithuania so that - and here I am addressing the critical colleague who felt she had to express reservations in the case of Mr Toivonen - I have a practical and not just a political involvement here.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy unanimously adopted the opinion drafted by Mr Burenstam Linder on 25 June 1996, thereby expressing the great interest of that committee in cooperation in the Baltic Sea region.
Mr Peter Kittelmann has just referred to cooperation in the Mediterranean area.
I think we as the European Union and the Member States now have a magnificent opportunity to promote peace, security and stability both in the Mediterranean and in the Baltic Sea region through our policies.
The town I come from, a very small town in Lower Saxony, belonged for a long time to the Hanseatic League in Germany, and in past centuries that Hanseatic League of towns was a form of cooperation in the Baltic Sea and North Sea region.
When we talk about a new form of cooperation in the Baltic Sea region today, we should also remember that this kind of cooperation existed once before in European history.
If I may make this personal remark as a remark also on behalf of my group, let me say that I still regard it as a splendid development that today, in the year 1996, we can still discuss this subject.
Who would have thought ten years ago that we could be discussing such a subject today?
Cooperation in the Baltic Sea region is important both as bilateral and as multilateral cooperation between states, but it is also significant that the European Union as such is taking part in this cooperation so that everything that can be done bilaterally and multilaterally also comes within the framework of the European process of integration.
Of the cooperating states, Germany, Denmark, Finland and Sweden of course belong to the European Union.
Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania want to become members of the European Union, and that is why this cooperation is so important.
Let me emphasize how important cooperation is with Russia.
We have every interest in seeing a stable Russia, a strong, efficient economy, democratic conditions in Russia.
We very much hope that this strong Russia that will hopefully develop always remains open, looks towards the western part of our continent - towards Europe - and does not revert to isolation again.
In the coming months and years we should do our utmost through this cooperation to help those states that want to join the European Union through a strategy of preparation, in the sense of giving help for self-help so that they can build up a strong democracy and good economic relations in the hope that in the not too distant future this continent can become a continent of stability, of peace and of freedom.
Madam President, I should first of all like to thank you for giving me the floor.
I would point out that I am chairman of the delegation for relations with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and it is indeed in that capacity that I am speaking.
I should like to mention three points: the many initiatives which have been taken, nuclear safety, and transport links from the Baltic Sea.
Firstly, the previous speakers have already referred to the many positive developments.
One should mention here the commitment on the part of the EU, the cooperation in the Baltic Sea region, the work in the Nordic Council and the Baltic Council, and the many forms of sectoral cooperation in the fields of energy, transport and security.
It is very important for me to emphasize that at the conference last week in Riga, at which I represented Parliament, we were simply treading water, so to speak.
We did not really move forward.
The reason is that we are now at a crucial stage where we need to put things on a more operational footing, as the previous speakers have also said.
We are pleased at how things are developing, but also a little apprehensive, or perhaps concerned, in a constructive way.
The market economy is doing well, and it is making progress.
But there is also the social aspect to take into account.
I agree that we must have time to coordinate matters.
We ought to look at how PHARE and TACIS are operating.
I know very well that the PHARE and TACIS people are concerned about what I am now saying.
But the time has come to set up a real Baltic Sea programme, in which we coordinate things in an entirely different way.
Secondly, I would refer to nuclear safety.
We have just been discussing the Adam report, and I heard Commissioner Pinheiro talking about safety and the nuclear situation.
I am anxious to repeat what I have said before here in the House.
If we do not solve the problem of Ignalina, which is a problem for all of us together, then in ten years' time we shall have an even greater problem than the one we are confronted with today.
My third point concerns transport.
The Via Baltica and the Via Hanseatica have been referred to.
I would warn against making the same mistake that we are suffering from now in Central Europe, namely planning a mass of motorways.
The way out of the Baltic Sea is by water: it is the blue waves that should be the vehicle for a green approach, with the emphasis on rail and shipping.
Lastly, there is security.
It is quite clear to me that security in the Baltic Sea region can only be ensured through very close cooperation with Russia.
The closer and the better the EU coordinates its cooperation with Russia, the easier it will also be in the long term to create security in the Baltic Sea region.
This is connected with NATO, but also with the low-key form of security policy, namely economic security policy.
That is why our discussions are also bound up with the situation in Russia.
Madam President, the Gulf of Bothnia is also part of the Baltic.
I should therefore like to say something about the northern part of the Gulf of Bothnia, which is one of Europe's growing 'economic arcs' .
It is a 300-km long, industrialized area, straddling the Swedish-Finnish border, from Piteå in Sweden, via Tornio and Kemi, to Oulu and Raahe.
Despite its northerly location, very modern heavy export industries and state-of-the-art knowledge of advanced technology are to be found in this arc.
The area's GDP is growing considerably more rapidly than the averages for Finland and Sweden; its annual export earnings exceed 18 billion Finnish marks.
European regional policy has contributed a good deal to this dynamic development.
By providing high-quality living conditions and genuine opportunities for industrial development, it has proved possible to prevent emigration from north to south in Finland and Sweden.
Madam President, I should like finally to stress that in order for export industries to function all the year round it is necessary to develop the infrastructure.
Most of all, maritime transport must be feasible in all seasons, which requires the use of ice-breakers, but there is also a need for EU research funds to be allocated as a matter of priority to high technology.
I must again stress the very great importance of this area as a gateway from Finland to the Barents Sea and the Archangel region.
Madam President, on the whole I consider this to be a good report.
Our group will also vote for it.
However, it will be significantly improved if we adopt several of the amendments tabled not least by the Green Group, as they add something very important to the report.
After the end of the Cold War cooperation around the Baltic increased enormously more or less spontaneously.
What I believe is unique is that this is not simply cooperation at government level but also between voluntary organisations, towns, regions, universities - there are thousands of different kinds of links across and around the Baltic.
The job of the EU must be to support the cooperation which is already taking place and which is now growing spontaneously between the peoples and not to automatically create new structures. I believe that the amendments by the Green Group add something of this.
Several of the countries concerned have membership of the EU as their objective.
They include the Baltic states and Poland.
This prospect naturally has an effect on many things.
The question is not simply how they adapt to us .
We must also ask whether the European Union suits them .
Is it appropriate for pan-European cooperation?
This is not dealt with to any great extent in the report but it is mentioned in one point, Recital C, where panEuropean security cooperation is mentioned in connection with the Baltic.
I believe this is incredibly important as it is only together with Russia that real security in our region can be established.
This need is at risk of colliding with the EU's plans for militarisation, for military powers etc.
We see today how Russia opposes NATO membership for the Baltic States.
When the EU starts having military ambitions it is possible that Russia will also oppose EU membership, and this could create a great deal of negative tension in the Baltic region.
I therefore believe that it is an EU which is less federal and which has no military ambitions but concentrates on what is really necessary that offers the best chance of contributing to stability in the Baltic region.
Madam President, I should like to begin by agreeing with everything my Swedish colleague has said.
Of course we also support the Toivonen report, but with the changes we would like made through our amendments, which would improve it greatly.
In my one and a half minutes I would just like to highlight two different points.
The first concerns how extremely important it is that we achieve a pan-European security system which includes Russia.
In this connection the neutral and militarily non-aligned countries which are now also Member States have something very special to contribute.
We also recommend a regional forum within the framework of the OSCE which should very quickly ensure the demilitarisation of Kaliningrad; this would bring stability to the whole of the surrounding region.
The other point I should like to make is that all Member States must contribute to improving nuclear safety in the Baltic region, including the closure of the most dangerous nuclear power stations such as Chernobyl and Ignalina.
Measures must also be taken to deal with the disastrous situation involving military nuclear waste on the Kola peninsula which I believe presents the greatest threat to Europe's common future.
Madam President, following our debate on the Commission's guidelines for policy on the Baltic region last year, Parliament is now required to pronounce on a report which outlines the foreign aid extended to this region.
The Commission report gives a clear overview of the various aid programmes being implemented in the Baltic region.
On reading it we wonder what steps the Commission is taking to ensure that the many different programmes are coordinated and that policy remains coherent.
Mr Toivonen's excellent report emphasizes the great importance of the Baltic region.
Many of the countries in this region are experiencing a process of transition, both politically and economically, which is difficult to complete without foreign assistance.
Some countries are also preparing for accession to the European Union.
Their efforts deserve our help both on moral grounds and on account of the fact that geopolitically the Baltic region is an area of intersection between East and West.
Relations with Russia are extremely important here.
As regards the type of aid which should be given we believe, as we made plain earlier in the debate on the guidelines, that the best way of giving aid is to allow these countries generous access for their trade to the markets of the European Union.
In addition to cooperation in economic, environmental and infrastructure matters, the Union and the Baltic states ought to cooperate in the fight against international crime.
One thinks of measures against drugs trafficking and illegal trading in dangerous substances, and effective action can also be taken jointly with the Baltic region against trafficking in human beings and child pornography.
Summing up, Madam President, this is a cooperation programme which we are happy to support.
Madam President, traditionally the Baltic has been the scene of struggles for economic, military and political hegemony.
Aspirations to power have dictated the conditions for cooperation in the region.
Only now do we find ourselves in a situation where genuinely concerted efforts are possible.
The objectives should be respect for the independence of the states in the region, functioning democracy and market economies, promotion of the rights of minorities, environmental protection and all manner of mutual interaction.
Now that Europe is no longer militarily and politically divided into two camps, cooperation in the Baltic has gained in force.
The EU has joined in the work of the Council of Baltic Sea States, which has created new opportunities.
At the same time as support is provided for the construction measures of the Baltic States and Poland, which seek accession, it must be ensured that Russia too can join in cooperation.
In due course, Nordic cooperation should also be extended to the Barents Sea region, which is rich in natural resources but is also of strategic importance.
In addition to their desire to accede to the EU, the Baltic States have expressed the wish to join NATO.
The security interests of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania must be taken seriously.
At the same time, it is essential to avoid creating new spheres of interest in Europe.
This would directly increase instability in the Baltic.
It is important to establish a new European security system through cooperation.
Deepening NATO's Partnership for Peace programme has a vital role to play in this constructive work.
A good example of the new type of action is IFOR in Bosnia, which is composed not only of NATO peace-keepers but also of contingents from Russia, the Baltic States and the non-aligned countries.
Each of the Baltic States must also be offered equal opportunities to negotiate membership of the EU.
Madam President, thank you for your courtesy.
Further to what Mr Pelttari has said, I should like to add that the EU also needs an Arctic policy.
The Toivonen report calls for the Union to invest in the Baltic Sea region at the crossroads of Europe's planned natural gas and oil supply network.
The Commission has already responded to this challenge by proposing an updating of the list of projects for trans-European energy networks.
The Commission proposes adding to the list of projects the Nordic Gas Grid, to which Parliament gave its support in the spring.
The Committee on Energy will begin its consideration of the Commission's new proposal on 30 September 1996.
I hope that Parliament's first reading can be completed according to schedule, at the November part-session.
I also hope that the Swedish parties will understand better than at present the significance of the project in meeting the energy needs of the whole EU and particularly of the Baltic Sea States - and particularly, too, to improve security of gas supply.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like, on behalf of the Commission, first of all, to thank Mr Toivonen for his report and his resolution on the Baltic Sea, which highlights the importance of the region for Europe as a whole and its very active participation in the construction of the European Union.
Indeed, four countries in the Baltic region are Member States of the Union and four others are associated to the Union through European agreements and very much involved in the process of cooperation, with a view to future accession.
Two countries, Iceland and Norway, are linked by agreement through the European Economic Area and NATO.
We hope that the partnership and cooperation agreement with Russia will soon be ratified so that we can also strengthen our relations with this very important country which is an active and fully fledged member of the Council of Baltic Sea States.
In April and June of this year, before the Baltic Summits in Visby and Kalmar, the Commission had the opportunity to put before the Chamber its ideas on its involvement in cooperation with the Baltic Sea region as a means of guaranteeing stability and prosperity for the peoples living in that region.
Following a request by the European Council, the Commission presented at the Summit of Baltic States in Visby, in May of this year, its so-called 'Initiative for the Baltic Sea Region' , which sets out the way in which we are supporting cooperation with this region and, as has already been mentioned, brings out three main areas:
the first area, strengthening democracy and stability, including a reinforcement of civil society, the promotion of human rights and the fight against unlawful activity; -a second aspect, which is economic development, a priority area in which we are continuing to develop our bilateral relations and also foster the development of relations between the countries in transition in the Baltic Sea area, so that a wider economic area can help to improve the economic outlook.
This part of cooperation also includes the rationalisation of legislative and administrative frameworks, the promotion of infrastructures and energy supply as well as the promotion of ecologically sound environmental policies and practices; -thirdly, the Commission's initiative promotes regional development, including the cooperation between subnational regions within national frontiers as well as active participation by local authorities.The European Union's support in all of these areas, already under way, will be pursued on the basis of the PHARE and TACIS Programmes.
Furthermore, we shall also maintain access to financing through the European Investment Bank so that wherever possible we can carry out co-funding through other international financial institutions.
Wherever necessary, European Union funding in regions of the Member States of the European Union can be carried out using appropriations from the Structural Funds, in particular the INTERREG Programme.
As a member of the Council of Baltic Sea countries, the Commission has actively participated in the elaboration of action programmes adopted at the ministerial meeting in Kalmar which took place in July.
The Commission's initiative for the Baltic Sea complements this CBSS document.
As the Chair of the Working Party of the CBSS for economic cooperation, the Commission will monitor the execution of both of these documents.
For this purpose, meetings of experts will be held on the main areas of action, in order to identify areas where there are deficiencies or bottlenecks and to propose solutions.
We shall continue to play an active part in other CBSS bodies and in the HELCOM.
In addition to the direct results, regional cooperation contributes significantly to restoring confidence.
From this point of view, we must welcome the many initiatives and events which have taken place in the Baltic Sea area.
The Commission's actions will only bear fruit if they support the policies and decisions taken by authorities and other bodies directly responsible for this region.
On this score, the European Union gives its full support to a strengthening of cooperation in order to construct a better future for all of the peoples of the Baltic Sea region and, by extension, the rest of Europe.
Madam President, I am sorry to prolong the sitting but we cannot let the Commission go like this.
Those were all things that are already going on.
We are talking about a document on strategies.
It is a question of strategies and in this respect I must start by pointing out that the partnership and cooperation agreement with Russia has already been signed and that it is for the Council to ensure that it is now ratified in the individual Member States.
Secondly, I would like to know whether the Commission has responded to Parliament's proposals, namely in relation to channelling the aid in such a way as to overcome the difficulties between PHARE and INTERREG and between TACIS and INTERREG, and setting up model projects for cross-border cooperation, and whether this will get going in the near future.
Thirdly, I would like to know whether there will now be a follow-up document that really does tackle all the difficulties that are still unresolved.
It is not enough to pat oneself on the back and tell of all the things one has already done!
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I should like to raise a point which I think is of enormous concern to the people of the European Union and that is the reports which have come out this morning about the decision by the British Government last night to end the cull of British cattle believed or suspected to be infected with BSE.
It is a very serious concern and you will know the enormous impact this will have on the fears of the European people about their public health and consumer safety.
I would like to ask the European Commission immediately to respond as to how they are going to react to the action taken by the British Government, which seems to be a complete about-turn on the action plan that was presented by the British Prime Minister to the European Council when it last met.
Madam President, what Pauline Green has suggested in her capacity as President of the PSE Group also reflects the view of the PPE Group.
This is a very serious matter, and we must take note of it.
What is at issue here is not just health but the community of law that is the European Union - once a legal decision has been made, no Member State can unilaterally revoke it.
We support your suggestion, Madam President, that the Commission should make a statement on this in connection with Mr Funk's report.
Thank you, Mr Poettering.
I can see that Mrs Green also agrees with this suggestion.
Mr Provan, I have said that we are not going to debate the matter now.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will discuss all this when we come to debate Mr Funk's report.
Madam President, my point concerns the vote on Mr von Wogau's report on excise duties.
Mr Pasty, two days earlier, did rightly warn us about the risks of clashes between the votes, parliamentary procedure and the committee meetings.
It now transpires, Madam President, that the vote on the report on excise duties was carried by a single vote.
The increase in excise duties on wine was carried by one vote.
Well, many members of the Committee on Agriculture, who are consequently most concerned by this matter, not to mention myself as representative of LanguedocRoussillon, the largest European wine growing area, were at that time attending a meeting of the Committee of Inquiry into bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
You yourself are a lawyer, Madam President, and you will agree that what we have here is a case of 'vice of consent' , or consent given in error, in the form of a manoeuvre comprising the simultaneous arrangement of a committee meeting and voting, a manoeuvre which allowed a vote to be hijacked.
This is a perfect example of vice of consent, and of a vote which is null and void.
I find the use of these methods simply to fabricate a majority, methods which I fear I can only describe as somewhat crooked, to be unacceptable.
Madam President, perhaps we should find a different form of words and hold that vote again, since the result is fraudulent.
Mr Martinez, your point has nothing to do with any change to the Minutes.
At present we are in the process of adopting the Minutes, and I would therefore ask you to be kind enough to confine your remarks to the Minutes.
Having said that, I must admit that you have raised a basic, general problem.
What I suggest is that the Bureau consider this matter and say whether it is actually standard practice for other meetings to be held during voting time.
I believe that we should abide by the strict rule that no other meetings should be held during voting time - and I note, incidentally, that the group presidents share this view.
I also believe that it is important for this matter to be discussed within the conference of presidents.
Are there any comments on the Minutes?
Madam President, I have a comment on the Minutes, and on yesterday's vote to which Mr Martinez referred.
At the end of that vote, there was a very great deal of uncertainty as to what had actually been adopted.
I should like to take this opportunity to make it clear that we yesterday rejected, by a single vote, a motion calling for the introduction of a tax on wine, so that that part of Mr Martinez's remarks is certainly incorrect.
Madam President, please excuse me, but what I have to say does not concern the Minutes.
I would simply like to support....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, in the roll-call vote on Amendment No 15 to the von Wogau report, my name appears as a vote in favour. I voted against.
Mr Arias Cañete, we shall be looking into all this and making any necessary corrections.
Are there no more comments?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Votes
The next item is the report (A4-0272/96) entered pursuant to Rule 52, by Mr Vallvé, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament (COM(96)0102 - C4-0214/96) on small-scale coastal fishing (budget heading B2-521)
(The President declared that, in the absence of written opposition, the resolution was deemed adopted)
In view of the increasing energy-dependence of its Member States, it has become essential for the European Union to adopt a comprehensive and consistent strategy in dealings with the Central and Eastern European States and with Russia.
We also need to develop a policy of cooperation with these countries in the sector of nuclear security, partly to encourage exchanges in research and partly to prevent the recurrence of any diaster like that of Chernobyl.
Even so, it is important in this context to make the necessary distinction between civil and military installations.
With regard to the report before us, the primary need is to emphasize the priorities such as the modernization of the energy distribution networks and the creation of a reliable legal framework to safeguard foreign investment.
In this context, it is of the utmost importance to set up a body responsible for supervising the development of the gas industry in Central and Eastern Europe, and also in Russia.
To this end, we need to support the initiative aimed at setting up a joint Russia/European Union oil and gas centre in Moscow.
We must also support the idea of an operation of the same type with the Caspian Sea region.
The Caspian Sea basin, the Ukraine and the Baltic States will, after all, have a major role to play in the near future: linking Central and Eastern Europe to the high-growth economies of the Far East and South-East Asia.
As for the PHARE and TACIS programmes, they have not so far provided the hoped-for level of security.
In conclusion, the financial aid provided in the nuclear sector must, as a priority, be directed towards nuclear safety.
The industrial approach must go hand in hand with the constant concern for compliance with safety standards, resulting in the shutting-down of dangerous nuclear reactors and the modernization of the most recent ones.
As regards the future, it is important to stress the significance of projects such as the development of the future type EPR reactor, so that the 21st century can become the century in which a clean and safe form of energy is developed for future generations.
Toivonen report
It was not possible for my amendment to be debated in Parliament on account of procedural issues.
I intend to return to the question as soon as possible.
It is my firm belief that a coherent Baltic programme with its own budget line should be established within the European Union.
This would help coordination significantly since at present there are many different budget categories for Baltic cooperation to be found in a number of different programmes.
A Baltic programme of the same kind as the Mediterranean programme would enable the European Union clearly to demonstrate its intentions to enlarge the Union to the east and its desire to achieve social cohesion throughout Europe.
There can be no doubt whatsoever that a great deal of investment will be required to achieve social cohesion among the Baltic states.
There is no other region in Europe where there are such enormous social and economic differences as between the countries around the Baltic coast.
In order to achieve economic, social and political stability in the region, Baltic cooperation must have priority.
There is a strong risk that several of the Eastern European states will be transformed into crude market economies with only superficial democracy, major social insecurity and high crime levels.
Such a development would play havoc with stability in the whole of Europe.
Market organization in beef and veal
The next item is the report (A4-0281/96) by Mr Funk, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 805/68 on the common organization of the markets in beef and veal (COM(96)0422 - C4-0447/96-96/0211 CNS)).
Madam President, Commissioner Fischler, we are voting today on an amendment to the common organization of the market in beef and veal.
The Council and Commission had requested the urgency procedure for 4 and 5 September, but this was rejected by the coordinating committee of the time because we had no documents available.
The Council repeated its request for the urgency procedure on 10 September.
On Monday, 16 September 1996, the Committee on Agriculture agreed to this procedure, while at the same time rejecting it with regard to amendments to the support regulations for crop plants and the efficiency of the agricultural structure.
These decisions were confirmed in Parliament by a large majority on 17 September.
The committee and Parliament rejected the Commission's proposals for financing the beef crisis.
Press reports indicated that the Council, too, refuses consent to this form of financing.
Although the serious crisis in the beef and veal market does call for swift action, this must not be at the expense of the cereal farmers.
More than half of our beef farmers, Commissioner, grow cereals, too.
So what this amounts to saying is that the Commission's idea is that they themselves should foot the bill for the damage.
The Commission's statement of reasons includes the observation that beef and veal consumption has declined by 20-30 %.
This, then, is the Commission's admission of the scale of the damage done.
We need not spend any more time on this.
In these circumstances, we have to develop new strategies - something which is quite out of the question unless consumer confidence in beef and veal can be restored.
The culling programme must go ahead, with no ifs or buts.
Yesterday's resolution was counter-productive - it gets us nowhere at all.
Steps must be taken at once to introduce an obligatory system for identifying the origin and quality of BSE-free beef.
More must be done to provide information on BSE-free meat, and to advertise it.
The possibilities for easing the burden on the market have not yet been exhausted: cut-price campaigns aimed at the socially less fortunate sectors of the population should be arranged, an approach which previously brought good result in the case of butter.
Negotiations need to be conducted with the Central and Eastern European States, because we have a vicious circle there: we buy the calves, we fatten them, and then we sell the meat back to those states at a reduced price.
We do need to discuss the possibility of making certain changes in return for compensation.
We cannot avoid a short-term increase in the intervention stocks when the cattle are taken off pasture shortly.
However, this measure is the most expensive way of easing the strain on the market, because the meat comes back onto the market in due course.
In an attempt to reduce these large quantities of meat, my proposed amendments are designed to create new incentives to slaughter lighter-weight animals.
These animals are calculated in addition to the upper limit.
I am not calling the principle of extensification into question.
However, I regard it as virtually impossible, in democratic terms, to monitor three classes, and it creates confusion among farmers too.
You, Commissioner, have written in a major agricultural periodical about a successful programme in Austria, involving suckler cows.
Unfortunately, this good idea did not reappear in your proposals.
I would ask you and urge you to propose such things when they serve a useful purpose.
Our farmers are facing the collapse of what was formerly a functional market.
They have nothing but criticism for politicians.
I therefore ask you, Commissioner, to join with the Council and with us in seeking for a just solution to alleviate their plight.
Everybody has to play his due part in restoring the equilibrium between supply and demand.
What generally happens is that many of Parliament's proposals are turned down flat by the Commission.
Well, never mind who has the better suggestions, Commissioner, what we need is the success!
We need an answer to the present crisis!
I don't insist that my ideas are better - if yours are better, then I congratulate you on them - you make the proposals, as long as they are the right proposals!
That is what matters.
Everyone is affected - the farmers who have suffered losses, the butchery trade, the consumers who have lost confidence, the workers in the beef industry.
It is already apparent that political failures, omitted checking procedures and technical miscalculations are responsible for the disaster in the beef and veal market.
And more likely that not the farmers are the victims and not the perpetrators.
That is the critical point, and that must be taken into account in the financial proposals.
I call on Parliament as a matter of urgency to agree with my proposal.
The events of yesterday evening in the United Kingdom are another good reason why this report should receive our unconditional support.
(Loud applause)
Madam President, I want to thank Mr Funk for a report which was well prepared at very short notice.
It is a comfort to the farmers of the European Union that within Parliament there are voices that are sympathetic and well-informed.
I also want to thank the Commissioner for the leadership he has given in this most serious crisis and for the competence and skill he has demonstrated.
Open-ended demands for compensation to European farmers are not realistic in the light of the present budgetary constraints.
In the current year and next year the European Commission is proposing to spend a total of more than ECU 3 billion in support for beef farmers in this crisis.
We have to acknowledge that farmers will lose a further ECU 3 billion annually.
In the country I represent - Ireland - farmers who are highly dependent will lose at least a further ECU 300m off their incomes, in spite of these measures.
So there is no possibility that all these losses can be paid for out of the current budget of the European Union.
It is a bit difficult to present and debate a measure before the House without acknowledgment of what the cost might be and some idea of where it ought to come from.
It is the business of a parliament to ensure the resources are made available.
It is the opinion of the Committee on Budgets that these measures are to be welcomed but have to be financed through the resources that are available in the current draft budget.
Having looked at the out-turn in the budget for the last three years, and particularly in this year, when we have already provided ECU 1.6 billion to meet this crisis and when the Commission is still forecasting that a further ECU 460m will be available at the end of the year, I personally believe that the resources are available within the current budget to provide the ECU 1.33b which the Commission is proposing to spend on this measure, that it is not necessary to upset all the agreements that we made with the other sectors in the course of the reorganization of the common agricultural policy, and that the money can be found.
If the money cannot be found, we believe that a supplementary budget can be introduced at the end of the year to reintroduce the ECU 1, 000m which the Council took away, and that the solution can at least be contained within the present preliminary draft budget.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that all of us, in this House and elsewhere, are fully familiar with the difficult situation currently prevailing in the beef and veal sector.
Since the start of the BSE crisis this year, consumption has fallen by 20 to 30 % in some Member States, and prices have followed suit. In two Member States, prices now stand at 63 % of the intervention price, in other words very close to the safety net.
Unfortunately, there are few indications of any improvement in this situation in the immediate future.
BSE is going to remain in the public eye, so that consumption will not return to its former levels in the foreseeable future.
At this particular time of year, the autumn, substantial numbers of beef cattle are going to come onto the market, and the necessary level of demand simply does not exist. Intervention, as you know, is limited to 400, 000 tonnes, a figure that we shall reach very shortly.
In these circumstances, all those who say that urgent action is needed are right.
But our general objective must be to ease the strain on the market and cut back production to a marketable level as quickly as we possibly can.
Because this House has accepted the urgency procedure only for the part of the package concerning beef and veal while rejecting it for the proposal on arable crops, which represents the basis for financing, the Council finds itself in a somewhat tricky situation: where although it is in a position to adopt measures to reduce meat production it is, on the other hand, in no position to pay for them.
Given this situation, it is apparent that the action taken can only be limited, both in terms of time and as regards its effects.
It will not really be possible to get to grips with the problem as a whole until you have given your verdict on the complete package.
This makes it all the more remarkable that, over and above the Commission's proposal, the proposed amendments include yet more expenditure amounting to several hundred million ECUs.
The remainder of my remarks will be confined to the beef proposal and your request for amendments.
First, I should like to make it clear once again that the proposals before you are conceived only as stop-gap measures and not a definitive solution to the whole problem.
The BSE crisis as such has to be seen in the overall context of the beef and veal market, which - as I clearly stated within this House and to the Council at the beginning of this year - was already confronting a difficult situation.
The primary purpose, then, of the measures planned for the medium term is to create the necessary room for manoeuvre to enable us, at some stage, to reduce the intervention stocks again.
The key proposals to cut beef and veal production are a slaughter programme for calves and the introduction of intervention for feeders and young male animals.
I admit that the proposal on the slaughtering of calves is very contentious, but it is a relatively easy measure to implement, as can be seen in the United Kingdom and Portugal.
It is also the cheapest way of cutting back production, because it takes effect at the earliest point in the production cycle, and in my view, bearing in mind this exceptionally difficult situation, it can be put across successfully to the concerned consumer.
In addition to this, Mr Funk, our proposals do indeed include an early slaughter programme for suckling calves.
Another alternative which I noted in your proposed amendments was to reduce the suckler cow premium instead of slaughtering calves, but in my view this is not a feasible alternative.
Its effect, after all, would be to prompt the farmers to slaughter their suckler cows now.
And there are many reasons why, at this moment in time, that is not a good idea.
First, this slaughtering of additional cows at the present time would not reduce the supply of beef but would actually further increase it; secondly, the reduction of suckler cow premium entitlements and the number of suckler cows would prejudge questions relating to the future arrangements for beef and veal.
I believe, then, that we would do better to judge this question in the long-term context.
Thirdly, a substantial cut - and we must always bear in mind that in the case of suckler cows, unlike male animals, we are dealing with individually assigned rights - would probably mean that we would finish up by having to implement a scheme to buy up those rights.
We know, however, that at present one million of these rights are not being used, in other words we would have to buy up a million rights without producing any effect at all by doing so.
If we reduce the suckler cow quotas, anyway, would we not also have to reduce the milk quotas, because the suckler cows probably account for the great majority of calves suitable for fattening? In summary, my conviction is that we must concern ourselves with the calves at this stage and not bother so much about the cows.
However, I am grateful for your support for my proposal that young male animals should be included in the intervention, and for your suggestions regarding age and weight in this connection.
I believe it is worth while to give consideration to this alternative.
In any case, I am currently having this question looked at by my experts.
Alongside the calf slaughter programme and the intervention for young animals, I have also proposed reducing the national quotas for the granting of the special premium.
As I see it, this should actually be acceptable to every Member State, because fewer premiums are going to be claimed in the near future as a result of the calf slaughter programme and because we selected the highest level of premium applications to date as the starting point for our proposal.
Each Member State starts on the basis of the applications recorded for 1995, and is required to accept a 5 % reduction.
However, in this calculation, only half of the increase in applications over the number agreed in 1992 is taken into account.
I am aware that this measure is the subject of strong criticism, especially in those Member States which, in the past, to a large or very large extent, have claimed the arable premiums for silo corn land as compensation instead of the bullock premium.
However, I believe that a review clause would make it possible to take due account of this problem after a certain period.
Finally, in order to strengthen the measures for reducing production, I propose that the stock density for the granting of the extensification premium should be reduced somewhat.
To balance this, however, the extensification premium should be raised accordingly for those farmers who are prepared to manage with a stocking density below one large animal unit per hectare.
As regards the immediate future, we are going to have to raise the intervention stocks.
There is no way round it.
I do agree, however, with those who say that intervention must be as brief as possible.
It is and will remain a shortterm measure.
So the proposed increase will remain in force only until the other measures take effect.
I do wonder, though, whether the proposed period of 14 months - and stocks are to be increased only during that period - is too long a period. Or are we not being too ambitious, as it is, to hope to return to the normal production levels within a year?
When you also call for a reduction in the intervention weights, that has my full support in principle, though I believe we will realistically have to implement it in stages rather than all at once.
I have also been asked to comment briefly on what the Commission allegedly decided on Wednesday, and what the British government decided yesterday.
I am bound to say that all I know about this is the British government's press release.
Let me make two things completely clear. Firstly, the Commission naturally reaches its decision on the basis of the conclusions of the Florence Summit.
Secondly, the Commission, at its latest meeting, merely took formal note of a report by me on the latest Council meeting.
I informed the Commission that I had told the Council exactly the same thing - that we would stand by Florence, and that furthermore I had already done, more than a week earlier, what I always do when we receive a new study - I passed on both studies to the multidisciplinary committee and the scientific veterinary committee, in other words both the study relating to the possibility of transmission of BSE from cows to calves, and the so-called Oxford Study about which we have heard more and more since then.
No decisions could be taken regarding any modifications, or anything of that kind, because no one in the Commission asked for any.
That, I believe, makes the position clear.
The Florence conclusions are as follows: first, the preliminary conditions must be satisfied, one of which is an additional cull programme. Secondly, once the preliminary conditions are satisfied, the intention is to proceed stage by stage with the lifting of the export ban, the procedure first requiring the British government to submit a working document to the Commission.
The Commission will then pass this working document on to the two scientific committees.
If a positive recommendation is obtained from those committees, the normal decision procedure provided for in this case will be instituted.
I know that my package of proposals designed to remedy the problems in the beef market is the subject of controversy.
On the other hand, I imagine it is clear to every professional in the field that, in a crisis on this scale, it is a matter of simple logic that conflicting interests will necessarily result in a heated debate.
In addition, in this instance, the initial positions as between the various Member States could not be more different.
But one thing, I believe, is true for all of them - help given quickly is always the most effective kind.
I therefore ask you to give your opinion on the complete package as soon as possible.
Madam President, in view of the fact that I asked for the statement earlier on the latest news from the British Government, I have a question for Commissioner Fischler.
His proposals, on which Mr Funk's report is based, are posited on the information that there would be an additional cull in the United Kingdom of 147, 000 cattle which, we understand, has now been suspended.
If that is the case, what are the implications for the proposals which have been discussed here this morning in Mr Funk's report?
Madam President, Mrs Green, I should like to make it quite clear that the Florence conclusions relate to preliminary conditions which have to be satisfied before the gradual lifting of the export ban on the United Kingdom can be initiated.
The package which is under discussion today is not a result of the Florence conclusions but is designed to overcome the beef crisis, over and above that package on which agreement was also reached in Florence.
At that time, it was recommended that ECU 850 million should be allocated as direct income support for farmers.
That was recommended in Florence, but the measures at issue today concern all fifteen Member States, and in fact have no direct connection with the question of future steps to lift the export ban.
I believe we should make a distinction between these two things.
Commissioner, my question is fairly straightforward and I hope the answer will be too.
Are the decisions taken yesterday by the Government in London consistent with what was decided by the Commission?
Madam President, Mr Martens, in my opinion the matter is absolutely clear.
What the British government decided yesterday relates to the further procedure in the United Kingdom.
That, if you like, is a British problem.
But if the preliminary conditions agreed in Florence are not satisfied, then the export ban will not be lifted.
The question which the British government has to address is what it is trying to achieve.
Until such time as it satisfies the preliminary conditions, and until such time as we receive a working document which we can examine, there cannot logically be any talk of lifting the export ban.
This has nothing to do with the question of whether we need, for example, a new regulation on intervention, where the 400, 000 tonne limit will be exceeded in the course of the coming month.
Otherwise the beef and veal market will collapse throughout Europe.
That is the way I see it.
Madam President, as the spokesman on agriculture for the largest political group in the House, I have to confess that I am unable to vote seriously and rationally on the amendments.
I do not know, Mr Funk, who should be most concerned, you or I.
Ladies and gentlemen, you should in fact be aware that what we are doing today is not just opening the way for short-term intervention for beef and veal, to avoid the so-called safety net; what we are seeing here is a farreaching reform of the regulation on the COM in beef and veal in Europe.
No great shakes at only ECU 1.4 m in 1997 but, worryingly, opening the door to reform of the CAP.
What, Commissioner, happened to those good intentions of involving Parliament from the outset in fundamental agricultural reforms?
I had thought that the strategy of reflection documents, that began with wine and fruit and vegetables, was a permanent decision.
Months and months to discuss those issues.
In the case of beef and veal - no less complex an issue - we got the documents on 5 September and today, 20 September, there are about a hundred of us here, on a Friday, to carry out the reform.
It is a like a daydream, particularly in the wake of last night's decisions which, in my view, Commissioner, objectively speaking, will again call this proposal into question because of the repercussions on the market.
But just to be clear as to where responsibility lies, urgency for short-term intervention could have been requested via a proposal simply amending Article 6 of Regulation 805/68.
That is what the Council should have done, after our vote of barely two weeks ago, when we clearly rejected urgency generally.
Why re-present the whole package now, as if nothing had happened, instead of opting for the only reasonable course?
In relation to Parliament too - I venture to say - the decision to divide up urgency in the same way as a rotten apple is cut in two, offering us the good half, that is spending, actually increasing it as stated in the Funk report, and returning the bad half to the sender, that is revenue involving cuts for cereal farmers, does not seem to me a particularly edifying prospect.
Are we the same Parliament that wants to contain agricultural spending in the 1997 budget? If urgency there is then I believe it concerns the use and distribution of resources in the agricultural chapter, but Mr Funk took the easy option of silence and referral, after having actually proposed to us an increase in resources.
I do not believe that we can pretend nothing has happened, particularly not after last night's government decision.
Oh yes, Commissioner, because it does not seem to me to be acceptable that Switzerland should be setting the example for Europe. Give us the bare minimum of conditions necessary to lend you a hand, and rest assured that our group is with you.
Madam President, our Group would firstly like to congratulate Mr Funk on his excellent report, which he produced in record time. We fully support its contents.
However, in addition, our Group would like to express its disagreement with the Commission's strategy on this subject.
It is unacceptable that, in dealing with a major crisis in the beef and veal sector, we should be presented with a package of proposals in which, simultaneously, there is amendment of the rules concerning support for producers of herbaceous crops and relating to improvements in efficacy of agrarian structures, linking the three sectors in budgetary terms and requiring financial sacrifice in some in order to support others.
In the opinion of our Group, this technique is to be condemned because it involves the combination of urgent actions with reforms requiring lengthy consideration.
It involves an attempt to force the will of this House, obliging it to accept the unacceptable on pain of rejecting the necessary.
But it is also obvious that there were necessary elements in this reform which justified our Group's position: accepting urgency in the case of one sector requiring solutions and rejecting it in others because, in budgetary terms, there is a margin which makes it possible to deal with the more urgent reforms and, in budgetary terms, it is possible, with a degree of imagination, to cover this House's proposals.
We fully support Mr Funk's proposals.
However, there are delegations within our Group who do not understand the reason for the opposition to the Commission's proposal regarding the conditions for a reduction in intensive methods and improving premiums when the density factor is diminishing because, in the context of a crisis in the sector caused by disease, like the one we are currently experiencing, it is difficult for some national delegations to understand opposition to such a reduction and the natural feeding of livestock.
Lastly, the Commission has based its modification of the regional ceilings of premiums for calves on a dubious criterion, having very different degrees of coverage for countries with regard to actual culls which, in some cases, involve prejudicing the agreements acquired in the price package.
First of all my compliments too to Mr Funk for the speed at which he has completed his work.
Yesterday evening's unilateral decision by Britain is reprehensible, primarily because it is unilateral.
And after hearing what Mr Fischler had to say I can only endorse the Commission's position that we must stick to what was agreed in Florence.
I also agree with Mr Fischler that it is essential in the short term to provide for an increase in intervention stocks.
I can see no other alternative at this stage.
Other measures are needed too. As far as these are concerned, I find the Commission's proposals rather too one-sided.
They are too one-sided because they concentrate too much on extensification.
If we look at the position in Europe, there are some 20 million dairy cows and some 10 million beef cattle.
Meat production from the dairy sector is steadily declining.
Cows are producing more and more milk.
So the production of the beef cattle sector is steadily increasing.
I thus think that premiums for all these sectors should be reduced, including the premiums for suckler cows.
Lastly, the calves sector remains virtually unaffected.
I think it would be a good thing to reduce the carcase weight of calves by a given percentage for all countries of the European Union.
That may mean a significant flow from meat and dairy to calves and is far more attractive than killing calves at a young age.
My last point is not part of the proposal.
We think the Commission should come up with proposals for quality marks for beef in all the European countries as rapidly as possible.
We have to have a European quality mark.
And my very last point, we consider it a bad idea to take the funding for all this from the arable farming sector.
One sector must not pay the costs of another.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, I am sure you realize that we are confronting a completely unexpected situation because of what happened yesterday evening.
A request was made for that matter to be added to the agenda.
As a result of Mrs Green's intervention, we included it in the debate on Mr Funk's report, and that was why we gave the floor to Commissioner Fischler.
I admit that all this was a little bit out of the ordinary, but, I say again, current events had made it essential.
Furthermore, at one point, Mr Jacob asked me for the floor - he will confirm that - and I didn't give it to him because I was conscious of the fact that it was not right to refuse priority to speakers who had put their names down.
As you yourself, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, had your name down and were to have an opportunity to speak a few minutes later, I felt that it might not be necessary to give you the floor and then give it back to you ten minutes later, while other speakers who had also put their names down in the usual way were still waiting.
That was my reasoning, on the understanding that once we had finished the debate and Commissioner Fischler had had another chance to speak, then other Members would be able to do so including, obviously, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I have been doing my best to deal with a quite unusual and unexpected situation, and now, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, I can give you the floor on behalf of your group.
Madam President, I respect your thinking, but I believe it to be wrong.
In such an unusual situation, it is customary for all groups to have the opportunity to put questions on it.
That is what has always happened before, and it is what should have happened this time.
But I shall leave it at that.
I take note of your explanation, and I shall now do as you have suggested and say what I have to say.
Commissioner Fischler, you said that the measures adopted by the British government would be that government's responsibility.
But the result - as you are aware - will be a further increase in that loss of confidence which is also costing the other farmers in the European Union money.
It follows that the measures adopted by the British government are likely to cost money to people who actually have nothing whatever to do with them.
As for Mr Funk's report, we welcome it and we largely support it.
We, too, are concerned with slaughtering cattle and restoring confidence in the market.
The only way we can do that is to make sure, in actual practice, that the consumer does start buying meat again.
And that in turn makes it necessary for our amendment to be adopted, in which we say that this premium should be paid only on meat which can be guaranteed and proven to originate from BSE-free stocks.
The same must apply to intervention, which is now to be preferentially based on weight: there must be proof that the stocks concerned are not BSEinfected, to ensure that, in a year or two, we are not going to bring this meat onto the market again and once again undermine consumer confidence, and so the market itself.
Commissioner Fischler, the elimination of calves is right, but not in the form of the 'King Herod' premium.
Calves slaughtered must first have been able to put on meat, and that meat must then be put on the market.
This is highquality meat, and it must be supported to ensure that it doesn't become more expensive than beef.
This would make it possible to clear the market, but not in the way you propose, by removing the meat from consumption.
Moreover, and this is my last point, the special premiums must also be subject to a limit of 90 animals, so that we have a staggered effect.
This is another motion from our group: as with the normal premiums, special premiums must not be paid on all stocks but only on the first 90 animals.
Madam President, I have never seen as many cattle in the fields as I have in this late summer of 1996!
What is going to happen to the farmers, who are losing between 100 and 300 ECUs per head in this depressed market, when prices are going to fall everywhere in a sector of production where incomes are the lowest in agriculture?
We share the view expressed in the Funk report, that the Commission's proposals on supporting the market should be supplemented, and we share the view that this crisis is going to last.
But the report does not go far enough towards avoiding the bankruptcy of farms where stock farming is the essential source of income, which are likely to disappear from the less favoured regions.
This cattle crisis must spur us to expedite radical mediumterm reforms, with regard to two fundamental points.
First, changing the premium structure to provide more assistance to farmers raising grass-fed cattle, who are producing quality meat and helping to preserve fields and landscapes, especially in the mountain regions.
Secondly, relieving the burden on the markets without an excessive increase in intervention meat, by encouraging the early slaughter of calves, reducing premiums for intensive farming and granting additional aid to specialized farmers, because otherwise there will be a risk of a further decline in grassland in favour of arable land, which will then have to be aided or set aside.
The Commission is involving us in a vicious circle from which it will be very difficult to escape.
The additional cost announced will be higher than expected.
The minor economic measures envisaged by the Commission will not be enough.
It is necessary to have the political courage to realize this now, and to adopt the necessary budget lines to provide direct support to the farmers who are at risk.
In this context, the decisions of the British government are clearly catastrophic.
Madam President, in a manner of speaking Mr Funk has attempted the impossible, although our ideas are not the same because our particular interests differ.
At a time when incomes for all those involved in the beef and veal industry have been collapsing, is this really the time to repay ECU 9, 200 million to the Member States out of the 1995 budget surplus and to reduce the preliminary draft budget for 1997 by ECU 2, 750 million? We all know that these political decisions have one object only: to enable the Member States to meet the necessary criteria to join in the single currency, and more specifically to reduce the so-called 'excessive' budgetary deficits of certain Member States.
And what proposal is being made for dealing with this crisis? Quite simply, internal transfer of part of the cereals budget, together with a change in the payment date for the oil seed premiums, so as to perform some budgetary sleight of hand without, of course, any guarantee of a prolongation of the budget or the EAGGF.
Mr Chirac and Mr Kohl even acknowledged, at their last meeting, that no sector of industry had suffered the kind of damage we are experiencing today.
Rather than fighting to defend the suckler-cow premium or the intervention level, I am going to propose on behalf of my group, together with other Members, three compromise amendments which will enable the premiums to be adjusted to take account of the realities of regional beef production.
I hope these amendments will receive the support of a majority, because European stock farming as a whole needs us to find swift and effective solutions.
Madam President, we are witnessing a cataclysm in both economic and human terms.
In France, we have seen farmers from Charroux, in the Vienne, setting out on foot to drive their cattle up to Paris as if they were going to see the king, because if the king knew he would not allow it!
We have seen peasants gathering in their thousands at Clermont-Ferrand....
And your way of reacting to this cataclysm, instead of giving it careful thought, instead of putting all your cards on the table, is to get bogged down in a wretched technical debate.
We talked to you about financial responsibility and your answer is, ' budgetary austerity' !
But, in actual fact, since the farmers are the victims here - their hands are clean, as the lawyers say, a fundamental principle in compensation for damage - we, as normal people, were talking about responsibility, responsibility which ensures that in environmental law the polluter pays: we say that the industrial poisoners should foot this bill, and when I say that I am thinking about the Mulder brothers.
You tell us: ' No, solidarity, not responsibility!'
We thought you were talking about national and European solidarity.
Not a bit of it!
You are talking about 'solidarity between professions' - you are stripping the cereal growers to clothe the stock breeders, and pretty miserably at that.
It starts with technicalities: ECU 1, 300 million in compensation, reduce the set-aside premium, cut the suckler cow premium by 5 %, give preference to bullocks over grass-fed animals, fail to reach the guideline, quibble, hurl money to the ends of the earth, to Nicaragua, to Papua New Guinea, but nothing for our farmers!
Really, you are just perverse.
We know well enough what you are aiming at: Singapore is in preparation, the major 1999 negotiations are in preparation, and you are preparing to challenge the great 1992 agreement on the CAP.
Little by little, you are preparing to accept that the set-aside premium has to go, etc.
To put it another way, your are like those immigrants in early nineteenth century France who had learnt nothing, understood nothing.
You will not understand that your crazy agricultural policy is what created this situation.
Barthet-Mayer was telling you you have to follow a different line - labels, national traceability, knowing where the products come from - in a word, you would have to question your own policy.
Not a bit of it!
We attend the proceedings of the Committee of Inquiry, and we shall find that over the last five years you have understood nothing, known nothing and this institutional crisis will not be resolved.
Commissioner, this ill wind has to blow somebody good, this tragedy has to achieve something!
Apparently that is not going to happen, and that is a sad thing for us all!
Commissioner, you are absolutely hopeless!
Madam President, the Commissioner has made three proposals.
This morning we are dealing only with the first, a proposal to improve the intervention access, changes to the various premium schemes and other changes in the beef sector.
We have refused urgent treatment for the other two proposals.
I welcome Parliament's decision not to consider the Commission's proposal to cut aid to cereal farmers.
The proposal was ill-conceived and can only destroy confidence in the whole farming industry.
In the CAP reform farmers were forced to swap guaranteed prices for income aids and much reduced guarantees.
They were promised over and over again that the income aids were permanent and would be fully financed.
Now the Commission has proposed a substantial cut in compensation payments to the cereal sectors.
Farmers cannot accept being treated in this way.
The promises made must be kept.
If the Commission succeeds in cutting aid to cereal farmers it may later try the same action in other sectors.
I do not agree with all the details in the proposals before Parliament this morning.
However, the important decision is for Parliament to establish its position and thus let the agriculture Council bring in urgently needed changes.
Here I am referring especially to the increases allowed in intervention quantities for 1996/97.
These changes are needed immediately, otherwise there will be a further collapse in the market for beef.
Commissioner, I know you are doing your very best in a very difficult position, but your remarks about the British Government decision yesterday are far too charitable.
In fact, they are almost - I would respectfully suggest - weak.
They ignore the damage and destruction caused to the beef industry in neighbouring Member States.
I am thinking particularly of my own country, Ireland.
I ask the Commission once again to consider, on another issue, an application to the WTO, or GATT, to have our beef export quotas increased.
I have already asked this and you have not seen fit to deliver.
We have not been able to fill our quota this year because of the BSE crisis.
Therefore, we should look for some flexibility on export quotas.
Our traditional exports are gradually being reopened for beef for most Member States.
I believe it is important to make the best possible use of these opportunities.
Finally, it is very important that we introduce a promotional scheme right away to try and stimulate the consumption of beef.
We have not taken that issue to hand satisfactorily.
Madam President, I represent the United Kingdom's cattle heartland, Somerset and North Devon.
We have some of the finest dairy and beef herds but we also know everything about BSE, which has hit us more than other areas.
Many in my constituency saw our Prime Minister's return from Florence in the same light as they saw Mr Chamberlain's return from Munich half a century ago.
Not peace in our time, but beef in our time.
Now it is very clear that John Major is playing for time.
To me one of the first rules in politics is, if you are in a hole, stop digging.
Our Prime Minister seems to be suffering from mad mole disease.
We hope to see progress in this area.
It will not be achieved by the attitude of our Agriculture Minister on Monday and Tuesday at the Commission, like a bull in a china shop.
It may be achieved by the attitude of the wiser counsels of Sir Leon Brittan in his discussions with the Commissioner.
I welcome the Commissioner's agreement to review the scientific evidence, the new evidence that has come forward, and if need be to look again at the Florence Agreement.
I believe that any unilateral decision by the British Government would be a breach of that agreement and a breach of trust.
I deplore any attempt by the British Conservative Party to restart the beef war in order to gain narrow party political advantage.
The real question to Commissioner Fischler is this.
Will a decision by the British Government to delay the cull affect the compensation that would be paid to British farmers under the schemes agreed at Florence?. That is the question to which I would appreciate an answer this morning.
I salute, as I know the Commissioner does, the Swiss Government's decision announced earlier this week to cull one-eighth of their herd, despite the fact that they have had only 290 cases of BSE.
In Britain we have had 160, 000 cases and we should have got on top of the matter more quickly.
Now that the problem is recognized we need to do everything we can in conjunction with our neighbours on the continent to sort this matter out once and for all.
(Applause)
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Funk for his report which we will be supporting this morning.
I would also like to thank the Commissioner for the remarks that he has made this morning because we are facing a very grave crisis in the beef sector.
I would like to concentrate on what has already been said regarding the culling policy this morning.
As far as I understand it - I do not know if anybody here is fully aware of all the facts of the British Government decision at the present time - the policy is to be sharpened and refocused, to take out the required number of cattle that will most effectively get rid of BSE as quickly as possible, thus restoring the confidence that is required, not only in Britain but right across Europe.
The Florence agreement had a policy for an accelerated cull involving a wide spectrum of cattle that had to be taken out to satisfy public opinion.
What the British Government is now proposing is a very much sharper focus of that culling policy.
We can only take out 30, 000 cattle a week.
We will continue to take out 30, 000 cattle a week, and nothing over 30 months will be going into the food chain.
What is important - and this is where the new scientific evidence comes in, and why the government has taken the decision that it has - is that we make that cull the most effective cull possible.
It has to be sharply focused; it has to actually take out the cattle that are most likely to have the disease.
If we just take a wide scattering of cattle off the market and out of the herds, it is not going to be an effective cull.
I am surprised to hear Mrs Green saying what she has said in the House this morning because her own Labour Party spokesman in the House of Commons is agreeing entirely with the government policy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have followed the debate here with the closest attention. To be completely clear about what the actual issue is, I would like to emphasize once again what actually happens if, as it were, nothing happens.
In essence, and in terms of urgency, the problem is that when we get into a situation where we have reached the existing upper limits for intervention and cannot intervene any further, the only thing left to apply is the safety net.
In two Member States, this would result in a price cut of about 3 %, but in all Member States it would attain an order of magnitude of from 10 % to 15 %, which I trust is something no one in the European Union would want.
So it is absolutely essential to make the necessary arrangements to ensure that at least this channel is open.
Logically, the additional proposals we are making here are directly linked to that, because each of us here wants to limit intervention.
How can I keep intervention low unless I immediately stop the fattening of young animals? Otherwise the automatic result would be a lengthy period of intervention.
The next point at issue is one I made at the outset.
If, which is the automatic consequence, we are now going to get intervention stocks amounting to an order of magnitude of a million tonnes, this is no trivial matter.
We are going to have to think now about what we can do to get these quantities out of the intervention stocks.
All of this combined is still a long way from suggesting a long-term solution.
In the long term, I agree, we are going to have to come back to the beef and veal market in connection with the debate on the reform of the milk market and in addition to that we are of course, as a first step, also going to have to introduce a better labelling system and, associated with that, appropriate promotion of European meat.
A proposal to that effect is nearing completion, but it makes little sense to promote European meat now when, at the same time, we are discussing every conceivable thing leading to a situation where the consumer does not actually get the impression that European meat is particularly safe.
If this is going on at the same time, we do run the risk that any form of promotion will be counter-productive.
This is another thing we need to be clear about.
Finally, let me emphasize once again: we must abide by Florence, and nothing else!
Madam President, I think this is the right moment to make a remark.
The Committee on Budgets gave an opinion on the Funk report on Tuesday evening.
Mr McCartin, as the draftsman of that opinion, has already referred to it.
After the event, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has tabled a total of six amendments to the Funk report.
The effect of those six amendments will be that the total expenditure of ECU 1, 381 million proposed by the Commission will be increased by nearly ECU 600 million.
These amendments were at no time the subject of discussion in the opinion prepared by the Committee on Budgets for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I should therefore like to point out that, in these circumstances, it is in my opinion impossible for a decision to be taken today, Friday, on the Funk report. In view of the increased volume of expenditure, no proposal for covering which has ever been discussed, there must be further consultations.
With the agreement of my group, therefore, I must ask that Mr Funk's report be referred back to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to provide an opportunity for the appropriate consultations.
Thank you, Mr Samland.
Your group is therefore asking for the report to be referred back to committee.
Before we vote on that, it is possible for someone to speak in favour of it and someone to speak against it.
Who would like to speak in favour of referral? Mr Fantuzzi.
Madam President, for the reasons I explained earlier, I believe that what we have here amounts to far more than urgent intervention.
Urgency could have been requested in a completely different way from that used by the Council and, above all, in the light of last night's decisions, I believe that there will be substantial amendments to this proposal when discussed by the Council.
In my view, there is no reason to decide today upon a package which, among other things, needs to be assessed as a whole from a structural point of view.
Thank you, Mr Fantuzzi.
Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert would like to speak against the request.
I should like to suggest that we should take this vote today.
After all, it is not fault of agriculture that it is facing this crisis.
Anyone who, at this stage, still has the nerve to put things off can hardly complain if the farmers come and tip all their beef in his front garden.
So I favour voting.
I shall now put the request for referral to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee)
Madam President, our group voted against the request, because we did not think the argument in favour of it made sense. The increases in expenditure which have just been added on here are not right.
Intervention is reduced as a result.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, we reserve the right to ask the Commission, after the vote, whether it is accepting Parliament's amendments.
If Parliament's amendments are not, in essence, being accepted, we shall call for referral back to committee, so that we can negotiate with the Commission; because this is the more important point as far as we are concerned.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
On Amendment No 22:
Madam President, the Green Group's Amendment No 22 is identical, apart from two points, with the Agriculture Committee's Amendment No 16.
The two points are the addition 'It shall come from BSE-free stocks, if there is a special premium' , and the second addition that this premium is also limited to 90 animals.
I would ask the rapporteur whether, if we take that as an addition, we can then include it?
There is a big difference: ' from BSE-free meat' , I can agree with that, but not with 'BSE-free stocks' .
If a farmer's herd gets BSE and it is not his fault, then he is excluded from any subsidy.
The man is ruined.
If I say 'BSE-free stocks' , then there must never be a BSE-infected animal in his herd, but when you say 'BSE-free meat' - I agree to these amendments of yours, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, in other words 'BSEfree meat may only be the subject of intervention' , etc. but when you say that a farmer is no longer to receive a premium if he has had anything whatever to do with BSE, then the man is ruined and it may not even be his fault.
From what I hear from the Committee of Inquiry, there is so much going wrong with this whole business, Commissioner, that I can no longer tell a farmer what may happen to him if he is entirely blameless.
Before the final vote:
Madam President, before the vote on the legislative resolution, I should like to ask the Commissioner, on behalf of our group, to tell us his position regarding which amendments he will accept, so that we can then ask for referral to committee if necessary.
I did in fact announce this earlier.
The rapporteur can ask the Commission to make an additional statement on any accepted amendment, and he may propose to delay voting on a draft legislative resolution.
However, this cannot be done by any group or by any individual Member.
I must now ask the rapporteur his position on this.
Madam President, I ask for the vote on the report to take place.
The Commissioner told us earlier what he can accept and what he cannot accept.
The report has been approved and can no longer be referred back to committee.
We have agreed on this.
We have also agreed on the resolutions, and the Commissioner has told us what he is accepting and what he is not accepting.
I therefore ask that the final vote should be taken now, and that it should be a roll call vote!
Madam President, that is correct, according to the Rules of Procedure I cannot ask the Commissioner unless I am the rapporteur.
But I can ask on behalf of the Green Group for the report to be referred back to committee, and I now do so.
That again is no longer possible - that can only be done once in the course of the procedure, and the request was made earlier.
So this possibility no longer exists.
Madam President, our group voted against the report although we agree in principle that what really matters is to encourage marketing and not intervention.
Essentially, this has also been decided now, but the Commissioner has not expressed an opinion on it.
This means that the content of the votes need not be adopted by the Council.
It can be assumed from this that what Parliament has now contributed in the way of progressive thinking is not being taken up.
In addition, neither of the two amendments tabled by the Greens has been accepted, to the effect that both in the case of intervention and in the case of the early premium there must be a guarantee that this meat coming onto the market, or be used for intervention, comes from BSE-free stocks.
I regard this as a major omission.
On the one hand we are involved in a committee of inquiry to examine the possible errors by the Commission in dealing with BSE, yet on the other hand we are putting ourselves at fault by not ensuring that this meat comes from BSEfree stocks.
In addition, the amendment to the effect that the early marketing premium should also be limited to 90 animals has not been accepted.
This is important to ensure that, rather than the whole of mass production being involved in this premium, it should reflect a preference for production on smaller farms where animals are kept under the right conditions for their species.
That was why we felt compelled to reject this report.
We abstained from voting on all of the paragraphs partly because we consider that the EU's entire agricultural policy is ineffective and wasteful and partly because we do not wish to contribute to the introduction of a new form of support, the financing of which is moreover uncertain.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I should be glad to know how the agenda for the rest of this morning looks.
I have just spoken to the sessional services and it seems that the debate on bioethics will not now be taking place.
I think that is a very poor state of affairs.
Why? Because the ministers are going to be talking about this very shortly and I should like to be sure, and this was the only reason for having this debate, that they can take on board the decisions which Parliament will have reached.
So I am asking if you see any possibility of bringing this debate on bioethics forward. Because I think it is very important.
Madam President, this is exactly the same point of order.
It seems that at the beginning of the week there was a great deal of concern that we speak about this issue and we have been going at a snail's pace today.
I wonder if we could move it up the agenda in some way.
I have already arranged for my car to leave later to go to Frankfurt airport, but I do not want to be leaving here at 3 o'clock because I will not catch my flight.
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I oppose this request.
This debate is taking place under extremely dubious conditions, as I had occasion to say on Monday.
The vote will not mean very much, and I shall have an opportunity to say so shortly.
Under these conditions, I can see no reason to give preference to such a debate.
The debate is in fact on the agenda.
All we are considering now is a request to move forward items 361 and 362 on the agenda.
Is that correct, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten?
Yes, Madam President, first of all I would remind Mr Cot that he must respect the wishes of the House.
If the House voted last Monday to hold this debate today, then we must abide by that vote.
Secondly, Mr Cot says that he is speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group, but I have a few doubts on that score because I have the feeling, from other speakers in the Chamber too, that Mr Cot's views are not shared by the whole of the Socialist Group.
Madam President, I ask you again to abide by the vote of this House and put a proposal to the House that this debate be held now, otherwise there is no point in it.
And Mr Cot can always say that he is not in favour.
Madam President, I am in agreement to the debate on bioethics taking place, but I would simply like to point out that I have a report on the agenda for which the Council has requested urgency, which was granted unanimously.
Consideration of the report will take five minutes and it is absolutely essential for a decision to be taken in order to avoid wastage in the EDICOM system.
So, if you like, you can move on to the bioethics debate, but please call my report after that.
Madam President, I must simply object to what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten said.
When I say I am speaking on behalf of my group, I am speaking on behalf of my group.
Madam President, the truth is that a good many Members of this House are involved in this matter.
I myself am one of them.
For example, I had the debate on a report in which I was to speak programmed for first thing this morning.
I am still here, waiting.
I do not agree with Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's proposal and would at any rate like to know whether the reports are going to be debated or not.
All of them, that is.
May we be told clearly what the order of debate is going to be for today?
Madam President, in my opinion this whole reopening of the debate on bioethics constitutes an abuse of the Rules of Procedure.
The report on the subject which bears my name was voted back in July, and now it is being brought back to this House by means of a question.
To my mind, Mr Cot is quite right about this.
Madam President, a vote was taken in this House. And I note, and this is a fact, and I say it again for the benefit of the honourable members of the Socialist Group, that a large majority of the House was in favour of holding this debate.
Now is the time to do it. And I ask you to initiate the debate now.
You can propose it, Madam President.
We should support Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is meeting next week, so it really is essential that we should vote on it this week, in other words as soon as possible.
I find it embarrassing enough that we have failed to adopt the Pelttari report in June, but it is even more shameful that such an important point, a point which really is a subject of heated public controversy in Europe, should be included as the final item on the agenda, so that it is possible that it will not be dealt with or completed at all.
So I will once again ask that we should make an immediate start, now, on the debate on the Bioethics Convention.
Well, we now have 9 more items on the agenda, and we have a request that the last of those items should be moved forward.
I will take a vote on that request.
(Parliament rejected the request)
So we will continue with the agenda as originally arranged.
Protection of calves
The next item is the report (A4-0261/96) by Mr Rosado Fernandes on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(96)0021 -C4-0133/96-96/0029(CNS)) amending Directive 91/629/EEC laying down minimum standards for the protection of calves.
Madam President, I wish to situate my report against the background of events taking place in terms of beef.
This is an important report from a philosophical point of view, in that there are schools of thought and behaviour which can be detected by analysis of this problem.
It is obvious that I think that any effort to improve the living conditions of animals is laudable and, of course, I also know that any effort that does not trigger an even more serious crisis in the beef sector is also laudable.
The trouble is that it is difficult to reconcile the two.
However, I do think that everything that we are learning and hearing from the committees of inquiry on BSE, concerning the failure to implement proposals made by Parliament, common sense proposals, has led me to be very cautious.
I think that we would be dealing a death blow to the white veal meat sector if we brought forward the deadlines which the Commission set in its first Directive in 1991, ignoring the investment channelled into this sector by veal farmers in recent years and not allowing them to pay off this investment - that would obviously do nothing but speed up the crisis.
Such a crisis could well be a huge one given that we have at stake here 840 000 tonnes of veal in the whole of Europe.
That refers to white veal. Only a small percentage is pink veal and the same would happen in this sector if the crisis were to be triggered; 40 000 families occupied in this sector would be made bankrupt or unemployed.
There is no doubt that the powdered milk used so far in the pre-ruminant phase to feed animals will no longer be sold, and nor will whey be sold or used and, in fact, it will now be considered as a pollutant.
We all know that these measures take a certain amount of time to be applied.
We propose that there should be a bit of a breathing space so that farms can adapt to the new rules.
This has always been a Commission habit, to find the justification for certain quicker measures and to convene veterinary committees.
I have a lot of respect for science but, as people used to say in the Middle Ages, I am a friend of Plato but I am a better friend of Truth.
And the truth is that science itself is not always completely impartial.
Sometimes science gives in to pressures of a financial nature, especially when those scientists - and I have been one - are civil servants and that does not mean that they do not do a proper job.
The truth is that there have been contradictory reports in respect of the wellbeing of calves, in terms of haemoglobin levels, and in terms of the way in which calves are fed.
Of course, if I spoke simply about the way of housing animals this would be looking at the problem from just one small point of view and would not be of interest.
I have tried to get away from this kind of dialectic which I think is fallacious and believe that I have succeeded - especially since colleagues have made amendments which have very much enriched the Commission proposal.
I thank them for this, even when their opinion is not the same as mine.
This is, however, a social problem we are dealing with and one which might make the beef and veal situation in Europe even worse.
We all know that animals will have to be slaughtered at a more tender age than has been the case so far and I have no doubt whatsoever that one way of solving the question of the well-being of calves is to be able to slaughter them at an earlier age and at a smaller weight, so that they are better off and do not have to wait so long.
As for 'socialisation' , I am partly in agreement; taking an approach which I think is one of common sense I have accepted many amendments and am now willing to face the consequences of what I have written.
Madam President, consumption of veal has fallen steadily over the last ten years.
One plausible reason for this may be the debate on the conditions in which calves are raised in Europe.
The aware consumer of today does not only make a judgement on how the meat tastes or looks; production methods and ethical aspects naturally also play a role.
If the confidence of consumers is to be regained effective and credible legislation is needed in the EU.
As the draftsman for the Environment Committee I propose a number of measures intended to improve the conditions in which calves are raised.
Calf pens must be designed to ensure that there is a dry area to lie down on.
In the legislation the dimensions of pens must be regulated in such a way that it is possible to check that the legislation is being observed.
Moreover, calves over eight weeks should be kept in large pens to foster their natural behaviour as herd animals.
My proposals on improved living conditions are aimed first and foremost at ensuring better animal care but also at giving consumers greater confidence in European veal.
As the EU's only directly elected body the European Parliament naturally has a special responsibility.
Consumers' demands for good food produced with due care for animals and the environment must be taken seriously.
The European Parliament's stricter common minimum requirements for the raising of calves in Europe is an important step towards achieving this goal.
Madam President, I am afraid I have to take issue with our rapporteur when he appears to believe that it is more important to have white meat than to raise animals in the most humane way possible.
In fact, it is possible to provide white veal meat without these very cruel methods which have been the practice within the European Union, or certainly within some countries within the Union.
Thanks to one of our colleagues, Mr Sonneveld, I and two of my colleagues from Britain had the opportunity earlier this year of visiting a veal-raising unit in the Netherlands.
There we saw young animals being raised in pens, not in individual crates.
They were being fed on maize as well as milk, so that they were not anaemic, and we were assured that the resulting meat was top-quality white meat for which there was a very good market within Europe.
It is clear that there could be problems for some of the producers who have to invest in new pens from their existing crates, and we have therefore included an amendment which provides for assistance.
I ask for your support for that.
I ask this House to vote for all the amendments which ask for these proposals to be brought forward and against all those which propose either putting back even further into the future these improvements for animals or, indeed, allowing loopholes so that they can continue forever.
We should not in the European Union be continuing a practice of raising animals in a very cruel way of which we should be ashamed.
I ask your support for the amendments I have mentioned.
Madam President, I thank the rapporteur for his report.
Whilst I do not entirely agree with the rapporteur on this issue, I can say that on the whole I agree with the Commission's proposal, although rather like Mrs Hardstaff I would like to see the matters implemented on an accelerated basis.
It is quite clear from the report of the Scientific Veterinary Committee that rearing veal in individual crates does cause serious welfare problems and therefore I believe that the phasing-out period should be no longer than five years.
Most people may not be aware that calves of one to three weeks of age travel in veal crates from various parts of perhaps the entire Community to one farm.
Three weeks is a sufficient period for the calves to settle down and for any health problems to be recognized and treated.
It is therefore preferable at that stage to get all calves into groups as soon as possible.
A young calf is a gregarious animal and it goes with the herd instinct as quickly as possible and I believe that to deny the calf that possibility is creating a hazard for the future.
I think that we have a report and some amendments before the House that we can all accept.
It is not as vitally urgent an issue as some other matters we have been discussing this morning.
These concerns have been around for a long time and it is appropriate that we should take the decisions here and now.
I also believe that it is appropriate that we do something to try and encourage the future of veal production and that we should do something to encourage the consumer to recognize that veal will be produced in a healthy and wholesome way, without infringing animal welfare issues.
Madam President, for me this issue is a question of whether one regards animals as living, sentient beings or as dead objects.
I believe they should be seen as living creatures.
Consequently, the principle must be that one should take account of their natural behaviour, their need for space, and ensure that they can behave as herd animals.
Their natural food should also be taken into consideration.
In practice, objections to this are made on purely economic grounds, whereas we argue from an ethical standpoint.
I should nevertheless like to ask those who use these economic arguments to think again.
What in fact is it that is persuading people not to eat this kind of meat these days? Yes, among other things it is cruel rearing methods, unnatural additives in fodder and the long, unnecessary journeys which animals make.
It is this that threatens a properly functioning meat sector in Europe, not the fact that we may no longer keep calves in crates or engage in other cruel methods of raising them.
We will therefore vote for the amendments aimed at tightening up the rules and against those that will make the Commission's proposals even worse.
The night before last I was not far from here, in the Vosges mountains, visiting a farmer in the Munster Valley.
The calves were happily lined up in the byre with their mothers while others were accommodated in pairs in straw-filled pens measuring about 6 m2 .
They were healthy, beautiful and, I have no doubt, potentially delicious.
A young animal which is suffering will not produce quality meat.
The current system of raising calves, whereby they are hobbled in individual pens, has got to be changed, but there is no need for sentimentality.
We will have to allow a reasonable period for the farmers to make the change, and we shall have to provide them with financial aid for that purpose, without penalizing them unfairly.
I have tabled a number of amendments along these lines on behalf of my group, the first of which relates to a definition of the types of calf - to eliminate ambiguities - while the other concerns a physical breeding limit - up to 110 kilos of carcase - which is easier to monitor than the age of the animal or other factors.
In the near future, I should like to see all calves being kept as in the example I have just given, reflecting a new ethical standard of production and consumer protection, and encouraging the traditional method of raising suckler calves.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as we all know, the protection of animals is a subject which is becoming increasingly important politically.
Parliament, like many animal welfare associations, has repeatedly expressed a desire for the Community to adopt efficient legislation in this sector.
The Commission shares your view that effective Community rules are needed to cover the protection of animals.
The general public in the European Union, and consumers in particular, take a very close interest in this difficult topic.
The Commission completely understands these concerns and, I assure you, will treat animal welfare as a high priority.
The present proposal on the protection of calves, which has been formulated on the basis of the best available scientific and practical reports, will substantially improve the standards under which calves are farmed.
I would therefore like to offer my sincere thanks to honourable Members, and especially to the rapporteur, Mr Rosado Fernandes, representing the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and Mr Olsson representing the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, for their painstaking and positive attention to this proposal.
In my opinion, Amendment No 2, the second part of Amendment No 7 and Amendment No 25 all genuinely contribute to improving and strengthening the text, and I accept those amendments gladly.
Unfortunately, I cannot accept the other amendments, for the following reasons.
Amendments Nos 1, 4, 9, 10, 11, 23, 24 and 26 cannot be accepted because they would dilute our proposed prohibition on keeping calves in individual pens.
In the view of the Commission, keeping calves in individual pens is detrimental to the wellbeing of the animals and also unnecessary in health terms, except in the case of very young calves or if the veterinary surgeon has decided that an animal must be isolated for health and behavioural reasons so that it can receive appropriate treatment.
Amendment No 4 would restrict the scope of application of the Directive to herds of more than 10 calves.
In our view, however, the Directive is important for all calves and not just for those in herds of more than 10.
Amendments Nos 3, 21, 28 and 33 are not acceptable to the Commission because it is the Council that decides which parts of the Commission's Directive may be amended.
Amendments Nos 5, 7 (first part), 22 and 31 cannot be accepted because these are covered by the provisions of the annex to the Directive, which can only be amended by the Commission following a procedure within the Standing Veterinary Committee.
As far as Amendment No 6 is concerned, the rules governing farm installations built or renovated between 1994 and 1998 are already laid down in the present Directive.
They state that these installations may continue to be used only until 31 December 2010.
In my view there is no reason to depart again from this 10-year transition period at this stage and set a later date.
Amendment No 8, in my view, is already covered by the existing Directive and merely repeats the provisions of Article 7.
Amendment No 13 cannot be accepted because the effects of the Commission's proposal on the costs of keeping calves are acceptable, in our view.
Amendment No 18 cannot be accepted because the proposed article is a standard formulation which is not necessary here.
Amendment No 27 cannot be accepted because the proposal regarding space is not based on the report by the Scientific Veterinary Committee.
Amendments Nos 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 32 and 34, which are designed to change the timeframe for implementation, also cannot be accepted.
The Commission has decided on a ten-year phasing-out period for two reasons. First, the new proposal, including the date 2008, corresponds to the present Directive, which provides for the same period, and secondly this ten-year phasing-out period was chosen to ensure that farmers would not incur any additional costs because of additional investments that would have to be brought forward.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Madam President, in this matter of battery calves, and indeed in most agricultural matters, everybody is a victim: the calves are victims, the farmers are being forced into a crazy form of hyper-productivism - and mad cow disease shows us where that leads - and I am not sure that the consumers are any better off.
I am sensitive to Mr Rosado Fernandes's arguments about the 100, 000 tonnes of whey which are going to poison the planet, the 800, 000 tonnes of meat that are going to make the market a little more unstable, the 42, 000 families who are going to be back on the dole, the haemoglobin, the iron, etc..
And yet the real choice is not between productivity and sentimentality but between a natural order of things and an unnatural one.
The priority must go to the natural order of things, which does not include keeping calves in concentration camps.
The situation is clearcut: a budgetary problem arises regarding the adaptation of the pens, and we need to settle that problem and put an end - starting with the calves - to this nonsensical form of agriculture which has brought us to the point of mad cow disease.
That's all, Madam President.
In my view, we have an urgent interest in ensuring that the subject of bioethics is debated before the end of today. It may not have been clear to many people during the earlier vote that the interpreter service ends at 1.00 p.m., and you thought that the interpreters would work longer, so that there would be a danger that, for the second time, we would be unable to adopt a resolution.
I would therefore like to urge you most strongly just to take the Lulling report - because it is urgent - without debate and to postpone the other reports, or alternatively to take them without debate as well. I would strongly urge you to make sure that we are clear again about the sequence of events, because we are running the risk that the subject of bioethics is going to be deleted from the agenda.
So, for this reason, I appeal to you once again - I know, we could find ourselves starting a debate on the Rules of Procedure - to treat this matter as urgent and try to take the report without debate and then move on to the bioethics item.
Madam President, I absolutely agree with that, because I only need to say a few words about my report.
The fact is that I need to make an oral correction to our amendment.
That is the only thing.
I must do that, though, otherwise the House will not know what it is about.
I would agree with the suggestion.
That is very difficult.
We have a very full agenda.
I am sorry, but that is what the House decided, with the agreement of the group presidents.
I still have another eight items on the agenda, and I cannot simply ignore them and move forward one particular item.
We can't work like that.
If the item on the agenda is called and there is still time, then everyone will have to show restraint and work quickly.
In practice, we can take items without debate if the speakers agree, but I cannot change the agenda at this stage, because, after all, we voted on it previously.
We simply must not waste any time.
If we work quickly, then we can vote on it.
I see no alternative at present.
Very briefly, I think we need to be completely clear now about whether the House agrees the other reports to be taken without debate.
Then we can get through this very quickly.
Anyone who does not accept that, though, will have to bear the responsibility if the European Parliament completely fails to express an opinion on this explosive subject of 'human dignity and biomedicine' .
Mr Liese, although that is a very attractive suggestion, I can only say that the report was prepared by the committees and people do have the opportunity to speak here.
There is one thing I can do: when the report is called, I can ask whether the speakers are willing to forego their speaking time.
That is the only thing I can do.
Madam President, not long ago my colleague Jean-Pierre Cot, who had two reasons for being angry, made a very sensible point.
If a subject like bioethics is as critical as we hear - and it is - we certainly cannot skip over it in an empty House, between trains or between aircraft.
Mr Liese, I agree with you so strongly that the matter is of crucial importance that I am against skipping over it.
That is why it is stupid to deprive some of us of our speaking time in order to skip over a crucial debate.
Protection against specified zoonoses
The next item is the report (A4-0237/96) by Mr Martinez, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(95)0491 - C4-0527/95-95/0255(CNS)) amending Directive 92/117/EEC concerning measures for protection against specified zoonoses and specified zoonotic agents in animals and products of animal origin in order to prevent outbreaks of food-borne infections and intoxications.
In view of the pressure of time, I shall forego my speaking time, though I would ask that what I have to say should be taken as an explanation of vote.
Madam President, Commissioner, the mere suspicion that BSE - mad cow disease - is transmissible to man has caused the virtual collapse of the European beef market.
Restoring consumer confidence is costing billions of ECUs from public funds.
BSE has plunged the European Union into a deep political crisis.
For months on end the British government has been crippling the Council, and it is going to go on doing so.
The British government played down the risks of the possible transmissibility of BSE to man for many years, and it now transpires that the Commission, too, was a party to this conspiracy of silence.
It would be nice to think that the Commission has learnt something, but obviously this is not the case.
I put a question to you, Commissioner, about the so-called bovine AIDS, a BIV virus which, like the HIV virus, belongs to the retrovirus group.
In your answer, Commissioner, you told me that this disease has occurred on one farm in the United Kingdom.
But in the very next paragraph of your answer you refer to a world-wide spreading of the BIV virus.
And then you go on to tell me - and I quote - on good authority that BIV and the other retroviruses found in animals have no effect on human health.
According to my information, there is a strong suspicion that HIV viruses were transmitted from apes to man.
But it would be misleading - your word, Commissioner, misleading - to talk about congenital immunodeficiency, in other words AIDS, because this disease does not result in AIDS-type symptoms.
At the same time, though, you say that further studies are needed to enable the Commission to assess the importance of this BIV virus.
Your line of argument here has a familiar ring to me.
We heard exactly the same kind of argument for years about BSE.
The Commission is now confronted by the shattered remnants of European agriculture.
The Commission must take immediate action to ensure that the 'polluter pays' principle applies in agriculture, too.
And the Commission must also acknowledge that the plague-like spread of zoonoses is encouraged by intensive agriculture - that intensive agriculture which the EU subsidizes with half its budget.
Madam President, I wish to make clear straightaway that I do not mean any disrespect to honourable Members who were more interested in bioethics but, as the rapporteur, Mr Martinez, has properly stressed, this report which seemed destined to interest only veterinarians or a very few others, it is of very great interest and, above all, hugely topical, with the explosion of BSE and its discussion by the committee of inquiry.
We met yesterday for four hours with the committee of inquiry into BSE, and it was actually during those proceedings that gaps emerged, new concerns justifying continued discussion of the report, given that, of the some 200 zoonoses currently being studied in Europe, I would say the BSE is still by far the least well-understood, not only because of the effects it may have on man and therefore the possibility that it might trigger the notorious Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease but also because of its effects on the animals themselves.
This report therefore constitutes another reason for investigating further at a time of great concern for Europe, in the wake of the information Commissioner Fischler gave us even today.
This is not therefore a report of lesser importance than others; it is not an opportunity to waste time.
It is a further call for a greater concentration of commitment and effort, for greater determination to tackle this with transparency and clarity but, above all, by making available adequate resources.
We learnt yesterday that, during the bad years of the so-called 'black hole' in the fight against BSE, when, after the alarm was raised, practically nothing or very little was done to try to understand the causes or find remedies, we did not have the resources to organize the teams of inspectors, to pay their subsistence, to approach renowned scientists and ask them to help explain the epidemic.
That is cause for concern!
If that is what has happened in the case of one of the 200 zoonoses at this time, what can we say about the others which have hitherto been studied in part only?
I would say that the main concern continues to be the same: first of all, the health of citizens, then, in second place, protecting the market.
But is specifically on account of citizens' health that we are concerned about the information emerging from scientific studies.
It is said that it is not really certain that BSE or other zoonoses can affect the health of citizens and influence Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Well, if the scientists lack the courage or are cautiously taking refuge behind the data that science makes available to them, statistics are unintentionally more forthcoming: the fact is that in the first four months of this year - to avoid inundating you with figures, I shall quote only certain statistics relating to this development - Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease has claimed two victims in France, three in Italy, one in Germany and eleven in the United Kingdom.
And is there anyone who still dares to say that it may be that BSE does not affect man; that it may have nothing to do with that kind of disease? Is there anyone who will tell us further, Madam President, that BSE cannot be a negative factor in other forms of disease as yet unknown to us?
That is why it is right to be concerned; it is right that this debate should be taking place, and I promise, as a penance, to sit through the whole of the debate on biotechnology or bioethics.
Madam President, I really would like to do my bit to keep things short.
But I must make one thing clear: the reason why the Commission is rejecting Mr Martinez's amendments is not because we were not interested in the best possible data on BSE but because accepting them would mean that the quality of information would deteriorate.
The frequency and detail of the information on BSE is, in fact, higher at present than it would be if the amendment were adopted.
In addition, I should like to say this to Mrs Crepaz: I shall be very happy to explain to her, outside this sitting, how things stand with the BIV virus, because what she had to say made it clear to me that there are certain gaps in her knowledge.
Thank you very much.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
The purpose of Directive 92/117/EEC is to create a reliable system for reporting the occurrence of zoonoses.
By zoonoses we mean infectious diseases in animals which can be directly or indirectly transmitted to man.
This Directive needs to be reviewed, because the prevention and control of zoonoses have become enormously more important in recent years.
Until this review has been concluded, the Commission proposes that the current implementation period should be extended.
In Mr Martinez's report, the Committee on Agriculture favours this extension.
The rapporteur also proposes that mad cow disease, BSE, should be added to the list of zoonoses in a new article as a potential zoonosis.
These proposals were accepted by the Committee on Agriculture.
As the spokesman for the EPP Group, I should like to support this proposal.
When the first cases of BSE occurred in 1986, very little was known about this disease.
The origin was suspected to be scrapie in sheep.
No one would have guessed at that time that this illness might, indirectly, represent a hazard to man.
When a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease was identified in March this year, suspicion that BSE might be transmissible to man hardened.
Despite intensive research, however, no scientific proof of this has yet been produced.
Since then, European agriculture has been facing its most severe crisis to date.
Consumer confidence has been replaced by widespread mistrust.
The beef market has virtually collapsed in extensive areas of the European Union.
Many farmers, not to mention operators of slaughterhouses and meat businesses, are facing ruin.
The most extreme reaction among consumers has occurred, primarily, in countries where there have been no cases of BSE at all.
What we need now, apart from financial support for farmers, are measures to restore confidence and get sales moving again.
We need effective controls and an obligatory Union-wide labelling system for meat, so that the consumer can identify the region from which the meat comes.
We need arrangements to guarantee origin, such as already exist in Germany.
By including BSE in Directive 92/117/EEC as a potential zoonosis, the European Parliament is encouraging the systematic recording of this disease.
This will help to win back the confidence of Europe's citizens in beef.
I am voting for the amendments in the Martinez report but should nevertheless like to state my objection to the erroneous statements made in the section on bread.
As far as what is described as 'Scandinavian fundamentalism as regards salmonella' is concerned, one can only say that before Sweden became a Member of the EU we had more or less eradicated salmonella in Sweden, while our Scandinavian neighbour Denmark had a relatively high incidence of salmonella in its chickens.
I doubt whether this difference resulted from differences in the degree of fear of the infection or in the number of precautionary hygiene measures or health requirements.
The reason is more likely to have been that we were able to impose strict border controls and that we had limited use of antibiotics in animal fodder.
I never believed that in a public parliamentary report Sweden's concern for public health and our successful battle against salmonella would be described as 'Scandinavian fundamentalism as regards salmonella' .
The rapporteur also more or less accuses people in Northern Europe of being hypochondriacs where salmonella is concerned.
There are many theories as to why the number of cases of salmonella increases as one moves away from the Mediterranean towards Scandinavia.
For my part I believe that this is because of stricter health inspections and adequate medical care which mean that all cases of salmonella infection in Scandinavia are treated.
I do not believe that health inspections and medical care are as good in the Mediterranean region.
Members of the European Parliament should obviously distance themselves from the downright scandalous comments by the rapporteur in the section of his report entitled 'Different cultural perceptions of zoonoses' ; such comments have no place in official reports.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Respect for democratic principles in agreements between the Community and third countries
The next item is the report (A4-0212/96) by Mr Carnero Gonzáles, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security, on the inclusion of respect for democratic principles and human rights in agreements between the Community and third countries (COM(95)0216 - C4-0197/95).
Madam President, I will make my contribution as brief as possible to make it easier for us to deal with the entire agenda.
We are discussing, here, a matter of undoubted significance for the vast majority of European Union citizens who feel that the process of European integration should not be solely or exclusively economic or monetary in nature.
If we want a process to create a political structure, we obviously have to base it on the defence and development of clear democratic principles and inviolable human rights.
This House has always been more than ready to demand that the Union define a genuine policy for promoting human rights and democratic principles at the international level.
The combined pressure of civil society and this House has meant that, with greater or lesser resistance, the Council has gradually come to accept the principle that agreements signed with third countries must simultaneously include a political framework to promote democratic principles and human rights.
It is in this positive sense that we understand the content of the Commission's communication to the Council.
In order for such a policy for promoting human rights and democratic principles to be possible, at least three things are necessary: firstly, it must comply with a certain strategy; secondly, it must apply always and in all cases; and, thirdly, it must be established and promoted by a number of players in collaboration.
In order to promote democracy and human rights the Union must firmly, simultaneously and carefully make use of the instrument which agreements with third countries represent.
Obviously, the goal here would have to comprise the elimination of dual standards and exceptions dependent on the economic significance of the Union's contribution.
For this to happen, policy systematization is fundamental and should be based on the following: as clear as possible a definition of what is meant by democratic principles and human rights which, as far as I am concerned, must be based on the notions of universality, indivisibility and interdependence; promotion and defence of democracy and human rights conducted both through positive measures and through the implementation of the sanction, and, in the decision-making process, maximum limitation of Council's discretion when applying what we might generally term the 'democratic clause' , since success now also lies in actions in this sphere fitting into the framework of a genuine common foreign and security policy involving all players in our society.
Parliament's duty is to exert maximum pressure in this direction, taking account of the degree of judgement open to it, which, for objective reasons, is not available to governments.
We have to ensure that the demands of public opinion are satisfied.
The report I am submitting, with the unanimous backing of the Foreign Affairs Committee, is a significant contribution to this question, proposing, as it does, the inclusion in the new European Union Treaty of a clause implying the inclusion of respect for human rights in a statutory and general way, encouraging use of the most progressive clause, requesting that the Council and Commission take account of Parliament's opinion and that the latter be able to make recommendations on the subject, also asking Council to take account, prior to action, of the criteria of the Council of Europe, the UN, ILO and principal NGOs, and, when all is said and done, asking Council to act in this sphere by qualified majority and not on the basis of unanimity.
Madam President, the Union's credibility depends on its ability to be consistent in its day-to-day actions at all levels with the principles on which our democratic coexistence is based.
This is not the imposition of something alien on our friends worldwide, but has also to do with our being convinced that defence of human rights should never be seen in relative terms and should be at the forefront of our day-to-day policy activities.
Madam President, this will take no time at all.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation has produced a first-rate opinion and I refer the House to the written text.
I told my own Group on Monday how totally ridiculous I thought it was that the Carnero report had been put off to Friday.
But I am very happy to cooperate whenever Parliament works really efficiently.
I shall submit my written text to you and I compliment Mr Carnero on his excellent report.
You place me in a difficult position, Madam President, because this is an extremely important topic and, as there are subjects here which are linked with the Intergovernmental Conference, where we largely support the proposal tabled in Mr Carnero's report, I would like to explain why we are not in agreement where other matters are concerned and, at the same time, I would also like to be able to inform this House of the positions the Commission is defending with regard to amendment of Article 228 of the Treaty.
However, given that most speakers have declined to participate, and if Mr Carnero does not regard it as a lack of regard for his report on my part, I have no problem with submitting the Commission's document in writing. The document follows the general lines of Mr Carnero's report but, on some specific topics connected with the Intergovernmental Conference, with how to deal with not only the problem of human rights in extenso, but also that of social rights, the protection of children, hard labour, etc., we have our own ideas as to how to move forward in the context of international agreements as a whole.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Madam President, I do not intend to give up my speaking-time; in fact I would ask you not to count the time I need to comment on what I think is your interpretation that it is possible to make written contributions by way of speeches in a debate.
I think it extremely damaging if you allow that to happen.
Explanations of vote may be given in writing but certainly not contributions during the debate.
I move on now to my explanation of vote and would say that it is serious and regrettable that there are only about twenty honourable Members present, with Commissioner Marín, to debate such an important issue.
The inclusion of the human rights clause in agreements with third countries is a crucial victory; it marks the victory of duty and the right of interference which the European Parliament has, over many years, at least since the days of Commissioner Natali, persisted in trying to bring forward.
It is with great satisfaction that we have to thank the Commission, and Commissioner Marín in particular, for continuing along that path and seeking to consolidate it in the best way possible.
Yesterday, we adopted a resolution on the International Criminal Court.
The idea I voiced yesterday, and that many honourable Members supported, is that, in future, it may be possible to incorporate into the 'human rights' clause the jurisdiction of the International Court as a prerequisite for Community agreements with third countries.
This seems to me to be a very important issue; it is sad that it has been debated with so few participants and all credit to the Commission for going ahead, if possible, and trying to include this clause in future agreements on Treaty revision.
I just wanted to explain this again: no one has been told that he may not speak, but each individual has himself stated that he will forego his speaking time or put his speech in writing in the form of an explanation of vote.
A speech is not the same thing as an explanation of vote.
In the line of the resolution, I wish to demonstrate my support for the Commission communication, which heads in the right direction of making progress in the system of promoting human rights in the European Union's external activity.
This system has made important advances, in particular since the end of the Communist system, when the protection of human rights might have slipped into an ideological and geo-strategic conflict and so-called 'conditionality' , might have been understood as something which would more than ever interest the peoples of third countries.
Indeed, the defence of democracy and human rights at international levels cannot be understood - and must not be practised - as a means of imposing a political system which is western or European and alien to sociological realities or local traditions, but instead as a means of promoting universal values and, thereby, guaranteeing peoples and individuals defence against despotic regimes and access to, control of, and influence over power, all of which is vital if everyone is to enjoy the results of development.
Thus, support for the Commission's proposals presupposes a guarantee of respect, by the European Union and its Member States, of fundamental principles:
Universality, regardless of geographical, religious, cultural or political differences; -Indivisibility between personal, civic and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights; -The interdependence between human rights, democracy and development.This makes it inadmissible that the European Union or its Member States should, sometimes, appear to be more demanding vis-à-vis the situation in third countries than over what happens in some of our own countries.
We only have to look at the recent wave of expulsions of illegal immigrants to conclude that not everything is quite right in the countries which rightly claim to have a commendable human rights record.
We must not have double standards here, for Europe and the Third World countries or even for different Third World countries, for reasons which violate the principle of universality.
The end of the Cold War does not mean that we can continue to treat Saudi Arabia more leniently than Iraq, or that Cuba should be more strictly dealt with than Colombia.
European economic interests cannot legitimate the continued support for Suharto's Indonesia or Mobutu's Zaire.
No electoral farce can give legitimacy to people like Mobutu - one of many beneficiaries of a long-standing complicity on the part of various European countries.
The universal principles indicated do not, either, mean that we should demand more of weak countries in a depressed Africa, compared with the scandalous tolerance which is enjoyed by certain 'tigers' in South-East Asia, just because powerful interests in a free-for-all universal market have forced certain politicians to turn a blind eye.
This globalisation also calls for global imperatives such as a guarantee of democracy and human rights.
It is unacceptable that we continue not to demand the respect of fundamental social rights in economic and trade relations.
We are against disguised protectionism which perpetuates an unfair international economic order and are for the inclusion of a social clause in international trade agreements.
Finally, we also support the proposals in the report aimed at strengthening the means of monitoring and providing technical assistance, as well as 'positive measures' which can be used by the European Union.
In the end we must strengthen the consultative activity of the European Parliament, both in the European Union's international negotiations and in the monitoring and sanctioning of the rules included in international treaties in the respect of human rights.
My compliments to the rapporteur on his excellent report. Over and above the excellent communication from the Commission he makes a number of interesting suggestions for reinforcing the European Union's external policy on human rights.
The EU has a good reputation for the importance it attaches to human rights and everything must be done to make this policy as efficient and as effective as possible.
The human rights clauses in the international agreements which the EU concludes are very valuable, but it is essential to check carefully that they are complied with.
So more work is needed to develop criteria which can be monitored.
And these criteria must be strictly applied.
This necessitates a good exchange of information between the institutions and the Member States.
So the analysis unit for the common foreign and security policy which the IGC has called for should certainly include a human rights section.
Part of its remit should be to report every year on human rights in those countries with which the EU has an agreement.
But I wonder whether this is necessary for every country every year.
Is all that paperwork really the most effective method of scrutiny?
I attach great importance to the effective monitoring of sanctions and embargoes imposed by the Union on third countries.
Such severe measures must not be on paper only.
So they need to be monitored properly.
The drastic cutting of funds to monitor the upholding of embargoes, proposed by the Commission and Council in the budget procedure, is at odds with this and must thus be rejected.
Of course we should ideally strike a good balance between positive and negative instruments for checking the human rights situation in third countries.
Much can be achieved, not only by sanctions, but also by supporting democratic forces and by observing elections.
Lastly I am grateful to the Commission for the importance it has given in its communication to improving the coherence, transparency and openness to scrutiny of the communautaire approach.
The question of human rights must not be made secondary to economic interests.
This is a situation where we must put a stop to these tendencies that seem to be infiltrating the Council.
While, in the case of the association agreements, serious breaches of human rights could result in the partial suspension of the agreement, this provision is retained only in particularly urgent cases in the so-called Bulgarian clause. And now a substantial body of opinion is considering using the interim agreement formula to eliminate such reservations completely from economic agreements.
It was urgently necessary, then, for Parliament to put a stop to these tendencies by producing the CarneroGonzález report.
The next necessary step would be for the Commission finally to unearth the negotiation directives on the implementation of these clauses from the deepest recesses of its desk drawers and ensure that implementation of the human rights clause is directly enshrined both in agreements including the so-called Bulgarian clause and in all future agreements.
The incorporation of the international human rights clauses into the Maastricht II Treaty would be another step towards making the economic activities of the EU obligatorily conditional on respect for human rights.
The concept of human rights is the principle which acts as a bulwark to our democracies.
We must ensure that this foundation of our societies is not undermined out of a desire to tag on to it every new fashion.
But we must also emphasise, on the other hand, that it is a concept which must be one that moves with the times.
As a society fleshes out its social conscience and new forms of network crime crop up, of which the recent case of paedophilia is a sinister example, then the concept of human rights must be altered.
The same goes for the way in which society fleshes out its ethical conscience and is confronted by new problems resulting from scientific progress such as the cases of genetic manipulation or computerisation, which are alarming more than cynical.
Refusing to enrich the concept of human rights is in the end tantamount to condemning democracy itself - the very democracy which we wish to set as an example to third countries with which we sign agreements.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I should like to speak directly to Mr Marín and tell him, first of all, that I really am very sorry at the way this part of the sitting is going.
We greatly appreciate his efforts, and we would have preferred the quality of the work done by him and by the rapporteur to receive a much greater response from this House.
The socialist group would like to make the point here that, because the subject is unfortunately an important one, we very much hope that another debate will be held in this House on this subject, which really does involve the whole of Europe and all its values.
Secondly, I believe that a number of Members have not spoken because they wanted to protest against the fact that, in essence, this is a Friday morning.
We are well aware that those who remain really are the old guard, the hard core, or those who are going to catch a later plane - and, of course, those who are interested.
It was a positive protest, shall we say, and I hope Mr Marín will take it as such.
And then there is another attitude - the attitude of certain Members who would like to delay the proceedings, even for such an important debate as this.
Why? For a purely tactical reason: because they would like to get round quickly to a sneak vote on an important question - bioethics.
And so, of course, to get what they want with the bioethics vote, they are obscuring the debate on this extremely important report.
Personally, I regret this very much.
I say again that we really have appreciated our rapporteur's efforts, and also, Mr Marín, that we have a great deal of respect for the views you have expressed, even though we do not always entirely agree with them.
Madam President, in general terms, the Commission shares the view of this House.
We do believe that there is a need to reform the Treaty and Article 228 thereof.
We are in favour of there being, if possible, a single human rights clause and we think that the model in the Cooperation Agreement with Bulgaria, including the suspension system, is the most correct version.
However, I would like to make one thing clear: the Commission does not agree with Parliament's inclusion of the human rights clause in all the European Union's international agreements.
We believe that there is a need for it in economic cooperation agreements, financial cooperation agreements and development cooperation agreements.
Let me explain: we set up international agreements in the maritime sector, for example.
Where is the sense in including the human rights clause in an agreement on the maritime sector?
We set up highly technical agreements on double taxation, and there does not seem to be a great deal of sense in including the human rights clause in an agreement on double taxation.
We set up agreements on standardization within the internal market - a standard relating to washing machines, freezers, televisions and cars, for example.
There does not seem to be much sense in an agreement on standardization within the internal market including a human rights clause.
Telematic networks for statistics relating to trading of goods (EDICOM)
The next item is the report (A4-0274/96) by Mrs Lulling, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the amended proposal for a Council Decision (COM(96)0319 - C4-0420/96 - C4-0421/96-96/0173(SYN)) on inter-administration telematic networks for statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States (EDICOM).
Madam President, this report will not be introduced for reasons of time.
I have elected not to introduce it because everyone agreed with the urgency procedure requested by the Council, to prevent any interruption of the EDICOM activities.
So we can vote.
I would, however, like to make one clarification.
We have tabled a minor amendment, in the form of recital, to place this EDICOM decision in the context of the general guidelines on trans-European telecommunications networks.
As the Council has not yet reached a decision on these networks, the reference to the date of that decision should be deleted from our amendment, in other words the text should end after the word 'telecommunication' .
Otherwise I shall forego the right to present the report, and will give my proposed introduction as an explanation of vote.
There is one point I would like to make, though, Madam President.
If Parliament is unanimously agreed on granting the urgency procedure, for a text which is urgent, I cannot understand why it is not listed at the start of a sitting, even the Friday morning sitting!
It only takes three or four minutes!
I do wonder how agendas are determined in this Parliament.
Anyway, I move that we proceed with the vote.
I have no doubt that the Commissioner will also agree with me and accept this oral amendment to our amendment.
Mrs Lulling, the Commission has noted the modified amendment tabled by yourself and agrees to incorporate this item into its proposal in the new form you have submitted.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Having been unable to present my report orally, for reasons of time, I would like to set out the reasons why it had to be dealt with urgently.
We would have no reason to return to this matter, the initial proposal of which dates from 1993, if the Council had listened to us, more than two years ago, when we disputed its selection of Article 235 as the legal basis, a selection which also conflicted with the Commission proposal.
We did of course make an application for annulment of the decision by the Council, which persisted in basing the EDICOM decision on Article 235.
The Commission supported our arguments.
The Court clearly felt that we were right and set aside the Council's 1994 decision.
As the Maastricht Treaty has come into force since then, the most appropriate legal basis now is Article 129b, dealing with the trans-European networks, and more particularly paragraph two of that article which specifically refers to action aimed at promoting the interoperability of the networks and comes within the scope of the cooperation procedure.
We therefore have good reason to be satisfied as far as the legal basis is concerned.
We also have reason to be satisfied with the specific activities that have hitherto taken place within the framework of EDICOM.
They are of great value to the private undertakings concerned, which, thanks to EDICOM, benefit from swifter and less bureaucratic procedures for making the obligatory statistical declarations that enable us to know what goods are being traded between Member States, data which are useful and interesting for the undertakings, too.
In order to prevent any interruption of these activities, steps need to be taken to bring about a new EDICOM decision, on the right legal basis this time, without changing a single comma in the content of EDICOM, which satisfies everyone.
That is the reason why the Commission has rapidly submitted to us an amended proposal for a decision, the reason why the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy adopted my report without delay, and the reason why this Parliament agreed to the urgency procedure to allow a vote today and so enable the Council to correct its error.
I hope that the Council will learn the lesson of the present case and abandon its stubbornness in selecting inappropriate legal bases, thus threatening to jeopardize activities on which everyone is in agreement and about which there is no dispute, ideological or otherwise.
Madam President, I certainly intend to speak on this report, first of all to object, as has Mrs Dury, to the way in which we are working.
It seems to me rather curious that a rapporteur for a topic such as this, which is rightly considered to be urgent and important and for which my group expresses its full support, should fail to present a point that concerns such an important issue - the trans-European networks - in which the House, as we all know, has a very keen interest.
I wish also to take the floor to protest at the way in which, as a result of inefficient working of this House, we have found ourselves in the Chamber discussing such an important issue.
I was appointed rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets for EDICOM.
I was appointed draftsman of the opinion and, while I was preparing to present my report, the Committee on Budgets discovered that, in the meantime, the committee responsible for the substance had gone ahead and adopted its report.
I therefore wish to be included in the minutes, along with my explanation of vote, this protest on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, because it was made impossible for the draftsman of an opinion to do his job.
I therefore insist that this be entered in the minutes.
Madam President, I would simply like to say to Mr Dell'Alba that if the Committee on Budgets had drawn up this report, we would have annexed it, but there was 'danger in delay' , if I may say so.
That is why we worked so quickly.
I would have explained this if I had had the time.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, I wish to congratulate you for taking the vote on the Lulling report after the explanations of vote, as should happen at every sitting and not just on Fridays.
I am deeply grateful.
That is a complete misunderstanding.
All we did was vote on the resolution.
The other vote came earlier.
Aid to shipbuilding
The next item is the report (A4-0273/96) by Mr Moretti, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96) 0309 - C4-0387/96-96/0165(CNS)) on aid to shipbuilding.
Madam President, I should like to take up the theme of the anxieties expressed by Mr Moretti about the future of our shipyards.
We already know that employment in some Member States is facing a serious challenge.
I am thinking not only of Belgium but also of countries like Germany - I believe all our German colleagues are certainly interested in the future of the north and the shipyards - as well as France and Italy.
We have noted that the employment problem is not dealt with in the OECD agreement, nor is it adequately covered by any of the international bodies.
We are facing problems of reconstruction, shipyard closures, and this situation is liable to continue.
Since 1976 the European Union has lost nearly 200, 000 jobs, and 14, 500 in the last four years alone.
Meanwhile, the Korean shipyards have gained 9, 000.
Not that I do not welcome the fact that Korean workers have been able to find work, I am simply saying that we are not sufficiently well placed relative to our external competitors.
What we stress, first of all, is the need to be alert to the problem of employment in the shipyards. I am thinking, for example, of the ideas - which, incidently, have been emphasized in this House - about the reduction in working hours.
But measures of that type will need financial back-up and support.
Secondly, we call for a major research effort in this sector.
We know that if other countries are out-performing us, they are doing so in terms of technology.
Mr Moretti clearly emphasized this, because he calls for studies to be undertaken to give our shipyards the chance to compete where we should be competing - on the quality front.
Madam President, by way of an introduction I should just like to say that I find it regrettable that large and important issues should be dealt with at a time when only some ten Members are present in Parliament.
I would therefore like to begin by making a few brief comments on how we are all aware that the shipbuilding industry in Europe has especially serious problems.
However, to believe that state aid is the solution to this problem is probably the same as a dog biting his own tail.
The issue today concerns working vigorously to ensure that everyone signs the OECD agreement on ending support for the shipbuilding industry.
It is regrettable that there has not been a clear ratification procedure in the USA and that the Commission is proposing that the EU should also continue to provide aid for shipbuilding pending US ratification, though not beyond the end of 1998.
However, this is a solution that could also have risky consequences, because at present only a few countries in the Union have abolished support for shipbuilding; these include Sweden and the United Kingdom.
Other countries still provide state aid of 9 % of tender prices.
Obviously this support is something which should be abolished as it distorts competition.
If the consequences of this distorted competition are that Sweden and the United Kingdom reintroduce state subsidies, which the Swedish industry minister has said could be a last resort, this would quite clearly be a development in entirely the wrong direction.
There must therefore be a clear objective to put an end to aid and subsidies for the shipbuilding industry, even if this can only happen in a few years' time because of the tardiness of the Americans.
In my view free trade and free competition must be a completely unambiguous objective.
Madam President, I would like to thank Mr Moretti for his report which we feel is in general agreement with the Commission's viewpoint.
Given the problem we have today regarding time, Mr Moretti and Members of this House will excuse my limiting myself to clarification of the Commission's viewpoint with regard to textual amendments.
Three amendments to the text have been proposed.
The first of these involves a review of the wording of Article 1, paragraph 2, of the Commission's proposal and the effect of this amendment would be that the current directive would be indefinitely extended pending the entry into force of the OECD Agreement.
The Commission cannot implement this amendment for two reasons: firstly because this type of legal provision is always established with reference to a limited period of time and, secondly, and more importantly, because the adoption of an extension for an indefinite period could be interpreted as a weakening of our commitment to reach an agreement, thereby sending out an incorrect message at a time when both we and our partners are stepping up the pressure on the United States to ratify the agreements as soon as possible.
Therefore, if we were to propose an unlimited period of time, the United States might believe that the European Union is coming round to the US's position instead of pursuing its demand to the United States that that country ratify the OECD Agreement.
In addition, by extending the life of the directive up to 31 December 1998, as the Commission proposes, the European Union would keep all its options open, including the possibility of re-extending the directive from that date if this were necessary.
The second amendment is closer to the criterion upheld by the Commission in that it introduces the possibility of an evaluation study into the possible effects of there being no agreement as well as the consequences which might derive from the possible action policies which the Union would have to consider in the future.
The Commission fully acknowledges the concern behind this amendment and is in total agreement as to its basis.
In proposing an extension to the directive which covers a relatively long period of time, the Commission was of the view that, in the event of a continued delay in the entry into force of the OECD Agreement or of a complication relating to it, it will be necessary and appropriate to carry out an in-depth review of Union policy in this sector.
I can assure you that such an exercise, which would, of course, involve consultation with Parliament, would be carried out at a sufficiently early stage to ensure that the necessary decisions were adopted prior to the expiry date of the directive it is now proposed to extend.
However, the Commission cannot accept the form in which the amendment has been proposed, with the inclusion of a new Article 1a.
If it should be necessary for the Council to adopt a decision prior to 1 October - we have to be realistic - there simply is no time for this between now and 1 October, should the Commission agree to submit a revised proposal to the Council.
I am sure that all Members of this House are aware that this is impossible within the legislative cooperation procedure.
As for Amendment No 3, its objective is to define the area of study in respect of policy review and, on this matter, I can assure you that the Commission will be embarking on an in-depth review which might include the position of State aid in Member States.
However, the Commission is also producing an annual report on this subject whose scope is even wider than that proposed by Parliament.
Naturally, the Commission has no problem with this report being sent systematically to this House.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Madam President, I am also giving this explanation of vote, on behalf of my group, in order to have recorded in the minutes my protest that an issue as important as this should be debated with so few Members present.
This does no credit to Parliament, nor does it pay due respect to Commissioner Marín who is assiduous and punctual in attending: therefore I wish categorically to see my explanation of vote entered in the minutes.
Aside from that, I am from the major port of Livorno and so the issue of the shipbuilding subsidy is of particular concern. In those terms, the Moretti report is very important because, despite our differences with Commissioner Marín, which I personally venture to dispute, I actually believe - and honourable Members have shown that they agree on the importance of the Moretti report - that the decisions taken are well-founded.
Those decisions are also a way of indicating to the Commission the need for greater involvement, necessary in regard to this issue which, as Mrs Dury rightly said, is primarily a problem of employment. It may be that this is not made sufficiently plain, is not sufficiently developed in the text, but it is certainly encompassed by our continuing demand that the point of reference for every proposal should be the issue of jobs and employment.
As I have already said, my group will be voting in favour of the Moretti report, in the hope that the Commission will review its stance and accept the two amendments tabled.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution.)
Utility models in the single market
The next item is the report (A4-0216/96) by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bés, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the European Commission's Green Paper relating to the protection of utility models in the single market (COM(95)0370 - C4-0353/95).
Madam President, pursuant to Rule 131(1) of the Rules of Procedure, I move that the reports that follow, by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bés and Mr Kouchner, and the oral question by Mr Hughes, be adjourned until the Monday of the next part-session here in Strasbourg.
I ask that a vote be taken on this, to determine whether there are 29 Members willing to support my request, which I believe will be case, and that the oral questions by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mrs Roth should then be called next.
Mr Schulz, first of all, such a request can only be made for one item on the agenda at a time.
And, secondly, it can only be put by a group or by at least 29 other Members.
Before we come to that, Mrs Dury has a point of order.
I should like to say to the honourable Member that there is also an oral question from Mr Hughes.
It is an important question and must be dealt with now because it refers to the Conference of the International Labour Organization, which opens on 8 October.
The reason why Mr Hughes wanted to raise this question during the present part-session was that the conference is taking place shortly and the question relates to working hours in the maritime sector, which is one of the priorities of the socialist group.
Please listen.
At present we are dealing with the next item on the agenda, which is the report by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bés.
Mr Schulz has made a request about this report.
Was that on behalf of your group?
I have asked you to check whether there were 29 Members willing to support my request.
I say again, this request can only be made by a group or by 29 individuals.
I will check whether there are 29 people willing to support it.
All we have had so far has been a request to take a vote on it.
We now come to the vote to determine whether this item, the Añoveros Trias report, should be adjourned.
Mr Dell'Alba on a point of order.
Madam President, first of all I want to ask you if you have accepted the motion in respect of one report, as provided for in the Rules of Procedure, or two.
I think it is for one.
Mr Dell'Alba, I said very clearly that we are talking about the next report on the agenda, the report by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bés.
I have allowed the request for a vote on it.
The vote will now be taken.
Mr Dell'Alba, do you want to speak in favour of the request?
Ladies and gentlemen, it is all well and good to try to approve an important issue with a handful of Members, but we have to respect the Rules of Procedure!
In accordance with Rule 126, I have one minute to speak against the motion.
I consider the Añoveros Trias report to be very important.
The Green Paper on utility models in the single market is a report included on the agenda: all of the groups agreed on its importance.
At the Conference of Presidents...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Dell'Alba, you have misunderstood me.
The request was made on the basis of Rule 131 of the Rules of Procedure, and not on the basis you mentioned.
We will now vote on this request.
Mr Kellett-Bowman.
Madam President, it was clear on Monday that there was going to be chaos today.
Why has some better organization not been found for today's agenda?
Right, we are now going to take the vote which was asked for and is permissible according to Rule 131.
Mr Dell'Alba.
Madam President, I am speaking against the request by some honourable Members that the report in question be deferred.
It is therefore obvious that I wish to defend my view that the report should be kept on the agenda.
My explanation of vote against related to the fact that we had decided - and Mr Martens was present - to include this issue on the agenda.
I am therefore astounded that some colleagues now wish to remove it, and I reiterate the importance of voting against the motion by Mr Schulz.
We now come to the vote.
(Parliament decided to postpone the debate)
Madam President, I refer to Rule 19(2) of the Rules of Procedure, according to which the President shall conduct and open a sitting and decide when it ends.
As 1.00 p.m. is usually the end of debating time, may I ask you, as the current President, to contact the interpreting service with a view to extending the sitting by half an hour.
I will take a vote on the request.
Until that has been clarified, we will continue with the agenda, so I am now going to call Mr Kouchner's report.
Ninth EC-UNRWA Convention
The next item is the report (A4-0280/96) by Mr Kouchner, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Decision to approve the text of the Ninth EC-UNRWA Convention covering the years 1996-98 prior to signature of the Convention by the Commission and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (COM(96)0257 - C4-0422/96-96/0154(CNS)).
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I move that this report, too, should not be debated today and that we should move on to the next item.
The request has been made by a group, and so we can vote on it.
Who votes in favour of this request?
Madam President, surely we must take things seriously!
I am well aware that Mr Liese is obsessed - ever since this morning he has been visibly perturbed by events in this House.
The fact remains that the subject covered by Mr Kouchner's report is an important one.
I therefore propose that we move straight to the vote, without debate, but I am opposed to suppressing a report which deals with Palestine, another priority of the socialist group, and I would call upon all Members to pay attention to any important subject.
Mrs Dury, if you would be kind enough to read Rule 131, you will see that there can be no further debate after the request, and no more speeches for or against.
The Commission would like to say something more about this.
Madam President, I know the atmosphere this morning is not very calm, but I would like to inform the House that the Commission requires a decision on this report today , given that a decision has to be reached before 21 September.
The problem is as follows: firstly, the UNRWA is in an extremely delicate financial position, as is widely known.
Secondly, the European Union and Member States are the principal providers of finance for the UNRWA - i.e. the UNRWA is directly dependent upon the Community budget.
Thirdly, at this time, the Council is awaiting Parliament's decision to authorize the Commission to sign the new financing Convention with the UNRWA.
I would ask you, please, to understand that, given the political situation and the fact that the UNRWA needs the money from the Community budget, we cannot further delay the approval of this resolution.
And so that you can see that the Commission's position is a neutral one, I would advise you that the Commission is not going to accept the amendments proposed by Mr Kouchner.
However, I do need the legal instrument in order to be able to sign the cooperation agreement.
I would, therefore, ask for your cooperation, although I do understand current difficulties.
We now come to the vote on the request that has just been made, to the effect that Report 359 should be adjourned.
There can be no more debate on it.
Who is in favour?
(Parliament decided to postpone the debate)
Madam President, you have done something very serious.
I hope that the Conference of Presidents will put you right on this.
Rule 126 of the Rules of Procedure lists those items in respect of which the agenda may be changed and - are you listening, Mr Schulz, I am quoting: ' Only the following shall be heard on these motions in addition to the mover: one speaker in favour and one against and the chairman or rapporteur of the committee responsible' .
I therefore had the right to speak in favour of or against the motion tabled by my colleague in the Christian-Democrat group.
You have done something very serious, and I am asking you to put it right, because this was in breach of Rule 126 in conjunction with Rule 131.
It is not my fault that we have violated the Rules of Procedure at this juncture!
Working time in maritime transport
The next item is the oral question (B4-0851/96-0-0194/96) by Mr Hughes, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, to the Commission, on working time in maritime transport.
Once again, I should like to propose that this item be adjourned, or perhaps dealt with as rapidly as possible without debate.
On behalf of my group, I ask that this item be dealt with as quickly as possible without debate.
I find all this extremely tiresome.
But there is one thing I would say to Mrs Dury.
Following the vote on the most important report, Mr Funk's report, we asked that the wish expressed by this House on Monday should be honoured.
That was a democratic decision, and I note that Mrs Dury, Mr Cot and a number of other honourable Members keep opposing it.
Different arguments are brought to bear each time and I say that it is a good thing that we should tell the European Council and the European Commission what decisions Parliament thinks need to be taken on this very important matter which is one of life and death.
I am thus in favour of Mr Liese's proposal, Madam President.
Madam President, it was in order to avoid what is happening here now that I asked you to ask the interpreters whether they would stay until 1.30 p.m. so that we can debate Mr Kouchner's report, Mr Hughes's question and the bioethics question.
We have heard from the Commission that the Palestine question only involves a vote, and we can do that.
Mr Hughes's question, too, only involves a vote, if we adopt the same procedure there as we have with many other reports today.
Then we shall have time to debate until 1.30 p.m. so I ask you, Madam President, are the interpreters now staying until 1.30 p.m., yes or no? If so, then please let us vote on the Kouchner report and the Hughes question and then talk about bioethics.
It's as simple as that!
I am responsible for ensuring that proper procedure is followed, and it is important that things should go smoothly.
So I will propose this: no more debate, but we will vote now on the three reports.
Do you agree to that?
Madam President, we agree to vote immediately on the UNRWA report, and, as my colleague said, we are happy for things to take their normal course with the Hughes question and the oral question on bioethics.
I think we shall have time for that before 1.30 p.m.
Looking around the House, it seems to me that everyone agrees that we should get on with the voting quickly rather than discussing it any further and then starting a debate.
Mr Hughes has asked me to make this request.
I think that, for reasons of time, it would be sensible to adopt a procedure whereby we proceed immediately to the vote.
Now, this report is about extending the European Working Hours Directive to maritime transport, and an international conference of the International Labour Organization is taking place here in October and hopes to see a regulation to that effect on working hours in maritime transport.
That is the content of our motion for a resolution, and I would ask you to vote on it now.
I should have liked to hear the Commissioner's reply, but, in any case, what we want is a commitment regarding support for the various ILO conventions on working hours in the maritime sector.
I should simply like to conclude by saying that my group deeply regrets the vote which has just taken place on the Kouchner report.
I believe we shall have a great deal of difficulty in explaining to the Palestinian authorities and the Palestinian refugees the attitude of certain Members in this House.
Madam President, I would like us to vote and to respect the wish of Parliament as expressed last Monday, and I would like us to deal with Mr Liese's oral question.
Working conditions in maritime transport are not just a scandal - they are a cancer that threatens to spread to affect working conditions everywhere.
I should like to invite honourable Members to consider a theoretical experiment: what would happen if we had to steer this European Parliament, with all its different languages and working conditions, across the high seas - and without interpreters of any kind?
It is long past time that we tried to find European solutions here - perhaps using the instrument of port state control, since it has proved impossible to prevent outflagging and second registration - and ensure that shipboard workers, too, once again have working and communication conditions which respect the rights of the workforce and promote safety at sea!
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, we have to enter the proceedings of this sitting in the minutes, and the Bureau will then be able to study them in the appropriate fora.
I believe this to be the first time in the history of this House that the Commission has deemed it inappropriate to answer an oral question - it was not a report, Madam President, it was an oral question from Mr Hughes.
I think this is all part of the madness currently afflicting our proceedings.
That has been noted.
Mr Dell'Alba, the Commission would like to make a contribution on all points but, frankly, at the moment, what with all the files I have in front of me - 8, to be precise - I cannot see how this is possible.
I admit that I do not know how I am to do this.
Please do not ask me to perform miracles when the situation here is changing every 30 seconds.
I can do no more than I am doing and am, quite frankly, disappointed.
Biology and medicine
Madam President, I heard Mr Martens say that people wanted to vote on the Kouchner report.
Could you not put that report to the vote, since we are all agreed on it?
We are not asking for a debate, not a word, just put it to the vote straight away!
All right, so we will vote on the Oomen-Ruijten question first and then on Mr Kouchner.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
We will now vote on these seven motions for resolutions on bioethics.
Madam President, this is an important subject.
So I trust we are going to have a debate, because it would be absolutely scandalous if were now to rush through a resolution by about fifty votes, changing what was resolved by 400 votes in July!
I therefore ask that the debate should take place.
I believe that we can still hold it.
At any event, the socialist group cannot lend itself to such a charade.
Madam President, I very much deplore and am greatly angered by Mr Cot's perception of what constitutes democratic behaviour.
Throughout the week efforts have been made to block this debate.
Madam President, those who have attended are here in the expectation that this debate will take place.
I thus ask you, most urgently once again, to put this motion for a resolution, which has been the subject of so much debate, to the vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, please do be a bit sensible.
We asked the interpreters to agree to extend this sitting on condition that we would only be voting, otherwise the sitting would have ended long ago.
We are ready.
We have said that we will vote on this request now and then we will vote on the Kouchner report.
We are in the middle of doing that, and I am now asking you to vote on the preamble and recitals.
Mr Pelttari.
Madam President, in a word, I agree with Mr Cot.
I should just like to say what I think about this debate, which is being held here today in connection with the vote.
I wish to say this on the record, and in public, because this is the same subject on which a vote was taken here in July on the report which bears my name.
This joint resolution which the PPE, UPE, Green and EDN Groups have put forward as an answer to oral questions is procedurally unacceptable.
I wish to point out that Parliament considered the Council of Europe's Draft Bioethics Convention from 26 June 1995 to 17 July 1996.
The Committee on Legal Affairs devoted four meetings to the matter.
The resolution which the committee adopted in a vote was too conservative, and was rejected by Parliament.
Thus consideration of the matter has been completed.
Contrary to parliamentary usage, you have re-tabled by means of an oral question a motion for a resolution which Parliament has already rejected.
This is procedurally quite wrong.
The ELDR Group naturally cannot cooperate in such a manoeuvre.
It will vote against the resolution, which is being tabled jointly, because we cannot approve either of its content or of the procedure followed.
That has been noted.
Madam President, anything goes, including wringing a text out of a handful of Members.
Good luck with your text!
I want it entered in the minutes that not only the Socialist Group but also the Group of the European Radical Alliance vigorously protests against this way of proceeding and considers this vote to have been taken unlawfully.
Madam President, I entirely agree with Mr Dell'Alba, but may I ask you to vote on the Kouchner report and then move on to the explanations of vote.
That is our customary procedure, which should not be changed, and the Rules of Procedure, and the way we do things. The tradition in this Parliament is that we take all the votes and then move on to all the explanations of vote.
That is the usual way we do it.
I ask you to put the Kouchner report to the vote.
We are voting on bioethics.
I think we have done that.
Then let us move on to the vote on the Kouchner report.
Let's finish the bioethics, then the Kouchner report, then the explanations of vote.
Madam President, I don't like doing this.
I asked you to bring voting time to an end, so that we could finish up in a dignified manner.
I ask you again to do that, and to stop giving Mr Dell'Alba the opportunity to make more points of order in order to delay the debate which he himself called for, as he has been doing in this House for the last two hours.
Also, Mr Cot's behaviour is not undemocratic but legitimate.
I just wanted to make that point to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
But please, Madam President, conclude the voting now.
Because if you give Mr Dell'Alba the floor again after every single vote, we shall still be here next Wednesday.
I observe that the House agrees with you.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Ninth EC-UNRWA Convention (continuation)
I am now going to take a vote as to whether we should still put the Kouchner report to the vote.
(Parliament decided to move immediately to the vote on this item)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, forgive me for returning to the vote on bioethics but, especially in the presence of Mr Martens, I should like once again to protest on behalf of my group against the conditions under which that vote was taken.
In July, we voted, by 417 votes, on a text which at that time was rejected by the proper procedure.
Now, in somewhat different conditions and with 35 voters, we have just voted on virtually the same text but with the opposite result.
This is a working procedure that no parliament can tolerate!
We are going to forward this resolution to the Council of Europe, because that is what we have decided, but I would simply like to assure you that we shall also be keeping the political groups on the Council of Europe informed of the extremely regrettable conditions under which we have come to a result which makes very little sense.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is past 1.30 p.m., and I am not going to allow the floor to anyone else.
The interpreters really have had enough, because they have been here far longer than was agreed.
So I would like to conclude the proceedings now.
I would request that this be discussed once again by the Conference of Presidents, so that in future we may perhaps have an agenda which is not as excessive as the one we have had today.
I should also like to thank the interpreters most sincerely for their cooperation.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 1.38. p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament, adjourned on Friday, 30 September 1996.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you may remember that during the last sitting in Strasbourg, I asked why the Dutch station RTL4 had disappeared from our screens here.
Two weeks ago, I received a call from Parliament to tell me that it would be available again in time for this sitting.
So I came to Strasbourg full of anticipation and turned my set on this afternoon, only to find that this was not the case.
Channel 12 now has a teleshopping programme selling German goods, which is not the same thing at all.
So I would ask you, Mr President, to do what you can to ensure that we do get RTL4 back as we were promised.
My second question concerns written questions.
On 9 September, I tabled a question under Rule 42, which means that I should have received a reply within three weeks, or six if it was a difficult problem.
It is now precisely six weeks since 9 September and I have still not received an answer.
To whom should I apply for an answer to my question?
We shall look into your first point, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel.
As regards the second matter, you will know that I am the one who has been trying to ensure that deadlines are respected in all cases, especially as regards the questions tabled by Members.
If that has not worked in this case, I shall do all I can to ensure that you receive a reply very quickly.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 17 October 1996 pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
Wednesday:
The Group of the European Radical Alliance has requested the referral back to committee, pursuant to Rule 129, of the report by Mr Posselt, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the economic and trade aspects of the Europe Agreement between the European Union and Slovenia.
I give the floor to Mr Dell'Alba to explain the request.
Mr President, I should like to explain my request for this report to be referred back to committee: first of all, in one paragraph the Committee on External Economic Relations gives its assent, whereas - with all due respect - it is not competent to do so.
I know that a corrigendum has been issued.
But another simple reason, Mr Posselt, is that an explanatory statement serves to justify a report.
Yet this one, a report of an economic nature, contains a reconstruction of historical events since 1945, tragic events affecting not only the Community and various communities referred to in the report, but also the Italian community which used to live in these areas and which has been completely overlooked.
Since this departs from the subject of the report, and in particular because the explanatory statement takes no account either of the report or of historical fact, I am requesting referral back to committee.
It would, to put it mildly, be a scandal if Parliament were to adopt such an explanatory statement.
Mr President, as you will remember this was discussed at the Conference of Presidents last Thursday and there was agreement that some of that explanatory statement was not in line with the Rules of this House.
You undertook to deal with that before it came to the House.
I hope that will resolve the problem and that we can go on as planned and deal with the Posselt report on the agenda.
That is what my group is in favour of and we support your approach of trying to take out those items in the explanatory statement which are at variance with the Rules of this House.
You have correctly described the outcome of our discussions in the Conference of Presidents.
As regards the motion for a resolution, a corrigendum has since been submitted. The question regarding the motion for a resolution has been settled by the corrigendum.
There remains the problem of the explanatory statement.
However, I see that the rapporteur himself, Mr Posselt, is asking for the floor.
Mr President, I should simply like to say that I tried in my report to present a genuinely comprehensive picture of the economic and trade aspects and to link these - as is the practice in the Committee on External Economic Relations - with an assessment of the political context, which is essential for an objective evaluation.
There was near-unanimity in favour of the report in the Committee on External Economic Relations: it was approved by 18 votes to 1, with all the Italian members present voting in favour.
Mr Dell'Alba was not represented.
He delivered a minority report in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, but in the Committee on External Economic Relations the report was approved almost unanimously.
As regards the explanatory statement - which is not normally put to the vote - there was in fact an exchange of letters between Mr Konecny, the shadow rapporteur for the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and myself, and we achieved a broad degree of consensus on drafting the explanatory statement. I also took the unusual step of incorporating into my report all the comments of my committee colleagues, and there was a broad consensus in the committee that these too were acceptable.
I have now let Mr Posselt speak to explain the situation in the committee.
That was already very generous of me, and I see that Mr Fayot, as chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, is looking at me rather quizzically.
I shall therefore now also give the floor to Mr Dell'Alba once again on a point of order.
I know what that means.
But let me say that the vote which we shall have to take in a moment concerns the question of whether we refer this report back to committee, and nothing more.
Mr President, in view of what has been said by Mrs Green, we withdraw our request.
We are satisfied with the reply, as long as the explanatory statement can be amended, and the Conference of Presidents has agreed to amend it as necessary.
I would just say to Mr Posselt that I cannot possibly participate in all 20 parliamentary committees.
That allows us to solve the problem very neatly and correctly.
Friday:
With regard to the votes scheduled for Friday under the procedure without report, 29 Members have opposed application of the procedure, pursuant to Rule 99(2).
The objections concern the proposal for a regulation on the protection of forests against atmospheric pollution, and the proposal for a regulation on the protection of forests against fire.
These proposals are thus referred back to the committee responsible for reconsideration.
That is how we proceed, and this happens automatically when there is opposition from 29 Members.
Mr President, I am not clear about the list of urgencies which has been approved.
I was requesting the inclusion of the disasters which have struck Italy - the flood in Calabria and the earthquake - because the damage done is truly enormous.
Fortunately, not very many lives were lost, but tremendous damage has been done to our artistic heritage and to public property.
I believe that solidarity should be shown at the time, and not months afterwards.
You have misunderstood that, Mr Castagnetti.
I announced a request for urgent procedure from the Council.
The list of subjects for the topical and urgent debate will be presented tomorrow. There is a further meeting of the Conference of Presidents on the question tonight, since we were unable to reach agreement last week.
Mr Cornelissen, if I know you, you surely do not wish to raise a point of order, and I cannot give you the floor for any other reason!
Mr President, once you hear what I have to say, I am sure you will agree that I am right to draw your attention to a serious coach crash which occurred yesterday.
On behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, I would ask you to extend Parliament's condolences to the victims and their families and friends.
I would also like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission when we can expect to see the measures it announced to improve coach transport safety, which is an extremely urgent matter, as the events of yesterday sadly demonstrated once again.
I shall express the condolences of the House to the victims' families, Mr Cornelissen.
As regards the Commission, we shall be having a debate tomorrow on its annual programme, and that is precisely when you can raise the matter.
Mr President, sorry for taking up your time but I just want to put on the record as a point of order my objection to the fact that on the agenda for this week we have Question Time to the Commission at 5.30 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon and at the same time we also have committee meetings.
Question Time is this Parliament's one opportunity to put the Commission in the dock and put questions on issues that affect our constituents.
I think it is wrong that there should be a clash between Question Time and committee meetings.
As you know, Mr Crowley, when I first took office, I tried to ensure that other meetings did not take place at the same time as our plenary sittings.
The House has not followed my lead in this respect, including your own group.
So I can do no more about it!
Cinema and television production
The next item is the report (A4-0304/96) by Mrs Guinebertière, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Decision (COM(95)0546 - C4-0070/96-95/0281(CNS)) establishing a European Guarantee Fund to promote cinema and television production.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report which I am presenting to you today on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media was adopted unanimously, apart from one abstention, and yet this report has made the kind of stop-start progress which is unfortunately all too familiar to us here in Parliament.
Its subject is the establishment of a European Guarantee Fund to promote cinema and television production.
In the GATT negotiations, Europe obtained the cultural exemption which allows our political leaders to create instruments to support the audiovisual sector.
There are in fact considerable cultural and economic interests at stake in our information society, where the need for images is spiralling to dizzy heights.
This proposal forms part of the overall Council and Commission policy in favour of the audiovisual industry, based essentially on three instruments.
There is the television without frontiers directive, which establishes the legal framework, the MEDIA II programme, which as everyone knows provides support for programmes and catalogues...
(The President interrupted the speaker)
Mr President, first of all, many thanks to our rapporteur, Mrs Guinebertière. She really has done superb work on this proposal and has shown both vision and great attention to detail.
And many thanks too to the Commission and Commissioner present with us today for their proposal which, quite rightly, complements a trilogy of measures to support Europe's audiovisual policy and industry.
The Europe Guarantee Fund is a key card in our strategy in Europe to bring investment and jobs to this fast expanding sector of the economy.
It is always worth remembering that Jacques Delors' famous White Paper predicted there would be 2 million extra jobs in this area of the economy.
And it is only with measures like this fund that we are going to create those jobs in Europe.
It should also be remembered that we are facing a 4 billion dollar deficit in audiovisual services with the USA.
That again underlines the fact that this fund is essential to help redress that balance and very importantly enhance cultural diversity on our screens.
Cultural pluralism will only be developed when we have economic pluralism and it is economic pluralism in cinema and television this fund will really help develop.
The recent report by the European Investment Bank that our rapporteur mentioned confirms the value, viability and potentially positive impact of such a fund on our cinema and television industry.
The report confirms also, very importantly, the positive interest from the financial sector.
I make a plea to Ministers: they must take this report seriously as well as the views of this House today.
The European Parliament supports the fund, the industry professionals support the fund and certain visionary governments support the fund.
In this respect we owe much to the Irish Minister, Michael D. Higgins, whose determination to put culture and the audiovisual industry at the heart of the European Union is absolutely second to none.
We wish him luck at the next meeting of culture ministers on this issue.
But certain governments are hesitating; certain governments have said 'let's see what Ecofin Ministers have to say about this report' . Surprise, surprise - when they were consulted, what did the Ecofin Ministers say?
'Do we really need this fund?
Will it really create jobs?' Such negative comments display a level of economic and cultural illiteracy.
As Michael D. Higgins recently said, if the European Union is going to continue to be purely about economics and competition policy it will not win the hearts and minds of our citizens.
It is on television and cinema screens that we are going to win the hearts and minds of our citizens and by supporting our audiovisual industry.
As the Irish Minister said: books and films are not buckets.
Films are also not fish, I would add.
At the Cannes Summit of 1995 heads of state actually asked the Commission to go away and propose this fund.
I wish ministers had not so easily forgotten that they asked for these proposals in the first place.
So at the next meeting of Culture Ministers, under the judicious presidency of Michael D. Higgins, let us have a political decision that this fund should go ahead.
Details can be left to later.
The United States Administration has always been very serious throughout this century about supporting its film and TV industry.
We have to be equally serious.
Let our ministers show for once that they are serious about culture and the creative economy and that they care more about that than cars or carrots or, indeed, competition policy.
This fund should be up and running at the beginning of 1997.
Anything less would be to betray our audiovisual industry and the jobs that it can create.
Mr President, I thank Mme Guinebertière for her heroic work on this very complex document.
I note also that it looks as if colleagues from the other side of the House have stolen the Irish Minister for Culture in this context.
They have certainly stolen some of my own lines!
This is a very welcome report for those of us who have worked in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media on this issue.
The proposal for this guarantee fund is both timely and progressive.
We are aware of the significant growth in the EU audiovisual market - 16 % per annum - which makes it the fastest growing audiovisual market in the world.
We are equally aware of the discrepancy between the EU audiovisual market size and the position of EU productions within that market.
In this context a proposal such as the guarantee fund, which puts in place a fourth building block in the development of the infrastructure of the Community audiovisual market is to be welcomed.
Let us hope when it is up and running that we will finally be able to produce films which people want to see, will enhance our bank of cultural products itself and also be films that other Europeans want to see and will go to.
Ms Tongue has pointed out that this is a political issue and indeed it very much is.
While broadly supporting the guarantee fund, it must be stressed that the success of the fund will depend on certain key tenets being addressed in its structure.
First of all, it must truly be a pan-European fund.
It must be structured to ensure that all countries have access.
As we are aware, the banking structure and its relationship with film varies across Europe.
It is important that the fund plays a role as an incentive to less film-friendly banking countries to participate in film financing, to take a risk, to take a gamble, to take a toss at producing something so that they might ultimately not just be very proud of their own involvement but also it might actually make some money for them as well.
A weighting to reflect the different banking systems may very well be necessary in the fund.
Parliament has already addressed this equitable right to participate with its reference to the position of countries with small audiovisual capacity.
This is vital and must be retained.
It is interesting to note that the differentiation in the banking sector's involvement in film is not necessarily related to the country's audiovisual output capacity.
The role of the European Investment Bank in the structuring and operation of the guarantee fund, as currently proposed, is central.
We know it generally deals with major infrastructure projects where levels of security are very high and each project's timescale is measured over many years.
The fact that the project profile for audiovisual production is more shortterm must be acknowledged.
It cannot, as Ms Tongue has said, be viewed in the same way as perhaps more clearly defined economic proposals are.
The fund, as currently proposed, allows for the participation of distributors and other funders including broadcasters and independent European film producers.
This again focuses on a key element of European policy and thinking regarding the importance of distribution and access to the market for European films.
We are also very well aware that good progress in this whole area is being made under the Irish presidency where there is a passionate attachment and a very positive experience of progressing film production.
We will, no doubt, continue cautiously, but progress is surely being made in recognizing that the guarantee fund is a vital part of the future for the European film industry.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Guinebertière warmly on this excellent report.
We are delighted to welcome the undertaking of such a clearly European enterprise, whose aim is to support the European film industry and the wider field of audiovisual broadcasting, which reflects Europe's multicultural society.
The proposed fund is an intermediate step between grant-based systems such as MEDIA, for example, which do not suffice on their own to support European film industry, and clearly commercial funding systems.
A risk-sharing system of this type is pioneering and addresses the need to create European audiovisual products of high quality with prospects of commercial success, so that they will attract interest from major investors.
The report quite rightly points out the need for clarity, both concerning political will for the final creation of the fund and with regard to how it is to operate.
In that context, however, the rapporteur's amendments proposing, first, the constitution of an ad hoc body within the framework of the European Investment Fund and, secondly, the fixing of a five-year trial period, are particularly important.
However, we are concerned about the eligibility criteria for projects to be funded, and about the criteria of commercial success, lest these should result in a policy of support only for major projects that will neglect the individuality of the audiovisual sector in Europe and its multicultural aspect.
The report is particularly successful in drawing attention to those dangers.
Small and medium enterprises, and more generally productions from Member States with a limited audiovisual output, geographically small and whose languages are less widely used, should receive more favourable treatment exactly as happens in the context of MEDIA II.
We would therefore like to see a specific proportion of the total amount committed to such cases, with priority for proposals relating to co-productions by at least two Member States, and finally, we consider that independent producers, who generally give expression to cultural and linguistic individuality, should be given particular support.
Mr President, the Guinebertière report deserves a solid parliamentary consensus because, not only is it very balanced, but it also puts forward some specific technical solutions calling for the creation of a guarantee fund to promote European audiovisual production.
I would like to pick out some of the most important points for setting up a specific framework for this fund; bringing it into the scope of the European Investment Bank, which has a cultural side, in order to create attractive financial conditions for all the partners involved and, an aspect which I particularly welcome, the accent on including small production countries and small projects in the programme.
It should also be pointed out that, without this fund, the MEDIA II Programme, promoting training, development and distribution, and the Television without Frontiers Directive, regulating TV-broadcasting, will never attain their main objective of reviving European production and making it competitive with the rest of the world.
The Guinebertière report clarifies and reinforces the Commission proposal, which the Committee on Culture unanimously regarded as a good basis.
Now we have to overcome any doubts that might linger in certain Member States.
To those Member States which, although aware of the need for the fund, are hesitating to give it the goahead, on behalf of the Liberal Group I should like to point out three things:
all professional sectors of the audiovisual industry are unanimous in calling for it to be set up; -the EIF technical opinion, sought by the Commission, has confirmed that it is financially viable; -tens of millions of ECU allocated to the MEDIA II Programme would be wasted unless the go-ahead is given, since without the knock-on effect of the Guarantee Fund only marginal effects will be produced.I shall end with an appeal for a pooling of efforts and ideas so that the fund can be created in 1997 for a trial period, with all of the monitoring and control guarantees proposed in the report.
With this Guarantee Fund we should finally attract sufficient numbers of private investors to give European creativity an opportunity to show its strength inside and outside its frontiers.
Mr President, while welcoming Mrs Guinebertière's enthusiasm for the establishment of a European Guarantee Fund, it is easy to imagine just how much will-power, conviction, humour sometimes and optimism she must have needed to bring her report to the plenary.
Yes, we do need this Guarantee Fund to promote cinema production, the distribution of films in cinemas, and the broadcasting of European works by television channels.
We have repeatedly lined up the figures to prove this, every time there has been a need to defend our cultural identity and our cinema and television industry, almost as if we were dealing with what I might call - if I were not a feminist - ' a young girl's fancy' on the part of Europe.
Yet the employment potential of this sector is not insignificant, as Hollywood and the United States realized 50 years ago.
The result is that today, according to the figures of the European Audiovisual Observatory, 77.7 % of the works of fiction broadcast in 1994 by the 88 television channels in the EU were not of European origin.
That is enough figures.
I fail to understand the attitude of some of those in the Council.
What does it take to convince you? Unless a historic but unthinkable decision has been taken simply to abandon, to sacrifice Europe's culture.
Here too, the figures speak volumes.
The initial proposal, in 1994, amounted to 1 % of the Structural Funds, or ECU 1.5 billion over five years.
Now the Commission is proposing ECU 90 million, exactly the sum siphoned off from MEDIA II.
It goes without saying that, if it is to have a dynamic effect, this Fund should not give priority to large projects.
I should like to end by addressing myself more particularly to the French ministers who, instead of jeopardizing the positive role of the financing companies in France by proposing to abolish their tax advantages, should be proposing to extend to Europe this very effective method of funding the cinema, as Mrs Guinebertière has emphasized.
In the run-up to the Cultural Affairs Council on 16 December, this report has the great merit of reaffirming the cultural, industrial and economic potential and interest of the cinema and the audiovisual sector.
Allow me finally to paraphrase a statement by Wim Wenders.
He was referring to industry; I refer to politics and the Union.
One can perhaps accept that the European Union cannot afford to be idealistic, but one cannot accept that it has a right to hold its industries and citizens in contempt; it should not be allowed to do so.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the language of the audiovisual media is still - and will increasingly be - the first language of mass communication, entertainment and understanding: levels of active and passive participation will continue to increase because, for very many people, the audiovisual media constitute the arena for deciding whether they are to be winners or losers.
At the same time, however, the audiovisual media are suffering a fate similar to the enclosure of the medieval commons: language and expression are being reduced to market commodities, instead of being understood as the objects of a continuing public duty - a duty of care and custody, renewal and creation.
Likewise, innovation and creativity are not mere by-products of the competitive market, and that is why we need the resources to offer them public support.
The Guarantee Fund is one important element.
However, we should never forget that it is equally important to strengthen public-service production and distribution.
Nor should we fall into the trap of seeking a European answer to the abstraction that is Disney culture.
We need genuine diversity, including the capacity to enter into dialogue with others; we need genuinely panEuropean initiatives in which there will also be a place for smaller countries and language areas, which are part of our rich heritage.
We need a political logic that will counter the unquestioning acceptance of the WTO logic on a world scale.
We need this report - and I thank Mrs Guinebertière for it - but we must also realize, given the increasingly capitalintensive nature of this particular field, that the alliance of European film-makers, which first mooted this project, was certainly unrealistic in thinking that the money would be enough for some 17 years, without the addition of further resources.
We must also be clear that the figure of two to three million potential jobs - which has been used in arguing the case - is, unfortunately, not a realistic one, given the rationalization that is taking place in the audiovisual media as a result of new technologies and organizational concepts.
It is all the more important to activate this political catalyst, and to draw on the political will of the Member States to ensure that it actually works.
To recap, therefore: we shall support the motion, but we should be under no illusions - we have not yet achieved the decisive breakthrough.
Mr President, can finance and economics come to the aid of culture? This is to some extent the question which should be answered by the establishment of this European Guarantee Fund to promote cinema and television production.
For how can a strong, dynamic audiovisual sector be developed, when this sector has certain weaknesses which are directly attributable to underinvestment?
The Commission is now proposing this Guarantee Fund, designed to share the risks run by financiers when they invest in the audiovisual sector.
Under this mechanism, based on similar experiments in France and Spain, it should be possible, in the long term, to cover 50 % of the risks incurred by the projects selected.
However, as Mrs Guinebertière states in her excellent report, although this scheme will provide vital support for a fully-fledged audiovisual industry, a number of points need further clarification.
I am thinking in particular of the role of the European Investment Fund, a partner in the scheme, as well as the problem of project selection and how to reconcile cultural interest with profitability.
Furthermore, the financial framework should be specified.
Indeed, I find it somewhat hard to believe that the budget earmarked for the launch of the scheme - counted in tens of millions of ECU - will be enough to give it any real impetus.
We know how reluctant banks are to invest in what is seen as a high-risk sector: how then can they be expected to join in establishing a Fund with a turnover of less than ECU 110 million?
What is more, we are well aware of the imperfections in the organization of production companies in European countries and the need for streamlining.
Since they are too small, they find it difficult to compete with American producers, which are huge and still expanding.
So will the Fund be able to pump sufficient oxygen into this sector for it to forge ahead and restructure? If it can, then perhaps this Guarantee Fund will enable the David of Europe to triumph over the Goliath of Hollywood!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament is delivering its opinion on the establishment of a European Guarantee Fund just as a study by the EIF has appeared, indicating that a guarantee fund could be an ideal instrument.
It would operate for 17 years without any further injection of Community capital, and within ten years could be helping to finance around 630 cinema and television films and the compilation of some 60 catalogues.
We in the Socialist Group would urge that this Fund be set up without delay, for a number of reasons.
First, there are cultural reasons.
As you know, we support the introduction of a quota in the review of the television without frontiers directive.
Opponents say that there are better ways of promoting Europe's film culture, and recommend a defensive approach.
They talk about alternatives, such as the Fund.
We are now taking them at their word.
Are the governments prepared to help fund an operation which will pump new life into European culture?
There are also economic reasons.
Are the governments prepared to provide funding to expand an industry which is finding it difficult to withstand the tide of American violence? And there are social reasons too.
Making and distributing these hundreds of productions will create a good many jobs, but the question is whether the governments are prepared to invest in this type of new employment.
We are asking these questions because we are not happy about them.
The Council has already shown itself to be rather pessimistic about this Fund.
A number of questions raised have, in our opinion, been answered perfectly adequately by the EIF report.
Parliament, through its rapporteur Mrs Guinebertière, has also shown a great deal of flexibility and a very positive approach in order to give the Fund the best possible chance of success.
For all these reasons, we hope that the Council will be prepared to promote the European film industry by giving the Fund the green light on 15 December.
All Parliament can do now, unfortunately, is stand and watch.
Mr President, I too add my thanks and congratulations to Mrs Guinebertière, although I speak from a slightly different perspective than other Members who have spoken.
In considering this proposal I start from a position of believing that we need to be aware that public subsidies, by possibly featherbedding and insulating an industry from genuine market forces, can actually do more harm than good.
We need to be careful of the nostrum that problems can be solved by simply throwing money at them.
Certainly I am dubious that national or European civil servants are capable of judging what makes a good film and whether public money should be spent on one film or another.
That said, the European film industry is important, both as a vehicle of European culture and as an important wealth and employment creator.
In the television without frontiers debate, I am firmly opposed to the concept of output quotas, which I see as a gross distortion of the market. But I am prepared to look more positively at the Guarantee Fund provided that two important conditions are observed.
There must be minimal bureaucratic interference and the decisions on which films to back must be based on sound objective, financial and cultural criteria.
I hope that the advisory committee and other mechanisms proposed will satisfy this condition but it is a matter that will need regular review.
The other condition is that the fund must not create an open-ended drain on Community funds.
Projections suggest on a worse-case scenario that the fund will be self-supporting for many years - I hope so.
I particularly commend the amendment from the Committee on Budgets that where a film is successful and produces a surplus, then some of that surplus should be paid into the fund.
I note that even the executive vicepresident of Polygram - one of Europe's leading film-makers - supported this proposal when he suggested 2 % of net profits from successful films should pass back into the fund.
It goes without saying that there needs to be maximum transparency and probity in the allocation of guarantees, to ensure money is spent fairly, effectively and is in no way abused.
With these criteria, I consider the Community can and should offer practical and positive support to this important European industry.
Mr President, the exemption of cultural products from GATT does indeed allow us to create policy instruments.
However, the instrument we have created and which our colleague has explained so clearly and astutely, though it may be appropriate in terms of quality, because it would be foolish to believe that the free market will concern itself with cultural development, covers too small a range.
I am talking about money, Mr President, there is not enough of it, it has been siphoned off from elsewhere - from MEDIA - and I do not think this beginning responds to the concept of critical mass.
We will support it, at any rate, and I hope all goes well.
If the Council is listening, I will stress three points, Mr President. First, I hope that what is agreed will be kept to and that the absurdities of the 'television without frontiers' directive will not be repeated, which two-thirds of our governments ignore.
I hope Ecofin stays out of it.
It has shown itself to be incapable, lacking in inspiration and devoid of spirit or any ideas whatsoever for development in Europe - I need only remind you of the trans-European networks.
Thirdly, we all know that for the audiovisual sector to develop, other things too are needed, but there is a lack of political will, which the rapporteur very rightly described as lukewarm.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the battle we are waging here, ahead of the second reading of the television without frontiers directive, is helping to defend and promote European culture, and I know that this is an aspiration shared by a large majority in the House.
In very much the same vein, we have a proposal today for a European Guarantee Fund to promote cinema and television production in Europe.
The proposal aims to develop this sector by reducing the risk for investors and encouraging them to back a greater number of European productions in the future.
Our cinema industry is in fact facing a fearsome adversary, the United States, which can only be confronted with ample resources and, above all, a united approach to banking circles, which often have distinctly cold feet in this area.
Our colleague's report was overwhelmingly endorsed by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
This demonstrates that Parliament as a whole favours the development of European cinema and television, and personally I am delighted by that fact.
I fear, however, that the Council is once again playing a double game, though it is putting forward the idea of a European Guarantee Fund as an essential complement to the television without frontiers directive and the MEDIA II programme.
But at the same time, it seems to be planning a reduction in the budget for MEDIA II.
The budget lines are of course different, but the Council does not seem prepared to provide the funding needed to carry out its objectives; it appears to be shifting, by sleight of hand, a few million ECU from one budget line to another.
The risks involved in cinema production will certainly not be reduced by accounting moves alone.
If my suspicions were to prove correct, we would once again be reminded of the gulf between the Council's words and its deeds, and I hope that I am proved wrong.
Having said that, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am in favour of the report, and I support the establishment of this Guarantee Fund because audiovisual production must be assisted.
This is vital for Europe, and there can be no doubt that more finance, more funding, is required.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish first of all to thank you for the help which you have given us and I should like to congratulate you on the excellent work you have carried out over these last months.
You know very well what the Commission programme has been.
You know that, in addition to the Television Without Frontiers Directive - dating back to 1989 - and the MEDIA Programme, a programme aimed at 'reproduction' - i.e. anything to do with the development, distribution and training, with a sizeable budget of 310 MECU - we also felt that we had to find an extra means of acting and, after much thought, we decided that the best way would be to create a guarantee fund with the features which we have proposed; we have, of course, relied on the support of the European Parliament - and, therefore, we are very much reassured by what you have said here today this afternoon. But we also need the support of the Council, the other legislative arm, which is scheduled to meet on 16 December 1996.
I want to tell you that we are going to take your ideas very seriously.
In particular, any reference to launching the fund for a trial period because that is exactly what we intended to do.
We do not want to take any risks and we want to try and find out how this fund might operate; that is why we shall be operating it for a few years to see how it goes.
We must also take into account - and this is a concern of many Members of the European Parliament - special arrangements for the small countries.
This fund must not help only the bigger countries and big producers but the smaller countries too.
That is why we must bear in mind co-production between different countries so that the knock-on effects of the fund can be really effective for production and distribution alike.
I would like to reserve very special congratulations for the rapporteur, Mrs Guinebertière.
I would like to tell her that I fully go along with what she has told us here today.
The idea that the fund should support co-productions, stimulate intra-European circulation of films, help co-production between countries with the smallest film-making capacity, and the five-year trial period, all of which, I think, sums up the main points made by Mrs Guinebertière - and I must say that, from the Commission's point of view, we are fully in agreement.
This means that the European Parliament and the Commission have to join forces in order to try and convince the Council to make progress on this score.
I will conclude by telling you that the Commission can accept 21 of the 33 amendments tabled, in full, in spirit or in part.
We accept in full Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 12 and 14.
We accept in spirit Amendments Nos 5, 6, 9, 15, 16, 18, 19, 22, 23 and 36.
We accept in part Amendments Nos 11, 28, 30 and 35.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 7, 17, 20, 21, 24-27, 29, 31, 32 or 33.
The amendments which we cannot accept refer to the subject of flexible machinery or else certain problems which are simply ones of wording or presentation.
However, as you can see, we have accepted most of the tabled amendments either in full or in spirit.
I think that, bearing in mind all of the European Parliament's proposals which undoubtedly enrich the Commission's presentation, all I now need to do is thank this Assembly very much and very sincerely for its cooperation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Ariane
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0308/96) on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0377/96-94/0189(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a support programme in the field of books and reading (Ariane) (rapporteur: Mrs Mouskouri).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with great relief and after a long wait we received the Council's common position concerning the ARIANE programme for the promotion of books and reading.
Frankly, however, it is a pity that such a programme, with a very limited budget and a content which does so much to enrich knowledge and to contribute towards the preservation of our respective cultures, encountered so many difficulties in achieving an outcome more quickly.
This demonstrates to us yet again the extent to which the requirement for a unanimous vote is undesirable in a procedure of collective decision.
The Council's common position substantially reformulates the content and structure initially envisaged by the Commission.
There are four important changes:
First of all, the programme's duration has been reduced from five to two years - 1997 to 1998 - but in Article 8 of the decision there is provision for the European Parliament and the Council to adopt a new programme if the Commission's assessment report on the ARIANE programme is in fact positive.
As for the budget, this has been cut from 34 million ECU over 5 years to 7 million ECU over 2 years, while a budget of 2.5 million ECU was used for a pilot scheme for the year 1996.
Next, concerning the issue of comitology.
The Council replaced the advisory committee originally proposed by the Commission with a mixed committee, both management and advisory.
Finally, as regards the structure of the programme, from three actions initially envisaged by the Commission, we have now passed on to 6, a thing which gives us a clearer picture of the programme's field of application.
Greater priority is also given to translation, with the explanation that 50 % of the programme's budget is intended for that.
I could express disappointment at the fact that both the duration and the budget have been cut by so much.
Regarding duration, it is some consolation that the adoption of a new programme is provided for, but we cannot make do with such a small budget if we wish to allow the ARIANE programme to develop, and that is why an increase of 3.5 MECU has been asked for.
The programme's descriptive title has been slightly amended by including a mention of the fact that the promotion of books and reading is to take place mainly by translation.
This will reflect the programme's content more accurately.
On the Committee on Culture we wished to emphasize the promotion of works in the European Union's less-widely used languages.
The Commission is therefore asked, in its own assessment report, to explain the impact of the programme on the dissemination of literature in those languages. That is Amendment No 3.
For that reason, we preferred to revert to the legislation initially proposed by the Commission to assist the translation of works in less-widely used languages.
This means that where such languages are concerned, no prior assumption concerning translation into another European Union language is needed for such works to receive support for the ARIANE programme, whereas the Council's common position imposes conditions which do not seem to us at all justified and which create difficulties for the access of those languages to translation.
In the context of Action 2, which relates to cooperative projects, we have introduced the possibility of providing aid for the creation of two kinds of databases.
The first will contain information on books available on the market and on publishing houses, and the second on databases concerning semantic difficulties and peculiarities for technical and literary translators.
In conclusion, I should like to refer to the problem of comitology.
The Council's choice of a mixed committee makes for excessively cumbersome procedures in relation to the programme's implementation. the Commission's proposal for an advisory committee seems much more appropriate. I also want to add that we have tried to be very conservative and not at all demanding in our recommendation for second reading, choosing the wording of our amendments such that the Council should have little difficulty in accepting them.
I therefore hope the Council will take note of the improvements we have proposed and that we will very soon be able to go ahead with this ARIANE programme, for which we have waited so long.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Mouskouri for that very comprehensive indication of the way the programme has progressed since the last reading.
She speaks for all of us in the committee when she says how disappointed we are with the results.
Ariane is a support programme in the field of books and reading.
It is not a programme designed to solve all the problems of illiteracy throughout the European Union.
But the funding of this programme is so tight that we should be clear about its aims and we should not be raising people's expectations.
I think, therefore, that we should make it very clear in the title that it is a support programme in the fields of books and reading, primarily through translation.
It is also a programme which should give priority to books in less widely used languages of the European Union even if - and here we disagree with the Council - those books have not previously been translated into other Community languages.
This is the reason why.
Here is an excellent 20th century novel written in Welsh but it is only available to about 500, 000 people throughout the European Union.
It is a desperate shame that not more people can access this kind of book.
Waltari is a Finnish novelist who has written an excellent novel about an Egyptian.
This should be shared by people in Spain and Portugal.
But the novelists who use less widely used languages as their medium need a helping hand.
This programme must deliver for them.
The programme has taken a long time to come back to the European Parliament for second reading, but I am afraid there are still a few crucial points on which the European Parliament is at odds with the Council.
We are back to the old problem of comitology.
Our committee has been here before with the Kaleidoscope programme.
It looks as though we are going to go to conciliation again for the very same reason.
The Council is proposing that an undemocratic group of representatives meeting behind closed doors should decide the main implementation points of the programme.
They will also be consulted on every project which involves spending more than ECU 10, 000.
You can imagine the bureaucracy involved in this.
At a time when the people of Europe are crying out for less bureaucracy and more democracy this seems to be an act of deliberate provocation.
Finally, I should like to remind the Council and the Commission, even within the context of this programme, of their commitment to fighting unemployment.
They have identified small and medium-sized enterprises in this respect.
Why, therefore, did they delete a reference which would have given priority to small independent publishing houses? The European Union, through this programme, is proving that it has no intention of creating a Euromonoculture.
We live on a continent which is a cultural mosaic.
This programme is a small ceramic piece which will add colour to that mosaic and which will one day make up a complete picture which all the people of Europe can admire.
Mr President, I must confess that when I first heard of the Ariane project, I thought 'What on earth are we talking about?' Something to promote books and reading.
It is like saying, we are having a programme to promote seeing or walking or some other function which we actually perform quite normally in the course of a wide variety of activities in our lives.
However, it soon became obvious - and I should like to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri for her work on this project - that we are fighting a rearguard action against the passionate affair which some Commissioners are conducting with the new sexy electronic media to the detriment - for those of us who are passionate readers, as I am sure many are in the House - of the printed word.
So while this is a very small and modest programme, it is at least something to recognize and draw to people's attention the need to protect above all the pleasures of curling up with a good book.
Coming from a small country with a lesser spoken language, I should also like to recognize that, in this context, the small publishers of minority languages are indeed the true heroes of the publishing world.
Colleagues might be interested to know that one of the laureates for the Aristion Prize, which is part of this programme, is the husband of an ex-Member of this Parliament.
He is a very distinguished Danish poet, one of your own countrymen, Mr President, Thorkild Bjørnvig, who is winning the prize for his translations of Rilke from German into Danish, which although not a minority language is less spoken than some of the other languages in the Community.
We cannot remain immune to the fact that the coming generation of young people is also fascinated and involved with the electronic media and perhaps need to have brought home to them again and again by their elders and betters the genuine pleasures of the printed word and the need to protect it, albeit with such small programmes as this.
I should like to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri.
I hope we will get moving on this now, and long live the good book!
Mr President, I do not think there can be any among us who do not support every effort to disseminate and promote books.
We are therefore particularly pleased to welcome the unblocking of the ARIANE programme after so long.
The programme's aims are to enrich knowledge, extend the dissemination of the literary output of Europe's peoples, and facilitate the access of European citizens to it, particularly by assisting literary translation which provides an important means of access for minor cultures to united Europe.
The common position does indeed incorporate many of the amendments proposed by Parliament at first reading.
Yet, we cannot but express our disappointment - as the rapporteur already has - at the dramatic cut of the programme's budget which, in parallel with cuts in the budgets for other cultural programmes, demonstrates a general tendency to downgrade policies of support for European culture.
The European Parliament is therefore right to table amendments to strengthen the ARIANE programme, and amendments tending to establish more flexible procedures by opting for a purely advisory committee.
As for the less-widely used languages, we reiterate the fundamental position that these must be supported in every way and all attempts to marginalize or eliminate them must be frustrated, such attempts being quite overt granted that related dangers are also evident in the rationale of high-speed networks.
The issue amounts to a risk of downgrading Europe's multidimensional and multilingual culture, and supplanting it in favour of the ease and abundance of a one-dimensional form of cultural expression identified with commercial success.
For all these reasons we support the rapporteur's amendments, first to create semantics databases, and secondly, to include information on the impact of the programme on the dissemination of literature in the less-widely used languages in the Commission's assessment report.
In the same way we have in the past supported and adopted other initiatives aimed at securing more favourable treatment for multilingual products or ones from those of the European Union's citizens whole languages are lesswidely used.
I recall specifically the frameworks of the MEDIA II and INFO 2000 programmes.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I wish to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri on her magnificent work as rapporteur.
Unfortunately, the Ariane Programme has got lost in the labyrinths and we have been waiting for months and months for a solution even though this is about a subject as important as the culture of books and the ways of making it easier to read European authors in different European languages, the languages of European citizens.
This is a very important subject for reinforcing European identity, the meaning of Europe which all of us are after.
Measures in the field of translation should not be limited to the official languages of the European Union.
They should also be extended to those other languages which are official in certain territories of Europe although they are not official European Union languages.
The Commissioner, given his origins, is quite aware of what I am referring to in this case.
Mrs Morgan has also referred to other languages which are not official, such as the case of Welsh, and it is also important that people should be able to read other European authors in that language.
I am very sorry that this programme should have such a small budget, that its application period has been reduced and that the money set aside is so small.
The budget has been cut from 6.8 MECU per year to the current budget of 3.5 MECU p.a.
I think that books deserve more support and that it would be very positive if we approved the amendment which has been tabled to increase the budget for the whole European Union to 5.25 MECU.
I hope that, in the coming years, this programme can also be extended to other European countries so that we can see the works, for example, of Wislawa Szymborska, the Polish writer, this year's Nobel Prize winner, translated into the other languages of European states.
In this way we can help the European Union advance and not get lost 'in the labyrinth' .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the budget and the duration of the programme are far from satisfactory, and mention has already been made of the undemocratic character of the comitology which is proposed.
Unfortunately, the European Parliament lacks the means to make its will prevail against the Council.
There is no political will among the Member States to give people real access to the diverse cultural heritage that binds us together within the Community and beyond, and represents an important contribution to the cultural heritage of humanity.
The diversity of translation is a beginning, but the question should be much more broadly understood.
The primary production of books, the maintenance of archives and public libraries all have a part to play, and I should also like to mention three languages, or language groups, which should have a place here too: these are Plattdeutsch, Friesian and Wendish.
Writing, reading and books are rightly referred to in this context as the fundamental building blocks of an entire civilization.
I think it is a dangerous illusion to ignore the possibility that the transition to the age of information, with its new technologies for recording, disseminating and reproducing information, could result in the development of new forms of mass illiteracy.
The fact that most people can manage to understand instruction sheets and hit songs does not make the danger any less real.
Mrs Mouskouri's report hits the nail on the head as regards the Council decision on the Ariane programme, which is reminiscent of the trompe l'oeil technique in absolutist architecture: painting on windows where you could not afford real ones is just like making budget cuts on minor items, and at the same time undermining the function of those items by substantially extending the tasks for which they are earmarked and the range of potential applicants.
We regard this as a dubious practice, and one that demonstrates the real need for a change in cultural policy.
Nonetheless, it is a crumb of comfort - although we need a great deal more!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be the first of the new or re-elected Austrian Members to address the House since the European elections in Austria on 13 October, and it is a particular pleasure to speak in connection with a report by someone I hold in such high regard as Mrs Mouskouri.
My colleagues and I are exceptionally appreciative of the emphasis that Mrs Mouskouri places on cultural and educational policy.
For this reason, I think that the report is an excellent one and we fully support it, including all the amendments.
It is important for people in Europe to recognize and come to know and understand one another, and surely there can be no better instrument than literature for furthering knowledge and understanding.
Some points in the report which deserve particular attention are, on the one hand, the reference to small, independent publishers and, on the other, the significant mention of lesser-used languages - and surely we must also include here the languages of minorities.
It is very important that the possibility of wider dissemination should also be available to works of literature in minority languages, which are a valuable element of the literature of our continent and must not be allowed to languish beyond the reach of a wider European public.
Unfortunately, the budget is very limited, and of course we must approve the proposal to raise it to ECU 10.5 million.
While I have no wish to misuse this occasion, I shall use it to say that our group, which has emerged strengthened from the election, intends to carry on working constructively in this House.
We are Europeans, despite the repeated accusations to the contrary during the election campaign.
We do make criticisms, but our approach to Europe is a constructive one, and we shall continue to be guided by the principle that too much centralization is bad for Europe as a whole, and for the individual Member States.
Mr President, I should just like to point out to Mr Lukas that the elections are over, so there is no need for him to make any more election speeches.
Turning to the support programme in the field of books and reading - which is particularly important in our media age - I should like to take this opportunity of thanking Mrs Mouskouri for all her hard work.
In the late 1980s, the Commission, with the support of Parliament, introduced a European literary prize and a prize for the best translations of European works of literature, as a way of promoting books and reading.
What we should therefore be doing today is celebrating the fact that we have reached this second reading stage on the Ariane cultural support programme, the objectives of which are indeed worthy ones: the promotion and wider dissemination of contemporary works of literature and drama, and encouraging cooperation by networks and partnerships.
The element of cooperation with the Council of Europe is also important, as is the fact that the programme will be open to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Personally, I think it is particularly important that literature from Eastern Europe - literature that is unknown because, in many cases, it was banned for a long time - should be recognized and distributed in the European Union too.
This would all be very laudable, but the financial aspect of the programme is extremely disappointing.
Originally it was to have a budget of ECU 34 million and to run for five years.
By the Commission's reckoning, and according to our own members in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, that should have allowed for the translation of 2400 works of literature and 650 plays.
However, after a pilot project in 1996, the intention is not only to delay the programme, or reduce its duration to two years - which would be damaging enough - but to give it a budget of only ECU 7 m.
I would strongly argue that it should be ECU 10 m.
As regards the comitology, the proposal for a joint advisory and management committee is particularly unacceptable in the area of culture.
We know that bureaucracy is particularly resented by artists, and it is counterproductive in this area.
Just as Ariadne's thread helped Theseus to find his way out of the labyrinth, I hope that the new Ariane support programme for contemporary literature - while it may not resolve all our problems - will, with the help of writers and translators, give us a better sense of where we are going in Europe.
Mr President, this Ariane proposal is a poor substitute for the original and very promising proposal from Commissioner Oreja.
ECU 43 million over five years for three Community actions has dwindled to ECU 7 m over two years for six actions.
This means that there will only be an average of ECU 0.58m available for each action every year, compared with ECU 2.26m in the original proposal.
If we divide the 0.58 million by 15, since every Member State will want to have its share, we arrive at ECU 40 000 per action per year for each Member State.
This is about a quarter of a Commissioner's annual salary, not that I wish to begrudge him it.
In practice, the support provided by Ariane will actually be even less, given that the sixth action involves other countries too.
So now we know what the Council thinks about culture.
The amendment to ECU 10.5m is the absolute minimum.
My group supports all Mrs Mouskouri's amendments, and I am particularly pleased that she has also incorporated the ideas from the Gutenberg programme, as well as providing support for small independent producers, especially those new to the industry.
The Committee on Culture called for a programme on books and reading in an own-initiative report as early as 1982.
We earmarked ECU 500 000 for this in the 1995 budget, but despite all our calls, no legal basis was established.
I was the rapporteur for that report.
This was why we tabled an amendment to the budget last year to ensure that Ariane also provided funding for the Gutenberg objectives.
There are 90 million reasons for this, 90 million people in the EU who are unable or scarcely able to read.
The new article on culture gives us the chance to do something about this.
I have one final remark here for the Commissioner.
Ariane is intended to promote books and reading, but the cost of books is often a major obstacle.
DG IV is shortly to take a decision on the fixed book price in the GermanAustrian region.
I would ask you to refer to the article on culture in the Maastricht Treaty here, which provides scope for a cultural rather than an exclusively economic approach to this issue.
I should like to thank Mrs Mouskouri on behalf of my group for all her hard work.
Mr President, the development of a substantive policy for Europe's language peculiarities is vitally important, and certainly more so than any incidental interests of any Member States.
Cultural polymorphism is also linguistic polymorphism, and any approach to the European dimension, to European identity, must be made via language because I think we all agree that a country's best ambassador is its art.
For that reason, the ARIANE programme is very important indeed for the European Union.
The translation of literature, plays and poetry contributes towards a cultural upgrading of Europe's peoples and to the broader availability of works written in less-widely used languages. And let me comment that they should not be referred to as minority languages, as I have repeatedly heard them called and still do.
Mr President, Commissioner, in my opinion there is no further room for manoeuvre.
The ARIANE programme, ambitious from its outset and rightly so, has been more drastically cut in both duration and budget than any of those who inspired it could have foreseen.
Mrs Mouskouri has already told us about that and I will not go into details.
I too would like to call for increased funding and I agree with the rapporteur that at least 10.5 MECU should be provided, because I do not believe that a United Europe can be based on a single currency alone.
On the contrary, indeed, a European Union must first and foremost be based on the culture of its peoples, namely every form of art, both ancient and modern.
Unless our peoples draw together and communicate, no single currency will unite them.
The only thing that can unite us is the quality of our life, whether under the heading of environment, or cultural programmes, or equal opportunities for women. And it is unfortunately mainly those things that are suffering in the name of convergence.
To conclude, Mr President, I would like to call upon the Commission to adopt the necessary initiatives so that the programme, even if truncated, can begin at once.
Mr President, I rise with great pleasure to speak in support of minority languages and the rights of individuals to be able to read and study works of literature and other writings in the language of their choice, which may sometimes be their mother tongue or may be another language.
I believe that any money spent in this field is an investment, not just a cultural but a social investment.
Those people who know nothing of other languages, those who know nothing of other countries and of other cultures, those people who live, sometimes quite happily, in ignorance, are very often those who are most susceptible to misinformation.
They are the ones who are most likely to believe half-truths and distortions.
When people fall into this category, I believe that they can develop a fear of anyone whose cultural origin, whose language, whose religion, whose appearance may differ from their own.
With this fear, the next stage takes over and you get rejection.
Unchecked, rejection of other people leads to racism, nationalism and fascism.
By contrast, I believe very firmly that an understanding of other languages and learning to speak and read them is one positive step we can take to advancing internationalism, tolerance and understanding.
By supporting the translation of works of literature and other books into a wide range of languages we can do this, we can overcome some of these fears.
In an age where money and competitiveness are increasingly important, the major languages of Europe and the world will always survive on their own.
The others, the minority ones, just as important, like minority groups of people, need support - support, I suggest, from this Parliament.
I hope very much that in future we can diversify even further because I hope that we will not just concentrate our resources on those languages which are historically European, but will look further at languages which are now increasingly being spoken by people living and being born in Europe, languages which have a European history to them.
We can look at those in the future.
I support this report with great pleasure.
I congratulate the rapporteur and I hope very much that the Commissioner will also be able to give his support to the amendments calling for a higher budget.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Cultural heritage - the Raphael programme
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0307/96) on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0378/96-95/0078(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a Community action programme in the field of cultural heritage - the Raphael programme (rapporteur: Mr Sanz Fernández).
Mr President, the Committee on Culture is proposing a few but very important amendments to the text of the Council's common position on the action programme in the field of cultural heritage.
With these amendments we intend to increase the budget for this new programme so that we can boost the activity developed in recent years in the field of cultural heritage.
As far as comitology is concerned, the Committee on Culture proposes a consultative committee for managing the programme instead of the budget management committee proposed by the Council, which would unnecessarily increase red tape and limit the Commission's room for manoeuvre.
Mr President, the money that has allocated is the main problem which sets us apart from the Council.
The text of the Council's common position reflects an ambitious and well-drafted programme but the budget proposed is only 30 MECU over four years, with a review after the second year, whereas in recent years we have been spending something like 10 MECU a year in the pilot phase of programmes.
Therefore, with the Council proposal, the launch of the multi-annual programme would simply mean the continuation of activities already being carried out, without being able to attain the ambitious objectives contained in the text of the common position or in the European Commission's proposal.
The Committee on Culture proposes a budget of 86 MECU for the next four years: in my opinion, the Council is unaware of the role which culture has to play in today's Europe, the one being constructed, nor does it bear in mind the job-creating capacity of investment in the field of cultural heritage.
European construction must not be limited to economic aspects alone.
We really must involve every citizen in the adventure of the European Union by giving it a soul, a more spiritual significance: culture, the cultural heritage which belongs to all Europeans and European citizenship: this means that we will feel disappointed if the Union focuses only on the internal market and a single currency.
Therefore, the Raphael Programme will preserve and publicise what we have in common, this rich and diverse cultural heritage in all of the Member States and regions, and will bring out the European dimension of the cultural heritage, respecting the cultural diversity of our people.
Many governments, which are at present going through times of budget tightening, are drastically cutting investment in cultural matters, as if this was a luxury which we can only allow ourselves in times of prosperity.
They are forgetting the duty that we have to preserve and transmit the cultural heritage which we have been given by previous generations and handing it on to future generations; they are also ignoring the capacity of cultural investment to create employment, since investment in cultural heritage can allow us to revive the old heritage-related trades, create jobs and help the tourist industry - not forgetting the economic development of many regions in the Community which are rich in cultural heritage but backward in terms of economic development.
Furthermore, the cultural activities and the Raphael Programme will enhance mutual knowledge between the European peoples, bring out the values which are common to us and favour tolerance and mutual respect in times when exclusion seems to be growing and the rejection of anything different is on the increase.
Therefore, we must reject the paltry budget proposed by the Council for the Raphael Programme, the most emblematic Community programme in the area of culture.
The Maastricht Treaty dedicated culture as one of the common actions to be boosted. The multi-annual programme means that we must make a forward leap, a boost, and not simply extend the very scanty activities which have been carried out under pilot activities.
Most Culture Ministers and the European Commission want a programme which has more money in its purse.
The European Parliament has also demonstrated this; it did so at the first reading and we will firmly maintain our position during all of the talks if the Council does not accept the budgetary amendments which will be voted on tomorrow by the plenary session of the European Parliament.
Mr President, first of all I would just like to say a few words to congratulate Mr Sanz Fernández on his painstaking work in drafting this report and I would also like to express some of my thoughts about the path we have gone down.
First of all, the rapporteur has demonstrated great lucidity in producing a report which sets out and interprets the main problem.
He has stuck to his principles and shown flexibility in defending the vital points, while yielding over instrumental or auxiliary aspects.
The result is similar to the position of the Committee on Culture and is not so very far from what my own Group has supported.
My second point is this: what lies behind the Council's moves to fight over the question of committees and to slash Raphael's budget to a token, not to say shameful, amount? We might also well ask what lay behind the ideas of the parties who signed the Treaty on European Union when they added a new title - the IXth - and a new article - Article 128 - referring to culture?
Did they just want to go through the motions of setting out principles which they have not carried out in practice?
Under that Article 128 and the Kaleidoscope Programme, two other programmes - Raphael and Ariane have now been set in motion but only after a rather picturesque fight in a climate of uncouth stinginess with masses of cuts, the outward signs of a grudging acceptance of the inevitable rather than the creation of a well thought out, inspiring and forward-looking project.
The Raphael Programme, Mr President, is fundamental for protecting and promoting the cultural heritage and, in other words, it is fundamental for protecting the European cultural identity, the very cornerstone of European citizenship, the very raison d'être for our presence here.
Do they not want it? Then let them say so.
Do they, in practice, want to make the provisions of Article 128 impracticable?
Then let them say that too. What is unacceptable is that they should completely undermine basic programmes by giving them such paltry sums of money and, in the end, convert the (now hackneyed) European cultural identity into a sordid bartered good by tossing a handful of coins at it.
Mr President, the Raphael programme now under discussion is being put forward in a week of intensive parliamentary work affecting all the sectors covered by this programme.
I am referring here to culture, tourism, and the scope for creating new jobs.
The Raphael programme is in fact aimed at establishing a specific action in relation to cultural assets, at creating conditions favourable to the growth and development of synergy between culture and tourism, with new job opportunities - especially for young people - as a likely consequence.
Europe's cultural heritage is no longer the property of the individual Member States, but of the Community as a whole; hence all the nations have rights and duties towards it, so that all European citizens can have access to individual events and to the individual objects of art and culture which are conserved and managed by the Member States.
This applies in particular to the social groups which are currently most remote from culture.
So it is now time for the Commission to give some substance to the Raphael programme - and Parliament has, to my mind, offered a wealth of suggestions.
That is why we shall be voting in favour of increased funding. We are also insisting that half the total sum should be earmarked for preventive action, in other words preserving, restoring and safeguarding Europe's cultural assets.
The consequence of this will be to encourage, or reinforce, the professions and techniques involved in conserving cultural objects. It will be possible to guide large numbers of young people into those occupations which are crucial if we are to bequeath our present cultural heritage to the Europe - and, above all, the Europeans - of tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, judging by appearances, sometimes I have the impression that neither the Council nor the Commission itself lend the importance that they deserve to culture issues or, at least, demonstrate that importance by giving them money from the budget.
We in the European Parliament, through an amendment, have asked for 96 million ecus whereas the Commission proposal would result in a cut of no less than 37 million ecus for a four-year programme, which means that Mr Sanz's indignation is quite understandable.
Ladies and gentlemen, this can be read in two ways: that which has already been pointed out - that we are lending very little importance to our cultural heritage and, the second, that we are giving little importance to job creation.
Once again, we are dealing with great declarations of intent and the lack of any practical action.
Any budgetary cut to the Raphael Programme is a blow to the possibility of creating new jobs.
Fostering tourism - as we said in the first amendment tabled by the Committee on Culture - not only means sharing our heritage and cultural and artistic knowledge, but also means creating new jobs in these cultural and artistic areas of interest.
Without going any further I would like to dedicate much of what I have to say to promoting the heritage wonders which we have in Spain, and throughout the territory of Al Andaluz, for example.
I am sure that if you know these wonders you will agree, along with my Group, that we must vote for the Sanz Fernández report if we are to continue to enjoy them.
While emphasising the word 'everyone' , I must also point out my support for the second amendment which improves access to the heritage for the disabled and less well-off and those living in the peripheral and rural regions of the European Union.
We in the Confederal Group of the European United Left have always favoured sharing wealth rather than sharing poverty.
And surely this principle is also 100 % applicable to our cultural heritage.
Mr President, the safeguarding of Europe's cultural heritage has been the subject of many debates and requests.
Now that we are discussing the Raphael programme at second reading, I should like to highlight a number of points, following on from the concerns expressed by Mr Sanz Fernández, rapporteur for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, whom I would congratulate once again on his excellent work.
I think that we should begin by considering the proposed financial framework.
ECU 30 million is far too little, and in the conciliation process it will be vital to bring this figure as close as possible to the ECU 86 million proposed by our rapporteur.
We venture to hope that the Council will hear reason and realize that project selection must be carried out by the Commission, and not on the basis of some kind of intergovernmental agreement, which moreover would contravene Article 128 of the Treaty.
Furthermore, access to culture for all must be promoted.
I should like to conclude with a more personal remark, ladies and gentlemen.
Yesterday, during a visit to Strasbourg Cathedral, a mere stone's throw from here, a director of the foundation responsible for managing and protecting that monument pointed out to me how both age and urban pollution have taken their toll.
I looked up and saw for myself their effects on that edifice, which is a thousand years old and symbolizes the influence of Europe, having been built at a time when the European Union was a very distant dream indeed.
And yet Strasbourg Cathedral is a monument known across the globe: it features on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites.
However, it requires constant maintenance, for which the necessary funding is not always guaranteed.
Of course, I realize that Europe cannot do everything, and that subsidiarity makes the Member States alone responsible for preserving their national heritage.
Nonetheless, I believe that we must consider drawing up a list of European heritage sites, so as to protect the jewels in our cultural crown from dangers of all kinds.
(without microphone) ... within the context of true subsidiarity, since as it says in the explanatory memorandum, the aim of this programme is to encourage cooperation between Member States and to support and complement their action in the field of cultural heritage.
It is based on respect for national diversity, which was the framework for the creation of this common heritage.
Here the European countries have the distinct advantage of being able to develop cultural tourism, which is likely to become a major source of economic and social activity in the coming years.
The search of our contemporaries for their identity will increasingly take them to places of special meaning to them.
We are therefore wholeheartedly in favour of Amendment No 1, designed to link tourism to the preservation of our cultural heritage.
The development of both cultural tourism in Europe and the heritage-related professions must be encouraged.
We are also in favour of Amendment No 2, stressing the need to promote access to this programme for those in outlying regions.
Careful development of their rich heritage - maritime and rural above all, and thinking in particular of the countries bordering on the Atlantic - is one way of compensating for the geographical handicap of isolation.
As a Member for the Vendée département , which has launched pilot projects to preserve and restore its monuments and countryside under the Heritage 2000 programme, I have witnessed the impact of major heritage schemes on regional planning.
The heritage sites which have been developed are not just memorials but are also educational, creative places, as well as being genuine businesses generating employment and economic activity, no longer solely on a seasonal basis.
Both the Raphael programme - and, Commissioner, we should like an exact financial statement as regards the pilot phase - and today's report have the virtue of acknowledging the importance of this social impact of heritage projects.
These projects make it possible, within a town, country or region, to involve a broad range of social groups, to generate new solidarity and develop social interaction.
Such projects really can integrate people and create a strong sense of collective identity, thereby playing an important role in terms of social stability.
However, the financial costs of preserving, maintaining and bringing to life monuments and records are enormous, in particular for the public authorities.
Encouragement should therefore be given to joint actions, easing the burden on all concerned - joint research into the common problems of preserving and restoring paper, for example, or transfers of know-how - and helping to avoid any repetition of mistakes or duplication of what are usually long-term initiatives.
Unfortunately, neither the duration of the programme nor the resources allocated are up to the task.
Our group very much regrets that its duration has been reduced from five years to four.
As for the budget, which has been cut from ECU 67 million over five years to ECU 30 million over four, it no longer bears any relation to the real costs of such a project.
Regrettably, the Raphael programme is therefore in danger of remaining a purely marginal and ineffective instrument in a field which is so essential not only to our cultural, but also to our economic and social development.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, before I assess the Raphael Programme and the Sanz Fernández report, I should point out that a future Europe must be built not only on economic foundations but also on socio-cultural and ecological bases.
That construction can only be consolidated if we develop it specifically and harmoniously, observing the principle of subsidiarity and respecting the exclusive responsibilities of the Member States.
Apart from the very complex powers of the European Union in political and economic areas, we must make sure that Europe never lags behind, despite the big obstacles and weighty opposition which some Member States and institutions are now putting in its way, and we must make sure that all of its obligations are fulfilled in the social, cultural and environmental areas.
Economic development can only take place on a par with social and cultural progress and wildlife conservation.
This justifies the main fights which must be undertaken, with more force and urgency each time.
By promoting employment, with social protection against poverty and social exclusion, by generalising public health policies, with public security, with proper housing, by reforming the education training systems, by placing the family at the heart of society, and by safeguarding the natural and cultural heritages.
In the documents which we are now analysing we should point out that the Raphael Programme is aimed at supporting and complementing Member States' actions in the fields of cultural heritage of European importance, something which is both enormous and very rich, and which everyone knows about.
Throughout Europe, in the cities and the countryside, in the most developed countries and in the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions, there are countless magnificent examples of the built, movable and immovable heritage, of architecture, archaeology, individual buildings and sets of buildings, cultural sites and landscapes, all of which call for conservation, protection and enhancement.
We lend enormous importance to this programme because, as well as revealing considerable concern and very great respect for the cultural heritage of our peoples and of Europe as a whole, this programme could also contribute to regional development, to lowering unemployment, to promoting tourism and somehow benefiting people's quality of life.
Therefore, I wish to assert that we are behind the rapporteur when he points out that the programme needs a bigger financial contribution of at least 86 million ecus.
And we are behind him when he asks for ever greater attention to be paid for less favoured groups and regions, including the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I also wish to thank Mr Sanz Fernández for his excellent work.
I should also like to tell you that we agree with everything that you have said and feel that this is one of the most important moments in all of the activities of the Committee on Culture, and this is probably one of the main points that we will have to deal with over the coming months and years.
From this point of view, I wish to tell you that the Commission opposed the common position because we felt that, in particular with reference to the budget, such a small amount does not in the least respond to the aspirations which we had.
The Raphael Programme is an important one and it is the kernel of Community activity on behalf of culture.
As far as the amendments tabled by the European Parliament are concerned I should like to tell you that the Commission has been able to accept seven of them: it accepts No 1, No 2 - which adds to the list of groups for whom access to the cultural heritage must be improved, and you should be well aware (because I have already had the occasion to tell the European Parliament's Committee on Culture of this on various occasions) what my criterion is concerning less-favoured persons, the role to be played by culture vis-à-vis exclusion and the part it can play to help people living in peripheral regions or the countryside.
As for Amendments Nos 3 and 4, we feel that they introduce changes to two points, concerning the committees, and here again we agree with the European Parliament.
We can accept Amendment No 6, which deletes that paragraph in the common position which refers to the clause revising the budget for the last two years of the programme; and Amendment No 7 about changes to the maximum limit for Community financial aid to projects in point 2 of action 1 - namely European heritage laboratories - and finally, Amendment No 8 which contains details about the special care to paid to access for less-favoured persons in the aim of action No 2.
As for the budget, the Commission wishes to be coherent in its stance which it reiterated in its communication to the Council and therefore it maintains its initial position: a budget of 67 million ecus for a five-year period.
We think that it is important that, at the Council meeting to be held on 16 December 1996, a compromise can be found between the two current positions and all I now have to do is thank you for your support for this programme and hope that the steps that we are taking now can be taken further in the future, and that the Council will not cut the budget, which is already extraordinarily low.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Free movement of doctors and mutual recognition of qualifications
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0269/96) on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 93/16/EEC to facilitate the free movement of doctors and the mutual recognition of their diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications (C40381/96-94/0305(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs Fontaine).
Mr President, the report which is now before the House follows on from previous directives which, since 1975, have sought progressively to facilitate the free movement of doctors and the mutual recognition of their diplomas.
I can be very brief, Mr President, because this matter was discussed at some length at first reading.
We adopted an opinion on 29 June 1995, and we can now see that the common position submitted to us quite frankly contains hardly any trace of our amendments, apart from certain points of wording.
I would make it clear that we should not be deceived by what is apparently a very technical text.
One might in fact think that any amendments which we proposed would have little effect on the substance of the previous directive.
That is not the case, however, because the famous 'comitology' machinery will continue to be the basis for the operation and development of the directive, especially since there is no provision for setting up a body of coordinators - as there is in the general directive - to promote the uniform application of the system.
Therefore, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights considers on reflection that there was nothing excessive about the amendments requested at first reading: their aim was simply to provide the necessary impetus to ensure that the question of free movement for doctors was henceforth tackled in, let us say, a dynamic and evolutive context.
That is why our committee wishes to reiterate, first of all, our preference -and this will come as no surprise - for the management committee procedure II, variant b), which we see as the best way of meeting the concern for greater uniformity as regards the length of medical training courses. This is the purpose of Amendments Nos 1 and 4.
Moreover, this approach is in line with the Commission's original proposal.
Secondly, we repeat our concern that the Advisory Committee on Medical Training should be assured its due place.
When I say 'its due place' , I mean quite simply the place conferred on it by the Council itself in its decision of 16 June 1975.
Our Amendment No 2 - to the recitals - is intended to reinforce the Commission's declaration to the Council on this subject.
Thirdly, and finally, we reaffirm our wish to highlight the question of nationals of Member States who hold diplomas awarded by third countries.
In our view, this is a very acute problem which must not be glossed over under any circumstances; it is set out very simply, once again, in Amendment No 3.
Mr President, I hope that the House will endorse these proposals from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
They are very reasonable, not to say modest ones, and I look forward to hearing the Commissioner's views on them.
To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, we must not forget that free movement for professionals is one of the most tangible instruments of this people's Europe which it is imperative to consolidate if we wish the people to lend us their full support.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Fontaine for the sterling work she has done.
The directive that we are discussing here - on the free movement of doctors and the mutual recognition of their diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications - is a very important one in the eyes of the public.
It makes a practical, and not merely a rhetorical contribution to the implementation of freedom of movement and the internal market, as laid down in the European Community Treaties.
It therefore represents an important step forward.
However, the Council has simply ignored the substantive amendments that were put forward by the House at first reading.
These concerned, in particular, the position of nationals of Member States who hold diplomas awarded by third countries.
Although the directive will not prevent the Member States from allowing the holders of diplomas, certificates and other formal qualifications not acquired in a Member State from becoming established and practising as doctors, it leaves open the issue of how this should be done.
In particular, it leaves open the question of how the system of recognition should be applied in the context of freedom of movement in the European Union.
It is therefore essential to begin considering this issue, in the light of the Commission report on the state of application of the general system for the recognition of higher education diplomas.
I fail to understand how the Council can object to considering possible solutions to problems - and that is really all that we are asking for in our amendment.
I have no need to go into detail on Parliament's other crucial amendments.
Mrs Fontaine has emphasized the importance of the role played by the Standing Committee of European Doctors and of the comitology procedure that is to be applied.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists is also fully behind the amendments on these questions that have been reintroduced by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Thank you for your attention.
Mr President, I fully endorse Mrs Fontaine's very clear report.
One can only agree with a measure to facilitate the free movement of medical specialists in the European Community.
It is a matter of adapting the recognition of specialisms to medical progress: specializations change, and sometimes the minimum period for acquiring them can change, as can the content of training courses.
Some specializations exist in two or more Member States, but are not recognized in the others.
Regular updating is essential and, as provided for in the directive, it is desirable to adopt a streamlined procedure allowing for more rapid revision, instead of the more cumbersome and inevitably more convoluted procedure of legislative measures.
It is therefore a very sensible approach to empower the Commission, assisted by the Committee of Senior Public Health Officials, to decide on the changes needed to accommodate these specialist medical diplomas.
This raises some awkward problems of comitology: these problems, correctly identified by the rapporteur, are covered by the four amendments.
The rapporteur has actually somewhat diluted and adjusted the second amendment to take account of the fact that, as Commissioner Monti pointed out in the previous debate, the Standing Committee of European Doctors is an unofficial, non-institutional, private body which therefore cannot be referred to.
As it is now worded, Amendment No 2 - stating that the Advisory Committee on Medical Training shall communicate its opinions and recommendations to the Commission and the Member States - is a specific recital signalling to the Commission that this advisory committee, which represents a link with the Committee of Medical Specialists of the European Union, another strictly private body, in any event forms part of the Standing Committee of European Doctors.
It is a matter of consulting the experts on these very technical and sensitive issues.
The same goes for Amendment No 3 which, without putting forward any solutions, indicates in a recital that some reflection is also necessary on degrees and diplomas obtained by Community nationals from foreign universities.
This problem must be taken into account.
We hope that the Commission will support these amendments, which improve the text by making it more transparent and more functional.
I should like to begin by saying what a pleasure it is for me to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine - a remarkable personality with a great commitment to the health sector in Europe.
Hers is not an approach that lends itself to seeking harmonization via the lowest common denominator.
Medicine is an area in which things are now moving so fast that the content of training must be continually adapted.
The medical profession itself has the most important role to play in this respect.
Certificates awarded in third countries should be checked to ensure that the content of the studies involved is comparable, and should then be recognized without delay.
A precise definition of recognized qualifications in alternative medicine should be drawn up, with the same high standards that apply to general medical education, but without making medical studies a precondition.
Any attempt to water down the high standard of learning will be at the expense of patients and their health, rather than the education budget.
In terms of value for money, the cheapest option is undoubtedly rapid healing, through effective diagnosis and treatment.
Finally, because this is the last time that I shall have the opportunity of addressing the House, I should like to express my appreciation of the high level of cooperation that exists in the European Parliament.
I should like to thank the interpreters and the technicians, everyone on the podium, the Commission and the Council.
I have greatly enjoyed my period of cooperation with you.
Now I shall be watching you from the vantage point of my national parliament.
Thank you very much, Mrs Gredler.
I think that I echo the whole House in wishing you, on behalf of all our colleagues, all the very best for your political career in your home country, Austria.
You have our warmest wishes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the European Parliament for showing such interest in this proposal, and I am grateful for the important work devoted to it by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and in particular by the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, with her usual clarity.
The aim of this proposal is to put in place a simplified legislative procedure to facilitate periodic updating of the lists of specializations appearing in Articles 5 and 7 of the 'doctors' directive, which allow for the mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other specialist medical qualifications on the basis of mutual trust in the level of training.
Such training must comply with the minimum requirements set out in the directive and, in particular, the minimum length of specialist training courses laid down in Articles 26 and 27, for which the simplified legislative procedure is now being proposed.
There is therefore no question of excluding certain parties from the legislative process: both Parliament and the Council will remain involved and, as far as Parliament is concerned, reference has been made to the existence of the modus vivendi which meets the request made by the House at first reading.
Nor is there any question of changing the consultation process: both the Advisory Committee on Medical Training and the Committee of Senior Public Health Officials will still be consulted, in accordance with the roles and powers attributed to them.
The purpose of Amendments Nos 1 and 4 is to amend the comitology procedure adopted in the common position for changes to the lengths of training courses laid down in Articles 26 and 27.
As the rapporteur has said, in its original proposal the Commission had envisaged a management committee.
However, with a view to health protection and because of the considerable financial impact on Member States of such a change, the Council opted to amend the Commission's initial text and provide for a type IIIa regulatory committee, rejecting the text which is being put forward again today in the form of Amendments Nos 1 and 4.
Although well aware of the problems which such a change was likely to cause, and despite its basic preference for a management committee, the Commission has looked very carefully at the various arguments for and against the different solutions, and, all things considered, has concluded that the Council's position is acceptable.
It should not be forgotten, moreover, that returning to the original text would jeopardize the consensus reached with some difficulty by the Member States.
Amendments Nos 2 and 3 take up, in another form, amendments adopted at first reading and not incorporated into either the amended proposal or the common position.
The Commission shares Parliament's view as regards the role of the Advisory Committee on Medical Training and the importance of its opinion on specialist medical training courses.
The Commission too is concerned about the issue of recognizing qualifications obtained in a third country; for this reason, the advisory committee has been asked for an opinion. Its work should soon result in the adoption of a report and recommendations regarding specialist medical training courses and, above all, in some relevant proposals on changes to the list of specializations and lengths of courses.
This is also the reason why the Commission's services have been consulting the Member States since February 1996 on the recognition of qualifications obtained in third countries, in spite of the fact that similar consultations in 1992 proved inconclusive.
These new consultations should enable the Commission to determine whether or not the present political climate lends itself to legislation in this field.
The concerns expressed in Amendments Nos 2 and 3 have thus already been addressed, and Parliament will naturally be informed of the outcome of this work and these consultations.
Under these circumstances, Mr President, the common position adopted by the Council and which the Commission can endorse - as stated in its communication to the European Parliament - would appear to respond in a balanced and legally proper way, and as comprehensively as possible, to the various concerns which have been expressed.
In conclusion, I would emphasize that above and beyond any minor differences of opinion which remain, these concerns relate - as Mrs Fontaine pointed out - to a subject which is absolutely central to the free movement of persons, and therefore to a people's Europe.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Protection of utility models in the single market
The next item is the report (A4-0216/96) by Mr Añoveros Trías de Bés, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission Green Paper on the protection of utility models in the single market (COM(95)0370 - C4-0353/95).
Mr President, what is the aim of the Commission's Green Paper? The aim is to open a debate between the Member States, the European Parliament, the industry and interested sectors to respond to a certain number of questions which need to be clarified concerning essential subjects: first of all whether or not Community action needs to be taken and the legal form in which such action should take place.
The Commission reaches the general conclusion that Community action is necessary in the area of utility models to ensure rapid, simple and cheap protection of technical inventions which have a certain degree of novelty and which call for the rapid publication of their rights.
But the Commission does not propose a single option but offers various ones: a) a directive aligning the national schemes of protection thereby introducing the system in countries which do not have specific regulations; b) harmonising existing schemes in creating valid protection for the whole Union, which could be obtained by means of a single application by virtue of the mutual recognition of protection granted by the Member States; and c) a regulation establishing a new Community protection right to be obtained by means of a single application directly applicable in all the Member States.
What is the situation of utility models at present? A utility model is a registered right which confers exclusive protection for technological inventions which have a certain degree of novelty.
Utility models can be registered, granted without any prior search and offer a lower level of legal protection than patents.
However, European legal provisions concerning utility models are not uniform since there are countries where the concept does not exist: Sweden, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom.
In the other Member States where it is regulated there is no uniform treatment of it.
National systems of protecting industrial property which require registration are exclusively confined to the territory of the State granting protection.
The holder of a protection right may prevent the importation, by third parties, of products marketed without his authorization.
On the other hand, the differences in the level of protection provided by the model may have an influence on decisions to locate industries within the Union.
Of the options put by the Commission, the rapporteur would tend to opt for a Community regulation because he believes that this has many advantages.
A system of mutual recognition could cause great legal insecurity; it might be appropriate to advocate a system of prior or deferred examination, but immediately following registration, thereby reconciling the requirements of speed in granting the right with legal security and the safeguarding of those most affected by the granting of models.
It would also have other disadvantages such as vulnerability to mass requests for protection from non-Community territories; it will also bring with it considerable translation costs which would perhaps limit access to SMEs.
To offset this to a large extent, we propose assigning the administration of the utility model to the one existing Community property agency which also, as you know, administers the Community's design.
Regardless of the final form which the model takes, we should take into account the following points: granting models without examination would cause great legal insecurity.
Moreover, if protective rights introduced at European level were too cheap this could result in massive imports, as we have said.
However, we must bear in mind that utility models must essentially be aimed at SMEs, for which costs must always be kept down.
Here I conclude, Mr President. SMEs which are the main beneficiaries and must be the main beneficiaries of utility models must, I repeat, have at their disposal a rapid, cheap, simple and useful instrument which is part of overall planning and coherent planning of all instruments protecting industrial property, bearing in mind the harmonizations already planned on protection rights.
My colleague Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes is not just an experienced solicitor but also a brilliant lawyer, and I entirely agree with what he has said in this report.
Of the three options proposed by the Commission I would, for the time being at least, prefer the directive, since it provides the greatest degree of legal clarity, though I am quite prepared to consider other arguments in favour of the two other options which Commissioner Monti has put before us.
For me, a Dutchman, this was an entirely new area of intellectual property which I knew nothing about, but which I am now very keen to support.
It would be extremely useful in practice to have a limited patent which is quick and cheap and provides protection from the moment of registration.
However, you will not be surprised to hear, Mr Monti, that a comparison immediately springs to mind with the model rights which we are also currently dealing with.
These other model rights are the subject of a directive which establishes a new intellectual property in the field of design. The car industry has no objection to the current system of long-term patents which take a long time and cost a great deal of money to obtain: their products are worth it.
But the textile industry - fashion, carpets and so on - has objected that the system is far too cumbersome, expensive and time-consuming.
I would point out to you and your staff that when we were looking at model rights, I suggested that we might introduce a quick, cheap and temporary utility model along the lines of what Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes and you yourself have proposed.
Could we not introduce something of this kind to eliminate many of the complaints we hear about design rights from the carpet industry, which is such an important sector?
I would ask you to give this your consideration, Commissioner, and I would like to thank you for attending today, and Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes for his excellent report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, industrial property rights play an important role in the single market: they serve to promote innovative activity in the European Union, so that an idea can rapidly be transformed into goods and services available to our citizens.
As you know, utility models are registered rights which confer exclusive protection for technological inventions.
The debate on innovation which is currently under way in the European Union has revealed the extreme importance of technological innovation and protecting it effectively.
The consultations launched by the Commission with the publication in July 1995 of the Green Paper on utility models in the single market have in fact proved remarkably successful.
We have received a large number of comments, which shows how important the matter is considered to be.
And the vast majority of these comments are in favour of a Community initiative in this area.
In fact the present situation, where there are huge differences from one Member State to another, as has been pointed out, can create barriers to trade and cause inconvenience to firms.
I am most grateful to Parliament for its extremely thorough work on this issue and its support for the Commission's proposed approach.
I am also happy to say that most of the suggestions made in the report by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes are entirely acceptable to the Commission and reflect our own analysis of the situation.
Nevertheless, I have to say that some important technical questions - such as the level of inventiveness required to obtain protection under the utility model, or the three-dimensional form requirement - will require a good deal more examination before the Commission can adopt a definitive position.
By the same token, it is not yet certain that, if the Commission did prepare a legislative initiative, it would take the form of a regulation, as suggested by the House.
That aside, the Commission is favourably disposed to the vast majority of the proposals put forward by the rapporteur, whom I thank once again. I also thank Mr Janssen van Raay for his comments.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, concerning the list of petitions appended to the Minutes, I wish to comment on Petiton No 727/95 by Mr James Fielding and others which concerns the position of 10, 000 elderly people in the UK who have lost money and risk losing their homes under failed home-income plans.
They mortgaged their homes on the basis of false promises.
With regard to this petition, the Commission promised to send information about further European legislation to protect the rights of consumers with regard to financial services.
That information has not yet been received.
I would ask you to ensure that it is sent, Mr President.
I would ask my colleagues on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, the Social Affairs Committee and the Consumer Protection Committee to support the position of the pensioners affected when the new legislation is introduced.
Finally, I would thank Mr Newman and colleagues on the Committee on Petitions for the support and sympathy they gave to the pensioners.
Decision on urgency
I would point out that the report by Mr Kittelmann on this proposal, which is due to be discussed this evening by the Committee on External Economic Relations, is already on the agenda for Friday's sitting, marked 'possibly' .
For the sake of procedure, however, we shall take this vote.
Does the committee responsible wish to state its views?
Mr President, the Committee on External Economic Relations recommends that urgency be approved.
There is widespread agreement on the basic issue, I think.
I have one small remark to make, however.
Once again, we have seen just how far the Council of Ministers' consultation of Parliament falls short of the mark.
The Commission forwarded the proposals to the Council at the end of July, yet it took the Council two months before it consulted Parliament, with the result that our Committee on Legal Affairs has been unable to examine the legal basis and the legal implications in detail.
In my view, this is particularly unfortunate for our colleagues in that committee.
We are now having to deal with yet another important initiative by rushing through it as an urgent procedure.
I would ask you, Mr President, to urge the Council once again to show a little more respect for this House.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Annual programme of the Commission for 1997
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a month ago, in Parliament's debate on the state of the Union, I expressed my concern to you: that our countries' citizens have less and less confidence in politics, and in the structures of our constitutional states.
The European Union does not escape this finding.
This crisis of confidence is in fact a challenge.
It requires us to carry out an in-depth reform of our institutions to make them more democratic.
It also requires us to focus, in our daily work, on the causes of the disillusionment of the European public.
We are all too familiar with those causes: unemployment, insecurity and the feeling - sometimes justified - that the world is becoming dehumanized.
I shall sum up the Commission's work programme for 1997 in two phrases: reforming what is not working; and focusing on the real priorities.
What will be the underlying spirit of our programme? Firstly, that of my investiture speech.
I presented that speech in the form of a five-year programme.
You gave your backing to that programme.
Our work programme for 1997 will be based, even more so than in the past, on the Commission's firm belief - which you share - that Europe is essential, that it is genuinely at the service of everyone, and that it is effective.
Indeed, the Union is essential whenever - in the interests of Europe's citizens - it is better to act together than individually.
This is true within the Union; and it is true on the international stage.
The Commission is convinced that there is a need to do less, but do it better.
But once again, in 1997, it will not hesitate to take initiatives whenever it considers that a contribution from the Union is needed in order to deal effectively with a matter of common interest.
I shall refuse to allow subsidiarity to be used as a pretext for calling into question Community law and 40 years of common work!
Let us not underestimate or jeopardize our achievements!
Mr President, in taking stock of 1996, the Commission has concluded that a great deal has been achieved.
Major progress has been made in a number of essential areas of Community activity.
I shall give three examples.
Firstly, the adoption of the European Confidence Pact for Employment, which I presented to you on 31 January, made it possible to raise public awareness.
Now, this pact must be implemented.
Secondly, economic and monetary union is now firmly on track.
And, thirdly, substantial breakthroughs have been made in the development of the information society.
Admittedly, we failed to launch a number of the initiatives announced at the beginning of the year.
On the other hand, other important measures, which could not have been foreseen when the work programme for 1996 was presented, were carried out.
We have learnt from this situation.
In 1997, therefore, the Commission will focus on the real priorities.
I should now like to set out those priorities, in presenting to you the broad outlines of the Commission's work programme for next year.
The first proof of the Commission's efficiency will be the adoption of a rigorous approach to its own internal management.
I can give a personal undertaking in this context.
In 1997, the Commission will set in motion farreaching reforms designed to modernize the way it is run and to improve its performance.
A rigorous approach will also be applied to the executive tasks which are conferred on the Commission by the Treaty, and for the daily management of which it is responsible.
Lastly, Community policies will also be managed with increasing care.
In 1997, we shall be launching the third stage of the Sound and Efficient Management 2000 programme.
It will be necessary to improve cooperation between the European institutions and the Member States.
It is essential for the latter to be directly involved in the rigorous management of the Community taxpayers' money.
Mr President, 1997 will be strongly marked by action in the areas that I call the major challenges: the Intergovernmental Conference; economic and monetary union; the financial package for the post-1999 period; and enlargement.
In many respects, it will be a pivotal year, in the sense that the work on the reform of the Treaties will be concluded and give way to Agenda 2000.
I shall come back to that later, but firstly I should like to present in greater detail our work programme for next year.
This programme forms part of a considered, coherent and sustainable plan of action, made possible by the way in which the Union's institutions are organized: the Commission's five-year mandate now coincides with the European Parliament's term of office.
In view of the problems that Europe must resolve, it is no longer sufficient to make grandiose declarations.
The people of Europe have ceased to believe in such declarations - and they are right.
However, the sense of urgency must not lead to excessive haste and the adoption of piecemeal initiatives.
On the contrary, what we need is carefully considered action, carried out with perseverance and determination.
That is the imperative!
Therefore, the Commission has established four political priorities for 1997, in line with the main strategic pillars that it set out two years ago for the duration of its mandate: fostering growth and employment and preparing for the single currency; actively promoting the European model of society; enhancing Europe's presence on the international stage; and preparing for the future.
The first priority of the Commission's work programme is implementation of the Confidence Pact for Employment.
I attach great importance to this pact!
Do not think that I am prepared to give up a project which I see as an essential precondition for meeting the challenges of the year 2000 in the best possible circumstances.
No, ladies and gentlemen, it was not a question of beating the air.
To those who remain unconvinced, I would say: ' Read it!'
Unemployment is sapping the confidence of Europe's citizens.
And that confidence must be restored.
That is the pact's objective.
We need a comprehensive, coherent and practical strategy to promote employment, and everyone must put their shoulder to the wheel!
That is my goal, and I hope that it is yours as well.
In 1997, much of the Commission's efforts will be directed towards putting into effect the measures set out in the confidence pact.
To this end, we have an invaluable asset: growth.
Growth is picking up, but to be sustainable, it must be based on sound macro-economic policies.
In 1997, the penultimate year before the launch of monetary union, the Commission will be careful to ensure that the Member States take the necessary measures to achieve the convergence that will serve as a foundation for the single currency.
When I look at the budgets adopted by the Member States' governments, I am led to an inevitable conclusion: the Member States have taken up their responsibilities for next year.
I welcome the entry of the Finnish markka into the European Monetary System. This clearly justifies my firm belief that the single currency will come into effect on 1 January 1999 - and in a significant number of countries.
The Commission was right not to give way.
Cast your minds back to not very long ago: despite all the opposition, we have stayed on course.
And we shall soon be witnessing the beneficial effects of our commitment to employment - because employment is the real goal.
Economic and monetary union is no more than a means!
The confidence pact sets this goal in a framework of structural measures aimed at maximizing the Community's gains and taking full advantage of growth.
The first of these actions consists of completing the internal market - since as you know, that objective has not yet been fully achieved.
I shall mention just a few of the areas in which we must make progress over the course of the coming year: the internal market in gas; the legal framework for biotechnologies; and the Statute for the European Company.
And let us not forget the multiannual programme for small and medium-sized enterprises.
We must complete the internal market, but we must also simplify it.
And the Commission will apply itself to doing so.
The third pillar of the confidence pact is the reform of employment systems.
We need active national employment policies that are geared to the challenges.
The Commission will devote itself to taking forward, in close cooperation with the Member States and the two sides of industry, the pact's recommendations on this point.
Similarly, it will encourage the opening of major work sites.
In 1997, the Commission will bring forward specific proposals on access to continuous training, the life-long acquisition and accreditation of skills.
It will put into effect the action plan 'Learning in the information society' and it will launch an ERASMUS apprenticeship programme.
It is therefore a matter of adapting to the changes that are affecting work and its place in everyone's lives.
This same concern for employment will lead us, in 1997, to amend the Union's structural policies.
The mid-term reassessment of Objective 1 - for regions whose development is lagging behind - and the programming for Objective 2 - regions in the process of conversion - for the period 1997-1999 will provide us with an opportunity to do this.
Promoting employment will be the main criterion of these reappraisals.
Moreover, the Commission has put forward the idea of territorial employment pacts, and this initiative is already meeting with great success.
1997 will be the year in which it is put into effect.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two issues have become topical in 1996: globalization and the European model of society.
And it was not by chance that they came to the fore at the same time.
I sensed a new public awareness that our social model constitutes the right response to globalization. We must not disappoint this expectation.
The Commission will take action next year to enhance that model: that is our second priority.
It will step up those measures which contribute to building the European social model on the basis of solidarity and a more qualitative concept of growth.
Social policy, education and training, equal opportunities, economic and social cohesion, consumer and environmental policy: these are the foundations of that model.
In this context, I wish to stress that the improvement of environmental protection and the pursuit of sustainable development will be one of the Commission's major concerns in 1997.
We shall do everything possible to ensure that the Union plays a decisive role in the preparations for the special session of the UN General Assembly on the environment - five years after the Rio Summit - as well as in the conference of contracting parties to the Convention on Climate Change.
There is another area in which the Commission has received a forceful message from Europe's citizens in 1996: freedom of movement within the Union, and security in the context of the worsening of phenomena such as drugs, sexual exploitation and the trafficking of women, terrorism, violence and organized crime.
What do we see? Of the four freedoms incorporated in the Treaty, the free movement of persons is the least well guaranteed.
But for all that, our fellow citizens do not feel better protected.
Indeed, they do not understand why we are not equipped with the necessary means to combat these threats to their security.
It is for this reason that the Commission wishes the Intergovernmental Conference to lead to a large-scale transfer of matters of justice and home affairs to the Community domain, whenever this will enable us to take more effective action.
In the meantime, however, the Commission is using all the means at its disposal to meet the legitimate expectations of the people of Europe.
The European model of society is shaped internally, but it is advocated and promoted throughout the world.
Enhancing Europe's presence on the international stage will be the Commission's third objective in 1997.
The European Union is already shouldering major responsibilities in many regions of the world, for example the Middle East, Bosnia and the former Soviet republics.
We shall have to address a number of problems - though I am always wary of giving examples, for fear of neglecting to mention other important points.
We shall put into effect all the initiatives to which we are committed, and you will be aware that there are hardly any geographical areas to which we have not given our attention.
As far as new measures are concerned, I would point out that the Union's relations with its ACP partners will be the subject of a green paper that the Commission will present in the autumn. This will mark the beginning of a wide-ranging debate that will continue throughout 1997.
In all its actions, the Commission will also be concerned to ensure that the European Union is recognized to have a political influence commensurate with its financial commitments.
This influence will take shape only if the Member States prove capable of displaying firm cohesion and a constant will to work together.
Asserting the European Union's political role implies that we are capable of developing or improving our capacity for dialogue and decision-making, whether in the field of traditional - notably commercial - external relations, or in the newer field of the common foreign and security policy.
The Commission will not relax its efforts in this respect.
This is why the Commission wishes to see an ambitious and successful Intergovernmental Conference.
I come now to the fourth pillar of our work programme: preparing for the Union's future by drawing up Agenda 2000.
Preparing for the Union's future will begin with the successful conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Commission wishes the reform to provide the Union with a genuine means of defending its interests in the world and to make it possible for Europe's citizens to recognize and experience the Union's contribution.
This is the kind of institutional reform that the Union needs!
This is the kind of institutional reform that the Commission is advocating!
It is high time for us to realize this, and to summon up the will to achieve it. In any event, this institutional reform is necessary.
The prospect of enlargement makes it all the more vital.
In the Commission's view, it is an essential precondition.
Indeed, I believe that it is inconceivable to retain unanimous voting in a Union of 20 or more Member States.
Maintaining the complexity of the current procedures would seriously handicap the interplay between the Union's institutions.
With regard to enlargement, in 1997 the Commission will deliver its opinions on the applicant countries.
It will do so only after the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference.
And it will do so quite independently - in other words, with no preconceived ideas or fears about stating the truth.
Preparation of the financial perspectives for the post-1999 period will begin next year.
This is closely linked to enlargement.
In 1997, the Commission will present a communication on the financial framework for the year 2000 onwards.
Enlargement will have some important repercussions for Community policies; I am thinking in particular of the common agricultural policy and the structural policies.
The Commission's communication will be based on an in-depth assessment of this impact.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the year ahead will be strongly marked by action to meet the major challenges of the year 2000: the Intergovernmental Conference must produce an ambitious result; the Union will enter the final phase of preparing for the decision, in spring 1999, on the third stage of economic and monetary union; and Agenda 2000 - the plans for enlargement and the financial package for the period after 1999 - must be drawn up.
These challenges must be tackled responsibly and in a logical order.
The Commission is assuming its responsibilities.
I know that the European Parliament will assume its responsibilities.
And I am expecting the Member States to assume theirs.
(Applause)
Mr President, when the European Commission took office in January 1995, it was praised by its President as one of the most political Commissions in the history of the Union.
With two former primeministers and eleven former ministers, President Santer does indeed have a star-studded cast.
How is this Commission getting on after two years in office?
Some Members worked exceptionally well last year.
In the trade war with America, Sir Leon Brittan once again showed the same impressive leadership which he displayed so successfully in the final phase of the Uruguay Round.
Emma Bonino's courage, dedication and sense of humour have made her one of the Commission's best communicators, a vital quality at a time when communication is not the Union's strongest point.
Karel Van Miert provided an effective response to the marauding attacks on competition policy, and has been a convincing advocate of competition in the public services sector despite the conservative reactions of some of his social democrat friends.
The Commission has impressed us with its efforts to respect the principle of subsidiarity, and there has been a considerable drop in the number of political initiatives and legislative proposals.
After the feverish activity of the Delors Commission, it was definitely time for the pace to slow down, but I cannot help wondering if the pendulum has not swung too far in the other direction, since a number of Members of the Commission - reluctant as I am to mention it - have managed to keep their political activities entirely hidden from public gaze.
What concerns me more is that the Commission appears to be hesitant about exercising the political leadership which it is allowed to have under the Treaty.
Leadership is possibly the quality which Europe most needs at the moment.
Without leadership, the IGC will simply result in another Maastricht Treaty, a treaty which is so complicated and so far removed from ordinary people that it may not even be ratified in all 15 Member States, let alone enable the Union to welcome new members.
Of course, it is not the Commission but the Member States which will be ultimately responsible for the outcome of the IGC, but the Commission still has a vital role to play in explaining why it is essential for the Treaty to be amended, particularly in the areas of internal affairs, justice and foreign policy, and in helping to ensure that the general public support the necessary changes.
The Maastricht Treaty gave the Commission the right of initiative in the fields of internal affairs, justice and foreign policy, but in the past year the Commission has unfortunately made little use of this right.
Of course, the Commission has to respect the primacy of the Member States in matters of foreign policy, but it must not allow itself to be forced into the role of the economic wing of the Council secretariat.
It should remember that a right which is never used might well be abolished.
In the eyes of the public, the President of the European Commission is 'Mr Europe' , the personification of the European Union.
People expect him to be the spokesman who represents their concerns and defends their interests.
The Commission President is most effective when he adopts the role of the people's advocate vis-à-vis the Council, and the present incumbent is very well equipped for this task.
President Santer inspires confidence, which is an important quality, but one which he has not put to full use up to now.
It is high time that this vox populi made himself heard more.
The Commission is still exuding far too much of an air of 'business as usual' , even here in this debate.
It does not seem to have the same sense of urgency that the general public are experiencing.
I would urge Mr Santer to roll up his sleeves: it is time for leadership.
I have one particular request here, concerning one of our most important civil rights, the right to privacy.
I would urge the Commission to come up with a proposal by the end of the year for an effective system of independent data protection for the Union institutions.
The data protection rules in force in Europe at the moment relate only to the Member States and not to the Union itself, and this is a serious gap.
The Treaty does not currently provide for any independent data protection body for the Union institutions.
I think a data protection watchdog could play an important part in creating a more open European Union which is closer to its citizens, and this is why I would urge the Commission to propose an appropriate amendment to the Treaty in time for the IGC.
My final assessment is that this Commission is a very political Commission which has shown some encouraging signs over the last year.
It would be most welcome if it now put all its political energies into defending the general public before the Council.
It is high time that the Council finally stopped and listened.
Mr President, Mr Santer, I firstly wish to say that I welcome a number of Mr Fayot's remarks.
I should like to make a number of comments.
Firstly, the Commission has set itself the goal of regaining our citizens' confidence.
In view of the tremendous gulf which separates public opinion from our efforts to build Europe, I am sure that no one here would dispute that aim.
As the President of Parliament said during the debate on the state of the Union: ' People are not against European unification, but they do not know why they should be in favour of Europe' .
This is indeed a deep-rooted problem which is difficult to overcome.
It is moreover, in my view, a major issue.
The opinion polls and analyses clearly show, Mr Santer, that it is the inability of the Union to meet the major challenges currently facing us that is feeding the pessimism in Europe - pessimism and popular condemnation of the state of our society: unemployment, deregulation, relocation and the erosion of social guarantees.
For millions upon millions of people, this is their experience of Europe.
Secondly, should not the Commission be more sensitive to public opinion, to the aspirations and demands of our citizens? Undoubtedly so, but this implies making different economic, social and financial choices; and, personally, I do not believe that the Commission is ready to do so.
Take, for example, the introduction - come what may - of the single currency.
The reduction of labour costs, unbridled liberalization and deregulation are considered to be untouchable dogmas.
This is no longer open to discussion!
There is a farmer in my village who always says to me when I talk this way: ' Be careful. There is always a catch!'
Indeed, people who believe in revealed truths sometimes have difficulty in adapting to new realities.
Thirdly, the Commission states that it wishes to give priority to employment.
In my view, however, this requires us to concern ourselves with more than simply the questions of the reduction of labour costs, flexibility and job insecurity.
Parliament has itself discussed the possible reduction of working hours, as well as other proposals concerning employment and growth.
Perhaps the Commission should take a little more notice - and this leads me to my fourth comment.
If it wishes to restore public confidence, perhaps the Commission should pay greater heed to Parliament.
I shall take two examples which, in France, have given rise to considerable public debate.
Firstly, on the television without frontiers directive, the Commission is not accepting Parliament's stance on quotas; and, secondly, on the postal services directive, the Commission has swept aside virtually all Parliament's amendments!
If we wish there to be political authority, a capacity for action and a receptive audience, then it is extremely awkward for the Commission to be at loggerheads with Parliament in this way over major issues.
To restore public confidence, we must undoubtedly consider other approaches to ensuring economic and social development.
While I am unable to address this issue in just three minutes, I note - and welcome the fact - that, as Mr Fayot has already mentioned, the Commission has made progress on such things as recognizing the functions of general interest and public service.
This leads me to believe that, in spite of the difficulties on a number of issues, we can still move forward.
I shall end by saying, Mr President, that none of this is easy, and that, consequently, I wish you every success.
You acknowledge, Mr Santer, that the European Union is not overwhelmingly popular with the European public.
All the signals reaching us from the various Member States - whether in the form of social unrest or via the ballot box - indicate the same thing: opposition to Europe or, in any event, severe and increasing criticism.
I do not believe that your legislative programme contains anything which might change this negative image of a visionless Europe, incapable of generating support.
Undoubtedly, 1997 will, as you said, be a year of transition, since the Intergovernmental Conference has to decide on important changes to the conduct of the Union's affairs.
However, we could have expected at least a hint of creativity in your programme, rather than simply a very general and incantatory statement on growth, which comes down to no more than wishful thinking, and in which we would be hard put to find anything specific.
For my part, I should like to make some specific criticisms. You referred - as you do in most of your speeches - to the need for transparency, in order to restore public confidence.
When you present your programme for the coming year, should we not be provided with a review of the programmes of previous years - and not merely a quantitative review, but, for each project not successfully completed, an explanation of the technical or political reasons which led to the blockage or delay?
Is it acceptable that not a single one of the initiatives brought forward by Parliament pursuant to Article 138b has yet been followed up? Will Europe's citizens understand why the Commission has rejected important amendments adopted by a majority of the Members of Parliament in a whole range of areas, as Mr Piquet has just emphasized?
I shall refer to one very specific area: the environment.
The Environment Council recently adopted the directive on the prevention and integrated reduction of pollution.
Parliament's important amendments were rejected without any political explanation.
One of those amendments sought to make industrialists responsible for the environmental consequences of their activities.
This is the same demand that was made more than two years ago in the resolution contained in the Alber report of April 1994, which was adopted by an overwhelming majority.
Here again, there has been no follow-up.
I believe, Mr President, that it is essential for you to give some thought to these matters.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in its work programme for 1997, the Commission restates its apt and ambitious general objectives. It must be said, however, that the means proposed for achieving those objectives are not commensurate with what is at stake.
Thus, once again, the Commission rightly puts forward the general objective of 'growth and employment' .
But what priority measures are set out with a view to achieving these objectives? You talk to us about sound macro-economic policies and the completion of the internal market.
However, Mr Santer, we wish to tell you that those are yesterday's priorities, not the priorities that the people of Europe are expecting today.
We are undoubtedly convinced of the vital need to introduce the single currency without delay, and we welcome the efforts made by a number of Member States to achieve the budgetary stabilization that will make this possible.
We support the Commission's intention to put in place the technical measures that will enable the single currency to be introduced.
But what is necessary above all in the Union today is to restore the confidence of Europe's most disadvantaged citizens, for whom European integration means only budgetary rigour, the stagnation of purchasing power and the erosion of social gains.
With regard to the medium-term objectives, there is a need to redefine the priorities. It is no longer a question of promoting the internal market, convergence and stability, but growth, employment and cohesion - although we prefer the word 'solidarity' to this rather technical term: in our view, it is the same thing.
To this end, there is a need to set out measures which correspond exactly to the real priorities.
Growth must be thought of not as a desired and expected - although far from guaranteed - result of stability, but as an economic objective in itself.
To achieve this, the Commission must put forward a growth pact for Europe that will complement the commitments to stability and find practical expression in a swift reworking of the financial perspective for the end of the century and the reform of the Structural Funds, which are the instruments of the European budgetary policy that is essential to complement the Union's monetary policy.
Similarly, Europe's action to promote employment must be clearer and more direct.
Structural Fund operations must be more closely linked to job creation.
Why not provide for the establishment of a 'European job' label, or at least the clear and precise listing of all jobs directly created as the result of Community action? Likewise, with regard to services of general interest, with which the Commission is concerning itself, why not visualize Europewide services designed to meet the public's new needs and directly create employment?
We call on the Commission to demonstrate greater boldness and initiative.
We shall support such action on its part, without which we shall perhaps still have a single currency, but we shall no longer have a European project.
Mr President, the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, has often declared himself in agreement with us in the Europe of Nations Group that the scale of legislation should be limited.
Mr Santer wishes to present himself as a strong supporter of subsidiarity.
As many decisions as possible should be left to the Member States.
I do not doubt the good will of the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg, but after more than two years as President, we unfortunately have to say that Mr Santer does not have the power to match his intentions.
When he took up his post, there were a total of 20 706 regulations, directives and other EU rules.
At the start of 1996, there were 21 392.
There has been more of what Mr Santer does not wish to see.
And in the Commission's new programme, there are proposals for more legislation from Brussels.
I have not been able to find examples of any important areas where the Commission is proposing to transfer legislation back to the national parliaments.
And in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference now taking place, the Commission has put forward proposals to make qualified majority decisions the general rule.
Laws can thus be adopted by 62 votes out of 87, and several national parliaments can be voted down.
The advocates of a closer union are seeing their idea take shape in Brussels.
The result will inevitably be a further leap towards integration, and the Commission is putting forward this proposal without giving any indication of where decisions can be handed back to the Member States in other areas.
So at some point, we have to conclude that what Mr Santer is doing is what he wants to do.
All the specific actions point in the direction of a new state.
All the actions run directly counter to our vision of a Europe in which the nations determine their own affairs and coordinate with each other when they cannot find solutions by themselves.
We are in favour of a common approach to international problems, and we are glad to support minimum rules on the discharge of dangerous substances into the sea and the atmosphere, but why does Mr Santer also wish to be able to decide that various toxic substances should be allowed in the drinking water in Århus? Why does the decentralist Mr Santer insist on having completely identical rules for drinking water which is treated and drinking water which is taken straight from the groundwater?
We support minimum rules, but we shall be opposing regimentation by the EU which is an embarrassment to both democracy and the environment. People say that pollution does not stop at borders, but is this an argument for removing the upper limit for discharges of various substances into Danish drinking water?
We are also glad to support common standards which businesses can use in international trade, but why should the EU's method of harmonization make standards compulsory and the same throughout the Union? There is a need for the Member States to have much more freedom, and I hope that the Commission will bear that fact in mind.
Mr President, you spoke of your concerns with regard to employment policy.
We share those concerns.
The European Union is grappling with a problem of drastic proportions, namely rising unemployment, with youth and long-term unemployment the most critical aspects of this depressing trend.
Not even the most fervent advocate of European monetary union can deny the link between the efforts to meet the convergence criteria, on the one hand, and rising unemployment on the other.
1997 will be a year of austerity budgets, dominated by preparations for monetary union, and this will exacerbate rather than ease the major problem of unemployment.
Economists and financial experts from very many different countries are afraid that uncompromising adherence to the timetable will have serious consequences for Europe.
Dividing the Member States into two groups - those who take part in phase one and those who cannot manage to do so - will produce a two-speed Europe.
Such a development runs counter to the spirit of Europe, and it will also have an economic impact.
The excessive and socially ill-considered budgetary cuts which some Member States are making are creating unemployment, damaging Europe as a location for business and triggering recession.
Transferring more resources from the 'ins' to the 'outs' will further damage the economic strength of the donor countries without having a sufficiently positive impact on the recipients.
That is why, as we move towards monetary union, the Commission should take much greater account of employment policy and social policy as elements of the equation, and free itself from what is an absurdly restrictive timetable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, among the main political priorities of the Commission's programme of work are the future of the European Union and the raising of its profile in the international arena.
Indeed, Mr Santer has quite rightly acknowledged that Europe is not managing to assume its rightful role in the world, at least in relation to its economic and commercial significance and to the scale of its financial commitments in terms of development aid.
By the same token, it is quite clear that Europe is not responding effectively where it should, and where a more active role is expected or even demanded of it, as in the Middle East.
The individual efforts of Mr Chirac, Mr Prodi and others, however laudable, are not enough when, at the same time, an historic opportunity is being missed at the United Nations, 50 years after the end of the war.
The Europe of peace and integration is proving unable to take the place of the Europe of war, national rivalries and post-war distrust.
There can be no doubt that this is, in the first instance, a problem of instruments and procedures, which must be resolved at the Intergovernmental Conference on the lines suggested by the Commission and Parliament, whose views are very similar here, by casting aside undue caution and unjustified resistance on the part of those who have a limited grasp of the scale of the challenge and mistakenly believe that they can counter the uncertainties of the future by taking refuge behind the thickest of walls.
But the question is whether we could go a little further, Mr Santer, even within the scope of the existing Treaty: we as MEPs could be more demanding, the Commission could push its own initiatives with greater determination and perhaps put more pressure on the Council and the governments.
This is the ground on which Europe's future will be built.
What would be the point of enlargement without a real European foreign policy, without what is already defined in the programme as an external identity for the Union - marked by coherence, effectiveness and visibility - without the possibility of a close link between security, defence, trade and economic relations capable of being a vehicle for a European policy equal to the challenges of the modern world?
If it cannot project itself to the outside world in this way, moreover, even the Europe of today, the Europe of 15, will withdraw forlornly into its shell.
The ball is therefore in the court of the IGC.
This time, there is no room for small steps forward; the major reforms which have been promised and heralded are more inescapable now than ever before.
Mr President, I welcome the efforts being made by President Santer to focus the work programme of the Commission on a small number of priority areas.
Too often in the past the Commission presented Parliament with a long list of planned initiatives covering a wide range of policy areas.
While most of these initiatives were worthwhile in themselves, they were too numerous to implement in a single year.
In addition, it was often difficult to identify the major priorities of any one year.
Looking ahead to 1997, I believe that the Commission will have to give more attention to educating young people on the potential advantages of the single currency.
It now seems increasingly likely that a significant number of the Member States will opt to establish the single currency in three years time.
In less than six years many of our national currencies will disappear from our pockets to be replaced by the Euro.
While the arguments in favour of a single currency have been debated at length by economists and public servants and are now well-known to most people working in politics, public administration and finance, the vast majority of Europe's citizens are still not aware of the range of benefits which the single currency will bring to them.
It will be very difficult, if not impossible, to create a single currency without the support of the citizens of the participating countries.
The opponents of monetary union have already come to this conclusion and are actively engaged in bringing their case to the electorate in many of our Member States.
It is time for the European institutions to be equally vociferous in bringing the arguments in favour of a single currency to Europe's electorate.
The European Commission is best placed to lead a campaign in support of monetary union.
The general public should be acquainted with the wide range of potential benefits from the single currency, such as the prospect of lower mortgage interest rates, no further risk from currency fluctuations, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses exporting their products from one Member State to another, reduced costs for trade and reduced costs for travel.
In addition, efforts should now be made to refute the misleading and inaccurate arguments that are sometimes advanced by the opponents of the single currency.
I would remind the Commission that the Maastricht Treaty was very nearly derailed, largely because the general public in many of our Member States did not feel sufficiently involved in the debate leading up to Maastricht.
We must learn from this experience and ensure that we do not repeat the same mistake.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, last week, at Gardanne in the south of France, an election took place.
The two opposing candidates remaining at the end - a communist from the same group as Mr Piquet, and a member of the National Front - both rejected the obsessive austerity imposed by the Maastricht Treaty.
In other words, the public has had enough.
Europe, Mr President, is a lamentable idea. It is like the light of a dead star.
You propose to enter the future illuminating us, once again, with the light of a dead star.
The Cecchini report told too many lies.
The single market has not brought a flood of milk and honey, but a flood of gall.
And there is unemployment, Mr Santer.
There is unemployment, and it is your obsession: it is the statue of the Commendatore that shows you that your European project is a bad idea.
However, unemployment does not exist everywhere.
In Japan and elsewhere in Asia, there is very little unemployment.
And this is not because the people of this part of the world have slanting eyes!
If it were, a little cosmetic surgery would be enough to solve the problem of unemployment.
It is because they are not obsessive.
They do not suffer from the sort of psychological inflexibility that characterizes the doddery old men of the Commission, who enter the future still clutching the ideas of their youth.
Along with all kinds of other sacrifices, you are imposing budgetary rigour - but not on everyone, since you are capable of making a gift of ECU 1.9 billion worth of customs duties to the multinational banana company 'Chiquita' every year.
So there is rigour, but not for everyone.
The Dublin budget stability pact created by Hans Tietmeyer is not designed for everyone.
At a time when Singapore is about to open up, at a time when the problem of the CCEEs is about to be raised, you are maintaining nonsensical farming practices.
In the committee of inquiry, we have seen the kind of lies and intervention - even with the German Health Minister, in order to discredit a scientist - of which the Commission is capable.
And I could continue in this way on the question of taxation.
As I have said already, Mr President - and I shall end with this - Europe is a bad idea. But it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
With regard to taxation, you could take advantage of the Intergovernmental Conference to propose to the Member States the establishment of a statutory upper limit to tax and social security contributions.
We should then be in line with the United States - your model - and Japan.
At present, we are 15 points above them.
You could do everyone a service by setting an upper limit to tax and social security contributions.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank Mr Santer for all his hard work and congratulate him on his programme.
There is much more to this than just having certain ambitions, it is also about how they are put into practice and the pace at which this happens.
As far as the single market is concerned, there is still a great deal to be done.
The gas sector has been waiting for further liberalization for some years now, and I hope that things will move faster here than they have done in the electricity sector.
The postal sector also seems to have reached stalemate, so I would urge the President of the Commission to make a great effort to get things moving there too.
As for telecommunications, although it is good that the first steps have been taken, there is of course an enormous amount going on in this sector, with the convergence of information technologies, modern media and telecommunications.
If Europe does not want to miss the boat and if we really want to take the lead in the information society, then we must have all hands on deck in this sector.
Tax matters are something of a disaster area, with no further progress than yet another discussion on VAT.
I hope the Commission will now, at long last, take a firm stand and try to force the Member States to move forward on this point.
Security is not just an internal matter, of course, it also concerns East-West relations.
I am thinking in particular here of nuclear safety, and I think the Commission should do much more to coordinate measures to improve safety in this field.
I find it amazing that there is now talk of a fifth framework programme, when we still do not have the ECU 700 million needed to implement the fourth.
Parliament will, I hope, tomorrow vote through an extra ECU 100 m, and I hope that the Commission will also take determined steps to persuade the Council to find a way round this problem.
So we need more than just words, what we need more than anything else is deeds, since this is the only way that we will see our ambitions achieved.
Mr President of the Commission, a number of general points have been made, so in my brief contribution I shall try to broach a subject which is anything but marginal.
I shall start from your own premise.
You referred to the need to win back, to revive and restore the confidence of our citizens, and to turn this into a challenge on the two fronts where that confidence is currently most at risk: employment, or rather unemployment, and security.
Then, in setting out your programme, you rightly identified four priorities and the progress which has been achieved, and you also referred to the problem of solidarity and the quality of growth.
More specifically, you touched on what is of the greatest concern to me - security - and mentioned several areas where it must be upheld: drugs, terrorism and organized crime.
But why did you stop there, Mr President? Today there is a danger greater than all these put together: its name is bovine spongiform encephalopathy - BSE or, to use a more colourful term, mad cow disease.
Despite the term, it is no laughing matter.
Mad cow disease could become the most fearsome and telling test for the whole of the Commission's programme in the year ahead.
As a member of Parliament's committee of inquiry, I can assure you that what has emerged so far - although it is not a great deal - is extremely worrying, especially in terms of the potential consequences of the epidemic, which has so far affected only the animal kingdom, for mankind in the future.
BSE is not a flu epidemic, or a common cold: it is a biological Chernobyl which is still hovering over us, but which could strike at any moment.
What we are constructing here is not some minor chapter of history, but a critical test which, if underestimated, will have the gravest of consequences.
It has been said that Europe is sick; well, the first injection to cure it is an injection of confidence, and confidence comes from the transparency and credibility of our institutions.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, after this debate - given that there are only two minutes left - I am going to focus on one of the expressions you used: you talked of the 'disarray of European citizens' and mentioned dehumanisation.
Indeed, the reality is that citizens of the various Member States do not feel themselves to be European citizens.
Nowadays, citizens feel that they are mere market variables and, given this, from this Assembly, we are trying to echo their appeal for greater development of anything that can help citizens to feel that they are actually affected in their daily lives: security, the development of the free movement of persons - which is being held up as you know -, practical activity - as Schuman used to say - in the areas of VAT, European society, etc.
In a nutshell, Mr President of the Commission, what is our main aim: our main aim is neither more nor less a huge one - helping European citizens to understand that, apart from market forces, we are also interested in the rule of law and that, apart from economic goals, we are also setting goals to bring about integration through full legal development of the concept of citizenship: in other words, as the subjects of rights and obligations, the very backbone of law and justice.
Mr President of the Commission, Mr President, I feel that we must emphasise the need to make progress in European construction through concrete practical measures.
It is practical measures which are going to lead to a legal Europe, the common objective of everyone aspiring after an integrated Europe concerned with more than market forces alone.
Mr President of the Commission, I wish to conclude my brief speech by saying that we are fundamentally in agreement and that you will always have the support of this Assembly: either Europe must be a Europe of the rule of law or there will be no Europe at all.
Thank you, Mr President.
The sad fact is that, given the challenges we face - and many speakers have listed them - this programme of action from the Commission has nothing to offer.
It is high time that we stopped suppressing our problems and abandoned the increasingly unconvincing practice of glossing over differences to sustain a crumbling semblance of optimism.
Repeating mantra-like that 'EMU equals growth, equals a balanced budget, equals employment' is pointless if everyone has ceased to believe it.
We must face up to the differences that clearly exist and we must not conceal the real contradictions, because it is only by acknowledging them that we can determine the tasks that lie before us and then tackle them effectively with courage, strength and realism.
This would involve a genuinely dynamic interpretation of the Commission's right of initiative.
We need to move towards a new model of development.
We need to halve unemployment by the year 2000.
We need to gradually dismantle the entrenched structures of social exclusion and poverty in this Europe of ours.
It is time that we included a chapter on employment in the Treaty, and an environmental and social union.
We need to coordinate and consolidate our Community's tax and financial policies, and finally make full use of our own resources.
These steps should then form the basis for completing the internal market and for introducing a sustainable monetary union - not the other way round.
As Mr Santer rightly said, unemployment is undermining the trust of our European citizens.
That is why we need a sea-change in politics: we need to regain the trust that will give us a basis for moving to a new type of full employment.
We too wish to see European integration.
Europeanization is our best hope in the face of economic globalization, but it should not mean the continuation of the neo-liberal, monetarist political model, based on increased production, which dominates the Maastricht Treaty and is forcing the Commission to ditch more and more of the Delors White Paper on competitiveness and employment.
We wish to see a different kind of Europe - one that no longer bends to the will of transnational companies, the material constraints of the world market or the daily decisions of financiers, instead of being guided by the decisions of its citizens.
Mr President, I think I can speak for my colleagues when I say that I should like to thank the President of the Commission for the answers he has given.
I quite understand that they had to be fairly broad, but we did ask a number of very specific questions on matters of procedure, and I would therefore ask President Santer to ensure that we do not end up in the same hole we dug for ourselves last year, and to instruct his officials at the Commission to take proper account of the comments we have made.
I should also like to ask whether we might have the answers that he was unable to give us just now - which I quite understand - at some other time?
I am entirely willing to forward specific answers to the Members who asked questions.
I am unable to give those answers at present, for reasons which you will understand.
The debate is closed.
1996 budget implementation - 1997 draft general budget - 1997 draft ECSC operating budget
The next item is the joint debate on the following:
motion for a resolution (B4-1097/96) pursuant to Rule 87 of the Rules of Procedure, by Mr Elles, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and Mr Brinkhorst, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the implementation of the Community budget for 1996; -report (A4-0310/96) by Mr Brinkhorst, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Communities for the financial year 1997 - Section III - Commission (COM(96) 0300 - C4-0350/96); -the report (A4-0311/96) by Mr Fabra Vallés, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Communities for the financial year 1997 (COM(96) 0300 - C4-0350/96)Section I - European Parliament - annex Ombudsman Section II - Council Section IV - Court of Justice Section V - Court of Auditors Section VI - Economic and Social Committee - Committee of the Regions;
report (A4-0322/96) by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft ECSC operating budget for 1997 (SEC(96) 0981 - C4-0359/96).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the first reading the Council has granted an overall amount for all of the other institutions of 1, 484.17 MECU.
Bearing in mind the amount of 2, 760.48 MECU granted to Part A of the Commission budget, this has left an available margin, under Heading 5, of 107.35 MECU.
It should be pointed out that the preliminary draft budget, within the framework of administrative cost for all institutions, overshot the limit of Heading 5 'Administrative Costs' by 14.5 MECU.
As part of the deliberations, the Committee on Budgets has shown its interest in the double requirement for the institutions systematically to assess financial activities for the Union's budget in order to improve the cost-efficiency ratio, and also to limit the creation of new jobs to commitments already made through enlargement.
In this way, the message gets across quite clearly and without any ambiguity before the great challenge which is the Community budget for the year 1997.
Administrative cost cannot be excluded from the belt-tightening which is imposed on all Member States with a view to monetary union.
However, the rapporteur thinks that this climate of austerity and rigour in budgetary matters should not come in the way of the conditions needed for the proper functioning of the institution.
Therefore, having considered the functional needs of the institutions and on the basis of updated information, the rapporteur has tabled amendments which would bring about an increase of 1.37 MECU compared with the Council's draft budget.
This increase is shared out as follows: for the Court of Justice, 1, 138, 700 ECU; for the Economic and Social Committee, 90, 158 ECU and for the common structure of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, 142, 348 ECU.
Of this overall amount of 1, 37 million ECU, 225, 486 ECU refer to measures aimed at staff: 18 upgradings for the Court of Justice, 3 for the Economic and Social Committee, 6 upgradings and the allocation of 1 ad personam for the common structure.
But I must also point out the following points. As for the European Parliament, staff measures confirm the forecast made in May and this first European Parliament's reading means that no increases have been to the establishment plan.
As for the Court of Auditors, the discussions going on with this institution since the creation of a draft budget by the Council has shown that there is a deficit of auditors due to the larger scope of controls carried out by this institution as a consequence of the Union's enlargement.
However, given that it is impossible to take these needs into account, the Court of Auditors should put forward more explicit demands as part of an overall project bearing in mind all parameters together.
Therefore, I should draw your attention to those paragraphs in the resolution referring to the Court of Auditors.
As far as the Ombudsman is concerned, amendments to the organisational structure would, in effect, supply those criteria which were adopted for inter-institutional cooperation.
As rapporteur I should like to point out that the proposed amendments which have been tabled are in compliance with the conclusions of the tripartite talks which took place in April of this year concerning a freeze on staffing.
Now I turn to the appropriations in other budgetary lines and I would like to emphasise the issue of auxiliaries.
For the 1997 budget, the situation is as follows: concerning the common structure, we have increased the line of auxiliaries by transferring credits from one article to another by 78.94 %.
As for the Court of Auditors, the change is 36.5 % compared with the credits initially authorized.
This situation, Mr President, overturns decisions taken by the budgetary authority since the increase to the 'auxiliaries' line is at the cost of credits earmarked for posts already authorized in the establishment plans.
An ad hoc policy is being developed which affects the genuine management and programming policy for posts authorized in the establishment plans of the institution.
To end this chapter on staff, I should like to point out the sharp drop, without sufficient justification, which has been observed in the 'special advisors' line in the budget of the Committee of the Regions.
Therefore, I call upon the Committee of the Regions to provide information on this line and in particular on the arrangements for awarding different contracts to special advisors in respect of the provisions in Article 82 of the Statute.
To conclude I should like to point out the need for institutions to respect the provisions of the financial rules and, for this purpose, I point out the obligation for the common structure of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions to establish an analytical accounting system and the need for the Court of Justice to present a genuinely analytical budget which is not merely a presentation of footnotes without any further explanation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the second consecutive year, I have the task of submitting for Parliament's approval, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, a motion for a resolution on the draft ECSC operating budget for 1997.
Quite apart from its historical and traditional importance, the establishment of the ECSC budget provides each year a unique opportunity of reviewing the situation in two sectors which are fundamental to Europe's industrial success, and in particular of comparing our economic activities with those of the rest of the world.
It should be underlined first of all that the figures available to us, which are considered to be final, demonstrate that in 1995, for the first time since the ECSC was created, imports of coal outstripped internal production.
The significance of this needs to be fully appreciated.
It does not prevent the Commission from counting on substantial growth in 1997, however, and without wishing to inflict too many figures on the House, I should nevertheless like to supply you with the main data.
In 1997, ECSC activities should be seen against a background of real growth in Community GDP of 2.4 %, as against 1.5 % in 1996.
Steel production, after recording an increase of 2.6 % in 1995 over 1994, is likely to fall by 1.7 % in 1996 compared with 1995 and settle at approximately the 1995 level in 1997, with the probable loss of 9000 jobs in this sector.
Coal production is likely to continue its downward trend and to record an estimated reduction of 5 %, mainly as a result of imports, which in 1995 - as I just said - for the first time outstripped internal production: 139 million tonnes as against 137.5 m tonnes.
Production is due to fall from 128.4 to 122 m tonnes, entailing the loss of approximately 7000 jobs and once again requiring implementation of the measures laid down in the ECSC Treaty.
The Committee on Budgets is therefore asking the House to approve - having done so itself - the table annexed to the motion for a resolution, which proposes accepting the levy rate of 0.17 % set by the Commission, in line with Parliament's previous decision to accept the Commission's proposal for a progressive reduction.
The Committee on Budgets is also proposing to modify slightly the breakdown of expenditure as shown in the table, although I shall not go into detail on this, as it would take too long.
I should like to draw Members' attention, on the other hand, to a new element in the ECSC budget.
And what in fact is new in the draft budget that we are submitting to the House this year? It is the proposal to include in the ECSC budget, from 1997 onwards, a fund of ECU 5 million designed to allow - and here I shall read out the remarks - ' the remainder of the reserve to be set aside as start-up funding for the establishment of a body subject to the political and budgetary control of the Community institutions and which would inherit in 2002 the residual assets of the ECSC' .
As the House is aware, this issue has been the subject of several debates and, in particular, a report drawn up by Mr Colom i Naval, which we have already discussed on various occasions.
By putting in place this appropriation of ECU 5 m, we shall provide Mr Colom i Naval with a basis on which to finalize his report on the future of the ECSC after 2002.
Indeed, although we have not yet decided on the shape that the ECSC should take after 2002, I believe that the members of the Committee on Budgets are united in agreeing on the need for ECSC activities to continue in one form or another.
By entering this ECU 5 m appropriation, we shall provide for the continuation of ECSC activities after 2002, and give Mr Colom i Naval the means to implement the policies that he will be proposing to us.
Mr President, the Foreign Affairs Committee is particularly concerned with Category 4 of the Budget, but more importantly with the politically sensitive aspects of our external spending.
I am thinking first of the question of Turkey, which has been discussed already.
Obviously Parliament will listen carefully to the Commission and to the Council, but in addition we will watch very carefully indeed actual events, not only in Turkey itself, but also in Cyprus.
We will be consistent with the resolution that we tabled, but I hope that colleagues, whatever the circumstances, will keep an open mind, bearing in mind the supreme importance in geostrategic terms of Turkey and its relationship over a long period with the European Union.
I support the ambitions of our colleagues who are concerned with the developing world.
We want to make sure that we have a presence around the world - in Latin America, Asia and elsewhere - and so the Foreign Affairs Committee endorses the focus on those areas.
But we also need to be concerned about the more immediate neighbourhood: the PHARE programme, the TACIS programme, and now the MEDA programme.
On that we will be retabling a very few amendments to reinstate the preliminary draft budget figures on democracy and human rights programmes in the PHARE programme, in the TACIS programme and in the MEDA programme.
We found that in the debate last week in the Committee on Budgets there was some ECU 120m left in the margin on Category 4.
We think it appropriate to spend a very small proportion of that on the political priorities of this Parliament and the Foreign Affairs Committee.
We will also be putting in some remarks on Hong Kong, Tibet and Macau. These are important aspects of policy.
We also hope that the Budget Committee, whose Members are here present, will continue to consult with the Foreign Affairs Committee as with other committees because we all have priorities; we recognize the importance of making decisions, but let us make sure that they actually take a balance of the interests of all the committees in Parliament.
Mr President, just a few moments after sitting down, I rise to speak again, this time in my capacity as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
In view of the limited time at my disposal, I shall address only two issues.
The first concerns a subject that is close to the heart of the chairman of our committee, Mr von Wogau: the information campaign on the single currency.
We are now a little more than two years away from the introduction of the single currency, and it is clear that the overall efforts to sell this idea to the European public have been largely inadequate.
That is why the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs insists that a substantial appropriation should be earmarked for this purpose, and the Committee on Budgets has supported it on this point.
I should also like to refer briefly to another subject close to the heart of the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, namely support for small and medium-sized industries and enterprises.
In the vote in the Committee on Budgets, an appropriation of ECU 25 million has been entered in the reserve.
Whilst our committee generally welcomes this measure, it is calling on the Council and the Commission to adopt and implement the regulation on the ELISE programme as quickly as possible.
Mr President, since my speaking time is very short, I shall address myself to only two matters.
Firstly, the Council's social policy cuts are unacceptable, and both the Committee on Social Affairs and the Committee on Budgets reject them.
These cuts are detrimental to the social dialogue; they seriously jeopardize and, in some cases, nullify the efforts being made to combat social exclusion.
Only recently, we celebrated World Anti-Poverty Day.
Action in favour of the elderly and disabled, and against racism, is being jeopardized.
It is worth bearing in mind not only that all these EU actions and projects in recent years have brought and are bringing the Union's activities closer to our fellow citizens, but also that they make a very real contribution to raising awareness right across civil society, through the work of associations and NGOs.
Therefore, the risk being run by the European Union in imposing these cuts - and in this context I think the recent elections in Austria and Finland give both ourselves and the Council food for thought - is that the lack of confidence in Europe will increase, a sentiment which I am afraid is becoming ever more widespread among our fellow citizens.
This is why the House cannot accept these cuts and, as the rapporteur said, it is proposing the launching of actions to promote the development of the non-profit-making sector in the Union. This sector can meet two objectives: on the one hand, to create employment at local level and, on the other, to respond to new requirements in terms of welfare, the environment and culture - requirements which neither public nor private initiatives are able to satisfy at present.
My second point relates to the Structural Funds and the Social Fund.
The Committee on Social Affairs and Employment proposes to reinstate the PDB figures for payments.
The ultimately political debate on the future of the Structural Funds cannot be allowed to degenerate into an accounting operation.
We cannot accept these cuts, as they would place an even greater strain on implementation, already difficult in certain countries.
Other Members will be speaking on this matter, and I feel that the two points I have raised must be taken into account.
Mr President, I also want to address the issue of the Council's decision to make cuts amounting to one billion in structural fund payments in the 1997 budget.
The Council, and indeed our Liberal rapporteur, has argued that, at a time when Member States are slashing budgets to meet EMU convergence criteria, the EU should make a symbolic gesture to cut funds and payments in structural funds in 1997.
Yet as the rapporteur himself admitted, the EU budget is so small as to make no difference, and we know it will make no difference when it comes to meeting those criteria.
So this can only be a question of gesture politics.
And I would remind the Council that we have no macro-economic conditionality criteria on mainstream structural funds.
Mr President, we have seen many gestures - at Essen, Madrid and Florence - on tackling unemployment and using structural funds for new initiatives on territorial pacts for employment.
We know that structural funds are the main EU instrument to tackle unemployment and create jobs, yet some Member States, and indeed our wealthier partners, are concerned to extricate themselves from those commitments that they made at Edinburgh to spend structural funds within the time-limits, slowing down and freezing their funds in 1997.
Jacques Santer this morning said there is a public crisis of confidence in the EU.
The Confidence Pact for Employment can re-establish that confidence but if we say to Member States they can go slow on spending on their programmes designed to tackle unemployment we are downgrading the vital role of the structural funds in job creation.
The Council's decision to cut payments therefore - I contend and my committee contends - is politically indefensible: we cannot possibly make EMU acceptable to people in our regions by abandoning our flanking policies of structural funds critical to funding EMU.
With this decision the Council is reneging on its commitments at Edinburgh to meet spending targets and, as a result, I think there is a real risk that in the long term structural fund programmes will be hugely underspent and money will then go back pro rata to the Member State and be lost to the regions.
Perhaps this is the real hidden agenda of some Member States and the Council in not meeting their cofinancing commitments, not only in 1997 but in 1998 and 1999.
I therefore ask the Council to reconsider this ill-advised strategy.
It gives a poor public signal at a time of public crisis in confidence.
EMU cannot mean no employment schemes in our region.
It is technically indefensible because several Member States have an appalling record on structural fund implementation and this cut allows them to continue that record of not spending on structural funds.
The Regional Committee and the Socialist Group will not be party to a shoddy strategy which is designed to rob our regions of funds which are necessary at this time.
We want the hypocrisy to stop and we want to see those commitments made on structural funds and on the Northern Ireland programme respected.
Mr President, I would agree with those Members who have already said this morning that this year is a time for budgetary restraint.
Governments across Europe have to recognize that and so should the European Community, and particularly this Parliament.
But a period of restraint can be useful in so far as it concentrates minds on what should be our real priorities and how we get real value for the money that we spend.
In setting out the Union's action plan for the next year, the President of the Commission, earlier this morning, once again put growth and employment at the head of our priorities.
He was right to do so. In that respect I would argue that expenditure on culture and education must not be seen as a non-essential luxury item; as an optional extra.
The vitality of European culture must be seen as an important engine for economic vitality.
Just think of the film and television industry, think of tourism.
These will be the major growth sectors for employment in the 21st century, creating far more employment opportunities than old-style, heavy engineering.
European media and European tourism rely on a vibrant and vital cultural life.
Hence it is important that we do not regard culture budget lines as soft targets for budget cuts but rather essential elements for economic prosperity.
Similarly, expenditure on education, particularly the SOCRATES programme, can only be seen as critical in helping young Europeans become effective workers in the single European market of the next century, able to use it and exploit it to the full.
That is why the Culture Committee has resubmitted its amendments, proposing that the money spent this year on the Year of Life-long Learning should be added to the SOCRATES budget for 1997.
President Santer says he wants Europe to do less and to do it better.
I totally agree.
Let us build then on what has already successfully started rather than, as we often seem to do, dabble with too many new initiatives.
If we want youth and culture to take us seriously, we must take them seriously.
Mr President, it takes a considerable degree of optimism to be the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Development, given the way that the axe has been wielded repeatedly at the various stages of the budgetary procedure.
We are fond of emphasizing that the European Community is also a community of values, but for anyone seeking to support the demands of the third world, this begs the question of whether there is any place for solidarity in the European value system.
There is absolutely no truth in the claim which is sometimes made that development policy involves issuing a blank cheque.
Our population policy is successful, our literacy campaigns are successful, and we do not wish to see those successes called into question.
We should certainly prefer to hear constructive proposals, rather than criticism of the unsatisfactory cost-benefit ratio in the development sector.
And we do not object to the setting of specific priorities for development.
But when we read, in connection with the MEDA programme, or PHARE and TACIS, of rates of growth beyond the wildest dreams of those engaged in development policy, we are bound to ask why we should celebrate the fact that the European Union's competences include the promotion of development cooperation, if it only has our half-hearted support.
I welcome the compromises that were achieved at the last minute, and I would urge that we should defend them and consider for a moment the promises that we have made to the poorest countries.
I hope that we shall be able to keep them.
Mr President, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs wishes to see effective action and majority decision-making in the legal sector.
The Member States are wasting huge resources on ineffective controls at the internal frontiers, while at the same time there are not enough resources for combating international crime.
We wish to have a strong and effective Europol, and to see international drug crime combated effectively.
We are in favour of common rules on asylum and joint action in dealing with the major international flows of refugees.
We wish to play our part in combating xenophobia and promoting the integration of foreigners into our society.
The committee asks for the EU's budget to be drawn up on this basis.
We are calling on the Commission to play an active and dynamic role and to take its opportunity.
To a large extent, this sector is one towards which the public is favourably disposed, and there is also support for amending the Treaty in nearly all the Member States' governments.
I am ashamed that not only the United Kingdom, but also my own country, Denmark, has entered reservations, but that must not lead us to give up: it should encourage us to take action.
I should like to thank Mr Brinkhorst for the work he has done in this area as well, and for the skilful way in which he presented Parliament's views a few minutes ago.
Mr President, if speaking time were calculated on the basis of amendments tabled, one minute would indeed be adequate.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs has submitted only a small number of amendments, but they are very much to the point, and I should like to draw them to the attention of the House and, one last time, to that of the rapporteur.
The first relates to our committee's wish to reinforce the Prince programme, which is an extremely important one if we wish economic and monetary union and the IGC to be a success, and if the message is to be successfully conveyed to the citizens of Europe.
The committee has also thought of linking to this an awareness campaign, an idea which has been taken up on condition - of course - that it will not work to the detriment of the more broadly-based consumer information campaigns already under way.
The committee has also requested an increase - with all due caution - in the grants we make available, in view of the fortieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome.
I hope that this message will be heard on Thursday for the benefit of, amongst others, some extremely important bodies such as the European University Institute in Florence, which would otherwise not find in this year's budget the sums they need to cover their operating costs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Fisheries would like the three following amendments to be accepted:
First of all, in budget line B 2-901, on the financial participation by the Community in control and surveillance activities in the waters of Member States, to be returned to the quantity provided for in the preliminary draft budget approved by the Commission: 39.5 MECU instead the 33 MECU now earmarked.
This amendment has already been accepted by the Committee on Budgets.
Secondly, setting up a new budgetary line for non-industrial coastal fishing (B 2-522 N, with 10 MECU).
This amendment has also been accepted by the Committee on Budgets, and 4 MECU have been earmarked.
Last but not least, we call for an increase in the budgetary share for B 7-800 (International Agreements), by 36 MECU, bringing it from 276, 4 to 312, 3 MECU.
This initiative has not been accepted by the Committee on Budgets.
The official Commission stance is that the amount earmarked for this budgetary line should be enough to cover all of the Community's obligations in this area and that, if at the end of the budgetary year this is exceptionally not the case, it ought to be possible to transfer funds to meet any extra needs by use of the 'Notenboom' procedure.
However, according to figures supplied by DG XIV, the amount available is clearly insufficient to meet the needs for international agreements.
Our position, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, is that we should not begin a budgetary year in the certainty that the budgetary amounts earmarked for this budgetary line are insufficient to meet any obligations arising from international fishery agreements already signed by the Community - agreements which represent one of the fundamental bases of the common fisheries policy - which explains our amendment which has already been retabled by the Committee on Fisheries and which should be adopted.
The Committee on Women's Rights decided to pursue a limited number of priorities in the budget procedure.
Our first aim was to secure ECU 12 million for the Fourth Action Programme for equal opportunities for men and women - in other words, twice the amount allocated by the Council.
The Committee on Budgets has approved a figure of ECU 10 m.
Secondly, as a follow-up to the Beijing conference on women, we wished to facilitate action to combat trafficking in women and violence against women, and to support the NGOs that are working in these areas.
Thirdly, we wished to see a horizontal approach to 'mainstreaming' - the inclusion of equality of opportunity in all policy areas.
We therefore put forward a package of amendments to the remarks on a number of budget lines, and these were approved by the Committee on Budgets.
However, three budget lines were not approved, and we are proposing to reinstate them.
We now expect the Commission to set up an office within its administration to pursue and evaluate mainstreaming, and to take the initiative when there are delays in implementing it.
Mr President, this year's budget has thrown up problems.
One problem is the lack of legal base for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
We need those programmes for our environmental aims.
We are setting particular store by the SAVE II programme which we want to see enhanced.
It is vitally important for competitiveness and the environment that this programme is enhanced.
On nuclear safety, we think it essential that countries in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe have the sort of help in training their inspectors that they need directly from DG XVII, and not through the sometimes convoluted PHARE and TACIS approach.
It is of crucial importance that research and development generally - with its role in job creation and in the protection of the environment - is well-financed.
It is all the more astonishing that the Council of Ministers has not yet agreed to this and made provision to allow R&D to continue.
Most of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights have been approved, and I am grateful to the Committee on Budgets for that fact.
One problem still remains, which we shall continue to face for a considerable time, and that is the length of time it takes to process cases before the European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance.
The procedure at present is much too lengthy, and this makes people less willing to accept European law.
The main cause of the problem is that the French translation sections at both courts are severely under-staffed.
I would strongly urge all the members of the Committee on Budgets and the Members of the House to take a less stringent approach to new recruitment in the coming year and not to overlook the two courts, so that we can achieve greater popular acceptance of European law.
Mr President, for future years, if we could stick by the agenda as originally planned, it would be more constructive, because we should be looking at the monitoring of existing expenditure before we come on to new expenditure planned for 1997.
Looking then at what is a novel procedure, I would like to make three particular points so far as the implementation of the ongoing budget is concerned.
We should not be thinking in terms of gloom and doom but should be reasonably optimistic that in this particular part of European Union activities we are able to provide more transparency and more certainty to European taxpayers that there is now tighter monitoring of the way in which monies are spent.
In the 1996 budget, when it was initially framed, we set out three priorities.
The first was rationalization in terms of information policy, the agencies and nomenclature.
We had a second priority which was reform of the procedures: this involved greater scrutiny of the executive committees; the interinstitutional function of the Union; the question of the use of the reserve to enable Parliament to make sure its priorities were carried out by the Commission and, lastly, innovation in terms of a number of new programmes which we had put into the budget in 1996, including elements for the information campaigns for Europe, Sarajevo and small- and medium-sized enterprises.
The question then arises: how has this budget been implemented during the current year?
The fact is that we have had better overall implementation in Category 1; where the forecasts have perhaps been set too high, we have adjusted them in the 1997 budget.
Where we have had lower utilization of the structural funds in Category 2 we will also, I suspect, be adjusting that when we come to vote the 1997 budget.
In several specific lines there have been problems of implementation, but overall we have had more effective implementation.
Why is that? In part it is due to the Commission, and thanks to Commissioner Liikanen, we have had information earlier in the process through what I would now call the Bourlanges rather than the Notenboom procedure, and we have been able to channel this information on existing budget management more accurately into our decisions to be taken on the 1997 budget.
But we are left with the tricky problem of the legal base, which will be common both to the 1996 and the 1997 budget, and the only way we can resolve that is through an interinstitutional agreement, Mr President-in-Office, by the second reading at the latest, otherwise we will find management problems which will grow in time rather than lessen.
Let me turn to a few comments on the 1997 budget from the budgetary control point of view.
It is clear that we have already set out the guidelines for identifying value for money in the operation of the management of the budget and that we shall continue with them during the 1997 procedure.
Indeed, in the guidelines of our rapporteur general, we have made sure that monitoring of the existing budget runs in parallel with the creation of new credits in the 1997 budget.
Obviously this is going to be made more difficult where the Council has cut back significantly in terms of many internal projects, even if the utilization and management of these lines is really effective.
When it comes to Parliament itself, where we have made progress and where we will still make progress is by making sure that the specialized committees working with the Committee on Budgets and Committee on Budgetary Control can make sure that money is being spent wisely and here I come back to the first point I made.
It will mean greater transparency and more effectiveness in the way in which the budget is established and, therefore, greater reliability so far as European citizens are concerned.
Mr President, I am pleased at the opportunity to address you again today.
On 18 September I had the honour to present to this plenary the draft budget for 1997, which was established by the Council on 25 July.
On that occasion I outlined to you the main political considerations guiding the Council in its budgetary decisions.
It is important to recall those considerations as Parliament is preparing to decide on its first reading of this budget.
I would like to recall also that the Council's first reading was preceded by a conciliation with Parliament during which a broad level of agreement was reached on the main items of the 1997 budget procedure.
The Council is of the opinion that respect for strict budgetary discipline is an unavoidable constraint for the Community budget this year, when Member States at national level are facing some very tough and difficult budgetary decisions.
To achieve this budgetary discipline, the Council decided to reduce the preliminary draft budget by ECU 1, 000m in agricultural expenditure as well as a further ECU 1, 000m in the payment appropriations for structural measures.
Furthermore, significant savings in headings 3 and 4 of the Financial Perspective were also proposed which should go hand in hand with the abovementioned reductions.
I would mention that, with regard to the provision for agricultural expenditure, the outcome of the conciliation procedure was successful and that the Council endeavoured to take account of Parliament's concerns in this area.
As I stressed on 18 September, the Council considers it essential that the European Parliament go along with this overall restrictive strategy concerning expenditure in the fields of agriculture and structural actions.
Moreover, the rigour imposed by the financial and economic constraints on all Member States in 1997 cannot spare headings 3 and 4 of the Financial Perspective.
Despite the strict approach of Council, it allocated considerable amounts in favour of a number of actions which represent, in its view, particular priorities at this time.
Research, education and youth, environment, internal market and the TENs have all been included.
In the area of 'external measures' , the Council's priorities were: cooperation with Latin America and Asia, the Mediterranean third countries, PHARE and TACIS and ex-Yugoslavia, among others.
In all these fields, the Council accepted commitment appropriations at - or slightly below - the level of the Commission's preliminary draft budget.
As regards payment appropriations, the Council took into account the implementation rate on these budget lines during recent financial years, in conformity with the agreed need for budget entries to be as realistic as possible.
However, for a number of the lines in headings 3 and 4, the Council is of the view that next year's particular constraints - linked mainly to the paramount objective of achieving EMU - require that savings are realized as well.
There are, of course, areas where major political efforts are being made by the Union and its institutions, often in association with other world powers.
These include our efforts to promote peace and reconstruction in various places, including Northern Ireland.
Through our participation in these actions, we demonstrate the political strength and cohesion of the European Union and its identification with, and interest in helping, those in difficulties.
The European Parliament has been extremely supportive of the Northern Ireland Peace Programme.
Speaking as one who is personally involved in the peace process negotiations, I welcome the efforts which have and are at this time being made by Parliament to ensure that the political impetus for this programme is maintained.
In particular, I welcome Mr Brinkhorst's assurance here today about funding for the Northern Ireland Peace Programme, and I thank him for that.
I would like to turn now to the question of the revision of the Financial Perspective, which, I know is of very special interest to Parliament, as has been put to me on many occasions.
Your position is, of course, extremely understandable.
After all, the Commission and President Santer put proposals to the Florence European Council for increased expenditure on TENs and, to a lesser extent, on research and SMEs.
At the July Ecofin, my colleague Ruairi Quinn in his capacity as President of the Council, set up a High Level Group of Personal Representatives of Ministers for Finance to consider the proposals further.
The Group's report indicates that the budgetary difficulties of many of the Member States make it very difficult indeed for them to contemplate increases in budgetary expenditure either domestically or at Community level.
While it is not possible, despite the presidency's best efforts, for the Council to reach agreement at this time on a revision of the Financial Perspective for 1998 and 1999, Ministers have noted the funding available from the EIB and existing budgetary resources.
Under these circumstances, I appeal to Parliament to bear in mind the difficulties of the present budget procedure.
I would also like to stress the positive role which the current Financial Perspective has played in ensuring the necessary financing of Community policies, as well as its role in avoiding futile disputes between the two arms of the budget authority.
In that context too I wish to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Mr Samland, Mr Brinkhorst and to Mr Fabra Vallés and other members of the Committee on Budgets.
Having met with them on some six separate occasions during or before the Irish presidency, which is I gather in excess of the norm, I have found them willing to engage at all times in constructive and meaningful dialogue on budgetary issues and I hope they have found me to be the same.
I take this opportunity to thank the Budget Commissioner, Mr Liikanen, for his cooperation, help and advice.
I would like to turn now to the question of the legal basis, which was discussed at our earlier conciliation meeting of 25 July.
At Mr Samland's recent request, I sought to raise this issue at a high level and accordingly Parliament's concerns were conveyed to Ministers at the October Ecofin meeting.
As you may know, there have been several technical meetings between the three institutions on the legal base.
I want to assure you that the presidency will make every effort to progress this matter with a view to reaching - if at all possible - an agreement between the three institutions when we meet on 19 November, the date of the Budget Council.
In the course of the ad hoc conciliation last July, the Council agreed also to examine, with the European Commission and the European Parliament, a detailed mutual information procedure to be applied in respect of international fisheries agreements.
Following the technical discussions between the three institutions, the presidency is now pressing for political progress towards concluding an acceptable arrangement on that issue as well.
These are the main points I wish to make before this Parliament's vote on its reading of the draft budget for the financial year 1997.
I can assure you that the Council will examine in depth and with care the results of your first reading.
On behalf of the presidency, I can assure you that I will spare no effort to work with Parliament and the Commission so that, at the end of the year, the most appropriate budget for our Union can, in all circumstances, be adopted.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
We now have to suspend the debate because of voting time.
It will be resumed at 3 p.m. this afternoon.
Votes
Mr President, this concerns a Commission proposal which was rejected in committee and which we should actually have voted on at the July part-session.
Talks have started with the Commission, but it has decided that the final negotiations on a new document cannot start until Parliament has rejected the existing proposal in plenary.
All we need to do now, as everyone in the House agrees, is to reject the Commission proposal as it stands as a formal confirmation that we do not accept it, and then the Commission can propose a new document straight away and the negotiations can continue.
(Parliament adopted the draft legislative resolution)
Cultural issues are first and foremost a national and inter state matter.
It is impossible to have a policy which covers all cultural projects.
Each case must be considered in its own right.
If the issue is one of supporting a Member State&#x02BC;s initiative without a supranational decision, the project should be considered according to its subject matter.
If it is one of creating EU institutions which first take in money from Member States and then allocate these funds, it is doubtful whether the EU should become involved.
If coordination at European level is required it ought to take place via the European Council.
Sanz Fernandez recommendation
We have voted today against the recommendation for second reading concerning a Community action programme in the field of cultural heritage, the Raphael programme, just as we voted against the programme at first reading.
Amongst other things, the Raphael programme is aimed at supporting projects which are of interest to the Community as a whole, which help to improve the way in which the cultural heritage is represented, and which have a European dimension.
Firstly, we do not believe that it is the task of the EU to concern itself with the cultural sector; this is definitely a matter for the Member States.
Secondly, we take the view that the actual aim of the programme is too narrow.
When a European dimension is referred to, what is envisaged is not in fact a genuinely European dimension, but an EU one.
The European cultural heritage is not limited to the EU Member States, but includes the whole of Europe.
Guinebertière report
I voted no to this report.
There is absolutely no reason for the EU in a "project imposed from above' to allocate SEK 750 million (ECU 90 million) to support European TV and Cinema productions, particularly when the whole project appears to be directed towards activities in other countries, e.g. the USA.
Support of this type should take place at National level.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this House, it would seem somewhat superfluous to advocate the need for a special Guarantee Fund to promote cinema and television production in Europe.
Mrs Guinebertière, in her commendable report, and the Committee on Culture, through a formal act, have already expressed opinions in this respect which I completely endorse.
But it is not a matter of preaching to the converted here; the problem is to convince the governments of the need for the Fund and, in particular, of the urgency of channelling resources into production.
Many aspects of the Commission's proposal are open to discussion: the procedures, the timescale, the monitoring of the project portfolio.
On the other hand, the House has shown considerable maturity and discernment in its attempts to improve the Commission's proposal, by means of the Guinebertière report, the opinions and the amendments.
What is quite intolerable is the continued sabotage of the proposed Fund by certain governments.
Of course, the Commission's proposal is not perfect.
But as today's debate has revealed, it can certainly be improved.
We cannot continue to tolerate the attitude shown by the governments on 11 June, whereby when there is disagreement over some aspects of a proposal, however important they may be, it is simply consigned to the waste-paper basket and thus denied any dignity, value or urgency.
Above all else, the very reasons for it are denied.
The Council's attitude here is utterly wrong and should be censured at the highest level, beginning with a clear-cut rebuke from Parliament and its President.
It would be truly insulting to the House if, in the light of a formal act in the shape of the vote on the Guinebertière report - no doubt a favourable one - we had to engage in yet another trial of strength with the Council; and this time not on specific aspects, but on the very principle underlying the Commission's proposal, namely the attempt to rescue Europe's cinema industry from grave financial crisis.
Authors, directors and actors wishing to make a film in Europe must literally go begging to producers, banks and finance companies.
And since banks and financial institutions demand very onerous legal guarantees, that leaves only producers, who are without doubt attracted far more by the commercial than the cultural aspects of a project.
They invest very small amounts indeed nowadays, and only when the so-called 'entrepreneurial risk' proves to be almost nil.
That is their job, I have no doubt.
But this vicious circle is putting tens of thousands of people out of work every year.
And even worse, the cinema in Europe is rapidly becoming subordinate to that of the United States, in terms of both quantity and quality.
Not only as an MEP, but above all as a cinema professional, I wish to express the extreme concern that is being felt throughout the cinema industry.
It is not by chance, in fact, that the cinema world welcomed the proposed Guarantee Fund as a final glimmer of hope.
I therefore appeal to you, Mr President, to make a formal approach to the Council - with all due respect for your independence - to find out exactly what it intends to do about the Fund.
Does it wish to retain the principle? Very well, but then let it revise the text as necessary - and without wasting any more time.
Does it wish to review the financial framework?
Fine, that can be discussed - but as a matter of urgency.
Does it wish to consign the whole idea to the waste-paper basket?
Let it do so - but in the knowledge that conservative and progressive governments alike will have to account for themselves in full to public opinion, because we do not intend to give in to either blackmail or sabotage.
Finally, I would make a similar appeal to my colleagues here in Parliament.
It is, in a sense, our historic duty as an institution to approach our own governments and urge them to take a timely, positive decision in support of the Fund.
I call on all those - a large number, I hope - who have come out in favour of the establishment of the Fund to put pressure on their national governments.
In short, let us ensure that this issue of the Fund is not the umpteenth confirmation of the political and institutional weakness of this House, crushed and scorned by the questionable decisions of the governments.
The creation of the European Audiovisual Guarantee Fund is part of the framework of the Community's activity to reform the European audiovisual area on two fundamental fronts: on one hand, regulation - in other words reshaping the Television without Frontiers Directive in order to establish a clearer and more efficient legal framework, to favour the development of television broadcasting activities in the Single Market, and also to relaunch and to consolidate the European programme industry through the MEDIA II Programme and the creation of supplementary machinery, closer to the market and aimed at mobilising resources such as the European Audiovisual Guarantee Fund.
I am completely in favour of the creation of this Fund because I am convinced that the philosophy which underlies it - sharing risks, following market criteria, mobilising private investment, stimulating and rewarding professional effort - is European audiovisual production itself.
The system has borne fruit in recent years in Spain, in the policy for defending and fostering Spanish film production.
Now what we need to do is apply a similar system on a European scale in order to face American domination of this market.
Añoveros Trías de Bés report
I voted no to this report.
There is no legislation in Sweden on the protection of utility models.
The issue has been considered in a government report as a result of which legislation was considered unnecessary.
There is no reason whatsoever to introduce legislation which would impose regulations on Sweden from above that we ourselves consider unnecessary at home.
EU legislation (Directive or Regulation) would also involve increased cost for companies, entrepreneurs and innovators.
The EU should, on the other hand, use all means possible to stimulate new patents and inventions.
This could be brought about through increased information and a lowering of the cost of patent applications.
We have voted against the report from Julio Anoveros Trias de Bes.
Sweden does not have legislation on the protection of utility models.
A Swedish government report on the protection of utility models was withdrawn through lack of interest.
In comparison with patent rights, the protection of utility models has a weaker legal position.
Legislation at EU level would lead to high costs for those applying for protection of utility models, in particular the cost of translating the application to the official languages of the Union which innovators would have to pay.
What is required, however, is that the EU should recommend that Member States reduce their costs for patent applications.
Japan and the USA currently have significantly lower costs in this area than the countries of the Union.
As a consequence of this, the EU ought to review current convergence policies which are forcing drastic cuts in countries and thereby limiting opportunities for State financial assistance to small and medium sized innovators for patents.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.30 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
1996 budget implementation - 1997 draft general budget - 1997 draft ECSC operating budget (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the motion for a resolution pursuant to Rule 87 and the three reports by the Committee on Budgets.
Mr President, the 1997 budget has an important role to play in the strategy of the Union, to meet the challenges and to regain the confidence of the citizens of Europe.
The 1997 budget needs to be a rigorous budget.
The Union budget must contribute - within its modest limits - to the efforts of all Member States to restore their fiscal health.
These efforts are inevitable.
They will permit a successful start to economic and monetary union which is without doubt the most important project of the Union for the remainder of this century and beyond.
All institutions have recognized the need for rigour as the cornerstone of the 1997 budget procedure.
This demonstrates their responsibility.
The Commission presented a preliminary draft budget in April with a rate of growth 'without BSE' below the rate of inflation, with significant margins in categories 3, 4 and 5, and with a zero increase in personnel except for enlargement.
A majority in Council has gone a step further and established a 'zero growth' draft budget.
This was mainly achieved by budgeting ECU 1 billion less in payment credits for agriculture and structural funds.
Given the substantial under-execution of these categories in recent years, this is not a totally unrealistic assumption.
But - and we must remember this - the underlying regulations remain unchanged and will need to be fully financed from the 1997 budget.
If the European Parliament leaves the cuts in categories 1 and 2 intact it will demonstrate that it too is willing to accept a strategy of rigour.
But the amendments accepted in the Budget Committee also show strong support for the Trans-European Networks in the transport sector, for research and development and for the peace process in Northern Ireland.
This keeps alive the joint efforts of the Commission and Parliament for these priorities of the Union.
In fact, from the beginning of the year, when President Santer proposed a 'confidence pact' for the Union, the Commission has been stressing that the Union needs a forward-looking strategy for growth and employment.
Along with budgetary rigour there needs to be investment in the future.
As one tangible element of such a strategy, the Commission proposed a revision of the Financial Perspectives for 1998 and 1999 along with a commitment to exceptional rigour for 1997.
It was confident that its proposal would respond to requests from several Councils but, in particular, of all European Councils since Essen.
The outcome of the deliberations of Ecofin has been disappointing.
In spite of the support of many Member States, Ecofin on 14 October 1996 was only able to state that there is no agreement in present circumstances for a revision of the Financial Perspective proposed by the Commission.
Because of the negative attitude of the Council there is now in front of you an alternative solution for the year 1997: to strengthen the financing of the revision priorities using all the margins in Categories 3, 4 and 5.
This approach has the merit of respecting the overall ceilings of the Financial Perspective.
The institutions should be able to come to an agreement on it without delay.
The discussions between the institutions must include the question of legal bases.
The Commission is working with the Irish presidency to come to a conclusion before the end of this budget procedure.
An agreement would considerably facilitate Community financial policies.
With regard to administrative expenditure, Parliament's amendments generally restore the workability of the administrative budget of the Commission without relaxing its rigour. I am grateful for that.
But still I hope the Commission and Parliament can continue to work on a few points which would leave no doubt about Parliament's objectives without weakening the Commission's institutional independence to decide on the best way of achieving them.
Let me conclude on this item by thanking the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, and the rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst, as well as the rapporteur for the other institutions, Mr Fabra Vallés, and all the members of the Committee on Budgets for their work in the 1997 procedure.
As this is a joint debate also on Parliament's opinion on the operating budget for the European Coal and Steel Community for 1997, I would now like to react briefly to the report by Mr Giansily.
The Commission will examine the opinion of Parliament carefully.
I note agreement on the resources and, in particular, on a levy of 17 %.
On the expenditure side, if account is taken of the implementation options, it would indeed appear possible to strengthen the aids for redeployment as well as for coal and steel research, for social research funds have already been provided for within the coal and steel research programmes and within the 4th research framework programme.
I note your proposals to finance preparatory activities for coal and steel sector activities after 2002.
This is part of the broader debate about ECSC activities after the expiry of the ECSC Treaty.
The Commission has not yet adopted a position on this question.
The report of Mr Colom i Naval will be timely in stimulating reflection, and I am looking forward to the debate which - as I understand it - has been scheduled for the plenary session in November.
Let me for now thank you, Mr Giansily, as well as, again, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, and his colleagues, for your work on this issue.
Mr President, following this morning's debate, we now get on to the political input, rather than just the input from the committees.
Speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group, our priorities from the very start have been to concentrate on those issues which would bring about job creation.
We have been trying to show that we are serious about this in contrast to the words which the Council has continually poured out since Essen about job-creating projects while never coming up with the resources to make those a reality.
Indeed, it is also in contrast to the Commission.
I do not mean this as an insult to you, Commissioner Liikanen - you and the Committee on Budgets have a very good understanding - but it is ironic when we see a PDB with cuts in expenditure and then officials from the Commission ask Parliament to reinstate those cuts.
That smacks of hypocrisy.
In the Socialist Group we have tried to be open in our approach to job creation.
We openly admit that to achieve that goal there would need to be a revision of the Financial Perspective, especially for those three areas that Parliament has seen as priorities: the Irish peace process, research and development, and trans-European networks.
As in the past our position is to go along with the Article 203 strategy that was outlined in the Budgets Committee last week.
What we said was that if you really want to create jobs, if you really want to put money on the line for TENs, then it has to be more than paying for studies, you have to have the money there to actually create the projects and the work.
That is why we are prepared to go along with Article 203 to make sure that the money goes to TENs, goes to research and development and, at the same time, that the Irish peace process is not left out of those priorities.
Having said that, we also recognize that the Ecofin Council of 14 October in effect killed off any revision of the Financial Perspective.
Our role as a group is not to come along, make a lot of noise and then happily back down.
If we cannot get support in this House, if we cannot get 314 votes, our group has not yet made a definitive decision but I would assume that we would go along with the strategy outlined by Mr Brinkhorst at last night's Budgets Committee.
That means creating the ECU 300m reserve, highlighting within that at least ECU 100m for the Irish peace process, and then deciding where the rest of it would go.
One assumes it would go to research and development and TENs. That is a position we are prepared to support.
It does not help our case when we get lobbied by all and sundry.
When we took that decision at the first reading of the budget in committee and highlighted the strategy of going for Article 203, I made the point that the telephones of Europe would begin to ring.
And they certainly have, from Prime Ministers and Foreign Secretaries and everyone, to such an extent that we will not be taking that course of action.
I have come to the conclusion that the telephone is mightier than the sword because it seems to achieve one heck of a lot more than we do by manning the barricades!
Today I got a note from the United Kingdom Permanent Representation asking us in effect to vote against the amendment that we voted through in the Budgets Committee.
It starts off by saying: ' The proposal for a special support programme for peace and reconciliation was made by the President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, on 7 December 1994.'
Wrong.
It was not made then, it was made several months earlier by the European Parliament.
What Mr Delors did was to get the figures wrong.
He said ECU 300m instead of ECU 200m and we have had the problem ever since!
But the note goes on to say - and I love this bit: ' Parliament's justification for the proposed reduction, (that is, the Council has not met their request to raise the ceiling on structural funds spending by ECU 100m to replace resources from the reserve), will not be understood in the areas concerned, particularly at this sensitive time' .
That is probably true, but it is also an admission by one member of the Council that what we have said all along is actually fact, that it is because the Council has not come forward with the extra ECU 100m that we have this problem.
It does not help when we get stuff like that put around, Mr President, especially at a time of sensitive negotiations.
I would like to make a point about some of the amendments that will be put in by the Socialist Group.
In Category 2, we will be retabling the amendments of the Committee on Regional Policy.
That will mean that we will be asking for the ECU 1bn in payment appropriations to be reinstated within the budget.
That is quite clearly the position of our group.
We will be supporting the amendment from the Committee on Regional Policy and the Committee on Budgets in regard to reinstating the funds for RECHAR and RETEX.
By the same token, we will be supporting the Budgets Committee's proposals to ensure that the ECU 100m for the peace process is there, but not at the expense of Community initiatives that this Parliament considers a priority.
I turn then to the resolution in Mr Brinkhorst's name. It is quite lengthy.
In paragraphs 71, 72 and 73 it touches on the area of comitology.
What it says there it means, and the message to the Council is quite clear. If you do not cooperate in this area, then there may not be trouble in 1997 but there certainly will be in 1998.
Mr President, what we have to consider first of all when we have a look at the context of the 1997 budget are the tremendous difficulties which the Council President referred to before the votes, just before our lunch break.
We have Member States who are cutting back or keeping a freeze on their national budgets as the public sector deficits have been cut back, not only to be competitive in the global economy but also for the rationale of the single currency towards the end of this decade.
Speaking on behalf of my group, I think we are right, therefore, in making sure that we act responsibly in this budgetary process and we contribute towards that goal ourselves and indeed the position of the European People's Party right from the start of this process, after our Budget Committee votes ten days ago, has been to underline two particular principles.
The first is that we go for a zero growth budget because that is in line with Parliament's commitment of responsibility in the budgetary process and therefore we, in contrast to the Socialists, will not be voting for the Committee on Regional Policy's amendment to be voted back but we will be voting for responsibility in the structural funds, as in other parts of the budget.
Secondly, perhaps as important, if not more important, is to vote in terms of keeping the commitments which Parliament has entered into and particularly the interinstitutional agreement.
We do not agree that we should go to Article 203 which in essence - if Mr Wynn would admit this - would actually rip up the interinstitutional agreement.
We think that we should actually use the agreements which we enter into, try and ensure, as now, that the strategy of Parliament evolves between first and second reading and encourage the Council to come along with Article 12(2) to have a discussion with us so that we can then revise the perspectives, but within the framework of the interinstitutional agreement, rather than simply tearing it up and saying 'we don't use this' .
It would to me, and I think to my Group as a whole, certainly be the wrong step for Parliament to take, while we are in the process of negotiating the Intergovernmental Conference, as it would show us being an irresponsible partner in the budgetary process.
We are in favour of awareness at this particular time of the difficulties of the European Union, both in terms of a budgetary freeze and of negotiating within the frameworks that we have already negotiated.
There is however the question of how we can actually achieve that within the frameworks which have been set out.
We believe that the proposal put forward by the general rapporteur of putting 300 million in a general reserve, with 100 million specifically allocated to Ireland so it is absolutely copper-bottomed, provides the guarantee that Ireland will have one hundred million at the end of the budgetary process, in whichever category we finally allocate it.
That must be a real fundamental principle.
But, as for the allocation of the rest of the 300 million, that will be in the final analysis for the budgetary authority to decide at the end of second reading.
But in terms of job creation, if you think that simply by putting another 100 million on the trans-European networks we are going to solve the unemployment problem in the European Union then I am afraid that is not our view on this side of the House.
What we must think of in this negotiation - and I direct my final remarks to you, Mr President-in-Office - is that we must have understanding and flexibility from your institution as part of the co-authority of the budgetary process, to make sure the things that you have signed and that we have signed are things which we can actually make work in practice.
Situations have changed since we signed up in 1993; we must make sure that it can survive as a living entity.
Otherwise the risk is that, when it comes to the revision of the Financial Perspective next year, you will find a more than reluctant partner on this side of the budgetary authority when it comes to continuing with something which is rigid and clearly will be unoperational in the longer term.
Mr President, the preparations for the vote on this budget required the Committee on Budgets to engage in a dual exercise, which merits first and foremost, I believe, a dual salute: to the chairman of the committee, Mr Samland, and to the rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst.
On 25 July, the preliminary draft budget, which was based on estimates showing an almost 4 % increase on the budget for 1996, was cut back to a zero growth budget.
The reasons for this were commendable, and our group supported them.
Indeed, how could the Member States be expected to accept an increase in the Community budget, when they are reducing expenditure in their national budgets in a bid to meet the Maastricht convergence criteria?
That fact being established, Mr Brinkhorst's original strategy was severely hampered, inevitably leading the Committee on Budgets to propose cuts.
While expressing my group's overall satisfaction, I should like to make a number of basic comments on the decisions taken with regard to this budget and reaffirm a number of principles which we believe to be elementary common sense, at the risk of giving the impression that we are repeating ourselves.
Firstly, on the subject of agricultural expenditure, I should like to hammer home once again the need to distinguish between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
Directing my remarks - beyond Mr Brinkhorst - to Mrs Guigou and Mr Brok, who are representing Parliament in the IGC negotiations, I wish to point out that the common agricultural policy is not a budgetary instrument. It is an economic tool for regulating the markets which, for obvious reasons, is subject to estimated budget entries.
How could we have dealt with the mad cow crisis, for example, without the flexibility of this mechanism or without the compulsory entry of appropriations? Appropriations under Category 1 must retain their compulsory nature.
I would then comment briefly on the revision of the financial perspective.
Clearly, the Committee on Budgets, on which the Interinstitutional Agreement confers very specific responsibilities regarding budgetary matters, wishes to exercise those responsibilities in a precise framework and well in advance.
It is natural, in my view, that the conciliation process should apply fully in this context, but this is also the reason why our group does not agree to Parliament making use of Article 203 of the Treaty, since we believe that the Interinstitutional Agreement is an important step forward in the sharing of our responsibilities.
With regard to the absence of legal bases, I believe that our general rapporteur is right.
It is extremely important to make swift legislative provision for the unrestricted use of appropriations entered in the budget.
I should now like to say a few words about the figures.
Clearly, staying within the zero growth budget, there was not a great deal to allocate.
Our group, especially its Irish membership, is shocked at the fact that ECU 100 million of the appropriations earmarked for support for the peace process in Northern Ireland have been put in reserve.
More than the budgetary realities, it is fear that Parliament's vote may be wrongly interpreted by the general public which leads the UPE Group to reject the entry of this ECU 100 million in the reserve.
We sincerely hope that a satisfactory solution will be found at second reading.
We also have some reservations concerning the fate meted out to 'Euronews' .
While it is true that this European television channel is having problems in getting off the ground and achieving financial stability, we must be careful not to jeopardize it further by creating financial restrictions which are too tight.
As regards the research programmes, placing ECU 100 m in the reserve opens up possibilities at second reading, and our group supports this proposal.
Lastly, I come to our group's favourite topic last year: the MEDA programme.
Let us stop focusing on Turkey and behaving as if Anatolia and south-east Turkey were the whole of the Mediterranean.
Let us not forget that, of all the countries eligible under the MEDA programme, Turkey is the richest, and consequently the least affected economically by restrictive measures.
That is why, once again, we cannot accept the possible entry in the reserve of appropriations earmarked for the MEDA programme.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot imagine that there are many fans of pop music among the members of the Council.
Unless I am mistaken, however - and would that I were - a David Bowie hit seems to have mysteriously become their theme tune.
The song is called 'We will be heroes, but just for one day.'
Yes indeed, those were heroes who met in Essen, Cannes and Madrid to trumpet the news that, of course, all Europe's efforts would be focused on tackling unemployment.
And to this end, the call has been repeated for the trans-European networks to become, in themselves, the engine of economic recovery.
The news was trumpeted of an additional ECU 100 million for the Irish peace process - and the Council's unctuous words made the headlines.
However - and it is a bitter reflection on the credibility of European promises - headlines were just about all those unctuous words were good for: here and gone in a day.
And then it was back to grey reality, back to the same depressing old refrain: how can we make savings?
Given the present state of national budgets and the need to cut public debt in the run-up to monetary union, no one can avoid the pressure for financial rigour.
But does the Council's proposal really represent financial rigour? There are cuts of ECU 1 billion on agricultural spending, but in view of the substantial excesses of last year, that is hardly a convincing figure, indeed I regard it as a dishonest figure.
The fact is that what we save today will be swallowed up by the BSE crisis tomorrow, and resolving that crisis will continue to be a drain on our resources for years to come.
As for the ECU 1 billion cut in spending from the Structural Funds, that is not a cut at all - if you will forgive me for saying so - but merely a book-keeping trick, because everyone knows that our commitments still remain.
The Council should instead have taken a serious look at the problem of where our Structural Fund expenditure is going.
But no, that would have required too much foresight!
After all, the net contributors are already looking forward to getting back the money that will go unspent in 1998 and 1999.
The idea seems to be that the best way to make policy is not to make it.
But that then begs the question: where does solidarity come in?
So much for the summits.
Their other pronouncements are all so much hot air - and let the House watch what becomes of them!
In fact, we did more than watch - we lent a hand.
And yes, savings were made, but again I have to ask myself: for what purpose? For the peace process in Ireland?
Wonderful!
ECU 100 m, carefully scraped together from other policy areas, for the Council's rubber cheque.
For the trans-European networks?
Forgive me, but does anyone in the House still believe that ECU 352 m - plus another ECU 100 m - is intended as a signal for job-creation, particularly if there is no longer any guarantee of co-financing in the Member States? It is time that we stopped harping on about the trans-European networks.
We also made savings for research.
Yes, but the question is: what is the point, so long as research priorities such as renewable energy cannot be implemented because you - the representatives of the Council - refuse to provide the necessary legal base? However, that does not worry the heroes who go to Rio and trumpet the importance of protecting the environment - ' just for one day' - while back in Europe, out of sight is out of mind, as far as the problems of CO2 are concerned.
We cannot honestly claim that this represents investment in the future.
And who will bear the burden of these savings? Who else but those least able to do so, in particular the developing countries.
There is nothing in this budget that will strike a chord with the people of Europe - and certainly not the sound of the future!
This is not a recipe for shaping Europe, but merely for administering it.
The minor highlights of the budget are simply exceptions that prove the rule.
At last, ECU 3 m has been allocated to the tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, a body deserving more than symbolic support.
Unfortunately, our initiative to protect the budget against steeply rising pension costs did not entirely get off the ground.
The view that future pension provision for Community officials cannot continue to be handed on to each successive generation as a gaping hole in the budget gained some acceptance, but unfortunately Members could not bring themselves to put their own house in order.
Our credibility will be further damaged by our failure to set an example on environmental policy if there is no movement on environmental audits.
It is all very well to talk about the 'greening' of the European Union, but you know what they say about people who live in glass houses.
Making savings requires courage and vision, a willingness to abandon cherished privileges, to axe projects that are going nowhere, and to shape policies for the future.
We can have no assurance on that score from the 'heroes for just one day' , but perhaps there is a message for us in the Tina Turner song - ' We don't need another hero' !
It may be that all we need is a little more courage!
Mrs Müller, we shall see what music accompanies the Council's reply!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, I should like to begin by paying tribute and offering sincere thanks to the general rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst, and to the rapporteur for the other institutions, Mr Fabra Vallés, for having carried out what is undoubtedly one of the most arduous tasks of the parliamentary year.
I thank them for having brought to a conclusion, at least in this first stage, a budget which had a difficult birth and even worse growing pains, thanks to a Council which some have put to music, whereas I would resort to poetry and say that it is very reminiscent of Rimbaud's ' Bateau ivre' , since it is, to my mind, incapable of charting a steady course. Despite quite rightly calling for budgetary rigour within the Member States, the Council thinks it can apply this in a devious way to the Union's budget, which is the only instrument for consolidating and explaining to our citizens the advantages of economic, monetary, and perhaps soon political union in Europe.
Over a ten-day period, we have seen - and this should come as no surprise - the triumph of anti-Maastricht parties in two national elections.
Even worse will happen if this Council continues short-sightedly trying to scrimp and save, when this budget should in fact have been the impetus for growth in our European Union.
It has therefore been difficult for this House to react to an allegedly rigorous budget which is the result of deviousness, given that rigour is applied to agricultural policy, but then there is no hesitation in doubling expenditure in one particular sector - beef - to the detriment of other policies which, not by chance, have for the first time caused certain countries to vote so spectacularly against Europe.
The Structural Funds are being subjected to 'accounting discipline' , undermining or at least appearing to undermine that idea of economic cohesion, that desire to travel together along the road to union, which lies behind the Structural Funds.
And then in a timid, niggardly way, a few tens of millions are trimmed from major sectors that are crucial to the workings of our internal structure, from development aid and from humanitarian aid.
I hope that this trend will be corrected on Thursday, allowing us to hope that in next year's amending budget it will be possible to reinstate some of the appropriations left out of our humanitarian aid budget.
The image being given to the citizens here is that of a Europe in decline, one step behind where it ought to be.
It was finally decided not to carry out the major structural investments provided for in the famous Delors plan, of which we still have a vague memory. Alas, every day that dawns proves how right that thinking was, and how wrong is the present attitude of our political leaders, not only in the Council but, I believe, elsewhere too.
We regret that enthusiastic backing has not been given to the proposal of other, more influential groups which, like ourselves, were calling for the Council to be challenged, and for us to go further on the basis of the Treaty itself, whereas we fear that the rather more modest strategy adopted on the basis of Article 203 might ultimately prove unsuccessful.
We are of course pleased that some budget lines - I am thinking in particular of those designed to reinstate certain appropriations, for example the lines on the long-suffering people of Tibet - have been approved, and we hope that the Commission will abide by them this year.
In short, we shall vote in favour of the Brinkhorst report, as I said, despite our doubts as to how effective a weapon this will be against the Council.
Mr President, under the good influence of certain Member States, the Council's draft budget forms part of a rigorous approach to public finances that should be highlighted.
We welcome this difference in comparison with the recent past.
The preliminary draft budget for 1996 provided for an increase of more than 8 % in commitment and payment appropriations.
Similarly, this year's PDB provides for an increase of 4 % in commitment appropriations and 3.1 % in payment appropriations.
This rise is once again excessive, and the Commission's efforts inadequate, considering what is currently being done in many Member States.
The Council's draft budget, on the other hand, provides for a 0.3 % reduction in comparison with the budget for 1996 - a reduction, that is, of ECU 900 million divided evenly between agricultural and structural expenditure.
The Council has thus taken on board something to which we have frequently drawn attention: the existence of nonutilized payment appropriations - which, for the years 1994 and 1995, were worth ECU 9 billion.
Unfortunately, Parliament's Committee on Budgets is not falling in with this trend.
As usual, it thinks in terms of Parliament's prerogatives, of power relationships and politicking.
There is no hesitation in keeping non-priority budget lines without a legal base.
There is no hesitation in talking about 'reserves which are contrary to the principles of budgetary orthodoxy' .
And there is no hesitation in envisaging the ceilings laid down in the financial perspective being exceeded: we do so for this year, and of course for those which follow.
Acting in this way, we are not heading in the direction of the much-trumpeted economic and money union, for which substantial appropriations are being made available, and we are not improving Europe's image among the citizens of the various nations which make up the European Union.
So a good opportunity has been lost, and our group will be unable to support this budget if the Committee on Budget's amendments are retained.
We are in favour of savings: savings that will change the budgetary mentality which has prevailed in this House for a number of years.
Mr President, I followed the debate in the Committee on Budgets with interest, but the French and Flemish non-attached Members will be unable to vote in favour of this draft budget, because they fundamentally disagree with it.
They do so, firstly, for the reasons that have just been set out in an excellent manner by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
They do so, secondly, because this budget makes inadequate provision for the major sectors in which action on a European scale would be effective: the aerospace and aeronautical industries, and indeed the major infrastructure projects.
Adding ECU 100 million to the reserve for the trans-European networks does not make much sense when we are talking about an entire continent.
And they do so, thirdly and above all, because the essential purpose of this budget is to buy support for the federalist project with the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, by creating indebted clienteles at local and national level.
It may well be agreeable to provide funding for yachting harbours and guest-houses tucked away in the countryside, but this is not action on a European scale.
There are not only local and national clienteles.
There are also countless organizational clienteles: consumer, antiracist, feminist, federalist and environmentalist organizations, and so on.
In this area, everything is done with a total lack of transparency.
The rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst, has tried hard to bring some degree of order, openness and transparency to these subsidies, but he was not supported by the committee's left-wing majority, which wants obscurity to continue to reign supreme in this area.
There are also trade union clienteles, and this is a particularly interesting and significant point.
Through a dozen or so budget lines - and the amounts increase considerably from year to year - the major trade unions will receive more than ECU 50 million.
The explanation is simple.
While the preparations for the single currency and generalized freedom of trade are putting tens of thousands of European workers out of work every day, the European message must be put across. And what better way to do this than by buying the complicity of the major trade unions?
That is the reason for these budget lines.
The university clienteles have not been forgotten: the 'Jean Monnet' programme is designed to create support within the universities.
I shall add a final point.
This is a propaganda budget.
Indeed, every year more than ECU 100 million is devoted to propaganda, including the manipulation of public opinion.
Commissioner Oreja has explained that EU money is paying for videos promoting the Union to be broadcast on peak-time television.
All this is done in a clandestine way, since it is not made clear that these are promotional videos.
We cannot support a budget which appears to be designed to manipulate public opinion.
Mr President, the distinctive feature of the 1997 budget is the Council's proposal to cut the Commission's preliminary draft budget by ECU 1 billion in the agriculture sector and ECU 1 bn in the area of regional policy.
Our group supports that approach.
We are in favour of an austerity budget, and we wish to see spending pegged.
However, we disagree with the Council's proposals for cuts that will affect the internal market.
But we refuse to renounce the Interinstitutional Agreement, because we have committed ourselves to an austerity budget, and in that respect our position differs from that of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
At the same time, however, I would call on that group and the Green Group - whose spokeswoman, Mrs Müller, talked of a book-keeping trick in relation to cuts in the Regional Fund - to approve the Council's proposal, because the fact is that the commitments will be translated into payments as soon as the money is required.
In principal, therefore, the other side of the House could also support the Council proposal, and we should be doing our duty by agreeing to an austerity budget.
That is why our group continues to call for savings in Categories 1 and 2.
We would also urge that the peace process in Northern Ireland should be supported, and we wish to see support for a European research and development policy.
I believe, too, that there is a good case for seeking support for small and medium-sized businesses, because surely, if they receive support, it is in such businesses - rather than the trans-European networks - that jobs will be created.
In that respect, I agree with the two previous speakers.
I have one further point to make: I am totally against the proposals on the MEDA programme and Turkey which were discussed yesterday in the Committee on Budgets, and would involve moving funds to the reserve if human rights abuses take place in Turkey.
If Parliament wished to be consistent, we would have to do the same thing in the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
I would therefore advise the House once again to remain consistent and to pursue a policy that is credible.
If we seek to make expert reports a precondition, then we shall have to do likewise in the other programmes too.
Mr President, I will be confining my contribution to one subject of vital importance to the island of Ireland, namely the Peace and Reconciliation Fund.
It is a fact that two weeks ago the Committee on Budgets voted to cut the Peace and Reconciliation allocation by £78m.
This was a profoundly misguided move.
It showed an erosion in the practical commitment of this Parliament to the peace process and, in the words of Commissioner Wulf-Mathies, it revealed a lack of solidarity.
These sentiments were also echoed by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste of my country.
Since then I have worked with my colleagues to ensure that this vital funding is safeguarded and thanks to our efforts progress has been made and the present compromise proposal represents a step forward.
I wish to put paid to one myth which has been peddled in this House about the peace process funding.
The original justification for the cut was that the uptake was slow.
That is the only justification given.
Monies were being transferred to RECHAR and RETEX programmes and there was no question of finding the money elsewhere.
There are enough projects on stream to ensure that all the funding can be drawn down.
There is ongoing tension between the institutions of the European Union, the Committee on Budgets and the Council, but let us say hands off the Peace and Reconciliation Fund!
Do not meddle in this, even if there are problems between Parliament and the Committee on Budgets and the Council of Ministers.
As I galvanized opposition to the original cut I was accused of mischief-making.
This was a petty response to an issue of profound importance.
I was heartened by the widespread support for my stand and I should like to thank the Irish Government, including the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste , Commissioner Wulf-Mathies, the Irish and British industry bodies, my party leader and the parties of Dáil Eireann and of course the British Government which has also supported this.
To those who snipe from the sidelines, I would ask are all the latter mischief-making? Of course they are not.
I should also like to take this opportunity to thank the President-in-Office, Hugh Coveney, for his support and the degree of consultation he has engaged in.
I have no intention of responding to the undemocratic attack on me by the leader of the Socialist Group, the English MEP Pauline Green, or to Mr Samland.
I welcome the change in attitude and I will only be happy when this is back on its own budget line.
I deal with facts, not with personalities.
Mr President, this first reading on the budget is a defining moment but, as we know, it is not yet the definitive moment in identifying and setting our priorities for 1997.
My personal priority today, as with the last speaker, is on the issue of financing the peace and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland.
As a point of departure, I recall that it was the European Parliament, first of all the European institutions, that insisted that the Union should show its solidarity with and support for the peace process.
We agreed to allocate ECU 200m to this task and subsequently the Council raised the ceiling to ECU 300m but refused to revise the Financial Perspective to provide the necessary finance for the additional ECU 100m.
The budget gap is the responsibility of the Council of Ministers and the Council has steadfastly refused to remedy the deficiency.
The Council has not honoured the logic of its own declarations.
To its credit, Parliament is now proposing to accord yet again the highest priority to Northern Ireland from within its own reserves and margin for manoeuvre to make good the deficiency of ECU 100m left by the Council.
Lest there be any misunderstanding or misrepresentation, such as today's ill-informed letter from the UK permanent representation, let the clear message go from here today that, first and last, it is the European Parliament which has acted and continues to act as the primary guarantor of funding for the peace process in Northern Ireland.
On Thursday we will vote on a package of priorities for Parliament's reserve in which Northern Ireland will be accorded the priority of being the first among equals.
This reserve accumulates resources across a number of budget categories.
To guarantee the allocation for the peace process in Northern Ireland, the Council must now facilitate this accumulation of reserves between the first and second readings.
For the Council not to do this would add the injury of indifference to the insult of refusing from the outset to provide adequate finance.
Our vote will allow this House to place the deeply sensitive issue of the peace process in Northern Ireland above our day-to-day political concerns.
I would like to appeal to all groups in this House to lend their support to the package of amendments now proposed and let us from Thursday onward ensure that we transcend partisanship, if some perceive it to have existed.
On the issue of uptake Mr Gallagher is perfectly correct: the uptake is not a reason for trying to slow things down.
But that was not necessarily the primary intention in Parliament of those who observed the fact that in a divided community cross-community grass-root development takes time and that is why we have seen a slow uptake.
But there is a message for Northern Ireland as well: accelerate the uptake and help those of us fighting for your cause in this House to be justified by next December in asking the Minister - I know that his and his government's good will is there - to back a realistic and fair package for Northern Ireland, which we will vote on Thursday.
Mr President, the financial Europe does exist but the Europe which we are all much more concerned with, the socially cohesive and economically homogenous Europe, is still a dream.
The differences between its territories have become greater and inequalities have become more profound, and these proposals for budgetary cuts, inter alia to the Structural Funds, do not exactly help to reduce those differences.
Undoubtedly, that social Europe is the most difficult aspect to achieve because it means that political decisions have to be taken which are not inspired by the well-worn principle 'every man for himself' , which the situation of State and Community budgetary austerity seems to have converted into a universal axiom.
Given the Council's draft budget we can only think that, if there are plans to reduce these Structural Funds at the very moment when the regions most need extra help in the process of applying the convergence criteria, this is due to the fact that it is tacitly renouncing the policy of economic and social cohesion and turning it merely into an instrument of the States' whim, and my Group is against such a blinkered policy.
Mr President, the Committee on Budgets initially appeared to wish to set a budget at first reading which would have considerably exceeded the financial perspective and made confrontation with the Council inevitable.
Since then, a compromise has been reached which is much more moderate, but the ECU 300 million entered as a general reserve means that the margin available still exceeds that provided for in the financial perspective.
We feel that this is both undesirable and unnecessary.
Extra scope could have been created by reorganizing and reducing funding in Category 3, where there are many programmes for which the Member States are mainly responsible.
The budget headings here are seen as important for promoting employment, and this is a priority for us too, but it is widely acknowledged that the Union can actually do very little here.
The ECU 100 m earmarked for Northern Ireland in the ECU 300 m reserve should be released immediately, and the ECU 100 m set aside for the TENs reduced if necessary.
The TENs are undoubtedly one of our top priorities, but the amount already included in the budget and the loans from the EIB and the EIF should mean that the projects can go ahead without any financial problems in 1997.
In our opinion, therefore, there is no need to have a general reserve of ECU 300 m, which is only likely to lead to institutional problems at second reading.
Finally, on the subject of agriculture, the procedure followed needs to be revised to give the Committee on Agriculture a greater say in determining agricultural expenditure.
The amount currently allocated can only be provisional, and there is still a great deal of uncertainty, particularly as regards the beef package.
Whatever solution is found to this problem, it must not be at the farmers' expense.
Mr President, economic and social cohesion has recently received considerable political attention - officially, at least.
Everyone agreed that the 1997 budget should serve to stimulate employment, seeking to reinforce measures to boost job creation through investment in infrastructure and research, support for SMEs and the development of human resources.
But unfortunately, the words were not followed by actual deeds; on the contrary, the Council of Ministers has imposed a cut of some ECU 3000 million in the Community budget for 1997.
There are cuts of ECU 1000 m in the agriculture sector, ECU 1000 m in the Structural Funds, and ECU 750 m in internal policy, research, transport and social affairs.
However, the cut in payment appropriations for the Structural Funds affects neither Objective 1, nor Objective 6, nor the Cohesion Fund - a clever move which enabled the Council to achieve a majority vote, thanks to the easily predicted vote in favour by Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece.
The real problem is that the cuts have related principally to Objective 2, concerning areas affected by industrial decline, support for SMEs and the construction of the trans-European networks.
All of this is justified by the need for budgetary rigour.
This strategy, however, has brought to light three major contradictions.
The first is the glaring discrepancy between political ideas and action.
Yet again, it is being shown that the policy of the Structural Funds provides a sound basis for progress towards EU integration, but that the success of this strategy is dependent on political will.
The second relates to the cunning behind the cuts, whereby all that mattered was approval of the draft budget.
If one looks more carefully at the nature of these cuts, however, it becomes clear that they affect all the development policies.
Apart from that, as we all know, Objective 2 concerns industrial areas in decline, areas where unemployment levels in industry are higher than the Community average, with a structural decline in this category of workers.
So what does the Council do? It cuts aid to this sector, just when the EU - or the Member States - should be committed to an unprecedented onslaught on the humiliating scourge of unemployment.
All the fine words on unemployment and commitments to combat it are, quite frankly, appearing less credible than ever.
The third contradiction is a corollary of the first two, demonstrating clearly how in practice these cutbacks serve to weaken European solidarity, which is the principle underpinning economic and social cohesion.
In our view, the Council's decision to reduce these appropriations is all the more unfortunate because it is now that the regions are in most need of help on their way towards Community integration. Instead, the very foundations of cohesion are being undermined, and the redefinition of the Structural Funds put in jeopardy.
Mr President, I would not wish the nature of the Structural Funds to be changed by stealth, making them in a sense conditional on respect for the Maastricht convergence criteria.
It must be remembered that the Structural Funds are self-contained mechanisms to help attain the goal of economic and social cohesion, and not to achieve economic and monetary union.
Mr President, before anything else, I should like to make three preliminary remarks:
First of all, as draftsman for the revision of financial perspectives I am worried and irritated by the demagogically motivated polemic about the Northern Ireland programme.
I am personally very much involved and completely behind the combat led by John Hume and I can tell you that, many years ago, more than ten years ago, Mr Hume invited me to the first meeting and I have returned many times to Northern Ireland, trying to make my very modest contribution to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict there.
But what is important here is the institutional position and, as draftsman, I am fully behind the support which the European Parliament has always given to the peace programme and complained when the Council unilaterally decided to increase it from 200 million ECU to 300 and yet it was the Council itself which refused to meet the extra 100 million ECU funds. (In any case, it was never said that this was for the year 1997 but instead for the whole period of 1997 to 1999.)
The Council has known now for more than a year about this timetabling and is now refusing to revise the financial perspectives - and this was pointed out at the first meeting with the Irish presidency last July.
Unless there has been a mistake or an omission, I was present in person at the same time at that very meeting where the Council was represented.
Secondly, the amendments should not alter or block the MEDA Programme.
Thirdly, for good or ill, I speak on behalf of the minority in the Socialist Group which opposed the denunciation of the inter-institutional agreement.
Now I should like to come to the crux of the matter: the Council said that it approved the austerity and rigour project.
These are very fine words and they have a good ring to them.
But I should like to explain to you what this austerity and rigour consists of: first of all, a 1 billion ECU cut to the EAGGF-Guarantee Fund (with the extremely rigorous exception of beef and veal COMs and 'mad cows' ).
This is compulsory expenditure and therefore as flexible as chewing gum.
This figure is plucked out of the air but the exceptions are not.
In the Structural Funds there are another 1 billion ECU worth of cuts in payments - except for Objective 1 and Objective 6 areas.
Why? In order to obtain the vote of the poorer countries and the new Scandinavian partners: that is rigour for you.
'Exemplary rigour' , ladies and gentlemen.
And so, we have made a few blind cuts to the internal policies - Category 3 - and the exterior policies - Category 4, to save a miserly 500 million ECU (in the full knowledge that the European Parliament would restore the preliminary draft credits, at least).
To summarise, what has happened is a 1 billion ECU cut to the Structural Fund, representing 0, 01 % of Community GDP.
No-one who wishes to enter monetary union will be excluded because of that or for the indebtedness which might call for its pre-funding.
The fact that some governments do not wish to finance the fight against unemployment or reconversion activity cannot lead to an a priori reduction in these funds.
If nothing is actually done in the autumn, there are measures - such as a corrective budget - which means that they can be paid in good time and that would avoid the European Parliament the shame of approving a budget whose only message would be undermining the fight against unemployment.
Mr President, as regards tourism, over 40 Members of the European Parliament have tabled two amendments in which we ask that the same number of similar amendments by the Committee on Transport, which the Committee on Budgets strangely rejected, should again be included in the budget.
Concerning those amendments, namely at position B5-325 on funding for the HOSPITALITY Programme and at position B7-830, the Committee on Budgets not only deleted the sums in question but also went as far as deleting those two positions entirely.
In other words, it eliminated tourism entirely from the budget and has countermanded Parliament's firm view that European tourism must be subject to Community regulation and support.
I remind you that in Parliament's resolution concerning the IGC, we explicitly called for the inclusion of an order for tourism.
Finally, if the Transport Committee's amendments tabled again by the 40 Members are not accepted next Thursday, this will create confusion, a real irregularity, since if the report on the HOSPITALITY Programme is approved by Parliament next Friday, there will be no money with which to fund it.
Let me say a few words about the trans-European networks.
It is just as well that at yesterday's meeting the Committee on Budgets did not overthrow the interinstitutional agreement on financial perspectives so far as the trans-European networks are concerned.
The Council's commitment on trans-European networks via the interinstitutional agreement is politically very important and must not be undermined and overthrown by the European Parliament itself by subtracting sums to cover gaps in the budget or to build up reserves.
Something that Parliament established with a great deal of effort for the sake of Europe's peoples during the conciliation procedure, ought not to be discarded in order to cover incidental funding difficulties under other budgetary headings.
Mr President, in a sense, this is indeed a budget typified by rigour, since it is a 'zero growth' budget which reduces by over ECU 2.5 billion the appropriations for agriculture, the Structural Funds, internal policy and external actions.
Leafing through the document's hundreds of pages, however, one gains the distinct impression that the rigour applies to certain sectors, the most productive ones as it happens, and comes to an abrupt halt at other sectors, where it would have made more sense to act.
Here are a few examples: first, staffing policy.
The personnel of the Community institutions has increased by over 50 % in the past ten years and is still growing, even though their efficiency seems to be declining alarmingly.
Yet this budget does not even touch on the need to halt the steady inflation in staff and the associated costs, except in an amendment from our group.
Next, the Commission's external offices.
Some members of my group discovered something recently which few people know, namely that the Commission has over 230 offices in non-Community countries - more even than the number of nations in the world.
The costs are exorbitant - around ECU 35 million in 1997 just for upkeep - whereas their usefulness is open to question in many cases, and certainly non-existent in some of the remotest areas of the globe.
A truly rigorous budget should not overlook this absurd and unproductive expenditure.
Finally, buildings policy.
Here, Parliament itself is the cause of the scandal.
In both Brussels and Strasbourg, we are carrying out gigantic building projects, both of them marked by systematic violations of our own rules.
The total cost of the two projects - over ECU 2.5 bn - is forcing Parliament to stint on the resources needed to carry out our normal duties.
I shall end there, Mr President, although the unconvincing aspects of this budget do not stop there and will lead me personally to vote against it.
Mr President, over the years, there has always been disagreement between Parliament and the Council as to what constitutes compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
In December last year, the Court of Justice ruled that Parliament, the Council and the Commission should decide this question among themselves.
With this in mind, the ad hoc procedure for agricultural expenditure was started this year.
In July, the House decided by a large majority that ECU 556 million should be placed in the reserve, which meant that Parliament would also have a say in how the money was allocated.
I can still hear everyone congratulating themselves on this, even though the amount involved was actually only 1.2 % of all expenditure under Category B1.
The ad hoc procedure is now over, and it has produced a reserve of ECU 62 m, and ECU 1 billion in savings.
Now, I am naturally all in favour of making savings where this is possible, since there is no point in spending money for the sake of it, but ECU 62 m seems a very poor result compared with ECU 556 m.
Parliament now has a say in how 0.15 % of the EAGGF is allocated.
My reaction is that we can do much better than this in future.
Something else that needs to be improved in future is the House's internal democracy.
The conclusion of the ad hoc procedure meant that the Committee on Budgets was not able to examine any of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
What was the point of all that work? I think the House needs to have much better procedures in future, not just in order to improve democracy here, but also so that Parliament's democratic control over the agriculture budget can be improved as well.
Mr President, this is yet another budget of austerity and essential stagnation.
A budget that goes hand in hand with the drastic cuts imposed in the Member States as they approach the critical decision on accession to the third phase of EMU.
The immediate victims of this policy are the broader social strata of working people, farmers and craftsmen, since Mediterranean agricultural products are mortally affected by the new reduction of budgetary allowances for them and by the more general anti-farming framework of the CAP review.
Action to eliminate social and regional inequalities is restricted by the unacceptable reduction of Structural Fund resources.
Special action to combat unemployment remains wishful thinking and so demonstrates the hypocrisy of the related declarations.
Mr President, I also want to point out that a positive element of all this is the transfer to reserves of the finance earmarked for Turkey in the context of Customs Union.
I cannot, however, say the same about the allocations for the MEDA programme that concern Turkey, which we should find a way of freezing until that country demonstrates practical respect for international law, and for the human and democratic rights it is provocatively and unrestrainedly violating.
Mr President, I wish to address my remarks to paragraphs 45 and 46 of Mr Brinkhorst's report, as Parliament's special rapporteur on the satellite agencies.
In 1996 I was given responsibility for carrying out a thorough investigation of satellite agencies as part of the 1997 budget process.
We had several questions we wanted to ask: where they were going, what they are doing and how do we pay for them? Two working documents have been produced on this subject.
In 1996 we adopted an interim strategy of putting a global reserve on the satellite agencies to ensure that the Commission came up with a harmonization of regulations with regard to those agencies and also to ensure that the agencies themselves employed budgetary rigour.
I would like to thank the Commission on the work they have done by meeting us half way on the report they have given on part of the harmonization.
Our strategy for 1997, following the visits, has been rather more different.
We wanted to focus on the specific needs of agencies and this year there will be no global reserves on those specific reserves for agencies on an ad hoc basis but only reserves for agencies for specific reasons.
I would like to draw the attention of the Commission and of Mr Liikanen sitting there to the recommendations that I would like to make.
The first one is on the question of own resources.
All of the agencies have own resources, especially London and Alicante, and it is important that we, as a budgetary authority, develop a single concept of how to quantify them and how to deal with them.
Re-use of own resources qualifies as income for the European Union and only the European Union and the Committee on Budgets and the budget partners can budgetize own resources within its budget.
Through the Haug report on London and Bangemann statements later, I would like a report from the Commission for the 1998 budget on the question of budgetization.
The second question is on the presentation of the budgets for the agencies.
We have to move now towards management by objectives where we can get the agencies to operate on project lines, bringing together costs in terms of staffing, equipment and resources.
This would help clarify matters and enable us to look at areas of overlap.
Thirdly, on the question of buildings, with regard to CEDEFOP we are recommending that reserve be placed on the new building in Thessalonika because there has been no start yet.
We are therefore recommending placing ECU 1.7 million in reserve.
Fourthly, on the question of pricing policy I am recommending that we have a review of the London agency because the current pricing policy is inadequate to meet its needs.
Fifthly, on the question of Bilbao I am placing one million in reserve with the three million budget on a recommendation that we get a report and a business plan from those agencies.
We still want individual discharge procedures separately and we look forward to the Commission coming forward with that.
Finally, I would like to thank the Commission and the budget authority for their support on my work and, with that, I hope that the agencies get better support, both from the nation states and in Parliament itself.
Mr President, for the first time, the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Budgets have worked together with the Commission to produce a more accurate evaluation of compulsory expenditure.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, who has worked so hard to make this possible.
For the first time, the Council has decided on a linear reduction in much of the compulsory agricultural expenditure, with the exception of beef, since the Member States would prefer to have a supplementary agriculture budget later, rather than paying high agricultural contributions in advance in 1997, some of which they can subsequently recover.
The Council has specifically guaranteed funding for compulsory agricultural expenditure by openly mentioning the possibility of a supplementary budget.
It has, for the first time, accepted an albeit modest reserve for agricultural expenditure, funded by possible savings from certain budget headings.
The House will have to deal with this new situation very carefully in terms of procedure.
For the first time, the Council and the Committee on Budgets have decided that the ad hoc procedure on compulsory agricultural expenditure could be concluded before Parliament had voted on the draft budget at first reading.
This means that, likewise for the first time, Parliament will not be voting on any amendments on the agricultural items in Category 1.
While the developments I mentioned earlier are to be welcomed, this last point has meant that the agriculture budget has not been handled properly this year.
Most of the members of the Committee on Agriculture feel that their work has been undervalued, and this is threatening to undermine cooperation between the Agriculture Committee and the Budgets Committee once again.
To avoid this in the next budget negotiations, we need to deal with the entire agriculture budget in detail in June, before the ad hoc procedure is concluded.
Moving on finally to the treatment given to the compulsory and some of the non-compulsory expenditure in the beef sector, this has been specifically excluded from the linear reduction, but is still at an unrealistically high level.
The ad hoc procedure will have to be restarted once the Council decides to amend the amounts which have been set, and there will then have to be a supplementary budget, rather than clawing the money back from farmers' incomes.
The BSE crisis calls for special measures, but the Council is not the only one able to handle this: Parliament too is more than capable of developing appropriate measures to deal with this exceptional situation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the point has been made on a number of occasions that the European Union's budget for 1997 cannot be seen as a separate issue from the Member States' national budgets.
It is indeed true that 1997 is an important year for the Member States in terms of meeting the convergence criteria laid down in the Maastricht Treaty, but we must not exaggerate.
I have just done a rough calculation that the volumes we are dealing with in the European budget are the equivalent of only 0.1 to 0.25 % of the gross national product for the national budgets.
There is another link between the Maastricht criteria and the budget debate.
To try to compensate for the negative impact which meeting the convergence criteria would have on jobs, the Commission and the Council decided as early as in 1993 to publish a white paper, the Delors White Paper.
This has been endorsed time and time again at various European summits, but its implementation has always been contested by the Finance Ministers.
Finally, at the beginning of this year, the new Commission President, Mr Santer, announced to Parliament and the public at large, amid great pomp and ceremony, that there was to be a European pact on employment, a kind of slimmed-down version of the White Paper, which would require a review of the financial perspectives.
However, Ecofin's decision last week has put paid to this pact as well.
The Council must bear most of the responsibility for this, but I have to say that the Commission has reacted very, very weakly to the humiliation heaped on its President by successive decisions from the Council.
The European Parliament has a vital role to play here, not least because of the substantial budgetary powers that we enjoy.
In recent weeks, various pro-active strategies have been put forward, and the rapporteur has made a number of proposals which we have supported.
Unfortunately, thanks to a large section of the House, particularly the PPE Group - more so than the Europe of Nations Group, which is at least committed to an intergovernmental approach - the compromise we now have before us no longer sends out any clear political signal, and I therefore regard this, Parliament's first reading of the 1997 budget, as totally unrepresentative.
Mr President, we are faced with something of a paradox here.
Parliament listens to the Council, but the Council does not listen to Parliament. In fact, the Council does not even listen to itself.
Parliament listens to the Council.
It is not self-evident that we should do what we are doing and, contrary to what the last speaker has just said, the political message that we are sending out is very clear.
We are assuming our share of the rigour. We are assuming our share of the responsibility.
We are accepting a zero growth budget - apart from the Structural Funds, which are obviously bound to increase.
We are accepting an overall levy which is more than four points lower than that which could be permitted.
We are agreeing to make substantial efforts with regard to the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
However, the Council is not listening to Parliament.
As Mr Samland pointed out, on all the issues that we have raised, in which we have a common interest and which we are discussing - whether it is the code of conduct on fisheries, legal bases or revision of the financial perspective - we are confronted with a brick wall.
Worse still, the Council does not even listen to itself.
I picked up a copy of the President-in-Office's speech this morning.
He said that the Council's priorities were education and youth - this is on page 3 - the environment, the internal market and the TENs.
And what do we see?
Education and youth - down 12 % on last year; the environment - down 9.3 % on last year; and the internal market - down 35 % on last year.
When we read this, we could be forgiven for thinking that it is clearly better for a project not to be among the Council's priorities, if it wishes to receive funding.
Despite all this, we are starting off very moderately.
We refused to allow the Interinstitutional Agreement to be upset.
We are sending the Council a message of readiness for dialogue, of openness and moderation.
Seize that opportunity!
The Interinstitutional Agreement is at stake.
It can only work if both our institutions are prepared to make compromises.
Parliament has a habit of talking tough at the beginning and then softening up as things go on.
Today, we are starting with moderation.
Do not assume that this will be followed by a cave-in.
Mr President, last week the President of the Commission was dealt a tremendous slap in the face by the Ecofin Council, yet I have the impression that his only reaction has been to turn the other cheek.
When I look at what Parliament is doing, I have the feeling that we have reacted in exactly the same way, despite the fact that the House supported every aspect of the Commission's pact on employment - even those groups who now seem to be trying to distance themselves from it - and thereby accepted that if Europe really wants to do something about its employment policy, its budget needs to contain some elements of a realistic funding policy.
These have now been entirely eliminated by the Ecofin decisions, and are not likely to be reinstated if we continue with our present attitude towards the budget. Now is our chance to restore the heart of the pact and the prestige of the Commission, which I feel has been seriously damaged.
But we have ducked the issue, we have come up with a weak compromise which actually, as the budget Commissioner said, quite suits the Council, in that it no longer needs to carry out its threats for the second reading.
So Parliament has, in my view, done exactly what it always does in the budgetary procedure: it has put back a little of what the Council took out, and I do not think that there is a single voter in Europe who is still taken in by this charade.
On the subject of the Structural Funds, I regret the fact that my group feels that the ECU 1 billion cut by the Council should be reinstated, because I do not approve of money being included in the budget unnecessarily.
I think it was Mr Giansily who reported that ECU 9 bn of the payment appropriations earmarked for the Structural Funds in previous years have been carried over.
The payment appropriations are already ECU 23 bn behind schedule.
What this means is that we have an tremendous problem with the Structural Funds, but the solution does not lie in including unnecessary funding under bogus headings in the budget.
I have one final comment about Turkey.
I regret the fact that we have still not been able to create a MEDA reserve, because I do not think that entering a set of remarks in the budget is enough to counter legislation.
And finally, for the benefit of my Irish colleagues, I think we need peace in Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland, rather than war in the European Parliament, which is what many of the Irish Members appear to be waging at the moment.
Mr President, I should like to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, my old colleague in the Irish parliament, and thank him for his cooperation so far through the budgetary procedures and for his understanding of the difficulties, particularly his understanding of Parliament's position.
We may have some disagreements about details but I think that the objectives that we have in this House are shared by the President-in-Office in relation to most matters.
We have to acknowledge that these are difficult times to frame a budget.
There is huge pressure on public finances in most Member States arising from the need to control inflation in preparation for economic and monetary union.
This has unfortunately created a climate in which it is difficult to find the resources necessary to finance all the policies that Parliament would like to see developed, particularly in relation to unemployment and Third World development.
I am very happy to note that in this difficult situation the institutions of the Union have stood by their commitment to continue with the increase in structural funds - the funds devoted to the regional policies of the European Union.
We are on target to meet the commitment on the doubling of the structural funds at the end of the present programme.
I think that the poorer regions of the Community should appreciate what Parliament, in particular, and all the institutions are doing in this respect.
I regret the dispute that has arisen in relation to Northern Ireland.
This has been so much discussed in the budgetary procedure here today that it is hardly necessary for me to refer to it.
All I want to say is that I have recognized the good faith of Parliament from beginning to end.
I remember when this budget line was first proposed within the Committee on Budgets.
I remember that Mr Wynn was rapporteur and that his proposal was unanimously accepted and supported by everybody.
Parliament has never gone back on its commitment to support this fully.
There is a difficulty in finding the money, but I support Parliament in its belief that it should not be taken out of structural funds.
I want to thank everybody for their understanding on this matter and say that I hope we will not have any more controversy about it.
Mr President, I should like to focus on one element of this year's budget negotiations, namely the Structural Funds.
The European Parliament has one overriding priority, as does our group, and that is to combat unemployment.
In this context, the Structural Funds are an important instrument.
Several amendments were tabled on this issue in the Committee on Budgets, but none of them found majority support.
So what is the situation now? The Group of the Party of European Socialists wishes to reinstate ECU 1 billion in the Structural Funds, in order to avoid creating the impression that the European Parliament is turning its back on structural policy.
The alternative is the ECU 1 bn cut which is proposed by the Council.
However, it will make absolutely no difference what the House decides.
Over the next few years, billions of ECU will be repaid to the Member States because they failed to make use of them within the Structural Funds.
The money was not fully taken up, not even in the new German Länder .
It is no longer open to the European Parliament to decide whether any use could still be made of this money.
All we can do is sit back and watch taxes that were paid to Europe being returned to the Member States, which will use them for plugging holes in their budgets, rather than creating jobs.
In my view, the European Parliament must in future demonstrate that it will not tolerate resources being wasted - in the Structural Funds or elsewhere - or Member States failing to fulfil their obligations.
We must consider how to deal with those Member States which fight for every available ECU for their under-developed regions, but then fail to stand by their commitments.
To do that, however, we need a joint strategy - one that will command a majority in the House and which can no longer be left to the Council.
There are ways of achieving such a strategy.
But we need to use them.
Mr President, the most striking thing about this whole budgetary procedure is the Council's negative attitude towards social policy.
I think it is scandalous that the Council has still not understood that without a social policy, Europe is completely handicapped.
Social policy is something which the people of Europe can identify with and which often affects them directly, and we must not allow it to be systematically undermined as it is now.
The socialists, who are in power in eleven of the 15 Member States at the moment, should make sure that their social awareness is shown by their government representatives, as well as here in the House.
The European Structural Funds in Category 2 are another issue which concerns me.
I and my group can agree with cutting ECU 1 billion from the payment appropriations as a feasible and necessary step as Europe prepares for EMU and has to make savings.
But I cannot accept that the cuts should be made only from Objectives 2, 3, 4 and 5.
These are the principal objectives of the social funds and account for only 15 % of their total volume.
The Council has made the wrong decision and is guilty of discrimination.
The Netherlands also shares in this guilt, since the government's stupid attitude placed it in a position of isolation in the Council and helped to get the decision adopted.
Mr Zalm, the minister who led the negotiations for the Netherlands, fulfils the traditional definition that 'in matters of commerce the fault of the Dutch is giving too little and asking too much' .
I fear that the Netherlands will run into even more difficulties in the future because of its government's attitude, which is like someone who has a pound to spend and expects to be able to buy a Rolls Royce.
Finally, I would point out that the Council's hostile attitude has also created major problems in Category 3, which Parliament has succeeded in resolving thanks to its inventive use of the funding available and the fact that it has the final word on this category, rather than the technocrats in Brussels.
Mr President, other speakers have already pointed out what a pathetic figure the Council has cut in the present budgetary procedure.
In contrast to its ringing declarations of support for employment policy, the budgetary procedure has seen quite the opposite approach being adopted.
Let us think of the cuts in social policy, internal policies, energy policy, and the rest.
The list also includes structural policy, although we should not engage in shadow-boxing on that issue.
Ultimately, it will make no difference at all if we include a billion more or less: the real scandal is that ECU 23 billion has so far gone unspent - at a time when there are 18 million people out of work in the Union.
The fact that this discrepancy between appearances and reality occurs behind closed doors should not lead us to think that the people of Europe fail to recognize it.
Perhaps, indeed, the latest election results go to show that only opposition parties can now be successful at the polls.
Despite the attitude of the Council, the Socialist Group has tried to support the employment policy.
We regret that those on the right of the House have been unable to give that policy their full backing.
Mr President, the Community budget for 1997 has been drawn up in the spirit of Maastricht.
However, it is our duty to contribute in every way towards addressing the major social problems faced by Europe's citizens.
The Council's cuts to the 1997 budget are large, and serious commitments are being ignored.
I would like to make some comments on the Structural Funds, Turkey, and the internal policies.
For plainly financial reasons the Council has cut the Structural Fund appropriations by a billion ECU.
The sector of structural activity contributes towards modernization, the reduction of inequalities and the creation of jobs.
The European Parliament must restore the amounts specified in the draft budget.
In Category 3 there are many actions that contribute towards job creation, such as the trans-European networks, action on behalf of SMEs, and action for tourism.
The promotion of those actions is a priority.
Finally, we support the freezing of all credits concerning Turkey under the finance regulation and MEDA, on the grounds of that country's behaviour in the context of human rights and its aggressiveness towards Greece and Cyprus.
Mr President, there is growing dissatisfaction in Europe and in the EU with politics in general and with the EU in particular.
This was seen in the recent vote to the European Parliament.
One explanation for this is that many EU citizens are worried about increased unemployment and a deterioration in the provision of welfare.
I think it is important that we take seriously this concern and these signals which are now coming from the citizens of Europe.
It is important to show that the EU has a human side and that we are prepared to live up to the proud declarations which we have previously made, in particular those made at the summit meeting in Cannes on the TransEuropean Networks and other important initiatives against unemployment.
I consider that one good way of showing this and a first step forward is to accept the budget proposal which the European Parliament is now putting forward.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that I have listened with interest all day to everything that has been said and I intend to convey it to the members of the Council.
For those who were not there when I made my own address, I just wish to refer to five points in it which, in fact, were raised again and again in many of the contributions.
Firstly, the need for budgetary rigour in 1997 in the context of EMU: I do not need to labour that point, it is well understood here and I want to thank Parliament for its acceptance of that somewhat unpalatable truth which all of us have to confront.
I also mentioned the extreme difficulty in the present budgetary climate in Europe of revising the Financial Perspectives for 1998 and 1999.
Having explained at some length why that was causing severe difficulties, I have to say that it will not be possible to persuade the members of the Council to revise the Perspective in the present climate.
However, I am much more hopeful that we can make serious progress on at least two of the issues which have been identified widely here.
On the question of legal base, I hope, come the meeting on 19 November, that we will be able to report serious progress and that we will be able to reach a compromise and an understanding with Parliament.
I hope too that we can make similar serious progress on fisheries agreements.
In relation to the subject which has created a great deal of heat in my own country - that is the threat to the peace programme in Northern Ireland - all I want to say about that is that I have never listened to such unanimity of purpose, both in this House and I know too amongst each of the countries which I represent as President, about any issue as there is about this.
So that, irrespective of the difficulties, technical and otherwise - I accept that there are some - that exist between the two arms of the budgetary procedure, it is incumbent on both sides to solve this difficulty, and we will solve it.
On the subject of the structural funds: I just wanted to mention that the reduction of ECU 1, 000m in appropriations is conditional upon Objective 1 and Objective 6 regions being fully safeguarded.
It is also clear that this cut is most unlikely, in any circumstances, to affect any structural fund commitments in 1997.
Finally, I wish to say that it simply is not true to state that the Council is not listening or is not negotiating in a meaningful way with Parliament.
However, the climate is particularly difficult for individual Member States in the shadow of EMU constraints and requirements in 1997.
This has severely limited the ability of the Council - and my ability - to compromise with Parliament.
I would therefore ask for some understanding of that particular difficulty which confronts us all.
From a budgetary perspective, 1997 is almost a unique year, both for the problems which it has presented for individual Member States and, in consequence of that, for the problem that it inevitably confronts this great institution with as well.
Having said that, and despite Mr Samland's views, I commit myself again to trying my best, with my colleagues in the Council and with your own distinguished representatives, to reach a fair compromise and to work out a budget at the end of this year for next year.
Mr President, I wish to come back on four points.
Firstly, on the Financial Perspective; very often in the European debate one asks: economic and monetary union or employment? The Commission's reply is economic and monetary union and employment.
That has been the reason for President Santer's proposal and the underlying logic of the whole proposal.
We have chosen trans-European networks and research because they were Council priorities but also because they were proposed by the former President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, in his White Paper.
We regret that the Council was not able to accept our proposal and for that reason we greatly appreciate the support we have received from Parliament.
In this rigorous budgetary exercise Parliament has found ways to keep these ideas and objectives alive and this is extremely important.
In the same spirit the Commission will do all it can to ensure that this can be implemented.
Secondly, on structural funds, the Council cut the payment credits by ECU 1 billion.
I want to make it totally clear here that there is no change in the underlying regulations.
They remain the same.
The Council cut the estimates of spending.
The Commission must implement the budget according to the regulations so if the payment credits are not sufficient to cover the commitments, we must bring an amending budget to the budget authority.
I cannot comment on the discussions here in Parliament but I assure you that the Commission will guarantee that all the commitments will be covered by payments provided the budgetary authority is prepared to accept, if necessary, a proposal in the form of an amending budget.
Thirdly, I greatly appreciate the President-in-Office of the Council's words on the legal base issue.
It is extremely important now for the three institutions to show their willingness to resolve this issue.
Anyone who has worked more on the budget and less in legal issues is always surprised that we spend hours, days, weeks and years on discussing legal matters when the amounts of money involved are minimal.
This operates against a clear, coherent budgetary policy.
I really hope that a solution can be found to these difficult institutional problems to make the financial management of this House credible in all fields.
Finally, Mr Wynn took up an issue which has also sometimes surprised me.
He complained that Commission officials come to the Committee on Budgets and to other committees to propose increases in the Commission budget proposals.
Mr Wynn should not listen to them.
There is only one Commission position.
The Commission is the institution which has the confidence of Parliament and it makes a collective proposal which is a political paper to Parliament.
If some officials do not understand that, it is only a sign of their bad judgment and Mr Wynn should not pay any attention to that.
If they defend our proposals they are doing what is expected of them.
I hope that the Commission proposal will be accepted.
If Parliament wants to change it - I hope it does not but it has the right to do so - I would hope that it does so on its own initiative and not on the initiative of some Commission officials.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 5 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-0971/96)
I am particularly grateful to Parliament for raising this question, since it draws attention to an important issue.
As you know, Mr President, the European Commission has supported the setting-up of the ad hoc tribunals on the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda by providing funding for various projects.
We have provided over ECU 2 million for the tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, for example.
Now that these two tribunals are in place, the Commission and the Council feel it is vitally important that a permanent International Criminal Court should be set up to bring criminals to justice at international level.
A court of this kind would have to deal with the following issues: serious violations of humanitarian law, serious and systematic human rights violations and crimes against humanity, irrespective of where they are committed.
Progress in setting up this court depends on the negotiations in the sixth committee of the United Nations General Assembly, which is preparing a draft statute for the court.
The Union Member States have also actively supported these negotiations.
From the ECU 300 000 under budget heading A 3030, which was introduced by the European Parliament, the Commission has already funded projects by non-governmental organizations to promote the setting-up of the International Court.
Once it is set up, the Commission will certainly be prepared to consider providing financial support for its activities.
I would therefore stress the importance of the ongoing negotiations, including the inter-state negotiations that are to be held on this subject, probably in 1998.
It will be a long haul, but let us hope that our efforts will be rewarded.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner van den Broek for having come in person to answer my question.
I am grateful to him for his statement, and I can tell him that on Thursday, in all likelihood, the European Parliament will vote at its budget sitting for a specific line, with appropriations of ECU 3 million, for the permanent funding of the two ad hoc tribunals, with a view to the establishment of the Permanent Court.
Therefore it seems to me that here too we see eye to eye with the Commission, to which I would address the following supplementary question.
At its last part-session, the House voted unanimously in favour of a resolution calling for a clear commitment not only from the Council but also from the Commission - to the extent that it is competent - to act in accordance with the recommendations of the preparatory committee for the United Nations sixth committee, namely that a date should be set in 1998 for the work of the constituent conference of the Court.
Can the Commissioner assure me that the Commission - to the extent that it is competent - will support this date in the sixth committee?
The Commission does not, of course, have the power to do this as such, but it can work with the presidency and the Member States to try to speed things up.
As the honourable Member is aware, preparations for the setting-up of the International Court have already been going on for some years, and we hope that the establishment of the two ad hoc tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia will provide the impetus that is required.
The main problems here are problems of international law, and the aim is - and this was why I mentioned 1998 - for the countries involved to meet in 1998 to adopt the statute for the Court.
The current United Nations General Assembly is expected to make further recommendations on when to convene this meeting, and we shall then have a better idea of whether the 1998 deadline is likely to be met.
But I promise the honourable Member that if we have the chance to speed up progress in any international forums, we shall certainly do so.
Question No 42 by Pat Gallagher (H-0802/96):
Subject: Single Currency
The changeover to a single currency will have practical implications for the computerized systems used to record financial transactions by the business, commercial and banking sectors.
The inability of many of the computer software programmes now being used by the business, commercial and banking sectors to cope with the transition from 1999 to the year 2000 will cause further difficulties at roughly the same time.
What proposals does the Commission have to minimize these problems, particularly for the small and medium-sized business and commercial sectors?
The honourable Member's question draws attention to a very specific problem.
Indeed, the introduction of the single currency will require the modification of a large number of software programmes.
The changes made necessary by the launch of the euro on 1 January 1999 will largely coincide with the efforts under way to tackle the so-called 'year 2000' problem, which is well-known to computer specialists and which means that, unless the software is modified, many computers will display the date 1900 in the year 2000.
As the honourable Member will be aware, this problem will affect the large majority of computers in the European Union.
The Commission is at present working actively with the Member States and representative organizations both to assess the needs and to determine the possible procedures for adaptation.
As regards the assessment of needs, the implications of economic and monetary union for the software used in our businesses vary according to the modifications that are envisaged.
It is probable that the standardized modification of computer systems - what is known as the 'standard software package' - will, in most cases, be easier to carry out than the individual adaptation of software specifically designed for particular businesses.
We could favour this option, especially by promoting the use of software including multi-currency facilities which make it possible to carry out conversions and transactions simultaneously in the euro and in a national currency unit.
With a view to drawing up a full list of the measures needing to be taken as part of the preparations for the single currency, the Commission is at present actively consulting all the interested groups and bodies on the implications of the introduction of the euro for computerized systems.
As regards the procedures for adaptation, in its present consultations, the Commission is favouring concerted action with the sectors in question and the sharing of information.
Hence it is encouraging the mobilization of computer products and service industries.
Similarly, it is promoting the holding of training seminars for staff responsible for data processing in user enterprises.
The Commission is already recommending to businesses that they should provide for the incorporation of specific measures relating to the euro into their regular software maintenance programmes, and thus carry out the changes made necessary by the introduction of the single currency at the same time as those required by the transition to the year 2000.
Lastly, within the framework of the information programme on the euro, which the Commission is developing in partnership with the European Parliament and in collaboration with associations representing SMEs, the Commission is currently drawing up practical guidelines designed to meet the specific needs and concerns of the SME sector, especially in the field of data processing.
As the honourable Member will see, the Commission is well aware of the efforts in favour of small and mediumsized businesses and commercial sectors which this transition requires.
I can assure him that, in close coordination with the national administrations and representative organizations, the Commission will endeavour to facilitate the adaptation of the public and private sectors in each Member State.
I merely want to thank the Commissioner for his very comprehensive reply.
I am pleased that every effort has been made to evaluate the needs and the changes.
I do not think it is necessary to ask Commissioner de Silguy to ensure that, if any preferential treatment is needed, he does not forget the small and medium-sized companies.
I wish to compliment him on the attitude that he has taken towards those companies since he became a Commissioner.
Question No 43 by Per Stenmarck (H-0748/96)
Subject: Airline cartels and alliances
It has become increasingly common in recent years for airlines both inside and outside Europe to form cartels which generally involve cooperation on code-sharing, departures, prices and services.
The Commission has given its blessing to cartels formed between EU airlines and thus given its approval to the formation of cartels in this sector.
It has recently begun examining whether cartels formed between EU and US airlines are compatible with EU legislation.
Does it take the view that cartels of this type encourage competition and benefit consumers? If so, how does the formation of cartels benefit purchasers of transport services and consumers?
I should like to begin by drawing a distinction between alliances and mergers within the European Union - on which the Commission has for a long time had clear rules, as it has shown in a number of recent cases - and transatlantic alliances between American and European airlines.
As far as the situation in the Union is concerned, we have recently had to deal with two cases. The first was the merger between Swissair and Sabena, where the Commission ensured that before the merger could be allowed to go ahead, a number of undertakings had to be given not only by Sabena and the Belgian authorities, but also by Switzerland as a non-member of the European Union.
Negotiations were held with Switzerland to ensure that the necessary slots were made available, and to obtain the Swiss authorities' agreement that there would be sufficient competition on the routes between Belgium and Switzerland.
Explicit conditions are always applied with operations of this kind, where necessary.
The second case concerned Lufthansa and SAS.
This was a cooperation agreement rather than a merger, but here again the Commission adopted a very transparent approach in imposing a number of obligations, and we also published the agreement in the Official Journal so that competitors could submit their observations.
The Commission then took these into account as far as possible, mainly in order to ensure that there would still be sufficient competition on the routes between Scandinavia and Germany. In other words, if competitors want to fly these routes, then Frankfurt must make profitable slots available and Lufthansa must surrender some of its slots for others to use.
This is how we have dealt with cases in the European Union.
When it comes to alliances between American airlines and Union airlines, things are slightly different, since the Council of Ministers has, curiously enough, not given the Commission the power to investigate such alliances on the basis of specific rules.
This is why we have had to base our examinations on a little-used article, Article 89.
This has been much in demand, since as you know, various alliances have been suggested recently, such as British Airways-American Airlines, Lufthansa-United, SAS-United, Swissair-Sabena, Austrian and Delta, and agreements between KLM and North-West Airlines and British Airways and USAir.
All of these agreements are now being closely examined, not just because there are so many of them, but also because we can see that the restrictions on competition will not apply on the transatlantic routes alone. After all, if British Airways and American Airlines are going to work together and they handle 70 % of the traffic between Heathrow and New York, then this is something we need to look at very closely in terms of its effects on competition and consumer protection.
Alliances of this sort also have a clear impact on competition on the European Union market, particularly since American airlines can carry out certain activities here which are not open to our airlines on the American market.
There are many reasons why the Commission is taking a rather closer look at these alliances and, if necessary, it will have to impose certain conditions or else even propose other measures.
Finally, I should also like to point out that in some Member States, such as the United Kingdom and Germany, the national competition authorities are also looking at the whole question of these types of alliances.
I hope that they will be consistent in their approach and that they will not reach conflicting conclusions, in other words I hope that the national authorities will be able to work with the Commission to ensure that similar positions are adopted and similar conclusions reached.
May I begin by thanking the Commission for the detailed and, as I see it, very positive answer on the whole.
Currently, there is not the amount of competition within certain transport sectors that would be considered desirable.
In my opinion airlines are such a sector - despite all the deregulation which has taken place.
The lack of "slots' is one obstacle which prevents competition from functioning as it should. The continuous building of cartels between various national airlines is a further example.
The losers are often the consumers, in other words, the passengers and purchasers of transport services who are forced to pay higher prices and accept a worse service than would otherwise be necessary.
I see the Commissioner&#x02BC;s answer to my question as a step in the right direction but I would still like to ask a further question of him and that is: What concrete measures are being considered by the Commission to promote competition in international aviation to the extent which, I consider, could be of benefit to passengers.
The mere fact that we investigated these cases under Article 89 - and Neil Kinnock and I acted in complete understanding - shows that we are concerned about competition but also about the protection of consumers and users.
We need to make this move in spite of the fact that in 1987 the Council of Ministers did not give the Commission the necessary powers because it restricted us to what is happening inside the market of the European Union.
Having said that, on the one hand we must admit that inside the Union and across the ocean and even beyond that, there is a need for cooperation amongst airlines.
It would not be a good idea to go against that principle.
But, at the same time, we must be very careful about the effects on competition, consumers and users - and this is exactly what we are trying to take into account.
Commissioner, there are two parts to my question.
First of all, on the subject of internal mergers, do you not think that mergers which give the airlines concerned a dominant position on the market in a particular country might not be called a cartel or monopoly, since air travel is by definition a transfrontier operation, so that the Netherlands market is not a separate entity, but competes with the Belgian and German markets and so on?
Secondly, and this is also addressed to Commissioner Kinnock beside you, on the subject of transatlantic cooperation and mergers, is it not the case that the Commission has been instructed to enter into negotiations far too late by the Member States, since the United States can operate on domestic routes or at least on intraEuropean routes in Europe, whereas European airlines cannot operate on domestic routes in the United States, and therefore have no choice but to form an alliance?
It is indeed true that from now on we must regard the European Union market as a unit, particularly since cabotage is going to have to be introduced very shortly.
You know that we are now very close to total liberalization, even on the national markets, and I know that there is still some opposition to this.
Neil Kinnock has today given the Commission his report on the implementation of the third package, which details some positive and some negative aspects, and I am sure that he will be only too pleased to explain these to you.
As far as alliances and the agreements which some Member States have concluded with the United States are concerned, you know what our position has been from the outset: even when I was responsible for transport, I always said that once we started dealing with our own internal market, it made sense for the Union to become responsible for at least some of the aspects relating to third countries.
Unfortunately, at that time not one single government out of the twelve, including your own, was in favour of this: they were all unanimously against.
And what has happened since then?
The United States has had carte blanche : it has been able to conclude open-sky agreements with a number of Member States which allowed it to penetrate our market further still, in addition to the fact that it already enjoyed certain advantages which our airlines did not have on the US market.
Who is to blame? The national governments, not the Commission, which has been saying for years that we must not allow this to happen, we must try to join forces to ensure that a balance is maintained.
However, Neil Kinnock has been working on this for some time now, and we must hope that the outcome is the only logical one: that now that the Union has a common air transport policy, its effects must also be felt outside the Union.
I should like to ask if the Commission is considering any measures within Europe to further increase cooperation between airlines to encourage the merging of duplicate flights between major cities?
I represent Heathrow Airport, one of the major airports in Europe. For example, every day from London to Brussels there is a British Midland flight at 6.55 in the morning.
There is a Sabena flight at 7 a.m., a British Airways flight at 7.15 a.m., all going direct to Brussels, all using fuel, all crowding the air.
The same is true all through the day and for many routes to major cities across Europe.
Rarely are all of these flights full.
Even if they were, it would still make sense, I suggest, to have one larger airplane operating.
With proper consumer safeguards I believe it would make environmental sense, it would be safer, there would fewer flights, fewer manoeuvres, less air congestion; it would free space on runways and at airport gates; it would make landing easier and obviate the need for dangerous stacking.
Does the Commission have any plans to encourage this valuable sort of cooperation? If not, why not?
On this point we clearly disagree.
It took a long time before there was some competition on some routes, to the advantage of the consumer.
No-one can defend the tariffs as they were years ago.
These were very often, and rightly so, criticized in this House.
Therefore we needed a common policy to ensure that competition in that sector should be real.
It is only real on some routes today.
Commissioner Kinnock is better placed to comment than I am today because he is looking at this very closely.
There is some competition.
For instance, you now have cheaper fares between Brussels and Rome and between London and Brussels.
When I fly to London and back, by the way, the plane is usually full.
That might well not always be the case but we feel that competition as such is a good thing and we would like that to apply to more destinations than at the moment.
Having said this, there is obviously a need in the European Union for further cooperation and eventually mergers.
There are probably too many airlines in the European Union.
Let us leave it to the market to decide to what extent there will be mergers and cooperation, because we are not against that in principle; on the contrary.
But if it is happening we would make sure that whether by merger, acquisition or cooperation, it happens with full respect for competition and the rights of the consumer.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for his reply and congratulate him on the recovery of his cherry-picking venture from the dark forces which some people thought were at work.
Question No 46 by Florus Wijsenbeek (H-0673/96)
Subject: Driving bans and frontier procedures in central and eastern Europe
Is the Commission aware that an increasing number of central and eastern European countries, particularly such countries as Hungary and Poland which are important for transit traffic, are introducing restrictions such as a weekend driving ban on road transport?
How does the Commission propose to maintain transport connections, particularly in the case of road transport to Scandinavia and the CIS?
The effects of the recent bans by Hungary and Poland have been discussed in the framework of the association committees with the countries concerned.
Hungary and Poland have both undertaken to ensure that the driving ban does not have a discriminatory effect on international traffic.
In particular, we have been assured that clearance at border crossings will not be interrupted during the period of the ban and that vehicles can park after crossing into the country and continue their journey as soon as the ban ceases to apply.
Other measures, including improved information for hauliers and reasonable rates for accompanying combined transport services across the country are also being taken.
We will naturally continue our contacts with the Hungarian and Polish authorities so as to ensure the minimum of disruption to international freight services.
The growing recourse to weekend bans underlines the need to promote alternatives to road freight transport on certain heavily used routes in Central Europe.
It highlights in particular the advantages offered by short-sea shipping in the Baltic as a means of access to Scandinavia and to the CIS.
We will continue to work both inside the Union and with our partner countries in the region to improve the efficiency of services.
I would point out to the Commissioner that the answer he has just given contradicts the answer I received from Commissioner van den Broek to a written question which I addressed to him on 17 September concerning the problems of weekend driving bans in Hungary.
Not only have these bans now spread to Poland, but in his reply Mr van den Broek said that he would contact the Hungarian authorities and that the Commission would try to take measures to combat the adverse effects of the long delays at borders.
I see that Mr Kinnock now merely suggests that we should use road transport less and trains more.
You will be well aware, Commissioner, that the train connections with Central and Eastern Europe are very difficult and that there is therefore no alternative to road transport.
I should like to know exactly what you and Commissioner van den Broek intend to do in practice?
There are a number of concrete steps being taken and I should say in response to the honourable Member that his question actually specified Hungary and Poland and that the response, as he would expect, was prepared in conjunction with Mr van den Broek, so there is no inconsistency between responses he has previously received and the one that I just gave him.
Our specific and concrete actions to ease the congested and difficult traffic conditions in Eastern and Central Europe include the use of the PHARE funds to improve conditions at border crossings, to improve the training and development of personnel in customs services and, indeed, to encourage hauliers wherever possible to use the facilities offered by various governments to transit their loads across countries - even at weekends - on freight rail.
Unfortunately there has been no readiness to take up that kind of offer.
Now when we and the Central and Eastern European country governments are striving, within the limited resources they have at their disposal, to try to ease the traffic problems for the greater convenience of western hauliers I hope that there will be a more ready response than has proved to be possible in the past.
I sympathize with and well understand the frustrations and indeed the additional costs incurred in this area.
But we are only going to be able to develop a full and successful response if we get the cooperation of all parties both in the Union, outside the Union and of course in the commercial services.
This is a difficult problem for those of us living in Scandinavia - I myself come from Sweden.
We often hear about it from people and companies we have contact with.
It is taking too long for the problem to be resolved.
I hear nothing in the answer about when these actions and contacts with Hungary and Poland will bring about a stop to the driving ban and when the problem will be resolved.
I would like to see an addition to the answer.
How long must we residents in this part of Europe wait for the problem to be resolved?
It is rather difficult because, as I am sure both the honourable Members who raised the question on this issue understand, when we have Member States that are imposing weekend bans in order to resist the pressures of traffic - entirely understandably - it is rather difficult for us to be pious or self-righteous about the imposition of comparable bans in Eastern and Central European countries whose populations are feeling the same irritation as a result of the congestion on their roads caused by heavy lorries, roads which are much less adequate even than those that we have in the European Union.
The fact of the matter is of course that these problems will not be fully resolved until we get much more effective multimodal use of transport for freight; until we sustain and improve not only our own networks for the carriage of freight but those in the countries that are our neighbours; and until there is more effective use, not only of other land modes, but of short sea shipping - about which I know neither of the honourable Members needs convincing.
As the honourable Member may know, only the southern section of the Atlantic line is included in the nordic triangle which, as he will know, is one of the fourteen priority projects endorsed at the Essen European Council and then subsequently by this Parliament and by the Council in the decision on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network.
The situation will not change until such time as the guidelines are revised, which is not scheduled until 1999 at the earliest.
I can report to the honourable Member who has raised the question that to date the national authorities concerned have not requested any financial support for this section under the trans-European network budget.
The Bothnia line, as the honourable Member correctly points out in his question, is not currently included in the guideline.
It cannot therefore benefit from funding under the trans-European network budget.
Inclusion of any project of course requires the specific agreement of the relevant Member State under the terms of Article 129 of the Treaty.
Finally, I can assure the honourable Member that the Community's financial support for the trans-European transport network is largely directed at developing environmentally-friendly transport modes.
To illustrate the point, more than 66 % of the planned 1996 trans-European transport network budget is assigned directly to rail or to multimodal projects and just 15 % to road projects.
It was good to get an answer on both the Atlantic line and the Bothnia line, thank you for that.
I know that one of the projects is included and the other is not.
It is also true that we in Sweden must ourselves decide which project we will concentrate on to be able to participate and receive support via the EU and the TEN project.
All this is true.
It is also positive to hear that such a large part of the TEN project includes environmentally friendly traffic solutions and railways.
More however, could be done.
I, myself, would like to draw a conclusion from the answer that I received from the Commissioner: Is it right that we in Sweden will be able to receive support from the EU if we decide to concentrate on the Bothnia route and if a request is submitted from the Swedish Authorities that this project be included in the TEN project. Can this be a conclusion of the answer that I received?
The situation so far as aid from the networks budget is concerned is very clear.
A Member State would have to signify that a project enjoyed a particular status endorsed by that Member State and that it satisfied the requirements of Article 129 of the Treaty.
If it then made its submission on that basis the Commission naturally would give it the fullest possible consideration.
We are in the position of having recently adopted the relevant legislation both in terms of the financial regulation and of the guidelines.
It is generally true, therefore, to say that most Member States would be reluctant to shift their transport priorities in the short term.
Of course in the longer term the guidelines themselves will be subject to reconsideration and revision as is entirely appropriate.
It is very kind of the Commissioner to make promises and say that if everybody agrees there will be support and a certain percentage for environmentally-friendly modes of transport.
But the Commission is well aware that the funds available are insufficient and that the Ministers of Finance refused to add anything.
A percentage of virtually nothing comes to even less.
It is meaningless to make promises of financial support if you do not have the finance.
Is the Commissioner aware that we now urgently need better financing for the whole trans-European network infrastructure project and even more urgently for the environmentally-friendly projects?
I am grateful to the honourable Member whose interpretation of what I said was less acute and indeed less accurate than it usually is.
I did not promise anything at all other than to fulfil our legal duty to give consideration to the submissions made by Member States.
That I promised to do.
Of course promises and the truth are sometimes the same thing and this was one of those occasions.
I entirely agree with the honourable Member that additional funds could be used very usefully and for the profit of the Union as a whole in the Trans-European Network budget.
I therefore regret, as I have said publicly on other occasions, the decision of the Ecofin not to provide the top-up to those funds called for as long ago as December 1994 by the Essen European Council.
It has to be said, however, that the decision by the Ecofin earlier this month does not constitute a death blow for TENs.
TENs is very much up and going.
We are progressing through the expenditure of a budget of ECU 1.8 billion.
It is being used effectively.
It is naturally being supported by the European Investment Bank with expenditure thus far on investment of approximately ECU 6 billion and of course there are several projects which are achieving satisfactory progress.
I have heard it said in the wake of the Ecofin meeting, or at least in the wake of rather inadequate reporting of the Ecofin meeting, that TENs is dead.
Perhaps I could quote Mark Twain who was wrongly reported to be deceased. He said: ' Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated' .
The same can be said for TENs.
Question No 48 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0722/96)
Subject: Recognition of commercial pilots' licences
What are the Commission's proposals to deal with the practice in some Member States of the European Union whereby commercial pilots' licences gained in other Community countries are not recognized?
Council Directive 670/91 on the mutual acceptance of personnel licences for the exercise of functions in civil aviation regulates the issue which concerns the honourable Member in his question.
To date the Commission has received complaints against three Member States - France, Spain and Belgium - all the complaints alleging misapplication of the directive.
The Commission has opened legal proceedings against those Member States under the provisions of Article 169 of the Treaty.
I must thank the Commissioner for the light he has shed on this matter which concerns pilots in the European Union who have trained in countries which are not the same as the country in which they wish to exercise their profession.
This is very worrying, as you yourself pointed out, especially in the case of Spanish pilots trained in Portugal, who number 300-400.
It seems quite clear, after listening to what you said, that they must meet the obligations which are laid down on the reciprocal recognition of licences, which means the automatic validity of pilots' qualifications in all of the Member States which have authorised it.
However, I must say, Commissioner, that we would have liked a much more practical response, especially concerning proposals for Commission activity to restore legality in the cases where pilots' licences have not been recognised and about whether the regulation in force is sufficient or whether any supplementary regulation is needed on this matter, given that this is a subject of great importance and covers the much wider area of whether we can decide who holds powers in terms of air transport.
I am grateful to the honourable Member for the question because, as he says, this is a matter of considerable and legitimate concern.
If I give a little background on the specific provisions made by the appropriate legislation it might help.
Mutual acceptance of pilot licences is regulated by Council Directive 670/91 on the mutual acceptance of personnel licences for the exercise of functions in civil aviation.
Under the provisions of this directive Member States are obliged to accept, without undue delay and without additional tests, any licence issued to a pilot by another Member State together with the privileges and certificates relevant to that status.
The directive also provides that, when a Member State has reasonable doubts - after due examination of the licence presented for acceptance - as to the equivalence of the licence concerned, it may consider that additional tests or requirements are necessary to enable the licence to be accepted.
Even then, such tests or requirements should respect the principles of acquired rights and of proportionality.
I can inform the honourable Member of the current stage of legal proceedings which I referred to earlier.
In the cases of France and Spain, the Commission decided last July to institute proceedings before the Court of Justice if no satisfactory solution was forthcoming in the near future.
Several months later no solution has been arrived at.
So we are currently examining whether further measures envisaged by these states would resolve the issues that have been raised.
In the case of Belgium, the letter of formal notice, the first stage in infringement procedures, as the honourable Member knows, was communicated to the Belgian Government on 15 September and we await their response within the deadline of two months.
The honourable Member will be aware that last July the Commission adopted a White Paper on revitalizing the European Union's railways.
It proposed a series of measures, including the introduction of market forces, clearing up railway finances, integrating the different national systems and improving infrastructure.
All those proposals were made with the specific aim of ensuring that railways work more like businesses in identifying markets, actively seeking customers and satisfying them by meeting their needs for efficient, reliable and keenly-priced services in order to enable rail to regain a greater share of the freight and passenger markets. These measures should improve the general performance of the railways over time.
But there is a particularly urgent need for increases in the use of rail for freight.
The White Paper, therefore, included a proposal for the creation of international rail-freight freeways which are specifically designed to achieve rapid improvement in the competitiveness of rail freight.
On the freeways the infrastructure would be open to all railway enterprises and the conditions of access would be designed to interest new users with simple and attractive systems for charging and for allocating slots.
In the wake of a favourable reception from the Council of Ministers for the proposal earlier this month, the Commission is following up the proposal as a matter of urgency and substantial discussions with all of the interested parties, Member State governments and others involved in rail are already beginning.
Thank you for your answer.
Yes it is true, I have read the White Paper.
The reason for my question is that I was at a conference in Sweden attended by a number of companies including some from the transport sector.
I was informed how the company Avesta Sheffield had actually tried to use the railways for its long distance transport.
It was almost impossible because of the congestion on the railways and it was also very expensive.
Therefore, the company could not currently use the railways even though it would like to.
The Commissioner said that this was a matter of urgency.
This is absolutely true because large companies organise their transport systems a long way ahead.
If the railways do not soon become competitive they will not survive.
Railways must survive as they are the most environmentally friendly transport alternative.
I should like to respond to the honourable Member, very briefly, by saying that I strongly commend those companies, notably Swedish companies, which have made attempts over the years to develop their own direct links in order to shift freight from road to rail.
That is particularly arduous, of course, in the case of Sweden and will continue to be the case until the completion of the Øresund link.
I hope that they will feel that the proposals I have put forward and the active agreement of several of the Member States, indeed including Sweden, will produce the kind of result that they want of dedicated rail-freight freeways with a sensible system of management and a good system of pricing that really can prove to be commercially attractive to those companies which want to move large amounts of freight to do it dependably and at competitive prices.
If that turns out to be the case, as I am sure it will, the whole of the transport system, and indeed the economies and societies of the European Union, will benefit greatly.
A very brief question on the long term perspective. Is it not yet high time that we, when considering issues concerning the infrastructure, move away from the narrow perspective of company economic profitability and look at the total perspective and to the combined external effect of investment?
That, of course, is absolutely true, especially since the studies done under the general framework of the Commission's interest in trans-European networks have demonstrated that when the international social economic product is taken into account, the returns on infrastructure investment are substantially greater than when only the national social economic consequences are taken into account.
Effective and environmentally sensitive infrastructure development is, therefore, not only a development of merit by itself, it also has additional benefit for economies and societies and the Union as a whole when it is international and genuinely transEuropean.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 52 by Miguel Arias Cañete (H-0725/96) which has been taken over by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna
Subject: Italian Government plans for rationalization and conversion of drift-net fisheries
In July 1996 the Italian Government adopted a plan to end illegal fishing using drift-nets, so as to avoid United States trade sanctions.
The plan to abolish drift-nets evidently will involve some funding from Community sources.
From which budgetary headings will this Community co-funding be financed, and what will be the extent of such co-funding?
Question No 53 by Josu Imaz San Miguel (H-0773/96)
Subject: Conversion of drift gill nets in the Mediterranean
In July of this year the threat of US trade sanctions forced the Italian Government to submit a plan to the Commission for the withdrawal of illegal drift nets.
The plan envisages Community funding to compensate for the withdrawal of such nets.
Since withdrawal is voluntary, vessels may opt to continue fishing with nets of legal length but, as stated in the Commission report on the 1995 season, the inspections carried out have not so far enabled proper checks on illegal nets to be made.
Does the Commission believe that the Italian plan will really make it possible for illegal drift nets to be eliminated?
Is the Commission considering similar funding for the withdrawal of drift nets in the Atlantic? Does the Commission regard it as efficient for large amounts from the Community budget to be spent on this problem without actually solving it, which would require such nets to be banned once and for all?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you may know, since the beginning of this year the Commission has been urging the Italian Government not only to apply certain inspection measures at sea and on land to its drift net fleet in the Mediterranean, but also to take steps to convert that fleet in an attempt to eliminate the use of such fishing gear.
Following an inspection campaign mounted by the Commission for the second year running, the results obtained have convinced the Italian authorities that this type of fishing is no longer acceptable.
These inspections revealed in fact that drift net fishing in the Mediterranean is economically sustainable only if it is illegal, that is, only if the drift nets are considerably in excess of the 2.5 km length laid down in the existing legislation.
Given the results of this inspection campaign, on 25 July the Italian Government presented a plan for the conversion and rationalization of drift net fishing.
The questioners ask me for details of this conversion plan.
In general terms, the plan sets out a series of measures designed to bring about the elimination and destruction of drift nets, as well as the withdrawal of licences for this type of fishing, in exchange for Community and national financial aid to offset the social and economic consequences of this ban in certain regions of southern Italy which fall within Objective 1 and typically have a high rate of unemployment, with very little likelihood of alternative work.
Clearly, the Italian Government is convinced that the plan's objectives will only be met if these measures are sufficiently attractive.
The Commission's view is that the financial aid package which has been agreed should form a sufficient incentive to ensure the success of the plan, provided that the Italian authorities adopt all the other necessary measures outlined in the plan, in particular the part regarding sanctions.
The Commission has therefore asked the Italian Government to introduce an even more rigorous system for inspecting the conditions under which fishing is being carried out, and to provide for severe administrative and penal sanctions in the case of infringement.
Finally, the funding needed to implement the plan will be drawn from Italy's present allocation under the Structural Funds, with no increase in the appropriations already earmarked for the programme period 1994-1999.
As a rule there will be co-funding by Italy, but as far as the European financing is concerned, no additional monies have been authorized.
Fishing using 2.5 km nets is continuing in the Atlantic in accordance with the existing legislation, as emerges from the latest inspection campaign. As long as legislation permits the use of such nets, the Commission has no intention of taking any financial measures to encourage the cessation of this fishing activity, which is authorized in the Atlantic.
I hope that the honourable Members are also aware of the likely budgetary constraints in 1997, especially in the fisheries sector.
The Commission would point out that any Member State can take an initiative within the Council to amend the Commission's proposal, which has been before the Council since 1994.
Any Member State may take the initiative of dividing the dossier between drift nets in the Baltic and in other zones; every Member State has a right of initiative, and may amend or divide the Commission proposal which is before the Council.
As far as the Commission is concerned, it has embarked on a round of informal consultations with the Member States on the most recent data, including that from Italy, and the honourable Member will be well aware of the Commission's workload as the year comes to an end: there is the satellites regulation, the MAGPs IV, and the regulation governing TACs and quotas.
In the meantime, we are exploring with the Member States the chances of finding a new majority to enable us to move this issue forward.
I think that in early 1997, we shall have a clearer overview of what those chances might be, but I repeat that the Member States themselves are in a position to propose solutions and amendments to the Commission's proposal.
Madam Commissioner, I wanted to ask you a supplementary question.
This plan is interesting and one of the aspects which you referred to is that it is based on voluntary withdrawal with large financial incentives. But what would happen if those financial incentives were not enough to carry out the eradication plan in full and if these nets continue to be used?
Does the Commission think that it can guarantee the plan's success bearing in mind that, although there are only few nets left, its control - as the Commission itself has claimed - would actually be quite difficult? And will the Commission be taking measures so that the aid plan can lead to full eradication?
Given that a total ban on drift-nets has been presented to the Council together with the 1994 proposal, the ball is now in the Council's court, to use graphic terms. But I should like to ask another question of the Commission: will the Commission be presenting to the Council any type of report making an appraisal of all of the economic costs which the European Union would have to meet both for the elimination plans and controls of drift-nets so that, once and for all, it could call upon the Council fully to eliminate these nets in other areas of the European Union as well?
The provision of funding to implement the plan is subject to the usual rules governing the Structural Funds and their disbursement.
The Commission intends to monitor very closely the progress made in implementing the various stages of the plan.
As we know, this is a complex plan with many different facets, and both the Commission and the Member State concerned are committed to very close scrutiny of the various stages of its implementation.
As for the second part of your question, any new Commission initiative will of course be duly justified and accompanied by reports on inspection costs, among other things. Such reports would be drawn up to substantiate any new Commission proposal, which would otherwise be indefensible.
Such an evaluation of inspection costs is part and parcel of the documentation which would serve to justify a new proposal, if - of course - the political conditions were to demand it.
Question No 54 by Mair Morgan (H-0732/96)
Subject: Safety of children at activity centres
With the increasing number of extra curricular activities and school visits throughout the European Union it is imperative that there are measures adopted to ensure the safety of children.
It is essential that activity centres that provide courses in activities such as caving, climbing and watersports are run by competent and qualified instructors.
What steps does the Commission plan to ensure that all Member States provide independent competent assessment and regulations of these activities and what plans does it have to facilitate the mutual recognition of qualifications in this field?
I am pleased to see that this has come before the House before but unfortunately there was a different Parliament at the time.
I hope that, as you say, it will come before us again because I think it is very important that the safety of children throughout Europe should be a priority of this House.
It is also important to realize that unless we put these assurances in place, instead of encouraging children to travel abroad, we will see parents ensuring that they do not travel abroad because of fears for their safety.
That applies not only to outdoor pursuits activities, which - I think - are very good for children, forming their characters and encouraging them to participate.
So, I do hope that we will see this directive coming forward.
It is not only relevant to package holidays: it is important for anyone who wants to travel on this kind of trip abroad, in particular in terms of canoeing holidays, those kinds of things.
We should have adequate safety standards and qualifications that are mutually recognized.
We do this in academic terms, why can we not do it for sports facilities. It is important that we set the kind of standards set by organizations like the one we have in West Wales.
In principle I share your concern and also recognize the importance of this issue but it is really the case that, for the moment, this is a responsibility of Member States.
What we are trying to see is if there is a margin for manoeuvre to allow us to come up with a new proposal which could be justified, and so start the process again.
But for the moment we are at this stage: we have to see if there is enough background and enough justification for a new proposal that could then possibly encounter fewer difficulties and less resistance.
I have listened with interest to the Commissioner's response.
I do not think it is just an issue for Member States when you are dealing with an international situation.
Neither do I think it is always good enough to expect that all travel operators are observing high standards.
Whilst I support everything that my colleague, Ms Morgan has said, it is a wider issue than that.
It is not just about safety and activity centres where there are potentially hazardous activities taking place.
The recent tragedy, of which you will be aware, in the Auberge de Jeunesse in northern France showed a real problem in a potentially safe situation.
There have been other similar incidents in hotels, campsites, swimming pools, shopping centres, etc., across Europe.
I wonder whether the Commission could perhaps consider a voluntary, or preferably a compulsory code of conduct or registration for youth hostels, hotels and similar sites that take groups of young people, particularly school groups moving from one country to another, where they are not familiar with local situations. They are not aware of the local dangers perhaps.
They are looking for the best and most advantageous, cheapest deal.
It is something that must be looked at with a European dimension.
You cannot just expect it to happen locally.
We must encourage young people to travel to the different Member States.
I must confirm what I said before.
I share your concern, and our programme is to see if we can identify some margin of manoeuvre.
This is also necessary because this form of travel, particularly inside the Union, has very much increased.
It is very important that we ensure that safety measures are in place so that this process is not stopped, just the contrary.
It is important that parents feel that their children are protected when they travel in Member States.
We have also tried to develop a code of conduct, but up to now the results have not been very encouraging.
That is why we are again looking at the possibility of a directive.
We started work on a code of conduct, particularly among the Auberges de Jeunesse, but frankly speaking the result was not encouraging.
It was very timeconsuming trying to persuade them and so on, but at the end of the day the result was not particularly encouraging and so we are back to the other possibility again.
My own question for later on relates to a similar area.
I visited the hostel in question in Brittany with Caroline Dickinson's father earlier this month and saw a very low level of security at that time, which has been improved, but obviously too late.
Could I ask whether the Commissioner would meet with Ms Morgan and myself specifically to try to find practical ways forward here. We all know that the legislative process is long and winding and perhaps it is something that we may want in future.
But perhaps we could talk with you, Commissioner, and try to suggest ways forward with the associations that run hostels and similar activities internationally, and find a practical way forward so that parents can be sure of their children's security when they send them abroad so that we have a quick practical solution to this problem rather than a theoretical one in the long term.
The Commission accepts the proposal and its services are certainly available for any further discussion that you wish.
Another thing which might be possible is to involve consumers' associations in this issue and perhaps they have some broader documentation which could be helpful in our discussion to try to see what measures we could take to overcome the problem.
The involvement of both parliamentarians and the Commission services, but also the consumers' associations would be an important element in a joint discussion.
Question No 55 by José Apolinário (H-0747/96)
Subject: Positions defended by the Commission at the recent NAFO meeting in St Petersburg
At the NAFO meeting of September 1996 in St Petersburg, the Commission, quite independently of any considerations as regards the conclusions on the distribution of quotas, accepted a distribution criterion for zone 2J3KL which will, in practice, be fixed autonomously by Canada, thus opening up the door to the abolition of the right of objection of the contracting parties to NAFO, via a new framework for conflict resolution.
Does the Commission not consider that it is, in fact, finally surrendering on matters of principle, thus neglecting and abandoning the defence of the Community's interests in the NAFO area?
The questioner draws attention to two decisions which he considers damaging to the Community's interests.
The first relates to the future management of cod stocks in NAFO zone 2J3KL, and the second to the hypothesis that the objection procedure might be abolished if a new framework for conflict resolution were to be introduced.
I would emphasize that the questioner expresses opinions and interpretations on both these points which are not shared by the Commission.
In fact, as regards the measure relating to cod stocks, it has been agreed that in future, the management will be shared between Canada, whose waters contain 95 % of the stocks, and NAFO, which holds 5 %, and that these two authorities - Canada on the one hand and NAFO on the other - will set their respective TACs in close collaboration with one another and on the basis of scientific opinion.
The measure is worded in terms which clearly demonstrate - or so it seems to the Commission - that NAFO will autonomously set the TAC for the 5 % of cod stocks in the zone for which it is responsible, so that it will not be bound by the TAC applied by Canada to the 95 % of stocks present in its waters.
The Commission therefore does not think that this measure can be interpreted as granting Canada the right to exercise jurisdiction over the stocks in question, beyond the limits of its own exclusive economic zone.
Consequently, Canada will exercise such powers in its exclusive economic zone and NAFO will do likewise in international waters, it having been established that 95 % of the cod stocks are located in Canadian waters and 5 % in the international waters managed by NAFO.
As for the suspicion that the objection procedure might be abolished, I must say that the Commission has some difficulty in understanding the questioner's concerns.
Firstly, the Commission has never considered that the objection procedure was applicable in cases of conflict.
Without prejudice to the right of objection, it is of course quite possible to engage in debate and dialogue with a view to resolving any conflicts, but without abolishing the objection procedure, for which legal provision currently exists, given that NAFO is not a supranational organization.
In our opinion - and not least from a legal viewpoint - the objection procedure remains necessary and legitimate, so much so that it must remain an indispensable part of discussions and relations between the countries belonging to NAFO.
Madam Commissioner, thank you for the precision of your replies which have clarified two aspects which, as far as I am concerned, were essential - they were questions of principle - about the content of the negotiations at the St Petersburg meeting.
I must confess, however, that I am not happy about the second aspect, the machinery for resolving conflicts.
In any case, I hope that the Commissioner's declaration is the way in which the Commission is going to defend European interests at the working group which has since been set up in order to change the NAFO Convention regulations.
I should also like to know what measures the Commission is going to put forward at NAFO in order to strengthen checks on non-signatory countries, in other words on ships flying flags of convenience, and whether the Commission is giving its backing to the holding, in Portugal, in 1998, of a meeting to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the NAFO Convention.
With regard to increased monitoring, particularly in respect of the vessels of countries which are not contracting parties to NAFO, the Commission is seeking to exert maximum pressure on the Member States, which are responsible for monitoring, to encourage them to carry out these duties within NAFO.
It goes without saying that monitoring raises a very thorny issue for the Member States, namely that of cost.
It is clearly unthinkable that every Community vessel will in future have an inspector on board; by the same token, it is unthinkable that only direct monitoring will take place, which is why the Commission is drawing up a proposal for satellite monitoring.
This is a transparent, irrefutable form of inspection: there is clearly no possibility of error, and the system is certainly less costly than permanent on-the-spot checks, especially in a fairly extensive area such as NAFO.
These are the measures being taken by the Commission: we are inviting the Member States to carry out these checks, while remaining aware that the cost of physical on-the-spot checks over such a large area will undoubtedly be enormous.
Secondly, discussions are under way within the Commission to determine joint forms of participation for 1999; furthermore, we believe that since NAFO on the one hand and the NEAFC on the other are the only two regional conferences providing relative guarantees for international waters, and in the hope of reaching management agreements for the waters of other oceans, 1999 will be a key date when it comes to reopening the debate on monitoring arrangements in international waters, for instance in the South Atlantic or other oceans to which no management measures as yet apply.
I have no problem at all, Commissioner, with the agreement on managing area 2J3KL.
I think the Canadians have had a very hard experience in fish management and have probably learnt their lesson.
I have a problem with NAFO though.
It was brought to me by the Latvian Ambassador who visited last week and who tells me that they are still dependent on the old Soviet Union - Russia now - for their vote.
They do not have an independent vote as an independent state.
The same applies, presumably, to Estonia and Lithuania.
I think that it is perhaps time that the Commission supported those countries in having their own independent voice in NAFO.
Finally, on your recent visit to Britain, Commissioner, I would congratulate you.
You obviously annoyed the British fishing industry considerably, but that was only to be expected.
I still congratulate you on one remark made to me this morning - by an old Hull trawler-owner who still operates part of our deep-sea fleet - that at last you have got a Commissioner who says what she thinks.
Good.
In fact, we are already discussing this issue which not only concerns Latvia but also Estonia and others.
The issue of contracting parties is under discussion.
As you know, according to the NAFO rule, there has to be consensus.
As you can imagine - I do not need to tell you the details - this consensus is far away.
For all the reasons you have mentioned, in addition to all the others, we are already in favour of this request even though consensus is still required and some contracting parties are not so happy.
Question No 63 by Irini Lambraki (H-0772/96)
Subject: Combating sex tourism
The dramatic circumstances which came to light in Belgium in July constitute the tip of the iceberg of paedophilia and sex tourism.
What measures does the Commission intend to take in the field of tourism to reduce the number of cases - and curb the phenomenon - of sex tourism which discredits and outrages basic human values?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the sex exploitation of children is a manifestation of violence against them which inspires horror.
It is a matter of priority for the Commission to combat the sex exploitation of children.
In undertaking certain commitments at the Stockholm Conference, the Commission submitted a related memorandum during the informal meeting between Ministers for Justice and Internal Affairs on 26 and 27 September 1996.
Following that memorandum, there is to be an announcement.
Regarding the dimension of the problem so far as tourism is concerned, I would like to remind you that in its proposal of April 1996 for a Council decision on the establishment of a first multinational programme for European tourism, the Commission indicated the need to address the problems that we call 'sex tourism' .
The Commission also called for the development and strengthening of the tourism industry's codes of practice and self-regulation mechanisms against such practices, and for the support of initiatives to prevent them.
The recent tragic events in Belgium give new and added impetus to the conclusions of the World Conference against the sex exploitation of children, which took place in Stockholm at the end of August, and in particular to its action programme.
The Commission is now preparing a special announcement on the subject of combating sex tourism with child victims, associated with a draft recommendation to the Member States indicating a number of measures to address the problem.
Measures related to judicial cooperation between the Member States, such as the important problem of extraterritorial implementation of the penal orders applicable to sexually aggressive acts against children committed by citizens of third countries, are under consideration by the Council of Ministers for Justice and Internal Affairs.
The Commission's initiative will take into account both the European Parliament's related position and the recommendations of the Stockholm Conference's action programme concerning tourism.
Our overall strategy will have two aspects: first, it will focus on the destination countries and use every realistic means, including the Union's influence in the international arena where appropriate. And secondly, it will aim to reduce the demand, especially by strengthening cooperation and supporting the tourism industry and related NGOs, strengthening the industry's codes of practice and self-regulation mechanisms, and improving the coordination of information campaigns.
As for the draft recommendation to the Member States, a number of factors must be taken into account, especially concerning the need to encourage national tourism administrations to establish preventive measures against sex tourism with child victims and to draw up guidelines for the tourism sector, in order to ensure that sex tourism travel packages are not facilitated, that codes of practice for the tourism industry are developed and strengthened, and that efforts by intergovernmental bodies and NGOs to combat sex tourism with child victims are supported.
Our efforts will also aim to promote the exchange of technical knowledge between countries, with a view to improving practical ways to prevent, suppress and mitigate the consequences of sex tourism with child victims.
The development of alternative forms of tourism in the relevant countries should also be promoted, to offer tourists a broad range of interests.
The Commission hopes that it will be ready to present the related special announcement at the beginning of November.
I would like to thank Commissioner Christos Papoutsis for the sensitivity he has shown over this issue and for his desire to contribute serious proposals towards the solution of this social problem, which has rightly shaken and outraged public opinion in Europe.
The massive demonstration in Brussels last Sunday bore witness to the agony, interest and determination of Europe's citizens to exert pressure on governments and politicians to take action against this circle, whose activities disgrace the democratic and cultural values of Europe today.
However, I want to make the point that whatever action is taken cannot begin and end within the ambit of the European Union's Member States alone.
The tragic events in Belgium last July shed the glare of publicity on the tragic fate of about 2 million children in South-East Asia and South America, who become the victims of sexual savagery and appalling torture for the gratification mainly of European and American tourists, while it is known that many underage boys and girls enter and circulate illegally from Thailand and the Philippines.
In these circumstances, combined with the fact that these circles are very active, it is perhaps necessary, Commissioner, to adopt a more collective approach rather than one that comes only from your side of the matter.
Do you have any such more collective proposals?
Mr President, I would like to thank the honourable Member for her question and to assure Parliament that we do indeed intend to strengthen our cooperation both with the industry and with the Member States, to develop a broader strategy to combat the problem.
At the Stockholm Conference the Non-Governmental Organizations spoke emphatically about the problem of child exploitation and we believe that our proposal also has the support of most Member States.
Of course, we are counting on the firm backing of the European Parliament.
Now, so far as the tourism industry is concerned, it is clearly conscious of how badly its image could be damaged if this phenomenon of sex tourism from Europe, with child victims, is allowed to continue.
Full cooperation by the sector is vital to ensure that these problems are addressed in a detailed way.
However, it must be stressed that we have observed notable initiatives that have been taken, that travel bureaux have undertaken, to combat sex tourism with child victims.
At the recent informal meeting of Ministers for Justice and Internal Affairs in Dublin on 26 September, the Commission tabled a discussion document which explains the activities carried out within the ambit of the European Union's various bodies.
That document also describes four initiatives currently being prepared and which concern the movement of women and girls for sex exploitation purposes, and sex tourism with child victims by means of the provision of audiovisual services, in particular via the Internet.
I must tell you that though the Commission does not have the right to take initiatives in that area, we can make recommendations to the Member States on the adoption of initiatives within the scope of the Third Pillar, and that is what we will do.
I also want to assure you that the European Commission as a whole are fully aware of this issue, and in the coming months we will be doing our best to deal with it, always hoping, as I said earlier, for the European Parliament's support.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 64 by Paul Lannoye (H-0789/96)
Subject: IAEA decision on the containers used for the transport of nuclear materials by air
The Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency in a recent decision permitted the transport by air of plutonium in pure or mixed form (MOX) in the containers currently used for road transport (type B).
These containers are designed to resist crushing at a speed of 48 km an hour and not following an air crash.
Does the Commission approve of this decision which runs counter to the requirement that safety should be assured under all the conditions likely to arise during transport?
Question No 65 by Nuala Ahern (H-0791/96)
Subject: Prohibiting plutonium flights over territory of non-nuclear EU States
The air transport of plutonium or raw fuel containing plutonium between reprocessing plants and mixed oxide fuel (MOX) production plants and nuclear power plants which use MOX, gives rise to nuclear transport flights over several Member States of the EU, some of which have renounced the nuclear option.
Does the Commission believe that each Member State has the right to prohibit such flights over its territory?Question No 66 by Undine-Uta Bloch von Blottnitz (H-0814/96)
Subject: Transport of radioactive materials by air
In the USA the transport of radioactive goods by air is subject to much more stringent safety requirements than in the EU.
The requirements concerning transport containers are considerably stricter in the USA, stipulating for example that they must be able to resist a higher impact speed.
On what precise grounds does the Commission justify the discrepancies between the American and European safety standards, and how does it react to the presumption that European standards can hardly be adequate to ensure public health protection when states such as the USA impose much higher requirements on such transport?
Ladies and gentlemen, safety during the transport of radioactive materials is a very serious issue and is governed by international regulations laid down by the International Atomic Energy Agency in cooperation with its Member States.
Those regulations are subject to continual review.
As the questions say, the Board of the IAEA recently approved revised transport regulations including specifications for air transport applicable to all radioactive materials.
The safety requirement specifications for air transport proposed by the IAEA are based on an extensive range of data and specific figures on air transport accidents, and are intended to ensure an adequate level of safety during the transport of any type of radioactive material.
In the revised regulations the IAEA proposes two types of packaging containers for air transport.
First, a type-B container for which the quantity of radioactive material transported by air is restricted.
For this type of container the same quantitative restriction does not apply to materials certified as low-dispersal materials.
For shipments of low-dispersal radioactive materials the shipper must prove to the relevant authorities in each country involved in the air transport operation that the strictest criteria applicable to low-dispersion materials have been complied with, as laid down by the revised regulations.
So far as we know, no material has so far been characterized as a low-dispersal material.-Secondly, the IAEA proposes a type-C container that permits the air transport of a larger quantity of radioactive material.
For such cases, the type-C container in question must satisfy much stricter requirements than the type-B containers mentioned earlier.I must stress that the revised IAEA regulations take full account of the most recent fundamental safety specifications of the IAEA, and are also fully consonant with Council Regulation No 96/29 of 13 May 1996 laying down basic safety conditions for the protection of occupational and public health from the dangers created by ionizing radiation.
As for the ability of Member States to intervene, the safe transport of radioactive materials, including MOX fuels, mixed plutonium-oxide uranium-oxide fuels, is governed by a system of multilateral approval in accordance with the IAEA's transport regulations.
This means that approval must be obtained from the relevant authorities both in the country where the container was designed or from which it is being shipped, and in all the countries through or to which the shipment is bound.
However, the terms 'through which' or 'to which' explicitly exclude the term 'over which' , meaning that the requirements for approval and notification of the shipment do not apply to a country over which radioactive material is being transported in an aircraft, provided the shipment will not be stopping in that country.
The revised IAEA transport regulations are to be put before the International Civil Aviation Organization in the coming months.
When they are incorporated in the technical directives of the ICAO, those regulations will be binding upon all the contributor states.
However, it is possible that the ICAO's contributor states may adopt modifications of the technical directive conditions.
Examples of such modifications are the special administrative or technical conditions relating to flights over certain countries or the taking of stricter protective measures.
That was the option used by the United States for the air transport of plutonium and any contributor state may take whatever similar initiatives it wishes.
The only proviso is that such deviations from the conditions must be notified immediately to the ICAO, so that they can be published in the technical directives.
The Commission views the subject of air transport for radioactive materials very seriously indeed, and also takes an active part in the technical work of the IAEA.
The cross-border nature of air transport means that we have to act within the international framework laid down by the IAEA and the ICAO, whose positions are determined by their Member States.
Given that some of these air transport operations are between different Member States, and that air traffic over certain Member States is also particularly heavy - I am thinking of Belgium and Luxembourg here, looking at the schedule of regular flights - it seems more important to me to consider the introduction of Community rules, and not just regulations based on those of the International Civil Aviation Organization and the IAEA.
Secondly, can the Commissioner give me an answer as to the possible specific risks of the transport of mixed uranium-plutonium fuel, the rules for which are different from those for pure plutonium?
I thank Mr Lannoye for his comments, but would like to point out that as mentioned in the Commission's recent statement to the Council and the European Parliament concerning the safe transport of radioactive materials in the European Union, it emerges from an analysis of accidents and incidents in the transport sector that very few accidents result in appreciable exposure to radiation.
I agree, of course, that a more cohesive European Union involvement could be considered, but for the time being, that does not seem attainable in the context of the Council.
However, as I told you, the Commission attaches great importance to the subject of safe air transport for radioactive materials, and as I also said, it takes an active part in the technical work of the IAEA.
Now, in addition, as you know, we are contributing towards the formulation of IAEA legislation.
I also want to remind you that line B4-1020 of the budget for radioactive materials transport allows the Commission to finance studies, research, measurements or experimental programmes that aim to assess and further improve existing international regulations.
Within the scope of our powers and that of the Commission's institutional framework, the Commission is doing everything it possibly can to be helpful along those lines.
Commissioner, it only takes one accident over a densely-populated area like Belgium and Luxembourg to have lethal results when radioactive material is transported - I should not have to remind you of that.
Would you now take steps to bar all air transport of radioactive material until the new IAEA guidelines can be urgently revised to incorporate the International Civil Aviation Organization's own guidelines and requirements, because so far they have not taken them into consideration? The new guidelines appear to be designed specifically to accommodate the air transport of MOX fuel.
As the Commissioner himself has said, it has not been defined as low-leakage or low-dispersal material.
The new guidelines confuse it with low-dispersal material.
Until we can clarify this confusion, could you please ban the transport of this material over the territories of the Member States and require organizations, such as British Nuclear Fuels Ltd., to refrain from issuing misleading assertions that it has been officially designated as a low-dispersal material, because this is not helpful and, indeed, extremely misleading in this context?
I thank Mrs Ahern for her question, which gives me the opportunity to repeat that from the very few accidents reported so far, it emerges that there has been no appreciable exposure to radiations.
However, those results are probably due to the stringent and consistent regulations that have been strictly enforced for several decades and whose adequacy and implementation is monitored and, as I said earlier, adapted to contemporary circumstances by special teams of experts.
Despite all that, however, it is clear - and here, I share the honourable Member's concern - that an encouraging past in safety-related matters is not in itself good reason for us to rest on our laurels and become complacent, though it certainly does indicate that the integrity of the packaging can be preserved under a variety of conditions that arise in accidents.
Now, as for the problems of overflying the territory of a country, there is provision for a country to prohibit overflights of its territory provided the ICAO is notified of the cases for which the contributor state has enacted orders different from those embodied in the ICAO technical directives.
However, those orders should not result in discrimination.
I will mention the example of Denmark, which prohibits the transport of more than certain quantities of fissionable radioactive materials by aircraft overflying its territory, and the transport of such materials in certain types of containers, unless a relevant permit has been obtained from its national Civil Aviation Service.
That is an example showing that Member States can impose their own conditions, and on the basis of those conditions and their own laws they notify and maintain constant cooperation with the International Civil Aviation Organization.
I would say, Commissioner, that there has been no significant incident.
Obviously that is not an acceptable argument, because if there were to be an incident, large areas would be contaminated.
Of course, the only reason why we are now starting to transport MOX fuel rods in high style by air is that they are encountering serious blockades on the usual sea and road transport routes, because people simply do not want them.
But correct me if I am wrong: the transportation containers that have been used so far are of Type B, which can withstand an impact at 48 km/h.
Type C is built to withstand an impact at 324 km/h.
However, the figure required in America is 464 km/h.
The aircraft which crashed over a residential area of Amsterdam had an impact speed of 520 km/h.
Given the differences between these figures, surely you will agree with me that, on grounds of safety, the least we should have done already is to impose a total ban on the transport of nuclear material in Type B containers?
As I said, with Type B we have a maximum impact speed of 48 km/h. Type C, which has not even been fully tested as yet, is designed to withstand impact speeds of up to 324 km/h, but the Americans are saying that the figure should be 464 km/h.
Our first task is therefore to come up with a standard set of rules, before we can even think of authorizing anything.
I thank Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz for her comments.
She is right that type-B containers do indeed exist.
It is logical that they should undergo a free-fall test for an object of rectangular section from a height of 9 m, which, as you said, corresponds to an impact velocity of 48 km/h.
It is true that such tests are carried out, and carried out onto an unyielding surface, as it is termed.
The term 'unyielding' means that the target surface does not absorb any of the energy gained by the container at the moment of impact, and therefore, that all its kinetic energy is converted to energy that deforms the container.
From free-fall tests carried out on actually existing surfaces, it has been confirmed that the quantity of deformation energy is equal to that absorbed by the container during reference tests when the free-fall height is much greater than 9 m, i.e. when the impact velocity is larger.
Those are the specifications followed by some states.
However, this does not mean that every state ought to follow the specifications laid down by the United States.
As I said earlier, the cross-border nature of air transport entails that we must operate within the international framework established by the IAEA and the ICAO, whose positions are determined by their Member States.
So far, it has not been possible for the European Union to impose a uniform policy of its own.
My constituents live near a major international airport.
Even those who live under the flight path are happy to do so because of the economic benefits the airport brings to the conurbation.
However, there is an understandable concern about flights carrying nuclear materials.
One such accident is enough.
If there are different standards in different countries, including the USA which is the capital of the nuclear world, surely it is best to harmonize at the highest level the regulations, standards and conditions for transport of this material, rather than just leaving it to local decision?
Mr President, it will not tire me at all to repeat that the Commission shares the concerns that exist in all sectors and all areas of the European Union.
Clearly, when such dangers exist, we cannot close our eyes to them and, as I said earlier, we cannot remain complacent because we have had safety in the past and because there have not so far been any such accidents.
We must adopt as many measures as possible, we must promote our technology, we must be careful, and we must study the facts.
And that is all the Commission can do.
As I told you earlier, the only thing the Commission can do at this time is, first, to cooperate with international organizations in analysing the data and the facts and in working out new proposals.
As for the European Union itself, we can take advantage of budget line B4-1020 to finance studies, research, measurements and other experimental programmes.
Beyond that, however, the Commission cannot override the Member States at a political level, because it is the Member States that participate in the international organizations and that adopt their own measures applicable to their own domain, and it is also the Member States that are responsible for collective decisions within the framework of the international organizations.
In any case, I reiterate yet again that precisely because we share your concern and recognize the likelihood that such dangers may exist - though we hope no such thing will happen -, we cannot be complacent.
For that reason, we are continuing our efforts within the scope permitted by the European Union's institutional and legal framework.
That concludes Question Time.
Questions not taken for lack of time will be answered in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Advertising
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0314/96) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 84/450/EEC on misleading advertising so as to include comparative advertising (C4-0325/96-00/0343(COD)).
Mr President, the subject of this debate is comparative advertising.
The 1984 legislation prohibiting misleading advertising announced that legislation would also be needed on comparative advertising, and now, twelve years later, we are giving this its second reading.
It has taken the Council more than four years to deal with what is a very tricky issue.
Is the directive really necessary?
I would say most definitely yes, because the national rules on comparative advertising vary so widely: it is banned in Belgium and Luxembourg, for example, whereas it is allowed in Germany, but only subject to very strict rules.
In a single market where we have the free movement of goods, products, services, persons and communications and a free press, all of which are regulated in the Treaty of Rome, unambiguous legislation is essential, yet far too much is left to the discretion of the courts in the Member States.
My attitude towards comparative advertising is not based solely on the consumer's point of view.
The current situation in which such advertising is banned in some countries and not in others leads to a distortion of competition and handicaps advertisers and firms that wish to draw objective comparisons, as well as consumers, who are not given the opportunity to compare.
Moving on to the proposal itself, I have tried, together with the other members of the Committee on the Environment, to draw up a coherent set of rules which recognize the right to comparative advertising, but at the same time impose strict conditions to prevent any abuse of the possibilities provided for.
The proposal before us needs to be seen in conjunction with the legislation on trade marks, as I have said before.
An examination of the rules contained in this legislation has led me to conclude that the new proposal does nothing to undermine the protection provided for trade marks.
Any criticisms raised by a particular sector are more than offset by the positive comments we have received from others.
What I mean is this: the market leader in one sector may be against the proposal, but all the rest of the sector is urging us to implement it.
This brings me to Amendment No 11.
I understand that the Commission, like some colleagues in my group, has a problem with Amendment No 11, claiming - and this is why I would like to hear your comments - that if it is adopted, in other words if the subparagraph is deleted, it could cause problems for agriculture.
I should like to have a clear answer on this.
I can well imagine that it could cause problems for Coca-Cola or for some other kinds of trade marks, in that I think they are already protected under trade mark law, but I cannot see the link with agriculture.
I myself was also not entirely convinced of the need to have separate rules to protect the full or partial bans on advertising, including comparative advertising, laid down by certain professions. My colleagues persuaded me that such rules were necessary.
Amendment No 20, which replaces Amendment No 7, and Amendment No 21, which replaces Amendment No 14, state that where there is a code of ethics which is not statutory but is generally accepted, there must also be separate rules which allow for comparative advertising.
Next there is the problem of whether or not to allow comparative tests.
In the original proposal, the Commission provided for the possibility of carrying out comparative tests as part of comparative advertising.
I agree with the Commission that this offers the consumer extra information and allows the manufacturers and service providers greater scope.
The Council, however, is not in favour.
Nevertheless, we would prefer to maintain the possibility of using comparative tests in comparative advertising, provided they are carried out by an independent body to ensure that they are objective and verifiable.
We have therefore retabled a number of amendments from the first reading.
There is just one comment I should like to make about self-regulation.
The system of self-regulation is an excellent way of dealing with complaints quickly and effectively, and voluntary monitoring can prevent problems from arising.
I am thinking here in particular of how market operators can be made responsible for their own actions.
The fact that it also relieves the burden on administrative and judicial bodies is, in my view, an added incentive for supporting the amendment on self-regulation that we have proposed.
In conclusion, as I said earlier, this report has struck a balance by permitting comparative advertising in principle, provided a number of strict requirements are met so that there is never any question of harming the rights of competitors named in the advertisements.
Advertisements must provide the consumer with clear, comprehensible information using simple and effective methods.
People will be better informed about how complaints should be dealt with and what conditions apply, and competition in the European single market will be given a tremendous boost.
Mr President, I should like to say at the outset that we are considering this proposal tonight after a delay of four years in bringing forward an effective amendment of the misleading advertising directive.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is to be congratulated on the fact that in three months she has produced a wide range of consensus in Parliament, which I hope the Commission will note, on the substance of these proposals.
Speaking on behalf of my group, I find very little ground for difference now after the discussions we had in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on this issue.
From a consumers' point of view, the common position is to be welcomed.
We are supportive of the notion that comparison between products fosters healthy competition and informs consumers of what they can most effectively buy.
We believe that the provisions of Article 3(a) set a limit to what that comparative advertising might be and we also support the rapporteur in her proposal to delete Article 3(a)1(g) because, although we understand the lobby which constantly emerges where particular stimulating agricultural products are concerned, there is enough protection already in the directive without that suggestion.
We believe that the amendments which look at the need to respect the codes of conduct laid down by professional services again are now well chosen and have taken account of the debate on second reading.
We have all had representations from the medical profession and we should respect the ethics of self-advertisement in most self-respecting medical professions throughout the Community.
We believe that there are several amendments which go a little further, perhaps, than the rapporteur might have wished, but which I believe she is prepared to accept.
The first is the designation of 48 hours as the time within which an advertiser against whom it might be claimed that they are making misleading claims is required to supply evidence in support of the advertisement.
That is Amendment No 12.
In Amendment No 13, we look at the question of what I would call copycat advertising where a product which is to all intents and purposes the same - save for a single vowel or consonant - is advocated in an advert as though it were the original product.
We know there are examples of this.
There is a brand of jeans to which I shall not refer which is almost exactly the same in spelling as the famous Levis.
There are other products in the cosmetic and jewellery fields displaying the same phenomenon.
We believe that there should be protection, which we tried to set out in Amendment No 13, against this kind of thing which takes a free ride on an established product.
I would like to say a word finally about the issue of self-regulation.
We follow the rapporteur in what she hopes to do here, but there are a couple of areas of concern which do not extend to outright opposition on my part but which I would like to raise in my last 15 seconds.
In Amendment No 19, the rapporteur calls for a European umbrella body to coordinate the work of national regulatory bodies.
There is a European advertising standards alliance and we do not want to create some separate organization - some new quango, as we say in British usage - to replicate what that does.
Finally, I would like to think that with Amendment No 17 which calls for prior recourse to other established means of dealing with complaints that we have to have here a system which is absolutely clear.
Unless this directive has clarity, it will not work. It has not always, in its stormy passage up until now, had that benefit.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for her report.
It is a very difficult and sensitive subject given that some of our Member States do not allow comparative advertising.
I am grateful to Mr Whitehead for drawing my attention to Amendment No 13 which reads that comparative advertising is allowed so long as it does not present goods or services as imitations or replicas of goods or services bearing a registered trade mark or trade name.
I think that probably could actually apply to New Labour as the imitation of the Conservative Party, which is presently being offered!
It is very important that we get this right.
I would like to ask some questions of the Commission because Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has already started the ball rolling here and it would be very helpful if we had some clarification.
On the question of Amendment No 11, on trade marks, it seems to me that this is dangerous, even though trade marks are actually safeguarded in the parts of the directive which immediately precede this.
But Amendment No 11 deals particularly with the reputation of a trade mark and it seems to me dangerous that we are going in this report to delete Amendment No 11.
I very much value the Commission's comments on that.
As regards the professions originally dealt with in Amendment Nos 7 and 14 and now basically replaced by Amendments Nos 20 and 21, these represent something of a solution to the problem that has been raised with British Members by professional organizations, such as the British Medical Association and others, but there is a difficulty in Amendment No 21 in relation to the words 'professional services' .
That could indeed relate to almost anything including, it has been pointed out to me, one of the, if not the , oldest profession in the world.
I wonder whether the sort of measure to allow codes of conduct to continue for the existing professions is adequately dealt with under Amendments Nos 20 and 21.
Otherwise, people like lawyers, doctors, etc., in all our Member States are going to be pretty worried that the comparative advertising directive would apply in full to them.
Finally, if I might draw the Commission's attention to Amendment No 15, which requires consent from third parties to comparative tests that they have carried out if a company wishes to refer to those tests.
I wonder whether the Commission feels that this consent is really needed under the comparative advertising directive.
As it is written in Amendment No 15 it would be extremely cumbersome to seek and to get that consent from the people who carry out the tests as Amendment No 15 states.
I would be very interested to hear whether the Commission is in favour of this amendment.
Again I congratulate Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on dealing so expeditiously with this difficult issue and I hope that it will not be long before we can have it on the statute book.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on her rapid work.
However, I should like to recall, in respect of designations of origin and all products which have a trade mark, how difficult it is for countries which only entered modern times very recently to obtain the name of a mark, to obtain a designation of origin and to obtain a geographical indication.
I think it is very unwise - and I am Portuguese and therefore I am very well aware of the pirating of the names 'port wine' and 'Madeira wine' - and I know how difficult it is to safeguard a mark which has world-wide renown on the market against imitations, doubtful publicity or comparative publicity aimed at undermining them.
Therefore, my Group will certainly not be voting for deletion of Recital 11, nor sub-paragraphs f) and g) of Article 3a.
I do not think this is protectionism but simply rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's, respecting the effort made by anyone who has tried to maintain the quality of a given mark and offer guarantees to consumers who have chosen a genuine product.
If that had always been the case, perhaps now we would not be having this case of 'mad cows' and if we could maintain designations of origin, perhaps then it would be possible to find out where the meat is coming from.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, comparative advertising is not a very easy subject for many Member States, some of which, including my own country, have banned it up to now.
It can, however, be very useful in helping to give consumers a clearer picture and more information, and it can also be a healthy way of increasing competition between comparable products.
But it is essential to ensure that certain strict requirements are met if we wish to prevent comparative advertising from being misleading.
The majority of our group believe that products which have designations of origin should only be compared with products with the same designation, and they therefore cannot accept Amendments Nos 5 and 10.
They feel that comparability is an essential prerequisite for comparative advertising, and this would not, by definition, be the case here.
I would point out that Mr Eisma does not agree with the majority on this.
Finally, I also have personal reservations about Amendment No 15. Obtaining the express consent of the person who carried out the test could lead to practical problems for certain sectors dealing with research and development.
If research has been carried out by several people or institutions in various different countries, it could be almost impossible to obtain consent.
In the pharmaceuticals sector, for instance, it is both customary and necessary to refer to comparative tests, so Amendment No 5 would impose a particular burden there.
I would also like to know what the Commissioner thinks about Amendment No 15.
For the remainder of the report, we have a majority in favour of the rapporteur's position.
Mr President, as consumers and citizens in all EU Member States have the right to decide for themselves which product is better than another, it is very important that these criteria should be objective.
This being so, it must also be stressed that the research institutes which make statements on the subject should be genuinely independent.
They must not, for example, be producers' or industry's own research departments.
We quite agree with Mr Whitehead that it is perfectly acceptable for the regulatory bodies to which consumers can turn and which can rule on the objectivity of tests and comparisons to remain national.
It is enough that coordination should be carried out at EU level, since some cases clearly concern matters which go beyond national borders.
On behalf of the Green Group I should also like to say that we believe that these amendments are perhaps formulated a little too diffusely where they refer to codes of ethics, which may be adopted, for example, by certain professional groups.
When it comes to debating what prohibitions are possible, we shall not, for instance, support amendments which refer to such codes of ethics. They are not likely to be very objective.
Finally, we have tabled our own Amendment No 22, which permits such comparisons to be communicated by means of labels and to refer to the composition or production methods of the product.
The background to the amendment is that in the United States Monsanto has brought legal proceedings against a number of small local dairies because they say that their products do not contain genetically modified organisms.
In our opinion such advertising should be permitted.
It ought to be possible for small producers - and big ones too, by all means - to state that their products do not contain a particular ingredient. It should not be possible to maintain that this is a barrier to trade.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I am grateful to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, for the report on the Council's common position regarding the adoption of this directive amending Directive 84/450 so as to include comparative advertising.
During the debate, I tried to note down the various requests from Members for me to explain the Commission's position on individual amendments.
I hope that I have noted all the queries and that I shall be able to give a clear reply.
First and foremost, it should be remembered that the sole purpose of this proposal is to harmonize the legislation governing comparative advertising.
The basic objective is harmonization with a view to improving information for consumers, as well as facilitating the free movement of public services within the internal market, thereby guaranteeing the right to engage in comparative advertising.
It would seem worth drawing attention to the context, because although some of the questions and perhaps some of the aspects and concerns which have been highlighted may apply to other fields, they are possibly less relevant in this context, namely a directive serving to harmonize a situation.
The aim of the proposal, therefore, is to authorize comparative advertising under the same conditions in all the Member States, seeking at the same time to preserve fairness in advertising and avoid confusing consumers, who could perhaps be influenced by unfair and misleading advertising.
The Commission would state in this connection that it can accept only eight of the 23 amendments, some of which had already been tabled at first reading and have now been resubmitted.
The acceptable amendments are Nos 1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 16, 20 and 21, which include the partially acceptable former Amendments Nos 7 and 14, whereas the others are unacceptable, at least at this stage.
I shall now try briefly to explain why.
With regard to Amendments Nos 3 and 15, referring to the use of the results of comparative tests - a subject which was raised by more than one Member - the Commission has concluded, after careful consideration, that the use of comparative test results for advertising purposes is linked only indirectly to the provision under discussion and hence to comparative advertising.
We feel that reference to these tests is unnecessary and can be omitted, given that our aim is to harmonize the provisions governing comparative advertising.
Since this subject remains an important one, it might be more appropriate to envisage an ad hoc legal instrument, whereas if the aim is harmonization, we do not consider the publication of comparative tests to be essential at this juncture.
As for the other amendments, in particular Nos 5, 10 and 11 to which the rapporteur referred, we thought it appropriate, in view of the particular nature of the provisions on designations of origin, to prohibit comparisons of products whose designations differ; in essence, the Commission is proposing that products with the same designation may be compared, and ruling out such comparisons for products with different designations.
For example, we could say that Parma ham can be compared with Parma ham, but not with Viareggio sausage.
Nor can the Commission accept Amendments Nos 6 and 18, because it does not think that self-regulation - which we welcome in many sectors - can take the place of real and effective monitoring instruments; although we very much favour self-regulation, we do not believe that it can replace the monitoring instruments which must be operated by the Member States, who are responsible for applying the principles of the directive.
Amendment No 12 is unacceptable because of the excessive and pointless administrative burden which its inclusion would place on advertisers; I am referring in particular to the problem of the 48 hours.
As regards the question of comparisons of products presented as imitations - one Member referred to copy-cat products, singling out a well-known brand of jeans - we take the view that the reference made in recital 17 of the common position and the protection afforded by the trade mark are sufficient.
We cannot accept Amendment No 17 because we see it as superfluous, given that the freedom of Member States to decide on the control procedure is already covered by Article 4(2) of Directive 84/450 which, as you know, is still in force.
Turning to Amendment No 19, we believe that, quite apart from the unnecessary increase in red tape generated by the establishment of independent institutes, the principle of subsidiarity must prevail; as regards the competent national bodies to which you refer, it should be remembered that these are not defined in law, do not have a common status and do not exist everywhere.
For these reasons, we cannot go along with your idea, although it may well be a valid one in theory.
Indeed, the fact that such bodies are not universal, coupled with their lack of a precise legal definition, would leave us in an ambiguous situation as far as the type of control is concerned, were your proposal to be accepted.
Finally, with regard to Amendments Nos 22 and 23, these would introduce over-restrictive conditions in our view, thereby limiting the scope of comparative advertising.
I hope that I have also answered your question on Article 15; in any event, the House will no doubt understand the Commission's reasons for not accepting some of these amendments.
I am convinced that the amendments which we have accepted will serve to improve the text.
That is bound to be the case, given the very positive spirit of cooperation prevailing between Parliament and the Commission in this and other fields.
I would end by pointing out to the rapporteur, who asked a question on Amendment No 11, that - unless there is some ambiguity in the text - the Commission cannot confirm that this amendment excludes any reference to agricultural produce; I would therefore repeat that - unless there is some difficulty with the text, which I am prepared to discuss - the Commission is unable to give the assurance you requested.
Mr President, I should just like to make it clear that Amendments Nos 5 and 10 are all about comparing products with the same designation of origin, whereas Amendment No 11 makes it impossible to compare two different cars with particular reputations and has nothing to do with agricultural products.
This is the answer I would like to hear.
The only point at issue here is trade mark law, which is what we are discussing.
Perhaps there is indeed some difficulty with the text, Mrs OomenRuijten.
Our view is that products with the same origin can be compared, and the same problem exists for products of designated origin and trade marks, where these are obviously of two different origins and relate to different products.
We maintain that only products of the same origin can be compared; the question of trade marks, however, raises an entirely different set of problems.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Health monitoring
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0285/96) by Mr Poggiolini, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on health monitoring within the framework for action in the field of public health (C4-0354/96-95/0238(COD)).
Mr President, we are now examining the recommendation for second reading concerning the common position established by the Council on 14 May with a view to the adoption of a Community programme of action on health monitoring within the framework for action in the field of public health.
As I had the opportunity to say at first reading, this programme is crucial to improving the success of all the health programmes which have been and are to be adopted.
The common position of the Health Council, adopted unanimously, accepted only two of the 44 amendments agreed by Parliament at first reading - Nos 17 and 20 - and partially accepted 17 more, in most cases in the version proposed by the Commission.
In short, the Council's text sets out a programme of action which is utterly inadequate in terms of its funding, its temporary nature and the fact that the essential basis for a proper functioning of the system has been removed.
We can thus only express our dissatisfaction, and that is why I have tabled 19 amendments in this draft recommendation, adopted unanimously on this occasion too by the Committee on the Environment on 25 September.
In essence, they cover four fundamental points.
Firstly, there is the progressive harmonization of data and of the definitions and methods used to collect national health data.
Everyone, including the Council, recognizes that the Member States' health data are often incomplete, indeed frequently non-existent, and not comparable.
I would therefore stress that all we are seeking to do here is to harmonize the scientific jargon, and not national health systems.
The Council's fears in respect of the ban on harmonization of Member States' health services, contained in Article 129 of the Maastricht Treaty, miss the point entirely.
What we are doing here is harmonizing scientific terminology; no one wishes to intervene or interfere in any way in the health arrangements of the Member States.
The second point relates to a suitable budgetary allocation, as opposed to that proposed by the Council, which is totally inadequate and unacceptable.
Parliament's Amendment No 8 reinstates a minimum of ECU 20 million as the appropriation needed to implement this five-year programme.
It should not be forgotten that this figure was already the result of a compromise, bearing in mind the ECU 35 m originally thought necessary by the Commission services responsible, and the ECU 13.8 m then written into the proposal for a decision by those same services in response to budgetary dictates.
As for the Council, it has - if I may say so - exhibited ludicrous tight-fistedness in reducing the ECU 13.8 m by ECU 800 000, to leave ECU 13 m.
The Commission's proposal to delete 800 000 from the ECU 13 800 000, when its own officials had envisaged 35 m, is clearly incomprehensible.
The third point is the proposed European Health Observatory, and in particular the call for feasibility studies to be carried out for the setting-up of this permanent body, to be responsible for monitoring and evaluating health data and indicators in the Community area.
The Council has ignored this request, deeming it inappropriate to make provision for any such body under this programme.
Lastly, but by no means least importantly, there is the question of the committee intended to assist the Commission in the operational phase and which, in Amendment No 10, we advocate should be advisory only and composed of one representative per Member State, rather than two as at present.
The changes requested, the fruit of experience gained with the other three health programmes in what is mainly a technical area, would undoubtedly make the implementation of this programme less bureaucratic and costly.
These basically are our requests, and once again we take issue with the Council, whose short-sighted attitude demonstrates a clear political wish to render Article 129 of the Maastricht Treaty meaningless.
Indeed, such a programme, albeit seemingly technical, is of major long-term strategic importance and would, if it functioned optimally, not only satisfy the call for guarantees and quality for Europe's citizens in the field of health, but also meet the major budgetary concerns now shared by all the Member States in respect of health spending which has become unsustainable.
This explains the major political significance of this kind of programme of Community action on health monitoring, which makes it possible, on the basis of comparable data, to define the priorities of health policy and improve its productivity and thus its effectiveness.
We would ask for the Commission's views on these clear and simple concepts, in the hope that they will be borne in mind at the next Health Council, for the express benefit of the citizens of the Union.
Mr President, may I first thank Mr Poggiolini for his work. I congratulate him because in my opinion and, I feel sure, in the opinion of all our colleagues, his work has been meticulous, aware of the importance of the subject, and receptive in that he has incorporated virtually all the amendments, as has been mentioned from these benches, and all were passed unanimously.
So from the very start, right up to this recommendation for second reading, all the political groups in Parliament have felt fully included in Mr Poggiolini's positions.
I would add to what he has said, that this body of legislation augurs well because, perhaps for the first time since the Maastricht Treaty, we are not looking at a health programme which is the sum of measures in the various Member States, but at Member States joining together to adopt an integrated measure.
For the first time we have experienced Europe, Europe at its most fruitful, improving national health systems, because obviously data collection is the starting point for better information enabling Member States to improve their respective health systems, something which seems to have caused offence to certain members of the Council.
I congratulated the Commission because the measure is very encouraging but, without withdrawing my congratulations, which it still deserves, I also have to express some disappointment.
This is basically because of two amendments not accepted in the common position.
For one thing, the programme cannot develop in five years with ECU 13 million and, for another, it excludes the existence of a stable structure, a European Health Observatory which would consolidate the data and make it productive and permanent.
So both shortage of funds and lack of a stable structure will tend to work against consolidation of the measures to be introduced.
For that reason, although all the amendments are important, I think Amendment No 8 and Amendment No 17 are fundamental if the project is to continue to have the outstanding significance we gave it at first reading.
I cannot understand the Council's fears, given that there is the most minimal impact on national sovereignty.
It implies that the principle of subsidiarity has been converted into a nationalist barrier which has skilfully destroyed the climate of hope of five years ago, the climate of the Maastricht Treaty.
And with all due respect to Mr Santer, I have to say that what we in Parliament call the Delors spirit has been extinguished little by little, and now instead we have a faceless Europe.
And a Europe where we do not know who to blame, because of course the Commissioner will express fellow-feeling and claim this is all we can get out of the Council.
And no doubt each member of the Council will claim it was the other States that did not want it.
So there it is, a faceless Europe, but the truth is those fears are astonishing.
Data collection is extremely welcome, but it must be based on reliable information.
Health statistics can make rich pickings for demagoguery, so Member States must guarantee to provide reliable and objective data.
Mr President, the programmes we are debating in the field of health policy have always had the support of this Parliament, and we must congratulate Commissioner Flynn on his effective work, which gives content to the provisions of the Treaty of Maastricht.
But we must be more united in opposing the Council.
We know we are in a period of financial stringency, but the needs of the citizens and the need for a Europe with a human face are imperative.
Perhaps the message that goes out to the citizens tonight should stress the importance of this epidemic monitoring network because unfortunately there is a vacuum here and a need to fill it that we face today and every day.
Unfortunately, we are experiencing the whole area of animal diseases, with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and at the same time we are facing outbreaks of legionnaire's disease in Spain, issues requiring international cooperation for an immediate response.
There are centres operating in this area already, like the centre in London or the network set up to monitor AIDS.
The need for such measures and their importance and effectiveness is being demonstrated in Paris, and all we have to do is strengthen them.
But a call to individual responsibility should also go out.
Sometimes we forget that the key to epidemics and to prevention lies in the individual behaviour of each and every citizen and, of course, in the local, basic and fundamental structures.
And in this respect we need to remind governments - which are stingy enough at the moment in their support for these Community programmes - that they also devote very little money to preventive medicine at the national level, the regional level and the local level.
And that is what we ought to condemn here and now, because only between 2 % and 4 % of European health budgets is devoted to preventive medicine, clearly inadequate figures which undermine the overall effectiveness of the system.
It leads to escalating costs in other sectors: saving here means much higher expenditure elsewhere.
Another fundamental requirement is establishing coordination at local, regional, national and Community levels and we must draw up a common external health convention linked to the single frontier convention.
I believe all these things are closely linked and that is another challenge.
We await a proposal from the European Commission shortly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mr Poggiolini on this report, which the Liberal Group entirely supports in principle.
There is a considerable demand for comparable health statistics at European level which will continue beyond the end of the action programme, and this is why a permanent system of health monitoring has been proposed.
The question remains, however, as to how we can achieve this as quickly, efficiently and cheaply as possible.
The idea of a European observatory is a valid one but would be a fairly major undertaking, and we need to look at the systems already in operation in the Member States.
This is why I think it is a good idea to carry out a feasibility study first.
We need to find out if any of the Member States already has a successful health monitoring system in operation and, if so, it should be used as the basis for the European system.
Later on there are various options open to us.
Either we can ask the Member States to adopt the best practice methods we have identified, or we can set up a new European centre to develop them further.
In any event we feel, like the rapporteur and various other speakers, that the ECU 20 million requested is an absolute minimum if we are to achieve any real results.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Poggiolini report is full of good intentions, something which, on the face of it, ought to make it a good report.
Who would not be in favour of improving people's health and reducing costs? In actual fact, we do not need an observatory to tell us that expenditure on health and social security, which are inextricably interlinked, is reaching astronomic proportions.
And nor do we need an observatory to tell us that the reasons for this have more to do with bad policy and inadequate, if not dubious, management than the need for coordination at European level.
So what have they proposed? Yet another supranational body.
I cannot help feeling that this observatory is just like all those other instruments that Europe is trying to foist on us, such as the federal-type body which is being set up on the pretext of combating fraud in the Community budget.
I cannot help wondering whether good intentions do not tend to put a gloss on certain political initiatives which actually have little to do with the causes they are supposed to be defending.
When the Maastricht Treaty was signed, we were promised that European integration would mean an end to all our problems. There would be no more unemployment and great prosperity.
Now we can see where it has got us.
The lessons of Maastricht have not been learnt and we are still heading down the same road.
But federalism is not the answer to anything.
I would like to inform my honourable friend that if he wishes to combat increases in health spending, he should tackle the real causes.
The age pyramid in the Member States is a disaster.
We need to pursue a consistent and pro-active birthrate policy so that there can be real solidarity between generations.
Immigration is an exacerbating factor when it comes to health spending, and France practises the most scandalous discrimination here.
In a country where monogamy is the cultural and legal norm, it allows foreigners to practise polygamy and provides social protection for the many wives of those who choose not to follow our traditions and laws on our own soil.
One of the main reasons why health spending is increasing so much is because of the decentralization and public administration of health care.
Local authorities build hospitals to boost their own prestige, regardless of whether the decision is really justified.
It is not unusual to find the same extremely expensive equipment, such as scanners, in two districts only ten miles apart.
Often, such equipment is underused or else simply not needed.
Sometimes hospitals are built not because they are needed to provide health care, but in order to create jobs.
But in the end it simply leads to job losses, in that it enables the State to satisfy its bulimic appetite for controlling the economy.
So you end up in a terminal decline, which is the reason why spending on public health is increasing: because what you are really doing is funding a socialist policy to combat unemployment.
Medicine is to be given the socialist treatment.
Do I really need to remind you of what happened in the Soviet Union? The Soviet healthcare disaster was matched by equal incompetence on the economic front.
Do you really want to repeat their mistakes?
If we wish to tackle health problems seriously, we must be brave enough to tackle the causes I have just described head-on.
Yet all your hopes seem to be pinned on this rather woolly idea of an observatory.
It marks further progress by the federalist ideology, which comes as no surprise, but we must denounce it for the mistake it is.
In his explanatory statement, Mr Poggiolini justifies the setting-up of this observatory by the fact that it will enable the Member States, on the basis of comparable health data, to establish health policy priorities and to make health policy more cost-effective and hence more efficient.
This is incorrect on two counts.
It is not up to the public authorities to manage health policy.
Putting civil servants in charge of research is tantamount to killing it off, or at the very least making it much less effective than if laboratories, driven by competition and the enthusiasm of their researchers, throw themselves into developing new products.
The observatory is the exact opposite.
It is a federalist initiative which will become a supranational body designed to impact on other, lower-ranking public administrations in the Member States.
They will be reduced merely to implementing a policy which has no legitimacy whatsoever.
First of all, I should like to thank Mr Poggiolini and the Members of the House who have contributed to the debate as well as the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection who helped prepare the report.
I am particularly grateful to them for dealing with the matter with such great speed.
The general aim of the programme is to contribute to the establishment of a high-quality, policy-oriented monitoring system in order to ensure a high level of health protection.
This is required of us by Article 129 of the Treaty.
It is very pleasing for me to hear so many people in support of our intentions here.
You will recall, I am quite sure, that this system is to consist of three components: firstly, a set of health indicators with comparable data from all the Member States in the European Community; secondly, an electronic network to exchange that data; thirdly, analysis of the data, for example, for our annual health status report.
You first saw this particular proposal in April of this year when you gave it its first reading.
At that time, you adopted 44 amendments of which 28 were accepted, either fully or partially, in the Commission's subsequent amended proposal.
But, since then, the Council has adopted this common position on the programme which accepted fully only a very small number of the amendments from first reading.
I can very easily understand, therefore, your desire to reintroduce many of the amendments which were there at the first reading.
Before I deal with them I should just like to say that, of the 19 amendments that are currently in front of us, I can inform you that the Commission is in a position to accept 10 of them and we are going to do that either wholly or in part.
We accept fully Amendments Nos 7, 9 and 10 - that is, parts 2 and 4 - and 13, 17 and 19.
We accept partially Amendments Nos 2, 6 and 10 - part 1 - and 16 and 18.
The partial acceptance of these amendments is due to a number of reasons.
One of the amendments is too restrictive and that one is Amendment No 2.
Amendment No 6 might give rise to misinterpretation and some confusion.
The first paragraph of Amendment No 10 is not in keeping with the structure of the committee already adopted for the other public health programmes.
Amendment No 16 requires the Commission to undertake an activity which may better be carried out by technical experts with the support or at the instigation of, the Commission.
Finally, Amendment No 18 is partly outside the scope of the programme.
Regarding our position on Amendment No 10, I think that particular amendment deserves a little clarification for the House.
It concerns the committee associated with the programme. This was raised during the debate.
While we agree that this committee should be of an advisory nature, it is important for the structure of the committee that should be similar to those associated with the other public health programmes.
In the case of the health monitoring programme, we feel that it is particularly important to have two representatives per Member State for a very specific reason: because the producers - typically, the national institutes of statistics - and the users of health data - typically, the national health administrations - are likely to have very different perspectives on the programme, both of which should be heard.
It is for that basic reason that we think there should be two representatives from each Member State.
As for the amendments that we cannot accept, I would like to state our reasons.
There are three amendments that are not acceptable for legal reasons, i.e. Amendments Nos 1, 5 and 11.
Of these, the latter two are rejected because they are not in keeping with the wording of Article 129.
Two amendments are rejected because they fall outside the scope of the programme: Amendments Nos 3 and 15.
Three amendments are rejected because they are unacceptably limiting: Amendments Nos 4, 12 and 14.
The remaining amendment - Amendment No 8 - concerns the size of the budget and that also causes some difficulty.
At this point, I should like to elaborate a little on the reason for refusing some of these amendments.
It is important that everybody understand why we are doing so.
First regarding Amendment No 1, which concerns the consideration of a European health observatory.
That matter was raised very strongly by many of those who contributed.
I would like to emphasize that we are not opposed to undertaking the feasibility study for such a structure.
Rather our opposition is based on the need for recitals to refer to legal texts rather than to meetings and that kind of thing.
Thus, I can reassure you and the House that I have not forgotten about the promise that I made at the conciliation meeting: the idea of a European health observatory will be studied.
I am very pleased that Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens asked that this study be undertaken specifically.
It shall be so.
With respect to Amendments Nos 3 and 15, we cannot accept supporting improvements of data bases in Member States because, pursuant to the principle of subsidiarity, this is a matter for the Member States themselves.
As regards Amendments Nos 5 and 11, I would like to say that we do not agree that cooperation should be fostered and developed with all the relevant parties, but rather that we must use a text that is more consistent with the wording of Article 129.
The question of the budget has been raised by virtually all the speakers who contributed this evening.
It is only natural that I would wish to see the financial resources for this programme increased, but as the House very well knows the margin available for additional expenditure under rubric 3 of the budget is very tight indeed.
Against this background you will recall that in the case of the first three health programmes the budgetary allocations were only finally decided at the conciliation procedure.
I expect that we are going to go to conciliation in this particular case as well.
At that point, I suggest, in the legislative process the budgetary authority will have a better appreciation of the final content of the programme and the resources that will be thought appropriate and necessary.
I suggest that we should leave it to the conciliation process finally to decide this matter.
Before closing, let me add that I know we are all very concerned about the stated objectives of the programme.
We agree with you that it is important to seek comparable and progressively harmonized data.
This point was very strongly made by Mr Poggiolini.
But we must be careful, I suggest, in the activities we support to achieve that particular objective.
I would like to recall that we are not in a position under Article 129 to oblige Member States to harmonize national data which is what is implied in Amendment No 14.
It is for this reason that we oppose this amendment while accepting Amendment No 13.
Finally, I would like to express my hope that Parliament will try and understand the reasoning behind the nonacceptance of the amendments that I have just discussed with you.
I also hope that, demonstrating the very general concern about health monitoring, Parliament will give a favourable opinion to this particular programme.
It is a hugely important matter and does satisfy the two important points made by Mr Aparicio Sanchez and Mr Valverde López that we need to have a European face.
This would go a long way to achieving that.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Water policy
The next item is the report (A4-0290/96) by Mr Florenz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on European Community water policy (COM(96)0059 - C4-0144/96).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the Commission communication on European Community water policy, I should like to give you a brief analysis of the proposals which are before you.
First of all, we welcome the fact that many of the recitals, such as C, Q and V, and many of the paragraphs in the motion for a resolution, in particular paragraphs 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 21, 23 and 24, are entirely in line with the views of our committee.
However, we feel that the Commission proposal does not go far enough in the area of simplification, and we are calling on it to develop a framework directive which incorporates all the existing directives and any proposals that are in the pipeline in this area, including those relating to monitoring and information requirements.
Our opinion clearly indicates the course to follow: rearrange, simplify, harmonize and clarify the existing legislation, but naturally without reducing the level of protection currently provided.
This would serve a dual purpose.
First, it would make the Community policy easy to apply and monitor, making it easier for the Member States to apply national or transnational measures.
How can they be expected to transpose over 50 directives on water protection into national law, especially when these overlap, duplicate or even sometimes contradict each other? Secondly, it would make European Union policy easier for the general public to grasp.
The obligations of all water users, both public and private, should be set out in one single text so that they can see that water has a wide range of uses and therefore cannot be regulated using a sectoral approach.
The European Union would thus have a single major piece of legislation to protect one of its essential natural resources.
However, the motion for a resolution does not appear to in line with our opinion as regards the principle of subsidiarity, and even appears to contain some contradictions.
Although we support the analysis given in paragraph 16 on the need for an integrated European approach for the management of cross-border river basins, there are a number of other paragraphs which we cannot support.
Paragraph 1 states that the priority objectives and measures of a Community water policy can be better attained at Community rather than Member State level, yet paragraph 9 expressly acknowledges that they cannot be implemented in the same way everywhere.
The resolution nevertheless proposes as the absolute minimum the establishment of strict and uniform emission standards, whereas the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development had proposed that the framework directive should simply set out guidelines for achieving the common objectives fixed by the European Union.
Mr President, the fact that my group is only proposing four amendments to the Florenz report is a measure of how much we appreciate not only the work of the rapporteur, but the work of the other shadow rapporteurs, both in the Liberal Group and the Green Group and also all those who have contributed to what I think has been a very successful conclusion to a long programme which started several months ago.
Certainly it is felt on this side of the House that the hearing of 20 June, which Parliament established and which is referred to in the preamble to the Florenz report, was a very good beginning.
As I see it, the Commission said to us basically, what do you want to do? We, as the elected representatives, came forward with some proposals during the course of that hearing, and rightly so.
The Commission and Parliament can therefore be said to have worked very carefully and constructively in coming forward to a conclusion, not only of that hearing, but also with some excellent work put in by Mr Florenz over the summer break before the communication materialized in the autumn.
That was a very good way forward, but we felt on this side of the House that may be an action programme, and that was the word we were talking about and which was the subject of amendments in committee, would have given Parliament the power that we have under codecision.
Therefore, if we are going to accept, and we will, as a reflection of the agreement reached based on a letter from Mrs Bjerregaard to Mr Florenz, dated 14 October 1996, then that is the basis upon which we have agreed.
Therefore, we will accept the principle of a framework directive and we will also accept the diminution in our powers under Article 130s.
Yes, we are playing constitutional games, of course, and we are glad that the Commission has agreed to go along with some of those manoeuvrings.
It was right that we should have done this.
Can I ask the Commissioner, when she responds to the debate, please to give us some indication on timescale.
Part of the gameplan is that we accepted the principle of a framework directive rather than an action programme on the basis that we wanted something to be able to deliver to an electorate and that seems to me to make sense.
Can I also ask the Commissioner to tell us what she has in mind with regard to the other water directives.
As others have pointed out, these are currently in hand, and it would therefore be useful to know the Commission's thinking in terms of the timescale on those other directives. I thank the Commission once again for the constructive approach which it has taken to the Florenz report and I congratulate Mr Florenz again for the excellent work which he and the Christian-Democrats have done.
Mr President, as colleagues have just mentioned, water has a determinant influence on other very important policy areas, such as agriculture, tourism, urban consumption and industry.
That is why we fully support the proposal made by the rapporteur, Mr Florenz, to begin to approach these issues globally by way of a framework directive.
We also support the focus on prioritizing emission standards and drawing up quality criteria as a supplementary convergence instrument.
That is essential too.
Likewise, I think we can entirely support the proposal made by the Committee on Agriculture through its rapporteur Mr des Places, on the need to codify and simplify the proposals.
And I think we, as a Parliament, should take swift action to make all the citizens of Europe and all those in positions of responsibility aware that in the near future things cannot continue in this area as they have done up to now.
Water is a scarce commodity.
Everyone knows that and no-one is entitled to pollute it.
So there must be a strategy to prevent any pollution, and emissions must be the exception, not the rule.
Every citizen must be reminded that water has a price, and that price will go on rising for economic, social and environmental reasons, and we also have a duty to make a reality of the Maastricht Treaty requirement to incorporate all the costs into the price of water.
We all have a duty to point out that not only are there problems of quality, there are also problems of quantity in many regions.
So regional solidarity must apply across national frontiers.
This policy also includes a requirement of proper use.
The problem also arises in terms of land management, re-use of waste water, and taking advantage of all the available resources, including the opportunities for Mediterranean coastal areas of installing desalination plant, and such initiatives cannot be left until drought problems are serious.
Great commitment is also needed from all those involved - large consumers like agriculture, industry, tourism and cities - and local authorities have major responsibilities here too because town and country planning must take this limiting factor very much into account.
And finally, I do not think there is any room for simple answers in this area.
There is no place for simple privatization of water management.
The issue is much more complex, it has to be viewed in global terms and the European Union must draw up these guidelines and then leave it to the regions and the countries to implement the options appropriately.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our Group is supporting the Florenz report, in particular to defend the need to adopt a framework directive on the sustainable protection of water resources, condensing and simplifying the very many directives in existence on this matter.
We also support the main objective of fighting for good quality water from an ecological point of view.
It is important to protect Europe's water resources at all costs given the increasing use that man makes of water. It is equally urgent for all Member States to avoid further deterioration in water quality and promote the proper treatment of waste water.
Community funding to protect water should be concentrated more and more on peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions, where a lot remains to be done.
Of greater interest is the Commissions's reference to water catchment areas which not only, in many cases, call for a cooperation and understanding policy between the Member States interested but also call for attention and intervention to be by the European Union.
Nowadays we must tackle water questions in a different way, without fighting over water in the way that we used to.
But this does not mean that Member States should stop fighting to defend their own rights and the interests of their own populations nor that the Union should have greater powers to arbitrate; it should control and guide, within fair and proper criteria, based on the principle of subsidiarity.
Water policy has to be linked to all of the other policies related to integrated development projects, concerning the environment and regional planning, transport, energy, industry, agriculture and forestry.
As for the latter field, apart from the interest of preserving indigenous forests, it should also be pointed out how important it can be to boost water resources by means of a global EU strategy in forests, which in practice means significantly and urgently increasing forested areas in all of the Member States and all of their regions, but in particular the southern regions, where the governments have not always been very careful and have not always made genuine efforts to pursue proper long-term policies.
Mr President, Commissioner Bjerregaard, let us be fair about this.
The revision of our entire water policy is largely thanks to the European Parliament, which felt it necessary in view of the plethora of barely compatible directives which had sprung up in this field.
Our hearing, which Mr Florenz also mentioned, made a significant contribution to this revision.
I must admit that my group did not have, and still does not have, a great deal of confidence in the Commission to review water policy properly.
I feel that the Commission's activities in this field have cast it in a rather poor light up to now, and this communication has done nothing to improve my opinion.
It is a very shallow document, and I think the rapporteur was entirely right to threaten to demand an action programme.
You will know, and Mr Florenz is also aware, that my group was not in favour of calling for an action programme instead of this communication because we thought it would mean a considerable delay.
Yet we are still having to wait for the Commission to come up with a proposal for a framework directive which should give us what we feel is missing from this communication: concerted action on quality objectives and emission standards - both quality and quantity objectives, and top priority for the ecological quality of water.
I am quite happy with the letter which the Commissioner sent in reply to the demands by Mr Florenz.
Once again, it is thanks to Parliament that we now have details in black and white of what the forthcoming framework directive is to contain.
As we have seen, Parliament has had to go to a great deal of trouble to ensure that we have an acceptable new European water policy, and Mr Florenz must take much of the credit for this.
I warmly congratulate him on his report.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, according to the Environmental Agency, between 10 and 20 per cent of water in Europe is not of adequate quality.
And since 1973 a legislative framework of contradictory directives has developed.
So we are in complete agreement with Mr Florenz on the need for a framework directive which integrates and simplifies current legislation, above all if account is taken of the fact that non-compliance with Community law on environmental issues is habitual.
We believe that prevention, protection of resources and halting the deterioration in the quality of water, as well as repairing the damage, are priority issues for the European Union's water policies.
And we think all these directives need to be integrated to create clear and comprehensible legislation for the Member States, without lowering the level achieved.
We think the objectives and priorities must be set at Community level - if there are no Community standards it is difficult for the States to fulfil them - leaving responsibility for adaptation and implementation to the States.
Agriculture, industry and transport must also take account of the water and environmental policy of the European Union, otherwise it will be very difficult for us to achieve the planned objectives.
In my country several marshes which are a valuable European resource are threatened.
I believe some of their names are known worldwide like the Ruidera lagoons, the Daimiel Tablas, the Valencia Albufera, Doñana, and so on.
We still have time to take steps to prevent resources as precious to human life as water being lost forever in the world and in this case in the European Union.
So we must take those steps, and we entirely agree with the Florenz report.
Mr President, we have perfect harmony in the Committee on the Environment, since our group too wholeheartedly supports the report by Mr Florenz, on which we congratulate him.
The approach he has adopted is entirely consistent with our concerns.
We need a framework directive on water policy, based on the four principles of environment policy in the usual order, starting with the principle of precaution and ending with the principle that the polluter pays; it should be pointed out that all these principles are being virtually disregarded at present.
There are a number of points which I should like to make.
First of all, on the question of choosing between quality objectives and limit values, the rapporteur's view is entirely correct: they are not mutually incompatible.
It is obvious that if we wish to reach certain quality objectives, we need first to set limit values based not on sectoral interests, but on how much the ecosystems can absorb.
This has not always been done, with the result that we now have a situation which the Commission itself acknowledges is in rapid decline, with water quality deteriorating more and more, and groundwater and rivers widely polluted with nitrates, organochlorines and pesticides.
This brings us round to the policies that are to blame for it all.
Which are the three policies that I feel are most to blame? Firstly, agricultural policy.
It is obvious that unless we change the CAP, we shall not be able to sort out the problem of water quality.
There is widespread pollution from pesticides and nitrates which seriously affect water quality, and what is needed is a radical shift towards more extensive, organic farming.
It will take time, but it is has to be done.
Next, industrial policy.
It is clear that there are a whole range of industrial processes that need to be changed. We need to make recycling and the closed-circuit use of industrial water more widespread, and we must prevent overexploitation by modifying a number of techniques which have now become obsolete.
This too will cost money.
Finally, energy policy.
An energy policy based on centralized production generating major thermal pollution is certainly not going to do anything to help maintain water quality.
This is another area where we need to take action.
We need more decentralization, and we need to improve our energy efficiency and develop renewable sources of energy.
In conclusion, I do not think that we will solve our water quality problems by opting for quality objectives and limit values without providing for the economic instruments to achieve them.
As the European Environment Agency has recommended, we need to use economic devices such as ecotaxes and introduce the notion of third-party liability for industries, otherwise we shall never succeed in finding a solution to our problems.
Mr President, the very fact that the European Environment Agency estimates that only 10 to 20 % of the waters in the European Union now meet the good water quality requirements should in itself make every sensible person sit up and think.
It is high time that we did something about it.
As Mr Florenz makes abundantly clear, the Commission has unfortunately failed to achieve its main objective of producing a coherent global approach for water policy.
I should have welcomed an action programme, which was what the rapporteur originally wished to see.
A country like Austria, which has for some time regarded water protection as one of its top priorities, would certainly be 100 % behind this report, and a pan-European preventive policy on water protection is something so important that not even the subsidiarity principle can be used as an excuse to get round it - and I say this as someone who is a great defender of that principle.
The priority objectives and measures are to be established at Community level, whereas the way they are implemented is, of course, a matter for the Member States to decide.
Basic prevention and the reduction of environmental damage can only be achieved through a combination of emission standards and quality objectives, though account also needs to be taken of the implications for the environment and for competition of the fact that strict emission standards are easier to implement and enforce than pollution-related quality objectives.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission's document and support Mr Florenz's report.
I particularly welcome a statement in the Commission's document which reads: ' Community water policy must be sufficiently flexible to avoid the imposition of inappropriate or unnecessarily strict requirements simply for the sake of harmonization' .
In the context of the British debate about Europe and the amount of money that the United Kingdom has spent - some would say unnecessarily, although I do not agree with that - in cleaning up our water over the last 20 years or so, I welcome that statement.
I think it is a very important thing to have on the record.
The other text that I wish to raise with the Commission is this: it is in paragraph 5.9 of the document which reads: ' the Treaty requires that both the costs and benefits of action or inaction are taken into consideration' .
One of the things that tends to underpin this kind of debate is people's hope that if only we went for more harmonization and stricter limits we would have cleaner water.
I do not think that is the problem.
One of the main problems in our Member States in relation to water quality is the fact that we cannot afford the very high standards that we would like to set ourselves.
One of the reasons we get into difficulties with these water directives is that the Commission is not sufficiently explicit about the exact costs that would be entailed in complying with the directives which it brings forward.
It is absolutely shameful that the drinking water directive which is currently before the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection contains a cost impact statement which is simply not worth the paper that it is written on.
The result of all that is revealed in the report on the monitoring of the application of Community law in 1995. That shows under the heading 'water' that: ' Several Member States are in serious difficulties with the proper application of the objectives established by Community rules.'
Those who call for stricter harmonization might like to note that one of the Member States most frequently mentioned in this package is Germany.
Mr President, I too support the Florenz report.
Water, after all, is our most fundamental natural resource.
It is the very stuff of life.
Therefore it is all the more disturbing to note the continuing deterioration in European water supplies.
The nitrate content of more than 66 % of rivers and lakes in Europe has risen.
The European standards for total pesticides in drinking water have been exceeded in 75 % of the European Union's agricultural regions.
In Ireland too we have our problems.
Indeed we have fish killed in our rivers and lakes and this is an annual occurrence.
We have a particularly striking case at the moment in Ireland in a town called Nenagh which has found that its water resource is contaminated.
On two occasions it has been contaminated recently.
It is very difficult for the local community.
Indeed in my own county of Meath we have problems with the quality of water there.
Clearly Europe has a role to play in laying down and enforcing strict norms on water quality.
The European Union approach must be governed by three key principles: ensuring safe water supplies, arresting the decline of water quality and the restoration of polluted waters.
However, the institutions of the Union have yet to grasp the importance of this task.
The haphazard approach must cease and the Commission must now spearhead a strong Union water policy.
We should not have to wait for a major environmental disaster for this to happen.
We cannot put this issue on the long finger any longer.
I urge the Commission to face up to its responsibilities without delay and before the old phrase, ' water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink' becomes a reality.
Mr President, having had experience with many of my constituents of the various water directives currently in force in the European Union, one of the clear things that emerges is how difficult they are to understand and how difficult it is for normal citizens that are concerned about their estuary or the condition of the water in their rivers to point to the area in which the European Union's directive should be able to help them.
I warmly welcome, therefore, the call for a much broader and better framework than there is at the moment.
That is certainly essential.
There are two areas that I also want to bring into the debate at this point, one of which has not been mentioned so far, but it is in the Florenz report and has to do with the common agricultural policy.
It is most important to realize that unless we secure a very substantial reform and change in the way that we run agriculture in Europe, there is no chance of reaching the levels of water quality that we would wish to see and, without the two going ahead together, that aim - the water quality we want - will be a difficult one to achieve.
I also find it difficult in terms of subsidiarity actually to say that drinking water quality should be something that we consider here.
That is a function of the rest of our water quality: if we get that right, then drinking water will also be correct.
To agree with Mrs Jackson, I find that one of the areas missing here is the cost to the citizen of these policies: we need to ensure that Member States tackle this problem in parallel to getting quality right.
I would like to ask the Commissioner how she intends to put pressure on Member States to make sure that water is not the expensive luxury that no-one can afford.
Mr President, as Mr Florenz points out, the Commission communication on European Community water policy is not an adequate response to the clear and precise calls that were made last year by the Committee on the Environment and by the Council for a European water protection strategy.
The solution here is surely not to call for an action programme.
The latest report by the European Environment Agency shows as clearly as one could wish that there are so many problems with our water that the time for action is now, which means legislation in the form of a framework directive, as soon as the drinking water directive has been dealt with.
The framework directive will be delayed for years if an action programme first has to be worked out.
I therefore welcome the fact that Mrs Bjerregaard has promised, in a letter to the rapporteur, that she will bring forward such a framework directive on the basis of the guidelines set out by the rapporteur, focusing on emission standards as the most appropriate instrument, combined with the principles of prevention, precaution and action at source.
I also look forward to the Environment Commissioner ensuring both that the many mutually contradictory water directives are made compatible with each other, and that water policy is incorporated into other policy areas such as agriculture, industry and transport, where these are subject to the consideration of a sustainable environment.
If paragraph 22 of the motion for a resolution is rejected, we can fully endorse the report as a very relevant critique of the communication from the Commission and a practical indication of how the future framework directive should be drawn up.
I should therefore like to hear from Mrs Bjerregaard when she intends to submit the proposal for a directive, and whether it has been correctly understood from her letter that the Commission has now committed itself to following the guidelines contained in this report when it brings forward the framework directive.
Water is life.
The European Parliament has given its unceasing attention to this vital issue which affects all our futures.
And water knows no frontiers.
I would congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Florenz, on his combined approach of emission standards and quality objectives, and I am delighted that the Environment Commissioner, Mrs Bjerregaard, has given us her written assurance that she intends to pursue this approach.
I should like to make it clear that neither the Commission nor Parliament intends to interfere in matters of water ownership, and no one in the House wishes to see the compulsory diversion of Austria's water reserves.
Our only aim is to tackle pollution at source, and to introduce measures to prevent pollution before it happens.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the committee and, in particular, the rapporteur for the large amount of work which has been done in connection with the report which is before the House today.
As several speakers have pointed out, Parliament's Committee on the Environment held a hearing in July last year on the EU's water policy, to which it was kind enough to invite me.
The hearing made it quite clear that something had to be done to clarify the Community's water policy and establish a coherent overall strategy to protect the water resources of the Community.
Following on from everything that was said and discussed at the hearing, the Commission published its communication on European Community water policy in February this year.
This communication was an analysis of all the current EU legislation which has a bearing on water resources, and it contains proposals for improving policy in this area.
The central proposal in the communication was the drawing-up of a framework directive on water. This would replace much of the older legislation, something which is necessary, as many speakers here today have also indicated.
In addition, it would fill some of the gaps which have been observed, another request which has been made today.
And, finally, it would ensure what everyone has certainly mentioned, namely the coherence and overall coordination of legislation in this sector.
I should like to take this opportunity to stress that the idea is not to change the more recent water legislation, and let me mention some of the directives which I have in mind here, such as the nitrates directive, IPPC, the urban waste-water treatment directive and the directive on pesticides.
That is not the intention.
On the contrary, the framework directive is intended to introduce measures which supplement the recent environmental legislation on water, thereby greatly increasing the general level of protection of the Community's water environment.
Several of the speakers, including Mr White, asked when we could expect to proceed with such an initiative.
We naturally waited for the debate we were to have with Parliament today, but we have also done our preparatory work and we hope to be able to bring forward a new proposal in the course of January.
I have been very satisfied with the reception given to the communication.
We received many written comments on our proposals, and we organized a conference in May to discuss various aspects of the proposal for a framework directive.
There was considerable support for the idea of a framework directive, and an overwhelming majority in favour of the broad lines of the directive, as set out in the communication.
Of course, there was also criticism of some aspects of the directive, and we received a number of useful suggestions as to how it could be improved.
On the whole, we think that we have struck a reasonable overall balance.
We have also had support from the other institutions - the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
I have been very pleased to see the great interest which Parliament has shown in this subject, and I share the opinion of the rapporteur, Mr Florenz, and also Mr White, that constructive cooperation has taken place.
I am sure that we can find solutions to the criticisms which emerge from the motion for a resolution.
I have examined the text in some detail, and the Commission's proposal for a framework directive will follow closely the ideas which have been expressed here today, and which are also clear from the report.
This means that, with regard to the proposals contained in the text, I can endorse the aims and principles which they describe.
I also agree with the points raised by Mr Lannoye, which several other speakers mentioned, namely the connection with agriculture policy - and we shall in particular have another opportunity of discussing this in connection with the groundwater action plan - as well as the need for financial incentives, and Parliament will be aware that we are working on this.
I have been in touch with both the rapporteur and chairman of the Committee on the Environment, and I am sure that we in the Commission now have a good understanding of the background to Parliament's concerns.
Several speakers here today have also referred to the letter which I sent to the rapporteur and the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, and I naturally stand by the text of that letter.
I therefore also hope that we can now draw up a proposal for a framework directive that will obtain Parliament's support, and I am very pleased that the rapporteur is able to give his backing to an amendment to the motion for a resolution which deletes the reference to an action programme and makes it possible for us to bring forward a proposal for a directive very quickly.
I think it was Mr White who asked about the other initiatives in this sector, but the situation is that the drinking water directive, which I understand will soon be dealt with, is currently before Parliament.
This has also had to wait a little.
The same applies to a proposal for a bathing water directive, which has also been pending for quite a long time and which we shall likewise soon have on the agenda, and finally there is the groundwater action plan which I referred to earlier.
I have asked my colleagues to cooperate closely with Parliament at all stages of the legislative process, and I very much hope that together we shall be able to see this new directive adopted during the current parliamentary term.
To sum up: we are in agreement that our common aim is to ensure that there is an ambitious and comprehensive policy for the protection of the Community's water resources and the natural habitats which they support.
I therefore look forward to cooperating closely on this issue, and I hope that in years to come, we shall look back with satisfaction at this joint venture, which can lay the foundations for the EU's water policy for the next century.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
Ladies and gentlemen, before I close the debate, Mr Florenz, the rapporteur, has asked for the floor.
I think it would be interesting to hear his views.
So you have the floor again, Mr Florenz.
Mr President, I should like to raise a matter of some concern with you and the Commissioner. Over the last few months, one of our new Member States has been shocked by reports that you, Commissioner, are planning to regulate water resources in Europe and to divert water from the Alps to the southern areas of the Union.
I assume that our Austrian colleague was so delighted at the results of his elections that he forgot to mention this today.
I would be extremely interested to know what is happening here.
I also have a point to make about the idea of a cost-benefit analysis. I am a very keen businessman and like dealing with such matters, but we surely do not need to embark on yet another discussion about quality objectives.
What we need is to produce a cost-benefit analysis which is cautious but accurate.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
Mr Eisma would like to raise a point of order.
I take it that it is a point of order because I was just about to close this debate.
So you have one minute to raise your point of order.
I just have a question which I should like to put to you, Mr President.
If you are sitting here, there is no monitor on which you can follow the debate, so you cannot see when it is your turn.
I asked last month whether we could have an extra monitor over here, but it seems this is not possible.
If it is too expensive for Parliament to afford, I will bring one and install it myself next time.
Can you promise me that we shall have an extra monitor for the next part-session, so that those of us over here can also see when it is our turn?
Mr Eisma, I cannot promise that the equipment will be here for the next session.
What I can promise is that I will pass on the suggestion you have made and especially the very important point that you could contribute to the cost of installing this equipment from your own pocket, which I find extremely interesting given the period of budgetary austerity we are going through.
So you can be sure that I will pass on your proposal to the Bureau.
But I absolutely cannot promise that it will be here because that does not depend on my personal volition.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Food additives other than colours and sweeteners
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0312/96) by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 95/2/EC on food additives other than colours and sweeteners (C4-473-95/0114(COD)).
Mr President, this is the other half of the story because I am going to speak in favour of leaving it at 407a.
The reason why I do this is as follows: it is a very closely balanced argument as to what you name this and what number you give this product.
But those who argue in favour of 407a with the name 'Processed Eucheuma seaweed' do so because this is not a different product.
I think Mrs Riis-Jørgensen said, and in her report it certainly states, that it is basically a different product.
I believe it is true to say that the Codex Alimentarius has accepted that this is basically the same product but a different process.
That is the key to why we give it 407a and not a different number.
It is a different refining process but it is not a different product.
Cheese is cheese whether it is cheddar cheese or one of those fierce little Belgian cheeses that arises from the table in the restaurant and practically bites your ankle.
It is still cheese, and this is still seaweed.
The processing system is different.
Mrs Riis-Jørgensen makes the point in support of giving it a different number that consumers are going to be confused.
Well, consumers must be a very strange breed if they are going around the supermarkets looking to see if this is 407 or 408.
I have never yet met a consumer who is consumed with anxiety about carrageenan.
The people who might perhaps be confused - although I very much doubt it - would be the manufacturers.
But since, in fact, this system of numbering for this kind of product is primarily addressed to manufacturers - of course, they will have to state the type of product they use on the list of ingredients - I think that there is no danger that manufacturers will be confused into using one product rather than another.
As we have seen, given a demonstration today, they are very different products to look at, but I do not think that consumers will be confused.
Consumers need protection and the mechanism that is there to protect them is the Scientific Committee for Food.
When the Commissioner replies to the debate, she might like to give us some idea of what the Scientific Committee for Food said.
Presumably they were asked their opinion by the Council of Ministers before the Council agreed the common position.
I agree that we must be very careful about any potential health risks, although if there are health risks then this product should not be on the market at all in the Community. That is why we have to rely on the Scientific Committee for Food.
There is one further point.
It was raised with me earlier today that there might be the possibility that certain governments, unnamed, had it in mind to sell certain products - here battleships were named - to the Filipinos in return for seaweed.
I think this is extremely unlikely.
I have no battleships about my person.
I have absolutely no idea of what the British Government's view is on this issue.
I think that this is something which we should really regard with ridicule.
Mr President, the Commission has put forward a proposal to authorize the use of a thickening and gelling agent similar to carrageenan, which is already produced and authorized in the EU; it derives from the same raw material but is produced in a different way, as was also pointed out in the debate.
The Commission asked the Scientific Committee for Food for an assessment of its possible effects on public health.
That is what Mrs Jackson's question referred to.
This inquiry took several years, and the assessment was based on a complete set of data.
The committee found that the substance was entirely acceptable, and proposed that purity standards should be established.
A directive on purity standards will be agreed shortly by the Commission and the Standing Committee for Foodstuffs, under procedure IIIa.
The Commission adopts this directive immediately after the substance has been approved for use.
The Commission and the Council approved Parliament's amendments concerning the descriptions of these substances.
However, we cannot accept the amendment which has been retabled concerning the E number, and this is what the debate has centred on here tonight.
In allocating E numbers, the Commission follows the rules laid down in the directive on food additives adopted by the European Parliament and the Council, whereby food additives which contain the same active substance are given related E numbers.
The adoption of the amendment would lead to a significant departure from the rules laid down by the Codex Alimentarius in its capacity as an international standardizing body under the WTO Agreement.
We therefore recommend the House not to adopt this amendment, since it conflicts with our obligations under the WTO Agreement.
Madam Commissioner, I should like to make it clear to my colleagues that the Commission is in fact isolated here from consumer organizations at both national and European level, and from the Economic and Social Committee and the industry in Europe.
In the Council of Ministers too, several Member States will be listening with great interest to what we decide here in Parliament tomorrow.
I think it is important that we, who are elected by the people to represent both consumers and industry here in Parliament, should also listen to what they say and ensure that we take a clear decision which safeguards their interests.
I think it is important that we who are elected by the people should take this task upon ourselves and not let others influence our attitude, whether it is President Ramos, the United States or anyone else, as Mrs Jackson pointed out.
On behalf of the Committee on the Environment, I recommend that we vote in favour of the committee's amendment tomorrow, and I would point out that if we abstain, that is the same as voting against.
But I very much hope that we shall have a clear decision tomorrow.
I think that is in everyone's interest, not least in terms of preserving the E number system and thus respect for the single market.
I would just make one comment on the isolated stance which the Commission is said to hold.
According to my information, there was agreement in the Council on the common position, which means unanimous support.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, we cannot get into a debate, the debate has already taken place.
However as you are the rapporteur and you want to react to the Commissioner's brief remarks I will give you the floor as long as you do not open up the debate again.
Please keep it short and allow me to close the debate immediately afterwards.
Very briefly, Mr President, my country - amongst others - stated in the minutes that it was interested in making an amendment and following Parliament's position, so it is not right that there was total unanimity.
The minutes say that Denmark wishes to follow Parliament's position and will work for an amendment.
I have been told by the Irish presidency that it will reopen the debate in the Council of Ministers when we come back with the Environment Committee's proposal to the Council.
Thank you very much, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen.
After your remarks the Commissioner naturally wants to say something else, so you have the floor, Madam Commissioner, and you will close this debate.
You have the floor.
I am bound to inform the House that Denmark voted in favour of the proposal.
While I was indeed not present at the Council meeting in question, that is what I have been told.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
Ladies and gentlemen, the issues between you can be resolved in the lobby.
We have heard your opinion and that of the Commissioner.
So the decision will now depend on the vote.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Burma
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B4-0974/96 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Moorhouse, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in Burma; -B4-0975/96 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in Burma; -B4-0976/96 by Mrs Kinnock and Mrs Jensen, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the European Union response to the situation in Burma; -B4-0978/96 by Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on Burma; -B4-0982/96 by Mrs Baldi and others, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, on the situation in Burma; -B4-0984/96 by Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on relations between the European Union and Burma.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank Parliament's Bureau for putting this oral question on the agenda this week.
The deteriorating situation in Burma calls for urgent discussion, and since our resolution in July, things have only got worse.
Let me give you some of the facts.
The winner of the most recent elections is still under house arrest.
When Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi's party organized an eighth anniversary celebration on 26 September at her house, at which she was also to give a speech, almost 600 people were arrested, including many sitting members of parliament, that is to say members who were elected but have not been allowed to take their seats in parliament.
Some of them have still not been released.
In May of this year, over 100 elected members of parliament were imprisoned and twelve are still in detention - people whose only crime was to be elected to a perfectly normal parliament which the SLORC does not accept.
The SLORC, the governing regime, then announced that it would be stepping up its internal security measures on 15 October in order, so it claimed, to promote internal stability, but many people believe it is simply in order to cause further chaos in Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi's party.
The blockade on Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi's house was lifted on 8 October, but reinstated on 11 October.
Yesterday, it was lifted again but is expected to be reimposed by the end of the week, for no other reason than to stop the opposition leader from talking.
In the United States, following a motion in Congress on an amendment from Mr Cohen and Mr Feinstein, steps have now been taken to introduce economic sanctions.
More than 15 major multinational firms have already pulled out of Burma, as we know, and there is of course a risk that European firms which are not covered by these sanctions will take over the businesses and operations left behind.
This is simply not acceptable, and it is therefore a matter of some urgency that the European Union should also consider imposing sanctions.
As was already mooted in June, the ASEAN countries suggested last month that they might give Burma a different, more positive status, but since three ASEAN countries last week refused to let Burma join the organization, it would seem that here too, protests are growing against the regime.
Our question is a simple one. We want the European Union to act as quickly as possible, and the time is more than ripe.
The situation in Burma is similar to those in Chile and South Africa in the 1980s, and in my view the opposition leader in Burma is the Mandela of the 1990s.
We must do something to help her, we want to lend her our support and we call on the Commission to take action.
Mr President, it is clearly important for the European Parliament that we have this debate.
We believe that it is about time that the European Union took a strong political and moral stand against that iniquitous regime, the SLORC in Rangoon.
I know that Mrs Jensen, my colleague, will talk about James Nicholls and the fact that Mr Spring, the Foreign Minister from Ireland, has still failed to have any decent reply from the Burmese about exactly what happened in connection with James Nicholls' death in prison in Rangoon.
I would like to ask the Commissioner responsible tonight what we will do if the SLORC continue to deny Aung Sang Suu Kyi's latest request for a dialogue with the SLORC. What will the Commission do if they should harm her or rearrest Aung Sang Suu Kyi?
What will the Commission do?
What will the European Union do when it is too late for us to act on these matters? How many times, Commissioner, do we have to listen to Aung Sang Suu Kyi, the democratic leader of Burma, ask the international community and tell the international community that only isolation and only sanctions will affect the SLORC.
They deserve the same odium, the same treatment as many of us demanded against apartheid South Africa.
It is unacceptable and disingenuous to claim that dialogue or engagement is appropriate with any ruthless regime like the SLORC.
They are intent on subjugating and repressing the people of Burma.
The United States, as Mrs Maij-Weggen has said, has had the Cohen/Feinstein amendment which says that the United States is prepared to take strong measures in relation to sanctions and, indeed, visa restrictions against Burma.
We have no such action or statement from the European Union.
We cannot do business, we cannot appease, we cannot reach any consensus with a government which uses children as slaves, a government which represses democracy and refuses to discuss any kind of political settlement of ethnic groups.
80, 000 people from the Shan states and from the Karenni states have now been forcibly displaced, they have been abused and they feel abandoned by the whole world.
We talk about the actions of oil companies, Unical and Total are involved in Burma and we understand that they are responsible for violations of human rights and for the fact that people have been forcibly removed from their land in Burma.
It is my understanding, Commissioner, that current proposals, which have been made by the EU in relation to Burma are quite frankly very unlikely to have any impact whatsoever on that regime.
These restrictions will not make the slightest different to the SLORC.
I do not exactly see SLORC members queueing up for entry into the European Union.
It will make absolutely no difference to them at all.
I see no reason why, on the clear evidence that the Commission has heard, GSP should not now be withdrawn as quickly as possible.
Last time I questioned Commissioner Marin in this Parliament.
He gave me the categorical assurance that the GSP access would be withdrawn in November.
He told me categorically.
Is this still the Commission's view? Is Commissioner Marin still prepared to say this?
I would like to ask, will Commissioner Marin use the influence he clearly has to pressurize the ASEAN countries to play a more constructive role? Will the Commission be prepared to send envoys to the ASEAN countries and to Japan to discuss the options which we face?
But in order to do that, in order to discuss the options it is essential for the Commission to go there with the threat of impending sanctions against the regime.
We have to learn from the mistakes the United States Government made. We must not go there making demands, we must go there in order to try to have some results.
We need to know at what cost it was to South Africa that the developed world ignored the pleas of Nelson Mandela and the people of South Africa.
Let us remember that all that is required for the triumph of evil is that the good men and women do nothing.
We should act to do something before it is too late. I have to ask, is the European Community ready to act swiftly before things deteriorate in Burma?
Mr President, political life in Burma is like its natural vegetation: it is a jungle, a jungle of power and corruption in which the same people have been pulling the strings since 1962.
A popular uprising, Nobel and Sakharov prizes and the elections held six years ago have brought about no change, and even the neighbouring ASEAN countries have been unable to force the military leaders to take a different line.
Major investors have withdrawn under pressure from public opinion, and the EU representation in the region needs to investigate whether the gap left in the market by EU firms such as Heineken and Carlsberg has been filled by Asian and in particular Chinese investors.
If this has happened, then none of these measures we have made so much fuss about will actually have put an ounce of pressure on the regime.
Over the last six months, Parliament has regularly called for democracy in Burma, yet tourists continue to visit the country, maintaining the illusion that the situation there is normal.
All friendly appeals for change have fallen on deaf ears, and it is now time for the European Union to take more practical steps.
Stopping trade advantages and aid is the ultimate option available to us.
If the military leadership refuses to enter into constructive dialogue with the opposition, then we shall have no choice but to take that decision.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Parliament for taking the initiative of holding this debate.
I agree, as does the Commission, that it is an important debate, and that the developments are very disturbing, as the three speakers have made quite clear here tonight.
We too are well aware of the recent worsening of the situation in Burma, and are especially concerned that the leader of the National League for Democracy and Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been detained for the fourth consecutive weekend in an attempt to prevent weekend meetings of thousands of people in front of her house.
The Commission therefore very much welcomes the fact that it was decided at the last meeting of the Political Committee on 17 and 18 October to present a draft common position on Burma to the Foreign Ministers at their meeting on Monday and Tuesday, i.e. 28 and 29 October, and the Commission has played an active part in bringing this about.
Besides confirming the current sanctions, the draft common position includes a ban on visas for members of the SLORC and high-ranking officers, together with a suspension of visits to Burma by senior national officials under bilateral arrangements.
Furthermore, there is an expression of the EU's displeasure at the SLORC's unwillingness to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the EU, as well as a call for the opening of a constructive dialogue with the pro-democracy groups in the country, with a view to national reconciliation.
There is nothing specific in the draft on economic sanctions.
However, it does reserve the possibility of the Council adopting further measures, so this means - as Mrs Kinnock was asking - that there is some scope for taking action, and the stage is set for this to be used, although there would of course be great interest in persuading the countries near Burma to join in such a policy of economic sanctions.
The Commission's services have also studied the documentation which has been presented to the Commission, and we have heard complaints and witnesses as part of an investigation into the use of forced labour in Burma, following a complaint from the European Trade Union Confederation and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
After the last hearings, which took place on 3 October, the summary report containing the written and oral contributions which had been collected was finalized on 21 October and presented to my colleague Mr Marín, who will very shortly be submitting a proposal to the Commission on how this investigation can be followed up.
It should be pointed out that it is the Council itself which has to take the decision on the withdrawal of preferences, if the Commission should decide to submit a proposal to that effect.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bjerregaard.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, if you are asking for the floor on a point relating to the Rules of Procedure, you can have the floor immediately.
If it relates to the debate, I you can have it at the end of the debate because there are still speakers before you.
So let me first call Mrs Kirsten Jensen on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, for two minutes.
I will call you at the end, Mrs Maij-Weggen.
Three minutes. You are in charge here, not I.
European diplomacy has failed as regards Burma.
How can one think that anything at all can be achieved through diplomacy with a military regime which allows diplomats to die in gaol and imprisons hundreds of politicians elected by the people? The EU's vague response to the repeated violations of human rights by the Burmese military junta is disastrous, short-sighted, and at odds with the experience we should have gained now from the past.
We have had a case before of a united opposition calling for economic sanctions in a situation where democracy was being trampled on.
I am thinking of South Africa here, like Mrs Kinnock.
Today, everyone agrees that Nelson Mandela is a wonderful person, but if the truth be told, a good many people were slow to meet his requests for sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa.
And today, all those who dragged their feet are pleased to support democracy there, but why did it have to take so long?
In the case of Burma, there is an opportunity for everyone to join in from the start.
We have the same conditions.
The undisputed leader of the democratic opposition and recipient of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize, Aung San Suu Kyi, is asking us to take economic sanctions against Burma.
So there is no reason to hesitate.
It is just a question of getting started.
When the report on forced labour is finally available, the customs agreement should be scrapped.
The customs agreement provides some 10 % of Burma's GNP. We cannot tacitly accept that.
It is even worse that foreign investment is being made possible by slavery or forced labour.
How can the directors in the boardrooms of these firms actually tolerate this?
With Burma, we in the EU have the chance to let honesty prevail.
If we hesitate now, we are saying that human rights have no place in international politics.
Respect for human rights is the sound principle which should form the basis for a common European foreign policy.
We therefore expect the Union's Foreign Ministers to do more than simply raise a warning finger at Burma's military junta.
If anyone disagrees with this, I look forward to hearing their idea of what Europe should actually be working for together.
Mr President, I fully share the deep concern of Mrs Maij-Weggen and colleagues about the continuing deterioration of the situation in Burma.
In the words of the presidency of the European Union: ' We deplore the practice of torture.
We deplore summary and arbitrary executions.
We deplore forced labour.
We deplore abuse of women.
We deplore political arrests.
We deplore forced displacement of the population and we deplore the restriction of the fundamental rights of freedom of speech, of movement and of assembly.'
This is indeed a telling indictment of the regime in Burma, though alas not without parallel in the world.
Added to that, as we have heard, there is the personal danger which Sang Suu Kyi has been placed in together with her personal supporters to whom, on account of the Sakharov prize, we must feel very committed.
Allow me merely to put a number of questions to the Commission and the Council to which, if they cannot be answered today, I would like to receive a reply.
I am still incidentally waiting for a reply to the questions I put to the other Commissioner who came here, was it one or two months ago?
I have had no reply yet.
One, will the UN special working group on arbitrary detention and imprisonment be visiting Burma? I wish to be informed.
Secondly, will the UN special rapporteur on Burma and the EU investigate the circumstances of the death of Mr Nicholls to which previous reference has been made not only today, but you, Madam Commissioner, know all too well the circumstances, as I do. Three, what action is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the EU taking on Burma?
We have had some indication.
One would be glad of further clarification.
Four, when will the Commission complete its inquiries into the possible future suspension of the GSP trade preference benefits for Burma? Well, we gather the study is going on, but for God's sake, get on with it!
Five, what was the reaction of the Japanese Prime Minister in Tokyo when the presidency raised the question of Burma with him? Are we likely to get any support at all from Japan on this issue and may we know in due course, if the answer is not available today?
Sixth, is the Commission compiling a list of companies doing business with Burma?
I have some lists, but they must be very short compared to what business is being done. What view does it take of the operations of Total and its natural gas pipeline investment project in Burma?
Mr President, Commissioner, the Liberal Group wholeheartedly supports the message behind the questions put by my colleagues.
To say that the situation in Burma gives us great cause for concern is an understatement, and a clear and effective signal is needed from us once again.
On 26 September, the winner of the last elections was again placed under house arrest, and 109 MPs from the National League for Democracy were imprisoned.
The reason for this was that the NLD had organized a party congress.
There could not have been a clearer demonstration of the regime's anti-democratic values and hatred of democracy.
The SLORC has once again proved that it is a dictatorship, and it is up to us to try to oppose it, though we have had little success up to now.
In the course of the many hearings which the Commission has organized, it has been shown that since 1992, two million people have been forced into slave labour in Burma.
Since 40 % of the economy is in the hands of one state company, the role of the junta in all this is perfectly plain.
The measures taken by the Union so far have had no effect, and more pressure is needed.
The most effective way of applying this is by declaring that the Generalized System of Preferences no longer applies to Burma.
We need to do this quickly, although of course we must also follow the correct procedures.
The Union should also call on all its businesses to stop investing in Burma, and ASEAN should be encouraged not to convert the observer status just granted to Burma into full membership.
That could, potentially, have an adverse effect on cooperation between the EU and ASEAN.
We very much welcome the statements made by the General Affairs Council on 1 October, and the comments made by the President-in-Office in the Irish Parliament.
I would urge him and many others to pursue this line and, above all, to try to put their words into action.
We must all keep our fingers firmly crossed.
Mr President, I think I was probably one of the last Members of this Parliament to have the opportunity to visit Burma.
I went in December 1994 in an attempt to visit Aung San Suu Kyi who was then under house arrest.
The SLORC regime, despite representations from the ambassadors of Member States present in Rangoon, refused me permission to visit her despite the fact that I was carrying a letter from the President of the European Parliament informing her officially of the award of the Sakharov Prize.
I did, however, have the opportunity to meet members of the National League for Democracy and others opposing the authoritarian military regime of the so onomatopoeically aptly named SLORC.
I saw the occupying army sat on the streets of Rangoon and I saw and met with members of the opposition.
I saw how the SLORC has managed to reduce Burma to one of the ten poorest countries in the world.
After that there was a very slight glimmer of hope that emerged with the release from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi.
But unfortunately it was only one step forward and two steps back.
Within weeks of this happening this hope was extinguished.
The question today is what do the Commission and the Council propose to do?
We have been asked by someone who is not the Nelson Mandela of this period because she is very different.
Nelson Mandela actually created some tension.
There are people for him and people against him.
I do not know who in the democratic world is opposed to Aung San Suu Kyi, who has any doubts about her belief in democracy, her belief in peace and her belief in non-violence.
She has asked for sanctions and we, I thought, were going to respond.
I thought the question this evening was going to be when.
But apparently, from the disappointing reply from the Commissioner, it is still a question of 'if' .
I have to say that I think the Commission is not listening to this House.
Across the political spectrum here, from left to right, across the Member States of the Union from Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, we are all saying to the Commission that we want you to listen to Aung San Suu Kyi, we want you to implement sanctions and we want you to do it now.
Mr President, I should like to make two comments and ask one question.
First of all, everything we have discussed here tonight makes it quite clear that Parliament has reached the end of the line.
Human rights in Burma are being violated on a daily basis.
The SLORC, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, is evidently so afraid of losing its iron grip on the situation that it regards even the most peaceful meeting and the most minor demonstration by Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy as a threat.
The blockade on her house is supposed to have been lifted on 30 September, but the press cannot get through to her and she is not allowed to make her weekly speeches.
Hundreds of people from her party have either disappeared or been imprisoned.
Secondly, it may be discouraging that Parliament's resolutions have had no effect on the behaviour of the SLORC, but they have influenced the extent to which businesses are prepared to invest in Burma.
Various major firms such as Heineken have pulled out, and it is clear that a general boycott is sure to follow.
Thirdly, I have a question on behalf of my group: what will be the outcome of the discussions which the Commission is to have on this subject at the end of October?
As far as we are concerned, the Commission is clearly going to have to persuade the Council to impose economic sanctions.
They are long overdue.
Mr President, our concern is for action against a very brutal regime, one that is faced by a remarkable and courageous opposition.
That opposition has specifically appealed to the European Union, to the European Parliament for action urgently to bring about change by the isolation of Burma.
We also have a very specific mandate from the people of the European Union.
The network of support groups in the towns and villages across Europe is asking us to do everything in our power and to act urgently.
We have the facts, we know about the deaths, we know about the disappearances, the detentions, the suffering of so many people and we are entitled to demand more than we have heard tonight from the Commission.
We want it to follow up the very important hearing on forced labour that took place in Brussels with action on the GSP.
We want the Council under this presidency later this month to take a whole range of initiatives to isolate Burma.
We also appeal to the countries in the immediate region of Burma, our respective partners, to cooperate with us.
I know they often remind us that they, unlike many parts of the world, are reluctant to interfere in the internal affairs of neighbouring states.
But this brutality is a responsibility of theirs as it is ours and the reason that we are in the European Parliament is that the European Union, Parliament came into being because of concern with democracy and human rights.
Could I finally say that there will be change in Burma.
The brutal regime will be toppled.
Democracy will be set up and established in Burma, but after all the suffering and all the sacrifice, let us make sure that that is soon.
Mr President, it is crystal clear that everyone in the Chamber wants to see more action from the Commission and wants to see it making more dynamic proposals to the Council.
We basically feel that it is time for an economic boycott such as has been proposed in the United States.
What I would like to ask is this: if the House adopts a resolution calling for economic sanctions, which the opposition leader in Burma herself has also called for, will the Commission be prepared to adapt its proposals so that the Council is able to approve the necessary decisions at its next meeting?
Thank you very much, Mrs Bjerregaard.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Kinnock wishes to speak again.
Please be patient a moment longer.
Mrs Kinnock, you have the floor.
Mr President, I am heartened to hear what the Commissioner has said but it is still very clear that the Commission and the Council have turned their face against the kind of serious action that we are calling for.
These restrictions, the kind of things we have heard about from the Commission, will simply have no effect on the SLORC whatsoever.
We have had no categorical assurance that the Commission is going to listen to what Aung San Suu Kyi is saying.
That is what we are asking for, Commissioner.
I know it is not in your hands but I wish that it would be possible for the Commission and the Council to listen attentively to what the Burmese people are saying, not just Aung San Suu Kyi.
The Burmese people are pleading with us to act.
Thank you very much, Mrs Kinnock.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think Parliament has expressed itself very clearly tonight.
But I must also remind you that I have received six motions for resolutions to close this debate.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your company.
(The sitting was closed at 12 midnight)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, could I object to yesterday's Minutes. You will see in item 7 that I have been named as Mr rather than Mrs McNally.
I can assure you, Mrs McNally, that our Minutes will reflect the true situation!
Mr President, I just want to place on record my thanks to my colleague for defending my honour and also thank the Commission.
I promptly received a written reply at the end of that Question Time.
So that clears up that matter, too.
We will come to the comments in due course.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, on the Minutes: I notice that Mrs Bonino, Commissioner, was there to answer a number of questions on fisheries and consumer affairs, but what concerns me greatly is that we have three important reports on fisheries and one oral question on Friday and yet I understand that the Commissioner is not going to be present.
That is highly regrettable and I would ask the President to ask her to attend that session so that she can hear the views and opinions of this Parliament.
Mr Teverson, I have already said that we will be looking into this!
Meeting of 5 October 1996 in Dublin
The next item is the report by the European Council and the statement by the Commission following the meeting of 5 October 1996 in Dublin.
I am very glad to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council of the European Union, the Irish Foreign Minister Dick Spring.
Welcome, Mr Spring.
Mr President-in-Office, you have the floor.
Thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office.
We now come to the debate.
I call Mrs Green to open the debate on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
I want to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for coming here today and making a statement on the informal summit and I congratulate the Irish presidency for actually insisting that meeting took place in the face of opposition from at least one Member State.
I must say that, in my group, we shall judge the IGC by its emphasis on the issues which we consider important for the citizens of Europe.
My group is ambitious for Europe.
We have expectations of Europe.
Europe really must move forward to prepare itself for enlargement - the President-in-Office made this plain.
We in this group are firmly wedded to the principle of enlargement but the Council must understand that our constituency, here in this Parliament, is the electorate of the European Union and our first allegiance is to them.
Enlargement which is illplanned, which destabilizes the security of the existing Union or which paralyses the Union even more than can happen now is simply not acceptable.
Mr President-in-Office, the people of the Union want peace in Europe.
Europe's role in conflict resolution is something which I know has particular resonance in Ireland and to which I know you are deeply committed.
Can I make it plain in your presence, Mr Spring, that my group was the instigator of the concept of European support for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
We are utterly committed to it and, despite the barrage of press coverage in Ireland in recent days, I give you my word that we will do nothing to damage it.
The people of the Union also want to see a real political priority being given to securing their future.
Please ensure, Mr President-in-Office, that the leaders of our countries make real progress on generating jobs inside the Union.
We applaud the growing support for the employment section in the Treaty and urge you to ensure that it has real bite and does not just contain pious entreaties.
Perhaps one of the most depressing features of recent months has been the attack by the Council or by individual Member States, on that part of the Union's activities relating to the socially excluded.
In what is simply a meanminded attack on the most vulnerable, we have seen action at the Court to stop the Commission spending a comparatively paltry sum of money on the elderly, the disabled, the socially excluded.
It is this type of activity which, in my group's view, does more than anything to demonstrate to Europe's people that the governments, when they come together, are only concerned with a headlong rush to outperform each other and prove their macho credentials.
We need the IGC to find an answer to the problem of the legal base for spending on the socially excluded.
We need a clear signal that Europe understands that it is the role of national governments to lead the fight against poverty and exclusion in each of our Member States but that the European Union can add value to that fight by its own legitimate and concerted action.
Europe's citizens do not know or greatly care about the intricate details of our work here but they do now understand the signals about the sort of Europe we are developing.
They are using the democratic system to signal to us their concern and, by refusing to understand or respond to these signals, we are encouraging the development of those who would see the break-up of European integration.
My group restates its belief in the closer integration of Europe and we want to see the IGC move rapidly to prepare for enlargement in an environment of calm, peace, prosperity and hope for the future.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, first and foremost I should like to congratulate the Irish presidency.
I believe that once again it has been proved that a smaller European Union country can also play a very creative role when exercising the presidency.
This is not the first time this has happened and it stands in sharp contrast to the presidency of some of the larger countries.
Speaking in the House on behalf of the PPE Group in September I called for the IGC to finally rouse itself.
I asked two questions at this time. The first was whether the timetable would be respected.
I believe that the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council has cleared up that question and we can take it that the IGC will complete its work in June of next year.
My second question was whether the Council had reconciled itself to limiting its objectives to a minimum and postponing fundamental reforms.
In this case too I believe we have a positive reply.
The Irish presidency will be submitting a draft Treaty text to the December summit in Dublin.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I believe that we must now conclude that the European Union is facing what the President of the Commission yesterday described as three major deadlines: on Union enlargement, on resolving a number of societal questions in the European Union about which our citizens are very concerned, namely regarding their future and security, and on the common foreign policy.
Enlargement of the European Union is undoubtedly a major geopolitical project for peace and civilization. Its aim is to bring together all of Europe's democratic nations within the European Union.
But the point must also be made that a European Union which grows from 15 to 25 or 30 Member States will not be able to function with the institutions in their present form and we have no other alternative - however much the attention of our citizens may be focused on the problems they encounter in their day-to-day lives - but to draw attention to this fact and to continue to insist that the IGC must take decisions which allow the Council still to take majority decisions and for Parliament to be the democratic counter-balance to decisions taken by the Council in the framework of the codecision procedure.
There is no avoiding the fact that this matter must be resolved.
If not the European Union will inevitably unravel and be diluted into an association of countries in which there remains scarcely any intergovernmental role at all. This would be fatal for European integration.
But there is a second important task.
We wanted the internal market. We wanted economic and monetary union.
We realise that this is the necessary economic basis in order to create employment.
But this internal market and Union enlargement from 15 to 20 or 25 Member States raises major questions for society.
Even if the individual Member States continue to play a major role, it is unacceptable for the European Union not to provide a response in the framework of employment policy, or even to take the initiative.
It is just not possible at this point in time for the Member States to bear sole responsibility for internal security, for the security of our fellow citizens.
Our fellow citizens feel insecure.
I put the question to you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council: Has not the time come for the governments and government leaders of the Member States who constantly raise objections and impede the development and negotiations of the IGC to now take a look at essentials. And for the governments to join with the Commission and European Parliament and say to our fellow citizens that a number of crucial issues such as employment, such as security and the protection of our fellow citizens, are not going to be solved if every country continues to act alone when a joint approach is necessary.
My country's prime minister said in Madrid last Monday that a number of countries are busy blocking progress.
When are we going to turn our attention to the essentials? I ask you to also convey this message to your colleagues in the creative manner in which Ireland exercised the presidency and that finally they will be prepared to get together in tackling the major fundamental issues facing European society.
Mr President, ba mhaith liomsa i dtosac céad míle fáilte a chuir roimh Aire Gnóthai Eachtracha na hEireann chuig Parlaimint na hEorpa i maidin.
Mr President, I very much welcome the President-in-Office of the Council and Ireland's Foreign Minister to the European Parliament this morning and I thank him very much indeed for his report on the recent summit held in Dublin.
While the summit did not result in any significant decisions, it certainly provided a valuable opportunity for the heads of state or government to discuss the state of progress of the negotiations in the Intergovernmental Conference.
In my view the draft Treaty, which is to be presented to the December summit in Dublin, must give priority to issues of widespread concern, such as employment policy and the fight against crime.
I was disappointed to note that certain Member States continue to oppose the inclusion of a chapter on employment policy in the new Treaty.
I do not agree with the British Prime Minister's view that this problem should be tackled at national level.
Over the last decade national governments in many Member States have devoted much of their energy to creating new job opportunities, in most cases without any significant degree of success.
The time has surely come for European governments to work together to try to solve this huge social, economic and political problem.
The fight against crime also demands strong cooperation between Member States if the activities of drug smugglers, money launderers and organized crime syndicates - all of whom operate on the international stage - can be effectively and comprehensively tackled by the forces of law and order in our individual countries.
Countries on the periphery, such as Ireland, with extensive sea coasts must be supported at EU level in their efforts to track and intercept drug-smuggling.
I welcome the ongoing efforts to reform the institutional structures of the Union, which I hope will simplify the decision-making and administrative systems of the Union before enlargement to the East.
However, it is my strong belief that it is more important to assess the impact of enlargement on existing European policies and, if necessary, to reform the actual policies rather than concentrate on administrative and institutional reform.
The addition of ten or more net beneficiary countries will have a major impact on the budget.
The arrival of new Member States with a high level of dependency on agriculture will, naturally, have major implications for the common agricultural policy.
The clear need of these countries to upgrade their industry, transport networks and environmental protection systems, will all have a major impact on the existing structural funds' policy.
I was genuinely disappointed that these issues were not addressed during the Dublin Summit.
The future of the common agricultural policy and structural funds, together with the obvious need for a bigger budget in an enlarged Union, are all difficult political issues which should be tackled in parallel with the Intergovernmental Conference.
Agreement on the final contents of a new revised Treaty must be accompanied by an agreement on the future direction of the major common policies and on the framework for enlargement negotiations.
All these issues are closely interlinked, particularly in the case of existing net beneficiary countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland, and those countries with significant agricultural sectors, such as France.
Following the Dublin Summit there seems to be a consensus in favour of agreeing on a revised Treaty at the Amsterdam meeting of June next year.
This is an ambitious target.
However, it is not essential for the IGC to conclude in the first half of next year: it is of far greater importance that the Member States use the IGC to confront the issues which are of general concern to our electorates and to lay the foundations for a successful enlargement of the Union to the East, even if this requires an additional six or twelve months.
In at least some Member States the electorates will be called upon to pass judgement on the results of the IGC and their verdict will depend on the extent to which the new Treaty addresses their concerns, which are much broader than mere institutional reform.
Mr President, as far as our group is concerned, unemployment in Western Europe is the most important problem to be solved.
We fear that the proposals which are currently being submitted at the Intergovernmental Conference are inadequate., this is because they are not directly linked to economic and monetary union policies.
Principally the Economic Union&#x02BC;s current policy gives rise to high unemployment, reduced economic demand and to a dramatic deterioration in social welfare levels in Member States.
For this reason, the European Union policy must be discussed at the Intergovernmental Conference and it must be reviewed.
In the proposal for a parliamentary resolution there is mention of a joint defence policy.
We believe that this is irrelevant in the current political situation in Western Europe.
It is the remains of an out of date way of thinking.
What we need now is an all European and global structure to prevent conflicts and to handle crises.
The Union must also acknowledge the fact that some Member States are non aligned.
We were, therefore, very surprised when we read in the document from the Dorr Group, dated 8th October, that such states were exneutral, in other words, previously neutral.
I would like to point out that the neutral policy in these Member States has significant popular support.
There are many points on the Intergovernmental Conference and its results which are unclear, but we can already see that there is strong resistance to some important points.
We can see that there is strong resistance to the view that meetings of the Council of Ministers should be open.
It is our view that all legislation within the Union, in the Council of Ministers, should take place openly and we have the right to demand this as one result of the Intergovernmental Conference.
With regard to the environment, there is strong resistance to a tightening of Article 100a(4) which would give Member States the true right to have tougher environmental legislation in some areas.
We would take an extremely negative view if this demand for environmental improvement is refused.
It is important that the results of the Intergovernmental Conference are in line with the thinking of individual citizens.
For this reason, our group advocates national referenda once the Intergovernmental Conference is over.
Personally, I am convinced that such referenda would show that there is no support in many Member States for greatly increased central power within the European Union.
Mr President, let me remind the House that this summit was intended to kick-start the floundering Intergovernmental Conference.
But, of course, you can rely on the Council to stick by its usual slogan: business as usual.
The way in which the summit was handled, too, followed a well-beaten path: if a summit seems likely to fail, or if nothing - absolutely nothing at all - emerges from it, there are two ways of glossing over this failure.
One is to set up a new Working Group to continue negotiations and celebrate that as a step forward, and the other is to make a lot of noise about things that everyone knew anyway.
Quite clearly, the second alternative has been selected in the case of Dublin.
But can the grimly determined confirmation of the timetable for Maastricht II really, seriously, be a success in view of all the speculation about Maastricht III?
Hans Christian Andersen wrote wonderful fairy tales, and I can't help but remember one of them as I listen to and look at Mr Santer and Mr Spring - ' The Emperor's New Clothes' .
The Emperor surrounds himself with admirers and flatterers until a child pipes up with the simple truth: ' He hasn't got anything on!'
That's the way things are today, that's the way the Council is: it's got nothing on.
It isn't working on any genuine initiatives for a consistent employment policy, for the desperately needed democratization of the European Union, for the foundations of a civil law system, for the development of Europe as a whole, for the process of conversion to social ecology. Just how much does have to go wrong before the Council eventually grasps where its ignorance of public opinion is leading?
Aren't the results of the elections in Austria and Finland a sufficiently clear message? The unconditional clinging to rigid, unrealistic criteria, the speculation with models of a centralized Europe, the attempt to dictate the shape of Europe from above instead of letting it grow from below - all this carries within it the real explosive of integration policy and generates Euro-scepticism instead of acceptance.
Anyone who fails to listen to the critics of the EU will give more power to the arm of Europe's opponents, will make them strong.
But who is going to give that message to the Council? I believe that the Intergovernmental Conference should, first and foremost, be a major project to counter European absolutism, which brings me back once again to Hans Christian Andersen.
Let me just add a few personal words to Mr Spring as a Minister of the Irish government.
I should like to reaffirm this: I should like to say that our group is completely behind the peace process in Northern Ireland.
This has no direct connection with the so-called Dublin summit, but I wanted to say it anyway.
Mr President, our fifteen Heads of State or Government were lucky that the Dublin European Council was only informal.
If that had not been the case, what in fact could they have put on paper except for some progress in the field of internal affairs and justice? This is all the more true in that, if progress was made, it was only between thirteen or at most fourteen Member States, whereas ratification of changes to the Treaty requires unanimity.
However, let us be positive.
The date of June 1997 was confirmed for the conclusion of the negotiations and the Irish presidency was given a mandate to present at Dublin in December a first draft of the modified Treaty.
That is good.
However, let us remain vigilant so that keeping to the timetable is not dissociated from the conclusion of an ambitious reform of the Treaty and so that the Irish presidency's draft deals with the important issues at stake and is not limited to reporting negotiations and to presenting options in the most sensitive areas.
In order to achieve that, we must have a little more self-confidence and even courage.
It is regrettable that making a political judgement about the Dublin Summit could ever have been considered pointless and unnecessary in this Parliament, when it is more than ever necessary to speed up the negotiations.
Is this not the time to say clearly that enlargement will not be possible without a wide-ranging institutional reform of the Union, that we could not accept any postponement of the real issues at stake for the Intergovernmental Conference to a later reform, and that monetary union needs to be complemented by major progress along the path to political Union? And besides, how in the future can we face the clear risk of paralysis, particularly if considerable progress is not made in extending majority voting?
We consider that mechanisms for stronger cooperation are necessary, in the context of the Treaty, enabling those who wish it to advance along the path to political Union while guaranteeing that this cooperation is permanently open to all Member States.
In conclusion, how can we not be worried at the sad spectacle that Europe is presenting on the international stage?
Let us not be fooled.
If the Intergovernmental Conference cannot set up institutional machinery capable of producing a genuine external and common defence policy, we shall perpetuate the lamentable image the Union is presenting to the Middle East.
Hence my question to the Irish President-in-Office: what will you really do, in the Middle East crisis, since what has been said so far is rather conventional?
These are some of the political considerations I wished to express before this Assembly, on behalf of my group.
Mr President, the informal Dublin Summit produced no specific conclusions other than an official confirmation: that the Intergovernmental Conference must finish its work next June at the Amsterdam Council.
Ultimately, this deadline does not leave the Conference much time to complete the huge reform needed to adapt European institutions to enlargement, reform that we are all waiting for but one that, despite eighteen months of varied discussions, does not yet appear to be really taking shape.
This is what President Santer was saying in moderate terms just now when he emphasized that this is a subject, and I quote, ' on which most progress has still to be made' .
Admittedly, following close on the Dublin Summit, the French and German governments published a joint letter about stronger cooperation, but there is no evidence in this of the flexibility we would need for enlargement.
Rather, we need clauses for looser cooperation with the East.
However, this essential path appears to be blocked by the dogma that what the Community has established so far is inviolable.
One day, we shall undoubtedly have to break down this bolted door.
On this same question of adapting the institutions to enlargement, President Santer gave a hint yesterday by emphasizing that keeping unanimity did not appear to him to be possible with 27 members.
We think, on the contrary, that it is majority voting that would be impossible, because national interests and realities would be so divergent in a Europe of 27 members.
Only a variable geometry would be capable of reconciling these two positions, but it must be truly variable, without pre-established federalist objectives, without obligatory respect for what has been established so far and with the recognition that members have a right to withdraw!
Mr President, I would today remind the House that 40 years ago the Hungarian people rebelled against the Soviet communist regime - an uprising prompted by a longing for freedom that claimed more than 200, 000 victims.
Meeting in Dublin, on 5 October last, the heads of state and government confirmed that, in compliance with the time-limits decided on in Florence, they will be presenting a complete draft revision of the Maastricht Treaty at the December summit.
You will understand that we remain sceptical because yet again, this time in Dublin, the summit was conspicuous by its lack of any real substance.
As is now the usual story, the priorities were identified as job creation, the fight against crime and the - now desperate - need to adopt institutional reforms to deal with the pressing demands of enlargement.
Lots of talk and little action.
Job creation, for instance: unemployment has reached unacceptably high levels and this will be made worse by the painful effort needed to adjust to the criteria established under Maastricht.
But despite the cost that has daily to be paid under the European Union's monetary policies which require the application of high interest rates to prevent capital flowing out of the Union, employment continues to be held up as a priority.
In an effort to limit interest rate increases, governments are in fact forced to apply a policy to control and stabilize public finances that is ill-suited to job creation.
The likelihood is that the effect of currency fluctuations will be, along with industrial disintegration, job losses.
A specific example of this is the transfer within multinationals of entire areas of production to those countries which have devalued their currencies.
The redistribution of production between undertakings and partners is inimical to general prosperity and causes jobs to be lost.
A recent study in 1995 revealed that, for the countries of the European Union as a whole, the global cost of currency fluctuations was a two per cent fall in growth and the loss of 1.5 million jobs.
Then we have the fight against crime, a priority that will be worthless if pursued in isolation and unless a genuine common internal policy is put into effect.
That is immediately clear if you consider how impossible it is for the courts to prosecute criminals who move to another Member State; in such cases they are able to act only by means of letters of request - a lengthy and impracticable process which leaves the person under investigation plenty of time to regularize his situation.
Finally, institutional reform: the main task of the IGC, the conclusion of which will be reconfirmed in June 1997, will be to make the adjustments necessary for enlargement - enlargement which might be summarized as: ' Europe whatever the cost!' . This is madness!
We say that it is necessary to start not from the head but from the base if we are to construct a united Europe acceptable to citizens.
Mr President, it is difficult to express a view on an informal summit without a conclusion.
We are therefore awaiting the results; developments in the Intergovernmental Conference will show whether there has been a political impetus and whether a draft treaty has been drawn up.
The European Parliament is, however, seriously concerned because we can see that there is a stalemate: the Intergovernmental Conference seems in fact to be paralysed by conflicting views.
It even appears doubtful whether the negotiations have actually begun.
It is claimed that the results will be clear in the end, but nothing so far seems to point in that direction even though the subject of the Intergovernmental Conference is deepening the Union with a view to future enlargement.
What is behind this sense of stalemate? I think it realistic to believe that there are those who think of an Intergovernmental Conference as of little relevance in institutional terms - basically a technical affair that just appears to produce some small results.
Those who have taken that view actually believe that it should be Monetary Union that deepens and redesigns the institutions.
Those countries that participate in Monetary Union from the outset will be the ones that set under way the kind of Europe that counts, with the exclusive focus on spurring on Monetary Union.
Thereafter, perhaps, we shall have a third Intergovernmental Conference on the institutions, as some have already hinted.
Were that to happen, the very construction of the Union would be called into question.
Were that to happen, it would in fact be Monetary Union that created its own institutions, pushing political union into the background.
Differentiated integration could shatter the unity of the institutional system and the acquis communautaire .
Some people have already talked in terms of a European Parliament with variable geometry; others have called into question the role of the Commission as an initiator.
All of this will clearly be a crisis point in the construction of Europe.
Although I am concerned, I at any rate hope to see other alternatives.
I would alert the House of the need identify the risk and counter it with a policy.
The Intergovernmental Conference therefore becomes hugely important; there has to be a clear parallel with Monetary Union; we need to place the political element centre-stage again and shift the balance towards political union; that is possible only if we set the institutional reforms under way against the backdrop of a united approach to the construction of Europe.
I shall end here, Mr President. Unless there are major changes in that direction, unless we have renewed democracy, transparency, efficiency and decision-taking capacity, the threat to the construction of Europe may lie just around the corner.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the Irish presidency for the way it has approached the IGC so far, and as far as an evaluation of Dublin I is concerned, my view is that Dublin I and Dublin II must be viewed jointly.
I believe, also, that Dublin I achieved its objectives of confirming the timetable and generating political momentum.
That political momentum needs to be generated in order to ensure that the negotiations do not become the preserve of the technocrats. Happily, the Irish presidency has made it clear, with its questionnaire on majority decisions, that technocratization is not the right approach.
The case-by-case procedure and majority decision process show that this cannot be a solution - that matters must be decided politically, in order to achieve the necessary advances and ensure the European Union's ability to act.
There are many examples of this, in foreign trade for instance.
Unless we succeed, when granting mandates, for example in the services sector, in arriving at the majority decision process then, because of the package solution that will take place when mandates are next granted, we shall have a less strong European Union: the Commission, too, will have less authority at the negotiating table than it did during the Uruguay Round.
This is just one example to illustrate that we should not be talking about progress so much as endeavouring to preserve the status quo; but the status quo can only be preserved if we do make progress in certain institutional matters.
I would, however, also like to utter a word of warning about the deparliamentarization taking place in some areas.
This applies to ideas associated with the third pillar: some things which play a part in foreign relations indicate that deparliamentarization may result from the initiatives by specialized ministries in various national capitals.
Unless we are on our guard at this Intergovernmental Conference, this will happen to the detriment of the European Parliament and to the detriment of the national Parliaments.
That must not be allowed to happen.
Nor do the proposals regarding the introduction of a new pillar 1a in the area of the third pillar make the Treaty any clearer or more comprehensible for the citizen.
As regards questions relating to the first pillar, the need is to strengthen the existing institutions of the first pillar, including the Commission and Parliament; in no circumstances must we follow the Council's desire to create special conditions for its national institutions.
And that includes safeguarding the Commission's exclusive right of initiative, in all respects.
Strengthening the institutions in the area where we are successful - that should be our approach.
We should certainly not tamper with the chapter on monetary union and make amendments to it.
But we do hope to gain recognition for an employment chapter which is not merely social policy; for that reason, the employment chapter must not be integrated into the social policy sector but belongs between economic and monetary union on the one hand and social policy on the other.
This, I think, might be a middle road to lead us all further forward.
I was very pleased to hear the upbeat assessment of the informal summit by both the President of the Commission and the President-in-Office of the Council.
But I have to say both as a citizen and as a parliamentarian that the discussions so far have seemed to me turgid, unfocused and to show a lack of political will and motivation.
That is a great tragedy potentially for the future of our continent.
I want to ask the President-in-Office two questions.
First of all, it has been widely reported in the British press that one of the ways forward now will be core Member States, leaving others behind, so that European integration can happen where it is required, without being held up by others.
Is that true? Secondly, is there likely to be a second IGC - which would be absolutely wrong?
But what I would now like to do is make an appeal as a citizen.
We have at the moment a situation unparalleled perhaps in our continent over the past 200 years where we can stabilize the security and democracy of Central and Eastern Europe.
I have two daughters, one five and one nine years old.
To me their future security and the security of their children hinges upon reaching a suitable settlement so that we can expand the European Union to those Central and European states.
If we fail in that this and next year, then we shall have lost a chance that may not ever come back in our lifetimes and will threaten their security and their children's security well into the future.
That is the challenge that we have here and I ask the President-in-Office to continue his good work to make sure that the Dublin Summit delivers an agenda that can be accepted by the other Member States so that we have a successful conclusion in Amsterdam.
The importance is no less than that.
Mr President, I have just listened to what the President-in-Office of the Council had to say on the situation in the Middle East.
I feel that it was rather half-hearted.
It would be tragic if the European Union still maintained a passive attitude when faced with a situation as critical as this.
We have all seen the pictures of the highly significant incident marking the visit of Jacques Chirac to East Jerusalem.
If a French President is treated like this, we can imagine the kind of treatment reserved by the Netanyahu government for the average Palestinian.
This cannot go on any longer.
For my part, I have just returned from a visit to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gaza.
In Israel, I met the 'Peace Now' movement and representatives of all the left-wing parliamentary groups and of Likud.
I was able to take part in the first and very moving meeting between Israeli and Palestinian parliamentarians in the Knesset.
In Palestine, I was able to have a long meeting with President Arafat, after a fascinating visit to the Orient House in East Jerusalem.
What I saw and heard on these occasions leaves no doubt in my mind.
Those wishing to preserve the peace process must assume their responsibilities now.
The European Union can do so.
It is rejected from the negotiating table by Tel Aviv and by Washington, but nobody can prevent it taking strong political action by suspending the application of the interim Europe-Israel trade agreement as long as the Netanyahu government does not respect signed agreements and does not open up genuine negotiations with the Palestinian authority.
The Council is meeting this Monday on this matter.
Its decision will be eagerly anticipated.
Three weeks ago, it issued a very clear statement with particular emphasis on the link between the Europe-Israel agreement and the peace process.
Since then, nothing has moved on Israeli government side.
There is a total blockage.
In my view, the time has therefore come to pass from words to actions.
The same call may be made to Member States' national parliaments: do not ratify this agreement until the peace process is put back on the rails.
Peace is in danger. Mr President, let us not lose the chance to help preserve it.
Mr President, I am very concerned over the sudden passivity which currently characterises the Union&#x02BC;s action on the Middle East.
Until now, the EU has played quite a positive role both through support for the Palestinians and through tough statements.
Not so long ago we, in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, received a visit from the Irish presidency which then held forth with much tougher speeches than is currently the case.
For just this reason, it is important that Parliament adopts a powerful resolution now.
I hope that the rumours in the corridors are totally wrong, that a resolution would not be supported because it is necessary to wait for a report on the subject which will be available at the next session.
Internal Parliamentary deliberation cannot play any part if Parliament is to take a stance on current political issues.
In addition, we in the Green Party have continuously emphasised that, while we justifiably criticise the Israeli government fiercely, we must also remind our Palestinian friends that maintaining democracy and freedom of speech in the Palestinian areas is a fundamental requirement of a successful peace process.
Mr President, at the Dublin summit, the stage was set for a number of majority votes in which the national parliaments can be voted down. But why should the EU's laws and standards be absolutely the same in all parts of the Union?
Why can we not let a country have stricter rules on additives in foods which are transported straight from the factory to the consumer, and then allow artificial preservatives in those areas of the EU which actually ask for permission, for example to put medicines into cheese and sausages? How does Mr Santer explain the fact that we in Denmark will have to allow natamycin and mycin in cheese and sausages?
Natamycin can be obtained from pharmacies as a remedy for such things as inflammation of the eyes or of the internal female sexual organs. Why should we be treated for inflammation of the internal female sexual organs through bread and cheese?
Why must we no longer ban colourings which can produce allergies? Why can we not make our own laws to control our everyday food?
Why should all the rules be the same everywhere?
There is only one logical reason for this uniform legislation: the wish to create a single state without internal frontiers. It is this obsession with a United States of Europe from which frontiers have been removed which is now effectively also leading people to dislike useful international cooperation.
Because the fact is that it makes no sense to have common rules on the curvature of a cucumber or the size of strawberries. What makes no sense is to turn standards into binding legislation, instead of just an option for those who wish to trade across frontiers.
We would once again call on the Commission to check the 21 000 EU rules for excessive centralism, and to create more freedom for the Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Dublin Intergovernmental Conference was mainly concerned, it seems, with the fight against crime, with employment and with the Palestinian question.
As regards the fight against crime, the calls from the European Parliament and the Summit for a real internal security area barely conceal the real aim, which is Community-controlled cooperation in matters relating to the police, to justice and to several other policies, with top priority for immigration policy.
It is as well always to remember that international or transnational crime, whatever form it takes - terrorism, drugs - is in reality a direct consequence of the abolition of internal border controls in the Union and the inability of States or the unwillingness of some of them like the Netherlands to provide proper controls at the external frontiers.
The existence and the current functioning of the Union are the source of very serious problems that are then, paradoxically, argued as grounds for new Community powers.
As regards unemployment, Mr President, at no time were the two main European causes of this scourge tackled: namely, the single currency and the deflationary policies it involves on the one hand and free trade on the other.
In fact, from a simple instrument enabling the single market to function more efficiently, economic and monetary union has become an inviolable dogma, a basic European myth that can under no circumstances be called into question.
Many Member States will undoubtedly meet the Maastricht criteria in 1998, the year during which the elect who will take part in the third phase will be chosen.
But this will be at the price not only of some cooking of the books, but of the sacrifice of social security systems and of budgetary rigour which, at best, according to some countries, will have brought the deficits below the required levels and at worst will at least have demonstrated the willingness of States to comply with the criteria: all to the detriment of general prosperity.
As for the Palestinian question, the French President did his best to secure a political position on the matter.
Germany, still frightened of being suspected of ulterior motives whatever opinion it expresses, did not want questions of interest to Israel to be discussed.
In reality, there is nothing other than vague desires to escape from the American yoke, against which intense diplomatic activity was directed.
The Israeli representation to the Communities are reported to have asked European Members of Parliament not to support Union policy.
In other words, if you have not done everything for Israel, you have done nothing for it.
Mr President-in-Office, President Santer, in recent years the European Union has done a great deal in the Middle East: there has been huge economic aid to the Palestinians, bilateral agreements with the countries of the region, vital assistance for the elections in Palestine, the Barcelona Conference and support for the peace process.
None of that has been given political recognition.
There is no question that the peace process is currently in the throes of a serious crisis.
The European Union has adopted a stance that we welcome, the position of the Council which seems to us to be sufficiently clear, and I have to say that I also appreciate the work done by the President-in-Office in the region during recent weeks.
The issue that has not been resolved concerns the political role of the Union.
The Council is thinking in terms of a special envoy, but it seems to me that that envoy will have to be one of the foremost political and governmental leaders we have available to us - no-one else will do.
We have already made the mistake of giving an official responsibility for the conduct of the Palestinian elections.
But we have above all to gain acceptance for the Union's political role, and that is not the case as far as Israel is concerned.
Mr Levy has declared that role unthinkable in the peace negotiations, but we need to secure a seat for the European Union at the negotiating table alongside the United States envoy.
Up to now that demand has been made discreetly - but not any more.
We have now made it publicly.
This was done by Dick Spring on behalf of the Council; it was done in Damascus by Jacques Chirac who was, incidentally, shabbily treated in Israel. Italy's Prime Minister, Renato Prodi did the same in Cairo.
Now that we have made the demand publicly, we should seek to obtain satisfaction. So far it has met with rejection.
How are we to make progress? This is a fundamental political issue for the Union at this time, and we need to know whether the Council is devising a strategy to achieve that outcome.
In the resolution on the Dublin summit both the Socialists and the PPE are, I believe, asking the Council and the Commission to draw up a detailed and committed report on the Middle East for the month of November, and that is why we do not consider a European Parliament resolution that is hasty and partial to be appropriate at this juncture.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard that the Dublin summit has created the political impetus the Intergovernmental Conference so badly needs.
We applaud that and we look forward to a first draft of the treaty filled with demanding content through the good offices of the Irish presidency.
The timetable is important, the content much more so.
The European Parliament, legitimate representative of the citizens of the Union, has made clear what that content should be.
I am not going to go over well-known resolutions, just some essential points.
First, the Union must be given the instruments and procedures necessary for this area without frontiers to be an area for work, business, tourism and culture, but not an area for terrorism, drug-trafficking, slave trade and abuse of women and children, immigration and clandestine labour mafias, and all the other forms of organized crime.
Secondly, it is essential to organize cooperation between the Member States to combat unemployment and marginalization, without endangering the economic and monetary stability that is being so painfully achieved, and establish the route to successful economies, without ruining the European social model which our group is committed to maintaining.
Tying the hands of the Union in the fight against poverty and social marginalization would be intolerable, particularly in this World Year for the Eradication of Poverty.
Thirdly, we must transform our ineffective and stumbling CFSP into a credible and effective foreign and security policy.
You yourself, and the President of the Commission, have already said all there is to say on the matter, and I do not think I need insist further.
Mr President, none of this will be achieved without reforming our institutions to give them greater transparency, greater efficiency and greater democracy, which means strengthening Parliament's triple legislative, budgetary and control role.
Democracy and transparency cannot develop without developing the parliamentary system.
For two centuries they have been inseparable on our continent.
There is no real democracy without a parliament with the powers and independence necessary to fulfil this triple function.
It seems unbelievable that this truism has to be restated in 1996.
Mr President, at a time when our citizens are apprehensive about the future, it is our duty to remember always that peace and prosperity in our Union require a daily search for the greatest common advantage, and that will not be achieved without a strong, democratic and respected Parliament.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, the Irish presidency and the Dublin Council have been dealing with Union issues at a crucial moment in the life of the Community.
For one thing, the great issues are being identified.
For another, a certain disaffection is spreading within the Community which is sometimes demonstrated in a spectacular way, as in the European elections in Austria and Finland.
It would really be very difficult, almost suicidal, to maintain a Panglossian vision of the Union, but a tragic vision of the tensions that await us would be exaggerated.
I think the Irish presidency has shown a capacity for meaningful action on the issue of the Middle East and I want to state, like the colleague who preceded me, that the frontier of European dignity does not run just through Bosnia, but also through the relaunch of the peace process in the Middle East.
And with elections coming up in America, only Europe can do whatever is possible as an external factor to keep the peace process going.
Here, Mr President, may I congratulate the members of the French delegation and the various parties on the very dignified and unequivocal attitude maintained by the French President, Mr Chirac, in Israel and Jerusalem yesterday.
In addition to vision in foreign policy, I believe the Irish presidency has been successful in stressing the essential theme of the European model of society and prioritizing employment.
A society without employment - a society which 'kills' employment, a society which has no hope of employment - is a weak society and at this moment our material comfort may really be under great threat.
It has also set the timetable for the Intergovernmental Conference.
The timetable is something, but the content is more important.
And that content really involves a widening of Community powers, the Community taking over the third pillar, and certain processes on which we cannot yet be very optimistic.
There are certain tendencies: we do not see sufficient progress, as much progress as we would like, in the move to qualified majority voting or in the co-decision processes essential to revitalize this Parliament - to give it purpose, so that it does not simply duplicate legislation passed elsewhere.
All in all, we remain hopeful, we congratulate the Irish presidency, and we trust that in the months that remain the Irish presidency will provide further impetus leading up to the text to be presented in December at the next Dublin Council.
Mr President, to the extent that the Dublin Summit dealt with the areas of the third pillar - combating organized crime and drug trafficking - it has become clear that this is a case where the gap between what the public expect and what has actually been achieved is growing wider and wider.
So far, if I may say so, our respective Council members have advanced with the utmost caution and suspicion in this area, pausing to pick the occasional daisy but with no sign of any willingness to press forward resolutely.
The explanation, so we hear, is that no real progress can be made until after the British elections.
That explanation is an illusion.
What is preventing any progress in the combating of organized crime in Europe is not the British elections but the lack of will to find a joint solution to such problems - a lack of will not just in the United Kingdom but in other countries, too.
And we hear it said that a joint solution would be a breach of national sovereignty.
That is a fetish from the nineteenth century, which a few governments carry around with them like some pagan image.
The real meaning of sovereignty is the expression of national independence.
It ensures the fulfilment of national interests.
Today, national sovereignty is abused as a pretext for preventing the joint solving of important problems.
That was never the point of national sovereignty.
This misinterpretation of national sovereignty is directed against the public interest rather than fighting for it.
Organized crime, the control of immigration and population increase in Europe - these are problems which, today, can only be solved by a joint approach.
It is not true that the elimination of the internal borders made cross-border organized crime in Europe possible in the first place.
The truth is that the disappearance of those borders is a consequence of present-day mobility, because the stagecoach has given way to the jet aircraft.
Modern policy has to come up with answers to this.
And they can only be European, Europe-wide answers.
The Council must finally make up its mind to find answers to these problems.
Mr President, I did not personally expect much from this special Dublin Summit.
Unlike those who had great hopes for it, I am not therefore disappointed by its results.
Ultimately, this Summit simply reflected the work of personal representatives, each of whom knows that they are marking time, which is hardly surprising as there is no political impetus, either from Foreign Ministers or from Heads of State and Government.
My concern therefore remains as deep as it was after the Florence European Council and it is necessary, I believe, to alert all Europeans to this.
However, despite its low profile, the first European Council in Dublin will not have been pointless.
Heads of State and Government themselves in the end became involved in the Intergovernmental Conference.
They declared their intention to make concrete progress at Dublin II.
Let us hope that that will come to pass. It is essential if the European Council wishes to keep to the timetable it has set itself: to finish by June 1997 in Amsterdam.
However, keeping to the timetable must not be achieved to the detriment of the contents of the Treaty.
It would be better to allow an extra few weeks or months and to ensure that the result matches the target, which I remind you is to allow the Union to get closer to its citizens and to face up to enlargement.
I should like here to pay tribute to the Irish presidency, which spared no effort in trying to maintain the level of the conference.
I urge it to preserve this spirit in preparing the text which will serve as the basis for discussions at Dublin II, since the ambitions of this conference must be reaffirmed.
I hope that the Irish presidency will incorporate in its proposals all the elements we know to be indispensable in order to face future commitments.
Beyond the question of the institutions, of the reform of the second and third pillars, which are very important, it is the model of European society which is at stake.
I hope I am not mistaken.
I have some hope regarding the 'employment' chapter that Parliament called for, since I note that today, quite apart from the proposal from the European Parliament, five countries including the holder of the presidency have tabled a text and that a majority of Member States has agreed to incorporate the 'employment' chapter in the work of the IGC. Can we in fact claim to be close to a Europe of citizens if we fail to deal with this problem and if we also fail to deal with the tragic question of social exclusion?
Similarly, we must win the trust of the people over the reform of institutions and must formulate for the single market rules and common policies functioning with a qualified majority and introducing balanced competition in the interests of everyone.
This conference must not become a dead-end.
It would be naive to think that the single currency could on its own induce political reform.
On the other hand, failure or a limited outcome from this conference would lead Europe to rush in the wrong direction, with the single currency being introduced under the worst psychological conditions and completely at odds with the expectations of its citizens.
I therefore believe that it must be a very ambitious conference and that only ambitious reform could be accepted by this Parliament, even if it means that the conclusion is postponed until after the Amsterdam Summit.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, may I briefly present the position of the Group of the European People's Party on the situation in the Middle East.
In the first place, I want to express our satisfaction at Mr Spring's visit and the meetings he held - thanks to that visit, the European Union was where it ought to be - and to express the hope that they will continue on behalf of the Union, and that the President-in-Office of the Council will be kind enough to come and see us again with a general report on the situation as it will no doubt evolve.
Perhaps it would also be appropriate, Mr President-in-Office, to consider a permanent working party linking Council, Commission and Parliament services, thus anticipating, on an occasion like this, the creation of the crisis detection unit on which Parliament has already given its own verdict.
We should maintain permanent contact with each other to ensure that there is real European action - European action something akin to what was achieved recently in such a resonant way by the President of France, whom we must congratulate on the manner in which he conducted himself in difficult circumstances.
At the same time, we must also point out that there was a certain ambivalence in that visit, because it was made in his capacity of French Head of State, with all the weight that carries, but certainly not as the united voice of the European Community.
We have seen important action, but it was clearly national.
Mr President, we do not believe the Union is just a coffer to take resources out of. It needs to have a united political presence.
That has not been the case, unfortunately: we have been much more of a coffer than a political voice, despite Mr Bildt's admirable work on Bosnia.
And we believe there must be further development of the Oslo agreements, which include an important aspect: the security of the peoples concerned and, naturally, the security of the people of Israel.
But we cannot be satisfied with deadlock, like the apparent situation in Hebron.
It is not possible - it is simply not possible - that, in such a climate of tension, there should be an artificial influx of 400 settlers creating difficulties for 150, 000 Palestinians.
Peace must return to the region on the basis of the various agreements we have signed - the Madrid Conference, the Oslo agreements, the agreement between the European Union and Israel.
And I end, Mr President, by saying that it is important that our meetings, like the one in Barcelona, relate to the whole region and we hope the whole region will be taken into account at the coming meetings, where, no doubt, the Presidentin-Office will honour us with his presence.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate the Irish presidency on its approach to the IGC. This was a good approach.
It was a constructive approach and also, in my opinion, a rather successful one - especially as the Irish presidency intends to submit a draft Treaty text in December.
I find this important. It also means that the Netherlands can start on real negotiations and make a real attempt to conclude matters by June and that we will not have to start from the beginning again.
I therefore thank the Irish presidency for its dynamic approach.
As Parliament's rapporteur on the IGC I would, however, like to once again stress the important points. First of all it is to make the European Union more transparent.
This is also exceptionally important in the Council. Their discussions and votes should be made public.
It is also to make the Union more democratic, also in regard to the role of Parliament, and it is to break with the veto in the decision-making.
I believe this to be absolutely essential.
In the area of policy, I believe that something must be done on the subject of employment.
This must be laid down more clearly in the Treaty.
Action must also be taken in the area of internal security, the fight against international crime and in the area of foreign policy.
In my opinion these are the six points to which the IGC must provide a positive response.
Let me turn to foreign policy.
It is a good thing that the decision was taken to send Mr Spring to the Middle East.
But I must also say that the image at present being created by the Union's activities is rather blurred.
Mr Spring went to the Middle East on behalf of the Union, but now Mr Chirac is visiting the region. He himself suggests that he is also there on behalf of the European Union.
And then there is Mr Prodi in Cairo who has also made a number of statements which are credited to the European Union.
All of this points to the urgent need for the Union to speak with a single voice and to coordinate its actions.
Because a poor image is being created.
One final comment. Yesterday evening there was a debate on Burma.
In the debate Parliament once again expressed the general view that some kind of action must be taken against this country.
An economic boycott is favoured.
May I call on the Irish presidency to follow the United States and to get to grips with this problem.
This is absolutely necessary.
It is true to say that Burma is in the same situation as Chile and South Africa were in the 1980s.
Let us not wait until the situation deteriorates there.
I have received two motions for resolutions on the European Council meeting in Dublin and four motions for resolutions on the peace process in the Middle East, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I thank the Members of the European Parliament for the remarks which they have made here and for the welcome they have given me and for the general tenor of their remarks.
I find this to be a very useful exercise.
It is a very important link between the Council and Parliament to have the opportunity of coming before you to address the House in relation to the Dublin I summit with the President of the Commission and then to hear your views.
This is what the art of politics is all about.
I have had the opportunity of listening very carefully to 25 contributions from various parties and their leaders and from the various groups.
This is a very important exercise, because we want to strengthen the working and institutional relationship between Parliament and the Council.
Let me say, as Irish Foreign Minister, that I also welcome the reiteration of support from the European Parliament for the Northern Ireland peace process.
That is extremely important and it certainly is very important for us, at what is a difficult time in the peace process, that we have a very strong message of support from the European Parliament for the process where I know we all want to see our negotiations brought to a successful conclusion.
The special meeting of the European Council in Dublin reaffirmed the timetable of Florence, i.e. the IGC would be completed by the meeting in Amsterdam in June 1997.
It also confirmed the need to maintain the level of ambition of the Conference; the internal and external challenges to the Union are such that we must ensure that the Union is adequately equipped and strengthened.
That was a very common theme through many of the contributions here this morning.
The one message I want to get across to Parliament today in relation to the IGC is that we will be ambitious and we will complete the work on time in accordance with the mandate we received from Florence.
The meeting in Dublin was a special meeting of the European Union, it was not an informal summit.
The meeting in Dublin was a European Council, all the members of the European Council were present and, as is the practice at meetings of the European Council, the President of the European Parliament addressed the members of the European Council on matters of concern to the European Parliament.
At the same time, it was a special meeting of the European Council and it was characterized by the fact that it did not produce formal written conclusions.
That was made very clear from the outset and there was never an expectation that there would be formal conclusions.
The contributions made here today focused on the main areas of concern to Parliament, the Council and the Commission: the references made to employment and social exclusion which remain at the top of the European Union agenda; also, the question of drugs and our efforts to combat drugs.
Whereas three to four years ago people talked about drugs and expressed concern, we are now seriously addressing the question of drugs and international crime for the first time in many years.
There are a number of measures being brought forward and hopefully joint actions will be brought forward before the end of our presidency to make sure we address what is a very serious issue, this scourge of drugs, for all of us as politicians and indeed as parents.
We have to work together.
No single country in Europe, no single country in the world is going to address the drugs question on its own.
That has become very apparent and we need cooperation at international level.
We are doing everything we can in that respect.
The question of the enlargement of the European Union comes in whether it is in terms of political stability or questions of security.
We must prepare for enlargement.
It is high on the agenda and we will do everything we can during the Irish presidency to make sure it receives the attention which it warrants.
We are committed to enlargement.
Six months after the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference negotiations are going to open and, as one Member said, there is a great deal of preparation to be done.
That work is ongoing by the Commission in relation to the challenges of enlargement.
There are many challenges facing the Union in the context of enlargement, but there are also many opportunities.
We have to keep both in mind when discussing the question of enlargement.
In relation to economic and monetary union, work is going ahead at technical level and a full report on the various issues will be presented to the Dublin summit in December.
In external relations many questions were raised here this morning and, for the foreseeable future, the priorities will remain the Middle East peace process, former Yugoslavia, our relations with Russia and EU/US relations.
We also had the summit with Japan a number of weeks ago.
In relation to the Middle East peace process, which many Members have commented on here this morning, I, in my report on the special European Council, made a detailed statement on our approach and the activity in support of the Middle East peace process.
We set out very clearly the measures in the European Council that we believe are necessary to restore momentum to the peace process.
We will continue actively to use our influence with the regional parties with a view to promoting progress on the basis of the existing agreements.
The Union will continue to monitor the talks between Israel and the Palestinians, which are at a very complex and delicate stage, as we have seen over the last 24 to 48 hours.
My recent visit to the region underlined the Union's full support for the efforts to revitalize the peace process and other visits to the region by European leaders, such as that of President Chirac, are further concrete expressions of European interest and engagement in the Middle East and of our common concern to promote the objective of a just, comprehensive and lasting peace.
Inquiries were made and questions were asked whether or not we would be taking further action and we are at the moment putting together plans for a troika visit to the region before the end of the Irish presidency.
To reply to Mr Teverson who asked two questions: flexibility is on the agenda and it will have to be debated.
France and Germany have made a contribution to the debate, but the outcome will have to be acceptable to all Member States given the nature of the Intergovernmental Conference, and I do not see that process as aiming to isolate any one Member State.
Will there be another Intergovernmental Conference?
As chairman of the Intergovernmental Conference, I certainly hope not.
This is the opportunity for Europe to get on and make the decisions. Certainly, at Dublin, the focus was on making decisions and getting our business done by Amsterdam in June 1997.
That, I believe, is in the interest of all Member States and certainly is in the interest of Europe for what we want to do for the future.
I welcome the opportunity of having this exchange with you.
I welcome the contributions made by you and the focus that you have put on the issues as they are before us for the Council.
I will certainly benefit from this discussion as we have our General Affairs Council meeting on 28 and 29 October.
It is my intention for the remainder of the Irish presidency to work very closely with Parliament and to share with you the ambitions of the presidency and the energies and efforts which we are going to put into the presidency to make sure that we address the issues.
There are many of them to be addressed by us on a day-to-day basis and I certainly look forward to working with you in the future.
I would just point out to Mrs Roth, who made some references to the President of the Commission and myself in some Hans Christian Andersen expression, that I would welcome an opportunity of explaining to her many of the issues on the agenda by the Irish presidency.
I am sure I could convince her that not only are we well clothed, but we are fully briefed as well!
(Laughter and applause)
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken at midday.
Elimination of poverty
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on events to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Poverty.
It is a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity to speak to Parliament to mark World Poverty Day.
Globally there are various definitions of poverty and varying estimates of the number of people living in extreme poverty.
The United Nations estimates that there are 1.3 billion people, mainly women, children, the elderly, the disabled and indigenous people, migrants and refugees who subsist on less than the equivalent of one dollar a day and are excluded from full participation in the life of their society and the benefits of citizenship.
In one form or another, poverty and social exclusion are to be found in every country, every city and every town on the face of this planet.
Poverty and exclusion are profoundly disturbing phenomena.
We in this relatively advantaged part of the world must ask ourselves why one group of countries has succeeded in eliminating absolute poverty while others have not; why technological and economic progress has succeeded in bettering only the privileged few, not the world as a whole; why, when tentative steps towards broadly-based economic growth happened in the 1960s, they petered out leaving many countries with only the crippling burden of debt; and the most challenging question of all: does the very pattern of wealth accumulation ensure that in the world at large and within individual countries the enrichment of one person entails the impoverishment of another? The World Poverty summit in Copenhagen last year set us all the ambitious aim of eliminating absolute poverty world-wide.
It also set us a second important objective: the substantial reduction of overall poverty and inequalities within countries.
In my capacity as Social Welfare Minister in Ireland and as president of the Social Affairs Council in Europe, it is in regard to this area of relative poverty and inequalities within the Union that I wish to address the main body of my speech today.
The very clear message I took from Copenhagen was that the onus for action in countries such as Ireland rested with ourselves and so I came home resolved to launch a serious assault on poverty.
I found that there were, of course, immediate practical steps to be taken which had at least a partial impact on poverty.
Over the last two years we, in Ireland, have accordingly increased the universal child benefit by almost 50 %.
It is a good, targeted anti-poverty measure and it was an important first step.
But beyond immediately practical measures to tackle poverty I felt that we needed something more: a substantial change in mind-sets and in administrative practices, a change in the process of decision-making.
Based on my proposal, the Irish Government has made a commitment to a national anti-poverty strategy which has the aim of placing the needs of the poor and the socially excluded at the heart of the government policy development process.
This is a mammoth task but we are making progress in stages, in full consultation with the voluntary and non-governmental organizational sector in Ireland.
The key policy areas identified for action are: educational disadvantage, unemployment - particularly long-term unemployment - income adequacy, regenerating disadvantaged areas with concentrations of poverty and tackling poverty in rural areas.
The next stage of the proposals for action in each of the five key policy areas will be brought to government for decision.
As the strategy develops I hope we will be able to share our experience with other Member States in whatever forum may be appropriate and useful.
I am very hopeful that the entire exercise will stimulate positive change.
Consider educational disadvantage, for example.
Research suggests that a country increases its GDP by 9 % for every extra year of primary education it gives its people.
Education also reduces inequality.
The World Bank says that just a 1 % rise in the proportion of the labour force which receives secondary education increases the share of income received by the poorest half of the population by between 6 and 15 %.
It adds that countries that give priority to basic human capabilities in schooling, health and nutrition not only directly enhance wellbeing but are also more likely to see improving income distributions and higher average incomes over the long-term.
While some people might argue that this holds true only for the developing world, the OECD states that it is also true for the industrialized world.
It says that if countries do not have enough educated workers, skill shortages and inflationary bottlenecks build up, people with good qualifications are in high demand and their wages go up, but the rest are left behind.
Thus an expansion of basic education provision can be both a targeted anti-poverty measure and an investment for general economic growth.
Everybody wins from such an assault on poverty.
As the resolution before you today states, it is estimated that more than 52 million people live in poverty in the European Union.
These figures include 17 million people unemployed and three million who are homeless.
Poverty is now acknowledged as a serious problem by the European institutions and a challenge to the way Europe should develop in the next century.
The current European consensus on tackling poverty could be summarized to the effect that social and economic progress must go hand-in-hand: high levels of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion undermine the European Union's commonly agreed objectives of high standards in employment, social protection and equal opportunities for women.
The role of the European Union has been to encourage Member States to adopt minimum standards of social protection to ensure that social entitlements gained in one state may be transferred to another, to monitor progress towards higher standards of social protection and to fund a number of initiatives and programmes against poverty.
All this is eminently worthwhile but the question is: is it enough? I think all of us who are committed to European integration will admit to a lack of certainty at the moment.
We are busy with the big projects, such as EMU, and at the same time we are worried that Europe is failing to address the real needs of so many of our citizens.
Nor, for the most part, do we have a clear vision of how the European Union can be made to do this effectively in the near future.
There are valid criticisms to made of the Maastricht Treaty's imbalance between the economic and social dimensions but the question now is: how do we modify Maastricht to reflect best such an equilibrium? Let us consider the social dimension.
The inter-governmental conference which opened in Turin last March and which continues under the Irish presidency, offers us an opportunity to redress the shortcomings of Maastricht and to begin to establish a framework in which social policy considerations and the market are in balance.
A major aim of the Irish presidency is to advance the work of the IGC in this direction.
The Florence European Council set a challenging mandate for the IGC in providing that the Irish presidency should aim to bring forward to the Dublin Council in December a general outline for a draft revision of the Treaties with a view to the IGC being able to complete work as envisaged by mid-1997.
The overriding objective of the Irish presidency is that the IGC should contribute to the development of the European Union in a way that corresponds to the aspirations of the people of Europe, is relevant to their everyday concerns and responsive to their needs.
This means that we must confront squarely the current situation whereby in the European Union there is a serious lack of balance between the strong legal and financial instruments available for economic policy and those dealing with poverty, inequality, unemployment and the labour market.
In purely economic terms the integrated market of 350 million people will be highly inefficient if 52 million people are too poor to consume the goods and services offered in that market.
Equally, the onus on public expenditure to support a large number of elderly, unemployed and poor people generally could be a heavy burden on the Union whose working-age labour force of 133 million is already less than half the total population.
Again, if we can develop strategies which will lessen the burden on welfare systems and equip those 52 million people to contribute and to consume on a par with the rest of society, then everybody wins.
I have sought to use my time as chairman of the Social Affairs Council to encourage a reflection on how social protection systems might contribute to such a spiral of positive social gain.
The starting-point must be a recognition that the economic and labour market context in which these systems operate has changed dramatically within our lifetime.
Imbalances between the supply and demand for labour have given rise to an unprecedented, persistent and high level of unemployment.
This can reach very high concentrations in certain regions, in urban ghettos and among groups such as young people and those who are poorly educated and unskilled.
This is precisely the type of poverty and inequality which presents us with the principal challenge at European level if we are to meet our Copenhagen commitment.
In the past the main aim of European social protection was to provide an adequate replacement income to people experiencing unemployment or illness.
Happily, Europe can record a great deal of success in regard to this objective.
However, it is necessary for us to re-examine critically whether these original objectives are sufficient in the current climate and to review whether there may not be aspects of our social protection policies which of themselves can impact on the incidence of unemployment and therefore on poverty and inequality.
To that end I hosted an informal Council in Dublin last July.
In essence the Council agreed there that the challenge facing social protection systems is to take on new objectives concerning the prevention of unemployment and the reintegration of the unemployed.
In view of our discussions in July I would propose a resolution for agreement at the Social Affairs Council in December which sets out how the Union and individual Member States might implement this role in a complementary way.
It is vital, given the unprecedented degree of focus on the unemployment issue generally within the Union, via the Essen process and the Santer pact, that social protection ministries should increasingly engage with, and contribute to, these processes rather than see their role in terms of passively dealing with the consequences of unemployment.
It is, moreover, vital to the interests of the people of Europe that labour market and employment policy decisions are not taken solely on the basis of fiscal priorities.
Thus I am confident that by the end of the Irish presidency we will be able to report progress on the way Europe is tackling unemployment.
It is, however, a matter of personal regret that we are unlikely to be able to record any progress on such simple, limited but valuable proposals as the fourth exclusion programme commonly known as Poverty IV and Actions in favour of the Elderly.
Look again at how the Commission's three earlier programmes against poverty worked.
They reached out to local groups.
They gave rise not to a big programme which was remote from citizens but to a series of small local initiatives.
Paradoxically, the supposedly remote and undemocratic bureaucracy of Brussels taught Ireland, for instance, some lessons on how to reach out to, and involve, some of our most marginalized citizens.
It seems to me a great pity that such worthwhile programmes, which did not in my view threaten national competences, should have foundered on the rocks of subsidiarity.
My primary aim in relation to Union action against social exclusion is practical.
I want to be able to re-open the route by which Ireland has learned and mainstreamed the lessons of Poverty I, II and III, not just for Ireland's sake, of course, but for all the Union who gained similarly from the poverty programmes and, indeed, for all those who will join us in the future.
That is why Ireland has proposed a specific Treaty change in the area of social exclusion.
As a result of such a change three things would happen.
Firstly, the competence of the European Union to engage in anti-poverty programmes would be clarified so that such actions will have a clear legal basis.
Secondly, this will permit more significant European poverty initiatives in the future.
Thirdly - and perhaps most importantly - we would keep the idea that Europe has responsibilities in the fight against poverty squarely on the agenda.
Ireland already supports incorporation of the social chapter into the Treaty.
Our IGC proposal is also consistent with the view of the Commission in its IGC opinion which urged clear Treaty provisions for cooperation between states on matters of social policy such as the fight against marginalization and poverty.
The Commission has since expanded on that earlier opinion in its contribution to the IGC of 23 September where it proposes an updated and fully integrated social chapter.
In my view this proposal would complement my government's proposal.
More broadly, I want to see the aim of fighting exclusion and one of its principal causes, unemployment, become more central to the activities of the Union.
I repeat: the current IGC offers us the opportunity to improve on Maastricht, to reconcile the claims both of competitiveness and social protection within the Union and to eliminate the potential for social dumping between Member States.
Our social protection systems, properly managed and modified as appropriate to reflect changing economic, demographic and labour force circumstances, serve us very well as a positive factor in the productivity of the Union.
We have to integrate social and economic policies, not segregate them.
The alternative is to continue to consign millions of European citizens to lives of diminished hope and opportunity.
I welcome this opportunity to reflect on the potential of social policy and in particular on the potential to develop social protection and social exclusion policies in a European context.
I should like to thank you for the opportunity of sharing my views with you as to what we can do together to respond to the needs and hopes of the people of Europe.
In turn, I look forward to your views and those of the Commission on poverty, social policy and related issues.
As a former Member of this Parliament, it is always a pleasure to return here and share in discourse with parliamentary colleagues.
(Applause)
My warmest thanks to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr De Rossa.
Madam President, I wish to thank the Irish presidency sincerely for helping to initiate this debate to mark the International Day for the Elimination of Poverty and because the Irish presidency has made the fight against exclusion one of its highest priorities.
I also wish to thank the Commissioner for making his stand on this vital issue so clear today and two weeks ago when he came before the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
The resolution we have tabled here today is not just concerned with poverty inside the borders of the European Union but also globally - and I agree with what both the Minister and the Commissioner have said on that front.
To make it absolutely clear, in our resolution I will accept some of the amendments by Mrs Schörling, on behalf of the Green Group.
Although our resolution is not just concerned with poverty inside the European Union there has to be something badly wrong when in this wealthy part of the globe over 50m of our fellow citizens are shackled by poverty.
Article 2 of the Treaty - it is worth re-reading - promises sustainable growth, a high level of employment and social protection and the raising of the standard of living and the quality of life.
For too many millions of our fellow citizens those words are no more than empty rhetoric.
Our Finance Ministers are mostly locking themselves into the final drive towards economic and monetary union, and I support that move towards monetary union.
But let us accept today that it cannot and must not be won at the cost of the hopes, the needs and the aspirations of so many of our people.
There has to be balance.
But I wonder where the balance is when, to my shame, my own government has been instrumental in securing in the Court of Justice the suspension of payment of ECU 12m to the elderly, the poor - those pushed to the very margins of our society.
The word has to go out far and wide - the Commissioner is absolutely right on this point - to the people of Europe, the churches and the organizations working with the excluded to represent their interests.
They have to demand that their ministers - not all ministers are like Mr De Rossa - will work within the Intergovernmental Conference to deliver two things that we really need to do our job at European level.
Firstly, an employment chapter to give us the tools to begin to tackle unemployment and particularly long-term unemployment in a coordinated way across the Union.
Secondly, a solid basis in the Treaty for programmes of action to assist those excluded and most in need.
Only with the action to give reality to those promises in Article 2 will this become a Union worthy of the name.
Without that, quite frankly, the Union will not deserve to succeed.
I sincerely wish to thank Minister De Rossa personally for his commitment to the battle in this field.
Madam President, I would like to join my colleagues in welcoming the President-in-Office to the House and also to welcome Commissioner Flynn.
However, after those two platitudes, there are serious and very hard-hitting measures and issues to be discussed.
I think that when we look here today and listen to the speeches that are made, each of us will lay out our stall, we will say how we feel so badly that the most powerful economic bloc in the world, the European Union, has so many people long-term unemployed.
We will say we must do something, we must continue the fight, we must do X, Y and Z and at the end of the day we end up with a court decision and a government saying that you cannot spend money on that.
And what has the President-in-Office done here today? He has shown us the kind of actions that could be taken, the positive steps that could be made.
Unfortunately, the President-in-Office has not been able to convince his colleagues in the Council of the value and the benefit of those and we must push harder to ensure that we get those messages across.
In his speech the President-in-Office mentioned the national anti-poverty programme strategy which he put in place in the Irish government.
That is something that could be used as a blueprint for a European model.
Please get it on the agenda.
It is even more horrific for me as an Irish person - and I am sure Commissioner Flynn as well - that the whole idea of an anti-poverty strategy in Europe came from a former Irish Commissioner, Commissioner Hillery.
We can see the tremendous work that was done with the tiny amounts of money that were given in the previous programmes and all that was achieved; it allowed people to feel empowered.
The point about the Paul partnership in Limerick or the Pavee Centre in Dublin, which were funded under the poverty programme, was not that they were agency-led or agency-based but they were issue-led by the people who were involved and the people who were affected most of all.
Unfortunately I do not have enough time to go on, but to conclude - and seeing as how we are in an Irish vein - I want to quote you George Bernard Shaw, who said: ' To hate our fellow man is not the ultimate sin.
To be apathetic towards him, that is the essence of inhumanity' .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the quality of a society is to be measured in terms of how it treats its poorest members and not in terms of economic performance.
I believe that we should stress this point on the International Day for the Elimination of Poverty and at the same time stress that the European Union also has a responsibility in this area.
I should like to thank the Irish presidency for the initiative it is taking on this point. However, I must also express my concern at the fact that here in the budget debate we have to fight so hard in order to obtain, in the Council procedure which follows, the small amount of money which is available from the European budget to fund programmes concerned with combatting poverty and with the situation of elderly people in Europe.
We should be ashamed at this and I am not optimistic regarding the outcome of these negotiations with the Council.
But I do wish the Irish presidency success in this and offer it my full support.
But we must do more.
We also have the duty to look at areas where we can do something about poverty.
If I as rapporteur for example, look at the demographic data on Europe I see that progressively fewer numbers of people will be productively participating in the labour market, that we will have more elderly people, and fewer young people.
We must pursue an integrated policy in regard to social security costs.
At European level we must also have the courage to consider shifting the charges on work to other areas if in future we want to be able to increase retirement pensions for Europe's citizens.
We must do that together, as otherwise people will always say that certain items cannot be included on the agenda due to reasons of competition.
We must also ensure that this whole problem is debated at the next WTO negotiations.
If we do so then we can look the underprivileged in the eye. Otherwise we cannot.
Madam President, I think we should also thank the Minister and the Commissioner for their sensitivity about International Poverty Day, because the Minister is right.
According to the last report on human development from the United Nations, 1, 300 million people are poorer than 15 years ago and 89 countries are poorer than 10 years ago.
Thirteen million children die every year from preventable disease and 200 million children are undernourished.
Meanwhile the world spends 800, 000 million dollars on military budgets - and I do not even want to calculate the volume that represents.
The Commission has set out a grand definition of what constitutes poverty: people lacking in social, economic and cultural rights and who are excluded from the normal life of the community.
The truth is there are 52 million poor people, three million homeless people and 17 million unemployed people in Europe.
In my own country - I refer to my country and Portugal, perhaps because they are very close together - there are seven million poor people and a third of the Portuguese population is at the poverty level.
And the levels of unemployment, insecure employment, poverty affecting women and the situation of older people, increasingly numerous, are going to spread poverty in Europe, a privileged continent compared to the rest of the world but a continent with enormous problems.
It seems to us that the cuts proposed by the Council in the budgets for the coming year and the cuts proposed by the individual countries to meet the convergence criteria are producing definite social data proving that we are not going in the right direction.
The blocking of the Poverty IV programme is a disgrace.
The pilot projects in Poverty III demonstrated their effectiveness in helping people make progress.
So you are right, Commissioner, Minister. The revision of the Treaty needs to include a legal framework making it possible to advance in that direction and, of course, to take decisions by a majority to prevent the continued blocking of important programmes in this area.
Madam President, dear colleagues! This is not just a celebration of the international day for the eradication of poverty, but also the international year and decade , 1997-2006, for the eradication of poverty.
The initiative taken by the UN to focus on the world&#x02BC;s poverty problems and on the fact that the differences between poor and rich and South and North are growing all the time is absolutely necessary.
We need to remind ourselves that a fifth of the world&#x02BC;s population, in other words, the rich industrial nations, have at their disposal 85 % of the world&#x02BC;s resources, expressed in GNP.
There are currently more people dying of poverty and starvation than as a result of war.
According to FAO statistics 800 million people suffer from hunger.
Unfortunately this year, and this day has perhaps not been observed as it ought to have been.
We politicians, of course, have a particular responsibility in this respect.
It is for this reason that I welcome the Council and Commission&#x02BC;s speeches here to day.
I also welcome the resolution which we in the Social Committee have adopted through our President.
The resolution raises many important aspects, particularly the focus on the 52 million poor in Europe.
Of course we have a particular responsibility to fight social rejection and poverty within Europe and the EU but we must not forget the world outside.
According to the UNDP&#x02BC;s "Human Development Index' only four countries in Europe, those such as Azerbaijan and Armenia, fall into the lower half of the table of 174 countries.
Against this background, Madam President, it is shocking and sad that the EU is reducing its development aid to the poorest countries and to Non Governmental Organisations.
Dear colleagues, let us not only show solidarity when we vote for the resolution but also when we vote for the budget here tomorrow.
Madam President, it is undoubtedly fortunate that, once a year, we give thought to eradicating the poverty which continues to increase in a world where prosperity goes hand in hand with inequality.
It enables us at least to pay tribute to the outstanding work of the NGOs.
Nevertheless, let us not be hypocrites.
Looking only at the European Union, the fight against poverty will require a pugnacity which, it must be said, the European institutions have not always shown us.
The facts are there, however.
Poverty today is spreading.
It affects nearly 55 million people over the whole Union and we know the extent to which young people, women and single-parent families are the first victims.
So what can we do? I listened to you, Mr President-in-Office, with considerable hope and I believe that education and the fight against unemployment are equally effective elements in this difficult struggle against exclusion.
However, the European Union will only be really effective if it can renounce the economic ultra-liberalism at its heart, if it can focus its action on the construction of a social Europe that cares for the dignity and well-being of its citizens.
Madam President, I trust you will not hold it against me if in just one minute's speaking time I do not look for examples of poverty far from home but try to open people's eyes to the misery and poverty suffered by so many of our own people.
In structural terms, poverty in the European Union countries is a problem which principally threatens to affect families with children.
Combatting poverty in our own countries must therefore principally take the form of offering material and moral support to families and above all families which often have to survive on one income - and very often a very modest one at that - by ensuring an in-built priority for our own people when it comes to employment and social welfare.
In my own country I see that the government is doing the very opposite and seeking to make so-called savings on child benefit while at European level you need only take a quick glance at the budget to see, without any exaggeration, that a great deal of money is being thrown out of the window.
I am therefore very critical of yet another international day against poverty, yet another day with a lot of hot air and little substance.
Madam President, President-in-Office, Commissioner, colleagues, in recommending this resolution to you I want to draw your attention to the views of the people of Europe.
The most recent 1994 Eurobarometer survey on the perception of poverty and social exclusion in Europe indicates that most Europeans believe that the levels of poverty and social exclusion have increased in the last ten years and that the gap between rich and poor is growing.
The Europeans surveyed, who were a large and representative sample, attribute the growth in poverty and inequality to the increase in long-term unemployment and the loss of solidarity within European societies.
Our citizens believe that there should be a concerted, integrated approach by the public authorities to combat poverty and social exclusion, 89 % believing that the European Union should be intervening.
Despite what has been said this morning, little is known about the action that the EU has taken, and amongst those who do know about it the majority believe that it is insufficient.
I believe that the perceptions of our European citizens are accurate.
The European Union has not taken concerted action to address the multidimensional issues, the causes and consequences of poverty.
That is why in this resolution we are calling for a Commission taskforce to be established with the common purpose to develop far more integrated strategies and to coordinate the use of Community resources to combat social exclusion in the European Union.
That is why within our resolution we are calling for solidarity and condemning the action of certain Member States, led by the United Kingdom, who have caused the suspension of the funding programmes aimed at benefiting the poor and socially excluded including the elderly.
That is why we are calling for changes in the Treaty.
It is not just a call to arms, Mr Flynn, but a call for compassion and a call for action at European level.
Madam President, the effect of poverty on an individual is more devastating than anything, save for violations of his rights and dignity.
Poverty is an assault on the family.
Only the poor know what it is to be poor.
In my report of March this year, I stated that there are 52 million people living in poverty in Europe; although dating back to 1988, that statistic should prevent us sleeping at night.
But how are we to defeat this scourge and provide relief to these people living in poverty?
Well now, one solution is that all of Europe's citizens should be educated and trained to be better at sharing poverty.
Let me make myself clear. Citizens trained to save, to distribute resources in circumstances in which industry expands not for its own sake but to achieve a social objective; where our energies are used for the common weal and politics achieves its highest goal of thinking first of those who have been abandoned, the misfits, those without families, the sick, the handicapped, the unemployed, those who are homeless and lack the comfort they need to survive.
Winter is approaching and a severe crisis in employment will take away any prospect of development.
An industrial revolution that we neither foresaw nor fully evaluated will affect men and women together with their children at the peak of their working life - and none of us will be able to anything in the immediate future.
When it made 30, 000 employees redundant, IBM in America has had to take on psychiatrists to help the scientists who were on the brink of insanity and extreme poverty.
Now, my friends, let us not let World Poverty Day go by in vain!
Let us do something concrete, let us give these poor people - and give to them directly! - a subsidy to secure the minimum for survival, not just the legislative basis: a few ECU will do the trick.
Let us set up reception centres directly linked to our institution.
We have to understand that the principle of subsidiarity does not provide adequate responses to ensure that this Europe of ours is appreciated for what it is, that is to say a supreme body which, in order to be united and to unite, needs first and foremost to secure the primary good, namely the health, dignity, development and protection of its children, Europe's citizens.
Madam President, last Friday I went to a neighbourhood in my constituency where up to 80 % of the households are in receipt of some form of welfare payment.
They have many problems and yet in spite of these - or perhaps even because of these - there is an enormous commitment to community spirit to fight back.
Some time ago they submitted a well-researched, modest but focused proposal to the Commission for funding to systematically tackle the problem of a high drop-out rate from school at an early age.
This phenomenon, perhaps more than most, perpetuates social exclusion.
Their application so far has gone nowhere.
This is not because of its quality, nor is it because of an unwillingness on the part of the Commission to consider it.
It arises because of the mean-spirited Eurosceptically-driven case brought by the UK government against the Commission on the question of legal competence in the domain of social exclusion.
I felt ashamed, Madam President, in this neighbourhood that refused to be marginalized, that right now there is nothing I can do.
However, my political conviction is reinforced that whatever happens in the Court of Justice, which we must respect, the Intergovernmental Conference must change the rules for social policy to avoid being taken hostage by individual states.
I refuse to accept that neighbourhoods that exist on a social or economic margin should be of no concern whatsoever to Europe.
If today's debate, Mr President-in-Office, can underline any message, the message is: take the courage and conviction from here that the rules must be changed.
Madam President, I too wish to thank the President-in-Office and the Commissioner for their statements.
Although we do not have analytical data on poverty at a European level, the estimates given by the Commission and the individual Member States show that it is on the increase.
It is on the increase above all because of the growth in unemployment; the increase in the number of insecure and atypical jobs; and, increasingly as compared with the past, it has to be recognized that it is possible to have a job and still be poor.
Above all, as well as producing poverty, the growing prevalence of insecure jobs causes other harm: it both increases inequalities and poses a threat to social welfare systems.
All governments are having to contend with budgetary problems and all governments are having to contend with the problem of being constrained to reduce public social welfare measures.
What then is to be done? A suggestion for the Commission: in the same way as we have economic indicators on inflation and gross domestic product that are able to gauge the performance of the economy and the effects of economic and monetary policies, we need to set in place, at a European level, poverty indicators as a means of checking on the effectiveness of the social policies that are being applied.
I wish therefore to ask the Commission to undertake effective action in that direction.
I listened with great interest to what the President-in-Office had to say.
Two things have to be done promptly.
One of them immediately: succeed in persuading all of the Member States that we have to reach agreement on the issue of the legal bases and provide for resources in the Community budget.
I think we should be ashamed of having cut resources.
The second issue concerns the Intergovernmental Conference.
I wish to put a question to myself and to honourable Members, to the Commission and the Council. If Europe does not manage to promote social justice, to affirm the right to work and the dignity of the individual, then I think it is legitimate to ask: ' what is the point of the integration process?'
Madam President, I cannot help but be impressed that, here in the European Parliament, one of the richest places in the world, we are holding a debate on the problem of growing poverty, a fact in today's society.
Out of respect for those suffering from it we cannot restrict ourselves to good intentions, possibly finding solutions which do not really solve the problems at the root.
Realistically we must bear in mind that poverty, like all social problems, cannot only be done away with by increasing public spending which, although undoubtedly necessary, calls for a dynamic market economy, but it is attracting private investment which in the end creates jobs.
On the other hand, it is vital to bear in mind that poverty is to a great extent the fruit of improper planning, with people flocking to the big metropolitan areas, leading to a vicious circle where increasing amounts of public spending are being wasted.
In Portugal, the area around Lisbon, despite a huge concentration of public resources, has been one of the fastest growing regions in the whole EU in recent years.
Even if this is not to their personal taste, politicians have to promote a much more balanced urban network as this is the only way of fighting effectively against this scourge which puts us all to shame - it is the only way of really helping people suffering from poverty.
Madam President, only chance dictates that we have now moved on from the debate on the reform conference to the subject of poverty, but it is highly appropriate!
All of us here are joining together to agitate for action against poverty, while at the same time the Council of Ministers is binding our hands.
The main cause of poverty is unemployment, and it is certainly no matter of chance that it is precisely the United Kingdom and Germany, who filed the suit against the poverty programme, that have also opposed the employment chapter in the new Treaty.
Those two national governments are responsible for the fact that ECU 12 million are now frozen, and many projects are likely to have to wait 20 months before a decision can be taken.
In every country, low incomes are associated with reduced educational opportunities for children, poor diet and health care and increasing homelessness.
A particularly striking statistic is that the German Society for the Protection of Children believes there are as many as 50, 000 so-called street children.
In West Germany and the United Kingdom there has been a widening of the divide between rich and poor since the 1980s, and in fact both categories have increased in size.
Parliament and the Commission long ago offered to negotiate with the Council of Ministers to establish legal bases for various programmes.
Despite the Irish efforts, nothing has been done.
It is essential, therefore, that in future the Council of Ministers should adopt social programmes by a majority rather than unanimously.
Poverty is not a natural disaster.
To combat poverty and to integrate the poor into our society, we need a long-term strategy which effectively and continuously coordinates national and European concepts.
Mr President-in-Office, it is not just that about one-seventh of the European Union's population is afflicted by poverty.
It is not just that the number of poor people correspond, in terms of population, to one of Europe's large countries or to about half of the fifteen that we call small countries.
What matters is that they constitute a second, parallel world, the world of next-door.
Consequently, the fight against and the elimination of poverty should be the European Union's prime target and first priority.
I fear that it is not.
I wish it were, and we are striving to make it so, to rid the European Union of the shame of its refusal to promote programmes to combat poverty.
There is no place here for any legalistic sterility or bureaucratic or accounting small-mindedness.
Mr De Rossa, I enjoyed your speech.
I hope that your country, and I wish the same to you too Mr Flynn, that Dublin will become the place where institutional reviews are brought in that result in the creation of a new legal base for a social policy to fight poverty.
Madam President, in order to make up for my forgetfulness, I should like to introduce gender mainstreaming into my two amendments to the resolution on poverty.
A differential analysis according to sex revealed to Mr Boutros Ghali in Copenhagen that 70 % of the very poor are women.
The proportion is the same in Europe.
Poverty has become a female condition here.
Women, who have entered the world of work in massive numbers, mostly have insecure or part-time jobs.
They suffer discrimination of all kinds.
They form 55 % of the long-term unemployed and 90 % are heads of one-parent families.
Women in Europe are therefore still the excluded among the excluded.
Despite all these obstacles, here, like everywhere else, they do two thirds of total work.
They are the main agents in promoting lasting development and in providing for the education of future generations.
I therefore stress that our committees must institute gender mainstreaming so that all the EU authorities and the governments of Member States include women in action programmes for the elimination of poverty, on a par with men in taking political, economic, social and cultural decisions.
I insist that the IGC officially recognize equality between men and women as a fundamental right.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council.
I have received a motion for a resolution pursuant Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place in a moment.
VOTES
Madam President, I think there is so much commotion in the Chamber and such different ideas of what is being put to the vote that I would be very grateful if we could vote again to check that the vote was correct.
Would that be possible?
As was clearly stated, it was a roll-call vote.
Your vote is recorded.
If you pressed the wrong key, you can still tell us and that will appear in the minutes. But you know very well that I cannot take the vote again.
Whilst accepting that you cannot take that vote again, if Members notify the services that they wish to change their vote and that takes us over the threshold at 313, can you inform the House whether it will now be declared as carried in that situation?
I am well aware that for some Members there was perhaps a problem, but quite honestly I cannot take the vote again.
Madam President, it would be wrong if our votes were determined on the basis of faulty equipment.
I tried to press the green button to vote 'Yes' but it did not register.
It is wrong if we are making decisions in this Parliament based on faulty technical equipment.
Madam President, through no fault of yours there was nothing on the screen to indicate which report we were voting on.
There is a lot of noise in the Chamber and it is impossible to follow this vote.
There is a delay between you calling the vote and what is appearing on the screen.
It is very difficult to follow this vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, even if a moment's daydreaming distracts your attention from our voting sheet, you still have, fortunately, our Group leaders to guide you.
I listen to you with a great deal of respect, obviously, and I am taking note of your remarks, but that is all I can do.
The Danish social democrats do not feel that the time is ripe to remove the controls on persons at the EU's internal frontiers.
We are therefore abstaining on the reports on this subject by Mr Lehne, Mr Ford and Mr Linzer.
Regardless of the need to implement the internal market, in our view we have to take the problems of drugs and arms smuggling very seriously.
These problems have not become any smaller because of the internal market.
Only effective controls on persons at the internal frontiers give us a reasonable chance of stamping out this form of crime, and therefore we cannot do without them until these problems have been solved.
Ford report
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament which will be supporting my report on free movement.
It is a pity that the Commission does not stay here for the explanations of vote, because it might learn something about why this Parliament adopts particular positions.
The Treaty of Rome states that there should be free movement of goods, services, capital and people.
The first three of these have had their seven-league boots on for some time, while the last has been left to hobble forward unaided by the Commission.
Even now the directive the Commission has given us is a little bit of a poisoned chalice: it is free movement 'if' ; free movement 'if' Spain and Britain sign the internal frontiers directive; ' if' Spain and Britain resolve their problems over Gibraltar; ' if' the Dublin Convention is ratified.
But Parliament wants progress now and the Socialist Group wants progress now so that we get free movement of Europe's 12 to 14 million legal third-country nationals living in the European Union; free movement for the 4 million black Europeans we have in our midst; free movement of blind people without the nonsense of the current quarantine regulations for guide dogs which, as we know, do not work.
The Commission recently responded to a question of mine by saying that in the last five years not one single case of rabies had been detected while dogs were held in quarantine, costing us tens of millions of pounds.
Free movement of football supporters, unrestrained by over-officious policing when they have not been convicted of hooliganism or racism.
We will be watching very carefully now what the Council of Ministers does on these proposals.
Parliament will not tolerate delay.
We welcome open borders.
It is satisfying that the internal market is being created so that people can move freely across borders.
We have had a similar system in Scandinavia for a long time and it works extremely well.
But, the fact that people can move freely across the borders involves risks, however, not least of which is that drugs can be moved across borders more easily.
In order to prevent this from happening and yet still allow free movement compensatory measures are called for.
Such compensatory measures can, for example, include increased police co-operation.
If it deems it appropriate A Member State ought to be able to check a person at its national border if it suspects that that person has violated the country&#x02BC;s laws and regulations.
To speak about removing internal border controls without linking this to additional activities is wrong.
The removal of internal border controls must be linked to additional, compensatory measures.
So far no real proposals for such additional measures have been put forward.
First, we must be clear what we mean by additional measures, because there is a risk of increased drug trafficking between Member States of the EU and because criminals will be given greater opportunities to use the lack of border controls to avoid being brought to justice.
Each Member State should be free to decide for themselves what form and level of internal border control to implement between EU Member Countries.
Free movement of people within the EU will not be put at risk by the fact that people may be checked at internal border controls.
If, for example, Sweden is to maintain its current regulations concerning the import of alcohol, we must have the opportunity to check people crossing our borders.
Linzer report
Madam President, the Commission has presented us today with three proposals for Directives seeking to remove all controls from persons at all internal frontiers of the Union.
This line of thought seems to us insane.
This is certainly not the time, when migratory pressures are increasing around Europe, to implement a reform conceived in another age, when the Berlin wall still separated us from the East and the African economy had not yet plumbed the depths it has reached today.
The Council seems to have reacted well by proposing common action which would have reinforced controls on nationals of third countries travelling inside the Union, but which was broadly at variance with the three draft Directives of the Commission.
Unfortunately, the Council seems to have retreated before the arm-waving of extremist supporters of free movement who, nevertheless, represent virtually no sector of public opinion.
We call on it for a burst of courage.
In fact, not only is the principle behind three draft proposals for a Directive a bad one, but the methods give nothing in return.
The so-called compensatory measures would compensate nothing at all and the so-called safeguarding clause is only for thirty days, a derisory period of time in face of the strength of the migratory pressures and their duration, which is reckoned in decades.
Moreover, the three proposals make absolutely no reference, not even in visas, to the permanent right of Member States to preserve the security of the public in their own territory, a right they have under Articles 36, 48, 100a and others in the Treaty.
This omission, which is certainly not fortuitous, speaks volumes about the Commission's intention to abolish all the defences of States in this area.
Finally, we can get the measure of the Commission's audacity when we see it peremptorily brush aside the general declaration of States that are signatories to the Single Act, according to which none of these provisions, and I quote, affects 'the right of Member States to take such measures as they consider necessary for the purpose of controlling immigration from third countries, and to combat terrorism, crime, the traffic in drugs and illicit trading in works of art and antiques' .
According to the Commission, this declaration is worthless since it would render Article 7a of the Treaty ineffective but, clearly, States adopted this detailed formulation because they felt that Article 7a was ambiguously drafted and wished to clarify it.
The Commission has no right to delete such texts with the stroke of a pen, except to demonstrate its outrageous claim to be above the wishes of the people!
It is obvious that citizens from other countries should have the same rights as citizens of the Union to move freely across the borders.
But this involves just the same increased risk of movement of unlawful substances such as narcotics across the borders as free movement for Union citizens does.
It is, therefore, of greatest importance that free movement is supplemented with compensatory measures.
Of course citizens from other countries who have residence and work permits for one of the EU countries should be able to move freely within the European Union in just the same way as citizens from EU countries do.
But, in our opinion, this reports places exactly the same incorrect demands as Ford&#x02BC;s report on the removal of personal controls at internal borders.
It is wrong to speak about removing the internal border controls without replacing them with additional measures.
Removal of the internal border controls must be linked to additional, compensatory measures.
So far, no concrete proposals for such additional measures have been presented.
First, we must be clear what we mean by compensatory controls, because there is a risk of increased drug trafficking between Member States and because criminals will have greater opportunities to use the lack of controls to escape being brought to justice.
Each Member State should be free to decide for themselves what form and level of internal border controls to implement between EU Member States.
Free movement for people within the EU will not be put at risk by the fact that people may be checked at internal border controls.
If, for example, Sweden is to maintain its current regulations concerning the import of alcohol we must have the opportunity to check people who are crossing our borders.
Oomen-Ruijten recommendation
Information and education have always been the cornerstones of consumer policy.
Community measures to allow free movement of products and consumer protection must recognize the need to make it easier to evaluate quality and prices.
With comparative advertising authorized in some Member States and prohibited in others, the current situation works to the disadvantage of consumers.
It is assumed that advertising is a means of properly informing consumers so that they can make better choices.
It is therefore important for European citizens that set limits should be defined with regard to advertising so as to increase their right to the protection of their economic interests and their right to correct information as the basis for proper choice.
The aim of this directive is to harmonize the conditions for comparative advertising with a view to completing the internal market and thus facilitating the free movement of publicity services within the Union.
I will vote in favour of this important harmonization of the legislation to control comparative advertising.
Poggiolini recommendation
The Community health monitoring programme, based on Article 129 of the Treaty on European Union, is designed to protect the health of the citizens and prevent disease.
Correct operation of the Community health monitoring system will allow all the countries of the Union to set priorities in health policy based on reliable comparative data on health, and improve the viability and effectiveness of health management.
I also entirely agree that a European Health Observatory needs to be created to establish a set of health indicators, develop a data collection and distribution network for these indicators and improve analysis of them.
I end by urging the European Parliament to stand firm against the Council on the budgetary allocation for this vital programme for the Union, because the amount allocated is ridiculous and an affront to the interests of the citizens of the Union.
The Danish social democrats believe that cooperation between the EU countries in the health sector is a good thing, when we are talking about research and the exchange of statistics.
Many countries, including Denmark, may well need good ideas on how to organize their health services, and agreements can also be concluded between countries on specialized treatments.
But when, through the EU, we start to touch on the actual treatment of illness and the payment arrangements for such treatment, we are going too far.
We can appreciate that Members from countries where the health service has collapsed see a hope in the EU, but the payment of tax and thus the financing must continue to take place nationally.
It is clearly stated in Article 129 of the Maastricht Treaty that the Community - and thus the 15 Member States - shall contribute towards ensuring a high level of health protection by encouraging cooperation between the Member States and, if necessary, lending support to their action.
This proposal for a programme of Community action is entirely in keeping with the letter and the spirit of the Treaty.
It is not a question of any kind of harmonization, but of a measure whose aim - on the basis of comparable health data - is to enable the individual EU countries to establish health policy priorities and to make health policy more cost-effective and hence more efficient.
Nevertheless, in adopting its common position on the Commission's proposal, the majority in the Council of Ministers has been unable to agree on anything but to water down what is in every respect a sensible proposal for a programme of action in the field of public health.
This applies both to its financing and the shaping of the practical framework for implementing the programme.
I therefore entirely agree with the rapporteur's criticism of the common position, and with the recommendation from the Committee on the Environment.
Riis-Jørgensen recommendation
The Danish social democrats have voted today in favour of the European Parliament's proposal to change the name and the E number of alternatively refined carrageenan.
The reason is that we do not wish to see the approval of an additive which may be confused with the additive carrageenan, under the same E number.
This is partly because it is a less pure substance than carrageenan, and partly because the substances are not the same.
Carrageenan, for instance, is approved for use in breast milk substitutes, despite the fact that various studies have indicated problems with stomach pains and, in some cases, gastric ulcers in infants.
If alternatively refined carrageenan is approved with this name and virtually the same E number, we believe there is a justified fear that the substance will be approved for babies.
Furthermore, we believe that we must avoid misleading consumers and, with a view to the future use of alternatively refined carrageenan, that a clear line should be taken on this new additive.
It should therefore be called PES - processed Euchema seaweed - and given the E number E 408, instead of E 407a.
This recommendation from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection should be supported by a clear majority in Parliament.
The recommendation seeks to ensure that there is no confusion between processed Euchema seaweed - PES - and carrageenan.
In accordance with the report adopted by the House at first reading, the Committee on the Environment is recommending that the two products - PES and carrageenan - should be marketed under different E numbers.
The importance of this for consumers and their safety is clearly highlighted by the lobbying activity carried out recently in Parliament by representatives of the PES producers.
If the question of the choice of E number was unimportant, these PES producers would have taken a passive stance on the matter.
The rapporteur and the committee should be complimented on the consistency they have shown in dealing with the proposal to amend Directive 95/2/EC, and Parliament should vote massively in favour of this recommendation, both for the sake of consumers and on grounds of principle.
Florenz report
We all know there is no life without water and its importance has made it the subject of numerous interpretations throughout history, from the concept of 'Numen' in classical Greece to the cause of confrontations in the Middle East.
Water is one of the key factors in the life of human beings, so the Union needs a clear and consistent policy on this resource.
The rapporteur ably points out that water quality standards and their achievement in the Union cannot be dispersed across more than 50 directives, sometimes actually contradictory, and urges that a framework directive be submitted to Parliament, as indicated in the fifth action programme, for integrated and sustainable management of the water resources of the Union.
I conclude by recalling, once again and as always, that without strict control of both the quality and the use of our Community water, it is doubtful whether we can maintain and indeed improve water quality.
The Commission would appear to have been lacking in enthusiasm and foresight when considering this important area.
If the Commission had shown the same energy as it showed for the EMU, I would certainly have been satisfied.
Unfortunately, it appears that the Commission lacks the background, the environmental understanding, an allround perspective and proposals for concrete actions to be able to put forward a policy on the issue of water.
The area that is most lacking, in my opinion, is the all-round perspective; other areas also affect water policies.
This includes, particularly, the agriculture policy, subsidised by the EU, by which artificial plant breeding, containing many poisons, lead to serious pollution of water.
The same applies to industrial policies where lax environmental policies affect our water, and to transport policy and energy policy etc.
The Commission must take an all-round view on the issue of our water which includes all of these points, otherwise the Commission words will just be a waste of more paper (which will also pollute our water).
It is important that the EU puts forward a progressive policy in this area, but implementation shall take place at National and regional or local level.
The Commissions's communication on water policy sets out a strategy for a coherent water policy which is intended to lay down the basic principles for managing water in the Community.
The aim is that it should lead to a framework directive on water.
Unfortunately, the Commission's communication is not adequate to meet these goals.
Parliament's Committee on the Environment has therefore proposed that it should be reinforced.
It is calling on the Commission to establish criteria for prevention at source, to set tougher limit values for substances in water, and to use a combination of emission standards and environmental quality objectives in water policy.
In a letter to the Committee on the Environment, Mrs Bjerregaard has promised to comply with these demands.
In the light of this letter, the PSE Group will vote in favour of Parliament's report, since it guarantees, together with the letter from Mrs Bjerregaard, a sound water policy for the future.
Dublin European Council
Madam President, the conflict in the Middle East is extremely urgent.
It is one of the most important and most dangerous global conflicts at the moment.
The peace process has come to a halt; not much is happening.
The European Union has a relatively good reputation in this field.
The EU has been quite active, particularly this Parliament both through its resolutions and statements and through direct contacts via delegations to encourage cooperation with the Palestinian legislating Council.
We have shown our interest and our activity through visits, overseeing elections and through acting as hosts for a Palestinian visit.
Many sections within the EU have complained that EU activity, economic assistance and strong action on the Middle East conflict has gone on relatively unseen.
Now the conflict is once again on brink.
Serious events are taking place at the site of the conflict. It is incredible that the European Parliament, in this current situation, will not speak out at all and all because, as we all know here, the large party groups are in the middle of a pure Parliamentary deliberation on whether a statement now would compete with a report which will be placed before Parliament in a month&#x02BC;s time or even later.
I must say that I am extremely surprised that this has been allowed to happen.
The development of events in the Middle East cannot wait for the internal Parliamentary decision making process.
The point of making a quick statement here is that we must make it while the events are current and while it can have some effect.
How will those in the Middle East perceive the fact that several party groups have put forward proposals and that they have resulted in absolutely nothing. This can only be interpreted as a lack of interest on the part of the European Parliament or that party political deliberation must take precedence over serious action for peace.
Madam President, I am deeply disappointed.
I have enjoyed and hope to continue enjoying good cooperation with my colleagues in the large party groups on Palestine but I am deeply disappointed by their action here today.
Madam President, to close our debate on the Dublin Summit, the Europe of Nations Group, faced with the consensus motion from the socialists and centrists, tabled a motion for a resolution demanding a radical reorientation of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Of course, our proposal was rejected by the majority of this Assembly, but we were anxious to set a date. It seems to us, in fact, that the Conference is marking time today because it is stumbling along in the wrong direction.
Sadly, we see it devoting its precious time to secondary problems, like details of decision-making procedures in the European Parliament, to low priority questions, like the list of citizens' rights to be included in the Treaty, rights which are already well protected at national level, or to palpable absurdities, like the extension of majority voting in the Council.
Furthermore, the debate on the flexibility of the Union, which is perhaps the most important debate today from the strictly institutional point of view, still drags on in total confusion.
On all these matters, it seems to us that the Council is a little too much a victim of the intellectual terrorism of the federalists.
This morning's debate illustrated this very well.
How did a statement from the Commission come to be made after the Council's report, when the Council was in fact alone competent to give an account of an informal meeting that was essentially intergovernmental?
The saddest thing of all is that the intervention of the Commission showed a real political will, while that of the Council hardly showed any.
If we wish to redirect the Conference along a useful path, as described by the motion for a resolution we tabled, the Council simply must free itself from superstate dreams and agree to institute procedures appropriate to a Europe of nations.
Madam President, when the French Head of State is shouted down here in the European Parliament, we are right behind him because it is France that is abused. When he is insulted in Jerusalem by the Israeli occupying police, it is again our country that receives the insult.
The Israeli leaders should know however that no lasting peace can be based on injustice and apartheid.
The first injustice was inflicted upon the Palestinian people driven from their land by the Israelis, who claim exclusive historic possession of their land going back to Abraham.
With this type of argument, a thousand conflicts could be triggered worldwide.
Moreover, the Palestinians, whether Christian or Muslim, also claim to be descendants of Abraham.
The second injustice was inflicted upon the Christians in Lebanon, whom Mr Kissinger wished to deport to America to make room for the Palestinians. But peace in the Middle East can only be based on respect for the rights of all peoples to live freely on their land.
The Palestinians have a right to Palestinian land and to a Palestinian state.
Lebanon must be evacuated not only by Israel and by Syria, but also by the Palestinian and Iranian militia, while the Americans, who, incomprehensibly, support the Taliban and the pro-Iranian Kurds, should stop interfering ineptly in anything and everything.
Madam President, the Dublin meeting exemplified the futility and impossibility of carrying through a European CFSP.
For, whereas the French President, Jacques Chirac, proposed common action in the Middle East in order to prevent the Palestinians being left on their own to face the Israelis and the American arbitrator, whose sympathy was clearly one-sided, this wish for a common European approach came up against a blank refusal, particularly from the British and the Germans whose diplomacies are in fact aligned with that of America and Israel.
Moreover, the timidity of the European Parliament over Middle East affairs is also explained by the pressure exerted on Members of this Parliament by American and Israeli diplomacy.
It might also be pointed out that the attitude of the Israeli state to the European Union is particularly outrageous since basically it is 'pay but keep quiet' .
This is clearly intolerable and shameful.
The best way to reduce the general public&#x02BC;s mistrust of the EU is to stop putting forward proposals which build up the EU "on high' .
Every such proposal within Foreign and Security policies, the EMU etc. serves only to increase the mistrust.
The Intergovernmental conference must be viewed from this perspective.
Poverty
1996 has been designated by the UN as the International Year for the Elimination of Poverty.
Bearing this in mind, we would expect to see EU action in this area stepped up.
Instead, the complete opposite is happening.
The German and British Conservative Governments are vehemently opposing the Fourth Poverty Programme.
The interim decision by the Court of Justice on 24 September will in effect prevent the Commission from supporting the 800 or so applications from anti-poverty organizations all over Europe.
As Commissioner Flynn said recently: ' These cases prove once again the absolute need for a clear legal basis in the Treaty, allowing the adoption of programmes in the social area by majority vote ' .
But we must go further.
Not only must we try to repair the damage caused by poverty - long-term unemployment, urban degeneration etc, - we must also find ways of preventing exclusion.
This must be at the heart of all national and European policies.
I therefore welcome the initiative of Mr de Rossa and the Irish Government in following up the Social Summit in Copenhagen by coming forward with a National Anti-Poverty Strategy.
This would appear to be a suitable approach, not only for the national level but also possibly for the EU.
Minimum social rights must be established across the EU, on the right to work and on social protection for example.
Combatting all forms of exclusion and poverty must be made a goal of all EU programmes and policies.
Analyses of the impact on poverty and social exclusion must be carried out before new EU legislation is adopted or new EU instruments implemented.
The dearth of comparative information on the extent of poverty throughout the Union must be remedied.
Finally, the Commission and the Council of Ministers must examine the progress made by each Member State in achieving the commitments entered into at Copenhagen, before the end of this year.
This in turn should be updated every year during the UN decade against poverty.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.20 and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Europe agreement with Slovenia
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0277/96 by Mrs Iivari, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the conclusion of the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Slovenia, of the other part (10587/95 - COM(95)0341 - C4-0419/96-95/0191(AVC)); -A4-0282/96 by Mr Posselt, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the economic and trade aspects of the Europe Agreement between the European Union and Slovenia.
Mr President, the adoption of the Europe agreement with Slovenia has been delayed for an unusually long time in comparison with the procedures with other new democracies in Central Europe.
The actual negotiations went quickly.
They began on 15 March 1995, and the agreement was initialled in July the same year.
However, it was only signed in June 1996.
The reason for the delay in its signature lay in the complex situation which arose in the region after the Second World War.
At that time the territory, which had belonged to Italy, was incorporated into Yugoslavia and its inhabitants were evacuated to Italy.
When Yugoslavia subsequently disintegrated, Slovenia gave an undertaking to pay financial compensation for the loss of property left behind in the area.
However, Italy demanded that its nationals should have the right to recover the property they had lost.
At the same time the newly independent Slovenia adopted legislation banning foreigners from owning property in its territory.
In itself the Europe Agreement means that Slovenia undertakes to bring its legislation on ownership of real estate and land into line with EU legislation and to eliminate all discrimination against nationals of EU Member States with regard to the movement of capital.
The question was what the timetable for this should be and how the relevant legislation should be reformed.
Numerous attempts by the Slovenian Government to secure adoption of the Council's draft failed when the required majority failed to back it in Parliament.
However, on 11 April 1996, after laborious negotiations, the Slovenian Parliament gave the government a mandate to sign the agreement on the basis of the compromise proposed during the Spanish presidency.
Under this, Slovenia pledges to guarantee all citizens of the Union the right to acquire property from the beginning of the fourth year after the entry into force of the agreement.
In addition, citizens of the Union who have lived in Slovenia for at least three years will have the right to acquire property as soon as the agreement enters into force.
This protects the rights of Italian nationals who used to live in the former Yugoslavia, but have fled from the country, to reacquire their property.
The domestic-policy issue of the ownership of property was hotly debated, both in Slovenia and in Italy.
I am glad that it was resolved precisely during the Italian presidency.
Relations between the Italian and Slovenian Governments are now good.
The whole process is also quite interesting from the general point of view.
The development which led to the democratization of the countries of Central Europe and the independence of the Baltic States was positive.
It affords genuine opportunities to build a common Europe.
At the same time, however, it reopened historic wounds, and painful issues concerning nationhood and borders came to the fore.
The war in the former Yugoslavia is the most tragic instance of this.
Now it is important to take care together to ensure that there is no backsliding into the injustices of the past but that we set out to build the future.
Justice should be sought, but at the same time what is needed in Europe is both determination and self-restraint to enable the establishment of new cooperation to be a success.
Measured against many criteria, Slovenia's economic and political development has been encouraging.
It is in the front rank of the countries which have concluded Europe Agreements, when it comes to the preconditions for accession.
The European Parliament, for its part, expedited the approval of the Europe Agreement with Slovenia in its resolution of 30 November 1995.
I hope that Parliament can now take a positive decision, to enable Slovenia to catch up with the other associated countries which have stolen a march on it in their relations with the European Union.
Mr President, elections to the European Parliament were held in Finland on Sunday.
I had a good result, but not quite good enough to allow me to retain my seat.
Accordingly, I should like to thank all the colleagues with whom I have enjoyed good working relations in the European Parliament and wish you all success in building a common, peaceful Europe.
Thank you very much Mrs Iivari.
We also wish you the best of luck in your new assignments.
Mr President, the association agreement with Slovenia is the first that the European Union has entered into with one of the states to have emerged from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and it is therefore an instrument charged with responsibilities and values which have to be looked at from a more general perspective.
There is the geo-economic aspect whereby Slovenia occupies a crucial position within the broad lines of the European Union's expansion eastward, and it is certainly in a position to encourage such development as a result of its sound economic and financial structure.
Then we have the geopolitical aspect: this involves passing on positive values to other state units produced by the Yugoslav diaspora, something that will happen if Slovenia formally and effectively adheres to the European principles of supranational democracy, avoiding discrimination based on nationalism, upholding in short the principles of European citizenship.
Finally, there is the constitutional political aspect that has to be understood in European constitutional terms.
Slovenia wishes to enter Europe with a view to adjusting its constitution in full to the law of the European Community, including in relation to the right of establishment and property ownership.
On that last point, the laborious annex to the agreement is not the product of a bilateral dispute with Italy, as some wrongly assume, a dispute that was, moreover, resolved during the Italian presidency.
It did and does involve a major issue of European principles.
It would certainly be paradoxical were a state to seek, in agreement with the Union, to retain fifty years on in its constitutional, administrative and civil law chauvinistic institutions that can be traced back to the kind of war for whose avoidance in future the Union actually came into being.
The great prospects it holds for the future warrant voting for the agreement.
The national parliaments will then be the crucial fora for ratification and further clarification as we look to future developments in this accession process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are finally getting there: the Council granted the mandate on 6 March 1995, the agreement was signed on 10 June 1996 after many difficulties, and tomorrow the first of 17 ratifications is to take place.
This gives me great satisfaction, as a politician and as a man!
Special thanks on this occasion are due to Mr Iivari and Mr Posselt, not forgetting the President of the European Parliament, Klaus Hänsch, whose speech in Laibach during early April helped to defuse a very difficult situation.
In addition, the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Slovenia has endeavoured - most recently, just two weeks ago in Slovenia - to play its part in helping to solve the differences of opinion.
We have found that some such differences still exist, partly because of the forthcoming elections in Slovenia, but that the majority are firmly resolved to continue moving closer to Europe.
There have been and still are problems, make no mistake about that.
But they can be solved.
There are problems in the bilateral area, but there have been favourable developments.
I think it should also be stressed that, after initially avoiding the issue, the Dini government and the Prodi government and, in particular, Secretary of State Fassino in the new government have made massive efforts to achieve closer relations, détente and an improvement in the situation.
Slovenia is becoming an associate member.
Slovenia has submitted its request for accession.
Discussions are in progress regarding its participation in the Western European Union and its membership of NATO.
This development is tantamount to Slovenia's return to the family of European nations, even though there are still a few problems to be solved, in a new spirit, in Slovenia's bilateral relations with Italy, partly on the law of property and partly on historical questions.
There are still unresolved questions connected with reprivatization and the moratorium, but I have no doubt they will be solved after the elections of 10 November.
Then there will really be no further obstacles to the return of a country which was an integral part of Europe for centuries and is so European in its past development and its present attitudes.
Slovenia will then share in the negotiations, and in the decisions, as an equal partner.
Mr President, in exercising co-decision when voting for an agreement associating a third country with the European Union, this House is at the same time taking on the responsibility of the right and duty to ensure that the agreement applies, beyond all reasonable doubt, to human and minority rights also.
That duty becomes absolute where, as in the case of Slovenia today, the agreement represents a necessary step on the path to accession.
It in fact seems logical that anyone wishing to accede to the European Union should comply in full with its founding principles.
I have to point out to this House, whose responsibilities extend beyond assiduously rubber-stamping the Realpolitik of governments, that the agreement we are about to vote on is not based on the conviction that Slovenia wishes to resolve its political dispute with the Italian minority and the exiles in accordance with the agreements with the European Commission, but in fact marks a generous opening of political credit for that country on the part of the European Union and Italy.
It follows that, since the European Parliament cannot be sure, before the vote, that Slovenia has the will to resolve these disputes, it is at the same time undertaking the moral and political commitment to ensure that Slovenia meets its obligations promptly after the agreement.
We should bear in mind today in the House the circumstances which resulted in these disputes, that is to say the enormous suffering, inflicted for ethnic rather than political reasons and well after the end of the Second World War, on a minority with roots going back centuries and a highly developed culture.
But that will not lead us to oppose the agreement because we believe that however sad and cruel the past, the well-being, progress and security of the European Union largely depend on our not being influenced by that and on establishing strong and new links of convergence and cooperation.
It would, however, be wrong, including in relation to this House, which should be well aware of what it is voting upon, not to point out that, contrary to the Solana agreement, Slovenia persists in not permitting the purchase of property by foreigners and is restoring property confiscated under communism to Slovene citizens only and not others, be they Italians, Germans or citizens of other countries or ethnic groups, who were forced to leave Slovenia. Slovenia is also banning the participation in political elections of one party, the Dieta istriana , because it is in favour of the return of the exiles to their country of origin.
In the wake of the Solana compromise agreement but above all after this vote, those three issues in the dispute between Italy and Slovenia will become an integral part of the dispute with the European Union.
It will not be long before we have the Slovene elections: we have no desire to influence the outcome but we must voice the hope that Slovenia's future parliament and government will rapidly comply with the agreements with the European Union and with Italy, aware that that is the only way in which Slovenia will be able to obtain full membership of the European Union.
The House has already recognized, in an almost unanimous vote, the great political balance shown by Italy in dealing with the Slovene question.
And today the rapprochement between Italy and Slovenia is progressing to the satisfaction of both sides, and indeed there is a growing realization of the major interests that exist.
Nor is there any doubt that a solid bilateral relationship between Italy and Slovenia is consistent with the eastward enlargement of the European Union as well as an important element in gradually stabilizing the Balkan region.
It is, however, our hope that the Slovene parliament and government will understand that this happy interlude could suddenly come to an end if it does not give a rapid and satisfactory response to the legitimate demands of the minorities and exiles.
Europe and Italy have generously done their part, it is now the turn of Slovenia.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Slovenian Government has produced a remarkable performance.
In mid-1991 Slovenia was still a victim of intervention by the so-called Yugoslavian People's Army. Now, just 5 years later, the independent Slovenia has developed into a fully-fledged democracy with good guarantees for its minority groups - not yet good enough, but good for the time being given the circumstances.
Slovenia now also has a social market economy and probably Europe's highest growth figures.
With the signing of the framework agreement on the dispute with Italy, the final obstacle has been removed to allowing Slovenia to take up its well-earned place in Europe.
The Europe Agreement is a good first step.
Not only the European Parliament but the national parliaments too must quickly support this agreement.
As you know, this association includes, among other things, political dialogue and the progressive creation of a free trade zone.
It offers the prospect of Union membership and Slovenia's application should also receive every positive attention.
I believe that this former Yugoslavian republic will be ready for EMU as early as the year 2000.
The Europe Agreement is an important first step on the road to EU membership.
It provides many instruments for more intensive cooperation which must be actively used.
We also support the proposals of both rapporteurs, Mr Iivari and Mr Posselt, whom I congratulate, to further intensify this cooperation.
Projects which come to mind are inclusion in the trans-European networks, PHARE, INTERREG, and support for Slovenia's privatisation programme.
Of course a great deal of work remains to be done in connection with the pre-accession strategy and on a structured dialogue as with all other Central and Eastern European countries.
I will end here, Mr President.
We have every confidence that the outstanding problems will be solved in the framework of our closer relations.
EU membership would also further improve the excellent relations.
I repeat that I have every confidence that Slovenia will be among the first group of nations to join the enlarged EU.
But it is of course up to Slovenia itself, in cooperation with us, the Union, to prepare itself for entry.
This Europe Agreement is the first step in doing so.
Mr President, I wish to confirm the view of the Green Group which has already in the past lent its support to the agreement associating Slovenia with the European Union and, with an eye to the future, to Slovenia's accession to Europe.
The reasons that delayed the agreement, namely the dispute with Italy concerning the rights of the exiles who left Slovenia and, above all, the problem of the property that was abandoned, seem now happily to be resolved and, as I have already said previously, I believe that the problem has been made easier to resolve because of the favourable stance taken to this association by the European Parliament in the past.
I believe that, even if it needs further definition and clarification, the agreement proposed during its time in office by the Spanish presidency of the European Union is helpful to good relations between Italy and Slovenia and could act as an example for future relations between the European Union and other countries which have emerged from the ashes of the former Yugoslavia.
From that point of view, I do not agree with those who consider the Spanish compromise to be inadequate, because we cannot ascribe to a new state the responsibilities of other regimes and earlier states.
I say this as the son of a family which had to abandon its own property in the former Yugoslavia, in what is now the Republic of Croatia.
In fact, I hope that it will soon be possible to conclude a similar agreement with Croatia also.
Being in favour of that agreement does not prevent me from raising a number of issues which I think have at any rate to be dealt with during the stages of association.
First and foremost, we have the problem of political transparency.
In regard to the forthcoming elections, the Greens have been concerned to note that the Dieta istriana is to be excluded; although mainly present in Croatian territory, it has the right to be represented within the political world of Slovenia, as Istria is also in part in Slovene territory and the Dieta istriana is the expression of an inter-ethnic view embracing Croats, Italians and Slovenes.
The formal issues raised to justify excluding the Dieta may be correct in legislative terms but they are not, in my view, politically convincing.
There are also problems of financial transparency that need to be checked upon and that we have plenty of time to resolve during the association stage.
Economic cooperation between Italy and Slovenia can be further developed.
I also consider it useful, from the economic point of view, to set under way cooperation with the ports of Capodistria and Trieste.
There is also the problem of the Krsko nuclear power station.
Many parties in Slovenia consider that power station to be completely unsafe.
I think that the European Union should inspect the safety of the power station and assess the possibility of replacing it with more secure energy sources.
Finally, there is the problem of transport.
While it is true that the trans-European Transport Networks provide for an option concerning the Eastern European countries, it is also the case that there is currently an excess of road traffic travelling towards Slovenia, notwithstanding Austria's decision to reduce TIR levels through its own territory.
We need also to reach agreement with Slovenia to shift the transit of goods increasingly to rail and away from road.
Mr President, it rarely happens in this House that the rapporteurs are not thanked for their work; in this debate, however, I am going to do just that and not thank the rapporteurs who have endeavoured, through their reports, to poison what could have been a calm and serene debate.
I say that conscious of belonging to the radical trans-national party of Marco Pannella, cited by Mr Posselt, which was among the first to fight hard for the recognition of Slovenia.
You are wrong, Mrs Iivari, when in your explanatory statement you distort historical and political reality, saying nothing about the fact that if there has been a serious delay over the association agreement, this is solely the result of Slovenia's refusal to meet the demands of the European Union - including those designed to resolve the bilateral dispute - formulated in the so-called 'Solana compromise' which the new Italian government then wished to get rid of, gaining a major victory in Florence but in so doing also destroying any possibility of finally being able to resolve the very serious problems bound up with the bilateral dispute.
The fact is that, as a result of that action, the measures that need to be taken of returning the abandoned property and, in general, restoring the position and reaching agreement on the bilateral dispute have been lost for good.
It is true that major responsibility has to be assigned to the Prodi government here, but the reconstruction of events in this report by Mrs Iivari is wrong because our 18 month wait was caused by the Union taking refuge behind that document, and Slovenia, as we know, intends to retain in force its legislation on property in a manner inconsistent with the rules that apply in the rest of the European Union.
It is a very serious matter, Mr Posselt, to write what you wrote arbitrarily in the explanatory statement to your report, and I have requested and obtained the consent of President Hänsch to its removal from the document that will subsequently be officially approved.
To reconstruct the past without the slightest allusion to the persecution suffered by the Italian community, the revenge and political killings, the exile forced upon hundreds of thousands of people, is very serious and unacceptable and means that my group will not vote for the report if it continues to contain very serious falsehoods which are likely to give the public a completely misleading image of the European Parliament.
Mr President, despite the horrors of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia has developed into a stable democracy which guarantees the fundamental rights and freedoms of minorities.
As the country was at war for just a few days, all the conditions were present for a successful switch to a market economy.
As its traditional export markets in the former Warsaw Pact countries were lost, Slovenia managed to turn its attention to the West.
A rigorous monetary policy and strict fiscal discipline were the other conditions for a favourable economic development.
The Europe Agreement can give a new impulse to the Slovenian economy.
This is urgently needed at the present time due to the lower rate of economic growth, increasing unemployment and the deteriorating balance of trade.
The Slovenian Government is facing the typical problems of Western economies, such as managing labour costs and ensuring that social costs do not undermine public finances.
Maximum possible free trade relations between the Union and Slovenia should stimulate Slovenia's further economic development.
The field of transport offers particular scope for the development of relations between the EU Member States and Slovenia.
Geographically, Slovenia is a link between Western Europe and the Balkans.
This is why the Slovenian Government is giving priority to the creation of an adequate infrastructure.
The inclusion of Slovenia in the TENs is of great importance in this respect.
But it will be several years before the road network has the capacity to absorb the increasing transport demand.
The Europe Agreement therefore includes limits to the free transport relations between the Union and Slovenia in order to give the Slovenian transport sector the necessary time to prepare for the internal market.
To briefly summarize, with the signing of the Europe Agreement Slovenia is included in the pre-accession strategy with a view to Union membership.
Partly by virtue of its culture which has been strongly influenced by Western Christianity, Slovenia is an obvious candidate for membership.
We express the hope that the Slovenian Parliament will be able to promptly ratify this Agreement following the elections on 10 November.
Mr President, as neighbours of Slovenia who, from the beginning, have followed and supported that country's struggle for independence with much sympathy and active involvement, we Austrians naturally have an interest in bringing Slovenia into the EU.
But assistance and sympathy cannot be unilateral.
So we as free democrats cannot understand why Slovenia is today unwilling to revoke the decrees of the Yugoslavian partisan government of Jajce and declare them invalid, as Croatia long since did - those decrees that have brought so much harm and injustice, death and misery to the German-speaking former Austrians in that country.
Not only that, but for some obscure reason Slovenia is still unwilling to grant an equitable minority status to these German-speaking people or those in the Gottschee area.
I must emphatically contradict the previous speaker on this point.
This step has already been taken long ago with other minority groups, such as the Hungarians.
Furthermore, we have justified and still unresolved misgivings about the safety shortcomings of the Krsko atomic power station, which posed a genuine threat to the area around the Austrian border, especially during the struggle for independence.
Again, we have justified fears that insufficient consideration has been given to the moves towards closer economic ties which are laid down in the agreement, and in some cases take place automatically, or to free movement in the labour market - including family members...
(The President interrupted the speaker) ... that comes about because the smaller groups are given so little speaking time.
So, to repeat: we have justifiable misgivings in the economic sector and regarding freedom of movement in the labour market.
All of these are problems which have to be overcome primarily by Austria, and to some extent by Italy too.
It is easy enough for the other States to go ahead cheerfully with adopting resolutions - they don't have to bear the consequences.
That is partly why the Land Government of Carinthia expressed its misgivings about the agreement on 9 October this year.
Finally, we note the absence of any sign of goodwill by the Slovenians towards their neighbours regarding some form of accommodation over the dumping policy practised by the Slovenian duty-free shops, which has such disastrous effects on small traders in the border region.
So we cannot vote for the agreement as it stands.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Slovenia too has now entered into a Europe agreement - late, but certainly not too late. This is a country that has reached very high standards of economic and democratic development, when you bear in mind where it started.
And it is true to say that Austria was one of the neighbours which, at an early stage, supported Slovenian independence and offered a helping hand during the first turbulent weeks.
There is no doubt that here we have a country following a line of development which may ultimately bring it into the circle of Member States of the European Union.
It is certainly very significant that, despite all the problems and delays that have occurred, it was under the Italian presidency that this agreement was concluded.
I would regard that as a good omen for the future, despite my consternation at a few things that have been said in today's debate not only by Italian Members but by Austrian ones too.
There is no doubt that national and minority identities do cause many problems in Central and Eastern Europe; but nor can there be any doubt that those problems cannot be solved by accusations, the opening-up of old wounds and mutual denunciations, but only by a shared vision of the future, directed towards shared objectives.
We shall of course be voting for this agreement, although there are many things that must be asked of the Slovenian government.
Krsko and the dumping policy of the duty-free shops have been mentioned, but the critical factor is the spirit of teamwork in a region which needs a new economic beginning and a new humanity.
Mr President, there are now nine States with which the European Union has concluded association agreements that hold out prospects for those States to accede to the Union in due course.
So the basic question of whether the Union should be enlarged eastwards has already been answered.
However, the question of when and how - the timing of accession and the conditions on which it takes place - remain open.
Whereas, before the events of 1989-90, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe seem to be a relatively homogeneous bloc, at least from the Western European standpoint, we can now see that the candidates for accession differ so greatly in terms of their initial cultural, religious, geopolitical and economic circumstances that it is impossible to treat them all in the same way.
In other words, just as their starting points differ greatly, so too these individual Central and Eastern European States, whose objective is to become members of the European Union, will have to take very different roads to do so.
If we today, as the European Parliament debating the reports by Mr Iivari and Mr Posselt - whom, incidentally, I take this opportunity to thank for their extremely good reports - call for ratification of the Europe agreement between Slovenia and the Union, we mean this to be a signal to this young Slovenian State.
We mean it as a rallying call: you are on the right road!
We mean it as recognition of the outstanding efforts made by the Slovenian State and people to find their way back into a European association of States to whose economic, political and cultural development Slovenia has made important contributions in the course of its history.
The European Union sets high standards, both economically and politically, for the would-be new Member States from Central and Eastern Europe.
But I believe that Slovenia has deserved, by its efforts so far, to be received into the European Union as soon as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the matter we are discussing is a high profile issue.
Another troubled frontier in Europe is beginning to move back, a frontier that has moved in the past, witness to great tragedies and sufferings, not forgotten and not yet consigned to the calm of history.
I am speaking as a member of the REX Committee and will be looking only at the economic problems identified in this area, particularly in the region of the frontier between Italy and Slovenia.
As far as the Osimo agreements and the subsequent bilateral agreements with Italy are concerned, they must be complied with in full, and, in approving the association agreement, the European Parliament must act as guarantor.
On the issue of the development of the Slovene economy towards a market economy, it is worth pointing out that in Slovenia the pace of privatization is uncertain, while on the capital markets there are still limits on transactions abroad and foreign banks wishing to open branches are experiencing difficulties.
It would be helpful for experts from the Commission to help the Slovene government to develop the new legislation in the direction of European harmonization.
As far as transport and infrastructure of European significance is concerned, we consider that Ljubljana should be linked via high-speed train with the European Networks along the East-West axis - Budapest, Ljubljana, Trieste, Venice - while on the North-South axis there is an interest in completing both the route from Maribor to Capodistria and the intermodal transport system which follows the current Italy-Slovenia frontier.
The Isonzo Basin, situated between Slovenia and Italy will have to be subject to a general planning scheme in terms of both the use of water resources and management of the waters flowing back from Novagorizia.
The wine-producing region of Collio will have to be protected by European registered designations of origin.
Turning to the problem of employment, it has to be pointed out that the Italian regions on the frontier with Slovenia are economically at the margins, and this is reflected in the unemployment rate in the region of 15 % compared with an average in North-East Italy of 6.4 %.
The dismantling of frontiers will result in further unemployment which will have to be offset using European policy measures, both regional policy structural measures and exceptional measures to exploit trans-frontier cooperation.
Gorizia, finally, is the last city in Europe stilled divided by a frontier resulting from the Second World War.
On the basis of a European undertaking, Gorizia and Novagorizia could become a laboratory of ideas and initiatives between different cultures and ethnic groups, so that instead of being an encumbrance, the frontier becomes an opportunity for collaboration and growth.
Finally, I wish to make a technical comment on Mr Posselt's report.
Part A, which is the only text on which we are required to vote, is the product of the collective efforts of the REX Committee, which I approve and to which I subscribe.
The explanatory statement (Part B) is the work of the rapporteur alone and I have reservations about it but these are not relevant to our vote.
Mr President, I have to ask this Union how and with whom it wishes to become great.
If the aim of bringing Slovenia closer to the Union is to consolidate a civil and democratic system within that country, as well as to promote economic development, then it is welcome.
If, however, Slovenia intends to enter Europe and obtain economic benefits only, riding roughshod over the sacrosanct rights of democratic freedoms, then I am in complete disagreement.
Slovenia should explain what it intends to do in response to Italy's demands for the return of property taken away from hundreds of thousands of Italian refugees who fled from the former Yugoslavia in the 1950s and whether it intends according Italian citizens in Slovenia the fundamental rights of freedom and democracy, language and culture enjoyed by the Slovene minorities in Italy.
I support the initiatives designed to promote the integration of that state into the European Union, but I call upon the authorities themselves to encourage political initiatives to secure for all of the population and ethnic groups resident in Slovenia the basic guarantee of freedom, democracy, language and culture before it becomes part of this Union.
I would stress the great effort made and the substantial progress achieved by Slovenia towards the great democratic change as of 25 June 1991, the date on which it invoked the right of peoples to self-determination.
That same right of self-determination, I have to say, is being suppressed within the Union by many Member States in regard to whole regions and population groups which have always guaranteed within their own confines those principles of freedom.
The most recent example of that is Padania!
I therefore call upon the Member States of the Union to ensure and take action to see that democracy is guaranteed and there is mutual respect for cultural and social differences.
Mr President, Members from the Alleanza Nazionale seize this opportunity of reiterating their belief that before it enlarges to take in other countries the European Union should consolidate its current base and establish also the political unity to which we attach greater importance than mere economic unity.
As regards the agreement with Slovenia in particular, we have to regret the way in which that country, abetted by the Prodi government, has disappointed the legitimate hopes of those Italians who, having survived the deadly ethnic cleansing on a vast scale carried out 50 years ago by the Communist army of the former Yugoslavia - 350, 00 Italians herded out of Yugoslavia in just a few months and tens of thousands of Italians buried alive in the mountains of the former Yugoslavia - are calling for their stolen property to be returned.
That should already have been done not only as a proper gesture on the part of Slovenia but above all as evidence of the kind civilization that cannot be measured by weighing up different criteria and has to be demonstrated through gestures of high moral value, such as the return of goods to their legitimate owners and their descendants.
The European Union which constantly - and frequently in words only - sets itself up as the life-guide and beacon of justice of the people, must start ridding itself of the mind-set of bankers and traders, sadly neglecting the moral values which are the real test of the achievement of a mature civilization.
Mr President, can I say first of all how much I regret that this will be the last plenary session attended by Mrs Iivari.
Her assiduous work for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy will be greatly missed in the future.
Could I go on to say how much I welcome this agreement, which is not before time, and give my congratulations to all those involved in resolving the difficulties.
And credit must be given of course to the Spanish presidency for breaking the log-jam during their period in office.
This is of course an important agreement, important because Slovenia, as a number of Members have said, is clearly a strong candidate for future membership of the European Union.
I would hope that some of our colleagues will remember that what we are about in this institution is building a new Europe and not refighting the battles of the old Europe.
Of course Slovenia must not itself assume that membership of the European Union will stem automatically from this agreement.
There is still a lot of work to be done.
Slovenia should in particular bear in mind that membership of the European Union involves taking on the acquis communautaire in full, with no exceptions beyond temporary derogations.
However, I do not want to go over old ground that Members have already covered in this debate.
I want to pick up one particular issue and address my remarks to Commissioner van den Broek.
The European architecture now consists of a series of agreements - the European Economic Area, for example, the association agreements with Central and Eastern Europe, the CEFTA, the free trade agreements with EFTA countries.
The full benefit of all these will not be felt until we move towards pan-European rules of cumulation.
I recognize the work that has been done by the Commission in this, and particularly welcome the decision taken in July by the Budget Council to introduce diagonal communication between the EEA, Switzerland and the Central and Eastern European countries.
Nonetheless, what we need is to push towards total cumulation of rules of origin if we are really to maximize the economic potential of these overlapping agreements.
I hope that the Commission will give this major priority in the coming period, notwithstanding the discussions that may take place in relation to future enlargement of the European Union.
Mr President, I have heard a strange equation being made in this House: an incorrect report is said to mean an incorrect agreement.
But the agreement itself is the substance, the report is merely incidental.
I shall not at any rate use the adjective historical to describe the report, for a very simple reason. The page has been turned, and what has actually to be described as historical is the ideological and political separation between the Community - now the Union - and Europe's other life-force.
Currently, the agreements are in fact as they should be, not easy certainly but as they should be, seeking to define not so much co-existence but something more important in the circumstances of a shared continent.
I cannot therefore say that I am not in favour of an agreement of this nature, but that does not in any way mean that I forgive anyone for what has happened in the past, and when I say 'anyone' , I mean just that.
But were Europe to stop at reckoning up the wrongs and the rights - with the former, the wrongs, being ascribable to totalitarian regimes and dictatorial systems - it would not be a Europe of today, far less of tomorrow, but the Europe of the civil wars of the recent and more distant past.
We have therefore strongly to confirm that the Europe which is today opening up to Slovenia and will in future be opening up to other countries of Central and Eastern Europe, is a democratic Europe in which respect for the rights of minorities and for all human rights is law, that same law which gives entitlement to citizenship.
We are a continent that has had a complex history and the frontiers of the nation-states have been a complex matter also.
Gardening issues, the Americans say, but theirs has been a different history.
Issues that have nothing to do with gardening - we might say - but only if we rely on the rationale of nationalism and the resultant closing-off into nation-states.
The scope of the agreement is different: it is European and within it even the complicated 'gardening' issues can be given a national solution that respects the rights of all.
I do not, however, wish it to be forgotten that an Italianspeaking political grouping has not been accorded legitimate recognition.
This is a serious matter which needs to be remedied rather than explained.
Nor can it be said that this is a small flaw in a quite different framework.
Even if it were just a small flaw - and perhaps it is - it would still be an unacceptable violation of a civil and political right.
I wish at any event to express confidence that the wrong will be righted, by voting in favour of the agreement, justified - against the backdrop of the complex situation in Slovenia - by the fact that that Republic continues to be an island in the turbulent waters of the former Yugoslavia, thus offering possibilities of increasingly close cooperation including with the neighbouring countries and representing a sound and vital new source of European integration.
It is within that context that the remaining disputes should be resolved, in particular with Italy and the Italians who once lived and are now living there.
Mr President, I have listened to the debate so far with close attention, and in doing so I have been sorry to note a very short-sighted view of things by some speakers.
This agreement is not just about buildings or about Italy - it is about the closer integration of Slovenia into the Europe we all share.
This is a welcome development, and we should indicate as much by voting for it.
There is one thing, though, that seems to me to have received too little coverage in this debate - the need to provide more information and instruction for the citizens of the Union as to what this agreement actually means.
One important issue here is to provide that information so that our citizens, too, can approve this agreement.
As has already been mentioned, Slovenia and the Union, thus including my own country of Austria and province of Styria, can benefit economically from these agreements.
But what has not yet been mentioned at all is the fact that all of us - not just the Slovenes but all of us in Europe and throughout this larger area - can hope for a gain in terms of our foreign and security policy from the fact that we have an opportunity to extend the domain of peace and stability to include this bitterly contested Balkan region, with beneficial results for us all.
What has been missing from this debate so far is any reference to the fact that, for the first time, this agreement includes far more in the way of provisions on nuclear security than any previous agreement of the same kind.
It has also been pointed out that we have opportunities in the field of transport infrastructure, if we take advantage of them.
In this context, however, there is another point which should be made from the Austrian point of view, though with a somewhat different emphasis from what we heard earlier. We should never lose sight of an important sine qua non for this association agreement and, in particular, for Slovenia's future membership of the European Union.
For us, and therefore for Slovenia as a future Member State, European Union means human rights, the rule of law and the safeguarding of minority rights.
So we call upon Slovenia, as a matter of urgency, to ratify immediately the European Council Convention on the Protection of Minorities!
In this way, we can ensure that the German- and Italian-speaking minorities in that region will enjoy appropriate legal guarantees.
On the same basis, I also appeal to Slovenia to find a humane solution, in a new spirit of European cooperation, to the problem of the expropriations which, on two occasions during the twentieth century, have left their mark on that region.
Mr President, may I first take this opportunity to thank Mrs Iivari for her report on the Europe Agreement and Mr Posselt for his report on related economic and trade aspects.
I should like to join with Mr Titley and on behalf of the European Commission extend my very best wishes to Mrs Iivari as this will be the last plenary session she attends.
As the various honourable Members pointed out, ratification of this Europe Agreement by the European Parliament is an extremely important step for Slovenia with a view to membership of the European Union.
It also gives a clear signal to the governments and parliaments of our Member States of just how important it is for the national parliaments to be as dynamic in their consideration of the Europe Agreement as the European Parliament has sought to be.
Slovenia has had its sights set on joining the European Union ever since it first declared independence in June 1991.
I remember very well the events of that time and how Slovenia stood on the edge of the abyss and was nearly sucked into what later developed into a full-blown tragedy for Yugoslavia.
Fortunately this was prevented and the European Union was also able to play a positive role in this.
I remind you of the agreement signed in Brioni in July 1991, sponsored by the European troika.
I should also like to once again express my appreciation for the efforts made by the Spanish presidency in particular in overcoming the problems encountered in concluding the Europe Agreement with Slovenia.
I agree with all those who said that it is time to look to the future, to make the most of the agreement which has been reached and to seek a constructive atmosphere in which to solve the remaining problems which are no doubt present.
I should also like to draw your attention to the major contribution made by the President of the European Parliament, Mr Hänsch, in April last year.
I believe that his speech to the Slovenian Parliament played a major role in preparing both the Union and Slovenia for the signing of the Europe Agreement on 10 June of this year.
It was on this day that Slovenia applied for Union membership, thus confirming its commitment to European integration.
In reply to comments made by a number of honourable Members I should like to repeat that Slovenia has agreed to make the necessary constitutional and legal changes in order to permit the implementation of the provisions laid down in the Europe Agreement.
This was made very clear to me during the discussions I had three weeks ago with the Slovenian President, Government and Members of Parliament.
It was also confirmed by Prime Minister Donovtsjek to the delegation from the European Parliament during their recent visit to Ljubljana.
After the Europe Agreement had been signed the interim agreement with Slovenia was also initialled, and we would like to see this enter into force on 1 January next.
Yesterday the Commission approved the proposal on this and according to the timetable it will be possible to sign the interim agreement on 5 November.
As you know, this will make it possible to already implement at the beginning of next year all the economic and trade elements of the Europe Agreement in anticipation of its ratification.
I understand that the timetable for this decision and the consultation with Parliament is very tight.
I understand that Parliament is under pressure and I have therefore ensured that Parliament and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy have been kept fully informed of progress made and I thank you for your support and cooperation in implementing the urgent procedure which is necessary in order to prepare for the signing of the agreement on time.
Slovenia is already working in close cooperation with the European Union with a view to thorough preparation for membership.
I would draw particular attention to the great efforts made by the Slovenian Government to provide answers to the Commission's questionnaire within the deadline which expired on 25 July last.
The answers to these questions will be very important to the opinion on Slovenia's application for membership, the opinion which the Commission will deliver after the Intergovernmental Conference.
When the Europe Agreement has been ratified and is in force, Slovenia will be able to participate in the pre-accession policy on the same footing as the other associated Central and Eastern European countries.
A positive signal today will give the new Slovenian Government which is to be formed after the 10 November elections even more encouragement to meet future challenges, especially in the framework of the national accession strategy, with equal success.
In addition to the liberalization of its legislation on the ownership of real estate, Slovenia must consolidate its economic reforms and its reforms of the government apparatus so that it can effectively manage a market economy and soon be ready to compete in the internal market.
I would like to draw attention to the Commission's positive and constructive working relationship with the Slovenian authorities.
I hope that the new government will continue in this same spirit and I foresee a further widening of the bilateral relations, the ultimate aim of which is to welcome Slovenia as a new member of the European Union.
Finally, I would like to state that I have every confidence that both the Commission and the European Parliament will guide Slovenia on the path towards the European Union with constructive support wherever possible, but also critical support where necessary.
I have in mind in particular the problems which still remain and which can be solved through good dialogue and good cooperation.
Mr President, we are most certainly looking forward to further cooperation with Slovenia and a successful integration process.
Mr President, apart from thanking the Commissioner for his splendid work and assuring him that we shall be pushing ahead intensively with the interim agreement, I should also like to make a brief personal statement on the comments by Mr Dell'Alba, who after all has accused me of falsifying the truth.
I believe that I have the right to do so under the Rules of Procedure.
I am sorry, but there was no personal allusion, rather a political debate in which a Member expressed his disagreement with your report.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Action plan for Russia
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0854/96 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council, on the European Union action plan for Russia; -B4-0855/96 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on the European Union action plan for Russia; -B4-0857/96 by Mrs Schroedter, Mrs Aelvoet and Mrs Roth, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council, on an action plan for Russia; -B4-0970/96 by Mrs Schroedter, Mrs Aelvoet and Mrs Roth, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on an action plan for Russia; -B4-0972/96 by Mrs Kjer Hansen and Mr Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission, on the European Union strategy towards Russia; -B4-0973/96 by Mr Miranda, Mr Carnero González, Mr Piquet, Mr Vinci and Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on the European Union action plan for Russia; -B4-0980/96 by Mrs Hoff, Mrs Krehl, Mr Truscott, Mrs Iivari and Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council, on the European Union action plan for Russia; -B4-0981/96 by Mrs Hoff, Mrs Krehl, Mr Truscott, Mrs Iivari and Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on the European Union action plan for Russia; -B4-0983/96 by Mr Lehne and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council, on relations between the European Union and the Russian Federation.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Council adopted the action plan for Russia on 13 May 1996.
This was a praiseworthy initiative.
Its main aim was to support the path to reforms on the eve of the Russian presidential election, which promised to be rather difficult.
A further aim was the selection of a number of actions to be taken while waiting for the partnership agreement itself to be ratified by all Members of the Union and for it to come into force.
But, however justified this plan may be, it seems to me to have some shortcomings.
That is why I wished to question the Council and the Commission so that they can, in the near future, explain their guidelines a little more clearly and describe their proposed actions in greater detail.
To us, after all, Russia is a partner different from others.
Because of its size, its geostrategic position, its history, both ancient and more recent, and its political and military strength, Russia is bound to play an important role both for us and with us.
Nevertheless, the country has immense problems.
And this vital partner is also an unpredictable partner, which requires from us a policy based both on a long-term view of our objectives and a great deal of short-term pragmatism.
We shall have occasion to talk about these matters again when I present my report on relations between the European Union and Russia.
Concerning the action plan for Russia, I should today simply like to emphasize this: as regards our contribution to the democratic and legal reforms in Russia, it seems to me that the plan lists actions but does not adequately stress the immense importance of the work, which will determine the establishment of the rule of law in Russia, which in its turn will determine the success - or failure - of the economic reforms.
In this connection, I should like to emphasize the importance of tax reform.
If we could help to set up a Russian tax system worthy of the name, we should have done some really useful work, for one of the evils gnawing away at this country is the pitiful inadequacy of the tax revenues.
There can be no democracy and no rule of law without a minimum of tax income.
As for economic cooperation, many ideas are put forward in the plan, including some in the fields of nuclear power, the environment or the modernization of the production system.
On this point, we must insist not only that our aid should be massive but that our programmes such as TACIS should be better adapted, better monitored and better coordinated with programmes carried out by our Member States or by financial organizations such as the IMF, the EBRD or the EIB.
But we must also be concerned about the social situation.
This is so serious that it could endanger the whole edifice of reforms.
Clearly, the sheer magnitude of what is required is such that the European Union will never be able to give as much help as is necessary.
In spite of everything, however, we must never neglect this social dimension in our programmes. Thus, the TACIS programme should give more attention to health, education and social protection.
Lastly, I regret that political cooperation is not mentioned in the plan of action.
Of course, it does mention cooperation in the fields of justice and internal affairs or questions relating to security in Europe. But all that is really very inadequate, since nothing is said about the practical means of combating the various kinds of trafficking carried out by the Mafia which are corrupting Russia and the EU countries.
In the same way, the section on foreign policy is also inadequate.
This should be set in its global context, particularly in the context of the enlargement of the Union to the countries of central and eastern Europe.
All these are matters for the Council and the Commission.
In Parliament itself, we shall be speaking about them in more detail when we debate relations between the Union and Russia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us remember that the Council's sudden notion about this action plan for Russia could not conceal the fact that it amounted to an attempt to boost Yeltsin's election campaign.
Nor, of course, the fact that it was yet another attempt to persuade the world, and especially the USA, that a common European Union foreign policy is not just hot air.
But, apart from the fact that any such action plan for the Russian Federation supports the dominant role of the Russians within the CIS, and apart from the danger that this may be misunderstood as supporting their claims for hegemony, this action plan really is nothing more than hot air.
It contains nothing that had not in any case previously been included in the partnership and cooperation agreements, the interim agreement, the TACIS Regulation and other forms of economic aid.
But, of course, it is true that Russia does need extensive support with the process of democratic and economic reform and with coping with the disastrous destruction of the environment within Russia.
What Russia needs most of all is an open Europe, willing to plan a joint security structure instead of adopting senseless decisions, such as the expansion of NATO and the drawing of new frontiers by means of the Schengen agreements, which in reality have the effect of partitioning Europe and furthering confrontation.
This, however, cannot excuse the inactivity of the Western Europeans when political intervention was urgently needed, as in the case of Chechnya, where massive violations of international human rights took place.
I need only recall our more than shameful silence on the crime of the war in Chechnya after it became known that Russia had used a new weapon of mass destruction - the vacuum bomb - against its own civilian population.
I expect the Commission's statement to provide specific answers.
I want to know what really has been done in the last six months to further the cause of democratic evolution in Russia.
To this extent, the action plan is a very welcome project, but there are still unanswered questions, one of which is what representations the Commission has made to the Russian government regarding Alexander Nikitin.
The Commission is already taking advantage of the excellent results of the Bellona report to prepare urgently needed TACIS programmes. I know from my visit to Murmansk that the aid programmes are producing results there.
But Alexander Nikitin is still being held in an FSB jail; I was not even able to visit him.
Indeed, he is being tried for espionage, though he has done a genuinely valuable service for his country and has supplied the essential information for the work we are doing.
He has been charged under a secret decree with having betrayed his country.
I consider it urgently necessary for the Commission to say, in highly specific terms, when and where it is taking action and what means it is using to bring pressure to bear.
Mr President! It was in sharp contrast to the oppressors in the Soviet Union, to the injustices, the environmental nightmares and the economic misrule that Western Europe managed to drive back the large Communist parties and bring about the fall of right-wing dictatorships in Spain, Portugal and Greece.
This was an unparalleled success. Equally remarkable in its way is the success of democracy in that same Russia, which has managed to struggle out of the Soviet strait-jacket.
Free and democratic elections for Parliament and President have now been held several times in Russia.
There are also newspapers and media forms which are largely independent and a system of justice prepared to protect the human rights of its citizens.
Environmental awareness is increasing and the economy is also showing signs that it is beginning to function.
This development was far from obvious in a country which had been governed since time immemorial by autocratic Tsars and Communist Party secretaries - so it is all the more welcome.
But perhaps someone is asking themselves: "Has this chap not realised how unstable the situation in Russia is, with a large reactionary socialist party, right-wing nationalist loudmouths such as Zhirinovsky, with Chechnya, fragile nuclear power stations, unpaid soldiers, corruption, gangsters and a president suffering with heart disease on his way to the operating theatre?' Yes, of course I am aware of this and much more besides.
But Russia&#x02BC;s many and difficult problems should not cloud our view of the Russia which has done well, the Russia which we wish to seize hold of, to strengthen and to raise up.
This is the basis of our action plan and our debate today is about how the Union can help to develop a Russia which is sound, humane and working towards peace and cooperation with other democracies.
In this respect, I and other liberals would like to see the following from the European Union:
1.That the Union opens its doors to increased trade, in other words increased imports from Russia of both goods and services.2.That the Union financially supports the creation of Russian institutions which promote diversity, respect for the individual, the environment and economic development.3.That the Union increases exchanges with Russia of students and researchers.4.That the Union facilitates increased cooperation between Russia and its neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe through better coordination of the Phare and Tacis programmes.5.That the Union makes it absolutely clear to Russian leaders that disintegration of Russia is not in the interests of the Union but that we expect that Russian Statesmen shall always respect the rights of minority groups and individuals.6.That the Union, together with Russia and other States involved, works towards a new European order, an order which guarantees freedom and peace for Russia as well.7.That the Union, as a long term goal, keeps an open view on Russian membership of the European Union.What, Commissioner van den Broek, is the Commissions answer to our requests?
Mr President, Commissioner, on 13 May the European Council adopted an action programme for Russia.
The purpose of that programme was, in the run-up to the Russian presidential elections, to reaffirm the importance of a real, genuine partnership between the European Union and Russia and at the same time to keep open the prospect of further reforms.
In recent weeks it has once again been made clear that this partnership is of great importance in ensuring security and stability throughout the continent of Europe.
The power struggles within the Kremlin, focusing in particular on the position of security adviser to the Russian President, in recent days have created uncertainty throughout the European Union, and especially in the States associated with it.
We are very glad that this job has now gone to Mr Rybkin, the former President of the Duma, because we hope that that previous experience will enable him to reinforce and restructure the process of dialogue with the European Union institutions.
But the internal stability of Russia is important to us not just because Russia is our immediate neighbour: it is also important because it offers the only hope of solving the serious economic problems of that country.
The successful introduction of new systems and the economic reconstruction of Russia would make the Republic a reliable partner for us.
The war in Chechnya is a heavy burden in itself, and especially on the Russian budget.
We hope that the peace negotiated by General Lebed will be preserved in the future and that a new start can be made on reconstruction in that region.
Further to this, absolute priority must be given to the economic reforms.
Recent reports received by us suggest that 75 % of the Russian population are living below the poverty line, and that millions of Russian workers have already been waiting months for their wages to be paid; this social disaster could be another contributory factor to uncertainty and instability in Russia.
The action programme before us today can help to ensure that the European Union helps Russia to overcome its problems and further the process of reform.
But that will not be enough - additional, radical measures are needed.
We hope that the Council and Commission, together with Parliament, will prepare a further programme of measures, into which previously existing instruments must be integrated at once.
We hope that we will be able to continue discussions on this during the drafting of Mrs Lalumière's forthcoming report in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
In my view, the partnership agreement remains the central element in the West's strategy for partnership with Russia.
Both sides are going to have to continue making great efforts to breathe life into that agreement.
I hope that we in the European Union will be able to make our contribution to those efforts.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to open my remarks by emphatically stressing the importance of Russia as a partner in Europe.
In our discussions, we often overlook the fact that Russia is the largest country in Europe in terms of population and that, even though it is no longer a superpower comparable to the USA, it nevertheless remains in point of fact the most powerful country in Europe.
It is, then, absolutely inevitable that we in the European Union should have an enormous interest in maintaining the best possible relations with this partner and neighbour. Not only that, but we should also do everything we can to help ensure that Russia, which has experienced and still is experiencing a great deal of turmoil, should enjoy the most stable economic, democratic and political conditions possible.
This in turn makes it obvious that, in the present situation, everything that Europeans can possibly do to bring about those stable conditions should be done.
Our activities in connection with TACIS, and especially with the TACIS democracy programme, are a very clear signal of the importance that we attach to this policy as a whole.
From the many occasions on which delegations from this House have visited Russia in recent years, I have formed the impression that our TACIS programme has generally been very positively received, and that very specific successes are already apparent.
That is not to deny that there is always room for improvement in specific areas, and of course we in this Parliament will continue to pay careful attention to these.
I also regard the political action programme, which has now once again been adopted, as a further helpful step in supporting the positive trend of events in Russia.
I should therefore like to express my emphatic support for this action programme.
There is just one aspect I would like to point out. In recent months and years I have very, very often formed the impression that, as far as European activities are concerned, not just in this case of aid to Russia but in other sectors too, there is often a discrepancy between the politically based intention, as in the case of this programme of action, and the assistance actually provided.
When projects like this action programme are decided upon, what they contain should actually be implemented from the European standpoint.
There must be none of the petty bureaucratic obstacles we are forever hearing about, the end result of which is that much of what has been politically decided is not passed on and never achieves what it is supposed to achieve.
In point of fact, political developments in Russia are still causing a degree of concern.
Even so, at least in my view, great strides have already been made towards increased stability.
The changes that have now taken place with regard to the security adviser, in other words the decision to appoint Mr Rybkin, which I also welcome, make it clear in my opinion that a high degree of stability has already been achieved.
Naturally, this has caused some turmoil, as does any political decision of such importance.
But the fact that subsequent events did not go as predicted by the Minister for the Interior on television signifies, to me, that such changes in important political positions in Russia today can and do proceed as routinely as they do in the world's other democracies.
There is one other aspect I should like to mention: on the many visits we have made to Russia in recent years to observe elections, I have formed the impression that people conduct those elections - go to the ballot boxes, cast their votes - in a very serious spirit, wanting genuinely to construct a democracy in Russia.
This in no way changes the fact that we must naturally be alert to many developments and also draw attention to errors, as a reliable partner and friend does.
We did this, for example, to very, very good effect in connection with the evaluation of the conflict in Chechnya.
We have done the same thing with a number of human rights violations.
And we are going to have to continue doing so in future!
Mr President, in the few minutes available to me I will try to address the questions raised.
The Florence European Council welcomed the steady improvement in relations between the European Union and Russia, an improvement marked notably by the entry into force of the interim agreement in February 1996 and the adoption of the action plan by the Council on 13 May 1996.
This action plan, which covers support for the democratic process, economic cooperation, security and foreign relations aspects and justice and home affairs, will be implemented promptly and efficiently in full cooperation with the Russian authorities.
The partnership and cooperation agreement provides the essential framework for the development of the Union's relations with Russia.
Pending its entry into force, the trade provisions of the PCA are being implemented by means of an interim agreement.
The Council regards the action plan as an important element in the intensification of relations between the EU and Russia.
The plan covers a wide range of spheres of action identified by the Council on 20 November 1995 and concentrates on a number of priorities.
The main features of the action plan were presented to the Russian side by the Troika and the Italian presidency in both Rome and Brussels before the Council adopted the plan.
The action plan will clearly require close and ongoing coordination between the actions of the European Community, whose principal support instrument remains the TACIS programme, the actions of the Member States and, where appropriate, the other main donors in order to ensure maximum efficiency in terms of synergy and complementarity.
It is for the Union to ensure that implementation of the plan is the product of joint effort with Russia and of close cooperation between the Union and its Member States.
In the first pillar areas, progress has been made in the area of contractual relations towards the ratification of the PCA with Russia.
The interim agreement, which provides for the entry into force of the trade provisions of the PCA, is being implemented, while negotiations have taken place on the new agenda, as provided for in the PCA.
In the area of regional cooperation, the Commission has, of course, brought forward its initiative with regard to Baltic cooperation, and cross-border cooperation is also being supported under TACIS.
The actions set out under nuclear energy, nuclear safety and the environment and efforts to modernize the production system are, of course, of very great importance, given the damage done to the environment in Russia in the past.
These actions are also being implemented or examined under TACIS.
In the area of cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs, action to combat organized crime is to be addressed at a seminar in Finland in early December, which will be attended by experts from Russia and the Member States.
This will deal specifically with the impact of organized crime and drugs on Russia and the Union.
Cooperative measures to combat such activities will also be addressed.
The above is not an exhaustive list of ongoing measures.
Further actions will, of course, be addressed in the future.
A number of the specific actions contemplated under the action plan are covered by procedures which already exist, such as the TACIS programme.
The Commission, of course, is best placed to explain how TACIS can help with the implementation of the action plan.
In the context of the development of the Union's overall relations with Russia, the Council greatly appreciates the valuable contribution of the European Parliament.
The present debate provides a useful opportunity for an exchange of views on these important issues and we look forward to similar opportunities in the future.
To address the further areas to which the honourable Members refer, I would point out that where research is concerned, Russia may, under certain conditions, already participate in several projects under the fourth framework programme.
Within the framework of available budgetary resources, cooperation programmes in the research and development sphere should undoubtedly be encouraged in the parties' reciprocal interest, subject to effective and adequate protection being given to intellectual, industrial and commercial property rights.
Cooperation in the sphere of justice and home affairs I have referred to already but in relation to asylum and readmission matters this is one of the plan's five major priorities.
Follow-up of the problem of refugees and displaced persons in the CIS is also high on the list of areas for action.
On the combating of organized trafficking and crime, the plan provides that such cooperation could take the form of regular exchanges of information, having due regard to national and international legislation on data protection, the setting-up of a network of contact points and participation in seminars.
As far as the EIB's participation is concerned, it should be remembered that the European Investment Bank's role is to finance the development of the Member States of the European Union.
It intervenes externally only on the basis of specific unanimous decisions of the Board of Governors.
In the case of Russia, it should be stressed that the EBRD, the World Bank and TACIS already finance operations and the contributions of the Member States supplement that funding.
As a result the financial commitment of the Member States and the international organizations towards the Russian Federation is already quite substantial.
On the question of cooperation on nuclear energy, the Council would point out that it has authorized the Commission to conclude on the basis of the Euratom Treaty two cooperation agreements in the fields of controlled nuclear fusion and nuclear safety, the purpose of the latter being to help improve nuclear safety and, in particular, to find and implement scientifically and internationally agreed nuclear safety guidelines.
In this context the Member has mentioned the case of Alexander Nikitin.
The Council is aware of the case and of the concerns of Parliament.
The case is currently subject to Russian legal procedures and the Council is following it closely and notes that Parliament is also pursuing this issue.
In addition to the TACIS programme for the approximation of laws in the context of the energy charter, action under TACIS will continue to aim to increase both the diversity and security of supply of hydrocarbons in Europe.
On 5 July 1996, following the elections in Russia, the presidency made a declaration on behalf of the European Union voicing inter alia the Union's determination to press on with the establishment of close relations within a substantive and constructive partnership with the Russian Federation on the basis of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
The Union is monitoring closely the situation in Chechnya.
It has welcomed as a positive development the recent accords between the Russian authorities and the separatists which were concluded with the help of the OSCE assistant group in Chechnya.
Both in public declarations and in contacts with the Russian authorities, the EU has consistently stressed the importance and usefulness of the assistance group both in helping to bring about a ceasefire and in the search for a wider negotiated political solution of the problem.
In conclusion, the Council can only stress the great importance it attaches to the entry into force of the partnership and cooperation agreement at the earliest possible opportunity.
This agreement is to form the basis of relations between the Union and Russia and will consolidate legally and internationally the possibility of cooperation in all areas of mutual interest.
Pending that entry into force the action plan constitutes clear evidence of the Union's resolve to strengthen its relations with Russia and to concentrate on specific practical issues and objectives.
Madam President, I will try to be brief as Minister Mitchell has already provided extensive information on the approach to Russia.
In regard to what Mrs Lalumière has just said, I should like to further stress that the action plan as such was not intended to further supplement the wide-ranging intended cooperation with Russia on the basis, in particular, of the partnership agreement and the interim agreement which has since entered into force, but rather to give concrete content to and provide a concrete action plan for the implementation of the framework agreement.
A memorandum has also been drawn up on this subject. We will be pleased to submit this to Parliament as this also includes, for example, everything which has been achieved in the various areas with the existing TACIS instrument and the existing TACIS budget.
A great deal has also been said today about how we can possibly support the strengthening of democracy in Russia.
Many projects have been launched in this area.
One very interesting project, for example, is our cooperation with the Council of Europe, a joint programme in cooperation with Russia, designed to help Russia fulfill the necessary conditions for membership of the Council of Europe.
This is therefore closely concerned with adapting the constitutional and other legislation.
There are other projects which I happen to know about and which relate to stimulating certain town twinnings, indicating that attempts are also being made at a lower administrative level to strengthen democratic institutions.
The same applies in the area of education.
I should also like to mention a number of other very important policy areas, such as the environment, and I acknowledge Mrs Schroedter at this point, and nuclear safety in which cooperation with Russia is of course very important.
Of the total budget available to us for nuclear safety projects, which means the safety of nuclear reactors, one half of that which is available under TACIS is spent in Russia.
It is in Russia that we find the most nuclear reactors and the greatest risk.
I am leaving aside the whole Chernobyl business in the Ukraine, because that is in fact a G7 project and not exclusively a TACIS project.
In short, I should like to conclude my intervention at this stage by saying that I will also be pleased at a later date and in a Commission context, where necessary and perhaps also more regularly, to further discuss with Parliament the follow-up to our cooperation with Russia as it is of course something which can only be totally achieved on a progressive basis.
Quite complicated projects are also often involved.
We are dealing with government bodies which are far from being totally transparent and are also still in the process of reform. I thus readily admit that when it comes to giving practical substance to our cooperation it is still very often a question of trial and error from which we also have lessons to learn.
I am in any event grateful for the interest shown by Parliament in providing new impetuses for cooperation with a country which finds itself in an exceptionally difficult situation.
Difficult in a political sense, as the leadership has serious health problems as we all know and the changes at the top are creating a certain political uncertainty.
The economic situation nevertheless offers some glimmers of hope.
Inflation, for example, has fallen considerably over the past year.
On the other hand, there are enormous economic problems with unpaid wages and an economy which clearly needs new impulses from abroad which are not coming because the investment climate in Russia is such that it is not a particularly attractive prospect at present.
In short, everything is linked.
I should in any event like to assure Parliament, also further to what Minister Mitchell has said, that cooperation with Russia is contributing to the country's stability and is naturally a matter of top priority for the Council and the Commission.
Madam President, Russia has already made a degree of successful progress along the road to democracy in recent years, though much still remains to be done.
The EU action plan to assist this progress is very ambitious, supporting not only Russia's democratic and economic reforms but also regional cooperation in matters of nuclear security, environmental problems, humanitarian aid and measures aimed at a future European security system.
Madam President, this is a massive workload that the European Union is taking on, as expressed in this action plan.
Unfortunately, this falls far short of proving that the EU has sufficient resources to take on a leading role in Russia.
Apart from providing support through the TACIS programme, the European Union must also evolve other programmes for Russia and take appropriate action if the problems existing there are to be solved.
Closer institutional links must also be created.
I should mention here in passing that the partnership and cooperation agreement has still not been ratified by every Member State.
In brief, the European Union is only one small player in the massive Russian social scene, with limited influence.
The financial framework even of the TACIS programme is limited by comparison with what other international organizations are doing, and certain Member States of the European Union, such as the Federal Republic of Germany, have greater political influence in Russia than does the European Union as a governmental institution.
In order to be taken seriously in Russia, the European Union needs to raise its profile and strengthen its support for economic and democratic reform; the action plan can only be a first step.
Recent weeks have shown that political stability in Russia is still not fully established.
The very outcome of the presidential elections, in which General Lebed came third in the first round of voting, with the support of 11 million Russian electors, thus making Yeltsin's victory possible, is an indication of a very difficult period of development, during which nationalism, in Russia as elsewhere, is gaining more ground than previously.
The deposing of General Lebed, the dissatisfaction with the Ministers for the Interior and for Defence, the problems in the Russian army and, last but not least, the absence of the sick President from the presidential position that holds so much power in Russia indicate that the political situation in Russia is an enormously difficult one.
The European Union cannot afford an unstable Russia.
We have a historic opportunity genuinely to promote democracy in Russia, and also to contribute to a peaceful solution to the conflict in Chechnya.
An inward-looking Russia, involving its own authoritarian variation on democracy which has more to do with the Romanovs than with a modern social constitution, is not an option for the EU.
Madam President, by adopting the action plan for Russia, the European Council has clearly declared its wish to support the reforms now in hand.
But the plan is inadequate.
What it covers, the ideas that will govern its implementation and the resources that will be given to it must be defined.
Russia is at present in a paradoxical situation.
Many disasters had been predicted for it - civil war, public disorder, famine - but happily none of these has occurred.
There was the terrible war in Chechnya but today the weapons are silent and negotiations are taking place.
The democratic reforms have had undeniable effects.
Repeated elections - parliamentary, presidential, local, regional - bear witness to the stabilization of institutions and above all to a growing democratic awareness in Russian society. But democracy cannot survive in chaotic social conditions.
It cannot exist without a state which embodies all social interests.
This is where the main weaknesses of Russia lie, weaknesses which are slowing down its modernization and which could eventually call into question the progress already achieved.
I will list four of them.
First is nuclear insecurity: Russian nuclear power stations are dangerous: Chernobyl is the prime example.
There is also traffic in fissile materials.
With the nuclear problem we must associate that of the environment, ravaged by three quarters of a century of a development policy which despised nature to the point of destruction.
The result of this is a general deterioration in the health of Russians, accentuated by the accompanying collapse of the whole health system.
This is illustrated by a tragic piece of demographic information: the reduction in human life expectancy over the last fifteen years and the parallel increase in infant mortality.
The third problem is the security of individuals and property, and state security too, which is threatened by an explosion in crime, admittedly including some petty crime but mostly consisting of economic crime increasingly linked with international criminal networks.
The fourth problem, which stems from the process of economic transformation, is the growing inequality in society. A considerable proportion of the population is poor, a situation felt all the more acutely by them, faced as they are by the growing wealth of the rest of society.
In order to alleviate the social suffering, to ensure that the most deprived are protected, and to provide security for everybody, Russia must be a strong state responding to the public interest. But the Russian state is weak.
It is weak in the face of selfish and strong local powers.
It is weak in the face of crime.
It is weak in the face of a helpless and divided society.
For the Russian state to be able to exist at all, for it to be able to play its proper role, it must, above all, have a financial basis and clear law.
What is most urgently required of the European Union is help for Russia in setting up the tax system it currently lacks, together with the means to make that system work and a legal system to make it really effective.
This is no mean task.
It will be accomplished only if a well-defined, comprehensive and coherent project, accompanied by the necessary resources and mobilizing all the European institutions - financial institutions, various programmes like TACIS - is implemented in a common effort to resolve all the problems I have listed.
Failing such a project, such a conception and such a concentration of resources, the plan of action will remain strictly theoretical.
Europe's future is well worth such an effort.
Madam President, all of you - Christian Democrats, Gaullists, Centrists and Liberals - wish to help Russia to establish the rule of law and respect human rights. This aim is praiseworthy.
But do you really think you are credible, while the Mafia and your own parties interpenetrate each other in Italy, France and elsewhere, while in Belgium and France pornographic, sado-masochistic and paedophile literature is on every newsstand, and the freedom to publish such literature is viewed with so much indulgence here?
Do you think you are credible when in France the so-called Minister of Justice will shake hands with the paedophile murderer Patrick Henri, when the same Mr Toubon wishes to stifle the freedom of the press by forbidding it to talk about corruption and immigration and when he wishes to impose a law even more totalitarian than that of the Communist Gayssot, a law destroying liberty for use by thought police and police with ulterior motives: what the great journalist Annie Kriegel not long ago called the intolerable thought police?
You - the Marxists and Socialist-Communists of all shapes and sizes - are now shamelessly demanding more democracy in Russia, worried as you are, you say, by the authoritarian tensions in the country.
I must be dreaming!
You did not demand such a thing in times gone by!
But why not, first of all, at least check that gulags no longer exist, closely tied up as they would be with the rest of the Communist nomenklatura? And why not demand that a census be taken of these camps, that the tens of thousands of victims be accounted for, that the torturers, many of them still alive, stand trial?
Fifty years after Nuremberg, national socialism never ceases to be judged over and over again.
Today, on the fortieth anniversary of the Budapest uprising, is it not time to begin the still-necessary grand trial of international socialism, of its 80-year-long crimes against humanity, against peoples and against nations? This is what the Russian people are waiting for: they must shed themselves of the worst of pasts before they can discover the path to the future.
Madam President, while there has been some progress along the road to democracy in Russia, much remains to be done.
The EU action plan is highly ambitious, as has already been said, setting out not only to support Russian democratic and economic reforms through TACIS, but also addressing contractual relations, regional cooperation, nuclear energy and nuclear safety, the environment, economic reconstruction, humanitarian aid and the future European security structure.
These are massive tasks which the EU seeks to tackle in its proposed action plan.
Unfortunately there is not yet a scintilla of evidence that the EU is currently equipped to take on such a role.
Certainly the EU will have to target support from the TACIS programme better and consider opening other EU programmes up to Russia if it is to have an impact on the problems facing that country.
There will also have to be closer institutional links in place of the ad hoc arrangements which exist today.
Frankly, the EU is currently a bit player in Russian society, with only limited influence.
The support provided by the TACIS programme pales beside the financial support provided by international institutions like the IMF which supplied Russia with a £10.9bn standby loan.
Even individual Member States, such as Germany, have greater influence in Russia than the EU as an institution.
So, to be taken seriously the EU needs to raise its profile and support for economic and democratic reform in Russia.
Democracy and economic reform need the support of the EU and this House now more than ever before.
There is a growing tide of nationalism in Russia, as we have heard, and growing disenchantment with the perceived failure of Western-inspired reform and values.
The success of Alexander Lebed, which has already been referred to, in the presidential elections last summer where he came third, with 11 million votes, was an indication of this political trend.
The fact that a man who admires General Pinochet, called Mormons scum and filth, promised to shoot criminals and describes himself as a semi-democrat is regarded as a moderate nationalist in the Russian political firmament, shows the worrying drift of politics in Russia.
It is easy to scaremonger about the situation in Russia, but the fact remains that over one-third of the population live below the breadline, while the social infrastructure in the country has disintegrated.
The EU and the West need to support the social as well as the economic recovery of the country.
The EU has a historic chance to encourage real democracy in Russia and to support the peaceful settlement of the conflict in Chechnya.
The alternative is an inward-looking Russia, developing its own authoritarian style of democracy which has more in common with the Romanovs and Tsarist Russia than a modern constitution.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
Employment and labour market policy committee
The next item is the report (A4-0316/96) by Mr Theonas, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on a proposal for a Council Decision setting up an employment and labour market policy committee (COM(96)0134 - C4-0396/96-96/0097(CNS)).
Madam President, with its proposal to set up an employment and labour market policy committee, the European Commission is doing something about the lack of a permanent structure in the sector of employment, a move comparable to the creation of the Committee on Economic Policy, which was founded in 1974 and aims to promote the coordination of the economic policies of Member States in both the short and the long term.
Since March 1995 the attempt has been made to fill that gap by an ad hoc group of personal representatives of the Ministers for Labour, convened by a decision of the Council for Social Affairs.
However, that group encountered many difficulties in carrying out the duties assigned to it, mainly because of the inadequacy of the means at its disposal, in other words the lack of a formal and permanent structure assisted by its own adequately staffed secretariat, which, within its terms of reference, was charged with the analysis, monitoring and preparation of related reports and comparative studies.
The need to set up a committee with a stable and permanent structure was asserted in the joint report by the Council and the Commission submitted to the Madrid Summit, while the European Parliament too, with the resolutions it approved in November 1995 and June 1996, called for better coordination between macroeconomic policy and structural measures in the labour market sector, and for the upgrading of the ad hoc group on employment, to enable it to cooperate better with the Committee on Economic Policy in preparing the joint report on employment policy submitted to the European Council.
Madam President, your rapporteur does not believe that the constitution of this committee can on its own solve the most explosive problem of our times, namely unemployment, nor that it can promote employment in Europe decisively.
That is the task of the more general policies of the European Union and the Member States, though these do not seem to be contributing much towards it.
However, the constitution of the committee may contribute to the development and implementation of the common strategy for employment, and mainly, help with the formulation of common indices that would be useful for the closer monitoring of policy in the area of employment and of the implementation of the multiannual programmes.
It can also make important contributions to the better information of working people, their representatives, the social agencies, and the European Parliament and the European Union's other institutions, by presenting useful statistics on employment, comparative tables of relevant data for each Member State, information about new forms of employment, data concerning the deterioration of social conditions in the Member States, and information about any negative or other consequences of the policy of promoting more flexible labour relations and reducing regulatory interventions in the labour market.
Those are precisely the functions which the three amendments tabled on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment are intended to strengthen, which concern further clarification of the committee's role - Amendment No 1 - enlargement of its competences - Amendment No 2 - and the obligation to forward the reports and recommendations it draws up to the European Parliament - Amendment No 3.
Finally, I would like to point out that the role entrusted to the new committee is different from that of the permanent Committee on Employment in which the Council, the Commission and representatives of employers' and workers' organization participate, and that its aim is to ensure dialogue between the three sides on issues of social policy for employment.
In conclusion, the proposal for a decision submitted by the Commission is largely inspired by the orders relating to the constitution and operation of the Committee on Economic Policy and rests on the same legal base, namely Article 145 of the Treaty.
Besides, to the extent that the committee in question will fully replace the ad hoc group of Ministers for Labour, its effect on the European Union's budget will be marginal.
Madam President, may I begin by thanking the speaker for an excellent report and for the good cooperation when the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment formulated this report which has just been presented.
The reduction of unemployment and the creation of new jobs is one of the most important tasks in the European Union.
Previously, it has been possible for individual countries to reduce unemployment through their own labour market and economic policies.
This is no longer sufficient as we have seen.
It is not sufficient in a world where capital now flows freely across borders.
Obviously there will continue to be action at a National level to reduce unemployment.
But there is also a new requirement now for action at Community level.
The Council has been aware of this and has mentioned it at many Council meetings in Essen, Cannes, Madrid and Florence.
But, really very little has been done to live up to those proud words which have been presented at the Council meetings.
In addition to actions at National level and at Community level, macroeconomic initiatives and labour market policies are required; they must complement each other.
An economic policy is required which prioritises not only the fight against inflation and budget deficits but also the fight against unemployment.
A labour market policy is required which prioritises active labour market policy actions over and above the passive payment of labour market subsidies.
Labour market ministers and finance ministers need to work together on employment policies.
They also need the same resources to be able to follow up on the long term programmes which the Member States have taken upon themselves to implement to create employment.
There is currently a committee on economic policy which gives support to Council Finance Ministers in the form of analysis, proposals and evaluation.
Labour Market Ministers require the same support.
This was realised at the informal Council meeting in Córdoba, when a request was made to the Commission to prepare an appropriate proposal.
The proposal which the Commission has prepared is good.
In Parliamentary discussions on the budgetary deficit doubts have been expressed about the establishment of a committee on employment and labour market policies.
Let me lay them to rest.
This committee will be financed by the Labour Market Ministers in the same way as the existing committee is financed by the Finance Ministers.
Establishment of the committee will not involve any extra cost and it will simply establish a balance between Finance Ministers and Labour Market Ministers in terms of employment policy actions.
The committee will follow up national programmes.
Such evaluation requires common indices.
We have pointed this out in Parliament before and we point it out again today in our proposal.
Unfortunately, the Commission&#x02BC;s proposal does not include such common indices.
The establishment of a committee on employment and labour market policy will naturally not solve unemployment problems in Europe.
But it is a start when it comes to creating a stable structure within the Community to be able to get to grips seriously with the problem.
Discussions are now underway at the Intergovernmental Conference to insert a chapter on employment in the report which would give the Union greater competence in the area of employment.
The fight against unemployment will be given the same place and status in the report as the fight against inflation and budget deficit.
For this, an employment committee which has the same status as the monetary committee is required.
For Parliament&#x02BC;s part, we support such a proposal.
It will mean that we have an opportunity to make a real effort against unemployment at Union level and that coordination between Member States will increase.
Today&#x02BC;s proposal to establish a committee on employment and labour market policy is one step on the road to the creation of a better structure within the Union to be able to conduct a more active labour market policy.
The committee will have contact with parties involved in the labour market through cooperation with the Standing Committee on Employment and will naturally have contact with the committee on labour market policy.
This will be an excellent support mechanism for the labour market ministers in their work.
Madam President, we are now setting up yet another committee.
In this case it is a matter of advising on employment and labour market policy.
I remained rather quiet in the committee on this subject, although I did support the rapporteur in the final vote.
I kept quiet because I have a number of questions which I would like the Commissioner to answer.
Exactly what approach is this committee to adopt?
Will its meetings be public, as the Committee on Budgets has requested?
Will the committee members be asked to declare their financial interests?
How will the committee approach the whole subject of an active labour market policy?
What will be the committee's approach in relation to the existing Standing Committee on Employment? These are all questions which I believe require a clear answer, not because I am considering proposing that my group should vote against setting up such a committee, but because I believe that if we set up this committee then it must operate exceptionally well.
Because the reason we are setting it up is in order to improve the operation of the labour market.
I believe this to be the umpteenth debate on employment in Europe this week.
We discussed employment in the debate on the statement by the Commission President. We discussed employment in the budget debate.
This morning we discussed employment during the poverty debate. I notice that some of my colleagues again speak of employment when debating this committee.
The fact is that we always display a form of impotence when it comes to this question. My question to the Commissioner is therefore: does he expect the committee to be able to achieve what the Council has to date been unable to achieve?
Will a truly active labour market policy be pursued if we set up such a committee? For example, will the employment promotion agencies, which is one of Commission President Santer's proposals, work together if such a committee is set up including at least four members from each Member State?
In short, I have a great many questions, not because I am opposed to the committee but because I believe it to be essential for such a committee to provide truly excellent support.
I would therefore also like to ask the Commissioner how he believes the committee's opinions should be dealt with and how Parliament is to be involved in implementing the committee's opinions.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this week is actually the third or fourth occasion to date on which we have discussed employment.
But the question which arises is how this Community can also equip itself with the necessary instruments really to be able to coordinate the policies of the Member States and the added value of a European employment policy.
Other speakers have already pointed out how many questions are still unanswered here.
I, too, once again urge the Commission to give us clear answers.
The essential thing for me - and the reason why we shall be supporting this report - is that it offers a starting point for creating the kind of machinery needed to improve this coordination - including improvements on the part of the Social Affairs Council - and that is certainly a good thing.
But this must not be allowed to happen simply on the old principle of 'If you can't solve a problem, set up a committee to bury it' .
I believe we should make quite sure that the Commission bears that in mind.
Strengthening the Social Affairs Council relative to the almost omnipotent Ecofin Council can only be a first step towards getting an effective, independent employment policy up and running in this Union, a policy free from the illusion that employment is something that happens automatically once growth, monetary union, competitiveness and the profitability of capital are in place.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal put to us is for the setting up of a new committee called the employment and labour market policy committee.
I see that the cancer of European bureaucracy is spreading.
The creation of this committee is yet another symptom of the disillusion and the mistaken centralizing and bureaucratic ideas which are infecting the European political class.
This committee will not be able to conceal the tragic failure of the Maastricht economic and social policy for Europe and will content itself with observing and commenting on the disastrous consequences for jobs of the choice of a socially criminal free-trade policy.
While committees and watchdogs multiply, unemployment, insecurity, poverty and the relocation of enterprises are increasing at a frantic rate.
No gimmick will be able to contain the legitimate anger of the European peoples who are suffering.
So we must not set up new committees: we must change the policy, guarantee preference for our peoples when vacancies are being filled and protect our Community market.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, you will remember that the European Parliament was not wildly enthusiastic about the modest Essen results but we made up for this when it came to the follow-up procedure.
Such a follow-up procedure may not create jobs but we were convinced that this was the first modest step towards a European common employment policy.
Our experiences with the single market and the EMU convergence strategy have taught us that the combination of political will, a good timetable and a good follow-up procedure can serve to point everybody in the same direction and this is what we also wanted to do in the case of the employment strategy.
I am convinced that this was also the Commission's motivation.
In this cooperation procedure, however, the Social Affairs Council and Ecofin are still not fighting with the same weapons.
Ecofin has repeatedly shown that it is not really concerned about employment.
It is therefore high time we had a committee for the Social Affairs Council which can put its contribution to employment strategy on a more equal footing.
But I doubt whether this proposal will in fact put the Social Affairs Council on an equal footing, and for two reasons.
First of all, employment policy is based on two inseparable pillars: a macroeconomic pillar and structural employment policy.
Commissioner, this two-pillar approach is not being consistently applied to the new committee.
Whereas the Economic Policy Committee can have a clear impact on employment policy and on economic policy, there are no plans for the employment and labour market policy committee to be able to make a necessary contribution to economic guidelines, for example.
How on earth are we going to be able to ensure that, in the guidelines, economic policy concentrates primarily on employment if this committee is not allowed to have its say? The European Commission disappoints me by not making this provision in Article 103(2), for example, as both the Swedish and Belgian proposal submitted to the IGC did lay these necessary bridges.
Secondly, I should also like to stress a point which has already been made by Mr Andersson: a follow-up procedure stands or falls on certain tests.
If the Council and Commission really take the priority actions for employment seriously, then we must have indicators in order to measure the efforts of Member States, in the area of training for example. If training is important, Commissioner, why then can no guarantee be given that every year a certain percentage of the labour force can follow training.
Then comes the ultimate test: the halving of unemployment by the year 2000 as a concrete test of employment policy. I am convinced that if this committee has no indicators at its disposal it will remain at most a paper tiger and at most capable of producing reams of paper.
I therefore hope that the Commission will also vote for our amendment.
Finally, Madam President, I should like to say that this committee marks just a small new step towards a cohesive European employment strategy.
I dare to hope, ladies and gentlemen, that the missing pieces to the puzzle will be provided during the IGC and that the committee will come to play an increased role in the Union's employment policy, in accordance with the Treaty.
Madam President, the proposal which we now have before us is an important proposal as it follows on from what was decided at the Essen Summit on a European employment strategy.
Employment is one of the European Union's top priorities.
It is good to set up a committee on employment which will be responsible for monitoring the employment policy of the Member States.
The committee can also encourage better coordination of employment policy between the Member States.
It is also important to involve the social partners when promoting employment in Europe.
It is furthermore important for this employment and labour market policy committee to be funded out of the Council budget.
If not, we will have problems of comitology as the committee does not satisfy the requirements of comitology.
The committee is a body supported by the Social Affairs Council charged with the implementation and development of European employment strategy.
This committee is an answer to the request by the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment in the IGC report on social policy for which I was rapporteur.
It is a counter-balance to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
It thus provides a better balance between the European Union's economic and social policy.
It is primarily a question of removing the differences between the internal market and social policy and creating a single economic and social Union.
It is a pity that this employment and labour market policy committee is being confused with the Standing Committee on Employment.
We have many examples of this.
In this respect it would have been much better to have looked for another name for the latter committee, which has to be adapted in any event and where we must ensure that there is no duplication of tasks.
I therefore very much regret, Commissioner, that the Commission has made no proposal for that committee.
I fear that you are failing to get to grips with this committee.
We know that representativeness is the sticking problem.
A decision must be taken on this and as quickly as possible, as if not we will all be much criticized for bureaucracy.
We will now have to do this later.
Parliament does not interfere directly with this new committee and we want to keep it that way.
The Council does not interfere with Parliament's budget and Parliament does not interfere with the Council's budget.
This House does indeed want to be kept informed of the committee's reports and recommendations.
But as far as the rest is concerned we still have much to learn as the overall strategy is not yet clear to me.
Madam President, the current level of unemployment that we have in EU Member States at 20 million people is perhaps our greatest challenge. One reason why it is so high - there are several - is the EMU.
It goes without saying that if one scales down, makes economic savings and cuts back in 15 Member States simultaneously, without introducing stimulation for the economy, that unemployment will be high.
The EMU project is one reason why it is so high and it must be met with resistance.
The best would have been to say no to the EMU.
Next best would have been to introduce criteria into the EMU which also covered goals for employment, the environment and regional responsibility.
None of this has happened.
The creation of a committee on employment to find joint strategies and solutions is at least a move in the right direction.
But I would like to say that this is no solution. Those who believe that the committee will solve the problem of unemployment in the EU are wrong.
Each country must take its own responsibility for unemployment; responsibility shall remain with the Member States. The committee must not take over and create a supranational employment policy or conjuncture policy.
This would never work and, in my opinion, this is not the intention of the proposal from the Commission.
So: summarise, produce reports, come forward with ideas and recommendations, but no supranational policies at EU level please.
At least this will be a good step towards the solution of our greatest problem.
Madam President, the hopes expressed in the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment of creating 15 million jobs by the end of the millennium and the hard facts of today are worlds apart.
There will soon be 20 million men and women out of work in the European Union, and they deserve better than declarations of intent and expressions of concern.
So it was an important signal for Europe when the Council Meeting in Essen decided to evolve a comprehensive strategy of cooperation between the Member States to deal with employment.
The concentration on those particularly affected by unemployment, increased investment in vocational training and the increase in the intensity of employment give reason to hope that the campaign against unemployment may be waged aggressively, with something more concrete than paper and words.
No one disputes the need to set up the committee on employment and labour market policy.
However, in order to be able to work successfully and effectively, it does need a stable organizational structure.
The expected reports on progress made and on omissions will pave the way for public debate, including debate in the European Parliament.
So we need informative data, analyses and conclusions, and we need them quickly, Commissioner.
The results will lead to a qualified exchange of experience with the Council, the Commission and the social partners on employee protection and social standards, on the conditions for greater mobility and flexible working hours, and, I have no doubt, on opportunities for young people, of whom so many are with us at this very moment in the gallery.
We expect information on the feasibility and efficacy of many policies and schemes which, though they may still be separate today, may in future be pursued jointly.
Madam President, Parliament, the Council and the Commission are at one in supporting the fundamental objective of combating unemployment in the EU.
However, while Parliament and the Commission are able to reach agreement on specific action, the Council is withholding its consent in important areas.
The decision situation is determined by the attitudes of the Economics and Finance Ministers, notably including those of the Federal Republic.
They can benefit from the preparatory work of a special committee, unlike the Council of Social Affairs Ministers, which has difficulty in forming a suitable counterweight to promote an active employment policy in the EU.
The stop-gap arrangement of an ad hoc group which does work for the Social Affairs Council but is inadequately resourced cannot meet the actual requirements.
The Commission proposal to the effect that a regular committee on employment and labour market policy should be set up, working both for the Social Affairs Council and for the general Council, conforms to Parliament's intentions.
The Commission should have no problem accepting the amendments suggested by the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
No one will expect the labour market situation to improve simply because a committee is set up.
What can be expected, though, are useful contributions and specific suggestions to help solve the employment problem.
I should like to take this opportunity to call upon the Commission, and especially on the Commissioner who is with us here today, to lose no time in presenting the long-awaited proposals to increase the efficiency of the Standing Committee on Employment, which has existed since 1970 and includes representatives of both employers and employees.
Madam President, let me first of all thank Mr Theonas and indeed Members of the House for the very efficient and speedy way in which they have dealt with the Commission proposal to set up this employment and labour market policy committee.
The importance of the proposal has been recognized by the Members of the House here this evening and that is very reassuring for me and for the Commission.
We attach very great importance, of course, to the rapid development of this stable structure to assist the development of the European employment strategy.
The European Council requested the setting up of the structure in Madrid last December.
The Commission adopted the proposal in March this year and the Irish presidency has been very active in seeking progress at Council level.
They really want to see this matter adopted by way of decision at the Social Affairs Council on 2 December.
I believe it is useful for just a moment or two to go back on the reasons why the Council gave us the mandate to set up the structure in the first place.
The background is simply this: firstly and fundamentally this initiative has to be seen in the context of developing a more balanced European employment strategy where the structural, and especially labour market, policies are considered just as important as macroeconomic policies.
This is a major plank of the approach initiated by the Essen European Council and strengthened by the following European Councils.
In operational terms this balanced policy mix must be reflected in a fairer balance between the Social Affairs Council on the one hand and Ecofin on the other in the definition of a European employment strategy.
That is the basis behind the proposal.
Secondly, the Social Affairs Council must benefit from a strong analysis and proposal capacity in order to fulfil the mandate it was given in Essen jointly with Ecofin and the Commission to keep a close track of employment trends in the Union, monitor the relevant policies of the Member States and to report annually to the European Council on further progress on the employment market.
In particular it must be in a position to make a substantial contribution to the production of the annual joint report on employment for the Council.
The need for that good analysis was referred to by Mr Mann. That is something this committee will do as well.
The Commission proposal responds faithfully to all of those requests.
The committee that we have proposed has the following characteristics and they are very important: stability, that is thanks to an elected chairman; a solid capacity for analysis and proposal, thanks in particular to the Commission's close involvement; a status permitting a fruitful cooperation with the economic policy committee, the body which supports Ecofin Council; and provision for effective collaboration between the Council and the Commission.
I would like to emphasize that we are not talking here about comitology. I know this is a very sensitive issue for the European Parliament.
Comitology applies in the context of the delegation by the Council to the Commission of certain executive competences. It is therefore a question of implementing decisions taken by the Council.
Here on the other hand the purpose of this employment and labour market policy committee is to propose policy debates and policy recommendations for the Council and for the European Council in the field of employment.
So the committee itself will not take any enforceable decisions.
It is important to understand that.
The committee will be there to assist the European institutions in making progress in the definition and the implementation of a common employment strategy.
Compared with the present situation where the Council deliberations are prepared by an informal Council body, the ad hoc group, the committee represents progress in terms of transparency, and of interinstitutional balance.
I believe the European Parliament should welcome this because it is something the European Parliament has been calling for some time now.
However, I have to say that at this stage the trend emerging from the discussions at Council level is towards a certain lowering of the status of the committee, compared with the original proposal.
I will not hide from you that I am concerned about that tendency.
I do not think that is the way it should be going.
For that reason I attach great importance to the message which is given by Parliament in its opinion on this proposal.
I am very encouraged by the type of response I am getting because we want to see a strong committee, rather than a weakened one.
I welcome the generally supportive approach here this evening for the draft resolution and I welcome several of the proposed amendments which better define and even strengthen the role of the committee.
Let me go through them quickly.
Amendment No 1: I find the suggestion to add in the recitals a reference to the committee's contribution to the definition and implementation of the European employment strategy very useful indeed and I will suggest to the Council that they take it on board.
Amendment No 2: the introductory sentence.
As in the case of the recitals, I am happy to support an amendment in Article 1(2), establishing in general terms the contribution of the committee to the European employment strategy before the detailed description of tasks.
In the first indent I have no difficulty with the idea behind the request to mention the use of the common indicators and I can inform you that a reference to these indicators in Article 1 has already been agreed in the course of the Council discussions.
As regards what Mrs Van Lancker said about the indicators, I support that view and I would like to tell you that progress is being made on the question of the indicators.
It is not agreed yet.
But a lot of the Member States are coming over to that idea and I would hope that in the joint report to Dublin we will be able to accommodate that much more successfully.
In the third indent, I hope that the committee will contribute to a better coordination of the Member States' employment policies as proposed under the amendment.
As you know, the Commission has proposed in the context of the IGC to include provisions organizing such coordination in the Treaty.
However, in advance of the Treaty revision I find it somewhat premature to introduce such a provision as part of the committee's mandate.
I do not think that I can accept that at this time.
Later on, of course, we hope the IGC would agree to this.
In the fourth indent: it is really a question of style here, related to the proposed modification in the introductory sentence.
I have no difficulty with it.
The fifth indent: this particular amendment aims at mentioning the role of the committee in the preparation of two specific reports; the employment in Europe report and the joint employment report from the Commission and the Council.
The first, the employment report, is a Commission report.
The 1996 report has been adopted by the Commission and I believe it will be discussed in Parliament very soon.
The report should in effect be considered as part of the analytical support which the Commission will provide to this committee rather than as an output from the committee.
As far as the joint report on employment is concerned, we believe that the mention made in the recitals should be sufficient for us here.
Although the submission of a joint report to the European Council is at the moment an important element of the Essen procedure, we cannot foresee whether or when this will be replaced by another instrument and we would not like to be too specific about having this in the mandate of the committee for this reason.
In the sixth indent it is proposed that the committee should regularly consult the two sides of industry at Community level.
As you know - and this has been mentioned by several of the contributors - the Standing Committee on Employment has been set up specifically to ensure a dialogue between public authorities and the social partners in the field of employment policy.
With our recent communication on the future of the dialogue we have proposed options to make the standing committee more efficient and a reform will probably take place.
I believe that the proposed amendment would create some confusion as to the respective roles of the standing committee and the employment committee and I am not proposing to accept it for that reason.
This being said, I would like to stress that the decision contains a provision on coordination between the two committees and this is important to make sure that the contribution of the social partners is heard and taken into account.
There was some reference to that.
Let there be no confusion so far as employment is concerned; we have enough committees.
This committee is different, I want to have a good understanding between that and the Standing Committee on Employment.
Finally, Amendment No 3: it says that the reports and recommendations drawn up by the committee should be forwarded to Parliament.
I would like to make it clear that I fully understand Parliament's concern that they be kept informed of the committee's activities.
However, my impression is that this amendment, as formulated, will not be accepted by the Council because strictly speaking it would be for the Council itself and not for the committee to decide that a given report or a recommendation should be forwarded to Parliament.
I would therefore favour, as an alternative to this amendment, a general provision providing and establishing that Parliament will be kept informed about the activities of the committee.
I would like to say to Mrs Boogerd-Quaak that there should be no confusion as to what this particular committee is about.
It is not a legislative committee, nor is it an executive committee and consequently we must understand the relationship and the cooperation that will exist between it and the standing committee, always remembering that the standing committee is based at ministerial level.
So I believe this is a very good proposal. I am pleased that the House is supporting it.
We need to give the Social Affairs Council, labour ministers and ministers of employment the same kind of clout as EPC gives to the Ecofin ministers of finance.
That is the whole thrust and we would like as strong a committee as possible to achieve that aim.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-0971/96).
Mr President, on a point of order.
Why was my question to the Council not printed? It was submitted on 19 September, which should have made it sixth on our paper.
It is a matter of great importance to one of my constituents, a lecturer at the Language Institute in Naples, who has been treated quite disgracefully in a Member State which is flagrantly disobeying and disregarding European employment law.
I feel that this is something that should have been put on the agenda.
We checked it had arrived.
Nobody told us it was inadmissible in any way and I would like to know why it was not included.
I note what you have just said.
As pointed out by the honourable Member in his question, the Schengen Agreement is an international agreement, concluded by certain Member States within a context quite different from that covering the Treaty on European Union.
The honourable Member will understand therefore that the Council, as an institution of the Union, is not in a position to reply to the question as to whether the Schengen Agreement should be incorporated into the European Union.
The overall question is being examined by the Intergovernmental Conference, which is responsible for the revision of the Treaties.
With regard to the possible consequences arising from the communitization of the Schengen Agreement in the areas of drugs, asylum, visa and refugee policy, it is hardly possible at this point to initiate anything like a credible evaluation.
I agree that it is a very important matter to which the Council will have to devote particular attention as necessary.
But, as I have indicated already, it would be premature to draw any inferences at present.
Finally, with regard to the policy on passports within the context of the Schengen Agreement, the Council has no authority to provide a reply since it is a matter which is the exclusive responsibility for the authorities which are party to the Schengen Agreement.
Thank you for the answer, even if there was little of substance in it.
I, myself, will attempt to describe the possible results of the incorporation of Schengen into the EU. I am aware that currently there are IGC discussions underway and that there are proposals on this issue.
The speaker for the Council is also aware of this.
We have had a common passport union in Scandinavia for many years.
This means that it is not necessary to show one&#x02BC;s passport when crossing between the Scandinavian countries. We still maintain our border controls, however, and we still have the opportunity to check people at the border.
The incorporation of Schengen into EU would mean that border controls would be removed, as this is the main motive of the Schengen Treaty.
There is also a risk, as I and many others see it, that we will have tougher asylum, refugee, immigration and visa policies through the introduction of common regulations, as presumably the least generous regulations will become the norm for everyone in the EU.
This will mean tougher asylum policies for many Member States.
Is this to be the result of the introduction of Schengen to the EU?
I also believe that one of the reasons for the possible incorporation of Schengen into EU regulations is an attempt to create a more unified and homogeneous State.
I would very much like an answer as to whether this is the aim.
Speaking personally, I share some of the concerns which the Member raises.
In fact, as a member of the Reflection Group, I raised the whole question of the use of passports within the Union.
Fundamentally, I feel there is a serious conflict in the description of European citizen which is in the Maastricht Treaty if somehow we are strangers to each other and must show passports while we travel within the Union.
My own country has a particular problem with the Schengen Agreement, not with the principle of it, but because of a long traditional arrangement with our nearest neighbour and because of a border situation with Northern Ireland.
I can say, however, that this whole area is being discussed at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Personally I feel that if we defended our external borders in the Union as carefully as we sometimes watch the internal Member State borders, we would do more service to the Union.
I hope the day will come when passports will not be used anywhere within the European Union.
It is something I advocate.
I understand very well that the Council cannot anticipate the results of the Intergovernmental Conference and make my comment about how Schengen will be incorporated, but it should be possible to hear the Council&#x02BC;s objective in this area. Is it the objective of the Irish presidency that issues currently regulated via the Schengen Treaty will be regulated by EU law after the Intergovernmental Conference?
If this is the case, will they be regulated in the third column or within primary justice in the first column?
Firstly, Schengen is not a treaty-based agreement.
Secondly, the Council will consider the report of the Intergovernmental Conference as a Council of Ministers and the various Member States will put forward their views.
There is no one view within the Council so as the representative of the presidency, I cannot speak on behalf of the Council.
Some Member States within the Council feel that Schengen should have a treaty base, others that it should not and they do not want to sign up for it.
Personally I would have no difficulty with it being treaty-based and, in my view, the day the passport goes will be the day we have really reached a Union.
It is something I feel strongly about but I cannot say there is one view within the Council on this matter.
Yes, it is possible to be frightened by Schengen.
I, myself, also come from Sweden and have lived with the Scandinavian passport union. We have had Schengen in Sweden between Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland.
We have been able to maintain control over narcotics and we have been able to conduct different refugee policies and that is what we wanted. At the same time, people have been able to cross the borders without showing their passports.
It is, therefore, possible to have a passport union within the EU. Let people cross the borders freely but, at the same time, have strong controls against narcotics, weapons and such things.
It is perfectly possible.
I would remind the House that I also come from a Schengen-type arrangement between Britain and Ireland which has been in existence since the foundation of the Irish state.
There is no passport control between Ireland and Britain and there never has been since the foundation of the state.
However, there are complications in the whole Schengen process.
As an Irish citizen I would find it extraordinary that Norway and Iceland, which are not members of the Union, may have advantageous arrangements for travel in the Union which are not available to citizens of my own state.
This is an implication which also needs to be addressed.
But I would hope that in the long-term all Member States would have the good sense to sign up for Schengen.
I can tell you that objectively it is something which my state wishes to do.
I repeat that as far as I am concerned we will not be a Union until the day the passport goes.
It is pointless talking about citizenship of the Union when we are foreigners to each other and have to produce a document, in most countries signed by the foreign minister, in order to travel between our countries.
I share the sentiments of Members here but I would remind the House that any treaty-based amendment can only be introduced if there is unanimous agreement to those amendments.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 2 by Anne McIntosh (H-0718/96)
Subject: Action against child pornography
In the light of the increasing reports of incidences of paedophilia in the European Union, will the Irish presidency of the Council, as part of its campaign, take action at European level to prevent the trade in child pornography?
Would the Council consider the introduction of UK-style legislative measures to eradicate this illegal trade, in particular by setting up a database of convicted paedophile offenders and the exchange of information between police forces?
Question No 3 by Lyndon Harrison (H-0825/96)
Subject: Effects of the single market on children and young people
The Treaty on European Union recognizes the potentially negative effect of the single market in many areas such as social, environment and health and safety policy.
Yet in no place in the Treaty is it even accepted that the single market will have an effect on children and young people in the European Union.
Does the Council agree that children have been affected in specific ways by the single market, and that they may suffer more severely than adults from effects such as movement of families across borders and more freedom of movement for paedophiles?
Does the Council therefore agree that this effect of the single market should be recognized in the Treaty by a specific reference to children and young people?
In relation to both of these questions which concern the protection of children, during the September plenary session of the European Parliament, the House will recall that I addressed them on the issue of the abduction of children for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Today I would like to underline that the Council shares the concerns of the honourable Members of the European Parliament in relation to child sexual exploitation and is determined to ensure that no effort is spared in tackling the most appalling criminal behaviour which is involved in the sexual exploitation of children.
The EU demonstrated this concern when, following the tragic events in Belgium, it issued on 6 September a declaration welcoming the outcome of the world congress in Stockholm and stating that it would work towards the implementation of the Stockholm recommendations.
Parliamentarians will be aware that these recommendations included a call for commitment to make the commercial exploitation of children a criminal offence.
They also called for the prosecution of offenders, whether local or foreign, and the development and implementation of laws to establish the criminal liability of all those involved in child prostitution, child trafficking and other unlawful sexual activity.
On the specific issue which Miss McIntosh raises in her question, that of child pornography, the criminalization of both the trade in and possession of such abominable material is included in the recommendation and I can assure the honourable Member that the EU will do everything in its power to implement this.
The Union lost no time in beginning the work of translating the declaration it made into positive action.
By the time Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs held their informal meeting in Dublin on 26 and 27 September, they were in a position to focus the meeting largely on the issue of sexual exploitation of children and trafficking in human beings.
At this meeting ministers reinforced their commitment to maximize their cooperation in this area and reached political agreement on three important measures.
The first of these was an Irish presidency proposal tabled in the wake of the revelations of events in Belgium to extend the mandate of the European Drugs Unit to cover trafficking in human beings.
This instrument will cover the activities of paedophiles and those who supply children to them as well as trafficking in children for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
If affected, it will confer immediately on the EDU powers to combat this form of activity.
This work will be continued by Europol once the Europol Convention is ratified.
This measure will facilitate cooperation and the exchange of information between police forces and allow the EDU to provide any assistance that it can in relation to these activities.
The second measure was a Belgian proposal to establish a programme for the exchange and training of persons responsible for dealing with sexual exploitation of children and trafficking in human beings.
Finally, agreement was reached on a joint Belgian/presidency proposal concerning the creation of a directory of competences and specializations in the fight against paedophile crimes of this nature.
The implementation of these proposals will contribute significantly to international cooperation between operational police forces.
Ministers also discussed a range of other measures proposed by Belgium to strengthen the instruments with a view to responding further in a concrete and practical way to the concerns of the people of Europe.
They accordingly instructed senior officials to examine urgently and report to them by November on the following: adoption of agreed definitions of this kind of behaviour so that penalties in all countries of the European Union are standardized; adoption of measures to ensure prosecutions are effectively taken; adoption of measures to ensure the interests of victims of sexual exploitation are taken into account by the criminal justice system; the effectiveness of existing international instruments for cooperation in the criminal justice area, especially concerning children.
Ministers also underlined the importance of the earliest possible ratification of the Europol Convention in fighting this type of organized crime and agreed that they would do everything possible to achieve that result.
The work which I have outlined represents concrete steps already taken by the Council to deal with this problem.
The Council will not stop there but is intent on pursuing this issue vigorously until everything within its power has been done to ensure that we have within the Member States of the EU an area where our children are safe and where there can be no refuge for paedophiles and those who shamefully profit from the sexual exploitation of children.
The Council is aware of the view expressed by Mr Harrison that the question of the rights of minors should be considered in the Intergovernmental Conference with a view to the introduction of Treaty provisions in relation to them.
This is a matter which is currently under consideration in the IGC but honourable Members will understand that I am not at liberty to go into details of the discussion at present.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for a very full reply.
There were one or two omissions, however.
For example, if we are setting up a register at European level, what action do we propose to take with the names entered on that register? In the United Kingdom, for example, we are going to disclose the names of those who have a record of criminal offences involving children to potential employers.
Is that the type of action we could coordinate at European level?
Of more concern to me is the fact that you did not mention how we are going to control adverts currently being put on the Internet through the known paedophile ring, which is very difficult to trace.
That is an area where we can usefully insist on action being taken at European level.
I welcome what the President-in-Office said but I think we need to take action further than has been suggested.
First of all, with regard to a register at EU level and what we intend to do in using this - should we, for example, let employers know? This is an implementation matter which will require some detailed consideration.
I am not in a position to say exactly how it will be used but I can assure the Member that if the register is there the will is there to use it in every way possible to prevent paedophiles from continuing with their illicit and outrageous activities.
In relation to the Internet, in the first place Member States will be examining the discussion paper which the Commission recently published.
I expect that it will also have the effect of stimulating a wide debate on the issue.
This will be very valuable and the Council will respond very constructively to future proposals on matters of this kind from the Commission.
I should point out that the Industry Council of 8 October considered this matter.
The matter is being examined by the Commission at the request of the Industry Council, following on from that meeting.
This is not an easy situation to deal with because it requires certain voluntary assistance as things stand.
I do not know whether technically, for example, it is possible to control the Internet without having some control of those who input into the Internet.
But I can assure the Member that it is actively under consideration both by the Industry Council and by the Commission.
The Council of Ministers will do everything in their power to assist in this regard.
I am sorry to disabuse the President-in-Office but I am afraid his reply to my question was inadequate.
I had asked about the development of the single European market, in which three of the four freedoms are a danger, in my belief, to children.
He has talked about the freedom of movement of workers, in this case, paedophiles and those who have the ability to range across borders and inflict damage on children.
But I am also talking about the freedom of movement of services, like TV broadcasting, with implications for children in respect of advertising or programmes with adult content.
I am also talking about the free movement of goods, whether we are talking about drugs, food products or toys or whatever.
In other words, Mr Mitchell, we need to address ourselves to the question of the development of the single European market and whether it can have adverse effects on children, some of which are entirely unlooked for.
I am very grateful for your statement in September recognizing that children and young people may well be understood to be legally citizens under the European Union, but we want to have clarification on this important issue of the development of the single European market and on whether those bad effects on children can be mitigated by proper action at European level.
I cannot say whether the advent of the single market has contributed to lack of control in these particular areas, but I can say that, with the benefit of hindsight, we need to look at how we can strengthen controls in this particular area.
It seems to me, for example, that the problem exists, not just within the European Union, but with citizens of the European Union plying this terrible trade outside the Union where a single market does not exist.
It is not therefore entirely correct perhaps to attribute to the free movement of people the extent of the problem which exists.
But I can assure the Member that, in relation to the working of the single market and the free movement of people, the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers will consider the point raised.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for the full answers that he has given to questions relating to child abuse and to paedophilia.
I would like to ask him about the last part of his first answer to us when he told us that there was some thinking going on in respect of children and the IGC.
We as a Parliament want to see rights of children included within the Intergovernmental Conference and as part of the European Treaty.
Is this a matter which is being given serious and active consideration by the President-inOffice, and have proposals along those lines been prepared?
As indicated in my reply, I cannot speak for the Council on this matter.
From an Irish perspective I would offer the following comments.
The possibility of strengthening the non-discrimination principle in the Treaty is under consideration at the IGC.
The Irish presidency has tabled a paper on this question which envisages the possibility of a general provision on non-discrimination as well as a suitable legal basis to adopt legislative measures to prevent such discrimination.
Discrimination on the grounds of age is one of the aspects covered in this regard in the Irish presidency paper.
The possibility of strengthening the justice and home affairs provisions of the Treaty in order to assist in the fight against international crime is also being considered.
In relation to the other Treaty provisions, the suggestion has been put forward very strongly that we should incorporate in the Treaty specific references to children and their rights as citizens.
The initial advice which I have received is that citizenship, as described in the Union Treaties, applies to all persons who are citizens of a Member State.
However, given the fact that the matter has been raised here in the House and has been raised with various Ministers in their Member States by a number of organizations, I think this is a matter which is worth re-examining.
I have asked that this be communicated to the chairman of the Intergovernmental Group and the matter is being examined.
If there is to be a change, however, it would require full agreement of the other Member States, but it is something which we are examining.
Thank you, Mr President, for your replies.
This is not the first time we have debated this matter.
I should like to have more details on the following point: the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister has proposed that a European organization be set up, identical to the one already existing in Washington, which searches for missing children, but whose exact name I have forgotten.
Do you agree with his proposal? Is this part of the arrangement proposed by the Irish presidency?
This proposal has much merit and we will certainly look at it.
There is not, as far as I am aware, a specific proposal under consideration in the Council of Ministers at present, but the Belgian Minister's proposal has much merit and I would like to see it examined.
The political and legal status of the three states in question does not undermine in any way the policies of the European Union.
Andorra and San Marino have concluded agreements with the Community making them part of its customs area and of the regulation of issues of mutual interest.
The day-to-day management of these agreements is regulated by decisions of the mixed committees established by the agreements.
Monaco is also indirectly part of the Community customs area.
Its association with the objectives and work of the Union is effected by means of the Guarantee Agreement of 1918 and the Customs Convention of 1963 between the Principality and France.
If it were to arise that future developments going beyond the framework of the abovementioned agreements were to risk undermining the functions of the single market or other Union policies, the Council considers that the Commission and Member States, acting on issues pertaining to Titles V and VI of the Treaty on European Union, will take all necessary measures both at Community and Union levels.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for the detailed information he has provided on economic and financial matters.
However, I should also like to know whether there is a structured dialogue with these States, or whether such a structured dialogue might not serve a purpose, for example, in connection with questions of internal security, because there are wide aspects of internal security which concern these States in particular.
Structured dialogue only takes place with the associated states.
But I can say that there is regular dialogue with these states and the European Union.
I personally met with the Foreign Affairs Minister of San Marino within the last ten days and we had a very worthwhile exchange.
I am not aware of any pressure from any of the states mentioned in the question for improved dialogue with the Union and I believe that the dialogues which exist are working reasonably satisfactorily.
I was very interested to hear the President-in-Office's reply.
I would just like to broaden the issue a bit and ask about a similar situation which exists with the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.
Here are some islands which are wholly within the territory of the United Kingdom, reliant on Europe for many services and facilities and have the British monarch as head of state - certainly her portrait is on many of their bank notes - but these places are apparently outside the European Union. Is this not just a loophole and a tax haven so that some wealthy people can stash away their riches and exploit the system to get richer still in a more favourable tax climate, or is there a real purpose for their separate existence as such?
Does not their existence and pseudoindependence undermine to some degree the status of the European Union? I wonder whether the President-inOffice is aware of any dialogue existing with these islands to end this rather elitist anomaly?
I am not in a position to hand down rulings that might be better sought from the Court of Justice.
I do not have a legal definition of all arrangements with the Union.
As far as I am aware, arrangements with the Isle of Man and the similar jurisdictions mentioned by the honourable Member were dealt with at the time of accession and are not presenting any difficulties.
Whereas some of these areas certainly are under the British Crown, there is no doubt whatever that, for example, the Isle of Man is the most Irish of locations.
I am not aware that there is any existing difficulty.
Arrangements for the Isle of Man and similar territories within the United Kingdom are well catered for and are not presenting any difficulties, and have been well catered for since accession in 1973.
Given the problem which Glasgow Celtic Football Club had with Monaco over the transfer of John Collins, would the President-in-Office enlighten us as to whether freedom of movement of footballers and other Community citizens is part of the agreement with Monaco? If it is not, will he give us an assurance that there will be urgent discussions between the Community and Monaco to settle problems such as Celtic Football Club has experienced?
That is a separate question but I can assure the Member that Ireland has not experienced any difficulties in this regard.
We have had freedom of movement for the Irish soccer team as regards Britain for a long number of years now.
Question No 5 by Michl Ebner (H-0749/96)
Subject: Action programme for minority languages
In early 1994, the Commission submitted a communication on minority languages in the EU in the form of an activity report for 1989-1993.
This represented the first official communication on the preservation and promotion of minority languages.
Does the Council intend to ask the Commission to draw up an action programme for minority languages? What kind of decisions will be taken in the future about our minority languages and cultures?
The Council is fully aware of the importance of preserving linguistic diversity within the Union.
It is this diversity which gives our continent its extremely rich cultural heritage.
As was stated in reply to a question by Mrs Terrón i Cusí in November last year, it is precisely with a view to safeguarding the differences between the languages and cultures of the Member States that political direction in this area must respect the principle of subsidiarity.
The Council must be careful to ensure that any action at Union level adds real value to actions at national level.
Regarding culture, action by the Union is dictated by Article 128 of the Treaty.
The recent meeting of Culture Ministers in Galway served as a useful opportunity for an exchange of views on the Union's cultural policies.
In addition to Council action under Article 128, under the prerogatives conferred by the Treaties, the Commission conducts its own activities regarding minority languages and has its own budget conferred on it for this purpose.
The honourable Member will understand that I am unable to comment further on what is essentially a task for the Commission.
I would also note that the European Bureau for Regional and Lesser-Used Languages which is based in Dublin and which has as its aim the preservation and promotion of the lesser-used and indigenous languages of the European Union is part-funded by the Commission.
The Irish Government also contributes to the administration costs of the Bureau.
No specific proposals have been received from the Commission with regard to minority languages.
The Council can, however, assure the honourable Member that its full attention will be given to any proposals which the Commission may bring forward in this regard.
The Bureau in Dublin, to which you have just referred, has had to cut back its activities because of the fact that financial resources are no longer flowing to the extent that would really be logical and necessary under the budget.
There are also a number of other initiatives that have had to be restricted for the same reason.
On the occasion of the Commission's last invitation to tender, there were more than 1000 applications in this area, but far too little financing available.
You have stressed the importance of the minority languages and protection of minorities, Mr President-in-Office, and I am grateful for that, but we should be setting more dates.
We are also, for example, setting a number of requirements for those countries wishing to join the Union.
We are asking them to take a number of measures which, in point of fact, are not actually being complied with by all States within the existing European Union.
In other words, we are asking more from others than we can offer ourselves.
Incidentally, I should like to ask you how possible it is that the European Parliament's demand that the protection of minorities be incorporated into and enshrined in the Intergovernmental Conference will actually be met.
I think that with enlargement we have an opportunity to look again at the whole question of minority languages.
The whole Union will become an impossible place if all the languages of the Union are to receive official status and be used in the whole conduct of the business of the Union.
Since that is not going to be a reality and already is not a reality, we have to give some thought to how we treat those minority languages which are not used in the everyday business of the Union.
Coming from a country which has its own minority language, Irish, a language which, incidentally, is very much on the increase in Dublin where there has been an explosion of all-Irish primary schools, I certainly would like to give encouragement to the line taken by the honourable Member.
The future of the Union will be assured once we ensure that the diversity of the Union is protected and acknowledged.
I include in that adequate acknowledgement for minority languages.
I do not think it would be fair or reasonable to hold out the hope that all languages in the Union will become working languages.
The advent of enlargement, however, gives us a fresh opportunity to re-examine this matter.
I do not think the question was about asking that the over thirty minority languages supported by the magnificent Irish Bureau become official languages.
That was not the question at all.
The question concerns the budget line and the nurturing of a precious piece of Europe's heritage in making sure that these languages can survive as they are mostly literary with enormous amounts of music and so on.
I really want to ask whether the Council is going to look sympathetically, when it receives the budget, at the proposed increase we would like to see for making sure we can nurture these languages. We are not asking for them to be working languages, that is a red herring frankly.
I would like to see the Council support our request for more money for these languages.
I am sorry if the Member thought I was introducing a red herring.
I was putting the whole thing in context.
I would assure her that the presidency will be very supportive of the line taken by her.
I cannot assure her that the Council of Ministers would agree.
Not every Member State takes the same view.
We can inform the House that the White Paper on foreign policy which was published by the Irish Government earlier this year stated that, if a suitable opportunity arose in the course of the Intergovernmental Conference, the Irish Government would seek an improvement in the status of Irish in the Union.
You can take it, therefore, that we would also seek an improvement for other minority languages.
Certainly the sentiment of what the Member raises is something the presidency, speaking as the presidency, would support.
First, as chairman of the Intergroup Working Group on Minority Languages, I would like to thank you most sincerely for your support for the maintenance of the budget line and its possible topping-up.
Even so, I would also like to put the question of whether it may not additionally be possible to make better use of other programmes too.
Mrs Ahern and I this week invited representatives of the Irish language, members of the various confessions in Northern Ireland, to come here.
I am glad to learn that the Irish language is now being nurtured in the north, too.
The question is whether increasing use could be made of cross-border programmes such as INTERREG and others for this kind of cultural cooperation, which furthers the cause of peace, and for the nurturing of minority languages.
I know that Commissioner Wulf-Mathies takes a positive attitude to this.
I also have a positive attitude towards this.
In case I get myself into any difficulty or any trouble at home, the Irish language in Ireland is not considered a minority language.
In fact, it is the first official language.
When I spoke about other minority languages I meant those within the Union.
So even the definition of what is a minority language is something which needs to be examined.
This is a whole area which will become much more centre-stage in the context of enlargement because there will be, in the context of the Union, that much more pressure from Member States to accommodate minority languages.
As far as I am concerned, the Member is pushing an open door.
This whole point has a lot of merit.
I was rather set back to hear the President-in-Office make the statement that there were no proposals before the Council.
In April 1994 there were seven major proposals sent from this Parliament, one of the last pieces of legislation passed in this Parliament concerning the lesser-used languages, which were sent both to the Commission and the Council.
No action has been taken so far on any of the seven proposals which, as it happens, arose from a report which I had the privilege to introduce into this House.
So it is not entirely true to say that there is nothing before the Council.
There is and I would like now at this late stage the President-in-Office to check back through the files and find those recommendations from Parliament which were adopted here unanimously.
They covered the physical, financial, cultural and all the other aspects of the lesser-used languages.
Finally, I am glad, President-in-Office, that you corrected yourself about Irish being a lesser-used language.
I do not have to say any more.
May I say, first of all, that there is no proposal before the Council from the Commission.
That is the essential point I was making.
Secondly, I have made it very clear that the White Paper on Foreign Policy, published by the Irish Government earlier this year, said that if a suitable opportunity arose in the course of the IGC the Irish Government would seek an improvement in the status of Irish in the Union and that Members could therefore take it that we would also take a similar attitude to other languages.
There is no great difference between the expressed sympathies of the Members and the response of the presidency.
Question No 6 by Hugh McMahon (H-0752/96)
Subject: Registration of pharmaceutical products smoltine and azamethipos
Given the importance of smoltine and azamethipos for the Scottish and Irish salmon farming industry, can the Council give an assurance that the registration of smoltine and azamethipos will be based on objective scientific criteria and that, despite the failure of the veterinary committee to agree registration, the Council will speedily resolve this problem to satisfy both the interests of the consumer and aquaculture industry in the Union?
I understand that the question of the registration of the pharmaceutical products mentioned by the honourable parliamentarian is still under consideration within the Commission.
The matter has not been referred to the Council as yet and so it would not be appropriate for me to pre-judge the views of the Council on this subject.
However, as the honourable parliamentarian is no doubt aware, under Community legislation, EU veterinary medicinal products legislation requires that all veterinary medicinal products must meet certain objective scientific criteria before being placed on the market of Member States.
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
There is a very interesting and constitutional question because Commissioner Bangemann assured me last month in this Chamber that the matter had gone to the Council.
Now I wonder if Commissioner Bangemann was telling a lie and whether I should raise the question of Commissioners coming before the House and not giving us accurate information.
This is very serious for European elected representatives.
I would ask the President-in-Office to persevere with this issue.
I will obviously pursue it with the Commission to find out what exactly happened.
But my information is that because there was a deadlock with the veterinary committee, the matter is referred automatically to the Council.
It is very important for the salmon industry in Scotland and Ireland. They are at present facing a predatory practice by Norway which we are debating later this week.
It is very important to have this chemical to eliminate sea lice, which was introduced because it has been proven not to be harmful to marine life.
So this is very important for the future of industries in very vulnerable and peripheral areas.
I thank the President-in-Office and I will pursue this with the Commission yet again.
I thank the Member for his comments and, just in case there is any mistake, I will also check the matter.
I am advised that the matter is still under consideration within the Commission and that the reply I gave is accurate but I will check that for accuracy and communicate again with the Member.
Question No 7 by Georges Berthu (H-0757/96)
Subject: Abolition of Article 235
In its written reply to my Oral Question H-0686/96 , the Council states that Opinion 2/94 of the Court of Justice concerning the possible accession by the Community to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms does not relate to the provisions of Article 235 in their entirety, but is limited to the specific case of Community accession to the Convention.
By what process of reasoning does the Council believe itself to be in a position to claim that, when the Court states, for instance, that Article 235 'cannot serve as a basis for widening the scope of Community powers beyond the general framework created by the provisions of the Treaty as a whole' , it is issuing a specific opinion, limited to the case before it, rather than a general view of Article 235?
If this is a general view, as common sense seems to indicate, is the presidency minded to propose to the IGC that it should remove all ambiguities and affirm the democratic and transparent nature of European decision-making procedures by supporting the abolition of Article 235?
In my capacity as President-in-Office of the Council, I am unable to adopt a position on the assessments and the proposals contained in the first part of the honourable Member's question.
The only institution and power to interpret Community legislation in general and the provisions of the Treaty is the Court of Justice.
In reply to the second part of the honourable Member's question relating to the Intergovernmental Conference I have to point out to him that the Council as such has no part in the conference to amend the Treaties.
Under Article N of the Treaty on European Union the government of any Member State or the Commission may submit to the Council proposals for the amendment of the Treaties on which the Union is founded.
Speaking as President-in-Office of the Council, I am not in a position to refer to the discussions at the Intergovernmental Conference relevant to the honourable Member's question.
Mr President, the Council refuses to draw conclusions from the opinion of the Court of Justice of 28 March 1996 which nevertheless is perfectly clear since it says that Article 235 cannot serve as a basis for widening the powers that the Treaty confers on the Community or for revising the Treaty.
The Council then seeks ways out of this - I have raised the question several times - and we understand this since it very often makes use of Article 235 itself, leading to a violation of the Treaty.
I will give you quite a recent example of this.
The Commission has just published, with the informal recommendation of the Council, a legal regulation about the euro which contains a revision of the Treaty since one of the provisions of the regulation consists of changing the name of the currency from the ecu to the euro.
The name ecu is properly provided for in the Treaty.
It is not an abbreviation nor an acronym, it is a name which comes into the Treaty several times.
The Council wishes to use Article 235 to carry out this disguised revision of the Treaty.
This is absolutely intolerable.
Clearly, not only must Article 235 be abolished but the conversion from the ecu to the euro must also be abandoned.
I do not share the Member's general views as expressed on Article 235.
Article 235 is clearly intended to cover action by the Community to attain one of its objectives in fields not expressly covered by other specific provisions in the Treaty and it has proved the most useful and necessary tool in the development of Community policies.
The Member refers to a particular case in relation to accession to the European Convention on Human Rights and Freedoms, which the Court ruled on.
This was a specific case not a general ruling.
In fact the question of Article 235 was examined by the Reflection Group and in its report it underlined in paragraph 125 that - and I quote: ' The Group is not inclined to incorporate into the Treaty a catalogue of competences of the Union and prefers the present system which details in each case the legal base of actions and policies of the Union.
As a result the Group favours maintaining Article 235 as an instrument capable of responding to the inherent, evolutionary character to interpret the objectives of the Union.'
That is a quotation directly from the Reflection Group report of the fifteen Member States, the Commission, and European Parliament.
Question No 8 by Per Gahrton (H-0758/96)
Subject: Transformation of the EU into a State as a result of EMU
Sweden's prime minister, Göran Persson, said some time ago that EMU could lead to the emergence of an EU State.
This is because EMU requires closer coordination of Member States' economic policies, for which (according to former Commission President Jacques Delors and others) the EU would need an 'economic government' , as its economic policies could not reasonably be conducted by a committee of central banks behind closed doors without grave consequences for democracy.
Does the Council agree with the view that, in order to safeguard democracy, implementation of EMU would require the EU also to have an 'economic government' , which in turn would entail its transformation from a cooperation-based organization into a sort of State?
In reply to the honourable Member I must stress that in accordance with the duty of reserve which attaches to the function of President-in-Office of the Council, I am obliged to abstain from giving an assessment or commentary on statements made outside formal Council meetings.
I would like, nevertheless, to draw the honourable Member's attention to the fact that the provisions for economic and monetary union are set out in a very precise manner in Title IV of the Treaty on European Union.
Preparations for economic and monetary union must be, and are being made, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Treaty.
It is interesting that the Council representative has not denied the conclusions drawn by the Swedish prime minister, that EMU could mean that the EU would develop into a State.
This is an interesting message in itself, as this is one of the big issues under discussion in Sweden at the moment. The discussion is concerned with whether the introduction of a common currency, according to the Statutes of the Maastricht Treaty, will mean a fundamental change in the EU from a cooperation organisation to an organisation with State-like features.
It is perhaps well known that resistance to EMU is quite strong in Sweden.
If, in addition to this, either directly or indirectly the fears expressed by the Swedish prime minister that we, in this way, by the back door, without explaining to people what is happening, create a European super power which as a next stage would require, as Jacques Delors said, a government, then these are unheard of matters in hand.
I would have thought a clearer comment from the Council representative would have been interesting.
I would hope that Members of the House would not attribute to me things that I did not say.
The fact that I did not comment on what the Swedish Prime Minister said does not mean that I agree with what he said.
I made it very clear that I am obliged to abstain from giving an assessment or commentary on statements made outside formal Council meetings.
The European Union is an evolving Union, it will only evolve as far as the Treaties allow it to evolve.
The Treaties will only be agreed by unanimous agreement of the Member States and the purpose of the European Union is to ensure that the peace and stability that we have had in the second half of this century, compared to the mayhem which caused the loss of 60 million lives in the first half of this century in Europe alone, remains the order of the day.
It behoves us, as politicians, not to be raising fears and using terms which alarm people.
Nobody is going to be coerced into anything.
This whole enterprise can only come about by agreement.
Quite frankly, I think the way we are going about our business as we head into the 21st century is a lot better than the way we went about our business heading into the 20th century.
I hope that the peace and stability and the resulting prosperity which we have enjoyed in the second half of this century will continue as a result.
That is the civilized conduct of statesmanship, it is the civilized conduct of diplomacy and it is the civilized conduct of politics.
Nobody should jump ahead and put any sort of term on it.
The whole situation as I said is evolving.
I would like to thank the Council for a very detailed answer. I would just like to make one brief point on the previous question, as the Swedish prime minister is my party colleague.
This was an isolated quotation which did not reflect in any way what the Swedish prime minister said about the EMU. I would just like this said so that we do not believe that he has poor judgement.
On the issue of the fight against narcotics, I consider what has been said to be positive as are the actions to be taken against synthetic drugs.
These are actions which aim to limit the supply.
We know that the supply, particularly that from Poland, and trade across the border from Poland, is on the increase.
But this is only part of it.
My main concern regarding the fight against narcotics in Europe at the moment is the increased demand.
We will never stop narcotics if we do not fight against demand.
We must therefore ensure that we conduct a policy in Member States which makes young people and others say no to narcotics.
Let us also work towards this within the Council.
I hope therefore that you have both actions to limit supply and also actions to limit demand.
The honourable Member has raised a very important point.
I am a member of the Irish Government's Task Force on the demand side of the problem which recently published an interim report.
One of the reasons why, particularly in our inner cities and in our more disadvantaged areas, people turn to drugs is because of the old saying 'the devil finds work for idle hands' .
There are in fact so many people who are long-term unemployed, who are living in difficult housing conditions, who are not being retrained for employment and who do not have educational opportunities.
Unless we target resources to the demand side, we literally cannot win simply by tackling the supply side.
I commend to the honourable Member and to Members of the House an examination of the local development programme currently under way in Ireland.
We are holding a conference in November for Europe on this particular subject.
It has a signal contribution to make in tackling the demand side.
I certainly share the concerns expressed by the honourable Member.
Mr President, I do not know who prepared the written reply made to me in connection with Rohypnol, but really!
As a result, the officials should be asked, if need be, to seek information in the USA since studies do indeed exist there on the appalling effects of Rohypnol.
The American authorities have asked the multinational Hoffman-Laroche to withdraw this product, which is a medicine and has disastrous effects when taken with other products.
I am asking you the question because near where I live in Brussels, I have seen Rohypnol being passed between young people: you would only need to see the state these young folk were in to realize, quite clearly, that there is really a drug problem here.
That is what led me to ask the question.
My own belief is that we should check, at the Commission or elsewhere, at Lisbon, country by country, where we stand legally as regards Rohypnol and that we should ask the USA if they have carried out any research on the substance. Perhaps we should also have an exchange of views with the multinational Hoffman-Laroche since, in fact, it too has its share of the responsibility in this type of phenomenon.
It earns a lot of money from medicines: it is a very large multinational!
It could, from time to time, have a more public-spirited attitude to the products it manufactures, in other words, an attitude of critical reflection on the effects - unwanted I can well imagine, but all the same real - of this type of product.
This is a very serious matter and one which the presidency takes very seriously.
I will ask for a report on the effects of Rohypnol in the United States.
I will examine the matter further when I have received that report and I will ensure that the relevant Council minister receives a copy of the report.
Question No 11 by Winifred Ewing (H-0812/96)
Subject: Single currency and the issuing of banknotes
Article 105a of the Treaty on European Union clearly states that, in the event of a single currency and the introduction of 'euro' notes and coins, only those banknotes issued by the ECB and national central banks will have the status of legal tender.
Protocol 3, Article 16 states that 'the ECB shall respect as far as possible existing practices regarding the issue and design of banknotes' .
Three Scottish commercial banks currently issue their own banknotes, which are not legal tender.
Would it remain possible for the three Scottish clearing banks to continue issuing their own banknotes, thus respecting existing practices, in the event of the introduction of a single currency?
In December 1995 the European Council in Madrid agreed that the third stage of economic and monetary union will begin on 1 January 1999.
This was confirmed by the European Council in Florence in June 1996.
The single currency - the euro - will come into being at the beginning of the third stage.
The reference scenario adopted by the European Council in December 1995 states that by 1 January 2002 at the latest, euro notes and coins will be introduced into circulation.
Protocol No 11 of the Treaty on European Union states that the United Kingdom shall not be obliged or committed to move on to the third stage of economic and monetary union without a separate decision to do so by its government and parliament.
The Government of the United Kingdom has indicated that it will not decide whether the United Kingdom will participate in the third stage beginning on 1 January 1999 until closer to that date.
As the honourable Member states in her question, Article 105a of the Treaty, which does not apply to Member States not participating in economic and monetary union, assigns to the European Central Bank the exclusive right to authorize the issue of banknotes within the Community.
The article further provides that the European Central Bank and national central banks may issue such notes and that the notes issued by the European Central Bank and national central banks will be the only such notes to have the status of legal tender within the Community.
As the honourable Member further points out, Article 16 of the Protocol on the Statute of the European system of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank requires the European Central Bank to respect as far as possible existing practices regarding the issue and design of banknotes.
If the United Kingdom participates in economic and monetary union, it will be a matter for the European Central Bank, after its establishment, to decide whether Scottish banks should be authorized to continue to issue banknotes without legal tender status.
President-in-Office, thank you very much for that clear answer, because my party has been to meet Mr Lamfalussy, who has confirmed that situation.
I just wish to say that, of course, as the Scottish banks have been issuing for over 200 years these notes that are not legal tender, we do not come under the Maastricht rules and, therefore, we are not posing a problem to anyone.
The problem is as always - not just for the people of Scotland but for everybody - one of public acceptability.
The German Foreign Ministry indicated to me when I raised this in the debates that public acceptability would be strengthened enormously if everybody could have something familiar on one side of the note or the coin.
However, in the case of Scotland, as we have no legal tender status, we have every right to say: let us carry on an excellent practice which is very acceptable and has gone on for over 200 years.
Question No 12 by Pat Gallagher (H-0801/96)
Subject: Price rises and a single currency
The widespread perception among the general public that many retail businesses used the currency changes as an opportunity to raise prices was a contributing factor to the unpopularity of the process of decimalization of the Irish and British currencies some years ago.
The support of the public in participating countries will be a vital ingredient of a successful launch of the single currency.
In this context what plans does the Council have to ensure that the introduction of the EURO will not be seen by traders as an opportunity to impose price rises on consumers?
The reference scenario agreed by the European Council in Madrid in December 1995 states that notes and coins in the single currency, the euro, will become available by 1 January 2002 at the latest.
The Commission has presented proposals for a Council regulation setting out the provisions for the use of the euro.
These include detailed rules on rounding.
These rules aim at ensuring that the conversion rates will not be rounded or truncated and so guard against the possibility that rounding inaccuracies might be exploited as a profit.
In addition, I understand that the Commission is considering ways to ensure that the public will be familiarized with the euro-pricing and to make it difficult for enterprises to conceal price increases.
Healthy competition and vigilant consumers are of course the best means of ensuring that traders are not in a position to conceal price rises in the changeover to the euro.
Should it be found necessary for the Council to implement measures to counter any such risk, I am confident that the Council will be prepared to take the measures identified.
Finally, in accordance with Article 105(1) of the Treaty on European Union, the primary objective of the European system of central banks, that is the European Central Bank and the national central banks will be to maintain price stability.
I have no doubt that in the implementation of this objective the ESCB will bear in mind the point mentioned by the honourable Member.
I thank the President-in-Office for his comprehensive reply.
Members from Ireland and the UK will be very familiar with the advantage that was taken by many traders in the process of conversion from the old system to decimalization.
I would ask the Minister to use his good offices to ensure that the necessary action is taken.
I fully appreciate what he has said and he has said it in good faith but I am concerned that the necessary action is taken against offenders to ensure that the consumer does not pay as happened before.
I would like to give the honourable Member the assurance that we will do everything in our power to ensure that the question he raises is addressed and that this problem is examined well in advance.
I thank him for raising it in the way he has.
I will ensure that it is brought to the attention of the president of Ecofin as a matter of course.
It is a point which deserves particular attention well in advance of the actual introduction of the currency.
Question No 13 by Irini Lambraki (H-0771/96)
Subject: Measures to reduce tension in Diyarbakir
Following the recent dramatic developments in Diyarbakir it is imperative that the international community take immediate measures, as the number of victims of Turkey's savage use of military force is increasing in a frightening manner.
What does the Council intend to do to reduce the steady increase in tension in the region, and what measures does it intend to take to protect the lives - at least - of the thousands of Kurdish inhabitants of the region?
The Council remains concerned about the unsatisfactory human rights situation in Turkey and this naturally includes the incidents in Diyarbakir.
The Council has made it clear repeatedly - and continue to do so - that observance of the rule of law and fundamental freedoms is an essential element for closer relations between Turkey and the European Union.
It insists that the fight against terrorism must be conducted with full respect for the fundamental values of democracy and human rights.
The honourable Member may be assured that the need for progress in the areas of democratic reform and respect for human rights will continue to underlie the Council's approach to relations between the European Union and Turkey.
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office both for the answer he gave me and for the sensitivity which his answer shows.
I have only three comments:
Unfortunately, Mr President-in-Office, neither our resolutions nor your good intentions, as the Council, have improved the dramatic situation of the Kurds in Diyarbakir.
What is needed is specific action, and I do not know if you have any in mind.
Like yourselves, we too in the European Parliament condemn terrorism, but the excuse of terrorism should not be used by composite states and societies to justify the genocide of their residents.
I ask you to give special consideration to the problems of Kurdish farmers in Diyarbakir, since winter is approaching.
With the excuse of fighting terrorism, 3000 villages in the area have been laid waste and Diyarbakir itself, a town with a population of 300, 000 some 3 years ago, now has a population of 1.5 million who are dying of hunger in the streets.
I do not know what measures you could take to prevent the death of thousands of children from hunger in Diyarbakir.
The European Union recognizes the need for further improvements and progress in the whole area of implementation of human rights and democratic freedoms in Turkey.
We have continued to make it clear to the Turkish authorities that observance of the rule of law and basic liberties is the basis of continued rapprochement between the European Union and Turkey.
We have received assurances by the Turkish authorities of their intention to pursue the process of constitutional and legislative reform.
We will continue to urge early progress in introducing and implementing the further reforms necessary adequately to safeguard human rights which do not meet the standards we expect.
The Commission, for its part, has supported Turkish NGOs and professional organizations promoting human rights for a number of years, including the Human Rights Association, the Human Rights Foundation and the Turkish Medical Association.
The Commission will continue to cooperate and grant aid for various projects aimed at promoting human rights in Turkey.
This can be taken as an indication of the ongoing concern of the Union about the matters which the Member has raised.
Question No 14 by John Cushnahan (H-0774/96)
Subject: Resources to combat drug trafficking
With the abolition of internal frontier controls, does the Council appreciate the importance of providing adequate protection at EU seaports and shorelines to prevent international drug trafficking?
What new measures does the Council intend to implement in this area?
It has been one of the major priorities of the Irish presidency to secure more coordinated and effective action at European Union level against drug trafficking and drug abuse.
An example of this is the setting in motion of a thorough review of the adequacy of cooperation in protecting the external borders of the European Union against the importation of drugs by land, sea and air.
As I have already said in a reply at last July's parliamentary session, the presidency has already initiated a discussion on the external frontier customs strategy. It has put forward proposals on training, technical aids, control equipment, intelligence, risk analysis and improved communication.
It intends to propose a joint action to serve as a legal base for the allocation of funds from the budget of the European Communities.
These proposals are aimed at achieving a more effective level of cooperation against drugs smuggling and will fulfil one of the action points of the list adopted by the Madrid European Council meeting in December 1995 with regard to drugs.
The Council will also give priority to the review of the Naples Convention on mutual assistance between customs administrations, on the Customs 2000 strategy programme for the Third Pillar, and on EU participation in the strategic plan of the World Customs Organization for implementing an operative measure on the Balkan drug smuggling route.
The presidency will also bring under scrutiny the present arrangements for joint customs surveillance operations at the external frontier.
This examination will be with a view to improving their efficiency.
A global mandate will be sought from the Council for these operations so that Council approval does not have to be obtained each year as at present.
It will also seek to encourage cooperation between Member State customs authorities and private trade and shipping interests in the fight against drug trafficking.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I acknowledge and pay tribute to the Irish presidency for making this issue one of the top priorities during its term in office.
I wish them well in trying to persuade our European partners to give it the same priority.
I invite the Minister to make a comment, in view of my dismay at the budgetary provision for next year of ECU 24m.
It is hardly an indication of a strong priority to combat what is a $1, 000 billion international business of drug trafficking.
I also pay tribute to the Minister himself.
I am well aware that he was involved in this issue long before he became a minister.
He was always very committed to dealing with the problem of drug abuse, particularly in his own native city.
I should like to remind you, President-in-Office of the recent drug finds in Ireland in Moneypoint (Co Clare) and Cork, also the large seizures in, for example, ports like Rotterdam and Amsterdam where 450 tonnes of drugs were seized last year.
I remind you of the comments that I passed on to your office by the Commander of the Rotterdam Police Authority on the lack of judicial and police cooperation in protecting shorelines and coastal areas.
Is the Council prepared to consider the long-term solution of establishing a European coastguard? In the shortterm, would the Council, along with other European institutions, provide assistance to countries like our own which have a heavy burden with responsibility for policing some +20 % of European coastal waters but with inadequate resources to deal with this problem?
The EU must allocate more resources particularly for the naval services in those countries in the short-term. However, in the long term, let us plan for a European Union coastguard.
I am at one with the honourable Member, Mr Cushnahan when he raises this issue.
I have to say - and there is no point in not calling a spade a spade - that I think the amount of resources we have committed to the European fight against drugs as distinct from the fight Member States engage in individually that the European Union budget is feeble in relation to the extent of the problem.
The Irish presidency has sought to improve on this situation; we have made it a priority.
It intends to propose a joint action to serve as a legal base for the allocation of funds from the budget for the European Community.
It further intends to propose a global mandate from the Council for operations which I have outlined so that the Council approval does not have to be obtained each year as at present.
There is a lot of concern expressed about this matter in this House, at Council of Ministers meetings, at European Council meetings, by Commissioners.
There seems to be a will and now we have to find a way.
There was a will and we found the way for EMU.
This is a priority.
We are always asking how to make the Union relate more to the citizen.
This is one way we can make the Union relate more to the citizen but we cannot do it on a budget for this year of ECU 40m.
It simply cannot be done.
I do not have the budget figure for next year, but ECU 40m this year is simply not sufficient.
It is not anywhere near sufficient and it is not taking the problem seriously.
Certainly we will do everything we can to ensure that resources are increased.
I think this House should push the boat out in this regard because the concern is being expressed.
It is time that we met our concerns with resources.
As I have said, the presidency and the Council's concern will be to ensure that the external frontiers of the European Union are adequately protected against drug smuggling.
Drugs come in by land, sea and air.
Different routes are used depending on the nature and origin of the drugs.
Drugs are brought in by various means: by people, personally; in unaccompanied cargo; hidden in cars, ships and containers; and especially in the case of cannabis, in small craft.
Clearly there is a need for tightening up.
No one action or approach, including enhanced naval protection, is likely to be effective on its own.
It will be important to ensure that the various possible approaches to the question, before they are applied, are likely to make an effective contribution to the security of the external frontier against drug trafficking and that they are then applied in a coordinated way.
I think that the proposal to have some sort of coastguard cooperation is one which is worthy of more constructive and detailed examination.
People talk about defence and security.
Security is a different thing to defence.
The drugs issue is a security issue.
Already in Ireland, for example, there is cooperation between the Irish Air Corps and the RAF on search and rescue.
It could be something as loose as that or it could be something more structured within the Union.
But we need - and this is something in the whole area of the Petersberg tasks, which are being examined - to look at this aspect.
It is time we looked at ways of protecting our external borders, including our coast, against these drugs.
It is too late when they arrive on the street.
I feel that there is a very worthy proposal here which should be examined.
I cannot give a commitment or an answer but I think it is worthy of examination in a professional way so that we will be able to give a conclusive answer.
I thank the President-in-Office for his response.
I should like to ask for clarification on the question of the amount of money to be allocated this year.
Is it ECU 40m, ECU 24m or, as some of my colleagues believe, is it a smaller amount? Secondly, as the President-in-Office is so much in favour of the idea of concerted effort and concerted action at European level, could we have a commitment from the President-in-Office that the monies which are presently in a bank account in Brussels and are to be allocated to the Irish naval service for the upgrading of equipment and for the provision of extra ships be released as soon as possible to enable the Irish naval service, which in effect is the western wing of any European coastguard service, to protect that large area against the illegal importation of drugs.
Finally, with regard to preventing countries in South America in particular finding it an economic necessity to grow the raw product of drugs, are any new proposals coming from the Council with regard to assisting those governments in South America?
In relation to the money in the account in Brussels, if the Member puts down a question I will endeavour to answer it.
I do not have information in the brief to assist me in answering the question.
I understand, subject to re-examination, that the figure available over three pillars in 1996 is ECU 40m, about £32m.
In relation to the growing of the produce, this is a central consideration to any tackling of the problem.
A lot of the tackling of the problem of drugs is a matter for Member States individually, but there is a role for the Union.
The European Union could undertake the task of taking the case to other regions where the drug is grown.
There are about five regions of Asia from where something like 80 % of the heroin coming into Western Europe derives.
Also there is a clear indication in South America, for example, where traditionally cocaine was sourced, that heroin is now being produced there.
That has horrendous implications because here there are already established routes throughout the world.
There is much merit in the point made by the honourable Member. It is something which is on the agenda.
We are looking particularly at the area of the Caribbean.
This has been discussed at the Asian/European Ministerial meeting and is being pursued by our officials.
The Council shares the opinion of the honourable Member as to the necessity of maintaining conditions suitable for the economic, social and environmental circumstances for the pursuit of a production as important as that of olive oil, notably in the regions of the Community characterized traditionally and predominantly by this type of farming.
The timeliness of embarking on a reform of the Community olive oil regime is generally recognized.
However, the Council can only give an opinion on the basis of a formal proposal by the Commission.
At this stage a proposal has not been submitted.
In any case, it is evident that in the context of the examination of any future proposition, each Member State will be able to highlight the interest of its producing regions.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, many thanks for your reply, which I appreciate very much because it means a lot to know that the Council of Ministers shares the opinion of Andalusia at this time, is sensitive to the situation, and understands that 140, 000 jobs are certainly at stake, so that this decision is highly important, not just for agriculture, but for employment, social policy and the environment.
The Council of Ministers speaks well - but it is not going to make the decision. The Council of Ministers should work in coordination with the Commission and needs to be aware that at the moment the Commission is reticent about what is being asked.
Before such a wide-ranging decision is presented to the Council there should be a period of reflection and consultation so that the sector itself can make its view known.
It would be barbarous if a decision like this was taken against the will of Andalusia, the leading European and world producer. And it will be an unprecedented travesty, when there have been periods of reflection and consultation on other reforms, if that does not happen in this case and nobody knows why.
Many thanks to the President-in-Office of the Council for understanding the gravity of the problem.
The Member has quite rightly taken the empathy which we have, as presidency, with the situation she outlines.
The Council can only give an opinion on the basis of a formal proposal by the Commission, so perhaps she might wish to pursue the matter with the Commission?
Andalucia will be consulted in the normal way through the consultation process with Member States as far as the Council is concerned.
But I wish to conclude by reassuring the honourable Member of our understanding and sympathy towards the problems she expresses.
I wish to thank Mr Mitchell particularly for some very good answers.
You prepared very nicely the answers on drugs.
That concludes Question Time.
Questions not taken for lack of time will be answered in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Protection of financial interests
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you are asking why another two reports on the protection of the EU's financial interests are on the agenda. Is it because we are making such rapid progress with regulations to prevent fraud and irregularities with Community money?
No, quite the reverse!
We are making slow and painful headway.
The subject of my report on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control on on-the-spot checks and inspections goes back to March 1994.
At that time Parliament had drafted a resolution calling on the Commission to submit proposals for more wide-ranging measures to prevent the misuse of the Community budget, including on-the-spot inquiries.
A first step in the right direction was Regulation 2988/95 which entered into force in December 1995.
However, to a large extent the question of on-the-spot checks by the Commission remained open.
The Commission subsequently improved matters with a second proposal for a regulation early this year.
In our resolution of May 1996 we assessed the proposal as generally satisfactory; nevertheless we tabled 13 amendments, which the Commission largely incorporated.
I warmly thank Mrs Gradin and her staff for their efforts in this respect.
But then we had objections from the Council.
We are now being consulted again, on the basis of the Council's changes to the Commission proposal and Parliament's opinion.
I have described the chronology of events in order to ask how long the Union and the Member States will go on just standing and watching the activities of defrauders, especially in the transnational area, since they are so slow in producing legislation.
According to the Commission's report, more than ECU 1.1 billion of the Community budget went missing last year as a result of dishonest wheeling and dealing.
The real figure is probably quite a bit higher.
On the one hand our maxim is to economize and reduce budget expenditure.
That is precisely what we are doing with the first reading of the 1997 budget this week.
On the other hand, large sums are disappearing unlawfully because the necessary protective measures are not being set up.
Let me take up a few points in the proposal submitted by the Council.
First, it emphasizes the need for subsidiarity.
Parliament never disputed that.
The Commission should carry out checks on transnational irregularities and thereby ensure an equivalent level of protection of the Community budget in all the Member States.
Also, any Member State can ask for these checks to be made.
Not included are cases which are already subject to sectoral EU or national checks.
Secondly, the checks are administrative.
We do not dispute that.
But what is important is that the same conditions should apply to the Commission inspectors as to the national ones, i.e., in particular that if they find suspicious circumstances they must have access to all information and facilities and their administrative reports must constitute admissible evidence in the same way as those drawn up by the national administrative inspectors.
Articles 1, 7 and 8 make this clear.
Thirdly, of the original 13 amendments, 7 are satisfactorily incorporated in the new text, 2 others in the recitals.
The Council did not take up our proposal that the Commission should confine unannounced checks to urgent cases, in order to avoid delays.
But we can live with the present version, provided the Community and the national administrations are willing to cooperate in such a way as to produce practical and satisfactory results.
The fourth point, however, remains open.
No penalties, such as blocking the funds or exclusion, are imposed for the event that the access to the information, documents, premises, etc., of recipients of EU money referred to in Articles 5 and 7 is refused.
In this case we have to maintain our call for administrative penalties and are therefore tabling an amendment -just one, incidentally.
It is now up to the Commission to state whether or not it is prepared to submit the appropriate proposal in order to remedy what we regard as a very serious weakness.
I want to thank the Irish presidency of the Council for the open-mindedness it showed in repeated talks, some also with our committee.
We hope it can bring the question of on-the-spot checks to a conclusion before the end of the year.
Mr President, I would like to give the position of the Committee on Budgetary Control on Mr Bontempi's report.
But first let me sincerely thank my honourable colleague for his clear and also courageous report, which he has drawn up with his usual thoroughness.
As I said earlier, the Commission, Parliament and especially the Member States are treading a very long road, at times coming to a standstill, in their attempt to crate a legal framework for the criminal protection of the Community budget.
Parliament has always emphasized that it would have preferred rules in the form of a directive because it is difficult to achieve equivalent protection with agreements and additional protocols.
But since the convention procedure was adopted, we will help ensure it is implemented quickly.
As the fifth Irish presidency on this question, I hope that the Irish presidency will bring this second additional protocol to the Convention on the protection of the EU's financial interests to a successful conclusion.
Unfortunately, it is still impossible to tell when the overall package will be ratified in all the Member States.
We can only accept the protocol on the criminal liability of legal persons as a Council compromise if there are no further efforts to water it down.
That means we must have rules on penalizing natural persons who act in contravention of the Community budget in the name of legal persons.
Member States may not draw out of this unilaterally.
Penalties must be imposed for the money laundering of the proceeds of fraud - which are usually large sums, dishonestly obtained on an international basis.
The rules on administrative and judicial assistance are disappointing.
Mr Bontempi has already discussed that.
We must at least call for the legal protection of exchanges of information with the national judicial authorities and the creation of a register of fraud prosecutions as a minimum objective for the Commission.
The primary responsibility of the country in question in the event of fraud and the responsibility of the European Court of Justice also need clarifying and let me also stress the need for cooperation between the national courts.
If a consolidated text of this kind is adopted before the end of the year, that would be another small step forward in the fight against fraud.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to join Mrs Theato in thanking Mr Bontempi and add my thanks to Mrs Theato herself.
It is always a difficult business: people cannot praise themselves, but Mrs Theato is equally committed colleague in an area that I would not want to confine just to the text of the convention before us.
Since both Mr Bontempi and Mrs Theato have said a great deal in relation specifically to the text, I shall make a few comments of principle on behalf of our group.
First, not because of the late hour at which we are discussing the subject but, to put it nicely, because of the apparently lukewarm interest in the subject in this House - and I am not trying to criticize colleagues - I think it would be right to say that this is very typical of a subject that really deserves immense attention but is in actual fact perceived as a marginal, rather technical matter.
It is true that Members do not leap up from their seats when we consider dry documents.
It is not one of the great moments in Parliament for us to come and discuss the second supplementary protocol; but the actual issue which has forced us to talk about it should in fact make all the alarm bells ring in every political camp of this House and also in the national parliaments and governments!
I do not really need to say or emphasize this here among us who are here together in this Chamber, for you all know it: corruption and fraud in the form in which we are getting to know it, in the ever more sophisticated form in which we are encountering these two phenomena, are no longer just acts of crime that have to be fought with the instruments of criminal and Community law but have meanwhile become serious threats to the democratic legal structures not only of the European Union but also of its Member States.
Mr Bontempi just referred to developments in Italy.
They are known, partly because of the massive action taken by the Italian authorities, the Italian state, the Italian public to combat the invasion of corruption and fraud into increasingly large areas of public life.
But Italy is only one Member State of the European Union and what concerns me so much is the fact, as I have said here once before, that systematic fraud and systematic corruption - and not just coming from and supported by criminal circles but also from the legal economy and official government offices - are no longer a purely Italian phenomenon but are on the advance in all the Member States of the European Union without this being fully realised.
If in a country such as the one I come from bribe money that is paid out can be deducted from taxes, regarded in a sense as working expenses which the operator simply has to pay in order to do his deal, it is justified to ask whether that does not simply open the door wide to corruption!
Then we have to ask why the largest Member State of the European Union did not bolt the door a long time ago, for since we do not have a harmonized criminal law we can go on having discussions in this House as long as we want.
So long as the national criminal prosecution authorities, so long as the national criminal law provisions and the national fiscal law provisions, for instance, remain as they stand, it is pointless!
We will not be able to combat it in my country!
Since we have just been talking about legal persons, let me draw your attention to a particular point: the fight against corruption, the fight against fraud also has something to do with public awareness and individual moral perceptions.
If the employee of an enterprise - and Mr Bontempi referred to this too in his explanatory statement - is praised for landing a contract for his firm at whatever cost, using any means whatsoever, including criminal ones, then I can understand the wage-dependent employee of the firm saying: ' I will even use that kind of method to protect my job.'
So long as the firm as a legal person does not place itself under a moral code, I cannot reproach the employee!
That is why the objective of the second supplementary protocol is so very important, quite apart from the original question cited by Mr Bontempi and going back to Roman law of what needs to be added to a legal concept at the end of the 21st century, namely that it is no longer the individual alone who is behaving wrongly but that the structure that encourages him to do so is at least as much to blame.
In that regard I hope these considerations will find their way into this convention!
You are right, Mr Schulz.
The problem is not just that the debate is taking place at this time, but also that it is doing so in an empty Chamber.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are once again faced with the half-hearted nature of Europe's attempts to combat fraud, as has already been pointed out by previous speakers and by the two rapporteurs.
On the one hand we are dealing with a draft Council Regulation, or in other words a measure under the first pillar.
On the other hand, we are discussing a draft Protocol and thus a legal instrument from the arsenal of the third pillar.
At the last session in Strasbourg we already criticized this irritating ambiguity and we were supported in our stance by Commissioner Gradin.
If we take the two reports which we now have before us together, a clear picture then emerges of the absurdity of such a hybrid solution.
Suppose that the Council Regulation enters into force and UCLAF carries out on-the-spot checks and inspections in various Member States on the transactions of various companies.
If then in certain cases major negligence or serious irregularities come to light it will be up to the legislation and the courts in the Member State in question to decide what action is to be taken and in what way verdicts and sentences will be pronounced.
But above all it will be the individual Member State which decides whether or not legal proceedings will be initiated and to what extent fines or penalties are to be imposed.
Let me give you two examples of different situations.
Example one. In some countries legal persons are criminally liable.
In other countries, such as Belgium, this is still not the case.
This means that a civil or administrative case must be brought or otherwise the criminal liability of the natural person must be invoked.
Example two. In some countries, Belgium among them, the laundering of money from illegal transactions is broadly defined.
In other countries this is not the case and practices are permitted which are not tolerated in Belgium.
They are simply not considered to be an offence and are therefore not the subject of legal proceedings and resultant penalties.
These differences bring a number of problems, especially when it is a matter of the same damaging practices in respect to the financial interests of the European Community, because what is a criminal offence in one country will not be an offence in another, thus presenting the Euro fraudsters with an interesting choice.
This non-fictional example shows that we need better solutions, but I will not of course oppose the Regulation or Protocol we have before us today.
Because this is better than doing nothing at all.
But it is not enough.
Both our rapporteurs, Mrs Theato and Mr Bontempi, have also already made this clear and I congratulate them on their work.
I also support the amendments proposed by both committees. But I do want to point out one specific problem.
The rapporteur, Mr Bontempi, is aware of this. We discussed it in committee.
In the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs we not only brought amendments which sharply define the responsibilities of the responsible Commissioner and of UCLAF. We made the list more flexible and supplemented it with sanctions, also adding the question of money laundering in a separate vote which in my opinion was open to dispute.
There is already a money laundering Directive and this Directive includes all the elements, also in respect to proceedings against legal persons and thus companies.
I fear that when we now include money laundering in the Protocol we will weaken the situation of the Directive because the Directive is the strongest measure.
This belongs to the first pillar.
In the light of all this, I believe that we need more clarity from the Commission on the subject of the criminal liability of legal persons - and banks and other financial institutions in particular - and the possible consequences, also in cases of fraud committed by other legal persons and in particular by companies or organizations.
I should like to ask the Commission to provide clarity and make it clear here in a statement to Parliament which the choice is to be, the first pillar or the third pillar.
I should like to once again express my appreciation for the work of the two committees.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, every day the news brings us examples of the spread of fraud in Europe.
In the last few weeks we have learned of the arrest of a political figure in one Member State of the European Union who has falsified invoices and fraudulently obtained money from the Commission for fictitious contracts in the tourism sector.
More recently we registered the solemn call of an association of Geneva magistrates for real international cooperation in the fight against fraud to overcome the inertia of national administrations.
For example, Italy has waged an intense battle, especially at the criminal level, but other countries have not.
All this has created grave disparities.
So the situation is alarming and today's regulation from the Council is hardly going to succeed in allaying our fears.
The first necessity is to attack fraud through the penal system in the same way in every country of the Union.
As the rapporteur, Mrs Theato, has actually understood very well, the Council's position on the Commission's onthe-spot inspection methods is revealing in its reticence.
In fact the Council, which has rejected the most important amendment from the European Parliament on the key question of sanctions, certainly recognizes a power of intervention to the Commission, as long as that power is purely administrative and strictly bound by the principle of subsidiarity.
The Council in fact refuses to grant any power of sanction, because otherwise it would give the Commission a power of control, but by doing so it actually reduces any effectiveness that control might have.
For our part, we do not intend to bring the application of the principle of subsidiarity into the debate provided it is not conceived of and interpreted as a right of veto on the part of the Member States.
Subsidiarity should add something to the Community, not work against the Community.
So, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I cannot disguise a certain discouragement and a certain anxiety from you when I note once again that the Member States frequently concentrate their efforts on obstructing the development of the Commission's powers in this matter and, more generally, in everything relating to the fight against fraud, as Mr Bontempi has so rightly emphasized.
All say they condemn fraud, but few actually try to prevent it.
It involves more than legal issues and jealous guarding of prerogatives; there must be proof of real political will to carry on an effective struggle against the spread of fraud.
If a scandal of European proportions should explode because of bad management of Union funds and the spread of fraud, the construction of Europe we all work for so patiently and passionately, would run a grave risk of collapse.
Mr President, Parliament is right to make a major stand on the combat against fraud.
I believe that if there is one area of policy where we can do ourselves credit this is the one.
Too often everything to do with Europe is associated with financial mismanagement.
This must change.
I believe that the subjects we are debating this evening - and I should like to thank the rapporteurs for the work they have done - represent a further step in the right direction.
It is a good thing that UCLAF is to obtain the necessary facilities to carry out its work in all the Member States and to conduct on-the-spot investigations into all suspect matters.
As a liberal group we accept everything to do with the principle of subsidiarity.
If the Member States can do it then they must do it but it is also a good thing that the Commission officials are there to support the national authorities where and when it is necessary.
We also believe it is regrettable, and Mrs Theato has already said this, that it is not possible for Commission officials to carry out independent inspections.
It would be better if that were the case.
National Member States must have nothing to hide in this area and if a Commission official wants to carry out an independent investigation then that should be possible.
We do not, however, believe this to be a matter of essential importance, but a pity all the same.
What is a matter of essential importance is the option of not imposing sanctions.
What is the sense in issuing regulations when we cannot say whether or not they are being respected.
And if they are not being respected what sense does it make if you cannot take any sanctions whatsoever to penalize people or to instigate proceedings.
Unfortunately there is nobody from the Council here this evening to say how we are to remedy this shortcoming.
Perhaps the Commission can give us some explanation.
We believe that this is a major drawback in the present proposals.
But you cannot have everything at once.
It is a step in the right direction.
We will therefore support it, but more must follow.
Over coming years we hope that Parliament will take bigger steps in this direction.
Mr President, it goes without saying that I congratulate both rapporteurs on two reports that have support across the House.
In the context of this debate, however, we should state quite clearly that crime and criminality are two of the fundamental European growth industries today.
There are higher and higher levels of profit to be made illegally from public funds and there is a lower and lower rate of detection and, in some cases, risk of detection.
It is becoming so easy to make a good living out of crime at the taxpayers' expense that when we talk about the level playing field, in so many areas of activity involving public subsidies you could say that the level playing field is now crooked.
This report is extremely important, because although Mrs Theato's report accepts some of the Council's amendments, we have to say that we accept them with a degree of reluctance because we know whence they come.
Subsidiarity: yes!
But if the Council is to use subsidiarity as the basis on which it asserts its right to do nothing, then, of course, we have to repudiate it.
Administrative penalties: of course, we can say yes!
But administrative sanction without penalty is no sanction.
What we see tonight - and that is all I want to take my two minutes to say - is the contempt with which the Council holds the views of this House.
It clearly feels we can have these two important debates taking place without even a junior clerk from the Council coming to take a minute that he could at least pretend that he has sent to his political masters.
That is an act of contempt for this House and it should be made quite clear that this House will persist to go further than these reports allow us.
It is on that basis that we support both reports tonight.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am now becoming an assiduous frequenter of night sessions which, symbolically perhaps, since night is linked to fraud and robbery, bring us here to speak to so few people.
The truth is that the Bontempi and Theato reports show two people who are deeply interested in finding a convincing solution to combating organized crime.
I should like to tell Mr Bontempi that, without being Caius or Justinian, and having read the quotation according to which 'collectivities cannot commit fraud' , I should like to say that the legal problem which is being posed now is that: ' States may take part in fraud' .
At this moment in time, the main problem facing Europe is that, despite all of the legal frameworks and all of the machinery which can be set up, public administrations, as a result of subsidiarity, are not letting go of any of the prerogatives they have nor are they collaborating in the fight against crime.
That is the real issue from a philosophical and political point of view. This is what is happening: a brutal crisis in the legal system, an enormous crisis in the justice system such that now, thanks to the lack of justice in other fields, we are witnessing the biggest public demonstration since the War.
We are all involved in this fight now.
However, unless we have a code of practice with a legal basis that States must willingly adhere to - just as TV journalists must obey a code of practice, it will be impossible to fight against corrupt firms or States in cahoots with organized crime.
I just would like to wish both rapporteurs all the best and thank them for their huge efforts. I am a fan of theirs.
Mr President, it will already be apparent to you that we have before us two excellent reports, both of which address the vital subject of how to protect tax-payers' interests.
Unfortunately, there are not more tax payers here this evening, but nevertheless I am sure the business can faithfully be undertaken even as they retire to their beds.
First, Mrs Theato is to be congratulated for the clarity and constructiveness of her report on on-the-spot checks to combat fraud.
The text on which agreement in principle was reached in the Council in June, as the House will know, is the result of considerable effort by the Commission, the Council and particularly the Italian presidency to bring this matter to a successful conclusion.
I believe that it responds in great part to the major concerns expressed by Parliament in May of this year, reference to which has been made in the course of this debate.
It is obviously important for this text to be put into practical effect as quickly as possible and, once Parliament has decided on its position, the Council should be able to adopt the text in time for the regulation to come into force on 1 January next year.
This new regulation will enable more effective investigations to be carried out by Commission anti-fraud inspectors.
It will lead to an equivalent level of protection of the Community's financial interests everywhere in the Union.
That provision for equivalent protection of the budget is a new element in the Union's anti-fraud strategy and over time it will clearly vastly improve controls.
The regulation confirms the central responsibility of the Member States for the prevention of irregularities and gives the Member States the facility for preparing these controls, together with the Commission - an approach which is obviously consistent with the partnership approach in the Commission anti-fraud strategy.
Commission inspectors will be able to carry out controls directly on economic operators and they will benefit from access to information to the same degree as national inspectors, a point made very forcibly by Mrs Theato in the course of her contribution.
The reports will be assimilated for the purpose of admissibility as evidence in courts with reports produced by national inspectors.
I might add, Mr President, that UCLAF is now in the process of checking the efficiency of all instruments and procedures available at national level to protect the financial interests of the Community.
The result of this work will become available next year.
As you may know, Parliament proposes the introduction of some form of sanction against operators who refuse to cooperate with the Commission inspectors or deny access to information.
Obviously we are not unsympathetic to the purposes of that amendment.
However, since my colleagues Commissioners Gradin and Liikanen have launched the sound and efficient financial management 2000 project, it is clear that the issue of sanctions is now under very active consideration in partnership with Member States and this is also obviously directly related to control and auditing eligibility and penalties.
I am therefore sure that we will be able to find solutions within the remit of SEM 2000 that will, I hope, meet the concerns registered by Mrs Theato.
In response to the specific and forceful point that she made in the course of her contribution seeking a Commission proposal on administrative penal sanctions, I can say definitely, Mr President, that the Commission will integrate the content of Mrs Theato's proposed amendment in its 1997 anti-fraud work programme.
The Commission fully supports the spirit of the amendment, as I indicated, and the reason for not embracing it now arises simply from the need to find answers in terms of legal provision, which would give full effect to the Commission's powers to carry out controls, an objective which I am sure that Mrs Theato and her colleagues heartily support.
Now to the Bontempi report on the draft second Protocol to the Convention on the Protection of the Community's Financial Interests.
According to the rules, under the third pillar, honourable Members are consulted by the presidency and not by the Commission and the text on which this House has been consulted reflects an intermediate compromise established at the end of the Italian presidency, with some further amendments.
However the Commission, in the person of Mrs Gradin, at the Justice and Home Affairs Council in June insisted, as only Mrs Gradin can, that Parliament should be consulted.
So I am happy to offer my comments on the report.
Obviously the presidency will have to make its own comments when it gets the opportunity.
Generally speaking the Commission is very satisfied with Mr Bontempi's report.
We can go along with most of the amendments although I have some minor remarks on a few of them.
The fact that we support the various amendments does not, unfortunately, carry the same weight in the third pillar as in the first pillar, as the House will know.
There is no monopoly of initiative.
The Commission can only promise to argue as well as it can for the points accepted this evening.
I am sure that honourable Members will understand that.
On the title, Amendment No 1, it is the Commission's view that it is better that we stick to the more general terms of the original proposal.
We welcome Amendment No 2 which calls for a separate instrument on judicial cooperation.
This was an important element in the original Commission proposal but it has now been dropped in the Council negotiations.
As honourable Members might know, a horizontal instrument which aims at improved mutual judicial assistance is currently before the Council.
However, I cannot exclude the possibility that a separate instrument aimed at fraud against the Community budget will still be needed, in particular when it comes to defining a particular role for the Commission in judicial cooperation.
Amendment No 3 rightly draws attention to the adoption of the protocol on corruption as the relevant date.
Amendment No 4 meets our concerns relating to the need to cover all forms of legal persons involved in fraud.
However, this matter is obviously largely regulated by national law and in order to respect subsidiarity I do not believe it is area into which the Commission should venture.
We therefore suggest that the text stays as it is.
Amendment No 5 defines the scope in the title and we can agree with Mr Bontempi on that and on Amendments Nos 6 and 7.
The latter rightly provides for criminal or administrative penalties when a company lacks the proper organization, supervision or control and thereby makes itself vulnerable to fraudulent behaviour.
Amendment No 8 does not pose any problem to us and we can also accept Amendment No 9 in part.
We particularly welcome the exclusion of fraudulent enterprises from participation in public procurement.
However, we do not see any use in restricting the application of a judicial winding-up order only to companies with fraud as a primary purpose.
In serious cases it might be necessary to close down and restructure any kind of enterprise that is guilty of fraud.
To exclude important fraudulent behaviour from winding-up orders seems to us to be rather weak.
We can accept Amendments Nos 10 and 11 which delete those articles of the proposal that are taken up elsewhere in the text.
Changing Title III as suggested by Mr Bontempi in Amendment No 12 obviously clarifies the point but we do not believe this is absolutely necessary in view of the clarification in the text that follows.
On Amendment No 13 the Commission fully agrees on the need to confiscate the proceeds of fraud and to take conservatory measures.
Most of the problem is, however, already solved in the text that is being negotiated by the Council.
We also subscribe to the call for full reimbursement of the proceeds of fraud to the Community budget.
However, this issue might be better solved in the context of the clearance of accounts procedure under the normal budgetary rules rather than in the present third pillar instrument.
Amendment No 14 deals with whitewashing of criminal proceeds and money laundering.
The amendment actually suggests a slight softening by talking of sanctions only in cases of serious corruption.
The Commission still believes that all corruption cases are serious and should be liable to sanctions.
We agree of course that legal persons should be held liable for money laundering but the text proposed is still under scrutiny by our legal service and might pose some problems.
Amendment No 15 introduces the notion of mutual assistance in enforcing penalties.
Mutual assistance normally occurs, of course, before the court cases.
Enforcement of the penalties is the remit of Member States and we suggest that it should be kept as such.
May I remind honourable Members that we now have in the on-the-spot checks regulation the possibility of checking that measures by Member States to protect the budget are equivalent.
It means that Member States must provide for comparable deterrents and that, in our view, should provide a safety net.
Amendment Nos 16 and 17 widened the scope of fraud to include corruption and we readily accept that.
Amendments Nos 18 and 19 come back to the request for judicial cooperation under the issue of competent authorities.
Amendment No 19 even suggests that the unit for the coordination of fraud prevention be given a special role and that Mrs Gradin as Commissioner responsible for fraud is appointed mediator.
I am at liberty to say that Mrs Gradin is, of course, very honoured by the proposal but she also takes the view that it is barely realistic at this stage in the discussions.
However, Mr Bontempi's suggestion raises a real issue.
Member States are increasingly creating their own national specialized bodies to deal with fraud against the Community budget.
Those units like the Guardia di Finanzia, the OECD, the DEFO in Belgium and the recently created ICLAF in France would need a privileged interlocutor at the level of the Commission.
It might be useful to reflect on how to provide a legal framework for swift and efficient contacts between anti-fraud units in Member States and the anti-fraud unit in the Commission.
In practice work is carried out smoothly and efficiently on an informal basis but a formal framework might be called for.
I can promise the House that the Commission will reflect on this issue in a very constructive manner.
It is clear that the rapporteurs deserve much credit for their reports.
The Commission really needs support in this most difficult and complex area of judicial and penal cooperation.
We believe that both Mr Bontempi's and Mrs Theato's reports have provided exactly the kind of well-informed support that the Commission is looking for.
I thank them and I also thank the House for its great patience over what has inevitably been a very lengthy Commission statement.
Mr President, I want to offer warm thanks to the Commissioner for his very clear statement.
The question that was raised several times in relation to my report, first by me and then by other speakers, concerned penalties in the event that the Commission officials were refused access to premises and information during inspections.
It is not possible to incorporate penalties in this draft regulation; nor do we want to delay it.
If I understood you correctly you made it very clear that the Commission will be dealing with this very soon in the framework of SEM and incorporate penal measures.
I assume I understood you correctly; for that affects the amendment I tabled on this draft regulation.
It would be most helpful if you would confirm that.
I can confirm that the honourable Member has correctly interpreted the motives and indeed the objectives of the Commission.
Our view is that a very comprehensive and stringent view should be taken of affairs and, within the powers available to us, we want to try to ensure that we reach the same objectives as those desired by the honourable Member.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Marine equipment
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0294/96) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on marine equipment (C4-0370/96-95/0163(SYN)) (rapporteur: Mr Kaklamanis).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the subject we are to debate is marine equipment, a subject related to safety at sea, the safety of ships and those who work on them.
A subject that is extremely topical and, I would say, sometimes acute - and I refer to recent shipwrecks which we have discussed at length, both on the committee and in Plenary.
Related decisions exist and have been taken in the context of the International Maritime Organization, but these proved insufficient.
So the aims of the directive we are debating, are: 1) to improve safety standards on ships sailing to and from European Union ports; 2) to promote the integration of the internal market by ensuring that the equipment on those ships will be of uniformly high quality; and 3) to see that the equipment in question does not affect the competitiveness of European shipping.
Finally, by renewing and improving marine equipment we also aspire to protect the marine environment.
These are ambitious aims.
The final text we arrived at is not exactly what everyone on the Transport Committee would have wanted, but this text certainly covers an existing gap and certainly improves the current situation considerably.
The final text is the product of a compromise with the Council and the Commission.
Through the person of the Commissioner here present, Mr Kinnock, a Commissioner who knows both how to debate and how to listen, I want to thank the relevant service of the Commission for its cooperation.
However, there were three points in the final text which our committee, the Committee on Transport, refused to accept because they infringe, or if you will, they go against firm principles held by Parliament.
On those three points we have come back with rapporteur's amendments, ones of my own, which were approved unanimously by all of us on the Transport Committee. I would be happy if the same thing happened tomorrow in Plenary as well.
Mr President, I do not think details of this report need be gone into now, both because they are very technical and because, from what I see, the colleagues who do me the honour to be present this evening at this time, know them perhaps better than I, your rapporteur, do myself, since they are older and more experienced members of the European Parliament's Committee on Transport.
I hope this report, with the Commission's help - and we expect quite a lot from Commissioner Kinnock - will make some small contribution towards improving safety at sea, the safety of ships and those who work on them, so that we may not have such frequent cause to mourn the shipwrecks we all know about as we did during the past year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again today, the House can take satisfaction from helping to encourage safety in European waters.
Parliament and the Committee on Transport feel a sense of pride and responsibility at having played their part in shaping many directives through their reports on marine safety.
And in this context, let me pay tribute to my colleague, who wrote the report on marine safety which has been a textbook for what we are dealing with today.
There is broad agreement in the Commission, the Council and Parliament that something reasonable will come from this directive.
Some Member States still find it hard to put safety at the top of the agenda, and are more concerned about the conditions for competition.
The situation is improving, however, not least because of the commitment shown by Parliament.
I do not need to mention the names of ships or to describe tragedies here in the House to make this directive easier to understand.
Firstly, we have a legal framework.
Secondly, we have the task of harmonization and laying down standards.
For many, these two things may be very technical, not political.
Thirdly, we need to elevate this task, so that international testing methods can be used.
Fourth, it is important that this directive should be applied internationally, and I am thinking here of the fact that European shipping extends worldwide.
It is therefore essential for the Commission to ensure - as I know it is doing, and I know that Commissioner Kinnock is working on this - that the IMO is also involved in future action.
And fifth, it is important that the directive should be able to incorporate or adopt - whatever word we use - further improvements, so that we are not isolated from developments.
In conclusion, I would say that, perhaps unlike the rapporteur, I welcome these amendments which have been voted through Parliament, and I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his willingness to cooperate.
In my view, this is a good report.
I hope that it can also be implemented in the Member States, once it has been adopted.
We often find ourselves in the position that implementation lags behind.
And my final comment to the Commissioner is that I believe that anything which comes under the heading of marine safety or safety in transport should be something to which we hold the Council of Ministers in future.
Mr President, I wish to strongly welcome this proposal for a directive on marine equipment as another essential step forward in the improvement of maritime safety in the European Union.
We cannot overemphasize the need for such action.
Maritime disasters have caused a tragic loss of human lives in the last decade - over 12, 000 lives have been lost at sea.
These many accidents have prompted us in the EU to prioritize safety at sea to try to prevent such a loss of human life again.
This proposal, therefore, is welcome because it is the first piece of Community legislation dealing with the effectiveness of marine equipment.
There is no doubt that safe and reliable equipment can be one of the key elements which prevents tragedies at sea in the future and I hope that this directive will do just that.
The directive tackles two key issues: one deals comprehensively with standards for all marine equipment and the second ensures that those bodies appointed to carry out testing can reach the high standards that we require.
I cite an example from my own constituency, because it highlights very well the pressing need for this directive.
I refer, of course, to the test earlier this year in Dover on the ro-ro vessel Stena Invicta , carried out by the UK maritime authorities.
The evacuation, which took place in perfect daylight conditions, failed because of the failure of vital pieces of marine equipment.
In particular, one in five of the life rafts on that ro-ro ferry failed to inflate.
That delayed the evacuation in perfect conditions for the people on board that ship by over 20 minutes.
Think what could have happened if that had been in rough seas at night.
That was an exercise.
Next time it could be for real.
I am, therefore, extremely pleased that this proposal, which covers, for example, inflatable life rafts, will enforce high standards throughout the European Union and I hope in the UK, in my constituency and in Dover.
Indeed, I would welcome the Commissioner's views on that exercise in the context of this particular proposal, which clearly sets high standards for key pieces of equipment, such as inflatable life rafts.
We simply cannot tolerate any more a sloppy attitude to safety at sea by any Member State.
I wish to conclude by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Kaklamanis, whose report will greatly contribute to safety on all our ships.
Mr President, in addressing you, I would like to protest at the mis-spelling of the Greek notice displayed in this Chamber, which reads 'elliníka' , and from this platform I ask you to act and get it corrected as soon as possible.
As you know, we have had mis-spellings in the Chamber in Brussels, and we must correct those here as well.
Turning to the subject, I must say that we agree with the common position Parliament is debating and will be voting on.
We also agree with the rapporteur's comments and the amendments he is proposing, and I would like to ask the Commission and Commissioner Kinnock in person to do what he can, so that these few amendments, which I hope Parliament will approve tomorrow, will be accepted by the Commission as well and by the Council after it.
It is indeed a noteworthy common position, and the Commission, Parliament, and I must say the Council too have all played their part in arriving at this happy outcome.
I take this opportunity to remind us all that safety at sea is an issue that cannot be invoked to serve any other aim.
Safety at sea is an aim in itself, I would say it justifies itself, and it is the duty of us all to ensure the safety of shipping to save both lives and property.
But I must stress that the safety of shipping must not be used as an excuse for the enaction of measures unrelated to it.
To explain these generalizations, I must tell you that in your statement on 'maritime strategy' , the need to ensure safety at sea, which nobody questions, is used to promote solutions related, for example, to shipping registers.
There is no connection other than in the Commission's documents, between provisions - and indeed ones governed by directives - relating to national registers of shipping, and issues concerning the safety of shipping.
But this, of course, is not the time to talk about that.
I hope that next week and in the weeks that follow it we will have the opportunity to discuss this really contradictory text, I would say - please excuse the expression, Commissioner - which of course I hope can be improved after debate and dialogue.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, really I can only confirm that, which is why I am also cutting my speech by half.
So many right and good things have been said that it would be wrong to repeat them all over again.
I believe the main point is not just that all the Member States of the EU should sign the IMO rules but that they are also applied uniformly.
That is the decisive point if we want to protect the people, to protect the environment and also - and I believe my Danish colleague agrees with me - to create equal conditions of competition in every part of the Community.
It also meets the wishes of the industry.
That is why the report by Mr Kaklamanis is a very good report and that is why I will confine myself to Amendment No 1.
In my humble opinion the justification for amendment is sightly unfortunate.
The reason we ask for the sentence 'This paragraph shall not apply to radiocommunications equipment' to be deleted is not in order to exclude the testing of radiocommunications equipment from this directive.
It is quite clear from the annexes that the radio equipment must also undergo the necessary tests.
Much more to the point is that we do not want to have several procedures side by side but a uniform, sensible testing procedure which will help us avoid bureaucracy and therefore provide a fair procedure both for the equipment makers and for the shipping companies.
Regardless of its justification I therefore hope that you, Commissioner, will approve Amendment No 1 for the right reasons, of which I am sure you are aware.
I do not want the same to happen as unfortunately occurred in the case of overland transport services when we worked very hard in this House to draft sensible amendments that the Commission could support and then the Commission did not put a single one of our amendments before the Council.
Oh yes, it did put one, but a minor one.
So I hope, Commissioner, that you will approve the three modest but clear amendments and will also support them before the Council.
Amendment No 1 in particular is designed to simplify, to standardize and to help create sensible framework conditions for the equipment makers and the shipping companies.
I wonder whether you will follow the House this time.
I am pleased to note the support of the Committee on Transport and Tourism for the common position on the Marine Equipment Directive.
I agree that it is a clear improvement on the original proposal.
I am also pleased to be able to give my support to Amendment No 1 because it is the words that are put forward in the amendment and not necessarily the justification that the law has to take account of.
Therefore we support and accept the amendment as tabled by the committee since it will avoid the unnecessary application of overlapping provisions to the same piece of radiocommunications equipment, without in any way jeopardizing safety performance.
I regret to say, however, that the other two amendments are not acceptable largely for procedural reasons which I do not think the House, on reflection, will find objectionable.
I said at first reading that the principle of independence for notified bodies would be set out in Annex C of the measure.
That is what has happened in the common position which states that a notified body must be independent and not be controlled by manufacturers or by suppliers.
Amendment No 2 merely repeats that call and it is, in our view, an unnecessary duplication of the provisions already laid down in Annex C. I therefore invite the House to look again at Amendment No 2 and Annex C and see for itself that its concerns have been fully taken into account.
As for Amendment No 3, I am changing the type of committee referred to in the common position.
I have just to remind the House that all the Community measures on maritime safety have established regulatory committees.
The common position is merely continuing a standard practice which I hope the House will also support.
I conclude by thanking the House for supporting this new measure which represents yet another important step towards greater maritime safety.
As Mr Watts said in his contribution, every safety loophole that is closed by the legislation produced by this House and the Community is real progress in safeguarding human life and, indeed, the environment.
Again, I am very grateful to the Committee on Transport and Tourism and particularly to the rapporteur, Mr Kaklamanis, who has done a characteristically thorough job yet again.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Roadworthiness tests
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0295/96) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles and their trailers (C4-0369/96-95/0226(SYN)) (rapporteur: Mr Belleré).
Mr President, Commissioner Kinnock, we are now into the final straight with this seventh directive.
The first was in 1977, the others amended the original text to make road travel safer for persons and vehicles, understood in the broad sense. The logic of this report may seem rather stringent, but that is not the case, Mr Kinnock.
This is what has to be done if we want to achieve safety in harmonizing the sector across the various Member States.
We do not have to make room for the lobby and so-called political agreements. So why exclude fire brigade and police vehicles from the scope of the directive in Article 4(1)?
Why exclude vehicles of historic interest manufactured before 1 January 1960 in Article 4(2)? Why put off the date of compliance with the directive in Article 11(1)?
I would like to see it already applied in 1997, if only in the second six months. Why remove the proposal to ban vehicles from the road it they do not meet the minimum requirements for braking systems and exhaust gases, by demanding deterrent legislation from the individual Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am retabling all the amendments adopted at first reading. They have the consensus of the house, except for the one on granting the Member States the power to carry out more rigorous and frequent controls not restricted to braking systems alone.
And as regards the tests to be carried out by the various Member States on historic vehicles built before 1 January 1960, the speed-limitation devices must be checked to ensure that the maximum values recorded cannot be exceeded.
I am retabling Amendment No 5 on extending roadworthiness tests to two- and three-wheeled vehicles.
I am also retabling the reduction to three years and one year in the intervals between tests on vehicles weighing less than 3.5 tonnes which are used for the carriage of goods, the extension of category 5 to vehicles used for the public transport of passengers - Amendment No 8 - and cold-start tests on carbon monoxide emissions for petrol vehicles.
These tests must also be carried out at authorized centres appointed for the purpose by the various Member States and subject to spot checks.
As you see, Commissioner, we are not far apart, and I count on the support of the house tomorrow so that we can consider all the problems in a more general light.
Then, as I said at the start, we will see what form and substance we should finally give the seventh directive.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying to Commissioner Kinnock - because I know his heart is always close to South Wales and I come from a mining village myself - that this week is the thirtieth anniversary of the Aberfan disaster and we always remember Aberfan.
I hope he will pass that on to the people of South Wales.
I thank the rapporteur for his hard work on this directive but, I have to say, that on closer examination my group has some reservations regarding the amendments submitted by the rapporteur and subsequently voted on by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
The subject of roadworthiness tests is a complex one and no one would deny that there is a need to harmonize such tests throughout the Union so that we can be assured that a vehicle deemed safe in one member country will be accepted as such in another.
Certainly, at the moment, standards vary, causing a great deal of concern with regard to road safety.
However, my group believes that in some instances the rapporteur has overcompensated for this and extended the scope of the directive far beyond what was intended or, indeed, desired.
To illustrate the point, I turn to recital 26 in Amendment No 3 which would delete the possibility for Member States to exclude from the directive motor vehicles of an historic nature - veteran vehicles, if you like.
My group believes that such an act will not only reduce the possibilities to maintain such historic vehicles but does not recognize the loving care owners of such vehicles lavish on them.
In my view these vehicles are probably amongst the best maintained on our roads.
Indeed, as someone who lovingly follows the maintenance of steam locomotives, I know that they are the best maintained.
The same goes for fire appliances, which the rapporteur believes should be included in the directive.
I notice in his report he talks about police vehicles as well but there is no mention there of police vehicles, just fire appliances, which is included in his Amendment No 6.
It is my experience that these vehicles are very well maintained as a matter of course.
Anyway, being so few in number, they do not pose a road safety threat.
Other areas where my group has problems are Article 11 and Amendment No 7, which seeks to shorten the delay for implementation to six months.
This is simply just not practically possible.
Amendment No 5 asks for a feasibility study on extending the scope of the directive to two and three-wheeled vehicles.
The Commission, as I understand it, has all the information it requires on this matter.
So why another study?
Amendments Nos 1 and 10 seek to amend the ways of testing the carbon monoxide content of exhaust from a cold start.
Whilst my group can support such a move on modern vehicles, to do so with a blanket coverage would not only be unfair on owners of older vehicles but also discriminatory.
Also we are not so sure that cold-start testing was not included in this directive anyway.
Three amendments where we can agree with the rapporteur are Nos 2, 8 and 9 - some of which seek to tighten up the regulations to include vehicles greater than three-and-a half tonnes that carry passengers, to increase the frequency of testing and to ensure the removal from our roads of vehicles that do not conform to the roadworthiness regulations.
Whilst my group appreciates the difficulties this may cause in the Council of Ministers, we cannot accept the fact that vehicles deemed as unroadworthy, having failed the approved test, should be given any leeway or time to put them back on the road.
In conclusion, my group will support just three amendments and believes that, on the whole, the Commission's directive is one that we can support.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after we all survived the first reading in the Committee on Transport and in plenary I must say quite frankly that I am somewhat surprised now at second reading to see the Socialists suddenly diverging from our common road.
But at this point we should no longer be surprised at anything relating to the Socialists' politics.
What we are discussing today is a major component of our single market legislation.
It concerns the approximation not just of type approval but also of technical tests and integrating them on a European basis.
Let me base myself partly on the amendments.
The crucial one is of course Amendment No 8, the reduction of the frequency of tests to three years after the date of first use, and thereafter every year for the listed categories of vehicle, which now also include vehicles for the public transport of passengers.
I think that is a decisive point in relation to transport safety questions, which are of course more serious in the case of older vehicles than newly approved ones.
In the case of Amendment No 10, which goes back to my initiative - it concerns the cold start of vehicles - I would like to point out that the Socialists in particular call for such things on every conceivable and inconceivable occasion and keep demanding environmental standards which are no longer feasible for the industry.
At present we are discussing the motor-oil programme in the Committee on the Environment.
I am drafting the opinion for the Committee on Research.
Here we have something which is already being tested in the United States, for example, and is included in the measurement cycle.
And suddenly we are told: no, we cannot do that, it would be outrageous because it was never included in the directive.
Even if we may not manage to get this through here because the Socialists do not support us, we will certainly manage to have it included in the motor-oil programme or in later Euro-3/Euro-4 legislation.
I wonder how enthusiastically the PSE Group will then approve it.
We will reject Amendment No 6 - and here we agree with Mr Brian Simpson.
I myself am a local politician, we ourselves have a municipal fire-brigade, and they really are the most beautiful vehicles you could ever see.
They are always perfectly polished, perfectly maintained, always filled up, the oil level is checked at least once a day and these vehicles really are in top condition; here the exception is definitely justified.
I also regard it as acceptable for the old-timers to be granted special protection.
That is why we will reject Amendment No 6.
Amendment No 7: I do believe it is possible to bring all this into force in the space of six months.
Here we really should deal a bit fairly with one another.
Similarly, in the case of Amendment No 9 I can only support the rapporteur.
We have to exert a little pressure here to ensure that certain vehicles are taken off the road if they do not satisfy certain genuinely important requirements for the safety of other transport users, for instance in relation to brakes.
Speed limitation devices are another question that still needs examining.
Today 50 % of the value of a vehicle is accounted for by electronics.
Those are questions we are not examining.
So something cannot be right here.
And surely a speed limitation device is the most harmless thing one could ask for.
We will still have much to do in this area of electronics in future in relation to the regular tests.
The EPP will also support Amendment No 5 concerning two- and three-wheeled vehicles.
After all we have been waiting for ages for the Commission's words of wisdom on this.
To summarize, the EPP will support all the amendments except for Amendment No 6.
Mr President, the proposal for a Council Directive on roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles and their trailers was submitted for two principal reasons. Firstly, the inclusion of checks on speedlimitation devices installed in lorries and coaches in roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles and their trailers.
Secondly, the consolidation of the 1977 Directive which has been amended on numerous occasions since its introduction.
In the common position the Council adopted a number of amendments tabled by the European Parliament, but at this second reading the Committee on Transport and Tourism proposes a number of further amendments to the common position.
We cannot, however, support all of these.
First of all there is the amendment which allows the Member States to apply stricter tests in other areas than brake systems.
Such demands are not yet laid down in the type approval for entrance to the market and would therefore distort competition.
The same applies to the emission standards for cold starting and the determination of the carbon monoxide content.
Also, unlike the Committee on Transport and Tourism, we would like to leave the decision on whether or not to test vehicles of historic interest to the Member States.
We will be supporting most of the other amendments, but generally endorse the Commission's proposal.
Mr President, in the second reading, Parliament is asked to give an opinion on a proposal for a Common Council directive relating to roadworthiness tests for motor vehicles and their trailers.
The report on the subject undoubtedly contains mainly positive elements that should be accepted and supported.
I am very pleased that from now on each Member State will recognize the evidence provided by another Member State that a motor vehicle registered in the latter, together with its trailer or semi-trailer, has successfully passed a roadworthiness test that fully complies with the provisions of the present Directive.
I wonder however what Mr Ferber wished to imply.
We have opted for a reasonable policy and a feasible one - although this is another matter open to discussion.
I am sorry, however, that the common position has disregarded the obligation for Member States to conduct tests on vehicles prior to the first registration and to carry out regular checks on speed limitation devices.
This is indeed a double-edged weapon, for we must face facts and accept that the speed limiting device is an electromechanical instrument which can theoretically be falsified.
From this point of view, checking is essential.
However, such testing presupposes monitoring equipment which is highly efficient in detecting defective or inaccurate speed limiting devices or ones that have been tampered with.
We must therefore ask ourselves, and the Commissioner is right in this case, whether all Member States are ready to make it compulsory for their various testing services to be equipped with such test equipment, whose very efficiency makes it expensive.
The common position seems to me a step in the right direction.
Despite my concern to see legislative provisions come into force as quickly as possible, we believe that the six month deadline suggested by the rapporteur is too short for Member States to be capable of complying with the new provisions.
As for the frequency of tests, it seems to me that Amendment No 8 of the rapporteur, providing for testing three years after the date of first use and then annually, is the most reasonable.
I sincerely believe that the aim of the present Directive is a step in the right direction.
It clearly involves very strict testing.
It goes without saying that vehicles that do not pass will be taken out of circulation, as provided for by Amendment No 9 of the rapporteur.
In conclusion, may I say: thank you, Commissioner, you have done a good job.
Thank you, Mr Rapporteur, we have made progress, and that is something.
Mr President, could I welcome the Commissioner at this late hour to the Chamber.
I hope you will join me in my admiration of Mr Simpson's new look.
I think he is looking remarkably smart and it is a pleasure to see the Socialists following the Conservative style of dress.
Could I just say I would like to support what Mr Simpson has said on the position, as he called it, of 'veteran' cars.
I would crave the support of the rapporteur in an otherwise very good report in asking him to consider withdrawing Amendments Nos 3 and 6.
The position of classic cars is that they have long enjoyed a special exemption under our own United Kingdom rules.
I am sure the Commissioner and the House will agree that the United Kingdom rules are exemplary.
For new cars, we already insist on a roadworthiness test after the initial three years, and thereafter annual tests.
I hope the Commission, and indeed the House, will support us in maintaining an exemption under the rule of subsidiarity to this directive for classic cars.
Otherwise I am sure my group will support this excellent report and I would like to congratulate the Commission on bringing forward this directive.
I hope also that the Commission will actually, when the directive has been adopted, ensure that its provisions are implemented in each and every Member State.
First of all I should like to respond to the very sober note struck by Mr Simpson with his reference to the anniversary of the Aberfan disaster 30 years ago.
That has particular resonance for me because I held a class every week in the village and I was there on the morning of the disaster and for some time after it - indeed, dealing with the families for several months after it.
I do not think anyone can ever forget the appalling horrors of that time or everything that has followed from it.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism and its rapporteur, Mr Belleré, have worked quickly to bring this proposal back to the House for a second reading.
I appreciate that very much since it will obviously facilitate the final adoption of this measure before the end of the year.
It is regrettable, therefore, that the haste with which the common position was reviewed appears to have resulted in some amendments that are not acceptable.
I refer in particular to three of the four amendments which were put forward previously, at first reading, and which, as I explained at the time, I simply could not support.
Amendment No 1 refers to the accelerated working method on official qualification.
That implies that the proposal is mere codification which is certainly not the case as significant new elements have been introduced into the basic text.
Consequently the cooperation procedure is fully applicable, illustrated by the fact that we are having this second reading debate.
Amendment No 5 asks the Commission to submit a report on the feasibility of extending road worthiness tests to two- and three-wheeled vehicles.
If I could remind the House, I already committed the Commission to drawing up rules for testing these vehicles and to base a proposal on the established testing scheme existing in several Member States.
Neither I, nor indeed Parliament, need a report.
On the contrary, what is needed is a proposal.
I intend to submit such a proposal for action to the Commission before the end of this year.
The third amendment, which falls into the repetitive category - Amendment No 10 - calls for a cold start test in relation to the carbon dioxide content of exhaust gases.
Again, as I said at first reading, if cold start standards do not feature in the type-approval requirements for a car, it is unjustifiable to impose a test which a car is simply not designed to be able to pass.
However I said that I would keep this under review and certainly if type-approval requirements are amended to include cold start standards then there may be scope to modify testing requirements accordingly.
I can understand the reasoning for the fourth amendment, which returns from first reading - Amendment No 8 - relating to testing frequency.
I fully accept the political statement that the House wants to make.
Indeed the Commission's original proposal many years ago was itself based on three years for the first test, two years for the second and then annual tests.
I hope that one day all Member States will adopt such a standard, as some have already done, as Miss McIntosh reminded us.
In the meantime it is not practical to force the pace on those Member States which even now benefit from derogations from the present provisions.
Nevertheless, I repeat my undertaking from first reading to include an assessment of testing frequency in my report to Parliament scheduled for 1998.
I now turn very quickly to the new amendments that have been proposed.
Amendments Nos 3 and 6 seek to remove the possibility for a Member State to exempt from tests fire appliances and certain vehicles of historic interest.
The recommendation for second reading seeks to justify these amendments by claiming that they reinstate the possibility for Member States to test such vehicles.
But the common position provides this possibility already.
Parliament's amendment, however, would have the effect of imposing unnecessary tests on a relatively small number of vehicles which are generally maintained to very high standards already.
I cannot support Amendment No 2 which would extend the possibility of carrying out more stringent and more frequent tests to all standards and not just to braking systems as at present.
Our long-term goal is to harmonize testing standards at levels which guarantee safety, and this amendment is incompatible with that objective.
With regard to Amendment No 4 I have to advise the House that checks on speed limitation devices are problematical.
We recognize, therefore, the need to give the matter further study and when this is completed we will make proposals that address the issue.
I must also ask the House not to think that what is adopted here today can be implemented tomorrow.
The sixmonth deadline for the implementation of this directive, as suggested in Amendment No 7, is clearly inadequate.
I therefore have to insist on one year simply for practical reasons.
I come, finally, to Amendment No 9.
The House will be aware that I have a lot of sympathy for this amendment although I also recognize that if the spirit of the common position is respected then the objective behind it will, in any case, be attained.
However there is also a practical difficulty because there is as yet no common response to dealing with vehicles which do not meet test standards.
Some vehicles cannot leave the test centre; some can be take away to be repaired; while in other cases pass certificates may be issued on the undertaking that the defect is corrected before the next test.
That situation is clearly unsatisfactory and I intend to investigate it further and include it in my 1998 report.
Then we may be able to do something.
I very much regret that I am not able formally to accept any of the amendments that have been conscientiously tabled.
I hope the House will understand that I would not be properly playing my part in the legislative process if, on this occasion, I were to do otherwise.
I thank the committee, and particularly Mr Belleré, for the attention that they have given to this issue.
I am certain that my disagreement with them on this occasion will not prevent the pursuit of our joint objectives on many other occasions.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Fourth R & D framework programme
The next item is the oral question (B4-0856/96-0-0172/96) by Mr Scapagnini, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, to the Council, on the increase in funding for the fourth framework programme of activities in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1994-1998) (RTD) (C4-0092/96-96/0034(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Minister, only two and a half years have gone by since the European Parliament and the Council completed the conciliation procedure on the fourth framework programme in April 1994.
That occasion, as we know, marked the first true application of the conciliation procedure introduced by the Treaty of Maastricht.
In that act of co-decision of 26 April 1994, the parties decided to review the financing of the framework programme, leaving open the possibility of a funding increase of ECU 700 million in view of the development of European financial perspectives.
This possibility of financing should have been adopted not later than 30 June of this year.
While Parliament completed first reading in June, the Council wanted to take its decision in the light of the outcome of the Ecofin Council of 14 October.
Furthermore there was no follow-up to the proposal put forward to Parliament's Committee on Research to postpone the Research Council until after the Ecofin Council. The fact is the presidency has agreed to the research ministers becoming hostage to the finance ministers.
Up to now it does not look as if the presidency has taken any apparent action in the Research Council to overcome this impasse.
In fact the Research Council of 7 November asked the Commission to find additional financial resources in the area of the third budget line in the current financial perspectives.
And I am sorry to say that in addition to that, the presidency has refused to inform the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy of the results of the Research Council.
In my capacity as chairman, with the agreement of all the Members, I wrote to President Hänsch on that occasion asking him to raise the matter at the meeting of the trialogue planned for this week thus safeguarding the rights of Parliament vis-à-vis the Council.
I want to stress that, through the relevant committee, Parliament has demonstrated its openness to a compromise, as is now happening as regards consideration of the budget.
But the Council does not seem to be making much effort to find some form of dialogue.
To be successful, the co-decision procedure cannot be initiated only after the Council has adopted its common position.
The Irish presidency should examine the reasons holding it back from continuing the useful informal contacts initiated last July which seemed so promising.
But, Mr President, this is not just an interinstitutional question.
The basic problem is whether the Council of Ministers really wants to respect the commitment taken in April 1994.
Without that financial commitment there can be no progress in important areas like aeronautics and space research, multimedia education and research into water and renewable sources of energy, and that is bound to have major repercussions on competitiveness, employment and environmental protection in the European Union.
In the debate on the 1997 budget - and the vote will be taken tomorrow - the European Parliament is considering the possibility of putting ECU 100 million into the reserves for research and technological development.
This amount, planned as an addition to the actual achievements of the fourth framework programme, should not exceed the limits of the financial perspectives.
To this end a formal decision is needed on the revision of the fourth framework programme.
It is also planned to include another ECU 100 million in the 1998 and 1999 budgets if the programme is extended to 1999, which the European Parliament already voted for at first reading.
These considerations should be interpreted as a clear political signal from the European Parliament to the Research Council and the Commission, because they make it explicit that the supplementary funding for the fourth framework programme no longer depends on the revision of the financial forecasts.
We hope the Council can react to this signal and adopt its common position on the fourth framework programme in December.
But I want to invite the Irish presidency and in particular Minister Rabitte who demonstrated such readiness to respond positively to the offer of the European Parliament Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy in preparation for the common position, avoiding arguments about formalities.
Only through cooperation between our institutions will it be possible to achieve the common objective of European research, thus contributing to the creation of new jobs and encouraging investment.
Mr President-in-Office, I have listened very carefully to your reply to the question put to you by the President of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
This reply did not disappoint me as I did not expect anything else from you.
Nevertheless, I am forced to say today that the Council has clearly proved itself lacking in dealing with the matter.
You yourself recalled the codecision of April 1994 in which I played a very active part, providing for a decision on your part before 30 June 1996.
The European Parliament itself got on with things quite quickly, as did the Commission, by making a proposal according to a timetable enabling the Council to come to a decision before 30 June.
You have not done so.
You pleaded that it was necessary to wait for the decisions of the Florence Summit, and so on and so forth: in short, you have decided nothing.
In October, you had a 'Research' Council.
We had several contacts with you, as you recalled just now, and at that time you made yourself readily available to us.
Parliament, like you, noted in these contacts that the absence of any revision of the Financial Perspective changed the problem and that it was now clearly necessary to find ways towards a financial compromise.
Everybody agrees about this, but nothing is happening.
On 7 October, there was still the same deficient report from the Council, which did not even manage, independently of the financial package, to reach agreement over some of the priorities.
Nothing at all came out of this Council.
Two Councils wasted, despite the fact that they have on the table the proposal from the Commission, together with the resolution and the report from Parliament.
Today, you say to us that we still have to wait. But wait for what?
I do not believe there is any indication in the text of the Treaty that the 'Ecofin' Council is a super Council.
The Council is a single legal entity, and the Research Council is not legally of lower status than the 'Ecofin' Council.
In reality, Mr President, the 'Research' Council - and you certainly are not alone responsible for this, far from it, you undoubtedly bear less responsibility than others - the 'Research' Council virtually went down on its knees before the 'Ecofin' Council.
And it expects the 'Ecofin' Council to say to it: ' Here you are, here are a few crumbs' .
Today we are concerned with the budgetary procedure and a proposal will be voted on tomorrow morning by the European Parliament with a view to setting up a reserve of ECU 100 million for 1997, with the intention of reaching ECU 300 million for refinancing the framework programme over the next three financial years.
You cannot say that the European Parliament has not shown imagination and willingness in the matter.
You are now waiting for the Commission to make you a counter-proposal and I believe in fact that an amended proposal from the Commission would now be welcome so that next December's Council could finally be a Council that comes to a decision on a common position.
For it is in the codecision with the European Parliament, Mr President, that things have to be decided, not in the upper levels of the 'Ecofin' Council, not in the Council of Finance Ministers.
It is at your level that this must be done.
It is at the level of your relations with the European Parliament, clarified by the Commission.
That is the Treaty, the whole Treaty and nothing but the Treaty.
And I say to you straight away that if, in December, the Council does not assume its responsibilities, we in the European Parliament will consider using any legal method of denouncing the shortcomings of the Council.
Mr President, officially this is an oral question to the Council.
But Commission representatives are present and I would like to go into the matter in a little more depth.
Let me repeat what we all know. On 26 April 1994 we had the result of co-decision between Parliament and the Council.
This was the first co-decision act since Maastricht and at the time the two institutions were quite happy with the procedure.
The Council and the European Parliament, and let me stress this fact, the Council too, were satisfied with the result at the time.
Barely two and a half years have passed since then, and although the refinancing should have occurred before 30 June, we find ourselves in a desert.
I cannot think of any other term to describe it.
The Research Council has not taken any decision, it is waiting for Ecofin. Ecofin has asked the Commission to present a new proposal.
Well, I really do ask myself whether the European institutions have become unable to act.
What are we as Parliament doing? The Linkohr report concerns a Commission proposal that not only calls for an increase in funding but - and I say this plainly to the Commission - is also an entirely new version in terms of content.
After the Linkohr report I heard that the Commission had somehow or other produced a new proposal that was not, however, any different from the first one, although our colleague's report was different from the Commission proposal.
So why are we actually here and why are we working? Second question.
In the light of our responsibility for the difficult financial situation in the Member States - even my own country, Germany, is not doing particularly well financially - we as Parliament are proposing a reserve of ECU 100 million with the prospect, as you have just heard, of maintaining this increase over the next two years too.
We have received no response to this proposal, which is a quite genuine proposal.
So I want to ask why not?
During this period - and I am coming back to the Commission now - the Commission has been working away on a fifth framework programme, but why in fact?
It evidently seems unable to bring the middle of this fourth framework programme to a conclusion.
What is actually happening with research now? What can the researchers expect now?
What can the SMEs expect of this Commission now?
In short, we are in a right mess, that is all I can say!
Mr President-in-Office, can you actually give us and the citizens of Europe a plausible answer to this question: why are you prepared to put so much money into maintaining the existing and in part obsolete structures and so little into the only thing that protects jobs, namely research and development and strengthening the innovative power of the SMEs? I regard that as in total contradiction to the declared aim of President Santer, which was to reduce unemployment in the European Union.
You can all see how difficult that is from the efforts the Member States are making at national level and from the fairly meagre results.
Here again I do not exclude my own country.
For the rest, I have to say this: as far as I remember, you were not there on 8 October, Mr President!
That you or one of your representatives went to the Socialist Group last week is not officially known to the European Parliament.
Mr President, you are a minister and enough of a politician to know that has something to do with party politics!
We still exist too!
Mr President, I am glad that Mr Scapagnini has asked this question.
My fellow committee members have already explained the technical details.
I do not therefore intend to repeat them. However, I have the feeling that the Council is trying to hide something somehow.
They are shifting the blame onto others, such as the Ecofin council.
This feeling is hanging in the air the whole time.
The question is why they do not want to invest these resources.
What is behind it? It is a question of important research which is needed for the European Union and for the Member States.
It is research which is needed to renew energy sources and for the development of IT.
These are areas where we can be competitive and where jobs can be created.
It is therefore important to obtain access to these resources.
We in the Green Group naturally support this kind of research.
What we do not support, on the other hand, is research concerning fusion.
The Council has already cut resources for the Save II programme and the Thermie programme, which I truly regret.
It is therefore important that we obtain an answer from the research council and the Minister here today as to what is really going on.
Mr President, I am grateful for the opportunity to intervene and I do so mainly because of the extensive references made to the Commission particularly in the contribution by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl.
I think I should take the opportunity, not in any defensive sense, to respond to the point that she put about 'what resources research can expect from the Commission' . I quote her precisely and I respond by saying the common sense view: only the resources we have and are allowed to spend.
I sympathize with the objections that have been lodged to the restraints imposed upon research funding.
I sympathize very strongly with those objections but frankly they are not issues to be taken up with the Commission.
Perhaps time could more profitably be used by the honourable Member in taking them up with members of Ecofin, not least of course the representative of her own country, on the Economic and Finance Ministers Council.
His response might be illuminating.
Can I also say, Mr President, that following the failure of the Ecofin Council to agree on a revision of the Financial Perspective, it is clear that the Council considers the Commission proposal for the financial complement of ECU 700 m to be obsolete and that it is up to the Commission to identify additional financial resources within the ceiling of category 3 of the current Financial Perspective.
Even if the revision of the Financial Perspective is not pursued any further the Commission would not wish to change its position on the need for and the possibility of a financial supplement to the Fourth Framework Programme.
The need for such a supplement is not only demonstrated of course by the Commission proposals, it has also been justified by the urgent additional research requirements which result from BSE and the possibility of related diseases occurring in humans and indeed in other species.
It is only the scale and not the principle of supplementary funding that is dependent on the revision of the Financial Perspective.
For clarification I quote with your permission the decisive paragraph in the Commission's explanatory memorandum.
It says: Even limiting its proposal to ECU 700 m the Commission stresses that the present ceiling in category 3 of the Financial Perspective should substantially be raised to allow for a satisfactory financing of research and technological development framework programmes and trans-European networks.
Consequently, the Commission reserves the right to modify the present proposal when it presents it proposals for the revision of the 1997 and 1998 Financial Perspectives and to modify the proposal according to the decisions of the budgetary authority on the subject.
In the absence of a revision of the Financial Perspective satisfactory financing will not be possible.
However this does not mean that supplementary financing is altogether excluded.
The Commission is therefore considering ways and means of how to break the present deadlock in Council and is determined to produce a workable answer in time for the next research Council which is scheduled for 5 December under the very able presidency of the minister who I am very glad to see is with us this evening.
Mr President, I should like perhaps to clear up an ambiguity, because I understand the President-in-Office of the Council to be saying on the one hand that the Council could take a decision on 5 December but on the other that we must wait for the end of the budgetary procedure.
The budgetary procedure will not of course be completed on 5 December since we shall at that time be between the first and second reading.
Nevertheless, precisely because the budgetary procedure will not have been completed it is absolutely essential that the 'Research' Council of 5 December takes up a clear position.
That would be the best way for Ministers of Research to help Parliament, faced with the other branch of the budgetary authority: the Council.
Mr President, two very short final questions.
One to the Commission which is also keeping us in suspense, without an answer.
When is the Commission actually going to respond to the Council's demand? And finally, one specific question to the Council in the light of the statement by the Minister: is the Council prepared to resume the informal meetings with the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy as soon as possible, and really make the dialogue work?
I can reply briefly in response to the question: hopefully by midNovember.
I have no difficulty at all about such informal meetings being resumed with a view to resolving this entire matter as soon as possible.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.25 p.m.)
Commemoration and official welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, may I ask you to remember, this morning, the tragic events which shattered the hearts of many Europeans exactly forty years ago this week.
The invasion of Hungary by the Warsaw Pact troops, under Soviet command, annihilated one of the most courageous and ambitious attempts to break the totalitarian system.
This brutal aggression not only precipitated millions of Europeans into tragedy and oppression, but also confirmed the division of Europe into two blocs.
In 1956, Europe seemed condemned to remain a divided continent.
Democracy and tyranny stood face to face in the very heart of our continent.
This is why I am particularly glad to welcome, at today's sitting, Mr Victor Orban and his colleagues from the Committee on European Affairs of the Hungarian National Assembly.
Friends from Hungary, you represent your Parliament and your country, a country recently welcomed into the family of democratic nations.
Since 1989, the establishment of a new and larger European Union has become the challenge of our generation.
This Union will be built on the basis of the achievements of the founding fathers, without calling all their work into question.
The events in Hungary in 1956 coincided with the initiatives of Jean Monnet and others, aimed at giving new impetus to the process of European integration.
For several decades, no one dared dream that Europe could really regain unity without another world war.
The events of 1989 and the peaceful revolutions which took place in Hungary and in other countries have enabled us to realize this dream, without war.
All our work towards cooperation with our sister countries in Central and Eastern Europe is therefore not simply another element in Parliament's heavy work programme.
It is a fundamental responsibility for us all. To take the historic opportunity we have before us to achieve a peaceful, prosperous and democratic Europe.
My friends, may I ask you kindly to observe one minute's silence in memory of the martyrs of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. Thank you.
(The House rose and observed one minute's silence)
(Applause)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Ladies and gentlemen, obviously, as you well know, there is absolutely no question of re-voting.
Let us be perfectly clear about this.
You can intervene as much as you wish by making points of order, but that would not change anything as the vote has taken place and you cannot go back on a vote that has already been cast.
On the other hand, Mr de Vries has made a request.
I take note of this and state that it will be put to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, as he desires.
I take note of your statement very willingly, even if it does not really concern the Minutes.
Madam President, I rise on the same point that Mr De Vries raised.
Can I make clear the very point that we were trying to make yesterday.
There is no question of asking for the vote to be taken again, but clearly we wish this House to be sovereign and the clear will of this House to be carried forward.
If the clear will of the House is that there was a sufficient majority, then that decision would need to be enacted.
I would hope that until such time as the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities has been able to pronounce, after all due consideration, the decision that was reported yesterday will be held in abeyance.
If the Rules Committee decides that, in the circumstances, the will of the House was clearly to approve the amendment by a sufficient majority, that should then be proclaimed as the decision and we should not have to come back and vote again on the item.
Mr Barton, my answer to you is the same as to Mr Gilles de Vries.
That is how it will be done.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Madam President, may I congratulate you on your decision which, moreover, is the same as that adopted with regard to the calendar.
I would like to draw attention to Rule 5 of the Rules of Procedure.
In actual fact, several articles and several audiovisual transmissions have called into question the system of allowances for Members of the European Parliament.
Yesterday morning and this morning too, France 2, the national television channel, presented reports on our system of allowances.
These incidents are seriously damaging to our Parliament's image.
Naturally it is not the colleagues mentioned who are called into question, but the whole system; a system which is not acceptable to public opinion.
This is why I request, pursuant to Rule 5, that you refer the matter to the Bureau, which is responsible for regulating the payment of expenses and allowances to Members, for three reasons.
Firstly, the attendance list must really be an attendance list and not a transit list.
Unfortunately, a recent decision by the Bureau highlights the transit list nature of this list.
Secondly, I would like to ask the Bureau that intermediate trips be paid on the basis of not only the ticket, but also the embarkation card.
Thirdly, the mileage allowance must actually correspond to the journeys made.
I feel that there is not a moment to be lost and that the Bureau should take this matter in hand immediately, as it is very important for our Parliament's image.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, as you know well, my answer is that the Bureau has not waited for you in order to study these problems for which reasonable solutions must be found.
Welcome
Votes
Mrs Thyssen, we have examined the matter.
The amendment is admissible, but a separate vote will be taken.
Thus, your comments will be taken into account.
As you see, Mr Samland, the House unanimously endorses these thanks.
I feel that we will be able to vote in the best conditions.
Madam President, I wish to point out that when we vote on the structural fund aspects of the greening block, in fact, our amendments and the comments on this line contravene the structural fund regulations.
I would like the services and, indeed, Parliament to look at this because environmental certification of all projects is not possible, is not in line with the regulations and contravenes the memorandum of understanding between Parliament and the Commission as well as being, of course, against the principle of subsidiarity.
I would like the services to correct that before the second reading.
Madam President, I am slightly surprised by this comment by Mrs McCarthy because last year we voted a 'greening of the budget' amendment which was exactly the same.
It is, therefore, a bit surprising that this should come up at this particular moment.
We should always look at things in a reasonable way but we should not now disrupt the vote on this particular matter.
I just want to make it clear that there really is a misunderstanding here.
It is a question of wording.
I have already discussed this with the author, Mr Florenz of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Affairs.
It was simply a question of the wording of the text.
There is in fact no dispute either with the Committee on Regional Policy or with any other committee on the substance of the matter.
I think we can resolve this question by making technical adjustments following the vote.
Draft amendments and proposed modification relating to the appropriations in Section III (Commission) of the draft general budget of the European Communities for 1997
Draft amendments to Sections I, II, IV, V and VI of the draft general budget of the European Communities for the financial year 1997 relating to the European Parliament, the Council, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions
Regarding block 2:
Madam President, before we come to the vote on the next block, i.e., agricultural expenditure, I would like to make it quite clear once again on behalf of my group that we are not entirely satisfied with the legal interpretation in regard to the decision on the ad hoc procedure.
In our view, even when the ad hoc procedure has been completed, amendments relating to changes to the comments and to non-compulsory expenditure in the field of agriculture can still be tabled under the ad hoc procedure.
I would like to see this legal interpretation acknowledged and clarified before the second reading.
Madam President, under Rule 9, Annex I, Article 1, I would like, as last year, to declare an interest in Parliament's budget in relation to the pension fund of which I am a member.
I will, therefore, not be voting on this resolution.
Very good, Mr Ford, we take note of your statement.
Madam President, I could probably convince Mr Ford to vote in favour of the resolution if our amendment, which particularly draws attention to the problem of the pension fund, was adopted.
Madam President, could I just note some overtones of 'holier-than-thou' in the position of our colleague, Mr Ford.
(Applause )
Mr President, the European Parliament has not taken the opportunity offered by the Council, in its draft budget, to make economies and to vote for the first time for a budget which is not larger than for the previous year.
Firstly, it has adopted non-priority budget headings with no legal basis - I am thinking of the appropriations made to information and in particular to the Euro - or contrary to the principle of subsidiarity - I am thinking of the heading concerning tourism.
It did not hesitate to call into question the interinstitutional agreement of 1993, doing so unilaterally.
It did not hesitate to emphasize the famous reserve, which is contrary to budget orthodoxy.
Finally our Parliament, following its Committee on Budgets on this matter, did not hesitate to envisage that the ceiling of financial prospects would be exceeded.
Even though we are now at 1.16 %, instead of the 1.24 % opened by the Edinburgh agreement, we want to go further in the future.
While so doing, Parliament rejected an amendment concerning reimbursement of expenses to Members of Parliament which, although it received 85 votes, went in the direction of the economies desired by citizens of the Member States of the European Union.
It is a missed opportunity, regretted by our group.
Mr President, I wish to make an oral explanation of vote in order to formally protest against Amendment No 1005 to the budget, which has just been voted and which provides for the creation of a new budget item entitled 'Contributions to European political parties' - obviously to be understood as financial.
This heading provides for a Community public financing of certain parties, which are called European.
This initiative appears totally inopportune in a context of budget austerity.
Even if in 1997 no credit would yet be paid, the definitive adoption of this principle would be serious for the future as it would generate expenses not quantified in advance.
Moreover, political parties in several countries - including France - already receive public financing for all their activities, both national and European.
One cannot see why, in this context of austerity, they should receive public money from several different sources for these activities.
Finally, may I remind you that the concept of the European political party does not exist in the Treaty, which, in Article 138a, only mentions the action of political parties at European level , which is entirely different.
I regret that Parliament is failing to make the Council face up to its responsibilities relating to the financing of transEuropean networks.
Certain governments are refusing to honour the commitments undertaken in Essen, and are trying to make Parliament take the responsibility.
It is true that to accept the challenge would have had the effect of endangering the interinstitutional agreement and starting a budget dispute.
But the inter-institutional agreement, if it entails discipline on the part of Parliament in the exercise of its budget powers, involves in return the commitment of the Council to finance the policies formulated by mutual agreement.
In refusing to execute its part of the contract, the Council is in breach of the obligation of cooperation laid down by Article 5 of the Treaty, and obliges Parliament to fall back on Article 203 of the Treaty, which it is perfectly entitled to do.
In refusing to resist pressure from the Council, and in obliging Parliament to adopt a submissive stance, the right wing groups are preventing Parliament from assuming its budget responsibilities.
I voted for the 1997 budget at the first reading with mixed feelings, because there is no viable alternative.
Apart from the Council's draft, and that is totally unacceptable primarily on account of the social policy.
Nevertheless I very much deplore the fact that the European Parliament, as an arm of the budgetary authority, has not fully exercised its budgetary powers to take more and concrete measures on employment.
The responsibility for this lies wholly with the EPP headed by Wilfried Martens' Christian Democrats.
Their words on employment have once again been shown to be empty slogans, which meant that the majority needed for real action could not be achieved.
The signal given by setting aside ECU 300 million for TENs and research is not enough.
In this way the European Parliament is making itself culpable just like the Council in that we, like successive European Councils, consistently trumpet the creation of jobs as a priority but are not then prepared to carry out our promises when it comes to finding the money.
Brinkhorst report
Mr President, thank your for having given me the floor for this explanation of vote in which I wish to explain one or two votes and the position of the group to which I belong.
The first vote concerns the MEDA programme.
My group voted for the amendment adopted by a large majority by the House to place the funds earmarked for Turkey within the framework of the MEDA programme, in accordance with the principle that all projects should be scrutinized by the European Parliament before they are adopted.
We pointed out that this ambitious and certainly new procedure was helping make this House a kind of committee, one of those committees we are fighting against, but we suspended our judgment until second reading.
Given the nature of this vote, I intended to reserve the position of my group until second reading.
It is, however, a matter of very great regret to me that the rapporteur did not intend agreeing to my amendment on ECHO, approved by a slight majority.
As at 30 September, ECHO has a spending capacity, a rate of spending implementation of 120 %.
I learnt that there was no hope of greater attention being paid to those funds, including in terms of the rate of implementation.
I wish therefore to have it entered in the minutes that on Monday evening, in the Committee on Budgets, we decided to allocate ECU 100 million among a number of budget lines, the implementation rates of which I shall quote briefly: the elderly, 26 %; refugees, 30 %; South Africa, 30 %; women and development, 22 %; rehabilitation 22 %; KEDO 0 %.
That is the response we got from Parliament.
Mr President, I think this budget once again demonstrates what we saw last year too, namely that international solidarity is being abandoned in favour of the implementation of a new Community foreign policy.
Year after year we see major development policy budget headings, cooperation with the NGOs, support for the peace process in southern Africa, new budget headings for the clearing of mines, being cut again and again.
If I am right in my view, we are facing a real cut of 3 % in development resources.
I think that is unacceptable.
New famines are already looming.
We are facing a situation of new wars breaking out, which is why it would be important to have a preventive foreign policy that enabled us to pursue a north/south policy in which in future we would no longer have to patch things up whenever we run out of money.
I would therefore call on Members to consider how we want to frame this policy in the next financial year, whether we want to close up the borders of these fifteen Member States, the borders of this Community even more tightly, whether we want to pursue a military policy that encourages this foreign policy based on the idea of further future conflict, or whether we want to pursue a preventive, civil foreign policy.
I believe that development policy can constitute a point of departure here.
A development policy aimed at independent regional development offers the chance and the condition for peaceful coexistence within the south/north framework, which is why we must not cut these scarce resources even more in future.
By doing so we would be giving the wrong signals in respect of international solidarity in a period of market globalization and deregulation, and then we should not be surprised to see even more wars and famines in future.
Mr President, I am extremely concerned about the anti-farmer vote expressed at this Assembly.
In refusing all the amendments of block 2, in other words the measures for promoting the quality of meat, the actions for promoting beef and the very modest 77m for bee-keepers, the House demonstrated not only budgetary Calvinism and rapaciousness, but also distrust of the farming world.
Moreover, this confirms a position taken two years ago.
Our farming budget is below the bar of 50 %.
However, I should say that, while we are so doing - Mrs Theato is perhaps not there - we are granting each year ECU 1.9 billion customs benefits to the multinationals Chiquita, Dole and Castle in the banana sector.
There is at least one area in which the House has shown insight: it refused ECU 4m of aid for the production of hemp, doubtlessly so that a rope would not be braided to hang us!
Mr President, we have voted for budget heading B3-4100 on family aid involving ECU 2.5m, but it must be said that this is manifestly inadequate and a disgrace to the House, which is making a wrong decision in not offering the necessary support to the development of the family.
In fact, the fundamental problem of our societies, of our nations, is an age pyramid which is becoming increasingly top heavy.
In reality, we now have a clearly inadequate base of young people, a very large platform of elderly classes and, necessarily, we are moving in the direction of a logic which is shifting from voluntary termination of pregnancy to voluntary termination of old age.
That, dramatically, is what is in store for our societies if we cannot reverse the trend of family breakdown!
Mr President, I would like to thank this House for supporting and voting for the extra ECU 100m for Northern Ireland here today.
I would like to put on record that at no time during the last two weeks have any of the three Members from Northern Ireland ever believed that anything other than what happened in the vote today would take place.
The debate which has taken place outside this Parliament has been most unfortunate.
It did nothing to help us back in Northern Ireland, it does nothing to raise our standing within this Parliament.
It has been a very unfortunate debate that should never have taken place.
The arguments should be made within this Parliament.
I would like to place on record my thanks to Mr Elles and Mr Wynn for the work they have carried out and for the work that I have no doubt they will also carry out in the future.
I look forward to being able to come back again next year and not have this debate.
I thank those who played a constructive rather than a destructive role.
I hope that what happened over the last two weeks will not in any way be held against us or held against the people of Northern Ireland.
Mr President, the decision of the plenary to place the customs union allocations to Turkey in the reserve is, of course, a very positive step. However, as Mr Dell'Alba has said, there is a big problem with regard to the MEDA programme.
Whereas the Committee on Foreign Affairs decided almost unanimously to place Turkey's share of the funding in the reserve and made specific reference to the issues of human rights, Cyprus and the territorial integrity of Turkey's neighbours, the amendment of the Committee on Budgets, which came about via procedures which I would describe as far from transparent and of questionable legality, annuls that proposal of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
That, in my view, is extremely unhelpful, and I think that in the discussions with the chairman of the Committee on Budgets and Commissioner Van Den Broek the rapporteur fell into a sort of trap. That is one of the reasons why our group will vote against the Brinkhorst report.
We welcome the changes which the EU's budgetary authority has proposed as regards the cut in the common agricultural policy.
It is a step in the right direction.
We are convinced that a far-reaching reform of the current common agricultural policy is essential if the EU is to meet the challenges of the next century successfully.
This is particularly true with a view to greater effectiveness and enlargement of the Union.
It will be very difficult for the EU to offer applicant countries the same agricultural support which Spain, Portugal and Greece could rely on receiving as they approached membership. It is not at all likely that an unreformed common agricultural policy would be to the advantage of the Eastern European countries in question.
One immediate effect would be very high food prices, for example.
Our basic attitude towards the EU budget is largely the same as that of the Green Group but in certain respects our main concerns are different and this has caused us to vote differently as well.
Our view is that the total expenditure of the EU should be limited.
Unfortunately, there is no real way in which we can seriously influence the biggest items of expenditure, such as agricultural policy, which must be fundamentally changed and transformed if it is not to become a millstone to the EU budget and, moreover, an obstacle to enlargement.
We also consider that Sweden's membership contribution constitutes a serious burden on Swedish state finances and so is partly to blame for the cuts in social expenditure which are causing unemployment and social division in our home country.
We are definitely against a development which will push up the membership contribution even more, according to certain calculations to 25 billion Swedish kronor in the next budget year. Our attitude to the Structural Funds is that they should be restricted.
We have voted for proposals to make the EU greener and against proposals which enhance the EU's statal character.
We consider that the EU must concentrate its activities rather than encroaching on new areas and trying to be involved in everything under the sun, especially when in many cases there are other international organisations which are already dealing with such matters, such as the UN, OSCE, the Council of Europe and so on. We are particularly opposed to the various PR exercises promoting the EU federalist ideology.
We do not believe that the EU should try to gain people's sympathy through propaganda; that is an obsolete Soviet practice which displays little respect for public opinion.
If the EU does not succeed in winning popular support it must realise that this is because its activities are going in the wrong direction; far too little effort is devoted to solving genuine and natural cross-border problems, such as in the environmental sphere, and far too much to theatrical PR campaigns aimed at creating a 'superpower' .
We are particularly disappointed that only a small minority chose to support the proposals to reform travelling allowances and the pension system, proposals which we of course supported.
It does not say much for Parliament's insight if it cannot see how vital it is to reform the many benefits Members enjoy if the public is ever to regard the European Parliament as anything other than a goldmine for political fortune-hunters.
We have naturally voted against support for the cultivation of tobacco, one of the most flagrant manifestations of hypocrisy in EU policy, since in other contexts the EU asserts that it wishes to combat smoking.
Large cuts are being made in the individual Member States, including Sweden, to meet the objectives set by the EU for EMU, the convergence criteria.
If this is to have any credibility the EU must also make savings in its own budget.
This should be done in the first instance in the major categories of expenditure: agriculture, the Structural Funds and administration.
This austere attitude has also typified my approach to the budget.
Every additional krona in the EU budget means three kronor in the Swedish budget.
Sweden already pays too much into the EU budget.
The figure for 1997 may be as much as 25 billion kronor (22 billion is reserved as the EU membership contribution).
As an opponent of a 'super-state' and as an anti-federalist I believe that the EU should not have more money than is necessary.
The EU budget should therefore continue to be reduced.
As we are now Members, however, the cuts must take socially acceptable forms.
I have voted against increases in agriculture which are of a non-compulsory nature.
The same is true in the case of fisheries, with the exception of inshore fisheries, investment in the environment and rural development.
I have voted against production support for hemp, tobacco and the distillation of wine.
Cuts in the Structural Funds must also be made largely in line with the proposals from the Budget Committee, with the exception of objective 1 (high unemployment), objective 5b (archipelagos) and objective 6 (Norrland support).
The reason for accepting cuts is that the EU's Structural Funds are draining money from the Swedish budget which could otherwise be used directly for the same purpose without making a detour via the EU.
Nor have the Structural Funds succeeded in evening out the differences between different regions and their role as equalisation instrument must therefore be reviewed.
The TEN projects can be cut primarily for environmentally reasons. It ought nevertheless to be possible to support projects such as the Bothnia and Atlantic lines, which are based on regional and environmental considerations.
Many support programmes, such as Pesca (fish), Leader 2 (rural areas) and others, are difficult to assess. I have mainly voted for them.
I have voted for environmental investments, consumer projects and support for environmental organisations.
Nuclear safety is important but is it an issue for the EU?
I have voted against all investment in 'information' and propaganda for the EU, such as the campaigns in favour of EMU, the cultural programmes to create 'a European dimension' , ' Let's build Europe together' and 'Citizens first' .
I have voted for language support for minorities and for Swedish and Finnish to have the same status in the EU as the other languages.
I have voted for aid for employment, employment offices and equality, against racism and many of the health projects to counter AIDS, drugs, etc.
Both national and international efforts are required here.
I have largely supported projects for the Third World, despite the fact that in principle I am against the EU being involved in activities in these areas.
I am against all types of benefits for 'Eurocrats' which appear in the administrative parts of the budget.
I am voting for proposals which would mean greater control over Members' travelling allowances.
The Committee on Budgets is threatening to freeze money for the Commission's some 300 committees if there is not greater openness in the committee system.
Of course I am voting for that.
I support measures to ensure greater control over Members' allowances for the purpose of only reimbursing costs actually incurred.
The cheapest option should always be chosen.
The allowances systems should not be based on the highest possible level of costs as they are now.
I strongly regret that the Council of Ministers has proposed such a strict budget to the European Parliament.
Our capitals are quicker at investing in the economic and monetary aspects of the European Union than in social cohesion and the - shall we say - qualitative aspects.
The European representatives have a more human, more 'citizen-like' , more solidary view of the European structure, and do not accept the reduction in financing of policies concerning young people, training, exchanges, cultural creation, local aspects and everything that this implies.
I also regret the reductions in appropriations for sectors we consider to be a priority, such as employment, support to European regions in difficulty and solidarity with developing countries.
By delaying the financing of transEuropean networks such as the East-Atlantic high-speed train, including the Aquitaine/Euskadi rail link, our governments are depriving themselves of thousands of jobs which these major works would have created.
In freezing, even reducing, structural funds - such as Objectives 2 and 5b intended for supporting industrial redevelopments and rural development - our governments are calling into question the huge effort the Union has made in favour of its Southern regions - and my region too is benefiting - for balanced development of European territory.
In limiting emergency food aid to developing countries, the victims of serious crises, the Council is shouldering a heavy responsibility.
This is why our Parliament, by its votes, has been bent on re-entering appropriations which do correspond to its priorities, including the research sector, as it wished to re-enter an appropriation of ECU 100m to support the peace process in Northern Ireland.
We will see how our fifteen capitals will react.
Of course I am taking into account the fact that 46 % of the ECU 89 thousand million of this budget involves supporting agriculture, which historically remains the first major common policy of Europe, but the so-called mad cow disease crisis is forcing us to take a new look at what must be the agriculture of tomorrow.
I also wish to emphasize with pleasure that the European Parliament has wished to reinforce actions which directly involve my region, such as support for non-industrial fishing, strengthening of sea control and the promotion of minority languages and cultures, initiatives of our institution tolerated by the Council.
Fabra Vallés report
We repeat our demand from the previous budget debate for the entire system of travelling allowances for MEPs and others to be reviewed.
It is appropriate that MEPs should receive a card which they could use only to buy tickets to Brussels and Strasbourg.
We support the Socialist Group's demand for the President to establish a committee as soon as possible to conduct such a review.
The Member States of the EU are hard hit by cuts in the social sector, the care sector and in public services resulting from the implementation of the convergence programme.
At the same time it looks as if an overall unemployment figure of around 20 million has become a permanent feature of the 15 Member States.
I believe that the EU budget should now also be closely examined and questioned.
There are many activities being carried out in the EU which are of little significance in comparison with the areas of the social sector which are now being cut in the Member States and which should be discontinued first if priorities were to be established.
When long-stay wards are being closed in Swedish hospitals I consider it to be extremely regrettable that the EU pays institutions vast sums of money for their work when their results and even their very existence can seriously be called into question.
Now the EU budget is nevertheless being decided on in a lengthy and complicated process which allows me few opportunities to influence the House with my vote. Some of the expenditure is laid down in treaties and old agreements.
By this I mean, among other things, the fact that we in the European Parliament have to meet in Strasbourg twelve times a year while also having the administration and other meetings in Brussels and Luxembourg.
This gives rise to major and unnecessary local costs.
However, nobody appears to have the power to take measures to solve this problem.
Agricultural and regional Structural Fund expenditure is compulsory expenditure and is decided on by the Council of Ministers, even though the President of Parliament ultimately signs the budget.
I believe that there are many aspects of EU expenditure in these two areas which can seriously be called into question.
Unfortunately I cannot use my vote to affect those parts of agricultural and regional policy expenditure that I do not agree with.
Other areas to which I object and which I should like to change are the following.
Travel allowances for MEPs can be cut if a travel card is introduced instead of generous general allowances being paid as they are at present without receipts having to be submitted.-The Members' pension fund is being subsidised from general EU resources because it is not economically viable.
I believe this must stop as soon as possible. Members of pension funds who receive dividends when things are going well must reckon on having to cover the costs of any losses that might be incurred.There are also a number of doubtful budget items, whose stated objectives are to propagate the idea of Europe and a common European consciousness.
Above all I object to the budget items concerning the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome but I am also against resources being earmarked for the campaign in favour of the implementation of EMU and given to the European Centre for Political Studies.
At present this centre is devoting its energies to political propaganda in favour of EMU in Sweden.
I consider it to be outrageous that money should be earmarked in the EU budget for various organisations aimed at conducting propaganda for the EU institutions and for greater political power for them.
It is also proposed that contributions should be earmarked for parties at Community level.
I do not think that the party 'organisations' which have become established at EU level deserve such contributions.
It also looks bad for politicians to grant their own organisations additional advantages at a time of cut-backs.
Iivari recommendation
Mr President, no one more than we, who have done everything to help the people of the former Yugoslavia break free from the Communist federal yoke, rejoices in the peace and independence found by the Slovenian and Croatian nations.
It is also desirable for friendly relationships to be established between these old European nations and ours. For all that, we do not want Slovenia to fall from Charybdis into Scylla.
We ourselves want to emerge from the yoke of Maastricht Europe which, far from assuring peace and harmony among our peoples, is consigning them to limitless immigration and unbridled competition.
It is subjugating our peoples.
It does not wish to unite them, but to disintegrate them.
We love Slovenia!
Like all other peoples freed from Communism, we do not want them to join our prison, and I would like to express now, on this fortieth anniversary of the Budapest rising, my indignation at the words stated yesterday by the President of Parliament, Mr Hänsch, denouncing the misdeeds of nationalism, because the misdeeds which should have been denounced were those, perhaps, of exacerbated nationalisms, but even more so those of national socialism, or international socialism, those of Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism and others, which have massacred 200 million people throughout the world and for which President Hänsch does not call for the Nuremberg trial which is imperative.!
That is the true shame of this Parliament!
Posselt report
Mr President, I wish to explain my vote against the Posselt report, as I have already done throughout this part-session, by further condemning the scandal of a session document that contains an explanatory statement unacceptable to this House, denying the true history of the tragic post-war period in that region, and in Istria in particular.
As I have already said, in its explanatory statement, the Posselt report makes no mention of what happened to the Italian community.
That is a very serious matter, including because it goes on to put its own construction on the events leading to the signing of the association agreement.
I have recently been assured that that section will be withdrawn and will no longer appear in the document and the official acts of this House.
I hope this has been done, but the very fact that this report was able to be tabled certainly shows negligence, so to speak, on the part of the rapporteur who should not, in an economic report, have dwelt on what is, I repeat, a misleading and wildly inaccurate reconstruction of what happened in the region.
I hope that the matter can thus be closed by removing from the explanatory statement the sections concerning that issue.
Theonas report
Unemployment in Europe remains the main scourge that we must fight.
The unemployment rate remains particularly high, with an average of 10.7 % in the middle of 1996.
Moreover, long-term unemployment and youth unemployment are still rising.
In this critical context we must combine our efforts to eradicate this harm which is eroding us.
It is now a matter of the credibility of European institutions.
The proposal for a Council decision concerning the setting up of a committee on employment policy and the labour market is a step in the right direction.
A real tool to assist the decision, this committee should make it possible to remedy the absence of a stable employment structure.
One of the challenges we face is to put in place instruments intended to promote a European employment strategy, coordinating the policies of Member States in their battle against unemployment.
In its amendments, the European Parliament has tried to reinforce not only transparency, but also coordination between European institutions, the committee on employment policy and the labour market and all employers and labour.
We will therefore have to be vigilant, as contradictory measures are being taken simultaneously.
The budget reduction in funds allocated to transEuropean networks and structural funds is not a step in the direction of the fight against unemployment.
Unemployment in the Union is unacceptably high.
The proposed employment and labour market policy committee can help increase exchanges of experience between the Member States, draw up reports, elaborate ideas and recommend measures.
The employment committee should not be allowed to take over the Member States' powers and responsibilities; above all, it should not lead to a common employment and labour market policy for the Union.
Theato report
Energetic measures are needed to counter fraud involving EU resources.
As it is as a rule always associated with national co-financing it is equally a national issue.
The EU should not have police supervision or other ways of exercising control in the Member States. All such activities should be carried out jointly and in consultation with the respective Member State.
Tourism
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0298/96 by Mrs Bennasar Tous, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Decision on a first multiannual programme to assist European tourism 'Philoxenia' (1997-2000) (COM(96) 0168 - C4-0356/96-96/0127 (CNS)); -A4-0297/96 by Mr Parodi, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on Community measures affecting tourism (Council Decision 92/421/EEC) (COM(96)0029 - C40125/96); -A4-0299/96 by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission report on the evaluation of the Community action plan to assist tourism 1993-95 (Council Decision 92/421/EEC) (COM(96) 0166 - C4-0266/96).
Mr President, when we talk about tourism we are fighting unemployment.
And that is the main economic and social challenge Europe is facing today.
At this moment, there are 18 million people out of work in the 15 Member States, and the situation is especially difficult for women and young people -one in five cannot find a job.
The tourism industry offers European citizens the best opportunities to create new jobs.
Tourism generates jobs rapidly, assists economic and social cohesion, contributes to awareness and improvement of the cultural heritage. Tourism breaks down barriers, reduces regional differences and helps form the European identity.
Tourism as an economic, social and cultural phenomenon affects the majority of European citizens, either as users or providers of services geared to satisfying the multiple needs of the tourist.
About 200 million Europeans are tourists at some time in every year.
The definition of a tourism policy at the European level has been one of the objectives of the Community since 1980 and the debate has highlighted a great variety of views on how to introduce tourism into the treaty.
We need a legal basis and good horizontal coordination of tourism with other Community policies.
There is a great lack of transnational cooperation between those who take the decisions affecting this activity and local government, economic agents, trade and consumer associations.
This Parliament has already demonstrated its support for a place for tourism in the treaty on many occasions.
The whole European Union is conscious that tourism is the number one world economic activity.
Therefore, in the absolute conviction that it is necessary to identify clearly which aspects of this activity should be managed at European level and at the instance of the Council, the Commission has taken the initiative to present and design the Philoxenia programme to assist tourism, intended to stimulate the quality and competitiveness of European tourism, given the fierce competition we have faced in recent years with the appearance of new destinations, and emphasizing balanced and sustainable development of the tourist sector, the satisfaction of the needs of the tourist and the rational use of natural, cultural and infrastructure resources.
It is also necessary to promote alternative forms of tourism, like rural tourism, cultural tourism, social tourism, conference tourism, sports-based tourism and so many others.
Given the complexity and variety of the sector, the broad objectives are to improve knowledge in the area of tourism, make information more accessible, improve the legislative and financial framework for tourism, strengthen cooperation with Member States, industry and other responsible agencies, look at ways of simplifying regulations and reducing taxes, raising quality in tourism and boosting the number of intra- and extra-Community tourists.
The Philoxenia programme is exclusively devoted to tourism and largely targeted at managers and authorities in the sector, with the aim of organizing it and achieving the necessary complementarity with other programmes which also have incidence on tourism.
Given that the majority of tourism businesses are SMEs, we call for Philoxenia and its business aspects to be linked to the Third Multiannual Programme for SMEs, geared to supporting small and medium-sized European enterprises, which represent 99.9 % of all firms, 66 % of total employment and 65 % of turnover in the Union.
Tourism covers a complex system of activities involving thousands of SMEs and many small family businesses.
The priority objectives and measures are intended to simplify and improve the administrative and regulatory framework, guarantee the interests of the SMEs in the various policies, improve transnational cooperation for tourist SMEs, facilitate loans and the development of specific financial instruments for tourist SMEs, stimulate the creation of capital markets for rapidly growing SMEs, help the tourism sector and the SMEs to Europeanize and internationalize their strategies, especially through better information services, extended to the already existing business information centres.
We call for a small 'Euro-counter' specializing in tourism to help promote measures for tourist SMEs, direct contacts between cooperation and collaboration programmes, entry into new markets and internationalization of European tourist SMEs.
It is impossible to increase the competitiveness and quality of tourism without the SMEs, and their access to research, innovation and training must be facilitated, to increase their potential for innovation, stimulate training in management techniques and implement adaptation to the required environmental techniques.
It is also necessary to promote the entrepreneurial spirit.
It is impossible to talk about quality in European tourism without talking about training.
There is an urgent need to identify and recognize the various professional categories in tourism, give them higher social status and promote training.
Mr President, once again we have to express disappointment at the fact that, even within this House, tourism has not been acknowledged as having the crucial role that most of us have been hoping to see attributed to it for many years.
A crucial role in terms of gross domestic product and employment in our continent which is more than ever in need of fresh incentives as a result of the objectives laid down by the treaties establishing the European Communities and confirmed and enlarged upon with the Maastricht revision.
Viewing tourism as a strategic industry for employment, development, growth, competitiveness, economic and social cohesion and as a contribution to the spread of the different national cultures and the strengthening of the European identity, should be the basis of every policy, whatever the decision-taking level within the European Union.
If we are to contribute to the sustainable development of tourism in Europe and of the sectors closely linked with it, we have, in my view, to give it institutional legitimacy both at a European and at a national and regional level.
It is thus necessary, as an essential prerequisite, that a specific chapter on tourism be inserted into the treaty as part of the revision process, creating that added value that will ensure the sustainability of the sector and its ability to continue to create permanent jobs in an increasingly open and competitive market, in which Europe's share is in constant decline.
Starting with the completion of the single market, we ought, in other words, to promote all of those initiatives which make it possible to guarantee the quality and competitiveness of the Community tourist industry, as well as to promote Europe as a tourist destination.
The added value - be it historical, architectural, cultural or landscape-based - of Europe, as a tourist destination, can no longer be neglected.
We therefore need to diversify what is on offer and give Europe a stronger profile in terms of its image and as a product: it is currently excessively fragmented and its potential has not been sufficiently exploited from the economic, health and artistic points of view and in regard to nature.
What I have just said demonstrates the need to set in place a legal and financial context beneficial to the tourist industry and employment and based on the following: firstly, the completion of the internal market; secondly, the development of the tourist industry; and, thirdly, the promotion of European tourism in third countries.
As regards the completion of the single market: starting from an analysis which allows us to identify the different forms of tourism, we need, in my view, to promote those measures which can make a valid contribution to increasing supply, by attaching priority to those best suited to the region and the promotion of new tourist itineraries, such as real alternatives to the mass tourism with which many cities with an artistic heritage are no longer able to cope, and which encourage a break with seasonal tourism.
If better exploited, spas, for example, would be an important source of economic and social development, particularly for therapeutic reasons and by rehabilitating the elderly, enabling them to continue to live their lives in society.
The single market needs to be completed by drawing up a European Charter of Tourism governing the rights and obligations of the latter and of the providers of tourist services; by creating a European tourist quality mark for the classification of Community services and products in the sector; by setting up a joint system of tourist signs to make it easy and quick to identify the special environmental and cultural features of the services and opportunities offered by the various localities; by establishing the trans-European Transport Networks that will make it possible to travel in a short time from north to south and east to west.
Turning now to development of the tourist industry: if we are to guarantee the quality and competitiveness of the European tourist industry, we shall have also to develop new forms of synergy with other Community policies, bringing in all of the interested parties in an effort to establish the conditions favourable to the development of the Union's tourist enterprises, particularly its small- and medium-sized enterprises. We need to undertake initiatives to improve and harmonize working conditions and workforce skills and to increase jobs; we need to safeguard and make the most of landscape, historical and cultural values as well as all those forms of craft industry that underpin the tourist industry; we need to create the conditions for sustainable growth in the less-favoured regions, in the industrial zones in decline, in rural areas, in peripheral regions and in those regions of the Union in which tourism represents the most important if not the only source of income.
Finally, it is my belief that tourism opens up great future prospects for third countries and that it is therefore our duty to encourage it.
We should continue with the 'Philoxenia' programme.
I hope that the House will ensure that tourism is respected and given priority in the same way as all other policies and does not suffer the humiliation of being discussed at odd moments.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Parodi on his report.
My opinion, drafted on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy concentrates on making some complementary points.
Firstly, tourism should be recognized as an industry.
Its job-generating powers are well known, it is also an industry which is well represented by SMEs, a target group for development, as mentioned yet again by President Santer this week in the 1997 Commission programme.
There are also many job opportunities for young people and women in this sector.
We should be zealous in ensuring that such jobs are high quality, well-paid and rewarding, thereby promoting the competitiveness of Europe's tourism industry.
Secondly, the industry thus encouraged can help less-favoured, rural and peripheral areas of the Union, areas often suffering job losses.
Thirdly, the Parodi 94 report shows tourism growing worldwide, whilst Europe's share has shrunk.
Anything we can do to sharpen Europe's tourism industry will help us defend the European Union as the world's favourite tourist destination.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs repeats Parliament's long-held view that specific provision should be made for tourism within the revision of the IGC which will be concluded by the Dutch presidency.
The main motivation for this belief is the recognition of tourism as a quintessentially single-market activity.
The determination to complete the single market is the best and fastest route for helping Europe's industries as a whole and the tourism industry in particular.
In this respect I am very pleased that the UK Labour Party leader, Tony Blair, has indicated his intention - when assuming the presidency of the Council in 1998 - to drive through the completion of Europe's single market.
My conviction is that not only can we then create the conditions for a successful European tourism industry; not only give enormous benefit to Europe's citizens when they take their annual holidays; not only motivate and encourage the workers and entrepreneurs who are the 'meat and veg' of this vast industry; not only and importantly promote the general European ideal of creating a dynamic European Union celebrating the diversity of its cultures, traditions and citizens but also make a reality of a Europe that is free, open and democratic for all its 370 million citizens.
Mr President, I turn to my own report.
Tourism means jobs.
Tourism is Europe's biggest industry and it is still growing.
Nine million of our citizens are directly employed in tourism and a further nine million jobs are affected indirectly.
Such numbers are a tidal wave on which we should surf in search of decent jobs for our 20 million jobless citizens.
Let me go further: tourism, along with telecommunications and information technology, will represent the major industries for the world of the 21st century.
According to the World Travel and Tourism Council tourism is currently worth $1.2 trillion.
In 2006 it is forecast that such mind-boggling figures will have swelled to $2.1 trillion, a doubling of spending which, if we are canny, can translate into a doubling of jobs.
But how do we in the European Union react to this challenge? Not with a bang but with a whimper.
Tourism is not even mentioned in the Delors White Paper.
This morning in the budget we haggled over according the Philoxenia programme ECU 8m, ECU 4m or ECU zero.
Fortunately we got the ECU 4m.
With regard to the unfinished business of Maastricht - the question of whether we should give tourism a legal base and competence in the Treaties - we have acted like timid bathers at the seaside, worried that we would get our toes cold by taking an early morning dip.
But getting up early to beat the world competition in tourism is exactly what we want to do if our ambitions to provide jobs for our people are not to be beached and abandoned.
The Commission's review of its 1993/95 programme favouring tourism can help point the way.
More specifically, this review is the building-block for the Commission's Philoxenia programme.
I pause to congratulate Mrs Bennasar Tous on her excellent report.
The 93/95 programme was certainly problematic as was exemplified by the probing consultant's report divining its entrails.
The eleven policy areas were unevenly dealt with.
Five of them together absorbed less than 5 % of the ECU 18m budget.
Thus vital issues like the staggering of holidays, rural tourism, social tourism and youth tourism were almost wholly ignored.
More successful was work done for the disabled tourist and the vital collection of statistics revealing the true state and nature of the tourism industry.
Such work needs to be continued.
But PriceWaterhouse's conclusion that there needs to be clearer focus in the tourism programmes makes clear sense.
Indeed, Philoxenia, which rises phoenix-like from the 1993/95 programme contains fewer priorities, better targeted funding and a concentration on projects with a higher average value.
The Harrison report goes on to make other recommendations which need to be absorbed.
Thus we need to establish a coherent European tourism policy which adds value above and beyond Member State level and against which we can judge and monitor the very considerable sums of money which are spent through other EU funds, most notably the structural and cohesion funds.
In order to implement this comprehensive policy and monitor funds, we need to strengthen the tourism unit in DG XXIII.
Despite the trials and tribulations of DG XXIII in the past, we must now ask them to take on the vital role of coordinating EU policy as it affects tourism across all the Directorates General of the Commission.
This restructuring of how we deal with and fund tourism would also help us be more effective at shaping world policy and practice as it affects tourism and tourists.
We in Europe can no longer stand silent in the face of the sex tourism industry which so besmirches our standing in the world.
Finally, we should appreciate that tourism is an activity of the single European market.
Thus all the flanking measures supporting SEM should be supported and we should note those measures that directly bear on the prosperity of the tourist and the tourism industry: the single currency, for instance - the elimination of exchange rates will put more money in the pockets of Europe's citizens travelling cross-border as tourists; even more vital, the transparency brought to tourism costs will drive down holiday prices as will the better business environment brought about by lower interest rates and lower inflation.
In conclusion, a golden opportunity awaits us to ensure that tourism means jobs for our European people.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am intervening on behalf of Mr Baggioni who, following a change in the agenda, is currently on an aircraft.
The tourism industry is going to occupy an increasingly important place in the European economy.
Europe has major assets in this sector, provided it can become more competitive in the face of international competition.
This is why a European strategy to relaunch tourism now appears to be of the greatest importance.
Firstly, emphasis should be given to the decisive role that tourism could play in favour of economic and social cohesion and especially employment in late-developing regions, namely the ultra-peripheral and insular regions, whose assets are indisputable.
However, uncontrolled mass tourism, characterized among other things by geographical overconcentration, or the imbalance of the internal coast, can lead to serious negative effects for the regions concerned.
On the other hand, well thought-out quality tourism can contribute to protecting the environment and reinforce the cultural identity of these regions.
This is why it is essential, before anything else, to begin by strengthening the tourism component of existing regional development Community initiative programmes, whether it be tourism in border regions, INTERREG II, rural tourism LEADER, the renovation of declining industrial zones RECHAR, RESIDER, CONVER, urban zones in difficulty URBAN, or others.
Moreover, such a policy of relaunching tourism in the Union has no real chance of success unless better representation of the regional authorities is assured in the competent higher authorities and a proper partnership culture is established at all levels.
To be fully effective, the relaunch of tourism in Europe must figure in an effort to achieve cohesion of all Community policies linked with tourism.
It seems unavoidable that we will have to set up large European transport networks that are so delayed, and generally improve the quality of all the modes of transport, a sine qua non condition of the development of tourism in all the regions concerned, especially the most remote.
The relaunch must also be able to depend on appropriate economic measures, including increased support for small- and medium-sized companies, which are very numerous in this sector and are often very interested in proposing innovative forms of tourism.
One must not overlook geographically-handicapped regions either, for which it is essential to grant compensation in the form of subsidies or tax relief in order to re-establish conditions of fair competition.
Finally, a boom in tourism is inextricably linked to a sustained policy of protection of the environment.
It is becoming a matter of urgency to define clear objectives and put together the necessary means, without which our regions risk permanently compromising their tourist potential.
Bearing in mind these observations, which have received the unanimous support of the Committee on Regional Policy, the proposal for the first multiannual programme in favour of European tourism is very encouraging and deserves our support, although the amount of the appropriations is still insufficient.
Mr President, previous speakers have already emphasized the importance of tourism to the European Union, by both intra-Community tourists and visitors from third countries.
Mr Harrison was very explicit, stressing that tourism creates jobs.
In my country, Catalonia, tourism represents 15 % of gross domestic product and every year we welcome 17 million tourists.
But the industry cannot avoid the effects of the globalization of all economic activity.
European tourism must be competitive tourism and must develop a new dimension of tourism which is in demand amongst tourists: the cultural dimension.
A cultural dimension which can strengthen mutual understanding between the different nations and peoples of Europe, improve our knowledge of other peoples, their languages, cultures and traditions and also of their heritage of culture and history.
All this can contribute to the strengthening of the European dimension that the citizens of Europe need.
Nor must we forget the potential of cultural tourism, youth tourism, social tourism and an especially important area, rural tourism, which can improve the position of farmers by providing additional income, enabling them to stay or get established on the land.
Mrs Bennasar has highlighted the fact that to be competitive we need to strengthen education and training in the tourism sector.
There is a constantly growing need to ensure that people employed in tourism have the necessary scientific and technical background.
I think it is also important to establish efficient cooperation with regional and local authorities with responsibilities relating to tourism.
Finally, I believe the Commission should strengthen cooperation with UNESCO and the Council of Europe as regards cultural tourism.
Commissioner, the Socialist Group is supporting your initiative.
It recently had occasion to demonstrate this during the vote on the budget.
It supports your initiative because we are persuaded that you are committed to an initiative to relaunch tourist activities, taking account of the prime objective - which is also the objective of my group - the pact for employment.
We have identified new opportunities in tourism, new employment possibilities, but above all, we have understood that tourism is not just an issue of institutional relations.
Tourism also involves human relations in a network comprising reciprocity between peoples, and the European Union must take on board that aspect and bring forward specific measures.
As far as the institutional issues are concern, I agree absolutely on the need for institutional legitimacy.
We therefore firmly believe that the time has come to declare tourism to be a common interest: the task is not an easy one, given that this has to be done in full compliance with subsidiarity, appreciating that tourist measures at local level should be brought forward by the regions, the communes, by entrepreneurs and by the economic and social forces which constitute the main point of reference for the activities of the European institutions.
We cannot set a European and a national concept of tourist activity against each other.
We have rather to ensure that Europe perfects its programming objective and guides tourist activity increasingly in the direction of uniformity, particularly in two crucial sectors: consumer protection and protection of the environment.
Annexed to the reports are numerous petitions, Commissioner, revealing the conflicts the persist between the individual states of the European Union and which are damaging to consumers.
We must provide a solution to those conflicts and, of course, common management and a uniform steer at a European level can only help that objective.
We realize that at a time when we are identifying tourism as an activity that promotes employment, we have also to make progress in terms of social guarantees.
Tourism creates jobs but there is also the underpaid labour, the workers who are exploited in many areas of tourist activity, often representing a further competitive element in the international supply market.
We must prevent the kinds of social dumping which may also affect tourist supply, protecting workers therefore with specific guarantees and ensuring that fundamental rights, particularly the fiscal and social rights of workers in the tourist industry, are safeguarded.
In addition to that, we have also to work for the environment.
The environment is a crucial resource.
The attempt to increase economic activity may undermine environmental protection.
In those circumstances therefore, the ability to fund European programmes and, of course, programmes requiring the resources of the European Union, should be determined on the basis of environmental impact assessments, that is to say when it has been shown that the projects to be implemented do not pose a threat to a fundamental resource such as the environment.
Clearly, these environmental impact assessments must involve more than the traditional cost assessment and take in geological aspects, the flora and vegetation which are, so to speak, a global resource about which we have all to be concerned.
From that point of view, I believe that our action may come at the right time if the PHILOXENIA programme is made subject to proper checks.
We have made an effort to increase the financial resources and encountered problems even within Parliament itself.
But we realize that the PHILOXENIA programme is an important programme which also breaks with the principle of experimentation supported by the Commission.
The Commission in fact lays down specific terms for the use of resources but, most importantly, it also tries to contain administrative spending which is based on percentages equal to those of the other sectors of the Commission.
That being the case, we firmly believe that we should still cooperate, as we are quite prepared for the House to be involved with the project work and the debate which you, Commissioner, will be able to bring forward.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs for the excellent work done on their respective reports.
Having said that, I want to concentrate on a form of tourism which has been little mentioned: I refer to rural tourism.
Despite great potential demand, Europe does not even have a precise definition of the 'rural tourism product' which needs to go beyond the 'agricultural tourism' it is frequently confused with.
In general that is limited to providing board and lodging, whereas rural tourism ought to offer the tourist a package including socio-cultural and sporting services, but with a common feature: the development of the products must always respect and enhance the environment.
I think it is worth making an effort to develop rural tourism, because at present there are thousands of middle income families who cannot afford de luxe holidays and want to look at holiday options other than mass tourism destinations, where they do not find the relaxation, peace and quiet, and enjoyment of nature that they seek. They tend to find the complete opposite - but we will not get into that now.
We do need to discuss and think about what has to be done to create and develop the whole range of rural tourism. First we need to determine the potential demand and then make this known in order to stimulate the creation and development of rural tourism products in the various regions of the Union.
Secondly, every region should introduce measures to make information available on access to Community grants for rural tourism, and assist the tourism projects of rural local authorities, with the participation and cooperation of all the local agents, so that diversified rural tourism products can be designed and offered under coherent local management.
Mr President, allow me, too, to compliment the rapporteurs on their reports, but also to commiserate with them. I say 'commiserate' because while they have produced splendid reports, while Parliament's Committee on Tourism has adopted their positions and while the Commissioner is doing everything possible to further those positions, we almost had to thank our lucky stars today for having accepted half the money that we had requested, that being what the Committee on Budgets wanted and, unfortunately, what Parliament saw fit to approve.
You know, when I look at the Committee on Budgets, at the members and, especially, the chairman of that committee, I get the feeling that the money they are managing belongs to them personally rather than to the European Union.
That is the impression I get.
So while we pontificate about the great importance of tourism and its potential for the stimulation of growth in Europe, and about its importance as a means of recreation and as a vehicle for other activities which Members have very eloquently drawn attention to, we seem to be doing our best to prevent that growth, and the new jobs for young people that it can generate, becoming a reality.
My second point - and it is a familiar one but one that must be heard by those in the gallery - is this: which countries will, in essence, be hit by this policy that the Council and the Committee on Budgets are pursuing?
The southern countries. So have I got it right: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer - is that the game?
If so, we should be honest with the peoples of Europe and tell it to them straight out, so that they can know what we get up to here - what we vote for, and who the people are who put things that Parliament has approved back on the shelf.
We cannot keep on talking about youth unemployment and then obstruct programmes on tourism, in which jobgeneration chiefly benefits young people.
It is sheer hypocrisy and the sooner it stops the better.
Mr President, despite all the good intentions of the committee and rapporteurs this is a typical case of high expectations and meagre results.
It is certainly too ambitious to speak of any kind of coordinated policy on tourism in Europe.
Of course we agree that there should be joint publicity in third countries.
But policy on tourism contains so much diversity and there are so many aspects to it that it will take more than a Philoxenia programme to achieve concrete results.
My Group is not opposed to honest efforts to bring about a policy on tourism.
We broadly support what the rapporteurs have written, but we do need to realize what a comprehensive field tourism is and how significant its consequences are. Primarily for jobs in Europe, but also for the construction industry, transport, farming, food supply, the regions versus the centre, arts, museums - I could go on and on.
We also need to appreciate how many different forms of tourism there are, from an all-in package from here to the other side of the world to a simple stroll through the municipal park.
Do not take it amiss when I say that I think that rather too much attention is paid in the reports to sex tourism, doubtless as a result of the deplorable events we have been hearing about.
We should be clear about the fact that of the hundreds of millions of tourists who travel every year, learning and relaxing at their destinations and bringing prosperity and friendship, it is only a very small, insignificant minority who travel with evil intentions.
The Harrison report quite rightly presses for improvements within DG XXIII, which are long overdue and greatly needed.
For the rest we shall be voting for the reports.
Mr President, first I want to thank the rapporteurs for their excellent reports which considerably improve the Commission's proposal.
But as someone from a region like Murcia - where tourism is very important too - there are four contradictions I would like to mention in connection with the future of tourism.
The first contradiction concerns the fact that Europe is a welfare state, but the fundamentalist monetary policy of Maastricht is threatening welfare in Europe and that is having negative repercussions on tourism.
The second is the need to defend jobs and, hence, protect the workers.
The same threat as mentioned earlier also affects the position of the workers.
The third relates to the environment and a proposal for sustainable development because the current model, with its logic of irreversible economic growth, is endangering environments of great tourist attraction for the whole of Europe.
And the final contradiction is cultural and social in the sense of fighting xenophobia, which is increasing in Europe, and account should therefore be taken of these considerations.
Mr President, I think Mr Wijsenbeek has since left us, but I wanted just to challenge his concluding remark that sex tourism is only an insignificant part of all tourism.
Possibly so, in monetary terms, but not in terms of the harm caused.
Because often that harm is done directly to people and often to very young people.
So I should like to thank all those who have helped to get sex tourism placed firmly on the agenda and I am not saying that the events in Belgium are responsible for that, tourism played no part in those.
We have been trying for years to get this item on to the agenda and at last we have succeeded.
Because we are expecting a communication from Mr Papoutsis on this very shortly and I look forward to it with great interest.
This is not how I had intended to begin, but I felt obliged to react to what Mr Wijsenbeek said.
I shall endeavour to devote the rest of my speaking time to the contradictions which I perceive in the debate and in the reports.
I do not think we can say on the one hand that tourism must be sustainably developed and that we must above all seek ways of promoting 'gentle tourism' whilst saying on the other hand that we must encourage more tourism from third countries to Europe, that the peripheral and remote regions must be opened up to tourism, because that simply means more airports, more flights and the price paid for all this remains too low.
No excise duties and VAT are levied on air travel and Europe is still not minded to press for that although it has been necessary for years.
Tourism leads to more road building, more hotel beds, and whole coastlines are ruined together with their ecological wealth.
This is not to say that I am against the further development of tourism, but I do want to point to the contradiction inherent in the questions raised in this report.
On the one hand more, more, ever more economic growth, more growth of tourism, which in fact means less sustainability, whilst on the other hand we argue that everything must be sustainable.
If we are serious about this we need to discuss what we really mean by sustainable tourism.
We shall then reach the conclusion that it will be a very difficult business making tourism sustainable but that it may indeed bring great benefits in the end.
But I think we are not being careful enough about the various concepts involved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are constantly repeating how important tourism is to the European economy in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, but that really does not seem enough.
We must point out, for example, that in some island or coastal regions of Spain, like the Community of Valencia, tourism accounts for as much as 70 % of gross domestic product.
Nor does it seem enough to keep on stressing the contribution the tourist industry makes to employment in Europe, through being mainly a service industry.
Nor does it seem enough to emphasize that tourism is a growth industry which can contribute even more to both the economy and employment.
Nor indeed does it seem enough to recognize, as the report does, that tourism has social, economic and cultural effects on the majority of European citizens, either as users or providers of the services in the sector.
Why is it not given the importance it deserves in this hemicycle and beyond? I refer to our colleagues on the Committee on Budgets who have actually supported cancelling all allocations to tourism in the next financial year.
How can we maintain our credibility in the eyes of our citizens when we debate measures to create employment and develop the economies of the less favoured regions ad infinitum , but fail to support programmes like Philoxenia, which specifically respond to those very needs?
Of course, there are some scattered measures to benefit tourism, like the collection of statistics, the measures in the context of the structural funds, the environmental and nature conservation measures.
But nowhere in the work of the Commission is there a global, multiannual programme which offers positive and sustained support at European level to all the various national and regional efforts.
We cannot go on like this.
We need to improve the quality and increase the competitiveness of this sector, protect the environment better, offer safer infrastructure and facilities to the consumer, improve access to tourism for disabled people and senior citizens.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is not a question of trying to undermine the principle of subsidiarity.
It is not a question of appropriating the prerogatives of Member States, but of improving cooperation between them, the regional and local authorities, and the tourist industry itself.
To conclude I would like to recall the philosophy of Philoxenia, which means hospitality and respect for foreigners.
Precisely at a time when political parties with definite racist connotations are gaining ground in Europe, the best thing we could possibly do is echo the sentiments and firmly support the recommendations contained in Mrs Bennasar Tous' report.
I end, Mr President, by congratulating the rapporteurs and expressing our moderate support for the amendment approved today to allocate ECU four million to this programme.
We do not think it is enough and we must hope that perhaps the text of our treaty will recognize the paramount importance of this sector.
The debate will be resumed at 6 p.m. this evening.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-1106/96 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on Afghanistan; -B4-1127/96 by Mrs d'Ancona and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Afghanistan; -B4-1136/96 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the coup d'état and repression in Afghanistan; -B4-1150/96 by Mrs Lalumière and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on violations of human rights in Afghanistan; -B4-1161/96 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on Afghanistan; -B4-1169/96 by Mr Ligabue and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the situation in Afghanistan; -B4-1202/96 by Mrs Sornosa Martínez and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the situation in Afghanistan.
Madam President, Afghanistan is the theatre of a complete reversal of situation, which could change the geopolitical playing cards in central Asia.
The capital Kabul had scarcely been taken when the Taliban began by imposing Koran law on everyone: compulsory wearing of the chador and prohibition of any form of education and work for women.
Henceforth, amputations, stoning and executions are the lot of those who do not submit to these messengers of purity.
Through the voice of its spokesman Mr Boutros-Boutros Ghali, the international community has condemned the discriminatory treatment inflicted by Talibans on Afghan women.
It should also condemn all violations of human rights committed by the Talibans in the name of the Sharia.
The European Union demands that Pakistan cease all forms of military aid and logistical support to the Taliban.
Finally, the European Union must come to the aid of the civilian population, again hit by fundamentalist madness.
Madam President, once again the importance of resolutions on urgency, customarily debated here on Thursday afternoon, is being challenged.
There are those who mock the multiplicity of horrors, wars and disasters, violations of human rights we get through here in a period of just a few hours.
There are those who worry that the background to all these dismal situations is not investigated thoroughly enough.
There are those who are afraid of offending regimes with which contacts have painstakingly been built up, and so on.
There may be a grain of truth in all that, Madam President, but if Parliament, at its plenary part-sessions here in Strasbourg, had to keep quiet about all the dreadful things occurring in the intervening weeks, if we were not able to speak out on persecution and oppression, on the denial of the rights of minorities, of women, children, democracy, if we did not protest here at what is done to innocent people and did not name the guilty parties, we would be unworthy to call ourselves a Parliament.
We as Parliament must do more than merely drawing up lists of victims and perpetrators.
We must also use instruments which lend force to our protests: arms embargoes, economic and diplomatic sanctions, the halting of cooperation programmes with undemocratic regimes.
It seems to me, Madam President, that we need to use all these to lend force to our protest at the take-over of much of Afghanistan by the Taliban.
The suffering endured by the people of Afghanistan has been going on for a long time and has now, regrettably, deepened still further.
In the provinces, 20 out of the 29 under Taliban control, all normal forms of justice ceased from the moment the President and his brother were summarily executed.
The imposition of Islamic law goes hand in hand with the most brutal and savage punishments.
Women have been stripped of their most basic rights, and the countless women widowed by the fighting are no longer allowed to earn an income for their families.
Culture is being exterminated.
Book burning is a commonplace.
Many people have fled this brutal violence and are living in desperate circumstances in the northern provinces.
Madam President, we should think about how, in addition to expressing our disapproval, we might help to improve the situation in Afghanistan and we should continue both as the EU and as individual Member States to offer support to all those who have been displaced from their homes both in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Madam President, I particularly welcome the fact that the European Parliament has decided to place at the head of the list of urgencies the intolerable issue of the repressive and reactionary regime foisted upon a country already tragically devastated by more than 15 years of civil war.
This is a situation which calls for the international community but one to which the international community has yet to give a real response.
We in fact know that in addition to the dramatic inter-factional conflict that masks deep-seated interests linked to drug-trafficking which, in some instances, is best not curbed but perhaps encouraged, there is in practice another tragic situation affecting Afghan women who are currently at risk of slow but inexorable extermination, since they are deprived of medical attention from male doctors and in view of all the other forms of oppression inflicted on them by the Taliban regime.
Aware of all of this, we are concerned and bewildered to note the apathy, indolence and cowardice with which the international community and, if the truth be told, the Union also is responding.
That being so, we have to applaud and give credit to the Commission, and Commissioner Bonino in particular, who was bold enough to ask, with the subsequent approval of the Commission as a whole, that a courageous stance be adopted to lift the veil of silence.
Given that the regime has the support, for reasons that are not clear to me, of a major power friendly to us, it seems that human rights, democracy and respect for rules are being given a back seat and nothing is being said about a tragedy that is in fact becoming increasingly serious and dramatic.
Madam President, on behalf of my Group I must first express my horror at events in Afghanistan, where the Taliban regime sees fit to stamp on human rights in a truly appalling way by carrying out summary executions and to strip women of every right imaginable.
I think we need to form a clear picture of what the European Union can do in seeking to save what can be saved, or rather to try to help work towards an acceptable peace in the future.
I think we can only achieve this by exerting considerable pressure on the Taliban government, though I think they have yet to learn how to deal with international organizations.
All they have done so far is show a total disregard for them.
So I am very pleased that the joint resolution calls on international donors, the Union and Member States not to launch any new aid programmes or cooperation programmes, with the exception of course of emergency aid and initiatives amongst the civilian population aimed at securing peace in a different way.
I think it is excellent that we should try to avoid diplomatic links with this regime and, where such ties exist, to sever them immediately.
It is also important to impose an immediate arms embargo as one way of bringing about a speedy end to the war.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are horrified by the violence and climate of terror afflicting Afghanistan and the worsening civil war caused by the Taliban forces which have compelled the government to leave the city and committed atrocities by torturing and hanging their opponents and then exhibiting them publicly.
The violations of human rights that are continually perpetrated and the incomplete information we receive from various sources concerning the terrible clashes between the factions leave us completely helpless. We are similarly appalled at the segregation of and discrimination against women who are excluded from work and education, deprived of all freedoms and of the most basic rights accorded to every human being, such as the freedoms to move freely, to be educated and to work.
In that context, there have been many appeals to and requests for help from the various women's associations in the world.
It is unbelievable how the extremist Islamic guerrillas have established a reign of terror in Kabul which is paralysing the whole of the country, which is why the women who have neither the right to leave their homes nor to work are segregated in a way that prevents any institution in which they play an active role, such as, for example, the public authorities, schools and hospitals, from functioning.
It is in fact the women of Kabul themselves who have denounced to the whole world the scandalous and precarious conditions in which hospitals which, clearly, no longer have nurses or female doctors, now find themselves.
It is vital at this point that we establish diplomatic relations and therefore a dialogue with the current Kabul authorities, supporting all political and diplomatic initiatives designed to find a peaceful solution to the various problems of the region, against the background of respect for human rights, seeking to defeat Islamic fundamentalism and paying particular attention to the still very fluid situation which is likely to jeopardize the return of the kind of strong individuals who could accelerate the peace process.
Finally, the European Union must continue to give its own support and assistance to the civilian population seeking refuge in other parts of the country and continue with all diplomatic efforts to bring an end to this dreadful conflict.
Madam President, the tragic situation in Afghanistan absolutely must come to an end, and we must take determined action to achieve a ceasefire as a basis for establishing democracy and full respect for the human rights of the men and women of that country.
Let us start by calling those now controlling Kabul - the Taliban - what they really are: an extremely violent group which wants to drag Afghanistan back into the Middle Ages, trampling human dignity underfoot and disregarding every rule of civilized existence.
But we should not forget that the Taliban did not arise spontaneously.
On the contrary, it is the ultimate product of a situation which began with the defeated Soviet invasion of 1980 and continued with an American political adventure in the region, resulting in total chaos and very serious destabilizing consequences.
The United States and Pakistan have openly supported the Taliban and therefore bear a large share of responsibility for the current situation.
They gave them political protection and also armed them so that they could overthrow those they had protected previously.
The trouble is Europe is getting there late again.
It is time the Union acted firmly, taking account of UN Security Council resolutions and the proposals of Central Asian countries.
Full respect for human rights and an end to armed confrontation must be demanded.
Here we must demand absolute respect for the freedom and dignity for Afghan women, savagely trampled underfoot by unacceptable measures like the obligation to wear humiliating clothes, the barbaric suppression of rights to education and work or actual and sustained sexual aggression.
Diplomatic relations must not be established.
The European Union must suspend any cooperation that is not strictly humanitarian and there must be a total embargo on the sale of arms as long as the fundamentalists remain in power, while assistance to refugees must be maintained.
Madam President, Afghanistan cannot continue to be the cruellest victim of the last vestiges of the cold war and of unscrupulous strategies, like those of Washington and Karachi, which have caused a veritable disaster.
Madam President, in the last month the world has been bombarded with bloody images from Afghanistan.
It has been ravished by war since December 1979 and today we are witnessing a new and terrifying violence as the Taliban militia attempt to implement a fundamentalist Islamic regime.
The Taliban have now begun their own fanatical religious crackdown and as the country emerges from the rubble of war, it wakes to a different terror.
We hear stories of Afghan women and girls who have been banned from working, from attending school, from leaving their houses unless accompanied by a male relative.
Many Afghan women are war widows and without their earnings their families starve.
Strict rules governing status and dress have been enforced, and I am sure we have all seen images of how the Taliban so-called religious police have brutally enforced these rules.
In one recent incident in Kabul these police actually beat nurses in a hospital who were arriving to help the injured and the dying.
Women doctors, as Mrs Baldi has said, are also being forcibly stopped from attending the sick and sick women are being told they cannot be examined by male doctors.
We have also had distressing reports of public executions, torture, stoning, decapitation and amputation.
These fanatical militiamen try to intimidate the country into submission by these means.
As a woman, a socialist and a Member of this Parliament, I believe we in the European Parliament must show our utter condemnation of these atrocities and make it clear that the international community will not tolerate these atrocities, that action must be taken and that women's rights are human rights.
This must involve a coherent political approach to Afghanistan by the European Council and the Member States.
It must also mean an arms embargo and an embargo on any equipment that can be used by the Taliban in their bloody war.
In conclusion, if we do not act there could be even more terrifying consequences for the Afghan people and for the whole of south-west Asia.
Madam President, these men who call themselves the Taliban, these men whom we noted a year ago in the southern provinces of Afghanistan as they imposed their self-righteous insolence in the name of religious freedom and gloried in their power, these men who totally disregard the unique and essential presence of women in life, who go so far as to stop women caring for children in orphanages and to restrict the activities of female doctors, these men who ban women from teaching and stop them working outside the home, who deny girls the right to education and prevent them developing their minds, these men - men like them - will come to the fore elsewhere in the future unless we do something to stop them.
To impose economic sanctions against them may not be very democratic.
But it is very human to request them to respect minimum basic rights and to halt their appalling and hideous use of all sorts of physical punishment against those who do not follow their particular interpretation of Islamic law.
The time has come for us to stand up to fanaticism and to make it clear that each freedom, even religious freedom, must also entail showing respect for humanity and for the freedoms that are its as of right.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I think that what is now happening in Afghanistan is not something that concerns only Central Asia which is to some extent generally affected by the rumblings of war.
I actually believe what is happening there to be in the nature of a clear signal that the western countries, with their consolidated democracies and perception that the basic principles of human rights have in all cases and in all circumstances to be safeguarded, have dropped their guard.
I am firmly persuaded that it is the fact that western countries with their consolidated democracies have dropped their guard that is the primary cause of what is happening in Afghanistan.
I shall not repeat what has already been said by colleagues about the beheadings, the exhibiting of the body of the former president, the house-to-house searches, the segregation of women and all the things that the Koranic law, the Sharia, brings with it when given a reactionary interpretation, as fundamentalist instead of open and tolerant law.
I consider that international public opinion reacted very belatedly and very hesitantly to those actions, until the Taliban began its massacres; in some cases, there has actually been complicity on the part of the international community!
I do not know what the role of Pakistan has been but it has certainly fanned the flames of war.
The issue of Afghanistan emerged long since without anyone intervening.
I am calling upon the Commission and the European Parliament to give a firm response to these events.
The rights of men and women have to be safeguarded everywhere, particularly when, as in this case, they are being cruelly and flagrantly violated.
Madam President, the after-effects of the Monroe doctrine are coming inexorably to the fore in Afghanistan.
Kabul, devastated by years of war and delivered up - as a result of yet another error of United States foreign policy - to the Taliban extremists who have compounded the horrors of the massacres with their interpretation of Islamic law, is now seeing the now chronic suffering of the defenceless civilian population.
Fanaticism, as we described it, culminating in the ban on and discrimination against women and plunging the whole region back into the dark ages.
From Pakistan to Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia, Europe is yet again absent.
Now it is seeking to make amends by calling for the cooperation relationship to be broken off and for Afghanistan to be isolated, thereby adding to the suffering of the civilian population which is living through the atrocities of war.
We say that enough is enough; Europe says the time has come for an end to the inconsistencies within it.
It must put an end to the inconsistencies and finally establish a clear and independent foreign policy, at last shouldering its responsibilities, without hesitation and avoiding inconsistencies.
Madam President, throughout the world more and more voices are being raised against what is happening in Afghanistan.
The taking of Kabul by the Taliban has resulted in a wave of dreadful crimes against the whole population and the imposition of barbarian and medieval rules of conduct as a result of a fanatical and extremist interpretation of Islamic law.
The main victims - and other colleagues have mentioned this - are women, excluded from all forms of employment and public activity, driven out of schools and hospitals and compelled to cover their whole body when outside the home.
It is, however, important that positive signals are coming from Afghan women themselves.
Just yesterday, in the city of Mazar-i Sharif, thousands of women protested against the Taliban, calling for support from the international community.
That is the point of what we are doing here today.
The European Parliament is today expressing its full support for the Afghan women and all of those who wish, finally, to build a democratic and secular Afghan state.
We need first of all to guarantee effective humanitarian aid to the thousands of refugees who have fled the country in recent weeks and, where possible, to the very many refugees living in Afghanistan itself.
But there will then have to be a more decisive political and diplomatic initiative, either from the European Union or from other international players, to bring an immediate end to the fighting in the country and begin to trace out new foundations for Afghanistan, based on respect for human rights and all ethnic and religious groups.
It is also vital that the United States and Pakistan should put an end to all political and material support for the Taliban, without which the Taliban would not have acquired the strength we today deplore.
We need to avoid at this time any gesture of recognition towards the new rulers of Kabul, and a very strict embargo on the supply of arms and other equipment must be imposed and enforced by the international community.
The Group of the European Socialist Party wishes therefore to reaffirm its own commitment to a positive solution to the Afghan conflict and particularly to support the struggle of millions of Afghan men and women against the fanatical fundamentalism of the Taliban.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission, like Parliament, is very concerned about the situation in Afghanistan, the dramatic nature of which has been highlighted by many of you.
The Commission regrets the recent events and that these events have further increased the distress of the inhabitants and aggravated the situation of Afghan women.
The Commission immediately reacted to the human rights violations perpetrated by the Talibans after the taking of Kabul.
Thus Mrs Bonino - and Mr dell'Alba referred to it a few moments ago - denounced on behalf of the Commission, as long ago as 2 October, the unacceptable extortions committed by the Talibans and their behaviour, which marks a return to the barbarism of the blackest centuries of history.
The European Commission also made public, on 9 October, a statement deploring the violations of human rights, and especially the rights of women, in the regions in the hands of the Taliban.
We cannot be accomplices to such actions.
The Commission considers that the attitude of the new masters of Kabul, with regard to the basic principles of international law, is highly condemnable, whether it be the invasion of the UN building in Kabul, or the hanging of the former President Nadjibullah.
In May 1996, the European Union, in a statement on Afghanistan, already expressed its concern.
More recently, the United Nations' Security Council adopted, on 22 October last, a resolution demanding an immediate cease-fire, demanding the opening of negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations, in order to reach a lasting political solution, and demanding the cessation of all foreign intervention and the interruption of supplies of arms and weapons to all parties in the conflict.
Concerning the Commission, I remind you that the only aid given is humanitarian: health and food.
On the subject of such aid, the Commission intends to continue its action in order to better meet the requirements of a very vulnerable population.
These requirements will increase with the onset of winter, which is particularly harsh in this part of the world.
Aid will be supplied fairly, without discrimination between men and women, giving help first to those who need it most.
We are not sparing any effort to define a common position to all donors, which can only facilitate the work of the NGOs in their contacts with local authorities.
Finally, the Commission is still very concerned by the increase in the production of narcotics on Afghan territory, whose main destination, as you may imagine, is Europe.
The Commission is also giving its support to the activities carried out as part of the United Nations' programme of international drug control in Afghanistan.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-1108/96 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Group, on the situation in Columbia; -B4-1125/96 by Mr Howitt and Mrs Torres Marques, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on Colombia; -B4-1135/96 by Mr Galeote Quecedo and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in Colombia; -B4-1160/96 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on Colombia; -B4-1184/96 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the political situation in Colombia.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in Colombia is deteriorating fast.
The violence is escalating.
Total civil war threatens.
There are of course wide-scale human rights abuses, both by the government troops, the paramilitaries and the guerilla fighters.
The result of the Government's strategy to contain dissent is that the rule of law is being undermined and of course that press freedom is being curtailed.
The Attorney-General, an upholder of human rights, has had his powers restricted by the Government .
This spiral of violence and oppression has to be broken.
The only way to achieve a lasting solution to this situation is through dialogue and the respecting by all parties of the rule of law and human rights.
I deplore the part which European firms appear to be playing in human rights violations and damage to the environment.
These firms should place themselves above reproach, observing the highest standards when it comes to human rights and protection of the environment.
European firms are after all the visible face of Europe in third countries.
The truth or otherwise of certain allegations needs to be verified quickly.
I thus call on the President of Colombia to publish the report of the Colombian Human Rights Commission so that we can conduct a serious review of all the facts.
Madam President, I wish to begin by joining colleagues in condemning all human rights violations in Colombia, in expressing solidarity with the peasant farmers and indigenous peoples denied access to making a living off the land and to repeat the call we made in Colombia for justice for the 120 families forcibly evicted from their land at Bellacruz.
However, in the time available I want to concentrate on just one issue.
When this Parliament convened its hearings on Shell's inhuman exploitation of the Ogoni peoples in Nigeria last year, little did we think that we would so soon revisit shockingly equivalent allegations against other European oil companies - British Petroleum and Total of France in the Casanare region of Colombia from where our delegation has just returned: weekly oil spills, water contamination, chemical overflows, illegal sites and the invasion of protected forest - all admitted by local BP officials; and where eyewitnesses describe fish floating dead in polluted rivers and livestock blinded from grazing on polluted fields and where the government's Environment Minister admits that he prefers the oil revenues to fight a war to the environmental improvements to build a peace.
Everyone in Colombia agrees that the military is guilty of massive human rights violations, while, in the interests of securing their own profits, the European oil companies are said to acquiesce. When the military is directly linked to threats, deaths and disappearances, how can BP come to an $11.6m voluntary agreement of collaboration with those same commanders?
How can BP deny that it has passed photographs of protesters into the hands of the military, only to see those same people arrested or murdered when this leaked Human Rights Commission report, signed by four key Colombian Government officials, appears to show and confirm those same allegations? How can BP argue that it is not compromised when strike action against them is directly broken up by the military forces, including the documented murder of Carlos Mesías Arrigui and at least three further killings reported directly to us in the last month?
Just two nights ago a prominent community leader, Virginia Oballer, and her son were murdered in the middle of the night.
In Colombia I was told that BP's two-year-old social agreement with the local community remains unfulfilled and that Ramón Marino is one of a number of ex- and current BP employees now working in the government to smooth the agreement of environmental permits.
BP denies those allegations, it blames local people for inflicting environmental damage - so did Shell in Nigeria.
Perhaps today, most of all, we should listen to the local man who told me that to speak out for the community, for the environment or for human rights is suicide.
These are European oil companies.
Let us in Europe say to those local people today: you shall no longer choose between speaking out in fear or dying in silence.
Madam President, we support the great majority of the paragraphs in this joint motion for a resolution on Colombia because that country is going through a difficult situation characterized by widespread crimes against human rights.
But there are some specific aspects of the motion which we do not entirely share.
For instance, there is no proof that the Colombian government is responsible for the problems.
It is one thing that certain events are occurring under a government and quite another that it is causing them.
Nor can deaths be assumed to be murders without definite proof.
This Parliament cannot set itself up as supreme judge, condemning a government as an assassin, without a process of careful investigation of the facts to discover the truth without a shadow of a doubt.
Nor can European oil companies like BP or Total be condemned when there are official documents actually from the Human Rights Commission to the Colombian President, specifically stating that the incriminating reports should not be considered valid and that they are not definite proof, leading the companies involved to describe them as a campaign of defamation naturally damaging to world expansion of European companies.
We shall vote accordingly in a few moments.
Madam President, four weeks ago I visited Colombia as a member of the South America delegation.
The media have recently reported in depth about the increasingly serious conflicts about land there, in particular on the case of Hacienda Bellacruz.
This year, the murders and evictions by para-military units have escalated.
During our visit we were able to speak with representatives of the evicted peasant farmers and offer our assistance as Members.
But two days after we left, another two farmers were murdered.
One was a member of the negotiating committee for talks with the government.
Unfortunately Bellacruz is not an isolated case, rather it is the tip of the iceberg.
But Bellacruz has achieved a sad notoriety because the hacienda is owned by the Marulanda family.
Mr Carlos Arturo Marulanda is Colombia's ambassador to the European Union.
Unfortunately he has not yet expressed a single word of regret about the murders and evictions.
We have given President Samper to understand that the reputation of his country will suffer if its ambassadors are not beyond reproach about violations of human rights.
We made it clear that those responsible for the murders and evictions in Bellacruz must be called to account and the peasant farmers' families must be given their land back.
In the interests of its own development, Colombia urgently needs agricultural reform.
Unfortunately the trend in Colombia offers little cause for hope.
The involvement of the military, the guerillas but also the leadership of the country in the drugs trade, the omnipresent corruption, the government's plans to further dismantle democratic rights such as freedom of the press, seem to be dragging this important Latin American country ever deeper into the abyss.
Only ten days ago Josué Giraldo, Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of Meta, was murdered.
In March last year he was our guest speaker at a human rights conference in Brussels supported by the EP.
Some of us knew Josué Giraldo personally.
We cannot allow the state to merely stand by and watch the activities of the bands of killers.
I expect all the parties in Parliament to take a resolute stand on this.
Nor must the EU cease supporting the democratic forces of civilian society in Colombia, which without doubt exist at every level, even in the government.
That is why we also call for the UN human rights office in Bogota cofinanced by the EU to be opened immediately.
It is quite incomprehensible why it has not opened yet.
I do not agree at all with the objections by the previous speaker, for anyone who travels the country with eyes to see and ears to hear is aware of what is happening there.
Madam President, Commissioner, over the last few months groups in this Parliament have been trying to move resolutions on what is going on in Colombia and unfortunately no progress could be made because they were minority groups.
Since the attempt to move these resolutions began, a chairman of a human rights committee has been assassinated in his doorway in front of his daughters, as Mr Kreissl-Dörfler just mentioned.
Two farm workers on the Bellacruz Estate, Eliseo and Eder Narváez, were also assassinated.
And I read out their names because hearing the names makes us remember they are people.
Another trade unionist in the oil industry has also been assassinated as well as - and we do not forget it - conservatives. I mean conservative candidates, like Álvaro Gómez Hurtado.
So it is not just people on the left who are being killed, anyone who defends democracy in Colombia is being killed.
In recent resolutions we have called for the immediate establishment of a human rights office in Colombia, as Mr Kreissl-Dörfler said, because that is essential.
We have stated that there were alternative crops to the drug traffic, which accounts for world movements of 500, 000 million dollars.
The business is rich and powerful enough to pull a lot of strings and assassinate a lot of people.
And we have said so on many occasions here in the plenary of this Parliament.
I do not know if Parliament's resolutions can prevent more deaths, but I think they should have been passed and I am delighted that such a resolution is going to be passed here today, because 316 people have disappeared since the Samper government took over and just as many have been assassinated. This Parliament cannot let this go on.
So I call on the plenary to support this resolution, especially in view of the fact that a colleague who works in my group has been threatened after denouncing the involvement of the Marulanda family in certain murders.
The situation is grave and the European Union must act.
Madam President, there are many points in the resolution which I do not dispute, but I very much regret that it only contains half-truths.
It takes up isolated cases but in no way describes the highly complex situation in that country.
I also regret the fact that after its return the delegation did not have any time at all to summarize its experiences and draw on them in order to draft a resolution, and not just on Colombia but on all three of the countries we visited which, apart from Colombia, were also Venezuela and Peru.
That is my first comment.
My second comment is this: fortunately you mention in recital D that the guerillas also violate human rights, but you should also refer to that in recital M and paragraph 7, where you do not mention that people have been murdered by the guerillas too.
That needs to be said too.
Nor should we just name individual oil companies but tackle the problem as a whole.
Like you, we mourn the death of the human rights campaigner Giraldo, about which you express dismay in recital F. Incidentally he also worked with the Misereor campaign, which gives a great deal of money for Colombia.
People who make such statements should make rather more effort to look at the overall situation and also to say that there is simply not enough political will in the Colombian Parliament.
Corruption and a lack of willingness to tackle these things at their roots are to be found there too.
As the Latin America delegation we should take a much clearer stand vis à vis our colleagues.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission fully shares Parliament's concern about the worrying deterioration in the human rights situation in Colombia.
The European Parliament's mission, led by Mr Galeote at the end of September, was able to make its own judgement on this matter.
The Commission in particular wishes to pay tribute to the memory of Mr Josué Giraldo, and it would like the circumstances of his assassination to be quickly clarified.
Mr Howitt, as regards the families of Bellacruz, I would like to remind you that it is a problem which is the responsibility of the Colombian authorities.
However, the Commission emphasizes that this matter is being followed up closely in Bogota by its delegation, in collaboration with the ambassadors of the Member States.
The Commission is also perfectly aware of the current problems concerning the environment, and our delegation in Bogota, in cooperation with the ambassadors, it also following the matter.
But, more generally and, I would say more fundamentally, the weakening of State law in Colombia is linked to the size of the drug traffic in the country and the financial resources that this traffic generates.
In fact, and this is no secret to anyone, these financial resources permit widespread corruption at all levels and especially in the State apparatus.
To reinforce State law, it is therefore essential to put a stop to the drug traffic.
The Commission is fully committed to this fight.
In particular, it finances projects on the land aimed at promoting income-generating crops to replace coca and poppy.
Moreover, the European Union has just granted, with the new Generalized Preferences System, the GPS, increased ease of access to the European market for Andean countries engaged in the fight against drugs, in order to encourage them to continue their efforts.
Furthermore, Colombia benefits from priority treatment in the allocation of budget appropriations for democratization and human rights in Latin America.
In this respect, a large number of initiatives are in the course of being implemented with the help of local NGOs.
Finally, with regard to the human rights office, which was mentioned in particular by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and Mrs González Álvarez, the Commission is ready to send to Colombia, during the next few weeks, five observers who will be responsible for an on-site verification of the human rights situation.
These observers will be placed under the hierarchical authority of the office of the High Commissioner for human rights which is being installed in Bogota under the auspices of the United Nations.
However, the deployment of observers on site can only take place when Colombia and the United Nations have signed the convention governing the rules and terms of reference of this office.
We are willing to finance this action, but it has to be said - and for my part regrettably so - that discussions between the United Nations and Colombia are not yet formalized, despite several months of discussion.
It is clear that the Commission's contribution can only materialize once this formality has been fulfilled.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I call Mr Kreissl-Dörfler on a point of order.
Just a brief clarification following what Mrs Lenz said.
I agree with her on many points.
We would indeed have liked to include more things in the resolution.
But, Mrs Lenz, would you just compare the various drafts that were tabled.
Then you will find that the present outcome really is the most one could expect and is excellent.
In particular, I would ask you to take a look at the resolution drafted by your own group.
I very much regret that we have not yet had an opportunity to sit down together following this truly important visit.
That too should be criticized in the strongest terms.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Cyprus
B4-1111/96 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the situation in Cyprus; -B4-1131/96 by Mrs Green and Mrs Rothe, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the coldblooded murder of the Greek Cypriot Petros Kakoulis, aged 50; -B4-1164/96 by Mrs Daskalaki and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the tense situation in Cyprus and the murder of a third civilian by the Turks; -B4-1167/96 by Mr Hatzidakis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the murder of a middle-aged Greek Cypriot by the Turkish occupation army; -B4-1171/96 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Orlando, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in Cyprus; -B4-1199/96 by Mr Papayannakis and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the killing of Petros Kakoulis, a Greek Cypriot citizen; Sudan
B4-1140/96 by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-1152/96 by Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the infringement of human rights in Sudan; -B4-1155/96 by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-1159/96 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on human rights violations in Sudan; -B4-1200/96 by Mr Pettinari and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on human rights infringements in Sudan; Attack on St George's Cathedral in Istanbul
B4-1132/96 by Mr Avgerinos and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the attack upon the Cathedral Church of St George in the Ecumenical Partriarchate - Constantinople; -B4-1134/96 by Mr Martens and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the bombing of the Cathedral Church of St George in the Ecumenical Patriarchate - Constantinople; -B4-1156/96 by Mrs Roth and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the bomb attack against the Orthodox Cathedral of St George in Istanbul; -B4-1163/96 by Mrs Daskalaki and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the bomb attack on the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople; -B4-1179/96 by Mr Alavanos and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on religious freedom in Turkey; Bangladesh
B4-1109/96 by Mrs André-Léonard and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the situation in Bangladesh; -B4-1151/96 by Mrs Leperre-Verrier and Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the rights of the indigenous peoples of Bangladesh and the disappearance of Mrs Kalpana Chakma; -B4-1176/96 by Mr Moorhouse and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the Chittagong Hill People in Bangladesh; -B4-1185/96 by Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in Bangladesh; -B4-1201/96 by Mr Pettinari and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on minority rights in Bangladesh and the disappearance of Mrs Kalpana Chakma; Venezuela
B4-1133/96 by Mrs Pollack on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the mining in the Amazon (Venezuela); -B4-1141/96 by Mr Eisma and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the mining in the Amazon (Venezuela); -B4-1162/96 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on mining in the Amazon; Bulgaria
B4-1128/96 by Mrs Hoff, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the grain shortage in Bulgaria; -B4-1174/96 by Mr Christodoulou and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the food crisis in Bulgaria; Zaire
B4-1157/96 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation of refugees in eastern Zaire; Croatia
B4-1110/96 by Mr Cars and Mr La Malfa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the situation in Croatia.Cyprus
Madam President, not all that long ago yet another murder was committed in Cyprus by the Turkish occupying power and this naturally calls for a thorough investigation.
I wish to take this opportunity of saying that I challenge the growing idea that population groups in Cyprus are becoming increasingly violent towards one another.
No, what we have is a policy of intimidation and manipulation by the Turkish army of occupation designed precisely to create an impression of increasing mutual hatred.
The two populations are heartily sick of the conflict and want nothing more than a solution to the dispute.
Consequently we Europeans must focus our attention more on the population itself.
More avenues for exchange must be created by the Union without recognition being given to the occupying Denktash regime.
We must be pragmatic in encouraging more reciprocal contacts on the part of the civil society.
It is in the interest of a resolution to the conflict in the island and of Cyprus's accession to the Union that these contacts should be stepped up.
This is the only real way of ensuring that the engineered spiral of attacks does not indeed become a spiral of hatred.
I can assure you that every move by Turkey to block Cyprus's membership of the Union will mean a step backwards for Turkey herself.
Madam President, yet once more in this House we are debating the Cyprus problem and the unlawful and criminal conduct of Turkey.
The resolution that we have tabled condemns the Turkish military occupation forces in Cyprus for the cold-blooded murder of yet another unarmed civilian.
These incidents are a ploy by the occupation army and the illegal regime in northern Cyprus to create the impression that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots cannot live peacefully together, which is utterly inaccurate and unsupported by history.
What they are really seeking to do, in disregard of every precept of law, is to somehow vindicate the occupation and the illegality.
But it is patently obvious that the irregularity in Cyprus is rooted in the illegal occupation by Turkey and in that country's policy of intransigence.
I think that we in Europe, in the European Parliament, have a duty now, at this time, to maintain and intensify the pressure on Turkey, as we did this morning with our vote to freeze the funding.
Only in that way can Turkey be made to understand that if it wishes to have normal relations with us it will have to conform to our common principles and values.
Madam President, having to raise complaints about Turkish atrocities is becoming almost tedious.
In recent months, in Cyprus, on the acclaimed Green Line, the last wall of shame on the European continent, four unarmed Greek Cypriots have lost their lives.
All four were murdered in the most brutal manner by the Turkish occupation army.
The last of them, Petros Kakoulis, an unarmed pensioner, was arrested and murdered while collecting snails.
He was killed, in fact, in territory controlled by the British military base at Dhekelia.
The base police and officials of the United Nations peace-keeping force were not even permitted to approach.
All of this is part of a specific strategy of the occupation regime in northern Cyprus and the government in Ankara which, in reality, pulls the strings.
The ultimate objective is to create the impression that the two communities in Cyprus cannot peacefully co-exist.
The Turkish Cypriots, persecuted as they are by the settlers and the occupation army, are themselves also victims of this policy.
The most tragic victims of all are the few remaining Greek Cypriots and Maronites in the enclave who are being denied basic human rights and living lives of constant fear. They have no right of communication, no health care facilities and have been refused permission to replace a teacher who is retiring.
Turkey must understand that it cannot expect an improvement in its relations with the European Union until it changes its ways.
Furthermore, the commitment by Europe not to allow Cyprus to be a hostage of Turkey must now be emphasized more than ever, given that the timetable for the negotiations leading to the accession of Cyprus has been established and commonly agreed.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are officially debating Cyprus, but the real issue is once again the illiberal conduct of the Turkish Government, both in Turkey and in Cyprus.
The joint motion for a resolution was prompted by the murder in Cyprus, by the Turkish army, of citizen Petros Kakoulis.
Yet again, the organs of a state - Turkey - which has relations with the European Union, are committing murder.
The situation is all the more serious in that officials from the United Nations peace-keeping force were prevented from visiting the scene of the killing.
Turkey is thus continuing to maintain occupying troops in Cyprus in complete disregard for United Nations resolutions.
I wish to make three points: firstly, to condemn the murder of Petros Kakoulis and express my condolences to his relatives; secondly, to underline the need for a proper investigation to identify those responsible and bring them to justice; and, thirdly, to remind the Turkish Government that it must respect human rights and that it cannot expect to enjoy the advantages - including the economic advantages - of the international community if it rides roughshod over human rights and fundamental freedoms.
It is in fact not tolerable that there should continue to be two separate approaches, one to economic issues and the other to human rights.
Finally, I call upon the states and the European Institutions to speed up the accession of Cyprus to the European Union, as this is a crucial step in moving towards a real solution to the Cyprus problem.
Madam President, the successive murders of unarmed citizens of Cyprus by the army of occupation or the forces of Mr Denktash cannot, of course, be attributed to any weakness of the latter, to an incapacity of his to react in a proportionate manner to things that he objects to - by having demonstrators arrested rather than killed in cold blood, for example.
The supposed Turkish Cypriot state certainly does have that capacity.
However, Madam President, the political problem is that these murders were planned and carried out deliberately with the aim of creating the impression that the two communities in Cyprus are incapable of living together in harmony and, therefore, of justifying the ethnic cleansing and the absolute separation of the two populations, precisely at this time when initiatives are in the offing for the commencement of processes that can lead to a solution of the Cyprus problem.
We must not fall for this ploy.
The only weakness is ours in brooking such perceptions, such goings-on and such leaders.
The people of Cyprus are, indeed, capable of living together again in a unified and democratically organized country; in a country of the very sort that the organizers of the recent murders are striving to prevent emerging.
Mr President, on behalf of the PSE Group I condemn in the strongest possible terms the killing of yet another individual at the demarcation line in Cyprus.
This is the third unarmed Greek Cypriot to have been murdered at the illegal border in Cyprus in the space of a few months.
Turkey, the occupying regime, wants to give the impression that the two ethnic groups cannot coexist, that the 'green line' is a state border.
That is a cruel, scandalous and, in my view, unsuccessful strategy.
Wrong remains wrong.
A flagrant violation of international law remains a flagrant violation of international law - even after 22 years.
The world at large knows that.
We have made it clear here in the European Parliament this morning that Turkey will not receive any more financial support.
Turkey knows now that we are no longer prepared to accept the daily infringements of human rights in Turkey and in Cyprus.
And we in the European Parliament also expect the Commission and especially the Member States to put greater pressure on Turkey to withdraw its occupying forces, support the demilitarization proposal and make it possible to find a just and peaceful solution in Cyprus.
Madam President, Parliament should know that the four murders in Cyprus did not occur as the result of conspiracies by Taliban-style fanatics or by hit men in the pay of drug traffickers.
They were carried out by forces assembled from an occupying army representing an organized state, namely Turkey, with which this Community and this Parliament have relations and various dealings.
These criminal actions must be seen in that light, as must the regime of suffering imposed on the people in the enclave, specifically in Karpassia, where out of 20, 000 Greek Cypriots and Maronites only 700 now remain. They have had no choice but to leave because the conventions and international law regarding human rights have counted for nothing and have been violated in every respect.
This and what Turkey is seeking with its pillaging of the archaeological, religious and cultural heritage in Cyprus and its threat to convert the church of St. Sophia in Constantinople into a mosque are all of a piece.
Therefore, if this Parliament and this Community are serious about ending this international crime they must jettison calculations about investments and military aspirations and stop the dealings with Turkey, at least to the extent of imposing specific economic sanctions to secure the restoration of normality in Cyprus and to enable the two communities there to live in peace together.
Mr President, in December last year Parliament voted by a large majority to approve the customs union with Turkey, together with billions in financial aid from Europe to Turkey.
Nevertheless we already knew at that point, last year, that Turkey had since 1974 been holding a piece of European territory, the northern part of the island of Cyprus, under military occupation, and that it was pursuing a policy of cultural and indeed literal genocide there against the Greek Cypriots.
Obviously that knowledge counted for little compared with the nice little gifts and supposed study tours being dished out by the Turkish Government at the time.
So I have very grave reservations concerning the honesty of at least some of the authors of today's resolution.
We could really have flexed our muscles last December but all we have now is a protest on paper.
It is certainly not a partial freezing of MEDA funds which will cause the Turkish Government to have a change of heart.
Secondly, I would point out that Cyprus's accession to the European Union is made very awkward by the Turkish occupation because a Turkish invasion bridgehead via Cyprus is unacceptable to us, but I would also remind you that the Turkish foreign minister is on record as saying in so many words that if Cyprus becomes a member of the European Union Turkey will annex the northern part of Cyprus.
So, and it has been said many times already, we need to tell Turkey some home truths.
Yes, we want the best possible relations with this neighbour and partner in NATO, but Turkey needs to fulfil a number of conditions first, the first of them being the withdrawal of the Turkish occupying forces from Cyprus.
Sudan
Mr President, the Sudanese situation is one of these on-going situations where one keeps feeling that this regime cannot last.
It is one of several in the world which seem inherently unstable, where the condemnation, as has been said by Mr Schiedermeier, from the United Nations has been strong and consistent.
Our own European Parliament, in joint assembly with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, has condemned the situation in Sudan.
We must maintain the pressure on this regime because I am quite convinced its days are numbered.
In supporting the resolution, let me focus on two points in particular: one is that the right of self-determination for the southern peoples has to be part of a peace settlement.
This is something to which the authorities in Khartoum have been particularly deaf.
And yet if we look next door to what happened in Ethiopia, they had the wisdom to accept the Eritrean right of self-determination and there is now a peaceful regime in Eritrea which is, I think, an inspiration to its neighbour and which has, in turn, been suffering from the export of revolution from Sudan.
It is a classic example of a dictatorship which is more interested in foreign adventures than in the well-being of its own subjects.
The final point I would like to make concerns sanctions.
The European Union and its Member States are not very good at applying sanctions.
Arguably, they should have been applying them in many cases where they have shied away from them.
But certainly as far as the application of aid sanctions is concerned from the European Union, our position has been a consistent and honourable one.
We have to say to the Sudanese that this will continue to be the situation of the European Union collectively and severally through its Member States as long as that regime does not respect democracy, civil rights and the right to self-determination.
In conclusion, I feel that in the longer or even the medium-run we should be optimistic, but meantime, in the present, we have to be very vigilant and very consistent.
Mr President, the human rights situation in Sudan has been very serious for a long time now and is clearly getting even worse.
In the civil war in the south between the fundamentalist Islamic government and the insurgents the civilian population too is being showered with fragmentation bombs.
At the same time the insurgents are falling out amongst themselves.
The dismal upshot of this civil war is millions of refugees and total deaths estimated at over a million.
At the same time forced Islamization is being imposed in the north controlled by the Khartoum Government.
Non-Muslims, not least Christians, are increasingly the victims of human rights abuses.
But those made to suffer most by the Khartoum Government are manifestly the children of Sudan.
Many children are seized, subjected to savage acts, forced to convert to Islam and in some cases trained for deployment in the civil war in the south.
The Sudanese Government is becoming increasingly isolated as a result of the activities of the resistance movement within the country but also isolated from the rest of the world community.
Only Iran continues openly to give aid.
Nevertheless there seems for the moment to be no end in sight to this Islamic regime of terror.
Regrettably we have to concede that the ability of the European Union to exert pressure on the Sudanese Government is limited.
Precisely because the country is so isolated it is not very sensitive to economic and political pressure.
It is probably the neighbouring countries of Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda which are best placed to find a solution to the troublesome situation in Sudan.
We must ask the Union to establish whether the proposals made by these countries under the aegis of IGADD will be able to bring about a solution and if so to give them our support.
Mr President, we have to understand that the Sudanese government is committed to a strategy of destabilization affecting the whole of the Horn of Africa.
The infiltrations of Sudanese Islamic extremists into Eritrea and the attempt to undermine the Addis Abeba and Asmara governments reveal the antidemocratic nature of the Khartoum government, demonstrated also by the very serious violations of human rights and democratic freedoms already condemned by other honourable Members.
The authorities in Khartoum are also continuing their military offensive in southern Sudan, thereby causing hundreds of victims and preventing the necessary humanitarian aid from reaching the non-Muslim population.
The IGADD negotiations, that is to say the only genuine forum in which an effort has been made to find a solution to the devastating war being waged in southern Sudan, have also reached a dangerous impasse.
In other words, we are seeing a systematic boycott of the work of that body and it seems clear that Sudan is not now seeking to find a way out of the war to which it has committed itself.
That being the case, the Union must compel the authorities in Khartoum to negotiate with the parties to the conflict, the only way of restoring the fundamental human freedoms that are currently being seriously violated.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are situations where one can lose hope.
Resolution after resolution, we must clearly acknowledge that the situation in Sudan is one of these.
I believe nevertheless that we should pursue our efforts in two directions.
The first, naturally, is on the humanitarian side, which the European Union is doing very well.
We provide the largest support for non-government organizations which operate in southern Sudan from the countries which have been mentioned.
There is still a vast amount to do.
Relief should be sent, and the Khartoum government does not let us do so.
Efforts should be multiplied so that the children, the first victims of the conflicts, can be taken into care.
I have mentioned children: yes, in the two camps children are made use of in Sudan, to reduce them to slavery, or to turn them into soldiers or, simply, cannon fodder.
And then there is a second direction in which the European Union must continue its efforts: the political direction. Everything has been said about this government that wishes to impose Sharia on the Christian and Animistic populations of the south.
Everything has been said about this government which spreads terror and terrorism in neighbouring countries.
But not enough has been said about the fact that within this country and in Khartoum, there are also demonstrations by civil society.
There are women who rebel.
There are student and trade union demonstrations.
They must be given support.
International organizations - the monetary Fund, all possible organizations - must side with us and under European pressure do their duty to prevent this government from going further in human rights violations, oppression and terrorism.
Finally, we must not forget the people, because if we understand rightly, there have been two successive wars.
This situation has lasted for over thirty years.
Over thirty years!
Do you realize the dozens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of victims this represents? One tends to get used to it and resolutions are not sufficient.
Each one of us must also be aware that this is one of the last fights against barbarism in the world, and that it is necessary to persist, continue and then, perhaps also, adopt a new resolution which we all support.
Mr President, what we have in Sudan is a stable regime in a stable situation which will ensure a stable future for the Sharia government in Khartoum.
Forget it, things are not going to change.
Perhaps we can do something else, perhaps we can give food and aid to organizations which, I have the charter here in my hand, have actually concluded an agreement with the Khartoum Government, which have peace proposals from the south aimed at trying to get the Sudanese Government in the north to recognize Southern Sudan, Bahr al-Ghazal, as a kind of autonomous republic.
This is ultimately what happened with Abyssinia or Ethiopia and Eritrea.
I think that is the only way to stop the civil war which has been going on since 1965 from claiming more than two and a half million lives.
Attack on St George's Cathedral in Istanbul
Mr President, I rise to join the previous speaker in condemning the outrage of someone tossing a hand grenade into the courtyard of the Patriarchate.
I have been there and it really is a restricted area.
Mercifully, no one was hurt.
I welcome the condemnation which was issued by the Turkish ambassador in Washington but it is a matter of words, words, words.
I receive many letters from Turkish ambassadors round the world.
What we need is action.
The real position of the Turkish authorities can be illustrated by the fact that last month the President had authorized that the Orthodox school on an island opposite Istanbul should be allowed to open.
It has been in readiness for years but it did not happen.
I was at a lunch in a private room in a restaurant in Istanbul where a bishop was frightened of pronouncing grace because it was a risky procedure.
What we need is not words.
We have a series of these sort of incidents and very little condemnation within Turkey.
The condemnation I received was from the Turkish ambassador in Washington.
Mr President, everyone is familiar with the status of Constantinople as a treasure house of the European cultural heritage over the centuries.
For more than a thousand years it was the capital of a great Christian empire. It has always been the headquarters of the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate, which makes it a special and profoundly important place for millions of Orthodox Christians throughout the world.
At the end of September a hand grenade was exploded in the Patriarchate by Muslim extremists, and that was not the first outrage that has occurred.
The Christian monuments and graveyards - not to mention other, private, Christian properties - in Turkey have been handy targets for vandals.
The people responsible are, of course, extremists.
But does not the failure of the Turkish Government even to express regret serve, perhaps, as a commendation and encouragement to the extremists? And are they not heartened by the closure of the theological college at Chalki, which is directly linked to the fortunes of the Patriarchate?
Add the official threats to convert the church of Saint Sophia, which is a monument of the greatest importance for European Christianity, into a mosque, and the picture becomes clear.
However, our warning to Turkey must be even clearer - to the effect that if it really wants to draw near to Europe it must show respect for European monuments and institutions which very much pre-date its own emergence in the region.
Mr President, I think that it should be the Turkish Government itself, as much as the European Parliament, which ought to be showing interest in preserving and promoting the rich heritage handed down from the depths of history in Constantinople by the various cultures and religions.
Sadly, however, the Turkish Government is in the business of stoking up fanaticism and malevolence, and these have attained their culmination, one might say, in the statement by the Minister for the presidency on the conversion of the church of Saint Sophia into a mosque.
The fact that this resolution on religious freedom in Turkey has the support of all the political groups is very encouraging, and it is pleasing that all of the groups have on this occasion accepted our resolution calling on the Turkish Government to respect the character of the church of Saint Sophia. The proposal in one of the final paragraphs of the resolution stating the requirement for an integrated initiative by the European Union - when funding to Turkey is given the green light - and UNESCO and the Turkish Government to draw up an inventory of Christian and other cultural monuments in Constantinople and to put forward proposals for their restoration and maintenance is also very constructive.
Mr President, the bomb attack perpetrated in Istanbul against St George's Cathedral is deplorable as it reveals a dangerous religious extremism in Turkey.
Unfortunately, Turkey does not have a monopoly on such events: the profaning of religious monuments and cemeteries also exists in countries in the European Union.
The Christian denominations in Turkey are religious minorities; for this reason they are particularly vulnerable and require particular solicitude from the authorities.
I am not known for preaching indulgence towards Turkey, because of the abominable human rights situation, which clearly includes religious freedoms.
In this specific case, I feel, however, that the joint resolution goes beyond what is necessary.
It proceeds by amalgamation and, for this reason, tends to suggest that the incriminated contracts benefit from a passive and cunning complicity of the Turkish authorities.
Thus, although motions for resolutions made in the name of the PPE Group and the Green Group specifically state a condemnation in due and proper form, by the Turkish authorities, of the attack on St George's cathedral, the joint resolution nevertheless deplores the absence of such condemnation.
To remain credible, and before setting ourselves up as public arraigner, we must, without fail, base ourselves on established facts.
One can certainly heap all evils on Turkey, but to do so by making affirmations which can easily be contradicted especially weakens the cause we are defending.
Bangladesh
Mr President, we are remembering the disappearance, on 12 June last, of Mrs Kalpana Chakma, the secretary-general of the Hill Women's Federation, who battled vigorously against the repression of women and for their emancipation.
Mrs Kalpana Chakma has always fought for the recognition of fundamental rights of the Chakma population and also other ethnic groups present in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
Her disappearance, in which elements of the Bangladeshi army may be implicated, is at the least worrying.
We strongly request that a solution be sought for the conflict which is raging between all the parties involved in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and call upon responsible politicians to do everything possible to halt the colonization and militarization of this region.
We insist that humanitarian aid be provided without impediment.
Finally, it is a matter of urgency that a committee of inquiry be set up so that the persons responsible for taking Mrs Kalpana Chakma be denounced and sent to trial.
Mr President, Commissioner, the existence of entire indigenous population groups in the southeast of Bangladesh is under threat from the political and economic colonization decided upon by the Dacca government.
Daily, in Bangladesh, the rights of 700, 000 tribespeople are trampled upon, as they are compelled to live within the unyielding region of the Chittagong Hill Tracts under the watchful eye of the Bangladeshi army.
Political repression has also been stepped up in the name of the struggle against a terrorism that simply does not exist, as demonstrated by the case already mentioned of the disappearance of Kalpana Chakma, the young leader of the Chakma movement, whom the army literally caused to vanish.
We need to make strong representations to the Bangladeshi government of Mrs Sheena to change the policy hitherto applied to the Chittagong area and undertake to strike at those responsible for the abduction of Kalpana Chakma.
Europe has also to secure the immediate opening-up of the area controlled by the army to journalists and the NGOs in an effort to prevent the rights of the people living there continuing to be disregarded.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group in support of the joint motion for a resolution on human rights in Bangladesh.
I am aware of the multiple problems facing that poor country - one of the world's poorest - but nevertheless, I think we can expect from the government of Bangladesh the same respect for human rights that we expect from the rest of the countries in the world.
We are aware of the involvement of the Bangladeshi army in repressing the hill tribes in the Chittagong Hill Tracts and we are concerned about the fact that the army is preventing freedom of movement and freedom of political and cultural expression.
There are rumours that at least a section within the army was involved in the disappearance on 12 June 1996 of Mrs Kalpana Chakma, the secretary-general of the Hill Women's Federation.
What we are urging is the early release of this lady, a condemnation of the repressive policies being pursued, some commitment by the new government in Bangladesh to commit itself to a peaceful solution of the problem and unrestricted visits by human rights organizations to that part of the country.
Mr President, I too speak on this particular resolution on Bangladesh and can but confirm what the two previous speakers have said.
It is yet another difficult human rights situation in the world.
There is great concern about the Chakma people, the Chittagong Hill Tracts People and the disappearance of Mrs Kalpana Chakma.
We must hope that by drawing attention to this in the European Parliament and the European Union, the military will desist from some of its operations because, without a doubt, fundamental rights of expression are at risk, there is restriction of movement and cultural rights.
It is not a pretty picture.
We look to the Commission for its views.
Mr President, please allow me to say something which is certainly out of order, but correct in my view, given the way the situation is developing at the moment.
It says on our screens that we are going to discuss Venezuela.
Unfortunately it was too late to incorporate a last minute development into our resolution.
As you know, dozens and dozens of prisoners have died in a Venezuelan prison in truly dreadful circumstances.
Some governments of the Union, including the Spanish government, have demanded immediate clarification of this tragedy and punishment of those responsible.
Mr President, I think this should be noted so that Parliament can also concern itself with this situation.
Venezuela
Mr President, the threat posed by mining and logging to the rainforest, the indigenous peoples who inhabit them and to the environment in South America is sadly nothing new.
Over recent years the devastation caused has been immense, particularly in Venezuela.
According to the FAO, between 1981 and 1990 deforestation there reached an average of 600, 000 hectares a year - an area larger than Costa Rica or Switzerland - double the rate of the 1970s.
The rate in the 1980s was treble that of Peru and double that of Brazil and of all the tropical countries in South America taken together.
Bolivar State in Venezuela has already been the scene of new concessions for timber extraction and has suffered the impact of uncontrolled alluvial gold-mining.
Now the Venezuelan Government is proposing to abrogate the laws which prevent similar activities in Amazonas State, which was previously an area for conservationist policies.
In fact, it is here in Amazonas that the Commission is financing a project, along with the government, to promote conservation.
It is difficult to avoid cynicism if the government now opens the doors to environmental destruction in the same state.
There is, of course, severe economic pressure on Venezuela at the present time.
Extreme poverty has increased from 25 % to nearly 50 % in the last 15 years and the external debt absorbs 20 to 30 % of all foreign earnings.
However, it appears there is considerable opposition to the proposals in Venezuela itself and we must speak out strongly and ask the Commission and the World Bank also to oppose these proposals.
Deforestation cannot resolve the long-term economic problems of Venezuela but it will cause more deaths of the indigenous peoples and destroy valuable resources. The European Parliament must speak out strongly on this issue.
Mr President, the issue here is human rights and protection of the natural environment.
Protection of the natural environment because before the month is out the Government of Venezuela will be giving the go-ahead for large-scale mining and logging in the Amazonas Territory.
That is of course very bad news for this unique area of tropical rainforest which will be destroyed.
But the proposed mining and logging is also an immediate disaster for the thousands of indigenous people living there.
Diseases introduced from outside their environment and groundwater polluted by mining operations present a serious threat to the health of these local inhabitants.
But this resolution also reflects a direct interest of the European Union since an environmental project funded by the European Union is very close to the area now being threatened by mining. That project may even be seriously undermined.
We thus think it essential that the European Commission, which has some responsibility in the region because of this project, should make representations to the Venezuelan authorities and the World Bank.
Mr President, the Government of Venezuela is intending to abrogate two laws, which will allow mining and logging to resume in the Amazonas rainforest.
Surely it should have come to their ears by now that such activities lead to irreparable ecological damage to the rainforest!
The illegal digging by Venezuelan miners and Brazilian diamond and gold-hunters is already posing a huge risk for the region, which the authorities are unable to handle.
At the same time the natural environment of the indigenous inhabitants is being further destroyed and thus condemned to death.
We are not trying to prescribe to Venezuela whether it may or may not use its natural resources, but if this sensitive region of Amazonas is destroyed, the Venezuelans and their future generations will be the first to have to pay for it, quite apart from the rest of mankind.
The EU must support alternatives in Venezuela as in all the other Amazonas states.
In fact Venezuela is already partly on the right road, as we recently discovered from talks in situ.
I am convinced that if the ecological problems are not resolved or become exacerbated, the social problems will also become exacerbated, and if the social problems are not resolved, that will exacerbate the ecological problems.
This vicious circle must finally be broken, and here the European Union must offer its support, as it must also do in Europe.
Bulgaria
Mr President, Bulgaria, which is one of six countries in eastern and central Europe with an association agreement with the European Union, is facing an economic and social crisis of great complexity.
Our resolution relates specifically to the critical grain shortage which the country is facing this year.
The shortage is made even more grave by the approach of winter and threatens to have a serious effect on Bulgaria's population.
I believe that there should be an emergency support programme to help Bulgaria overcome this serious nutritional crisis.
I believe even more fervently, however, that the most important things that we can do now are to make it abundantly clear to the government and people of Bulgaria that the European Union will honour its moral obligation under the association agreement and support the Bulgarian population during the current difficulties and to assure them that their country's relations with the European Union will not be cast into question or jeopardized as a result of these difficulties.
Mr President, much as I respect the humanitarian sensibilities which Mr Papakyriazis demonstrates in the Socialist Group's resolution, I must say I was disappointed by it because I certainly never expected to see a lack of political insight on the part of the Socialists.
In the case of Bulgaria, unfortunately, not only do we have a humanitarian problem but one which has very largely been caused by government policies. The policies of a Government which allowed far too much grain to be sold abroad, by exporters who possibly included friends of the Government, without overall consideration of the interests of the population and the food supply to that population.
It was then found that there was a shortage.
So grain prices are rising, there are likely to be bread queues outside the bakers' shops, things are getting expensive and the same friends are now successfully importing cereals.
Nice little killings are being made from both operations and I think it is particularly bad that we do not refer to this in our resolution, that we do not criticize the Government's policy on imports and exports because this is of course the main point at issue.
The Christian Democrats thus put down an alternative resolution which says that we should indeed do something, but we should criticize the Government for its policy which has to be changed, we should work through NGOs, on a decentralized but carefully monitored basis, but we should not allow the friends of the Government to profit once again from the humanitarian assistance we are rushing to provide.
I think this subject needs to be addressed primarily from the political point of view and I very much regret, I tried to get the Socialist resolution taken as a basis, but there was not in the end any agreement on this and so we do not have a compromise resolution.
I would say we are better off having no resolution from Parliament than a resolution which, wrongly, is purely humanitarian because this will not help the people of Bulgaria in the long term.
If the politics are not right nobody benefits.
We should make that point very forcibly in this instance.
Mr President, unfavourable weather conditions can certainly explain the poor harvest in Bulgaria.
Nevertheless, they do not suffice to explain the unfortunately chronic weakness in the Bulgarian economy in general, and in agriculture in particular!
A severe shortage of cereals, with an economic crisis in the background: this is what can aggravate a social situation which is already sufficiently explosive.
The action to which the Commission is invited by Parliament firstly aims to fill the immediate gaps in supplies.
Very good!
As for the impact of the urgent measures recommended in the resolution, we realize that they are well-founded, but they are also transitory.
In a more distant future, Bulgaria will not be able to make the economy of reforms worthy of this name and even bring the country out of economic slump, with its fate of exclusions and social destitution.
Zaire
Mr President, the situation in Zaire has hotted up somewhat due to the violent confrontation between the Zairean army and the Banyamulenge militias.
As you know, all manner of different refugee groups, both Tutsis and Hutus, are in Zaire in the most miserable of circumstances.
Things have reached such a point that the United Nations and international aid agencies have decided on a partial suspension of their aid.
So it is vital to find ways of ensuring that humanitarian aid gets through to the refugees in Zaire who after all are not there for the fun of it.
I would ask the European Commission to do everything in its power to ensure that the Zairean Government meets its obligations towards the refugees and that those refugees receive help.
Of course we in Europe must also seek ways of getting humanitarian aid to these refugees.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it has already been said repeatedly in this House that the problem of the Rwandan refugees within Zairean territory has to be resolved if we want to avoid a serious conflict.
We have now reached that point.
The situation is very worrying. Mrs van Dijk has just made that point.
At the end of September, the motion for a resolution alludes to it, there was a confrontation between army units of Rwanda and Zaire, humanitarian food aid is being blocked in a bid to starve the population and a serious threat hangs over this region, not least because of the level of tension apparent in the last few weeks in Zaire.
Now is the time for a major initiative of preventive diplomacy, if there was ever a right time then it is now.
For the benefit of Mr Kouchner who has already argued convincingly in favour of preventive diplomacy, I would say that it is now or never.
Until such time as the refugee problem has been resolved the international community should insist that army units, whether from Zaire, Rwanda or anywhere else, should be banned from the territory of Kivu province.
Because otherwise there would be no end to the conflict and we would have a bloodbath with enormous tribal repercussions.
We cannot at the present time predict how far this conflict may spread and what may happen.
We like the draft put down by Mrs Aelvoet on behalf of the Greens.
But we think it is rather too short, I would say rather too mild, at this precise and dramatic juncture.
This is why we tried, unfortunately too late, to liaise with the various groups.
It transpired that Mrs Aelvoet was ill, and so was unable to be here either yesterday or today.
But these contacts produced a small text, a brief paragraph.
We now have signatures from all the groups, I say again from all the groups here, to the effect that this should be added as an oral amendment when we come to vote, to give the resolution a lot more force, a lot more muscle, if you like.
I will say it again. The text has been signed by members of all the groups.
If that text is now approved we will, we think, have a very good text.
That is not to say that we should not, in a few weeks' time, as part of our discussion of the position of countries in the Great Lakes Region, hold an in-depth debate on the subject.
But just for now, since we want to make our wishes known, we need a text which will be taken note of by the Commission, the Council and, I repeat, the international community and one which may perhaps save hundreds of lives.
Let me read it out to you. It was drafted in French for easier consideration by the various groups.
It goes like this:
'request that a final attempt at preventive diplomacy be made and, if necessary, request that the international community do everything to prevent the presence of military forces on Kivu territory.
Pending a solution to the refugee problem, the territory will be placed under the authority of the United Nations.'
(NL) I repeat, all the groups have put their names to this.
If we could accept this as an oral amendment we could vote on it.
I repeat, it may have a considerable influence.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union must be concerned at what is happening in the area of the Great Lakes.
The violent clashes of last September between the Rwandan and Zairean armies, the clashes between the Tutsi Banyamulenge militias of Zairean origin and the Zairean army itself and the heightened tension that exists in Rwanda and Burundi leave me greatly concerned for the future.
The deep-seated instability that prevails in the region of the Great Lakes makes the situation delicate and worrying because there is a risk of more general war.
The some 250, 000 refugees who have taken refuge in eastern Zaire, and more precisely in the region of Ulvira, have been left totally isolated because the staff of the international humanitarian relief organizations have left the zone for safety reasons and the voluntary repatriation programmes have collapsed because of the tensions that still exist in the region and mean that the people cannot have confidence in the local authorities or in the sudden re-establishment of a civilian status quo that respects human rights and democracy.
We must put pressure on the Zairean government and on neighbouring countries to protect the refugees, and the whole of the international community should mobilize so that the fate of those people is not merely a concern expressed in words and demagogy but finds expression and takes the form of specific action, working alongside the Organization for African Unity.
I agree completely with Mr Tindemans when he said that we need to make every effort to bring into effect preventive diplomacy so that we finally achieve a peace process which we all hope will safeguard fundamental freedoms and human rights.
Mr President, it has been said, that for some days an explosive situation has prevailed in north Kivu.
The ethnic battles that have steeped this region in blood have thrown a human tide of 250, 000 refugees onto the roads.
In less than one week, the twelve refugee camps of Uvira have been emptied.
The few humanitarian NGOs still on site have recorded 78 civilians killed in the confrontations between the Zairean army and the Banyamulenge, who are Tutsis of Rwandan origin, established for generations in Zaire.
Time is pressing, as the battles have extended to all the border provinces of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.
This is why we are asking the Commission to examine, with the countries in the region, the creation of corridors for the transport of humanitarian aid to the refugees: unfortunately there are only, alas, three days' supplies left.
We have learned today that Belgium would agree to adopt a role to facilitate negotiations between Zaire and Rwanda.
In this respect, Kengo Wadondo is expected to meet General Kagamé shortly in Brussels to avoid, if possible, a further blood bath in Zaire and a humanitarian disaster throughout the region.
I naturally support Mr Tindemans' proposal.
Mr President, I want to speak along the same lines as Mr Tindemans. There is no doubt that the crisis that has broken in Kivu in the last few days - or rather the worsening of the crisis - will only be finally solved if the United Nations, with the support of the European Union, for example, can find an overall solution for the Great Lakes region in the context of an international conference and that has not yet been set up.
Obviously the European Commission must keep trying.
It must seek the best ways of getting humanitarian aid to the refugees there so that it is not snatched from their hands by the Zairean army to be used as a kind of food weapon, as has happened on too many occasions.
But I also want to say that it is impossible to forget who is governing Zaire during this crisis: General Mobuto, who is not exactly a democrat and who is trying to use the worsening of this crisis to cover himself with glory again in his own country and keep himself in power for many years to come.
And we obviously cannot forget that certain European countries, particularly France, are giving diplomatic support to keep General Mobuto in power in Zaire.
In this respect I naturally want to support the initiatives that have already been taken.
Croatia
Mr President, criticism is permissible in any democracy.
This fundamental principle appears not to apply in Croatia.
Yet Croatia was recently admitted to membership of the Council of Europe. And that decision is to my mind premature, to say the least.
The Council of Europe should at least have waited until the country had satisfied the requirements which the Council itself had set earlier this year.
The curtailment of media freedom is another reason which ought to have precluded Croatia from being admitted.
Because the situation in Croatia is far from democratic.
A new defamation law does more than just place the President and four top state officials above criticism. It is also an instrument which will make life very difficult for the independent press.
There are numerous trials in progress against the free media, whose economic survival is thus threatened.
A lot of studies by influential organizations also say that Croatia is violating the Dayton Agreement in many respects.
Blockades are put up to halt the return of refugees and there are numerous reports of looting, arson, murder and harassment of Croatian Serbs.
By its actions, Croatia is also undermining the peace process in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
This new member of the Council of Europe must be expected and required to comply with the terms of Dayton and show respect for democracy and human rights.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-1129/96 by Mrs Hoff and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-1144/96 by Mr Boogerd-Quaak and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-1177/96 by Mr Robles Piquer and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the referendum on plenipotentiary powers for the President of Belarus; -B4-1191/96 by Mrs Schroedter and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the danger of an authoritarian regime in Belarus; -B4-1197/96 by Mr Pettinari and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the political situation in Belarus.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have before us a joint motion for a resolution which, I believe, reflects our concern about the political and social situation in Belarus in a most comprehensible form.
Incidentally, if I may make a brief comment, the Greens are not in it. They are not mentioned, but they were present during the discussions and endorse the motion for a resolution in its present form.
Belarus finds itself in a difficult economic, political and social situation.
The main cause lies in the absence of a credible reform policy.
In Belarus we have a president who does not understand the signs of the times, who wants to leads Belarus back into a structural conservatism that no longer exists and I hope will never again exist in that form, by government control of industry and banking, by intervening in the democratic constitutional system, by questioning national independence and by restricting freedom of opinion, freedom of the press and the rights of the unions.
We know that nearly all the forces in Belarus are in favour of the partnership and cooperation agreement and of the interim agreement with the European Union, with a view to obtaining a stable contractual framework for their economic activity and their general relations with the European Union.
We definitely welcome that and greatly regret that in the joint resolution we finally decided to request that for the time being Parliament does not welcome or sign the interim agreement but should call for a postponement.
For the rest, Belarus does not have to decide between Europe and Russia, as people keep saying.
But it must at last formulate a direct and open policy and it must make it clear what it wants.
We have bilateral agreements in many forms and we take that as a matter of course, but the wishes of the people must be respected.
The Socialist Group, as I pointed out, regrets the fact that we cannot agree to the interim agreement at the moment in its present form.
But we are very much in favour of it.
And we definitely welcome the fact that the government is prepared to recognize the importance of safeguarding the entire spectrum of human rights.
There are indications that it is doing so, but as I keep having to repeat, they are only indications and they are not clear enough.
We need more specific signs and we need clearer evidence that the Belarus Government does indeed want to establish a free and more democratic society.
At present there are indications that the referendum will be held on 24 November and we know that there were some conflicts beforehand.
Mr Lukashenko, the President of Belarus, pleaded for it to be held on 7 November.
We are very pleased to see these indications, but of course as they stand they are not sufficient and we would like to wait for the referendum in order to see clearer indications, simply so that the European Parliament can take a more definite decision, so that we can support the interim agreement and, at a later date, also the partnership and cooperation agreement.
We are very alarmed by the serious constitutional crisis in Belarus, Mr President.
President Lukashenko is increasingly showing himself to be an authoritarian leader who pays scant regard for democratic rules of press freedom, freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.
The tensions caused by the holding of two conflicting referenda have fortunately been resolved, at least it seems so.
Agreement has been reached between president and parliament that just one referendum will be held.
This seems to me a good thing.
We shall, however, have to remain extremely vigilant as regards the question asked in that referendum.
We ought also to ensure that the circumstances in which referendum is held on 24 November are as democratic as possible.
This, Mr President, requires that president and parliament should be committed to democracy and human rights.
There must be free access to the media.
Freedom of assembly must be guaranteed, otherwise I think one cannot possibly talk of a democratic referendum.
Mr President, I agree with the previous speaker; unfortunately it is easy to see in the case of Belarus what the legacy of the Soviet Union still means today.
But at the moment this state, in which there are certainly also democrats who are trying to set up a free democracy there, is indeed suffering under the Lukashenko government, under an authoritarian and truly repressive form of government, as stated in the resolution.
We know what efforts the opposition is making and we call on the president genuinely to abandon his previous position and to tackle the necessary democratic and economic reforms, as well as respecting freedom of the press, the rule of law and human rights.
I agree with my colleagues: we would like to have the cooperation agreement but we also have to be consistent now about the policy we in this Parliament keep reminding the Council and the Commission to pursue.
For the point is that we must indeed apply the requirement we inscribe in the human rights and democracy clauses of the Treaties.
And unfortunately we must also do so in this case, which is why my group will support the conclusion set out in this resolution, namely that at the moment we will not take any further steps and will wait and see whether the Belarus authorities decide on a change of course.
Then I am sure we will be glad to sign and also to implement a cooperation agreement with the democratic forces in Belarus, as we are trying to do with the other reform states.
Thank you, Mr President.
Once again Belarus is on the urgent debate agenda.
In fact that reflects the dramatic worsening of the situation in this country.
President Lukashenko is systematically dividing the inhabitants of that country by suppressing any signs of opposition.
By constantly increasing his personal power he is trying to conceal his own inactivity in the transformation process.
After trying to stifle the opposition press and banning the unions and also making various attempts to exert pressure on the constitutional court, in August the president began to attack the constitution itself and now wants to transfer legislative power to himself by referendum.
The parliament is standing up to this massive attack on its existence by applying a perfect counter-strategy and using the many opportunities inherent in its democratic rules of play.
I take my hat off to this young parliament!
By summoning the union assembly of non-elected representatives last week, Lukashenko launched a frontal attack on the elected parliament, but it failed!
Nobody wants civil war in Belarus, but the country's problems cannot be resolved by a presidential dictatorship either.
The democratic forces in the country are courageous and in spite of all the attacks they are not allowing themselves to be diverted from their endeavours to bring about a democratic process of reform.
But they do not have the slightest chance of spreading their ideas throughout the country.
The parliament does not even have the chance to appear on television for the referendum.
That would be the least one could expect in any kind of democratic referendum!
The fact that we are suspending the agreement procedures does not mean that we want to isolate Belarus.
Rather, it is our last chance finally to ensure the success of the democratic forces and see an end to the old structures of the Soviet system.
I would like to send out greetings from here to all the people in Belarus who are fighting selflessly for democratic reforms and once again to express our feelings of solidarity.
At the same time I call on President Lukashenko finally to give up his lust for power and to restore freedom of the press and critical opposition in order to promote the process of transformation.
Mr President, our group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, is immensely concerned about the development of the political situation in Belarus.
We are aware that the western world shares overall responsibility for the worsening of the crisis that many of these countries are suffering.
However, we think the European Union can and must pursue a firm policy towards these countries and specifically towards Belarus.
This European policy must be based on three principles: first, demanding full recognition of democratic rights - namely, referendums, elections and freedom to join a trade union; secondly, economic and social aid and strategic collaboration in the solution of inherited problems; thirdly, stepping up the mechanism of association with the European Union, linked to the democratic freedoms, as a positive stake on a Europe of freedom and democracy in the 21st Century.
Mr President, as in many other republics of the former Soviet Union the process of reform in Belarus is proving difficult.
President Lukashenko's authoritarian style of government gives cause for alarm.
The main problem is not his wish to strengthen the power of the president by means of constitutional change to be put to the people in a referendum.
Western countries too have strong presidential systems.
The cause for concern is Lukashenko's desire to increase his power at the expense of parliament and the Constitutional Court and that he is thus violating the principle of checks and balances.
The President of Belarus has also curtailed press freedom and freedom of expression.
Lukashenko has isolated Belarus by his unilateral focus on Russia and his conservative economic policy.
He was unable, because of the costs of reintegration, to win over Russia to his cause, but at the same time he kept the West at arm's length.
And this at a time when the country's great economic problems cry out for support from other countries and international lenders.
The difficult question facing the European Union is how to react to these developments.
Further isolation of Belarus and destabilization of the region must be avoided.
At the same time it has to be made clear to Belarus that the constitutional developments there are causing concern and that its ties with the European Union can only be expended if the fundamental principles of democracy and the rule of law are upheld.
And that was quite properly the thrust of what Commissioner van den Broek told the foreign minister of Belarus when they met on the occasion of the recent General Assembly of the United Nations.
Although we appreciate that Parliament has in the past approved agreements between the Union and countries in which the rule of law functioned only imperfectly, we think that the various agreements between the Union and Belarus ought not to be ratified for the time being.
A principal criterion for us in this is not so much whether developments in a country proceed fast or slowly, but whether, despite existing imperfections, they are proceeding along the right lines.
That cannot be said of developments in Belarus at present.
We shall thus support the joint resolution.
Mr President, the Commission fully shares the concern of Parliament on the situation in Belarus where violations of human rights, the legal State and democracy have multiplied.
The most recent information in the possession of the Commission on the date of the constitutional referendum decided by President Lukashenko shows a compromise reached between the Belarus government and parliament.
The date of this referendum has been postponed from the 7th to the 24th November, as wished by parliament.
Progress has also been made, especially by the creation of a joint committee between government and parliament to examine the content of the questions submitted for referendum.
The latest steps by the European Union and the recent meeting between President Elstine and President Loukachenko have most probably played a positive role.
If these new developments are confirmed, the situation in Belarus could improve.
The European Commission is making sure to monitor the daily situation in Belarus and, naturally, it will inform the appropriate committees of the European Parliament of any new developments in the situation.
The partnership and cooperation agreement and the interim agreement signed by the European Union with Belarus will only be ratified when the House has issued a concurring opinion for the former and a simple assent for the latter.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at the end of the debate.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-1145/96 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the ban on anti-personnel mines; -B4-1153/96 by Mr Macartney and Mrs Taubira-Delannon, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the Ottawa Conference on anti-personnel mines; -B4-1175/96 by Mr Oostlander and Mr Fabra Vallés, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the Ottawa Conference on the banning of landmines; -B4-1198/96 by Mr Piquet and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, on the failure of the Ottawa Conference on anti-personnel mines.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is years since the European Parliament started its initiatives, hearings, reports and actions in a campaign to halt the hidden terror of anti-personnel mines, which are not so much anti-personnel as 'anti-people' .
There are 100 million and more of them on the planet and every year there are two million new ones.
Two weeks ago a strategy conference was held in Ottawa at the instigation and invitation of the Canadian Government.
It was attended by 50 countries, keen to sign a treaty to ban these antipeople mines altogether.
Twenty five observers were also present, more than 80 NGOs, the Red Cross, you name it.
This resolution talks of a failed conference.
I find that regrettable because it was not a failure.
It was a conference on strategy.
The strategy was this, that the efforts of those present culminated in a decision to hold a second Ottawa conference in Brussels, in June of next year, to prepare the ground for a treaty banning land-mines, not in the year 2001 but in December 1997.
This report, brought to us by the Canadian foreign minister, was warmly welcomed.
I hope that the Commission, which though not sufficiently energetic was nevertheless energetic enough to announce a joint measure prior to the start of this Ottawa conference, will in any event show the necessary will to get all 15 Member States to speak with a single voice so that there is not one of the 15 Member States reluctant to sign the treaty banning these anti-personnel mines.
Mr President, we debate these subjects under the general heading of urgencies and some people would argue that land mines are not exactly an urgent problem because they will be with us for many years.
I take the opposite view because, for somebody who goes out to the fields in Mozambique or goes outside the village in Cambodia, it is an urgent matter of survival.
Will they survive that day?
That is why the initiative, which has been taken by a cross-party group, including Mr Bertens who has just spoken and people from every group in this Parliament, is so important. We have been giving moral leadership to the European Union to say there must be a complete ban on land mines.
It has to have the same sort of force as the crusade against nuclear weapons.
We cannot live with land mines because they destroy and maim in the most horrible fashion the innocent civilians they target.
I have great pleasure in supporting this resolution.
Mr President, the European Parliament and the Group of the European People's Party are committed to achieving a legally binding international agreement to ban anti-personnel mines.
This ban should cover production, storage, transfer, sale and export, as well as the use of such weapons, of course.
The fact is that in practice anti-personnel mines primarily affect the civilian population.
Regrettably that has been demonstrated in Angola, Cambodia and Mozambique.
And we are conscious that even assuming total and immediate prohibition, it would take ten years to clear the millions of mines already deployed on the ground.
The PPE Group wants the European Union and the Member States to make a significant increase in their efforts to clear the mines and help the victims.
Thanks to the initiative of the Canadian government, a meeting took place which led to the Ottawa Conference, another attempt to make progress towards a world ban.
Another unsuccessful attempt, whether Mr Bertens likes it or not.
And that is a heavy responsibility, especially for Russia and China.
The PPE Group is pleased that on 1 October the European Union was able to decide on joint action committing the Union and its Member States to work together for the conclusion of the desired international agreement.
In this context I want to express our willingness to support any initiative by the Union and its Member States with a view to banning such manufacture unilaterally.
Mr President, despite what the honourable Member has said, the Ottawa Conference on anti-personnel mines has been a failure.
It has failed because no agreement was reached on banning the manufacture and use of anti-personnel mines.
A positive step is, however, the new joint action decided upon by the European Council.
On the basis of that joint action, we are awaiting a robust initiative from the European Union to secure the banning of mines.
If it proves not to be possible to obtain the necessary agreement at international level to secure a total ban on the manufacture and use of mines, then the Union should make this issue a precondition in its economic and commercial relations with third countries.
I also consider it a tragic mistake to dwell, and there are many who do so, on the so-called intelligent mines which automatically deactivate themselves after a certain number of years.
I think that the proper goal is to work towards stopping the production of such weapons.
Any lesser objective fails to take account of the gravity of the problem.
Mr President, anti-personnel mines are one of the worst scourges afflicting many regions of the world.
They have proved to be of absolutely no use for the military purposes for which they were designed.
But they are a terrible weapon when it comes to striking at the civilian population, making entire regions uninhabitable and unusable, causing death or disability even decades after they have been laid.
The mines are therefore a terrorist weapon, used against defenceless people; they are not very expensive and are widespread, whereas the removal of mines and mine-clearing is hugely expensive operation, and the political, human and economic costs of their use are intolerable.
Although the Ottawa Conference, held at the beginning of this month, showed that international awareness of this issue is growing, no substantial outcome was able to be achieved.
We have said that it is Russia and China, but other countries too, that are responsible for this situation.
It is therefore necessary that the European Union should launch a political and diplomatic offensive, including on the basis of the 'joint action' adopted on 1 October of this year, designed to secure a total ban on the manufacture, stockpiling, trade in and use of all anti-personnel mines.
And I stress all anti-personnel mines, including therefore the so-called 'intelligent mines' which are not intelligent at all and neither are those who promote their use.
They should be considered on a par with other mines and should therefore be banned too.
But if our strategy is to be credible, we must start by setting a good example and thus proceeding unilaterally, as countries of the European Union, to dismantle the arsenals of mines that exist in Europe and stopping the manufacture of mines, including those not intended for export.
We need then to strengthen international cooperation and direct action for mine-clearance and also to identify measures to assist the victims of mines.
Mr President, the Commission considers that the result of the Ottawa conference is promising.
In fact, the final declaration of this conference invites participants 'to cooperate with a view to concluding, as soon as possible, a legally binding international agreement banning anti-personnel acts' .
It is a very ambitious objective, which will be pursued during the next few months with the active participation of the European Union.
The conference also adopted the 'Agenda for action against anti-personnel landmines' .
This determines the actions to be undertaken at world, national, regional and even sub-regional level.
It was agreed that a follow-up conference would be organized by Belgium, in June 1977, to examine the progress made towards general prohibition.
As you know, the European Union played and active and decisive role at the conference, going way beyond ordinary moral leadership, thanks to the common action adopted on this subject on the 1st October.
This constitutes a global and ambitious platform.
It was very useful to the European Union representatives for influencing the outcome of the conference.
It provided the Union with means of action enabling it to contribute effectively and without discrimination to putting an end to the use of anti-personnel landmines.
This joint action also reinforces the moratorium on exports.
Finally, it strengthens the Union's desire to take part in demining efforts at international level.
In this respect, I would like to remind you of the action taken by the Commission with regard to demining, whether in relation to humanitarian aid or in relation to cooperation with reconstruction and development.
This year, the Commission should allot approximately ECU 22m to demining.
The Commission is grateful to the European Parliament for making, for the first time, in its 1996 budget, a specific heading of ECU 10m allotted to demining.
I should state that these appropriations have mainly been used for financing demining operations in Bosnia.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
That concludes the topical and urgent debate on subjects of major importance.
We will now proceed to the vote.
On Venezuela:
Mr President, you are aware of the terrible tragedy that occurred yesterday in Venezuela with the death of dozens of inmates of a prison.
The circumstances which produced this catastrophe are not clear and nor have those responsible been identified.
Considering that one of the dead was also a Spanish citizen, governments like mine have asked for immediate explanations and for those responsible to be brought to justice.
I ask that the Presidency take note of this because the resolution we are going to pass on Venezuela is obviously not just a matter of urgency, it is also a matter of principle.
Thank you, Mr Carnero.
I am sure the whole house shares your feelings.
I will pass on what you have said to the President of the European Parliament and I recognize that because of the timing of this deeply regrettable catastrophe, it could not be included in this motion for a resolution.
So we must find some way to express the unanimous feeling of this Parliament.
On Zaire:
Mr President, you have indeed listened carefully and understood correctly.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is no airy-fairy initiative.
We read the text of the motion for a resolution put down by the Green Group and we were happy with that text, but it was our belief that in the present dramatic circumstances, and given the risk of outright war between Rwanda and Zaire involving not just skirmishes but the armed forces, that Parliament should propose something rather more concrete, something more forceful.
We tried to contact Mrs Aelvoet who had tabled the resolution but she is ill and we were unable to reach her either yesterday or today.
Then a number of contacts took place and ultimately an amendment was signed, unfortunately an oral amendment since the time limit had passed, by the following Members of this House: Mrs Lalumière, Mr Rocard, Mr Pasty, Mr Lannoye, Mr Bertens, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, Mr Wurtz and myself.
The amendment involves the following two sentences to be added to Paragraph 2a.
We worked with a French text which reads as follows:
'requests that a final attempt at preventive diplomacy' - between you and me, ' preventive diplomacy' is understood in the spirit which has reigned in our Parliament, for example at the time when Mr Kouchner defended this policy -, so to continue 'requests that a final attempt at preventive diplomacy be made and, if necessary, requests that the international community do everything so that the presence of military forces is prohibited on Kivu territory.
Pending a solution to the refugee problem, the territory would be placed under the authority of the United Nations.'
(NL) Ladies and gentlemen, if this can be done it may save hundreds or even thousands of lives.
That is the aim of this oral amendment and I think that Parliament's standing will be enhanced by it.
The Commissioner who is with us today has just told us that yesterday the European Commission set up a unit on Central Africa.
Well, this text could be the first document to be seriously addressed by this European Commission unit.
My thanks in advance.
(Applause)
Many thanks, Mr Tindemans.
Under the rules I have to ask the house if anyone is opposed to your oral amendment.
I do not see any opposition.
Ladies and gentlemen, I therefore propose that you vote on the whole resolution, incorporating Mr Tindemans' oral amendment.
Tourism (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on tourism.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as is clear from all the reports, tourism is indisputably not only one of the most important economic branches of the European Union but also offers a great potential for the creation of new jobs.
So it is absolutely incomprehensible why tourism is not specifically mentioned in the Treaty.
It is impossible to understand why countries whose prosperity also depends largely on tourism, such as Austria, for instance, or at least the current Austrian Government, are against the creation of a legal base for this sector.
Of course the principle of subsidiarity is not disputed in this particular case.
If we took industrial policy in the specific sense of Article 130 as our guide, which would seem appropriate and sensible, that would help dispel any doubts, for that Article does not infringe the principle of subsidiarity nor does it imply any major financial commitments.
By using this article we would be sure of being able to tackle the question of tourism globally, at European level, without infringing the principle of subsidiarity, as in the case of industry.
When we remember that the coal and steel industry still occupies a place of its own in the EU Treaty, although relatively fewer people are now employed in it, it really is absurd that tourism, which is so important to the future of Europe, should be underestimated to such an extent.
The right approach would be to be to take as a basis programmes such as those developed by industrial policy in order to make industry more competitive.
European tourism needs massive support in relation both to the development of supply and to joint marketing.
Anyone who wants to make cuts even to a well-meant but more than modest programme such as PHILOXENIA is obviously still unaware of the economic and social importance of tourism.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to start by supporting what was said in the tourism debate - interrupted, unfortunately, at one o'clock.
It would be tedious to repeat what other colleagues have already said, although I do want to mention that I find it difficult to fathom the European Commission's failure to include in its original text Parliament's request, twice approved by a majority, in the December 1994 and February 1996 plenaries, to promote the creation of a European Tourist Agency - necessary from every point of view.
The Members of Parliament across the whole spectrum therefore present that request again, Commissioner.
As there is a democratic difficulty about justifying such a deaf ear to the repeated request of this Parliament, the Commission is offering a tourism research and documentation centre in exchange and admits in the seventh amendment the importance of a European tourism policy which does not give rise to more bureaucracy, regulations, and so on, thus subliminally contributing to wrecking said agency.
This has led us - myself and other colleagues from various groups across the parliamentary spectrum, as I said just now - to present Amendment No 28, resubmitting to this Parliament the development and implementation of that agency.
We trust the Commission will listen this time, given its new composition (the point is easy to hear in the Balearic key, so the good people of Menorca will appreciate it).
Having emphasized that point, it only remains for me to congratulate the rapporteurs, and especially Mrs Bennasar, for these very positive reports which reaffirm the need to establish and define a new Community tourism policy now that we have managed to obtain a little money, Mr President.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are fully in favour of the first multiannual programme to assist European tourism 'Philoxenia' , and feel that the timely and judicious amendments tabled by Mrs Bennasar Tous should be introduced into it.
Tourism of European interest must be given greater support by the European Union and win all of the enthusiasm of Community countries, given the positive effect which it produces, especially on jobs and by disseminating the very social and cultural values which Europe wishes to promulgate.
However, so far we have not really done enough to take advantage of Europe's enormous tourist potential, whichever aspect we take.
Everything must therefore be done to promote more tourists in Europe, whether from within the Community or third countries, and we should therefore add to our knowledge in the area of tourism, improve legislative and financial frameworks and raise the quality of tourism, making sure that respect for the environment prevails and tourists' security is considered.
I should also mention the overriding need for budgetary cover and efforts to cover actions which fall within this programme's scope.
Of those actions we should emphasise those which are of trans-national or trans-regional character, which call for cooperation between Member States or regions, which above all require a significant improvement in quality, regularity and transport costs.
Examples of this cooperation, Mr President, are joint projects between Portugal and Spain, aimed at giving better publicity to large numbers of cultural events which take place in the Iberian Peninsula, or between Madeira, the Azores and the Canary Islands, to increase knowledge of the natural and cultural heritage resources of the biogeographical region of Macaronesia.
From this point of view, we are also pleased that it should have been pointed out with great emphasis in the Bennasar Tous report that tourism is of growing importance for the less developed and the ultra-peripheral island regions, enabling them to receive special or priority treatment, even the adoption of proper economic and taxation measures designed to help the tourist sector.
Mr President, coming from a tourist area myself, one of the things I want to emphasize is that although tourism can be of great importance to the local economy, particularly to small and medium-sized enterprises, it has to be carried out in the right way.
There are many examples of the peaking of tourism over a small number of months leading to increased environmental damage and strains on infrastructure in certain countries.
That makes it necessary for any tourist plan to have tourism that operates throughout the year.
Otherwise you have a situation of seasonal employment, low wages, low security in jobs.
There are all those areas that have to be taken into consideration and not least - as has already been mentioned in the previous speech - the environment.
But a particular thing I want to come back to this afternoon is a point that I was very interested to read about in the Commission's report on Community measures affecting tourism and that is the health and physical safety of tourists.
I note that on page 34 of the English version it emphasizes fire safety in hotels, and presumably in hostels as well.
As was mentioned in Question Time to the Commission, I have constituents whose daughter was attacked and murdered in a youth hostel earlier this year.
I feel very strongly that it is now even more in the remit of Europe to ensure that, with increased travel, particularly by young people, we take responsibility to care for their safety and security.
That needs to be taken into consideration in all Commission actions for the future.
Mr President, in addition to being an important engine for economic growth, tourism, by virtue of the cultural exchange and solidarity between peoples that it engenders, is a very important social and cultural activity.
That multi-dimensional character of tourism should make it the focus of unwavering attention and wide-ranging support in Community policy.
But the question is: how can the genuinely ambitious Philoxenia programme be supported by the meagre allocations for tourism in the Community budget? The Commissioner's endeavours are very laudable, but holding this debate now is akin to closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, since just a short while ago the 1997 budget was adopted and the support that it gives to tourism is enough to make one weep.
Mr President, there is a need to identify and develop solutions to special problems in the sector, such as the seasonal character of tourism, investment security and the requirements to cater for special categories of tourist and to promote tourism of various types.
In parallel with that, a central position in tourism policy must be accorded to the protection of employees, support for SMEs, health and safety and protection of the environment.
Mr President, the European Parliament has always worked for the creation of specific policies for tourism.
Back in the 1993 Green Paper, on the issue of the role of the Union in the tourist sector, the Commission invited Parliament to provide for the inclusion into the draft Treaty of a specific chapter on tourism, furnishing it with a legal basis which, while respecting the principle of subsidiarity also makes it possible for the Commission to take supplementary measures.
The Philoxenia proposal has four objectives.
The first is to develop information on Community tourism, drawing on the most diverse sources, with the specific aim of establishing its effect on European legislation. The second is to improve the legislative and financial bases of Community tourism, by strengthening the cooperation between the Member States, the industry and private individuals.
The third is quantitatively to expand European tourism, by removing the obstacles to any development.
And the fourth is to increase the interest and numbers of visitors from third countries.
We have to endorse this and therefore applaud the attempt to devise a consistent framework encompassing the issues of tourism as well as the determination shown by the Commission to integrate the tourist element into other Community policies.
From that point of view, we also consider the rapporteur's amendments to be of interest, particularly the one providing for the inclusion of small- and medium-sized tourist enterprises into the third multiannual programme for Community SMEs.
Mr President, it was a happy coincidence that the debate on tourism on today's agenda should have taken place at this time because, by voting overwhelmingly this morning for Community funding for actions in the tourism sector, the European Parliament has defeated those who do not believe in a Community tourism policy and has cast a vote of confidence in the political action of Commissioner Papoutsis. Having taken over an administration suffering a lack of confidence, he is now showing signs of a new dynamic, involvement and determination.
There was a time in the past when we were assessing, for example, the plan for Community action for 1993-1995 and looking towards the future and talking about the Philoxenia multiannual programme.
After all, speaking about tourism means, above anything else, speaking about jobs, 6, 5 % of the European Union's GDP and more than 9 million direct jobs and 1.2 million tour companies, most of which are very small.
An industry which worldwide, in the year 2006, in other words in ten years' time, will account for 385 million direct and indirect jobs and already today provides more than 250 million direct and indirect jobs.
Speaking of tourism means in particular sustainable development, respect for the environment, the cultural heritage and wildlife of the European regions; it also means integrating a policy of consumer protection into trade.
Because tourism, environment and consumers are three corners of the same triangle and they cannot be separated.
The stance taken by the European Parliament is a position which calls for our support.
Re-orientating the tourist industry towards a perspective of sustainability, linking tourism, environment and consumers, and integrating small and medium-sized undertakings, are all positive steps in the right direction which all deserve emphasis.
I would also like to end on one idea.
Only the existence of a legal basis included in the Treaty on the Union will, in the end, enable us to pursue and extend a European tourism policy.
Mr President, I think the Commissioner probably recognizes the fact that across the floor of this House there is a great deal of support for the development of tourism at European level.
The Commissioner has done a great deal to try to assist Members in this House in making that happen.
We can agree on most things right across the floor of this House except perhaps on the matter of a tourism agency which rears its head from time to time.
I am sure the Commissioner is aware that the trade itself is not particularly comfortable with the idea of developing such an agency.
The other problem is that we recognize the fact that the Member State governments do not actually want the European Community as such to take on a great role in this area.
That makes me work all the harder to try and make sure that we can do something at Community level.
I would hope that, in the simple steps we are taking at the beginning with the Philoxenia programme, we must recognize that this is only the start of the long road we have to travel if we are to achieve something for the tourism industry as such.
As has been pointed out by many speakers this morning and this afternoon, it is going to be a long haul actually to get more jobs, etc, etc. in the industry and make people recognize tourism as an industry as such.
However, it is also necessary for the Commissioner to strive in the Commission to ensure that we get proper coordination of all matters that affect tourism.
I regret greatly the fact that the structural funds are dispensed by regional committees and regional departments of the Commission rather than the tourism department, DG XXIII.
I hope the Commissioner will step up his resolve within the Commission to try and achieve that for the industry.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the main subject of the Bennasar Tous report might make a significant contribution so that, in the near future, we can define, once and for all, a genuine European tourism policy.
It is our hope and our desire.
Since this industry must be a sector on its own, with its own common policy, we must improve the legislative and financial framework and strengthen the vital interlinks with other programmes, initiatives and policies which the Community might contribute to developing tourism.
Competitive and quality tourism must certainly contribute to the achievement of the Community's objectives, in particular creating jobs, strengthening economic and social cohesion and promoting the European identity.
The report agrees with and accepts basically the fundamental material in the Commission programme, but many of the amendments proposed in it will add to and enrich it.
I would like to emphasise the amendment which will make the ultra-peripheral and island regions the main beneficiaries of measures aimed at growth and economic and social cohesion in this multiannual programme.
In this way, once again, we are seeing a concern and a laudable spirit of solidarity which should always be shown to the most heavily penalised regions of the European Union.
I would also like to point out, in respect of the environment, the effort to base tourist development on the criteria of sustainability and maintaining and enhancing the cultural and historical heritage, which have always been priority objectives and the subjects of much involvement in many of the ultra-peripheral and island regions of the European Union.
That is why they undoubtedly deserve the European Union's support.
The Bennasar Tous report as a whole deserves our appreciation and our agreement.
Mr President, since at the beginning of the 21st century tourism is going to be the biggest sector of activity worldwide and since it is going to be the biggest industry in Europe, contributing directly with 3.5 % of the GDP and employing around 9 million people, the proposal for a Council Decision on the first multiannual programme to assist European tourism sets the tone for the need to pay greater attention to measures designed to revive tourism based on the criteria of sustainability, environment-friendliness and consumer rights.
The ultra-peripheral regions, in particular the autonomous region of Madeira, which has for a long time been wellknown as a high quality tourist destination, sees in tourism a very long-term source of income since:
its main policy is based on the environment, natural resources, the architectural heritage and traditional customs; -it ensures the competitiveness of the tourist industry in a system of open markets, promoting intra-Community tourism, thereby enabling people to find out more about Europe and strengthen the identity of European citizens; -it supports the development of small and medium tourist industries in order to improve the quality of tourism and promote jobs; -it favours measures aimed at bringing down any obstacles preventing access to tourism by various groups of the community, in particular the young, the aged and the disabled.I would like to emphasise the recent measures taken by the Portuguese government to reduce air transport tariffs for the autonomous regions.
Although it is not enough it is a first step at facilitating domestic tourism, and is all part of bringing down the obstacles which currently exist in this sector.
Mr President, my compliments to the rapporteurs on their reports and my thanks to them, particularly Mr Bennasar Tous, for their continuing efforts.
When the Council of Ministers discusses Philoxenia shortly it will have a clear position before it on the table from the European Parliament.
Secondly, the terrible events in Belgium have caused attention to be focused currently on sex tourism.
Although of course it is a minority who are involved, there is every reason to work energetically to stop this abomination.
According to one press report, one in five tourists who visit Sri Lanka do so for paedophile sex.
That is alleged in a UNICEF report published this week.
The majority of sex tourists supposedly come from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy.
According to UNICEF.
Will the Commissioner investigate this and come up with concrete proposals to thwart these vile people, with the cooperation of the bona fide tour operators?
Thirdly, I do not need to convince anyone here of the great importance of tourism.
The question is how we can get tourism moved higher up the European political agenda.
We managed this morning to retain the budget line for tourism, but it was not easy.
But that is not the end of it.
It is important to get tourism covered by the Treaty.
Parliament has spoken out in favour of this strongly on a number of occasions.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if he is prepared to consider a programme of action to give tourism the place it deserves in European policies and also in the structure of the European Commission.
Subject to the subsidiarity principle, of course.
He can count on our support in that.
Lastly I should like to ask the Commissioner if he will, as far as possible, get the investigations of financial malpractice within DG XXIII completed as speedily as possible, because that puts a damper on tourism policy.
Mr President, the three reports on tourism once again force us to ask what place tourism should occupy within the common policies of the Union.
The aim in asking Price Waterhouse to conduct an evaluation of the first European action plan to assist tourism was not of course to provide an answer to this question.
But the sharp criticisms of the action plan in recent years undoubtedly offer some valuable pointers.
To take just two points of criticism: there is no coherence in the measures taken and the objectives are far too ambitious.
The Harrison reports falls down in virtually ignoring these criticisms.
In this report we once again see precisely the kind of over-ambitious objectives which Price Waterhouse criticizes.
The same is really true of the Bennasar Tous and Parodi reports.
Here too there are lofty ambitions and for the umpteenth time the argument that tourism should have a full place in the Treaty.
Unlike many of my colleagues I cannot endorse these positions.
For the sake of clarity I would stress that I am every bit as convinced as the rapporteurs of the great social and economic significance of tourism, particularly for jobs.
But that is far from proving that there is a need for a comprehensive European policy on tourism.
An opinion on the Philoxenia programme from the Committee on Budgets also points to the decentralized structure of this sector.
There is certainly a role for the European Union here, but a modest role.
I do not disagree with the rapporteurs on the importance of tourism, but much as I respect all the work they have done, I cannot share their views of the extensive responsibilities they think the Union ought to have in this area.
And I fully appreciate the Council's reticence.
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Community railways
The next item is the report (A4-0293/96) by Mr Farthofer, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 91/440/EEC on the development of the Community's railways (COM(95)0337 - C4-0555/95-95/0205(SYN)).
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on a very good piece of work.
I also think that it is sad that the rapporteur is leaving the European Parliament but I hope that we will be able to work together in the future too, just as we have to date, and that we will remain in touch.
The report on which we are now to adopt a position is important, as it concerns future rail transport in the EU.
With the right policy rail transport can become an important instrument in tackling the environment in Europe successfully.
One way of facilitating movement and strengthening rail transport in Europe is the directive which the Commission has put forward and which is aimed at strengthening rail transport.
However, just as the rapporteur has pointed out in the report, any division between track management and service operation must be correctly made.
I come from Sweden, where we have made such a division and we have gained some important experience which I believe we can share in the work to come.
One could say that the division made in Sweden has been very successful.
It has resulted in greater effectiveness. The two operations into which the previous joint operation was divided up now have clearer profiles and objectives.
One important experience gained in Sweden is that the division also solved the financial situation which the State Railways then found itself in, where it had considerable debts.
This is exactly what the rapporteur is saying, that is, that the financial situation must be resolved if we are to be able to create competition on equal terms.
It is important that we have strong railway operators in Europe if, as the rapporteur said earlier, they are to be able to compete with other means of transport.
It is this that is really the important investment in a better environment.
Madam President, railways must play an important part in any sustainable transport system.
We thus need modern railway companies which work as European-minded transport operators.
Healthy competition is both desirable and necessary here.
This Commission proposal is consistent with that and we shall support it.
I sympathize with the rapporteur when he talks about the internalization of external costs, but that naturally applies to all forms of transport and thus to railways too, in all honesty.
Lastly, we shall also be happy to support Mr van der Waal's amendment which seeks primarily to secure honest and transparent charging for the use of infrastructure.
May I end, Madam President, by expressing my sadness at Mr Farthofer's impending departure.
He knows that we do not always agree, but I have always particularly appreciated our discussions with him.
I am really sorry he did not make it, though of course I am not sorry that the political grouping closest to me has gained a seat, but I do think it is a shame he is leaving us.
I wish him the very best of luck and I look forward to thanking him again at the forthcoming meeting of our committee.
All the best to you, Sir.
Madam President, by adopting the Commission's draft amendment of directive 91/440 CEE, the Committee on Transport and Tourism has given the go-ahead to the pursuit of liberalization of rail transport, without dealing with the social and economic consequences.
This Commission draft amendment in fact provides for a considerable increase in rights of access, resulting in fiercer competition.
In the lengthening of the breach opened by the 1991 directive, the Commission has just adopted a White Paper on the revitalization of the railways.
Revitalization!
Well frankly, the profound meaning of the term is really contradicted by the specific measures which accompany it!
In reality, the objective pursued is to speed up the liberalization and de-regulation process - right of access to rail infrastructures for all freight services and international travel services, to set up a European railways authority, and separate the management of the transport infrastructures and activities - which is summarized by the formula 'introduce even more market forces into railways' .
Our group is truly opposed to these ultra-liberal orientations of the Commission.
The offensive which is in progress aims to wind up public companies as they constitute the most efficient poles of resistance to free competition, detrimental to the interest of staff and users.
The Commission is besides obliged to acknowledge that the restructuring of the European railway will go hand in hand with a high number of job losses.
I am glad that this White Paper was blocked at the last Council of Ministers for Transport, thanks to the mobilization of the trade union organizations which, in a joint statement, denounced the particularly evil aspects and confirmed their wish to combat them.
Our group is determined, in liaison with the trade union organizations and user associations, to thwart these orientations.
It wishes to work with everyone in order to attain real measures of revitalization of rail transport, so that the latter can fully assure its mission of providing a public service, in other words responding to the interests of staff and users, contributing to a harmonious arrangement of the territory and encouraging cooperation within the European Union.
Madam President, we as a Group shall not oppose further liberalization of the railways provided the right conditions for that are put in place.
My Group believes that the rapporteur, Mr Farthofer, represents that very well in his report by making it clear that the question of internalizing external costs is to be tackled seriously at last.
I would add, moreover, in contrast to what Mr Cornelissen said, that if you want serious and sustainable mobility the railways might conceivable be given more chances than other forms of transport for the simple reason that the railways have of course always lagged behind and have to work hard to catch up.
And they must be given the chance to do so.
If you are serious about sustainable mobility you will also have to make choices in that area and then you cannot just say that costs have to be internalized and if the railways then collapse in the longer term, well, it was bad luck, because if that happens the environment and sustainability will automatically collapse too.
Given the declining use of the railways we have been seeing for years now it is high time we made sure that more than just lip service is paid to supporting the railways but that vigorous action is taken too in the interests of a sustainable future.
Madam President, the real debate on how railways in the Community should develop is yet to take place following the recent communication from the Commission.
But it is obvious that the railways will have to be geared far better to the needs of the market if they are not to continue losing market share.
Directive 91/440 was introduced with that aim in mind.
Unfortunately the slowness of some Member States in translating this directive into their national legislation meant that there was very little improvement, but the liberalization process has to be progressively carried through.
I am thus able to support the proposed amendment opening up the railways to all freight transport and to international passenger traffic.
The Farthofer report rightly urges Member States to get on with clearing the railways' debts.
I also agree with the desirability of having the various forms of transport internalize the effects of their external costs, though I am not yet confident that this will strengthen the market position of the railways vis à vis the other transport operators.
My warmest thanks to Mr Farthofer.
I am sorry to see this highly respected colleague leaving Parliament and I wish him all the best.
Madam President, I too wish to thank Mr Farthofer and I hope that he will continue in the Austrian parliament the good work he has done in the European Parliament.
The first point to make is that the issues of liberalization are of great concern to us - the directive has a legal basis but it has also to be said that the issue of legality must take account of employment levels and the social aspect.
The Commission's power to legislate on an issue as complicated as the railways is not in dispute but we have also to bear in mind the impact that liberalization will have on the social structure of individual countries.
It is difficult for the railway system to compete with other forms of transport and, as far as we are concerned, we must promote it; the proposal on the calculation of external costs is a positive one.
I also believe it to be very useful to think in terms of specialization of railway systems, in the form of both combined and intermodal transport, as this will make it possible to distinguish between railways of national and those of international interest, and also regional railways which are able to involve local government in company structures involved in railway management.
Of course a structure with public sector characteristics will contain marked elements of bureaucracy; of course there are also inefficiencies, but the railway system has guaranteed mobility, particularly to the less well-off.
We have to bolster competitiveness and also to undertake financial reorganization - failing that, the railway system will be less competitive than other transport systems.
From that point of view, the resources needed for financial reorganization can, it goes without saying, also be private, although private investment cannot be the only kind to be considered.
There has specifically to continue to be a public role within the railway system, on the understanding that the sector is able to manage itself economically and independently, taking into account also the financial calculations and the inevitable inefficiencies. viewed in that way, the directive appears to meet a number of objectives, but in terms of the substance, the debate seems to me still to be open, and a number of contradictions pointed out by Mrs Ainardi are still there.
The trade unions are mobilizing and I hope that, as a result also of debate we shall have on the White Paper, we shall be able to table a more comprehensive proposal than is contained in the directive currently under discussion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's proposal is an important element of our strategy on the restructuring of the Community's railways.
In the White paper of last July we emphasized the importance of introducing market forces in a way which would take account of the special character of rail transport.
The proposal for expansion of access rights is precisely the next step towards the introduction of those market forces.
Our objective is to see access to the rail infrastructure opened up in all goods transport services, internal and international, and in the international passenger transport services.
The Commission is very pleased that Parliament's Committee on Transport approves its proposal, albeit with a number of amendments.
The proposed amendments cover debt reduction, the internalization of external costs, the equalization of tax treatment for all modes of transport and the adoption of common rules on infrastructure usage charges.
The Commission is working busily in all of those areas.
For instance, the White Paper on railway policy puts forward approaches to the questions of debt alleviation and infrastructure usage charges.
In the Green Paper on the law and the efficient determination of transport prices we provided the impetus for a wide-ranging discussion concerning the external cost.
We should not pre-empt the discussion of these two papers.
Moreover, the Commission's proposal is limited to the expansion of infrastructure access rights.
We do not think it right to introduce other policies into what is really a proposal on a very specific matter.
To do so would substantially alter the aims of the proposal and place us in the position of pre-empting other proposals in other areas.
Because of that the Commission is not able to accept many of the amendments, even though it views their objectives as constructive.
I will deal with them one by one.
The first amendment emphasizes the importance of uniform implementation of the directive in order to avoid distortions of competition.
The Commission does, of course agree, and it accepts this amendment.
Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4 and 5 relate to policies on which the Commission is working in another framework: debt alleviation, internalization of the external cost, indirect taxation and infrastructure usage charges.
As I explained earlier, these go beyond the scope of the present proposal and therefore cannot be accepted.
Amendment No 6 stresses the special contribution made by regional rail transport to the internal cohesion of the national economies.
The Commission agrees that serious account must be taken of this factor in the formulation of the policies relating to market access and therefore accepts the amendment.
We are unable to accept Amendment No 7, which is composed of several parts.
The first part states that indebtedness must be significantly reduced by the time the directive is transposed into national law.
Transposition may take a number years, whereas Directive 91/440 imposed 1 January 1993 as the final date for debt alleviation.
In view of that, we consider that including the amendment would constitute a backward step and would possibly lead to legal uncertainty.
The second part of Amendment No 7 demands that the railway undertakings have the customary own capital resources.
While we agree that the railways must, indeed, have adequate capital, the financial experts inform us that talk of customary own capital resources is meaningless.
Consequently, we do not think that the amendment in question clarifies the existing text.
In the third paragraph of this amendment there is a call for the setting-up of a separate debt amortization unit.
I must inform the House that debt amortization units are only one debt reduction mechanism.
Other mechanisms, such as those used in Germany and France, can be equally effective.
That being so, the Commission sees no justification for imposing one specific financial mechanism to the exclusion of others.
Amendment No 8 refers to indirect taxation and interoperability.
Again, these matters go beyond the scope of the proposal that we have before us, and the Commission has already committed itself to submitting a report dealing with each of them.
We cannot admit provisions of that sort to the proposal that we are examining today.
As regards the new amendment, No 9, the Commission is happy to accept it.
Madam President, I know that the rapporteur, Mr Farthofer, worked very hard to achieve a difficult compromise on the report, and I wish to extend sincere thanks to him for that.
I think that his report is an excellent piece of work, even though I have not been able to agree with him on every point.
But as I have already pointed out, we are taking a very positive approach to the issues which underlie the amendments.
Consequently, in leaving the European Parliament to return to his national parliament he can rest assured that his proposals are being examined carefully and taken very seriously.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, I take this opportunity, personally and on behalf of Mr Neil Kinnock, to offer warm regards to Mr Farthofer.
I hope that he has found his brief stay in the European Parliament a beneficial experience and that his expectations, of which I hope he has many for the future, have been met, and I convey our very best wishes to him with regard to the continuation of his political career in his national parliament.
Thank you, Mr Papoutsis.
I too would like to thank you warmly on behalf of Parliament and wish you all the best for your work in your national parliament.
Please do not forget your time with us, but I am sure you will not!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, yesterday an explanation of vote by Mr Dell'Alba was recorded, two aspects of which were not an explanation of vote.
Firstly, it contained personal insults that I must reject, for he accused me of falsifying history, and secondly he called on the President to act contrary to the Rules, namely to delete passages from the explanatory statement in my report.
According to our Rules of Procedure, however, the rapporteur is solely responsible for the content of an explanatory statement.
It can no more be deleted than can passages from a speech.
This could only be done under some kind of Orwellian Ministry of Truth, and the Committee on External Economic Relations has unanimously rejected this notion in a letter to the President.
That has been noted, Mr Posselt.
But we really must get on with approving the Minutes.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Votes
Have you noted, Madam President, that our group abstained because the Farthofer report as such does nothing to change the monopoly situations enjoyed by all the railway companies in the Member States?
In principle it is desirable that there should be a common measure for support for the Philoxenia programme because the tourist industry is an important factor in economic and social development in the Union.
However, after the extremely serious criticism which has been levelled at the Commission and DG XXIII in particular on account of the manner in which previous plans of action have been carried out it is highly important that the resources which have been proposed for the Philoxenia programme and the objectives to be achieved are closely monitored as work progresses.
The aim of the programme is very clear: to create jobs.
The administrative costs of this measure, travel and staff costs, should not exceed what is reasonable.
Very briefly, I am pleased to see that Amendment No 28, which I tabled, has once again been approved in the context of PHILOXENIA.
Commissioner Papoutsis' reply (P-2433/96) also suggested that the European Tourism Agency should by now be starting on its way, or so I hope, and I trust that the Commissioner, as a former Member of Parliament, will be able to champion the views of Parliament and not yield to other opinions or interests......
I shall vote in favour.
I have voted against the reports on tourism as I believe that these issues are not EU issues but areas which should be governed by national policy and intergovernmental cooperation.
Parodi report
If measures in the tourism sector are really to have an impact it is essential that they should gain institutional recognition at Community level.
We do not believe, however, that it is necessary to establish a sub-committee on tourism. Nor is it necessary to create more units in the Commission to be responsible for monitoring the application of the principles of a common tourism policy.
The common budget resources must be used effectively.
A reasonable balance must be found between the effectiveness of the resources to be earmarked and the objectives to be achieved.
This is why the administrative costs, including staff costs, for measures in the tourism sector should not exceed what is reasonable.
I have voted for the report in the final round of voting.
It is important to promote the tourist industry in Europe but this is in the first instance a matter for the respective Member States.
There is no reason to introduce some kind of legal basis for a policy on tourism into the Treaty of Rome.
Nor is there any reason to give numerous mandates to the Commission in order for it to analyse this and that aspect of tourism, such as 'types of tourism' , ' the financing of tourism' etc.
This too should be done at national level and by the respective Member States.
The EU should, however, be able to take on a coordinating role in respect of national, regional and local authorities, the tourist industry and various consumer organisations.
Harrison report
The manner in which the Commission's DG XXIII carried out the previous action plan has been the subject of considerable criticism, especially as regards administrative and operational questions.
This criticism must be taken extremely seriously.
A series of organisational changes must be made in the tourism unit.
If the Philoxenia programme is to ensure the economic and social development intended it is especially important as part of the continued work to monitor closely the resources proposed for DG XXIII.
Protection against certain legislation (Rule 97 of the Rules of Procedure)
The next item is the report ( A4-0329/96) by Mr Kittelmann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0420 - C4-0519/96-96/0217(CNS)) protecting against the effects of the application of certain legislation of certain third countries, and actions based thereon or resulting therefrom.
Madam President, my Group views with satisfaction the proposal for a Council regulation on protection against the effects of extra-territorial legislation.
We are also happy to see that the line taken by the Council was the one approved by this Parliament in its resolution of 24 May, as Mr Kittelmann also pointed out, once it became clear that the United States intended to institute a series of measures designed to restrict, penalize and ultimately to prevent trade with and investment in certain countries by means of two instruments: the Helms-Burton and d'Amato-Kennedy Acts.
From the outset this Parliament, via the REX Committee, considered that these proposals, which were in fact put forward for domestic political reasons, were dangerous to the future of the trade rules signed in Marrakesh, and a politically intolerable challenge.
Without the cover of a multilateral organization, or an international institution such as the United Nations, which in exceptional circumstances may issue resolutions which have an impact on trade, these unilateral measures are unacceptable, as are the arguments which have been used in an attempt to convince us, after the event, of the worthiness of the objectives.
The Commission and the Council have secured the backing of Parliament and of public opinion in the Member States, which have provided them with enormous support in their twin-track approach: on the one hand the regulation on the protection of interests and on the other the application to the World Trade Organization.
Both approaches are right, although the Council, as too often happens, forgot that this Parliament is an important part of Community institutions and its opinion could have been sought in a more timely manner.
Despite this discourtesy, our Group will support the proposal for a regulation, as it supports the application to the World Trade Organization.
We believe that unanimity is essential in this dispute, and, in line with international commitments undertaken, and with an approach entirely different from that of the United States, we believe the World Trade Organization to be the proper forum for settlement of the dispute, since its members include other countries whose interests have also been damaged by the arbitrary nature of these measures.
We acknowledge the role of the United States in the world, but we are not prepared to accept restrictions at the expense of other parties' economic interests, as in this case, without a specific mandate issued in advance by an international organization of which we are members, which might well be, as we have already said, the United Nations.
We congratulate Mr Kittelmann, who has worked with great urgency, and we also trust that this regulation will be unanimously approved, as it will strengthen the position of the European Union in a dispute such as the one we are discussing.
Madam President, the principle of this legislation is supported by the Liberal Group as a proportionate, timely and appropriate response to the ill-judged extra-territorial legislation of the United States.
Given the coincidence of each Member State's separate and collective interests and the role of the Commission in the domain of international trade, this is classically the type of legislation that is more suited to the European Union than a multiplicity of bilateral Member State arrangements.
Collectively we must defend our rights to choose when and how to engage, or isolate, regimes such as those in Cuba, Libya, Iran or elsewhere.
The will of the United States to isolate such states in the defence of democracy is not well-served by the undemocratic arrogation unto themselves of a presumption to act and to choose for all.
The United States has no such right and in no uncertain terms they must be induced, and if needs be, through retaliation such as proposed in this legislation, forced to accept this fact.
In recent days, Madam President, we have been disturbed to read reports that suggest that Denmark may delay the adoption of this legislation on the grounds of a challenge on the legal base.
The legal bases proposed are longstanding and not innovative in themselves.
Custom and practice pending any Supreme Court decision in Denmark would suggest that the status quo should prevail.
I hope this will not delay matters and the Liberal Group fully supports the legislation and the REX Committee's amendments.
Madam President, I believe that in supporting this regulation which protects the interests of companies and the trading interests of the European Union as a whole, Parliament is merely following a tradition which has been producing political and commercial effects since the time of the 1993 Melandri report.
As mentioned in the actual amendments, we are sorry to see that no account was taken of the role of Parliament, and we also deplore the delay in bringing the matter before Parliament.
In addition, we believe that the committee on this matter should be advisory.
As the Committee on Foreign Affairs says, stringent measures have to be taken to counter the unacceptable commercial and political provocation offered by the United States with the HelmsBurton Act and the d'Amato Act, since, as the rapporteur rightly said, this legislation will also have to be used to counter the future d'Amato Act relating to Iran and Libya.
We also support the proposals of the Committee on External Economic Relations, which make the watch list of United States companies and changes in the EU entry procedures for American companies the logical counterpart to the provocation represented by these US Acts.
At all events, I will conclude, Madam President, by saying that in my view this regulation is backed by the European Union's decision to defend the principle of its and other countries' sovereign right to decide with whom they should or should not trade.
Madam President, once again the USA wants to play world legislator and is not keeping to the rules that were agreed in the framework of the WTO.
We cannot let this be done to us.
In the REX Committee all the groups were in agreement on that.
After the Council gave its assent in mid-July, the Commission has now presented a proposal for an anti-blockade regulation.
The REX Committee - and here again all the groups agreed - believes that it would be preferable for measures on the basis of this regulation to be taken by the Commission rather than the Council.
Parliament itself has been calling for this kind of anti-blockade legislation since 1992, since the USA reinforced the blockade against Cuba with the Torricelli Act.
The Council and in particular the German Government have been the main stumbling blocks so far.
Nor did the Commission fall over backwards to act.
Presumably at the time people expected the Cuban business to sort itself out by itself within a few years.
But last year the Cuban economy recovered somewhat and now the USA is tightening the screws of the blockade even further, supposedly in order to promote the spread of democracy.
But that was also how it justified its support for the military coup in Chile and for the Mujahedin in Afghanistan.
Once again the Council and the Commission did not act, did not immediately take the matter before the WTO.
Only when the trade interests of the EU, especially of Germany and France, were seriously affected by the d'Amato Act did frantic activity break out on all sides.
But after the EU has kept quiet for so long, people will no longer believe that it really intends to hit back now.
This anti-blockade legislation is a few years too late.
If European trade interests are suffering now, that is primarily the fault of the national governments, but it is also because of the Commission's failure to act.
After years of inaction on the part of the Union followed by the frantic activity of recent weeks, the attempt by the EU to adopt a common position risks being defeated by Denmark's veto.
I have the fullest understanding for the reservations expressed by Denmark, which does not want to create a precedent for giving the Commission wider general powers with the anti-blockade legislation.
Such matters belong in the intergovernmental conference, which is where they should be resolved by agreement.
But in this specific case we need prompt action, which is why I appeal to all parties concerned to put aside the legal disputes and come to a rapid agreement on this question.
Madam President, although the issue is not to show how other-worldly we are, since the Sierra Madre, since the barbudos , behind their comandante , descended on Havana, things have changed a great deal in Cuba.
We were there with a small parliamentary mission and we met President Castro himself - Carlos Lage was there too, incidentally.
Things have changed, clearly, on the economic front, with the appearance of the paladares , or little restaurants, and the tax reform of 1994.
And it was at that time, when Cuba, despite its problems, was beginning to open up, that we saw the truth of the saying 'what's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh' . The United States reverted to type, with the 'big stick' of Theodore Roosevelt, the Monroe Doctrine, the Bay of Pigs philosophy - arrogance, diktats, unilateral action, embargo!
In other words, the same tactics that were used, with the support of everyone here, against Iraq and the Iraqi people.
In Cuba, the effect was to create united opposition, including the Archbishop of Havana: we met him in June, and he too was against this philosophy of unilateralism, against this philosophy of protectionism, against this philosophy of economic nationalism.
Suddenly we learn that American legislation includes a section 301, a splendid section which enables the United States to impose unilateral sanctions on anyone who inconveniences it.
Suddenly we learn, in this House, that Europe has given way to the multinational Chiquita in the 'banana affair' .
We learn that we were getting ready to give way in the hormone affair, allowing the global extension of American legislation.
And yet all the tax experts know what is going on!
California's behaviour in connection with unitary taxation, which obstructed companies in the United Kingdom and obstructed Péchiney in France, goes back more than fifteen years!
So you see, ladies and gentlemen, the mistake of alignment that was made during the Gulf War.
Over there on the left they forgot, during the Gulf War, the attacks by American fighters on the Mondoa Palace in Santiago de Chile, because the multinational Kenneccott & Braden gave an order for the Chilean Government to be overthrown.
You had forgotten that.
You had forgotten the alignment in the GATT negotiations, on the Blair House agreements.
Well, at least, it's an ill wind.
We are going to start at Singapore in November, we are going to start on the GATT negotiations in 1999.
We have already seen President Clinton pushing through a new agricultural law.
Is Europe going to forget, is the European Parliament going to forget the female spirit he displayed during the Gulf War? Because, if so, we shall avoid finding ourselves, too, subjected to the equivalent of the Amato Law, the equivalent of the Torricelli Law, the equivalent of the Helms-Burton Law!
Thank you, Madam President, when slaves awaken, anything is possible.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is glad that the European Parliament is prepared to invoke the urgency procedure in connection with the Community antiboycott provisions which the Commission proposes to adopt in order to protect European operators from the extraterritorial effects of the American Helms-Burton and d'Amato laws which came into force this year.
The Commission is fully aware of the fact that the European Parliament has on numerous occasions, most recently during its plenary sitting of 24 May 1996, called for such provisions to be adopted.
The Commission believes, like Parliament, that it is now necessary to protect the interests of the Community, its citizens and the undertakings established within its territory against the illegitimate extraterritorial effects of the laws adopted by the United States.
The Community provisions should also be such as to send a clear message to the American administration, and even more so to the American Congress, that the rules of public international law must be respected.
That is the position which the Commission, the Council and the Governments of the Member States have steadfastly defended.
However, the Community's provisions must not be seen as a rejection of the objectives pursued by the United States in its anxiety to bring back democracy to Cuba and to put a stop to the support provided by certain countries to international terrorism.
The European Union still shares these objectives, and the Council has restated its desire to support democratization in Cuba.
On the other hand, it cannot accept that Washington, by making its laws applicable outside its national frontiers, should endeavour to impose its own view regarding the means to be employed in order to achieve shared objectives.
The Commission must also thank Parliament for the constructive amendments that have been proposed.
It undertakes to keep the European Parliament regularly informed, through the competent parliamentary committee, and will ensure, in compliance with the provisions of the Treaty, that the European Parliament is involved as it should be in any follow-up legislation.
The Commission shares the views of the European Parliament regarding the comitology procedure and will pass on those views to the Council during the discussions to be held there.
As far as the Union's objectives regarding Cuba are concerned, it should be recalled that the European Council in Madrid on 14 and 15 December last year adopted the following conclusions. It deemed it appropriate to continue dialogue and cooperation with Cuba with a view to actively supporting the ongoing process of reform, encouraging respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and broadening the scope of private enterprise and the development of civilian society.
To this end, it called upon the Commission to present a draft mandate for an agreement on economic and commercial cooperation in the first half of 1996, which the Council will examine in the light of the developing political and economic situation in Cuba.
Moreover, the European Council in Florence on 21 and 22 June this year adopted the following conclusions: it regretted the fact that political circumstances in Cuba had not enabled any progress to be made in relations between the European Union and our country.
It hopes that the changing political situation in Cuba will create the conditions necessary for such progress to be made.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
After earlier reticence because of the American presidential elections the Commission decided in favour of a tough political response to the trade measures taken by the United States against Cuba.
A formal complain has been lodged with the WTO, but it will be some time before it is dealt with.
A further concrete step we can take at the moment is thus this proposal for a European regulation.
Although we do not accept the extraterritorial validity of the American legislation, this Union measure against our most important ally is painful.
Especially since like the United States we deplore the ruling dictatorship in Cuba.
The European legislation proposed by the Commission is far-reaching.
The ban on recognizing and complying with rulings by the American judge encroaches on the law of Member States.
Moreover, it also makes it possible for American damage claims to be removed from the jurisdiction of any judge in the Member States.
These measures will mean a far-reaching transfer of sovereignty.
The question for us is thus whether there is a sufficient basis for community action under Articles 113 and 235 of the Treaty.
Would it not be more correct, legally speaking, to place the measures under the third pillar and act at an intergovernmental level? Among other things to avoid the risk of judgments being subsequently declared void and challenged?
And we do not think the regulation is formulated clearly in every respect and we think there are also a lot of legal details which need to be ironed out.
Lastly, we cannot agree to the Commission's proposal that this legislation should also be enforced against the American d'Amato Act.
Unlike the Helms-Burton Act the d'Amato Act denies European citizens and companies access to the American market if they trade with Libya or Iran.
That calls for countermeasures other than legal proceedings on the part of the European legislator.
In view of all this we have chosen to abstain.
Fishery
The next item is the joint debate on the following:
report (A4-0306/96) by Mr Kindermann, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0189 - C4-0312/96-96/0124(CNS)) amending for the fourth time Regulation (EC) No 3699/93, laying down criteria and arrangements regarding community structural assistance in the fisheries and aquaculture sector and for processing and marketing of its products; -report (A4-0271/96) by Mr d'Aboville, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0131 - C4-0268/96-96/0089(CNS)) on the conclusion of the Protocol defining, for the period from 18 January 1996 to 17 January 1999, the fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for by the agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Seychelles on fishing off Seychelles; -report (A4-0270/96) by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission (COM(95)0669 - C4-0016/96) on the implementation of technical measures in the common fisheries policy; -oral question (B4-0979/96-0-0213/96) by Mr Arias Canete, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, to the Commission, on the crisis in the European Union salmon sector; -report (A4-0305/96) by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission report (COM(96)0100 - C4-0213/96) on monitoring the common fisheries policy.
Madam President, I wish to place on record my appreciation of the interest shown by my colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries in this report on the communication from the Commission on the implementation of technical measures in the common fisheries policy.
I warmly welcome the approach of the Commission's communication and indeed many of the ideas which this communication contains.
Regrettably, in the past not sufficient attention was focused on technical measures within all of the Member States although a number of Member States were concerned.
I am convinced that technical conservation measures are essential for the protection of juveniles and spawning adults.
The Fisheries Committee believes that more attention should have been paid in the past to this important aspect of conservation.
It is indispensable to improve consultation and cooperation at grass-roots level if policies are to be acceptable to those who have to operate these policies.
The Commission must take appropriate action to restore the confidence of fishermen in the work of scientists by means of full consultation with the fishermen.
Consultation with technical experts who have experience of fishing operations is essential.
The views of both fishermen and technical experts should not be ignored.
Furthermore, I am convinced that this Parliament will support me when I say that it is vital for technical measures to be simple, that they should be cost-effective, that they should be technically feasible and practical for operation in commercial conditions.
Technical conservation measures must be easily understood and they must be uncomplicated to enforce.
Remember, fishermen are fishermen, not Eurocrats.
Technical conservation measures should be an integral part of an integrated policy for the preservation of stocks.
Technical conservation measures must be accompanied by other measures such as TACs and quotas.
Only a few Member States have made proposals to the Commission.
I call on all Member States to become more actively involved and to make proposals.
In my report I call for a comprehensive scheme of incentives and training for fishermen in the use of conservation technology to be included in any package of measures as a matter of urgency.
I strongly advocate the concept of conservation dividends.
The purpose of the committee advocating conservation dividends is to entice fishermen to voluntarily accept conservation technology so we do not have to resort to legislation.
I believe that if the goodwill of the industry is not forthcoming, technical measures will be flouted where possible.
I suggest by way of a conservation dividend that we should consider MAGP concessions or, indeed, extra quota allocations for those who conform.
If voluntary introduction of technical measures is not rewarded then the only option left is EU legislation which would require, no doubt, the agreement of all Member States.
I believe that this would be almost impossible to obtain.
At this time nobody contests the need for appropriate measures and regulations.
I strongly believe that these same measures and regulations should be introduced in all future international agreements.
I call on the Commission to ensure that this will be the case.
The Commission must ensure that the proposed measures include increased minimum mesh size - to be introduced in stages and after sea trials are undertaken, geographical simplification and the introduction of square mesh panels and indeed box closures where necessary.
Before I refer to the other reports and wear my national cap, I want to again thank all of those who took such an interest in technical conservation measures because I believe that such measures can play an important role in the conservation of fish stocks for the future.
But it will, as I say, require the full support of the fishermen.
So again, I want to advocate the need to consult with the fishermen and the technical scientists who have experience in this field.
I want to take the opportunity to refer to the McKenna report.
In this report, Ms McKenna urges the Commission to make provision for deciding not to grant, to suspend, to reduce or to cancel vital Community financial aid for the fishing industry in the event that certain EU regulations are not complied with.
This report unfortunately advocates quota reductions to be imposed as a penalty.
Such recommendations, I believe, are totally unnecessary.
Ms McKenna attempted unsuccessfully to seek a further reduction in the meagre Irish fishing fleet.
I would like to point out that Ireland has the best fishing grounds in Europe: we have 4 % of EU quotas; 44 % of our fleet is upwards of 25 years old; 64 % of our fleet suffers from safety deficiencies.
I would hope that this will be addressed and I am pleased that, some time ago, the Commissioner gave me an assurance when it came to safety that the Commission would be quite forthcoming.
We in Ireland can ill afford to lose any further tonnage.
We should be given the opportunities to develop our fishing industry, remembering full well that in addition to having a common fisheries policy, we have a regional policy, we have a rural development policy.
These should be integrated with a view to ensuring that coastal regions of my country and of Europe where there are no alternative sources of development are allowed to develop and provide much needed jobs in all of those areas.
I therefore will have great difficulty in supporting that report.
I cannot over emphasize the damage being caused by Norwegian salmon imports to the Irish salmon farming industry, as indeed is also the case in Scotland.
I realize that the Norwegians gave a commitment at a recent meeting in London with a view to ensuring that the production in the last quarter of 1996 and the first quarter of 1997 would be on the 1995 basis plus 10 %.
We will be very vigilant on this issue.
Minimum import prices, which we appreciate, were introduced earlier this year but have not worked.
They have been circumvented.
Therefore, I now call on the Commission to reintroduce minimum import prices and to follow on with quantity restrictions.
I call on all governments, including my own government, to take the necessary steps.
Unfortunately I have to note that our Parliament was only consulted on this agreement four months after the end of the negotiations in mid-January, to be precise on 9 May.
A month later the Council then decided on the provisional application of the agreement.
For the rest, the first compensation payment, which according to the Commission was paid a month later, should have been paid by the end of May, which means before this House had delivered its opinion.
We therefore have exactly the same situation as in spring last year in the case of the fisheries agreement with the Republic of Senegal.
Specifically, that means Parliament was only consulted four months after the renewal of the fisheries agreement.
Once again the Council took a decision with considerable financial implications without first obtaining the opinion of the other branch of the budgetary authority and without the existence of an adequate legal base.
The first payment - which, after all, amounted to ECU 3.5 m - was also made before our Parliament could deliver its opinion, in this case indeed before the committees responsible could give their opinion on this agreement.
So the Commission has once again regarded the Council's decision on the provisional application of the agreement as an adequate legal base.
The Committee on Budgets and this House have repeatedly protested vehemently against this way of proceeding on other occasions.
I do so again here today.
After all, presumably we are still a part of the budgetary authority!
It is a bit much for the Council to assume it can systematically circumvent us here.
If the Council and Commission continue to proceed in this way in future, we will really have to consider seriously whether we will in fact have to take legal steps.
I therefore call again on the Commission to start and close negotiations in good time in future so that the proper consultation procedure can be concluded and a legal base adopted before payments are made.
That would put an end to the unholy practice of provisionally implementing international protocols by means of exchanges of letters and circumventing Parliament.
This has been tolerated once more because the international fisheries agreements involve non-compulsory expenditure.
In any case, these events show once again how necessary it is for the Council and the Commission finally to sign the code of conduct we proposed on improving information and budgeting in relation to international fisheries agreements.
Madam President, I shall go for keywords: the issue of monitoring is a very sensitive one.
I share the views expressed by the rapporteurs, and the Socialist Group also contributed to them in committee.
The issue of monitoring is not just a regulatory and hence a bureaucratic issue, the fishermen's associations and environmental groups have also to be brought in.
We have to take account of technological instruments but also of biological particularities when reforming the common fisheries policy, given that it can be reformed by applying the principle of subsidiarity but also by means of a number of social policies designed to support fishermen's incomes, an issue already covered in the common agricultural policy.
That is the point we shall be making in the debate on the reform of the common fisheries policy, realizing that the fourth programme could be a useful factor for debate.
Madam President, I welcome the Commissioner here this morning.
It seems a long time since the Commissioner was on the Committee on Agriculture of this Parliament and it is nice to see her taking an interest in fisheries matters again.
We have four important issues in front of us this morning and I want to concentrate on salmon in particular.
Let me say that the monitoring and control of the common fisheries policy is extremely important and I hope that Parliament is covering the matter adequately today.
I would like to let the Green Group know that we will support their amendments on the McKenna report.
It is especially important that we recognize in this Parliament that by-catches, discards and black fish are something that we really have to get to grips with.
But I address basically the question of the import of salmon from Norway.
We have to recognize that the Commission has moved a long way by bringing forward this inquiry into the dumping of Norwegian salmon.
The chairman of the Fisheries Committee has graphically demonstrated the problem, and I thank him for his involvement and support in this issue.
However, the Commission could have gone further and, like Mr Gallagher, I call on all Member States to take some action against the Norwegian Government at the present time on the amount of salmon that it is sending into the Community.
It is not good enough for governments to stand aside and see fish-farming and perhaps the future of fish production in the European Community being decimated by one country which is determined to gain a substantial market share at the expense of a young, thriving industry in some of the peripheral areas of our Community.
The Commission could go further and take interim measures on its own, and I call upon the Commission so to do.
In the last few days I have had the opportunity of looking at this problem and recognize that minimum import prices could be implemented straight away.
I hope that could happen and that in the longer term we have the courage and the guts to bring in some form of quantitative restrictions.
Madam President, the McKenna report assesses the first of a very important series of reports by the Commission on the effectiveness of the common fisheries policy in the area of monitoring.
One of the key things to have emerged is uneven enforcement across the Union and the lack of political will by Member States to make the enforcement system work.
The policy is failing and will continue to do so under its present structure.
I am delighted that the Committee on Fisheries has accepted a large number of the Liberal Group's amendments: increasing the powers of the EU inspectors, which is essential for fair play across the board; similar penalties for similar offences across the Union to ensure legal equity in a common policy such as fishing; much greater enforcement in the transport and marketing areas of the supply chain, which this report showed was almost totally lacking.
One of the things that I would stress is that our group considers that this situation illustrates how the common fisheries policy in its present form cannot conserve fish stocks.
That is the challenge. That is what we need to find a new solution for.
Madam President, I should like to say something - four things, in fact - about Mr d'Aboville's report and the fisheries agreement with Seychelles.
First, yet again, Parliament is in the process of holding a debate on a decision which has already been taken.
Even the financial commitments have been entered into.
This is an unacceptable situation - we say it over and over again, and we show our teeth, but we never get anywhere.
So that in itself would be one good reason to vote against.
But there are others.
My second comment relates to the fact that there is no regional approach on this.
When we talk about the Indian Ocean, the regional approach would mean simultaneously taking into consideration Madagascar, Mauritius, the Comoros and the Seychelles.
So if we adopt a piecemeal approach as we are doing here, then, inevitably, we will not achieve a global view of the situation.
Thirdly, we are talking about an agreement with no quotas, which is a somewhat obsolete form for a fisheries agreement to take.
And, finally, who carries out the inspections? It is surely important to note that they are carried out by the French and Spanish monitoring authorities.
That says it all as far as any genuine intent to monitor the situation is concerned.
For all these reasons, we shall be voting against.
Madam President, I am glad we are having this debate, even if it is on a Friday.
I took this initiative in the first place to bring to the attention of Parliament the grave situation affecting the salmon producers of Scotland.
But we should not have had to have this debate at all and we have to understand why this has been necessary.
When we had the Fisheries Council, the Council of Ministers discussed the issue under 'Any other business' and when it came to the turn of the United Kingdom to say something, to take some action, it was like the famous detective story called 'The Dog That Did Not Bark In The Night' .
The surprise was that the dog was there and did not bark.
This was the fault of the UK Government which, when people were expecting it to stand up for the Scottish salmon industry, failed to take the legal action.
In other words, the dog did not use its teeth in this context to force the Commission into considering quantitative restrictions. The industry was expecting that.
There was even a Scottish Minister sitting there, but no action was taken.
So it is now up to the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee to step in to fill this breach.
What exactly are we asking for and what can we expect? The minimum import price is not a very good instrument as we know from the past, but it is the only one that can be implemented immediately.
With the threat of an antidumping case hanging over the Norwegians, there is a good chance that they will behave themselves rather better in the run-up to this Christmas than they did last time.
But then I am almost convinced that we have to follow up with quantitative restrictions.
We have to ask ourselves the political point, which is asked constantly and I was even asked it by French television yesterday: Why is it that the Norwegians outside the European Union are managing to do better with salmon production than the Scots and the Irish who are within? That is why this action is absolutely imperative, necessary and urgent.
Madam President, the Community structural measures to help fisheries and aquaculture are designed to amend an old regulation dating back to 1993, revising three aspects of it: product promotion; aid for the creation of producer organizations and confirmation of exchange rates for the budgetary ECU.
We are of the view that product promotion can be regulated by this proposal, provided such references are actually linked to the protection of geographical indications and the designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs.
We are therefore supporting the Commission's requests both as regards the aid for the launching of producer organizations and the application of the ECU conversion rate, based on the exchange rate supplied by the association of fisheries organizations.
As far as Mr d'Aboville's report is concerned, this is not in fact a new agreement, it simply redefines what happened back in January, supplemented by funding that makes it possible to increase monitoring measures as a result of improvements in land-based communication systems.
Unfortunately, as is now established practice, the European Parliament was presented with a fait accompli .
While condemning that state of affairs and hoping that it will not be repeated in the future, we support the d'Aboville proposal.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, the quality of Mr Gallagher's report and the importance of the technical measures certainly deserved the allocation of more time.
At all events, it must be said that Mr Gallagher has done an excellent job, although admittedly he was not flexible or bold enough to accept the amendment to indent 3 of paragraph 7, which would have considerably improved his report.
I should like to ask whether the Commission is prepared, as technical measures are such an important subject, to open a consultation period, since the European Parliament's unanimous opinion on technical measures was that no precipitate action should be taken and that the measures must be implemented with the sector's agreement.
We are adopting the Gallagher report, but my question, for which I request a direct answer, is whether the Commission is willing to open this consultation period for the report on technical measures.
Parliament needs the Commission's reply as a matter of urgency, for, as you know, we have the Council in the background pressing for a response.
I therefore request, Madam President, that the Commission give me an answer to this important question during this session.
In general terms, I have to say that as far as technical measures are concerned the Commission tends to issue them with its head in the clouds.
It needs to be advised that these measures, which are ideal for an ideal world, have to be applied to fishing, where incentives have to be introduced and fishermen encouraged to implement the measures.
Thank you, Mrs Izquierdo, but I have to inform you, in the kindest possible way, that you have used almost double your time allowance.
When in the Chair, I never cut speakers off.
I believe you should regulate yourselves, and I would ask other Members of Parliament not to follow Mrs Izquierdo's example in terms of time, although the content of her speech was very valuable.
Mrs Fraga has the floor for two minutes.
Mr President, whilst I do not intend to disregard other reports, I shall concentrate on the monitoring report, which the rapporteur, Mrs McKenna, has tackled in a very realistic manner.
We are not here just to say what the fishermen wish to hear.
In a period of crisis such as we are now experiencing in the fisheries sector the temptation to flout the rules obviously increases, and this simply further emphasizes the fact that monitoring is one of the major failures of the common fisheries policy.
We must stress that whilst monitoring of their own fishermen is exclusively in the hands of Member States it is virtually certain to be ineffective.
Requests for control measures double in lean periods, but always for other people, and this is certainly one of the reasons for the current problem of over-fishing.
Member States cannot be deprived of their powers, but the Commission must strengthen its own control and monitor that of Member States, beyond the reach of partisan pressure and also of isolated and opportunistic moves which in fact solve little or nothing, such as the obsession over the control of distant-water fleets.
This is undoubtedly needed, Mr Lannoye, but anyone familiar with these fisheries knows that the Community's fleets in external waters are, for the most part, among the best supervised in the world (as in the NAFO case), whereas internally nothing is done.
Instead of lavishing so much attention on fleets which are already under control, we should reinforce the supervisory measures on the European Union's roads, which are undoubtedly carrying a fluctuating traffic in prohibited species which is absolutely disgraceful.
I believe effective control over compliance with MAGPs is also needed, as well as the introduction of a system of genuinely deterrent penalties.
As for the proposals for cutbacks....
Mrs Fraga, you should not take the sound of the gavel as a call to halt, merely as a warning that you have used up your own time allocation and now have Parliament's time available at your discretion.
Mr President, I have noted your comment and I shall comply with the instructions of those presiding over this Assembly.
I therefore believe that I have now said enough.
Mr President, I must refer first of all to the report drafted by Mr Gallagher, whose proposals voted for in the Commission of Fisheries seem to me extremely positive and worth highlighting.
Especially at a time when we are discussing the POP IV operational plan for the coming year, since the proposals are accentuated here.
The Commission's proposal accentuates the protection of young fish, of fishing resources, of links with fishermen.
Above all, I dislike the idea that controls alone should be carried out in order to find out what sanctions we impose and what violations the Commission detects rather than to show fishermen how to act, concentrating on anyone who depends on fishing and not just imposing rules and regulations.
I reject the idea that fishermen are all predators or destroyers of the environment.
Finally, I would like to challenge the Commission to try and put into practice a satellite system to control Community waters.
Mr President, I want to refer to the issue of salmon prices and thank Parliament for its solidarity on this issue over the years.
If we had received the same support from the Council of Ministers and the Commission we would have made progress.
We should not underestimate the seriousness of the situation.
Visiting the peripheral regions of my own constituency which have traditionally depended on fishing, I have very little to offer them.
The Community is asking that they reduce the fishing effort, their tonnage of boats and their intake.
We are threatening their state of stocks which is going to force us to reduce the turnover of the fishing communities.
We have only one alternative to offer them, namely fish farming.
Politically it was not very popular in the past but the fishing communities throughout the European Union are beginning to recognize that there are possibilities and that it can be achieved without damage to our environment and it can help to save coastal communities.
This effort is being sat upon by a gigantic Norwegian effort - which has obviously been subsidized over the years - that will not allow the flagship of fish-farming activities which is salmon farming to get off the ground.
I would like to thank Mrs Bonino.
I recognize that even though it is a Friday morning it was on Friday mornings in this Parliament that we eventually brought this problem to the attention of the Commission.
She has begun to take action and I appreciate that very much.
Following on from Mr Macartney's point, in Killybegs in the north-west of Ireland when people complain about the common fisheries policy - and I try to defend the Community - I am told the Norwegians are surviving all right.
I just wanted to emphasize that point.
Mr President, on the matter of the technical fisheries measures, I would first of all like to thank the rapporteur Mr Gallagher for his excellent work.
The proposal for a regulation which is currently being considered represents a continuation of this communication from the Commission on the implementation of technical measures under the common fisheries policy.
I would like to add a few comments to this general discussion.
The Commission's aims are praiseworthy and the measures essential.
But I believe that the current lack of selectivity is not attributable to the small mesh of presentday nets, but to the increasingly frequent use of illegal nets by Community fishermen, which cannot be prevented because of a lack of political will.
Can the Commission prove that juvenile fish are being caught with regulation-mesh nets? In view of the refusal of Member States to reduce their fleets, I fear that the Commission is attempting to achieve this indirectly via a pure Darwinian process of evolution.
Many undertakings are trying to survive in these conditions and to do so are sometimes infringing the rules, often with impunity, with the knowledge of the Member States in charge of control measures and almost always with the knowledge of the Commission.
I should therefore also like to commend Mrs McKenna's work in her report on monitoring.
With this scenario, what is an undertaking to think, and how is it to act, if it complies scrupulously with the technical measures, which will become stricter, but has to compete with others who do not? What is the use of complying with technical measures if the whole sector knows that a breach of the rules is not penalized and that this is the true cause of the capture of juvenile fish?
I do not wish to sound apocalyptic, or demagogic.
I am in favour of maintaining resources, among other reasons so that the sector can remain viable in the medium and long term.
The technical measures are necessary, but if we tighten them when we are incapable of securing compliance with existing ones, we shall be seriously impairing the competitiveness of those operating legally, and complying, whilst favouring those who fail to comply, a result which is, of course, hardly encouraging for the conservation of resources.
I am going to invite Mr McMahon to speak, and I apologize to him because he should have had the floor before Mr Imaz.
This omission was not caused by my personal liking for and friendship with Mr Imaz, which ranks equally with my friendship with you.
After this apology, therefore, you have the floor for two minutes.
Mr President, this is a very long-running issue. It has been going on for about ten years now.
Member after Member has raised this issue.
It is about the third or fourth debate we have had.
We have had hearings in the Committee on Fisheries.
We even invited the Norwegians. We have had them along on two occasions.
We have had slide presentation shows, we have had the opposing sides: from Norway, in one corner, and the Irish and the Scots in another corner.
They have all given us the evidence and we have listened to the debate, but still the problem goes on.
It goes on because there is a lack of will in the Commission and there is a lack of will in the Council of Ministers.
The holy trinity, Sir Leon Brittan, Mr Michael Forsyth and Mr Raymond Robertson - who is the Scottish Office Minister for Fishing - are the people who are in a position to try and do something about it.
We know that Sir Leon has tremendous problems at the moment because half his own Cabinet are not interested in Europe, or anything European, at all, so he has to defend the European corner.
He has to divert his attention from his work as the Trade Commissioner to guard his back against the Euro-sceptics in the United Kingdom Cabinet.
He cannot do his job properly when Euro MPs from Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere go to him to try and get some action for salmon.
That is where the problem lies - the problem lies with the Commission, in the External Trade Directorate and with the Council of Ministers.
Last month at the recent Council of Ministers meeting it was left to the Irish presidency to raise the issue.
But they did not really ask the Fisheries Council to do anything.
They had a discussion about it but they did not ask for action.
We are asking for action here today.
We are asking for a realistic minimum price and quantitative restrictions.
Nothing else will satisfy the salmon farmers in Scotland and Ireland.
(Applause )
Mr President, I agree with most of what has been said.
I will not talk about fishing as such, but there are three general points that I think all the European Union institutions ought to address.
Firstly, Mr d'Aboville's report spells out very clearly that we have yet another agreement which has been signed and the payments made before this Parliament discussed it.
This must stop.
Secondly, why do we always have to debate this on Fridays? This has been raised several times.
Politically, fishing is one of the most important issues for our Member States, it arouses tremendous passions, tremendous disputes but we always consign it to Friday.
Surely that is a question the Conference of Presidents could address and deal with fairly.
Thirdly, I agree with the comment already made about this being too diverse a joint debate.
Surely the Commissioner should be present to answer the questions which have been raised.
Perhaps this is linked with the previous point.
So all three institutions need to address this whole problem of fishing.
I support all the reports incidentally.
It could be said that the question which Mr Gallagher has addressed in his report is a very old one.
The Commission is already in the process of taking action in this area, and that is a good thing.
It does indeed mean that Parliament can be involved, and what we need in this sector is less bureaucracy and more simplification.
That is also what the Council of Ministers wishes to see.
We should like to help to solve the problem of by-catches which die and are discarded.
We should like to help determine and develop new catching methods.
We should like to help protect fish stocks and limit the areas for fisheries.
But this can only be done in cooperation with the fishermen and through sets of regional agreements.
We must take care not to create a top-down bureaucracy in Brussels, rather than something which is created upwards from the last true hunters, namely fishermen.
And one final word from Scandinavia: it is painful to see how we are cutting back our fleet in Denmark, while the other Member States are failing to do the same.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I should like to thank Mrs McKenna for a report which is both to the point and comprehensive.
It contains a number of comments and conclusions which the Commission fully endorses.
The report calls attention to the difficulty of achieving a satisfactory level of monitoring of fishing capacity in the Union, and the urgent need to reduce that capacity.
The Commission freely admits that the level of monitoring within the Community is still insufficient and that urgent steps should be taken to improve it - steps which are desperately needed and long overdue.
The Commission, for its part, means to play its part in bringing about an overall improvement.
Nevertheless, I should like to draw Parliament's attention to the limited powers the Commission has in this area.
I must inform Parliament, then, that the Council will certainly not accept some of the bolder proposals in its report: the harmonization of penalties for similar infringements in the form of the suspension of financial aid, in the event that quotas are exceeded, and the reinforcement of the powers of the Community Fisheries Inspectorate.
I shall take this opportunity to recapitulate the main elements of the Commission's approach to this matter.
Rigorous and in-depth verification of the application of Community legislation by the Member States - which is what monitoring means - and the presentation of detailed reports on monitoring levels in the Member States, including special reports on specific questions - which is what transparency means.
Thirdly, encouraging closer cooperation between the Member States in the area of monitoring.
In this connection, I can inform Parliament that a first package of measures was adopted at the meeting of Directors-General and those responsible for the inspectorates in Dublin in September, and that this package was adopted by the Fisheries Council on 14 October this year.
Next, there is the question of granting Community financial aid in a way which allows genuine improvements to be made to the national inspectorates, so that the costs of monitoring can be spread more fairly.
Finally, the guarantee of comprehensive implementation of the provisions of the 'Control Regulation' , that is to say Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 on satellite tracking and the recording of catches.
To summarize, Mr President, I would like Parliament to know that the Commission will carefully study the recommendations made in this report.
As for the proposal for a fourth amendment to the Council Regulation bearing No 3699/93, regulating structural assistance in the fisheries sector, it proposes the introduction of three amendments.
The first would make Community co-financing available for activities to promote protected geographical indications and designations of origin.
The second makes reference to Article 7 of the Regulation on common organization of the markets in fishery products.
And the third confirms that the conversion rate for the ECU is in fact the budgetary rate, the budgetary ECU, in accordance with the wish expressed by the Council on 21 December 1993.
None of these amendments has any financial impact either on the Community budget or on the structural appropriation allocated to each Member State.
The first amendment alone represents a qualitative change; the other two are mere technical updates of the Regulation, with no practical repercussions.
I feel sure that the European Parliament will give its support to the Commission, as it is invited to do by the report which is the subject of the present debate, and I take this opportunity to thank the rapporteur, Mr Kindermann.
With regard to Mr d'Aboville's report, the Commission would first like to thank the honourable Member for his excellent report on the new fishing conditions for the Community tuna fleet in Seychelles waters, which are applicable for three years, until January 1999.
The Commission considers that, technically, these new conditions are such as to ensure even more effective implementation of the agreement, pursuant to the fundamental principles of conservation of resources.
In this context, you will not be unaware that the Community is to be involved as a full member in the work of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), whose inaugural meeting is to be held in Rome next December.
The policy which will be pursued by the Community delegation within this new international organization, will be directed, precisely as suggested in your report, towards improving knowledge and management of local tuna stocks, in compliance with the applicable basic principles agreed under international law.
With regard to the amendments, the Commission rejects Amendments Nos 2 and 6, because they run counter to established thinking regarding the nature of fisheries agreements and prejudice the Commission's negotiating powers.
It accepts the other amendments in substance but not as to form, emphasizing, however, that, first, the Commission is already supplying Parliament with regular information on the status of implementation of the fisheries agreements, in the form of statements and reports to the Committee on Fisheries.
Secondly, the principle of conservation of stocks is a matter of the law of the sea, which the Community has signed and which is already enshrined in all the framework agreements on fisheries, in particular that with the Seychelles.
Thirdly, the Community has already ratified the constitution of the IOTC, whose jurisdiction, as I said earlier, is specifically the scientific monitoring and management of regional tuna stocks.
As for the role of Parliament in the budgetary implementation of the fisheries agreements, I should like to remind the House that the three institutions concerned are currently finalizing a code of conduct on the budgetary procedure for the fisheries agreements, which is intended to improve the organization of relations between the Commission and Parliament.
The Commission's report on the implementation of technical measures in the common fisheries policy represents an in-depth analysis of the utility of the measures implemented since 1986 to protect young fish in Community waters.
The Commission notes that the Gallagher report generally coincides with the conclusions of the Commission's report, both as regards the general overview of the problems and as regards the possible options.
This proves that the ideas proposed by the Commission to improve the status of our fishery resources are along the right lines and encourage us to push ahead with these initiatives.
As you know, the Commission has already presented a proposal for a new Regulation on technical conservation measures, which will replace the Regulation in force since 1986.
In this proposal, which was presented in June and will be discussed in detail during the coming months, the Commission has adopted most of the suggestions and ideas contained in its own report and in Parliament's.
I hope that this general agreement will also result in the Commission and Parliament adopting a common position on this proposal.
Regarding the problem of the crisis in the salmon sector, the Commission would first like to emphasize that the decline seen over the last few years has affected not only the selling price of salmon but also the unit product cost.
In this context, price stability could not mean that prices must increase, or that they must remain at the same level.
They are of course falling, and the size of the market has increased considerably over the same period.
On the other hand, we do not know - nor shall we be able to know before the current inquiries have been concluded - whether Norwegian salmon prices have fallen more rapidly than the unit costs, to the extent that a substantial percentage of total sales are taking place below production cost, causing distortion within the meaning of the Regulation on unfair competition.
Nor do we know whether these selling prices on our markets have been made possible by State aid, such as rightly to give rise to compensation schemes.
Many assertions and allegations can be made, and there are indeed special cases.
What we lack, and indeed what everyone lacks, is an overall picture of the situation.
As you know, the market has been the subject of heated debate for some years, resulting in a great deal of sound and fury but very little light.
Now, once again, we face the same situation.
The Commission has taken the opportunity offered to it by the two complaints from Scottish and Shetland producers to conduct in-depth inquiries into the state of the market, especially with a view to clarifying whether or not dumping and compensatory aid have taken place and to determine both the nature and scale of the damage caused.
It is not true that the Commission is doing nothing - quite the reverse, it is hard at work on these files.
It is essential that action should be taken on a sound factual basis, otherwise it would fail to achieve its objective, as has been demonstrated by the floor-price rules.
We are of course continuing to monitor market trends, and in this respect it should be noted that the information available is less copious than it should be, and than it will be when inquiries are concluded.
Unfortunately, many Member States are being slow to respond to our request for information.
Even so, we can say that the price has remained stable to date, making due allowance for customary seasonal factors.
We have certainly found no indications of a sudden downward trend like that recorded during the fourth quarter of last year.
Mr President, this reply which the Commission has given on automatic pilot does not answer the question which I put orally.
Can the Commission at least tell me when it will be answering this question?
Mr President. I thank the Commissioner for her reply but I would like further elaboration on the last point she made about lack of information from Member States.
Firstly, is the United Kingdom one of the Member States which has failed to provide the information she is looking for? Secondly, she has not really said whether the Commission will move for minimum import prices, which is what the resolution calls for.
Thank you, Mr Macartney.
Mrs Cresson, do you wish to respond to the comments made by Mrs Izquierdo and Mr Macartney?
Mr President, I should like to answer the question regarding the information supplied by the United Kingdom.
That Member State has supplied information on salmon, but this is virtually the only information we have.
As far as minimum prices are concerned, the Commission believes that such provision is unjustified since prices are currently stable.
Thank you, Mrs Cresson.
Mrs Izquierdo, you must realize that we cannot enter into a debate, and I believe Mrs Cresson has not yet finished.
Mr President, I did not answer the first question, but I can say that we are discussing this matter with the Council.
Mrs Izquierdo, do you insist? Mrs Cresson has just answered you, but you have the floor if you wish.
When in the Chair I shall never deny your right to speak.
Mr President, I request that the minutes be checked, since clearly you have not been listening to the discussion.
You will see from the minutes what my question is, and I therefore ask you to review your response, since it does not answer anything.
Let us hope that you can be given a written answer when the Minutes have been checked.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Kindermann report (A4-0306/96)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Despite having chosen to vote for the report in this instance, this does not mean that we have a positive attitude towards routine support for producer organisations.
The industry and different types of producer associations should normally be able to manage without subsidies.
d'Aboville report
Even though we are going to vote for the report we would like to declare our scepticism as regards the large-scale purchase of fish quotas by the EU.
The costs of purchasing fish quotas are of the order of ECU 300 million.
We believe it to be expensive and inappropriate to continue in this way to subsidise a fishing fleet which should instead be growing smaller.
There is also reason to believe that trade relations with regard to fishing with the countries concerned, particularly in Africa and the Indian Ocean, could be conducted under conditions more advantageous to those countries.
More 'joint venture' solutions could provide more jobs, more processing and bigger fishing fleets for these third countries.
Gallagher report
Each time there is a discussion about measures to ensure the long-term and sustainable preservation of fish stocks there are immediately calls for allowances, compensation and aid. This has also happened this time.
The laws of ecology, however, impose limits to which we must be prepared to pay heed even without subsidies.
The proposals to insert mentions of socio-economic considerations, among other things, are correct in the broader context but in this connection they give the wrong signals.
Salmon resolution
Mr President, I represent Greater Manchester East and some of my major interests in Parliament have been on research policy and arms conversion on which I have done two reports, all of which seems a long way away from the crisis in the salmon industry.
But sometime ago I was contacted by a company in my constituency that is actually in the defence sector and trying to move away from the defence sector to invest in new civilian high technologies.
One of the things they were using was radar technology to treat diseases of salmon eyes in salmon farms, which apparently is a major problem.
Because of the sudden dumping on to the market of Norwegian salmon the promised development money for that project was withdrawn. So we have a situation which does not just affect people in Scotland and in Ireland, it affects the whole of Europe.
It affects the development of new technologies; it affects the commercialization of new technologies; it affects jobs.
I am therefore supporting this resolution and it is very appropriate that Mrs Cresson was here to reply to that question in a way that she did not probably appreciate at the beginning.
We largely sympathise with the resolution.
There is every reason to pay heed to the increase in Norwegian salmon exports because Norway provides comprehensive support to its salmon farmers in the form of subsidised transport, subsidised loans, reduced social contributions and even debt remission and compensation for losses.
In this connection we would like to point out that Swedish fish farmers are also harmed by cheap Norwegian salmon.
Nevertheless, we believe that the investigation now being carried out by the Commission must be completed before different types of measures can begin to be discussed.
We have therefore decided to abstain.
McKenna report
Our support for the McKenna report and therefore the call on the Council to adopt a fourth multi-annual guidance programme should not be interpreted as meaning that we support all parts of the proposal made by the Commission.
Cuts in Member States' fishing fleets must be related to the fish resources safeguarded. For Sweden, taking the Lassen report into account among other things, there are insufficient ecological grounds for large parts of the Commission's roughly prepared proposal as regards fishing in the Baltic.
European rural policy
Mr President, may I commence by putting on record my appreciation of the many Members who participated in the preparation of the report which deals with a broad and new area of EU policy.
I gave an undertaking to reflect to the greatest extent the views of Members in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and other committees and also the views of interested organizations and people who are keen to see the emergence of a planned and new integrated approach to the rural problem.
The report, I hope, is a faithful reflection of that consensus.
I also wish to put on record my appreciation of the interest taken by Commissioner Fischler and his officials.
All Member States are experiencing great difficulty in dealing with the problem of rural decline and the broader socio-economic problem of urban/rural imbalance.
The report takes into consideration the diversity of these problems in different countries and the need for a flexible application of any new initiative.
I have, however, prioritized the relevance of agriculture and family farming to the rural economy and, while agriculture alone is not sufficient to maintain a viable and living rural community, it is, I believe, the economic hub around which other economic activities evolve.
While I did not see it within my brief, it was inevitable that Members would refer to the common agricultural policy and references in this regard do not purport to represent a final position in this important policy area which will, no doubt be the subject of ongoing debate on the basis of the Commission discussion paper.
At a time when job creation is very high on Parliament's agenda, it behoves those of us entrusted with responsibility in the agricultural area to bring forward proposals to maximize the potential of our entire land resource for the purpose of stabilizing existing rural structures and creating new areas of employment, including work for those not directly involved in farming.
I believe the report identifies these areas, commencing with the primary function of reducing food and creating employment through the added-value process in the food sector.
But, as I have already said, it is also recognized that agriculture alone will not maintain the viability of these areas.
The report also deals with the utilization of the Community's human resources and the willingness of rural dwellers, given the opportunity, carefully to plan programmes to become involved in the work of rural development.
I am of the view that it requires an integrated approach, including the EU national and regional governments working in tandem with local communities, to maximize the full potential of our land and human resources.
I attach importance to the village/ town infrastructure and the necessity to maintain essential community services and would point out that the provision and upgrading of these services cannot always be evaluated in pure economic terms but must take into consideration their broader social dimension or problems associated with unplanned and over-expanding urban communities.
The report deals with the importance and potential of the rural environment and the role of rural dwellers in keeping it intact for future generations.
It also identifies its economic potential to create employment in areas like rural tourism and also its significance as a sustainable base for our European culture and traditions.
It also addresses the challenge of providing alternative fuel resources which is a land-based enterprise, and also the importance of adjusting the SMEs to meet local needs and in particular initiatives such as the LEADER programme.
Planned forestry is also identified as a sustainable enterprise, giving both an economic return to farmers and employment opportunities to rural dwellers.
The report deals with the social requirements of rural living and the need to provide adequate schools, postal and telecommunications services and also adequate road infrastructure.
Special reference is made to the role of women in rural society and the need to provide the social conditions necessary to support women who work outside the home and those women engaged in agriculture and other rural enterprises.
The decline of rural communities is often attributed to advances in technology and, while this claim may to some extent be true, I believe that the advent of advanced new communication technology, like Internet, can now be used to reverse that cycle and create new jobs in the rural areas throughout the Community.
In conclusion, the report makes the case for a new coordinated approach to sustainable rural policy which puts people at the centre of the development process and calls for the establishment of a new fund specially designated for the new programme which keeps the rural areas of the European Union central to the broader economic and social objectives of this Parliament and its institutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the draftsman of the opinion for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, I must thank Mr Hyland for having incorporated into his report the conclusions unanimously adopted by our Committee.
The principle of a European Rural Charter, providing a global framework for Community action in this field, is of course something we can all support.
After all, let me remind you, from the start of the Common Agricultural Policy in 1961 until 1975, Europe lost a farmer every minute.
Speaking in 1995, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Fischler, told the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture that another three million European farmers would disappear between 1995 and the year 2000.
In other words, we would be losing seven farmers every eight minutes for five years.
This trend poses serious problems at every level: economic problems, obviously, but also, as honourable Members have emphasized, social problems, to which I would add cultural problems, in terms of civilization being at stake.
After all, throughout European history and even until after the First World War, the countryside was the basis of our organized society and the foundation of our culture in every sense, in conjunction and symbiosis, over the centuries, with what was going on in the towns.
The cities, then, were in symbiosis with the countryside, and it is to that that European civilization owes its very special character.
This equilibrium, as has been said, has been destroyed.
So we need to be creative and imaginative.
In terms of cultural policy, it is important to develop an interest in local history in the rural areas - an interest which, happily, is indeed developing - in order to valorize those popular traditions which are key elements for rural tourism. That tourism is necessary in order to sustain rural employment, ensure the survival of the countryside as a whole and preserve the overall balance of society.
In other words, we need to reinvent the symbiosis that formerly existed between the urban and rural worlds.
With regard to youth, it is important to note that the problem of the rural exodus is also the problem of the ageing of the farming population.
There is a need, then, to institute an active policy for responding to the specific problems of education and training in rural areas.
No-one would sacrifice his children's education - just how important that is today is well known. We need to create employment for young people based on activities associated with farming, yes, but also with the countryside in general.
In this context, bold innovations are possible, associated with the ecological concerns of our fellow citizens.
Farming has developed around mutual institutions and cooperatives which in turn have allowed development to take place not only in terms of agricultural production but also in terms of improving the quality of life of families in the farming sector.
It is necessary that bodies such as the agricultural mutual insurance system, the farmers' banks and insurance companies, the training establishments and the rural social clubs should be involved in this rural policy.
They have a tradition, they have much to teach us, and we have everything to gain from working with them in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rural world is in a precarious state, in open decline. It is suffering from the pressure of modern times and urban contagion.
I am therefore delighted to see this Parliament concerning itself with the creation of a framework for rural living, enabling the Commission to put forward a social and economic model which can be used to tackle an urgent problem in time and on a rational basis.
The Rural Charter will be this Parliament's contribution to the Conference on Rural Europe to be held in Ireland in early November.
We must therefore express satisfaction, and congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Hyland, on his excellent work, in terms of its approach and content and also its incorporation of other opinions, in this case that of the Committee on Regional Policy.
Rural areas have to be viewed from three standpoints: sociological, as a world to be promoted and developed, ecological, as a space to be put in order and protected, and cultural, as the home of the principles and traditions which have given rise to collective awareness.
Hence the question of rural areas comes within the scope of both land-use planning and economic recovery, via a process of redevelopment and economic diversification.
The European Rural Charter put forward for consideration by this Chamber represents a strategy for restoring balance within Europe, by promoting the maintenance of rural culture in the European Union; it is also an instrument for spatial planning and the coordination of all Community policies which affect the rural community.
An exercise such as this, focused on rural areas, has to be integrated into a global view which can be used to balance priority options in the duality of rural/periphery/isolation versus urban/central/congestion.
Isolation and lack of basic services such as health and education are characteristic features; maintaining the environment, preventing the costs of desertification, preserving the spatial balance, i.e. social viability, provide sufficient reason for the retention of economic activity and population in rural areas.
This approach is reinforced by broader considerations of economic and social cohesion, equality of opportunity and equality of access to services and infrastructures.
This is the line taken by the Committee on Regional Policy in its contribution to the Rural Charter, for although there is a shortage of basic services such as health and education in rural areas, it cannot be tackled separately in each and every part of the rural world.
The development of medium-sized urban centres encourages the necessary decentralization of economic activity and services and also brings fresh life to nearby rural areas and promotes local self-sufficiency, thus enhancing the quality of life in rural communities and reducing problems of congestion in the cities.
The potential role of medium-sized towns, serving as regional centres, deserves special attention.
I consider it essential for the future of rural areas that Member States should initiate, with Union financing, schemes for cooperation between municipalities to form such medium-sized centres which will provide services and infrastructures on a joint basis.
I ask you to vote for this European Rural Charter, which views rural areas as an opportunity in face of the increasing difficulties of conurbations, and sets the broad outlines enabling the Commission to propose the necessary measures for a policy to develop rural communities and keep them viable.
Mr President, I should like to start by thanking Mr Hyland for his work on this report.
It is of vital importance to the people I represent and to so many people throughout the European Union.
This recognition of the specific problems and the needs of rural areas is, I hope, the first stage in a fundamental overhaul in the structure and nature of the financial assistance they receive.
For far too long we have directed resources towards the development of an agricultural industry, the benefits of which have been limited in the larger rural community.
The continued reform of the CAP will release funds which should be utilized to transform the common agricultural policy into a common rural policy in which agriculture will continue to play a vital role but whose main objective should be to ensure the economic and social well-being of rural communities.
While such communities share a number of common characteristics, we must be careful in the creation of a common rural policy that we also recognize the diversity, strengths and weaknesses which exist throughout the Union.
Our aim should be to provide a framework within which the local partners can identify their priorities and participate in shaping programmes to ensure that they bring maximum benefit.
By supporting this report we can add our voice to the call for a rural development policy, but the policy will only be successful if we listen to the voice of all our rural communities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all let me give very warm thanks to the rapporteur.
On the Hyland report I may say the following: the development of rural areas is only possible, in my view, if we have a competitive agriculture.
That is true EU-wide.
The rural areas must not degenerate into a museum of folklore.
When future developments are discussed in Cork in Ireland in early November it will have to be established from the outset that rural areas are not just of residual value.
In Germany 80 % of the entire country is rural.
Half of all the inhabitants live in rural areas, but only 20 % of them can find jobs there; all the others are commuters.
The figures are very similar in all the EU countries.
Rural areas tend to be regarded as an important functional and services resource for over-strained urban centres.
Such a view does not, however, form an adequate basis for a programme of rural development and does not generally help stabilize rural employment markets.
There is no getting away from the fact that the remote rural areas in the EU are deprived areas in terms of employment.
In times of shortage of funds, little can be done to change this through the classical form of regional policy.
Doubts have also been expressed as to its effectiveness.
For the remote rural areas it is therefore urgently necessary to consider alternative ways of providing real prospects for people with little chance of gaining a foothold on the standardized labour market in the medium and long term.
To place ones hopes solely in Commission Green and White Papers is, in my view, not enough.
We have enough papers in Europe.
Some hope can, however, be derived from the new accent placed on the concept of independent regional development, which has meanwhile also found its way into European policy-making.
The development concept of independent regional development is aimed at protecting employment in rural areas on the basis of own initiatives.
Its objective is to integrate people in the world of work and to improve their chances of obtaining their own income independently of state transfers.
State aids can only serve as start-up finance!
That is why the aim of independent regional development remains to identify fields of activity by the creative use of local resources.
This should produce an employment market that is predominantly regionally based and draws on knowledge of the situation of the people, the land and the region.
Unconventional small-scale initiatives and small projects can be particularly useful here; I think that new technology also offers new opportunities for rural areas.
The crucial question is this: what specifically regional demand actually exists, what specific fields of activity can be established in rural areas, how can these fields of activity be commercialized? The entrepreneurial principle should continue to apply wherever possible.
Mr President, may I congratulate Mr Hyland on his good work on developing a Rural Charter.
Agricultural policy is no longer really enough to ensure the development of rural areas: a broad and manysided rural policy is needed.
The premise should be respect for the individual identity and cultural richness of the various areas.
Finland is one of the most rural countries in Europe.
We therefore have a particular need for a rural policy.
One of the principal requirements for a living countryside and employment in Finland is sustainable exploitation of its forests.
In Finland, a rural programme was adopted in 1991 which is comprehensive and progressive.
The problem is the lack of resources with which to carry it out.
The living conditions of the residents of rural areas must be improved in such a way that people can make a living in their home region and live a full life there.
The countryside should not be transformed into sparsely populated reservations.
Agriculture must be adapted to meet the needs of the markets, albeit taking care that old livelihoods are not destroyed before new ones get off the ground.
Both European Union and national support should be used to develop know-how, entrepreneurial activity and infrastructure.
Particular attention should be devoted to putting rural women's manifold creativity and skills to use in producing high-quality products, creating experiences for tourists and providing other services.
The new subcontractors' networks and quality chains will help to diversify rural employment and promote small enterprise.
As we prepare for enlargement to the East, it is important to safeguard the opportunities for development of the peripheral areas of the present European Union and secure understanding for the special problems of sparsely populated northern regions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what kind of rural areas do we need in Europe?
Mr Hyland's proposal for a European Rural Charter is a strategy paper for a future European policy of sustainable development.
Rural decline is continuing in the European Union, especially in the so-called remote regions such as those of southern Europe and the mountain and highland areas.
Yet the handicaps suffered by the rural areas can become trump cards, with integrated farming, which is particularly synonymous with employment, in close conjunction with the environment, social interaction, the countryside, green tourism and woodland - all recognized today as functions of rural areas.
This Charter asks the Commission to remove the constraints on rural areas and to exploit their potential on the basis of a very simple idea: bringing them to life.
Between the world market and the food needs of Europe's citizens, it is essential to retain balanced, productive rural areas which will give farmers the dignity they deserve.
This is the price to be paid to ensure that rural living today recovers its full meaning.
If it is not to be put on one side, this policy needs to be supported, and I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to use your joint efforts to ensure that these proposals really are implemented through planned activities.
A consensus has been reached within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, focusing on Mr Hyland, and I congratulate him on it.
To ensure that this solidarity does take effect, my group, the European Radical Alliance, will be voting in favour of this report.
Mr President, I too support the excellent Hyland report.
I am reminded that some time ago I visited a Member State embassy in Tokyo.
An official there said to me that my rural region did not need any inward investment as everybody there is a rich farmer.
I very quickly persuaded him otherwise.
He could hardly be more wrong because we qualify for Objective 5(b) aid.
In fact, The Guardian newspaper in Britain last week showed how one European citizen in four, living in rural areas, is in fact living in poverty.
This particularly applies to young people, pensioners and women who often face social and economic exclusion.
Yet, there are good ideas.
Only last week I launched a brilliant LEADER II project in a small place called Swanton Morley where all levels of the public and private sectors have come together to benefit the hard-pressed village.
We need more grassroots action like that, with European Union backing.
That is why a coherent, strategic approach must go way beyond agriculture. It must recognize the rapid, demographic, sociological and technological changes that are taking place.
It must involve communities in partnerships.
That is why I welcome the Hyland report - although it is not without flaws - as amended in committee.
I hope that it will be a useful prod for participants at the forthcoming conference, to help bring about the real fundamental changes we need to reform European rural policies.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Hyland for his report.
The text before us is a very worthwhile contribution to the future development of rural areas.
It was adopted unanimously by our Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and it provides us with a very useful argument in favour of economic and social development.
The resolution rightly identifies the need to develop job opportunities outside agriculture in rural areas.
I fully agree with this objective which will help prevent some of the overcrowding and environmental problems associated with big cities.
New employment from the enlargement or encouragement of existing small enterprises and the attraction of new industries and services to rural areas is the first priority of rural policy.
The production of high-quality regional products, and food products in particular, is essential if many of our rural areas are to be saved from depopulation.
Whatever the cost of developing the economies of rural areas, it will cost a great deal more in the long-term if we do not provide for the balanced development of both town and countryside.
The reference in the draft Rural Charter to a fresh reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is something that causes me some concern.
We had a fundamental reform of the CAP in 1992.
Given the current crisis in the beef industry, it would be better to avoid further reforms at least until we have mastered the present crisis.
Without longterm guarantees I am not sure it is sensible to talk, as the proposal does, of further adapting agriculture to the marketplace because this usually means lower prices and increased costs for the people in rural areas.
I look forward to a paper from the Commission with concrete proposals to give effect to many of the very useful ideas put forward in the proposed charter.
I want to congratulate my colleague, Mr Hyland, for the work he has put into this report and to say to him that I strongly support it.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Hyland on his report and say that it is good that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has taken the initiative in pushing this Charter through Parliament.
Clearly the countryside is not a museum: there are living communities there which provide a great deal of wealth and services for every one of our European citizens.
We must look to the future and cherish the distinctiveness of rural areas.
We must avoid the twin dangers of suburbanization and depopulation.
Above all, that means giving jobs and hope to young people.
For example, there should be opportunities for young farmers, modern, light industrial estates on the edge of market towns, easy access to the information superhighway, sensitive development of tourism and recreation and new non-food uses for our skilled agricultural workforce.
I welcome this Charter.
I believe that the golden age of Europe's rural areas lies in the future not in the past.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission congratulates Mr Hyland on his excellent report.
It also welcomes the great deal of thought given by the European Parliament to the European Rural Development Policy.
Those efforts, and the draft report we are debating today, are extremely timely because they will help to send a number of signals to the conference on rural development to be held in Cork from 7 to 9 November this year. That conference will provide an opportunity for further reflection, on the basis of the results obtained, and allow guidelines to be established for the future of the Union's rural development policy.
Regarding the motion for a resolution, the Commission agrees in essence with what has been said, especially regarding the need to take account, in applying the rural development policy, of all the constituents of economic and social life in the rural areas.
This rural policy will not be just another aspect of regional policy, because it is designed to cover all rural areas of the European Union, rather than being confined to the least favoured regions or those undergoing structural adaptation.
It is, then, a total policy, the need for which has resulted in rural development being adopted as the political priority in the Treaty on European Union.
This political recognition at the highest level is, without a doubt, a solid basis for reinforcing the Community's rural development policy and facing up to the challenges that await us.
The Commission shares Mr Hyland's view regarding the need for integrated development of the rural areas in order to give them impetus.
That is one of the main lines set out in the strategy document presented by the Commission in Madrid in December 1995, whereby rural development was to be oriented towards both farming and non-farming activities, via a policy of active diversification and the development of a multi-sectoral policy.
As the Hyland report emphasizes, this multi-sectoral policy integrating various approaches - economic, agricultural, social and environmental - is the best means of responding to the diverse needs of the rural areas, highlighting their strengths and combating their structural problems such as the ageing of the population, the decline of some activities and the relocation of industries.
The report emphasizes a number of urgent problems which the rural world has to confront, and makes constructive suggestions.
I am thinking especially of the priority given to employment, equality of opportunity, improvement in the quality of agricultural produce, environmental protection and the development of infrastructures and services.
The rural development policy endeavours to deal with these problems, and the political priorities it has adopted correspond to the problems and challenges so well expressed in the Hyland report.
In this respect, the problem of employment, or rather the problem of unemployment, which is very far from bypassing the rural areas, is the main focus of our concerns and is one of the priority objectives of the structural interventions.
The same applies to the preservation of the environment and protection of natural resources, areas which account for a substantial proportion of the appropriations earmarked for the rural development policy.
In fact, the promotion of the development of the rural areas is a priority of the Union, not only for economic and social reasons but also for the protection of the environment.
The general effect of the rural exodus is excessive urbanization, with all the adverse social consequences and additional costs that involves, for both the rural and the urban areas.
It is therefore incumbent upon all of us - as the Commission is well aware - to do what we can to ensure that the diversity and beauty of Europe's landscapes and its heritage should be preserved for future generations.
The rapporteur rightly raises, in his proposal, the problem of defining rural areas.
The very diversity of the rural world makes this a very difficult thing to do on the basis of a simple, representative criterion.
In reality, there is no such thing as a typical, representative rural area.
The Commission shares Mr Hyland's opinion that the population density parameter alone takes insufficient account of the diversity of the Union's rural areas.
That is why we are continuing with our work, and that is why we shall ensure that the definition we are going to propose encompasses parameters other than population density, taking account of the diversity of situations in rural areas, as of course the motion for a resolution proposes.
Finally, we were most interested to note the proposal that a Rural Development Fund should be created, making it possible to finance all the schemes undertaken within the framework of integrated rural development, and designed to bring efficiency, flexibility, transparency and simplicity to the administration of Community aid to the rural world.
This is one topic which will certainly be debated in Cork in a few days' time.
Thank you, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Goods from the processing of agricultural products
The next item is the report (A4-0264/96) by Mr Gillis, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0049 - C4-0156/96-96/0039(CNS)) amending Council Regulation (EC) No 3448/93 laying down the trade arrangements applicable to certain goods resulting from the processing of agricultural products.
Mr President, the proposal for a Council regulation aims at modifying Regulation 3448/93 defining the EU trade regime for non-Annex 2 products, that is, products which result from the manufacture of foodstuffs from the primary processing industries.
These products, given their dual nature, agricultural and industrial, on the import side are submitted to both an industrial protection and an agricultural protection.
The agricultural protection compensates for the difference between the EU and the world market price of the agricultural raw materials used in their manufacture.
Following the entry into force of the agreements resulting from the Uruguay Round of multinational negotiations, the Community negotiated various GATT agreements, including the agreement on agriculture.
The agreements changed the method of determining import duties on certain goods.
They also provide the option of imposing additional duties on other goods.
They impose a degree of discipline on the granting of refunds for agricultural products not covered by Annex 2 of the Treaty.
The reasons for the need to modify the regulation are twofold.
Firstly, EU agricultural protection has to be adapted following tarification into GATT/WTO.
Therefore, certain changes have to be made to Regulation 3448 in order to delete the provisions which no longer apply.
Secondly, it is necessary to add certain management rules to ensure compliance with commitments made on export refunds within GATT.
As rapporteur, I have had extensive consultations with different representatives of the food industry.
While I see no overall problem with this proposal following discussions with the people on the ground, I have incorporated an amendment which I feel may be advantageous.
As the Commission proposal stands, it provides for the introduction of a system of refund certificates.
In my view, this is rather too rigid and imposes an unnecessary burden on industry.
I have suggested, therefore, that we should make this optional.
To provide for the possibility of refund certificates and to make it more flexible, I suggest this be decided under the management committee procedure set out in Article 16.
It can be argued that we do not need certificates at this time at all.
However, it is impossible to predict what the prices evolution will be over the next three or four years and maybe even further.
In the meantime, GATT ceilings for export refunds to be paid on processed products are being reduced each year and are becoming much more restrictive.
It is essential that we have a simple mechanism in place to be sure our GATT commitments are respected.
By putting the system in place now we are ensuring a much smoother path for the future.
I feel the modification I have made provides for the necessary flexibility which is missing from the Commission proposal and, with such an amendment, I have no problem in approving this proposal.
Mr President, I do not wish to add to what our rapporteur has said apart from thanking him and expressing the support of our group for his work in producing this report modifying the arrangements for complying with GATT.
We support his proposal to reduce the additional bureaucratic processes required in adapting to the new system and thus ensuring compliance with GATT requirements.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and more especially Mr Gillis as its rapporteur, for the care taken with the proposal for a Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 3448/93.
As noted in the report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the essence of this proposal is to make technical modifications to the trade regime for processed agricultural goods not covered by Annex II of the Treaty.
These modifications became necessary as a result of the tarification of import duties on agricultural products agreed at the multilateral negotiations of the Uruguay Round.
The amendment has already been studied at the Council, and by industry.
In general terms, it has been approved, but one point has created a problem: this concerns the supporting measures for the granting of export refunds.
On this matter, the Commission has adopted an approach similar to that previously adopted by the Council with regard to exports of agricultural products.
The proposal, however, takes account of the fact that the non-Annex II goods, unlike agricultural products, are only subject to a commitment to the WTO in terms of total refunds grantable per year and not in terms of quantities of goods exported.
Two amendments have been tabled regarding this approach.
The first amendment envisages the possible adoption of a refund certificate, in accordance with the management committee's procedure, at the point where it is felt to be really necessary.
To evaluate the scope of this amendment, there are two comments I would like to make.
First, it is important that measures supplementing those that exist at present should be adopted in good time to ensure that our commitments are genuinely respected.
Secondly, in order for it to be possible for the granting of refunds to potential exporters of non-Annex II goods to be guaranteed, these new measures will have to be adopted before we are effectively confronted by the constraints arising from the agreements of the Uruguay Round.
The first amendment proposed by the European Parliament is not opposed to this.
It also restates the Community's intention of ensuring compliance with its commitments.
For this reason, the commission can accept this amendment.
However, it is important that, as of now, the necessary measures should be drafted first to enable the Community to ensure compliance with its international commitments, and secondly to enable exporters to continue exporting with advance knowledge of the total refund to which they will be entitled if they so wish.
The Commission, then, in order to guarantee compliance with the Community's commitments, entered into pursuant to Article 9 of the agriculture agreement concluded at the Uruguay Round, must be able to reduce the refund rates, or suspend the granting of refunds for as long as is strictly necessary.
This is in any case already provided for in Article 8(3) of Regulation (EC) No 3448/93, as amended by the present proposal.
Regarding the second amendment, it must be recalled that Article 8(6), which it is proposed should be amended, defines the powers of the Commission in the event of the introduction of refund certificates by ensuring that this Regulation is consistent with the other Regulations previously adopted by the Council on the adaptation of the common agriculture policy and on the agriculture agreement concluded at the Uruguay Round of multilateral negotiations.
This paragraph 6 will probably have to be adapted in order to take account of the modifications introduced by the first amendment.
Nevertheless, the amendment proposed here oversimplifies the arrangements, which must be laid down by the management committee's procedure.
It cannot therefore be accepted in its present form.
Thank you, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
We welcome the fact that the EU's agricultural protection is being modified in line with the GATT agreement.
Any adjustment of the Common Agricultural Policy to bring it into line with GATT commitments is a step in the right direction, not least from the perspective of enlargement to the east.
Ultimately, we are convinced that a far-reaching reform of the existing Common Agricultural Policy is inevitable if enlargement is to take place unhindered.
In the future the CAP must take its place within a framework for measures which can be seen as environmentally friendly and as fostering rural development and are independent of direct production influence.
Olive oil
The next item is the oral question (B4-0977/96) by Mr Colino Salamanca, Mr Jacob, Mrs Fraga Estévez, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, Mr Filippi, Mr Campos, Mr Cunha, Mr Fantuzzi, Mr Jové Peres, Mr Arias Cañete and Mr Rosado Fernandes, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on reform in the olive oil sector.
Thank you for your question, Mr Colino Salamanca.
As you say, the Commission has undertaken a preliminary study of the need to reform the common organization of the markets in the olive oil sector.
These discussions took place at Chief Executive Assistant level, and the meeting reached the conclusion that Mr Fischler would present a detailed analysis of the sector to my colleagues on the Commission.
This analysis, accompanied by a specific proposal to reform the common organization of the markets in the olive oil sector, would then be presented to Parliament and the Council at an early stage.
The Commission recognizes the importance of the olive oil sector in the culture and prosperity of certain Mediterranean regions and their local employment situation.
Economic, socio-cultural and environmental implications of a modification of the system will be dealt with in the analysis document, and the Commission intends to institute, at both Community and Member State level, measures which are sufficiently flexible to ensure that the reform of the common organization of this market strengthens the role of the olive oil production and trade in regions where the growing of olive trees is a means of support.
The Commission also acknowledges that the common organization of the markets in the olive oil sector has been notable for serious control and fraud problems affecting all the mechanisms provided for by the system, especially as regards aid to production and consumption, and as regards intervention.
Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control and the Court of Auditors have repeatedly called for the Commission to take action to sort out this matter.
That is what we are going to have to do, fairly but firmly, without harming the many honest producers and dealers within the Community.
Although it is true that, in the past and for certain sectors, the Commission has decided to present a discussion paper to Parliament and the Council before presenting a formal proposal, the urgent need to simplify and strengthen the common organization of the olive oil markets argues against this approach in the present instance.
We shall have time to study the problem of the reform in Parliament and at the Council on the basis of the analysis and the reform proposal.
Thank you, Mrs Cresson.
As a doctor, I feel I should advise you to take care of your cold.
If not properly looked after, a cold may have unpleasant consequences later on.
Mr President, the Commission promised to present its proposal at the end of 1995, but frequent postponements and the making of alterations appear so far to have prevented it doing so.
I must emphasize that these postponements and alterations have not occurred as a consequence of any discussion with the European Parliament and social and professional circles about a text but are being decided on solely by the Commission itself in the context of events and pressures as they occur. As a result the olive oil sector and the producers are faced with an accomplished fact.
In behaving like this the Commission has departed from the practice that it followed in the reform of the other major sectors, which involved the prior presentation of a discussion paper as the basis for lengthy consultation followed by the presentation of final proposals based on the conclusions of that consultation, and has placed itself at odds with the producer countries which have persistently requested it to follow that practice in this case.
This refusal is very hard to credit when one considers that the presentation of a discussion paper, as well as helping to widen public debate and to promote the widest possible consensus on reform of the olive oil sector, would enable the Commission to get to grips with the pressures which have manifestly led to the repeated alteration of the draft regulation and to the frequent postponement of its presentation.
We are just two years away from the commencement of new negotiations on the further liberalization of the world market.
The olive oil sector, which - and this must be emphasized - is a deficit sector within the European Union, will be in a dreadful position.
We need a solution now which will support the quality of European olive oil and bring relief to the thousands of olive oil producers in the south of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard the Commissioner's comments, and she has explained that, on the grounds of necessity and urgency, she was asked to take immediate steps to control cases of fraudulent diversion.
However, we believe that this is no reason why questions should not be asked and the various sectors allowed to put their views.
We therefore understand and support the request of the Socialist Party representative. And we specifically ask Commissioner Fischler, on behalf of the European People's Party, for a discussion paper to be submitted by the Commission before any action is taken.
Mr President, what we know of the Commission's intentions for olive oil COMs sadly comes from the newspapers.
That is why I would like to put 4 questions to the Commission.
First question: when I was a Commissioner, whenever we had to carry out a major reform known to be a controversial one, we would first of all draft an analytical document, containing our thoughts and perspectives.
Then we would carry out a wide-ranging debate only once the Commission had formally presented its proposal.
Why has the Commission not followed this procedure in the case of olive oil?
Second question: what are the motives lying behind this reform of the olive oil COM? Because there is a surplus?
No, there are no surpluses! Because of the budgetary cost?
But those have been under control for a long time! Because of fraud?
Is there fraud?
Then you should combat it! But combating fraud is not per se an objective reason for reforming a COM.
Third question: apparently the Commission is proposing ending intervention in the olive oil sector and creating aid per tree.
Why are you ending intervention in the olive oil sector and not in other sectors, which are also surplus sectors? This is a mystery which I would like to be cleared up.
Why is it that the Commission is proposing for Portugal, for example, 40 % aid whereas that proposed for Spain or Italy is 60 % of that proposed for Greece?
If this aid is equal for everyone at present on the basis of production, can they explain to me, a Portuguese, why they are going to reduce it by 60 %?
Fourth question, Madam Commissioner: why is it that the Commission is not carrying out an overall reform of the CAP which it has already admitted is needed by the year 2000 instead of taking these tiny measures on a piecemeal basis?
Finally, Mr President, I would like to regret the fact that, on this Friday, we are debating such important farming reports as this and the Commissioner for agriculture is not even here.
Commissioner, as you have pointed out, the European Parliament has also been at the forefront in combatting fraud.
Naturally, this is something that has already been done by the Committee on Budgetary Control, but that cannot be used as a pretext to deny the European Parliament a role.
What we are basically asking for is our own debate: we want to be able to discuss this issue, as representatives of sensitive areas of European territory in which economic and social cohesion is crucial and agricultural production, such as olive oil production, is a major support to family income.
In those terms, then, we consider that Parliament must play a positive role and it seems to me that your statements have hinted at a willingness to view favourably the proposals that the House will be drawing up on the proposed reform of the COM.
There is no doubt that the proposal we have seen reported in the press contains many contradictions and causes problems for some Mediterranean regions, particularly in relation to methods of calculation and because production differs depending on geographical characteristics.
For that reason, a reflection document would clearly be desirable.
It is therefore appropriate that Parliament and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development should be involved first hand in a matter of such importance.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission should have presented a long time ago a report assessing the regime of aid to the production of olive oil.
Yet, we are now at the end of 1996 and no such report exists or has yet been published.
The Commission has recognised the need for a study document before it carries out a reform of the olive oil COM.
It has made a promise but we have yet to see the document.
The Commission appears to be forgetting its obligations and promises and, at the same time, it seems to want to take decisions by itself and very quickly.
That is why we have suddenly had a reform project thrust upon us and, apart from rejecting the methods used, we must also, at once, denounce the solutions which it puts forward.
In this draft document, olive oil as a crop is not included in the regional rural development and employment strategies nor is it seen as a vital element for protecting the environment in farmlands and even less is it seen as guaranteeing agriculture income and quality production.
This document aims to substitute production aid with subsidies per tree and proposes that, for example, for each Portuguese olive tree less than half the sum paid for an Italian or Spanish tree be handed out.
This is an obvious attempt at dividing and ruling: it is also trying to hide the wood for the trees, the kind of action recently been duly repudiated by the demonstration held in Brussels.
Thank you, Mr Novo.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Joint motion for a resolution on reform of the common organization of the market in olive oil
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Thank you, Mr Newman.
Mr Newman is chairman of the Committee on Petitions, and knows how much I always congratulate him on his good work; today he wishes to return the compliment .
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
Thank you for your cooperation.
(The sitting was closed at 12.55 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament, adjourned on Friday, 25 October 1996.
Membership of Parliament
The Austrian and Finnish authorities have notified me of the list of Members elected to Parliament from their countries, following the elections in Austria on 13 October and in Finland on 20 October.
The full list of names will be annexed to the Minutes of today's sitting.
I welcome these new Members to the European Parliament, as well as the former Members who have been reelected.
We look forward to working together with you.
To enable you to begin that work without delay, I would point out that, pursuant to Rule 7 of the Rules of Procedure, until such time as a Member's credentials have been verified or a ruling has been given on any dispute, the Member shall take his seat in Parliament and on its bodies and shall enjoy all the rights attaching thereto.
Once again, I should like to thank the Austrian and Finnish Members who are standing down for the work which they have done and for their cooperation, and to give them our best wishes for the future in their countries.
(Applause)
Welcome
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are disasters which, by their very nature or significance, affect all of us, all the citizens of the European Union.
This is the case of the fire which last Thursday broke out in the building of Lisbon's City Hall, in my country's capital.
In just a few hours, the flames devastated a significant part of this valuable testimony to neo-classical architecture, a democratic and heritage symbol of the city of Lisbon and a national historical and cultural reference point.
Without calling into question the motion for a resolution which we have already tabled and which we would like to see discussed and passed next Thursday, I hope that I am speaking for everyone in this Chamber by asking you, Mr President, on behalf of the European Parliament, to take the initiative of sending a message of support to the city authorities, in particular the Mayor of Lisbon who until recently was our colleague, to all of the City Elders and to the people of Lisbon.
I am sure that you will do so.
Thank you very much!
The House will be very sad to hear your news of the fire at Lisbon City Hall, Mr Novo, and I shall send a message of sympathy to the Mayor of Lisbon this week to make it clear how much the House regrets this loss.
I am sure that your concern is shared by the great majority in the House, Mr Kouchner, and I shall write accordingly to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Furthermore, I would point out that this matter is on our agenda for Wednesday.
My letter to the Secretary-General is not dependent on the debate; I simply wished to make the point that on Wednesday, the House will be discussing both the situation itself and the measures we are expecting from the European Union.
Mr President, I have a point of order under Rule 109(3).
The Secretary-General, Mr Vinci, will certainly remember the part he played in Parliament's reaction when acts of violence were committed here in the House.
I was the rapporteur for the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities when the House approved my proposal to add the following final sentence to this Rule: ' The Secretary-General shall see to it that this disciplinary measure is carried out immediately, with the assistance of the staff of Parliament's Security Service.'
On the Thursday of the last part-session - without going into details and naming no names - a fight took place outside the Chamber which brought the House into disrepute and completely overshadowed all our positive achievements in the Dutch press.
As the rapporteur who drafted the Rule in question, I should like to propose that it should also apply outside the Chamber.
This is something I should very much like to discuss with you.
It is open to you to propose an amendment to the Rules, Mr Janssen van Raay, which would be referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
We cannot change the Rules of Procedure here in the sitting.
Rule 109(3) is quite clear: it refers only to the Chamber.
I appreciate your concern, Mr Hallam.
Please let me have the details in a brief note, so that I can investigate the matter properly.
Mr President, I rise in connection with what is essentially a moral, humanitarian and political matter.
Everyone is aware of the existence of the green line in Cyprus, of the green line which encircles Nicosia.
On that line there has been a crossing point through which, by long-standing agreement, people living in the occupied enclave have been able to pass in order to visit relatives in the free part of Cyprus or to obtain medical treatment, given that treatment facilities in the occupied part of the island are hopelessly inadequate even where they exist.
A few weeks ago the Turkish authorities closed this route. As a consequence of that a father and mother who had crossed to the free area for social and other purposes before the closure are unable to return to their young children in the occupied area, which means that those children are now without protection.
Mr President, I request you to use your good offices to try to get that arbitrary action reversed.
That was not a point of order, Mr Ephremidis, and I am not taking any further points of order here.
I still have a number of announcements to make, which I think we have to deal with first.
There are clear rules governing photographers in Parliament, Mrs Lulling.
For example, filming or taking photographs is not permitted in the restaurants.
In principle, however, they have hitherto been allowed to take pictures in the lobby and elsewhere on Parliament's premises.
For that to be changed, the Rules would have to be amended.
The matter would thus have to be considered by the Bureau.
I cannot simply change the Rules of my own accord, before there has been a discussion in the Bureau.
Mr President, like you, I have absolutely no objection to cameramen or whoever photographing me openly signing in.
I am here doing my job.
Let them please report the fact that we are doing our jobs rather than anything else.
Amendment of Rule 49
The next item is the report (A4-0348/96) by Mr Manzella, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on amendment of Rule 49 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure (annual legislative programme).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in all democratic parliaments, the organization of the legislative programme is without doubt the most sensitive issue in the relationship between the institutions of government and the representative bodies.
That relationship may be said to be the reflection and the measure of the involvement of a parliament, as a legislative body, in the political direction of a constitutional system.
The concept of the institution of government may be monistic, that is to say the government is simply the executive arm of the parliamentary majority; then again, the concept may be dualistic with the institution of government being independent of the representative assembly: at any event, those two concepts are shaped by the way in which parliament's programme of work is determined.
This House, as we know, is not able to initiate legislation - save in the case of the very limited procedure under Article 138b of the Treaty - except, obviously, indirectly, by tabling amendments.
That is why our relationship with the other institutions of the Union, on the legislative programme, is very unusual.
What I mean by that is that Parliament must play a more prominent role in the procedure determining the organization of legislation, without disrupting the current system of institutional responsibilities.
This procedural position will thus allow it to take part in determining the political direction of the Union in a way that would appear to be ruled out as the distribution of responsibilities is currently established.
Hence the proposal to amend Rule 49, which I have the honour to put to the House.
This replaces the provisions of the tripartite declaration - CouncilCommission-Parliament - with the notion of dynamic participation by this House, on an equal footing with the other Institutions, in the actual drawing-up of the programme.
The crucial element in this participation is that we should establish the political priorities of the legislative programme via a resolution.
As a result of this position in the process, which will enable it to decide - and this is always a crucial decision in politics - on the time-scale for legislative processes, the European Parliament will participate fully in determining the Union's political guidelines, although, strictly speaking, without the power to initiate legislation.
It follows - though this is not spelled out in our text - that, in accordance with the general principle governing parliamentary decision-taking, our resolution will have to be preceded by a process of analysis and selection carried out by the standing committees.
That will then enable the House to establish the final political priorities based on the proposals put forward by the Commission, on the basis of a text tabled by the Conference of Presidents.
That process of analysis, forecasting and selection will take place within a specific time-frame, between the October and December part-sessions, with the annual programme having to be approved at the December partsession.
The work of the House on this will be facilitated by a requirement that the Commission accredit the proposals with both the definitive legal basis and all of the data, currently available, on the financial consequences, compliance with the principle of subsidiarity and urgency.
According to two of the amendments tabled, the annual programme, defined thus and, above all, thus determined as a result of the establishment by this House of the political priorities, ought to be subject to six-monthly review, at the beginning of each new presidency.
The concept of a programme that runs smoothly through the change of presidency seems to your rapporteur to be perfectly logical and reasonable, and I therefore support the amendments concerned.
I therefore consider that as a result of this amendment to our Rules of Procedure which already has the support of the Commission - a mark of genuine interinstitutional cooperation - the European Parliament will acquire a more visible role in the process of governing the Union.
Mr President, we are dealing today with Mr Manzella's report on the revision of Rule 49 and I would like to congratulate him on all the hard thinking and work he has put into preparing this report.
Mr President, let me summarize how things stand at the moment: the Commission submitted its programme in October as usual.
Parliament drew up a resolution on this programme and the Conference of Presidents spent long weeks and long months in negotiations with the Commission, in which officials and one of the Commissioners appointed by the Commission were also involved.
As usual, lengthy discussions were held before the document was finally published in the Official Journal.
I have already raised a few points during the debate on the work programme for this year.
Let me remind you here that the work programme for 1995 appeared in the Official Journal in August and the work programme for 1996 appeared in the Official Journal in May.
If work programmes are drawn up in this way, we are not going to be able to have any meaningful influence on the Commission's activity or on our Parliament's political activity.
The President of Parliament has therefore called on the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to radically simplify Rule 49.
Our group, Mr President, is in agreement with this simplification which needs to be applied as widely as possible.
In our view, the Commission will from now on begin by submitting its work programme in October.
Parliament and its committees will then tackle the various issues of concern to them so that by December we should be able to present a resolution outlining Parliament's priorities in the year ahead.
In addition to this work programme, I think that Parliament in any case has other opportunities for intervening in legislation. Article 138b of the Treaty, for instance confers on Parliament some right of initiative.
It is my view that Parliament should avail itself of this right more often than it has done in the past.
Our group then, Mr President, is in complete agreement with the details of Mr Manzella's report, which seeks to achieve the widest possible simplification.
We would like to make sure that, when voting on the amendments, this simplification is not modified in a way that would make the article too complex for what is required by the Commission's work programme.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Manzella on an excellent report which, Mr President, has very faithfully carried out the request that you and the other group chairmen made earlier this year to have a more compact, efficient and transparent system for Parliament to express its views on the Commission's legislative programme.
I thank Mr Manzella for that and we in the EPP Group will support his report.
I wish to say one or two words about the amendments tabled.
There are a number of amendments from the PSE Group that were rejected in committee - narrowly, it is true - and which have now been tabled again.
I hope that it will be possible, together with those who are responsible for these things in the PSE Group, to come to an agreement whereby we ensure that the requisite majority is garnered during the votes tomorrow.
It would be a pity if the best appeared to be the enemy of the good and everybody just voted for his own amendment and, at the end of the day, we did not manage to get the right amendment.
I, personally, very much favour the retention of Amendment No 3 by Mr Manzella.
It seems to me, in contrast to the alternative amendment from the PSE Group - Amendment No 8 - to be more compact, shorter and to be very much along the lines of what you, Mr President, have asked.
I hope it will be possible to maintain this original proposal from Mr Manzella.
Equally, I have tabled in my own name and that of my group, Amendment No 13, which envisages a six-monthly review, carried out by Parliament, of progress that has been made on the legislative programme.
When I worked for Lord Cockfield I remember that progress-chasing in regard to the implementation of the 1992 programme was something that he laid much emphasis on.
It is a useful self-discipline and I hope we will be able to institute it during our consideration of the legislative programme.
Finally, I see that among the Manzella amendments you have accepted, quite rightly, an amendment to delete text.
Now, strictly, that is contrary to Rule 125 of the Rules of Procedure.
But I am sure that you are quite right to have accepted the amendment and, now that I have seen this anomaly, I shall table an amendment to Rule 125, to make it clear that when we talk about modifications to the Rules of Procedure themselves, then amendments to delete particular articles or particular elements are wholly acceptable.
That is not clear in our present Rules, but it should be.
With that final caveat, I wish to congratulate Mr Manzella once again and say that I shall be voting with my group for his report tomorrow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our group feels that the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament should guarantee that approval of the Commission's legislative programme by our Assembly should take place on the basis of the principles of simplicity, transparency and efficiency.
We therefore feel that the joint declarations by the European Parliament and Commission should be replaced by a much closer and stronger interinstitutional dialogue, involving a periodical examination of the legislative programme by the Conference of Presidents.
In our view, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities has not included these principles in the text and has instead opted for eliminating from the draft report the sub-paragraph in which participation by the Conference of Presidents and the Conference of Committee Chairmen is established.
This does result in a simple and transparent text, it is true, but it might not be effective in giving this Assembly true powers of control over the legislative programme, control which obviously is one of the bases of our political activity as a Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as far as this report - which Mr Manzella has certainly approached with a great sense of responsibility is concerned, we are opposed in particular to a decision that appears to have been taken.
I want to take advantage of the time that remains to try to explain to the rapporteur and honourable Members just how dangerous the path to be followed seems to me to be, unless a number of amendments designed to effect a slight change in course are adopted.
For a number of years we have had with the Commission - and hope to do the same with the Council also, though it seems to me that we have been successful only once in five or six years - a unique procedure in which the Commission and Parliament reach agreement - and I realize this - with great difficulty.
I also realize that we have encountered determined resistance on the part of the Commission when it comes to putting into practice what it actually agreed: in other words, it very often endorses the legislative programme and then, sometimes deliberately, takes no account of it.
We have been so disappointed with this procedure that we intended this report to change it, making it more effective by means of a vote in plenary: an appropriate and very fair measure responding to the Commission's work programme and then legislative programme with a debate in the House - and we too consider this definitely to be an important and politically significant act.
But what my group believes to be of little benefit and in fact dangerous to the House is to take the backward step of restricting ourselves to this but not retaining the system that assigns to you, Mr President, in the final analysis, responsibility for negotiating this legislative programme with the Commission, in - as is our constant hope - the presence of the Council, so that what we have is a legislative programme agreed with the other Institutions.
That element in a sense disappears in the amended Rule 49, although in at least two other rules of the current Rules of Procedure, which have not been amended, that requirement remains, that desire for an agreed legislative programme.
That is why my group has tabled amendments, but I have noticed that in some languages, Italian for instance, they have not been properly translated.
The point of the amendment, Mr Manzella, is clearly to retain the concept of agreement between the Institutions in establishing the legislative programme. But it is our view that a mere resolution of the House is not enough and will not guarantee Parliament or you, Mr President, the opportunity of negotiating with the Commission.
And that is why, along with other minor amendments also, we think it important to retain that concept and include it in a different, amended version, adopting the fundamentals of the Manzella proposal but including this important specification.
Mr President, in ordinary circumstances the Commission plays no part in deliberations about Parliament's internal rules, but this particular matter concerns us directly.
In fact, positive cooperation by the Commission will be a prerequisite for implementation of the arrangements that Mr Manzella is proposing to the House.
In commencing, I would like to assure the House that that cooperation will be forthcoming and that we are also committed to following through the agreements that have been arrived at already.
Please permit me now, Mr President, to make some observations about the report itself.
First of all, I would like, on behalf of President Santer and Mr Oreja, to commend the extremely constructive cooperation that has been achieved on this matter between the Commission, the President of Parliament - you yourself, that is to say, Mr President-, the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Mr Fayot, the rapporteur, Mr Manzella, and to emphasize, of course, the important part played by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure at its meeting with Mr Oreja at which he was able to set out the Commission's position.
After the completion of the procedure for the legislative programme for 1996 there was general agreement between the Commission and Parliament that the existing arrangements were seriously in need of reform.
Both parties were of the view that the procedure needed to be made simpler and to be vested with a greater political emphasis.
The report before the House today constitutes a formulation of that common aspiration, and I can therefore say, on behalf of the Commission, that it has our full support.
That being the case we do not have many observations to make.
We think that the proposal to include in Rule 49 the general reference that the three institutions - including the Council - will share in determining the legislative programme is right.
I believe that an amendment was tabled to the effect that each institution should proceed in the determination within the constraints of its own powers.
It was tabled but, regrettably, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure rejected it as self-evident.
I would like this interpretation to be emphasized in the new Rule 49.
The Commission can accept the request that we present the programme in October, as we did this year - although I must tell you in all honesty that it imposes a very strict internal timetable on us.
I consider the reference in the proposed new text of Rule 49 restricting the legislative programme to proposals of legislative character and international agreements to be an improvement and a good simplification.
We take cognizance of the request for the provision of a statement of the proposed legal basis for every act included in the legislative programme.
This is an old problem and we continue to have certain reservations.
We also note the request for the provision of information concerning respect for the principle of subsidiarity and the financial consequences.
As you know, we have certain reservations about that, too.
We shall find it difficult to be precise until the detailed proposal has been processed.
I believe that the introduction of a provision that this information should be provided wherever possible would ease the Commission's reservation, which I merely wanted to clarify for you.
Let me say finally that I believe that we have a text that we can work with and, what is more, work with very successfully.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Aid to uprooted people
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0344/96) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0374/96-95/0162(SYN)) with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on operations to aid uprooted people in Asian and Latin American developing countries (rapporteur: Mr Howitt).
Mr President, last Friday I received a report about a severely ill woman refugee and her baby, members of the Rohingya indigenous community, who had fled Burma for a refugee camp in Bangladesh.
An aid worker who knew the mother told me that her child had been diagnosed at the end of July as being severely malnourished and was under close medical supervision.
Mother and baby were interviewed for repatriation - repatriation to a country known as one of the world's worst human rights abusers; a country notorious for its killings, mass imprisonment and forced labour; where returnees who have been forced to set up settlements just inside the border are subject to intimidation from the Burmese military and have lost all hope of reconciliation.
I was told that this Burmese refugee child was so sick that it was visible to the naked eye that she would be unable to survive repatriation, but the return went ahead and four days later the child was reported dead.
Today's debate, this legislation and the European aid it supports must signal our determination to avoid such tragic stories.
Emergency humanitarian aid must swiftly be given to those who flee persecution and who are left with nothing.
But European aid must also help refugees to rebuild their health and livelihoods and to resettle back in their communities or into a new life; a life with a genuine hope of a secure future.
As the world watches over the fate of refugees in eastern Zaire, embroiled in ethnic conflict not of their own choosing, the first priority must be freedom from the fear of violence.
That is why we retable our amendments that European refugee aid must never collaborate against the principle of non-refoulement.
Return must be voluntary or Europe will not help.
We are still watching those responsible for the 15, 000 former Vietnamese boat people who reside in Hong Kong.
It is why respect for human rights and for reconciliation must underlie the programmes - respect for land rights too in countries like Guatemala where 70 % of the cultivable land is held by just 2 % of the population.
We welcome the fact that our first reading amendments on conflict prevention, on environmental considerations, on combating sexual violence and on help to host communities have been incorporated into the legislation. But on laying down principles for these programmes for the very first time, important omissions still remain.
Why is there no reference to participation by refugees themselves, and to targeted aid to women's, disabled and other social groups, which is an essential precondition for the success of these programmes? Why limit assistance to basic health needs when long-term counselling is also needed to heal the psychological wounds of conflict?
If awareness building about land mines can be included in the regulation for humanitarian aid, why not in this? When Haitian parents stayed behind pushing their children onto boats so that they would get asylum, why is there a refusal to commit the aid so that children can be reunited with their parents?
Europe is funding such projets and has been doing so for ten years.
In the northern Bokeo province of Laos, for example, we are currently supporting 1, 200 returnees in two villages, helping them to build their own homes and a school and with irrigation projects and mine clearance.
Tonight is not an administrative exercise in Europe.
We should look at what we are trying to do on the ground, listen to the experiences of refugees themselves and of aid organizations and agree new regulations based on what we are really trying to do in practice.
In particular, the Council of Ministers should end its stubborn insistence on prior approval of these programmes by a bureaucratic III(a) comitology committee.
The new Committee on Food Aid alone is already costing ECU 153, 000 per year, money which could be feeding hungry people.
In relation to the refugee programmes, my parliamentary question shows that one in four of all refugee aid projects will have to be agreed under this new cumbersome procedure.
This will cause a minimum delay of three months in decisions and the two people responsible for administering the programmes will have to generate 70, 000 extra pages of paperwork a year - 70, 000 - this is madness!
Let us stop playing the politics of Europe with the lives of refugees worldwide: 53 million refugees and uprooted people worldwide, equivalent to the total population of my own country, Great Britain, one in every 115 people on this earth forced into flight.
This is surely the biggest challenge facing humanity today.
In our deliberations let us demonstrate that we understand the scale of this challenge.
In our decisions let us show that we are worthy in our response.
Mr President, in recent years measures to help refugees have assumed crucial importance in terms of the more general policies of development and establishing peace.
As already correctly pointed out in Mr Howitt's report, which we fully support, this involves a combination of measures designed to secure compliance with the provisions of international law and the protection of human rights, as well as positive measures designed to manage the political and humanitarian aspects of crisis situations that actually arise.
On that first aspect, it is important to reiterate that the Geneva Convention and the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees guarantee the right of asylum and the right 'not to be repulsed' to all those who legitimately fear for their safety in their country of origin.
Direct action to help displaced people has therefore to be informed by the more serious criteria of the effectiveness of the aid and its compatibility with the objectives of arriving at a peaceful solution to humanitarian crises and the creation of conditions for their lasting development and, possibly, the voluntary repatriation or reintegration of the refugees.
Refugees and displaced people are not an amorphus mass to be helped but individuals needing to be assisted and motivated so that they are able to cope with current and future needs.
Making the most of human resources and protecting the most vulnerable refugees and displaced persons are crucial measures if we are to prevent a situation in which their living conditions becoming unsustainable in the long term and the outstanding problems that prompted their flight become simply insoluble.
If the regulation we are discussing includes the amendments on which we are about to vote, it could make it possible better to define action by the European Union to help the uprooted peoples of Asia and Latin America, even though, it cannot, of course, take the place of more effective political action by the European Union.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Howitt, on behalf of my group as well as myself.
The subject of his report is the fate of refugees in Asia and Latin America.
All of these refugees have to endure harsh conditions.
I had the opportunity, a little over a year ago, of seeing the situation for myself on a private visit to Central America. Among the places I visited were refugee aid projects run by the European Union and by NGOs which are supported by the Commission.
It is shocking to be confronted with such images: to see how people have been driven out, how they have lost all their possessions and must now begin the slow process of rebuilding their lives and somehow recovering.
The Commission and the NGOs that are funded from this budget heading are supporting people in such situations, and their help is needed.
Instead of putting obstacles in the way of those who are actively helping on the ground, we should do our utmost to facilitate their task and support them.
That is why I should like to mention once again a particular problem which came to my attention both on the private visit that I referred to, and on a visit by a European Parliament delegation to Nicaragua.
Projects which are funded from this particular budget line meet enormous problems when it comes to procuring equipment.
We were made aware of the specific problems faced both by NGOs and the Commission in procuring vehicles, because priority has to be given to European products when these are purchased for use in the projects.
There may well be reasons for this requirement, but it poses major problems because there is no infrastructure for these European products and no spare parts, because deliveries are an extremely complex business.
That is why I should like to re-emphasize the need for great flexibility, and if problems arise or the products in question are abnormally expensive, it must be possible to fall back on products from other countries of origin.
The fact is that our main purpose with this budget line is not to support the European economy - that would be indefensible - but to help people.
If our ability to help is compromised because we put bureaucratic obstacles in our own way, then the budget line is failing to achieve its objective.
I had originally tabled an amendment on this issue.
However, I think that I should withdraw it, because I am confident that the Commission will interpret the Council's compromise proposal here in a sufficiently flexible way to allow the NGOs and the Commission staff who are working on the ground to provide flexible help, rather than saddling them with unnecessary bureaucracy that prevents them from helping people.
Mr President, our group wishes to lend its support to the Howitt report, both because of its mention of the amendments to the regulations accepted in first reading by the Commission, referring to environmental considerations, the prevention of conflicts and the fight against sexual violence, and because of its insistence on re-tabling amendments which we feel are vital.
In my opinion, the most important are the following: the guarantee of health assistance, specific assistance for groups in especially serious situations, such as indigenous women or children, participation by the host communities and refugees in making sure that projects are successful and, finally, the position on comitology.
In other words, we still feel that these committees should be consultative, and we think that it has never been as clear as it is today that the lack of decision-making or excessive red tape can lead to scandals such as the one now taking place in Zaire, which is why we insist on the adoption of this amendment by the Commission.
Mr President, Mr Howitt has presented an important report on the refugee situation.
It has our support, and we were unanimous in approving it in committee.
Mr Howitt has just mentioned the figure of 53 million refugees.
I believe that there are many more than that.
The figure is somewhere between 200 million and 500 million, depending on who is counted as a refugee - whether, for example, environmental refugees are included.
There are many people in the southern hemisphere whom we completely fail to consider.
And that brings me to a problem in the area of internal affairs.
Refugees from the South are frequently refused entry to our countries.
The terminology is shifting: the concepts of asylum and protection from forced repatriation are being circumscribed in such a way that we no longer recognize these people's human rights.
If a refugee has to obtain proof of his refugee status from a dictatorial regime, that proof will not be forthcoming - in other words, we should take a more liberal approach here.
It is important that refugees should be reintegrated into their countries.
But the conditions necessary for reintegration have to be created.
Mr Howitt mentioned mines.
We need far more resources to effectively clear the mines that have been laid, so that people are able to move about.
For voluntary repatriation to work, we also need people to have the land rights which they formerly held.
This is something that we must support.
The Commission was mentioned in relation to bureaucratic obstacles.
I hope that we can resolve this problem, that as a Parliament we can continue to exercise a control function, and that the people in the camps - 80 % of them women and children - can count on their rights and not be forced to endure sexual or other forms of coercion.
That is where the Commission's duty lies.
Mr President, it is not an easy matter for the European Union to provide aid for uprooted people in Latin America and Asia.
A theoretical common position on the plight of refugees in two such different parts of the world - the rapporteur talks about Afghanistan to Guatemala - must inevitably be extremely general, and it is debatable, or I at least wonder, whether intergovernmental cooperation on an ad hoc basis, dealing with each problem as it arises, would not be more sensible, efficient and economical, particularly in view of the 'bureaucratic nightmare' of comitology procedures which the rapporteur describes.
Having said that, I should like to take this opportunity to make two basic points about the plight of refugees in general, especially since the rapporteur felt obliged in his explanatory statement, quite unnecessarily, to criticize the European Union for its 'racism' and 'xenophobia' .
Principle No 1: wherever possible, refugees must go to countries which basically have the same culture as their country of origin, in other words neighbouring countries, preferably.
This means that Europe need not allow any non-European refugees onto its territory.
There may always be exceptions which prove the rule, of course, but the rule must apply, and it must be enforced in practice.
Otherwise, the day will come when the people of Europe are no longer prepared to help genuine refugees because they have rightly had enough of bogus asylum-seekers, which in Europe applies to 99 out of every 100 cases.
Principle No 2: refugees must be returned to their countries of origin as quickly as possible, and certainly as soon as they can do so without putting themselves in any real danger.
We have to realize that the presence of large groups of refugees often entails great hardship for the indigenous inhabitants of the host countries, and can even pose a threat to their own identity and become the focus of violent conflict.
We only have to look at what is happening in Zaire and Rwanda to see what this means.
I am sorry to say that neither of these two fundamental principles is mentioned in Parliament and Council documents which are before us today.
Mr President, I must say first of all how much I appreciate Mr Howitt's report and sadly how topical it is today.
Between 1970 and 1990 the number of refugees increased tenfold.
More than 20 million individuals, i.e. 10 000 persons a day are forced to flee their homes.
Three quarters of these unfortunate 10 000 are women and children.
The number of persons displaced within their national borders amounts to 24 million.
The UNO has run more peace operations in the last five years than in the first thirty years of its existence.
I am particularly pleased that the author of the report stresses the need for flexibility.
In these matters urgency is always of the essence.
Our procedures, however, are too cumbersome and everybody agrees about this.
I shall not say anything about comitology, the mere mention of this word frightens me.
Like the author I am adamant about the need to link the refugee programme to development policy or otherwise the number of refugees will continue to rise.
Eighty per cent of them find themselves in the least advanced countries and I would point out that the overwhelming majority of these refugees are initially taken in by poor neighbouring countries and not by us.
It should be the other way round; we ought to show more solidarity.
While I would have liked to dwell on some of the technical aspects of this report, I shall pass on to what is essential in my view whilst naturally endorsing the whole Development Committee's demand that the amendments be reintroduced.
As regards refugees we are presently at the stage - the best that has ever been invented, stylistically speaking - of humanitarian voyeurism .
We know what is happening, we are prepared for something even worse and in the meantime we do nothing.
Let me remind you that we have been asked three time to intervene on behalf of the refugees in Zaire: at the time of the genocide in Rwanda; when the refugee camps had to be policed; and when President Nyerere, backed by the whole of the OAU asked us to intervene in Burundi.
We have done nothing.
So there is no point in talking any more about refugees - this burden on all countries and particularly the poorest ones as well as the international community - without also talking about prevention and I should like to thank Mr Howitt for having done so.
Prevention means preventing massacres and intervening in advance - not as we are perhaps going to act now, i.e. when everyone is already dead.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Howitt on the work which he has carried out, because I think that it is extremely important work on a subject which unfortunately, in recent times, has been permanently on the agenda of our political debates.
The situation of refugees is a desperate one, and it also calls for preventive measures.
It is vital that we act in the field of preventive diplomacy, but it is also vital that we should take and follow up a set of measures and policies which help most of the people who are victims of these types of situations and are now forced to live and suffer in ways which, unfortunately, are familiar to us all because every day we can see pictures on our TV screens.
I think, therefore, that this time we should criticise ourselves because we have failed to act.
Europe has not assumed its responsibility, Europe has fallen far short of what is expected of it, and Europe must now play a much more active role, a far more decisive role, so that the problem of helping refugees can be dealt with in a way which is not only humanitarian but also in a way which, as someone has already said, fits in with development policies, policies which are becoming all the rarer and whose practical results have become less objective.
I think that this report - provided that the amendments tabled by the Committee on Development are duly adopted and acted upon by the Commission and the Council - could create an initial fundamental framework so that we can deal with the problem of refugees in a more optimistic way and so that we can have a more human dimension, in fact.
I should like to focus fundamentally on those amendments which are connected with all of the efforts made to prevent conflicts, the principle of non-discrimination, and to put right all of the damage done to the environment, as well as those including in the programmes the notion of human rights - which I feel are fundamental questions - as well as specific aid for the more vulnerable groups.
I think that all of these questions call for much more active work, because there is no time to waste on a subject as sensitive as this one.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before proceeding I would like to commend Mr Howitt, the rapporteur, for the quality of the document that he has presented today and also for the close cooperation, the level of cooperation, that has prevailed throughout the preparatory stage.
I wish also to state at the beginning that the Commission considers the text that we are presenting today to be entirely satisfactory.
This legislative text will, in fact, establish a clear legal reference framework which will allow the Commission to continue its operations to aid uprooted people in Asia and Latin America.
We shall continue with our efforts to provide specific support for people who have left their country or region of origin as a result of conflict or internal disturbance.
We shall also continue our work of providing aid to people who require specific assistance after humanitarian aid has been provided and before a programme of classical development actions becomes feasible.
I am thinking here of the assistance required to promote self-sufficiency and integration or reintegration, as the case may be, into the social and economic fabric of the host country or the country of return.
The proposal provides for an extensive partnership network embracing the organizations of the United Nations and international non-governmental organizations and governments and local authorities.
It also allows for a wide range of operations: operations relating to care and maintenance, the training of health personnel and the restoration of the small-scale infrastructure.
In addition, there is provision for measures relating to the financing of credit systems aimed at stimulating the recommencement of economic activity.
There is also provision for actions directed specifically at female heads of family and to protect the environment.
Taken as a unity these measures meet the requirement for flexibility in tackling situations which are evolving with extreme rapidity and also situations where the international community needs to act swiftly and effectively to forestall the infliction of further hardship on the people concerned.
In addition, however, the proposal meets the requirement of allowing provision to be made for the possibility that the restoration of communal peace may be impeded or delayed because of the tenseness of the situation.
The Commission is pleased that Parliament to a large extent shares this approach.
That closeness of approach makes it possible for the Commission to accept a number of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Development and Cooperation at the second reading.
Specifically, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3, which introduce into the legislative text the principles of non-discrimination and non-refoulement and the requirements for the establishment of democratic structures and the involvement of affected groups in the assessment of their needs.
We can also accept Amendment No 7 concerning stronger coordination with the Member States and implementing partners.
Amendment No 13 requiring that the assessment reports be made available to the European Parliament can likewise be accepted.
The Commission can accept Amendment No 4 if the word 'voluntary' qualifying the word 'return' in the list of operations is deleted.
On this point the Commission can only restate its position.
It is obvious that the return must be at the wish of the people concerned.
However, in order to cover the contingency of forced repatriation, which unfortunately cannot be excluded or avoided, we consider it necessary to retain the option of using the legislative text in question and the respective budgetary resources for the provision of support to people who are the victims of any such violation of basic principles.
Unfortunately, the Commission cannot accept, in its present form, Amendment No 5 relating to technical assistance and studies.
The priority that it accords to experts from the recipient country does not cause us any difficulty.
However, we believe that the limiting of the resources for the studies, audits and evaluation and monitoring missions to 3 % of the total cost of the operation is too restrictive.
In certain circumstances the studies, audits and evaluations required for the success of the operation may cost more than the percentage of total financing that is being stipulated.
Amendment No 6, which seeks to impose a requirement for the regular exchange of information between the Commission and other donor representatives and operational partners and for coordination and consultation with the competent committee of the European Parliament and NGOs, is also unacceptable because the implementation of those principles cannot be reconciled with the serious shortages of manpower and material resources with which the Commission has to grapple.
Amendments Nos 8 and 9 relate to the subject of comitology and, specifically, propose the elimination of the obligation to submit projects costing more than ECU 2 million to the Member States Procedure 3A committee.
The Commission shares the view expressed by the rapporteur in the explanatory statement that these are wider issues subject to interinstitutional agreement.
The Commission has therefore decided not to accept the inclusion of those amendments in its proposal.
Nevertheless, the Commission can do no other than support - and, indeed, with enthusiasm - the compromise proposed by the rapporteur of reverting to the original proposal for a financial threshold of ECU 5 million.
In any event, the Commission believes that if a committee of the Member States does have to participate in the decisionmaking procedure it will have to be the committee on the developing countries in Asia and Latin America set up under Regulation 443/92.
Lastly, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 12 requiring it to consult with the authorities, collaborating organizations and beneficiaries in the third country in which the operations are planned before the general plan of operations is discussed.
Such an obligation would be too binding and cannot be reconciled with the material resources and manpower at the Commission's disposal.
There would be a risk of delay at the discussion stage and, by extension, in the execution of the annual programme of aid provision to displaced persons.
As regards the participation of the Member of Parliament, we must point out that the final composition of committees is a matter for the Council.
This issue has to do with interinstitutional balance and could be the subject of discussion in another framework, such as the intergovernmental conference.
To conclude, Mr President, I would like once again to compliment Mr Howitt and to thank all the Members who have spoken.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Environmental measures in the developing countries in the context of sustainable development
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0340/96) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on environmental measures in developing countries in the context of sustainable development (C4-0373/96-95/0161(SYN) (rapporteur: Mrs Taubira Delannon).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this programme - as the chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation has just said - was created by the European Parliament to respond to the Rio Conference and the problems raised there.
Unfortunately, the Council of Ministers has never backed it and it has taken years for this budgetary line to have the necessary legal base.
It is an extremely important budgetary line, enabling us to support local initiatives promoted by local authorities and non-governmental organisations.
It is a genuine line for assisting sustainable development.
However, the Council of Ministers, demonstrating great hypocrisy, has rejected the European Parliament proposals put forward at first reading in the Taubira-Delannon report, aimed at broadening the base of action in this budgetary line and the programme, and at the same time is rejecting it on the grounds of lack of resources; in the 1997 budgetary process the Council of Ministers has tried to reduced the budget of this very programme.
In other words, on one hand, the Council says that the programme cannot be extended because there is not enough money, while at the same time, in the budgetary process, it has attempted to reduce the meagre 50 MECU which this budgetary line already contains.
It was the European Parliament, here, last month, which at first reading restored the meagre 50 MECU.
Ladies and gentlemen, the human dramas taking place in the shanty-towns of Rio de Janeiro and Cairo, the destruction of forests, which last year reached an absolute record since the Rio Conference in 1992, the spectacle of human misery, the children of Africa from Rwanda to the Sudan, call for our action.
All of this is taking place in front of our eyes and yet the European Parliament is unable to set up a credible programme, with appropriate budgetary resources in order to take measures in these parts of the world.
As the rapporteur for the Committee on the Environment, I can only echo what the chairman of the Committee on Development has said here.
We must support the amendments to the Taubira-Delannon report, we must maintain a stern position of ferocious criticism of the Council of Ministers' hypocrisy in the area of sustainable development.
Mr President, the commitments entered into by the international community at the 1992 Rio Summit, but also all of the more serious analyses of the state of our planet lead us to conclude that action to help the natural environment must be given increasing priority in the definition of development priorities.
This is a global problem that needs to be tackled with great vigour in both the northern and the southern hemispheres.
Plainly, the protection and enhancement of the ecosystem cannot and should not ignore issues relating to the need to guarantee human kind, and the people of the poorer countries in particular, proper living conditions and development.
But if we are to avoid conflict between the environment and development we need the kind of ecologically-based change to the economy which has so far been more forthcoming in declarations than in actual decisions.
The fact is that even now we are continuing to destroy the natural environment and are not pursuing even the minimum objectives of human development.
It is therefore a great victory for the European Parliament that, for some years now, action by the European Union, in the context of cooperation with the developing countries, has begum to include environmental measures also.
The objective of sustainable development has, however, at the same time, to inform all existing policies and measures.
The proposal for a regulation that we are debating at second reading will have also to incorporate the amendments tabled by the House if it is to be able better to cope with the major environmental issues.
We have, however, to be concerned at the fact that the funding earmarked for such measures is likely to be a token sum only. Nonetheless, we urge the House to accept the amendments tabled by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, as an incentive to expand upon and influence measures to benefit the environment and sustainable development that the European Union can apply together with it partners in the countries of the south.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for her meticulous work on this report.
The number of amendments which have been tabled is a further sign that the Committee on Development and Cooperation takes this issue very seriously and has considered it in depth.
We are all aware that too little has been done in this area in the past, and the environmental aspect still receives too little attention.
On the other hand, we are confronted by a development which we are virtually powerless to check, when I think of the plans that a country like China may have in terms of mechanization.
I am prepared to bet that mechanization in this instance will not be accomplished using state-of-the-art technology, but rather with whatever technology the people in this emerging country can afford.
The report refers to the sustainability of environmental measures.
I believe that sustainability must be a criterion for all development measures wherever we implement them, whether in the health or education sectors or, as in this case, the environmental sector.
The previous speaker has already mentioned the fact that we also defended budget heading B7-5040 in the Committee on Development, and I only hope that we stick to our guns.
Of course, these are not the kind of sums that will allow us to improve the environment throughout the world, but we do wish to use them to support pilot projects.
In the amendments we have retabled, most importantly, we refer to local initiatives.
However, this does not mean that the governments of the developing countries can be allowed to evade their responsibilities.
We all know how many of these governments make heavy weather of problems such as the protecting the environment, and in particular the sustainable protection of the environment.
Local initiatives cannot make up for failures on the part of government.
It is unacceptable, for example, that governments should approve extensive deforestation programmes while, on the other hand, reafforestation is the responsibility of local initiatives.
I also wonder whether we can sustainably support the preservation of a healthy, biologically pure environment by the use of brochures which, for all I know, may be made from wood pulp.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the initiative of the European Parliament, budget line B7-6200 was set up to encourage the inclusion of the environmental aspect in the development process of the developing countries and to help improve the living conditions of the local people.
The key word used is 'sustainable' and not 'lasting' development: this means making changes in current development, production, consumption and behavioural models in order gradually to steer human activity and development towards sustainable, that is acceptable, forms that will enable us to live in an environment that is in a healthy state and, at the same time, guarantee a proper level of social well-being and public health for all.
The aim is certainly an ambitious one and its achievement depends on the coordination and consistency of the political strategies that are to be put into effect. It further depends on the effective integration of the environmental aspect into all other policies in order to limit, as far as possible, the inexorable pressures that contribute to the depletion of natural resources, with the resultant deterioration in the environment and, consequently, impoverishment of the quality of life.
The measures to be taken must take account of five sectors which directly interact with each other: industry, energy, transport, agriculture and tourism.
This new instrument will have therefore to combine flexibility and efficiency to produce important innovative effects in the developing countries.
I congratulate both the rapporteur and the Chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation: we agree that this proposal marks qualitative progress but, clearly, deplore the limited resources allocated to it: ECU 15 bn only.
We therefore support the rapporteur when she suggests retabling - with the sole exception of Amendment No 1 - all of the amendments tabled at first reading.
Mr President, environment policy seems to have been losing some of its impetus recently.
We have a great deal to say about the importance of integrating environmental considerations into other policy areas, yet we are cutting back many of the budget headings that would make this possible.
In May, as we all know, Parliament adopted 44 amendments designed to improve the integration of environmental measures into development cooperation, but only three of these have been adopted by the Council.
I also find it very strange that the Council has cut the duration of the projects to three years, which is surely difficult to reconcile with the longerterm efforts which this sector needs, and we are very surprised that the Council has made only ECU 45 million available, in other words ECU 15 m a year.
We simply have to provide more funding, which is why I think the amendment proposed by the Committee on Development and Cooperation to increase the budget by ECU 50 m in the year 2000 definitely deserves our support.
We need to provide this money to promote continuity in the developing countries, and to help them combat deforestation, erosion, pollution and desertification.
We need to set priorities, and I agree with the rapporteur that we should concentrate primarily on innovative projects such as solar energy and model projects.
We also, of course, need to take account of local environmental needs, and we should focus not just on rural areas, but also on cities with their enormous waste problems.
Let us hope that the Council will now adopt Parliament's recommendations at second reading and actually do something to promote sustainable development, instead of merely paying it lip-service.
Mr President, the rapporteur has given us a report which is the product of much hard work, a report which is necessary because the sums of money being sought for budget heading B7-5040 are far from being available to us.
The rapporteur has detailed why the money is necessary: for raising awareness, for initiatives that will serve as models, for grassroots groups, NGOs and associations, for sustainable economic activity and urban planning, to support local initiatives, to reduce climate damage, for the economy, maintaining biodiversity, and a great deal more.
However, what we have available under this budget heading is ECU 15 million over three years.
In my opinion, that is less than peanuts.
It is not merely a slap in the face, it is worse than ridiculous: it is shameful!
This is a hypocritical budget heading, given the environmental damage that we cause in our own countries.
When I read in the report that we are seeking to run a green economy - green in the sense of being sustainable - I have to ask myself what damage is being caused to the environment simply through the kind of economy, attitudes and policies which characterize the European Union.
I have no need to look as far afield as Mrs Günther did when she used China as an example.
You are right, of course, automobile production in China does damage the environment - but who are the producers?
I am German, and I know who they will be: Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Porsche.
It is the same logic that we are pursuing here with the trans-European networks.
The capital which is diverted for that purpose will come back to us, because we are deregulating markets and promoting throughout the world a type of economic reform that will allow us to continue with precisely this kind of production.
It was said in Rio that we intended to reduce the level of CO2 emissions from vehicles: so what is the situation now?
The situation is that none of what was promised in terms of reducing emissions has been achieved.
We know that these emissions are going to double by the year 2020.
And just think of the tremendous debts incurred when a nuclear power station in Manila is built in a rift valley, and then construction cannot continue because of earthquakes, yet the people have to bear the costs - they have to pay the costs of our industry.
How are they expected to do that with ECU 5 million?
If we wish to pursue a development policy, therefore, it is in these areas that we must begin.
We must begin with Shell in Nigeria, where the soil is contaminated, with the Community importers of rainforest products who are polluting drinking water, with energy production and vehicle production.
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent report. I fully support her amendments.
The concept of sustainable development is critical to the welfare of developing countries.
The European Parliament, Members will recall, initiated a special budget line in 1982 aimed at encouraging developing countries to take the environmental dimension into account in the development process and to help improve living conditions among local populations.
One of the main regrets that we have is the low level of financial resources set aside in support of this proposal.
I am certain that the Irish presidency agrees with the rapporteur on the issue of financing, which is shameful.
The proposal aims at extending the Fifth Environmental Action Programme to the end of this century.
It is timely that political commitment to the programme is renewed.
The European Union has an increasingly important role to play in helping to protect the environment, not only at Community level, but also in developing countries.
The main conclusion of the European Environment Agency's assessment prepared as part of the review process for the EU Fifth Environmental Action Programme highlights the following priorities: first, while progress is being made in reducing certain pressures on the environment, it is not enough to improve the general quality of the environment nor to make progress towards sustainability; second, if we do not have accelerated policies, pressures on the environment will continue to place an excessive burden on human health and the carrying capacity of the environment; third, the actions that have been taken to date are not going to lead to full integration of environmental considerations into economic sectors or to sustainable development.
We must continue at all levels to promote greater public awareness of the need to protect and enhance the environment.
Better environmental management and protection is needed.
Regretfully, the necessary financial sources are not being made available.
As Mr Telkämper and other Members here have said, it is shameful and a disgrace.
I hope that the Council of Ministers will reconsider their position on this.
Mr President, we should not hold out too high hopes about the results of the Council Regulation on environmental action in developing countries in the context of sustainable development.
Mr Kouchner too has just made this point.
Clearly, the aims of the regulation are highly praiseworthy in that the Union is poised to develop its own environmental geostrategy.
The proposal for a regulation should therefore be regarded as complementary to existing aid schemes, mechanisms, procedures and interventions.
Nevertheless, it is tempting to say that the ambitious nature of the regulation's objectives is ill-matched by the modest level of funding ear-marked for it.
To be frank, fifteen million or so ECUs over a period of three years are not going to be more than a symbolic step in the right direction.
Mr President, even with funding way above the levels I have just mentioned, the Union's sustainable development strategy would have to contend with the international community's numerous shortcomings and omissions.
The whole international community and not just the European Union needs to work together to achieve the aims outlined by the rapporteur.
The Commission, in particular, should use all its influence in the various international fora where the other major actors on the international stage are represented, namely the United States, Japan, not to mention others, in order to promote and foster the ideas underpinning these reports.
What I have in mind in particular is the next round of world trade negotiations.
Let us hope, Mr President, that the connotation 'sustainable' in the report is going to apply to development itself, and not only to the symbolic amount allocated under the budget, so that the policy we all support wholeheartedly may be brought to fruition.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to thank Mr Kouchner, as the chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, for his introductory speech and presentation of the report.
Development cooperation on the part of the European Union conforms to the spirit of the Rio conference and the action programme for the twenty-first century.
Pursuant to Article 130u of the Treaty, our central objective in this field is to foster sustainable economic and social development in the developing countries, and more particularly the most disadvantaged among them.
The Union is pursuing that objective through its development programmes and projects and also through discussions at the global level.
The European Union has committed itself to placing environmental problems among the top political issues on the agenda in order to achieve the public consensus that it needs for further advance on the matter.
In that context it is important that the special meeting of the United Nations General Assembly scheduled for June 1997 for the purpose of reviewing the results of the Rio Conference be properly prepared.
Financial resources and institutional reform of the monitoring mechanism will be the main subjects on the agenda.
The measures which need to be implemented on the basis of the regulation on environmental measures in developing countries are clearly within the scope of that international framework.
They will complement the other Community instruments, and by optimizing cooperation in the environmental field and acting as a catalyst will reinforce operations carried out by the Member States individually and operations organized on an international basis.
The experience that we have acquired so far will improve the overall endeavour of the Union on the development front and engender an upgrading of funding through the traditional budgetary lines.
On behalf of the Commission I would like to thank Parliament, and in particular the rapporteurs, Mrs Taubira Delannon, for the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and Mr Pimenta, for the Committee on the Environment, for the excellent work that has been done.
The level of your experience and the political commitment that you have made augur well for cooperation between the Commission and Parliament.
The strong support offered by the European Parliament has enabled the Commission to become a leading player in the context of sustainable development, and I feel sure that the regulation on environmental measures in the developing countries will be significantly improved by the amendments that are being examined today.
The Commission is therefore in the happy position of being able to accept thirty-four of the forty amendments.
Specifically, we can accept parts of Amendments Nos 7, 19, 31, 32 and 35 and 40 to 42 and Amendments Nos 1 and 2, 4 to 6, 8 to 18, 21 to 24, 26, 33, 34, 36 and 39 to 44 in their entirety.
The Commission is particularly appreciative of the fact that many amendments seek to emphasize the importance of information provision and of close cooperation with local partners and initiatives.
These amendments, aimed as they are at tackling a crucial aspect in regard to the sustainability of the projects and programmes, will substantially improve the final draft of the regulation.
The other central theme of Parliament's amendments is the incorporation of new priorities and new issues.
Demographic issues, health and the environmental impact of toxic waste must, for instance, have a place in the implementation framework where they have a genuine bearing on sustainable development.
Furthermore, in the provision of the aid to the developing countries emphasis will be placed on enabling them to cope with problems defined by the international conventions, specifically via preventive measures and the use of renewable energy sources in order to minimize climate change.
On the other hand, however, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3, 20, 25, 27 to 30, 37, 38 and 43.
I would like to explain the Commission's position on this.
In some cases, our hesitancy can be attributed simply to drafting reasons.
As regards the salient parts, certain of the amendments, such as Amendments Nos 19, 20, 28 and 30, contain elements which would introduce a level of inflexibility which would not sit well with the objective of instituting model operations in the environmental field.
Other amendments, such as Nos 30, 41 and 42, would impose new procedural constraints, particularly as regards the demands for information provision between the institutions.
We believe that that is not feasible and that it would jeopardize best practice in the management of the appropriations, not least because of the limited human resources in the Commission's services.
Lastly, many amendments, such as Amendment No 40, would either necessitate modification of the Commission's procedures or, in the case of Amendment No 38, for instance, impinge on the Commission's competence to organize the action in accordance with its own judgment.
Mr President, it is true, and we can all agree on the fact, that a lot has been achieved in the four years since the United Nations conference on the environment and development.
A significant and increased proportion of Community aid is being focused on the priority areas of the action programme for the twenty-first century determined at the conference.
Much has been done to improve the environmental returns of European Union's aid programmes.
The Commission believes that adoption of the regulation on environmental measures in the developing countries that we are discussing today will sharpen this environmental focus.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
AIDS in the developing countries
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0341/96) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on HIV/AIDS-related operations in developing countries (C4-0372/96-95/0164(SYN)) (rapporteur: Mrs André-Léonard).
Mr President, poverty and the risk of HIV transmission do unfortunately go together.
Urgent action is needed since the fight against the spread of the epidemic is a real race against time.
The number of HIV infected persons today is put at 17 million, a figure which is likely to reach 40 million by the year 2000, according to WHO forecasts, and this is an optimistic hypothesis.
The epidemic has hit both the North and South but by far the worst affected are the developing countries, which account for 80 % of all those infected by the HIV virus.
Opportunities for treatment are clearly also unequal and to the detriment of the South.
In some countries of Africa and Asia the epidemic has already reached serious proportions, since by decimating first and foremost the workforce, it is tearing the very heart out of the socioeconomic fabric.
In 1986, the WHO launched a world-wide programme to combat AIDS.
Europe took over in 1987 and 1988 and the programme has been extended to embrace all the developing countries.
Two hundred and twenty projects in 85 countries have been financed so far, partly from the resources of the European Development Fund, which is practically the sole instrument for implementing a common development policy towards developing countries.
It is nearly ten years now since the international community first became involved in trying to limit the effects of the epidemic. Various lessons have been learnt so that future action can be adjusted where necessary.
I set myself the task as rapporteur of establishing priorities to ensure that the AIDS epidemic in the developing countries is no longer seen as something ineluctable.
That is why this aid programme needs to be made a top priority.
Given the deplorable lack of funds, efforts have to concentrated exclusively on prevention.
The lack of funds has a way of cropping up as a leitmotif in European development policy even though Europe is the principal provider of development aid.
ECU 320 million have already been channelled by the Union into combating AIDS in the developing countries but we should still not delude ourselves.
If a new drug were to be developed to fight against this disease, its exorbitant price would preclude the treatment of HIV-positive persons in the Third World.
The figures circulating are in the order of $15 000 per year per patient.
Action should therefore be concentrated on prevention, with the poorest countries given priority as far as possible. We need to invest massively and preventively in countries where the epidemic is still in its early stages since it is here that we have the best chance to stem its spread.
Preventive activities should primarily be targeted at the poorest segments of society and at the groups most at risk since it is they who respond better to this type of information campaign.
Information on safe sex mainly consists of advice given to mothers and girls but it should equally reach the male section of the population who tend to underestimate the problem.
For the programme to be really effective we need a considerable increase in resources, in addition to a genuine political commitment at all levels and active cooperation between all concerned.
In this respect development aid cuts are deplorable.
We need to help stem the tide of the AIDS epidemic by adopting a strategy which takes into account problems associated with underdevelopment such as poverty, overpopulation and malnutrition.
It is lack of education that is mainly responsible for these ills.
To tackle this, it is necessary to make information on AIDS and its prevention into an integral part of basic health care.
We also need to train medical and paramedical staff for this task.
The groups concerned should have easy access to information, and especially to means of protection, through the massive distribution of condoms, free of charge or available at a modest price.
It is existing family planning centres that need to offer public information both on birth control and on methods of protection against AIDS.
In my report I was trying to redefine the target and high-risk groups.
This work involves political figures, representatives of religious communities, teachers, health and education experts.
These groups should be persuaded to cooperate on a voluntary basis in screening operations and the introduction of protective measures.
I would like to come out very strongly on the particular need to protect children.
Street children are sometimes forced to prostitute themselves if they have no other means of survival.
The worst hit are children who are themselves contaminated or who have lost their parents as a result of the disease.
There are thought to be several hundreds of thousands of such children in the world.
I would like to conclude by informing you that, thanks to a programme designed to combat sexually transmitted diseases, Tanzania has managed to reduce the incidence of infection by 42 %.
These results give cause for hope.
I would also like to pay tribute to those NGOs which are able to reach the most vulnerable population groups.
Finally, allow me to stress the need for Parliament to do everything in its power - and above all regard it as a question of honour - to adopt Amendment No 18 on carrying out a study which is to look into ways of setting up a solidarity mechanism in order to reduce blatant north-south inequalities of treatment.
It is becoming more and more likely that we shall succeed in wiping out AIDS in the years ahead.
The promising drugs now on the market should be accessible to everybody without discrimination between rich and poor, and regardless of race, ethnic group, culture or religion.
Let us remember that disease, just like pollution, knows no frontiers; and what is at stake is the future of our planet.
Mr President, the recent conference in Vancouver was actually called 'One World, One Hope' , but it soon became very clear that there are two worlds when it comes to fighting this disease.
As the rapporteur has clearly said, the two worlds are distinguished because of the poverty which exists in the developing world.
Any medical breakthrough that is achieved comes with a very expensive price tag, a price tag that 90 % of the people affected by Aids simply cannot afford.
A Zimbabwean women who spoke at that conference said that the conference should be renamed 'Third World, No Hope' , and that was her view of the different situation.
As Mrs André-Léonard has said, some battles have been won.
We have seen educational changes that have brought about improvements both in Thailand and in Uganda.
We have seen the STD programme in Tanzania making a significant impact too: the population study there showed a 42 % reduction in the group that they studied.
There are too new interventions during the delivery of babies which are also having a good effect on the infections that babies have as a result of an Aids-infected parent.
The reduction is something in the region of 8 %, so that again is something worth looking at.
We need to ask the question: why is it that in the case of Botswana, of Asia, of South Africa, we are seeing increases? What is happening in those countries and why is that occurring?
I was in Burma this weekend. There they do not actually recognize the existence of Aids and any prostitute found to have a condom about her person is imprisoned and has a statutory jail sentence of one year as a result of that.
We need to know also why it is that many of our projects still do not really recognize the vulnerability of women and are, as the Commission has already said elsewhere, very often gender-blind.
I would like to know from the Commission what investigations have been done into offering protection that women can use, the drugs which can be used to protect women, and are we working with pharmaceutical industries to do that?
Finally, will the Commission work with drug companies to bring down the prices of drugs under certain licensing agreements, because this is clearly critical to any methods we use to tackling the spread of HIV and Aids?
Mr President, once again I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, for the work that she has done.
I think that we agree on many points, and we have produced some satisfactory compromises and proposals for improving on the common position.
It may be that media interest in AIDS in the developing countries has declined, but in any event it is not a major subject of public debate at the moment.
However, there is a continuing tragedy in these countries, and it is important for us too, as the European Parliament, to send out a clear signal and show that we care about the problem.
A number of speakers have referred to the fact that there seems to have been a breakthrough in treatment.
Firstly, however, it is still unclear what the long-term prospects are and, secondly, it is also an unfortunate fact that people in the developing countries may never be able to afford the treatment in question.
We must recognize quite clearly that action must be taken here.
We must try to help everyone, but at present we can only regard prevention - the use of precautions - as the key element, and this is another aspect which should attract increased spending from the budget line.
It is also important that we should not adopt any sort of ideological approach in this respect, and I make no bones about that: we all know that condoms are a key to solving the problem, and the most important means of prevention.
That is why Amendment No 12 is also important, and the European Parliament should say unambiguously that condoms are a key to solving the problem.
At the same time, it is untrue, despite frequent statements to the contrary, that all we have to do is distribute condoms: we must take into consideration all the problems which prevent people from using condoms.
Nor should we be saying that the use of condoms is the only way to avoid AIDS - because that is scientifically incorrect.
There are still people who do not need condoms because they do not change their sexual partners - and we should simply state that fact.
But we do have to look after the rest of the population, and that is why Amendment No 12 should receive unequivocal support and has the backing of our group.
I am grateful to the rapporteur and to the House for the fact that we have been able to discuss this issue in a way that is genuinely free from ideology, without ending up apportioning blame, for example to the Church.
There were a number of amendments to that effect, which have not been retabled, but - as the relevant amendment says - what we should be doing is promoting a dialogue in cases where religious communities oppose the use of means of prevention.
In every religious community, sensible people are working at the grassroots and addressing the problem, and this is something that we should support.
Mr President, I should like to recall that AIDS is increasingly a women's problem.
According to research, once infected with HIV, women are more susceptible to AIDS.
The risk run by women is 2 to 4 times as great as that which men face.
Women also pass the infection on to the next generation.
There is therefore a connection between the spread of AIDS and the status of women.
If women do not enjoy economic and social autonomy, they cannot impose conditions on their partners as regards sexual behaviour.
At the UN world conference on the status of women in Beijing it was stated clearly that it was essential to improve the status of women - that is, enhance it both economically and socially - in order to bring AIDS under control.
The common position of the Council now under consideration includes support for women among the measures to combat AIDS.
The amendments in Mrs André-Léonard's report concerning increasing men's responsibility in these areas are also very appropriate.
Now care must to taken to ensure that, in implementing this decision and selecting projects for support, enough stress is placed on measures to improve the status of women. It has, after all, been observed that the best results are obtained if the AIDS issue is integrated, for example, into projects relating to basic health care and reproductive health care, rather than these being implemented as separate programmes.
Mr President, Mrs André-Léonard has submitted an important and practical report on this issue.
I believe it is important to call for resources from the budget heading to be made available for innovative measures.
Raising public awareness, communication measures, information and training are all important and necessary, if the further spread of AIDS is to be prevented.
There must be support for methods of providing early diagnosis.
Reinforcement of the health and social services sectors is also something that we can all support.
Another very important point, in my opinion, is a study of solidarity instruments to improve the treatment of people affected by HIV in the poorest countries: we must support this measure, just as we must support medical cooperation and cooperative exchanges.
The promotion of non-discrimination and action to combat stigmatization or the creation of ghettos are extremely important and must be supported if we are to help these people.
A crucial reference is made to support for measures to curb the spread of AIDS - and particularly for prevention - and I should like to conclude with a practical proposal: the House has already made numerous suggestions concerning support for condom sales and marketing, and making condoms available free of charge.
Another proposal was that a condom production facility should be set up in Africa.
I should like to add the following suggestion: tourists arriving by air from the North to the South - and I mean all of them, male and female - should receive, at the airport where they land, a packet of condoms and a leaflet with information about the causes and effects of AIDS.
Mr President, AIDS poses a serious threat to the third world.
The number of cases is rising not only in Africa, but in Asia and Latin America as well.
Besides the suffering of those affected, there are other problems involved: rising numbers of orphans, the strain on the health care system, and the fact that the impact of AIDS is felt particularly by the sexually active generation, which is also the economically active one.
We cannot accept the Council's common position as it stands.
Although the text includes a verbal acknowledgement of the efforts that are being made to combat AIDS, there are crucial points where the Council shies away from reality.
What do I mean by that? Firstly, the proposed budget - the indicative amount is ECU 45 million over three years - has been set very low, and that is short-sighted.
Anyone with an understanding of the problem knows that we could use ten times as much.
No one is giving enough - and that goes for the USA, the Gulf States and Japan too - but we shall not help the situation by setting a bad example.
Secondly, Parliament called for special emphasis to be placed on the role of the mass media, and on using the mass media to raise awareness.
This is particularly important in countries with a high level of illiteracy, and with limited personnel available for awareness-raising measures.
Unfortunately, the Council has rejected our proposal - and that is unacceptable.
Thirdly, in a compromise between the socialists and Christian Democrats, Parliament came up with a formula on the following lines: we wish to see the European Union entering into a dialogue with the religious communities which continue, for religious reasons, to reject the use of condoms.
This has been deleted.
I could have understood it if the Council had said that a regulation was the wrong place for expressing such an intention but, at the same time, had decided to pursue it.
But it simply deleted the proposal without putting anything in its place, and that is a failure to face reality.
When an African miner is away from his family for three months, saying the rosary and going to church are not the only things that he misses.
Then when he comes home, he infects his wife and brings the disease into the village.
In deleting this paragraph, the Council is out of touch with reality.
I have been a Member of this House for 17 years.
Although we are away from our families for only five days at a time, I have never found it to be the case that all my fellow Members are happy to say their prayers and go to bed alone.
Thank you very much, Mr Schmid.
Examples can sometimes provoke comments which I shall not make.
Mr Kouchner, you have the floor for two minutes.
Yes, Mr President, I am going to abstain, no pun intended.
To get to the point, let me say how happy I am to have read and heard Mrs André-Léonard's report.
It is an important document, indeed.
Nothing is more important in fact than to have the courage to challenge taboos, as Mr Liese said, and call a spade a spade.
Yet you know how we tend to reason today. As things are getting better in the rich countries, Mr President, we tend to think that after all they might pick up one day in the poor countries as well.
Far from it, let us not delude ourselves.
It is enough to quote just two figures on life expectancy here.
It is little known, as has been pointed out on several occasions here, that the mortality rate is such both within the most active groups of the population, that is the young and those who work, as well as within the inactive groups that in some countries in Africa life expectancy is going to decline: by ten years in Zambia, eight years in Tanzania and several or more years in Rwanda.
This means that people are affected even in their everyday life.
I would like therefore to stress one point: there should have been more dialogue and, incidentally, as a former health minister I have received requests from religious authorities working behind the scenes who have been trying to save and prolong lives.
That could have been a fine dialogue indeed and I support Mr Schmid on that.
But to keep things simple, I think we have to seize the opportunity presented by Amendment No 18.
We have talked a lot about this Amendment No 18 with the Commission.
The Commission feared that in research on therapeutic solidarity we would get to the point where there are two worlds, two types of individuals and two diseases: there are those who, particularly in our countries, can afford treatment thanks to three-drug therapy which, as we know is very expensive and those who cannot afford it.
Health in France costs 12 000 francs per person per year.
In Africa we are talking about 10 dollars.
So we need to study the problem together and I make this appeal to the Commission representative: we need to work together in order to go beyond theorizing and in order that, as Mrs Kinnock was saying, by trying to get the laboratories to cut their costs, and by acting here at the very centre of prevention systems as well as in each country we should all contribute and set up a solidarity fund financed possibly by Europe.
This idea needs to be discussed so as not to find ourselves once more in the shameful position of having to say to third-world countries: we have no treatment for you, you cannot afford it, just keep spreading the disease, we shall treat ourselves.
As Mr Liese has said, we do not know the future, but threedrug therapy is an important step forward.
Come on, let us work together so that therapeutic solidarity does not remain an issue solely for this Parliament.
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Energy efficiency - gas and electricity
The next item is the joint debate on:
the recommendation for second reading (A4-0350/96) on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Decision concerning a multiannual programme for the promotion of energy efficiency in the European Union - SAVE II (C4-0375/96-95/0131(SYN)) (rapporteur: Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz); -the report (A4-0268/96) by Mrs McNally, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Directive to introduce rational planning techniques in the electricity and gas distribution sectors (COM(95)0369 - C4-0030/96-95/0208(SYN)).
Mr President, the discrepancy, in the Council's case, between what is said and what is actually done is particularly striking.
I should simply like to remind the House once again of the high-sounding commitments that were made after Rio and Berlin: reducing CO2 emissions to the level of 1990 was to be our foremost task, our most important task, a challenge, and so on.
However, the only programme that the EU currently possesses for making even a start on what is required is SAVE II.
But anyone thinking that the Council would be actively supporting that programme is in for a disappointment.
The Council's preferred option would be to get rid of the programme completely.
This attitude is all the more difficult to understand when, for instance, a Commission study informs us that energy consumption will rise by 1 % a year until the year 2000, and not only that, but we depend for 70 % of our energy on imports from third countries.
However, we now know that the very cheapest form of energy is energy saving, but anyone who thinks that this will mean plenty of money for the SAVE programme is in for another major disappointment.
On the contrary, SAVE II is turning into a face-saving programme for the Council, and it is fair to say that it is virtually falling apart.
The Commission had planned to spend ECU 150 million over five years.
While that may not be much, it is something.
Then the Council says the figure is to be ECU 45 m - or preferably a little less.
Yet when I take a look at the 1997 budget heading for tobacco, I see the figure of ECU 1032 m for just one year!
I do not wish to embark on that debate now, or to make an issue of our programmes in the area of preventive health care.
We also spend millions on demonstrating the harm that smoking does.
I simply mention this as an illustration of the kind of madness that sometimes goes on in this House.
I should also like to remind you that we used to have a programme called THERMIE II.
This was something else that the Council criminally neglected.
The purpose of THERMIE II was to introduce renewable forms of energy - and that too would have been useful, but the lobby groups always oppose such measures, and nothing happens.
Furthermore, there is a total absence of objectives or planning in the Council's common position.
It remains general and non-binding.
As for the evaluation of SAVE II, it seems to me that evaluations are now carried out so that the subsequent action taken can be the opposite of what they recommend.
There is still, for example, no legislation on heating buildings, or on the fuel consumption of vehicles.
And what about combined heat and power generation? The evaluation of SAVE I clearly showed that legislative measures produced the greatest effect.
While we could understand that less money is available, we ought then to be saying that we should like to see legislation instead.
But what is now being planned and is destined for implementation is a truly crazy arrangement, inadequate for the tasks that we are facing.
In general terms, vast amounts of energy are being wasted in the EU as a whole.
If we really wished to make savings, we could save 30 to 40 % over the next five years simply on heating buildings, by using combined heat and power technology, for example.
What we are doing now is heating up the atmosphere.
When it comes to car fleets, the rule is still the bigger the better.
Fleet cars consume 10 to 20 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres.
That is madness, and a crime against the next generation!
For all these reasons, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has retabled the same amendments that eventually received almost unanimous support at first reading - and I am grateful to it for that.
I would reiterate that if we really implemented serious energy-saving measures, we would gain a double dividend: savings on both energy and costs.
Consider, if you will, what it is costing us to repair the damage to the environment!
And then there are the tens of thousands of jobs that would inevitably be created.
We behave as if we had full employment in the EU.
As far as I can see, the reality is quite the opposite!
There are many reasons why it is time to start behaving sensibly.
I fail to understand why we are not already doing so, but then I am not a member of any powerful lobby, I only work for hard-up environmental groups, and they do not yet have the necessary influence here.
We shall therefore continue tinkering with the problem, without effecting any significant change.
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on her speech.
I will read her an expression of support. It says: ' We support the SAVE II programme.
It is rational and sensible and makes a valuable contribution to the Commission's and Member States' work on energy efficiency.' She will be astonished to learn that that is the official view of the United Kingdom Government.
As she says, if they really thought that, why did they not vote some more money for the programme?
Indeed Parliament, in its budgetary process, is trying to do exactly that. I think that is unanimous throughout Parliament.
I think it is particularly important that the regional aspects of SAVE II are emphasized.
This is an ideal mechanism for bringing in these measures at regional, city and island level.
I agree with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz that the suggestions for committees are completely flawed and will stop the work happening in the way we want it.
I agree with her too that legislation is the best way to bring about a change in attitude and behaviour in the European Union.
On that note I turn to the draft directive on rational planning techniques, a horrible title.
It sounds like something from the Soviet Union.
However it is in no way daunting and difficult.
It is a very, very lightweight directive - in boxing terms a fly-weight directive. It has been considerably amended by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
I have to say that some of the criticisms levelled at the Commission's document were justified in that there was some confusion between terms like integrated resource planning and others.
As amended it is really a document that can help.
It has to be considered in the context of an approaching single market in electricity and then gas.
In that context all it says is that we would like plans produced evaluating energy resource alternatives on a single, pre-agreed economic basis.
Member States will have very considerable freedom in deciding how to bring in these plans, who will bring them in, how they will be evaluated etc.
It is targeting households and small firms.
Large firms have already learnt that you must use energy sparingly.
In my view this is a single market issue, primarily in that context.
I think the legal base as suggested by the Commission is the wrong one.
I know that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, in a very poorly attended meeting came, to another point of view but I cannot agree with them.
I think they must reconsider the context of this directive and what it is aiming to do.
So I maintain my request for a change of legal base.
It is, however, also a highly important environmental issue affecting climate instability.
There is a potential saving of 20 % of energy demand largely through households and small firms. With that you would prevent the emission of two tonnes of CO2 per person per year.
We would save 20 % on unnecessary imports of fuels. It would cost us 20 % less in terms of capital investment to build energy generating and transmission capacity.
We would create jobs, money would not be spent uselessly on energy and would be available to be spent on other things, helping the economy.
New Member States who want to join the EU would have to meet the standards of planning which would enable them to change from their currently quite appalling record on wasting energy.
The idea is that gas and electricity distributors sell warm houses, cool fridges and a guarantee that your television and your hairdryer will work.
They do not sell as many electrons and therms as they possibly can. They do not make their profit in that way.
We must have a system that allows them to provide the warmth and the coldness, etc., and still make a profit.
We know how to do it.
There is no big mystery about how to be more efficient in our use of energy: the technology is very well known and, of course, it is exportable technology; it is something that we could sell all over the world.
Households on their own do not have sufficient motivation to be energy efficient.
It is, therefore, very important that we bring in the distribution sector if we want these millions of households across the EU to change their ways.
I have to say that large and powerful energy producers have been obstructive and have deliberately misrepresented this directive. We have made changes following their suggestions.
They are still not satisfied. Frankly, they never will be satisfied.
There have been some suggestions that a recommendation rather than a directive would be adequate.
No, it would not!
The voluntary approach has not worked and will not work.
There has to be more than simply exhortations and fine words.
This is an opportunity to put some reality into our fine words at Rio, which cannot be repeated at Kyoto without a change of action on our part. So I ask the Commission: what is its stance?
What will it do in order to ensure that the very sensible thinking in this directive is communicated to Member States in a way that makes them realize the benefits and stop their obstructiveness? That is very important to this Parliament, so that we can do the things I mentioned earlier - in relation to jobs, competitivity, the environment - and do them in a way which gets the approval of the Member States.
The challenge is upon the Commissioner to ensure that this happens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you have heard what has been said: the House supports the SAVE II programme because, in the Council's declarations at the Rio and Berlin conferences, the European Union gave at least a political commitment to taking active measures to combat climate change.
And Parliament, at least, intends to honour those commitments and the promises that were made.
If we really wish to reduce CO2 emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2000 - if that is our objective - then we need to make a substantial contribution to rationalizing energy use.
To do that, however, we need more money than the ECU 45 million which the Council has proposed as a reference amount for the programme budget.
The Committee on Budgets attaches particular importance to Amendments Nos 5, 12 and 13 to the common position.
On Amendment No 5, we support the call to prevent duplication of effort, and we are in favour of close coordination between SAVE and the other energy programmes.
On Amendment No 12, we still take the same view that we did at first reading: the legislative hierarchy requires it to be made clear that the Commission derives its authority to manage the programme from the Treaty, and there can be no watering down of that provision by means of a procedural rule.
As regards Amendment No 13, we are not in favour of this mixed Type 1 and Type 2 committee structure.
The only effect of this attempt to renationalize Community policies would be to increase the proportion of the costs that is spent on administration.
In any case, we already expressed our view at first reading that, to keep costs down, the advisory committee should contain only one representative from each Member State.
Rigorous budget management is what we wish to see.
But it is precisely at times of increased need for rigorous budget management that we must implement a meaningful programme - one that is adequately funded and will make a more than significant contribution to the protection of the environment.
You have already heard what Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and Mrs McNally said: we know that national budgets are under pressure because of a reduction in tax revenue due to high unemployment and the steadily rising expenditure that is associated with it.
There is little economic or scientific innovation - and this is where we ought to seize the opportunity with both hands.
It has been convincingly shown that investment in reducing energy demand will create many more jobs than will result from any equivalent expenditure on energy supply projects.
A strategy for energy saving has positive net results in term of employment.
Employment generates tax revenue.
Tax revenue relieves the pressure on the budget.
You see, more effective savings can sometimes be made by spending additional money in a budget line meaningfully, rather than by indulging in a kind of axe-wielding frenzy!
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs McNally on what I think is an excellent report and on the very good hearing that she organized on this subject in Parliament.
She has covered much of the ground as to the reasons behind her proposals.
I do not wish to go into the statistics in great detail, but it is clear that we could be saving 20 % of our fossil fuel imports - some £12 billion worth of energy every year - if we were to adopt the kind of proposals put forward here.
We would cut carbon dioxide emissions, we would cut business costs, we would create jobs in the energy-saving industries - by one estimate, some 3.4 million job years.
When the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy considered this report the main question to us was whether rational planning techniques were compatible with a liberalized energy market and with common rules for an internal energy market.
We found that they were.
The experience from the SAVE programme, the support from industry and from the 34 utilities that have tried them showed us that much can be done.
But there is a natural conservatism in the energy industries.
We need a framework which makes it legally and economically viable for distributors to become energy service suppliers rather than commodity traders and which urges them in this direction.
I believe that we need a study from the European Commission of the job-creating potential of investment in energy-saving technologies and the opinion drawn up by my committee calls for this.
But we regret, too, that the Energy Council has had no substantive discussion of the question of rational planning techniques.
Our governments seem to be rushing headlong into a liberalized energy market in pursuit of the dream of a market where more and more energy sold means greater and greater prosperity.
We have known for over 20 years now that we cannot go on like this.
We cannot have our energy ministers indulging in bouts of collective amnesia every time they meet in Brussels.
I urge support for this report.
The Commission proposal to introduce rational planning techniques in its arsenal of energy policy measures is a good proposal.
I believe we are all in agreement on that.
In any event the intentions are good and I agree with the rapporteur's analysis of the necessary improvements.
I think we support her in trying to strengthen this proposal.
Why is it a good initiative?
There are three reasons and these are widely referred to in the Commission's explanatory memorandum: optimum allocation of available capital; the greatest energy autonomy; and especially a reduction in the impact on the environment as a result of relying less on fossil fuels.
I would like to draw attention here to the fact that the Commission and Council have pledged to stabilize carbon dioxide emissions by the year 2000 at 1990 levels.
Now we know, as the Commission itself admitted, that this will not be possible without changing our policy.
So if we do not change a number of important environmental and energy policy mechanisms, we shall not be able to keep this promise.
I would like to remind you that our Parliament, among others, has decided to go even further and, faced with the building up of the greenhouse effect, to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20 % by the year 2005.
Under these circumstances how can we do what the Commission does and dwell on ambitions and pertinent objectives and then put forward timid proposals. Yes, it certainly needs to be said that these proposal measures are particularly timid.
Firstly they leave the initiative to the Member States, and then say that it is necessary to persuade distributor undertakings to move in this direction.
I believe that with such a lack of determination we are surely not going to succeed in implementing this directive and even less in getting the environmental protection results we want.
Moreover, I am surprised that some Members and some groups would rather see a simple recommendation than a directive.
Now this is being totally illogical.
It is obvious that we need a strong directive as well as a framework directive and this is quite rightly what the rapporteur is suggesting.
Allow me to make a number of additional remarks in conclusion.
I feel if we want to produce results it is essential to draw attention, as we do in Amendment No 10, to the need to break the energy sector's vertical integration - particularly in electricity.
If producers, distributors and suppliers constitute one and the same enterprise, it is difficult to see how this directive could have a really effective impact.
This is the reason why I insist on this Amendment No 10, which I hope will be voted through.
Mr President, I shall not be talking much about the SAVE II programme.
I think Eryl McNally has said everything that needs to be said about the Socialist Group's support for Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's report.
I was going to have a small joke with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz but as she is not here I shall save it for when I meet her in private if you do not mind.
As regards Mrs McNally's report on rational resource planning, I would like to draw attention to one of the problems.
I am not at all surprised that some groups have been thinking in terms of having the directive replaced by a recommendation although I myself am against it and would personally prefer to see a directive, as does the Socialist Group.
If we all agree about the need to control both supply and demand in the energy sector, it is also clear that we must once and for all take a firm line even if we steer a middle course.
We cannot both say that we want the most deregulated possible internal energy market and claim in the same breath, as the Commission does, that we need integrated or as we say now 'rational' planning of energy resources.
The Commission is basically unaware of the fundamental incompatibility of these two schools of thought.
I have naturally read with interest the Wuppertal Institute's report and if they cannot see any incompatibility then it because on the one hand the internal market is only likely to be liberalized to a moderate degree - and personally I am delighted with this - and because on the other rational planning is going to remain very largely a pipe dream.
In other words, in these circumstances there is no real incompatibility between the two approaches.
But in the future the Commission will have to be very careful not to tip the balance decisively one way or the other.
This is not going to happen now, Commissioner, and we thank you but in the future we must not allow the tension between the two poles to be too great or incompatibility will be inevitable.
What was also evident in this affair was the need to decide at what level this problem of integrated planning should be dealt with.
In a purely personal capacity, I would like to make a suggestion on this matter to the Commissioner.
After the adoption of the directive on the internal market he might perhaps like to discuss in a Commission opinion whether there is a case for considering the notion of rational planning as an aspect of public service obligations.
I believe that this might encourage a number of distribution and supply undertakings to take steps in line with the Commission's thinking.
We shall of course support the amendments tabled by Mrs McNally and taken on board by the Committee on Energy and Research as they achieve greater precision, particularly as regards the assessment of ecological and social costs.
Here again I would like to say how far this recommendation accords with the European Parliament's wish for harmonization.
Mr President, the core objectives of the SAVE multiannual programme are very laudable. Other speakers have mentioned them so I will not repeat them.
I would just like to draw attention to two specific features of the SAVE II programme which are truly worth bearing in mind.
Firstly, it is based on an evaluation of the first programme and reinforces action, namely the pilot schemes, which is already in progress and, secondly, it introduces new measures to improve on-going evaluation.
We view those two features of the SAVE programme as very important.
The programme sets many complex objectives of a specific nature, and for that reason a substantial increase in its budget was proposed.
We ought to recognize, of course, that the plethora of objectives does perhaps impede a clear appraisal of the priorities and complicate the programme implementation procedure, whereas a clearer and disciplined setting-out of the objectives would do more to safeguard its effectiveness.
Furthermore, certain of the rapporteur's amendments opt for legislative measures on a number of matters, whereas the programme attempts to avoid going down that particular road.
We in this group wonder whether this is the best way of tackling the serious energy and environmental problems facing us today, and whether the insistence on a legislative approach just makes the programme even more inflexible.
The programme's genuinely ambitious objectives are inevitably enfeebled by the Council's desire to reduce the funding to ECU 45 million - which works out at only ECU 9 million annually - from the ECU 150 million originally sought by the Commission.
We are saddened by the fact that this - one might say - fatal cut in the funding entails a retreat by the Council from its initial solemn declarations concerning an abiding environmental policy consistent with the Rio and Berlin conferences, and that it also, essentially, destroys any possibility of effective intervention by the Union to protect the environment and improve energy policy.
So it is a pity that Parliament has not shown a bit more determination and taken its co-responsibility for the drafting of the budget more seriously, and that it has not sought to renegotiate the matter with the Council before proceeding to its vote.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I should like to congratulate the two rapporteurs on their excellent report.
The Union's energy policy has a prominent place on the agenda this week, with six reports on energy to be debated, two of them legislative ones.
A common objective in all these reports is the efficient use of energy or energy-saving measures, yet the Council has reduced the budget for this to ECU 45 million spread over a five-year period, which just goes to show what kind of priority energy and the environment are given in Europe.
The future energy situation in Europe and worldwide will primarily be determined by how we deal with our environmental problems.
Why is it then that the Union does not have an integrated common policy for energy and the environment?
Why do we always talk about energy and the environment as if they were two different fields? The fact that we are to look at all the energy reports this week separately from the action programme on sustainable development is just one example of this.
As if environment costs did not hit us just as hard as energy costs!
My group therefore cannot understand why the Council is offering a sop to the SAVE programme by drastically cutting the reserved budget, and we therefore support the rapporteur's amendments to remove the financial framework from the common position.
Parliament's budgetary powers must not be affected.
Moving on to the report by Mrs McNally, rational planning techniques in the electricity and gas distribution sectors are important instruments for reducing CO2 emissions, since energy suppliers and distributors are in a position to encourage their customers to consume less energy.
A number of Member States, including the Netherlands, have expressed doubts as to whether this directive is really necessary, since their energy sectors are already taking action in this field.
But in most Member States, nothing is being done to promote the efficient use of energy.
That is why my group feels that European legislation is needed and supports Mrs McNally's report.
I also agree with the points Mr Watson made about this a moment ago.
Finally, as I said earlier, the future energy situation will be determined not only by our environmental problems, but also by the growing energy consumption in the developing countries.
Alternative sources of energy are required.
The supply of fossil fuels is finite, and they cause CO2 emissions and possibly also climate change.
Renewable sources of energy are an alternative, but as yet they are too expensive to use on a large scale and therefore do not meet the criteria for use as a permanent energy supply.
So this is all the more reason to continue the development of these renewable energy sources, which would show that we are taking a long-term view of our energy needs and of our need for a sustainable environment.
Our view in the Liberal Group is that this is a sustainable option.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating both rapporteurs, but I wish to focus on the report by Mrs McNally.
We are looking at quite a number of reports which make pains to point out our failure and miserable position vis-à-vis the forecasts and commitments made at the Rio Summit.
Here we are debating a Directive which, in order to introduce rational planning techniques for increasing energy efficiency, is mainly concerned with the quantitative aspect of energy consumption and I wish to point out that we are not speaking in this Directive of renewable energies.
That is another debate.
Here we are referring to planning in order to achieve energy efficiency in precisely those energies which are the most consumed and the most polluting.
Other reports will look at the problem of the quality of the components and attempt to reduce their polluting character: sulphur emissions and other major emissions from petrol and its other components.
I would just like to say that I do not agree with the suggestion that we are doing nothing.
The measures proposed by the Council in certain directions are very tough on the sector's companies, and are costing billions of ECU, which also means transforming refineries, etc.
However, I would like to point out that Mrs McNally's proposal has resisted the temptation which we usually give into in this Parliament, viz. to tighten the screw much harder than the agreement reached in the common position of the Council.
However, this planning of rational energy saving techniques has not been exploited to introduce ingredients of industrial conflict.
I think that that is the very great merit of Mrs McNally's position and I must therefore congratulate her on her report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when politicians are in charge of everything - and that is all very well in itself - they get things wrong.
And when the European Union is in charge of everything - which is also all very well in itself - it gets things particularly wrong, because it has an unfortunate tendency to attract criticism for what it does.
That danger is present once again with the proposal for a directive on integrated resource planning.
Behind this arcane concept lies something that is basically worthwhile.
The idea is that energy suppliers should invest not only in supply, but also in the efficient use of energy.
In other words, they should be providing services rather than simply selling something.
Of course, in many instances, this worthwhile activity is already going on and the companies are taking responsibility for it, but in our opinion - and in my own opinion too - it is not sufficiently widespread.
The intelligent thing to do, therefore, would be to make an appropriate recommendation and to rely on good examples and competition.
But if instead we wave a big stick with new legislation - a directive at EU level - then four brief comments are required.
Firstly, the proposal takes no account of the aspect of subsidiarity, which we are supposed to make a point of respecting.
Secondly, the proposal carries the whiff of a new bout of planning, new authorities and controls - in a word, of bureaucracy, with an extensive new planning apparatus for which the taxpayer has to foot the bill.
Thirdly - and I shall be blunt about this - it is disturbing to see how Parliament can sometimes duck and weave on the question of legal bases, in this case actually opposing the decision of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
The concern here is less about meeting the conditions for establishing a base upon which actions can be authorized than about whether the decision is to the advantage of everyone taking it.
I hope that the European Court of Justice will address this issue at some stage.
Fourthly, when I go on to read that the energy providers are supposed to set up two companies to offer third-party financing, then I have to wonder in all seriousness what the point is of Europe being well catered for by all kinds of banks.
Are energy providers now to take over banking too?
In a nutshell, we believe it is right to be concerned about this issue, but this is the wrong legislation.
For that reason, we shall be abstaining as a group.
Mr President, there are a number of questions I should like to ask on this topic, the main one being whether the Commission proposal is still on the table?
I have heard rumours that all 15 Member States have rejected it in the Council.
I should therefore like to ask the Commission what the status of proposal COM(95) 0369 is at the moment. The answer to this will very much influence how we deal with the McNally report.
The subject of this document is a very complex one, and the terms RPT, or rational planning techniques, and DSM - demand side management - are bandied about very freely in the proposal and the amendments.
I do not think this is the right way to go about things.
What does the Commission think of the idea of converting the whole proposal into a sort of recommendation to the Member States to work on demand side management?
The McNally report is also in favour of introducing legislation, but I find this a very heavy-handed approach to something which is really a matter for private industry to tackle.
This is also why I would criticize the Commission proposal.
In my own country, the Netherlands, we have already more or less finished with demand side management, and the conversion of the distribution companies into providers of energy services, which is what the Commission is proposing, is already a fait accompli .
However, my main question is still whether the proposal still exists as such?
If so, what does the Commission intend to do with it and with Parliament's amendments, in view of the position which the Council has adopted?
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, thank you for including my speech in the Minutes.
It appears a little cryptic, because the reason why I actually spoke was that I was the rapporteur when the Secretary-General was given the possibility of using force if necessary, but the immediate reason was, of course, the fight that took place in the corridor.
I do not wish to go into details, but the victim has now lodged a complaint, and I hope that you will treat it very seriously, leaving aside any amendment to the Rules of Procedure.
Let me first look at that section of the Minutes.
What is the mistake?
Mr President, my brevity has made my speech appear rather cryptic, but the Minutes themselves are not incorrect.
I have expressed my thanks, but I feel that some clarification is necessary, as I should be glad to explain to you later.
Mr President, under item 5 of the Minutes yesterday - Membership of political groups - you announced that the Groupe Europe des Nations (Europe of Nations Group) had dissolved because it had not got enough nations .
As many colleagues know, Sir Jimmy Goldsmith has another party - the Referendum Party - and he will be fighting an election in the United Kingdom under his British citizenship.
You referred to Rule 29(2) but that Rule simply says that 'The minimum number of Members required to form a political group shall be 29 if they come from one Member State...' - if they come from!
Mr President, could you confirm that means elected from, otherwise Mr Goldsmith could attempt to use his British citizenship and thereby establish another nation .
(Applause)
Mr President, in the item concerning the debate on energy efficiency and gas and electricity distribution, all the committees which delivered an opinion are referred to, with the exception of the Committee on Budgets.
I also delivered an opinion on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
Is this not something of a scandal?
That will be corrected, Mrs Haug.
Mr President, following my intervention yesterday concerning photographers equipped with longrange lenses in Parliament, several worried Members asked me who they were photographing.
The people concerned were Mr Francis Demange of the Gamma Press Agency and Mr Jean-Philippe Ksiazek of the AFP Agency.
They told Parliament's Security Service that they were taking pictures for architectural purposes of the outside of the building.
I would leave it to my French colleagues to judge whether these people were actually interested in the architecture of the building.
On further investigation it seems that they were trying to spy on room IPE2 425, which is the office of one of our former Members, Mr Bernard Tapie.
For the information of Mr Hallam and all other Members, the Bureau considered this matter yesterday evening, and we agreed that the rules which have long existed in writing must be respected in Parliament.
One of these rules is that filming and taking photographs is not permitted in the restaurants, bars and cafeterias, in Members' offices, and in a third area which escapes me for the moment.
A copy of the decision in question is just being fetched for me.
That has long been the rule, and yesterday the Bureau agreed to instruct Parliament's administration to ensure that these provisions are respected.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Decision on urgency
Mr President, the point at issue here is the question of the legal base.
We already have the report before us in the Committee on Budgetary Control, but this is not an urgent matter, given that we have been working on the question since December 1993 and have yet to receive an appropriate answer from the Council.
We therefore decided yesterday in the committee that urgent procedure should be rejected.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Mr President, this was also discussed at our meeting yesterday.
Since the Court of Auditors has some very clear comments to make on the management of the appropriations, the committee is proposing not to deal with this report as an urgency, but to review it in the light of these findings, so that we can then produce a detailed opinion.
We are therefore against urgent procedure.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Mr President, the Committee on Fisheries yesterday unanimously agreed to reject this decision on urgency.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Mr President, the point here is that we have almost unanimously approved the Europe Agreement and now need to bring the interim agreement - which anticipates the economic and trade policy aspects, pending completion of the ratification process in the Member States - into force by 1 January.
The committee decided unanimously yesterday to agree to urgent procedure, and also adopted the report.
I would ask the House to take the same line here.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Court of Auditors' annual report and general budget activities
The next item is the presentation by Mr Friedmann, President of the Court of Auditors of the European Communities, of the annual report and statement of assurance as regards activities arising from the general budget for the 1995 financial year.
I give the floor to Mr Friedmann, President of the Court of Auditors.
Thank you, Commissioner.
We shall now begin the debate, starting with Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Mr President, I was glad to receive the Official Journal last night and to see that even it is trying to collaborate with the Commission.
When I received the English version I found that pages 17 to 24 are published in Finnish to make it comprehensible to the Commissioner but incomprehensible to anybody else.
At the beginning of this process we should acknowledge that there should not be the sort of rush to condemn based on the Court of Auditors report that we see in much of the press this morning and over recent days.
Members of this House in particular should have a proper sense of perspective as to what is happening today.
These are important reports, but as far as Parliament is concerned they are the beginning of a process not the end.
They are the beginning of the process of Parliament exercising one of its most important powers - that of discharge.
In that sense the Court of Auditors' report is an important one and one which brings together four institutions: the Court is making the accusations, the Commission has to defend itself, the Council of Ministers who are also criticized in their individual capacities or in the capacities of their Member States, have to give us advice and Parliament has to decide.
We will not be required to decide until April of next year after full and due deliberation.
So, I welcome the report but I am not going to rush to judgment on the basis of it.
This morning I want to acknowledge that there are some serious comments in it but equally acknowledge what the Commissioner has said, namely that we have to distinguish between the auditing responsibility and the policies that sometimes give rise to the criticism.
Turning to the statement of assurance, this is a relatively new instrument available to us.
It is one which is extremely important.
This power was given to the Court of Auditors by the Maastricht Treaty and this is the second time the Court of Auditors quite rightly and properly has not been able to give us that statement of assurance. And it does not just relate to expenditure.
If we look, for example, at own resources, in the statement of assurance the Court of Auditors is saying quite clearly to us that it is obviously not possible to provide an assurance that all taxable imports have actually been declared.
We know that is a very substantial understatement.
We may say that quite definitely not all the income has been declared and that is why this Parliament has established a Committee of Inquiry into the transit system.
That is one of the areas where there is a major loss of own resources to the European Union budget.
When we look at the criticisms of the payments side made in the statement of assurance, two or three things become very clear.
I was slightly disappointed that the Court of Auditors did not emphasize one of its own comments; when looking at the very substantial errors, it could have pointed out in the statement, which will be covered by the press today, that most of the errors it chased in the statement of assurance procedure occurred in the Member States.
It says that 90 % of the errors that led it not to be able to give a statement of assurance were errors that took place in the Member States, largely in those very Member States that take the first opportunity to point the finger of accusation at the European Union.
That is certainly one of the things my party will be looking at very closely in the discharge procedure.
We welcome Mr Friedmann's two reports.
We congratulate the Court of Auditors on them as providing the basis for our work but not the definitive statement of what will be the outcome of our deliberations.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, I have only a little time in which to thank you for presenting the Court's weighty annual report for 1995, together with a number of special reports and the relevant statements of assurance.
We are particularly grateful to you for the fact that we are not dealing here with a list of scandals putting Europe in a bad light, as some would like to have it, but with constructive criticism which can point the way for the future, as you were just saying.
On this basis, we in Parliament will now begin work on the procedure for granting discharge to the Commission, and indirectly to the Member States, exercising our responsibility towards the electorate to investigate the use of taxpayers' money not only in accounting terms, but also from a political point of view, and to ensure that it is used more sensibly.
This applies, for instance, to the errors and shortcomings in respect of the Social Fund, which the Court has set out very clearly in Chapter 6 of its report.
The Commission has declared the fight against unemployment to be its top priority.
How can this be reconciled with the fact that nearly a quarter of the appropriations available have not even been spent? And 90 % of the errors established by the Court in this respect in its statement of assurance were committed in the Member States.
To give another example, appropriations running into millions of ECU intended for stepping up the campaign against fraud in agriculture in the Member States were used for other purposes, notably to cover staffing costs.
The Commission must take on its responsibilities here.
It will have to explain to us how it plans to retrieve the ECU 16.6 million wrongly spent in this sector from the Member States.
In connection with the statement of assurance, Mr Friedmann, you referred to some substantial improvements in comparison with the previous year.
In my opinion, the statement turns out rather more negatively, however.
According to the Court, the 'substantial material errors' amount to nearly 6 % of all payments, in other words around ECU 4 billion.
Last year, the figure was significantly lower, at ECU 2.4 bn.
How can this increase be explained?
I would once again thank you for the report, and I am also grateful to Mr Liikanen for all his efforts, particularly with regard to SEM 2000 and improving the management of the budget.
Mr President, I wish to compliment the President of the Court of Auditors on his report this morning and I want to raise one particular matter.
Bearing in mind the severe financial strain of the construction of the new offices and buildings of the European Parliament, is the Court of Auditors satisfied that: (a) the appropriate procedure was followed in awarding the contract for the construction of these offices in Brussels; (b) sufficiently rigorous controls were put in place to minimize the cost overruns; (c) the final cost of this complex represents good value for money for the European Parliament, indeed, for the European taxpayer? Has the Court of Auditors any recommendations to make to the European Parliament concerning the procedures to be followed in awarding any future contracts, taking into account the experience over the last few years on this particular building?
Finally, I was rather appalled last week at the personalized attack made on our friends Mr Tomlinson, Mr Wynn, the Court of Auditors, its President and Mr Balfe, who all represent the structures of this Parliament, by an independent television programme and at the fact that the President of this Parliament did not make a statement on it.
It was quite unfair that, of all people, John Tomlinson should have been singled out.
I may not always agree with him but as a working Member of this Parliament he is a fine example and always has been.
Mr Killilea, as you have all noticed, has taken advantage of the change of Presidency, but that will not happen in the case of the next speakers.
Mr President, despite the positive progress, there continue to be serious problems, and it is incredible that there should again be a massive criticism of the Commission's accounting system and the economic management of the Community's resources.
It is incomprehensible that the same criticisms should be raised year after year.
That is why we in the Liberal Group is no longer prepared to accept the unconcerned approach of the Commission, which is responsible for the management of EU resources.
We would therefore call on the Commissioners also to be involved one by one in the Committee on Budgetary Control after we have adopted the report, in the context of Commissioners being under obligation to follow the instructions issued.
If no solution is found to the problems referred to in the Annual Report, there is the possibility of Commissioners having to face a vote of no confidence.
I would also suggest that we amend the Treaty so that we can establish a procedure for following up the criticisms made by the Court of Auditors.
The problem facing us is that, once the European Parliament has approved the combined budget, it tends to be indifferent to any subsequent criticisms.
We need to put a stop to this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we should really be doing more to name names here, in political terms.
In view of the priority given to combating mass unemployment and social exclusion, we need to identify the real scandal, which is that the Member States are stalling in terms of quality and quantity, whilst the Commission has only blunt tools in its hands both as regards defining the objectives and applying sanctions.
In the agricultural sector, the Commission has quite different scope for taking sanctions.
Why is that not so in the case of the Structural Funds?
There is a question for you here too, Mr Liikanen.
Is there not a danger, in connection with SEM 2000, that we are formalizing matters and thereby creating a technically correct façade, behind which those who run the budget carry out refinancing exercises, spend the appropriations according to their arbitrary budget needs and thus exclude the specialist departments?
And finally, is it not possible to coordinate with the national audit bodies in all these areas? Only by this means can we actually exercise some form of political control, through which the aims of a European social policy are then translated into substance.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I know that when the Court of Auditors' report is presented here, and indeed for several weeks beforehand, the interested public waits for the great scandal which can be put across well in headlines.
Once this scandal has been announced, once it has been identified, calm descends again.
This is just the kind of process that we do not wish to see.
In the first place, of course, we do not wish to have any scandals, but secondly we should like the detailed everyday work, which is also a reflection of the whole issue, to be given rather more prominence.
I would therefore agree with Mr Tomlinson, who said that our work begins now.
I should like to illustrate this with a topical example. This morning, we voted on a request for urgency from the Council, on which the rapporteur was Mr Garriga Polledo.
It was said that there was unanimity on his report in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
That is correct; we were agreed unanimously.
But we were simply amazed in our discussions at how the Member States have so far dealt with the directions they were given.
It is precisely this sense of amazement, this incredible realization that directions are simply not being implemented and so time limits have to be extended, which is now reflected in the report from the Court of Auditors.
Today's request for urgency was quite rightly not approved.
But that is the detailed work.
These are not the spectacular things which can be used to bring home to the public what is happening.
This is what is giving rise to difficulties, however - the fact that there are many good regulations which are being applied inadequately or not at all, and that it is hard to actually monitor their implementation.
I have one great concern.
SEM 2000 has been referred to, and it was said that, by and large, the Member States were in agreement with it.
However, I have heard that some Member States or parts of Member States are already letting it be known that the contents of SEM 2000 are at odds with their constitutional or administrative situation, not least in the area of the Structural Funds.
This means that while we see a remedy, people are already lining up in the Member States to undermine the decisions which are being taken.
That causes me a great deal more concern than one major individual scandal would have done.
Mr President, Mr Tomlinson has shown his usual acuteness in explaining the usual parliamentary procedure for dealing with the Court of Auditors' report.
But I must point out that there is an anomaly in it concerning the procedure relating to olive oil.
In fact, the Commissioner for Agriculture seems deliberately to have used a future report by the Court of Auditors to justify the presentation of a reform of the olive oil COM which is clearly prejudicial to producers' interests.
In this Court of Auditors' report there seems to be no substantial change to previous years, so we can only deduce that there has been deliberate and partial use of the report in order to justify a reform which does not appear in a technical or accounting way in the Court of Auditors' report.
Mr President of the Court Auditors, although I must congratulate you on the value of your Institution's report, I am afraid that this might harm its image.
Mr President, I should like to focus on the subject of the European Union's revenue.
The Court of Auditors' report says - though 1995 was an exception - that revenue will increasingly have to be based on estimates of gross national product.
I understand from the report that these estimates are subject to a great deal of uncertainty.
If all goes well, new negotiations are to begin in 1998 on the European Union's finances.
How confident are the Commission and the Court of Auditors of being able to develop a system for estimating gross national product more accurately by that date? Can we, for example, produce a rough estimate of what the official gross national product will be and of the proportion accounted for by the black economy, say?
Mr President, it is regrettable, of course, that the first news we had of this report was in the media, as happened last year.
If the Court of Auditors cannot control this sort of leakage, well who can we expect to control anything in the European Union?
It is to be welcomed that the agricultural situation has improved, and that experience and the reorganized CAP have created a better and more transparent state of affairs.
It is regrettable but understandable that problems have increased in the areas of the structural funds, because we have reached an unprecedented level of spending and the regulations in the first place were difficult, as was drawn attention to last year.
I hope that we will learn the lessons for the next programme of structural funds and that a regulation will be drawn up that will be easier to administer and that will not try to do everything for everybody in the entire Community with a very limited amount of money.
One point I want to raise: 5.9 % of expenditure.
This means that 5.9 % of our budget was exposed to risk.
This does not mean that we lost 5.9 %: it means we lost a small fraction of this sum, perhaps 1 % of the entire budget.
If the President can confirm this, I think it is not a bad performance and shows that we are coming to terms with the problem.
Mr President, I wish to thank Professor Friedmann and his colleagues for the annual report and the DAS.
They both show that the Court of Auditors, the Committee on Budgetary Control and Financial Controllers have much to do.
I have two questions.
The first is about the annual report and concerns the agencies and the satellites.
The twoand-a-half pages cover 1994 and 1995, with the exception of Thessaloniki and Dublin.
Does the Court intend to produce individual reports for the satellites on which Parliament can give its discharge for 1994 and 1995?
On the DAS, I appreciate the difficulty which the Court has, because we have not allocated sufficient manpower for the double job to be done and it is putting up a good show with short resources.
I am glad to see that there are improvements mentioned about the Commission's performance but the word 'improvement' is not yet used often enough.
My question there concerns the former checking, because if we are looking at 5.9 % of transactions being irregular, that is more than 1 in 20 and the 2 different kinds of checking by the Commission and the Court need to be aligned.
Mr President, my intervention and my question relate to internal policies and the area of social welfare, and in particular, the strand which concerns the fight against poverty and social exclusion, of which the report reveals the rather derisory face of the action taken, with 38, 000 people involved in it in a population of poor estimated at 52 million in the European Union, that is, one person in 1, 500, which is indeed derisory.
The report notes the fact, moreover, that there is no 'cost-result' ratio given by the Commission in this area.
Finally, the report observes, I quote: ' that the efficacy of many financed European networks and their contribution to the reduction of social exclusion are not demonstrated at all and have never been evaluated.'
I think, then, that the problem posed in this report is that of the pertinence of the very small scale interventions of the European Union.
It is also the problem of the relevance of a multitude of grants to associations which are diverse and not always very well monitored.
My questions to the Court of Auditors are therefore as follows: does it have any plans to establish an inventory of grants awarded to associations under the Budget of the European Union, even though no public document lists the entire collection of these grants and there reigns in this domain an immense opacity, a total absence of transparency.
Secondly, does the Court of Auditors intend to proceed with an analysis of the conventional relationships between the European Union and the associations to whom grants have been made? What are these relationships, what are the rules of the game in this area?
Finally, does the Court of Auditors envisage proceeding with a 'cost-efficiency' study of the actions of the associations to whom grants have been awarded with respect to the aims which are pursued officially?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you have asked many questions, for which I would thank you.
Time is limited, however, and so I should like to be very brief.
Firstly, both Commissioner Liikanen and Mr Tomlinson said that, in their view, the European Court of Auditors was too political on occasion. They mentioned the agri-monetary system.
What have we done here?
We simply say that, after the former switchover system was replaced by the agri-monetary system, making it possible to save money through certain measures - half the sum provided for, in fact, at over ECU 680 million - we actually have comparable payments, though expressed in different levels of support.
In other words, we are now paying out aid at different levels of support, and ending up with comparable payments.
The fundamental question thus arises of whether this is compatible with the common market.
We are only asking the question, not criticizing the political decision.
I know that you are under pressure of time, Mr Tomlinson, and you have not been able to study everything, but I am nevertheless very grateful for the work done in your committee, and I am pleased that we were able to cooperate there.
You will certainly produce some important findings for us.
And I believe that transit traffic will require further examination in the future.
Perhaps there are some parallels with the problems of VAT, now that VAT is levied at the destination and not the place of origin.
In other words, the goods are outside tax during transport - a similar problem to that of the transit system.
Mrs Theato and other Members asked how the 5.9 % of irregularities are to be judged.
I would emphasize that this does not mean that these are cases of fraud; they are irregularities in the broadest sense, including many things such as inaccurate reporting of set-aside areas, for example.
You asked how this is to be regarded in comparison with last year, when we identified 4 % of serious irregularities.
One has to see this in conjunction with the fact that, last year, 14 % of the budget in terms of volume could not be audited, because of inadequate documentation.
This time, we were able to audit virtually all the documents, apart from 2.3 %.
If we had been able to audit everything last year, the percentage of irregularities would have been much higher than 4 %, and so the difference this year would not have been as large as it appears at first sight.
Thank you for drawing attention to that point, however.
I am also grateful to Mrs Kjer Hansen for saying that our report should not be greeted with indifference.
In our discussions, I have the impression that we are doing our work very carefully, and on this basis my intention would be that we should proceed similarly in future.
Whether SEM 2000 is a façade is more a question for the Commissioner, but you also referred to coordination with the national audit bodies.
The fact is that the scope and rights of the national audit bodies are very different.
It has proved to be the case that bilateral cooperation with each national body works best, and we are cultivating and extending this bilateral cooperation.
I am currently on a round of visits to all the national audit bodies and, as I said, the heads of these will shortly be visiting us.
We have set up joint working groups to handle this cooperation.
We are therefore on the right path of working together, more than is the case with national audit bodies; to be fair, however, one must of course also take account of the different scope and the different priorities of the national bodies.
Each national audit body looks firstly to its own parliament as a discussion partner and to its wishes, as indeed we do as well.
But we shall continue to make progress in this area.
I am grateful to Mrs Wemheuer for making it clear that the Court of Auditors' report is not a list of scandals.
You are quite correct here: it is always difficult for an audit body to find the right line to take.
On the one hand, we have to explain what could be done better, but our criticism should not be destructive, and nor is it so.
Clearly, you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, and when a budget is predominantly one involving subsidies, as is the Community budget, the risk of one irregularity or another is greater than in those areas of national budgets which do not involve subsidies.
I would also thank Mr Garriga Polledo for making it clear that our report on olive oil is a pertinent one.
As regards the new negotiations on financing, Mr Mulder, I think the annual report can be judged positively in this respect.
Turning to what was said by Mr Blak with regard to the Danish Government, I said earlier that our work was based on that of Denmark's national audit body.
The question is, ultimately, how to judge the fact that feta cheese is meant to consist of 40 % of fat in dry matter and 60 % of water.
The various testing methods produce different results.
We have made a projection based on the lowest figure of 3.3 %, and thus arrived at the ECU 16 m.
Finally, I should once again like to thank the House for the keen interest it has shown, and I hope - indeed I am quite sure - that we shall continue to work well together in the future.
My thanks to President Friedmann, Commissioner Liikanen and all honourable Members who have spoken in the debate.
The debate is closed.
Television broadcasting
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0346/96) on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 89/552/EEC on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities (C4-0380/96-95/074(COD)) (rapporteurs: Mr Galeote Quecedo and Mr Hoppenstedt).
Mr President, in this debate on the reform of the Television without Frontiers Directive, I think that we are all aiming at the same objective: developing the European audiovisual industry.
But, although this is a common aim, there are obviously different ways of achieving it.
I should like to begin, however, with two remarks about areas I think we agree on: first of all, the appropriateness, not to say the need, for carrying out a reform of the existing text which, although it can overall be given a positive assessment, has now been outstripped by the fast developments taking place in the sector; secondly, the desire for understanding which, in my opinion, must always lie behind politics and is now absolutely vital if we want the European Parliament to take a full part in the co-decision procedure.
Both of these considerations have to be taken into account in our decision concerning the legal imposition of compulsory quotas of European productions in television broadcasts.
With every respect for those who defend these quotas we, the rapporteurs, have maintained that this is a mistake.
Experience shows that there is no direct relationship between compulsory quotas and the development of an audiovisual industry, and we could even cite examples which contradict this idea.
On the other hand, the supposedly Europeanness of this measure has been shown not to be the case in practice, since the percentage of non-national European production broadcast on our screens is virtually non-existent.
I refer to the French model as the most exemplary.
Moreover, the establishment of barriers in the Union could put at serious risk access to developing markets, such as the Latin-American ones, for the European audiovisual industry.
Finally, this is an unpopular measure and this is obvious because, otherwise, we would not be debating whether or not we should make it compulsory.
In our opinion, the measures which, from a European point of view, should be promoted in order to help our industry should concentrate on direct financial support for European productions through the MEDIA programme or the Guarantee Fund.
Another question which has been debated at length during the proceedings relating to the draft reform is the inclusion of so-called new interactive services.
We, the rapporteurs, have maintained that it is still early days to look at any regulation without any knowledge of the genuine circumstances surrounding the development of regulated services still in the initial phase of installation.
The European Commission has just approved a series of proposals which are beginning the process of regulating these new services.
I believe, however, that we have made significant progress in the Committee on Culture about how to deal with the ways of giving it a sufficiently solid base.
The same can said about the quantitative limits on advertising, an area in which we have managed to strike a very delicate balance between the helping advertising market and protecting the viewer.
Advertising is the main source of funding for commercial television companies and these are vital for the proper development of the audiovisual system and information plurality.
At second reading, there was talk in the debate of restricting exclusive rights for broadcasting certain events of major interest or importance.
I agree that the Olympic Games and the World Football Championships must be broadcast live, guaranteeing free access to all citizens, as proposed in the tabled amendments.
In agreement with this shared sensitivity, the European Commission has been forced to present a statement on this matter very soon and we shall react to it when the time comes.
There is an obvious perception - an outcry, I would say - in our society, about the frequent excesses in television programmes such as the broadcasting of images of gratuitous violence or pornography, especially harmful for the development of young people.
While recognising that progress has been made in the common position, the result - I must say in passing - of initiatives taken by the European Parliament, sufficient progress has not been made.
However, we insist in our proposal that broadcasting bodies, under state tutelage, should set the framework for creating national self-controlled bodies to classify programmes according to their content; this qualification would be applied according to a coding system in the receptor apparatus, which would give parents and guardians responsibility concerning the upbringing of minors in their charge.
Obviously, these measures do nothing to restrict the freedom of broadcasting but they put at the disposal of society an effective instrument for protecting minors, something asked of us as co-legislators in this case.
Mr President, as co-rapporteur on the broadcasting directives, I can see that once again there is enormous media interest - and indeed that is only to be expected.
The presence of other interest groups is remarkable.
The Council deserves two cheers for having included a considerable number of our amendments from first reading in the common position.
We are also grateful to the Commission which, under the direction of Mr Oreja, has followed our deliberations in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and has kept us informed throughout on the shifts of thinking in the Council.
The committee has worked out a series of basic counter-positions.
Firstly, in contrast to our position at first reading, a compromise amendment has been tabled on Article 1 which provides, in broad terms, for a similar regulatory approach to similar content - in other words, television programmes.
Because, whatever the technical means by which programmes are transmitted, if their content is the same then the public has the same interest in having a similar level of protection for minors; similar, uniformly defined minimum standards for advertising; and a uniformly defined level of protection for personal rights, in the form of a right of reply.
The committee has also acknowledged the principle that the broadcasting directive must on no account prevent necessary investment in new technology.
There is some uncertainty on this point because of the degree to which Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 46 may be open to interpretation, particularly as regards the future collective form which the new services will take.
That is why the great majority in the Group of the European People's Party cannot support these amendments.
However, I believe that it is extremely important to enunciate the need for discussion on this question, because the process of technological development is continuing apace, so that we shall have to hold further debates on what is currently a snapshot of the present situation.
I am sure that there is no one in the Chamber who is not in favour of supporting the European cultural dimension and works of culture.
By a majority vote, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has retabled the amendments that were approved by the House concerning the compulsory introduction of quotas.
As you are all aware, the Group of the European People's Party - like myself, of course - sees things differently.
Compulsory quotas have never produced new films and programmes.
The way to do that is through sensible structures.
The right approach involves good professional training and improved marketing strategies, underpinned by European support programmes - such as MEDIA I and II and the 16: 9 action plan which have just been mentioned - the Guarantee Fund and, possibly, tax incentives and measures to promote investment in film and programme making.
It should be noted, as a matter of form, that the previous amendments on advertising have been retabled.
It is clear that balanced advertising will, of course, play a part in the further development of the dual system.
Whether everything must now be dealt with by means of tougher and more restrictive legislation, or whether viewers are sufficiently mature to take the initiative themselves and change channels if they find that advertising is intrusive, is an open question.
Some of the provisions for the protection of minors have been included in the common position, but not enough of them.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has retabled the original amendment seeking to create a fall-back option for deciding which programmes may be viewed by means of a technical screening device that can be used with pre-coded programmes.
One of our aims in tabling this amendment - and we have emphasized it repeatedly - is to provoke a general debate on this issue, and to raise the awareness not only of all the participants in the market but also of consumers, because the violence, pornography and excessive portrayal of sex on television, through the new services and via the Internet is no longer acceptable in its present form.
That is why, as regards the new services and particularly the Internet, it is necessary to pursue a common, global strategy in this area too.
A new issue at second reading is that of sports broadcasting, which has just been mentioned.
The committee has tabled a compromise amendment - in the form of Amendment No 20 - with the intention of at least contributing to further discussion of the question of sports broadcasting, particularly at national level.
I am sure that, with the Commission, we shall find a way of dealing with this very sensitive issue - and all the public interest that surrounds it - so as to allow us to move in an acceptable direction in the future.
I still take the view that sporting organizations themselves and those who broadcast sport should reach agreement, without regulatory measures by governments.
If they cannot do so, I believe that the European Union and the Member States must seek to lay down rules.
Thank you for your attention.
Mr President, I am here to explain the basic reasons which led the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, to support, by a large majority, the amendments which we, as a committee, are tabling here.
And I am doing this to show you that we have tried to interpret correctly the spirit of the principle of codecision contained in the Maastricht Treaty which requires us to try to reach an understanding - and that means that the different European Institutions have to listen to each other.
In an effort to do just that, after last July's adoption by the Council of the common position which, in many respects, incorporated neither our proposals nor those of the Commission - which were very similar to those of the European Parliament - and in fact failed to take account of the reasons underlying them, we made an effort to understand the real reasons which had prompted some of the Member States - and some of our very own colleagues - to oppose the text approved at first reading by this House. In the spirit of codecision and the search for a consensus, we approved in committee, at second reading, new amendments that provide a compromise on crucial issues.
First of all: to take account of the concern of the small countries in particular that the level of national production of fiction is not enough to enable them easily to broadcast at least 51 % European programmes, we have included in that quota the so-called plateau works also. Secondly, as regards the new services, we have fine-tuned the definitions that distinguish between those which, although using new technologies, and thus new vectors, are still audiovisual transmissions - such as pay-TV or video on demand - and those available on individual request, such as, for example, the Internet, which do not share those same features.
We have included the former within the scope of the directive until such time as we have appropriate legislation - which is not the case at present - and have done so to avoid leaving a dangerous legal loophole, but - and this is the main point of compromise - we have excluded video on demand from the quota application, as regards both broadcasting and investment.
Commissioner Oreja has, moreover, recognized that the committee has made a considerable effort to restrict its own amendments and has stated that it will be politically difficult for the Council not to take account of them. We should like to hope that the Council will show political wisdom and that it will be possible to reach the conciliation process without finding the door firmly closed - that would make a mockery of the principle of codecision and therefore be an affront to the European Parliament.
As you see, we are discussing two very important issues.
One is an issue of method, involving the role and dignity of the European Parliament and the democratic credibility of our Institutions. The other is a matter of substance: creating a European market - the ECM - might still have been a nice idea back in the 1950s and 1960s, but we now have the global market, and if the European Union remains just a market, then it no longer has a raison d'être .
It has a point and a purpose only if it is something different, if it preserves and cherishes its own historical and cultural identity.
That identity is currently under threat because our national cultures are being eroded by international competitiveness, by the cultural industries which benefit from large internal markets and, as a result of the economic and financial clout they consequently have, are able to impose, at a world level, a thousand unwritten rules, which end up leaving us an impoverished monoculture.
Europe can, of course, meet the challenge but only if it is able to create what it currently lacks: a European cultural market which extends beyond narrow national horizons.
The directive that we are proposing to you specifically provides for measures designed to create that European audiovisual market, so that the imaginations, visions and personalities of our children and grandchildren are not left diminished.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, in its first reading, I hope to be able to say again today, on the basis of work carried out by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and of other committees from whom opinions were sought, which include the Committee on Economic Affairs of which I was rapporteur, our Parliament worked out a good text, which defined a worthy European policy on the subject of televisual, audiovisual and cinematographic production and broadcasting.
Unfortunately the Council of Ministers failed to do the same, and the text giving the common position is muddled in form and broadly lacking in content.
Consequently, in this second reading, we will have to sort out just the essential points because we cannot rewrite it completely.
This is what I have done as draftsman, in putting to the Committee on Economic Affairs the four amendments which it has passed, with my report and my conclusions themselves being adopted by 28 votes to 15.
Two of these amendments aimed to make the quotas effective and legally binding, while excluding studio-produced programmes and encouraging the broadcasting of European works.
A third important amendment aimed to strengthen the effectiveness of controls by the executive committee and a fourth reintroduced the period of 10 years for revision.
I can say now that, personally, I find here once again broadly the spirit of the amendments passed by our committee, including those adopted by the majority vote of the Committee on Culture, even if, personally, I would have preferred a little more specific detail for the exclusion of studio-produced programmes which diminish the very principle of quotas, and even if I deplore the absence of safeguards against relocation.
I now hope, as draftsman of the opinion, that there will be a majority in this Parliament to confirm our vote at the first reading on the essential points which have been brought up.
The collective world of European culture awaits from the European Parliament what our ministers have failed to do: to be stalwarts in the defence and promotion of our European culture.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposals made by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and admirably explained by its chairman, Mrs Castellina, show that an attempt has been made, at second reading, to adopt a balanced and responsible approach.
We have not simply retabled all that we had proposed at first reading but have provided a genuine space for reflection and debate which will, we hope, be largely approved by the House.
In point of fact, we have proposed that the scope of the directive should be extended to include also some, but not all, new services. Basically, we want to see it extended to cover television on demand, to prevent serious situations arising in terms of competition and market duplication which would penalize television for all to the benefit of television for some, or vice versa.
Not only that, but through Amendment No 46 - and we would remind the House of the importance of that amendment - we have stated that the directive does not apply systematically to those kinds of new services but only the basic principles and, first and foremost, the protection of children.
It would be absurd to regulate the Internet, as the Commission is proposing to do, to regulate general and specialist broadcasters and leave a gap, a 'no-man's land' , that fails to meet any principle.
Therefore, the approach put forward by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media is a responsible one.
And that also applies to quotas. Yes, we want them to be compulsory but we have stressed that the whole system has to be reviewed ten years from now and that there is the possibility of opting, in the case of specialist channels, for investment quotas.
Finally, on the issue of advertising, we have reintroduced elements which will make the advertising itself stricter, in terms both of the principles on which it should be based and the acceptable thresholds, both by the day and by the hour.
It is in fact completely pointless to provide for thresholds that are strict in relation to the day and then increase them indiscriminately in relation to the hour.
The same applies to minors and the issue of the so-called delocalization which we tackled in two very important points: the requirement that a broadcaster must, at any rate, broadcast through the country in which it is established and the possibility of triggering the rapid procedure, provided for by the Commission itself, not only as regards compliance with Articles 22 and 22a but other articles also.
We have done a good job then and so we turn to those sections of the House that are not completely in agreement with this approach, and in particular the European People's Party, in an effort to adopt a consensual approach: that alone will give us the clout we need, at conciliation, to ensure that the sound motives of all of the democratic forces in this House carry the day.
Mr President, I declare my interest as a broadcaster, not merely a content provider or a facilitator of the information superhighway, but a broadcaster, though maybe we are all those other things too.
This is a broadcasting directive and it ought to deal with matters which are specific to broadcasting, that is, things offered by broadcasters through the television set, but no more.
When we debate Article 1 today, we should bear in mind that this is an attempted compromise which is dealing with many of the reservations which have been expressed by telecommunications interests and others.
They fear they will be ensnared by regulations designed for a different age.
We say no.
Read my lips, I would say to the likes of British Telecom.
You are not being ensnared.
Much of what you do will not and cannot ever be seen as part of broadcasting regulation.
We are looking here purely at those services offered by broadcasters and not subject to interactivity, whether it be of words, data or pictures, which genuinely new services will provide.
It is only where we are looking at services which come within the broadcasting remit that we say that they should be within the scope of the directive, although in the case of video on demand we are adamant that these should not be subject to the quota regime.
I hope those matters of reassurance will help to carry the House today because this is a flexible directive. It aims at consensus.
I believe it has achieved it and it has in many areas, certainly in terms of how Articles 1 and 4 have now been drafted by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and has reached the objective which has been welcomed by the Commissioner here today.
One final point on advertising.
We need a flexible measure of protection, but one that accepts that in countries like the United Kingdom advertising can finance public service television and should not be squeezed out from doing so.
The point of this directive surely has to be to build on the best practice we have wherever that may be.
Buried away behind this debate is the substance of what could be the best broadcasting service in the world where quality matters, variety counts and abundance is the friend and not the enemy of excellence.
That is why we commend the amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is yet another stage in a long battle for the future of the European audiovisual industry and even, I would say, for the European economy and European culture.
And the European Parliament, in full exercise of its powers, is playing a useful role in protecting that very European culture which it is our duty to defend and preserve.
But, in this fight, we must also avoid drifting off into a debate characterised by certain elements of cultural chauvinism.
This is the main accusation which can be levelled at the defenders of the 'Television without Frontiers' Directive.
After all, American culture is the daughter of European culture and if we are now to be governed by images, symbols and aesthetic patterns which the American audiovisual industry is disseminating throughout Europe, we should do so with intelligence and balance.
This is what is being done by the European Parliament, in particular its Committee on Culture.
The aim is to balance European culture vis-à-vis the hegemony of American culture.
It is also aimed at transforming European audiovisual production by defending European cultures, not only the great European cultures bolstered by the national territory which they present, but also other great universalist European cultures such as Portuguese culture.
It is this fight for maintaining the diversity, complexity and richness of European cultures which lies at the heart of the debate on the 'Television without Frontiers' Directive.
That is why I wish to voice my support for the Committee on Culture and this set of proposals which have been voted at second reading, proposals of compromise from which the European Parliament cannot shrink.
Mr President, I am happier with the text of the common position as it stands than I am with some of the amendments being proposed by Parliament.
What broadcasting in Europe needs for the years to come is clear legislation which is not open to a number of different interpretations.
In a digital world and with information technology at its current stage of development, we need broadcasting rules which ensure pluralism and optimum programme quality.
Public service broadcasting must be protected, but this need not imply that commercial broadcasting cannot also develop.
Digital technologies will help us to maintain pluralism in broadcasting.
There are three important points in this debate, in my opinion.
The most important is how we define broadcasting.
The new media must not be covered by the restrictions laid down in this directive - they must have the freedom to develop.
Official rules may need to be introduced, but these should be specially tailored to the new media.
None of the provisions on television should apply to them either: not everything which has sound and image is television.
Secondly, there is the protection of minors, which is primarily the parents' responsibility.
There are technical aids to help them determine what their children are or are not allowed to see and hear, and to enable them to adjust their hardware and software accordingly.
Official rules on the protection of minors must not impinge on freedom of expression or the fundamental right to privacy, which is another reason to regard broadcasting as a separate concept from the new media.
A distinction thus needs to be made between broadcasts for the public and programmes for the individual.
Finally, quotas.
As you know, and as I have often said, I am against quotas.
They seem to be a pointless exercise, since most public service broadcasting, and commercial broadcasting too in the Netherlands, more than meets the quotas now being proposed.
The situation is the same in a number of other Member States.
Imposing such quotas also seems to me to be contrary at least to the spirit of the World Trade Organization's rules.
Europe's audiovisual industry must develop and improve in order to protect itself against Americanization, but it will not do so by means of quotas.
Quotas merely work like sedatives.
Europe's industry needs a free internal market and help in financing films, for example, which the guarantee fund can supply.
Many of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament do not take account of these considerations, but it is still the wording of Amendment No 12 which I find most problematic.
Mr President, I must declare that I have a personal interest in this directive.
First of all, I should like to create jobs for my children and, secondly, I want to be able to watch programmes because I like them, not because the quotas give me no choice.
For this reason, the vast majority of my group do not wish the new media to be covered by this directive, nor do we wish to see any legal strait-jackets that will cost us jobs because we cannot compete with the United States and Japan.
Secondly, we want to stimulate production in Europe through the guarantee fund and so on, but without imposing compulsory quotas for European productions.
Thirdly, mutual recognition is essential, in our view.
The only justified exception to this principle is greater protection for children against pornography or extreme violence.
This should certainly be maintained, but there should not be any other exceptions, and so we reject the socialist amendments designed to create stricter rules on tobacco, alcohol and children's advertising.
We should not forget that the directive has to guarantee the free movement of services across frontiers, and we therefore feel that the rules it currently contains provide adequate protection.
Fourthly, the Liberals wish to use technology to protect children, for example by integrating a V-chip or some other technological device into television sets.
Parents will then be free to decide for themselves whether to use the device or not.
This is a sound Liberal principle, and if the choice is between technology and stricter legislation, I would go for technology.
Fifth, the Liberals are in favour of guaranteeing the public access to major televised events such as the Olympic Games and a landing on Mars.
If the amendments I have just mentioned on quotas, the new media and so on are adopted, the majority of the Liberal Group will no longer be interested in this text as it stands.
We would prefer to have the original 1989 directive.
Carrying on institutional in-fighting for the sake of it is merely childish.
We are concerned about the substance of the directive, about jobs and about choice, and on these points, coincidentally, the Council and the Commission have got it right.
Mr President, today, we really do have our backs to the wall.
Those of you who still entertain any doubt as to the interest of clear obligations should be reminded, should probably have it emphasized to you, that we have the certainty, now, that the Guarantee Fund will be very difficult, even impossible, to implement, that the budget in general, and MEDIA II in particular, is and will remain at a ridiculous level in the eyes of those at stake in this sector.
Moreover, to save the principle of pluralism, the anti-concentration directive has been thrown into oblivion and the Green Paper on new services has been reduced solely to the protection of minors.
Mr Bangemann's desire to dissolve the audiovisual sector within Telecoms, in the name of convergence, only serves to darken the context in which we are going to vote on television without frontiers, the only point of light within our reach, within our power.
Europe must not sign away the plurality of its cultures.
Are we going to let slip this opportunity not to have the market dictate the identity of Europe? What is at stake in terms of civilisation is, today, the bestowal upon ourselves of the freedom to express our history, our stories, our myths and our dreams in our own images.
So that Europe can save and develop its film and broadcasting industries, we must vote today and, tomorrow, the Council must understand the amendments which are aimed at tightening legal security concerning broadcasting and production obligations.
If our aim is to strengthen the production of fiction and documentaries, we should exclude studio-produced programmes and vote for Amendment No 55.
As for Amendment No 51, let us remember that at the first reading, this Parliament voted for measures to prevent the relocation of broadcasters in neighbouring states by 423 votes in favour, especially since this amendment does not challenge the rules of the internal market, but is aimed at pirates challenging national and European regulations.
On what strength would the European Parliament retract it partially today?
Finally, if the market for new services is to bring in the future, as the great manoeuvres of the multimedia and audiovisual industries would have us believe, don't let us miss this opportunity.
We are not asking the earth, that is the application of production obligations to the new services, merely that the provisions relating to minors and to advertising are applied to them.
I will not conclude today - cultural exception requires it - with a quotation, but rather with a figure.
At least that will not pose any translation problems, and in saying that I am addressing the booths.
It is not their competence I am calling into question, but the capacity for comprehension of some of my colleagues sometimes, and particularly those in the Council.
Anyway, I will quote a figure and not a man or a woman of culture.
This figure, and here it is, is the deficit of audiovisual exchanges between the United States and Europe.
It increased by 14.5 % between 1994 and 1995, 14.5 % in one year, to reach 6.5 thousand million dollars.
Can we put it any more clearly?
Mr President, yet again, there is a marked difference between the proposals of the European Parliament and the decisions taken by the Council.
While noting that some of the improvements made, in June, by the 'Cultural Affairs' Council concerned the protection of minors, telesales and the freedom of reception, among others, the decisions on quotas and subsequent developments in broadcasting in the very near future - television on demand or pay-TV, for instance - are still totally unsatisfactory.
I think it appropriate to point out, on behalf of the Greens also, that there is a close link between democracy and the media and that there is no doubt that today's main information service is television.
Consequently, a directive that guarantees, for the future also, a public broadcasting service able to meet the collective need clearly to guarantee the right to information, without political and economic strings attached, is crucial to the future of the Member States.
Equally important, however, is the relationship between television and culture, because the future of our various cultures, which is one of the great assets of the European Union, is particularly dependent on the development of television.
That being so, we must reiterate that the quota mechanism, albeit with the adjustments made by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, cannot be optional, as the Council would wish it to be.
We are not in fact facing a trade war between the United States and Europe in cinematography but we must realize that, unless we have quotas, European cinema is likely to disappear.
That does not mean that poor quality European productions should be preferred to higher quality US productions.
Alongside the quotas, there have to be measures to encourage and develop quality cinema in the different Member States, including through the use of those instruments mentioned by other honourable Members: the Guarantee Fund and the MEDIA programme.
Guaranteeing a public television service also involves proper protection of minors; extending the concept of television to include new technologies; the appropriate regulation of advertising and telesales and making sure that major cultural and sporting events remain accessible to the whole of the population; as well as protecting all languages and cultures which, as I have said, are a European asset.
The Greens will therefore be voting in favour of the amendments, even though they are more limited and designed to achieve the maximum degree of consensus as compared with first reading, tabled by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and those which take up again the issue of the interrupting children's programmes with advertising and the problem of delocalization, that is to say television broadcasters that transmit outside the state towards which their broadcasts are directed.
Last February, during the debate on the first reading, the European Parliament demonstrated real determination by insisting that, within the perspective of the development of new technologies, television should remain a positive cultural vector, a synonym of entertainment and information, a tool for creation and production, with respect for those who watch it.
It is of fundamental importance that today, as we begin the second reading, we demonstrate the same attitude.
Indeed, public opinion, which shows itself to be more and more interested in the future of television and the professionals who have in turn enlightened and upheld us, would not understand it if we backtracked and challenged what they take for granted.
There will still be time, of course to make the necessary adjustments when the moment for conciliation arrives, but it will be utterly damaging if we should accept, within the perspective of these negotiations, that our demands be revised downwards.
And besides, it would be entirely contrary to the codecision procedure.
That is why it is important that we maintain the level of our demands, which are still completely legitimate moreover, if we want to avoid going seriously adrift later on.
There appear to be three fundamental problems as far as my group is concerned: new services, quotas and relocations.
Of course we are not unfamiliar with the need for better regulation of advertising and tele-shopping; of course we would like the influence of television on young people, and not only in terms of violence, to be better controlled, but we consider that, in these areas, some progress has been made and that a well-conceived directive could make significant improvements.
However, we would like to highlight the points I brought up before and we will support the amendments tabled to this end.
Point one: the inclusion of new services.
We know, Commissioner, that a Green Paper will soon come and fill the legislative void which currently exists with regard to video on demand.
Nevertheless, for the coherence of our proposals, it would be best if this directive pointed the way and offered a general framework which the longawaited Green Paper must certainly fill in.
Second point: quotas. It is indeed important to strengthen obligations to broadcast European work.
This would involve the implementation of a genuine quota system which should be both coherent and uniform.
We cannot therefore accept the maintenance of this idea of 'wherever this is enforceable' , that would be imposed upon us once again.
As we all know, this is a breach open to all manner of misinterpretation and abuse.
We therefore ask for quotas, real quotas to enable a genuine European audiovisual programme industry to grow strong, and that presupposes, by consequence, the exclusion of studio-produced programmes.
Final point: the inclusion of a clause preventing the relocation of broadcasters to neighbouring states.
We must renew the amendment voted in very widely last February at the first reading.
Without this measure, we know that there is a high risk of broadcasters setting up in other Member States and backing out of their obligations.
To conclude, I would like to make a few general comments.
I find the anti-regulatory creed that some of our colleagues have struck up utterly paradoxical.
I can understand that one can have reservations on some points; I understand less, at a time when the Americans themselves are seeing the need to impose a certain number of rules, to protect young people particularly, how we can still be advocating the absence of regulation.
We know that culture is not an economic product like any other. It cannot be subjected to the principle of free circulation.
Consequently, my dear colleagues, let us not be either naive or hypocritical.
Let us shoulder our responsibilities and consider that the maintenance of our culture will depend upon the audiovisual productions which we broadcast.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was very encouraging to see the PPE Group agreeing on 29 October that television on demand should fall within the scope of the directive.
Mr Hoppenstedt's comments this morning were therefore all the more regrettable.
That is why I should like to remind you once again that it is clear in the amendment that the intention is not to include every possible new service, that electronic publications are explicitly excluded, and that a number of provisions of the broadcasting directive, such as the rule on quotas for example, will not be applied to television on demand.
The argument that the development of new services could be jeopardized by the inclusion of television on demand is no longer tenable.
I should be curious to meet a supplier of television on demand who is deferring his investment because his output is to be subject to the same conditions for the protection of minors that apply to traditional television.
I do not know of any.
In taking our decision today, we must also consider the political context.
The Commission has not kept its promise to bring forward a set of rules parallel to those in the broadcasting directive in its green paper on new audiovisual services.
In fact, the slimmed-down green paper on new services and the protection of minors explicitly states that legislation is to be postponed indefinitely.
I would say this to the rapporteurs: anyone calling for technical devices to filter programmes on traditional television, but failing to lay down legally enforceable conditions for the protection of minors in relation to television on demand, must begin by explaining that contradiction.
Today, Commission money is still being used to finance studies which conclude that we shall end up with the total commercialization of the entire television sector, but which also quite clearly provide backing for our contention that the transmission method does not matter, and all that is to be provided is a kind of electronic poorhouse for the less well-off.
I believe that the broadcasting directive is our only hope of regulating television on demand, and today could be our last chance of doing this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in an atmosphere more cooperative than that which existed before the first reading, I am extremely sorry that, despite our most intensive efforts, we did not achieve sufficient convergence of opinion in all areas to allow us a greater show of unity today.
As regards quotas, our view has not changed at all since the first reading.
We still believe that they are not an adequate means of bringing more European productions to our screens.
Stronger viewer demand for European productions and, above all, increased support for the sale of European productions would achieve better results than quotas.
At the present time, without quotas, many countries in Europe already devote more than 60 % of screen time to European productions.
We made an honest effort to reach a compromise on Article 1 of the directive - on extending the concept of broadcasting to cover the new services - partly because the Commission had told us in the meantime that the promised green paper on the new services would not appear.
I regarded Amendments Nos 12 and 46 on Article 1 as workable.
However, such was the outcry in media circles, from the press to television, that I was forced to conclude that the professionals had discovered pitfalls which I had overlooked.
Personally, I remain convinced that the compromise which was reached puts no obstacles in the way of dynamic economic expansion of the new services in Europe, since it must be seen in conjunction with Amendment No 46, setting out the exceptions.
With regard to sport, I believe that we in Parliament must take pains to see that exclusive broadcasting rights do not create a situation in which large sections of the population are excluded from major sporting events.
The amendment in question, No 20, is directed not only at the purchasers - the television providers - but also at the sports organizations, who must be at least as interested in their spectators as we are in our electorate.
It is the same kind of dependent relationship.
Amendment No 48 was simply intended to clarify what is meant in Amendment No 20 by inserting the word 'sports' before the mention of what are termed particularly important events.
Someone who is very ill-disposed towards me has completely distorted Amendment No 48.
For that reason, I have to withdraw it, but I would ask everyone to agree that we can, orally at least, add the word 'sports' to Amendment No 20.
I hope the House will agree to that.
Mr President, Commissioner Oreja, ladies and gentlemen, the audiovisual sector is the most heavily-regulated of the communications sectors.
The amendments tabled seek, as a whole, to impose still more restrictive regulation.
That is unjustified and counterproductive, particularly at a time when the sector is ready to invest resources in the production of the new technologies which will provide new jobs and wider access to sources of information for European citizens.
The new amendments seek to impose larger programme quotas on television broadcasters and to reduce the amount of advertising time.
That, clearly, is contradictory: you cannot, on the one hand, seek to require broadcasters substantially to increase their contributions to the development of European productions while, on the other, attempting to cut their advertising revenue which - let us not forget - is the sole source of funding for commercial television and an important source for pay-television.
It makes no sense to claim to safeguard what is on offer from the audiovisual sector, rightly free-of-charge, and, at the same time, deprive those who guarantee that offer, that is to say the television broadcasters, of the resources they need to cover the costs.
A colleague spoke a short time ago of television for the few benefiting television for all: I consider this to refer to the commercial television stations which are genuinely television broadcasters for all citizens.
As far as the protection of minors is concerned, broadcasters have categorically to shoulder their share of the responsibility here.
We are absolutely opposed to violence and pornography, including, in principle, because of the negative effects they can have on adults.
We have therefore to support the amendments tabled in the House on the protection of minors, with the exception of some, in particular those relating to the V-chip. The V-chip is by no means an effective solution nor is it able to resolve the complex issues raised by violence and pornography.
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if we want better television, we should vote against this kind of revision of the directive: to vote for these restrictive amendments would be to take no account of the basic mechanisms regulating the sector.
Mr President, I would like to recall once more the fact that the quotas for European works, the application of the directive to video on demand and the measures which aim to develop independent production do not constitute intra-European protectionism.
This would all be unnecessary if the United States were to respect the rules for normal competition, which they do not do.
We cannot accept that they should consider Europe to be their audiovisual playground, and an extremely lucrative one at that, failing even to respect European rules such as those which prohibit the abuse of a dominant position, incarnate in UIP, the American film distribution organisation.
Protective measures are essential to guarantee our cultural diversity and develop our cultural creative production.
But they are also essential for economic reasons: in the next ten years, two million jobs will be at stake in the audiovisual industry.
We need to secure those jobs.
Finally, although the Council of Ministers has ignored the vote of Parliament at the first reading quite scandalously, we wanted to present some conciliatory amendments, in particular regarding quotas and new services.
By voting for them, you will be helping to develop cultural creation and jobs, but you will also be defending the credibility and influence of Parliament.
My own liberalism is not that of the fox set free in the chicken run.
It is the development of rules which make room for all to flourish, for diversity to be safeguarded, for European interests to be developed in the face of the desire for dominance of other parts of the world.
Mr President, the directive currently in force needed to be changed and I support the amendments of the Committee on Culture.
However, Mr President, I have a problem with the implementation and monitoring of the current directive by the Commissioner and I would like to address it, taking two examples from Greece.
First, in Greece the directive in force is being blatantly infringed in a scandalous and infuriating way, with no action at all from the Commission.
The length of advertisements, for example, is beyond any reasonable limit and they appear at any time in the middle of news bulletins, political broadcasts, films, or anything at all, ignoring every restriction envisaged by the directive.
That, of course, is how television is financed, but this unaccountability distorts the advertising market to the cost of the printed press, creating dreadful problems for the latter.
We know this from both the European and the Greek press organizations, and it is unacceptable from many points of view and of course politically.
These exaggerations also create terrible problems of debased quality for products and their creators, and are annoying for television viewers.
What is the Commission doing about it? Nothing, I think.
The second example concerns underage children, who should in my opinion clearly be protected from the avalanche of advertisements targeted particularly at children.
Such advertising, moreover, imposes enormous moral blackmail on parents.
Appropriate measures have been adopted by many countries: Sweden, other countries, and Greece as well.
But what is the Commission doing? Acting against them in the European Court of Justice with arguments of the type that the free provision of services must be protected.
But in that case, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, why should there not be protection for the free provision of services by the tobacco industry or other industries and activities that are even more dangerous? I regard such arguments as ridiculous and ask the Commission to consign all the files relating to those European Court actions to the depository where they belong.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is in keeping with the importance of this directive that it has attracted a great deal of attention, but has also provoked criticism.
I should like to say two things to the critics.
The European legislation in this case is taking up and reinforcing the position that was adopted as long ago as 1989.
It is not a question of regulation and restraint, but a decision to follow the path of cultural freedom, to which we are committed by Article 128 of the EU Treaty.
We all realize that market forces alone do not guarantee that freedom.
Secondly, the criticism that this is an attempt to subject the new information and transmission technologies to irrelevant regulation does not hold water.
The directive only covers the new media in so far as they include televisual elements.
If the directive were to exclude them, the whole regulatory package would be invalidated.
One thing is clear: where cultural freedom is at risk, the free market is also on shaky ground.
Freedom is indivisible.
I hope that I agree on that point with the representatives of commercial television and the media industry.
Mr President, if we do not have an absolute majority in Parliament in favour of this report today, or if we do, but the Council is not prepared to accept our key amendments, then we shall continue to have a situation in which the audiovisual industry in Europe is forced to compete with America on unequal terms.
Our calls for broadcasting and investment quotas were therefore made not just on cultural grounds, but above all for economic reasons.
American products come onto the European market at bargain-basement prices and are sold as packages, while the vertical concentration of producers and distributors on the American market mean that it is effectively closed to European producers.
So as Mrs Larive has already pointed out, there is absolutely no question today of viewers having freedom of choice.
Quotas are therefore not an end in themselves, but a temporary means of finally establishing fair competition.
Our opponents want us to adopt more aggressive methods, but we really wonder why the two should be mutually exclusive.
What is more, let us be quite clear, there is little good news to report.
MEDIA II is being cut from ECU 400 million a year to ECU 310 m.
It is also extremely uncertain, given that unanimity is required, whether the slimmed-down version of the film guarantee fund will ever see the light of day, although we must applaud the efforts made by the Irish presidency in this context.
Finally, we would urge that TV broadcasting organizations should be required to have economic and cultural links with the Member State in which they are established.
We would also call on the Commission to put an end to unlicensed television monopolies in certain Member States.
If we are clamping down on public monopolies, as we are doing a great deal at the moment, then there is absolutely no excuse for tolerating commercial monopolies.
Mr President, we all agree in this House that television is a critical industry not just in itself, but in its influence upon European society, culture and the economy.
It crosses national frontiers, so we do need European regulations.
The existing directive certainly needs updating, but we must not be too rigid.
Frankly, the common position of the Council and Commission was about right.
It is many of the amendments that have got it wrong.
Superficially these amendments claim to support European TV production. In reality they actually would do real harm to European television.
I have time to deal with just a few issues.
Quotas: would we apply a quota on sales in bookshops?
Would we ration Coca Cola? All of this smacks to me of cultural apartheid.
Quotas do nothing to improve the quality of programmes one jot.
They are concerned simply with quantity.
It is by encouraging public sector broadcasters, helping European film production that we can get better quality programmes, not by quotas.
Advertising: good quality programmes have to be paid for.
By over-regulating advertising we actually jeopardize the quality of European programmes.
Look at the restrictions that are being imposed on children's programmes, on advertising medicinal products, advertisements that offend philosophical beliefs, controls on advertising time.
All of these will restrict money going into good European programmes.
Last year independent television in the United Kingdom put £40 million into quality children's programmes.
All this is now at risk if children's programmes are denied funding.
Instead of better programmes we will get worse.
This is a period of dramatic change in technology.
Digitalization marks the dawn of a new age.
We should not impose a ten-year regulation on looking at these quotas, but certainly should impose five years as a maximum period before we review the change.
It seems to me that these amendments are saying: do not trust viewers, do not trust TV producers, do not trust European companies and advertisers, but let us have controls, quotas, regulations.
Frankly, I think we should trust the viewers, and remember viewers are voters.
Mr President, Commissioner, the rapporteurs on the television directive deserve acknowledgement for their good work, although the long drawn-out procedural stages have annoyed many Members.
I believe that the perceived conflict between free competition and promoting European culture is groundless.
We are all agreed on the importance of developing European audiovisual production from the point of view of culture, the economy and employment.
We disagree only about the means.
The aim of the revision of the television directive is to establish ground rules in the light of the revolution brought about by the information society, as the new technology, which is developing apace, is destroying the basis for the previous regulation policy.
New methods of supporting the whole of European production in the context of an open market are therefore needed.
The competitiveness of the audiovisual sector and the development of new services must be strengthened.
The rapidly growing field of communications could create many new jobs.
Rather than stricter quotas and restrictive regulation, the EU should commit itself to doing more than at present to support the production of content, for example through the Media 2 programme and audiovisual guarantee fund.
European producers should be encouraged to produce quality programmes which interest viewers, so that television companies want to show them on their stations.
Protection of the under-aged is an important objective in view of the growing number of damaging programmes on offer.
The development of technical control systems should be monitored in order to find appropriate solutions.
However, finding ways of protecting minors is a matter which should be left to national level.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in terms of industrial and social policy, what we are dealing with today is the key question for the information society of the future, namely the production of content.
We have to decide whether we wish to shape the future democratically or simply manage the consequences, and this applies not only to how our civil societies reflect on themselves collectively and actively as a European entity and part of the global village, but also to cultural production and services as a source of new and lasting employment.
That will not be an automatic by-product of the increasingly monopolistic competition in which, I regret to say, Commissioner Bangemann still places too much faith - with its emphasis on rationalization, concentration, standardization and commerce.
So we need the compromise on the broadcasting concept, we need binding quotas, we need comprehensive support programmes which provide the necessary range of support, and we need adequate guarantee funds.
We do not need discrimination against the public service programme providers.
The Murdoch, Kirch and Berlusconi empires are the wrong alternative to the culture of Coca-Cola.
Mr President, many of our colleagues, showing an extraordinary capacity for hard work and common sense, have managed to present amendments which can be accepted by the majority. They deserve our congratulations.
But as we can see from this debate there is some disagreement which could affect the final result and also the strength of the European Parliament in the co-decision procedure.
I still believe that we should legislate in legal and not rhetorical terms to ensure that our television companies have a greater obligation to broadcast products which have been devised, produced, interpreted and created in the countries of the European Union.
You cannot treat unequal situations with equality.
This is not protectionism but it is equity, giving more chances to the products of the European audiovisual industry which at present are unable to compete on equal terms and conditions for market reasons which have nothing to do with their quality vis-à-vis other countries.
We cannot build a Europe dealing with television companies as if they were some other means of production or as if their products were like Coca-Cola, ignoring the huge public service component.
However, we are all - the Council, Commission and the European Parliament - writing the history of the European Union and this history is young enough so that, despite all of the criticism that I have made, we feel that the European Parliament is taking a step forward by approving these amendments which should, before the Council, in the final stage, be given the whole weight of the opinion of all European citizens, people whom we always represent, in this case more than others.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, not many documents have provoked such a controversy as the 'Television without Frontiers' Directive.
Within Parliament, within each political group, within professional sectors, within groups of citizens there are passionate objectors to and defenders of the Directive.
This is not without reason since Europe's projection into the 21st century depends on the success of its application.
What are we aiming at with the revision of this Directive? The aim is, by harmonising national laws, to reconcile common objectives which are both cultural and economic and which concern the development of telecommunications and information technologies and the strengthening of the European programme industry.
The difficulty in this reconciliation lies in the very logics in the different sectors, which are contradictory.
In the audiovisual industry there is a predominance of a national and cultural logic while in telecommunications sector the logic is transnational and market-oriented.
However, Mr President, Commissioner, these logics are bound to cross over and merge.
And it is the success of this crossover that will decide the European model of the information society.
Ladies and gentlemen, this Directive, as suggested by the Committee on Culture at second reading, is a miracle of equilibrium.
It is a miracle which is due to the sense of responsibility and the pragmatism of those Members of this Parliament who, at first reading, dealt with positions which seemed irreconcilable.
In order to reach the compromise which is now being presented for our vote, the main objectives borne in mind were: disciplining new services, whose explosion could undermine market rules as far as legislation itself is concerned, and stimulating European production to make it competitive, in order to tackle the emergency provoked by its alarming free fall.
The express compromise on the new services, to which the rapporteur and coordinator of my group, in committee, made a lucid contribution, calls for our full support.
The amendments referring to quotas have been made acceptable - I believe - even for some of their opponents, since the application is made gradual.
However, as far as Portugal is concerned, they are limited because they do not grant a special status for non-European Portuguese-language productions.
I would like to conclude, Mr President, by saying that, with this balance, this Directive is a minimalist text: anything less would not be efficient at all; but more would strangle the market.
We need this directive, contrary to what many people think, in order to tackle the WTO negotiations which will shortly be starting in Singapore.
Mr President, we are debating a very important subject, namely the exercise of television broadcasting activities.
My position is that we must strengthen the broadcasting and production of European works which, in my view, means establishing quotas to strengthen European production.
On the other hand, this European production must reflect the cultural diversity which exists and, in the future, make it possible to create jobs in the audiovisual production industry.
I would refer here to the opinion of the College of Film Directors of Catalonia who agree with a free market; but can we really talk of a free market given the concentration of so many groups of companies that you find in the United States and the invasion of their products? Only if we approve anti-trust legislation will it be possible to have that free market, thanks to the temporary application of quotas.
Finally, I should like to add that quotas are something which also affect States with minority languages, nationalities and regions which could also ask for quotas in those languages.
In other words, States which are asking for quotas should not then be put out if certain national minorities living within those States then ask for those quotas also to be applied to the broadcasting of programmes in their own language.
Mr President, today Parliament is at a cross-roads.
Today we are to pass a resolution which is of quite exceptional importance as far as the opportunities for creating an internal market for TV companies are concerned.
The question of quotas is what makes the report controversial.
But for a healthy European culture and cultural diversity, quotas are necessary.
Like the majority on the Committee on Culture, I support the present wording of Article 4.
For me, however, Member States&#x02BC; legal jurisdiction over the TV companies, like the rights of the consumers, and - not least - those of children, are equally important in requiring clarification.
The regulation of advertising aimed at children, colleagues, has been the question closest to my heart during the whole debate on the TV directive.
I have received strong support for this, not merely from my own group, but also from others, for which I would like to take this opportunity of expressing my thanks.
To those of you who are still doubtful about my proposed amendment, I will say that Parliament&#x02BC;s initial findings sent out a strong and clear political signal.
Representatives from all the Member States and from the majority of the political groups, voted for a strong regulation of advertising aimed at children on the grounds that they exploit children&#x02BC;s credulity, not against the toy industry.
What I would like to see happen is that producers and advertising companies bear their share of responsibility.
I want them to respect our children and their needs for development before they are exposed to the "cross fire' which more experienced consumers have learned to cope with.
We cannot accept that free market forces, using freedom of expression as their cover, subject children to violence, pornography and advertising on TV.
Your vote is very important today.
We must have the courage to decide upon a borderless and common market for TV companies which guarantees cultural diversity and high quality programmes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have five extremely brief points to make.
First, the protection of minors.
I hope that the Commission and the Council will accept Amendment No 40, because there is no point in promoting filters or V-chips if TV sets are not fitted with them and if the broadcasts are not coded.
Parents have a vital role to play here.
Secondly, quotas.
Our rules should not be restrictive but flexible, in order to give European culture a fair chance.
Thirdly, advertising should be subject to certain restrictions, but not banned.
It should not just be allowed to be shown anywhere and at any time.
Fourthly, I would support Amendment No 16 concerning the original rules.
However, I would ask Commissioner Oreja whether this is compatible with the two Court of Justice judgments of September 1996 against the United Kingdom and Belgium.
Fifth, sports broadcasts must also remain accessible to the general public.
Mr President, as co-author with other Ministers for Culture of the first Television without Frontiers directive in 1989, allow me to formulate, briefly, two very blunt questions. The first is: Europe, do you still have a soul?
Can you really safeguard your creativity, your imagination and your creative genius?
We all know, ladies and gentlemen, that the imagination of the younger generations is shaped increasingly by images from television and films.
Are we, European Parliamentarians, going to sit there with our arms folded and watch the bombardment of standardised television series made for international audiences which are killing the originality and the identity and the individuality in the hearts and minds of these young people? Do we accept that artists in our own countries might soon enough have no other choices for making their films than to try their luck across the Atlantic?
The question which poses itself, which is asked of us, is a question of the life or death of our living culture and this power is in our hands.
I hope that there are enough of us, today, who will say no to uniformity, no to cultural colonisation, and yes to diversity, inventiveness and freedom. Only a clear, strong directive will allow this.
And the second blunt question that I want to put to you is as follows: do we accept that our Parliament should cease to exist at crucial moments? We have already in the past missed numerous opportunities to express strength of will.
I am thinking of the naming of the European Commissioners, and of our acceptance by majority, under pressure from the governments, of the economic agreement with Turkey.
In conclusion I would like to say, Mr President, that I hope that we will safeguard with a clear vote both European culture and European democracy today.
Mr President, I would like to compliment the rapporteurs on all the hard work they have invested in this report.
This is probably the most lobbied report we have ever had in this Parliament.
But what do the people in the gallery, what do the men and women in the street care about in terms of their own television?
Obviously they want to be entertained and informed.
They are worried about the content of the programmes their children are watching, particularly the level of violence and unsuitable programmes.
Many complain that it is impossible for them to monitor the programmes that their children watch, and parents will need help to become considerably more media-literate in the future, if they are genuinely to protect their children.
They are also very concerned about the pressure they are under to buy expensive toys for their children.
They are angry at the increasing monopolization of well-loved sporting fixtures which they can no longer view without a significant investment for each event.
They are also concerned about the greed of many of the sporting organizations involved here.
They also want to hear their own stories told in their own way on their own national channels.
They want to support the young producers and directors who are making these programmes, very often grossly under-financed.
I do not believe that quotas will improve matters, but I think we need quotas to keep our broadcasters under control so that they do recognize our desire for our programmes made in our own languages and in our own way.
Mr President, the report by the Committee on Culture will make it possible to improve the current 'Television without Frontiers' Directive in order to help the development of a high quality European audiovisual industry.
By means of this text, we are protecting children from the harmful content of certain programmes and commercials thanks to stricter regulation; we are also clarifying and specifying strict regulation of television commercials; we are guaranteeing access for the majority of viewers to the live broadcasting of major sporting events, rather than making them pay extra to watch these events by granting paying channels exclusive rights.
We now have a broader consensus between the European Parliament's political groups but there are still differences over a vital point: the obligation to reserve the majority share of broadcasting time for European programmes.
The Socialist Group, with a majority of members on the Committee on Culture, has now made the European Parliament's position more flexible by accepting that we can regard as European programmes those which are made in European studios.
In this way, television companies will have no difficulty in being able to meet the requisites of the European programme broadcasting quota.
In other words, we substantially agree with the position of the Commission.
However, the rapporteurs of the PPE Group have rejected this compromise proposal and yet are not proposing any alternative, which means it will be almost impossible to reach the majority of votes needed to keep the debate in Council alive.
If this does occur we would only be benefiting the already all-powerful American audiovisual industry and it will be very difficult to develop a competitive and high quality European audiovisual industry.
Mr President, on the occasion of the examination in its second reading of the Television without Frontiers directive, there is good reason for concern about the fate of the European audiovisual scene, if certain changes are not made to the Commission's proposal.
Concerned as I am for the implementation of a policy based on the promotion of European productions, I urge you to vote in significant numbers in favour, firstly, of the inclusion of new services, such as video on demand, so that these services are subject to a certain number of rules on publicity and the protection of minors.
Secondly, it would be advisable to strengthen broadcasting obligations, or what are commonly known as 'quotas' , by making them compulsory and by excluding studio-based productions from their calculation.
The quotas favour the production and broadcasting of European work, but they will also enable us - and there is no point in hiding this - to stand up to international, and particularly American, competition.
Finally, my dear colleagues, we must fight against abusive relocation in order to secure the protection and development of the film industries of the Members of the Union.
Such a clause, may I remind you, is nothing unusual: it exists, for example, regarding banking and the European Parliament had already adopted it by a large majority at the first reading.
Mr President, the debate in this House on the future of the audiovisual industry is one which crosses all political boundaries.
I know that our Commissioner here today is aware of the enormous strides we have made in reaching a consensus on the key issue, something which should be borne in mind by ministers.
We all have a shared concern for the future of television - the most influential medium in our democracy.
It is not about carrots, cars or coffee machines that we debate here today.
This directive is about building a strong, competitive audiovisual industry which should offer one million new European jobs by the year 2000; it is about Europeans benefiting economically and culturally from an expanding industry.
Quite simply, we must create in order to compete; we must ensure that our cultures have space on our TV screens - our stories and our voices must be heard for the sake of our children.
The starting point for the debate on quotas is that there is no free market - let us be quite clear about that.
The American industry enjoys the huge structural advantage of immense archives, a huge self-sufficient home market and a dominant position in all distribution channels.
The deficit between us and North America in the audiovisual industry at the moment now stands at $6 billion.
This would not be tolerated in any other industry, I maintain.
The result is that US programmes can be invariably sold in our market at one-tenth of the cost of original productions.
The broadcast and investment quotas we put before the House today are therefore necessary to underpin European programme creation.
The investment quota alone would ensure that the top six pay-TV operators would invest ECU 300m in our industry - the total of the European MEDIA II programme - and that they do not solely recycle cheap imported programming.
Finally, this Parliament is at a constitutional turning point with this directive.
Let us remember that the Council of Ministers has ignored both the Commission and the European Parliament on the key issues.
Our whole future is at stake.
We must win an absolute majority on the most important issues and reach conciliation.
If not, it is quite simple: we will be excluded from any significant input into the most critical codecision procedure so far.
Codecision, quite simply, will have become a sham.
The question then is: can Europe ever really work? Can there ever really be European Union democracy which reflects the interests of citizens?
I urge colleagues to vote today for economic and cultural pluralism and a directive which ensures Europeans produce and view TV programmes reflecting their own interests and values.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is intended that one of the main goals of the new broadcasting directive should be to promote the European programme-making industry and safeguard Europe's cultural diversity in the audiovisual market.
Besides the most important aspect - that of cultural diversity and creativity, which was highlighted so eloquently by Mr Lang - the new directive is intended to generate increased investment in the European film industry by supporting the production and dissemination of European-made programmes.
According to the experts, it should also be possible to create two million new jobs over the next ten years and to enable our European broadcasters to be involved in the rapid rise of new technologies and the anticipated expansion of the audiovisual industry, so as to create a level playing-field for competition with American productions.
A further important aim of the new broadcasting directive is to make major sports broadcasts freely available to the general public.
In future, everyone should continue to be able to watch transmissions of major sporting events, not only at European but also at national level, without having to pay extra for the privilege.
That is why it is important that exclusive rights for major events should be handled in the Commission - and I would direct my remarks here to Commissioner Oreja in particular.
The final point on which I wish to express my views concerns the protection of minors.
Clearly, voluntary selfregulation is not sufficient.
However, we all know from educational theory, as well as from personal experience, that prohibitions and defensive measures are often counter-productive.
That is why I am arguing that positive steps should also be taken, so as to provide strong support for good, exciting broadcasting for children and young people.
That must surely be possible within the framework of the existing MEDIA programmes.
Votes
Madam President, as you know, my report was adopted in September by a very large majority.
But while, on the eve of the discussion, the Commission recognised the importance of this report, when it was invited to reveal its position, the Member of the Commission present, who happened to be poor Mr Fischler, - and I apologise for calling him 'poor' because he is richer than any of us since he controls more than half of the budget -, answered me that the Commission could not support my proposals.
I therefore asked for the report to be sent back to the Committee on Women's Rights so that the work could be taken up again with the Commission.
Madam President, could you ask the Commission to share with us its current position?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in response to the question put by Mrs Torres Marques I can tell you that the amendments which the Commission is able to accept are the following ones: Amendment No 1, part of No 4 and No 5 in full, all of which refer to a typical work.
We can accept part of Amendment No 2 and all of Amendment No 7 on leave periods, and the second part of Amendment No 11 on the flexibility of retirement age.
These are important amendments in political terms which will also reflect the European Parliament's concern for part-time workers, giving fathers equal rights for family leave, and the possibility of applying flexibility to retirement ages for both sexes.
Therefore, I am pleased to announce that these amendments can be accepted by the Commission.
As for the remaining amendments, I am aware of which of them attracts the greatest interest: they are the four concerning actuarial factors which the European Parliament would like to see banned for good.
The Commission understands Parliament's political stand in this area but feels that it is impossible to accept these amendments just now.
The Commission has already asked for an expert study to be carried out by highly qualified specialists on this subject.
As soon as this study is ready, the Commission will discuss its findings with the Committee on Women's Rights.
On the basis of those findings, the Commission will be able to deal with the specific problem in its next proposal in order to complete the subject of equal treatment between women and men in social security matters, and replace the 1987 proposal which is still pending before the Council of Ministers.
We should not delude ourselves.
We know that this is a very difficult problem to deal with but there is one thing which is quite clear: this matter cannot be dealt with until the preparatory work which I have just mentioned is ready.
At this time, we can and must work together to work out the best way of dealing with this.
On this basis, I believe that we can consider that we have reached a political agreement and the Commission proposal can now go ahead for Council adoption, in a modified form, following approval of Parliament's opinion.
As Mr Adam is not present, I would just like to point out that, as you know, Madam President, this is the first application of the conciliation we have had with the Council about trans-European networks, and it is the application, therefore of the codecision on the additions and modifications made to the annexes.
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure and the Verification of Credentials, I would ask that the vote on this report be postponed to tomorrow's sitting, to the vote that is to take place at midday.
We will proceed as usual.
I am faced with a change to the agenda, because we have to move the vote.
I will therefore hear one speaker for and one speaker against.
Madam President, I see no reason to postpone this vote.
Furthermore, Mr Manzella says that he is speaking on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
As the President present will testify, this subject has never been broached within the Committee on the Rules.
As far as my knowledge permits, having been present at the meetings of this committee, what Mr Mazella is claiming bears no correspondence with reality.
Amendment No 20 states that everyone must have access to 'particularly important events' , via receivable broadcasts.
However, it should say 'particularly important sports events' , since a particularly important event could be a fashion show.
I am simply proposing the addition of the word 'sports' to Amendment No 20.
I would urge the House to support this amendment.
On Amendments Nos 29 and 56:
The Danish social democrats have today voted in favour of the European Parliament's report on the equal treatment of men and women in terms of employment-related insurance arrangements.
This report contains important recommendations for the improvement of conditions for women, among other things in the areas of pensions and cover for part-time work, which the Commission has not included in its document.
Women who come late to the employment market, or who have been temporarily absent because of family commitments, should not come off worse in their old age.
It is sad that the Commission just does not understand that this situation needs to be sorted out in the Member States, so that legislation on the equality of men and women is not just words, but a reality.
Women in the EU are the most sceptical about cooperation.
Let us show that we have something to offer them.
We have voted in favour of the Torres Marques report because it proposes a number of improvements to the Commission proposal.
For example, the retirement age for women has already been raised to 65 - i.e. the same as for men - in all the pension schemes in Finland.
However, a long transitional period has been provided for in Finland to protect women's previous rights.
However, because of the proposal for a directive now under consideration, the Finnish Government intends to propose that the law be amended again with the effect that 40 000 women would forfeit the pension rights they had previously acquired.
In our view, the Council should allow Member States a transitional period to implement the Directive, so that women do not suffer unduly.
Adam report
note in particular the draft decision of the Commission defining the specification of projects of common interest identified by European Parliament and Council Decision 1254/96/EC establishing a number of guidelines relating to the trans-European networks in the energy sector.
In relation to the proposal that 'Parliament should receive more advance information on the projects included in the list, since the subsequent technical specification stage may prove a fiasco' , attention should be drawn to the existing fiasco involving the Scotland-Northern Ireland electricity interconnector, where the core principles of transEuropean energy networks guidelines have been breached by the proposed electricity link, and where Commission support for the project will contribute to environmental and economic damage in the areas involved.
Measures must be put in place to prevent similar circumstances from arising again.
In the construction of Europe, it is extremely important that we can rely on an energy distribution network.
The European Parliament has positively modified the Commission's proposal by including not only significant components of that network in the Baltic Sea and by paying special attention to the relationship with the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement in the energy sector, but also by incorporating into it the compromise on hierarchisation and the security of financial prospects, so that the execution of common interest projects can be guaranteed.
For these reasons, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left is fully behind Mr Adam's report and agrees with his demand that the consultation procedure should be begun.
Howitt recommendation for second reading
No one whose heart is in the right place, no one with any understanding who is a normal human being could remain unaffected and unmoved by the plight of millions of refugees and uprooted people in Asia, South America and Africa.
No one whose heart is in the right place could deny that massive aid is urgently needed for these poor people.
Europe can provide this aid, and it must play its part in alleviating this terrible distress.
But not just Europe.
People often talk as if Europe is the only source of aid, but have they tried knocking on Japan's door, or that of the United States, Canada or Australia?
If not, it just goes to prove that they are simply playing on yet another of Europe's idiotic and criminal guilt complexes.
Idiotic and criminal, indeed.
There is no doubt that if Europe wants to help - and Europe must help - it must be in a position to do so.
Only a strong and prosperous Europe can, must and will intervene where aid is needed.
Europe needs to be itself, and to keep itself in good shape.
It must not lose its identity or allow itself to be swamped by what Jean Raspail describes so perceptively in 'Le Camp des Saints' .
Otherwise, Europe will be reducing itself to the level of those whom it should be helping.
The vital call for aid for Asia, Africa and South America is therefore - and this is not the paradox it seems - a call for a strong, free and prosperous Europe made up of proud nations with their own identity.
This is the first and most important requirement if the nations of Europe are to be able to show their generosity.
Taubira-Delannon recommendation for second reading
I find it utterly regrettable that the Council has not accepted the amendment previously tabled by Parliament, particularly the fact that a derisory sum has been allocated to the budget item "The Environment in developing countries' .
It is our responsibility to help the developing countries so that they do not make the same mistakes in their development as we ourselves have done.
Therefore it is of the greatest importance that we share our resources, both economically and technologically as well as in terms of our expertise, without the EU itself benefiting economically as a result.
Neither should we determine how the developing countries choose to act and operate.
The countries can decide that for themselves, based on the different circumstances which are relevant for them.
Parliament created this budget item after the UN Rio conference, which means that there is a global agreement on achieving sustainable development.
In view of the EU&#x02BC;s enormous budget, the sum of 5 million ecus a year seems like an insult, compared with the 1 000 million ecus which the EU provides as support for the tobacco growers.
The global ecological threat to our lives is greater than the need for tobacco.
I have voted for the proposals which are moving in the same direction as the above.
Bloch von Blottnitz recommendation for second reading
If the programme for the promotion of energy efficiency is indeed to be 'efficient' :
Firstly, it must be well funded, which is why we must revert to the European Commission's proposal for 150 MECU instead of the 45 MECU proposed later by the Council.-Secondly, it must be better coordinated with the other energy programmes, ALTENER, THERMIE and SYNERGY, to avoid fragmentation.-Thirdly, all legislative and non-legislative measures should be in place to facilitate the programme's implementation.-Fourthly, special attention should be devoted to ensuring that the programme operates correctly in smaller countries such as Greece.
We believe it to be of overriding importance that we protect our planet.
There are a number of ways in which energy can be saved, and we must use whatever means are available for cutting our energy consumption.
In particular we are of the view that an effort must be made in the area of renewable energy in order to promote the use of such sources as water, wind and solar energy, thereby reducing CO2 emission.
The report contains far too few initiatives directed at energy savings and renewable energy sources.
Many EU projects, e.g. the so-called TEN projects, are also based on increased use of energy.
I have nevertheless concluded that the report should be supported, in spite of its shortcomings.
Galeote Quecedo/Hoppenstedt recommendation for second reading
Of the EU&#x02BC;s film market, 76 % consists of American films.
These have already covered their production costs in the USA and are sold to European TV companies at dumping prices.
This constitutes an abuse of a position of dominance going back a long way, and not a free market.
In order to safeguard European culture and cultural diversity, a quota system is necessary.
Such a quota system does not represent any encroachment upon freedom of expression.
The proposal has strong support, both from the actors&#x02BC; European unions as well as other representatives of the industry.
The year 1995 saw a European trading deficit in the film sector, in relation to the USA, of 6.3 billion dollars (a trebling since 1988).
This amounts to about 200 000 work years.
The TV directive with stricter rules in respect of advertising and TV sales, provides greater consumer protection for both children and adults.
It is our responsibility to protect our children and not to allow them to be exposed to a "cross-fire' in TV which more experienced consumers have learned to cope with.
We cannot accept that free market forces, using freedom of expression as a cover, are allowed to impose violence, pornography and advertising on TV upon children.
In this battle between the United States and Europe, between the interests of the world-wide audiovisual giants and the rights of our citizens, between a market exempt from accountability and cultural creativity, the honour of the European Union is saved only by the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and not by the Council or the Commission:
Concerning the issue of quotas, these must be obligatory if they are to offer effective protection for the European industry against the American siege, at least during the coming decade and until a system is worked out for the protection of investments.-Concerning advertising, respect must be shown for citizens and consumers, in relation to both time and principles.-Concerning the protection of children, protection is needed at the European level.
With this opportunity I would like to express my sorrow at and disapproval of the arrogance of the Commission's services for taking Greece to court for the restrictions - not ban - that it imposed on the advertising of toys for children.It is said that the House, mainly at the instigation of the PPE Group, failed to back the Culture Committee's most important amendments.
We go along with the recommendation that children's broadcasts should not be interrupted by advertisements and teleshopping, and with the recommendation that one should not broadcast advertisements for prescribed medicines, or that pharmaceutical manufacturers should not be allowed to sponsor TV programs with their products.
Regarding the debate on quotas, we would comment that the debate in Denmark is quite different from that in other countries where the primary concern is to promote national production in order to match cheap soaps, etc., from elsewhere.
National production also means Danish national production, or course, since Denmark is a European country!
However in Denmark the majority wishes primarily to strengthen national production by means of subsidies from media programmes.
Denmark has incorporated the relevant quota regulations into its own legislation following the 'suspended veto' , but does not wish to go along with removing the softening words 'as far as possible' from the objective of requiring that half of the programmes shown must be European produced.
This is where the conflict lies.
Sports fans are getting an increasingly raw deal when it comes to watching major sports events on television.
The broadcasting of the recent world title fight between Tyson and Holyfield is the latest example of this.
Regrettably the exclusive rights to broadcast major sporting events have been sold to the highest bidder.
Within Europe this has resulted in Sky TV having a virtual domination in this area because national television stations such as RTE and the BBC have been unable to compete because of their extremely limited resources.
In future sports fans will have to pay exorbitant prices (as they did for the Tyson fight) on a pay-to-view basis or alternatively national television stations will have to raise their licence fees dramatically in order to compete.
Either option is bad news for viewers.
The European Parliament must send a clear message of 'hands off' to the greedy media moguls.
However national authorities also have a responsibility to discharge.
Governments should introduce legislation in their own national parliaments to prevent traditional sporting events falling into the hands of these predators.
In Ireland such events would include the GAA Finals, home soccer and rugby internationals, the Irish Derby, the Irish Grand National and the Irish Golf Open, etc.
(Earlier this year I wrote to the Minister responsible for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Michael D. Higgins, T.D., making this point.
I am still awaiting a reply) .
Joint action by both European and national authorities is required if the rights of television sports fans are to be protected.
Last February, Parliament took up its position firmly in favour of a positive future for the European film and television industry.
Sadly, a confrontation with the Council was inevitable, since the latter did not take up the majority of our amendments from the first reading.
The common position on which we must issue a vote is arousing some strong reactions, and this is a historic day.
Personally, I would like to go back to two points.
As enthusiastic as I am about great sporting events - just like millions of other people - I consider it the responsibility of the Member States to make sure that broadcasters owning exclusive rights do not do so to excess, thereby making a mockery of the right to information.
Finally, I stand as an ardent defender of the 'anti-relocation' clause, a clause which has, sadly, not been taken up by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media. It is essential that this is inserted into the final text, because it is the only way of avoiding the threat to the principle of free circulation.
I would like to associate with my declaration my colleague François Bernardini, who, caught up in the vagaries of the transport, is in danger of arriving late for this vote.
On these two points, the common position says absolutely nothing.
In principle the authorities of a democratic state should be cautious about directives aimed at the medium of TV.
On the other hand, freedom of expression presupposes that diversity may be safeguarded and that no special interests or products dominate over others.
TV policy must also be controlled from a public service perspective which, for film products, strives for high quality standards artistically speaking, and promotes serious production.
National and international rules are to be preferred, but supranational rules are called for where the market situation so requires.
American films account for 76 % of the EU film market.
These films have already covered their production costs and are sold to European TV companies at dumping prices.
This represents an abuse of a long-standing dominant position and not a free market.
In order to safeguard a European culture and cultural diversity, quotas are required.
Such quotas do not represent an encroachment upon the freedom of expression.
The year 1995 saw a European trading deficit in the film sector, in relation to the USA, of 6.3 billion dollars.
This amounts to about 200 000 work years.
The TV directive with stricter rules in respect of advertising and TV sales, provides greater consumer protection for both children and adults.
It is our responsibility to protect our children and not to allow them to be exposed to a "cross-fire' in TV which more experienced consumers have learned to cope with.
We cannot accept that free market forces, using freedom of expression as a cover, are allowed to impose violence, pornography and advertising on TV upon children.
The imposition of quotas under the Television without Frontiers proposals will open up new markets for European programming.
This can only be good news for the audiovisual sector in Ireland as new areas of commercial activity come on stream.
I believe this is particularly good news for Teilifis na Gaeilge which will easily fulfil its quota of European programming.
This programming can then be sold to other markets in a dubbed or sub-titled format.
I believe that the imposition of quotas of European broadcasting will assist in the process of protecting national cultural diversity.
This directive is a welcome move given the growing prevalence of bought-in American programming on our television screens.
The imposition of quotas will help increase the diversity of programming, not reduce it.
The 51 % quota should not be applied to each public broadcasting station individually but should refer to 51 % of the programming globally of the stations involved.
In Ireland's case this would mean not taking RTE, Network 2 and Teilifis na Gaeilge separately, but instead taking the output of the three stations together.
We do not share the view that quotas represent a good way of getting the EU countries to transmit more European productions; nationalism is just as bad at the European as at the national level.
This does not mean that we wish to promote American film productions, but that we consider that it would be better to encourage the making of films within the EU in other ways.
Moreover, we do not regard it as being beneficial to introduce quotas, since there are actually films made outside of the EU and USA.
In one way or another one must encourage, for example, Asian and Eastern European film production to reach the EU market.
For example, India is one of the world&#x02BC;s major film producers, but very few of her productions each here, and with limitations imposed via quotas, distribution of them is made even more difficult.
We have, however, voted for the amendment which relates to limitations on advertisements for alcohol and pharmacological preparations, as well as advertisements targeted at minors.
We also consider it appropriate that advertising, as a proportion of total transmission time should be limited.
European parliamentarians are battling to obtain quotas for the broadcast of European programmes, or in other words, to favour the Community's audiovisual preference, including new audiovisual services and the inclusion of an anti-relocation clause.
We approve of this, but we are surprised that the same members, of all political tendencies, reject national and community preference in areas as important as employment, professional training, housing and social welfare, on the grounds that this distinction would be discriminatory.
How can we explain this unequal treatment other than by corporatist egotism in the audiovisual media which sees its problems from the small end of a camera, through the distorted lens of their differential interests?
In what name are French and European citizens, the victims of an invasion of immigrants, denied the same rights as the audiovisual media?
At a time when the European Union has more than 20 million unemployed and millions who are newly suffering poverty, this really should be the central question posed by the Galeote Quecedo Hoppenstedt report.
We await with interest the response of both European institutions and political groups.
At the second reading of the proposal to amend the television without frontiers directive, I shall only be able to support the Galeote-Hoppenstedt recommendation if a sensible solution is found to the following key issues.
Not a single high-quality European programme has yet been produced as the result of broadcasting quotas.
We should therefore adopt a flexible approach to this proposal, rather than seeking to impose rigid quotas.
Conversely, there is a need to make adequate financial resources available for the promotion of European productions.
The broadcasting concept should not be extended to include new audiovisual services - on-line services, video on demand, teleshopping and so on - so as not to jeopardize the development of those services.
However, in a number of important areas, such as teleshopping, consumer protection must be ensured.
With regard to the problem of the country of origin of broadcasts, it would be irresponsible to seek to re-erect artificially in the broadcasting sector the barriers which have been eliminated in the internal market.
In the interests of the protection of minors, it is essential to fit all new televisions with a technical filter mechanism - the V-chip - thereby ensuring that parents have the final say on what their children will see.
At present, children and young people are inadequately protected from the surfeit of sex and violence shown on our televisions.
The European Parliament today gave its verdict on the amendment of one of the principal instruments available to the Union for the development of a European audiovisual market.
When we are voting on a text such as this, we must not lose sight of our long term objectives.
The Television without Frontiers directive should be considered in a global context, defined in total coherence with other instruments of the Union, most notably the Media II Programme.
These various tools should really help us to structure the programme industry and the European market.
The directive should favour the effective circulation of audiovisual work, and should guarantee minimal regulation of the market.
The market should be organised fairly and transparently.
To this end, it seems legitimate to me that all services offering audiovisual productions to the public should be subject to the same regulations.
The Television without Frontiers directive should also participate in the strengthening of the European programme production industry and ensure its promotion.
I have therefore voted for the definition of a restrictive text, which will force broadcasters to broadcast in the majority European audiovisual productions which can only, in my opinion, be works of fiction.
The vote is now closed
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
25th report on competition policy - single market in 1995 - concentrations between undertakings - industrial restructuring - loans to SMEs (ELISE)
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0324./96 by Mrs García Arias, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission's XXVth report on competition policy (1995) (COM(96)0126 - C4-0240/96); -A4-0323/96 by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the single market in 1995 (COM(96)0051 - C4-0146/96); -A4-0332/96 by Mr Rapkay, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 4064/89 of 21 December 1989 on the control of concentrations between undertakings (COM(96)0313 - C4-0536/96-96/0224(CNS)); -A4-0339/96 by Mr Rapkay, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission's Green Paper on the review of the merger regulation (COM(96)0019 - C4-0106/96); -A4-0335/96 by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on industrial restructuring and relocation in the European Union (INI0329), -A4-0318/96 by Mr Kuckelkorn, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the provision of loan guarantees for investments carried out by SMEs creating employment (ELISE) (COM(96)0155 - C4-0314/96-96/0107(CNS)).
Mr President, first of all I wish to thank all of the Commissioners who are competent for the different sectors which have been discussed in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for their attendance here.
I wish to begin by pointing out that there is growing concern among European citizens about the consequences on their work and families of the major economic and industrial changes taking place at national, European and worldwide level.
The opening up of markets, the acceleration of international competition and technological changes are leading to feelings in society that although there are new opportunities there is also insecurity about the future of their jobs, their children's jobs and the level of social well-being.
The processes of liberalisation and deregulation in the public service and general interest services currently under way lead to contradictory feelings.
The introduction of elements of competition will guarantee better services for some but, for others, will incite fears, very often well-founded fears if we look at some of the experiences of reduced levels of services at higher prices.
The Delors White Paper - which should be repeatedly referred to - offered a European response to these challenges, opportunities and fears, pointing out that we must simultaneously develop economic growth objectives while improving competitiveness and creating jobs.
All of this should also be done within the framework of a general conception of economic and social cohesion.
In this framework of analysis and debate, it has fallen upon the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to present to the House a set - an important set in my opinion - of reports dealing with competition policy, the single market, controls over company concentration operations, industrial restructuring and relocation, as well as the development of small and medium-sized undertakings.
All of these themes are closely connected.
Perhaps we should have included in this debate another report drafted by the Committee on External Economic Relations, on international competition.
This year's report on competition policy has focused basically on four points: first of all, the need for the Commission, in its policy of controlling restrictive understandings and abuses of dominant market positions, to step up and improve controls over activities which certain financial and industrial groups can exercise on the economy.
Let me explain myself.
I think that we must clearly define the financial links between the different sectors, especially energy and telecommunications which have a growing tendency to take on a strategic character, and we do not want the liberalisation and privatisation of enterprises and public monopolies - justified to date as guarantors of public services or general interest services - to give way to the creation of monopolies, duopolies or similar phenomena where individuals, legal entities or groups comprising boards of management take over, directly or indirectly, a given sector.
In Spain, people are very sceptical when this type of economic or political measure is taken or there is talk of market responses, and many people are beginning to wonder 'who these markets are' , as their opinions sometimes seem to make better or quicker responses than Parliament or the rest of society.
Secondly, the report also concentrated on the debate about public service.
I note with some concern that, on this subject, there is no real consensus in the European Parliament and the outcome of tomorrow's vote will show that we must continue trying to find a common position between the different groups in the European Parliament.
In any case, I think that we must send a message to the people of Europe guaranteeing to them, quite clearly, that they must hang on to public services, despite the pressures which the private sector exerts, in an attempt to reduce the levels of these services.
Thirdly, the report has focused on the coherence which must exist between economic and social cohesion and the control of public aids granted to companies in certain regions of the European Union.
This subject is leading to considerable distortion of competition, especially between small and medium-sized enterprises in one region and another, and we think that the Commission must begin to set objectives to try to reduce this trend and set up practical measures to reach the convergence objectives.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur, for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the third Commission annual report on the internal market in 1995, I wish briefly to comment on the kind of debate that has gone on and the kind of proposals that have emerged. I should make clear from the outset that my committee has been in favour of that document, although it has felt it necessary to look in greater detail at important points which could contribute to more rapid development and improved operation of the internal market.
After considering the results obtained and, above all, the outstanding problems, we looked in greater detail at the important issue of making the internal market more accessible to citizens and small and medium-sized enterprises.
In point of fact, unless the latter are able to be fully and consciously involved, it will not be possible to speak in terms of a properly functioning internal market within a full economic democracy.
Not only are information and awareness campaigns needed, we need also to make rapid progress towards simplifying European legislation in the field and ensuring that Member States transpose it properly, without distorting it or making it more complicated.
Furthermore, the proper functioning of the internal market requires that infringement proceedings be made more effective, that there be more action on the part of the legal authorities and that the Intergovernmental Conference should set in place, for that purpose, machinery to protect the unity and integrity of the market, which should be at least equally as effective as those safeguarding freedom of competition.
I can only reiterate that a properly functioning internal market is crucial if monetary union is to be successfully launched.
The two processes are two sides of one and the same coin, as we pursue a strategy of restoring the competitiveness of the European economic system, with the ultimate goal of promoting prosperity, employment and the sustainability of social policies.
In that connection, and in the light of the developments taking place in the common economic policy, we have to be concerned about two particularly significant problem areas.
First of all, as regards what has been provided for in terms of the single currency and the future common monetary policy, certain aspects of the non-monetary management of the economy are currently defined in a way that is far less precise, less satisfactory and less coordinated, including as regards the powers of the European Institutions.
While, on the one hand, we have to welcome an opportunity of the kind we have today, when we are able to hold a joint discussion on issues of industrial, competition, trade and internal market policy, a systematically integrated approach, which took proper account of the main horizontal sectoral common policies other than those mentioned (environment, research, training, consumer policy etc), would in fact be desirable.
The main problem that has to be resolved therefore involves striking a better balance between the future monetary policy and the whole complex of non-monetary economic policies.
Secondly, and looking at the issue from a slightly different point of view, we need to do something about an equally worrying imbalance between the common monetary policy, strict coordination of budgetary policy guaranteed by the Stability Pact and fiscal policy.
The inadequate progress so far achieved in that area prevent the internal market from operating more effectively, to the detriment of consumers and industry and, consequently, employment.
The negative examples of fiscal competition, the erosion of the tax base and the transfer of the tax burden from capital to labour also clearly highlight the urgent need to move towards forms of harmonization, if not genuine 'communitization' .
The urgent review needed here will focus therefore not only on how to move towards more satisfactory solutions of the taxation problem but also on the whole basis for management of the non-monetary economy for the immediate future of the European Union.
The Institutions must take on that task, but it is the specific responsibility of the IGC to produce those long-sought changes, in particular by setting aside the principle of unanimity for all decisions connected with the proper operation of the internal market.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, cross-border mergers and acquisitions are one of industry's most important means of being able to meet successfully the new challenges of the internal market.
If they do not harm competition, they can be considered a positive consequence of market integration.
In its resolutions on industrial competitiveness policy over the past year, the European Parliament has made it clear that global competition requires businesses to be able to hold their own as global players, and that our policy must create the room for manoeuvre which European industry needs to be able to increase its competitiveness: in other words, the Union's competition policy must be geared to the situation of global competition.
I am well aware that this can sometimes become a balancing act, since Europe's global competitiveness must not be increased at the cost of the equality of competitive conditions in the internal market.
It is not by chance that there is broad agreement here in Parliament that domestic competition invigorates the internal market and leads to increased efficiency, thereby assuring our prosperity.
However, competition is not an end in itself.
It is a means of achieving the paramount goals of employment, conservation of the environment, prosperity and social cohesion.
We wish to take a bold step forward with monetary policy.
The introduction of the single currency will not only further integration.
At least in the eyes of the great majority in this House, this major end-of-century change will also be a means of preparing Europe for global competition and gearing it to the goals that I have just mentioned.
That monetary policy is being made jointly, in accordance with our wishes; but it is managed by a strong, independent institution.
We are making progress with integration.
As far as specific competition policies are concerned, however, we sometimes have the impression that the clock is to be put back.
With regard to aid policy, for example, certain provincial rulers in my own country are making a good deal of noise about the regions finally being masters in their own house.
It is hardly reassuring that such comments are not only being heard in my country.
Everyone seems to forget what our house actually is: Europe.
And that house must not be a dilapidated hut.
It must be weatherproof, and we must all be able to live in it.
Then this house needs a caretaker.
That caretaker cannot do just as he likes - he must act within a comprehensible framework that is clearly defined by the house's occupants.
But this framework must provide the caretaker - I shall call him the Commission - with sufficient room for manoeuvre.
This also applies to the control of mergers.
Granted, we have an instrument - the 1989 merger control regulation - and this is to remain our framework for action.
However, in fields as dynamic as the internal market and the globalization of the economy, nothing remains as it is.
Consequently, the details of this instrument must be tested and modified.
And that is long overdue.
The regulation's specific provisions have long ceased to be adequate.
At present, I do not wish to go into details on matters such as what the present circumstances are, or how high the thresholds are that trigger the Commission's intervention.
Market dominance can still occur below those thresholds.
With the growing integration of Community markets, the number of cross-border mergers has risen.
Nevertheless, only a small number of these operations fall within the scope of the present regulation.
I find that difficult to understand - although that is not the decisive point.
Clearly, mergers which do not fall within the scope of the regulation also have an impact on competitive conditions throughout the Community.
It is doubtful that this impact can be adequately assessed by the national competition authorities.
In competition policy terms, therefore, this no longer makes very much sense.
We must rectify the arrangements that we have had hitherto.
In its green paper, the Commission originally proposed setting the intervention thresholds at ECU 2 billion of worldwide turnover and ECU 100 million of Community turnover, in the case of the participation of at least two Member States.
This proposal is continuing to meet with resistance in a number of Member States.
That is understandable, of course.
The present proposal for a regulation provides for thresholds of ECU 3 bn of worldwide turnover and ECU 150 m of Community turnover, in the case of the participation of at least two Member States.
Should three or more national notifications be required, however, the figures of ECU 2 bn and ECU 100 m will apply.
I propose that the House should approve the Commission proposal for a regulation amending the merger control regulation.
And I would call on the Council of Industry Ministers to adopt it.
It can signal this at its meeting next Thursday.
Indeed, that is essential.
Furthermore, this is what is required by subsidiarity - although the notion of subsidiarity must not be abused with a view to renationalizing competition policy.
Mr President, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has drawn up an own-initiative report on industrial restructuring and the international relocation of enterprises within the EU and from the EU to third countries. This phenomenon, which is generally referred to as globalization or relocation, transcends all sectoral boundaries.
We will not be able to understand this phenomenon if we consider it purely from the point of view of competition policy, industrial policy or trade policy.
A new approach, transcending sectoral limits, is required to enable us to understand what is going on.
So far, the best way of monitoring industrial relocation has been by observing the rapid growth of direct foreign investment.
Such investment has tripled in ten years, worldwide, and has become a normal part of the mechanisms of the market economy. Of course it also creates many new jobs at the same time as promoting structural change, but the phenomenon also has its down-side.
An industrial enterprise may, for example, pack its bags and leave behind a considerable number of unemployed people without the authorities or its employees being able to influence this.
My aim is to put forward a few practical measures which can be used to monitor and analyse this phenomenon more precisely.
Firstly I hope that the Commission will consider setting up a monitoring unit.
Contrary to what some have claimed, I am not advocating any form of interventionist policy which would entail the Commission's interfering with enterprises' business operations and investment. However, the Union has a definite interest in promoting the welfare of its citizens in this area, so that I believe a monitoring unit is needed, as relocation cannot be observed purposefully enough using the existing means.
Secondly, it is clear that enterprises' own voluntary measures are also very important.
One good approach would be for enterprises to draw up voluntary - and I stress the word 'voluntary' - guidelines of the code of conduct type, which might enable them to avoid transferring their operations to countries outside the EU where employees do not enjoy even rudimentary rights, or where states flagrantly violate human rights.
I seriously believe that the operations of enterprises abiding by these guidelines could be highly successful, as this approach could become a factor in promoting competitiveness.
In my view it is also essential to continue to discuss how we can create increasingly equal competitive conditions for enterprises within the Union.
The issue is how the internal market can be strengthened: the committee particularly and very unanimously drew attention to taxation.
Taxation is the field where there is perhaps most to be done.
We have again recalled that the Commission published a very valuable document in the spring drawing attention to the fact that taxation of the more mobile factors of production has been reduced considerably in recent years, while an effort has been made correspondingly to increase taxation of the less mobile factors, such as labour.
This is not, of course, a way of promoting enterprise, or at least, it is not a way of promoting labourintensive enterprise.
I should also like to draw the Commission's attention to the fact that the Union's regional policy may incorporate factors which endanger competitive conditions.
The committee points out the phenomenon of subsidy shopping.
The Commission ought to act decisively to investigate whether EU subsidies are being exploited unscrupulously to create short-term jobs, pocket subsidies and then move on.
The committee also stresses that the links between, on the one hand, direct investment and new enterprises to be located in a region and, on the other hand, local industry and the local economy should be strengthened.
The importance of training must not be underestimated either, to ensure that workers can adapt to a situation in which enterprises can very quickly change their strategies.
Mr President, before I conclude, I should like to say that the reports by Mr Kittelmann and Mr Kreissl-Dörfler consider WTO aspects in rather more detail than mine does, and that I shall therefore say nothing about them here.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are more than 18 million unemployed people in the European Community. Given this statistic, we can only conclude that the Community is facing a large-scale employment crisis.
From summit to summit, the European Council does not tire of declaring its great commitment to resolving this employment crisis.
Following every summit, the European public is told that measures aimed at the long-term improvement of the jobs situation will be introduced.
Now that it has become apparent that the trans-European networks cannot serve as the basis for a jobs offensive - because the facts speak otherwise - the Community must adopt credible employment initiatives.
Such initiatives could be pursued in the SME sector.
Vigorous support for job-creating small and medium-sized enterprises from the European Union, and especially the Council of Ministers, is certainly a logical step - particularly since this sector is repeatedly portrayed by the Council as the Union's most important generator of employment.
The Commission and the European Parliament have recognized that with a small outlay, it is possible to harness the job-creating potential of the trade and SME sectors.
Accordingly, they have agreed an interest subsidy programme for job-creating measures in the SME sector.
ECU 50 million was voted for this programme in the Community budget for 1996.
The only institution which has problems with the creation of jobs is the Council.
It refused to approve the programme or establish a legal base for it, and for the flimsiest of reasons: firstly, the need for subsidiarity, because the Member States supposedly fear a loss of powers; and, secondly, the hope of obtaining funds to fill gaps in the budget which have arisen through negligence.
In this respect, however, the Council has made a fundamental error of judgement, since if the Council does not eventually establish the legal base, the Committee on Budgets, under the Notenboom procedure, will distribute the funds available to other budget lines.
The provision of loan guarantees will improve the access of small and medium-sized enterprises to external funding for job-creating investment.
This is a convincing initiative, which has received a very positive response from the SME sector itself.
The amount of the loan on which the guarantee is extended should be linked to the number of jobs created.
It is in the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises to stand by the ELISE programme, and when we see the Council's difficulty in bringing itself to approve this initiative, we have to conclude that the Member States - in particular, my own country - are systematically blocking the decision in the Council.
For here too, the Council is hoping for a return flow of funds to settle old debts, if no agreement is reached on the ELISE programme.
We have to ask ourselves how great the financial predicament of the German or other governments must be, if - against the background of budget gaps of billions of ECU - they are so dependent on such small sums that they put a stop to a promising European employment programme, especially since the funds available will be distributed to other budget lines if the programme collapses.
We can only wish the Commission luck in the difficult task of convincing the Council of the usefulness of the ELISE programme.
As Parliament's rapporteur, I firmly believe that, through its decisions and jointly with the Commission, Parliament can bring this programme into being.
Mr President, I actually wanted to talk about the Wijsenbeek amendment on the two-thirds rule, which the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has taken over.
We do not entirely agree with the rule - and nor does the Commission, incidentally - but now that I see Commissioners Bangemann and Van Miert sitting there side by side, I cannot resist the temptation to broach the subject of another concentration in which the Commissioners have been closely involved, in the world of football.
Commissioner Bangemann made a very laudable attempt to come to an amicable arrangement with the arrogant football barons on the nationality requirements.
They agreed in theory, but refused to cooperate in practice, and subsequently lost the Jean-Marc Bosman case in Luxembourg against the brave Belgian whom I have nicknamed little David, even though both Mr Bangemann and Mr Van Miert had warned them this would happen.
There has also been another court judgment recently in Amsterdam which found against the KNVB and said exactly what you have always maintained: that the KNVB must also allow competition for television rights, which is something they all prefer to ignore.
I would therefore ask you to examine whether the concentrations regulation, which we welcome in the Committee on Legal Affairs, could be adapted in this respect.
Mr Wijsenbeek managed to table an amendment at the very last minute which has been more or less accepted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, who adopted a more tolerant and moderate approach than we lawyers did.
But we would ask you to look at the twothirds rule, as you yourselves proposed, and see if it could not be dropped in this particular instance.
Mr President, after that relocation into the world of football, I should like to come back to the matter in hand.
As the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, I wish to draw your attention to a number of points.
First, relocation is not in itself a negative phenomenon but forms part of a global process of rationalization, modernization, adaptation and cost-cutting.
However, in a socially adjusted market economy, it is up to the governments to identify, prevent, control and resist the adverse social consequences that it brings.
Secondly, we would point out that relocation is not a straightforward phenomenon.
There are relocations in general within the Union, outside the Union, between the OECD countries, between the Union and Central and Eastern Europe, North Africa and so on, and I think there are a number of general principles to be observed here.
We in the Committee on Social Affairs would urge that relocations and our view of the global free trade situation should give due consideration to the internal market and global regionalization.
Thirdly, as far as relocations within the EU are concerned, we have a clear position on a strategy for dealing with internationalization and evaluating the restructuring of firms.
If firms in the Union move to regions offering considerable competitive advantages, the resulting situation could well be extremely difficult.
We would therefore urge both Commissioners to look very seriously at subsidies and industrial policy, and to develop an approach for dealing with the impact on local labour markets.
If firms simply switch from one subsidized region to another, they take their workers and jobs with them, and the European Union seems to be pretending that this is not a problem, whereas in fact it is a major one.
Mr President, given the high rate of unemployment in the European Union and the importance of small and medium-sized undertakings for the labour market, it is easy to predict the great interest which will be shown in the ELISE Programme.
It will give these companies easier and less burdensome access to bank loans, always vital for making investments.
In fact, SMEs nearly always lack capital and face huge difficulties, long waits and very high costs when they do try and obtain banking loans, especially since, usually, they cannot offer the guarantees demanded by various financial institutions and conceded by the various Member States.
With an entity standing in for SMEs when it comes to taking responsibility for the necessary banking loan guarantees, the European Investment Fund and another institution bearing the costs of these guarantees - and this is what the Community is proposing to be - then the barriers to the financial markets will easily be brought down.
In agreement with the spirit of the ELISE Programme, we want to go right to the heart of the questions dealt with, making the programme both broader and deeper.
I myself drafted an opinion which was approved unanimously by the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment recommending not only the creation of jobs as vital for granting Community subsidies but also the preservation or maintenance of existing jobs in companies, so that we can see to the necessary and appropriate change to the budgetary line, linked to job creation, as a way of dealing with this new type of expenditure.
Also in this opinion we pointed out the need for express reference to be made to 'micro-undertakings' , nonindustrial companies and the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions, where there should be a better network of financial institutions in order to cover the whole of the Community territory.
This is a very easy way of giving loan guarantees.
But, at the same time, it was deemed important to try and make sure that the jobs created or maintained in candidate companies should be lasting.
Finally, we wanted the rate of loan coverage of small and medium-sized undertakings to be made more flexible by the means of guarantees of investment funds, using higher amounts when investments a aimed at creating large numbers of jobs or when they are destined to benefit, via the interested companies, those groups potentially most affected by unemployment.
If this report is a good one, it is not only because it takes on some of our proposals, but we must express our very strong regret that it has not taken on board one idea which seems to us to be equally important and which must be repeated: that of supporting, as far as possible, the maintenance of existing jobs.
Taking that into consideration, in our opinion this report deserves the highest regard.
At least we are satisfied that it has been proposed in this debate and in good time.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, I wish to say that, for our committee, the relocation of enterprises and the influence of structural policy in this context is a key issue.
In the forthcoming reform of the Structural Funds, this aspect of structural policy needs to be examined.
Consequently, the Committee on Regional Policy cannot understand why its readiness to cooperate with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has met with the response that its figures were not taken into account in the latter committee's report.
For our committee, the question is: how adequate are the present Structural Funds in counteracting or facilitating relocation?
The Structural Funds are currently geared to geographical 'objective regions' , on the basis of criteria of weak development.
However, we are now seeing a rapidly growing phenomenon: subsidy shopping.
The fact is that the less-developed regions are currently sacrificing all their potential to this phenomenon, instead of exploiting it to promote sustainable development.
It is now a question of re-establishing harmony between economic, competition and cohesion policies.
We are therefore calling on the Commission to pay increased attention to this phenomenon.
It is clear to all of us that, after the forthcoming reform, the Structural Funds must be more efficient, and that abuses must therefore be countered.
Consequently, the Committee on Regional Policy believes that the question of the geographical criterion must be re-examined.
It already has an answer, however, since it does not feel that it would be sensible to eliminate this criterion altogether.
It also does not believe that it would be sensible to impose a further bureaucratization of the Structural Funds, and is therefore proposing the creation of a competition-related mechanism whereby EU support to enterprises would be made conditional upon a long-term commitment to the region in question, with a view to preventing companies from moving from one objective region to another simply in order to obtain EU benefits, without integrating on a long-term basis into the region's local economic activity.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, this is now at least the third time during this part-session - and it is still only Tuesday - that we have had to reproach the Council for the lack of follow-up to its forceful, media-oriented summit statement.
Over and over again, the Council declares that the campaign for jobs is the main priority of the Union and its Member States, but when it comes to putting its money where its mouth is, it does nothing!
After every summit, stillness reigns, whether with regard to the energy efficiency programmes, implementing and managing the structural and regional funds, or - as now - support for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Each time, the Council is handed the opportunity to create jobs on a plate: it never takes that opportunity.
SMEs are the main generators of employment, growth and competitiveness in the European Union.
Over 70 % of all jobs are in small and medium-sized enterprises.
In contrast to the Council, with its politics of lip-service, the European Parliament is looking to translate its political priorities into action.
Indeed, last year, it raised the funding for budget line B5-322, ' Employment and growth for Europe' , by ECU 50 million to over ECU 57 m, because the programme for granting subsidies to SMEs for job-creating investment was successful and enjoyed a high level of support.
The Council, however, was not prepared to establish the necessary legal base.
As a loan guarantee programme for SMEs, the ELISE initiative should now at least try to close the yawning gap between the politics of declarations and real politics.
The question is whether through this programme, involving ECU 25 m over two years in the first instance - with which a total credit volume of perhaps ECU 1 billion can be achieved - we can actually create a decisive impact on unemployment.
We are more of the opinion that the funding is too modest, not least in view of the resources available in the 1996 budget.
We firmly believe that, wherever possible, the Union must help small and medium-sized enterprises to overcome their shortcomings, because the job-creating potential of this sector deserves a comprehensive effort.
Action, not words!
We must not let our priority - combating unemployment - simply be sacrificed to the Member States' attempts to bridge their budget gaps.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteurs for their reports.
There are some excellent ideas in the various reports and I hope that the Commission in the context of their work in 1997 will take on board many of their ideas.
I would like to say to the Commissioners that it is by no means a coincidence that we are having a debate this afternoon where we are dealing with all of these reports together.
The reason for this debate is that we want to link industry policy, we want to link competition policy, we want to link the internal market, we want to link the policies on small and medium-sized enterprises together, because frankly, at the moment, it is the view of this Parliament that, while the Commission services in their own directorates-general fulfil a very good role on behalf of the citizens of the European Union, there still is not sufficient coordination and collaboration on these various policies.
I want to deal with some of issues in my short address.
We have to recognize that, given the growth rates in the European Union between now and the end of the decade, we are looking at growth of possibly around 2 % or 2.5 %.
That means that the unemployment problem in Europe will not be tackled.
We will still have very high levels of unemployment when we reach the end of this century.
It is also a fact that we are dealing in global markets.
It is no longer the case that we have European industries.
We have global industries operating in European markets.
Therefore we need to create a climate that will allow those industries to thrive and to allow the small and medium-sized companies that form part of the supply chain also to thrive in the future.
That is why the policy on small and medium-sized enterprises on industry policy, on competition and on the internal market must be brought together in a clearer focus.
We will ask - my group will certainly be asking - in the context of the Commission's work programme in 1997 for a new annual report to be produced by the European Commission.
This should link these areas of policy, look clearly at the competitiveness of the European Union and ensure that there is compatibility between these various policies.
We also need to look at the economic impact of these various policies.
I know, for example, that DG II in the European Commission produces reports on the economics of certain major policies that the European Commission may put forward.
I suspect those reports filter as far up as directors-general in the European Commission. I suspect those reports do not touch the desks of European Commissioners.
It is essential that DG II - those people who are analysing the economic performance of European Union policies - are allowed to express their views directly to the College of Commissioners.
We want to see that that happens in the future.
I want to deal with some changes in the business environment and the way in which these policies of competition, SMEs, industry and the internal market need to work more closely together.
In particular I want to look at the supply chain that industries are involved in.
Let us look, Commissioner Bangemann, at an industry that you and I have dealt with recently - the car industry.
In the car industry of the past, all of the research and development, many of the components and so forth, were dealt with by the core company themselves.
Those days have now gone.
We now have a supply chain which means that in many cases research and development has pushed down the supply chain to the first, second or even the third-tier suppliers in this sector.
There are many other sectors of the economy where the supply chain now is completely different to the way it existed ten years ago.
It is the small and medium-sized enterprises that are the key to that supply chain, the innovative industries who are now designing, who are involved in value-added manufacturing services.
So our policies have to reflect that.
If we look at competition policy, too often it is used as an excuse for industry policy.
Again, if we look at the car industry, we have had the bloc exemption in the car industry as far as the sale of cars is concerned.
That really is using competition policy as a mechanism for industry policy.
Of course, we have had the voluntary export arrangements which will last until 1999, again using competition policy or trade policy largely for industry policy.
We have got to get these policies of internal market industry, small and medium-sized enterprises, research and development working closely together.
Unless we do that we are going to continue to have growth rates of around 2 %.
We are going to continue to have unemployment levels of 18 million and our impact as a European Union is going to be absolutely minimal.
So next year, we want the Commission to come forward with an annual report which ties these policies together, which links it to competitiveness, to see whether or not there is real compatibility between the various directorates-general and the policies that are pursued by the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today's debate on a series of reports has one basic aim.
It is designed to show that the European Union has a range of instruments at its disposal with which to pursue a coherent and effective economic policy, if it so wishes.
This is what should emerge from the reports on the single market in 1995, competition policy, the control of concentrations between undertakings, loan guarantees for small and medium-sized enterprises, and industrial restructuring and relocation in the European Union.
These various reports serve to illustrate the fact that we are currently too inclined to consider the operation of the internal market, the application of the rules on competition, industrial policy and support for small and mediumsized enterprises separately, as if Articles 85 to 90 of the Treaty did not concern the internal market or the competitiveness of a particular industrial sector.
We have long been calling on the Commission - and we are doing so again today - to coordinate its policies, over and above the various directorates-general and the portfolios of the individual Commissioners.
By way of a first step in this direction, it is worth noting that the number of Commissioners present here today is almost equal to the number of Members currently in the Chamber.
We are in the process of building a strong European monetary union with solid institutions, an independent central bank ensuring sound financial management, stable prices, reduced and controlled deficits, and a strong single currency - the euro - from January 1999 onwards.
This will provide the European Union with a stable monetary and budgetary policy framework for the development of its economic activities.
However, should we not at the same time be developing a dynamic economic policy, designed to foster and promote growth and employment in particular? Such a policy should not be restricted merely to providing a counterbalance to the central bank.
It is a question of equipping the European Union with all the instruments that will enable it to encourage economic development.
Although such a coordination of policies in the interests of competitiveness is not provided for in the Treaties, there is no need for a Treaty amendment, since we already have all the necessary economic and social policy instruments with which to pursue this economic policy.
Undoubtedly, among the most powerful of these instruments are the Commission's rules on competition.
We shall do all we can to prevent the Commission's capacity to act in this field from being restricted in any way.
Using the powers conferred on it by the Treaty, it is the Commission's task to set out, in a coherent framework, the way in which it proposes to use the various instruments of economic policy.
Responsibility for a policy of this kind also lies with our own institution.
The European Parliament needs to be associated as closely as possible with the shaping of the policy.
This will enable it to play the role in achieving monetary union for which the Treaties have not yet made adequate provision.
Since the decisions are currently taken by the Council of Ministers, it must be ensured that the latter is in a position to introduce this policy.
I would therefore propose that during each Council presidency - in other words twice a year - a special meeting of the Council should take place.
This 'Economic Policy Council' would be required to deliver an opinion on the guidelines presented by the Commission, after consultation of the European Parliament.
Naturally, this Council would include the Finance Ministers, but all other ministers dealing with economic policy matters would also have to be involved in some way, in order to create the essential linkage between economic policy and the monetary policy conducted in the framework of the Ecofin Council.
Mr President, the source of the reports - or rather the group of reports - that the House is today discussing is the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which has evaluated them as a whole because they do in fact link up with one another.
That has to be the case: we cannot think about competition policy without assessing the rules on mergers; similarly, we cannot think about restructuring and dislocation unless we appreciate the value of small and medium-sized enterprises.
We therefore applaud all members of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Monetary Policy for the work they have done and for the information provided to the Commission, enabling it to furnish an improved draft of the final directives.
There are, however, a number of aspects in particular to which we should like to draw attention in this general assessment of the Community economy.
The first can be summed up in terms of the policy guidance to avoid assessments based on size: the future of the economy no longer resides with the 'big boys' ; it is in fact in 'small' and 'medium-scale' enterprise that the best opportunities for growth, development, investment and, therefore, in the final analysis, new jobs, are to be found.
Secondly, we have an operational guideline, designed to assess differently sectoral value in the economy: ever more attention will have in future to be paid to those sectors whose potential has previously been undervalued. I am referring in particular to tourism, trade, the crafts trades and services, including the environment, technology, the social economy and others.
The third point was well put by Mr Secchi in his report on the internal market.
There is now a different relationship between monetary and non-monetary policy and therefore, in the final analysis, with fiscal policy. We need therefore to allow businesses and businessmen both a greater degree of administrative and bureaucratic deregulation - giving them the time and the opportunity to be entrepreneurs and not bureaucrats - and, consequently, more extensive and improved fiscal harmonization, as hoped for by Commissioner Monti in what he rightly calls an internal rather than a single market.
My fourth and final point: in seeking qualitative and quantitative improvements, we should look to meeting consumer demands, the only real objective of the efforts made daily by hundreds of thousands of businessmen - in small, medium-sized and large businesses - in Europe, with their millions of co-workers.
It is in fact the market alone that should regulate the legislative efforts that the European Institutions make and provide for the Member States: it will therefore be the market that determines where to make concessions, where to regulate and where to restrict.
If we succeed in getting the market - which is currently suffering from a dangerous fall in consumers - going again, we shall be getting the whole of the Community's economic and social system back into gear.
Mr President, I wish to take this opportunity, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, to congratulate the various rapporteurs.
Since my time is limited, I want to focus politically just on two issues.
In respect of the García Arias report on competition policy, I wish to put down a very clear political marker that whereas the Liberal Group is prepared to support this report in general, there is one specific blockage and condition in respect of our support and that relates to paragraph 15 and the call for the amendment in the IGC of Article 90(2).
It is the definitive view of our group, and has been consistently the case, that the amendment of this article would be a form of Trojan horse.
It would introduce a form of creeping protectionism and an attempt to block the completion of the internal market in sensitive sectors.
This represents a very reactionary response to problems which doubtless are there but which politics exist to overcome.
In a global competitive market we have no option but to ensure that we press ahead and we believe that Article 32 should remain unchanged.
I appeal in particular to the Group of the Party of European Socialists to try to give us a way out on this, because we want to support the overall thrust of the García Arias recommendations.
In respect of the Hautala report, very briefly, we have consistently opposed the concept of a speculative tax on capital movements.
Implicitly in paragraph 2 this reappears.
I want to see that changed. If it is changed we will support it; if not, we will vote against.
Mr President, we have a series of very important reports and I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs, both on their efforts and on their ideas.
However, I should like to refer in particular to the relocation of businesses.
The practice of relocation is a fundamental weapon in the hands of those who are pressing for lower levels of social protection, tax exemption, abatement of environmental protection measures, and relaxation of the rules of standardization and consumer protection.
It is no matter of chance that exactly in the name of that threat, privileges and grants are provocatively being extorted which ultimately lead to abuse of the Structural Fund resources.
It is also no matter of chance that the European Union is increasingly encouraging relocations to Third Countries, mainly towards the Central and Eastern European countries.
For some countries such as my own, the phenomenon has assumed the dimensions of a national disaster and is a basic factor in the contraction of the productive base, the dislocation of the economy, de-industrialization and decline.
There are many examples, the most recent of which are GOODYEAR and LEVIS, while SIEMENS is holding its employees hostage in order to establish new contracts.
We would like to congratulate Mrs Hautala on her many-sided examination of the problem.
We want to stress that now, besides statements and expressions of concern, immediate and effective measures are needed at an international level to restrict the unaccountable actions of major multinational capital.
We call upon the European Union and its Member States to show in this connection the decisiveness that they show when imposing policies that reduce the level of social protection and overthrow the basic rights and social acquisitions of working people.
For example, the European Union could, in the context of the World Trade Organization, consider reviewing its statutes so that protection of the fundamental rights of working people, as defined in the relevant conventions of the International Labour Organization, would be included in multipartite agreements and would become a criterion for application of the principle of the most-favoured state.
Mr President, we must grasp the fact that dislocation and de-industrialization of the Union's less developed countries to begin with, and of the Union as a whole later on, will become a nightmare for all who determine their political strategies on the basis of yet more extensive opening of the markets, and of the subjection of everything - social and environmental demands - to the holy cow of competitiveness, which transforms our society into a dismal one.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at first sight, they appear to be very different subjects: competition policy, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, the promotion of employment, relocation, the internal market.
In reality, however, they all come down to the same thing: the fact that, as far as economic policy is concerned, we are living in very interesting times.
They are times in which the neo-liberal plan is clearly running out of steam, in which the idea that markets will by nature provide rational solutions is proving to be unrealistic, and in which the need to regain democratic control over economic policy is becoming clear in many areas.
I would simply point to the ILO report on child labour.
There is indeed a need for regulation in the area of environmental and social standards.
The fact is that markets do not occur naturally: on the contrary, we must create the necessary political preconditions so that we can constitute them in such a way that they function as rational instruments and mechanisms.
We need to put this philosophy into effect down to the very last detail, and I would of course be pleased if Mr Van Miert, Mr Bangemann and the rest of the Commission were able to endorse this enlightened concept of a market economy.
Mr President, given the abundance of work done by this House - the reports drawn up by rapporteurs, the ideas and policies put forward - it is interesting how low attendance is.
It is also very interesting that while a certain Mr Goldsmith is getting prime time on all our televisions, this anti-European is not here today to tell us all the ways we are going wrong.
He comes only 3 % of the time, so I suppose we would be lucky to catch him in this particular debate.
With regard to the García Arias report, the rapporteur got it just about right in his attempt to balance the public service and privatized facilities.
There is no panacea, but what I have to say is that if you are concerned about peripheries you have to realize that normally only the public service will have a social element at the top of the agenda and that on the whole you cannot expect the privatized facilities to do so.
Would it not be extraordinary if, whatever country you were in, you paid a different postage stamp according to whether you came from Paris or the south of France, or from the Island of Tiree or London? We take it for granted that this is not so and yet we have to accept that for water, electricity and other vital services, this is exactly the situation.
This is wrong unless of course you want all the people in these faraway places to leave these faraway places and come and live in the cities where probably they would have no jobs and be a burden and the faraway places would then be uninteresting deserts for the tourists.
I represent a periphery, often called a wilderness.
But it was turned into a wilderness by the greed of men who took the resources and eventually left fewer and fewer people.
You have to realize that while both the public and the private have advantages and good qualities, there has to be a recognition of the social element.
I wonder whether that can possibly be done if we encourage privatization to take over the public role.
With regard to the Secchi report, the internal market and integration are meant to go hand-in-hand with our move towards EMU.
As a citizen - albeit a reluctant one - of the UK, I find this quite interesting because sometimes I wonder if it is a dream the Germans have because frankly the articles in the press from both the major parties suggest that we may not be going towards EMU.
It is interesting that the entry of three new states did not disrupt our move towards integration.
It was said they would, but they did not.
We have gone along with it.
There have been good aspects and defects and the good aspects have been many - the customs 2000, administration, convention bankruptcy, harmonization of products.
The defects are perhaps there too - public procurement, insurance, intellectual property.
I would go with Mr Rapkay's proposal of the reduction of the threshold.
We are in favour of Mrs Hautala's code of conduct for multinationals and we know that multinationals when they move into areas like mine sometimes do not stay.
So I agree with the phrase about longevity of investment.
I support Mr Kuckelkorn all the way in his support for ELISE.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, Commissioners, the report presented to us by our colleague Hautala on industrial restructuring and relocation is to the point and I would like to pay tribute to his work.
I also think that the European Union must quickly take some action against the negative effects of relocation favoured by international trading rules which encourage the installation of manufacturing plants in countries in which costs are lower.
Every day we see the negative effects of both fiscal and social dumping.
Political power owes it to itself therefore to counterbalance the flagrant injustice of certain market mechanisms.
Within the Union, EMU would constitute a decisive element in the fight against currency speculation which is speeding up the rate of relocations.
I would like in this case to lend my support to our colleague the rapporteur for his proposals which aim to set up European work councils with responsibility for careful examination of restructuring and relocations.
This is both urgent and fundamentally important.
In the same way, we must use structural funds for the sustainable development of employment in disadvantaged areas.
All too often, funds and aid are experienced as a kind of Community jackpot which causes intolerable relocations with no sustainable benefit for anyone.
We can all bring to mind examples of such scandalous events.
We have the means to avoid them, provided that we have the political will to do so.
So, like the rapporteur and like many others here, I consider it essential, internationally, that social clauses are instituted not just to safeguard the European economy, but also to help developing countries to rise up out of their difficult conditions.
This is also possible - again, it just requires the will.
Our debate, Mr President, is thus a true political debate in which the supporters of absolute freedom and the partisans of economic regulation come face to face.
It is a difficult combat, but one on which depends the credibility of the European Union, and its very existence in the eyes of public opinion, as well as the action we will be taking on this particular matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report presented by Mrs García Arias on the Commission's twenty-fifth report on competition policy displays an ideologically-loaded rejection of the Community's policies geared to competition, privatization and liberalization.
To that extent, it opposes the Commission's consistent liberalization and deregulation policies in the fields of transport, telecommunications and energy.
And, lastly, it castigates those Member States which have give privatization and deregulation precedence over the maintenance of public monopoly undertakings.
The political preconceptions are particularly evident in the explanatory statement, and less so in the motion for a resolution.
On behalf of my group, I should like to make the following points clear: if, in tomorrow's vote, paragraph 15 is not removed from the report, then we shall reject the report as a whole.
The Christian-Democratic group - like the Commission - opposes any amendment of Article 90(2) of the Treaty.
The calls for restriction of the application of the Treaty competition rules to public service undertakings and the deletion of Article 90(3), above all with the aim of preserving public service undertakings as state-owned enterprises, are rejected by my group.
Also, the result of such a measure would be a reduction of the Commission's role and, of course, an extension of the powers of the individual states.
The deletion of Article 90(3) of the Treaty would undermine our policy of liberalization in the fields of telecommunications, energy and postal services.
These proposals would lead to the reorientation of the Treaty in favour of national public services, at the cost of market integration.
Furthermore, I believe that paragraph 16 in the report - which obviously coincides with the Commission's views - is extremely questionable.
Such an addition to Article 3 of the Treaty would have considerable and fundamental repercussions in the European Union.
If the amendment which is called for were to come about, basic services would acquire a scope that could no longer be circumscribed.
The introduction of such a clause would thus have a serious impact on the application of the competition rules, and in particular on the aid regulations and in the area of cohesion.
Moreover, such an amendment would be an additional means - or at least a possible means - of preserving the monopolies of state-owned enterprises. It is a second way of achieving that aim.
That cannot be our policy! The PPE Group has always advocated strong integration and competition policies.
That is why we have made our misgivings clear, and I hope that in tomorrow's vote we shall be able to make a number of amendments to this report!
Mr President, in the short time which is available to me, I should like to look at the Kuckelkorn report.
In my country, the president of the organization of small and medium-sized firms was recently appointed as a Royal Commissioner, which shows how much the government appreciates the experience and knowledge of people working in SMEs.
A good deal has been said both here in the House and in the Member States about how important SMEs are for employment, and I am therefore very pleased with the Kuckelkorn report, which not only creates more job opportunities, but also shows the people of Europe just how much Parliament and the Commission have their welfare at heart.
It is not easy for small businesses to have access to the financial markets, and this undoubtedly puts them at a disadvantage.
The Council must finally realize that the ELISE initiative is a sensible way for the Community to take responsibility here, ensuring that European integration does not simply pass small businesses by.
I have to say, however, that there is a considerable gulf between the Commission's ideas, the actual objective and the funding available.
As I see it, it should be a basic principle that the level of funding is linked to the number of jobs created.
Providing funding for 24 months with an assessment after 18 months seems perfectly reasonable to me, and I am quite happy with the idea.
But the programme will only succeed if the loans provided are large enough, and if it is to be really successful, it needs to ensure longer-term continuity.
In the short term, I hope that the project will enjoy the same success as the Beethoven composition of the same name.
I am für Elise , Commissioner Bangemann.
Mr President, I will concentrate on the report on competition policy and the question of state subsidies.
Unfortunately state subsidies cannot be done away with immediately, so we must instead ensure that when such subsidies are provided, they take place in a predictable and transparent fashion.
Both competitors and consumers must be able to see what is going on.
This is why the Liberal Group has proposed a public, accessible register of all state subsidies within the Union which Member States provide to various activities.
I very much hope that Commissioner Van Miert agrees with point 18 of the report which is in line with the Irish presidency's suggestion of a register.
The other point I would raise is the question whether the Commission should ally itself with those activities that are generated by state subsidies.
These activities will often be the best way of assessing the distorting effects on competition in a given field, and the views of the industry may also help the Commission to stand up to pressure from Member States in doubtful cases.
The most consistent way of ensuring predictability will be to introduce provisions laying down rules designed to regulate Member States' requests for approval of state subsidies, the publication of cases and the setting of time limits, in short a framework for the overall consideration of such cases, which will also define the involvement of third parties, including rules on the right of access to documents and the possibility of commenting on cases, e.g. in the form of a public hearing.
I therefore encourage my colleagues to give their support to point 26 of the report which is also supported by the Liberal Group, and I will be interested to hear the Commission's reaction to the idea of involving third parties and competing companies in the fight for state subsidies.
Mr President, hundreds of thousands of jobs are sacrificed or threatened in the short term in the European Union by relocations carried out by companies in the name of competition, particularly in the textile, footwear and electronics sectors and increasingly in service industries.
These relocations, which put populations into competition with each other by playing on differences in pay and conditions, are often carried out without warning or consultation with trade union organisations, with disregard for wage-earners and with disregard for the economic interests of regions.
The report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has put forward some interesting proposals for combatting currency speculation, in particular the proposal championed by our group, the application of the 'Tobin tax' on movements of capital.
But the impact of these proposals will be limited as long as they subscribe to the logic of the Maastricht Treaty based on liberalisation and deregulation for the exclusive benefit of capital.
In conjunction with the trade unions, we oppose these mutilative relocations and we call for new rights, nationally and on a community level, for paid employees, so that they can safeguard their assets, defend their jobs and control the use of public funds granted to companies.
Mr President, there can no longer be any doubt that small and medium-sized firms are the darlings of the European institutions.
ELISE, what a marvellous name for a system of loan guarantees designed to promote employment in SMEs.
Who could possibly be opposed to something so nice? It is even the name I gave my daughter.
But a pretty name can hide something far less pleasant, and this seems to be a case in point.
The Member States' governments have argued, with some justification, that Community programmes of subsidies for SMEs are incompatible with the principle of subsidiarity, but despite this the Commission has carried on with this proposal, claiming that the size of the unemployment problem in the European Union makes Community measures necessary.
I would be prepared to agree with this if the ELISE programme were the only one of its type, but it is not.
We have a similar kind of loan guarantee system in the Netherlands, and our Council for small and medium-sized firms says that ELISE will simply interfere with the operation of this system, instead of working alongside it.
It seems that ELISE will not act as a supplementary scheme, but will run counter to the one that is already in operation.
The Commission needs to clarify this.
I am also surprised at some of my colleagues.
Amendments Nos 3 and 6 complicate the system for employers.
What is important for small firms is that the loan guarantees should be swift, simple and straightforward, and should not impose an extra administrative burden, otherwise employers will have no interest at all in this offer from Europe, and ELISE will be nothing more than a white elephant.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's report on the single market is an open call for us to use the instruments at our disposal to organize the Union's economic management more effectively - whilst not forgetting, Mr Konrad, the social dimension of the market economy, and not thinking only of the free movement of capital, goods and services, but also of the free movement of persons.
We must ensure that we build a Europe which is in the interests of people, and the reports which have been presented to the House today are a good starting-point for this.
It would be welcome if responses and proposals in this area were forthcoming from the Commission.
With regard to the single market and its completion, I would point out that, as long ago as last year, Parliament produced a list of criticisms, including the inadequate harmonization of environmental and tax regulations and the shortcomings in the training of customs and tax officials in the operation of the internal market.
Furthermore, something else is becoming clear in this debate: the fact that, in the Maastricht Treaty, which has been improved since the launching of the single market, we have a genuinely effective set of European policymaking instruments.
On the one hand, there is the single market; on the other, there are the competition, merger, structural and industrial policies, and also - as Mr Kuckelkorn has made quite clear - the policies in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises, which together form the basis for us to establish a genuine confidence pact for Europe.
That element is still missing, and I believe that our enthusiasm in calling on the Heads of State and Government to add this component should remain undiminished.
I mention all these factors together because the report by Mrs García Arias also clearly refers to the fact that competition policy - aid monitoring policy, for example - must be sensibly linked to the review of structural policy.
The instruments exist, therefore, but they are not yet being used efficiently enough. Clearly, we must seek to persuade the Member States to make greater efforts in this respect.
It is particularly unacceptable, in my view, that there are still distortions of competition caused by inadequate tax harmonization, with the effect that there is sometimes talk of cut-throat tax competition within the single market.
I believe that a number of Members of the Commission could help to put a stop to this.
I should welcome it, Mr Van Miert, if the next report on competition policy were to go into greater detail on the extent to which tax concessions - tax allowance programmes and provisions - in the different Member States contribute to the distortion of competition, and what we must do to counter this.
I should also like to know how regional cooperation and industrial policy can be brought together more effectively, without jeopardizing competition.
So I think this report on the single market represents a further step towards the European institutions being able to say with a clear conscience that, if the division of tasks between the regions, the Member States and the Union works properly, then they do have something to offer.
Mr President, I should like to begin with the García Arias report.
Major concentrations of power and distortions caused by state aid are undermining the single market, and the Commission has a very clear role to play here.
State aid is usually granted as an act of generosity, so opposing it is never a popular move.
To save jobs in France's textile sector, the French Government introduced experimental measures to reduce its social contributions by applying the de minimis rule for companies with less than 50 workers.
This affected almost 11 700 firms out of a total of 13 000, and was contrary to European competition policy in that it gave French firms more than 10 % - in fact 12.5 % - more competitive power than foreign textile sectors.
As regards the steel sector, my group would urge the Commission once again, as our amendment makes clear, to continue to apply a strict code on state aid for the sector beyond the year 2002.
Turning to the ELISE programme, my group will be voting against Amendments Nos 3, 6 and 8, which link the amount of the loan to the number of jobs created.
Unlike my colleague Mrs van Bladel, I find this absurd.
Small firms cannot possibly say in advance how many jobs they are going to create if they are given a loan to build premises.
It is an impossible demand.
If the programme fails because of bureaucratic nonsense like this, then the Council will have all the more reason to oppose similar projects next year.
My group has a number of fundamental objections to Mrs Hautala's report, and we shall be voting against a number of paragraphs in which she calls, for example, for a crackdown on working with financial derivatives, for firms to make long-term employment commitments with a particular region, and for a permanent monitoring centre to keep an eye on relocations.
My group feels that proposals like this are simply going too far.
Moving on to Mr Secchi's report, Mr Monti promised us a businesses ombudsman who would deal with complaints within six months.
We should like to remind him of this fact and have tabled an amendment to this effect.
I should like to talk about the relocation of businesses.
Relocation happens all the time, and in a free market economy we shall never be able to prevent firms from establishing themselves where they have the best operating conditions.
I have two comments on the report.
Firstly, subjecting firms to too many rules and regulations is not the right way to set about things.
Investment in third countries must be seen as a way to promote economic development, and ultimately to improve their standard of living.
It is a process which has to be gone through in order to achieve social well-being.
Too many rules will simply put firms off before they have even started.
Instead of making subsidy-hopping possible by giving firms aid directly, the European regional policy must focus on any local structural factors which can benefit from the rules as a whole.
The Liberal Group is also vehemently opposed, as Mr Cox has already said, to a tax on currency market operations, which would simply encourage capital flows out of the Union, giving the financial markets less liquid assets and wider currency fluctuations, which is precisely what we wish to avoid.
Mr President, relocations are a contemporary phenomenon linked to the free circulation of factors, in particular capital, making use of technological progress and implementing transnational strategies of productive specialisation and concentration in cahoots with the executives of certain Member States.
Whether this takes place within Community and European countries or outside Europe, the aim is always the same: creating and making the most of opportunities to accumulate capital.
The worldwide liberalisation of capital, now within the framework of the WTO TRIM Agreement, makes it possible to leap from one country to another, from region to region, exploiting natural and human resources, going completely against the aim of economic and social cohesion, without any concern for regional consequences, for the social impact which results from it, increasing regional imbalances and also creating precarious and provisional jobs which, here and there, only helps to worsen the very high levels of unemployment.
The report drafted by Mrs Hautala - and I must compliment her on her work - reflects serious concerns, translated into interesting and worthwhile words and yet, contradictorily, it accepts what lies behind transnational relocations and justifies them on the grounds of industrial restructuring, which seems only to exist as an excuse or alibi for these relocations.
Mr President, I will begin also by congratulating the rapporteurs and I should like to emphasise that, in terms of competition policy, there are indeed particular concerns about recent cartels in the private sectors of energy and telecommunication.
On this score, I think that transparency is the order of the day.
With transparency as the order of the day, we must take a set of decisive measures, paying particular attention to the growing disparity in the amount of public aids between regions (and I think that it is, therefore, very important that the Commission should very quickly publish a thorough list containing those aids); we should also mobilise more resources for DG IV and reject, from the outset, any proposal, wherever it comes from, to create independent cartels in application of any competition policy; it is now urgent to coordinate the different Community policies influencing industrial competition, in particular the industrial competition policy of the internal market and trade policy, and we must also combat any type of obstacle - and alas there are some still remaining - to the free circulation of persons and goods.
As to relocation and the restructuring of industry in the European Union, we must bear in mind the economic and social effects and many of the reasons which unfortunately lie behind these relocations.
We must not forget that monetary speculation is one of the main reasons for the monetary instability which is undermining the decisions taken in terms of the real economy.
These relocations should lead the Commission quickly to produce proposals to discourage speculation in derived financial assets.
The liberalisation of foreign investment and other forms of capital mobility must place emphasis on sustainable development and cannot be a loophole for the disrespect or destruction of the fundamental social interests and rights of workers.
It is important, for the sake of fighting unemployment and defending a Europe with a social dimension, to control capital movements and fight fiscal and social dumping ruthlessly.
As for small and medium-sized undertakings, they are so important for competitiveness, growth and employment, that we really must improve their access to funding sources, and we must also strengthen the Union's budgetary efforts in accordance with the proposal made in this report, in order to stimulate and facilitate the implementation of any project which has a positive impact on job creation.
Mr President, on a point of order concerning Rule 13 of our Rules of Procedure relating to political mandates in this House.
You no longer comply with the conditions of Rule 13, paragraphs 1 and 3.
Paragraph 1 states that anyone who is Vice-President, and therefore who fulfills the mandate of Vice-President and has been elected by the House in its entirety, should have been nominated by a political group or by 29 Members.
You have been nominated by a political group, the liberal group specifically.
Paragraph 3 of Rule 13 states that, in the election of Presidents, VicePresidents and Quaestors, it is appropriate to bear in mind that Member States and political tendencies should be represented fairly over all.
You began your mandate representing the liberal group, but you did not have the decency to give up your mandate as Vice-President when you changed your political colours, and I am wondering what you are up to up there.
My dear colleague, may I draw your attention to Rule 17, which you have forgotten.
'When a Member changes political group, he retains any seat he may occupy within the Office and the College of Questors, for the remainder of his mandate of two and a half years' .
It is clear, Mr Wijsenbeek, that if I were to occupy this position for a longer period I would not hesitate to follow his advice or that of the chairman of my group, if it had one.
But there will be a constitutive session in January and so there is no ethical or legal problem at stake.
That is all I am willing to say to you.
I must extend my gratitude to Mr Wijsenbeek for raising that point of order when he did.
My purpose this afternoon is to intervene briefly on the question of the relocation of employment within the European Community, the subject of Mrs Hautala's report.
There was a difficult vote in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on this particular report which in the end was a straight left/right divide.
I would however like to pay tribute across the great political divide to the valiant work that Mrs Hautala has undertaken in order to try to cobble together some compromise.
I fear though that it has not been possible to get to a compromise which would enable us on this side to support the report in its present form.
We will be asking for a number of split votes, largely in those areas which contain rather provocative phrases about social dumping and about the chase to the bottom of the social scale, implying that some Members States are deliberately undercutting others by reducing social protection.
This is not the case at all, as I know because I come from a country which is frequently criticized for its attitude towards the Social Chapter, but which has in reality much stricter health and safety conditions than other Member States.
Indeed the famous six-pack was heavily over-implemented in the United Kingdom imposing burdens which are not imposed in other countries.
Mr President, it is interesting to note that Mr Cassidy is out of breath. He did not take the opportunity of welcoming you to his group.
He is no doubt out of breath because, given the thinness of his majority last time round, the Liberal Democrats are keeping him on the run.
I wish to raise two points in this debate with regard to the Secchi report.
Amendment No 4: in the pharmaceuticals industry, we still have a situation in Europe where national price controls are seriously distorting the free market.
There are great opportunities in Europe for the development of generic medicines.
In the United States the market in generic medicines is estimated to grow substantially over the next ten years and this could be the case here.
We are currently exporting jobs to Turkey, Iceland and other countries by our policies and my amendment to this report seeks to rectify that situation.
The second point I wish to draw attention to is access to justice.
I drew attention to this in my report last year.
For many small businesses in the Community there is still no real access to justice when the single market fails to offer them the freedoms it promises.
The 'Monti package' has made things better but there is still a lot to be done.
I feel that we are hampered in the European project by what François Mitterrand called the stubborn presence of the centuries.
Every time you try to move a country or move a continent, history grabs you by the ankles.
What is needed now is extra effort to complete the single market before monetary union comes along.
Mr President, without any kind of support in the form of economic theory and without any kind of empirical evidence, the rapporteur, Secchi, maintains that the various tax rates in Member States create a "serious distortion of the goods, services and capital flows markets' .
This is one of the most common misconceptions about the internal market.
In the first place the different tax rates are not discriminatory, i.e. they affect domestic and foreign production equally.
The distortion which different tax rates create, is of minimal, and far from serious, loss of efficiency, amounting perhaps to a few tenths of a percent of the gross national product.
Secondly, taxes reflect the democratic choice of the citizens of the various countries.
In Sweden we have high taxes.
This reflects, for example, the fact that we have a positive attitude towards the public sector and a developed social welfare system.
To harmonise taxes with other EU countries means, in our case, lowering taxes and thereby lowering standards in the public services.
This involves a loss of welfare for Swedish society, since we would not achieve the kind of society which citizens wish to have.
I have often asked myself what is the reason behind this "fetish for harmonisation' .
It is a myth that it leads to economic advantages and that it increases growth.
It is, however, not a myth that it goes against the wishes of the citizens of the countries of the union.
Citizens of the Union wish to formulate their own tax systems so that they correspond to individual countries&#x02BC; differing cultures, customs and political constitution of the Union.
They do not want a Commission to interfere in this for the sake of an abstract principle.
Mr President, unlike Mr Wijsenbeek, I am delighted to welcome you to the PPE Group.
It is a great pity that Mr Wijsenbeek has run off somewhere, and I can only hope that this is not typical behaviour in his group.
I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs García Arias, though I have to say that I cannot agree with everything which her report contains.
On the one hand, she says that she has great confidence in the Commission's competition policy, but on the other she is less than enthusiastic about its policy towards firms with exclusive rights and its liberalization policy.
On the subject of liberalization, Mrs García Arias insists that the quality and cost of a service should be firmly fixed.
My group is also in favour of having a package of services to be offered to people, but fixing them as firmly as Mrs García Arias wishes would simply undermine the whole principle of competition.
Look at the situation in Sweden, or in my own country, the Netherlands.
As soon as competition appeared on the mobile telephone market, the price of the service fell, availability increased, and there was a noticeable improvement in quality.
This is exactly what Mrs García Arias wants.
I therefore think that the definition given in my amendment is a much more accurate reflection of how the liberalization policy is working in practice.
Finally, there are the changes to Article 90.
I think the House needs to take a very clear view of this.
If we look at the text of Article 90 more closely, it refers directly to Articles 85 and 86 and prohibits Member States and businesses from occupying dominant positions, from charging consumers excessively high prices, from applying unfair conditions in contracts with other trading parties, and so on.
So why should the PSE Group want to change Article 90?
I would ask them to reconsider whether they are right to oppose my group's amendment.
Mr President, the Secchi report on the single market shows us how far we have come, but also how far we have got to go in achieving a truly efficient single market working for Europe's citizens.
Here we are in 1996, but 1992's single market still has not arrived.
The four freedoms are still unliberated and we are the losers for it. Who is to blame?
Certainly the Member States who are the culprits in the one third of the 128 infringement procedures initiated by Commissioner Monti this year.
Half of the governments accused of failing to apply EU law have not replied to Mr Monti's letters six months after they were despatched.
The Commission, too, must take some blame.
The courage and the commitment shown in applying Community competition policy is diluted when it comes to the single market.
And who loses out? Small businesses for certain.
There is a tourist firm in the railway town of Crewe in my Euro-constituency which is getting cheesed-off with the cross-border operations in France, because of the threat of double taxation, and the confession that progress is still grounded in the sensitive area of border checks on individuals is bad news for Europe's tourism industry and its tourists.
When are we going to stop frisking free citizens at our frontiers? Last week I found it easier to enter non-EU Slovenia with my parliamentary laissez-passer than to escape from British jurisdiction where such checks are generally effected in triplicate.
With the absence of Europol, unsavoury citizens of the EU, like big-time criminals, child pornographers, paedophiles and drug barons, seem to have the liberty to cruise as pirates and buccaneers throughout the single European market.
Especially vulnerable are children for whom the single market should offer future hope and prosperity, not present peril and danger.
All this is the more regrettable given the first signs of success associated with the single market.
I refer to Commissioner Monti's 36 market reports detailing the sources of Europe's 900, 000 new jobs, which are directly attributable to Europe's noble exercise of implementing a magic market.
We need to rekindle the Delors spirit of 1992 and ensure by the end of the century that a true single market is done and dusted.
In this regard I welcome the determination of the UK's PM-in-waiting - Tony Blair - to complete the single market during the forthcoming British presidency.
Mr President, I am going to refer to the Hautala report on relocation.
From the point of view of regional policy, we have studied this report very closely and it must be recognised that it does have positive parts on which we congratulate Mrs Hautala.
But we have also come across some problems and, therefore, wish certain points to be improved in the debate at the Committee on Regional Policy.
Certainly, something has been done but not enough for us to accept the report in full.
This report has certain lacunae and it also deviates from the original concepts; we are afraid that this might be an obstacle to foreign industrial investors intending to invest in any European Union country.
Although we have found no convincing justification for the fact that this proposal contains nothing about the proper use of Structural Funds to make economic cooperation between the European regions possible.
Furthermore, in paragraph 15 there is a vitriolic criticism of the Funds, a claim based on isolated examples that lack of coordination is widespread, exaggerating the counter-productive effects of the Structural Funds.
This generalisation could not be further from the truth.
Because of this, we have certain reservations about accepting this report as a whole.
Mr President, to illustrate the situation in graphic detail, I can tell you about 600 workers in Ballyfermot in Dublin who were employed in the Semperit Plant, a subsidiary of Continental AG, one of the largest employers in this deprived area of Dublin.
Two months ago employees were given notice that the plant would close this December.
I have seen documents from the works council that suggest that production will be moved to India.
Also there is a suggestion that Continental AG is putting obstacles in the way of selling the plant to another company or to a management/workers buy-out.
Negotiations are still going on and hopefully they will be successful, but other plants in Scotland, Belgium and Austria are at risk.
This is a graphic illustration.
I believe we must now decide as a matter of urgency to put procedures in place to ensure that industries cannot move simply to take advantage of less stringent controls and, if they do move, that they do not adopt anticompetitive practices to stop somebody else taking their place.
I wish to make a personal statement, pursuant to Rule 108.
I would simply point out to Mr van Velzen that although some Liberals may occasionally be absent from the Chamber, liberalism is on the increase in our country and in some of our neighbours, which is more than can be said for Christian Democracy.
Our party is also the biggest party in our country.
Mr President, high levels of employment, economic and social stability, competitiveness of the industrial sector, sustainable development and a fair distribution of products: these are the objectives that a Community policy of restructuring and industrial dislocation should be pursuing.
Industrial dislocation currently, however, represents a complex problem which may have two implications: a positive implication, where it creates jobs in specific sectors and a negative implication where it penalizes employment in those regions in which there is no possibility of relocation.
We should, of course, be able to limit the negative effects, were we to succeed in combining a twofold action plan impacting on both the internal and the external aspects of the Union.
At internal Community level, what matters is to give priority to the objective of lasting and sustainable development and take the measures appropriate to discourage the kind of currency speculation triggered by economic circumstances.
We are of the view that proper social and fiscal harmonization which, among other things, limits the granting of any exemptions, could prevent all forms of fiscal or social protectionism. We are similarly persuaded that Community support, that takes the form of the Structural Funds, should include a safeguard clause, closely bound up with a specific guaranteed long-term commitment, specifically in order to protect existing jobs, create employment guarantees and guarantee the possibility of localized development.
It is currently a matter of regret to us that the Hautala report has not provided the opportunity for real coordination of Community policies on competition, industrial policy, trade and the internal market.
It is therefore our hope, as the social arm of the right, that in its external activities the Union will stress the absolute need to include social clauses in trade agreements, based on the rules provided for by the International Labour Organization, in relation to both trade and investment, and that these will in the end serve to safeguard freedom of association, the minimum working age, non-discrimination and the banning of forced labour.
Mr President, a debate of this kind is clearly also a debate on economic policy - and economic policy is, of course, marked by the different attitudes of the various political parties.
However, I should like to draw the honourable Members' attention to the Treaty of Rome - because in Rome, a decision was taken whose consequences as regards this important question, and also as regards globalization, we must live with, and which I believe was the only possible decision.
Allow me to explain.
If different markets are to become integrated, if different social systems wish to enter into competition with one another in important areas, then we need rules.
In other words, if we assume that those different social systems - whether socialist, liberal or otherwise - will not harmonize overnight, but will retain their different political complexions, whilst wishing to create a common market, then we need rules to prevent that competition from becoming unfair.
That is precisely the problem with the internal market, and it is precisely the problem with globalization.
Therein also lies the problem of relocation and similar matters that we are addressing in this forum, including unemployment: how can economic strength and competitiveness be maintained?
Or - if they have been lost - how they can be regained? They can only be regained through competition.
Competitiveness presupposes competition.
Of course, it is also possible to imagine that a public service can exist and provide certain services without operating with optimum efficiency.
That is possible.
Many postal services of the traditional kind - i.e. public monopolies - have only survived at all because their monopoly position has never been threatened.
They have offered a certain level of services, but not the best.
Here too, the Treaty of Rome pronounced a judgment of Solomon.
It did not decide in favour of or against public undertakings.
It is matter of complete indifference to the Treaty of Rome whether an undertaking is privately or publicly run.
It made only one provision: if an undertaking is publicly run, then its conduct must be judged on the basis of Article 90, since otherwise the balance of power that arises naturally between private undertakings in competition with one another will not exist.
A public monopoly can simply do more than a private undertaking which is in competition with others.
So there is a logical connection between Articles 85, 86 and 90 - and my colleague, Mr Van Miert, will no doubt say something in detail about this - and the decision to foster competition. Applying this to the global system, we must first of all ask the simple question: can we divorce ourselves from what is going on around us?
Can we, so to speak, create an independent and original political system? Our Swedish colleague said that it should be left up to the people of Sweden to decide for themselves which system they wanted and how much in taxes they wished to pay for it.
In this way, the whole Union could say: ' Leave it up to us to decide what we wish to do and whether we wish to have more or less competition; we are going to divorce ourselves from this global economic and political system!'
This question is entirely rhetorical.
We all know that. We cannot do this.
So what else can we do?
We must seek to ensure that the same rules that we have laid down for the internal market are increasingly introduced for the global market: and those are the rules of competition!
There are no other rules with which it is possible to organize such coexistence.
Naturally, there are limits to competition, and I endorse Mr Rapkay's comment that competition is not an end in itself.
That is right!
Competition is an instrument - a set of tools, if you like.
But it has always led to the creation of more jobs than any other method.
If we really wish to take serious action, therefore, if we no longer wish to confine ourselves to rhetoric - there are 18 million unemployed people, unemployment is our number one priority, and we shall do everything necessary to combat it - if that is meant in earnest, then we must introduce what we recently proposed: namely, benchmarking. And we shall be discussing this further in the context of our debates on industrial policy.
Let us make some comparisons, and begin by looking at different companies.
What, for example, are company employment policies like at Ford in Cologne, or at VW in Wolfsburg, in comparison with those of other car manufacturers? If, for example, both companies have agreed with their workforce to introduce flexible working hours within the framework of rules on maximum working time, is that something that has been forced on employees?
In the summer or spring, when orders are larger, employees can work more than the normal daily working hours.
The extra hours they work are recorded in a working time account, and they receive no overtime pay. In the winter, when orders decline, this credit on their working time account allows them to work fewer hours.
This works!
The result is that the workers' jobs have become more secure, whilst the companies have remained competitive, although wage levels are substantially higher than in India or elsewhere.
I have always maintained, and I repeat, that cost levels alone, especially wage levels, are not the decisive factor in the choice of an investment location.
An undertaking will go where it can operate most productively, and if it is flexible enough, it will be able to absorb a certain wage level in the organization of its work.
The debate on the call for lower wages is a spurious one, but the debate on flexibility is very important.
And some of the proposals you are making here are contrary not only to the spirit, but also to the practice of flexibility!
I shall now take the example of a small undertaking, also in relation to the concept of benchmarking. Let us take the example of a man who wishes to set up a business.
By way of outsourcing, a large car manufacturer decides that it no longer wishes to make the lights or some other part of its vehicles itself.
The man in our example has gained some previous knowledge in this field at university, and says to himself that he could pursue this activity.
He has inherited a house, which he sells for DM 1 million.
Then perhaps he has a grandmother who gives him another DM 500 000.
So he has DM 1.5 million.
Then he approaches a bank, and perhaps he says to his associates: ' If you can also get some money together, then perhaps we can raise some DM 10-20 million and start a business' .
Then the following stipulation is imposed on our entrepreneur: ' You can invest here, but you must never leave this location, otherwise you will have to pay a penalty tax or compensation of X % of wages!'
Leaving aside ideology, I ask you to put yourself in the position of this man or woman, these people who wish to set up this business.
Where will they go? They will not go somewhere where they have to deal with such regulations.
Or let us take the example of the pharmaceutical industry...
Dear Mr Caudron, it is perhaps far too pragmatic, but it is not ideology...
(Interruption by Mr Caudron: 'it's demagoguery' )
(DE) I shall take Mr Watson's example of the pharmaceutical industry.
No, I shall take another example; I shall just take the example of benchmarking.
Over the last four years, we have lost three important research laboratories to the United States - not to a developing country, not to a country whose wages are far lower than ours!
Why? Because our regulations just do not provide more room for manoeuvre in the field of biotechnology or similar areas, because they are simply too cumbersome and onerous for undertakings.
If such undertakings - in this case, it is a question of larger firms - have the option of moving to a country in which they can operate, in which their staff do not have to seek approval for everything they do, then they will do so.
Is it any wonder? That cannot possibly surprise anyone.
I often ask myself whether we seriously wish to tackle the problem of unemployment, or if we simply wish to moan about it and constantly put off what we can do.
Benchmarking also applies to different systems, and national systems sometimes prove to be flexible.
In Germany, for example, it is now permitted to bake bread rolls on a Sunday morning.
Previously, it was not.
To read the reports in the German press, you would think a revolution had broken out in Germany, such is their surprise at the fact that so many people wish to have bread rolls on a Sunday and think it is wonderful that they can get them!
Anyone who knows how dull Sundays are, and that a warm bread roll for breakfast is perhaps some people's only pleasure on that day, will shake their head and wonder where these people live who prohibited bakers, or other people who can bake, from producing something for which there was a public demand. We go so far that we prevent ourselves from doing what we actually could do, and then we wonder why there are so many unemployed people.
I do not understand it!
Let me take the example of Mr Donnelly's region.
Anyone who really wishes to learn how unemployment can be tackled should go to the Newcastle area.
There, everyone - industry, the unions, municipal organizations, local authorities and a university which we helped to build - has got together.
There, they do not moan about the distribution of working hours or the like, but roll up their sleeves and set to work. And this is a region which has suffered every crisis that the Union has ever known, in the steel, shipbuilding, textile, coal and fishing industries!
It has put all those crises behind it, and it now has the highest growth rates in the Union.
It is a region where people can actually work, because nobody prevents them from doing so!
Shall I tell you why a large undertaking from another Member State has moved to this region and invested billions in a project that will initially create 3000 jobs and subsequently many more?
I went there and asked the reason.
You should do so too! Go to places where undertakings from other Member States locate.
Ask them why they moved to that country.
I did, and the answer was: ' Certainly, wages are lower.
Ultimately, however, that was not the decisive factor.
The decisive factor was that we were told within three weeks that we could build here, whereas in our home country we should have had to wait at least six to eight weeks for that, and in practice over a year.'
What, then, is competitive about such public decisions?
Finally, I shall take the example of a Member State which is not entirely unfamiliar to Mr Caudron, thereby referring to the debate on public services.
A country can freely decide - in the way described by our Swedish colleague - to run a public service as a public monopoly undertaking, and spend a great deal of money on it.
It can maintain other public undertakings in areas in which the idea of a public service is not as common as in the postal sector, for example, where there is a public service tradition.
In a country which has a state airline, a state railway, and one or more state banks, all these undertakings will constitute a considerable drain on tax revenue, because of their inefficiency.
A great deal of money which could well be spent on more sensible things - research and development, for example - has to be poured into these businesses.
They are black holes, constantly swallowing up money which has to be collected from taxpayers.
A country can do that.
I do not dispute that every country has a right to do that!
Here too, however, the internal market provides for something very sensible: competition between systems.
So there is not only benchmarking of the individual companies that must prove themselves in the market-place.
There is also the benchmarking of systems.
Ladies and gentlemen, the mystery of relocation is explained by the fact that the benchmarking of systems is leading companies to vote with their feet.
Anyone who cannot see that is living in a dream world!
I want us to live in a world in which we really do something to bring down this high level of unemployment at long last, because the improvement in the economic situation over the next few years will not be enough, unless we summon up the strength to throw off the chains we have forged for ourselves: too much regulation; the obstruction of investment; and, in particular, the complication of the lives of small and medium-sized enterprises. If we do not summon up that strength, we shall never be able to combat unemployment!
I should like to begin by saying how pleased I am that we have had this combined debate, which has attempted to consider the problems of competition, economic development, employment and the single market from different angles, and to draw certain conclusions about them.
I should like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, who I know has expressed concern about these issues in the past, and everyone else who worked with him in organizing this debate.
I should also like to thank the three rapporteurs, Mrs García Arias and Mr Rapkay, who have dealt with issues directly under my own portfolio, and Mr Kuckelkorn, whose report I was happy to take over from my colleague Mr de Silguy today.
Their reports are generally very positive, although they do make a few comments and criticisms here and there, which is perfectly right and proper, and they are also of a very high quality, which I think provides an excellent foundation for a good debate.
Since there is only a limited amount of time available and Commissioner Monti has fortunately been able to join us, I should like to run fairly rapidly through a number of points that were raised during the debate, so forgive me if my answers seem rather brief.
On the subject of Mrs García Arias' report, I should like to say once again how pleased I am that there is basically such broad agreement between the Commission and large sections of the European Parliament on competition policy.
There is bound to be some criticism of certain aspects, of course, but generally speaking there is a broad degree of consensus, probably also because we are in such regular contact with each other.
We have a special agreement with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to hold full and frank discussions on a regular basis on the various issues and problems which crop up in this area.
I am delighted that we are able to do this, and that after a somewhat lengthy debate, the committee has come round to the position which the Commission adopted a while ago, namely that we do not need another separate agency in the European Union to deal with certain aspects of competition policy, and that it makes far more sense to leave this policy in the hands of the Commission, where it should be.
It is a policy in which others are rooted and which lies at the very heart of our industrial policy, or whatever you may wish to call it.
When a sector is liberalized, one of the aims, of course, is to improve competition, but there are also other aspects which should not be forgotten, for instance social, environmental and safety concerns, and so on.
We are therefore trying to use competition policy as a key instrument, but at the same time to incorporate the necessary balances into the policy.
This is why we need a proper policy, rather than just an agency which simply looks up the rules and tells us what to do.
There is more to it than that.
It is a policy in its own right, and I am grateful to Parliament for supporting the Commission on this, because I think it is helpful, and indeed only right and proper, that Parliament should be able to exercise political control over policy issues.
I should now like to move on to the subject of public services and Article 90, because I know that Parliament quite rightly sees this as a very sensitive issue.
You know what the Commission's position is.
Our own experience and the document which we approved a few weeks ago would seem to indicate that Article 90 is being applied in a balanced way.
If this is the case, I do not see any real reason to change it, and I therefore share the concern expressed by some honourable Members during the debate that if we amend the article, the balance will be broken.
So although I am aware of how sensitive this issue is for Parliament and how opinions are divided both in the House and in the Commission, I would urge the House to support the Commission's view, based on past experience, that Article 90 should not be amended, but instead - and I am addressing this remark to Mr Konrad in particular - that we should adopt an open-minded and positive attitude and include a reference in Article 3 which consolidates, as it were, the balanced approach which the Commission has adopted up to now.
Yes, Mr Konrad, I know that you are very concerned about Article 3, but I am not, and nor is the Commission. We think it would be a very good idea to include this in Article 3.
However, I would again urge Parliament to think carefully before deciding that Article 90 needs to be amended, because the Commission at least does not agree with this.
I would also point out that the Commission communication has not yet said what is to become of Article 90, and the continuing IGC talks could always consider whether it should be made into some kind of charter.
As an idea, this is still open to discussion, and the Commission has not delivered an opinion on it.
But for the time being, let us think about Article 3 and perhaps consider what to do about the Commission communication, but leave Article 90 as it is.
I would also point out, by the way, that in its policy on telecommunications, say, or in other sectors such as the postal service, for which Mr Bangemann is mainly responsible since it involves a traditional Article A proposal, the Commission has, on mature reflection, decided against applying Article 90, partly because Parliament urged us not to do so.
We complied with that request, and this is why we are now following the normal procedure.
At the same time, however, I would point out that our main concern in every sector, even when we are trying to introduce competition, is to ensure that universal services are guaranteed where necessary, and that consideration is also given to social issues.
This is why it is a balanced policy.
All of this has led me to conclude that the Commission communication and any reports on it by the various committees could warrant another major debate in Parliament, enabling us to reach further agreement on the issues involved.
Turning now to Mr Rapkay, I should like to congratulate him once again on producing an excellent report and for supporting the Commission's position.
There can be no question about this, it is an objective statement of fact.
However, I have to tell you today - and the Council meeting is on Thursday next week - that our proposals concerning the thresholds, which Parliament supports, are unfortunately unlikely to secure the necessary majority, since many of the larger Member States are against them.
Most of the small or smaller Member States support the Commission, and if it were up to them, we should be able to reach agreement, but most of the larger countries are opposed.
I do not wish to go into the reasons for this, because they are somewhat contradictory, but I regret to say that the chances are very slim. However, I shall go along on Thursday and fight my corner with Parliament's support, but it is extremely unlikely that the Council of Ministers will follow our lead.
The prospects are much better as regards the issue of when mergers are to be notified in various countries.
The Council appears to be much more willing to find a solution here, perhaps not exactly the one we have proposed, but at least something useful should come out of it.
We shall then refer it back to Parliament again, of course, as we shall do if there has to be a new proposal on thresholds.
We have a clear agreement on this which the Commission intends to keep to.
I hope I have left the House in no doubt on this point.
For the rest, I hope we can still achieve some results, and I shall give you an example of just how important it is that we should do so.
As you know, there is an important merger in the pipeline between BT and MCI.
We are currently still discussing whether this really comes under the scope of the merger regulation, since it all has to do with MCI's turnover within the European Union and the two-thirds rule.
It seems likely that the Commission will have to look into this case after all, but I know from similar instances that it is not always obvious whether the merger regulation should be applied.
So you can see that something really needs to be done here, and you are quite right, Mr Rapkay, to say that we should make changes where we can. As a number of speakers mentioned, we have not proposed any changes to the two-thirds rule because we know there is not the remotest possibility of securing a majority in favour in the Council.
But I admit that it is something we are all going to have to think about in future and perhaps even introduce measures on.
Once again, Mr Rapkay, I should like to thank you for your report and Parliament for its support.
Moving on to Mr Kuckelkorn's report, I should also like to congratulate him once again.
This was an initiative from Parliament which the Commission was grateful to take over, and we have done our best to try to convince the Council that it is absolutely vital for small and medium-sized firms and will help to combat unemployment.
Unfortunately, the Council made it clear again yesterday that however much we might be attracted to ELISE, there are a number of ministers who refuse to succumb to her charms, and it therefore seems that her chances are, sadly, very slim.
But Parliament supports the Commission, and Mr de Silguy and his colleagues have said that they will try to defend the proposal and salvage certain aspects of it at least.
It is just unfortunate that there is such opposition in the Council of Ministers.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not have much more time, but there were a number of specific points raised that I should like to deal with. Mr Janssen van Raay mentioned football, but since he is not here, I think I shall have to talk to him privately about it.
Mr Chanterie is also not here, otherwise we could have talked further about subsidies and relocation.
I shall have to have a word with him privately too.
Mr Donnelly raised the issue of the car distribution regime which, I have to agree, does not entirely fit in with the normal rules on competition.
You know that the current rules are much more flexible than they were previously and are limited to a shorter period, after which we can consider whether they are still necessary.
I cannot go into this in detail today, but you can see that while we are moving towards greater competition in this sector too, we still think there is good reason to keep the special rules on car and lorry distribution in place for the time being.
Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, I know that you have been campaigning for greater transparency in cases of state aid, and you know that at Parliament's insistence we are now, I hope, to have a major debate next Thursday in the Council of Ministers, where the Commission and the Irish presidency, to whom I should like to pay tribute, have tabled a resolution on transparency, ways of enabling the Commission to reduce the huge increase in the number of cases of state aid, and so on.
We shall be considering the issues of greater transparency and security for competitors, and I hope that the Council will respond positively to this initiative from the Commission and Parliament, so that we can put forward specific proposals which Parliament will, of course, also have the chance to discuss.
Let us agree now that if the Commission thinks, on the basis of this debate in the Council, that there is a good chance of a favourable outcome, then we shall arrange to hold detailed talks here in Parliament and in the appropriate committee.
I shall end my comments there, although Mrs Randzio-Plath, who has also left the Chamber, did raise an interesting point about how far state aid can be provided in the form of reduced taxes and social security contributions.
I can assure her and other honourable Members that the Commission naturally also looks at this, and can also rule against state aid in this form if necessary.
Someone else brought up the subject of the textile sector in France: of course, the de minimis rule applies here, and we have to keep to it.
If the aid does not exceed the de minimis level, then there is no reason why the Commission should intervene, or why it should even be notified.
If it does exceed this level, even via social security, as was the case in the footwear sector in Italy, or with the Maribel operation in Belgium for exporters, or in the textile sector in France, then the Commission is required to intervene, because it is a case of state aid - in the form of reduced social security contributions or reduced taxes - causing distortion of competition.
This is also an area which comes under our responsibility.
I shall stop there, ladies and gentlemen.
I must apologize for taking up too much time, and I would not wish to prevent Commissioner Monti from replying to a number of relevant questions and points that have been put to him.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by thanking the rapporteurs and Mr Secchi in particular for his report on the single market, which I found to be of the highest quality and very useful to the Commission when it comes to further directing the process of constructing the single market.
The Commission welcomes the recognition given in the report to a fresh impetus, dating back to 1995, and the reference to the main initiatives taken.
It is also very useful to have identified the gaps in the 'great deal' that remains to be done if the single market is genuinely to function properly.
The study which the Commission has recently published on the impact of the single market is of great encouragement to us to continue to pursue the measures needed to bring that market genuinely into being, because it shows that where the single market has been achieved, we are actually seeing results.
The Commission study has also shown that, even in years that have been very difficult for the European economy, there has been a single market effect that has impacted on the Community's gross domestic product - roughly 1.5 per cent per annum in increased production - and the creation of jobs - estimated at 900, 000 units.
Furthermore, and this is something I wish to stress, it has been estimated that, because of the greater competition and openness brought about by the single market, inflation in the countries of Europe is one or one-and-a-half percentage points per annum lower than would otherwise be the case: that, then, clearly, gives Europe's economy scope on the supply side.
Mr Donnelly and Mr von Wogau mentioned the need for greater coordination between policies and documentation on industry, competition and the single market.
Since the two colleagues who spoke before me did not make specific mention of that request, I wish to say that we have very much taken into account what was said last year, on this same occasion, in the House. It actually seems to us that there is substantial consistency between the three sectors in terms of the policy decisions taken daily.
What is more, those three aspects were taken into account in the impact analysis: for example, the study on the effects of the single market takes those three elements fully into account.
Finally, it seems to me that this joint debate also furnishes a welcome opportunity for further stressing the way in which the three complement each other.
The Secchi report identifies the 'great deal' that remains to be done and I would say that we can summarize in three points the main gaps that have to be filled before we achieve a single market that meets our expectations.
The three points that we can consider to be the main shortcomings concern actual application, that is to say enforcement, taxation and citizens.
As far as actual application - enforcement - is concerned, and the Commission considers this to be its number one priority in regard to the common market, there are a number of things that can be done within the current framework and others which in fact require changes to the institutional framework itself.
We are, I believe, already doing what can be done within the current institutional framework.
In the area of the single market alone, we have this year already instituted 195 cases of infringement proceedings against Member States, and 11 cases have already been referred to the Court of Justice. We have decided to improve the infringement procedures to make them swifter and more transparent, and the same applies to management of the infringement procedure within the Commission.
I should like to say in that connection to Mrs Peijs who made the long-standing request for a help desk, that I too consider that to be an important point in improving the infringement procedure.
I can say to you, Mrs Peijs, that this idea of yours that we have actually been speaking about is being given specific follow-up to the extent that - and I mention this because it may be of interest not just to Mrs Peijs but more generally - we are seeking to make available to citizens, to businesses and to professional organizations, an organized source of information on the procedures for the application of the single market rules.
It is my intention to put this idea into practice in a straightforward manner.
The main aspects are as follows: we are setting up with the Commission services a telephone line with an ad hoc number, initially this will not be a freephone number; the people providing the service will be able to provide immediate information on how infringement proceedings are being processed by the Commission and on how it is possible to alert the Commission to possible breaches of single market rules; furthermore, for more detailed information on a particular dossier, those providing the telephone service will direct interested parties to the appropriate administrative units.
The aim is clearly to introduce greater transparency, more information and greater simplicity. If you will allow me, Mrs Peijs, I offer it to you as a Christmas gift because it will be in operation before Christmas; later, certainly, than you and I should have liked, but it will, at any rate, very soon be operational.
Mr Watson mentioned a point that links up with enforcement: he regretted the fact that there was some difficulty, particularly for small and medium-sized businesses, in gaining access to justice.
I do not think that Mr Watson is wrong there: it is less easy for small and medium-sized businesses, or at least more costly for them, to enforce their rights in law.
The action we have taken to prevent this problem is based on three main approaches: firstly, to simplify and accelerate the administrative procedures governing infringements; secondly, measures to train national judges so that they apply Community law more frequently and more accurately; and, thirdly, the forthcoming adoption by the Commission of an appropriate programme, called the Schuman programme.
But as I said a few moments ago, I do not know whether the current institutional framework is sufficient to secure enforcement commensurate with the expectations of the single market.
It has been pointed out that in the area of competition and state aids, enforcement is extremely effective and, of course, I too take that view. I am the first to admit that in the area of the single market it is less effective, even though I have described the measures that we are taking.
And why is this so? Because, while in the case of competition and state aids the Commission is alerted of any breach of the rules and is able to act before the damage has been done - I am to some extent simplifying matters here, but the subject is familiar to you - when it comes to the single market all that it is able to do is to prosecute such violations, by opening infringement proceedings and, finally, referring the matter to the Court of Justice - but all of that takes time.
I therefore appreciated the references in the Secchi report to the possibility that, in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference, ways of securing more rapid enforcement will be studied and compared.
In other words, we are doing all that we can - and we can certainly do better - but, in the current institutional framework, it is not, unfortunately, possible to achieve enforcement as effective as it is in the case of competition and state aids.
The second major gap underlined in the report, and also by a number of honourable Members who have spoken during the debate, concerns taxation.
I very much welcome the fact that the House is taking a robust line on the distortions affecting the single market as a result of inadequate fiscal harmonization.
Here too, as in the case of enforcement, there are a number of things that can be done under the current system and others that require adjustments.
Within the current system, we are making a considerable effort to persuade the finance ministers that it is in the interests of the Member States themselves that there should be better coordination.
I welcome the amendments tabled by Mr Secchi to his own report and can say that, yesterday, the Ecofin Council gave a positive reception to the Commission reports on the development of the taxation system, referred to in the Secchi amendment, and brought that document to the attention of the Dublin European Council with particular reference to issues of fiscal competition and the need to complete the internal market in fiscal terms.
Moving on finally to the third gap - which I shall mention more briefly but not because it is any less important, and it is something that it is appropriate to discuss in the European Parliament - namely, the fact that the single market is not close enough to citizens.
You know how important this issue is to me and to the House.
We cannot expect citizens to lend their support to the continuing construction of Europe if have no clear picture of Europe or of the single market which, though they do not realize it, is working to their advantage.
The two main measures which the Commission, as you are aware, is taking, are: finally to secure the fourth - although it ought in fact to have been the first, as rightly criticized in the Secchi report - freedom of movement, that is to say the free movement of persons: a package of proposals to secure the dismantling of internal frontier controls within a security framework, and the Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament recently largely supported those proposals. Secondly, making available to citizens appropriate information on what the single market can do for them: I thinking specifically here of the 'Citizens First' information campaign - and in that connection I must thank the House for the support and encouragement it has given to that initiative.
The system that will be set in place on 29 November of this year and that will be important in making Europe's citizens aware of the rights that they have under the single market, how they can actually exercise those rights and where and how to protest when those rights are impeded.
I think that I can end there, although I realize - and apologize for this - that I have certainly not been able to deal with all the points in this very valuable report, covering a very important field.
I wish again to thank the rapporteur and all of those who have spoken, because what they have said provides the Commission with a genuine steer and valuable support.
These are all issues, moreover, on which cooperation with Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy but also with the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has and will, I hope, enable us to make fairly rapid progress.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-1218/96)
Mr President, on a point of order.
Could you explain the urgency of INTERNET, nickelcadmium batteries and Europartenariat in Wales which makes you take those three questions first?
Mr Wijsenbeek, I cannot do so.
That is the prerogative of the presidency and it, in its wisdom, has decided that those are the only three matters of urgency.
As the author is not present, Question No 25 lapses.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I wonder whether I could take over Mr Collins' question, because I have an interest in this matter?
You cannot, I am afraid.
The only way you could have done so would have been if there had been a written application prior to starting Question Time.
I fully sympathize with your feelings and others who wanted to ask supplementaries on this very important matter. But, since Mr Collins has not turned up, there is nothing we can do about it.
Question No 26 by Ivar Virgin (H-0864/96)
Subject: Nickel-cadmium batteries
Cadmium, which is found in nickel-cadmium batteries, is a highly toxic heavy metal that accumulates in the liver and kidneys and may cause lung cancer.
In accordance with the substitution principle, environmentally harmful products are to be replaced by existing environment-friendly alternatives.
Nickel-metal hydrid batteries are a type of battery already used in Sweden.
Is the Commission planning to take action to speed up the changeover from nickel-cadmium batteries to nickel-metal hydrid batteries? If so, will it propose that Member States avail themselves of economic instruments to ensure that such a changeover takes place?
Mr President, thank you for this question about what the question itself described as a 'highly toxic heavy metal' , and the health risk related to it.
There is an EC directive on batteries, namely directive 91/157, which lays down a limit for the content of heavy metals in batteries.
As this pertinent question indicates, care needs to be taken with the use of heavy metals in batteries.
I can report that the Commission is giving consideration to the need to accelerate the directive because, like the questioner, we are aware of the problems this issue raises.
The inquiries being carried out are also looking into the question of promoting the use of nickel-metal hybrid batteries.
It is still too early for me to report on the findings of these inquiries, but I would stress that the Commission is aware of the problem which the honourable Member has raised.
With regard to economic resources I would say that Member States have a free hand in their use within the framework of the Treaty, and I would refer you to Articles 30, 36 and 95.
As I said at the beginning, the Commission fully shares the questioner's concern, which is why we are engaged in inquiries into whether to make changes to the battery directive so that we can ensure that other Member States see a development along the lines of what the questioner has described as being the case in Sweden.
As things stand at the moment I am unable to say how we will achieve a limitation of the use of cadmium.
But I do take heart at the favourable results that are being achieved in Sweden.
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether she regards the regulation of nickel-cadmium batteries as more important than the regulation of the Internet, in particular, control of child pornography which is currently accessible on the Internet.
Commissioner, do you want to answer that? I think that was an unfair way of Mr Truscott getting his first question across.
To be honest, I believe the President answered that question a moment ago when a question was raised concerning procedure.
As is fitting for a member of the Commission, I have answered the question which Parliament asked, and it is Parliament which decides what is 'urgent' .
As the author is not present, Question No 27 lapses.
I am afraid the discipline of our Members is excruciating today.
Mrs Cresson, I give you my full apologies.
Mr President, the Commission is well aware of the importance of the public health problem which diabetes represents, particularly in an ageing population such as the population of Europe today.
It is also entirely aware of the formidable progress, for people suffering from this disease, that the introduction of the therapeutic use of insulin represented when it was discovered 75 years ago.
It is not unaware of the positive spin-offs of research into diabetes in several fields or of the interest presented by this research in understanding and treating other chronic diseases.
Research into diabetes thus benefits from a great deal of attention in research programmes in the Union.
One thread of the Biomed research programme, of the fourth framework programme, is devoted to it explicitly.
Within this framework, nine research projects have been launched which cover both the epidemiological aspects and clinical research.
Furthermore, the genetic aspects of diabetes are studied in the part of the programme dedicated to research into the human genome, and, as you know, research into the human genome has recently made some important developments, and this is one of the success stories of European research.
Because of both its importance and its interest, research into diabetes is set to continue as the subject of sustained attention in the fifth framework programme of research and technological development which we are currently in the process of getting under way.
But the fight against diabetes also involves prevention.
The prevention of diabetes by the adaptation of one's lifestyle and diet in particular has been registered as one of the themes of the educational, training and health promotion activities which are carried out within the scope of the European Union's public health policy.
Since the financial resources made available for this policy are fairly limited, action for prevention remains modest in comparison with requirements.
It would therefore be very useful if we could sensitise Member States to the importance of a more sustained effort in this area.
I would like to thank in every instance the honourable Members who have drawn the attention of the Commission to this problem and I will certainly take account of these concerns in the preparation for the fifth framework programme of research.
Thank you very much for the answer, Mrs Cresson.
It is pleasing to hear that you are aware of the problem of diabetes.
I must, however, also add that there is very little about this in the various programmes, particularly in the fourth framework programme. Perhaps we should still concentrate upon the fifth framework programme, on which we are now fully occupied.
There is very little mention in it of diabetes and the budget allocations which are proposed are very small.
I would very much like to draw your attention to this, and for you to devote far more energy in promoting these questions, since diabetes demands so much.
If the Commission were to take this seriously, the costs of medical care could likewise be reduced in the future.
Mr Holm, you are absolutely right, except for the fact, as I have just said, that the fifth framework programme is only at the drawing board; some great presentations have been given but, as you know, the matter will require some extremely in-depth work and - it should be remembered - decisions relating to the priorities of framework programmes are still made by the unanimous vote of the Member States.
Why are there 21 priorities in the fourth framework programme? As a result - probably one of the worse results - of this unanimous vote.
I hope therefore that the Intergovernmental Conference, which is currently under way, will result in a qualified majority vote and that, in the cases which appear to be most important for the large majority of Member States, we are thereby able to arrive at some sensible decisions.
On the subject of these large presentations for the fifth framework programme, we intend to stress elements relating to human health, prevention, risks to people whether they relate to environmental deterioration or diet, of which the news, currently, is unfortunately giving us a particularly burning example. We would therefore like to hinge the fifth framework programme on matters affecting individuals, health, and citizens.
As regards diabetes, there is naturally not a great deal I can tell you today; we are much too far upstream for me to be able to give you more precise indications.
But in any case it is an area which manifestly relates to health, to the demographic phenomenon of the ageing of the population, and also to prevention.
I dare to believe that you can be reassured by this.
We can never take the place of the politics of Member States since our budget only represents 4 % of the total sum dedicated to research by the Member States.
We can only encourage.
This encouragement is present in the field of research; it is also present in the fields of education and prevention.
You can be assured that this concern will be given consideration.
Many of us in the European Union are very grateful for the work of the Canadians, Banting and Best, in discovering insulin some 75 years ago.
I would point out to Mrs Cresson that there are some 10 million known diabetics in the European Union but we believe there are 10 million others whose symptoms are not recognized.
If we catch them early and apply the appropriate health measures, we can make an enormous saving on the health care budgets of the fifteen Member States in which this currently accounts for 8 %.
That is a major reason for concentrating in the fifth framework programme on this area
Although I am pleased to hear the Commissioner's words now, it is disappointing that the fourth framework programme did not identify diabetes as a major problem.
It has been declared by the World Health Organization as having the potential of a major epidemic because it is a disease of prosperity, unfortunately.
We must do everything we can.
Please ensure in the fifth framework programme that a way is found to help research into diabetes.
I must go back to your remark earlier, Mr President, on a point of order.
One of the reasons why there is absence here is that I, myself, for example, have had to come away from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy where one on my own reports is now being voted upon because I have prioritized diabetes over stage III of economic and monetary union.
It is quite mad for this Parliament to be having Parliamentary sessions on important questions - as now - at the same time as voting in committees.
It is a disgrace.
Mr Harrison, I hear your fairly strong views. I will put the point to the presidency.
It seems to me that it is a question of organization so that we actually know what committees are doing when they meet during the Strasbourg week.
It is perhaps an argument for saying the committee meetings should not take place during Strasbourg week, but that is an aside from the Chair.
Yes, honorable Member, I have indeed been very well aware of the fact that you have chosen to come and give your views on this subject which is so important, and which concerns both public health and research.
Perhaps I should first give some information relating to the disease and its treatment and then to the Commission's direct action.
You said quite rightly that 10 million of our fellow citizens suffer from diabetes.
The direct costs of diabetes are estimated today to be 8 % of health budgets in Europe.
I am only talking here about direct costs and not indirect costs which are also great.
You know that there are two sorts of diabetes: insulin-dependent diabetes and non-insulin dependent diabetes, which affect respectively children, adolescents, young adults, the middle-aged and the elderly.
I mentioned insulin earlier, which is used to treat insulin-dependent diabetes, but which, by definition, cannot be used in the other type. There remains therefore much to be done in terms of research.
As far as the action of the Commission is concerned, I would simply like to say that projects of research into diabetes, carried out under Biomed II, have covered the various aspects of prevention, treatment and management of diabetes, including determination of genetic risk and factors related to the environment and the detection of patients at high risk of developing it.
I would also like to say that in March 1997, a workshop on the European dimension of research into diabetes will be organised in Brussels, on the initiative of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes, in collaboration with the Commission and with its support.
The objective is the identification of strategies and priorities to be adopted in terms of research into diabetes on a European level. This figures naturally in the preparation of our twentieth framework programme.
As I said earlier, an important weapon against diabetes is prevention.
Very little has been done at European level with regard to this up to now.
However, diabetes has been signed up for the first time as one of the themes for training, education and health promotion activities in 1997, carried out within the framework of the health policy of the Union.
So we are really topical.
Now, the total annual budget of the Union's public health policy, as you know, is only 32 million Ecus, to be shared with activities relating to cancer, and to AIDS, which requires tremendous effort indeed in terms of prevention.
It can be expected, in the near future at any rate, that this effort towards prevention, for budgetary reasons, will still be relatively limited.
Indeed it will still have to come from this already limited purse of 32 million Ecus which we have to share with other preventative activities relating to other ailments which are equally important.
But I think that finally the skies are clearing in the area which is of concern to you to this extent; its appearance among the Union's promotional activities and the conference to be organised in 1997 are just the first steps for this important subject.
Question No 30 by Florus Wijsenbeek (H-0755/96)
Subject: State monopoly enjoyed by Switzerland's Telecom PTT
Is the Commission aware that - just before the entry into force on 1 July 1996 of the new competition law, and pending a legislative initiative which will bring Swiss telecommunications legislation in line with that of the European Union - the Swiss Telecom PTT has taken part in the takeover of a major cable operator, despite a previous commitment to curb its expansion into the cable market?
If so, does the Commission agree that by taking part in this market concentration the Swiss Telecom PTT has strengthened its monopoly position in voice telephony to an extent where it is virtually impossible for future telecommunications competitors to offer the same services?
In view of the talks it is currently conducting with Switzerland, can the Commission say whether telecommunications will also be the subject of negotiations in any future agreement between the EU and Switzerland, given that this sector is not currently covered by the package of negotiations?
In reply to this question from Mr Wijsenbeek, I would point out that Switzerland is naturally not bound by the provisions of the directive on cable television networks.
The Commission knows that the Swiss PTT proposed and signed a code of conduct with the Swiss authorities responsible for competition policy - the Verhaltenskodex Telekom: PTT-Kartelkommission - which requires the Swiss PTT to refrain from any actions likely to have an adverse effect on the position of potential competitors or to give it an unfair advantage in future competition situations.
The code stipulates that the PTT must seek prior authorization from the relevant authorities before acquiring or expanding operations in the cable networks sector, including cable television networks.
This issue has been raised by MPs in Switzerland, and the Commission has read about it in the press, but we have no official right to intervene.
It is entirely a matter for the Swiss authorities.
The Commission is continuing to do its best in the WTO negotiations on basic telecommunications to obtain an undertaking that the Swiss market will be completely open by January 1998, including the voice telephony sector.
We expect to have reached agreement with our WTO partners by 15 February 1997, and that in this context, Switzerland will agree to the full liberalization of its telecommunications services.
As far as bilateral negotiations are concerned, you know that the Council decided on 31 October 1994 and 14 March 1995 to enter into negotiations with Switzerland on six areas: the free movement of persons, agriculture, the mutual recognition of certificates of conformity, research, public contracts and transport.
It also decided provisionally to rule out negotiations on other sectors such as telecommunications.
The negotiations on the six areas I mentioned are still in progress and we cannot yet tell how long they are likely to take, even though I myself am closely involved in them.
I think it is likely that the six agreements could be concluded some time in the first three months of next year.
This is the timescale the Commission is working towards, at least, although we naturally also need to get the agreements through the Council of Ministers.
The Commission will decide on the basis of the current negotiations whether they should be continued in other sectors, but they have not yet gone far enough for us to tell whether this is the case.
If we think it is, then we shall have to submit a proposal to that effect to the Council.
I should like to thank Commissioner van den Broek for his very detailed answer.
I nevertheless have a supplementary question on the same lines as the one I originally asked: even if competition is to be allowed in those six sectors, it is clear that it has been ruled out here.
It is also clear that Switzerland has flouted the idea of free competition so flagrantly that this is bound to have repercussions not just for the current talks, but also for any continuation of the talks in other sectors.
The fact is that the Swiss always ask for free access to our market and are always generously given it, so I think the Commission is failing to fulfil its negotiating mandate if it does not bring up this kind of issue.
Could the Commissioner not raise these infringements of free competition now, in the current negotiations?
I think there are two important points here.
Firstly, I think it is important to try to obtain undertakings from Switzerland on this issue through the current WTO negotiations.
As I said earlier, it is hoped that the situation will become clear by early 1998.
Secondly, I do not know whether I am entirely right in thinking this, but when I consider the mandate which we were given for the six sectoral agreements we are currently discussing with Switzerland, I cannot really see how this issue could be included.
Nevertheless, I know that once the six-sector package has been concluded - and a balance must be found within each agreement and between all six - the Swiss are very interested in continuing talks on new sectors, and then we too might like to consider what pressing issues we should like to focus on.
I will at least examine, to be absolutely sure, whether the issue raised today could be included in the current talks, but I would not wish to give Mr Wijsenbeek any false hopes.
I know that broad agreement has now been reached, but there are still some rather delicate questions to be resolved on transport and freedom of movement.
I should nevertheless like to thank Mr Wijsenbeek for bringing this matter to our attention.
In spite of Mr Wijsenbeek's question, would the Commissioner bear in mind in his discussions with Swiss Telecom that telecommunications now operate in a world global market, and could he therefore tell us the relative size of the new merged company in Switzerland vis-à-vis British Telecom and their new merged company following the £15bn merger they have made with MCI in the United States?
I am sorry, but I do not have the figures to hand to be able to give you an answer.
But your general observation is correct: telecommunications is a sector which is showing a very marked trend towards globalization.
The honourable Member also knows that when it comes to mergers of telecommunications companies in the European Union, restrictions have to be applied, and these lie within the Commission's powers under the code on mergers.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply, but I would also like to ask him if I can understand his reply as meaning that the Commission will put pressure on Switzerland and that in the coming negotiations a condition will be that Switzerland changes its present strengthened monopoly position within this area?
I would not wish to cause any misunderstandings.
What I meant was that I do not see any scope for including this directly in the mandate we have for the current six-sector negotiations with Switzerland.
I told Mr Wijsenbeek that once these talks are concluded and agreement has been reached, I can well imagine that we shall start discussing possible new areas of cooperation and may well look at telecommunications.
But whether this is a priority sector is something the Council will have to decide.
However, I know that Sir Leon Brittan, who is the Commissioner responsible for everything to do with the WTO negotiations, is constantly trying to promote the further liberalization of the telecommunications market.
Question No 31 by Bertel Haarder (H-0857/96)
Subject: Bosnian and Croat refugees returning home
In the Folketing, the Danish Minister for Internal Affairs said in response to a question I had asked that Bosnians and Croats were queuing up to return home and were being delayed partly because of a lack of transport.
The chairman of the Danish Refugee Council was also told that people wishing to return to Bosnia and Croatia had to wait for entry papers to be issued and that travel for refugees by bus was difficult, partly because Croatia, Bosnia and Austria were obstructing overland transport operations.
The fact that some countries are forcing refugees to return home to former Yugoslavia and others cannot or will not help speed up the return of those who wish to is unacceptable.
It is especially odd that Austria appears to be preventing buses from getting through.
Will the Commission bring pressure to bear so that refugees from Bosnia and Croatia wishing to return to help rebuild their countries and homes are not held up and if necessary make EU aid dependent on the elimination of such hold-ups?
I have to say that despite the gloomy reports mentioned by Mr Haarder, I do not think that Bosnian and Croat refugees trying to return home are facing particularly severe transport problems, or at least not at the moment.
You will note that I am being very cautious when I say this, since it is difficult to monitor the day-to-day situation.
However, I should like to make it clear to Mr Haarder that we are in contact with the Member States, with the EU's High Representative Carl Bildt, and in particular the High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs Ogata, who visited Brussels a few days ago, and we are examining very carefully how we can help to make things easier for the return of refugees.
The Commission has been working on this for some time through its rehabilitation and construction programmes, where the emphasis is placed on projects suggested to us by the High Commission for Refugees which are designed to make it easier for refugees to return home.
We have also been in regular contact with the German authorities, since we know that of all the Member States, Germany has faced the most severe problem of refugees from former Yugoslavia.
I would repeat that when freedom of movement or freedom of transit are under threat - and there have been no serious reports of this recently - then an appeal must be made to the country concerned, whether it be Bosnia, Croatia or even Serbia, and then to Ifor, which is responsible for ensuring that freedom of movement is restricted as little as possible.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for the most obliging answer he has given.
By way of a supplement I would like to ask him whether he agrees with me that it is quite unacceptable that countries receiving large amounts of aid from the European Union should refuse to take back their own citizens speedily and efficiently when these citizens wish to return home.
I would also ask him whether he agrees with me that it is even more unacceptable, if this is possible, that not only Bosnia and Croatia, but even an intermediary country, Austria, should be putting obstacles in the way of buses transporting refugees back to their old countries? Does he agree with me that this is wholly unreasonable, and that the European Union must exert pressure, which may also mean economic pressure, if required, to change this situation?
We know that some countries are forcing refugees back.
That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about refugees who, of their own volition, wish to return home, but are prevented from doing so by bureaucracy and an unhelpful approach in Bosnia and Croatia, and to a lesser extent also in Austria.
I entirely agree with Mr Haarder that it is quite unacceptable for countries to refuse to receive their own citizens wishing to return home.
It would also be contrary to the undertakings given by the parties to the Dayton peace accord, which specifically makes the granting of economic aid or aid for reconstruction conditional on the countries concerned taking back their refugees and helping to facilitate their return.
So we are entirely in agreement on this.
I am rather surprised at this report about Austria, and Mr Haarder's question was the first I had heard of it.
I have no evidence at all to support this, and I would certainly not have thought that the Austrian authorities would do anything to prevent refugees from returning home.
It is also universally agreed within the Union as a whole that everything must be done to facilitate this process.
Could Commissioner van den Broek confirm that in effect what he is saying is that we are still in a position whereby within Bosnia there is actually no real freedom of movement, i.e., we have still got de facto ethnic cleansing? Could he also say how he envisages the situation developing when Ifor comes to an end?
That is the one force trying to keep the Dayton peace process on board.
To what extent is the Commission evaluating the success of the aid it has given to returnee refugees and how does it intend developing those programmes in future?
I think I can say that there is genuine freedom of movement throughout most of BosniaHerzegovina, and I know that where it is in any way restricted, Ifor has instructions to approach the authorities about it and to establish a free passage by force, if necessary.
As far as I am aware, they have not been required to do so recently, and this is something that has only ever happened occasionally.
I would also certainly not blame restrictions on freedom of movement as the main reason why so few refugees have returned home hitherto.
We have had extensive talks with Mrs Ogata, the High Commissioner, on this subject.
The main problem is that many refugees do not want to return to their homes if a different ethnic group is now in power.
This is the case with many of the Bosnian refugees now living in Germany, who originally came from what is now the Republica Srpska and do not wish to go back there.
Another obstacle is the fact that housing is still in extremely short supply, and we must do all we can to ensure that priority is given to restoring and rebuilding ruined houses, so that refugees can move in.
There is also the problem that the whole question of ownership is often extremely unclear.
Everyone is living in someone else's house, and trying to sort things out could make the whole situation extremely difficult.
What this all means is that the High Commission for Refugees has by no means been able to persuade the numbers to return that were originally planned.
I think that since the Dayton agreement, 200 000 of the 800 000 originally intended have actually gone back, at an optimistic estimate.
We are dealing with an extremely complex problem.
We are going to Paris on Thursday for further talks with Mrs Ogata, Carl Bildt and everyone else involved on the implementation of the Dayton agreement and the problem of the returning refugees, and we shall be looking at the issue again at a conference on Yugoslavia in London in December.
As you can see, we are giving this situation our fullest attention, but it is all extremely complicated.
Commissioner, I should firstly like to make a further comment. I go to quite a few places in Austria, and I am extremely surprised by the suggestion that the Austrian authorities have somehow been obstructing the return of the refugees.
At least, I have never heard anything about that in Austria itself.
My question to you, Commissioner, is this: do you not have the impression that, in the whole treatment of the refugee question, an unduly bureaucratic approach is hindering matters? There are large parts of Bosnia to which no one can be expected to return if they have no house there, because it is extremely cold.
There are other areas to which the refugees can happily go back, because it is warm.
The situation must therefore be judged differently from area to area, from community to community.
Are you not of the opinion that the authorities are regrettably adopting an unduly bureaucratic approach in this respect, which is hampering the whole operation?
Mr von Habsburg will have realized that I entirely agree with him, but I have no information or evidence to suggest that Austria is not cooperating in helping refugees to return home.
As I said before, every Member State is very keen to enable them to return as soon as possible.
So this is something we all agree on.
Bureaucracy, I freely admit, will undoubtedly account for some of the problems, and the only question is how to prevent it.
Take Bosnia, for example, where the new organs of state are still being set up.
There has been a collective presidency since the elections, and there is still no government as such.
So the people we are talking to now are the transitional government, but we do not know who will be in charge tomorrow.
That is one point.
Secondly, if we look at Germany again, which has shown an extremely humanitarian attitude in accepting some 450 000 refugees, we need to ask the various regional governments exactly how many refugees are living there, where they come from, whether they are prepared to return and, if so, where to.
This information must then be linked up with operations in Bosnia to receive these people and to ensure that they have somewhere to live, not to mention jobs and so on.
I therefore agree with Mr von Habsburg that the very complexity of the situation tends to complicate the bureaucracy, rather than making it easier.
And this is true not only for the countries to which the refugees are to return, but also for the countries currently sheltering large numbers of them.
Question No 32 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0860/96)
Subject: Recent events in Belarus
President Lukashenko of Belarus has sought to extend his constitutional powers, dissolve the present parliament and introduce authoritarian presidential rule.
He has announced a referendum on his proposal to be held on 7 November.
The Belarus parliament has responded by calling a rival referendum on 24 October.
The President of Russia has put heavy pressure on President Lukashenko to seek a compromise with his parliament on the country's new constitution, but he has altered only one detail in his proposal.
Has the Commission made any representations against this attempt by the President of Belarus to shut out his country's democratically elected parliament and set up authoritarian presidential rule? Will cooperation under the TACIS programme continue as if nothing has happened if President Lukashenko claims that the November referendum has given him a mandate to carry out his changes to the constitution?
Thank you for the answer, Commissioner.
I have put this question before and today I have received more or less the same answer. We have fought on behalf of the EU by pointing out the circumstances to the President of Belarus, but the President goes on as before, just the same.
In other words nothing very much is happening in this area.
I wonder, Commissioner, if the way forward would be to halt the TACIS programme, and in that way get the President to listen to the democratically elected parliament. Or are there any other ways?
Because, quite clearly, more vigorous measures are needed than simply talking to the President.
As I said before, I quite agree with Mrs Ahlqvist's assessment of the situation.
We have once again reached a sort of crossroads: do we use the TACIS programme to bring pressure to bear, or do we try to use it to help bring about certain practical improvements? I think the thing to do now is to wait and see exactly what happens with the referendum and how we then view the political situation in Belarus, because this will very much determine whether we wish to have the kind of close cooperation that would result from an interim agreement, which is currently still pending.
As I said, Parliament has put off examining reports on the interim agreement two or three times now, for the same reasons why I am now suggesting that we should wait for the referendum, although we can at the same time send out appropriate political signals, via other countries too.
This is precisely what the presidency and the Commission are doing at the moment.
I am afraid that I can only tell Mrs Theorin what I told the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and Parliament's members of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee yesterday evening, mainly about the human rights situation there, which was discussed in detail in the report on the customs union which the Commission presented to Parliament in October.
What I said, in short, was that we all agree that the current human rights situation in Turkey is very worrying and, let us be honest, even worse in 1996 than it was in 1995.
I also gave details of the changes we are trying to bring about in this area, and pointed out once again that because of the human rights situation, and because of Turkey's position in the Aegean conflict with Greece and on the Cyprus question, most of the financial aid intended for it has now been suspended, which is why I feel that the MEDA programme at least, being a broader and more horizontal programme for the Mediterranean area as a whole, should continue to apply to Turkey.
I explained why I thought this and put forward further arguments in favour, but I also said that the Commission has taken due account of the resolution adopted by Parliament in September on the human rights situation in Turkey, and of the recommendations which have been made concerning how money should be allocated from the MEDA fund.
As I said yesterday evening, Parliament's ideas on this may not be exactly the same as those of the Commission, but I would be happy to examine with the President of the House how the Commission can best consult Parliament about this whole issue before we implement the 1997 MEDA programme.
I hope that this brief answer will suffice, but as I said, the human rights report that we gave you last month as part of the report on the customs union contains further details of the Commission's views on the situation in Turkey, why we feel it is important to normalize relations with Turkey as one of our partners, and how we think we can make progress in this direction.
Thank you for the answer.
It is encouraging to learn that we are now in agreement that human rights are not being respected in Turkey, and that we have woken up to the fact a little late in the day.
It is, of course, surprising - to say the least - that a real right-wing politician from Turkey has been able to mislead experienced politicians without bringing in any real changes or reliable guarantees on human rights, and that these experienced politicians, without waiting for the Turkish elections, agreed to a customs union.
It is quite clearly something of a double message if the European Parliament says one thing and the Commissioner still says that he wishes to continue with the MEDA programme and, at the same time, listen to Parliament.
For the instruments we have, i.e. the political, economic and legal instruments which the EU has at its disposal, should naturally be used to ensure that human rights are respected.
Is it not now time to stop waiting for more encouraging noises from Turkey and demonstrate that the limit has been reached by revoking the customs union with this country? My second question is: Would we have been just as keen to enter into a customs union if the Commissioner had known then what we know today about human rights?
I know that it is difficult to talk about human rights and the economy in the same breath, but this is what Mrs Theorin did when she mentioned the customs union and whether it should continue.
I would point out to her that, since the customs union came into force, trade with Turkey has grown from some 20 billion dollars or ECU - the two are very much the same - to around 35 billion, and that there is a trade surplus of 8 to 10 billion in favour of the European Union.
So from the employment point of view, which is something that Parliament is concerned about, it would not be a good idea to abolish the customs union at one fell swoop, since for the time being at least, it is very much serving the Union's interests.
It is just unfortunate that we have not yet been able to implement the accompanying measures that were intended to offset the negative effects for Turkey, including the three or four programmes which are currently blocked for reasons with which everyone is familiar.
I do not have time now to go through the whole of the very constructive exchange of views that we had yesterday evening in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, so I will leave it there if I may, although I am entirely at your disposal, should you wish to discuss this question further.
Would the Commissioner not agree that the Council, the Commission and those Members in this House who were foolish enough to vote for customs union, on the grounds that this would encourage Turkey to be more democratic, were pretty inept politically and tragically wrong?
If I may give you a straight answer to this, I would repeat what I said yesterday evening, that although we all agree that the human rights situation in Turkey is very bad, we must not forget what the situation was in fact like in 1995, when the customs union was approved by Parliament and certain amendments were demanded to the constitution and in particular to Article 8, as a result of which some 150 prisoners of conscience were actually released.
So we cannot say that nothing at all has changed.
It is simply unfortunate that the situation is now deadlocked for a number of reasons which I described in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy yesterday evening, though these must not be seen as an excuse, and must certainly not discourage us from continuing to try to improve the situation in our relations with Turkey.
We are therefore working on this constantly and very intensively.
Question No 34 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0872/96)
Subject: Foreign and security policy
Sweden has been spared involvement in war for nearly 200 years.
With our non-aligned status and neutrality we have been in a position to create stability in northern Europe.
From the post-war period, Sweden and neutral Finland have provided a buffer between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, especially during the Cold War.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall the security policy map has been transformed.
A new Russia whose security policies are largely unknown, is facing NATO.
No-one yet knows what relationship there will be between the two powers.
The large majority of the Swedish people will defend our neutrality and reject the idea of joining future monetary alliances.
Will Sweden be able to control its own foreign and security policy in future? Are there are plans in EU quarters to restrict the right of veto on matters relating to foreign and security policy?
When it joined the European Union, Sweden agreed to the provisions of the Treaty on European Union.
Title 5 of the Treaty concerns the common foreign and security policy, which covers all aspects of the Union's security.
I distinctly remember that when the negotiations were concluded with all the applicant countries, including Norway at that point, it was declared that there was nothing in the constitutions of those countries to prevent them from implementing the provisions on the common foreign and security policy in the Maastricht Treaty.
I therefore presume that this also applies to Sweden.
You know that the common foreign and security policy is on the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference, and that one of the important points to be discussed is how to improve the decision-making process, on which a number of proposals have been made.
We can already assume that when it comes to strictly military matters and the use of armed forces, decisions will not be taken by a qualified majority, but each Member State will be left to decide for itself.
In short, I do not think there is any chance that the outcome of the IGC will be that a country could be forced by a majority vote to take part in military operations.
Thank you for the answer.
This is an urgent matter for those of us who are relatively new Members, as the question of our being able to retain independence in foreign and security policies was the decisive factor for many who voted in the referendum.
I interpreted the very last part of the answer as meaning that Sweden must accept the agreement which it signed, which is self-evident, since we have no derogation, but also, on the basis of the answer, that it means in reality that more decisions are being slowly transferred from unanimous to qualified majority vote.
This also means that Sweden, if it wished to, could not prevent other states or a majority of EU countries, from making decisions in the defence and military security areas.
If I have understood it correctly, it could even mean that Sweden could perhaps be forced to participate in financing an action which the country would not support, and would not be able to prevent.
That is how I understand the answer and it thus means a major move from free alliances to participation in a joint military or European co-operation.
Let us agree on one thing: all these questions are to be discussed at the Intergovernmental Conference.
On the issue of foreign and security policy, there is certain to be a strong intergovernmental element, but I do not think it is the Commission's place to anticipate the outcome of the discussions.
I will say that I was pleased to see that the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Sweden and Finland, two neutral countries in terms of security policy, have put forward proposals as to how they might be involved in things like the Petersburg tasks, for example.
These are duties such as peacekeeping missions, humanitarian aid and so on, which could be carried out under the leadership of the Western European Union.
So we can see that Sweden and Finland are thinking constructively about the role they can play in the field of security.
I find this extremely positive, though I would not wish in any way to pre-empt the discussions at the Intergovernmental Conference, where Sweden too has every right to express its opinion and take part in the decision-making.
Mr President, I have great respect for the Swedish people's desire for freedom, but I should like to ask whether the fact that Sweden remained so free and independent in the post-war period as is described in the question is not connected with the fact that many NATO and European Union states contributed to preserving peace in the Western hemisphere in the face of communism, at great sacrifice.
Do you not take the view that peace and freedom will also only be preserved in future if all states are equally prepared to assume their share of the burden and do not, so to speak, shirk their responsibilities and leave the others to shoulder the burden alone?
Thank you very much.
May I just say that Sweden has been free of military alliances and has remained neutral for 200 years!
It is not just a question of neutrality during the Second World War.
Seventy per cent of the Swedish people insist that this neutrality be preserved.
The Swedish and the Finnish foreign ministers have made it clear that we are prepared to participate in peace keeping operations, though not in anything to do with military intervention.
The distinction between peace keeping and the promotion of peace, or enforcing the peace, is very important and I believe that Commissioner van den Broek is very well aware of this.
Sweden does not take part in any active military operations whatsoever, and will not do so either before or after the government conference.
That is noted.
I call Mr Smith on a point of order.
Can you explain to me why, when Commissioners are designated 20 minutes each, Commissioner Van den Broek gets twice as long as any other Commissioner? I know he is very talented, but is he twice as good?
I imagine I would be very popular with Mr Van den Broek, if I said yes, but not with Mr Monti.
The reason, Mr Smith, was that, because of our lack of discipline, two of our Members did not come for urgent questions at the beginning and the presidency, in its wisdom, had put down only three questions for urgencies.
Therefore we got there very quickly indeed.
We now move on to questions to Commissioner Monti.
We will give Mr Monti, hopefully, a full half hour since we started the session later than usual.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 38 by Sören Wibe (H-0867/96)
Subject: Swedish derogation concerning imports of alcohol for personal use
Negotiations have taken place between the Swedish government and the Commission on Sweden's continued application of a derogation concerning imports of alcohol for personal use. Sweden wants to maintain the derogation, but what are the Commission's intentions?
Will it take the matter to the Court of Justice so as to get the derogation lifted by 1 January 1997? If so, is it reasonable to adopt such a tough line against a Member State which wishes to pursue a restrictive policy on alcohol?
Sweden's restrictive policy on alcohol yields substantial tax revenue and is pursued on public health grounds. Is this not sufficiently good reason for Sweden to continue to be able, pursuant to the subsidiarity principle, to pursue its own policies in this field and to apply special rules on the importation of alcohol?
Question No 39 by Jan Andersson (H-0869/96)
Subject: Import restrictions on tobacco and alcohol
Tobacco and alcohol are very bad for the health.
The Nordic countries' policy towards alcohol and tobacco has relied heavily on reducing access, which has helped keep consumption down to relatively low levels.
One method of keeping down consumption is to have strict import rules.
Relaxing them will in all probability increase consumption and thus cause a deterioration in public health.
Should the Nordic countries not therefore be entitled to retain their relatively strict import restrictions on these harmful products?
The points made by the honourable Members in these two questions seem to be based on a misunderstanding.
The situation is as follows: the Commission view is that the derogations at issue may be kept in place only until 31 December 1996, the deadline currently established.
Consequently, unless the Member States concerned take steps to abolish the restrictions in place, as of that date, 31.12.1996, the Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties, will be compelled to bring infringement proceedings before the Court of Justice.
Furthermore, were the Commission not rapidly to take action of that nature, it is likely that the matter would be referred to the Court of Justice by the citizens of northern Europe who would consider that they were being penalized.
Having said that, in the light of the rights of travellers and the points made by the honourable Members in their questions, we are of the opinion that the Nordic countries need more time to adjust to the Community rules.
Consequently, the Commission is drawing up a proposal for a directive extending the deadline beyond 31 December 1996 in order to allow gradual liberalization of the current restrictions.
As you see, far from adopting a hard line towards the Nordic countries, the Commission is in fact doing all it can to help.
On the first point, the Commission is fully aware of the very great importance attaching to this issue in social, health and financial terms.
That is the only reason why the Commission has and is making a great effort to reach a solution other than the - inevitable - natural solution, namely referring the matter to the Court of Justice.
I am not at this point in a position, Mr Wibe, to provide further details concerning the length of any extension.
I can only say that in the negotiations with the Swedish, Danish and Finnish authorities, the view I have put forward, as Commissioner, mentions the year 2002.
Thank you Commissioner for the answer.
At present the alcohol question is being dealt with almost exclusively as a matter pertaining to the internal market.
At the same time we know that there is a clear and unambiguous connection between alcohol consumption and a number of illnesses such as liver disorders, stroke, certain forms of cancer, etc.
Article 36 of the Treaty deals with the internal market and derogations from the internal market.
It states, for example, that derogations are made where the question of "protecting the lives and health of humans and animals' is involved.
I would like to ask two questions.
Is not the question of alcohol one of human health which, in all respects, affects people&#x02BC;s lives and health? My second question is, in that case is not Article 36 applicable?
The question of alcohol is, clearly, important in terms of public health and social issues as well as its financial implications for the national budget.
Moreover, you know full well that various instruments may supplement a coherent policy designed to pursue specific objectives in this field.
It is specifically in order to allow the Member States in question to use instruments that may require time and that are not incompatible with the requirements of the single market that the Commission has stated its willingness to consider an extension which, as I have said, is currently being negotiated with the authorities of the Nordic countries.
Thank you Mr President.
Two questions to Commissioner Monti: Does Commissioner Monti acknowledge that the attack which is now being made on the actual working of Swedish alcohol policy has its roots in the fact that alcohol consumption has fallen in several large EU countries and that the alcohol producers have an interest in gaining access to the low alcohol consumption market which Sweden represents? Has Commissioner Monti any proposal on who is to pay the costs of the consequences for health which will result from the Commission&#x02BC;s attempts to break down the alcohol policy restrictions in Sweden?
I really have nothing to add.
In my earlier answers I already explained just how very aware the Commission is of this problem and how it is therefore prepared - and has shown great flexibility in this connection - to consider extensions, provided that a definite and specific date is given.
As far as question of how the financial authorities of the countries concerned can make good financial resources that could run out when the current arrangements end, the honourable Member will understand that it is not for the Commission to make suggestions about that.
Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak Mr President.
My question, too, concerns the importation of alcohol.
Before the Swedish referendum on EU membership, the big question in the debate on the Treaty which had been concluded with the EU, was what this Treaty actually involved.
According to the description of this Treaty laid before the Swedish public, a unanimous decision by the Council of Ministers would be necessary to amend the import rules governing alcohol.
Sweden would thereby have a right of veto in respect of the question of alcohol imports.
Does the Commissioner share this understanding?
I cannot talk about eventualities.
I have merely explained - and I do not, I think, need to repeat myself again - how very aware the Commission is of the problem, how we have and are being flexible in terms of the time it takes to identify solutions which reconcile the objectives of the governments in question, as regards health and social policy etc, with the rules of the single market which the Commission has a duty to protect.
Question No 40 by Simon Murphy (H-0870/96)
Subject: Guest Beer issue
Will the Commission comment on progress in the tripartite talks between DGXV, the Confederation des Brasseurs du Marché Commun, and the United Kingdom's Department of Trade and Industry, to find a mutually acceptable compromise in the 'Guest Beer Law' Case.
In this question, the honourable Member is asking the Commission to give an indication of progress made in the tripartite talks, set under way to find an acceptable solution to the question of the UK law of 1989 on 'Guest Beer' (draught beer from a specific brewer sold at a pub linked by contract to another brewer).
The Commission wishes first to state that it is well aware of the importance attaching to typical and traditional products, such as real ale, in relation to the internal market.
It is not therefore the intention of the Commission to take measures that in any way prejudice the manufacture of such products.
Far from it, the implementation of the principle of mutual recognition which, as you will be aware, is one of the cornerstones of the internal market and has been encouraged by the Commission over the past fifteen years, is helping to protect Europe's typical products.
In this case, and in response to a request, the Commission brought an action for failure to act, seeking to have the discriminatory national provision changed, thereby fulfilling one of its fundamental responsibilities, namely to guarantee compliance with Community rules.
I would stress that the Commission is not objecting to the rules on guest beer as a whole but only the criteria adopted for the definition of guest beer, which currently have the effect of excluding similar beers from other Member States.
The Commission and the United Kingdom authorities are currently trying to find a solution to the problem that does not discriminate against the beers of other Member States.
At the tripartite meeting between the Commission services, the United Kingdom authorities and the Confederation of European Brewers, held in Brussels on 11 October 1996, possible alternatives to the current definition of guest beer were discussed.
Attempts are being made to find a solution, with further contacts scheduled in the course of this month.
The Commission has set 1 December as the time-limit.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
Many of us in the House accept that he is trying to establish a workable compromise that everybody can live with, which actually respects the requirements of the British beer drinker, if you like, and at the same time single market law.
I would like to ask the Commissioner a specific question on the nature of beer production in the European Union at the moment.
Is he aware that over the last 12 months somewhere in the region of 7, 000 hectolitres of draft Hoegaarden 'blanche' beer which is brewed in Belgium by Interbrew, was actually imported into the United Kingdom and sold in British pubs under the guest beer law? In other words, this particular version of Hoegaarden 'blanche' was a cask-conditioned ale.
If that is the case, surely there is not real need to actually change the guest beer laws in Britain just to make it even more clear to other brewers around the European Union exactly who can sell into the European market.
The aim of the negotiations aims is to find a definition of guest beer that would not in fact be discriminatory by identifying a particular definition like the cask-conditioned one, which is basically limited to a process which is essentially used in the UK.
The purpose, as I underlined, is not that of eliminating support for small breweries, but simply to devise a manner in which that could continue without any discriminatory element.
May I say that it is precisely this willingness to preserve the single market in that sector that led the Commission some time ago to intervene in a similar way in the case of two other Member States, interventions from which UK beer producers among others, benefited.
I am encouraged by that answer to the extent that I understand it.
I hope that what the Commission is working towards is a new definition of guest beers which will amount to the same thing and will ensure that real ale is still sold in British pubs as a guest beer.
Certainly if the guest beer provision is totally removed, the result will be less choice all round rather than greater opportunities for continental breweries to export to Britain.
The other point I would like to make is to ask the Commissioner whether he would accept that it is very important that we do not make a fetish of harmonization for its own sake and that we recognize that the European Union is not simply about the single market.
A lot of the questions being asked today on Scandinavian rules on alcohol, guest beers, duty-free, VAT and so on, suggest that if pursuing the single market is unpopular with voters in Europe, if it is going to turn people against the European Union, as would certainly be the case if the guest beer provision was totally removed, and if its effects are ultimately harmful, it really should not be pushed and the Commission should show a broad, flexible outlook on these things.
This question is so general that it could very well have been asked a couple of hours ago in the general debate on the single market.
I wish to say that certainly the Commission's policy is not to make a fetish of harmonization.
We all know that frequently, perhaps unwilling, a protectionist element creeps in behind what apparently is protection of this or that regional situation.
Certainly, the single market, whose main drawback is simply that it has not as yet been implemented as we would like, unquestionably has the fundamental virtue of increasing consumer choice, and the consumer must, of course, also benefit in the case in question.
Question No 41 by Angela Billingham (H-0882/96)
Subject: Property letting in Spain
A law passed in Spain - Law of Tourism 7/1995, which is due to be implemented in July 1997 - has the effect of forcing all owners of property within an apartment complex either not to let their property or to give the exclusive letting rights to a sole letting agency for the complex.
This deprives owners of the personal freedom to use their property when they wish and will result in severe financial hardship for many owners with financial commitments.
Does this piece of legislation not directly infringe upon personal and civic liberties? Is it not a complete violation of the freedom to provide services in the European Union?
The Commission has undertaken a comprehensive analysis of Law of Tourism 7/1995 in terms of the right of establishment and to check on its compatibility with the freedom to provide services.
More particularly, consideration of the provisions on holiday lettings by an authorized tourist operator show that those provisions are not discriminatory and apply both to owners of Spanish nationality and to owners from other Member States.
The provisions were introduced with the intention of protecting tourists as users of services - and I am quoting Article 1(2) of the Law - a concept equivalent to that of consumer protection and one that has been recognized by the Court of Justice as being a mandatory requirement in the general interest.
In the current situation, the accommodation and, if appropriate, the buildings themselves have, among other things, to meet certain requirements relating to health, cleanliness and safety.
Given the importance of lettings in the Canary Islands and even though the new measures adopted may prove inconvenient to owners, they appear appropriate to guarantee the achievement of the objective set and go not go beyond what is necessary.
However, in accordance with the provisions of the Law, the measures in question will not take effect until 20 July 1997.
That means that it will not be possible to make a full assessment of the new system until that time.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for the reply he has given me but it does not reassure me at all.
Having listened to his answer to the previous question, I see direct similarities when we talk about looking at discriminatory practice.
I always think that any laws which are passed and are retrospective also open up all sorts of problems.
I have to say that whilst we are looking at the concerns of the tourists, I think that the owners have been somewhat unfairly treated.
They are saying, and rightly so I suspect, that the value of their property will be considerably diminished.
I think it is most unfortunate therefore that I am getting this negative response from the Commission because I do think that, as previous speakers have said, the image of the single market is very important, as is the way in which we work cooperatively with other Member States.
I suspect this is the sort of issue which is not limited to owners coming from the United Kingdom but to those from other countries too and we do not want it to be seen as yet another grievance.
I suspect that unless we do something that is in fact the case.
We have examined this question from a number of angles.
In particular we asked ourselves whether behind the protection of the tourist as user of services the main purpose of the law was to regulate any kind of letting in the Canary Islands and therefore to deprive owners of their rights, and our answer was essentially no.
The system introduced by the law applies only to tourist lettings, other kinds of lettings fall under the provisions of the Spanish Civil Code as specified by the law itself.
We could also ask the question whether the tourist is not protected at the expense of the property owners, an aspect Mrs Billingham introduced, with the property owner bearing all the burden of such protection.
In response to that question I would say that the law adopted by the Canarian Parliament does not try to protect the tourist only when he rents accommodation, but whenever he might be considered a user of tourist services.
Consequently many categories of service providers such as restaurants, travel agencies, sport clubs and transport enterprises also have to fulfil a certain number of requirements, including professional qualification, in order to be authorized to perform their activity.
The Commission is familiar with the problems encountered by Danish ski instructors in France during the 1995-1996 winter season.
A number of foreign ski instructors - German, British and Danish - were arrested by the French police for holding neither a French qualification nor a foreign qualification recognized as being equivalent by the French authorities for the exercise of that profession.
The Commission services take the view that the French legislation is incompatible with Article 59 of the Treaty laying down the freedom to provide services.
In accordance with the case-law of the Court of Justice, a Member State is not permitted to require of providers of services the same conditions required of persons established permanently in their territory.
In recent months, the Commission services have met frequently with the French authorities in an effort to resolve this problem.
The Commission recognizes that this is a real issue of public interest, namely the safety of all of those who use ski slopes.
It has, nonetheless, tried to reconcile this fundamental requirement with the rights guaranteed under the Treaty.
The French authorities have put forward draft proposals, to be adopted as soon as possible, which will allow ski instructors, who are citizens of other Member States, to provide services in France on the basis of a simple declaration that is renewable annually.
In exceptional cases, on grounds of public safety, the issue of a permit may be subject to further tests: firstly, where there is a substantial difference in the level of technical competence, a technical test similar to that required of French ski instructors will be required; secondly, the candidate could have to undergo a test to establish whether he is familiar with the environmental conditions in which the sport takes place, that is the French weather information system, the emergency services and so on.
The French authorities have undertaken to process as rapidly as possible all applications made in connection with the new rules, in order to guarantee that the system is fully operational for the next season, by actually applying the new rules before they have been formally adopted.
They guarantee in particular that the tests I have mentioned will be held at frequent intervals and, at any rate, whenever necessary to meet demand.
The Commission takes the view that the adoption of those provisions will bring the French legislation into line with Article 59. It will, of course, be monitoring closely the application of the provisions to ensure that the practice adopted by the French authorities is also in line with the Treaty.
I consider this to be a good example of a real solution to a problem, in response to Commission representations to the authorities of the country concerned.
The Commission services have been informed that similar problems exist in Italy; we have not yet received specific complaints, however.
The same principles will, of course, apply, and the Commission services have asked the Italian authorities for further information on their legislation in this area.
Were it to emerge that Italian legislation is in breach of Community law, the Commission would take the necessary measures to put a stop to this.
Thank you, Commissioner Monti.
I would express how grateful I am that you have intervened in these matters which provide clear evidence of what is meant by the phrase 'citizens first' .
I am aware that regulations are being formulated, but I see another problem.
This has to do with the tests which ski instructors are required to take.
I have been approached by many ski instructors who say that it is becoming physically impossible to live up to the rules, because a trade barrier is in effect being created by making the examinations too difficult.
Indeed one needs to be a world champion on the slalom courses in order to obtain a ski instructor's permit.
This applies to Danish and British ski instructors, whereas a cooperative approach has developed between the so-called Alpine countries, including France, Austria and Italy which readily recognise one another's examinations.
I would therefore be very grateful if you would conduct inquiries to determine whether what is taking place is in effect a trade barrier or an obstacle to a commercial activity, because those who we might refer to as the northern ski instructors are being made to meet unreasonable requirements, whereas similar requirements are not being expected of ski instructors from the Alpine countries.
I thank the honourable Member for her kind words.
As you know, this is an issue that I am monitoring closely, and indeed it is incumbent upon the Commission to do so.
It goes without saying that, as part of that monitoring process, which will not end just because we have obtained the desired result, the Commission will be keeping a close eye on the application of the new rules and, were it to come to light that they were being applied too restrictively, it would take the necessary action.
This is a matter that we shall continue to watch closely.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I want to put the question on behalf of the British Association of Ski Instructors as this is also a question for them.
They are extremely concerned for the same reasons as my Danish colleague.
They feel the tests they are being put to are unfair.
I know you will look into this.
You have already mentioned the point I wanted to raise and you said you were in discussion with the French authorities and you are hoping to come to a resolution of this problem.
I believe you said next season. The point I want to make is that it is imperative we get this dealt with as soon as possible because the skiing season is almost upon us and we want to ensure that British and Danish ski instructors have the opportunity to teach in the Alps as from this season.
The Commission understands that skiing is very much a seasonal sport.
That is why we put the necessary pressure on the French authorities, within what is not an indefinite time-frame but one that takes proper account of the seasonal nature of this issue.
As I said, perhaps a little rapidly in my earlier answer, the French authorities have undertaken to process as rapidly as possible all of the applications submitted in connection with the new rules to ensure that the system is fully operational in time for the new season, by actually applying the new rules before they are formally adopted: this is an instance not of late application but quite simply of the preventive application of rules that have yet to take effect officially.
Question No 43 by Elly Plooij-van Gorsel (H-0895/96)
Subject: Cross-border business activities impeded by rules concerning cars
A Dutch businessman resident in the Netherlands with a business established in the Netherlands and in Germany can obtain a licence to use a car with German number plates (permit no.
3 under the Dutch customs system). This is important as a means of visiting German customers.
However, the vehicle cannot be used for commercial purposes in the Netherlands.
If, on his return from Germany to the Netherlands, the businessman decides to visit a customer in the Netherlands, he runs the risk of a fine.
As a result, an employer is forced to have two vehicles with different number plates in order to comply with the rules in the Netherlands.
It appears from contacts with the Commission that this is a problem in cross-border traffic in other Member States, too.
Similar complaints have been submitted to the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions on a number of occasions in the past.
Does the Commission feel that cross-border business activities are being impeded, and the Internal Market frustrated? What does it intend to do about this?
The Commission is apprised of the difficulties that exist in some Member States in relation to the use of vehicles by individuals resident in border regions who have, for business reasons, frequently, to move between the territories of one or more Member States.
These difficulties frequently arise because, in accordance with the conditions laid down at the time the single market was established, the Member States retained the right to maintain or introduce taxes on goods and services, such as those on vehicles.
In point of fact, all but two of the Member States apply a vehicle registration tax, and those taxes are not covered by Community rules.
They may vary considerably, as is in fact happening, as regards their scope, the rate, the purpose and methods of application.
In addition, all fifteen Member States apply road taxes, again according to a wide variety of criteria and at very different tax rates.
Vehicles have usually to be registered in the Member State in which the owner resides.
Furthermore, the use in the Member State of residence of a vehicle registered in another Member State is usually prohibited.
It is therefore inevitable that there will be some problems in the case of workers resident in border regions, commercial travellers, for example.
This is one of the problems concerning the taxation of motor vehicles that are of particular concern to me because of their impact on the proper functioning of the internal market.
Honourable Members will already, I think, be aware that my services are making a general study of all aspects of vehicle taxation in Europe.
That is necessary because, on the one hand, every Member State applies a range of fiscal measures with different objectives and, on the other, because those measures often and inevitably have knock-on effects.
The type of problem raised by the honourable Member is one of the specific measures that I have asked to be considered as part of the study on vehicle taxation which, as you will be aware, is provided for in the Commission's 1997 work programme.
Thank you for that answer, Mr Monti.
The problem I am talking about here does not concern workers in frontier areas or the cross-border transport of workers from one country to another.
It concerns an owner-manager of a firm in the Netherlands who recently bought a second firm in Germany, one of the owners of SMEs whom we in Europe are so keen to encourage, because they create jobs.
This man, who now has two companies, one in the Netherlands and one in Germany, is not allowed by the Dutch customs authorities to drive a car with a German number plate - which he uses to visit German clients - in the Netherlands, not even if he pays all the relevant taxes for it there.
It is simply not allowed.
It would be if he were an employee, but he is an employer, and that makes all the difference.
The Dutch customs authorities have special legislation for such cases which is a huge obstacle to cross-border business, and this is something that we in the European Union should be encouraging, not impeding.
I am grateful to the honourable Member for that explanation and for further clarifying the issue.
The problem is that the vehicle is registered in Germany where the level of tax is lower, whereas the Dutch authorities consider that the vehicle is being used in Holland and ought therefore to be taxed in Holland.
Freedom of use of the vehicle throughout Europe requires full harmonization of taxes, and that is difficult, given that this is not so in the case for other goods.
As we see, then, the cause of the problem is, in the final analysis, a matter of taxation.
Since the problem exists, I agree with you that it is a problem and an impediment to the effective operation of the internal market.
That is why we decided to undertake the study I mentioned a moment ago.
That concludes Question Time.
Questions not taken for lack of time will be answered in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.27 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Return of cultural objects
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0309/96) on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending the Annex to Council Directive 93/7/EEC on the return of cultural objects unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State (C4-0379/96-95/0254 (COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Escudero).
Mr President, the general principle of the free movement of goods within the Union was the subject of certain appropriate restrictions on art objects described by Member States as forming part of their national treasure and heritage.
A list of cultural objects was produced which, above a certain financial limit fixed for each one, required authorization in order to be exported or, in accordance with the directive we are examining, should be returned to the Member State if they had been unlawfully removed from it.
However this list proved controversial as far as some cultural objects were concerned - watercolours, pastels and gouache drawings - which in some countries were regarded as drawings, with a certain financial sum, and in others were regarded as paintings, with a different financial sum.
Therefore the solution that was agreed - and unanimously approved - was the establishment of an intermediate category for these objects which was slightly higher than that for drawings and a lot lower than that for paintings.
Approved by the European Parliament (unanimously, during the first reading) it was subsequently adopted by the Council, without any amendments to the substance of the proposal in its common position.
However the Council did make two amendments to the Commission proposal: one concerning the procedure and the other of a technical nature.
The first one concerned the fact that, in order to guarantee the simultaneous entry into force of this proposal and the other one amending the regulation on the exporting of cultural objects, since there are two interdependent texts - the regulation and the directive - with a joint annex, it was suggested that the six-month period laid down for the incorporation of the directive into national law should commence from the date of publication rather than the date of adoption.
The second amendment stated that a footnote in the annex - footnote 1- would apply to the new category 3 a which had been created for watercolours, gouache drawings and pastels.
In my view, Mr President, both the provision concerning the period for incorporating the directive into national law and the one concerning the footnote which, logically, had also to cover the new category 3 a, are extremely reasonable and contribute to the fair application of the law, the amendment of which was passed by this House.
Thus, from my position of almost absolute solitude in Parliament, I take the liberty of asking for the House's support for these two proposals which would contribute to the standardization of what is laid down in the directive.
I hope that tomorrow you will have the company of the House during the vote.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, the Council's Directive relating to the return of cultural objects arouses our enthusiasm and raises great hopes.
Very great hopes indeed, since every Member State will be able, if it wishes, to return cultural objects which were unlawfully removed from the territory of other Member States before 1993.
At the end of the eighteenth century, Belgium experienced one of the darkest periods in its history.
During this period, my country was victim to a systematic pillage of works of art organised by revolutionary France.
Beginning in 1792 after the battle of Jemappes, and interrupted in 1793, it continued worse than ever after the battle of Fleurus in 1794.
The order was given by those in power in France to remove as much gold and silver as possible from Belgium.
Charles-Hilaire Laurent, a member of the Convention, on assignment there, wrote at the time to the Council for Protection of the Public: ' We will take care to remove everything from this country which might adorn it and make of it the most beautiful in the universe' .
This decision was heeded.
Hundreds of priceless manuscripts and extremely rare and ancient books were stolen, the works of our great painters - Reubens, Jordans, Van Eyck - were taken away to Paris and, in March 1795, an agency for commerce and extraction from Belgium was set up.
A French historian declared: ' Altarpieces in Belgian churches were removed without further ado, and sent to Paris, by simple right of conquest' .
Already in 1792 Dumoriez was aware of this banditry, then only in its infancy.
In a letter addressed to La Fayette, he remarked: ' The pillage of the peoples of Europe is part of the Revolution' .
In a notice intended for visitors to Caen's art gallery, you can read today: ' In 1801, Caen received a second delivery of paintings, which had been selected - lovely euphemism - by Napoleon during his campaigns' .
In 1818, the Allies laid claim to the canvasses which had come from their countries but, thanks to the wit - another euphemism - of the curator, no works of any importance were returned.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, in 1945, conquered Germany returned the forty works of art to Belgium which had been stolen from us by the Nazis during the last world war.
I dare to hope that France, conquered in 1815 at Waterloo, will perform its act of contrition and return to Belgium all of the works removed by those diabolical revolutionaries.
Mr President, I cannot hope to be as brief as the rapporteur who quite rightly proposed that you approve the Council's common position.
In fact, in line with the House's opinion during the first reading, the common position approves the Commission proposal without any amendments of substance. I welcome this since the final adoption of this proposal, which is now possible, will eventually guarantee identical treatment for watercolours, pastels and gouache drawings throughout the Union in the context of the return of cultural objects which were unlawfully removed from the territory of a Member State.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Epidemiological surveillance
The next item is the report (A4-0287/96) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision creating a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the European Community (COM(96)0078 - C4-0189/96-96/0052 (COD)).
Mr President, my dear colleagues, the hour has come for the proposal for a Parliament and Council Decision on epidemiological control and surveillance of communicable diseases in the European Union.
As my very honourable colleague pointed out, new diseases - like tuberculosis - are seeing a resurgence, while others are appearing which previously were not considered important, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob encephalopathy is an example of one of these.
Consequently, it is imperative that we insist upon the surveillance of communicable diseases.
European citizens need this surveillance for their own peace of mind, and so that they can feel secure they want the European Union to be able to recognise the various communicable diseases, to be able to sound the alarm if any danger appears and to be able to act when this danger materialises.
For this process of 'knowing' , reliable data needs to be collected, gathered by competent informants and transmitted to informants who can assemble it.
For this reason, it seems to us essential that this network is of the highest standard, and that it converges upon a common centre where all of the data can be collected.
To be of any use, the data must be comparable and any definitions must also be the same in all Member States.
At the moment, it is a regrettable fact that some Member States do not have information networks which are as effective as those of certain other Member States.
It is not enough to rely on a few clinical observations, but rather, as I have already pointed out, certain bacteriological observations should be made wherever possible for the purposes of getting to know the various dangerous microbial clones.
Knowing is therefore the primary objective, but an alert has also to be issued, which necessarily involves the centralisation of these data by a single agency, enabling the development of these diseases to be monitored constantly.
I have called for an agency of this kind in various reports.
It must really be a European health observatory, with responsibility for picking up new dangers and new threats of danger when they appear, and capable of sending out alerts in good time.
Indeed, it is not enough just to have a whole series of data; there must be a central body which can predict, which above all can suspect each new threat and warn all Member States about it.
Alerting is not enough, however.
The body which has collected, assembled and detected the threat must be able to 'act' by inciting the Member States at least to fight the epidemic and, better still, by telling them how.
I know that this poses enormous problems in the context of the European Union, where subsidiarity remains essential, but when it concerns the health of European citizens, subsidiarity must give way to security, and it is absolutely essential that the central body we have described has the resources to activate, or even compel, if not convince Member States to take necessary measures.
If we have the means, which are essential, their financing has still to be guaranteed since, at present, I am very surprised to note that no finance whatsoever is allocated to this programme.
To conclude, I would like to say that if we currently would like to have the means for perfect surveillance of the development of communicable diseases, to be able to protect the population of Europe, we need the resources to build a European health observatory, which is effective in recognition, alert and in the protection of European citizens.
Mr President, first of all I should just briefly like to observe that my esteemed colleague, Mr Ken Collins, will, I hope, be delighted to see me rush in on this subject.
Someone called 'Needle' speaking about inoculations and injections will, I think, certainly appeal to his sense of humour.
On a more serious point, I am very happy to welcome this thoughtful report and to thank Professor Cabrol for his work in its preparation.
The Socialist Group will certainly support its passage through Parliament and look forward to its implementation as soon as possible.
Let me also welcome the fact that the Commission has brought forward this analysis and these proposals after several years of preparation, particularly as it notes that it is not easy to provide an in-depth analysis of the existing situation, still less so to deliver a judgment on it.
In fact it is particularly appropriate that we should support this initiative now.
For one thing, the context of the CJD crisis has dominated European health debates for most of the year.
But 1996 also sees the 200th anniversary of the first successful immunization, by Edward Jenner, in England.
Now, thanks to medical and social advances, we can foresee eradication of leprosy, polio and river blindness.
But the ten biggest killers in the world continue to be infectious agents.
Many of them could be prevented or cured for as little as one dollar per person.
Our failure to do that means 50 million deaths each year are caused by communicable diseases.
Earlier this year the director-general of the World Health Organization warned that the world stands on the brink of a global infectious disease crisis.
'No country is immune' , he warned.
Under those circumstances no community can ignore the threat, particularly one as relatively wealthy as the European Union.
Progress in this field is achievable and is essential.
The World Health Organization has taken a lead via regulations and immunization programmes, but the Commission report shows that the global picture is at best erratic, with health networks in disarray both in the developing world and in much of Eastern Europe, with economic and social deprivation being key factors.
It is significant that this is a short or medium-term proposal at most, for many in this Parliament will agree that we could and should do much, much more than is proposed because of narrow minds in Member States.
That is why it is important that a full evaluation and review of the EU network role is completed within a maximum of five years, with proper accountability to this Parliament.
That is also why the list of diseases and pathogens to be covered by the surveillance system must be adaptable.
In the past 20 years, 30 new infectious diseases have emerged.
Just think of AIDS, Legionella, Ebola, Hepatitis C and E, and a new strain of cholera, which I have just heard has now hit the refugees in Zaire.
At that rate the five-year review could identify half a dozen more.
But the key question is how the EU will play a role within global and national developments.
It is crystal clear that international health bodies are at best resistant to the concept of another tier of bureaucracy.
They prefer issues such as capacity-building in Member States to be tackled within the existing framework, with cascades of common information.
That frankly means the money is unlikely to be forthcoming for anything more imaginative.
Also, the WHO remit, the G7 project and continuing discussions with the United States must be taken into account.
Liaison will be crucial as will the rapid agreement of common technologies and language and the training of users.
So, I retain reservations, but the committee has been guided by the view of Professor Cabrol that a European Centre for the Surveillance of Communicable Diseases is desirable and we shall await the view of the Council with interest.
But there is consistent agreement that what is desperately needed is clear, accurate and speedy information in a widely useable form.
It seems to me that the EU should be ideally placed to be a strong spoke, if not the actual hub of that important wheel.
We shall back the Commission and Professor Cabrol to work until it becomes reality.
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my support for the comments by Professor Cabrol and congratulate him on his work.
We must not forget that this proposal for a decision complements another one we examined recently on general health surveillance, and this is how it should be seen.
We must also bear in mind other initiatives such as the European Centre for the epidemiological surveillance of AIDS which was set up in 1987, and other similar initiatives.
In other words, the European Union has already taken quite important steps in this area.
The European Parliament has an essential obligation to support all of these Commission proposals since it must be acknowledged that the latter is producing them at short notice and in the spirit and letter of the Maastricht Treaty.
But we must also appeal to the Member States to reinforce, promote and supplement these actions as this is the only way of achieving the objectives laid down.
Moreover, as it is clear from the health situation in Europe that the prevalence of communicable diseases is increasing alarmingly, we in this House must condemn this unacceptable situation in a geographic, economic and social area such as Europe.
All the Member States' prevention policies have obviously failed, therefore active measures must be taken.
It must be remembered - and this is something that I have condemned repeatedly - that governments in Europe are devoting an average of only 2.4 % to preventive medicine, an amount which is obviously insignificant given the challenges facing us, when there are practically no more borders at world level and therefore the possibilities of transmission are legion.
It is no longer possible to speak of the diseases of underdeveloped countries since any of us could contract these diseases at any time.
There is one point I would like to underline: the Commission's approach, which I believe we should support. It proposes the coordination and improvement of existing systems rather than the creation of new ones; simply the necessary coordination of systems.
I think that this is an essential idea which we must develop.
When speaking of compulsory health, Mr President, care must also be taken as regards the confidentiality of the data collated, which raises ethical and legal problems. We have discussed these on various occasions in this House.
In addition a firm appeal must be made to citizens, with a clear call to those suffering from or carrying certain communicable diseases to assume responsibility, since their personal behaviour and solidarity are essential factors in curbing and controlling the transmission of these diseases.
Mr President, it is not often that reports come before this Parliament on the subject of public health.
So, today I too welcome the presentation of this specific report, which as the previous speaker also said, is supplementary to another one, and I congratulate a medical functionary, Professor Cabrol, on his report.
I asked to speak, not in order to add anything substantial to what the report contains, but mainly to support Mr Cabrol's proposal to create not a network, but a European Centre for the Monitoring of Communicable Diseases and at the same time implement an early warning system, as he himself said.
The Centre would have advantages not shared by the data network which the Commission and the Council want to propose.
It can make forecasts, it can carry out experimental investigations on whose basis directions could be issued to the Member States, not on how to deal with the problem once it has arisen, but how to prevent it arising at all, and above all, through its branches in the Member States, which must exist, it will be able to set alarm bells ringing earlier, a factor which makes it able to deal with problems more effectively.
Finally, I express my disquiet about what I heard from Mr Cabrol concerning funding for this great issue.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is more important for the European Parliament to find a way to get money from the Commission for this purpose, than to find the 50 MECU every year that we approved for the publicity campaign in favour of EMU.
The time has come to pay greater attention to Europe's peoples, to human beings, and less to numbers.
Mr President, the BSE crisis has kept us in Europe busy for some months now, and continues to do so.
The Union's inability to provide an adequate response to BSE has greatly alarmed us all, and is further proof that the Union lacks a clear policy on how to deal with infectious diseases.
Systems vary from country to country and are not coordinated and therefore not efficient.
But the citizens of Europe have a right to be alerted to dangers and to be reassured about them, and this is why it seems entirely logical to me to have a European network which can warn the various health care systems in good time and coordinate the measures taken.
Is it not strange that our governments should be using the subsidiarity principle as an excuse for refusing to cooperate in setting up an efficient European structure which would be able to warn all our health systems about outbreaks of infectious diseases and epidemics?
I find it very worrying that the Council seems not to realize how important such a network would be and has not allocated funding to set it up.
Mr President, our group fully supports the Cabrol report, which substantially improves the proposal for the establishment of a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in Europe.
This initiative is significant for three very important reasons: first because - as has already been said - infectious diseases are on the increase in Europe, reflecting the fact (which must not be forgotten) that social conditions are worsening. With the economic policies being pursued, I fear that these will continue to worsen.
Therefore it is vital to have this instrument in order to take appropriate action.
Second because, perhaps as a result of the side-effects of our policies, infectious diseases are also increasing at an alarming rate in the countries of Eastern Europe, which, due to the relations which exist, poses an obvious threat to us.
Lastly, there is a third very important geographic area - Africa - where many infectious diseases are also increasing, for other reasons, at an alarming rate, which also makes these measures necessary.
However, I think it must be pointed out that it is not enough - as has already been said - to have a surveillance network to carry out the tasks mentioned. It will also be necessary to take measures, in addition to prevention and treatment, to eliminate the social conditions which trigger off these diseases.
It is therefore vital to move in this direction by giving full support to the Commission, to the Cabrol report and to whatever steps are taken by the Council.
Mr President, I think we must thank our colleague Christian Cabrol for the work he has done and of which, as he said, the hour has not only come but which, in practical terms, is rapidly set to become extremely urgent.
Today we must acknowledge this European initiative, which rides roughshod through delicacies, reticence, the rather shrivelled concerns and the subsidiarities to serve at last the cause of public health of all of our fellow European citizens.
He underlined the three most important objectives: firstly, the collection of information, giving particularly specific details with respect to the type, method and identical nature of the information required, then the establishment of an early warning system to departments responsible; finally the coordination of reaction.
I am particularly pleased at what he said when, with a kind of clever gradation, he mentioned the fact that it would be necessary to suggest, then advise, then convince and, if necessary, compel.
I really should say that at present, every State in Europe, or almost, has its own network, its own system.
The amalgamation of these networks seems a logical next step.
I would, however, like to highlight two things.
The first is the existence and the particularly active nature of the European branch of the WHO.
It is naturally appropriate that we should work with the World Health Organisation, and in particular with its associate centres which, in Europe, are particularly active, and I think with respect to this that avoiding doubling up will also be a concern.
The second item concerns contamination, through diet with certain diseases of which Creuzfeldt-Jakob is an important example.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy has shown us, in any case, the inadequacies of our current system.
Let us hope that this initiative is a first step in the direction of the progress we must make in the protection of our fellow citizens.
To tell the truth, it is in the direction of the constitution and activity of a large administration, which could perform the same functions as the Food and Drug Administration as it exists in the United States of America and which works wonders in the protection of American citizens, that we must be going.
While we await this constructive innovation, we must be glad about any initiative which strengthens the solidarity between the citizens of the Union, and more particularly about the initiative that Christian Cabrol is about to take.
Mr President, Professor Cabrol's report, which everybody agrees is remarkable, proposes a network for epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases.
This is an excellent initiative and a topical subject, when we are seeing the resurgence of old diseases, of bacteria which are becoming resistant to antibiotics, the emergence of new pathologies, AIDS and BSE.
So, if I have understood Professor Cabrol correctly, we must rebuild Atlanta, even if we already have epidemiological surveillance centres, and I am thinking of BSE and what Mrs Alterovitch is doing for example, in France.
So a European surveillance centre, a European observatory would be created.
Professor Cabrol, every time I see the word 'European' , I do not draw my revolver, but I feel worried.
The Committee of Inquiry into BSE, moreover, showed that Europe really does have something to worry about.
First, you tell me that the primary mission of this observatory would be to 'know' .
But when as part of the Committee on Agriculture, before the European Commission, I propose quite simply the classification of potential zoonoses, as the WHO and the International Epizootics Organisation does, who is it who objects simply to the term potential zoonosis, as against recognised zoonoses? The European Commission.
You say, ' early warning' , but no European authority gave us an alert, and certainly not those clowns on the Standing Veterinary Committee, an example of whom we had at the committee of inquiry in the form of a Danish lady who irritated even the most pro-European.
You say 'act' , but it was the Nation States, by the principle of subsidiarity, who gave permission for action in the BSE affair.
All that the Commission has done is to pursue the five German Länders who refused to eat or to accept British cattle.
I can see in this, Professor Cabrol, the surgeon who has got to the end of the road and who only treats the symptoms.
The real causes of all of these communicable diseases are immigration, drugs, under-development and ultraliberalism.
These are the things which have caused unemployment, which have created a landscape of poverty and caused the resurgence of tuberculosis.
It was the European establishment, by its blindness, which was the source of BSE, so that the most formidable of communicable diseases, the ideological prion which is the source of everything, is perhaps European spongiform encephalopathy, and of this we are your 'sentinel' GPs, my dear colleague, Professor Cabrol.
Mr President, with his excellent explanation of the motives and his excellent intervention of a few minutes ago, Professor Cabrol supported with common sense and scientific rigour the amendments which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is proposing to this House.
He bases all of this on one question, which should be the only one used as a guideline by us, the representatives of citizens, in relation to public health: what are the needs of European citizens? It is hard to believe that there are still some Member States in the Council - fewer and fewer each time, from what I have heard, and only one in this case - which, via their governments, also representing citizens, are not asking the same question, or consider another question to be more important: what powers am I losing?
Subsidiarity has turned into a moral alibi for those who do not believe in the historic development of the European Union and for those who resist the removal of our political borders.
The exceedingly cautious nature of Article 129 of the Treaty, concerning health, recommends certain actions which underpin the approach of the Member States.
If anything in the area of health requires a transnational approach, it is communicable diseases.
If anything has a Community dimension, it is epidemiological surveillance and the need to create a network and a European centre for this purpose.
If there is any rational, scientific need as regards Community legislation, it is for a regulation obliging Member States to harmonize their laws, provide mutual information and coordinate their activities in the field of communicable diseases.
Let us rely on the Council (or all the Council members) to look at it in this way. Once again this House requests that it receive the Commission proposal positively and that it enrich it with the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Thank you, Mr Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Towards sustainability (Community programme)
The next item is the report (A4-0300/96) by Mrs Dybkjær, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision on the review of the European Community programme of policy and action in relation to the environment and sustainable development 'Towards sustainability' (COM(95)0647 - C4-0147/96-96/0027 (COD)).
Mr President, it is my pleasure, as rapporteur of the Committee on the Environment, to present this report with the corresponding amendments.
I must first take this opportunity of thanking all those who have participated, the president, the assistant rapporteurs, the rapporteurs from different committees, the assistants and the committee's members for their constructive contributions to the process, both technically and practically.
The background to this work was that a decision had been taken, in conjunction with implementation of the fifth environmental action programme, to carry out a mid-term assessment in 1995 against the background of concrete analyses of developments since 1992.
To this end the Commission produced a situation report which was then supplemented by a report from the Environment Agency.
This situation report is cautiously optimistic, and overall is quite lyrical, speaking of seeds, buds and flowers that need tending and watering.
The Commission's concluding report, against the background of the situation report, is more straightforward.
It lacks the necessary changes of attitude and the will to take the giant step forward that is required in order to advance in the direction of sustainability.
The Environment Agency's report says that the European Union is making progress in its campaign to reduce certain forms of environmental stress, but not in the sense of improving the general quality of the environment, and certainly not in the sense of ensuring a sustainable development.
In other words, if we are not careful, we will not be left with many seeds, buds and flowers that we can water, and it is not altogether clear that we will have a healthy water supply with which to water them.
The conclusion is that development eats ups improvements.
Changes are necessary to achieve the objectives.
It is against the background of the strong lead from the Commission, both now and earlier, that we must see the further treatment and discussion of the Commission's recommendation, which is also the reason why people on all sides have criticized it in such strong terms on the grounds of its abstract nature, backed up in general terms by the director for DG XI who has referred to the Commission's work as proposed 'guidelines' , which is of course something quite different from a new assessment of the extent to which the fifth environmental programme's objectives, in terms of sustainable development, can be achieved.
The recommendations provide no indication of what the situation will be like in the year 2000.
There is no concrete relationship between actions and words.
In order to straighten out these matters, therefore, the committee has broadly agreed on 50 amendments in an attempt to improve the situation.
Since the Commissioner has publicly expressed criticism of the way in which the committee operates, betraying clear errors and misunderstandings, it is perhaps appropriate to make a statement on how the process has developed.
The committee first discussed whether it should send a recommendation back to the Commission with the words 'to be revised' .
We abandoned this approach for two reasons: we had no confidence that we would produce better amendments and we did not wish to lose any time.
Against this background I, as rapporteur, put forward 100 amendments which were supplemented by a further 100 from the committee members.
When the final voting took place in the committee, around 100 of these amendments were adopted.
After achieving this success, as one might regard it, I was encouraged to reduce the number of amendments through further deliberation with the assistant rapporteurs from other groups.
Not because there was disagreement on the amendments, but because such a large number of amendments in a conciliation procedure might be regarded as too cumbersome.
This work was carried out and, as already mentioned, there is great unity amongst the groups concerning the 50 amendments which have now been given top priority.
In other words, it is not the case that the committee is turning its back on the amendments it made earlier, but that we recognize that if the original amendments were a poor starting point, it would be impossible to deal with such a large number of amendments.
And so back to our report.
The Commission's recommendation of a new assessment is a retrograde step in terms of the original fifth environmental action programme.
The positive commitments have been completely watered down, and there is no trace of a binding time frame.
Therefore the main content of the amendments, proposed by a broad majority, is a concrete expression of the recommendation, and there is a reference in several places to a time frame of the end of 1997.
The committee is well aware that 1997 is unrealistic; at best the recommendation will take us through 1997. But we have made it clear that time is of the essence, and without a tangible time frame and the setting of priorities, we do not have an earthly chance of achieving our goals.
Finally I would add the following. The Commission must of course take the Member States with it.
As we are quite aware, it is often the Member States that oppose environmental recommendations, but we will get nowhere if the Commission does not impose its authority.
It is, and will remain, the Commission's task, in this as in other areas, to be the driving force.
That is the purpose of the Commission.
If it fails in this task, it has no justification.
Rather than criticize the committee and its amendments, therefore, the Commissioner should be glad at the support for the environment which the European Parliament is giving in these amendments.
It should give the Commissioner a better basis for his activities in the Commission and with respect to the Council.
The European Parliament has thus come to realize that this is how other Commissioners see Parliament.
Mr President, the fifth environmental action programme emphasizes the importance of long-term energy strategies to ensure that environmental stress from energy supply and consumption is reduced to sustainable levels.
Greater efforts are required to achieve this, particularly taking into account the considerable and indeed, actual, growth in the transport sector.
Whereas energy consumption has been reduced in industry and other areas, it continues to increase in transport.
With respect to energy efficiency the committee considers that one of the European Union policy initiatives with a potential impact on the demand side is the SAVE programme.
Parliament has supported the SAVE II programme but the Council has failed to accept the importance of SAVE II for important energy efficiency measures in the energy sector.
If SAVE II is not adopted fully, then we will have adopted no energy policy in the European Union to combat global warming.
I need not emphasize the seriousness of this.
While most areas of environmental concern are addressed in the programme at some length, nuclear issues are only briefly touched upon despite the fact that vast tracts of land within and bordering the EU Member States have been contaminated by nuclear incidents or accidents of one variety or another.
From the point of view of sustainability, if Member States of the European Union are to continue with this technology, the industry as a whole needs to be evaluated to ensure that measures are taken within the programme that put the principle of sustainability at the centre of decision-making.
Any further contamination, such as another Chernobyl-type accident will create an environmental deficit and liability for future generations that will make sustainability an impossible goal to achieve.
I know that the Committee on the Environment has adopted amendments stating that nuclear power is intrinsically unsustainable.
The Energy Committee of the European Parliament refuses to endorse this position.
Therefore we have a conflict within Parliament itself.
I suggest that we need to resolve this complex problem by means of a hearing involving the Commission, the Commissioner herself, and the committees with these differing views.
It is a very serious issue.
As draftsman of an opinion, I remain convinced that agricultural economic development and the improvement of the environment are compatible.
The future development of agriculture and the maintenance of rural populations will necessarily involve an improvement in the conditions of environmental insertion of agriculture into rural countryside and ecosystems.
Sustainable development, in agriculture, is a system of economic development which can be maintained, long term, without any noticeable impact on the environment.
For the last thirty years, significant improvements have been secured for the environment in areas such as the reduction in pesticides, chemical fertilisers and animal faeces.
But some problems remain, with the increasing artificialisation of methods of production in farming and changes in foodstuffs, with the effectiveness of agroenvironmental measures and the reform of the CAP, and with the aid available for policies relating to quality and alternative farming methods, such as organic farming, particularly in livestock farming, as demonstrated by the current crisis relating to BSE.
Sustainable development in agriculture should be translated into clear technical action and characterised by at least four criteria: the maintenance of or increase in the productive capacity of agricultural land; the production of high quality organic foodstuffs which do not leave pollutant residues; the use of renewable energy and materials such as wood; the maintenance of biodiversity.
The amendments of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development which all led in this direction and which represent a very positive growth in awareness of the responsibilities of this sector towards the environment have not been retained, even though the European Commission has stressed its interest.
With 29 of my colleagues, I have therefore retabled the six amendments rejected by the Committee on the Environment, and these are: 103, the improved integration of agriculture and the environment; 104, the introduction of a notion of agricultural intrants much broader than that of pesticides; 105, the encouragement of all forms of sustainable agriculture, particularly at the level of research; 106, the implementation of a consumer information policy; 107, the promotion of agricultural intrants which are least harmful, and renewable energy sources and materials such as wood to ensure sustainable prospects for products of European forests; and lastly, 108, the definition and development of a European forestry strategy which is based on the multifunctional role of the forest.
All of these amendments lead in the direction of sustainable development in agriculture.
My dear, colleagues, I would like you to understand that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development demonstrates hereby its sense of responsibility towards the environment.
By voting for these amendments, you will be encouraging this attitude.
Mr President, ' Towards sustainability' is both the title of the programme and its objective.
The scrutiny which the House has to perform today is certainly no easy task, since the rapporteur, Mrs Dybkjær, has transformed the Commission's rather insubstantial communication into an extensive report.
The report is of course an extensive one not least because of the numerous amendments, and my group supports the negotiated withdrawal of some of these, so that the programme which we adopt can serve its intended purpose: a revision, a process of taking stock, providing an overview of the extent to which the objectives are realistic and have been achieved, and of what still needs to be done to reach the goal of sustainable environmental development in the Union.
We know that we are a long way from achieving these objectives, as the European Environment Agency has confirmed. Not only will major efforts be required, but also a very specific timetable, which must be practicable and verifiable.
I should like to comment on three areas which are of particular concern to me.
First of all, it is especially important, in my opinion, for us to pay heed to the international commitments and agreements entered into by the European Union in the field of sustainable development.
I am not only thinking here of the Rio follow-up process, Agenda 21, a European strategy for biodiversity and measures to reduce CO2 emissions; what is even more important, in my view, is our participation in the Environment for Europe process, since it involves countries which have applied for admission to our Community, and towards which we already have certain responsibilities.
I also feel it is very important that the Community's environmental standards should be raised to the level of those in the three new Member States, so as to introduce better environmental standards throughout the Community, for the benefit of all our citizens.
It is also extremely necessary and important to examine the extent to which existing Community policies ensure sustainable development.
A good deal has already been said on this point, but a brief list would include the policies on chemicals, energy, waste management, transport, tourism and above all, of course, agriculture.
We have tabled amendments dealing in greater detail with how the budget can be adapted to take more account of environmental concerns, and what is to be made of 'green accounting' .
Most important of all, without a doubt, is the protection of human health, because only if this is protected will we have a future at all.
Finally, forward-looking Community policies which respect the environment and create jobs must be promoted, because only by setting ambitious environmental objectives for the future will we be able to develop our economy in a way that secures a future for Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Let me begin by congratulating the rapporteur on the excellent job she has done.
This intermediate report on the review of the Community programme of policy and action in relation to the environment and sustainable development, is designed both to assess and to identify those obstacles that could stand in the way of its application and to put forward possible corrective measures for the period 1997-200.
The key expression is 'sustainable development' which means making changes in current development, production and behavioural models in order gradually to steer human activity and development towards sustainable, that is acceptable, forms that will enable us to live in an environment that is in a healthy state and, at the same time, guarantee a proper level of social well-being and public health for all.
The aim is certainly an ambitious one and its achievement depends on the coordination and consistency of the political strategies that are to be put into effect, as well as the effective integration of the environmental aspect into all other policies in order to limit, as far as possible, the inexorable pressures that contribute to the depletion of natural resources, the deterioration of the environment and, consequently, impoverishment of the quality of life.
In those terms, the Community programme currently in force is the main text that identifies the action to be taken in five sectors which, because of their characteristics, affect the environment directly or indirectly and, at any rate, have a major environmental impact.
Those sectors are: industry, energy, transport, agriculture and tourism.
We are for the first time faced with a new approach in which an overall view is taken to the environment, development and socio-economic activity.
It is important that all of this should be endorsed within the European Institutions.
We cannot, however, support measures designed to exert the kind of fiscal pressure that it is difficult to cope with and the imposition of excessively rigid time-limits which excessively penalize not just industry but also those operating in those sectors.
Finally, this review provides an exceptional opportunity to improve the quality of the state of the Community's environment, and approving the guidelines will therefore certainly be important and definitely useful for all the Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are surely all agreed that the Union's sustainable development measures have so far been inadequate.
This is also apparent from the Commission's report.
The citizens of the EU Member States expect concrete evidence that the European Union is genuinely acting in the interests of their safety and their future.
I hope that the fifth environmental programme can be implemented and its undertakings put into practice quickly, and that no pointless prestige issues, for example concerning timetables, will be allowed to arise among the Union institutions.
We must not endanger the preparation of the next new environmental programme.
From a northern European perspective I would have liked the problems of the Baltic region to be stressed more.
I do not believe that the Baltic can be compared to the Mediterranean.
Nearly all the countries around the Baltic are either current Member States or - in a number of cases - have at least applied for membership.
I hope the Community will devote more attention than at present to the environmental problems of the Baltic and will step up its action in the region.
This also means greater financial effort.
In addition, the new Member States ought to be able to retain more stringent environmental standards and adopt new regulations to improve the state of the environment.
Mr President, Commissioner, your punishment appears to be that you have to stay here on Tuesday nights with the members of the Committee on the Environment.
First of all, I would like to say that I am speaking on behalf of my colleague, Maruja Sornosa, who had to leave.
We must congratulate the rapporteur on her work, and say that we also agree with her criticism of the proposal.
We agree with the criticism and we also agree with the lack of precision as regards the measures to be taken and with the lack of binding decisions and responsibilities.
Around 200 amendments were tabled by the Committee on the Environment.
Yesterday, at the meeting of the Committee on the Environment we found out that, as there were a lot of amendments, the political groups - I do not know whether it was all of them - decided to reduce the number of amendments.
In any case, we hope that it is decided to maintain the ones that are really significant for this report.
The aim of these 200 amendments was to change the direction of the proposal for a decision because, in our view, it is necessary to return to the initial objectives of the Fifth Action Programme.
This debate and the principles underlying the Fifth Action Programme are very important, and if we do not ensure the rational management and rational distribution of resources, we will not be able to achieve the original objectives of the Fifth programme.
Particularly if it is borne in mind that Community law - and we will see this later on with Mr Lannoye's report - is sometimes not complied with.
Mr President, last year, according to the FAO, seven million children died of hunger.
In a report from the World Watch Institute prior to the UN summit meeting tomorrow in Rome on the world&#x02BC;s disastrous foodstuffs situation, it was demonstrated that one of the many reasons for world hunger is the excessive use of chemical agents.
Another reason is the greenhouse effect which can affect arable land.
How, then, is one of the world&#x02BC;s richest regions, the EU, contributing towards the fight against this sort of threat?
According to the EU&#x02BC;s own modest objectives in the fifth programme of measures for the environment, the use of chemical agents should be reduced to zero in subsoil water by the year 2005 and carbon dioxide emissions be stabilised at the 1990 level by the year 2000.
But now the EU&#x02BC;s own environment office has shown that these two objectives will not be met by means of the present policies.
By the year 2000 chemical agents will continue to exceed the limit value in 65 % of the subsoil water in the EU, and the emission of carbon dioxide will be 5-10 % higher than in 1990.
These are only two examples of how the EU&#x02BC;s policies do not lead to the fulfilment of even one of the EU&#x02BC;s own low environmental targets in the fifth programme of measures for the environment.
This relevant also in the case of acid rain, nitrates in the subsoil water, noise, alternative sources of energy and much more.
In brief: the EU&#x02BC;s environmental policies are, by the EU&#x02BC;s own calculations, in tatters.
What, then, does the highest authority, the Commissioner, do?
She does practically nothing.
The Commission&#x02BC;s assessment of the fifth programme of measures for the environment is devoid of content.
Now, at the prompting of the Greens, the Environmental Committee has, instead, done the work which Ritt Bjerregaard should have done.
This leads inevitably to a sensitive question.
If Ritt Bjerregaard is not doing her job, is she needed? It is necessary to be a bit personal here...
And let me say this in Danish also in order to demonstrate that I am not just speaking as spokesman for the Greens, but also as one who feels close ties with Denmark.
It is just that we are disappointed, very disappointed.
We believed that a strong personality from a country which leads in environmental matters could have placed the environment and sustainable development high on the Commission's agenda.
Instead we have come to realize that it has been placed at the bottom.
Unfortunately you have acted too much as a participant in the Danish power and media struggles and too little as spokesperson for the environment and for global solidarity against the powerful lobbyists acting on behalf of the politics of growth and exploitation, both in and outside the Commission.
If you are not prepared today to accept our amendments and those of the Environment Committee and wish to change your tactics, we must ask that you leave this position and that Denmark sends us one of its many good environmental politicians as a new environmental Commissioner.
Mr President, in Danish we have a saying to the effect that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The Commission intends to develop better procedures, frameworks and forms of action, and to improve the instruments it has to offer, but we now have only two months until 1997. What results can the Commission hope to achieve if it is only now starting to develop these various areas?
The Commission will pay greater attention to harmful factors, to the development of concepts and greater incentives, but here too we must ask: with what results? The European Environmental Agency has concluded that if efforts are not stepped up, the effects on the environment will continue to exceed the human safety standards.
This shows that our consumption of materials and energy is rising sharply.
At the same time rapidly increasing car ownership and tourism are subjecting the environment to progressively more intense effects.
These developments are regarded as catastrophic in terms of the management of waste and the volume of nitrates in the ground water.
Forecasts indicate that the volume of public waste will rise by as much as 30 % by the year 2000 and this is far in excess of the target.
The growing nitrate and pesticide concentrations in the ground water are expected to exceed the target by over 75 % in the EU's agricultural areas.
There is a real need for revision of the programme set to handle this if the targets are to be met even approximately.
Was it not in fact this that the Commission was meant to tackle?
In conclusion, then, I would like to thank Lone Dybkjær for her report.
Mr President, I am extremely puzzled - like Mrs González - to see that the rapporteur had to submit no fewer than 90 amendments, and the corresponding committee another 100, to bring the text proposed by the Commission for the revision of the Fifth Action Programme on sustainable development - in relation to which I had the honour of being the original rapporteur - into line with the resolution adopted by this House on 18 November 1992, and with paragraph 2 of Article 130r of the Treaty on European Union.
Despite the fact that the rapporteur apparently reached agreement with the group coordinators subsequently, as she acknowledged, in order to reduce such an astronomical number of amendments, it is obvious that the text submitted by the Commission has not been amended, but rather rewritten to produce a new sixth action programme.
In my view, Mr President, and as pointed out by the rapporteur, the Commission had the obligation of at least submitting to Parliament an adequate text, given the importance of the review of the Fifth Programme, containing objectives, instruments and specific timetables to assess, apply and achieve the objectives of sustainable development and the principle of integration contained in the original action programme which is still valid.
This did not happen, as is crystal clear from the huge number of amendments.
As we are pushed for time, I will conclude with the following question: does the Commission sincerely believe that the text it proposed will serve to speed up the implementation of the Fifth Programme and improve the quality of the Union's environment, or will we have to wait, as usual, for a new sixth action programme?
Mr President, the Fifth Action Programme for the Environment was different from its predecessors, because it envisaged a review.
The idea of the review was and is to adapt the objectives and means as they are outlined today after the programme is approved, in order to improve its efficacy.
Among other inadequacies of the Commission's proposal, the most blatant in my opinion is the lack of an explicit link between the protection of man's health and environmental hazards.
To achieve that aim in relation to sustainable development, the health factor must be seriously taken into account in every sector of Community policy and action, sectors such as agriculture, transport, energy, industry, tourism and others.
Great attention should also be given to the gathering and processing of data that reflect the situation of the human population's health and diseases in relation to the state of the environment.
Maximum acceptable limits for dangerous substances and pollutants in air, water, soil and foods should be constantly reviewed and adapted in line with the scientific information available at the time.
And there should also be an integrated approach to the factors that influence the accidents caused by means of transport, especially those that result in loss of life or cause disablement and entail prolonged treatment, accidents that have major economic and social consequences.
The European Union must develop activities aimed at the systematic cultivation and communication of the new environmental awareness, so that European society can participate fully in managing the environment and change its consumer behaviour.
Finally, Mr President, the future Sixth Action Programme for the Environment, when it is worked out, must explicitly provide for the protection of health from environmental hazards.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I shall not speak Danish like Mr Gahrton, but I would like to congratulate Lone Dybkjær on a very good report.
I must say that I support the criticism of the Commissioner&#x02BC;s supervision of the fifth programme of measures of the environment.
The proposal which Ritt Bjerregaard has put forward represents, in fact, a retrograde step and contains, disastrously, no concrete political undertakings in respect of Europe&#x02BC;s environment.
An important objective behind the supervision of the environmental legislation in the EU should be that the new Member States, i.e. Sweden, Finland and Austria, should be able to retain their high environmental standards and that the EU&#x02BC;s environmental legislation be intensified so that the highest level of environmental protection can be achieved by 1999.
Another important Swedish requirement is to integrate the environmental aspects of the EU&#x02BC;s agricultural policy.
Objectives and resources in the agricultural policy must accord with the direction of the environmental policy, for us to be able to achieve results and press on towards sustainable development.
The reform of the EU&#x02BC;s agricultural policy which is planned must, therefore, have a clear environmental profile.
This may be achieved, for example, by agricultural subsidies being changed from one concentrating on production, to one giving priority to the environment.
In this way a better environment will be created while, at the same time, participation in a world market is made easier.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the Environment Committee and Lone Dybkjær on a very good report with much concrete political content. A major problem with the EU&#x02BC;s and the Commission&#x02BC;s environmental policy at present is that it is rich in fine words, but when it comes to action, it is are often too small and often comes too late.
There are some points which I would really like to bring out and focus on in the report, including the following:
The vital need to move agricultural policy to an environmentally friendly direction; we should not lose the golden opportunity to do this now that agricultural policy has still to undergo fundamental change prior to the extension eastwards.-The need for the European Union to really fulfil its promises regarding greater environmental standards which it gave to the new Member States in the course of membership negotiations.-Criticism of the Euratom Treaty and its objective of promoting civil nuclear power use and of the imbalance in the division of resources in energy research.-The necessity of changing the regulations regarding public purchasing so that real attention is paid to the environment.-The need to focus on environmental issues in the World Trade Organisation.There are here a number of positive proposals which similarly emphasise the great weaknesses in the EU&#x02BC;s environmental policy today and that is why this is such a good report.
Mr President, after listening to all my colleagues, I think that the reaction to this new Commission proposal is one of general dissatisfaction by all the Members of this House.
Perhaps this is because we had examined the Fifth Programme very carefully and Parliament had produced a very firm, solid resolution laying down objectives which are still valid - in relation to which we must be grateful to Mrs Díez de Rivera for the magnificent job she did at that time.
As regards examining these new measures, I think that we should have laid down very few objectives and have required the fulfilment of these more clearly. I would be content with 7 or 8 of the proposals contained in this review (this is something that we have constantly repeated), which should have been turned into questions: what has the European Commission done so far in order to consolidate the internalization of external costs of all products?
What has it done to promote the use of more environmentally-friendly modes of transport?
What has it done to encourage the development of renewable energy sources such as solar energy?
What has it actually done to apply a policy which integrates and is aimed at the final life cycle of products?
What has it actually done - and this issue has been on the agenda for some time - to ensure that responsibilities are assumed in relation to the environment?
We could go on in this way, paraphrasing the proposals made in this text.
I do not think that one hundred amendments are necessary - four or five proposals would be enough for me provided that the Commission undertook to implement these within a reasonable period of time.
Mr President, the report from Lone Dybkjær provides a valuable addendum to the Commission&#x02BC;s proposal.
I shall concentrate upon the aspects which concern the question of climate.
I am convinced that this is a decisive factor with regard to the environment.
This is thus an appropriate opportunity to point the EU at a goal after the year 2000.
The Toronto conference&#x02BC;s proposals in 1987 have had a major political influence.
At that time there was a call for a 20 % reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by the industrial nations by the year 2005, compared with 1987.
It is this objective which most closely accords with the PPE Group&#x02BC;s proposal for a reduction of 20 % by the year 2010, since the start year was moved forward to 1990 in accordance with the decision of the Rio meeting.
This, in my view, is a tough target, but it should be possible to achieve it.
A majority of the committee voted, however, for an even tougher objective, with -20 % up to the year 2005, and -30 % by the year 2010.
I consider this to be an unrealistic proposal.
It is interesting that the same majority wishes to phase out nuclear power at a rapid pace.
This makes the objective even more unrealistic.
An aggressive environmental policy should be to retain nuclear power as long as it meets the high safety requirements and to concentrate upon energy savings, bio-fuels etc., so as to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and thereby reduce the emission of carbon dioxide.
It is also time to acknowledge that our nuclear power in the EU has saved many people&#x02BC;s lives.
If, on the basis of the Commission&#x02BC;s external report, we make an assessment of nuclear power 1985-1994 and compare it with coal condensate power, we come the conclusion that nuclear power has saved 20 000 human lives and, in addition, has protected us from major environmental damage to our natural surroundings.
We can, on the other hand, make considerable efforts to phase out nuclear power in Eastern and Central Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since changes within our group make this the last partsession at which I am able to take the floor as a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I should like to use the opportunity of today's debate on the EU programme 'Towards sustainability' to raise for one last time something which is a pressing concern of the Austrian people.
When the European Union was enlarged in 1995, an assurance was written into the Treaty of Accession to the effect that the legal provisions in the Community would be reviewed and, where necessary, brought up to the standards of the three new Member States.
This matter has now been with us for over two years here in the House, and I think it is high time for the Commissioner's promises in this area to be kept.
We are waiting for these standards to be raised, and I thank the Commissioner once again for having promised to do all in her power to ensure that the standards are complied with.
Mr President, I am glad that Parliament is today debating the Commission's proposal of 24 January 1996 regarding adjustment of the fifth environmental action programme.
This is in fact the first time Parliament has had the opportunity to debate an EU plan of action for the environment under the procedures for joint decision-making.
I have been personally gratified by the fact that in this way it has been possible for Parliament to be more actively involved, and because in the area of the environment Parliament is a good partner when it comes to improving the environment, and I will come back to this point.
I hope that the results of today's debate will make it possible for the Council to debate the Commission's proposal regarding its next meeting of 9-10 December 1996, and that the decision-making procedures can be concluded by June 1997 when the UN General Assembly holds its meeting to follow up on the Rio Conference.
The rapporteur, Mrs Lone Dybkjær, has put a great deal of work into this report which is now submitted to Parliament, and there have been many exhaustive and useful debates in the Environment Committee, in the Agriculture Committee, in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and in the Transport and Tourism Committee.
All in all the report, as it has now been submitted, contains 53 amendments, to which a further 13 amendments have now been added.
The Commission can accept 14 of these amendments in full, in part or in principal.
For institutional reasons, or because the amendments significantly affect the area of application of the Commission's proposal, 39 of the amendments cannot be accepted.
For the sake of good order I will name these: Nos 1, 4-7, 13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 27, 35, 37, 40, 44, 45, 47, 48, 50, 56, 57, 59, 66, 76, 81, 82, 85-87, 89, 91-93, 97-99, 100-102.
Of the 13 new amendments 6 can be accepted in full, namely Nos 104, 105, 106, 107, 108 and 109.
The rest we are unable to accept.
I would like to make some comments on the amendments in their entirety.
In various amendments the Commission has requested that amendments be tabled before a certain date and with an indication of their content.
Parliament knows that, for institutional reasons, I am unable to accept the possibility of the text containing provisions on what the Commission ought to do and by when.
An action programme is not a detailed work programme for the Commission.
What we are dealing with is a mid-term report, and a joint effort should ensure that we achieve an improved environmental standard in Europe.
The proposal is designed so that it contributes to ensuring a more effective realization of the current Fifth Action Programme by the year 2000.
The proposal is, as it was in the past, based on the report on the environmental situation from the European Environment Agency and, as has been stressed, it is alarming.
The proposal lays down priorities which are becoming, or indeed already are, geared towards particular provisions.
Some are already included in the action programme for 1996, and others are planned for 1997.
I have certainly not taken the view that assessment of the Fifth Action Programme should stand in the way of concrete initiatives.
This is what there has been debate about in the Danish press, where I have responded to the rapporteur's criticism of the proposal, as I also do here this evening, and I am sorry to have to tell Mr Gahrton that I do not unfortunately believe it will be possible for many Commissioners to subscribe to all the proposals that have been put forward by the Green Group.
I hope we will get a professional debate of each proposal, for which the Green Group will have its rapporteur later in the evening, and in which area I feel there has been excellent cooperation.
The proposal clearly cannot cover arrangements for which the Member States or other partners involved in the programme are supposed to provide.
The programme's success depends to a very significant degree on each party taking its own share of the responsibility.
I would remind you that the fifth programme runs until the year 2000, and that it consists of a whole series of objectives with details on how the parties can take initiatives at all levels in order to achieve these goals.
These objectives, as several have already made clear, and as others may well point out in the future, have not yet been achieved.
However Parliament's and the Council's resolutions do in fact contain provisions for revision of the programme.
In no sense is there the intention of revising the programme overall.
Nor is it appropriate at this stage to start preparing the seventh programme, as mentioned by Mrs Díez de Rivera in her remarks, and thereby set new objectives or new terms.
It is clearly this which has given rise to disunity between the Commission and Parliament.
The text is a political response to the conclusions in both the report on implementation and the environment report from the European Environment Agency.
It has been a very comprehensive hearing procedure and the aim is to give a new impetus through Community arrangements.
Therefore the Commission has proposed some high priority key areas in which Community involvement must be accelerated over the next two years in order to implement the programme more effectively, and here I am in strong agreement with Parliament.
This has to do with a better integration of environmental considerations in the most important - including the economic - areas of action. Many have discussed agriculture, which we too have discussed on other occasions.
It involves a wide range of political instruments, compared with the traditional instructions and control methods.
It has to do with additional and better enforced legislation, and in this connection I would refer to the communication issued by the Commission a few weeks ago.
And finally it also involves expanding our commitment with the aim of increasing the Community's leading role in international affairs, which is what Mrs Graentiz in particular has mentioned.
We also have in Europe a special responsibility and personal interest with regard to environmental problems in Central and Eastern Europe, in the Middle East region and in the Baltic states, which is why the proposal contains priority arrangements for these areas.
Mr President, in submitting the proposal we have been debating today, the Commission has taken the view that it is the Community's responsibility to move forward setting a good example and to play a leading role both internally and internationally, and that is therefore necessary for all parties to demonstrate a greater political commitment and to make a greater contribution in order to achieve the overall strategy and objectives of the fifth programme.
This is the great challenge that each of us faces.
Moreover, this commitment must be implemented speedily if we are to carry out the fifth programme.
I am confident that Parliament will adopt the necessary provisions to ensure that this is the case.
Even if we are not agreed on the working out of the programme, we do agree that more needs to be done, and that concrete action is absolutely essential. The rest of today's agenda demonstrates that such action is already well under way.
Mr President, Commissioner Bjerregaard said that she would explain why she had blamed the Environment Committee in the Danish press.
I have not heard her explanation.
What did she say in the Danish press, and what did she accuse Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection of doing?
Yes, I certainly can.
In summary I made it clear that I had been engaged in debate with the rapporteur and in particular with regard to her criticism of the Fifth Action Programme in question.
As has become apparent from this evening's debate, I have a different view about what we need to do with such a revision.
I have therefore repeated the arguments I also expounded in the Danish press.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
NGOs in environmental protection
The next item is the report (A4-0258/96) by Mr Rübig, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision on a Community action programme promoting non-governmental organizations primarily active in the field of environmental protection (COM(95) 0573 - C4-0104/96-95/0336 (SYN)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, non-governmental organizations which are active in the field of environmental protection can no longer be ignored in the debate on environment policy.
At a time when subsidiarity and deregulation are being emphasized, it cannot be assumed that the regulatory framework governing environmental matters will grow further.
Given that fiscal and economic measures are often unpopular, the need for widespread awareness campaigns cannot be overstated, and NGOs play an important role in this context.
Environmental organizations operating at European level are often a source of timely warnings and practical proposals, which are then taken up and acted upon by political parties and governments.
One could give as an example the random sampling of drinking water by non-governmental organizations, which identified a new policymaking need.
Today, however, we are seeing not only voluntary, altruistic organizations: profit-making bodies exist in the environmental sector, as in others.
They operate like marketing or advertising agencies, using venture systems, and carry out political campaigns for private and governmental organizations, or for firms.
The aim of this programme is to provide financial support for environmental organizations which are directed towards the public good, are non-profit making and, above all, independent of party politics.
It is quite possible for NGOs to be politically motivated; however, the key criterion here is goals relating specifically to the environment.
We wish to subsidize not political parties, but non-governmental organizations which are devoted exclusively to this objective.
Financial support for independent associations is also important, however, since NGOs operate in an entirely different way from commercial organizations.
The Committee on Budgets has also come out strongly in favour of financial support and has provided for a total of ECU 8.65 million in 1997, probably with some ECU 2.5 m for this programme once again.
It is estimated that these resources would cover general measures to increase awareness of environmental issues, various European organizations which are active in the field of the environment and that of animal welfare, and the establishment of data bases and special information and documentation centres, as well as television recordings and CD-ROMs.
The granting of public funds must be subject to strict conditions to prevent any misuse.
These fundamental criteria, which the Commission has until now presented in the annex, must in Parliament's view be moved to the programme itself, since in fact they constitute the legal basis for the allocation of resources.
Parliament deems it particularly important to achieve a sound cost-benefit ratio, a lasting multiplier effect and effective and balanced cooperation, especially across borders.
Umbrella organizations at European level should receive particular support, and cooperation between such bodies should be facilitated.
Support should above all be given to innovative activities such as the information diskettes that I have already mentioned, which could be used more widely.
The strengthening of civil society and participatory development in NGOs are desirable.
However, the assistance should amount to only 60 % of operational and administrative expenditure.
Moreover, I believe that NGOs must themselves seek to ensure that their activities are on a sound financial footing.
This is necessary if in future they are to work independently of the Commission and other influences at EU level.
Non-governmental organizations which have been the subject of a conviction within the Union during the past two years should not be eligible for funding.
It goes without saying that the European umbrella organizations must abide by the rules of democracy, and no problems have arisen in this respect in recent years.
These bodies cannot and certainly do not wish to be put on a par with organizations which act irresponsibly and intentionally break the law.
Our wish is to equip the Europe of the future with rational and environmentally sustainable policies.
Mr President, this report does not have any budgetary implications for any of the major areas within the Community, except for one of the most important.
It concerns the opportunities for voluntary organisations&#x02BC; to participate in co-European environmental work, and to vote for the European environmental perspective where national and purely commercial interests otherwise threaten to dominate.
Without our environmental organisations the environmental work in Europe would not have got where it has today.
They are important shapers of opinion and a significant factor in enabling the work to proceed.
An environmental issue often begins its life by being picked up by the environmental organisations and then, much later on in the proceedings, implemented by means of legislative proposals or other decrees.
The environmental organisations may be regarded as acting as blow lamps on us politicians.
For all the areas within the Community where we make resources available, it is important to have clear frameworks and rules to determine how the measures are to be employed.
Slack procedures without any follow-up or inspection only foster suspicion and ambiguity.
This is also true of the contributions to environmental organisations.
At the same time it is important that we do not hamstring the organisations so much that they lose their impetus.
In this proposal to the report I believe that the rapporteur has been successful in bringing together these two objectives.
In order for us to address the environmental problems we have in Europe, cross-border co-operation is necessary.
Clearly, nations themselves must bear a significant responsibility, but no nation can solve the environmental problems by itself.
Co-operation is the key to a successful environmental policy.
Parliament has also recently proposed, in the first debate on the 1997 budget, a higher grant to environmental organisations than that proposed by the Council of Ministers.
This is an expression of our desire to strengthen coEuropean environmental work.
At present the budget has not yet been finally adopted; it will be subject to a second debate and the Council will very soon have its say.
But I hope that even the Council of Ministers is prepared to devote effort towards our voluntary organisations, our environmental organisations receiving the support which is needed so that we can enjoy a useful pan-European environmental co-operation next year as well.
Mr President, first of all I would like to support the Commission's initial proposals and, of course, the amendments put forward by the rapporteur, Mr Rübig, in his report.
I think that this debate on the funding of non-governmental organizations specialized in the environment is a good time to acknowledge the work they have achieved, particularly in the past 30 years.
What in those years were demands by minority groups have now become the programmes of governments, which we are currently implementing.
We have to agree with the Commission that this aid is necessary from both a financial and an environmental point of view, and therefore we must support it.
The non-governmental organizations have also proved to be a very important instrument in ensuring the fulfilment of Community legislation at national and regional levels.
Having said that, it must also be remembered that funding is not everything and that there are other measures that these organizations have been awaiting for some time, such as increased access to information and easier access to the courts. This would also help boost resources which will always be scarce.
On another level, it must also be remembered that these organizations essentially have a Community dimension, but increasingly more is being expected as regards funding at national, regional and local levels, therefore it is necessary to apply subsidiarity since it is not possible at Community level to obtain all the funds necessary for the entire movement.
It must be remembered once again that movements of this type play a very important role at local level and also need to receive financial support.
In any case, the Community financing should basically concern coordination and the promotion of this general coordination.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, Mr Rübig has portrayed NGOs in a way that, in my opinion, does not always correspond to reality.
Mr Rübig, please listen!
This is important!
(PT) Mr President, as I was saying, Mr Rübig has portrayed non-governmental organisations in a way that does not always correspond to the idea I have and which I have generally heard expressed.
They are not always independent in party political terms, although the Council and Commission document refers to environmental justification, high independence and motivation.
Obviously, I fully agree that they exist as an important contribution to educating people and, in particular, educating the younger section of the population but I do not think that work by NGOs alone is going to protect the environment. Also, as to the claim that they are not profit-making organisations, that was not always the case of those NGOs which I have witnessed.
In many cases, I have known of major environmental protests being quietened down by granting projects to environmental bureaux.
However, the idea which Mr Rübig has conveyed in his opinion, a more pragmatic idea in terms of a cost-efficiency assessment of non-governmental organisations is welcome for our group.
On the other hand, I should also like to raise another question: who mandates non-governmental organisations to represent them? Who is it who gives them the political strength and the authority to give their opinion on cases as important as the environment?
What scientific preparation do they have in the fields of chemistry, physics, botany and zoology? For what reason, before money is handed over, do we not carry out a genuine assessment of the value of NGOs' contribution to the environment for them to take decisions about the future of our children?
Mr President, perhaps I could ask the previous rapporteur - even if the previous rapporteur is not paying attention - what training and experience the lobbyists, whom the NGOs are often up against, have.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for the good work he has done and then thank the NGOs for the contribution they make in a different context.
I regard the NGOs as absolutely necessary in view of the fact that, as a general rule, we who are involved in parliamentary work are greatly affected by one-sided lobbying, e.g. from industrial interests.
This work cannot of course be carried out on a voluntary basis.
There are no industrial concerns to back up and finance the work, and it is therefore necessary that the rest of us make provision so that the NGOs can also carry out their work.
We must not do this on behalf of the NGOs.
We must simply do so on our own account and for the sake of democracy.
Mr President, I wish to commend the rapporteur's work and also the Commission's.
It is something we should be voting for tomorrow.
It has been very clear in recent years that NGOs have played an important role in the development of environment policy and on many occasions have raised awareness of environmental problems amongst the general public and decision-makers to the point where legislative action has been taken to cure those problems.
Recognition of that role is implicit in the provision of this finance from the Community budget to assist the work and fund those projects.
This fund is a modest one in comparison to many other items of the Community budget and therefore must be spent carefully and with the full knowledge that it is public money and must not be misused.
It is a welcome feature of many of the projects which are funded by this budget line that they are funded additionally in many cases or complemented by voluntary work and voluntary contributions made to the NGOs by many of their supporters.
It seems to me that we must try to continue to enlarge this budget line and encourage its use by others.
There are many others, not just the existing green organizations which are accessing this funding now, which could in future usefully benefit from the source of funding of this kind, to bring environmental issues to the attention not simply of legislators in Brussels but also within the regions and within the localities of Europe and to address more local issues and ensure that justice is done through the courts.
We must bear that in mind when we come back to review this budget line in future and it is something we should continue to press for.
Mr President, I would start by thanking the Environment Committee, but also the Budget Committee and their rapporteurs, and in particular Mr Rübig, for the significant work they have contributed to our consideration of the Commission's proposal.
Let me emphasize that it is my aim that a clear and stable basis be created for the Commission's support of the valuable work being performed by European NGOs.
There are countless examples of the way in which NGOs have contributed to keeping environmental issues of central importance on the political agenda.
And the way in which they have raised people's awareness of these matters and created the necessary pressure and encouragement so that decision-makers arrive at a forward-looking policy.
The NGOs also keep a watchful on the EU's and the Commission's policies.
In certain cases we are not, perhaps, over enthusiastic about this, but we know that in a working democracy this is the role of NGOs.
This is why the Commission places a high value on their contribution to environmental policy and, as we have seen, Parliament also shares this view.
As we know, the purpose of the proposal is to create a legal basis for existing practice.
This has to do with financial support for NGOs pursuant to instructions which have operated satisfactorily since 1988.
First and foremost the proposal must be seen as an indication of the how important the Commission regards it to commit itself to supporting these organizations.
It is therefore of great importance that the text be as clear as possible, and that the provisions can be implemented in a way which acknowledges these organizations' interests to best advantage.
It is in this spirit that the Commission has considered Parliament's amendments.
The Commission is able to accept 13 of the amendments in full, in part or in principle.
Amendments Nos 1 and 5 clarify the text, which is also the case with regard to the requirement of transparency and openness in Amendment No 3 and with most of the definition of what an NGO is in the second part of Amendment No 6.
Certain elements of Amendments Nos 8 and 18 also contribute towards clarifying the text, but for practical reasons the Commission cannot approve that part of Amendment No 18 which is aimed at changing the time frame for the Commission's report, nor that part which lays down a legal basis for a future proposal.
The Commission is able to subscribe to certain of the principles behind Amendment No 7, the purpose of which is to clarify the text, and the principles behind Amendments Nos 2 and 14 which have to do with recognition of the NGOs' revenue in the form of provisions.
However, there is a need for a certain amount of rewording.
We are also able to accept Amendment No 23 which lays down a limit of 60 % as that percentage of the NGOs' budget which may be financed by the Community.
There are, however, a number of amendments which the Commission is unable to accept because they do not improve the proposal and would in fact in certain cases have the effect of creating confusion or problems with implementation, which would be harmful for the NGOs.
For example, an attempt is made in Amendments Nos 4 and 13, in the first part of Amendment No 6 and in the second part of Amendment No 8 to provide a more detailed definition of the umbrella organizations.
But this type of organization is already covered by the definition in Article 1 of the Commission's proposal, the latter being deliberately worded in such broad terms that it can encompass any new NGOs.
Further definitions are therefore superfluous.
The main part of Amendment No 3 and Nos 9, 10, 17 and 21 would limit the Commission's flexibility with regard to allocating funds each year in a way which is most advantageous to the NGOs.
Amendments Nos 11, 16 and the first part of Nos 14 and 25 would be impossible to implement in practice.
Amendment No 15 is superfluous since, under the funding regulations, which are in operation, all NGOs in receipt of funds are required to keep proper accounts, irrespective of the size of assistance they receive.
According to Amendment No 12, up to 100 % funding may be provided, but this is neither an advantage for individual NGOs, since they would then be totally dependent on the Commission's financial assistance, nor is it an advantage for NGOs in general, since it would mean that fewer organizations were able to share in the limited resources.
Amendments Nos 19 and 20 are also unacceptable, since they would mean that less money was available for cooperative activities, and these are of great importance for the European NGOs.
With regard to Amendment No 22, we can accept this in principle, but with a certain amount of rewording.
We can give further consideration to the maximum duration of the period of assistance, which was stated as three years in the original proposal.
This would be in accordance with the Commission's policy of strengthening its partnership with the most dynamic and representative of the NGOs.
Finally, I would once again express my thanks to Parliament for its sterling work, evidence of which we have already seen in this proposal.
I have confidence in saying that all of us here recognize the NGOs as highly valued partners in the political decision-making process, and am therefore sure that together we will arrive at a proposal which will be of the best possible use to the NGOs, and thus to the environment.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Effects of certain projects on the environment
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0343/96) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive amending Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment (C4-0371/96-94/0078 (SYN)) (rapporteur: Mr Lannoye).
Mr President, it was in 1985 that the directive on environmental impact assessments was adopted by the Council.
That was more than ten years ago, and over this period of time many things have changed.
Indeed, since the Single Act and the Maastricht Treaty, environmental policy has taken on a new dimension - on paper at least.
The Espoo Convention, which deals with impact assessments on crossborder projects, was, moreover, signed by all Member States of the European Union in 1991, but sadly, it has not been ratified.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, inadequacies of the directive of 1985 have been revealed in practice.
Indeed, if you speak to our colleagues from the Committee on Petitions, and in particular to its President, you will know that it is on the basis of this directive that the greatest number of petitions have landed before our Parliament.
All of this, obviously, justified and still does justify broadly the fact that this directive should be amended and improved.
What did the Council do after the first reading in Parliament and the Commission's proposal? The Council did, I must be fair, partly improve the 1985 directive.
But I mean only partly.
I am going to start with the pat on the back, because as far as the consultation procedure for cross-border projects is concerned - arising from the Espoo Convention, therefore as it applies to the European Union - the proposal can be considered overall to be satisfactory.
Second positive point: the list of projects subject to obligatory impact assessments - the list in Annex 1 - has lengthened considerably, which is a good thing, but immediately I would like to add one reservation.
It contains some very grave lacunae, particularly regarding intensive livestock farming, in the adoption of thresholds which are much too high, even higher than those in the IPPC Directive, which is ridiculous!
And with respect to high voltage electrical power lines, a threshold voltage of 225 kV was chosen, which is completely incomprehensible, or perhaps completely comprehensible, given that the largest proportion of projects are at 220 kV.
Finally, there were exclusions for undertakings manufacturing lubricants, and installations for the production of hydrocarbons at sea were not taken into account either.
So we have a whole series of shortcomings.
Regarding Annex II on non-obligatory impact assessments, we have seen the Council withdraw from the Commission's proposal. We can only condemn this.
In the name of subsidiarity, we shift the responsibility back on to Member States for deciding whether or not an impact assessment should be carried out on special protection areas, since it is these same Member States who will be defining the criteria.
Another gross lacuna is that all amendments adopted on the first reading by Parliament which were aimed at increasing information for and consultation of citizens concerned have been rejected.
This is rather staggering when we are talking about participation and democracy.
When Parliament proposes completely realistic concrete measures, they are rejected.
Finally, to my last comment, the zero option.
This concerns the possibility that a project is not carried out because the need for it can be met in other ways.
This zero option does not appear clearly within the Council's plan.
Consequently, we have a collection of things which have led the Committee on the Environment to propose a series of amendments.
These appear, to my mind, perfectly realistic and a serious improvement to the Council's proposal, and even the Commission's initial proposal.
We might as well make a thorough job of improving the text, while we are at it.
I will never understand, and I think that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection could never understand why, when you have a really effective tool, you do not use it to the full.
We are talking here about an environmental policy tool which really is essential and which, at the moment, is only half way there: we are adopting a tool which has some excellent qualities, but which does not go far enough.
Here, I am addressing my colleagues in other groups: or else we continue to reaffirm ambitious objectives for the environment and when new projects come up, as is the case here, we must arm ourselves with an effective tool so that these projects are compatible with objectives in the future.
The purpose of the impact assessment is the selection of projects which have a minimal impact on the environment.
I believe, therefore, that we have enormous possibilities here.
If we obtain a majority of 314 votes tomorrow and if the Commission really does want to support us on most of the amendments, I think we will have made a great step forward for a good environmental policy.
I would like to hear our Commissioner on the subject so that we know the position of the Commission.
It could determine the vote of some of our colleagues tomorrow at noon.
Mr President, for about the last twenty years, European politics have made a priority of environmental integration in their common policies.
Among the technical tools of this policy, measures for prevention and integration of the environment, at the planning stage of projects, constitute an unescapable act for our industrialised countries, in which changes to ecosystems and the countryside have been deeper and more rapid, over forty years since the Treaty of Rome, than over the entire course of previous periods.
Increasing demands from citizens with respect to the environment and the very great competitive imbalances caused by enormous differences between Member States, incite us, as parliamentarians, to very high standards, which are already met in many countries, in many Member States, including France, and the latest entrants, Austria, Finland and Sweden.
In the context of environmental impact or incidence assessments, a particular vigilance should be applied to the definition of the various projects concerning town planning, industry and infrastructure, as well as agriculture and leisure, as shown by the report on the imperfect application of the 1985 directive.
These should have been evaluated by comparable and technically fair procedures.
The draft amendment of this directive intervenes in this respect, in Annex I, to make this procedure obligatory for projects or substantial modifications to activities which have escaped it up to now, thereby causing inter-European relocations and competitive imbalances.
This measure goes in the right direction towards the coordination of procedures at European level and we support the rapporteur, Mr Lannoye, for his excellent background work.
However, as it concerns agriculture, and taking account of the 'nitrates' directive already in existence which limits the quantity of nitrogen of animal origin used in manure spreading to 170 kilos per hectare per year, I have been led, along with twenty-nine other colleagues, to present a compromise amendment for intensive livestock farms.
In an attempt at simplification, Amendment No 26 to Annex I recommends 200 LSU for intensive land-based livestock farms, and 10 tonnes per year for fish farms, as a trigger threshold for an environmental impact assessment.
A limit on size for new farms is a simple and easily administered criterion for administrative authorities.
Once again the hour of midnight approaches and once again the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has its debate.
One day we will go beyond midnight and all we will find on the steps will be glass slippers, all our chauffeurs' cars will have turned into mice, because the Cinderella of the debate is the Environment Committee's subject.
I think that is a great pity.
This was raised as an issue of concern last week in the Environment Committee and I had considerable correspondence with Mr Vinci before that.
Can I please request some variation. Somebody has to be last on Tuesday night but it does not always have to be the Environment Committee.
These subjects that we debate are of tremendous importance to European citizens.
I congratulate Mr Lannoye on his excellent report and would like to exchange words across the Chamber with both the PPE and the Liberals so that we can build some form of coalition.
I am impressed with the way in which the PPE seems to have moved from its rather negative position in the Environment Committee debate into accepting some of the principal amendments which we think are important.
I do not think, however, the PPE has gone far enough and I would particularly ask it to look at Amendment No 7, which on my information it still looks set to reject.
This relates to the definition of the word 'project' .
The reason why we in the PSE think this is so important is because if we define the word 'project' satisfactorily we can avoid a situation where a series of small projects are set out to avoid the definition of a main one.
In the United Kingdom, for example, we have had a number of examples of ways in which bypasses around relatively small towns could be said to be linked together to make a motorway by stealth.
Similarly with the opencast mining referred to in Annex 2, I can envisage a situation where a series of opencast mines would fall below the required limit but taken as a whole would have a tremendous effect upon the local environment.
Can I therefore ask the PPE to look at that Amendment No 7 in the light of what I have said, and to take into account that possibility.
Can I also draw the attention of Parliament to Amendment No 23.
I would ask the PPE to look at it very carefully because we are talking about roads and that amendment, approved by the Environment Committee, attempted to take account of the possibility of a large road, 10 kilometres or more in continuous length.
Clearly the same argument about the link passes applies.
Can I also congratulate the PPE because on Amendment No 38 there seems to have been some movement.
The concept of the zero option now appears to have been accepted and I hope therefore that with the support of the Liberals, the PSE and the Greens that a principle will be vindicated in tomorrow's vote.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unlike the rapporteur, I think the common position considerably improves the Commission's proposal, and this applies - with my apologies, Mrs Bjerregaard - both to the new versions of Annexes I and II and to Annexes III and IV, specifying the project selection criteria.
I do nevertheless still have some serious criticisms.
However good the intentions, legislation will not work in practice unless certain conditions are met.
One of these conditions is systematic coordination with the other directives in the environment sector which cover the same subject-matter, for example the IPPC directive, the Seveso directive and the eco-audit, since transposition is considerably complicated by this lack of coordination.
It must also be said that nearly all the new amendments would make it even more difficult to carry out environmental impact assessments in the Member States.
Both the developers and the authorities examining their applications would have to cope with further complications and delays, without any benefit to the environment.
On the contrary, most of these amendments would detract from the quality of the environmental impact assessment itself, and hence environmental protection as a whole.
However, I would endorse what Mr White said: I too find it a sorry state of affairs that the House always discusses on a Tuesday evening the important legislative business where Parliament has real decision-making powers, and that the press reports do not appear until two days later, causing everything to fall flat.
The President, who has responsibility here, cannot do anything about this time-lag, but it is up to our group to rally round and ensure that environmental issues are discussed at times when there are people sitting and listening in the public gallery, because the environment is something which really is of interest to many of our citizens, who appreciate that it can only be regulated by joint action.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful to the rapporteur for his work but particularly to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development which has sought to highlight the importance of harmonizing the directives on the environment and, therefore, maintaining clear strategies and of taking coordinated and consistent measures, particularly as regards the environment.
The proposal in question is designed to improve the environmental impact assessment procedure introduced by Directive 85/337 and to clarify and extend the lists of projects to which the directive applies.
The aim, then, is to guarantee more coordinated and effective implementation of the directive itself, particularly in the light of international developments in the sector.
While the report adopted last year by the European Parliament recognized the improvements the Commission has made to the text, it tried to take the process further still by tabling extremely important amendments designed both to extend the scope of the directive and define the common criteria and elucidate the concept of 'sensitive region' which make an environmental impact assessment compulsory.
We also wanted to make the issue of information a fundamental condition for the application of the directive, that information having to be provided to citizens as soon as possible and ahead of any decision.
This concept of participatory democracy, which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection sought to highlight through the amendments tabled at second reading, is vitally important because decisions with an environmental impact cannot be taken unless citizens, who must be the prime beneficiaries of the environment and the land, have been informed of them.
The public should in fact be able to express their own views and have available to them clear and transparent information on the implementation of specific public and private projects, and thus be able to take part in the environmental impact assessment procedure.
We must not forget that the environment belongs to us all and that respect for the territory must be based on appropriate education designed to place responsibilities in the hands of those who benefit from it.
Finally, I would remind you that protection of and respect for the environment are secured when appropriate and therefore clearcut measures are taken on the ground.
But we need to pay heed and point out that damage is also inflicted in other ways.
Mr President, I too would like to start by thanking the rapporteur for the hard work he has put into this subject, but I must at the same time point out that what we are dealing with here is a proposal which, in my opinion, requires us to discuss the subsidiarity issue in a slightly different way than we have so far.
I would have to agree with the rapporteur that we need a series of amendments, but on the other hand I must also say that as soon as one goes into a great deal of detail, which is what the rapporteur has done here, and draws up detailed provisions stipulating how citizens and the public authorities are supposed to relate to one another, one finds oneself discussing the management of a system, and it is precisely in this area of systems that we have to recognize that we have very different traditions in our respective countries.
With regard to the Danish tradition, for instance, the amendments to this proposal are far too detailed.
We have excellent experience in Denmark when it comes to man's effect on the environment, and even if I have expressed some criticism of the system that has been set up in Denmark, it is still the case that we have had a great deal of experience.
Some of these proposals will not therefore have any direct relevance in a Danish context.
By way of example, I would pick out Amendment No 14 in which the rapporteur refers to the experience looked for in the various experts who are to have responsibility for environmental assessments.
I feel this should be up to the individual countries to determine for themselves.
That is why I feel that in this area the rapporteur has gone into rather too much detail and is perhaps seeing things too much from a French administrative tradition, and not enough from what would be an appropriate perspective for a Scandinavian, or at least a Danish, tradition.
Mr President, we agree fully with Mr Lannoye's proposal and with the amendments he has proposed and which were approved by a majority of the members of the Committee on the Environment.
We also agree with the need to revise Directive 85/337, whose shortcomings and problems became clear when it was implemented.
With regard to the amendments, we will simply refer to a few which we consider to be the most important: we agree that exceptions should be limited, since such exceptions are causing real disasters in some countries.
The importance of defining common criteria for special zones, the scope and, above all, the information and consultation of citizens, must be underlined.
We know that this is complicated because the Directive on information for citizens (Directive 91/33) has not even been incorporated into national law in some Member States, for instance mine.
Yet it is very difficult to enable citizens to find out about things and to get involved, and we know that it is not possible to preserve the environment if the citizens are not involved, and if they are not aware of the wealth which this would entail.
Unlike Mrs Dybkjær, I do believe that the amendment concerning rigorous environmental impact assessments is very important.
I remember two or three years ago a study by the Commission itself showed that probably only 20 % of environmental impact assessments were rigorous and that in some cases - this happens in my country, in accordance with the cultural differences Mrs Dybkjær spoke of - the companies themselves commission the teams which are going to carry out these assessments.
This obviously cannot continue, and we will support these and any other amendments which Mr Lannoye proposes in the Committee on the Environment.
But there is another problem concerning the measures that must be taken in relation to the blatant infringement by many countries of Directive 85/337 and others, and of Community environmental legislation in general.
Mr President, you are well aware - since you have been the rapporteur on several occasions on the annual report concerning compliance with Community law - that Community law on the environment is repeatedly infringed by the various Member States.
There is thus a lot of work to be done, and we will support Mr Lannoye's report.
Mr President, I have just a few brief points to make about this recommendation.
The Member States of the Union have very different views on environmental impact assessments.
Some countries say the more, the better; others, including my own country of the Netherlands, say they should only be carried out where projects are expected to have serious damaging effects on nature and the environment.
I support the latter view.
It is better to have a single good assessment for each major project, rather than thousands of reports on smaller projects which merely blunt their impact.
The Council has produced a common position with which we are fairly happy, on the whole.
The annex on compulsory assessments has rightly been extended, and Annex II, which sets out the thresholds for determining whether an assessment is necessary, is still framed broadly enough.
All in all, therefore, it is an improvement on the 1985 directive, which led to considerable differences in implementation.
I would just comment on one amendment, No 26, which would effectively make assessments compulsory for the entire farming industry in the Netherlands.
I cannot support this.
The Commission text is better on this point, in that it proposes assessments only for the intensive rearing of livestock or poultry above a certain number.
In my view, this covers all cases likely to have an environmental impact.
Finally, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether it is realistic to keep 31 December 1997 as the deadline for implementing this directive, given the scale of the changes that will have to be made to legislation in the Member States?
Mr President, under Article 130r(2) of the Treaty, ' Community policy on the environment shall be based on the precautionary principle and on the principles that preventive action should be taken, that environmental damage should as a priority be rectified at source...' .
The means of achieving this is the environmental impact assessment.
Today we have the second reading of the report by Mr Lannoye on this subject, for which I would thank him.
Perhaps I could say straight away that, unlike Mrs Dybkjær, I think the simplifications proposed here by Mr Lannoye are very important and appropriate.
We cannot have an internal market on the one hand and, on the other, test the impact of projects on the environment in different ways in different Member States.
The environmental impact assessment is the key to sustainable economic development, enabling us to avoid misguided investment, the high cost of environmental damage or irreparable destruction, and I think that cooperation between the authorities, developers and public opinion is what is needed here.
That is why I particularly welcome the amendment in which Mr Lannoye dwells on public consultation.
In the town where I live, an environmental impact assessment was carried out on an experimental basis by joint agreement along exactly these lines. The result was a procedure which made it possible to omit one stage from the normal process, thereby substantially reducing the firm's costs and removing the need for it to dispose of highly toxic waste.
What is more, no objections were lodged after the first procedure, and it was possible to bring forward the date originally set by the firm for the start of construction, because the administrative procedure was completed several months earlier than expected.
Public consultation was not a drawback; it accelerated the proceedings.
This is what must be borne in mind, I feel: sustainable development can only be achieved by working together with the public in a spirit of openness and transparency.
Whenever the public is given incomplete information, it leads to nothing but protests and delays, and that is precisely what we wish to avoid!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I sometimes wonder how it is that sensible, or at least justifiable initiatives like this one - the amendment of the environmental impact directive - can be devalued in this way by formalities such as unduly short deadlines for transposition.
When Parliament approved a measure on integrated pollution prevention and control last May, we took the view that a transposition period of three years was necessary and appropriate.
The directive now before us, on the other hand, will not be published until next March, in the normal course of events, and provides for transposition by 31 December 1997.
In other words, only nine months will remain for transposition within the Member States.
Experience of transposing previous legislation on the environmental impact assessment has shown that a much longer period is required to incorporate such a procedure into national law.
We do not wish to see half-baked measures being introduced, and we have an opportunity to ensure that the matter is handled properly.
I would therefore call for a two-year transposition period, as provided for by Amendment No 42, since otherwise the matter will not be handled properly, leading of course to many problems for all concerned in the various ministries and enterprises.
Once again, therefore, I recommend a transposition period of two years.
Mr President, I think that we are all agreed that what we need is more consistent application of the 1985 directive across the European Union.
Like Mrs Dybkjær, I believe that the common position gives us this consistency.
I do not see any point in the amendments which Mr Lannoye is tabling.
I think Mr Lannoye has his own agenda. His agenda is, in fact, not driven by what he finds, to a large extent, in this report which is a report from the Commission dated 1993 on how this directive is being implemented.
I cannot understand how Mrs Barthet-Mayer, who, I think is still with us at least in body if not in spirit and mind, can say that France has a good record on implementing the environmental impact assessment statement.
I draw her attention to page 27 of this report in 1993 where it says, regarding the provision of information to the public from an environmental impact assessment, that in France the stage at which this occurs is sometimes after the execution of the project.
That is certainly something which should be addressed and, I believe, is addressed by the amendments which the Commission is tabling.
I particularly have to draw the attention of Mr White, who seems to be rather too privy to the discussions on the EPP, to the fact that we shall be opposing Amendment No 26.
We do not thing this deals properly or sensibly with agriculture.
It would be extremely damaging and it would not produce a sensible text.
We shall definitely be opposing Amendment No 26 which I very much hope will then be defeated.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Environment Committee and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Lannoye, for its contribution and for the attention it has given to the consideration of this proposal.
The Commission is pleased that we are now very close to a final decision on this important piece of legislation in the area of the environment.
The directive on environmental impact assessment is a fundamental tool for protecting the environment.
The Commission's aim in revising the 1985 directive is to achieve a clearer and more effective EIA system.
It must not be a complicated or over bureaucratic procedure.
It is clear that we will not support any initiative which would only serve to weaken the directive.
There are some amendments which the Commission cannot accept for technical reasons, but also because they would alter methods that have already been chosen.
It would take far too long to discuss each of the amendments in detail, and for this reason I will state our opinion of the amendments and single out certain ones for further comment.
The Commission is able to accept the following amendments in full, in part or in principle: Nos 1, 32, 35 and 39 can be accepted in full; Nos 5, 7, 15, 26, 30, 37, 42 and 43 in principle; and Nos 12, 16, 38 and 41 in part, which means that we are unable to accept the remainder of the amendments.
Some amendments namely Nos 3, 6 and 8, relate to environmental assessments of programmes in the proposal.
The Commission fully agrees with the environmental assessment of certain plans and programmes and is therefore working on the so-called SEA - strategic environmental assessment - directive in this area.
This new environment tool will be discussed by the Commission tomorrow, I hope, so the Commission has not been able to accept all the amendments relating to this area.
Amendment No 9 relates to removal of the exception from projects which are aimed at national responsibility.
In terms of the environment there is thus no reason for maintaining the exception with respect to national responsibility.
One can well understand Parliament's concerns, therefore, with regard to environmental assessment, but national responsibility is currently outside the Community's area of competence, and for this reason the exception must remain in the directive.
I also have some comments to make on Amendments Nos 12, 37, 13, 17 and 18, but unless I am asked to address these specifically, I will skip these in view of the late hour.
Amendment No 42 alters the implementation date from 31 December 1997 to 'within 2 years of its notification' .
Determination of the implementation date depends on when the amended directive is accepted by the Council.
Since this is not likely to occur before the beginning of 1997, the current date of 31 December 1997 seems to be too early for proper implementation.
On the other hand, two years from the date of notification would mean the beginning of 1999, which is too long a period of time.
One year after notification would seem a reasonable period for satisfactory implementation of the amended directive.
Therefore this amendment can be accepted in principle.
This brings me to Amendments Nos 21 to 31, and 39 to 41, which add new projects to Annex 1 of the directive.
I support the principle of developing Annex 1.
For the time being, in order to avoid unnecessary assessments, we must ensure that Annex 1 only contains those projects which may have a significant environmental impact.
Another important requirement with regard to this is that the descriptions must be sufficiently clear in themselves for determining which projects come under the annex.
Amendment No 26 and the first part of Amendment No 41 concern intensive animal husbandry and several speakers have addressed this topic.
These amendments may be accepted in principle, since it is important for the environment that not only poultry and pigs are included, as stated in the joint statement, but also that other types of intensive animal husbandry, which could have a significant impact on the environment, i.e. due to the concentrations and the overall manure production involved, should be included.
But the higher threshold set for animal units in Amendment No 41 is to be preferred in order to cover those cases which always involve a significant impact on the environment.
Nevertheless a threshold other than that included in Amendment No 26 relating to production of over 170 nitrates per hectare, must be added, since this is in accordance with the nitrate directive.
The Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 30 and 39.
Amendment No 40 introduces projects financed by the Community funds in Annex 1 and cannot be accepted because the source of finance does not have any effect on the environmental impact of a project.
Environmental impact is dependent on the nature of the project, its size and its location, in addition to which the structural solidarity fund provisions ensure compliance with the Community's legislation on the environment, and this also applies to the EIA directive.
By way of conclusion I can say that the debate has been long and it has been difficult.
The common position has resulted in significant improvements of the procedure.
The amendments that have been accepted will further improve this proposal.
I will be happy to provide any further information that is required concerning specific amendments, but I believe we can congratulate ourselves that this proposal further improves the protection of both humans and the environment that public and private projects must provide.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Waste management
The next item is the report (A4-0364/96) by Mrs Jensen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission on the review of the Community strategy for waste management and the draft Council resolution on waste policy (COM(96)0399 - C4-0453/96).
Mr President, people do not produce waste for the sake of producing waste.
People generate waste as a link in a production process which has some other purpose.
Waste is often the source of problems for the environment and problems in the working environment.
Waste means loss, and must be reduced as much as possible in order that pollution is kept to a minimum.
All attempts to standardise waste, by turning it into ordinary products which the authorities do not need to monitor, overlook the fact that waste is the left-over product of some other production process.
In many quarters attempts are being made to undermine the possibility of close ties between those concerned with the environment and those dealing with waste.
Like other Members of the European Parliament, I have received voting information from the industry.
Information which attempts to tell those here who have been duly elected how they should vote on the matter of waste strategy.
I find this extremely embarrassing.
It must be hoped that it is so embarrassing that for that reason alone Members here present will not be swayed by these attempts to manipulate us.
If only we had an open debating system so that all affected, not just the richest, could have their say, so that we knew who the Commission was in contact with, before a proposal was tabled.
In its communication the Commission itself attempts to raise the question as to how much the principle of proximity applies.
The Environment Committee in the European Parliament is not an accessory of waste tourism.
We have been out for a walk on the West German waste mountains in what was formerly East Germany and we have received reports about the sending of dangerous waste to developing lands who have to pay for development aid by providing storage space for dangerous waste.
We would point out that there have been EU rulings which make it clear that the authorities can prevent the transportation of waste intended for an alternative use or for disposal if the transport involved is not in accordance with their plans for waste management, and these authorities, according to the rulings, are any region, commune or other form of local unit, which are required to make appropriate arrangements for the purpose of facilitating the receipt, processing and disposal of their own waste.
The local authorities' role in waste planning is quite central.
The Commission only states that the regional and local authorities can play a role, but we have some good examples of effective cooperation between the authorities and companies in the area of waste processing, which, in the cases of Copenhagen, has meant a very significant reduction in construction waste and has also resulted in planned disposal tips being unused.
However the opposite also exists, i.e. Member States which fail to ensure that waste processing plans be introduced and fail to inform the EU of their waste processing plans, plans about which Member States assumed mutual commitments in resolutions adopted in the 1970s.
The Environment Committee recommends that processing programmes be drawn up in the area of waste.
I can well understand why such proposals should be put forward when a communication of the type we are dealing with is not supposed to come from Parliament, even if we have joint decision-making competence, or at least some influence over the actual waste proposal.
An influence which the Commission has often endorsed by going along with our proposal to a significant extent. But many people are asking what such a communication is, and whether it is binding?
I can only answer: Good question. You can refer to it if you like it, and you can ignore it if you do not.
And so I have some questions to put to the Commission.
These have to do with voluntary agreements.
The Commission has said in the committee that it is not the Commission itself which has suddenly become favourably disposed towards voluntary agreements, but one must recognize that the Commission's communication refers to voluntary agreements.
I would therefore like to know whether the Commission agrees that voluntary agreements may work in a regional or national context where there is an arbitration system to deal with disputes, but they can hardly work at a European level where it is not possible to ensure proper cover, implementation or legal settlements.
Then we have manufacturer liability.
The Commission refers to both manufacturer responsibility and to the principle that the polluter must pay the bill.
This is an essential element of the environment debate.
The only question to be answered is how this is to be understood.
There can be many links in the production chain, so it is an oversimplification to talk in terms of introducing straightforward penalty provisions. Would it not be more fruitful to start from the perspective of the manufacturers' joint financial responsibility for waste processing.
What financial incentives is the Commission considering in this connection? Should it not cost the same to dispose of waste at tips throughout the EU?
Waste converted to goods.
I agree that waste may contain hidden materials that can be used to produce secondary raw materials.
But I do not believe we can expect this to happen extensively unless we introduce overall waste planning locally and regionally.
It would be a mistake to allow waste that is not intended ultimately for disposal to be left out of the waste planning programme.
And is it still not the case that waste is quite a special product?
I would also like to ask the Commission about its plans for dangerous waste, sorting at source, green taxes and inspection of Member States' waste plans.
Mr President, I rise not only to give my group's view on this but also my personal welcome to the Commission's waste management strategy review and to the way in which it has been reinforced and developed by the rapporteur's amendments.
As the author of Parliament's response to the Commission's previous waste management strategy I see here a careful development of waste management strategy emphasizing in many ways many of the methods we saw five years ago and helping them to be developed further.
One new element which I welcome very much is the renewed emphasis on the need to ensure that waste management strategy assists and is built around the principle of sustainable development.
In particular, it is important that we look at the hierarchy, that we accept that the hierarchy of steps is one that can be further developed.
It is one that can be further emphasized to ensure that we do the correct things with the waste that is inevitably generated by society and which inevitably must be made safe so that the environment is protected.
There is a continuing role for incineration within the waste management hierarchy, but its role needs to be constantly reviewed.
In particular, there are certain elements of the way in which cement kilns are used for waste disposal, particularly hazardous waste disposal, that need to be examined.
Although composting has been a Cinderella activity in the past, we need to give further assistance to that and encourage its development at local and regional level.
The new waste management strategy recognizes the role of local and regional authorities in facilitating, developing and implementing a real waste management strategy for Europe.
Their participation, their positive actions are essential if we are to realize an effective waste management strategy.
They help us in many ways to reinforce the proximity principle and ensure there is no possibility of waste tourism.
Finally, there is one issue that cannot be overlooked.
I refer to the continued pressure to reduce toxic and other hazardous waste in the waste stream.
Some of those substances, for example PVC, might be better dealt with by priority waste stream projects that could emphasize recycling as the main strategy.
But if we are to have a real and genuine waste management strategy we must take toxics out of the waste stream.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by stressing the great complexity and importance of waste management.
It is a complex issue, because only at a relatively late stage was it realized, in the light of rulings by the European Court of Justice, that the position of waste in terms of the free movement of goods is something of an exceptional one, and that clarity is still lacking in this area.
And it is an important area too, because the whole issue of waste management requires a fundamental solution, which will have a major impact on our quality of life in the future.
In principle, I would echo the rapporteur's criticism of the European Union's lack of a clear strategy, but with the following distinction: we in the European Parliament cannot on the one hand - like a Tibetan prayer-wheel - continually demand subsidiarity and deregulation, whilst calling on the other for the Community to have overall responsibility for waste policy.
I would draw your attention to the Austrian system, whereby the Länder and the local authorities are responsible for waste disposal.
We have our own law on waste management and various waste management plans.
So when the Commission is criticized for acting indecisively, this could stem from the fact that, in many cases, it is simply too remote from the real problems to be able to take swift and effective action.
Nevertheless, I am in favour of all attempts to review and build on the Community's existing waste policy in the context of the action programme.
I am therefore also in favour of the resolution, particularly in the light of the sensible amendments proposed by members of my group.
Our objective must be firstly to prevent waste, to recycle as much as possible, and only then to store or dispose of the remainder in a proper fashion.
Mr President, we have just been talking about the revision of the Fifth Action Programme on the Environment, but the current action programme contains an extremely important section on waste management.
The Liberal Group supports the strategy adopted: first prevention, then reuse, then recycling and finally, as a last resort, the safe disposal of waste by incineration or dumping.
I sometimes think we could be more flexible in applying this order of precedence, since it may well be that technical environmental assessments indicate that it is better for the environment in some cases to depart from the order of the list.
That is my first point.
Secondly, to reduce waste, a tax on raw materials and other economic instruments will have to be introduced.
Agreements between industry and the authorities could also have a role to play here.
If we are to reduce the amount of dangerous substances such as chlorine and heavy metals in waste, industry needs to use them less in its production processes.
That is why we have tabled these two amendments, and we hope that our colleagues who are sitting here so tired and bleary-eyed will support them tomorrow.
Mr President, there was a time when we were concerned only with waste disposal, but the study of the flows and life-cycle of waste made us understand, first of all, that we needed to look at managing the whole of the cycle - from production to disposal - and it has now made us realize that we need to go further, to look at preventing waste production, by cutting down on the volume of what becomes waste - packaging, for example, and preventing the use of all products once destined to enter the waste chain.
That means getting rid of many substances in current use which subsequently turn into toxic and dangerous waste.
That means changing our approach to the whole cycle of goods' production in an effort to prevent the creation of waste and thus obtain materials that are useable or recyclable.
To do that we need to model ourselves on what happens in nature.
In the natural environment, the variety and volume of what is produced is far greater than in industrial production, but nothing is rejected to become rubbish.
It all becomes part of complex cycles which, as a result of the action of an energy source outside the system, solar energy, restores raw materials so that the complex and varied forms of flora and fauna continue to be produced.
I made those initial points to explain that we need to review the Community strategy for waste management, and the Commission communication in this field is therefore timely.
However, the communication contains very little in the way of practical and functional information to remedy the problems considered, as explained by the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen.
The rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection have tried to remedy those limitations in the Commission communication.
We Greens support many of the proposals and welcome the fact that many of our amendments have been accepted by the Environment Committee.
We must, however, point out that paragraph 4a was better worded in the rapporteur's original text and that some of our amendments have been rejected even though they were consistent with earlier decisions of the European Parliament and the Commission.
That applies, for instance, to the amendment on the need first to sort waste and only thereafter dump or incinerate it; the same applies to the sorting of organic waste.
I have listed a few examples simply in order to inform the House that we shall be tabling a number of amendments to improve on the text.
I would first of all like to thank the Environment Committee, and its rapporteur, Mrs Kirsten Jensen, in particular for the work they have carried out with regard to the Commission's communication on a revision of the Community's strategy for waste management.
This contribution has made it possible for our debate to take place today.
The European Parliament's work has proceeded at a rapid pace, but this has not, in my view, had any effect on its quality, as today's debate has also demonstrated.
The Commission's revision of the waste strategy is first and foremost a reaction to the European Parliament's and the Council's demand that the Commission produce a revision of the waste strategy for 1989.
From the European Parliament's side this came as late as its resolution of 22 April 1994.
The Commission has therefore proposed this strategy for waste management.
It is not our intention to produce an action programme in the area of waste.
There are several reasons for this.
The first of these might be called the more formal reason, namely that the European Parliament specifically asked the Commission to produce a revision of its waste strategy of 1989.
But the primary reason is that it could hardly hold up the whole of the legislative work.
Indeed it is our hope this year in the Commission to produce a proposal on end-of-life vehicles at the same time as working on other proposals in the area of waste for 1997.
The EU's waste legislation had its beginnings 20 years ago and is now due for a much needed revision, as many have pointed out.
We have therefore begun by revising the basic legislation on waste, dangerous waste and the movement of waste.
Within the frameworks of this legislation we are adapting waste management to new requirements and further development, and this means that there is in fact a very great degree of concordance between the proposal which Parliament has put forward and the proposal being worked on by the Commission.
This revision of the strategy holds to the general philosophy and basic principles adopted in 1989, but also highlights a number of areas that will require particular attention in the future, just as the rapporteur, Kirsten Jensen, has emphasized in her excellent report.
Mrs Kirsten Jensen also raised a number of concrete questions which at the present time I am unable to answer at all comprehensively.
I will have to make do with addressing a couple of these questions by saying that we must come back to a debate on voluntary agreements.
I agree with Mrs Kirsten Jensen that there is a difference between what is possible at a Community level and what is possible at a national level, and I would add that when we tackle the question of voluntary agreements, it is because we believe there is a need for some firmer rules of procedure than those that we have today.
With regard to the question of manufacturer responsibility contrasted with economic responsibility, I would make the following comment. I believe we can have a good debate on end-of-life vehicles since to a great extent this will become a discussion of the ways in which, through environmental legislation, we can affect production, which in many respects will be an appropriate solution.
We are therefore continuing our work by building up a hierarchy of principles.
Even if this hierarchy is generally accepted, the Member States have quite different perspectives on the way they should be implemented in practice.
Companies are in favour of flexibility so that to a certain extent they are able to determine the best way of dealing with their waste, and this applies in particular to the re-use and adaptation of waste.
This is one of the controversial themes in the area of waste management.
The reclaiming of materials must always be preferred to the gaining of energy, and this is closely related to the fact that the reclaiming of materials reduces the volume of waste, in addition to saving raw materials and energy.
One of the real environmental problems that faces us is the fact that the financial costs of re-using waste often result in companies investing in the gaining of energy instead of in the reclaiming of materials.
This will not do, and fortunately public opinion is uneasy about combustion plants.
No one is particularly keen to have a combustion plant as a neighbour.
The final disposal of waste at waste tips is the least advantageous solution, since it is both seen and noticed, apart from its impact on the environment.
It is therefore essential that the disposal of waste takes place in as environmentally friendly a way as possible.
At the end of all this the Commission will shortly produce a new proposal on waste tips.
Another disputed point in the revision of the strategy, which was highlighted in the report, is manufacturer responsibility, and I shall not be going into any further detail on this.
I have already touched on this in response to Mrs Kirsten Jensen.
The important thing here is that the manufacturer must be responsible, and unfortunately none of the proposals as they are framed, supports this point of view.
Product design is also a central factor in waste management, since a change in the intrinsic characteristics of products, their design and the production process, can have the effect of making those products easier to manage as waste.
Ensuring that products have due regard for the environment contributes to making both consumption and production more viable, and will also have the effect of preventing and reducing waste.
A life cycle analysis of products must therefore be carried out as an integral part of product management, as has been emphasized in Parliament's statement.
One more area in which conflict can arise is the complete implementation of a physical proximity principle in conjunction with the internal market.
Such conflicts should result in the right balance being struck and in the best solution for the environment.
Here too the manufacturer's role will be important and with it the manufacturer responsibility.
The environment must be given the absolute first priority.
In our drawing up of the EU's waste strategy we must make use of the many tools and instruments available to us, as Mr Eisma mentioned in particular.
In addition to legislation, there is particular value in taking advantage of economic and fiscal instruments.
These points were also emphasized in the report.
As I mentioned at the beginning of my comments, I am very pleased with the report and the proposal under discussion, since the proposals will contribute to the further development of the waste policy.
This is a worthy and very constructive contribution, and one which will help the Commission on its way to the necessary legislation.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Thank you, and special thanks to the interpreters.
(The sitting was closed at 12.08 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I am sorry the Minutes oblige me once again to refer to the handbag incident because, Mr De Vries, I appreciate your impatience, but if you read the Minutes they are wrong.
They say that the victim complained to me, but the complaint was lodged with the President of Parliament, Mr Hänsch.
I deliberately did not name names - hence the lack of clarity - because I did not want to be on record in the Minutes as having named names; hence the slight confusion.
But the Minutes are wrong.
They say that a complaint was made to him - that is to say to me.
That is not true.
Once again, I hope that President Hänsch will invite the ladies concerned to meet with him to resolve the matter amicably.
I am thus asking for the Minutes to be tidied up to say that the complaint was lodged with President Hänsch and not of course with me.
It is true that I was rapporteur for this contentious matter, and I am prepared to expand on it further outside this sitting, but I would prefer the matter to be resolved amicably, with President Hänsch exercising his considerable authority.
Thank you, that has been noted.
Madam President, I would like the President to make urgent representations to the government in Rangoon in the light of Parliament's strongly worded resolution.
There are very convincing rumours coming from Burma that 2, 000 of the thugs who beat up the car that Aung San Suu Kyi was in last weekend are planning to storm her compound and the house where she lives this weekend.
I would urge the President to make representations immediately to the government in Rangoon to protest against such an action taking place.
We shall pass that on to the President, but we are still at the stage of approving the Minutes.
Madam President, I was present during yesterday's sitting, but that does not appear in the Minutes.
Could they be corrected, please?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
I just wanted to ask you this. On Monday our specially chartered train from Brussels, with more than 200 MEPs and staff on board, arrived half an hour late because the train staff were in dispute about whether or not the train ought to have a restaurant car attached on a public holiday.
The upshot was that we arrived here from Brussels on this special train very much delayed, thirsty, and far too late.
Will you write to the Belgian railways to ensure that there is no recurrence of this, because otherwise I very much fear that people will go back to their cars rather than taking the train.
Mr Eisma, I must ask you to take that up in writing with the Bureau, because it has nothing to do with the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, I think one has to take a rounded view of life.
Further to what Mr Eisma said, I took the train from Brussels on Monday.
It was indeed half an hour late, most regrettably, but I had an excellent meal in the restaurant car.
No problem of any kind, I ate very well and was very well looked after.
Ladies and gentlemen, please, we have a very full agenda and a complicated voting time ahead of us, and we must not waste any time!
World Trade
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, each of the reports on which we are now holding a joint debate is important in itself and could well have been debated individually.
I am glad to have the opportunity of providing a brief introduction to two of these reports.
Ahead of us lies the ministerial meeting of the WTO States in Singapore, which will be concerned with the first review of a historic event - the GATT Conference.
Our task, as the European Parliament, will be to advise and assist the Commission and the Council with the analysis of successes achieved to date and the direction to be followed by the WTO in the future.
In the present situation, everyone can clearly see how exceptionally important it is for this meeting to be successful.
Anyone witnessing what is happening in Africa at present and seeing how helpless we are to do anything about it, anyone seeing how trade disputes are increasing even between western industrialized nations and how problems are becoming more acute in many regions of Asia and in India, anyone reading the ILO report on the hundreds of millions of children forced into what in some cases amounts to slave labour - anyone seeing these things will recognize that the WTO is becoming more and more important in acting to resolve conflicts and in giving people throughout the world the feeling that there are such things as legal frameworks and systems which are worth fighting for.
This is the great responsibility to be borne by the WTO States.
The task of the conference is to review achievements to date and plan a prudent course of future action.
We need to be clear about one thing, and this applies to us in this House as well: any attempt to overburden the meeting with new topics will not solve any problems but make them more difficult, however much we may regret this in individual cases.
But that must not be allowed to prevent us from forming expectations about the future and putting forward constructive, sensible proposals.
My report is not solely concerned with looking towards the future, where new topics such as the environment and social clause and rules governing investment and competition are looming on the horizon.
Rather, the report focuses mainly on the everyday work of the World Trade Organization, which is primarily concerned with implementing the results achieved by the WTO in the course of previous negotiations.
If we think back over the course of the Uruguay Round, there were - as well as many other problems - two areas in which it was particularly difficult to reach a consensus.
One was agricultural trade, where the battle lines ran right through the encampments of the industrialized nations, and especially between the European Union and the United States.
The other was the trade in textile products, which was a focal point of the negotiations for a long time and in which the interests of the industrialized nations clashed with those of the developing countries.
Many arguments were thrashed out in the course of the extensive negotiations on the services sector, where talks about financial services, maritime transport and telecommunications will unquestionably have to be re-opened.
There is a danger that the potentially controversial subject of telecommunications will become the central focus of debate and reporting.
I regret the fact that the USA and the European Union have long been on a collision course in this area, and I would like to tell Sir Leon Brittan that, as has often been said here, he has the unconditional support of the European Parliament in the stance he has adopted.
The overall impression is that there are many areas in which the USA seems more interested in confrontation than consensus at the WTO, and we hope that Singapore will show that the USA can find time to pause for reflection.
A few final points on my first report.
All the trading partners are agreed that the new uniform WTO conciliation procedure is a crucial institutional improvement to the multilateral trade system.
Just how necessary that procedure is can be seen today in, among other things, our action against America's Helms-Burton and D'Amato Laws.
Our standpoint is unchanged, and I take this opportunity to state it once again: as far as we are concerned, that legislation is contrary to international law and we exhort the European Union, and especially the Commission, to continue pursuing this matter with energy and firmness.
Following the American presidential elections, we cannot indulge in the illusion that things will be any simpler for President Clinton with a Republican-dominated Congress on the one hand and a Democrat president on the other.
I also believe it is right for the European Parliament to make contact with the United States Congress on this matter and set up a round of talks at which we can exchange ideas regarding our respective notions of liberalized world trade.
A new order in trade policy is important.
There will be three or four focal topics: the prevention and reduction of distortions of competition, the achievement of initial results in the trade and environment sector, improving market access for the developing countries, and a work programme for the foreseeable future.
As far as the new order in the competition sector is concerned, the objective is to set up a working group at the meeting which, from 1997 onwards, will have a mandate to work out a multilateral framework of competition conditions.
We will also find that bilateral agreements between corporations and large companies are having an increasing effect on competition, and that solutions will have to be found at international level to regulate such agreements.
A prerequisite for a new competition order is that all WTO Member States should be obliged to accept comprehensive national competition rules, and to implement them.
In order to create a common platform for cooperation between the national competition authorities, minimum standards of competition control and their general validity are very important.
We are going to have to get used to the idea that, with large organizational forms and ever-growing regions, it is not always possible to achieve the maximum - we are going to have to settle for, and work towards, an approach initially based on minimum standards.
It is also a matter of the greatest regret, and I take this opportunity to emphasize it again, that it is still impossible for Taiwan to be a member of the WTO.
We simply cannot accept for much longer a situation in which the People's Republic of China, which for good reason cannot yet become a WTO member, bars access to the WTO for an important industrialized country like Taiwan. Or, to put it another way, it is unacceptable that the moral cowardice of the world's leading countries towards China should allow this kind of unequal treatment.
It would be a very welcome development if the People's Republic of China, and especially Russia, were able to become WTO members as soon as possible.
In the case of Russia, the economic aid we are providing is the right approach.
China still has to make very great efforts of its own in order to meet the conditions.
I should also point out that, with a view to the future powers of the WTO, we must always ensure that the European Union adopts a policy of speaking there with a single voice, and Parliament is in favour of that single voice being represented by the Commission and not by the echo of a multi-part chorus.
External economic relations are a field in which we can and must present a united front.
With regard to the problems we are having with the strengthening of international co-operation and competitiveness, let me say this final word about my other report: we want the global activities of enterprises increasingly to have a legal framework comparable with the WTO.
Here again we welcome Sir Leon's initiative in taking action, and I hope it will be possible for the first steps to be taken in Singapore towards setting up a working group at the WTO for this purpose.
There will not be the same conflicts with the Third World in this instance that there are in other comparable frameworks, because interests in this area coincide with those of the Third World and, as far as I can ascertain, industry too has a keen interest in ensuring our joint success in this area.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, four years ago - at the Environment Summit in Rio - the world's political leaders, with Germany's Chancellor Kohl playing a prominent part, promised that they would finally take action and no longer shut their eyes to global dangers such as the hole in the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect and climatic change.
Two years ago, when the WTO was founded in Geneva, only the preamble still contained any reference to sustainable development.
At the point where the WTO Statute moves on to specifics it is solely concerned with imposing free trade and growth ideology.
Now, at the ministerial meeting in Singapore, the WTO Committee on Trade and the Environment is to present its first report.
Unfortunately, there is nothing whatever to suggest at present that the growth of world trade is really taking place on a sustainable basis - in other words, an environmentally compatible and socially balanced basis.
Worse still, even the call for a viable world economic structure is being heard increasingly rarely in public.
Two weeks ago, for example, the Council, headed by Helmut Kohl, resolved not to set up a WTO working group for social standards in Singapore.
If the European Governments show a similar level of commitment to environmental protection, there is reason to fear that Singapore may be an ecological Waterloo.
Today, most European governments believe in free trade the way children believe in Father Christmas.
They voluntarily relinquish their democratic rights and leave the economy at the mercy of the big transnational corporations.
They portray globalization as an inevitability, making no mention of their own leading part in setting up the WTO.
The creation of the WTO wasted a great opportunity to lay down social and ecological rules for world trade.
Now it has become all the more difficult to reform and extend the WTO, but in any case the Council is probably not yet prepared to do so.
We in the European Parliament must today call upon the Commission and Member States of the Union to take action at last and fight in our interests in Singapore.
The Green Group in the European Parliament this week called upon the Environment Commissioner, Mrs Bjerregaard, to do her homework or resign.
In virtually all problem areas, the Commission will fail to achieve its own reduction targets by the year 2000.
So the Commission falls far short of serving as a role model in environmental matters.
As far as its role within the WTO is concerned, it has at least - I am delighted to say - published a comprehensive paper on trade and the environment.
Even though we cannot agree with a number of the Commission's assessments and proposals, the document did show that the Commission's heart, and especially that of Sir Leon Brittan's Directorate-General, is in the right place.
Unfortunately, even the Commission's proposals have been received with great reluctance by the Council.
So the obstacles to a socially and ecologically acceptable form of world trade are being created not only in Brussels but, even more so, in the capital cities of the Member States.
This makes it all the more important that we in the European Parliament should make a comprehensive ecological reform of the WTO a priority of the Singapore meeting.
My report, which was adopted unanimously by the Committee on External Economical Affairs, contains, for example, a call for environmental experts to be involved in WTO panel proceedings.
Article 20 of the GATT must be extensively revised to enable more pressure to be brought to bear in favour of ecological production.
In calling for bans on imports, our aim is not to obstruct imports from the Third World but to provide additional aid to the developing countries through new financial resources, technology transfer and additional quotas and the easing of customs duties for all products of fair trade.
Import bans, though, should be a last line of defence.
Global environmental protection can be achieved only by a multilateral procedure, and we therefore call for all multilateral environmental agreements to be preserved unconditionally.
As we have seen from the example of the recent exports of toxic wastes, stricter monitoring of these agreements is a matter of urgency.
We are entirely in favour of the use and further development of instruments of selfregulation, a code of conduct for transnational concerns or an ecolabel.
Of course, an ecolabel only achieves anything if it is regarded as a reward, a prize for top-quality ecological products, and is independently supervised.
The main purpose of reforming the WTO along social and ecological lines is to subject it to democratic control.
Transparency and the involvement of NGOs, unions and consumer associations have hitherto been totally inadequate or, indeed, non-existent.
Should the WTO prove incapable of reform, should it become no more receptive of social and ecological interests, consideration must be given to creating a new structure for world trade within the framework of the UN.
The EU is the world's greatest trading power.
It must throw its full weight into the scales to ensure that such a reform is successfully carried through.
There are a few sharp operators in this House, though, who still believe that world trade takes precedence over the environment.
To them I say, anyone who destroys the environment will finish up with nothing left to trade in!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when the European Union is contemplating a reform of its institutions with the objective of combating unemployment more efficiently and promoting its social and economic cohesion, considered as a fundamental task of the European Union and part and parcel of the Community's targets, the Commission's position, set out in a recent communication concerning the incidence of international developments in the EU textile and clothing sector, fails to conceal a biased and mercantilism vision, a standpoint which could lead to the irreparable downfall of such an important sector of activities with dramatic consequences for millions of workers, inevitably the target of vehement protests and criticism on the part of both sides of industry and everyone who knows what the reality is and who can identify with the difficulties and concerns of the European textiles and clothing industry.
Therefore, I think it is wise to look again at the positions taken by the Commission and carry out a further-reaching analysis of the sector, putting forward more solid and positive proposals, articulated in a genuine plan of action, not limited to references to reductions in production, increased imports and losses of jobs and which the future developments will inevitably confirm the same horrific trend.
But, on the contrary, we should once and for all recognise that the sector represents 2.3 million employees in over 100 000 companies and 8 % of employment in the EU, as well as its real potential, in particular its competitive capacity which would make a significant contribution to the effort to continue sustainable development in the current context of internationalisation and globalization.
Reference is made in this respect to the fact that the gradual integration of the textile and clothing industry into the central system of the disciplines of the World Trade Organisation and the impact of new free trade agreements with the countries of central and eastern Europe, the Customs Union with Turkey and bilateral agreements with Pakistan, India and China will substantially alter the framework for action in the Community textiles industry and this will force it to make a new effort to restructure itself, in order to face up - with guarantees of success - to international competition.
The agreement about trade in textile products and clothing has now struck a balance between members' rights and obligations.
The European Union accepted the gradual elimination of the restrictions of the multi-fibre agreement on the express condition that they should take place in this sector against the background of harmonisation and the equalisation of international competition competitions: in other words, international trade in textile products should be governed by the tougher rules and disciplines of the system of the World Trade Organisation.
On the contrary, the opening up of textile markets to third countries, whether we are dealing with commercial and industrialised partners or - especially - certain developing countries, has not advanced in the way that we wanted.
From this point of view, the GATT '94 Textile Agreement should also be translated into new market opportunities for Community undertakings, in particular concerning textile and clothing products of high quality.
On the eve of the Ministerial Conference in Singapore, it is vital that the European Union should take a firm common stand vis-à-vis the application of the agreement on liberalising the textile sector.
We absolutely must stick to the original timetable of liberalisation and integration, with the objective that the Community's textile industry can conclude, in conditions of certainty, the process which has now been started, i.e. that of restructuring and adapting to new international conditions, minimising the resulting social and regional costs, facing up with guarantees of success to increased external competition which will be concentrated in the application of the final phase, scheduled for the year 2005.
It is also vital that the European Union should subordinate the progress of integration to the respect of rules and disciplines preventing dumping, fraud and smuggling, and the opening up of third countries' markets, in particular establishing those products which must be included in the second and third phase of integration in the WTO system, while making sure that the process of adaption does not lead to the imposition of restrictions on Community exports.
On the other hand, the European Union must take the necessary initiative so that Singapore starts a serious dialogue about the link between the respect of a code of minimal social standards and international trade.
Unless social principles are scrupulously respected, such as the ILO Convention on work by minors, forced labour and trade union freedoms or requirements concerning the protection of the environment, we will be dealing a very harsh blow and helping considerably to distort competition.
We will admit that in the textile industry, too, the globalisation of economies is not a bad thing in itself but at the same time it is vital to have political regulation at the right level in order to correct distortions and negative effects, a task which at this stage in the process means that the WTO must also operate as efficiently as possible.
We must, finally, make sure that the economic and social idea of Europe is not lost in the process of liberalisation or in the creation of an environment which puts the citizens in second place.
Madam President, we are concentrating in this part of the debate on our experience of more than a year's implementation of the GATT Agreement on farm products.
We have listened to those required to work with it, the people in the industry itself.
Many of them are disappointed.
The sharpest criticisms have come from the dairy farmers and those who process animal products such as eggs and poultry.
All of them products with a relatively high value added.
Exports of these are very important to domestic price levels in the primary sector.
The marked decline in EU cheese exports is one of the main reasons for the low price paid for milk in the Community.
It is now apparent that the agreed regime of discipline over export refunds in the dairy sector is having very negative effects.
There is thus every reason to use this restrictive system as best we can.
In order to make optimum use of these limited export opportunities we thus need to manage export refunds carefully, not bureaucratically, but in a creative manner.
The Commission's role in the management committee's procedures is of capital importance here.
Is it the stated ambition of the Commission, and of Commissioners Brittan and Fischler, to make it possible via the agreed regime to foster healthy dairy exports to the growing world market on as big a scale as possible? The experience of this first year would seem to indicate the opposite.
As far as our obligation to abolish refunds is concerned, in monetary terms we have done in one year what we might have done over six years.
In budgetary terms that may look good, but as an instrument for guaranteeing fair agricultural incomes it was a failure.
The restricting of volumes is the biggest stumbling block.
I am not sure the Commission is not giving too low a priority to subsidized exports.
We have an agreed regime for six years.
This cannot be jeopardized just because the Commissioner is already looking ahead to the next round of negotiations.
If we are to believe the press reports, Commissioner Brittan has already made public, somewhat prematurely, his wish for agricultural subsidies to be scrapped altogether, thereby totally ignoring the objectives of the Treaty of Rome and specifically Article 39.
There is no question of our having to discuss further concessions over agriculture.
What we need to discuss is the sensible meeting of commitments entered into a year or so ago and which still have a full five years to run.
Within that context the EU has to make its position on world markets as strong as possible.
A conscious choice was made in favour of gradual and partial abolition, to prevent an abrupt departure from carefully constructed export positions.
But the policy pursued to date seems to have played totally into the hands of the speculators.
And this means a serious threat to the EU's sound reputation as a careful and reliable supplier of quality food products.
That is probably exactly what our competitors had hoped for.
Was the EU not far too naive in agreeing to the non-aggregated volume restrictions under the Blair House Agreement? And should we not recognize that the new US farm bill is a highly expansionist move offering a safety net subtly designed to stimulate exports and protect American producers on world markets whenever there is an acute need to do so?
Promoting exports means governments and industry seizing their opportunities. The joint motion for a resolution asks the Commission to produce a sectoral analysis by June 1997 of the problems which operators in the various agricultural sectors are experiencing as a result of implementing GATT.
Will the Commission do that? The issue is how to ensure a healthy development of world trade in farm products given that governments must and doubtless will be forced, for some time to come, to address the question of the social and economic health of the agricultural sector.
It would appear that the authors of the Commission strategy on the world challenge to international trade are oblivious to these tensions.
This 22-page document contains just 7 rules on agriculture.
The limited scale of the attention given to agriculture would seem fully to reflect Commissioner Brittan's wish, again if press repots are to be believed, that agriculture should be treated as an economic sector just like any other.
Does the Agriculture Commissioner share that view or has the Commission communication on the EU's export strategy escaped his notice? Perhaps in the long term, say over six years, we should perforce switch to a totally separate system of support.
But even if we did, for a period of six years, everyone who currently has a responsibility for implementing the trading rules would still have a duty to ensure that the exports which would be a matter of course under the new situation are not destroyed under the present situation.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, whenever we think back to the Uruguay Round, it always seems that agriculture was the stumbling block, the problem child of the whole negotiations.
We know, too, that industrial interests in the EU found it tiresome that so much time had to be spent talking about agricultural policy.
Unless the European Union can succeed this time - starting in Singapore - in establishing clear criteria for all sectors of the economy with a view to the negotiations that start in 1999, then we shall be the losers in the next round.
The idea of using subsidized exports as a weapon to battle against our trading partners for shares of the world market makes no appeal at all to me - nor must it make any to agricultural policy makers.
If we do that, we will lose, and we should force the others not to do it either.
This applies specifically, and especially, to agriculture.
I am in favour of exports, we all are, including exports of agricultural products - but not at the expense of the environment and mankind, not if it involves neglecting social and ecological criteria as has happened in the past.
If we go on like that, the next round of world trade talks and Singapore itself will be a disaster for the EU and for the entire world.
We in the EU should have the courage to compel the others to change course, including the Americans and those who take the American line.
Unless we can achieve that, we would be better off staying at home.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the textile industry can be reduced to a handful of key phrases and points, even though one minute is very short even for that.
Those points are the environmental and social decisions and preparations for Singapore, the subject of child labour, the effects of textile working on the environment, and on employees too, and the subject of globalization.
They also include ground rules for future international policy, in order to define what ecological and social standards mean to Europe and to others too - in other words, whether they are going to remain in free fall, in Europe and elsewhere, or whether those international standards will finally be enshrined at Singapore, and within Europe too, as ground rules to support a free internal market.
This is a political orientation of the WTO, and a question of quite crucial importance for the future.
The united front displayed by the political groups on these essential points is another demonstration of the fact that opinions across the political spectrum all point to the safeguarding of social and ecological standards in the textile industry.
Madam President, I am replacing Irene Crepaz, who was the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, but who left Parliament at the last Austrian elections.
I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Kittelmann warmly on the production of an excellent report.
His resolution begins by stating that world trade must help raise living standards, ensure full employment and increase prosperity rather than lead to ruinous competition for jobs.
That is absolutely right, it is central to the position adopted by the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
The European Union will play a significant role in Singapore either in defending the introduction of social and environmental standards into multilateral trade arrangements or in ensuring that the ILO is given prominence in efforts to standardize social requirements.
Paragraph 72 of Mr Kittelmann's report sums up the position that is central to both the Social Affairs and Environment Committees.
We do indeed condemn distortions of competition caused by social and environmental dumping and we call for such dumping to be curbed by the introduction of environmental and social clauses by way of an amendment to Article 20 of the World Trade Organization regulations.
That is absolutely essential.
We believe that core labour standards derived from ILO Conventions need to be included at that point in Article 20 of the WTO regulations.
Those core labour standards would be: freedom of association and collective bargaining, elimination of exploitative forms of child labour, the prohibition of forced labour and non-discrimination in employment.
We believe they are the absolute minimum we should be seeking to incorporate into WTO arrangements at this time.
Of course, we have support from a number of European Union governments for this position but, regrettably, a number of others continue to oppose this position.
Not surprisingly perhaps, given its position on social policy within the European Union, the British Government appears among those who oppose this proposal.
For those who say that it is not possible, I would urge them to look back at the OECD study, which was commissioned in 1984 to look into trade, employment and internationally recognized labour standards.
This was the report that was considered by our ministers back in May this year.
It concludes that the economic effects of core labour standards - those I read out - are likely to be small and that real benefits would accrue to developing countries without any likely negative effect on foreign direct investment.
In other words, tremendous advantages are to be gained for all by incorporating such core labour standards in Article 20 of the WTO arrangements.
I hope that Sir Leon Brittan and the EU delegation will do everything possible to ensure that these social, core labour standards and environmental standards are indeed incorporated.
Madam President, I should like to use the minute at my disposal to refer briefly to the international rules of competition.
I believe that at the Conference of the World Trade Organization in December 1996, some progress will have to be made in that direction.
That is essential, especially in the context of the globalization of the economy.
Governments all over the world are reducing excise duties, with the result that non-customs barriers are assuming substantial importance as obstacles to world trade, and the rules of competition are among those obstacles, especially the non-harmonization of those rules.
The World Trade Organization must progress towards the creation of a multipartite framework for international rules of cooperation and competition policy, taking account of experiences stemming from recent bipartite agreements such as the agreement between the European Union and the United States.
I would like to add that the European Commission must also try to reinforce existing bipartite agreements and extend them to the other major trading powers, always bearing in mind the legitimate interests of companies in relation to confidentiality and the protection of trade secrets.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the forthcoming world trade conference in Singapore must not become focused on implementation and review - it must tackle the new areas that we in this European Parliament rightly formulated immediately after the Uruguay Round.
There is no doubt that free world trade has increased - the growth rates from 1994 to 1995 and again from 1995 to 1996 in the World Trade Organization's reports underline this.
At the same time, there is equally no doubt that we are a long way from a fair world trade system - we have dumping situations, not just price dumping by enterprises but genuine dumping conditions as far as terms of trade are concerned, too.
So the time has come.
In Singapore, we must nail our colours to the mast and introduce rules to cover this subject of trade and the environment - in other words, environmentally compatible trade has to become a reality.
The working group, too, must be re-instituted to enable it to achieve concrete results.
What will be particularly important, though, at this meeting will be the setting-up of a working group on fundamental social rights and minimum standards in the trade sector.
That working group will not just have to process and analyse the problems that exist - taking its cue, of course, from the internationally valid ILO Conventions on child labour, the prohibition of forced labour and the fundamental freedoms of association. It will also have to discuss possible sanctions in the context of trade and - much more important - a system of positive action, a system of positive incentives, to ensure that these minimum standards, both environmental and social, can be enforced.
This is not a matter of protectionism from the standpoint of the industrialized countries - it is an attempt to achieve humane production and trading conditions in every country in the world, because after all the GATT - and the WTO, too - came into existence in order to improve living standards, ensure full employment and a steady growth of real incomes, increase effective demand, develop the full utilization of the world's resources and expand the production and exchange of goods.
We must stand by these objectives of the GATT and WTO - it is in Europe's interests to do so.
But there are other things, too, to bear in mind.
Free world trade has not just brought the globalization of markets, transport and communications, resulting in considerable problems of security that ultimately will have to be dealt with as another new topic. It has also resulted in an ever-increasing number of transnational enterprises dividing up the world between them, as it were, with territorial and price cartels, deals, oligopolistic and monopolistic positions.
This has to be stopped.
We need an international competitive order.
Bilateral agreements like those between the European Union and the USA are helpful, certainly, but they do not solve the problem because the problem is concerned not only with information but also with strategic lines of action.
We must, therefore, prevent the formation of cartels and introduce merger control, a kind of antitrust law, at international level, too; we must adopt a model based on the European single market which, after all, has not confined itself to free trade, open frontiers and free market access but has also introduced rules governing freedom of competition and thus something resembling a governmental administrative policy.
This must be regained at international level, as a matter of urgency, to avoid the situation I have described where the hundred biggest transnational companies, who today have their hands on more than one-third of the world's prosperity, are able to dictate terms.
At the WTO Conference, one call that has been made by the European Parliament will be even more important than in the past: we need not just parliamentary involvement in every sector, what we need even more is for the EU to speak with a single voice if it wants to bring about fair world trade.
To this extent, the revision of the Treaty and the exclusive right of the European Commission to head the negotiations at the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference are designed to get the trading policy of the European Union, the world's biggest trading entity, back into shape.
Madam President, production is becoming globalized and so is the textile industry.
The need to adapt in a time of globalization undoubtedly presents problems for the textile industry.
The textile sector in the European Union can only adapt to the new rules of world trade if it truly restructures and becomes more innovative.
Firms which do not restructure, innovate and adapt will suffer as a result of liberalization.
That must not cause the industry to break the rules on quotas and anti-dumping measures.
That often leads to unfounded accusations. That is not right.
Policy on quotas and anti-dumping and the implementing of that policy presents problems for importers and for trade in general.
Globalization can only work properly if trade is able to work properly.
Goods remain stuck in port because they cannot be cleared.
I have already crossed swords with Sir Leon Brittan about the way in which antidumping policy is managed and the way in which the quotas are managed.
Quotas are not being managed well.
That is not the fault of the Commission alone, but also of the fact that quotas are an abomination and are just impossible to manage well.
But I deeply deplore the fact that this is highly damaging to importers.
I think we have produced a well balanced opinion on the textile sector in our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, thanks to Mr Moniz's excellent report.
It calls for measures to achieve a liberalized market using the phased approach required by the GATT/WTO Agreement.
It gives plenty of emphasis to the need for multilateral agreements in this regard.
My group has sought in a number of amendments to stress the globalization of trade rather more, since on closer examination this point did not seem to have come over quite so clearly.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as the WTO Conference in Singapore approaches, Mr Kittelmann's excellent report combines a great many recommendations to governments, familiar items that are still unresolved and bold new proposals such as those for rules governing competition on a multilateral basis and environmentally compatible trade.
But the greatest political expectation, it seems to me, is a signal on what form Europe's society should take in the next century, something for which the globalization of trade challenges us to plan.
It seems to me that American society has replied to this challenge in the recent presidential elections: there is no escaping globalization, and it is not a threat to the acquired prosperity of the wealthy countries, as the reactionary right would have it; to the contrary, every individual must make demands upon himself to safeguard his future; the State is the guarantor of individual freedoms, not an intrusive power.
Conversely, the march through Rome last Saturday of a million moderates, most of them middle class, bears witness to a concern which Europe's leaders have hitherto done nothing to meet.
As Barbara Spinelli has said in an editorial in the Turin paper 'La Stampa' , entitled 'The middle class at a loss' , Europe's citizens are confused about the future, rebelling against the tax for Europe, not because they have suddenly become antiEuropean but because they know that they are being asked to pay the price of worldwide competition and they want a development plan, they want to preserve the experience of a century which has tried to strike a balance between solidarity and individual freedom.
Europe is calling on its leaders to produce a plan of society which reconciles full employment with high standards of social protection.
We expect the Singapore Conference to provide an opportunity for some serious thinking that must not be missed.
Madam President, I must emphasize here the importance of this report by Mr Kittelmann, who has successfully combined a wide variety of issues into one homogeneous vision.
The Singapore Conference will indeed deal with all aspects of our economic life and international economic relations and not just the supposedly 'traditional' issues.
The conclusions from Singapore will thus be crucial for the preservation of a multilateral system of free trade and for current or future negotiations.
In institutional terms the issues to be debated in Singapore fall partly within the exclusive powers of the Union and partly within the powers we share with Member States.
This creates a difficulty in that the Treaty, now that the old Article 116 has been scrapped, no longer places them under any obligation to coordinate their policy in those areas in which they retain their competence.
In the context of the common foreign and security policy Member States are, however, obliged to coordinate their positions and present a collective position in international organizations and at international conferences.
The European Parliament too must be adequately consulted and informed by the Council under Article J.7 of the Maastricht Treaty.
This is especially important when we remember that the Singapore conclusions will not be formal agreements but texts containing a political undertaking. These do not require the European Parliament to be formally consulted by the Council, nor is the Luns-Westerterp procedure applicable to them.
Our Amendment No 27 should be seen against this background.
Its aim, naturally, is not to challenge the powers of the Union in the area of common trade policy but to remind Member States of their obligations, namely their obligations vis à vis the European Parliament, even in those Areas where Member States still retain their powers.
This amendment of ours thus seeks quite simply to establish and emphasize the right of the European Parliament to be informed.
With an eye to the IGC these institutional issues clearly point up the need for the Union to be equipped with an efficient and coherent foreign policy.
This calls for clearer power-sharing and institutional mechanisms which will enable the European Union to speak with one voice and act more forcefully on the world stage.
It is my privilege, Madam President, to head Parliament's delegation to the World Trade Organization and I shall do my very best to ensure, when Union positions are determined, that the views of our institution are taken into account.
Madam President, I doubt whether anyone in this House would dispute the need for internationally recognized rules governing trade.
The WTO is a good thing - the very principle behind its foundation is a good thing.
Having said that, the principles underlying the functioning of the WTO are something else.
Because we need only look at the text of the agreement to see what the priorities are: first and foremost, increasing the production of and trade in goods and services.
That is an absolute priority, over and above any other consideration.
So the objective of sustainable development is secondary, the Rio Conference has been forgotten. No more mention is made of social rights and individual rights than it is of environmental protection.
In the absence of similarly global institutions vested with real supranational power, like the WTO, I think that nothing much will change.
After all, what do we find in those WTO agreements other what has just been said today? Well, there is an Article 16 which says that every State shall ensure that its laws, regulations and administrative procedures conform to its obligations as set out in the agreements.
Where does that lead us? It leads us, logically, to the dismantling of all social and environmental legislation in the so-called developed countries.
We are seeing this already in the European Union.
A whole body of internal European Union legislation is at risk.
I can reel it off for you: leghold traps, the agreement on BST, hormones in meat, chocolate, bananas and now, lastly, the legislation on new foods in the course of preparation. All this is being threatened with reversal by the WTO agreement which we unfortunately, as I see it, accepted two years ago.
So I welcome the specific proposals made in the various reports before us today, but I do not hold out any great hopes of Singapore, especially after listening to Sir Leon Brittan yesterday.
I detect no political will for change.
I may be wrong, I hope I am.
We shall see, after Singapore, whether I am wrong or not, but I must frankly say that I doubt it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is based largely on the absolute omnipotence of free trade.
Nothing else really counts.
I believe we are seeing an alarming and increasing globalization, a growth in transnational companies and increasingly extensive concentrations of business and industry.
This report starts from the conviction that the whole question of the World Trade Organization is regarded far too much, exclusively, in relation to increasing globalization.
Only secondary importance is given in the report to matters such as the place and involvement of developing countries, which will all be at varying stages of development.
And too little attention is paid to additional standards which cannot be divorced from 'sustainable growth' , namely environmental standards, social, international standards, bans on child labour, forced labour, equality of the sexes, freedom of expression.
These things too must form part of our discussions in the World Trade Organization.
But we are not totally in agreement on these ourselves.
Even within the European Union we are divided.
Major international companies are in fact colonizing the international organizations, without even a hint of democratic accountability.
So we are faced here with a crucial choice between two world models.
Either we choose to give absolute priority to more streamlining, more productivity, more flexibility, more operational relocations, or we make a choice in favour of other fundamental values which Europe should and could apply in the new world dimension.
These include the appreciation that the resources available to mankind are finite. The idea that we must develop and expand social and economic models which are geared to the future.
GATT and the WTO have chosen the old model, one which even goes against earlier commitments and agreements such as those of Rio.
The final text of the World Trade Organization's text has 22 000 pages of appendices.
It was a question of take it or leave it.
Let me give you an example of just one part of it.
The phytosanitary rules in the agriculture dossier, here we are obliged to follow the codex alimentarius which is entirely controlled by industrial giants such as Cargil, Nestlé, Unilever, Coca Cola - some of the 100 giants which have full control of the world's food supply chains.
So much for democracy!
I find no echo of this in the Kittelmann report.
There is a lot more which needs to be discussed.
I hope this will provide the starting point for a broad social debate which may go as far as getting our social and ecological responsibilities incorporated in the agreements currently being hammered out.
Madam President, in the World Trade Organization we have another international organization in a world which already has very efficient international organizations as any Zairean in Goma could tell you.
Well, Mr Kittelmann is an extreme optimist - with an optimism reminiscent of Ricard or Sir Leon Brittan.
The World Trade Organization is going to adopt a high moral tone, it's going to preside over a code of conduct.
Obviously, nothing is going to be said about Pakistan or India, about the economic exploitation of children, and nothing is going to be said about exchange rate fluctuations.
When there were five francs to the dollar, the United States held a 40 % share of the world cereals market, but when there were nine francs to the dollar the United States' world market share was down to 25 %.
None of that really matters.
The essential thing is to have a system for settling differences, and of course everyone knows how well that works - just look at hormone-treated meat and bananas.
There will be panels of three members, selected from a list of fifteen arbitrators, and those arbitrators will enjoy the same freedom to annoy the United States as Mr Boutros Boutros Gali does.
There will be an appeal body of seven members, with the United States and its lackeys - New Zealand, the Philippines, Uruguay, Egypt and even Germany - Germany, as we know, has been an absolutely free agent, with Chiquita financing the socialist and liberal parties in the banana affair.
And in conclusion, Madam President, the World Bank has produced a report saying that we would be 500 thousand million dollars better off. And the Nobel Economics Laureate, Maurice Allais, has formed the conclusion that that report was completely lacking in any scientific value.
Madam President, our group, including its agricultural members, has not wasted any time on preliminary opposition to the WTO.
This is the way the world is going, and agriculture cannot allow itself the luxury of being at odds with the world.
After a year's application, in any case, it should be said that it has not been the disaster foreseen in some quarters, even for the agricultural sector; but there is no doubt that, as other Members have said, there have been problems.
Mr Sonneveld has referred to certain sectors of agriculture, and I would point out that there are others, those concerned with Mediterranean products, which were already less well protected under the CAP, which have had more problems in implementing the GATT agreements, and which in some cases have amounted to nothing less than the complete reform of these common market organizations.
The problems have arisen when the European Union has handled these agreements somewhat defensively, adopting a somewhat deferential tone.
Well, I was in Cork, at the conference organized by the European Commission on the future of rural policy.
It was very interesting, but I believe that the real test will be to revise market policy in the agricultural sector in a way which really highlights environmental issues and rural policy.
From this standpoint, the new negotiations to begin in 1999 - not far away now - with the challenge of decoupling aid from production will be the real test, the real test too for the reform of the European Union's market policy.
The Americans have already done it with their Farm Bill and, most of all, they are proposing to us an aggressive strategy in the exporting of unsubsidized agro-food products.
I believe we must, one way or another, take these experiences to heart.
The FAO Summit opens in Rome about now, and this too should be an opportunity for thinking about a reform of the reform of the CAP, but, be that as it may, I think we should take immediate advantage of the opportunities offered to us by the WTO in areas such as crop protection and regulations governing the origin of agro-food products.
Madam President, I am very pleased to be taking part in this joint debate on three inter-related REX Committee topics: ecosociology from our colleague, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, the textile sector from Mr Moniz and, of course, the World Trade Organization from Mr Kittelmann, which is the report I will be referring to principally.
I feel that Mr Kittelmann's report outlines a number of advantages, despite a divergence of opinion.
Firstly, it establishes a clear legal framework vis-à-vis the right of the stronger, i.e. through requiring respect for legal rules adopted by agreement, and which have also been referred to by Mr Moniz, particularly in connection with the textile sector.
In addition, in point 6 of his report, Mr Kittelmann speaks of the principle of solidarity which requires full market access for the poorest developing countries without their being required to open their markets fully , additionally calling for the setting-up of an aid plan for them.
Finally, the report points out that the WTO's work should not have a distorting effect through the adoption of unilateral measures: a clear reference to the right of the stronger, a phenomenon we are seeing, and are attempting to prevent, in connection with the United States and Cuba, with the Helms-Burton Act.
Generally speaking, I find his call for European Union undertakings to have better information on trade-policy instruments very positive, and therefore believe that the three reports we are debating constitute an enormously positive step forward, particularly Mr Kittelmann's wide-ranging report on the World Trade Organization.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate Mr Moniz, the rapporteur, on his work and, of course, on having struck a certain balance in depicting the situation facing the textiles industry in my country.
We all know, even without opposing globalization, that, taken to the extreme as it has been, with the obvious hegemony of the US economy and its multinationals, it would have predictable consequences on the European economy.
In some cases, because the European economy is used to the welfare state and, in others, because it is backward, as is the case of my country.
The truth is that, within the inequalities to be found around the world, some people exploit others' poverty and others exploit other people's high technology.
It is difficult to reach an entente among nations in respect of maintaining a dignified level of humanity in working populations.
It is not a question of left or right: you just need common sense and intelligence in order to analyse things, to see that the measures taken in the profound defeat suffered by Europe in the GATT talks would have negative effects on poorer countries like my own.
No clauses were negotiated, nobody dared to defend poor economies against powerful ones or against exploited economies, such as some in Asia.
The result is now visible: this is a political question and not one for economists, it is a question of understanding the destiny of human beings and knowing how to defend people from abuse.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to refer specifically within this debate to the report submitted by our colleague, Mr Moniz, and to thank him for having paid particular attention to the international situation of the European Union textile and clothing sector, since this is an extremely important industry in terms of its production, foreign trade and the number of people it employs, and one deserving of such special treatment.
I am also pleased that Mr Moniz's approach is an appropriate one in that he does not call for direct intervention or adopt a protectionist stance, but calls for the establishment of fair and equitable trading conditions which do not exert a distorting effect on the sector's ability to participate, to maintain a presence, in international markets. Moreover, it is not subject to distortions or discrimination likely to have a very negative effect on the sector's necessary reconversion and adaptation to the international market which is now governed by the agreements of the Uruguay Round and administered by the World Trade Organization.
I would like to conclude my intervention by calling for a detailed examination of those points in which he advocates fair competition, the power to apply measures to those rules which distort access or which are subject to fraud or which constitute de facto discrimination of a social, labour or commercial nature likely to cause serious harm to the textile industry and its possibilities within the European Union.
Madam President, trade always seems desirable to those who are in the strong position, and they dictate their terms to the others.
The purpose of trade is not to make the poor rich or to feed the hungry but to make money out of it.
Not that I have any real objection to that, but I do think we should abandon this mythology.
When we debate the fact that shipments of animals are going to North Africa and we get excited about the conditions in which they are shipped, we are right to do so, but the real basic problem is that we are taking animals there although there are plenty there already.
Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, the poorest states in the world, traditionally live by livestock farming.
They are no longer able to sell their animals because we are taking away their market by shipping subsidized live animals out there, and torturing them into the bargain.
Then our agriculture minister, Mr Borchert, who is now attending the world food conference, says, ' well, we have to do it, because otherwise those markets would be taken by New Zealand and Australia and in that case the animals would be coming from even farther away' .
So we aren't talking about feeding the hungry, we're talking about markets.
Why should animals be sent from New Zealand to North Africa when there are plenty of animals there already?
In other words, we must safeguard the basic right to food.
We must see that all international treaties include a clause saying that it is a basic right of any people to pull back and ensure the security of their own food base, and we must conclude agreements to the effect that trade must not just take place on the terms dictated by the stronger countries, to the detriment and impoverishment of the poor, but should benefit them. That is what we should do if we really want to introduce an ethical aspect into international trade.
Madam President, completion of the Uruguay Round meant that an important step towards freer world trade had been achieved under the supervision of the WTO.
The Singapore Conference needs to build on that, but within the clear framework of a responsible policy on environmental safeguards, social policy and development cooperation.
It is in the interests of the poorer nations that the pledges given by the rich countries in earlier trade agreements should be kept.
Efforts must also be made to cut import tariffs for the least developed countries still further.
New efforts in social policy must be directed towards eliminating abuses such as forced labour and the exploitation of children, though caution is indicated here given the cultural context and the danger of hidden protectionism.
Regarding the connection between trade and the environment, we endorse the recommendations of the KreisslDörfler report that multilateral environmental agreements should be made part of the WTO and that exports of products which contaminate the environment should be banned.
I would like to commend Mr Moniz on his excellent report.
Now Mr Moniz quite rightly points out the depressing downward trend in employment in the textile industry, and this trend unfortunately looks set to continue.
It is quite clear that part of the responsibility for this downward trend lies with manufacturers and retailers who relocate production and processing facilities abroad, sometimes taking advantage of low social and environmental standards and, to their shame, exploiting workers who have little rights and no influence.
If we are to devise a strategy to deal with this situation, then I think we also need some transparency from the industry itself.
We need to know if manufacturers and retailers are sourcing abroad, what investment strategies they have and which markets these investments abroad are intended to serve.
The Commission has regular meetings with representatives of the textile industry and we would ask the Commission to pass on to us what information it receives as a result of these meetings, particularly in terms of trends and investment strategies.
Perhaps the Commission could even draw up a report on the trends in the relocation of European Union companies abroad.
The other part of Mr Moniz's report which I think is extremely appropriate is the demand for an investigation into the use of child labour in the European Union.
I think we should go beyond that and look at working practices in general in the European Union.
The Financial Times recently produced a report which illustrated the extent of shoddy working practices and extremely low pay, and that was in the United Kingdom alone.
So I would ask the Commission to take this very seriously and examine these practices.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are different interests in the European Community and sometimes there are contradictory interests between States which are essentially producers of equipment and those States which are traditionally the producers of consumer goods.
The European textiles and clothing sector has been a victim and continues to be a victim of this economic policy which allows a poorly regulated and sometimes fraudulent import of textiles as a bargaining chip for the export of equipment.
We all know that, after lengthy and difficult negotiations, the Community adhered to the agreement on textiles and clothing in the final act of the Uruguay Round.
In that agreement it was recognised that structural adjustments needed to be made to the European textiles industry in the new conditions of production and commercialisation which have affected textile products throughout the world.
It was also agreed that there should be a progressive integration, state by state over ten years.
No policy favouring other interests, deserving and legitimate though they are, can change this international agreement.
It is for the European Parliament, Madam President, to check that this agreement is complied with; after all, as I said, it is an international agreement, and we should denounce any negative stance concerning the economy of the textile sector and the serious social problems resulting therefrom, if this agreement is not complied with.
The report drafted by our colleague, Mr Moniz, is a good one, and it goes in this direction, dealing in full with the whole subject.
Therefore, in my opinion, it deserves our support.
Madam President, the short time available to me is barely sufficient to recall one basic idea out of all the topics we are discussing today: the international and internal context of trade as the base of a triangle which makes it a central factor in the market, alongside two others: industry and the consumer.
It follows that world trade and internal trade derive their efficiency from the strength of the distribution system. I believe that our efforts should be directed along those lines, to make it possible to succeed in improving links between countries.
An old Italian saying has it that trade can pass where armies cannot.
Well, then, our efforts - especially in the sectors under consideration today, such as textiles most of all but many others too, such as food - must be particularly targeted on small- and medium-sized enterprises, which, to emphasize it yet again, are the fundamental driving force behind the economic functioning of the European Community.
Madam President, the tragic situation confronting the textile and clothing industry in Europe compels us to tackle this subject without red tape or rhetoric.
The 850 thousand jobs already lost in the industry, and the prospect that employment and production will continue to decrease over the next ten years, must force the Union to be uncompromising in applying those WTO standards aimed at creating genuine conditions of fair competition and ensuring effective access to the world's markets for European businesses.
The trade agreements between the European Union and third countries - Turkey, Eastern Europe, the former USSR, India, Pakistan and China - must ensure certain minimum conditions to preserve the balance in the textile industry.
They must commit the Commission to denouncing and rejecting agreements in cases where situations exist that favour manufacturing conditions which are unconventional, to say the least, in terms of the international rules of economics and democracy, and to rejecting, for example, products made by children in the absence of any controls over respect for their basic human rights.
I would draw the attention of the Commission to the problem of the recognition of wool as an agricultural product.
I do so in order to prevent the wool production sector rapidly following the textile industry into crisis. Jobs are being lost in wool production, and that sector needs a programme of action to avert the crisis and prevent the disappearance of sheep from the Community's territory.
Madam President, one positive point about the WTO report that I would particularly like to stress, as a new Member of the European Parliament, is that the Commission's communication to the Council did incorporate the demand by the Social Affairs Committee that a working group should be set up to consider questions relating to the minimum social standard.
I welcome this because Europe's trade unions have been campaigning intensively for more than 20 years to ensure that international trade agreements, too, include safeguards of workers' rights, especially in view of the ever-increasing density of economic interrelationships.
This has absolutely nothing to do with some new form of protectionism.
The international division of labour will continue to function as in the past, and the developing countries will continue to enjoy adequate production advantages.
In this context, as we know, the world is changing very, very slowly.
That is why we call upon the representatives to the Commission to ensure that the position previously defined is maintained in Singapore - unambiguously, steadfastly and with no concessions!
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Singapore Conference has to set the new agenda for world trade.
World trade and the environment will doubtless be discussed there but we want world trade and the social dimension to be discussed as well.
We expect the European Commission and the Council of Ministers to advocate not just free trade but fair trade, with greater emphasis on the word 'fair' .
There are two difficulties for the textile and clothing sector.
The first is minimum social standards.
We are in favour of five WTO basic conventions.
This is a question not of protectionism, Commissioner, but of 'core' rights, for example the right to freedom of association, the protection of children against exploitation in the form of child labour.
These are not protectionist measures.
Regrettably the Council of Ministers has not yet mandated a working group to look at the social standards because of blocking tactics on the part of some Member States.
But how are we to explain that to Europe's textile industry? Employers are interested here just as much as workers.
The second difficulty is the transition to phase two of the Multi-Fibre Arrangement under the rules of the World Trade Organization.
Clear agreements were reached and conditions imposed in the Uruguay Round. Have they been complied with?
Have the necessary balances been achieved? The Uruguay Round envisaged a reciprocal opening-up of markets.
Have the exporting countries made proposals which are acceptable? I should appreciate it if the Commissioner could brief us on that satisfactorily.
I fear that we are once more in danger of pursuing what I think of as 'naive' free trade.
The future of the European textile and clothing industry is at stake here.
That means two and a half million direct jobs and another two million jobs indirectly.
That is what we stand to lose.
We should follow the example of the United States which does not hesitate to protect its own industry.
Madam President, in the textile sector as in many others, harsh reality has overtaken and dispelled the illusions of a World Trade Organization that has been presented, untruthfully and demagogically, as fair and beneficial for all.
The cult of commerce, the creed of free trade and the dogma of globalization march on, with the deliberate sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of jobs in Europe.
The policy of opening up Europe to global competition, already a reality in the textile sector, is draining the life-blood from our industrial and social tissue and putting thousands of workers into the street.
The even greater liberalization of trade that has already been planned will drain that life-blood away altogether.
No amount of research or modernization of production technology will save jobs that are doomed to disappear as a result of savage global competition.
The frenzied quest for competitiveness resulting from the opening of our frontiers is forcing European business to lay off workers, to relocate, even to make use of illegal working.
This logic, and this mechanism, are socially criminal and economically damaging to the Union.
Madam President, I have been allowed one minute, which is not long at all, to say three things about the textile industry, not forgetting to congratulate Mr Moniz on his report.
First, representing as I do the North of France, a region which has lost tens of thousands of textile industry jobs, I must express the deep sorrow felt by workers in that industry on hearing the announcement of further redundancies.
Next, as a Frenchman, I believe that our textile industry does have a future provided that we play our trump cards of high technology and quality and benefit from new networks and methods in the clothing sector.
And finally, as a European, I once again call upon the Commission and the Council to make certain that the social clauses are put in place.
When we see the destructured form this sector takes in the developing countries, it is impossible to hide behind the most-favoured-nation clause of the GATT to deny ourselves the right to take action in defence of our textile industries, action which would be beneficial to all.
This time, at long last, perhaps someone will listen!
Madam President, I also wish to congratulate my colleague on the REX Committee, Fernando Moniz, on a well drafted report, which deserves our support for the motion for a resolution presented for vote in the House.
What is at stake is a sector facing many problems and it is of primary importance that we should emphasise that this is a sector with very good prospects and of great interest for the whole of Europe.
Apart from its direct economic importance, especially the maintenance and creation of jobs in industry and activities which are complementary to it, the placing of our textile products and clothing in the markets of third countries will depend on the recognition of the merits of European fashion, linked to cultural values which are a distinctive element of our presence in the whole world.
The promotion of this sector calls, however, for a very firm attitude on the part of those leading us.
I would put especial emphasis, as has already been pointed out by my colleague, Eurico de Melo, on respect for the deadlines which were already agreed at the Uruguay Round, and that we should meet expectations and the necessary programming in order to adapt our companies; these deadlines should also be complied with in terms of opening up other markets, simultaneously liberalising their imports and not penalising the exports of raw materials which are necessary for us.
On the other hand, in the line of the programme for restructuring the textile and clothing industries, implemented three years ago by the Portuguese authorities, we must strengthen direct support measures for this sector, preparing it to be able to compete with an advantage on an open market, while respecting the rules of international trade; it is also important that since modernising the sector leads to a liberation of some of the labour force, we should also promote alternative sectors which are able to occupy them in better conditions.
In this policy, it is important that the initiatives to be promoted should also take place in current textile regions, maintaining populations in existing social conditions and avoiding, on the contrary, a fresh concentration of investment in metropolitan areas, which are already overcrowded, which will only add an additional factor to the misery suffered there and increase the waste of resources.
Topical and urgent debate (Part 1)
The next item is the first part of the topical and urgent debate on subjects of major importance.
Votes
Mr President, this is an extremely important amendment. It relates to industrial farming.
The vote which was adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection relates to the number of animal units, which would be 100, but another amendment, tabled by Mrs Barthet-Mayer and other Members, suggests 200. I have no great hope of obtaining 314 votes in favour of the proposal by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, but I do support Mrs Barthet-Mayer's amendment.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Mr President, even though we have adopted this resolution on Zaire, I must protest strongly at the way in which this debate has been interrupted. At a time when the eyes of the entire world are on events on Zaire, I find it scandalous that we could not spend ten minutes more debating a problem which concerns the entire world.
It is, of course, an admirable objective which we are aiming at here, namely the establishing of a centre for the control of infectious diseases.
I am, however, highly doubtful about the value of continually setting up new institutions at "Community level' .
Sweden has already developed networks for this purpose, for example, in co-operation with WHO.
The fact is that these continual new EU institutions demand resources which have to be taken from somewhere.
A positive choice of an EU institution thereby perhaps requires - especially if we bear in mind of the negative attitude towards taxation within the Union - a negative decision at the national or global level.
I further regard it as somewhat debatable that we in Parliament (see Amendment No 8) are also to put names to these new inspection institutions.
The fact that one simply calls the national bodies "Eurocentres' does not make the situation any better.
Dybkjær report
The European Union and the European Parliament won't be stopped by a mere contradiction!
In October, we voted for the sharing of working hours.
In November, we were in favour of everincreasing competition. Well, the more competition increases, the greater the concentration of labour.
Today, the fifteen Member States are split into two camps: those which have employment and, under the pressure of competition, work longer and longer and harder and harder; and those which, rejected by the employment market, endure longer and longer periods of unemployment.
This system - exploitation on the one hand, exclusion on the other - is the product of ever-increasing competition.
Competition is an economic necessity.
Elevating it to the status of a dogma is a social and human aberration.
Middle-East peace process
Mr President, the situation in the Middle East is unpredictable. One moment Jerusalem is in flames, the next moment there is renewed talk of a possible solution over Hebron.
A resolution of this Parliament can of course be modified at any given moment.
Both parties must be encouraged to continue the peace process. With the election of the new Israeli prime minister the process was put on ice for a while and as yet I still see no sign of the freezer being opened.
There now seem to be signs of movement in the right direction. The expansion of existing settlements remains a problem which has to be solved.
It is not the job of Parliament to dictate the law and the solutions to the two sides. We in this Parliament are not the negotiators, neither is the rapporteur.
We can only exert any influence on the sidelines. A balanced report is the right way to do that, but first of all a few amendments are needed and some factual errors must be removed from the report.
I hope we shall manage to do this. I am very happy with what Commissioner Marín has said, because I thought his account was a very balanced one.
I hope the Union will be able to play a part in the peace process.
The Barcelona process is one instrument which will help in this.
The Union must also do as much as possible to achieve a uniform and consistent position.
The recent visit of the troika to the parties to the peace process was extremely useful.
We should build on this by sending out a balanced signal from this Parliament.
Mr President, the late José Maria Gil-Robles, a Spanish politician of great standing and whose son my group has just approved as its candidate to stand for the presidency of our Parliament, once wrote a terrifying book entitled No fue posible la paz , which was based on the terrible Spanish Civil War, but might just as well have referred to the First or Second World War or to any of the many others the world has seen.
Mr President, I believe the following question needs to be asked: Is peace in the Middle East actually possible?
Naturally, we must spare no effort in attempting to bring this about and, to this end, the European Union must undoubtedly play a much more active and decisive role than hitherto.
Congratulations are therefore due since, on this occasion, the President-in-Office of the Council, the troika and the Commission have exercised their powers and authority more decisively.
It is to our credit that we have finally appointed a mediator to represent us - and I am pleased to hear that he is my friend, compatriot and colleague, Ambassador Moratinos - and that we are able to give our support to Mr Colajanni's report.
This is a document which we will certainly be able to improve somewhat by means of the amendments which have been tabled.
I have the impression that, overall, it is a balanced document and correctly reflects the wishes of this House insofar as it does not wish to be marginalized vis-à-vis the process, wishes to be involved in it and can contribute more than just financial resources to a part of the world which, if peace is possible, will be an area where the inhabitants can enjoy mutual, shared prosperity.
Question Time (Council)
The problem which caused us to submit this question to the Council is that many European citizens, in a good number of cities in the Union, are suffering on account of uncontrolled noise from certain, usually antiquated, aircraft which make life unbearable for many people living near airports.
If anyone is unaware of the problem, they only have to ask the people living in the Coslada district near Barajas Airport in Madrid.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are faced here with no more and no less than a health problem which has a general adverse effect on the nervous system, and this problem has a solution - limiting the operation of certain types of aircraft which, even now, still produce levels of noise in excess of those permitted in Community legislation.
It is heartening to hear the Council state that a solution is nearer to hand.
Actually, it was stated that this would be 'in the near future' .
We would have liked a little more precision in this matter but at least the Council is demonstrating its sensitivity in seeking an urgent solution.
I am not sure whether the directive covers private aircraft, I feel that it does. If that is not the case I will communicate it to the Member.
In relation to the second part of the honourable Member's question: I feel this is something which needs consideration, and I will certainly bring his comments to the attention of the presidency and the Council when these matters are being considered.
In relation to the second part of the honourable Member's question, I will bring her comments to the attention of the President of the Council of Agriculture Ministers.
I am not sure what the implications for the industry would be if there was a system as she proposes, but I certainly will raise her concerns.
In relation to the suggestion that a higher degree of the allocations should go to Member States whose market is most damaged, I would point out that for a country like Ireland, for example, which is a much smaller country than the United Kingdom, where we have something like a little more than half of the total number of cattle that they have in the United Kingdom, the knock-on effect has been significantly greater, because in our case we export 85 % of our product.
So a number of factors had to be taken into account in this allocation.
At the end of the day the Council of Ministers considered that this was the fairest allocation.
Mr President, unfortunately the answer is incomplete. The Council's representative repeats that this is implemented by the classical and known methods.
So far, those methods have proved inadequate. The question is why the Council is unwilling to apply this special Moscow mechanism procedure, since all else has failed.
And I insist, Mr President, because this evening I had a telegram from Ankara, from the human rights organizations saying that, firstly, there are 150 hunger-strikers in prisons who are in danger of dying, 15 of whom have already been transferred to hospitals and are on their death-beds while the death of others is imminent, and secondly, those organizations are trying to see the Turkish prosecution authorities, to see the detainees and to find a compromise to the conditions so that the hunger-strike can be ended. In view of that situation, Mr Mitchell, why is the Council not hastening to apply this special Moscow mechanism?
It is not by chance that the mechanism was established. The special mechanism was agreed precisely for cases when other mechanisms prove insufficient.
So why are you stubbornly refusing to make use of it?
I have already outlined at great length the moves which the Council is taking in this regard.
The President-in-Office, Mr Spring, has met with Mrs Ciller on three occasions in the recent past.
We have only been in office five months! That is a very clear indication of how seriously Mr Spring and the Irish presidency take the concerns of the European Parliament, and we will continue to do so.
Any reading of the record will show that the strength of my reply here today indicates that we are at one with Parliament.
But I am not for adopting cosmetic exercises.
If we believe an exercise will work, we will pursue that exercise. But, in the view of the Council at this moment in time, for the reasons I have stated, we do not see a role for the Council in triggering the Moscow mechanism.
In expressing our displeasure, we have to be careful not to punish any further the suffering people of Belarus.
I do not think that taking these steps which have been proposed in relation to TACIS would necessarily have the effect the honourable Member suggested.
As I stated in my reply we are continuing to monitor the situation. The Council will be following developments closely with a view to taking further action if such action is considered appropriate.
Obviously any such action will be a matter for discussion and agreement in the Council but I assure the Member we will keep the situation under close review.
Sweden's Treaty of Accession to the European Union envisaged that Sweden could maintain, for a transitional period, quantitative restrictions on the importation of cigarettes and other tobacco products, spirits, wines and beers from other Member States under the conditions set out in Article 26 of Directive 92/12/EEC.
The article applies 'without prejudice to Article 8 until 31 December 1996 and subject to a review mechanism similar to that laid down in Article 28(2) of Directive 77/388/EEC, which concerns the common VAT regime.'
The presidency's understanding is that explicit monitoring of the VAT regime would be preferable for Sweden. However, in the absence of a Commission proposal to modify these provisions, the Council cannot comment on the honourable Member's question.
We are in a Union which has an internal market.
Some Members negotiated a derogation. The presidency completely understands the reasons underlying the honourable Member's question, but that derogation will run out at the end of December next.
I would like to draw the honourable Member's attention to the fact that in adopting by codecision a Community programme of action for promotion, information, education and training in the area of public health, the European Parliament and the Council have given particular attention to the problems linked to alcohol abuse and to its health and social consequences. I understand that a number of options are being considered, including the possibility of extending the derogation into early next century, but the Member might pursue that directly with the Commission.
I also understand that if there is a further temporary derogation it will be just that, a further temporary derogation.
It is no secret that the question of design protection for component parts of complex products, such as spare parts for cars, is one of the most controversial issues raised by the proposal for a directive on the legal protection of designs.
The Council hopes to be able to adopt a common position on this proposal in the near future. In the meantime, the honourable parliamentarian will appreciate that, while the Council is fully aware of the questions at issue, it cannot say anything at this stage which might prejudge its common position.
The question at issue is whether, and if so under what conditions, a derogation may be made from the normal rules governing design protection, that is exclusive rights, to enable third parties to use spare parts without the authorization of the right-holder for the purpose of repairing complex products, such as motor vehicles.
I did not realize until I took up this brief just how complex motor vehicles can be.
The Commission's original proposal provided for a derogation whereby the design right could no longer be invoked against such use after a period of three years.
The normal term of design protection under the directive is 25 years. The Commission considered that for costly, long-lasting, complex products, such as motor vehicles, protection of the design relating to individual parts could exclude or limit competition, creating a captive market in spare parts in the absence of an appropriate derogation.
The honourable Member will appreciate that ongoing discussions are taking place aimed at achieving a common position.
Thus, it would be unhelpful for me at this stage to elaborate further.
However, as I pointed out, it is hoped that the Council will soon be in a position to reach such a common position.
Question No 9 by Sören Wibe (H-0875/96)
Subject: Local elections in Albania
The OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) decided not to send anyone to observe the local elections in Albania in October as it could not send the number of observers it wished to. Earlier this year, it condemned the general election in Albania as its international team of observers considered that the ruling party had systematically committed electoral irregularities.
What are the Council's relations with Albania like now? Did it monitor the local elections there at close quarters?
The Council regrets that the parliamentary assembly of the OSCE and the ODIHR did not participate in the observation of the local elections in Albania. The Council had made clear to the Albanian Government the strong view of the European Union and the ODIHR that the latter should participate in the monitoring of the elections.
We also urged the Albanian Government to take all measures necessary to ensure that the elections were held in a free and fair manner under procedures and conduct that meet acceptable international standards for the democratic process.
The Council has noted that over 300 international observers monitored the elections, including observers from several Member States of the European Union.
We have also noted that the Council of Europe which coordinated the international monitoring operation has said that it is generally satisfied that the elections were held in a free and fair manner despite isolated irregularities in certain districts.
While we welcome this initial assessment as a positive step in the right direction, the Council will consider further the final reports on the conduct of the elections from the international monitors, when they are available, before arriving at a conclusion on the acceptability of the elections and their outcome. The Albanian Government has assured the European Union of its wish to make progress in the area of democratic and constitutional reform.
The Council continues to urge the Albanian Government to give early and practical effect to these assurances and to expedite implementation of reform measures.
We must always recall that economic sanctions are not against the government, they are against the people and it is the people of Albania who will suffer if there are economic sanctions. Anyone who has any knowledge of Albania will know that the people of that country are suffering very much already.
The Council wishes to maintain and deepen relations with Albania.
We acknowledge the progress which has been made to date by Albania in reforming its economy and in seeking to move towards a multi-party democracy.
We consider it appropriate that this progress be encouraged further and assisted through closer contractual relations with the European Union. The Union first established contractual links with Albania in 1992 and in due course the Commission will submit a draft mandate to the Council for negotiations with Albania regarding a new bilateral agreement.
This presents us with certain opportunities to pursue the line suggested by the honourable Member.
We wish Albania to understand clearly that the European Union will only be able to continue to develop its political and economic relations with Albania if progress on the introduction of democratic reforms continue to be made.
The honourable Member will understand from my previous answers that the European Union, and certainly the Council of Ministers, sees possibilities for developing relations with Albania and influencing it in that way.
In relation to the election results, as I have already said, we welcome the initial assessment but we will consider the final reports on the conduct of the elections from the international monitors before we make up our minds on the fairness or otherwise of the elections.
The principal instrument which governs extradition arrangements between European Union Member States is the 1957 European Convention on Extradition.
This Convention, which has been ratified by fourteen Member States, constitutes an important framework for facilitating extradition between the signatory states.
Its provisions deal with offences which carry a prison sentence of at least one year and therefore serious offences such as murder, robbery or fraud would normally be expected to come within the application of the convention.
Moreover, the Council has recently adopted a new extradition convention. When ratified by the Member States, this convention will further facilitate extradition arrangements between Member States of the European Union.
I am satisfied that the 1957 European Convention as supplemented by the new EU convention relating to extradition provides a very good framework for extradition arrangements between Member States in relation to serious offences.
It would not be appropriate for me to comment on the application of the arrangements in any particular case or cases, or by any individual Member State.
I can, however, confirm that the United Kingdom is one of the fourteen Member States to have ratified the 1957 European Convention and it is a signatory to the recently adopted EU convention relating to extradition.
Question No 13 by Alex Smith (H-0880/96)
Subject: Dounreay nuclear reprocessing plant cover-up
Reports of a cover-up of radiological contamination at the Dounreay nuclear power research fast reactor and reprocessing plant in Scotland, dating back over 30 years, became public in October 1996.
Is the Council prepared to press the Commission and the United Kingdom Government to commit themselves to an immediate environmental audit - under Articles 35-37 of the Euratom Treaty - of Dounreay and other UK reprocessing plants and report the results to this Parliament?
In response to the honourable Member's question, I should like to underline that in accordance with Article 126 of the Treaty the Community shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, by supporting and supplementing their action while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content of teaching and the organization of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity.
As a result, the organization of education in the Member States is a matter for the competent national authorities. Under these circumstances the Council has no competence in the matter raised by the honourable Member.
However, the matter so far as it implies a Community responsibility falls within the competence of the Commission.
The task of monitoring implementation of the provisions of the Treaty is a matter for the Commission. The Commission can provide the honourable Member with a reliable and up-to-date reply and I recommend that this question be addressed to the Commission.
Speaking on behalf of the presidency, I would add that I am aware of concerns in a number of Member States about this issue. In the interests of fairness and justice I believe that this practice should end and that the spirit as well as the letter of the law should prevail.
Every influence that the European institutions can use should be used to ensure a fairer approach.
I am aware of the difficulties, as I said, being expressed by these lecturers, some of whom are from my own country, who have made representations to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Education and myself.
I shall be contacting the Commissioner responsible with a view to obtaining further information on this matter.
I wish to assure the honourable Member that I shall use any opportunity I have to raise this issue.
As I have already said, the early resolution of the case and the dropping of the charges obviated the need for such action as we intended to take.
But we had been in contact with the Netherlands, which represent the presidency, and they were asked to investigate the matter.
On 6 November they reported that the Chilean Supreme Court had ordered Mrs Marin's release within a day of her arrest and that General Pinochet had been persuaded that this was probably not the best way to approach this issue.
I can join with the honourable Member in expressing absolute condemnation of this arrest and arrests of this kind.
Scope of the codecision procedure
Asylum procedures
The next item is the report (A4-0315/96) by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Council resolution on minimum guarantees for asylum procedures (5585/95 - C4-0356/95).
Mr President, the Council resolution on minimum guarantees for asylum procedure has prompted reservations and concerns on the part of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the European Council on Refugees and Amnesty International.
The guarantees are indeed minimal; not only that, the resolution allows for possible exceptions to the principles laid down.
This resolution, as we see it, does not include sufficient guarantees that individuals will not be sent back to countries where they are in danger of persecution. The expulsions by charter flight that have taken place in France and elsewhere have, sadly, shown that this risk was far from purely theoretical.
The report by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs proposes a number of amendments which offer additional guarantees.
We particularly welcome the fact that it incorporates our amendment calling for the application of the Geneva Convention to persons at risk from certain groups when the authorities in their country are unable to provide them with protection. This applies particularly to Algerian democrats of both sexes who are threatened with death by the fundamentalist commandos, whose abominable murders are continuing.
I must make the point that the report rightly opposes the establishment by governments of lists of so-called 'safe countries of origin' , where there are reasonable fears that such countries do not offer adequate guarantees of safety for asylum seekers.
On the eve of the 21st century, at a time when so many countries are riven by conflict, tensions and atrocities, the acceptance and protection of people whose very lives, in some cases, are at risk, often because of the opinions they hold, are essential principles of civilization that this House has a duty to defend.
The particular situation of women, who in some countries are subjected to violence, mutilation and duress in violation of human rights, must be taken into account. In contrast to a fortress Europe, inward-looking and perpetuating inequality and discrimination, our group defends the concept of a Europe based on solidarity, respect for human dignity and co-operation to drive back the evils of underdevelopment, poverty and barbarism!
Consumer protection
Biosafety
Mr President, first of all, a genetically modified foodstuff (Monsanto's GMO soya beans) has been authorized for human consumption without any special labelling!
Consumers are being deprived of their right to decide, and in addition to this, the Commission's constant invoking of the principle of transparency is just empty words.
It is quite right that this business should have caused a storm of indignation among consumer organizations and environmental organizations. Not only has the citizen's right to make a free decision been trampled underfoot: health protection has been given the same treatment!
The existing loopholes in controls and security, not only in the case of soya beans but also in the case of future applications to place GMO foodstuffs on the market, are disastrous and scandalous. For example, it is now known that when these genetically modified soya beans were being bred, the new active substance was not tested at all.
Studies showing that glysophate produces substances similar to oestrogen were disregarded, as was the allergy risk. This afternoon, Mrs Bjerregaard said that a ban on imports is possible if new information becomes available.
Hence our question: what are you going to do in the light of large amount of new information that is now available? Will you use these studies as grounds for introducing an import ban?
How will you respond to the urgent desire on the part of consumers and the wholesale and retail trade to see these foodstuffs stored separately and given special labels?
In answer to a written question, you have admitted that you have absolutely no idea, and will first of all have to assess the risks, for example the risk that genetically modified maize might be being imported illegally into the European Union.
Genetically modified soya beans are only allowed to be imported for further processing, yet there have been numerous cases of feedback from the inspection authorities of Member States which show that these inspections are just not taking place!
This means that these restrictions are not being policed. So what measures are you taking to remedy this lack of control?
If these specific questions remain unanswered, then we shall ask you to prohibit the marketing of genetically modified foodstuffs until the risks have been removed and the appropriate controls have been put in place.
Preventive measures to protect health must be given priority over industrial interests.
Consumers must not be downgraded to the status of guinea pigs...
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a pharmacist, I should like to express may opinion, in connection with these questions, on the protection of human health - something that has been mentioned frequently. The genetically modified soya bean produced by Monsanto has been approved under Directive 90/220 on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms.
The aim of this directive is to protect human health and the environment, by means of strict approval procedures and environmental acceptability tests.
With regard to the health tests laid down by this directive, particular emphasis is given to the allergenic aspects of these products.
Scientific tests on the soya bean have shown that this product is harmless to human health and to the environment, and that it does not cause any increased allergic reaction, compared with the traditional soya bean.
The much-quoted problem of allergenicity can be traced back to tests on a different species of soya bean, in which a Brazil nut protein was introduced into the soya beans.
It is a well-known fact that many people show an allergic reaction to the Brazil nut protein, and this was also the case with the tests on the soya beans that had been modified in this way. The tests were therefore halted, and those soya beans were never placed on the market as a product.
I should also like to refer to the point made in the resolutions that we are considering, with reference to the drafting of a novel-food regulation.
In March of this year, Parliament accepted six amendments.
In Amendment No 51 we clearly refer to genetically modified organisms, and not to genetically modified substances, which is what the resolution now refers to.
The word 'substances' would also include dead matter, but this was not the intention of this amendment.
Secondly, I do not think that it is appropriate for us, by means of such a resolution, to anticipate the talks that are going on within the mediation committee.
If we want the public to accept modern biotechnology - and this is something that is essential - then in addition to providing factual information, we must talk about the risks. It is not possible, in life, to eliminate risk entirely, but I believe it is irresponsible to cause people anxiety about fears that are scientifically groundless.
Mr President, the introduction of herbicide-resistant soya lends increased urgency to the question of genetically modified organisms.
It is normal that we should give proper consideration to current developments in the food industry.
The consumer has every right to be informed of any risks inherent in the new technology of genetic manipulation.
But information must be objective and not based on pamphlets or suitably slanted data from the industry. It is unfortunate that the European legislation on novel foods and more specifically on labelling has not yet been approved and implemented, because that would have prevented some of the hoo-hah surrounding this subject.
Like other members of my group I do not agree with point 3 of the joint resolution that measures are needed to keep all foods containing genetically modified organisms separate from other foods.
Nor do I agree with point 8 about labelling.
I would like to call for the consumer to be better informed now and as a matter of urgency, through information campaigns. Every time there is a debate on biotechnology or genetic manipulation the man in the street mistakenly thinks of that horrible picture of a mouse with a human ear grafted on to it.
Such misconceptions must be eliminated by means of clear and above all objective information.
Lastly I urge the Commission to concentrate on revising directive 90/220 to make procedures more transparent, both for the consumer and the industries concerned. There is talk too of a green paper on food legislation.
Can the Commission also tell us when this will be forthcoming?
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I just wanted to say that the Minutes are excellent with regard to my comment and that I hope that you ask the President to put my comment into action.
The Minutes are correct but I would request President Hänsch to act upon my point.
I am not sure if that remark was ironic but I will take it at face value.
I will pass your comment on to President Hänsch.
It was not meant ironically.
I am smiling because I am a happy person, because the Minutes are correct this time, not ironically, but in good humour.
I am very pleased about that!
Thank you.
I just wanted to say that the Minutes of Monday's sitting are incorrect in that they refer to me, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel as a speaker from the European United Left.
You can see that I am here in the Liberal centre and intend to remain so.
I trust the Minutes can be amended.
That brings a note of realism to the optimism expressed just now.
But thank you for that remark.
We will take account of it.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, as you yourself have said the voting may be continued this evening at 6 p.m.
I therefore request that we do not vote this morning beyond 1.30 p.m.
I think that would be wise and reasonable!
Energy Policy
The next item is the joint debate on the following:
report (A4-0326/96) by Mr W G van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Commission's White Paper on an energy policy for the European Union (COM(95)0682 - C4-0018/96); -report (A4-0296/96) by Mr Scapagnini, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council concerning the Euro-Mediterranean partnership in the energy sector (COM(96)0149 - C40238/96); -report (A4-235/96) by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission on the European Community gas supply and prospects (COM(95)0478 - C4-0487/95); -oral question (B4-1215/96 - O-0147/96) by Mrs Schierhuber and Mr Jacob, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on measures to use biomass and biological fuels and renewable sources of energy.
Mr President, after debating the Green Paper ten years ago we are today debating the Commission's White Paper on an energy policy for the European Union.
I should first of all like to express my sincere appreciation for the speed with which the White Paper was written.
But I am even more grateful that they have accepted 90 % of Parliament's resolution on the Green Paper.
I should like to thank Commissioner Papoutsis and his staff very warmly indeed.
That makes for a meaningful dialogue between the Commission and Parliament.
It is therefore only logical that the European Parliament supports the broad outlines of the White Paper.
The White Paper incorporates a number of improvements on the Green Paper and the result is a much better balance between the three objectives: the environment, competition and security of supplies.
The White Paper has placed greater emphasis of the question of renewable use of energy.
I was also happy to see that these three objectives have been joined by economic and social cohesion as a goal.
The Commission also pays more attention to the role of the Members States in energy policy and to the role of private companies, organisations and the like.
That means that the principle of subsidiarity has been better implemented, which prevents the Union's energy policy from becoming centralised.
After these words of praise one can only expect there to be some comments on the White Paper, particularly three points of the proposed indicative work programme of the Commission.
First of all the White Paper proposes that the share of renewable sources of energy should be increased in the total energy production and consumption within the European Union.
I am disappointed by that because the political will is present in many Member States to undertake positive action in this area, and to do so now.
That is why I also call in the motion for a resolution for more emphasis on a better integration of renewable energy in the whole of the European Union's energy policy and for the Commission to be more ambitious here and to come up with more specific action.
With the Mombaur report at its side the Commission now has enough specific proposals, I would have thought.
That is why in the motion for a resolution we stress the following points: first of all developing possible substitutes for energy sources that are becoming increasingly scarce; secondly improving the efficiency of energy use by creating stricter standards, agreements on labelling; thirdly more emphasis on combined heat and power.
I invite the Commission not only to present proposals, but I eagerly await their communication on that subject.
We also call for the development of more profitable and renewable sources, such as solar energy, photovoltaic energy, biomass and the like. Investment in renewable energy should be made financially attractive.
And finally we want to see energy and environment programmes included in the fifth framework programme.
In addition to that, Mr President, we mention improvement in the access to the electricity grid for renewable energy, for example by making the purchase of renewable energy obligatory, the 'non fossil fuel obligation' as it is called in Britain, or a return guarantee of renewable energy produced on a small scale.
The Commission must also develop a financial programme together with the Member States to promote renewable energy, such as a study into the green VAT, tax relief on investments in the field of renewable energy.
A second point stressed in Parliament's motion for a resolution where the Commission should take the lead is the international context.
This is an area where the Commission should clearly set an example because it has the added value which is needed in this sphere.
In the light of the European Union's increasing dependence on energy imports we must conclude energy agreements with more countries than only Russia.
A third area in which the Commission must be more active is tackling the issue of unsafe nuclear power stations in central and eastern Europe.
We have been talking about this for more than ten years and still we are awaiting action.
The Commission must coordinate, bring partners together, match financial efforts and promote regional cooperation.
Once more this is an area in which the Commission can prove its added value.
The motion for a resolution points to very specific proposals in this field. I shall mention but a few.
Organising regional energy conferences in central and eastern Europe to examine how their energy policy can be best supported and improved. Developing a large package of energy-efficiency measures for these countries, as well as information campaigns on energy savings, encouraging the use of gas fired combined heat and power stations, speedy introduction of renewable sources of energy and coordinating financial efforts in this field with the international organisations and especially with PHARE and TACIS finance to enable private financiers and entrepreneurs in central and eastern Europe to produce an effective and efficient energy policy.
I eagerly await the Commission's reaction to the specific points in our motion for a resolution.
The European Parliament agrees with a Commission indicative work programme on condition that it accepts additions from Parliament's resolution.
I look forward to the Commission's reply.
Mr President, there is a widespread view that with the advent of the new century, concern about energy and water will be added to the existing anxieties of European Union citizens.
Already in our century there will be demands which the European Union must respond to satisfactorily.
We recognize that Mr van Velzen has drafted an excellent and detailed report on the issue, but it has highlighted a certain lack of European Commission projects, especially as regards sustainable use of energy, combined heat and power, the specific characteristics of the gas market, the appropriate institutional and budgetary framework, as well as international cooperation.
My report focuses specifically on international cooperation.
The broad guidelines adopted by the European Council in Lisbon, Corfu, Essen and Cannes bear witness to the European Union's intention to draw up a long term programme for its relations with Mediterranean countries.
The opening up to the east must be integrated with an ambitious policy of cooperation with the south, based on the conclusions of the Barcelona Conference of November 1995.
The European Union and its Mediterranean partners are facing the same challenges and this certainly requires a coordinated response, possibly through the creation of a multilateral programme which embraces Europe and the southern and eastern Mediterranean countries - a Euro-Mediterranean Forum.
Renewable energy certainly represents one of the main instruments for successful communication of this kind.
Our objective must be to conclude renewable energy agreements with Mediterranean countries likewise interested in the development of renewable energy technologies especially given their specific geographic, political and strategic characteristics.
So we need to succeed in building our future in this sector both by developing those instruments which are already available to us today inside the European Union, and through - this is what Mr van Velzen was saying - a more open and involving energy charter.
Another very important instrument for achieving the objectives of the European Union is undoubtedly the creation of a trans-European energy network and this means promoting the drafting and adoption of agreements aimed at developing the networks and linking them with the countries of the Mediterranean basin.
The European Union, aware of the importance of trade in the energy sector, has already set out proposals to provide electricity to the various Mediterranean countries, including Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
The same applies to gas.
International actions have in common the fact that they are geared to the development of markets and infrastructure to meet the future increase in imports of gas into the energy markets of developed countries and, above all, of developing countries.
Here I would mention the importance of building the Maghreb-Europe and Algeria-Tunisia-Italy gas pipelines.
These links will certainly lead to full integration of the European and North African gas systems, especially with the opening of the new North-South trading axis, providing enormous potential for future cooperation.
This brings me rapidly to the conclusions of the Cairo Conference and the impressive totals for available projects.
The projects in the gas sector are worth about 20, 000 million dollars and those in the electricity sector are worth 1, 800 million dollars.
Naturally all this means we must neither privilege the traditional nor start concentrating only on the non-traditional.
To guarantee the spread of energy-related technology, in particular for renewable and non-polluting sources, there needs to be close cooperation between technicians and scientists in the countries concerned to provide a transmission mechanism for technological information.
In this regard, the importance of creating a Euro-Mediterranean Forum is stressed at the end of my report, to act as a catalyst for information drives and support functions for the institutions and for companies, preferably local.
Alongside this there is an important role for a training centre for specialized personnel, and especially to start up pilot projects.
Finally, Mr President, this cooperation between the European Union and the eastern and southern Mediterranean countries should include a transfer of technology and a system of investments geared to promoting projects of regional integration, social development and environmental protection.
All this needs to be done while maintaining the basic objectives of cooperation with a view to consolidating a lasting climate of dialogue in the Mediterranean.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am very glad that this oral question on renewable energy sources, i.e., biogenetic raw materials, is being dealt with in the context of the discussion on the White Paper on the European Union's energy policy.
Let me emphasize how important this matter is - the use of biomass and biofuels as renewable energy sources - in a few succinct words: nothing works without energy!
In a rapidly changing society with its new tasks and potential there will be an increasing energy demand in future too.
At present however, there is often a crass contrast between energy production and environmental protection.
That can and must no longer be the case.
Energy policy, like energy itself, must be life-affirming, which means sustainable.
That should be our motto for the future too when we talk about using energy.
Since the use of fossil fuels, we have seen an increase not only in the tempo and volume of production, but in pollution too.
We should not remain indifferent to that.
Even if fossil energy sources will still be available for another hundred years, assuming they are easily obtainable and taking account of present consumption, we may not be around for these hundred years.
For our major concern is, on the one hand, the rising need for energy and, on the other, the rise in CO2 emissions.
As early as 1990 the joint Energy and Environment Council therefore decided to stabilize CO2 emissions by the year 2000 at the 1990 level.
To achieve this aim, energy efficiency was to be increased.
That means, energy must be saved and energy sources must be promoted which produce less CO2 .
There is a practical way of meeting this aim and this need, namely the use of biomass and biofuels.
Unfortunately the Commission's White Paper of December 1995 only devoted one and a half pages to this energy sector.
That is why I warmly thank Mr Wim van Velzen for giving so much space to bio-energy in his statement.
At the hearing on biomass in the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of 6 May this year it was made clear how necessary but also how new this potential energy source actually is.
A sustainable energy policy is particularly urgent in relation to sustainable agriculture.
The right step would be to show the political will to pursue this, given also the requirements of agriculture which is in a state of upheaval.
New, realistic and identifiable areas of activity have to be found for farming and therefore also for rural areas and for the farmers whose livelihood is based in these rural areas.
The production and sale of renewable energy sources are regarded as a promising new market in agriculture.
A few decades ago up to one third of cultivated land was used to grow feedstuffs for our draught animals and therefore provide energy, which also prevented surplus production, but today these areas are set aside or used for growing cereals.
These set-aside areas could be used for planting renewable energy sources and if 10 % of the electricity was produced from biomass this long-term and continuous source of revenue could also reduce the need for agricultural subsidies.
The advantages of these innovations in energy policy are indisputably the following: positive effects on incomes, which also means the creation of new jobs in rural areas, independence from third countries in relation to energy, securing energy stability, improved air quality and therefore quality of life for all the people.
The Commission wanted to send out clear signals when it set up the ALTENER I and II programmes.
However we must check carefully whether these signals were in fact understood.
They must be followed by practical action, rather than mere declarations of intent.
That is why our questions represent a kind of definition of the position.
What has meanwhile been achieved and what is the current state of development, and in particular, how does the Commission see the future? Once again, let me stress the importance of bio-energy as a chance for the future of agriculture.
However, we must also create the appropriate framework conditions for such important forward-looking decisions, such as increases in the research budget and standardized European eco-taxes.
I am very grateful to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for taking up this question so vehemently.
What we need is more energy to create a sustainable energy policy.
Mr President, our group is in favour, with some slight adjustments, of the reports which have been tabled, and generally agrees that there should be a European energy policy which will rationalize the use of energy as a scarce and essential resource; it backs the basic parts of these reports, and the question put by Mrs Schierhuber and Mr Jacob.
There are, however, some areas of great concern to us.
First of all we believe that liberalization of the energy sector will mean an increase in consumption if prices are brought down.
An increase in consumption will also increase emissions to the atmosphere, intensifying the greenhouse effect and environmental concerns and going against the formal undertaking we have made to adopt a model of sustainable development which shows respect for nature.
Secondly we believe, in connection with such a model, that there must be discussion and a change of direction, since we cannot go on talking about respect for nature whilst boosting consumption and actually pillaging natural resources.
Thirdly, we think that rationalization of the energy sector is essential, since we must remember that if market operation on the basis of supply and demand is pushed to the limit, then liberalization will mean that sections of the population may go without, as it may not be profitable to supply energy in a particular area; hence the Government would have to act, as a public service, for the good of the population.
Finally, there is one central question; we talk of rationalization and the proper and efficient use of energy, but we are directly encouraging an increase in energy consumption, whether using it on individual or public transport, or boosting the manufacture of goods which, by their ephemeral nature, generate a continuous increase in consumption. So people's patterns of behaviour, whether individual or collective, would have to be changed to promote a global social policy of frugal austerity; we should have to think it a good idea to change the car every two or three years, or replace goods after X years, always favouring tough and durable items which will produce a different society.
Otherwise the result would totally contradict what we are saying. Of course this involves the following aspects: such a continuous increase in consumption forces us to rely on eastern Europe, or southern France, we are creating maelstroms of social and economic instability and we are seeking to introduce programmes which will make this easier.
The Scapagnini report is certainly very good, and we have no hesitation in supporting it.
But we have to note that the encouragement of sustainable development in the Mediterranean contradicts the need for continuous consumption. The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left therefore believes that, when the Maastricht Treaty is revised, decisions must favour a model of sustainable development, an energy chapter with a responsible approach to the whole of Europe, renewable sources of energy and also the right focus for agriculture, since it is impossible to continue in this way promising everything to everybody.
Mr President, the van Velzen report comes after the White Paper and the Green Paper, and is supposed to allow us to formulate an energy policy for the European Union.
In even more concrete terms, we shall, after a kick-start in 1987, speak of the internal electricity market and particularly of Article 90(2) on services in the common interest, on public services - even if some European leaders have a tendency to smile when speaking of 'public service' .
In other words, Mr van Velzen, the main theme of your report is a plea for renewable energies, with a whole series of sympathetic measures, even if they are a little naive, like the green VAT, the CO2 tax. And in the end, you have succeeded, you and your colleagues, in presenting a report on energy, on electricity, on light, and in plunging the whole debate into darkness.
In fact, there is a contradiction in this whole business between the overall aim of formulating an energy policy - and we are all agreed on the objective - and the philosophy expressed particularly on page 12, paragraph 21 of the van Velzen report on the privatization of the energy sector, on removing the link between production, transit and distribution.
There is a contradiction between an energy policy and competition.
It is impossible to want both, i.e. to have both the possibility of allowing outsiders access to the networks and legitimizing distributors, giving a territorial community an opportunity to choose its distributor - which is the case in Germany and with 177 local authorities in France, which are somewhat on the fringe of the EdF monopoly - all this is contradictory and has three serious consequences: a loss of social cohesion, a loss of sovereignty and a loss of morality.
My first point: when electricity distribution is privatized, the law of profit leads to the abandonment of rural areas for the more profitable industrial areas. In Guadeloupe, the production of electricity accounts for 200 units of cost, whereas distribution accounts for 100 units.
If privatization takes place, I have no idea how Guadeloupe will light its streets and houses! Article 130a of the Treaty speaks of 'territorial, economic and social cohesion' , and this is incompatible with the privatization of distribution.
Worse!
There is a loss of sovereignty.
When electricity distribution is subjected to the law of profit, the elected representatives of the people no longer fix energy policy. Energy policy is fixed by transnational private groups on the basis of the profit involved!
In that case, the only electricity we shall have will come from gas-fired power stations. There will be no wind power, no tidal power, there will be no renewable energies because it will be too expensive.
Europe will lose its independence as far as energy is concerned.
European electricity will be 'all gas' and competition for distribution will destroy competition for production.
The public service monopoly in a sector of national sovereignty will be replaced by the oligopoly of a handful of multinationals.
Public life will then be corrupted because freedom for distributors will bring about trade wars in order to capture markets.
And the markets will be captured through the corruption of local decision-makers.
A general electricity company will be formed in France and will buy the local elected representatives just as, in the case of water, all the socialist, RPR and UDF deputies now in prison were bought.
If the German Greens and the German SPD are favourably inclined to this situation, it is because private organizations in Germany ask it of them.
And at what a price!
What have you received, I wonder, for supporting that position! If we want sovereignty, if we want social cohesion, if we want morality, let us not privatize the electricity 'fairy godmother' because fairy godmothers are not for sale in the marketplace.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to give warm thanks to the three rapporteurs for their contribution, which has enabled us to hold a very extensive debate here.
However, I must say that at times people are talking rather in the form of slogans and overlooking the real question. I do not want to go into that in detail but merely say to Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz that it is simply not true that we spend 99 % of our funds on nuclear energy and only 1 % on renewable energy.
The ratio is very balanced, and that is partly thanks to this Parliament.
We have done a great deal for renewable energy sources.
But secondly I would nevertheless say that energy policy does not play the role in the European Union that it really deserves.
Many speakers have rightly pointed this out. Perhaps this debate will help it play a more important role.
We must concern ourselves more with energy policy, for the geo-politics of energy are changing.
Mr Chichester and Mr van Velzen quite rightly pointed that out in their reports.
Whereas Saudi Arabia and the Gulf were for a long time the central oil supply region for the world, the balance is now shifting towards Central Asia and the Caucasus as well as other countries.
That has consequences, for this Union's foreign policy too, and is not just a matter concerning multinational undertakings.
Anyone who looks into the history of energy policy will know that this could also give rise to conflicts. That is why I call for close cooperation between our foreign policy and energy policy, not in the sense of financing it - we certainly cannot do that - but of establishing close contact, just as I think that energy policy and social policy need to be linked more closely.
We must not just talk about physics - that is not really the problem - but of the grey area between public opinion and technology. Actually, that is something that has concerned us far more in this Parliament than many other questions.
We need only remember the debate we held and are still holding on nuclear energy and many others. I strongly urge that we improve the dialogue on the objectives of technologies.
That includes the climate.
There is not a sitting here in the European Parliament at which we do not say something about CO2 . Following the analogy with the Bible drawn by Neil Kinnock a moment ago, one could say that is our contribution to the Book of Proverbs.
We produce a great many words but not much policy. By the end of this decade CO2 emissions will be 6-7 % higher than in 1990 even though we have always decided to do the contrary here.
But that is the reality. I want to draw our attention to this real problem so that we can make a change of course here too.
I have a final comment on thermonuclear fusion, although I know that many here take a different view from mine. In principle we have four energy sources: renewable energy sources, i.e., the sun, fossil energy sources, nuclear fission and nuclear fusion.
Those are the four physical energy sources we have - we have no others. On the other hand the energy demand we have in our world is enormous, and I would not really want to abandon any of these four.
It is also our responsibility to pursue a long-term policy. That is why I would not want to give up the field of thermonuclear fusion, where we in Europe are the leaders; but we will have to discuss that on another occasion.
Mr President, the energy policy of the future must be based on sustainability, recycling and renewable energy sources. Nuclear energy and fossil fuels do not meet these requirements and must gradually be phased out as forms of energy.
Nor should we invest billions in research into fusion energy.
The large proportion of the EU's energy research funds which goes to fusion research as part of the JET project can therefore be reduced or eliminated. It is also unacceptable to invest more resources in new nuclear energy.
The use of certain EU funds to build new reactors in Ukraine must therefore be rejected. The obsolete Euratom Treaty must be converted into a treaty for the development of energysaving renewable forms of energy using environmental taxes, selective purchase taxes and tax changes.
More resources are needed on the other hand for research, development and practical projects which support renewable energy sources such as bio-energy, solar cells, wind energy, biofuels, energy-saving products and processes and new energy-efficient and environmentally friendly fuels such as ethanol, methanol, hydrogen gas, rape oil etc. In this connection, Mr President, the white paper must be considerably amended.
The Commission must also produce immediate proposals on how carbon dioxide emissions are to be reduced. A recommendation on a carbon dioxide tax must therefore be drafted as soon as possible.
Votes
Incorporation of ECSC into budget
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Colom i Naval for his excellent report which several other committees have contributed to.
The major thrust of the Colom i Naval report is to ask the question: how can the EU continue the excellent work of the ECSC when the Treaty expires in 2002?
The most important requirement for us on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is that those areas which are heavily dependent on coal and steel production should not lose the advantages and benefits that currently ensue from the current ECSC Treaty and that Europe should continue to aid those areas in restructuring their local economies at a time when coalmines are being closed and there is an over-capacity of steel production in the world.
The report asks the Commission to undertake several activities.
The first one, which we on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs support, would be the creation of a satellite agency.
What we believe in, firstly, is that the funds remaining from those ECSC reserves when the Treaty expires in 2002 should be put into such an agency because they are the Union's own resources. Secondly, that when such an agency is set up, it should be looked at very carefully in terms of its transparency and accountability to this Parliament for its budget and structure, and there must be discharge given by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The second area of activity that this new agency must take on is the capacity for research which is going to be very important if we are going to remain competitive in these sectors and resources must be made available for areas with a declining coal industry, for training and rehabilitation.
We support the establishment of such an agency to regenerate local economies.
Protection of animals during transport
Topical and urgent debate (part two)
Mr President, I am particularly pleased to be able to speak today in the presence of the Commissioner, Mrs Bonino, whose commitment to the tribunal for former Yugoslavia and also to a permanent tribunal is well known to us.
In my opinion, the resolution we shall, I hope, be adopting presently is a good one.
Unfortunately, in some ways it covers things we have already asked for and we could, I believe, have gone further; we could have made other suggestions, addressed in particular to the President of the tribunal in The Hague, in particular telling him of an idea which I and my group are keen on: that of introducing trials in absentia.
For as long as this remains impossible, I believe we shall be forced to continue expressing pious hopes that we have already expressed several times, without being able to bring the war criminals in the former Yugoslavia properly to trial. We know that this is not the best solution in absolute terms, but we know that the in absentia procedure also makes it possible to reopen a case when the accused or the convicted person is arrested.
I therefore think that Parliament should proceed along this path and take this additional step as quickly as possible.
Mr President, the international community sets out principles and ends up seeing that they are not applied.
The disappointment caused by the way the international tribunal for the former Yugoslavia operates is the most recent example of this. Neither Croatia, nor Bosnia, nor the Serbian sector are really contributing to the satisfactory functioning of this institution.
The refusal of the known war criminals to appear before the tribunal, helped by the complicity of the political leaders of each of their camps, is flaunting a challenge to authority.
Let us not ignore the obvious!
If we really want to encourage the advance of international law and ensure respect for it, if we fervently wish that the indescribable crimes committed during the war in the former Yugoslavia can never again be committed with impunity, the international community and particularly the European Union will have to use all its weight in economic and political relations with the successor states to the former Yugoslavia.
The price that Europe is willing to pay to have international law respected will in this case find its expression in the pressures it will exert on the parties concerned, those responsible for putting more and more obstacles in the way of the tribunal's work.
Mr President, the sanctions which are to be renewed by the General Affairs Council on 4 December are, I understand, merely to be adopted under the written procedure.
Surely this act, which aroused such condemnation - I refer to the killing of Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other Ogoni people - merits a proper debate in the Council of Ministers.
I call on the Commission to report to Parliament - it may be Mrs Bonino will do so shortly - on the situation in Nigeria over the past year and on the prospects for democracy.
Ideally such a statement should be ready for the General Affairs Council meeting on 4 December.
Let us regard sanctions as a dynamic tool.
They should be used as such.
The fact is that they seem to be relatively weak for the situation in the case of the arms embargo which was applied. How far has the embargo been successful?
Would it not be better, as stated in the resolution, to some extent to make part of the arms embargo retrospective?
Mr President, the events in Nigeria have been extremely serious.
I fully endorse this motion for a resolution which calls for serious measures to be taken, and for more measures than have been taken hitherto.
Measures such as an arms boycott are of course good, but they do not help the situation much.
Measures such as freezing the military regime's assets are also good, but they do not really help either. The only think that is really effective, and President Mandela also said so some time ago, is an oil boycott against Nigeria.
That kind of action must of course be taken together with a large number of countries, such as the countries of Africa, but in my view it is the only instrument which will help Nigeria back on to the road of democracy.
We in my group fully support the motion for a resolution before us.
There is just one point I want to make.
The resolution says that the multinational firm Shell is still in Nigeria.
That is incorrect.
Shell has withdrawn, as far as I know.
Shell stated publicly on television and in the media that it was wrong for it to be in Nigeria. Mr President, I think if a multinational makes such a confession and yet is prepared to support action being taken, then you must also respect that.
That is why I would like to delete that one small point from the resolution. We could blame Shell in the past but not now.
They are on the right track. We should really be grateful that a multinational is reacting to the actions being taken.
Mr President, I should like to use my sixty seconds to make two points.
First, Mr President, the China that cruelly persecutes critics of the regime such as Wang Dan can no longer be considered a left-wing regime. The regime has scrapped socialist principles such as state ownership of the means of production.
All that is left is the desire to exploit a rapidly growing market economy in an attempt to keep state power in the hands of an aged and corrupt party elite in a one-party state. The contrast with the democratic development in Taiwan is all the more striking.
Second, Mr President, the state leadership in China, a state leadership which has no popular mandate and whose power is based on the bayonet, can never be regarded as stable.
That is an insult to those who fight for freedom and democracy. As we know, bayonets can be used for many things.
There is one thing that they are not suitable for, however, and that is sitting on.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the announcement by the Abkhaz side of socalled parliamentary elections to be held in November will, as Mr Trakatellis said, do anything but promote the incipient Georgian-Abkhaz peace process.
Against a background in which large areas of Georgia have suffered civil war and ethnic cleansing for years, in particular Abkhazia, it is doubly important that we find a political solution for the future of Abkhazia, in agreement with all sides involved. Only when that has happened can genuine elections be held.
But now the self-appointed Abkhaz authorities supposedly want to hold democratic elections, which in the end will simply create faits accomplis given that only 200 000 people may participate in them because numerous ethnic population groups are not allowed to vote, quite apart from the fact that 50 % of the population has fled Abkhazia or been driven out.
A solution must be found that respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia within its internationally recognized borders. At the same time, the serious refugee problem has to be resolved.
Elections, of whatever nature, which exclude half the original residents from taking part, must be condemned under international law and on principle.
My group therefore sharply criticizes the announced elections.
We call on the Abkhaz side finally to respect human rights and to let refugees and displaced persons live in peace with one another in this region. In this connection I also call on the Commission and the Council to use every means at their disposal to support the peace process by confidence-building measures, in cooperation with all parties involved.
Mr President, I believe that Georgia, unlike its Abkhazian part, wishes to face the question.
I think that we must - and the Commission, with a considerable presence in Georgia, has the means to do so - send a clear message to Abkhazia, saying to it that to want everything is to find oneself deprived of everything.
I should like to remind you of the precedent of the Krajina region, which had benefited from a highly developed state of independence. We were able to see with our own eyes how this situation ended up.
I think that the Abkhaz people, who form only 30 % of the population in this region, should understand that they cannot claim to live at the expense of the 70 % of Georgians whose freedom of movement, as we have been reminded, has been restricted and who are still refugees.
I therefore think that the Commission should intervene firmly, all the more since it has the means to do so.
Let us hope that it can do so quickly.
El Salvador
Mr President, during the civil war in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992 40, 000 of the 70, 000 killed were murdered by right-wing death squads.
When the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front and the Arena Government signed a peace agreement in 1992 providing for a reduction of the army, disbanding the old security forces and disarming the FMLN we all hoped that assassinations and gross violations of human rights would become a thing of the past.
The recent reduction of the number of United Nations monitors from several hundred to four reflected the hope that this was taking place.
Unfortunately, the recent escalation of murders suggests that violence is once more coming to the fore and threatening peace.
Some sources suggest that there are at least six armed groups with extensive networks, mainly on the extreme right, but one on the extreme left. Not only FMLN activists are targeted, leaders of Arena's moderate wing could also be at risk since they are hated in some quarters for joining the peace process.
The kidnapping of the 14-year-old son of a friend of former President Alfredo Cristiani recently released, illustrates this.
The European Parliament and the European Union as a whole must send out a clear message condemning the murders and all who participate in committing such crimes. We do not believe in the restoration of the death penalty but we do believe that there should be systematic investigation of all crimes and a maximum effort made to identify and punish those responsible.
Maximum efforts must be made to protect all under threat and to prevent a relapse into violence and the dangers of renewed civil war
Mr President, President Caldaron of Salvador said not all that long ago that the peace process was going smoothly and that is why the UN significantly reduced its presence.
Since then Salvador is on the right economic track, its economy is growing by 6.5 %, but at the same time poverty and crime are also on the increase. Attacks are commonplace and we are reminded of the murder squads of a few years ago, as Mr Newens said.
A study has been commissioned but I have the feeling that it is not sufficient to prevent a spiral of violence.
I think, in as much as I have personal knowledge of the national police of Salvador, that the ineffectiveness of the Salvadoran society is playing tricks. Caution is needed.
That is why I think it wise to recall that the Commission's strategy document on cooperating between the Union and Latin America for the next four years should keep an eye on developments.
The democratic and human rights organisations deserve our support and the report that I myself am writing on the future strategy for Latin America will also draw attention to this country where peace has broken out, in the hope that peace is also lasting.
Mr President, President Petrosian has been re-elected, but in circumstances which at the very least are questionable.
International observers have noted irregularities, and since the president was elected by a small majority the election commission would be well advised to repeat the elections.
There is all the more reason for doing so as Mr Petrosian has shown little sign of democratic behaviour in recent years.
Oppressing the free media and banning opposition parties are two signals of authoritarian behaviour which should be condemned. The Union must remain watchful and see that this situation is put right.
The Liberal Group therefore believes that the cooperation agreement should only be approved once the European Parliament has ascertained that sufficient progress has been made in the implementation of basic liberties and democratic principles.
We are duty bound to our own principles.
Madam President, first of all a word to thank the House for having agreed to include, although its priorities were already set last week, the subject of the fire of Lisbon City Hall on the agenda.
This is an attitude which will raise the prestige of the European Parliament vis-à-vis public opinion, which obviously will take note of the cultural and human solidarity which this resolution represents. In matters of disasters which profoundly affect the feelings of European citizens living close to - and with great emotional intensity - the irremediable losses of historic symbols - the cultural reference of generations - I think that all words are superfluous; what remains is sadness, emotion and suffering.
Therefore, without looking back to the past but looking to the future, and beyond the tribute which the European Parliament is paying to the people of Lisbon, out of solidarity with the tragedy which the people of Lisbon suffered by approving this resolution, as it will no doubt do, what is important is that it should remain clear through this act that the European Union should find full justification, within the framework of traditional support, for calling upon the Commission to give its financial, even token, but financial nonetheless, backing to help to rebuild this part of our common and European heritage. I hope that Commissioner Oreja, who is not here today, and Commissioner Bonino, who is here among us, who are both people of culture, will understand what is at stake here and, on behalf of the European Union, will set in motion the necessary mechanisms so that the people of Lisbon and its City Hall, and our friend and former colleague, Lisbon's Mayor João Soares, when rebuilding that City Hall, can note that once again Europe was with Portugal.
Votes
Conservation of fishery resources in the Mediterranean
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if there is a cornerstone upon which the whole construction of the Common Fisheries Policy rests it is undoubtedly the conservation of fishery resources. Most of the other aspects of the Common Fisheries Policy centre on the defence of this fundamental principle and its corollary, the practice of responsible fishing.
Hence safeguarding the conservation of resources is a matter of constant concern to the Commission and to this Parliament's Committee on Fisheries.
To take an obvious example, this basic objective was the common denominator of the reports debated in this Parliament at the last part-session, when the Gallagher and McKenna reports, among others, proposed technical and control measures.
I should like to point out the serious contradiction produced by the Commission proposal we are debating, since, in contrast to the general measures envisaged in Regulation 1626/94, the Commission is now seeking to introduce special size derogations for certain species in certain areas of the Mediterranean, which are unjustified and are brilliantly exposed in our colleague Carmen Fraga's excellent report.
The Gallagher report, which was, as I have already said, adopted at the last part-session, stressed, among other factors, the need to adopt special measures to protect juvenile fish, and particularly hake. It would therefore be consistent now to support the Fraga report, which rejects, inter alia, the attempt to introduce special size derogations in sensitive areas with a concentration of fry of this species.
If adopted, this would also be a cause of serious discrimination, Madam Commissioner, without finally solving the main underlying problem, which is still there and will continue to be.
To conclude, therefore, I should like to highlight this contradiction and this potential discrimination, to repeat that I support and congratulate the rapporteur, and to ask Parliament to back her report as being technically exact and politically consistent.
Fisheries agreements with Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania
Approval of the Minutes
The minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I would simply like to point out that on Wednesday, on the initiative of the President, we voted for an adjournment of the urgent debate on Zaire, but not for the debate to be closed.
Now this item was not reinstated yesterday on the agenda of urgent debates, whereas quite a large number of Members had asked to be called to speak individually on this item.
They were unable to do this, and I would like, Madam President, to express my amazement and surprise at this omission.
Mr Souchet, I do understand, but it seems to me that the article cited when closure of the debate was announced was in fact Article 130, which provides for closures and not adjournment.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Votes
Madam President, as my colleague, Mrs Bonino, made clear yesterday, the Commission intends to reserve its position on Parliament's request to withdraw the proposal until the Council has made its opinion available. The Commission naturally will keep the House fully informed of any decisions on the follow-up to the proposal.
Madam President, since the Commission has refused to withdraw its proposal, I think that the House should apply Rule 59(3) of the Rules of Procedure, in other words refer the proposal back to the committee without voting on the draft legislative resolution.
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to the committee responsible)
Madam President, with regard to the amendments: I have nothing to say about the first one. I will leave this to the discretion of the House since it was not debated, although it can be seen that the said amendment emerged from the debate we held on the ECSC budget for 97, on the Giansily report.
On the second amendment by the Socialist Group, I would like to explain, Madam President, that this paragraph 32 was modified by the Committee on Budgetary Control through an amendment introduced by one of our colleagues.
The colleague reached an agreement with the Socialist Group and this is the amendment which was tabled; I understood that it was an amendment based on consensus, but I do not know whether all those who will vote on the text now featured under paragraph 32 will agree with the compromise achieved by the first person who made the amendment, Mr Samland, and the Socialist Group.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Europe Agreement with Slovenia
Improved financial management (SEM 2000)
Madam President, Commissioner; fraud, wastage and poor control, ambiguous divisions of responsibilities, delays in making payments and poor cooperation between the EU and the Member States are some of the key concepts in descriptions of the mismanagement of EU resources.
A mere few percent of the EU budget represents a financial loss of tens of millions of kronor.
This would always be wrong but it feels particularly painful now at a time of austerity, when many law-abiding citizens are having to tighten their belts.
Madam President, all the measures we ask of others we must first take ourselves if we are to have any credibility. You must therefore conduct a rapid review of our own benefits, such as subsistence allowances, travelling allowances, expenses and other provisions for refunds, and implement provisions on attendance and allowances which have the confidence of the public at large.
Other proposals we support in SEM 2000 are the following:
joint audit bodies involving the EU and national bodies; -increased local and regional auditing of how Structural Funds resources are used; -more auditors who are independent of the EU; -systematic controls and follow-up of how resources are used.On the other hand, I personally do not believe in EU police measures such as sanctions and penalties against Member States which take the form of the withdrawal of appropriations. This is the wrong way to go where there is supposed to be cooperation between countries; it only creates greater mistrust of the EU.
Less bureaucracy, simplified rules, better follow-up of budgetary control in cooperation with national bodies such as customs, the police, tax experts and elected representatives are in my view a better model. I applaud the report and the committee's proposals.
Live plants and floriculture
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg.
You know that this Presidency must, under institutional rules, be balanced and cannot under any circumstances express a personal opinion.
But allow me to say that I support your first comments and that, personally speaking, I am very pleased to chair the Friday sittings.
Mr Santini, speaking on behalf of the Group Union for Europe now has the floor for four minutes.
Mr President, we voted against this report precisely because we regard this as such an important sector. It may be a sector that does not feed us directly but one that instead brings us pleasure, but that is just as important and the reason it has developed so well in recent years is because there was no organization of the market.
There is a similar sector, potatoes.
I do not grow flowers but potatoes and as a grower I would resolutely oppose an organization of the potato market because that would block our development in this area. You can see that in all the other areas where we have had market organizations.
Those are the sick areas of agriculture, while the others are more or less managing to keep their head above water.
Exactly the same applies in the floricultural sector and now we are to start introducing an intervention system, although rather timidly at first by sales-promotion measures; but as you have all heard from other Members, that is not to be the only promotional measure, eventually it is to lead to intervention and to the export subsidies we are urgently trying to dismantle in other areas.
For some speakers to say we did not want to promote the peripheral areas is not quite correct. In fact if they are also included in these promotional activities then, as can be seen in other areas, in the end they will not be promoted because of the concentration on the best soils and will be left standing empty-handed.
That was the result of the organization of the market.
That is what we do not want. That is why we are for and not against the development of the peripheral areas, which was reflected in our vote.
Equal opportunities in the civil service
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
First of all I should like to congratulate Jessica Larive on her outstanding report.
It is not only an excellent report but it is also a pleasure to read. It contains well thought out arguments and is compulsory reading for anyone who has yet to be convinced that positive actions for women are needed.
Our group fully endorses the proposals in the Larive report.
Positive action plans are needed to provide the proper basis for analyses, for assessment, for the benefit of work organisations, child care and regulations on leave, and especially for the necessary criteria for appointments and promotions. We now know that seniority does not serve women, that written tests often put them at a disadvantage and I am convinced that it is more to do with the way the tests are compiled rather than the fact that it is women sitting them.
Selection tests for the police, for example, which expect women to run a hundred metres in ten seconds - I think that can only be done if Marylin Otty were to apply to the police force.
We are in favour of strict objectives in all departments and at all levels, including quotas and rules on priority.
I would repeat that my group urgently calls on the Commission to present a proposal as a result of the disgraceful Kalanke ruling whereby positive actions are presented as a positive way to promote equal opportunities for women.
We shall only retain some degree of credibility, ladies and gentlemen, if the European institutions themselves set a good example.
I would like to take this opportunity here of congratulating Parliament and the Commission on the positive action plans in place here, with target figures at all levels, including the senior grades, but it is clear that in percentage terms, 16 % and 18 % at the top level, we are still a long way from equal opportunities.
I am also pleased to be able to announce that the Socialist Group has launched an offensive and even although we already have 20 % women in A grade posts we continue to work towards equality.
Our target, I think, should be 50 %.
I would like to warn colleagues about an argument that has been becoming more widespread in recent times, as I think Mrs Larive will confirm; namely that equal opportunities for men and women in the civil service should be accompanied by specific measures for men in executive positions.
I would welcome more male telephonists, more male messengers and more male secretaries, but I think that is the wrong way of looking at things. Positive action plans are aimed at eliminating discrimination against women in society and in the world of work.
So we need a quota and positive action plans for women, and not at least for the time being for men. That is the reasoning behind Amendment No 10 from the Socialist Group to paragraph 3.
I hope that everyone in this House can support this amendment.
Mr President, this resolution is almost perfect.
It is a complete and precise guide, based on clear and well-reasoned grounds, intended for the Member States and the Community institutions. When it has been passed, it will represent the will of the men and women we represent and therefore the Commissioner cannot ignore it.
It is not possible to illustrate this important resolution in two minutes, but it is possible to stress the salient points. First of all, it deals with a growing problem, given the threat from the spending cuts all the countries are implementing in order to qualify for monetary union, which involves loss of their jobs for the women who make up the majority of those employed in this sector.
Secondly, it requests the governments engaged in the Intergovernmental Conference to include an appropriate article in the new treaty ratifying equal opportunities for men and women and making explicit the legitimacy of allocating resources to effective positive measures, not just promotional ones, to improve gender balance at all levels.
Thirdly, it reaffirms the principle of subsidiarity as regards experiments in positive action, to counter erroneous or convenient interpretations of the Kalanke ruling. Finally, but there is much more to be said, it invites the Community institutions and the Member States to establish appropriate organizations to carry out continuous assessment of changes in the position, naturally in the hope of improvement.
Commissioner Kinnock, we are very glad you are here and we count on your sensitivity in the areas where the Commission is concerned.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you very much indeed for the help you are giving me in the House, particularly my friend Mr Bertens.
But he can understand that if my eyes are wandering to one side, it is to the left.
Therefore Mrs van Dijk has the floor.
Mr President, I should just like to put one more question in view of the reply given by the Commissioner.
Does the Commissioner think that the report in its present form, and it is likely to be adopted unanimously in this form, is in line with the proposal for a directive as a result of the Kalanke ruling, and does the Commissioner think this report is in line with the Court's ruling discussed here today?
I am glad that Mrs Van Dijk has raised the question and indeed raised it in this form.
I have read the report with great interest.
I particularly read pages 22 and 23 which put the case for a strong legislative approach.
Since the honourable lady asked what my view was, I can actually say that I have great sympathy with the case put. The problem is - and I repeat what I said earlier - that it does not matter how the Commission feels individually or, as it happens, collectively about the rights and wrongs of the issue.
We have an absolute pre-requirement to fulfil the law and to obey the law. Consequently I just take this further opportunity to make it clear that a change of the kind that is required in the report, regardless of the merit of the arguments put, can only be made by the alteration of primary law and not by the introduction of a new regulation.
I can, as an individual, regret that fact. I nevertheless, as a realist, acknowledge that it is a fact.
Mr President, in view of the Commissioner's reply to Mrs Van Dijk I should like to ask him if the Commission considers it its job, every time that the Court of Justice hands down a ruling on the basis of specific European legislation, to adapt such legislation to the Court's ruling?
Would it not also be possible, Commissioner, for the Commission to adapt its legislation in another way, so that the next time such a ruling would become impossible?
The honourable lady who has put a huge amount of work not only into this report but into the cause generally will fully appreciate that, in the wake of the court judgment, the position of women under European law was extremely exposed. In those circumstances it certainly was necessary to come forward with proposals that whilst not conforming to what she would want or indeed, maybe what I would want, nevertheless made the best of what could be done in the legal circumstances at the time.
It is on that basis that the Commission had to make a response to the Court of Justice's judgment, apart from anything else to ensure that there was not further deterioration in the general position so far as positive action is concerned.
Adjournment of the session
Resumption of the Session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 15 November 1996.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
I agree with you, Mr Corrie, but unfortunately that has nothing to do with the approval of the minutes.
I shall look into the matter, Mr Watson.
Mr President, thank you for agreeing to look into that.
I also wanted to say that a few minutes ago Parliament received a petition signed by the largest number of people ever.
Over 4 million European Union citizens from all fifteen European Union Member States signed this petition which supports the European Parliament in calling for a ban on animal testing for cosmetics.
I know you will want to note that and the Committee on Petitions will be looking very seriously at this petition.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, when I came into the building I was handed a document 'Parking survey D3' which bore an address in Brussels and which requested my cooperation in the survey.
I wanted to ask you, Mr President, if this survey is being carried out with the Bureau's permission?
Are we expected to make a useful contribution or are we not expected to make a useful contribution? That is what I would like to know.
Mr Chanterie, I can't just answer that off the cuff - please let me have a copy of the survey and we'll look into it.
I do need to see what it's all about.
Urgent political matters
I would like to put the following question to the Commissioner. If a decision on sending an intervention force is not made within the next few days then it will be too late.
We are now being told that there is no agreement on that in the Council.
I want to know if anything can be done so that an initiative is taken at least at Council level in conjunction with the OAU which has made it clear it wants to do something by way of an intervention force.
My second specific question is: when is the Commission going to do what it promised five years ago, namely compile an arms register.
The problem with arms supplies to both sides, both the Hutus and the Tutsis, is that it means that this war is solely being waged with arms and not with political arguments.
And my last question is what decisions have been taken by the Commission or the Council on sending a sufficient number of observers to Rwanda to ensure that reintegration does not lead to the silent extinction of returning refugees.
It is difficult to assess in full the current number of refugees in Eastern Zaire.
The reports from the World Food Programme indicated some weeks ago that it is in the range of 700, 000.
Later reports claimed it was much less, in the order of 250, 000.
Whatever the true number, it is a staggering amount.
We cannot ask our NGOs to go to places where the military say they will not be safe.
If it is unsafe for the military it cannot be safe for NGOs.
One thing is sure: the situation in Zaire is far from being secure and therefore it will be extremely difficult to ask NGOs to go.
Pressure should be made at Security Council level for this deployment to be carried out as soon as possible in some parts of Eastern Zaire.
The Commission is trying to address the plan in a way which will not give the idea that the situation is solved - far from it.
That is the reason why in early December we will present this broad plan regarding humanitarian, political and rehabilitation issues.
I hope everyone will then take up his responsibilities.
With regard to human rights, it is absolutely essential that observers go as soon as possible and increase the numbers over there.
We are in contact with both the UNHCR and the United Nations agencies for human rights in order to help them deploy significantly increased numbers of human rights observers both in Rwanda and in Burundi.
In Rwanda we hope to have approximately 300 shortly and in Burundi something of the order of 170.
On top of that Member States are willing to send some observers.
The only thing the Council and the Commission asked is for people who are going to be adequately prepared so they can be of help rather than making things more difficult.
With regard to arms deliveries, there has been some movement on the UN side.
As far as I could ascertain, some private research that was done by, among others, CNN has quite definitely proven that there have been illegal arms deliveries to the former Rwandan army and others throughout the embargo.
I cannot go further than that at this stage but I will inform you when I have more information.
I thank the Commissioner for his statement.
I would like to pursue this matter of the supply of arms to the Hutus.
The Hutus were defeated by the Tutsis and disarmed a year ago and now they seem to be rearmed.
As you know, Commissioner, there is information that these weapons are coming from European Union Member States and it seems immoral that this should be allowed to continue.
What are you going to do about it?
Concerning the multinational force, it seems that Canada is perfectly willing to lead such a force but someone is blocking it.
Can you say who is blocking the multinational force which would be prepared to move into the region as a matter of urgency, as you suggested? Furthermore, what is the Commission doing about monitoring the returnees into Rwanda when they reach their villages?
Finally, there are approximately 600, 000 refugees missing in the region.
It is unbelievable that we cannot identify exactly where they are so that we can assist them.
The NGOs know where they are and there is no reason why we should not have the information.
As you know, unfortunately in international diplomacy it is very rare that someone puts things as straightforwardly as you would like.
No country is openly blocking it but there are some countries - and I would mention among others, France, Italy and Spain - which are pushing for decisive and urgent action on the military side, while others are more hesitant and want more clarification before committing themselves.
Regarding the monitoring of returnees, a team from DG VIII were assessing the situation in Rwanda last week so that immediate assistance can be provided, namely shelter and help in sorting out some problems caused by the influx.
The main problem now is not food or medicaments but it is basically shelter and trying to find some ways of earning a living in the months to come.
With regard to the 600, 000 who are missing, it is very difficult to make an assessment.
The figures given range from 250, 000 and 750, 000 but whatever the true number, it is amazing.
I would add that there is another problem to which we have not paid so much attention.
I refer to the huge number of refugees in Tanzania now in the range of 700, 000.
I put it to you that things are not easy at the border between Burundi and Tanzania and unless the international community acts quickly we might witness there something of a repetition of what occurred at the Zairean/Rwandan border.
That is one of the reasons why the Commission is willing to put this plan forward to make everyone aware of the current dangers on top of the ones we are already acquainted with.
Mr President, hitherto we have been deploring the inability of the international organizations to get a neutral multinational force into the field.
Today, the arguments about the numbers of refugees still remaining in the area are more heated than ever.
So there is a more and more urgent need for action, because otherwise death will put an end to the problem.
Those European States that are members of the Security Council have proved incapable of instigating the debate and defining a European position capable of breaking the deadlock on the Security Council.
Don't you think that Europe has a unique opportunity here to show that it does exist?
I should also like to mention the problem of aid to the refugees and those repatriated to Rwanda.
As you know, Rwanda is still refusing to accept humanitarian aid or do anything to control the return of the refugees.
This attitude is unacceptable in the present situation.
Could the European Union not use its influence to persuade Rwanda to change its attitude?
Finally, I should like to know what our diplomatic position is in Burundi. We know there has been a coup d'état there, and apparently we are negotiating with Mr Buyaya.
What's going on, Mr President?
Regarding the multinational force, among other things we have proposed a contribution by the European Union through the Commission budget so that the Africans could have through the Trust Fund of the UN Security Council the possibility of participating in the multinational force.
Unfortunately, from the humanitarian point of view, this is led by the UN and therefore the European Union can apply pressure but cannot replace the United Nations in that role.
With regard to Rwanda, so far the Rwandan authorities have been cooperating very well with UN agencies and with the resettlement of refugees.
Despite minor incidents, the global picture is very encouraging. In Burundi we are approaching the problem through the Arusha regional group, in other words, through the points that have been agreed upon by the states of the region.
Therefore, we have been careful not to legitimize a government which the countries in the region do not recognize as legitimate.
In that regard I should like also to stress that the delegation of the European Union will be reopening in Burundi very shortly. I hope this week.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his answer.
One of the questions was: what is standing in the way of the Council sending in a military force?
The second question is: what measures is it taking, vis-à-vis the Rwandan Government, to support and assist the humanitarian organizations that are there, given that some of them are not being given the legal status they need in order to act?
And the third question: you spoke about the conference on peace in the region.
This House has been calling for such a conference for some time and has given its approval in resolutions.
When do you think it will be possible for the conference to take place?
The Council does not have the power to decide but it has the power to approve declarations and to put pressure on those who have to decide.
Unfortunately the conclusions of the Council were not as strong as many hoped for.
Therefore the matter is again before the UN in New York with no precise date for the deployment of the military force.
Besides what I have already said about Rwanda, I should like to emphasize that the Commission has made available all the funds it could at this stage - both through NGOs and UN agencies - in order to make things work down there as much as possible.
So far the Rwandan authorities have been very cooperative in many ways and I am encouraged by that. I hope it will continue in the future.
As to the peace conference, it should be convened as soon as possible.
Not only do the problems of some countries in the region need this conference but the whole situation is so complex it is impossible to deal with it in a bilateral way.
Only a peace conference under the aegis of the United Nations could make a tentative start to improving the situation.
I would say bluntly that if we do not achieve some peace-building through this conference we might witness a regional war involving many countries in the region including others which so far have not been involved in this conflict.
Needless to say, an implosion in Zaire will have major consequences not only in the Great Lakes region but in many other countries which border on Zaire.
That is one of the reasons why we need to address the political situation urgently and the special envoy is doing magnificent job in the region.
He is one of the few interlocutors whom everybody will talk to.
It is not easy but we should try and I hope in early December I will be able to tell you what we propose.
Mr President, there are three questions I would like to put to the Commission on this subject.
First, the principle was supported that refugees should only return voluntarily. Might some of this escalation possibly have been avoided if rather more emphasis had been placed on the return of the refugees?
Secondly, the question of the observers. Is it not a little late in the day to send observers after disaster has already struck?
Because if the non-governmental organizations have virtually no room for manoeuvre because of the unstable situation, is not that even more the case as far as any observers are concerned, however many of them there might be? My third question relates to the conference you mentioned.
Your seven principles are certainly highly ambitious.
Why have such conferences not worked in the past? Questions relating to the protection of ethnic minorities and their legal position, respect for frontiers, these are precisely the things that are not in place, and of course they are to a large extent the reason for the present escalation.
Are you thinking just about a conference under the auspices of the United Nations, or is the OAU also to be involved?
The only alternative to the voluntary return of refugees is to point a gun at them and say: ' Either you go or you will be killed, either by the gun or by withholding shelter, food and water' .
The only acceptable way is the voluntary return of refugees.
We had human rights observers there.
The problem is that security was so bad that the observers had to leave the area.
We cannot ask the observers - who are civilians and sometimes volunteers - to submit to a situation which is highly insecure and in which they may be killed.
Therefore we could not ask the observers to remain even if that is what we wanted.
At present observers could be deployed safely in Rwanda and in some parts of Burundi but in Eastern Zaire it is simply not possible.
The security situation does not allow it just as it does not allow NGOs to be there.
With regard to the conference, it takes two to tango.
The two conflicting sides have to agree to sit around the table. Otherwise it has no meaning.
So far there has been a conference of the regional states but we want to go further and have everyone sit around the table.
The aegis of the United Nations has been claimed from the beginning but this does not mean that the Organization of African Unity or the European Union which, by the same token, is by far the largest provider of humanitarian and rehabilitation assistance in the region will not be present.
I hope we will and that we can make a contribution when it is convened.
I have two questions about Rwanda.
The first relates to the particular problems facing women returning to Rwanda.
70 % of the population of Rwanda currently are women.
Many of the returnees are women, many of whom are widows or single mothers stigmatized because of that.
Under Rwandan law they have no rights to property or inheritance.
What will the European Commission be doing to ensure women's rights to property, shelter and proper protection when they return to Rwanda?
Secondly, you will be aware, Commissioner, that one of the important things we need to ensure is that people in Rwanda have a sense that they are returning to a country that will deliver justice.
One aspect will be that we ensure proper trials for those guilty of genocide.
How will we be protecting, ensuring and supporting the Rwandan Government's case for beginning those trials in January? It will be absolutely essential after the genocide laws have been passed that the trials begin in January.
What will you be doing to ensure that those two things occur?
This is a most pertinent question.
We have been in contact with the High Commission for Refugees as well as the High Commission for Human Rights of the United Nations in order to guarantee and make sure that women and children have special treatment and special attention in Rwanda.
I can assure you that earlier today I received a letter from both organizations guaranteeing it will be taken care of as a matter of the utmost urgency.
With regard to justice, the Rwandan Government has passed the laws which enable justice to be done. It was not easy for them.
But the logistical means needed to enforce the trials etc. are not there.
This is one of the topics which the Commission assessment mission in Rwanda last week had as its mandate.
I very much hope that we will be able to provide some means so that by January, which is also our target, we could have and witness justice being done in Rwanda at a reasonable pace.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I welcome what the Commissioner has said but I should like him to remember especially those parts of the Union that are on the periphery such as Northern Ireland. Some of the trucks from my country have been held up into the second week.
I welcome what he has said and the representations he has made. But this is very urgent for those on the periphery of the Union.
I am grateful to the honourable Member.
I am sure he will understand that to the degree we can bring political influence to bear, we will certainly do it, not least because we understand the great social and personal distress being encountered by a large number of truck drivers and their families and the disadvantages caused to all parts of the European Community's economy, notably the peripheral areas, as a consequence of a dispute of this kind.
Mr President, I firstly have to express my regret that the group of visitors I invited are not among our spectators today as their journey here has been held up on French roads.
Secondly, the Commissioner spoke very clearly regarding the lack of potential compensation for damages suffered already by lorries held up on French territory. In the Spanish case, losses amount to something in the region of 250 million ecus in terms of perishable goods.
My question, however, is this: what is being done regarding, for example, the harvesting of citrus fruits in the Mediterranean basin?
The industry is at a complete standstill whilst we await a solution to this dispute, which has caused the loss of many working hours and an increase in unemployment. What is being done about the slowing-down in the rate of work in Spain's ports on the Mediterranean which are currently unable to export to the Community goods arriving from third countries?
Is this yet another area where the Community is not going to intervene?
Mr President, Commissioner, with all my customary disrespect for institutions, there are two things I would like to say to you.
The problem has nothing to do with freedom of movement - it is the problem of social Europe. I believe that Europe and the Commissioners are too timid.
They should jump at the opportunity and make the point that, without a social Europe, this kind of problem does arise, because it is a problem of harmonization of labour law and it is also a problem of public health protection.
The more miles the trucks cover, the more dangerous the roads are. The more the Commission - or Europe - proves unable to protect its citizens, the more danger there is for all of us.
And, thirdly, I would like to say to all Members, to everyone who tries to speak in this House about freedom of movement: all social change comes through strikes, and when there is a strike, social change takes place.
That is why the Commission should thank the strikers - because they are advancing the cause of social Europe.
Mr President, as the Commissioner explained a moment ago, serious problems have arisen not only in France but also in neighbouring countries.
We are concerned about the news we are receiving from Spain in this connection: losses of 1, 000 million in terms of fruit and vegetables in Alicante and 5, 000 million in Almeria; the citrus-fruit harvest is at a standstill in Castellón and, in Portugal, the textile and car industries are on the verge of collapse, etc.
Commissioner, it is not my intention to harp on about the dispute's prospects, because you have already gone into this, nor about what the Commission is doing.
However, I do have one very specific question for you: do you have any news to the effect that attitudes in the dispute could harden even further in the light of the announcement of a French air-traffic controllers' strike?
My reason for asking this, Commissioner, is that some Spanish fruit-andvegetable hauliers were already using air transport as an alternative to road transport.
Appointment of EMI President
Madam President, in committee my Group was unable to endorse the unanimous recommendation that Mr Duisenberg be selected to head the European Monetary Institute. He is unquestionably a very experienced and competent individual, but we believe that his basic monetary and economic views are not of a kind which we can support.
He seems to be a strong advocate of monetarism, and he also seriously underestimates the need for a common economic policy under monetary union.
We consider that such a policy will be an absolute must.
Although the future European Central Bank's independence of political passions must be safeguarded, it is important that the Central Bank should be directed by people who have a realistic view of the operation of the real economy. As we are not particularly convinced that he does, I have recommended that my Group should abstain in tomorrow's vote.
Convergence and single currency
Madam President, Commissioner, although Parliament has had insufficient time to give full consideration to all the legal problems raised by the introduction of the euro, our committee and our Parliament can approve the broad lines of the two proposals for Regulations you have put before us. They both represent a sound basis for moving forward to the biggest monetary event of all time.
Never before in the history of our peoples has there been an operation on such a scale, representing such a radical change affecting so many people.
That is why Parliament cannot overemphasize the need to inform, prepare and reassure the population.
We are a long way behind in this respect - and there is not much time left to make good that shortfall.
The same reasoning leads us to insist that the text should be proof against any legal challenge.
I am sorry to say that it is not.
And the Ecofin council, like the Commission, despite all the opinions obtained from all the lawyers that surround them, have too lightly brushed aside the objection raised regarding the Madrid decision that something laid down by a treaty could be changed by a summit. No matter how much you use every trick in the lawyer's book to try to explain that the ECU doesn't mean an écu, that it means a 'European currency unit' , it doesn't stick.
And you will see that it doesn't.
I am sorry to have to say so.
The same applies to other more important amendments, and in this case I accuse the Commission of having capitulated far too easily. The euro, after all, is not just the currency of the Member States, it is also the currency of the Community.
You didn't want that, and why not?
Because your lawyers said to you, ' The Community is not a state.'
Wrong. According to the treaties - and as witness the fact that you are creating a currency - a central bank has the power to issue the European currency.
It therefore has the ability to justify it, internally and externally. And just because two Member States are temporarily seceding by opting out is no reason to give in to them.
Secondly, the decision you have to take on this is based not on Article 235 but on Article 104, which is an article that can be adopted by a qualified majority.
So the objections of Denmark and the United Kingdom count for nothing in this case.
Let them vote against, we can vote in favour anyway. So I accuse the Commission of having been unbelievably timid in the defence of its own interests.
That, Madam President, is why I hope that - with the benefit of reflection, with the benefit of careful analysis - you will be able to accept the amendments we are putting to you in this respect.
In addition, I should like to defend two other amendments. There is the one that says, in particular, that it is the Central Bank that issues the European currency and the national central banks that circulate it.
The objection has been: ' But we're following the text of the Treaty!' Wrong again!
In the text of the Treaty, the statutes of the Central Bank are equivalent to those of the Treaty, and so when there is a contradiction between the statutes of the Central Bank which form part of the Treaty and the text of the Treaty itself, that contradiction has to be reconciled by interpreting the intent of the authors of the texts.
And, in that context, I am quite sure you will also accept our amendment stating that it is the Central Bank which issues the currency and the national banks that circulate it. That is what should be done - that is what you would have to accept if you were logical and consistent in your own actions.
Finally, my last remark concerns the principle so often stated that the euro involves no obligations but no prohibitions either. The true interpretation of this principle is to be found not in your text but in ours.
We say that when both parties wish to do so, they can use the euro as they wish; just because a contract was drawn up at the outset in national currency, especially if it dates from a very long time back, and just because that national currency is now to be replaced by the euro that does not mean that the contract has to be performed in the national currency during the transition period.
The true legal expression of the principle that you have so often declared is reflected better in our text than in yours. And, here again, I hope that when you have thought about this again and listened more carefully to what Parliament has to say you will take account of it and adopt it.
Those, Madam President, are three comments I wanted to make.
I was pleased to note that the Commission's intention was to take due account of Parliament's concerns as far as consumer protection is concerned, and that you were intending to submit proposals on that subject shortly, in a different text. I welcome that intention.
If that is indeed the case, we should be able to consider with a degree of understanding and a great deal of indulgence the fact that, on this point, you refused our amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased that our debate on monetary union today is not about 'if' but about 'how' , and that this applies to all groups.
We have been talking today about the legislative requirements for the independence of the national central banks, the institutional imbalance of the European central banks, public acceptance and the third stage of economic and monetary union.
I should like to endorse, very clearly and positively, what Mr Donnelly said.
Let us have a stability pact by all means, but one geared to the budgetary stability of the individual nations, to employment policy, and absolutely not in the form of the Waigel-style strait-jacket.
I would like to make that absolutely clear on behalf of our group.
The extent to which any such compliance is actually necessary has now developed into a subject of heated debate, because the political concessions made to the opponents of Maastricht, in the form of narrow interpretation and strict compliance, have given added importance to the fiscal convergence criteria - an importance for which there is no basis whatever in the Treaty and no economic justification.
But it should be made quite clear that a stable monetary union is not necessarily tied to strict observance of the stated quotas.
Rather, the issue is the direction thus indicated in which the budgetary policy of the individual Member States should move.
Precisely that can be seen happening everywhere: budgets are being consolidated, excess government deficits are being reduced.
Even today, the gap between the highest and lowest deficits among the EU States has become significantly narrower, and that trend must continue.
In conclusion, I should like to say that a debate on whether to have monetary union would run counter to the present trend of a changeover among banks and small- and medium-sized enterprises, and that I greatly welcome the way today's debate is being conducted!
Mr President, Monetary Union, which is to come into being on 1 January 1999, is a decisive and irreversible step on the road to European integration.
Consequently, it is the duty of the Commission and of this Parliament to guarantee the security and credibility of the path leading us to that Union and also its soundness and stability once achieved.
The Council is shortly to make a pronouncement on three aspects, which are still to be defined, which are fundamental elements of the credibility, security and stability of future Monetary Union.
I refer to the stability pact, to the definition of the future European Monetary System between the euro and the currencies of those Member States not participating in monetary union and the legal scope of the euro.
It is not my intention to speak about the first two aspects, since these have been discussed in previous interventions.
I shall restrict my contribution to the third aspect, which is the subject of Mr Herman's report which we are debating today.
Council regulations relating to the introduction of the euro have a single objective: to give legal security to operators in their financial and commercial operations throughout the process of introducing the euro and the progressive disappearance of national currencies both before and after 1 January 1999.
In this sense, we feel the approach is the right one.
However, it could be improved in legal terms and we support the amendments Mr Herman proposes in this connection in his report, and we believe that it should be strengthened by a second objective - the objective of offering security and transparency of information to consumers and citizens to explain how their national currency converts into the euro.
This is undoubtedly the spirit and substance of the amendments proposed in the Herman report, which we support.
Planned Monetary Union requires everyone to make an unambiguous pledge to the citizens of Europe.
The change has to be explained and it has to be made easy. The changeover to the euro must not make anyone uncertain about continued purchasing power and everyone must be capable of understanding the need to offer and conduct transactions expressed both in euros and in their national currency for a certain period.
Commissioner, this endeavour will not end with the approval of these regulations but must commence from their approval, with cooperation and commitment from all Member States. We must not forget that this is a new currency for all citizens and that society's attitudes and behaviour are not modified by the mere publication of the Official Journal.
We are well aware that the Commission intends to propose a directive on this subject but we believe that a directive will perhaps be insufficient.
We ought to be speaking in terms of a genuine mobilization plan - this House would undoubtedly welcome the opportunity to discuss this with the Commissioner.
Mr President, I should like first of all to say a few words about the Metten report.
In his recommendation he tries most commendably to ensure that as many countries as possible can proceed to the third stage of EMU at the beginning of January 1999.
Our Group too considers it a precondition for the third stage that as many Member States as possible - at the minimum, a majority of them - should be able to proceed to it.
However, it is not entirely unproblematic in this connection how it proves possible to solve the equation: the solution proposed is that the convergence criteria be interpreted non-arithmetically.
This could also be described as creative interpretation.
However, I should like to draw attention to the fact that, for example, the Director of Eurostat has said in Parliament that there are many grey areas in the Member States with regard to efforts to reduce budget deficits and that all should be clarified before 1998 so that equal treatment of all countries can be ensured.
One example is the inclusion of the French state telephone company Telecom's pension funds in the calculation of France's budget deficit.
Using tricks like this really will not result in a stable currency.
I should like to put the following questions to Commissioner de Silguy: is it intended that grey areas and various tricks should be assessed as a matter of urgency?
Are we not already heading towards a situation in which the stability of the future European currency will be in doubt?
Mr President, the debate on Europe and the fact that it is being held in the European Parliament are strangely linked by various factors. Let me illustrate my point.
Parliamentarians complain that Member States are subject to enormous savings 'for the sake of Maastricht' . That does not make the concept of Europe more attractive.
But the real reason is that EMU must be implemented at all costs according to the planned schedule. The strange thing is that the European Parliament is also going along with that idea.
The national budget policy of the Member States is currently aimed at fulfilling the convergence criteria. To this end some countries are performing accounting contortions which are incompatible with the objectives of real convergence, which is a veritable time bomb under the solid character of EMU.
But strangely enough this is scarcely mentioned in this House.
Amendment No 15 to part II of the Christodoulou report is very strange.
It assumed that Greece should be given special treatment because of its higher expenditure on defence. So can the Netherlands also be given exceptional treatment on the grounds of the high expenditure needed for dikes and coastal protection work?
Our Oosterschelde dam costs eight billion guilders.
Other European countries have other kinds of problems. This kind of discussion illustrates how unsuitable a monetary union is for the European Union.
Finally, is it not rather strange that during the hearing Mr Duisenberg asked that parliamentary representatives participate in the future ECB Council or that confidential documents be sent. Some Members cannot warm to the idea of an independent central bank.
But strangely enough they are in favour of the euro.
I have yet to meet a member of the public who has any confidence in this whole business.
Mr President, on the evening of Sunday, 24 November 1996, the extraordinary Council of economic and finance ministers worked flat out to arrange for Father Christmas to visit the Italians a month early, and to come up with a brilliant solution - fixing the lira within the exchange mechanism of the European Monetary System at a rate of 990 to the German mark; it may be remembered that the lira exchange rate a few weeks earlier was 1010-1020. This is a worrying development, bearing in mind that this decision will significantly reduce the former encouraging prospects for exports from northern Italy.
Not only that, but these moves impose a further penalty on the incomes of small- and medium-sized enterprises, already persecuted by a perverse tax system - they are going to have to think about their futures and about how to live with an unfavourable exchange rate.
Despite an unfavourable economic climate, the European Union has made significant progress towards monetary convergence in 1996. If progress continues at the same pace, virtually all those Member States who wish to do so will be able to join Stage Three of European monetary union on 1 January 1999.
There is no lack of imagination in the European Union, but there is no concreteness either: the stricter the interpretation of the convergence criteria and the other significant factors, the smaller will be the number of Member States joining, and yet - I must emphasize - the interpretation will once again be a political decision, taken by a two-thirds majority of the Ecofin Council.
What scale can be used to quantify the problems of unemployment, of the cost of running the country, of interest rates and of inflation - which, in Italy, has reached an all-time low only as a result of reduced consumption?
The determination of every state to become a full member of Europe will not be enough, even the 'Euro-tax' proposed by Italy will not be enough. It is essential that all States should subject themselves to rigorous and previously agreed choices, including their tolerance margins.
Mr President, the fact that we are drawing closer to the time for adopting a single European currency should be a reason for great satisfaction in terms of the gains and the security that should be brought.
But at the same time a cause for paying even more attention to ensure that the process runs smoothly and is maintained well beyond the date when the euro is to enter into circulation.
For Portugal, the benefits are especially sensitive as my country already has a very open economy, with a degree of trade openness exceeded only by the Benelux countries, Ireland and one of the Nordic countries, where small and medium-sized firms dominate, companies already especially penalised by the costs of transition, uncertainty and the calculation stemming from the existence of so many currencies in Europe.
I therefore very much welcome the fact that, as is acknowledged in a recent Commission report, Portugal should be able to enter the vanguard in terms of meeting the nominal convergence criteria set at Maastricht.
This is the result of a successful attempt in recent years to bring inflation down from 13.4 % in 1990 - and it had been up to 24.7 % in 1985 - to 2.6 % in 1996, to bring the interest rate differential with the EU average down from 7 percentage points to less than 3, to bring the budget deficit down to 4 %, while public debt, albeit still more than 60 %, should fall further in 1996/. Although the unemployment rate did go up in 1994, it has been kept to just over 7 %, far below the EU average.
It should also be pointed out that this has been brought about despite a change of government from one party to a quite different one which, luckily for my country, is also set on and committed to the process of European integration.
Representing more than 80 % of Portuguese workers in the wake of the recent elections where the process was at the heart of the political campaigns, it could be said that we can count on the strong backing of our people.
Even though Portugal is capable of joining the single currency it cannot stop being sensitive to the advantage for it and the European Union as a whole of allowing as many other countries to join as possible, as properly underscored in the Metten report, as the only way of avoiding the risks and disadvantages - competitive devaluations - despite prohibitions and set penalties, that some of those left out might be tempted by.
That would help to strengthen the euro in the world economy and benefit all concerned.
A single currency, however, would continue to call for greater real approximation between economies. That is why it is in the general interest to ensure that the structural policies are continued and even strengthened, with less of a requirement of additionality, so that the efforts to be made by the various countries do not call into question the nominal proximity that should be kept up once the single European currency begins to circulate.
This would also help to bring about the vital public acceptance of the euro which, apart from the costly awareness campaigns that we could be involved in, could be felt - in the wake of more realistic, stricter policies - as a factor of progress and social well-being.
Science and technology in the 21st century
Mr President, I should like to start by thanking Mr Desama most sincerely for his report. This report is by way of preparation for the debate on the Fifth Research Framework Programme and, in the weeks and months ahead, once we have adopted it, it will undoubtedly result in the further enrichment and broadening of the debate, especially once the Commission has submitted its proposals.
It is important to point out that the issue here is not spending money but creating or sustaining a culture - a scientific culture - which has played its part in shaping this Europe of ours over the last three or four hundred years.
I can't help fearing - and I think I am not alone here - that this scientific culture is gradually giving way, that scientific values are giving way, to a different culture in which the only concern is with the short-term money-oriented evaluation of products and processes. I feel sure it is worth emphasizing something that all of us know, here in this House, that Europe has eased up in its scientific and technological endeavours.
Yesterday, the British Chancellor presented his budget.
If you look at the science budget, you will see a reduction in real terms.
I could say the same of the science budgets of other Member States - those of France, Germany, Italy and plenty of others. We had great difficulty in topping up the Fourth Research Framework Programme - we are still having difficulties, we have still not solved the problem.
It is much easier to spend money on areas other than science, education and technology.
What that means is that we have no money for the future.
We are consuming it today, or being forced to pay off debts we incurred in the past.
This lack of vitality may be the main reason for the problems facing Europe today.
That statement has very often been heard in this House, and it is true all the same.
We must work to sustain, and enhance, a scientific culture in Europe. This applies, too, to the subject we are discussing today - scientific and technological policy in the 21st century.
What is the main change going to be between that century and this?
That it will not be the century of Europe: the majority of mankind lives outside Europe.
By the middle of the next century, two-thirds of humanity will be living in two countries which are not part of Europe. Those countries are not going to sit back - they are going to develop their own science and technology, perhaps more successfully than we do.
And Pakistan is unlikely to be confined to a single Nobel laureate, as it has been in the 20th century.
So what is Europe doing?
What are we investing in?
What can a young person today identify as an investment in the future?
Fine new buildings for banks or insurance companies?
Marble will be too cheap for them.
But what is being invested in science and technology? We are wrangling over peanuts, when we should really be committing ourselves to major expenditures!
Europe must ask itself whether it wants to invest in the future - whether it wants to prepare for the 21st century. If it does, then the Fifth Research Framework Programme - to be more specific - must also have a global aspect.
I can still remember the debate we had in connection with the Fourth Framework Programme. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in our attempt to gain an appropriate level of recognition for global aspects in the Fourth Framework Programme.
I hope that the Fifth Framework Programme will provide us with increased opportunities to see Europe in the context of other cultures, too, to understand other cultures and, once again, to be more receptive to other cultures. This aspect of globalization must play a major part in science.
Finally, I believe it is a good idea for the Fifth Research Framework Programme to be geared towards visible objectives as well.
The Commission has given some thought to that.
There are other proposals, too.
Parliament has put forward some ideas of its own.
My hope is that we can give science a higher profile, and perhaps increase the number of people who take an enthusiastic interest in it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are embarking upon preliminary discussions for a framework programme, and that framework programme, like all its predecessors, will be a four-year one. In other words, it has to be both consistent and flexible, even if that seems to be a contradiction in terms.
I should like to look at three separate points, three specific proposals made by the Desama report, which seem to us to be particularly important.
First, the various policies in the area of research and development must be integrated and coordinated as a matter of urgency.
We need more research and development input into our structural, agricultural and environmental policies, and it must be possible to coordinate that input with the specific sector of research policy. That is the only way we shall be able to spend the money efficiently, and the only way of making it clear to the citizen that progress is needed everywhere, not just hidden away in one particular programme.
Secondly, research and development are all very well, but we must improve the involvement of the SMEs, not everywhere, not in every instance, but wherever it can be done. So we must also set measures in train to create easier access to risk capital and new, hybrid forms of financing.
The Union level could provide a valuable stimulus here.
Thirdly, we consider it very important for researchers to be more involved than they had been in the evaluation and further development of research policy. We must institutionalize the dialogue between researchers and policy makers, and we must also convince our researchers that they have a duty to be politically active, and a duty, too, to inform the citizen, to explain what the issues are.
Bearing in mind the great scarcity of resources, we do need to create much greater public acceptance of what we are doing. We are not living in a period of exuberant budgetary growth, and so we need to state what we want.
And that implies, too, making it quite clear what we don't want.
That second point will be the most difficult: it will be difficult to say, no, not that, this instead! I hope, Commissioner, that you will participate in a constant dialogue with us to help us define what we do want, and that you will listen to the voice of Parliament from the outset.
Finally, it seems very important to us that we should encourage value added creation in Europe.
That will be all we can afford - not, sadly, everything we should like to afford!
Public transport
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, all of you perhaps future users of short-range public transport! First, I should like to say how glad I am that this Green Paper has been produced, and to thank the rapporteur for his efforts.
I believe that short-range passenger transport concerns every single citizen of the Union, because involvement in community life depends on access to transport; and I believe that this is another very important reason why the trans-European networks, the long-range links, should be appropriately supplemented by local networks.
The opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy naturally deals with the points that the Committee spends most time discussing.
When we, the European Union, agree to stabilize CO2 emissions that makes it necessary to plan our energy use much more efficiently.
Road transport offers two particularly good ways of doing this: increased use of public transport, enabling more passengers to be carried for a lower energy input, and developing vehicles which use less energy, or different forms of energy.
Another thing that I believe we need to do, therefore, is to help make public transport more attractive.
A particular contribution here can be made by another area covered by the Committee on Technological Development, because the use of telematics to improve the provision of information will make access to and use of transport easier.
One especially important aspect of research, vehicle development, is as I understand it a special interest of the Commissioner for Research, Mrs Cresson, and this is an area where I think a great deal of highly creative work can be done in Europe, which will also help the development of our industry.
There is one final point I would also like to mention: the documentation of especially suitable projects, throughout Europe, should help facilitate access to community life for all European citizens.
Summer time
Thank you, Mr Blokland.
Ladies and gentlemen, the wonderful and sophisticated electronics with which this Chamber is endowed often gives us problems and the electronic clock is currently not working.
You will have to rely on my personal judgement when I advise you that your allotted time has expired.
The first person to have to rely on this is Mr Waidelich, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Mr Waidelich, you have four minutes.
Pan-European transport policy
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, not specifically on the Minutes but on the Brussels Notebook which we have just found in our pigeonholes.
This is a small but serious point: the notebook from the Session News Unit refers to important debates on economic and monetary union last evening.
Obviously there is a good deal of interest in this Parliament on the British position on this subject.
However, the printers of the relevant British parliamentary records and documents this week announced major redundancies with hundreds being made redundant in Norwich and elsewhere.
That could seriously threaten the future availability of the information to this parliament and our Members.
I would ask you to join me in contacting the newly privatized Stationery Office in Britain to seek clear assurances from them that all Members of this Parliament will be able to obtain the same service that has existed for our Members when it was a public body, namely proper access to all relevant documents of the British Parliament and Government, for example on economic and monetary union.
I do not think that the matter you have raised is within this Parliament's competence.
We will look into the matter and see if there is anything that we can do.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Employment - social security - structural measures
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0369/96 by Mr Wolf, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on the Commission report: ' Employment in Europe - 1996' (COM(96)0485 - C4-0553/96) and on the communication from the Commission on the Action for Employment in Europe: a confidence pact (CSE(96)0001 - C4-0341/96); -A4-0278/96 by Mr Ribeiro, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(95)0735 - C4-0108/96-96/0001(CNS)) amending, for the benefit of beneficiaries of pre-retirement benefits, Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community, and Regulation (EEC) No 574/72 laying down the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71; -A4-0358/96 by Mr Lage, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the communication from the Commission (COM(96)0109 - C4-0230/96) on Community structural assistance and employment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, President Santer, I believe that the subject we are debating today really is the central, fateful subject facing the European Union.
If the European Union can succeed in making it clear to its citizens that it can overcome the scourge of mass unemployment and that it can make a major contribution to solving the problem, then the European Union has a promising future.
But if it fails to do so, and if its citizens increasingly gain the impression that the European Union is itself a part of the problem, then we are going to have to prepare for hard times as far as European integration is concerned.
Let me once again remind the House of what the Greens regard as the three principal tasks that we have to tackle, with the problem of employment being, as it were, the knot that has to be untied before we can even begin.
The first of these problems is the ecological crisis, which calls for the ecological reconstruction of our production methods.
The second is the problem of the destruction of social cohesion and solidarity within our societies during the last fifteen years, and here we need a new social contract and contract between the sexes in order to reconstruct social solidarity on a sustainable basis.
Thirdly, there is a task which specifically faces us in the European Parliament and the other European institutions - the final establishment of European unity on a socially and ecologically sustainable foundation.
As I said, employment is the first step here, the first central issue that we must resolve before we can move on to any others.
Since the Ad hoc Committee on Employment, the European Parliament has developed the outlines of an independent employment policy, which I have once again supported and presented in my report.
That policy is aimed at all who say that employment is the automatic by-product of economic growth and monetary stability, all those who say, ' We have to wait until the economy revives, and perhaps do something to help it, we have to achieve monetary union, and then the employment problem will somehow solve itself.'
Among all those who argue thus, the European Parliament has hitherto consistently called for an independent, active employment policy as an integral part of a policy mix which takes employment seriously as an independent objective of action in the field of economic policy.
The following elements of this policy mix, this independent dimension of employment policy, have been identified. First, ecologically sustainable investment in the future, which also needs to be specifically financed and stimulated at European level.
Secondly, the reorganization, shortening and flexibilization of working hours as a way of redistributing employment.
Thirdly, the creation of a third sector, a third system of social economics between market and state, which will open up new opportunities for qualified employment to secure the livelihoods of many people who are presently unable to find employment in industry, where the availability of jobs is being restricted by rationalization and by world market competition.
Important aspects here, requiring independent reinforcement, are qualifications and basic and further training.
In addition, this report strongly emphasizes once again that, after fifteen years of a policy which has accepted mass unemployment, we now have a situation of social disintegration which calls for special efforts at reconstruction.
With these elements we have, I believe, also plotted the broad outlines of an independent proposal by the European Parliament as to the form a European employment policy might take.
In doing so, we have also created the basis to provide critical support for Mr Santer's initiative aimed at genuine utilization of potentials at European level through cooperation between the social partners.
By voting in favour of my report, the European Parliament will have the opportunity to clarify and confirm its position as the European coordinator of employment policy, and so to give the Commission the critical support it urgently needs in this area.
I ask the House to vote in favour of the report, and especially, too, to vote in favour of our amendment emphasizing the need to accept the pressure exerted by demonstrations against mass unemployment, which are being organized throughout Europe during the coming year, as welcome support.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, unusually I have enough time to present the motion for a resolution resulting from the report for which I was responsible.
The document deals only with extending the scope of application for coordination of social schemes, in respect of the right to free movement of workers, to cover in the scope the beneficiaries of pre-retirement benefits, as the European Parliament had already asked last year (Oomen-Ruijten report).
The Commission proposal should therefore deserve the plenary's support and there is no justification for holding up the extension of the application of the right to free movement to a group of workers already prevented from leaving the country where they started to receive pre-retirement benefits as that would imply the loss of the right to their respective financial benefits.
The execution arrangements are dealt with by the Commission in the terms that deserved, on the proposal of my report, the agreement of the Committee on Social Affairs.
The only amendment attached to our agreement with the Commission proposal is aimed at taking this opportunity to raise the question of frontier workers, also already tackled in 1995 in the aforementioned Oomen-Ruijten report. Here we are improving the situation of those workers in respect of coordination of social security schemes just dealt with by cooperation among the Member States, particularly in respect of quotas and the right to payments and benefits.
To sum up, a proposal that I hope will be easily and expeditiously approved by this plenary so that we can swiftly advance to an extension of a right which is of no trifling importance for many workers who leave their home countries and are then thrown out of work and also to recall a special situation, that of frontier workers, which calls for a concerted solution.
I should like to use some of the time remaining to take part in the joint debate and to put forward some remarks about the Wolf report, which will be harder put to reach a consensus, despite the importance of the subject and the balance and pertinence of the preamble and the proposals contained therein.
I must begin by complimenting Mr Wolf on his report, and the fact that he managed to reach after much laborious effort a wording and compromises that enabled the report to be resoundingly approved in Committee, without giving ground on any of the principles or key ideas on employment and unemployment which underpin the social aspect.
They go against the current grain of subordinating the social aspect and refuse to get bogged down in grey areas or scanty means of subsidiarity.
Secondly, I should like to emphasise the visible cooperation with the Committee on Economic Affairs, as their opinion was discussed in the Committee on Social Affairs in conditions that ideally would always be reciprocated.
We should fight for this reciprocity in order to end the way in which the European Parliament always tends to give economics priority over the social, forgetting who is responsible for such a procedure - obviously not confined to the European Parliament - and that economics is a social science and not just an interesting and useful (no more than that!) financial and budgetary technique.
Thirdly, I welcome the fact that the Committee on Social Affairs, following the debate on the opinion by the Committee on Economic Affairs defended by its author, Mr Cassidy, should have unequivocally rejected the proposal to change the name to 'report on unemployment' , since this is not only a matter of developments in unemployment rates, the quantity of workers out of work (those who can and want to work) but also the 'quality' of work for those in work, in terms of training, content, stability, security and working conditions.
I am even happier to see that certain amendments have been approved that tend to bring out the quality aspect of employment.
We are debating and preparing to vote on an important report about a question that everyone claims to be concerned about but concerning which few people, in accordance with that concern, at least subscribe to positions of principle in which they could actually influence a policy that has actually been increasing unemployment and lowering the quality of employment.
Therefore I hope that the approval of the Wolf report will be a clear demonstration of the European Parliament's desire to take a serious stance of discussion and action about unemployment-related problems and about the broader issue of employment on the basis of studying and criticising the Commission document, which is yet more proof of the disappointing results of recent years in terms of growth and employment.
This is necessary but more still is necessary, and this motion for a resolution is substantially more.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Hegelian dialectic saw man as a product of his own work.
The emancipating idea of work resulting from this notion is in total contrast with the Biblical curse condemning man to win his bread with the sweat of his brow just because he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
But could not man return to the mythical era of the golden age when he did not have to work and when poetry and labour were one and the same? Until the golden age returns, perhaps carried on the wings of science and technology, our true condemnation lies in being deprived of a job or having to do unpleasant work.
The discovery by the Europeans of the phenomenon of mass or long-term unemployment is shaking the very founding principles of western societies, citizenship and solidarity.
Therefore the European Union must profoundly commit itself to a global strategy to fight unemployment, involving everyone, states and citizens alike.
But the strategy and discourse of the European Union, which ought to be ambitious and innovative, should avoid two traps in my view.
First of all, that discourse should avoid making the European Union responsible for areas that, in terms of employment, are essentially those of the national states.
This does not mean ignoring the implications of the single market, Community policies or EMU for employment, but it means not giving in to the rhetorical temptation of exaggerating the responsibilities of the European Union so that blame can be transferred, turning it into a scapegoat.
The second trap into which the Community discourse should not fall consists in trying to focus the Structural Funds exclusively on employment.
This idea, albeit well-intentioned, seems to me to be one of the recent 'drifts' of the Commission's discourse over which considerable care ought to be taken - a measure that I can say in all honesty does not concern the Commission communication with which my report deals.
The logical consequence of this 'drift' in Community discourse would be that, in the future, the level of unemployment could be seen as a means for deciding how to distribute resources.
That would be highly unfair and even perverse as poorer regions with lower unemployment would be neglected in favour of richer ones with higher levels of unemployment.
The central idea contained in the Commission communication and which my report approves is positive and balanced.
It intends to enhance the employment content by 170 billion ECU, including the Cohesion Fund at 1995 prices, helping to create jobs once the European economy is revived and the sources of growth are revitalised, once Community funds are absorbed more efficiently, which is not the case at present, and to redirect them, not only to speed up economic growth but so that its content should be richer in lasting and sustainable jobs.
Then the whole effort to redirect investment will be positive if, without abandoning the creation of infrastructures vital for development, as I said, we boost initiatives aimed at improving access to education and training, if support is given to small companies, if local employment initiatives are encouraged, if an active policy in favour of quality tourism is enhanced, if culture-related industries are supported, if environment-friendly activities are backed.
We should add to all of this a dose of sexual equality, and equality between the various regions of the European Union.
A monetary Europe without a social Europe will not be a Europe at all and an economic and social Europe without territorial cohesion would be unfair and unviable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, rapporteurs, my presence here this morning is not just a matter of routine.
I am here because, today, you are due to adopt three reports on matters in which I take a very great interest.
I do so precisely because they are at the heart of the Pact of Confidence which I launched in this House, a year ago now, and which we are now in the process of turning into a reality.
Ladies and gentlemen, in 25 days' time, in Dublin, we will be asking the Heads of State and Government, in their turn, to make the broad outlines of this pact a reality.
That is why I am here.
Because I want to pay tribute to the support this House has given to my initiative, and because I want to hear your views and talk to you before I meet the Heads of State and Government.
As I said to you a month ago, when presenting the Commission's work programme for 1997: I stand by this pact!
Your report calls upon us to move forward from words to action.
That is precisely the object of the pact.
There are no grand declarations to be made, no papers to be signed.
We are talking about adopting specific objectives which, one by one, will take their places in a global employment strategy.
Where do we stand with this process today? The message is beginning, and I emphasize beginning, to be heard.
Concrete results have been achieved in recent months.
The first encouraging fact we should note is the Europe-wide recognition of the importance of the local level.
And this is an essential aspect of the Pact of Confidence: involving all the actors at every level.
Hitherto, the local dimension has too often been overlooked, although it is more and more critical as far as employment is concerned.
I pay tribute to the efforts of the Irish presidency, which has succeeded in attracting the support for the local dimension that it deserves.
In particular, the presidency has organized two conferences, opening the way to progress which will be reflected both in attitudes and in actual events - the Conference on Rural Development and the Conference on Local Development.
As for the Commission, it has been working with the Member States and the monitoring committees.
In Dublin, the first generation of territorial pacts will be launched.
Here again, I am glad to see that these advances reflect the concerns of Parliament as presented in your report.
With these territorial pacts for employment we are specifically applying another essential aspect of the pact: putting European structural policies in the service of employment.
And, as your rapporteur emphasizes, the Commission can propose realistic variations in current planning, especially with regard to using margins of financial flexibility in order to maximize their impact on employment.
The second encouraging theme relates to the progress made in improving the functioning of the employment market.
This, again, is one of the central objectives of the pact: it calls for the reform of the employment systems to be speeded up, because the future of employment is being decided today.
Your report makes a number of proposals for further progress along these lines: fiscal proposals, proposals aimed at reducing or at least reorganizing working hours, and support for the development of new reserves of jobs in the cultural, environmental or services sector.
Clearly, much remains to be done in order to advance the process of change, both in mental attitudes and in concrete facts. But I must emphasize the contribution made by the procedure launched at Essen.
In the single report on employment, the Ecofin Council and the Social Affairs Council are going to present a joint report in Dublin, for the second time. This is another step towards a consistent, common approach as recommended in your report.
As regards the five priority areas identified at Essen, significant advances have been achieved in the multi-annual programmes presented by the Member States.
Our States are confronted by the same problems: paralysis of the employment systems, the challenge of an increasingly cumbersome and yet incomplete system of social protection, and the urgent need to restore young people's confidence in the future.
The procedure initiated at Essen encourages exchanges of information between States on all these subjects.
The strategy followed at Essen, rather than leaving each country to its own devices, was primarily aimed at inspiring a mutual learning process.
The results obtained in this context in 1996 are encouraging, but they need to go deeper.
Much emphasis has been placed on the endeavours of some Member States to encourage greater flexibility.
The time has come for administrative flexibility, the simplification of rules, the flexibility of labour legislation, for example, to open the way to new individual or collective ways of managing working hours. And that same flexibility must also enable us to take advantage of the employment potential offered by the services sector.
There is no doubt that much remains to be done, but I believe that Europe has become aware of the need for modernization.
Also, it is necessary for this flexibility to be an opportunity for the workforce, not a mere race to deregulation. This is where the social partners have a key role to play.
It is also where I am glad to see the energy they have shown within the framework of the pact, which was not apparent at the outset. This is another area where results have been achieved.
The Commission welcomes the common contribution which the social partners will present to the Heads of State and Government in Dublin.
This demonstrates what I have always believed - and what has been my experience, too: that when it comes to the issues of the future, employers and unions can put their heads together and come up with a common line of advance.
1996 was also a year of progress on the macroeconomic front.
The pact restates the need for a stable macroeconomic framework which is favourable to employment.
The Member States' convergence programmes are now at an advanced level of commitment, and those commitments need to be sustained in the long term.
I am expecting that, in Dublin, we shall arrive at an agreement on the main elements of the stability pact.
Even at this stage, indeed, there is agreement on many of those elements.
As growth begins once again, convergence will put us in a position to maximize the impact on employment.
The prospect of the single currency has gathered decisive momentum this year, it is drawing nearer, in fact and in our minds.
Europe's citizens, in turn, are seeing these plans taking concrete shape.
The need now is for them to become aware of the beneficial effects on employment, because that is indeed the intention behind the single currency.
But the single currency is not the only instrument available to us for completing the single market and exploiting its full potential.
Everything has its part to play: structural reforms, macroeconomic policies and the single market.
We shall only maximize the effects of those policies if we steer a steady course over the whole distance.
And you are right to stress that the pursuit of a macroeconomic strategy is not everything, even though it is an essential condition.
The recent report on the single market certainly had an encouraging message: nearly a million jobs created. And the work achieved is impressive: the elimination of more than 100, 000 technical standards affecting more than three-quarters of intra-Community trade, greater appeal to foreign investors - those are just two of the beneficial effects.
But there is even more that can be done to exploit this potential, and additional opportunities will be tabled by the Commission at the European Council in Dublin.
The pact had emphasized the urgent need to give priority to the sectors of the future - to stimulate their development and break the deadlock of a bygone era. We must refuse to turn our backs on the future by missing the special opportunities Europe offers.
Two further steps have been taken in this direction: the adoption of the multi-annual programme for smalland medium-sized enterprises, with a budget appropriation of ECU 127 million, and the presentation to the European Council of the report on the services markets.
This is where new jobs are becoming available and the frontiers of unemployment have been pushed back, largely thanks to new technologies, towards new opportunities.
But there is still work to be done in order to take advantage of the benefits of scale offered by the single market.
I shall quote just two examples, but what examples they are!
For thirty years now, Mr President, we have been discussing the status of the European company.
The Council must take its responsibilities seriously here.
The Commission has provided fresh impetus by setting up the Davignon Group, and in 1997 operational conclusions must be drawn from the work of that group. The second example of great interest to me personally are the trans-European networks.
In my view, it was important to say that the available budgetary resources must be concentrated on policies beneficial to growth and employment. Naturally, I am sorry that my proposals, as such, were not approved by the Ecofin Council.
That was a sign of inconsistency between the European Council's ideas and the mechanisms that operate within the Council.
Nevertheless, I feel a certain satisfaction on noting that the two branches of the budgetary authority - at the instigation of the European Parliament, incidentally - seem to want to provide a partial response to my suggestions by increasing the sums earmarked for networks and research in the 1997 budget.
That will be a positive, encouraging signal, and there is nothing to prevent us repeating it, or even extending it, in 1998.
Mr President, the Union has recently set itself ambitious targets, in keeping with its resources.
As the world's leading economic power, after all, it must take full advantage of its wealth - human, intellectual or technological.
To do so, it needs to persuade and motivate.
And to gain individual and collective commitment, to stimulate a plan for mobilization, what is needed is confidence: confidence in the approach, in the determination to take genuine action and in the legitimacy of the policies implemented.
The pact is designed to create the conditions for new mobilization and a return of confidence.
It calls upon a new, broad alliance between governments, the social partners, local authorities and the European institutions. The idea of a pact assumes the idea of consensus.
The issue, and our common objective, is to create an economic, legal and political framework which really favours employment.
The issue is to enable individual initiatives to find their place in the pursuit of this general objective.
The Pact of Confidence for employment has already generated progress.
The advances achieved in the four areas which we have identified, and which you have identified in your reports, are full of promise. We need to build and push on forwards on the basis of these initial developments.
That is what I shall be asking of the Heads of State and Government at the European Council in Dublin.
Mr President, I am grateful to have arrived in time to hear that interesting exposition by the President of the Commission.
I would refer the Commission President and Commissioner Flynn to pages 18 to 20 of the Wolf report and in particular to three items in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy's opinion on employment which unfortunately did not find their way into the final resolution from the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
Incidentally, I should add that Mr Wolf and I have worked very closely together on the report on employment as we worked closely together earlier on this year on the annual economic report.
Mr Wolf has done an excellent job.
He came along to the Economic Committee and voted on and supported all the conclusions of that committee.
I know that he is as disappointed as I am that the Social Affairs Committee did not see fit to include in its resolution for example the view of the Economic Committee that the Annual Report from the Commission on Employment in Europe should in future be referred to as the Annual Report on Unemployment in Europe.
After all, unemployment is what concerns us all.
The second point which the Social Affairs Committee unfortunately felt unable to take up is paragraph 14 of the Economic Committee's conclusions which states: ' The Economic Committee is of the opinion that the European Union and its Member States should not be too proud to look critically at the shortcomings of the European social pattern, nor to learn from the success of other countries, notably the United States, Japan and Norway, in creating jobs and achieving a low level of unemployment and poverty.'
It is a matter of regret that is not in.
My final point is that we specifically identified ageism - discrimination against the over-40s in the workforce - in paragraph 15 of our resolution and we particularly ask the institutions of the European Community to set a good example in that respect.
Sadly the Social Affairs Committee did not take that point up explicitly.
Mr President, unemployment is a very serious problem and it hardly needs to be said that we should be utilizing the potential of the structural funds to the full in striving to combat it.
The action of the Commission in issuing this communication on structural assistance and employment is therefore highly commendable.
Even so, there are two things that we really ought to keep in mind.
First, that the structural funds are not a panacea to the unemployment ills.
When all is said and done they have to operate with just 0.46 % of the Community's GDP, and that leaves very little room for manoeuvre.
The same applies to the European Social Fund which deploys around 30 % of the total structural fund appropriations in the endeavour to match supply to demand in the employment market.
The second thing to remember is that we do not know the impact of the structural funds on job creation because there is no accurate methodology for ascertaining it.
That must be rectified, even though it is, of course, extremely difficult.
So what can be done? There are two things: all of the structural fund deflator reserve can be used for combatting unemployment and, secondly, the new programming negotiations for 1997-1999 offer scope for steering all of the Objective 2 money towards employment actions.
And, of course, attention should be paid henceforth to particular areas, some of which the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment has indicated, such as active employment policies, measures on working time flexibility, the tailoring of initiatives to local employment conditions, actions on the environment, which need to be strengthened, the placing of emphasis on projects which take into account technological change and the creation of information networks via which supply and demand in employment markets at the European level can be brought into better equilibrium.
Mr President, as Mr Wolf rightly pointed out, it is a question of the EU's credibility in tackling unemployment and it is a fact that the EU overall has an appalling record on job creation.
From the perspective of my political group, cohesion and solidarity is our objective and we believe that it is severely undermined by chronic unemployment.
I therefore welcome today's debate and I welcome the positive contribution we are trying to make in combating unemployment.
I also welcome the proposals in Mr Lage's report relating to the structural funds.
Structural funds are a key financial instrument.
They can have an impact.
But I would appeal to Member States to work closely with the Commission in helping to focus and target these actions to get better results.
I would also appeal to Member States to spend the funds which are there to spend and not to continue with the increasing underspending and delays and bureaucracy.
The Commission's first cohesion report outlines and highlights the problem of continuing regional disparities in unemployment.
It highlights the dramatic rise and increase in employment in Sweden and Finland and the problems in Spain where 1 in 5 continue to be unemployed.
Between 1983 and 1993 25 regions with the lowest unemployment rate managed to improve from 4.8 % to 4.6 % but the picture for the 25 worst regions was more devastating with an increase of 17.2 % to 22.4 %.
The reality is a picture of widening disparities in regional unemployment in Europe.
Therefore I welcome the initiatives from the discussion of structural funds and employment opportunities at the Madrid informal Council in December 1995 to the final communication in March 1996.
We have kept it alive.
We have kept it on the agenda.
I welcome President Santer's initiative on territorial, regional and local employment pacts.
I particularly welcome that he wants to include the social partners and the trade unions in this.
I welcome the commitment and enthusiasm that the Irish presidency has brought to this debate and the personal commitment of the Irish Finance Minister, Mr Quinn.
However, I have to say that I am disappointed that the UK is not prepared to implement the territorial employment pacts and I ask Commissioner Flynn what he is prepared to do in order to gain its support.
If we cannot get the Member States to support that, I would ask that we allow the regions and local authorities which wish to participate to come directly to the Commissioner in Brussels and get actively involved in those pacts.
I am particularly annoyed and vexed by the fact that in the UK it is said that its record employment rates are second to none in the EU.
I am concerned that we are creating jobs which are low paid, part-time and creating a new underclass of the working poor who are existing on in-work benefits and family credit.
I am asking the Commissioner, given that the UK now has the highest poverty rate in the EU - one in three babies is born into families in poverty - to look at the model of job creation and sustainable high-value, highproductivity jobs to give EU regions a competitive edge in Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Any debate on employment covers not only jobs as such but also flexibility, training and education, taxation, research and development, economic growth in particular and social development.
Any debate on labour market policy also covers competition policy, trade policy, industrial policy, monetary policy and so on.
In a word, combatting unemployment and curing the ills of the labour market cannot be seen as separate objectives - quite the opposite.
This approach has only a chance of success if the measures taken by the Member States are also accompanied by a European policy and both the Commission report 'Employment in Europe in 1996' and the confidence pact of Commission President Santer serve this purpose.
These two important documents argue not only for active rather than passive measures, but also for private initiatives in addition to public measures.
My impression is that the Wolf report concentrates solely on public measures and ignores very important other areas, particularly of the report 'Employment in Europe in 1996' , of which I shall speak to three.
First of all the Commission report makes a double comparison between the United States and the European Union in relation to the services sector on the one hand and the industrial and agricultural sectors on the other hand.
An increase in the European Union of 18 million jobs and in the USA of 22 million jobs from 1980 to 1993 is an acceptable comparison.
But a loss during this same period of two million jobs in the USA and 13 million jobs in the EU in the industrial and agricultural sector is quite a different kettle of fish.
This has been completely ignored in the Wolf report.
How can we manage to restore jobs in industry in the Union?
Let me give you two examples, the question of professional mobility and flexibility and the question of wage costs.
That too has been largely ignored in the report.
And a third example: vulnerable groups in society. Young people who have no access to the labour market and for whom I want to see a generalisation of the system of training places in firms so that the training they have had is put to good use.
I think we must also review our policy on people in their fifties.
There are mass redundancies affecting people aged between 50 and 55.
I think that is a big mistake both in social terms and in terms of loss of experience, knowhow and competence in companies.
I would also like to raise the question of structural unemployment but I have run out of speaking time.
I support what Commission President Santer has just said: it is time to move from words to actions.
It is time to do so in Dublin, and I hope, Commissioner, that definitive decisions will be taken there on the confidence pact and that we can look to Dublin for the implementation of an overall strategy for employment.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 11 per cent of the active population of Europe, 18 million people, are reason enough for the European Parliament to take a decision.
When these figures refer to people without jobs, then we should keep on deciding, as often as is necessary.
With reference to the Wolf report, we too must praise all the Commission's action to coordinate and encourage the Member States' employment policies in order to define new measures and activities for stepping up the fight against this plague, not easy to solve, in the short or medium term.
Similarly we back support for creating tiny and small firms and cottage industries, now that everyone recognises that this is one avenue to go down.
Nor do we want to slacken up this approach as the main plank of the fight for and maintenance of jobs, since this report places special emphasis on the peripheral regions, the ultraperipheral regions and the islands of the European Union, where the phenomenon of underemployment is very significant.
There is always an if, of course - and we have, I assure you, no special animosity towards Mr Wolf - but there are two questions to which we must express our deepest objections.
The first refers to the creation of alternative sources of funding for social benefits, especially concerning CO2 emissions and energy.
If we take away this tax with one hand and take it away with a reduction in European industrial competitiveness, then Europe will be left with the tax and the Americans and Japanese will have competitiveness.
We are fed up with the others exporting liberalism and importing protectionism.
Let us prefer ourselves to the others, for once.
The social Europe must be given other financial supports in order to take a definite path.
The second question is that of reductions in working time.
The principle seems a good one in the long term but history teaches us that to introduce it immediately and abruptly is doubtful and a cause for hesitation.
We would opt instead for more flexibility in this area in labour negotiations in the various Member States, which would undoubtedly not create greater difficulties of a social nature in Europe's economic activity.
For both these reasons my group will be voting against this report if it stays as it is.
After all its positive aspects are already safeguarded in countless Community institutions' resolutions and, realistically and in full awareness, the proposal does nothing to tackle the problem at the roots.
That problem is employment.
We must create jobs and urgently so, in all Member States and in all sectors.
But we must also do everything we can to maintain those in existence which means that employment maintenance is also extremely important.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. I think we are honoured that Mr Santer has taken the trouble to come here this morning and explain to us what he is doing about the problem of employment.
I do not think it is the Commission that is to blame for our not making much progress on this score, but rather the fact that the Member States have been unwilling to take such measures as are absolutely essential, some of which are described in Mr Wolf's report and some in other reports, and some were aired yesterday in the debate on a single currency.
Mr Santer said we need to modernise our social security, taxation and labour market.
I and my group agree with him.
But when we talk about modernisation then we should be brave enough to tackle the tricky issues and here I disagree with Mr Vieira that we should not be thinking in terms of shifting taxing labour to other aims.
I think that we could well make a start with such things as a CO2 tax as long as we do it throughout the whole of Europe.
Another point we are uncomfortable with, and it could well be a reason for our group as a whole to vote against the Wolf report, is the proposal to introduce a tax on speculation.
We think that is in breach of the Treaty and of free movement of capital and we also think that it could produce a counter effect.
I would invite Mr Wolf to move in our direction on that point.
I would underline what Mr Sander said on the statute of the European company.
This afternoon the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee is leaving for The Hague to have talks with a number of ministers on the preparations for the Dutch presidency next year.
I think we should put on our agenda the points that Mr Santer raised this morning, including the European statute and the financing of transEuropean networks.
I wish to draw attention to a few other matters.
One is the question of the development of the countryside and the other is urban policy.
When we debate unemployment then I think it very important that we consider a statute or charter for the countryside and also for the urban environment, and establish a link between the two.
We have ideas on the competitive strength of industry. We have ideas on the competitive strength of our technology policy, but we have never developed really good plans on the role of major cities while some 80 % of the population in the Union lives in towns and cities.
I would invite Mr Flynn to put this point on the Dublin agenda.
Mr President, the Wolf report takes up and points out major deficiencies with regard to measures and dealing with the European Union's gigantic problem: unemployment.
Estimates of the number of people unemployed which one hears mentioned here range from 18-20 to as many as 30 million.
I should like to point out that the figure is considerably higher even than this, including namely all the women who today are not entitled or able to provide for themselves but who unselfishly and without pay support large sections of the community through their care of children, the elderly and their husbands.
Each day we see and hear about strikes and demonstrations in the Member States, where angry and often desperate people express their dissatisfaction with the policies currently being pursued in the Member States.
It is high time we listened to these protestors.
Unlike the representatives of capitalist market forces, they are in fact showing us what is needed in society, needs which, if we were to attend to them, would bring a great many sustainable and necessary jobs.
It is time for us here in this House to realise that deregulation, privatisation and the much vaunted flexibility do not in fact result in any new jobs but instead widen the gulfs between the classes and increase the social tensions in our communities.
The policies being pursued cause greater regional imbalances, increasing structural unemployment, increased unemployment among poorly educated women, a continuing increase in the number of disabled people without work.
Mr President, the situation is catastrophic.
I am not saying that there are any easy solutions but I should like in any event to take the opportunity to point out a few options.
In study after study the Swedish people maintain that they are prepared to pay more tax to improve the quality of and access to health care services, care for the elderly and public education of all kinds.
Let us do something about this!
In almost all the Member States there is a glaring lack of childcare.
Let us ensure that it is expanded and made more accessible!
As regards the environment, there is much to be done, from the sorting of waste and recycling to the conversion of energy systems.
Let us make a start on this crucial work!
Let us set in motion structural changes to people's working lives and introduce a six-hour working day with limits on the amount of overtime which can be worked but with retention of full pay to maintain purchasing power.
Let us set about repairing and converting people's homes, building hew housing and raising the standards applicable.
Do not emasculate trades union movements but give them greater opportunities to help create security for working people so that their creativity and participation guide industry in new and much-needed directions.
We would have to make changes in the banking system to ensure better credit and easier access to risk capital for new companies and for environmental investments.
We would also have to steer company profits towards investment rather than speculation or passive, short-term profit interests.
Finally, I would like us to follow the advice which came from the European unemployed persons' network when it held its conference in Ireland a few weeks ago, namely that we should put the plans for economic and monetary union to one side and set to work on the problems with which the people are struggling.
Mr President, this report by Friedrich Otto Wolf on the Commission's report on employment in Europe in 1996 should perhaps, as Mr Cassidy suggested, really be called unemployment in Europe.
I agree totally with the rapporteur's criticism of the Commission's lack of progress with respect to analyses and strategies since the 1995 report.
At the same time I should like to say that I believe the rapporteur has been all the more successful as regards the formulation of analyses and the proposal of strategies too.
I perhaps do not need to repeat that unemployment is a serious problem in Europe and that it is so serious that it really is creating social and political unrest and threatening our democracy.
In this connection, when we discuss what we can do to reduce unemployment we must also realise that there is a paradox involved, because the Union itself is also creating unemployment and exclusion through the tight schedule for monetary union and through the convergence criteria which compel the Member States to tighten their budgets and force cuts in social welfare.
I also agree that we perhaps should not spend so much time beating our breasts and examining our own navels. Rather we should have a look at what other countries have done.
For example, what has been done in Norway, where there is very low unemployment?
What can be done then? I nonetheless believe that the report indicates the paths to be followed for a new strategy.
I am therefore very much in favour of it.
We must also look at certain matters, such as shortening working hours and early retirement, which is mentioned in the Ribeiro report, because we know that more jobs will not be created, even if we have increased growth and increased investment.
A new strategy must involve ecological conversion and green innovation, tax reforms based on the principle of solidarity, and strong local economies.
In my view this should not result in a common labour market policy, since the regions are so different, but we must nevertheless work together, the Union and the Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
First of all I wish to offer my warm congratulations to Mr Wolf who has done sterling work, as is seen in the fact that his report was adopted in the Committee on Social Affairs with a very large measure of support.
The debate on unemployment has become a ritual we are going through for the nth time.
Let me just remind you of the Delors White Paper, for example, the Santer confidence pact, the annual reports on employment and the reports from the Council of Ministers of Social Affairs and of Finance.
That is where things are being held up because they cannot agree.
The official figure on unemployment is 18 to 20 million.
In reality it is much higher, as we all well know.
There are many categories which do not even appear in the statistics.
I am thinking for example of people bridging the period until they receive their old age pension, people who are made redundant at the age of 50 or 55.
What really upsets me in many people's approach to unemployment is the far too one-sided way they emphasize growth.
Economic growth is automatically expected to lead to increased employment.
We all know that is manifestly untrue.
The rapporteur, Mr Wolf, is on the right track when he criticises the current macro-economic approach.
That indeed aims at trying to fulfil the convergence criteria.
A macro-economic approach puts that kind of criteria at the centre and employment criteria lag far behind.
The Wolf report contains a whole series of practical and excellent proposals, for example, reducing indirect labour costs below the wage scale, highlighting small and medium-sized firms, part-time work, or even shortening working time and re-distributing labour.
We like the emphasis he lays on additional training and re-training and his focus on the third sector of social and cultural services.
There is a whole series of proposals which really must be discussed and eventually approved by the Council.
We fully support this report and wish to congratulate Mr Wolf again on this excellent work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Wolf's report has some interesting things to say, especially about the structural policies.
But I should like to say something about the subjects he has passed over - subjects he has been unwilling or unable to tackle.
He rightly refers to the European social model, and we believe that this European social model is, in reality, deeply incompatible with the doctrines of globalism which now govern the world economy.
First, globalism implies global free trade.
That free trade, as has now been demonstrated by a number of economists, is reflected by a deterioration in the working conditions of the less qualified workers in the most highly industrialized countries.
This argument has been advanced, in particular, by Professor Maurice Allais, the French Nobel Prize winner.
This is an area where, as we know, the interests of the European States diverge from those of America.
The question, then, is whether we would be politically capable of countering American diplomacy or not.
We are extremely sceptical about what has happened so far in this area.
Secondly, globalism implies indifference to migration phenomena.
This is an absolutely forbidden subject today, amazingly enough.
Immigration is a factor that aggravates unemployment, for two reasons.
First, either the immigrants work, in which case they increase a labour supply which is already in excess of demand, or in the alternative scenario they don't work, in which case they are financed by the welfare systems, at a cost which has been quantified in the Milloz report in France and undermines the global competitiveness of the economy.
One cannot simply ignore this subject.
Thirdly, the globalist ideology is now leading to the creation of integrated continental institutions.
That is the context in which European monetary union is envisaged.
Well, growth is a process of divergence, as is life itself, and the objective of monetary convergence implies a brake on growth.
On those three points, then, it is important to go beyond dogmas and sacred cows.
The only way to reduce unemployment is by questioning these globalist dogmas.
Mr President, the subject of employment has indeed come up again in our debates, on this occasion to send a message to the Council which the latter should take on board and heed.
I believe that on 2 December there will be a joint meeting of the ECOFIN and Social Affairs Councils, an important meeting which is due to finalize the degree of clear progress that has been made in terms of employment policies so that, a few days later, these advances can be adopted at the Dublin Summit.
The joint ECOFIN and Social Affairs Council must look at the basic contents of the reports we are debating today: reduction in indirect labour costs without reducing social protection and seeking other sources of finance; promotion and sustained support for small and medium-sized undertakings as sources of new jobs; reorganization and reduction of working time, a very specific subject which has to be looked at most carefully and, I believe, urgently; reduction in barriers to innovation; promotion of large-scale investment in human resources; the penalizing of financial speculation and the search for productive investment of savings; emphasis on local-employment potential, etc.
This joint Council must also fulfil the serious undertaking to support employment being incorporated into the revised Treaty, the right to employment being recognized in constitutional terms in the Treaty on Union, and the 'cohesion' concept being upheld as one which shapes and inspires the entire Treaty on European Union.
The qualitative and quantitative trends of the labour market and of Member States' employment policies must be evaluated on the basis of common indicators, and the recommendations of previous European Councils, such as those arising from the meetings in Essen or Madrid, must be promoted and looked at much more closely.
Employment is an element which is fundamental to maintaining the welfare state, giving financial solidity to the social-protection system and dealing with the appearance of new forms of poverty and exclusion.
Structural unemployment figures exist, and we are unable to reduce them even in times of economic growth.
We must therefore be bold in our actions - the old formulae which might have been useful in the past are no longer valid.
Stressing the coordination of efforts and experiences is insufficient to tackle our societies' principal problem.
The European Union must be capable of enhancing national efforts at creating employment, providing motivation for and further developing active employment policies, providing the incentive for innovative policies and coordinating policies in order to produce positive effects on productive investment and employment.
Mr President, Commissioner, employment policy and social security go hand in hand.
It is thus logical for us to hold a joint debate on the 1996 employment report and on the amendment to the European Union's most important social insurance legislation - Regulation 1408.
High levels of unemployment jeopardize our social systems.
There is no shortcut to combatting unemployment - the only way is by the countless short steps proposed in the White Paper on employment and in many other European Union documents on the confidence pact, for example flexible work organization, positive flexibility of working hours and part-time working.
This is certainly not confined to dividing up the day, but also includes dividing up one's working life: older employees are given the opportunity of a progressive transition to retirement.
In Germany, pre-retirement benefits are paid on the basis of a law on part-time working for older employees.
If the employer tops up the remuneration for part-time working and the pension insurance contributions, the Federal Institute for Labour reimburses the employer for these benefits if he takes on an unemployed person or trainee.
Regulation 1408, which I mentioned earlier, is intended to coordinate the statutory social security systems for workers who move from one state to another.
This coordination has not hitherto included the harmonization of the widely differing pre-retirement arrangements that have been introduced in seven EU States.
The Ribeiro report provides a very good description of the problems that have arisen as a result of this and as a result of the increasing number of systems, especially if the employee's job and place of residence are in different countries, as with frontier workers, or if the worker moves his place of residence to another Member State, as when he returns to his home country.
The intention of the Commission's draft to extend the scope of Regulation 1408 to pre-retirement benefits is obligatory, and collectively agreed arrangements are also to be included.
The Commission has proposed sensible solutions, such as for example the right to export the benefit from the country of last employment, in which the entitlement was acquired.
The controversial provision of benefit by the labour authority in the country of residence would cause serious problems for EU States that have not introduced the preretirement status.
In Amendment No 1 and in the explanatory statement, the rapporteur goes beyond the problems of preretirement to suggest prospects for the coordination of the special civil service systems and non-statutory social security systems, though I am convinced that excessively detailed European regulations would be counter-productive here.
The Ribeiro report makes an important contribution to planning the social dimension of the Union, and the Group of the European People's Party will vote in favour of it.
Mr President, employment and unemployment is the title of this morning's debate, which shows that this House does not want to concentrate exclusively on the negative implication of unemployment.
But despite this there is a feeling here of déjà vu, of keeping a welfare Europe with a social face by means of all the earlier White Papers, European Councils and stability pacts.
One positive aspect is that the small and medium-sized firms have created the most jobs.
The downside is that pick of Europe, young people under the age of 25, are unfortunately unemployed.
And alas the Ecofin is more of a hindrance than a help here.
That must not be allowed to continue.
The Lage report stipulates that economic growth alone cannot create lasting employment.
Should we not be asking ourselves why in the same world-wide economic situation Japan and the United States have managed to turn growth into jobs? Contemplating our Euro-centred navel should not blind us to the lessons to be learned from elsewhere.
But that of course does not mean to say that we should allow a free for all on our labour market.
The Ribeiro report takes a concrete step beyond national borders in Europe, but there are still contradictions in our approach here and there.
The Wolf report calls for shorter working time, the Lage report says that well educated women are not satisfied with part-time work and even talks about wasting sources of aid.
Just as liberalisation can lead to fewer jobs so can shortening of working time.
In the fifties our parents had a more flexible approach to work.
And in the nineties we cannot expect everything to be settled from on high.
Let us give workers and employers the necessary space to find their solutions.
Governments have the job of linking active and passive measures together in a strategy of policy options.
That is the most important task for the Dublin Summit and for the incoming Dutch presidency.
Mr President, this House is currently debating the most fundamental problem facing the European Union today: work and employment.
As Mr Wolf said when introducing his report, European citizens will appreciate European citizenship more if it contributes to solving the unemployment problem.
In my view, this is and must be the European Union's main concern and I am therefore pleased that the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, has been present here today during this debate.
Some earlier speakers have already stated that there is no magic solution to the problem of unemployment - in fact, a number of effective solutions must be sought.
I therefore feel that the territorial employment pacts are a very positive move in terms of what they signify, namely cooperation between the governments of Member States, social agents, regional and local authorities and the European Union.
I believe the greatest possible emphasis ought to be given to the subject of local and regional authority cooperation, in application of the principle of subsidiarity, since this may go some way to solving the problem of unemployment and job creation.
Another important topic, I believe, is progressive harmonization of legislation in the labour and socialsecurity field, to enable the European Union to create jobs in any State in the Union and to prevent borders creating an obstacle to finding work on the other side.
This obviously requires harmonization of labour legislation in the different Member States.
I also feel it is important for the European Union to advocate greater flexibility when contracting for labour.
In our world as it now is, with all the technological changes we are seeing, only jobs which offer sufficient flexibility will contribute to better employment prospects.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are agreed, are we not, that we are talking about politics here, not a natural process.
Politics is not just about government, and certainly not just about the authorities: democratic politics also makes certain demands on what the political authorities are required to do.
The Carlos Lage report indicates realistic opportunities for action, following up the requirement stated by Commissioner Wulf-Mathies and also, in his own field, Commissioner Flynn for a structural policy to benefit employment, and especially to benefit equality of opportunity, because as we known women are particularly seriously affected by mass unemployment.
We can and must really take advantage of financial, innovative and administrative potentials.
Because the fact is that a more effective use, a better targeted application, of the existing instruments is the very first thing we must always do.
In combination, after all, they will achieve something.
But we also need a genuine first step away from the neo-liberal plan, which by combatting unemployment results in a reduction of wages, the deterioration of working conditions and social marginalization, towards - and I entirely agree with Mr Cassidy here - a European counterpart, a counterpart based on solidarity, negotiation and equilibrium, to the American model of income and labour sharing.
In the USA, that was achieved without any compensation or solidarity mechanism.
We want to plan it on the basis of solidarity instead of non-solidarity, fragmentation and marginalization, which is what I believe has happened in the United Kingdom.
That means, of course, that we first need to bank on solidarity in employment, but of course we must also provide the appropriate public funding for it, and there must also be a share of the increased productivity for employment.
Otherwise it won't work!
Mr President, this is no place to go into the detail of the various reports that have been debated this morning. Instead, we should welcome, in general terms, the clear priority that has now been given to the problem of employment.
However, because we feel sure that there are still new avenues to be explored and further ground to be covered, we would like to make a few suggestions at this point.
First, in his excellent report, Mr Lage said that the time has not yet come to discuss the reform of the Structural Funds.
However, because, as is particularly emphasized in this report, action on employment always seems more effective when it involves the economic and social actors and the local authorities, we would like the Commission to think about the possibility of at least partially regionalizing, in future, the appropriations which are at present allocated within the framework of the Structural Funds, Objectives 3 and 4.
As a second avenue, we would like the Commission to take a more detailed look at the possibility of creating and developing jobs which benefit the community and the public, to be linked to its objective of creating or preserving general interest services in the European Community, because we believe that the market alone will not solve the problem of employment, at least as it stands today.
We need to think not just about the market of today but about the market of tomorrow.
Finally, my third suggestion is this: as far as communication is concerned, we think that the Community should make it more obvious what it is doing about employment, perhaps by creating a kind of 'European employment label' which could be attached to any job that has in fact been created through the actions of the European Union.
Mr President, there are many occasions during the year when we find ourselves debating this fundamental subject of employment.
There is one aspect on which this Parliament and the European institutions in general seem to be in agreement: the fact that things are not working, and the results - when there are any results - are extremely disappointing.
In this respect, I should like to say to President Santer - who, I should add, has both my respect and my sympathy - that when he states in Parliament that positive advances have been achieved in respect of the five employment priorities agreed upon at Essen, and then restated at all the subsequent Council meetings, he should also recall that at the same time, sadly, unemployment has also advanced.
This should suggest, to say the least, doubts as to whether the treatment envisaged at Essen may perhaps be entirely ineffective in curing the disease from which we are suffering.
I personally am convinced, in fact, that the traditional medicine chest in which we are looking for a cure for unemployment no longer contains any remedies that will meet the case.
And there is one basic reason for that: the main cause of structural unemployment, which is the problem we face, is a technological revolution, a huge transformation, a vast technological innovation which in its scale, intensity and quantity has no precedent in history and whose result is this: by comparison with the past, we can now obtain more products and more services with less labour.
If we are in agreement on this fact, on this assessment, we must draw two conclusions from it: first, that we need to reduce working hours and arrange a different distribution of work.
Two months ago this House adopted a resolution tabled by Mr Rocard which committed the Commission to implementing a research and analysis project: all that has come of it so far has been a statement by Commissioner Bangemann in which he says that he doesn't believe in instruments of that type.
The other thing that should be done, Mr President, is to eliminate the paradox of a society full of unsatisfied social needs and growing unemployment.
In other words, we need to set people to work healing the environment, our cultural heritage and the individual, because by following that road we can probably make an important contribution to solving the problem of unemployment.
Mr President, I have nothing to add to the many sensible remarks that have been made; what has been said before need not be repeated.
The issue for all of us is what instruments we can find to combat unemployment.
Mr Wolf said that we did not want to recreate American conditions here, and he is undoubtedly right.
On the other hand, we don't want interventionist governments, and especially not an interventionist Europe!
I come from a part of Germany which suffered under socialism for 40 years, and I have no desire to experience European socialism.
So it is wrong, as I see it, if indeed there should be a chapter on employment in the Treaty, that - as Mr Lage writes in his report - the Treaty should make it obligatory to coordinate Community policy for the creation of jobs; but if there is a chapter on employment in the Treaty, then at the most it should create an obligation to coordinate the national employment policies.
To be on the safe side, I should like to ask honourable Members to vote in favour of my amendment to the Lage report, tabled on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, which is Amendment No 1, and to delete the entire passage relating to the insertion of an employment chapter into the Treaty.
Mr President, I would like to respond to Mr Ribeiro's comments on redundancy pay.
By way of introduction I would like to say that the National Movement did not vote in favour of the report during the Social Committee's deliberations at the meeting of 10 September, as would appear to be the case, incorrectly, from the report.
We voted against it.
And I will do the same again when we come to vote on the report here in Parliament.
Nor, indeed, can I imagine any other Danish Members being able to vote in favour of this report, since the proposal before us will undermine the basis for Danish redundancy pay.
This is designed so that there are strict rules as to when Danish A-Cash members fulfil the conditions for entitlement to redundancy pay.
Thus entitlement only applies to Danes when they fulfil these strict conditions and is not therefore an automatic universal right.
My point is that this report overlooks the differences that exist between EU countries, in addition to overlooking the EU's inexperience in the area of social policy.
This is intensified by the fact that, through its implementation, the redundancy pay regulations will open the way for the introduction of a whole series of non-compulsory insurance provisions.
The Commission's proposal also applies to redundancy pay provisions based on agreements which, to use the Social Committee's own words, are not traditionally covered by Community regulations.
From the Danish perspective I must say that this appears to be something of an extraordinary new creation if the EU is adopting regulations which are able to alter the conditions and scope of the agreements entered into by those involved in the employment market.
Against such a background we cannot vote in favour of this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unemployment is obviously the principal problem facing Europe at this time.
It is also obvious that Structural Funds have to be used to their full potential in order to solve the problem because economic growth alone will not enable us to reduce unemployment rates although, as the rapporteur, Mr Lage, states, we cannot know precisely what the effect of structural expenditure on employment will be.
In the future, we will have to improve assessment of the impact of regional policies on employment, seek new indicators and, if necessary, reform the Structural Funds in order to maximize their potential, simplify procedures, and focus resources and objectives.
We have to do all this whilst bearing in mind that nominal convergence and genuine convergence always have to progress in parallel.
Emphasis must also be placed on the importance of local and regional authority participation and that of social agents as motivating forces. Of equal significance is the fact that we should continue striving to find new sources of employment - in culture, the environment, proximity services - and means of supporting small and medium-sized undertakings, which I consider to be of capital importance.
Lastly, I would like to refer to the importance this document accords to equality of opportunity.
We cannot forget that unemployment is especially detrimental to the status of women.
Male unemployment in the Union is currently running at 9.5 %, whilst female unemployment is 12.4 %.
In some countries, such as Spain, the figures are 18 % for men and 30 % for women.
We therefore need to make an extra effort to reduce these disparities.
I have no more to say except that I would like to congratulate Mr Lage on his excellent report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the high level of unemployment is a continuing major challenge to the European Union.
The achievements of European employment strategy to date have been disappointing.
Despite all their protestations at the Council, the Member States are not doing enough to support the efforts of the Commission and the European Parliament.
Until the proposals in the confidence pact - regional employment pacts, reduced ancillary wage costs, integration of young people, avoidance of long-term unemployment, equality of opportunity for men and women - are implemented energetically and more swiftly, we shall achieve no progress in the employment sector.
Changing the title of the Commission's report from 'employment' to 'unemployment' would do nothing to change this situation.
What we need to change is the situation whereby the good proposals - and I emphasize the good proposals - in the three reports are no more than words on paper; we must see that they are implemented throughout Europe.
The time has come for employers and employees to realize that they are all in the same boat.
They should stop trying to outdo each other in moaning about how bad conditions are in Europe - they should get together, roll up their sleeves and take an optimistic approach to the task of creating better employment conditions.
This means that one side must abandon thinking solely in terms of shareholder value, while the other must negotiate not only in the employees' interests but also in those of the unemployed.
The appeal must be made not just to governments, Mr Wolf, but also to the solidarity of the social partners for the common good in Europe, and beyond the boundaries of the European Union.
Mr President, the need to maintain areas of convergence, price stability, growth and social solidarity, together with the economic crisis which restricts the capacity for increasing production and consumption, are the reasons for the present lull in the struggle against the employment crisis within the Union.
If we are to succeed in sending a clear signal to the public, a chapter on employment policy should be inserted into the new Treaty: a chapter which provides for a less restrictive monetary policy, reasonable budgetary discipline and tax measures designed ultimately to promote the creation of employment.
This is the only way to move forward from mere good intentions to specific signals.
The time has come to move on from words to concrete facts.
Our major industries have been radically computerized and modernized in recent years, leading to a big reduction in the size of the workforce.
We must act resolutely to promote schemes which will create small- and medium-sized enterprises, especially in the service sector, to ease the employment situation; at the same time, we need to strengthen the vocational training programmes aimed at young people, women and the long-term unemployed but not at slackers and loafers.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Wolf for an altogether excellent report; it really is very good.
One must acknowledge that Europe has failed where unemployment is concerned.
It is not true that there has been a lack of analysis, proposals or declarations - we have had more than enough of those since I arrived here in Parliament.
They have come from the Council, the Commission and from this Parliament.
It is, however, the results which will be measured and where results are concerned one has to acknowledge that the EU has so far failed.
Is it therefore the EU in its capacity as an institution that has failed? No, the battle against unemployment today is a purely national matter.
What we lack is coordination at European level.
The economic policies which the Member States have pursued individually have been similar but at the same time a disaster.
They have tried to concentrate on exports and rein in domestic demand.
This has been good for nobody because in reality we all trade with one another.
This has made economic policy as a whole a failure.
No individual country has been able to deviate from this policy.
If an individual country, Sweden say, did so, it would mean only that capital would stream out of the country.
This is why we need coordination at European level.
Can this be achieved?
We have at least demonstrated that as regards monetary policy there is a common policy which has brought down inflation and reduced budget deficits and interest rates.
This policy must now be offset by a policy on employment which assumes the same weight and the same importance.
I am referring here to the proposal which the government in my country made to the IGC.
It is important now that the EU should coordinate its efforts as regards employment too in the Treaty and in practice.
Is there a conflict between the monetary policy and employment policy, as some maintain? In the long term there is no such conflict: low inflation, low budget deficits and low interest rates are in the long term good for employment.
If, however, we apply the convergence criteria wrongly, too quickly and at the wrong time, they may have a negative effect on employment.
We must therefore find a balance quickly.
By way of a summary I should like to draw attention to the following: the battle against unemployment must be conducted at all levels, that is to say, local, regional, national and also EU.
We must have greater coordination of macro-economic and labour market policies.
We must have more active measures as part of labour market policy.
Taxation must be changed so that work is taxed less and the environment more.
We must have shorter working hours and we must keep abreast of technological developments so that Europe can keep up with its competitors.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, given the situation of structural unemployment that we are facing, it is vital to ensure that stable jobs are created.
We all agree on this point, of course.
It therefore makes sense to introduce this concern over employment into European policies.
We should especially consider the impact of the structural funds on the creation of jobs.
We should also debate ways of better using the funds bearing in mind this challenge.
The analysis must be accurate.
If we are to be thorough we must make sure that figures on unemployment rates are reliable.
At present, they are not.
The criteria vary and the Member States consider that they are carried out by certain official services alone.
What about wage levels or underemployment? Or the various rates of female employment?
If we are to be thorough nor should we play down the territorial dimension of the structural funds.
The basic aim of the funds is to contribute to economic and social cohesion by supporting the less developed regions, in order to ensure effective equality of opportunities for all European citizens.
To assess the impact of the structural funds on employment is important; however, the levels of unemployment cannot be a criterion for making funds available.
Fighting unemployment as a reference is right but to transform that action into the basis for awarding funds is a grave error.
It is unthinkable that regions with high GDP per capita rates should be the major beneficiaries of structural funds.
It is the old dichotomy between 'places prosperity' and 'peoples prosperity' .
We must opt for the former or otherwise the richest regions will go on getting richer and the poorer ones poorer, with all the consequences - mainly demographic - that would result.
Obviously, it is necessary to encourage the creation of companies, access to education and vocational training, and this should meet the real market needs.
Obviously states are responsible; the public and private sectors must both be involved, as well as regional and local authorities, since everyone must take part in this process.
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on Mr Lage's report on the relationship between Structural Funds and employment.
I believe that one of the main features of Mr Lage's fine report is its balance and absence of rhetoric - any attentive reader can appreciate the important distinction made in this report between social policy and structural policy.
Optimizing Structural Fund capabilities vis-à-vis employment to their maximum extent is indeed a fundamental aim.
As far as the Structural Funds are concerned, we cannot squander or fritter away anything which may result in an improved employment picture in the European Union.
It is, however, extremely important to understand that structural policy is not guided by job creation as the fundamental and urgent criterion and that structural transfers are transfers for improving human resources and infrastructures and for increasing productive investment - that is, for a genuine employment policy which improves the environment where investment will subsequently be targeted.
If this is not the case, if we were to confuse social policy with structural policy, we would reach a conclusion which I wish to avoid in future debates and in debates on forthcoming financial developments, and it is this: that appraisals of unemployment concentrating on major towns and cities, on major towns and cities in prosperous countries, are capable of attracting the greater part of investment in Structural Funds.
We must avoid this just as Mr Lage's report avoids it.
Mr President, is the commitment to create economic and social cohesion in Europe suitable only for times of growth? The solidarity between generations and between Member States evaporates as times grow harder.
When all we hear is how Europe is finished as a location for industry, investors look elsewhere and public confidence falters.
We must see the Commission's yearly report as an opportunity not for further discussion of the crisis but for discussion of opportunities.
First, the European social model is not an optional extra.
Secondly, the dialogue between the social partners, the alliance for work and the Round Table are too valuable to be casually abandoned.
Thirdly, the prospects of employment for our most important resource -people - must be improved.
Every ECU today and every euro tomorrow that, contrary to the misgivings expressed in the Wolf report, arrives at the right time and place to promote stability, every investment in qualified basic and further training and retraining, and in lifelong learning, increases our fitness for globalization.
LEONARDO and SOCRATES, ADAPT and NOW and more effective use of the structural funds are a reality, not an illusion.
Fourthly, the market opportunities for the SMEs must be improved.
After all, they have substance, flexibility, a spirit of innovation and sound social structures.
However, improved access to capital and research results are still an illusion, not a reality.
Fifthly, we must build up long-term confidence.
The necessary chapter on employment must not arouse any false hopes.
We must not release the Member States from their responsibilities.
But we can develop guidelines which lead to improved coordination.
The comprehensive strategy for cooperation between the Member States, adopted in Essen, investment in vocational training, increasing the intensity of employment - these are the right foundations.
Europe has the brains, the capacity and the creativity.
Let's use them!
Mr President, I could begin my intervention by referring to all the initiatives, documents and reports which pass through this House and which we are currently debating here and which, in addition, aim to make further advances concerning a solution to the problem of unemployment, but my allotted two minutes would be used up and I would not have commented on even a small part of them.
Since the first oil crisis, the problem of unemployment has been near the top, if not the first item, on our governments' agendas.
We have been tackling this problem for 20 years and it looks very much like pessimism is beginning to set in in many social sectors.
Given these circumstances, my intention, honourable colleagues, is to offer a note of optimism, a well-founded note of optimism, optimism based on the following facts:
Firstly, unemployment is not a worldwide problem.
Unemployment has not become globalized - trade and competitiveness have become globalized.
Unemployment with the specific characteristics it assumes within the European Union is a unique problem.
It is incorrect to say that machines are taking jobs away from people.
People have to be trained to use machines and therefore investment in education and training is necessary.
At the world level, more jobs are created than are lost every year.
In addition, there are still too many unsatisfied human needs.
Secondly, Europe is not a continent which is closed to foreign trade.
It can never adopt such a stance since we are not self-sufficient and need raw materials that we do not possess.
The only way to acquire them lies in our economy's capability to offer our consumers and consumers in third countries goods and services which are competitive on international markets.
We are already competitive on many markets.
In terms of the most important factor of production - the human factor - we have top-quality resources.
The level of training of European citizens is as high as anywhere you may care to mention, although this does not mean we should become complacent - in such matters there is always room for progress.
And, thirdly, Europe is emerging from its most recent economic crisis but is doing so more slowly than we would have liked.
Yet the optimism I referred to earlier is due to the fact that, if we take the view that we have the best-educated human resources on the planet and combine this with the fact that we are constructing an environment of top-quality macroeconomic stability, we obtain a clear result.
We already have the agents and will soon have the means.
The means to which I am referring, ladies and gentlemen, is Economic and Monetary Union.
The stable framework which will be created by EMU will enable our agents to compete at least on the basis of equal conditions.
I would like to end my contribution by asking you to continue cooperating with governments to achieve the objectives set out and would also call upon all of us to continue the work of making the public more aware of why we are undertaking a project of such historic proportions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ' feminizing' the Structural Funds and incorporating equality of opportunity into their application criteria form the recommendation submitted by the Committee on Women's Rights and the Group of the European People's Party regarding this communication on structural intervention and employment.
The aim of the Structural Funds is to reduce regional disparities determined as a function of income and unemployment.
And it is obvious that unemployment affects women to a much greater degree.
We are therefore calling for innovative criteria and greater flexibility in the application of the Structural Funds.
There is a need to simplify the rules which govern the Funds, which are highly restrictive and bureaucratic. There is also a need to promote equality of opportunity as a human-quality criterion in the use of the Funds and also equality of opportunity in vocational training and education in the use of new technologies, craft-based industries and the setting-up of new enterprises.
A review of the conditions of application of the Funds would entail changes in their use, perhaps moving them away from major infrastructural investments in order to focus more on work which is economically productive, human resources and local employment initiatives.
We would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lage, who, in his report, has taken the opportunity to expand on special measures aimed at supporting unemployed women, reorganizing working time, part-time working and supporting and monitoring small and medium-sized undertakings created by women.
Job creation goes hand-in-hand with the development of infrastructures and services which make it possible to combine work with domestic responsibilities, in order to make women less socially isolated and to seek new alternatives to traditional working structures.
We women are pioneering new concepts for organizing work which are essential and necessary if employment, by means of a coordinated focusing of economic and structural measures, is to be transformed into the 'confidence pact' we all desire.
It is within this innovative framework that we are calling for equality of opportunity to be incorporated into policies for promoting employment and local development, through the Structural Funds, since women constitute the sector most disadvantaged by unemployment.
Mr President, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to the debate and say a special word of thanks to Mr Wolf for his excellent report.
Employment is not only a very important problem for the Union it is also a very complicated one with many interrelated aspects, as the very interesting debate has shown this morning.
Mr Wolf has put forward a careful and thorough analysis of the Commission's Employment in Europe Report and I am particularly pleased that we agree on so many aspects of the strategy that we are pursuing.
Mr Wolf and many other honourable Members have put forward a number of additional proposals and some criticisms.
I welcome both and I believe they form a basis for us to carry our strategy further in the future.
The Employment in Europe Report has become a major event in the Commission's annual calendar and it has changed in recent times both in structure and in presentation.
The changes respond to many of the remarks made by the European Parliament in previous years.
It is a shorter document and it deals with policy reflections based on the analysis.
In particular it deals with the following: to present a succinct description of the main analytical messages of the report, to give a flavour of the main stance of policy in Member States and in the different policy areas and finally, and most importantly, to present the Commission's views of the main policy conclusions which we have called 'The Need for Action' .
Many speakers have stressed the need for action and have given an impressive list of actions which could and should be carried out by the Member States.
All have to be involved in this process and you will be pleased to know that the multi-annual programmes take up that very point and have submitted such to the Commission of recent date.
So we are making progress but we are not making enough progress.
Mr Wolf's report rightly suggests that the macro-economic aspects of the strategy give rise to some causes of concern and Member States face constraints in the conduct of their policy.
They face difficult choices but we must persevere or we will continue to lose credibility in this area.
Member States have now integrated the strategy in their multi-annual programmes and we are committed to action on employment.
We hope that will be progressed greatly in Dublin, where the impetus will be to take all of this further forward.
The Lage report must bring us to the point that the employment problem is not just about macro-economic aspects only, the Lage report takes us into other structural aspects of the strategy.
I would like to compliment Mr Lage on the excellent document.
We accept the main thrust of the resulting resolution and we would like to make a few comments on it.
Parliament has fully grasped the Commission's aim as far as increasing the employment content of the structural funds is concerned.
Many of those who contributed today talked about getting better value and making better use of the structural funds and I agree.
Mr Lage stresses also that this is a policy for the long term and he particularly highlights the need to develop local development and for the creation of small business.
We also agree.
This aim can be achieved most effectively through partnership.
Partnership with the Member States which part-finance the programmes that are linked to the structural assistance.
Partnership with the monitoring committee to strengthen their management of the programmes.
The Commission favours a deepening and broadening of the partnership to embrace all those involved in the social and economic spheres.
The territorial pacts have been specifically mentioned by many of the Members who have contributed today.
About 60 pilot measures are contemplated and I would like to say to Mrs McCarthy the only country that has not yet submitted its pilot project is the United Kingdom, but we are working and hoping we can change that.
Equally important is the need for the improvement in the arrangements for measuring the impact of assistance on employment.
This is a complex subject, dealing with jobs created and safeguarded, direct and indirectly created jobs, permanent and temporary jobs, full-time and part-time work, the question about displacement and of course the dead-weight effect.
The Commission intends to make progress on this question through the Interdepartmental Working Party on assessment and through the Means Programme.
In this connection it is worth noting that the Commission has proposed quantified guidelines to the Member States for the new Objective II period, in order to improve prior and ex-post assessment of this assistance on the creation and on the maintenance of employment.
The Commission will take the opportunity presented in the mid-term review to put emphasis particularly on the implementation of the points set out in the Commission's communication.
To conclude on this report, I would like again to express my thanks to Parliament and to Mr Lage for the backing which it has given to the Commission through this report.
Finally, the Ribeiro Report and the question of pre-retirement benefits.
The Commission welcomes the positive attitude of the European Parliament on this proposal and we fully share the Commission's opinion that the Community coordination of the national security schemes should be extended to pre-retirement benefits.
The national schemes introducing this kind of benefit to unemployed workers who have not reached retirement age differ greatly and the lack of coordination between them can indeed cause difficulties for such workers who reside in a Member State other than the Member State in which the benefit is awarded.
In this report Mr Ribeiro proposed to make it a priority task of the administrative commission on social security for migrant workers to deal with problems of frontier workers.
The Commission is fully aware of the necessity to deal with this category of workers in particular.
However, the administrative commission is already competent to deal with all of the problems in relation to the application of the Community coordination system, including those of frontier workers.
In the Commission's view it does not seem appropriate to mention within its task a specific category without making reference to others such as pensioners and posted workers and students and in the circumstances the Commission would not be disposed to follow the rapporteur's amendment to the point.
I would like to finish by saying to Mr Cassidy that I would not support the re-naming of the report.
I rather look at it from a more positive point of view where we can deal with the difficulties arising as far as unemployment is concerned and genuinely have an employment report to talk about when we come before Parliament on a continuing basis.
I wholeheartedly agree with the point he has made about aging and I believe that is a matter that will have to dominate a lot of debate in this House in the future.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to voting time.
Votes
Mr President, during the debate yesterday Commissioner de Silguy agreed to look again at the amendments that have been adopted today with a view to accepting more of them than he was prepared to accept then.
I hope that that will be done and that a large number of the amendments adopted today will be accepted.
I must emphasize again that our purpose in tabling them was to make the Commission's task easier and to render these two regulations implementable, because implementing them in form in which they were presented would just not be possible.
I request the Commissioner to have another think about the matter.
He will be informed of the Member's concerns.
Mr President, I appreciate that you want to go through the votes quickly and I respect that.
But I must insist that when you speak of committee amendments you speak of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Mr President, the problem we had here was that difficulties arose regarding the greater emphasis in the amendment, and we agreed on a compromise.
The second part of the sentence then reads: ' ... reiterates its call for seriously studying new models of taxation capable of counteracting this tendency as well as an improved control of derivatives' .
This insertion ' seriously studying new models of taxation capable of counteracting this tendency' replaces the disputed wording contained in the original text; it is capable of producing a consensus, and it would satisfy me too.
Mr President, derivatives were not agreed, and I would appreciate it if we first voted on our amendment, and if that falls then we shall accept this text. This is absolutely essential because it will determine our final vote.
I am voting for the recommendation that W.F. Duisenberg be appointed President of the EMI.
I have serious misgivings, however, about his nomination because in his previous position and at the hearing in the economic affairs committee he expressed his belief in an anti-inflationary and low taxation policy which I believe will increase unemployment in the Member States of the European Union.
Wijsenbeek report (A4-0289/96)
Although we are highly sceptical about the possibility of a common labour market policy we are voting for these reports, which include proposals to improve today's disastrous unemployment.
Adjournment of the session
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 28 November 1996.
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to have to tell you that Alain Poher died this morning.
Alain Poher was a Member of this Parliament from the time when it was first created, in 1952.
He went on to occupy various positions of office until the year 1978.
Amongst other things he was the chairman of the Christian Democrat Group, and then from March 1966 until March 1969 he served as President of the European Parliament.
He then went on to preside over the fortunes of the French Senate.
Throughout his life, Alain Poher was one of the most enthusiastic promoters of the construction of Europe.
He was indefatigable in its defence, drawing political lessons from the catastrophic events of the Second World War.
On behalf of the European Parliament, and at a personal level too, I should like to express my sincere condolences to Alain Poher's family and also to the authorities of the French Republic.
I should now like to ask you to show your respect by observing a minute's silence.
(The House rose and observed one minute's silence)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
The House shares your abhorrence at the crime which has been committed in France, Mr Pasty, and joins you in opposing the trivialization of terrorism in any of the Member States of the European Union.
I expressed our sympathy and abhorrence at this attack to the French Government last week.
Mr President, on a point of order under Rule 19(4), I would ask for your urgent support for Mr Ken Wilkinson of Basildon which is in my constituency.
He is one of at least 72 British lorry drivers stranded in Salonika by the blockade mounted by Greek farmers.
I have been in negotiation with the Greek authorities and British consular officials throughout the weekend and welcome the fact that a ferry has been laid on to evacuate the stranded drivers starting tonight.
However, at the moment there is no access to that ferry and the danger is that the drivers will be moved to Athens but still be subject to the blockade.
I understand that if they do not move before Wednesday of this week, they will be unable to return home for Christmas.
Mr Wilkinson and his colleagues are running short of cash and fuel and are bitterly cold at night.
I am told the mood amongst other drivers is angry and that a violent confrontation cannot be ruled out.
Mr President, I am not asking you to comment on the details of the dispute but I am asking you to write to the Greek Government to request it to do everything possible to assist the lorry drivers innocently caught up in the blockade so that they may return home.
I understand the concern for a citizen from your constituency, Mr Howitt, and for all the lorry drivers who are affected.
At the same time, however, I admire your ingenious interpretation of the Rules of Procedure and Rule 19.
I have the impression, ladies and gentlemen, that there are likely to be further contributions in a similar vein.
I shall not allow that to happen.
As is my duty, I shall of course now give the floor to those who have asked to raise points of order, but you should not think that I shall refrain from interrupting you.
We have had enough of this for today.
Mr Cabezón Alonso has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, in the next few days, before the end of the year, the Guatemalan Government and the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Union will be signing a final peace agreement in that Central American country.
Just as this Parliament has noted infringements of human rights in Guatemala, I ask it now to send its congratulations on this peace agreement.
That was not a point of order!
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of 5 December 1996 pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
Tuesday:
The Group of the European Radical Alliance has requested the withdrawal of the reports by Mr Christodoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the financing of the enlargement of the Union, and by Mr Rehder, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the study on alternative strategies for the development of relations in the field of agriculture between the EU and the associated countries with a view to future accession of these countries.
I give the floor to Mrs Lalumière to explain this request.
Mr President, my group would like both Mr Christodoulou's report and Mr Rehder's report to be removed from the agenda, and for the same reason.
In effect, these two reports are concerned with the future enlargement of the European Union to include the countries of Central Europe, a subject which is of major importance.
These reports deal with certain points which, whilst important, are nevertheless of a somewhat technical nature.
I am thinking in particular of the report by Mr Christodoulou, which covers budgetary and accounting matters.
The image, or impression, given by these reports runs the risk of appearing very negative to the countries of Central Europe, particularly since in this instance the reports are being dealt with separately from other reports, in particular the general reports submitted by Mr Oostlander.
This is why we believe that it is not a good policy to deal with the Christodoulou and Rehder reports on Tuesday.
Even if it turns out that substantial amendments are proposed to these reports, the political message being sent to the countries of Central Europe will still run the risk of being a negative message.
This is why we think it reasonable to remove these reports from the agenda now, so that they can be re-examined later, within a wider political framework.
Mr President, if the ARE Group had not made this proposal, we in the Group Union for Europe would have done so.
We did not find the terms in which the discussion on this highly important report was conducted - particularly within the Committee on Agriculture - at all convincing.
Of course we are all keenly in favour of enlargement and integration, but because of the haste with which these two reports were put together, we think this may not allow us to achieve these objectives with sufficient knowledge of the facts.
In the case of the Committee on Agriculture, our colleague Mr Rehder, the rapporteur - demonstrating an excess of goodwill, perhaps, and in an effort to be too accommodating - has broadened the scope too much, to the point that he has lost sight of certain concrete parameters which, in our view, should form the basis of assessment for the purposes of enlargement.
We therefore believe that these two reports should be referred back to committee for more detailed and specific analysis.
The Union for Europe therefore supports the proposal to refer these reports back to committee and withdraw them from the agenda.
Mr President, I will refer basically to my own report.
It was debated repeatedly by the Committee on Budgets over a fairly long period of time, and there are two reasons why it should not be referred back.
The first is that this is necessarily an interim report, because a great deal of information is required to complete the picture and it will take a very long time for the Commission to prepare that information.
In other words, we are talking about years rather than months.
Because of this, a general framework must be worked out to show exactly what the problems are, to include a description of the policy to be pursued in the sensitive financial sector, and those matters cannot be put off because no decisions whatsoever can be taken without knowledge of the real facts and figures that constitute the financial consequences.
Besides, Mr President, I must comment that what Mrs Lalumière told us, namely that the issue could create negative impressions in the Central and Eastern European countries, is like burying one's head, ostrich-like, in the sand.
What we are saying at this time is that we must describe things as they really are, so that those who take decisions will be aware of what is involved.
For that reason, this study must be examined now and not later.
Mr President, I can of course understand my fellow Members' wish to have a meaningful debate.
What I fail to understand, however - because this question has already been under discussion for almost a year - is the fact that these colleagues have not spoken out before now in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development or here in the House.
As for the negative impression which has been referred to, there can be no question of creating such an impression when we are speaking of Eastern Europe in terms of partnership and friendships.
I believe that the report merits closer reading on this point.
In fact, I think that what is going on here - and the motion by Mr Santini and his colleagues bears me out - is an attempt to prevent any agricultural reform at all, in other words to block a sensible and balanced agricultural policy.
That is why I am in favour of proceeding in a cooperative way with the work that we have been doing up to now.
I now put to the vote the request for withdrawal of the report by Mr Christodoulou.
(Parliament rejected the request)
I now put to the vote the request for withdrawal of the report by Mr Rehder.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Mr President, I am glad that we are concerned about human rights.
Róisín McAliskey, a young Irish woman, was arrested some weeks ago and sent to England.
Since then she has been in at least four different prisons including an all-male prison, despite the fact that she is four months pregnant and not well.
She is suspected of a crime in Germany but has not been convicted.
The brutality with which she has been treated in the English prisons is outrageous and I ask you to intervene with the British Government so that something can be done.
Róisín McAliskey is the daughter of a former Westminster MP and this treatment of her is against all principles of human rights in the Council of Europe and the European Parliament.
I plead with you to intervene on her behalf so that she can be treated humanely and decently.
I am prepared to take action in any case which is presented to me.
However, you could have asked me this in writing.
You should not have turned it into an announcement in the sitting.
Prevention of drug dependence
The next item is the report (A4-0398/96) by the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee (C4-0575/96-94/0135(COD)) for a European Parliament and Council Decision on adopting a programme of Community action on the prevention of drug dependence within the framework of action in the field of public health (1996-2000) (rapporteur: Mr Burtone).
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I should like to thank Mr Burtone for being so patient and to congratulate him on the result he has achieved.
The European Parliament has reached agreement with the Council and the Commission on an action programme on the prevention of drug dependence.
There were considerable differences of opinion even here in Parliament, and it has to be said that under the current conciliation procedure, a small minority which may have no knowledge of the issue at stake can impose its will on a much larger majority.
Nevertheless, most Member States are coming to realize that with drugs, combating demand is more important than combating supply.
Combating supply may well be justified from a legal or even moral standpoint, but it has little long-term effect.
Only 10 % of drugs are intercepted, and they remain widely available.
Let us start from this basis, and stop trying to pretend to ourselves that society will one day be free of drugs, much as we would like it to be.
If we face up to reality, we can develop much more efficient prevention and health policies.
The health situation in each country is what counts, and a country will not become healthier by imposing stiff penalties on cannabis users, or by making a great song and dance about closing its borders.
If we analyse each country's results objectively, we can see that tough policies seldom produce tough results.
We are now in a position to make ECU 29 million available, so let us ensure that it is put to good use.
This action plan is rather more realistic and pragmatic than was originally proposed.
Drug addicts are now seen as people who are ill, rather than criminals; projects are to be organized among drug users and on the streets; there is to be dialogue with young people, and support for a policy of risk reduction for individuals and society as a whole.
All of these are to be welcomed.
But we should not delude ourselves that this is some kind of great leap forward.
The Heads of State and Government are about to meet in Dublin, and we hope that there will be good news for the millions of unemployed, for all those young people whose future prospects are currently so bleak, and for the children whose parents are out of work because our tax and social security rules have not been harmonized.
If Europe fails to make any progress here, then prevention plans like this one will really make very little difference.
Mr President, I should like to raise a point of order.
I listened to Mr Burtone very carefully: I respect his political opinions, but when, in his capacity as rapporteur in a conciliation procedure concerning an action programme for the prevention of drug addiction, he maintains that in this document Parliament is against legalization, I should like to ask him which recital or article his statements are based on.
Otherwise, I would ask him to withdraw them, at least as regards the text we are discussing.
Strictly speaking, that was not a point of order, Mr Dell'Alba.
Without further criticism, I now give the floor to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Burtone on his report, which I have to say is a particularly fine piece of work.
We encountered a few problems during our discussions and in the vote at second reading.
I would point out - for the benefit of Mr De Coene - that when there was some question of extending the programme by adding a number of specific projects, which the PPE Group voted against at the time because we felt that it was not consistent with the legal basis, the Council went on to demonstrate that what you wanted to do was not possible, despite everything that was said about me in the Dutch press.
Next weekend the question of joint action is to be discussed at the Dublin summit, which is to examine how we can work together to tackle drug dependence in Europe.
I know that there are a number of Members here who think that the answer is to legalize everything.
Mr De Coene and a number of others have tabled a motion for a resolution to the effect that drugs must at least be freely available to users.
Mr De Coene has put his name to this.
I would never support this 'tough policy' , to use his own words, and I will tell you why.
Thanks to such a policy - I do not know if you read the Dutch newspapers - the Jellinek Clinic, a very reputable institution, has found that 30 % of all 17 and 18 year-olds in the Netherlands today have already experimented with drugs.
Similar results have been obtained in research by the public health authority in the province of Groningen, which is typical of the country as a whole.
When I look at these results and think of the tolerant approach which allows soft drugs to be widely available, even for young children, I feel that instead of simply glorifying the policy that the Netherlands is pursuing, we should use this action programme as an opportunity to think long and hard about which is best: the tolerance which is practised in the Netherlands, or the repressive approach adopted by a number of other Member States.
There may yet be a middle way.
I would call on the Commission to use the comparative study of current legislation produced by the European Monitoring Centre in Lisbon and Mr Burtone's action programme as the basis for examining what the policy implications are and how we can reproduce the good results achieved in the Netherlands, in terms of the number of drugs-related deaths and the number of cases of HIV infection, in other countries.
On the other hand, how can we reduce the side-effect that the Netherlands is suffering from - the fact that three times as many young people as four years ago are now trying drugs for the first time?
I should like to know what people think about this.
I see from the nature of some of the comments which are being made that I need to draw your attention to the Rules of Procedure.
Personal statements - which are quite clearly what is involved here - can be made only at the end of the debate.
If you wish to make a personal statement, then you should inform me pursuant to Rule 108.
That is the rule on the subject.
You will then have the opportunity of doing so at the end of the debate.
I think that Mr De Coene was contemplating a personal statement, and also Mr Burtone.
We shall take all these at the end of the debate, but I would ask you to look at the Rules of Procedure beforehand.
These are personal statements, and not contributions to the debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we need to invest heavily in prevention, information and education.
This is what emerges from the programme of Community action adopted in relation to prevention of drug dependence, which is designed to contribute to the fight against drug dependence, in particular by encouraging cooperation among the Member States, supporting their campaigns and promoting coordination of their policies and programmes.
The joint text agreed within the Conciliation Committee and so ably supported by Mr Burtone - whom I should like to compliment on the vast amount of excellent work he has done - outlines the measures that have to be taken.
These relate, firstly, to data, research and evaluation, in an effort to improve knowledge of drugs and drug dependence and their consequences, using, in particular, information supplied by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon. The second group of measures concern information, health education and training and are designed to help improve information, health education and training for the purpose of preventing drug dependence and the associated risks, in particular as regards young people in the relevant categories and particularly vulnerable groups, including drug addicts.
Other important aspects are: treating the addict as a person who is ill and not as a criminal; prevention, which must cover all kinds of narcotics and psychotropic substances, including the new synthetic drugs; and the need to mobilize all the sectors involved, supporting multidisciplinary cooperation between the public and private sectors, including NGOs.
Lastly, I think that the search for new coordinated strategies which are consistent with other Community programmes is of fundamental importance, with continuous assessment of results as they are achieved. This should help prevent the recurrence of very negative situations - as we have seen in Italy - such as the spread of AIDS, imprisonment, social marginalization and an increase in petty crime and prostitution.
We therefore need to take account of the complex nature of the drugs problem and of the risks associated with it, as well as the fundamental importance of a broad range of public health and social measures essential to the protection of health and quality of life.
Mr President, the Liberal Group also welcomes the results obtained in the conciliation committee, and we should like to congratulate Mr Burtone on his hard work.
However, we realize, as I hope Mrs Oomen does too, that this is not about combating drug trafficking, but about public health, and as I see it the whole question of drug dependence belongs fairly and squarely in the public health domain.
Drug addicts are primarily people with a health problem rather than criminals to be prosecuted, and the emphasis should therefore be on prevention and help rather than repression.
Repression, I think we should all agree, needs to be targeted instead on drug trafficking and organized crime.
I am therefore delighted that the final text produced by the committee offers scope for a pragmatic and humane approach which focuses on prevention and risk-limitation.
I also welcome the fact that the report recognizes the importance of cooperation with NGOs and social welfare organizations, since these are the bodies which know what the day-to-day problems are and can take action where it is needed.
Finally, the Public Health Council may finally be making some progress, but I regret to say that other measures are now rearing their ugly heads, such as the joint action under the third pillar recently proposed by the French, which is based entirely on repression and totally ignores the importance of a humane and pragmatic approach.
We hope that a solution can be found to this issue, on which opinions are still deeply divided between France and the Netherlands in particular, for the benefit of all drug addicts.
Mr President, on behalf of the Greens, I regret that the text approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection was scaled down during the conciliation process.
Once again we have seen differences in the positions of the Council and the European Parliament.
Nevertheless, it must be noted that some significant progress has been made as regards both the concept of prevention and the means of tackling the problem of drug dependence.
I refer in particular to the stress on the fact that the patient is not a criminal, that, in reality, the prison environment is often a place where the risk of drug dependence develops and that the programme must cover all types of drug, without distinction.
However, I should like to point out that alcohol is more dangerous than cannabis, which causes less damage and fewer social problems.
We also need to assess which strategies are capable of saving human lives; in our view, for instance, examples of this are the controlled administration of drugs and, more generally, the decriminalization of drug use.
Cooperation with NGOs and dialogue with young people are also important.
For those reasons, I should like to thank those honourable Members who formed part of the Conciliation Committee for their work and to express the hope that this is the starting-point for a new policy on combating drug dependence.
Mr President, I should like to inform Mr Burtone of the disappointment felt by the radical antiprohibitionists in this Parliament.
We cannot, like him, congratulate ourselves on the fact that the conciliation position has already, between the first and second readings, weakened our position.
Between those two readings we have lost everything relating to policy on reducing risks.
We have lost everything relating to freedom in the provision of therapy for drug addicts, and we have also, above all, lost the overall negative verdict that had been given on the policy of suppression and prohibition.
At this point I cannot avoid drawing your attention to the fact that decades of prohibition have resulted in the everincreasing use of drugs, a constant improvement in the profits of organized crime, the growth of petty and more serious crimes linked to the need to finance the drug habit, and finally, on the pretext of prohibition, which involves secrecy, the spread of AIDS.
Those are the results of a policy of prohibition, and we have managed to lose them between the first and second readings.
That is the position we are in today.
We can share most of the excellent intentions of Mr Burtone, but I am afraid that they will remain mere empty words as long as we do not fundamentally question the logic of the prohibition policy.
Finally, Mr President, I should like in a moment to refer to the Rules of Procedure regarding the proposals made by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking here about a sum of around ECU 27 or 29 million - no one knows the exact figure, but it is, at any rate, more than BFR 1 billion.
This may seem like peanuts in European terms, but it is certainly not peanuts for the taxpayers who are expected to pay every penny of this and all the other billions our budget goes through.
And, quite honestly, I cannot say that I expect all this taxpayers' money to be spent wisely and responsibly.
My main objection is that all the measures referred to in this report - which I regret to say offers no support for the principle of the traditional family unit and fails even to mention the unfortunate, but nevertheless clear link between drug trafficking and mass immigration - could actually be organized much more efficiently by the Member States.
The European Union does have a role to play in the fight against drugs, but not as some kind of large-scale needle exchange service.
On the contrary, it should be promoting cooperation between the various police forces against international drugs crime and imposing strict checks at our internal and external borders.
But as we know, the European Union is unable or unwilling to play this role, and is even doing the opposite.
Checks at the internal borders are being abolished and those that remain are condemned by the Euro-fanatics as some sort of crime against humanity.
I would also point out that the Netherlands is shortly to take over the presidency of the Union, and everyone knows the sinister meaning which the word 'coffee-shop' now has in that country.
So I am very sceptical, to put it mildly, about these results from the Conciliation Committee, and I think we should reject the report as it now stands.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as competition intensifies and, at the same time, young people perceive that they have less and less chance of sharing in society's prosperity, they try to escape from the pressures which they face as individuals by taking drugs.
Drugs become a comfort and a means of escape from reality.
The Irish presidency has made drugs policy in the EU a priority.
I welcome the action programme and the specific recommendations.
Increasingly, what we are seeing, as opposed to heroin users, are people with multiple drug addictions.
This means that different kinds of help must be provided for them.
But it also means that cooperation between everyone involved in caring for drug addicts is essential.
It is also important to provide comprehensive information, particularly in our schools.
Dialogue with children at risk, and their parents - especially as early as the pre-school years - is a very important aspect of prevention.
Drug abuse, drug dealing and the associated crime to which it leads have a destructive effect on society.
The European Union must therefore continue to concern itself with combating these problems.
There must be room for an open debate on drugs as part of federal and national politics, without any taboos.
We must encourage the harmonization of legislation in the Member States.
The Dutch presidency is facing intense pressure from many EU countries, and I hope that the Netherlands, with its policy of tolerance, will be prepared to endorse more stringent interpretations in the area of drugs policy.
As a practising pharmacist, I oppose any attempt to make hashish available over the chemist's counter.
To do so would be to put drugs on a par with medicinal products, and I believe that would be extremely dangerous.
As far as I am concerned, there can be no question about the illegality of drugs.
The primary concern of any drugs policy must be to help those who are addicted - to offer therapy.
But prevention, using new methods and approaches, is and remains our first task.
This makes demands on all those who hold positions of responsibility in society, especially in the areas of education and child care.
Living out an example is the most effective method of prevention.
Mr President, in conjunction with the other speakers, I wish to congratulate Mr Burtone on the tremendous work he has done on this report.
However, there are some basic differences of opinion which must be emphasized, the importance of which should not be underestimated.
First of all, the only way we are going to solve the whole question of drug addiction and the health problems it poses is by reducing demand totally.
How best can we achieve those aims? The best and most strategic way is by educating people with regard to the dangers and risks of drug use.
I hope that all Member States would start at the very earliest stages - maybe when children are eight or nine years of age - and give them more education at school, to tell them of the dangers there are out there.
Nor can we underestimate the fundamental role of the family as educators.
Parents and guardians must be given access to information in order to be able to recognize the danger signs, and also to be able to tell their own children what they should be doing.
Finally, we should never underestimate the role of individual responsibility.
Where I have a fundamental problem with this report is in its classification of all addicts as people who are ill rather than criminals.
It is generally known that in addition to using criminality to feed their own habit, addicts actually partake in illegal and criminal acts as well.
Their addiction cannot be used to exonerate them from responsibility for those criminal acts.
Mr President, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission have at last reached a degree of understanding which has resulted in approval of the programme of Community action on drug dependence.
Although, in our view, families and schools have a priority role to play, based on an effective campaign of prevention, the programme must be capable of encompassing all drugs, whether soft or hard, and broadening its scope to cover more risk groups.
Against the background of this debate, we have the recent outburst from the leader of the governing coalition in Italy who, perhaps trying to hold out too leafy an olive branch, spoke of liberalizing hallucinogenic drugs.
I should like to say that, if such issues as legalization of drugs, homosexuality and its legal status, genetic engineering and abortion have provoked a clash in today's society, this is certainly not a clash between freedom on the one hand and obscurantism on the other, but between two different perceptions of freedom and society.
Freedom does not mean that anyone can do anything they like, it is not the result of ethical indifference; on the contrary, it is the consequence of religion and moral conscience.
It is therefore not just a matter of individual will.
How do we answer the following questions?
Is it good to have a society where narcotic substances, including heroin, are in free, more or less legalized, circulation?
Is it right to consent to State-sponsored 'trips' ?
Is it positive thing to increase young people's awareness? These questions need to be debated at a cultural level and cannot be used as or turned into mere political propaganda.
Mr President, the joint text of the Council and Parliament decision has been finalized.
The rapporteur has worked very hard and a compromise has been reached.
The politically sensitive amendments designed to impose a permissive drugs policy or a policy of damage-limitation on the Member States have been toned down, I am glad to say.
We in the Netherlands now have considerable experience of such a policy, and though the percentage of hard drug users in the Netherlands is not high in international terms, that is not to say that a liberal policy is the right one.
When we talk about the percentage of drug addicts in the population, there are countless social factors involved, not just the question of how easy it is to obtain soft drugs.
The text adopted by the Conciliation Committee still contains a number of sensitive points, such as the needle exchange projects and the use of methadone substitution therapy.
These could form part of an integral approach to addiction, provided they are strictly regulated.
Fortunately, they are only mentioned in connection with evaluation studies rather than as specific policy measures, so we feel we can still support them, and they also fall within the scope provided for by Article 129 of the Treaty.
The increase in the number of projects in the annex and the broad definition given to the term 'prevention' have made the programme very extensive, and the limited funding available for the programme leaves the Member States with no choice but to pick and choose among the projects listed.
Each Member State must now fix its own priorities, and this could easily undermine the effectiveness of the entire programme, which would be a great pity.
On behalf of my colleagues and myself, I should like to support the position of the Conciliation Committee.
We believe, however, that certain matters have been mentioned which merit further discussion.
For example, we would agree with our colleagues in the Green Group in the European Parliament that the extent of alcohol addiction is widely underestimated.
It is actually the case in some countries that young people can buy an alcoholic drink more cheaply than a non-alcoholic one.
Another problem is the definition of drug addicts as patients.
Much as this should be encouraged, there is also a need here to work out new methods that will allow these patients to be treated.
In our experience, the methods which medicine currently has to offer are not capable of bringing an addict back to health.
The definition alone will not enable us to provide appropriate treatment for the patients - as opposed to criminals - whom we now have to deal with.
We also foresee a difficulty in delegating the provision of information to schools and universities, and in the growing problem of social stratification in Europe.
We know from experience that people in the higher social strata have access to better schools, whereas the schools which poorer people attend are not so good.
In the schools that are attended by the poorer sections of the population, it is often quite impossible to practise prevention or to make documentation and information available.
Finally, there is also the question of closer cooperation with the countries where drugs are produced.
Merely sending money to these countries will not suffice.
Programmes for helping them to make the transition to other products will have to be considered.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, drugs are a serious concern to all of us European citizens.
The talks, discussions and exchanges which have accompanied the long process of adopting this programme have been fruitful and have allowed us to make positive improvements to the Community machinery for the prevention of drug dependence.
We are convinced that the programme is credible and takes account of the different approaches adopted in the various Member States.
It is not our aim to align ourselves with one side or the other, ideologically or morally, or to define a single approach as to what is meant by drugs and prevention of drug dependence and what policies should be adopted in this area.
Our purpose is rather to stress the complexity of the problems of drug abuse and to allow professional, scientific and technical discussion to take place on the various ways and means of tackling the problem.
On behalf of the Commission and my colleague, Commissioner Flynn, I should like to thank the European Parliament for the support it has given this programme and, in particular, Mr Burtone, the rapporteur, for his work on this matter.
I should also like to add a few words about the conciliation procedure.
Once again, all the Institutions have played a full part in dealing with particularly important issues.
The Commission would like to mention two points in particular: the first relates to the participation of the various institutions and organizations working to reduce demand for drugs, which could take part in the programme's activities.
I would stress that, under Article 5(2)(f) of the Decision, the Commission will propose cooperation methods for the implementation of the programme involving public and private bodies and non-governmental organizations, including voluntary organizations and community groups involved in therapy or social welfare.
As regards the other programmes in the public health sector, the Commission will naturally favour cooperation among working groups from various Member States, with particular regard to the activities of the European networks assisting the public in drug prevention.
The second point I should like to stress, Mr President, relates to communicating information on the implementation of the programme to the European Parliament.
The interinstitutional modus vivendi as regards measures for the implementation of acts adopted according to the procedure laid down in Article 189b of the EC Treaty, as in the case of this programme, forms the basis for providing Parliament with the information required.
Moreover, as regards the terms of Article 5(4) of the Decision, which provides that the Commission is to communicate to the committee established under that article all decisions adopted in relation to individual projects, the Commission undertakes to communicate this information to the European Parliament annually.
Mr President, there is something I should like to point out here, since Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has twice now claimed in this debate that I have put my name to a motion for a resolution on legalizing drugs.
I know which resolution she means, but I would point out that I have not signed it, and I would ask people to check their facts before they refer to me by name in this way.
Mr President, I should like to make a brief statement in order to fulfil a personal, but also an institutional, duty and because I wish to conduct myself properly towards the European Parliament - something I have always done while acting as rapporteur.
I venture to point out to my colleague, Mr Dell'Alba, that had he paid more attention to what I said, he would not have said something that could become a source of controversy and maybe already has.
This evening, in this very Chamber, I referred to a process, to a debate, to decisions made by the House in the recent past.
Conscientious Member that he is, Mr Dell'Alba will surely recall that, by means of an amendment, some honourable Members tabled a proposal to legalize certain drugs - a proposal that was rejected by a vote of this House in no uncertain terms.
I would add that all of this cannot be included in the report simply because the amendment I have mentioned was rejected.
I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
Mr President, Mr De Coene denies having signed a proposal for a recommendation which I myself have signed. This is the proposal referred to by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, and I should like to bring it up again now.
I refer to our Rules of Procedure, and in particular Rule 46, which allows a certain number of Members to sign proposals for recommendations, which are then referred to the committee responsible, without the House being informed about them.
For the time being, however, the proposal for a recommendation in question is an official document of the European Parliament, which is in unrestricted circulation within the European Parliament, and I cannot accept, either, that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten should caricature the position of those who have signed that proposal for a recommendation, by saying that we wanted to establish a liberal position that would allow drug users to have a free choice among all the drugs available.
That is not true.
As far as I am concerned, the liberalization of drug use and the current suppression of drug use in my country constitute two dogmatic positions that are perfectly symmetrical.
The position that I am defending is one of pragmatic reasoning, and consists of controlled legalization and freedom to prescribe therapy.
Mr President, I should just like to draw your attention to one particular point, which is a personal one.
I hope that it was due to an interpreting error, at least into French, that I heard Mrs Oomen-Ruijten say that the position defended by her colleagues was stupid, because I do think that we should have the courtesy to avoid describing in such a way the various positions that Members defend, even though I admit that one could say a lot about the relevance, or even the intelligence, of some of them.
We shall have to discuss this proposal for a recommendation, and so I hope that until then Mrs Oomen-Ruijten will keep her arguments to a minimum, and we shall deal with them in full.
Mr President, to Mr Hory, who is a true liberal, I would say that his policy is bound to mean that many young children will start taking drugs, and I am not in favour of that.
I apologize to Mr De Coene for mentioning him by name, though I have to say that this simply makes us even, because he wrongly mentioned my name in a number of Dutch newspaper articles.
Nevertheless, I offer my apologies.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at noon.
Labelling and presentation of foodstuffs
The next item is the report (A4-0406/96) by the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Directive 79/112/EEC on the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs (C4-0590/95-00/0380(COD) (rapporteur: Mr Schnellhardt).
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his achievement.
My experience, which is rather like his, of the conciliation procedures employed by this Parliament is varied.
Sometimes they make progress, sometimes they become obscured in trivialities.
In this case we have made progress and I would like to pay tribute here to Mr Schnellhardt who has been the long-time rapporteur on this directive and also to Mr Imbeni, the chairman of the Conciliation Committee, and all those who took part.
I endorse everything that Mr Schnellhardt has said about the value for consumers of the forms of labelling that are now designated clearly and without any fuss.
I think it is of value.
I think it is of particular value to people who suffer from gluten allergies: they will now have a warning specifically made clear in the labelling they receive.
I want to come now to the point with which my colleague Mr Schnellhardt concluded. That is the issue of alcoholic labelling.
The original text which was presented by the Commission contained a reference to the labelling of alcoholic beverages.
Now we are all aware in this Chamber of the pressures that are brought to bear on the Commission, the Council and on Members of this Parliament wherever the matter of alcoholic products is concerned.
Suddenly they have become not merely another consumer item but a wonderful cultural experience.
Speaking as one who has the largest brewing group in the United Kingdom in his constituency, I would be the last person to question the enormous value of alcohol taken in moderation.
But I must say that I believe it should be properly labelled like any other foodstuff.
It has its risks and it has its dangers, like any other foodstuff or any other drink.
By the time the common position emerged from the Council, the section on alcoholic beverages had been mysteriously separated from the text and at second reading we were therefore waiting for a proposal to emerge from the Council.
However, it then became clear that a proposal might be coming from the Commission, and Commissioner Bangemann wrote to our chairman Mr Collins on 31 October saying that the Commission is now in a position to commit itself to submitting, as soon as possible, a new proposal for a directive on the labelling of alcoholic beverages.
Now where is it? I understand Commissioner Monti is going to reply today.
I think it would be of great service to the House if he could indicate the state of this proposal at the moment.
Does it still carry the endorsement of the Commission as a whole and when are we going to see it? With that one caveat I heartily commend the directive and all those who have worked on it and indeed those who will benefit from it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, food labels are very useful things and we need to be very careful about what we do with them.
They are useful in that they give consumers the chance to make a rational choice from a wide range of products on offer, without interfering with the internal market.
But there is no point in providing information on food labels if consumers cannot read them because they are in a language they do not know.
The 1978 labelling directive simply required the information on the label to be given in a language which the consumer understood.
However, the two Peters judgments handed down in the meantime have led to certain doubts, and we are now in the difficult situation of having to assess each case individually.
Anyone who has followed the twists and turns of the Peters case knows what I mean.
I am pleased to see that we have managed to convince the other institutions that we need better guarantees, and that the Member States now specifically have the scope to require one or more languages to be used.
The new labelling directive that we are to approve tomorrow combines the principles of the internal market with those of consumer protection.
The conciliation process took a long time, but it was worth it, and I should like to thank and congratulate everyone involved for working so well together, particularly the rapporteur, Mr Schnellhardt.
Clear progress has been made on the issue of sales names.
The 1978 directive was vague and ambiguous, and therefore difficult to reconcile with the principles of the internal market.
I only hope now that the Commission will bear in mind the 'sauce béarnaise ' judgment when it performs its role as guardian of the Treaties on this issue.
The quantitative listing of ingredients is another example of more balanced information which I wholeheartedly support, and I also think it was the right decision to include the labelling of products involving genetic modification under the special regulation on novel foods.
All that remains are alcoholic drinks and nutritional information.
We shall have to take a decision soon on the question of nutritional information, and we need to ask ourselves whether this serves any purpose if consumers are not sufficiently familiar with nutritional science.
Consumers must certainly take responsibility themselves if they are worried about proper nutrition, but they also need a certain level of knowledge to be able to do so.
Education on over-nutrition is, to my mind, one aspect of consumer protection that has been little in evidence up to now.
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner whether he agrees that it is high time to make greater use of the Commission's powers in the field of prevention in public health, to provide information for consumers in places other than on labels, and to encourage the provision of appropriate consumer information on nutrition.
Mr President, if you come and stand here in my place, you will see that you cannot see the monitor to know when it is your turn.
I have suggested three or four times now that we should have another monitor over here, but it seems that this is not possible.
If you cannot afford it, I have an old one at home that I could bring with me.
Coming back to the issue at hand, I really must congratulate Mr Schnellhardt on his report and on the compromise which has been reached.
It has taken so long to deal with the subject that it almost became his life's work.
But the compromise is a good one, and I also think that improving the labelling of foodstuffs is a logical consequence of the internal market.
If we cannot harmonize the composition of foodstuffs, then it must at least be possible for consumers to be well-informed about the ingredients they may contain.
And this is where I think this compromise has really hit the mark.
I shall not go into the three aspects on which Parliament's arguments won the day, since every speaker has already talked about them in detail.
But I would like to join others in stressing how much responsibility now lies with the Commission, and I would ask Commissioner Bangemann, represented here by Commissioner Monti, to keep the promise that he made during the preparatory work and the conciliation procedure to come up with a new proposal on the labelling of alcoholic beverages as quickly as possible.
Could I ask Commissioner Monti to confirm this in his answer to the House?
We will see what we can do about the monitor, Mr Eisma.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since 1992 an enormous amount of work has been done on amending the directive that we are discussing this evening.
We must give due recognition to the work that has been carried out by successive rapporteurs, whether by Mrs Langenhagen, for the first reading, or by Mr Schnellhardt, for the second.
Their work has made it possible for Parliament, in effect, to give its opinion twice.
In the present session the task before us is to vote on the draft joint decision by Parliament and the Council, as approved by the Conciliation Committee.
I personally, together with my group, am all in favour of voting to adopt this text, and the reason for my speaking refers to something else.
Arising out of this agreement, a political compromise has made the final approval of the joint draft of the European Parliament subject to the submission by the Commission of a new proposal relating specifically to alcoholic beverages.
I wonder, therefore, why this connection has been made. Why, at the conciliation meeting, did Parliament's delegation state a position that was different from the one adopted by Parliament following the two debates, during which all the parties gave their opinions on the problem of labelling alcoholic beverages, in other words the debate in October 1993, on the Langenhagen report, and the one in October 1995, on the Schnellhardt report?
We do not understand why Parliament's position, which it voted in favour of at the October 1995 part-session, should now be called into question again for the sake of a new compromise which no longer constitutes the expression of a decision by Parliament.
So far, no response has been given to the demands made on this subject by me and by several of my colleagues.
Can this House accept that now, at this final stage in the discussion, a point should be added, on which it has already expressed its opinion, and which has been accepted by the institutions, the Council of Ministers and the Commission?
I recommend, therefore, that while we adopt the joint draft that has been submitted to us, we refuse to take back our decision and we reject any request for the submission of a supplementary text.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Customs 2000
The next item is the report (A4-0390/96) on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council adopting an action programme for customs in the Community (Customs 2000) - (C4-0598/96-95/0087(COD) (rapporteur: Mr von Wogau).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion, the text before us concerning a decision on an action programme for customs in the Community represents a satisfactory compromise.
Thanks to intensive preparation, we managed to achieve a result that was acceptable to all sides at the first meeting of the Conciliation Committee.
Although our requests were not fully met in every case, for the most part we are entitled to be satisfied.
The primary purpose of the Customs 2000 action programme is to achieve a uniform level of protection at all the external frontiers of the Union.
The aim is to make the customs procedures and controls more efficient.
This is crucially important if the internal market is to function smoothly.
Another important aim is to protect the Community's financial interests.
The programme provides for a budget of ECU 50 million for the period from 1996 to 2000.
The main aim of the amendments tabled by the European Parliament was to enhance as much as possible the Community aspect of customs cooperation, the quality of controls and the computerization of the systems.
However, joint protection of the external frontiers must imply the opening of the internal borders.
That is why I attached particular importance to the amendment which calls for the internal market to be further developed into a genuine European home market.
Completing the European home market is a top priority. Such a market will see the disappearance of all the differences which still exist in many areas between the home markets of Member States and obstruct the free movement of persons, goods, services and capital.
I should also like to highlight some other elements of the action programme which we supported in particular.
One such point was the wearing of the European 12-star symbol on customs officials' uniforms, which is now provided for in Article 2.
The idea is to make it clear to everyone involved that the customs officials belong to the Community.
The campaign against fraud is, of course, a particularly crucial area.
We have been arguing for the rapid computerization of customs services and Article 8, for example, now includes the objective of computerizing the Community transit procedure by 1998.
In Article 9, the Commission undertakes to explore, in partnership with the Member States where appropriate, the scope for extending computerization so as to facilitate exchanges of information between customs officials and administrations.
It is in the area of intra-Community transit that this is particularly significant, because we continue to hear of lorryloads of cigarettes arriving in the Community, then suddenly disappearing.
Some people are making large profits here, but others - like the forwarding agents involved, who bear the liability - are suffering heavy losses.
I should like to mention one final point.
This concerns the joint training of customs officials, on which we made various proposals.
One of these was for the creation of a European Customs Academy.
In recital 11, the Commission is instructed to explore the feasibility of such an academy.
In a statement annexed to the proposal, the Commission undertakes to examine the possibility of developing long-term exchanges of national customs officials.
We also made a range of further proposals for improving the action programme.
I am sure that other speakers will discuss these.
And on that note, I should like to thank the other members of the delegation, especially the chairman, Mrs Fontaine, and Mrs Wemheuer, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control, for their excellent cooperation.
I would urge you to adopt the text that has been approved by the Conciliation Committee.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have an internal market, we have a European customs tariff, and the customs duties that we levy are the European Union's own revenue.
All this belongs to the Community.
But then we have 15 different national customs administrations whose job it is to ensure that the whole thing functions.
The members of my group - and we are not the only ones - regard that as an anachronism.
We are, however, realistic enough not to think that introducing a single customs administration is a possibility.
That is quite clear.
But we did wish to see the joint system reinforced to some extent.
We had hoped for an action programme which indicated practical steps towards better cooperation between the customs administrations.
Simply on the basis of this text as it appears on the page, I could not recommend, on behalf of my group, that we should support the programme.
However, I shall be guided not by the text on the page, nor by the attitude of the Council - which has given me very little encouragement - but by the spirit of the Commission.
We encountered tremendous support there for our requirements and concerns - particularly from Commissioner Monti and DG XXI - even in those cases where our view did not prevail.
It is this, above all, which has persuaded me to express support - on behalf of my group as well as for myself - for the compromise that has been reached.
I believe that what we have achieved in the discussions on this programme, as well as in the debate in the Committee of Inquiry into the Community Transit System, is more important than the text on the page: it is more important to bring a problem to people's attention and, rather than simply stating baldly that something has to be done, to bring about a genuine change of awareness.
Bearing that in mind, we shall also be following closely the implementation of the action programme which we are about to approve.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me, as a co-chairman of the delegation, to speak briefly in this debate, in order to emphasize the finally positive - and I would even say, in many respects, exemplary - nature of this conciliation procedure.
Here and there - and I would say more there than here, in other words, more at the Council than in Parliament - various voices are sometimes heard denigrating, to some extent, the procedure for implementing the codecision procedure decided on in the Maastricht Treaty, on the grounds that it is too cumbersome, or too complicated.
This is true, and we are all in a position to know that it is indeed very cumbersome and very complicated, but everyone knows that these are faults that can quite well be remedied within the context of the Inter-governmental Conference, and we must take care to ensure that we do not - to use the well-known expression - throw the baby out with the bath water.
Following these first two years of experience, if we look at the matter objectively we are obliged to concede that considerable progress has been made by the European legislative.
My only regret is that our fellow-citizens are not sufficiently aware of the fact.
In the conciliation position that we are looking at today, the one relating to the Customs 2000 programme, things have not been easy, because right at the outset the Council substantially reduced the scale of the programme.
The committee chiefly responsible, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, as well as the other committees that were consulted, especially the Committee on Budgetary Control, have worked very hard.
They have carried out an extraordinary task, and I should like to thank, in particular, and most sincerely, the two rapporteurs, Karl von Wogau and Mrs Wemheuer, because it is to a large extent to them that we are indebted for the result.
Our priorities were inspired by two requirements, the requirement for communitization and the requirement for quality.
With these two objectives in mind, we were able to find acceptable compromises on many of the points which the European Parliament was concerned about and which Karl von Wogau has just reminded us of, because the institutions finally agreed to consider the other side's point of view and to take the necessary steps to enable the agreement to be finalized.
This is precisely what the authors of the Maastricht Treaty had in mind when they created the codecision procedure.
In this respect - and this point has already been emphasized - the cooperation of Mr Monti was extremely valuable, and I too would like to offer him my thanks.
Everyone, Commissioner, was aware of the importance of your contribution, and of the importance of the Commission's statement on the mobility of customs officers, which - most opportunely - accompanies the joint conciliation draft.
More generally, I have the feeling that, in the conciliation procedure, the Commission is now fulfilling the role that might have been expected of it, i.e. that of a mediator who smooths the path of conciliation.
I only hope that when they come to implement the programme's measures - and we shall be watching them very closely, as Mrs Wemheuer has quite rightly stated - the Member States show a greater awareness of the boost that these measures will give to the promoting of the European spirit.
I really believe, Mr President, that it is thanks to programmes such as Customs 2000 that the awareness of a real European identity will begin to take shape in the minds of our citizens.
Mr President, I can only confirm what my colleague, Mrs Fontaine, has said about the Conciliation Committee on the 'Customs 2000' programme, in which Parliament reached an understanding, with the most helpful cooperation of Commissioner Monti, enabling the best possible result to be achieved on this important project.
Parliament wanted above all to ensure the smooth functioning of the single market by creating homogeneous conditions at external frontiers so as to create a genuine internal market or, as the Commissioner likes to describe it, a home market.
Among the issues we raised were mobility of customs officials, exchange of information and experience, the wearing of the European twelve-star symbol on customs officers' uniforms, ease of recognition by end-users, improvement of controls, computerization of services - partly with a view to combating fraud - and, lastly, improving customs training by setting up a customs academy of some kind.
Parliament's delegation centred its strategy on key points which had been raised by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Parliament's approach was to enhance as much as possible the Community aspect of customs cooperation, the quality of controls and, as I have already mentioned, the essential computerization of systems.
The Commissioner was extremely accommodating on these points, and this made it possible to draw up a final programme to which we attach considerable importance and in which we have great faith, such that, if only on the basis of Parliament's internal customs arrangements, European citizens will feel that they are part of a great common home.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the text of the proposal for a Decision of Parliament and the Council adopting an action programme for customs in the Community - ' Customs 2000' - today submitted to you to consider as part of the final phase of the co-decision procedure, is the text which was drawn up in the course of a meeting of the Conciliation Committee on 10 October.
This joint text is a compromise between the positions of the House and those of the Council.
Like any compromise, it represents the meeting-point between sometimes diverging positions.
In the view of the Commission, it is a good compromise, as what we have here is both a constitutive instrument and an effective working instrument.
I therefore hope that the House will adopt it in the course of this part-session and I should like sincerely to congratulate Mr von Wogau, the rapporteur, and Mr Wemheuer, the co-rapporteur, on their perseverance and hard work.
May I also congratulate Mrs Fontaine who co-chaired the Conciliation Committee with the efficiency for which she is known.
I called it a constitutive instrument, and so it is, in that it translates into a legal decision a firm commitment to strengthen cooperation, within a Community framework, among the customs authorities of the Member States and between them and the Commission, enabling our customs authorities to guarantee effective protection of the financial interests of the Union and provide international commercial operators with a similarly high quality service at any point in the customs territory of the Community.
To achieve this objective, we have to do more than simply harmonize the rules, as has already been done by adopting the Community Customs Code, to secure harmonization of working methods and achieve a uniform level of quality in the implementation of customs procedures and controls.
I also called it an effective working instrument, and so it is, I believe, in that it provides the essential Community legal, organizational and financial framework for putting this measure into effect in the interest of the best possible management of the single market.
In this spirit, the Commission aims to make 'Customs 2000' a preferred instrument for the effective implementation of the reform of transit which, as you know, it intends undertaking in the near future.
The text before you contains various improvements sought by the European Parliament.
Let me draw attention to four crucial points: the acknowledgment of the need to complete the internal market with a view to achieving, in future, a genuine - I can only use the original term, Mr von Wogau - Heimatmarkt ; the desire for the Community's twelve-star symbol to be worn on customs officers' uniforms; the need to define common criteria at Community level to guide the operations of the customs services; and, lastly, the clear commitment by the Member States to provide the programme with the financial resources necessary for its implementation and, in particular, to complete computerization of transit by 1998 at the latest.
The Commission, for its part, will make sure it uses the legal and financial basis that it has been given to the best possible advantage, in order to achieve the objectives assigned to it by the joint Decision of Parliament and the Council.
The statement which the Commission included in the report on the Decision - designed to promote the development of long-term exchanges of officials - is the first example of this.
The assessment reports which will be forwarded to you will enable you to judge how seriously this commitment is being taken.
Lastly, I am grateful for the kind words that have been said about the Commission.
I am pleased to say that this is an important event in terms of the substance of the single market, its identity and, as has been stressed, the effectiveness of institutional mechanisms which, albeit complex, have shown that, when used properly, they can give good results.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Constitutional status of political parties
The next item is the report (A4-0342/96) by Mr Tsatsos, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the constitutional status of the European political parties.
Mr President, wherever public authority is exercised, there too legitimation and control are required.
That is a prerequisite and an imperative for democracy.
However, while the exercise of public authority used to be a monopoly of the national state, in the context of our progress towards European union an unprecedented agency of public authority has been created, namely the European Union.
However, neither the legitimation nor the control of the new European authority should be the job of European citizens in isolation.
Citizens act effectively, mainly through political parties.
It is parties that are the appropriate organizational forms for the expression of collective will and for the embodiment of that will in the institutions.
National parties are and will remain the main agencies for the legitimation and control of those who represent the Member States in the Union's bodies.
In parallel, however, the European political process recognises European political parties.
These are essential for the process of integration itself, for the legitimation of the Union's constitutional bodies and for the transparency of political practices.
Article 138a of the Treaty is a historic point of departure since it validates European political parties as an institution of the Union's established order and a definitive factor both for the further progress of European integration and for its reliance on the trust of Europe's citizens.
Of course, European political parties already exist, but they are at the first stage of their development and they are rather like umbrella associations.
The future will bring out new organizational forms of parties that will be able to cope with future political developments.
They are therefore institutions in the process of historical development.
Our debate is taking place at a time when the significance of parties and more generally, politics, is being called into question.
However, such questioning is ultimately a questioning of Democracy itself.
The time has come to react against this, and that is what my report attempts to do.
The report aspires to be the second major step along the path laid open by those who framed Article 138a.
That article, however, must be implemented still further.
It would make an important contribution towards credibility and the securing of legitimacy if that further implementation were based on two authorizing orders, as additions to Article 138a, for the adoption of a regulatory framework for the legal status, rights and obligations of European political parties, and a corresponding framework for their economics.
I will deal with those two subjects separately:
First, regarding the constitutional aspect, it is fundamental to an understanding of the measures proposed in my report, to see them as principles defining a framework - and I repeat the word - a framework.
Secondly, the draft decision proposes the adoption of a number of characteristics that must coincide in any political union if it is to be capable of fulfilling the mission described by Article 138a and thereby justify its status as a European party.
With these conceptual characteristics we are not attempting to define what a party is, precisely so that what happens to be true today will not stand in the way of future developments.
The clarification we seek serves the aim of securing legitimacy and transparency.
That is exactly why the draft decision specifies that the political association should be active in at least one-third of the Member States.
That is why we speak of the purpose of the political association, which must be to participate in the European Parliament.
And finally, that is why it is stressed that the political party is not an extension of the parliamentary groups but an autonomous political body that operates close to the citizens, close to the grass roots.
The draft decision mentions the rights of European citizens.
This should not be misunderstood.
For example, the right of parties to receive equal treatment is not essentially a right that the party claims for its own sake, but indirectly, though quite clearly, a right due to the citizens.
It is they who must be enabled to develop their role through the political parties, under conditions of equality.
Finally, the draft decision also speaks of the obligations of parties.
This too should not be off-putting.
For example, when we require parties to have a programme and an organizational statute accessible to public opinion, but especially when we require them to be democratically organized, we are doing no more than to safeguard the political rights of our citizens.
And now, I come to the burning issue of the finances of European political parties.
The provision of funding by parliamentary groups to the parties is a process that cannot continue.
Such economic support should only be permitted for party activities directly related to Parliament and the parliamentary group.
However, there is no legal base for such funding to be provided for other party activities unrelated either to Parliament or the parliamentary group.
That is why the draft decision includes a call from Parliament to the Union's legislature to establish an act embodying the following principles: that there should be a clear legal base; that there should at last be absolute transparency concerning all sources of finance; that the funding system should not preclude the foundation of new parties; and finally, that fair criteria should be laid down.
The decision I am proposing is not, of course, the future act itself.
It merely outlines directions, draws attention to sensitive areas, establishes frameworks, and underlines the role that Parliament should aspire to for itself.
Looking towards future developments but without pre-empting them on the basis of experience to date, the European Parliament should defend a policy to secure development of the institution of the European party, despite the many attacks to which that institution is subject.
We would like the Intergovernmental Conference to adopt our ideas and proposals.
We call for dialogue with the European Commission concerning the next steps, and this, regardless of what the IGC decides.
The way towards the creation of European political parties must remain open.
Whoever denies it will be answerable to history.
There is no point in trying to guess today what the IGC is likely to decide.
We, as Members of the European Parliament, have the historic duty to insist, as the mandate of our peoples , that this is needed for the sake of Democracy.
It is that historic duty with which my report is concerned.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is exactly five years to the day since the Maastricht European Council took the decision to recognize the European political parties.
Since then, however, nothing has happened apart from this report by Mr Tsatsos, on which I warmly congratulate him, and a few efforts by those currently in positions of responsibility in the existing European parties.
No actual measures have been taken.
The Commission and the Council have remained silent, despite the political will - and I remain convinced that the political will on 9 December 1991 was strong, I felt it - which was expressed by the Heads of State and Government who met that day in Maastricht.
Along with the other group leaders, I have today received Parliament's legal recommendations, which indicate that we cannot take any legislative decision on recognition for the European political parties except under Article 235a of the Treaty, which requires unanimity in the Council of Ministers.
So neither Parliament nor the European Union has any powers to regulate the constitutional position of the European political parties.
A number of objections have been raised and people are very suspicious, claiming that we just want a large amount of money to organize election campaigns for the European political parties, but that is not our intention.
We are not asking for more money.
The fact is that the current European political parties are far too dependent on the parliamentary groups, and this is not a healthy state of affairs.
What we are asking for today is a transparent funding system - not more money, but a transparent, public funding system with open accounting and controls.
Mr Tsatsos has stated quite plainly in his report that we must draw a distinction between the parliamentary groups here in the House and the European political parties.
The parties have their own role to play in society, providing information, organizing public debate and, above all, organizing political education at European level.
If they are to be able to perform this constitutional task, the parties must meet certain fundamental criteria.
Mr Tsatsos lists them: they must have an organizational statute and a basic political programme which are freely accessible to the citizens of Europe. They must respect the fundamental principles of the Union Treaty: democracy and respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Their internal political decision-making must be democratic, and all the citizens of the European Union must be able to express their political will in this process.
That is why the PPE Group is very much in favour of allowing individual membership, and we have tabled an amendment to this effect.
But we also think that decisions in the European parties must be taken by majority voting.
Both of these - individual membership and majority decision-making - have already been introduced in the European People's Party.
There are now a number of decisions to be taken.
Having read the legal recommendations this afternoon - I received them this afternoon, but they are dated 27 November - I am now more convinced than ever that a second paragraph needs to be added to Article 138a of the Treaty, as Mr Tsatsos and a number of governments have proposed, specifying that legislation may be adopted in accordance with the codecision procedure.
I am quite sure that we shall not get anywhere if we do what is proposed in paragraph 2 of the resolution.
If we really wish to make progress, we must take account of the decisions reached at the Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam.
Speaking for our group, I shall be taking the necessary steps to try to persuade the government leaders from our political family to introduce the new paragraph, otherwise we shall never get anywhere.
But it is to Mr Tsatsos' credit that, five years on, he has finally managed to bring the debate back on course.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Tsatsos report on the constitutional status of European political parties does not deserve my group's approval, as we already made clear in the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
From a political viewpoint, the reasons for our disagreement are mainly focused on the principle that it is vital neither to dilute nor to diminish the responsibility of the Member States in the construction of Europe.
Members of the European Parliament are representatives of each Member State of the European Union and, within that institution, join the political groups on the basis of partisan affinities.
These groups have come to function as political parties on a European scale, and have even been able to include regional members, some of them elected by regional parties.
But there is no legal basis for establishing a constitutional status for European political parties, since if it did exist and function that could even create disputes and uneasiness in the various Member States and possibly come up against insuperable hurdles in the constitutional field.
Practice to date has a number of years behind it at the European Parliament, although certain aspects of it could admittedly be improved. It seems to be the wisest approach and so far there have been no major controversies.
Participation, after all, by Members from different countries in these political groups, set up within the European Parliament, has been carried out with considerable freedom of expression, enabling Members to speak out against the majority view of a given group, something that would prove difficult in a structure and practice of a unified European political party, which would undoubtedly imply far greater strictness and the requirement of rigid obedience to a party line. It would bring with it all the formality of party principles and political discipline.
It is far easier to achieve greater proximity between electors and their elected representatives, an important cause of this parliament, when candidates stand for national or regional party lists than it would be if ever they stood for European political parties.
Another major reason for which we disagree with this idea is related with another issue raised in the Tsatsos report, that of Community funding, which must be transparent and non-discriminatory.
Furthermore, to oblige Members of the European Parliament, the elected representatives of their countries and the members of exclusively national parties, for the purpose of receiving Community funding to join groups that do not respect the causes for which they were elected would be an act of violence and a contradiction that Europe, the pioneering defender of democracy, should never and will never defend.
If ever it opted for such an approach it would definitely regret it one day.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to congratulate Mr Tsatsos not only on producing such a thorough report, but also for being so receptive to the arguments and amendments put forward by his colleagues in the committee. My group will be voting in favour of the resolution, for two reasons.
Firstly, we think it is a good idea that the European political parties should be given a stronger constitutional position than they have enjoyed up to now, and that their position should be firmly anchored in the Treaty.
We also think it is extremely desirable to establish a clear and unassailable legal basis for the Community funding provided for the parties.
I would point out here, to make our position quite plain, that the ELDR Group is by no means in favour of increasing the subsidies provided, but would like to see greater openness, transparency and legal certainty.
Finally, I would ask the House to support three amendments that we have retabled.
The first concerns what we see as the vital need for a balance between subsidies and own resources.
The second, which has also been signed by Members from other groups, concerns individual membership, and the third is on the need to adopt a uniform electoral system based on proportional representation, and a uniform statute for all Members of the European Parliament.
Finally, I hope that the seeds sown by the Tsatsos report will produce a flourishing political life in Europe.
Mr President, in my Group there is a difference of opinion about this report, which will be voiced at today's sitting.
Our Group is international, with ideological roots, and is not answerable to an existing European party; in terms of programme and policy, it is a left-leaning compromise, a confederal Group in which the decisions of national parties, and their ability to transfer their views to the House, are fully respected.
Bearing all this in mind, I am going to give the opinion of those of us who are in favour of including the development of Article 138a in the Intergovernmental Conference.
If we believe that there is a European society and European democratic institutions, if there is a European democratic fabric, if we want citizenship to have constitutional status in the framework within which we are working, if there is an expression of views in a European Parliament, then it seems reasonable to recognize the presence of those European political parties which already exist and any which aim to do so - on the basis of equal opportunities and in the knowledge that, at all events, the formation of the European political will via these parties complements the formation of that political will in the national parties and the Member States.
We therefore agree that the Intergovernmental Conference should discuss the matter and that it should be the subject of European Union legislation: the framework regulation which has already been mentioned, to give the European political parties that constitutional and legal status, and a regulation to ensure transparency and control in respect of financing.
Mr Tsatsos' report is so flexible that it explicitly acknowledges that such European political parties, however set up and bearing in mind the multinational nature of whatever form they may think appropriate, may object to the existence of programmes and actions with a European dimension.
It is therefore an approach which we have to approve at this important moment in the political construction of Europe, in which citizens must give their views, take part, and be able to shape the political will in its European dimension.
Mr President, it is traditional in the House to thank and congratulate the rapporteur.
I regard that as a fine custom.
The only problem is that it then becomes difficult to compliment a rapporteur in a special and personal way for a special report.
That is what I should like to do in this case.
I had been expecting a technocratic report on the formation and financing of parties, and find instead a report that situates itself within a constitutional debate and asks the crucial question: the question of sovereign power in the process of European integration, the question of citizenship, and thus of how to legitimize European integration.
I regard that as a key question.
Parliament is now at last resuming a role in the constitutional debate.
That is why I congratulate the rapporteur. And that is why we shall vote in favour of the report.
The Greens regard the process of creating a constitution in the EU as the greatest political challenge, and we are very sorry that the Intergovernmental Conference is taking no initiatives along these lines.
This brings me to a possible objection which has already been mentioned: precisely because the report has such a fundamental constitutional ambition, we believe that it is in fact necessary to seek an amendment to the Treaty, and not to remain outside the Intergovernmental Conference.
Another objection - which has also been mentioned already - concerns the question of individual membership.
Particularly because European integration today is caught between a resurgence of nationalism on the one hand and the emergence of a supranational technocracy on the other, individual membership is a very important symbol of the formation of the European citizenship that I referred to.
I also believe that it should be possible to hold membership outside the EU, because Europe reaches beyond the EU and this would be a way of demonstrating our openness and the invitation that we extend to the rest of Europe.
Otherwise, we are very grateful for the report, and I should like once again to express my appreciation for the fact that, after years in which the constitutional debate had been abandoned and failed to move forward, this discussion has now been started.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, without political parties there can be no democracy.
Up to now, despite Article 138a of the Treaty, in reality parties exist only at the level of the Member States.
At European or international level, they are merely confederations of national parties.
The only exception is the groups within the European Parliament, and they, of course, are something entirely different.
However, these groups include only elected members.
There was therefore something missing at Union level.
This gap has now been filled to perfection by the excellent report by Mr Tsatsos on the constitutional status of European political parties.
It is indeed time that we had European political parties that are recognized as such by the public and by our institutions.
They will generate greater clarity in our debates, and greater transparency in the way in which political life is funded.
However, we must take care not to impose limits that are too restrictive with regard to the number of nationalities needed in order to form such parties, because otherwise we shall run the risk of destroying some of their dynamism.
Yet if this democratic structure is to be perfect, there are three aspects which will have to be supplemented.
First of all, this House must adopt a parliamentarian's statute.
Secondly, the uniform electoral system that Parliament adopted in 1993 must be implemented.
Thirdly, it must be possible for people to have individual membership of the European parties, if we do not want the present system of umbrella organizations for national parties to continue.
It is only by adopting these measures that the Union will experience democratic political life that is worthy of Europe and of its citizens.
Mr President, the proposal to establish a status for European political parties appears to us to be without any legal basis and without any fundamental justification.
This is the position that we have defended within the Committee on Institutional Affairs, and we should like to thank the rapporteur for having quoted our arguments in the body of his report.
As far as the legal basis of this project is concerned, we cannot find one either in Article 138a of the Treaty, which was evidently not intended to set up parties that are 'specialized' in European affairs, or in Article 142, which merely enshrines the right of this House to organize its work, or in Article 235, which obviously could never be used to revise the Treaty.
Should this situation be remedied at the Inter-governmental Conference or at any other time? We think not.
The question, in fact, is one of how to form political will at European level.
The rapporteur seems to prefer the directly expressed voice of 380 million citizens, in the context of, if not a European state, then at least an entity that is 'constitutional' in nature, to use a term that is used on several occasions in the report, in a somewhat provocative manner, admittedly, but fortunately without any legal impact.
We, on the other hand, believe that there is no such thing as a European people.
In order to avoid confusion, and to prevent undemocratic methods of government, political life in Europe should be organized first and foremost in groups at national level, and those groups should then participate in the operation of the European institutions, via their representatives.
This is why we do not think it advisable to amend the Treaty in order to establish a status for European political parties or, even worse, to finance those artificial parties from Community funds.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, democracy is based on the approval of the people from day to day. In particular, democracy organizes itself in the process of opinion-forming through political parties.
This European-style political model has developed in all the Member States of the EU.
But there has been scarcely any development of genuinely European party structures.
What is the situation today? Firstly, the EU is like a Ferris wheel: on the one hand it is in the ascendant, as reflected in the number of countries that are seeking membership; but at the same time, on the other hand, it is going down, as reflected by the increase in nationalistic tendencies.
European parties must provide answers through a type of politics that is original to Europe and not merely based on the lowest common national denominator.
The whole - that is the European parties - must be greater than the sum of the parts.
Secondly, since 1994 there has been EU electoral legislation for the European Parliament, and since 1995 for local elections.
We must build upon that civic foundation.
I would ask, for example, what chance Greek, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian nationals have of being selected by German parties as candidates for election to municipal and local councils? The answer in many cases would be: a slim one.
I would ask how European party membership works, for example, if a French Socialist Party member from Lille moves to Germany? Does he automatically become a member of the SPD?
The answer is: normally not, because there are no rules for such a situation.
In making these points, I am being consciously self-critical. We in the social democratic parties need to start moving, and the same goes for Christian Democrats, Liberals and Greens.
We all need to become more open and to dismantle the structures we have inherited.
The fact is that European parties will not create themselves.
They will only come into being if we wish to see them do so, and if we develop programmes and push ahead with the day-to-day work.
The report by our colleague, Dimitri Tsatsos, is an excellent platform from which to start.
Mr President, the rapporteur and other speakers have expressed two concepts:
The first, was to characterize Article 138 as something historic.
In our view it is an article which, from first to last, is unclear - and deliberately so - in order to conceal ulterior motives.
The second concept was that coincidentally, we are debating this issue at a time when the parties are in crisis.
But the question is: is the crisis of the parties due to a lack of European parties, or is it due to the fact that the parties are involved and entangled with major economic interests and under the thrall of those interests, which they serve? There is no time to go into that further.
The third thing I want to say, Mr President, is that the analysis presented by the report with its splendid constitutional, democratic and liberal expressions, is full of 'oughts' and 'ought-nots' , about how parties should be founded, how they should operate and what prerequisites they should satisfy.
All these are added constraints which make it more difficult to found parties freely according to the wishes of the citizens, instead of making it easier.
And there is a suspect point concerning the funding of parties.
Consider Parliament's present composition and the previous one.
One or two groups, one or two parties will take the lion's share of the funding, to the cost of the other, smaller ones.
Mr President, for those and many other reasons I have no time to go into, we will not back the report.
And I say this with regret, because Mr Tsatsos is an eminent academic, teacher, constitutional expert, and a good friend. But friendlier still is the truth which proclaims that this report and its ulterior aims do not help the situation, the interests of our peoples, especially when the decisions of those parties are to be developed by majorities and when certain majority decisions will be tyrannically imposed.
Mr President, as the elected representative of a national party, I am involved in the work of the Party of European Socialists because I take the view that parliamentary life needs the European political dimension in the same way as a fish needs water.
I do not feel that the existence of a European party is contradictory to the existence of a national party, and I believe the existence of a European party to be the necessary extension of national parties when it comes to European issues. This is why I welcome the report by Mr Tsatsos as an importance policy document in the run-up to the Inter-governmental Conference.
The problem, Mr President, is obviously the question of how these European parties should be connected.
I believe that it would be relatively easy to establish connections between parliamentary groups in the European Parliament on the one hand and European parties on the other. We want to have transparency in relations between the parliamentary groups and the European parties, in both decision-making structures and financial structures, and I agree with Mr Martens that the European parties do not need any additional financing.
They simply need more transparency.
The problem arises at the level of the connection between the party machines and the public.
At that point, the European parties are essentially machines.
They have structures, and at this point I should like to correct Mr Martens when he claims that nothing has happened since 1992.
The Party of European Socialists has adopted statutes, and has formed a union of parties, a Party of European Socialists. I also agree with Mr Rothley when he says that there is nothing to stop the European parties or the national parties from continuing to carry out their own initiatives with regard to European awareness.
In my own party, the Luxembourg Socialist Party, - and I give this as an example, Mr President, because I think it is an interesting one - we give every socialist who is not from Luxembourg but who comes to Luxembourg the right to be a member of the Socialist Party, without any charge, without any additional subscription.
This is a right that we provide and I believe that there are many initiatives that could be taken along these lines, by the national parties, in order to develop European awareness. Mr Schäfer has quoted other examples.
I therefore believe that the Tsatsos report is an essential report for the subsequent development of European parties, something that we are wholeheartedly in favour of.
Participation in the institutional system
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, there is a blatant inaccuracy and, if you will, an injustice.
Mr Howitt states that fellow-countrymen of his, lorry drivers, are being prevented from returning home - especially now as Christmas is approaching - by the tractors of farmers who, in their struggle for survival, have blocked off a number of roads.
The truth is that whenever those drivers want to get by, they are let through, and not only this, but because there is some disturbance and difficulty about feeding them, special meals are prepared for them so that they can leave and return to their countries as calmly and quietly as possible.
I therefore ask for correction of that unjust comment against farmers who have been literally struggling for their livelihoods for the last ten days.
The order of business makes no allowance for debate on that subject.
Mr President, the Minutes make reference to the somewhat intemperate intervention by Mr Niall Andrews yesterday afternoon concerning the case of Miss McAliskey who is awaiting extradition to Germany, charged with complicity in a mortar attack in Osnabrück.
Miss McAliskey is currently in an all-women prison - Holloway.
She is pregnant and has received full medical check-ups.
I can report to the House that her condition is reported to be excellent.
She has received extremely good care and I absolutely reject the intemperate comments made by Mr Andrews in his intervention yesterday.
(Applause )
Mr President, in connection with what Mr Howitt said yesterday regarding the case in Greece, I can confirm that it is not only English drivers who are hostages in this Greek game.
There are also Danish drivers who have been 'imprisoned' and who are receiving unbelievably bad treatment.
I would therefore ask you, as a Greek and as a Parliamentary President, to write a letter to the Greek government and demand that citizens of the Union be treated properly.
Mr Blak, I do not think we can talk about the farmers' demonstrations in Greece, which are of course creating various problems that affect both Greek and foreign drivers.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Decision on urgency
Mr President, the Council also submitted this request for urgent procedure concerning mutual assistance between the administrative authorities of the Member States at the November part-session.
At that time, we rejected it.
No new element has emerged since then.
Nor have we heard anything from the Council.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has therefore decided to reject the request for urgent procedure once again.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Mr President, the Committee on Fisheries has decided to accept the Council's request for urgent procedure.
Mr President, as rapporteur I would like to put the following viewpoint, which coincides with that of the Commission: in the first place, I believe that a proposal for a Council Regulation laying down technical measures must satisfy certain minimum basic requirements, a broad scientific foundation, wide agreement and acceptance, dialogue with the sector and the recognition and support of interested sectors.
This is how I started to work, but the response of the chairman of our committee to this method of operation, which was certainly the right one, was to apply Article 146(4) to me and impose a deadline for presentation of the report.
In addition, the Council of Ministers has been urging us on and applying pressure by submitting a first, and now a second, request for urgent procedure.
My response - so that I should not be held responsible for any delay - was to submit a full and wide-ranging report, and that of the Committee on Fisheries - likewise so that it should not be held responsible for the Council's inability to take a decision - was to vote to reject the Commission's proposal.
This Parliament should know that we are now agreed on the urgent procedure, but we are agreed on it in order to reject the Commission's proposal.
This is a way of working hard and fast but in a destructive manner.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Yes, Mr President, we rejected this request for urgent procedure.
We shall deal with this under the usual procedure at the January partsession.
The Committee on Agriculture is therefore opposed to this request for urgent procedure.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Mr President, I should firstly like to say something to the Commission and the Council.
I welcome the fact, moreover, that the President of the Commission is present.
Recently, we have been working more and more often under increasingly difficult conditions, and the Commission and Council's consultation times have been getting increasingly short.
In the case of the preparations for the Dublin summit, it even went so far that we were not consulted until the day that we had to vote in committee.
It is not normally possible to work under such conditions.
The same applies to the present case.
Once again, we were consulted extremely late, and we had to deliver an opinion in the utmost haste yesterday evening.
I wish to say that in the future, we shall no longer be prepared to work in such a way, and that next year, we shall no longer be accepting such requests for urgent procedure.
Since it is a question of the alcohol regime in the Scandinavian countries, however, this being an exceptionally important matter in which specific regional factors are involved, and since a legal loophole will arise if we fail to take a decision during this part-session, I am in favour of approving this request for urgent procedure.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
As you said, Mr President, the report was adopted unanimously yesterday evening.
The Committee on Agriculture therefore supports this request for urgent procedure.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Commission's 1997 work programme and previous year's legislative programme
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Commission's programme of work for 1997 and evaluation of the legislative programme for the previous year.
Mr President, President Santer, ladies and gentlemen, back in October's debate on the Commission's annual programme for 1997, we raised a number of issues of method and timing: these concerned the procedure and schedule for the presentation to the House of the annual budget, the programme of work and the legislative programme of the Commission.
Since that time, the European Parliament has amended its Rules of Procedure so as to provide a better definition of Parliament's role in the process of drawing up the legislative programme, taking account, what is more, of the fact that the Commission is established as a result of a vote investing it by the European Parliament.
We therefore consider this debate, in which we are both evaluating implementation of the 1996 programme and approving the main lines of the 1997 legislative programme, to be extremely important.
It will be more important still if it helps consolidate the close relationship between Parliament and the Commission. That relationship should increasingly resemble the kind of relationship that exists between parliament and the executive, and a fundamental requirement for this is that we should share the same political will, ensure that information is rapidly provided, implementation is swift and that Parliament is able to exercise its supervisory powers transparently and with ease, as provided for by the code of conduct adopted on 15 March 1995.
This is a relationship that Parliament wants to see strengthened.
If we are unable to be absolutely satisfied with the implementation of the Commission programme for 1996, the main area of concern has to be this relationship, particularly as regards a number of problems of timing and scheduling we encountered in reviewing dossiers sent by the Commission to Parliament.
Since it provides an opportunity for further reflection, this debate too ought perhaps to be subject to further assessment of a regulatory nature because the House itself ought better to prepare - and not just through the procedure for reaching agreement between the political groups - its resolution approving the Commission's legislative programme, if it wants to see the Commission acquire a stronger institutional profile.
Turning to the substance of the programme, in the time that remains to me, I shall focus on just one issue, given that other honourable Members will subsequently be taking up other points.
That issue is, plainly and quite naturally, the visibility of the Union to the outside world, to quote President Santer.
As time passes, this issue becomes increasingly more serious and increasingly difficult to resolve.
Events follow swiftly on one another and, gradually, as this happens, Europe's role seems to become increasingly marginal.
During this sitting, we shall also be discussing the situation in Serbia.
It sometimes look as if the Dayton accords will end up being a kind of alibi for Europe, inasmuch as we take the view that a strong commitment to civilian reconstruction, particularly of the democracies within Europe, although necessary, is not our prime task.
Here too, we are asking the Commission to be bold and positive in taking an initiative.
Mr President, even if formally unexceptionable, within this Parliament, the interinstitutional declaration on democracy, transparency and subsidiarity is becoming very much open to criticism in terms of its ability to translate fine words into deeds.
The programme for 1996 has been implemented to a very limited degree only if you bear in mind that by the end of November the European Parliament had received just five of the 19 legislative proposals announced by the Commission.
How can we think of constructing the new Europe if, in most sectors, the Commission seems to be abandoning its own institutional role as the driving force for action by the Union, and it is plain that the Council does not have a consistent political strategy, as it blocks the various sectors involved in the legislative programme, the budget and the legal bases?
We have to make an effort to implement and complete the 1997 legislative programme; we need to fight unemployment through a range of effective policies able to promote the competitiveness of industry in the Union, regional, transport and environmental policy, a real effort to complete the internal market and identify an investment policy apt to stimulate economic activity; we need to fight fraud; the Commission must put a stop to shortcomings or abuses on the part of a Member State by suspending payments, recovering sums illegally obtained and imposing the requisite penalties.
We have to have the courage to look again at the question of waste, to review the agreements concluded with third countries which do not contain specific rules and guarantees on democracy and respect for human rights; we must support a proposal for a directive on waste management plans and domestic waste in particular; we must encourage the fight against rampant organized crime, reinforce cooperation between the Member States and promote international organizational initiatives.
Mr President, I believe that the political groups are more or less in agreement in delivering a negative verdict on the manner in which the Commission carried out its programme for 1996.
Unfortunately, this consensus does not exist in respect of the evaluation of the programme for 1997.
With regard to the programme for 1996, it is also necessary to underline the Commission's total lack of determination vis-à-vis the Council.
The blocking of a whole series of decisions within the Council poses an enormous problem for Parliament: 168 dossiers awaiting a final decision - that is a great many; a further 83 awaiting a common position - and no Commission initiatives in this respect.
In our view, that is unacceptable.
With regard to the programme for 1997, it must be said that the Commission is proposing a very low profile for the European Union in relation to the issues at stake, which are clear to all our citizens - whether as regards employment policy, the environment, citizenship or the role which the Union must play on the world stage.
Yesterday, an international conference bringing together the various signatory states to the statutes of the World Trade Organization began in Singapore.
The Commission has been given an ambitious mandate, but I have doubts as to the results that it will achieve.
I do not have much faith in the Commission's determination in this respect.
For all these reasons, our group considers that the joint motion for a resolution which has been signed by a number of groups is characterized by weakness.
You cannot criticize what has been done, deplore what has not been done, and then approve the Commission programme.
That is quite unacceptable.
This is why we do not subscribe to this text, and we have tabled our own, far stronger motion for a resolution.
Mr President, Mr Santer, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, I can only endorse what Mr Lannoye and other colleagues have just said.
We note a great many shortcomings in the implementation of the 1996 programme and, like others, we are unable to endorse the resolution which the large political groups wish to see adopted, which restricts itself to approving the outline of the Commission's programme and supporting that institution in its role as a driving force.
And this is precisely the point, Mr Santer, that I wish to draw to your attention.
To judge by the work programme which you have presented, I believe that the Commission is seriously failing in its role as a driving force.
It is not with six or seven pages of good intentions - skipping over everything that is not working, failing to state clearly that, with regard to the confidence pact, for example, the Council does not support you, and that in many other areas, the European project has reached a serious deadlock - it is not by avoiding these issues and refusing to put them on the table for discussion, by renouncing, in fact, your role as a driving force, that you will take the process of European integration forward.
You rightly say that we must make progress with the major dossiers.
But it is you who must provide the necessary impetus.
If you fail to do so, you will perhaps secure a resolution which says 'All is well, your ladyship' , but that is not what will take Europe forward - and the consequences will be very serious for the future of this European Union, in which we all believe so strongly.
This is why we refused to support the text that will be put to the vote tomorrow - simply in order to give you the opportunity to do better, to do more, and to give the Commission back its rightful role.
We hope to see you return one day with a work programme other than this one which, in our view, is inadequate and falls well short of our expectations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the Commission's work programme, we always find the same generalities about the European Union's objectives: promoting the creation of jobs; preserving the European model of society; strengthening Europe's presence on the international stage; preparing for the challenges of the future - as if ritual incantations could turn hopes into reality.
You would think that you were in France, where a television appearance by the President of the Republic is supposed, by the power of the word alone, to change an economic disaster into prosperity, an unpopular government into a model of efficiency, and a party made rotten by the corruption of its leaders into a movement of the future celebrating its twentieth anniversary.
Let us consider those celebrated objectives.
In 1992, when there was a need to persuade France to vote in favour of the Maastricht Treaty, Jacques Delors predicted that the European Union would generate ten million jobs, just as it was predicted that the creation of the single market would bring prosperity.
Unfortunately, reality rarely corresponds to the wishes of those in power.
Today, there are officially 22 million unemployed people in Europe, as a result of unrestrained free trade with the rest of the world and the forced march towards a monetary utopia.
Indeed, you regard the euro as the principal weapon for combating unemployment.
In France, thankfully, the debate has just been reopened, thanks to the remarks - for once - of Mr Giscard d'Estaing.
A large number of Members of Parliament applauded him when he criticized current policy.
The media are increasingly critical of your plans.
Suddenly, the general public - which you view with such scorn, except when it is a question of indoctrinating it - is beginning to wonder.
The fact that Mr Chirac rushed to renew his allegiance to Chancellor Kohl and reassure him that France would not leave the straight and narrow path of the euro-mark changes nothing.
The introduction of the single currency will not guarantee prosperity, jobs or even economic strength.
Wealth can create a strong currency.
A currency cannot create wealth.
Thus you are destroying each day a little more of the model of society that you claim to defend.
Under the guise of harmonization, you will destroy social security.
Under the guise of improving competitiveness, you will call into question the protection of workers and the labour regulations of the different Member States.
On the pretext of the need for competition, you are destroying public services.
In fact, the dogma of global free trade is forcing you to reduce wages and social protection to third world levels, as is tirelessly demonstrated by Maurice Allais, my country's economics Nobel laureate.
We do not want a Europe which sacrifices people and social progress to the economy and the financial appetites of a handful of multinationals!
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37 of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, 1997 is a critical juncture in terms of setting the future guidelines for cohesion and the regional policy of the EU.
On behalf of my group I would like to make a few brief points on this area.
In the light of all the problems we have had with ineffective implementation, I would like to see the Commission work more strongly on publicizing best practice - good models of using funds effectively.
In terms of the cohesion report, I would like to point to the need for an ongoing evaluation of how other Community policies are supporting the objective of economic and social cohesion.
It is clear that in some of our areas and weak regions where structural funds come into play, they are at risk of being cancelled out, for example, by CAP, where it acts as a regressive factor.
We need to begin to audit these policies to make sure we are in line with our own objectives within the Treaty.
We now need to work in earnest to begin the programme of reform for 1999.
I want to thank the Commission for its efforts to meet the deadline for the cohesion report, but I regret that we have not yet had the communication on urban policy which was due to come forward in 1996, and we would like to see that at the beginning of 1997.
What I do believe is lacking is effective coordination in the execution of programme policies.
I would like to see a more concerted effort by the Commission directorates to work closely at all levels, not only between Commissioners but also between policy directorates, to take up the challenges of EMU, enlargement and the future reform of the structural funds.
An internal coordinated approach has to begin in 1997.
Commission directorates must not shy away from a critical appraisal of their own policies and programmes, because only then can we get the right policies and programmes to secure the confidence of our citizens in the long term and after the reform of the funds in 1999.
I also believe that the Commission must not shy away from playing its role as a full partner merely because some Member States are claiming the monopoly on subsidiarity.
The Commission is not a clearing house for policies and the Commission must take forward our structural fund programmes; it must also take forward the territorial and local employment pacts and give direction in this area through concrete actions and coordination activities.
I also believe we now need a full communication on the impact of EMU on regional policies, particularly in the light of the Council's decision on the budget, to cut structural fund payments and to create a false relationship between structural funds, deficit criteria and economic convergence.
I would like to see a communication in 1997 to allow Parliament to take decisions in this vital area of policy.
Mr President, I would like to explain briefly our position regarding the implementation of the 1996 legislative programme and the Commission's work programme for the year 1997; we attach particular importance to the institutional declaration on democracy, transparency and subsidiarity made by this European Parliament and adopted as their own by the Council and the Commission.
We believe, Mr President, that the legislative programme is an indispensable interinstitutional instrument for planning and coordinating Union activities in a transparent manner, and we therefore seek, Mr Santer, an effort in the right direction to achieve these objectives.
We think it essential that the Council should involve itself more closely in the process of programming legislation.
Without closer cooperation between Commission and Council we believe that the result would not be satisfactory.
This is what happened, in part, in 1996, when there were some gaps, which I shall briefly point out, in the interinstitutional programme we are now assessing.
We particularly deplore the fact that, of the 19 legislative proposals announced, only a few reached us.
We agree with the general outlines for implementation of the work programme for 1997. We would like to highlight the institutional role assigned to the Commission as engine of the Union's actions; we would like to draw particular attention to the role of the Commission, which is to table new proposals for legislation presented to Parliament under Article 138b of the Treaty; we believe that there might be far fewer requests from the Council for urgent procedure if the programme planning which we are now debating were improved.
This would enable Parliament to study the proposals more closely.
As for the priorities proposed by Parliament, we believe, on the basis of the position expressed by our Group, that for 1997 they should be set under three major headings: one, employment, growth and greater cohesion; two, the citizens' Europe; and three - of particular importance at the moment - a stronger Union presence in the world.
I would like to say a few words about each of these broad categories.
Regarding employment, growth and greater cohesion, we reaffirm that Parliament's main objective is still to fight unemployment.
We believe that the structural policies must be extended in order to enhance the effectiveness of the drive for greater cohesion, as regards both regional development and research, transport, the environment, industry and the single market.
In particular, we ask the Commission to table a communication on research and employment, which was initially planned for 1996 but could not be carried out.
Finally, under this heading, we also ask the Commission to produce a report for discussion in this Parliament on the financing of infrastructures in Europe, particularly in the context of the 'stability pact' .
Mr President, I am going to try to reflect my group's views on a Citizen's Europe and in particular to single out elements of the EPP motion for a resolution on 1996 and 1997.
President Santer knows full well that we are more than ready to support most aspects of his work and we appreciate the great efforts he is making to put order into the work of the Commission.
We are living in a period when all of us are involved in this great venture, both at European level and in Member States, and we need to implement to the full the legislation we have adopted here in this House and by the Council.
That said, in the words of our own resolution, we consider that the Commission has been too passive in the field of justice and home affairs and we regret in particular that not one of the proposals in the Commission's 1996 work programme has apparently been forwarded to Parliament.
Let me single out - but in no particular order - a few of the subjects that we, the EPP Group, have addressed in recent months.
Firstly, there is the field of asylum policy.
One fully appreciates that many Member States wish to hold the reins themselves.
But there is no getting away from the fact that we are finding it extremely difficult within Europe to discriminate between the political and economic refugees.
In one Member State, for instance, there are some 60, 000 people from outside the Union applying for asylum each year whose applications are still pending and of those - or at least those who have been admitted in the past - maybe only 5 or 10 %, possibly as high as 13 %, are finally admitted.
Whether one agrees or not with the criteria adopted, the fact is that Europe is a Mecca for at least tens of thousands of people, and their hopes and aspirations may well conflict with the needs of our own populations.
Then again, turning to our resolution once more, we have failed to promote harmonization in the use of lists of safe third countries of origin and lists of safe third countries, and it is at least questionable whether Member States are acting in their mutual interest.
I turn now to a further issue and that is the whole question of child abuse and child abduction, to which we are giving great thought.
My colleague Mary Banotti - but not only her - is doing great work in this area.
Child abuse is an issue which has been swept under the carpet, as we know all too well, for perhaps not only a decade but for a whole century - it is that serious.
I do not refer, you understand, to one single Member State - far from it.
But while it may be the prime responsibility of Member States, is there no contribution that we can make here at European level? The horrors of the situation speak for themselves and call for some concerted action.
Again, as regards child abduction, all of us who have constituencies - as in the UK - are likely to have to face the anguish of one or other parent trying to retrieve their child from another country, sometimes against near impossible odds.
That, surely, is a field for closer cooperation.
I leave the issue there.
There are so many other issues which one could discuss but I look forward very much to hearing the President's response.
Mr President, the work programme lists four quite acceptable priorities.
The most important, which is actually mentioned in the introduction to the programme and which I should like to examine in my speech, is to demonstrate that the Union is there to serve all its citizens and that it is an appropriate body to do so.
In this context, the Commission should be supported in its endeavours to secure a European confidence pact.
It would send out a powerful signal to the people of Europe if all those responsible - the Council, the Commission, Parliament and the social partners - committed themselves to achieving the main aims of this pact, and in my opinion the Council is mainly to blame for the lack of progress here, as well as for the fact that the foundations of EMU and of the Union as a whole are now crumbling.
It does not seem to appreciate that every time it blocks Community initiatives such as the confidence pact or incentive programmes for financial or short-sighted national reasons, it is also undermining its most important policy instrument: the Union itself.
I hope that 1997 will bring a breakthrough, and not just at the IGC.
1997 should also be the year when an even balance is finally achieved between a macroeconomic policy focusing on stability and growth and an employment policy focusing on creating jobs. Work on this should start very soon - this weekend, in fact.
The stability pact agreements should prove useful here and should enable the Member States to invest in employment.
Particular attention needs to be given to the 18 million - or in actual fact 30 million - who are out of work.
Too many instruments are currently only reaching those already in work, and I fear that this is where the Commission's focus lies and that too little attention is given to the enormous numbers in the margins who, it is all too often assumed, will somehow automatically find jobs.
Special attention needs to be given to young people here, and I would call on the social partners to assume their share of responsibility at national level by ensuring that training is provided for young people leaving full-time education.
Special attention should also be given to the Member States' failure to use funds which could pay for education and training.
Their readiness to accept this and to allow the money to be used for other purposes should be condemned.
The extent to which the Member States invest in education and training should, to my mind, be one of the main indicators for assessing how the Essen agreements are being implemented.
It should also be one of the main ways of targeting the Structural Funds more specifically on employment.
It is quite ridiculous that the Member States should always be getting more money to build motorways and so on, while at the same time claiming that they cannot afford to invest in education.
I would urge the Commission to put forward some specific proposals in 1997, once the report on the future of social protection has been dealt with.
In particular, I welcome the Commission's plans to focus on the role that social policy can play in establishing economic priorities, which is also to be one of the main themes of the Dutch presidency.
I support the Commission on this, but otherwise I would point out that the work programme does not actually contain any new proposals at all, and is only acceptable provided that the report is followed up with some sound and practical ideas and that active steps are taken to make use of the legacy of previous years.
I would just make one point here: everyone is talking about reduced mobility, but most of the problems stem from the fact that the social protection provided for people working in other countries is completely inadequate.
I would therefore urge, finally, that the proposals which the Commission is shortly to submit should be actively taken forward.
Mr President, I have four comments to make about the Commission's work programme.
I said last time that I found it fairly unambitious and in need of greater impetus, and I will give you four examples of what I mean.
First of all, telecommunications.
We all know that telecommunications, the media, and information and communications technologies are all converging, and I think it is vitally important for the Commission to try to establish some kind of balance in this whole area, because now that we are going to have television without frontiers, and we have to decide what to do about the new providers of services and the question of licences, we do not really know how to set about it all.
I also think that we need a general framework to bring together all the various subjects which now exist in the telecommunications sector.
Funding for a universal service is covered in the interconnection directive, but the definition of universal service is contained in the voice telephony ONP directive.
This is just one example of why we need some kind of framework.
My second example is research and development.
The Council is causing great difficulties about providing extra funding for the fourth framework programme, and the European Parliament has said on a number of occasions that it wishes the funding to be provided.
It is clearly one of the most important instruments in terms of employment in the Union, and this is why I think it is also extremely important for the Commission to issue a communication on the relationship between employment and R&D in the European Union very soon.
Then we can convince the governments during the preparations for the fifth framework programme that the money has to be found.
The third point is taxation, which is an area that is greatly undervalued.
I would suggest that without further harmonization in this field, we are going to encounter major problems with the operation of the monetary union.
These have been greatly underestimated.
The various profit calculation systems used in the Member States will present considerable difficulties for EMU.
The Dutch presidency is trying to ensure that taxation is high on the agenda and is looking at VAT, amongst other things.
It wants to go back to an energy tax and to introduce rules on the transfer of companies' royalties.
I would urge the Commission to use the development of the euro as an opportunity to put taxation high on the political agenda.
The final example is energy.
We are all still at risk from unsafe nuclear power stations.
The Commission's White Paper on energy policy has been adopted, and Parliament has also adopted a resolution stating that the Commission must play a leading role in ensuring that we finally have an action programme to tackle all these unsafe power stations.
I would once again call on the Commission and in particular President Santer to take a firm grip on this whole issue as a matter of urgency.
It would be extremely welcome if the Commission could play a coordinating role here, because this is an area that people need to feel is in safe hands.
Mr President, when presenting the Commission's work programme for 1997 at the October part-session, Mr Santer named as the first of four priorities: ' fostering growth and employment' .
He is undoubtedly right in this respect, since the fact that there are 18 million people out of work is a problem that threatens the social cohesion of the individual Member States and the European Union as a whole.
The Union as such is faced with a challenge, although the main responsibility for employment policy lies with the Member States - and, in this context, above all with the two sides of industry.
Europe's employment strategies have so far met with only modest success.
The Member States do not give adequate support to the endeavours of the Commission and Parliament on this front.
A proposal from the Committee on Budgets could enable the first steps towards the realization of the trans-European networks to be taken.
Under that proposal, funding for a number of the projects would be transferred from category 3 to category 4 of the budget.
I welcome the fact that, in 1997, the Commission intends to promote the measures set out in the confidence pact concerning the reform of employment systems, the adjustment of structural policy and the conclusion of territorial employment pacts.
Monetary union will be a means of bringing about increased employment.
1997 will be a key year in its achievement, in which it will become clear which Member States can participate.
In this context, adhering to the timetable is just as important as fulfilling the criteria of a sound economic and monetary policy.
Only that will create jobs in the long term.
Furthermore, the Commission has announced that, in 1997, it will free from the ice of the European legislative process a number of the proposals which are blocked in the Council.
I would mention just the proposal for a Statute for the European Company.
According to the calculations of the Chiampi Group on the promotion of Europe's competitiveness, the lack of such a statute is costing European industry around ECU 30 billion every year.
In this context, the PPE Group indicates in its motion for a resolution that the rights of participation and codetermination of workers in all companies under European law must be established by mutual agreement of the two sides of industry.
I am hoping for further clarification of the social dimension of the European Union from the conference of Heads of State or Government by the middle of next year, for example through the incorporation of the social protocol into the EU Treaty, the addition of a new employment chapter - whereby I am not, however, reckoning on additional powers for the Community - and the inclusion of a general ban on discrimination and thus provision for the equal treatment of women.
Here too, the Commission can make an important contribution through its work in 1997.
Mr President, 1997 will be a critical year for the European Union.
Currently, all attention and the whole of the debate is focused on the single currency.
If that objective, albeit a useful and important one, continues to be the only - or at least the main - policy, the European Union will get off to a bad start: it will emerge with an imbalance in powers, tilted in favour of the central banks and some governments, and with Europe's citizens left at a distance, because the single currency, although important, does not exactly quicken the pulse of citizens and has, in fact, from the outset been perceived as the cause of certain restrictions.
For those reasons, we have, as a matter of urgency, to be resolute and achieve a better balance in the process, by building on, giving greater prominence to and focusing on another axis on which Europe needs to evolve: development, employment, economic and social cohesion and solidarity towards the more vulnerable regions and sectors of society.
This should be the main concern of the European Parliament and the Commission; it needs to be made coherent - and not just in words.
Let us be honest: the confidence pact that you, President Santer, have proposed, and the regional pacts for employment alongside it, are likely to meet the same fate as Jacques Delors' White Paper.
We have to make sure that they are not just quoted, cited as pieces of literature and stored in libraries but are put into practice and become real priorities.
We have to be clear on this point: let us remember that in recent years, even if the distances separating the Member States have in part been reduced, the differences and disparities between the more vulnerable and the stronger regions have actually become greater, and we have seen more marginalization.
That means that cohesion has still to be a concern for all of us.
Not only the Structural Funds, but all of the Union's policies - agricultural and research policy, the trans-European Networks and transport - as well as national policies must be directed more towards that goal.
We must insist on that approach and be consistent.
And the European Parliament itself must be consistent: for example, at first reading on the budget, when it failed to achieve the majority needed to reject the cuts proposed by the Council, and first and foremost those on the Structural Funds, this was - in my view - a political error, specifically because, as far as the budget goes, its hands were tied in relation to the Council and, to some extent, it accepted the negative message emanating from the Council, namely that this was not the time for development, employment and economic and social cohesion.
Well, we have to make clear that in 1997 these will be the main issues and we shall have to shift the balance between policies accordingly!
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, in terms of the Community's structural policies, the Commission is attaching great importance to 1997.
It is doing so, firstly, because a mid-term review of the Objective I programmes will be carried out next year and, secondly, because an adjustment of these policies will be proposed as part of the programme planning for the Objective II areas for the new period 1997 to 1999.
We hope that, in the process, the wide variety of regional experiences gained with the Structural Funds will be utilized and disseminated.
These experiences are both positive and negative - for example, with regard to the disbursement of funds, because the delays in this respect, whether caused on the ground or by the Commission, are very difficult to explain to the various beneficiaries. But the regions also have experiences regarding efficiency in general.
This relates to both the substance of the development programmes and the streamlining and simplification of procedures and administrative methods.
However, an important element is missing from the Commission's work programme, namely the announcement of a report in 1999 on the forthcoming revision of the Structural Funds during the next planning period from 2000 to 2005, although the debate on this is currently well under way.
Associations, organizations and a number of regions have already adopted a position.
In 1997, Mr Santer, we are hoping - alongside the Commission's usual oral statements - for some suitably clear indications of your institution's thinking.
In my view, the present cohesion report only hints at - and can only hint at - meeting this requirement.
Consideration must be given to the future of the Structural Funds, in good time and without ideological restrictions.
The manner in which the European Parliament participates in this process must be different, in other words more effective than was the case for the previous period, so as to ensure that the Structural Funds do not, for reasons of time, once again have to be rushed through, as occurred in 1993.
Indeed, the evaluation of the programmes and the establishment of the allocation criteria are important tasks - not least of Parliament and in particular its Committee on Regional Policy.
After all, this area accounts for no less than one third of the total Community budget.
I would urge you to include this important point in your work programme for 1997, Mr President of the Commission, so that your thinking can be discussed and thereby influence the joint decision-making in good time.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, there is no one in the House, I believe, who does not regret that your various efforts to do more for employment in Europe have so far either failed or not received the appropriate backing - and we support you in this respect.
Employment policy is surely linked to liberalization policy, though, and the Commission is the standard-bearer of liberalization in Europe, not without good reason.
In my view, therefore, in all our very proper moves towards liberalization, we need to take account of the possible problems or negative consequences to which these moves may give rise.
New jobs will undoubtedly be created, but jobs will also be destroyed.
I come from a small country - but one which is very closely integrated into Europe - where this is perhaps more clearly evident than in many larger countries.
Consequently, it is absolutely vital for the Commission to include the social dialogue - the dialogue with the workforce, with those affected - in all its deliberations, and to make this dialogue a key element of its liberalization and modernization strategy.
We discussed this recently in relation to the white paper on railways, and I welcome the fact that Commissioner Kinnock has promised that such a dialogue will take place.
The same will be necessary with regard to postal services, even if the final decision on this subject has been postponed.
Naturally, there is a great deal of apprehension in this context, and it is important for the Commission and the European Union as a whole to affirm that this modernization process will, as far as possible, be carried out with the agreement of and not in opposition to the workforce in the establishments concerned.
In 1997, even more so than in previous years, the social dialogue must be an essential element of the Commission's work.
I should now like to refer to a second, completely different issue.
Like the European Parliament, the Commission is focusing increasingly on the question of human rights in its consideration of foreign policy and policy on external trade.
In this sense, the Union's stance regarding the human rights situation in Turkey will be an important issue in 1997.
Many of us take the view that the Commission's response to Parliament's efforts to bring increased pressure to bear on Turkey has been far from satisfactory.
However the details may now be settled, Mr President, I urge you to pay particular attention to ensuring that we are not led up the garden path.
We can only meet Turkey's legitimate wishes if those in power in that country pay greater respect to human rights and implement those rights point by point - in practice, as well as in law.
Mr President, I am convinced that this subject, frequently viewed as a marginal part of the debate, could be in fact be further developed because it is a source of major conflict between both the countries of the European Union and between those countries and non-Member States.
The issue of fisheries is so contentious that, in the view of some reliable international commentators, it may become a source of international conflict, as illustrated by the dispute between Canada and Spain.
We therefore need a proposal from the Commission that measures up to the gravity of the situation.
The plans drawn up hitherto by the European Union have on occasion been flimsy and sometimes bureaucratic and difficult to apply.
The result has been to undermine the credibility of the Union in this sector.
In my view, we are also seeing what is now patently unlawful conduct not only in the large-scale but also in small-scale fisheries.
The crisis in the sector is also tending to result in an increase in the misuse of vessels, which are being used for other activities also.
You will perhaps be aware that fishing vessels are being used for drug-trafficking, the arms trade, the transport of illegal immigrants and the dumping of toxic and dangerous waste.
And so there has to be far-reaching change; we need to preserve the biological and environmental balance and, at the same time, take responsibility for the conservation of stocks and for the social issues underlying the crisis in the sector.
In recent years, numbers working in the fisheries sector have fallen dramatically and not even the possibility of reintegrating them into related activities would appear to provide a satisfactory solution.
We have therefore to promote the revival of fisheries on the basis of sustainable fishing; reform of the common fisheries policy is now, Mr President, a question that has to be tackled.
It is not enough simply to encourage aquaculture, to provide for programmes - already in fact discussed by the House - we have also to set ourselves a more positive and a tougher goal.
We need to promote special programmes which will enable fishermen's associations to be genuinely involved - for they should feel responsible for resource management - and allow the regional authorities to participate fully.
Very often, the common fisheries policy is perceived as a bureaucratic policy that has no link with the regional authorities or local fishermen.
In this sector, it is now crucially important that we put into effect the principle of subsidiarity, a principle that is very often paraded in front of us but not in practice applied, provoking a great deal of distrust.
We need also to turn our minds to a concept of integrated development for fishing: in the same way as the concept of rural development has been evolved for agriculture, we should devise a concept of marine activity which includes fishing.
We need to encourage other forms of income for fishermen; we consider it appropriate that there should also be a form of set-aside to allow biological resources to recover and that we have to make fishermen the guardians of the seas.
I have simply tried here to make a number of suggestions to the Commission and a contribution to the discussions it will be holding with the House.
Mr President, today we are continuing the debate which began in October on the Commission's programme of work for 1997.
And we are taking this opportunity to evaluate the legislative programme for 1996.
To begin with, I should like to thank all those speakers who referred to the broad consensus of the political groups in favour of the course of action adopted by the Commission.
I also wish to thank all those whose observations on the Commission's work programme were far more critical.
Those criticisms were made in a constructive spirit, and naturally the Commission will take the greatest possible account of them, in so far as they fall within the scope of the work programme and the policies that Parliament has approved.
Having read again the speeches made in October and listened to a number of honourable Members speak this morning, however, I think that it would perhaps be useful to look once more at the course of action taken by the Commission, in order to remind ourselves of the guidelines it has adopted, taking into account, of course, the European Council's decisions at the Edinburgh summit and the interinstitutional agreement between Parliament, the Council and the Commission concerning the procedures for implementing the work programme, as well as the principle of subsidiarity.
This is the context in which the Commission's work programmes for 1996 and 1997 should be evaluated and assessed.
In this sense, I would remind the House that the Commission's initiatives are essentially based on two main requirements.
Firstly, all new legislative proposals must meet the criteria of rigour, clarity and transparency.
Secondly, the principles of revising existing legislation and making legislative texts more accessible must be applied.
In this respect, the Commission has developed a new simplification procedure, which has been put in place in the field of the internal market under an acronym with which you will be familiar: ' SLIM' .
These measures as a whole - which I shall not elaborate on at present - are the reflection of a new legislative culture, which we also described in the document entitled 'Legislating better in 1995' .
In this context, it is worth pointing out that the Commission's legislative proposals fundamentally comply with the principle of subsidiarity.
The Commission therefore assesses the appropriateness of its actions firstly in terms of their necessity - can the objectives be achieved satisfactorily by the Member States? - and, secondly, in terms of their effectiveness - would the objectives be better achieved at Community level?
Furthermore, I would underline the fact that our proposals, as we perceive them, must take greater account of the objectives being pursued.
In other words, the principle of proportionality remains an essential criterion of the Community's legislative action.
We intend to give effect to this principle, through the framework directive programmes, by establishing common minimum measures on the lines of those laid down for the guarantee fund for consumer goods, the taxation of heavy goods vehicles, takeover bids, and so on.
Another matter which must be mentioned, and which has perhaps been the object of excessive criticism - not today, but in the previous debate - is the use of green and white papers.
We do not draw up green papers for the fun of it!
They are designed to broaden the consultation process in order to include all interested parties: parliamentary opinion, of course, but also the parties affected - the citizens, that is - with a view to drawing conclusions which will subsequently be translated into action plans, directives, regulations and legislative acts.
We have thus published 13 green papers, and I would stress how useful they are.
I shall give just one example which, I believe, is particularly significant.
When we published the Green Paper on monetary union and the single currency, in May 1995, it enabled us to launch a major debate on that subject.
If you read that green paper again, you will see that it contains all the proposals which were presented to Parliament and the Council from 16 October onwards, and which currently form the basis of our discussions.
I could give other examples of the consultation of interested parties - notably as regards the 'motor oil' programme - which demonstrate the usefulness of green papers and their effectiveness in the realization of particular programmes.
In this spirit, I believe that we must welcome the broad consultation of citizens and interested parties which green papers make possible.
I believe that this is essential to democracy, as this is practised in the European institutions, and that we should not underestimate the impact of green and white papers on our citizens.
A further example - and one which has just been mentioned by a number of speakers - is provided by the report on taxation in the Union.
Everyone knows that proposals on taxation and the harmonization of taxation are generally blocked at some stage in the Council.
We sought to reopen the debate by means of a report drawn up on the initiative of Commissioner Monti, with a view to examining the problem of taxation in its entirety and all its complexity.
It is a question not only of direct taxation, but also of indirect taxation and the problems relating to fiscal dumping.
I believe that green papers represent a good means of drawing the attention of an informed public to the complexity of a particular issue and gradually reaching adequate solutions.
I continue to believe that it is through the publication of green papers and reports, through the broader consultation of all citizens, that we shall succeed in interesting the parties concerned in the measures taken at Community level, at the level of the European Union.
Furthermore, Mr President, I am pleased to note that a number of speakers referred to the priorities that we have established.
I wish to thank them.
The priorities set out in our work programme - and which I shall not go over again - can be summarized as follows: fostering growth and employment and preparing for the euro; actively promoting the European model of society; enhancing Europe's presence on the international stage; and preparing for the future by drawing up Agenda 2000.
These, then, are the priorities that must concern us - not only during 1997, but throughout the present Commission's mandate, which expires on 6 January 2000.
In other words, I am sure that, throughout this mandate, we shall be faced with problems relating to those priorities.
The greatest problem - as I have said before on many occasions, and as will be said again tomorrow in the debate on the Dublin summit - is unemployment.
The problem of unemployment is, in my view, fundamental.
Of course, I am the first to recognize that social and economic policies remain the responsibility of the Member States, and that all the Member States are making great efforts to resolve the problems connected with unemployment, to combat unemployment, to create jobs for young people, and so on.
Nevertheless, I continue to believe - I repeat - that a Europe of 15 Member States, endowed with a single market of 370 million consumers, cannot remain uninvolved in issues of national concern.
By pursuing convergent policies at the level of the Fifteen, we shall, I hope, give a multiplier effect, added value, to the efforts of the Member States.
That is the aim of the confidence pact which I launched before Parliament on 31 January this year.
Its object is not to replace the powers and responsibilities of the Member States - the Member States must continue to perform their duties at national level - but to give added value to the Member States' efforts, and to meet the concerns of our citizens, at all levels and in all Member States.
Given that we wish to build a Europe which is close to its citizens, the latter will fail to understand why we do not concern ourselves with their immediate problems.
And it is the problem of unemployment - over and above our citizens' daily concerns - which is undermining our democratic societies.
All the more reason, therefore, for us to tackle this scourge of modern society.
I am well aware that jobs cannot be decreed from Strasbourg or Brussels, but I am convinced that by means of a collective and progressive approach which mobilizes all economic and industrial operators, as well as the two sides of industry - employers and workers - we shall gradually find solutions to the problem of structural unemployment.
It is for this reason that I am committed to the confidence pact, and that, like many of you here, I shall not allow myself to be diverted from the course we have taken, since I believe that we have a contribution to make in this respect.
We must carry out a practical, effective, resolute and determined plan of action.
Similarly - and I shall say this again before the House tomorrow, in the presence of the President-in-Office of the Council - I am expecting a clear and unequivocal message in favour of combating unemployment to emerge from the Dublin summit.
All other talk about a citizens' Europe will be in vain, all other declarations will be futile, if we do not implement practical measures to which our citizens can relate.
I therefore share the concern of all those Members who stressed this aspect of our work, which will remain a priority throughout the present Commission's mandate and until its very end.
I give you that pledge.
A number of other points were made, particularly with regard to monetary union.
I am not among those who believe that monetary union and employment are mutually exclusive.
I have never seen monetary union as an end in itself, but as the instrument of a policy of economic and social development.
We need only look at those Member States which are making drastic budget cuts in order to meet the Maastricht convergence criteria, but which are at the same time increasing employment, whilst complying with the government deficit criteria.
I need only mention Ireland, the Netherlands and Denmark, which are the most notable examples, and which are clearly demonstrating that the efforts to achieve sound public finances do not hinder employment - quite the opposite.
It is by establishing monetary union that we shall encourage the investment that will create future jobs.
This makes clear the fact that we must fight on two fronts: on the one hand, achieving monetary union; and, on the other, creating new jobs, exploiting the full potential of the single market and developing a macroeconomic strategy.
I am pleased to note that, in an event unique in the European Union's history, the two sides of industry have together addressed a joint report to the Dublin European Council, in which they declare their support for the strategy that we have developed for the achievement of monetary union.
This means that the unions and the employers' associations agree with monetary union and the euro.
But they also support our idea of an action plan in favour of employment, which gave rise to the confidence pact.
There is also a need to encourage small and medium-sized enterprises.
This has not been referred to this morning, in the context of the internal market, but I welcome the fact that the proposals for promoting small and medium-sized enterprises set out in our overall programme have met with agreement in the European Council and - for once - are being translated into specific funding by the Council of Ministers. This funding is not, perhaps, as substantial as we would have wished, but a least a specific measure has been adopted in this context.
It should be realized that it is small and medium-sized enterprises - of which there are 18 million in the European Union - which create new jobs.
Consequently, there is a need to adopt a new approach to encouraging these firms.
A number of other matters have been raised.
I referred to the question of taxation, and a number of Members spoke on this subject.
The question of taxation must be considered in all its complexity.
As I said, we cannot allow an area of fiscal dumping to be created within the internal market.
That would be as damaging to the internal market as social dumping.
I am seeking to combat fiscal dumping and social dumping simultaneously.
That is why I sometimes encounter problems with the leaders of certain Member States.
Having said that, Members are right to stress the principles that must guide us in the future if we wish to take maximum advantage of the internal market, the possibilities of which, both economic and political, we have not yet fully explored.
We shall not solve all the problems overnight, but I am attaching a great deal of importance to this in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference, and in the context of the framing of a common foreign and security policy worthy of the name, one which enables the European Union to play its rightful political role on the international stage.
A number of speakers correctly emphasized this point.
In this context, there is also a need to be vigilant with regard to human rights.
This is one of the fundamental principles of all our actions, both inside and outside the European Union.
No trade, cooperation or aid agreement is concluded without the incorporation of a formal human rights clause.
You are right to stress the need to apply and evaluate this clause in relation to a number of countries. I am the first to acknowledge that.
The Treaty has other structural shortcomings which the Intergovernmental Conference must rectify, notably regarding the third pillar.
Parliament is right to be concerned at the inadequacy of our actions under the third pillar, especially - as Members have stressed - as regards the sexual exploitation of children, the fight against organized crime, and the free movement of persons.
It is true that, in this respect, Europe does not project the best possible image of itself to third countries or its own citizens.
Moreover, given that we wish to build a Europe which is close to its citizens, these are precisely the problems to which our citizens are most sensitive: they are being made to feel insecure by the rise of organized crime, as well as by other phenomena which, in some Member States, are going so far as to undermine the foundations of our democratic institutions - such as the sexual exploitation of children.
Real national upheavals are occurring in some Member States.
We must provide an appropriate, positive and effective response to these problems.
I am the first to regret the fact that the Treaty does not yet provide for the effective instruments that are required.
I believe that if we genuinely wish to create an area of freedom and security in Europe, we must have the necessary means at our disposal.
I am pleased to see from the Irish presidency's draft treaty that, in the Intergovernmental Conference, the vast majority of Member States have fully recognized these problems.
They have put forward appropriate proposals aimed at remedying this state of affairs.
The House will always find me at its side when it comes to taking measures in these fields, within the scope of the powers and responsibilities conferred on us by the Treaties.
In another sense, we must prepare for the future - in other words, the year 2000.
And the year 2000 is not a mythical year for the Commission: it is a year towards which we must strive, and for which we must prepare.
In this respect, the Commission is committed to meeting the challenge of enlargement in political terms, as well as to meeting the challenge of reorganizing and restructuring a number of the Community's financial and structural policies in response to the prospect of enlargement.
In the context of the enlargement strategy set out at the Madrid summit, the Commission is committed - and it is currently working on this - to submitting to the Council, following the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference - i.e. in the middle of next year - the financial package known as 'Agenda 2000' . This package addresses the whole range of problems - both those connected with enlargement and those connected with the financial perspectives after 1999 - whilst taking into account the financial implications of the common agricultural policy and the reorganization and restructuring of the Structural Funds, as well as all the other related issues.
This comprehensive package will be submitted to the Council of Ministers, but not before Thursday.
I do not wish to overload the work of the Intergovernmental Conference at present, but after the conclusion of the IGC, this comprehensive package of preparations for the challenges of the year 2000 will be forwarded to both the Council and Parliament.
Members have also referred to a number of other problems, notably as regards health protection.
Naturally, public health requirements and related issues are one of the Commission's main concerns, and they underlie a number of other policies, such as the common agricultural policy.
Indeed, questions such as the mad cow crisis, the problem of genetically modified maize and the fight against tobacco addiction are all issues which relate to health policy.
Obviously, I am unable to respond to all your proposals individually, but I should like to draw your attention to something which - I shall say not offended, as I am never offended - but slightly irritated me a short while ago, when the Commission's role as the guardian of the Treaties was called into question.
I can assure you, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that I firmly believe that it is the Commission's fundamental task to act as the guardian of the Treaties.
I have demonstrated this on many occasions, and you can bear witness to that.
Whenever a Member State has acted as if the Treaties did not apply to it, I have always protested and responded in accordance with the Commission's prerogatives.
At the Intergovernmental Conference, and acting within the scope of the Commission's powers and responsibilities, I shall campaign vigorously to ensure that the Commission's prerogatives as conceived within the interinstitutional balance, which was one of Jean Monnet's key creations, continue to be safeguarded.
This is therefore a reproach that I shall never accept, and the House will forgive me if I have responded more clearly and directly to that criticism.
I have endeavoured to respond to a number of the speeches made by honourable Members, some of whom expressed support for the Commission's work programme, while others criticized it, although in a constructive spirit.
The House may rest assured that the Commission will take account of Parliament's proposals, so that together we can try to steer Europe towards the year 2000.
Similarly, I would expect that, following the Dublin summit at the end of this week, a clear message will be sent out that, despite everything, Europe is moving forward, that it is dynamic and that it knows how to stand up for itself.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Communities' draft general budget for 1997
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-404/96 by Mr Brinkhorst, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft budget of the European Union for the 1997 financial year Section III - Commission as modified by the Council (C4-0600/96); -A4-0403/96, by Mr Fabra Valles, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the modifications made by the Council to Parliament's amendments to Section I - European Parliament, Ombudsman annex Section II - Council Section IV - Court of Justice Section V - Court of Auditors Section VI - Economic and Social Committee - Committee of the Regions of the draft budget of the European Union for the 1997 financial year (C4-0600/96).I give the floor to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
Mr President, I wish to move the inadmissibility of this debate on the second reading of the budget.
Indeed, underlying this second reading is Parliament's concern not to fall in line with the arguments of the Council, which is rightly being guided by the need to make savings in the Community budget.
To this end, the Committee on Budgets is proposing an amendment which goes to the very heart of this second reading: Amendment No 4521, which seeks to transfer the financing of part of the Structural Funds - of the order of ECU 100 million - from category 3 to category 4.
This amendment is inadmissible, Mr President, and as such makes the whole of this second reading debate inadmissible.
And it is inadmissible because it seeks to change the legal bases.
With regard to the legal aspect, the explanatory statement indicates that the line in question has an appropriate legal base.
It is also stated that this line already establishes a link between the Structural Funds and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, with legal bases allowing for this link to be extended to include the trans-European networks.
This assertion is completely groundless; it is not a legal justification.
The decision that was referred to yesterday in the Committee on Budgets - European Parliament and Council Decision No 1692 of 23 July 1996 - did not have the aim of, nor could have had the effect of, changing the legal base.
Everyone knows, moreover, that when we talk about trans-European networks, we are not referring to those which fall within the scope of cross-border cooperation.
If we approve the budget with this amendment, the Commission will be entirely at liberty not to implement the budget in the form in which we adopt it.
It comes down, therefore, to an empty statement, just a ruse.
Consequently, I would urge the House to support this motion of inadmissibility.
Mr President, what Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has just said does not correspond in any way to yesterday's vote in the Committee on Budgets.
Firstly, this question has nothing to do with appropriations for the Structural Funds.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy was certainly present, but if he had been listening, he would know that we were not discussing the transfer of Structural Fund appropriations to other categories, but the allocation - through a comprehensive amendment by the rapporteur - of the resources saved in category 4 at the first reading of the 1997 budget, which had been placed in a global reserve in that category.
We can argue against the political desirability of this, but we should not do so by means of technicalities which do not apply.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's remarks have absolutely no basis in fact, therefore, and I would ask you to reject his motion and begin the debate on the second reading of the budget.
Dear colleagues, the question raised by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is irrelevant in my view.
It suggests that the budget is not admissible on the basis of the supposed inadmissibility of an amendment.
Yet, pursuant to Rule 125(3), it is for the president to decide whether amendments are admissible or not.
This decision must be taken, if there is a request, when the vote is taken and not now.
As far as the presidency is concerned, we can perfectly well proceed with the debate.
As for the question raised by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, there is no discussion, in terms of Article 128, about whether I should give the floor to the first speaker inscribed, Mr Brinkhorst, the rapporteur.
Mr President, we are about to start the final debate on the 1997 budget and so in a certain sense it is time for stocktaking.
The 1997 budget can be characterized by a number of paradoxes and contrasts in the financial, budgetary and institutional sphere.
In the first place, from the very beginning, in its resolution on the guidelines, the European Parliament was aware of the special character of the 1997 budget year and the need for a rigorous budget.
We have followed this up.
We have shown great self-discipline and I should like to pay tribute here to all my colleagues on the committees who have contributed so much and who have made real sacrifices because real priorities had to be weighed against each other.
Nevertheless, we have now delivered a draft budget which - assuming it is adopted on Thursday - has no precedent because it will be the first budget since 1979 which is below the Commission's preliminary draft estimates.
The curious point is the contrast with the Council.
While Parliament has made real savings in its priorities, the Council has made only apparent savings in the area for which it is responsible.
The ECU 1 billion for agriculture clearly in no way represents a real saving.
In past years, because of over-estimates by the Commission and the Council, there have been considerable returns to the Ministers of Finance and the ECU 1 billion in regional fund payments in a situation where we have underspent something like ECU 25 billion cannot be said to be a real saving.
That is the first paradox.
The second one is linked with the priorities.
The Council and the European Council have repeatedly established priorities but words are always stronger than actions.
On research and development, trans-European networks and Northern Ireland, the European Council has repeatedly said that we must increase the amounts but when it comes to it the money is not there.
In contrast to this, it is Parliament which has financed priorities set by the Council.
I recall a debate with our colleagues on Northern Ireland when if it had not been for Parliament restoring funding and taking it from its own area, we would not have been able to finance the three priorities mentioned.
There is an important third paradox - the institutional one.
Right from the beginning, because we were in favour of a rigorous debate and a rigorous budget, Parliament was entitled to expect a dialogue with the Budget Council.
But during this last year nothing of the kind has occurred.
The Council often reminds me of the three monkeys - hearing nothing, saying nothing and seeing nothing.
Even on 19 November it was not possible to make any progress on any of the significant institutional points which have characterized this budget, namely the legal base, the fisheries agreement and some small changes of category within the various financial areas.
It is only by exercising extreme pressure that in the end we have been able to achieve something on fisheries.
The Budget Council is not a real Council and in the motion for a resolution we ask the President of Parliament, together with the President of the Commission - and I welcome the presence of President Santer here today - to take up this point with the President of Ecofin.
If we are to make any progress, particularly with regard to the Intergovernmental Conference and the need to overcome the democratic deficit, we must have a different interlocutor from the current one.
So paragraph 14 of the motion for a resolution says that the Budget Council cannot be considered a reliable and effective interlocutor for Parliament.
In a sense this is saying that we are at the end of the road as far as the Budget Council is concerned.
I shall turn very briefly to some of the specific points.
I call on the Commission to implement some new budget lines within the 1997 legislative programme.
I listened with interest to President Santer when he said that the third pillar had priority and I hope he will read paragraph 20 of the motion for a resolution carefully.
We have used the reserve in a number of areas.
As far as MEDA is concerned, we have not used it not to penalize or to damage the MEDA countries but to make it very clear that Parliament is serious when it talks about the resolution of 19 September concerning Turkey.
The proposal is to put ECU 100m in reserve for specific actions concerning Turkey.
Unfortunately President's Santer's reply to President Hänsch's letter in no way convinced the Committee on Budgets of the justice of this.
We regret it but we believe it is the way it should be done.
We will vote extra money for research and development for which there is a small reserve.
We need to talk to the Commission about the Committee on Energy, Research and Technology's priorities.
Non-nuclear energy is an important point.
Finally, we must have a new dialogue on agriculture for next year.
We have started this with our colleagues working in the field of agriculture but it is very clear that reserves in the sphere of agriculture are a way forward - not to destroy agriculture but to put it in its proper setting within the Community's priorities.
Information policy is the last reserve and on this point I must compliment Mr Oreja.
He has made a lot of progress but I hope that in the course of next year we can make progress there on substance within our various institutional frameworks.
Mr President, when we presented the 97 budget for first reading in the October session we were aware of its limitations.
Some of them were general, concerning all the institutions, and some very specific, as in the case of the Court of Auditors' urgent need for more auditors in view of the expansion of the European Union's activities, as well as its geographical enlargement, which required an increase in staffing.
Another specific example was that of special advisers for the Committee of the Regions.
Despite these limitations, we were satisfied that we had met the requirements set out for us by the trialogue held on 3 April of this year, at which Council, Commission and Parliament reached agreement on the effort required for standardization of financial rules and on stringency, transparency and zero growth of the establishment plan; above all, we were pleased with the considerable saving we should be achieving in the 97 budget as a result of interinstitutional cooperation.
We went so far, in fact, as to hope that this would be the first budget to be approved on first reading, but this hope was not realized.
The Council rejected a series of amendments, but after reviewing this rejection and noting that the amendments were in line with the trialogue, since the Council produced no explanation of this rejection, we in the Committee on Budgets unanimously decided to resubmit these rejected amendments.
As a new amendment, Mr President, there will only be support to ensure the continuation of language courses, since we believe that we must go on facilitating opportunities for contact amongst ourselves.
We have a major barrier, that of language, and a valuable source of help, the interpreters, but we cannot each carry an interpreter in our pocket to help us with our contacts.
I do not know whether there will be any more, since the deadline for submission of amendments has not been reached and there may be something further.
At all events, Mr President, I would like to say here that we do not understand and cannot grasp the reason for the rejection of certain amendments, when we note, and I say this with all due respect, a certain lack of consistency.
This shows up in the way that an amendment which has been accepted by one institution is rejected by another.
Moreover, amendments which have no financial implications are rejected; amendments with the sole aim of improving transparency are rejected.
An amendment has even been rejected contrary to the provisions of the Financial Regulation.
We have the case of the Court of Justice: we sought greater transparency on rents (the short time which has elapsed since this was discussed has proved us right: we can see the situation of the Court of Justice building). Eighteen regradings have been refused; even in a situation of zero growth, I believe we cannot deny officials the chance of continued career development, and in my opinion these regradings were important, particularly since they have been accepted in other institutions.
Amendments are re-submitted concerning the Economic and Social Committee's meetings, notices of meetings and publications.
As for the joint organizational structure of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, an amendment, which I see as important, relating to analytical accounting procedures for the standardization of accounting practices within all the institutions, was rejected.
I would like to conclude, Mr President, by saying that the Committee on Budgets has reached a unanimous decision, and seeks a vote in favour of the amendments tabled for purposes of improving cost-effectiveness and improving the functioning, transparency and monitoring of the institutions, all of this in line with the trialogue of 16 April.
Mr President, a short time ago, in this Chamber, we heard President Santer reconfirm the need to develop an economic and social Europe and present to us once again the confidence pact to ensure that, without prejudice to the powers of the Member States, we have at European Union level coordinated efforts providing back-up on the issues of employment and social policy.
The European Parliament plainly agrees with all of this and has consistently called for it.
But the Council has turned a deaf ear to those requests and, at its seconding reading of the budget, rejected all Parliament's proposals.
This House, however, is showing great consistency and retabling all of its proposals; tomorrow, the Committee on Budgets will be asking the House to vote again for its proposals on employment and the more vulnerable categories - the elderly and the handicapped - so as to ensure that the social dialogue is able to be pursued.
We are also proposing a specific line for the development of pilot projects in the third sector - ' jobs' .
In that connection, I wish to draw attention to a further issue of concern to us: the incomprehensible stance adopted by the Council on legal bases.
Mr President-in-Office, I would venture to say that this is a somewhat short-sighted position on the part of the Council and one that aggravates further the relationship between citizens and Europe.
It gives a very negative signal to Europe's citizens.
I think what we have here is an absurd test of strength with the European Parliament.
Parliament is putting forward an extremely reasonable solution which does not pose a threat to the austerity and budgetary policy we in fact endorse.
We also think it a response, albeit a small one, to the needs of Europe's citizens, a response that will bring Europe closer to its citizens.
And so what is the Council trying to prove by adopting this - let us not mince words - incomprehensible position?
I am therefore asking the Council to reconsider its position.
It is never too late to do so.
The Dublin summit will discuss the confidence pact; the agreement on the legal bases offers an opportunity to show consistency.
Mr President, I welcome the fact that the Council has seen fit to respect Parliament's request for additional funding for the Community coal and textile initiatives on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy.
This will bring a sense of relief to those regions that have been eagerly awaiting reports from the Council that additional money will be available in the budget lines.
I should also like to say on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy that we welcome the solution that has been found to the Northern Ireland Peace and Reconciliation Programme, but I would reiterate the views of our rapporteur that it is in fact Parliament that has sought the solution in finding an additional ECU 100 million.
The creation of a negative reserve, however, as Parliament understands that, will then be taken from proved performance; underspends and other programmes will effectively pay for the Northern Ireland peace programme.
So it is effectively a situation of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
We should be quite clear that the Council has not met its responsibilities in this area.
Therefore I would say that the European Parliament insists on being consulted before those monies are moved into the additional funds for the peace programme.
It would, of course, be a singular irony if we end up funding the Northern Ireland peace programme from underspends in the Northern Ireland peace programme for 1997 and 1998.
I should also like to make a point concerning the zero-growth strategy and the decision to cut ECU 1 billion of structural fund payments.
Mr Brinkhorst is right: it is not a question of savings.
This is technically not the way to deal with things because it will lead to longer delays.
Some regions and some projects have not had their payments in 1994/95, and we end up aggravating the situation of poor implementation and potential underspends.
If the Council had wanted to be bold it could have singled out those Member States that have no commitment to the regional programmes and cut their payments and perhaps indeed their commitments.
That would have been a saving overall.
It is politically indefensible for the Council to now tie structural fund payments to EMU convergence criteria.
Here the Council is being inconsistent.
Only last week we had fine statements from the Council regarding the need to maintain investment efforts at national level, to promote growth, competitiveness and the creation of lasting employment, and now we have funds being cut to meet EMU convergence criteria.
Finally, can I say that this is not a budget for a citizens-first campaign.
This is a budget to satisfy finance ministers.
It is a budget for discipline and rigour, and I believe it will be poorly received in our regions.
Mr President, the 1997 budget of the European Communities which Parliament is preparing to adopt this week is overall reasonable and solid: it contains savings, the profile of priorities is sharper and there are interesting new projects.
The overall satisfaction is, however, accompanied by some disappointment: the budget procedure has revealed serious shortcomings.
An even better result would have been possible - better for all the institutions involved.
The 1997 Community budget contains important elements of rigour.
Some of them are real: for example, the 'zero' for new staff for all institutions - except for enlargement - is a symbolic but highly visible signal.
Some elements of rigour are more provisional: ECU 1 billion are cut both from the Common Agricultural Policy and from the structural funds payments.
But the underlying regulations are unchanged and will need to be fully financed.
The actual rigour of the 1997 budget will therefore only be established during its execution.
With regard to agriculture, in particular, the decisions in the sector will have to be compatible with the tighter budgetary constraints.
There was a large degree of agreement between the institutions throughout the budget procedure on the need for rigour.
In 1997, the decisive year for the successful launch of Economic and Monetary Union, the Community budget must be seen to be in line with the serious efforts being made at national level.
In spite of this basic convergence of views, concertation between Council and Parliament on implementation was difficult.
Important opportunities were missed, both to limit expenditure further and to improve procedures.
An adoption of the revision of the Financial Perspective to accelerate some key investments in 1998 and 1999 would have created a political framework for an even more restrictive budget in 1997. And it would have given a welcome message of confidence in the future of the Union.
In the end, it was not possible to agree even some small degree of flexibility between the categories for 1997 - not involving any additional expenditure.
It was never intended that the Financial Perspective should be written in stone for seven years.
Redeployment between categories - which does not increase expenditure - needs to be facilitated to respond to changing circumstances.
With regard to procedures, I am glad that an agreement has been found on better informing the budget authority on the fisheries agreements.
The key provision of this agreement is: if additional funds appear to be required there will be a trialogue on the causes of this situation and the measures which may have to be taken.
This should permit more transparency and better control of the budgetary costs of these agreements.
The failure to agree between the institutions on the question of legal basis is disappointing.
Sound financial management requires clear rules on this question.
They can only come from an agreement between the three institutions.
Until an agreement is found, the Commission has to shoulder its responsibility.
For the implementation of the 1997 budget it will follow the line taken in its Communication of July 1994.
This will involve preparatory actions and pilot programmes for a limited time, even before a legal basis is proposed.
This will apply, for example, to the new pilot projects for refugees and asylum-seekers.
The missed opportunities show that the concertation procedure is not working as it should.
Some reflection is required on how it can be developed.
Along with elements of rigour, the 1997 Community budget will have a sharper profile.
In fact, in times of scarce resources, spending has to focus more on the priorities of the Union.
This also implies moving away from activities where there is less European value added.
It was in this sense that the Commission proposed concentrating Community spending more on employment creation and growth.
It has identified research, Trans-European Networks and small and medium-sized enterprises as particularly valuable in this respect.
The Commission would have preferred a significant reinforcement of these activities for 1998 and 1999 by means of a revision of the Financial Perspective.
The undisputed financing of the ECU 100 million still outstanding for the Irish peace process was also part of this proposal.
Without agreement on revision, financing for these priorities has been difficult to find.
In these difficult circumstances the Commission welcomes the proposals of the Committee on Budgets for the financing of the Irish peace process in Category 2, for a reinforcement of research and development in Category 3 and for additional infrastructure investment in Category 4.
The Community budget for 1997, as it is in front of you, contains a number of new projects.
I have already highlighted the new pilot projects for refugees and asylum-seekers.
I would also like to express my full support for the initiatives of the rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst, in further rationalizing the use of Community funds.
In fact, the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control, under the leadership of their chairmen, Detlev Samland and Diemut Theato, have from the beginning used pressure and encouragement in support of the Commission's efforts for a new culture of financial management.
Let me conclude by thanking the rapporteurs, Laurens Brinkhorst and Juan Fabra Vallés, as well as the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Detlev Samland, together with his colleagues, for their hard work towards a successful conclusion to the 1997 budget procedure.
Mr President, whilst I speak on behalf of the Socialist Group, I should like to make a personal comment.
Of the seven years that I have been involved in the budget process, this has been the most unsatisfactory.
I have to say that in a personal capacity.
That is for several reasons, two of which I would like to highlight.
Firstly, the two strategies which our group supported were not agreed by Parliament as a whole, and that put us in a very weak position when we were trying to negotiate with the Council.
We went in to negotiate with the Council with no weapons in our hands.
But secondly, the attitude of Council has not helped at all.
It is best summed up by an amendment to the resolution which was put forward by Mr Colom i Naval last night in the Committee on Budgets, which reads: ' Parliament regrets that the Council has rejected a minor revision of the financial perspective to allow for the priorities voiced by the budgetary authority within conciliation contrary to what has been decided by common accord on several previous occasions' .
That sums it all up.
But there was also an intransigence on the part of Council towards things like getting agreements on the legal base, and it has left a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths.
We now have three Union priorities which we have wanted to support from the very beginning.
The solutions we have got will, I suppose, have to do.
The negative reserve in Category II has been outlined quite well by Mrs McCarthy.
It would seem that, yes, we do have a solution to the Irish peace process, but in a way that we would not have wanted.
It seems that the last resort is what you do when you have run out of rational debate, or when you have lost the rational debate.
Concerning research and development, we have a negative reserve in Category III which means that in the one category where we have our priorities, we have to hope that some of those priorities will not be met or spent so that we can fund the negative reserve.
Then we have the TENs in Category IV which we hope that the Commission will transfer to Category III at some time in the future.
As I said, this is not a situation that we wanted to support in the first instance.
Our group is left with Hobson's choice: take it or leave it.
For the sake of getting those 314 votes in Parliament we will not jeopardize the extra money for research and development, neither will we put the TENs money in jeopardy if there is that possibility of it getting into Category III.
Therefore we will take it rather than leave it.
But as I said at the beginning, it has not been a satisfactory process.
It is a bit of a mess.
One has to hope that next year there will be far better conciliation between ourselves and the Council to ensure that we do not go through this procedure again.
One would hope that in the future Parliament will be united, which it certainly has not been on this occasion.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the two rapporteurs, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Fabra Vallés, for their excellent work during this year.
As Mr Wynn has indicated, this has not been a simple year; indeed, it has been a bruising and difficult year, because we basically had the choice of maintaining those agreements which we have entered into as a Parliament, including the interinstitutional agreement, which, I am delighted to see as a result of our debates today and our procedure on Thursday, will be confirmed, or voting for funds on the transEuropean networks or research and development which would take us outside the limits.
We as a group have always maintained that we should uphold those agreements which we have entered into.
Of course we would have an unsatisfactory budget procedure, I would say, Mr Wynn, because once you have actually agreed in principle to have an austere budget, there is very little to discuss because we are all going to be within a similar margin for manoeuvre - both Parliament and the Council.
In this particular year there are three points I would like to make in summarizing the point of view of the European People's Party.
Firstly, we have begun to refine the way in which we use the reserve to achieve Parliament's aims.
We have done this in terms of information policy, where we have seen a remarkable change-around by the Commission in its willingness to come to some radical decisions on how information policy should be developed.
We still have not quite got to the end of that process.
We are supporting that 25 % of the funds should remain in the reserve so that in the institutional working group, which is now well established both for general and specific reasons, we are able to come to a proper decision between Parliament and Commission as to how the funds should be operated.
Similarly, in terms of small and medium-sized businesses, tourism and DG XXIII, we have also seen some change once funds are put in the reserve by Parliament on first reading and we come to the second reading.
It may be coincidental perhaps from the Commission's point of view, but so far as Parliament is concerned, it is unlikely that decision would have been taken so quickly had we not also put funds in the reserve.
Again, we are getting a better use of the reserve.
Obviously the third example, Turkey, is a much more sensitive question, and we have not yet been able to get the right balance of confidence between the institutions: between, on the one hand, the Commission's view of the code of conduct and therefore its desire to have its freedom of manoeuvre and, on the other, that of Parliament, which does not yet have the confidence that the Commission will do what we have asked it to do.
This is the first point - that we will continue to use this instrument to be able to ensure that Parliament's priorities are properly asserted in the budget and legislative process.
Secondly, this leads me to the linkage which we have not really made in this budget process, which is in the Intergovernmental Conference.
We should now be able to see some progress in the Intergovernmental Conference, where the Council can see that it has a responsible, rational and disciplined partner in the budgetary process with which to implement the priorities of the European Union.
I would expect some progress to be made in the elimination of the distinction between obligatory and nonobligatory expenditure, once we come to a conclusion, either in Amsterdam or a little bit later next year in the Intergovernmental Conference.
Lastly there is the point that if the European Council is going to continue to put out statements that it wishes to top up money for the trans-European networks, or wishes to be able to put more money into research and development and then does not provide the new money to go with that, then obviously we are going to continually find ourselves in the kind of situation in which we found ourselves in this budgetary process.
So I would strongly endorse the point in Mr Brinkhorst's resolution - indeed it is an EPP suggestion - that we should have a fiche financière , a financial statement, from the European Council at every single point at which it makes use of funds, so that we know where the funds are meant to be coming from.
Otherwise, I think this House will find that when it comes to the revision of the financial perspectives, enlargement and all these bigger questions which we are heading for, then there can only be trouble in future between the two arms of the budgetary authority.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are examining at second reading a budget which, despite its shortcomings, has the support of the UPE Group, since in the end it is entirely in line with what we were advocating: no additional fiscal charge on national budgets in 1997 because of the Maastricht Treaty.
Indeed, whatever feelings we may have about that Treaty, I believe that this Parliament should do nothing which might impede the actions of the national governments, which are required to ensure that, in 1997, their annual budgets make a positive contribution to the fulfilment of the convergence criteria.
The zero growth approach, which was broadly supported by Parliament at first reading, will - we hope - enjoy equally wide backing in the vote on Thursday.
I believe that whilst this pause in the rise of payment appropriations represents a special effort for 1997, the significant increase in programme authorizations safeguards the future and respects the financial perspective.
Moreover, the adoption of this budget will make it possible to preserve the interinstitutional agreement, even if we have to agree that the Council presidency did nothing - that is the least that can be said - to ensure that the dialogue, and subsequently the trialogue of 19 November, bore fruit.
I would add that the Committee on Budgets has given a display of collective wisdom which is worthy of praise, since the majority ensured that reason was able to prevail.
I should like to offer my sincere thanks to our colleagues, Mr Samland and Mr Brinkhorst, for their hard work - even if they may think that it was somewhat in vain.
In this respect, I would repeat the ancient words of wisdom pronounced by our rapporteur last night, towards midnight: ' dura lex, sed lex ' .
The months that have just gone by could be characterized as 'the battle for ECU 300 million' , which is divided into three groups of ECU 100 m.
And even if this might seem a modest amount in relation to the ECU 88 billion of the total Community budget, it has to be said that it was fiercely disputed. For my part, I welcome the satisfactory outcome of the debate on the ECU 100 m earmarked for the peace process in Northern Ireland.
As someone who lives on an island myself, I believe that you cannot put a price on peace - so let the funds which we allocate be earmarked for positive purposes and genuinely give the impression that the European Union represents an element of peace for every Member State.
Similarly, the allocation of ECU 100 m to the RECHAR and RETEX programmes will make it possible to free up a situation in these two sectors which some people already see as extremely precarious.
Let us hope for the success of these two programmes.
There remains the question of the ECU 100 m earmarked for the networks.
A number of Members believe that releasing these funds under category 4 is no more than a ruse that will enable us to give a boost to relations with the CCEE, whilst avoiding exceeding the ceilings in category 3.
I do not share this view, since the most that can be regretted is that the final arrangement might appear to many to be like pulling a rabbit out of a hat, whereas the main point is to safeguard the interinstitutional agreement.
On Thursday, therefore, Parliament will vote on a budget whose uncertainties were due more to questions of principle than disputes over the level of appropriations.
Let us be content with the way in which these questions of principle have been settled.
I should now like to draw attention to the financially positive measures.
In releasing forthwith 50 % of the appropriations placed in the reserve at first reading for Euronews and undertaking to re-examine the financing arrangements for the latter at the end of March, the Committee on Budgets has demonstrated wisdom and understanding.
This same understanding came into play to rectify the impact of the mad cow crisis on public opinion.
ECU 20 m have thus been earmarked for the promotion of quality beef, and that is the least that could be done to make it clear to European consumers that cattle which are fed in accordance with traditional and controlled methods should not be confused with animals which are victims not so much of the madness of cows as the madness of men.
Finally, there is in my view a shadow cast over this budget, and that shadow concerns the MEDA programme.
There is no point in giving with one hand and taking away with the other.
In placing ECU 100 m in the reserve against the MEDA programme, for the reason that these appropriations might be earmarked for Turkey, we are anticipating an allocation of funds which is not provided for in any document and, in a way, we are throwing the baby out with the bath water.
This late-night decision, which was handled in a dubious way, without prior financial assessment, is rather like one of those acts of atonement that give a clear conscience at minimum expense, and reminds us that like all good primitive tribes, the Committee on Budgets well knows - borrowing the title of a famous sociological work - how to navigate between totems and taboos.
Mr President, the deep convergence of options taken by the Council and those adopted by the European Parliament, in vital areas and at first reading, would virtually dispense with the laborious exercise that we have been indulging in over recent weeks.
I therefore limit myself to certain aspects of the issue.
We distance ourselves, as everyone knows, from the restrictive option adopted at first reading, with a view to the single currency and, particularly, with an eye already on enlargement.
For the same reasons we do not go along with the general direction taken in the second corrective charter on farming expenditure.
As for the essential part, we are still in favour of inscribing 300 million ECU for the trans-European networks, research and Ireland.
We continue to emphasize and criticize the absence of employment among the priorities set for 1997.
As for the inscription of the priorities set, we should like to stress the following:
First of all, they would have a different meaning in the context of a revision of financial perspectives.
Without them, the solutions found are inevitably distorted.
Indeed, the inscription in Category 2 of 100 MECU for Ireland now represents, objectively, as it is accompanied by a negative reserve of the same amount in this category, a further cut in the structural activities with which we obviously cannot agree.
We would say the same for the negative reserve for internal policies.
As for the inscription of the networks in category 4 (external policies), we think that this is tantamount, on one hand, to a once and for all abandonment of unemployment as a priority (with the abandonment of the networks themselves) and, on the other hand, a new means of reinforcing the funding of enlargement, more directly and at the expense of internal objectives.
Finally I would like to say a word to say that we go along with the decisions taken yesterday in other fields, such as Turkey and the creation of a 100 MECU reserve and, also, concerning the code of conduct in respect of fisheries agreements.
But this is not enough to change our global appraisal of the budgetary process which, in our view, is deeply negative, frustrating and extremely lacking in prestige for the European Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this year's budgetary procedure has left a nasty taste in the mouth of everyone who has taken part, for what message is it supposed to send to Europe's citizens? Saving for monetary union?
But we all know very well that, irrespective of monetary union, the burden of debt in national budgets has to be drastically reduced in order to allow the Member States' governments to take any action in the future. However, blaming all the failings of economic management on the efforts to meet the Maastricht convergence criteria is not only untruthful but dangerous, since it contributes to anti-European propaganda, the results of which cannot be foreseen.
The intention to make savings was not even that resolute.
The ECU 1 billion cuts in both agricultural and structural spending are simply loans for 1998 and 1999.
But of course, I am forgetting that there are also some positive priorities which have to be financed from this budget.
Quite frankly, the damaging fiddling with the ECU 300 million can only produce an embarrassed smile, since who could possibly understand the petty wrangling over the socalled revision of the financial perspective, or believe in good faith that the ECU 100 m for the trans-European networks is a job-creation initiative in itself?
Moreover, by means of a budgetary contortion, not to say an artless ruse, this amount is being transferred to category 4 - and I should like to see just how we spend this ECU 100 m and what we spend it on.
This budget does not represent a convincing signal to the people of the European Union, but the management of the status quo at less than the lowest common denominator.
The fact that ECU 100 m for the peace process in Northern Ireland was incorporated into the package which was finally agreed is the only ray of light.
It is to be regretted that we had to force Mr van den Broek to respond to our demands by placing the ECU 100 m for Turkey in the reserve.
Finally, I would ask Mr Liikanen to ensure that, through proper cooperation, our efforts to safeguard the pensions of the Members of the Commission and other Commission staff produce some positive results next year!
Mr President, last year the French and Flemish non-attached Members protested at the significant rise in the Community budget.
This year, we might be able to welcome a budget which spares taxpayers to a greater extent.
However, the goal of zero growth - which we should not be too far from achieving in the end - only applies to payment appropriations, and it is less a case of real savings allowing this to happen than the adjustment of appropriations to the expenditure actually carried out.
One sometimes has the impression that the savings relate to spending which would not have taken place anyway.
In a way, we are being asked to vote on virtual savings.
Moreover, this budget only has the appearance of austerity, since commitment appropriations - and it is these which we must keep in check - will increase by 2 %.
So there is still an upward trend, because commitment appropriations are continuing to rise.
However, the comparable expenditure - on support measures and investment - in the budgets of the Member States and local and regional authorities is not rising, but falling.
This means that the budgets of the Member States and local and regional authorities are more austere and more geared to savings than that of the European Union itself.
And it means that we still have a long way to go in moving from the virtual budgetary rigour that we have at present to genuine budgetary rigour and the increased protection of European taxpayers.
Mr President, with demands for containment of spending this was never going to be a very happy procedure and yet I want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Brinkhorst and Fabra Vallés, and also the Irish presidency, for having achieved what might seem to be the impossible, of meeting our long-term commitments and resolving the immediate problems of today.
I want to draw attention particularly to the BSE crisis, which has incurred an increase in expenditure of 50 %, up to ECU 7 billion in that sector.
I think that farmers particularly in the peripheral regions in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland have to be grateful to the Commission, Parliament and the Council for the prompt attention which has been given to this problem and the resources which have been provided to meet the worst crisis those people have faced in a whole generation.
I want also to recognize that in spite of the need to contain spending we have met our commitments in the area of regional policy and we have gone on to increase commitments for the structural funds by 8.05 %.
Again, it shows the willingness of the Community to honour its commitments to the poorer regions.
I also want to refer briefly to the disagreement on fisheries and to thank the Irish Council for having made a sincere effort to bring forward at least some understanding between Parliament, Council and Commission on how decisions are arrived at.
We spend a lot of money on these agreements.
Half of all the money that we provide for the fishing industry goes on these agreements, something like ECU 300 million annually.
To achieve a better understanding between the institutions is important, but I want to underline that this is just an interim agreement.
I believe that as far as international agreements are concerned, if there are significant amounts of money involved then Parliament is entitled, under Article 228 of the Maastricht Treaty, to full assent procedures.
Parliament confuses itself with this argument about what is compulsory and non-compulsory.
If the Treaty is ratified in the proper way, if Parliament is properly consulted and gives its assent, then of course we have an obligation to meet the spending.
But the emphasis, from Parliament's point of view, should be on having the letter of the law complied with in so far as the making of these agreements is concerned.
Finally, I want to say that in spite of all the talk about the necessity to cut back, this budget represents 1.22 % of GDP of the European Union.
It is a very small amount of money.
Mr Samland underlines this.
The importance of containing spending and being careful has nothing to do with denying the needs of the Community in so far as budgetary resources are concerned.
We are on course to increase our budget to 1.27 % by 1999.
Let us not pretend that this will be enough resources to provide for the enlargement of the European Union and meet the needs of the states which expect to become full members.
Nevertheless, the amount of money which we spend has a minimal impact on monetary or economic policy within this Community, while national governments are not cutting back spending.
What they are doing is reducing the rate of increase and we should underline that.
If you look at the figures, even the more stringent budgets in the Community are only slowing the rate of increase; they are not reducing spending.
We have done that this year but we cannot continue to do it for ever.
Mr President, at the outset I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on the presentation of their reports and to take the opportunity during this budget debate to refer to an increasing number of reports that the procedures involved in applying for EU funding are becoming more difficult, more bureaucratic and more demanding in terms of accounting requirements.
This is not to say that I do not believe that there should not be financial control: there is a need for financial control.
However, there must be a balance between applicants' eagerness to participate in EU programmes and the volume of details now required.
The paperwork, the preparation necessary to apply for grant aid of, say, ECU 5, 000, is totally disproportionate to the benefit.
Many of those who are eligible might apply if the detail and the bureaucracy were less and I would venture to say that there are many in the Union who should qualify but it is possibly too expensive and requires a disproportionate effort.
The Commission must distinguish between, say, sums of ECU 5, 000 and sums of ECU 50, 000 and over for smallscale grants to SMEs - and we realize the importance of SMEs and the important role that SMEs can play in the creation of jobs.
Small companies like this should not need the equivalent of a PhD in financial control to apply to the Commission for grants.
There is a serious need for rebalancing, a serious need for monitoring EU applications.
All the aspects that I have referred to are, I believe, a deterrent to small companies.
I would venture to say that this is totally contrary to the stated intentions of the EU.
We will very soon have the communication on the single currency, the citizen and the IGC.
We must ensure that funding in relation to these will be found on the ground as soon as possible.
In conclusion, I want to welcome the fact that the matter relating to peace and reconciliation has now been resolved.
I believe that all the commitments will be in place by the end of the year.
The fund will be drawn down and let us hope that next year we will be discussing an extension of this fund.
Mr President, I wish to make just two comments.
In this budget, in this game of chess which is the budgetary process, the European Parliament sacrificed its best pieces to the Council on the first reading, and now, on the second, we are without a queen, rooks, knights or bishops, facing a Council entrenched in this stringent and austere stance, with all its pieces intact.
With such an unequal position on the board any efforts to seek a draw are pathetic when the Council is about to checkmate us.
This is the first zero-growth budget.
It would have been better not to cut the funds assigned for job creation, Objectives 2, 3 and 4 of the structural funds and internal policies.
It is a very unfortunate political signal, since the savings are made on precisely those policies where the citizen is most strongly aware of the presence of the Union.
And another poor political signal is the failure to guarantee that such zero growth will be an exception and not the general rule until 1999 at least.
Second comment: the planned reorganization of the so-called 'A lines' , particularly in the fields of culture, youth and education, should be put forward again for 1998, but, I would emphasize, from an objective viewpoint, evaluating the effectiveness and knock-on effect of the programmes.
There are some very positive moves along these lines, such as the European Movement or the inter-university association ESST. However, there are many initiatives which are simply a response to a shopping list produced by Members, with no check on whether they are needed or effective.
I shall now conclude.
This budget, taken as a whole, shows a lack of ambition which bodes ill for the difficult challenges the European Union has to face.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development welcomed the opportunity to work more closely with Parliament's Committee on Budgets, the Commission and the Council.
We participated fully in the ad hoc procedure and particularly congratulate Mr Brinkhorst, the rapporteur.
However, we felt badly let down when the Budgets Committee refused to consider B1 line amendments to the budget report proposed in our opinion.
Amongst these lines was the promotion of beef-eating line - the 'eat more beef' line.
Subsequently this has been tabled by the Commission and agreed at the trialogue and by the Council.
We would argue that a ECU 50m promotion of beef-eating would increase consumption by 1 %, which would save 60, 000 tonnes in cold storage, thereby making us a profit of ECU 70m.
We think this is good and sound business, and we sincerely hope that Parliament will vote for it.
We deeply regret that the Council has turned down a budget line for honey.
We produce less than half of the honey we eat, in a climate which is excellent for bee-keeping and honey production.
I sincerely hope we will agree to money for research into bee-keeping and honey production from the reserve which we have agreed.
Maybe with good will we can achieve this.
For many years we have agreed that honey and bees should be helped, but we have put no money where our belief is.
We would have preferred monies to address the beef overproduction problem to have been added to the budget rather than taken from projected savings.
But as we have guarantees that all price commitments and policy costs will be met, we feel that our interests have been protected.
In conclusion, we feel that our desires have been met.
We have liaised, we believe we have been honourable in this year's budget discussion, but unfortunately we have not developed a trusting relationship with Parliament's Budgets Committee.
Mr President, as regards the structural funds this budget has involved a demonstration of responsibility by the various institutions and particularly by the European Parliament.
Fund implementation rates have certainly varied widely.
With Objective 1 the rate was very high, and with Objectives 2 and 5b these rates have increased considerably, although there is still a shortfall in implementation, particularly in the more prosperous countries, which ought not to be experiencing such budgeting difficulties.
Linking progress with Category 2 to progress in implementation rates means putting one's faith in more efficient management and greater budgetary stringency in the Member States.
For this reason, although it is difficult for a Parliament to accept a cutback in the structural funds, even in accounting terms, we have exercised responsibility and are now transferring to Member States the obligation to spend wisely and to implement the structural funds well, thus avoiding larger cuts in future budgets.
We must remind everyone that the European Union budget is also an instrument for ensuring economic and social cohesion.
This principle should inspire the budgetary process from the outset, and so although the European Parliament may have accepted this book reduction in Category 2, this should not be seen as abandonment of the pursuit of economic and social cohesion.
If one day - and we hope it never comes - someone takes an initiative which means a real cutback in Category 2, then that person should know that the European Parliament will be against it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, I should like to begin by thanking the two rapporteurs for having brought this difficult task, namely the general budget for 1997, to completion.
Never before have we been faced with so problematic a budget, including in terms of the - sometimes rather pathetic - restrictions with a view to 1999. Never before have we been faced with so deaf a partner in negotiation - the Council - in response to the right and proper demands of the House.
Never before then have we set out on a journey without knowing where it would take us.
The Council is incapable of defining its own policy even in relation to the budget.
It is incapable of giving substance to its own declarations: in Florence, it entered into specific commitments which it subsequently deliberately ignored, in relation both to the confidence pact and the refinancing at least of the priorities it had itself determined. It is incapable of reaching agreement with us on the issue of the legal bases - and therefore improving effectiveness here and making it possible for the Commission also to implement the budget in a properly informed manner.
In point of fact, the Council is giving way to the caprice of one Member State which is actually using the legal bases in an attempt to prevent the Institutions working properly. In relation to fisheries then it is dragging its feet over a long-accepted agreement; it is in fact doing all it can to undermine the very existence of the Institutions and their capacity to function properly.
Parliament therefore does well to give a firm response to all of that via the budget that is to be put to the vote on Thursday.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 19 November 1996 the Council gave a second reading to a budget providing no increase at all relative to the budget for 1996.
I remind you that during the first reading, the European Parliament accepted the principle of zero increase and hence too the reduction of agricultural expenditure by 1 billion ECU and the reduction of sums earmarked for the structural funds again by 1 billion ECU.
During the second reading, the Council approved the incorporation into the 1997 budget of the plan to support beef and veal producers with 1 billion ECU, so approving only as much as it had accepted on first reading.
Ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has stripped off most of its own clothes and is today discovering dumbly that it is walking the streets quite naked.
This budget is the personification of poverty, it is a budget for the few and the powerful and not for the many and the weak.
It is a budget which will make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
It is an anti-developmental budget, a budget devoid of social sensitivity, .
The people of Europe, ladies and gentlemen, are awakening.
Working people and those who run small and medium enterprises are coming out in the streets.
Social upheaval is getting closer and the European Parliament is unfortunately once again giving way to the Council's blackmail.
Unless we understand that, and unless we put across the message that behind the figures there are people to be considered, we too will one day wake up only to find that it is by then too late.
I will take pleasure in voting against this budget of poverty and austerity.
Mr President, the draft budget for 1997 is not the result of a satisfactory budgetary procedure.
For me it has indeed been somewhat frustrating.
I shall, and I believe I can speak for many of us, be voting for the proposal of the Committee on Budgets with a high degree of resignation, and also, no doubt, from a sense of responsibility.
But this is not the budget some of us would have wanted and believed possible, as complying with the Interinstitutional Agreement and also meeting the Union's needs in the coming year.
The comment has been made, and even published, that this has been an innovatory budget procedure in many areas, and that for the first time the budget will be below the preliminary draft tabled by the Commission in the spring.
No doubt this is so, but it will also be the first time Parliament has voted for the budget dreamed up by the Council without obtaining anything in return.
We have made no progress towards solving the eternal problem of classifying compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
We have talked a lot, but we have not moved forward an inch as regards the legal bases.
We have not even secured a minor - genuinely minor - revision of the financial perspective to meet the priorities fixed by the Council and Parliament.
The Council's dominance has led some of our colleagues to suggest breaking the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Even the operation of the MEDA programme was threatened until last night.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is not a satisfactory balance.
Parliament split virtually 50/50 on a strategic matter during the first reading - this for the first time, as I should like to remind you - and a blocking minority, although indeed a minority when all is said and done, imposed its view upon the majority in cutting ECU 1 billion from the structural funds - in the payment appropriations of course - in the programmes for industrial restructuring and the reduction of unemployment.
A minority imposed this policy.
This is something which goes well beyond figures and technicalities and even support for national austerity policies.
Behind the cutback I see a wish to provide ideological backing for national cutbacks in social and welfare policies adopted in the interests of Maastricht.
I see an attempt to discredit the cohesion policy, which is now the Community's second policy, and also, I venture to suggest, the wish of certain parties to lower in advance the bases for calculating the structural costs of our desired enlargement to the East.
This is what I see behind this budget and this cutback, not a policy of austerity and stringency.
So a sad message for the citizens of Europe, and a sad message and some poor working methods which should make us think carefully about our own institution.
Mr President, I would just point out that we must not feel we have been defeated.
The other side of the House has continually claimed that Parliament has been defeated, but this is absolutely not true.
We have managed to get the priorities we wanted included in the budget, which no one can dispute.
We had ECU 400 million that we did not know what to do with, and we have succeeded in finding a home for ECU 375 million of it.
So anyone who claims that we have lost out is completely wrong.
That was the first point I wished to make.
The second point I should like to make to Mr Samland is that this budget is for one year, not ten.
Next year the situation will be quite different, and I would warn the Council that the Interinstitutional Agreement is not guaranteed for ten years either, just this year.
There has been no reason to revoke the agreement this time round, because we have managed to get our priorities through, which is, after all, what it is all about.
The Council can be blamed for many things, but the Budget Council in particular cannot itself be blamed for failing to address these prospects.
We know that decisions have been taken at the highest level, so we cannot blame the Budget Council.
What we can blame it for is, I have to say, the childish manner in which it is dealing with category 3.
It is behaving like a class of two-year-olds, rejecting every proposal from Parliament and the Commission, yet at the same time the ministers from the Member States are pleading with Parliament to allocate funding for their section of category 3.
It would be much more sensible for the Budget Council to keep in closer contact with its own ministers, so that it could also deal with category 3 as a proper budgetary authority should.
The main point I have not yet mentioned is the legal basis.
If the Council continues in this way, then it will itself be placing a bomb under the Interinstitutional Agreement.
It should come to an arrangement as quickly as possible, on the basis of Mr Christodoulou's sensible suggestions, it should adopt a rather more sensible approach to category 3, and then we might actually get somewhere.
Mr President, Parliament maintains a network of information offices in the national capitals of each of the Member States.
These offices and the staff assigned to work there are funded at considerable cost from the annual budget of Parliament.
Their function, as I understand it, is to disseminate information and defend the interests of this institution in a non-partisan manner in the country in which they are located.
For some time now this institution has been under hostile attack in some Member States - not on the basis of policies which Parliament is pursuing, but rather in the form of outlandish insinuations about the internal administration of Parliament.
These attacks culminated recently in a classic hatchet job programme made by an English television company and broadcast in three or four of the Member States.
What, if anything, did the information offices do to rebut the allegations made in this television programme? As far as I can see, the officials based in these information offices rarely, if ever, make any serious efforts to defend the interests of this Parliament and its Members when these types of attacks are made.
When an effort is occasionally made it is usually far too little and absolutely too late.
Most organizations which operate on a multinational basis have developed a policy of rotating senior staff.
What I am asking you today, Mr President and Members, is that we have a rotation process in those offices so that every four years there is a rotation of the A grades in those offices so that they become familiar with one another, with the workings of this Parliament and with the work of its Members.
There is one other point I want to raise.
It concerns paragraph 8 of the report where we are making proposals concerning Members' allowances, expenses and working conditions, including the single statute for MEPs.
Taking into account the fact that we have appointed a committee, a sub-committee or an ad hoc committee to deal with this matter, I think it is very wrong that the outgoing President and Bureau should have their arms tied now and into the future as regards this most important subject.
I am asking that, as an amendment, the Bureau should be presented with the report as soon as possible rather than to have it at the outset of the examination of the 1998 draft estimates.
If this committee is to work properly it is vital that it gets the time to do the job correctly.
We shall now adjourn this debate for the vote.
It will be resumed at 3 p.m.
Votes
Mr President, the Commission proposal seeks further to harmonize the type approval of agricultural and forestry tractors at EU level.
The aim is to enable the internal market to function better than at present.
Requirements are updated so as to raise the maximum design speed for tractors from its present level of 30 km/hr to 40 km/hr.
As rapporteur I should like to say that it is very difficult for me to accept Amendment No 4 by the PPE and PSE Groups.
The first two paragraphs of the amendment have already been taken into account in the directives which this directive will amend, and the second sentence of the third paragraph cannot be accepted because whatever falls outside the scope of this directive will in any case remain a matter for national decision-making, so that it will remain possible for the Member States to choose freely whether to grant national type approval to tractors with a maximum design speed exceeding 40 km/hr.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I asked to make this explanation of vote because I voted against Mr Burtone's report in the wake of the statements made yesterday by the rapporteur.
I would like to read out to you what he himself confirmed as being the priorities of the report: ' the need to treat drug addicts as persons who are ill and not as criminals; the need for the programme to tackle the social aspects of drug dependence; the need for the programme to cover all types of drug; the highlighting of the prison environment as a high-risk environment; training measures; grassroots and street-corner measures; dialogue with young people; the role of the family; reducing the social damage; cooperation with the NGOs; consistency with other programmes and the particular importance attached to risk groups' .
That is what Mr Burtone writes; at no point does the report talk of legalization or non-legalization.
Therefore, by presenting the report, as he did yesterday, as if it were the final word on the subject of legalization or the failure of prohibition - all of which is still open to discussion - Mr Burtone has done something that I consider to be very serious by failing to adhere to the actual content of the report.
That is why I voted against, and I wanted to give that explanation.
As I have already said on the first and second reading, I support Mr Burtone's sound work on a matter of such importance, particularly for the young, as this programme of Community action on the prevention of drug dependence.
The Council's common position has followed neither the original Commission proposal nor all Parliament's amendments in such vital areas as prevention, substitutive therapies, help for the families or guardians of drug addicts, information for the young, etc.
This leads me once more to support the rapporteur and to endorse his view that 'drug addicts are, above all, people who are ill' , despite the Council's refusal to accept amendments which backed this view with facts.
The fight against one of the most repugnant of crimes, the trafficking and distribution of addictive drugs, must be intensified, and every step in the right direction is to be welcomed.
At the moment, however, we have to admit that the methods used for dealing with the criminals concerned are still not tough or merciless enough.
Politicians and the courts will never be able to put up an adequate fight against drug crime without sustained and persistent efforts to develop a new public spirit, in which ethical values and moral standards are restored to their rightful place.
This kind of renewed public spirit with its values and standards would be a more powerful and effective weapon against the scourge of drugs than any punishment, however necessary and commendable the action taken by our courts and politicians may be.
That is why the many apologists, including - which hardly comes as a surprise - large numbers of intellectuals, must be morally indicted and condemned.
Those who say that it is not so bad, that it is best to legalize soft drugs and other such nonsense are, objectively speaking, just as guilty as the drugs criminals.
Those who advocate the 'live and let live' approach have caused far too many serious disasters already, and will always remain the advocates of chaos.
The scourge of drugs is not only causing the slow death of individuals - mainly youngsters - but is also destroying whole families, thereby undermining the structure of society.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon is no longer confined to certain social circles, to a few intellectuals seeking to escape from reality: trafficking is an international business.
Far from solving the problem, freedom to purchase drugs - even if restricted to so-called soft drugs - would exacerbate it.
A young person who is not subject to temptation can avoid the trap of addiction.
If, on the other hand, these substances are sold at the school gates, then even though the attraction of what is forbidden will disappear, the rise in consumption will be unstoppable.
This has been proved by experiments conducted in several countries, in particular Sweden, a few years ago.
What is more, we know that in this case the transition from soft to hard drugs is inescapable.
In my region, for example, we are seeing a resurgence of Ecstasy and heroin.
The campaign against drug addiction is beyond the means of a single state; it must be organized at least at Community level.
I therefore very much welcome the fact that agreement has been reached regarding this Community programme on the prevention of drug dependence.
The intended measures seem to me to go in the right direction.
Our strategy in the war against drugs must in fact be a comprehensive one.
Repression is necessary, but not sufficient; three other crucial approaches must be adopted at the same time.
Firstly, prevention: all the categories of persons concerned must be informed and educated.
Secondly, the treatment of addicts to prevent them from contracting other diseases, and to help them recover from their addiction.
And finally, the promotion of substitute products, so as to avoid in particular the spread of AIDS.
By joining forces, we shall be able to combat this problem effectively.
I hope that this programme of action will be a great success, and that it will be a prelude to better cooperation between the Member States.
We need to carry on the fight against drugs at all levels.
It is, naturally, pleasing that the EU is prioritising this issue but the programme is open to different interpretations which is why I, as a representative of a country with a restrictive narcotics policy, have chosen to abstain from voting.
We need to carry on the fight against drugs at all levels, locally, nationally and internationally.
It is, therefore, pleasing that the EU is also prioritising this issue.
There are many good points in the programme, its emphasis on information, exchange of experience and education for example.
However, we Swedish environmentalists, who represent a country with a restrictive narcotics policy, cannot vote for the action programme for reasons which include the following:
It is not clear whether the action programme supports a liberal or a restrictive drug policy.-The aim is to 'coordinate the policies of Member States' (Article 1).
The question is which policy is being referred to, the restrictive Swedish model or, as is more likely, the liberal drug policy of the Netherlands? We are of the opinion that drug policy is a matter for national governments.-Drug users are regarded as sick or, put another way, personal drug use is decriminalised.
This view is contrary to the Swedish view and to Swedish legislation.-Financial support will also apparently be given to liberal drug projects such as certain experimental towns and non governmental organisations, which we cannot accept.-It was obvious from the debate that the programme is open to many different interpretations and meanings.
Many speakers referred to the Irish draft of the review of the Maastricht Treaty which includes a point stating that the EU shall 'ensure standardisation of action on certain aspects of illegal narcotics' , and said that the Burtone report is an important step towards this.
It is our firm belief that legislation on narcotics must never, under any circumstances, be an issue to be determined at EU level.
The fight against drugs must be conducted at all levels, i.e. at local, national, European and international level.
There are many good points in the report, the emphasis on information and education for example.
I represent a country with a restrictive narcotics policy and cannot, therefore, vote for the report in its entirety for the following reasons:
It is not clear whether the action programme supports a liberal or a restrictive drug policy.-The aim is to 'coordinate the policies of Member States' .
There is no mention of the type of policy which is to apply, liberal or restrictive.-Decriminalisation of personal drug use is a move in the wrong direction and is contrary to Swedish legislation.-Economic support for liberal drug projects cannot be accepted.-In my opinion, policy on drugs and narcotics is an issue which should be determined at national level by each individual Member State but there should be extensive European and international cooperation.
During the now completed debate on the action programme in connection with prevention of the misuse of drugs, the European Parliament has worked actively to ensure that all significant aspects of misuse, and the causes thereof, have been included in the action programme.
As a consequence of this, Parliament has stressed the need for implementation of a broad spectrum of provisions, ranging from general public information to a targeted effort for special risk groups.
The programme also opens up the possibility for the implementation of initiatives that will provide support for existing addicts (including training) and provisions for the limitation of damage and negative social consequences affecting people who either are or have been drug addicts.
In view of the extent of drug misuse, implementation of the action programme must be given full support.
In this regard it is seen as very positive that the Commission intends to make a proposal for the introduction of public and private bodies, including non-State organizations and voluntary aid organizations, in addition to treatment and accommodation initiatives in the concrete implementation of the programme.
Schnellhardt report (A4-0406/96)
Mr President, the Green Group in the European Parliament supported the Schnellhardt report, although with very serious misgivings, because the Commission simply removed the section concerning the labelling of alcoholic beverages from the proposal.
Moreover, our position is very weak.
We are now dependent on the goodwill of the Commission to announce that it will submit a proposal on the labelling of alcoholic beverages.
I think we are all agreed in the House that there has to be such a proposal, not only because this is the wish of consumers, but also because there are other considerations which make it necessary.
For example, there are people who need alcoholic beverages to be labelled, because they are unable to drink alcohol for health reasons.
It is therefore quite impossible to understand why the Council and the Commission have bowed to pressure from the alcohol lobby to such an extent.
We shall therefore be extremely vigilant in checking that the Commission actually brings forward this proposal.
Parliament must take this matter very seriously.
We shall not be taking ourselves seriously if we do not now press the Commission to submit a proposal on the labelling of alcoholic beverages very swiftly.
Moreover, that was the arrangement made in the Conciliation Committee.
The Commission must not shirk its responsibility in this respect.
It is Parliament's task to ensure that this proposal is brought forward, that it is applicable in practice, and that it contains no loopholes which make it possible to circumvent the labelling obligation.
I believe that I can leave it at that.
Our group will be very vigilant in ensuring that the Commission brings forward a proposal on the labelling of alcoholic beverages as soon as possible.
That is the urgent wish of consumers, and we must do justice to that wish!
von Wogau report (A4-0390/96)
The Customs 2000 action programme has come back to the House for the third time, in accordance with the normal workings of the codecision procedure, now that the differences of opinion between the Council and Parliament have been reduced and a joint text has been approved by the Conciliation Committee.
This programme, which we can only approve in principle - since its aim is to improve the training of national customs officers and facilitate cooperation between their administrations - has nevertheless undergone several unwelcome changes in the course of the debate.
I shall take one example, which sheds new light on how the codecision procedure operates in practice.
It shows, in fact, that - under the guise of 'European democracy' , which does not exist - this procedure allows the most integrationist views to prevail in Parliament.
Study of this example demonstrates why it is that the federalists heap praise on codecision and why, at the IGC, they would like to extend it to all matters 'of a legislative nature' .
In the matter we are considering today, the codecision procedure has enabled the European Parliament to place the Customs 2000 programme in a context of gradual unification of national customs authorities and of 'the development of the internal market into a real European home market' , as the second recital of the decision puts it.
This concept of a 'home market' , the emergence of which I criticized when I first spoke on Customs 2000 on 25 October 1995, is thus being legitimized for the first time, with the endorsement of the Council of Ministers, in an official decision adopted jointly by the various institutions.
In this way, approval is being given at the highest level for the internal market to drift towards full unification of the Member States, something which most of the governments supporting this text would be hard pressed to defend clearly and unequivocally before their electorates.
In point of fact, the term 'home market' appeared for the first time in the Commission's communication of 8 May 1992 on the removal of border controls. This stated that to enable the internal market to operate under the conditions of a home market, it was necessary to abolish physical borders, in other words to abolish all checks, in keeping with the absence of checks at the borders between regions within a national market.
This objective, which the Council was careful not to endorse directly at the time, is now receiving official approval through the second recital, and is even specifically defined as the abolition of differences between the internal market and Member States' home markets.
It is worth pointing out that it was Parliament which, at the first reading in codecision, inserted this objective into the text, that the Council then withdrew it, that Parliament reintroduced it at second reading and, finally, that the Conciliation Committee granted Parliament a total victory.
'Long live codecision!' say the federalists, and one can understand why.
However, as regards the substance, this deepening of the internal market to the point of total unification does not seem to us to reflect the wishes of the peoples concerned, who prefer to maintain their distinctive identities.
Furthermore, its economic and social advantages are questionable, as I said here in the House when I spoke on 26 November 1996 concerning the report on the single market in 1995.
The main aim of this headlong rush into unification is, in fact, to iron out any differences which could hamper the smooth functioning of the single currency.
The integration - or rather disintegration - machinery has been cranked into action.
I welcome the multiannual action programme for Community customs.
I believe that it will help strengthen the operational efficiency of our customs service at the Union's external frontier.
The customs service has a critical role to play not only in relation to the smooth functioning of the internal market but also in relation to combating drug-trafficking.
This is particularly important in relation to our East/West frontier.
Furthermore, if we are to ensure success against the drug barons, then each Member State should have a joint police/customs anti-drug team under a single leadership.
If these teams operated under a strong Europol, then we would make real progress in the war against drugs.
Gahrton (V), Holm (V), Schörling (V), Lindholm (V), Eriksson (GUE/NGL), Lindqvist (ELDR), Seppänen (GUE/NGL), Lis Jensen (NI), Bonde (NI) and Sandbæk (NI), in writing.
(DA) We have today voted against the report on an action programme for Customs authorities in the EU's 'Customs 2000' , since it is our view that the programme fails to acknowledge the individual Member States' sovereignty.
It should still be up to each Member State to determine how it wishes to control its borders, train its personnel, etc.
The concept of Customs personnel now being required to wear an EU badge is quite alien to us.
This is still an empty symbol on the part of the Union and an attempt to draw attention to itself.
Customs officers and other personnel are not answerable to the EU but to their national authorities.
There exists today a wide range of legislation within all the Member States with regard to the importation of different types of goods, e.g. drugs and weapons.
And this is likely to continue into the future, so we see no reason for harmonizing legislation in this area.
Moreover the programme is aimed at turning the Customs authorities into a Community affair and sets the objective of an even more standardized internal market than we find in the existing internal market, which in practical terms restricts any form of freedom in each nation's legislation. We are most strenuously opposed to this.
An agreement on the action programme for customs in the Community was finally reached at a meeting of the Conciliation Committee between Parliament and the Council.
I welcome the fact that a series of elements repeatedly advocated by Parliament have been included in the 'Customs 2000' programme.
Particularly important, in my view, is the 'psychological' measure whereby customs officers will in future wear the 12-star symbol alongside their national insignia on their uniforms.
This is to highlight the fact that customs officers are also in the service of the European Union and have important European tasks to perform.
With a view to ensuring that these tasks can be carried out as well as possible, the European Parliament raised a number of additional key points.
In the 'Customs 2000' programme:
the joint training of customs officers in all categories, with a view to Europe-wide cooperation, will be improved; -the computerization of all customs administrations and the harmonization of data and programmes will be stepped up; -the mobility of officials will be promoted by means of the development of long-term exchanges between national customs administrations.However, these positive elements will only be able to take effect in practice if the Member States are prepared to make actual use of the opportunities for Europe-wide cooperation in the customs field.
In any event, the Members of the European Parliament will do what they can, in collaboration with the Union of financial staff in Europe and the customs trade unions, to ensure that the 'Customs 2000' programme is translated into practice.
Only in this way will it be possible to step up the fight against tax crime, transit offences and drug trafficking - to give just those examples - in the interests of Europe's citizens.
In a single European market, the Europe-wide cooperation of customs officials is essential!
It is heartening that, after lengthy discussions between the European Parliament and the Council, agreement has now been reached on the Commission's proposed action programme 'Customs 2000' .
It is worth bearing in mind that the programme is geared towards a further development and modernization of the Customs authorities of the 15 EU countries with a view to ensuring effective control at the EU's outer borders and, thereby, a better management of the internal market.
In its consideration of the proposal the European Parliament has rightly stressed the need for a common computer system and the need for closer cooperation between the EU's Member States in order to combat fraud.
In this connection we must also take account of the Commission's undertaking, in close cooperation with Member States and with due regard for the principle of proximity, to look into possibilities for the ongoing development of Customs officers as part of their technical training, and the general efforts made to strengthen the exchange of experience among the national administrations of EU Member States.
The idea of a single market with 15 different customs administrations might at first sight seem to be a paradox.
However, this may well be due to the fact that we cling excessively in our thinking to the structures of the traditional nation state, in the form in which it has evolved in Western Europe in the modern age.
What we are dealing with here is not symbols of national power or the foreshadowing of a 'unified European nation state' , but entirely practical operating problems of the Community's internal market.
Bringing the procedures for cooperation between customs authorities into the Community domain seems to us to be the most appropriate approach to solving the problems.
However, that was clearly not available.
Nevertheless, perhaps the imperfect compromise now before the House represents a good starting-point for a creative new approach to finding solutions to the problem of turning the internal market into a genuine 'home market' which can still be democratically controlled and regulated, without being subordinated to a unified state.
Tsatsos report (A4-0342/96)
The European Parliament's report on the constitutional status of European political parties implicitly reveals a real danger of anti-democratic developments.
The establishment of such parties would in fact - as I said in yesterday's debate - be based on institutional confusion, which would weaken the national democracies in a bid to consolidate a European superstate.
This would be a disastrous move, since national politics still underpins democracy in Europe today.
But that is not all.
It is disturbing to note that the report seems keen to confine the right of expression to a small inner circle of federalists, who would monopolize the funding.
We see, in fact, that the status of European political party would in the first place be denied to organizations operating in a single Member State (paragraph 3(d) of the resolution), which would unlawfully exclude many voters who wish to have their say in the Union through parties - or Members - who maintain their national individuality.
Secondly, the status envisaged would also be denied to parties not voicing opinions on matters deemed 'European' and not organized in a way that is likely to reflect 'the political will of citizens of the Union' (paragraphs 3(a) and (b) of the resolution).
The quite deliberately arbitrary nature of these definitions is perfectly obvious and is primarily intended to eliminate opposition.
In order to lock the door even more tightly, differences of opinion on the application of these criteria would be settled by an arbitration panel deriving from the Community system (paragraph 7 of the resolution).
Finally, to complete the picture, we must add that public funds from the Community's coffers would be offered to the good boys and girls.
The purpose of this 'carrot' would be to encourage parties to fit themselves into the mould of European status, even if that meant betraying both their original aims and the peoples they represent, in order to champion the superstate.
We therefore repudiate this so-called 'constitutional status' , which is in no way constitutional or indeed democratic.
Eriksson and Seppänen (GUE/NGL), Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Lindqvist (ELDR), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (NI), in writing.
(SV) The Greek proposal for the Intergovernmental Conference is that Article 138a shall be expanded to include a framework regulation on the legal status of European political parties along with a regulation on the economic position of European political parties.
We cannot see any pertinent reason to amend the Treaty in this respect.
Even the Conference of Presidents, when the issue was raised, did not consider an amendment of the current regulations was necessary.
If, in the future, the people of Europe gain an identity and view themselves as a single entity, then there may be popular demand for European political parties.
Political parties should arise as a result of popular demand and for no other reason. This situation is not currently to be found - although there is cooperation between parties in the whole of Europe, the Green Federation for example.
The lack of popular participation in EU politics cannot be remedied by pumping money into new parties.
We do not wish to create further artificial pseudo-democratic ideals and force them on people in Europe.
We believe in subsidiarity and initiatives from the ground up rather than from the top down.
In view of the above, we cannot vote for the report.
The Danish Social Democrats have today declined to vote in favour of the Tsatsos Report for the following reasons:
There are no laws governing the setting up of parties in Denmark.
We do not have any regulations defining what form a political association should take in order to be recognized as a party.
On the other hand we do have provisions, in the Danish legislative system, which make it possible to ban parties if they make use of force and are therefore unacceptable.
From a Danish perspective we have problems with the concept of allowing Union citizenship to play so central a role in the Report.
Denmark concurred with the Edinburgh agreements that Union citizenship should not replace national citizenship.
At the same time we must make it clear that it is not the political will of citizens that the parties represent.
It is the political will of their party members .
It is clear that any person elected by the people is elected on the basis of his political will.
This is enshrined in Danish legislation for instance.
The Report draws up guidelines for 'the rights of certain of the European political parties' , including the right to put up candidates for elections.
We have no sympathy with this.
There is no common European election legislation, so it is not possible to propose candidates for elections at a European level.
The situation today is that political associations receive financial support with the inclusion of one item in the budget.
It is our view that, on the same conditions as such associations, and in accordance with Article 138a, European political parties should also receive support with the inclusion of an item in the budget.
We do not therefore agree with the argument that supporting political parties requires an independent legal basis in order to comply with the criteria of openness, transparency and reliability.
The budget today is controlled in such a way that it would be impossible to cheat or deceive without this being discovered.
We therefore see no need for making use of Article 235 of the EU Treaty in conjunction with financial support from European political parties, and we are against the proposal of applying Article 235 in conjunction with this matter.
I have voted against the Tsatsos report because in my opinion the role of the parties lies above all in bringing people together at national level to bring influence to bear within society, the most important forum being national parliaments.
Cooperation between national parties is a good thing and worthy of support, and we here in the European Parliament have good experience of it.
In cooperation between national parties, even representatives from small countries have an opportunity to state their opinions.
On the other hand, in the European parties whose status the Tsatsos report seeks to secure, it will be impossible for citizens from small countries to make their voices heard.
Parties should be founded at citizens' own initiative.
Only when the citizens of Europe themselves express a desire for European parties will a credible basis exist for them.
I cannot endorse the report's proposals on the funding of European parties.
On the other hand, Parliament has a continuing duty to safeguard the preconditions for the work of Parliament's political groups.
The report's proposal that information about funding should be public is an excellent one, but could equally be implemented under the present system if the will exists.
This declaration of vote is, equally and especially, an affirmation, an unequivocally political affirmation, of political principles and values.
' European construction' has been marked, in our view, by the primary intention to serve economic interests on the basis of political suppositions that we feel should at least be discussed.
In this 'European construction' it would seem now that 'European parties' are an integral part.
As we are questioning the political suppositions that underpin this 'European construction' serving particular interests, we are mostly very doubtful about a construction of party political institutions, forged in this context and resulting from arrangements behind the scenes or created 'in the lab' .
We think it significant that the discussion of this subject should be taking place at the end of a year in which political parties were celebrating 75 years of existence and, in particular, coinciding with the end of the congress of the party for which we stand, which was founded in 1921 and which started along a long road that formed its identity, something proven once again by this congress.
We refuse to accept pre-fabricated arrangements, notarial models and formulae, an opportunism compensated for by considerable material benefits, nor do we wish to exclude ourselves from the process of political negotiation adapting party political structures to real and ever-changing situations, and we are open to forms of cooperation and inter-party organization without any kind of preconception, as long as we do not call into question the identities resulting from collective experiences that transcend particular points in time and reflect profound popular expressions.
One thing is abundantly clear from this report by Mr Tsatsos: the two numerically largest political families in the House, the socialists and the Christian Democrats, are on the lookout for money again, and lots of it. What could the reason for this be?
The fact that there is stricter monitoring of party funding in the Member States? The fact that more and more politicians are being accused of corruption and fraud in every country in Europe?
The fact is that the House is almost unanimously in favour of dipping once again into the taxpayer's purse.
The politicians in the most powerful parties can obviously never get enough money.
The ordinary people of Europe are once again going to have to stump up in order to fund the megalomania of a group of political profiteers.
In Flanders, one of the MPs from my party said in Parliament that politicians are, almost by definition, parasites growing rich at the expense of society.
I know that this does not apply to all politicians, but I also know that it is certainly true of politics in the European Parliament, which has almost become synonymous with profiteering.
Even apart from these fundamental reservations, it must also be obvious that I completely reject the very idea of 'European political parties' .
It is yet another attack on national sovereignty, and yet another step on the road to a bland and colourless Europe where national individuality is blurred as much as possible or else deliberately erased.
Of course, there can and must be transnational cooperation between the European political parties, but they must retain their national identity and decision-making capacity.
This report is really nothing more than an ode to money as a weapon against the preservation of the political and national identities of the peoples of Europe.
At the heart of the European Union's problem of legitimacy is the question of democracy.
Universal democracy, in the form endorsed by the majority of the population in modern society, is unthinkable without a network of associations in which the political parties play a key role.
Only oligarchic and aristocratic élites can do without such organizational forms of collective political participation.
The challenge at European level consists of strengthening and enhancing the European dimension of the existing political parties in a way which frees them from dependence on concentrations of power in the economy and the media, without turning them into the agents of a self-centralizing state power.
This is undoubtedly a long and difficult task, but one that is of crucial importance.
Herzog report (A4-0338/96)
The Herzog report on participation of citizens and social players in the Union's institutional system declares a willingness to introduce proper information, transparency and the right to evaluation, concerted action, participation and consultation, all of which are laudable intentions, but the specific ways in which they will be applied are still not well enough defined to be truly practicable, in our view.
What is worse, the vagueness of the report as regards the implementation of these principles could disrupt democratic procedures, unless care is taken.
For example, the report calls for the establishment at European level of a general right 'of every citizen and every representative organization to draw up and promote their opinions and to receive replies directly or indirectly' .
But how exactly would this right - which could mean the European institutions having to produce replies on a massive scale - be exercised? We do not know.
All the same, we should have liked to be told how the existing consultation processes operate in the multitude of management and regulatory committees and the numerous working groups already gravitating around the Commission.
How are the participating organizations designated, how do they work, and how are their views taken into account? These points should have been examined before launching any new initiatives.
Furthermore, we fear that the universal pronouncement of a right to consultation will, in reality, serve to promote inadequately representative organizations, which would distort rather than improve the procedures.
We also fear that conclusions reached nationally by democratic means could be challenged at European level in the general chaos of consultations, whereby the cleverest and most experienced pressure group could gain acceptance for its opinions, even when in a minority.
We have therefore tabled some amendments showing the lines along which we would like these ideas to be developed: consultations should be held only at a level determined by the principle of subsidiarity; it should be up to the national government to decide which associations are representative and which are not; no association could be deemed representative at Union level unless it had been deemed so within the Member States; and no association should be consulted at European level, in a working group or at a general hearing, if Community subsidies represent an excessive proportion of its resources, for example more than 10 %.
However, these amendments should be seen as merely indicative.
In actual fact, we would have preferred to see a detailed preliminary study launched, showing how the external partners participating in the various EU working groups are designated at present, and how the system could be improved with due respect for all the stages in the democratic decision-making process.
I have voted for the Herzog report as it represents a basic critique of the democratic shortcomings of EU systems and the weak position people are in when it comes to influencing decisions.
I am, however, disappointed with several of the compromises which have been made between Herzog and PPE/PSE, especially the section on the importance of national level influence on decisions.
I would also like to emphasise that I have not voted to strengthen the status of the Economic and Social Committee or the Committee of the Regions or for the Union to have a tax system.
I am also opposed to the insertion of the social protocol into the Treaty; this strengthens above all the federal operating bodies, the Commission and the Court.
We are largely in agreement with Herzog's report with regard to participation by citizens and social players in Union systems and in the Intergovernmental Conference.
Herzog has done a good job. He has identified the problem of a deficit in democracy and lack of openness.
He does not give any clear or detailed indications as to how citizens are to participate and be consulted on the 'development' of the Union, on the transition to the Euro, or on Europol etc.
The best instrument for achieving real influence by the people is the referendum, preceded by a thorough debate.
Popular participation will not be increased by giving the European Parliament greater powers as Herzog suggests.
Far-reaching Community regulations are not necessary or desirable to create participation by the people.
Neither a joint tax system nor a supervisory centre should be established.
We are directly opposed to the proposal to improve the supply of information on European integration through conventions between the media, the EU and Member States.
The media must remain free from ties, agreements and conventions in order to maintain its integrity.
The right to information together with transparency and openness, the principle of publicity in other words, are all requirements for a genuinely functioning democracy.
An initiative report from the Committee on Institutional Affairs proposes a number of actions to strengthen popular confidence and participation in the Union.
The aim, according to the rapporteur Philippe Herzog, is to contribute to 'the advance of democracy within the EU' .
The Commission and Member States are urged to develop the proposal during the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is of course important to highlight the need to emphasise employment and social issues as well as economic issues, but decisions regarding all of these important issues should take place totally at national level.
But, there must of course be cooperation between the governments of the Member States on these issues.
That concludes the vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Communities' draft general budget for 1997 (continuation)
We will now continue the debate on the draft general budget for 1997.
Mr President, we talked in detail this morning about the problems that Parliament has had with the Council during this procedure, and about the Council's unwillingness, as part of the budgetary authority, to be reasonable in trying to find common ground with Parliament.
I almost have the impression that the Council has gradually forgotten that the budgetary authority has two arms, and not just one.
This is sure to lead to serious problems one day, although it has not happened this year because Parliament has not found a way to counteract the effects of the Council's uncooperative attitude.
We had the chance at first reading to keep at least the financial elements of the Commission's confidence pact afloat, but we did not dare to take the risk.
We could have kept a substantial part of it afloat at second reading, but it looks as if this too is not going to happen.
So we have the problem here in the House that we cannot summon up 314 votes for a policy that dares to risk confrontation with the Council in order to achieve a generally acceptable result, the kind of result which Commissioner Liikanen said this morning that he would like to see.
The question now is how we should organize ourselves in future.
I think that a great deal of internal debate is required if we are to avoid a repetition in 1997 and 1998 of what has happened here in 1996.
There is just one glimmer of light.
If everything goes according to the plans of the Committee on Budgets, the decision will be taken on Thursday to include the money for Turkey and the MEDA programme in the reserve.
This is a direct result of the decisions we voted through by a large majority - 420 votes - at first reading.
I am delighted that this appears to be going through, and to those who claim that this is not fair, because Turkey is being treated differently from other MEDA countries, I would simply say that Turkey is and wants to be a different country from other MEDA countries.
Turkey is the only country in the MEDA group that is a member of the Council of Europe and has signed the European Convention on Human Rights.
It has a customs union with us, which we voted through last year.
It hopes to become a member of the European Union, and the Treaty on European Union allows for this to happen.
In short, Turkey is a special case in the group of MEDA countries and must be treated as such, as a country which is closer to Europe than the others.
And in view of the human rights situation in Turkey it is, in my view, both possible and acceptable for us to adopt the same approach as the majority of the Committee on Budgets did yesterday.
It appears even more acceptable since we are currently holding talks with the editors-in-chief of the five main Turkish newspapers, who have come here to urge us to oppose the restrictions on press freedom which are currently being threatened in Turkey.
This is evidence enough of how Parliament can influence events in that country.
I have one final comment.
I welcome the fact that we have included a sentence in the Fabra-Vallés resolution on the need to conclude our investigations into payment of our allowances before the start of the 1998 budgetary procedure.
And I welcome it because I fear that - certainly as far as the Netherlands is concerned, and probably other Member States as well - unless we put our house in order, the 1999 election campaign will not be about European issues, but about the money that Members are pocketing, and this is something Parliament must avoid at all costs.
Mr President, the fulfilment of the Maastricht criteria for monetary union by the Member States is just as important to us as it is to the Member States themselves.
However, that is not the only reason why it is as necessary to make savings in the EU budget as it is in national budgets.
Making savings does not just mean making cutbacks, but above all using the available funds sensibly.
Although we are making the budget for 1997 a zero growth budget, therefore, we also wish to maintain our priorities: increased support for the peace process in Northern Ireland and research and technological development, and additional funds for the trans-European networks of some ECU 100 million.
Since this extra expenditure cannot be financed by means of an amendment to the interinstitutional agreement, new solutions must be found, such as the creation of a negative reserve in category 2.
A rather limited increase for research together with a negative reserve is acceptable.
My group refuses to let matters now come to a clash with the Council because of a breach of the interinstitutional agreement due to the trans-European networks.
As it is, the planning but not the implementation of projects is being supported.
On the other hand, funds for the TENs in the PHARE countries are available in category 4.
In any event, we need the onward connections in those countries.
I wish to thank Commissioner Liikanen for his comments on this point.
The Council accepted only a quarter of Parliament's amendments to all sections at first reading, ladies and gentlemen!
This seems quite arbitrary and at times even inconsistent - as is particularly apparent regarding the issue of 'no money for measures without a legal base' .
It is a matter of urgency to adopt a suitably constructive joint declaration on this subject.
In the meantime, however, we must ensure that the support funds entered by Parliament at first reading take effect, especially in the areas of employment and combating youth unemployment, education and training, the equal treatment of men and women, environmental and health protection, as well as the strengthening of democracy and the observance of human rights.
However, Parliament must try to thin out the items in question before the next budget, in order to avoid the dispersal of resources and improve the transparency and control of their use.
And the same applies to the satellite agencies.
I should like to thank the two rapporteurs most sincerely and congratulate them on their reports, and I also wish to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Budgets.
Mr President, as the Commission might expect I will make my comments solely on the question of the satellite agencies.
Can I first of all thank the Commission for their cooperation in operationalizing the request we made in the 1996 budget, where we asked the Commission to present proposals for consideration by the Committee on Budgets and Parliament on harmonization and modification of the agencies' financial regulations; on the question of budgetization of the agencies' revenues, on the question of a policy on property, on the question of their tax status and more importantly on the question of harmonization of the discharge procedures.
Can I compliment the Commission on meeting us half-way on this.
But for the budget process of 1998 we need to address the general questions that remain unresolved: the budgetization of revenue of own resources, the question of property, the question of tax and more importantly the question of discharge.
What I would now like to comment on are the issues that remain unresolved from the first to the second reading.
I would like to hope that the Budgets Committee have met the spirit of the Commission's wishes more than halfway.
Firstly, on the question of CEDEFOP on line B3-1026, we still wish to place our ECU 1.72 million in reserve, pending the start of building in Thessaloniki.
We see no problem with this as the third payment does not have to be made until September 1997.
Secondly, on the question of Bilbao.
There are still problems with this agency and the Budgets Committee are recommending that we put ECU 3 million on the line with ECU 1 million in reserve.
We now know that the agency has a director and its work programme is in place and I have asked Mr Brinkhorst the rapporteur to consider adding an amendment to the remarks of the budget line, that Bilbao may apply for further appropriations in the framework of an SAB, if it is proved to be justifiable and the resources are available, to enable them to carry out their programme.
Thirdly, there is the question of the drugs rehabilitation agency in Lisbon.
I see Mr Mingasson there as a new member of the management board.
Why do you need me when you have Mr Mingasson? We hope that, by moving funds from the REITOX line to the agency as a way of operationalizing the REITOX line, we can meet your demands.
I think that is a good way forward.
Finally, on the question of the European Training Foundation, we are requesting that you take operational expenditure for that line from the Tempus programme to meet the work that agency does.
Can I note the comments made by Mr Liikanen at the Budget Committee hearing last week?
We are not against the creation of new agencies, in fact we have no objection to them.
What we do need are standardized and harmonized procedures before any new ones are created.
I hope the Commission will now accept our recommendations.
Mr President, while adequate in the circumstances, this year's budget has shown many procedural shortcomings, not only inside this House but also in other institutions, particularly of course in relation to the conduct of the Council as one arm of the budget authority - a Council which has been inflexible, irresponsible, inconsistent and at times irrelevant throughout this budget procedure.
I would just briefly disagree with Mr Samland when this morning he criticized the Council for being at the end of the line of ministers.
Of course all too frequently they are at the end of a line of civil servants with politicians taking their diktats from national civil servants who have no political background, are not responsive to democratic impulses but are largely officials serving finance ministers' diktats to cut spending, to increase refunds to Member States and to bow the knee to Maastricht convergence criteria.
Even though the European budget needs to be soundly based, we need at times to remind ourselves that in a country like the United Kingdom, for every £20 of public expenditure - I am a rich man, that is a £20 note I am showing you - the British Government still spends £19.94 of it.
Six pence in every £20 of net public expenditure comes through the European budget.
The United Kingdom consumes £1 billion out of £300 billion of public expenditure and to expect that budget to satisfy the demands of the Maastricht convergence criteria is a nonsense.
I believe our rapporteurs have done well in the circumstances and deserve our thanks.
However, things cannot continue like this.
We are reaching a stage where the European Union is faced with potential budgetary gridlock.
We have a fixed own resource. We have constantly increasing demands upon that fixed own resource.
Our spending committees are making ever greater demands on it, as is the Council, and the envelope is now too small for the demands made of it.
That means we have either to get more money or tackle the reality which is that if we cannot get greater resource - and I do not see that happening - we must have better evaluation of projects, better use of cost-benefit evaluation, better use in the Commission of zero-based budgeting and greater recourse in the Commission to eliminating programmes which were originally perceived as having a finite life or of being of limited duration or, on the basis of cost-benefit analysis, are deemed to have outlived their utility.
That is what Commissioner Liikanen was referring to this morning when he said we are in a crisis of budgetary procedure.
If that is what he meant I fully support him.
Mr President, I just wish to say that I agree with what Mr Tomlinson and Mrs Theato have said about the risk of spreading Community spending too thinly.
I commend the Committee on Budgets which tried to limit the number of actions to those which are important.
If the Community seriously wants to enlarge - and this debate is just beginning - we must be able to concentrate on big projects, with critical mass, and within a certain period of time.
If a programme has been successful, it can be brought to a conclusion and we can launch a new project.
The Community tradition is that once something has started it must be continued forever.
That is something we are trying to change.
I hope that when the Commission discusses the budget in January, there will be a serious discussion on priorities, and when we know that spending ceilings exist - and there is no dramatic change there - there must be the political courage to curb activities which are no longer useful.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
Financing enlargement
The next item is the report (A4-0353/96) by Mr Christodoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the financing of the enlargement of the European Union.
Mr President, before saying anything else I would like to thank the members of the various working groups of the Committee on Budgets who helped and who are essentially coauthors of this report, namely Mr Bösch, Mr Di Prima, Mr Miranda, Mrs Müller, Mr Porto and Mr Olli Rehn, the last of whom is not with us because he was not returned in the recent elections, but who contributed excellent work in the area of agriculture.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to begin with, it should be noted that this report is a first approach to the subject and cannot possibly consider all the financial and economic aspects of enlargement.
Consequently, it does not aspire to make definitive estimates but is limited to the presentation of facts and figures on the order of magnitude of the costs in the main sectors.
It will become possible to give more accurate cost figures when enough information for that purpose is obtained from studies of a dynamic nature, in other words not static as they have been so far, and ones based on more realistic assumptions.
For exactly that reason, in the report we call on the Commission to undertake such an analysis and study, so that we may know exactly what financial and economic framework we are operating in.
Consequently, this report is a provisional one and I ask Parliament to render its decision accordingly.
It must be stressed that the analysis of enlargement's costs and financial consequences is not intended to obstruct enlargement or make it more difficult.
Its purpose is to shed light on the financial aspects of enlargement, which are often neglected, to ensure that the decisions will be governed by consistency and to secure the best possible conditions for the accession of new Member States.
Mr President, excessive political zeal always generates a tendency for political declarations to be made, which are later contradicted when it is found that insufficient consideration has been given to the economic factor.
That is exactly what we are trying to do now, in other words to stress the economic aspects of the problem so that the political decisions will be correctly based and we will not need to have retractions which, as we all understand, are exceptionally damaging to the European Union's credibility.
First of all, it must be said that the more general geopolitical reasons that compel the attachment of Central and Eastern European countries to the European Union and that essentially constitute a factor for the area's security, are a basic and fundamental choice of the European Union.
There is no point in discussing them; they exist, and they are as they are.
On the other hand, however, we must bear in mind that hasty accession without appropriate preparation would have negative consequences, not only economically but politically as well, because first of all there would be a risk that the new countries would be unable to participate in the Union's main policies for a long time, in other words there would be very many deviations and postponements which would mean that the new members would be joining as second-class partners and not as full members able to participate in the process of creating the European Community, and secondly, it would largely obstruct the operation of the internal market because any who joined subject to deviations would set the elimination of those deviations as a basic policy aim.
For that reason, then, the conditions satisfied by countries that are candidates for accession must be those laid down by the European Council.
They too are not subject to discussion; they are prerequisites which cover the social, economic and political structure of the candidate member states.
It must be said, however, that from a purely economic standpoint the structural reforms in each country applying for accession are definitive factors for successful enlargement.
That is why the need is stressed to strengthen the structural nature of the European Community's interventions in candidate member states, and the PHARE programme will therefore either have to become clearly structural, or better still, a new financial instrument will have to be created.
Besides, we should recall that the European Union is not the sole source of funding; finance can be provided from elsewhere as well, and consequently, coordination between the alternatives is absolutely essential if economic issues are to be correctly addressed.
Correct preparation, then, takes time and financial support that will involve considerable costs for the European Union, which must in parallel continue its own efforts to achieve greater depth, a factor that must not be neglected.
Because of all this, as I said earlier, estimating the cost is not an easy matter.
Besides, apart from the immediate financial consequences, in other words those relating to finance for the candidate countries either in the context of their preparation for accession or after their accession, such as participation in the Union's policies or administrative expenditure related to staff salaries and all kinds of other establishments, we must not underestimate the indirect financial consequences, in other words expenditure to support the cohesion and convergence of the present Member States and, later, the necessary adaptations to the Union's policies: the CAP, the structural policies, etc.
That expenditure is unavoidable, it will take place in any event, but it will have to be considered from now on in the context of the possible accession of the new member states as well, so that it will be realistic and internally consistent.
Consequently, successful enlargement will be beneficial if those involved prepare for it correctly.
For exactly that reason, Mr President, besides clear criteria, we must regard it as a basic element of our strategy to define preaccession periods adapted to the individual features of each candidate country.
The mass accession of countries with little in common and which do not all conform to a general economic framework could create problems, and disagreements about who comes first and who second.
A pre-accession period that is shorter or longer depending on the characteristics of each country, a period culminating in the certain and legally well founded accession of the country concerned to the European Union, with financial interventions to support each country's development efforts, is the best solution and is exactly the basic political concept which this report advocates.
This is, of course, a matter of both historical and strategic importance, but we have, unfortunately, a limited time in which to deal with it.
I would therefore ask honourable Members to respect the speaking-time allotted to them.
When this report was being examined in the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Foreign Affairs put forward a series of amendments which it had itself unanimously adopted.
Not many of them have survived the vote in the Committee on Budgets, and despite the talks we have held with the rapporteur, Mr Christodoulou, whom I respect as a great expert in this field, we still do not entirely agree on certain points, though there are fortunately some where we do.
The thing that strikes us about this report from the Committee on Budgets - and this is a point that was made on a number of occasions in the committee, including by the rapporteur himself - is that we do not actually have enough information yet to produce an accurate picture of what the budgetary effects of enlargement are going to be.
Mr Christodoulou also made this point.
So we are really not much further forward on this important issue than we were six months ago.
I myself and the Committee on Foreign Affairs would have preferred to wait until we have reliable and comparable statistics on which to base a more authoritative report.
The Committee on Budgets acknowledged this when it proposed the title of interim report, indicating that it is itself not happy with it, and suggesting the possibility that there will be others in future which might have more to say.
Having said that, I still find it a pity that the present report is rather negative about Central Europe.
It does not need to be.
I agree that we must be cautious and that we need to be honest about any problems we identify, but we must also be careful not to let our attitude alarm Central Europe, which is already wondering whether we really want enlargement or not.
So I feel that we are risking provoking a negative reaction there.
There has of course never been any question of the Committee on Foreign Affairs being the only one allowed to speak on this subject, and I have always hoped that the Committee on Agriculture and, in particular, the committees dealing with structural policy, public freedoms, external relations and budgets would all have their say.
It has never been our intention to overlook them, although when we drew up our report six months ago, the Committee on Budgets was the only one not to give us its opinion, even though we asked for it.
It has thus never been our intention to overlook the budgetary aspects, but if we are to talk about such specific issues, then we would prefer to have specific figures to show exactly what we are doing.
I believe that it is particularly important to stress to Central Europe that enlargement is not just a quantitative and financial issue, but also a qualitative and structural one, as the rapporteur said a moment ago.
A report such as this should not give any worst-case scenarios, and it should make it clear that it is not the final word on the subject and that none of what it says should be interpreted negatively, since it will in any event be reviewed when we have more reliable data in the future.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Christodoulou, has been able to incorporate relatively little of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, and I can understand why.
We have spoken with one another, and we both take the view that, next year, the Committee on Regional Policy should draw up its own report on this complicated issue.
I believe that anyone tackling the subject which is being dealt with here by Mr Christodoulou has an extremely difficult task, since figures are not open to debate.
If this issue is discussed in terms of figures - and it is indeed rather too soon to do that - the outcome is more likely to be frustration than enthusiasm.
However, I see no reason to panic or become agitated, since the financial aspect of enlargement to the east is only one aspect of the matter.
Mr Christodoulou has deliberately focused on this aspect because it is his special field.
We do not believe that the Christodoulou report deals with the whole question of enlargement to the east.
Panic is quite unnecessary for another reason: the applicant states will most certainly not accede en bloc .
If it should happen - and without wishing to establish a chronological order, since it is not my place to do so - that Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary, Estonia and others join, a certain period of time will undoubtedly elapse between the accessions of individual countries.
The European Union will change qualitatively, and not just quantitatively after each individual accession.
We shall probably be surprised - and pleasantly so - to see how the EU develops when these dynamic, highly motivated countries join us.
As regards the financial aspects, moreover, I can report that the Commissioner responsible, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, believes that enlargement to the east is feasible even without an increase in own resources, and without a rise in the GNP quota of structural assistance.
I should like to conclude by taking up what Mr Oostlander said.
Compared with what the Union stands to gain from the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, all the financial burdens which lie ahead of us are truly negligible - after all, burdens are always relative.
Europe will gain so much from enlargement to the east that I hope this process will be driven forward dynamically by each and every one of us.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, I too could begin by joining in the general chorus of complaint at the lack of hard data.
No specific predictions can be made, or worked into this report, but I see this as an interim report which, as Mr Christodoulou has said, will need to be followed up by others.
The important role of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media in the further development of the constitutional state and democracy in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe has been highlighted repeatedly at the various summits, even though the main emphasis in terms of enlargement to the east is being placed on economic restructuring and harmonizing legal standards and provisions.
However, these important educational and cultural aspects must not be disregarded.
Intensive financial support for the educational sector is particularly important now, in view of the considerable decline in educational standards which, according to the Commission, has already become apparent in the CCEE.
One does not need to be clairvoyant to predict that, in the medium term, this trend will lead to economic stagnation and produce adverse consequences for accession, because the gap is still widening.
What can we do as a Community to ensure that funds are earmarked not only for the modernization of sectors of the economy but also for education, culture and the audiovisual media? As long as the applicant states are considered 'foreign' , the Maastricht Treaty does not permit educational and training projects to be carried out via the Structural Funds.
According to the Commission, nothing can be done about this for legal reasons.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media nonetheless believes that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe should be allowed to use 10 % of the PHARE funds at their disposal to cofinance EU programmes.
But, as I said, this can only happen if the key question is answered: do we, or do we not, still consider these applicant states to be 'foreign' from a legal point of view? Our committee is arguing for a pragmatic approach in this context, to allow for a more flexible use of PHARE funds up to the time of accession, so as to give these countries greater powers to take decisions for themselves.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media is also calling for an increase in the percentage of resources available for cofinancing under PHARE - I repeat, under PHARE - as a practical way of ensuring that culture and education are not neglected, perhaps even becoming an obstacle to early accession.
Mr President, Parliament is once again discussing a very important topic today, and I think it was very ambitious of the Committee on Budgets to put this issue on the agenda so soon.
Its very nature means that certain aspects are rather speculative, which could put the whole debate on our hopes - and I stress the word hopes - for enlargement on entirely the wrong track.
Enlargement is a political decision, not a financial one.
It costs money, but it also brings certain benefits, including financial ones.
How much it costs depends very much on what the Union does both internally and externally over the next few years.
By internally, I mean the structural and financial reforms that we carry out and, of course, the principles we apply in doing so.
For the Committee on External Economic Relations, it is an important principle to maintain the necessary solidarity and cohesion, even in an enlarged Union, but more important still is the question of what efforts the Union is going to make over the next few years to help the applicant countries achieve full membership.
Linked to this, of course, is also the question of what those countries themselves will do until they become members.
The more successful this strategy is, the less enlargement will cost.
The strategy may vary from one country to another, as will each accession, and this too will affect the final bill.
In the opinion which I have drawn up for the Committee on External Economic Relations, the emphasis is very much on the efforts to be made prior to accession: through PHARE and the EBRD, trade cooperation - not least in sensitive sectors, market reforms and, in our case, giving priority to social policy; through investment in administration and infrastructure, and by encouraging cooperation with the EU in every field, including the single currency, of course.
The costs, and not just for the EU budget, may become very high if this strategy does not work.
Preparations for enlargement are a dynamic process and require a dynamic approach.
So let us have done with all this waiting and seeing, let us get on with enlargement, since timing too will determine the final bill.
What we should really be talking about is not the funding of enlargement, but the cost of accession.
Mr President, I should like to begin by complimenting the rapporteur on the work he has undertaken.
It certainly cannot have been easy to produce such a committed report at the present time, and we are seeing now what differences of opinion such a report from the Committee on Budgets can provoke.
One thing is clear: what the Committee on Budgets has presented us with is no diplomatic treatise.
We do not yet know, of course, when or which country, of what size, and with what budgetary requirements, will join the Union, but once we do know all that, there will probably be no need for long reports from Parliament, because everything will already have been decided.
We wish to make one thing clear: Parliament, including its Committee on Budgets, is committed to and in favour of this enlargement, and we do not wish to send out the wrong signals.
But we also owe it to our electorates - and that also means the taxpayers - to try to place this enlargement debate on a rather firmer footing, not least from a budgetary point of view.
Surely we cannot go on allowing leading EU politicians - including the German Chancellor and the French President - to speak casually in Warsaw of the year 2000 as an accession date for Poland.
We all know that this cannot be.
Even the Members opposite know that it will not be the case, leaving aside altogether the fact that these governments are often the very ones which advocate a completely contrary budgetary policy.
It is here that the principal task of this report by the Committee on Budgets lies.
It must be made clear that it will only be possible to enlarge the European Union after a profound and radical reform of the structural policies and the CAP.
For this reason, it is relatively immaterial whether we assess the costs of enlargement rather cautiously - as does the Commission - or as a continuation of existing per capita transfers.
To give an example from the structural policies: the Commission maintains that the additional costs could be around ECU 9 billion annually.
If the existing per capita transfers in favour of the poorest states of the Union are continued, that means additional costs of ECU 26 bn just to incorporate the four Visegrad states.
But things will happen, even if we do nothing.
For example, enlargement to incorporate the four Visegrad countries would reduce the average per capita income in the Union by around 7 %, which would mean that several of the present Objective 1 regions would no longer qualify.
It was not our aim to draw up a second Oostlander report.
As MEPs, we have been confronted on several occasions recently with the problem of how to reconcile, in the minds of our voters, the grand declarations issued at summit meetings of the Heads of Government with the reality of day-to-day politics.
I believe that Mr Christodoulou's efforts constitute a serious step in this direction, and we must press on along that road.
Mr President, I must begin by congratulating Mr Christodoulou on a report that has struck the right balance between the different elements under consideration in respect of the accession of the next Member States.
The greatest enthusiasm has been aroused in relation to the accession of countries whose joining the European Union, only just over eight years ago, would have been nothing more than a dream which is now being made true thanks to their progress down the road to democracy.
But in their interest and in the interest of the Community as a whole, certain basic measures based on realism must be taken in various areas.
One of those areas is agricultural policy, which has to be adapted to a more efficient market, otherwise the prices would be far too high for consumers in those countries and place an unbearable weight on the Union's budget.
We should not be 'bowled over' by optimistic estimates but should be realistic and not ask for the current CAP to be applied as the budgetary amounts would be incompatible.
The budget has to be prepared, fundamentally, so that we can support the structural policies needed to adapt the economies of the candidate countries to a more open and far more demanding market.
On the other hand, unless we want to compromise the integration process itself, we must maintain and even strengthen the structural policies in the existing Member States.
It is not because we would be lowering the Union average that many regions in these countries would cease to need this type of support.
A strong Europe is vital for the economies of the candidates to accession, creating new demand and earmarking investment resources.
Finally, as I emphasised in the report I drafted for the Committee on Budgets, the accession of the current candidate countries makes its all the more urgent to introduce measures in the budgetary field, especially concerning size and revenue.
Since the agricultural policy cannot be changed from one moment to the next (in any case considerable resources would be needed for its adaptation), since there must be a new strengthening of the structural policies, other expenditure being far less significant and to a large extent not leaving any room for cuts, it does not seem to us to be possible to integrate new members without increasing the Union budget in percentage terms (in my view), above the scanty 1.27 % planned for 1999, or otherwise, given the figures, we would be calling into question the 'seriousness' of expressions of the desire to accept new member states.
In any case we cannot accept a situation where encouraging consumption continues to be the main way of boosting the Community's own resources.
It would be better, not to say crucial to boost the resources directly, in accordance with the ability of the citizens to contribute, so as to identify them more closely with the integration process as they are becoming more demanding in respect of controlling the use of resources.
Furthermore, we cannot continue to accept a situation of regressiveness, made worse still by new Member States, in which the poorer European Parliament citizens pay the highest amounts per capita.
This is an unacceptable situation domestically and cannot be allowed to continue in a Europe that claims to treat all its citizens fairly and to encourage their participation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Christodoulou has drawn on various sources in producing his very interesting report, as he has said himself, but it cannot be regarded as a conclusive contribution to the debate on enlargement.
In fact, even though all of us in this House are convinced of the inevitability of enlargement, I for my part am not sure that the rapporteur has the same view of adequate funding as do the contributors.
I would point out especially that the strategy of reducing CAP appropriations is a short-term one which disregards the fact that the CAP is a mechanism of the market economy, which has budgetary relevance only for the budget of the European Union.
That is why I agree with those who commented yesterday that a few more weeks would have enabled us to consider some alternative hypotheses.
I believe, in fact, that taking account of all the consequences of the transition to the single currency - which will require a costly levelling-out of the differences between the ins and the pre-ins - will have a significant impact on Community resources.
However, there is no reason to think today that, after the year 2000, it will be possible to exceed the ceiling of 1.27 % of GDP, as currently laid down in the Treaties.
What is more, I think that - in the extremely sensitive period between 1999 and 2002, when the energies of the Fifteen will be taken up for the most part by the transition from the virtual euro to the euro in our pockets - the rapporteur's call for a review of the own resources system, to be undertaken by the IGC, is unlikely to be met.
I personally cannot imagine that the IGC, which is having to address itself to a multitude of increasingly urgent matters, will be able to examine such a vast subject.
That does not detract from the value of the work done by the rapporteur, I repeat, but the UPE Group is sceptical - to say the least - as regards the glaring discrepancy between this and the Member States' budgetary constraints.
Mr President, the debate so far already indicates that we are just in time with this interim report.
Of course the question of enlargement is a political choice and the Liberal and Democratic Group has always supported it.
But, at the same time, it is also clear that words must be matched by deeds.
That is the central significance of a debate on this report at this particular moment.
There is no denying that the coming enlargement has fundamental implications, both institutional and financial, for the very essence of the European Union.
These changes are of a greater magnitude than what we have experienced so far.
This time it will not do to concentrate simply on the overall political objective, however desirable it might be.
It is for that reason that the nitty gritty - and sometimes it is said that these are technical questions - should be discussed.
As the rapporteur, Mr Christodoulou, indicates, we must have an accurate picture of what this entails in reality in order to determine the best strategy to follow to achieve these objectives.
The unknowns are even greater this time and, therefore, we must be as well prepared as possible.
It will not be possible to have an accurate and complete picture of the implications, but we must keep them in mind every step of the way.
That is the underlying motive of the amendments which my group has tabled.
We wish Mr Christodoulou's resolution to highlight the implications of the fundamental choices which the Union is making in order to give a clearer picture of exactly what is at stake and what needs to be done in concrete terms to achieve the coming enlargement.
There are three essential points which my colleagues and I would wish to make in this regard and they are reflected in the amendments.
This time the deepening of the Union will have to precede the actual enlargement.
Only then will the candidates have an accurate idea of the Union they are joining.
It is not possible, as the whole IGC business shows, to readjust the integration process once the deed is done.
Secondly, there is the question of financial implications.
Either Member States increase the budget and the allocations for the structural funds and the other distributive policies or our current financial solidarity will be affected.
There is no alternative.
It is a fundamental choice which must be made.
Already I can hear from colleagues on the right and on the left that very different signals are being given in this respect.
Thirdly, the enlargement has implications for the PHARE programme which will need to undergo a rationalization of its objectives.
There are some very important points made about this in the Christodoulou report.
If this is to become an ever-more efficient tool at the disposal of the candidate countries - Mr Wiersma made this point very clearly - we must do a great deal at this stage and not wait until the deed has been done.
Mr President, the complexity and trickiness of this matter call for serious reflection.
We therefore welcome in specific respect of funding enlargement the exhaustive listing of problem areas and the care taken in finding solutions.
In particular, I should emphasize in this context the need, referred to, for considerable transition periods - and even the idea mooted in one report for a longer pre-accession period - or the considerations (not yet finalised) put forward about areas as controversial as agriculture and structural activities, although we distance ourselves from the approaches suggested in this area on the need to reform the CAP.
We think it vital and unquestionable, on this score, that new objectives really need new resources and new means of obtaining those resources.
Another obvious question is whether the European Parliament is not able to make a serious and final quantification of the financial costs of enlargement.
It would be desirable, despite the fact that we do not yet know in what conditions it will take place, if we tried to do so right now.
Another aspect, which the report does not deal with, is this: the analysis of the financial costs of enlargement should be coupled or even preceded in the various options by an analysis of the overall effects on the economic and social fronts, for the Union as a whole, or for each of the Member States, as well as for the applicant countries.
The financial question is important but it is not the only or most important factor.
Finally I should like to mention our disagreement with the report in relation to two specific aspects: the close link it establishes between enlargement and EMU - when we know full well that even the current Member States are not adopting it, because they do not want to or because they cannot - and the requirement for the applicant countries to adopt ultra-liberal economic and social models, particularly shocking given that the report does not mention social issues once.
As for these other aspects we shall present some amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, only when we are sitting beside our Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Slovak, Estonian and perhaps other Eastern European colleagues in this House in the year 2009, 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, racking our brains with them about Europe and the world, only then will the cold war really be over, only then will the peaceful unification and restructuring of Europe really have been achieved.
Then we shall look back together to our discussion of the Christodoulou report in 1996, and even 15 years on we shall judge it as being far-sighted and realistic.
The report is far-sighted because it resolutely sets its sights beyond the end of the millennium, and leaves no doubt that enlargement of the European Union will take place and will need to be financed.
It is realistic in that it describes in no uncertain terms the extent of the changes required both of the applicant states and of the present Member States.
It also shows that the established patterns of interests in the old Union will be dissolved and re-formed in the context of priorities affecting the whole of Europe.
It is therefore a question here not of a new savings scheme for Europe - or rather Eastern Europe - but of introducing the citizens of Europe to a new situation, to the novel and crucial idea of an institutional order based on peace, and to ways of becoming actively involved in it.
Consequently, greater democratic participation is just as much a part of this process as the review of transfer payments.
In order to speed up enlargement to the east, while at the same time taking our responsibilities in the third world more seriously, the funds for structural and agricultural transfers will be reduced by a few billion ECU and will therefore need to be better targeted.
The expiry of the Cohesion Fund at the turn of the millennium is another part of this equation.
Enlargement to the east can be financed; not to take the risk would cost us more dearly.
To tackle it as steadfastly and expeditiously as possible will bring incalculable benefits for all concerned.
Mr President, as I had the opportunity of saying yesterday, when I called for the Christodoulou report to be withdrawn from the agenda, it seems to me that the timing of this report is inappropriate.
It is, in fact, too soon to assess the cost of enlarging the European Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, because a process of dynamic change is under way.
What is more, the rapporteur himself tells us that the data available to him do not permit any firm conclusions.
Moreover, the fact that only the financial consequences of enlargement are being examined here today could well give the countries concerned a negative impression of the Union.
The EU might appear to be concerned solely with budgetary and accounting matters and, ultimately, to be ill disposed towards the arrival of newcomers.
It would have been preferable to table this report in the context of a general debate on enlargement, exploring all the political and financial aspects at the same time.
A more balanced overview would have emerged, and the political message to the CCEE would have been more positive and encouraging.
We shall be voting in favour of the amendments seeking to supplement the report by giving it a more political, more positive slant, and we shall naturally withhold our vote if the main amendments are rejected.
Mr President, there is no doubt that, aside from being an economic issue - which it is and a major economic issue at that - enlargement of the Union is fundamentally a political matter and indeed the motion for a resolution before us calls upon the Commission to prepare a detailed study on the future reform of the CAP and the Structural Funds so as to provide a reliable basis for any decision on enlargement.
To put it another way: the political aspect of enlargement takes priority over its economic consequences for the agricultural sector and management of the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
The impact of enlargement to take in twelve new Member States has to be considered in all its aspects, including changes to a range of policies which could imply serious risks for the Union and lead it to take on a different character.
Budgetary assessments may be made as forecasts of what may happen but they will be valid only if we know what the policy for the various sectors is to be or if we are able to start out - as stated in the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy - from specific alternative political scenarios.
In point of fact, as far as the future of the Union is concerned, the possibilities for enlargement will be influenced not by the budgetary problems but by the institutional difficulties. Those difficulties relate to the composition of the different institutions, the nature of the decision-making process within the Council, the powers of the Commission and the supervisory powers of this House.
Unless those issues are resolved, it will not be possible to have the kind of enlargement that guarantees the continuity of the Union; and unless a constitutional state and full democracy are established in all of the CCEEs the political priority of enlargement will be left jeopardized.
According to what is, to say the least, a charitable estimate, the cost of this enlargement will be in the region of ECU 3 bn per annum.
As far as agriculture - a sector of prime importance and not just for the CCEEs - is concerned, enlargement would require a series of additional adjustment costs in excess of ECU 12, 020 million per annum, the equivalent of ECU 120, 200 million between the year 2000 and 2010, not to mention the resources needed to adapt and modernize production and, in the best-case scenario, improve existing infrastructures.
And so, already problematic as applied to fifteen countries, in line with the principles of subsidiarity, financial solidarity, Community preference and market unity, the CAP will be substantially weakened as a result of enlargement, and the effect of this will not be on the Community agricultural sector alone, it will have negative implications for agricultural workers in the CCEEs who are therefore likely to migrate to the more profitable agricultural sector.
Only once the Union has undergone radical reform - and this is something that cannot be left to the Intergovernmental Conference but will depend on the real political will for a Union - will it be possible for the CCEEs to accede to the Union with sufficient likelihood of that accession being a success for both sides.
Political Union is the only valid basis for discussing enlargement: we have first to lay down the ground rules for this, and it involves reforming the institutional structure and redistributing responsibilities - only thereafter will we be able to talk in terms of enlargement and financing that process.
Haste is never a good thing.
If irreparable damage to the nature and progress of the Union is to be avoided, we have to hope that the IGC concludes its work by giving new impetus to the achievement of political union; if that does not happen, we shall have to resign ourselves to extending the association agreements.
That will be the lesser evil.
The report by the Committee on Budgets seems precipitate just because it does not place the accent on the priority need to bring about political union.
I have to say that the majority of previous speakers stressed the need for political union prior to enlargement, the need then for political union to take priority over economic union itself. The implication is therefore that we need to ascertain whether political union - once established - is able to function properly before embarking upon any kind of enlargement.
In point of fact, unless political union is established and consolidated, enlargement will mean for our peoples - the people of the current fifteen Member States of the Union - an increase in unemployment and poverty and will at the same time condemn the CCEEs to greater poverty and make it impossible for them actually to enter the Union.
We are faced with a choice: political union or a free trade zone.
We, for our part, are for political union.
Mr President, apart from congratulating the rapporteur, I would like, if you will allow me, to begin with a comment unconnected with the budget.
I would like to stress that those of us who lived for forty years under a Fascist dictatorship, who still recall that the first Spanish application to join the European Economic Community in 1962 was rejected because the required democratic conditions were not met, and who therefore know what it is to live unfree and in isolation, are, I believe, particularly well qualified to understand the aspirations of our Eastern European neighbours.
I would also like to say, on behalf of Spanish socialists, that, just as we unhesitatingly supported German unification at the time, so shall we also be ready to support European union without hesitation when the time comes.
Only those who rule themselves out should be left outside.
Mr President, I am basically in agreement with Mr Christodoulou's report and I would like to make a few comments.
In the first place it is not premature.
It would be if, as some here mistakenly suppose, it were an accounting report.
What we are doing here is to set out the financial problems of the future, and this is not premature because the questions will be highly complex.
Secondly, the Union cannot allow itself the luxury of failing to expand, and will have to make allowance in its costs for those of non-enlargement, if we want to have a true balance.
Third, enlargement to include the countries of central and eastern Europe is important and advantageous to the Union's citizens, its workers, its companies, to those of the candidate countries and even, I would venture to say, to those of other countries, but it will not be cost-free.
In my view it is ridiculous to think that a dozen countries with a per capita income of less than half the present Community average can be incorporated on the basis of 1.27 % of gross domestic product of a Community whose per capita GDP will be reduced by the actual enlargement process.
So I believe that we shall have to consider new needs here.
Mr President, in conclusion I would like to add that we should perhaps consider the need to include in our financial perspective a specific category for enlargement.
Only in this way can we, I believe, give proper consideration to all aspects, from monetary union to structural policies, including agricultural reform for all, in and outside the Community, which we must carry out at the beginning of the next century.
Mr President, I should like to begin by complimenting the rapporteur, Mr Christodoulou, on his report.
It has stimulated an open debate in this House on enlargement to the east, although I would caution against creating the impression that the cake is becoming ever smaller, and that we are already starting to fight over the best piece.
Secondly, I would urge that we avoid replacing the imminent blending of East and West - namely eastward enlargement of the European Union - with a North-South divide.
Enlargement to the east is a subject of tremendous importance for my country, since Austria borders on four potential applicant states - Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia - which, together with Poland, will be among the first to accede, in all likelihood.
The iron curtain, the fault-line which divided Europe, used to run along these borders.
In Austria, we regard enlargement to the east as an opportunity to mend this fault and complete the unification of Europe, a process in which politics is still lagging behind the economic reality.
Austria's economic ties with Central Europe are already extensive: 13 % of our exports go to this region, a third of all investments have been made there, and 56 000 jobs have resulted from these links with the east.
Naturally, the balance sheet has both a credit and a debit side.
Company relocations to the east, where workers earn a tenth of our wages, and the pressure from the latter to move to the high-wage countries, mean that many of our citizens see enlargement to the east as a nightmare.
For this reason, unlike the rapporteur, Mr Christodoulou, I am in favour of phased integration, with exemptions and long transitional periods, especially in respect of the free movement of persons.
The second major problem is agriculture.
If all the Central European countries were to accede at the same time - which in fact is most unlikely - Europe's utilized agricultural area would increase by 55 %.
I am therefore in favour of a reform of the CAP, but would warn against an over-hasty alignment of farm prices to Western market levels.
Our farmers could not cope with that.
Central Europe's economic structures must be supported under the PHARE programme, the funding for which should be increased.
As an Austrian, I believe that enlargement to the east must be linked to conditions such as the abandonment of nuclear energy by Central Europe in the long term; until that is possible, the nuclear power stations there must be made safe and brought up to our environmental standards.
It would cost ÖS 702 billion for the CCEE to comply with the EU water directive alone.
But the raising of environmental standards helps to promote fair competition for everyone.
Last but not least, respect for human rights and democracy must be ensured in all these countries, since the EU is after all a community based on shared values.
All of this has its price.
I would call upon the House to see this price as an investment in the secure future of Europe.
Mr President, when we debate enlargement of the EU, we should bear in mind that the principal objective of enlargement is to reinforce peace and security in Europe.
Accordingly, increased cooperation with Russia is also an element in it.
To us Finns, the development of cooperation both in the Baltic region and in the Barents Sea region of the Arctic is particularly important.
In itself this report is thorough and highly meritorious, but it has the defect that it does not devote sufficient attention to the economic and social impact of enlargement, as Mr Miranda has said here.
With regard to the capacity of the present Member States to fund enlargement, employment is the decisive factor.
Similarly, attention should be devoted to unemployment in the applicant countries, which in the case of a number of them is catastrophic.
Strict economic discipline and compliance with the EMU conditions will have a further impact on the applicant countries' ability to improve employment and social security.
Mr President, the report we are considering is an interim one.
I hope that in future these social aspects will be stressed more.
Mr President, what is our European Union? It must be the greatest international experiment in democracy the world has ever seen.
It is also a reaction to Europe's centuries of bloody wars.
As a child of the war and the longest-serving Member of this Parliament I have seen three enlargements.
It is very moving to hear the way Mr Colom i Naval and Mrs Stenzel have spoken.
Greece, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Austria and Finland: each enlargement has enriched this House and enhanced the lives of all on our continent.
We have seen the Berlin Wall tumble down, we have seen the Iron Curtain swept aside.
And the great question before us now is the one Mr Christodoulou has posed: are we going to be able to extend our umbrella over these new applicant countries?
There are different views, of course.
Germany - the best citizen, perhaps, of our Community - wants deeper and wider; the UK, perhaps the worst Member State, wants wider but not deeper; France wants deeper but not wider.
So there are different views here.
Mr Christodoulou has not been simplistic; he has spelled out the financial difficulties.
But the main thing is: the welcome is on the record.
With this report and, I hope, with this vote, we say: ' we want you to join us' .
Mr President, the report before us is predicated on the dogma that the European Union must be enlarged, whatever the consequences in either financial or human terms.
Well, these are considerable, because it is a matter of the coexistence, within the same economic and administrative entity, of nations and peoples whose traditions, industrial standards and levels of development are radically different.
Starting from that premise, and in an effort to offset by budgetary means the economic and social consequences of enlargement, the report recommends a rise of at least 30 % in expenditure under the Structural Funds.
It concludes that the Union's own resources, in other words the revenue raised from taxpayers, must be increased.
This report therefore appears to make three leaps forward: the first is enlargement, without realizing that unfettered competition between different economies is disruptive and could well have intolerable social and human repercussions, both for the 15 existing Member States and for the countries joining the European Union.
The report also concludes that the Union's own resources should be increased, in other words the revenue raised from taxpayers, as if this were infinite.
It therefore makes a leap forward in terms of expenditure, and similarly in terms of taxation, even though excessive taxation is becoming less and less acceptable.
Take care that the headlong rush to create a federalist utopia does not unleash the anger of the people and a taxpayers' revolt.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think this report makes it very clear that enlargement to the east raises the question not of whether, but only how and when.
A high degree of sincerity is required in the conduct of this debate.
Mrs Lalumière, I should be grateful if you would listen to me.
Unfortunately, Mrs Stenzel has already left the Chamber.
A high degree of sincerity is required.
This debate on enlargement to the east is being conducted with more insincerity than hardly any other, however, and that applies both here in the House and outside it, and in the Member States.
As has already been pointed out, some people are using this debate to consider the question of the future development of the European Union.
Of these, some wish for a deepening of the Union, whereas others hope to avoid any deepening; and enlargement to the east has become a bargaining counter among them.
Others are seeking to place the European Union in jeopardy, basing it on the outdated policies of the past which have long since outlived their usefulness in the existing EU, namely the CAP and the present structural policies.
Since these people either do, or do not, wish to change these policies, they come up with arguments for or against change.
Thirdly, there are those untrustworthy souls who tell their citizens back at home: we support enlargement to the east, we wish for policies at Community level, but someone else should pay for them!
The Union should develop into a savings bank, into which everyone should pay, hoping if at all possible to get more back than they initially paid in!
This insincerity must come to an end, and the Christodoulou report is of some help in this respect, although I willingly admit that it was difficult in our committee too to bring sincerity to the fore.
But it does help to shed clear light on one thing: either we are strong enough as a Community to devise new policies and thus to modify the existing ones, or we are not. If not, then enlargement to the east will still take place, but it will be far more costly, and the existing Member States will be bled dry, since they will have to foot the bill!
Mr President, I am very grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Christodoulou, for this report.
It is a fact that any country in Central or Eastern Europe which wishes to do so may become a member of the European Union, as we have agreed here in the House.
Moreover, it is a fact that ten applications for membership have so far been received from these countries.
It is also a fact that the levels of development of the ten candidates, in relation to the conditions for membership, are very diverse, so that their accession in one group is most unlikely.
It is also a fact that the accession of Central and Eastern European countries would end the division of Europe and change the face of the Union altogether.
Enlargement is an opportunity and a challenge for the Union, but also for the applicant states.
The Christodoulou report is a parliamentary own-initiative report, which seeks to explain the financial consequences of EU enlargement.
At the present time it can only attempt to do this, and that is why it is an interim report.
The debate and discussion on this report have reflected the breadth of opinion on the matter.
This report should serve as a warning to all - including the Union - as regards the likely effects of sticking rigidly to the present structural and agricultural policies, for example.
But it should also show the applicant states what efforts we are expecting of them on their journey towards membership of the European Union.
No one should see this report as a means of impeding or preventing the accession of new Member States.
But nor should anyone see it as a means of preserving the status quo for ever more.
Rather, this report should signal that enlargement is certain to go ahead.
We must now seek the ways and means of making it happen - perhaps I should already say in conjunction with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
In my view, it is in no one's interest to belong to a European Union which has no future.
It is now up to us as MEPs to address ourselves to this future, and to seek ways ahead for an enlarged European Union.
The interim report is an attempt to do just that, no more and no less!
Mr President, allow me to congratulate Mr Christodoulou on having drawn up an exhaustive and objective catalogue of the economic and financial difficulties which will flow from the enlargement of the European Union to include, in particular, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I am one of those who believe that the political will to bring together the peoples of Europe in a common home must prevail whatever the cost - and the report in no way takes issue with that idea.
To enlarge Europe whilst consolidating its foundations: what a wonderful and ambitious plan to put to the young people of Europe today.
It is a realistic plan, the implementation of which requires two conditions: the will to see it through, and common sense in carrying it out.
The Europe we wish to see will be economically viable only if we have the courage and strength to ensure its self-sufficiency and - at long last - to impose protectionist measures on non-European countries.
That is common sense.
In plain language, the future of the Slovak people is of more concern to us than the profits of American trusts or the state of health of large companies in the Far East.
Mr President, today's debate on the costs of enlargement is in itself a positive signal, indicating that Parliament is prepared to address itself to the difficult issue of the costs of enlargement, and I am very grateful to the rapporteur for his efforts.
As to whether or not it was wise to embark on this difficult matter of the financing before sufficiently reliable data exist for an estimate of the costs, that is open to question.
Both this own-initiative report from the Committee on Budgets and the report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which is to be debated next and is closely connected with this one, raise more questions than they answer.
There is a danger of this being interpreted as a negative attitude on the part of the House, so one thing must be stated clearly and explicitly, and I wish to do so here and now in no uncertain terms on behalf of my group: we hope to see a new order in Europe, whereby the whole of the continent will develop together in a community of interests, and we wish this to happen as soon and as effectively as possible.
Answers to the outstanding questions will be found, in conjunction - I hope - with the associated countries.
There are already many different estimates of the costs of enlargement.
Sceptics always put forward high estimates and supporters low ones; so far, I have seen no estimates of the costs of non-enlargement.
The Christodoulou report tends towards the former, in my view: for example, it assumes that ten countries could accede simultaneously.
That is so unrealistic as to have only two possible explanations: either it is an attempt to influence the debate in a negative way, or it reveals a lack of real knowledge about what is at stake.
The costs cannot be estimated with any degree of certainty until it has been established which countries are to accede to the Union, in what order, and at what point in time.
Economic development in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is another factor.
Here I would urge a study of the trade statistics and economic data.
As for enlargement itself: the accessions will be phased, so let us not get carried away by our misgivings!
That would be poor form on the part of the only directly elected international parliament.
Economic development in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will create more financial room for manoeuvre.
For us, for the European Parliament, no task should be of greater importance or interest - after the cold war and the end of the confrontation between power blocs - than to help make the twenty-first century a European century in the best sense of the word.
Mr President, the European Union has set itself two major political and economic objectives for the coming decade: firstly to create the economic and monetary union, and secondly to prepare for and accomplish its enlargement.
Both these goals are associated with a massive financial outlay by the Member States.
The measures currently being taken in the individual countries with a view to meeting the Maastricht criteria on time are already lowering the social standards of large sections of the population.
But they are also causing many citizens to feel increasingly unenthusiastic about the European Union and, unfortunately, about the European ideal.
In my opinion this report, which is a very well-balanced one, is nevertheless based on a fallacy, namely that the deepening and the enlargement of the Union can - or even must - take place simultaneously.
On the contrary, it would seem that the completion of monetary union will make enlargement to the east impracticable for many years to come.
Some Member States are simply not able to take on even more financial burdens.
The mere fact that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, with some 106 million inhabitants, will represent 29 % of the population, whereas their GDP amounts to only 4 % of the GDP of the 15 EU countries, shows what unimaginable efforts will be required.
The Union's fundamental aim, enlargement, is very welcome for economic and political reasons.
But everything possible must be done to carry out all the necessary adjustments and reforms in good time, both in the Member States and in the applicant countries, and particular attention must be paid to what is tolerable from a social point of view.
As regards the enlargement strategy, it is vital to opt for a flexible approach, given the widely differing levels of development.
A transitional phase must be planned for each country, in accordance with its needs and circumstances.
Mr President, enlargement gives us a unique opportunity to unite Europe.
It is an opportunity to safeguard peace and security in our part of the world, and also a good opportunity to enrich the European Union with new ideas.
But enlargement will not happen overnight.
Applicant countries must develop into democratic constitutional states with functioning market economies. The EU itself must also change its current form.
As is well known, methods of working are currently being overhauled by the Intergovernmental Conference but it is also important that the question of the financial effects of enlargement are raised for debate.
There is no point in sticking one's head in the sand. What is required is an honest account of what enlargement will cost.
The report from Christodoulou is just one stage in a wider debate and it raises the financial questions for discussion.
This has to be a good thing.
One important conclusion, which was pointed out in the report, is that the EU's agricultural policy must be reformed. Already, this accounts for 50 % of the EU budget.
If there is no change, this proportion will increase greatly in an enlarged EU.
This is not compatible with the general costs brought by enlargement nor with the requirements which we need to fulfil in the EU Union.
Regardless of enlargement, there are still fundamental reasons for reforming the EU agricultural policy: it costs too much and involves too much bureaucracy.
The work on adjusting agricultural policy must, therefore, be intensified, not only to facilitate enlargement to the East but also to improve the current EU cooperation.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Christodoulou on the exceptional work he presented.
On the opportunity of this debate, I want to make a number of general observations.
Enlargement is perhaps the most important challenge the European Union has faced since the beginning of the effort to build a united Europe.
If Europe really wants to play an international role and be a substantial political power, it must address this challenge and opportunity.
Enlargement to include the new candidate countries should not lead simply to a large market, but should aim to integrate the new countries and improve their standard of living, modernize their structures and democratize their political system, so that they can approach the economic and social cohesion that is essential.
Enlargement should involve the citizens.
It involves costs, and those costs must be shared fairly.
It is almost certain that economically strong countries will secure greater benefits than weaker ones whose economies are likely to suffer from the competition engendered by the new members.
The appropriate studies and estimates will have to be carried out.
There is no doubt that both the CAP and the structural policies need rationalization and review.
The aim, however, should be to modernize them and not to abolish them.
We must all grasp the fact that if we want enlargement to take place, the European Union's budget will have to be increased.
Enlargement has constitutional consequences.
The necessary changes must take place at the IGC to avoid undermining the Union's effectiveness and enable it to go deeper.
Enlargement, negotiations for which must begin immediately after the end of the IGC, is of equal concern to the countries of Eastern Europe, including the Balkan countries, and those in the Mediterranean area, such as Cyprus.
There is an internal logic and cohesion to the European Union's enlargement.
Enlargement towards the East and the South.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
EU/associated countries relations in agricultural field
The next item is the report (A4-0384/96) by Mr Rehder, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the Commission study on alternative strategies for the development of relations in the field of agriculture between the EU and the associated countries with a view to future accession of these countries (Agricultural Strategy Paper) (CSE(95)0607 - C4-0023/96).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the House should not panic, but an important partner in the discussion is missing, namely the Commissioner responsible.
I would ask for the Commissioner to be present, otherwise our words will all be in vain.
I shall continue when he has arrived.
He is just coming, I am told.
Let us wait a moment for the Commissioner, who is apparently just arriving.
Mr President, I shall not repeat the well-known dictum about lateness and history, so as not to take up any more of the House's time, and I think that Commissioner Fischler is with us in spirit.
Ladies and gentlemen, discussion of the future of rural areas and the continuation of agricultural reform is not only important in terms of the decision to incorporate the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
It is also long overdue, because the ship of EU farm policy, still reasonably seaworthy after 1992, has since become a decaying hulk in need of repair, which is placing the whole European crew in growing danger and has brought only a small percentage of those working in rural areas to a shore where they can make a living.
The fact is that 80 % of our farmers are having to watch, with increasing bitterness, as the biggest profits are routinely made by wholesalers, exporters, warehouse owners and, last but not least, crooks who obtain subsidies by fraud. They are also seeing the further desertification of many parts of the countryside, and the slow but steady death of rural areas - which account for 80 % of Europe's surface - that have been under cultivation for hundreds of years.
Anyone who now maintains that a thorough reform should be postponed, and claims that only very general guidelines for the reform are needed, is either burying his head in the sand, so as to ignore the daily reports of scandals and consumer protests, or is guilty of accepting that the reform affects only the 20 % of farmers who take the biggest slice of the subsidy cake.
In future, our rural policy must be better targeted, so that European taxpayers' money supports not a policy for millionaires, but a policy for millions of people in rural areas who have a right to a social and democratic policy which affords them a decent livelihood.
The manifestos demanded by some fail to do justice to the enormity of the problems, and in this field of European policy - as in others - our fellow citizens expect fewer words and more deeds.
Anyone who claims that the only issue at present is the context for enlargement to the east is either simply refusing to understand that general reform of the Union is one of the main prerequisites for the integration of these countries, or is quietly counting on a postponement of agricultural reform in the EU, so as to delay this issue until kingdom come.
We cannot sell the decaying hulk of the CAP to our partners in the applicant countries as a vessel for our common future.
Commissioner Fischler, you are most welcome.
I was just saying that you were with us in spirit, and I shall now continue.
Our partners in the applicant countries must be told quite frankly, and at an early stage, that because of our bad experiences in the past we are counting on an integrated policy for all rural areas in future, and that this is the only model which can hold good for Eastern Europe as well.
Farm policy will need to be incorporated into a regionally focused, well-targeted structural, environmental and social policy, not imposed by a remote bureaucracy but involving those concerned at all levels.
Some irritation has been caused in the Union and in Eastern Europe by the presentation of cost calculations which have basically been plucked out of the air; no one in fact knows yet what this enlargement, this integration will actually cost.
Only once the main features of a new rural policy have been established will we be able to ask what costs will be incurred.
I should also like to speak on behalf of others who are affected, and whom we have all too often treated badly.
The readiness of many people in Europe to accept a common rural policy, and to make available the necessary resources through taxation, does not depend only on the framing of a socially and environmentally sustainable policy.
The people of Europe are also demanding that animals should not be produced, consumed and - when not needed - disposed of as if they were industrial raw materials.
They also expect us to create a new policy which allows no further scope for export subsidies to be misused to torture animals by transporting them for long periods virtually around the globe.
Following the most recent scandals, thousands of people in my country came forward to sign petitions demanding an end to these shipments, and I shall now hand over to you the 3182 signatures. Please do not see this as a request, but as a clear and unmistakable demand from our citizens that the torture of animals, legalized through subsidies, must be stopped immediately.
Here too there has been enough talking: it is high time for action!
Mr President, the development of agricultural relations between the EU and the CCEEs is undoubtedly a vital issue for the Community's future.
The Commission document on alternative strategies for these relations is, in this context, insufficient and lacks justification.
Therefore, the European Parliament should have adopted a set of coherent guidelines to reshape that document and enable decisions to be taken later on on strategies and alternatives.
Nor will that happen, however.
Unless we take the decision to send back the Rehder report to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, we run the risk of approving a set of conclusions which are contradictory and difficult to understand, which would reflect badly on the European Parliament.
This is a position which does not, of course, belittle the far-reaching and committed work done by our colleague.
It would however have been better to waste less time on one-off aspects, some of which are very personal and of little foundation, of the reform and future of the CAP, and instead we ought to have looked at the fundamental aspects on which much serious work needs to be done.
On this score, the conclusions of the REX Committee opinion, approved (I insist) unanimously, would have been sufficient. On what basis is it possible to decide future strategies if we have yet to make exhaustive assessments of the effects of the 1992 CAP reform, which should have been carried out by the Commission as an obligation any way, and if certain farming sectors have not yet been reformed?
How is it possible to opt for strategies unless we have an independent and wholehearted assessment of the economic, social, regional and sectoral consequences of the enlargements, either on the current Member States or on those countries that might join? How is it possible to take decisions without the minimal attempt to look at the consequences of the GATT agreements on agriculture or even trying to assessment the foreseeable developments and consequences of the next round of negotiations?
Finally, how is it possible to take options without safeguarding fundamental principles, those of financial solidarity, Community preference and, last but not least, giving implicit and passive cover to the possible dismantling and re-nationalization of the costs of the Common Agricultural Policy?
It does not appear to me that Mr Rehder's report comes to no very clear conclusions: I think it goes a long way to developing the new proposals contained in the strategy paper approved by the Commission in December 1995, in Madrid, and makes them more complete.
I believe it will be very important to have this support from the House because there is a tendency to raise again and again, in a dramatic and exaggerated way, the problem of the costs of enlargement.
I believe that argument to be misleading.
It is rather irresponsible to wave today at citizens, Member States and taxpayers in the European Union, what are - in my view - estimates with no real basis on the costs of the CAP post-enlargement.
I do not believe that any of us today can realistically imagine that the CAP, as it now stands, can be extended to the CCEEs and remain unchanged.
Furthermore, I believe that Mr Rehder's report has the merit of showing how the real needs of the countries that lay behind the Berlin Wall are not in any way in conflict with the need to strengthen immediately - and most importantly - the policy of structural rural development rather than that of the markets using the traditional system of supports and subsidies.
In the wake of the Cork Conference, I believe that we need to be resolute and courageous in going further along this path.
I am asking you for two things, Commissioner: the first is to set in place machinery for the continual monitoring of the state of agriculture in the CCEEs so that we can clearly observe the impact of the CAP on their development; and the second is to present as rapidly as possible a detailed document on reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and stop proceeding in this disorganized and inconsistent manner and instead make a thorough assessment of the de facto situation and have a full discussion on the stage reached.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Rehder has produced a comprehensive paper on enlargement to the east, and also on the current situation in agriculture.
I am working on the assumption that the agricultural reform carried out in 1992 is valid until 1999, and that in the meantime adjustments will be made and further discussions held.
I am not, however, assuming that farm policy will be changed overnight as a result of the Rehder report.
That would not be in keeping with your declaration in Cork, Commissioner, with which I entirely agree: that we must return to the principle of sustainability.
I shall keep on reminding you of this, since basically I was very taken by the principle of sustainability.
Anyone now wishing to modify the agricultural policy must be quite clear that three sets of demands will be awakened.
Budgetary experts are thinking that, if the CAP is modified, money will be saved; farmers are saying that, if the CAP is modified, they wish to have higher incomes; and consumers are calling for even cheaper food.
That is how simple it is, and that is why we need to know exactly what we want.
Consumers know what they want, and so do farmers.
But, after implementing a reformed agricultural policy for five or six years, we should begin by taking stock and seeing what has been achieved.
Since you have been kind enough to provide me with the milk price trends of recent years for which I asked you, Commissioner, I note that milk prices in the countries with strong currencies have fallen - yes, Mr Samland - and that only in the countries with weak currencies have prices risen markedly.
I do not believe that this is right in the long term, since to a certain extent farmers in strong-currency countries have higher costs than those in others.
It is in fact in countries with the highest wages, the highest taxes and the highest contributions that farmers have to manage their money most carefully.
Commissioner, you said in Cork that we are currently funding 62 Objective 1 programmes, 82 Objective 5b programmes - though not a single one in my region - 101 Leader programmes, 130 programmes under the regulation on agriculture and the environment, 36 programmes for Objective 5a measures, and numerous afforestation and early retirement programmes.
We cannot sustain this, you said at the time.
I would take the same view.
Some weeding-out is needed here, in the truest sense of the word: we must consider where the resources are going.
Your Director-General, Mr Legras, was even more explicit when he said that there are market, price and structural problems to be solved, and still a good many loose ends.
He said that farm prices and export subsidies should be reduced, without farm policy being renationalized, and that agricultural competitiveness should be improved.
My response to that is as follows: I do not think farmers want dozens of programmes.
Farmers want a basis for a secure income, which will allow for the development of sustainability.
I too believe that this must be brought about.
As the committee of inquiry has clearly shown, necessary and important processes of decision-making will run into the sand on their way through the many bodies concerned and will prove inconclusive unless responsibilities are apportioned better in the future, so that everyone knows who is responsible for what.
Take, for instance, the delays over important decisions on matters such as BSE and the transport of live animals.
I think that the partnership and cooperation between the EU, the Member States and the regions must be organized more effectively in future.
You have said as much, Commissioner, and I thank you, but I shall be even more grateful to you once you have achieved this goal.
Mr President, the first draft text submitted to the Committee on Agriculture recommended a very comprehensive review of the CAP.
The main purpose of the amendments tabled by the UPE Group is to highlight the fundamentals of the CAP, namely the guarantees provided to European farmers, taking into account the particular agricultural structures and potential of each of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and to ensure that this enlargement does not jeopardize the present level of aid provided to the agricultural sector since the ratification of the Uruguay Round.
As you all know, France firmly supports the prospect of enlargement of the European Union, which should make it possible to build a coherent geographical entity with over 470 million inhabitants.
Agriculture will be one of the main issues at stake in this new enlargement, given the importance of this sector in the economies of the Central European countries.
It is natural that the European Parliament should take a close interest in this matter and its impact on the CAP.
However, this policy - seen by France as crucial - will develop gradually and will need to encompass a range of factors, including the accession of the CCEE.
In conclusion, these accessions do not justify a comprehensive review of the CAP, which is - and must remain - a bedrock of the European Union's internal policies.
This is the first time that we have discussed the accession of the Eastern European countries and its implications for the agricultural sector, and I am sure it will not be the last.
I think the Rehder report contains a number of important points to be considered.
Agriculture is certainly one of the most important aspects, though the single most important aspect is surely the achievement of peace and stability in Europe.
Agriculture is one of the means of achieving this.
We know what the impact will be.
The population of the Union will increase by one third when the countries of Central and Eastern Europe join, but the area of agricultural land will increase by 55 %.
What will the implications of this be for our present agricultural policy? First of all, can we apply our prices policy?
Various people have already said, and I agree with them, that this is not possible. Prices here are almost twice as high as in Eastern Europe, and if we applied them to consumers who spend 30 to 60 % of their daily income on food there would be widespread social unrest.
So that is out of the question.
Applying our incomes policy is also not a good idea.
We have compensation for loss of earnings here in the West, but this has never happened in Eastern Europe and compensation is therefore not necessary.
I think we are gradually going to have to move closer together, and the current GATT agreements could help us in this.
So what can we do? We can ensure the widespread application of the third element of our present agricultural policy, the structural policy on rural areas, where the governments, cooperatives and all kinds of other groups can play their part.
Something else we can do is to provide support for every form of private initiative.
Could we not consider providing investment subsidies, interest rate subsidies or other such help straight away through the PHARE funding? Trade is usually in the interests of both parties, and should be encouraged as much as possible.
Mr President, while thanking Mr Rehder for the work he has done, and I am aware how much, and how many hours, this represents, it has to be said that, after the vote in committee, the resulting final document does not in our view meet the strict standards and show the responsibility required of our work.
I continue to make a distinction between Mr Rehder's efforts and the end result of the vote in the Committee on Agriculture.
Here it seems to me that the end result does not deal with the matter in depth; on many occasions it does not even take account of discussions in the Committee on Agriculture, and I believe that the outcome of the final report does not sufficiently refine the Commission's report or produce a critical view of this document.
In my view this is of great importance, since the Commission's document appears to be the chosen option, a development of the 92 reform approach.
This reform - and if the Commission claims it still has no serious studies of this matter the example of France could be used, where they certainly exist - has brought about a huge concentration of agricultural expenditure on certain kinds of herbaceous crop production, the disappearance of 10 % of farms and an increasingly reduced concentration of most aids in the hands of farmers.
I believe this to be fundamental when it comes to talking about the problems of enlargement.
But, as a strange paradox, the simplification proposed in the Commission document should not, if we add to it my Group's critical analysis of the implementation of the 92 reform, result in the dismantling of the Common Agricultural Policy, something which is on the table and represents a great danger.
Having said this, my view is that the document should be simplified and reorganized, and that the report of the REX Committee, as presented by Mr Novo, gives simple pointers to methods of tackling these matters.
In this connection I would like to recall here that, firstly, we have to bear in mind that the countries of central and eastern Europe are not homogeneous; secondly, that we have to analyse the impact of implementing the 92 reform of the CAP, the free trade agreements and the effects on the CCEEs, so that measures can be adopted in the preaccession period which do not distort the CCEE markets.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to point to two factors which need further thought: simplification of the CAP cannot result in renationalization, and as Mr Liikanen himself acknowledged earlier, we have to give serious consideration to possible developments in financial resources.
Mr President, the agricultural policy is not too expensive; the money is going in the wrong direction, and into the wrong instruments.
Prices for agricultural products are not too high; they are too low to permit the ecologically sound production of high-quality, healthy food.
We support the Rehder report - we support the whole of it.
It was cut by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr Funk, what matters is not to establish a new farm policy superseding the CAP, but the direction to be followed if enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is not to end in disaster.
It has quite rightly been said that our efforts should be directed not at the world market, but at the internal market and the regional markets.
Then the market will do what Mr Samland is not prepared to pay for out of public funds.
Because we cannot have both: cutting back public funding and reducing prices would be the death of rural areas.
I am in favour of bringing down subsidies where they are misguided, but in my view, consumers must be expected to pay a reasonable price for healthy food, in the context of a policy based on quality.
Mr President, the enormous differences between the Community and the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe will mean that lengthy transitional periods are required in the agricultural sector after accession.
It is economically important that the system of income support should be maintained for the existing Member States, without needing to be extended to producers in the applicant countries.
Increasing food prices would be socially unacceptable, given the proportion of the family budget already spent on food.
Union support should therefore focus on restructuring and modernizing the agricultural sector in these countries.
We must adopt a cautious approach on reciprocal trade, offering wider but controlled and differentiated access to the EU market, without allowing imports to cause distortions.
In the discussion on reforming the common agricultural policy, it is generally assumed that further liberalization of the agricultural market is unavoidable.
This would both meet the wishes of our partners in the WTO negotiations and facilitate the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
But it must be understood that the reforms must not undermine the coherence of the CAP, which should maintain its basic function.
Before any new countries join, a careful analysis must be made of the effects of the 1992 reforms and the concessions that have accumulated under the free trade agreements with the Mediterranean countries, Mercosur and South Africa.
The horizontal approach which the Commission has adopted to promote an integrated policy on rural areas is, in my view, the wrong way to set about things.
Any adaptations to the CAP must be tailored to each individual sector or product.
For some products, a liberal market presents no problems, while others like dairy products and sugar will continue to need intervention and support measures.
In order to prevent distortions of competition, the report by the Committee on Agriculture rejects the idea that the CAP should be renationalized.
The same applies in general to the prices and incomes policy.
The situation is quite different when it comes to protecting nature and the countryside.
Regions mostly have their own requirements, and centralization is difficult.
It is therefore impossible to make Community income subsidies conditional on meeting requirements in this field, as the Commission proposes.
If national programmes are linked to European framework directives, then national funding for nature and countryside policy measures need not result in distortions of competition.
It could also prevent money from going round in circles, as is currently happening with the Structural Funds.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Rehder for his report which I welcome and congratulate him on all the hard work he put into it.
It is a very welcome report.
The future of European agricultural policy is high on our agenda, not only because its budget continues to eat up such a large proportion of the overall European budget, and at the same time fails to deliver many of the standards or meet the needs that the citizens of Europe deserve, but also because of the international commitments made by the European Union, one of which was made in 1993 at the Copenhagen Summit: a commitment to the expansion of the Union to incorporate the Central and Eastern European countries.
It is clear that the Common Agricultural Policy in its present form cannot be sustained.
This is true whether we are a community of six, fifteen or twenty-five.
Agriculture in the last 30 years has changed within the overall European context.
The rapporteur rightly identifies the need to regionalize the Common Agricultural Policy to account for these differences.
It is also clear that the current system of compensatory payments is expensive and distorts the market.
The reforms of 1992 were long overdue and, as the Commission now acknowledge, further reforms are necessary.
In the cereal sector, for example, success has been short-lived.
We have now reached the pre-1992 output levels but at twice the cost to the EU budget.
Perhaps the biggest failure of the Common Agricultural Policy has been the limited benefit it brings to rural communities as a whole and in some cases it has encouraged harmful farming practices.
We must all recognize that after 30 years the rural economy must be refocused and we must develop a policy to sustain all our rural areas and not just one sector.
The prosperity of our rural communities can only be ensured through an integrated rural policy.
The accompanying measures of the 1992 reforms must now be fully incorporated into the Union's policy.
Recent events have shown that public health and caring for our environment have a central, and not a peripheral, role to play.
At the Cork Conference the Commission illustrated their commitment to change.
We should show our commitment, too, by supporting the rapporteur, whose work will pave the way for European agriculture and facilitate the accession of the Central and Eastern European countries.
Mr President, enlargement of the European Union to take in the countries of central and eastern Europe is a logical development along the orad to European Parliament construction.
But this enlargement cannot be underestimated.
Its significance is particularly relevant for agriculture, whose weight in the economy and society is three or more times greater than the European Union average and whose prices are far lower than those practised ion the European Union making them highly competitive.
The Commission document, dealt with by the Rehder report, set out to tackle, simultaneously the enlargement strategy and the future development of the CAP.
There is no doubt that these two issues are inter-related and that the evolution of the CAP must be decided by the 15 current Members of the Union, on the basis of a future option about what they want for their society and not determined by external factors or pressures.
What is happening is that, following the 192 CAP reform and application of the GATT round of negotiations, new situations exists calling for a response, particularly in the regions most vulnerable to the new international economic order.
What we need for the future is an agricultural policy that strikes a basic balance between the three major dimensions: a moderate policy of support for prices and markets, an income support policy, on a regional and not a sectoral basis, and thirdly a rural development policy able to diversify the economic base of those areas more dependent on agriculture.
It so happens that the average level of income of CCEE farmers is lower than that in the European Union.
It is also certain that certain rural areas in the current EU are even poorer than those of the CCEE.
Therefore enlargement cannot be rushed or carried out at the expense of the effort to achieve cohesion and convergence being made in the existing poorer regions of the Union, mainly those in Objective I.
It is necessary to speak of a future reform of the CAP and it cannot be hurried but must be done seriously and completed by 1999 or 2000, the beginning of the new round of GATT negotiations.
The European Union must know what it wants or does not want, otherwise its hand will be forced by international pressures.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think we all understand the importance of this event: it is one of those moments in time on the basis of which the historians of the future will probably judge our capacity to be far-sighted.
Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the accession of the former soviet socialist republics to Western Europe is now clearly an event of great moment but, for that very reason, it needs to be approached with great caution.
Hence the report leaves us with a sense of incompleteness, although the rapporteur himself has backed it with great determination.
It was perhaps a little too hasty, with too many issues lumped together, including an attempt to reform the CAP: that is certainly something that needs to be done, but elsewhere, in different circumstances and at a different time.
That is also apparent from the large number of amendments - 131 of them - many of them relating to paragraphs 8-35 of the motion for a resolution.
The 1992 CAP is having to contend with the fact that its programme is limited and, more especially, with the urgent need for a reform that can no longer be delayed.
Well just imagine what would happen if it had now to deal with the unfamiliar agriculture of the countries of Eastern Europe with its lack of balance and which varies so greatly from one region to the next and, above all, is so very different from western agriculture.
What sort of proposals can be made in relation to competitiveness, product quality and the need to give value added by processing products?
How does this link up with the proposal to give greater operational independence to the Member States and the regions, to regional entities? All of that has to be reviewed and the parameters established, and there has not been the time to determine the methods and time-scales for this.
We know that there are three approaches to that reform: maintaining the status quo , setting under way a radical reform or further developing the 1992 reform.
The report takes the third approach without going into greater detail on the steps to be taken or indicating how this will affect our obligations arising out of the Uruguay Round, bilateral agreements and the free trade zones, not to mention the need to amend the price support and income compensation arrangements, with the structural and social risks that implies.
Welcome, but once again premature, is - in my view - the reference to codecision on agricultural issues which has to be decided and discussed in a more appropriate forum.
In short, I repeat: what is the hurry? What does it benefit anyone?
Mr President, I should like to say quite sincerely that I am surprised at the impromptu and superficial way - which probably conceals some dark ulterior motive - in which we are debating this gigantic issue.
What is this all about?
A Community that is a political dwarf on the international stage and even within its own territory - we can look to the Yugoslavian crisis as an example - a Community with an agricultural policy which staggers from crisis to crisis, which adopts measures every week, every day, to restrict production, cut prices, impose fines on farmers and compel them to abandon their holdings and flock to the urban centres, unemployed and forced to demonstrate as they have been in Greece, as we speak Mr President, for the past 11 days.
Hundreds of thousands of farmers with thousands of tractors have blocked all the most important road junctions, and are demanding something in return for their toil to enable them to live.
And the government answers: ' Impossible, those are the orders of the Commission, that is what the CAP specifies, those are the GATT conditions' .
Such a Community then, with such an agricultural policy, is now embarking on the adventure of helping and developing agricultural relations with the Central and Eastern European countries!
Mr President, I am not counting, nor am I in a position to calculate how many ECU that would cost.
What I do count, however - and the same thing was said by Mr Christodoulou and all the other speakers and by Mr Rehder himself - is that there will be tremendous social and economic consequences.
The Community's cultivable land will increase by 55 % with accession.
And what will you do then? Products will be produced much more cheaply and will flood into the Community while you are restricting them.
What will happen? Nobody has thought about that.
Mr President, bearing all this in mind, when the issue was debated by the Agriculture Committee, I said that it reminded me of the folk-saying: ' A mouse carrying pumpkins will not fit through its hole' .
That is what you are doing.
So take back your report - let the report be referred back to the Committee on Agriculture - and come back with a better-prepared study and propose whatever you think fit, provided it is realistic and not adventurous, and that it does not conceal coarse and dark interests that aim to rearrange the political, economic and commercial influences in the ten Central and Eastern European countries.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I must begin by congratulating Mr Rehder on his report which is an exhaustive list of the implications of the future enlargement of the Union in CAP terms.
This enlargement will oblige the EU to profoundly reform this policy, something we welcome.
The current CAP is the Union's most archaic, least fair and most job-destructive instrument.
Nearly half the budget of this institution is handed out to farmers and 20 % of privileged farmers absorb some 80 % of this slice of the budget.
In my country, 10 % of all farmers receive something like 90 % of the support.
On the other hand, the CAP fiances as a priority all the crops that most help to decertify and destroy jobs in the countryside.
Cereal production, mostly linked to the big farmers living in cities and which provides least jobs, is that receiving the biggest subsidies, 43 % of all aid.
In my country, the unemployment existing is identical to the number of persons who were obliged to abandon the countryside following Portugal's entry into the EEC.
Enlargement must, therefore, impose a new agricultural policy based on solidarity, fighting privileges; on quality controls, to face up to excessive production that harms public health, animal health and the environment; on creating jobs linked to regional planning instead of unemployment and desertification; on linking man to the land and nature, instead of fostering a wider gap or the latter's destruction. The Union's enlargement is a unique opportunity to turn the CAP from a museum piece into a dynamic, forward-looking policy.
I hope, Commissioner, that you have the courage needed to create such a policy.
Mr President, one of the most important and stimulating tasks for the European Union is to enlarge the Union and include the new Eastern and Central European countries as members.
Great care must be taken, however, with this task.
I take particular pleasure therefore, in welcoming discussion of the reports by Christodoulou and Rehder.
In my opinion, both are fundamentally positive but they highlight a number of problems which must be taken into account.
Regardless of enlargement, adjustments in agricultural policy will be forced upon the EU.
Continuation of the CAP as it stands would be devastating.
We cannot, for example, continue to lock milk production up in a permanent quota system. We have every reason to continue to aim at the goals set by the CAP, that is to adjust agricultural prices gradually, and I mean gradually, towards the world market price.
The majority of economists consider that these prices will increase in the future.
The PPE group's second amendment reflects this situation exactly.
This process of change must commence in 1999, when GATT is taken up again.
In my opinion, Europe has everything to gain from such a logical continuation of the CAP.
In the long term, we would avoid export subsidies and border controls, and compensation to farmers for environmental and nature conservancy initiatives, which are valued by our people, could be increased.
Such reform would also facilitate enlargement.
But, just as continuous reform of the CAP requires needs to be phased in, negotiations with applicant countries must provide for an equivalent phasing in period and the introduction of transitional regulations for these countries.
In respect of this, I believe that the effect of enlargement on the budget is being exaggerated.
It is also quite clear that, with large differences in GNP between the EU countries and these new countries, care must be taken when transferring structural programmes to them.
There are quite simply limits to the extent that large programmes can be absorbed. This applies equally to agricultural policy.
I think that the proposal to review set aside compensation and other fixed compensation under the CAP is a good idea.
This does, in fact, cover a great deal of the traditional regional policy ground.
It is also worth mentioning that approximately 8 billion ECUs per annum has been given in support by the EU to Eastern and Central European countries during the period 1990-1994.
If this is compared with the Commission's calculations for the total agricultural policy for all ten new Member States, the figure is approximately 9 billion ECUs for the year 2000; this, I feel, gives a good perspective on enlargement.
I think that European agriculture, after enlargement, can look forward to the future with great confidence.
With the right actions, it can be very competitive and an increased world market can be achieved.
Mr President, I should first like to thank Mr Rehder for his work.
I am delighted to hear so many references here today to the Cork Declaration.
The Commissioner is certain pioneering a very practical approach to agriculture and rural development.
The future enlargement of the European Union to incorporate the ten central and eastern European countries is the most dramatic development ever to be contemplated or undertaken by the Union.
The difficulties being experienced by the existing Member States in relation to reaching agreement on a single currency are nothing compared to the broad range of issues facing future enlargement to the east of which the future of the common agricultural policy and the structural fund review are but two.
The implications for each of the existing Member States for agricultural policy alone are profound, in particular for a country such as Ireland.
A number of the ideas raised and the suggestions put forward in the Commission study will have serious implications for Irish farmers and the Irish agricultural sector.
Creating a Community of 25 countries will eventually involve close to a 30 % increase and will have serious implications for the annual budget.
To make mistakes will be catastrophic not just for the existing Member States but also for the countries wishing to join.
The issue, for example, of renationalization of the common agricultural policy, on the basis that such a development is implied by a process of simplification of the common agricultural policy, means in effect its dismantlement, and certainly would not be acceptable.
The third option put forward by the Commission, developing the 1992 approach, has positive elements since it involves the development of an integrated rural policy.
Even with a gradualist approach to enlargement and long transitional periods which will reduce the overall cost, it will still be necessary to increase the size of the budget.
Substantial debate and the revision of the EU's financial perspectives for the post-1999 period are vitally important and the budgetary resources must be dramatically increased.
Mr President, the enlargement of the European Union - not whether, but how - is the great challenge for Europe in the next decade.
It is a huge compliment to the EU that its achievement in evolving from a Common Market of six countries to a Union of 15 democratic states is such that the states of Central and Eastern Europe, having acquired the freedom to choose, have chosen to apply for membership.
How the present Union responds and adapts to facilitate this expansion, enabling the applicant states to develop and strengthen their newly established or re-established democratic institutions and economic transformation, will be the benchmark by which the history of this and the next decade in Europe will be judged.
Absolutely central to this process is the reform and adaptation of the CAP to meet the future needs of a wider Europe in the 21st century.
Currently the CAP continues to absorb half the EU budget.
Its original raison d'être , the serious food shortages following the second world war, no longer exists.
There is already a need for change to meet new environmental and social imperatives in the countryside and more precise targeting of what are huge public subsidies, away from already wealthy farmers towards more marginal European regions and production of the food we actually need.
Also, GATT requires the dismantling of the system of import levies and export subsidies.
Our colleague Mr Rehder produced an excellent report, underlining the changes required, both to achieve a common agricultural policy appropriate for an enlarged Europe in the 21st century, and also to release the kind of sums required for regional and social programmes in that wider Europe.
I am sorry that colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development were unwilling to face these realities and that a majority on the right voted to delete essential paragraphs from Mr Rehder's report.
I appeal to this House, when it votes tomorrow, to restore to its position on this issue a commitment to appropriate reforms in the CAP.
These reforms are necessary, even without enlargement, and are absolutely vital for the future of our agriculture, our environment and the process of achieving a stable, socially cohesive, continent-wide European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, we have a saying in Portuguese that means 'guessing is not allowed' .
Guessing what enlargement will bring, a political reality that we all want, is very difficult indeed.
Mr Rehder has put in a lot of hard work on predicting CAP reforms but I would have preferred him to have predicted changes to the agricultural policy, speculation on farm prices and the costs of agricultural policies worldwide.
Because the future of the CAP will depend on that - or rather the future success or failure of enlargement.
That I know.
I also know something else from my own experience: the experience of Portugal's accession, a country where everything was state-controlled, that had been through a revolution, that had undergone collectivisation, and which has yet to adapt to market rules let alone the current CAP; on the other hand, the study conducted at Munich on the accession of east Germany, at the time of reunification, the mistakes made despite the fact that the two countries speak the same language, the negative effects that were not predicted: all of this teaches us that we should study the situation more carefully and not be like Alexander the Great who wanted to conquer the rest of the world in a hurry.
Mr President, it would have been more appropriate in political terms if this report had been dealt with after the review of the Maastricht Treaty.
Contrary to what the rapporteur intended, we are in such a hurry that we now risk sending out the wrong signal.
Let us be honest, the reform of the Union's agricultural policy has only just begun.
North-South relations are still difficult, and the major problems are yet to come.
Before we embark on any talks with new partners, I believe that we need to put our own agricultural policy on an even keel.
Our citizens are being asked for more funding, and they may be willing to provide it if we have a coherent and transparent agricultural policy which firmly establishes the European farmer's place in the countryside and his role in its development.
In the applicant countries, more people are dependent on agriculture, and this means that we have an even greater responsibility to support them materially and democratically once we have completed our reforms.
This report marks the beginnings of a strategy, but it is only a very small first step.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by expressing my gratitude to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and in particular to the rapporteur, Mr Rehder, for all their work and for today's report.
I have said from the beginning that I am opposed to radical experiments, but also to merely preserving the status quo.
I still maintain that the common agricultural policy needs to be continually developed, in order to meet the challenges of the future.
Indeed, there is no shortage of challenges just ahead of us: the creation of monetary union, the conclusions of the IGC, the new financial perspectives, the future agricultural guidelines, preparations for a new round of multilateral trade negotiations and, last but not least, enlargement to the east.
In addition, there is a growing danger that various agricultural markets in the European Union will be destabilized, in spite of the increasing demand for food worldwide.
Lastly, we have to recognize that on the one hand, the public is becoming more sensitive as regards the adverse effects of agriculture on the environment, whilst on the other hand there is a growing interest in the environmental benefits of farming, and a readiness to pay for them.
The Commission took up these issues in its position paper on agriculture for the Madrid European Council.
The rapporteur also states in paragraphs 3 to 6 of the motion for a resolution that he supports the Commission in its efforts to press on with the CAP reform on the basis of the 1992 principles.
We have also made it quite clear, however, that this reform must be carried out sector by sector, and not - as Mr Fantuzzi thought - across the board.
Some very important areas are to be discussed in the near future.
I have promised Parliament that I will present my thoughts on the development of the milk market in the spring.
We also need - and I have promised this to the Member States - a long-term reform of the beef sector, and we must press on with our consideration of the olive oil and tobacco sectors, amongst others.
Mr Funk quite rightly pointed out that we need to reduce refunds: that is a commitment which we made in the GATT Uruguay Round.
But it is not true that the Commission's policy is geared exclusively to reducing prices.
What we wish to do is assist the markets: in other words, we must create the preconditions for maximizing our market opportunities both inside and outside the European Union.
In this context, I also agree with what Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf said: what the Union cannot do is produce at rock-bottom prices, while at the same time levying the highest environmental taxes in the world, without any financial outlay.
Europe's farmers cannot do everything all at once.
For this reason, these considerations and measures will continue to focus on how to improve competitiveness in the farm sector, whilst at the same time maintaining agricultural incomes at a reasonable level.
I am also pleased to note that the motion for a resolution supports the Commission's views regarding an integrated approach to rural development, including all aspects of life in rural areas.
Rural areas require sustainable, integrated development.
According to the 500 or more experts who were responsible for the so-called Cork Declaration, this should be ensured through a single policy and a systematic, regional approach.
To my mind, the Cork Declaration addresses itself to many problems which are dealt with in today's report, and contains some useful ideas on how to tackle future reforms, by adopting an overall approach to solving many different problems in a rural area through a single programme, to be administered at the most appropriate level.
With regard to enlargement to the east, I agree with the view expressed in the motion for a resolution, that the restructuring under way in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe should be supported both financially and by the transfer of know-how.
In the light of this aim, the European Union has devised a comprehensive pre-accession strategy.
This strategy includes the gradual, reciprocal opening-up of farm markets in the context of the Europe Agreement, the structured dialogue, the PHARE programme and the White Paper on the incorporation of the Central and Eastern European countries into the common market.
The PHARE programme has proved a valuable tool in the restructuring process in these countries, and there are plans to expand this form of assistance in the coming years.
More support will be required, however, and like you, I believe that the costs of integration should be examined in the context of the future financial perspectives.
We are aware of the challenges, and also conscious of how they can be met.
It is now time to tackle these problems head-on, therefore, and to work together in seeking rational solutions for the tasks which lie ahead of us.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-1226/96).
Question No 36 by Lucio Manisco (H-0919/96)
Subject: The situation of children in Iraq
On 28 October Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of Unicef, and Catherine Bertini, Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme, drew attention to the catastrophic impact which the decision to postpone once again the 'oil for food and medicines' humanitarian programme adopted by the UN Security Council is having on children and other vulnerable groups in Iraq. The two officials stated that, every month, 4 500 Iraqi children under the age of five die from malnutrition-related illnesses or a lack of appropriate medication and that 2 150 000 Iraqis (including 180 000 children and 900 000 war widows) are now living below subsistence level.
Furthermore, food production in Iraq has fallen a further 30 % this year.
Would the Commission not agree that it should respond to Unicef's call for the release of $ 10 million in extraordinary aid, to be used to purchase medicines and food for Iraqi children, and that it should promote the mobilization of a further $ 19 m in emergency food aid to the Iraqi people, as called for by the UN World Food Programme?
Would it not agree also that, leaving aside any historical or geopolitical considerations, Western governments, which have allowed the UN Security Council's humanitarian programme to be postponed time and time again, are directly or indirectly responsible for the situation in Iraq, which amounts to no less than a slaughter of the innocents?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the question concerning the situation of children in Iraq, the Commission fully shares the European Parliament's concern at the worsening of the humanitarian situation in that country, and especially at the problems to which the most vulnerable section of the population - namely the children - is exposed.
On 25 September this year, the Commission received an appeal for a humanitarian aid programme totalling ECU 31.7 million from the Department of Humanitarian Affairs, which is responsible for coordinating humanitarian aid to Iraq.
In the near future, the Commission is due to adopt a general plan for humanitarian aid to Iraq worth ECU 20 m.
Through this programme, the Commission will thus make available two thirds of the amount requested in the DHA's appeal.
This general plan will be implemented by the World Food Programme, UNICEF, the UN High Commission for Refugees and the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as by five European NGOs.
Since 1991, the Commission has been providing substantial humanitarian aid to the people of Iraq.
During the period 1991 to 1995, the total value of this aid amounted to ECU 185.4 m.
In 1996, up to the time when Turkey prohibited the transporting of humanitarian goods through its territory, and before the Iraqi army's invasion of northern Iraq on 31 August, the Union's aid to Iraq already amounted to ECU 9.5 m.
Moreover, the Community contributed ECU 8 m to rehabilitation projects in northern Iraq in 1994/95.
Humanitarian aid has been provided to both northern and southern Iraq, in accordance with their respective needs and without any conscious distinction being made.
Priority has been given to the delivery of food and medicines, destined in particular for children under five - i.e. infant foods - pregnant women, widows and the elderly.
Furthermore, I am pleased to be able to announce on behalf of the Commission that yesterday an agreement was concluded between the Iraqi Government and the United Nations, the subject of which is the starting of the oil sales provided for by UN Security Council Resolution No 986.
This allows us to hope that the implementation of the principle of 'oil in exchange for food and medicines' will quickly and effectively help to improve the Iraqi people's humanitarian situation.
Unaccustomed as we are to receive prompt replies - and often we receive no replies at all on violations of human rights and atrocities of all sorts when they are perpetrated by the United States of America - we are relieved indeed by the statement which we have just heard.
But we cannot help noticing that it has reached this House very late and post facto , that is the same day that the taps have been turned on again for a limited oil flow from Iraq in exchange for food and medicines.
Let us hope the decision by the United Nations Security Council and by Mr Boutros Ghali will bear the desired fruits in the next few months.
Let us hope that no new intervening factors or new geopolitical considerations will be used as a pretext to stop this minimal humanitarian aid.
We have heard many figures from the Commissioner and we just wonder why the money provided by Europe has not borne the desired fruits up to now.
The fact remains and will weigh for ever on our consciences that 4, 500 Iraqi children have died every month because of our inaction, as Unicef has testified.
More than 300, 000 children have been murdered over five years by malnutrition, disease, lack of antibiotics and other medicines because of the United Nations' sanctions.
The fact remains that the Commission has for too long tolerated the slaughter of the innocents and we all bear the guilt.
Firstly, I should just like to make one point: you can, of course, say that the aid has been provided too late, but I believe that it is important that it has been provided at all.
I have listed a series of aid measures which have been taken in favour of Iraq since 1991, because these operations were started immediately after the Gulf War.
At that time alone, over ECU 100 million was granted and made available to Iraq.
Naturally, the Commission will not change its policy simply because this decision was taken yesterday.
We shall continue to provide the aid which has been pledged, and thus change nothing in this respect.
I share your opinion that, at present, we can only hope that these measures will together achieve the effect we all wish to see.
I should like to make it clear, however, that the aid provided by the European Union, in relation to that provided by other parties, represents the lion's share.
Consequently, we should not beat our breasts in self-criticism and say that we should do more, but compare ourselves to others and draw attention to how much aid they provide.
Question No 37 by Gerardo Galeote Quecedo (H-1027/96)
Subject: Cuba
Could the Commission supply an assessment of the common position on Cuba adopted unanimously by the General Affairs Council, pursuant to Article J.2 of the TEU, at its meeting of 25 November 1996?
The honourable Member asks in his question for the Commission to supply an assessment of the common position on Cuba.
I should like to make it clear that the Commission fully supports the common position, which is line with and follows on from previous European Union statements, such as the declarations issued by the European Council at the Madrid and Florence summits.
The common position enables us to steer a middle course between vigilance with regard to human rights and support for the process of economic and social improvement.
It should also be emphasized that the common position is a very useful instrument, in that it sets out systematically and in detail the areas of the European Union's cooperation and the terms of its relations with Cuba.
It thus specifies the various preconditions for the possible stepping-up of cooperation with Cuba.
This clear presentation should benefit the Union, as well as Cuba itself.
In general terms, the common position has the merit of reaffirming the specific nature of the political line taken by the European Union with regard to Cuba, and of pointing out, in particular, that the EU rejects any attempt to bring about change in Cuba by means of retaliatory economic measures or pressure on the people of that country.
Commissioner, thank you for your reply; I am pleased to note that the Commission shares the Council's common position which, as you say, is consistent with the trend of events between the Madrid and Florence European Councils.
It should be recalled that during this period the Commission, in the person of its Vice-President Marín, took note on the spot of the rigidity of the Cuban regime and therefore did not present the draft mandate.
By the Council's offer of negotiations now, if a start is made on reforms to guarantee respect for human rights and to begin the transition to democracy, the European Union is opening doors to hope, for which the Cuban people will certainly be grateful.
I would also like to congratulate you, Commissioner, on the reference you made to the specific nature of the common position on Cuba, since this Parliament, and certainly my Parliamentary Group, have opposed the embargo policy of the United States Government, and the Helms-Burton Act in particular.
Following this question and your statement, clearly I would like to ask you what specific action the Commission proposes to take to develop the guidelines contained in that common position, and specifically how you propose to ensure that aid is channelled through non-governmental organizations with no link to the regime, as set out in the common position.
Mr Galeote, the common position undoubtedly provides the continuity that we wish to see, and it builds on the declarations issued by the European Council in Madrid and Florence.
It also unequivocally reaffirms the Union's rejection of the use of retaliatory economic measures.
However, this continuity is not entirely linear, in the sense that the common position also makes an urgent call for an improvement in the human rights situation and greater political freedom.
This criterion also comes into play in determining our line of conduct.
Naturally, there is a need to ensure that the money we make available actually gets to where it is meant to go.
The aid is conveyed to its destination entirely by European NGOs, and those NGOs are required to ensure that the goods do actually reach their goal.
With regard to humanitarian aid, I should like to point out that the terms of reference agreed by the Commission and the Cuban authorities stipulate that the NGOs remain the owners of the goods until they are delivered to the final beneficiaries, and consequently also retain control over them.
In this way, therefore, we are seeking to ensure that the system functions properly.
Mr President, I wish to pay tribute to your very fair presidency of Question Time.
I gather this is going to be your last one and I am sorry to see you go.
I hope you will not take that off my one minute, of course!
I accept the Commissioner's response on the question of the common position on Cuba but I hope that we will not get so hung up on the question of human rights that we forget the essentials of our position towards Cuba, which is to oppose the Helms-Burton Act and the attempt by the US to blackmail the people of Cuba and the people of the world, because of specific ideological commitments in the US.
I wish to say that, having visited Cuba and America on several occasions, human rights in Cuba are often rather better than human rights in the USA, particularly the rights to free health, to free education and to a system which attempts to protect them.
In fact, the infant mortality rate in Cuba is actually rather better than in inner-city Washington.
Those are the human rights which the Cuban people want to keep and, although we, of course, expect and respect democracy, the broader conception of human rights is one which is shared by this Parliament and I know is shared by the Commissioner.
The Commission does indeed view the situation in the way that you describe, Mr Kerr.
Clearly, our proposed approach or strategy with regard to aid to Cuba must not result in us neglecting to insist on respect for human rights.
On the other hand, though, it must not result in the Cuban people - who are already suffering from the fact that human rights are not fully respected - failing to receive the aid which they so desperately need.
This is why we have to strike a proper balance.
In any event, I am convinced that the strategy we have developed jointly with the Council will have the appropriate effects.
Commissioner, I do in fact agree that a certain balance has to be achieved, but I am glad to see the Commission believes that there is no individual dignity unless each man and woman has freedom of choice, that individuals or peoples cannot have their future imposed upon them without their consent, and that of course no generation can mortgage the future of those to come.
Democracy does indeed mean allowing citizens to decide on their collective future by the right to freedom of speech, by regular elections, by the demystification of individuals and the abolition of political dogmas.
These are the principles set out in the common position, which very clearly links any progress in relations between the European Union and Cuba to a scrupulous respect for and improvement in human rights and fundamental freedoms.
That is undoubtedly necessary, Mr Salafranca, and I entirely agree that it must be one of the basic principles governing our relations with other countries. I also endorse your comment that the fundamental principles of respect for human dignity, freedom of expression and democracy must apply.
However, it should also be quite clear - and we must be realistic here - that we cannot enforce all this by granting or not granting aid.
We can call for it, we can insist on it, but we cannot always automatically enforce it.
That is a fact that we have also learnt from a great many other situations.
Question No 38 by Freddy Blak (H-0960/96)
Subject: Ill-treatment of animals in transit
What specific action does the Commission intend to take against Member States infringing the provisions in force on the transport of animals for slaughter? Such infringements have been amply documented on German and Italian television, etc..
By virtue of the subsidiarity principle and the Treaty, the practical application of the animal transport directive in the Member States and the day-to-day supervision and control of animal transport companies to ensure that they actually comply with its provisions is first and foremost an area of competence and the responsibility of the Member States.
It is the Commission's job to check that all the Member States transpose the Community provisions into national law and perform these tasks of supervision and control.
To this end, the Commission is able to monitor the practical application of the directive through local inspections.
In July 1995, the Council of Ministers adopted an amendment to the animal transport directive, whereby the animal protection requirements in the transport of animals were considerably improved.
At the same time, with a view to the Commission being able to monitor compliance with the directive more effectively in the future, the Council agreed to give the Commission an additional 12 inspectors.
I regret to inform the House, however, that the Commission has so far not received a single one of these promised new posts.
The new provisions adopted in July 1995 will enter into force on 1 January 1997 and, as I said, they should lead to an improvement.
I also regret to inform the House, however, that without these additional inspectors, the Commission will find it difficult to verify that all the Member States are monitoring the practical application of the directive effectively, thereby ensuring that the new requirements are being observed.
With regard to certain German television programmes concerning the transport of animals from the European Union to third countries, I can confirm that the Commission is not only aware of these, but has also requested additional information about the incidents in question from the authorities of the Member States concerned, with a view to putting a stop to them.
Moreover, this is the procedure that we are always required to adopt in such cases.
If it comes to the Commission's attention, either through its own investigations or via adequately documented complaints, that a Member State is not transposing a directive properly or ensuring its practical application, then the Commission first makes representations to the authorities of the Member State concerned.
If those authorities then fail to adopt the necessary measures to prevent a repetition of the infringements in question, the Commission will normally initiate the infringement procedure pursuant to Article 169.
To give an example, preliminary investigations, which may lead to such an action being brought in the Court of Justice, were recently instituted with regard to the transport of horses from Eastern Europe to Italy.
I should like to make it clear, however, that the Commission's means of enforcing compliance with Community law are in practice very limited, since apart from the breach of Treaty procedure, it currently has no other instruments available.
With regard to compliance with the animal transport directive in the case of transport to third countries, the Commission is looking at how the granting of export subsidies for live animals can be made subject to compliance with the animal transport directive in the case of transport outside the European Union as well.
Here too, the problem of monitoring must first and foremost be resolved. However, I am confident that such a proposal will be adopted by the Commission in the near future.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your reply.
There were many good points in your reply, but I feel that you were somewhat defensive.
You have been described as the best Commissioner, the most active Commissioner, and for that reason your reply seems too weak and too defensive.
Those countries that do not respect the provisions should be brought before the Court for the appropriate judgment to be pronounced!
We must ensure that those countries are denied the recovery subsidies and support from the EU.
We cannot accept this!
This is something that citizens really feel themselves to be affected by, and which causes them harm.
They feel it is quite senseless to have a Community in which such situations can be accepted.
I know that you have the ability, Mr Fischler.
I know how clever you are!
Set an example and ensure that we no longer have to experience such an unacceptable situation.
And if countries are unwilling to comply with this, they must answer to the Court.
This is as it should be.
Show us that you are able to resolve the situation and I will express my full approval when you have accomplished it!
To avoid any misunderstandings, Mr Blak, I can take proceedings against a Member State in the Court of Justice if it fails to fulfil its obligations.
However, penalizing an individual transport company which has committed an abuse or bringing an action against it in a national court is the exclusive responsibility of the Member States.
The Commission cannot intrude on their areas of competence.
I can only stress what I said earlier: if we are not provided with further instruments enabling us to take action against such infringements, apart from the normal breach of Treaty procedure, then the latter is all that we can apply.
Otherwise, we must be provided with additional means.
I agree entirely with the Commissioner that it is deplorable that the Commission has not been given the extra inspectors it needs.
But, presumably, one way round this is to allow responsible NGOs to monitor whether Member States are enforcing the rules.
This was raised last month in Question Time by Mrs Bonino and, as I recall, Mrs Bonino said that Member States themselves could delegate authority to NGOs but that the Commission would not require them to do so.
If the Commission is looking into allegations made in television programmes, it could equally look into any allegations of infringements of the rules made by NGOs operating in the Member States.
Presumably, if you cannot get the extra veterinary inspectors - and there are plenty of people around Europe willing to carry out the inspections themselves, including very responsible bodies - the Commission should require Member States to take note of those inspections.
Mr Spiers, the idea that you have just put forward is not entirely new to me.
I am basically in favour of applying and making use of this possibility, if we are legally able to do so.
However, we must first of all clarify the legal question, since it is unacceptable that an NGO should, as it were, have to gain access illegally in order to be able to carry out such inspections on the ground.
We must be able to confer appropriate powers on these NGOs or their representatives, since we cannot accept the possibility of them being punished for acting in the interests of animal protection.
This question needs legal clarification.
If we can resolve this problem, then I shall be strongly in favour of us pursuing this additional course.
However, I do not believe that we can do without professional inspectors entirely.
I therefore repeat my request for the extra inspectors that we were promised - or at least some of them: perhaps we could share them with the NGOs.
Question No 39 by Marie-Paule Kestelijn-Sierens (H-0949/96)
Subject: Anti-dumping measures
The Commission is proposing to issue anti-dumping measures in the form of higher levies on the import of cheap footwear from China, Indonesia and Thailand.
The proposed measures will have serious consequences not only for European importers and distributers of cheap shoes from these countries, but also for the consumer.
Except in extremely urgent cases the Commission consults the Member States before issuing temporary protection measures.
Has the Commission taken an official stand on this question?
Does it consider that there has been dumping of shoes from China, Indonesia and Thailand? Does the import of cheap shoes from these countries harm the Community to the extent that anti-dumping measures are called for?
Has the Commission already consulted the Member States on this matter?
Two anti-dumping proceedings concerning footwear are currently being dealt with by the Commission.
One concerns certain footwear with leather and plastic uppers originating in the People's Republic of China, Indonesia and Thailand.
The other concerns certain footwear with textile uppers originating in the People's Republic of China and Indonesia.
The Member States were consulted on the findings of the Commission during the anti-dumping advisory committee meeting of 17 September 1996.
These findings are confidential at this stage.
As regards the textile uppers case, a decision is expected by the end of the year.
On the leather and plastic uppers proceeding the investigation is still continuing and a decision is not envisaged for some time.
In accordance with the provisions of the basic anti-dumping regulation the Commission will only adopt provisional methods where imports have been found to be dumped on the Community market and where this dumping has caused material injury to the Community industry concerned.
In addition, a positive decision that the Community interest calls for an intervention should be made.
In addressing the question of whether measures are in the Community interest the Commission cannot limit itself to the possible effects of measures on certain interest groups only, or one Member State.
It must base its appreciation on all the various interests taken as a whole and on a Community-wide basis in accordance with the provisions of Article 21 of the basic anti-dumping regulation.
My thanks to the Commissioner for her reply.
She mentioned a number of new facts which I did not see in the Commission's reply to the written question from Mrs Maij-Weggen, about the two anti-dumping proceedings that are currently being dealt with.
I should like to know when these proceedings started, because there is a deadline involved. Proceedings may take only up to one year, or 15 months in special circumstances.
So I should like to know when the proceedings started, so as to know by when they must be completed.
I should also like to ask whether the Commission has considered all the interests of the various groups involved here, namely consumers, importers and producers? You said that the Member States were consulted.
I understand that seven Member States advised against measures being taken and only the southern countries were in favour, but countries like the Netherlands and Belgium do not have their own footwear industry, and therefore have no interest in protective measures.
This proceeding was started on 22 February 1995.
As I said, there have been consultations within the anti-dumping advisory committee.
Unfortunately the findings are confidential at this stage.
As I also said, on the textile uppers case, the decision is expected to be taken by the end of the year.
But in the second case it will take more time to find out if it has damaged our Community industries or not.
I would like to congratulate the questioner.
It is a very appropriate question.
It is certainly one that affects my constituency, Northamptonshire, and in particular Blaby where we have a large number of footwear companies.
I want to broaden the debate.
I want to know if the Commission welcomes the stance which has been taken by three major sports goods companies in Europe - Adidas, Reebok and Nike - who are now ensuring that there are fair wages from the sources where they import their footwear.
Surely this is the ethical approach that we would like to see being copied by other importing companies because this is the way to avoid some of the most unfortunate effects of the anti-dumping measures as we see them before us now.
I can understand the honourable Member being concerned about her own constituency.
But at the same time, we have to be very careful when we look into whether these cases really involve dumping.
I therefore hope it will be in the best interests of both foreign trade and our own workers in Europe.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your reply.
I am interested in this criterion of material damage being done to a European Union industry.
I would like you to expand on it a little.
If I suppose the reason you use this criterion is to establish that either an industry has been materially harmed, perhaps through factories closing down or people being made unemployed, is it not a bit late then to say material damage has been done when the people are unemployed and the factories all shut.
How much importance do you attach to the needs and interests of the employed people in these situations?
As I said in my answer, we have to examine this from a comprehensive angle.
We cannot only look at one Member State or one group that might be interested in this matter, we have to take an overall view when we look into anti-dumping questions.
If we really are going to live up to our ideals of free trade with countries all over the world, we have to be fair when we examine these cases.
We have to have in mind both the interests of the European Union workers, but also the situation in the countries with whom we are trading.
Question No 40 by Rui Vieira (H-0822/96)
Subject: Corruption
Various official bodies, in particular those in the area of law-enforcement, are agreed on the extreme seriousness of the corruption spreading throughout the world (in addition to other terrible evils such as drugs, terrorism, gangsterism, the traffic in minors and women and other mafia-style activities linked to organized crime which the European Community has not escaped) and are appealing to the consciences of governments to set up better, more effective, closer, more open and much more urgent international cooperation.
This problem is difficult, complex, transnational and 'gangrenous' in nature and must therefore be investigated at its roots, both close at hand and far away. I believe that the EU, together with the Member States and countries in other continents, should study this matter meticulously with a view to finding an appropriate solution which may, if only in the long term, lead to its eradication.
When will the Commission carry out such a study and take steps on corruption which will give it credibility in the eyes of the public?
Mr President, the Commission is well aware of the need for action against corruption both in the European Commission and at Union level.
Initiatives at a global level are also needed.
The Commission has already undertaken a great deal of work on rules for improved openness and transparency in public sector purchasing and in support bodies to third countries.
The Commission's response to the European Parliament resolution on corruption of 15th December 1995 gives a detailed account of the actions which have already been taken.
Work continues in the Third Pillar to make corruption by officers in the institutions of the EU and its Member State a criminal offence. We have also helped to produce a draft convention on legal aid.
The Commission is also involved in work currently underway in the OECD and the European Council on these issues.
Both of these organisations have taken concrete steps in the fight against many different forms of corruption.
We are also participating in the WTO's work to create more transparency and openness in public sector purchasing.
At the moment, we are reviewing our work in these areas to see how we can be more effective in the fight against corruption.
This work will result in a report to both the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament next year.
There is already a wealth of information on corruption both within and outside the European Union.
The Commission is, therefore, not convinced that the honourable Member's proposal for a further study would be the best use of the Commission's resources.
Thank you very much for your replies, Madam Commissioner but they were not precise enough for my liking. I would like to have effective cooperation between the Commission and the Member States, especially when taking measures or actions by the Commission or each Member State.
As you know the problem is getting worse and it is not just a European Union problem but a transnational problem. I think that the whole of cooperation policy with other states outside the Union makes sense now that corruption has various aspects and is spreading throughout Europe.
This aspect of international cooperation, as in other matters outside the scope of the Union's Member States, should be implemented on the basis not of palpable results but at least the sketches or outlines of a resolution as that would give a frankly more positive aspect to the Commission's actions and help to give us citizens more confidence in Community institutions.
Forgive me, ladies and gentlemen, but I do consider my response to be concrete.
We are talking about genuine cooperation between the Commission, Parliament and the Member States.
This is the question at issue as, together, we work towards a convention to make corruption a criminal offence for us, for officers in our EU institutions and for people in our Member States.
I also said that we were cooperating intensively with both the OECD and the WTO to bring about international regulations in this area and to tackle corruption which is flourishing at global level.
Question No 41 by Bernd Posselt (H-0922/96)
Subject: Asylum policy
According to Eurostat, the number of asylum applications in the European Union handled by Germany is continuing to increase; added to this there is a disproportionate influx of persons fleeing wars and civil wars.
What proposals does the Commission have to achieve a more equitable share of the burden between the EU Member States?
Mr President, it is true that, during the last decade, Germany has dealt with approximately half the total number of asylum seekers in the European Union.
In some years, the figure was even higher.
For example, during 1992, Germany received approximately 60 % of the total number of asylum seekers in the EU.
The corresponding number of applications was 438 191.
Since then, the total number of asylum seekers has dropped considerably.
During 1994 127 210 people sought asylum in Germany.
This represents 41.5 percent of all asylum seekers in the European Union.
During 1995 the figure increased slightly and Germany accepted around 47 % of the total number of asylum seekers.
In absolute terms, there is no doubt that Germany has received the largest number of asylum seekers.
Germany has shouldered a great responsibility, particularly for people fleeing the conflict in Bosnia.
If we consider the number of asylum seekers in relation to Gross National Product or size of population, there are a number of other countries which have also played a commendable role.
I am referring, for example, to Austria and Sweden.
With regard to the distribution of responsibility for dealing with asylum seekers, I would like to remind you that the Council of Ministers have made two agreements relevant to this issue.
The first is a resolution from September 1995 on the division of responsibility when accepting asylum seekers and granting temporary residence permits.
The second is a decision from November 1995 on an alert and emergency procedure.
Our Member States are already able to offer temporary refuge during times of mass exodus.
And this does occur.
However, systems vary from country to country.
It is for this reason that I have initiated a discussion in the Council of Ministers on standardisation of regulations for temporary asylum.
I presented a working document during the informal meeting of the Council in September which raised a number of fundamental questions.
Included in the points for discussion were the differences in our systems concerning the rights and obligations applicable during temporary residence.
As an extension of this initiative I intend to follow up these discussions during the Dutch chairmanship by submitting a proposal for joint action in this area.
Thank you, Commissioner, for that very precise answer, and also for distinguishing between asylum seekers and refugees from civil wars - who in Germany are of course added to the figures that you gave.
My question is a twofold one: firstly, do you consider that a formal initiative enabling the Council to decide on and settle this matter appropriately will be forthcoming in the foreseeable future?
And, secondly, do you think that you will be able to submit to Parliament, in the foreseeable future, data revealing the different ways in which the legal status or material situation of asylum seekers is handled in the individual Member States, and what the reasons are for the disparities?
There is a survey of the situation concerning temporary residence permits in all fifteen Member States in the working document which I presented to the Council of Ministers.
During the discussions, which I have recently had with the Dutch presidency, we have also agreed to develop a proposal for joint action on this issue during the spring.
Question No 42 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0935/96)
Subject: Europol register of wanted persons
Regarding the proposal for provisions implementing Article 10(1) of the Europol Convention, does the Commission consider that the Europol register of wanted persons should be able to list persons other than those suspected or convicted of criminal offences?
Does the Commission think there can be any justification for including information such as race, sexual orientation, membership of political organizations or religious communities in the register of wanted persons?
Mr President, the Europol Convention was signed in July 1995 and must now be ratified by the parliaments of all the Member States before it comes into force.
The basis used for data protection in the Europol Convention is the European Council's Convention of 1981 on data processing of personal details and its relevant recommendation on the registration of personal details in police registers.
There is actually more extensive protection of the integrity of the individual and legal security under the Europol Convention.
It includes mention of how corrections are to be made, how and when personal details are to be removed and under what conditions an individual will be informed that they have been registered, etc.
The Convention also stipulates that a joint supervisory authority shall be established to ensure that Europol uses its database as intended.
It is true that, once the Convention is ratified, Europol will be able to keep information on individuals who are neither convicted of nor suspected of any criminal offence.
The reason for this is that, in practice, it is largely impossible to determine in advance what role an individual involved in a criminal investigation has.
It is only when the investigation is complete that we can say with certainty that a person is an informer, a witness, a passive bystander or an active criminal.
This is particularly difficult where the crime involves narcotics or the trade in people.
It is more often the rule than the exception that people who, initially are thought to be witnesses or informers, are later found to be actually involved in the crime under investigation.
Consequently, the Commission shares the view of the Member States that it is necessary to register people in Europol's database who are not criminals. The Convention includes a number of protection mechanisms regarding the type of information which can be used for data processing.
Information must be strictly necessary and must supplement other information held before it can be registered.
It is also expressly forbidden to carry out searches in the database solely using this type of information.
The Commission also shares the view of the Member States that it is necessary to be able to register sensitive personal details in order to be able to help the national bodies of justice in their work.
The Commission welcomes the fact that the Europol Convention has a structure which allows it to go further than the European Council Convention in areas concerned with the protection of a person's integrity and legal security.
I thank the Commissioner for her answer but I do not share her opinion that the provision for legal security is adequate.
I base my opinion on the proposal document for the regulations governing implementation of Article 10(1) of the Europol Convention.
The definition here of what may be registered and on whom is very poor.
For example, according to this document it is possible to register the political views of people who are not suspected of any criminal offence.
The manual to be used by the body responsible for regulating how registration is to be dealt with place is also to be kept secret. There is to be no transparency on this.
Generally, there is to be very poor democratic control by the national parliaments on this huge register which could contain very sensitive information on people who are not even suspected of a criminal offence.
For this reason, I think that the issue should be opened up and debated freely in the Member States before a decision is made on the opportunities for such far reaching registration of the people of the Union.
It was still not clear from the Commissioner's answer precisely what legal redress a citizen has if information about that person is placed by mistake on a register with Europol.
She talked about a committee overseeing the convention, but she did not say what legal powers such a committee has.
What happens if my name is down wrongly and I am arrested for a crime I have not committed? Who do I appeal to or where do I get compensation from?
If the honourable Member is mistakenly entered into the register he can appeal to the national supervisory authority which will be established to ensure that Europol uses its database as intended.
Commissioner, this argument about the register is threatening to disguise the urgency of the need to set up Europol in the public debate.
I should like to ask you how things stand with regard to the process of ratifying Europol, and what the timetable is for finally bringing Europol into operation?
It is not only the argument about the register which is important, therefore, but the timetable for Europol overall.
(SV) Thank you for the question.
I am very concerned that ratification of Europol is taking so long.
This is why there was an intensive debate on ratification at the most recent meeting of the Council of Ministers with the Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs.
The President of the committee appealed to all Member States to ratify the Convention during 1997 because so far not one country has ratified it.
Mr President, it is the Commission's opinion that cooperation on domestic and legal matters must undergo a radical overhaul.
The fight against international organised crime is a particular area where cooperation must be improved considerably. Every study carried out points to the fact that our people consider the fight against crime to be an absolute priority.
Consequently, the efforts of the EU in this important area must be as effective as possible.
They must also be carried out with democratic control and in a form which gives our people adequate legal security.
This is currently not the case and the Commission has submitted a number of proposals to the Intergovernmental Conference, currently underway, which aim to improve cooperation in these matters.
The Commission's idea to establish a multiannual programme of work has meant that practical cooperation can now commence in a number of different areas.
The thinking behind this programme is that we will be able to link implementation of the budget closer to the political priorities ruling in the Third Pillar.
As an example, I can mention that the Ministers for Home Affairs and Justice decided, at their meeting in Brussels two weeks ago, to strengthen legal cooperation between Member States in the fight against sexual exploitation of children.
This is very pleasing.
This is an area in which the EU can, and should, play an important role.
At the same time the Ministers also agreed on a multiannual programme called STOP which means that a concrete exchange of experience can now commence.
The honourable Member refers to Sweden's constructive initiative on cooperation in the field of crime prevention and asks for the Commission's view on the value of cooperation between free states.
I warmly welcome Sweden's efforts to put the issue of crime prevention on the EU agenda.
The initiative taken by the Swedish Justice Minister is very valuable.
At the same time, I am disappointed that none of the legally binding agreements which have been made within the framework of interstate cooperation have yet come into force.
The truth is that not one of the Conventions agreed by the Council of Ministers has been ratified.
The honourable Member cannot be unaware of the fact that some of these agreements are more than five years old.
The Commission does not consider this way of working to be effective.
I thank the Commissioner for her answer.
International crime continues to increase in Europe and must be fought.
We are completely in agreement with that.
On the other hand, we obviously have differing views on the methods to be used in that fight.
The decision which has now been taken on Europol, which will promote the exchange of information between the States of Europe, is an important step in the fight against crime. This cooperation must be evaluated once it has come into force, and if it proves that such an exchange of information is insufficient, the next stage could be to commence joint interstate operative action.
This already takes place between Swedish and Danish police. This interstate cooperation is far removed from the introduction of a joint police force in Europe, a European FBI, which would mean that foreign police could operate in another country.
Such a situation is totally unthinkable under Swedish legislation. I wonder, Commissioner Gradin, if this is the length to which the Commission is prepared to go in its proposal on operative policing at European level.
I am gratified when I read the current news that both Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac, according to a speech released from a joint meeting, wish to place cooperation between police and the bodies of justice high on the political agenda.
We will not have a European FBI but we will have intensified cooperation which will become more of an activity in the First Pillar.
I believe that this is necessary if we are to succeed in the challenge before us.
Question No 44 by Luciano Vecchi (H-0878/96)
Subject: New general co-financing conditions for development NGOs
The European Union's collaboration with non-governmental development organizations has, for many years, been a cornerstone of Europe's international cooperation policy.
In particular, the co-financing instrument for development measures by NGOs has assumed growing qualitative and quantitative importance.
However, the increase in the volume of work has caused problems in examining projects in good time and in monitoring their administration.
Will the Commission say what organizational measures it intends to take to tackle the growing demand more efficiently?
Will it also say what stage has been reached in drawing up new general conditions for co-financing or, at least, in experimenting with new working methods?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the first instance, the Commission has taken a series of organizational measures in-house to speed up and improve the administration of the NGO cofinancing budget.
One such measure, the strengthening of the unit which administers the NGO cofinancing budget with a number of auxiliary staff, has already had effects this year: firstly, the funds available for NGO cofinancing will have been utilized in their entirety this year and, secondly, the delays in monitoring the projects funded have been made good.
Also, the Commission has just brought in outside consultants to carry out an organizational audit, and has conducted an analysis of current administrative procedures and proposed improvements, so as to cope better with an increasing workload.
A programme reviewing the general conditions for cofinancing is currently under way within the Commission.
In this context, it is intended that in-depth discussions on the strengthening of the role of the NGOs and their links with the Commission in the field of cofinancing will be held in 1997.
I am to some extent reassured by what you have to say, Commissioner, because it shows that something is being done and that a process of reflection is under way. I have, however, to say that it differs very little from the answers your predecessors have given me over the past seven years.
Over the course of time, the NGO co-financing line has been gradually increased, particularly as a result of Parliament's support, and it is now 100 times the 1976 level. There have on many occasions been staffing problems, not problems of quality - all of the people we have seen at work in 'Co-financing' unit are excellent officials - but of quantity: they are few in number and each of them has to consider hundreds of projects every year.
This is, in my view, a procedural problem: the procedures were laid down when the number of projects was small or, at any rate, the resources were limited, and they have been made more difficult in recent years as a result of financial controls.
I also believe there to be a problem in actually monitoring and following through the projects and the real impact they are having.
Bearing in mind that, generally speaking, the NGO co-financing projects are well thought-of, I do think that it is necessary - and here I wish to put an additional question to you - to understand the approach being considered in regard to the new co-financing conditions.
To be more specific: does the Commission consider it possible to move in the direction of adopting framework contracts, at least with some of the NGOs and at least in respect of part of the resources, and that it will be possible to conclude with some NGOs multi-annual and multi-project support frameworks?
Mr President, it is quite true that, thanks to the support of the European Parliament, we have managed to more than double the resources available for NGO cofinancing.
Last year, in reply to a question put to me in the House, I had to express some concern over the question of staffing.
Fortunately, this year I can tell you that not only have we utilized all the available funds, but we have also made good some of the delays and greatly improved the monitoring of the cofinanced projects.
But this is not enough, which is why we have followed two parallel approaches.
On the one hand, we have the external audits, to help us better identify what could be done elsewhere, from a practical point of view, so as to release more energy for monitoring and, as it were, for instructive discussions with the NGOs.
On the other hand, we have embarked, together with the NGO liaison committee, on a very thorough debate concerning practical, pragmatic ways of increasing the efficiency both of the Commission and the NGOs.
I can tell you that among the options being considered, a consensus is being sought in respect of programme contracts - particularly with NGOs which have been working with the Commission for decades now, and which have proved their administrative capabilities and their rigour in dealing with the resources that are available.
That is all I can say on this for the time being, but I assure you that next year there will be many points to discuss in this context.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 45 by Gary Titley (H-0954/96)
Subject: Proposed EU-South Africa free trade agreement
What progress has been made towards a free trade agreement between the EU and South Africa?
Question No 46 by Alex Smith (H-1007/96)
Subject: Trade with South Africa
What is the Commission's assessment of the potential economic costs to South Africa of excluding agricultural products presently listed within the Community's mandate, as compared to full liberalization of trade in the items?
Would the Commission be willing to return to Council with further proposals regarding the revision of these lists, if they prove to be a significant obstacle to the successful outcome of negotiations?Question No 47 by Angela Billingham (H-1019/96)
Subject: Status of third countries during EU-South Africa Free Trade Area Agreement negotiations
Given the major implications for trade, customs revenues and border controls for countries in the Southern African Development Community, what status will the Commission accord them, beyond duly consulting them as ACP States, in the further round of negotiations over the Community's proposed EU-South Africa Free Trade Area Agreement?Question No 48 by Shaun Spiers (H-1020/96)
Subject: Economic impact of the proposed EU-South Africa Free Trade Area Agreement
What is the Commission's estimate of the likely economic cost of the Community's proposed agreement to establish an EU-South Africa Free Trade Area to the other countries in the Southern African Development Community, especially Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland?Question No 49 by Patrick Cox (H-1021/96)
Subject: Provisions within the proposed EU-South Africa Free Trade Area Agreement
Will the Commission propose the inclusion of specific provisions within the EU-South Africa Free Trade Area Agreement to ensure that countries in the South African Development Community, especially Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland, suffer no net economic loss as a result of its implementation?Question No 50 by Ria Oomen-Ruijten (H-1022/96)
Subject: Compensation for SACU countries following the proposed EU-South Africa Free Trade Area Agreement
What consideration has the Commission given to compensatory measures for countries within the South African Customs Union (SACU), especially Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland to offset losses in customs revenues, or the cost of having to establish border customs controls, that could result from the Community's proposed EU-South Africa Free Trade Area Agreement?
On 22 March 1996 the Council adopted the complementary directives which allow the Commission to start negotiations with South Africa on trade and cooperation.
Since then, the Commission and its South African partners have met several times.
The Commission presented its negotiating position, and gave qualifications on it at the request of its South African counterparts.
At the same time, the Commission has been preparing the necessary technical base which will allow the future negotiations to proceed smoothly.
As for South Africa, it is currently preparing its own negotiating mandate, which should be completed in the coming weeks.
As soon as this mandate is made available to the Commission, formal negotiations between the two parties will resume.
Despite some constraints in the agricultural sector, the Council directives provide a very good starting position for trade discussions.
It is not the Commission's intention to assess hypothetical economic costs for South Africa or to return to the Council before the real negotiations begin.
In the course of the negotiations, and if necessary, the Commission could return to the Council asking for additional directives in order to conclude an agreement which fulfils the aspirations and interests of both parties.
With respect to the wider impact of the proposed agreement, the Commission acknowledges that the interests of South Africa's neighbours and of the ACP group require special consideration.
The Commission will endeavour to consult closely with these partners during the course of the negotiations.
At their request, the Commission is giving technical and financial assistance to Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland (BLNS countries) for assessing the likely effects on their economies of the proposed agreement with South Africa and for preparing recommendations to the negotiating parties as regards projects of specific sensitivity for the BLNS countries that may have to be excluded from the free trade agreement.
Studies on these matters are under way and will be completed early next year.
The negotiations for an agreement on trade and cooperation between the European Union and South Africa are between those countries and not between the European Union and southern Africa.
There is no intention to use this agreement as a model to be imposed on other countries in the region.
European Union cooperation with South Africa's neighbours already takes place under the provisions of the Lomé Convention.
The eventual consequences for the BLNS countries of an agreement with South Africa should be discussed and dealt with, if necessary, in the framework of this convention.
However, so-called compensation measures for losses for customs revenue are not being considered by the Commission.
I just wish to add that in the recent meeting I myself had with Vice-President Thabo Mbeki in Brussels, we agreed that we would enlarge eventually the scope for our discussions to include the possibility of taking into account several of the concerns of neighbouring countries regarding possible equilibrium for trade with South Africa through investment and other complementary aspects.
I must say that at this stage there is no room for pessimism.
There are some encouraging signs, yet I must acknowledge the complexities of the discussions and I will not in any way exclude that at a certain stage we will have to go back to the basics and see whether the political objectives we set ourselves - that is to help the new South Africa to have greater access to the European market and to improve trade with Europe - are not being lost sight of in the detail of too many sectoral aspects of the discussions.
Nevertheless, at this stage this is what I can tell Parliament.
I thank the Commissioner for his extensive answer and in particular his ad hoc remarks at the end.
I would like to ask him if he has any indication yet as to the precise negotiations for the mandate from the South African side?
Also, could he comment on rumours that European multinationals based in South Africa, which have been protected by their industrial regime, are seeking to restrict the scope of industrial free trade within the context of this agreement?
Regarding the state of play, the South African side has always been very much concerned about its neighbours.
From the beginning they have said that they do not want to be a prosperous country in the middle of poverty.
They want to take into account the concerns and the development concerns of their neighbours.
As you know, two or three months ago the SADC countries signed an agreement for a free trade area among themselves that will take effect in eight years' time.
We should not ignore this.
It is a reality and has to be taken into account when negotiating with South Africa.
South Africa's mandate has somehow been delayed and it has been difficult to put it on the table.
Yet, from what I learned a few weeks ago we will perhaps have the mandate in December and will therefore be able to start an assessment with our South African partners early in January.
With regard to the protectionism in some industries in South Africa during the apartheid period, it is quite clear that no protectionist measures will be accepted, despite the fact that there will be some asymmetry in many cases.
However, one thing is sure.
Infant industries which are struggling both in South Africa and in neighbouring countries will have to be protected.
Otherwise they will not be able to cope with sudden competition from the outside.
At this stage the greatest difficulties will be in the agricultural sector, in which many exemptions have been sought by the European Union, and some of the products for which exclusion has been sought are of great interest to our South African partners.
But, for the moment we are waiting for the starting point, the South African mandate, and as in every negotiation we will have to try to fill the gap.
I am pretty sure that with the support of the European Parliament, we will be able to finalize a good deal for both sides.
I thank the Commissioner for his note of encouragement.
I also note with interest that in his original response he used a euphemism. He said 'constraints in agriculture' when he meant 'excluded products' .
About thirty minutes ago, Commissioner, you sat there, as I did, and listened to your colleague Mrs Gradin talk about the European Union's free trade ideals.
Is it not rather hypocritical for us to pre-empt a negotiating session with a list of excluded products? What signal does that send to other countries?
Should they do the same? Is it not the truth of the matter that the Council has instructed the Commission to obtain free trade only when it suits the European Union?
The Council has to look to the interest of the European Union so that it tries to obtain the best deal in every agreement.
It is my task to try to show how good relations with the outside world, in this case South Africa and SADC are of importance to Europe. Sometimes we talk as though this is just for the sake of those countries but that is not true.
If there are new areas emerging in the third millennium, in my opinion they will be in Southern Africa and possibly Western Africa.
So it is in our real interests - even putting aside our historical responsibilities and so on - to have deep-rooted relations with these countries.
Having been nine years on the other side of the fence, I know that the mandate is always very strict.
Perhaps some of you may recall the mandate of my former colleague Mr Andriessen when he went to the Uruguay Round.
At a certain stage he told the Council that he would rather wear his son's very tight jacket than take the mandate he had been given into the discussions - he had no room for manoeuvre.
At the end some flexibility was sought, some discussions took place and I think the same will apply with South Africa.
I must repeat that the main objective in proposing a free trade agreement with South Africa is to help the new South Africa and the region.
That was the main reason why we proposed it and we should not lose sight of the main objective.
In each stage of the negotiation we have to assess whether what we are proposing is fair but that will also depend on the response from our South African partners.
At this stage I believe that the negotiators on both sides have great confidence in each other.
There is no hidden agenda.
We will have a very open and transparent discussion and it will be a model of a European and world trade negotiation.
I sincerely hope that it will be achieved as soon as possible because we are losing opportunities.
I would, first of all, like to thank the Commissioner for his very full and frank responses.
In September, along with a number of Members who are here tonight, I visited South Africa and two weeks ago I had the opportunity to meet the Deputy President in London.
The message from both those meetings was one of extreme concern, concern that unless we in the European Union are sympathetic to the already fragile state of the South African economy, an unfavourable trading framework would inflict enormous damage upon them.
It is against that background, Commissioner, that I put my question, because I learn that the European Union's chief negotiator in the South African trade talks is shortly to be leaving his post.
I ask you if this is a cause for concern and I can assure you that these negotiations have to be continued and concluded in a most positive and constructive way, indeed, in your own words - and I wrote them down, ' for an agreement which fulfils the aspirations and interests of both parties' and one reflecting the view that South Africa certainly deserves special consideration in this matter.
I could not agree more, and with regard to the chief negotiator, let me reassure you that he will be properly replaced.
As I have already said, I myself will be in very close touch with regard to the negotiations, not only with my own people, but with Minister Erwin and Vice-President Mbeki.
We have so agreed in order to try to eliminate misunderstandings, to try to lubricate the machine here and there.
So I hope that no discontinuity will take place. I am sure that will not take place, despite the fact that Steffen Smidt is moving to another DG.
I am encouraged by the Commissioner's tone and particularly by his acknowledgement of the complexity of the problem and the fact that the twin aims of achieving a free trade agreement and helping the Southern African countries might indeed prove to be incompatible.
The Commissioner will realize that a Commission financed study on the impact of the free-trade area on Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland shows that those countries will lose if they stay out of a free trade agreement and lose if a free trade agreement goes ahead and they are part of it.
They lose either way.
Therefore, I am rather unhappy with his answer that the Commission will not be considering compensation for loss of customs revenues if the free trade agreement goes ahead.
I wonder if he accepts the conclusions of the Commission finance study and, if he does, whether the Commission will reconsider compensation to those countries.
Let me put it this way: SACU revision which is being considered and is under way has shown that the revenue based on customs is something that cannot be the basis for the budget of the BLNS countries for the future.
So there is already some concern there with or without free trade areas.
What we have always said in the past is that we cannot do something which is thought to be compensation as such.
What we can do, and ought to do because we have done it elsewhere, is to try to help those countries in what we call transition periods with measures which correspond to a dramatic change in the sources of revenue from customs to other more normal, traditional and developed ways of obtaining revenue.
We have done that in many other countries.
We are doing that in UEMOA countries in Western Africa with the proposed Pari system and so there is no reason whatsoever why we should not consider it.
But it is something that will come out at the end of the negotiations.
If we come to the conclusion that these countries will be seriously hurt then we are prepared, of course, to consider those measures.
In no way will we fulfil our mandate if at the end of the negotiations we come to the conclusion that it would be detrimental to the neighbouring countries, because the mandate states clearly that it should benefit South Africa and the region.
So in that regard I will not exclude any measure, but I would like to consider them beforehand before we engage in a full discussion of the different sectors and products.
Frankly, in relation to the specific topic I believe the Commissioner has at least indicated in principle the direction of his response.
I do not know that I want to press him on the matter.
I would simply emphasize the point in the question: that is, that the anxiety to ensure that the smaller states in Southern Africa, where there are economic costs, be identified and that those identified costs be specifically and expressly addressed in any final agreement.
I think I have broadly answered your question but, as there is one more question on this issue, I will keep my comments for the last question.
I too am grateful to the Commissioner for his replies.
I should like to raise the subject of compensation for the third time, since the Commissioner said that the interests of the farmers should be given special attention.
He wishes to determine how they are affected by the Agreement, and is providing special assistance in order to find out.
It would therefore seem logical for compensation to be paid if the farmers are found to have suffered harm, but it is an extremely difficult matter, as we can see from the answers the Commissioner has given.
This brings me to my final question: if you want to help South Africa and the farmers, would it not make much more sense to extend the free trade agreement with South Africa to include the South African Customs Union?
Well, Sir, you have raised the one-million-dollar question in the sense that we are trying to build a free trade area with South Africa; South Africa is trying to build a free trade area with its neighbouring countries; so the triangle logically implies that in one way or another we should be dealing with a free trade area in the region.
I share your approach, because it would be foolish on our part not to take into account the developments in the region.
So, our agreement with South Africa, whatever the final format, will have to have a clause on the progress of development of the agreement itself to take into account closer integration in the region.
One of the things which I and Vice-President Mbeki agreed on was that an evolving clause would have to be included, as well as a safeguard clause, to take into account the possibility of the train being derailed.
My name in Portuguese means God but it is just a name not a capacity, so we cannot predict exactly what will occur and we have to ensure that if things move away from our objectives, we have the capacity to get them back on track.
In that regard, I wish to reassure you that it is one of our concerns.
It is one of the technical difficulties but we are aware of them and we will have to take them into account in the final agreement that we reach with South Africa.
Mr President, my last comment is to ask you to keep up the pressure on this issue.
Question No 54 by Arlene McCarthy (H-0912/96)
Subject: Local and Regional Territorial Pacts for Employment
Given that, despite the fact that the UK signed up to the employment strategy at the Essen, Madrid and Florence Summits, both the UK Prime Minister John Major and the Employment Minister Gillian Shephard, have written to President Santer and Commissioner Flynn respectively stating their reluctance to implement the Commission's Local and Regional Territorial Pacts for Employment, what steps does the Commission intend to take to persuade the UK to launch a pilot action programme.
In the event that the UK does opt out, will the Commission be repaying the Structural Funds from the deflator pro rata back to the UK Government? Does this mean that, at the Dublin Summit, the UK will be the only Member State not to have pilot action programmes for the Local and Regional Territorial Pacts for Employment?
The Commission has had discussions with the Member States as to the nature and the composition of the territorial employment pacts and the ways in which they might be supported at European level.
The United Kingdom Government has expressed certain reservations about putting forward pacts as such but, nevertheless, it believes that the United Kingdom experience would be valuable for the other Member States and it is interested in sharing that experience, particularly at European level.
In the aftermath of the Dublin Summit, the Commission will be in touch with all the Member States about the arrangements for selecting projects which could form part of the European exchange-of-experience network.
I am hopeful that these contacts will lead to a consensus with the United Kingdom on the usefulness of the network and that there will indeed be United Kingdom participation in the network.
The question of the withholding of structural fund monies arising from the application of the annual deflator in the case of Member States opting not to participate does not arise.
The additional resources generated by the indexation are not conditional on the implementation of the pacts: they are allocated by the monitoring committees to measures in the existing programmes.
Commissioner, I think you have answered my question.
The issue is that there is an opt-out and it is wholly predictable that the UK has reservations, as you said in your letter.
In fact, I am sure you can appreciate that the current government is spending more time rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic than developing innovative approaches to employment.
I wish to quote from the letter that Gillian Shephard wrote to you in which she says: ' We do not wish to go down the path suggested by the Commission.'
It is very clear from this letter that the UK Government does not want any involvement of social partners or the issue of social partnership.
Commissioner, what is the value of a territorial pact without social partners and are we going to accept recycled projects that are not in the spirit of the confidence pact? How can the Commission help the social partners, the employers and the trade unions to get on board and run model action programmes?
I would just like to respond that you have, in fact, answered the question yourself and you know precisely the reason why the United Kingdom does not want to be involved in this area.
It has a problem with the label insofar as pacts is concerned.
That raises questions about social dialogue and they do not want to be involved for that reason.
They seem to be particularly interested in sharing the good experience that they have insofar as local community initiatives of this kind are concerned.
I am not yet giving up on the fact that they might very well be persuaded to be involved in these matters.
But you will understand that it is not the Commission that will be selecting the pacts.
It is the Member States. They will select the pacts and they will inform the Commission.
We will support the pacts in the network insofar as technical assistance is concerned, and there will be quite a number of those.
But it is a matter for the Member States to decide whether they will participate or not.
We cannot force any Member State to participate.
Unfortunately the position is not hopeful at the moment insofar as the United Kingdom is concerned, but who can tell what might happen.
Commissioner, what specific measures to tackle youth unemployment is the Commission planning for the immediate future, and what kind of support are you expecting from Parliament?
You are quite right.
I think it is very important insofar as the integration of Europe is concerned for the social dimension to be understood.
I am particularly concerned about the level of youth unemployment.
At present there are about five million people under the age of 25 who do not have the passport to the labour market that a good qualification or indeed a good certificate or schooling would grant them.
We have to remember that about 30 % of the total population of young people are drop-outs from the educational system, so we have a real problem here.
That is the reason why at Florence, and at all the recent summits, we have sought a commitment to have three groups targeted for special attention.
These were also indicated at the Essen summit: the young unemployed, people who are long-term unemployed, and the question of equal opportunities.
Very importantly, the joint report has been agreed.
It is going forward. Ecofin cleared it last week and so did the Social Affairs Council.
It is going forward to the Dublin summit.
It highlights two specifics: that there should be an investment by business now, because economic indicators are so strong in the Union; also, that there should be an investment in human resources.
I would like to see a much greater investment insofar as human resources development for the young is concerned.
Question No 55 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0915/96)
Subject: Measures to reduce alcohol consumption
The free movement of goods on the internal market also applies to a number of alcoholic beverages.
The extent of the free movement of alcohol for personal consumption, and the consequences this implies for consumption levels, are currently the subject of discussion between Sweden and the Commission on public health grounds.
It is important for the EU Member States to take uniform measures at national level to reduce alcohol consumption.
What is the Commission doing to encourage the Member States to take measures in this area? What have the European Union and its Member States done to reduce alcohol consumption by 25 % between 1980 and 2000, in accordance with the WHO's objectives?
At European Union level, excessive alcohol consumption and the social and health consequences thereof have been identified as an important public health issue.
However, in conformity with the Council Resolution of 29 May 1986 on alcohol abuse, the Commission has to weigh up carefully the interests involved in the production, distribution and promotion of alcoholic beverages and the public health interests, and to conduct a balanced policy to that end.
The European public heath programmes, especially the action programme on health promotion, information, education and training, identify alcohol as a health issue and allow actions to be taken in this field whenever appropriate.
Coordination with measures already undertaken by the World Health Organization will be ensured.
The Commission obviously follows with great interest the implementation of the World Health Organization campaigns such as health for all by the year 2000 and the European alcohol action plan aimed at reducing the overall consumption of alcohol.
It is the task of both the Member States and the World Health Organization to evaluate to what extent these aims have been, or will be, achieved.
Thank you for your answer, Commissioner Flynn.
The connection between alcohol consumption and damage caused by alcohol does not need to be further demonstrated: we have proof of this from various sources.
By reducing consumption we would release great economic resources into society.
There is, in fact, a large hidden resource in reduced alcohol consumption.
We could use these resources instead to create employment and in so doing give our people a better quality of life. The issue of alcohol is a health issue, which was pointed out quite correctly in Mr Flynn's response.
Could Commissioner Flynn consider adopting the alcohol policy which we have in Sweden and reduce availability? This policy does work well.
I would just like to say to the Member that there is, as she quite rightly says, a very close link between the consumption of alcohol and public health, and that is very much taken on board by our new framework programme.
I have heard everything you have said in that regard and I note what you are saying in so far as the Swedish example is concerned.
That matter is also being considered in so far as the overall public health situation is concerned.
We are governed by that 1986 resolution which is still pertinent and very much to be supported.
Mr President, I should like to make an appeal to the Commissioner, since he comes from a country which produces one of the best alcoholic beverages in the world, namely an excellent whiskey - and I must leave it at that, since my wife is originally from Scotland, so I should not be advertising Irish whiskey.
However, I should like to point out how much the production and consumption of high-quality beverages - above all wine, beer and whisky - have contributed to European culture.
Given that the consumption of these beverages is a social event, or that they are consumed at social events, I firmly reject any kind of generalization whereby alcohol consumption is discussed in blanket terms and no distinction is made between social and excessive drinking.
In my opinion, it is also important for the Commission to disseminate culture and to promote diversity.
I should like to point out that Austria produces an enormous variety of wines and beers, which cannot be blamed without any qualification for the things which people dislike about alcoholic beverages.
I therefore vehemently oppose any kind of across-the-board discrimination - especially against wines and beers - such as that which is currently being imported from the United States and which is continually expounded by the ideologically dominated WHO.
The Member is quite right, it is a question of moderation.
It is with an excess of alcohol consumption that the problem arises.
There is a major problem in drafting a coordinated policy in that there is a lack of comparable data in relation to social and health problems with alcohol consumption and abuse.
So the health monitoring programme that I mentioned previously is seeking to collect all that data and have it more readily available so that we can get a better understanding of how to deal with the matter.
I have a question which takes us a little further forward and I am certain I will not get an answer to it.
For this reason, I am seizing the opportunity now.
I think that the two questions that we have so far heard show the cultural divide which the issue of alcohol raises within the European Union.
Of course this is a national responsibility but there is also a joint responsibility and interest in this issue and I believe that we should agree on it.
I would like the Commissioner to confirm, for example, that we can agree on the fact that drink and driving do not mix, that drink and pregnancy do not mix and that drink and teenagers do not mix.
This has nothing to do with culture.
This is an area in which we have joint responsibility in view of the increased movement of both goods and people which is apparent in Europe today.
You are right, of course.
The question of drink and driving is a problem we have right across the Union and very strong measures are taken in many Member States to deal with the question.
The threshold of alcohol in the bloodstream has been reduced very substantially in a lot of the Member States to deal with this matter.
Of course, as you quite rightly say, excessive alcohol in pregnancy is a very serious matter.
All of these things are considered in our health programme and I have taken on board the message that you are sending.
Yes, we can do that if it would be helpful. We have had no complaint in this matter from the Member State.
When we get complaints of this nature an advisory commission of senior experts from all the Member States meets and they make an interpretation. It is not binding legally but it has always been complied with.
But we have not had a complaint in this particular case.
Since 1990 the European Union has financially supported research activities on transmissible spongiform encephalopathies through its specific RDT programmes of the third and fourth framework programmes - that would be BIOMED, BIOTECH and FAIR, including research on Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathies as well as on scrapie.
In view of the risk of TSEs for human health the Commission has adopted a research action plan related to all of the TSEs.
That includes scrapie in sheep.
This action plan has been transmitted to the European Parliament and the Council and has been examined at a meeting of the Research Council on 5 December 1996 where an agreement was reached.
Scrapie is a TSE which affects sheep and goats and it was first described as early as 1732. It is widely distributed throughout the world with varying incidence and long term studies have been undertaken in the past to look at the possible relationship between the scrapie naturally occurring in sheep and CJD in humans.
There is no evidence, I have to say, from such studies of a risk of transmission, even in populations that consume material with high potential infectivity, such as sheep brains and offal.
That is the reason why I would like to tell the honourable Member that there has been a decision taken by the Research Council, as I mentioned, on the fifth of this month. That research programme has been adopted and quite a sizeable sum of money has been applied to it.
It is going to deal with all the TSEs and that includes scrapie. It will also deal with epidemiological studies to try and determine the situation finally.
I cannot say definitively that we know how scrapie originated in sheep.
It can be induced artificially.
Experiments are going on all the time on this matter and just today the Commission was discussing the whole question of specified risk material and the question of a Community-wide ban both in bovines and in ovines and in caprines. We are going to have to await some further research before we can finally, hopefully, determine how these relate and how they are linked.
The question raised by the honourable Member concerns a problem relating to application of the national provision transposing Directive 77/187 in a specific case, rather than incorrect transposal of the directive into national law.
This means that it is for the competent national courts to take action in this particular matter.
The objective of the directive is to safeguard the rights of employees in the event of a change of employer by making it possible for them to continue to work for the transferee under the same conditions as those agreed with the transferor.
In any event, account should be taken of the fact that in accordance with the aforementioned directive as interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Communities - I am talking here about Case 324/86 concerning 'Daddy's Dance Hall' - the rights and obligations under the employment contract or employment relationship may, in the context of a transfer, be altered with regard to the transferee to the same extent as they could have been with regard to the transferor, provided that the transfer of the undertaking itself does not constitute the reason for the change. Since, according to information received by the Commission, legal action on this subject has already been started in the United Kingdom courts, the Commission feels that it must await the outcome thereof, in order to carry out a detailed analysis of all of the implications of the correct application of Community law which might possibly result from this particular case.
Internal electricity market
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0380/96) on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council (C40457/96-00/0384(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity (rapporteur: Mr Desama).
Madam President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr Desama on his excellent work but also have to place on record the observation that one of the problems posed by the structure of the current European economic model, backed by Maastricht's neoliberalism, is the considerable number of contradictions it contains. In this way, the proposal to harmonize and liberalize the electricity sector may be wellintentioned but, by not taking account of the important social and political aspects involved, its consequences are serious.
The three most significant of these are as follows:
First of all, the threat to jobs and the productive structure of the sector in countries which contribute with a large supply of autonomous energy - as is the case in Spain with the mining-sector contribution of coal from the coalfields in the regions of León, Palencia, Asturias, Galicia, Andalusia, etc.
Hence our amendment to the effect that this percentage should increase from the 15 % proposed to 30 %.
Secondly, the threat to the public-service character which the supply of electricity must have if a large percentage of its distribution is left in the hands of market forces, as a result of which sectors of the population in a deteriorating situation might see their position placed in jeopardy.
And, thirdly, the paradox which arises when calling for a reduction in electricity prices, since consumption will automatically increase and, at the same time, we shall be contributing to atmospheric pollution on a large scale, which runs counter to undertakings made at the Rio Conference, thereby distancing ourselves from the model of sustainable development we so earnestly advocate.
It is on these grounds, therefore, that we believe the most sensible procedure would be a global reconsideration of this proposal.
Madam President, I should like to begin by offering the rapporteur, Mr Desama, my warmest thanks. The Council adopted several of Parliament's suggestions after the first reading, and he has managed to make even more progress on a number of points.
He can congratulate himself on the result.
His task at second reading was anything but easy, and I know how much effort he has put into preparing this report.
It usually happens with compromises that no one is entirely happy with the result. My group too hesitated for a long time about tabling amendments, but finally came to the conclusion that the most important thing was to have a directive to regulate the electricity market after seven years, and it has therefore decided to approve this fragile compromise, warts and all.
Half a loaf is better than no bread.
What would be in store for us if the Council's common position were not adopted tomorrow? Firstly, we would be plunged into a conciliation procedure with a very uncertain outcome, and with the risk of eventual rejection by the Council.
What would happen then? The liberalizing trends in various Member States would continue, opening far too many doors for the dominant players on the market, and private investors such as the banks would come to play an increasingly important role.
Transfrontier joint ventures would be launched, and of course the Court of Justice would produce its rulings. In the short term, there would be no kind of market regulation at all at European level, and there would be a considerable risk that people's security of supply would be jeopardized, not to mention all our ambitious plans for giving renewable sources of energy - which are too expensive at the moment - greater priority in terms of electricity production.
We can forget them all. I should therefore like a clear statement from the Commissioner this evening that he still fully supports the Council's common position, and that he will resist any attempts to undermine this fragile compromise.
Although I very much appreciate all that Mr Desama has done, I have to say that I think a number of his amendments are still far too premature.
Even Amendments Nos 3 and 8 on public service obligations go much too far and are not acceptable.
Amendment No 12 by Mrs Plooij seems very appealing in the Netherlands context, but even the Liberal Group should know that it is simply placing a time bomb under the whole compromise.
Do you want to saddle the Dutch presidency with a major problem like this even before it starts?
If so, I shall be interested to see what happens in your group's constructive talks with the Minister for Economic Affairs. The gas directive, which is something the Dutch presidency is interested in, might also have to be written off, since it is based on much the same principles as the electricity directive.
This directive is like a bottle of ketchup.
It takes a long time before anything comes out, and you have to give it a good shake and be patient. That is what we have been doing for the last seven years.
But once it starts, then things move very quickly.
Competition in telecommunications
Universal telecommunications service
Competition in the postal sector
Madam President, Commissioner, I have here a letter which took five days to get from Belgium to the Netherlands.
This is what the postal service is still like in some areas of Europe. It is a sad state of affairs, but it seems that the Council has reached deadlock on the entire postal sector dossier.
At the last Telecommunications Council on 17 November, it appeared that the Member States could not reach agreement on the draft directive, which means a further delay for the liberalization of the postal services market and no further progress in a sector which is so vital for the Union's competitive position. All this is most regrettable, but at the same time I realize that the social climate in some Member States is very tense at the moment, and we must be careful not to take too drastic measures.
In some Member States the postal sector fulfils a special function, such as in rural areas, and we cannot simply ignore this. I also entirely agree with Mr de Brémond d'Ars that the draft notice that we are discussing today cannot simply be accepted as it stands, particularly in view of the legal basis.
A communication is not a binding decision, but is simply intended to explain existing Treaty law. We therefore have to recognize that the Council and Parliament are both democratically empowered to take decisions on the postal sector.
But we also have to recognize that the Commission has its own responsibility under Articles 85, 86 and 90 of the EC Treaty.
The fact is that at the moment some postal companies are abusing their dominant positions and are imposing unnecessary conditions or charging excessive tariffs, as we can see from the many complaints addressed to the Commission. The lack of progress on the postal sector dossier is also encouraging some postal companies in Europe to invest in other areas of the world, which is bad for our competitive position, bad for the investment climate in Europe and bad for employment.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner what he intends to do now, following the Telecommunications Council in November. Does he intend to put forward a new proposal or to use Article 90 of the Treaty?
I think we have got ourselves into a tight spot at the moment, but we still need to be very clear about what the eventual aim of the whole discussion is: to create a harmonized and largely liberalized market in postal services, guaranteeing an affordable and high-quality service for everyone. The people of Europe deserve this from the Union.
Mr President, I seem to remember that, following what might be described as injudicious television broadcasts, the Bureau decided - among other things - to prohibit the televising of Members signing in.
I now have to inform you that a Swedish television crew is outside, doing precisely that.
So I wonder what the point of the decision was.
We have asked the journalists not to set up television cameras.
The relevant department is seeing to the matter, Mr Dell'Alba.
Mr President, for the last three days an exhibition of paintings that could be called 'Everything you want to know about willies' has literally been assailing colleagues who have their offices in the IPE II building and who, several times a day, have to pass in front of this collection of 'sexes' , which does not even have the merit of being pornographic.
(Mixed reactions) It is said that artists must be given free rein, which is fine, but in this case, to make a feeble pun, I ask myself if we can tell whether this is somebody's art or somebody's blue period?
If Parliament really is a suitable place for openly displaying failing libidos, we might just as well bring the paintings into this House.
Mr Giansily, if it is art it is not pornography and if it is pornography it is not art!
We will look into the matter you have raised.
The Secretary-General is still considering it and nothing has been decided yet.
The idea of moving the registers inside the Chamber is in fact not a new one.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, since it is nearly Christmas I will include your request in my Christmas list.
Mr Cornelissen, do you have another point of order or are you perfectly happy?
Mr President, yesterday we received two verbatim reports of proceedings, one from Monday's sitting, which was excellent, and one from our sitting in Brussels on 27 November.
That means, Mr President, that we received it twelve days after the sitting.
Upon investigation I discovered that the verbatim reports of proceedings in Brussels take at least one week to be produced.
I wonder, Mr President, whether you could investigate this and do something to ensure that the verbatim reports of our sittings in Brussels are produced just as quickly as those of our sittings in Strasbourg.
We will look into that.
You are quite right, Mr Cornelissen.
Mr President, it was a point of order from earlier on.
A number of Members were objecting about the filming of signing-in.
I want to say that, as far as I and a number of other Members are concerned, we have no objection whatsoever to being filmed signing in.
This should be an open chamber and we do not object to it.
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
The next item is the vote on objections concerning the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Following the vote on the objections to Item V, ' Nuclear weapons'
) Mr President, I would just like to complain in the strongest possible terms that the majority in this House did not seem to understand how important it was that the European Parliament allowed their voice to be heard before the UN General Assembly when a very large majority decided in favour of commencing negotiations on the abolition of nuclear weapons.
I think it is shameful that the European Parliament was not mature enough to say that we wanted our views heard!
European Council on 13/14 December in Dublin and the situation in Serbia
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on preparations for the European Council meeting in Dublin on 13 and 14 December 1996 including the situation in Serbia.
Mr President, in two days' time the European Council will meet in Dublin for the second time in the past six months.
These have of course been the six months of the Irish presidency of the Council of Ministers and they have been both busy and eventful.
At the same time those Irish Ministers who have been involved in the Council of Ministers, including myself, have had their domestic responsibilities to attend to.
Such domestic responsibilities mean that I must begin this morning with an apology.
Due to pressing government business in Ireland which includes assisting in our preparations for the European Council, I must unfortunately leave this House immediately following my intervention this morning.
My colleague Minister Gay Mitchell will remain in the Chamber until the end of the debate.
In my address to this House last July I outlined the priorities for the Irish presidency.
These included economic and monetary union, employment, the intergovernmental conference, internal security and the management of the Union's external relations portfolio.
These will be the main issues for the European Council.
But we also have another priority.
This was to be efficient and effective in our conduct of the business of the Union.
The final and most significant test of this priority will start at 10 a.m. on Friday, when the European Council begins in Dublin.
The momentum of progress towards the third stage of EMU has been maintained throughout the Irish presidency.
Our aim is to present substantive conclusions at the European Council on three issues - the proposed stability pact, the new exchange rate mechanism and the euro - and that this outcome will further underpin confidence that the third stage of EMU will begin on schedule.
There is now consensus that Member States will be obliged to submit either stability or conversion programmes.
Member States participating in EMU will submit stability programmes that are intended to ensure that Member States stay within the Maastricht deficit criteria over the course of the economic cycle.
Member States that are not in EMU will be expected to submit conversion programmes.
These will help ensure that there is greater convergence of economic performance within the EU and that exchange rate trends do not disrupt economic development.
Very substantial progress has been made on this, but as you are aware, not every detail has yet been settled.
Ecofin Ministers will meet in Dublin tomorrow to look again at the possibility of completing the package.
The Ecofin Council reports that the key elements for the new exchange rate mechanism are agreed, although finalization of this process awaits the establishment of the European Central Bank in 1998.
As far as legislation for the euro is concerned, the progress made by the presidency is in advance of that called for in the change-over scenario agreed at Madrid.
This is important because people require reassurance on such matters as, for instance, continuity of contracts.
The European Council will be able to record virtual completion of this work, even if adoption of the actual regulations must await the creation of the European Central Bank in 1998.
We have all shared interest in the creation of employment and this interest has been recognized in the priority which successive presidencies and European Council meetings have accorded this issue.
It is now recognized that action at Union level must complement action taken at national level to address the unacceptably high levels of unemployment in all Member States.
The European Council will review progress in the Essen Strategy, the package of restructuring measures designed to increase the job-creating capacity of the European economy, on the basis of a report on employment, jointly produced by the Ecofin and Social Affairs Council meetings as well as the Commission.
The European Council will also have the opportunity to note developments in the pact of confidence on employment which was proposed by President Santer.
As this House is aware, some elements of the pact, especially those involving large extra expenditure, did not find favour in the light of the current necessity for fiscal restraint.
Nevertheless, there are a number of elements which have been developed and it is these which we will be looking at during the European Council.
A key priority of the Irish presidency has been the chairing of the intergovernmental conference.
At Florence the European Council indicated that it expected at its meeting in Dublin this month to mark decisive progress towards completing the intergovernmental conference by the middle of 1997.
To that end it requested the presidency to prepare a general outline for a draft revision of the treaties.
We have organized the work of the conference with a view to fulfilling this ambitious mandate.
The conference met at foreign minister level on a monthly basis, and the work of the foreign ministers was prepared by a group of their representatives which met on an almost weekly basis since last August.
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge again the essential on-going input which the European Parliament is contributing to the work of the conference.
The outline draft treaty, which has been prepared on the presidency's responsibility, reflects that input and the ambitions for Europe which the European Parliament is bringing to bear on the negotiations.
The outline treaty will be submitted to the European Council in Dublin this week.
It reflects in a balanced way the discussions which have taken place at the conference, as well as the necessity to maintain an adequate level of ambition in relation to the aims set by the European Council.
The draft presented by the presidency could be said to address five main challenges.
First, the development of a Union in which people's fundamental rights are fully respected and in which they can live without fear of threats to their personal security.
In this regard we have proposed very significantly strengthening the means at the disposal of the Union in the fight against international crime, including terrorism, drug trafficking and offences against children.
We have also proposed the introduction of Community methods as appropriate in the areas of free movement, asylum and immigration and have suggested an overall target date of 1 January 2001 to complete the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice, in which the free movement of persons would be ensured.
As regards respect for fundamental rights, we have proposed texts which would reaffirm that the Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law.
We have made proposals which would allow the Council to take action to prohibit discrimination on grounds including sex, race, age and disability.
We have also proposed strengthening the treaty significantly with a view to ensuring respect for the principle of equality between men and women and have suggested that gender-neutral language should be incorporated into the treaty.
Secondly, significantly strengthened treaty provisions on a number of issues which affect citizens in their daily lives and how they perceive the Union and its institutions, including employment, environment, consumer protection, transparency and subsidiarity.
Thirdly, the development of a coherent, consistent and effective external policy for the Union in all its aspects: the common foreign and security policy, including its security and defence dimension, and strengthening the Union's ability to act in external economic relations.
Fourthly, the promotion of efficient and effective institutions which are visibly democratic and firmly rooted in public acceptance.
We have proposed a streamlining of the co-decision procedure and that Parliament should be placed on an equal footing in that procedure.
We have argued for an extension of the co-decision procedure by reference to accepted criteria as suggested by the Commission and Parliament itself.
Fifthly, consideration of how the treaty should be amended to allow for the development of what has come to be called flexibility or enhanced cooperation which is certainly one of the most important issues at the conference.
In almost all cases our proposals are in the form of draft treaty texts, the exceptions being those areas where we have accepted the general view that it would be preferable not to put forward treaty texts at this stage.
In such cases we have emphasized the importance of the issues and have dealt with them in detail including setting out options which a view to the further work of the conference.
The draft outline treaty is a presidency document.
Delegations are not asked to sign up to it in all its detail.
In the presidency's view it represents a good basis for further work with a view to seeking final agreement under the Netherlands presidency at the Amsterdam European Council on a treaty which would equip the Union to address the challenges ahead and to respond to the aspirations of citizens.
We are very encouraged by the positive reaction to our document by Parliament and to its ambitions for Europe.
The security of the citizen and especially personal security is a matter of vital importance.
This was brought home in a horrific manner when terrible deeds in Belgium were made known to us all.
Sometimes it can take the unspeakable to prompt swift action and as the presidency we have been determined to put in place arrangements which will allow for effective cooperation between the Member States and wider international cooperation to prevent the trafficking in persons and which would assist in combating child abuse.
The Justice and Home Affairs Ministers took rapid action and agreement was quickly reached on a number of joint actions to enhance police and judicial cooperation in combating organized paedophilia as well as the trafficking in women for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
The Irish presidency placed strong emphasis on the fight against drug trafficking and drug addiction.
The European Council will be able to record very substantial progress on the action programme on drugs, including measures to protect the external borders against drug smuggling and the adoption of the Community programme against drug dependence.
The presidency also sought to foster a sense of common purpose in the fight against drugs, both within the European Union and among its international partners.
I am confident that the European Council in Dublin will give strong evidence of that shared will.
It will also discuss stepping up the fight against organized crime and seek to give an impetus to cooperation between the Member States in this vital struggle.
I also expect that it will call for the early ratification of the Europol Convention by the Member States by the end of 1997 at the latest.
In addition the common challenge of combating international organized crime, in particular in relation to drug trafficking and trafficking in persons will be the focus of the discussions with the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe together with Cyprus at their meeting with the European Council on 14 December.
Each presidency has a particular role to play in the conduct of the Union's external relations.
The external challenges and responsibilities which the Union must address have become increasingly complex and demanding over time and each presidency is challenged to respond.
It is also the one which is most difficult to plan.
While many issues were the subject of action in this area under our presidency, three particular matters will be the focus for discussion at the European Council and it is to these that I now turn.
The special meeting of the European Council in Dublin on 5 October discussed how the European Council could further enhance its role in and support for, the peace process at the time of heightened tension in the Middle East.
In the meantime the Union has considerably intensified its efforts in this regard.
I travelled to the region directly after the October meeting in Dublin and a full troika visit took place from 10 to 12 November.
Ambassador Moratinos has been appointed as the Union's special envoy to the region with a broad mandate to engage with parties and has now taken up his duties.
The presidency has also hosted both President Arafat and Prime Minister Netanyahu for discussion on progress in the peace process.
In Dublin this week Heads of State and Government will have an opportunity to review the latest developments in the region and to maintain the clear impetus for a constructive and substantive role for the Union in the search for peace in the Middle East.
During the current presidency the international community faced a further crisis in the Great Lakes region, this time in Eastern Zaire.
The ensuing return of hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees to their homeland brought about a radical change in the nature of the crisis and in the parameters for the deployment of humanitarian assistance with appropriate military support under UN Security Council Resolution 1080 of 15 November.
The Union responded to all stages of the crisis in full cooperation with the UN, the OAU, regional leaders and other members of the international community.
As we speak, the situation continues to evolve.
The temporary multinational force for humanitarian purposes sanctioned by the UN resolution with Canada as the lead country is currently setting up its headquarters in Kampala, Uganda.
A phased, progressive and flexible plan for deployment has been worked out and agreed by participating countries.
Under this plan the MNF's role will evolve to match the changing circumstances in Eastern Zaire and its deployment will proceed on a step-by-step basis in the context of the overall objective of facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance and the orderly, voluntary repatriation of refugees and displaced persons.
The MNF is liaising closely with the international humanitarian agencies under the leadership of the UN humanitarian coordinator in ensuring that it plays its full part in assisting the agencies and their work in Eastern Zaire.
The critical challenge remains to ensure the delivery of health in the best and most effective way possible to those still in need in Eastern Zaire and to facilitate the orderly voluntary repatriation of refugees and displaced persons.
In light of the rapid pace of developments on the ground, it is right that the means by which this help is delivered is re-evaluated on an on-going basis.
The European Union will seek to play its full part in the humanitarian tasks which lie ahead, notably through ECHO.
In that regard, I would recall the joint action concerning the contribution which the EU could make to the efforts which the United Nations has made to resolve the crisis in the region and the Council decision requesting the WEU to elaborate and implement aspects of that joint action.
Other major challenges lie ahead in the Great Lakes region.
These include inter alia the reintegration of hundreds of thousands of returning refugees in Rwanda, rehabilitation and the promotion of reconciliation in that country, the continuation of the process of democratic transition in Zaire, the development of the peace process in Burundi and the rehabilitation of those areas, including Tanzania, which have hosted refugees in such large numbers for the past two years.
The European Union will play its part in the addressing of these enormous challenges.
In this regard, I welcome the Commission initiative in undertaking to draw up a strategic and comprehensive plan of action for EU assistance to the Great Lakes region covering a broad range of areas.
I welcome and commend also the continuing efforts of our special envoy to the Great Lakes region, Mr Ajelle, who is playing an important role on the Union's behalf in the region, in particular in terms of conveying the Union's support for the efforts of the region itself to resolve its problems.
It is widely recognized in the context of the Great Lakes region that a humanitarian response alone represents no solution to its problems.
A broad-based comprehensive approach is required.
That is why, in tandem with the efforts to meet immediate humanitarian needs, the Union has been supporting the early convening of an international conference under the joint auspices of the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity which within a global approach can address the root causes of the crisis.
This is the right approach to ensuring a durable lasting settlement to the problems which have beset the Great Lakes region for far too long.
The Dublin European Council will take place exactly one year after the signing in Paris of the peace agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It is timely on this significant anniversary that the heads of state and government should review the peace process to date.
Substantial progress has been achieved towards the implementation of the peace agreement though difficult challenges remain.
The recent London meeting of the peace implementation conference has established a detailed programme of action aimed in particular at accelerating the implementation process in areas where progress has been slow.
The European Council will consider the further contribution which it can make to this process.
There will also be an opportunity to discuss developments in the other countries of the region in particular the worrying situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The dynamic of the Union's relations with the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe and with Cyprus has been maintained and strengthened during the past several months, both at the multilateral and bilateral levels.
The European Council meeting in Dublin will provide a valuable opportunity to review progress with regard to the Commission's ongoing preparations for enlargement.
As we speak, the first WTO ministerial conference is continuing in Singapore.
This meeting is a significant milestone on the road to the greater globalization of trade and we attach importance to its successful outcome.
I should mention also that an EU/US Summit will take place on 16 December in Washington.
It is expected that this meeting will assess progress on the implementation of key priorities under the EU/US action plan as well as the overall development of EU/US relations.
When I addressed this House last July I said that the Irish presidency coincided with a time of great challenge for the European Union.
That challenge continues. The European Council in Dublin on Friday and Saturday will be stepping stone toward meeting this challenge.
Finally, I should like to take this opportunity to thank the European Parliament for its constructive engagement with the Irish presidency of the Council of Ministers during our term.
It is fair to say that both our major institutions, Council and Parliament, are engaged in the same process.
Our aim under the Treaty is to ensure the ever closer union of the peoples of Europe.
By our constructive engagement together we further that aim.
I pay tribute in particular to you, Mr President. You have ensured that our business has been conducted in a very constructive manner.
I mentioned earlier that in the context of the discussions of foreign ministers at the Dublin European Council, I envisaged an exchange of views on the worrying situation in Serbia, in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
I am aware of Parliament's request for a statement of this matter and in response I can report that on behalf of the Union, the presidency has issued three declarations on the situation there, most recently on 4 December, expressing our concern over the undemocratic annulment of some local election results by the authorities, deploring the authorities' action in silencing independent broadcasters, demanding that Serbia respects the rights of the people to protest peacefully and urging that restraint be exercised.
On 6 December the General Affairs Council decided that in light of developments in that country to postpone the extension of the autonomous import regime to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The Council firmly believes that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia must eventually take its place amongst the international community of nations for the sake of stability and prosperity in the region but it cannot do so unless it observes basic standards of democracy and human rights.
I should like to reiterate again today that it is view of the Council that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia's attitude towards the issues of respect for human and minority rights and the observance of democratic norms will be the key factors in determining the Union's future relationship with that country.
(Loud applause)
Thank you, Mr Santer.
We come now to the debate.
The first speaker is Mrs Green, on behalf of the PSE Group.
Mr President, our Group, which is made up of unpragmatic elected members, would like to make known its great concern regarding the forthcoming European Council meeting in Dublin.
We duly acknowledge the endeavours and successes of the Irish presidency over the last six months but we have been disappointed by the extensive document relating to the review of the Treaty which is being presented at the Summit.
There are undoubtedly novel and positive approaches, such as the increase in judicial and police cooperation, the fight against racism and discrimination, new environmental protection requirements in Community policies or the increase in transparency on the part of the Council when it legislates.
But there are many aspects in respect of which it falls short or remains silent.
There is, in the proposal, no mention of the objective of full employment nor any reference to the means necessary for the application of common jobcreation policies.
Nor is there any mention of safeguarding public services and, much to our surprise, there is no proposal for the introduction into the Treaty of the protocol on social policy, while consolidation of citizens' right to free movement is put back until 2001 without there being a reference to the Union becoming a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Attempts are being made to make progress in the areas of defence and military integration without a simultaneous advance in matters of foreign policy.
Of all the aforesaid, the most worrying aspect is the impasse in institutional matters, with the risk that decisions are taken at the last minute, with no transparency whatsoever and without citizens being informed in advance.
European public opinion has responded in a negative way to this situation, which is not improved by joint decisionmaking on the part of the French President and the German Chancellor.
Its proposals aside, what seems to be appearing is a hard, influential core capable of imposing decisions in preference to promoting the development of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Regarding other points on the Dublin agenda, our Group supports the fight against crime and drug trafficking, but firmly rejects the adoption of the 'stability pact' , which goes beyond the current requirements of Economic and Monetary Union and the derived system of possibly fining Member States. This would undoubtedly give rise to a deterioration in the social and economic conditions of countries which already have other problems.
We are also critical of the confirmation of the model and the time periods relating to the single currency and we would ask the European Council to embark upon a public and wide-ranging debate in which all the various positions are included and a dialogue to discuss this single-currency model and its consequences, particularly with regard to employment.
Mr Santer himself spoke to us about the deteriorating employment situation.
We could define employment policies along the lines of the old saying: ' from defeat to defeat up to final victory' .
At the moment, we are in the defeat stage as regards employment policies.
Mr President, such debates cannot continue in the same elitist manner, amid central-bank directives or via opinions in the press given by former Heads of Government or former Presidents of the Commission.
It is absolutely essential that the conditions necessary to enable citizens to acquire in-depth information and to take part in the institutional system be established.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is Advent, it is the time when children write to Father Christmas, the time to picture the following scene: it is Christmas Eve, there is a large package under the Christmas tree, the package looks wonderful, it makes the child feel very hopeful; it is so big that it would have room for every wish on its Christmas list.
Then the child begins to unpack it, to unwrap it, and to go on unwrapping it.
Inside one box is another box, the child goes on unpacking more and more desperately and it becomes more and more clear that the package is empty, there is nothing inside it.
It consists of nothing but empty boxes.
That is every child's nightmare, and what is happening with the revision of the Maastricht Treaty is the same kind of nightmare.
When I read the Council's proposals for the Dublin conference I feel like the child I have been describing.
These plans and projects are not the answer to our wishes.
What we wrote on our wish list was: more transparency, more democracy, more rights for the European Parliament.
What happened? The opposite, for the Dublin documents contain not more but less transparency because the Council wants to continue its absolutist reign of power and secrecy.
They contain not more but less democracy because they reduce the rights of the citizens to wishes, because although they refer to anti-discrimination, in fact they create an even more hierarchical system, because for the Council certainty is never legal certainty, for how else could freedom of movement be deferred to the next millennium and Europol be equipped with operational powers without any controls?
They contain not more but fewer rights for Parliament because they drastically widen the gulf between the single market and the second and third pillar, because the proposal on foreign policy does not once mention the European Parliament but instead refers ever more frequently to WEU and because in foreign and domestic policy we, the European Parliament, are to be deprived of our budgetary powers.
These proposals contain not more but less Europe.
And what is far worse is that the package is not just empty but is doom-laden.
That is not the fault of the Irish presidency.
I wish us all a happy Christmas and, I hope, a better New Year!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the Irish presidency for having fulfilled, in a very reasonable time, the mandate it was given during the informal European Council on 5 October and for having produced a readable and well-written document which takes stock of the state of negotiations.
I also take this opportunity to protest against the cynical attitude to the text shown by leading representatives of certain governments, and not minor ones either, who have strongly criticized the Irish presidency's document, when they share the responsibility for the lamentable situation in which the IGC finds itself.
Having said that, the document leaves much to be desired, even though the Irish presidency puts forwards courageous proposals about jobs and the environment and even dares to propose the abolition of the third reading in the co-decision procedure, which amounts to putting the European Parliament on the same footing as the Council: an excellent initiative.
Firstly, at institutional level, there is total blockage which is a bad omen for the preparation for enlargement: no concrete proposal is made for the extension of majority voting or for the extension of the co-decision procedure.
And it is the same for the composition of the Commission and the weighting of votes in the Council.
Are we not heading for disaster if the great institutional package, which should give the Union effective decision-making powers and the capacity to function after the next enlargement, is postponed until the end of negotiations, with all the dangers that a grand final bargaining session at the last minute can create?
Then there is the CFSP, our poor old CFSP.
Do Member States really believe that the Union will gain credibility by making an official, however highly placed he may be, the centre of the European Union's foreign policy? The proposals aimed at strengthening the status of the Secretary-General of the Council are clearly unacceptable, unless, in the matter of the external representation of the Union we wish to be treated in the same way by our partners and our Commissioners and members of the Troika also to be received by an official.
Furthermore, is it acceptable that a new method of veto should be introduced for national political reasons in areas where majority voting is now possible? There is obviously considerable backsliding over the foreign policy proposals.
This contrasts with the clear political will to make concrete progress in the defence field, a will that we appreciate.
But allow me to question the implications of rapid development in defence and military integration without simultaneous progress being made in foreign policy.
In conclusion, Mr President, I am personally happy to see - and on this point I go along with President Santer - that the question of enhanced cooperation will henceforth be at the heart of the Conference debate, as was not the case when my group began to fight for it at the time of Mr Bourlanges's report.
I am still convinced that the possibility of enhanced cooperation will nevertheless have to remain open, by being compatible with the Union's objectives, and by respecting the Community's achievements and the single institutional framework.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the six months of the Dutch presidency ending with the Amsterdam summit will be of vital importance for the Union.
It is up to our governments to decide whether to equip the Union with institutions capable of making an enlarged Community capable of functioning or, on the contrary, to condemn Europe to paralysis.
And it is Parliament which has the distinction of reminding the presidency and governments of this.
Mr President, I am not going to talk to you about the problem of unemployment which, I imagine, helps to keep you awake sometimes.
Neither am I going to talk about the IGC, nor about enlargement to the East, nor about the necessity for the veto - being personally convinced to the contrary - nor about the right to secession.
What I am going to talk about is the budgetary stability pact.
This pact provides mechanisms for punishing peoples whose budgetary conduct is not good enough.
A country like France could therefore be made to pay a penalty of FF 30 billion, a sum which would allow it, for example, to increase the salaries of all its schoolteachers by FF 30 000.
I shall not spend time discussing whether such a mechanism is valid, but merely observe that for fifty years you yourself were happy to make a practice of Keynesian deficits.
We therefore ask ourselves why you are changing.
What is certain is that, with this stability pact, you are nursing a German neurosis.
Germany, having experienced the Weimar Republic, fears inflation.
But just because the grandmother in a family has diabetes it does not mean that all the children have to go without sugar: a treatment aimed at curing the illness of one cannot be applied to everybody.
With such a stability pact, with whose help you hope to create a single currency and a single budgetary policy, we shall end up with a situation in which it will be impossible to compensate for different economic levels between States by adjusting either the budgetary or monetary floodgates.
The only thing left to adjust, apart from unemployment, will be the tax floodgates, and this will lead States to practise competitive tax reductions, already used by Luxembourg in connection with income from property.
And that is what Germany is about to do by abolishing its tax on capital and reducing its marginal rate of income tax.
I have said to you before and I say it again: align yourself with Germany.
We have a ruling from the Karlsruhe Court of June 1995 which is based on the freedom of taxpayers to act to determine whether such and such a tax is too high.
Include the single currency and the single budgetary policy in your revised Maastricht Treaty, and include a ceiling on compulsory deductions, like the Karlsruhe Court is in the process of doing for Germany.
At least the IGC will then have served some useful purpose.
I have received fourteen motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure: seven motions for resolutions relating to the European Council and a further seven relating to the political situation in Serbia.
Mr President, Europe's citizens are noting with surprise the fact that many of their hopes are failing to materialize.
Many of the questions raised by the Maastricht Treaty have never been answered and we have now reached the point when European citizens are undergoing a crisis of faith in the very structure of Europe.
Unless this climate is reversed, that mistrust will lead to more general problems which will threaten the vision of those who created this truly unprecedented experiment that we call the European Union.
The mandate given to the Irish presidency in Florence was to submit to the IGC a first general draft Treaty.
It should be stressed from the start that the Irish have done this very effectively, and all of us here in Parliament should congratulate them without gainsaying their achievement.
When one takes into account the way and the conditions under which the Irish were working, it is natural for imperfections and disagreements to exist.
However, we are in the middle of the IGC and there is still a long way to go before the Amsterdam Summit Conference.
A basic factor for the success of the IGC is that the new Treaty should be acceptable to Europe's citizens.
The doubts raised by the Maastricht Treaty must be dispelled, and the aspirations and concerns of Europe's peoples must be addressed.
Our peoples want the Union to become deeper and to develop.
We need a model based on the principles of democracy, equality for all and for every country, whether small or large, and one which will strive to fight unemployment, social exclusion, racism and xenophobia.
A Europe without discriminations, without different speeds of development, would be a Europe which respected its citizens.
It is necessary to broaden the legitimation of the Union's constitutional framework.
The upgrading of the European Parliament and the strengthening of its role in more sectors of Community action are aims which will secure more effective citizen participation in developments.
However, we must be careful to see that the costs of institutional changes are not borne by the small countries alone.
Before concluding, I want to mention the gradual development of a European identity in the area of defence and security.
The guarantee of territorial integrity and the protection of external frontiers, will give impetus to the CFSP and promote the principles of cooperation in that context.
However, we cannot all advance together if some European citizens feel that the Union will not be behind them if they encounter dangers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank President Santer and the President-inOffice of the Council for their statements, but also for the work that has been done to bring the Intergovernmental Conference up to this point.
When we evaluate the Irish document it is only fair that we do not expect to find results before us at this stage; instead it intelligently reflects the negotiations to date and I must say that in some points that are of particular interest to the European Parliament it even goes a little further than the negotiations to date.
I find what the Irish presidency of the Council said about the co-decision powers of the European Parliament particularly interesting.
This document clearly states that in future there should only be three decision-making procedures and that the co-decision procedure should be the general rule for legislation.
Obviously some questions of definition and delimitation remain to be clarified.
But on what is perhaps the key question for the European Parliament, it now creates a basis on which it will be easy to continue negotiating under the Dutch presidency of the Council.
The need to expand the system of qualified majority decisions was also addressed.
I am especially glad that in their letters President Chirac and Chancellor Kohl stated that qualified majority decisions would be the rule in the Council, that certain exceptions could be made but that majority decisions would be the rule.
If we regard these as key areas in relation to achieving greater democracy, transparency and ability to act and in preparation for enlargement, then I think this combination may really have given us a chance to make progress in this area at the IGC.
However we in Parliament must also say that there is still a whole range of questions in relation to which we are certainly not at all content.
I think very little progress has been made so far on the whole question of foreign and security policy or on the role of the decision-making procedures; constructive abstention is merely an alibi and does not resolve the problem of a destructive country being able to block decisions.
This immediately takes us to the question of the dual voting mechanisms. Policy in general is decided unanimously, its implementation by a majority decision.
We already had that in the Maastricht Treaty and it did not work.
That means that we have to give considerably more thought to the question of decision-making procedures and foreign and security policy than what is reflected in the documents and negotiations to date.
But we must also say that it would be unacceptable to Parliament if the institutions could not deal with new areas, which may be transferred from the third pillar - and thank God it is the third pillar - to the first pillar fully and exactly the same way as the classical first pillar areas.
That is why we have to reject the idea of a Pillar 1B or whatever it is called and demand full participation by the Commission, Parliament and the European Court of Justice here in order to have genuine constitutional and democratic controls.
I find it intolerable that we have not yet made any headway on the budget question.
The directly elected European Parliament has no direct influence on 50 % of the budget.
If it comes to the point where, against every rule of logic, the areas of the second and third pillar are also designated as compulsory expenditure, in order to reduce or even obviate any chance of Parliament having decision-making powers there, then I must tell the Member States that in this regard I would say that in Parliament's view an intergovernmental conference that came to that conclusion would not have come to a satisfactory conclusion.
In regard to employment, foreign trade, the integrating effect of consumer policy and environmental policy, the Irish presidency of the Council has produced outstanding proposals.
We should ask the Dublin summit to give the Netherlands presidency of the Council a special mandate to simplify the Treaties.
The Irish presidency of the Council has produced a good structural basis for the further negotiations.
I would like to thank Noel Dorr for chairing the Group of Representatives in such an excellent, professional and humane manner.
I hope we can continue to work on this basis in order to obtain what is best for the Union.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the President-in-Office and the President of the Commission for the contributions they have made here today.
I wish to offer my very sincere thanks to the presidency for the draft document for the IGC which is an excellent document.
It will be a solid and worthwhile base for continuing discussions in the IGC to conclude at Amsterdam.
The summit in Dublin this weekend must address the key issues confronting the Union at the present time and set down guidelines for the work of the institutions on these issues for 1997.
First and foremost it must restate the commitments to establish a single currency in 1999 and the advantages which this currency will bring to most of Europe's citizens.
This year has seen strong progress by the opponents of a single currency who have succeeded in raising serious concerns about the effects of a single currency in many people's minds.
The heads of state and government must first of all allay the fears which have been raised and in this regard the efforts to develop a stability pact are welcome.
I hope that such a pact will reassure those who are concerned about the effects of a single currency on their jobs and businesses and on their savings.
European leaders must accept that it is perfectly reasonable for people to be concerned about the possible impact which the abolition of the currency in their pockets and its replacement by an unknown and so far non-existent euro will have on their personal circumstances.
These concerns should be comprehensively addressed in 1997 because there will not be any single currency unless it has popular support in all of those countries whose governments now aspire to join the euro-zone from day one.
Governments must remember the message from the debate on the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, which is that the general public, acting through the ballot box, are the ultimate decision-makers on the pace and extent of European integration in all policy areas, including monetary policy.
The electorate in nearly all European countries are increasingly concerned about personal safety and security and much of the crime that we read about is associated, correctly in my view, with the use of illegal drugs.
The trade in these drugs is multinational in nature, as is the laundering of the vast sums of money involved in this trade yet the response of the multinational organization best placed to tackle this problem, the European Union, is seen to be virtually non-existent.
The Maastricht Treaty allowed for the creation of Europol as an intelligence-gathering agency on the illegal drugs trade.
This agency must be equipped with the resources to undertake this task.
The IGC is putting forward proposals to eliminate controls at the Union's internal borders.
If this is to happen then it must be accompanied by a commitment to increase the resources available to secure the external borders against the activities of the drug smugglers.
The Union must orientate its activities to initiatives such as this if it is to respond to the needs and issues of concern to its citizens.
The creation of a single European market has largely removed the restrictions on the free movement of capital, goods and services throughout the Union.
However, as far as the free movement of people is concerned, there has been little or no real progress to date in removing border restrictions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Minister Mr Hervé de Charrette has spoken of the mediocrity of the Irish draft.
I think the minister should set his own house in order: the Franco-German document, for its part, is hardly conspicuous for its ambition.
In particular, everybody can see the complete lack of any response to the expectations of society, especially as regards employment and social cohesion.
Thus, the French statements about the European social model and about the defence of public service appear simply to be empty boasts.
In fact, the Irish presidency has done what it could within impossible terms of reference.
The Intergovernmental Conference is meaningless because it is not exploring the objectives of society or the objectives which would create an ambition for Europe in the world.
And the Conference is meaningless because governments hold on to their positions of power, barricade themselves behind their privileged positions of power and mean to continue managing Europe without its citizens.
Institutional reforms are then given what amounts to a facelift with simple procedural modifications and rearrangements of the prerogatives of power.
Making closer contact with citizens means responding to the problems of employment, security and solidarity.
We have an insignificant chapter on employment when we need policies for lasting development and a common economic power in the European Union.
For its part, security should be communitized and I approve of what the Irish text says about this.
But for communitization to be as strong as possible, we must put fundamental rights, both civil and social, in the forefront within a framework of freedom of movement.
Lastly, cohesion: monetary union with a hard core is dividing the European peoples.
There is a risk of enhanced cooperation being introduced with the same outcome.
We want Spain and Italy in the European Monetary Union and enhanced cooperation must be cooperation between those who wish to advance along the path of progress for society and for civilization, without being hindered by enthusiasts for the most aggressive competition who are contemptuous of solidarity.
Mr President, in this, my twenty-first year as a Member of the European Parliament, I detect a very strong mood of optimism.
That is fairly new and I think we owe it a lot to the Irish presidency.
If ever anyone personified the philosophy of 'small is beautiful' it must be the Irish presidency.
Here we have the tiger economy of Europe with an enormous growth rate so it is rather appropriate, as we are engaging in the EMU discussion, that it should be Ireland that has been leading us for six months.
There is a tremendous negative attitude in the United Kingdom, the state to which I reluctantly belong.
It is growing, it is dangerous and it is not usually based on reason.
On EMU the pessimists talk about the loss of jobs, without ever explaining what jobs will be lost.
I suggest jobs will be gained.
We congratulate Mr Spring for his foreign policy efforts, for putting employment into the Treaty and for the unique openness of this document, so that the whole of Europe knows where we are going from here.
Mr President, after four weeks of popular demonstrations, marches, sit-ins and strikes by students and workers, four weeks of unrest and protest by an entire country, with the streets and squares seething with people of all conditions and ages, it is as if a spectre is hovering restlessly over the whole of Serbia - the spectre of communism, which seems to have vanished for ever if we are to believe the press and television news that we have the pleasure, or displeasure, of reading and hearing, at least in Italy.
Supposedly, these powerful mass demonstrations originated solely from the cancellation of the results of the local authority elections, and the Serbian people have taken to the streets solely in order to have those results reinstated.
And our own Foreign Ministers, the Heads of State, the leaders of the centre and left parties, when they talk about the Serbian situation will use any word, any term, any turn of phrase, any analogy to avoid uttering one particular word, that word, one term, that term, one definition, that definition, which would make things clearer and more obvious to all.
That little word that they cannot bring themselves to pronounce, because apparently they become tongue-tied and dry-mouthed when they try to bring it to their lips, well, I shall reveal what it is, and I trust that all the world's hypocrites and pedants are not going to hold it against me: the word is communism.
Honourable Members, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, are we or are we not going to say that the Serbs are protesting against the communist regime, that their burning desire is to see the communist Milosevic sent packing, that their hope is to see the most fundamental freedoms, freedoms violated by the communist government, becoming the heritage of the entire Serb people? Or perhaps you think it undignified to attack an ideology which has been discredited by those same historical processes which, according to the utopian scientific theories of Marxism, should have standardized and collectivized the whole world?
We of Alleanza Nazionale believe that we should call a spade a spade, to avoid confusion and misunderstanding and to show the younger generations that the word 'liberty' is irreconcilable with the communist idealogy, because of its totalitarian nature and its repression of any individuality which does not fit and cannot be made to fit.
That said, it is important that the European Union should send a clear, unequivocal message to the communist regime in Belgrade, a message as clear as those it once sent to the apartheid government in South Africa or to the dictatorship in Chile: all trade relations will be broken off until such time as the sacrosanct rights of opposition are recognized and the fundamental democratic freedoms reinstated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will only be speaking on the subject of Serbia.
My colleagues have already said all there is to say on the other subject.
We are currently seeing a sought-after partner of all the Western governments shamelessly presuming the right to annul election results that do not suit him.
Even the Serbian judges administer justice according to the wishes of Mr Milosevi&#x010D;.
This manipulation makes it clear to every last one of us that Serbia is not a constitutional state.
The gagging of the media and the defamation of the peaceful demonstrators are further, manifest evidence of the communist despotism of this government.
Serbia cannot remain the family business of Milosevi&#x010D; and Markovi&#x010D;.
Unlike the USA, the Council reacted very hesitantly.
Why was it afraid to openly stand up for democracy and basic rights, although it is our flags that are flown during these demonstrations? Serbia is now paying the price for the fact that, unlike all the other successor states, it did not have to comply with the 1991 Badinter criteria in order to be recognized.
Moreover, a solution to the Kosovo question should have been made a precondition.
Of course Kosovo should also have been on the Dayton agenda.
Negligence and sins of omission of this kind have disastrous consequences.
The Yugoslav leaders are not showing the slightest inclination towards democratic reforms.
The people in that country do not feel free, they feel they have been cheated of their basic rights.
On my last visit to Belgrade in June many Serbs said to me: you are concerning yourself with the rights of Albanians in Kosovo.
Do so.
But we need help too.
Who is helping us to exercise our basic rights? The three leaders of the Savetno opposition came to Brussels at the end of October at my invitation to meet the delegation for relations with south-eastern Europe.
Of course the political ideas and the statements made by Mr Draskovic and Mr Djindji in recent years merely reflected greater Serbian and nationalistic ambitions.
They still approved of Karadzic when Milosevi dropped him as a result of Western pressure.
The alliance with the only genuinely democratic force in Serbia, Vesnapesi's party, offers some hope, however, that the opposition wants democratic progress.
That is why it is up to us, and in particular to Serbia's Western partners, to condemn Milosevi's undemocratic conduct and to show solidarity with the peaceful demonstrators from the opposition.
Given that the opposition alliance is fragile, outside support for its aims might convince the population that a change of government could mean a step towards more democracy.
We expect the Serbian leadership, government and opposition to find a rapid solution to the Kosovo question, failing which there can be no peace in the region.
The democracy that needs to be established in Bosnia also depends on democratic conditions prevailing in Belgrade.
I call upon the Council to pursue these European goals more emphatically and uncompromisingly and finally to give a signal that it is doing so in Dublin!
Mr President, the European Council in Dublin is beginning in a climate of high hopes for the future of the European Union.
We have only just received the draft of the Treaty on European Union presented by the Irish presidency, and already the various foreign ministries are taking action to go further, to take the very necessary additional step that will enable the Dublin Council to produce specific, efficient results that are essential in the interests of European integration.
We concur, indeed, with the conclusions of last Monday's Franco-German summit which, in the joint communique issued, once again evinced those states' determination to provide a critical stimulus to the proceedings of the European Council.
The matters being dealt with are still very numerous and fundamental, but I should like to remind the House that what is necessary is to concentrate on the institutional reforms and on internal and external security.
But not to the exclusion of other matters: the Council must show that it is at last capable of taking the necessary decisions to provide a new stimulus to the creation of social, political and economic conditions that will bring the Union closer to its citizens, for a great many of whom the crucial issue to be resolved is the running sore of unemployment.
Although it is true that the strengthening of the present weak state of integration cannot and must not be obstructed, it is equally true that, by substantially improving the efficacy of the decision-making process, we shall be able to present the public with a Union which is more dynamic and more consistent in its operation.
We would also emphasize the need to adopt as soon as possible the necessary legislative provisions for the issuing of the euro, and regulations which will guarantee economic convergence and monetary stability within the area of the single currency, thus enabling the European Union to pursue a coherent and comprehensive economic policy.
Mr President, Dublin can and must be the keystone of the definitive European structure of the twenty-first century.
And then the grand design of the final years of this century - the single currency and cooperation between our united peoples that was so dear to Jean Monnet - can finally become a reality.
In order for that to come about, it is necessary for all of us to take that further step I mentioned earlier, which will finally give the European Union its solid base.
Mr President, why Dublin, given that Nuremburg had already taken place?
To have a smiling portrait of 16 or 17, including the President of the European Parliament?
Why bother with the report by a tiny President when we had a letter written by two huge, dynamic presidents?
Why bother with ministers, diplomacy, cooperation, if Mr CFSP can do everything singlehanded?
Why invent new acronyms when NATO can thrive?
Why tackle the causes if a common legal area and a Europol with teeth can see to the effects?
Why so much hot air about labels, pacts, stability, greater or less flexibility of criteria and sanctions, while ignoring reality, social issues, unemployment, life - not single currencies and central banks? Why waste a whole minute, Mr President, when 51 seconds are enough to put questions that could take hours to comment on and discuss?
Mr President, at this moment of the emergence of a draft Treaty on the IGC, are we to find once again that, contrary to assurances we have heard this morning on citizenship and democracy, a review of the Euratom Treaty has been neglected? The Euratom Treaty is one of the founding Treaties of the Union, along with the Treaty of Rome.
The failure to update and review it, to protect people from the effects of radiation rather than to promote nuclear power, is extraordinary.
We have heard from admirers of Jean Monnet this morning - I am also an admirer of Jean Monnet.
His biographer has said in regard to the Euratom Treaty that he thought that nuclear power had a great future and no past, and neither assertion was true. However, amendments to the Euratom Treaty have been tabled for this process and, in regard to the IGC, will the Council meeting in Dublin make a statement on nuclear safety in response to widespread public concern?
Specifically, have amendments to the Euratom Treaty, which would provide vigorous scrutiny of the safety of nuclear facilities, been agreed? The Euratom Treaty makes no provision for the setting or enforcement of safety standards relating to the operation of nuclear installations.
Have provisions in respect of nuclear installations which affect the territory of another Member State, particularly in regard to any cumulative effect of hazards to the health and environment of neighbouring populations, been agreed? Will the Council state specifically that existing nuclear reactors which do not meet standards will be closed?
Mr President, unfortunately one minute is not long enough to congratulate the Irish presidency, which I would, however, have liked to do.
The intensive efforts of the Member States to fulfil the Maastricht criteria are currently leading to a massive rise in unemployment and undermining social standards.
This situation is compounded by the fact that the citizens are quite inadequately informed on the question of the introduction of the euro because the information campaign so far on the introduction of a single currency has been conducted in a remarkably one-sided manner.
Until now the social and employment policy consequences have in fact been concealed, whether deliberately or not.
The massive effect the introduction of the euro will have on all aspects of the life of the citizens of Europe actually requires that the people of the Member States are given a chance to participate in the decision.
In that respect it seems essential in terms of democratic policy to ask the people of the Member States their opinion on the introduction of monetary union by holding referenda.
If monetary union is introduced against the will of the people it is certainly doomed to failure!
Mr President, when our Minister for Foreign Affairs presented his plans for the Dutch presidency a few weeks ago we were very disappointed.
With due respect for modesty and realism we believed that the Dutch presidency was hardly being ambitious.
But now that we have seen the basis for the Dublin Summit we can appreciate the Dutch position somewhat better.
For the situation is that what is passed on from the outgoing presidency determines to a very large degree what can be achieved in the following six months, and what is being passed on to the Netherlands is alas very meagre.
The Irish presidency cannot be held responsible for at the end of the day it is the will of all governments together that determines the outcome.
We make our assessment in the light of the Martin/Bourlanges and the Dury/Maij-Weggen reports, and our conclusion is that there is a yawning gap between Parliament's desiderata and the Union's achievements to date.
To be more specific I shall mention just a few relevant points: specific results in the field of employment and social policy.
It is not sufficient simply to declare that these matters are important.
We must see the instruments being used to achieve the ends.
The EMU makes extra action necessary in the field of employment.
That is the inescapable conclusion we must draw.
And then the third pillar, cooperation in the field of justice and interior affairs.
There we have not been inactive.
But Parliament's desire to have a say in affairs is apparently falling on deaf ears.
They are continuing with the intergovernmental cooperation which we have on more than one occasion characterised as undemocratic, a kind of intermediate pillar which as Mr Brok has already said is unacceptable.
But it is not just there.
We were promised a revision of the decision-making procedure and we have not got that; and far less have we seen any role that the European Parliament is to play in that decision-making.
That does not mean to say that we in any way denigrate what the Irish presidency has achieved through sheer hard work.
It is extremely important that human rights and equal treatment appear to be included in the new Treaty.
It is our duty to see that the citizens' Europe is given flesh and bones. It is our role, Mr President, to ensure that the Dutch presidency is inspired by the achievements to date and that we narrow the gap between what we in this House want and what the Council seems prepared to do.
Mr President, at the beginning of the Irish presidency of this conference I want to express my great respect and say that Austria, which will be assuming the presidency in the second half of 1998, can only learn from the way Ireland has mastered this difficult task.
I hope we will be able to work as efficiently as the Irish Republic has done.
The European Union has set itself ambitious aims: a common currency, a common foreign policy, a common house with room for more tenants that is as burglar-proof as possible and co-decision by the tenants.
The latter is also urgently necessary, for the European Union will only be able to achieve its aims if the citizens are adequately involved in the decision-making, with the help of the European Parliament as also of the national parliaments, on a basis of subsidiarity.
I, like Austria as a whole, would urge that a protocol to the Treaty, concerning the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity and strengthening the Committee of the Regions, is adopted in Dublin.
We also support all the efforts to strengthen internal and external security.
Austria, which has a long external EU border to protect, is particularly aware of the importance of Europol and Schengen and calls for a common approach to asylum and immigration policy.
We also consider it most important for the CFSP to take shape and for majority decisions to be possible in the non-military area.
The lack of a common foreign and security policy has had particularly adverse effects in former Yugoslavia.
So I think it is urgently necessary for the European Parliament to raise its voice in order to strengthen the democratic opposition in Serbia.
I also endorse the Austrian suggestion that an appropriate stance be adopted on this matter at the Dublin conference.
For only if the democratic structures in former Yugoslavia are safeguarded can the fragile Dayton peace accord survive.
I wish to thank the Presidents of both Council and the Commission.
I welcome much of what has been said, including the confidence pact.
At last we are seeing some action in the Great Lakes and a nudge to the Dutch presidency on sovereignty.
But what I find lacking is specific action on security and a policy on drugs.
If we agree that something must be done to stamp out crime and drug trafficking, then we expect specific action from the Dublin Summit.
And finally, traffic in Europe has recently come to a standstill because of industrial action in France, Denmark and Greece.
What is the Commission and Council going to do to guarantee the principle of free movement?
The Dublin Summit must show that the Union is concerned about the everyday life of its citizens, and about the Serbian demands for democracy, as so passionately argued by Mr Cohn Bendit and Mrs Pack.
Thank you, Mr President, for the Irish contribution to a solid basis for a possible Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mr President, despite the fact that the question of institutional power has not yet been discussed by the Intergovernmental Conference, the text of the draft treaty from the presidency shows that there is a desire to transfer more power, on very critical issues, from the Member States to the EU.
The proposal means more joint policing, immigration policy and border controls.
There will be more about a common foreign policy and the ultimate goal, a joint defence policy, is firmly placed in the draft.
The proposals change the conditions of membership in such an unacceptable way that it is only natural that such extensive proposals should be decided by national referenda.
On the environmental front, the proposal is disappointing.
There has been no progress with regard to the rights of Member States to keep or introduce stricter environmental requirements for products.
The proposed article on openness is a small step forward.
There will still be no public meetings of the Council and each institution can draw up its own rules on access to documents.
This is unacceptable.
With regard to employment, the proposed committee and its recommendations will have very little weight against the iron wall of convergence policies which are currently raising the levels of unemployment in the European Union.
Mr President, the outline treaty presented in Dublin and the joint Franco-German letter both evade the true problems and only drive the IGC ever further along the federalist path, which solves nothing and is unwanted by citizens.
Firstly, these texts once again avoid mentioning the flexibility necessary for enlargement, because they are frightened of calling institutional unity into question.
They avoid mentioning the single currency, when the question of additional institutional arrangements is being debated at length every day in the newspapers.
It is true that the questions of security and the third pillar are tackled, but with the aim, particularly perverse in the present circumstances, of completely abolishing all internal frontier controls.
Above all, however, these texts in their various ways show a desire to organize a veritable programme of euthanasia for national parliaments.
Euthanasia by extending qualified majority voting in the Council, thus removing any power from the national parliaments of minority countries.
Euthanasia by the transfer of intergovernmental jurisdiction to the first pillar, thus considerably reducing the powers of national parliaments on very sensitive subjects. Euthanasia, finally, by removing the need for certain trade agreements to be ratified by national parliaments.
In exchange, they are given only laughable bits and pieces.
I assume that they will remember this when, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you present them with the treaty to be ratified.
Mr President, I should first like to pay tribute to the Irish presidency for the work it has accomplished within the Intergovernmental Conference.
The text it proposes to the Dublin European Council clears the ground as regards the questions raised, the positions held and the available options.
The Irish draft will also enable some progress to be made in areas which have not been tackled so far.
As Parliament wanted, it provides a chapter on employment and it mentions the need to combat social exclusion.
It recommends recognizing the international legal status of the Union, which will enable the Treaty to be simplified, and it also marks the desire to communitize the third pillar.
The protection of fundamental rights is affirmed and a penalty clause for violation of these rights is very rightly provided.
However, in spite of the efforts of the presidency - who cannot be held responsible - the Conference is marking time.
There has so far been no strong political impetus and we should be aware, in this Parliament, that the work of the Intergovernmental Conference is not equal to what is at stake.
This is due in the first place to a problem of method.
Negotiation will not move forward as long as Foreign Ministers refuse to become personally involved.
Time is needed in order to settle difficult questions and advance the negotiations.
A round table discussion lasting two and a half hours, like that which took place at last Friday's conclave, gives each speaker only eight minutes and does not allow any true debate.
It will be objected that nothing can be settled before the British general election.
True, but nothing prevents other governments from progressing in the meantime.
The truth is that the British Government serves as a pretext for the inertia of other governments and that the British Government has nothing to block because nothing is moving forward.
I now come to the fundamental questions.
Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac felt obliged to take some initiative in this major debate on the future of the European Union.
They did so, and it was a good thing they did.
Their joint letter, addressed to the Irish presidency, has praiseworthy intentions.
But, alas, the ambition of the Franco-German letter is inadequate given the issues at stake.
It sets out objectives and intentions but is very vague about the institutional means to achieve them.
Affirming the wish to make progress in the area of a common foreign and security policy and in that of police and judicial cooperation is a good thing.
But it is very regrettable that institutional reform is only outlined, still very vaguely, and that the other main lines of the Intergovernmental Conference are not tackled at all.
Thus, there is nothing, not a word, on employment or on the major issue of the coordination of economic policies to produce more growth in Europe and thus to provide a more solid base for national employment policies.
The Chirac-Kohl letter expresses a wish to extend majority voting and co-decision for the European Parliament.
But no details are given about the field of application of these two reforms and, in particular, the greatest vagueness is maintained over the co-decision procedure for the European Parliament.
Moreover, we are treated to the idea of a committee of national parliaments and the European Parliament, but without specifying the role such a committee would have vis-à-vis COSAC and even less what its jurisdiction would be.
Would this committee interfere in the democratic control of the Union - in our view a very bad thing - or not? We are told nothing about this.
In short, the letter does not appear to us to get the Conference out of the rut on the eve of the Dublin summit.
Even though it is always a good thing when the Heads of State and Government, at their level, take over the work of the Conference, the expectations that citizens place on Europe will once again be disappointed.
I fear that progress is still very slow and that the Fifteen will have to be content to take note of the work done so far and of the presidency's report.
The Dutch presidency will therefore take over the work in January without a real political mandate and it is very difficult today to see how it will succeed in injecting some momentum into the negotiations and moving them forward.
Of course, if no conclusion is reached in Amsterdam, it will not be a disaster.
It would be better to take a few extra weeks or months to reach a conclusion.
But if the negotiations do not get off the ground during the Dutch presidency, there is a risk that there will be a final agreement on a minimum draft treaty.
You know how serious this would be, for it is believed naïvely that the single currency on its own will succeed in reflating the European economy: I think this is wrong.
I think that, if we do not succeed in reducing the gap between the single currency and the two other great issues, namely the fight against unemployment and the political progress of the Intergovernmental Conference, that if - let us not deceive ourselves - the Conference ends up with a minimum result, that if we do not progress sufficiently towards political integration, the success of the single currency itself may be compromised.
And I should like to repeat here what I have always said: if we are content with a minimum compromise at the end of this Conference, because we consider ourselves pressed for time, because negotiation has not got off the ground, then I believe that with enlargement we shall end up collapsing into a free trade area, into a Europe precisely of the sort that its citizens do not want.
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity of putting a very specific question to the President of the European Commission.
At the beginning of this term of office we agreed on a code of behaviour between the European Parliament and the Commission.
That was essential for good cooperation.
In the last few days the President of the Commission and the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament have met on the financing of the MEDA programme.
My question is as follows: does the Commission intend to respect and apply totally the letter and the spirit of the European Parliament's resolution of 19 September 1996 on the political situation in Turkey?
Mr President, we offer our warmest thanks to the Irish presidency for the efforts it has made in a very difficult situation.
Many positive points have already been made, but we must be honest and say that the overall result confronting us today is still not satisfactory.
This is naturally a cause for concern, after nearly a year's work by the Intergovernmental Conference.
One has the impression - as Mrs Guigou said a few moments ago - that the IGC may incline to a minimal reform, pending the arrival of monetary union.
I think the real political question is this: will the Intergovernmental Conference succeed in forming a political counterweight to monetary union?
European integration is an irreversible fact.
The real problem is to prevent a further move to de facto integration, where monetary sovereignty will for practical purposes be in the hands of the Central Bank.
That is the real problem.
Monetary union represents the greatest transfer of political sovereignty since the Community was founded.
The risk is that this transfer will be a transfer from the nation States to bodies which are not democratically and politically accountable.
In that case, democracy in Europe would diminish rather than increasing.
The problem we need to confront, therefore, is whether the draft Treaty does or does not give the impression of representing a convincing move in that direction.
Our doubts focus mainly on the weakness of political citizenship, although we have of course welcomed the penalties for human rights violations and the attention paid to the idea of an area of security and freedom.
What strikes us above all, though, is that the debate on the Institutions is still lagging so far behind: the text says virtually nothing about this except that it will arrive in due course.
But how will it arrive, and when, and in what form?
Restoring the institutional balance is an absolute necessity for a new democratization, because the reforming of the Institutions also means, of course, the construction of political union and the restoration of the balance between the Union's Institutions, enhancing the supervisory and legislative role of the European Parliament.
Finally, there is flexibility, a really central subject.
We all know that what Europe will become depends on how flexibility is interpreted.
I believe there are no doubts on this point, and it is important that the document should address it.
This is surely a critical point, as indeed was demonstrated by the recent Franco-German document.
But we need to be aware that if flexibility is to be constitutional flexibility, a rule and not an exception, there will be a risk of disruption in the material constitution of Europe.
These are the growing problems, and, while thanking the presidency again for its efforts, we cannot help being concerned at the way the situation is developing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the summit in Dublin on Friday and Saturday is coming at a very difficult time for the European Union both politically and psychologically.
That is why we need to send out a signal of confidence in Dublin.
The heads of state and government must instil optimism and confidence in the citizens of the European Union again, especially in two areas. First, Dublin must send out a clear signal that the European Union wants radical reforms.
We need majority decisions in the Council.
That is the precondition for the politically, economically and morally necessary enlargement of the European Union.
In that respect, the letter from Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac is most encouraging.
The second condition is that as a preparatory step the heads of state and government must send out a clear signal on Thursday through their finance ministers that they intend to introduce a stable European currency on 1 January 1999 so that Europe can hold its own in an increasingly global world economy.
If it can send out these two signals, the Dublin summit will be a success!
Mr President, although the European Union will in a few years' time have a common currency, a single monetary policy and a supranational central bank, the converse is that fiscal policy, and in particular the tax component, will certainly be much less coordinated and, probably, to a large extent still inconsistent.
This will create very serious problems: an imbalance in political terms and as regards the balance of power between monetary policy and fiscal policy, as indeed other Members have already emphasized; threats to the success of the single currency and the smooth functioning of the internal market; the continuance of situations of unfair fiscal competition, with adverse effects on the movement of goods, services and production factors; and adverse effects on employment, since the focus of the tax burden is tending to shift away from mobile factors - capital - to less mobile factors such as labour.
We can therefore fully endorse the recent efforts and new approaches by the Commission where tax matters are concerned.
I speak for my Group when I say that we must call firmly upon the Council to support it and, in particular, to declare its own explicit support for this line, and to encourage and promote the efforts of the group of senior representatives of the Finance Ministers in their global examination of taxation policies, including the way they relate to other Community policies.
Even though the immediate aim is to guarantee the smooth functioning of the internal market - an indispensable prerequisite for the success of the single currency - and to reduce the adverse effects of unfair tax competition by introducing new instruments of coordination such as, for example, a code of conduct, it would seem that the time has come to make a real move towards abolishing the principle of unanimity in tax matters in favour of less cumbersome decision-taking arrangements.
Mr President, there is no doubt at all that the Netherlands will be looking at the Dublin Summit from the point of view of the IGC and of the joint action on trade and drug trafficking.
On the subject of the IGC I would like to express my appreciation of the Irish presidency's action on this subject.
The fact that we are looking at the first draft of a new treaty is, to my mind, proof of good work.
The fact that it gives rise to certain criticisms has nothing to do with the work of the Irish presidency but more because certain countries were still unwilling to go along with Irish intentions on certain points.
The first part, citizens' rights, is a very good part in my view.
I particularly like the article on non-discrimination which I think is also a good start to the European Year Against Racism.
I offer my congratulations.
I also like the proposals in the field of openness and transparency.
One point which has not been taken up is the transparency of the Council.
I think that publishing explanations of vote and results of voting is not sufficient here.
The reform of the institutions is a more serious business.
Very few proposals have been produced on that matter and I totally agree with Mr Brok that they have turned a deaf ear to Parliament's requests.
We are also concerned about the internal security pillar which might well be put on a Community footing but at the same time stays within the intergovernmental remit as far as decision-making is concerned.
That is fraught with dangers.
And on the subject of foreign policy much remains to be done.
And then the joint action on drugs.
I want to say most emphatically that we Christian Democrats, including the Dutch Christian Democrats, consider the present paper a good one and that it is not true that the whole of our country wants to see it burned.
There is increasing concern in the Netherlands about the liberal policy of the current government on drug tolerance.
I sincerely hope that the Dublin summit will agree on a joint action and that it will in particular come up with a European policy on combatting drugs.
What is what we are all waiting for, including those of us in the Netherlands.
Mr President, we are currently seeing Europe forced to continue its endeavours regarding the European structure amid the complex but ordered work being carried on by the institutions.
This has been demonstrated by the Council's report.
However, at the same time, we are living through an ongoing campaign, which is sensationalist in character, in which the media only highlight failures, anecdotes and negative aspects.
It is my belief that all the institutions must react against this.
Clear messages have to be sent out.
Public opinion must be very clear about the fact that all those proposals which are aimed at furthering integration are marks of progress and advance, whilst all those aimed at simple cooperation lead solely to inefficiency and stagnation.
In this field, also, I feel we have to react against certain proposals which have a tendency to misrepresent the institutional model.
And, amongst these, it must be vigorously placed on record here that this House will always oppose the Commission's losing its absolute and total power of initiative.
This is one of the foundations of our institutions.
Likewise, any misrepresentation of the respective functions of the European Parliament and of the national parliaments will project a negative image.
And the third element I would like to highlight, Mr President, is the fact that recently - I would say over the last few years rather than the last few days - the European Council, which has an extremely important role to play, is attempting, in a way, to diminish and override the role of the Council of Ministers.
It seems to me that this is a further negative signal against which this House must react.
Mr President, the Irish presidency has made a strong impression in the area of justice and this is important. Reality is hard and threatening.
International crime has a turnover of billions.
People are exploited, they become dependent on narcotics.
Children are sexually exploited. Refugees are treated as goods to be traded.
Now that crime has stepped into the international arena and knows no frontiers, politics must take the same step. We have a responsibility to create legal instruments which can deal with this international crime affecting individuals in their everyday lives, often very tragically.
Who will accept responsibility if current political deadlocks within the European legal cooperation are allowed to continue and organised crime is allowed to reap new harvests? The Irish presidency has made strenuous efforts in the fight against the traffic in narcotics and against crime.
This deserves applause.
It would be more sensible if the resolution, like the PPE resolution, had a Third Pillar heading and contained more than just one point in support of this fight.
Just 1 point out of 28 is a feeble effort.
The balance is wrong, although this is made up for by the fact that this one point is more far reaching than the others.
At least let this be a good omen that internal security will be one of the success stories from the IGC.
I regret that the resolution, which strives for more effective legal instruments to safeguard the security of our people and increased transparency and democratic control has not been more greatly influenced by the PPE proposal on the fight against crime.
Responsibility now rests with the governments of the Member States.
Welcome
Before briefly giving the floor to the Council and the Commission, I have the pleasure of welcoming a delegation from the Kingdom of Nepal, in the gallery, led by His Excellency Mr Ram Chandra Poudel, President of the Chamber of Representatives.
This delegation is honouring us with its visit on the occasion of the fourth interparliamentary meeting with the relevant European Parliament delegation.
The European Union has excellent relations with Nepal and our contacts at parliamentary level demonstrate our shared willingness to cooperate in many sectors.
I sincerely hope that this fourth meeting will mark a new stage in the necessary rapprochement between our countries and peoples and I wish this delegation every success in its work and an excellent stay in Strasbourg.
European Council on 13/14 December in Dublin and the situation in Serbia (continuation)
I will be very brief in responding to the debate.
First of all may I thank Members for their contributions and their kind comments on the work of the Irish presidency.
In particular, in relation to the Intergovernmental Conference, I would like to reiterate that the Intergovernmental Conference can only go as far as the 15 Member States agree that it should go.
But I believe that we must be ambitious.
Unfortunately we do not start, as our US colleagues started, with a blank page in writing this constitution.
We have to bear in mind in being ambitious that whatever happens has to be ratified in the 15 Member States, in some cases by national parliaments, in other cases by referendum.
So we must take into account the reality of the situation. But as the author of the Irish presidency report, Mr Noel Dorr said, this report is aimed at the upper end of realism and, I believe, is an ambitious one.
The European Union, in my view, is all about peace and stability and the prosperity that comes from that peace and stability by building interdependence.
The Intergovernmental Conference establishes how we conduct this interdependence in the future.
The cooperation that has come from that interdependence has allowed unprecedented material benefits to accrue to the Member States of the Union.
But if we are serious about peace and stability in the Union then we must also ensure that that same concept applies within the Member States, within the rural areas, within the urban areas of the Union.
I agree with those Members here today who raised the question of social exclusion and unemployment.
I do not accept that we are doing everything to combat unemployment.
We can do more and we can reach higher levels of employment.
I would like in particular to mention the Irish programme for local development. It is the only one with which I am familiar.
I am sure in each of the Member States there are examples from which each of us could benefit by having perhaps some European cooperation.
But the local development plan in Ireland, which we debated recently as a conference addressed by President Santer and the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, to show how committed we are to this concept, looks at underlying causes of unemployment as a whole by trying to introduce supplementary education - particularly in the area of long-term unemployment.
Who become the long-term unemployed? It is people who leave school without skills.
They cannot take on a trade, they cannot take on a profession, they cannot go on to university.
Supplementary education to assist in a targeted way people living in communities suffering long-term unemployment, supplementary training for those people, finance for one-to-five person job creation enterprises in those areas, estate management - because of people's living conditions, often in highrise local-authority flat complexes - and environmental improvement: it is like five fingers fitting in a glove.
If we take this integrated approach to tackling the causes of disadvantage, we can impact on long-term unemployment.
I believe it is important, particularly for those of us in this House, whether we are Socialists, Christian Democrats, or whatever our political beliefs, who believe in encouraging enterprise, but also social justice.
I do not believe there is enough talk about social justice.
We must encourage enterprise but we must also encourage and create a greater sense of social justice.
We are about creating more efficiency and more effective transparency in the Union and we are about ensuring that the Union relates more to the concerns of the citizen.
How better to do that than by closer cooperation in the area of justice and home affairs? People are concerned about the drugs issue.
People are concerned about the crime issue.
It is not solely a concern of Member States.
Crime does not stop at Member State boundaries. Indeed the source of the drugs problem lies in the countries where drugs are grown in large numbers, and some countries produce more illegal drugs for importation into our Member States than all their legal products added together.
Employment is an issue which is of the greatest concern.
When I was a boy - perhaps it is not fashionable now to talk about the devil - my mother said to me: ' The devil finds work for idle hands' .
Are we in any way being realistic when we worry about crime and we worry about the drugs problem? We have 18 million people unemployed.
(Applause) Unless we do something to tackle this problem, the problem of drugs is going to continue to be with us.
Crime and unemployment are not just matters for Member States.
It is like saying in the United States, ' Well, it is only a matter for California, or, it is only a matter for New York' .
It is also a federal problem.
These issues are primarily matters for Member States but the European Union has a role to play in tackling these problems as well.
We must achieve success in dealing with the concerns of the citizen on an EU basis.
This is at the heart of the IGC.
Let us not only look at institutions and constitutions, let us look at the issues which our citizens are concerned about.
That is what you are elected for; that is what I am elected for.
I will count Dublin II a success if we make progress on all of these issues.
(Applause)
Mr President, I have no intention whatsoever of starting up the debate again, even though the benches are much more crowded now than they were just now when the President-inOffice of the Council made his report and presented the work of the Dublin European Council.
I shall confine myself to dealing with two issues concerning international relations, which will certainly also be discussed in Dublin by the Heads of State and Government and by the Foreign Ministers.
The first issue mentioned by several speakers just now relates to Serbia.
The Commission - it goes without saying - is very concerned by the deterioration in the situation in Serbia following the annulment of the local election results in several large Serbian towns.
In this context, the European Union should maintain pressure on the Serbian authorities to conform to fundamental democratic principles.
Any improvement in bilateral relations between the European Union and this country seems to be ruled out as long as no just and democratic solution to the problem has been arrived at.
Under these circumstances, it is understood that the Commission will propose to Council preferential unilateral import arrangements for 1997 for the countries of the former Yugoslavia, excluding the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
I should also point out that the Commission is still very concerned at the absence of any real progress on the question of Kosovo.
In spite of the agreement recently concluded between Belgrade and the Albanian authorities in Kosovo for the reinclusion of Albanian students in the educational system - an agreement which has so far not been implemented - we can detect no sign of any relaxation in the attitude of the Serbian authorities.
Belgrade continues to insist on the fact that this is a purely internal problem and refuses any mediation whatsoever by international bodies.
Nor has the European Union received a favourable reply to its request for a presence in Kosovo, similar to that accorded to the USA this year.
Kosovo nevertheless remains a central question and as long as the problem remains unresolved full normalization of bilateral relations between the European Union and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia will be impossible.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what I wished to say about Serbia.
Another question was raised by Mr Martens about the 19 September resolution on Turkey.
In this connection, my short reply to Mr Martens is that the Commission feels itself to be clearly bound by the code of conduct we negotiated with Parliament.
I personally adhere to it and all Commissioners are also committed to it.
The 19 September 1995 resolution on Turkey will be respected by the Commission both in the letter and the spirit.
I am making this commitment before the House, in your presence.
Henceforth, there should be no difference of opinion on the point of substance between your Parliament and the Commission's attitude.
Mr President, Mr Santer has just made a very important statement.
I want to be absolutely clear about what he means because it will have an impact on the vote tomorrow on the budget.
He knows it, that is why he has made it.
I want to be clear for my Group as to what he means.
Can he say to us that what he has just said means categorically that if Members of this Parliament disagree with projects put forward by the Commission on Turkey, the Commission will withdraw those projects? 'Yes' or 'No' - that is what we need to know.
I reply to this point by making it very clear that, as I have stated previously, we are bound by a code of conduct negotiated and approved by your Parliament and the Commission. I am committed to this, just as the Commission is.
Having said that, we remain within our sphere of competence, as I also said - and you were witness to it, Mrs Green - before the Conference of the Chairmen of Parliamentary Groups.
I have only to repeat the commitment I gave to that Conference.
Mr President, I am very grateful to Mr Santer repeating what he said in the Conference of Presidents.
He will also know that his fellow Commissioner, Mr Van den Broek, made it categorically clear he would not withdraw the proposals if this Parliament disagreed.
That is why we need clarity and that is why I am asking for it from Mr Santer.
Mr President, I want to ask Mr Santer for further clarification.
I really cannot understand from his reply what he means.
The European Parliament decided at the last part-session that certain projects would be discussed.
The letter states that if we do not reach agreement the Commission undertakes to withdraw these projects.
Can you simply tell us now: is that the case or not? With the best will in the world I cannot understand what you mean.
Mr President, I would like to thank the President of the Commission for his specific declaration that the Commission intends to respect and apply the spirit and the letter of the resolution of 16 September 1996.
I shall reply very briefly.
Although I say that there is no basic difference between the Commission and Parliament over the 19 September 1995 resolution on Turkey, it goes without saying that the Commission will not lay before you drafts that do not correspond to the letter and the spirit of that resolution.
Even so, there must be a degree of trust between Parliament and the President of the Commission in this connection!
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Votes
Madam President, before passing to the vote, I should like in my capacity as rapporteur to make a few comments about certain amendments.
Firstly, I ask for the rejection of the declaration of intended rejection of the common position of the Directive.
I assume that everybody will agree with this.
Secondly, again as rapporteur, I support only Amendments Nos 1 to 10, in other words those adopted by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
As a result, I do not support any other amendments whatever my personal opinion may be about them.
Lastly, I have to tell you that only three of the amendments adopted in committee were passed by a large majority: Amendments Nos 1, 5 and 10.
I am telling you this so that all Members are clearly informed, since more of them are here today than during the debate yesterday evening.
May I finish by indicating to you, Madam President, that a number of amendments are inadmissible under the terms of Rule 72 of the Rules of Procedure. But, as they are put to the vote, I suggest that you simply intervene on this point if one or other of these amendments is actually adopted, so as not to create a pointless debate.
(The President declared the common position adopted (as amended) )
Madam President, I should not like the rejection of all the amendments to make the Assembly think that this is a defeat for Parliament or part of the House.
I should like to point out that the common position is an excellent common position as it incorporates 80 % of Parliament's amendments. As rapporteur, therefore, I am myself extremely satisfied with the result.
I should also point out that at the first reading the adoption was agreed with a majority that did not include the PPE Group.
Madam President, I would like to correct my vote on Amendment No 14.
I would like to vote in favour and not against.
I believe there was a degree of confusion in the statement made and, although I understand that this will have no effect on the final result of the vote, I would like the Minutes to record the change in my vote.
Madam President, I feel the significance of the vote on Amendment No 14 was sufficiently clear, since our Group had requested a roll-call vote.
I therefore very much regret that this error or omission occurred on the part of the Spanish Members representing the People's Party in connection with a subject which had such serious implications for the coal-mining sector in Spain.
Madam President, in the vote, you referred to Amendment No 11 and on our list of votes it was numbered 14.
That is where the confusion lay. We understood that it was Amendment No 11 when, in actual fact, it was also 14.
All the Spanish representatives of the Group of the European People's Party voted in favour of Amendment No 14, which you called 11, which is Mrs García Arias's amendment. If possible, please would you correct this.
Like Mr Galeote I would also like to change my vote because there was a mistake concerning Amendments Nos 11 and 14.
I am therefore voting in favour of No 14.
Human rights throughout the world in 1995-1996
Mr President, I should like to call upon the Commissioner to pay careful attention to the proposal contained in paragraph 69 of Mrs Lalumière's report and see to it that, for once, this proposal is actually followed up by a joint undertaking on the part of the Institutions - Parliament, Commission, European Council and Council of Europe; the proposal relates to the idea of making 2000 the year of human rights and preparing a threeyear programme in advance of the year 2000 dedicated to human rights education.
I believe the Lalumière report is worthy of our support.
If any criticism is to be made, it will need to be divided by 628, because the report has become somewhat long, as usual, because of the determination of each honourable Member to make his own corrections to it.
I should just like to point out one difficulty we do still have in dealing with these matters.
Even our culture, which is the most advanced in the world, is a culture of negatives; meaning that we define peace as the absence of war, democracy as the absence of dictatorship, life as the absence of death, human rights as the absence of human rights violations. All this goes to show that our culture is unable to emphasize good aspects without the absence of the bad, without attacking the negative.
I believe that a positive approach to overcoming this handicap might be to refer to three fundamental aspects of our existence.
First, no human being and no authority can lawfully order the taking of another's life.
If we succeed in establishing this principle, we shall have taken a notable step forward. Secondly, the human race cannot simply be divided in two, by laws that dictate that, for religious or other reasons, one type of being - the female - is inferior to the male.
Thirdly, childhood has its own inalienable rights, meaning that no-one - no parent and no authority of any other kind - can deprive a child of its right not just to life but to a life worth living. If we can make progress in these three areas, perhaps we shall succeed in acquiring a positive conception of human rights.
Mr President, in her report Mrs Lalumière mentions the many aspects of the human rights problem with her usual tact, but also with the required firmness as regards the essential principles at stake. It is not much good continually talking at length about such a serious subject.
It is important to provide ourselves with an instrument that is consistent and effective, both legally and politically, and capable of converting a sometimes ill-founded profession of faith into consistent acts equal to the values about which we declare ourselves to be uncompromising.
That goes particularly for the external relations of the European Union, an area in which our determination to defend principles dear to us serves as a test.
Mrs Lalumière's report enumerates the range of instruments used with relative success so far.
I note with satisfaction that she invites us, in the resolution, to supplement the existing arrangement with a new instrument, in the form of a code of conduct for European firms operating in third countries which would oblige them not to be accessories to grave violations of human rights.
Corresponding proposals have already been formulated in the OECD, but so far have unfortunately remained a dead letter.
Incorporating ethical considerations in the way business is conducted would also be a typically European response to the problems of globalization and internationalization.
Let us make sure that it causes recalcitrant countries to think twice before flouting, more or less with impunity, the principles and values dear to us.
Protection of minors - adoption
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report addresses very urgent issues and I believe that the vast majority here will support them.
But other issues are also addressed which are not within the competence of the Union, issues which are the concern of the Member States not Parliament.
In our more self-righteous moments, we strive to strengthen the principle of subsidiarity and ensure that it survives. But if we approve all the amendments and all the proposals without amendments we will not be practising what we preach.
This is why our group cannot support all the amendments, despite the fact that we think the report is essentially sound.
We would like to practise what we preach and I ask you: What will the people of Europe think of our proposal if we involve ourselves in culturally related issues such as; at what age do people have the right to adopt and what are our views on the adoption rights of homosexuals and single people?
I think that the recommendations in this field do not respect the importance of cultural diversity in Europe.
I also think that many of the proposals risk obscuring the more important issues of providing the Union with the tools to fight against those dreadful crimes which already take place and using the tools that we have in the fight against those crimes which have already been mentioned by many of you.
We need to strengthen police cooperation in the Union to expose networks which trade in children either for sexual exploitation, or adoption, or in order to obtain organs for transplantation.
I am pleased that the Council of Ministers has taken the first steps so that together we can stop this trade.
The situation demands that we take action throughout Europe and that we require applicant countries to respect this issue.
We must also demand that attention be paid to children and social cooperation in the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
Mr President, several colleagues have referred to the success of the recent Council of Justice Ministers and the progress made by them on the issues we are debating here today.
I would like to join everybody in commending both rapporteurs.
The reason why this progress has been made is because clearly now, particularly following events in August in Belgium, there finally exists a political will to do something to improve the rights of children within our Community. It is my opinion, as with many other colleagues, that it is only once we see some specific reference to this within the Treaty that we can begin to make real progress.
In the Maastricht Treaty, in the protocol, we recognized animal rights and if we can do that we can certainly do something for the children in our Community. This is not to underplay the importance of that protocol but simply to say that a well-organized, well-financed lobby group, can achieve a remarkable amount.
Unfortunately there has not been the same resources put into the question of the safeguarding the rights of our children.
I would like to make reference to a couple of points in Mrs Zimmermann's report. She calls for a DG to take care of children's rights.
I think that is probably a bit too ambitious.
We certainly need a specialized unit which Members can use as a resource, which can be the reciprocal point in Parliament's structure where we can go for advice and help and also gather a body of information regarding children's rights, or shall we say the lack of them, as the case may be.
Adoption is a very delicate issue in all of our countries and in some of our countries it has very clear constitutional implications. So, while welcoming Mr Casini's report, it has to be recognized that in some countries there are specific constitutional problems in relation to some of the points he made.
Also I would say, we have to begin to accept the many conventions and implement them.
There is the Hague Convention which I work with myself and of course the UN Convention.
They are all there but we have not had, up to now, the political will to implement them and I would like you to recognize that we do now.
Mr President, the two reports we are looking at today have one point in common: the priority given to children's rights.
I would even add that the greater interest of the child must be the most important consideration.
The Casini and Zimmermann reports have the merit of having been produced and of highlighting the problems of adoption, of the protection of minors' rights and the legitimate rights of children.
Since the events that shattered my own country, Belgium, the European Parliament has shouldered its responsibilities.
The Council and Commission have finally tabled the first practical measures aimed at greater protection for children.
We must live up to our ambitions and the expectations of our citizens and stress the priority that the Council and Commission must give to the fight against sexual tourism.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fight against the trade in human beings and more especially in children will henceforth come under the authority not only of Member States but also of the European Union. Only such enhanced cooperation could put an end to the scandal of raped and exploited children.
A few days ago, the Romanian police arrested a Cambodian with false papers, accompanied by four children. But how many other traffickers in children, Mr President, are moving around in complete freedom?
Whether it is the arrest of a link in the chain of an international paedophile ring or of an illegal adoption network or, still worse, of traffickers in organs, what is happening shows us that the European Union must more than ever put every effort into this. Europol must certainly help us to break up these networks, which are unscrupulously corrupting the future of our societies.
Employees' rights in transfers
Thank you for that very precise reply.
I have two brief supplementaries.
First, will the Council arrange for observers to be at the elections in Chechnya on 25 January?
Secondly, how does the Council evaluate the situation in neighbouring Georgia where serious violations of human rights are on the increase again?
This particular question has relevance for Member States which are islands. One figure which I read recently indicates that throughout the Union something like 140, 000 jobs are related directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, to these duty-free sales.
Another implication for island states is that the cost of air flights could increase. Many airlines, for example, benefit from duty-free sales and are therefore able to operate at lower costs.
So, it is of direct concern to a number of Member States, not least my own.
I would like to see a study carried out before any decisions are made and I should like that study to be carried out impartially and as soon as possible.
Unfortunately when the presidency proposed this very recently, there was not sufficient support for it, but we will go on trying to get support because I believe at least a study should be carried out before any conclusive decisions are made.
There are Member States which believe that because we have an internal market duty-free should end, but in all the actions we take we have to take account of the implications of those actions. I should like to see a study done so that we have facts and figures before us when we arrive at a decision.
As you are probably aware I did lobby your government colleagues, Minister Quinn and Minister Michael Lowry, in June of this year, urging that the Irish presidency should take this up as one of their issues.
I very much welcome the initiative that Minister Quinn took, although not with successful results.
You are correct in saying estimates are that there would be 140, 000 job losses directly and indirectly, a loss of some £4 bn in turnover.
And of course the other figure is an increase in landing charges and air fares, which will have a negative impact on tourism and a very negative impact on the viability of regional airports.
I would like to know, in the time that you have left, would the Council be prepared to look at ways in which this particular deadline could be avoided and examine possible alternative policies to compensate for any negative impact in the regional area and the tourism area. But really it is contradictory for the Council on the one hand to be talking about initiatives to create employment and then to go ahead with a policy which will create unemployment to the tune of 140, 000 job losses.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, are you not of the opinion that this attitude of certain states is quite contrary to the spirit of our Union and especially to the spirit of association agreements which we have concluded with these Baltic States, which are now at the stage of preparing to become Members of our Union?
Is it not therefore the task of the Council to do everything to ensure that the Baltic States are soon included in the list of those countries whose citizens can enter other countries of the European Union without a visa, which would be an action quite consistent with the European evolution we are trying to obtain?
I have already mentioned that under the Council regulations referred to, the Member States have the facility, if they judge it necessary, to require visas from citizens of the Baltic States to enter their territory.
The presidency hopes, for its part, that citizens of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will be able to travel freely throughout the European Union's territory and that will happen sooner rather than later.
Speaking personally, I would accept that the spirit of the associate arrangements we have with these states should permit such travel, and individual Member States already do so.
Question No 8 by Gerard Collins (H-0937/96)
Subject: Qualifying criteria for structural funds
Has the Council carried out any investigations into the case for expanding the scope of the qualifying criteria for Objective 1 status for the purposes of structural fund aid to include the unemployment rate and, if not, will the Council now undertake to do so?
I thank the President-in-Office for the informative reply he has given. I wonder if he would now say - having regard to the fact that we have already had public statements from Commissioner Wulf-Mathies and from President Santer with regard to the need to prioritize unemployment and efforts to get rid of unemployment and in particular long-term unemployment within the Member States - that the Council at this stage should perhaps ask the President of the Commission to come forward with proposals to start drawing up the guidelines that will be necessary after 1999.
We have a very serious unemployment problem.
We have failed, even where the funds have been wisely, properly and correctly spent, to deal with this cancerous problem in our Community, and now is the time to start making new guidelines that will help us to get rid of it.
I support the objective underlying the question put by the honourable Member.
But, as I have just indicated to the House, the rules currently governing the structural funds will expire at the end of 1999. There is therefore still more than three years to go before a new set of rules will be required.
It would be premature at this stage to concern ourselves with the nuts and bolts of the rules which are to govern the structural funds into the next millennium.
The Council has agreed to revise the rules in question before 31 December 1999 on the basis of a Commission proposal which, I am sure, will be made well in advance of that date.
The issue which the honourable Member raises in his question will no doubt be of interest when the time comes to discuss the new structure of the funds.
I understand that Mr Collins has done a report on structural funds which will be published shortly and which I will certainly read with great interest.
One of the concerns I would have is that I would want to reach the objective which the honourable Member raises, of highlighting in the areas of greatest need the combatting of unemployment by the maximum use of structural funds.
But by making unemployment on its own a criterion, it may well open up other areas for funding which may not achieve the objective which the Member would necessarily want to achieve in certain regions.
Question No 9 by Pat Gallagher (H-0938/96)
Subject: Objective 1 Regions
In view of the risk that some countries which formerly qualified for Objective 1 status will no longer qualify for maximum rate structural fund grants after 1999, does the Council consider that it is necessary to sub-divide those countries into regions for the purposes of ensuring that those regions which still satisfy the qualifying criteria can continue to apply for structural fund aid at the higher level rates available after 1999?
As Presidency-in-Office of the Council, we are anxious that existing measures regarding transparency are respected.
In particular, transparency has been encouraged through the systematic organization of press briefings by the presidency in conjunction with the Secretariat-General of the Council in advance of Council meetings.
These briefings provide an important opportunity to inform the public of relevant points regarding texts, including aspects of compromise texts brought forward by the presidency when appropriate. In addition, ten open debates took place in Council meetings during Ireland's presidency.
Arising from the implementation of the code of conduct of 2 October 1995 which provides for public access to the Minutes and statements in the Minutes of the Council acting as legislator, and the Council decision of 20 December 1993 regarding public access to Council documents, the presidency will continue to ensure that all applications for documents are given full consideration.
The Council is at present reviewing the implementation of the code of conduct with the aim of ensuring the maximum effectiveness of the system in the future.
In addition, the Intergovernmental Conference is discussing the question of transparency.
However, under existing rules governing access to documents, the Council cannot make all compromise proposals on legislative texts under discussion in the Council available to the European Parliament or third parties.
Finally, regarding contacts between the Council and Parliament, the honourable Member will be aware of the number of appearances made by representatives of the Council before committees of Parliament - around 40 to date - as well as the regular attendance of the presidency at part-sessions of Parliament.
These occasions provide both sides with an opportunity for constructive debate on issues of major importance as well as ensuring that they are kept up-to-date with each other's views on a wide range of topics.
I thank the honourable Member for his very generous compliment which I greatly appreciate.
The Council is reviewing the implementation of the code of conduct and the Intergovernmental Conference is discussing the whole question of transparency.
So perhaps this is an area in which we can make progress in the course of these two reviews.
If one Member State made available documentation, it did so on its own authority and outside of the code of conduct. The existing rules governing access to documents can only be amended, as I understand it, by unanimity in Council.
It is not for the presidency or one Member State to release compromise proposals on its own authority. They are the existing arrangements and can only be changed, I understand, by unanimity.
Compromise proposals are essentially negotiating positions of Member States.
There is no provision at present for these to be made available.
It would require unanimous change to make them available.
However, we are reviewing the situation and the Intergovernmental Conference is looking at the question of transparency.
So I would not rule out some change in the future but it would require a unanimous decision of the Council to make that change.
The honourable Member raises a question which of course is of concern to the Council of Ministers and to the Member States. We do not want to be in a situation where too many cooks spoil the broth but we have an envoy there.
We have contributed financially.
We are committed to contributing financially again and, if representative government is established there, we will again review the situation.
As I said in my earlier reply, the EU remains concerned at the failure of the different factions in Somalia to reach an agreement on peace and on the establishment of a national government.
The EU welcomes the progress made at the Nairobi summit and will continue to encourage and support the initiatives of the UN and the OAU. The Union does not consider that the creation of a further channel of negotiation would assist at this time.
However, it will continue to keep the situation under review and we will help in any way we can to bring about the objective which the honourable Member seeks to achieve.
I am not an expert on financing of TENs, but my understanding is that borrowing along the lines that the Member suggests is nonetheless borrowing and would have an effect on the overall indebtedness of the Union or on Member States of the Union.
I should point out that the promoters of Community action to finance trans-European networks see it simply as supplementing the action of the Member States with subsidiarity being the watchword.
The Council has to balance the need for additional funding against the need for budgetary rigour, both at Community and at national level.
Additional budgetary funding will always help projects to go ahead faster.
However, substantial funds are already being provided and I am confident that significant progress will be made in implementing the projects.
Some projects already in the pipeline might be slightly delayed, but as priorities the Council believes they will go ahead.
Question No 19 by Robert Evans (H-0973/96)
Subject: Health and safety conditions for construction workers
What measures is the Council taking to ensure that Directive 92/57/EEC and other health and safety legislation concerning construction sites are adhered to within the European Union?
Employees' rights in transfers (continuation)
Agreement amending further ACP-EC Convention
Thank you, Mr Wurtz, for those introductory remarks.
Water quality
Conservation of wetlands
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, in this House yesterday we all witnessed the very important process of awarding the Sakharov Prize to Mr Jingsheng, and the moment when his sister received the Prize on his behalf because he is still in prison, was deeply moving.
It reminded me of the same experience last year with Leyla Zana, who is also still in prison.
I believe the European Parliament should proclaim that it has not forgotten her, that it should send a personal message to Leyla Zana and ask the Turkish government to respect the European Parliament's position.
Mr Papakyriazis, I understand your sentiments, but that has nothing to do with the Minutes.
Mr President, I am sorry, I forgot to sign the attendance list yesterday but I did take part in the debate and I voted as well.
Mr Martens, we can all testify that you were here, doing your job, and we shall give evidence on your behalf to all the television stations.
Mr President, on the question of television companies, I have taken recently to signing two registers, the one on the right-hand side and the one on the left-hand side.
I have to report to the House a sad case of discrimination because I have never been filmed yet and I feel sorry about that.
Is it because the producers of these films are only photographing the good-looking ones in this Chamber and cast aside the unphotogenic?
Ladies and gentlemen, I have the impression that we are going to have a light-hearted morning, but I really cannot allow things to go on like this, because we do have a lot of difficult and time-consuming votes to get through today.
We really must make a start on what we are supposed to be doing.
Mrs Roth, on a point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order pursuant to Rule 127, I should like to express the sorrow of my Group and that of many other Members of this House that, as I understand it, you are now making your last 10 a.m. appearance in the chair you now occupy.
I feel we should express our sorrow and some of the sadness that we feel at parting, and also our thanks for all the work you have done.
In recent days we have been giving 'Mr CFSP' some thought.
I have my doubts about the value of that proposal, but I do believe you have really succeeded in giving this European Parliament, as its President, an image of pugnacity and wisdom.
I should like to offer my most sincere thanks on behalf of our Group and, I feel sure, on behalf of many other Members here in this House.
(Sustained applause)
(Mrs Roth presented Mr Hänsch with a bouquet)
Mr Blak, I am glad to note your suggestion and it will be one of the last things I attend to.
Mr President, I wanted to make a comment on the minutes.
I have a correction which I think concerns the item you wanted to take, namely Item 2 of the minutes of yesterday - the Izquierdo Collado report.
I presume this should be the Izquierdo Rojo report.
Secondly the last sentence of that paragraph says that the report had been due to be taken on Friday.
What I would like to suggest is that we take the speaking time from Friday and add it to the speaking time on the fisheries debate today.
This is an extremely important subject and although Members are more interested in Christmas festivities the fishermen of Europe are waiting for 1 January.
I would ask for support to have an hour added to the debate on fisheries so that we can do justice to this extremely important subject.
As far as your first comment is concerned, Mr Macartney, we will change the Minutes accordingly.
As for the second, we have to stand by the resolutions we have adopted.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the House I should like to welcome a delegation from the Russian Duma and Federal Council, led by Mr Alexander Shokhin, Chairman of the State Duma Delegation for Relations with the European Parliament, who have taken their seats in the official gallery.
This visit forms part of the fifth inter-parliamentary meeting between the European Parliament and the Russian State Duma.
The European Parliament attaches very great importance to relations with Russia, and we look forward to a constructive and successful meeting.
On behalf of the House, I once again bid you welcome, and wish you a useful, interesting and pleasant stay in Strasbourg.
Votes
Mr President, after the meeting of the Committee on Budgets efforts were made to find a solution to this issue and I wish to read the following oral amendment to add to the justification of this particular budget line: ' The reserve may be released during the course of the budget year if the agency proves to the budgetary authority that the available funds have been fully executed according to the terms of the work programme and that further means are necessary for operational purposes.
The agency may also apply for further appropriations in the framework of a supplementary and amending budget if it is proved to be justifiable and the means are available.'
I hope that this will enable the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, which has asked for a separate vote, to vote in favour of this amendment.
First, I have to ask the House whether it agrees to our accepting this additional amendment in oral form.
Are there any objections?
It appears not, so we can adopt that procedure, and I will have the amendment put to the vote in the form just explained by Mr Brinkhorst.
Mr President, I think this is an extremely important vote. I hope the outside world will be aware that some people on the right in this House, under intense pressure from people outside this institution, particularly from some elements of the Commission, ...
... have turned their backs on the people fighting for democracy and human rights in Turkey!
(Loud applause)
Ladies and gentlemen, we knew that this was an important vote.
We all know that.
And we all know that it was politically controversial.
I have already given the floor to Mrs Green and I shall now give it to Mr Martens as well, but please let us not get involved in a debate now.
I shall not allow any further speakers.
Mr President, last Wednesday I put a very precise question to the President of the European Commission.
I asked him if the European Commission would be acting in line with both the spirit and the letter of the resolution we adopted here on 19 September 1996.
The Commission President confirmed that it would.
To us this is a good enough guarantee that we do not need to have these appropriations in the reserve.
We think it is in the general interest to trust the good faith of the European Commission that it will implement our resolution of 19 September.
Ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has made a decision, like it or not.
There is - please just listen - there is no point whatsoever in starting a debate now.
What could we achieve? Now, Mrs Roth, if you have a point of order then of course I have to take it.
Mr President, this is not about a debate, it is about equal rights for all.
You were supposed to guarantee that.
If you allow the chairman of the Socialist Group and Mr Martens the right to comment on this vote, then you have to allow the chairmen of the other Groups the same right.
This has nothing to do with debate and everything to do with democracy.
I too should like to be allowed to comment on this matter.
It was a bad vote, because its effect was to vote away a large slice of this House's credibility.
We made it clear on 19 September, with 30 votes against, what we in this House insist upon.
We confirmed that vote again in October.
To say now that we can trust what Mr Santer says seems to me to be just a pretext.
What Mr Santer says is one thing, and what Commissioner van den Broek does is another.
And you know it.
(Loud applause)
As one might expect, we now have a queue of people wanting to speak.
Well, in an attempt to be fair in a difficult situation, I suggest that I should now allow those who have asked to speak - Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, Mr Cox, Mr Pasty and Mr Alavanos - to speak for one minute each.
But then we really must get on with the vote.
Mr President, I shall be very brief and will simply remind the House that the MEDA credits do not concern Turkey alone but concern all the Mediterranean states which joined us at the Barcelona conference.
It was because we did not want the MEDA credits to be taken hostage - this being a problem which relates solely to relations between the European Union and Turkey - that we opposed the blocking of those credits.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European United Left, I want to express my sorrow about this development.
In my opinion the attitude of these Groups goes against the rights of the European Parliament, and that is important in view of the IGC, and it also goes against our efforts on behalf of human rights, in Turkey and all over the world.
And I want to ask Mr Martens, if he is consistent with his vote, to vote against the Lalumière report on human rights.
Mr President, may I state very clearly in this House that the vote taken on this was within the interinstitutional agreement and fully in line with the financial perspectives.
So I would formally contest the statement by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
I leave it to you to decide what to do on this point but we have absolutely no reason to believe that anything illegal has taken place on this point.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have had it looked into.
According to the Rules of Procedure I have the final decision on admissibility. After due consideration, I decided to rule that these amendments were admissible.
Statement by the President
Madam President, President Hänsch, the European Parliament is not an easy parliament to direct.
You have directed it with fairness, and I say that on behalf of a small group.
Admittedly, we were not always satisfied, but then the rules themselves are not always satisfactory. Within the limits necessarily imposed on you, though, you did make sure that we received a hearing, and I thank you for it.
You have also been a firm president - some would say very firm, perhaps meaning too firm. For my part, I believe that it is necessary to show firmness in this House, and that a worthy representative of the European Parliament needs a great deal of authority outside these walls.
Those are qualities which you have shown.
And that is why, on behalf of our group, I offer you our respect and our thanks.
Votes (continuation)
Madam President, I welcome the debate on the report by my colleague Michèle Lindeperg, which is to take place at 12.15 pm.
However, it does seem to me that something may have gone wrong here and that the priority should be given to the votes.
Also, I am surprised to see that the reports which were scheduled for yesterday's voting time have now been put back, with priority being given to four of them, and with no qualified majority requirement to justify this reversal.
Madam President, the agenda also includes the report on the protection of minors, by Mrs Zimmermann, and my report on adoption.
It seems unlikely that we shall be able to vote on them this morning, since they are the last two reports on the agenda; and yet I feel they are very important reports, which were, among other things, planned and produced to mark the 50th anniversary of UNICEF.
I therefore request that the vote be postponed to the next part-session, in January, so that all Members can be present and the debate can be given the weight and importance it deserves.
Madam President, it saddens me greatly that we cannot vote on this report today. After all, we were all trying - the committee and Parliament - to have a European Parliament vote on these two reports on this particular day, the fiftieth anniversary of UNICEF.
That was actually the starting point, the reason why those reports are on the agenda now.
It really is sad if we're going to keep postponing them because other important matters arise. Of course it was important for us to say our farewells to Mr Hänsch this morning, but as a result we are seeing the further postponement of reports which actually represent a very important political input for Europe's citizens, especially those who cannot speak for themselves.
I must in all honesty say I should be rather upset not to hold the vote until January, because we shall then be even further away from the fiftieth anniversary, so we shall have even more difficulty in arousing public interest. We want our vote to become public knowledge, so I would prefer it if we could vote before the end of this week.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid we are wasting time.
I think Mr Casini may not have heard me when I made it quite clear, this morning, that we would be voting on all the reports today, not tomorrow morning.
Reports that are not voted on now will be voted on this evening at 6.00 p.m.
I therefore propose to leave things as they are and to continue with the voting.
Madam President, it seems to me that all the political groups agree that the Zimmermann and Casini reports are very important and topical.
I therefore propose, if the House agrees, that they be put to the vote immediately, before the other reports. I feel this is extremely important and do not think we should leave a debate on minors and adoption to six o'clock this evening, when we are unlikely to have a majority befitting such an important issue.
Mrs Todini, I offer my thanks in advance to all Members who will be present this evening to vote on these reports which are indeed very important.
I tried to speak before we started to vote on this report but was unable to.
Mr Kerr's report has not been translated into Swedish; only about 30 % of the text is available in Swedish.
This applies to the amendment as well. The Commission's document is not available in Swedish either so I cannot vote on it.
I really do not think that we should vote on this report today.
It is true that part of the text is in Swedish but the majority of it is not.
As this is the text of a law, all of it should be available in Swedish.
From what I have heard from my colleague in the party, the same is true for Finnish.
But perhaps Mr Andersson has the text in Finnish as well?
Ladies and gentlemen, I really don't think that's possible.
Members cannot be asked to vote on a text when they do not fully understand it.
Madam President, this problem has arisen because the report was originally drafted before Finland and Sweden joined the European Union.
The original report dates from 1994.
I likewise know that no complete Finnish version exists, but we are perfectly willing...
I put the question to the House: does the House agree that this vote should be delayed until all the translations have been done?
Madam President, I have to say that the honourable Member is quite correct.
This text was drafted in September 1994 when Sweden was not a member of the Union.
It is unfortunate that it is not in Swedish.
However, I have to say that it has taken them two years to discover this and they should not have discovered it at this point in the debate. This is an extremely important debate for the future of social Europe and we should continue with the vote now.
The vote is therefore postponed until we have all the translations.
Ladies and gentlemen, I see this as a mark of respect for the linguistic pluralism of this House.
Personally, I believe we have opted for the better solution, though of course I do regret that these difficulties were not pointed out earlier.
If such an event were to occur again, it should be pointed out to the registrar before the vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that this was a very unusual situation.
This was a report prepared at a time when our Swedish friends had not yet joined the Union, and there has been a technical problem.
Naturally, I regret the fact that our colleagues failed to point this out to the registry service before the vote, which would have saved some time.
Madam President, the question I want to ask is this: what happens to the votes already held on this report?
My view is that these votes have been taken, so the result stands and next time we go on from where we left off.
That is my question.
Those on the right of Parliament have bowed to political pressure from the European Commission which has always operated a double standard in its dealings with us on the subject of Turkey.
The majority of this House was anxious to underline our commitment to democracy and the upholding of human rights in Turkey; for that reason I worked hard to have funding for Turkey under MEDA placed in the reserve.
The position of most EPP members (happily there are some sensible MEPs amongst them) and the UPE is altogether incredible and blinkered, given that both President Santer and Commissioner van den Broek have indicated that they beg to differ from Parliament on the question of projects in Turkey. So there is no guarantee at all that the spirit and the letter of the resolution of 19 September 1996 will be upheld.
Those on the right of this House have thrown away Parliament's credibility and at the same time demolished the powerful strategy which we were able to deploy in favour of human rights in Turkey.
I will be voting for the Eisma report on a Council directive concerning the quality of bathing water.
This report does three things.
First, it widens the definition of bathing water to include all waters used for recreational purposes.
Second, it makes the regulations relate directly to health hazards thus directly linking safety with pollution level. Third, it will thus create a new resource of safe water for the tourist industry throughout Europe which will allow the potential economic benefits to far outweigh the costs of implementation, even on the basis of OFWAT's fanciful figures.
This report offers an opportunity for investment not a financial burden to be met.
One of the key reasons this report will be resoundingly adopted is because of the efforts of organizations like Surfers Against Sewage who have demonstrated so comprehensively that the present directive and its lax implementation by the British Government has cost hundreds of millions of pounds in health-care, social and lost production costs in the UK.
I thank them for their efforts.
Kenneth D. Collins report
Directive 80/778/EEC relating to the quality of water intended for human consumption established, for the first time, a number of quality requirements for potable water throughout the Community.
Bearing in mind the technological and scientific advances achieved since then, and pursuant to the conclusions of the European Council in Brussels in December 1993, it was appropriate to revise this directive, hence today's debate and vote.
While we fully endorse the rapporteur's objective of guaranteeing a high level of human health protection and, consequently, a quality supply of drinking water, we cannot accept certain amendments proposed by Mr Collins and the Committee on the Environment.
Our main objections are to Amendments Nos 46 and 47 (Annex 1, Part B, note 3).
Although it seems necessary to conform to the WHO recommendations on water quality and so to aim at the objective of 25 ìg/l as the maximum concentration of lead permitted in potable water, it is unacceptable to propose any reduction in the period allowed for compliance, particularly bearing in mind the financial issues this would raise.
(The 15 years proposed by the Commission are appropriate.)
The Commission states that the only way of arriving at 10 ìg of lead per litre is to eliminate lead from the water mains and from domestic sanitary installations. Between 75 % and 95 % of the necessary expenditure will relate to the replacement of pipes in dwellings and will therefore be borne by the householders.
The remainder will be borne by the public authorities and water companies - in other words, ultimately, the consumers. It goes without saying that these provisions, if they were to be implemented, would inevitably entail an increase in water prices - an increase which, in the case of France, would obviously be damaging to the local authorities which are already on the point of financial strangulation.
On the other hand, there is no proof at present that the new materials proposed as a replacement for lead piping (PVC) are totally reliable.
More detailed scientific studies are needed unless we want to find ourselves changing the entire system again in ten years' time, at the expense of the European taxpayers and of their health.
Cooperation in the fields of justice and home affairs
Madam President, notwithstanding everything the Council of Ministers and the European Commission have said, the inescapable fact is that in this area the European Union is hidebound by bureaucracy.
There is no openness, the instruments of policy are ineffective, what we have are recommendations, resolutions, as we have just seen. Things over which a popularly elected body such as ourselves cannot exercise any scrutiny.
Of course we realize, Madam President, that the reason for this is the structure of the third pillar as enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty, the structure of decision-making. But for my own part I must say that a whole lot of policy areas are not getting started early enough and fast enough.
Why do all the groups need to act?
They need to act to show that the vast majority of this House, right across the political spectrum, is unhappy with the way things are going.
Moves towards a common policy on asylum are far too slow and lacking in substance.
The question of policing our external borders has been left in abeyance for years.
Measures to combat fraud are proceeding far too slowly and we need to harmonize our measures against drug addiction and trafficking. Speaking as a member of the Dutch parliament too, I hope that collective action will be agreed over the next few days in Dublin.
Madam President, the European Commission claims to have insufficient staff.
I find that no excuse at all. The European Commission needs to revise its priorities and I can honestly say that I endorse the text of the resolution we have before us here: a great deal needs to be done in this area if we are to retain any credibility in the eyes of the people.
Madam President, as Michèle Lindeperg has emphasized in her report, there is no doubt that we must turn to the Intergovernmental Conference to eliminate the inconsistencies and distortions in matters relating to the crossing of borders, the control of immigration flows and the right of asylum.
But that Conference needs to bear it clearly in mind that it is the very young, the poor and the underprivileged who have to pay the heavy price of this inconsistency.
All this, clearly, relates to communitization.
Of course, the unanimity requirement and the proliferation of legal instruments which are not part of the Treaty on Union, especially when those instruments are prepared by the scullions of the intergovernmental kitchen, are major obstacles to any advance as far as consistency is concerned.
Finally, the participants in the Conference must understand clearly that these matters are subject to the will of the people, that the will of the people is expressed by parliaments, and that they alone are its repositories.
Topical and Urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party regrets the judgment. We Christian Democrats specifically established the point, during the debate on the Directive, that Sunday should be enshrined as the general day of rest.
The Group of the European People's Party now calls upon the Member States, when transposing the Directive into national law, to recognize Sunday as, in principle, a day of rest.
The intention is not just to sanctify Sunday as a matter of religious tradition - in a flexible working world, it is often the only cultural and social space where the family can meet for rest and recreation. To that extent, it does indeed have some connection with workers' health.
Sunday is one of the wellsprings of Europe. To abandon the principle of Sunday as a day of rest would be to destroy one of the foundations of European culture.
Mr President, all of these draft resolutions refer to the recent judgement of the European Court of Justice in which the Court rejected the United Kingdom challenge to the working time directive.
Members will recall that the Court annulled the provision that the minimum weekly rest period to which workers are entitled under the directive shall in principle include Sunday.
I would like to explain briefly that the inclusion or annulment of this provision in the text of the directive makes no practical difference.
That is because the provision itself was essentially declaratory, so employees still have the right under the working time directive to a minimum uninterrupted rest period of 24 hours per seven-day period, in addition to the 11 hours daily rest.
But just as the directive does not require Member States to make special provision for Sunday rest, it does not prevent them from doing so either. However, following the Court judgement it is now absolutely clear that decisions on whether or not to legislate on this matter are for each Member State to make in the light of the circumstances prevailing in that particular Member State.
I note that all the draft resolutions call upon Member States to take appropriate action and that no action is called for on the part of the Commission.
The Commission will, nevertheless, take very careful note of the resolutions which you decide to adopt in the formulation of its future policies, and I would like to join too in congratulating you on your maiden speech.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, that is not a point of order; you expressed a political position and you cannot do so in this way. Your group could have asked for the floor at the appropriate time instead of using that procedure.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, may I strike what may be a mitigating note in this debate, certainly not to condone in any way the actions of the dictatorial President in Belarus. The Socialist Group fully supports the condemnatory nature of the remarks made.
However there is more than a hint of heavy-handedness in this debate with regard to a country which is small enough not to have to be appeased because it is neither politically nor economically important to the European Union.
We would like to see some consistency.
The powers that the President has are not that much different from the powers enjoyed by President Yeltsin, yet Yeltsin is the person so often to be appeased.
Once again this morning, this House voted for appropriations for Turkey, a country with a decades-old record of poor human rights. I would argue, as my group would argue, for consistency when it comes to the application of moral disapproval.
Yesterday's television news showed pictures of thousands of Belarussians queuing outside a newly-open MacDonalds restaurant in Minsk, in freezing cold.
The first 1, 000 entrants were given a free meal. When interviewed, a young man said he was not queuing up because he was impressed with Western democracy or the Western lifestyle, he was queuing up because he was hungry.
Belarus was more damaged by the Chernobyl accident than any other country. We are talking about a very poor, a very damaged country.
We would argue strongly for consistency.
We join in the condemnation of dictatorship wherever it may be found. But we hope that the Commission's attitude towards this country is also motivated by encouragement and is not simply based on punishment.
Mr President, I was one of those who was selected at very short notice to go as a member of the European Parliament's ad hoc delegation to observe the referendum and the partial by-elections which were taking place at the same time for the Belarus Parliament.
I went with Mrs Schroedter from the Green Group and Mr Bösch from the Socialist Group.
We found the experience a profoundly depressing one, first of all because it was perfectly apparent that the referendum had not been organized in a particularly democratic way.
I would add, to underline that, that the polling stations for the referendum had been opened for at least two weeks before 24 November, which was when the voting took place.
Secondly and unusually, because it is the third time I have been to Eastern Europe to observe elections, we were not permitted to witness the opening of the ballot boxes and the all-important process whereby a check takes place to see whether the number of ballot papers in the box matches the number of people who have voted. It is a guarantee against what we call in English 'stuffing' .
The third thing which struck us is that, though President Lukaschenko seems to be determined to reunite his country with Russia, the question of reunification with Russia did not feature in any of the questions in the referendum as it is uncertain whether or not the population of Belarus will be invited to pass their comment on whether or not they wish to be reunited with Russia.
I entirely agree with what Mr Hindley said.
Belarus is a very poor country.
It is unfortunately positioned, if you like, between East and West. It has been directly on the route of various invaders between Western Europe and Russia.
Indeed, in the last war over one third of the population of Belarus lost their lives. I think it is up to us in the European Parliament to extend every sympathy to the people of Belarus for the condition in which they find themselves.
Mr President, I can go along with Mr Bertens's judgments. In view of the facts, measures do need to be taken.
The way in which this referendum - which is now providing President Lukaschenko in Belarus with his pretext for office, and which he has used to construct a state in which he holds the power - was organized and run did not at any time conform to what is customary under the rule of law.
It was a unilateral form of electoral propaganda, based on heavy manipulation of the press. The upshot is a hotchpotch of illegality, indoctrination and manipulation.
Contrary to his own constitution, the President formed a lower house and dissolved the democratically elected parliament.
Our colleague Mr Sharetzki, the President of the parliament, and other deputies who had done their utmost up to the last minute to defend the country against dictatorship are now sitting at home.
They are no longer allowed to use their chamber, they are not allowed to use their offices, and the staff who helped us as late as 24 November are now sitting at home.
We, for our part, need to demonstrate deep solidarity with our colleagues, and it is a matter of great disappointment to me that, even at the OSCE summit, Europe had divided into two camps, in one of which are large numbers of states which, for various reasons, are beginning to slip into recognition of the de facto situation.
We must not fall into that trap.
We must continue to be critical, because our partner must be the democratically elected parliament and nothing else.
Above all, we must not isolate Belarus and its people. There is only one chance: the political parties must maintain the closest contacts with their opposite numbers, and endeavour - despite the difficulty that they may be unable to obtain visas - to visit Belarus and invite people from Belarus to come here if the prospects of eventual moves towards democracy are not to be totally destroyed.
Thank you very much, Mr Marín.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, quite apart from the generally unsatisfactory situation in Honduras, the treatment of minors in prisons is a particular cause of concern.
The personnel of Casa Alianza , which has denounced this practice of holding children and young people in prisons, have already been repeatedly threatened with bomb attacks. The resolution before us is, as I see it, simply too weak and toothless, because it makes no reference to the connections between the distribution of wealth in Honduras and a form of crime that inevitably results from it, the same treatment then being meted out to the people, and especially to children and the young.
Nothing is said here about genuine resocialization, there is no call for a change in social conditions, but ultimately it's just the same old story, even if there are signs of more praiseworthy efforts: we do nothing to change economic policy, and we still deal with the oligarchies in these countries.
Today we have had a fine example in the case of Turkey. Economic aid is being adopted here, despite our votes to the contrary, while children and young people are actually being tortured there.
It's not much use standing up for the Sabbath, going to church and praying if we don't play by the rules of the church for the other six days of the week.
Two days ago we played host here to three Turkish publishers who between them represented 65 % of the daily press.
They voiced here, and the resolution clearly echoes it, their great anxiety concerning the plan of Mrs Çiller and her husband to muzzle the conventional press too, because the leftist press has long been outlawed. This has a lot to do with the scandals which the Turkish press has very properly uncovered about a fraud involving Mrs Ciller and the dangerous links which have emerged over the accident in Susuluk between the mafia, state security and a certain political class.
And it is this which is being punished. It is most important that the European Parliament should make its voice heard, but also that we should act.
I thus agree with those who have protested at the extraordinary feebleness of the House in placing MEDA funds for Turkey in the reserve. This is the only real means of censure we have and we are giving it away.
Croatia
Mr President, people are taking to the streets in their hundreds of thousands not only in Serbia but in Croatia too.
November the 23rd saw the biggest demonstration since independence. Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to demand press freedom and Radio 101.
Tudjman's reaction is reminiscent of the former communist era. He denounces critics as traitors to their country and fifth columnists influenced by secret and villainous powers in the West.
We must keep up the pressure which this Union is exerting in the name of universal human rights and application of the Council of Europe's conventions on plurality of the media.
The temporary extension of Radio 101's licence to broadcast must be made permanent.
Croatia has an obligation to do this vis à vis its own people and the European organizations of which it is a member or with which it has ties.
If Croatia claims to be a democracy it must honour the results of the communal elections and appoint a mayor for Zagreb.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the decision against Radio 101 was revoked partly because those to whom that frequency was promised withdrew, but undoubtedly also because of the powerful solidarity with 101 that was apparent among the population, because the opposition parties, parts of the governing party and parts of the government itself declared in favour of it. I absolutely failed to understand why so much fuss was made about these frequencies, because various frequencies could have been awarded in Zagreb!
They could operate 101 and others as well.
Why aren't they doing that? I hope the situation will change before long.
The composition of the Telecommunications Council which awards this frequency is certainly no guarantee of the representation of civil society in Croatia.
Unfortunately, the opposition votes meant that the Croatian parliament adopted this proposal by the government.
It was probably assumed, out of ignorance, that those that were proposed were all represented there, in other words only the proposed groups are represented, not the groups that are socially relevant in Croatia.
I think this happened out of ignorance, and I think we can make a major contribution to improving the situation.
Regarding the situation of the media in Croatia itself, I should simply like to say that there is wide variety of printed media but that I am very seriously concerned -and this is where my criticism is aimed - that the bias of Croatian television in favour of the government is simply unacceptable.
Although there are 11 small TV transmitters in the country, only HTV - the Croatian state television service - is able to transmit nationwide. For that reason, I believe, the broadcaster should finally provide a guarantee of pluralism and at the same time comply with the democratic duty to provide information.
There is a programme committee at HTV, on which the opposition is also represented, though it only has as many representatives as the Sabor has, in other words a very small number proportionately. So, as I see it, we should work towards ensuring that representatives of the social groups in Croatia are also represented on that programme committee, so that pluralism really can be guaranteed and the European Union can provide great assistance by means of the know-how transfer under the PHARE democracy programme.
Mr President, like Mr Eisma I am a member of the Delegation of the EU to Slovakia, the Joint Parliamentary Committee, and I have just received a copy of the letter from our chairman Mr Bösch to his opposite number, Mr Huska, expressing grave concern about the developments which have taken place.
I do not think anybody in this House would see it otherwise.
The question is whether we support Mrs d'Ancona's position and say: yes, let us investigate and let us express the strength of opinion, but let us not prejudge.
For example, Mr Posselt - who was quite right in saying that we should not mix up apples and pears - nevertheless made allegations about all the committees in the Slovak Parliament being controlled by the government, with no opposition members.
That is a change which we have already managed to achieve: the opposition is now on all these committees. So it is sometimes counterproductive to tar everybody with the same brush, because then there is resentment in Bratislava, rightly, of the ignorance on which some of these assertions are based.
I do not want Parliament to adopt resolutions based on either ignorance or unsubstantiated assertions.
That is why, I understand, the Socialist Group will abstain on this matter, and so will we.
We want to have a proper, positive dialogue with Slovakia, because we want them in the European Union, and we do not want them to be cast out as pariahs.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have the impression that I heard a disturbance from the visitors' gallery.
If that was the case, may I advise them that our Rules of Procedure strictly prohibit any demonstration in the visitors' gallery.
So I ask them to maintain silence because otherwise I shall find myself obliged to ask Parliament's ushers to clear the visitors' gallery.
Having said that, ladies and gentlemen, I must inform you that, with Mr Macartney's speech, we have used up all the speaking time allocated to these sixteen motions for resolutions on human rights.
I therefore invite Commissioner Marín to take the floor.
Almost five years ago in January 1992 the first democratic parliamentary elections in Algeria were overturned in the name of democracy by a military coup d'état.
Since then the country has been trapped in a spiral of reciprocal terror.
The outlawing of religiously motivated parties and the terror waged against the Berber peoples will not improve things, I think, quite the contrary. And I fear that the approval of a woolly resolution in the European Parliament will do nothing to resolve the problems in Algeria.
And I would just like, without the slightest illusion, to take this opportunity of making two observations. After colonial rule ended the socialist FLN dictatorship in Algeria was flooded with French and European aid.
Notwithstanding that aid Algeria has changed over a 30-year period from a relatively wealthy and prosperous country to an almost backward developing country. And European feelings of guilt after the end of colonial rule have done great damage in other places as well as Algeria.
Zaire and Rwanda bear witness to the responsibility of my own country in this respect.
Secondly, those who gave the Europeans a choice in the early 60s between la valise ou le cercueil , pack your bags or go home in a coffin, are the very people who are now seeking asylum in Europe on a massive scale and the reality now is that the Algerian war is being imported into mainland Europe. But the bombs in France remain small beer compared with the enormous demographic, cultural and political time bomb which the millions of nonEuropean aliens on our continent represent.
The European Parliament cannot stop the war in Algeria with a resolution.
But we ought perhaps to do our best to help defuse the time bomb of immigration in Europe whilst we still can.
Many thanks, Commissioner, and I hope God is on your side.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at the end of the debate.
Thank you, but let me give you one more piece of advice: after asking for so much, ask your group to give you more time as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is true and it has been said that we have been warning of this for months and have been speaking out so that Commission and Council would hear us. We have said that following the genocide in Rwanda new and very serious armed conflicts were brewing in Central Africa.
Unfortunately, so far our pow-wows here, our interventions, have produced little by way of results.
But last month we approved an excellent text.
A month ago, and in diplomatic circles it was regarded as the best thing published so far. But today we feel ourselves obliged to intervene once again, because what is going on now, the war, the persecution of refugees in Eastern Kivu which is now moving into the interior of Zaire forces us to speak out again.
This war is taking on the aspect of an imperialist venture and figures from the Cold War era are emerging. We thought such figures had passed into history.
I think that we in Europe accepted an excellent principle when we approved the Helsinki Final Act in 1975: no altering of borders by force of arms; no acceptance of armed force as a means of altering or violating borders or invading other territories.
This is a sacrosanct principle which we as the European Union should uphold worldwide. But we are seeing invasions and alterations of borders.
I thus call on all those who still retain some belief in preventive diplomacy at this time to work to secure an all-in programme; there must be no extension of the conflict in Kivu in Zaire; a cease-fire must be declared; the occupied areas should be evacuated; an international multinational force should be assembled and moved to the area; we should do everything possible to get the countries in the Great Lakes region to accept the peacekeepers and call a conference of the Great Lakes countries, to establish the responsibility of all the parties, including the Arusha court, and to ensure that the United States and Europe - and I am calling on the Member States of the Union - do everything possible to secure peace, tolerance and perhaps a little more prosperity for the dark continent of Africa. It is not primarily you I am addressing, Commissioner, but rather the Council and Member States, because it is they who must take the decisions.
Votes
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that we in this House spend more time on voting than we do on debating is sufficiently well known, but what has happened here in the last fifteen minutes is, in my view, incompatible with the efficiency of Parliament.
So I should like to make a proposal which we might perhaps take to heart in the second half of our electoral period. If we state in Thursday's agenda that the votes we have been unable to complete at midday will be taken immediately following the votes on the topical and urgent debate, then every Member will know that voting will take place immediately afterwards.
Then we should not waste as much time as we are at present.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am bound to concede that today has been rather disorganized.
That being so, I see no point in making matters worse, and I feel we should move on very quickly to continue this morning's votes.
As far as I am concerned I admit that the situation was unexpected, but I was very glad to have the opportunity to familiarize myself with the German language thanks to the vote on this report.
Please accept my assurances that I fully understood what I was doing.
Madam President, with all due respect to Mr Santini, I take a completely different view in this case.
We have discussed this sufficiently, we have had a thorough debate in the House, and now we have to take a decision so that we can exert an influence on the Commission. The plans for the accession of the central and eastern European states must be worked out well in advance.
They must be worked out now!
I assume Mr Santini fears that what was rejected in the voting in committee will now be restored, but as I see it that is actually a reason to take the vote now, because those articles that were dropped at the committee stage are very important to me. I hope that we may now be able to succeed in the House where we failed in committee.
(Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, a point of order.
No 425 which is empty has just voted in that vote.
But, Madam President, I insist, No 425 has just voted.
The light went on. There is something wrong with our electronic voting system.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are able to carry out a technical check to see whether there is a card that managed to vote all on its own, because that seems to be what happened.
I promise you that you will have the results of this technical check before the end of this evening, and I would ask you please to continue with the voting, because we have not yet finished.
But she is present, there she is.
First of all, I should like to express my satisfaction that the protection of children is, gradually, becoming a priority concern for all the European institutions.
We all know, after all, how outraged and shocked the people of Belgium were by the calvary of Julie, Mélissa, Ann and Eefje, not to mention many other children whose fate is still unknown but for whom, sadly, one can only fear the worst.
Among the many recommendations contained in Mrs Zimmermann's excellent report, there are four in particular which I strongly endorse.
They are as follows:
1.that the future Treaty on European Union should expressly recognize children's rights; 2.that all the Member States should be called upon to combat sex tourism, in particular by enabling criminal proceedings to be brought against their nationals who indulge in the sexual abuse of children abroad; 3.that a centre should be set up in Europe, on the same lines as the centre for abused and missing children that is functioning so effectively in the United States, with the specific aim of coordinating the activities of the national centres - in this context, I am glad that Belgium has just decided to set up such a centre; 4.that financial aid should be made available for the establishment of permanently manned 'children's SOS' telephone services in all the Member States.On the other hand, I do wonder whether it is right not to make delinquents under the age of 16 liable to the normal penalty. At a time when weapons are beginning to appear in schools, when teachers are sometimes physically attacked by their pupils and when dealers employ minors to make drug deliveries, I really do doubt the relevance of that suggestion.
Parking card for the disabled - Rights of the disabled
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
That has been noted, Mr Hory.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to point out to my colleagues the fact that all the political groups are perfectly entitled to issue an invitation to a presidential candidate and, of course, to discuss with him his views on what his future work will entail.
He may also be fortunate enough to discuss them with Mr Gil-Robles.
Under no circumstances will the Group of the Party of European Socialists let anything stop it from holding talks with potential candidates.
Madam President, I took particular note of that part of the proceedings.
Mrs Green referred to 'a potential successor' , not to the President-elect.
Madam President, I refer to page 16 of the English version of the Minutes concerning the vote on my report yesterday.
Firstly, I want to correct the Minutes. It states that the vote was 11 for and 184 against.
That is a slight understatement: it was 111 for and 184 against.
I know we lost the vote, but it was not that bad.
Secondly, I should like to ask you, Madam President, and the incoming President and the incoming Bureau, to look at the situation where a vote in progress is interrupted on the technical question of language versions not being complete.
This is a serious problem which could cause the work of Parliament to seize up, and the Bureau and perhaps also the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities should look into this.
Thirdly, I should like Parliament's services and the Commission's services to undertake as quickly as possible the translation of the original directive into Swedish and Finnish, which was the substance of the complaint, so that we can deal with this report as soon as possible in Parliament, and with this important question of labour legislation.
Finally, I wish to say to Mrs Lindholm, as I said to her afterwards, that I of course respect the principle of access in all languages.
I have discovered that she not only speaks perfect English, but actually teaches English.
She has read the report and fully supports it herself and was only making a point of principle.
I must say it was unfortunate that she chose my report about which to make it.
All those statements have been noted.
Madam President, may I say, for the benefit of Mr Hory, that the Minutes merely say that the Members who spoke were Mrs Green, chairman of the PSE Group, and the other group leaders who wished to pay tribute to the outgoing President and to thank him for the work he had done.
Mr Hory's remark has nothing at all to do with the Minutes of yesterday's sitting.
That makes sense.
That had nothing to do with the Minutes, but we have got into the habit of listening to comments from here and there for three or four minutes.
Madam President, through your good offices, I should particularly like to say good morning and welcome to Mrs Baldi and her substitute.
(Laughter and mixed reactions)
Madam President, I will not prolong this speech, but my intention was not sabotage.
It is true that I speak good English and it is true that I teach English, but I am not a lawyer.
The English that we use in school is not comparable with that used in legal texts - this is the point I wanted to make.
Madam President, I wish to table another amendment to the record of yesterday's vote.
As recorded in the minutes, I took part in yesterday's vote on the Collins report, but I see from the minutes that my name does not appear in the list of names recorded for the vote on Amendment No 42, which is of particular importance for us.
While I acknowledge that this must not, of course, influence the vote, I should like it to be put on record that I wanted to vote in favour of this amendment, but it is possible that because of the turmoil that erupted during the vote yesterday - Madam President herself described the voting as chaotic at times - I activated the voting mechanism too late or there was a technical problem.
This applies also to my colleagues Mr Haber, Mr Raschhofer and Mr Lukas.
Madam President, on page 25 of yesterday's Minutes, evening voting time, it says 'Mr Valdivielso de Cué... queried the validity of a vote when certain versions of the report were not available' .
I was referring to the Kerr report, as I thought the vote would be taken again.
My question was simply whether yesterday's vote was valid or not, and if it was not valid, what we were basing ourselves on to invalidate what had already been debated and voted on.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Agenda
Madam President, in view of the heavy agenda and the fact that Commissioner Bonino is not with us, I can propose that we vote on the three reports (Kofoed, Izquierdo Rojo and Souchet) without debate, under Rule 99 of the Rules of Procedure, but that there should be a Commission statement on these points in January on the Thursday morning.
Madam President, the Socialist Group agrees with the proposal from the chairman of the Committee on Fisheries.
If anyone wishes to speak against that proposal, I shall give him the floor.
Madam President, on behalf of the Green Group, I should like to say that I do not agree with this proposal, because I feel that these are some of the most important documents for the future planning of fisheries in Europe and that it is therefore impossible to express the various positions that have emerged in committee and have been stated in this House.
For these reasons, I request that both the debate and the vote be postponed until January or at least, under Article 131, that a discussion be held in January to clarify, and perhaps lead to a resolution on, the various aspects that cannot be covered because of the cancellation of today's debate.
One speaker has spoken in favour of the proposal and one against.
I am therefore going to recall this proposal by the chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, Mr Arias Cañete, and I shall invite the House to vote.
We are all very sorry that this extremely important debate could not take place yesterday, since it concerns the entire fisheries policy up until the year 2002.
I shall therefore put Mr Arias Cañete's proposal to the vote.
We will vote on these reports without debate, quite simply because we cannot conduct this debate on fisheries in the time available.
Therefore we will vote on these reports today, and we will arrange to ensure that a Commission statement, followed by debate, is included in the agenda for the January part-session, which would enable us subsequently to table a motion for a resolution.
We will vote on this request.
(Parliament agreed to the request)
Although Mr Gallagher has left I shall still address my remarks to him, hoping that a member of his Group will be kind enough to pass them on.
In my capacity as a member of the Committee on Fisheries, I have to acknowledge that Mr Gallagher is a very active member and a staunch defender of his fishermen.
I must give him credit for that.
Now, in my capacity as President, I have had to apply our Rules of Procedure: one speaker for the proposal, one against and then a vote.
There was no intention to prevent Mr Gallagher from expressing his opinion.
Madam President, this incident with Mr Gallagher is worth noting.
I advise all Members who have an early morning plane to catch on a Friday to claim they are protesting about some decision in Parliament.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Wijsenbeek and this House for noticing that I really am here.
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I want to mention that yesterday we had an incident which has not been resolved and was one of the reasons for the delay in yesterday's work.
This was the violation of Rule 117 on the right to vote, by virtue of which Members vote individually and personally.
There was a card vote from Mrs Baldi when she was not present, and that gives rise to the application of paragraph 1 of Rule 110.
Parliament will have to take a decision at a time to be determined by the President.
I would like to know what action the Presidency has taken on this.
Yesterday the matter was left unresolved.
Madam President, on this point, I wish to ask that the matter be referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
I have in front of me Rule 162 - Application of the Rules of Procedure.
Nowhere in the eight paragraphs is there any mention of the Bureau.
It only states that application of the Rules is a matter for the Rules Committee.
I should like to ask that this matter be referred to the Rules Committee.
Mr Ford, it is not up to me as President today to change a decision that was taken by the House.
So the Bureau will consider it, and I think the Bureau in its wisdom will not go against our ruling and will consider it, wouldn't you agree?
Votes
Madam President, Mrs Bonino would have liked to say yesterday what I am going to say today, on her behalf, in this House.
In view of the state of progress of the proposal, which is to be examined, in particular, at the Fisheries Council on 20 December, the Commission prefers not to reply immediately to this request.
I can confirm that Mrs Bonino will be very happy to take part in a debate on the issue in January, and she has also asked me to state very clearly that she hopes the debate will not take place at night.
Commissioner, you can assure Mrs Bonino that the Chair will see to it that this debate and the Commissioner receive better treatment in January.
Madam President, as rapporteur I listened to the Commission's statement and I think we are basically in agreement. I want to put it that way, because when we voted to reject this proposal we were primarily rejecting the method of working that the Council urged on us.
So I think this Commission's position is basically the same as ours and we will be able to debate this or any other proposal with composure in January.
The oral amendment I am proposing would clarify the concept of 'geographical position' in paragraph 2 of article 3.
In fact the text would read as follows: ' To protect professional confidentiality of the data, ' geographic position' will be understood to mean the area or sub-area, as applicable, the fishing vessel is in.
To this effect, the vessel's computer system will incorporate a program which converts the geographic coordinates into area or sub-area values and this will be the information transmitted' .
Mr Imaz San Miguel, I must ask you, and indeed all honourable Members, to have a little patience because that is quite different from the information I have.
We shall do the best we can.
Madam President, I understand Mr Imaz San Miguel's proposal and attempt to improve upon the legislative proposal, but this is not now possible; on behalf of the Socialist Group, I therefore oppose the oral amendment.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, I should like to point out that Mr Malerba, who was to present a report this morning, was involved in an accident last week. I am glad to say the accident was not serious, but Mr Malerba has had to be admitted to hospital.
He has informed the administration.
I am sure we should all like to wish him a speedy recovery.
Thank you, Mr Pasty.
We certainly add our best wishes for Mr Malerba's recovery.
On behalf of the PPE group I want to highlight the fine work carried out by Mr Kofoed, work not without difficulties because this is a very controversial matter as witness the debates not only in the European Parliament but also in the Council of Ministers and, of course, in the sector itself.
For all that, the compromise reached in the Committee on Fisheries has the merit of underlining the basic principles on which the fourth generation of multi-annual guidance programmes for the Community fishing fleets should be based.
Our group has never disguised its deep concern about the degree of deterioration in certain fish stocks in particular Community fishing grounds, necessitating a serious and determined policy geared to restructuring the fishing fleet to assist biological recovery of the species.
In this sense, we support a reduction in fishing capacity, which is justified not only for biological reasons, but also as a factor in improving the viability of the activity, the profitability of enterprises, and, finally, the competitiveness of the sector.
We also support the alternative measures proposed by the Commission, because they will increase flexibility, as long as these measures are mainly directed towards those fleets which have complied with the reduction objectives of earlier MGPs.
What should be very clear is that we cannot continue with the present policy in the future. This policy has resulted in majority and manifest non-compliance by numerous Member States.
The last balance sheet drawn up by the Commission is utterly discouraging: of a total of thirteen Member States, only four are complying with the assigned objectives for adapting their fleets.
This gives the states that are complying a growing feeling that their efforts and sacrifices to achieve the common objectives are useless.
And as we all know, these tensions are being expressed in the current debates inside the Council.
It is undeniable that a policy geared to the reduction of capacity is bound to have negative effects on employment. That is the other side of the coin and we must deal with it seriously with socio-economic accompaniment measures which, Madam Commissioner, have hitherto been conspicuous for their absence.
This is the great gap in the Commission's proposal and we must return to this issue which is also of the greatest concern to the sector.
Because we can only deal with the social problem seriously if the Member States and the sector can be persuaded to cooperate in resolving the existing over-capacity.
Finally, it is important that the Commission tone down article 5 of its proposal, in the way the European Parliament has done, because management and conservation of resources outside Community waters is not in the power of the European Union and the fleets that fish external resources are subject to competition from other factors, like commercial, economic and even political interests, which play a major role in the adaptation of fishing capacity for this type of Community fleet.
Fish are a finite natural resource. Fishing must be pursued with care taken to ensure that fish stocks are maintained long-term so that fishing can continue to be pursued by future generations.
A reduction in fishing and compensation for this is necessary to preserve the natural resources and stocks.
It is important that everyone adheres to the regulations and that no further action is taken against fisherman, who have already limited their fishing.
The report is a step in the right direction so I have voted yes.
It is necessary to oppose the MAGP proposals to allow first of all for time for the long-term implications for the industry to be worked out; and secondly for the vexed questions of quota hopping, flags of convenience, and the size of the UK shipping region to be sorted out.
Hence my vote to reject the report outright.
It was equally necessary for Parliament to throw out the technical measures proposals (Izquierdo Rojo report) and for similar reasons to Kofoed.
The Izquierdo Rojo report and amendments reached the Committee on Fisheries in translation very much at the eleventh hour.
Yet this is an immensely technical subject, with knock-on effects from every proposed change.
That is why I tabled the amendment for rejection and was delighted that the Fisheries Committee passed it unanimously.
I am very pleased that Parliament has followed suit.
Now we will have an opportunity for proper debate on the revised proposals in January and time too for consultation with the industry.
As far back as 1991 the European Commission estimated, in a report to this Parliament on fishery resources, that European Union fishing grounds could yield an extra 2, 500 million pounds worth of fish annually if the resource was managed properly.
This means that the fish yield in any one year could be 50 % more than it actually is.
In other words our fishing communities could be much more prosperous than they are today if we can succeed in putting together an acceptable package providing effective management of the resource and maximizing yield.
The Commission has now proposed to reduce the fleet and improve controls.
Reform is necessary but the Commission has only provided a partial solution.
Even if the Commission proposals are accepted in full, and this is unlikely, there would be enough fishing capacity available to continue overfishing.
We need the cooperation and goodwill of the fishing industry if any plan is to succeed.
I believe we need a ten-year plan with greater compensation provided for reduced capacity both for small boat owners and those who would lose their jobs.
The PESCA programme is underfunded and should be focused more on the fishing communities and on those who are actually losing their jobs in the fishing industry.
A much bigger budget is needed if we are to attract the support of the industry.
In my view a 30 % increase would be required to establish an enforceable programme acceptable to the fishing industry.
Implementing such a strategy would maximize stocks and retain the necessary capacity and jobs to catch and process a sustainable catch.
The industry would then be profitable with a reliable future able to function without further subsidy.
Unfortunately our present budget is inadequate to achieve this aim.
We are voting for the Kofoed report for four reasons:
1.It rejects the Commission proposal where it imposes the rigid reduction of capacities (i.e. in promoting new boat reductions or reductions in fishing fleets as high as 40 % in the case of sardine fisheries in Portugal).2.On the other hand there are clear consensuses on the scarcity of resources and the on-going monitoring of their evolution, on impartial and effective controls of fish stocks, on a management of activities and techniques, on the need to defend coastal non-industrial fisheries, or on the attention to be paid to whoever has or has not complied with the reductions planned in MAGP III.3.It is also clear that renewed management of fisheries calls for as assessment of the social impact and additional financial means, whether Community or national, to deal with the loss of income resulting from the willingness of fishermen to introduce new methods.4.It is also clear that it is possible to manage without attacking jobs or putting at risk the social stability of certain communities or affecting productive capacities.
What will tomorrow's fishing fleet be? That is the subject of this fourth restructuring plan, christened MAGP IV.
Supported by scientific studies, this plan proposes that the fishing effort should be reduced by an average of 40 % between now and the year 2002 to allow the reestablishment of stocks.
Can this objective be achieved by an identical reduction in our fishing fleets? We all know that that is out of the question, bearing in mind the economic and social consequences it would have for our sea fishermen and the whole fisheries industry.
Less fishing, sometimes, but better fishing too, with the right market prices for quality products: that is the pact of confidence we could offer our fishermen if we had the resources to do so.
It is illogical to see prices falling from year to year at a time when we want to reduce catches.
Falling volumes and falling prices is too much to ask of the profession.
You know my views on this.
Better fishing for the sustainable husbandry of the sea, calls for satellite monitoring, selective equipment, the protection of young fish, control of fishing time at sea in order to retain a European fishing fleet; restoring employment as a central focus of our political concerns: these are the priorities by which we should be guided.
With that in mind, I endorse your proposal that the small-scale fishing fleet should be retained as it stands for vessels of under 7 metres, as the Commissioner suggests, while Parliament is asking that all vessels up to 12 metres be spared.
This restructuring plan must take account of specific national and regional features, such as the wide diversity of fishing activities in my own country.
What may be right for the North Sea is not necessarily right for the Bay of Biscay.
This fourth restructuring plan calls for substantial budgetary resources to finance social and structural solidarity measures.
We can propose this contract to the fishermen up until 1999.
It's up to them to share this responsibility.
The Community's fishing fleet is not, as it would appear from the Commission's introduction to the proposal for the Council's resolution with respect to the restructuring of the Community's fishing sector, responsible for the overfishing of resources; it is the Community's fishing policy which bears this responsibility.
There is, in particular, a need to reduce the size of the fleet in the individual maritime areas and to reduce the size of the individual vessel categories which can ensure the sustainability of fishing activities.
With respect to the Community's' relations with countries outside its borders, however, it is relevant to ensure that there is no connection between the contemplated restriction of vessel categories and the vessel categories, if an attempt is now being made to promote a number of arrangements with development countries in the area of fishing agreements which the EU Commission is neither in the process of, nor contemplating, carrying out.
To put it another way, it is necessary to ensure that, in reality, the EU is not simply engaged in the exportation of EU cutters' overfishing to the waters of countries outside its borders.
It is necessary to ensure sustainable fishing activity in EU waters, but this also applies, and is particularly relevant, to small coastal fishermen in many developing countries.
I have chosen not to vote in favour of the Kofoed report because sustainable fishing stocks must be guaranteed as soon as possible.
Before the technical measures which were found unacceptable as they stand by the Committee on Fisheries, the Commission is now proposing a restructuring programme which is equally unacceptable, envisaging a 40 % reduction in the European fishing fleet over five years.
What profession could accept such a destructive, cold and technocratic approach? Even for tactical reasons, one cannot play games like this with the future of an entire occupational group.
The Committee on Fisheries has adopted 42 amendments.
In other words, it has radically revised the content of the text presented by the Commission.
I should take this opportunity to thank our rapporteur, and Mr Arias Cañete, as chairman, who have enabled particularly important improvements to be made to the initial proposal.
Four essential points have been integrated into the report by way of amendments tabled by me:
limiting the programme to 31 December 1999 instead of 2002; -taking account of the constraints associated with multi-species fisheries and multi-functional fleets; -the elimination of discrimination between static gears and towed gears; -taking into account of the social impact on employment aboard ship and on land.Amendments Nos 43 and 44, taking into account the rate of utilization of each Member State's quota and incorporating the amendments I had tabled in committee, seem to me just as important.
After all, taking this parameter into account would avoid any speculation regarding the purchase of vessels between Member States with a view to unofficial quota transfers.
I regret that these amendments were not adopted.
So, heavily amended though it is, the Commission's proposal is still unacceptable.
That is why I, and my group, opposed the amended proposal and the legislative resolution.
The Common Fisheries Policy must no longer be conceived as a form of palliative or euthanasia.
It must be designed to guarantee the long-term survival of a profession and an industry that are essential to the future of our countries and our societies.
On behalf of the Green Group, I wish to support the Commission's proposal concerning the objectives and detailed rules for restructuring the Community fisheries sector for the period 19972002 (MAGP IV).
The MAGP III programme failed to reach the objectives set because the compromise that was reached limited its scope from the outset and because various Member States failed to comply with their commitments.
The reductions proposed by the Commission for MAGP IV are the absolute minimum required if fish stocks are to be replenished; if these guidelines are not followed, the already dramatic situation of fishermen is bound to get worse in many regions in the long term.
In the short term, however, given the reductions being proposed, there is a need to establish appropriate compensation for fishermen.
For these reasons, the Green Group opposes the Fisheries Committee's proposal and proposes that the Kofoed report be rejected.
Nor do we support the Fisheries Committee's decision to reject the legislative proposal concerning the regulation laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources (Izquierdo Rojo report).
Finally, we should like to say that we shall be voting in favour of the Souchet report, since we feel that continuous satellite monitoring of fishing-boats would be useful, though we share the concerns expressed by the rapporteur regarding the date on which the regulation would come into force and the economic issues associated with that decision.
The main task of the Joint Fisheries Policy must be to manage fish stocks in a responsible way.
This is why it is important to take appropriate action to reduce the European fishing fleet when there are ecological reasons for doing so.
To base reductions on very general categories, as proposed by the Commission, has a particularly severe affect on the flexible Swedish fleet.
A relatively large proportion of the Swedish fleet will fall into the group hit by the greatest demands for reduction, despite the fact that there is no ecological justification for this as they also fish other stocks.
It is most important to ensure that the reductions take place in a way which reflect the cutbacks already implemented by Member States and does not therefore, favour those countries which reached their previous quotas.
I would like to conclude by emphasising that any compensation proposed to lessen the social and economic effects of this necessary restructuring of the fishing industry must of course be settled through a redistribution of funds within the existing budget.
European policy measures are necessary to prevent overfishing.
The starting point in this is to decide the quantities of fish which can be caught.
Fishermen are encouraged, using multiannual guidance programmes (MAGPs), to tailor their capacity to these quotas.
The MAGPs are thus not an end in themselves but simply a means to enable the fleet to tailor its size to the amount of fish that can be caught.
This means that the profitability of the various fleets must be a central factor in determining the MAGPs.
For some fleets reducing the number of ships is the only way to remain profitable.
Other fleets are economically able to meet the catch restrictions by cutting down on fishing effort.
The Dutch rules on days at sea are a good example of this.
It is a good thing that the Commission leaves room, in its proposals for the fourth MAGP, for rules of this kind.
But it defies belief that the Commissioner is currently not prepared, in evaluating the third MAGP, to acknowledge the successes which the Netherlands has recorded using its own system of management.
I also regret the fact that in setting the percentage cuts for the next six years the Commission has been guided primarily by the biologists' figures.
The economic and social implications need to be weighed too.
I thus endorse the rapporteur's suggestion that we should wait for the opinion of the Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee on Fisheries before taking a final decision on the percentage cuts.
I have difficulty too with the Commission's proposal to exclude small-scale fisheries from the cuts.
We must not forget that these fishermen usually fish in the ocean's nurseries.
These spawning grounds in particular need extra protection.
If, as the rapporteur suggests, the maximum length of ships not subject to the cuts is increased from 7 to 12 metres, the burden of the cuts will rest unfairly heavily on the larger ships.
Lastly I agree with the rapporteur that subsidies to build new ships must be ended as soon as possible.
Existing programmes covering the period up to the end of 1999 must be amended accordingly.
On the one hand we are phasing something out by means of subsidies, whilst on the other hand we are encouraging it again using money from the same European pot. That is totally unacceptable.
Souchet report (A4-0366/96)
The Commission has put forward a costly proposal for a satellite monitoring system.
The Committee on Fisheries and the European Parliament have decided not to try to get the Commission to listen to reason.
On the contrary, it seems to want to increase the cost of the Union even more.
Of course I can see the great benefits of the proposed system but strongly doubt whether these benefits outweigh the huge costs involved.
Instead of starting with this large scale project, we ought to begin with a more limited trial.
This could be evaluated and then we could decide whether to proceed.
For the above mentioned reasons I have decided not to vote for the proposal.
Banotti report (A4-0391/96)
I welcome the initiative by the Committee on Petitions and the Banotti report as well as the excellent cooperation among members of the Intergroup on the Disabled in which we both took part and which greatly improved the report.
Point A of the preamble and points 4 and 8 were proposed, through me, by Portuguese NGOs which thus were able to take part in the drafting of the report.
I emphasize the crucial point of enshrining in the Treaty a ban on discrimination for reasons of disability and regret the objection raised by certain Governments because this clause would have practical effects, with economic or financial repercussions in the EU.
I propose that we continue down the road towards close cooperation with disabled persons' NGOs when defining European policies that affect them.
This is a requirement of equal opportunities, citizenship and democracy.
Products subject to excise
The next item is the report (A4-0408/96) by Mr von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(96)0548 - C4-0619/96-96/0266(CNS)) amending Directive 92/12/EEC on the general arrangements for products subject to excise duty and on the holding, movement and monitoring of such products.
Madam President, I should like to begin by discussing briefly the exemptions from duty for tourists travelling to the Scandinavian countries and, in particular, the quantity restrictions on alcohol.
First I wish to point out that we were consulted on this matter extremely late.
I know difficult negotiations between the Member States were necessary, but I have also established that this is not the only case in recent times where Parliament has been consulted extremely late.
I should like to point out that we have acceded to this urgency only because it really is an important question and because if we did not do so a legal loophole would open up; however, we expect more account to be taken of Parliament's rights next year.
I should like to discuss a second aspect of this proposal which we consider to be important, namely the question of reducing controls within the European Union.
This week we have passed important resolutions on improving controls on the European Union's external frontiers, and we stand by our views that border controls should definitely be abolished within the European Union.
We consider this aspect of the proposal to be particularly important.
Thirdly, however, I should like to point out that this is also a question of special regional features.
There are huge variations in drinking habits in the different EU Member States.
During the committee's deliberations, a Finnish colleague illustrated this very clearly.
He said he himself had experience of working in the forests, where the Finns are accustomed to eating bacon washed down with vodka.
He said it had now dawned on them that it might be healthier to eat salad and drink wine, but that the change was rather slow.
In this Parliament we have always held the view that we should take account - and I say this in all seriousness - of the special regional features of the different EU Member States.
I therefore believe that we should do so in this case too and propose that we vote in favour of the Commission's proposal.
Madam President, I echo the remarks of the chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, Mr von Wogau, with regard to the procedure in this matter.
It is extremely unsatisfactory, in parliamentary terms, to find ourselves so late in the year and with so little time to consider this matter, to be bounced into a position which, in effect, represents a fait accompli .
I would certainly urge the Commission to ensure that somehow or other Parliament is more closely involved, when we can anticipate changes like this without, of course, transgressing on the Commission's own proper function in respect of executive decisions and negotiations with the various Member States on the detailed aspects of the proposals.
Secondly, we already know that the vote which we are about to take in favour of the Commission's proposal has, in fact, has already been bypassed by a political understanding in Ecofin.
Effectively what we are voting for is something which will not, in fact, be the law after Ecofin has made its changes.
I make this appeal for the record: even though this is only an opinion, Ecofin might show some courtesy to Parliament by meeting with us so that we can register with them too our concern that we should be properly consulted.
Finally, I am very pleased that Mr von Wogau has shown, as chairman, how closely he listens to people who have worked in Finnish forests and have had to drink vodka, and so on.
I am sure when I bring forward the concerns from Ireland and my constituency, I can rely on him displaying his acute listening skills and showing the same sympathy.
Madam President, the representatives of the Suomen Keskusta party are pleased that agreement has been reached between Finland and the Union on maintaining the current restrictions on imports of alcoholic beverages until the end of 2003.
I hope that the negotiations to be held with Sweden in the year 2000 will result in a system of exceptions extending beyond this date, which according to the agreement now reached should also benefit Finland and Denmark.
I have always believed that policies on taxation and alcohol are matters for the Member States rather than the Union.
However, as there is a possibility that restrictions on the import of alcoholic beverages into the Nordic countries may be considerably relaxed, we must inject more urgency into the debate on taxation of alcohol in the EU Member States.
In my opinion the Nordic model is good.
We tax alcohol relatively heavily, which both brings in a good deal of tax revenue for the state and curbs the excessive consumption of alcohol.
If we had to make do without this revenue it would be impossible to find alternative sources in a situation in which it ought, on the contrary, to be possible to reduce various taxes.
The fall in revenue would therefore mean further expenditure cuts, which would have to be applied, inter alia, to social security and health care and which would inevitably increase unemployment.
I therefore recommend that measures be adopted in the Union to raise taxes on alcohol considerably.
This would generate extra revenue in countries which currently have low alcohol taxes, which could be used, inter alia, to reduce other taxes.
At the same time the damage caused by alcohol could be reduced throughout the Union, as could the resultant social and health care expenditure.
Madam President, I should first like to thank Parliament for accepting our request that this proposal be treated as urgent; in particular, I should like to thank the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and its chairman, Mr von Wogau.
I am aware, as Mr Cox has pointed out, of the difficulties Parliament has had to overcome to take a very rapid vote.
The Commission's intention to submit a proposal on this matter was announced in the 1996 programme.
Before submitting its proposal, the Commission held negotiations with the Scandinavian countries to ensure that any extension were kept to the strictly necessary minimum.
The Commission tried to submit a proposal that would not be opposed by the Member States concerned; it is only very recently that it has managed to reach agreement on a balanced solution with two of the Member States in question.
This helps to explain the background of the difficult practical situation in which Parliament was left. Once again, I should like to express my thanks to Parliament for having overcome that difficulty.
The Commission feels the proposal represents a good compromise.
Mr Väyrynen has already described the specific needs and difficulties of the Member States in question.
It is a good compromise between citizens' legitimate expectations of the Single Market and the practical need for Denmark, Sweden and Finland to have longer to comply with the general provisions of Community directives.
The reasons for the exemption initially granted are already known and I see no point in going over them again.
Since the exemptions concern a fundamental right of European citizens, these provisions have been time-limited, although the wording of Article 26 is not clear and there is some disagreement as to the correct interpretation of the deadline.
However, irrespective of the precise wording of Article 26, the Scandinavian countries need more time to comply with Community provisions; this is further emphasized by the fact that there has not been the programmed increase in minimum excise quotas, which was expected when the exemptions were granted.
As a result of this, we have proposed an extension of the deadline beyond 31 December 1996, together with - and this is very important - a gradual liberalization, a gradual phasing-out, of current restrictions.
I hope that Parliament will vote in favour of this proposal today, so that the matter can be dealt with by the end of the year, in order to avoid any legal problems.
Support for beef and veal sector
The next item is the report (A4-0407/96) by Mr Funk, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture, on the proposal for a Council Regulation providing for additional measures for direct support of producers' incomes or for the beef and veal sector (COM(96)0606 - C4-0650/96-96/0286(CNS)).
Madam President, the BSE crisis has caused serious distortions in the beef and veal market.
Declining consumption and falling prices pose an enormous threat to the livelihood of many beef and veal producers.
The Commission and Council have therefore initiated a number of measures to protect consumers, to restore confidence in beef and veal and to support the market.
At its meeting of 28-30 October 1996 the Council agreed on additional measures for direct support of producers' incomes or for the beef and veal sector amounting to ECU 500 million, to be distributed among the Member States in accordance with an agreed key.
The Commission was asked to find the ECU 500 million in the agricultural budget.
With this proposal for a regulation the Commission has complied with the Council's request to provide this support package.
I welcome the Council's and Commission's readiness to take emergency measures to help those who have suffered losses.
Of particular importance in this context is the fact that the Member States are authorized to make the additional payments to support producers' incomes or the beef and veal sector.
The Member States have asked to be allowed to make their own decisions on payments and to compensate those producers who have suffered the greatest losses, in order to avoid simply distributing the money in such a way that everybody gets a slice of the cake.
I advocate approval of the Commission proposal as it stands.
I should like to point out that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has approved the proposal, with only one member voting against it.
I would also like to mention that the Commission proposals for financing the stabilization of the beef and veal sector in 1997 and 1998 were submitted to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Parliament for its opinion.
The committee has, however, asked the Commission to withdraw its current proposals and submit instead, as soon as possible, a proposal relating solely to financing in 1997.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has made this request because it is not prepared for the time being to give the Council a blank cheque, as it were, for decisions on financing these measures in 1998 by delivering an opinion on the current Commission proposals.
These decisions should, rather, be taken by the European Parliament as a whole during the deliberations on the 1998 budget.
Madam President, on behalf of the PSE I would like to thank Mr Funk for the very swift and efficient way in which he worked to produce both his reports on the proposals to safeguard farm incomes put in jeopardy as a result of consumer resistance to eating beef and veal following the statement admitting the possibility of a link between BSE in cows and CJD in humans.
This will be very welcome to those farmers whose livelihood has been very precarious over the last eight or nine months.
Of even greater importance in the longer term is the complete eradication of BSE.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the rumours - which I hope prove to be true - that the UK Government is about to implement the additional cull and really take seriously the need to eradicate BSE completely.
Only then will the market in beef and veal fully recover, and our farmers will again have an assured income.
Madam President, our Group supports Mr Funk's report and I endorse Mr Goepel's statement.
I want to draw attention to another matter, namely that I have the impression that the Committee on Agriculture has become rather more self-assured.
Perhaps that has something to do with the committee of inquiry, which refused to deal with the Commission's proposal which suggests ways of guaranteeing this funding by making cuts in other areas.
Had we rejected this Commission proposal, as suggested by Mr Funk, the Council would still have been able to take a decision, since we have only a consultative role, under Article 43.
Consequently we did not deal with it, which means that the Council cannot implement these proposals or take any other decision.
We shall be involved in this process too.
The Commission will submit a new proposal to us, and then we shall consider how the CAP should evolve.
Madam President, in order to provide compensation for some of the losses suffered by producers as a result of the mad cow crisis, the Council and the Commission had proposed amendments to three Regulations.
The first related to the 'beef and veal' measures, the second to financing and the third to structural measures for young farmers.
The Council had requested the urgent procedure so that the measures could come into force quickly.
Parliament only accepted the 'beef and veal' measures, without pronouncing on their financing.
The European Parliament's Committee on Budgets, however, rightly declared in due course that it was irresponsible to vote in favour of the 'beef and veal' measures but to refuse any arrangements for financing them.
We, for our part, oppose the idea that the financing of the 'beef and veal' measures must be entirely compensated by the cereals sector.
After all, the problem of mad cow disease is not connected with the responsibility of the farmers but that of other economic operators in certain Member States, together with various malfunctions on the part of the Commission.
I therefore welcome the proposal before us today.
It shows that it was ultimately possible to find 500 million within the budget, without penalizing other farmers.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, here we have the continuing saga of mad cow disease, ' Madman II' , in the tradition of Rambo I, Rambo II.
'Madman' follows the same pattern.
Following Volume I, written by the British and entitled 'I, the Poisoner' , we now have Volume II, ' I, the Compensator' .
In 'Madman I' , compensation was provided by making the innocent pay - reducing the compensation paid to cereal farmers and to growers of oil seed crops, and reducing the set-aside premium.
Incidentally, the contract represented by the CAP was called into question for good measure, but none of that mattered very much, if I may venture to say so.
Now, ' Madman II' begins with the discovery, at the back of a drawer, of ECU 500 million.
There will, incidentally, be ECU 117 million for France.
So much the better, glad to hear it, nothing against that.
The only problem, if I can put it like this, is that we are beating about the bush, or rather the bull, shirking the question of responsibility.
This is a political problem, not a technical, budgetary one.
It is a problem of identifying the people responsible and holding them liable.
First, there is the responsibility of the meal manufacturers.
I've said it before and I say it again, we know who was poisoning the whole of Europe.
It was Demulder Brothers of Doncaster, Yorkshire.
Incidentally, a small delegation from the committee of inquiry went to meet with Demulder Brothers.
Those people should have helped to compensate for the damage they caused.
Then there is the responsibility of the British Government, which said nothing and let them get on with it. All it did was to prohibit those meals in its own territory in 1988, but allowed them to be exported so that they could poison others!
Then there is the responsibility of the British Members of Parliament.
We saw them in action here yesterday. They are fantastically keen-sighted, able to see from 40 metres away whether another Member is voting once or twice or three times.
With that vision, how did they fail to see that there were 160, 000 cattle dying?
How did the eagleeyed Mr Ford and the others fail to spot that mountain of dead cattle poisoned by their own meal?
Another case of the proverb of the beam and the mote.
Well, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, obviously we're all for this additional 500 million, but we still need, thanks especially to the committee of inquiry which refused to take evidence from Mr Delors - and that would take some doing, incidentally - we still need finally to pluck up courage to tackle the central problem: whose fault is it? And let the poisoners pay!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as I am sure you know, and as has indeed already been mentioned, at its meeting of 28-30 October in Luxembourg, the Council agreed on a package of emergency measures for the beef and veal sector.
In view of the continuing problems, in the context of this package additional direct income support for producers or the beef and veal market amounting to ECU 500 million was considered to be warranted.
With the regulation which is before you, the Commission has fulfilled its obligation to establish a legal basis for achieving that objective.
Hence the proposal provides for an additional support package of ECU 500 million for the beef and veal sector.
Each Member State will receive its share of the 500 million package in accordance with a distribution key which has also already been agreed in Luxembourg.
It is being left up to the Member States to decide whether to use their share of the aid to support producers' incomes or in a more concentrated way, to support the beef and veal sector in general.
We hope that in this way the financial support will reach those worst affected by the crisis.
I should like to conclude by thanking Parliament for treating this proposal as urgent, so that its opinion will be known before the next Council of Agriculture Ministers, which will meet on Monday and Tuesday of next week.
Common organization of the market in bananas
The next item is the report (A4-0337/96) by Mr Santini, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 404/93 on the common organization of the market in bananas (COM(96)0082 - C4/0233/96-96/0080(CNS)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, behind the technical and economic reasons underlying the need to reform Regulation 404/93, Mr Santini's report reveals numerous factors which undeniably contribute to complex sets of problems mingling social and employment policy, foreign policy and even matters arising from news stories or civil war.
This derives especially from the economic importance of bananas, the leading commodity in the world fruit and vegetable economy.
Three sources of supply characterize the form of the Union banana market: Community production, ACP production and production in dollar zone countries.
On the balance between these three sources depend the future of the market and the destiny of many producing regions, but that balance is lacking.
Today, the banana market is going through a deep-seated crisis.
The oversupply of the Community market with bananas from the dollar zone has caused prices to collapse, the main sufferers being Community and ACP bananas, pressurized by two main factors: higher production costs and a weaker commercial organization.
What we are seeing today, then, is an unequal struggle between a coalition of two big multinationals, aiming to monopolize the world market of which they already control 80 %, having previously monopolized the American market and invaded the European market to the extent of 70 %.
An unequal struggle, then, between these two giants on the one hand and the European producers and their historical allies on the other.
A market organization cannot attach priority to financial interests when such objectives are at stake.
To provide the necessary protection, the following measures are essential.
First, we must reject any increase in the quota beyond 2, 300, 000 tonnes; secondly, we must maintain a tariff quota capable of guaranteeing a minimum price; and thirdly, we must retain the present split which grants 30 % of the quota to Community and ACP banana operators, 66.5 % to the dollar zone operators and 3.5 % to the Latin American newcomers.
If we accept an increase in the quota - an increase as high as 3 million tonnes has actually been proposed - or change the present split it would amount to delivering the European market into the hands of the American multinationals and so sealing the doom of Community production.
In the interests of clarity and fairness, it is also necessary to revise the clause which provides that, when quotas are allocated, the two previous years should be taken into account if exceptional circumstances have had a heavy impact on the current season's production.
It is unacceptable that, in that event, the policy of two weights, two measures should still be applied.
Assessing the exceptional character of any disaster is left to the discretion of the Commission which, hitherto, has only regarded it as applying to damage caused by hurricanes.
As far as Somalia is concerned, it can be argued that this country, still regarded as a traditional ACP State, has not ratified the Fourth Lomé Convention.
But who could have signed it, since the country was gripped by a civil war which has now reached the proportions of an endemic catastrophe?
Of the 60, 000 tonnes which had been assigned to it, Somalia has been able to guarantee barely one-third, and then under disastrous conditions of financial profitability.
Before the common organization of the market in bananas was introduced on 1 July 1993, the market of the then twelve Member States was partitioned.
This situation was incompatible with the introduction of the single market.
To establish ground rules and harmonize the market, therefore, the European Union introduced the COM. That arrangement, ladies and gentlemen, derives from a compromise which respects the balance between the interests of the various sources of supply, while taking due account of the Union's prior commitments: Community preference, preferential access for ACP bananas and GATT rules for third countries.
The accession of the three new Member States, all of which imported bananas from the dollar zone, was reflected by an increase in the quota by 350, 000 tonnes to allow for those countries' internal consumption.
This allowance is now recognized to have been excessive.
Without amending the Council Regulation on the COM in bananas, the Commission saw fit, during 1995, to increase the tariff quota for dollar zone bananas to 2, 553, 000 tonnes.
Today, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is asking us to approve, apart from other minor points in the text, changes in two major areas which characterize the very existence of the COM in the banana sector: the tariff quota for the dollar zone and the distribution of import licences.
On analysing the way in which this COM functions following these provisional changes, we regret to note the following facts: the volume proposed by the Commission in 1995 is excessive in terms of the European Union's consumption requirements, estimated at 4 million tonnes.
If the Commission's proposal were to be ratified, the basic Regulation would permit the marketing of 4, 264, 700 tonnes, or approximately 265, 000 tonnes more than the European Union has the capacity to absorb.
Even now, ladies and gentlemen, having regard to the statistics produced since the second half of 1995, whereas Caribbean production is 270, 000 tonnes below its authorized level because of natural disasters, the European market is in the grip of an unprecedented crisis, entirely attributable to a glut which is holding the market price in Europe down at its lowest ever level.
This situation cannot continue, because it is seriously disrupting the economic equilibrium of the European regions of the French West Indies, and also of several ACP States whose social equilibrium depends primarily on the banana business.
The crisis to which I refer, ladies and gentlemen, is a very real one where I come from, in Guadeloupe.
As I speak, planters in Guadeloupe have abandoned their fields to occupy the port of Pointe-à-Pitre, the key point in the island's fuel supply, and other strategic points, resulting in the virtual economic paralysis of the region.
Their aim is to call attention to the difficulties they face as the situation continues to deteriorate, with the selling price of West Indian bananas below 2 francs a kilo as compared with a production cost of nearly 6 francs.
The loss of income not compensated by the COM amounts, according to the growers, to 1.96 francs per kilo.
The West Indian producers are no longer able to keep their business going. Some cannot even harvest their crops, because they are unable to pay their workers or buy packaging.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Community's producers are expecting a major political gesture from us today.
They are hoping that the tens of thousands of jobs that depend on the banana crop and are now seriously at risk should be shown due consideration in our actions.
They also expect category B import licences to be maintained at the level of 30 %, to enable them to retain their presence in the Community market as a whole, and they hope that the tariff quota assigned to third countries will help to restore equilibrium to the market.
The application of the COM, which is a useful framework, has been reflected by a deterioration in the situation of the producers. Ladies and gentlemen, this is contrary to the spirit and letter of the CAP and the COM.
Our production operations are struggling by comparison with bananas from the dollar zone in the entire European market.
This, too, is contrary to the very principle of Community preference.
Madam President, after 14 months we are again debating a proposal to modify the COM for bananas.
In reality, the arguments put forward in October 1995 remain valid.
So we support Mr Santini's report, especially in the terms set out by Mr Aldo a few moments ago and in line with the report approved by the Committee on Agriculture, which coincides with the opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, for which I am rapporteur.
Certain new facts have arisen during 1996.
As Mr Aldo said, there has been a surplus of bananas on the European market, causing prices to fall in some Member States, with serious damage to certain European regions, specifically the French overseas territories, and certain ACP countries.
That should not surprise us given that the Commission had already been warned about it in this very forum.
Furthermore, Ecuador and other countries, including the United States, have complained to the World Trade Organization.
Bear in mind that the United States is not a banana-producer and is representing the interests - doubtless legitimate - of the American multinationals which trade in the banana-dollar.
But the ACP countries have not been allowed to represent themselves as affected third parties, so they do not have an equal right to defend their legitimate interests.
This situation violates the neutrality of the committee of experts and I want to emphasize that clearly.
Ladies and gentlemen, I therefore ask for a vote in favour of the report approved in the Committee on Agriculture on the understanding that this is the best way to defend Community law and the interests of European and ACP banana production.
Madam President, this European Community that we belong to is a little more complex than it might seem to be at first sight.
For example, we have just approved a regulation providing aid to continental Community producers affected by the BSE crisis.
But although the majority of the European population is found in what might be called central Europe or the European nucleus, the European Union also has certain regions which are a bit further away - the ultraperipheral regions - and I think Community solidarity requires that we also show support for these regions.
Actually, several million inhabitants of the European Community live in these regions, and currently rely on a regulation in the banana sector which protects banana producers.
Secondly, the banana regulation establishes protection for certain African, Caribbean and Pacific countries with which we have economic relations and which depend to a large extent on our protection.
So the regulation on the common organization of the banana market is not an arbitrary regulation but is aimed at achieving equilibrium between producers in the ultraperipheral regional and producers in the rest of the Community.
Any change in the established statute would greatly endanger the position of Community producers and producers in ACP countries with which we maintain relations.
So I think we need to be very careful in introducing changes of this kind.
Increasing the quotas every time there is an enlargement of the Community may effectively lead to the collapse of existing protection in the sector and even the disappearance of the current system.
So the Socialist Group joins previous speakers in supporting the report from the Committee on Agriculture, and opposes any increase in the quotas and any other change which could endanger the current system for regulating the banana sector.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have already spoken a number of times here in Parliament on the subject of the organization of the market in bananas, and perhaps I have sometimes conveyed my views rather forcefully.
I think we must all acknowledge that we can achieve our aims in this matter only by means of a compromise, and that we have to abandon extreme positions if we are to reach agreement.
I am pleased to be able to speak today, for the first time, on behalf of my Group, the Group of the European People's Party, and to be able to submit a proposal for a compromise which will make itself felt in the vote.
It is not true that good bananas are produced in the ACP States and the European Union, and bad bananas in Latin America.
The situation is not as clear-cut as that.
Latin America too has small-scale producers who are hardhit by market regulation, because they do not have access to licences like multinational companies.
We must take these small-scale producers into account.
Therefore I ask you to vote in favour of Amendment No 12, which I have introduced jointly with a number of colleagues from many different States.
To move on to the tariff quota, we have here two extreme positions, firstly the one which finds expression in Amendments Nos 10 and 11, which provides for a drastic increase in the tariff quota, way beyond the Commission proposal.
This position is not so far-fetched, since it has also been adopted by a number of national delegations in the Council of Ministers.
The other extreme position finds expression in Amendment No 6, put forward by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, namely that the tariff quota be retained.
It is true that we have a new situation here, since the three new Member States have hitherto imported only 'dollar' bananas.
Thus we have two extremes.
The PPE Group will vote against Amendment No 6, and the colleagues with whom I introduced Amendments Nos 10 and 11 will withdraw both these amendments.
In the interests of a compromise, I ask the whole House to join in voting against Amendment No 6, so that we can really achieve unanimity on this difficult question.
Madam President, we are by now used to the proposals to change the COM for bananas which translate a systematic permeability to the interests of huge American multinationals and, it must be said, some of the major Community importers, mainly German.
Once again there is an attempt to destroy the existing balance struck in the share-out of the yearly import quotas, with once again an underhand attempt to include certain artificial types of crop, and a proposal for a continued and exaggerated increase in the levels of those quotas.
In the past 2.2 million tonnes a year were accepted instead of the 2 million previously accepted; now there is a move to increase that to 2.533 million tonnes, reduced to 2.3 million in the Santini report (which we shall be voting for as an alternative to the previous figure although we still are not satisfied, since it accepts, albeit at lower figures, the principle of increasing the quota).
However we do not seem to have a reply to the increase in domestic consumption through a real policy of promoting internal production which could be possible and there is no proposal to increase the incomes of Community producers who are also poor and experiencing great difficulties, although those Community producers are, for the most part, from ultra-peripheral regions from which I should like to pick out, for example, the French Overseas Territories, the Canaries and Madeira.
The proposals for a regulation that we have from the Commission are prejudicial against Community producers and ACP countries and overlook the principle of Community preference.
The amendments to the Santini report seek to avoid this prejudice but still do not manage in our opinion to defend in full the interests of the Community banana.
However we shall be voting for it unless Amendments Nos 10 or 11 are adopted since they propose a huge and inadmissible increase in the annual import quotas.
We are sure that the European Parliament is not going to go off its head and approve them.
Madam President, Mr Liese's suggestion that we should think of the smaller banana producers in Latin America is a sensible one.
We have introduced a similar amendment.
It does not matter too much which one is carried.
But we do not agree with him on the subject of the quota.
Three million tonnes is sheer nonsense.
I am assuming that the committee's proposal will be accepted.
However, it is much more important that the proportions allocated should remain the same with the new quantity.
In the Commission proposal the so-called dollar bananas are granted 70 % (previously 66 %) and the bananas from the other group of countries 26 % (previously 30 %).
What matters here is that, whatever quota is arrived at, the quantities are allocated in the same way as before.
I should like to address the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as follows: Mr Jacob, if this amendment is carried with the same shares as before, it is important for you, as chairman, to proceed to ask the Commission if it will accept this proposal, so that if it does not accept it, we can if necessary ask for the matter to be referred back to the committee; in this way we can force the Commission to engage in negotiations on the way in which the proportions are allocated.
Mr President, speaking for myself, of course, but also speaking on behalf of my colleague Professor Castagnède, who is the greatest specialist in the banana market, I should like to express our firm rejection of the proposals made to us by the Commission and our equally firm support for the proposals submitted by our rapporteur.
Let me remind the House of the principles on which the common organization of the market in bananas was based.
First, Community preference.
Secondly, preferential access for the ACP countries.
And finally, but only finally, the GATT rules, the WTO rules as they are now, which apply to third country producers.
I cannot help wondering whether those principles are even being respected in the quotas that apply today: 850, 000 tonnes for European production, 850, 000 tonnes for the ACP and 2, 200, 000 tonnes for the reduced rights quota.
And now the Commission wants to make this situation worse.
It proposes to increase the reduced rights quota to 2, 550, 000 tonnes, plus a few, and within that quota to change the share-out between the Community ACP producers on the one hand and the third countries on the other.
Applying such proposals - since, as Mr Aldo most relevantly said recently, the Community's requirements can be assessed at about 4, 000, 000 tonnes - would result in a sharp and lasting decline in prices, to the detriment of producers in the Union and their ACP partners.
I think we must reject these proposals categorically, bearing in mind that the debate relates to two conceptions of our European Union.
For our part, we give preference to the farmers defending our territory against the importers operating on the financial flows; we give preference to the producers who create jobs rather than the dealers who make a living out of exploiting the unacceptable social conditions prevailing in third countries.
Over and above the market itself, the issue in this debate is, therefore, the ideology of free trade against a pattern of events which has a human scale and a human purpose.
That is why we will unconditionally support the position of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr President, whenever Community institutions discuss issues of development cooperation, there appears to be a unanimous wish to aid and promote the development of less advanced countries.
When it comes to discussing practical commercial issues, on the other hand, one gets the clear impression that it is other interests that prevail, in open contradiction of the need for development cooperation.
The case of the common organization of the market in bananas is perhaps the most typical example.
The European Commission's proposals are very negative and threaten, once again, to favour only the interests of the major multinationals that control the European market for 'dollar-zone' bananas and often practise 'dumping' policies.
The attempt to increase out of all proportion the import quotas for third-country bananas, thus depressing the market and making production in the Community and ACP States definitively uneconomic, is unacceptable.
But we need to remember that the Commission has often shown itself to be discriminatory in its treatment of poorer countries and ACP States as well.
The Commission has never been prepared to recognize any 'force majeure' concerning the crisis in banana production in Somalia, caused by the country's well-known troubles, and yet it has reserved more favourable treatment for other traditional producers in the ACP States.
We, therefore, totally support the amendments proposed by the Committee on Agriculture, which make provision for fairer organization of the Community market and raising the value of production in the ACP countries.
We need, therefore, to provide producers and operators trading in ACP bananas with security, by fully consolidating their quotas and allowing supplies to be brought in from other countries until such time as normal production conditions are fully restored - as in the case of Somalia.
Finally, it is important to allow and encourage importation into the Union of a quota of bananas produced and sold within the framework of fair trade, and we therefore support the two amendments tabled on this issue.
Mr President, I should like first of all to point out the absence of Mr Mendonça, from Madeira, who should be speaking here today and not myself if it were not for an illness that has kept him away.
I wish him a speedy recovery.
The current banana COM was the fruit of one of the toughest rounds of negotiations in the Union's history.
One country even went before the Court of Justice and its case was rejected.
The COM was intended to strike a balance on three levels:
guaranteeing access, at reasonable prices, to the Union market, for traditional suppliers, without jeopardising the reserve fro up and coming producers; -guaranteeing priority access to ACP producers in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Lomé Conventions; -guaranteeing Union producers income support to offset their higher production costs and guarantee them arrangements to make them more competitive.After so many disputes and difficulties, with so many political compromises, the Commission has now come along and for some unknown reason decided to destroy that balance, by increasing the banana/dollar quota by 4 % and reducing the ACP quota by the same amount.
The enlargement of the European Union by three new states does not justify, in any way, a 16 % increase in the quota nor should it shift the way in which the quota is shared out.
The amendments approved in the Committee on Agriculture sought to reestablish that very balance.
Therefore I call on my colleagues to support the excellent Santini report and the amendments by the Committee on Agriculture.
Mr President, as someone from a Community region where bananas are grown, namely Madeira, I cannot but disagree with the Commission's proposal aimed at changing Regulation (EEC) 404/93, establishing a banana COM, since it fails to take account of the interests of Community banana producers or those of ACP countries which have had persistent surpluses recently, given the high level of the annual quota.
The Commission's latest proposal is mainly aimed at increasing that quota and sharing it among three types of operator, upsetting the current balance and will contribute to the loss of more jobs, generating social and political unrest, with especially negative effects on the ACP countries.
We would agree if the Commission had take account of the principle of Community preference and complied with its commitments to ACP countries as part of the Fourth Lomé Convention.
We would agree if it put more emphasis on environmental and ecological aspects, linked to local production, especially those which respect the landscape and environment, since both factors are vital for tourism, a very important industry in Madeira.
We would agree if the Commission had wanted to change the production support system, to make the compensatory amounts more flexible, based on a specific calculation that reflected each region's production.
But since that is not the case, we are opposed to the Commission proposals; we think they are premature and we have not even had the findings of the banana round-table which might make a good contribution to the future of the banana COM.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Before we move to the vote, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf wishes to make a statement.
Mr President, I wish to announce that before the final vote on the legislative resolution I shall ask for the report to be referred back to committee, since I assume that Amendment No 7 will be carried and the Commission has declared that it will not accept Amendment No 7, unless it declares after the vote, when the amendment has been carried, that it will accept it after all.
Then we shall be facing a different situation, but I did not want matters to move so fast that I was unable to intervene.
This is why I am making the announcement now.
Mr President, in view of the Commissioner's refusal to accept the amendments, I wish to support the motion for referral back to committee.
Thank you, Mr Medina and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for telling me in advance what you are going to do, but you will have to do it at the appropriate time.
We will now move to the vote on the amendments.
After approval of the Commission proposal:
Mr President, under Rule 129 of our Rules of Procedure and on behalf of my Group I request that the report be referred back to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr President, I want to confirm what I said earlier and support Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's proposal.
Mr Fernández Martín has the floor now to speak in favour of the request for referral back to committee.
Mr President, this is the same situation as we had in October 1995, when Parliament voted the way that it has and the Commissioner rejected the amendments Parliament had voted for by a majority.
So to be consistent with that position, we are going to support referral back to committee.
Mr Liese has the floor to speak against the request for referral back to committee.
Mr President, I regret that I must contradict Fernández Martín, a fellow member of the PPE Group, but the position with regard to our Group's decision was that we wished to reject the difficult Amendment No 6.
Obviously, therefore, we cannot now support the referral because this amendment will not be accepted by the Commission.
It is sensible for Mr Fischler not to accept the amendment.
Therefore we are voting against the referral.
(Parliament decided to refer the report back to the committee responsible)
The Community Regulation instituting the COM in bananas takes account of the commitments entered into previously by the European Union (Community preference, preferential access for ACP bananas, GATT rules applicable to third countries).
There are thus two parts to the COM:
an internal part which provides, for Community producers, a compensatory aid system intended to offset the net losses resulting from the departitioning of the market.
This aid is intended to limit to 854, 000 tonnes the quantities that can be marketed for the Community producers, who include, among others, those in the French overseas departments; -and an external part, which provides for a volume of 857, 700 tonnes at zero duty for the traditional ACP States and a tariff quota of 2.2 million tonnes at reduced duty (dollar zone bananas, in essence).Consequently, I voted in favour of Amendments Nos 3 and 7.
I naturally voted against Amendments Nos 10, 11, 12 and 13, whose only purpose is to encourage imports of dollar zone bananas to the detriment of European and ACP producers, to whom, may I remind you, we have commitments associated with our history and with our traditional and preferential trading relationships.
Is the principle of the 'acquis communautaire' already a multispeed one, and is it not worth more in connection with our contractual commitments to our partners under the Lomé Convention?
An increase in the custom's quota is very much in the interests of the Swedish consumer.
We wish to see more free trade in bananas on the world market.
My aim is to ensure that the Swedish consumer be given a choice when they buy bananas.
They should be offered best quality bananas at the lowest possible prices.
Naturally, I also hope that consumers if they so wish, should be able to chose bananas which have been produced under the best possible ecological and social conditions.
There is every reason to complain about the EU's current joint organisation for the banana market.
It is preposterous that the price of bananas has increased by 20 % in Sweden since we joined the EU.
The banana COM for which there is a proposal for changes to certain aspects of the regulation, has offered Community producers a precious and fair assistance keeping hopes alive of maintaining and improving this crop, bringing it up to acceptable yield levels.
A case of solidarity and economic and social cohesion well expressed through the principle of Community preference, a principle we would like to see extended, especially in relation to high quality crops, farming crops or not, in the ultra-peripheral regions of the European Union.
In my small island region, with a sub-tropical climate in part of its growing area, banana farming is of particular importance, not only because it involves over 8000 producers and an annual crop running into tens of thousands of tonnes, 20 % of the farming GDP, but also because the attractive plantations enhance the landscape, which attracts tourists to Madeira.
Madeiran producers, since Portugal joined the Union, applauded the COM but are now concerned that important into the Community might be increased, which would obviously overload the market with negative effects on their interests. They have asked for compensatory amounts to be increased and to be complemented so as to improve their meagre incomes.
We want to defend them and will fight for their rights.
By lending support to the Santini report which goes against Community banana growers and ACP producers, we hope that the Commission does not increase imports from third countries over and above 2.3 million tonnes - not justified at all by the entry of three new Member States.
We think that it is fair not to go along with the Commission proposal and to share out the import quota granted to third countries in accordance with Regulation (EEC 404/93, with a 30 % share for operators marketing Community bananas and/or importing additional ACP bananas (category B operators) since there is no justification in reducing their share of the market.
Community structural assistance for Ireland
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0284/96) by Mr G. Collins, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission decision on the establishment of the Community support framework for Community structural assistance for the Irish regions concerned by Objective 1, which is the whole country (C40037/96).
Mr President, firstly I should like to express my gratitude to the members of the Committee on Regional Policy for their cooperation in producing this report.
I would like to thank all those who participated in the excellent hearing we had on this subject on 7 May.
In particular, I thank the Irish Minister for Finance for his contribution.
I was particularly pleased to note that, speaking at a recent European seminar in Ireland, the Minister shared all the essential conclusions of my report.
Both the first and second Community support frameworks confirm the policies of successive Irish governments.
Both CSFs confirm the efforts that have been made to pursuing economic and social development in order to attain the Community average and to meet the conditions for participating in EMU.
I fully approve the four priorities established by the second Community support framework for the period 1994-1999.
It has to be said that both the first and the present CSF have been success stories for Ireland.
Over the period most, if not all, of the economic indicators have shown particular improvements.
Ireland's economic growth increased on average to 5 % of GNP, the best performance of any Member State of the EU.
Employment rose by almost 2 % per annum and the balance of payments which was marginally in deficit in 1989, was in surplus by 8 % of GNP in 1995.
The budget deficit continued to decline to below 2 % in line with public borrowing.
While it is undeniable that the Irish economy has several key assets such as a young and active population, significant potential for tourism and a steady application of a rigorous and consistent national economic policy, we must not forget that various problems arising notably from the peripheral situation of the island and its low population density, the importance of its agricultural sector, the country's dependence on foreign-owned companies and the weakness of its domestic industry all beset the economic and social development of Ireland.
I must emphasize that the actual incidence of long-term unemployment is much higher in Ireland than statistics show.
I cannot stress enough the imperative necessity both at national and Community level to make more effective inroads on unemployment, particularly long-term unemployment, during this period.
The Irish authorities must use the mid-term review to make urgent adjustments.
They must tackle the problem of unemployment headon.
The mid-term review must not be another missed opportunity.
We must strengthen interventions from both the European Regional Development Fund and the European Social Fund.
We must improve them in a way that enables measures to improve education and qualifications to be more effectively coordinated with job-creating investment.
I cannot emphasize enough the need to strengthen education and vocational training structures and significantly so, with the purpose of improving the level of qualifications achieved by young people.
I am only too aware that only the more highly qualified employees can take full advantage of the new job opportunities created through ERDF assistance.
The high level of school drop-outs and young men and women with no qualifications in Ireland is of particular concern to me.
I therefore call on the Irish authorities significantly to increase the number of training places for these young people.
Without well-grounded educational and initial occupational training, the danger of decline into long-term unemployment will increase enormously.
We cannot and must not let this happen.
I would like to see much stronger financial support for social infrastructure measures which would open up new education, training and employment opportunities for women, in particular for disadvantaged women.
In view of the strong presence of foreign interests in Ireland, we must improve the capacity of the domestic market.
In this context development and competitiveness of the small and medium-sized enterprises is essential.
My report also underlines the fact that it is crucial for Ireland's economic and social future to develop and diversify its agricultural sector, hence the importance of the LEADER II programme; modernize the fisheries section and aquaculture to restore their opportunities for development; create new opportunities for the development and diversification of a year-round high-quality tourist industry; and apply the principle of long-term environmentally acceptable development.
I emphasize that it is imperative that since Ireland is an island nation to make continuous progress towards the completion of the necessary road, rail, port and airport infrastructures.
Without economic and social cohesion we know there is no prospect of a viable EMU.
At the end of the present CSF in 1999 I have no doubt that there will be many regions in Ireland still needing significant assistance.
I therefore call on the Commission and the Irish authorities to guarantee that any region in the country still needing assistance in the post-1999 period will be fully assured of all the resources required to strengthen their economic and social cohesion.
For the future we need a new approach to the ERDF eligibility criteria for the Union in its present composition of fifteen Member States.
This is something that needs urgent examination by all concerned.
For my part there is no doubt that they must retain unemployment as one of the priority criteria.
Finally, my report is a new opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the implementation of the peace programme for Ireland.
I stress the importance of cross-border cooperation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland at both the economic and political level and I have no doubt of your support on this question.
Mr President, colleagues, I should like to restrict myself to the subject of the use of appropriations from the Social Fund.
If Social Fund appropriations have ever been used anywhere in a truly meaningful way, it is in Ireland, as this report shows.
That must again be stressed from the start.
For example, Ireland has used money from the Social Fund to enable young people in particular to receive a decent education and occupational training.
In addition, however, it has also opened up opportunities for the unemployed and the socially disadvantaged to access the labour market, by offering them further education and retraining measures with European aid.
But it is never true to say that there is no further room for improvement.
15 % unemployment in Ireland probably speaks for itself.
After all, we all know that a good education and good occupational training represent the best life assurance.
This is why I consider that the road the Irish government is going down here is the right one, and I should like to encourage the Irish government to continue down this road, particularly given the fact that over 20 % of young people in Ireland drop out of school and are then usually unable to obtain a job or a training place later.
These school drop-outs later make up the bulk of the long-term unemployed.
Therefore it is doubly important to do even more.
Also, as the rapporteur has already said, it is essential for us to do more to improve the opportunities for women.
Only 32 % of women are in paid employment, which is over 10 % below the EU average.
As for the percentage of women in initial occupational training, I do not wish to say much about this at all.
Women account for under 2 % of apprenticeship training places, and in all honesty it is a joke that a mere 0.4 % of Social Fund appropriations are earmarked for special measures to promote equal opportunities for women.
While the mainstreaming of promotion of equal opportunities for women introduced into the structural funds in 1994 is important, it is not enough in this context.
Special programmes to promote equal opportunities for women are therefore imperative.
If you will forgive my saying so, when we are given an opportunity to instigate a preventive labour-market policy, we should take full advantage of it.
It is precisely the need to adjust workers' qualifications in line with new profiles and manufacturing processes which will prevent us from financing unemployment instead of work again afterwards.
After all, there is good reason why 20 % of the Social Fund resources available for horizontal use should be allocated to a preventive labour-market policy, and despite everything Ireland is still a long way from putting this into effect.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Collins and Mrs Jöns for their excellent work here in relation to the structural funds for Ireland.
Ireland is a success story, as we know, in this respect, with an economy which is performing well.
Our GDP per capita has increased from 64 % of the EU average in 1983 to 87 % last year.
The labour force is growing steadily and unemployment is at last beginning to fall, down from almost 16 % in 1993 to actually just over 11 % this year.
There is a bit of confusion about the figures in the reports, but the statistics have come from different areas - but 11 % is my understanding now.
The three factors I would attribute this success to are: firstly, the sound consensual politics pursued by governments over recent year, but particularly since 1993; secondly, the creation of the single market, which Irish exporters and industry have been able to exploit and, thirdly, the operation of the structural funds since the late 1980s.
This performance gives the lie to the simplistic and essentially anti-European myth that preparing for EMU necessarily entails higher unemployment and drastic cuts in public expenditure.
Our Irish example shows that this is clearly not the case.
As Mr Collins indicates, Ireland has made full and proper use of the structural funds, so much so that if the funds were being allocated in 1996 under the present criteria, i.e., GDP per capita of less than 75 % of the EU average, we would not qualify.
Structural funding in Ireland, however, will not come to a sudden halt at the end of 1999.
The criteria for the third phase of the funds, including the regional distribution of funding, will not be decided until early 1998.
But if we look at the explanatory statement there is a little problem there in that Mr Collins seems to be suggesting that Ireland be divided into separate regions after 1999.
This might involve Dublin being cut off.
Now there are huge areas of deprivation in Dublin, pockets of deprivation that I have often spoken about here - I think you are all familiar with my worry over Dublin.
I do not want to see Dublin being sidelined.
We have to continue to have our substantial development needs looked after post-1999.
We must strive to ensure that the structural funds continue to play an important part in achieving the economic and social cohesion which the Treaty underlines.
Our aim in this context must be to maximise Ireland's share of the structural funds.
Thank you, Mr President, and Happy Christmas!
Mr President, I wish to convey to Mr Collins my congratulations on the presentation of an excellent report.
This report not only highlights the areas where there are major difficulties but also draws attention to the need for necessary changes in the future.
Even in the present situation, where Ireland is considered as a single region, there are some parts of the country that are far healthier and much more competitive than others.
I stress and make no apologies for stressing that the counties of Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Sligo, Leitrim, Roscommon, Mayo and Galway - all of which are in my Euro-constituency - still remain amongst the most handicapped.
It is therefore vital that Community structural fund aid continues in these regions after 1999, when the present programme ends.
Post-1999, Objective 1 status should be granted to the constituency of Connacht/Ulster.
Economic and social cohesion must not remain simple words: they must also become a reality for the west and the north-west of my country.
In conclusion, if the way to do this would be to divide the country up into subregions, then so be it!
The economic survival of many parts of my constituency will depend on such a subdivision.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Collins on an excellent report and review of the progress to date in Ireland under the Community support frameworks.
I wish to take the opportunity today to impress on the Commissioner - and since the Commission is a college I know that it is entirely appropriate to do so through Commissioner Monti - the very high ratio relative to other states that these funds have represented as an inflow from the Union to the Irish economy.
As the Commissioner appreciates, as we move towards the achievement of economic and monetary union with medium-term convergence programmes, stability programmes and so on, it is important that the Commission as a college when it deals with the evolution of regional policy and cohesion policy into the future should, at the earliest stage and without waiting for all the details of the financial perspective and the size of the budget into the year 2000 and beyond, at least delineate the general lines of thinking early enough for states like Ireland, with a major net inflow, to incorporate this into their whole convergence process.
A sharp discontinuity in flow of funds would be a disaster in terms of the smooth evolution of macroeconomic policy in that context.
It is clear, as other colleagues have remarked, that under the standard rules Ireland would no longer qualify in the next round as one state, one region under Objective 1.
I should like to say to the Commissioner, as Mr Collins has pointed out, that the structure of the Irish economy has a very high bias towards foreign industry: over half the net industrial output from that sector, only one-fifth of the employment.
It distorts our GDP/GNP figures dramatically.
In most EU countries the average gap between GNP and GDP is 1 or 2 %, in Ireland it is 10 or 11 %, because of the transfer pricing and so on of multinationals.
Perhaps for Ireland there is a strong rational economic case for looking at GNP rather than GDP as the index of measurement.
That, in fact, would not get over, in my view, the problem of one state, one region but it would still be a more realistic basis for assessment, and objectively that would hold versus other states.
Finally, in respect of the mid-term review, there is an extraordinarily high level of long-term unemployment persisting in the Republic of Ireland, along with a high level of social exclusion.
This needs to get the focus of any slack funding identified in the existing CSF or any new funding at a halfway term.
In the context of EMU, the small and medium-sized enterprise sector in Ireland, as everywhere, is employmentintensive per unit of output.
It is vulnerable in Ireland to one major thing: if Ireland joins the EMU and Britain stays out, they are the vulnerable sector because their first trading is culturally, socially and linguistically in the UK-Irish zone.
They need a special focus, especially through the structural funds, as a key ingredient for the future.
Mr President, I wish to begin by speaking about Ireland.
It is correct to say - and I am glad my colleague has mentioned it - that economic and monetary union will be the counterpart to the structural funds, and Ireland is always described to us as the country setting an example in terms of the trend towards EMU.
But if we look at the other side of the coin, which reveals 20 % unemployment and 30 % youth unemployment, of which 49 % are long-term unemployed, then we have to ask ourselves just what this trend involves. On the other hand, however, Ireland also has the courage to expound a national plan for sustainable regional development, which provides an extremely important basis for deploying the structural funds and offers an opportunity to make genuinely effective use of them.
At the same time, it is right that combating unemployment is the priority here.
That should also be made clear in the report.
We know that Ireland has a great deal of experience, indeed that it already has over 15 years' experience of local employment initiatives, and it would be good if further advances could be achieved in this field.
Despite this, it should be noted that improvements are necessary; for example, there is still a major problem regarding access for women, and as yet not enough attention is given to ethnic minorities.
Above all, non-governmental organizations should be involved to a far greater extent in the question of monitoring, as set out in the White Paper and the Green Paper on social policy.
Mr President, the Commission is delighted with the exhaustive report presented by Mr Collins, whom I congratulate wholeheartedly, just as I congratulate Mrs Jöns.
Over the past few years, Ireland has enjoyed a higher rate of economic growth than any other Member State of the European Union, with its per capita GDP rising from 64 % of the Community average in 1983 to 90 % in 1995.
I agree with the report's conclusions that these very considerable achievements can be put down to three major factors: firstly, the pursuit of highly coherent national policies in the financial and fiscal field; secondly, real social partnership, as has been stressed, in particular, by Mr Malone; and, finally, a substantial contribution to the rate of growth - of about 1 % - by Community funds.
It is encouraging to note that positive development has also been reflected in significant reductions in Ireland's high unemployment rate.
The Commission is, therefore, generally speaking, satisfied with the structural-fund appropriations allocated to Ireland, and not only in terms of overall expenditure.
The Collins report rightly highlights the progress achieved in terms of indicators measuring the impact on the various sectors of the economy, though there may still be some structural problems in certain regions, as Mr Gallagher has pointed out.
I should like to congratulate the Irish authorities on their cooperation with the Commission to ensure on-going evaluation of how European taxpayers' money is being spent.
Evaluation is currently at the phase of mid-term review, which is compulsory for structural-fund interventions.
All operational programmes, including the Community support framework, are being independently assessed by outside experts.
These assessments will be discussed by the individual monitoring committees, whose members include representatives of the social partners and the various sectors.
The Commission greatly appreciates this openness and transparency, and is particularly pleased with the notable contribution made by the regional authorities, which will from now on be represented on the committees responsible for monitoring operational programmes.
The Collins report is timely, having been produced during the mid-term review, and will certainly make a major contribution.
I do not intend, not least because there is insufficient time, to make detailed comments on all the points raised by the report, which is very exhaustive.
I should, however, like to mention a few aspects: firstly, the need to tackle the problem of long-term unemployment in Ireland and, as Mrs Schroedter has pointed out, to encourage women's participation in working life.
The Commission also appreciates recognition of the need to continue to invest in roads, railways, ports and airports in Ireland, and fully supports the commitment expressed in the report as regards implementing the peace programme for Northern Ireland and the border areas of the Republic.
The Commission takes note of the report's recommendations concerning the forthcoming definition of eligibility criteria for Objective 1 regions, but points out that this issue will not be considered before the end of the current programming period in 1999.
Finally, and briefly, Mr President, Mrs Jöns has mentioned the high levels of school drop-out.
Working in collaboration with the Irish authorities, the Commission is trying to find ways of increasing the number of training places available for young people with no qualifications.
The issue was discussed at the last meeting of the monitoring committee for the 'Human Resources' programme in October, and we hope to see progress being made in the near future.
Lastly, in response to what Mr Cox said, I have taken note of his various comments and, in particular, of the need he emphasized for us to delineate the general lines of thinking early enough to prevent any sharp discontinuities in the flow of funds.
I can confirm that, in the light of the review of the financial outlook and looking towards enlargement, the Commission has been carefully considering this matter for some time.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We will now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Cross-border cooperation EU/CCEE
The next item is the report (A4-0359/96) by Mr Schröder, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission report on the implementation of cross-border cooperation between the Community and countries of Central and Eastern Europe in 1994 (COM(95)0662 - C4-0142/96).
Mr President, the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations on the 1994 programme of cross-border cooperation we are dealing with, highlights the fact that this cooperation has proved to be an especially useful instrument in terms of the pre-accession strategy for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
In fact, cross-border cooperation between these countries and those of the European Union has made contact between the border regions possible at the political level and thus increased the degree of trust and good neighbourliness between them. At the same time it is allowing stable habits of cooperation to develop, familiarizing the CCEEs with the Union's management methods and, above all, encouraging in the associate countries the sense of belonging to a common area, hence accelerating the process of adaptation prior to accession.
So the programme has clearly had positive results overall.
That is precisely why the Committee on External Economic Relations believes the budget should be increased for the measures to promote cooperation, both cross-border and inter-regional, particularly between regions of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and regions of the European Union.
For the sake of greater effectiveness in the future, we should also consider making the programmes multi-annual and intensifying the measures to promote cooperation in training, especially business training, and the transfer of technology and marketing skills to small and medium-sized firms, given that they represent an irreplaceable factor in the economic development of these countries.
In addition, the Committee on External Economic Relations believes it is fundamentally important to establish operational mechanisms to coordinate the various European Union programmes and the PHARE programme if we are to optimize the return on Union resources and thus increase the effectiveness and incidence of the measures funded by them.
That is an aim the Committee on External Economic Relations fully supports.
Thank you very much, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen.
I can assure you that Mrs Ferrer could not have improved much on your excellent Spanish.
But do not take that as excessive flattery, because Mrs Ferrer and I usually speak Catalan and our Spanish is not all that perfect.
Anyway, many thanks.
Madam President, may I thank Mr Schröder for this report, which provides a good basis for a general debate on interregional and particularly cross-border cooperation.
Cross-border cooperation has been a very successful element in the Union's activities, but it could certainly be developed to render it even more effective, for example with a view to forthcoming enlargement.
I wish to stress that cross-border cooperation can also be combined with interregional cooperation.
In my opinion it affords many opportunities for the EU countries and future Member States, their regional authorities and regional NGOs to develop practical cooperation between the regions, as well as administration and democratic structures.
In this way close practical cooperation can be established.
In order for cooperation at borders and cross-border cooperation to achieve really impressive results, it should be possible to monitor the effectiveness of the existing programmes more effectively than at present.
The problem is how to find the right means.
On the one hand, additional supervision rules are needed, while on the other, the subsidiarity principle must be respected.
In my opinion, more measurable results should also be attained in the EU's programme cooperation with third countries.
The Commission and those responsible for the implementation of programmes should reach agreement on priorities, objectives and ways of evaluating them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to start by congratulating my colleague and friend, Mr Schröder, not only on his excellent report on the implementation of the programmes on cooperation between the European Union and the CCEEs, but also on his constant concern about the problems arising from the enlargement of the Union to include Central and Eastern Europe, and especially for his broad understanding of the repercussions that the enlargement is having on the less developed regions of the Union, as his report demonstrates.
This Parliament is highly sensitive to the issue, which is at the very centre of the Union's priorities.
That is demonstrated, to mention a few examples not included in Mr Schröder's considerations, by some of the statements of the Europa 2000 Plus report on the organization of the territory of Europe - for which I myself was the rapporteur - and by Mr Speciale's report in connection with the debate on the financial framework for Community initiative programmes over the next few years.
The request to continue the INTERREG programme through a new INTERREG III responds to a need within the CCEE's current pre-accession strategy of cross-border cooperation.
The excellent results of the PHARE programmes and INTERREG II, as set out by Mr Schröder in his report, are a stimulus to greater effort in this direction.
Naturally an increase in expenditure, with new funds and programmes to finance the enlargement, must not endanger the stability pact necessary to guarantee the success of economic and monetary union.
An effort of imagination and solidarity is needed to make both things possible.
Deepening and widening the Union are not and should not be mutually exclusive objectives - but no-one is saying the challenge is easy.
Mr President, our group unanimously supports all the conclusions of Mr Schröder's report on cross-border and regional cooperation with the CCEEs.
By this means we are easing their integration, cementing relations and mutual understanding, and making a significant contribution to the economic development of their regions.
But in view of the report and the committee's conclusions, we clearly need to increase the funding for the measures of inter-regional cooperation between CCEE and EU regions.
Logically, we should also improve the implementation process to make the development plans for the European regions more effective in areas as vital as transport infrastructure, environmental protection, and the use and distribution of energy, and we should also making a special effort to boost cooperation in training and business development for what we regard as the basic sector in the future economy of the integration, the small and medium-sized firms.
All this would mean we were designing a genuine and effective strategy for the future accession of these countries to the European Community project. This would make the process less traumatic and more natural for them, and the Member States would see a reduction in the wide political, economic and social differences that exist in some specific cases.
Mr President, we must strengthen and boost programmes along these lines, like INTERREG, PHARE and especially ECOS/OUVERTURE.
This will strengthen cross-border relations between the regions of the European Union and the CCEE regions. However, we must be demanding with ourselves and strictly control the results of these measures so as to avoid the serious mistakes which have been made in some cases, and, of course, attempts to defraud.
I am winding up, Mr President.
We can evaluate the outturn for the year 1994 as good overall, but we now look forward to the results for 1995 to confirm favourable development of the application and development of these cross-border and inter-regional programmes for cooperation with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Support system for producers of certain arable crops
Mr President, I know that, and I did not ask the Commissioner whether cotton is included among arable crops.
It is not included, and it cannot be dealt with under this Regulation.
My question, to which I would like an answer from the Commissioner, is whether, consistent with the rationale of relaxing sanctions somewhat in the event of exceptional climatic conditions, the Commission could discuss the possibility of some measures for cotton, outside this Regulation, for areas that have been afflicted and that form the nucleus of the mobilizations and drama taking place in Greece today.
Mr President, I am sorry that we are not going to accept our report in toto . I would, however, ask the House to back fully the submission by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and support Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
I would express to the Commission our hope that it will take our views on board even at this late stage.
Court of Auditor's report on Mostar
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I should like to begin by citing a figure which perhaps characterizes the current situation in Mostar more clearly than anything else could do. Since the beginning of this year, more than 70 people have been driven from their homes in western Mostar.
All too often these expulsions continue to occur under the noses of police who are simply passive onlookers.
Recently there have again been even more of them.
The homes of those who have been driven out are then sold off in exchange for German currency by an avaricious Croat mafia.
Only in six cases were the rightful owners or tenants able to reclaim their homes.
These sad statistics show that the European Union has failed to achieve its political goal in Mostar.
Genuine reunification of the city, a functioning joint administration and a common police force, full freedom of movement and the return of those who have been driven out - for the time being all that remains a pipe-dream.
Many fear that the situation will deteriorate further when Sir Martin Garrod comes to the end of his term as the EU's special representative in the city just before Christmas.
Despite this, the decision to draw a line under the action after two and a half years is the right one.
The European Union has spent almost ECU 150 million on Mostar during these two and a half years.
Thanks to this aid, the city has been given a head start, and reconstruction is much further advanced here than elsewhere in Bosnia-Herzegovina - local elections were in fact already held last summer.
Whether the local politicians on both sides in Mostar will build on this head start in the common interest, or whether they will throw it all away again, is now largely in their own hands.
The current protests and demonstrations in Belgrade are giving rise to some encouragement since they show that there is also reason to hope for a change for the better.
What are the lessons to be learned from this, the first major joint action we have undertaken under the common foreign and security policy? The goal we set ourselves for Mostar was to achieve reconciliation following a savage civil war.
And it was surely not a mistake for us to attempt to do something which was virtually impossible in the short term. However, we have to acknowledge that we did not do everything that could have been done if we were to come close to achieving this goal.
In particular, we failed to equip the administrator with full executive powers. As Mr Koschnick said at the hearing held by the Committee on Budgetary Control, ' I was able to make all the decisions but accomplish nothing.'
In its special report, the European Court of Auditors documented a long list of omissions and shortcomings.
It was not, however, in Mostar itself that the crucial errors occurred - there Hans Koschnick and his successors, together with their colleagues, worked with great personal commitment and at great risk to themselves; the most serious errors occurred in Brussels and in the Foreign Ministries of the Member States.
At the crucial moment, after Mr Koschnick had nearly been lynched under the noses of police who simply looked on passively, the pressure which needed to be put on the Croatian politicians responsible was not applied. For the sake of a dubious compromise with these politicians, the Foreign Ministers accepted Mr Koschnick's resignation.
However, Mr Koschnick and his comrades-in-arms in Mostar were also victims of the completely inappropriate decision-making and administrative procedures of the common foreign and security policy, a travelling circus of political responsibility - every six months the contacts changed with the Council presidency.
An advisory working party set up to support the presidency carried decisions over from one meeting to the next.
An absurdly complicated procedure for releasing appropriations and making them available meant that for months on end the EU administration was only able to pay its bills very late.
Hans Koschnick summed up his experience as follows: ' on the one hand, unimpeachably good intentions on the part of all those involved in the EU, and on the other, unimaginable obstructionism' .
Have the lessons at least now been learned?
It seems unlikely. For one thing, it is unfortunate that the Council refused to have anything to do with the contradictory procedure and was conspicuous by its absence from the discussions of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Now, in the context of the intergovernmental conference, it is making proposals which - I cannot put it any other way - constitute an attack on the rights of Parliament.
The non-compulsory expenditure under the common foreign and security policy is to be made compulsory, which would eliminate the only genuine right of co-determination and monitoring which Parliament has in the field of foreign policy.
It is a mockery for the Council to talk about getting closer to the people and greater transparency if, at the same time, it lapses back into the pose of an absolute ruler in a field as important as foreign policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a kind of compensation I should like to speak in English now.
The Commission greatly appreciates the fact that both the European Parliament, in particular the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the European Court of Auditors have taken an early, active and, I would add, supportive interest in this first major CFSP joint action of the European Union. The Commission, as well as the Union Administration in their joint official reply to the Court of Auditors' report, have expressed their basic agreement with its findings and recommendations.
Mrs Müller's report broadly endorses these findings by elaborating on the mainly institutional lessons which should be drawn from this unique experience.
We share the conclusion of the motion for a resolution that this joint action was justified and worthwhile, although not all its goals have been achieved and that it provides valuable lessons for the future. This is not the place to discuss in detail all the points stressed by the resolution, many of which are indeed on the agenda of the IGC and all need careful consideration.
Certainly, political and administrative procedures need streamlining in the future.
Financial accountability has to be clarified.
Proper preparation, follow-up and supervision by a permanent structure could greatly improve efficiency.
The same is true of exclusive financing from the Community budget.
Recommendation No 14 encourages the Commission to propose new joint actions in the former Yugoslavia, in particular for the return of refugees and support for independent media. The Commission is, however, of the opinion that with the exception of support for the Office of the High Representative, it has sufficient instruments and budget resources under the first pillar to meet well-identified needs.
I find it very sad that our final debate concerns a failure of EU policy in which so many people have invested much energy and Mr Koschnick personally has risked so much.
This first project was to have been a model of the common foreign policy.
Well, our efforts in reconstruction have to some degree been successful, but our political efforts have not been at all. Partly thanks to an unclear division of powers over the allocation of funds at decisive moments with Council and Commission decisions contradicting each other.
I will not go into the details.
The Court of Auditors and Mrs Müller have done an excellent job.
But what is clear is that the Union is struggling over its foreign policy.
This report by the Court of Auditors is thus politically heavily loaded and Parliament cannot allow that to happen in future.
It cannot be allowed to get through the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference on the nod.
Otherwise Parliament will look foolish.
This has to be followed up.
Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Adjournment of the session
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 13 December 1996.
Ladies and gentlemen, once again our Parliament is meeting to appoint officers for the next six-month legislative term.
As the oldest Member, it is my duty to open this sitting and since I am easily the oldest Member of all, I would like, if you permit me, to make a very brief personal statement.
I am the only person left in this House who was born before the first world war and can therefore remember this epoch-making event from my own experience.
I am from an era that was shaped by the Vienna Congress at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
For it is to that Congress that we owe the long period of peace that gave rise to the astonishing economic upswing of that era, which had both its bright and its dark sides.
I personally experienced three world wars, for after all what is called the cold war was nothing other than the third world war.
And I witnessed two godforsaken and inhumane totalitarian dictatorships - under Stalin, who succeeded Lenin, and Hitler - their rise to power and their terrible demise.
At that time I was fortunate enough to be able to work with important men who have done much for our continent.
The first was the prophet of Europe, Richard von CoudenhoveKalergi, founder of the Pan-European Union, who warned us as even in 1922 that Europe would suffer severely if it did not unite in time.
He and Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann only just missed achieving their aim.
Had they succeeded, we would have been saved millions of deaths and endless human and material losses.
I was also lucky enough to be involved in the efforts of statesmen such as Robert Schuman, Josef Bech, Konrad Adenauer, Charles de Gaulle and Franz Josef Strauss.
Finally, I had the good fortune to conclude a long career by representing Bavaria in the European Parliament for 18 years.
A wonderful time, in which I always had the feeling that our work is meaningful, quite apart from leading to friendships between many people, from many nations and parties, who are united by their understanding of the meaning and task of Europe in the years to come.
Looking back over nearly the entire span of the 20th century, allow me to make two comments.
I am doing so partly in memory of one of the best speeches I ever heard in this House, the opening address by the first oldest Member, that great French lady Louise Weiss, which we would still do well to read today.
We are facing a time of historical change, which is opening up new horizons.
Distance, space and time have now acquired an entirely new meaning compared to a few decades ago.
Our living conditions have changed radically.
Relations between peoples and nations are not what they were only a few decades ago.
That means we have to re-think our policies.
We are in the midst of a crisis - I am using this word in the Chinese sense, meaning a great danger but also a great opportunity.
That means we have an enormous responsibility, we who have the honour to be Members of the only European democratically elected body.
We cannot shift this responsibility onto others, for each and every one of us took on their task of their own free will in accepting to stand for the European Parliament.
So we have a duty towards those who have placed their trust in us.
We must do all we can to fulfil it.
Personal and private interests must take second place.
We owe our voters and the European ideal total commitment.
If we are to be credible, there can be no justification for not appearing on working days, including Fridays - you will allow me to say this, it is a hobbyhorse of mine.
Of course there can be cases of force majeure , but they must remain rare exceptions.
We have a historic responsibility towards all Europeans so long as we see the European Union as more than a large market and a rich nations' club.
Our united Europe must be home to all Europeans, including those who do not yet belong to it but want to help build it.
Our doors must always remain open to them.
We must insist that as soon as they comply with the basic conditions for accession they have a right immediately to become Member States of the European Union.
That is not just a duty, it is also in our interests.
An eminent Member of the European Parliament and a colleague of many of us, Dr Heinrich Aigner, put it this way: ' Europe offers the only realistic prospect for peace!'
What he was saying was that we should not primarily be a large market or an economic community, but a security community, which guarantees our freedom and that of many other nations.
Europe is not just Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Luxembourg, Brussels, the Hague, Lisbon, Vienna, Helsinki, Dublin, Copenhagen, Athens or Stockholm; it is also Budapest, Prague, Warsaw, Ljubljana, Vilnius, Riga, Tallin, Bratislava, Zagreb, Bucharest, Kiev, Skopje, Sofia, Sarajevo, Tirana, Vaduz, La Valletta, Nicosia, Oslo, Berne and Belgrade.
A Europe that is uniting must also be open to the citizens of these towns and to the inhabitants of the Central and Eastern European countries.
The European Union must not turn into a private club for the more fortunate nations, as the Czech president Václav Havel recently warned.
We would be betraying the European ideal if, now that the military 'iron curtain' has gone, we allowed a new rich-poor divide to come into being.
People say that enlargement will cost us dear.
Of course, all good things are costly, but in a dangerous world the first priority is security, and only a united Europe can give us that.
We have learned from experience that one day of war costs more in terms of human misery and economic loss than a whole years expenditure on peace-keeping.
And there is a wise French proverb that goes: ' Plaie d'argent n'est jamais mortelle.'
It is other things that are lethal!
Ladies and gentlemen, we have an enormous task before us.
We in this House are called to make history.
We owe that to our people and to each of our voters.
We must fulfil this obligation.
It is a splendid but also a difficult task.
Much will be decided over the next two and a half years.
And we bear the responsibility for it.
I hope God will bless us in our pursuit, us and the men and women who will be appointed to high offices in the coming hours.
And now to work!
(Applause)
Election of the President (announcement of nominations and appointment of tellers)
Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, the election of the President will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Let me remind you that under the Rules of Procedure no business can be transacted while the oldest Member is in the Chair unless it is concerned with the election of the President or the verification of credentials.
Pursuant to Rule 13 of the Rules, nominations for the presidency of the European Parliament may only be made by a political group or by at least 29 Members.
I have received the following nominations in accordance with the provisions of the Rules of Procedure:
Mr GIL-ROBLES GIL-DELGADO Mrs LALUMIERE
May I remind you that pursuant to Rule 14 of the Rules, in order to be elected a candidate must obtain an absolute majority of the votes cast in the first three ballots.
Blank or spoilt papers do not count as votes cast.
In order to speed up tomorrow morning's proceedings, I propose that we now appoint the six tellers.
(The President drew lots to appoint the tellers)
Mr President, I should just like to thank you for selecting the tellers as you have. You have short-circuited the d'Hondt system and shown that tellers do not always have to be selected from the two largest groups.
Thank you very much.
(The sitting was closed at 6.20 p.m.)
Election of the President
The next item is the election of the President, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
Envelopes and ballot papers have been distributed.
As I said yesterday, I have received the following nominations, in accordance with the provisions of the Rules: Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado and Mrs Lalumière.
Let me remind you that pursuant to Rule 14 of the Rules, to be elected a candidate must obtain an absolute majority of votes cast after the first three ballots.
Blank or spoilt papers do not count as votes cast.
I declare the first ballot open.
(The Members of the European Parliament proceeded to the ballot boxes)
(The sitting was suspended at 10.30 a.m. and resumed at 11.45 a.m.)
Mr President, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, I offer my sincerest and warmest congratulations on your election, which gives us very special pleasure.
Your personality, your uprightness, your standing as an eminent jurist and the personal courage you have displayed at a difficult time in your country's history all seem to us to guarantee your success in discharging the high office to which you have been appointed.
However, Mr President, I am sure you will understand that, addressing you as I do after the Chairmen of the Socialist and PPE Groups, I must express very strongly the sense of frustration experienced by all the other political groups when it comes to appointing candidates to positions of responsibility in this Parliament.
Since 1989, a reciprocal agreement between the two largest groups in the European Parliament has guaranteed that their candidate for the office of President will be elected on the first ballot, reducing any candidates from the other groups to the status of walk-on parts.
In other words, the real election no longer takes place in the plenary but within each of the two largest groups in strict alternation.
Not only that, but within the two largest groups the result of the voting is determined by the largest delegations, which reduces the effective electoral power still further.
And, for good measure, this system was extended in 1994 to include the Quaestors, making it impossible for anyone outside the two main groups to be elected to that office either.
The effect of this kind of system is to kick into touch six political groups out of eight - and yet those six groups account for 40 % of the Members of this House.
(Applause) Furthermore, another effect of this kind of system is the ruthless elimination from positions of responsibility of the elected representatives of the least numerous nationalities within Parliament, which is out of step with the European ethos that gives equal rights to every nation represented in this House.
So, Mr President, I urgently make the following request: that you use the moral authority conferred upon you by your election to take the initiative and, in consultation with the group chairmen, to come up with a procedure which will not perpetuate the present system - a system which, by over-organizing the internal democracy, has ultimately suppressed it.
It would be a paradox indeed if the European Parliament, which has so often deplored the lack of democratic process in the functioning of the European institutions, should itself exacerbate the problem by its own internal procedures.
Still with the same aim of making good the shortcomings of institutional democracy, Mr President, there are two other brief requests I should like to make.
The first is that you should ensure that the decisions taken by the political organs of Parliament - the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents - should be precisely and promptly implemented by the administration, which has not always been the case in the past.
The second is that you should take steps to improve cooperation, which already exists but still leaves much to be desired, with all the national parliaments, with whom we share the democratic legitimacy derived from election by universal suffrage.
Why not arrange further talks with the representatives of the Union's national parliaments, like those we held in Rome a few years ago?
Mr President, I can assure you that you will have the support of our group in your everyday duties, and you can count on us when it comes to carrying out the reforms that are close to our hearts.
Good luck, Mr President.
(Applause)
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate you on your election, on behalf of my colleagues in the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
I can promise that there will be loyal support from some sections of the Maastricht opposition, not for the Maastricht II treaty, but for a democratic debate on this amongst all viewpoints here in Parliament and for applying democratic rules to that debate, so that both decentralizers and centralizers, federalists and supporters of parliamentary democracy, can have a fair and open discussion with equal resources for the different viewpoints, and then a democratic decision through referendums in the various countries.
I also promise my support for cleaning up the allowances and travel expenses and for creating democracy and fairness within Parliament itself, including a much-needed reform of the d'Hondt system, so that the two large groups - the PPE and PSE Groups - can have exactly the quota of chairman and vicechairman posts corresponding to their membership, and so that the quota of posts to which the small groups together are entitled are actually given to the small groups, which can then distribute this amongst themselves.
The procedure of creating such small quotas under the d'Hondt system that the smaller groups are left with nothing is deeply undemocratic, and I hope that you, with your background of taking part in the campaign against the lack of democracy in Spain, will be the person who can carry through democracy and fair rules in relation to the larger groups.
Today, unfortunately, the fact is that you were not elected simply because of your personal qualities.
I should have liked to be able to congratulate you on being elected on that basis, but the way in which you have been elected is one that we know from a world other than that of popularly elected assemblies.
It is a method familiar to us from the business world, under the term 'holding company' .
You take the support of the two largest subgroups within the two largest groups, and then with a minority of members you have a decision which is not necessarily in accordance with the wishes of the majority.
The holding company model has no place in an assembly elected by the people, and I would hope that next time we shall have a different, democratic method of election, so that you, for instance, can also be elected in the light of your personal qualities.
Today, the fact is that we would have to leave it to the drawing of lots by the notary public for all Members to have the same chance of being elected to your post.
Welcome to the job of President of Parliament, however.
I see you as the common representative of all of us, and I can promise you the support of my group over the next two and a half years.
Mr President, in view of some of the speeches we have heard here this morning I feel it is important to rise again because people listening in the gallery and the media have heard some very strange interpretations of representative democracy here this morning.
I must say to you that through their acceptance of the use of the d'Hondt system and other concessions they voluntarily make to the smaller groups in this House, the two big groups of this House are...
(Heckling ) We will wait for the barracking to stop.
Ladies and gentlemen, I respect your opinion.
So please show the same respect for others.
Please continue, Mrs Green.
The two large groups in this House already make considerable concessions to the smaller groups.
I was disappointed that in the speeches by the other group leaders there was no recognition of that fact, after all the discussions we have gone through in the last few weeks.
I would say as well that in any parliamentary democracy it is the majority in the House that determines who should hold the presidency.
That is what has prevailed here today.
I would like to conclude by saying to Mr Pasty in particular that when he gave the figures, which were quite misleading, he obviously had not looked at the nominations that have come forward, particularly from my group, because he would have noticed that of the three places for quaestor which we hold we have ceded one to a smaller group in this House and will be supporting a candidate from the GUE.
I will tell you as well that when you talk of small delegations, my group is nominating a Member from a four-person Finnish delegation in my group as a quaestor of this House.
So when he says smaller delegations inside the big groups are being denied their rights, he is quite wrong.
I would say to you, colleagues, that we are nominating a Finn as well as another Member for a quaestorship in this House.
I assume from what Mr Pasty has said in support of small delegations that he and his group will support our Finn for quaestorship.
(Applause )
Mr Martens, there is no question of holding a debate on this.
I shall just give you the floor for one minute, given the allusions that you have been making.
I did not realize it was intended to hold a discussion here on the fundamental rules which apply in this Parliament and which are not those of dictatorship by the majority groups, certainly not.
We do not operate a &#x02BC;winner takes all' system; our system is that the various groups are fairly represented in the share-out of responsibilities and the vote we are about to have on Parliament's vice-presidents proves that, since the various groups have all agreed that candidates from smaller groups should also have a chance.
So it would not, I think, be appropriate to abandon this principle, this system of giving a seat to the smaller groups and smaller delegations within the groups.
We have always said that we are amenable to amendments of Parliament's Rules of Procedure, but I would emphasize that here in this multicultural Parliament which has members from 15 Member States we apply a system which is fair and which, compared to other systems, is thus in my view the best method for this Parliament.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us not go on with this matter.
It is traditional for this set of speeches to be used to congratulate the President-elect in a courteous way.
Of course this President-elect could not cut off the expressions of those who find fault with the way in which he was elected, and nor has he done so.
But we cannot drift away from the agenda which now obliges us to proceed to the election of the Vice-Presidents.
I therefore wind up this debate and, if you all agree, proceed to the election of the Vice-Presidents.
Election of the Vice-Presidents
The next item is the election of the Vice-Presidents.
The following nominations have been received:
Mr Anastassopoulos Mr Avgerinos Mr Capucho Mrs Fontaine Mr Gutiérrez Díaz Mr Haarder Mrs Hoff Mr Imbeni Mr Marinho Mr Martin Mrs Péry Mr Podestà Mrs Schleicher Mr Verde i Aldea
The candidates have informed me that they agree to stand.
(The vote took place) We shall now scrutinize the vote.
The results of the count will be announced this afternoon at 3 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.55 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, I should like to congratulate you on your election.
On a point of order, can you ensure that the ballot boxes are opened simultaneously rather than some being opened before others? This issue caused some problems today between myself and some members of staff, and I do not want a repeat of this.
Thank you very much, Mr Falconer.
You are quite right and I thank you for drawing our attention to this matter.
I should like to ask the five elections officers, each of whom is responsible for one ballot box, to make sure that they are not opened until the President says that the voting is open and that they should be opened simultaneously.
Before I open the vote I should remind you that if seven Vice-Presidents are not elected in the second round we shall obviously have to have a third round.
We set out with a view that we maintain these candidacies for the remaining posts.
However, if there were any change I would communicate it to you by the deadline for submitting nominations, which is at 4.45 p.m.
As for the election of Quaestors, I propose that we set the deadline for nominations at 4 p.m. today. Is there any objection?
There is no objection, so this is agreed.
(The vote took place) May I ask the election officers to go to Room 3 on the second floor to count the votes.
(The sitting was suspended at 3.25 p.m. and resumed at 6 p.m.)
Mr President, I rise under Rule 13(3) which says: ' In the election of the President, Vice-Presidents and Quaestors, account should be taken of the need to ensure an overall fair representation of Member States and political views' .
The way we are going we will have no representation in the Bureau of the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden or Austria.
I would urge all Members of the House to ask themselves if that is a sensible way to conduct democracy in Europe?
It is not good enough!
Ladies and gentlemen, obviously all members of the European Parliament know Rule 13(3) of the Rules of Procedure.
It demands that each and every Member State be represented in the running of this Assembly.
However, it is a general principle that we practise this by a method adopted by the majority of the Assembly, i.e. according to a democratically approved rule.
Before continuing, I should like to ask you whether anyone opposes the use of electronic voting. It appears not.
However, we now have three candidates - Mr Capucho, Mr Haarder and Mr Podestà - and we shall vote in this order.
In accordance with Rule 121(1)(2) of the Rules of Procedure, only the votes in favour will be counted, i.e. the votes made with the left hand button.
I ask the election officers to come to the rostrum to oversee the vote.
Mr President, If I understood you correctly when you were talking about the electronic voting, you said that we can only vote in favour.
Surely in a democratic society you can at least abstain?
Mr Miller, thank you for your words.
Obviously, all Members of the Parliament can use any of the three buttons they wish.
What I meant was that we simply need a relative majority which means we shall only take account of votes cast for, since we do not need to take any account of the others.
If I was misunderstood I am very pleased to make things clearer: you can vote with any of the three buttons you like.
Only the votes 'for' will be counted and may I remind you all that all we are doing is establishing an order of vote.
I also remind you that if the political groups had been able to reach an agreement on that order it would not now be necessary for us to vote, since there are no more candidates than the existing number of posts.
In other words, everyone...
Is it possible for one of the candidates to have more votes against than votes in favour? For in that case he or she would, of course, not be elected, because more votes against than votes in favour do not constitute a relative majority.
Mr Wolf, please take a closer look at the Rules of Procedure.
All we are doing is establishing an order of precedence among the candidates.
However, the number of relative votes is completely irrelevant.
If we had a secret ballot and one candidate had three votes, another had two and the third one vote, they would still be elected.
The aim of this vote is simply and exclusively to determine the order of precedence.
Of course, if any of you oppose this, perhaps you would have the courage to get up and say 'I oppose this' , which means that we would automatically hold a vote by secret ballot.
But since no-one has opposed this, I am now going to stop wasting the Assembly's time and call for an electronic vote.
Mr President, this is not the first time this has happened, but it seems to suggest a rather curious practice that we have adopted.
What it would seem to me you are suggesting is that as long as all the candidates can get one vote, which means they can vote for themselves, they are bound to be elected.
Of course they have been put forward by political groups, but surely it cannot be an acceptable situation that somebody can be elected vice-president when a majority of people in Parliament do not wish them to be elected.
Although I doubt we can do anything more now - and I am sure you are strictly following the Rules - I think that we need to look at this practice again for the future.
I shall be very pleased, Mr Elliott, to consult the Committee on the Rules of Procedure and put to them the proposal that you have made about whether the system should be changed.
Mr President, I cannot recall any time in the past twelve-and-a-half years that I have been here that we have used this method for sorting out this particular problem.
I cannot recall it.
That is the first point I would like to make.
The second point I would like to make is this: on the last occasion this occurred, which was the last time we voted in this Chamber for the election of President and Vice-Presidents, we had to go for an exhaustive ballot.
Therefore I see no reason why we should not go for an exhaustive ballot on this occasion.
Consequently, I object to the very principle that you are proposing to the House.
Mr President, I think that under Rule 13 the ballot you just held is not admissible because you influenced the vote.
If we hold a third ballot, we can do so electronically, as we decided.
That is correct.
That is what we decided.
But in the meantime you keep announcing the results of the ballots.
That means that after the results of the first ballot you indirectly influenced the second one.
In a secret ballot - which is what the first and also the second ballots were - all the candidates are elected at the same time and then you announce the results at the end.
So this was not a secret ballot, even if it was electronic.
I think this is a kind of manipulation we cannot accept!
(Applause, mixed reactions)
Mr Telkämper, your remark will be taken into account and conveyed to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
I never claimed to have the last word.
I have tried to facilitate the expression of this Assembly's will in terms of the order of precedence of the three Vice-Presidents but of course the President's interpretation can always be reviewed by the Committee on Rules of Procedure and so that decision will be conveyed in due time.
Ladies and gentlemen, I disagree entirely with Mr Telkämper's observation that you tried to 'manipulate' the vote.
That is not correct.
The vote was taken by secret ballot.
Of course, this is an unprecedented experience and it would be good in such cases if the results were announced at the end.
But the vote was of course taken in secret, and there was no ill intent on your part.
Mr President, I believe you are quite right to refer a number of matters arising in connection with this vote to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
I should like to add another to that number. There is evidence that the election procedure, both for the President and for the Vice-Presidents, is not sufficiently democratic.
The voting papers used for your own election, Mr President, the election of the President of this Parliament, were not the same as those used for the election of the Vice-Presidents.
I ask you to conduct an inquiry to find an explanation for the existence of these different voting papers and the way in which they were distributed, and to refer this matter also to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you are talking about two different things.
On one hand, you are referring to what has been said by the presidency and I am not going to insist on that.
Secondly if there were different types of ballot papers I should ask you if you would provide the administration with data and the necessary proof since this is a very serious accusation which has to be backed up with very concrete proof.
If you can do so then an investigation will be held.
Election of Quaestors
The next item is the election of the Quaestors of the European Parliament.
The following nominations have been received:
Mr Balfe Mr Bardong Mr Killilea Mr Paasio Mr Ribeiro Mr Viola
The candidates have told me that they have agreed to stand.
Since the number of candidates exceeds the number of posts to be filled, there will be a secret ballot.
I remind Members that according to Rule 16 of the Rules of Procedure the number of Quaestors shall be five.
The members of the European Parliament have a maximum of five votes.
Any ballot papers containing more than five votes will be declared null.
The election officers will be the same as for the previous elections, and I ask them to stand by the ballot boxes.
(The vote took place)
Address by the President
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sittings of Friday, 13 December 1996, Monday, 13 January and Tuesday, 14 January 1997 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, in the Minutes of the sitting of 13 January, my name does not appear on the attendance register - no doubt through some error of my own.
Thank you, Mr Colom i Naval.
That will be corrected.
Mr President, the Minutes of 13 January state that I have been appointed as a Member of the European Parliament.
In fact, I was elected .
In the United Kingdom, even when a vacancy occurs mid-term in the European Parliament, we do not take the next Member on a party list; we have a by-election.
(Applause)
Thank you, Mr Corbett.
I am sure that your remark will be taken into account by the Intergovernmental Conference, if it decides to address the issue - which affects us so profoundly - of establishing a uniform electoral procedure.
Mr President, on page 9 of the Minutes it says that Mr Falconer said that an election had never been held.
It should read 'these elections' because I was referring to the Vice-Presidential elections.
Secondly, the Minutes do not record that I objected to the procedure, as you requested, and you then ignored that objection.
Thank you, Mr Falconer.
That will be noted.
The only thing that I would say is that you did not express your objection when I asked if there were any objections - although I did notice your protest later.
Mr President, the Minutes of Monday do not include my name in the attendance register, but I was present.
That has been noted, Mr Herman.
Incidentally, I assume you also voted, so that should appear in the Minutes too.
Very well, Mrs Green.
I shall gladly read out, for everyone's information, the last two paragraphs of the minutes of the Bureau meeting - although, as everyone knows, the Bureau minutes are a public document which is distributed to all Members.
I shall read out those last two paragraphs:
'The Bureau heard a statement by the President indicating that, pursuant to Rule 22(3), the Bureau was responsible for matters relating to the conduct of sittings, that the decision taken in the House by Mrs Fontaine precluded the retroactive imposition of sanctions on Mr Pasty, pursuant to Rule 110, and that he would forward a letter to Mr Pasty, drawing attention to the seriousness of the matter and deploring this breach of the basic principles of parliamentary democracy, which undermined the image and dignity of Parliament. The decision as to whether a statement should be made in plenary would be taken by the President of the sitting.
The Bureau noted the President's decision, after having heard Mrs Fontaine, who had been in the chair when the incident occurred, and having noted the opinions of the Bureau members, to forward a letter to Mr Pasty, pointing out the imperative need to comply with and enforce the provisions of Rules 117 and 110 of the Rules of Procedure.'
So the Bureau's decision, to summarize, is quite simply this: it 'noted the President's decision, after having heard Mrs Fontaine, who had been in the chair when the incident occurred, and having noted the opinions of the Bureau members, to forward a letter to Mr Pasty, pointing out the imperative need to comply with and enforce the provisions of Rules 117 and 110 of the Rules of Procedure' .
Mr President, I would stress that the Bureau of Parliament is obviously competent in this matter.
At the instigation of Mrs Green, you have announced the Bureau's conclusions.
Moreover, you have informed the House of the content of the letter sent to Mr Pasty.
I think that reading out that letter, in other words the two paragraphs which we have heard, means that the reprimanding of the Member in question has been made public, which is of course in itself a form of disciplinary action.
This is a delicate and difficult matter which concerns the reputation of a Member of the House and that of this House as a whole.
We shall hear the five Members who have asked to speak.
Mrs Green has asked me for the floor again afterwards.
Before giving it to her, I shall set out the presidency's interpretation of this matter.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I was present on the occasion that is now being discussed, and it was the first time that I heard a Member admitting openly and apologising to this House for voting incorrectly and voting twice.
He probably did not apologise properly but it seems that he was contrite.
I do not want to get into recriminations.
As it was a very sensitive vote on the Zimmerman report and a lot of the votes were very close indeed, where does that leave the validity of the actual vote on the report? Are we entitled to a second vote on that report, because I do not know what way Mrs Baldi would have voted had she been present and we do not know whether Mr Pasty exercised Mrs Baldi's vote in the way she would have wanted.
Neither do we know how often this occurrence took place, because it was only admitted to when it was pointed out by Mr Tomlinson.
A lot of us saw what was going on but the admission only came after the point was made to the Chair.
Those questions should be addressed.
Mrs Malone, one thing should be made quite clear: once the result of a vote has been announced by the President, it cannot be modified.
In this case, moreover, Parliament's services have established that the outcome of the vote would have been the same, whether or not this vote was incorrectly cast.
The result would have changed by one vote, but the outcome would have been the same.
I should therefore be grateful if Members would not persist with this issue.
The decision was made, and no one questioned the validity of the vote at the time.
Consequently, the result of the vote announced by Mrs Fontaine stands.
Mr President, as regards the result of the vote, I should very much like you to announce the result to the House here once again.
If my information is correct, this was a very controversial amendment which was adopted by just one vote, in other words that of Mrs Baldi, who was not in the Chamber.
This means that if that vote had not been cast, the amendment would not have been adopted, because it would not have obtained a majority.
That does of course make matters even worse.
It was a very controversial amendment.
I completely fail to understand why further sanctions have not been taken against Mr Pasty in order to prevent this kind of development in future.
I should be grateful if you would announce the result of the vote here again, loud and clear, so that we all know if you are actually in the right.
It was a roll-call vote, so that is possible.
Mrs van Dijk, I would ask you to take account of what I have just said.
I pointed out, firstly, that Parliament's services have established that the act in question did not affect the outcome of the vote.
I also made it clear that, under Parliament's Rules of Procedure, once the result of a vote has been announced, it cannot be changed.
I would also ask you to bear in mind the fact that no objections were made concerning this vote when the Minutes were submitted for approval on the following day.
Mr President, I do not gladly intervene in this kind of discussion, but this is a serious matter where the reputation of Parliament is at stake.
I was not present at the vote in question, so I do not wish to comment on what took place on the Thursday of the last part-session.
I wish to comment on the Rules of Procedure.
Neither Rule 117 nor Rule 110 makes any mention of the Bureau.
So all the references in this discussion to the Bureau are not in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
The Rules only mention the President.
My question is thus a direct one to you, Mr President.
Rule 110 states that in cases such as this, the President may, after giving formal notice, move that Parliament pass a vote of censure against the Member concerned.
Can I interpret your comments, Mr President, as meaning that you have just given formal notice to the Member concerned, pursuant to Rule 110, and that you have thereby taken your responsibility under the Rules? I should be grateful for some clarification from you on this point.
Before giving the floor to Mrs Fontaine, I shall answer the question which Mr de Vries put to me directly.
I shall refer to Rule 110, since Rule 117 specifically states that any infringement of Rule 117 shall be dealt with in accordance with Rule 110.
Rule 110 states that: ' In serious cases of disorder, the President may - may , in other words, it is left to the discretion of the President of the sitting - after giving formal notice, move, either immediately or no later than the next sitting - it has to be on the same day or the following day, therefore - that Parliament pass a vote of censure which shall automatically involve immediate exclusion from the Chamber and suspension for two to five days' .
It is clear, therefore, that the President of the sitting is required to exercise his or her powers in accordance with the seriousness of the incident.
I recall - since I was present at the sitting in question - that someone in the Chamber expressed the view that the matter should be referred to the Rules Committee, but that no one called at the time for the exclusion of the Member concerned, and that it was thought to be sufficient to refer the matter to the Bureau.
Perhaps the House did not remember that there is a deadline, but it is my understanding - and this is the prerogative of the President or the Rules Committee - that once those two days have passed, it is not possible, according to the Rules, to take the disciplinary action provided for by Rule 110.
And my interpretation coincides with that which former President Hänsch asked to be minuted.
Our interpretations are therefore in agreement.
Nevertheless, I give an undertaking that the Minutes of today's sitting will be sent to the Rules Committee, so that it can examine this interpretation, if it thinks fit.
As things stand, however, both Mr Hänsch and I take the view that Rule 110 establishes a clear deadline.
Moreover, I would remind the House that, pursuant to Rule 110(2), ' Parliament shall decide whether to take such disciplinary action at a time to be decided by the President, which shall be either at the sitting during which the events in question occurred or at one of the three following sittings' .
Naturally, however, the disciplinary action has to be proposed on the same day or the following day.
Consequently, neither the Bureau nor Mr Hänsch, in application of their powers, was able to take disciplinary action in this case.
I would repeat that, if the feeling is that this situation should be changed, it will be changed by the appropriate means, which is via the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Hence the Bureau considered - and I have read out the minutes of its meeting - that Mr Hänsch, in application of his powers to ensure order in the Chamber, was fully authorized to send a letter to the Member concerned.
You are asking me to read out that letter.
I would make the point that if I read out Mr Hänsch's letter, then I must also read out Mr Pasty's reply, and for a very clear reason: anyone who is facing an accusation has the right to be heard, and naturally the Rules provide for such an opportunity for self-defence.
In these circumstances, and in view of the fact that the Rules do not specify whether or not the letters should be read out, I shall leave that decision to the House.
Thank you, Mr McGowan.
I now put to the House my proposal to read out the letters in question.
(Parliament agreed to the proposal) I shall therefore read out the letters.
Mr President, I am delighted you are going to read the letter.
May I say that I believe that if you were to read an exchange of letters, that would be entirely inappropriate.
We are asking you, as President of this House, to read a letter that was sent by the President of this House to a Member.
If there is to be an exchange with you by that Member, that is something entirely different.
We want to hear the letter the President sent as a result of an incident in this plenary.
The Bureau can then deal with the consequences.
Mr President, I should like to make it absolutely clear that I do not challenge the action or the decision made by Mrs Fontaine in the Chair.
I may disagree with her interpretation but I do not challenge that she acted according to the Rules and I recognize Mr Anastassopoulos' heroic defence of his colleague in the Bureau.
I have no challenge to Mrs Fontaine even though I may disagree with her interpretation.
However, I am appalled at the letter from Mr Pasty which you read.
Let us be clear that what happened in this House was seen by many Members of this House.
It is not something which took place in a private room where there could be different interpretations of what happened.
No one can vote in his own place and in someone else's and do it accidentally!
This is completely unacceptable, Mr President.
There has been a clear breach of the Rules.
If we had had from the Member concerned - whom, as you will have noticed, I did not name in my opening remarks - a clear apology to this House following the letter from President Hänsch, we could have closed the incident.
But I have to ask you now what you are doing as President of this House to deal with an attack on the presidency of this House by an individual Member seen to cheat in the voting in this House.
Your integrity as President and our integrity as Members are at stake.
Mrs Green, I proposed to the House - and the House approved my proposal - to read out Mr Pasty's letter as well, just as any letter of self-defence would be read out. And under no circumstances can this right to self-defence be restricted.
However, the fact that I read out his letter does not mean that I accept or endorse what he said in his own defence.
I have already made it quite clear what the Bureau's decisions were - which fully endorse former President Hänsch's action - and I therefore have no need to reiterate what the Bureau said at the time.
This is clearly a delicate matter.
The fact that, instead of taking a decision, the President of the sitting preferred to refer the matter to the Bureau, has raised the question - and is raising the question again today - of which is the responsible body and what is the appropriate procedure for resolving such matters.
The responsible body is the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
I shall therefore refer this matter to the Rules Committee, so that in the light of this case, for which there is no precedent, it can refine the relevant provisions of the Rules, if it considers that appropriate.
For the present, nothing more can be done, and this matter is now closed.
Mr Martens, I shall give you the floor, but I would ask you not to reopen this matter.
I should like to make two very brief points.
I was present in the Chamber at the time of the incident, and it is correct that Mr Tomlinson proposed that the matter be referred to the Bureau.
Mrs Fontaine did that with the agreement of the House.
Secondly, your decision to refer the matter now to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure is the right one, in my view.
Thank you, Mr Martens.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, for the past half an hour I have been asking to speak on the Rules of Procedure, but you have repeatedly given the floor to Mrs Green, who has taken up half an hour by talking about her own affairs.
Now I too wish to refer to the Rules, since I too am a Member of this House.
Even those of us who sit on the right are entitled to speak!
Mrs Muscardini, this matter is closed.
We are not going to reopen it with any more speeches.
Mr President, I am referring to the official seated on your right, who perhaps has no eyes to see this area of the Chamber, but who has looked at me five or six times.
I am asking to be allowed to speak in this House like everyone else. Otherwise we shall remain in the Chamber and not move from it!
Mrs Muscardini, I gave the floor to everyone who asked to speak the first time round.
Mr President, I do not wish to speak on the discussion. I wish to speak on the Rules of Procedure, not the discussion!
Mrs Muscardini, the officials advise the President, who conducts the sitting in the way he thinks most appropriate.
Of course, he may make mistakes, but he does try to move forward with the agenda.
Election of Quaestors (continuation)
We now come to the results of the second ballot for the election of Quaestors:
Members voting: 449 Blank or void: 13 Votes cast: 436 Absolute majority: 219
The results are as follows:
Mr Bardong: 225 votes Mr Killilea: 182 votes Mr Paasio: 216 votes Mr Viola: 171 votes
Mr Bardong has thus obtained an absolute majority of the votes cast, and I congratulate him on his election.
Two seats remain to be filled.
It is therefore necessary to hold a third ballot.
I would remind the House that, in the third ballot, a relative majority is sufficient for election to the seats that remain to be filled.
The ballot papers and envelopes have been distributed.
Since there are now only two seats to be filled, Members may not indicate more than two names.
In the event of a tie, the eldest candidates will be declared elected.
(The vote was taken) I would ask the tellers to go to Room 3 on the second floor to count the votes.
Dublin European Council - Irish presidency - WTO Conference
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report by the Council and the statement by the Commission on the meeting of the European Council of 1314 December 1996 in Dublin; -the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the six months of the Irish presidency, including the outcome of the Conference of the World Trade Organization in Singapore (9-13 December 1996).I give the floor to Mr Bruton, President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, at the outset I would like to congratulate you on your election and also pay tribute to Mr Hänsch for his excellent work when he held the office that you have now assumed.
The Irish presidency of the European Union, which has just concluded, was characterized by very close cooperation with Parliament.
There were about 40 separate meetings between Irish Ministers representing the presidency and various committees of Parliament.
I think it is fair to say that the Irish presidency proved to be a success.
If that is so, I believe it is so because we, in the presidency, listened closely to what Parliament was saying and tried to the best of our ability to translate the democratic mandate that you represent into concrete action at Council level.
We also were very anxious to ensure during our presidency that the citizens of Europe could actually understand the work we were doing and would identify with it; that they would say to themselves: this means something to us.
That is why, at the very outset of the presidency we took four phrases that would summarize in very understandable language what we were trying to do.
These were: secure jobs in Europe, safer streets in Europe, sound money in the pockets and purses of Europeans and peace for Europe, between Europe and its neighbours, and amongst its neighbours.
I am glad to say that we made progress during the six months on each of those four themes which are themes that everybody in Europe can understand as meaning something to them and their lives.
My report to Parliament here today will refer back to those four themes.
First of all, on the theme of sound money, it is fair to say that we made substantial progress at the Dublin Summit on the preparations for economic and monetary union.
In particular, the agreement on the Stability and Growth Pact, the agreement on the new Exchange Rate Mechanism and on the legal status of the Euro, which were concluded at the end of the Irish presidency were a major step towards sound money in the pockets and purses of Europeans.
I would particularly like to pay tribute to my colleague, Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, of Luxembourg, for his contribution at the meeting in Dublin to what we achieved.
On the question of safer streets in Europe, we were particularly successful.
Here we were dealing with a problem which is very much in the minds of Europeans: the safety that they experience, or do not experience, when they leave their homes, or even within their homes, from organized crime.
We all know that there is an increase in the level of violent crime.
There is perhaps not an increase in the absolute level of reported offences, but we have seen an increasing degree of violence associated with such offences as are committed.
A lot of this violent crime is associated with an increased traffic in illicit drugs.
I am glad to say that during the Irish presidency we achieved substantial movement forward in making the streets, and indeed the rural areas, of Europe safer for our citizens.
We agreed a resolution on serious illicit drug trafficking.
We agreed a joint action on the approximation of laws and practices of police, customs services and administrative authorities in the fight against drug addiction and illegal drug trafficking.
We agreed a five-year programme to assist people who are drug-dependent at the moment to reduce their dependency and to reduce the incidence of drug dependency, and we agreed a programme of closer cooperation between our customs authorities and business in the fight against drugs so that the border-free Europe that we have created will not be something that can be easily exploited by those engaged in crime.
Furthermore, we took a very important decision in Dublin when we agreed to commission a major report on organized crime, which the Dutch presidency will receive in April this year.
The other important objective is that of secure jobs for Europeans.
In a real sense that represents the biggest challenge of all.
If people are dependent on drugs and as a result of being dependent on drugs create a market for criminals, in many cases that is because they have no other way of making their life tolerable.
They have no employment, no hope, no sense of dignity, no sense that their lives mean anything, and in an attempt to blot all that out, they turn to narcotics.
If you look, for example, at the use of heroin in Dublin, the city I am most familiar with, there is a very close correlation between the level of long-term unemployment in a particular and closely identifiable geographical area, and the level of heroin abuse.
Heroin abuse is confined to areas of long-term unemployment.
Soft drugs - other drugs - are to be found everywhere, but heroin directly relates closely to longterm unemployment.
That shows that there is a link between the problem of unemployment and many of the other problems we encounter as a society.
We adopted the Dublin Declaration on Employment.
That declaration recognizes that at the end of the day the primary responsibility for the creation of employment rests, in the first place, with national governments, but in practice, with the market economy.
It rests with firms and individuals, either improving their own training capacity so that they become more employable or, if they are firms, expanding their markets so that they need more people working for them.
It is an illusion to pretend that political institutions can solve the employment problem.
They cannot, whether they be national institutions or European institutions.
We should not raise expectations that bear no accord with reality.
There is a risk with declarations about employment.
We are engaged in a process of self-delusion if we believe that by adopting declarations or even spending large sums of money, we, as politicians, are going to solve the employment problem.
We are not.
We may improve the framework, we may improve the setting in which people will make the decisions that will create the jobs.
But it is on the shoulders of people themselves that the big responsibility lies.
In my view, the most important action we can take as far as employment is concerned is in the area of education and retraining.
I believe that is the biggest challenge for the European Union.
Education is an area where traditionally the European Union has stood back and regarded that as, firstly, a national responsibility.
We have, on the other hand, been very involved in the area of training.
But is there really a clear distinction in the modern world between training and education? Is not all training educational and, in a sense, does not all education have a training dimension?
In a sense perhaps, if we are to talk in a profound way about making Europeans more employable, we have to talk about improving their skills, their education and their attitudes of mind.
Increasingly in a modern world that is governed by information technology and advances in science it is not one's ability to do something that determines how employable one is. It is one's ability to think, to communicate, to arrange facts in a particular configuration and to process information.
That is what determines one's employability.
That capacity is not something that you train people to have, it is something that you educate people to have - educating people, if you like, to find the strength that is already within them; educating them to realize that most of us only achieve 10 % of our potential and encouraging them to discover the remaining 90 %.
That is the challenge of employment in Europe: encouraging Europeans to have more confidence in their own ability.
That is the profound challenge as far as employment is concerned.
While I share the disappointment in Parliament that we have not provided funds for the TENs, let us not pretend that it is the crucial issue as far as employment is concerned: it is not!
It is at the level of education and training that the problem of employment for Europeans - the employability of Europeans - into the 21st century will be determined.
I wish to refer, finally, to the fourth priority I mentioned, which was a peaceful Europe and peace between Europe and its neighbours and around Europe.
It is fair to say that during the Irish presidency Europe became more recognized as a player in the Middle East peace process, as a result of the first Dublin Summit.
I am glad that, perhaps in part as a result of Europe's involvement, we have now at last reached the point where this morning an agreement on Hebron was initialled between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Arafat.
We have also seen a qualitative improvement in our relationship with the United States during the Irish presidency.
The action taken by the President of the United States in regard to suspension of the operation of Title 3 of the Helms-Burton act can be directly traced to the success of the pre-Christmas Summit between the European Union and the United States.
We are handing the presidency on to the Netherlands, one of the founding members of the European Union.
I am very confident that it will do an excellent job - and it is already doing so.
It is very important that we should do everything possible to ensure that the Treaty is concluded in Amsterdam.
If it is not concluded in Amsterdam on time as planned, the whole process of enlargement will be postponed and all the strategic considerations flowing from it will be left unaddressed.
Everybody is aware that the timing of elections in different countries has a bearing on decision-making.
But if decisions have to be made - and they do have to be made - it is probably better to make them in a month than it is to take four months to make them.
I do not believe that there is any great case for prolonging the agony.
We know that some of the decisions on the table will be unpleasant for all of us - not the same ones for each country, of course.
We might as well do the job in Amsterdam as postpone it, and I hope that is what happens.
I wish to conclude my few remarks here by saying that Europe, as I see it, has been looking inward for the last three or four years: we have been looking inward at the project of a single currency, the project of a new Treaty, the project of the single internal market.
Our thinking is very introspective - and necessarily so - because unless we get things in order internally we shall not be able to take external action.
But I hope that the next phase of Europe's development will be more outward-looking once we have got this business out of the way.
There are major philosophical, cultural and ethical challenges facing the world in respect of which Europe can, and should, be a major player.
If I were to state the major challenge currently facing European politicians it is not the question of what instruments we find to deal with the problems of the single currency, or what the precise relationship is between Parliament and the Commission or between the Council and Parliament. Those sorts of issues are important to all of us here, but perhaps they are not very important to our citizens.
What is important is: do our citizens understand the philosophical, ethical and cultural project in which we are engaged for the 21st century? Do we understand the ethical issue that is posed for us by the huge increase in population in Africa, the problem of poor people surrounding this increasingly small island of privilege which is Europe?
Do we understand, and have we a means of coping with, the ethical questions that arise in regard to the way in which we are using up so much of the resources of the world? If we do a demographic projection forward 50 years, we know we cannot continue doing so or allowing other countries to do so.
There is, if you like, a demographic and an environmental time bomb which we need to defuse and we need to have a sense of understanding that enables us to do that.
Through technology we have created a global market: money can now move within seconds from one part of the world to the other.
But, as all of us know, markets are not based on rules alone, they are based on a shared ethic.
Unless there is a shared cultural understanding of the basis of business, no business will be possible in the long term.
Do we have a global ethic? Do we understand the ethics of business on a world-wide scale, or is the global marketplace that we have created going to be an area empty of ethical principles where people simply exploit one another without any concern for the consequences?
Do we understand this, as we inevitably rush towards ever higher incomes for people who are at the very top of the scale in terms of their capacity to exploit this global marketplace? Do we understand that this means that there are still a large number of people who are completely left behind?
Is it not the case that, in a sense, globalization is adding to income inequality in Europe?
And what is that doing to the solidarity that is so necessary for Europeans to feel a sense of identity, a sense of citizenship?
Has the underlying sense of what we are caught up with the global reality?
Each of us has a sense, if you scratch us hard enough, of what we are: Irish patriots, French patriots, British patriots, Scottish patriots or whatever.
Is that sense of what we are - this very nationallycentred sense of what we are - really a relevant form of definition for a world which is now global, where people of one ethnic group can move physically within 24 hours and, in terms of their transactions, within a millisecond, from one culture to another? This form of self-definition, this cultural identity that we retain from pre-war years, is not actually adequate to the world we have created in the global marketplace.
Once the IGC is out of the way and the single currency is established - no minor task I admit - the debate in Europe is going to move into an area of philosophy, culture and ethics.
If it moves into that area the public will become much more interested in Europe than they are today.
The gap between citizens and the Institutions will be narrowed, because then we will be talking about things that people themselves worry about and we will be defining Europe in terms that directly affect the sort of philosophical sense that people have of the relevance of their own lives.
That is the challenge for Europe in the years ahead.
(Applause)
Thank you for your statement, Mr Bruton, and for your kind opening words to the Chair.
I now give the floor to Mr Santer, on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I would like to begin by congratulating you and also by congratulating the Taoiseach and his colleagues in government on the excellent conduct of Ireland's six-month presidency of the Union.
It has been a period marked by a strong focus, hard work and considerable success.
In the most effective and emphatic way possible, it has given the lie to those who argue that a rotating presidency among all Member States should no longer operate in future.
You have established, Taoiseach, beyond doubt - and in Ireland's case, not for the first time - the capacity of smaller Member States to discharge their responsibilities to good effect, confounding many of those critics at Member State level who argue trenchantly for change.
I would also like to pay tribute to Ireland's public service which, though relatively small in number, has managed to rise to the challenge of preparing and coping with the presidency and, in many instances, chairing many of the 2, 000 and more meetings that are part and parcel of the work of the presidency.
Given the uncertainty that surrounded the issue prior to the Dublin II Summit, perhaps the single most significant political achievement was the agreement of the Stability Pact as part of the necessary preparations for economic and monetary union.
As well as obtaining agreement on the legal status of the Euro and the general principles of ERM II, the Irish presidency has maintained and deepened the momentum towards a single currency.
Here again, the capacity of smaller Member States to act as honest brokers, mediating between larger states, was well illustrated and underlined by the Irish presidency with the assistance, as has been acknowledged here today, of the Luxembourg Prime Minister.
The Liberal Group, however, is disappointed with the sluggish and begrudging progress to date on a number of the liberalization dossiers, especially in telecommunications and postal services.
This is not a direct failure of the presidency but rather a failure of the collective will of the Council itself.
More disturbingly it is a failure to appreciate the competitive dynamics of a more open global economy - of which the Taoiseach spoke so eloquently - an issue which, if not addressed, would cost Europe jobs in the long-run rather than protect European jobs, as many of the proponents of the current status quo seem to believe.
It is in the area of the intergovernmental conference that the Irish presidency has passed on its greatest legacy.
The draft treaty is marked by both ambition and realism and is a credit to its main author, Mr Noel Dorr.
However, at the institutional level and on the question of flexibility, we are disappointed that more progress has not been made. It would be unfortunate if, in the end, we were bounced into ill-thought-out or ill-conceived solutions without due reflection and debate because this will be crucial to our effective ability to cope with enlargement - a point, again, which the Taoiseach quite correctly emphasized as the next major challenge beyond the IGC.
Mr President, although there is no Irish contingent in my group at present - but there is an associated party, which incidentally forms part of the Irish Government - I also wish to express my group's thanks for the work of the Irish team at the head of the Council presidency.
Mr Bruton makes profound and brilliant speeches, and his Minister for European Affairs has conducted his relations with the European Parliament in an exemplary way.
Having said that, I must also express my group's concern and disappointment at the outcome of the summit, although I appreciate that the incoming Dutch presidency will cast a more favourable light on the Irish presidency.
And what is the reason for our concern and disappointment? It is the weakness of the proposals concerning the institutional reforms aimed at democratizing the European institutions and improving their operation, above all with a view to enlargement.
We certainly welcome the proposed new chapter on employment, but the draft treaty contains no reference to safeguarding public services or to the orchestration of job-creating policies.
We regret the fact that no provision has been made for genuine progress on the issue of citizenship, and we have the impression that the most important decisions on the reforms will be taken at the last minute, without transparency and without directly informing either the citizens or those who represent them, so that they can discuss things in a responsible way.
We do not agree with some of the statements which have been made concerning employment and the rehabilitation policies.
We do not believe that the tough budgetary rehabilitation policies that are linked to the introduction of the euro automatically mean an increase in production and jobs.
We disagree with that.
We believe that they are leading to the growth of unemployment and a corresponding rise in financial speculation.
It is essential for speculative financial transactions in Europe to be taxed.
There are the new possibilities for employment in the environmental and social fields, but they are not enough.
We feel that there is a need to reconsider the third stage of economic and monetary union, and to reflect again on the effects which are being produced in some national economies and societies.
And we strongly disagree with the thrust of the pact on stability and growth.
Indeed, the pact on stability and growth will impose conditions on the future budgetary policies of national governments and give rise to serious problems for some Member States.
With regard to a citizens' Europe, we support the measures to combat drug trafficking - and the campaign against the laundering of profits from drug trafficking must be stepped up - but we regret the fact that the decision to create a European observatory for racism and xenophobia has not been taken.
On external relations, we fully agree with the approach adopted to the Palestine question, but we regret the excessive tolerance and understanding shown towards the Turkish Government.
The Turkish Government's record on respect for human rights does not justify it being treated in this way, since it is increasingly violating the human rights of its citizens and especially those of the Kurdish people.
We should also like to see more decisive action to promote cooperation between the European Union and Cuba, with full reciprocal guarantees, and with a view to fostering democracy in that country.
I do not have time to say more, Mr President-in-Office, but I wish to say that our criticisms are made in good faith, and that we hope that your excellent work bears fruit in the future at the Intergovernmental Conference.
I shall end by saying, without a trace of irony: may God help us in these difficult times, since we are unable to trust in Europe's institutions alone.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, do you recall the atmosphere in December?
How we looked forward, Mr Santer, to the presents that we were due to receive in Dublin!
Then everything was suddenly very festive - I must admit that I only saw it on television myself - and it was time to hand out the gifts.
The Euro-Santas opened their sacks and distributed presents as the cameras rolled.
Do you remember? John Major was pleased because he got everything he had wanted.
Mr Chirac said that Dublin had given us an image of a new Europe.
Chancellor Kohl made some suitably seasonal remarks about the caravan moving on.
Mr Bruton and Mr Santer, I am glad to say, spared a thought for those people excluded by society, and said that unemployment was unacceptably high and respected no national borders.
Everyone was so happy and content and full of Christmas spirit, it was almost too good to be true.
The words that came into my mind at the time were different: very different indeed, and more honest.
They were spoken not by any of the representatives at the summit, but by someone else altogether.
Politics, this person said, could be defined as the implementation of economic goals with the help of legislation.
The speaker was Kurt Tucholsky in 1919, and he represented no government, but he might have said the same thing had he been sitting round the afternoon tea table in Dublin Castle.
His incisive comment accurately reflects what became of the desperately needed and much-heralded project of reform.
It became a project to assist the functioning of the economy even further; a project in which basic universal rights have been reduced to mere aspirations and - as Mr Bruton said - postponed to some indeterminate date in the future; a project that limits the Eastern European countries' involvement in Europe to the role of auxiliary policemen in the fight against organized crime.
Of course, the main theme in Dublin was growth.
I also wish to see growth, and plenty of it - but growth of a very different kind.
Instead of growing profits and growing environmental damage, I wish to see growth in democracy and social justice, and a more sensible approach to the environment. I wish to see Europe growing and therefore I wish to see it as an entity, and those objectives are linked, neither takes precedence over the other.
This kind of Europe urgently needs a basis of democracy and the rule of law for the benefit of its people.
The document that was drawn up for the Intergovernmental Conference also refers to the benefit of the people, but only on the title page.
The text itself really has very little to do with democracy: it proposes no increase in transparency or consultation, no increase in rights of participation, nor in democratic control.
I ask you: is it not deceitful for the Heads of Government to play the role of European democrats at home and then to support undemocratic goings-on in Dublin? The truth is that the stability pact which was agreed in Dublin is a kind of works constitution for what might be called the European Union plc - a company governed by rigid stability rules, according to a code of its own.
Firstly, the EU as a location for business is sacrosanct, and protecting and promoting it as such is our highest duty.
Secondly, economic interests are guaranteed a free rein. No one can be obliged against their better judgement to protect the environment or to defend social and democratic rights.
Everything else will be taken care of by Europol and the euro, as if the euro and Europol were actually the key, the instant cure for all our problems, as if securing these two things would really benefit the people.
No one who was genuinely pro-European could wish to have that kind of Europe!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, now that the European Council in Dublin has finally got the single currency up and running, I shall confine my remarks to the work done at the Intergovernmental Conference.
As we said previously, in a resolution during December, the draft of the Treaty as revised by the Irish presidency - which I congratulate - has the great merit of providing a progress report on the IGC, which features a total deadlock in the field of institutional reforms and a complete absence of any will to move forward on the part of certain governments.
My group believes that no one can afford the luxury of a wait-and-see policy, which involves the risk of last-minute bargaining, with uncertain and unpredictable results and, a fortiori, a threat not only to enlargement, which would be bad enough, but also to the future of the Union in general.
We are convinced that Parliament must conceive a strategy, over and above its role of making suggestions, which it must of course continue.
What should be the strategy of this House over the remaining six months, apart from the notable efforts of our two observers and the adoption of our resolutions? A question which is all the more relevant in that the assent procedure does not apply to the results of the negotiations.
I think it worth reminding the House that, on the occasion of the last enlargement, it undertook not to accept any further enlargements without sweeping institutional reforms.
That means, among other things, a genuine procedure of codecision between the European Parliament and the Council, the abolition of the unanimous vote, the establishment of the Commission at the centre of the Union's institutional system and a tougher cooperation clause to prevent any future deadlock or paralysis.
In conclusion, I should like to call formally upon President Santer to align the Commission with Parliament in this battle.
The Commission is, de facto, the guardian of the Treaties.
It would be incurring a serious responsibility if it were to fail to caution public opinion and the Member States against the dangers of any enlargement which is not preceded by a genuine institutional reform.
Mr President, the European Council in Dublin once again highlighted the disagreement between those States for which the single currency is merely an instrument of economic regulation and those for which it is a central element of policy.
In aligning themselves with the German arguments, which favour upgrading the workforce rather than a policy designed to give fresh impetus to global demand, some French leaders are committing a fateful strategic error and a major economic misjudgment.
What benefit can there be for France, or for the United States or the United Kingdom, in bringing about the creation of a massive central European bloc under the control of a Germany which a traditional balance-of-power policy would make it easy to contain? European integration has changed its nature.
The utopia of Jean Monnet has given way to an area of widespread rivalries, a gigantic poker game in which the stake is European hegemony.
A new strategy for an old objective!
Furthermore, the stability pact, to which the word 'growth' has been added for the sake of expediency, is tending to establish an economic model which is extraordinarily rigid and constricting for the Member States.
Thus, not only would their monetary policy be imposed upon them - the same would apply to their budgetary, fiscal and social policies, in other words virtually all their policies.
In the business world, assets only exist if they are profitable.
General De Gaulle once said that policy in France was not just a matter of money.
Those who claim that everything should be left to market forces are really burying their heads in the sand.
In the face of this obvious truth, the participants in the Dublin talks have resigned themselves to soft growth and relocation, fully aware of the evil consequences that this policy of abandonment will have for employment and social cohesion.
Ladies and gentlemen, you know that the criteria for the single currency will be nowhere near being satisfied in 1997 and that the real decision will not be taken until the French general election in 1998.
At any time, whatever decision may be taken, the French people can be asked to give its opinion in a referendum on Europe.
That is something you cannot change!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, the Dublin summit will probably be remembered as an important step towards the achievement of economic and monetary union, a major political objective for Europe, on the planned date of 1 January 1999.
So we must pay tribute, Mr President-in-Office, to the work done under your leadership during the past six months of the Irish presidency.
Apart from the significant progress achieved in the monetary field, the Irish presidency - in line with its stated priorities - has succeeded in achieving a broad consensus on the approaches to be adopted in future with regard to employment policy, and on improving the future coordination of activities to combat the drug trade, organized crime, terrorism and the sexual exploitation of children.
We must therefore congratulate the Irish presidency on its excellent results, and thank it for the efforts it has made to achieve those results.
The conclusion of the stability and growth pact, which can be seen as a decisive step towards the introduction of the single currency, will no doubt be the most striking achievement of this summit in terms of its impact on the future of European integration.
A Gallup poll conducted in four States of the European Union - Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy - clearly shows that our fellow citizens are in no doubt as to the magnitude of the issue at stake, whether they view it with enthusiasm or apprehension.
And that issue is not purely technical or economic, but political in the strongest sense of the word.
The introduction of the single currency, the euro, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, is an acid test we cannot evade.
If the process is not completed, European integration will be no more than it is today - a single market and a customs union, but one that tends to merge more and more into a vast free trade area, open and exposed to all the currents of globalization.
But if the process succeeds, then the European Union, strengthened by the new solidarity and disciplines created by monetary union, will become a true economic power on the international scene, and then, with the benefit of its reformed institutions, a political power too.
We are talking not just about a development but about a real change in the process of European integration.
If we want that change to be a success, we need the process of the reform of the European institutions to move forward in step with it. That process has now been prepared by the intergovernmental conference, but has not yet really begun.
It will be up to the Dutch presidency to take over the baton and ensure that the Amsterdam summit is the counterpart, for the institutions, of what the Dublin summit has been for the currency.
Mr President, I should like to add my congratulations to the Irish Government on the excellent way in which it has conducted the presidency.
I shall devote my one minute to the institutional question.
As it would appear from the final declaration from Dublin, this issue has in fact hardly been touched on, and that need not surprise us, because the Irish presidency has put forward few proposals on the subject, taking the view that the most important and most delicate institutional matters should be left to the final round of negotiations.
This means that we may have many hopes, but also must have many fears, and that in any case we must be very vigilant.
One point where vigilance is required is the danger that third pillar matters may be removed from the third pillar - not to the first, but to an institutional limbo where no individual parliament can then exercise controls.
Mr President, I would like to welcome our Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, here and congratulate the Irish presidency, including our civil servants, on the hard work they have put in.
I agree about the rotating presidency; it should continue.
However, having said that, I do not agree with the outcome.
I do not think anything the Irish presidency did halted efforts to make the European Union a military superpower or to stop the widening of the gap between rich and poor, which is the likely outcome of EMU.
'Adapting the European Union for the Benefit of its Peoples' is the title given to the document outlining the draft changes of the Treaty.
This is totally misleading.
Some changes to the security section of the document propose greater militarization of the European Union.
The only people who would benefit from this would be the arms manufacturers.
It is a tragedy that the Irish Government failed, and in fact, did not even try, to have adequate safeguards included in the draft changes to protect Irish neutrality and did not propose that the objective of disarmament be written into the Treaty.
In fact, the draft changes would deepen the European Union's relationship with the nuclear armed Western European Union and pave the way for the eventual merger between the two bodies.
The Stability Pact for the EMU, brokered in Dublin, is not something to be joyful about, although furthering the battle against unemployment was a stated objective of the Irish presidency.
It played second fiddle to the rush to get agreement on the Euro.
Mr Quinn, the Finance Minister, has described EMU as fundamentally a political project, but he has failed to identify any political benefits which will come from it, or allay fears that it will simply widen the gap between rich and poor.
I also believe it will be an act of folly for Ireland to join EMU if Britain remains outside, as appears increasingly likely.
Less than one-third of Ireland's trade is with the probable founding countries of EMU, while 70 % of it is with Britain and the rest of the world.
Mr President, I also want to say hello to the Taoiseach and thank him for his marvellous, spontaneous remarks here today.
I think congratulations have already been extended.
You can see, Taoiseach, the respect Members here have for what you and your colleagues have done during the Irish presidency.
It must certainly be a source of great encouragement to you.
I am very proud of what you have achieved and you should rightly be proud of a job very well done.
I think this summit will be judged a resounding success at many levels.
I will just single out three different areas.
Firstly, the Irish presidency was entrusted with the task of producing a draft treaty to replace Maastricht.
Not only did you do this on time, as promised, but you also came forward with a 140-page document which, unlike the present Treaty, can be easily read by ordinary citizens and, most importantly, they can make sense of it on that first reading.
Secondly, the draft shows that progress has been made at the IGC on a number of key institutional questions. Foremost amongst these is the recognition of the need to further democratize decision-making.
I particularly welcome the commitment to streamline the codecision procedure, thus putting both sides of the European Union legislature, the Council of Ministers representing the Member States and us, in the European Parliament, representing the people, on a truly equal footing.
I also welcome the commitment to extend the scope of codecision.
I acknowledge, however, that these are merely commitments in principle. They will have to be fleshed out.
I hope that the ambition shown by the Irish presidency, culminating in the draft treaty, can now be fulfilled in time for the Amsterdam Summit.
The second main area of success was undoubtedly EMU.
Many speakers have alluded to this.
Progress was made on the new European monetary system, the legal status of the Euro, and the Stability and Growth Pact.
Had these decisions been fudged, the entire EMU project would have been undermined.
It is vital that these successes are now accompanied by further measures which strengthen democratic control, protect the rights of consumers and fully inform ordinary people about the changeover to the single currency so that the prophets of doom will not be proved right.
If the EMU is to win public confidence, this must be done.
The explanation must be available, it must be clear and it must be transmitted by a willing media.
Finally, I welcome the Dublin Declaration on Employment.
This declaration is one of the most significant signs that I have seen, as a Parliamentarian, that our demands can influence the direction of the European Council.
Mr Santer will tell you that time after time after time, we talk here about employment.
Now we see action in the form of this Dublin Declaration on Employment.
The declaration must now be followed up by real action as set out in specific instruments, realistic targets and effective timetables.
The European Union must aim for greater coordination of employment policies and a growthorientated macro-economic policy.
The Dutch presidency must follow on with specific measures on improving education, more relevant training, Community-based employment initiatives and giving priority to youth unemployment and life-long learning.
Taoiseach, you have mentioned the importance of training and education and the connection with drug-taking in cities such as Dublin.
I appreciate that you actually understand the demands and needs of the ordinary people.
Again, I congratulate you and wish you well.
I am glad to see that the Irish media are here in force this month.
I hope that they will report back so that the Irish public will be informed of the high esteem in which our leadership is held.
Mr President, there are a number of key issues on the basis of which one can assess Dublin and the Dublin document, and the first of these is openness.
What have we achieved on this? We have Article 189b on codecision based on common rules, but no real progress.
With regard to bringing the Union closer to its citizens, there is a statement on extending the acquis communautaire .
Not one decision is being given back to the Member States, something which Mr Santer has repeatedly said would be desirable, however.
On democracy, there is to be codecision in a number of areas which we do not yet know about, but less parliamentary democracy overall, because more powers are being given to the EU.
On employment, incentive measures are to be implemented, but there are no jobs to replace those being lost in the adjustment to the third stage of economic and monetary union.
On enlargement, it can presumably be expected that a few wealthy Central and Eastern European countries or the richest among them will be able to join in 2005, but there is no mention of speeding up enlargement to include them all.
And on the environment, there are some fine words, but no real changes are being made, except that the procedure established by the Court of Justice - which ruled that the environmental guarantee was unlawful and turned it into a derogation, whereby the Commission had to approve any divergences in the Member States - is now actually being confirmed.
So that is a real step backwards.
As regards the six key areas, or six key issues, identified by Denmark, one has to say that no progress is being made.
On the contrary, we are getting everything we do not want: Union citizenship, police, armed forces, a single currency and resources for a federal state, and it will hardly surprise you, Mr President, that I am unable to support that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are three points I should like to raise in connection with this morning's debate.
I don't see that the Irish presidency has all that much to be complacent about.
Its muchvaunted monetary policy is costing us extremely dear, and the pact for employment is in conflict with market forces in the context of the shackles imposed by monetary union.
The real problem, the problem of the undervaluation of the dollar, has never been addressed.
We also hear much about successes on the law and order front.
Well, I can tell you that in 1950 France recorded 250, 000 crimes and offences within her territory.
In 1995, that figure had risen to 4.5 million.
That trend is the same in most European countries, and no significant decrease has been recorded this year.
The President-in-Office said a little while ago that the need to make life tolerable might explain a degree of delinquency, and especially the urge to take drugs.
But, in this area, I believe that what makes life hard to tolerate is this civilization of enlightenment, cold, hard enlightenment that disregards the needs of human warmth, needs that are satisfied by a sense of family, by religious faith and by the greatly underrated sentiment of patriotism.
Mr President, the presidency of these last six months, of which Dublin II was the summit in both senses of the word, has been the presidency of a small country.
As a Luxemburger I welcome the success of the Irish presidency, which proves, if proof were needed, that political commitment to Europe is not dependent on a country's size or the size of its population.
In passing, may I say that I also welcome Mr Bruton's recognition of the part played by the Prime Minister of Luxembourg in the Dublin compromise on monetary union.
Ireland's success should convince us that the rotating presidency system remains a valuable one.
It gives each Member State, large or small, the chance to show its commitment to Europe and its effectiveness, whatever the size of its government.
And I believe there is a lesson to be learned here for the purposes of the institutional discussion at the intergovernmental conference.
Mr President, the process of European integration is slow, and calls for patience.
We must not be tempted to create the illusion of a great leap forward.
The Dublin summit, for example, resolved nothing as far as employment is concerned.
President Santer's pact of confidence for employment, greeted so enthusiastically by this House, did not receive the necessary political boost - nor, as Mr Bruton said, did the plans for the Trans-European Networks.
We, as socialists, remain convinced that employment is the central duty of Europe.
It is of course, as Mr Bruton said, a philosophical question, a philosophical choice.
Europe will be saved not by profit but by investment, by training, and I agree with what the Irish Prime Minister said about the importance of that subject.
Europe will be saved, too, by ecological and social standards.
Our citizens do not understand that capitalism, to use that big word, may have been 'civilized' in the twentieth century in a national context but that it cannot be in a European context.
Mr President, employment, social standards, economic and social cohesion - we as socialists see these things as forming an indissoluble whole.
A final word, Mr President.
I should like to pay particular tribute to the efforts of the Irish presidency in the field of internal security.
We, as socialists, want to see much of what we call the third pillar entering the Community domain, and we shall support the efforts made to that end by the future Dutch and Luxemburgish presidencies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to thank the Irish presidency.
The Taoiseach himself invested a great deal of interest and initiative in the success of the presidency, but in a personal capacity I should also like to say how much I appreciated the good cooperation of Gay Mitchell and Noel Dorr, who made important contributions on employment and the Intergovernmental Conference from the European Parliament's point of view.
The Irish presidency has smoothed the way for the last six months of the negotiations surrounding the Intergovernmental Conference.
The agreement that was reached on the outstanding problems in connection with monetary union has freed us to focus our attention on the Intergovernmental Conference.
Monetary union is the final cornerstone of economic integration.
The next step must be a move towards greater political integration.
I believe that this monetary union will help to make Europe more competitive, and will contribute to an increase in stability and the creation of more jobs, and I do not share the view of Mr de Gaulle that monetary union will make one country dominant: on the contrary, monetary union will produce a sensible sharing of responsibility between the Member States of the European Union and will not make any country dominant.
From Parliament's point of view, the Irish presidency has taken an important step in the paper which it has drawn up for the Intergovernmental Conference.
In fact, it has proposed a Treaty text that would make codecision the standard procedure for approving legislation.
We should like to think that this will be the basis of the negotiating approach under the Dutch presidency, in terms of content and method.
The document also proposes an extension of qualified majority voting, which we need if we are to develop the Union's capacity for action and prepare it for enlargement.
The letter from Germany and France contains a proposal that this should, in fact, become the norm, from which there would be certain specified exceptions - in other words, the procedure would be reversed.
If we could combine these two concepts, we would achieve the breakthrough on institutional reform that we so urgently need.
I have no time to mention many other issues, and in particular the progress which was made on prioritizing thirdpillar policies in the area of foreign affairs and security.
Let me mention briefly two further points in the time I have left.
We must take care to see that we do not reach a situation in which the role of parliaments is downgraded - and the European Parliament is in the same boat as national parliaments in this respect - nor must we allow the creation of a new third chamber.
Above all, we should like to point out that there can be no talk of the success of the Intergovernmental Conference until the European Parliament has full budgetary powers.
That will be a key point for us when it comes to evaluating the outcome of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, the six months of the Irish presidency have been a period of intensive and productive effort.
The Dublin European Council last month set a positive seal on the four main priorities announced by the presidency at the start of its term of office. Our group welcomes this and would like to remind the House of these priorities.
They include the following points: the adoption of an important series of measures in the area of justice and home affairs; the progress made in respect of economic and monetary union, for example the approval of the structure of the new exchange rate mechanism; the agreement on the rules establishing the legal framework for the euro; the approval of the principles and main features of the growth and stability pact designed to ensure budgetary rigour in the economic and monetary union; the important results concerning the growth and employment strategy, which led to the adoption of a declaration on employment, in other words a common programme to identify a broad range of measures to be implemented at national and Community level, to strengthen the synergy between the macro-economic and structural policies in the Member States' programmes for employment and growth; and the presentation, as requested by the Florence European Council, of a general outline document for a draft revision of the Treaties, focusing on three main objectives - bringing the Union closer to its citizens, strengthening and broadening the common foreign and security policy, with the aim of achieving greater consistency and efficiency, and ensuring, with an eye to enlargement, the proper functioning of the institutions and the efficiency of the decision-making process.
This document represents a sound basis for the negotiations which lie ahead, making it possible - by means of a more determined search for balance and compromise - to achieve the aims and aspirations contained in the preamble, and to arrive at the date set for the ending of the IGC - June 1997 - with a new, updated Treaty on European Union which is equal to the challenges of the twenty-first century, above all the future enlargement.
Mr President, the Irish presidency has other merits, which I shall not list here because time is short.
Ireland has now handed over to the Netherlands; let us all unite to contribute in a productive, clear and cohesive way to the next six months of building Europe.
Mr President, because of lack of time, I shall restrict myself to a brief and thus incomplete political assessment of the Ministerial Conference in Singapore.
In general terms, one can say that the results were positive.
The World Trade Organization has emerged strengthened from the conference.
One of the major gains was certainly the reaching of a multilateral agreement on information technology - the key sector for today and the future, which already has a worldwide turnover of USD 400 billion.
The establishment of a working group on public procurement is definitely important.
This will enable further proposals to be drawn up on competition, investment and transparency in public spending.
Unfortunately, we also have to note that little or no progress has been made on other issues, some of which were among our priorities.
On the environment, we can say that nothing at all has been achieved.
Even worse, the subject was hardly mentioned.
As regards the social clauses, the situation is that, in terms of our positions, very little has been achieved.
But our efforts were not entirely in vain: the fact that the social clause and, in particular, the reference to minimum labour standards were included in the final declaration can be regarded as a victory, given the very strong opposition from the developing countries.
On the institutional side, the fact that the European Parliament was able to put forward its proposals on the spot, for the very first time since GATT came into being, strengthens our role in the general decision-making of the Union.
However, it remains the case that Parliament's status at such a conference is unclear. Amongst other things, it does not allow us to exercise real control over the Commission.
We should give our full attention to this aspect in future, especially in the light of the revision of the Treaties, and with a view to the next conference of the World Trade Organization.
Mr President, the Dublin Summit was yet another step towards the exacerbation of poverty and unemployment in the European Union.
Ignoring the intense disappointment and indignation felt by European citizens, the leaders of the Union's Member States went ahead and accepted the anti-populist stability pact, disregarded the dramatic consequences for the productive base, employment and social welfare in all the countries, especially the poorer ones, and insisted on imposing the so-called curative policies, in other words intense one-sided austerity, further dislocation of the labour market and strict financial adaptation, which are strangling development.
The Dublin Summit contributed to the further militarization of the European Union, a fact which intensifies the disquiet of Europe's peoples, who are striving for peace and social prosperity and for the dissolution of cold-war relics such as NATO and the Western European Union, peoples which demand binding national referenda to express their opinion and decide for themselves what Europe's future should be.
Concerning enlargement, Mr President, I should like to record my grave concern about the presidency's apparent intention that negotiations on the possible future accession of Cyprus to the European Union should not go ahead exclusively with the legitimate Cyprus Government, a concern whose intensity increases in light of the continuing silence of the European Union's institutional bodies in the face of statements by Turkish government and military agencies threatening military action against Cyprus in response to its reinforcement of its own defence.
The European Union must unequivocally condemn this aggressive attitude and action by Turkey.
Mr President, we all know that the WTO has a central role to play in the fair regulation of international trade relations.
The holding of the Singapore Conference thus represents an undeniable advance, valuable in defining agreements that will help to move mankind forward in the right direction.
But that conference has highlighted some very different approaches and concepts, especially as regards social standards.
To think it sufficient to stress that problem in a final declaration and then go away with a clear conscience, or to believe that it is enough to refer the question to the ILO on the pretext that international trade and social rights should be kept separate, is irresponsible to say the least, especially bearing in mind the limitations of that institution's power to act.
I would call this a retreat forwards. Above all, it demonstrates the political desire of certain Union governments to submerge the question of social standards in the WTO.
I take a very dim view of the Union's failure to present a united front.
We were not all singing from the same hymn book in this area, which played into the hands of certain developing countries.
I take a very dim view of it because the Union could, and should, have done more to achieve the setting-up of a working group on social standards within the WTO.
Mr President, I understand that it is not always easy to arrive at the best compromise at such difficult meetings as Singapore.
But I find it shocking, and even pathetic, that developed countries could barter information technologies, whisky and brandy for the exploitation of millions of children who are being forced to work - work to death, in some cases - and whose numbers are still growing according to the ILO itself.
You will understand my reaction, which is that humanity should take precedence over financial gain, a reaction that keeps faith with the values of democracy, solidarity and humanitarianism.
My profound desire is that the Union should take strong action against any failure to respect human rights in the field of labour, and that it should not hesitate to take the necessary steps when specific illegal acts become known, as in Burma and elsewhere.
So we have a choice. Either we succeed in introducing social standards into the WTO, or we shall see the proliferation of social struggles in countries regarded as politically and socially stable.
What is happening in South Korea today should be seen as a grave warning.
Mr President, the Irish proposal covers issues which are of the utmost importance.
There has already been a good deal of debate about these and I have no wish to go over the same ground again.
Who could fail to approve in principle of the programmes that have been outlined: on the issue of fundamental rights, for example, or freedom of movement, on strengthening the common foreign and security policy and doing more to combat crime? The people who elected us - and to pre-empt Mr Brok, that means one third of the voters in Austria - also appreciate the importance of all these values and know that we must go on working to maintain and consolidate them.
But they know too that the Member States and their representatives are broadly of one mind on the basic issues which the document addresses in detail.
What they do not know is what the Intergovernmental Conference will make of the Treaty as a whole, in other words to what extent the Treaty that is arrived at will differ from the one to which they gave their approval.
That is why we regret the fact - which has been mentioned by a number of speakers - that some important practical questions for Europe's future, in particular institutional questions, have been left unresolved for tactical reasons, and discussion of them has been postponed.
We do not believe that we shall be able to counter people's anxiety regarding future developments or achieve the much-vaunted goal of transparency if we keep the public in the dark.
On the contrary, that would serve to heighten their concern about creeping centralism, as would remarks such as those made by Commissioner Fischler, who told an Austrian newspaper that he would flatly reject the European Parliament being involved in deciding his budget.
Concerns of this nature are also being aroused, however, by the planned extension of majority decision-making and the suggestion from the presidency, in its conclusions on the second Dublin summit, that the legal framework for the introduction of the euro should be based on Article 235 of the EC Treaty. This suggestion, which is being heard more and more frequently and has also been made in a study by Mr Bandet, demonstrates the tendency on the part of the Community, regardless of the formal commitment to subsidiarity, to use dubious legal grounds for laying claim to powers to which we believe it has no right.
Mr President, I also wish to offer my sincere congratulations to the Irish presidency on its success in carrying out the task - which it took on at a difficult time in the life of the Union - of drawing up a draft treaty to serve as the guidelines for the final stage of the negotiations in the Intergovernmental Conference, to which I shall now restrict my comments, as chairman of Parliament's Committee on Institutional Affairs.
Parliament clearly set out its position on the IGC in the two resolutions contained in the Martin/Bourlanges and Dury/Maij-Weggen reports.
I would refer Members to those reports, with which they will be familiar.
The guidelines that were approved at the Dublin summit indicate the course to be adopted in the final stage of the negotiations.
Given Parliament's wish to be involved in the work of the IGC, we are bound to point out certain inadequacies, ambiguities and shortcomings in this document.
The proposals on extending the codecision procedure are imprecise.
The IGC is on the right track, but little has actually been decided or laid down.
The subject of majority voting in the Council - which is a crucial issue in the present Union, and will be even more so following enlargement - is not addressed.
Nor has much progress been made in setting out precise proposals for combating unemployment, which is the scourge of the European Union and modern civilization as a whole.
The document contains other inadequacies, ambiguities and shortcomings.
The proposals concerning external policy and the instruments for carrying it out are not bold enough, and the Commission's role in this area is not defined.
There are no clear proposals on the CFSP either, nor any substantial proposals, but only hints, on the subject of European citizenship.
And the questions of enhanced cooperation and flexibility, which will probably be the two concepts that will make possible a Union of not only 15 but 20 or more, are dealt with ambiguously.
It is to be hoped that during these final six months - the six months of the Dutch presidency - this ambiguity will be eliminated and these concepts will be fleshed out.
Lastly, the European Parliament's relationship with the national parliaments is not clearly defined in these guidelines, which nonetheless constitute a framework which we believe to be very important, and on which we offer our sincere congratulations to the Irish presidency.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to add a few words on the conference in Singapore.
It is always a matter of some surprise to me how we in this Parliament, instead of acknowledging the achievements of a major conference such as Dublin or a successful conference like Singapore, manage rather to denigrate that success by making excessive demands.
Surely, as the European Parliament, we too must be able once in a while to acknowledge positive results - so that when the people outside hear us, they will see that progress is being made - instead of always using the same negative yardstick. What use is that to anyone?
And when the individual speakers come to realize afterwards what thanks they get for adopting such an approach, they will see that they are appreciated only by themselves, and even that appreciation is misplaced.
Together, we experienced a conference in Singapore which opened against a background of heavy scepticism.
It was the first conference to review the functioning of the WTO, and the decisions at it were taken by a consensus procedure involving 150 countries.
The 15 countries of the European Union, which were represented by the voices of the Council and, in particular, the Commission, could achieve nothing if a single country - Albania, for example, or any of the others - refused its assent.
Under such circumstances, the conference was an important and positive milestone as regards the future development of the WTO.
I should like to make that point here, and I should also like to convey to the Council my appreciation of the fact that it worked: that we spoke with one voice in Singapore.
The person to whom we owe that achievement is Sir Leon Brittan, and I should like to thank him in particular for the committed approach which he took, in close contact, of course, with 15 different ministers who subordinated their own interests to the fact that they had made the Commission their spokesman.
In my opinion, we as a Parliament were, so far as possible, well integrated in the process.
We went to Singapore in order to take part, and that should continue to be our practice in future.
I am fundamentally grateful for that, even if parliaments never achieve everything they might wish.
We must also be very satisfied as regards the results of the conference.
The conclusion of an agreement on information technology products, with the green light for a future deal on telecommunications, is an historic event in terms of the further development of world trade.
It will contribute to prosperity and encourage free trade; we can all see it as something extremely positive - and we should be saying so.
My final point is this: of course, the emerging and developing countries are in an extremely difficult situation.
We read every day about the troubles which are taking place in those countries and how poverty in their societies is on the increase, and it is understandable that people there should fear that we are seeking, by laying down environmental and social standards, to make them less competitive.
What is needed is mouth-to-mouth resuscitation: a real and continuing effort to convince these countries that it is in their own interest for us to move forward together.
Singapore was a successful conference.
As the European Union, we can take pride in our presence there, and I would only say that if we can sustain this kind of development, we shall also, in the long term, achieve our goal of free world trade.
Mr President, I too would like to talk about Singapore, and I believe we should have had a separate debate on this important subject.
I wish to raise in particular the cases of China and Taiwan.
China would rightly complain if - after satisfactory economic negotiations - political objections were raised to its entry.
The same logic must apply to Taiwan.
Economic negotiations on Taiwan's entry to the WTO could be completed easily - possibly within weeks.
They should be. And Taiwan, a major trading power and an important democracy, should be allowed in.
It is unhealthy for the world's trading arrangements to continue to exclude the Republic of China, because of the demands of the People's Republic of China.
The difference in this case between a 'Republic' and a 'People's Republic' is like the difference between a jacket and a straitjacket.
Of course we must bring the People's Republic in too - as soon as certain basic conditions have been met.
This would strengthen the WTO and help reform in China.
Under President Clinton's new China policy the American and European positions are much closer.
We in the ELDR Group urge our negotiators to redouble their efforts to achieve a solution to these problems.
And if they were not discussed in Singapore we would like to know why.
Mr President, we had Dublin and we had Singapore.
In Dublin, the pact of budgetary discipline was adopted.
After half a century of Keynesianism we were told that wealth comes from the quest for the grail of the balanced budget.
I have studied all the statistical surveys of nineteenth century American public finance and European public finance and I have never come across a balanced budget.
It is true that a stability pact has been adopted, with a budgetary criminal law that allows countries found drunk in charge of a budget to be punished for it.
Then there was the single currency we have been promised for 1999, and the social clause drafted as if the country of Adam Smith, creator of the universal poverty of nations, could at the same time rediscover ultra-liberalism and talk about social affairs.
Fortunately, we also had Singapore.
Clearly, we avoided disaster in Singapore, because we planned to reopen the agriculture file and then didn't.
But, Mr Santer, let us not go back to Punta del Este.
The United States has adopted the Fair act.
In April 1996 it severed the link between production and aid, and it is occupying a position of strength with a view to reopening negotiations at the end of the year 2000.
Let us not lag behind, Mr Santer.
It is true that the President-in-Office has told us that an area of philosophy has been created.
That is Dublin's great contribution.
But I would remind you that Descartes was born in France, published his works in the Low Countries and died in Sweden.
He too, along with Spinoza, invented the European area of philosophy, before Dublin.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the Irish presidency and, in particular, the Prime Minister and the Irish Finance Minister, for the progress that was made on economic and monetary union.
December 1996 will be seen as a watershed for the whole process of economic and monetary union.
It was the pivotal point where economic and monetary union went from simply being an aspiration of the European Union to becoming a reality.
It will be an important point in Europe's history.
But I want to turn my attention to the Pact for Stability and Growth.
Let us not forget that it is called a Pact for Stability and Growth.
It is crucial that the agreement that was reached in Dublin is implemented as it is written.
I hope that all the people who signed up to that agreement, on the Pact for Stability and Growth, will honour it as it is written and that there will be no rearguard action either by members of the Monetary Committee or the Central Bankers or, indeed, any particular Finance Minister from any major Member State in the European Union to undermine the compromise that was reached in Dublin on that pact.
If there is an attempt at any stage to try and change that agreement or make it less rigorous, then this Parliament will roundly condemn it.
It is essential that the Irish Prime Minister and the incoming Dutch presidency honour that agreement.
Secondly, I want to turn to something that the Irish Prime Minister, Mr Bruton, said about the role of government in trying to create jobs and boost the economy.
I was rather disappointed, given the excellent partnership between the public and the private sectors in Ireland in helping to realise the very high growth rates in Ireland in recent years, that the Prime Minister should say that in a market economy there is little role for government action.
The multiplier effect of public investment has a crucial role in boosting growth and boosting employment.
If you look at the Irish economy, Prime Minister, you will see that in your own economy the role of public investment has been absolutely crucial in getting the sort of growth rates that you have had in recent years.
That is why we need concerted action at European level: a common economic policy, particularly in the field of public investment, so that we can boost growth rates and tackle the unemployment problem.
The final point I want to make is in relation to the way in which we now have a centralized monetary policy and what we do on economic policy.
I address this to President Santer and to the Irish Prime Minister.
During the course of 1997 it is absolutely essential that the Council, the Commission and this Parliament seek to establish a mechanism as a counterweight to the centralized monetary authority of the European Central Bank so that we have some sort of economic governance within the European Union.
That means a strengthened Economic and Finance Committee of Finance Ministers; it means a stronger role for the European Commission; it means a stronger overseeing role for the European Parliament.
That must be our objective during 1997.
I hope the Commission and the Council will come forward with proposals on this matter.
Mr President, like so many others, I want to congratulate the Irish presidency on the success of its term of office and to say that because smaller countries have fewer resources, the success which they achieve therefore deserves greater commendation.
I want to compliment Mr Bruton the Taoiseach , Mr Spring the Tánaiste and Mr Mitchell all of whom worked extremely hard and contributed immensely to that success.
I want also to acknowledge today that it was not just while Mr Bruton was President-in-Office that he was dedicated to the European ideal.
All through the years he has promoted the European ideal and been a hard-working and well-informed advocate of European Union.
It is particularly important to say that at this time.
In his New Year message, speaking to his own people in his own state, he set out as one of his three objectives to work for the creation of a federal Europe.
It is easier for us in the institutions to advocate these things; we are expected to do so.
In the years immediately ahead we have three important tasks to accomplish.
I refer to the Intergovernmental Conference, the single currency and enlargement.
Some of these things, in particular enlargement, will not be achieved without sacrifices by the people who are in the European Union at the present.
If we are to achieve success in this area, we cannot do it by making agreements between our own institutions - the Council, Parliament and the Commission.
We must win over national public opinion.
National and regional parliaments have a very big role to play.
That is why I appreciate so much the long-standing service to the European ideal in the Irish context which the present Prime Minister of Ireland Mr Bruton has given and in which he has been well supported by Mr Mitchell.
I want to refer briefly to the statement by Ms McKenna that European monetary union is a bad thing and that Ireland should not be involved.
She based this on our trade flows with the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.
Her figures are out of date.
Today we export 40 % of our goods to the hard-core countries of the European Union and 28.5 % to the British market.
I would remind her that in the 170 years of monetary union with Britain we made less progress than in the 17 years of monetary agreement with the countries of the European Union.
Mr President, I hope you will forgive me, but I see the results of the Irish presidency and the Dublin summit above all in terms of their value as a starting-point for the Dutch presidency, especially when it comes to employment.
Without wishing to criticize the Irish presidency in this respect, I would nevertheless point out that there is so much fog surrounding these issues that I cannot say that things have now been made so clear that nothing can go wrong with the Dutch presidency.
Our aim with the creation of the chapter on employment was that a balance should at least be established between monetary policy, on the one hand, and the policy on growth, employment and cohesion in the Community on the other.
When we look at the results of your presidency, I have to say, in any event, that such a balance is not present in the draft treaty.
According to this proposal, employment policy has to be in keeping with the economic guidelines; that is the only thing which is said on the matter, but the reverse must also be the case.
That is now precisely the point at issue.
One cannot simply continue with an economic and monetary policy without, at the same time, taking account of the effects on employment - and not only on the people who are already in work, but on the many millions who are outside the employment process and who, despite the financial measures taken in recent years, have still not found a job.
I hope that this fact will be brought home clearly once again in the summit discussions.
In short, there is a great deal more to be done here, not least because the proposal from the Dutch presidency does indeed suffer from the same fault.
The inclusion of the Essen procedure in the treaty, which we now seem to have in mind, is totally inadequate.
We also need a timetable and specific aims and indicators.
Only then will we be able to overcome the lack of commitment in the declarations.
Finally, I should like to make another comment on the opening statement by Mr Bruton, which contained a plea for more education and training.
On the face of it, that is a reasonable point to make, but it is precisely because the Member States have drastically reduced their expenditure on education and training in recent years.
That also has a great deal to do with EMU, and now with the stability pact.
But I would commend to the House a scientific report which appeared in my own country yesterday and which points out that, however important education and training may be in terms of 'employability' , they do not create a single new job.
Here I would quote Mrs Papandreou, the former Commissioner, who told the House that there are now people in Europe who have been trained and retrained six or seven times, and who are still waiting for a job.
This point is still being ignored, it is still thought that education and training, that economic stability will automatically lead to employment.
That is nonsense, unless there is an accompanying policy aimed specifically at creating jobs.
I should like to see Mr Santer's stability pact focusing on that in the first instance.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to speak about the third pillar: about what Dublin has achieved so far in that area, and about our expectations for the Intergovernmental Conference.
Our most important project in this respect is Europol.
Everything was agreed in the Maastricht Treaty, then long drawn-out negotiations on the convention caused delays, and now the project has become bogged down in ratification procedures in the national parliaments.
The fact that Europol is not yet operational is scandalous.
Now it is up to the national parliaments to do their best to give Europol a chance to work.
My second point concerns the growing belief that Europol needs to be given power to act on its own initiative.
It would use that power not to displace national police forces, but rather to have optimal scope for action - not as a European FBI, but simply as a European police authority with responsibility for certain serious crimes which have a European dimension.
That is the direction - already mapped out by Parliament - which the Intergovernmental Conference has to take.
My third point is this: we all wish to see substantial sections of the third pillar brought under the Community umbrella.
This applies in particular to asylum and immigration, and quite rightly so.
When borders within Europe disappear, only Community legislation on asylum will be successful.
However, if we take that view, then it is time we made efforts to draft joint asylum legislation.
Practical joint legislation on asylum is therefore the third requirement to emerge from the Dublin summit.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not always share Mr Nassauer's views, but on this occasion I have to agree with him entirely.
It is indeed one of the most shameful results of the Dublin summit - and the fault not of the Irish presidency, in my opinion, but rather of the obstructive approach on the part of certain Member State governments - that ringing declarations are still being made about Europol as the body which is about to crack organized crime in Europe.
The fact is that, apart from the ringing declarations, there is no movement at all on Europol.
Europol was supposed to be the magic solution for combating drug-related crime.
But is Europol combating drugrelated crime? No.
Europol was supposed to be the magic solution for combating crime involving nuclear materials - an issue, I might add, which has completely disappeared from public debate.
Is it the case that nuclear materials are no longer being smuggled in Europe? Probably not, because it is no longer election time in Germany.
It was said at the last summit in Dublin that Europol was to be an instrument for combating the sexual abuse of children, and that action in that area was urgently needed.
But no action is being taken.
We in Parliament have long been aware that in the Member States, the reservations over national sovereignty - and that is ultimately what is at issue - are more important than taking effective action against crime at European level.
The members of our group have no hope of a change of attitude in the Council of Ministers or on the part of the Member State governments.
It is to you that we look, Mr President of the Commission.
You ought to be able to take the initiative, for example by asking the Member States to make operational resources available to your Commission departments which are responsible for third-pillar matters, so that they at least could function effectively.
I am thinking of UCLAF, the anti-fraud unit, which could be much more active in tackling organized crime.
If for once the Commission - instead of taking time off to celebrate apparent decisions at summit meetings, which were not really decisions at all - could decide to call on the Member State governments to put deeds before words at long last in the fight against organized crime, then you could be sure, Mr Santer, that we would applaud you.
But there will be no applause if you continually issue the kind of statements in which you mention all the things which have been decided but not actually implemented.
Be more courageous, and you will have Parliament on your side.
Mr President, in terms of square miles, Ireland is not one the largest Member States of the European Union, but it is a major player in terms of what it has achieved.
John Bruton's government deserves every respect for the high level of commitment and ability and the energetic initiatives which it brought to the Council presidency.
It built conceptual bridges and demanded practical results, instead of issuing the customary high-sounding but insubstantial declarations.
As to whether Dublin's 'performance enhancement' approach also worked in the area of main priority, which is the battle to reduce the figure of 18 million unemployed, it did manage to create a new level of awareness among the Member States and to link a number of measures in order to make them effective.
The measures in question include, firstly, special support for the target groups of the long-term unemployed and unemployed women and young people, involving employment initiatives at local and regional level; secondly, a significant increase in the quality of training and continuing education, to get us in shape for international competition and make us more flexible and mobile; and, thirdly, the implementation of the programmes agreed for SMEs, where sound structures and a capacity for innovation will generate new jobs.
Clearly, we are only at the start of the necessary process of dismantling administrative and fiscal barriers.
I would also comment that Mr Santer's confidence pact has been steadily gaining support.
Rapprochement between the Member States, which was tried successfully in Essen two years ago and has now been documented in the Dublin declaration, is the best way to achieve greater joint responsibility, coordination and cooperation at European level.
There is less reason than ever to oppose a meaningful future Treaty chapter on employment.
Mr President, in my two minutes I wish to focus briefly on one aspect of the outcome of the WTO Conference in Singapore: the question of observance of internationally recognized core labour standards in worldtrading arrangements.
In doing so, I would like to pay tribute to Minister Enda Kenny, the Irish Trade Minister, for his strenuous efforts to achieve a positive consensus position for the Union on this matter in Singapore.
That was no easy task given the hostile position of some of our own Member States, not least the United Kingdom, to any mention at all of core labour standards in the final declaration.
Some will be disappointed with the paragraph on labour standards which appeared in the final declaration because it does little more than reaffirm a commitment to the principle of such standards, underline the role of the ILO and note the need for continuing collaboration between the ILO and WTO secretariats on this matter.
The issue is not made an operational matter within the WTO framework, and I share the frustration of Mr Sainjon in this respect.
But, having been at that conference in Singapore and having witnessed outright the hostility to any mention of these matters from a number of developed as well as developing nations, rather than feeling disappointment, I share the view of Willy De Clercq, the head of our delegation there, that the fact that this matter was not excluded from the negotiations should in itself be counted a success.
The flame has been kept alive. That is not sufficient.
The Socialist Group calls upon both the Commission and the Council in their preparatory work for the next ministerial conference - and that needs to begin now - to build upon the reference that we now have to ensure that progress is made on core labour standards, as well as environmental standards, and to ensure that we have world trade which is fair as well as free.
I wish to thank the Irish presidency sincerely for its valuable work on this issue.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the Irish presidency on the excellent job it has done during the past six months and for its excellent cooperation with the European Parliament, in particular in the area of the environment and in international cooperation, as was the case in Singapore.
Mr President, unfortunately, in Singapore, nothing was done about the environment.
The European Parliament has been demonstrating for two years now its total opposition to the lack of decisions concerning the relationship between environment policy and the GATT norms.
In Singapore, under the brilliant leadership of Willy Declercq, the European Parliament delegation manifested at all fora the fact that it will not accept that the World Trade Organisation continues to overlook thirty years of international environmental law, continues to ignore the legitimacy of conventions fighting the traffic in endangered species, fighting the tourism of toxic waste, protecting the ozone layer or trying to diminish climatic change.
We cannot continue to accept the secrecy with which the WTO acts, the way in which it deals with nongovernmental organisations.
We should like to address a word to the Commission concerning the very important file of trade and environment concerning leg-hold traps.
Thanks to Sir Leon Brittan the Commission completely ignored the will of the Council of Ministers and that of the European Parliament in pursuing a policy which does not apply the existing Community law - Regulation 91, and completely ignores the European Parliament's vote, ignores the Council of Environment Ministers which took place in December.
Mr Santer, you can be sure that we are going to censor this behaviour by the Commission concerning trade and environment and in particular the issue of leg-hold traps.
Mr President, the Irish presidency was right to highlight the successes that have been achieved in preparing for monetary union.
They are to be welcomed.
At last, we can appreciate how great the international impact of monetary union is going to be, because we need a stable monetary framework at international level too, after the collapse of the Bretton Woods system.
We cannot allow speculators to gain a stranglehold on our economies, any more than we can leave trade and the economy entirely to market forces.
So the conference in Singapore was certainly a success as regards the further opening-up of markets and making further progress towards deregulation.
In our view, however, a great deal still remains to be done - and not least by the European Union - if the demands which Parliament has made are to be pursued with vigour.
In particular, more progress is needed on achieving fair international trade.
Our system of rules is far too underdeveloped, not only in the area of social and environmental standards, but also in relation to the way in which international competition operates.
We cannot adopt legislation against monopolies and cartels within the European Union, and then at the same time allow such cartels and monopolies at international level and offer them stability.
That is why we need a system of international competition that will help to make fair international trade a reality.
The same is true in the other area to which I referred.
Europe must speak with a single voice here - something which it failed to do in Singapore.
A presidency and a Commission cannot achieve anything when it becomes clear in Singapore that the European Union is divided on the question of rules in this area.
Progress must be made here.
We cannot steer a course on the basis that free international trade will continue to be successful and contribute to the growth of national economies because it is based on exploiting human beings and despoiling nature and resources.
We cannot simply now set aside the Lyons employment summit.
I can only take a cynical view of the declarations by the G7 Heads of State and Government on exploiting the opportunities offered by globalization, when people and the planet are the victims of such a policy.
That is why we need what GATT and the WTO have always sought to achieve: fair international trade, governed by rules, on the lines that we in the European Parliament have always advocated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank all of you for your kind remarks with regard to the Irish presidency and in particular for the well-deserved praise of Minister of State Gay Mitchell who handled relations with Parliament on behalf of the Irish presidency.
I simply wish to make four points in conclusion.
This is the second time in my life that I have spoken before the European Parliament, the first being in September.
In that debate there was an atmosphere of pervasive pessimism and criticism of the performance of Europe.
The atmosphere in this debate is entirely different.
It is a positive debate where people are demanding that Europe should do more but in those demands there is the underlying feeling that they are confident that Europe has the capacity to do more.
That change of atmosphere from September to January is a great credit to the leadership of Parliament and it is also a sign of health in Europe.
Secondly, the treaty which the Irish presidency presented in draft form in Dublin is a treaty for the people.
It is a treaty for the citizens of Europe.
It is not a treaty for an economic entity alone.
It contains provisions in regard to stronger action on crime and drugs.
It contains for the first time provisions in regard to guaranteeing individual human rights.
It introduces for the first time into the Treaty the concept of sustainable development, a matter of great importance to all of us who concern ourselves with the environment.
It strengthens the provision in the Treaty in regard to the protection of the consumer as opposed to protection of the producer.
It also explicitly brings about for the first time a position of equality between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers in regard to co-decision.
These points show that this treaty is bringing Europe closer to its citizens.
(Applause) This brings me to my third point.
This treaty has to be ratified.
It will not be ratified unless citizens understand that it contains something valuable for them.
As was apparent in the debate, this is not a matter about which we can be in the least complacent.
In all our discussions of the treaty it is very important that we continue to remember that we must translate the treaty language into something that will actually make people willing to leave their television sets, the place where they are having dinner with their family and go to a polling station somewhere in Europe and vote Yes.
That requires an effort of communication.
We must not just get it right; but we must also simplify it and make it something that contains an emotional message that people will respond to positively.
That is the political challenge that we face.
Finally, I agree very strongly with all those Members who made the point, in particular with regard to Europol, that it is not enough to adopt a treaty or a declaration unless ratification and implementation in the Member States is as strong as the political will to adopt the provision in the first place.
In that respect Parliament must be vigilant in regard to any backsliding by individual Member States.
I accept all the criticisms directed at Member States in this area of failure to implement declarations.
Our record is not brilliant and indeed the record of those who are most eloquent in favour of the adoption of common European positions is often the worst in terms of putting them into practical action, and frequently the record of those who are most critical and slowest in adopting common European positions is often the best in turning them into reality.
(Loud and sustained applause)
I have received nine motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
The debate is closed.
Election of Quaestors (continuation)
I can announce the results of the third ballot for the election of Quaestors:
Members voting: 464 Blank or void ballots: 9 Votes cast: 455
The results are as follows:
Mr Killilea: 194 votes Mr Paasio: 214 votes Mr Viola: 169 votes
As a result of the third ballot, I declare Mr Paasio and Mr Killilea elected Quaestors of the European Parliament and congratulate them on their election.
Pursuant to Rule 16, the Quaestors will take precedence in the order in which they were elected.
Vote (number and membership of committees)
The next item is the vote on the motion for a resolution (B4-0028/97) on the number and membership of parliamentary committees.
Amendment No 1 has been withdrawn.
I give the floor to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy on a point of order.
Mr President, regarding Amendment No 1, to which you just referred, I should like to thank the honourable Members who agreed to join me in signing it, and I should also like to thank the PPE Group for giving up a seat on the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to enable all the groups to be represented on that committee.
The question raised by the amendment related, in fact, to the representation of all the political groups on the committees.
I think you should refer to the Rules Committee the practice which has grown up over the last few years of neutralizing certain committees, which I believe is a violation of Rule 135, which provides for equitable representation of all political groups and Non-Attached Members on committees, without making any distinction between the committees that are not neutralized and those that are.
It is not proper that the Conference of Presidents should be able to make a proposal to any parliamentary committee on which one political group is not represented, and of course that applies especially to the Rules Committee.
I think that this point should be cleared up and that Rule 135 should be interpreted in its correct sense.
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
I shall consider your request.
In any event, as an active substitute member of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, you know as well as I do that any Member or political group can bring before that committee whatever matters they think fit.
I put the proposal for a decision as a whole to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Programme of the Dutch presidency and the situation in Serbia
The next item is the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the programme of the Dutch presidency, including the situation in Serbia.
I give the floor to Mr van Mierlo, President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we like to say that Europe is the cradle of democracy, but no one can deny that there is still a gap between the process of European integration and securing democratic legitimation for it.
And however we might try to explain this, the fact remains that there is a gap to be bridged.
It is with this in mind that I appear before the House.
It is a great honour for me to be here with you, particularly as you elected a new President yesterday.
Allow me to congratulate you on your election, Mr President, and to wish you strength and wisdom in your new position.
I hope that our meeting today will lay the foundations for constructive cooperation between the Council and Parliament over the next six months.
The programme for the Dutch presidency has been described as austere, which is an accurate but incomplete description.
We are austere because we are ambitious.
We are modest not in our aims, but in how we set about them.
We do not have either the time or the space to concentrate on a few national priorities.
The European agenda is the only one we are pursuing, and I cannot conceive of any greater ambition at the moment than using this agenda to achieve the results that Europe needs.
It was with this in mind that the Netherlands drew up its programme for the next six months, and the energetic work of our Irish predecessors has been of great assistance here.
You should already have received the written text of our programme, and I shall focus in my address now on the main policy challenges that are facing us.
We tend to regard the turn of a century as far more important than just the next number in the series.
Whichever way one looks at it, it is certainly true that the coming millennium coincides with far-reaching changes in Europe, changes which could finally heal the memory of our darkest hours.
This is not just some law of nature taking its course, it is an historic opportunity to be grasped and shaped.
It is an opportunity not to be missed.
For some years now, we have been discussing the dilemma of whether we should consolidate or expand. Where should our priority lie?
Recent events in Europe have shown that we can no longer remain intellectually uncommitted in this debate.
No one can go on claiming to support consolidation or enlargement in the secret hope that this will give the alternative less chance.
With the fall of the Berlin Wall, enlargement became an historical imperative, but at the same time we realized that we cannot expand without consolidating, so it became a case of doing both.
We are approaching enlargement of the European Union on the largest possible scale, an enlargement that will finally give the Union the right to call itself 'European' .
At the same time, we are working on the most intensive policy consolidation that integration will ever face, in the shape of economic and monetary union.
We wondered what stage we would have reached in the progress of European integration when we took over the responsibilities of the presidency, and here we are on the threshold of two fundamental changes in European development: enlargement and the establishment of European monetary union.
But Europe is not quite ready for them.
That is why the Netherlands has two main aims: to produce a treaty in six months, and to produce a treaty of substance, a treaty that will enable us to handle these two changes.
Our first concern is therefore the management of the IGC and the management of the run-up to EMU and enlargement.
There are also certain foreign policy issues which are of such magnitude and such vital importance for Europe that they simply have to be given priority.
I should like to begin by saying something about the Intergovernmental Conference, EMU and enlargement.
The Intergovernmental Conference is taking place in the run-up to the 21st century, a century which must see an undivided Europe.
We are determined that the IGC will be concluded on time and will produce substantial results.
Our Irish predecessors have laid solid foundations for this, and further impetus has been provided by France, Germany, Portugal and the Benelux countries.
The European Parliament has played an active part, both through its resolutions on IGC issues and through the constructive contributions of its Members - Mr Brok and Mrs Guigou - in the negotiating group.
There is a good deal of work still to be done, starting with the more sensitive areas where little progress has been made, such as institutional reform.
I am thinking here of more decision-making by a qualified majority and relations between the institutions, including the European Parliament.
Even sensitive issues such as flexibility are going to have to be discussed in more practical terms.
Flexibility is the key to eliminating the apparent opposition between consolidation and enlargement.
The ability to be flexible should allow scope for both, whereas without flexibility, a much larger Union will grind to a halt.
But it is also a medicine to be taken sparingly and carefully: too large a dose, and the Union will fragment.
This will undoubtedly be the most difficult intellectual issue for the IGC to resolve, just as the institutions are going to be the most difficult political problem.
We are going to have to take immediate action in both areas in order to fill the blank spaces in Ireland's blueprint as quickly as possible.
We need to maintain the progress we have made in other areas.
I am pleased to see the trend towards giving Parliament greater legislative powers, and we shall be strongly supporting this, along with the idea of giving you greater involvement in the appointment of the Commission.
Should the gap in European democracy not be closed from both sides?
If so, then we need to ask whether and how the national parliaments can play a greater role in Europe, without undermining the position of the European Parliament.
We agree that the Union is finally playing the kind of effective and coherent international role that is in keeping with its position.
But this is not to say that a genuine European foreign policy is not proving hard to get off the ground. Why should this be so?
The accepted line is that there are major differences in national interests, but are these really as important as is always assumed?
On closer inspection, I cannot help feeling that for the few genuine differences that exist, there are also many hypothetical ones. Are the latter sort mainly intended to protect national identities?
If so, then what is happening is the opposite of what we claim: policy is not being made for the benefit of interests, but interests are being invented for the benefit of policy.
All the more reason to have done with our crippling reliance on unanimity.
Improving our approach towards justice and home affairs - the crucial area of internal security - also needs to be put high on the agenda for early discussion at the IGC.
The Union must be able to act more decisively in combating growing transfrontier crime and drug trafficking.
The Dublin European Council proposed various measures on which we have already set to work, and we have far from exhausted all the possibilities for increasing practical cooperation between the national authorities in this area.
The formulation of the new treaty is now entering its decisive phase.
There will only be a new treaty if everyone makes an effort, and not for the 'honour of Amsterdam' or some such thing: we are the ones whose honour it will be to make Amsterdam a success.
Economic and monetary union is irrevocably on its way towards the third stage.
A solid and stable euro is now within our sights, if we can achieve a firm stability and growth pact and agreement on the structure of a new exchange rate mechanism and the legal framework for the euro.
This presidency will do everything it can to maintain the dynamism and credibility of the process, first of all by implementing the political decisions taken at Dublin in the fields I have just mentioned.
Let me make our position quite clear on the question of membership.
It is quite simple: every country which meets the criteria is welcome - the more the merrier.
Enlarging the Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean will demand great efforts on their part, but also on ours.
For me it is clear that, without strong foundations, the Union will not come through a further substantial enlargement unscathed.
The need for substantive results from the Intergovernmental Conference thus lies at the very heart of the Union's preparations, and indeed of our presidency.
The applicant countries will need to make intensive preparations for accession, particularly if they are to be able to participate in the internal market properly.
Accession also needs to have the broadest possible support in the countries concerned, and this will not be gained simply by technical, abstract arguments, but by genuine, intensive dialogue.
This is how people grow to understand each other, and how expectations can be measured against realities.
The disadvantage of the structured dialogue we are now conducting is that it is neither structured nor a dialogue.
It is simply an exchange of ideas, and it needs to be brought down to a more practical level by focusing on just one or two problems that have been discussed in detail in advance.
This goes for every aspect of integration, from the internal market to subjects such as the constitutional state and good governance.
I have some further comments on the subject of enlargement.
Achieving a peaceful, democratic and prosperous European continent in the next century is no longer a vision, but a political mission to ensure that the forthcoming enlargement is a success.
The negotiations will undoubtedly be tough, difficult and long, but what they will essentially be about is the question that is deeply rooted in our European culture: how do you reconcile the principle of 'equal opportunities' with the unequal abilities that we are faced with in reality?
I am aware that the absence of a lasting solution to the Cyprus problem could undermine enlargement as a whole.
This being so, and also for the sake of the accession of Cyprus itself, we must ensure that the Union does everything it can to achieve a solution through intensive talks with all those involved, including Turkey, of course.
We have already made a start on this, as well as on talks with the United States and the United Nations.
It is vital that we should all work to the same agenda, and that there should be no hidden agendas either.
I hope that you too will bear this in mind in your relations with that country.
So far I have discussed the IGC, EMU and enlargement, which we see as a strategic triangle.
But it does not stop there.
The world around us is not waiting to see the outcome of the IGC, any more than our citizens and the economy are.
For this reason, we shall be focusing on the continuing development of policy, legislation and the management and government of the Union.
You will have read how we intend to do this in our programme for the presidency.
Our major internal challenges are still creating more jobs, good working conditions, personal and public safety, and the protection of our precious environment.
Combating racism will be given particular attention this year.
The economic foundation of integration - its faithful workhorse - is still the internal market, whose operation requires our continual care and attention.
We must not think of it in isolation.
It is not just a question of creating a larger market as we move nearer to a single currency, it is also a question of how the market links up with the environment and the human dimension.
We need to carry on giving close attention to our activities outside the Union, firstly because there are many violent regional conflicts which we cannot ignore, secondly because we need to stay alert to protect the Union's interests as a major economic power, and thirdly because the relationship between politics and economics in international relations has become much more complicated.
Taking active measures to support human rights and democracy is also a major focus of our foreign policy, since these ideals lie at the very heart of European culture.
However, there are also more practical reasons why we need to have a European policy on human rights, in that it has become more difficult for individual Member States to conduct such a policy effectively on a purely bilateral basis.
Support for human rights and democracy also needs to form part of a broad-based and coherent approach to conflict prevention and management.
There are a number of important regional challenges that face us.
First of all there is the Middle East peace process where, for the first time in a long while, we now have, if not a breakthrough, then at least some clear progress.
Yesterday evening's agreement on Hebron was an important step on the road to a just and stable peace, and could give the peace process the new momentum which it so desperately needs.
I welcome the fact that the European Union has shown in the run-up to this agreement that, working in close cooperation with the parties involved and the United States, it can make a substantial contribution to the peace process which can go beyond providing economic support.
Economics and politics cannot be clinically separated here.
Without economic support from Europe, the entire negotiation process would clearly be jeopardized, and this gives the Union the right and the duty to play an active political role in the process - not primarily as a negotiator or mediator at the negotiating table, but a political role nonetheless.
The recognition given by all the parties to the role played by our special envoy, Mr Moratinos, underlines this fact, and I should like to take this opportunity to express the presidency's appreciation of his commitment and effectiveness.
The role of the European Union in former Yugoslavia is much more overtly political, since many Member States have sent troops there to support the diplomatic and humanitarian efforts.
Careful attention and resourcefulness will be needed to maintain the momentum in implementing the peace agreements.
The decisions of the Peace Implementation Council in London will be important here.
Some of you have asked me to comment on the resolution before Parliament on former Yugoslavia.
Although I naturally do not wish to pre-empt the vote on this resolution, I can assure you that the presidency supports its main thrust.
The Council has clearly and repeatedly endorsed the conclusions of the González report and called on President Milosevic to recognize the results of the elections of 17 November.
I am currently visiting all the Member States to tell them the presidency's plans and to hear where their specific interests lie.
Everyone naturally mentions the situation in Belgrade, and feelings about it are broadly the same everywhere.
From the outset I have been, and still am, prepared to go to Belgrade as soon as we feel we can achieve something.
But I want to be careful to pick the right moment.
Recent reports from Belgrade seem to indicate that Mr Milosevic is gradually starting to listen to what people are saying, particularly the demonstrators.
However, there is still a long way to go to democracy in former Yugoslavia, and until a satisfactory result has been achieved in Serbia, the world must keep up the pressure on Mr Milosevic and keep on supporting the opposition and the student movement.
The plan for the post-Barcelona process is a good one and shows great promise for Euro-Mediterranean stability in the broad sense.
However, its implementation very much depends on how existing regional conflicts develop, not the least of these being the Middle East peace process.
The presidency will certainly be doing everything it can to promote the further development of the post-Barcelona process.
We shall not accept the kind of split that is threatening to develop in the Council between the northern and southern Member States, with the southern countries in favour of enlargement in the Mediterranean and the northern countries in favour of enlargement eastwards.
Stability in the Mediterranean affects everyone in the Union!
Spain, Italy and Greece's neighbours are also our neighbours up here in the north.
That is why we, as a northern country, regard it as a privilege to be able to put this view into action by throwing all our energies into the co-presidency of the Barcelona process.
Successful transatlantic relations remain the cornerstone of our external policy and are another area which must be given our undivided attention if they are to continue to be successful.
The situation is no longer as it was in the Cold War, when we were totally dependent on nuclear weapons and the Americans.
If we wish to maintain our relations, we are going to have to look after them, nurture them and invest in them.
We must not limit transatlantic dialogue to simply business and economics, because at certain times it can be vital for America and Europe to take joint action on the world stage.
Europe and America desperately need each other in a world where there are so many sources of instability.
In so many fields - whether it be the world trade system, the management of regional crises or relations with Russia - close transatlantic cooperation is the only key to success.
Inadequate cooperation, on the other hand, is a recipe for disaster.
Where our cultures and interests coincide, we must join forces, for example to protect our common values in terms of human rights.
Where there are differences, we must be able to discuss and deal with them.
This is why we need to promote transatlantic dialogue and the implementation of the EU-US action plan.
The terrible situation in the Great Lakes region of Africa naturally calls for action from the Union.
In addition to providing humanitarian aid, we are going to have to address ourselves increasingly to conflict prevention and management.
Here too, talks have already started with America to see whether we can decide on a joint approach to this very difficult issue.
I know that I have by no means covered all our foreign policy areas, but I should like to conclude with a few thoughts on the changing nature of European integration.
For a long time, many people saw European integration as a 'technical abstraction' , and it was regarded as a very marginal topic in the national political debate.
The fall of communism and 'Maastricht' have put Europe at the very heart of national politics in all the Member States.
Areas of traditional domestic policy have taken on a European dimension, whether people want them to or not, and these developments have dramatically changed the nature of integration.
'Europe' used to mean a technical agenda 'over in Brussels' , but it is now increasingly becoming an accumulation of national sensitivities.
This is an extremely difficult and unavoidable, but in my view not entirely negative development.
It is difficult, certainly, since it has made the interaction between government and democracy at European and national levels much more complicated.
But has not national government also become much more complicated? We have nothing to teach each other on this point!
I often think that the crisis we have in Europe and the impotence we feel are really the sum of all the impotence felt in the Member States, which is why we have so little room for manoeuvre when we come to the negotiating table in Brussels.
We have so little leeway at home that we cannot afford to go back with a message that our supporters will not find acceptable.
It is difficult and unavoidable, but there is a positive side to it, in that it shows that integration is maturing.
What is the point of European integration if it has not taken root in the minds of our citizens, or if it does not affect the things that are important to them? People still find it easier to identify with their own country and their own region, but they are understanding more and more, and they see every day that there are so many things that go beyond what their own country can do.
People and Europe are becoming increasingly aware of each other, yet they are still to far too great an extent strangers.
President Vaclav Havel, who made a memorable speech to this House in 1994, had also identified this problem.
On reading the Maastricht Treaty, he was astonished at the fact that common ground-rules should be laid down for such a disparate group of countries.
He was impressed by the ingenious structure, but he concluded that: ' My reason has been spoken to, but not my heart' .
There is a difference between the lifeless letter of the Treaty and the living reality of integration, but the fact remains that the Union is an edifice that has been constructed, and is perceived as such by many people.
However, the question for me is whether or not we can expect people to feel anything like passionate about Europe as an edifice.
Has our European age not taught us all we need to know about the ambivalent relationship between emotion, statehood and war? And is not this lesson we have learned the very raison d'être for the edifice we call European integration?
Europeans need to be able to identify with the body governing them, but with what I would call rational emotion.
We cannot force them to do this, of course, not if our capital cities play 'cat and mouse' with each other and with Brussels, or if democracy competes with itself at national and European levels.
And certainly not if Europe makes exaggerated claims, since these simply lead to inevitable failure and thus generate discontent.
However, looking no higher than the goals of realpolitik will not work either.
Identification with Europe will only grow if our European edifice can do its job convincingly and if it has democratic legitimation, so it needs to be transparent and accessible too.
It will also help to promote identification with Europe if the national politicians conduct a fair, open and conscientious debate that extends beyond their own borders.
The increasing Europeanization of what I referred to earlier as national sensitivities makes this essential.
Do we not now need to develop something like a new culture together?
The Treaty, in my view, need not speak to the heart, but it should be much more readable.
The European Union is an edifice, a unique interaction between the supranational level and the Member States.
It is also unique in that it is almost easier to say what the European Union is not, rather than what it is.
It is something which exists much more in the eyes of the outside world than in the eyes of its own citizens.
Making it clear what the Union is, and what it can and must become, is a task which faces all those involved in European integration, not just in the European institutions, but also in the national governments and parliaments.
This, at least, is the view taken by the Dutch presidency.
(Applause)
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for your congratulations and for the statement that you have just made.
I now give the floor to Mr van den Broek, on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, on behalf of President Santer and the whole of the Commission, I should like to add just a few words to the most interesting introduction given by Mr van Mierlo, on which I should like to congratulate him and his team.
As you know, President Santer regrets that he is unable to be here this afternoon because he was required to attend Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into BSE.
I shall be quite brief.
On 7 January this year, the entire Commission visited The Hague to discuss the Dutch presidency's plans, and it was encouraging to learn from these intensive and very useful talks that we share just the same priorities.
It is what you would expect, and is hardly surprising.
We all realize that the Dutch presidency has a difficult job ahead of it over the next six months, since there are so many priorities, although there may be slightly more emphasis on the Intergovernmental Conference, from which we are expecting so much and which I have to say I confidently expect to be a success under the Dutch presidency.
What is more, Dutch presidencies already have some experience of Intergovernmental Conferences, and I would point out that the birth of the Maastricht Treaty in 1991 was anything but a painless experience.
The road to Amsterdam is also sure to be a bumpy one, but it will be worth it.
As Mr van Mierlo has already said, the Dutch presidency is highly motivated, and we are firmly convinced that without a successful conclusion in June, Europe will be thrown into reverse instead of moving forward.
Certainly, on the subject of enlargement, the Commission promises to have all the preparatory documents for the enlargement process ready by the middle of the year.
These will include the recommendations on all ten applications for membership from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic states and the report on the effects of enlargement on various policy areas, in particular the common agricultural policy and regional policy.
It also means that a new financial framework will be proposed for the Union's finances after 1999, and a broad policy document will be put forward concerning the enlargement process itself, such as how to conduct the negotiations, what to do about the transitional periods, and so on.
In short, the Commission also intends to do its share alongside the work of the presidency.
This also applies, of course, for other major areas such as economic and monetary union and the Commission's contribution to the ongoing institutional debate at the Intergovernmental Conference, where we too recognize the importance of 'flexibility' - I support Mr van Mierlo's comments here.
You can expect a paper from the Commission on this subject shortly.
The word employment has been mentioned, and I was pleased to hear it.
You know how determinedly President Santer and the Commission keep on stressing the added value of having policy convergence in this field.
We intend to put forward more detailed proposals in Amsterdam, including an action plan to ensure greater freedom of movement in our common internal market.
On the subject of foreign policy, we support the priorities that Mr van Mierlo described, though I agree with him that there are many more than he had time to mention.
I should like to say a few words about the situation in Belgrade, in view of your motion for a resolution and the questions on the subject that have been addressed to the Commission.
It goes without saying - and here too I agree with what Mr van Mierlo said - that the Union and the Commission insist that President Milosevic must carry out all the recommendations of the González committee.
It is also self-evident for the Commission that until this happens and until a number of other conditions from the Dayton Agreement have been met, there can be no question of any formal links between the European Union and Belgrade, any cooperation agreements or any technical aid or preferential trade for Belgrade.
We have proposals on all these issues on ice, but the current political situation in Belgrade rules out any possibility of acting on them.
I should like once again to congratulate Mr van Mierlo on his introduction and to assure him that he has the full support of President Santer and the entire Commission.
We are looking forward to working closely with the presidency.
Mr President, it is an honour and a pleasure for me to be able to welcome the Dutch presidency on behalf of the Socialist Group.
My group has great expectations of the presidency, expectations which Mr van Mierlo's speech has just confirmed, and we have no doubts about the European-mindedness of either the Netherlands Government or yourself, Mr van Mierlo.
But friends must be able to take criticism as well as praise, and there are a few critical comments I should like to make.
First of all, greater attention needs to be given, as you are well aware, to bridging the gap between Europe and its citizens.
The bureaucracy, the endless round of Council meetings and the obscure and incomprehensible deals are hardly likely to fire people with enthusiasm, either in the Netherlands or elsewhere.
That is why we hope the Dutch presidency will promote greater openness, greater transparency in decision-making and more consultation, not least with the European Parliament.
It is quite ridiculous that we sometimes have to go to Stockholm to find out what happened at a Council meeting.
The Netherlands, with its tradition of open and democratic government, has a role to play here, and this also goes for the other problem area, the poor management of the Union's finances.
Parliament, the Commission and the Council must work together to ensure that resources are used carefully and correctly.
We feel that the Dutch programme lacks specific proposals for improving controls, and indeed I have to say that it lacks specific proposals concerning the Members of Parliament themselves.
We need a European statute for all MEPs.
We have been calling for this for ten years now, and I think it is high time the Council did something about it.
We hope the presidency will take steps to introduce the statute this year.
Europe needs popular support, it needs people to believe in the European ideal again.
We can achieve this by ensuring that the Union puts its own house in order, and by pursuing clear policies which produce practical, tangible results.
We are naturally pleased with the presidency's plans in the field of employment, because we need more jobs in Europe.
Unemployment stands at over 10 % in many Member States, and this naturally provokes activity from the trade unions.
The idea that 'EMU equals unemployment' is probably wrong, but then so is the blind pursuit of monetarist objectives.
More investment in people, pressing on with shorter working time, greater scope for time off to look after children or for further training or retraining - all these are already in the pipeline and are just waiting to be put into effect.
Europe has its own role to play here, in addition to what the Member States are doing.
Europe also needs a stronger Community policy on justice and home affairs, which is a prime example of the kind of area about which people are concerned.
We are talking here about international crime, combating drugs and racism, and policies on fraud and asylum.
At Maastricht, it was planned to bring the third pillar under the first, but I have the impression that the opposite has happened, because there is now more emphasis on the intergovernmental approach, which is not what was intended.
So much for my criticisms.
There are, however, some positive points that I should also like to make.
We welcome what was said about environment policy, which is an area where we have a very robust agenda, for example in connection with development cooperation.
We think it is wonderful that we are gradually adopting a coordinated, integrated approach to the environment and development cooperation.
I shall not comment on what the Minister said about the IGC, because this is something we all support.
We feel that Europe is out of kilter, and we need to do everything we can to restore the balance between north and south, not least financially, and between our own interests and international solidarity.
We need to work for EMU, but also for employment, the environment and equal opportunities.
Of course, we realize that the presidency is also keen to keep its balance and not to slip.
But if a tightrope-walker loses his nerve and tries to stand still, he inevitably falls off.
Mr van Mierlo, I wish you courage and inspiration on the rather slack rope in front of you, and I hope to be able to bring you the hearty congratulations of the Socialist Group when I meet you at the other end in June.
Mr President, the founding father of my country - I am a firm believer in a Europe of nations - was the Prince of Orange from France, who was also the Count of Nassau in Germany.
This was the first example of Franco-German cooperation, as it were, and it led to the birth of the Netherlands.
When he was in difficulties, Willem van Oranje Nassau used to say in French: ' Il n'y a pas besoin d'espérer pour entreprendre et ni de réussir pour persévérer ' .
You do not need to hope in order to try, or to succeed in order to persevere.
I would just like to point this out to the Dutch President-in-Office, although the situation now is not as hopeless as it was in 1548.
I should like to thank Mr van Mierlo for his philosophical and constructive speech.
You may be primus inter pares for 14 Member States, but given that post-war European idealism has faded and the whole concept of Europe is gradually being eroded, you can no longer afford to hide behind terms such as flexibility and pragmatism.
You are aware of this too.
After the reunification of Germany, we are now on the threshold of further enlargement, and we have an historic opportunity to ensure that we become more than just an extended trade zone.
Mr President-in-Office, how do you intend to use the same ambivalent policy which the Netherlands applies to drugs as a means of combating crime? Your proposals for consolidation are not clear.
Are you or are you not prepared to accept a rotating Benelux Commissioner?
How can you claim to be playing a useful role in the Middle East peace process when you have failed to do so up to now in Europe? Once again, it is the United States which is supporting the Serbian opposition and which defused the minor missile crisis on Cyprus.
How inconsistent it is to continue to support human rights violators such as Algeria and Syria, while allowing relations to cool with Turkey, towards which the Union has certain obligations and which deserves a high level of financial support.
Is there any area where you are actually taking action under your putative foreign policy? I cannot find any mention of one.
Next, there is the democratic deficit.
This does not lie with the European Parliament, but with you!
You are the one who is in charge of all this secretive legislation in Europe.
However, we shall give you the benefit of the doubt, and ultimately we shall be judging you on the following points.
Has the legislative activity of the main European legislator, the Council of Ministers, become as open as that of its fellow legislator, the European Parliament? We do not need to amend the Treaty, simple rules of procedure would be quite enough.
And has the social aspect of Europe been maintained by allowing workers a say in legislation?
Moving on to human rights, you criticize China, but it would make more sense to criticize Suriname.
Can you tell us whether Bouterse had Dutch nationality at the time of the murders, and will you ensure that the mysteriously lost file on his nationality is made public?
This will help the cause of human rights and help to combat international drug trafficking. Are you maintaining your support for the hard euro, for instance?
What have you done to improve the governability of the Union before we proceed to enlargement? These are the points we shall be judging you on at the end of the day.
On behalf of the small delegation in the Union for Europe Group, I should like to wish the Dutch presidency every success, because this is what Europe needs and deserves, and we must all work together for its stability and security.
I wish you every success, Mr van Mierlo.
Mr President, I should like to focus on the central issue of European politics and leave Dutch domestic policy to the Tweede Kamer , which Mrs Maij-Weggen remembers so nostalgically.
The European Union is entering the most important phase of its development since 1957.
We are standing at a crossroads.
Either Europe - north and south - has a single currency by 2002, or else we shall have wasted this opportunity for an entire generation.
Either the Union incorporates the democracies of Eastern Europe, or else it will have failed in its most important task.
Either it maintains the integrity of its institutions intact, or Germany's geopolitical importance will once again spawn resentment throughout the rest of Europe.
All these issues have tended to make many national leaders afraid to give the Union the direction it needs, preferring all too often to fan the flames of nationalism by what they do or refuse to do.
All too often, they are happy to blame Europe for unpopular decisions taken at national level, while they themselves take the praise for what the Union achieves.
This is threatening to make the Union the focus of everyone's fears rather than their hopes, and it is a dangerous development.
European integration is not irreversible.
Nationalism is far more destructive and the Union far more fragile than many people realize.
In this context, the main tasks facing the Union under the Dutch presidency are clear. Firstly, we need to ensure that the single currency is strong and stable from the outset and, secondly, the Union must be made more decisive and democratic in preparation for enlargement.
Eleven countries are waiting to join, six in Central and Eastern Europe, three in the Baltic region and two in the Mediterranean.
The more disparate the Union becomes, the more difficult it will be to take decisions.
A Union with 18 to 26 members must therefore choose either to restrict the use of the veto or else to see itself become a miniature version of the OSCE.
A Union which can no longer take decisions rapidly and decisively will soon become irrelevant in the eyes of its citizens and lose their support for good.
Nothing is more damaging to the Union's credibility than its continual failure to speak with one voice in international politics, for which misuse of the veto is partly to blame.
Portugal blocked an EU agreement with ASEAN, Spain an agreement with Canada, the United Kingdom opposed a common position on chemical weapons, and Greece blocked the Union's Mediterranean policy.
The scope for blackmail in the Union's trade and foreign policies is simply far too great at the moment, and that is why the Treaty needs to be amended.
Of course, amending the Treaty alone is not enough.
The Member States also need to be prepared to share its common interests and principles.
Nowhere is this more urgently needed than in former Yugoslavia.
When will the Union finally take steps to make Belgrade and Zagreb hand over those suspected of war crimes? Yes, the Union is making sympathetic noises about the conclusions reached in London, but none of it is very convincing or effective.
I therefore call on the Dutch presidency to propose joint measures making all non-humanitarian aid to former Yugoslavia conditional on the handing-over of suspects to the tribunal in The Hague.
The public also urgently needs a response from the Union to the rapidly growing problems of transfrontier crime and migration.
I would also urge that measures be taken to tackle fraud head-on, that we should have better controls at our external borders, and that we should have a fair system for sharing the burden of looking after refugees.
If decisive action is to be taken on each of these issues, the Member States must limit the paralysing effect of the veto.
The Union must be able to take action where its citizens want it to, on urgent international problems.
It is time that the Union finally carried out the promises made to its citizens in the Maastricht Treaty.
National politicians must allow the Union to become more than just the sum of selfish national concerns.
I hope that the Dutch presidency will be successful in achieving this.
Mr President, I should like to open a parenthesis in this debate which so far has been exclusively in Dutch and introduce a few 'brushstrokes' with southern colours.
As has already been mentioned, three major subjects are on the agenda which cross over in some cases in such a way that they are inextricably linked and should inevitably be included among the priorities of the Dutch presidency.
I refer to the final phase of the IGC, the third phase of economic and monetary union and enlargement.
There are other subjects, of course, which are particularly felt by the citizens of our countries and which also deserve to be concentrated upon.
These include growing social problems and, in particular, the serious scourge of unemployment, citizen participation in Community life and decision making and whether or not to apply the principles of Community cohesion and solidarity which are enshrined in the Treaty.
I should like to begin by saying, and this is no surprise, that it is my conviction that little or no progress has been made in this presidency concerning the last three aspects which I have just emphasized.
Indeed, on a social level - and especially in the field of employment - there seem to be no changes of a major sort on the horizon, no significant changes, no basic changes concerning what have been Community policies until now.
Given the obsession as to the application of nominal convergent criteria, there has been greater flexibility, greater deregulation, more precarious employment and more unemployment.
Of course, we do appreciate the references made in the announcement on the programme of the Dutch presidency, such as achieving more equality between men and women.
But, given the current social situation, this is not enough.
New guidelines and, in our view, a farreaching change are vital.
The same could be said about citizen participation, which must deal with the fact that citizens are increasingly ignored in Community life and decision making.
At the eve of the end of the IGC and of the third stage of EMU, we would like to hope for a greater determination and an attempt to increase participation by European citizens, which would lead to a wider ranging, more pluralistic and involved discussion and would enable citizens to be listened to, thanks to referendums on all of these matters.
As the European Parliament itself has already emphasized, after all.
However, the Dutch presidency has also done little to advance this matter, limiting itself to the already known and limited expectations as to the outcome of the IGC and the intentions which we have definitely noted but which to us appear to be excessively vague.
As to cohesion, here it is a complete vacuum, and not even a single word on this area.
But this is quite symptomatic and revelatory of a certain conception of the European Community.
Now I wish to come back to the three main subjects which I referred to at the beginning.
In today's debate, we have already had the opportunity to assess the outcome of the Dublin Summit in two aspects, and we have to repeat that what we said then, in other words that we should refer to an aspect which to me seems to be of particular relevance and topicality, as far as EMU is concerned and the current presidency.
This concerns the statement made by the current Dutch Finance Minister as to the select group of countries which, as has already been pointed out, should enter EMU at the beginning of the third phase, therefore giving priority to the levels of development or of buoyancy of the economies of those countries, switching to a subordinate level the respect or not of nominal convergence criteria.
We are not surprised by this declaration.
However, we hoped that it would come at some point in time, from this or that origin.
Not only because we thought that those criteria were artificial and arbitrary in any way, but also because, primarily, the difficulties in fulfilling them are quite obvious even on the part of countries with the stronger economies! - and secondly because the real aim is the creation of a strong currency and, in the end, we always suspected that the final decisions in this area would be - or will be, finally adopted according to markedly political criteria.
However, and here I am concluding, all of this calls for the new presidency to clarify thoroughly and objectively what they are really proposing in this area.
And that is what I am asking for now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, here is another non-Dutch person taking the floor.
It is a pleasant custom to wish each other all the best at the start of the year, and I wish the Dutch presidency great courage in dealing with the difficult problems that are sure to land in its lap over the next few months.
In its programme, the Netherlands says that it feels fortunate to have inherited the draft of the new treaty from Ireland, but a clear majority here in Parliament has already pointed out that it is not so happy with the Irish presidency's proposals for the treaty, and for one crucial reason, which is that little attention is given to the issue of democratization.
In particular, as Mr Brok explained this morning, there is a very real danger that the further expansion of the Union will lead to fewer powers for Parliament, which would simply be the final straw.
It is quite ridiculous to be launching campaigns to bring Europe closer to its citizens, while at the same time leaving the elected representatives of those citizens out in the cold.
On the contrary, we need to put their representatives in a stronger position, and I think the exposure of the BSE scandal by our Committee of Inquiry here in the House has been convincing proof that elected representatives are irreplaceable when it comes to safeguarding the interests of the people and public health.
We know from experience that the Commission and the Council are far too easily swayed by lobby groups or the governments of certain Member States.
So I think Parliament must be able to prove that it can safeguard these important interests, and this is also why we want Parliament to have codecision rights on agricultural matters.
As regards the proposals on the internal market, I feel it is a little too ingenuous to claim that they are the safest way to guarantee growth and employment. What sort of growth?
Growth with more pollution and less concern about jobs? It is clear that the internal market has not scored well on creating employment over the last few years, and I would point out that there is increasing evidence of conflict between sound environmental regulations in the Member States and free competition on the internal market.
When Germany proposes tax breaks to promote environmentally-friendly energy, these are dismissed as distorting competition, and countries which try to internalize environmental costs are attacked, while others which externalize such costs do indeed distort competition.
We cannot have any sustainable development based on practices of this kind, which are on the increase in the internal market.
The employment initiatives announced are extremely disappointing.
Yet again they simply refer everything to the ECOFIN, which has proved over the last few years to be more of a stumbling-block than a stimulus.
We have taken measures to oppose this, with a number of our colleagues.
I should like to conclude by saying that when you ask yourself, Mr van Mierlo, whether a European edifice can fire people with enthusiasm, the answer is that it will generate some enthusiasm if Europe presents itself as an emancipating political project designed to deal with an incomprehensible and uncontrolled world market.
Instead, though, the Union often presents itself as subservient to the world market.
I would urge the Dutch presidency to be more active on human rights and external relations.
The Netherlands does not have the greatest reputation in this area, preferring to leave it up to the Union to take initiatives on human rights.
But you are now in the driving seat for Europe, so do something about it this time, and put pressure on President Milosevic to recognize all the election results in his country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following Mr Miranda's example, I too should like to contribute in a different language to this debate, which has largely been conducted in Dutch, and to say how delighted I am that the Netherlands is holding the presidency for these next six months.
As a member of the transnational Radical Party, I cannot forget that it was a Dutchman, Mr Bos, who chaired the preparatory committee at the UN which - thanks also to the European Union's help and support - led to that organization setting 1998 as the date for the International Criminal Court to be established.
This is proof indeed that, given the necessary political backing, small steps can be taken in the right direction; and I now hope that other such steps will be taken during the course of the Dutch presidency.
The challenges lying ahead of us, and ahead of you, are naturally enormous, and I think they will be crucial for the future of the European Union.
1997 is clearly a key year for economic and monetary union; let us therefore hope that the Dutch presidency will take to heart the increasingly widespread idea that, alongside the necessary and proper route towards the single currency, some political thinking should be devoted to its much-needed counterpart - economic management - so that convergence will not merely be monetary, but will really bring about the kind of economic management that was called for by Jacques Delors, without which the day the single currency comes into being could also be the day that sees European public opinion becoming ever more disaffected with Europe and with the European Union, on which we have to rely if we are to meet the international challenges facing us.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs has prepared an excellent document for the IGC, which I hope Parliament will adopt tomorrow. I hope that the Dutch presidency will regard it as a valuable contribution in bringing to a successful conclusion the work started under the Irish presidency.
With regard to the challenges which await us in the field of foreign and security policy, I do of course understand the possible limitations, but I believe that with a resolute government at the helm, some important matters can be taken forward: for example, floating the idea of a moratorium on the death penalty, or taking action on China - not giving in, as I hope you will not, to the veto which Italy and France are brandishing to prevent you from putting down a motion on China in the Geneva Commission on Human Rights.
You have our best wishes, then; you will have Parliament behind you, and yours will be small steps in the right direction.
Mr President, the greatest challenge facing the Dutch presidency is undoubtedly the conclusion of the IGC.
Institutional reform is needed to make the Union capable of accommodating 25 or more Member States.
Ireland's general draft for the reform of the Treaty does no more than list the problems here, so there are still hurdles to be overcome.
It has now become clear that the reforms will relate primarily to the further consolidation of European integration, in other words more powers for Europe and the further centralization of decision-making at European level.
This seems an obvious development from the point of view of achieving a particular concept of the Union's future structure.
However, we must not overlook the negative aspects associated with this, particularly the ever-widening gap between European government and its citizens.
I would therefore urge the Dutch presidency to give particular attention to two issues arising from this disturbing and unwelcome side-effect of centralization.
The Irish proposals provide a useful platform here.
Firstly, there is the proposal that a protocol should be attached to the Treaty defining how the principle of subsidiarity is to be applied.
At the Edinburgh summit at the end of 1992, certain clear statements were made about this principle in response to Denmark's rejection of the Maastricht Treaty, but they were unfortunately not taken up by the European Parliament, nor have they been included in the Irish draft.
However, applying the statements made at Edinburgh could do much to reduce the quantity and detail of European legislation, which will be necessary if a Union with 25 or more increasingly disparate Member States is to remain manageable.
In this context, the Dutch presidency must not hesitate to give back to the Member States, if necessary, certain responsibilities which have been transferred to the Union.
A second useful proposal in the Irish draft is to strengthen the position of the national parliaments in the administration of Europe.
A great deal is made of the democratic deficit in discussions of democratic controls on European decision-making, and it is generally felt that the answer to the problem lies in giving the European Parliament greater powers.
However, we must not forget that the national parliaments form the basis for parliamentary democracy in Europe, and this is how the public sees the situation.
We therefore also support the proposals to involve the national parliaments in the European decision-making process, for example by sending them early drafts of proposals for European legislation.
It would seem that flexibility is going to be the most serious obstacle in the negotiations over the next few months.
It was proposed as a way of preventing those countries which refuse any further transfer of sovereignty from standing in the way of the group of countries which are prepared to allow it.
We are not exactly taken with this idea, which is likely to undermine cooperation and make decision-making in the Union more difficult.
We feel it would be better to restrict cooperation at EU level to areas of policy associated with the internal market.
Countries which wish to have more extensive cooperation in fields such as foreign policy and justice can reach agreements on such matters outside the Treaty.
Finally, we hope that the Dutch presidency will manage to bring the IGC to a successful conclusion, but we feel that the quality of the results is more important than keeping to a self-imposed timetable.
I wish the Dutch presidency great physical and mental resilience in its work.
Mr President-in-Office, in your statement you mentioned a number of commendable programmes and projects, which are worthy of support; we should not, however, like to see what has happened with other presidencies, when issues have remained pending indefinitely and some problems have slipped out of sight, only to swell the workload of subsequent presidencies.
The Alleanza Nazionale regards the coming months as crucial, since the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference will provide once and for all the key to understanding what form the EU of the future will take: in other words, whether it will be what is often called a European Union 'à la carte' , from which each country can take what attracts it most, without feeling bound by commitments which do not suit it; or a Europe with a single market and a single currency, where the financial and monetary policies of the individual countries are determined by the European Central Bank and, within that, by a small group of bankers belonging to the so-called Deutschmark zone; or else a Union enlarged to include the Eastern European countries, and therefore - unless the rules are changed - ' unravelled' and in the grip of severe social and employment-related problems, which would then absorb its attention to the detriment of initiatives in other sectors; or again, as the Alleanza Nazionale hopes, a Europe which, above and beyond economic and financial cohesion, will at long last speak with a single voice on foreign and security policy issues, a Europe which sees the problems of the Mediterranean region as vital to its interests and to its very existence - not least the problem of the population explosion in the countries which face us on the North African coast, and the consequent illegal immigration of desperate people in search of work and a livelihood.
The Dutch presidency could make a major contribution on these and other issues, even though certain statements from you and from the governor of the Dutch Bank lead me to believe that attention is more likely to be focused on the achievement of the single currency and compliance with the Maastricht criteria.
Despite the fact that my party is in opposition in Italy, I would also point out that the efforts being made by the Italian Government to comply with the commitments entered into at Maastricht - of which we in the Alleanza Nazionale are highly critical - deserve respect from everyone: no one has a right to judge them with arrogance or with an air of superiority.
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
Mr President, the Netherlands presidency has a great responsibility on its shoulders.
Europe is at a critical moment in its development with two monumental challenges looming on the horizon.
Firstly, of course, there is a move towards the final stage of economic and monetary union but there is also, just as crucially, the enlargement of the European Union towards the Mediterranean and in Central and Eastern Europe.
As we all know, the accession negotiations will not begin until after the Intergovernmental Conference has concluded and after the Dutch presidency.
But if the eventual negotiations are to be successful, the preparatory work has to be undertaken during the next six months.
Rather than the somewhat vacuous exchanges of the past, there must be a real effort now at constructive dialogue.
A number of important issues must be raised - issues which range from aspects of the internal market to the development in Eastern Europe of civil society in all its complexities.
In this context, too, let us also focus our attention on the reforms of the European Union, reforms which will be necessary to allow enlargement to come about.
In this House we all realize the need for institutional changes but let us not forget that our budgetary structures, particularly the structural funds and the common agricultural policy, will have to be fundamentally reformed.
Without these changes enlargement simply will not come about.
Over the next few years, alongside EMU, enlargement of the Union must be at the very top of our agenda.
Enlargement is not a question of if, but of when and of how.
Enlargement is in the interests of both the European Union and the applicant states.
It is in the interests of the Union because it will give us a larger market and will help secure peace and stability.
It is in the interests of the applicants because the Union can help them achieve economic prosperity and political progress.
I wish to emphasize that all of us, together as Europeans, have a moral responsibility to work with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe so that they can overcome the legacy of the past forty-odd years.
The environmental degradation, the gross economic mismanagement and the stifling of any truly democratic impulses are all aspects of that legacy.
In partnership with the people of Eastern Europe we must overcome those aspects conclusively.
Together we have to build a new and united Europe - a Europe which includes East as well as West.
To a large extent the speed at which enlargement will take place and the extent to which the huge problems will be overcome will depend on the preparatory work of the Dutch presidency.
I hope that essential preparation will take place, and I am sure it will.
Madam President, I also wish to express my best wishes to the Dutch presidency.
In my view, what we should be expecting from this presidency is not that it should manage to resolve all the problems currently facing the European Union - something which would be physically impossible, for reasons of time - but that, by shaping wills and achieving consensus, it should be capable of giving a boost to the process of European integration, which is now at a critical point in its timetable.
And, precisely because it is at a critical point in its timetable, I believe that the Dutch presidency must proceed with a large measure of prudence, skill and tact.
I wish to tell you, therefore, Mr President-in-Office, that the remarks of your colleague, the President-in-Office of the ECOFIN Council, who quite improperly referred to the hysteria of certain Member States in wishing to join the monetary union, were hard to understand.
It is not, in my view, the task of the Council presidency to pass judgement on the capabilities of the Member States; nor is it helpful to undermine a consensus unnecessarily, especially in respect of issues on which the Treaty can be the only judge.
In all fairness, however, it has to be said that the President-in-Office clarified matters in his speech this afternoon.
What we are assessing today are the Dutch presidency's priorities and goals.
In this context, I should like to ask the President-in-Office two questions.
Firstly, has the Dutch presidency scheduled for the informal meeting of the ECOFIN Council in April an initial analysis of the revision of the financial perspectives, with a view to the future financing of the Community?
Secondly, has the Dutch presidency provided for the possibility of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference on the reform of the Treaties being adopted by only 14 Member States? And, on the basis of its contacts with the present British Government, has it formulated any initiative for breaking the deadlock to which an outcome of this kind would give rise?
I shall end, Madam President, as I began: by expressing my best wishes for success to the Dutch presidency, and reminding the President-in-Office that the challenge for the presidency - which, as he rightly said at the beginning of his speech, is in a way the challenge for the European Union as a whole - is to reconcile unity and diversity, using prudence, skill and tact, to make compatible the legitimate interests of the individual Member States, including those of the Netherlands, and to forge the European Union into a harmonious whole.
And to that end, Mr President-in-Office, our group advocates two principles: for ideas to be placed at the service of ideals whenever necessary; and for the individual Member States to seek their advantage in advantages for all.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, I too endorse the positive assessments of the prospects which you have outlined in respect of the IGC, monetary union, enlargement and, in particular, the strengthening of dialogue.
Within this positive context, however, there is a major source of regret, and I am sorry to have to strike a negative tone here: there is a risk that the European Union could take a distinct step backwards in sectors which affect its political, social and economic life, the internal market in particular, trade policy and the wretched problem of employment which we are trying so hard to combat.
Your programme does not devote a single word to tourism, which even in the past has been a marginal issue in the EU, a kind of foreign body in the Community organism.
Well, tourism is now dead - or rather, it has been killed off, murdered by the Council of Ministers in the middle of last month.
Its demise was announced in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which I think will just be called the Committee on Transport from now on, to the dismay of all those who have spent years working on two projects.
The first of these was a tentative project entitled 'Community actions in favour of tourism' , which came to fruition in 1994; it was a modest affair with appropriations of just ECU 6 million.
If you consider that my region in the Alps, with only 450 000 inhabitants, earmarks ECU 1 m more than what the Union as a whole was allocating, you will realize just how vital it is to pay attention to tourism.
That action, however, made reference to tourism after the year 2000, so the new child has died in the cradle!
Tourism is referred to in the Treaty on European Union, where it is described as a fundamental sector of activity.
The figures speak for themselves: 9.5 million workers, meaning just as many families, 65 % female employment, 296 million visitors every year within Europe, and revenue of USD 165 000 m, which is over 5 % of European GDP.
Evidently all of this carries no weight.
Tourism, as I said, has been killed off.
But it is not the tourism of Venice, Paris, Madrid or Amsterdam: that is constant, inevitable and guaranteed.
It is the tourism of depressed and outlying regions, where tourism enables people to eke out a living and, in many cases, is the only economic resource.
And it is this kind of tourism that I wish to raise with you, tourism which meets important needs as an instrument of cohesion - a word which is on all of our lips - as an opportunity to meet others, an incentive to safeguard and enhance our cultural, historical and artistic heritage.
Moreover, this form of tourism stimulates other sectors: transport, trade and agriculture.
And we sit here discussing - it has really happened - what becomes of juveniles in fish farms producing bass, or the percentage of cocoa in chocolate.
So please, Mr President-in-Office, listen to the 12 countries which said yes to tourism, and not the three which, through that absurd mechanism, unanimity, said no.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, welcome to the House.
As everyone knows, the successful conclusion of the IGC is extremely important for the future development of the Union.
Not only does the Union need more decisive democratic administration, but consolidation is also needed if the Union is to be able to enlarge, if EMU is to achieve its full potential, and if we wish to strengthen our position on the world stage.
Remembering the problems we had with the ratification and implementation of the Maastricht Treaty, I would remind the presidency, perhaps unnecessarily, that it has a great responsibility here.
Too much secrecy and too little democratic involvement almost spelt the end for the Maastricht Treaty.
Openness and democracy are requirements which are not only important to the European Parliament, but which will also determine the future legitimacy of the Union in the eyes of its citizens, and the way to ensure that it achieves this is not through expensive information campaigns, but through serious improvements to its democratic processes.
The presidency rightly devotes a great deal of attention to efficiency, which will require the scrapping of the veto and a move towards qualified majority decision-making in the Council.
But it will take more than this if we are to have a citizens' Europe.
Majority voting also requires parliamentary control, which can no longer be applied effectively at national level, of course, since ministers can be outvoted but will still be bound by the decisions which have been taken.
Control by the European Parliament is thus not the ambition of a group of power-hungry tyrants, but a simple democratic imperative.
But democracy means more than that.
It means that the Council must not be allowed to use the excuse of supposed considerations of efficiency for persisting with the intergovernmental financing of agriculture and, as seems likely, foreign policy and justice.
We must have one or the other, either the Community method, but with parliamentary control, or the inefficient method of having funding provided by Member States clinging to formal sovereignty.
We must also put an end to European funding being allocated without proper parliamentary control, which is a lesson we should have learnt from all the fraud scandals.
The first policy statement from the Dutch presidency seems to indicate that they expect flexibility to be the answer to all their problems.
Flexibility will certainly be needed if we are to skirt round all the obstacles facing us in the existing or, subsequently, the enlarged Union.
We must ensure that the institutional changes which are made keep the Union working efficiently and democratically, and keep its administration transparent.
I know from personal experience that this is not a new idea, and that the Minister and the presidency have the interests of democracy at heart.
I therefore have every confidence that it will do its very best.
But I would also urge it to develop a much more active foreign policy.
The instruments it requires, albeit inadequate, are already in place, and they are urgently needed on the Cyprus issue.
The Union must not hide behind the superior power of the United Nations: this has not worked.
The unwise decision by Cyprus to buy arms simply highlighted the instability of the status quo.
We must not forget that the crisis and the instability are the result of the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus, which we have tolerated for the last 23 years.
As we approach the accession negotiations, the presidency now bears a special responsibility.
What is meant by the Union's 'substantial contribution' , to which the Dutch Prime Minister recently referred? Turkey's over-reaction must not prevent us from carrying out the promises we have made to Cyprus.
I therefore wonder what I am to understand by the reports in the Dutch media that the Netherlands Government does not entirely rule out supplying anti-aircraft missiles to Turkey? This would hardly seem to be a good example of quiet diplomacy.
I wish the presidency a great deal of wisdom and ambition.
Madam President, unlike my colleague and fellow countryman, Mr Salafranca, I understood perfectly well the remarks made by the President-in-Office of the ECOFIN Council, the Dutch Finance Minister, which the Dutch Prime Minister naturally tried to cover up with diplomatic words.
He reminded us what economic and monetary union actually means and, further still, how it is interpreted by what might be called the Union's economically and financially strongest Member States.
He informed us that economic and monetary union will mean a two-speed Europe and, moreover, that the strong countries are wondering whether a number of the weaker countries will be suitable for that two-speed Europe.
In other words, he told us what the President of the Bundesbank and other monetary and government officials in the Europe of the hard core might really be thinking.
I understood the message perfectly well, therefore.
And I believe that a great many Spaniards, Italians, Greeks and other Europeans will have understood perfectly well what sort of future awaits them in this kind of economic and monetary union.
Consequently, diplomatic words can do little to mask something that was said not speaking from the heart, but thinking of the wallet, and I say this as someone who certainly does not support the ill-fated chapter of the Maastricht Treaty on economic and monetary union.
I have devoted most of my speaking time to referring to a matter that I did not intend to address, and now I cannot fail to say two things.
We are also debating the situation in Serbia.
I believe that Parliament must call on the Dutch presidency to demand that President Milosevic recognize the results of the municipal elections of 17 November in their entirety.
However, we should not forget that another former Yugoslav republic has also been having problems - not least in joining the Council of Europe - because democracy is lacking: I refer to Croatia.
Everyone must be judged by the same standards.
I shall end by pointing out that, as a Spaniard, I was disappointed to find that the programme of the Dutch presidency fails to mention the development of relations with Cuba.
I am not sure if this is because, just a few days ago, President Clinton thanked the Union for the position that it has adopted - in exchange, of course, for suspending application of, but not annulling, the unacceptable Helms-Burton Act.
Madam President, Mr van Mierlo and Mr Patijn, your colleague Mr Kok said yesterday that it would be better for politicians to keep quiet about EMU, but I can promise you that I have no intention of doing so.
It would be a very bad thing for democracy in Europe if we did not talk about a subject which is causing people increasing concern.
And rightly so, since EMU in its present form will simply lead to social disintegration.
It applies a budgetary strait-jacket, but offers no measures to combat fiscal competition.
Much is said about employment, but no instruments are provided for it.
In the race for the euro, the Member States are leaving 20 million unemployed people in the lurch.
The single currency is bound to lead to division and discord.
The southern countries are afraid of missing the EMU boat, and Mr Zalm, as someone has already pointed out, called their fears hysterical.
He was being much too candid.
My friends in the south, if only you knew how the Netherlands talks about your plans to join the EMU.
They would much rather see you outside it than profiting from it.
Everything has to be sacrificed for the hard euro, even the Amsterdam treaty if necessary.
Mr Kok knows very well that quarrels about EMU are a real obstacle to the reform of the Treaty, while further political integration is needed before there can be monetary integration.
A monetary union which is not also a social and ecological union and which does not create jobs could well fall victim to divisions between the governments and suspicion from the public, so as far as I am concerned, EMU can stay on hold until we have a better treaty which makes the Union more democratic and decisive, a hard enough task in itself.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, what can we hope for at the outset of the Dutch presidency? Bearing in mind the extremely, and increasingly, restrictive aspects of the Treaty, in what ways can we hope to shape the future of Europe?
First, on the economic and financial front, the Dutch presidency is going to have to negotiate the single European market, and in this area it will certainly be much preoccupied by a great many monetary questions that dictate the future of the famous single currency.
What we hope is that European prosperity, employment and what remains of free enterprise in Europe are not going to be sacrificed on the altar of monetary stability, and that the situations of our various currencies are not going to be inflicted with new forms of monetary discipline that will prevent the necessary adjustments from being made.
The Dutch presidency, so we hear, will also be active in the Middle East peace process.
What we must hope for here - and it certainly won't be easy - is that Europe will speak with a voice that is not the voice of the United States of America.
Our interests are not the same and we have a different part to play.
As far as organized crime is concerned, it will undoubtedly be necessary to review certain unwise provisions regarding the opening of frontiers, both inside and outside the Union.
As for enlargement, we hope the European presidency will carefully consider the dangers represented by allowing the accession of a country which, sadly, has recently been split in two by an inexplicable war.
Madam President, clearly and briefly, with a legal basis enshrined in the Treaties, the Dutch presidency is defining its programme text with rigorous challenges forced upon us by the way in which we are moving towards the introduction of the euro.
Normally very few people read - or if they do so they do it without special attention - the promises included in presidencies' working programmes.
But this time, in our view, these texts are taking on greater importance because they include the political, public and universal promises of the Dutch presidency and also because they are contradicting the recent declarations by the Dutch Finance Minister, Gerrit Zalm, who, with no or with very little restraint, condemned the southern European countries to ostracism as far as the single currency is concerned.
Among other things he said two very serious things: the first was that he did not think it would be advantageous for the southern countries, where the sun shines in winter, to be included at the beginning in the first wave of countries joining the single currency, and secondly that he thought that there was a hysteria - climatic of course, I imagine - in the efforts made by those States to fulfil the convergence criteria.
The President-in-Office of the Ecofin Council cannot talk rubbish of that kind.
First of all, because only on the basis of the Treaty and the rigorous fulfilment of the criteria which Community law imposes can we define who will enter in the first wave or not.
We are all equal when it comes to these matters and there are not States which are more equal than others.
It is one thing for the Dutch Minister to express his opinion without an objective basis or a legal basis on a very sensitive subject concerning relations between Member States about the subject of non-existence Community norms.
Secondly, it was offensive vis-à-vis the efforts made by governments, citizens and countries which believe in a European compromise and are doing everything to fulfil the belt-tightening policies which are called for.
As any average person in charge of European affairs acknowledges, these policies are a vital contribution to the strengthening of European public finances, fighting unemployment and making the projects for a single currency credible vis-à-vis the US dollar or the Japanese yen.
I have taken note of the declarations made at the beginning of the presentation of the working programme and in this debate and I welcome them, just as I also recalled the comments made by the Dutch Prime Minister, someone for whom I have utter respect and consideration, Mr Wim Kok, who said that he thought that those declarations were a gaffe.
In fact, Mr Gerrit Zalm will need months if not years, certainly longer than the duration of this presidency, to understand the Treaty on European Union, to study the Maastricht criteria, to read the forecasts of independent bodies such as the OECD, for example, in order to conclude that at least in the case of my country, Portugal, we are just as ready as the Netherlands when it comes to most of the Maastricht criteria and far better than the Netherlands when it comes to public debt.
It is exactly for this reason that we think that the Netherlands is fully entitled, once they fulfil those criteria, to join along with us, Spain and Italy, the first wave of countries joining the single currency.
It is my desire, a desire which I make formally to the Dutch presidency and which in the end everything will be done so that the project to create a single currency will be a project covering the largest number of European citizens possible, based on requirements of rigour, but also based on the principle of equality among all the States in the European Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, I am speaking only on the subject of Serbia.
I welcome the Council's decision of 9 January, calling on the Serbian Government to respect in full the results of the local elections in Serbia - in other words the victory of Zajedno, the alliance of opposition parties - to grant freedom of the press, to stop putting the independent media under pressure and to promote dialogue among all Serbia's political groups.
After one foreign minister of this European Union brought the whole of the EU's foreign policy into disrepute through his unnecessary trip to Belgrade before Christmas, coupled with his imprudent remarks there, my own visit to Belgrade last week was made very straightforward by the Council's statement of 9 January.
The opposition alliance Zajedno, the students and also hundreds of thousands of Serbian citizens have been coming out onto the streets for several weeks now.
If our foreign ministers had experienced for themselves this atmosphere of a country reawakening, as I did last Thursday night, they would probably offer even more support for this democratic revival and also threaten - and actually impose - more stringent sanctions on Milosevic and his government.
All those who think that we know where we stand with Milosevic, but not with the opposition, should pause for a moment and consider this idea.
Is someone who brutally suppressed a democratic demonstration in his own country in 1991, who ordered the attack on Slovenia and the war against Croatia, with the first mass graves in Vukovar, who bears the original responsibility for the war in Bosnia, with its concentration camps, mass graves and displaced persons, who was labelled the butcher of the Balkans by the US diplomatic service in 1992 - is such a person more credible, is he better suited to establishing democracy in Serbia, than the opposition leaders whom he has sought to deprive of their electoral success? However questionable the political stance of the two male leaders of the opposition alliance may have been in recent years - as I have said here before - the last few weeks have shown that they wish to give Serbia a new democratic face, through peaceful means and with the support of the civilian population.
I am expecting the West to put at least as much trust in them as in Milosevic, if not more, since they have joined in an alliance with Mrs Pesic, leader of the Civil Alliance, who has campaigned from the outset against war in the region.
I am also expecting the European Union to urge Milosevic, or indeed anyone else who comes to power, to solve the problem of Kosovo at long last, because that is where it all began and that is no doubt where it will end!
Milosevic is no longer the sole guarantor of the implementation of Dayton.
Responsibility for ensuring that now lies in Sarajevo, Pale and Banja Luka, and those in authority there must be called to account: they must be regarded as our partners in dialogue.
And everything would be much simpler if Karadzic were at last put where he belongs.
During my days and nights in Belgrade, I sensed that the people there wish to be released at last from the stifling atmosphere and the repression of the Milosevic regime.
Commissioner van den Broek, I hope that the European Union will in particular help the independent media - and especially Radio 92, which is playing a leading role - to facilitate this democratic process.
It was at the time of the last Dutch presidency, and of Foreign Minister van den Broek, that the war in former Yugoslavia began.
Please, Mr President-in-Office, do everything in your power to smooth Serbia's road to Europe, and also to bring real peace to Bosnia.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, the six-month period of the Dutch presidency is beginning at a crucial period for the European Union, as it faces the dual challenge of enlargement and intensification.
Against the background of the intergovernmental conference, it is important not to lose sight of the objective we must pursue: alongside a monetary Europe we must have a citizens' Europe, a Union which satisfies the concerns and aspirations of its people.
A citizens' Europe is a Europe which concerns itself with the weak, the needy, the excluded, its children and young people.
That, Mr President-in-Office, is why I have been paying careful attention to your proposals on employment and social policy.
The priority must be to create economic conditions favourable to the development of the job market.
At the same time, it is essential to protect and develop the European social model, as a creator of wealth for our societies and economies.
In this context, the intergovernmental conference will bear the heavy responsibility for providing the Union, at long last, with unchallengeable social powers, enabling it, in particular, to take more effective action in the campaign against social exclusion.
Thinking of the ravages caused by drug addiction among our young people, in terms of dependence, poverty and health, I am also glad to see that the Dutch presidency has made it one of its priorities to combat international organized crime and drug trafficking.
Practical cooperation between the police, customs and justice authorities of our Member States is essential if we are to conduct an active campaign against the drug trade, but - as the President-in-Office is aware - it is equally essential to harmonize national legislation on the penalties for drug dealing and use, because in the absence of such harmonization there can be no effective action and no safety for any of our fellow citizens, and especially for the young.
My final point in this connection is to call upon the Dutch presidency not to neglect the grave problem of the protection of Europe's children - a problem which is not just a reflection of our concern at recent events but an absolutely fundamental issue for a united Europe.
Once again, I take this opportunity to call upon the President-in-Office to set up a European centre for the prevention and combating of violence against minors.
Such a centre, based on the model of the European agencies, would act as an authority for coordinating activities, but would also be a unique information exchange, which would be entrusted with the very specific priority mission of tracing missing children, by networking the national search centres and the schemes set up by associations and families in our various countries.
In the course of the vote on the 1997 budget, Parliament and the Council demonstrated their support for the implementation of schemes to protect children.
That determination must be translated into specific action, and I call upon the Council presidency to generate the necessary determination for the implementation of this project, so that the 80 million children living in the European Union can grow up in a Europe that welcomes them and is, of course, prepared for a better future.
Madam President, I would like to wish the Dutch presidency success during the coming six months.
The Netherlands are not one of the larger countries, but a country that is dynamic and could make a positive contribution, I would say, which might be rather different from and much more social than anything we have seen since the Maastricht Treaty, and one that is much more acceptable to Europe's citizens.
We have noted sensitivity on the part of the Dutch presidency concerning a series of issues related to citizens' rights.
Over some issues, however, we have seen a complete lack of sensitivity and we are hearing the Dutch presidency's programme here in Strasbourg, in Strasbourg where European Parliament Plenaries have repeatedly raised extremely serious issues concerning human rights violations by Turkey and where the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has in recent months proclaimed two decisions condemning Turkey, both in relation to the human rights of Kurds and in relation to the assets of Cypriots in areas of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish troops.
From that standpoint, Mr President-in-Office, I would like to ask you: You have been President-in-Office of the European Union for just a few weeks.
Yesterday, after an escalation of threats, we heard Turkey's Islamic Prime Minister, Mr Erbakan, openly threatening war and territorial occupation against a Member State of the European Union, namely Greece, and against a country associated with the European Union, namely Cyprus.
To be specific, Mr Erbakan said: ' Greece has learned the lessons of 1922 when the Greeks were expelled from Asia Minor and 1974 when half of Cyprus was occupied, and Turkey is ready to repeat those lessons' .
He is threatening war against a Member State of the European Union, and in the face of this threat of war we hear neither any protest nor any serious statement of attitude from the presidency.
The only things we see and hear from you are diplomatic circumlocutions of no importance, which merely prepare the way for the convocation of the EU - Turkey Council of Association.
Nobody wants Turkey to be isolated.
Nobody wants walls between Turkey and Europe.
But Turkey must respect the Member States, respect the European Union's democratic principles like any other country, and what we want from the presidency is to have the courage, the guts to live up to its responsibilities and support Member States threatened by such warlike proclamations.
I expect an answer from you, Mr President-inOffice.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, the Dutch have sometimes been criticized in recent weeks for a lack of ambition in planning their presidency.
It could also be said, however, that their agenda is very challenging.
As Mr van den Broek has pointed out, pursuing simultaneously the aims of deepening and broadening the Union certainly requires a great deal of thought and effort.
I should like to know, Mr President-in-Office, if you are clear about the preconditions for enlargement.
Some of these have already been referred to: I am thinking of the institutional preconditions.
As someone who comes from a small country, I support you in your efforts to ensure that in future, even in an enlarged Union, the small countries should have a sufficiently strong representation.
With regard to regional aid, what ideas will the Netherlands feed into this debate, and will they shape regional aid in such a way that it is still workable in an enlarged Union?
On assistance for agriculture, are you prepared to support a shift away from a policy of direct subsidies towards one of aid for rural areas, taking particular account of social factors?
An area which is rarely mentioned, but where I would expect the necessary support from the Netherlands in particular, is environmental policy and the modernizing of nuclear power stations in the eastern half of Europe.
I fully support your efforts to find a real solution here, but I believe that this will depend on many elements being put in place.
Secondly, I would mention briefly something which is very important in the context of disarmament and war.
It is to be hoped that, with the support of the Dutch presidency, we shall achieve something which lies within reach: a permanent ban on production, trade in and laying of anti-personnel mines, as well as the destruction of all antipersonnel mines which now exist.
I would end by asking that, in respect of this important activity - currently being undertaken in the context of the United Nations, but where Europe must now show its true colours - the European Union should wage a successful campaign for the banning of anti-personnel mines, and I hope that you will be able to achieve this before the end of your presidency.
Madam President, over the next few months, Europe is going to be put to the test.
Will the Union be able to reform itself so that it can face the 21st century with confidence - a new era with a series of enlargements and all the problems of integration they will entail?
Some of the reforms needed to adapt our administrative and democratic structure to the new situation could present difficulties for individual Member States.
The Netherlands has the considerable task of achieving consensus on this very difficult choice, but then consensus is something the Netherlands has always specialized in.
Some people say that this is precisely why the polder economy has been such a success.
The very fact that the Netherlands is accustomed to trying to reach compromises and consensus could make this Dutch presidency an historic one.
But it certainly struck the wrong note in the very first week of the presidency - and I think Mr Salafranca was extremely tactful in how he referred to this, for which I am grateful to him - for a finance minister to express his views so outspokenly and undiplomatically that we can only fear that consensus and confidence will now be very hard to find.
Even a child could tell which countries Mr Zalm was calling hysterical.
A country like Spain, which has just frozen its civil service salaries so as to be able to meet the EMU criteria, will find it very difficult to defend its actions to its people if the EU President-in-Office calls its government hysterical.
On behalf of my group, I must therefore ask the Dutch President-in-Office to explain his behaviour.
The single currency will also require a great deal of work from the Dutch presidency.
The regulations on the legal status of the euro, the finishing touches to the stability pact and a decision on a new European Monetary System are all matters which call for confidence and unanimity.
But even where the single currency has most support in the Union, there are still a number of concerns, and the Dutch presidency is perhaps particularly well equipped to deal with these problems.
Moving on to labour market policy and unemployment in the Union, the Netherlands is right to stress the need for structural changes in policy regarding rigid wage systems, changes in social benefits and greater labour mobility.
One thing I would criticize in the programme of the Dutch presidency is the lack of any mention of a Tourism Council.
People will eventually come to appreciate that tourism is the largest employer in the whole of the Union.
Given that both the Union and the Netherlands Government feel so strongly about 'work, work, work' , it is all the more incomprehensible that the Dutch presidency seems to ignore the very existence of tourism.
To conclude, I very much hope that the Dutch presidency is going to give us a people-friendly Amsterdam treaty that is just as creative as the city itself.
Madam President, like other Members I would like to wish the Dutch presidency the very best of luck in a very important year for the European Union.
The work undertaken by the Irish presidency has already established many of the yardsticks we need to follow.
Judging by what was said in Parliament this morning in reply to the last President-in-Office, Prime Minister John Bruton, one can see that the emphasis is on a Europe which is closer to the people, which can take account of the people's concerns, can react quickly and assuage fears but which, at the same time, can stir enthusiasm and passion in people.
So rather than repeat what has been said by other speakers, I just want to mention to the Dutch presidency two points on which I would like to see some action.
One has already been mentioned in the presidency document which has been given to Members: it is the fight against international crime and illicit drug-trafficking.
This is one of the biggest areas of concern to the ordinary man or woman in the street who is the embodiment of the European Union.
A programme on BBC World Television last Monday night emphasized the point again that 82 % of all crime in Britain is drugs-related.
Recent figures from the Irish Police Force say that 76 % of all crime in Ireland is drugsrelated.
With the Europol drugs unit based in Holland, I hope the Dutch presidency will continue the work started by the Irish presidency in bringing forward coordinated and concerted action, moving these issues from the third pillar to the first pillar and getting more and more coordination and more and more cooperation between the Member States in tackling what is an evil and vile illicit business.
Following on from that, my second and final point is that if this European Union is to mean anything, if the new treaty on European Union is to mean anything, it must protect those who are most vulnerable in our society, and that is our children.
We have the ongoing case in Belgium of the paedophile rings.
We have the ongoing everyday problems that children are facing not only with regard to sexual and emotional abuse but poverty, lack of opportunity and protection.
With the amount of goodwill present, there should now be an opportunity for a specific article in the new treaty which the Dutch Government will - we hope - be bringing in under its presidency, to ensure that the rights and freedoms of children are fully and individually enshrined therein.
If we cannot protect our future which is our children, what point is there in protecting the present?
Madam President, the Dutch presidency is charged with the duty that stems from previous Summits and most recently the Dublin Summit, to further the completion of the Intergovernmental Conference, the third phase of EMU, and the European Union's enlargement towards the Central and Eastern European Countries.
What is certain is that by acting accordingly, the Dutch presidency will make its own contribution to the edifice of a Europe of poverty and unemployment.
The peoples of Europe can expect no improvement of their living standards and working conditions from the activities of the next six months.
Concerning the situation in Serbia, I would first like to comment on the cautious way in which the President-inOffice approached the issue in his statement.
Madam President, despite the tremendous difficulties it is facing, both economically due to the embargo and because of the problems created by the embattled situation in the Balkan area, the Serbian nation is in a position to establish democratic procedures and extend its democratic rights if it is left free from outside pressures and international ulterior motives.
The Serbian Government's decision to declare the municipal elections void and the reaction to that decision make it essential to find a solution of the issue within the scope of Serbian law and order and the specific choices of its political forces, to highlight the real problems faced by Serbs and free them from the present situation, which is creating fertile soil for any who are scheming against the rights of Serbia and its people, and to back its struggle for peace in the area, democracy and social prosperity.
From that point of view we cannot condone the intention to impose new measures and conditions upon Serbia with the excuse that we are recognising the democratic rights of the opposition parties.
This insistence on imposing additional measures which in the last analysis make life more difficult for Serbian people themselves, cannot but be regarded as questionable.
Whereas after the Dayton Agreement the Serbian people were hoping for the lifting of the sanctions against them, they see that not only is that obligation not being fulfilled, but on the contrary, no opportunity is lost to maintain and extend the measures against them, the more so just when every Press report nowadays shows that the Serbian Government is already moving towards recognition of the opposition's rights and acceptance of the recent municipal election results.
It is already apparent that the election results have been accepted for the more important towns and cities such as Belgrade and Nis.
I think the European Parliament's insistence on imposing new measures can be summed up in one word: that effort can only be characterized as hypocrisy, because otherwise words lose their meaning, unless we label that orientation and that view hypocritical.
Madam President, 1997 is an extremely important year for Europe, as various speakers have rightly pointed out.
It is also a year in which Europe is being led by small countries.
The troika consists of Ireland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, small but strong countries which are determined to continue the tradition of sound presidency.
Ireland certainly did some very good work, and the Netherlands now faces the very special, perhaps even the historic task of concluding or preparing to conclude the Intergovernmental Conference.
All in all, we feel cautiously confident about the Dutch presidency.
We have confidence in its traditional, efficient and pragmatic approach, but we are also cautious, because we have read newspaper reports and interviews with prominent representatives of the coalition in the Netherlands, such as Mr Bolkestein, who have said things which are the very opposite of what we want to hear about Europe.
I am counting on you, Mr van Mierlo and Mr Patijn, not to follow Mr Bolkestein's lead in your presidency of the Intergovernmental Conference, but to follow the Benelux memorandum instead.
I am pleased that you called for greater use of the qualified majority, which is essential if Europe is to remain workable.
But I was disappointed that at the very first press conference of the Dutch presidency, it was specifically stressed that unanimity would still be required on matters of fiscal policy.
Yet the Dutch presidency sets such great store by the link between taxation and employment, and also by the CO2 tax, and we have already established that all the problems we have had with this tax stem from the need for unanimity.
I should like to address a few words now to Mr Patijn, as president of the Budget Council.
Mr Patijn, you yourself have witnessed the great uneasiness that now exists between Parliament and the Council.
I would ask you to try, informally and quickly, to overcome this uneasiness.
We do of course share some of the responsibility for it, but the blame mainly lies with the Council, which has not really acted as it should have done in recent years.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, on 31 December, a group of Members of this Parliament drank a toast to the Dutch presidency, encouraged as we were by the success of the last Dutch presidency, which culminated in the signing of the Maastricht Treaty.
On 6 January - Twelfth Day, moreover - the Dutch Finance Minister and President-in-Office of the ECOFIN Council made his début with some remarks which showed him to be in favour of creating a very small economic and monetary union, in order - and I quote - to ensure the credibility of the euro.
As if these remarks were not unfortunate enough, he added that the southern Member States which were seeking to form part of the first wave of the third stage of EMU were guilty of hysteria.
Acting as a kind of European team selector, moreover, he limited participation in stage three to Germany, the Benelux countries, France and possibly, with luck - so he said - Ireland and Austria.
You wondered in your speech, Mr President-in-Office, quoting Vaclav Havel, if it was possible to call for a passion for Europe - and this Parliament does of course have that passion. But it is not by means of remarks such as those in question that a passion for Europe will be conveyed to, or caused to grow among, the peoples of which Europe is composed.
The Dutch Finance Minister's remarks, which you half-heartedly sought to play down the following day, were insensitive, clumsy and in conflict with the Treaty on European Union. Worst of all, they reflected an attitude which is incompatible with the statements of this Parliament, which, although it has always said that it wishes to see a stable, sound, strong and credible euro, has also said that it wishes as many Member States as possible to join the single currency, because this will prevent unnecessary divisions between the North and the South, the rich and poor countries, the Europe of grey roofs and the Europe of the Mediterranean.
It is said in a Spanish classic which you probably know - ' Don Juan Tenorio' - that a modicum of contrition brings salvation.
The President-in-Office now has the opportunity to make a formal statement of the obvious and say that - whatever his Finance Minister may think - the only law governing participation in the single currency is that of the Maastricht Treaty; or to make a somewhat more ambitious statement, and say that the Dutch Government wishes a large number of Member States to join the single currency; or finally, in a fit of passion for Europe, to make the statement we would wish to have and interpret the Maastricht Treaty in such a way as to allow the maximum number of Member States to participate in the single currency.
In a show of generosity, he could also applaud the endeavours of governments such as that of my country, which are making tremendous efforts to form part of the first wave, full of enthusiasm for the latest phase of the process of European integration, which is the third stage of economic and monetary union.
If he does this, the President-in-Office will probably be saved.
If he does not, I am sure that he will be damned.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands on his detailed speech concerning his country's presidency.
There is just one issue I should like to address today, and that is the question of Serbia, or rather the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Parliament feels that the Dutch presidency should set to work immediately on this urgent political issue, which we would like to focus on in this debate.
For weeks now, we have been following developments in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with some trepidation, weeks of huge yet peaceful protests against the falsification of the local election results.
For the Serbs, this has obviously been the last straw.
The Milosevic government has long been sheltered by the international community because of the Dayton Agreements, but this cannot go on.
Electoral fraud is electoral fraud, and the OSCE representatives judged that this was undoubtedly the case.
The Serbian Government must obey all the recommendations of the González mission, there is no question about it.
The Union cannot do anything with a government that has violated the rules of democracy so seriously.
Through its actions, the Serbian Government has cut itself off from Europe, and relations must remain frozen until President Milosevic concedes to every demand.
Commissioner van den Broek also shares this view, it would appear.
The Union and the Member States must make every effort to ensure that the IMF does not make any concessions to the present Serbian government.
We are not simply concerned about reinstating the election results: this was just one example of Serbia's worrying democratic standards, which need to be improved.
The Union needs to make this clear, but it must also be prepared to help to strengthen democracy there.
It is everyone's responsibility.
President Milosevic is wavering at the moment, but his concessions have made little impression on the demonstrators, and he obviously still needs a little more encouragement.
The presidency can help here by organizing a special troika mission to apply the necessary pressure on the spot.
I was a little disappointed with Mr van Mierlo's statement that although he supports our resolution, he is not sure whether organizing a troika mission is the right thing to do.
I think the European Union must not wait too long, otherwise we run the risk of allowing the Americans to seize the initiative once again.
You can never really tell exactly when such a mission should be carried out or how successful it will be.
I think the people in Belgrade are entitled to expect a European Union presence, and I would repeat that we need to have a more visible profile there.
It is important for the opposition, but it is also an investment in future relations with what we hope will be a more democratic country.
Madam President, other speakers have criticized the Dutch Finance Minister's political indiscretion.
In my opinion, however, this matter should not be allowed to obscure the reality of the programme of the Dutch presidency, and I would congratulate the President-in-Office of the Council on being the first of his kind to have interpreted, in keeping with the spirit and the letter of the Treaties, the essence of what the rotating Council presidency represents, in a way devoid of all self-will or populism directed towards domestic policy objectives.
Likewise, I believe that Parliament should not dwell excessively on national issues in these six-monthly debates on the Council presidency.
Having said that, Mr President-in-Office, and keeping to the broad outlines of your programme, I should like to examine various aspects of that European reality to which you refer, with a view to highlighting a number of the issues which Parliament considers to be important.
To my mind, it is essential for your presidency to devote itself to clearing the Council's desk. The Council is the institution which most delays the adoption of draft directives and regulations.
It is not the Commission or Parliament which holds up the legislative process; it is the Council.
This is an outstanding matter, therefore, and we are expecting you to do everything possible to resolve it.
You will also be performing a great service if you promote the spirit of the Treaties in the Council, as opposed to certain practices which fundamentally conflict with the provisions of those Treaties.
I am referring to the fact that, all too often, the Council seeks a consensus, even in cases where the Treaties allow it to decide by qualifiedmajority voting.
This is contrary to the Treaties and also unnecessarily delays a large number of decisions.
In the same spirit, Mr President-in-Office, you must nip in the bud the attempts of some Member States to bring certain policies back under national control.
I refer in particular to environment policy; in this respect, it should be pointed out that we have been waiting for the realization of one of the proposals which you highlight in your programme - final implementation of the agreement on the CO2 energy tax - since 1992, the year in which the Earth Summit took place, when we made a formal international commitment to bringing this legislative measure into effect in the European Union in the near future.
With regard to internal policy matters, it is in my view a matter of urgency finally to adopt the Convention on the Common European Frontier Agreement, as well as to implement measures to combat terrorism and, of course - as other speakers have said - illegal drug trafficking.
Lastly, Mr President-in-Office, I believe that the fundamental nature of the parallel competences of the national parliaments and the European Parliament must not be changed in the next Treaty.
Any fundamental altering or mingling of those competences would be very detrimental to the future of our work.
Madam President, first of all I should like to say that in the field of the environment, at least, I welcome the aims of the Dutch presidency.
I find their programme a curious mixture of worthwhile ambition and unrealism: unrealism because I think there are problems about timetables and the machinery of the Community that are not reflected in the programme they have published.
That realism really has to be developed.
It is laudable that they want to ensure that environment and health policies are properly integrated with other policies, especially employment.
That is very good. I am very pleased they are taking that seriously.
But I have one or two specific comments I want to make.
I hope that during the six months of the Dutch presidency they will make progress with the fifth Environmental Action Programme, first of all by ensuring that the Council agreement of December is actually transmitted to Parliament so that we can begin work on the second reading.
I hope that they will work to reach an agreement on both drinking and bathing water.
We have already had the first reading in Parliament and I do not see any reason why they should not make progress.
I am very hopeful that they can.
Thirdly, I agree with them that implementation and enforcement of environment policy are tremendously important issues, but I would ask them not to reach an agreement at the first Environment Council but rather to wait until the second one so that they can have the benefit of consultation and discussion with Parliament on this very important subject.
Fourthly, I hope that they will try to deal with the auto oil programme, again, not at the first Environment Council but at the second one, because we can help there.
Lastly, I hope that they will recognize that we do not yet have the framework programme on water and that they will therefore encourage the Commission to reach agreement on that so that we can begin to work jointly.
I wish them well for their six months in spite of the obstructionism of certain Member States in the Council.
Mr President, following the detailed speech by Mr van Mierlo, I have a few comments to make that will perhaps give him the sort of passionate response I know he is so keen to elicit.
I would remind him that European integration was an extremely bold venture undertaken by earlier generations who hoped to realize a dream.
The idea was that there should be much less talk of swords, and much more of the efficient use of ploughshares.
This has actually worked very successfully, and I suppose you could say that we are now living in a kind of 'paradise found' .
But in the hands of pragmatic bureaucrats, all this becomes in the long run is an empty shell, an edifice, as you said in your speech.
However, I think it is very important to help the Netherlands Government to maintain its momentum in the presidency, which I assume will be safe in your capable hands.
Turning now to the third pillar, which forms part of this edifice, I think that people are coming to realize that clinging on to national sovereignty does not serve the interests of public security.
This is why it is so important for a sovereign decision to be taken to tackle crime at European level.
It is particularly dangerous to go blindly forward in a sector which is one of the most traditional responsibilities of the constitutional state without giving the European Court the necessary powers and without the necessary parliamentary controls at European level.
You are familiar with our parliamentary committee of inquiry in the Netherlands into the conduct of the police and judiciary.
We must realize that it is very foolhardy to press on with measures in this field without having the scope for such inquiries at European level.
It is not our intention, and never has been, to take powers away from the national parliaments, but simply to provide a safe Community haven for those powers which have been abandoned on the wrong doorstep at the Council in Brussels.
I think you need to be rather more ambitious, and on the subject of asylum policy you made a rather amusing comment about the policy in the Netherlands.
You said that the Commission is to be made responsible for coming up with a fraud-proof passport.
Is that not simply the Netherlands Government acting in its own interests?
From a historical standpoint, I cannot help but find this slightly amusing.
Mr President, the Dutch presidency is not going to be an easy one.
There is a serious risk that no major decisions can be taken before the British elections, by which time there will be only a few weeks' working time left before the Amsterdam summit.
To finalize, during those few weeks, what others have failed to institute during several months sounds like attempting the impossible - and this is an area where the public expects much from the European Union.
What it expects is guaranteed personal safety, effective action against international organized crime, and against the crimes committed against children, drug trafficking, fraud and corruption.
Yet what does the record show? In all these areas, the intergovernmental conference has proved ineffective.
In judicial cooperation, in police cooperation, the story is always the same: organized crime has created its European theatre of operations, while those who should be fighting it are taking cover behind the rampart of their so-called sovereign interests and so achieving little or nothing.
To continue along this road, Mr President, is to face certain failure.
What we must have, if we are to solve these problems, are Community structures, not just to deal with visas, asylum and immigration but also, and most important of all, to deal with crime prevention and with cooperation between police and judicial authorities.
So there are two inescapable conclusions.
First, let those who cling to their sovereignty understand that unless they pool something of that sovereignty they risk losing all of it.
And secondly, let the Dutch presidency, if it finds it has too little time to finish tying up an efficient package for combating organized crime, leave the job unfinished and hand it on to the next presidency.
Better to be patient and finish up with workable legislation rather than rush matters and then spend years suffering the consequences of a system that doesn't work.
Mr President-in-Office, I am sorry to say that you have really only replied to Dutch colleagues, although we are after all a European Parliament.
'European' means German, French, Portuguese and so on!
I made a very specific comment on Serbia, and I should like a specific answer from you on Serbia - not only from Mr van den Broek, but also from the President-in-Office of the Council.
Please, Mr President-in-Office, let us hear just a few words, but ones of substance.
I would ask Members to appreciate the fact that this debate has been very long, and time is pressing.
Mr President, you are quite right, it is a very important point, but your own timetable rather put me under pressure.
Mr Wiersma also said how disappointed he was that I have not agreed to take a troika to Serbia immediately.
On my visits to the various capitals, Serbia has always been discussed in detail, and I can tell you that views on the issue are very similar and that everyone is prepared to do whatever is most effective.
When we can go there and actually achieve something, we shall be sure to go.
But there is no point in going simply for the sake of going, because if you then come back empty-handed it could actually be counter-productive, whereas you might find that if you had only waited a few days, you could have achieved something useful.
In other words, we must be sure that what we do will be effective, but I can assure you that every country is 100 % behind those who have shown that there is another side to Belgrade apart from what President Milosevic has shown us.
You need have no doubts, everyone has said this so far, and I do not expect to hear anything different on the rest of my travels.
Mr President, I too would like to take up precisely the point raised by Mrs Pack: I do not think answers should be given solely for the benefit of Dutch Members.
Yesterday I brought up before the Minister the issue of the statement made by Mr Erbakan, and it is all over the European Press today that Turkey is ready to move against Greece, the Turkish army is ready to do what it did in 1974 against Cyprus.
The President cannot remain silent about that issue, that threat against a Member State.
I expect an immediate statement from the President.
There is one question that was raised by three groups but has not been answered, about the Dutch presidency's position on Parliament's hopes to see both its budgetary powers and its legislative powers extended.
You have said you support us, but a number of comments which have been made have cast doubts on your support for our budgetary powers, and we take a very serious view of that.
We should like to hear what Mr van Mierlo has to say about this.
There were three other groups as well as my own which raised this point.
Mr President, I restricted myself to asking two questions, but the fact is that I did not receive an answer to either of them.
The first was very simple: has the Dutch presidency scheduled for the informal meeting of the ECOFIN Council in April an initial assessment of the revision of the financial perspectives, with a view to the financing of the European Union in the post-1999 period?
And the second - and important - question was: following the latest round of negotiations, and especially its contacts with the present British Government, has the Dutch presidency provided for the possibility of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference on the reform of the Treaties being adopted by only 14 Member States?
I shall be very brief, Minister.
You said that there was not a single dissenting voice.
Well, I seem to recall that five years ago, during the massacres at Vukovar, while this House was still supporting the Yugoslav Red Army, there were very few dissenting voices - those of my friends and myself.
Today, we are piling ridicule on shame.
Mr President, on the subject of Turkey, I have decided to ask the Association Council to discuss relations with that country.
Turkey is a member of NATO, and while there is much to criticize it for, you have to look at both the positive and negative sides, and this is why we need to hold a meeting of the Association Council with Turkey as soon as possible in order to discuss these issues.
Yesterday, I expressly urged the parties involved, including Mr Erbakan, not to do or say anything likely to increase tension.
However, we must not underestimate the increase in tension caused by the views both sides are currently exchanging.
Both sides need to curb their behaviour, otherwise we shall have no chance of finding a solution to the Cyprus question, for example.
On the subject of budgetary powers, I would simply say the following: the talks on the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure at the IGC have not indicated - and I think this is something you should be aware of - that the distinction is likely to be abolished.
This is not to say that everyone thinks that we should keep the status quo, but as I think I told you earlier, some aspects of the integration process are, by definition, gradual.
I do not for the time being expect there to be much scope for changing the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
The Finance Ministers need to decide in ECOFIN whether to hold an informal meeting on the financial perspectives.
The programme for the Dutch presidency does say that we might meet informally simply in order to take note of views, but there have been so many protests against the idea that it is now doubtful whether this meeting will actually take place.
I personally feel that if one country says that there was an agreement not to do this, and insists on the point, then we cannot change the agenda on the issue.
But if we did hold the meeting, it would simply be an informal and non-committal exchange of views.
A question was also asked about the situation regarding the United Kingdom.
It is difficult to answer this very briefly without treading on anyone's toes.
I do not think it is a good idea for the Fourteen to try to take decisions together, leaving the United Kingdom in an isolated position on all the issues in question.
This would be counterproductive and encourage polarization in the United Kingdom's election campaign, which would certainly not be in our interests.
I do not feel the slightest need to interfere in the election campaign in the United Kingdom.
It is none of our business, it is their democracy and values that are at stake, and it would be wrong for me to say who I hope will win.
The only thing I can do, and I am speaking for a good many people here, is to hope that they manage not to be too negative regarding Europe in the campaign.
If they are negative, and the most anti-European candidates secure the most votes - I am not saying that this is what will happen, but if it does - the winner, whoever it is, will have very little room to negotiate for some time afterwards.
And let us be honest, we need the British to help us build Europe and we want to keep them on board.
If we are to do this, we need to play our part too.
So we must try hard to forget that the problem exists.
Let them conduct their own campaign, and let us try to get through the various issues as constructively as possible and avoid creating situations where the British are left isolated on every key point just before the elections.
But otherwise I think we would do well not to worry too much about the British elections.
It is also wrong to think that the United Kingdom is the only country which is preventing consensus on a number of vital issues: this is simply not true, and we must refuse to allow this impression to continue.
It is not in the United Kingdom's interests, and it is certainly not in Europe's.
Thank you, Mr van Mierlo.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Mr President, I believe that the way in which we set our agenda and plan our business must be improved in the daily conduct of our work.
I would ask you to draw the Bureau's attention to the need for debates such as the one that we have just concluded to be better prepared and allocated sufficient time, so that when, as at present, the Council presidency is willing to answer questions frankly and in a customary parliamentary way, it is able to do so. Such debates should not be treated as ordinary ones, since they are very important to us.
I should also like to remind you that on the agenda of the next part-session is a debate with the European Council.
I hope that the European Council will be informed that it will have sufficient time to engage in a genuine open dialogue with Parliament, of a kind for which the House has repeatedly called and which is essential to our institution.
I would ask you to pass on this request to the Bureau.
Very well, I shall convey that request to the Bureau.
Distance selling
The next item is the report (A4-0009/97) by the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text (C4-0666/96-00/0411(COD)), approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the protection of consumers in respect of distance contracts (rapporteur: Mrs Oomen-Ruijten).
Mr President, the conciliation procedure on distance selling has, to my mind, produced an excellent result.
We have achieved a great deal in these negotiations - more in fact than the Council wished to see - and it is the first time that the Council's stance has changed between the common position after second reading and the conciliation procedure, in the sense that for the first time the Council, having initially rejected Parliament's wishes, then nevertheless agreed to them unanimously.
Following all Parliament's amendments, it has now for the first time adopted a proposal on these lines by a qualified majority.
I noticed in the delegation that insisting on explanations from the Council - explanations of why it was doing something - and following up with questions was an approach which could bear fruit, and thus of the 31 amendments, as many as 26 were included in the text either as they stood or in an adapted form.
Three amendments thereby became redundant, mainly for technical reasons, and two others were withdrawn by the rapporteur on practical grounds.
That is a good result, when one thinks that the Council did not wish to accept a single amendment in the first instance.
Ultimately, we now have a directive which meets an urgent need.
It is an important piece of consumer protection in an area where there are no European rules at all, but where they are very much required.
It is important in view of the tremendous upsurge in distance selling of goods and services.
More and more use is being made of existing and also new technologies.
We are buying records via television, we buy clothes through the Internet, and we book our holidays by telephone.
These are being used more and more.
And we are not just doing this in our own countries, but also approaching suppliers across borders and being approached by them.
When making purchases in the internal market, a responsible consumer must be enabled to proceed in an informed way and to make considered choices.
That is not only in the interests of the consumer, but also in the interests of those supplying goods or services.
For these choices to be identified, a number of conditions have to be met.
One of the main points is the right to thorough information.
The directive provides that, before a contract is concluded, the consumer must be aware of such things as the price, the most important features, the method of payment and, where appropriate, the cost of delivering the goods or services.
Also, where payment is made in advance, Parliament wishes the money to be reimbursed if the corresponding service is not provided.
We have laid down a number of conditions in the directive with regard to marketing.
A ban has been imposed on the use of faxes and automatic calling machines, and if the telephone is used for canvassing or marketing, there is at least now a rule whereby people can no longer simply be disturbed during their meals.
A very important point which the Council was in fact reluctant to accept, and which was previously only dealt with in the small print of a contract, is the supply of goods of equivalent value.
This means that if I have to conduct an election campaign in my country and need some green T-shirts, and they supply me with red T-shirts, then while I may well be able to dispose of them to the socialists, I actually wanted green ones.
It must therefore be possible for me to return the red T-shirts and get my money back on them.
This kind of case, normally only dealt with in the small print, is now included in the legislation, something which took a great deal of trouble.
Then there is the question of financial services.
An amendment which we had tabled on this issue was unfortunately rejected by a few votes - for which we have to thank a number of our colleagues in the Liberal Group, and from the other side of the House.
What we did manage to achieve - and I also say this to my colleague Mr Herman - is that we now have an undertaking from the Council with regard to the Green Paper on financial services, so that where there are gaps, there will be further scope for legislation.
Something which should now be settled, and which is completely new, is the question of taking legal action.
In this legislation, we have provided that consumer organizations can also take legal action in another jurisdiction.
I think this is something entirely new.
I would also draw attention to the system of self-regulation which, I believe, provides ample scope for dealing with any complaints, and to the delivery of flowers, which will be covered by the directive.
It is also quite a novelty that in a conciliation procedure, in joint discussions between the Council and Parliament, a good solution has been found in this respect.
Mr President, we have discussed great matters at great length this afternoon but it is appropriate now that one of the ornaments of Dutch politics should be making the first speech in this Dutch presidency in a cause which she has made very much her own in recent years.
I would like to congratulate her on the time she has devoted to bringing this directive to a most a satisfactory phase of conciliation.
I should also like to apologize to her in advance and to Commissioner Bangemann to whom I should like to ask a question because I have to go almost immediately to ask another question of President Santer in the temporary committee on BSE which is meeting simultaneously with this debate.
I just want to make a few very brief points because much has already been said by the rapporteur.
Firstly, the enormous increase in direct selling leaves the consumer with both the best and the worst of this new world.
The best, in that there is access to a whole range of new services. The worst in that there is no protection in terms of knowledge about the selling techniques that are used.
Sometimes the consumer in this position faces what in English, borrowing from Dutch, we call a forlorn hope.
I think in Dutch it is verloren hoop .
That position, in which you do not know enough of what is happening to, and around, you is something this directive has attempted to rectify.
I am delighted that twenty-six of the propositions that went to conciliation have been accepted, particularly given the rather lamentable history and the two years' delay in the previous Parliament when this issue was locked up in the Council.
That process has now been unlocked and I am delighted by the achievements we have made.
I would like to say a few words about the matters that the rapporteur has raised.
We have received a number of important additions to the text.
We have now given consumers seven working days in which to change their minds.
They are going to be properly informed when they are going to be sent substitute goods.
They are going to be reimbursed if they change their minds and they have the right to full reimbursement if the supplier goes bankrupt or fails to perform the service involved.
Those are marvellous points and together with the protection from 'cold calling' by telephone, an amendment which I have been concerned with before, they add up to a real degree of protection.
There remains, however, the problem of financial services.
Commissioner Bonino made a commitment to come forward with a communication on financial services and, if necessary, a directive.
One year later we only have a weak Green Paper and no legislation.
On behalf of the committee and personally I want to ask Commissioner Bangemann where the Commission now stands on this proposal? This Parliament would urge the Commission and the new Director-General of DG XXIV - when appointed - to show the same determination about legislation in this field of financial services that the rapporteur has shown.
Lastly, coming from a country whose government is recalcitrant as far as consumer organizations being able to bring class actions in the courts is concerned, I welcome that possibility that is now available in all Member States.
As Mrs Oomen-Ruijten correctly says, this is a new departure and one which I hope will be taken up in all countries including my own.
I would urge the UK to allow legitimate consumer organizations, and not just the DirectorGeneral of Fair Trading, to take such actions.
As a result of the hard work of all those involved in this directive, but most notably the rapporteur, consumers no longer have a forlorn hope but a firm assurance that they will have the right measure of protection.
Mr President, first of all, congratulations on your election, and all good wishes for your work!
With regard to distance selling, as the European Parliament sees it, the text addresses three main issues: the first - as the rapporteur has said - is to provide consumers in a precise and straightforward way with all the necessary information, covering the right to a refund, the code of practice and the general provisions.
The second is to harmonize the procedures and conditions regarding the final consumer's right to withdraw from a contract.
The third, lastly, is to introduce an efficient means of dealing with complaints across borders.
Furthermore, the Member States are expected to comply with the directive within three years of its entry into force, while the Commission is called upon to draw up a report on the implementation of the directive within four years of its entry into force.
We welcome the work done, first and foremost, by the rapporteur, whom we should like to thank, by the Conciliation Committee as a whole and by the Commission, which was sufficiently open-minded on the compromise text as to incorporate almost all of Parliament's proposed amendments.
Our group will therefore support the joint text, with the satisfaction of having helped to provide consumers with an up-to-date mechanism to protect their interests.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in contrast to some of the amendments put before the House at second reading, we are now discussing a compromise which shows more realism and is acceptable to all Members of Parliament.
I am particularly pleased that financial services have been excluded.
It is not that I wish to spare this sector, but the fact is that the special nature of financial transactions is incompatible with the general character of this directive.
Further inquiries, for example through the Green Paper, are bound to bring to light the problems which exist.
I am also in favour of Article 10 on the use of certain communications techniques and what is referred to as cold calling.
Unfortunately, the compromise which has been reached is in danger of being stillborn, since cold calling is dealt with in a different and less pragmatic way in the ISDN directive.
To prevent this, I have tabled an amendment to the Medina Ortega report, on behalf of my group.
In any event, my group supports the compromise which has been achieved on this directive on distance selling.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report that has returned to us from the Council under the conciliation procedure is concerned with the legal harmonization of the system of distance contracts, which is giving rise to a degree of unfair competition.
Many such techniques are in use today: mail shots, circulars, catalogues, phone calls with or without human or automatic intervention, radio, video phone, fax, TV telesales - and more to come in the future with CD-ROM, modems providing link-ups between personal computers, and so on.
I congratulate the rapporteur, and I note that the Directive provides for a variety of instruments to enable these objectives to be achieved: periods allowed for withdrawal, reversal of the burden of proof under certain conditions, distinction between professionals and amateurs, exclusion of certain types of contract, especially those relating to financial services, specific information, etc.
My only reservation concerns the fact that one piece of information that seems to me quite essential does not appear in the draft Directive and is not mentioned in Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's excellent report. This is the question of applicable law.
Is it the law of the place where the sale originates or its place of destination?
The place where acceptance begins or the place where it ends? This question is absolutely fundamental, especially as regards the possibility that the contracts may be subject to the law of a third country, which would enable European legislation to be circumvented.
In any case, I believe we would benefit from greater harmonization of the rules of international private law rather than substantive law.
Mr President, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten was too modest.
This really is an outstanding success, a result of her work of which you are entitled to be proud, and I warmly congratulate her on it.
I shall deal very briefly with two issues which were raised.
Mr Whitehead and others mentioned financial services.
As you know, we have presented a Green Paper on these, which is still being considered in Parliament's committees.
As soon as these discussions have been concluded, we shall of course bring forward proposals, which will also take up what Parliament has contributed to this debate.
As regards what was said by Mr Gollnisch, this proposal does not change the general law.
In other words, on the question of which law applies, the general rules which already exist today are valid.
We do not need to take any further action on them, because they are sufficiently clear.
There is an international convention, and that naturally remains applicable here.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Novel foods and food ingredients
The next item is the report (A4-0006/97) by the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text (C4-0667/96-00/0426(COD)) approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Regulation concerning novel foods and novel food ingredients (rapporteur: Mrs Roth-Behrendt).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to clear up a misunderstanding that may exist amongst certain Members, and especially the general public.
Anyone who thinks that, with this piece of legislation, we are deciding whether or not genetically modified foods will be able to enter the market is mistaken.
That decision was taken a long time ago, implicitly, as it were, and our task now is to lay down regulations for something which is already a fact - namely the application of genetic technology to foodstuffs - and to establish a legal framework which ensures both that consumers are protected and informed and that the industry is provided with legal security.
As rapporteur on this subject for almost five years, I firmly believe that the compromise text now before the House, on which we shall be voting tomorrow, offers just that: safety and information for consumers, and legal security for the production industry.
I should like to mention three points. No areas are excluded from the scope of this regulation.
In the case of food additives, the principle of vertical legislation that we adopt in the European Union will apply.
This means that the relevant checks provided for by the legislation concerning food additives or flavourings will be carried out.
We have received an assurance from the Commission - and I trust in Mr Bangemann's undertaking to me personally and to the House - that if any legal loopholes are discovered in the regulation, as is the case with regard to enzymes, they will be closed.
That is the Commission's task, moreover, and I have faith in it in that respect.
Authorization rules which clearly set out the safety and inspection criteria are also laid down in the regulation.
Perhaps I would have preferred it if we had been able to dispense with the simplified procedure, but I can live with these two different procedures.
This is a not a flaw in the compromise text, in my view.
Lastly, there is the question of labelling, on which - interestingly - almost everything hinges.
Those colleagues who have been Members of this House for some time will recall that initially - in 1992 and 1993 - there was virtually no talk of labelling.
We had to fight a long, hard battle with the Commission and the Council.
The fact that the compromise text now says that all novel foods which differ from conventional foods are to be labelled will ensure that consumers receive a high level of information, and means that I can support it with a clear conscience.
In all areas in which methods of analysis exist, consumers will know that a foodstuff has been genetically modified, because it will be labelled.
If we consider the fact that methods of analysis, using irradiation or other techniques, are being developed on a monthly or even a daily basis, then it is clear that the number of foodstuffs that are labelled will rise considerably in the coming months and years.
I would say in answer to the critics of this compromise text that it is an illusion to believe that the tale of the town musicians of Bremen - in which the ass, the dog, the cat and the cock set out for a faraway land, saying that they could find something better than death anywhere - applies in this case.
It is not true!
We cannot find something better anywhere.
I shall listen carefully to Mrs Breyer when she speaks later, and I would ask her to do the same for me!
If certain Members and certain organizations outside Parliament believe that if we did not have this joint text, the 15 Member States would introduce the necessary legislation in next to no time, I can only laugh!
Those Members seem to have an enormous capacity for wishful thinking. That is all very well, but when it comes to making laws, it can also be dangerous.
If the Member States had wished to do that, they could have done it a long time ago.
Which of the Member States have comprehensive legislation which includes labelling?
No Member State has such legislation, not even my own! If we are going to meet the requirements of the single market, we know that all goods will be able to move freely within that market.
What will there be then? There will be legislation in perhaps three or four Member States at some time in the future, if the legislative process in those countries can be concluded in two or three years.
In all the other countries, there will be no legislation. We know how difficult the discussions were in the Council.
Why was the Council unable to agree on a common position for two years? Because the majority of Member States in the Council refused to accept the European Parliament's views on the scope of the regulation and labelling.
Of course, this joint text is a compromise.
Parliament did not get absolutely everything on its Christmas list!
I wish it had, but life is not like that.
What the European Parliament has achieved for European consumers in the Conciliation Committee after second reading, in terms of safety, transparency and reliability, as well as in respect of labelling, what we fought to secure - and I use the word 'fought' advisedly - is a great success.
We should be self-confident enough to see it as such, and not play down the importance of this result, but present it to the people of the European Union with pride!
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on the splendid negotiations which she undertook in the Conciliation Committee.
I also wish to thank the Commission, which facilitated that final agreement, because during the course of that conciliation its role and help was most acceptable.
Like Mrs Roth-Behrendt, I feel that this is an agreement which does not really need defending: it speaks for itself.
Had we not reached the kind of agreement which we did reach, then I could not say, as I now do, that labelling will be required when there has been change which is necessary to be indicated on the label.
The deletion of the word 'significant' and the concessions which the Council made in agreeing to the deletion of that word - if I may be excused a pun - were significant.
We have some tortuous language as a result of the compromise that has been made.
Now we say 'if food is no longer equivalent to an existing food or ingredient.'
That wording has been substituted for the word 'significant' . I regret that.
It is clumsy and it would have been better simply to have deleted the word 'significant' and left it at that.
I must say to those who criticise us that I accept entirely what Mrs Roth-Behrendt has just said.
Can we reasonably expect the 15 Member States to suddenly coordinate their legislation and insist on labelling throughout the European Union? In fact it is the European Parliament, using the power of codecision in a positive way, which has insisted on the protection of consumers which otherwise would not have been achieved on the original Commission proposal.
If that sounds self-satisfied, so be it, but we are here to represent the wider European electorate and, in that respect, we have achieved our aims.
I am very grateful to all those concerned in the Conciliation Committee for the compromise which we have collectively achieved.
Mr President, as other speakers have said, at this final stage of the debate, we have to concern ourselves with the message that we are sending to the public.
And that message must be a message of safety: that the safety and information requirements for these products have been improved.
It must therefore be a positive message.
Similarly, we must emphasize that this regulation provides for effective scientific assessment designed to prevent any risk to the environment; that it ensures that all consumers' right to health will be safeguarded; and that it lays down additional specific requirements to inform consumers whenever necessary.
Furthermore, with regard to labelling, which was the subject of a fierce political struggle, the important thing is for the product to be a quality product - just as the important thing in respect of road traffic is to have safe roads, and not bad roads which are full of danger signs and warnings.
And that is what we have attempted to do here: firstly, ensure the primary safety of consumers; and, secondly, provide them with adequate information.
In this context, I also welcome the fact that we have struck a balance with the formula 'no longer equivalent' to an existing food, whilst providing for mechanisms to interpret this criterion precisely.
I believe that we can rest assured in this respect, and that this is the essential message we must send to consumers.
With this joint text, moreover, the Union's institutions are bringing to a close a debate which has gone on far too long, and it is good that Parliament has taken such an active part in that debate.
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on the task that she has accomplished - despite some initial differences of opinion which we had - and of course to thank Mr Bangemann, who assisted us in the final stage of our negotiations with the Council. It is only fair to acknowledge that.
The Group of the European People's Party fully supports the solution that we have arrived at with this joint text.
Mr President, we can be pleased with the result which has been achieved here, and we can congratulate in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
This is of course a compromise, but when we consider that a few months ago, there was still a great deal of resistance in many Member States to the common position, I would say that we have achieved something.
The crucial point for us is naturally that products or ingredients which are modified must now be labelled.
That is vitally important for the consumer.
We in the Liberal Group see it as essential for the consumer to be able to make the choice between a genetically modified item and an unmodified one.
Of course this is a compromise - and I say this to our Green colleagues - but if you vote against this proposal, then that will be a step backwards.
It is either something or nothing.
If we have something, we can also apply better controls, and we shall have better legislation.
Just think, for example, of the decision on genetically modified maize.
Now we shall have something to work on with the Commission at Community level.
I would say let us all vote in favour of this proposal, and then we shall not be left empty-handed.
Mr President, the compromise text now before the House constitutes a regulation on 'nonlabelling' and deceives consumers!
It will not ensure the comprehensive labelling of genetically modified products and is misleading.
Consumers will still be groping in the dark.
Milk derived from cows which have been treated with genetically modified growth hormones will not be labelled, nor will soya oil made from genetically modified soya beans.
To talk of comprehensive labelling here is quite simply fraudulent.
The 'novel foods' regulation is based on this dubious compromise text.
With regard to more than 80 % of genetically modified foods, it is a regulation designed to maintain secrecy.
The majority of genetically modified foods will be foisted on consumers through the back door.
This is tantamount to force-feeding.
There is not a single phrase in the regulation about the content of the labelling.
Consumers have a right to clear and unequivocal labelling.
However, the content of the labelling will largely be left up to the manufacturers, and they will use vague and euphemistic terms such as 'produced using modern biotechnological techniques' , or 'nutritionally optimized' ; indeed, I have even heard some industry representatives say that the products should be labelled 'produced using environmentally-friendly techniques' .
This makes a mockery of consumer protection and of consumers' wish to have clear and comprehensive labelling!
One thing is clear, therefore: this compromise text will create confusion amongst consumers and give the genetic technology industry a free hand.
Nor does it provide for a responsible authorization procedure.
For the majority of genetically modified products, simply registering with the Commission will be enough, and the compromise text guarantees absolutely no consumer protection.
Where are the health inspection criteria? There are absolutely none!
To talk of consumer protection here is pure deceit!
The risks for people and the environment are predetermined.
Genetically modified foods will remain a game of Russian roulette for people suffering from allergies.
There is no provision for a public register or comprehensive liability.
This will hardly help to inspire consumer confidence either.
This compromise text represents a blow to consumer protection and is as full of holes as a Swiss cheese.
The statement that a bad regulation is better than none at all represents a show of political incompetence and is wrong.
This regulation will prevent the adoption of extensive labelling rules in the Member States.
I would recommend to the rapporteur that she look at her contributions to the debates at first and second readings.
This compromise text constitutes a betrayal of consumer protection!
It is a lousy, rotten piece of legislation that will permanently shake our citizens' confidence in the European Union!
I would strongly urge the House to reject this misleading regulation, which is designed to maintain secrecy!
Mr President, in my country 85 % of the population does not want to consume genetically-modified foods.
If our assembly wants to respect the democratic principle of freedom of choice for consumers, we have to guarantee the transparency of origin of the ingredients of our daily bread.
That means that the consumer must have the right to know how the corn and the soya that he eats is produced.
The compromise directive which we are discussing right now does not give any guarantee in this sense.
In practice, the criteria for labelling genetically-modified foods would only be established after this directive had been adopted and would be worked out by the Commission.
We call that, in Luxembourgish, ' buying a cat in a bag' .
Seriously, I do not think we should do that.
On the other hand, the criteria for compliance with food safety regulations do not exist yet and again are to be established by the Commission alone.
After all we have seen with mad cow disease, Parliament should not hand over this responsibility to the Commission.
Should the assembly vote in favour of this compromise, the procedure of registration would be the so-called 'simplified procedure' .
This registration would not take place within food administrations of the Member States, but at the Commission itself.
I doubt whether the Commission actually has enough staff to build up the controlling bodies with the knowledge required.
In practice the Commission would have to trust the producers.
I personally would not do that.
For these reasons - the lack of transparency and the lack of safety for consumers - I recommend rejection of this compromise.
Mr President, the Conciliation Committee and Mrs Roth-Behrendt in particular deserve great praise for having removed the exemption from compulsory labelling for products which contain or consist of GMOs, where the genetic modification has been carried out only for agronomic reasons.
We know that European consumers are very sceptical about genetic modifications.
They have the right to make a qualified choice, and this has been achieved to some extent through the conciliation text - but not to such an extent, unfortunately, that we can now talk about a responsible consumer policy.
Labelling is consumer information, and should be compulsory.
It should include all types of products, and also indicate the manufacturing process.
For example, I would not wish to buy, under any circumstances, a foodstuff manufactured from a product to which a gene has been added making it resistant to 'Round Up' , let us say.
When the day comes that there are such high concentrations of 'Round Up' in our drinking water that we want to prohibit or limit its use, it will be virtually economically impossible for us to do so, simply because we shall then also no longer be able to use the genetically modified plants.
It is also a major problem that the products do not just have to be manufactured from GMOs, but have to be 'novel' in order to be subject to an authorization procedure.
So any genetically modified products which are already being marketed fall outside the scope of the regulation.
Last but not least, I am opposed in principle to giving a blank cheque to the Commission and the committees.
That is precisely what is happening with this conciliation text.
Crucial and political decisions are being placed beyond the reach of politicians elected by the people.
It will thus be decided in closed committee meetings when a product manufactured from GMOs differs to a substantial degree from the conventional product, and how and whether these products should be labelled.
Given the demand for information and openness in all procedures, the Danish members of our group will be voting against the conciliation text, in spite of the great efforts made by the Conciliation Committee.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, almost exactly ten months ago, we voted on Parliament's amendments to the 'novel foods' regulation at second reading.
Certainly, not all the amendments which many Members wished to see were adopted.
Nevertheless, I should like to begin today by congratulating Mrs Roth-Behrendt on the creativeness and ingenuity with which she has managed to extract the best possible result for consumers from the proposals that went to the Conciliation Committee.
I think that Parliament can be proud of this outcome, especially when we consider how little we started with.
I should like to make two points concerning labelling.
Firstly, the presence of all genetically modified organisms in foodstuffs, whether derived from an 'agronomic' or any other kind of modification, will now have to be indicated on the label. This represents a substantial change from the Council's common position.
Secondly, the requirement to label genetically modified ingredients - and note that I refer to ingredients as well as organisms - will be based on proof of their difference from conventional ingredients.
This is a very significant point, since the fact that the list of procedures by which such proof may be furnished is not exhaustive leaves broad scope for development, something which is very important for consumers.
My final point is that Article 14 now provides for the Commission to monitor the long-term impact of the regulation on the development of the internal market, as well as on consumer protection and public health.
This will supply us with a great deal more information on the effects of these novel foods on human beings.
Mr President, let me begin by offering sincere congratulations to Mrs RothBehrendt.
And why? I know how things went with the directive on distance selling.
As rapporteur, you did not have the good fortune to have a Commissioner who worked with you.
No, it was rather a case of Mr Bangemann working against Parliament.
So I would congratulate you on the result which has been achieved.
That is my first point.
Secondly, six amendments were tabled at the time.
You were unhappy that we in the PPE Group did that.
However, I think the hatchet might now be buried, since when you were given the full support of the PPE Group to have these six amendments carried, you did indeed secure that, although that too was no easy matter.
So congratulations are in order once again.
I have just heard Mrs Breyer and Mr Weber reading out a text and acting as if consumers were being deceived here.
I would very much like to ask Mr Weber, who comes from another of the Benelux countries, to come to the Netherlands and see how this works.
Precisely what the consumer organizations have done there is included here in the legislation we are proposing.
So this is not deceiving consumers, but ensuring that at least something positive is done.
There are three key words.
The first is safety.
We have learned some good lessons from the BSE affair.
So I think it is essential that the agronomic characteristics, for which an exception was made at first, are now included in the regulation.
The second is information.
Information is necessary so that consumers can make a proper choice.
That information is now being provided.
No further exceptions are possible, so that consumers - and the Greenpeace study showed this - know what they are eating.
A third point, and here I have some concerns, like Mrs Roth-Behrendt, is what is now going to happen with flavourings and extracts.
This has still not been resolved, and some adjustments will be needed here.
Mr President, I too should like to echo the thanks expressed by various honourable Members to Mrs Roth-Behrendt for the efforts she has made, even though I do not share her conclusions at all.
We are being asked to vote tomorrow on the amended text of the draft Regulation, which has had a varied career, and I personally should like to dispel any possible misunderstanding between us: we are not giving an opinion on the work done by the European Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, because in my view its room for manoeuvre was inadequate for it to have any hope of success.
We are being asked to give an opinion on the finished product, and that finished product is not acceptable to us.
It is not acceptable for various reasons. First, it is clear that certain substances used in food processing, especially enzymes, are not covered at all by legislation.
Nor do we have any legal guarantee as to what legislation will be applied to solvents, additives and colorants.
Finally, regarding risk assessment, we know from the text before us that many foodstuffs produced via genetic technologies will merely have to be notified to the Commission.
At the time they are marketed, there will be no authorization procedure.
That in itself is sufficient, in our view, to make the text inadequate.
But there is more!
The labelling provisions are not adequate either. Some progress seems to have been made, but there are still many uncertainties in that famous Article 8 on which we have spent so much debating time.
And those uncertainties will, of course, allow too much room for manoeuvre on the part of the Commission, which, we have every reason to believe, is much more concerned with the functioning of the single market than it is with consumer safety.
The bottom line, I believe, is that everything is now ready for the use of genetic engineering in food to become commonplace.
When I say 'commonplace' , what I mean is that legislation designed to regulate the use of genetic engineering is becoming weaker and weaker.
That seems unacceptable to me, since we know that there are still plenty of grey areas, especially as regards the long-term effects.
I should like to see the real lessons of mad cow disease being learned, and I must admit to being somewhat surprised at the prevailing optimism on this subject in this House. What conclusions should we draw?
First, that the principle of safety first was not applied, that there was a total lack of transparency regarding the activities of the experts, and finally that there was an equally total lack of consumer information. Yet these were elementary requirements that would have enabled the BSE crisis to be averted.
So, please, do let's try not to rush straight ahead into a 'mad salmon' crisis.
We, at least, cannot agree to go down that road.
We prefer to see no short-term legislation: better to have a legal vacuum for the moment if it leads to better legislation later!
Mr President, I wish to commend to the House this compromise arrived at by the conciliation committee on novel foods.
The compromise is essentially one in which Parliament has recognized the technical realities associated with this directive on labelling and the Council has accepted the right of people to know what is in the food they eat.
Development of genetic modification by technology has generally brought about the need for this directive and whilst public acceptance and the obvious usefulness of the beneficial effects of biotechnology in other sectors like medicine and pharmaceuticals is now clear, this is not immediately the case when it comes to plant and animal biotechnology or genetically engineered food.
It is argued by some that the commercial use and release of genetically modified seeds could be harmful to both other plants and human health.
These concerns, along with the economic and social aspects of biotechnology, pose new problems to policymakers.
For these reasons we have striven to obtain a labelling system which ensures that consumers will know what they are eating and are able to make a free consumer choice.
We have sought to ensure that there is as high a level of information as possible while remaining practicable and enforceable.
The main lessons for the people seeking to exploit the new biotechnologies are clear to me.
Only an open dialogue with the consumer and a combined effort by industry and science to be as open and honest as possible will create the atmosphere in which consumer confidence allows these products to be acceptable.
I commend this proposal to the House confident that it is a step forward by the European Parliament to realize the wishes of the consumers in the European single market.
Mr President, this Regulation will be a fig-leaf to industry.
After this, it will be possible to say that everything in the garden is lovely as far as consumer protection is concerned and that we need no longer worry when we sit down to dinner.
But this is far from the truth.
Mr Bangemann, could you say why the safety assessments of novel foods are not public?
I consider this a flagrant insult to consumers.
Mr Eisma, it is quite clear that some Member States will have to weaken their legislation.
It is therefore wrong to say that the Greens are irresponsible for not intending to support the adoption of this Regulation.
A large proportion of genetically modified foods will not be marked as such, although many people do not want to vote through their wallets in favour of the production of such foods.
Fortunately it will remain possible for the vigilant consumer to buy products marked 'not produced with the aid of genetic modification' .
But the biggest mystery, Mr President, is who really needs genetically modified food.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the result of the conciliation procedure is a resounding slap in the face for Commissioner Bangemann.
He wished to prevent the labelling of genetically manipulated or modified products.
Mr Bangemann should look at a packet of condoms sometime.
It says: length, over 170 mm; diameter, 33 mm; thickness, 0.07 mm.
I doubt that a loving couple would be interested in the length, diameter and thickness of a condom.
I am quite sure, however, that everyone has a right to precise information about the origin and characteristics of their food.
They wish to know and ought to know what they are buying.
With the compromise achieved on the 'novel foods' regulation, we have recognized the maturity of consumers and ensured their freedom of choice when shopping.
That is as it should be.
We should therefore approve the amended regulation by a large majority tomorrow, so that we finally get a foot in the door and can make further progress on this issue.
Mr President, the debate we are holding today is, as we know, the final chapter in a long series of negotiations.
There are still some opponents in the House, fortunately not many of them, who like to present this issue as if we were dealing with a contrast between the interests of the internal market and those of consumer protection.
Well, that is not the case.
The result was worth the difficulty of the negotiations.
It is a success for the consumer and for Parliament, which has ensured that gaps in the scope of the regulation and in terms of labelling have been eliminated.
This issue has confronted us with a number of fundamental choices.
The first is whether to allow or prohibit these novel foods.
Nowhere in the world is there a general ban, and nor is it desirable.
It shuts the door on positive scientific applications and developments.
So there is only one alternative - to allow them - and then the question arises of the extent to which we have to measure out this freedom.
Clearly, the present situation of total freedom is a bad option, not least for the consumer.
Today, consumers can only assert their rights after the event, through the rules on liability.
Otherwise, they are left out in the cold.
In the joint draft text, the consumer is protected in two ways.
The products which are placed on the market are subject to strict authorization procedures; and, secondly, the extensive but proper demands of consumers for information are being met.
Through these rules, biotechnology is being given justified opportunities, without the public health risks being underestimated.
The consumer is being provided with information, and the fact that we have played a part in this can only highlight our role in consumer protection.
I hope that the text will be adopted by a very large majority in the vote tomorrow.
Mr President, I hope that we will never have cause to regret the tide of optimism on which this measure seems to be likely to go through the European Parliament.
I regard this as one of the most important pieces of European Union law that we will have before us this year.
It will affect the food we eat and conceivably, the future of mankind on earth.
I am one of the optimists who sees genetic technology as offering us hope, not only of increased food supplies, but also a decreased use of pesticides and herbicides in food production.
But I have some misgivings.
I strongly believe that as representatives of the people of Europe it is our duty to remain vigilant and to see that this law, which in some places is rather sketchy - as I am sure the rapporteur herself will admit - actually works, with all the necessary safeguards for the health of the people of Europe in place.
There are at the moment, as I understand it, some eight pending approvals of genetically-modified products before the European Commission. And there are some 40 genetically-modified products placed on the market outside Europe at the moment.
I imagine that we can see the likelihood of those 40 products being brought before us in Europe for approval before very long.
There are two things in particular MEPs will need to do once this legislation is on the statute book.
First, we need to monitor exactly how genetically-modified foods are labelled.
This must not be so opaque that the provisions of Article 8 are meaningless.
Secondly, MEPs need to penetrate the secret workings of the two vital European Union committees: the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs and the Scientific Committee for Food.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection's experience of them is very unhappy.
We have never managed any real dialogue with them.
Yet if you read this regulation, they will play an absolutely key role in deciding whether or not these foods reach our tables.
I hope, therefore, that Parliament will be able to have a much closer liaison with these committees in the future.
The report of the Temporary Committee on BSE already points to the need for this.
Surely BSE and the fact that such a scientific enigma could appear so fast and cause such mayhem should give us pause for thought.
We do not know everything about the consequences of what we do.
We must take great care of the health of the people of Europe.
Mr President, my 80-year-old aunt has assured me that she will never buy genetically modified foods in her life.
My dynamic young nephew, on the other hand, sees these novel foods as providing the ultimate breakthrough to an age when failed crops, food shortages and famines will be brought to an end throughout the world.
The fact that the citizens of Europe will actually have the power to exclude a food from the market-place, simply by not buying it, will be thanks to the European Parliament, if it approves this joint text tomorrow.
Never before have consumers had so great a power; never before will they have been so clearly and comprehensively informed.
No category of genetically modified foods is excluded from the content of the regulation.
Anyone who says otherwise is not telling the truth!
The safety and inspection criteria are clearly set out in the regulation.
Anyone who claims otherwise is not telling the truth!
The regulation specifically provides that producers can advertise their products as being normal foods.
A fascinating contest will develop: a race for the patronage of consumers.
Nobody must be afraid that they will eat genetically modified foods in future, if they do not wish to.
Anyone who claims otherwise is not telling the truth!
However, the human urge to explore cannot be prohibited.
Mankind does not accept closed doors.
All progress involves risks.
People must be protected from those risks.
There can be no compromises in that respect.
But there have always been courageous people who have dared to seek progress, and who have then achieved it.
Genetic engineering represents a revolution in medicine.
Perhaps it can also genuinely help to reduce food shortages and famine.
It would have been monstrous to have done what the Commission and Council were close to doing - simply depriving consumers of choice.
Tomorrow's vote will represent a great moment in the history of this Parliament: a victory by Parliament over the Council and Commission!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too believe that this compromise text represents a success for the European Parliament.
It is of course arguable whether it is a great success or a moderate one.
I believe that we have secured the key point: whenever a genetically modified organism is present in a food, this must be indicated on the label.
This will enable consumers, and especially people suffering from allergies, to eliminate any possible risks, however small these may be.
It is not a question of Russian roulette, Mrs Breyer.
You are lying in that respect!
No one should be seriously claiming that the rejection of this compromise text will lead to a better outcome.
Rejecting the text would simply produce what the US industry and many of those responsible in the European Union have long desired: no labelling at all.
And that is undoubtedly the reason why all the European consumer associations are pressing us to approve the compromise text.
Nor is the frequently drawn comparison with the patenting directive at all helpful, since in that case, firstly, we had a bad compromise text presented to us for a decision; and, secondly, we had the alternative of retaining the concurrent national patent laws for a certain period of time - some two to three years - until a better European law was introduced.
In this case, the compromise text is the alternative.
The other option is simply to have no labelling at all, since surely even the Greens do not seriously believe that all 15 national governments and parliaments are suddenly going to introduce rules on labelling.
I have often defended the Greens, and also Greenpeace, against unjustified criticism.
Not everything that the Greens and Greenpeace say is nonsense.
However, I should like to end by saying that the campaign by Greenpeace and the Greens against this compromise text is irresponsible propaganda!
If they are successful tomorrow, then the present intolerable situation will be perpetuated: genetically modified soya, maize and other foods will be free to go on supermarket shelves without labelling, and the chance to do something about it will have been lost.
We must therefore approve this joint text.
Mr President, this concluding debate has once again shown how difficult it is to reach an agreement in this field which satisfies everyone, since the differences of view - from force feeding to a glorious victory for Parliament - are indeed quite considerable.
Moreover, it is not a question of who has won or lost in this debate, but of achieving a solution which, on the one hand, meets the legitimate demands of consumers and, on the other, is a viable one - since a solution that delivers nothing is no use to consumers.
I have said that from the outset.
I am very pleased that we have achieved a compromise.
The wording is different from that which we proposed: instead of the criterion of 'significant difference' , a procedure of testing and proof is now being introduced. The one is being replaced by the other, but the regulation is still as sensible as the one we originally proposed.
However, it would not have been sensible without such a restriction, as the labelling requirement would have been virtually limitless.
We have always been in favour of labelling - and I say that to those Members who wrongly and untruthfully claim that we proposed no labelling requirement.
But we have always said the labelling requirement must be practicable. This means that it must not lead - as the use of biotechnology becomes more widespread - to 80 % to 90 % of foods having to be labelled.
That would not be in the interest of consumers.
Then no one would take it seriously.
We have achieved that objective, though by a different means from that which we proposed.
I am therefore midway between those who say that this is a major step forward and those - like Mrs Breyer - who say that is worthless.
I put my faith in the rapporteur.
That is what I have done throughout the procedure.
Paragraph 24 of the explanatory statement describes precisely the situation that Parliament will be faced with tomorrow: should it approve a compromise text which does not meet all its wishes - justified or otherwise - or should it settle for nothing?
Should it therefore take a first step forward? And indeed, the text on the table is not the end of the story - and not only with regard to enzymes or other substances not yet covered by the regulation, but especially as regards the implementation of the provisions, which will be far from easy.
After all, this is not a legal text which tells the Commission and the scientific committees exactly - down to the last detail - what to do in each individual case.
That will not be easy, and I would therefore urge the House to approve this joint text.
I should like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, since this text undoubtedly represents a major step in the right direction.
And that is what should ultimately be the decisive factor, not whether we have managed to push through absolutely everything that we had in mind, since democracy is not based on individuals being able to be get their way completely, but on people agreeing on things that will improve the lives of everyone.
Mr President, in the seven and a half years that I have been a Member of this Parliament, I have never had to make a personal statement.
I try to use such means as little as possible.
Today, however, I have to do so.
Given the lateness of the hour, I shall not attempt to respond to the points made by Members who have spoken, or to the speech by the Commissioner.
I should specifically like to thank the majority of those Members for their comments.
My personal statement concerns the accusation by Mrs Breyer that, in supporting this compromise text, I am deceiving people, that I am committing a fraud involving consumer safety.
I would ask for my protest at this accusation to be recorded in the Minutes.
Mr President, I should also like to make a personal statement. Mr Liese accused me of lying.
He said that this regulation would not result in a kind of Russian roulette for consumers and people suffering from allergies.
The opposite is the truth!
You know that there are no health criteria.
But you also know that there are no methods of proof enabling the allergenicity of genetically modified foods to be established in advance.
At least the American health authorities recognize that.
In the absence of methods of proof enabling the allergenicity of genetically modified foods to be established in advance, the latter will be placed on the market and tested on consumers.
This is a particularly serious problem for people suffering from allergies.
As regards Mrs Roth-Behrendt's allegation, I did not accuse her of lying.
Mrs Flemming also indirectly criticized those who have doubts about this regulation, who have made it clear that there will not be 100 % labelling of genetically modified foods.
I gave the example of growth hormones produced by means of genetic engineering.
Even Mr Bangemann will admit that the use of these cannot be detected and that there are no methods of proof in this instance.
And yet they are genetically modified products.
I simply referred to the statement by the rapporteur, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, that this regulation offered total protection.
I believe, and other speakers have also made this point, that there is no such thing as total protection.
The relevant criteria do not exist.
I did not intend - and now Mrs Roth-Behrendt is not listening to me - to make a personal attack on the rapporteur, and I do not believe that I did so with any of my remarks.
However, it is my right as a Member of Parliament and as a consumer to draw attention here to the fact that there are no health criteria.
Consequently, it is simply not possible to say that we are ensuring health protection with this regulation.
I would ask you, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, to name the corresponding health criteria.
There are none set out in the regulation!
I should like to ask Commissioner Bangemann whether he accepts that Article 8 now, as a result of the conciliation, provides for comprehensive labelling but that if, in the light of experience, there prove to be gaps in the system of protection of public health, then consistent with the statement which is being attached to the conciliation agreement, the Commission will come forward to ensure that there will be always comprehensive labelling?
Mr President, once again I put a question to Mr Bangemann, and once again he did not answer it.
I must therefore repeat it: what do you, Mr Bangemann, think about the fact that these safety assessments of genetically modified foods are not being published?
Mr President, I shall be very brief.
If it will help matters, I shall withdraw the comment that Mrs Breyer was lying, although it does not appear in the script for my speech.
Nevertheless, I wish to insist on the fact that it is untrue that this regulation will result in a kind of Russian roulette for consumers, and that it is irresponsible propaganda to claim that something better can be secured if the joint text is rejected.
Mr President, to deal firstly with Mrs Hautala's question, I did not in fact give her a reply because, in view of the limited time available, I did not think that we needed to enter into a further discussion on the substance of the matter.
The fact that these notifications are not made public is quite normal.
This is also the practice with other kinds of application which the Commission has to examine.
However, they are made public later, since a copy of them is forwarded to the Member States and the scientific committees, so that everyone can inform themselves.
In other words, we do not oblige applicants to publish their notifications in any official journal, but everything that we do subsequently is published.
I can only confirm what Mr White said.
I have already said this in response to the rapporteur's request, and it is also set out in Article 14.
We shall follow everything that happens.
There will be comprehensive monitoring of all developments.
If any loopholes become apparent, we shall draw the necessary conclusions and bring forward new proposals.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.30 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Cross-border credit transfers
The next item is the report (A4-0004/97) by the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Decision on cross-border credit transfers (C4-0660/96-94/0242(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs Peijs).
Mr President, the cross-border credit transfers directive is good news for Europe, good news for its citizens, good news for small businesses and good news for the European Parliament.
Why?
First of all, as regards citizens and consumers: everyone of us has at sometime or other tried to send money across national boundaries.
Climbing the north face of the Eiger might have been easier.
Recall how the faces drop behind the counter when you go into your local bank and announce, as I once did, that you want to send money from England to France to pay for a holiday.
Lack of enthusiasm is followed by lack of information about how such a transaction might be effected, what the costs are, how long the transfer will take, and what guarantees you have that the money will not be lost as it wings its way across the Channel.
Remember your astonishment that both the sending and the receiving bank want their cut in commission for performing this elementary task in the electronic age.
It is time double-charging was singled out for the chop, and so it will be through the instrument of this directive.
We in the Socialist Group would be particularly keen to protect the consumer by ensuring a pay-back guarantee of up to ECU 12, 500 on any such transaction.
The biggest boost for the consumer, however, will reside in the demand for transparency in bank costs and conditions of transfer.
Information posted up-front will truly permit the customer to shop around for the cheapest and best service.
Competition will shed light on the gloomy and cobwebbed world of the high street banks and sweep away the delays habitually associated with such transactions.
So frustrated was my constituent, Mrs Dorothy Evans of Ellesmere Port, in sending cash transfers to Sweden for her magazine subscriptions that she resorted to sending Kroner notes in the post.
Help is at hand Dorothy!
Good news too for SMEs whose fear of sending money abroad can inhibit them from functioning fully and effectively in Europe's single market.
Why risk profits when a credit transfer to buy goods or services wipes out the incentive to trade across borders? Playing it safe virtually means: ' don't play at all in the single market' .
Good news for the European Parliament and congratulations to Mrs Peijs for her persistence with the Council.
By invoking the conciliation procedure and arriving at a sensible compromise with the Council we have shown Parliament capable and cunning in the deployment of its new conciliation powers.
Once again the European Parliament is manifesting itself as of the people, by the people and for the people.
One final thought: the greater transparency introduced into the act of sending money from one country to another will itself be all the more apparent once the single currency is introduced.
No longer will banks include conversion charges in their total fees.
Even better, the true costs of the service provided will be laid bare.
Truly the spotlight of healthy competition will fall on the dark vaults of European banks.
This directive will also be good news for banks which will become more competitive in Europe's great enterprise, the single European market.
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating you on your re-election and wishing you all the very best.
As we know, there are some 400, 000, 000 cross-border credit transfers in the European Union annually, and 50 % of individual transfers amount to less than ECU 2, 500.
On the basis of current trends, it is estimated that, in the early years of the next century, the total number of cross-frontier banking transactions, excluding cash payments, will be in excess of one billion.
That will be the product of an increase in cross-border activity and the expansion of trade in goods, services and money between the Member States, within the single market.
It is therefore becoming crucial that we encourage regulatory measures which protect citizens as the consumers of banking services, whether we are talking about small or big business or just savers.
That aim is fully compatible with the introduction and circulation of the single currency.
A banking transaction between two different cities within the Community should be treated in the same way as a transaction between two different cities in the same state, and management of those transactions should not be left entirely to the discretion of the credit institutions, that leaving them to determine transaction procedures, monetary value and costs.
We therefore approve of a large part of the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee and shall be supporting it.
For that, I thank the rapporteur above all and, I venture to say - the French government which made this one of its priorities during its presidency, in the first half of 1995, when it reached agreement with the governments of almost all of the Member States and with this House, which gave its support, firmly convinced that what we want is not a Europe of bankers but a Europe of citizens.
To begin with, Mr President, our group was rather critical of the amounts involved and worked very hard to try to get the amounts to which the directive will be applicable increased.
Nevertheless I believe the result we now have is to be applauded and together with my fellow-Members here I must compliment Mrs Peijs on her achievement.
Our Group believes that it is extremely important that the rights of consumers and small businesses should be adequately protected, at least up to given maximum sums.
But I strongly believe that the banks themselves might offer rather more by way of guarantees and security in their contracts with their clients.
If we want a single Europe and a single market, there have to be guarantees for credit transfers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the previous debate I mistakenly did not use up nearly all my speaking time.
So I hope you will bear with me if I use a little more than my allotted time now.
On the business in hand: more would have been better.
But I think that in the Conciliation Committee we did achieve something for the people who elected us.
Although the original proposal has been improved, there is still one aspect that worries me, however. The liability thresholds have been set too low.
That means that a financial risk that could under certain circumstances prove to be a question of economic survival is being shifted from the economically stronger to the economically weaker parties.
Fortunately, legislative rules do not apply for ever.
At the appropriate time they can be improved.
And I hope our counterparts in the Council will keep to their word.
They promised in the Conciliation Committee that they will not insist on the 30-month time-limit for implementing the directive, so that where possible it can be incorporated into national legislation everywhere by 1 January 1999.
In the hope that the directive will be reviewed in the near future to provide greater consumer protection, I think we ought to approve the outcome of the conciliation procedure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which was asked for its opinion, naturally expected the directive to do more to protect consumers.
Yet I approved it in the Conciliation Committee and would now ask Parliament to do the same.
We need a directive on cross-border credit transfers and I hope that as promised the Member States will implement it by 1 January 1999, i.e. on the date of monetary union.
Parliament managed to carry through its demand that the directive should take account of any transfer below ECU 50 000.
That means it covers the majority of transfers to the private sector and the SMEs.
The mandatory refund amount for transfers that are debited from the sender's account but not credited to the receiver's account, namely ECU 12 500, is a compromise that will have to be improved on when the directive is reviewed.
During the conciliation procedure it sometimes seemed as though the Council believed we were still living in the days of the stagecoach and the money was being carried in cash.
It would be most welcome if the banks voluntarily agreed to increase the amount.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission I should like to thank Parliament for its efforts to ensure that the conciliation procedure produced the results which have permitted this compromise between the three institutions.
This has also made it clear that the conciliation procedure is sometimes a positive thing and a method that is quite capable, via the inter-institutional dialogue, of producing good news such as this.
I think that Mrs Peijs described at length the agreement reached in the conciliation procedure, and most of the Members who took part in the debate have made clear the benefits which consumers, individuals and undertakings will enjoy once this directive is approved.
Therefore you will pardon me if I do not reiterate the results of the conciliation process.
I think that the benefits are obvious.
There was a demand for this, above all from those who, as explained by the various Members, use this type of service.
The situation now is much more clear.
It is much more transparent for citizens and, furthermore, what is more important - and I will finish with this remark - it is a positive step towards gradually reinforcing the border-free internal market.
Thank you, Mrs Peijs, for your explanations, thanks to all of you and also thanks to the conciliation procedure which has enabled this positive decision to be taken today.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
EU-Latin America partnership
The next item is the report (A4-0416/96) by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament 'The European Union and Latin America - the present situation and prospects for closer partnership 1996-2000' (COM(95)0495 - C4-0489/95).
Mr President, before we begin the debate on the Bertens report, I should like to draw your attention to a procedural matter: we are about to debate two reports by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy but we have yet to hear the opinions of either the Delegation for relations with Latin America or the Delegation for relations with Central America.
It may be that as far as the rules are concerned, that omission is justified; but I believe that, looking at the substance, that is the way in which our work is managed, it is right that the views of those delegations with an interest in the issue should be heard in these instances.
Therefore, Mr President, if you consider my point to be justified, perhaps the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities could look at the matter to establish the actual function of the parliamentary delegations within the structure of our work.
Mr Manzella, I am sorry, but there are members of those delegations who can table amendments before tomorrow's vote, and that should satisfy your requirements.
I do not think the debate can be postponed since the members of the delegations have that right.
Mr President, I did not ask for referral back to committee.
I simply asked whether you thought we should continue the debate and refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities so that it can study, can examine the role the delegations should in future play in these areas.
It seems to me incompatible with the way in which the work of the House is managed that the delegations concerned with the issue of Latin America should not be involved.
It was only a point for the future, Mr President, I was not seeking referral back to committee.
Mr Manzella, I will put your request to the President.
Mr President, in the opinion of the Committee of which I am the draftsman, I will refer, naturally enough, to the energy, research and development aspects.
With regard to Latin America, we are talking about a market of 450 million inhabitants.
Thus 450 million consumers.
Mr Bertens said that the European Union had neglected these markets.
Not in relation to energy, Mr Bertens.
Many of the European Union Member States have made considerable investments in the field of energy.
I think that the investments they have made are so significant that they have become the real protagonists in this area in recent years.
This enormous region, which is enjoying substantial economic growth, has a low level of economic development, thus there is scope for a major increase in energy consumption.
Our committee is anxious to ensure that the energy will be used efficiently.
There is already the ALURE programme (Optimal Use of Energy Resources in Latin America) launched by Commission Directorate General I concerning cooperation between Latin America and the European Union, which is important but not sufficient.
It is not properly funded.
We need more resources for this programme, Commissioner, because we consider it to be extremely important.
We also consider that renewable energy sources, particularly hydroelectric energy, should be developed.
It has enormous development potential in Latin America.
This energy source does not cause pollution, unlike others.
Moreover we have the Amazonian rainforests which drain off a huge amount of carbon dioxide.
This should all be exploited in our future cooperation based on the relevant agreements.
As for the most active role we should develop in the area of research and development, we have proposed that seminars be organised to exchange views on mutual cooperation, exchanges of research staff and the launching of programmes in the area of food technology, biotechnology, energy and, above all, the environment.
Mr President, we are dealing with a very important report - this is the view of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
It is high time that the European Union started to regard Latin America as it does other American nations, such as the United States of America and Canada.
The rapporteur rightly highlights the fact that our relations have already overcome their rather hesitant beginnings and are now turning into mature relations between regional organizations with a will to ensure understanding.
We are determined to ensure understanding because we have similar cultures which have been brought closer together with the accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Union.
While there is a traditional understanding between Latin America on the one hand and Spain and Portugal on the other, similar to that between the Commonwealth and the United Kingdom, the Community has perhaps not responded to Latin America in the same way.
Support must be reflected in a strengthening of the various bodies which can ensure that this understanding becomes something quite natural.
I am referring to organisations such as the European Investment Bank, the ECIP and AL-Invest, from which I infer directly that the European Union is in favour of the development aid being granted. The EU is in fact the leading donor - 54 % compared with less than half this figure granted by the United States.
Despite this, however, we note that not only are European investments in these countries not increasing, but they are actually diminishing.
The United States of America accounts for 43 % of global trade and 75 % of direct foreign investment.
Why is there such an imbalance here and why are we not in fact on an equal footing with the US? I applaud the report, and I wish to say that the Committee on Development and Cooperation supports these steps to intensify and normalise relations with Latin America.
Mr President, Commissioner, Fellow Members, I was interested to read the text of the report produced by Mr Bertens and the opinions of the various committees which contributed to shaping it.
In my view these are useful and interesting texts which attempt to put forward ideas on how to reinforce relations between the European Union and Latin America.
Looking at the situation in Latin America today, it is obvious that it is not, as Mr Bertens said a moment ago, the same situation as in the last few decades.
It is a much more complex, more active world, with good things and bad, but also with enormous possibilities.
A world where identities are shared, yet it is not right to try to reduce Latin America to some vague kind of uniformity, forgetting the differences.
Latin America is an emerging Chile, a Nicaragua with very severe poverty levels; it is Guatemala which is concluding a peace agreement, and Costa Rica which is a real example of democratic stability.
It is also true that Latin America is Colombia with flashpoints of violence linked to drugs trafficking, and Peru where we are witnessing the unacceptable use of violence and hostage-taking as political instruments.
But it is also Mercosur, an ambitious project, and the Free Trade Treaty with Mexico, Canada and the United States.
I think that the European Union must adopt a global approach to its relations with Latin America which appreciates the very plurality of this continent.
We have political dialogue instruments.
One example is the San José dialogue which Commissioner Marin is also developing, but perhaps it is not enough.
We cannot accept the risk of Latin America continuing to regard the United States as a priority and the European Union as just a faithful companion.
It is very useful to know about the evolution of investments and trade flows between the European Union and Latin America in order to embark on an analysis of the potential prospects for the future.
We have a lot of ground to cover if we are to discover all the potential of parliamentary dialogue. For instance, if political cooperation between the European Union and Latin America is important, why is it in many cases reduced to a ministerial or governmental dialogue?
Parliamentary dialogue is useful in the context of consolidating democracy and establishing regional integration.
Latin America and the European Union need each other, and on the basis of an equal footing and with commitment to a climate of cooperation, they need to reinforce the instruments of political and trade cooperation.
Anyone who has examined or witnessed the cooperation between the European Union and Latin America will have discovered that cooperation takes place on a large scale and yet - the Commission is also aware of this - this is often not very visible to citizens wishing to determine the levels of cooperation.
Another problem that most of the Latin American countries suffer from is the burden of debt.
The European Union must become an active partner capable of formulating and submitting coordinated, innovative proposals to alleviate the burden of external debt of Latin American countries.
Because, in most cases, these are countries with very divided societies which need help to carry out economic reforms capable of reducing the unemployment figures and the poverty figures. Economic reforms which will create the conditions needed for consolidation or even, in some cases, for the introduction of collective policies based on solidarity, similar to what we in Europe call 'the welfare state' .
Some Latin American countries have very serious drug trafficking and corruption problems, but we dare not raise a hypocritical accusatory finger until we can deal rigorously with this, because the coca being produced would not be converted into drugs unless there were was a demand for these.
I will finish, Mr President, by saying that the age of military dictatorships has now virtually ended, but there may be a risk of the emergence of another type of populist regime which does not solve the structural problems of Latin America.
The European Union and Latin America should come together in every possible area of cooperation.
The Commission's proposals and the contribution by Mr Bertens are a step in this direction.
Mr President, when people talk about Europe's relations with Latin America they can never be sure what past or present family affairs they may be interfering in.
There are disputes, talks, deals and criticisms.
There are sisters, brothers, cousins, godparents, relationships that have endured for decades or centuries, refuges and enterprising immigrants and emigrants.
But what we are concerned with today is the future, namely the attempt to revive the relations between the EU community of states and Latin America, marked by years of conflict between dictatorship and democracy, the fight for human rights and the construction of common markets in Latin America, by creating a partnership until the year 2000.
That is important to our common foreign policy and our foreign trade policy alike.
It affects them both.
In our view and in line with the wishes of the European Parliament, as set out in Mr Bertens' very good report, the EU must pursue both policies with a view to initiating a new transatlantic dialogue, which must also involve the United States.
Since its direct election, the European Parliament has endeavoured for many years to promote this dialogue.
Article J.1 of the Maastricht Treaty calls for a dynamic policy towards Latin America.
That had long been lacking.
Developments in Europe led to a decline in interest in the political processes in Latin America.
In spite of its undisputed economic and democratic upswing in the 1990s, Latin America has to some extent taken a back place in international politics.
With its Communication on 'The European Union and Latin America - the present situation and prospects for closer partnership 1996-2000' the Commission has pointed the way to reviving these relations.
The opinions of the two committees consulted, the continuous activities of the delegations for South and Central America, the interparliamentary dialogue in the framework of the EP-Latin American Parliament interparliamentary conferences all show how much importance we attach to the proposals set out in the resolution.
We have strongly supported the development of Mercosur, the formation of regional parliaments in Central America, the Andean parliament, the Central American parliament.
But we must not forget some important questions.
We must not forget drugs, cross-border crime and corruption, the expansion of trade in sensitive sectors, the struggle for greater human rights and democracy.
Last year's hearing in the Subcommittee on Human Rights on impunity for the crimes against humanity committed in dictatorships against political opponents but also against many ordinary people who happened to be in the wrong place, showed the complex and sensitive nature of these problems inherited from the past.
Democracy and an independent judiciary are closely interlinked.
A democratic Europe must support the stabilization of democracy in order to increase the number of democratic states in the international organisations and formulate a common security and defence policy, with a view to conflict-prevention.
It is our duty to do so and we in the European Parliament have always insisted on this to the Commission and the Council.
We wish the report much success.
Mr President, current developments in Latin America are one of the happiest trends of the last years of this century.
Long regarded as a powder keg, a theatre of endless guerrilla warfare and putsches, Latin America is now seeing real progress towards peace and democracy, a process which the European Union must support and help to strengthen.
Like Mr Bertens, whom I congratulate on his excellent report, I welcome the Commission's initiative and the tone of its communication, designed to reestablish good relations between the European Union and Latin America.
In the brief time allowed me, I cannot - much as I approve of them - go into the three main priorities on which the Commission proposes to base the Union's cooperation.
I shall therefore confine myself to stating what I believe to be the essential prerequisite for any reform - the support which Europe can and must give to the consolidation of the democratic process.
The European Union is often accused of being first and foremost an economic union, motivated by trade interests.
This view takes no account of its contribution to the spread of democracy throughout the world, through the conclusion of cooperation and association agreements with countries where democracy was or had been under threat.
This is the situation with the Latin American continent, where some democratic regimes are still fragile and where the Union can made a decisive contribution to strengthening the processes taking place.
The Commission's proposals regarding the establishment of a political and trading partnership between the Union and the Latin American countries meet this requirement.
However, there are two points in the report about which I have certain misgivings.
First, Mr Bertens proposes to go beyond the ministerial framework within which such dialogues take place - he would like to see more inter-parliamentary meetings organized, with the European Parliament and its Latin American counterparts participating in the ministerial meetings.
This may create undesirable institutional confusion at a time when links that had previously been somewhat stretched are being reestablished.
Secondly, there is the fight against the narcotics trade.
In his explanatory statement, Mr Bertens suggests that the problem of the drug trade is a matter of supply and demand, and that the first need is to create the right conditions for other forms of development, without launching an outright war on drugs because suppression, as he puts it, never works.
This way of looking at the problem worries me, because although it is true that there is a need to create other forms of development in the areas where these products are cultivated, it is equally true that the drug trade must be obstructed by every available means, without exception.
Part of the European Union's mission is to help these countries rid themselves of a scourge that never makes any contribution to the advance of democratic awareness.
Mr President, Commissioner, the recent years have been marked by a rapprochement between the European Union and Latin America, mainly due to the accession of Spain and Portugal which increased and accentuated the cultural similarities between both continents.
Therefore we would like to express our agreement with the spirit of Mr Bertens' report. We consider that the essential priority objective must be to extend and reinforce the various activities which promote development and the consolidation of democracy in Latin American countries, as described in the Commission communication also dealing with this matter.
To do this we consider it vital to reinforce European efforts to bolster the economic reforms of the Latin American countries, thus ensuring the success of the structural reform currently under way and promoting the development and progress of the various Latin American regions, paying particular attention to the considerable economic and social disparities in the region.
To achieve this, we in the European Union must engage in more energetic and ambitious activities to ensure that relations with Latin America become the main objective of the new common foreign and security policy.
We must remember that, after tripling in the '80s, Latin America's traditional trade surplus with the European Union diminished at the beginning of the '90s, practically disappearing in 1993.
In the past three years a deficit of some 1500 million dollars was recorded.
At the same time, the European Union ceased being the main investor in Latin America, which demonstrates that the current efforts to reinforce association with Latin America are not sufficient, and lack the ambition and dynamism needed.
In conclusion, Mr President, we consider it vital for the Commission to formulate an action programme for Latin America which, as already mentioned, contains practical, common proposals which promote, on the one hand, economic development and, on the other, peace, democracy and the strictest possible respect for human rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bertens's report deals with a communication from the Commission on relations between the European Union and Latin America. This communication is certainly worthy of independent consideration, but it also has to be seen in an overall context that includes the communications on relations with Canada, the United States and Central America.
This set of texts reflects the European Union's legitimate concern to redefine its relations with the Americas as a whole in the aftermath of the Cold War, and to provide a counter-balance to a powerful zone of economic and trade development centred on the Pacific.
I welcome the stated intentions regarding efforts to promote development and stamp out the drug trade, the defence of social justice and the environment, and the restoration of closer cultural links.
But I am concerned when our ACP partners warn us of the long-term erosion of the Lomé agreements by the granting of trade preferences here, there and everywhere, and especially of the devastating effects of the drugs GSP.
We know today the undesirable effects of this system, conceived as it was with the best of intentions.
Not only has it helped to reduce significantly the production of drugs, but it has also, conversely, destroyed whole sectors of European horticulture and fisheries.
I am also concerned when the development of our trade relations is presented as being necessarily destined to result in an intercontinental free trade area, even though this prospect is at present formulated in somewhat vague terms.
If the Commission's real intention is to implement a package of trade and customs agreements creating a transatlantic free trade framework which will double the multilateral trade disarmaments of the GATT, it should tell us the reasons, the advantages, the drawbacks, the costs and profits. What will the consequences be for employment in Europe?
What quid pro quo are we going to ask for? In particular, can we quantify the consequences of such agreements in the agricultural sector when we know the productivity of the South American agricultural sector, its labour costs and its social and environmental standards?
It is for all these reasons, Mr President, that the Europe of Nations Group, while acknowledging the quality of the work done by Mr Bertens, will be very vigilant regarding the concrete proposals based upon it by the European Commission.
Mr President, the scant attention paid in recent years by the European Union to the countries of Latin America again raises the problem of the absence of a general foreign policy strategy for Europe, at least at a political, commercial and security level.
Admittedly, the Commission communication to Parliament has at least the merit of stating - after years of guilty silence - the need to relaunch the relationship between the European Union and Latin America, and we have to acknowledge that Mr Bertens, the rapporteur, has had the courage to focus clearly on and identify shortcomings and limits in the Commission communication and put forward real and specific solutions.
It is a serious mistake to view Latin America - and this is what has happened so far - as just one of several partners in discussion on the other side of the world with which we maintain relations typified by programmes that are frequently ill-defined and not particularly innovative.
Only political short-sightedness could prevent the European Union - and its Member States - from looking to Latin America as a geographical area of major importance, politically and culturally at least.
I would go so far as to say that, in addition to the strategic reasons, there are historical, cultural and linguistic features which mean that the subcontinent is the most Europeanized area lying between the two Oceans: for generations, millions of Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese - to name but a few - have been living in those countries, millions of European emigrants, then, who share with the local people the struggle against poverty and social marginalization.
And so long as Europe fails to fulfil its role as privileged partner, its place is being rapidly taken by the United States which now accounts for 43 % of trade with Latin America and 75 % of direct inward investment.
We need then to recover lost time: the Commission and the Council should draw up a global action programme for a common foreign and security policy with Latin America. This can no longer be abstract and general; we need a policy of economic cooperation for the next four years that is adequately funded as compared with the current ECU 1343 m; there has to be a joint effort to combat drug-trafficking and to promote humanitarian, social and cultural activities.
In any event, Europe should register its interest in taking an active role in the development of Latin America.
In the coming months, we shall see whether the conditions and political will to play that role really exist.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Bertens for his report.
Both this report and the Commission document fulfil an important function.
The cooperation which was initiated in the middle of the 1980s, within the framework of the San-Jose dialogue, must be revived and developed.
The political and economic instruments which have been developed and are now in place must be updated and used so that the Union can support the move towards democracy and the protection of Human Rights which has commenced in the region.
Fresh steps must be taken to ensure that values and standards in these areas, on both continents, are brought closer together.
The EU is currently the largest donor of aid to Latin America although, politically speaking, the region is of less importance to Europe now, despite the fact that culturally and ideologically we have grown closer in recent years.
Some important aspects of the links between the Union and these countries, such as the encouragement of democracy, increased respect for minority groups, concern for the environment, the fight against drug trafficking and international crime, have served to widen and expand the relationship between the two continents.
Because of this, as the rapporteur has pointed out, there is a need for a deeper political dialogue between the EU and Latin America in order to take advantage of and provide continuing support to these positive developments in the future.
But I question some of the aspects of cooperation covered in the report.
To discuss, in this context, the inclusion, in the political dialogue with these countries, of EU security and defence aspects of the cooperation is, in my opinion, a step in the wrong direction.
It is obvious to me, that the EU supports the international peace movement, and is working to prevent conflict and strengthen democracy.
As the rapporteur himself mentioned, the best way to do this is to develop a global strategy of economic and political cooperation with these countries.
I consider it illogical and incorrect that the have to be and should be resolved at international level by a body which has the necessary mandate for this task.
The report also takes up the question of control over the export of weapons.
It is very important that this export is restricted. A voluntary register has been developed within the UN for the registration of heavy weapons.
The EU should strive to see this register developed, to make registration obligatory and to see that the register covers all weapons both heavy and light.
This must be seen as the first step towards a global restriction of the trade in weapons.
Defence aspects are not within the competence of the EU and consequently must be tackled at interstate level.
I find it impossible to support the EU's tendency, through its influence on aspects of a region's security and defence, to take upon itself the role of a world police force.
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mr Bertens on his report because this is one of the few reports in this House which underlines the need not only to reinforce relations with the countries of Latin America, but also to reconsider these relations.
Mr President, Latin America is the poor relation in the European Union's external policy.
As I often say, Latin America does not need handouts, it needs opportunities. Of the three vehicles for European Union action in the coming years - political dialogue, cooperation and trade relations - I think that what will mark the direction for developing these relations is political dialogue, with the parliamentary dimension referred to by other colleagues.
Because it was political and not economic reasons which led to the San José dialogue; because it was political and not economic reasons which are behind the consolidation of the Rio Group dialogue, and because it is political and not economic reasons which must lay down the guidelines for political transition to democracy in Cuba, with full respect for fundamental rights and liberties, as requested by this Parliament.
However important this political dialogue is, Mr President, it will end up being reduced to nothing and withering away if it is not accompanied by cooperation action to sustain it.
I am very happy to see Mr Bertens here because he was also present at the debate with the Dutch presidency, during which no mention at all was made of the Latin American priority.
When it comes to voting on budgets, I think it very important that we ensure together that enough is done so that the amendments submitted - and I would remind Mr Bertens that the general rapporteur is a member of his Group - will be successful.
With regard to the trade aspects, I think that the European export figures for 1995 released at the beginning of January are very satisfactory.
But we are not stimulating production by Latin American countries because, in fact, they are competitive in many products and, in many cases, we are closing our markets to them.
I think that we should be satisfied by what has been done.
There is still a lot to be done, however. I reiterate my congratulations to Mr Bertens on his report.
Mr President, this debate has confirmed that, right now, Latin America is the frontier of the world: what I mean by that is that there is no institutional, economic, social or artistic culture which ought not here and now be taking notice of what was until just a few years ago considered to be the 'missing' continent. The way in which the world is interdependent is also plain from the mass of political issues Latin America raises for us.
There are the two hundred million poor - increasingly poor - people, and yet there is vigorous development over increasingly large areas of the continent.
There continue to be clusters of nationalism which are frequently the source of serious violations of constitutional principles, and yet there are also experiments in regionalism which are gaining ground. There is, in many instances, a delay in creating a fully-developed legal system, and yet a substantial degree of civil awareness is becoming established.
We, the European Union, should take full responsibility for these contradictions: we have to understand that the world has become smaller and they are to some extent our contradictions also. That is why I agree with Mr Bertens on three crucial points.
Firstly, Europe's transatlantic dialogue should be conducted with both North and South America.
Secondly, our policy in Latin America should be a global policy, programmed in accordance with the Community approach of objectives, deadlines and resources. Thirdly, we should have both a ministerial and an interparliamentary framework, the latter offering civilian populations the opportunity to have a voice and be heard and strengthening and supporting the American regional models, such as MERCOSUR, which are becoming established, through our model of regional parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the report and the communication from the Commission.
I believe it is important to continue expanding relations between the European Union and the Latin American continent to avoid the risk of being edged out of this continent by the United States.
Moreover, I agree with the rapporteur that in many areas the Commission's communication fails to make any concrete proposals.
We will urgently need an action plan here in the near future.
For example, there are no proposals on dealing with the drug problem, which is very acute in these countries.
That means that the general socio-economic structures have to be improved.
But a specific programme also needs to be formulated with the aim of substituting alternative crops for narcotics through a specific agricultural development policy.
I welcome the proposal concerning the importance of information about that continent and mutual understanding, with a view to strengthening the rule of law and involving civil society in the development of a genuine human rights structure.
My experiences in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and in the South America delegation have shown me how important it is to promote exchanges, especially between young people.
That is why I would suggest developing the existing programmes of scientific and technical cooperation and aiming them in particular at universities, to give young people and budding scientists a chance to be actively involved in the new partnership and benefit from their mutual experiences.
In general, we need research on Latin America and a comparative study of European-Latin American development, bringing out both the common features and the differences between the two cultures, so that we can base all our future measures on the findings.
That is the only way to ensure that Latin American culture is acknowledged and treated as independent.
Finally, I want to address one other aspect where I think improvements are needed: the much-criticised European bureaucracy makes it difficult for good ideas to be translated into action in this area too.
It is important to simplify the system of applying for projects and the administration of the research programmes.
Only then can the applications be processed rapidly and projects be approved quickly.
Mr President, I should like to join in congratulating Mr Bertens and thank him for incorporating amendments which I moved as part of the Committee on Development and Cooperation's opinion on this report.
Amendments to ensure the principles of development underpin our relations with all Latin American countries highlighting the very severe social impact of the structural adjustment policies, supporting far greater involvement of civil society in our dialogue and agreements as well as the sensitive question of fair trade access for products of the countries own choosing, not ours.
I would also like to say how much I agree with the rapporteur's comments on the importance of alternative development as part of combating the drugs problem, and we should wish success to the European-funded alternative development programme in Bolivia announced late last year, the most significant programme yet of its type.
However, I regret that we have not found priority in tonight's resolution to incorporate two of my other amendments to support specific programmes for women, including reproductive rights, and to reassert our commitment to ILO Convention 169 and to combat the flagrant abuse of the rights of indigenous populations which continue to occur in nearly every country in the region.
I would also like to support the rapporteur when he questions the Commission on how far vague concepts will be applied in concrete terms.
In Recital C we say what is the point in democracy and social clauses in our agreements when there appears to be little attempt to monitor and enforce such clauses? In Recital I we call for the protection of the environment and yet Europe is still supporting mass hydro-electric schemes in the name of development, one of which - local communities and NGOs say - will devastate one of the largest and most precious environments within the region.
There are 200 million people in the region living in poverty.
How far is this compatible with Commissioner Marin's own statement to the Development Committee on 29 October last year that Mercosur countries have been struck off the development aid list to concentrate on poorer countries like Bolivia and Peru? An apparently wealthy country like Brazil has more poor people than any other country on this planet and Europe cannot be silent on this question.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Bertens for his report which highlights something which the Commission has no difficulty in accepting.
Anything that will reinforce relations with Latin America, augment the content of these relations, increase the European presence and guarantee the quality and quantity of our political, economic, financial, trade and cultural relations must become quite natural for the European Union, mindful of the historical and cultural links for some and the economic and trade links for others.
In reality, the Commission's communication concerning the way in which we will conduct our relations in the last five years of the century is simply a practical guide to where our activities should start and end.
Rather than launching new ideas now about Latin America, what the Commission intends to do is consolidate the enormous amount of work done, particularly in the last two years, when we renewed everything from the San José Convention to the various regional integration efforts.
What would be the point now in launching new initiatives when the San José Agreement was renewed in the Council of Minsters in Florence in the second half of last year? What would be the point in new ideas when we are still at the analysis stage, about to embark on the final negotiations with MERCOSUR, Chile, and the new option which has emerged for the Andean Community, and when we are trying to find a negotiating formula for the last remaining agreement, the one with Mexico?
I would prefer in the coming 3 or 4 years to consolidate the work already done, which has been very important because, in fact, it is scarcely 2 or 3 years since the European Union started shaping a much more specific strategy for the Latin American continent.
As Mr Cabezón said, Latin America is not a homogenous concept.
There are many Latin Americas.
Consequently it was necessary to work very flexibly so that, while maintaining exclusively the horizontal level - the Rio Group - as a specialised forum for political dialogue, the European Union could offer a suitable cooperation platform to every country, from the North to the South of Latin America, in line with the regional, territorial and political needs as well as the level of economic development of these countries.
Thus we started to produce a sub-regional integration plan which we have been gradually consolidating, and which we regard as pioneering work.
There is no antagonism between the position of the United States and that of the European Union regarding, for instance, NAFTA.
We are not concerned about NAFTA, Mr Bertens.
NAFTA has not been extended to any other Latin American country in the past three years.
In these 3 years, however, the European Union has become involved in MERCOSUR, Chile, a new San José agreement, an agreement with Mexico, and a new agricultural GSP.
We will have to check our figures, but according to the OECD figures the European Union accounted for up to 61.5 % of development cooperation in the last three years.
Next comes Japan with 19.5 % and then, in third place, the United States with 14 %.
It would be very difficult to reproach the European Union for not concerning itself sufficiently with the Latin American continent when, based on the OECD figures for last year, we represent 62 % of cooperation, much less attempt to compare it with the United States which was even surpassed by Japan last year, and which accounts for only 14 %.
The European Union cannot be reproached for this because the efforts made were very considerable, even outstanding.
One thing I would admit you are right about, Mr Bertens, is that although we are the main cooperation partner with 62 %, this is not known, or not very well known.
You are right about this.
But how can you achieve visibility in today's world? In order to be visible and present in world communications, in addition to determination you need money, money, money.
It is very difficult for the European Union to ensure the visibility of what it is doing if the communication instruments - which are vital in a media-oriented society like the present - are, quite simply, very fragile.
On another level, in relation to our external action, you have proposed in your report up to 22 measures concerning the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the political dialogue. I pray that this issue is solved by the Treaty of Amsterdam because the common foreign and security policy is not an area in which the European Union's credibility is at its best.
Second, I cannot accept either the statement that there has been a fall-off in financial and trade relations because, and I would stress this, this is not reflected in the OECD figures.
At this moment, with regard to Latin America, the European Union is the main trading partner of nine countries, and the second biggest partner of eight countries.
These nine countries include the most important in economic terms - MERCOSUR, Chile, etc.
In trade terms, the flows between the two continents increased by 40 % in the last three years, which is spectacular.
In terms of stock, the increase in direct European investments in manufacturing sectors in recent years has quite simply been extraordinary.
Several European Union countries have even tripled their direct productive investments. I do not need to quote examples as these appear in the media every day.
I would like once again to bring up the question of comparison with United States policy.
Mr Bertens, this year - 1996 - the United States surpassed us in investments, but you know that investments consist of direct productive investments and investment funds.
The European Union is still Latin America's most important partner, hence the quality of our cooperation due to our direct productive investments, in other words capital which is invested to create wealth, jobs and development.
Let us turn then to the OECD statistics on financial flows because such flows are not always equivalent to development processes as they may simply consist of fleeting capital which comes and goes depending on interest rates.
I think that there is no doubt that much remains to be done, but we have nothing to reproach ourselves for, having made a leap which I would describe as nothing less than spectacular in some sectors.
Things are going well in economic terms, and we must now develop what we started in the last few years.
There is one fact of which little has been said, but which I consider essential in relation to Latin America.
There is no doubt that the continent's differential is now positive, and Latin America is no longer the continent of galloping inflation, military dictatorships or trade debts.
There is political stability, and a lot of progress has been achieved. We have witnessed the peace processes, and the trade debts have been repaid.
The problem facing Latin America in the coming century - which is very important and which I think we will have to discuss in future - is its social debt.
Latin America has not paid its social debt.
There is a lot of poverty and marginalisation.
The level at which wealth is increasing is spectacular, sometimes an average of 7 % to 8 % for the whole continent. In this respect it is similar to the Asian model.
But I am very much afraid that this wealth is not distributed properly.
I really believe that this will be the unfinished business to be dealt with in Latin America in the next century.
Economic adjustments have been made, financial adjustments have been made, and 'political' adjustments are being made so that we can get along with each other.
In future we will have to concern ourselves with the internal stability of the continent, which means combating poverty, because otherwise it will be difficult to sustain the economic and political successes achieved in recent years.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
San José dialogue
The next item is the report (A4-0418/96) by Mr Carnero González, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council on the renewal of the San José dialogue between the European Union and Central America (COM(95)0600 - C40102/96).
President, a quick glance is sufficient to see that there is big difference between the Central America of the beginning of the eighties and the Central America of the midnineties.
In fact, from an isthmus plagued by military regimes, open armed conflict and continuous violations of human rights, it has become a region taking its first steps towards pluralist political systems based on universal suffrage, where human rights are increasingly being respected and agreements have been reached which have silenced the weapons and enshrined national reconciliation as a principle and an objective.
The end of the Cold War and, of course, the strength of the Central Americans themselves, are at the root of this change for the better, from darkness to hope.
The action of the European Union has also contributed to this, marked for over a decade by the San José process.
This process is one of the Union's most creditable external policy actions.
Above all when it is considered that the process was launched, got off the ground and was maintained under the adverse conditions of the aggressive United States policy which characterised the Reagan era.
Despite the success of this we cannot ignore the fact that much remains to be done in Central America, as regards both political and socio-economic aspects, in order to achieve an acceptable situation.
Democracy must be consolidated by reinforcing the rule of law and obtaining full respect for individual and collective human rights, which requires, among other things, the creation of an independent judiciary with which to combat effectively the abominable phenomenon of impunity.
The European Union will also have to help ensure compliance with and the implementation of the peace agreements which have been concluded, the last one of which was signed on 29 December between the Guatemalan Government and the URNG commanders - obviously excellent news.
Above all, it will be essential to combat the enormous economic and social shortcomings which are a result of persisting under-development, and which lead to increased inequalities, poverty, marginalisation and exclusion.
Not only must we renew the San José dialogue, but we must also strengthen and extend it as much as possible, underlining its basic objectives and making available the instruments necessary to achieve these.
In addition to the objectives referred to above in the political and social fields, there are two others which in fact cover these areas: the proper and acceptable integration of Central America into the international economy, not by means of adjustment and regulatory policies, but based on strategies which promote models of development sustainable in human and ecological terms, and the boosting of regional integration itself.
The various proposals contained in the report I am presenting on behalf of the Committee on External Affairs are a step in this direction, but there is one more point I would like to emphasise.
The formulation of a comprehensive Common Foreign and Security Policy action programme for Central America, adequately funded, like the relevant cooperation framework agreement, should be accompanied by a financial protocol which would involve a substantial increase in the resources assigned to cooperation with Central America.
Such a programme should include measures to modernise and consolidate the rule of law which would be aimed, for instance, at combatting impunity, promoting human rights, supporting refugees and the return of displaced persons, ensuring democratic control over the armed forces and cut-backs in military expenditure, as well as providing protection for indigenous groups and sections of the population such as women; extending to the Central American industrial sector the new Generalized System of Preferences of which the Andean countries are beneficiaries; cancelling, at least partly, the external debts of the countries in the region; providing impetus in the fight against the drugs trade and, lastly, any measures that would enhance the quality of life and also achieve more equality, combatting, as I have already said, poverty, exclusion and marginalisation.
Similarly, in adopting a stance in favour of intensifying the political dialogue between the European Union and Central America, we must suggest that both the European Parliament and PARLACEN should play an increased role in this, these being the only parliaments in the world directly elected on a transnational basis, and that a Civil Society Consultative Forum be set up, in which initiatives such as the ICIC and bodies such as the CIFCA can be included and take part.
We must not forget either our wish to see the European Commission being given the human and material resources to accomplish its work in this area in the best possible way.
Mr President, I think that we need to continue the positive work achieved so far, and that it is now necessary to stimulate, continue and complete this work which should not be halted because Central America and Europe still have a lot to achieve.
Mr President, the contribution made by the European Union through the San José dialogue to ending the horrific civil wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador and, more recently, Guatemala is very considerable and demonstrates quite clearly the positive role that the European Union can play on the world scene.
Ironically enough, however, the advent of peace means that the attention given to the area is likely to decline quite steeply, despite the fact that many of the underlying problems have by no means been resolved.
This report is important because it identifies the basic needs in the region and specifies in clear terms the policies which the European Union should now pursue.
The San José process should continue providing an opportunity for an exchange of views and discussion not only through the conferences - at two of which I have had the opportunity to speak on behalf of Parliament - but also through greater involvement of civil society in the region.
It is vital that every possible step should be taken to devote attention to the prevention of new human rights abuses and to resist the covering-up of those which occurred in the past by means of general amnesties and the like.
Efforts must also be concentrated on social issues.
Huge numbers of people - particularly the indigenous populations - are grossly afflicted by poverty.
Poverty alleviation, health-care and educational reform are vital and cannot be achieved by neo-liberal solutions imposed from outside.
It is clear that regional integration is in the overall interests of the population but not unless special measures are taken to defend the interests of all who are vulnerable.
The debt problem and the need to safeguard the environment are other issues which must not be overlooked or forgotten.
This report points the way in which policies should be developed.
The European Union can, and should, play its full part within this region.
Mr President, much of what has been said about Mr Bertens' report also applies, of course, to Mr Carnero González' very good report.
So I will confine myself to a few comments on the problem specific to this region.
Even more than South America, Central America has for years been the subject of fierce debate in this Parliament between the European parties and their Central American partners on the right road to follow.
Today democracy and peace prevail in most of the countries.
A democratically elected president has just been freely elected in Nicaragua for the second time and the EU has signed an agreement with Nicaragua aimed at supporting the education system and improving the judicial system.
The San José dialogue that has begun between Latin America and the EU and its results since 1984 may well be regarded as one of the few truly successful examples of a common foreign policy.
The framework agreement between the partner countries of the 1993 general agreement on Central American integration forms an important cornerstone of this cooperation.
It must be extended and updated.
What we do not have, however, is an institutionalized parliamentary dialogue, and that is what the EP would like to see.
But where there is light, or at least a little more light, there are also shadows: the high indebtedness, poor economic conditions, social conflicts, the integration of returning refugees, unemployment, an integration policy that does not always work and the retraining both of former soldiers and also of resistance fighters are a threat to democracies that are not yet stable.
There are still human rights infringements.
The European Parliament has discussed these questions on numerous occasions, e.g., in relation to the street children of Guatemala.
But it is Guatemala that has just introduced a peace process on which we again want to congratulate the negotiating partners.
We welcome and support that process.
But the most difficult task is to carry it through.
After years of military action, terrorism, countless deaths and distrust, a common policy needs to be formulated, which will not be easy.
Here it is up to the European Union and its joint committee to act as a suitable instrument of conciliation.
We must persevere in our cooperation with the government and the parties, unions and social organizations.
We must propose measures to promote the rule of law and an independent judiciary, human rights and their enforcement by the police and the military.
It is essential for a civil society to develop that really is prepared to assume political tasks and responsibilities and to resolve economic and social problems on its own.
We must do our share with programmes for local development, decentralization, land reform and the equality of women, and they must not just be programmes for times of crisis.
They must be real programmes, for unless we can persuade this civil society to take on responsibility for itself, if we, the EU do not help, then all the splendid words spoken in this Parliament are useless. that is why we ask the Commission to give real support in this area.
Mr President, sometimes it is gratifying to see that things are going well in the world and that is the case in Central America.
Ten years ago I was in Nicaragua and El Salvador as rapporteur on the conflict there and now peace has actually broken out in Guatemala.
Now that peace has come it is important that constitutional rule and democracy should be consolidated.
The dialogue between the EU and Central America has already borne fruit.
Still more can be achieved if the Commission is prepared to go along with the suggestion for a detailed multiannual programme for Central America which Mr Carnero makes in his excellent report.
Then, I think, we must above all be careful to ensure that as many social groups as possible are able to take part, the trade unions, for example.
Because most of the governments in this region do not see the importance of this at all.
In Guatemala, for example, a trade union organization was banned outright by the authorities only last year.
It would be particularly unfortunate, and here I agree with what the Commissioner said in his earlier comments on Mr Bertens' report, if the same thing were to happen in Central America as happened in Latin America, namely growth but without fair distribution.
If that happens people will continue to suffer.
Commissioner Marín hit the nail on the head: this is not the way to do things.
So I hope the Commission will be vigilant to ensure that this social dialogue gets going, with the trade unions, but the employers too, taking part.
You may find this strange, but there is no degree of organization among the employers in Latin America either.
The best thing would thus be a social dialogue of the kind we have in Europe between employers and workers.
I am delighted to see that not only the Commissioner, the Latin America expert, is here but also the new vicepresident of Parliament who is a member of my Group.
I hope this report of Mr Carnero's will be favourably received by the Commission.
Mr President, the San José dialogue process was a model of integrated policy for the European Union: to undervalue it therefore and reduce it the level of a mere experiment in development cooperation would be a mistake on our part and a mistake for the countries of the Central American isthmus. If we consider that Latin America currently holds a central position in the mainstream of world development, those countries lie at its very heart: they represent the most sensitive and the most fragile link but one that is crucial to our policy and needs therefore to be viewed with all its implications - in terms of the CFSP then, in our jargon, and not just cooperation.
If we move in that direction, Commissioner, Parliament will give its wholehearted support.
That means that as far as Central America is concerned, we need concepts and a programme whose economic and institutional objectives are consistent and in step with one another.
That programme must be based on three principles: first of all, encouragement for regionalization as the only institutional model able to turn to good use the positive effects of globalization and attenuate its negative effects; secondly, encouragement for regionally-based parliaments which offer the most modern system of applying a policy of safeguarding human and political rights in those countries and providing a framework for social dialogue - in that connection it is frankly deplorable that the Florence document made no mentioned of PARLACEN; and, finally, aid targeted primarily at municipalities and local communities and subject to sensible and detailed monitoring by the Commission and this House, as appropriate, to prevent the diversion of aid triggering fresh tensions in countries, such as Guatemala, that have just emerged from civil war.
Mr President, Members of Parliament, first of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Carnero Gonzalez, on his report.
The Commission agrees not only with its general terms but also with its specific aspects because, finally, what Mr Carnero's report makes clear is, first of all - I am referring to what I said earlier in my comments on Latin America - the need to renew and upgrade the San José dialogue which, in the words of one of the Members, is perhaps, in all modesty, one of the most solid and convincing actions which the European Union has conducted under foreign policy.
If we compare the state of the San José dialogue when the Esquipulas Group was set up, remembering what happened in Central America, with the contemporary political situation, it can in fact be considered that an enormous leap has been made as regards the political stabilisation of the Central American isthmus.
It is true that the end of the Cold War was a help and it is also true that with peace in Guatemala, the last civil conflict which existed in Central American countries has now been settled.
How was this achieved? The San José dialogue was started ten years ago and maintained during the Cold War on certain bases, the main aims of which were to end the civil wars, establish democratic systems and produce a plan for economic development.
Central America has changed a lot in the last five years.
Very difficult and complicated political situations had emerged which have been solved democratically, and civil wars have been ended.
And now we have the phenomenon of Guatemala: next week, on 20 and 21, the donors' advisory committee is to meet in Brussels, under the aegis of the European Commission, which demonstrates, if not the leadership, then at least the increasingly important role of the European Union in delicate processes such as this peace process.
A whole new dimension is needed.
Hence the Florence agreement for a new vision of our relations with Central America.
Mr Carnero, what Central America actually needs is the concept of state.
Consequently, our fundamental objective, very briefly, is to foster decentralised cooperation with civil society.
My idea is to gradually involve NGOs, preferably local ones.
The micro-projects (we are now conducting almost 400 of these) cost a lot in terms of money and work, and are, of course, difficult to control from Brussels.
We have ideas and we have enough money, but we need more officials.
Therefore I want to transfer a lot of the small projects to local NGOs, concentrate on the rule of law, essentially in relation to parliaments - we intend to cooperate on the reform of various parliaments following the example of Paraguay - on the reform of government administration, justice, tax administration and financial administration.
This will essentially be the central element of cooperation in the next five years, the aim being to have one idea accepted: that a democratic State needs more than anything else a State which is starting to demonstrate the credibility of all the peace and political processes in the region.
The response we have had from the other side of the Atlantic has been truly extraordinary, the proof of this being that it was not necessary to insist in order to get the Guatemalan authorities to propose to us, on the very day they signed the peace accord, to organise the donors' advisory committee in Brussels under the new parameters of the San José Process, which means that once again, the European Union will be at the helm in this exercise - and we can do this because the financing involved is relatively modest, and we have the people to do it.
Central America's problem is once again poverty and marginalisation, but this is much more acute than in other Latin American countries.
I am convinced that the Latin American continent will produce strong, democratic and efficient States, otherwise development aid will not work very well.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Protection of privacy in telecommunications
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0415/96) on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector, in particular in the integrated services digital network (ISDN) and in the public digital mobile networks (C4-0470/96-00/0288(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Medina Ortega).
Mr President, I would like to say that if we had wanted to find a name that was not clear, that was against transparency, it would be impossible to find a more entertaining one than the one on this directive or proposal for a directive, which is called (at least in Spanish - I do not know how it sounds to the Commissioner in his native tongue) directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector, in particular in the integrated services digital network (ISDN) and in the public digital mobile networks.
This is something very mysterious and very specialised.
In reality, what we have here is a directive to guarantee the protection of individuals in the telecommunications sector.
I would like to take advantage of the fact that the Commissioner is present to say that in the interests of fulfilling the principle of transparency and familiarity with Community law, the best thing would be for him to accept the amendment of the title, as proposed in Amendment No 2 of our text, which speaks of the directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector.
I think that Amendment No 2 will help Community citizens to understand what we are talking about.
This directive complements another one which we approved not long ago, the directive on the protection of personal data and privacy in general. It is being applied to the telecommunications sector here.
Another amendment to achieve simplification, which I do not think the Commissioner has before him because only the Spanish version is concerned, is Amendment No 1, which replaces the expression 'public telecommunication services' by 'accessible telecommunication services' .
In any case, I would say that good work has been done in relation to this directive. We have taken our time, and I think that it was a good idea to take our time because the mist has gradually dispersed.
The first draft Commission communication dates from 1990; it accompanied the general directive on data protection.
The Parliament took its time and completed its first report in 1992.
The directive on data protection subsequently followed its own course of development and was kept separate from the directive on data protection in the telecommunications sector.
In fact the amended Commission proposal to Parliament and Council dates from 1994, thus there are four years between the initial proposal and the amended proposal.
Finally, the Council's common position was adopted in 1996 and has arrived at Parliament at a time when everything is perfectly clear to us.
We in the Committee on Legal Affairs discussed this in an atmosphere characteristic of our committee, which is one of considerable consensus extending across the political spectrum, the concern being to guarantee the privacy of individuals.
The most important innovation of this directive is probably the fact that it applies not only to natural persons but also to corporate persons.
One thing that does not make sense, and I think that the Commissioner would agree with me on this, is to speak of subsidiarity in this area.
It is absurd that, in the case of a telephone call from Paris to London, one country applies one law and another one applies a different law, because if we are trying to protect the privacy of people, it is only normal to apply the same law.
It is pointless to speak of subsidiarity in this connection.
In my view, the reason why some British politicians like this word so much is because it is very difficult to pronounce in English and nobody knows what 'subsidiarity' means.
If a phone call is made from Paris to London, there is no reason why one law should be applied in Paris and another in London.
This is not the place for subsidiarity, therefore, and this is the purpose of our Amendment No 7.
There is no reason for subsidiarity.
This directive is different from the other one in that it applies not only to natural persons but also to the protection of corporate persons, and the Committee on Legal Affairs did not disapprove of extending the protection in this way.
But what does not make sense is that in some countries corporate persons can be protected and in others they cannot, because this brings us back to the same problem.
In other words, if a multinational company calls London from Paris, the message can be protected in Paris but perhaps not in London.
This is absurd, and therefore several of the amendments are aimed at preventing it.
Although as the rapporteur I must recommend all the amendments, I can tell you now that a political group, in fact the one to which I belong, is going to try and remove all national legislative options which enable a distinction to be made between national powers.
Lastly, we believe that good work has been achieved.
I think that not much remains to be done. We are proposing several amendments to simplify the rule and make it a little more rational: there is no room for subsidiarity or for different national laws.
Mr President, already today, the information society is characterized by telecommunications and data transfers, which between them provide almost unlimited possibilities of communication.
These possibilities are as hard to predict as they are numerous, and that is why it is important for the individual to be protected against abuse, and for us to ensure that democratic controls can be applied.
With the achievements of progress in the field of telecommunications, it has become possible to obtain and distribute personal information on such things as people's interest in certain web sites, their sexuality, and so on.
For the Internet too, rules need to be drawn up on protection of privacy, but this should not be done in such a way that some people are indirectly denied access to information, because this automatically leads to anyone interested being able to obtain information affecting privacy.
However, that should not prevent us from applying sensible democratic controls to what is supplied on the Internet, controls which must provide safeguards against the unlawful supplying of information.
Today, it is possible to find anything on the Internet, from bomb-making recipes and methods of torture to threats against employees and child pornography - anything at all which can be distributed - because no address is given for the provider.
If we wish to stamp out child pornography, for example, it needs to be specified that when material is supplied on the Internet, an address is always given, a personal code or something of the kind, so that it is the supplier who is responsible.
The principle of freedom with responsibility must also be applied on the Internet.
Mr President, as mentioned by the rapporteur, who has carried out commendable work on this report and on the common position we are concerned with today, doubtless the result of a laborious consensus, it is not just the title but the entire text which is confusing and ambiguous, and it is difficult to recognise it as the initial proposal on which this House gave its opinion after the first reading.
Having said that, it is necessary to stress that this directive deals with a complex and delicate situation requiring an urgent solution.
It forms part of a legal space which is completely asymmetric, in which national regulations differ radically, because telecommunications are being projected onto a veritable technological and economic battlefield.
And to this scenario must be added the ups and downs suffered by this directive.
The general directive on the protection of personal data came into force between the first and second readings, which makes this directive a sectoral directive, geared more to the management of these data in the specific field of communications than to actual protection, in relation to which constant reference is made - it could not be otherwise - to the general directive.
Moreover, unlike the initial proposal, this directive - as pointed out by the rapporteur - includes corporate persons and is also extended to cover certain services which were not covered by the first version, for instance videos on demand and a few other services of this kind.
Against this background, the European People's Party will tomorrow vote for the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs, with the purely technical Amendment No 12 which was submitted by the Group to the House.
Some are intended to improve the text, in other words improve legal security, and in this connection I would point to the amendment to the title: if the content has changed, it is only right that the title should reflect this change.
Others, as mentioned by the rapporteur, refer to the proper use of the concept of subsidiarity.
Lastly, the remaining ones serve to protect the legitimate interests of consumers and user companies.
The European People's Party will also vote for the removal of the third paragraph of Article 12, and the corresponding one in recital 20, since we do not think it right to have a distinction here between the way in which the legitimate interests of natural and corporate persons are treated and protected.
Finally, Mr President and Commissioner, we will vote in favour of Amendment No 11, submitted by the Liberal Group, which we consider necessary, not only in strict application of the provisions of the single market, which are not really in keeping with the two possibilities in the current text, but also because we think that it provides a fairer compromise between the legitimate interests of companies and the legitimate interests of personal data protection for natural persons and users.
Mr President, as has been stated already, there are exciting changes taking place within the telecommunications industry.
Unfortunately, I have to say that, sometimes I have the feeling that we are approaching the future backwards; we are so out of step in our attitudes.
We have created the term 'public service' .
We want everyone to have access at reasonable, that is to say, low cost.
But there are no 'free lunches' .
We must remember what has happened in Eastern Europe, where it was thought that there were 'free lunches' .
Future generations will have to pay the price for such abuse there.
The Directive under debate here today, to some extent addresses this problem, but it is only partially covered, in Article 8 for example.
The description to be found here and in many other Directives covering the Telecommunications market does not in any way correspond to the situation which exists in those Member States which have come furthest along the path of liberalisation of the telecommunication market, Scandinavian countries for example.
As there are very different circumstances in each country it is absolutely essential that the principle of subsidiarity is applied.
We can even give examples of the fact that we have come a long way in Scandinavia and that free competition has given opportunities for an improved service and for the promotion of regional equality: the cost of national and international calls has been reduced considerably and there have been very significant developments going on.
I would like to point out that last year, 600 000 mobile telephones were sold in Finland, which has a population of 5 million people; the Finnish Members of the European Parliament are obviously not the only ones with this type of equipment.
What can we learn from this? That, for this sector, where technical progress is moving forwards we find ourselves out of step which will lead to misuse of our resources and which will alter Europe's competitiveness.
I hope, therefore, that we will bear this in mind during this discussion.
Mr President, the Telecommunications industry is growing and it is now vital to ensure that the personal details held in digital telecommunications networks are protected against improper use.
It is also vital that people, if they so wish, can gain access to the information held in the various telecommunications registers.
I think that the principle to use for this is one of openness, in other words, everything which appears in the telephone directory such as telephone numbers and addresses should be publicly available unless decided otherwise.
Anything which is not considered to be in the public domain may still be given out with care and the principle of personal protection must not replace the principle of openness and the right of each and everyone to gain access to information.
This is clearly regulated in the Swedish principle of openness and the Data Protection Act has worked well.
As I see it, the rules of harmonisation should go no further than maintaining the principle of openness.
Obviously there should be restrictions on phone tapping and subscribers should have the right to an ex-directory number.
In my opinion, the formulation of detailed regulations should, as far as possible, take place at national level.
Mr President, as the House will know, the original proposal for this directive, as Mr Medina Ortega said, dates back to 1990 and the revised proposal was submitted in 1994.
The arrival at a common position has - to say the least - taken rather longer than usual and, understandably, that has caused some inconvenience for this Parliament.
In view of that fact the Commission is all the more grateful to this House for the constructive attitude that has been shown both in the first and second readings and we are particularly grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, who was also the rapporteur for the general directive on data protection, for his particular patience and for the perceptive and productive way in which he has dealt with the proposed directive on second reading.
We will be rendering a service to both economic operators and to consumers by adopting this directive.
It is obviously essential that the rapidly expanding telecommunications sector keeps the confidence of users and it is equally clear that those users must be certain that the increasing amount of information they are confiding to networks is handled with complete integrity and will not be used for any purposes which they do not intend or do not desire.
In addition, public awareness about privacy and data protection is increasing and Member States have to respond effectively to legitimate concerns.
To avoid great divergences in national provisions which could hinder the free provision of services in the internal market, it is essential for us to ensure that there is agreement on a basic set of principles that can be respected in practical terms throughout the Community.
In short, we need to ensure that the information society offers equal opportunities and mutual benefits to all.
In that process, the basic rights of users need to be adequately defined and equitable competitive conditions for all operators have to be guaranteed.
Those are the main purposes of this directive and against that background I now offer the Commission's responses to the amendments.
Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10 and 12 are viewed by the Commission as useful clarification and improvements to the text and therefore they are readily accepted by the Commission.
Amendment No 9 removes the ability of operators to charge subscribers for not having their particulars entered in the public directory.
The Commission agrees with Parliament than an individual subscriber should not have to pay for the right to privacy and we can therefore support that amendment.
I have to tell the House, however, that the remaining proposed amendments are not acceptable on grounds that I hope the House will recognize to be rational and will come to agree with.
Firstly, on Amendment No 5, I have to remind the House that the draft directive allows Member States to limit the application of Article 11 on directories to natural persons, i.e. to private citizens.
The reason for this clearly is that the facility for legal persons, commercial companies and so on, to determine whether they are included or not in the public directory is not a fundamental human right but rather a legitimate interest.
As a result, it was felt that the arrangements for accommodating the legitimate interest of legal persons would not need to be as prescriptive as those for guaranteeing the right to privacy.
Moreover, the argument for offering extended public directory options free-of-charge would be less compelling in the case of legal persons than it is, obviously, in the case of private citizens.
The amendment before us introduces a new element, namely a right of information of the user which is not covered in any way by the substance of the directive and which would seem to suggest if interpreted a contrario , that Member States may actually be allowed to oblige legal persons to appear in the public directory.
That is not the intention and it certainly confuses the issue.
On those grounds therefore the Commission cannot accept this amendment.
Nor can the Commission accept Amendment No 8 - simply because it contains a drafting error.
However, the amendment is replaced by Amendment No 12 which the Commission can support.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 11.
The amendment would delete the possibility for Member States to offer a higher level of protection to individual subscribers against unsolicited calls.
The common position allows Member States to choose an opt-in or an opt-out system for unsolicited calls made for direct marketing purposes.
That means that governments can either prohibit such calls in general unless subscribers have indicated that they do not mind receiving those calls or allow those calls in general while providing the opportunity for subscribers to indicate in a public list that they do not want to receive unsolicited calls for direct marketing.
The House may recall that this approach has also been chosen on the same issue in the Distance Selling Directive which was discussed here earlier today.
The Commission cannot support this amendment because it would delete the option with the higher level of protection and would do so without any imperative reason that relates to the operation of the internal market.
As to the proposal to delete paragraph 3 of Article 11, the Commission cannot support this because there are valid reasons not to apply the detailed provisions regarding the privacy option for natural persons in exactly the same way as they would be applied to legal persons, as I indicated in response to another amendment.
For legal persons it is not the right to privacy which is at stake but a legitimate interest to determine how they should appear in public directories.
They will not necessarily need the same options as private citizens and the offer of all options free of charge may not always be warranted.
Therefore, a differentiation is made in Article 11 of the proposed Directive.
The Commission would be able to support a clarification of Article 11(3) to explain that the legitimate interests of legal persons should be taken care of in all cases but not necessarily in the same way as the right to privacy of natural persons.
Such an addition to Article 11(3) could read: In this case Member States must ensure that sufficient options are available which take account of the legitimate interests of subscribers other than natural persons with regard to their entry in public directories' .
On a final point relating to the amendments, the Commission cannot support the deletion of paragraph 3 of Article 12, again because there are valid reasons not to apply exactly the same provisions to legal persons as to natural persons.
In order briefly to clarify the points at issue, it would be acceptable, in the Commission's view, to add a sentence to the third paragraph of Article 12 so that it would read as follows: ' Member States may limit the application of paragraphs 1 and 2 to subscribers who are natural persons to the extent that the legitimate interests of subscribers other than natural persons and, in particular, those of small and medium-sized enterprises remain sufficiently protected' .
I hope that on reflection Members of the House will accept the reasoning of the Commission on the minority of amendments which are not acceptable.
I further hope that it will be possible to take advantage of the basic convergence of the views of the Commission and of this House, and to secure adoption of the Directive very early this year.
I thank the rapporteur and his colleagues for the work that they have done in improving this proposed Directive.
Mr President, the Commissioner has just proposed an oral amendment to one of the amendments.
I hope that he will put it in writing for me so that we can formulate our opinion on it before the vote.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Air traffic management
The next item is the report (A4-0381/96) by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission's White Paper on Air Traffic Management - Freeing Europe's airspace.
Last week, Mr President, I received the latest figures on delays in air transport.
Last November more than 20 % of European scheduled services were delayed by a quarter of an hour or more.
I fear that following the improvements made in 1993 and 1994 the delays are getting a lot worse. That means great inconvenience to travellers and it costs a packet.
Experts predict that savings of 2.5 billion ECU a year could be made here.
In other words, 50 million ECU a week are being wasted.
Of course delays are not good for safety either, the number one priority for all of us.
According to some estimates there are usually 60 to 70 extra planes in the air as a result of the congestion.
Congestion also means more air pollution and excessive noise.
The reason for this congestion is not insufficient airspace but the unbelievably inefficient way in which European airspace is managed.
Air traffic control in Europe is still organized nationally.
We have come an awfully long way towards abolishing borders on the ground, but in the air nationalism is still flying high.
Thus Europe still has 49 ATC centres, 31 national systems, 18 hardware suppliers, 22 control systems and 30 programming languages.
I will not deny that considerable results have been achieved since the ECAC ministers took the decision to work together more closely in 1988.
We certainly need to continue with that, but it is not enough.
All the indications are that air travel will expand enormously, and experts predict that it will double over the next ten years.
If policy remains unchanged, with increased fragmentation of Europe's airspace, the consequences will be disastrous.
The Commission's White Paper makes that abundantly clear.
A genuinely European approach is desperately needed.
Only an integrated ATM system can provide a lasting solution.
European airspace must be operated as a collective entity without national borders and differences between civilian and military airspace must be eliminated.
As I understand it the ECAC ministers propose to take a decision on 14 February on the future institutional structure of European ATM.
Given the European Union's responsibilities in this area I should like to ask the Commissioner a few questions: how does he propose to safeguard the Community's interests here? Take the necessary separation of regulation and management.
How are we to ensure that the responsibility for planning and the division of airspace rests with the authority?
How are we to prevent a veto by one Member State from obstructing implementation by another Member State?
How is democratic scrutiny at Community level to be ensured?
And should we not go for a Eurocontrol convention which can be modified faster to take account of technological, political or economic changes? Is the Commissioner prepared to keep Parliament informed of developments and to debate the question of accession with us again once we know what the new convention looks like?
The Benelux countries and Germany recently devised an integrated concept for ATC centres which provides for free route airspace above 30 000 feet.
Is the Commission prepared to encourage regional developments of this kind which will increase capacity in the short term? They are desperately necessary, not least in the interests of safety.
1996 was the worst year in aviation history as regards safety.
57 accidents with more than 1800 people killed, and that is not counting accidents involving sabotage.
For the sake of safety too, a system of European air traffic management with a clearer distribution of responsibilities is an absolute must.
After so many years of talking I hope the Member State governments will at last find the courage to put the interest of their citizens first.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately the limitless skies referred to at times by Pam Cornelissen all too often turn into a real hell.
Last year a colleague from my group, Brian Simpson, and I tabled a motion for a resolution following the crash in the Caribbean in which all 189 passengers of a Birgenair aircraft lost their lives.
We did so in order to make it clear that air safety is not the responsibility of air traffic control alone but that other basic aspects must also be taken into account, such as technical safety standards, together with high-level training of pilots and all the ancillary workers in the aircraft industry.
Some of the demands we made were satisfied.
Some Member States have taken steps to draw up a black list.
Let me also give due recognition to what the German transport minister, Mr Wissmann, has done, in forbidding the take-off or landing of aircraft that revealed certain weaknesses following more stringent checks.
But all these are only first steps.
I would ask the Commission to take action and in particular to draft a directive that would persuade the giant companies to indicate in their brochures the air carrier which will be used.
This is done in some Member States.
In our motion for a resolution we call for this practice to be extended throughout the territory of the European Union.
We need a uniform air traffic monitoring system on everything that can happen these areas, a kind of air traffic management system.
For years Parliament has been calling for greater efficiency, compatibility and higher productivity.
I think we owe that to the consumers, but also to the airline companies which, of course, also have an obligation to fulfil.
We know that the European airlines are facing very strong competition and the cost burden referred to by Mr von Cornelissen does indeed speak for itself.
The first step must be to improve coordination in order to avoid further mistakes.
But I think that it must be established very soon that the Commission bears the central responsibility, and that like the mandate it was given for negotiations with third countries, the Commission must also be given a mandate to consider these aspects.
I believe we do need a common airspace with the Central and Eastern European countries and with the Mediterranean area as a whole.
We should also ensure that the technical equipment is properly compatible.
At the same time I hope that European technology can be used here.
Why, given our efficiency in this technology, do we have to buy in from 'outside' ? I do not think that is necessary.
As an everyday example: my son is a commercial airline pilot.
He keeps telling about the thoughtlessness of some air traffic controllers, saying that when planes fly over certain countries, especially Italy and France, the controllers give instructions in their mother-tongue.
If only as a matter of terminology, the air traffic control language used should be English.
All this must included in the list of measures that can be introduced.
I have little sympathy for the casual acceptance of this kind of risk.
I see it as irresponsible.
Our aim is standardization within a European, possibly even a Community European civil aviation authority.
That is our common aim.
Until then we will have to take a few interim steps in that direction, but I think we agree on the ultimate aim.
My dear Mr Cornelissen, thank you very much for all the work you have put into this report.
I would like to take this opportunity to give very warm thanks for your two and a half years of hard work as chairman of the committee.
Our friend Mr Cornelissen has retired from this office.
I thank him warmly for his much-appreciated work.
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, for his report on such a complex and difficult subject as the White Paper on air traffic management.
It must be admitted that the Commission's analysis in the White Paper is comprehensive and extraordinarily rigorous.
I have no option, however, but to agree with the rapporteur's view that the solutions proposed in the White Paper do not match the brilliance of the Commission's analysis.
It is not possible to propose, as a solution to this problem, that the European Union should simply join Eurocontrol.
Everyone knows - and this was made perfectly clear at the hearing we held in the Committee on Transport and Tourism - that Eurocontrol was unable to fulfil its commitments to guarantee a harmonised air traffic control system in Europe because many of the Member States withdrew the supranational powers they had granted to the organisation in the past.
Mr President, I have always said that this is a serious and urgent problem.
Serious because it affects the operating costs of our undertakings, which are paying a very high price for the lack of a harmonised air traffic control system in Europe, and urgent because each time there is a disruption, not only does this involve losses for our undertakings, but also incalculable inconvenience for our citizens.
I believe, Mr President, that this issue should be taken very, very seriously indeed.
Until powers are clearly delineated and institutional, political, administrative, scientific and technical solutions are arrived at, we can do nothing.
I have always said, Commissioner, that these powers lie with the European Union and that it must assume them with determination, that Eurocontrol has the means but not the power, and that the European Conference of Transport Ministers has neither the means nor the power, but has a lot of ideas.
Commissioner, I invite you to put forward proposals in a determined bid to preserve Community powers and find solutions to a problem that affects the costs borne by our undertakings and the patience of our citizens.
Mr President, I too must start by complimenting Mr Cornelissen and thanking him for the two and a half years of hard work he has put in as chairman of our committee.
This report is an example of that hard work, though the subject of better air traffic management is one which Mr Cornelissen addressed years ago in the Dutch parliament too and has continued to address with great industry.
Regrettably we have to say that not a lot has come of it and that Eurocontrol, a body of which we originally had high hopes, has in effect never really got off the ground, in this case almost literally, one might say.
A propos of this I have a further question for both rapporteur and Commissioner regarding the Dutch presidency's programme which has been outlined to us here this afternoon.
This says that one of the Council presidency's objectives is that the European Union should become a member of Eurocontrol as soon as possible.
But paragraph 17 of the rapporteur's report actually says something rather different.
He too says that we should accede as soon as possible, but he then says in his report that we should add something else or construct a new organization within the EU.
I should like to have this clarified, because ultimately it is absolutely essential to passenger safety that we should have a better regulated system and less protectionism.
Mr President, I will be short and to the point.
The fragmented nature of our airspace management at present is a major problem.
It pushes up the cost of air traffic control and leads to expensive delays.
But to be fair, problems at airports and the huge expansion of air travel also play a part here.
Nevertheless there is no doubt that we need a more efficient system of management.
We think that the Commission's proposal to separate the regulatory and operational activities of air traffic management will be helpful here.
I also think it is wise on the Commission's part to place just the regulatory activities on a supranational footing.
Parliament's efforts to get the practicalities of air traffic managed by a single European body may well be the most economic solution, but the national authorities want to retain responsibility for managing their airspace.
So this proposal certainly means progress.
But the countries of Central and Eastern Europe need to be involved as well.
Lastly, Mr President, if air traffic is indeed expected to double by the year 2010, by then it will be too late to start talking about what that means for infrastructure planning and damage to the environment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the single market in the air transport sector has brought with it an unprecedented increase in air traffic, with the number of routes and airlines constantly increasing.
It is estimated that by the first decade of the next century that level of increase will have doubled.
The continuing expansion in the number of carriers and the entry into operation of new airports will put Europe's air traffic system under a great deal of pressure, and we know that, even now, airport congestion is an obstacle to the free movement of people and goods.
Given that that is the position, we have to make the necessary assessments and proposals and, in my view, the efficiency of air navigation services is a vital prerequisite for air traffic management.
Up until now, air navigation has been - and is still - managed by national systems.
But these structures have long been unable to keep pace with the demands of the volume of traffic. Moreover, not only is that kind of fragmentation still the main cause of inconvenience in terms of passenger delays, it also has a negative impact in economic and cost terms, both for the airlines and for companies operating in the sector.
Furthermore, this fragmentation of air traffic control is prejudicial to flight safety, particularly if we bear in mind the large number of near collisions and accidents recently recorded.
We therefore need to be farsighted and have a global vision of growth in the air transport sector in the near future.
There is, therefore, an ever-increasing need for a single management system for Europe's air space to optimize its use by means of the same rules and control systems.
Indeed, that system could be used to define strict common rules in order to maintain as high a safety level as possible; working methods and procedures could be harmonized and route-allocation on the basis of demand quantified.
Other important points are the application and monitoring of new advanced technologies, such as the digital and satellite systems which offer huge scope for efficiency in air traffic management, and common standards for the training of air traffic controllers.
The Commission has simply analysed the current shortcomings in the system and recommended separating regulatory from operational functions in air traffic management and that the whole of the Community should adopt a Eurocontrol system.
We had actually been expecting more, namely that the Commission should take on a fundamental role.
However, the White Paper offers no real strategy in the medium and long term for bringing about a single control system.
Therefore, on the basis of the points I have made, I agree with what was said by the rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, and wish to express my appreciation for the report and the work he has done over the past two-and-a-half years as the chairman of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Mr President, this report is actually a compromise on the part of the committee, as there are always a good many votes.
I am not satisfied with the Commission's three options for solutions.
However, I do believe that the Commission's one proposal can be taken as a starting-point.
The report is a very wide-ranging one in both technical and political terms, and is extremely comprehensive.
Nevertheless, we are all agreed that there is a challenge facing us here: there are indeed problems.
There are three points I wish to raise.
The first is that the main thing is for a political decision to be taken on whether we should continue in this direction.
We cannot discuss technology: we should urge the Council to take a political decision.
There may be differences in technology, or reluctance, but nonetheless we should move forward.
Parliament should be encouraging and supporting the Commission here, and we must do more work on this.
My second point is that the EU is not enough.
In this respect, I do not agree with the rapporteur.
We should not have a democratic body which focuses only on the 15 Member States.
We are talking about the whole continent of Europe here.
Because after all, when I am at 30 000 feet and approaching the Polish border, the safety problem is just the same.
So we cannot just concentrate on the Community.
The third point concerns the airlines, which in the sacred name of competition are actually making the situation worse.
They have too little equipment and too few staff, but operations are being stepped up and at the same time they cannot keep to their slots.
When we talk about traffic jams in the air, Mr Cornelissen, these are often things that are caused by traffic not being able to leave the airport because of inadequate equipment.
People try to make savings here and there, and then they cannot keep to their slots.
Those airlines which have enough equipment and staff are able to get airborne on time.
We need to have consistency from check-in through to check-out.
It cannot be right that we send people to the moon and to the Mir space station, when we cannot ensure their safety in our own heavily congested airspace.
I wish the Commissioner good luck in his attempts to press the Council to find a sensible solution.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Cornelissen as rapporteur.
I hope that this will not be the last report that he is going to do for the committee.
I also welcome the Commissioner here this evening and thank the Commission for their proposals.
However, there should be more common ground between the Commission and the European Parliament in our proposals.
Mr Lüttge has concentrated on a single language.
I would like to add to that the fact that there should be much greater compatibility between the computers and the various systems used by the national air traffic controllers.
I accept ECAC's proposal that there should be a common performance model with different systems.
I hope that the Commissioner is not perhaps wilfully misunderstanding - not that I for a moment suggest that he might - what we in the European Parliament are proposing: that is, not a monolithic structure but simply a single system, but with multiple suppliers.
There should be more in Europe of what we see in the United States: a single air transport management system, leaving each Member State to organize and run its own services, but having guidelines and budgets set jointly.
The bottom line, however, for all of us who travel - not least the business community and leisure and tourism travellers - is that the investment required by the Member States is urgent.
The increase in air transport and in those using our system, which is already overloaded, cannot wait for these budgets to be fixed.
I commend the proposals in Mr Cornelissen's report to the House and hope that it will get full support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, anyone who has to fly two or three times a week as we MEPs do, is highly aware of the issues of European air traffic management and air safety.
Delays are an everyday occurrence.
They affect every fifth flight in Europe.
Delays, longer flight routes resulting in extra congestion, and the increasing number of accidents and incidents are a burden on the European economy, on the airlines and not least on us consumers.
The fault lies with outdated air traffic management and air traffic control and anachronistic national systems.
All this has been known for a long time, like the expected doubling of the air traffic flow in the next fifteen years.
And Parliament has issued strong calls for a change of course on many occasions.
Without a qualitative improvement in the ATC-ATM systems, these problems will increase exponentially in coming years.
Even if we decided right now to opt for a uniform system in introducing the most recent technology, it would still take about ten years to implement it.
The solution we are seeking today must, therefore, be geared to the next thirty years.
That is why we also need a qualitative improvement in relation to changing the institutional framework of Eurocontrol, as discussed in the White Paper.
We need a uniform solution on a European basis, and we need it soon.
The technical options exist, ranging from satellite-based navigation to the use of telematics in management.
Nor should the financial cost of implementing them present any serious problem.
I, for instance, could envisage a minimum tax on kerosene being imposed specifically for setting up this kind of ATC-ATM system.
The savings such a system would engender would compensate for the extra burden on the airline companies.
The main difficulty remains an institutional one and in principle it can therefore be resolved politically, provided we want to do so.
Of course that would mean that the transport politicians would also have to understand that the airspace we gaze up at can no longer be seen as national.
Looking ahead to the millennium, I think it would do us good to have a European wind or even gale behind us to impel us to resolve the airspace problems.
I thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Cornelissen for his superb work in drafting this report and, as usual with him, in everything he does.
I think that Parliament's position on the issue we are debating is well known.
This House has on various occasions come out in favour of creating a single air traffic management system in Europe in order to avoid the current dispersal of control centres, national systems, suppliers of electronic supports, operational systems and programming languages.
There is dispersal too when it comes to selecting technology and standardisation, and also in relation to responsibility between various international organisations and the Member States when decisions are needed on a global air traffic management policy.
This dispersal must be avoided since it has adverse effects on the safety of air traffic, on the quality of the services provided to passengers and on the costs.
It also has a negative effect on the environment as a result of the air traffic congestion it produces.
Moreover, if significant changes are not made to the current situation, it will be impossible to cope with the increase in air traffic which it is calculated will amount, by the year 2010, to more than double the current traffic.
Furthermore, we must be aware of the fact that about 10 years will be needed in order to plan and apply the measures necessary to achieve the harmonisation of air traffic management in Europe, since there are many difficult legal, institutional, political and technical barriers to be overcome.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I think that a strategic plan should be submitted urgently with a view to achieving the harmonisation of air traffic management and to ensuring that this management remains within the transEuropean transport network, since these objectives are impossible to achieve on the basis of the content of the White Paper because, as the rapporteur believes, the White Paper does not contain any practical measures or action programmes.
Mr President, there are a great many dimensions to improving air traffic flow in Europe.
Air traffic causes problems, and noise nuisance and damage to the environment are among the greatest.
These must be solved both at national level and through European cooperation.
This is very important to us in Finland, as we are geographically in a very vulnerable position as air traffic congestion increases.
On long journeys by air, delays recur and onward connections become more difficult.
The integration work which Mr Cornelissen has called for to solve the problems with the aid of a European air traffic management system deserves support.
The situation can be improved by adopting more direct routes and developing the civil aviation systems of Eastern European countries.
From Finland's point of view, greater involvement of the Baltic States, in particular, in European air traffic control cooperation is especially desirable.
Consideration should also be given to what can be done to modernize the fleets of the former Soviet republics, in particular, and to improve air safety there; for example, pilots' proficiency in English, the international language of air traffic control, should be improved.
A silent time-bomb is ticking away there, and the Union ought urgently to devote some of its resources to defusing it, in the manner of the TACIS and PHARE programmes.
The situation should also be examined at national level.
The benefits of coordination conferred by Eurocontrol and ATM, in whose work Finland also participates to some extent, are indisputable.
However, they have not managed to harmonize their Member States' air traffic control systems or increase their safety.
Finland is the only EU Member State which is still not a member of Eurocontrol.
The reason lies in the fear that, inter alia, costs on internal routes might rise, military aviation might become subject to supervision, and it might become more difficult to subsidize little-used air-fields.
Finland, the most northerly and easterly EU Member State, is rather large but sparsely populated, so that maintaining a dense and effective national air network is of vital importance to it.
Despite centralization, the greatest responsibility lies with the individual Member States.
Each country must itself shoulder its responsibility and invest, for example, the revenue from route levies so as to ensure that traffic flows smoothly within its own air space.
The solution lies not only in the forum for European cooperation but close to those who suffer from the pollution and noise nuisance caused by congestion of air space.
Mr President, I wish to add my voice to those Members who, in the course of this debate, have offered their tribute to Mr Pam Cornelissen for the way in which he has chaired the Committee on Transport and Tourism over the last two and a half years and, particularly in my case, the way he has done it over the last two years.
Before I met Mr Cornelissen I had been known to use the phrase that we employ sometimes in English 'double Dutch' and to use it in a rather derogatory fashion in order to signify confused communication.
Having met Mr Cornelissen and had the pleasure of working with him for two years, I can say that 'double Dutch' will also mean to me from now on twice as clear and twice as wise as any other statement - or almost all the time, in any case.
I reserve the right to make an exception to my own rule on some occasions.
I must say immediately that, of course, my view of 'double Dutch' also applies to Mr Florus Wijsenbeek. How could it be otherwise?
I value the judgement of Mr Cornelissen and his colleagues on this issue, as on others, and I am, therefore, particularly pleased that the report they have produced has given strong and broad endorsement to the Commission White Paper on air traffic management, which we called 'Freeing Europe's airspace' .
As I do not have to tell the House, the development and modernization of air traffic management is a vital issue to the millions of travellers in the European Union and, indeed, from elsewhere who use our airspace; to airlines, to airports and, indeed, to everyone associated with the industry.
I hope, therefore, that we can look forward to substantial and speedy progress with the necessary improvements for all the reasons that have been outlined in such an effective way by Members who have contributed to the debate tonight.
Since civil aviation in the Union has grown, is growing and will grow with great vitality over the next ten or fifteen years, it is essential that airspace management is continually improved to combat congestion, to sustain and indeed to advance safety in civil aviation and to reduce the environmental and economic costs that are very substantial and that, as several honourable Members have said, result from delays both on the ground and, indeed, in the air over the European Union.
Members will recall that the efforts of recent years have secured some commendable changes since the crises of the late 1980s.
The fact is, as Mr Cornelissen rightly reminded us this evening, that the number of delays has risen again over the last year and that must alert everyone against complacency and it must also spur all responsible authorities, including Member State governments, into working for sustained improvements in the management of European airspace.
As part of the effort to achieve such improvement, the Commission has argued for several years that the European Community should have greater direct involvement in air traffic management affairs and this argument has been put forward at all times - so far as the Commission is concerned and this House is concerned - not because of aspirations to power or anything so small-minded but simply to provide practical solutions to chronic problems.
That approach is clearly evident from the tone and the content of the White Paper which we produced in March last year, as it is indeed clear from the report we are considering tonight.
In summary, the White Paper we produced outlined various widely-acknowledged shortcomings in the air traffic management arrangements at European level; it considered a variety of possible solutions and it came to the pragmatic conclusion that Eurocontrol - the organizational body which is currently primarily a provider of air traffic management services - should be given significant, new, additional legislative and regulatory responsibilities.
The White Paper also emphasized that since many of these new responsibilities would cover areas of established Community competence, the Community itself should become a member of the new Eurocontrol in its own right.
Members of the House will know that the Commission's initiative on air traffic management has been developing at the same time as the INSTAR study being undertaken by the European Civil Aviation Conference in which the Commission has been closely involved and to which we have, indeed, made significant financial contributions.
It is now generally accepted that both initiatives will have important influence on the future European arrangements for ATM in terms of refining the responsibilities, powers and structures of Eurocontrol, and I am reasonably confident that the Commission's view of the future institutional arrangements for ATM at European level can be amalgamated with those of ECAC with particular regard to improving Eurocontrol, to majority voting to ensure effectiveness of decision-making, to enhanced coordination and improved information supply - all issues that have been raised in the course of tonight's debate by Mr Cornelissen and others - and, of course, Community participation.
The major question of Community membership of the new Eurocontrol, which itself raises issues of competence, has, of course, not yet been resolved - as some honourable Members have noticed.
However, this discussion will, we hope, be further progressed in the Transport Council under the current Dutch presidency and the Commission has recently produced draft negotiating directives which would give effect to the two main recommendations of the White Paper that I mentioned earlier in my contribution.
I know that this Parliament, like many others, will maintain a very close interest in the Council decisions on the issue and I am, therefore, all the more grateful for the thorough and supportive report which Mr Cornelissen and his colleagues have made on the Commission's proposals.
The least I shall do by way of reciprocation is, as Mr Cornelissen requested, to keep the House and the Transport Committee fully informed on all developments that take place, knowing that we have Parliament's support in our efforts to ensure the significant and urgent improvements that are necessary in air traffic management over the European Union.
Mr President, I put a very clear question: the Dutch presidency apparently wants the EU to join Eurocontrol, as such, whilst paragraph 17 of the report refers to a new organization.
What is the Commission's view?
As Mr Wijsenbeek will know from his reading of our White Paper, we came to the pragmatic conclusion that the best interests of all could be served by Community participation in what we call 'a new Eurocontrol' .
The Dutch presidency, to its credit, clearly acknowledges and understands that it is a new Eurocontrol of which we speak and which is the subject of discussion by the Member States.
We look forward to continuing to have the support of the Dutch Government and the Transport Minister in particular, Mrs Jorritsma, in our efforts to ensure a convergence between the discussions taking place in ECAC and the proposals made - sensibly and productively, I believe - in our White Paper.
We are glad to have the support of the House in these ventures.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Public transport and state aid
The next item is the report (A4-0419/96) by Mr Castricum, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on public transport and state aid.
Mr President, many of our people feel that Europe is increasingly a matter of markets and money.
There is less and less sympathy for that development.
Whilst the benefits of freedom of movement for individuals, goods and services were formerly perceived as self-evident, it is the drawbacks which now seem to be receiving an increasingly high profile.
Liberalization of the market and the consequences of striving towards a single currency are leading to uncertainties and doubts which are gnawing away at the roots of the Union.
Against that background there is also a debate on public services, not least public transport.
The owninitiative report we are now discussing was unanimously approved by the Transport Committee.
Its scope can perhaps be broadened further if tomorrow we adopt the single amendment put down by Mr Wijsenbeek, and I recommend that we do so.
In my report I sought to reconcile more harmoniously, across ideological lines, the primacy of government and the opportunities afforded by market forces.
I hope I have more or less succeeded.
In numerous documents, and recently the report on a citizens' network, Parliament has emphasized the social importance of public transport.
The need for greater involvement of the European Union here is obvious, a logical consequence of the single market and of greatly increasing mobility, including mobility across borders.
From the economic, ecological and social points of view it is absolutely vital that public transport should play a more prominent role.
But at the same time we have to appreciate that mobility cannot be an absolute right.
The report says in essence that political responsibility for public services must remain with governments, that a liberalized public transport market offers no guarantee at all that interconnected networks will function properly and that where circumstances change the interests of public transport workers must also be a central factor in those changes.
The nub of the document is the idea that public transport in its broadest sense cannot function without state aid, but that a bottomless pit, if that is what we have, is better filled by a sensible policy.
The citizen is entitled to public services, including public transport.
The same citizen is also entitled, however, to expect that everything possible is done to organize and operate those services in a responsible manner.
Financial efforts must be geared to getting results.
Necessary rationalizations must be carried out in a socially responsible manner.
In all this we must remember that research has shown that forms of support for public transport in the Member States of the Union vary very considerably.
It would be a good thing if the initiative were taken to assemble comparable data and see if more comparability can be brought into quantities which are currently often not comparable.
Slowly but surely this would make for a situation in which markets and money had their own place, but the interest of the citizen and the responsibility of the state were central.
Lastly I should like to thank the Transport Committee for their constructive response to my draft report, and to all those who supplied the building bricks for it I am grateful for their cooperation and creative input.
I am more than happy to echo the tribute paid earlier to Mr Cornelissen for his leadership of the Transport Committee during the first two and a half years of this parliamentary term.
Mr President, I think that Mr Castricum's report makes a useful contribution to the debate on public transport.
In Parliament, we frequently discuss the issues of public services and public transport.
In a series of reports, the latter has been confirmed as being part of the network for our citizens.
The report therefore does not deal with whether aid can be provided, but rather how it should be given, when it has been decided to grant aid for public transport.
In general terms, it can be said that state aid which is given automatically, time after time, has been the cause of monopolies being created or maintained, and therefore should in principle be avoided.
As we all know, we are on our way in that direction.
However, it is important to make it clear that public transport is not always a profitable business.
Large parts of the transport market have been liberalized.
This means that transport is a problem in many places, especially in the sparsely populated areas.
A model for solving this problem has not been found everywhere in the EU.
With the adoption of this report, Parliament is establishing that we should be able to safeguard public transport, if we wish to keep this service.
The requirement should therefore be that public involvement is transparent, and that it does not give rise to distortions of competition.
In my opinion, we have overcome the hurdle whereby everything should be privatized and based on market forces.
Now we are committing ourselves to the provision of a public service, a public service obligation, and I very much welcome that.
Once again, I congratulate Mr Castricum on his report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of our group I thank Mr Castricum very warmly for his report.
I think it is an excellent report, in which the European Parliament sets out its basic approach to the transport services which the towns, regions and Member States have to provide for their people and on the state aid that is also necessary to the provision of these public transport services.
We Christian Democrats agree with the other groups in this House that the towns, regions and Member States must define the tasks of local or regional public transport in the interest of the general public and ensure they are carried out.
Thank God the Social Democrats have managed to ensure that these public transport services are not necessarily to be provided by the public sector.
Instead, towns and regions should contract out the transport services to the undertaking, whether public or private, that offers the most efficient, user-friendly and cheapest service and also provides it.
If this House agrees on the principles, and I hope, Commissioner, that the Commission does not dispute them either, then we Christian Democrats, unlike the Social Democrats, see no need for the intergovernmental conference to draft a separate article giving a general definition of the public services and to include it in the Maastricht Treaty.
Nor do we think it is in the public interest for the Commission to set out new legal bases.
I am eager to hear whether the Commissioner believes it is essential for the European Commission and the European Community to draft new provisions.
I believe that introducing new European Treaty Articles and legal provisions goes against the principle of subsidiarity.
On the other hand, we Christian Democrats agree with the other groups in this House that the running costs of public transport must be financed largely through the fare and that where state aid is still required to cover shortfalls, this must be linked to efficiency and accessible to every supplier, be it a public or private transport undertaking.
Where special infrastructure is required for local public transport, the construction and management costs may certainly be borne by the state, while the transport undertaking - and here we entirely agree with Mr Castricum - has to pay an appropriate amount for its use.
I believe this House basically agrees on the principles.
So we are now waiting for the Commissioner to tell us whether the European Commission also approves Mr Castricum's excellent report.
Mr President, this report received broad, indeed unanimous, support from the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
A complement to it and to some extent a document which overlaps with it is the report on the 'Citizens' Network' which I myself had the pleasure of presenting at the November partsession.
Despite Mr Castricum's willingness to support my amendment, and I am very grateful to him for that, I think there is a fine distinction between our two approaches. Firstly, are we or are we not to strive for what one might call systematic subsidizing?
Secondly, how far does the 'duty' to provide public services and public transport go? I think we established in the Green Paper on the Citizens' Network that in certain situations we would be better off not having public transport in certain areas, but rather private transport which could be provided in accordance with need and which might even be given a measure of state aid.
In any case, I think we agree on a number of areas and on the question which needs to be asked about how far a network must extend to qualify for subsidies and what constitutes a network.
That is of course a very elastic concept and you might say that a network is the entire network of a Member State or merely a specific link within that Member State which is necessary in order to maintain a network.
Mr President, support for any action which makes a universal public service possible, in other words public transport with guaranteed access to all citizens and which fulfils the objective of social interest, must be one of the main objectives pursued by Community action in the transport sector.
The public service, whether provided by a public or private entity, must be regulated by rules laid down and endorsed by the Member States that make it possible to establish and develop an integrated, efficient and safe transport system, and which consequently promote the use of this by measures to improve the price-quality ratio of the services. This would make citizens aware and convince them of the very real potential advantages of using the public transport system.
It is important to remember that the actual Treaty on European Union sets down explicitly the obligations of undertakings to guarantee a general economic interest service.
It might perhaps be advisable that the guarantee in the next version of the Treaty on European Union, which will be produced at the end of this year, should refer more explicitly to the public service.
Mr President, I should like to underline the importance of the guarantee of public transport for peripheral and rural regions, areas which are less developed and particularly weak as regards public transport networks.
When providing a public service, more extensive transport networks should be considered and planned, in which peripheral regions and rural areas are included; these are perhaps less spectacular but of vital importance to the inhabitants.
Therefore - and with this I will end - it is absolutely vital for the Commission to monitor constantly and investigate thoroughly the various aids which each State receives in the transport sector in order to assess properly the effect and implications of these.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is so much agreement about this no doubt quite excellent report by Mr Castricum that I need not take up much of your time.
This report points towards future developments, not just in transport policy but also in relation to the merits of public and private services in general.
A few years ago, people were still talking in terms of 'market versus state' and 'market or state' alternatives.
Today, as this report makes clear, the aim is to find the best combination of market and state in order to provide the best possible services.
Just as it is clear that services must be geared to the market, it is equally clear that this cannot be done entirely without subsidies or public contracts.
This is particularly true in transport, whether urban, regional or cross-frontier.
A few comments on this. Public undertakings must also realise that they have to produce for a market.
In the past that was not often the case.
Public undertakings have to reform.
Only then can they expect the citizen to accept them.
They have to do their own part too.
Looking at railway undertakings in my own country: they have to make use of the land they own.
They cannot just sit on it and expect that the state, meaning the people, will give them money so that they can pocket the subsidies.
My second point is that the public authorities must respect the principle that the subsides they give should contain incentives; they should reduce the subsidies rather than allow public undertakings to take it as a matter of course that they receive a certain amount of money every year and, they hope, even more the following year.
In that regard the report basically points in the right direction, which could also be set out and defined in an article in the Treaty, although good practice is more important than articles of principle.
If Europe adopts this practice, it will be following the right road.
Mr President, let me begin, as previous speakers have done, by thanking rapporteur Castricum for the work that he has put into this report.
There are three points which I would like to emphasise as being particularly important in the discussion on public transport.
The first may seem trivial but, it can truly be said that public transport is extremely important.
It is one way of resolving congestion and environmental problems, but a number of conditions must be met, for example, public transport must be accessible.
It must be available when needed, otherwise it will never be seen as an alternative to the private car.
It must also be cheap, or at least competitively priced.
Otherwise it will not be chosen by those embarking on a journey.
The second important thing is that there must be competition.
Public transport has all too rarely been opened up to competition from other types of public transport or from other operators on the public transport market.
This is something which must be encouraged.
Thirdly, it is important that we learn from each other.
There are large discrepancies between Member States in the extent to which public transport is subsidised, perhaps because the service is purchased in very different ways.
The average cost, if we take bus traffic in Sweden as an example, is 46 %.
It is considerably higher in Belgium or the Netherlands.
There is no reason to accept this in times of tight finances throughout the EU.
I am convinced that, if we can meet the requirements, public transport has a significant and considerably more active role to play in the future.
It is worth underlining, however, that we will only achieve this goal by making public transport better and more efficient, not by punishing motorists with more taxes.
Mr President, I should like to begin by welcoming Parliament's initiative in bringing forward a report by Mr Castricum - and an excellent report it is - which provides an extensive and timely review of the important subject of the financing of public transport in the Union.
It is clear to everyone that in order to achieve the objectives of the common transport policy high quality public transport which provides a real alternative to dependence on private cars is absolutely vital, and it is equally obvious that improvements in the efficiency of public transport and the transparency of public transport finances are therefore in the economic, social and environmental interests of the Community as a whole.
As the House will be aware - and as Mr Castricum and indeed Mr Wijsenbeek reminded us - we have sought to articulate that with our Commission Green Paper on the citizens' network produced about this time last year which outlines a comprehensive strategy to fulfil the potential of public transport and to cover amongst other things, the need to review some existing rules, including those concerning financing.
A White Paper on a strategy for revitalizing the railways also analysed the improvements required in the way that most of the Union's railways are financed as part of the efforts we believe are needed to enable rail to increase its role successfully in our public transport system.
Thirdly, as a further example of common objectives and common thinking between the Commission and Parliament, our recent Commission communication on services of general interest gave transport as an example of a sector where the Community had adopted a specific approach designed to take account of public service needs.
Because of time constraints, I should like very briefly to set out how the Commission sees the general issue of public transport financing before I make a few specific comments on the report before us tonight.
Firstly, as Mr Castricum's report makes clear, we should not forget that many excellent privately and publicly-owned public transport services are provided without any financial support from public resources.
Services that are welldesigned, well-run and affordable to travellers are obviously more likely to attract fare-paying passengers in the numbers that are needed to cover costs.
We make that basic but significant point in the citizens' network Green Paper.
There are, nevertheless, other cases where public authorities, quite rightly, take the view that there is a public need for a service which is not necessarily viable in purely commercial terms in urban areas and, as several Members have said in the debate, in rural areas too.
In such cases it is clearly appropriate and necessary for public authorities to finance some services provided by operators of public transport and it is worth stressing that such financing is not, strictly speaking, state aid.
The decision about whether or not to finance those services is for all the obvious reasons best taken by competent and accountable authorities in Member States.
However, the Commission, too, has clear responsibilities.
Firstly, to try to establish a legal framework that is appropriate to the circumstances facing public transport throughout the Union.
Secondly, to lay down the provisions necessary to ensure that payments for public service are not used as a hidden and unaccountable method of covering losses caused by inefficiency, and that such support is proportionate and that 'transparent' means for essential specified services provided for society at large.
Similarly, it is often appropriate for public authorities to contribute to the cost of public transport infrastructure projects since it is clear that whilst, in a variety of direct and indirect ways, users make a payment for the transport infrastructure that they use, such payments are not always enough to cover full costs.
As far as Member State financing is concerned, state aid should contribute to the development of public transport in the common interest, and the Commission shares the thinking of the draft resolution about increasing transparency in the financing of public transport, especially by improving the data provided in the annual competition report and in state aid reports.
Time forbids me from responding at length to Mr Castricum's report but I would like to reply to the particular suggestion of including in the Treaty an article specifically concerned with public services - an issue raised again tonight by Mr Castricum and, indeed, by Mr Jarzembowski.
I have to tell the House that the Commission does not share the view that a new legal basis of the kind suggested is necessary.
Instead, in our communication on services of general interest, we advocated that a reference should be inserted in Article 3 of the present Treaty to the effect that a specific activity of the Community should be a contribution to the promotion of services of general interest.
This approach is certainly valid in the case of transport, where the right balance between liberalization and general interest is provided not only by Article 90 of the Treaty as it stands but also by the sectorbased Article 77.
I hope that on reflection the House will agree that this is the most practical approach to achieving the objective expressed in the draft resolution, an objective with which I have to say that I broadly sympathize.
More generally, I can assure the committee that the Commission is continually working to improve and to try to complete, the existing rules concerning public transport.
Whilst fully respecting the subsidiarity principle, we also take account of course of the problems which can arise in frontier regions and other regions with specific transport requirements.
Like many others involved in this debate, my colleagues and I believe that public transport has an essential role to play in tackling the problems of congestion, pollution and transport safety, and getting the rules right is patently an important part of achieving that.
That is another reason for welcoming Mr Castricum's report and consequently I commend it warmly to the House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12.15 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
Mr President, I have a question and a comment concerning page 7 of the Minutes, at least in the Dutch version.
I refer to the letter from Mr Pasty to President Hänsch which was read out yesterday by the President.
And particularly to the following sentence: ' I am therfore entitled to wonder what the real reasons behind this letter (of President Hänsch's) are and what its purpose is.'
We heard the text yesterday, of course, but perhaps not everybody took it fully on board.
There is a clear insinuation here against the integrity of the President of Parliament.
My personal reaction to this is that I consider it a disgraceful letter and I ask myself, and I ask you and the Bureau of Parliament too, whether Members can be allowed to question the integrity of Parliament's President in this manner with impunity? In other words: can he get away with this?
Are such procedures acceptable in this House or not? My own view is that this is quite disgraceful and unacceptable.
I ask you to put this question to the Bureau: is it acceptable for the integrity of Parliament's President to be questioned in this way? If not, I think the Bureau should consider the consequences.
Mr Metten, your comments are not related to the Minutes but to the interpretation of what was said or maintained yesterday.
I note your observation.
It goes without saying that from the Chair I cannot accept any doubt about the integrity of the President or whoever was in the Chair at the time, and that is a position with which the entire House agrees.
Mr President, I wish to draw your attention to an error in the Minutes.
During the debate with the President-in-Office of the Council I did not complain that he had not answered the questions put by a Dutch Member but that he had not replied to my questions on Serbia.
That would make more sense.
Mrs Pack, you are absolutely correct.
We will see that it is put right.
Mr President, on a point of order.
The point I wish to raise concerns Rule 19 - Duties of the President - and specifically Rule 19(4) which states that: ' Parliament shall be represented in international relations, on ceremonial occasions and in administrative, legal or financial matters by the President, who may delegate these powers.'
Two days ago the Legal Service of Parliament, acting as the agents of the House and, under that power of delegation, made a presentation to the European Court of Justice in respect of a case brought by Eurotunnel on the sensitive question of duty-free sales.
I wish to put on record, as someone who has a long-standing interest in that policy question, that I ask whether I am entitled to receive a copy of the written and oral submissions which were made on behalf of the House on an issue which is of grave concern to many Members.
Secondly, I wish to place on record that, in respect of the reports which I have heard on the question of the oral submission, I find a number of points within that submission quite disturbing in terms of interpretation of the will of Parliament.
For that reason, I wish to ask, firstly, as I have done already, for copies and, secondly, to ask, not necessarily now but perhaps to be advised at your discretion in writing, what procedures are open to a Member of the House to follow through.
If this were the Commission or the Council, I could table a question - I could look for an oral question with debate.
But, since it is our own institution, how does the institution account to itself in the matter of delegated powers?
Mr Cox, I take note of your request.
You have raised an issue that would require much debate at this time to be made clear.
I recommend that you address a letter or table a question so that you can receive an absolutely prepared and serious answer.
The matter is a serious one and must be considered very carefully.
May I remind speakers that they must not speak for longer than one minute.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Fisheries Council of 19/20 December 1996
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the outcome of the meeting of the Council of Ministers for Fisheries of 19-20 December 1996.
Mrs Bonino, I thank you because you have given, I would say, an exhaustive account of the meeting of the Council of Ministers and of the entire very difficult and delicate issue of fisheries.
I would only like to point out that you took twice as long - about 20 minutes - as had been allowed for, and that is an amount of time which the leaders of the major political groups and we ourselves would love to have at our disposal.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too have appreciated the points that you, Mrs Bonino, have put to the House.
But, like other colleagues, I have to say I regret the fact that there was no debate at the last partsession on an issue as important as MAGP IV which could, in that way, have been analysed more closely.
Naturally, as Members of Parliament, we asked for an opportunity of holding a debate in this Chamber because, as a result of problems of organization of work, the debate could not be held in the usual manner.
Of course, the outcome of the Council meeting is, in some respects, contradictory: on the one hand there are some positive strands, such as the approval in principle of the proposal to reconvert the swordfish fleet which concerns Italy: this is an important decision making the reconversion of that fleet with a significant environmental impact on the Mediterranean part of a possible solution. And the problem of satellite monitoring has also been resolved.
In that connection, Commissioner, you mentioned the problem of satellite monitoring which is very important and less expensive in technological terms also.
I would also point out that we are providing a response to safety issues also in this way: satellite monitoring may offer important possibilities as regards safety and, of course, checks on vessels.
I move on now to the more difficult issue: we need the results of MAGP III, Commissioner, as they are, of course, important when it comes to following up the work done and programming MAGP IV.
There is no doubt that reconciling conservation of stocks with the need to maintain a strategic position in the fishing sector is a complicated and difficult issue.
From that point of view, the socio-economic conditions have, of course, to be assessed, and this is an area in which the Council should, in my view, be doing more.
Parliament has already worked towards this and we Socialists firmly believe that reconversion should take account of socio-economic conditions.
And so I believe it is important that we continue along that path in the future also.
Mr President, at the outset I want to say that I welcome the opportunity of discussing aspects of the fishing industry here in Parliament this morning.
I recall the situation in December last year when we did not have the opportunity of discussing reports such as the Souchet and Kofoed reports and the aborted Escudero reports on technical conservation measures.
So it is essential that we have this opportunity of highlighting the importance of fishing and the problems confronting the fishing industry throughout Europe.
I do not want to take too much time on TACs and quotas but I should like to thank the Commission for making available to us the details after the meeting on 19 and 20 December.
It is important that Members of this House and in particular members of the Committee on Fisheries be fully briefed at all times in relation to ongoing developments.
I want to refer very quickly to the satellite system which all of us support in principle.
I am pleased that good sense prevailed both within the Commission and within the Council and that the presidency compromise was eventually accepted.
There will not therefore be a burden on vessels under 20 metres.
There will not be a burden on vessels fishing in inshore waters where they are at sea no longer than 24 hours.
I am also pleased that financial assistance will be available to those who will find it necessary to install such apparatus in their vessels.
Surely it is logical that the satellite regulation and system would apply to those boats.
The bulk of their fishing is spent outside flagship waters.
All of us support the principle of technical conservation measures to reduce the catch of juvenile fish to ensure that the fishing industry will survive for this and future generations.
We must ensure that we limit the fishing activity in certain areas and certain seasons where juvenile fish are abundant.
We must support the question of closed areas.
We must support minimum landing and the square mesh panel.
But we must also ensure that the regulations are simple and can be readily understood by fishermen and that any research that is carried out is done under commercial conditions.
I am pleased that we will have a further opportunity to discuss technical conservation measures before any decision is taken.
This brings me to my fourth point.
In European terms my country has a small fleet both in size and numbers.
Capacity cuts is not an option for Ireland.
The tonnage ceiling was established at a time when the industry was very much in its infancy, largely an inshore fleet.
As in all countries, our fishing takes place in coastal regions where there is no alternative source of employment.
The constituency I represent is an Objective 1 region.
This factor must be taken into consideration.
The broad brush approach is neither practical nor realistic.
In conclusion, I say to the Commissioner, accompanying measures must be put in place but they should not come from the existing structural funds.
Mr President, I also would like to thank the Commissioner for her extensive description of the Council meeting, which is most important.
I am also pleased to see that she looks so well.
It was widely reported in the British press that she only just survived the end of the meeting.
We are glad to see you here, your usual active self.
Briefly, concerning the satellite issue, a fairly minor but an important milestone, the most important thing here is that much of the industry has been against this.
Obviously they do not like the 'spy in the sky' .
I come from the freight industry where we have had the tachograph for years.
One thing I have learnt is that people soon learn how to abuse and get round these systems.
It is always a question of staying one step ahead.
So I would be interested in the Commissioner's views on making sure that there is uniform application and ensuring that the system is implemented properly throughout the Union on these vessels.
She has a great problem in terms of inspection resources.
These need to be used to help that process, but there is always a question of abuse.
Regarding TACs and quotas, again I would raise the strategic problem here of ministers debating with scientists through the Commission and coming up with a compromise that allows all ministers to claim victory, while at the same time, scientists are trying to make decisions on the actual scientific state of the stocks.
This seems to me to be a process that will not work, is not right.
Sometimes I wonder whether most of ministers' time is spent trying to design their press releases to say that they have all won for their own industries.
I feel that we need to move to a process, to be honest, where we keep the politicians out of this process; where, at the end of the day, maybe the ministers can say 'yes' or 'no' to the solution but cannot actually negotiate it themselves because we are just going to have a situation where the environment is put on the back burner and we are just looking for political victories.
As far as MAGP IV is concerned, I am not surprised that we have had to put this off again until April.
That is regrettable because the industry needs to know its future.
But I think it is partly an indication of the fact that this particular programme, like the previous ones, will not actually work.
I am interested that the Commission has put in a sanction to say that there will be no payments through FIFG until this is agreed.
I think that is, in a way, the right approach. But I believe that the only way that rationalization can take place is if the industry itself decides how to do it, given a very strict environmental framework within which it has to work.
The most important aspect of investment for vessels in the future is not that the EU should provide money for reinvestment.
That is completely wrong.
It is all about the industry understanding what its future will be and then private investment will come into the industry.
Lastly, I regretted very much, as far as the Mediterranean is concerned, that there was a complete defeat for the Commission, it would seem to me, on the swordfish issue - in that sort of area there was a complete sell-out.
I would ask the Commissioner what she intends to do in the first half of 1997 to start to bring forward the debate about the common fisheries policy post-2000?
Mr President, I personally think that the determined opposition by fishermen and shipowners from various Member States of the European Union to the Commission proposal for MAGP IV was decisive for the position adopted by the European Parliament in the last part-session, just as I think that this firm attitude was also important for the Fisheries Council, held on 19 and 20 December, which decided to adopt and work out new proposals to be approved in principle in the first months of 1997.
I hope, for my part, however, that the practical solutions which are adopted do correspond to the declarations made at the end of that Council and that generally speaking, albeit with contradictions, they do seem to be in keeping with the tenor of the discussion which we have been holding in the European Parliament for a number of months.
Therefore it is fundamental that the new proposals do not once again insist on unacceptable reductions which cannot be justified in the fishing fleet or the imposition of new reductions in the number of boats, together with measures for a permanent and thorough monitoring of species evolution, and include effective forms of controlling fishery fleets and their respective techniques, providing for additional financial means to compensate for income loss, defend and support non-industrial coastal fishing, and the social stability of fishing communities and the direct and indirect employment provided.
Madam Commissioner, I should like to put another question to you because I think that it might be related to this.
I am referring in particular to recent declarations made by the Moroccan Government which suggest that it intends to increase unilaterally from two to four months the biological moratorium included in the current Fisheries Agreement which, if carried out, would be exclusively applicable to Community boats, in other words Portuguese and Spanish boats, just like the declared intention not to renew an agreement which, if I remember right, was established little more than one year ago.
Declarations of this type from the Moroccan authorities in my opinion are quite worrying and unacceptable.
It is unacceptable that we tell the peoples of the Iberian countries that this Fisheries Agreement was not negotiated in close association with the Trading Association Agreement established with Morocco, also in 1995, and that many of the trading concessions made then in terms of fish preserves and farming products, which had very serious repercussions on certain European Union Member States, were not used as bargaining chips in order to create conditions in order to renew the Fisheries Agreement.
This close relationship between the negotiation of the two Agreements cannot be denied and it has even been mentioned by some people to justify and defend the respective approval, especially when we were discussing the terms of the Commercial Association Agreement with Morocco.
It is important for the Commissioner to give us her opinion on this question and tell us how, if at all, it is going to be dealt with as part of the new proposals to be studied and presented in 1997, since the Moroccan Government's positions - if put into practice - would naturally imply changes which the Portuguese and Spanish fishing fleets could never have imagined one month ago.
For our part, we think that it is unacceptable to change the periods of biological moratoria agreed in 1995.
In other words, we would like to hear your opinions on this matter.
Mr President, unlike you I was glad that Mrs Bonino had twenty minutes to talk to us.
I just wish that I had twenty minutes as well because there are many issues which are very important.
I want to make some brief points.
Firstly, the Northern Irish fishermen were compensated by the British Government during the negotiations.
I should like to know where the fish came from that went to Northern Ireland as part of a political deal which the Conservative Government had to stitch up with the Ulster Unionists.
Secondly, there are a couple of problems I want to flag up: one is that the salmon importation from Norway is a problem which will not go away.
I would apportion the blame between the British Government and the Commission for not imposing a minimum import price.
If they had asked for it earlier, they could have had it but, as the Commissioner says, there is an ongoing investigation and I understand her position.
However, there is a worry that the prices might take a nose dive now.
I want some reassurance that this will be taken into account.
Thirdly, the problem of the size of the UK fleet.
This is a major problem first of all because of flags of convenience - a problem mishandled by the UK in the past - and also because of the failure on the part of the UK to decommission.
There is a major problem there which I want to flag up.
I have one or two complimentary things to say.
It is very good that Mrs Bonino comes to us now after the debacle at the end of December and says: ' Let us now talk seriously about the conservation measures, about MAGP IV' .
The things which we knew were not going to be implemented in December we can now discuss in a realistic way and we have time for a constructive dialogue which will take into account the views of the fishing sector.
I am glad also that the small-scale coastal fishing sector has been exempted from satellite monitoring. That is very important both symbolically and in practice.
That is the way we have to go in the future; giving that sector the priority.
Finally, I turn to the promise that there will be compensation through accompanying measures for any losses which are inflicted on the fisheries sector.
For a long time the farming sector has expected this as of right and the fishing sector has had to survive somehow.
I am glad to hear that this is built into the thinking and we will be looking for further specifications along those lines.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that I welcome the Commissioner's appearance in Parliament today and I think we would all welcome even more appearances by the Commissioner to discuss fisheries, because this has not received the amount of discussion it should have had over the years - and certainly not last year.
As far as TACs and quotas are concerned, it is a bit like the curate's egg: it was good in parts.
But I have to question the whole situation last year.
The Commission statement on sweeping cuts in the fishing industry right throughout Europe unnecessarily alarmed fishermen.
Surely, in this modern day and age there is a better way in which we can carry this out?
Is it not time for the Commission, Parliament, the Council, the fishermen and the scientists to approach this in a better way? Is it not time that the scientists and the fishermen got together instead of having the conflicting evidence that we always have?
Because, Commissioner, we both know that by August, September, October, November and December of this year, we will go through the whole process again!
Nothing has been solved! We will just simply be covering the same ground again.
So I would certainly call for a different approach and a different and more constructive attitude by everyone concerned.
I welcome the decision to have satellite monitoring on larger boats, and not imposed on the inshore fishermen as well - it was a very wise decision to accept that compromise by the Council and the Commission.
I also wish to say very clearly to Mr Macartney - in case he is worried - that there was no stitch-up between the British Government and the Ulster Unionists before the Council meeting!
There was no stitch-up at all: it was just good negotiations.
Perhaps, if some of the people in Mr Macartney's party had the same skill in negotiations as the people in my party have in Westminster, then his fishermen might benefit as much as my fishermen in Northern Ireland did.
I wish to pay tribute to the UK Government and to the leader of my party for being able to achieve that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, during their meeting in Brussels on 19 and 20 December last, the Fisheries Ministers reached an agreement on satellite monitoring, on TACs and quotas.
They postponed until April 1997 their decision on the plan to reduce the EU fishing fleet known as 'MAGP-IV' .
Let me go back over two points in the agreement.
The introduction of a satellite monitoring system for European vessels inevitably calls to mind satellite monitoring of agricultural set-aside or the number of cows per hectare.
It is the most sophisticated method available to the Community bureaucracy.
This is of course being done under the cloak of technical and safety considerations: the identification and location of fishing vessels and, in cases of distress or shipwreck, helping them as quickly as possible.
These measures, costing ECU 205 million over five years, would have more impact and more credibility with Community fishermen if they were applied to all vessels fishing in the territorial waters of the Community, since only ships equipped with the famous blue boxes can be located and hence monitored and possibly penalized.
The other point agreed by the Fisheries Ministers was an increase in TACs over those initially proposed by the Commission.
Out of 116 TACs, only 30 were changed from last year's levels.
Behind the technical debate on the conservation of fishery resources and the reproduction of species lies a political question that can be summarized as follows: do we want to sacrifice the common fisheries policy on the altar of world-wide free trade?
But in the age of the WTO and the globalization of trade, the European Union is alone in respecting certain social, technical and environmental standards in fishing.
Community fishermen should not be paying the price of unilateral concessions negotiated by the European Commission in their name.
Mr President, if we just stand back for a moment and look at all the discussions that have taken place in the fisheries sector in recent months, there is one thing that stands out above everything else and that is that the industry has completely lost confidence in the assessment of the stocks of the different fish - that is one thing that comes through in all the things that I have read.
I know from the fishermen in my own constituency that they have no confidence at all in the scientific advice that is being received on stock levels.
I should just like to quote from the Annual Report of the Anglo-Scottish Fish Producers' Association, which states very bluntly: ' We must continue to question the advice of scientists regarding stock levels.'
Anglo-Scottish are now withdrawing from the European Association of Fish Producers' Associations.
There is also the fact that the quota system is not operating to suit market demands.
Fishermen are under pressure to catch the quotas for fear of cuts in the following year's allocation.
One of the results is that we are seeing a higher proportion of smaller fish being caught - still legally, but the proportion of smaller fish is increasing, and so are the market withdrawals.
Last year's figures for my region showed that haddock withdrawals increased by 50 % and whiting withdrawals were up by 30 %.
We urgently need to get away from the 'catch it or lose it' mentality.
I would urge the Commission to take on board the fact that we need a new approach to stock assessment and quota setting.
Unless we have confidence in a new approach, we cannot possibly hope to construct an effective regional management system.
Mr President, first I want to thank the Commissioner for being here to tell us the results of the last Fisheries Council, and for her readiness to debate them with the European Parliament.
But unfortunately, although that Council was important a priori , we cannot really talk about results, because nothing was decided except the TACs and quotas.
It was a disappointing Council at which MAGP IV was postponed until April, the regulations for technical measures have an even vaguer timetable, and the satellite monitoring project - crippled in my view - also awaits final approval.
All this means we are about to lose a year in providing the sector with three instruments fundamental to its management and development.
This is plain weakness on the part of the Council, demonstrating its lack of harmony with the Commission and, while the latter may be guilty of putting forward certain projects that are unrealistic, confused and lacking the necessary advance compromise, the Council can be accused of indecisiveness and of being led more by the special interests of the Member States than by genuine determination to make progress with fisheries legislation that is coherent and has a future.
We see it every year in the blatantly political outcome of the TACs.
But it is on the issue of the MAGP that I need the greatest possible clarification because, although I have no doubt that the pressure from the Council must have been very strong, that is also where I think the Commission has done its worst work.
Even admitting - as I have always done - that a reduction of the fleet is essential, the proposal was extreme and highly questionable scientifically.
It was one of the priority issues of the year, calling for great flexibility and capacity for compromise, but the Commission proved incapable of dialogue and perhaps lacked common sense.
It is obvious, Madam Commissioner - and this House is tired of repeating it - that when the fleet is asked to make the kind of sacrifices contained in this project, it must either come equipped with serious and guaranteed socio-economic measures or it will be condemned to failure.
Furthermore, this Parliament is still not clear whether some MAGPs are generically based on a reduction in strength, whether they maintain minimum determination about the need to reduce capacity, or whether the project is tenuous and mixed, with initiative left to the States in principle, and the Commission making the decisions later.
We have heard widely differing interpretations from your department and the only thing that is certain at the moment is that the fleet does not know for certain what kind of measures it is going to have to submit to and nobody seems to be able to explain them clearly.
With the Council in deadlock, the Commission's reaction was to force approval by threatening to withdraw the structural funds for construction and modernization. Quite apart from the legal questions that raises, it was politically out of order and has proved to be a mistake.
I have openly criticized the Council's attitude, Madam Commissioner.
But when the Commission has to resort to that kind of threat, the obvious absence of harmony is too serious to be overlooked and the Commission shares responsibility for that.
On the other hand, the decision is intolerable and unjust for countries which have complied with the MAGP, because they are the ones best placed to fulfil the subsequent ones.
How can good and bad pupils be lumped together? Not one single serious measure has ever been taken to penalize the non-compliers, which could not receive funds for that very reason, and now a measure is introduced which is exclusively directed at punishing the countries that have taken Community measures seriously.
The situation is worthy of Kafka, Madam Commissioner and I want to ask you to consider the request to restore access to the structural funds, at least to the countries which have complied with the reductions in capacity imposed by the European Union.
I would have liked to comment on all the other matters dealt with by the Council but as time is short I will not burden Parliament with further issues.
Thank you again for being here, Madam Commissioner, and for shedding so much light on these matters.
Mr President, I would like to note two encouraging aspects of the decisions taken at the December Fisheries Council.
First the announcement, within a year, of more flexible quota management.
Taking into account the rate at which quotas are used is an essential and too often neglected factor in the conservation of the resource.
It is imperative that we seek the greatest possible flexibility, otherwise Member States and the producer organizations will tend to use up their quotas to the full so as to avoid being penalized later, and reprehensible practices like the diversion of quotas will be encouraged.
The second positive aspect is the improvement in the accuracy and fairness of monitoring thanks to the adoption of satellite observation, for large ships only of course.
I am delighted at the adoption by the Council of many amendments I submitted to the Committee on Fisheries which had been adopted by this Parliament.
On the other hand, the Commission's attitude, using a form of blackmail by suspending aid for the building and modernization of ships to try and force Member States to adopt a plan for a massive reduction in fleets, seems to me to be extremely dangerous.
People in coastal regions know that many shipyards are now on a knife-edge.
Blockage by the Commission could endanger many of them, since their future now depends on orders benefiting from FIFG aid.
The disappearance of these yards would mean considerable job losses in our countries and the irreparable loss of very valuable European know-how.
As for the technical measures, they must be carefully tested before any general use and all factors must have been taken into account, particularly the selectivity and energy consumption of the different types of fishing gear.
Finally, the common fisheries policy must not be confined exclusively to issues under the three headings of monitoring, capacities and technical measures.
It must be directed to redefining the concept of Community preference in order to achieve better price control.
The absence of Community preference, coupled with an overliberal policy on import controls, can only encourage overfishing.
The best protection for the resource is a fair price for the products of European fisheries which will also be, Mr President, the best guarantee for the future of a thriving fishing industry in our countries.
Mr President, I thought I was down to speak earlier but I see that the big transfer fee from the EPP to the Goldsmith Group got in first.
The Council meeting was quite a mixed bag.
There are some positive features which many Members have commented upon, in particular the introduction of satellite surveillance, along with the flexibility allowing the industry to roll on quotas into the next year and take them off quotas for the following year.
This is very much welcomed by the industry.
There were other areas where it was obviously thought that discretion was the better part of valour and it was decided to postpone decisions, in particular in MAGP IV.
We welcome that too.
Industry felt that the proposals on which the Commission had based their original proposals were seriously flawed.
The one area where I would take issue with the Commission in particular, though also with the Council, is the matter Mr Macartney alluded to concerning salmon.
This issue will not go away.
Some regions have been dumping salmon for ten years in the European Union and it is not a new issue.
We have frequently had debates and discussions and passed resolutions; the Commission reluctantly introduced a minimum import price a couple of years ago and then let it go after a time and did not reintroduce it.
I would like to put it to the Commissioner that she lost the battle with her colleague Sir Leon Brittan on this because we understand that he is not very enthusiastic about dealing with the Norwegians and does not want to introduce restrictions.
He is frightened it might cause problems under the EEA agreement while we in the Committee on Fisheries and many people in Parliament take a different view.
Apart from that issue, if I were giving the Commissioner a mark for her endeavours at the Council meeting I would give her 6 out of 10.
Mr President, if you watch the language groups that are participating in this debate you will see that there is a lot of pressure in the north-west of the Community on the fishing industry and deep concern, which is reflected here.
I welcome the presence of the Commissioner and want to say we were proud and a little sad to note that she worked herself into the ground before Christmas on fishing problems.
We are happy that she is here this morning and has given a very full explanation of what she has undertaken.
In the past, and in particular in the north-west of the Community, there has been deep suspicion in the fishing industry about how fishing policy was conducted and managed and a deep lack of trust.
It is good that the Commissioner comes here and gives us full explanations and she is entitled to our support for the long-term objectives which she has set out.
It is only when we receive full explanations that we can give this support.
The lack of trust in the fishing industry in Scotland and Ireland - and it is also true of Spain - is to be regretted.
We were disappointed that we did not have some sort of minimum price fixing on imported salmon before the Christmas period.
That is the period in which Scottish and Irish fishermen sell a lot of their produce and the prices at the end of the year are extremely important to them.
Since a prima facie case had been made, we thought it would have been possible but we look forward at least to a satisfactory outcome of this investigation that will give some measure of protection to European Union producers in this sector which is very important for the poorer regions.
I welcome the decision on satellite surveillance of fishing.
I did a report on it myself some years ago.
At that time the idea of the spy-in-the-sky was an emotive issue. It was being used against the European Union, cited as an effort to invade everybody's privacy.
This is absolute nonsense.
It is only reasonable that the Community should adopt modern technology which will keep pace with what is happening in other sectors.
If the boats get faster and if the nets get bigger and more powerful, it is only natural that we should use all the modern technology available to us.
There is a positive side to this, namely safety.
Many boats have been lost at sea in years past and if they had had this facility on board lives could have been saved.
We are glad that the excessive administrative costs have not been applied to inshore fishermen but, nevertheless, we welcome what has been done so far.
So far as fleet reductions are concerned, there is one thing I have to say.
It seems always to be bad news.
The fishing industry is always being told to make reductions.
It never seems to be explained that there is a long-term objective which can bring profits.
I saw a report at one time which said that we could increase the catch from European waters by 50 % if we would apply the conservation measures necessary.
At the end of the day what we need is a long-term programme - seven or ten years - with a bottom line that tells us what we can expect to achieve in the end and, in the meantime, the investment necessary.
For social reasons we need to make an investment and I am glad to hear accompanying measures being spoken about.
However, I would like to see a bottom line which can give some sort of hope to the disadvantaged regions and the fishing communities.
Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner for her statement and I agree with almost everything she said.
We have to remember that the MAGP policies were introduced in the beginning to balance the European Union's domestic fleets and fishing effort to the European Union waters fishing opportunities.
Clearly, fishing fleets are too large, clearly fishing effort is too strong - so we have a big problem!
On the one issue I want to address I will probably be shot down, but there are some parts of the European Union flag fleet that do not contribute to that problem.
They are not fishing in European Union waters: they fish exclusively outside European Union waters, under agreements which we have negotiated with various countries around the world, and those agreements are I hope respected and monitored.
One example, and I make no apologies for a blatant constituency interest, is that the remains of the British distantwater fleet fish off Norway, Iceland and various other north Atlantic places.
They fish mainly from my constituency and they are under very strict control.
I appreciate that there are examples of this fishing exclusively outside EU waters in many other Member States.
Is it possible that these fishing boats, which are guaranteed to fish outside Member States, should be excluded from the MAGP process altogether?
Thank you, Madam Commissioner, for your presence and your statement.
I would like to start by saying that I support and value the agreement reached on TACs and quotas in the December Council.
It seems reasonable to me and I think the objectives that have been set are balanced in terms of conservation of resources and appropriate exploitation of them.
So after that positive assessment, I want to go beyond the actual distribution of this year's quotas and seek to evaluate the whole distribution system itself.
From this angle, there is continuity in the Council's decision and the system employed, to the extent that it is based on the principle of relative stability, which has succeeded in fulfilling the mission of distributing resources objectively, but, as we see it, it has some important failings today.
In the first place, there are serious problems about the system in terms of conservation of resources.
Thus the lack of a multi-species TAC system forces some Community fleets to throw species of legal size back into the sea because they do not have a quota.
We continue to have a rather absurd system which bans certain trawler fleets of Member States from catching a range of species brought up in the net and they have to be returned to the sea without any benefit to the stock.
The system is logically unacceptable from the viewpoint of economic exploitation.
And from the viewpoint of resource conservation we are deceiving ourselves because our quotas do not account for actual fish mortality.
Moreover, the principle of relative stability clearly discriminates against some Community fleets.
For example, the Community fleet under the Spanish flag only has access to 8 species out of the 22 for which there are quotas.
And that is one of the reasons for the discards I just mentioned, because what are these ships going to do with the sole or cod they catch, in some cases involuntarily, when they do not have quotas for those species?
In addition, equilibrium under the principle of relative stability is calculated on data and periods when some fleets saw their opportunities of fishing in Community waters reduced as a result, amongst other factors, of the extension of fishing limits to 200 miles in 1976, which also changed historical access to the fishing grounds.
Finally, a third factor casts doubt on the current validity of the principle of relative stability as a constant of the common fisheries policy: the fact that markets for fish have been completely liberalized, frontiers no longer exist in the Union for marketing fish, and yet extremely rigid national barriers are still in place in terms of access to Community resources for Community fleets.
These points also apply when considering the necessary reform of the common fisheries policy to ensure that the distribution of quotas is not based on anachronistic criteria, regardless of what the current system is and whether the TACs and quotas should be set on the basis of it.
This is nothing to reproach the December Council with, I evaluate it positively as I said at first, but I do expect the Commission to take up these ideas and be the dynamic factor for profound medium term reform of the common fisheries policy so that the desirable equilibrium can be achieved between responsible exploitation of resources and their conservation, with equal opportunities for all the ships that form part of what ought to be a Community fleet, that is, a European fleet.
And I end with a small comment on the technical measures.
The proposal for a regulation on technical measures starts, in my opinion, from the wrong hypothesis.
It assumes that young fish are currently being caught because of the size of mesh in the nets used and we all know, Madam Commissioner, that a large part of this fishing is due to illegal activities and lack of effective control, because control is in the hands of the Member States and unfortunately they fail to enforce it.
The paradox of tougher technical measures is that they will prejudice those who respect them and make those who continue to catch young fish in breach of the fishing regulations more competitive.
So let us make respect for the law the priority.
If we toughen and enforce control we will enormously reduce this serious problem of catching young fish.
We should not just punish those who comply with the law and respect the technical measures.
I think that would be unjust.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, may I say that I am very happy that this debate has been placed high on our agenda: this will dispel the dismal impression given in December and, I am pleased at the choice of this time-slot out of respect for you, Madam Commissioner.
I noted three words in your statement: transparency, efficiency and balance.
Transparency remains - as we well know - a very important factor in making progress towards an accurate evaluation of overcapacity.
So I welcome satellite monitoring, something we have been talking about for years in Parliament.
We know that this needed some courage, that it was unpopular.
But we have achieved it, so much the better, even though I understand very well that we have exempted small inshore fishing fleets, which do not place the same burden on our resources.
You then spoke of efficiency.
And here we know that more progress will have to be made in the technical measures of selectivity and protection of juvenile fish, as I have been saying again and again for a number of years now.
Here also, courage will be needed.
This can all be summarized in a few very simple words.
We must fish less - we know that - but we must also more than anything else fish better and to do this we must not only reduce capacity, but also and above all introduce some selectivity.
Lastly, the third word, balance: the necessary balance between the resource and human activity.
This is the whole socio-economic aspect.
You will easily understand that this concerns us.
You were an elected Member of this House, Madam Commissioner, and anyone elected is the spokesperson for men and women who find it hard to earn a living in our coastal regions.
We cannot ignore these social and economic worries.
We have to do something about this and that is why, personally, I much prefer completing the necessary reduction in fleets to reducing activity in several forms.
I believe it would be reasonable not only to improve resource management but also to take account of the socio-economic realities of our coastal regions.
Mr President, I want to start this speech by thanking Mrs Bonino for the great cooperation she has shown the Committee on Fisheries of the European Parliament during the two and a half years I have had the honour of chairing it.
It has not been a time without serious problems, but in spite of all, relations between the Commission and Parliament could not have been better.
So thank you, Mrs Bonino.
Moving to the substance of this debate, I have to say that after the last Council of Fisheries Ministers and after listening to the Commissioner's statement, one can only feel intense frustration and uneasiness.
Frustration at the narrow range of the decisions taken and the postponement of the most important ones, and uneasiness because, in my view, some of the decisions are inexplicable.
Frustration because MAGP IV and the technical measures were not approved by the Council.
The Commission's proposals were drafted without proper thought, realism or composure.
Does the Commissioner recognize that the proposals have been formulated without carefully assessing their economic and social consequences and without setting up additional support mechanisms at the same time, which would make them easier to accept? Uneasiness, Madam Commissioner, because of the approval of some TACs and quotas which, in my opinion, depart from the line maintained until a few days ago by the Commission.
How do you explain the contradiction between some TACs being generally if slightly increased and certain guidelines which, as some colleagues have mentioned, propose drastic cuts due to the poor state of resources? Something is wrong with the equation.
Frustration because, on the one hand, the satellite monitoring plan is pretty remote from the agreements adopted by this Parliament, without prejudice to its amendments to them, and, on the other hand, so many conditions have been introduced into the final wording that the possibility of effective control of the fleets has been seriously limited.
Uneasiness, Madam Commissioner, because the Commission's letter freezing structural aid represents a sweeping measure with the same impact on Member States which, as Mrs Fraga says, have strictly complied with the reduction objectives of the MAGP and those who have ignored them.
There is no encouragement to exemplary behaviour if pressure is not applied selectively, especially when the aid that is frozen is covered by Community support frameworks approved by the Commission, which in principle constitutes a sufficient legal basis for granting it.
In conclusion, Madam Commissioner, I think the outcome of the last Council is a serious setback to the process of reforming the common fisheries policy, but we trust in your well-known ability to relaunch that reform and contribute to adoption by the Council of the regulations awaiting approval as soon as possible, because that is what the state of the resources and the guarantee of a stable future for our fishermen requires, Madam Commissioner.
Mr President, I would like to start my speech by mentioning that I disagree with what your predecessor said about the Commissioner's speaking time.
Commissioner Bonino is known for not mincing her words.
She never tries what I believe the French call 'langue de bois' , or as we say in Spanish, ' vender la moto' .
The Commissioner never fudges things. She always gets straight to the point.
So the more time she has, the better for us.
I urge the Commissioner to take no notice of those comments from the chair, because I think we very much want to listen to her.
Having said that, the Commissioner will not mind if I criticize the Commission, specifically on its weakness regarding the biological rest period for cephalopods.
When she negotiated the agreement at the end of 1995, she was praised for her firm stand, but now we find, as Mr Novo said earlier, that the Commission has accepted a doubling of the biological rest period, with no explanation and virtually no information, purely on the basis of a few catches by a few Community ships.
I have received no explanation.
I cannot explain to my fisherman what happened to make the biological rest period suddenly increase from two to four months.
I am also concerned about what appears in the agreements adopted in the Joint Committee on the landing of fish in Moroccan ports.
Perhaps this has to do with the application of later agreements, but we need more information to appreciate the consequences for our fishermen.
And finally, as Mr Novo said, referring to a Moroccan statement on non-renewal of the fishing agreement with Morocco, which could have devastating consequences, I would ask the Commission what repercussions this would have on the commercial and financial concessions granted by the European Union to the Kingdom of Morocco in the framework of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation.
Mr President, I have heard many speakers say today that we are frustrated.
I have heard that the Council is frustrated.
But quite clearly, we are frustrated.
There is not enough fish, my friends.
That is the crux of the matter.
That is the reason why we are gathered here.
What we are talking about today is the conflict between the adjustment of capacity and the limiting of activity.
Limiting activity is a very difficult issue in the context of the common fisheries policy.
I speak from personal experience of the discussions on mesh sizes.
You can provide compensation by increasing engine power, so that the mesh size is not so critical.
I know a whole range of tricks, since I am perhaps one of the few people here in the House who has been a fisherman himself.
Over the last 20 years, we have had a fleet which is so advanced that the same number of vessels can catch three times as much.
So it is clear that we have to look at the problem from a different angle.
I am strongly in favour of conserving stocks.
But the two things - on the one hand adjusting activity, on the other imposing limits and conserving stocks - do not always go hand in hand.
That is why we are obliged to adjust capacity and hence reduce the fleet.
But this should be done jointly in all the Member States.
It cannot be right for some people first to exhaust their own fishing grounds and then to try to exhaust those of their neighbours.
We have to act in a consistent way.
From a socio-economic viewpoint, I would warn against support which does not help to bring about structural change, since otherwise we shall have the same thing as in the agricultural sector, where we often provide social assistance rather than real agricultural support.
Earlier today, we heard about the very high withdrawal prices and the quantity of fish withdrawn, which was extremely large last year.
This is helping to protect and maintain a system which does not look towards the future.
I put my trust in the Commissioner and support her continuing efforts, whilst joining in the praise which has already been expressed.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I just want to tackle two subjects: MAGP IV and Morocco.
As far as MAGP IV is concerned, I am convinced that when there is a crisis such as the one facing this sector, the fishery sector, any proposals aimed at reducing fishing fleets will be seen as unpopular.
But I recognise that, given the state of deterioration of fishing stocks it is natural that the whole balance of the process of initiating these issues begins by setting our sights very high.
That is just what the Commission has done: the Commission has set its sights very high in terms of proposals on the basis of MAGP IV.
I am not going to discuss the scientific reliability of the basis used, but I recognise and I concede that there had to be a scientific basis to begin with.
But once these proposals are on the table, then we have to have a process of compromise and given that either we have to have a possibility for a compromise to be reached between the Commission and the Council or else the lack of agreement between the Commission and the Council will only be enhanced.
On the other hand, as I already said in the Committee on Fisheries, I cannot accept that Member States which fulfil the objectives defined in MAGP III should be penalised with cuts in their fleets, in the terms which have already been referred to by my colleagues, Mr Fraga Estévez and Mr Miguel Arias Cañete, and as I already mentioned in the Committee on Fisheries.
In other words there is a Community support framework, there is an IFOP regulation, and there is a basic regulation: I do not see why the Commission should indulge in this kind of blackmail.
Finally let us talk about Morocco.
The Fisheries Agreements with Morocco will end up in the current form.
The future will obviously see the setting up of joint ventures.
But I would like to ask - and I really must insist quite clearly on this to the Commissioner - is whether there really is a will on the Commission's part to involve Member States in particular Spain and Portugal in the preparation already or after 1999, or otherwise all we are doing is postponing the problem?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although I exceeded my speaking time at the beginning, at least I made up for the time we did not have in December to prepare the Council's dossiers.
Our debate is therefore the dual outcome of the Council's work and the dossiers you have voted for.
However, the breadth and depth of the debate just held, and even the number of contributors, obliges me to group my replies under several headings mentioned by many of you and to deal with each of them at the same time.
Forgive me if I forget anybody, but I did try to take as many notes as possible.
First of all, let us talk about current events.
I shall look first at Morocco.
Ladies and gentlemen, you must remember that the clause of agreement with Morocco included a provision that, apart from the two months of biological dormancy, and I refer here to cephalopods, any other conservation measure could be jointly agreed between the two parties.
Starting in November the Moroccan authorities and sector have informed us of their concerns about the resources plan.
After quite long negotiations, we have reached a joint decision to add March and April to the 'cephalopod' biological dormancy period for all ships of all flags in all areas, thus giving the species a period during which it can recover.
I think this is quite clear in the final statement from the Joint Commission, so there is no discrimination.
It will obviously be necessary to monitor this, but I would like to point out that this was a planned measure which was jointly agreed.
I can assure you that it is not the normal custom of the Commission to be subjected to pressure, particularly when there are illegal ship inspections.
Attempts can always be made to exert pressure - we need to know if others are subjected to it.
As regards the renewal of the agreement, I think it is impossible to impose anything on a sovereign third country.
This is a case where a little momentum needs to be imparted.
I think, for example, that the partnership meeting about fisheries, which will take place in May in Casablanca, is one step further in the Commission's activities, so that relations with Morocco, including commercial ones, become increasingly partnership relations and are less strained so that, apart from the problems of political flourishes by one side or the other - and you are political enough to know what political flourishes are - we can reach a calmer, renegotiable position.
I can guarantee nothing, but this is the line and these are the activities that the Commission is pursuing.
I now pass on to other matters that have been mentioned, and I return to the TACs and quotas.
Mr Teverson, I fully share your view.
Moreover, the Commission proposed more than two years ago that a general political debate on TACs and quotas be initiated but that, subsequently, over the details, this type of night-time negotiation is better conducted at the level of technical management so that the dossier does not remain at a high political level with everybody then being able to claim a victory, almost like a Napoleonic night.
I also think it would be a good thing if we all committed ourselves to making the TAC and quota issues less dramatic and less exposed to media attention.
Because that is not the main issue.
The subject is very popular with the media and is given great media coverage.
We negotiate all night, we sometimes exchange fish that are not there and in the end everybody has won.
I do not know what has been won, but everybody claims victory!
I mentioned political flourishes just now.
These do not occur only in third countries, and you understand that as well as I do.
But if we can, together, do more to reduce the drama and even reduce media coverage of the subject, while making it clear that the real issue of the common fisheries policy is in fact to be found elsewhere, that could help us.
That leads me to say something about the future and the way I intend to deal with the debate on the common fisheries policy.
I now intend to set up a kind of task force within DG XIV, not linked to day-to-day management of the fisheries policy but starting from now, that is from 1997, committed without prejudice and taboos to a new general review taking us to 2002.
I also think it would be a good idea to begin consultations with the parliamentary sectors concerned, so as to give ourselves plenty of time, and to do this it would be a good thing to have a small task force devoting all its time to this work without having to deal with day-to-day management as well.
Although Mr Nicholson is no longer here, I am sure that he will read over the minutes of this debate and I wish to say to him 'That's obvious' .
After all, the Commission along with Parliament and the Fisheries Committee chairman, Mr Arias Cañete, have organized many seminars and debates between the parliamentary sectors, in which many of you have taken part.
It is obvious that neither the chairman nor the Commission can force people to participate, but facilities were provided and the choice was there, and I hope more and more that these opportunities for open debate, almost off the record, will be increasingly accepted.
I return to MAGP-IV just to give some more details.
In suspending aid to the fishing fleet - not all the aid to the fisheries sector - there is no blackmail.
It is automatically a legal result of a shortfall in a MAGP, so there is no blackmail.
I hope, on the contrary, that this can help those among us who consider it necessary to have a MAGP to urge those who do not like it to accept their decisions.
I should point out, as is clearly specified in the agreement, that if a MAGP should be concluded by April aid to the fleets will obviously be restored retrospectively.
If a decision is reached, nothing will be lost since the aid would be restored, but suspension of aid to the fleet is automatic if there is no restructuring plan.
Much has been said about the general lines of the MAGP.
I do not want to go over these again.
Mr Crampton, I am not convinced by your proposal to withdraw MAGP-IV altogether from the distant water fleets which fish in waters of third countries.
Perhaps you made this proposal to provoke us, to make us think about it, but may I say that stocks are at risk not only in our waters, but world-wide and even in the waters of third countries.
We must take care not to find ourselves in a difficult position. So I take note of your idea but I do not think it is viable at the moment.
Mr Baldarelli asked me what the position is regarding MAGP-III.
I think it is an important prerequisite.
MAGP-III, which ended on 31 December, will be evaluated in April according to the rules, so as to be based on data from member countries.
So if you can help us in getting member countries to send their data quickly and in similar formats, it would enable us to clarify our ideas considerably.
Another word in reply to a group of Members of Parliament, particularly Mr McCartney, Mr McMahon and Mr McCartin, who raised the problem of salmon.
Let me first say again that we must not forget that the most efficient producers of salmon record an increase in productivity of between 5 and 6 %.
It is clear that prices fall when more salmon is produced and when there is an increase in productivity of 5 to 6 %.
The consequences of this are obvious.
An additional factor is that, fairly predictably, the price is once again falling after the Christmas festivities.
We shall see in the next few weeks what happens, but you also know that the minimum price has not been a very efficient measure.
It was more of a political signal.
Lastly, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the real solution to the problem lies in the results of the Committee of Inquiry on measures to combat dumping.
Thus, I would like us to work together to find lasting solutions, even if it means urgently examining what is happening.
I hope I have more or less grouped the replies to the questions put to me.
If I have forgotten anybody, I will send them a reply in writing.
Thank you Mr President, thank you ladies and gentlemen, thank you Mr Arias Cañete.
I think another of your colleagues will be taking over the presidency, but I am pleased with the way we have collaborated, and the way you have collaborated with the Commission.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
Community forestry strategy
The next item is the report (A4-0414/96) by Mr Thomas, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on a global Community strategy for the forestry sector.
Mr President, I have great pleasure in presenting today my report on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the European Union's forestry strategy.
I would first like to point out the procedural significance of this report which constitutes an important historical step for the European Parliament.
Article 138b of the Treaty on European Union gives Parliament the right to initiate legislation.
Although this article has indeed been used before for specific measures, this is the first occasion on which it is being used to call for legislation across the entire sector, which is of considerable importance in all Member States and has implications which touch on the employment, economic prospects and future of millions of citizens of the Union.
I am proud to be associated with this step and I shall be very interested to hear from the Commissioner, who is here today, whether the Commission intends to respond positively to this request by Parliament.
Forestry is extremely important in the European Union although, of course, its importance varies in different Member States.
When I was in Finland recently, a forest owner said to me that, for Finland, the forestry industry was as important as the automobile industry is in Germany.
The resolution which the Committee on Agriculture voted for unanimously covers the following points: it stresses the importance of the forestry sector as a source of employment and wealth and points out that the commercial utilization of forests should be a priority.
However, one has to recognize the diversity of European forests; their multi-functional nature and the need for ecological, economic and social sustainability.
This means that forestry strategy must be based on the principle of subsidiarity.
We have to aim for a clear definition of national policies, setting objectives at national and international level and establishing a link between forest strategy and other policies such as environmental and rural policy.
Quite clearly the European Union and its Member States must respect the resolutions approved under the Rio Declaration and the Helsinki Agreement.
The resolution concentrates on three different aspects: the protection of forests, their utilization and development, and their extension.
As far as protection is concerned, I would like to highlight one important point: the protection of forests against fire.
Every year approximately half-a-million hectares of forest are destroyed by fire.
This is a massive waste of resources which should be tackled by a coordinated programme at Member State, regional and forest-owner level and by action by the European Union.
We need to encourage the utilization of forests not just as a source of timber, but for their environmental and recreational values.
These are not mutually exclusive areas of concern.
There is no reason why the use of timber should not be encouraged, particularly through a coherent quality policy, while at the same time, forests should become an even more valuable resource as a means of recreation for our citizens and because of their environmental value.
We also need to extend and increase forest resources, respecting biodiversity and the traditional landscape and helping to prevent erosion and desertification.
In some parts of the EU it makes sense to promote the sustainable management of agri-forestry systems.
There is also specific action we should take to improve the European forestry inventory, encourage research in forest eco-systems, develop education and training and promote the development of economic and social interests of forests.
The committee is also making proposals to extend the role of the Permanent Forestry Committee so that it becomes the chief instrument in the coordination of forestry matters and, at international level, to coordinate forestry-related concepts more effectively so that they are taken into account in the Union's general trade policies.
The Commission should submit an effective action plan to combat ecological and social dumping in relation to imports of timber.
Also, the Commission and the Member States should continue to work actively towards an international convention on the protection and sustainability of forest management.
There is also the difficult question of how to agree an international certification system concerning the sustainable management of forests.
Certification should meet the objectives of enhancing - economically, socially and ecologically - the sustainable use of forests.
I hope that I have covered the main aspects of the committee's proposals.
The committee voted for this report unanimously and I hope that it will receive a large measure of support in Parliament in order to ensure that our voice is heard loud and clear in the Commission.
I would like to hear whether the Commissioner will be making a proposal along the lines suggested.
With regard to the amendments which have been tabled, I would like to remind Members that my priority is to see that a large measure of consensus which was achieved in the Agriculture Committee is preserved. I am not prepared to accept amendments which upset this balance.
I am, however, accepting some ideas from Members which are useful additions.
I emphasize that - useful additions.
Mr President, I should like to begin by warmly congratulating the rapporteur, David Thomas, who has, in my view, worked long and very effectively on a very important report which gives the view of this House on a sector crucial to the future of the European Union.
When we use Parliament's legislative initiative, we should do so on very important and special occasions, and there is no doubt that the issue we are today dealing with is one of them.
We are asking the Commission to submit, on the basis of the articles of the Treaty and within two years, a legislative proposal on a forestry strategy for Europe, recognizing the environmental and ecological role of Europe's forests, in terms of biodiversity and the part they have to play in preventing erosion and desertification and as the most important source of renewable energy Europe has available to it.
And we similarly refer to the economic, silvicultural and commercial use of forests, taking account of the diversity and multi-functional nature of forests and the very different experiences which - particularly in the wake of the enlargement of the European Union - we are now seeing within the Union.
I think that the report is structured around three critical issues: the protection, use and development of forests and their enhancement.
I firmly believe that all three of those elements can play a full part in the new policy for rural development which, following the Cork Conference organized by the Commission, has opened up a wide-ranging debate on the whole of the common agricultural policy.
There were those who described the arguments of Commissioner Fischler at the Cork Conference as a flight of fancy, an utopian view of the future.
But I firmly believe that we have only to think of an issue such as that of the forests to realize that this is not utopian but real and offers a wealth of possibilities.
There is no doubt that we could perhaps have gone further still here in the European Parliament: in the discussions of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, some argued that it was appropriate to talk in terms of a genuine common policy for forests.
I do not myself think it realistic, at present, to think in terms of a common policy for forests with all the trappings of, for example, more traditional common policies such as the CAP.
What we need to do is devise a strategy which properly applies subsidiarity: subsidiarity used not as an excuse for doing nothing but as an opportunity for doing things in a more intelligent and targeted way.
And so, the real issue is not to spend more but to improve coordination of the resources that already exist and those measures in place at national and European level - and, fortunately, there are many of them - designed to make proper use of the forestry heritage of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. We quite rightly recognise that the report before us on a common forestry strategy had a difficult struggle to see the light of day.
And why was that so? Allow me to try to offer a constructive explanation.
For many countries forestry represents a vital economic and cultural foundation.
The forestry sector is also undoubtedly one with a future.
Forests and wooded areas cover 41.5 % of the surface area of the European Union, divided over more than 10 million owners, and 2.8 million people are either directly or indirectly dependent on the forestry sector.
And so it is easy to understand why forests arouse so much passion in the debate.
The result is here for all to see.
That is why I would like to express my warmest thanks to all who have cooperated in producing this acceptable compromise.
I think that this is expressed in the unanimous decision in the Committee on Agriculture.
Let me draw attention to another positive aspect.
Parliament took the initiative in this case.
It is only through this kind of undertaking, I think, that we shall strengthen the role of the European Parliament in the early stages of the debate.
We as Members of this House should ever bear that in mind.
Some points in this report merit particular attention in my view, particular from the Austrian angle, which is of course very close to my own.
Austria has 3.87 million hectares of wooded area of which 86 % is managed.
Some 250, 000 persons depend either directly or indirectly on the forestry sector or work in it.
The main roles of forests is defined as their economic utilisation and their value in environmental and leisure terms.
I think it important that these roles are seen as a whole.
I think it would be a mistake to equate economic utilisation with exploiting natural resources.
Only planned and particularly sustainable management can guarantee the ecological balance of forests in the long term.
And to ensure this economic balance in the forests we must have responsible hunting.
Forest management is of prime importance for mountain areas in particular, which are well known to suffer from neglect in other agriculture management.
Wood has become a basic element as a raw material, a work material and also as a source of energy.
An increase in the use of biomass, as we hope for, will certainly lead to a greater demand for wood.
There is no need for me to dwell on the many other varied uses of wood.
But one thing is clear: wood, as a renewable raw material, is a product which we must value more.
The question immediately arises of expanding forestry resources.
And here we must make a clear distinction between those areas where afforestation is sensible or necessary and those where it should only be considered as a last resort to manage rural areas.
It goes without saying that we should reforest in order to prevent erosion or protect woods.
But caution is needed in areas where natural landscapes would be altered.
Our guiding principle should continue to be, not afforestation, but the preservation of wooded areas.
We all know that throughout the EU, with the exception of Greece, forest expansion is greater than depletion.
I think that the report takes proper account of fire protection, use of pesticides and the biological resources of the forests.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that you will vote in favour of this compromise for a common forestry strategy in the EU.
Mr President, it is not easy to venture into the issue of Europe's forests without running the risk of getting hopelessly lost.
Congratulations are therefore first due to the rapporteur who, following exhausting efforts to reach a compromise through a tangle of amendments, managed to emerge with a number of basic proposals on which we shall be able to work in the future.
This was a difficult report because there are many aspects to this issue, just as the forests of Europe are many and varied in nature: they range from the birch forest of Finland to the eucalyptus forest of Portugal and the palms of the Canaries.
There are therefore general principles that have to be taken into account, such as, for instance, the first paragraph of Section A, which refers to management, which needs to be applied to the lowest level. This means applying the principle of subsidiarity in the action taken, going so far as to assign direct personal responsibility to the landowner for protecting and using his forestry resources.
In the second paragraph of that same Section (A), there is, however, a contradiction, since general criteria for use of forests are proposed, whereas differing criteria are needed.
The forests of central and northern Europe cannot be used in the same way as the Alpine forests, nor as the Mediterranean maquis, with the presence of man resulting not only in the use of forests to obtain wood but in tourism and recreational activity, triggering different problems, beginning with hydrogeological protection of the land.
One principle that has to be established concerns the property rights of those who own forest, but also the right of local people to intervene in instances where, either because of a lack of resources or because of a failure to cultivate them properly, neglect results in damage to forests.
In cases of that kind, it is appropriate to earmark specific aid for that purpose.
All forms of coordination and association between owners have also to be encouraged, as is stated in paragraph 12 which refers to increasing forest resources. It is right to encourage owners to exchange information and discuss their experiences as well as to promote forms of training and advice for forest managers and workers and, above all, farmers who have day-to-day experience of what is happening in the forests and should become their indirect controllers and custodians.
The Standing Forestry Committee has a crucial role to play here: we need to place our faith in it and it needs to be organized as a real task force that is dynamic and able to take a broad range of action.
If we are to do this, we have to be resolute in tackling the last chapter of the report which discusses the issue of funding.
We need to undertake a serious study of the means of action based on a clear system of priorities: first, to safeguard forests and genetic resources; secondly, there has to be a European forestry register, diversified criteria for use, clear rules, technical assessment and protection from dangers.
The lesson is that the forests cannot become either a resource for the wood industry or a natural park from which man is completely excluded: man has to become both the promoter and user of forests but, above all, shoulder responsibility for the survival of forests.
The debate will now be suspended, to resume at 3 p.m.
We now proceed to the votes.
Statement by the President
Before we start the voting, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express the satisfaction of the European Parliament at the signing of the Hebron Agreement by Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, Head of the Israeli Government, and Mr Yasser Arafat, President of the Palestinian Council.
This Agreement, approved by the Israeli Government and the Palestinian Council, is an important step towards peace and restores hope that the Oslo process will be initiated again, as called for repeatedly by the European Parliament.
I think we can congratulate ourselves because, at least according to the agency news, the intervention of the European Union, through the appointed mediator, contributed to a successful outcome to these discussions.
I think I speak for all of you when I say that.
(Applause)
Votes
Mr President, my group considers the time allocated to us on Monday for this important motion for a resolution is too short.
That is why we shall abstain in the vote, but it does not mean that we do not approve of this resolution and the gist of its content.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I am sorry to be a spoilsport, but I wonder whether you could give a ruling.
There is a lady sitting on Mr Hänsch's right who, as far as I know, is not a Member of the European Parliament and she is sitting here during our votes.
Is it your ruling that only Members of the European Parliament should be sitting in the seats when voting is going on? If not, it might be a way of filling up the benches of the Europe of Nations Group - or perhaps the Socialist Group needs extra help - but, in my view, she should not be there.
(Mixed reactions)
Mrs Jackson, during voting in this House it is customary for group officers covering the report in question - and therefore a maximum of one person per group - to be seated beside the person who is taking the decision on behalf of the group.
So unless there is a change in the Rules of Procedure - which do not say anything on this - I think this practice should be maintained to facilitate the progress of the votes for the benefit of all.
Other people should not be here, of course.
Mr President, the Dublin summit has, we are told, won a major victory: agreement on the main elements of the stability pact which should bind participating countries to the single currency.
But when we look more closely at it, this great victory appears very dubious.
Let us read the final communiqué from the European Council.
After expressing satisfaction about the so-called agreement, it sends the implementing texts back to the Ecofin Council not to be signed but, I quote, ' to be carefully examined' , which means in plain language that the European Council has serious misgivings about certain points.
Moreover, it invites Finance Ministers to prepare for the Amsterdam Council, and therefore in June 1997, a draft resolution which, again I quote, ' will record the commitment of Member States, the Commission and the Council to apply the stability agreement rigorously' .
By dissecting the communiqué, we thus discover that behind the grand declarations there was in reality no commitment, no signature to an overall commitment. There were two reasons for that.
First, since the stability pact was not explicitly provided for in the Maastricht Treaty, lawyers are experiencing great difficulties in including such an ambitious construction in the existing rather sketchy provisions.
If they do not succeed in this, which seems likely to me, it will be necessary to go back to the various nations to modify the Treaty and perhaps even to alter constitutions, particularly in Germany and France.
In addition, there has not yet been any decision over the two opposing concepts of the stability pact.
Is it to be a simple agreement for the proper functioning of the single currency between countries quite close to each other, or will it be aiming at forced convergence between very different countries not forming a truly optimum monetary zone? In other words, what would be better: a Europe divided into two or a Europe subjected to a compulsory bureaucratic convergence?
This is the dilemma into which the single currency has locked us today.
We cannot vote for the resolution as, in many respects, it goes against our own and, above all, our voter's views of the future structure of the EU.
We do not believe that the introduction of the EMU will promote growth or employment.
Nor do we think it desirable that the EU should take on increased powers in Foreign or Security policy.
We believe that each and every one of the EU Member States should have a free and independent vote in international cooperation.
The most important task for the EU at the moment is to bring about enlargement to the East.
The problems with EU agricultural and regional policies must be resolved as soon as possible so that we can accommodate the new Member States.
Much has already been written on (and about) the Irish presidency, its high standard, the Dublin summit, its positive results for the euro, but there is not much about institutions... not to mention unemployment.
I will not return to this in detail other than to congratulate the Irish government and to encourage the Dutch presidency which is now beginning.
While noting in my turn the oddities of history which, after closely linking the Netherlands with the Maastricht Treaty, now once again makes the same country responsible for a fundamental monetary and institutional phase of the Treaty, I wish today to pay tribute to the quality of the work done by small countries in the European entente.
Although I am personally in favour of an institutional reform that would question the six-monthly change of presidency, which does not allow long enough to govern properly (what would we say today about a country that changed its government every six months?), that does not mean that new and longer presidencies would necessarily suit the big countries.
The experience of the last few years, including that of Ireland whom I congratulate once again, shows the commitment and the dependability of the European work carried out by smaller countries compared with that of larger ones... who very often 'still believe themselves to be at the centre of the world' when they do not still think of themselves as 'great powers' ...
There are of course exceptions... but as a Frenchman I know what I am talking about.
We have a whole series of objections to the motion for a resolution before us, particularly with reference to the passages on the WTO Conference.
The WTO Conference in Singapore was not a 'complete success' , as the Commission continually claims in its official reports.
The Commission justifies its claim that it was a 'huge international success' (to quote Sir Leon Brittan in his final press statement of 13.12 1996) by constantly citing the agreement in the sphere of information technologies (OTA), the progress in negotiations on telecommunications and the understanding within part of the quad group on customs reductions for spirits and other alcoholic beverages.
Apart from the fact that the latter is only indirectly to do with the WTO Conference, and apart from the questionable consequences on public health of price cuts for whisky, rum, cognac or gin, I wonder whether the progress in negotiations in the fields of information technologies and telecommunications will really be advantageous to the citizens of Europe, to European consumers.
It is more than doubtful whether it will lead to further substantial price reductions for computer software and the like.
It is precisely in my capacity as Parliament's rapporteur on 'Trade and the Environment' that I must unfortunately conclude that the Singapore Conference was an unadulterated failure.
Parliament's decisions prior to the WTO Conference were completely ignored; hardly any part of our demands are to be found in the final declaration.
Singapore has not brought any progress at all for the environment!
I agree with Mr Carlos Pimenta that the Conference was a failure and the WTO Committee on Trade and the Environment (CTE) has failed.
The CTE has proved itself incapable of coming to any kind of concrete results in the two years of its work.
Despite its failure - or perhaps we might suspect precisely because of it - to secure environmental protection in world trade, the CTE has had its mandate renewed for a further two years.
On 'Social Standards' Singapore was also a flop.
Here too no institutional advance was made.
Sir Leon is not exactly famous for his affection for trade union matters, but here the problem lies first and foremost with the Council.
The governments in London and Bonn in particular acted disgracefully as a brake before the conference, and when you hear what the German Economics Minister, Mr Rexrodt, said in Singapore then you know that so long as such people are in the national governments then there will not be the slightest bit of social progress in world trade.
It is shameful that the EU did not protest more strongly when the Director General of the ILO, Michel Hansenne, had his invitation to speak at the WTO Conference withdrawn, under pressure from some countries.
The WTO Conference also failed in matters of transparency and NGO participation.
Demonstrations were banned in Singapore during the WTO Conference.
There were no official channels for NGOs to make their concerns and expertise known to the negotiating delegations.
Important meetings took place in the most intimate composition, even ministers from some third world countries were denied access to these meeting rooms.
The NGOs protested strongly in Singapore against the obstacles to their work and thrust a protest declaration into Sir Leon's hand.
When you hear him speak now you are convinced that he never read it.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbaek (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) In contrast to the majority in Parliament, we think that the Irish presidency's draft framework for an amendment of the Treaty is a move in totally the wrong direction.
Although important institutional issues - including the scope of majority decisions, the rules of flexibility, changes in the weighting of votes in the Council, the role of the Commission and its composition - have still not been clarified in any detail, the aims of the Irish presidency are quite clear.
The aim is for more supranational decisions and a strengthening of the EU's federal operating bodies at the expense of the Member States.
This will lead to a considerable loss of democracy.
For the foreseeable future, it is activity at national level which will guarantee the democratic legitimacy which our people find acceptable.
The strong bias in the draft framework towards supranationality in Foreign and Defence policy and the proposal to transfer important parts of the cooperation on Justice and Home Affairs to the First Pillar is also ill thought out.
This weakens and in some instances neutralises interparliamentary and interstate cooperation.
As Scandinavian opponents to the Union we can also state that the 'core issues' from the Scandinavian countries, openness and the environment have so far met with minimal success.
We are also disappointed in the weak nature of the Inter Governmental Conference which has not dared to make the link between employment issues and the unemployment creating effects of the EMU project.
The seemingly bitter criticism of the Inter Governmental Conference put forward in the resolution principally expresses a desperate need on the side of the European Parliament to appropriate greater power for their own purpose and to increase the demand for a central superpower in Europe.
We have, it seems, many valid reasons for rejecting the resolution.
An important event during the Irish presidency was the first WTO Ministerial Conference held in Singapore in December.
Although expectations were not all that high prior to the start of this conference, the outcome may be deemed surprising.
It is after all quite something to get 128 countries backing one declaration.
The main result of Singapore is perhaps that it strengthened the position of the WTO.
A stable and effective multilateral trading system is of great importance for settling trade disputes and placing international trade within a framework of social and ecological rules.
Although no great progress was made in Singapore on the liberalization of trade, it is clear that the benefits of free world trade will grow in the next few decades.
The agreement to abolish the tariffs on trade in information technology products in the year 2000 is an important step.
Trade in information technology involving computers, telecommunications and electronic goods is one of the fastest growing sectors of the world market.
But less ambitious results were achieved in the area of government procurement and trade in services and liberalization here will be more difficult.
It is less sure that the outcome of the Singapore conference will bring as much advantage to the developing world.
Fortunately a clash between rich and poor nations was avoided by the decision that the ILO is the only organization in which the question of social standards can be dealt with and that trade measures are not the right way to impose these standards.
As far as the very poorest countries are concerned, we wish that the Dutch proposal to abolish trade tariffs for these countries had been accepted.
Regrettably the idea of proposing an action plan for the least developed countries, which would also include this measure, is a very informal one.
Because countries are free to act on the proposal or not, as they wish.
It is regrettable that there was no discussion in Singapore of trade and environment and the final communiqué contains no clear agreement about the relationship between the two.
Rules to protect the environment must be adopted in the WTO on the basis of consensus.
The WTO Committee on Trade and Environment will need to make clear recommendations on this in the near future.
Otherwise it is very likely that the inclusion of environment policy in the WTO will be put on the back burner.
To sum up: it is good that the Singapore conference strengthened the authority of the WTO.
A lot more will have to be done at WTO level to combine policy on the environment, social standards and development policy to further liberalization.
So we were happy to endorse the paragraphs of the joint motion for a resolution concerning the outcome of the Singapore conference.
I should like in this House to quote Paul Billings, chairman of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, who said in December at the meeting of the 'European Network of the Unemployed' in Ennis:
'Europe's unemployed argued against the Maastricht Treaty because it failed to present any commitment to tackle the plight of the jobless.
Since Maastricht, unemployment has soared throughout the EU.
We have witnessed a massive widening of the gap between rich and poor.
And now, as Governments attempt to meet the Convergence Criteria for monetary union, welfare and social budgets are being slashed.
Europe's unemployed are no longer prepared to be sacrificed in the name of a more 'advanced union' .
We are demanding that full employment be made the central goal of the new Treaty.
The Irish Government, during its presidency of the EU, is in a prime position to ensure that this demand is acted upon.
Without such a commitment, Europe will continue to sustain unacceptable levels of unemployment, leading to rising problems of crime, drug abuse, poor health, racism and social disorder.
We know that countries which achieve low levels of unemployment have two things in common: a widespread commitment to full employment and institutions to put this commitment into practice.'
I should, however, like to add another, more specific consideration, coming from a colleague in one of the big groups who did not dare to speak his mind here.
(DE) Flexibility has been planned as a fall back position of the currency position.
Flexibility, however, should not be allowed to become one of the principles of integration.
At the most it may remain an exception.
It may only solve some transitional problems which are limited in both time and content.
And at the same time it must contain aid for Member States willing but not yet able to participate.
It must enable these countries to participate.
(EN) This man is also quite right.
It makes me doubtful about our internal workings that this colleague has found it necessary to use this channel of communication for his dissent.- Revision of the Treaties (B4-0040/97)
We are totally opposed to the idea of increased use of the qualified majority voting for Third Pillar matters.
This and the proposed operational capacity of Europol is not the cooperation between free states which we joined on January 1st 1995.
We do not think that transferring these matters to supranational level will lead to any increase in efficiency.
We consider that every Member State must retain their right of veto in matters of Common Foreign and Security policy, CFSP.
This is why we cannot vote for the resolution on this issue.
Integration of the Western European Union into the EU goes against Sweden's policy of neutrality and cannot be accepted.
Sweden, together with other neutral countries are not members of the WEU which must make integration of these two independent organisations impossible in practice.
Our fundamental view that the EU is a cooperation between free states stands in sharp contrast to this resolution making it impossible for us to vote in favour of it.
Oomen-Ruijten report (A4-0009/97)
I am very glad that common sense has prevailed on this directive.
I was instrumental in seeking amendments to it in Parliament and I am glad to see that the spirit of these is reflected in the final text.
I hope that Parliament will support it without amendment.
In my view it gives the European consumer effective protection without at the same time introducing conditions on distance sales which would be so onerous that consumers would find it difficult to make purchases at a distance.
In particular, I welcome the fact that the directive's provisions on prior information and cancellation rights will not apply to the booking of taxis, hotels, theatre tickets etc.
If the rules of the directive had applied here, it would have brought the European Union into disrepute and ridicule, without benefiting consumers.
Similarly, I am glad that the directive has been amended to enable flower delivery services such as by Interflora and other gift delivery services to continue to provide a same-day service.
I do not regret that the directive does not deal with financial services.
It would have been hopelessly complicated to try to tack financial services on to a directive which was not originally aimed at them.
Certainly there remains a lot to do to ensure that European consumers do have effective protection (other than their own common sense) in terms of financial services purchased at a distance, and I am glad that the Commission is now examining this matter.
Roth-Behrendt report (A4-0006/97)
We Swedish Social Democrats wish to express our doubts on the compromise proposal under consideration.
It is obvious to us that consumers should be able to make their own choice based on a well established system of labelling.
Use of the system proposed in this compromise would not enable the consumer to make a conscious choice.
The fact that novel food will only be labelled if it differs from natural food in a way which can be scientifically proven minimises the responsibility of the producer.
We consider it to be wrong to place full responsibility on European institutions instead.
The system will lead to the spread of approved genetically modified foodstuffs which are not labelled.
The system ought to be based on the principle of caution, which means that new products should not be permitted if they constitute a risk.
If there is to be no comprehensive labelling system either, we feel that the consumer will be left without any real influence over his own consumption of genetically modified food.
Despite our reservations, we are voting in favour of the compromise because the alternative is to continue with an unregulated market.
This would be even more serious from the consumer's point of view.
After a long process due to the disagreement between the European Parliament and the Commission and Council, which required the convening of a Conciliation Committee, the European Parliament has approved the proposal relating to novel foods and novel food ingredients.
Novel foods (which are no longer equivalent to existing products) and 'genetically modified' foods must be 'labelled' to provide consumers in the European Union with as detailed information as possible.
This new Regulation is needed to face up to the globalization of the economy: Member States must avail themselves of the same regulations on labelling so that no confusion can arise over products coming particularly from the USA where genetic engineering in the food industry is already well advanced.
This compulsory European Regulation for marketing novel foods and food ingredients is very positive.
It provides better safety as regards genetically modified foods.
The BEUC (the European Bureau of Consumers' Unions) has congratulated the European Parliament, which has been much more demanding about labelling than the Council, and I wish in my turn to thank and congratulate Mrs Roth-Behrendt for her work.
The BEUC also approves the 'obligation for the Commission to monitor the impact of the regulation on the health, protection and information of consumers' .
However, the regulation must be supplemented by an obligation to label genetically modified seeds and raw materials.
Once again, the European Parliament has demonstrated the value of its contribution to the introduction of first-class European legislation.
We are voting against the Conciliation Committee's joint draft of the European Parliament and Council Regulation on novel food and food ingredients.
The joint draft has serious shortcomings with regard to the labelling of products from genetically modified soya, maize and sugar beet and of food additives produced with the help of genetically modified organisms.
The draft does not require labelling of these foodstuffs.
We consider that consumers have an inviolable right to know and be able to take responsibility for what they are eating, particularly as the long term effects of genetically modified foodstuffs are difficult to predict.
The Standing Committee on Food which will assist the Commission in the decision on novel food does not have the necessary expertise to be able to evaluate the ecological risks which can result from the unrestricted release of novel food onto the market.
What is more, there is to be no transparency in the decision making process nor will there be participation by consumer or environmental organisations.
The rapporteur stated that the resolution is better than being completely without legal regulations in this area.
Of course we want clear rules but they must be based on human and environmental needs to a greater extent than this proposal allows, which is why we are voting against the joint draft.
I am going to vote for the result from the Conciliation Committee on novel foods.
I shall vote in favour of this Directive since genetically modified foods will then carry a distinctive label in future.
The great majority of the press and consumers' associations have also described the result obtained by the European Parliament at the Conciliation Committee as a great success!
In this matter, I am against the Greenpeace campaign which, far from responding to the detailed arguments I put forward at the same time as the Group of the Party of European Socialists, continues to describe the compromise obtained by the European Parliament as insufficient.
The arguments of Greenpeace turn out to be partly mistaken and do not take into account the interests of European consumers.
For this reason, I have sent to Greenpeace and all the media a precise and detailed five-page reply to the arguments put forward by the environmental organization.
Thus, it is claimed that 'the compromise on novel foods constitutes an obstacle to any stronger national legislation' .
Now, this objection completely ignores the fact that, within the European internal market, the principle of freedom of movement guarantees the free marketing of products.
No national legislation (even if it should exist in the fifteen Member States, which is unlikely), can be any better than an EU Regulation based on this compromise.
In general, Luxembourg socialists, who are sympathetic to the position taken by Greenpeace, sincerely believe that it is best to work towards a legal situation to protect consumers by voting for the compromise, when its rejection would create a legal vacuum both at European level and in some Member States, which would be harmful to the health and safety of consumers.
Of course, the compromise is not perfect.
But it is better to start creating a Regulation, even if it means perfecting it later on, than to reject it and having to start all over again from scratch!
Thus, contrary to what Greenpeace claims, we are not going against the wishes of consumers in Luxembourg nor against the resolution passed in December against genetically modified soya.
On the contrary, we are fully aware of our responsibility to protect the health of consumers.
The compromise reached by Parliament and Council sets the seal on a more than six-year long legislative process with a very chequered path, one which was followed closely and contentiously by consumer organisations, the public and the press.
In the light of political and social circumstances the resulting compromise is a good one.
The food industry in particular needs this regulation, not so much for practical, scientifically documented reasons as for political reasons.
It needs a secure legal foundation in the debate with politicians, administrations, consumers and the public.
If the European regulation were to fail then there would be a risk of re-nationalisation with serious restrictions on competition for the food industry.
The only genuinely genetically modified foodstuff ready for marketing is still the 'FlavrSavr Tomato' (USA).
A tomato puree from a similar tomato correspondingly labelled was successfully introduced into Britain this spring.
Genetic engineering is playing an increasing role in agricultural useful plants, albeit principally through changes to the agronomic qualities more than changes to the products themselves.
With the genetically modified soya seeds used this year in the USA for food production we have seen the first genetically modified plant raw goods arrive in Europe.
Some 40 further genetically modified plants will follow in the coming years.
Almost 1, 000 outdoor experiments are being carried out with corn varieties alone; genetically modified corn was admitted in December in the EU.
But genetic engineering has not just now begun in the production of foodstuffs with the introduction of the new soya bean, but it has been here for some time, albeit without influencing the products themselves.
The most important areas of application of genetic engineering as far as foodstuffs are concerned are to be found in plant breeding.
Allergens have already been successfully removed from rice and they are working on more nutritious ingredients such as the fatty acid content and on ingredients more suited to processing, such as starch composition.
More and more encouraging results are to be expected in these fields.
There are already potato and rapeseed varieties which have been altered in their composition; they are nearly ready to be marketed in Europe.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt writes in her report that there is no doubt that the novel foods open up a series of interesting perspectives.
Yet consumers are still worried that they could even pose a hazard to human health and the environment.
And that is precisely why I think the adoption of this regulation is very important as it regulates both the authorization and the labelling of new kinds of foods.
It does strike me as a pharmacist, however, that this is the first time that we find ourselves having to authorise foodstuffs like medicines; this kind of compulsory authorization is something new.
All foodstuffs which are being marketed for the first time, even those which have not been genetically modified or produced by means of genetically modified organisms, now come under this regulation and must be authorised.
If, for example, kiwis were not known in Europe then they would have to be subject to these rules and receive authorization, just like medicines, before they could be marketed. Where should the line be drawn for the requirements of this regulation?
Are we moving towards a time when all food will have to be accompanied by an information leaflet?
Any foodstuffs which contain or consist of genetically modified organisms must be labelled as such.
In addition under the new regulation there must be a label on all foodstuffs which in their composition, nutritious characteristics or application are not equivalent to usual or established products and where labelling is necessary for ethical or health reasons.
This lack of 'equivalence' must be determined through a scientific assessment in which changes coming within the natural fluctuations are disregarded.
This differentiation meets the demands of the cropper and the foodstuffs monitoring authority for a practical solution and the consumer is also adequately protected and informed.
A particular circumstance can only be labelled if it can actually be proved in the end product.
This regulation meets the requirements for truth and clarity.
The compromise has yet to be assessed for its detailed effect, to ensure that it meets the requirement of the European legislator that it is proper for present and future situations.
Labelling products, however, will not provide the consumer with anything more than an indication that genetic technology was used in the production of the goods and the changes that its use has produced.
In addition to this we shall have to inform the consumer of the background and the significance of the procedures used so that he is given reassurance.
It is only through well founded explanations that we can combat hysteria and ease the way for novel food on to the European market.
Consumers are turning against genetically modified foodstuffs on a massive scale.
But genetically modified foods are still on their way to Europe from the USA.
No political force will prevent that from happening.
That is why the political campaign is being directed towards health and environmental assessments and rules on labelling.
In general terms, the right wing does not wish to 'put obstacles in the way' of industry, whilst the social democrats instinctively base their stance on the attitude of consumers.
We wish to have extensive labelling rules for products which get through the health and environmental assessments.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt should be commended on the impressive result which she has achieved through the conciliation procedure.
She really has secured as much as possible from the basis on which we went into the negotiations.
There must be no risks for consumers, they must not be misled, and novel foods must not have a lower nutritional value.
Parliament has forced through the requirement that all modified foodstuffs are to be labelled, and prevented an exception for plants which are resistant to chemical sprays.
Bulk consignments which may contain genetically modified organisms are to be labelled.
In this way, feed companies, farmers, abattoirs and the retail trade can make a choice.
We cannot yet be sure, by sending a pâté to a laboratory for tests, whether the pig from which the liver pâté was produced was fed on genetically modified soya beans.
But consumers wish to know that.
The regulation does indeed say that it should be possible to identify genetic modifications, and techniques for detection are being developed all the time.
However, the retail sector must take care that its customers do not come to feel deceived, if it wishes to remain in the market.
When we adopted the rules on the irradiation of foodstuffs, the technique for detecting it had not been developed.
It has been in the meantime, and we have the same hopes with regard to novel foods.
I have heard farmers complaining about feed having to be labelled as to whether it is genetically modified, but surely farmers do not buy feed without knowing its nutritional value? Surely they should be aware of a production method which can influence sales?
The novel foods regulation is essential, because it is the only option at present.
This regulation can only be of benefit, as opposed to an internal market with no rules at all. It is too naive to think that the absence of EU rules will lead to 15 excellent national regimes.
After 13 redrafts by the Commission and three readings in this House, the novel food regulation remains a deeply flawed piece of legislation.
Although it is put forward as a consumer protection measure, it contains too many loopholes, exceptions and restrictions to be an acceptable means of regulating the new gene foods as they come on to the market.
Many categories of foodstuffs produced with the aid of gene technology will be regulated under other legislation or not at all.
Others will simply require a notification by the manufacturers to the Commission at the same time that they are placed on the market, with no independent safety or environmental assessments.
Only where the food contains a living genetically modified organism will the regulation apply in full.
This category would cover raw fruit and vegetables, some dairy products like yoghurt and some beers but not very much else.
Even for these products, there will be no long term independent health and safety assessments.
Consumers are entitled to clear and consistent information to enable them to make informed choices.
The most damning aspect of this regulation is that no-one can say in advance which products will carry a label.
A coherent system should be one which provides quite simply that all foods produced using gene technology will be labelled.
The procedure foreseen in the legislation means that the Commission will have exclusive powers to decide on a case-bycase basis whether consumers will be informed and what the label will say.
There is to be no Public Register of approved gene foods, so the transparency provisions currently in force under Directive 90/220 will disappear.
Bulk shipments of mixed conventional and modified food crops such as soya and maize have been sanctioned by the regulation, further weakening the scope for responsible supermarkets to offer their customers a choice.
In those cases where these are to be labelled, it will be an almost meaningless statement that the product may contain genetically modified material.
Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK all have stronger legislation in the pipeline or voluntary schemes already in existence.
As this is an EU regulation entering directly into force in Member States, they will have no opportunity to enact stricter safeguards.
There are no provisions in the law to govern the export of gene foods from EU territory which means that these may be shipped overseas without a licence or any labelling.
For these reasons, we voted against the adoption of the joint text.
This report is incomplete.
There are far too many loopholes, exceptions and restrictions to be an acceptable means of regulating 'novel food' .
Only food containing live genetically modified organisms will be adequately regulated.
The consumer must be able to make a free, individual choice on which food they want to buy and consume.
This means that they need to know exactly what they are buying and this is achieved by means of clear labelling on the product.
There is no proposal for a joint register of approved genetically modified foodstuffs either.
Many Member States such as Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Great Britain already have or are planning stricter legislation or voluntary agreements.
As this Directive, if approved, will come into force immediately and will supersede national legislation, it could lead to a lowering of standards and security and consequently a reduction in consumer protection in many Member States.
Nor is there any ban, regulation or control on genetically modified foodstuffs which may be exported from the EU to other countries.
These are the reasons why I have voted against the report.
After thirteen redrafts by the Commission and three readings in this House, the novel food regulation remains a deeply flawed piece of legislation.
Although it is put forward as a consumer protection measure, it contains too many loopholes, exceptions and restrictions to be an acceptable means of regulating the new gene foods as they come on to the market.
Many categories of foodstuffs produced with the aid of gene technology will be regulated under other legislation or not at all.
Others will simply require a notification by the manufacturers to the Commission at the same time as they are placed on the market, with no independent safety or environmental assessments.
Only where the food contains a living genetically modified organism will the regulation apply in full.
This category would cover raw fruit and vegetables, some dairy products like yoghurt and some beers but not very much else.
Even for these products, there will be no long-term independent health and safety assessments.
Consumers are entitled to clear and consistent information to enable them to make informed choices.
The most damning aspect of this regulation is that no-one can say in advance which products will carry a label.
A coherent system should be one which provides quite simply that all foods produced using gene technology will be labelled.
The procedure foreseen in the legislation means that the Commission will have exclusive powers to decide on a case-bycase basis whether consumers will be informed and what the label will say.
There is to be no Public Register of approved gene foods so the transparency provisions currently in force under Directive 90/220 will disappear.
Bulk shipments of mixed conventional and modified food crops such as soya and maize have been sanctioned by the regulation, further weakening the possibility for responsible supermarkets to offer their customers a choice.
In those cases where these are to be labelled, it will be an almost meaningless statement that the product may contain genetically modified material.
Austria, Denmark, Netherlands and the UK all have stronger legislation in the pipeline or voluntary schemes already in existence.
As this is an EU regulation entering directly into force in Member States, they will have no opportunity to enact stricter safeguards.
There is no provision in the law to govern the export of gene foods from EU territory which means that these may be shipped overseas without a licence or any labelling.
For these reasons I voted against the adoption of the joint text.
The compromise Regulation before us on novel foods and, more generally, on genetically modified organisms does not put an end to the problem.
Some progress has undoubtedly been made.
The Ciba Geigy transgenic maize modified by the Bacillus thuringiensis bacterium produces an insecticidal biotoxin against pyralis.
Other plants have also been modified, ranging from soya or colza to tomatoes or potatoes.
Although there are obvious advantages in the ability to economize on herbicides and pesticides, there is also considerable anxiety.
Might the breakfast cornflakes or the soya milk from biotechnology not carry dangers for human health, for example by giving rise to allergic reactions, particularly when we know that Brazil nuts and their allergen are used in soyas to increase their amino acid content?
If cultivated in open fields, will transgenic plants not release and transfer their genes to grass and weeds and give rise to resistant strains with a resultant escalation in the use of herbicides?
True, compulsory labelling is being introduced. But labelling of what?
Monitored by whom?
With what information? With what efficiency, when American cargoes of soya mix natural and modified products together?
The legitimate concern of the European agri-foodstuffs industry not to let a monopoly in biotechnology go to Ciba Geigy, Monsanto or Cargill is understandable.
But BSE still frightens us!
It would therefore be a good thing if an international moratorium were now negotiated, so that we can check through a powerful administrative body independent of the shambles of the European Commission, the effects produced by the use of transgenic plants in open fields and by the human consumption of novel foods resulting from genetic manipulation.
Compliance with such an embargo would enable us to make sure that there was no repetition of the mistakes made with meat meal and contaminated gelatine.
We have just approved the regulation on novel foods.
This represents progress in the area of preventive health measures and consumer protection.
For questions relating to public health we rely on the Scientific Committee on Food.
We have no reason to doubt the committee's professionalism or objectivity.
But the findings of the temporary committee of inquiry into BSE suggest that caution is advisable.
Both the membership of the Scientific Committee and the free availability of its opinion and what the Commission does with it are vitally important.
In yesterday's committee of inquiry we welcomed Commission President Santer's intention regarding the scientific committees.
We expect these intentions to be translated into decisions, with a view too to the implementation of this regulation.
Peijs report (A4-0004/97)
We are very positive about the proposed Directive as it will improve the quality of cross border payments and it is a prerequisite for the orderly functioning of the internal market.
But we consider that the Directive would have been even more satisfactory if no limit had been placed on the pay back guarantee to the customer in the event that the transfer of credit does not take place.
We also consider that the time limit allowed for the transaction should not exceed 12 months.
Ladies and gentlemen. Transfers from one Member State to another in the European Union is still a lengthy and expensive business.
European citizens and in particular small and medium-sized companies find the difficulties involved not simply annoying but in some cases also extremely expensive.
The European single market is not yet a fact of life in this sphere.
Meanwhile some banks in border regions have introduced cost-saving methods of transfer.
Giro systems which should lead to quicker and cheaper money transfers within the European Union are being set up.
I am confident that fair competition between the cross-border transfer systems leads to better, more favourable supply.
The present proposal for a directive on cross-border transfers has very definite repercussions on citizens' everyday life in Europe.
Our objective was to make cross-border transfers quicker, cheaper and more reliable.
I welcome the joint draft before us which represents an excellent solution.
From the first reading in May 1995 to today we represented Parliament's view in intensive discussions and negotiations and I believe we have made a considerable improvement on the original proposal in the citizen's interests.
One example of what I mean is the scope of application of the directive where our upper limit of ECU 50, 000 was finally accepted in place of the original ECU 30, 000.
I think this is particularly important since a series of transactions of small and medium-sized firms now come under this directive.
Another important amendment dealt with the credit advice of transfer amounts to the mandator if they had not reached the beneficiary for any reason.
Up to ECU 10, 000 was to be credited back to the mandator under the Council's common position.
We finally managed to have this amount increased to ECU 12, 500.
Even although this is well below what Parliament originally asked for I nevertheless believe that we can accept it in view of what we have achieved elsewhere.
The case of cross-border transfers is to my mind a clear example of the significance and success of the co-decision procedure.
We have seen here that we can achieve a great deal if we enter negotiations with clear objectives.
Incidentally I would like to point out that with the introduction of a common currency the importance of the subject will inevitably wane, with the exception of various legal points.
In conclusion I wish to thank everyone involved for their hard work which has led to this agreement which is satisfactory to all concerned.
I believe that this has overcome another hurdle and taken another step closer to the European single market.
Medina Ortega recommendation (A4-0415/96)
On behalf of the French socialist group, I would like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, for the excellent work he has done.
Mr Medina has produced this important report unassisted.
On the whole, I believe he has found adequate formulae for the protection of personal data in the telecommunications sector.
We have had a few difficulties with the second reading amendments.
In France, we have a red list system which effectively protects the identity of subscribers wanting this facility in return for a modest fee.
On this point, we fear that the proposed free service will weaken the protection of subscribers.
The experience of certain States who use this system is not encouraging.
We are also concerned by the problem of identification during incoming calls.
In some cases (SOS AIDS or SOS Battered Wives for example), it is vital that the anonymity of the caller is protected.
We think the proposed provisions are inadequate.
A solution to these problems could have been found in the context of the subsidiarity principle.
The amendments dismiss the application of the principle for reasons I do not share.
As a result, we could not vote for some of the amendments proposed at second reading.
As everyone knows, the purpose of this proposal for a directive is to guarantee free movement of telecommunications data, services and equipment and the achievement of this aim has been aided by the amendments presented by the European Parliament at first reading, which have been taken into account.
However, it would be desirable to limit the Member States' margin of manoeuvre by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity, because the telecommunications sector is essentially transnational.
It is likewise important to guarantee that the protection of data and privacy in telecommunications services costs subscribers nothing.
We support the amendments maintaining that harmonization of telecommunications does not lend itself to the principle of subsidiarity because of the essentially transnational character of telecommunications networks and services, and that, in any case, such harmonization will have to guarantee that no obstacles are put in the way of promotion and development of new telecommunications services and new networks between Member States.
We are also in favour of promoting cooperation between the Member States, the providers and users affected and the Community authorities for the establishment and development of technologies which are necessary to apply the guarantees laid down in the provisions of this directive.
The amendments which guarantee that the protection of data and privacy in telecommunications services do not cost subscribers anything are very important.
Operators should not be allowed to demand payment from subscribers for guaranteeing respect for the right to privacy.
We agree that the protection of privacy must be free.
In short, our group is in favour of the majority of the amendments adopted in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on the common position of the Council, as this initially involved regulating the issue of protection of personal data and privacy in telecommunications without leaving it to arbitrary decisions of private companies.
More specifically we support the positive aspects of this proposal like the interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity in a way that limits Member States' margin of manoeuvre in the telecommunications sector because of its essentially transnational character and the defence of the principle of free protection of privacy.
Kerr report (A4-0367/96)
The Danish social democrats support the rapporteur's rejection of the change in the definition of the concept of 'transfers' .
Changing the definition would involve the risk of a substantial reduction in employees' rights.
We are naturally opposed to that.
It cannot be right that employees should have to pay because a business changes hands.
We are pleased that this report has been adopted at last.
It was a difficult struggle, and the careless Swedish translation was just the last straw. Mr Kerr proved himself a successful go-between here.
The rapporteur has introduced relevant clarifications and improvements on the Commission's proposals on the unsolved legal questions, the term 'transition' and the increasing practice of 'outsourcing' ; in particular he fended off attempts to exclude either completely or nearly completely from the new regulation the award of services to outside.
We welcome that.
However, we are still left with the task of finding suitable regulatory means of strengthening the weakened opportunities of participation in relation to the undertaking's organisation and activity.
That will be one of the main tasks of the coming post-neoliberal years, we hope.
Bertens report (A4-0416/96)
We welcome the initiative of the Commission and the committee for increased cooperation between the EU and the countries of Latin America.
A global strategy for economic cooperation should be established along with more intensive political cooperation in order to promote peace, democracy and respect for human rights in Latin America.
We do not consider that those aspects of defence between the Union and these countries which we have discussed fall within the framework of this report.
Paragraph 25 of this report contains a further increase in the funds already available to Latin America.
We believe that the European Union is already one of the biggest contributors in this region.
In general terms we are in favour of advancing the process of democracy in this region and the development of the country.
The important thing as far as we are concerned is that the current projects can be proved to be efficient, for that is the only guarantee that the money is being used properly.
Until such time as we have specific figures on these projects we do not wish to comment on this paragraph 25.
As paragraphs 21 to 34 are being put to the vote together and we approve of all these paragraphs with the exception of paragraph 25, but have no opportunity to vote separately on it, we give our approval to this bloc voting while abstaining on paragraph 25.
Carnero González report (A4-0418/96)
Paragraphs 16 and 18 of this report contain a further increase in the funds already available to Central America or a partial exemption from the foreign debts of Central America.
In general terms we are in favour of advancing the process of democracy in this region and the development of the country.
The important thing as far as we are concerned is that the current projects can be proved to be efficient, for that is the only guarantee that the money is being used properly.
Until such time as we have specific figures on these projects we do not wish to comment on paragraphs 16 and 18.
As paragraphs 11 to 25 are being put to the vote together and we approve of all these paragraphs with the exception of paragraphs 16 and 18, but have no opportunity to vote separately on them, we give our approval to this bloc voting while abstaining on paragraphs 16 and 18.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.38 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Community forestry strategy (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0414/96) by Mr Thomas, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on a global Community strategy for the forestry sector.
Mr President, the European Parliament's proposal for a future EU forestry strategy has changed fundamentally over the year and a half during which it was under consideration in committee.
The forestry strategy represents a compromise agreed in committee.
Although a compromise can never be entirely satisfactory, I am pleased with the ultimate result as a Finn and therefore a representative of the European country most dependent on its forests, considering how enormously the proposal has been improved in comparison with the original draft.
Rather than a common forestry policy, we are now considering a common forestry strategy.
The basic point of departure is a recognition of the differences between the Member States' forests, in terms both of conditions and of significance.
According to this strategy, the use and protection of forests remain matters for national decision-making.
Nonetheless, an effort is being made to work towards common objectives through common action.
According to the strategy, the current fragmented action is to be coordinated with the aim of preserving the diversity of forests, adopting an ecologically sound approach and sustainable economic and social use.
The forestry strategy stresses the significance of forests as a renewable natural resource.
Correctly used, the forests function as a reserve for sustainable economic development, which means work and prosperity for people.
Forestry is among the sectors where open competition prevails in the EU, and industry must operate without subsidies or regulations which distort competition.
The forests maintain a living countryside, various industries and much small enterprise, which provides employment.
According to the forestry strategy, it is possible to combine the preservation of forests' biodiversity and recreational functions with their so-called economic use.
Finland's forestry industry, with its right of access for all and growing reserves of wood, is an excellent example of this.
The strategy presents opportunities for the EU to promote environmentally benign exploitation of forests in contexts other than the allocation of regional funding.
The EU can be actively involved in bringing influence to bear on the establishment of an international certification system which takes account of the special features of each country.
An effective environmental labelling system and the provision of information about the sustainable forestry associated with it could promote the multifunctional use of wood, which is a considerably more environmentally benign material than unrenewable natural resources.
The use of wood and biofuels as energy sources, with the aid of advanced technology, could afford new opportunities for the creation of a greener Europe.
The forestry strategy will introduce a stronger environmental element into forestry.
It stresses principles agreed at the UN conference on environment and development in Rio and the conclusions of the Helsinki ministerial conference on sustainable woodland management and preserving the diversity of forests.
The EU Member States have also committed themselves to these.
Mr President, in conclusion I should like to thank the rapporteur and my colleagues for their cooperation in drawing up the forestry strategy and to express the hope that we will be able to agree on the compromise which was its outcome.
Mr President, the painful genesis of the Thomas report at least showed that the forestry issues which arise in the various regions of the Union are very different.
The fact is that the Commission has no reason to make haste with a heavy legislative programme which would in effect transfer substantial powers with regard to forestry affairs from the Member States to the Union.
The report has something of the Trojan horse about it: on the one hand, it stresses the position of the Member States by referring to the subsidiarity principle, while on the other hand the Commission is asked in two years' time to produce a legislative programme based particularly on Article 235 of the Treaty.
As you know, this article is a kind of black hole by means of which the European Union draws power away from the Member States.
In their own proposals, the Greens stress that the forests must be considered in a balanced manner from the points of view of sustainable use, social benefit and environmental protection.
We would like the Commission to engage in cooperation, for example with the FSC (Forest Stewardship Council), with the aim of adopting an internationally recognized certification system.
In this way the Commission could also help to ensure that this system is adapted to European conditions.
If extra funding is wanted for the forestry industry, we recommend that it be used to safeguard the diversity of forests.
In our view, the Habitat Directive should be taken seriously, and funding should be found for its conservation area network for forests.
In this way it might also be possible to find money to protect Scandinavia's last surviving ancient forests.
Mr President, the Helsinki resolutions give an excellent definition of what sustainability means in relation to forestry.
The definition takes into account not only the quantitative sustainability but also the ecological sustainability of forestry.
The common practice amongst foresters was, until Helsinki, just to stick to the rule that you could not harvest more timber than was growing back.
The more ecologically orientated people amongst us foresters pleaded at that time that we should take into consideration not only the timber flow but equally the protection function of the forests and also the production of non-timber values from forests.
The ministerial conference of Helsinki which took place about three-and-a-half years ago took our requirements into consideration.
So I am really pleased that the motion for resolution, which we worked out in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, refers explicitly to the commitments of the European Union in Helsinki and also to our commitments in the Rio Declaration.
The motion for a resolution is, of course, a compromise.
I can tell you it took a lot of work behind the scenes to get this compromise.
Now let me tell what I do not like in the compromise.
If you are, on the one hand, claiming that forest management should respect the multi-functional nature of forests, on the other hand - we refer to the Rio and Helsinki Declarations - it makes no sense to say that the commercial utilization of forests should be a priority for the EU strategy.
Positive from an ecological point of view is that we emphasize the protection function of the forest; that we want to protect and enhance the biological and economic value of our forests, especially in threatened areas like mountainous regions; that we ask to take into account the carbon sink function, especially by encouraging the production of long-living forest products.
Some people wonder why we do not propose to implement a common forest policy similar to the common agricultural policy, but just a strategy.
I have full understanding for the Scandinavian countries and also Austria, which do not want the same fiasco which we had in the common agricultural policy before their arrival in the Community to be repeated in the forestry sector.
Nevertheless, I think, personally, that it makes sense to introduce a system of price intervention for used paper to promote paper recycling.
Wood fibre products are a very precious natural resource and play a role in the carbon sink cycle.
The more often they are recycled, the better they fulfil their carbon sink function.
Let me now talk about certification.
Consumers have the right to know where the products - be it window frames or paper products - come from.
There must be transparency of origin.
Consumers have the right to know whether wood products come from forests managed on the principle of ecological sustainability or from a destructive operation.
I would recommend focusing on certification schemes like that of the Forest Stewardship Council but I would like also to warn against systems similar to the one proposed by the Canadian Standards Association.
This system certainly does not guarantee transparency of origin but just serves the interests of an industry that does not want to change.
A serious certification system could not only be beneficial to the conservation of our forests but also to the forest owners who manage their forests wisely.
For my country, Luxembourg, where a large portion of our territory is covered by forest eco-systems which are managed in a way which is close to nature, a certification scheme would certainly be a big advantage for selling our wood products on the market.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, David Thomas, for the work he has done to secure a broadly acceptable compromise.
I know this work has not always been easy.
As Mr Thomas has said, the use, management and conservation of European forests cannot be controlled by common rules, given how different the forests are in different parts of the European Union.
This fact is the premise of the report.
However, there should be certain common principles to enable us to safeguard the sustainable use of forests.
To this end, a common strategy is needed which takes into account and reconciles the varies types of use to which forests are put and need to be put.
The common forestry strategy should take account of the multifunctionality of forests: forests are needed to combat the greenhouse effect, conserve biodiversity and provide opportunities for recreation and landscape values.
But forests are also valuable and important as a renewable resource, a source of raw materials and energy for many different industries.
Thus the common forestry strategy, the industrial use of wood and wood production should all be based on the principles of the market economy, not on subsidies or on rules which distort competition.
The EU's forestry strategy should also be based on the coordination of national policies on the basis of common principles.
One of the things which should be done at European level is to organize joint research into the development of forestry resources and the health of forests.
A relatively large sum has been assigned to forestry in the Union budget: some ECU 400 million.
A common strategy is needed to ensure that this money can be used sensibly and not, for example, in ways which distort competition.
We need to know what this money is being used for and what our priorities are.
Mr President, first, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for an interesting and comprehensive report.
The forestry industry is extremely important in my country, Sweden.
Our net export of forestry products is approximately 70 billion Crowns which corresponds to 8 billion ECUs.
In fact, half of Swedish net exports are products from the forestry industry.
We have quite recently introduced legislation in Sweden for the forestry sector.
We have moved away from detailed production legislation, which tightly controlled the methods of production which could be used by the individual forest owner, to more general legislation which gives equal weight to the needs of production and the environment and in which the obligation to replant after felling is unequivocally stated, all in accordance with the declarations and fundamental views of the Rio Conference and Agenda 21.
During the preparation of this report, we were very concerned that it would advocate a joint forestry policy with tight control from above.
This hazard has been avoided.
In my opinion, such a move would have led to greater bureaucracy and a move away from the principles of the market economy.
We would all have been the losers under such a proposal.
The current proposal includes a number of ideas on cooperation within the sector which can really be of benefit.
I am referring to research, the establishment of an inventory of forestry assets, measures to prevent damage to Europe's forests from air pollution, joint measures against forest fires, all of which complement national and individual measures.
It must also be in our joint interest to be able to demonstrate that Europe's forests are managed in a sustainable manner and that great care is taken to maintain biological diversity.
Certification which inspires trust and respect could also be an advantage as part of a joint voluntary regime.
It must be in our common interest, in those regions where forests have been devastated, to reinstate this important resource.
This could take place within the framework of regional political programmes supported by the EU.
The forests of Europe also have an important role to play in terms of the greenhouse effect.
As long as there is less felling than growth, coal is stored in our forests and can therefore contribute to a reduction in excess carbon dioxide obtained through the burning of fossil fuels.
It would be even better if we used a proportion of our joint excess as biological fuel.
I continue to maintain that by following the direction taken in the report, the European forestry sector will prove to be a very good example to the world in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was essential that the European Union define a forestry strategy in order to improve the use and management of forestry resources.
All types of forest are represented in Europe, from taiga to the tropical forests of Guyana, and we must ensure their continued existence by preserving the biodiversity of these very fragile ecosystems.
Forests occupy a privileged position in today's society.
Over the last few years, we have seen the appearance of much development and exploitation of woodland areas.
As regards protection, we must fight against erosion by preventing such forestry practices as clear felling.
Methods for conserving genetic resources must be strengthened by encouraging seed selection and improvement.
The fight to sustain plant health is still a priority among foresters.
Greater attention must also be given to fire protection by encouraging prevention and detection.
As regards forest use and exploitation, we should favour groups of small producers, advise owners about management and exploitation, and help with the mechanization of enterprises.
The Commission should encourage the promotion of the timber industry.
Wood is a renewable energy source.
The Commission will also have to support the education of its citizens, especially the young.
As for funding, the relationship between forests and cash is complex.
In an economy obsessed with the short-term, with very stretched budgets, it is difficult to invest in production on a scale of centuries.
Our forestry strategy should lay down firm guidelines which respect the subsidiarity principle.
Europe must develop a voluntary policy supported by regular investment for both the protection and production of wood; a guarantee of long-term rural development.
In conclusion, although our forests cover only a small area of the Earth, the forestry strategy of the European Union must become a world model for the management of resources and species.
Mr President, forestry policy ought first and foremost to be a national matter.
Joint strategies ought to be restricted to issues of a general character.
Each country must be given the opportunity to develop their own forestry policy.
Swedish forests, the backbone of the Swedish economy, are used ecologically and with care for the environment.
Any joint strategy chosen for the forestry industry should be based on producing a commercial forestry sector, run under market conditions, without subsidies which distort competition.
There is a risk that the use of subsidies will perpetuate an ineffective structure and reduce both short and long term profitability.
Certification of forests should serve as a means of communication between the producer and the consumer.
This ought to form part of Community policy, like the quality mark.
It is possible to give legitimate economic support for various environmental measures or for use in the fight against forest fires for example, but even here the main responsibility should rest with the Member States.
It is also important that fresh ideas are not unfairly treated as a result of political decisions.
A European campaign to promote the use of wood and wood products is being proposed.
If such a campaign does take place it ought to include paper as well.
Like wood products, paper products are also under pressure from substitutes such as plastic, glass and metals.
It is preferable to link forestry issues with issues related to the forestry industry and not to agricultural policy.
As a representative of Europe's most densely forested country, I would just like to say the following to any potential supporters of a fully regulated, joint forestry policy: to those who wish ill on Europe's forestry industry, there is now a fate worse than more forest fires.
This is a forestry policy similar to the European CAP.
Mr President, this is why it is pleasing that the compromise proposal which is under consideration here is not aimed at such a development at all.
Mr President, the Thomas report is very ambitious but there must be strong doubts as to whether, in general, it is possible to formulate a joint policy for all the countries of the Union in such a complicated area as this.
Basically, there are very different conditions in the different regions and countries of the Union.
In many countries, the forests are so neglected that extensive programmes are needed to rehabilitate them, whereas exactly the opposite is the case in Scandinavia.
Here, there is no desire to further enlarge the forest, instead people are anxious to preserve the open landscape and the biological diversity that it represents.
Because of this, the report is so general and so diluted that it barely gives any direction.
It could serve only to complicate the issue for more substantive and practically national forestry policies.
The report also has obvious difficulty in reconciling different views and opposing interests.
On the one hand forest protection is highlighted, while on the other, the emphasis is placed, and indeed priority is placed, on better commercial use.
How is this to be interpreted? Is this to be at the price of more biological monoculture or of planting species not native to the national flora or which consume large quantities of water and put the surrounding area at risk?
I think that the European Union ought not to take on further new, difficult and wide reaching tasks.
It already has enough work coping with the tasks in hand.
The report also panders to what, unfortunately, is increasingly becoming a habit in many areas of the Union, that is the proposal of new subsidies, something which can hardly have been very well thought out in the current budget situation.
If we want subsidies, we ought, at least, to be looking for alternative means of making savings, in the excessive set aside subsidies to large farmers growing cereals and oil plants for example.
What this report really says to me is that there is a desire, at any price, to expand the European Union's power instead of allowing the Union, more sensibly, to concentrate on finding the best way of managing the tasks which it has already accepted responsibility for.
Mr President, we have heard from the rapporteur and from some of those who have participated in the preparation of the report that this should not pave the way for EU forestry policy.
Despite this, I believe that some of those who have participated in this work do think that this is the case and view it as a step towards this.
As a forest owner in Northern Sweden, I do not think that we need such a joint forestry policy.
Of course there are some good ideas in this report, including those concerned with the environment and with certification, but the question is how much space will be allocated to these ideas in a joint forestry strategy.
The tone of the report is set right from the first point where it states that commercial use of forests should be given priority in the EU's forestry strategy.
This clearly shows what the report is aimed at.
If it doesn't, let me mention another point, point 9 where it says that the 'Commission will be asked to recommend adaptation of those goals and actions affected, particularly in Regulation 1610/89, to the real needs of supporting the management and use of forests' .
It is a question of 'use' and in the English original the word 'exploitation' is actually used.
What this means in plain language is that EU support is to be used for the exploitation of forests.
I think this is terrible.
The more environmentally friendly wording is retracted in the next breath and replaced with the notion that the role of the forest and its value to tourism and recreation must be acknowledged without unnecessary restriction on the economic use of the forest.
All this, Mr President, leads me to believe that we should vote against this report, especially if we compare it with Swedish forestry legislation which is much better, but still much discussed in Sweden.
If this is passed we will be forced to rewrite this legislation and it will become totally and utterly useless.
The initial aim of this report, drawn up on Parliament's initiative, was a general reflection on the basic features of a common forestry policy and a request to the European Commission to propose appropriate legislative measures to attain these objectives on bases and guidelines laid down by ourselves as parliamentarians.
I would like to remind you that, from South to North, forests of all kinds cover a third of European Union territory.
They are a vital element in future rural development in line with the European countryside charter that we have examined and voted upon in this very place.
What are the problems with forests? The absence of a legal basis in the European Union Treaty and the fact that timber, originating from living plant matter, is considered merely as an industrial product, are obstacles to the establishment of a European forestry strategy.
We should like these legal and technical points to be taken into consideration by the Intergovernmental Conference for inclusion in the future appropriately-amended Union Treaty.
Next, the recent arrival of three new well-forested Member States, Austria, Sweden and Finland, has increased the mean forest area in the Union from 21 % to 34 %.
There is quite strong opposition in these new States to any common forestry policy that might resemble a new CAP, particularly with regard to forest management and exploitation, and even more with regard to the timber and wood pulp markets.
The first version of the Thomas report was incomplete, but incorporated in its final compromise version are a good many amendments, particularly those that I was also able to submit with members of the Intergroup on Forestry.
Although this new draft is satisfactory, some points still need clarification, and that is why I tabled a few additional amendments.
To begin with, we emphasize the need for a reference to Article 130 of the Union Treaty which implies codecision and financial support from the Cohesion Fund.
Secondly, in the second amendment, we point out that the coordination of forestry strategy with the other policies on the environment and rural development must actually be mentioned.
Thirdly, it is stressed that the multi-functional role - socio-economic, environmental and recreational - must form the basis for long-term development of forests.
Finally, in the last amendment, we call on the Commission to propose measures to guarantee economic development of forests linked to farming.
I therefore ask you to support these amendments and urge you to give your closest attention to future legislative proposals from the Commission that we shall have to examine carefully in order to establish a genuine European forestry strategy capable of providing us with self-sufficiency in timber and other forestry products, as we have in food.
Mr President, I wish to begin by complimenting my colleague, Mr Thomas, on the work he has done.
This debate here today illustrates how difficult a task he has in trying to balance and bring together the competing philosophies on this subject.
However, I would like to address two practical points to the Commission.
One is that, given the relative importance of forestry to what are very often fragile rural economies, I would like the Commission to take account of the part it can play in rural development and, in this respect, it is vital that we attempt to retain as much of the added value of forestry products in the local community as possible.
I would like to ask the Commission to encourage practices and projects which seek to meet this objective.
Similarly, as forests mature and technology advances, sometimes access to forests for harvesting can present quite a problem.
This is the case in my part of the world - roads and bridges need to be strengthened and maintained - and all this against a background of constrained budgets - certainly local authority budgets.
I would therefore like to ask if the Commission would look favourably on encouraging Objective 5b funds to be used for this type of infrastructure.
In general, I welcome the rapporteur's acknowledgement that forests provide much more than the simple exploitation of their economic potential and that much of the value of forests cannot be easily quantified in cold facts and figures.
Nevertheless, we should not underestimate the contribution that forests make to the benefit of society as a whole and we must continue to develop at international level cooperation and sustainable management.
Perhaps the best service which the Commission can render at European level is to ensure that information and expertise is available and shared within the European Union in order that we can build on the existing pool of knowledge and practice.
Mr President, fundamentally the Thomas report is a compromise between the different functions of what should be regarded as the European forest.
Obviously this is not the text that some of us wanted, but I would say that it is broadly acceptable as amended during its progress through Parliament.
I would like to emphasize the most important aspects of what a European forestry policy should be, as I understand it.
Of course we all recognize the environmental function, but I want to say that the economic function of the forest should be openly recognized, because everyday reality demonstrates that there is no protection for anything that has no value.
The protection of the forest is a need which is better fulfilled when it relates to a profitable asset.
It is important that we develop this socio-economic potential.
And it is also important to develop and recognize the principle of subsidiarity to the maximum, because, amongst other things, the European forest is very diverse and the social and economic players in each case are different too, as are the environmental characteristics of each European forest.
To give an example, the Atlantic forest, which comes into the area I represent, is highly productive and 80 % privately owned by over two million individual proprietors.
As a result it has enormous social repercussions, including, of course, on employment.
But its characteristics are quite different from the Mediterranean forest, the Nordic forest and the central European forest.
So we must respect this principle of subsidiarity and it must also extend to regional level.
Sometimes we talk about subsidiarity in Europe as only extending to state level but there is no national forestry policy in Spain, for instance.
In almost every case, responsibility for forests lies with the regions, which have legal forestry plans, naturally legitimized by their parliaments as well, and these fully-empowered regions should also be given legitimate scope in relation to the European Union in this sector.
Once the economic function of the forest is recognized as well as its environmental function, and once subsidiarity is taken into account, I think we need to be capable, at European level, of creating a scenario appropriate to investment in a forestry sector where ownership is extremely widespread and that means creating a dynamic climate for forestry investment, increasing the use of wood and its derivatives, a natural renewable material.
I do not have time to go into this fully, but let me just give an outline.
The scenario should include encouraging tax incentives at state level, boosting basic and applied research on the uses of wood, gearing European forestry aid to local authority control of the risk of forest fires, as well as ensuring the future viability of new forest stands and I would add encouraging the formation of foresters' organizations and including them in the Community's consultative bodies.
Of course much more can be done, but equilibrium between the environmental, socio-economic and recreational functions of the European forest can be promoted along these lines.
And one final thought, Mr President.
We are also concerned about the tropical forests the world's ecological balance depends on, and we recognize that the greatest contribution we can make to saving these vital tropical forests is for Europe one day to become self-sufficient in forestry resources.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at this stage in the debate stress should be placed on the particular aspects we regard as most important, because general analysis has been covered by colleagues in earlier speeches.
I would like to highlight the fact that the merit of the Thomas report is to examine a sector which not only has a commercial value, as stated in the report, but also has an impact on the environment and the countryside as a whole, with very different incidence across the European Union.
That is why I want to draw particular attention to the need, in implementing the report's proposals, to consider the European forests as two large groups: the central and northern European forest and the Mediterranean forest.
These two large groups have different characteristics and a different influence on society, and the forests of the south are also the best bulwark against erosion and desertification, in addition to their environmental contribution.
So I want to stress the variable importance of the forests as a function of their geographical zones.
In terms of operational capacity, responsibility for forests is currently shared between nine different areas of the European Commission, and more rational administration is clearly needed if the European Parliament's proposals are to prosper.
Mr President, the Thomas report has taken a somewhat strange turn.
After it was presented in the Committee on Agriculture some 200 to 220 amendments were tabled.
After that there was a compromise to group these amendments or to withdraw some of them.
What emerged from that is not much of an improvement.
We think it is so patchy that we decided to table a few amendments, especially on the economic utilization side to stress that the forestry sector must have a natural and sustainable development and to ensure that there would be no common market organisation similar to a common agriculture regulation for wood.
In agriculture that has contributed considerably to the destructive developments.
What we want instead is for the EU in a concentrated and limited fashion to secure a market immune to dumping from outside.
We need certification in which ecological criteria are agreed on an international basis and then recognised by the EU so that a wood industry can develop in the EU where the value of wood is economically anchored.
For a long time the price development in the wood sector was so disastrously low that re-afforestation could not be financed by it and repeated subsidies for re-afforestation were given by the EU which were not of course given in other countries.
We cannot transport a disastrous EU price policy to the outside because as we have already seen forests, and rain forests in particular, would be dragged down in its wake.
We need woods in general to survive.
And that is why the EU must deal with this subject matter in an international context and not set up a regulation solely for within the EU.
Mr President, the Swedish Social Democrats find it very difficult to support the Thomas report.
This should not be seen as a criticism against the report itself but more a way of expressing our scepticism of a joint forestry strategy for the Union.
We think that the principle of proximity should apply for this sector.
We have enough problems within the Union adapting our agricultural and regional policies for enlargement towards the East.
There is absolutely no reason for the Union to take upon itself another political area.
As many speakers have pointed out, the problems vary enormously in the Countries of the Union.
The Southern countries have too little forest while the Northern countries probably have too much.
The Southern countries have problems with forest fires while in the North it is the cold that we struggle with.
There is no lack of forestry policy either, the reverse is true.
Individual countries have forestry laws and the necessary authorities to administer these laws.
There is no lack of international cooperation either.
All the European forestry authorities cooperate within the ECE Timber Commission.
At a global level there is cooperation within the framework of the FAO.
Trade problems are resolved within the framework of the WTO and so on.
There is also extensive cooperation taking place to detail forest damage.
Very detailed statistics are published annually for the sector.
As for environmental certification, this is of dubious value for the Scandinavian countries.
We already have such certification, and it is well known that certain competitor countries on the other side of the Atlantic have exerted pressure on the Union to adopt certification at a lower level than we have in Scandinavia.
Adoption of common certification would lead, therefore, to a lowering of environmental standards for the Swedish forestry industry.
Finally, Mr President I consider it unnecessary that the Union is using this document to recommend new increased expenditure.
Our budget is already under considerable strain.
Mr President, the last enlargement brought a deeper interest and even a passion into the debate on forestry in this Community.
It is interesting to see the geographic interest and to recognize the diversity that enlargement has brought to thinking on afforestation in the Union.
I thank Mr Thomas for his report.
In some of the opinions annexed to the report there are entirely different descriptions of the industry at European level than the one he gives.
I take it that his is the correct one, that we are about selfsufficient since the Nordic countries joined.
Another report says we are only half self-sufficient so it a pity that students or even planners looking at documents like this see such contradictions within a few pages.
That of course is not the fault of the rapporteur.
We should not get ideologically fixed on the whole question of whether we have a common policy or not.
We have a common industrial and commercial policy and we can have a common forestry policy in the same way.
We will not have one like the common agricultural policy.
I could not go as far as Graefe zu Baringdorf.
Obviously, we would not want to have guaranteed prices and intervention and export refunds.
But if we have a common interest in the environment, a common interest in the economic welfare of the European Union, a common tourism policy and so on, it is realistic to think that we ought to have a common policy so far as forestry is concerned.
It need not necessarily impose a major burden on the European Union budget.
I come from a country where we have the fewest forests in the European Union.
The Finns harvest something in the order of 50 million cubic metres annually.
The area under afforestation is the size of England and Scotland.
In Ireland we have about 2 million acres or 16 % of our agricultural land and our worse land at that.
So, there is a great diversity.
Obviously forestry will become very important commercially in Ireland but there is resistance from a social standpoint to replacement of the small farms on the marginal land by tracts of woodland.
The European policy which seeks to assist us with the development of our afforestation is not all that popular in Ireland and yet I believe it is wise in the long run.
We are planting 25, 000 hectares annually at the moment.
That can give Ireland a value added income of approximately £300m at today's prices and that is three times the amount our sheep farmers are able to earn from the entire production of sheep in Ireland at the moment.
So, for us it is not only important for the environment but economically we can develop our forests into something very important.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to express my appreciation to rapporteur Thomas for the patient and constructive way that he has worked to produce this report.
The forestry industry in Europe is very diverse with considerable variation in species between countries.
This applies also to views on forestry policy.
This is why such varied proposals have been put forward during the debate.
Central Europe has long been demanding protection of our forests while the Southern States have long demanded a support system.
This far reaching demand has now been dropped.
This is a good thing, in my view, as it would involve problems both for the environment and for production in our forests.
It has already been stated earlier in the debate that Swedish forestry legislation has allowed us to create a sustainable and strong forestry industry which maintains a balance between the interests of the environment and of production.
This policy means that the renewable raw material base is used while at the same time maintaining biological diversity.
It is important to make clear to other parts of Europe that the Scandinavian forestry sector is a resource which can be used profitably within the ecological framework without any State support.
It is these differences between North and South, East and West which, on the whole, make a joint forestry policy inappropriate. Such a policy should not be introduced within the European Union.
The document currently under consideration represents a compromise which we arrived at in the Agriculture Committee.
For this reason, I think that we should accept it as it is without any of the amendments which have been put forward.
Of course some important sections concerning both environmental and production issues, are missing, but the compromise is acceptable; we can live with it in Sweden.
This is why I think that we shall be able to approve it here in Parliament when the time comes.
Mr President, I must begin by greeting our new Vice-President, Mr Marinho, and congratulate him on being elected.
The Thomas report has the great advantage of having aroused a wide-ranging debate on the subject of forests in the European Union.
This debate has shown that unfortunately there is not a consensus about the place of forests in the framework of Community policy.
The Thomas report merely proposes a common forestry strategy based on greater co-ordination of national policies and the strengthening of protection, training and information measures.
This strategy was the only base of compromise which it was possible to reach in the European Parliament and in the Committee on Agriculture in particular, and Mr Thomas deserves our greatest support for the effort which he has made to bring the different sides closer together.
I think that bringing about at this stage a common forestry strategy will only make sense if it is carried out gradually in the future as part of a genuine common forestry policy with express aims, the relevant application instruments and appropriate financial means.
This is the only way in which we can solve problems such as the increase in forestry production and reducing the deficit, and of finding alternative occupation for land in terms of non-food and energy raw materials, the creation of employment in rural areas and protection from atmospheric pollution and forest fires, adding to the contribution which forests make to the environment and the economy alike, since if people are not given incentives in economic terms to invest in the forest, then they will do nothing to defend it.
The activities proposed by the rapporteur - which are already a great advance on what we have at present - would cost the European Union some 350 million ECU per annum, an equivalent to 0.8 % of the CAP budget.
It is easy to conclude that what has now been proposed in the report presented to the European Parliament is derisory in terms of the European Union's resources.
It is particularly derisory given the strategic importance of this sector for the future of our society.
In a country like Portugal, for example, where three million hectares are forested which represents onethird of the territory and 80 % of which are integrated into farms, it is nonsensical to set differences in the way in which agriculture and forestry are treated.
First of all since the CAP reform in 1992 farming and forestry land are increasingly interchangeable in terms of market situation.
Secondly because farmers tend to look upon forestry activities as a way of topping up their income earned from farming.
However, just to refer to this situation is unacceptable!
I am going to support this report but I hope that the Commission is going to be more daring in its proposals than the European Parliament Committee on Agriculture.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Thomas for his report on a subject which is very important to us in Finland.
All Member States of Union have common interests in the state of the forests and their use; the forests serve to bind carbon dioxide, prevent erosion and provide opportunities for recreation.
We should also not forget the spiritual values they possess, either.
Finland is the only country in the world which is economically fairly dependent on forests.
Finland's national wealth has been generated with the aid of forest-based production over the past 150 years.
The annual growth of Finland's forests is now greater than ever before: more than 80 million cubic metres.
Even after account has been taken of all the use made of them and natural elimination, Finland's forestry resources are increasing by more than 10 million cubic metres per annum.
To my mind this is a practical demonstration that it has always been a vital necessity to us Finns, as it still is today, to take good care of our national resources, our forests.
By way of an example of the responsibility displayed by the Finns over forestry issues, may I just mention the extensive conservation areas which have been instituted in recent decades in various parts of Finland.
By means of them we are seeking to safeguard Finland's nature and the biodiversity of its forests.
From these points of view, the report does not entirely come up to my hopes.
The report stresses subsidies and regulations, whereas to my mind one should allow the market economy to resolve the issues at stake.
Nor does the report take any account of the fact that, in Finland for example, most woodland belongs to small private proprietors.
The report also recommends that consideration be given to setting up a European forestry school.
I cannot support this idea, because in my opinion forestry education is already adequately organized within the territory of the Union, right up to university level.
Nor can I endorse the view expressed in the report that there is a need to set up a Union forestry committee.
Although the current improved version of the report still does not take enough account of the Nordic point of view, it is nonetheless considerably better than the original version, and I therefore consider that it should be adopted.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, permit me, on behalf of the Commission, to congratulate all of the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and more particularly, the rapporteur, Mr Thomas, on the quality of the report we are debating and also welcome the interest that honourable Members have shown in protecting and developing the Union's forestry resources - an interest that has shown itself again in this Chamber, given the number and quality of the contributions we have heard.
There is no doubt that in recent years increasing attention has been paid, including at an international level, to the question of forests: many honourable Members who have taken the floor have already mentioned both the United Nations Rio Conference on the Environment and Development and the Ministerial Conference for the Protection of Forests in Europe that took place in Helsinki in June 1993.
More particularly, it seems to me that the transfrontier aspect of forests has been highlighted in the references to issues such as atmospheric pollution and also in the discussions on climate change and safeguarding biodiversity, all of them elements that have been taken up again in today's debate in the House.
The situation has also changed within the Union, with the accession of forestry producer countries, such as Finland and Sweden and, to a lesser extent, Austria: given that the afforested area of the Union has now doubled, the economic and political importance of the forestry sector has increased substantially within the Union.
Indeed, speaking in this debate, some of you have pointed out that the accession of the new countries has brought a change of culture to our debate, placing greater emphasis on specific issues.
On the other hand, society in general is now using forests for an increasing variety of purposes and these require reasonable and sensible decisions.
And it seems to the Commission that only multi-functional management of forests will allow as many as possible of those activities to co-exist within the same space.
The Commission does, however, take the view that a degree of caution is needed, given that too general a discussion of forests could be misleading.
What suits one place could be completely inappropriate elsewhere, and extremely changeable socio-economic - and also environmental - circumstances are bound to require different analyses and solutions that have to be suitably tailored.
In short, the Mediterranean forests cannot be dealt with in the same way as the forests of Sweden, and so, at the risk of making what may be a provocative statement, I venture to say that the European forest, in the singular, does not in fact exist: what we have are different aspects of a single issue.
All of those elements, and many other factors that I do not have time to list here, require, in the Commission view, detailed consideration by the Union and its Member States to take account of the developments and the economic and social changes of recent years: the fact is that an analysis of that nature has not been made at the level of the Union since 1988, that is since the adoption of the forestry action programme.
In that sense, Parliament's initiative certainly amounts to significant progress in terms of reviving the debate on the approach to be taken to forests at the level of the Union, and the Commission believes that the principles and objectives set forth in Parliament's report offer a genuine framework consistent with the principle of subsidiarity.
The Commission will be looking closely at the measures proposed in the document by organizing a dialogue with the Member States via the Standing Forestry Committee and intends submitting within two years a framework document setting forth the main features of the sector and putting forward the strategy decisions that have to be based on that analysis.
Despite all that, Parliament should also be aware that defining a new strategy for forests will run into many difficulties - and I think that honourable Members are already very much aware of this - and will have to overcome many obstacles.
I shall mention just two of them: first of all, the substantial differences in and heterogeneous nature of forest structures in both environmental and economic terms.
Those disparities unquestionably tend to have the effect of accentuating the differences in the basic assessments made in the various Member States, and therefore situations that are so very different require not only understanding but also as much flexibility as possible on the part of the Member States at both a technical and a political level.
There is a second major obstacle, namely the financial situation of the Union.
I have never believed it possible to have policies without adequate funding: we can then discuss how to or not to use those funds, but I have never seen a policy with no budget put into effect: miracles are always possible but I have not witnessed many.
It is also worth making the point in the House that the financial situation of the Union is a very special one, and it does not seem to me that it will be possible to make available in the immediate future substantial resources to fund investment in the forestry sector.
In conclusion - given that that is the position - the Commission will have to take on a very difficult task. It will have both to keep abreast of the situation and take account of all the various existing constraints - the legal, the political and the financial constraints - before it can draw up new forestry guidelines.
The quality of the proposals contained in the report Parliament has submitted will certainly help us overcome those difficulties, but I think it useful that the Commission should point out here in the House that we are largely at the beginning of a process of review and that mutual cooperation is crucial to the success of this policy and this initiative.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on 30 January in Brussels.
EC/Israel public procurement and telcommunications agreements
The next item is the report (A4-0357/96) by Mr De Clercq, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Affairs, on the proposal for a Council decision (COM(96)0148 - C4-0323/96-96/0104(CNS)) concerning the conclusion of two agreements between the European Community and the State of Israel on procurement by government and telecommunications operators.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this afternoon's debate on the report from our colleague Mr De Clercq and on the conclusion of the EC/Israel public procurement and telecommunications agreements gives me a chance to make four points.
Firstly, as President of the Europe-Israel Delegation, I wish to pay tribute to the work of our colleague, Mr De Clercq, who has worked very hard throughout these last few months to improve and develop relations between Europe and Israel.
Secondly, it should be pointed out that these agreements fit perfectly into a continuation of the agreements that came into force a year ago and into the framework of the Europe-Israel association agreement approved here by a very large majority.
Thirdly, I wish to emphasize the great importance of these latter agreements, which will enable Europe to benefit from Israeli high technology and will enable Israel, which wishes to build new public infrastructures (a metro has been mentioned), to call on European expertise.
Both parties therefore benefit greatly from this, and we must recognize that this is not always the case in association agreements.
I stress the importance of these agreements in the context of regional economic integration between Israel and its neighbours, in what we hope is the near future.
Israel will then be a privileged intermediary for the European Union.
Finally, and following on directly from the last point, I wish to express the satisfaction and delight of Europeans after the Hebron agreement of Tuesday evening and the reactivation of the peace process.
I myself, as you know, have always been confident, but I can understand the misgivings and doubts.
I would therefore like to congratulate the Israeli and Palestinian negotiators on their courage and good sense.
Europe has played a discreet but effective role, in particular with its special envoy whom we should also congratulate.
In conclusion, I reaffirm that the development of our economic and scientific relations with Israel is one of the prime conditions for peace as well as being one of the first consequences.
I am therefore pleased that we have been able to play a part here in these affairs during the last critical months.
The future will be just as difficult and we must therefore still try and keep a cool head, and retain our common sense and sound appreciation of situations.
The vote on the report of our colleague, Mr De Clercq, is therefore very important, both as a symbol of a constructive and effective process and above all in its practical and rapid effects on the economic and technological relations between Europe and Israel.
Madam President, the conclusion of these two agreements is a further step towards achieving the European Union's goal of opening up the markets for public contracts further.
And I think that is a very important and proper objective.
Moreover, the two agreements flesh out the agreements concluded earlier by the European Union and Israel on greater political and economic cooperation, cooperation which I myself and my Group welcome most warmly.
I also have a point to make concerning procedure.
It is regrettable that procedural problems always arise when matters are dealt with by the Committee on External Economic Relations and that this committee so often has to fight to be treated properly.
In this case the committee bowed to the opinion of the Legal Affairs Committee.
I think that is a wise decision, if only to preserve the unity of the European Parliament over this procedure.
I have little to add to the wise words spoken by Mr De Clercq, but I would just like to say following on from my comment on procedure that over the past seven and a half years of international agreements of the kind we are debating today - and far more importantly the GATT agreement - the European Parliament and the European Union have been in very good hands in the Committee on external Economic Relations due to the fact that Mr De Clercq was the chairman of that committee.
In all honesty I am having trouble adjusting to the idea that in a few hours' time the Committee on External Economic Relations will have a new chairman and that Mr De Clercq will be serving the Union in a different capacity.
But Mr De Clercq has done a great deal personally to promote the liberalization of international trade, which is economically very important to the European Union and to employment and I regard it as an honour and as a very great pleasure to have served on his committee for the past two and a half years.
Madam President, first of all I must congratulate you on your new office and I must also congratulate Mr De Clercq on this report, which rounds off wonderfully his seven years as chairman of the committee.
This House talked long and hard about the European Union's Association Agreement with Israel.
These two agreements on public procurement and telecommunications agreements are a consequence of it.
Mr De Clercq looked rather more at the technical considerations, but I am looking at it more from the point of view of foreign policy, the Barcelona initiative.
It is a step along the road to reciprocal liberalization, but it is also a step along the way towards stability in the region.
The interests of the Union and Israel are well served too.
Israel is strong in high-tech, and we need that in Europe.
Europe has a sizeable head start in public transport.
Israel has ambitious plans in this area, including the building of an urban metro line, and that would be a huge challenge to any one country of the Union.
Of course the Union's economic resources are not the same as Israel's, but we are going through a good patch.
Thanks to the efforts of King Hussein of Jordan the peace process has moved on a pace and, if I read the situation aright, there is an increasing hope of greater economic involvement of the European Union in Israel and the region as a whole and that is the prospect today: liberalization is all very well, it is an economic thing, but the real issue is stability in the region.
My Group, the Union for Europe Group, wholeheartedly endorses Mr De Clercq's report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament is today able to express an opinion on two proposed agreements between the European Union and Israel on public procurement.
Although the two agreements are as such rather technical in nature - as has been pointed out here, particularly by the rapporteur - one concerns public procurement generally and the other procurement in the telecommunications sector specifically, it is clear that they represent a considerable step forward in opening up procurement at an international level.
There is therefore a wider point here, above and beyond the purely technical matter of the two agreements.
The Commission wishes to draw attention to a number of important points.
In the case of the first agreement, Israel is enlarging upon and adding to the undertakings entered into through the agreement on public procurement; it includes the urban transport sector, an area in which the Union is particularly competitive, and removes a number of exemptions previously negotiated under the Government Procurement Agreement.
In addition, it opens up local procurement to European Union undertakings, in sectors other than those previously envisaged.
In the case of the second agreement on procurement in the telecommunications sector, Israel is immediately abolishing a 15 per cent price preference and gradually removing the provision on compensation that it was in fact accorded under the Government Procurement Agreement.
Both agreements are the product of the closer - political and economic - relations established by the association agreement between Israel and the European Union, and the post-Barcelona context of which this initiative forms part has already been mentioned.
Secondly, they make a real contribution to economic development and, therefore, also to the political stability of the region.
Thirdly, they secure for the European Union more favourable treatment than Israel has hitherto accorded other third countries, by offering further economic opportunities to European suppliers. Fourthly, they seem to us to be giving a positive signal and therefore constitute a positive precedent for other third countries in terms of opening-up markets on a reciprocal basis: this is a completely new element.
For those reasons, the Commission welcomes the fact that the Committee on External Economic Relations unanimously endorsed the resolution approving the two agreements, after the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights had confirmed the legal basis proposed by the Commission.
Let me take this opportunity of thanking those committees for their work and support and, in particular, the Commission wishes to thank Mrs Sierra González of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for her contribution and, clearly, Mr de Clercq for having prepared the very clear and balanced report we are today debating.
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Consultation of workers
The next item is the report (A4-0411/96) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on the communication from the Commission on worker information and consultation (COM(95)0547 - C4-0538/95).
Madam President, I wish to thank my colleague, Mr Menrad, with whom I have worked for several years on this subject, and also my colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, whose point of view I am representing today.
I have worked closely with both Mr Rothley and Mr Janssen van Raay on the issue of information and consultation of workers in the European Company Statute.
The conclusions of the Legal Affairs Committee were very largely similar to the conclusions of Mr Menrad.
We had a vote in the committee which was nem con , showing the strength of feeling in the committee which is convinced that it is absolutely essential for the wellbeing of the internal market that we have information and consultation of workers in some form.
Speaking particularly about the European Company Statute, this is an important plank of the internal market and it is absolutely vital that the Commission gets this proposal unblocked.
We need a European Company Statute with the full participation of the workforce.
It is quite unacceptable to press ahead with a company statute without British workers being fully involved.
Indeed, back in Britain many British companies tell me they want the European Company Statute.
It is a voluntary arrangement; it is not compulsory.
Every single British company which decides to set up as a European company should do so and have the participation of British workers, so we do not want a European Company Statute with Britain a kind of second-class citizen again.
As far as European Works Councils are concerned, they have some place.
But if we look at the Commission's consultative document, it muddles up the options for information, consultation and participation.
We need to build on the best traditions of company law in the whole of Europe.
Germany has a fine tradition of workers on the board, France and other places have good versions too.
We need to have a flexible system which is good for all the workers in Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, first and foremost I should perhaps convey to you my best and heartfelt wishes for a successful social year in 1997 and a happy outcome to the IGC.
On behalf of the Group I compliment Mr Menrad most warmly on his report.
It is a good report, ladies and gentlemen, and it contains a very powerful New Year message, Commissioner, to the European Commission.
In the view of my Group that message is as follows.
As Mrs Oddy said just now, we are all agreed on the need for progress on the various forms of European company, which have been blocked for years now.
But on one thing we must be clear.
We are not prepared either to make social concessions to the single market.
That means, Commissioner, that if the Council and Commission want to press ahead on the matter of European companies - and I assume they will in 1997 - then for us that can only be possible if we also get definitive rules, not only on worker information and consultation, but also on worker participation.
I think the European Parliament may hold an important key when these proposals come up for discussion, especially if they are made under Article 100a, and we are now serving notice to the Commission that we, the European Parliament, will not yield on the matter of these rules for worker participation.
Already during the debate on the 1995-1996 social action programme Parliament pressed in Mr Hughes' report for all directives concerning worker participation which were currently blocked to be unblocked.
We were very glad to see the Commission producing a communication for the benefit of the social partners.
Well, Commissioner, I have to say with regret on behalf of my Group that we are somewhat disappointed in the Commission's communication.
Firstly we are sorry that there was no debate beforehand with the social partners, that there has not been greater study of the different forms of worker participation which already exist in the Member States.
We also think that the concrete options suggested in this statement are not satisfactory.
Indeed we think that the European works council is a success.
We are very happy that even firms in countries not bound by these rules have chosen to have European works councils.
But we also think that worker involvement should not stop at the European works council.
In smaller firms too there must be provision for information, consultation and participation.
The Union must ensure that social dialogue is and remains an essential element in our European social model.
Secondly, the issue of participation is not regulated either in the European works council or in the directive on collective redundancies or transfers of undertakings.
And that is a subject which has been under discussion since the Vredeling directive.
We think that in addition to the European works council there have to be rules which also prevent firms from shopping around to find the best country in which they can avoid trade union involvement in their operations.
So, Commissioner, it is unacceptable to us that there should be a European company in a country which will not even agree to works councils.
So the United Kingdom cannot be involved for the moment.
But secondly, we also find it unacceptable to have a European company without far-reaching rules on participation.
And then I would also ask the Commission and the Davignon Group too to think creatively this year about legislation which, firstly, will respect the tradition of social debate in the Member States.
Which, secondly, devises framework legislation at European level on information, consultation and participation in smaller firms too, not to enable them to escape the process of dialogue but on the contrary to enable dialogue to exist within small businesses too.
I shall thus be happy to support the EPP Group's Amendment No 2 on behalf of my own Group.
Thirdly, legislation which leaves the specific shape and form of things to the social partners.
Fourthly, which provides for minimum rules applicable to everyone.
I think this will give us a piece of good legislation, Commissioner.
Madam President, first may I congratulate you on the fact that you are chairing this debate and it is perhaps fitting that someone from Germany should preside over it, since Mr Menrad too has made an exceptional contribution in the drafting and presentation of his report.
Because this is no simple matter; it concerns the very essence of codetermination in the various countries of Europe and thus the essence of the European social system.
Our subject is of course the European company and the Commission is now trying to get this European company off the ground. For two reasons it has not yet managed to do so - firstly the question of codetermination and secondly the question of tax.
We are very much in favour of it.
But the machinery of codetermination is not suitably regulated and that is not good enough.
We have a number of different systems here, and how is one to align those systems in such a way that one can distil a European company out of them? It is not easy.
It is not easy from the standpoint of a country like Germany, or one like the Netherlands, and certainly not from the standpoint of a country like Italy.
The merit of this opinion is that it has drawn all the threads together.
We have started along the road, we are going to resolve the problem and maybe finally get this European company sorted out.
That is I think a very important point.
But countries which do not have codetermination councils, European works councils, cannot really be a part of this.
That is one thing.
The second thing is that we must take account of the two main corporate systems in Europe, namely the monistic and the dualist systems, and we must find appropriate forms for them.
They must be flexible forms but forms of equal value.
Forms which are equal and thus do not lead to an erosion of codetermination but on the contrary to an enhancement of the European model.
So, Commissioner, the European works council has made a significant contribution towards the further resolution of this problem.
But it is also important that we should continue our efforts, as the opinion advocates, on codetermination in general.
It is a slow process but it must be addressed.
All these things taken together more or less boil down to what Mr Menrad proposes.
Mr Menrad also stresses the importance, and rightly, of the expert committee headed by Mr Davignon.
I am actually very glad we have produced this opinion before his committee has started work.
I think they will find the opinion useful.
The European People's Party attaches enormous importance to a European company.
It is crazy that we have a European market but as yet no European company.
This company has to be voluntary, but it must offer a basis for codetermination. Certainly it must not be a step backwards for countries which already have that system, but on the other hand it must not be an obstacle to countries which have not yet advanced quite so far along the road.
I think Mr Menrad has made a good job of presenting the overall situation.
I hope the Commission will take all the recommendations on board, because each one is important in its own way.
Then we can perhaps get this initiative completed, but not before we have had a suitable response from the European Council and the European Commission to these excellent proposals of Mr Menrad's.
Madam President, as we are all aware, the main objective of the report on the consultation of workers is to establish appropriate and up-to-date global rules governing the sector.
Let us put on one side for a moment the first of the three options put forward by the Commission because it in fact proposes that the status quo be retained without change.
But let us look more closely at the other two.
As a group, we are in favour of the third option provided it does not depend on implementation of the second option.
We need therefore to unhook the third from the second option which suggests a global approach based on the definition of a general framework.
In contrast, the third option seems more closely to reflect the requirements of all of the interested parties, by referring back to the link with transposition of the directive on European Works Councils.
We are in fact starting from the premiss that forms of worker information and consultation exist in all the Member States, based on the needs and special features of the individual state.
In certain sectors, the adoption of Community rules of a general nature could therefore prejudice balances achieved with great difficulty over a period of time.
The third option therefore seems to us to be based on realistic demands reflecting clearly-defined requirements.
It is actually unfair to subject undertakings which opt for the new legal form of European company to comply with rules on workers different from those whose observance is required under Directive 94/45 for other companies at a Community level.
We have the opportunity of taking an approach which meets the needs of both workers and undertakings.
And it is our duty to do so.
Madam President, I am going to use my time to read a text by Mr Ribeiro who cannot, unfortunately, be present.
The subject of workers' participation in the system of social relations in which some people see ways of exploiting the labour force and others of a non-social combination of productive factors is one of the most interesting we can discuss.
Either in terms of ideology or in terms of the practical and political expressions which might be used.
Of course, it will not only be interesting for those who, belonging to one of those schools of thought or action, feel that they have the only way of thinking or have the only authority on the matter.
However, for those people perhaps nothing is of interest and not even in terms of thought or action...
The Menrad report, in my opinion, reflects the complexity of this question in dealing with information and consulting workers.
However, it is not innocuous and would be dangerous to identify information and consultation with participation.
The report does not make clear this vital distinction and nor does it avoid the risks of that possible identification.
To inform and to consult might become the antidote for real participation or an excuse for avoiding real participation at all.
Affirming the right to information and consultation cannot, in my opinion, be a kind of co-responsibilisation of workers at a given time, given that when things are going well information and consultation are not necessary for doing business.
I accept and support the claim of the principle of informing and consulting workers.
Therefore I think that the Menrad report is positive especially in respect of multinational or transnational companies but I must, however, emphasize my reservation about the refusal to identify these actions with the participation and the co-responsibilisation of workers in management, especially since information and consultation could be used as an expedient so that workers are more ready to accept real measures taken against them during difficult economic times, dismantling systems and reversing social games.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Mr Pronk talked about the European social model and the European system.
I think we must look at that a little more critically.
We are not here to limit ourselves to defending the status quo.
It is true that there is no change without defence, defence against the neo-liberal attempts to seize territory.
But it is equally true that attack is the best form of defence.
We have the opportunity to design the European constitution as one of the basic levels for coordinating the Europeanisation and democratisation of the economy.
That may sound presumptuous, too aggressive for some, too optimistic for others.
But that is the real situation: the neo-liberal offensive in Europe especially is threatening and has started to reduce the effective existence of employees' chances to help shape affairs at the broader level.
That is going too far.
The least that we should decide here to do together is to reverse the current negative force of this process, and Mr Menrad's report is the first step in that process.
But once the reverse force is under way we have no reason to bring it to a halt at the structure stage where it stopped in our national histories.
We should ensure that we really make further progress along the lines of democratising the economy.
If the people who propelled this neo-liberal dynamic force then start to complain, they only have themselves to blame.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur for the work he has done but also to ask him to forgive me if I tell him that I find some parts of his report a little obscure.
Of course, there were difficulties in translation.
And of course I handle social concepts with less facility than he does.
However, I believe, to use the language of semantics, that some of the words used take on an extended meaning that becomes all the wider as any understanding of it becomes less well-defined.
Apart from that, it would be advisable for the rapporteur to explain clearly what he means by 'co-determination' .
I fear that term does not cover the same situation in France and Germany.
Let me now turn to a fundamental point.
The rapporteur assigns trade unions a leading role in the life of firms.
As you know, trade union history is in large measure that of a struggle between two ideas illuminated by different doctrines.
One is the doctrine of a single trade union organization, as was the case in all socialist regimes, whether communist, fascist or Nazi, and the other is that of trade union pluralism enabling workers to form any unions they wish and to join the organization of their choice.
In my country, France, the hypocrisy of the system enables us to maintain the illusion of trade union pluralism by guaranteeing in practice the preservation and privileges of the already established organizations which cling fiercely to those privileges.
It is somewhat similar to the situation here in the European Parliament, where the system is really one of a single party with dual labelling and having two extremes with slightly divergent economic doctrines.
Thus, in France, a law on 'trade union representativeness' forbids the free candidature of workers in the first round of professional elections of staff representatives or delegates to works councils, and it is only when there is a shortfall at the first round that the worker can vote or stand for an organization of his choice not yet recognized.
Note that the French criteria for representativeness always include the patriotism shown during the years of occupation.
It is difficult to see how organizations whose founders have not yet reached retirement age could satisfy this criterion.
Not only that, but no mention is made of the fact that the communist leaders who controlled the French CGT with a rod of iron, according to the ninth and thirteenth directives of the 21 Moscow conditions, had supported the Hitler-Stalin pact and even, like the traitor Thorez, deserted from the French army straight away so as not to face the German army.
But today, in the dishonourable, unscrupulous, disloyal war in my country against the national movement and patriotic forces fighting for the independence, sovereignty and freedoms of the fatherland, there is a desire to ban new trade union organizations whose members are workers who no longer have confidence in the old union nomenklatura, in the apparatchiks incapable of expressing the desires for work, with preference given to nationals, the desires for security, for self-management of wages, for setting up modern social security systems and retirement schemes that are appropriate, better managed and better controlled.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. The European join-stock company may well facilitate the change towards the internal market if one considers the ever closer economic interrelationship of companies in Europe.
The Committee on Social Affairs and Employment has closely studied the Commission proposal, including an experts' hearing, and I would like to thank the rapporteur particularly for resisting the pressure to produce an over-hasty conclusion.
For indeed we need time to reflect on the repercussions of the statute of a small European joint-stock company on labour relations, on relations between owners, shareholders, management, the labour force, works councils and trades unions.
We could, of course, have shown greater courage for co-determination and not for reduced participation, precisely because we were not under pressure of time.
The vision of a democratic economy, which has also been addressed, would have been important precisely at this time of economic upheaval, in view of employees' fears at globalisation; it would have been a signal to the labour force that Europe also values more than just shareholders.
If you will bear with me, Mr Menrad, I cannot refrain from pointing out a few inconsistencies.
In paragraph 11 I am happy to see that you say there must be no flight from co-determination.
But I as a German must point out that the German government in the last few years has taken two decisions which worsen employees' rights; one of them, for example, is the law on small companies dealing with co-determination rights in companies with fewer than 500 employees.
That is why I am particularly worried about paragraph 14 of your report in which you made specific reference to this matter.
We all know that most workers in Europe are employed in these small and medium-sized companies and I think that they are the ones who need special protection.
And as you also know, Germany has also made works council rights worse for very small firms, for those with fewer than ten employees.
In principle we welcome the study which you referred to in supportive terms.
But we do expect that the results will not only be made available to representatives of the social dialogue but also of course to the European Parliament.
I believe we should discuss our ideas on a future European directive and European company statute in detail and without pressure of time.
I urge that we keep national traditions but at the same time advance democracy in the world of work at the European level.
We are unfortunately still far removed from that objective on the threshold of the next century.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. First of all I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Menrad, very warmly.
He has brought his wide experience, his deep knowledge, his perspicacity and attention to detail to this report.
I should also like to thank the Commission for their preliminary work, even if the communication on worker information and consultation is not exactly a success story, but that is not the Commission's fault.
Apart from the various directives on mass redundancy, the transfer of companies and the European works council which were individual successes, all other proposals have ground to a halt in the Council.
That is particularly true of the co-determination model.
The Council has not exactly excelled itself by its eagerness to take decisions, and it is time that that was made public and that the people of Europe learn exactly where matters have become stuck: not in the European Parliament, not in the Commission but in the Council.
The Commission's four principles for solving this problem sound good: to wit, simplification, coherence, pragmatic and planned progress and general application.
But as to whether the three solutions proposed will be successful - keeping the status quo, global approach, proposals on the statute of the European company, European association or European mutual society - I am doubtful, Commissioner.
I am also afraid that we shall need some more time to find the solution to this problem, to get in all the opinions which have been requested and to see the Commission's definitive document on the table before us.
The experts' hearing on this subject in the Social Affairs Committee gave us a taste of the difficulties ahead in the search for a solution to the problem of informing and consulting employees.
The Commission's group of experts, as I have unfortunately had occasion to say to you, Commissioner, is composed of theoreticians and too few practitioners.
I also think the deadlines set for this expert group on such a complex subject are too tight.
Here I agree with Mr Menrad.
I fully endorse the broad conclusions which the rapporteur has already reiterated.
I would just like to draw attention to a sentence where he writes: variant 3(a) would be most acceptable in combination with option 2.
But what we must avoid is that economic opportunities of participation be replaced by simple information and consultation rights as in the EWC directive or by an as yet inexistent community instrument to regulate information and consultation at the national level.
Mr President, good industrial relations, with a well-developed relationship between the owners of a company and the management on the one side and the employed and the unions on the other is an asset for all concerned.
The Commission is proposing three different alternatives at EU level: to maintain the current situation, to establish a framework or to go straight to a proposal for a Regulation on European companies.
The committee supports the development of a framework, which seems to be a sensible and realistic measure, and the proposal to establish a Directive on the minimum level of information to, and consultation, with employees.
It is very important that this does involve a minimum of regulations and not a full harmonisation of legislation.
Each Member State must be able to maintain and develop its own regulations which may be more far reaching than the framework and the minimum requirements.
There are also large discrepancies between Member States.
In Sweden there is already a well developed system of participation through collective agreements which has proved to work well.
Above all, issues of this nature ought to be resolved and administered by the labour market and related parties.
Any proposals for legislation and directives ought therefore to be developed in close conjunction with the relevant parties in the labour market.
This proposal, Mr President, should be seen as a first step towards more far reaching employee influence at EU level as well.
Mr President, Commissioner. perhaps note should be taken of the paradox that a communication on worker participation, consultation and information has been produced without consulting the social partners.
To me that is a paradox.
Secondly I want to mention the deadlock in the Council - I suppose the communication from the Commission is intended to break that deadlock - as regards those aspects of the statutes of companies, associations, cooperatives and mutual societies that have to do with worker information, consultation and participation.
In our view this deadlock raises two questions: one - already discussed here on many occasions - is the need for qualified majority rather than unanimous decision procedure, particularly on the social issues we are so concerned about, at least in our group. The other is how easily the Council takes economic or economics-related decisions on the construction of Europe - see the last stability pact - and how difficult it finds approving anything to do with workers' rights and citizens' rights in general.
We think the Commission's three proposals are broadly unacceptable unless they are changed and we naturally agree with the rapporteur that there should be a group of experts which includes trade unionists, SMEs, scientists, Parliament and the Commission, to give us a clear idea and a clear proposal for a directive guaranteeing worker consultation, information and participation once and for all.
Because, we repeat, the Europe some of us want will not exist if worker and citizen participation is not turned into reality.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Menrad on his splendid report.
It is great to have a German Conservative I can agree with, even if I cannot agree with my British Conservative colleagues.
It is nice to see someone like him involved in dealing with the social area so that real progress can be made in this Parliament.
Unfortunately, we do not get that kind of progress inside the Council of Ministers and I know very well why that is so.
Firstly, it is only right and essential, when you have a statute for a European company, that you also have the active promotion of the participatory, consultative processes within that company for workers.
It is further right that this report identifies the fact that we need to promote this progress both positively and earnestly.
The Directive on European Works Councils after all is rather too limiting for any progress to be made.
I must say to Mrs Van Lancker that the social debate in the United Kingdom is not entirely dead.
I was the editor of a pamphlet in the '80s which spoke about the pan-European agreements that were being forged vis-à-vis the participatory democratic relationships inside companies.
I was very pleased then that companies in the United Kingdom had taken a very positive lead in that.
But, unfortunately, the United Kingdom, as you know, is controlled by what we might refer to as the political undead.
I hope that one day we will be able to do without them.
But we must remember that inside the United Kingdom people have lost their jobs and their homes and they cannot afford to lose their hope in this respect and I know that you will join me when we try to do something about that.
This report clearly demonstrates that conflict can be avoided inside companies.
If there is anything that could demonstrate the proof of this and its relevance to our society, and indeed to the world as a whole, we must look to Seoul in Korea to see just how trade union rights are being taken away from workers with the horrendous violence which is being seen on the streets there.
It is quite obvious that this is some proof of what we can do.
Paying respect to this particular report is easy because it looks at the differing forms of economic units as well - the mutual societies, the cooperatives, the SMUs - and this is all essential if we are to have the kind of success which we know is relevant for the progress of this report.
In conclusion, therefore, I just wish to say how grateful I am to our colleague, Mr Menrad, for all the work he has done on this and I hope that we can promote this through the Commission and the Council as rapidly as possible so that it becomes law.
Mr President, I come from a country, Greece, which can claim no great traditions or achievements in the area of informing, consulting with and encouraging the participation of working people, and for that reason, if you will, from another standpoint, we note developments at the European level with particular interest.
Here, of course, we should express threefold concern, as I believe has been confirmed by other speakers too.
The first concern is that there is unfortunately this two-speed development in the European Union, one speed for monetary issues and a different speed for issues related to working peoples' rights, and that is why we have been bogged down for decades over the issues of information, participation and consultation.
The second concern is the probable danger that instead of making it easier for countries with no great achievements to forge ahead, we may hold back and drag down achievements that already exist in other European Union countries.
The third concern is that we may end up with laws so labyrinthine, fragmented and technical, that working people will ultimately be largely excluded.
And I am afraid that this is confirmed by the existence of too many regulations and by the fact that all these debates are taking place largely beyond the range of the labour and unionist movement's monitoring capabilities.
In this situation, I want to say that I too think Mr Menrad has produced excellent work and that proposals such as the ones about the European Company, the Committee of Experts, a directive characterized by flexibility and a high-level common denominator, are extremely important.
Mr President, this report highlights the need to make progress on working out a participation model in the question of informing and consulting employees in the co-determination process.
Flexibility, pragmatic negotiation solutions and the introduction of necessary minimum standards will play a major role in this in view of the present very different European systems.
At a time when questions of the single market and globalisation reveal the most different framework conditions to be met by employees, acceptable framework regulations are even more necessary than ever.
Today's international economy shows ruthlessly how capital moves and is concentrated, how it vanishes, what it exploits and who becomes the pawn of this new flexibility.
The biggest problem here is that in these international processes, in these international mechanisms basic human and trade union rights are circumvented and infringed.
In this context we must also think beyond the frontiers of Europe.
We must do that in order to see more clearly.
I know full well that we cannot regulate everything, nor indeed try to do so.
But a harmonious social community demands democratic consultation and co-determination models when the existential substance of individual workers is at stake, because in the final analysis it is on that that the plurality of our society and the creation of our democratic system depends.
The lack of a European company statute which, for example provides for stronger involvement of employees, means a waste of resources on both sides and leads of course to considerable costs on the economic side.
That is something we must constantly bear in mind.
It is precisely in that context that we must reiterate that the lack of a European company statute must be regarded as a deficiency because in my opinion such a statute could also provide the incentive for investments and so employment.
The Commission's expert group which is charged with preparing recommendations for co-determination models by April must not be allowed to remain solely a platform for debate but should also give the necessary impetus for action.
Here it is important that the European solution adopted does not allow any escape for any company from countries with stricter regulations.
Otherwise we would only need to start talking about de-regulation downwards and that surely cannot be the credo of our action.
To sum up, the Menrad report in my view contains reasonable proposals on how the objective of co-determination can be reached and it also points out the risks of inaction in this matter.
A refusal to have co-determination is the most expensive wrong investment for the economy.
That is something we must never forget.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Protection of forests
The next item is the report (A4-0417/96) by Mr Collins, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposals for Council Regulations amending:
I. Regulation (EEC) No 3528/86 on the protection of the Community's forests against atmospheric pollution (COM(96)0341 - C4-0476/96-96/0185(CNS)); II.Regulation (EEC) No 2158/92 on protection of the Community's forests against fire (COM(96)0341 - C40477/96-96/0186(CNS)).
Mr President, I was relying on the Commissioner making a long speech.
Usually you can rely on these things, but the very time I wanted him to make a long speech, he cut it short.
It is quite terrible!
I shall send you a message in future: ' Do not worry, make a long speech' , I shall say.
I apologise for my absence, but the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection was being reconstituted.
Now that it is reconstituted I can tell you about this report.
In fact, it is completely uncontroversial.
The committee has examined the Commission's two proposals: one, on the protection of forests against atmospheric pollution and the other on forest fires.
We have looked at these and think that they are laudable.
They are contributions to sustainable forestry.
They build on existing programmes and simply bring them up-to-date.
They extend the life of the programmes and make the necessary budgetary changes.
We had one problem with the Commission and that was the way in which it presented the budgetary provisions.
The Commission wanted to include the budgetary provisions in the proposals.
That is contrary to the Interinstitutional Agreement of 1995 and so, on examining the two proposals the Budget Committee made some amendments.
It is the view of the Environment Committee that the Budget Committee's amendments should be accepted: they substitute advisory committees for management committees, thus making the whole thing more open and, I hesitate to say above-board, but at least transparent.
The Budget Committee also pointed out that we need to have mid-term assessment of cost-effectiveness and implementation performance.
Again, the Environment Committee thought that that was a wise suggestion.
We are therefore prepared to recommend acceptance of the Budget Committee amendments.
When we voted I recommended the inclusion of these amendments and the committee has followed that advice.
We think, as a committee, that these reports will make a very large difference to European Union forestry policy and they will continue existing, successful programmes.
They have cross-party and inter-committee support.
Therefore I, like the Commissioner before me, do not need to make a very long speech.
I can finish at this point because nobody has sent me a message to ask me to speak any longer!
I recommend that Parliament accept these reports.
Mr President, the report by Mr Thomas debated this evening states that the forests have deteriorated by 3.8 % compared with the previous year.
So that adds another 3.8 % to the 27 % of European trees that were already in trouble.
Hence the need to approve these regulations and the funds to help implement them, expressed by the chairman of the Committee on the Environment.
As he said, there was no great problem approving this report on the regulations and funds.
However, perhaps remembering the debate this evening, the substantial differences between the various countries in terms of a Community policy to support the forestry sector need to be made clear, and the Committee on the Environment tried to achieve that on several occasions.
Certainly there are difficulties, because there is diversity of forests, diversity in the way different countries deal with them, but if the European Union is to comply with the various conventions it has signed - Rio Conference, Helsinki Conference and also the Vth Environmental Action Programme - it is essential not only to implement these regulations, but also, after discussions between the various countries and the European Union, to achieve a common policy to protect our forests.
Otherwise it will not be possible to implement the 'Habitats' directive properly by the year 2000.
Mr President, first of all I want to express the support of my group, the European People's Party, for this proposal from the Commission to extend the two forest protection programmes in their dual role of prevention of atmospheric contamination and protection against fire.
These programmes can be generally felt to have been effective and Community coordination and evaluation of these two general phenomena continue to be necessary.
But questions need to be put to the Commission, and some suggestions may also be in order.
The atmospheric contamination protection programme is often thought to have been positive in its dual aims of establishing a general forest observation network - already covering the whole of the territory of the European Union and according to Commission reports, now operational - and an intensive monitoring network.
The Commission has also presented us with data on over 200 pilot schemes developed, approved and financed.
But we are told virtually nothing about the final objective and the evaluation of these programmes which have been developed over 10 years, and one of the European Commission's responsibilities is precisely to make the final evaluation of all these research programmes, which are focused on establishing whether or not there is a causal relationship between atmospheric contamination and the damage being observed in the forests.
After 10 years of research throughout Europe, with the full collaboration of national research and international programmes, it is a little perplexing to find that there is still no data for evaluating and establishing cause and effect and, above all, procedures for looking after forests and forest floors.
The Commission should be asked to deepen this evaluation and, if new research programmes are needed, they must be carried out.
We cannot go on observing the deterioration of the forests, providing statistics and taking no measures.
The impetus for the fire protection programme and the evaluation carried out in all the European Union countries has been positive, especially in the most affected, like Spain, Portugal, Italy and France and, in part, Germany too.
But greater effort and cooperation between the Member States is still needed, because although there has been a reduction in the area burned, the number of forest fires has actually doubled since 1986, and there are days - this statistic ought to be on the front page of the newspapers - when two fires break out every minute in Europe.
This really does not make sense and there are no supernatural causes.
The phenomenon clearly involves criminal acts and negligence by the authorities, because an additional statistic is that 50 % of the causes of these fires remain unknown.
Member States should be told that if they want to go on receiving Community aid, they must intensify their vigilance and especially their research.
And, in the southern countries, the Member States must give local communities and councils greater responsibility for protecting the forests around them.
I think that is an essential tool of effective protection.
Mr President, I am pleased that, in spite of everything - since there was some doubt whether there would be any at all - we are having a report and debate on these important matters.
However, we have to recognize that the sums provided for funding these five-year programmes are very small.
It is a hopeful sign that the amount proposed to deal with pollution is up on the previous period, but it is surprising that the grant for fire protection was not increased.
The number of fires in Europe is tending to increase considerably.
That in itself would justify an increase in the modest grant of ECU 70 million over five years, i.e. ECU 14 million per annum, particularly as it would be funding preventive measures.
For it is noticeable that, although the number of fires increases at places where preventive work has been carried out, they are considerably smaller: the affected areas are then also much smaller.
Moreover, providing funds for prevention reduces by as much the considerable cost of reafforestation.
An appreciable saving is made in this way.
That is why, on behalf of the PPE Group, I tabled Amendment No 20, identical with that of Mr Weber, seeking to increase the grant relating to forest fires from ECU 70 million to ECU 100 million which is still an eminently reasonable sum since, over five years, it amounts to ECU 20 million per year.
So on behalf of my group, I ask you, Mr Rapporteur, to be willing to accept this amendment.
I ask Parliament to adopt it and the Commission to take it over.
Mr President, today Parliament has been giving very serious attention to the problems of our forests, which cover 41.5 % of the agricultural land of Member States, two thirds of which are happily private property.
I would be preaching here to the converted if I were to repeat what was also rightly stressed in the debate on the Thomas report concerning the multiple role played by European forests in the environmental, health and leisure fields but also in social and economic areas.
A good European Union forestry policy must not ignore the spirit of principle of subsidiarity: as little Community regulation as possible, limited to what is necessary.
Using European resources to protect forests against atmospheric pollution that ignores frontiers and protecting Community forests against fires are Community activities that are worth strengthening and continuing.
It is therefore important that we are given the resources for this policy, particularly as regards the protection of forests against fires.
I therefore call urgently for the adoption of the amendment from our group, presented by my colleague, Mr de Brémond d'Ars, which seeks to increase the amount of Community funding set aside for implementing the necessary action.
Having been able to appreciate, both in my own country and in the Community generally, the role played by foresters and their professional organizations in the context of good forestry management and fire protection, I am particularly anxious that they should participate effectively in Community action for the protection of forests and I hope the Commission can reassure us on this point.
As vice-chairman of the Hunting, Fishing and Environmental Intergroup of this Parliament, I would also like to stress the outstanding part played by hunters and their organizations in protecting forests and wild life habitats, a part that is too often misunderstood in some sections of this Parliament.
Hunters' organizations must also be full partners in the implementation of Community measures designed to protect our forests.
So do not forget them, Commissioner.
Mr President, although aware of the absolute need to put into effect strict preventive measures and effective rules to combat atmospheric pollution, our society is nevertheless revealing itself to be hidebound and inclined to inflict damage on itself.
Not even the Commission has been able to reverse this trend and secure a real understanding of the need to protect the environment and the health of citizens. It revealed its own limitations when it failed to propose adequate financial support.
In point of fact, this is totally inadequate compared with the problem of safeguarding forests and preventing the fires which play so great a part in their destruction.
The damage caused to forests largely results from: the atmospheric pollution caused by the major industrial complexes; the change in weather conditions brought about by this disruption to natural balances which has devastating consequences, triggering processes of degradation, such as defoliation and foliage decoloration; and fires - both fires that result from natural causes and those which are the result of human stupidity.
Community action will have, therefore, firstly, to seek to harmonize the efforts of the Member States to prevent this problem, which principally affects the southern states of the Union where fires have resulted in the destruction of more than 500, 000 hectares of forest.
If we then consider the funding allocated to the two programmes on forest protection, during the first five years of their application, and note that the available resources have been practically exhausted, it is clear just how inadequate that funding is.
We are therefore asking, on the one hand, for the Commission to identify those areas particularly at risk and make them the main target of Community aid and, on the other, for the Member States to submit global fire protection programmes. The latter must not be general, that is not particularly detailed, programmes; they must be specific and as clear as possible.
We are absolutely convinced of the importance of creating a fire monitoring and information system for the Community as a whole and support the request of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection that the management committee originally provided for should be replaced with consultative committees which, if nothing else, would help limit the influence of the Council and strengthen the role of the European Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Application of customs and agricultural law
The next item is the report by Mrs Theato (A4-0303/96) on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the change of the legal basis of the proposal for a Council Regulation on mutual assistance between the administrative authorities of the Member States and cooperation between the latter and the Commission to ensure the correct application of the law on customs and agricultural matters (COM(93)0350 and COM(94)34-4324/95 - C4-0212/95-00/0450(COD)).
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. The proposal for a regulation on mutual assistance between the administrative authorities in customs and agricultural matters has already trod a long and weary path.
Unfortunately there is not yet any sign of a speedy solution.
The conflict with the Council on the legal base to be applied has not been resolved.
May I briefly remind you of the background.
In December 1993 the European Parliament, under the co-decision procedure in Article 189b of the EEC Treaty, adopted a legislative opinion on the proposal for a regulation on mutual assistance between the administrative authorities and the creation of a customs information system, CIS for short.
Thereupon the Commission presented an amended proposal which incorporated most of Parliament amendments.
In December 1994 the Council adopted not a common position but a political stance in which it invalidated the legal base of Article 100a proposed by the Commission and replaced it with Article 235 together with Article 43.
That is how co-decision was turned into a simple consultation of Parliament, and it was done by a unilateral decision of the Council, with an abstention from one Member State.
This unilateral behaviour is unacceptable to us.
Parliament now has formally to adopt an opinion on two questions. Firstly: is Article 235 justified as a legal base?
Secondly: is the legal base significant only in procedural terms or also in substantive terms? On question 1, the Council argues that the customs information system contained in the proposal for a regulation constitutes an integral community entity which does not relate to the harmonisation of individual national legislation for the internal market provided for by Article 100a.
Why, I would like to know, did neither Commission nor Council think of separating the CIS from the rest of the proposal in order to deal with it directly under Article 235? There were informal talks here with the rapporteur.
The real regulation on the introduction and development of mutual assistance, as I explained before to the House and therefore do not need to repeat today, creates a regulatory environment allowing mutual assistance to be activated and to operate in relations between the Member States and with the Commission.
This is clearly confirmed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Civil Liberties in its excellent opinion.
I am very grateful to Mrs Palacio, who drafted the opinion, for stressing that in her accompanying opinion.
As both national and community norms are mainly involved, this is undoubted harmonisation and therefore subject to Article 100a.
A ruling from the European Court of Justice stipulates that a decision cannot be based on several legal bases which prescribe different procedures: Article 235 - consultation and unanimity in the Council, Article 43 - consultation of Parliament and qualified majority in the Council, Article 100a co-decision of Parliament and qualified majority in the Council.
Furthermore the ruling states that the procedure which can strengthen Parliament's participation in legislation takes precedence.
That brings us back again to Article 100a.
Incidentally it is not only the legal service of the Commission but also that of the Council that confirms the correctness of Article 100a.
On question 2, the substantive significance of the legal base.
The Council accepts five amendments from Parliament, either verbatim or in essence, in its political stance.
But other basic amendments made by the Commission in its modified proposal were ignored by the Council.
Instead the Council said that information may only be passed on between administrative authorities once individual authorization has been granted by the judicial authorities.
That can mean delay or even obstruction.
In addition essential data in the CIS is omitted.
This is of particular importance for transit traffic which we are dealing with in the sub-committee; the results of this should be available soon.
The Council plans to exclude mutual assistance not only in restrictions of public order but also in other basic interests of the Member States.
That is, excuse me, an elastic clause.
The Council has also made many amendments to the Commission's text.
It questions the equal value of findings by an authority in another Member State.
In Article 43 the advisory committee is replaced by a type 3B regulatory committee.
What inconsistency the Council is guilty of!
On the one hand there should be an integral community entity under Article 235, on the other hand it should be subjected to cumbersome national procedures.
Four countries, namely Denmark, Ireland, the United Kingdom and Sweden want to opt out from the regulation on non-automatic data processing.
In other words, à la carte.
I conclude that on the matter of substance the proposal for a regulation also calls for co-decision, especially after the textual amendments made by the Council.
I specifically ask the Commission - and I know, Commissioner Bonino, that you will take a view now - to clarify the statement that you, i.e. the Commission, added to the Council minutes in which the Commission expressed its regret at the modification to the legal base and reserved the right to avail of suitable legal means, and I ask which means.
Thank you for your attention and I urge the House to approve the motion for a resolution.
Mr President, I am very pleased that at least the Council is present.
Behind the legal cloak of an issue concerning Articles 235 and 100a, the real issue is of high political significance.
It is the clear indication of a lack of political will by the Council of Ministers to have the heart of a Community structure function properly.
We are just about to adopt a report from the committee of inquiry into the Community transit system.
That committee of inquiry came to the conclusion that what is at the heart of our common internal tariff is fraud-prone and error-prone.
There is a lack of statistics and a lack of clarity in the application of the common customs tariff.
This Community structure is a scandal.
What is the Council's reply to this? The Council's reply is to invoke spurious legal arguments to maintain the semblance of national sovereignty rather than having a strong internal market structured to apply the system.
Because that is basically what we want: we want to have good cooperation between the Member States so that the common customs tariff functions.
What is the Council's reply? Mrs Theato made it abundantly clear: it is to undermine the effectiveness of the system by changing proposals from the Commission to make them less efficient and more bureaucratic and thereby to contribute to the undoing of the internal market.
I hold the Council responsible for a lack of political will to have the system function properly.
That is what is behind this whole issue.
Mrs Theato very clearly indicated that, of course, there is also the question of the institutional balance between Parliament and the Council.
How can one seriously say that the need is to have more democracy and more transparency when at exactly the same moment the Council wants to undermine the codecision power of Parliament. The titanium dioxide case makes it abundantly clear that Parliament has its rights.
That is the political heart of the matter.
My sole question to the Commission is: will it stand firm, possibly even going to court to make the Council accountable for a failure of the internal market system as it now stands to function?
Mr President, I am sorry that my colleague Mr Tomlinson cannot be here, but as you all know, the constituent meetings of the various committees are taking place, and it is difficult to be in several places at once.
Looking at the Chamber, one can clearly see that this report is not a great best-seller, even though it deals with a most important sector and is perhaps one of the best reports ever produced by Mrs Theato.
But let me make one thing clear: we must sort out the fraudsters in the EU!
There are many reasons why public opinion in Europe is not always favourable towards the Union.
One of them is the stories about how easy it is to commit fraud with the Union's money.
To put it another way, one justification for European cooperation can be a continuing fight against fraud.
Another reason for the limited public backing for the EU is of course the ideas about closed doors and the self-perpetuating talk from men in suits.
To put it another way, a further justification for European cooperation is increased democracy and openness in the Union's decision-making process.
It should be obvious that this situation has to be taken into account and respected, for example when establishing the legal basis in a specific matter.
But let me make a second thing clear.
They have once more been day-dreaming in the Council!
We should use Article 235 as little as possible.
Firstly, because an objective approach in a specific matter should involve the use of Article 100a, not Article 235.
Secondly, because we wish to have democracy, and openness in the decision-making process.
Thirdly, because the people see Article 235 as a downward path on which the EU, by taking legislative action in new areas, is moving further and further away from openness and from the principle of being closer to its citizens.
It may be that this is not bound up quite in this way with Article 235, but once again the fact is that the people see this and we have to take account of it.
I can therefore only support and commend to the House this valuable piece of work by the rapporteur.
Another factor is that we have a good committee which is agreed on these matters, and I really do hope that the Council listens and perhaps begins to show more interest in what is happening in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I would expect us not just to have special occasions when the Council goes there once in a while by mistake and sees what is happening in the committee.
The Dutch presidency should listen and take note.
Then it may start to appreciate what is involved here, and perhaps we can do some work for the European project among the individual members of the Community.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission, like Parliament, has divided feelings about the situation created by the change in legal basis envisaged by the Council.
Firstly, it is undeniable that the fight against fraud demands that this proposal for a regulation be quickly brought into force.
The strengthened machinery for customs cooperation for which it provides, together with, at least, the legal possibility of creating a database for the customs information system respond to an urgent necessity.
Secondly, the change of legal basis, involving consultation with Parliament instead of codecision and unanimous adoption by Member States instead of qualified majority voting, poses a serious institutional problem for the Commission. As you know, when the common guidelines were adopted, the Commission insisted that a statement regretting this development be recorded in the Council minutes.
I quote: ' the Commission reserves the right to make use of any legal means open to it' .
Of course, the Council acting unanimously really does have the right to modify proposals from the Commission.
That is not being called into question.
However, the Commission shares Parliament's opinion that this amendment in particular has no legal basis and also that, by removing the proposal from the field of application of the codecision procedure, the Council is infringing the powers of Parliament.
Consequently, the Commission awaits with great interest the reaction of the Council to the opinion that Parliament will deliver on the matter.
Depending on the decision that will then be taken by the Council, the Commission will take a decision in regard to compliance with Community law.
In more concrete terms, the Commission reserves to itself the possibility of bringing the question of the legal basis before the Court of Justice.
There in a few words, that I hope are precise and clear, is the Commission's position on the dossier under examination by Parliament.
The Commission also wishes to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Theato, and eagerly awaits your decision.
Thank you Mr President, for calling me again.
I would like to thank Commissioner Bonino very sincerely for her very clear statement.
I think that the Council benches have also given the relevant signal to the House to resolve this conflict.
That is in everyone's interest, and I ask you not to think we are working here in private.
This is a public debate.
Even if, for various reasons, there are very few Members in the House just now, that does not mean that we are debating in camera.
I think Mr Blak made that point very clearly, and I would thank him for doing so.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 6.25 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, we have had a few problems with voting in the House this week.
In the Minutes under paragraph 39 on the revision of the treaties I am listed as voting for that particular paragraph.
I do not know if it was a malfunction of my fingers or a malfunction of the machine but I intended to vote against it.
Don't worry, Mr Hallam, we will put the mistake down to the machine and the Minutes will show that you voted correctly.
Mr President, in yesterday's minutes I am omitted from the list of those present.
In fact, I may have forgotten to sign the attendance register but I was certainly there, as my participation in the various roll-call votes will testify.
I would therefore be grateful for any instructions you can give to have the minutes corrected about this.
Mr Hory, the Minutes will be corrected but your word counts for more than any proof.
Your word is all we need to correct the Minutes.
Mr President, I am in the same situation as Mr Hory.
I do not know whether my word carries as much weight as his does but, like him, I took part in several roll-call votes that testify to my presence here but forgot to sign.
Mr Bourlanges, I do not know if your very wide knowledge includes the Spanish saying 'Tanto monta, monta tanto, Isabel como Fernando' , but it means your word counts just the same as Mr Hory's.
Mr President, I rise on a point which I would like you to convey to the President of Parliament.
By invitations sent out yesterday, we have just been invited to celebrate his presidency at a musical evening on Sunday evening when most Members will not be in Brussels.
We would all have liked to have been there and as President of the Friends of Music in Parliament I would like to have had earlier notice.
Perhaps you could convey the regret and apologies of Members who will not be present.
Mr Kerr, you can be quite sure that I shall convey that message to the President and I associate myself with them, because unfortunately I cannot be at the evening either.
Mr President, on the same point.
We have this invitation which is headed Exclusive Recital.
Of course it is going to be exclusive as an invitation to Members if it is held on a day when Members are not in the place of work.
However, my question is slightly more fundamental than Mr Kerr's.
The invitation which invites us to celebrate the inauguration of the new President of the European Parliament comes in the name of Mr Luigi Mormino, chairman of the artistic committee of the European Parliament.
I know that Mr Mormino has all sorts of qualities but I had never directly associated him with great artistic talent.
I wanted to know whether this great responsibility as chairman of the artistic committee is one that is distributed by some sort of administrative d'Hondt system amongst the officers.
This week we have had to decide how we distribute talent amongst the Members.
Perhaps some time we could be told how Mr Mormino achieves his great rank and honour and how he is then given the authority to have the concert to honour the President at a time when Members cannot come and to do so in association with a private company.
That is something the President might want to look at.
I did not want to interrupt Mr Kerr or Mr Tomlinson out of parliamentary courtesy, but I would remind them that we are still on approval of the Minutes.
So we ought to deal with these issues later.
I have taken note of what Mr Kerr and Mr Tomlinson said though, and I shall open the appropriate investigation into the musical qualities of the person who has been given the responsibility mentioned.
But now, ladies and gentlemen, if there are no more comments on the Minutes, I take it they are approved.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Votes
The importance of extending the regulations on atmospheric contamination and on protecting forests from fire is beyond a doubt, as I already had occasion to point out in the debate a few years ago.
Today I am only interested in underlining that one of the great difficulties about establishing the concept of sustainable development in the rural development zones in the south of the Union arises from the serious consequences of forest fires, the summer plague in that part of the Union.
So the amendments seeking to upgrade the funding for these measures by ECU 70-100 million are essential to proper conservation and regeneration of the forest heritage of the Union.
I will therefore vote in favour.
I end, Mr President, by calling, once again, for the establishment of a common forestry policy for the whole Union.
That would also respond to the Fifth Action Programme on the Environment and the Rio Declaration.
Cornelissen report (A4-0381/96)
I wish to pay tribute to Mr Cornelissen, the author of the report on 'air traffic management' , and to the high quality of his work, whose contents are very satisfactory.
For this reason, I am naturally voting in favour.
May I highlight two important elements in the report.
The first is that of the cost efficiency of air traffic control.
Although this can legitimately be optimized, such a step must not entail abandoning consideration of the constraints associated with the maintenance of a public air traffic control service, so that the quality of the service provided can be guaranteed over the whole territory covered.
The second element I wish to emphasize is the promotion of greater safety.
In any actions that are taken, priority must be given to harmonizing the working methods of air traffic controllers and I am thinking here particularly of the terminology used.
These two points are covered in amendments broadly approved by members of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
They are a useful and welcome addition to this very good report.
Increased security and better operating systems are required to keep pace with the estimated doubling of air traffic by the year 2000.
But it should not be taken for granted that it is the EU which should negotiate and regulate these issues.
It is the Member States which should do this as part of an international interstate process, with as many countries as possible participating.
A coordinated European 'air traffic authority' should of course cover all European countries and must consequently be regulated at a broader level than the EU.
I have voted for this report today because I share the concern that not enough is being done to end the frustration and waste of airport delays.
The frustration caused to the travelling public by such delays is not acceptable.
People with business appointments should be able to rely on Europe's air traffic control system to get them to their destination on time.
The same is true for the countless holidaymakers who lose some of their well-deserved break through delayed flights.
With Manchester Airport close to my constituency, I also know that the airport, its airlines and staff would benefit from the huge savings in time and money which a better traffic control system would bring.
Whilst I welcome yesterday's decision in favour of a second runway for Manchester Airport, without better air traffic control in future chaos could result for travellers.
Along with the industry and the millions of air passengers concerned, I will be looking to our governments and the Commission to improve Europe's air traffic systems.
After all, freedom of movement around Europe is central to our economic future.
Castricum report (A4-0419/96)
This is for the most part a good report, so we will follow the line taken by the Socialist group and vote in favour of it.
But we do have serious reservations on two points.
These are Article 13, which states that the best thing for public transport is for it to be put out to private enterprise, and Article 24 which states that running public transport should 'as far as possible be financed with income from tickets' .
Article 13 discriminates directly against public companies.
There is absolutely no evidence in our country, Sweden, that public transport is any less efficient than private.
As for Article 24, this is a generalisation which is not always true.
Sometimes (or even often) it is necessary, for social economic reasons, to subsidise heavily the operating costs of public transport.
Sometimes there is even a need for zero charges.
In Sweden, public transport would disappear totally from practically all remote areas if operating costs had to be met from the income from ticket sales.
This would be a totally unacceptable development.
Public transport is extremely important to many people because it allows them to live a normal life.
From an environmental point of view it is also an important part of a sustainable society.
Of course, public transport must be run as cost effectively as possible but, in view of its decisive role and society's overriding responsibility to provide for people's needs, cost effectiveness cannot be the only driving force for the operation of public transport.
If public transport is to function efficiently, responsibility must rest at local, regional or national level and the same authorities must be responsible for the allocation of financial support.
This is why we are voting against this report.
This initiative report contains many points which we support without any reservation and which we will work hard to give a higher profile in the Member States. These include the fact that policy must work towards a reduction in the use of cars and an improvement in public transport and that public transport is environmentally friendly.
This is why we also think that public transport must be supported and encouraged in a variety of ways.
On the other hand, we cannot understand why the European Parliament wants the issue of public services to be taken up by the Inter Governmental Conference.
Nor do we think that the Union should interfere in how Member States chose to support public transport.
This must be for each individual Member State to decide bearing in mind the different conditions which prevail.
The Member States are all different, particularly with regard to population density.
This is the case in Sweden where public transport requires a large input of public funds in view of the low population density in many regions, particularly in the Northern parts of the country.
This is why it is undesirable for the EU to lay down rigid guidelines and criteria concerning how state subsidies are given to public transport.
Public Transport is a national and regional matter.
There is no reason to regulate public transport in the EU Treaty.
Differing subsidies and means of finance are also national or regional issues.
Freedom of competition is also something which should be examined at national level not by EU edict.
Menrad report (A4-0411/96)
European business has suffered from the failure to reach agreement on the European Company Statute and related measures.
Having to take account of company law in 15 different Member States involves extra costs and consequently affects jobs.
I applaud the Commission's attempts to get these measures passed.
If they are adopted, however, they must be accompanied by corresponding rules on the participation rights of workers.
If not, current information and participation legislation in some Member States would be bypassed by some companies.
Giving workers a real stake in their companies can only be a positive development both for them and for their firms.
The national consensus that has existed in Ireland for the last 10 years on wages and conditions has been a contributing factor to the current healthy state of the Irish economy and as such is endorsed by the Employers' Federation, IBEC.
I do acknowledge that extending information and participation procedures to more companies would entail some costs.
For this reason, I endorse the Commission's cautious approach, particularly the establishment of a highlevel group, representing the social partners, to study this topic in detail as well as the emphasis on respecting national models.
EU Transcaucasian strategy
The next item is the report (A4-0279/96) by Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission entitled 'Towards a European Union strategy for relations with the Transcaucasian Republics' (COM(95)0205 - C4-0242/96).
Mr President, Ladies and gentlemen, Transcaucasia, embracing three states between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea - Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan - is one of the most complex and tragic regions of the world, and one to whose future the European Union cannot remain indifferent.
How, in the first place, can we forget that all the great invasions have crossed Transcaucasia? Nearer to our own time and right up to the present day, three great states which were once three great empires bordering Transcaucasia - Russia, Iran, Turkey - have confronted each other and still do so, their ambitions being a permanent fact of history.
Diversity is the characteristic of everything in this region.
Diversity of ethnic groups - nearly a hundred of them.
Diversity of languages, just as numerous.
Diversity of religions since, apart from the three great monotheistic religions - Christianity, Islam and Judaism - many heterodox forms of them are represented here and make human relations, relations between individuals and authority, and relations with neighbouring states even more complicated.
Thus, the Azerbaijanis are mostly Shiites and hence close to Iran, but their language is Turkish in origin, bringing them closer to Ankara, and they have a powerful feeling of solidarity with their brothers in Iranian Azerbaijan.
We can also cite the relationships between the Ossetian Christians of Georgia, the Ossetian Moslems of Russia, the Kurds of Azerbaijan or Armenia and the Kurds of Turkey or Iraq, and so on.
In these cases, frontiers mean nothing and yet the three states in the region have an identity and an unshakeable will for independent existence.
Conflicts within these states have led to tragedies that still continue.
Peace has returned to Georgia after a threeyear civil war, but Abkhasia still refuses to accept the authority of Tbilisi.
In Azerbaijan, weapons fell silent in 1994 but that cannot conceal the sheer scale of the problem.
Nagorno-Karabakh, populated by Armenians, dreams of an independent future, and while waiting for this its guerillas occupy a considerable proportion of the Azerbaijani territory they conquered.
More than a million Azeri refugees, nearly 400, 000 Armenian refugees, thousands of dead: this is the price of the conflict between Azerbaijan and the Armenians who live on its territory.
To this we must add the opposition between Armenia, showing solidarity with its brothers in Karabakh, and Azerbaijan.
The blockade suffered by Armenia, all the more disastrous because it has no seacoast, is the result of that.
These conflicts are often the product of the policy of the newly-born Soviet empire which, in 1922, created these problems to prevent the existence of a Transcaucasian federation opposed to the Bolshevik takeover of the young independent states in the region.
Although Soviet power concealed them, the end of the USSR brought them to the surface and led on to the bloody confrontations which have developed over the last five years.
The truth is that two fundamental principles of international law are now in opposition here: the will towards emancipation of peoples like the Armenians of Karabakh or the Aprases and Ossetians of Georgia, and respect for the territorial integrity of states like Georgia or Azerbaijan.
In such a complex region, where peoples are inextricably entangled over restricted territories, how is it possible to choose between these demands of the law? It is of course easy to say that the refugees should return home.
It is easy to say that the occupied territories must be returned to Azerbaijan.
It is easy to say that the blockade paralysing Armenia should be lifted.
Nevertheless, the contradiction between the rights of minorities and the right of states to preserve their integrity will not easily be resolved.
It is here that the role of the European Union can be decisive, because Transcaucasia is on Europe's doorstep; because Europe, Iran, Turkey and beyond that the Middle East, meet there; because in the rich subsoil of Azerbaijan, and beyond that in Kazakhstan, lie oil resources needed by Europe.
Europe is involved in the region.
The Black Sea, where the three Transcaucasian states like to think of themselves as privileged players, links this region with Europe and clearly demonstrates how our interests interlock.
The European Union has decided to commit itself in Transcaucasia.
It can help in restoring peace and consolidating democratic hopes in the region, but it can do so only if it takes into account the extreme complexity of the region, and makes this a central element of its strategy.
To achieve that, it must address itself to each country individually and help it to strengthen its threatened independence as the natural context for democratic progress.
At the same time, it must help in developing the common regional framework, in other words, developing Transcaucasia.
It is within the context of a community, for which the Union can serve as a model, that the centrifugal tendencies of the peoples and the bloody ethnic confrontations will gradually fade away.
It is the development of this feeling of belonging to a regional community which will protect the Transcaucasian states from covetous neighbouring states.
This will be the most favourable framework for the economic advancement of all the peoples in the region and to the firm establishment of democracy.
The stake for the European Union is clear.
Its responsibilities are immense.
It is up to the Union to help peoples of very old civilizations, badly served by a constricting geography and a tragic history, to recover their position as developed democratic nations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations, Mr Dimitrakopoulos, cannot present his opinion himself today, because he unexpectedly had an important engagement outside Strasbourg.
On his behalf, I would therefore like to thank Mrs Carrère d'Encausse for her excellent and in-depth report and also note that she has incorporated all the Committee on External Economic Relations' proposals in her report, which of course gives us great pleasure.
The Committee on External Economic Relations also welcomes the call for closer regional cooperation between Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, the leitmotif of the entire report.
Without this cooperation these three countries have little hope of improving their economy and standard of living.
The bilateral partnership agreements between the EU and these three Transcaucasian republics are based on this need.
We are concerned with no more nor less than a global political approach that combines economic, political and financial aspects and also includes humanitarian aid.
The economic resources of these countries can only be developed if the energy and transport infrastructures are modernised on a cross-frontier basis and substantially improved.
Closer cooperation is needed between Azerbaijan, Georgia and also Armenia in extracting the oil resources of the Caspian Sea - greater than those of Saudi Arabia - for export to Europe and the rest of the world but also for processing in situ .
Regional cooperation can also help ease the political tensions in the region.
Access to the Transeuropean networks and other international trade flows is the only way to open the door to close cooperation with Europe.
Politically, the aim is the stabilisation of three former Soviet republics that have achieved independence, which implies very radical economical and social changes.
As a peaceful partner, Europe can achieve a great deal in cooperation with Turkey and Russia.
So we should aim at the necessary coordination of bilateral relations too, in order to ensure that our desire for cooperation is taken seriously by our Transcaucasian partners; joint and even further-reaching proposals in the framework of bilateral relations, i.e. with Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia, could also act as incentives during the future negotiations.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations, let me also indicate some of the potential prospects for Azerbaijan, which will perhaps make it easier to understand the problems in Transcaucasia.
Azerbaijan is potentially a rich country.
As said earlier, its oil reserves in the Caspian Sea are larger than those in Saudi Arabia.
Its industry, agriculture and services sector also have good development prospects.
But at present it is a poor country, much in need of economic development.
It is suffering severely from the lost war with Armenia.
It is situated on the door-step of the eastward enlargement of the European Union and in a few years will probably only be separated from it by the Black Sea and the Caucasus.
European investors are most welcome there and are particularly sought after in the oil industry, capital equipment for that industry, transport and the emerging construction industry.
Azerbaijan is already providing the necessary framework conditions for investment.
The basic conditions for overcoming the economic crisis are the planning and development of transport routes via Georgia for the oil and derived products.
All the possible routes and networks should be examined in terms of their profitability and environmental compatibility, which must be borne in mind in our future deliberations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have five points to make briefly.
Firstly I must pay tribute to Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, the rapporteur.
Not only is her report technically excellent, in reading it one feels the whole weight of her personality behind the points she upholds in the report.
I compliment her on it.
Secondly, she rightly says that this is a region which has seen much tragedy.
Well, when one studies the problems of these three fledgling republics it becomes clear that their geopolitical and geostrategic importance cannot be overstated and that Europe's duty towards these countries is thus primarily a political one.
They were independent in 1917, then absorbed into the Soviet Union, and now they are independent again.
We can do a lot to help here, to ensure that the independence of these countries is established once and for all, that democracy, a very new concept there, is developed, that constitutional rule becomes the norm, that human rights are upheld and a civil society becomes possible.
Thirdly, I would like to say a word or two on each of the three republics, each of which faces serious problems.
First of all Georgia: we must do what we can to see that the peace is maintained, that a lasting solution to the tensions there is found.
Regarding Armenia and the conflict we are familiar with, Karabakh.
We must do what we can to ensure that the talks held there with the 'Minsk Group' lead to success.
On 16 December the Security Council said that the two presidents of the Minsk Group should continue their efforts, continue negotiating and reach agreement.
So let us be positive rather than negative today about those talks and do what we can to make them succeed.
Then there is Azerbaijan: we must do what we can to secure a generally recognized legal status for the Caspian Sea, otherwise the question of oil there will be a dangerous source of tensions in future.
Fourthly, I would make the point that our task there may be a big one, a very big one.
Mr Schwaiger has already touched on the economic aspects.
Let me remind you: transport will be hugely important in opening up these areas.
The European road network will need to link up with whatever happens there.
It is perfectly feasible for them to become a part of the European economy.
Their oil and pipelines are extremely important and we must hope that this question will be resolved in a manner which makes economic sense.
And a modern banking system with central banks which work properly will greatly improve economic relations.
And my fifth point, Mr President, is that this House should approve Mrs Carrère's proposals by a large majority.
They are most laudable and in this way we can help to open up the route which links Asia, the Middle East and Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I asked to speak not so that I could comment on the report by Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, but to congratulate her on her excellent work.
The Transcaucasian area is one with many problems: political, economic, social, environmental, and most of all, problems of stability, peace and democracy.
The report by Mrs Carrère d'Encausse touches upon all these problems with sensitivity, I would even say with political tenderness, but also with realism.
It provides answers and proposes solutions that the European Union as a whole - first of all the European Parliament and then the Commission and the Council - should adopt, and in particular implement, taking advantage among other things of the fact that one of its Member States, Greece, plays a substantial and very useful part in the area.
Together with Russia and Turkey, the European Union must strive in many ways to aid the three countries in the area.
Those countries themselves, however, must cooperate with the European Union and offer solutions of their own, especially at the level of their internal democracy and human rights.
But under no circumstances must the European Union remain inactive.
Even acting on its own, it must do all the fine things recommended in the report and which everyone who spoke in the House today mentioned, even if Russia and Turkey decline to cooperate with us in providing substantial aid to the three countries in the area.
To conclude, I would once more like to congratulate our colleague Mrs Carrère d'Encausse on her excellent work, which I believe comes as no surprise to any of us here, because she is a Member with vast experience and knowledge of the area.
I would also like to hope, with all of you, that all the fine words and good wishes heard here today will not remain just words and wishes, but will become deeds with a substantive outcome for the essential aid that the peoples of the three Transcaucasian countries so desperately need.
Mr President, once again we are fortunate in being able to benefit from the expertise of Hélène Carrère d'Encausse.
Both in the Foreign Affairs Committee and in the House we have been able on many an occasion to admire her knowledge of affairs in the former Soviet Union.
Transcaucasia is a powder keg which merits, and is receiving, Europe's attention.
We welcome the European Commission's initiative of a communication outlining options for a common European policy and the report we are now debating is a worthy response to it by Parliament.
I hope that the Commission will henceforth always produce a communication on future relations with a region before new agreements are negotiated.
The mandate for negotiations to conclude agreements with third countries can then be shaped in accordance with the needs of the countries concerned and the consensus which the institutions have reached on the course to be followed vis à vis those third countries.
This will increase the likelihood of a coherent policy.
The collapse of the Soviet Union heralded the start of a difficult period for the Transcaucasian region.
Simmering tensions came to the surface and the problems in Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia, Ossetia, the blockade of Armenia by its neighbours are illustrations of this.
The role of neighbouring countries which relapse into a centuries-old reflex of power politics is naturally not conductive to stability.
Stability in the CIS is very much in the Union's interest.
And priority should be given here to the southern flank bordering on the Middle East.
The Union's policy must be more than just aid under TACIS.
Member States must appreciate that longer-term stability is more productive than short-term trade or oil supplies.
The European Union must thus devise a global and coherent strategy embracing trade and economy, foreign policy and aid.
This strategy must be based on recognition of the diversity which exists within the region.
In its foreign policy the Union must act in concert with specialized agencies such as the Council of Europe and OSCE to secure a lasting peace in the area.
And I congratulate the OSCE on its efforts over Nagorno-Karabakh and I hope too that the territorial integrity of Georgia can be restored.
The effectiveness of collective European action would also be further enhanced by the setting up of joint embassies of the Union countries.
In economic terms we must help to strengthen the economic infrastructure and promote economic cooperation amongst these countries.
This of course means that the blockade of Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan must be lifted.
Partnership agreements will be viewed favourably by the European Parliament.
This favourable attitude on the part of the European Parliament will, of course, depend on the countries concerned showing respect for democracy, civil society and human rights.
Difficult though things may be at present in these countries, gross violations of these principles will never advance the cause of peace and stability.
The rapporteur puts forward some good and fruitful ideas on aid and cooperation.
All in all the Liberal Group concludes that it is a good idea to take a collective approach to our relations with Transcaucasia and that the rapporteur's ideas emphatically deserve the support of the House.
Mr President, firstly let me note that in her detailed report the rapporteur has set out the European Union's proposals for a strategy of cooperation for this region.
So the report scarcely differs from the Commission document.
Transcaucasia is important in several respects, we know that.
The Caucasus is a geopolitical turntable and at the same time it is still marked by its variety of ethnic groups and the chequered history and traditions that have resulted from the many conflicts in the region, which in principle could be resolved in modern times.
The region also has enormous raw materials resources, such as the oil reservoir of the Caspian Sea.
A way must be found of bringing peace to the region not through competition with Russia but jointly, by a strategy formulated within the framework of the OSCE.
But among the many own interests at play, I do not see the European Union taking responsibility for the region.
Primarily, Europe is expressing economic interests, which disregard the problems involved in securing a lasting peace and democratization combined with respect for human rights.
In Armenia as in Azerbaijan, democracy is not yet solidly entrenched.
Both states indeed wish to be linked to Europe in the near future and are making formal moves in this direction, but there is a wide gulf between wishes and reality.
There is no real freedom of the press in either country and political opposition is either stifled or banned.
Moreover, political life in Azerbaijan is still marked by clan structures.
The prime example is that the key government and economic posts are occupied by President Aliev's confidants.
Both in Armenia and in Azerbaijan kinship comes first.
Nationalist tendencies are evident in all sections of the population and there are no measures to oppose the traditional hostilities.
Georgia is attempting to build up a democratic structure through its new constitution, but there is one feature that is unmistakeably missing: there is no provision for the status of the two regions of conflict, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The consequences of the civil war have by no means been overcome through legislation.
So ratification of the partnership and cooperation agreements (PCAs) should be made conditional on a number of criteria, such as respect for human rights and the principles of democracy and also the willingness to endorse the Council of Europe convention.
The PCAs also include a Chapter 71 on illegal immigration.
I believe the provisions give a distorted view of the real situation in these countries.
Warlike conditions still prevail in these countries, which are declared safe third countries by this automatic signature.
The war between Azerbaijan and Armenia continues.
What we have is merely a ceasefire.
Without doubt, at this stage, when torture is still an everyday occurrence, there will continue to be refugees and this third-state clause is therefore a disaster.
The issue of the civil rights of the millions of refugees has still not been settled and there is no way one could say that the standards demanded by the thirdcountry clause, as defined in the agreements, have been met.
The peace talks are making no headway, as we saw at the most recent OSCE summit.
The success of the longterm OSCE mission depends on the support it obtains from the international community and the reputation of the mediators may be high in the field but also depends on that support.
There is no evidence of support in the field from the European Union.
There is no coherent strategy based on a common foreign and security policy.
That is why we should tie ratification of the partnership and cooperation agreements to a peace settlement.
The problem of the blockade would then resolve itself automatically, for that blockade depends directly on this state of war and could be lifted if a peaceful settlement were achieved.
But the attempt by the conflicting parties to maintain the status quo means that millions of refugees have to continue living in camps for years on end.
Whole generations are growing up in camps and I believe that even at this stage of the negotiations it would be possible to provide aid, to obtain improvements, to build a bridge between ECHO and a TACIS programme.
The first part of our amendment is very confused because of technical hitches.
We have distributed an edited version and I ask you to put it to the vote.
The wording is based mainly on the statement by the chairman-in-office of the OSCE summit in Lisbon.
Thank you very much, Mrs Schroedter.
When the time comes - that will be at the vote - we will look at the question of your amendment.
Mr President, Mrs Carrère d'Encausse's report is very rich in ideas, very passionate and, may I say, even masterly!
It is based on a detailed historical analysis with whose broad outline I agree.
Yes, Transcaucasia is a strategic region with close and long-standing links with European countries as reflected, for example, by the presence of a very large Armenian population in some of them, particularly in France.
The Transcaucasian countries have a rich history and culture, and a strong national identity.
Europe must develop an active presence there.
The success of our activities, however, will depend on three conditions.
The first is respect for the nations we are addressing.
If Europe is to be a model for the Transcaucasian countries, it must definitely be that of a Europe of nations, not a federal Europe.
We must respect the fundamental choices they make; we must, for example, respect the choice of nuclear energy by Armenia as soon as the safety of the Medzamor power station is assured: members of the Transcaucasian Delegation who have been there and saw for themselves.
The second condition is that Europe takes its responsibilities towards these countries seriously: by recognizing Armenian genocide, which will allow the people of that country to be alive to its own history; by giving very strong support - because it is expected by the countries concerned - to the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Unquestionably, in this case the principle of the inviolability of frontiers must, because of the conditions under which Stalin drew them at the time, yield precedence to the right of nations to self-determination.
This involves guaranteeing the security of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and putting an end to the blockade imposed on Armenia by Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Here, as has already been emphasized, we must monitor the progress of human rights, particularly in Azerbaijan.
The third condition, Mr President, is that faux pas or blunders must be avoided.
We ought not to speak of Community embassies.
Delegations exist and their role must be precisely specified: they cannot take the place of the embassies of Member States.
In Tbilisi, the Community 'ambassador' calls himself just that.
He makes a fool of himself by travelling about in an armoured vehicle with a bodyguard, demanding precedence over representatives of Member States.
In doing this, he does no service to the good relations between Europe and Transcaucasia.
Let us discourage this sort of departure from reality.
Mr President, Ladies and gentlemen, this report is very interesting but its very title perhaps betrays the extreme nature of a deliberately global approach.
History shows that any artificial attempt to make Transcaucasia into a political and cultural unit is doomed to failure.
At the very least, Azerbaijan does not have the same cultural identity as Armenia or Georgia.
As a result, national policies simply cannot be replaced because they are much more varied in approach than a single European policy.
For example, we should not forget the special relationship between France and Armenia.
Another piece of globalization, another inappropriate mixture, is that of paragraph 12, which is needlessly offensive to both Russia and Turkey.
After all, it is Turkey and not Russia which is blockading Armenia, and this must be recognized.
Not only that, but paragraph 17 acknowledges the real state of affairs by rightly asking for the blockade to be lifted.
Having said that, and despite these reservations, it is an excellent thing that the European Union has good relations with three such diverse nations whose common interests with Europe are obvious.
That is why we are in favour of the report.
Mr President, ten years ago I worked in newspaper editing and no one then had ever heard of Nagorno-Karabakh, Ingushetia or Dagestan.
This week, all these years later, the French paper Le Figaro talks of Azerbaijan as the Kuwait of the Caucasus.
Times may change.
Why am I as a Dutch MEP interested in this region? Because I think that beneath the soil of the Caucasus lies a product which interests the whole world, and that is important for stability.
Mrs Carrère d'Encausse's report reads like a historical novel.
One thing becomes clear. The problems are many and varied and the solutions will be too.
Europe can play a major role here, firstly by drawing up a list of the region's economic requirements and above all by seeking, by means of an active presence, to underwrite politically the independence of these countries, the furtherance of democracy and the rights of minorities.
A very important part can be played here by the OSCE, for example.
There exists an arrangement called the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Area.
This provides a useful access route to the region, returning via the Danube and the Rhine and ultimately to the North Sea.
Greece is a signatory and Austria and Italy are observers.
It would be very important to have those countries involved in active participation in the region.
Mrs Carrère d'Encausse has done the groundwork.
The Commission and Council can now get to work.
I warmly endorse this report.
Mr President, I would first like to emphasize the high quality of the masterly report once more presented to us by Mrs Carrère d'Encausse.
Not only that, but I am completely convinced by the arguments developed in favour of close cooperation between the European Union and the three Transcaucasian Republics.
The oil resources in Azerbaijan obviously carry a lot of weight.
The question that arises is to know whether the need for Europe not to leave the field open to American companies already present in Baku should prevail over the risk it runs in teasing the Russian giant on its frontiers.
To this question my reply is 'yes' .
On the other hand, I do not think we have to take into account the desire of Transcaucasian peoples to become integrated into European structures.
The Transcaucasian Republics are no more European than Turkey, Morocco or South Korea.
The argument for a return to Europe, to one of the sources of its culture, is not acceptable unless we are prepared to envisage the incorporation into the European Union of the former Mesopotamia, of Iran, of Iraq and thus, why not, to make Baghdad the capital of a future greater Europe.
Mr President, I want to begin by warmly thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, for her detailed and excellent report on the strategy towards the Transcaucasian states.
But I specially want to thank her for the historical overview she has given and which, I believe, is most valuable. It shows clearly that many problems in many regions can only be understood and tackled if they are placed in their historical and also their religious context.
However, let me also point out that I see a hint of politics in this historical overview, especially in the description of the Russian puppet Shevardnadze, who I believe is always painted in too good a light.
Finally, I would like to use my brief speaking to underline the importance of the Transcaucasian region - especially in with regard to its links with its neighbours, in particular Turkey - in terms of our future energy supplies.
We must do our utmost, in the interests of the people of Transcaucasia but also in our own European interests, to seek stability in this region.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must say how sorry I am that implacably strict time limits prevented us hearing Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, the undisputed authority on the issues in this region.
I want to congratulate her on this very exhaustive and profound report.
She has done the Union a great service by highlighting the strategic importance of the region and emphasizing our interests in it.
The first of those interests is the need to help these countries; help them to evolve into independent democracies, tightening their bonds with Europe and putting an end to the conflicts they are involved in.
In spite of the time that has gone by since the Commission's communication on a possible European Union strategy in the region was drafted, sadly the situation in the Caucasus has not changed substantially.
There can be no lasting recovery unless the three countries concerned can find a way to coexist with their neighbours, and there will be no return on all the investment we have made in terms of humanitarian and food aid, technical assistance and loans, which amounts to over ECU 800 million since independence.
We hoped to take advantage of our position as leading donor in the region to support the international efforts to resolve the conflicts, especially in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Although the Council did not reach a common position on the lines of our proposal, it did adopt some conclusions which have allowed us to promote regional cooperation in the Caucasus, both through the collaboration and cooperation agreements and through our TACIS programme, especially in the areas of energy and transport.
Thanks to the latter, we still have the resources to pursue our economic cooperation with each republic in line with our policy objectives.
It also provides us with the framework for developing the European economic presence, thus bringing equilibrium to the security issues that dominate politics, especially in Armenia and Azerbaijan.
For all these reasons, I consider early ratification of the three agreements essential. The aim in drafting them was that they should be as similar as possible.
If we aspire to play an important role in the region, our relations with each of these countries requires special attention and, at the moment, the Commission is not only welcomed as an important donor, but is also respected - and this was recognized in some of the speeches here - for its impartiality.
It is essential that we continue to demonstrate that we understand the problems which all the parties must face up to.
And when the report speaks of the need to open the frontiers between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Armenia, we must remember that while Armenia's concern is the blockade, Azerbaijan's is to end the occupation of its territories, including those outside Nagorno-Karabakh, and the return with guarantees of over a million refugees.
The Commission will monitor the development of democracy in the region closely and bring pressure to bear to ensure that progress continues.
And the OSCE report on the presidential elections in Armenia reveals that democracy problems are not confined to Azerbaijan.
The most important thing is that the two countries understand that there must be improvements, and to achieve that we must provide support through our technical assistance programmes, and emphasize that the stronger our bilateral relations, the more opportunities we will have to make real progress.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry, but I have to draw your attention to the position of the Greens again.
We could not vote for the report in the form in which it has just been approved, with the amendments, because it represents a very one-sided strategy marked primarily by the desire of the various European states to get at the oil resources of the Caspian Sea fairly rapidly and not to let their rivals get there first.
Anyone who has been down there and seen these heavily polluted oil fields knows that we have a quite different responsibility towards this region, other than getting at the oil resources as soon as possible.
We have the responsibility to establish peace in the region.
I see no really effective strategy in that direction.
Rapid adoption of the partnership and cooperation agreements, not linked to a peaceful solution, and a blanket demand for the blockade to be lifted make it clear, firstly, that Europe has very little understanding of this region and secondly, that this will certainly not promote a settlement of the conflicts.
When the PCAs are adopted and enter into force it will mean that a large section of the population, indeed several millions of people, who do not even live there any more cannot benefit from the aid.
It means that NagornoKarabakh cannot benefit.
Or do you want to give aid to Nagorno-Karabakh via the Latchin corridor, which would go against international law? The PCAs cannot enter into force without a peaceful solution to this conflict.
Of course we must use all our funds and energies to help where help is needed.
But the European Union is not doing anything.
It is not doing anything to extend the ECHO mandate and build a bridge.
It is not doing anything about modifying TACIS and adopting social measures to tackle the problem and it is doing nothing when it comes to genuinely promoting a peaceful settlement.
We hear many splendid words, but there is no understanding of the real problems of the region.
We cannot endorse this kind of strategy, which may be well-meaning but totally overlooks the real facts.
Mr President, I wish to explain the reason why, in spite of what I said just now, I voted against the final version of the report before us, thus being the only Member to have done so.
I agree with the contents of the report except for one word, a word that for me is fundamental, when it says that we encourage the Commission and the Council to open Community embassies.
The Community cannot have an embassy in a country.
Doing this, and wanting to do it ignoring reality, is to do the European Union no favours.
At present, contrary to what speakers said just now, embassies of several countries do exist.
There are four or five of them for each of the three Transcaucasian countries.
Contrary to what was said, the ambassadors do coordinate their activities; there is even a presidency provided by the ambassadors, even though the presidency of the Union is not one of the countries represented by an embassy.
The Commission delegation, on the other hand, must be a delegation and not an embassy.
I saw at first hand in Georgia how dangerous it could be to call what should remain a delegation an 'embassy' .
That is why I voted against the report, but I must make it clear that I agree with its main points.
We have voted in favour of this report as we consider it important that EU Member States establish relations, trade and cooperation with the Transcaucasian States and give support.
As we are opposed to EU attempts to develop a Common Foreign Policy, we are against the report's emphasis on CFSP, particularly the ideas on establishing special EU ambassadors.
In my view, the EU should not establish their own embassies but establish relations with the outside world in other ways.
I am totally in agreement with the report's views on the importance of helping the Transcaucasian Republics.
But I do have reservations with regard to points 1 and 36 where there is mention of the Union's need to establish specific joint embassies.
I do not consider the EU to be a legal person which can establish embassies.
This should be the preserve of individual nations.
Protection of geographical indications and designations of origin
The next item is the report (A4-0412/96) by Mr Fantuzzi, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 2081/92 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs (COM(96)0266 - C4-0439/96-96/0159(CNS)).
Mr President, I do not know whether all honourable Members have read the explanatory statement to this report.
I think it expresses some concern and also a degree of bitterness about the way in which the application of Regulation No 2081/92 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs is being handled.
And it might be said that even now we are experiencing confrontation between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council on an issue which I consider to be highly sensitive and delicate.
The background is well-known: on the basis of the decision on feta cheese, which was registered as a typical product of European origin as of June 1996, the Commission put forward today's proposal: to set the transitional period during which a product which usurps, evokes or imitates the true origin of a registered product may be authorized - currently five years from the date of publication of the regulation and applicable to all products - at five years from the date of registration of each individual product, in other words, to all intents and purposes, as of now.
It could be said that this is a small, straightforward, technical amendment motivated solely by the objective delay which has occurred in implementing the regulation.
I think otherwise, and that is why I am expressing concern.
Let us be clear about this: Parliament's Committee on Agriculture also recognizes the delay; on several occasions we have indeed condemned it, going so far as to describe it as culpable.
I recall that on 26 October 1995 an oral question was put in this Chamber, and in the final resolution the Commission was asked to put an end to this delay, which was having serious effects for producers and consumers.
It seems to me that this issue has not been taken seriously and that improper use of the simplified procedure has been endorsed.
I have to say that not until 1996, midway through the year, did we have the first two packages of registered products.
So if the delay is the real, objective reason for these technical amendments, I think it behoves the Commission and the Council to accept the ideas contained in my report, namely to increase the five-year period provided for in Regulation No 2081/92 to seven years, to run from the date of publication of the regulation, and to allow for a further possibility of extension for certain products, in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 15, while complying with the spirit of Regulation No 2081/92 and the thinking behind it.
I fear, however, that rather than the delay being the real reason, this proposal, as it stands, is using it as an excuse, offering encouragement to those who oppose this regulation, and we know how many they have been and still are.
I do not think that turning the clock back to zero as regards the transitional period gives a good political signal, not least because one of the advantages of the new World Trade Organization is the existence of the TRIPS agreement on intellectual property, Article 22 of which indeed provides for the possibility of protecting agrifoodstuffs with a geographical designation of origin in world markets.
So, with these changes, what kind of credibility are we going to have with our partners outside Europe when we seek their compliance?
I think, moreover, that we are denying ourselves the opportunity of turning an established source of quality products to good account.
Although, after the mad cow crisis, we have all recognized that an automatic link which used to exist between consumer confidence and the quality of farming has been broken, some vestiges do, after all, remain.
And I think that this idea of typical products could objectively, and with good reason, win back consumer confidence.
I do not think that 'typical products' should be a label that is just bandied around: they are an expression of the huge funds of knowledge and professionalism of European farming as a whole.
I think it would amount to a big gift to the Americans if we turned our backs on this.
Lastly, I think the Commission should tell us when it will be completing the planned lists, implementing the new packages which will, I hope, finally bring to an end the simplified procedure provided for under Article 17 of Regulation No 2081/92.
In my view, this response is very important, because we must embark on a new phase of applying the regulations, launching the ordinary procedure which will put an end to this mode of operation which has been beset with so many problems and so much delay, and should soon be replaced.
Mr President, I speak to the proposal for a Council regulation amending a regulation.
There is always a case for exceptions as we have seen in the original regulation.
The simplified process allowed was an exception.
However, we should not allow the exception to become the rule, except in exceptional circumstances.
We are arguing here about two years.
The Commission wants the date 1996 plus five years.
Our rapporteur proposes the original date 1992 plus seven years.
We say 1999, they say 2001.
The protection of geographical indications is a good idea.
It can add value to produce from poorer rural areas.
It can ensure quality.
It can be used by smaller interests to counteract the power of international company interest.
But, if we slacken deadlines, if we loosen the agenda, if we are laborious, it will be thought we are either not serious or not efficient.
The Commission rightly wants to improve the situation. But Mr Fantuzzi's amended text is better and I ask you to support it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, agriculture is without doubt in the process of changing direction.
Liberalization through the WTO, more and more new and improved production methods, together with international competition, have brought major changes in recent years.
Obviously we should not lump everything together indiscriminately, yet I do think that somehow BSE fits into the picture.
We must take care that agriculture does not unintentionally move in a direction that is remote from the people.
The coming years will have to bring some reforms with them.
And we must pay special attention to consumer wishes.
It seems quite clear that the consumers largely want natural and healthy products and that natural production methods and small-scale farming will also benefit the rural areas.
One of the main aspects of this new trend is to make the origins and ingredients of agricultural products clearly identifiable.
This also involves designations of origin as provided for in Regulation 2081 which we are discussing here and the labelling of beef, which is finally to be introduced in the wake of the BSE disaster.
That is the only way finally to restore consumer confidence and the only way to ensure fair competition between producers and the free market.
Of course the traditions and cultural differences of the European regions must also be reflected.
I think I may say that every region in this European Union has its own quite specific features and, I am sure, its own advantages.
As a wise man once said, every situation has its own advantages.
The question is, how to use them.
We have an opportunity to ensure that our products enjoy a good reputation and are protected from unwanted imitation.
Of course the natural boundaries are fluid in this area too.
For decades now, many products that originally came from a very specific region are being produced in other regions as a matter of course.
That is why I would plead that we set the appropriate transitional periods to cushion the adverse effects on the producers concerned.
Looking in particular at my home country Austria, I really would ask for your consideration, since very many of our products are produced in problem areas.
Mr Fantuzzi's report responds to this concern and provides for the possibility of extending the transitional period.
I think that is the right direction.
Mr President, this proposal for a regulation is beginning to look like a kind of amnesty, a somewhat belated response to a problem of vital importance for the relationship of confidence between producers and consumers.
At this point, after so much time has been wasted, we can only hope that the bureaucracy will speed up and allow the procedures to be completed more quickly than the time it took to reach the appraisal stage.
Article 13 provides for a transitional period of a maximum of five years from the date of publication of the regulation to allow Member States to maintain national measures authorizing the expressions mentioned in paragraph 1(b), subject to certain conditions: first and foremost the products must have been lawfully placed on the market, with the designations concerned, at least five years before the date of publication of the regulation; secondly, the true origin of the products must be clearly shown on the labels.
I agree with the rapporteur's proposal that the transitional period should be extended to seven years and that products should be entitled to benefit from a further extension in the event of proven difficulties.
But, let me see, seven years would take us from 1992, when the regulation came into being, to 1999, not as the Commission is seeking to propose.
Five years - but from which date? From the date of publication of the regulation, in other words from this year - at least so we hope - taking us up to 2002 with the current difficult state of affairs.
This would mean that, in the meantime, the Danes would carry on producing the infamous Greek feta cheese - thus confusing the consumer - and the Germans would carry on making typical Italian 'grana ' cheese under a German brand.
Mr President, this is not a sign of freedom: it is common commercial plagiarism.
This is not what Europe is about!
Yesterday I read an interview with a sociologist who said he rejected the idea of European integration based on smoothing out identities, on the same beer from Hamburg to Palermo or wine that tastes the same from Greece to Brittany.
Well, I do not think that this is a problem of European unity; it is just an example of industrial confusion.
Protected geographical designations and indications could serve as a kind of certificate to preserve producer identities, without jeopardizing freedom of movement in a market which, of course, must continue to be on a European scale.
So approval for agricultural and industrial products is simply a political issue, just as is the case for citizens who are born and remain German, Portuguese or Italian but live as European citizens.
This must apply to the products of the land as well.
Mr President, Europe is truly a fantastic continent and the EU is also a fantastic area with its multilingual and multicultural character.
We could even call ourselves 'multi gastronomic' because we have very different food cultures in the various parts of the Union.
This also means that we often use different names for the same thing, which is only natural as we all use different languages.
On the other hand, sometimes we also call different things by the same name which is not really the right thing to do.
All this is a very difficult area and it is important that we try to sort it out.
It is also important to note that, as a result of European integration and economic integration we are all the time concentrating our activities in large central bodies.
It is not entirely clear whether the food consumer considers this to be a very good thing.
Perhaps it is just that the food consumer would like to keep the local character of their food, or perhaps he or she would like to think that they know how a certain food is produced? In this respect, labelling of both origin and geographic area is important as long as this is not misused.
I have some experience of the Swedish membership discussions and I know that this issue was discussed a great deal.
It is true that the names and terms that we use for products in Sweden are not always appropriate in an EU context but we would like to keep them anyway.
For this reason, I think it is important that we settle this matter to avoid misunderstandings in the future.
But there must be some flexibility to allow us to accept that a country may use a certain traditional name in their own country for the time being or until the matter has been resolved by some other means.
For this reason, I value the fact that a time limit has been set and I consider, deep down, the Commission's time limit to be preferable.
I would also like to think that there could be an extension to this time limit in case of difficulties with any one particular product.
I would prefer not to see any restrictions on this opportunity for extension.
Mr President, I think now that we can vote on this report and I hope that we can, after all, reach agreement.
I agree, for the most part, with Mr Fantuzzi as long as we appreciate that there are a number of problems particularly in the new Member States.
Mr President, high-quality regional farming areas and agricultural products require a powerful European protection system in the context of the single market.
Setting up systems for the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin is a move in that direction.
The Commission is still refusing to consider the request from some Member States for temporary national protection pending final Community recording of new designations.
To begin with, the Regulation allowed Member States to keep their national denominations for five years after publication of the Regulation, in this case until 1997.
The Commission has proposed that the starting date for the transitional period be changed by replacing the date of the Regulation by the date of publication of registration of the products in question.
You can immediately imagine the difficulty of monitoring that would involve.
Our colleague, Mr Fantuzzi, rightly considers that the Commission has failed in taking so long to deal with the registrations, thus penalizing producers and cultivators who, when the single market was introduced, legitimately expected their denominations to be exclusive throughout Community territory.
The rapporteur's proposal is simple: to extend the transitional period to seven years to be counted from the date on which the Regulation comes into force.
This is a good proposal, which has the merit of facilitating monitoring.
More generally, in the area of protection and movement within the Community of farmland products, much progress is still needed to create the Europe we all want.
I recently discussed the problem with producers in Alsace and found that agricultural producers, winegrowers and small-holders in our region still face legal, fiscal and administrative constraints in some Member States, constraints that are simply disguised forms of protectionism.
It would therefore seem that, for products of the soil, the great single market is not bringing anything new.
Ladies and gentlemen, our committees must look into these malfunctionings so that our excellent high-quality products can at last circulate freely throughout the Union, with unified regulations to increase transparency and for the greater satisfaction of our European consumers and citizens.
Mr President, I agree with the rapporteur's proposal because it picks up on a view which has gained wide support among agricultural producers and, above all, it refers to the opportunities provided for in the market.
There is widespread enthusiasm for the idea of the market as a fundamental reference point for the organization of production and also as a factor in guaranteeing income.
It is well-known that designations of origin of production and geographical designations can help maintain income levels, stimulate agriculture and, of course, also eliminate a policy of subsidies which, up to this stage, has been maintained not least because of the manifestly low incomes in many farms in the European Union.
In those terms, then, we must ensure that the Commission's action is more specific and better targeted, and further exemptions cannot be tolerated.
Naturally, regulations must not be the only point of reference, because the market can also be approached using specific, carefully targeted action by producer associations and via the quality assurance groups which have also stolen a march on the regulatory approach and made the European Union itself acknowledge that there is an aspect of market operation and a product element in need of protection.
We therefore believe that this action, including that of the producer associations, should be given a further boost and that there is, of course, a need to speed up the excessively bureaucratic and cumbersome procedure which the industry currently has to negotiate in order to be awarded protected geographical indications and designations of origin.
Mr President, by and large I agree with Mr Fantuzzi's report and I must say that we need the transitional period, for of course it is also a question of jobs in undertakings.
We have to consider that too.
If an undertaking has to restructure, we must realise that this could cause hardship, which needs to be compensated for.
In general I am in favour of promoting our European specialities much more strongly.
Everywhere I go, in every country, I see McDonald's, Burger King, Coca Cola, even outside Europe.
It really is a reflection of the poverty of our own food industry that we have not managed to create these mass-processing distribution systems because it means we are losing large shares of the market.
In that regard we Europeans should take better care of and do more for our own speciality products, which also have a long tradition and go down well with the consumer.
When examining the question I came across some very curious things.
We have spent a long time on BSE and everyone has said they want labelling so that they will not be infected.
The Swiss then had to observe an export ban and we suddenly found that the Swiss make their world-famous Bündner meat from Argentinian beef.
This meat does not even come from Swiss cows!
Quite honestly, if we are as particular as Mr Baldarelli said, we will also discover that in Italy, as I found during a visit there, Parmesan cheese is successfully being made from milk produced in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg.
We should not blame each other for something which is in fact not blame-worthy, for the cheese tastes wonderful; incidentally, it is then sent back to Germany.
I am a lover of Parmesan cheese, I must confess, and drink Württemberg wine with it.
Not a bad idea, because it is a good wine.
So we should set a high level of protection, but I agree with the Commission proposal that we should have a transitional period of five years from the date of publication so as to give enough time for restructuring.
Apart from that I agree with what the rapporteur said.
We should endeavour to give more prominence to our European specialities and thereby also give our consumers a sense of quality on which they can rely.
By the illegal use of hormones, as a result of BSE and so forth, our image has suffered so much in relation to meat that it is vital we use this opportunity to restore consumer confidence.
But we need a certain transitional period to do so.
If we can agree on that, then we will fully endorse Mr Fantuzzi's report.
Mr President, Commissioner, there is a certain historical reality in each European country which must be defended.
There is no doubt at all that uniformization and globalization carried out by all of the Duponts in the history of Europe leading to more and more Duponts, must be avoided.
Thank goodness if we can have something which is not a Dupont.
Something which is not a Dupont obviously is a product of a certain origin, it is a geographical notion, which means that port is port and madeira is madeira and neither of them can be made in California or Australia.
If Europe really wants to defend some of its history, some of its individuality, and not end up resembling the rest of the world - it is not that we are superior it is just that we are different - we really must defend our products, we must defend indications of origin and we must defend geographical indications.
Therefore, the Commission really must not beat around the bush as it has been doing.
The Commission should not wait for those who have not asked to be protected which means that those who have asked are not protected.
It really must respect the values which exist and it has failed to do so and that can only be described as censorship.
Mr President, I wish to thank our rapporteur, Mr Fantuzzi, for the very good work he has done on his report, examining and revising the legislation on the protection and designation of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs.
This is an issue of great importance both for producers and for consumers.
Producers of particular high-quality, regional specialities need guarantees that their products are not being copied and then marketed either at premium or cut prices as though they were the genuine article.
Consumers need to know exactly what they are buying, whether it is genuine champagne or Wensleydale cheese or similar, possibly even equally excellent products, but from another region.
As Mr Fantuzzi has pointed out, the Commission was concerned that the five-year transitional period is proving insufficient to register all the products which are seeking designation as protected regional products or foodstuffs.
It has proposed a new five-year transitional period from 1996 for each product not yet registered, starting from the date of application, instead of from the date originally agreed.
As our rapporteur has pointed out, this would mean the whole process could drag on for many years, confusing the situation and undermining the effectiveness of the legislation.
His amendment to extend the transition period by a fixed period namely, from five to seven years - eight in very exceptional circumstances - from the original reference date, should concentrate the minds of both producers making applications and officials processing those applications to ensure that they do meet that deadline.
He also proposes allowing national measures to protect those products until a Community decision has been made.
These are common sense proposals from Mr Fantuzzi for greater transparency and clarity in the implementation of the regulations which will benefit both producers and consumers.
I urge you to support them.
Mr President, I absolutely agree with what Mr Fantuzzi, the rapporteur, has said and with the points made by Mr Santini, and so I will not go over those issues again.
I should like to use the time available to me to identify and explain the implications of today's debate, which may appear very specific but which does call to mind a number of views of the problems of European agriculture and approaches to those problems.
Before I do this, however, I should like to reassure my colleague and dear friend, Mr Funk, that it is impossible to make parmigiano reggiano - ' grana' parmigiano reggiano - from Bavarian milk, and that the criteria for monitoring parmigiano reggiano could serve as an example for other products, as regards quality in particular.
I come from a family of dairy farmers who have always made parmigiano reggiano , so I know what I am talking about.
Well, I mentioned that there are a number of views.
We all talk about quality, but - please forgive my schematic approach - there are two ways of looking at quality, which always emerge and have, I think, been apparent in this morning's debate.
Some of us, when we talk about quality, are thinking of small and medium-sized producers and the need for them to be rewarded if they make quality products; others are at the same time thinking of consumers, who are entitled to know exactly what they are buying and consuming; and then there are those who, while they talk about consumers, are actually thinking of the large companies engaged in large-scale agricultural and industrial production, the big multinational distributors, who raise the issue of quality in an attempt to make it serve interests which have nothing to do with those of small and medium-sized producers and consumers.
We need to be clear about this.
I think that we should take measures which enable us to go beyond the limits that are still present in the rules, which must be clear, definitive rules and aim for application of Regulation No 2081/92 and not its amendment.
We need for less bureaucracy and more transparency in the distribution of powers between the European Union and the Member States.
If we are to achieve that outcome, I think that Amendments Nos 4, 9, 10, 11 and 12 should be rejected.
I therefore call upon all Members of the House, if they are going to demonstrate consistency, to reject those amendments - Nos 4, 9, 10, 11 and 12 - otherwise, we shall not be practising what we preach.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the rapporteur, Mr Fantuzzi, for their constructive statement on this issue, which was the subject of an animated debate in the European Parliament last October.
Regulation 2081/92 on protection of geographical indications and designations of origin prohibits the use of registered and protected names even if used with certain expressions, except during the transitional period established in that Regulation.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to allow producers who can no longer use registered names to adapt to the law.
Consequently this period must be long enough to allow the producers to take the necessary action on marketing, labelling, and so on.
Given that the first proposal for registration of geographical indications and designations of origin under the simplified procedure was not presented until March 1996, and the current transitional period expires on 25 July 1997, measures must be taken to make the period effective from the date of registration of the names and not from the date of publication of the regulation.
So the proposal to amend paragraph 2 of Article 13 of Regulation 2081/92 is intended to ensure that the 5-year transitional period applies from the date the names are registered.
But this will only affect existing names registered under the simplified procedure laid down in Article 17, not new ones registered under the normal procedure, laid down in Articles 5, 6 and 7.
Secondly, the transitional period will also be applicable to letter a) of paragraph 1, Article 13 of the regulation not just to letter b) of paragraph 1, Article 13.
The aim of this provision is that during the transitional period the term 'feta' , for example, can be used as such, while under the existing rules, only expressions like feta-style, feta-type, feta method, etc., are used during transition.
Thirdly, given that already existing names used in the Member States are notified according to Article 17 - the simplified procedure, the transitional period must apply only to names registered by virtue of this provision, to prevent damage to producers by granting this adaptation period for new names.
Moving on to the amendments, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1 and 5, as this proposal is insufficient, in the view of the Commission, to allow the producers affected to adapt to the new legal ban on using registered names.
Amendments Nos 2 and 8 cannot be accepted because under paragraph 3 of Article 17 the Commission must decide for or against each denomination presented for registration.
However, the aims of Amendment No 4 and Amendment No 11, first part, may be useful and will be examined.
We are going to find a more appropriate formula on these issues.
Amendment No 7 seems to us superfluous given that the Commission's proposal provides for a period of 5 years, and the objective of Amendment No 6 already exists in the text, so we do not think that amendment is necessary.
Amendment No 11, second part, cannot be accepted because a Member State cannot establish a transitional period.
And we think No 12 would not be useful because it is more restrictive than the Commission's proposal.
We agree to accept Amendments Nos 3 and 9.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 11.20 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I hereby declare resumed the session of the European Parliament which was adjourned on 17 January 1997.
Mr President, with the best will in the world I have to say it is intolerable that when we need to be here by 3 o'clock people have the nerve to block off all the lifts just because a delegation is about to arrive.
If these delegations want to come up, Mr President, they should be punctual just as we have to be.
It is not right that we should have to trudge up on foot or argue the toss with officials of Parliament who refuse us access to the lifts.
That really is not good enough.
Will you please do something about it?
Mr President, I should like to point out that the College of Quaestors clearly instructs that on the days of sittings visitors are not allowed to use those corridors and lifts.
Would you use your authority to ensure that decision of the college is implemented?
Mr Balfe, you have responded to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's justifiable concern.
The quaestors have already anticipated her request to stop such incidents occurring.
Thank you, Mrs Crawley.
It seems to me that an expert Member like yourself needs no comfirmation that of course it is impossible to introduce 100 rules, or even 10, in a week.
Every Member knows that and I hope citizens with common sense know it too.
Mr President, while agreeing with the substance of what she said, I should like to correct Mrs Crawley.
She described Mr Goldsmith as a resident of France.
But of course he is also a resident of Italy, Britain, Mexico and one or two other places as well.
We should make that quite clear.
Thank you very much, Mr Collins.
I thought we were going to have a real House of Commons debate, but I see that Mr Berthu wants to speak as well.
Mr President, I am delighted that the remarks of the chairman of my group are the subject of so much attention here.
You are a punctilious lawyer and you are right to say that if one takes the word 'rule' in its strictest sense, there are not hundreds.
But if one takes all the directives, regulations, and all the acts of the European Communities, and everybody knows there are a lot of them, they account for a considerable thickness of the Official Journal of the European Communities, every year.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a full agenda this evening, and I think the issue is clear enough after those comments.
The Bureau will take the appropriate steps to identify the number of directives, rules and so on, and have them published.
I am sure Commissioner Oreja, responsible for information, together with one of our Vice Presidents, Mr Anastassopoulos, has the resources necessary to let the truth shine through.
Order of business
We now come to the order of business.
The final draft agenda has been distributed, as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure. The following changes are proposed or incorporated.
Wednesday: The report by Mr Danesin, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, ' Towards a new maritime strategy' , was not adopted in committee and has consequently been taken off the agenda.
Thursday: At the request of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I propose that the debate on the Van Lancker report on the future operation of Schengen be held tomorrow, Thursday, but that the deadline for amendments be extended to Thursday 13 February and that the vote be postponed to the next part-session.
Mr President, thank you for that notification, but on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists I should like to ask you to adopt a different procedure.
We would prefer Mrs van Lancker's report not to be dealt with in that form tomorrow - we would like to see both the debate and the vote postponed to the next part-session.
Perhaps I could quickly explain why.
There were 88 proposed amendments to Mrs van Lancker's report, some of which proved very contentious in committee and resulted in very close votes. After discussing and voting on the amendments, we agreed in committee that the rapporteur should be given the opportunity to negotiate compromise wordings with other groups which would enable this important report on the status of implementation of the Schengen agreement to achieve the broadest consensus possible in Parliament.
But there simply was not enough time to do that by tomorrow.
In any case, there is no point in holding a debate when compromises still have to be negotiated as a basis for that debate, because it will then not be possible for the compromises to be dealt with in the debate at all.
That is pointless.
So it is much more logical to postpone both the debate and the vote to the next or next-but-one partsession in Strasbourg, and that is what I would ask you to do.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by expressing my firm opposition to separating the debate from the vote that follows it.
We should be doing ourselves a great disservice if we were just to hold the debate tomorrow and then fail to reach a clearly apparent decision on that debate immediately.
We have no hope of getting any media attention for our projects if we hold a debate and then vote on it later, at a time when the connection between the vote and the debate is no longer apparent.
Secondly, we would ask you not to take the report off the agenda but to follow the procedure on the agenda.
It is true, and here I must agree with Mr Schulz, that we have made efforts to find additional compromises.
But we have also tabled sufficient amendments to enable an agreement to be reached in this matter.
So I ask you to leave the report on the agenda, as it stands, and to allow us both to debate it and to vote on it.
Thank you very much, Mr Nassauer.
I think the best course is for Parliament to decide whether or not the debate and vote on Mrs Van Lancker's report should remain on the agenda.
We will now vote on the request to take Mrs Van Lancker's report off the agenda.
(Parliament approved the request) As regards voting time, I would remind you that the following two items postponed from the sitting of 16 January will be included:
the motion for a resolution contained in the report by Mr Thomas, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I would remind you that this report requires a qualified majority.-the seven motions for resolutions on the Commission's statement on the outcome of the Fisheries Council.
Decision on urgency
In making this request for urgency, the Commission has done two things.
Firstly, it has confessed its own irresponsibility. Secondly, it has paid the Parliament an enormous compliment.
It is irresponsible because this was referred to Parliament on 10 January this year.
This is 29 January and without any scrutiny whatsoever, without any consideration, the Commission wanted us simply to pass this.
I am afraid the principles involved are far too important for that.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, in consultation with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, needs time to consider the matter.
We are proceeding with urgency and we will be able to have it on the agenda in February.
Therefore my recommendation on behalf of the committee is No.
Having made the proposal, the Commission is paying us all a very great compliment.
This is a regulation that should have expired on 31 December and on the assumption that the Commission was preparing a new proposal and on the assumption that it spends about six months preparing it, it evidently believes that Parliament is roughly seven or eight times more efficient than the Commission because it wanted us to do in three weeks, what took the Commission six months.
So it thought we were seven or eight times more efficient.
But I am sorry to say that we are only six times more efficient because we cannot do it until February.
Thank you very much, Mr Collins.
If no-one else wants to speak, I shall put the request for urgent procedure to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Urgent political matters
The next item is the Commission statement on the state of progress at the Intergovernmental Conference: enhanced cooperation.
Mr President, I should like to ask Commissioner Oreja his precise view on this: does he think that a general clause on the rule of enhanced cooperation should be inserted into the Treaty, based on but not confined to the clause from which the Franco-German document draws its inspiration?
If so, I should like to know whether the Commissioner does not believe that such a clause might turn into a flexibility which would eventually have an impact on the very structure of the Treaty, resulting in an evolution of that Treaty towards an endless proliferation of supplementary agreements, thus weakening its binding force upon all Member States.
What can be done to prevent this if cooperation becomes a general clause?
Protocols already exist, Mr De Giovanni, and it has been impossible to prevent them occurring even in what is probably their most negative form, as in the typical example of the social protocol.
I think the right approach is to determine the general lines of enhanced cooperation within the framework of the treaty, to the extent that this makes clear exactly which fundamental principles should govern this enhanced cooperation.
It cannot be an option in all circumstances but must be governed by a set of principles, such as compatibility with the objectives of the Union, respect for the single institutional framework and, of course, preserving the single market and its flanking policies and common policies.
Unrestrained enhanced cooperation would be inadmissible, and it must be recognized as bounded by precise conditions.
Mr President, Commissioner, the success or failure of the Intergovernmental Conference will depend, largely, upon the progress made in strengthening integration, taking account of the currently negative positions of certain States, positions which look very much like veto.
The Commission's position seems to me restrictive, and with good reason, since you are setting a very tight framework within which this strengthened integration would have to operate, but this position also seems defensive, as far as its right of initiative in the matter is concerned, which is not such a good thing.
The Commission is the guardian of the treaties, as you reminded us in the Committee on Institutional Affairs, and you also recalled also that it was guardian of the general interest.
Could you explain this attitude, which corresponds perhaps to a particularly subtle strategy?
Mrs Spaak, I do not know how subtle the initiative is but, yes, I can say that the subject has been debated in the Commission.
Indeed, I must confess that the first draft of the Commission's proposal located initiative within the Commission itself.
But in the second draft - the present one, although work is still in progress on it - our view is that initiative should not come from the Commission, precisely because its principle function is to protect the common interest.
But I want to make two points very clear: initiative comes first from the Member States, the number to be determined, but the Commission will then assess whether or not it is appropriate to start the process.
So although it does not have first stage initiative, it has a kind of second stage initiative, but I appreciate that this is a controversial issue.
Secondly, I would say that initiative also lies with the Commission in the sense that it can oppose an initiative taken by a very large number of Member States.
Suppose 13 Member States take an initiative and present it to the Commission.
If the Commission decides that it does not conform to the fundamental principles I have mentioned, the Commission can refuse to progress it and start the process.
Commissioner, Mr. President, a few States on their own cannot represent the Union as a whole.
What is the minimum number of States necessary to achieve flexibility? If administrative actions are financed via the budget and operational costs via participating States, is there a further need for special actions, plans or costs for non-participating States?
On the first question, we have always left the doors open in the Commission - we are debating the matter after all.
But we offer three options: simple majority of Member States; two-thirds majority - which would be 10 at present; and simple majority associated with a population criterion.
These are the three options we are examining at the moment.
In any case, I can tell you that the Commission's general criterion involves a large number of States.
We have not decided exactly how many, or whether simple majority or qualified majority should apply.
But we have to avoid a proliferation of options and offers making the number of States which can propose enhanced cooperation very small.
It seems to us that this contradicts the very principles of the treaty.
There must be a large number of States.
In relation to the second issue, financing, we think the administrative costs of cooperation must be borne by the Community budget.
The operating costs of cooperation should be covered as a function of their nature and form.
And our current idea is that the Commission should indicate, case by case, which costs should be borne by the Community budget and which should be borne by the participating States.
This issue was raised the other day in the Committee on Institutional Affairs and we need to go on thinking about it, but, in principle, the Commission's position is that we should distinguish between administrative and operational costs.
Commissioner, you made a very cryptic reference to the participation of the Parliament - you could have been a bit less cryptic, and simply said consultation of the Parliament.
Would it not be necessary for a decisive step forward to be taken in this precise area of flexibility in order for it to be said that a flexible initiative by a number of Member States is only possible if a qualified majority in Parliament pronounces in favour of it, so that a Community institution is also able to monitor partisan interests?
Mr Cohn-Bendit, I am most grateful to you for describing my attitude as 'sibylline' . I did not know I had that quality, but I am delighted to assume it.
In our opinion the position as regards Parliament is very clear.
First, the Community institutions must be involved.
Parliament, the Court of Justice and the Commission must be involved.
Secondly, we think Parliament's involvement should be a function of the subject matter.
That is, if the subject dealt with in cooperation is actually within the scope of codecision, in other words it is a legislative matter, in that case codecision should apply.
So in our view, the principle governing the participation of Parliament will depend on the subject matter.
If it is in the area of simple consultation, Parliament's participation will be that of simple consultation.
If it is a matter of codecision, it will be codecision.
In any case, there is no doubt that Parliament should participate in the process.
On the other hand, I have more doubts about Parliament's initiative by invoking article 138 b.
I am sure it would be possible for Parliament to take the initiative and that would then have to be taken into account by the Commission and the various States.
But I think that initiative as such should lie with the Member States and Parliament, not the Commission.
But on the question that I think is most important to you, the first part, I want to say unequivocally that Parliament's action should be a function of the content: codecision if it is codecision; simple consultation, if it is simple consultation.
Commissioner, I too am very disappointed by the somewhat timid position adopted by the Commission and by the statements it has made, especially in reply to the questions asked by other Members.
I would therefore ask you to confirm why, ultimately, in the document which the Commission has made available to the delegations on this very important matter, in which the Commission has a central role, the Commission maintains that it is not its job to be among the promoters of a request for enhanced cooperation, although this is what is indicated by all the proposals submitted by the other States - Portugal and Italy, for example - and also by the initial German and French proposal.
And then, Commissioner, there is the role of Parliament: there is not a single word in the Commission document about the role of Parliament, not ex post , but on the role of Parliament in the development and the taking of decisions relating to enhanced cooperation.
Would you kindly reply to these two questions, clarifying the two non-replies that the Commission has so far seen fit to give?
Mr Dell'Alba, at this moment, speaking here in the solemnity of a sitting of Parliament, I am committing the Commission.
The Commission has produced a document but I am speaking after that text.
So you can take what I am saying now as written.
I am committing the Commission, and Parliament's role is therefore as I just described it.
And I want to assure you that we are still thinking, and I hope we will always go on thinking.
But we will certainly go on thinking about this issue in the light of representations from governments and the position of the European Parliament.
As regards your first question on the role of the Commission, Parliament's representations did not include initiative by Commission, but by the Member States, and listening to Parliament's representations was one reason why I personally began to think that perhaps initiative should not lie with the Commission.
Those representations proposed that initiative should lie with the Member States, and not the Commission.
And they convinced me.
I do not want to hide behind anyone, I am just saying I was convinced, because I think the point must at least be taken into account that the Commission should only watch over the common interest, the interests of the whole Community, and not those of a group of Member States.
But this is certainly a matter we will continue to think about and it is possible the Commission will modify its own criteria in the light of other opinions - those I heard the other day in the Committee on Institutional Affairs were along the lines you just mentioned.
Would the Commissioner agree with me that, as we move towards a Community of over twenty Member States, flexibility is not just desirable but essential if we are going to survive. However, there are three core principles which have to be adhered to if flexibility is to work.
Firstly, under no circumstances must flexibility affect the existing acquis communautaire .
Secondly, flexibility is not appropriate for the existing core policies of the Community, in particular the single market and the flanking policies of the environment, social policy and consumer policy.
Thirdly, without the single institutional framework, flexibility would not be possible.
Will the Commission guarantee Parliament that it will join us in insisting on a single institutional framework for any policies that move into the area of flexibility in the future?
Mr Martin, I can tell you that this is a clear and unequivocal position.
There are issues we are still discussing in the Commission.
We were discussing this issue before the statement of 28 February, and since then we have maintained this position unequivocally.
There is a set of principles we believe in almost as a dogma, although I do not like dogma in anything, probably not even in this.
But some ideas are very clear: first, enhanced cooperation must be compatible with the objectives of the Union and with the acquis communautaire ; secondly, and exactly as you just said, it must clearly respect the single institutional framework; it must preserve the internal market; it must preserve its flanking policies, the common policies; it must be constantly open to all the non-participants whose rights must be fully guaranteed; it must be - and if I did not mention this before, I want to do so now - a last resort.
I mean, we must place obstacles in the way of flexibility, but we cannot prevent it happening.
The harmonious development of the Union must not be compromised, distortions in competition must not arise, and, finally, the institutional balance must be respected and - let me underline this especially - citizens' rights must be guaranteed.
Mr President, Commissioner, you have just given us your position on the matter of strengthened cooperation, in particular on the first pillar, and if you are not in favour of it, I share totally the opinion of certain of my colleagues, such as Mrs Spaak, on your disinclination in this domain.
However, do you really think that the Treaty of Maastricht itself has already instituted, in the first pillar, the notion of strengthened cooperation in its creation of a single currency and its decision that only certain States may have access to it? Still, it seems to me that this is accepted perfectly by everyone and that we have not, in so doing, upset the single market.
You are referring to a specific situation which seems to be provided for in the treaty.
But we are now discussing whether there should be a general flexibility clause.
And I do not want to take a sanctimonious position, but I believe in certain ideas.
At the moment, I think it would be appropriate to have a general clause, and also be specific clauses for the first, second and third pillars.
But we have gone further as regards the second and third pillars, where the possibility of enhanced cooperation occurring seems entirely reasonable.
The problem is the first pillar.
There are clear and unequivocal rules for economic and monetary union, but that is not the problem.
The problem is that there must be a general clause for the first pillar.
My criteria for applying enhanced cooperation in the first pillar are very restrictive.
I have stated some conditions and they are the conditions accepted by the Commission.
We will see how the dialogue evolves, including the dialogue with Parliament, and what ideas emerge to enhance cooperation.
Mr President, the whole subject of flexibility is of course an extension of the whole subject of two speeds.
That much is gradually becoming obvious.
Obviously too, it is an area in which both pitfalls and opportunities abound.
Let me put the following case to the Commissioner.
Suppose a Commission proposal fails in the Council of Ministers because there is no qualified majority or no unanimity.
What then happens if a group of ministers finds that the matter can be made into a law or administrative regulation using the expedient of flexibility, because that is of course the objective.
If something fails to secure unanimity or a qualified majority then this third option of flexibility can be chosen.
That is the situation as I see it.
How can the Commission prevent that?
My second question is this: how in this context are you going to guarantee Parliament's right of scrutiny? After all people will be quick to say: this is not a question of Community policy; it is an intergovernmental matter since there was neither a qualified majority nor unanimity.
It seems to me that there are very major dangers in what is being proposed and that the case I have just mentioned perhaps rules out the idea that the Commission should not have a right of initiative.
I am trying to explain my thinking clearly, but that does not mean I might not change my mind in the light of the different views expressed here and at other meetings I attend.
On the first part of Mrs Maij-Weggen's question, about a proposal being rejected by qualified majority, that cannot happen when the initiative comes from the Member States.
If the initiative comes from the Member States and the Commission adopts it and presents it, it already has a majority.
So her hypothesis is not possible under the formula I have put forward here.
It would be possible if the Commission took the initiative, but not if the initiative is taken by the Member States.
On the exercise of parliamentary control, I want to say something I have not said before, which is that during the debate on the participation of the institutions in enhanced cooperation, the Commission's criterion has been that, in the case of the Council, it is representatives of the States that have agreed on this enhanced cooperation who will be present.
But the Commission, the Court of Justice and Parliament should intervene as institutions as a whole, regardless of which States participate.
This criterion strikes us as absolutely logical, although I appreciate that it is a matter for discussion.
But we think Parliament as a whole should participate in enhanced cooperation, because we regard it as indivisible.
The same applies to the Commission and the Court of Justice.
Commissioner, your remarks, far from dispelling the scepticism that I feel about flexibility, have actually reinforced it.
I can't help wondering - aren't we talking at such length about flexibility to prevent another area of the debate from going by the board, the area that relates to the democratization of the institutional structure? I am increasingly forming the impression that we are talking less and less about ways in which we can bring greater democracy to our institutions and more and more about what we can do to help ensure that things can be handled flexibly.
What the position of the European Parliament is going to be is still not at all clear to me, despite what you have said.
I should like to ask you - assuming that flexibility is going to be resolved upon at all in exceptional cases - what guarantee there is going to be that the prerogatives of the European Parliament are respected. And another question too: what do you actually expect the effects on the legal structure to be if, in a number of areas of communitization, individual States can move forward and the European Parliament and the institutions in general can no longer keep pace, so that the controlling function which we must exercise becomes impossible?
I want to stress that flexibility is not a normal situation in Community life.
You say there are doubts and vacillations.
Naturally there are, and I have many.
Everything is simple when all the States act together.
Enhanced cooperation is characterized by abnormality.
That is clearly established and institutionalized in the treaty as regards economic and monetary union.
But at the moment the idea of enhanced cooperation is open to the four winds.
And it is a difficult formula where the truth is hard to grasp.
We need to deal with it so that everyone knows - as David Martin said earlier - that we fundamentally guarantee the single institutional framework and the acquis communautaire , which we must preserve above all else.
But one thing has been clearly stated in the Intergovernmental Conference, and it is that enhanced cooperation is going to happen.
If it does not happen inside the treaty, it will happen outside it, and we have to choose. Do we prefer trying to keep the problems of enhanced cooperation inside the treaty, or leaving it to roam free outside the treaty?
I prefer inside, but maybe you prefer outside. I would rather keep it inside the treaty and lay down some very clear rules for it.
And in this connection I have mentioned some principles which I think are sufficiently clear and unequivocal, requiring enhanced cooperation to be compatible with the objectives of the Union and with the acquis communautaire .
So it cannot be just any type of enhanced cooperation.
I have said that the single institutional framework and all the principles that derive from it must be respected, and that a set of rules, those of the internal market for example, must be maintained.
That means enhanced cooperation has no place where the internal market and the flanking policies are concerned.
And there is no vacillation there.
Other issues need to be discussed.
One of them is how Parliament should participate, and we hope Parliament itself will give us some ideas on this.
I have already traced out some routes, one in particular, which is that the form of Parliament's participation should depend on the nature of the action.
If it is a legislative issue, Parliament should participate through codecision and would consequently have full rights to act jointly with the States involved in enhanced cooperation, with equal legal status.
Mr. President, Commissioner, my first question concerns whether or not there is a risk that the cooperation between those countries wishing to move on quickly and those which feel that we are moving forward too fast will break down, and that a move to a more flexible form of working, in which the right of veto is effectively removed, will damage the close cooperation which we currently enjoy.
My initial concern is in the areas of Foreign policy and Security policy but my concern extends beyond these areas to areas such as Tax policy and those such as Finance policy, which will arise as a result of EMU.
My second question, Commissioner, is: will this not create walls between the smaller countries, new members and applicant countries, those which may not be able to belong to the inner core for some time, and the larger, long-term members of the Union?
Then I have a third question, if it is possible to answer this.
Who will decide when flexibility is applicable? Will this also be determined by means of a flexible decision?
Obviously the risk of division exists.
But we have already had to face that risk.
If the issue of flexibility is not resolved inside the treaty, there is no doubt that flexibility will exist outside the treaty.
And the reality at this very moment is that various forms of flexibility are occurring in the area of the second pillar and, of course, in the area of the third pillar.
Take Schengen, for example.
Schengen is probably the most symptomatic case of what flexibility outside the treaty means.
It is operating outside the treaty because the rule inside was unanimity, and consequently the opposition of one State forced the others, which wanted this form of cooperation, to apply it outside the treaty.
I think that is the wrong procedure.
We must try to bring Schengen inside the treaty and that is why we now need to adopt a set of rules to guarantee all the fundamental principles I referred to earlier.
Mr President, Commissioner Oreja has presented flexibility to us from one particular angle, solely as a means of moving still further towards integration.
This is one possibility, of course, but flexibility is a multiform concept which involves many other facets.
Flexibility could in particular aid the expansion of the European Union towards the East, an expansion which is precisely one of the priorities of the Intergovernmental Conference and to which we must give particular commitment.
My question is as follows: how, according to Commissioner Oreja, could flexibility work in relation to expansion towards the East, and in particular, would we not avoid many problems if we did not try, in this particular case, to impose all of the policies of the European Union at the same time, universally, upon all of the new candidate countries?
Mr President, does improving the effectiveness of cooperation and increasing flexibility mean that there is a wish to give more power to the large Member States, as appears from the statements of some Commissioners? It has been proposed that France, Germany and the UK inter alia, be given the right of veto.
Does this proposal have wider support within the Commission?
This is a matter which affects what is called 'the decisionmaking system' and the way the votes are weighted.
I do not see that it needs changing, except to adjust to the circumstance of a larger number of countries.
The Commission's unequivocal position is that the unanimity rule should disappear, and that is being debated in the IGC.
It would be a highly significant achievement if the Intergovernmental Conference could restrict unanimity entirely to constitutional or quasi-constitutional issues, and extend qualified majority voting.
This must be one of the most important battles the Commission, at least, is fighting in the Intergovernmental Conference.
And I would almost say that what happens at the European Council in Amsterdam will depend on how far the qualified majority principle is extended.
That means unanimity would largely disappear and with it the right of veto, not just for large States but for small ones too.
We want the European Union to be efficient and free from bureaucracy.
I have a very practical question which I hope you will allow me to put.
In the European Union we have a growing number of Asian business people, many of whom have for long periods lived in Europe or were born here.
Their familiarity with the cultures and the businesses of both Europe and the Indian subcontinent are valuable in helping to promote trade to our mutual benefit.
However, current import procedures are creating problems.
I have recently been approached by an Indian businessman in my West London constituency who was refused permission to import fashion nightwear from India.
In principle I am not against the idea of quotas but the classification system used for imported goods drawn up by the Commission and implemented by national customs authorities are inadequate and outdated.
My constituent was refused an import licence because he was told there was no category for nightshirts and his goods must be described as blouses for which the quota was used up.
I have an example here and I should like to ask the Commissioner and the lady Members if they would regard that as a blouse and would be prepared to wear it in the street or in this House?
Will the Commission agree to conduct an urgent review of the classification used for imported goods under the quota requirements and bring them up to date?
The Commissioner will not answer that question because it is not related to the matters on the agenda and we must respect a rule we have agreed amongst ourselves.
I noticed that in his opening contribution, the Commissioner expressed his anxiety to ensure that he should not give a list of areas of flexibility for the first pillar although he did single out for particular reference economic and monetary union.
I do not know whether the Commissioner's remark on flexibility and EMU signals a view on the part of the Commission as a college about whether this would be a desirable development or not.
I am aware that opinion among Member States is divided on the matter.
What is the Commission's opinion on the desirability or otherwise of increased flexible cooperation in EMU for participating states in the third stage with regard to fiscal and social policy initiatives?
I think there are two parts to your question.
The first part is about lists, and I have already said that the Commission is not in favour of lists, not a positive list, in any case.
We are not in favour of a negative list either, although we could perhaps be said to be more sympathetic to the idea of excluding certain subjects.
We think a set of criteria, which I have listed here, is preferable.
Any initiative must meet these criteria and, consequently, the Commission would not accept Member States' initiatives if they did not comply with these principles.
On your other point, I cannot give the position of the College of Commissioners because it has not yet adopted one.
But it is a central issue which the Commission is thinking about.
Is it possible to consider certain enhanced cooperation formulae in the framework of economic and monetary union? This enhanced cooperation would in any case have to respect the fundamental principles and rules I mentioned earlier.
For example, if there were a range of taxes with a maximum and a minimum, would there be any difficulty for countries involved in enhanced cooperation reaching agreement on the minimum? I do not think there would be any difficulty.
It would not be against the Treaty.
The problem would arise if the minimum were outside the range.
This is one of the subjects relating to taxes, and also to the social area, currently under discussion and we have not yet concluded our deliberations.
Thank you very much, Mr Oreja.
I think that exchange of views has been very fruitful.
Fight against racism
The next item is the annual debate on the oral questions B4-1229/96, to the Council, and B41230/96, to the Commission, by Mr Ford and Mr Oostlander, on behalf ot the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the fight against racism.
Mr President, racism and xenophobia are totally at odds with the principles on which the ideal of European integration is based.
We seek to unite peoples and to create greater harmony in European society on a basis of mutual trust and solidarity. &#x02BC;No more nationalism' was the logical reaction after we had conquered national socialism.
So the European Union has an ambition, deeply rooted though limited in scope, to combat the cross-border aspects of racism and xenophobia and to take the measures required at European level for effective national, regional and local policy.
The real work has to be done at grass-roots level.
We thus think the best possible support should be given to social and church organizations Europe-wide which really reach the widest of all circles and are able in their way to offer a solid base from which to fight racism and xenophobia.
Such a broad-based approach is necessary.
Evil and deception are a threat everywhere.
To pinpoint them as being in one particular part or parts of this House or in certain nasty little parties is to miss the seriousness of the matter.
Self-criticism is a good thing in any movement and moral judgments which block the way to selfcriticism are thus ethically very dubious or at best worthless.
We can leave it to the criminal law to deal with these nasty little parties.
Self-criticism should also be practised by governments and Member States and by the Council of European Ministers.
It is too ridiculous that in this year against racism and xenophobia, Member States and Council should agree unashamedly to the partition of Bosnia along ethnic lines, that is to say for reasons of Realpolitik , and decline to arrest racist mass murderers.
In short, this European Year is not a nice little opportunity for individuals, parties or governments to portray themselves in a good light.
The Year will only achieve anything if the pain of racism and xenophobia is understood and serious priority is given to tackling them.
And any measures taken must look to the future.
Two points here. Firstly, education.
Those in charge must be able to devise reading materials and to exchange expertise and experience on the subject with colleagues elsewhere in the Union.
Secondly, we must realize that long-term neglect of policy to integrate immigrants today will lead to tensions tomorrow.
It is alarming, some time afterwards, to see how easily fellow human beings were regarded simply as economically convenient guest workers.
Racism and xenophobia are to a large extent avoidable.
What we have to do is make this European Year a year of active integration and reciprocal adjustment.
The UK Government used its veto today against a Union basis for the Observatory proposed by the Kahn Committee which is designed to support the network of existing research bodies studying the phenomenon of racism and xenophobia and help us compare the effectiveness of policy measures which might be helpful.
This veto is a serious but not invincible obstacle.
I think that if the UK Government does not review its position or does not do so in the near future the Commission's services can be used creatively in such a way that there is nevertheless room under the present framework for the Commission to help the network of existing research bodies.
In the Kahn Committee Mr Ford and I did our very best, for these reasons, to argue that existing projects of the European Community should be used to further the aim of countering racism and xenophobia, just as we often do with projects concerned with education, culture and media and the cause of equality between the sexes.
In this way, in cases where the Council may possibly find its hands tied by a veto - this by way of a challenge here - we shall look to the Commission even more to make full use of the powers and creativity it already has.
Mr President, I greatly appreciate the opportunity to be with you in Parliament today.
For any minister or state secretary that represents a high point in his career.
I shall be happy to respond to the points Mr Oostlander has raised.
Firstly, I am happy to agree with one thing he said.
To start with, perhaps the most important reason of all why the Union, the Council, Commission and everyone involved should actively fight against racism, xenophobia and antisemitism is that these are the very things which prompted the birth of the Community.
The tragic events of the first half of this century require us, even today, to debate this very important and sometimes very disturbing issue not only here but in other forums of the European Union too.
Please believe me when I tell you that the Dutch presidency is in no doubt as to their importance.
A couple of points were raised which I will answer quickly.
I will start with the point which Mr Oostlander mentioned towards the end: moves towards a European Observatory.
I am a little surprised by the forceful nature of his remarks about the UK Government's veto.
Up to five minutes ago I had no inkling of that.
I had seen newspaper articles and other media reports with which I was not altogether happy, but I was not aware of any veto as such.
I am sure that the United Kingdom too is convinced of the desirability and necessity of doing something about this issue at Union level, along the lines of a central Observatory.
But there is still room for discussion of the optimum legal form this should take.
As I myself understand it the United Kingdom too is considering the various legal options.
I remain optimistic and shall ensure that the presidency does everything possible to keep the United Kingdom on board with us over this Observatory.
Mr Oostlander mentioned two other important matters.
The question of education and thus implicitly the need to inform upcoming generations properly about the implications of racism and discrimination.
And secondly the importance of active integration in our Member States and the Community as a whole.
I very much endorse what he said on these two points.
Where the issues are ones which can be addressed at Union level, we must certainly address them.
Where they are not, I think that a lot of work must be done at individual Member State level by the national committees recently set up as part of the European Year and now becoming operational, precisely in this area of education and active integration.
Tomorrow sees the conference in The Hague which will launch the Year Against Racism.
A declaration of intent will also be signed tomorrow in The Hague, at least I hope it will, emphatically stating the same wish expressed by Mr Oostlander.
I have to say I am quietly confident that the national committees in the Member States will take up the gauntlet which Mr Oostlander has thrown down here.
I am confident that at the end of this year we shall be able to assess what has been achieved and claim with quiet pride that thanks to the efforts of the Union, Council and presidency some progress has indeed been made.
Mr President, I would like first of all to express my thanks to Mr Oostlander and Minister Dijkstal for their support for our Year Against Racism.
I am pleased that the European Parliament has scheduled its annual debate at the beginning of our European Year.
The interest and involvement of the Parliament has, of course, been very crucial and it is largely because of the constant attention that the Parliament has paid to this issue over the years that the decision was taken to have 1997 named as the European Year Against Racism.
Your question gives me an opportunity to keep you informed of recent developments and indicate how we have responded to the various requests and suggestions that we have received.
I would first of all like to talk about the IGC and the possible insertion of a provision which prohibits discrimination into the Treaty on European Union.
The Commission has given its opinion on this issue and has pressed for such a provision to be inserted.
You can be assured that we will make our point of view very strongly known to the Dutch presidency, who now have the difficult task of finalizing the IGC negotiations in a satisfactory manner.
I am very pleased to see Minister Dijkstal here today and to know that he has already indicated on 20th January to the Civil Liberties Committee he would be following the aim as set out in the Irish presidency text.
As we have heard, tomorrow is the start of the European Year Against Racism.
There will be an opening conference in the Hague which will be attended by the President of Parliament, Mr Santer and the Dutch Prime Minister.
I know that many of the Members of Parliament will be present at the meeting and will make a very significant contribution to the occasion.
Most of the responsibility to tackle racism lies with the Member States but this year is an exercise in partnership and we will further establish our relations with key partners, such as the non-governmental organizations.
One way of cooperating is through funding of projects.
There will be a call for projects that will be launched very soon and this call for projects will be published in the information newsletter of the Year.
This will indicate the organizations which are eligible for funding, the criteria of the projects, the deadlines and the available budget.
Other partners include the ad-hoc committee, consisting of representatives of governments, and the NGOs who work in the area of combatting racism.
Then there is the think tank of independent experts who provide us with the ideas.
We have gathered suggestions from both of these groups, some of which coincide with proposals that you have made in your resolution.
One of the main ideas to come out of our think tank so far is to try to correct the unjustified, negative perception of ethnic minorities and immigrants by some people.
The reality is, of course, that ethnic minorities and immigrants make a very positive contribution to European society but too little attention is paid to this.
We must now speak about it more.
I have asked for a specific report on this subject which will be the basis of one of the workshops at the opening conference during the week.
Turning now to the other aspects of your resolution, I can say that there will be a round table on a variety of issues and there will certainly be a media campaign.
We will arrange for a video to be produced and made available to a range of television stations and at the opening conference there will be two exhibitions: one on the positive contribution ethnic minorities have made and are making to British society and one about the portrayal of ethnic minorities in the media and advertising.
One of the ideas which came out of both the ad-hoc committee and the think tank is to have a seminar on training the judiciary.
We are looking into this.
As concerns the Monitoring Committee for Racism and Xenophobia referred to in the debate, the Commission made a proposal for a Council Regulation on 27th November last year and the Dublin Council called for the adoption under the Dutch presidency.
Minister Dijkstal has told Parliament he thinks this is a subject which should be dealt with now positively.
We will continue to press for the rapid adoption of the proposal.
I hope that Parliament will be able to give its opinion rapidly but, as you all know, there is still one Member State which queries the legal base of this important proposal.
As yet the matter is not finally decided and I am very encouraged by what the Minister says that perhaps the British will still come on board.
In conclusion, I am very satisfied with the way the Year is progressing.
The campaign forms part of our shared efforts to build a true citizens' Europe: Member States, NGOs and the other key actors and, of course, the Commission are very enthusiastic and working hard to make this Year a real success and to ensure that it will also have significant effects, not just this year, but in the years to come.
I hope that the Year will not only serve to demonstrate the added value of European action but also as a springboard for further action in later years.
I know that the European Parliament will play its part with its own activities and events and I would like to thank you, Mr President, and the Members of the House for the great support they have given to all of us in this Year and in all matters relating to the threat against freedoms posed by racism.
Mr President, measures against intolerance are enjoying a high profile.
Today we are holding our annual debate here on the fight against racism and xenophobia, whilst tomorrow in The Hague the European Year Against Racism will be officially inaugurated.
It is heartening to see initiatives being taken on many fronts in Europe against intolerance and racism.
Schools exchanging courses on a multicultural society.
Trade unions taking up the fight against racism at work.
Internet groups being alert to the spread of racist material through the new media.
All this illustrates the fact that people in Europe are not prepared to put up with racism and xenophobia.
Against that background it is inappropriate and incomprehensible that the British Government should be putting up one obstacle after another to stop a European Observatory from getting off the ground.
Inappropriate vis à vis all those individuals and groups which are fighting with might and main against the evil which is racism and who expect the political world to make an ongoing contribution to that fight.
Incomprehensible because John Major was in favour of an Observatory both at the Dublin summit and the one in Florence.
Incomprehensible too because in 1986 - and I was there - the British Government signed the solemn declaration which the Council, Commission and European Parliament all gave to combat racism at both national and European levels.
I am sure you recall that solemn declaration of 1986, Minister Dijkstal.
Peace, democracy, the combating of fascism and racism, never again another Auschwitz, these were the roots of European unification, as you said.
So it is indeed inconceivable that John Major should wish to keep that message from his people.
If he does, despite our best hopes, we are confident that a later incoming government will immediately reverse that decision.
Auschwitz was remembered last week in a number of Member States.
European agreements were proposed which would make revisionism an offence.
In Germany it is already an offence to deny the reality of Auschwitz.
I would urge the Dutch presidency to put forward proposals for European legislation in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate on racism and xenophobia is indubitably an absolutely necessary one.
I should like to take advantage of this debate to say something specifically about xenophobia.
It is not enough just to hold a debate and demonstrate that this phenomenon exists.
I believe we must become more involved, we must hunt down the causes of xenophobia and then, once we have identified the causes, take swift counter-measures.
We know the causes of xenophobia. To some extent, they lie in the fact that we have unsolved problems in the asylum legislation of the individual Member States, such as excessively slow procedures, and that we are not sufficiently willing to share the burden when it comes to refugees from war zones.
Think back to the year 1991-2, when Germany and Austria were particularly affected by that.
Think back to the lack of control mechanisms for migrant workers, which can ultimately result in concern about the loss of jobs.
Let me remind the House of the problems of the integration measures, which are certainly inadequate.
And let me remind it, too, that on a great many occasions a very rapid increase in the number of applications for asylum is apparent.
Just two figures are sufficient to show how rapidly things have changed here - in 1985 there were 159, 000 applications for asylum and in 1992 there were 674, 000.
Another cause, as I see it, is that sources of conflict, are imported as a result of excessive immigration, where what happens is that disputes which normally take place in the immigrants' home countries are transplanted into the countries to which they have migrated, and of course these migratory movements are also exploited by organized crime.
So we know plenty of the causes.
And we know that they give rise to anxieties, and ultimately to xenophobia.
So what we should do is take swift action to combat those causes.
Let me suggest a few, then: first, we should strive for Community-wide regulations in asylum policy and visa policy.
Secondly, we should try to harmonize the situation where migrant workers are concerned, and thirdly we should endeavour to arrange for the the burden to be evenly shared if we have another influx of refugees from a war zone.
The fourth point is the common monitoring of the external frontiers, and the fifth is measures for combating organized crime because in that area the blame is constantly being put on the wrong people.
I should be glad if the observatory could in fact be set up to keep an eye on things in Europe.
If we succeed in identifying these causes and taking the appropriate action, then we shall have laid the ground work for ensuring that we have less xenophobia in future, and perhaps even none at all.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the work undertaken by the Committee on Civil Liberties and the close attention being paid to a subject - the subject of racism and xenophobia - which is becoming more and more topical leave no room for doubt.
The campaign against all forms of racism and xenophobia must be waged with determination and vigour, and a response made by this Parliament must be nothing less than dignified and high-minded.
But what I fear is that, after the declarations of intent and statements of principle, the danger is that we shall eventually be left with nothing but the usual rhetoric.
Let us begin by making one point clear: over the course of history, migration has always been a source of benefits, a catalyst for change, and today we are moving more and more towards a desirable melting pot of different cultures.
Obviously, the immigration question is the central issue used to conceal all the causes of racism and xenophobia, and it is to that issue that all the attention of Europe's governments must be turned.
But I do not believe that the declarations of principle made under the auspices of the European Year against Racism, still less - I am sorry to say - the as yet unclear objective of the Observatory, which clearly runs the risk of wasting the tax-payer's money without any clear objectives, can be the solution to our problem.
I will therefore say loud and clear, as regards the efforts made by Mr Ford and Mr Oostlander of the Civil Liberties Committee, that I fully endorse all the proposals they have made, though I am less happy about the penalties.
The only real response to racism and xenophobia today is to understand that this collection of cultures is an expression of civilization, that this diversity of traditions is a positive and enriching factor for Europe.
The suppression of racist and xenophobic demonstrations risks producing the opposite effect: it is likely to be counterproductive, to drive the racist and xenophobic movements underground.
This is an aspect that should receive careful consideration from this Parliament and from all those whose aim is to defend liberty and democracy in Europe and throughout the world.
Finally, I should add that the reference to the parties of the extreme Right, or the Right in general, is a misguided reference because this Parliament must oppose all forms of extremism and all forms of intolerance.
Woe betide us if we fail to do so!
Mr. President, when the Allied Forces opened the gates of Auschwitz, the whole world saw the depths to which racist insanity could drag us.
This was a harsh and disturbing, but extremely significant revelation.
As a consequence of the holocaust, there was a long period of time during which antisemitism and all forms of racism, such as racist humour and speech were taboo amongst thinking people.
For decades, any sign of this type of behaviour was unusual in schools, organisations and gatherings of any kind.
However, this has changed in recent years.
These days it is not so uncommon for pupils, usually with short cropped hair and army boots, to come to school wearing their swastikas and to shout their racist and xenophobic views.
Many teachers do not know how to deal with such situations. They have no idea what to do or say.
There is also great uncertainty amongst head teachers and school governing bodies.
Leaders in sporting organisations have the same problem when they are openly confronted by leering scornful racists.
Antisemitism, racism and xenophobia are not in decline in Europe.
On the contrary, this type of behaviour is increasing.
This is why, Mr. President, finding the appropriate way to confront and halt the increase in this behaviour is such an important task for the European Union.
We have spoken about a centre against racism, but this is not enough.
We need to establish a number of locations throughout the European Union where education can be provided, where teachers, sports leaders and others can find out what racism really means, what its origins are, what behaviour it induces and what can be done to confront those who openly demonstrate their belief in this heresy.
We must attack this behaviour and one way of doing so is by drawing up a programme for the whole of Europe, which will remove this evil from our society.
Mr President, first I want to express my appreciation of the fine resolution in this annual debate on racism and xenophobia.
This debate and resolution come at a time when very disturbing statements are being made inside the European Union and feeding a climate of suspicion of asylum seekers and immigrants from third countries.
Linking immigration directly with social problems and proposals for tougher national legislation are two good examples of that climate of suspicion.
But I want to make this speech positive because I think the declaration of 1997 as European Year against Racism and Xenophobia is a step forward - a small one, but a step forward.
In my group we believe the success of this initiative should be accompanied by an Intergovernmental Conference decision to make asylum policies and instruments for the prevention of racism and xenophobia Community issues, with the aim of adopting an anti-discrimination directive as soon as possible, jointly drafted by the Council, the Commission and, of course, the European Parliament.
I did not want to let this opportunity pass without welcoming the Council's decision to create an Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia which will undoubtedly contribute to better analysis of racist and xenophobic phenomena and their causes, and to effective exchange of experiences and information.
Finally, I would like to underline the fact that our group worked successfully to include in the text of the resolution the statement that 'the notion of race has no scientific, genetic or anthropological basis' and can only serve to underpin discrimination and racism.
We believe the term should never be used in official texts, and we have tabled an amendment along those lines which I trust you will support.
Mr President, it is difficult to be against the report which is being presented to us today, because it does indeed flow along with the best sentiments in the world.
At most one might make the criticism that it is completely politically correct and that it is also, slightly, an accumulation of principles which are of little consequence.
Of course, during this year, all of our colleagues will put their best efforts into initiating or developing positive activities to combat racism, anti-semitism, that detestable stupidity which we even come across here at times.
That goes without saying.
But we can however be a little more reserved when it comes to one particular point, one of importance though, in the resolution being proposed to us.
This is the creation of the European monitoring centre.
Previous ones, monitoring centres that is - I am thinking in particular of our monitoring centre on drug abuse, located in Lisbon - have not up to now brought about substantial results nor really perceptible advances in the domains to which they relate.
To come back to racism, everyone knows the huge number of public and private committees, organisations and associations which are increasing the number of initiatives concerning the fight against racism on a national and international scale, including the European Council and its admirable campaign, which it developed last year.
Clearly some icing can be added to this multi-layer cake.
But I am not at all sure that such a creation will attenuate substantially the attitude of European citizens when they are tempted by mindless aggression towards Jews, Arabs, Asians and foreigners in general.
I am rather afraid that it would turn out to be a new structure of baubles, bangles, beads and civil servants, expensive, reassuring for us, but whose effectiveness cannot be guaranteed.
Anyway, a number of us within the group are asking this question with a great deal of wisdom.
Mr President, as the previous speaker said, the fight against racism is one of the devices of political correctness today.
Only, the danger with politically correct ideas is that they are likely to end up attacking freedom of opinion and expression and resulting in thought policing.
Indeed, under cover of the fight against racism, certain people, in the so-called anti-racist lobbies, are trying to wipe out certain opinions and expressions.
Any defence of national identity could therefore be prohibited.
Similarly, all critical expression on immigration becomes difficult, likely even to result in an appearance in court.
Similarly, defence of the natural principle of national or community preference can also find itself being pursued, condemned, in the name of political correctness, in the name of the thought police.
Well, in these seats, we are delighted with the fact that, during the last few weeks, these thought police have suffered a setback with the debate which has begun in the Federal Republic of Germany on the question of immigration and the link between immigration and unemployment.
Until now this was thought to be politically incorrect.
Well anyway, a debate has begun in a major country on this subject.
I would like to set some little puzzles, to enlighten our Assembly.
Who said: ' We can no longer accept that millions of our fellow citizens are unemployed while hundreds and thousands of work permits are given to foreign workers every year' ? It was not Jean-Marie Le Pen who said it, it was the leader of the CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag.
Who put forward a proposal aiming to prohibit foreigners from countries outside the European Union from working during the first five years of their stay? It was not a deputy from the National Front, it was two German parliamentarians, Christian Democrats, from the Bundestag.
Who said: ' We are faced with the problem of massive unemployment among nationals and yet we employ many foreigners.
It should be legitimate to think about how we can allow nationals into existing jobs' ? This was not a deputy or a head of the National Front or a sister movement either, it was the Finance Minister of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Who said: ' It is absurd that so many jobs are occupied by foreigners.
This situation cannot continue.
How can we explain to national workers that with high unemployment, hundreds of thousands of foreigners can work' ?
It was not Jean-Marie Le Pen who said that, it was Chancellor Kohl.
I could give many more examples like these, and even some different ones.
Who said: ' I think we should establish quotas within the framework of a law on immigration to relieve the national employment market and nip the social explosion in the bud' ? This was not a deputy from the National Front, the Vlaams blok or another sister grouping either, it was Klaus Zwickel, chairman of the big trade union IG-Mettall.
Anyway, I think these statements should make you think.
They show that the problem of immigration and unemployment is out in the open today, that there is a link between the two, and I think that the Commission, instead of following the twaddle of anti-racism, should concern itself with the extension and opening up of our legislation to national and community preference.
Ladies and gentlemen, before we continue with the debate, I wish to inform you that I have received a motion for a resolution tabled under paragraph 5 of article 40 of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place tomorrow, thursday, at 11.00 a.m.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we see racism and xenophobia every day, in every conceivable form, and not just among extremist political groups.
That is why the war against racism must be fought everywhere, beginning in early childhood.
As a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media I should like to argue in favour of seeing integration programmes play a more important part in our school syllabuses and becoming a declared objective of education.
Children must learn at a very early age to treat other cultures and traditions with tolerance.
We must make it clear to them that there is no place here for arrogance.
Especially in view of certain radical trends that are becoming part of the political scene in some countries, it is urgently necessary that children should learn that this way of thinking is no part of our common heritage and that foreign cultures can offer us a great deal in the way of enrichment.
Of course, something is already being done along those lines in our schools, but I think that more is needed - especially as regards the involvement of new technologies, which provide incredible opportunities to promote direct exchanges and become familiar with other ways of thinking.
Parental education, too, seems to me a very important subject here, because the responsibility should be shared by the whole family.
The European Year against Racism, which will be formally launched tomorrow, is a good and encouraging initiative.
We must take active advantage of it, and make it clear that every day must be a day against racism.
In conclusion, though, I should like to point out that, regrettably, there are still no application forms for project proposals for the European Year, and I have already received many inquiries from German citizens complaining about this.
They rightly feel that they have been sidelined - because of a lack of organization by the EU they have not yet been able to put forward their ideas and projects, although the Year has already begun.
Mr President, this motion rightly points out that one of the main raisons d'être of the Union is to prevent racism and xenophobia.
Racial harmony is in decline and xenophobia, sometimes encouraged by government policies and institutional structures, is on the increase.
The European Year Against Racism could hardly have come at a more apposite time.
Experience from my own Member State shows that the attitude of Governments is crucial.
If responsibility for policing immigrants is contracted out from the state, to airlines or to employers for example, then public policy loses its force, policing is unaccountable and a climate of suspicion is fostered.
If we do not encourage the recruitment of ethnic minorities and women, a white male police force will remain susceptible to the cancer of racial prejudice.
If we tolerate unemployment and exclusion among the young, we establish a breeding ground for intolerance.
Other Members of this House will see similar phenomena in their own countries.
We must use this year to develop pan-European awareness of and solidarity against racial prejudice.
Member States must adopt the Year enthusiastically and devote adequate resources to it.
We need also to establish the European Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia within the democratic framework of the Treaty of Rome.
If other Governments in the Council of Ministers bow to the demands of an increasingly authoritarian and antiEuropean British Government, they will be offering Europe's citizens a second-rate deal.
I say to Mr Dijkstal, as a fellow Liberal, do not allow the Union to be dragged down the dangerous, undemocratic road of the British Government.
In my constituency we are already working hard to make this Year a success.
I know that citizens are across the Union and many of our people now realise that we cannot afford to delay decisive action.
Mr President, (start without microphone) and yourself do not have the monopoly on infamy.
Even if a vile idea were voted in by an overwhelming majority, it would not be the more legitimate for it.
That is why the European Year Against Racism, which opens tomorrow in The Hague, seems more necessary than ever. Necessary because racism continues to thrive.
Yes, sometimes violently, but also below the surface and insidiously, penetrating everyday life and with progressive banalisation from discourse and behaviour to racist and xenophobic connotations in opinion.
How can we not denounce the hypocrisy and duplicity of governments who participate in the very organisation of this European Year Against Racism, while they make decisions which continue to fuel racism. Examples of this, sadly, are many: Council declarations on community preference regarding employment, statements by German political leaders making direct links between immigration and unemployment, not forgetting, of course, the French government's scandalous draft legislation on immigration which aggravates the Pasqua laws and looks to encourage a climate of suspicion towards foreigners.
These are the words, these words, which arm racists.
Racism is fuelled by crisis and its aftermath of exclusion.
The priority is, then, to combat the sickness at the root, by giving priority to employment.
But what is also required is an overall policy which is vigorous and coherent, in particular in areas relating to everyday life.
It is there that the symbolic violence is played out which has tragic consequences for the individuals who are its silent victims.
We must equip ourselves with new and more effective arms for combatting ordinary everyday racism, favouring three axes: the legal system, education and the media.
In the legal system, sanctions against all acts of racism and racist remarks, and against the diffusion of negationist theories, should be implemented or strengthened.
Priority must be given to active policies for education and youth, stressing respect for others and tolerance, following the example of St-Exupéry who declared: ' if you are different from me, far from taking from me, you enrich me' .
We must also remove the word 'race' from our discourse.
But my friend spoke about this at length earlier.
Third axis: the media.
My group, which approves the proposal of the European Forum of Migrants, for a deontological code for the media, highlights in an amendment the essential role that the media should play in denouncing racism and promoting tolerance, showing particularly the positive contribution which immigrants have made and still make to European society.
Let us live out in our daily lives the values of solidarity and brotherhood, adopting for ourselves the beautiful words of the writer Carlos Fuentes, which I quote: ' Our culture is not made from isolation but from communication, confrontation and contagion.
A culture which wants to be pure and which closes its borders to other cultures is a culture destined to perish.
You cannot find yourself, you cannot find your identity, except in contact with others.
We are what we are by knowing what we are not' .
And I will ask the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to reflect on with a view to sanctioning the racist remarks of the groups on the extreme right who dare, within these walls, in complete incoherence, to promote racist ideas.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, racism is first and foremost a state of mind, one which can become a way of life.
It is an oversimplification to regard it as being the exclusive preserve of any particular political persuasion.
Because even that statement implies a racist attitude.
For example, a Member of this House, Mr Bossi, was condemned a few days ago by the Italian courts for having described the judge and former minister Di Pietro as a 'terrone' , a pejorative term for a southern Italian.
Since Mr Bossi is a member of the Liberal Group in the European Parliament, if we accept the reasoning of Section 4 of the report, the Liberal Group would be racist and, therefore, right-wing.
These are the ludicrous conclusions resulting from the foolish syllogism to be found in Section 4 of the document.
I have no doubt that Mr Bossi does take a racist attitude towards southern Italians, among others, but I would certainly not regard the entire Liberal Group as racist, in line with the 'Mickey Mouse' logic which says that if you are a racist, therefore you are right-wing, and simply because you are right-wing, therefore you are a racist.
As a Catholic, and on behalf of the Italian Right, I say that it is no longer tolerable that we should settle for voting the umpteenth document to satisfy our consciences, and allow our governments to sign agreements with China, which is pursuing a policy of cultural genocide in Tibet and elsewhere; those same governments which were unable to take any action in the former Yugoslavia; which allow 500 thousand civilians in the Great Lakes region to wander helpless and unaided; which allow the outskirts of their big cities to be nothing less than ghettoes for immigrants and non-Community nationals.
The problem exists, and it is undoubtedly a very serious one.
All right, then, let's have a European Observatory, but, please, let's observe more accurately this time!
Mr President, as is the case every year, this debate on combating racism and xenophobia is a landmark in the European Parliament's activities.
That is because it is not a routine and it is not just empty denunciation but it is against racism and xenophobia and because it proposes and advances with means of combating those phenomena.
We congratulate Mr Ford and Mr Oostlander on their work which justifies what we have just said.
Their reports propose the creation of legal instruments, namely an 'anti-discrimination' directive and follow up the decision by the Council to create a European Observatory for which there is already a draft regulation.
It welcomes practical implementation of the proposal by the European Parliament to make this year 'European Year against Racism and Xenophobia' , and find ways of making sure that it is a coherent reality given the affirmations which the European Parliament has made.
This is quite necessary.
There are plenty of stances and affirmations by top officials which nourish a 'climate of suspicion' vis-à-vis foreigners, especially those asking for asylum or for work.
There is plenty of paternalism and humiliating tolerance but not enough real solidarity and respect for human rights in our procedures of legalising the presence of residents and workers, as has been noted in certain Member States of the European Union including my own.
The proposal includes certain amendments tabled by our Group, which we note with satisfaction because they match our intention to help to improve a proposal which already deserved out support even before the amendments were tabled.
Concerning one of these amendments, I should like to remind you of the title of a book by the Mozambican writer, Mia Couto, ' Each Man is a Race' .
Therefore, the fight against racism means that we should reject anything which is unfounded: concepts and terminology referring to race relations as a matter of constituted and hierarchical dialogue.
I hope that this 'European Year against Racism' is going to be up to the standards demanded by the European Parliament and we should also remember that the budgetary amount, 4.7 million ECU is 20 % less that what we earmarked in May 1996, 6 million ECU, and we should try to make sure that budgetary restrictions do not turn the European Year against Racism into an empty date on the calendar.
Mr President, if it is true that the British are vetoing the creation of a European Observatory against racism and xenophobia it is utterly incomprehensible and disgraceful.
Perhaps Minister Dijkstal can say something on the subject presently.
For years now the European Council, so John Major too, has been issuing solemn statements twice a year.
On 6 December 1996 the General Affairs Council, including the United Kingdom, took a unanimous decision to set up this Observatory.
And now it is supposedly giving it the thumbs down.
I wonder whether Major, in the context of his general election campaign, is not perhaps appealing to the basest instincts of the British people.
Or whether he is afraid to give European responsibility for combating racism to Brussels, so that British citizens too can take cases to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
I fervently hope that I am wrong and that it will be possible tomorrow, during the big anti-racism conference organized by the Dutch presidency, for Minister Dijkstal to announce formally the creation of the Observatory.
The aim is to coordinate existing organizations and stop work being done twice over.
What on earth is there to be afraid of in that?
I think this is yet one more example of what a hindrance the veto is.
Fourteen countries want to move forward and one country is able to hold everything up.
Lastly, in paragraph 29 of the resolution we make it plain that we want specific actions in favour of the people.
I hope the presidency will support our proposal for a broad media campaign involving popular sporting heroes such as Ruud Gullit.
Mr President, the Austrian Freedom Party members will fully support the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr Ford and Mr Oostlander.
We particularly welcome the activities and events being arranged in connection with the European Year against Racism.
It will be our task, as members of the European Parliament, to play an active part in such events in our own countries.
In this introduction to this motion for a resolution, the European Parliament refers to another resolution of 9 May 1996, and expressly mentions the recommendations put forward there.
That resolution contains a Recital H, whose content is a stain on the honour of the European Parliament.
It sees fit to ostracize - I repeat, ostracize - in explicit terms a democratically elected party.
That Austrian political party is the second largest Austrian group in this House and received 27 % of the votes cast in last year's European Parliament elections.
It is represented on the governments of all nine Austrian Federal States.
It is an insult to Austria when a million citizens who vote for the Freedom Party are dismissed as racists and ostracized in this European Parliament document.
As is constantly demonstrated by our voting patterns and other activities in the European Parliament, we are convinced opponents of any form of racism, xenophobia or antisemitism, and strenuously condemn these deviant forms of human behaviour!
The Right-wing extremists are a handful of criminals, not organized into political parties.
I feel members should be aware that we have today, in this House, received a blackmailing letter in which we are threatened with terrorist attacks and letter bombs.
I ask you, Mr President, to take due note of this, and I trust that the rapporteurs on this subject will take due account of the truth and reality of the situation when the opportunity arises.
Mr President, I would first like to express my satisfaction at seeing the European Union concern itself with the great problems for civil peace and the future of the Union which racism and intolerance constitute.
But I would also like, for my part, to mention those for whom racism is a business and who are constantly fanning embers which are still easily rekindled.
By dint of making the foreigner, the immigrant, the other person, even if he is like oneself, and I am thinking here of anti-semitism, into the source of all current ills, their propaganda ends up contaminating souls thrown off course by the difficulties of the time.
The scapegoat strategy, which worked so well in the 1930s, is back in business.
French holders of this ideology usually say that they are fighting anti-French racism, which in their eyes is the most offensive and undoubtedly the most serious kind.
That anti-national racism exists in the same way as anti-foreigner racism, I am all the more willing to admit since they fuel each other and since nobody can claim to be fighting one while fuelling the other.
And the extreme right has been involved in fuelling racism for a very long time and in a very methodical way.
When Mr Le Pen holds forth on the inequality of races, he is expressing a great ideological continuity.
It was a very long time ago that one of his current fellow candidates was already theorising on this inequality of the races asserting that there should be slaves so that a new aristocracy might emerge, and that large collective enterprises for discipline and selection should be prepared.
This colleague committed a second offence a short time later, without doubt so that there could be no ambiguity of interpretation, by speaking of training on the basis of race.
So, dear colleagues, I would like you for a moment to imagine yourselves in the shoes of those who have good reason to believe that they would be cast, in this scenario, in the role of the new slaves rather than the new aristocrats.
What would you feel in this situation? Rebellion, violent aggression, and for some, a tendency to reject wholesale in the same way the author of these suggestions and all those like him.
And that is how you fuel anti-French racism and anti-national racism simultaneously. That is how you set different kinds of people living on the same soil against each other.
That is how you lead a country to the slippery slope of hatred and civil war.
And, furthermore, the leader of the National Front has gone for advice to the best Serbian nationalist sources, paying a friendly visit as he just did to several virtuosos of ethnic cleansing who would be better placed in The Hague, before the international criminal court.
So, Mr President, of course, let us combat racism with all our might, but lucidly, realistically, giving ourselves the means fully to do so and identifying those responsible.
It is useless to try to put out the fire of racism with a glass of water while resigning ourselves to the fact that others are using flamethrowers to keep it alight.
Mr President, racism is one of the most destructive phenomena in society.
Racism, xenophobia and intolerance have increased to a worrying extent throughout Europe.
Racism knows no borders.
Consequently, every individual, especially we as politicians, and similarly every Member State, has a responsibility to act to eradicate racism.
It is important that this year is being observed as the Year Against Racism, but that is not enough - where racism is concerned we need to be constantly vigilant, even when this year is over.
When we speak of racism, we generally think of refugees and immigrants, who are often the targets of racism.
However, I should also like to remind you that in every Member State of the EU there are other ethnic minorities who are daily subjected to discrimination and racism.
In Europe as a whole there are some 7 or 8 million Roma, and even within the EU there are altogether some 1½ to 2 million.
In many countries the Roma are still without adequate rights and I should like to remind you here that at present the very existence of Roma or gypsies as a minority is not even recognized in all countries.
I should hope, for example, that the European Union and Commissioner Flynn will take action on this matter and step up cooperation for example with the Council of Europe, thus enabling the European Union and the Council of Europe to combine their resources to this end.
Mr President, today's debate on the European Year against Racism and Xenophobia shows that this phenomenon exists everywhere, as many Honourable Members have previously said.
But even here, in Parliament, we quite often hear utterances that show little sign of tolerance, realism and frankness.
Indeed, we have done so more than once in this past hour.
Even here, honourable Members regularly make distinctions between Union citizens and those who live here but do not really belong, because they do not hold a passport issued by one of the Member States.
So we must do everything we can to eliminate discrimination between Union citizens and those from other countries who in many cases have been living among us for a very long time - there are many in Germany who have been living there for more than 30 years - because this discrimination often results in a climate of xenophobia.
If we are building a citizens' Europe, why cannot all citizens share in it?
Are there in fact first-class and secondclass citizens?
Why do we just talk about processes of integration when there is so much legislation standing in the way of those processes? We even erect obstacles to prevent these citizens from becoming integrated.
Just take a look at the laws on aliens in the various countries!
I myself know very well what I am talking about.
As a Dutchwoman living in Germany, I know that I am treated differently from a German woman under the German Foreigners Act.
As far as the possibilities of multiple citizenship are concerned, we talk about the subject all right, but what can we actually do to make it a reality?
There is one other point I would like to make: we have in the European Union four million dark-skinned Europeans who were born here and have Union passports but are constantly having to show those passports before anyone will believe that they really are Europeans.
It is a disgrace that it should be impossible for all people to be treated equally!
Mr President, I hope that the European Year Against Racism will also be a year of tangible achievement, in particular at the Intergovernmental Conference, that the principle of non-discrimination as well as the principle of combatting racism, anti-semitism and xenophobia will be able to be written into the treaties.
We need legal instruments to fight racism.
For me, fighting racism also means creating a political Europe and democracy at European level.
I am concerned to note that six countries, and in particular Belgium, have still not transposed into their own legislation the directive on the rights of European citizens in local and municipal elections.
I am very concerned when it is indicated that the Belgian Minister of the Interior dismisses the possibility of agreement on the vote and the eligibility of European nationals in local elections.
I am concerned, but I hope I am also mistaken.
Belgium has already asked for and obtained dispensations.
I hope that it will not challenge this right to vote, and beyond that, that we will be brave enough to widen this suffrage for European citizens to include citizens registered in our area for at least five years.
The fight against racism also entails the integration of all into our political system, into democracy.
And finally, I would like to ask our Austrian colleague if he takes us all for morons.
Because, in short, it was not by calling upon reason, or upon explanation, that they had the success they have had in Austria, it was rather by an appeal to demagoguery and to the sentiment of rejection of others that it was achieved.
I do not blame Austrian voters, I blame the political parties which, with great facility, sometimes say what the people want to hear and play on the sentiments of exclusion and racism.
That is where their responsibility lies.
Mr President, a great deal has been said in this debate in condemnation of racism and I want to agree with all of that.
There is not a great deal more one can say.
But I would like to quote an Asian religious leader who I heard speak some time ago.
He visited the United States and they gave him a form which said 'state your race' , so he wrote 'human' .
They said 'you cannot put this' and he said 'why, are you disputing that I am human?' .
I think that it is a nice reply.
In addition to the vital need to combat all forms of racial discrimination, prejudice, hatred, violence and harassment, one also needs to accentuate the positive benefits of a multi-cultural, pluralistic society.
Many of our countries have had influxes of people from outside over the centuries.
We have benefitted and our societies have been enriched by their presence.
Those societies that have tried to be exclusive and to keep out everybody else have tended to stagnate and atrophy.
There are enormous benefits in a multi-cultural society and I am delighted to have the privilege to represent such an area here in the Parliament.
Finally I would like to say I am dismayed at the attitude of the British Government in blocking the move towards the setting up of the anti-racist monitoring centre.
They have done it for what are supposed to be technical reasons but they have shown no evidence of wanting to put those points right to give the Community competence to act, which it urgently needs.
This is something the Inter-Governmental Conference must address and I hope it will.
Mr President, I am neither a racist nor a xenophobe.
My professional activity in medicine has been devoted in its entirety, throughout thirty years, to the saving of human lives, lives of men and women in all conditions, of all races, of all nationalities, without obtaining the slightest financial benefit from it, unlike some of my colleagues who have made their fortunes in caring for humans and of whom the representative given the most media coverage sits on our benches.
The action I have carried out, and which I still take time to pursue today, for the benefit of the deprived, whatever their racial origin, gives me more right than any to declare that I am shocked by the resolution which is the subject of our discussion and which considers that defence of the choice of national preference should be condemned, according to the antiquated methods of the supreme Soviet, in the name of racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Feret's speech brings us to the end of speaking time.
The Council and the Commission have asked to speak through their representatives.
But first Mr Fassa and Mr Konrad have asked to make personal statements under Rule 108.
Mr Fassa, you have the floor first for a maximum of three minutes.
Mr President, the statements made by the Honourable Member following whose speech I asked to make a personal statement are the clearest possible illustration of how it is possible to it possible to speak in favour of tolerance and anti-racism using arguments that are in themselves a model of intolerance.
I do not believe that cheap speeches can exploit questions of the utmost importance simply in order to make demagogic capital out of problems like anti-racism and xenophobia, for the purposes of a purely Italian political struggle.
This is not, in my view, the right way to honour either this Parliament or the thousands of people who have given their lives for ideals which - like the anti-fascist struggle against racism and xenophobia - are fully consistent with that liberal, democratic, reformist and European tradition which I, as a Member of the European and Italian Parliaments elected on the Lega lists, have the honour to support.
Mr President, I note that Mr Fassa has not expressed any disagreement with the words spoken by Mr Bossi.
I have no desire to engage here in vulgar arguments about matters that concern the Italian Parliament and the Italian political parties.
But I would like to add - since words should lead to concrete facts and actions - that it has been requested that Mr Bossi should be committed for trial because, in the course of a political meeting, he told his audience that a 'cleansing' operation should have been carried out against all the Alleanza Nazionale supporters in Northern Italy.
I believe that such attitudes, apart from their folklore elements, are deserving of censure.
That was why I listened, respectfully I assure you, to what Mr Fassa said, and I am convinced that, in his heart of hearts, he certainly would not endorse these racist statements made by his party leader.
Dr Konrad, you will be able to speak at the end of the debate, after the representatives of the Council and the Commission.
That is what the Rules of Procedure say.
Mr President, I have listened with very great interest to what the various speakers have said.
Many aspects of this complex issue have been touched on.
I cannot go into every one of those aspects, partly because of time constraints, so I shall pick out briefly those which I myself consider to be the main points.
Perhaps in the first place I should address the comments made by, I think, Mrs d'Ancona, Mrs Ojala, Mrs Roth, Mrs Heinisch and Mr Cars, concerning what we might call our policy on integration.
You can fight racism, antisemitism and discrimination through the law, the police and the judiciary, but you can also try to fight it using the substance of your policy, and a policy of integration is perhaps the most effective way of tackling this kind of phenomenon.
I readily endorse everything which has been said on this matter.
Particularly, perhaps, when it is aimed at young people and education, and here I am looking back not only to what Mrs d'Ancona and Mr Cars said but also to what Mr Watson said.
There is much more to be done here than we have done so far in terms of reminding people of how, regrettably, all this first began.
Mrs d'Ancona's reference to Auschwitz is, I think, very apposite, but it is equally important to point to the potential of younger people to shape their own lives and the society in which they live.
Concerning the Observatory, I must say that there is solid support for this in Parliament too.
But that there are some worries that our efforts to agree the right legal form will hold things up.
I think we really must try to prevent that.
I shall welcome the chance to liaise on this with Mr Flynn to see how we can bring this to a conclusion as efficiently and as speedily as possible.
For the moment I will repeat what I said earlier, namely that I think the United Kingdom too will undoubtedly be convinced of the need for this Observatory and will cooperate to find a satisfactory solution.
Perhaps the most important point made here is that made by a number of people, and I will specifically name them: apart form Mrs d'Ancona there was Mr Schulz, Mrs Pailler, Mr Bontempi, Mrs Lindeperg and Mrs Zimmermann. Their point is that everything depends on our personal attitude towards this issue.
People who really want to fight racism will make that plain at all times, must make it plain in what they say and how they behave.
All those who fail to do this bear a very, very heavy responsibility.
It is something which all of us should do as politicians, you as elected parliamentarians and we as what one might term the executive, but all of us should do it as individual citizens of the European Union.
Only if we set an example can we really insist that other citizens in Europe do likewise.
As the saying goes, it is a case of putting our own house in order first.
That is what is needed in this important area of measures against racism and discrimination.
I will leave it at that and in the course of our presidency I shall try to keep Parliament informed of what we are doing and what our further plans are.
Mr President, I would like to thank all those who contributed.
We have heard exceptional and worthwhile contributions to this debate.
I would like to make reference to two particular points.
Mrs Heinisch raised the point of what we were going to do by way of support for those who wished to get involved in projects.
The simple answer here is we have ECU 4.7m, modest I agree but it is, of course, additional money.
Application forms for projects will go out within the next week to all those who have contacted the Commission services.
Everyone will be able to apply at the same time and we look forward to a very fair and transparent decision as to who and what money will be provided.
I would also like to make special reference to what Mrs Roth said.
The points made by Mrs Roth captured in essence very many of the excellent responses and submissions that were made to this debate.
Mrs Roth made the point to us all: do something.
I would suggest to the House that is precisely what this Year Against Racism is aiming to do.
Mrs Roth said we need anti-discrimination policies.
Yes, we do, and we need them at both levels; at national level, in so far as legislation is concerned, and we need a clause enshrined in the Treaty; an antidiscrimination clause that would give us the opportunity to use the necessary Community instruments to deal with the threat posed by racism.
You also made the point that we need proper integration policies.
Having considered very carefully all the issues, we have decided on the workshops that will take place over the next few days in The Hague at the launch of our seminar and conference.
The workshops will include: workshops to examine the relationship between race and employment and a workshop on the legal framework to combat racism.
We will also talk about the role of the media.
Lastly, we will discuss everyday racism which was uppermost in your mind.
The main instrument of protection that those threatened by racism have is, of course, the law.
That is primarily the responsibility of the individual Member States.
But that is not to say that the Community cannot have action at European level.
Throughout the European Year Against Racism, we are going to fund projects that tackle legislative issues.
In particular there will be projects which raise awareness of existing laws against discrimination and encourage people to make full use of the existing laws and to pinpoint the lacunae in the existing national legislation and try to do something about them.
The point was made that a lot of talk goes on about this subject and I agree with that.
I would suggest to the Parliament there is a need to make a lot of speeches against racism.
Speeches should be made in every single Member State so that people can recognize that we stand against racism and we recognize the threat that it poses to society.
We should especially encourage our non-Governmental organisations because therein lie the activists, the people who are committed to doing something to protect the fundamentals on which this Union was founded, namely peace and harmony.
They should get a signal from this Parliament and from the Year Against Racism as to what we stand for, what Europe stands for as far as the threat of racism is concerned.
I understand that to be peace and harmony, dignity, mutual respect and fair play not determined by race, creed, colour or origin.
These are the fundamental objectives of this Union and we should make the speeches, both here and outside, to say that clearly to the people of Europe.
I will allow Dr Konrad to make a personal statement, and I would like to point out to him that Rule 108 states that a Member who asks to make a personal statement shall be heard at the end of the discussion of the item being dealt with or when the minutes of the sitting to which the request for leave to speak refers are considered for approval.
Therefore, Dr Konrad, I am not late in giving you leave to speak.
This is the end of the discussion, now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my statement refers to remarks made by Mr Schulz and Mr Le Gallou in the course of this debate.
Both of them, by quoting comments by others and making comments of their own, bitterly attacked both the German Federal Chancellor and the German Finance Minister with untenable and insulting allegations.
I reject these remarks on behalf of the CDU/CSU Group, and I should also point out that I do so on my own behalf, too, since I as a German Member of Parliament am personally affected.
Germany makes a very great contribution to European integration.
Germany is currently sheltering 400, 000 war refugees.
For many years, our country has done much to integrate people from Eastern Europe.
There are 2 million Turks living in Germany - another contribution to integration!
So my country and my fellow citizens are making a very great contribution to that integration which has been the specific subject of this debate.
I should like to make it very clear at this point that Germany, as one of Europe's most hospitable countries, has done nothing to deserve this kind of onslaught, especially as it comes both from the far Left and from the far Right.
I must call upon both gentlemen concerned to apologize for their remarks before the end of this debate.
Dr Konrad, while you were speaking I asked myself whether it really was a personal statement that you were making.
It was a political statement, in fact, not a personal one.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Honourable Member, following whose remarks I spoke a little earlier, for having given me credit - quite correctly - for in no way endorsing outrageous or insulting statements, no matter by whom they are made.
All of us in the Liberal Group are in agreement with that.
I would however remind him that, under every democratic constitution, criminal liability is personal: no one can be called to account for facts or actions attributed to others.
It will be objected, however, that this is a political problem: well, I believe that one of the worst defects of political life today, not just in Italy, is the use of legal procedures for political ends.
This, too, is in danger of becoming a manifestation of intolerance, but it must be kept absolutely outside of the debates in this Parliament.
Mr President, I must comment on what Mr Konrad has just said.
I don't know whether you were here in the Chamber during the debate, Mr Konrad.
If you were, then there are only two possibilities: either you misunderstood me or you weren't listening.
Because what I did was in fact the exact opposite of what I have been accused of.
I specifically defended the German politicians quoted by Mr Le Gallou against that attack, by saying - stop shouting and listen - that to compare the Federal Chancellor and the Finance Minister with the members of the Front National would be an insult to them.
That is point one.
And, point two, I said that all of us - political leaders and political activists - must have a care to express ourselves so that no misunderstandings are possible.
That is not a criticism of the Federal Chancellor, nor is it a criticism of any CDU politician.
There would be sufficient reasons to criticize him, incidentally, but you misunderstood.
Now just think about whether you can undo what you have just done, by putting me on the same footing as them.
That is an insult!
Mr Schulz, I note that it is not just with the interpretation - which is usually quite all right - that we can have problems. We sometimes have them with our own language as well.
Mr President, I do not use language like that, I speak French.
But I would like to reassure Mr Konrad and the whole Assembly.
I did not attack the German minister, nor the German Chancellor, I pointed out that they had made remarks about the cost of immigration, about the link between immigration and unemployment.
Another of our colleagues, when talking about immigration, or the excessive number of refugees, used the word 'burden' , and I think that Mr Konrad used it again.
I am simply pointing out that these remarks can be made in public debate in the Federal Republic of Germany, and I am delighted, because they must have freedom of opinion, freedom of expression there.
Our German colleagues can think that and other German colleagues can think differently, and I think that is freedom of discussion and I am delighted with it.
It is only that I deplore the fact that, here, when we make similar remarks on national preference or on the cost of immigration, we are rebuked for it, and that within the borders of France, a certain number of local French members are taken to court for making remarks comparable to those of Mr Waigel or Mr Kohl.
I do not condemn the remarks of Mr Waigel or Mr Kohl, I condemn the fact that they cannot be made as freely in France.
It is freedom of expression that I am defending.
My dear colleagues, we cannot continue this discussion.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Combating terrorism
The next item is the report (A4-0368/96) by Mrs Reding, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on combating terrorism in the European Union.
Mr President, allow me to express our disappointment.
We have had enough, because every time an act of terrorism is carried out, our governments stick together, make strong statements and promise action at European level, as well as effective political measures.
Several weeks, several months later, what is the result: nothing, zero.
The wonderful words have been forgotten, the political projects lie dormant in drawers.
Parliament has had enough of beautiful rhetoric.
It would like to see materialise at last all this activity which is essential for combatting, beyond national frontiers, the scourge of organised crime and terrorism.
To do this, it is essential that the elements of national sovereignty are shared.
This shared sovereignty will not be a minus for national interests, but on the contrary, it will safeguard national interests.
Because, do not let us deceive ourselves, the European market for organised crime does exist, but the activity of those who should be fighting these criminals is blocked by artificial barriers at national frontiers.
This is inefficient and it is ridiculous.
It is high time our governments understood that if they do not create a true European legal area, if they do not allow their police to collaborate actively and effectively across national borders, they are in danger of losing the sovereignty which is so dear to them, because it will not be them, the politicians, who are making the law, but all kinds of criminals.
What is true for crime in general is all the more true for the extreme and specific type which is terrorism. Firstly, how do we define terrorism?
We deem terrorist all acts committed by individuals or groups which resort to violence or which threaten violence against a nation, its institutions, its population and which are motivated by separatist objectives, extreme ideological conceptions or religious fanaticism, or even by irrational and incomprehensible motives and which aim to subject the authorities of individuals or groups to a climate of terror.
That is the definition.
Now for our interpretation.
Since Europe is founded upon legal States which allow every citizen, or group of citizens, to use its democratic structures to be heard and to put its ideas into practice, no ideology, nor any motive, can provide the slightest justification for terrorist actions.
It is clear from our point of view, therefore, that terrorism is a criminal act which should be treated as such.
So there should be no exceptional laws or procedures for combatting terrorism, so that we do not grant it a particular importance which by this very fact would involuntarily increase its value.
How do we combat terrorism physically on the ground? Firstly, there is the preventive aspect.
Political prevention, to begin with.
The promotion of democratic dialogue to contribute to the resolution by political means of political, ethnic, national, social and ecological conflicts, and to prevent these conflicts becoming an alibi for terrorism and obtaining a certain condonation within sections of the population.
And then, technical prevention: airport controls, improvement of systems for the detection of explosives, implementation of efficient and coordinated computerised systems, prevention of the abuse of data communication networks, control of the manufacture, storage, trade, transportation, importation and exportation of arms and explosive substances.
Regarding cooperation of police and legal systems, we would like to see Europol up and running at last, because, there too, after each session of the Council, we hear fine words, saying: we need Europol. And in practice, the convention is not even ratified.
When will it be ratified? We cannot commence any serious work until such time as we have a convention.
We would also like Member States to classify acts of terrorism in their respective criminal laws as serious, extraditable crimes; where an act of terrorism is committed, to prosecute everyone involved in its organisation, preparation or commission; and to define an apologia for terrorism, under their legislation, as a criminal offence.
We would also like to step up police cooperation in combatting terrorism, to enable the exchange of information even if there is no specific link with criminal proceedings, to promote direct exchanges of opinions and experiences between the officers of the different Member States responsible for combatting terrorism, to see the Convention on extradition, signed on 27 September 1996, ratified and to see the necessary decisions made and measures taken so that nationals of one Member State accused of terrorist crimes or collaboration with armed groups cannot obtain political asylum or refugee status in another Member State.
Of course, we wish to harmonise legislation on the matter, but until this is done, we would ask that Member States make specific decisions and apply them by means of conventions.
And we would also like victims of terrorism to be looked after, along with their families, materially and psychologically, not only at the time of the act of terrorism, but during the years through which the ill done them endures.
Mr President, congratulations on your re-election, it is nice to see you back in the Chair.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for her in-depth report on combatting terrorism in the European Union.
This issue was raised at the recent Dublin summit where the European Council condemned unreservedly all terrorist attacks and stated its intention to pay closer attention to the threat posed by terrorism, both internally and externally; a clear statement which I fully endorse and welcome.
As the rapporteur says, acts of terrorism violate numerous fundamental rights of the individual, particularly the right to life, the right to physical integrity and the right to personal freedom.
Acts of terrorism have tragically ended the lives of innocent people; men, women and children.
Those who have suffered injury by being in the wrong place at the wrong time bear permanent scars and are witness to be evil consequences of those who seek to achieve their aims by terrorist rather than democratic means.
No one can be above the democratic process.
Democracy and the law of fundamental freedoms in our society must be upheld at every level and this includes the forces of law and order of the state.
In this regard, I seek here your support for our Amendment No 7 which calls on governments and the forces of law and order to show a common understanding and respect for human rights and to remain within the rule of law in the common fight against terrorism.
It will come as no surprise to Members if I take this opportunity, provided by today's debate, to raise the question of the situation of certain Irish prisoners in two British jails.
Last Monday with my colleagues, Mr Gallagher and Mr Crowley we visited Roisín McAliskey who is a remand prisoner in Holloway womens' prison in London facing charges not in Britain but in Germany.
She is wanted for extradition in connection with a terrorist incident and has been convicted of nothing.
Roisín, in my view, should not be subject to this kind of treatment.
She has been convicted of nothing and nonetheless is in the highest category of security prison.
She is six months pregnant.
Her condition is extremely frail and she does not have full-time access to medical attention and treatment.
She is subject to strip-searching twice a day and sometimes, in certain circumstances, as often as six times a day.
She is locked in a cell, where she is under constant watch by television camera monitoring and special guards.
She has no contact in the prison with other inmates.
I have to say in fairness that the Governor of Holloway prison listened carefully to the case we made and said he would try to improve her situation within the prison regime in so far as his remit was concerned.
All we are seeking is for dignity in her treatment and a transfer back to Northern Ireland while she awaits extradition proceedings.
It seems to me that her treatment is not dissimilar to the treatment of prisoners in Whitemoor where I believe a major cover-up and collusion between the judiciary and politicians has taken place.
Mr President, it is indeed most important that we as the European Parliament, as members elected directly by the voters, should be discussing terrorism here.
It is intolerable that innocent people are the victims of violence, even politically motivated violence.
That is not on and we cannot have it.
Terrorism is a difficult concept, though. because there is also such a thing as the fight for freedom.
Take the freedom fighter Mandela, now President of South Africa.
But clearly there can be no misunderstanding: in a democracy which has universal suffrage there is never any place for terrorism, the use of violence. It is a serious crime.
We of the Liberal Group also like this report of Mrs Reding's.
We are happy to agree with most of it.
I think we have to be clear and establish the rule that terrorists who are nationals of a Member State of the European Union are not entitled to claim asylum.
I am thinking of Spain, of Ireland; we cannot allow it.
We have to be very clear on that.
Such things are not admissible.
And there is more.
We must be tough on third countries, the rest of the world outside the European Union, which backs terrorist movements.
Lastly, I would make the point that we should be careful in our dealings with the media.
The right to freedom of expression in this context must be upheld.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me start by saying that the admirable work done by Mrs Reding is a source of controversy, but that is because of the controversial nature of its subject: terrorism.
Next, I have two positive comments to make on the report: first, the opening of borders does not increase the danger of terrorist activities, because - as Mrs Reding rightly says - the traditional border controls virtually never result in the arrest of a terrorist; secondly, Mrs Reding pertinently remarks that a great many terrorist acts are organized and financed by certain States.
However, I should also like to raise a point which confuses me.
I resolutely, absolutely resolutely, condemn any form of violence.
Having said that, I cannot understand why, in Recital A and Recital H, we are told that in the Member States of the Union we cannot talk about terrorism but only about crime, and that therefore - the conclusion is - political asylum must be confined solely to citizens of third countries.
I believe there is a leap of logic here.
It is self-referential and excessively ideological, in the proposed revision of the treaty, to rule out - not just in practice and for the present but actually in theory and for the future - the possibility that there could ever be a case where political asylum is justified for political citizens of Member States.
In this context, I quote and endorse the concern expressed by the Italian section of Amnesty International - the concern that Europe, the home of democracy, may become a neutral zone for the purposes of the fundamental right of asylum, whatever the State to which the asylum seeker belongs.
That is unacceptable, at least while Europe remains, as it is at present, a diversity of States, of legal systems and of police forces.
Mr President, firstly, our thanks to Mrs Reding for the intelligent and realistic things she has put in her text.
It is regrettable, however, that it is a report of initiative which has no binding power, but we must be glad for what we have.
I personally experienced a childhood in which those who struggled against Nazi oppression were shot, or deported as terrorists.
Thank heavens and the action of our parents that, today, within the European Union, we have a constitutional state and the democratic rule of law governing our institutions.
The political violence which attempts to overthrow these institutions actually finds no justification and it must be fought on all sides without weakness.
There are several very positive, very courageous and very truthful aspects of this text which deserve to be highlighted, and the first is the fact that the measures implemented for combatting terrorism must in no way be founded upon laws of exception.
I think that this is a case of extreme political courage, to which I subscribe entirely.
The second element is the fact that the opening of borders has in no way increased the risk of acts of terrorism.
In this respect, and here slightly I am referring back to the fringes of the previous debate, we must be a bit careful that the image of terrorism, as carried by the media, does not strengthen the case of the most mentally deficient, some of whom are even seated within this house.
Terrorism in Europe is not a foreign secretion.
It is not an imported commodity, as people would have us believe.
It does not come to us only from Iran, Libya, Algeria, Afghanistan or elsewhere, it is born and it grows comfortably on our own soil, nurtured by the scorn of democratic institutions, by intolerance and by the waywardness of certain nationalistic claims.
Let there be no mistake about it.
This waywardness is in no way obligatory.
And our Scottish and some of our Catalan colleagues, right here, can demonstrate that it is possible to nurture nationalist aspirations and promote a scrupulous respect for the institution of democracy.
On this point they are, I think, an exemplary defence.
The third item which it seems to me important to highlight is the fact of qualifying, or having qualified as a criminal offence the apologia of terrorism.
This is a necessary step in the breaking up not only of terrorism, but of the political demagoguery which often surrounds it.
Finally, an appeal should be made to the courage of citizens to combat terrorism and to participate actively in the reinsertion into society and a professional and political life of those who, at one time, might have succumbed to the temptation of terrorism.
Mr President, first of all I welcome the report and would like to congratulate the rapporteur; she quite clearly has put a lot of time and effort into its preparation.
Terrorism is one of the scourges of our modern society.
It operates in different areas, it uses different means and tactics depending on where it happens to raise its ugly head.
There are always a small number of people - and we have to recognise that this normally is a very small number of people - holding the vast majority to ransom at the barrel of a gun or the threat of the bomb.
In Northern Ireland where I come from we have suffered sustained terrorism.
It has strained the people of the province and has created a very deep division in the population which continues to this day.
Terrorism cannot be allowed to succeed.
We have to recognise that we must be prepared to protect the general population and the rule of law must always prevail.
On extradition, the European Union has shown to have a very serious weakness.
It has not covered itself with great glory because some countries have not been prepared to face up to their responsibilities.
There have been many experiences of Member States ducking out of those responsibilities and not doing what they should do.
This is only encouragement to the terrorist.
The terrorist feeds on this type of propaganda; this is what he needs to survive, it is grist to his mill.
No one has the right to take another life, no one at all and I will never defend anyone for doing so.
Common criminals should be treated as common criminals and it should not be forgotten that a lot of the people under the guise of terrorism are actively involved in the trafficking of drugs, protection rackets and are making vast amounts of money under the name of particular letters of the alphabet.
I have had personal experience in Northern Ireland of terrorism; it is something I would never wish on any part of the human race.
I look forward to the time when there will be no terrorism and we will not in any way featherbed them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since the end of the Cold War we have seen a resurgence of terrorism, associated in particular with the intensification of regional, religious and ethnic conflict.
Many of these phenomena already existed before the Cold War, even though, particularly in the eastern countries, they were formerly hidden beneath the ruins of the Communist system.
Terrorism today, however, is reaching particularly serious levels in many Third World countries, and is also spreading to Europe.
This terrorism is ideological in form, created to attack dissidents. It can be subdivided, as I see it, into religious terrorism and fanatical terrorism and thrives on the differences between national legislations, prospering in those countries which best guarantee freedom of movement and assembly.
The European area represents the ideal soil for this, the appropriate fuel for the flame.
To combat terrorism, of whatever kind, effectively we must - and here I agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Reding - smash the vicious circle that has been created by preventing the proliferation of those subcultures that feed it; we must depoliticize - if you will excuse the word - the terrorist act, reducing it to the mere status of a common crime; we must use technical resources for combating terrorism, such as infiltration and disinformation, ensuring that the struggle is equipped with appropriate human and technical resources; we must apply simplified extradition procedures and train up a class of judges and police officers as experts in the legal systems of the various Member States; we must communitize the powers of the European Union to deal with terrorism, because an open Community must ensure that it has common legislation to combat this extremely serious problem; we must improve international investigative cooperation, which must also include improving cooperation between judicial authorities; and, finally, we must harmonize the European Union's criminal laws.
This is the only way in which we can try to defeat the terrorist phenomenon: it is one of the great challenges of our times.
Mr. President, terrorism cannot be tolerated in a society governed by the rule of law.
It must be fought at every level, using legitimate means.
The creation of a democratic society, open towards its people and the world about it, is the best way of destroying the breeding grounds of terrorism.
Measures which prevent the escalation of ethnic, national, social and economic conflicts are also important.
Practical and technical improvements can be made.
Controls at airports, baggage checks and data and telecommunications systems are all important and they can all be improved in an attempt to put a stop to terrorist activity.
But, in my opinion, it is not absolutely clear-cut that effective action is the same as supranational decision.
A great deal can be achieved through cooperation.
Europol must cooperate more with Interpol and such cooperation must be based on the wishes of the individual Member States.
One point which has not come up in this discussion is that neither Europol, the EU nor any other institution can gag the free press.
The proposal that we should advise the press on how to report terrorist actions cannot, in my view, be accepted.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, this report is, quite obviously, full of good intentions and also of good sense measures which must necessarily win unanimous support.
We do not set ourselves apart in this respect.
But it seems right to add, however, that the analysis of terrorism made in this report is, all the same, very superficial.
In Europe there are, it seems, some mad cows, but there are also some sacred cows which the rapporteur, quite obviously, has not dared to tackle.
Terrorism does not seed itself on any social soil any more than violence in general, and that subject has not been broached.
Many anthropologists and sociologists, such as Arnold Gehlen, have shown that man needs to be surrounded by strong traditions and institutions.
Otherwise, his violent nature resurfaces extremely quickly.
That is why uprooting, whether national or social, is therefore an essential cause of violence, but also of terrorism.
Now, massive immigration from third world countries, as well as the marginalisation of growing sectors of society, caused by globalisation of the economy causing unemployment, are creating a new proletariat.
This may constitute in the future a veritable reserve army for future terrorism.
Preventing the constitution of this potential sociological phenomenon would mean combatting the various forms of uprootal caused precisely by European policy.
We should fight immigration and restore growth within the context of honest competition, against the grain of the current unbridled free-trade policy.
Finally, we should favour the values of adherence to family, national or religious roots which enable a reduction in violence by channelling behaviour.
But all this, it seems, is a tabou subject.
Another tabou, of course: nobody will admit that the fight against terrorism is necessarily a form of war itself and we cannot make war without reintroducing capital punishment.
It is undoubtedly preferred, as by certain Federal States, Member States, that terrorists commit suicide in prison.
This also casts a shadow over the democratic legal system.
This is all hypocritical.
I think it would be more just, more worthy and more democratic to reintroduce capital punishment for acts of terrorism, when they really do kill.
These are several tabou subjects which are, I think, also worth mentioning.
Mr. President, this is not the first time that Parliament has discussed the issue of terrorism, and it is easy to understand why it has been discussed so many times.
Firstly, this is because a Parliament which has received its mandate through the democratic process naturally finds it unacceptable that anyone should use violence as a means of promoting their aims in a democratic society.
A second reason is that, for a Parliament which daily discusses its citizens' security and safety, it is a tragedy when an act of terrorism affects ordinary citizens who are not involved in any way in the demands of the terrorist.
It is meaningless, unjust and totally inhuman.
Thirdly, terrorism, together with organised crime, forms the greatest barrier to the free movement of European citizens within the Common Market.
Mr. President, it could easily be said that the task of the Union is to allow the forces of good in Europe to work for peace, a better environment and the health and safety of our people.
If this is the case, we could never accept the view that evil forces should sabotage this cooperation.
This is why the fight against organised crime in all its forms is one of the Union's most important joint tasks.
It is totally incomprehensible to me that Member States are not fully engaged in this task and that we do not fully utilise the available capacity through a better organised cooperation in matters of justice and in the deployment of the police. Instead, we delay the most important first step, which is to ratify the Europol Convention.
I share Mrs. Reding's irritation over this and I also share the other conclusions drawn in this excellent report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to say a few words to express my support and that of my parliamentary group for the report on combating terrorism drafted by Mrs Reding.
I think it is an excellent report which deals with, assesses and proposes all of the causes and practices and all ways of combating terrorism.
I should like just highlight four points from this report.
First of all, the fact that we should not and cannot deal with or look upon terrorist acts as something requiring exceptional procedures or legislation.
Acts of terrorism in all of their forms should be dealt with by normal judicial processes, like all criminal acts.
To look upon terrorist acts as crimes which should be dealt with by exceptional legislation means enhancing those acts, going some way to meeting the objectives of those who carry them out.
That means that we should in these cases harmonise the criminal codes of our States so that there can be no exceptions in any State.
Secondly, similarly, the highlighting which the media often give to terrorist acts is a very powerful contribution to enhancing and amplifying the intended effects of the terrorists themselves.
Self-control, I repeat self-control, by the media should lessen the negative effects of giving too much publicity to terrorist activities.
Thirdly, we should all make a contribution to preventing and combating terrorism worldwide.
The active defence of human rights, one of main aims of the European Union, would be our best way of contributing to that.
In that framework it is our prime obligation to defend the European Union against terrorist acts.
The causes, even when regarded as fully justified, of terrorist acts have always existed and still exist.
It will always be best to try and find political solutions to deal with any conflicts, however serious they are, since radicalizing positions always leads to violence.
But if violence is imposed on us then we have to have appropriate means, not just preventive ones, in order effectively to combat terrorist activities.
In this respect, the objective proposals made in this report should be approved by the European Parliament.
Fourthly, I should like to point out to Mr Blot that we have the strongest institutions of any political regime existing on earth.
The institutions are strong, they are very strong, because they are free, built on solidarity and fairness and they work in a democratic way.
Mr President, I fully endorse the loud condemnation by this House of terrorist activity, all forms of violence and xenophobia, and underhand attempts by governments to colonize peoples and territorial entities or to strangle their legitimate aspirations to freedom, independence and self-determination.
All the organizational forces of Europe must be set in motion to prevent the spread of terrorism, crime and violence at every level, and to ensure that our new, integrated Europe is based on democracy and individual freedoms.
This House must be careful to avoid any intentional confusion between legitimate demands for independence - which, in any case, are internationally sanctioned by the Helsinki agreements - and movements or groups or ideologies which have nothing whatever to do with such demands.
It would be a grave breach of the spirit and letter of the Treaties if this Parliament were to lend itself to dubious manoeuverings designed solely to prevent the birth of a Europe of regions and a Europe of nations.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Reding on a report which has tried to strike a fair balance between the perfectly correct approach of condemning all forms of violence and terrorism but recognizes that in doing so we must not allow our civil rights to be eroded so that the terrorists have, in effect, achieved their objectives.
It is sometimes said that one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter.
We can all think of instances in our own lifetimes in certain countries where certain people have been regarded in one light by one group and in another light by another group.
But we have to draw a distinction - as the report does - between what might have been the case fifty years ago when people were fighting against the horrors of Nazism, for example, or resisting brutal and oppressive regimes, and the use of terrorist activities in open and democratic societies.
There is no justification whatsoever, as everyone has been saying, for the use of terrorist action in free, open and democratic societies and certainly not acts of terrorism which lead to suffering by innocent people as they so frequently do.
I also want to emphasize the need in whatever we do to ensure that we do not fall into the error of allowing the terrorists to achieve their objectives.
Acts of terrorism in the European Union are primarily driven by the desire to disrupt normal society.
If we introduce security measures of such oppressiveness that normal democratic life is undermined, we are playing into the hands of the terrorists and enabling them to achieve their objectives.
We must avoid this at all costs.
It is a difficult balance to keep but I think this report has got it generally right.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Reding for her valuable study of the difficult issue of terrorism which, in view of the wide variety of forms it takes and the general seriousness of the threat it presents, calls for rapidly deepening cooperation throughout Europe and the world at large.
I am pleased that Finland has shown the will and preparedness to engage in multilateral cooperation in this field, which is covered by the Maastricht Third Pillar.
Cooperation within Europol on the basis of the Treaty, coordination of asylum policy and wider use of the latest technology to improve the safety of public places and, for example, public transport such as aircraft and trains, as well as to obtain information, are important in preserving the security of Europe's citizens.
I should like to mention the point stressed by Mrs Reding concerning agreement on the application of a coordinated asylum policy on third country nationals.
It is worth asking whether it is sensible for endless resources to be spent on processing asylum applications in each Member State even when the applicant may already have been refused asylum in another Member State.
Given that the central idea of European integration is the creation of a safe living environment and securing freedom of movement for Europe's people, it is essential that the Union should be able to demonstrate credibly that it has the will and the means to defend the right of European citizens to enjoy the fruits of those principles without the threat of terrorism.
Terrorism is a wide-ranging threat to the security of the civil population, which often increases the sense of insecurity in Europe much more than traditional narrower, mostly military security problems.
Recent terrorist acts show that the EU must concentrate particularly on eliminating terrorism by Islamic extremists and on obtaining and training experts in this field.
On the subject of computer terrorism, we may note that ease of information flow has great practical advantages for society, but is also its Achilles' heel because of the difficulty of preventing its use for criminal purposes.
In terms of Internet connections per head of population, Finland is one of the world leaders, and I believe that my country in particular, given its involvement in high technology, has much to offer in terms of know-how in the use of technology in the joint European effort to destroy terrorism.
Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Reding for her balanced and comprehensive statement on the problem of terrorism.
Recital H of the preamble points out that because of the level of democracy we have achieved in this European Union, acts of terrorism cannot be remotely justified on any political or ideological grounds and whatever the motivation may be they are still criminal acts and have to be punished as such.
She rightly points out that penalties should be in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights.
I live on the border with Northern Ireland and this recital has a particular application to the situation in Northern Ireland where the motivation, in particular for nationalist violence, is political.
If the people responsible would only stop and think, they would see that within the framework of the European Union, most of the grievances which provoked recourse to violence twenty-five years ago have been or are being redressed at the present time.
All the citizens of the European Union, wherever they live, enjoy freedoms today that were denied to citizens in many Member States in the past.
The IRA violence, in particular in Northern Ireland, is solving no problem and is actually preventing the communities in Northern Ireland and the two parts of Ireland from developing and achieving the integration and the removal of borders and barriers that the European Union has made possible.
In paragraph 9 attention is drawn to the fact that economic, social and cultural exclusion can be a contributing factor to violence.
In his history of the Northern Ireland problems, an Irish historian, Tim Pat Coogan, supports this thesis, pointing out that most of the young people who have sustained the campaign of violence over the last twenty-five years have come from a small number of ghettos where people are poor and deprived, and the same is true of the violence on the Loyalist side.
It comes from people brought up in working-class areas with over-crowded and poor conditions.
Whatever the origin of the violence, the basic right of the citizens of this Union is to be protected from it and it is the duty of this Parliament to ensure that people who commit criminal acts, in particular against the person, will not find refuge in any Member State of this European Union.
At this point in the development of the Union surely we have developed sufficient common trust in each other to harmonize the legal provisions that are necessary to match the increasing mobility of criminals and the technology that is available to them.
We must give this task our priority.
Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Reding for her excellent report.
There is no justification for terrorism and violence perpetrated by organized groups to obtain political, social or other objectives.
It is morally and politically unacceptable.
In a democratic society like Europe, all projects must be lawful and defensible, and progress peacefully with popular support.
So our rejection of the use of violence to achieve such ends must be absolute.
We need weapons to fight these violent and organized groups, even more so when we have created a common area without frontiers in the European Union and when we are encouraging free movement of persons.
Precisely because of this we need to provide ourselves with two additional tools in the fight against violence.
First, we must create a common police and judicial area where, as stated in the resolution, all the relevant authorities of Member States cooperate, including the police forces responsible, either for the whole country or part of it, for instance the Basque police force itself, the Ertzaintza, which has jurisdiction there.
And second, legislation must be approximated so that the perpetrators of violent acts cannot find protection and shelter in other Member States.
Those are the routes to police cooperation.
To that we add scrupulous respect for human rights in the struggle against violent men and violent acts, and in this way we legitimize our democratic systems.
As the text of the resolution emphasizes, police action is not enough to resolve deep-seated conflicts in our society.
Democratic dialogue is necessary, and that is why, in this resolution, the European Parliament calls on the States of the European Union to promote it as a contribution to resolving political conflicts.
Police action is needed, but in turn, we are creating conditions for inclusive dialogue so that all individuals and groups are clearly aware that their political objectives can be put into practice in a framework of democracy, on one condition: that they have the support of the people, through a democratic majority.
Mr President, I welcome Mrs Reding's report which illustrates the scars of terror our civilized Europe still bears.
Many Members of the European Parliament are aware of terrorism in their constituencies as the most flagrant transgression of human rights, and some Members can even testify to suffering it within their own family circle.
What use is state sovereignty? It is time we recognized that we can only defend life and liberty by pooling all our weapons and one of them is implementing the Europol Convention which will give us the formula to achieve an objective so vital in this day and age.
In Spain two citizens are being held captive at this very moment by the terrorist group ETA.
One of them is a civil servant, Mr Ortega Lara, and his wife came to the European Parliament in November to call for the solidarity and support of the President of Parliament and all its Members, which she obtained.
It is time we left the fine words behind us, as Mrs Reding said, and time we recognized that terrorism thrives in a culture medium which must be destroyed and which we can destroy with political and legal arguments, like the ones Parliament will, I hope, approve by a majority tomorrow.
It is time to go further than words and recognize that the Europe of the future must be built on respect for the most fundamental rights, like the right to life and the right to freedom.
So thank you, Mrs Reding, and we hope that tomorrow your report will be passed by a unanimous Parliament.
Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, over the last decade, Europe has experienced a wave of terrorist acts.
The perpetrators have included both local groups and organisations based outside Europe.
We all have memories of the many hijacks, bombs, murders and kidnappings.
The reaction to them was an immediate international mobilisation in the fight against terrorism.
For some of this period, as the Swedish Secretary of State, I was responsible for terrorist issues.
I was able to see at close quarters the considerable improvements made in our approach to public security throughout Europe.
Improvements were made in aircraft safety.
Embassies and other vulnerable buildings also received better protection.
Decision makers and a variety of people in key positions had to learn to live with personal bodyguards.
We trained our police and gave our authorities greater resources and power.
Most important of all was the intensive international anti-terrorist cooperation which was quickly established.
I am referring to the TREVI agreement for example, which in many respects was the forerunner of current police cooperation within the Union.
This cooperation has led to the imprisonment of a number of terrorists and the breaking-up of their organisations.
It has become considerably more difficult for new groups to establish themselves.
The fight against terrorism is perhaps one of the best examples of how important and successful close international cooperation can be in the fight against organised crime.
Naturally, the positive political developments which have taken place in recent years in the Middle East, the former Soviet Union and in Eastern and Central Europe have also played a large part in this.
I completely agree with Mrs. Reding when she stresses, in her report, the importance of finding political solutions to the conflicts which feed terrorism.
We must also tackle the fundamental causes of terrorism.
But terrorism is still a very serious concern both within and outside Europe.
It is true that the number of international terrorist acts has decreased during the last decade but the number of victims has tended to increase.
We could say that the trend is for fewer, but more serious international terrorist acts.
The subject of terrorism has been raised on a number of occasions as part of the EU's cooperation on Justice and Home Affairs.
Mrs. Reding's report mentions the La Gomera declaration against terrorism which the Council of Ministers adopted in October 1995.
Like Mrs. Reding's report, this declaration underlines the importance of a joint initiative in the fight against terrorism.
The most important current issue is that terrorism be included as part of Europol's area of responsibility once the Convention comes into force.
I noted with satisfaction that Mrs. Reding, together with many other speakers in this assembly, is urging Member States to ratify the Europol Convention as soon as possible.
So far only Great Britain has ratified. The Irish Presidency urged all Member States to ratify the Convention during 1997.
I would like to add that I consider it extremely important that we work on the Extradition Convention in parallel with the Europol Convention as this is also important if we wish to tackle the issue of terrorism in its entirety.
The Reding report is therefore both timely and important.
The fight against terrorism must continue to be a matter of high priority in the European Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
Progress of the EU in 1995
The next item is the report (A4-0396/96) by Mr Valverde Lopez, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the report of the European Council to the European Parliament on the progress of the European Union in 1995 (pursuant to Article D of the Treaty on European Union) (C4-0409/96).
Mr President, this annual debate on the progress of the European Union in 1995 is pursuant to article D of the Treaty of Maastricht.
One of its principal innovations was to make the European Council responsible for providing the Union with the necessary impetus for its development and defining its general political guidelines.
Furthermore the treaty requirement that the European Council present an annual report on the progress of the Union clearly indicates an obligation of dialogue between the European Council and Parliament.
For this dialogue to be effective in the future, the European Council must undertake to complete its annual report at the December summit and the European Parliament must show the political flexibility and awareness to organize a major general debate in its February or March part-session every year.
In yet another year the European Council has to be reminded here and now that its functions are clearly different from those of the Council of the European Union and its annual report cannot therefore be a mere catalogue of the year's activities but should assess the political action taken and set out the political objectives and key ideas to be communicated to the public.
There must be an open dialogue between the European Parliament and the Council to discuss the general political guidelines for the year in progress.
The political action of the Union would emerge from this dialogue strengthened and doubly legitimized.
At this crucial time of consolidation of the European Union it is very important for clear, precise and definite messages to reach the citizens about the great political objectives of the Union.
As in any enterprise, the stability of a clearly defined horizon is essential.
The major problem for the construction of Europe at this time, above all vis-à-vis public opinion, lies in the nationalist way some Heads of Government are interpreting it for their respective electorates, frequently obfuscating and undermining the institutional agreements.
A clear message of support for many of the agreements made in the European Councils must go out from this Parliament, together with criticism and condemnation of those Heads of Government who are failing to show due loyalty to the institutional agreements, hence conveying confusion and insecurity to the public.
Furthermore, Mr President, these slanted and partial interpretations are unfortunately becoming the favourite issue for much of the media, because some of the ideas being expressed are scandalous and destabilizing.
Debates like this one on the state of the Union should send hopeful messages about the future to the citizens, stressing that while the European Council and Parliament may differ on occasion and on specific points, they are united on the great objectives of political union.
It should be made clear here and now that both institutions support the various objectives set out in the motion for a resolution drafted by the Committee on Institutional Affairs with wide agreement between all the political groups - and I thank the members for their contributions and support. It summarizes the current position of the European Parliament on the essential challenges facing the Union in the area of economic and monetary union, employment, the internal market, citizenship, common foreign policy, justice and internal affairs, enlargement and the great issue of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Briefly, Parliament's proposals can be described as coinciding with the objectives approved at the Madrid European Council, which drew up 'Agenda 2000' , and we consider it of the utmost benefit to fulfil each and every one of its goals, as well as the specific aims added later by the Florence and Dublin European Councils.
This Parliament believes it is essential to confirm to the public that it shares in the great objectives established by the European Council, supports compliance with the deadlines and conditions laid down for overcoming the various problems at each stage, and condemns any attempt by any Head of State or of Government to reverse decisions already agreed or confuse issues already settled with issues at the planning stage.
To sum up, Mr President, the European Parliament supports the agreement on the single currency, and supports the enlargement - which it regards as an historic opportunity to unify Europe politically - but reminds the European Council that the Intergovernmental Conference must give the Union the tools needed to complete the enlargement successfully.
It is also essential to make justice and internal policy a Community policy, as we have stressed repeatedly in this Parliament, and to create a European legal area as part of a vital strategy to fight terrorism and the drug traffic. That was made very clear in the previous debate.
There must be emphasis, too, on the common foreign and security policy so that it advances along the lines laid down in the Maastricht Treaty.
The European Council must take on board the fact that existing cooperation mechanisms have been a failure and decisive progress needs to be made in the process of integration.
Finally, Mr President, the citizens need to be reassured that the European Council is determined to extend European citizenship rights, and - just in passing - the European Commission's current information campaign deserves our praise.
There are other issues, but colleagues will be dealing with them, so I shall not dwell on them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the written report by the Council is laid down in the EU Treaty.
However, the annual debate on that report in the European Parliament must not be allowed to degenerate into a formality.
I should therefore like to use today's debate as an opportunity to talk about specific prospects for our shared European future, taking my cue from important events of the year 1995.
First, the enlargement to 15 Member States.
This successful advance also served as a signal, highlighting the need to restructure our Community and the changed political conditions.
As we know, these subjects are now being discussed by the Intergovernmental Conference.
Secondly, the activities of the Reflection Group, chaired by Carlos Westendorp, with two members of the European Parliament.
This gave a clear signal that the reconstruction in question can no longer be achieved without the participation of the peoples of the European Union and their democratically elected representatives.
That is why the results of the Intergovernmental Conference must also meet the requirements of the European Parliament.
Thirdly, the resolute commitment of the European Council in Madrid that monetary union should become a reality.
We are following with careful, though not uncritical, attention what the Council is now doing to implement those resolutions.
Fourthly, the setting of a political agenda for future years - Intergovernmental Conference, monetary union, negotiations on enlargement and the revision of the financial forecast and own resources.
In the light of this agenda, the Amsterdam summit in mid-June must bring fundamental reforms for the European Union.
However, 1995 has also left a legacy of problems that are still completely unresolved.
One of them is the weakness of Europe's external policy, which is really rooted in the inability of 15 governments to take joint action - think about Yugoslavia. Another, the biggest of all, is the social disaster of unemployment.
In 1995, as indeed in 1996, unemployment was a priority topic for the European Council, yet no tangible successes were achieved.
The Intergovernmental Conference must, therefore, come up with improvements - a new chapter on employment policy and an end to the United Kingdom's social opt-out.
But that will not be enough.
As part of our Community-wide coordination, the Member States must accept their responsibility for an upturn in the employment market.
Political democracy and the welfare state are still inseparable foundations of further European integration.
Mr President, I should particularly like to thank the rapporteur for having written a critical report.
I have nothing to add to his criticism except to say that I shall be unreservedly voting in favour.
I would however like to single out one point, contained in Section 34 of the report, where the rapporteur deplores the lack of goodwill manifested by the Council during the Intergovernmental Conference.
My view is that this lack of goodwill is based on a fundamental confusion, a lack of clarity regarding the objective which the European Union adopted as its own at Maastricht: eliminating the division of the European continent by laying the foundations of the future European structure.
The Maastricht Treaty itself states the principles on which those foundations are based: the United Nations Charter, the principles of the Helsinki Final Act, and the Paris Charter.
To adopt those foundations has serious consequences, because they can no longer be implemented in the form of a traditional foreign and security policy, although attempts are still being made to do so, but only in the creation of a domain of peace, something that does not yet exist, even if only in the form of the Europe of the future.
I am sorry to say - and I will say it, even in the Commissioner's presence - that I looked in vain in the Dublin II Council documents for any hint of awareness of this mighty challenge!
Mr President, the report on the progress of the Union in 1995 which we are examining today analyses European policy according to a rather distorted reading detectable right from the first preamble.
The Union should rest upon both democratic legitimacy, expressed in the European Parliament, and on the legitimacy of the States, expressed in the Council.
This presentation, as standard as it is, still hides the essence.
A primary legitimacy exists which goes before the two others but which is not cited often enough, that of the national parliaments.
It constitutes now and will for a long time to come, really until a European people exists, the principal legitimacy, as the decree of the German Constitutional Court given in October 1993 on the Treaty of Maastricht recalls.
This primary legitimacy does not only have an indirect effect on the Union through the repsonsibility of national governments, it also has a direct effect, since it is the national parliaments and often the people themselves who ratify the Treaty to which the European Parliament is subject, like all other institutions of the Union.
This subordinated role has to be recalled to explain why it is perfectly logical, contrary to the assertions of the report, for the European Parliament to be distanced from the negociating table at the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is also necessary to contest the request expressed by the report to extend the European Parliament's power of codecision for all acts of a legislative nature.
Indeed, although elected by universal suffrage, our Assembly represents people taken as a whole and not citizens considered in an equal manner.
Furthermore, it only has a secondary legitimacy compared with that of national parliaments, and in no way could it substitute them.
One wonders whether the fact that this primary truth and this primary legitimacy have been forgotten is one of the principal causes of the democratic deficit in the Union.
Thank you Mr Corbett and congratulations on your maiden speech.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Richard Corbett on his maiden speech.
Perhaps surprisingly, I agreed with all his substantive remarks and I hope he will agree with mine.
I agree with much of this resolution but perhaps I could depart from the polite conventions of this House by concentrating on what I disagree with.
I have no difficulties with the first line of the resolution.
The problems start in the second line which talks of the 'progress' of the European Union, as if the Union must always be moving forward.
We have to ask: ' Progress toward what?' and 'Who is driving this movement?' The resolution simply assumes that the EU is going to continue to do more and more and to do so without either having the structures in place to ensure satisfactory democratic control or having the consent of the people of the European Union.
Many more matters are already resolved at European level than most people in Europe realize.
The process of integration is overwhelmingly driven by an elite of politicians, including those represented in the Council of Ministers.
But for all the talk in the resolution about strengthening democratic legitimacy, it is not clear that this pace of integration has the consent of the vast majority of EU citizens.
It certainly seems to me bizarre to state in Recital F that 'the sole appropriate response' to nationalism and economic and social uncertainty is 'to move ahead with European integration' .
This seems to me to be theology not politics and derives from faith and not reason.
Such talk makes a nonsense of the frequent protestations of European politicians from all institutions since Maastricht that the EU should not attempt to take on new powers but should simply strive to do what it does now better.
We know that the pace of European integration will grow a good deal faster with economic and monetary union, something that is uncritically welcomed in the resolution.
In 1995 the fiscal and political implications of EMU seem hardly to have been considered.
We heard earlier from Commissioner Oreja that the Commission is only just beginning to think about its implications.
EMU represents a serious ratcheting up of European powers in all areas.
We know that EU citizens have serious reservations about EMU but they are sleep-walking into it without a proper debate.
They are simply told that there is no need for a debate because the decision was taken years ago by a few politicians in Maastricht.
I know that my views are in the minority in my group and in Parliament but people who care seriously about the success of the EU - as I do - in reviewing the Council's performance in 1995, or when we come to review its performance in 1997 on the eve of the next millennium, should be saying very clearly that Europe must slow down.
If the Euro-elite continues to gallop down the road of 'ever closer union' , which inevitably must end in a single European state, without carrying the peoples of Europe with it, I very much fear that it will all end in tears.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Valverde, on his excellent work. He especially deserves congratulation for making a political assessment of the main issues the European Union institutions are confronting today.
And I was delighted to be able to hear Mr Corbett's first speech, because I had the pleasure of working with him for many years in the Parliament and I am very glad to see him here today making a speech of such political purpose and clear vision about the way reports of this kind should be dealt with in the future.
I entirely share Mr Valverde's position on the purpose of the exercise provided for under article D of the Treaty on European Union.
We should not be unnecessarily duplicating Community publications which already cover all the activities of the Union.
I refer to the general report on the business of the European Union, the 1996 edition of which will be available as from 11 February, and the monthly bulletin of the European Union.
Instead, the European Council report should, as the rapporteur said, make a political assessment of the Union's progress and its difficulties and define some general political guidelines on that basis.
Mr Valverde has set all this out very clearly and, fundamentally, the Commission associates itself with the broad lines of his report.
Like the European Parliament, the Commission in fact takes the view that specific employment provisions should be included in the treaty, that the promotion of public services, a key element in the European model of society, should be one of the objectives of the treaty, and that the Union should provide itself with the appropriate legal basis so that it can combat fraud against the financial interests of the Communities effectively.
Locating citizenship at the heart of the European Union is also a constant concern of the Commission, in line with its statement of 28 February 1996 on the Intergovernmental Conference.
And Mr Schäfer is absolutely right to mention the work of the Westendorp Group in this connection, because that was indeed the starting point and that group specifically dwelt on what is meant by the status and role of citizen.
It is vitally important to eliminate obstacles to free movement of persons, and to bring cooperation in a wide range of justice and internal affairs issues under Community responsibility, as well as strengthening the Union's ability to act in other areas of the third pillar.
The Commission also believes the Union's decision-making process needs to become simpler and more democratic, and more transparent and intelligible to the citizen.
With this in mind, the Commission recommended extending the scope of codecision to all Community legislation in its report of last June.
I think there are two kinds of legitimacy and I wanted to mention that to Mr Berthu when he was talking about legitimacy.
There is the legitimacy of the States and the legitimacy of the people.
And because of this twofold legitimacy, the national parliaments have a very important function and so does the European Parliament.
The construction of a strong external identity is another aim shared by the European Parliament and the Commission, and Mr Ullman referred to it in his speech.
Some common objectives need to be set for this purpose, but that may not be easy to negotiate.
More coherent external action must be guaranteed - and I want to stress that particularly.
The Union's resources for action must be strengthened, especially in trade policy.
And our common foreign and security policy must be developed by creating a common analysis unit and extending qualified majority voting to this area.
Finally, we must gradually build up a security and defence identity.
In conclusion, Mr President, the Commission fully shares the rapporteur's view that the future of the European Union, including economic and monetary union and the success of the enlargement depends above all on some good results at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Serious reform is not a luxury that institutions indulge in to boost their own importance.
It is the only way the Union can obtain the resources it needs to defend its interests in the world, to respond to the aspirations of its citizens and to welcome in the candidate countries.
And I am delighted to say, Mr Valverde, that your report sustains and encourages the Commission in its daily endeavours to achieve these objectives at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, as we are discussing a Council report should we not receive a response from the Council?
No.
Why not?
Traditionally they do not respond to this debate.
I do not know why this tradition exists but it does.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
Cultural aspects in European Community action
The next item is the report (A4-0410/96) by Mr Escudero, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the first report by the Commission on the consideration of cultural aspects in European Community action (COM(96)0160 - C4-0249/96).
Mr President, the starting point of this report is the affirmation of interdependence between cultural action and political action in the European Union, and I would like to set out its general lines.
It is well-known that the integration process was originally built on economic interests, but since the Treaty of Maastricht the achievement of European citizenship has become a fundamental and highly significant objective.
Throughout the political history of the West, the acquisition of citizenship has always been linked to existence of an ideological and cultural community.
So the cultural reference in the text is not some intellectual adornment, but the very core and raison d'être of the European citizenship we are seeking.
If no cultural and ideological framework exists, there is no Community policy, and if there is no Community policy, there is no European citizenship.
The Treaty on Union refers to culture in article 3, article 92 and, above all, the important article 128, which constitutes the new Title IX devoted to culture.
This article provides that the Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national diversity, encouraging cooperation between Member States, supporting and supplementing their action in a number of areas and fostering cooperation with third countries on these issues.
Now, Community action in all those areas which are not within its exclusive competence, as culture obviously is not, remains subject, under article 3 b of the treaty, to the principle of subsidiarity, so that it can only intervene in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States.
This means Community action must be geared to the principle of subsidiarity and as that principle does not have empirical form but is a conceptual construction, Community action must consequently be geared to the interpretation applied to the principle of subsidiarity.
Here we recognize a flexible interpretation because a rooted and rigid one would actually make participation impossible in practice, while in any case it must keep to the limits laid down in the said article 128.
Finally, examination of Community cultural action goes beyond existing direct programmes - Kaleidoscope, Ariane and Raphael, which certainly deserve praise and encouragement - and involves any administrative and financial act which has any repercussions on culture.
Sustained Community action must be promoted to benefit the cultures of Europe, respecting the initiative of the Member States and also respecting the historical and linguistic identity of the peoples.
So the establishment of a clause whereby all Community acts and actions which may have a cultural impact must be compatible with cultural objectives, as proposed in this report, makes sense, as does the Community entering into constructive dialogue with all the bodies - universities, academies, foundations, etc, concerned with culture.
Historical anomalies and misunderstandings would thus be overcome, creating a social climate of harmony, freedom, tolerance and respect on which it will be possible to consolidate the democratic values of political coexistence.
In conclusion, Mr President, during examination in committee this report was particularly open to the suggestions, comments and amendments of members of the various political groups, and it was approved unanimously.
Three amendments have been tabled in the meantime: one by Mrs Pack restored some words which accidentally vanished from my text, on eradicating illiteracy and promoting appropriate policy on books.
Obviously I am very much in agreement with this amendment which restores the original text.
I also agree with Mr Perry's amendment to the proposal for the Commission to have experts draw up a school textbook on the history of Europe, in that it should be recommended for, rather than imposed on, the educational programmes of Member States.
But I do not subscribe to the new text that Mr Perry proposes for paragraph 18, which deals with investment in works of art to adorn public construction projects and is the result of an intelligent amendment by Mr Aparicio. It is very ambitious and attainable in time, as part of the task we have set ourselves of restoring the role of culture in the life of Europe.
Mr President, many citizens and Members of Parliament believe in the existence of European culture.
This land enjoys the spiritual heritage of Aristotle and the Greeks, then came the Roman Empire and Christianity, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Romantic Movement, the Scientific Movement, the liberating ideas of the Eighteenth Century and the egalitarian ideas of the Nineteenth Century.
This land has more in common than geography and trade.
Many of us believe in the existence of European culture and we are not ashamed to say so.
But we are on the defensive, Mr President. You will not hear European culture mentioned without someone immediately adding 'based on diversity and respect for the plurality of cultures' .
Obviously no culture is worthy of the name if it does not respect the diversity of cultures. But equally obviously, in our view, we should be talking about European culture, something which - as I said - represents more than shared geography and trade.
Why are we on the defensive when we talk about it? Because terrible atrocities have been committed in our own century, in the name of culture, along with uniformity and authoritarianism.
Obviously the European Union could not be further away from that kind of thing.
But in that connection, I believe Europeans are united by a system of knowledge, belief, and thought, covering morality, history, customs, everything that shapes culture, and we would not have come this far from the bloodstained and divided Europe of the 'forties if that European culture did not exist.
So I think Mr Escudero's report is admirable. His rigorous and erudite approach, demonstrated in his five minute summary before I spoke, exemplifies European thought.
A report like this can hardly fail to achieve the virtual unanimity that Mr Escudero has achieved.
I particularly like point 18 of the motion for a resolution, and point 23 about a school textbook.
When will the flame be lighted which makes the process of European Union irreversible? When children no longer think of Europe as 'an organization my country belongs to' but think of Europe as 'my country' .
When a Danish child thinks of Mozart as 'one of my country's geniuses' , when a Spaniard thinks of Goethe as 'one of my country's philosophers' or when a Greek thinks of Picasso or an English child thinks of Pasteur as 'distinguished figures from my country: Europe' .
This can be achieved through teaching methods and this common history textbook which would additional to national history textbooks, and recommended for inclusion in the curriculum.
So in my opinion the whole report is excellent.
Mr President, the Maastricht Treaty gave the European Union for the first time a competence in cultural issues and we would all agree that European culture not only merits but needs our support.
European culture is under siege from Atlanticist values.
We can admire America and things American but it still remains vital to protect and promote our own cultures here in Europe.
I was very struck when former French Culture Minister Mr Toubon addressed the European Parliament back in 1995 and said that we were in danger of rearing a Nintendo generation.
He was right and I share his concerns.
We should also take this opportunity to express our appreciation to Commissioner Oreja and the former DirectorGeneral of DG XX, Miss Flesch, for the work they have done in protecting and promoting Europe's culture.
While I broadly support Mr Escudero's report, I have some slight reservations.
For instance, I am not convinced that cultural policy should be by majority voting in Council.
It is our individual national cultures that make the rich patchwork of Europe's culture.
National interests should have the right to protect their own cultures as they see fit.
The distinctive feature of Europe's culture is its national diversity.
Similarly I do not believe that a school textbook on the history of Europe should be made a compulsory subject for study in all the Member States.
I recognize it might be useful for instance for English pupils at long last to learn how, despite winning all the critical battles in the Hundred Years War such as Agincourt and Crecy, somehow or other we managed to lose the war.
But that should not be done by compulsory textbooks drawn up by the Commission.
I appreciate the remarks that Mr Escudero made and I believe he was accepting the amendment.
The report also urges that 1 % of EU expenditure on public works should go on works of art to adorn the said public work.
I do not say that we should never have works of art in public places at public expense but I do not think it is always appropriate and I have proposed an amendment that would limit it to only where appropriate.
Where I totally agree with my colleague - and I say this as budget rapporteur for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media - is that we need to increase the overall funding allocated to the culture sector.
Europe's cultural heritage not only needs and deserves more funding in its own right but because the culture sector is additionally an important generator of economic growth and employment throughout our continent.
That is a message that must be heard not only by the Commission but by the Council and - I am sorry to say - by this Parliament as well.
I have to announce that I shall be calling the Commissioner after we have heard the group representatives and he will be the last speaker before the break.
The debate will continue after the break.
I apologise in particular to Mr Evans who will be the first speaker affected by this.
Mr President, as my colleagues have done already, I am also keen to congratulate rapporteur Escudero for his work, with which the UPE group is in perfect agreement.
Indeed we can only be delighted at the fact that the cultural dimension and the definition of increasingly specific European cultural objectives are being taken into consideration, among European policies as a whole.
The road is long, and if we already have positive results to show in the domain of artistic and historic heritage, in that of the protection of authors, the circulation of works of art, the development of reading and many other areas, we must be vigilant and increasingly determined.
Access to culture and the notion of cultural membership are essential conditions for the full participation of citizens in the life of society.
But be warned, the very rapid evolution towards the information society demands increased vigilance of the Community to promote this European cultural identity as much through the networks as through the services offered.
Personally, I am delighted at the fact that finally the economic impact, particularly on employment, of the cultural action of the Union, is beginning to be considered.
If the environmental dimension is omnipresent in references to European policy, let us also introduce the cultural dimension wherever possible and let us evaluate regularly the effect of this dimension.
Let us be concerned for the safeguarding and protection of our European languages, let us export our literary, musical and audiovisual works outside the Union.
Let us act favourably towards the promotion of those cultural activities, which increase the value of our European style.
Let us share our cultural objectives with countries asking for entry into Europe now.
Do not be afraid of broadcasting our cultures. They are the origins of the life of our civilisations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if the EU is not able to improve the effectiveness of its cultural policy within the terms of the Maastricht Treaty and in the manner intended by the Treaty's articles on culture, the best objectives and values of the Union will fail to be realized.
We need data from economic research to convince doubters of the close link between culture and the economy and the stimulating effect which culture has on the economy.
The most important support for culture comes from the structural funds through the regional development programmes.
If regional decision-makers have a coherent overall vision of the prerequisites for development, they will include cultural and educational projects as an essential part of development programmes.
In this way new jobs will be created, the quality of life and of the environment will be improved and exclusion will be prevented
The basis of the EU's cultural policy is still the protection and enhancement of cultural and linguistic diversity.
A rich diversity is at the core of the European identity.
We do not need any standardizing Euro-culture.
Instead we need a better understanding of culture, knowledge of each other and the acceptance of difference. In terms of the EU's cultural and educational policy, respecting the subsidiarity principle means striving towards common objectives on the basis of our own cultural identity and in the framework of our own structures.
For this reason we cannot approve the proposal contained in the draft resolution for a common European history textbook as a compulsory subject for study in schools.
On the other hand the underlying idea of the great importance of teaching European history in the interest of promoting mutual understanding and tolerance is a good one.
Mr. President, I am a great advocate of cultural initiatives and international cultural exchanges.
For this reason, there are many sections in this report which I can support.
But there are also sections which are totally alien to me.
Europe has many cultures.
This report talks about a European culture and a European cultural identity , but there is no such thing.
There is no basis for the belief that the EU boundary also forms a natural cultural boundary.
Why should we have more in common with someone from an EU country than we do with someone from Hungary, or Argentina for that matter? To uphold the view that there is special European culture is one way of evoking an artificial basis for 'Euronationalism' and a European State.
I believe that such attempts are doomed to failure.
Culture in an open democratic society is not created by decree.
This is why the view, discussed in the report, that we should create a European culture through majority decision making in the Council of Ministers came as such a surprise and shock to me.
For me this is an absurd idea.
Equally absurd are the plans to introduce common, obligatory material for schools covering European history.
The peoples of Europe do not have one common history.
What is more, the production of teaching aids is not a matter for the EU, but one for the Member States.
The thought that the EU's Council of Ministers should sit down and decide in detail what each pupil should learn at school is, for me, totally incompatible with the diversity, openness and democracy which represents the best of Europe.
Mr President, many, many times, we have recalled our wish to see the European Union's competence strengthened regarding culture.
This wish, expressed by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and written by our Parliament into its resolution regarding the IGC, appears not to have been honoured today by negotiators from the Member States.
The idea is nevertheless gaining ground and this first report by the Commission on the consideration of cultural aspects can give us the hope that one day we will see culture given recognition as a structural element in the construction of Europe.
And even if we are not there yet, we should nevertheless congratulate the European Commission on this initiative.
I am addressing you in particular, Commissioner, but I would also like to include Mr Escudero, our rapporteur, in these congratulations, for the quality of his work.
It is a matter of taking our bearings from Article 128 which marks the establishment of a legal basis specific to culture in the Treaty of Union.
However, and we are sorry for this, the subject of this report does not concern the whole of Article 128, but only paragraph 4.
It is not, then, a question of evaluating the activities carried out by all the specific cultural programmes, but of seeing how far Community policy takes account of cultural aspects in its action in the name of other arrangements.
Starting from the evolving notion of the concept of culture, the Commission is drawing up a precise, though partial, inventory of the impact of culture in all the spheres of activity of the Union.
We could mention for the record those of basic freedoms, taxation, competition policy, the circulation of property, and that's not all.
Of course, we should add to these the consideration of culture in the structural fund, which is a fundamental matter.
Concerning this, we have been pleased to learn that most Community policies have a cultural dimension.
Nevertheless, I would like make my own several criticisms of Mr Escudero.
Can we really confine ourselves to these too generous comments and to the oft reiterated principle of considering the coherence of internal policies and their compatibility.
I also think that, as our rapporteur recommends, Article 128 should be considered in its entirety and the demand should be made that it is better applied, in particular by the introduction of the vote by a qualified majority in Council.
In other respects, consideration of cultural aspects is still not sufficient and it would be appropriate to retain the legal basis of Article 128 for any legislative act relating to culture.
To conclude, I would like to make a more personal comment.
As I said, I recognise the praiseworthy efforts of the Commission towards imposing respect for culture, for our culture.
Nevertheless, I think that we should, before all else, think about what we mean by this word.
By trying to see everything through cultural eyes, I am afraid that we are emptying it little by little of its substance.
Nowadays, everything is culture, and since culture should be the opposite of nature, culture should therefore characterise all human activity.
I fear that reality forces a little more modesty upon us.
If you cast your net too wide, you risk catching too many sprats, as the saying goes.
I would like our efforts essentially to be focused upon creation, genuine creation.
Of course we must safeguard our heritage.
But we must also aid artistic creation in Europe.
In this world of the ephemeral, the virtual, in which the production of events takes precedence over the completion of a work, it is perhaps time also that we help creators, that we favour the practice of culture.
And we know how many people are excluded from it.
We could thereby reconcile culture and education, culture and society, culture and economics, and labour effectively towards extending the influence of European culture.
Mr President, on a point of order.
There are few if any people in this House who have greater respect for you than I do but perhaps you could clarify a point for me.
Unless he possess psychic powers or is telepathic, how is the Commissioner going to reply to the debate before he has heard all the speakers and all the hard-hitting arguments which will be made after he has spoken? It may be that I have misunderstood the situation but I am sure you will clear things up for me.
It is a fair comment.
I am sure the Commission will read the speeches of those who speak after he replies and if there are points he wants to respond to I am sure he will do so in writing.
Unfortunately that is the only way we can proceed.
It is always unsatisfactory to split a debate but in view of the time we have no option but to do so.
We cannot keep the interpreters and other staff here indefinitely and the debate would have to run on for another twenty minutes if we took all the speakers.
I am very sorry.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to start by congratulating the rapporteur on his excellent work and also on the speech he made here, which was clear, concise and comprehensive, and very helpful to our work.
And I also want to say that I concur in recognizing the importance of this debate which represents an important stage in establishing the cultural policy of the European Community.
I also want to thank him for having highlighted the quality of the Commission's work.
The Commission has been occupied for some time in drawing up the report relating to article 128.4, but in reality that work is merely a first attempt to assess the magnitude of the Community's commitment in the cultural area.
The Commission's objective was to initiate a debate on the scope of new article 128 of the treaty and then draw the conclusions, exercising its right of initiative.
We are delighted both with this motion for a resolution from Parliament and for the resolution recently approved by the Council of Ministers.
And I want to say to Mr Escudero that the Commission agrees with the majority of the considerations that appear in his report, that is, the considerations on cultural aspects, which now constitute an obligation on the Community.
Obviously the principle of subsidiarity must be respected, but not used to put a brake on Community action in the cultural field.
Culture should also fulfil an important function in European integration.
We cannot claim that the citizen should be at the heart of the construction of Europe and then leave out culture and all the values - humanism, democracy, human rights, tolerance - on which the European model of society is based.
Culture is also a factor in social cohesion and can contribute to the fight against unemployment and social exclusion, as Mr Perry mentioned when he said culture plays a role in creating jobs.
And I have specifically asked my staff to prepare a Green Paper on the relationship between culture and employment, which I hope to be in a position to present towards the end of the year.
The Commission notes with the greatest interest the rapporteur's proposals on the application of paragraph 4 of article 128, and I can assure you I will take them very much into account in exercising the right of initiative and executing Community policies.
And in this sense, we think that any action with repercussions on culture should reconcile its own objectives with the cultural objectives of the Community.
For example, a structural funds operation with cultural impact should contribute to regional development, respect the specific cultural aspects in the processes of education and distribution. and have European scope and visibility.
Community cultural action should demonstrate to Europeans the importance of their common roots and the role played by educational exchanges on our cultural heritage, as highlighted by Mr Aparicio in his splendid speech.
It should also encourage the formation of cultural cooperation networks, called for by the rapporteur, which can make real achievements possible.
And here I think you are absolutely right to talk about the role of the universities.
The idea of creating Jean Monnet Chairs of comparative European cultural history is an initiative which must be carried through to a conclusion.
Furthermore, the proposal to convert future cultural programmes into integrated programmes, in other words, associate measures taken in the framework of the cohesion, training and technology policies with cultural action as such, also deserves to be taken fully into account.
Mr President, the Commission takes note of the invitation from Parliament and the Council to adopt internal mechanisms to guarantee fulfilment of the provisions of paragraph 4 of article 128 through a cultural compatibility clause. This clause will facilitate greater coordination between all Community measures which may have repercussions in the cultural sphere and, hence, better integration of culture into Community action.
I will soon be proposing a mechanism of this kind to the Commission and it will be inspired by what has already been achieved in a similar way in the environmental sphere.
Finally, the Commission takes note of the call by Parliament and the Council for an annual report on how cultural aspects have been taken into consideration in Community actions.
And to end, I want to congratulate Mr Escudero again on his excellent work, and tell you that the Commission's report and the resolutions from the Council and Parliament represent an important stage in what the rapporteur called the recognition and consecration of the role of culture in the construction of Europe.
(The sitting was adjourned at 8.10 p.m and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Mr President, I should like to welcome you to the debate.
I am sorry you missed the first part of it and also that the rapporteur is not here to hear the continuation.
Nevertheless, I wish to speak in support of the report by Mr Escudero.
While many people believe that the European Union is only about business, about making money and about international trade, there are many of us who believe that there is more to it than that.
Certainly in the UK but also in other countries, there are serious doubts at the moment and murmurings about the whole concept of the European Union.
While it is always the politicians and the industrialists who think they make the decisions, it is the people who make the real decisions and if we are to carry the citizens of Europe with us we have to involve them and make them feel part of the European Union.
We do not do this by highlighting our differences.
Of course I accept and respect the differences - our different languages, our individual histories, the various religions of Europe and our separate cultures.
But we must highlight and build on the similarities.
Europe as a continent has a common history shaped by the Romans, the ancient Greeks, modern wars, etc. but we also share a cultural history and we must recognize this.
Most of the European languages share words, phrases, grammar and other similarities.
It is the similarities that bind us together and ultimately will be the key to Europe's success.
When the sample designs of the single currency notes were released last year, many people were unhappy.
Never mind that the individual designs on the banknotes are irrelevant to the real debate about European Union, the artists had recognized and acknowledged our common European architectural heritage, something we all try to preserve and protect.
Therefore I believe, as does this report, that it is important that we take increased and coordinated action in this field.
It is what the report calls for.
We must teach our children and young people about other languages and other cultures.
By doing this, we can counter the very strong and negative forces that exist.
These forces, if unchecked, will lead to a further rise in racism, fascism and xenophobia.
This was evident recently in the British press with some of the ill-informed and unhelpful coverage of paragraph 23 of Mr Escudero's report.
My group will be supporting Amendment No 3 to tidy up this part and to remove any ambiguities but the principle is still a strong one.
It is important in a union of fifteen countries that we teach our children about our common history and heritage.
Sometimes, but not always, this will mean looking at arguments from both sides.
It means also that we must learn something of the history and the struggles of people in other lands.
My group will also be support Amendment No 1 calling for zero rating for VAT on books and newspapers - a strong principle.
A country or society that taxes the printed word is leaning in a dangerous direction and it is one that must be challenged.
This is a comprehensive and powerful report and the Socialist Group is happy to support it, as I hope Parliament will.
Mr President, not having had previous parliamentary experience I stood for election to the European Parliament because I believed in the European dream.
I came here in order to be closer to the source, closer to the place where decisions are made which could shape - for better or for worse - our own lives.
From my point of view this is one of the most important reports being debated this year in the European Parliament.
But how many people will agree with me? In any case, dear colleagues, I myself have no doubts about that fact.
At this decisive stage in the life of the European Union, strengthening its cultural dimension will bring about decisive responses, which only it can bring about, in a sensitive area such as the economic and social cohesion of the European Union and citizenship.
In recent times there have been more and more signals from inside the three main European Union institutions of desires to bring culture into the centre of the European project.
This is a great challenge which all of us must take up and try to meet.
The European Parliament has included in the Dury-Maij-Weggen Report on the Intergovernmental Conference innovative points which the first Commission report on the cultural impact of the European Union's policies complements and clarifies.
But I should like to pick out for its importance the recent resolution which the Irish Presidency had signed at the last 'Culture' Council held in December, which for the first time enshrines a consensus between the Member States around the new attitude to the dynamic role of culture in the European Union opening the way to strengthened inter-institutional co-operation which has been expected and hoped for for a long time.
The Escudero report - and I should like to thank him for accepting nearly all of my proposals - clearly points in the direction in which we have to advance.
Article 128 has to be changed so that we can have a legal basis for all actions which have a cultural dimension.
It is urgent to put into application an integrated vision of cooperation between the Commission's departments and programmes but not to create a common cultural fund, which would mean a step backwards in terms of the new vision defended by this report.
Above all we must have a compulsory cultural aspect in the projects of other areas funded by the Structural Funds.
Finally, we must carry out a cultural impact study when dealing with all projects, not only in a negative sense, i.e. analysing the harm that could be done to heritage, but above all in a positive sense, in other words assessing how culture could enhance regional development, urban reconstruction, tourism and employment.
Mr President, this has to be done sooner or later.
And it would be better if it were done sooner.
Mr President, even if culture is taken into consideration in directives, in the credits of the structural fund, and by the granting of direct aid, this is all rather disparate.
Mr Escudero's excellent report quite rightly poses the basic problem, which is that of allowing the Union, while taking account of the principle of subsidiarity, to adopt additional, yet coordinated and universal, measures regarding culture, and to do so by removing the rule of unanimity which is leading to the obstruction of several programmes, a fact which is being criticised by more and more cultural organisations.
By giving the European Union the right to implement a cultural policy which respects the national and regional diversity of Member States, while at the same time highlighting the common cultural heritage, by making decisions relating to the cultural sector subject to a qualified majority, with codecision of Parliament, culture really would become one of the basic preoccupations of Europe.
The revision of Article 128 of the Treaty would be, to paraphrase a speech from history, a small step for modifications to texts, but a great step for the destiny of cultural creation.
To conclude, I am sorry in this respect that the European Commissioner, who has not stayed for the whole debate, though it has not been a long one, has not stated clearly whether he is for or against the modification of Article 128, a modification which, for my part, I support entirely.
Thank you, Mr Evans.
Note has been taken of your complaint, but of course you will understand why - that was already explained previously - we had to proceed in precisely this way: we had to structure the debate in accordance with the particular competences of the Commissioner present.
In any case, your remark is quite sensible and we will have to try and work at finding ways of changing things so that this kind of situation does not repeat itself.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Cost of transport
The next item is the report (A4-0012/97) by Mrs Schmidbauer, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission Green Paper 'Towards fair and efficient pricing in transport - policy options for internalizing the external costs of transport in the European Union' (COM(95)0691 - C40610/95).
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we Members of this Parliament have long been waiting for a Commission initiative directed towards a juster distribution of the cost of transport.
I should like to express my appreciation of the fact that Commissioner Kinnock, at the very beginning of his term of office, did dedicate himself to this very difficult task and produce the Green Paper on the internalization of the external costs of transport.
That was a step in the right direction, a step towards solving the problems of transport and achieving sustainable mobility combined with due respect for the environment.
Increasing mobility constantly adds to the problems of transport.
In the last 20 years, the average daily mileage covered by individual members of the public has doubled, as has the number of vehicles.
Our present system of taxes and charges, which varies greatly from one Member State to another, ignores the real costs and passes them on to non-users.
This creates an illusion of relatively cheap transport by car, but what is happening is that each and every transport user is subsidizing the journeys made by others, and everyone - even non-owners of cars - is paying for the external costs: infrastructures, congestion, accidents and environmental pollution.
The Green Paper is a discussion document, not a finished piece of legislation.
I must keep stressing that point, because critics of the concept behave as if the Green Paper meant that everything was already enshrined in law.
In principle, the Green Paper is applicable to all sectors of transport: road, rail, waterways and air.
In practice, it concentrates on road traffic, and within road traffic it concentrates on the costs caused by heavy lorries.
But that is not to say that the measures proposed in the Green Paper are designed to banish freight transport from the roads, as is constantly asserted by interested parties.
I cannot find a single reference in the Green Paper that lends any weight to that assertion.
The carriage of goods by road is and will remain an essential part of all economic activity, but it must accept an assessment based on the 'polluter pays' principle
Another untenable argument is that not only should the external costs be charged on but the external benefits should be credited.
Clearly, road transport brings advantages for most people.
But those advantages are not an external benefit, because the suppliers of transport services do not offer those services free of charge.
The users are already paying for them.
So this has already been taken into account when the costs are charged.
(Heckling from Mr Jarzembowski) That is why, Mr Jarzembowski, I am also against the PPE Group's Amendment No 2.
The Green Paper does not invent any additional costs which make transport more expensive.
It merely exposes the previously hidden costs and proposes a more efficient and fair redistribution of those costs.
The intention is that internalization should lead to a reduction in costs, so that both businesses and the public have to spend less on transport costs, and above all: those costs must be reliably quantifiable.
In order for the external costs to be fairly apportioned in accordance with the 'polluter pays' principle, principles need to be developed which will ensure that charges are linked as closely as possible to actual use.
In other words, the charges must not be abused as an additional source of tax revenue.
Let me recall the current controversy in Germany, about a possible increase in the petroleum tax to enable the Finance Minister to plug the financial leaks in the budget.
That must not be allowed to happen.
If internalization is implemented on the basis of actual use, overall transport costs will be reduced, even if charges for individual journeys are higher.
Now I come to the various categories of external costs - first, infrastructure costs.
The use of roads causes damage to them.
A key factor here is the axle weight of vehicles, and the heavier the vehicle, the greater the road damage.
Even though, in some Member States, charges are levied for road use, individual road users often do not pay for the damage which they cause; instead, as a rule, heavy goods vehicles are subsidized by private cars.
The costs of congestion, too, are already borne in part by those involved in it, but only in part.
On the one hand, every road user does cause every other road user to be as late as he is himself, and he pays for his decision to travel at peak times by having to spend longer doing it.
However, this concept takes no account at all of the differing economic value of each individual journey.
The introduction of differentiated road pricing, varying according to the region, the time and the damage caused, is intended to reduce unnecessary journeys and so improve traffic flow.
Accident costs are nowhere near covered by the widely varying insurance systems within the Union.
The taxpayers have to make good the shortfall, and not every taxpayer drives a motor vehicle.
There is also the difference between safe and unsafe vehicles and/or drivers.
In accordance with the principle whereby the responsible party pays, however, it would be logical for each driver to pay in proportion to the risks to which he gives rise.
Even so, the method of calculation currently proposed in the Green Paper fails to convince me.
The fact that traffic pollutes the environment is beyond dispute.
Road transport accounts for 62 % of carbon monoxide emissions, 50 % of nitrogen oxide, 33 % of hydrocarbon and 17 % of carbon dioxide emissions.
According to one fairly recent study, more than 20 % of the EU's population are exposed to traffic noise which is higher than the noise level that people can reasonably be expected to tolerate.
I also note the absence in the Green Paper of any statement or study in connection with CO2 emissions.
Some of today's environmental pollution could be cut simply by Member States doing more than they are to monitor compliance with the existing European rules and requirements.
In order to be able to internalize the external costs, the Commission is proposing the introduction of an electronic road pricing system.
I believe this is appropriate in principle, although rules will have to be developed to ensure data protection, and the whole thing must not be allowed to lead to social distortions.
But it will be some time yet before a telematic road pricing system becomes practicable.
In the meantime, as a first step, road fund taxes, petroleum taxes, licence fees and tolls should be harmonized throughout Europe, and then some or all of them can later be replaced by the road pricing system.
Let me once again emphasize this point: the proposal in the Green Paper is not designed to make transport more expensive, simply to distribute the costs more equitably.
There are still a few points in the Green Paper that have not been fully clarified, and indeed the Commission itself has listed them.
It has noted which studies are still needed, because certain comments have yet to be pursued in greater breadth or depth.
As a whole, though, the Green Paper does provide a basis for the opening-up of new avenues in transport policy.
Those new avenues may help to solve the increasingly difficult problems of transport, and I hope that together, despite all our differences of opinion, we shall be able to bring in and continue developing this new transport policy.
Mr President, the idea of efficient transport pricing makes this a very interesting Green Paper.
I can only congratulate the Commission on giving thought to how transport is to continue to function in the next millennium.
Mobility is an everyday need, and people do not always act in accordance with what politicians think should be the priorities, but take what they think is the most favourable and best option for getting where they want to go.
Something I like in the Green Paper is the general subdivision into three essential areas: first the 'polluter pays' principle, secondly the application of market forces, and thirdly the redistribution of taxation - not a tax increase, quite the reverse, if the objectives of achieving a more cost-effective transport and mobility system are attained.
A very brief word on the 'polluter pays' principle.
The principle that people should pay the real costs of the miles they cover is a very good one.
I believe that it will actually enable road users to realize what the costs are, and so behave more flexibly.
A second essential principle is equality of treatment for all transport and mobility providers.
As far as the market forces are concerned, it can be said that the issue is to guarantee ecologically acceptable, fair and efficient market prices, with the primary aim of reducing the cost of transport for all by improving the infrastructure and achieving those objectives that are listed in the Green Paper.
A critical point is that when electronic pricing comes it should come to the whole of Europe, and it should allow a variety of systems - in other words, not just a single, monopolistic system that allows no competition but an arrangement that allows the best system to emerge over the course of time.
Consequently, electronic pricing should be dependent on the damage caused to the infrastructure, it should allow time-dependent charging in sensitive, overcongested areas, and should allow differentiated petroleum taxes, depending on environmental properties, and equal fiscal treatment of all fuels and noise categories - in other words, carriers should be classified into noise categories so that relief can be given to quiet carriers.
Safety categories should also be introduced for safe cars, together with pollutant categories, service life categories and, quite simply, scrap premiums too, so that a driver who can prove that he has scrapped a car benefits from it.
There are possibilities, too, in the area of driving safety: falling asleep at the wheel, defective vision, slow reaction times, inadequate practical and theoretical knowledge - all these give rise to heavy costs.
So any such instrument should also include bonus points for advanced training.
A final point on the redistribution of taxation: all taxes should benefit the transport sector, with a view to solving its problems.
There must be no cross-subsidization of the various types of transport.
Regional solutions should be offered, and attempts made to guarantee the financing of research and development, telematic security systems, environmental information systems and basic and advanced training.
Mr President, in addition to thanking you, I would also like to thank the commissioner and the Commission for the Green Paper.
I also thank Mrs Schmidbauer for her comments.
This is a good contribution to the debate, and it marks the first step along the way.
The close links between the transport policy and many other areas of policy means there is a great deal to take into account.
We must therefore tackle the matter more pragmatically, otherwise there will be the risk of losing everything.
What we have in mind here is competition, the environment, the internal market, national cultural differences or differences in general terms, and there are many factors to bear in mind when producing a report.
The report is therefore a compromise, but of a high quality.
It is in fact part of the political Europe we inhabit and recognises that we have both left-wing and right-wing tendencies, and that we have special interests in the transport sector.
The most important thing is that the debate provides a forum for the exchange of ideas the quality of which is of a high level.
The alternative would be for the policy to stagnate, so that transport did not develop, which means transport would also stagnate.
We are all against unfair competition in the areas of tax, energy consumption, pollution, working hours, etc.
We are thinking in terms of a European vignette here.
We are discussing the problems in the Alps.
Let us consider these aspects first.
But let us also agree that pollution is increasing, and it is well documented that transport's share in this pollution is also increasing.
When in the autumn the Commission comes to deal with the problems surrounding the internalising of external costs, as they are referred to, it will be important that the Commission and the commissioner come up with a timetable for the way ahead in Europe. It must be more than just talk.
In the meantime the national parliaments could be involved in the process, giving thought to the problems and taking an active part in this area.
It would also be good if, for once, we could find a basis for co-operation rather than confrontation, so that we have a Commission able to present a product to a Council of Ministers that was able to work in the same direction.
I support this development, and I support it in as much as it will not only mean competition between those providing transport, but also competition between forms of transport.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner and colleagues, we have a common task.
When we come to vote tomorrow, it will not so much be legislation, as the first part of legislation.
Mr President, like the previous speaker I must express my sincere thanks to Mrs Schmidbauer, first for presenting her report and secondly for her willingness to spend time working out sensible compromises to enable this entire House to adopt a common position on this Green Paper.
It is very important that, on such an important question as fair or efficient pricing, there should be no trivial squabbling among the members of this House but that we should adopt a common line in dealing with the Council, and also in dealing with the Commission, Mr Kinnock.
We Christian Democrats support the Green Paper as a first attempt to analyse the external costs which are caused by transport and should also be paid for by transport.
But, Commissioner, I must be honest and say that I find the analysis very incomplete.
Thus, the external costs of transport by rail, inland waterway and air are not analysed, though they are in great detail for lorries, nor are any proposals made for charging on the external costs caused by those carriers.
To give one example, not even the effective costs incurred on the Rhine are borne by the inland waterway users.
To that extent, you still have some homework to do.
Parliament must insist that the same competitive conditions are introduced for all types of carrier.
At this point in time, we must reject any unilateral scheme to make heavy goods vehicles pay the external costs, and call upon you to charge those costs on to all carriers simultaneously, so as not to create further distortions of the competition between the various carriers.
Commissioner, the fundamentally sound idea of charging on the external costs to those who cause them must - as Mrs Schmidbauer has rightly said - not result in simply making transport more expensive and filling the coffers of the Finance Ministers.
That cannot be what we should be doing!
Those funds must be used on a dedicated basis to compensate for the damage caused by transport.
Steps must be taken in the Member States, therefore, to ensure that we do not increase the costs for lorries or other carriers, referring to general fiscal principles, and then spend the money on the fine arts in the Member States.
That cannot be the purpose of your Green Paper or your proposals, and that is what we must ensure!
As a final point on long-range goods transport, this is an area where - without incurring any financial burden - we can already take effective steps to protect the environment, improve traffic safety and safeguard the competitive situation.
Let me mention just three. We can, finally, harmonize the road tax or petroleum tax within the Union in order to ensure that contractors from different Member States compete on the same terms.
And, when determining road tax rates, we can take into account pollution, noise and road damage, thus using the road tax classification to create incentives for reducing environmental pollution.
Another point has already been mentioned by other members. If the Member States were to ensure - and I fear they will not do so without pressure from you, Commissioner - that driving times and rest periods are complied with and that lorries which exceed the pollution and noise thresholds are taken out of commission, if the Member States were to implement entirely practical supervisory measures, we would already be in a position to do a great deal to reduce noise, protect the environment and increase road safety, and I should be very interested to hear from you whether you will indeed adopt these practical measures.
On the question of payment for the use of roads, I should prefer to say nothing at present, because I shall be presenting a separate report on this.
But there are two brief comments I should like to add.
I must tell Mrs Schmidbauer and Mr Rübig that I think nothing of schemes for scrapping older motor vehicles.
All it achieves is a burden on national budgets and spectacular short-lived effects with no lasting benefit. And making manufacturers liable for the service life of engines is also plain nonsense!
In conclusion, Commissioner, let me ask you one more question: are you willing to do as the Committee, by a great majority, recommends and commission a comprehensive study which compiles and analyses the external costs of all transport carriers and demonstrates, so that we know exactly where we stand, that if we do take action then the external costs will be charged on to all carriers, on a reliable basis?
Commissioner, on 27 March last year, addressing this House on the subject of the appropriate relationship between the costs of maintaining motorways and the tolls charged for using them, you recalled the case of the Brenner Highway, where the tolls are so high, for the stretch from the Brenner to Innsbruck, as to be three times as great as the maintenance cost on which they are supposed to be based - which is a violation of the Community Treaties and of the accession agreements.
The motive, in Austria's case, is the attempt to discourage large vehicles from using the road, especially at night, by charging a really heavy toll: over those 35 km, the charge is ECU 90 per day, and twice that from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m.
I should make it clear that the desire to protect the integrity of the environment highly laudable, but it does not seem objectively fair that virtually the entire price of doing so has to be borne by the road-haulage contractors, just as it seems unfair that it happens only on one sector of road, at the initiative of a single State, no attempt having been made to coordinate arrangements with the neighbouring State, on whose territory the same problems exist.
On this point, I believe the rapporteur is on dangerous ground when she proposes, in section 18, paragraph 4, that 'substantially higher' - those are her words - road charges should be authorized for corridors in which the environment is particularly badly degraded, allowing alternative solutions to be financed.
In the present case, the issue would be to finance the tunnel under the Brenner and the entire highway from Munich to Verona which, according to a 1992 estimate, would cost MECU 13, 000, equivalent to 25, 000 billion lire.
I cannot help wondering how much of this sum can be raised by the motorway tolls.
So let us beware of authorizing any easy alibis for arbitrary hikes in the motorway tolls.
This cost, too, is going to have a deadly impact on the overall make-up of transport costs and help to create worrying imbalances between different areas, between different States and even between different enterprises in the same State.
On 5 December last year, here in Brussels, I organized a seminar entitled 'Harmonization of transport costs within the European Union' .
The seminar was attended by representatives of road-haulage organizations from five nations, and the first point that arose was the great desire they all felt to hold talks on this subject.
Hence the need for a common set of rules which will take account of mileage, certainly, and of technical costs and external costs but also of the impact of the cost of labour; a report on this latter subject is to be presented in the near future.
A trend that must be avoided is that of passing on to the transport operators all the external costs.
And let us not forget a primary concern for the whole of Europe: the safeguarding of jobs, and more than that, the creation of new jobs, because excessive costs and new tax burdens could bring about the collapse of those small road-haulage businesses that account for 85 % of European transport.
Mr President, we endorse the objectives of the Green Paper: a reduction of harmful effects, objective costing of all forms of transport.
So, Commissioner, that means that the Green Paper's proposal of zero percent for inland waterways just is not possible if we want sustainable mobility.
Are there alternatives to road transport?
In most cases not really.
So we certainly do not want measures which dictate the choices which shippers have to make.
We think that the new technologies should be encouraged.
This needs pull-and-push measures.
So we think that state-of-the-art technology should be rewarded rather than penalized and that the least damaging modes of transport should be charged a zero tariff.
Certainly, and the rapporteur, whom we compliment, has made the point, we must make sure that an industry which is already structurally weak is not burdened further.
We agree that a transition is needed from fixed to variable costs.
To that end we support paragraphs 7, 8, 11, 12 and 15 and these together make the report acceptable as a whole.
I have two specific questions for the Commissioner.
A study commissioned from the firm Tebodin by the Dutch Minister of Transport and Public Works, currently president of the Council of Ministers, revealed that in freight transport more than 100 % of the costs are met.
Does the Commissioner share that view and will he take account of this report in his further deliberations?
Secondly, a change from 40-tonne trucks to 44-tonners with 5 axles means a saving of 214.3 million litres and 18.4 million kg of toxic emissions.
Will the Commissioner not bear this in mind for the sake of the environment, as Parliament recommended in our report on dimensions and weights?
Mr President, it is a good thing that we have the Green Paper and it is good that we have Mrs Schmidbauer's report too, because there has been an awful lot of talk about internalizing external costs in the transport sector but very little to show for it.
I have to say that if you take a long hard look at Mrs Schmidbauer's report and compare it with the Commission's Green Paper, which has the grand title of &#x02BC;Towards fair and efficient pricing in transport: policy options for internalizing the external costs of transport in the European Union', regretfully I have to conclude that actually Mrs Schmidbauer's report is even less interesting than the Green Paper itself.
So it seems evident that the Transport Committee has rather lost heart.
The report concludes that internalization will not push up the cost of transport.
But how on earth is environmentally unfriendly transport to be discouraged if it cannot be made more expensive?
The report says that it is not the intention to get freight transport off the roads.
But my intention is to do precisely that, as far as possible.
Because this freight can be carried by rail and by water in a manner far kinder to the environment.
It was nice to hear Mr Wijsenbeek say just now that modern technology should enable the least environmentally damaging means of transport to be charged at a zero tariff.
Mr Kinnock is right to apply a zero tariff to inland waterway transport even without modern technology. Because water transport is indubitably the cleanest motorized form of transport.
Better still are other methods which as you know are not motorized, but they do not enter into it since we are talking about Europe here.
If we really want sustainable mobility I fear the report is not tough enough on the various forms of transport and this is especially apparent from the fact that despite the rapporteur's best intentions, air transport is excluded here.
The environment ministers concluded in December 1994 that there was no longer any reason to exempt aviation fuel from excise duty.
The European Commission makes no mention of this in the Green Paper. For fear of triggering a debate which might cause problems.
But air transport is the least friendly form of transport for the environment.
So it is imperative to have the normal rates of duty charged on aviation fuel as speedily as possible.
But my colleagues are all too ready to say in their own countries yes, of course we want that, but it has to be done internationally.
And then here in the European Parliament, in the European Union, we say no, we don't want that because it is bad for competition.
Every effort in that direction is thwarted.
It is not so much the rapporteur but those on the right of the House who are to blame for the very mediocre quality of this report.
Mr President, the Green Paper on the charging of external costs in transport focuses on the so-called &#x02BC;unpaid account' of transport.
The amount and composition of this account is open to debate, but we have to get it into our heads that the movement of people and goods harms the environment and entails a cost to society.
At present this cost is not sufficiently reflected in the price of transport.
So I think the Green Paper is a useful starting point for further discussion based on the principle that the user pays and the polluter pays.
In a number of respects the Green Paper fails to convince me.
In contrast to what it claims, the costs of congestion caused by inadequate infrastructure cannot be passed on to the hauliers. They themselves are already the ones hardest hit.
In order to prevent delays and make better use of our overstretched infrastructure it is better to favour economically important traffic using a system of road pricing.
In this context I am sorry that my amendment which blames private cars for the worst of the traffic jams in urban areas was rejected.
I am pleased to see that view expressed in the Environment Committee's report.
I was also surprised to hear Commissioner Kinnock say in a speech that the charging of external costs was not designed to change the modal shift, and I wonder why then they are charged exclusively to road transport?
Does the Commissioner not believe that ultimately external costs should be charged to all transport operators?
And does he have any idea what that will mean for reciprocal competitiveness? I am afraid that the railways will then be disadvantaged still further compared to the roads.
I should like to hear from the Commissioner on this.
But above all I should like to know if he favours a modal shift and what measures he has in store to that end.
Freight transport is bound to become more expensive.
And then I am disappointed by the Commission's position on a limited rise in fuel prices.
Increasing duty is of course a generic measure which differentiates little according to time and place but an increase in duty can be imposed quickly and simply.
It also sits well with the policy of greater variability and encourages economic use and the development of clean engines.
This in contrast to raising the price of the inflexible Euro-vignette which does nothing to reduce mobility.
In conclusion my compliments to the rapporteur.
Mr President, Commissioner, unlike certain other Members I have been impressed by the accuracy of the work done by the rapporteur and by the committee: it is particularly accurate as regards data, not only as regards the ECU 250 billion that represent external costs, of which congestion accounts for 120, but also as regards the accident rate, which contributes 1.5 % of the costs: more than 50, 000 people are involved in accidents, which means we are talking about ECU 166 billion.
We should certainly give thought to another type of development, and also to ways of readjusting the transport balance in a manner that is compatible with the environment, placing great emphasis on sustainable mobility.
From this point of view, a substantial impact has been produced by market forces, which have increased flexibility, and the disincentive to use public transport, which factors, in some ways, have represented a negative model.
Let me give you a few figures on CO2 .
If we consider the problem of transporting 2000 tonnes over 1000 kilometres, CO2 emissions amount to 7 tonnes for transport by sea, 11 tonnes by rail and 60 tonnes by road.
These are matters which cause us serious concern, as of course does the change in the modal split over recent years, which has been seriously against rail transport. We need only recall that in 1970 transport by road accounted for 48.6 %, whereas today it accounts for 71.7 %; in 1970 31.7 % of shipments were carried by rail, whereas the figure today, unhappily, is a mere 14.9 %; in the same period, transport by inland waterway has declined from 12.3 % to 7.7 %.
As can be seen, the intermodal aspects are important.
The accurate calculation of external costs should also help in encouraging a change in the modal split.
From this point of view, Commissioner, I believe much more practical steps need to be taken: I believe it is important to take swift legislative action - in other words, not to dwell on the investigatory phase - and to take action regarding sensitive routes; I am particularly convinced by the argument in favour of Europe-wide harmonization of the factors currently guiding transport policy, as regards the road tax, the excise duty on petroleum, and the registration tax and associated tolls.
These, it seems to me, are specific areas on which we need to work in order to give effective force to this scheme of yours, which is timely and which also looks to a different culture of transport.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission proposals towards a fair and efficient pricing as a means of establishing fairer competition between transport modes.
I should like to congratulate the Commissioner and his staff for the document and also our rapporteur on the excellent work she has done.
Our purpose in this exercise is to price external costs of transport use.
It is asserted that transport users - principally road users - do not pay the costs imposed on them by their travel decisions and that this leads to a mismatch between the price paid by users and underlying costs to society as a whole.
It is a laudable objective.
If we link transport policy as directly as possible to the costs incurred for making a journey this would be good for the environment and give a fairer, more efficient use of transport.
So far, so good. However, the external costs have to be evaluated - pollution, noise, congestion and others.
My first question to the Commissioner this evening is: How do we establish what these costs are? How can the Commission evaluate them?
How do you then pass them on to individual users?
What would the role of technology be and how would the Commission envisage the use of telematics, satellites and other modern technology? We need proper data and empirical evidence on these costings.
My message to the Commission this evening is that the paper is very short on such empirical evidence and data.
It will come as no surprise to the Commissioner that the UK is already putting increasing emphasis on the need for pricing structures in transport to reflect full costs including environmental costs.
How certain can we be about the environmental external factors and how to cost them and then transfer this into pricing measures? Both the Commission Green Paper and the rapporteur's report put great emphasis on fiscal measures.
My point to both the Commissioner and rapporteur is very clear and positive.
We must not disregard the principle of subsidiarity.
Can the Commissioner here tonight prove an overriding case for action at Community level? Otherwise I would argue that tax measures are best left for Member States to decide.
One thing we can all agree on is that this is a complex issue which requires further study and debate.
One final thought for the Commissioner and the rapporteur: public transport could and should be a major beneficiary from fair and efficient pricing in transport.
Yet public transport today only accounts for between 10 and 15 % of the total mobility market.
I should like to request the Commissioner to pledge the support of other Commissioners and himself to fund research and development programmes, in particular through the fourth and fifth framework programmes, for public transport as part of a general transport policy.
I also hope that we can ask the Commission to support R & D for telematics through the fourth and fifth framework programmes.
I look forward to the Commissioner's replies and to thoughts from the rapporteur on these points.
Regardless of these provisos, I commend both the Commission document and the rapporteur's text to the House.
Mr President, I thought we were here to debate Mrs Schmidbauer's report.
The many questions Anne McIntosh has just put to the Commission relate to quite a different theme, and I do not feel the Commission should respond to them this evening.
They have nothing to do with Mrs Schmidbauer's report.
Mr Sindal, that is not a point of order.
Please forgive me but I cannot hold up the debate.
Mr. President, first let me thank Mrs. Schmidbauer for the excellent work that she has put into this report.
As I see it, it is important that we, here in Parliament, try to find ways to promote the internal market.
My vision of the internal market is that all countries, irrespective of the distance between them and the centre of Europe, should be able to compete on equal terms.
The transport sector is one of the most important sectors in this respect.
It is also one of the most appropriate sectors on which to apply our vision of the free internal market.
There are many examples of how we can make progress in this area.
The Transeuropean Networks are an excellent current example, when they are finally completed, distances will become shorter and transport more effective as a result.
As a Swede, I see the long distances between Sweden and the large continental markets as a great disadvantage to competition.
Essentially, every time we sell something abroad, we have an export disadvantage of approximately 70-100 miles.
This does not only apply to Sweden of course, but also to countries such as Finland, Greece, Spain and Portugal.
It affects all 'peripheral' countries or, in other words, all those countries with long distances between them and Europe's large markets.
It is therefore important that we take this into account when we talk about loading external costs on to transport.
I am not highlighting this aspect in order to be negative to the proposed motion.
On the contrary, there are a lot of positive factors in the report.
But the factors which I have pointed out must also be included in any future action for this sector.
The same applies to the discussions on tax harmonisation.
I do not think that we should be aiming for an 'all European' tax system but a balanced harmonisation of tax in European countries for this sector is perhaps necessary to create equal conditions for competition.
With this in mind, I think that if we take environmental effects into account in the tax rate we will be moving in the right direction.
Europe has serious environmental problems and of course the transport sector contributes a great deal to them.
We must tackle these problems somehow, but not in a way which threatens the fundamental principles of the internal market.
Mrs. Schmidbauer's report on the internalisation of external transport costs in the European Union is largely a good report.
The proposal contains the desire to progress towards harmonisation, and the proposed harmonisation is well thought out in view of the problems which can arise.
But, I would have liked to have seen some mention of the problem of distance which I have mentioned.
We ought at least to keep it in mind when the proposal is implemented.
We are not proposing these measures purely from an environmental point of view but also in order to strengthen the internal market and protect free competition within the European Union.
Let me conclude by asking Commissioner Kinnock the following question: Is the Commission prepared to consider the problem of distance in its future work in this field?
Mr President, I wish to exercise my right under the Rules to make a personal statement.
I apologise to Commissioner Kinnock that Mr Sindal has been in a particularly petulant mood this evening.
Perhaps if I had spoken in Danish he would have followed the thrust of my comments.
I am perfectly entitled to put questions to the Commissioner and he is perfectly entitled to reply.
Mrs McIntosh, you will be fully entitled to make your statement after the Commissioner has spoken.
Mr President, I hate to intervene on what is obviously a domestic quarrel but I am certain that Mr Sindal was not in the slightest petulant.
This is a characteristic which would be entirely unfamiliar to him.
In the free exchange of opinions in this democratic House, I am certain that everyone understands the relevance of his intervention and indeed the validity of Miss McIntosh's response.
It just demonstrates how far I have distanced myself from real politics these days.
As the House will know, in the year since I presented the Commission Green Paper on fair and efficient pricing in transport, the debate has been lively, as we have witnessed again tonight, and the consultation has been wide.
I have had the opportunity to discuss the issue in all its forms and implications with a very broad range of people and organizations including those who attended our conference on the subject in this city last November.
The quality of the sustained interest highlights the importance of the issue and the draft resolution in this House on the Green Paper adds to that.
I would, therefore like to compliment Mrs Schmidbauer for the thorough approach she has taken and for the results she has produced on what is obviously a very complex subject.
In particular, I welcome the conviction which she clearly expressed again tonight on two central matters. First, that pricing should form an integral part of comprehensive transport policies in all modes of transport.
I would point out to Mr Jarzembowski, amongst others, as I am sure he understands, that the extent of the reference to road transport in the Green Paper is entirely the result of the fact that it produces 90 % of the external costs of transport.
But on closer examination of the Green Paper everyone will observe very clearly that extensive reference is made to all modes.
Not only is reference made in passive form but there are specific proposals now being implemented for further examinations and studies relating to the variety of modes of transport.
This is something which Mrs Schmidbauer and many other colleagues clearly and rightly recognize.
Secondly, the view expressed in this House is clear on another matter.
The objectives of applying charges in line with costs is to ensure equal conditions of competition, as Miss McIntosh pointed out, to increase users' awareness and thereby to contribute to increased overall efficiency and sustainability of the European transport system.
Having gone through this initial exercise of identifying the hidden costs which transport activities generate, we must now move on to the development of conceptual thinking and to the practical task of compiling proposals for workable and productive Community policies and, where appropriate, legislation.
I would point out to one or two contributors to the debate tonight that Community action is appropriate, simply because we have a Community, because we have a single market, because transport in all of its modes is interrelated and integrated and in the name of equity, fair competitive conditions and the need universally to safeguard the environment, there is a very strong case for Community activity, based entirely on the willingness of democratically elected governments of the Member States to endorse or to modify proposals that come from the Commission and from this House.
The first tangible move in the direction of the development of workable policies, as the House already knows, comes in the Commission proposal for revision of the directive on road charges for heavy goods vehicles.
Judging from the discussions and conclusions on the Green Paper, I hope I am right in thinking that the House will once again give its valued support for that initiative.
I would, however, like to comment on the suggestion in the report before the House that when harmonizing rates of vehicle taxes, account should be taken of the materials from which a vehicle is made.
Although I can see the clear rationale for that idea I should, nevertheless, stress, that this and equally valid ideas can be treated more effectively in the context of other Community policies, in this case those relating to industrial materials and processes.
A similar view led us to limit the discussion on abatement of carbon dioxide emissions in the Green Paper since that has been, and still is considered to be, a cross-sectoral issue.
As the House may know, the Commission is currently finalizing a proposal on updating the Community's minimum excise duty on energy products in which we will ensure that CO2 emission limitation is deal with in all its relevant sectors, including transport.
I should now like briefly to go through a few points where I feel some further clarification or information on the Commission's views or activities could add to the understanding between us in our different institutions and enhance the constructive cooperation between us.
What comes to mind first is our common position concerning the need to secure the development of a well-balanced transport system where all transport modes realize their full potential.
While we are in the process of working to establish such a balance, however, it is clear that even as we respect the principle that all modes should pay their real costs, some modes need to be particularly fostered in one way or another.
In this context, I should like to mention for instance our proposal to extend the pilot actions for combined transport - the PACT programme - for five years with an increased budget and broader scope.
In addition, the Commission's White Paper on a rail strategy which seeks to promote access to rail freight markets is expect to improve the attractiveness of this mode and to complement our pricing policy.
Finally, as a follow-up to last November's conference and in response to a proposal put forward by industry representatives, I will be launching a tripartite initiative on best environmental practice and I will be inviting industry, transport operators and environmental organizations to participate.
There will of course be invitations to Members of this House.
I believe that will further advance the idea of differentiated environmental charges and result in the implementation of practical measures.
I will also be launching a workshop on best practice in local solutions to urban transport problems where research on telematics, the citizens' network and fair and efficient pricing will be discussed together as they should be.
In the Commission we will continue our work on the various issues raised in the Green Paper through specific studies and research as some in the debate have asked for tonight and we will be including in our considerations the crucial matter of interoperability of road pricing systems.
We will be developing work obviously through measures to improve transport infrastructure and through legislation for both regulatory and fiscal instruments.
The most practical way to achieve the best, overall results is to mobilize all forces to act on the variety of aspects of the complex problem of improving our transport system in an environmentally compatible way.
I consider this House to be one of the most persuasive forces in this debate and that is just one of the reasons for me to welcome the favourable opinion on our Green Paper on fair and efficient pricing and to commend Mrs Schmidbauer's excellent report to this House.
I would conclude by expressing my regret that because of time constraints, I cannot respond at this juncture to the variety of questions.
Doubtlessly we shall return to this issue in the Committee on Transport and Tourism. I look forward to that event very eagerly.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock for the explanations you have given us and for your sense of humour which, at this time of night, is very welcome.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Research and sustainable development
The next item is the report (A4-0382/96) by Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Community policy for research and sustainable development.
The rapporteur, Mr Marset Campos, has asked to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, in line with Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure, and together with the Confederal Group of the European Unitarian Left - Nordic Green Left, I propose what in effect was decided in the Committee on Investigation, Technological Development and Energy last week, on 21 January, because it recognized the value of debating this report again in more depth, giving all the groups time to introduce amendments and contribute to improving the report.
So I ask that the report be referred back to committee.
Mr Marset Campos, your request has been made on behalf of a political group and is perfectly in keeping with Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure.
We shall now go into the usual procedure: a Member of the European Parliament will call for a fresh referral to committee and another Member will speak against, and then we shall have a vote on this basic question.
Mr President, I wish to support the request by Mr Marset Campos for a referral back to the Research and Energy Committee.
It is very important that we get this right; it is a preliminary to our discussions on the Fifth Research Framework Programme and it will inform our discussions on that programme.
It is essential, therefore, in view of the new documents coming from the Commission that we have this back in committee in order to adjust it as may be necessary to meet the needs of our forthcoming discussions on the Fifth Framework Programme.
So we would like to support the reference back to committee.
Mr President, I should like to ask you not to refer this report back to committee.
We have had a hearing.
We have had lengthy discussions in the Research and Energy Committee, and we reached agreement in committee.
The PSE and the PPE tabled amendments, and we dealt with those amendments at length, wanting this important report on sustainable development, with our proposed amendments, to have the chance to be adopted as soon as possible.
So I ask that this report should be dealt with today, as intended.
(Parliament voted to refer the report back to Committee)
Development of statistics on R and D
The next item is the report (A4-0383/96) by Mr Izquierdo Collado, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on an interim Commission report according to Article 8 of the Council Decision (94/78/CE, Euratom) establishing a multiannual programme for the development of Community statistics on research, development and innovation (COM(96)0042 - C4-0247/96).
Mr President, I want to begin my speech by announcing the clear and decided support of the Committee on Research for this multiannual programme presented to us by the Commission.
So we are not dealing with completed work, but with an intermediate stage.
Our analysis of the Commission's work is positive.
We think the procedures and deadlines are being adequately kept to and we hope everything can be finally concluded to produce a new situation in scientific statistics in Europe.
We therefore await the culmination of the work and we encourage the Commission to continue with the effort logically required by any attempt to transform habits which are still very deep-rooted in the various countries, and to establish a clear Community standard.
But no-one should interpret our attitude as uncritical.
We think a great deal remains to be done, perhaps the most difficult part, the part that will dignify the quality of the Commission's work.
But primarily we consider that we are on the right road and that this should culminate in the presentation of the Commission's final report.
Assuming we can maintain the same criterion then that we are applying now, it will mean that substantial progress has been made in a really important area for the European Union.
Mr President, we are talking about scientific statistics in a Europe which is a giant in basic research, but not in technology and innovation.
The reasons for this gap are being analysed.
How is it possible for Europe to have the capacity for investment in basic research at this exceptional level, and lack that capacity when it comes to market applications, technological development, the innovation which, logically, provides the market basic research needs to become profitable?
Of course, there are many causes. But it seems to me that having inadequate statistics is likely to be one of the reasons why European research is not as successful as it ought to be.
We need to move towards this European statistical system for research, technological development and innovation, because without such statistics we will not have all the data necessary for producing a definition of research and development, which is vital for the Union.
And we want to involve the citizens in it, gathering their opinions and avoiding 'enlightened despotism' , aware that they can make a major contribution.
Mr President, we need a legal basis for carrying out scientific surveys, and this is proposed in the report.
The current situation is unsatisfactory.
The States collaborate voluntarily as best they can because they want to, in some cases, but without the ingredient of compulsion that is needed for all the States to unify and harmonize their statistics and the legal basis the European Union needs to demand collaboration and not just urge collaboration.
We believe the databases must include qualitative ingredients, as well as quantitative ones, because they are fundamental to clear statistical diagnosis.
We consider these European databases, this European 'bibliometry' , essential now unless we want to end up running a branch office of the United States and have no identity of our own.
We are calling for the statistics to be regionally based.
The scientific infrastructure must be put on a regional basis and our regional surveys should provide basic indicators for carrying out regional policy.
And finally, Mr President, the new information society should cover all the components of collection and presentation of scientific statistics, because we certainly cannot stand outside this new model of society which is going to be designed, at the scientific level, by the information society.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, just how important statistics are is something of which we shall have evidence enough once again this year.
The debate about participation in monetary union is almost exclusively concerned with the satisfying of the indebtedness criteria, and in principle that is simply a matter of data which were obtained by means of statistical techniques.
This example also shows, incidentally, how difficult it often is to obtain comparable data.
But our debate today is not concerned with economics - it is concerned with the interim Commission report on research and innovation.
It is a common European problem that we are faced with bringing together fifteen different systems in ten different languages.
As a result, we often have to find different solutions from, for example, the USA or Japan - our biggest competitors in research and development.
To enable us to optimize the results of the common research policy, we need to create the optimum conditions, and this is where the Community statistics come into play.
It is absolutely essential to have up-to-date data from all Member States, acquired on the same basis, when planning research programmes.
In addition, the decision-takers in science, research, economics and politics must have access to the data they need for their decisions, in comprehensible form.
This is why I welcome the Commission's action plan, with its proposals to close loopholes, eliminate differences in methodology and make the contents of databases accessible to the public.
It is also important to avoid duplication of effort, so as to prevent data from being obtained from different levels.
Subsidiarity is a major issue in statistics: we should prefer to cause as little inconvenience as possible to those questions, and at the same time to make the data as user-friendly as possible.
I can only support the report by my colleague Juan Izquierdo: this rather dry subject is not going to get him any newspaper headlines, but he has done his job conscientiously even so, and I thank him for it.
The time available to me is too short for detailed consideration of all the relevant points Juan has made.
So I shall confine myself to one point - the point which, in my view, is lacking.
It is essential that we should make a start now on making our knowledge regarding the production of statistics available to the States of central and eastern Europe.
For a start, this will guarantee that we get reliable data on those States' capacities, and we shall also be helping them to become competitive.
I know, too, how difficult it has been in the former GDR, since reunification, to obtain reliable data, even if only on such matters as chocolate consumption or the stock of X-ray equipment.
This has been an unacceptable and even intolerable situation as far as industry and innovation are concerned, and we must ensure that nothing of the kind happens again.
So I should like to take this opportunity of pointing out the importance of involving the associated States in the action plan.
Mr President, may I first express my pleasure at the presence here of Commissioner Kinnock and his sharing our interest in statistics.
May I extend my compliments to Mr. Izquierdo Collado on his report in dealing with a subject which is not exactly electrifying.
His report has done it more than full justice.
I cannot resist reference to that old politicians' adage about lies, damn lies and statistics; indeed I am reminded of the story that statistics are the things that gentlemen use rather as a drunk does a lamp post, i.e. more for support than for illumination.
The important point here is the need for dissemination of results of research in the European Union and without statistics it is very difficult to disseminate results.
We must share the results of research as widely as possible in order to stimulate and encourage more research.
We must note the importance of networks in research and a high level of participation of different partners in the research of the fourth framework.
Again, without a record of the work that has been undertaken, it is extremely difficult to encourage new participants.
Mr Izquierdo Collado in his report makes reference to the debate between applied research and basic research.
May I confess my preference for applied research because we need research which is closer to the customer, closer to the market-place.
May I just give some credit to the contribution that the United Kingdom makes as I believe a partner in the largest number of research projects in the European Union.
This is a vital contribution, a positive contribution that we make.
In this day and age it is quite nice to record that the UK does make a positive contribution.
May I close on a constituency note in commending the participants from the Universities of Exeter and Plymouth and the small and medium-size enterprises in my constituency in Devon for their participation in the research work of the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's report on the establishment of a multiannual programme for the development of Community statistics on research, development and innovation provides a useful opportunity to argue in favour of harmonizing the structures of statistical databases in the European Union.
The creation of a European system of research statistics is an invaluable tool for evaluating and measuring the progress of the research programmes, and thus for providing a more solid basis for the guidelines and investment decisions of Community research policy.
I am in agreement with this initiative by the Commission, and I am in agreement with the rapporteur on the need also to take public opinion into account.
If there is one thing about this initiative that concerns and puzzles me, it is this: will the statistics programme simply be applied by the Commission to Community research which, taking everything in context, is already well coordinated?
It will also be adopted by a number of leading organizations in the European field, but I do wonder, with a degree of scepticism, whether the introduction of these new statistical methods in the context of the activity, research and development programmes of the Member States, will in itself be sufficient to bring order, to cast light on a mass of activities, sometimes coordinated by ministers and sundry bodies - I refer here to the Italian situation, with which I am rather more familiar - which often do not even succeed in avoiding duplication of programmes, not to mention research programmes in industry which have little desire to provide a record of their activities for outsiders.
Finally, we must not forget that the research undertaken by the Member States is precisely what constitutes the greater part of Europe's research investment.
I therefore welcome the Commission's initiative and I hope, even though I have my doubts, that it will rapidly bring concrete results.
Mr President, I am grateful for the welcome extended to me in this debate by Mr Chichester.
Perhaps he did not suspect my fascinated interest in matters statistical but I know it is one that I share with a very large number of people associated with this Parliament, which is why they are clearly flocking into this debate tonight.
The House will be well aware that the formulation, monitoring and evaluation of a policy on research, development and innovation all obviously necessitate high-quality and harmonized statistical information.
It is equally clear that it is only possible to introduce such an information system with common standards and with synchronization of data collection and data dissemination exercises.
When in 1994 the Council adopted its decision to establish a multi-annual programme for achieving these objectives, it therefore asked for an interim report.
The report produced last year provides an inventory of the situation and also indicated that the work mentioned in Article 4 of the decision is well advanced.
The Commission is pleased that the report has been welcomed by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and thanks the rapporteur, Mr. Izquierdo Collado, for his very detailed study of the Commission's text and for the interest that he and his colleagues have shown in these proposals.
As the report before the House sensibly notes, organizational changes and the growing importance of the knowledge industry make adaptations to the traditional statistical framework necessary.
Conceptional studies are now being carried out in order to determine the changes to be made in our statistical systems and to propose new indicators.
A second Community survey on innovation will consequently be launched this year in the Member States which should encompass some of these aspects.
The search for a detailed breakdown of the data by sector, by geographical level and by type of research, for example, is also an ongoing activity of the Commission services.
Whilst recognising the need for comprehensive information, it is generally felt that we should not demand too much from replies provided by those taking part in the statistical surveys.
Meanwhile, the proposed extension of harmonization in cooperation with the countries of the Mediterranean basin will be closely examined by the Commission.
The Commission has already expanded the existing range of science and technology indicators by extending the geographical cover, by mobilizing information sources such as patent and bibliometric databases and by incorporating statistics on public awareness of science and technology.
We will continue in this direction, with the work already under way, on compiling information on human resources, science and technology and on the mobility of scientists and students.
In order to achieve these objectives more effectively, the Commission plans to promote the role of statistics in the Fifth Framework Research and Development Programme and to include it in statistical initiatives.
The establishment of a legal framework for the regular collection of information on R & D and innovation is, as the House may know, being examined.
I have to inform the House, however, that some Member States have expressed strong reservations about this suggestion.
In their view, the current budgetary constraints and the need to avoid over-burdening firms taking part in statistical surveys reduce the attractiveness of such an initiative.
However, there are other Member States which consider that a legal framework would be desirable to ensure the provision of high-quality statistics at European level.
Account will, obviously, have to be taken of these diverse views and of any changes made during the InterGovernmental Conference to the Treaty article that relates to statistics.
The Commission is grateful to this Parliament for its support for the development of a system of harmonized statistical information on science and technology.
Such a system plainly provides an instrument for public monitoring and therefore for effective policy formulation and conduct.
Parliament's role in the evolution of that system is valued and the Commission thanks those who have been directly involved like tonight's rapporteur.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Application of Community law
The next item is the report (A4-0001/97) by Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission's Thirteenth Annual Report to Parliament on monitoring the application of Community law - 1995 - (COM(96)0600 - C4-0363/96).
Mr President, this thirteenth annual report on the application of Community law which the Commission is proposing to us fulfils, in accordance with a now well-established attitude, two essential functions.
On the one hand, to establish the state of transposition of directives by the Member States, and on the other to give an account of the use which the Commission has made of its discretionary power to initiate infringement proceedings against States.
But beyond this record made in the thirteenth report, in a very analytical way, we have a chance to reflect in depth upon the ways of getting to know better the day to day reality of Community law in the Member States and, from this thirteenth report, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has drawn three principal approaches.
Firstly, as the Committee on Legal Affairs has shown many times over and for all institutions of the Union, what is true for some must also be true for others.
In the domain of the implementation of Community law, the Commission needs to demonstrate greater transparency when it uses its discretionary power to initiate infringement proceedings, in particular in the pre-litigation stage provided for by Article 169 of the Treaty.
Rather than knowing how many times it has acted, it would be interesting to know why it acted and even more, why it did not act.
In deciding, by means of a press release, to make known the criteria of application of Article 171 of the Treaty, and to define the method it uses to calculate financial penalties imposed upon States, the Commission is moving in the direction of greater transparency.
There is just one matter for regret: that none of this information was addressed to Parliament.
Next, it is obvious that it is necessary to maintain, as much at the level of the Commission as at that of its colegislators, the will to draw up clear, concise directives and to allow for the principle of subsidiarity.
These conditions are imperative if directives are to be transposed into national law as effectively as possible.
For even if 90 % of applicable directives are transposed, with a very good rate among the last three States to join the Union, it should be noted that it is in crucial areas such as agriculture, transport and the environment that the greatest number of problems can be observed.
Beyond the responsibility of the States, and because of the diversity and sometimes the complexity of the internal organisation of the various States, it seems that it would be of interest to establish a permanent dialogue at various levels, between the Commission and national legislators, in order to create a true legal Community.
This might even encourage them to ask for technical assistence, as needed, in order that the essential aim, that of the correct application of Community law, be achieved.
If cooperation with national authorities concerning information is important at this stage, the role of citizens and national courts in the application of Community law should not be ignored.
They are the ones who demand, on the one hand, and who judge on the other, the right to reparation in cases of faulty application, and even of nontransposition of directives.
This depends in the first instance upon national law, regarding the conditions of form and content.
It is particularly important, therefore, that the parliaments of Member States, which are the origin of national law, should be conscious of the fact that they have a role to play in this very specific area of the right to reparation.
The fact that the condition of content may vary from one Member State to another lies in contradiction with the basic requirement for homogeneous and uniform application of citizens' rights.
An effective application, a uniform application of Community law therefore requires at last that there is an increase in the amount of information conveyed both to specialised audiences and to those who practice the law.
The Grotius and Schuman programmes are concerned with all citizens thanks to the Citizens of Europe programme.
By responding to this expectation, which has already been formulated by our Assembly, the Council and the Commission must be saluted for these initiatives.
The Committee on Legal Affairs just hopes strongly that sufficient financial support will be made available for these activities.
In the same way, in the domain of information, it hopes for several things: that thanks to the financial participation of the Community, national courts might be given access to the Celex system in a user-friendly format; that law students in the Union might have a sufficient knowledge of Community law, even if they are not aiming for the legal or judicial professions, for example administrative, careers, journalism, etc.; that professionals in legal and judicial disciplines might receive, themselves, tuition and training in Community law, before embarking on their professions.
These proposals are in the interest of all, in the interest of Member States, in the interest of the Union and in the interest of citizens.
A transparent system of Community law which is simple, well-known, and which meets the expectations of citizens would thus be the best means of eradicating the current feeling of doubt affecting public opinion with respect to the construction of Europe.
The role of us, the Parliament, as the representative of all the citizens of the Union, is to be conscious of this lack of enthusiasm, but our role as an institution is to act in such a way as to reverse this drift.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen who are still here - because the audience at this late hour is fairly sparse, but of high quality - I would first like to congratulate Mrs Schaffner on her report on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
The concerns set out in the explanatory statement coincide, in general, with those of the Committee on Petitions.
What separates the two committees is that our working system is based on direct contact with hundreds of citizens and groups, and that obliges us to sharpen some of our criticism of the Commission.
The demoralization of the citizens, and indeed their defencelessness against the slow progress of the procedures, does nothing either for European construction or the extension of the sense of citizenship which ought to accompany the magnificent adventure of sharing such a wide, rich and plural common area.
The Committee on Petitions is a key structure in the institutional framework.
The petitions presented have made it possible to detect numerous failures in the transposition and application of Community law.
Cooperation with the European Commission has been excellent and will continue to be so.
But we are surprised that her report should be so critical and mysterious about the total number of violations the parliamentary institution has detected.
Secondly, we reiterate - with little hope, because we have been insisting on this for seven years - the need to accelerate the procedure under article 169.
And we must also insist on the unhesitating use of article 171 because it is scandalous how many decisions are ignored by those - the governments, of course -who participate in drawing up the legislation.
On the 'package meetings' , we do think they are a good idea, but we reject their use for under-cover transactions or pacts for extended periods to transpose correctly what has been done badly or inadequately in the periods provided.
The Commission is the guardian of the treaty, but the governments are responsible for applying the law and monitoring its strict fulfilment.
The principle of equality must always be present, and so must transparency, the essential element for the credibility of the system.
The Commission's efforts on transparency are very positive and we applaud them, because we must always remember that the citizens are fundamental to the construction of Europe, and only the sceptics and anti-Europeans favour opacity.
To sum up, Mr President, we call for strict application of article 169, and no hesitation in applying article 171, and we urge the Commission to be more transparent in presenting its annual report.
Mr President, on behalf of the European People's Party I, too, would like to commend Mrs Schaffner for the difficult work that she has undertaken on this very important subject. I am sorry that the debate is taking place at this hour of the day in clear disregard of the subject's importance.
This year again, Mr President, we are forced, on the basis of the report by Mrs Schaffner on the Commission's report on monitoring the application of Community law, to repeat several of the observations that we have had to make year after year.
The need to do so is a cause of sorrow to me, but I am consoled by one thing at least: by continuing to draw attention to the shortcomings and the problems we do ensure that some of them are eventually tackled; very late in the day perhaps, and perhaps inadequately - but it is something.
Let me say it again: another year has gone by and the citizens of the European Union still find Community law exceptionally complex and difficult to comprehend. So we must, of course, emphasize the need for Community legislation to be codified as a means to making it more manageable and effective.
The Commission needs to gather together the manpower that will enable it to make much faster progress in that direction.
Everyone should understand that codification will at the same time facilitate better application of the Community's rules and make Community law more accessible and more comprehensible to Europe's citizens.
The proper working of the internal market depends to a large extent on the degree to which its rules are as familiar and comprehensible and applied in the same manner as the rules of national law.
As far as the transposition of Community law into national law is concerned, the situation in most sectors does appear, after a great deal of effort, to have improved, as Mrs Schaffner herself has said. Nevertheless, substantial gaps remain, particularly in the transport, environment and energy sectors and in the agriculture sector as regards implementation of the White Paper.
It is important, therefore, that directives adopted should be clear, concise and consistent with the subsidiarity principle so as to avoid problems of all kinds when they are transposed.
Like the two previous speakers, I wish to stress the importance of using the procedures of Articles 169 and 171 and of imposing penalties as a means to achieving better results.
Having said all that, Mr President, there are also several encouraging things that deserve mention.
I think, firstly, of the Karolus and Mathaeus programmes dealing with exchanges of national civil servants and, more generally, I believe, with cooperation and exchange of information between the Commission and the national authorities, both at the pre-legislative stage and at the stage when Community acts are implemented.
There is also the Grotius programme. I hope that this Commission initiative does indeed lead to a Council decision on a joint action on a programme of incentives and exchanges for practitioners in the justice area.
However, we should remember also to point out once more to the Member States that it is absolutely essential that they ensure that lawyers acquire a knowledge of Community law during their university studies.
I should also mention the Commission's initiative in putting forward the Robert Schuman action.
The proposed action has been designed to provide temporary financial support for initiatives by institutions in the Member States responsible for the training of judges and lawyers or for supplying them with information and, as such, will be very helpful.
It offers an additional means of assisting the 100, 000 judges and 450, 000 lawyers of the Union to perform their role more effectively.
Another thing that deserves full mention is the 'Citizens of Europe - Citizens First' initiative launched jointly by the Commission and Parliament in November 1996 for the purpose of making citizens aware of their rights.
This answers a call that I myself made in my capacity as the rapporteur of last year's report by the Legal Affairs Committee on the Commission report on monitoring the application of Community law.
As a Community based on the rule of law, the European Community law must never become neglectful of the quality of the application of the rules that it adopts.
It must always seek to ensure that its rules are given correct and effective application.
Mr President, allow me to say in concluding that I believe that the points highlighted in Mrs Schaffner's report and her observations and demands are a useful addition to the huge endeavour that Parliament has been making in concert with the Commission over the years and will take us a step further down the road of improvement.
There have been some elements of progress this year. I have mentioned them in order that we should not appear always to be carping, always to be grumblers.
Some things have been done. Now we need to press on and do more, even more quickly, even more effectively, so as to achieve the target that has been set.
I too welcome Mrs Schaffner's report and I am glad to see Mr Kinnock here with us.
Because what I have to say concerns him directly, I think.
We have just received the annual report for 1992/1993 and for the past six months we have been told that we will be getting the 1993/1994 report any time now.
We now find that for all these years figures simply are not available for a number of Member States; the Commission just does not chase them up but says yes, we don't have the figures, they do not provide them.
This is what this report is about.
Whilst there are Member States which quite simply flout Community legislation, at the same time summum ius can mean summa iniuria , extreme law can create extreme injustice.
It means a new inequality for our citizens which the Commission must not tolerate.
A second point.
Article 177, the obtaining of a preliminary ruling.
Together with another honourable member who recently moved from the EPP to Mrs Schaffner's Group I instituted proceedings before the Court in Rotterdam, where the chief public prosecutor there said: sorry, Sir, you know that a preliminary ruling can only be requested by the highest judicial body in the land.
A flagrant error in the application of Community law.
It also shows that in all Member States of the Community one can become a judge or public prosecutor without knowing anything at all about Community law.
I and others have been pressing for five years at least for European law to be made a compulsory part of the syllabus at all Europe's law faculties.
We would like to see that done at last.
Mr President, Commissioner, I must begin by thanking the rapporteur for providing us with so many practical suggestions on study and exchange programmes, training in Community law, as has just been emphasized, breach-of-contract proceedings and many other aspects.
I believe these are all practical and reasonable suggestions which this House should support, and no doubt will support.
One aspect I regard as particularly important is the 'Citizens of Europe' initiative mentioned in Section 16 of the report, a guide to citizens' rights and duties with regard to the application of Community law.
This seems particularly important to me when I read this passage of the report in the light of the opinion of the Committee on Petitions.
There is another point, however, which strikes me.
Citizens' rights are considered here with reference to possible malfunctions of the single market - a clear reference to the lack of substance of Union citizenship.
But, of course, I find it even more remarkable that while we talk about Union citizenship we also talk about Community law.
Are the Union's citizens really just Community citizens, or will we eventually succeed in shaping Community law into Union law and, perhaps, rescuing something from the approach of the witching hour and bringing it out into the light of day - the everyday light of the European Union?
Mr President, I shall begin by thanking Mrs Schaffner for the excellent report she has made on the Commission's thirteenth annual report on monitoring the application of Community law.
The thoroughness of the analysis, the quality of the criticism and the relevance of the suggestions she has made are worthy of particular commendation.
As the House will know, the annual report on the monitoring of Community law which was first produced in 1983 at Parliament's request, relates to the first of the tasks assigned to the Commission by Article 155 of the Community Treaty which is to ensure, and I quote the Treaty: ' that the provisions of this Treaty and the measures taken by the institution pursuant thereto are applied' .
The Commission's report is very much the result of a productive exchange between Parliament and the Commission.
As Members will know very well, when preparing a new report the Commission naturally refers carefully to Parliament's resolutions and recommendations on the previous year's report and as we have heard during the course of tonight's debate from Mr. Anastassopoulos, there is always room for further improvement.
This instrument already owes a great deal to Parliament's careful scrutiny.
The first objective of the Annual Report is for the Commission to give an account of its own action and the Thirteenth Report noted an improvement in the handling of infringement proceedings, with a start being made on reducing the time that they take.
This trend continued in 1996, when the Commission gave strong emphasis to speeding up consideration of infringements and to rationalizing its internal procedures.
In July last year, a number of measures were adopted which are already having some beneficial effect.
For instance, it was decided that in future the one year time limit between the registration of a complaint and the Commission's decision on the substance, the closure of a case or the dispatch of an Article 169 letter would be strictly applied.
That has subsequently been the case.
There are three main concerns evident throughout Mrs Schaffner's report.
Firstly, the lack of transparency in Commission decisions on infringements.
Secondly, the excessive number of Court judgments that have not been complied with.
Thirdly, the inadequate diffusion of Community law.
I report to the House with some satisfaction but without any complacency that in 1996 the Commission was particularly active in all three of those areas.
First on transparency, since July 1996 the rule has been to publish press releases on Commission decisions, to issue reasoned opinions and to refer cases to the Court.
The House will recall that until then the opposite rule applied.
There could be no press release unless the Commission decided specifically that there should be.
The Commission has already moved in the direction requested by Parliament.
Instead of confidentiality which could, on occasion, be a source of mistakes and misunderstandings, the Commission has opted for openness in making its decisions public.
I can report to the House that from my recall of the discussions in the Commission, this was unanimously and enthusiastically embraced.
Similarly, in response to remarks made by the Ombudsman, the Commission always endeavours to secure the opinion of the complainant before deciding to close a case.
Secondly, on the issue of penalties for failure to comply with Court judgments.
As requested by this Parliament, the Commission has taken all the necessary steps to apply the second sub-paragraph of Article 171 and consequently to propose penalties against Member States which fail to comply with Court judgments.
Following the publication in August last year of a communication on the application of this article, the Commission recently adopted a method for calculating the amount of penalty payments.
The procedure can now, therefore, be considered to be operational. This should make for improved application of Community law in the Member States.
As the rapporteur correctly points out, the Court's new ruling, allowing individuals to bring actions for damages against Member States that infringe Community law, offers citizens a new means of regress.
Mrs Schaffner is also quite right to regard this as significant progress and application of this ruling in the Member States has already begun.
Obviously, it is still too early to try to analyze the impact but the Commission is naturally taking a close interest in developments.
Finally, on the subject of diffusion of Community law.
Throughout 1996, the Commission continued its effort to improve the diffusion of Community law in the Member States by developing a number of programmes, in particular for the legal professions, programmes that have already been referred to in the course of the debate.
Even though the diffusion of Community law is clearly a matter first and foremost for the Member States, the Commission seeks to provide the necessary impetus obviously within its competence.
These references demonstrate, I hope, that the Commission regards the monitoring of the application of Community law to be a very important and useful activity and my colleagues and I warmly welcome the support for that activity given by this House.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 am.
(The sitting was closed at 11.10 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, thank you for giving me this opportunity to raise a matter with you.
Today is the 25th anniversary of what is known as Bloody Sunday in Derry in Ireland.
It is known as such because of the killing of 30 innocent civilians by the security forces.
I have in my hand a resolution which is going before the House of Commons today on the issue of Bloody Sunday.
Mr Andrews, I am sorry, but although your point is a very important one it has nothing to do with the Minutes.
Mr President, I would merely like to ask the House to support Mr Hume's resolution.
All right, Mr Andrews, the House has heard your advice and I imagine it will follow it.
In any case, I say again, however important the matter may be it does not have very much to do with the Minutes.
(Parliament approved the minutes)
Article K.9 of the Treaty on European Union
The next item is the report by Mrs Lambraki (A4-0349/96), on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the possible application of Article K.9 of the Treaty on European Union (COM(95)0566 - C4-0560/95).
Mr President, the strategy adopted hitherto by Parliament as regards the effectiveness of Union policy in the areas included in the third pillar has been to request immediate application of the transitional clause set out in Article K.9 and, at the same time, renegotiation of the third pillar.
The transitional clause of Article K.9 allows for the possibility of applying Article 100c of the Treaty to six of the nine areas referred to in Article K.1, namely:
asylum policy;
the rules governing the crossing by persons of the external borders of the Member States and the exercise of controls thereon;
immigration policy regarding nationals of third countries;
action to combat drug addiction;
action to combat fraud on an international scale;
judicial cooperation in civil matters.
The Council may decide to apply Article 100c of the Treaty to those six areas.
Such a possibility has been examined only once.
In Declaration No 31 on asylum annexed to the Final Act of the Treaty on European Union the Council is asked to consider questions concerning the asylum policies of the Member States with the aim of adopting, by the end of 1993, common action to harmonize them.
After this first initiative, the Commission has not re-examined the matter nor, despite constant pressure from Parliament, has it taken any other initiative.
Valuable time has been lost and the third pillar is moribund.
If Parliament were now to insist on immediate application of Article K.9, it is very probable - as the Commission itself says - that we would create complications with regard to the communautarisation of certain matters and give the impression that we consider the existing procedure satisfactory, whereas, in fact, everyone is aware of disadvantages that the application of Article K.9 would present.
These disadvantages are:
firstly, the limitations that the Article 100c procedure would impose on communautarisation;
secondly, the transfer would not affect all areas listed in Article K.1 but only six of them, with judicial and police cooperation in criminal matters and customs cooperation being excluded;
thirdly, Parliament enjoys only the right of simple consultation under Article 100c and cannot intervene in areas which are of concern to the citizens of the Union;
fourthly, the procedure laid down in Article K.9 is extremely cumbersome; a decision to transfer requires the Council to act unanimously; in parallel, the Member States must adopt the decision in accordance with their constitutional requirements; in the case of Denmark, for example, this means adoption either by a majority of 5/6ths in the Folketing or by a majority of members of the Folketing plus a majority in a referendum;
fifthly, the procedure does not guarantee adequate democratic control.
We must concentrate our efforts on getting the third pillar accepted as a main item for discussion at the intergovernmental conference.
I believe that cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs can play an important part in helping us to make the Union more relevant to the people of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Lambraki's production of her report on the application of Article K9 comes at an interesting time. Discussion of the report in our committee took place at the same time as the Intergovernmental Conference was discussing the following questions: what is happening with the third pillar?
What is happening with the subjects covered by the third pillar?
How are they to be dealt with in future in the revised Treaty?
What is to be transferred to the first pillar, and what must on no account be transferred to it? If transfers are made to the first pillar, what is to be democratically structured, and how?
So instead of turning immediately to a topic covered in the report, I shall begin with a question.
We have heard several reports in recent weeks - it would be very interesting if Parliament's observers at the Intergovernmental Conference occasionally had an opportunity to comment on it - about plans to transfer certain fundamental areas of Community policy which Mrs Lambraki has touched on, such as the campaign against drugs or problems of immigration and asylum law, to a new pillar - 1a), as it were - meaning transferring them from the third pillar to the first, but using a kind of separate structure, whose purpose will be that although the result is Community law it lies outside the jurisdiction of the European Parliament.
Let me repeat that: pillar 1a) - given that structure - transfers fundamental, absolutely necessary areas of policy to the level of Community law, to Community policy excluding the democratic public.
That seems to me constantly to be the ideological background in the whole debate about Article K9 as well.
The issue is that inexpensive declarations are made, that we naturally need a common asylum strategy.
The term 'race to dishonour' has already been used here; I shall not adopt it, because it seems to me rather too harsh.
But the constant levelling down of asylum standards to a lowest common denominator, which ultimately amounts to plugging the leaks, is a strategy which is more pronounced in some governments than in others, although it is always present.
As far as the influence of the European Parliament is concerned - or at any rate this has been the case in our committee - both as regards Mrs d'Ancona's report on asylum policy and as regards the debate on Mrs Lambraki's report - the reaction of the Commission and the Council to parliamentary involvement is zero.
In the case of the Commission, though, I will make an exception for Commissioner Gradin, who personally takes a very different view and deals very aggressively with Parliament.
I particularly emphasize that, Commissioner: if I am going to tear a strip off the Commission as a whole, I must make a specific exception for the democratically inclined Commissioners.
When we come to immigration and the drugs control policy, we have virtually the same situation: our debate always takes the same form.
We need joint action, nobody disputes that.
Situations exist which are no longer within the power of the Nation States of the European Union to control, nobody disputes that.
The European Union is the level, the organizational form, within which we can cooperate most efficiently and come to grips with the problems most effectively.
Nobody disputes that, either.
The phenomenon whereby, in the course of the communitization of these areas of policy, the national parliaments are increasingly being excluded from the legislative process and from the process of control over the new organizations arising in this area is one side of the coin; and the non-transfer of democratic control and legislative powers to the European Parliament is the other side.
This is creating a democracy shortfall in the European Union, which will take on dangerous dimensions unless swift and energetic action is taken to put a stop to it.
Well, unfortunately, we have to say that we would gladly do that, but we don't have the power.
So Mrs Lambraki's report comes at a very interesting time.
We are now considering a report which, we know, describes machinery - the machinery of Article K9 - which, in conjunction with Article 110 of the Community Treaty could result in all these areas of policy - asylum, immigration, third-country nationals, the campaign against drugs and international fraud - all being transferred to the first pillar.
But the trouble is that the report we are adopting here today may, at the time we adopt it, already have been overtaken by other considerations at the Intergovernmental Conference and the Council of Ministers.
We may have our suspicions of that, though officially we know nothing at all, because this circumstance is the best proof that the question of the organization of policy around the subject areas can really only be described now as a bigger and bigger, more and more dangerous dedemocratization of policy in the European Union.
Mrs Lambraki's report points out these phenomena and highlights ways in which things could be changed, but comes at a time when things may already have moved on and, to some extent, bypassed the European Parliament.
That is the really regrettable feature of today's debate.
Mr. President, Article K.9, the so called 'Bridge' for Article 100c only gives Parliament consultative powers in matters of legislation.
From a democratic point of view, this is an absurd situation as neither the European Parliament nor the National Parliaments have control.
The fact that Article K.9 is set out in this way is one example of the so called 'democratic shortcomings' .
The Danish problem illustrated in Edinburgh and so clearly shown by Mrs. Lambraki is another such problem.
Article K.9 has been applied only once, in connection with schoolchildren going on school trips.
This is not a particularly important matter considering the serious concerns that we have in Europe.
For K.9 to apply, there must be a unanimous vote in the Council, a situation which is more or less impossible to achieve.
The whole concept falls as a result of its own absurdity.
The Commission shares this view.
This legal, or more correctly, illegal state of affairs is a serious matter as it concerns the security of our people, an issue which becomes more important by the day. We also need to remember that this has a great impact on the fundamental attitude which our people have towards 'Europe' .
Quite simply, Article K.9 is serious proof of the need to simplify the Treaty and also the need for decision making by a qualified majority.
The more areas which are brought within the Community Pillar, the fewer problems we will have in the Third Pillar.
It is therefore important that all the forces in Europe strive towards this aim.
Unfortunately, the report on K.9 has been presented so late that nothing new can be added and there is no room for manoeuvre before the Intergovernmental Conference revises the Treaty.
But, there has been a positive development, despite the problems with the Treaty, in that Commissioner Gradin has initiated several good proposals on asylum, ' burden sharing' , immigration, corruption and synthetic drugs.
Perhaps we can also hope to see a document on organised crime.
Future developments will very likely prove the inadequacy of Article K.9.
Raising problems on a report ought to be a matter for committee.
Amendment proposals should first be discussed and then voted on by committee.
Only then if no agreement can be reached should amendment proposals be put to the plenary session.
To do this anyway, by including points which do not add anything new to the discussion cannot, in my view, be justified.
Parliament needs to upgrade its methods of working by discouraging such action.
It is partly for this reason that we are rejecting all amendment proposals apart from No. 5, which we would particularly like to include, as it refers to something which was not discussed in the report but which is worthy of support and emphasis.
The Intergovernmental Conference should consider resolving the problems of internal security and making the appropriate amendments to K.9 as one of its most important tasks.
The responsibility now lies with the governments of the Member States and we in the European Parliament, nota bene, ought to consider a thorough evaluation of K.9 after the Intergovernmental Conference and should not introduce a proposal which is inadequate to the task of promoting the safety, freedom and security of the people of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, my dear colleagues, prior to the summit in Dublin of 13 and 14 December 1996, President Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Helmut Kohl jointly signed a letter to the Irish president.
In this letter they pointed out that current dispositions and procedures provided for by the Treaty on the European Union and governing cooperation in justice and home affairs are insufficient.
Such a point of view seems to be shared by our Parliament, and in particular by you, Madam Rapporteur.
This state of affairs, as Mrs Lambraki demonstrates, is reinforced by the technical and legal problems associated with the application of Article K9 of the Treaty, an article which currently constitutes a real passerelle between two possible political choices relating to the third pillar: communitarisation, on the one hand, and intergovernmental decision-making, on the other.
This situation, which is characterised by the notable inadequacies of Article K9, is a matter of concern to all European constitutional decision-makers, from our Assembly, via the Council, to the Commission.
However, if we share an identical diagnosis as to the organisational malaise of the third pillar, our group is not totally in agreement as to the method of cure. Allow me to express a few doubts on the matter.
Indeed, the conclusions of this report make no mystery about arriving as quickly as possible at the total communitarisation of the third pillar.
My group rejects this choice of 'going all the way' .
As far as we are concerned, we prefer to adopt a pragmatic strategy of giving Member States responsibility in line with the principle of subsidiarity.
Wherever communitarisation appears useful for strengthening the security of European citizens, let us apply it.
Wherever a platform common to the States is enough, there is no need to weigh the procedure down.
It is in this spirit that the Council of Dublin set up, in a concrete way, a working group on judicial cooperation, in order to establish a practical point of view, an ad hoc list of dispositions for combatting cross-border crime, drugtrafficking, etc.
This working group will give its conclusions next March, which will provide the IGC with a sort of data bank for the reconstruction of a more effective third pillar.
This is the condition sine qua non for a Union in closer touch with its citizens, and therefore a more popular Union.
Mr President, I will begin by giving our support to the Lambraki report.
The procedure provided for by the Maastricht Treaty, and in particular in its Article K9, does raise problems which must cry out to us greatly as parliamentarians.
Indeed, for the deficit of security for European citizens, which Europe is undertaking to reduce, within the framework of the European Union, a democratic deficit has been substituted, which results from the application of texts currently in force.
The clumsiness of the procedure provided for by the Treaty, for just a slight communitarisation of the dispositions provided for within the framework of the third pillar, has already been mentioned.
We share the attitude of those who pronounce themselves in favour of the communitarisation of the third pillar and a more effective parliamentary control, or in any case, one which is worthy of the name.
I myself have had the privilege of writing a report for the Intergovernmental Conference to that effect, which I have placed in the hands of the Prime Minister of my own country.
He has undertaken, furthermore, to take it to the Intergovernmental Conference.
This report highlights in particular the way in which national parliaments should be able to engage in the parliamentary follow-up of European dispositions, particularly in the discussion of conventions concluded within the framework of the third pillar.
The difficulty lies in the fact that once the dispositions are ratified, European parliaments make an act of faith in the creation of a new European law while depriving themselves of parliamentary control.
And if this parliamentary control, previously exercised by national parliaments, is not replaced by any disposition empowering the European parliament to monitor this procedure and to carry out its dual vocation of political control and impetus, then, for the lack of security, which we all wish to combat, is substituted a lack of democracy.
And I think that is one of the points which deserves discussion within this Parliament.
Needless to say, Mr President, we are all against the creation of a pillar 1A, the effect of which would be to deprive the European Parliament of its rights and its prerogatives in terms of control.
Priority should be given to the communitarisation of the dispositions provided for within the context of the third pillar.
The only way to respond to the wish shared very broadly by our Assembly is to invite the Intergovernmental Conference once again to make some serious progress on the subject.
If the Intergovernmental Conference had to respond to our wish, expressed by a very large majority of our Parliament, we would be able to say to the citizens of Europe that we had succeeded in curbing this dual deficit of democracy and parliamentary control, for this control should be the norm in our parliamentary system.
Mr President, I do not have the time to go into all the details, but the point I have had the chance to present here seems to us crucial.
In the eyes of the liberals, especially, it is essential that some progress is made in the matter.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Schulz, I have enjoyed listening to the various defences put forward today.
I feel we are indulging not just in a comic opera debate, but in a comic opera debate on something which in fact is no longer on the agenda at all.
The fact is that everyone knows - and Mr Schulz even said as much - that the question of the transition from K9 to K1 does not arise; the question that arises is to what extent the third pillar is or is not, for practical purposes, being absorbed in the first.
All Members have said the same thing: all that is happening, the way we are dealing with things and negotiating at present, is that we get more and more intergovernmental agreements and intercontinental agreements and less communitization, meaning less European debate that can be monitored both by the European Parliament and by the European Court of Justice.
This is fatal!
This is an abandonment of the ideal of a European institution which is also required to monitor sovereign institutions.
That is why I believe that we must do more, be more aggressive in attacking governments when the issue is developing the role of Parliament.
But we must also resolutely attack the philosophy of this debate.
We always say that Europe means more freedom for its citizens.
But we are catering for a security phobia and at the same time driving out freedom.
Because we say: more security and less and less freedom.
The classic example is Schengen, the argument about freedom of movement and the implementation of Article 7a.
We have decided in favour of freedom of movement.
We cannot implement it, so all we do is conclude intergovernmental agreements to safeguard security.
That is why I believe that this report has simply come too late.
That is why I call this a comic opera debate.
It is no longer on the agenda.
What is on the agenda is the debate about the freedom of the citizen, and I would ask all those who rightly believe that Europe has security problems not to confuse the protection of the citizen with the abolition of the necessary freedoms.
The citizen wants security in his life, but he also wants more freedom, and at present we are providing that only in a limited way and to a limited extent.
That is why our group will be abstaining in the vote on this report, because the report serves no purpose.
That is the simple, unvarnished fact today: it no longer serves any purpose at all!
Instead, we must argue about the third pillar when it becomes a pillar 1a, as it is really communitized, so that we have European controls exerted by the Parliament and the European Court of Justice.
To that extent, I agree with the remarks made by a previous speaker, Mr Schulz.
Mr President, on the occasion of a technical debate on the use of Article K9, the Lambraki report sends a resounding cry to the Intergovernmental Conference to integrate into the competence of the Community many matters associated with the security of individuals, for example policies on asylum, crossing external borders, immigration and many others.
But as much as it seems to us justified to deal with these policies as subjects of common interest, that is to coordinate our efforts better at European level, it would also seem absurd to remove them from the competence of the nations and national parliaments, because that is what the demand for communitarisation means in reality.
What the Lambraki report is asking for, like all other reports by this Assembly which have tackled the subject previously, is that the nations should not have the last word on these matters, which would be dealt with by a majority in Council, with the right of codecision by the European Parliament, the monopoly of initiative of the Commission and jurisdiction of the Court of Justice.
This bypassing of national parliaments is totally unacceptable, for even with the formula involving codecision of the European Parliament, it would amount to a weakening of democracy, a distancing of the decision-making centres from citizens, and also, incidentally, to the unappealing prospect of seeing all of these sensitive matters dealt with in a lax manner at European level.
Cooperation, yes; the dispossession of national democracies, no.
This should be our line of conduct.
Mr President, the problems of asylum, of immigration, of external border crossings, and of drug trafficking are a great cause for concern to the citizens of the European nations.
This is why there are two reasons for not communitarising them.
The first is that conditions and traditions are very different from one country to another.
The second is that people, the electorate, must be able to express and assert their point of view.
Now, by communitarising these sectors, control by the people would be made even more difficult.
This, moreover, is probably the objective sought by those who are wanting communitarisation.
What is needed, on the contrary, is to make it easier for the people, for peoples, for the electorate, to exercise control, by making it possible at the level of States - over and above the role of the national parliaments - as is the case with the Swiss version of democracy, to resort to referendum, and referendum initiated by the people.
It is on this condition, and this condition alone, that democracy will be alive and not, as is too often the case today, hijacked by technocratic and decadent elites.
Mr President, I would like to start by saying that I give my complete approval to the content of the report by Mrs Lambraki.
Its pragmatic position bearing the hallmark of wisdom is completely justified, for the Commission's communication itself bears the stamp of common sense.
We are not going to embark upon a heavy and uncertain procedure, and to be quite frank, one destined to fail, at this point in time, just when possibilities for improving the operation of Union policies relating to justice and home affairs are being considered in the negotiations of the IGC.
What is more, the application of Article K9 would have fallen far short of the resolution of all the problems encountered in this domain, particularly with respect to the powers of the European Parliament.
On the other hand, it is about the progress of the work done at the IGC that we must be vigilant.
The Irish presidency has tried to give a positive impetus by putting Member States to work on a concrete proposal which tries to provide responses to the many criticisms made thus far about the operation of the third pillar.
Indeed, whether we are talking about application of K9, communitarising the third pillar, or adopting appropriate dispositions in a pillar 1A, what is actually at stake? The Irish presidency has named it: it is ensuring the establishment of an effective decision-making process, founded, at least in the long term, on the qualified majority and the guarantee of democratic and jurisdictional control.
This declaration of principles coincides with points of view expressed many times over in our Assembly, but sadly, this objective meets strong resistance from certain Member States and national parliaments, and I am thinking in particular of the French Parliament.
And yet, with the progress of the Single Market, everyone recognises that, with regard to the freedom of movement of persons, and even if it is only partial and outside Community procedures, harmonisation of certain legislation and practices is essential, and, besides, it is already happening.
I am thinking of asylum and immigration, for example.
Of course, this Europeanisation in fact has the disadvantage that it strips national parliaments of a part of their prerogative.
We might regret this, we might try to remedy it, but it is a fact.
There is, therefore a democratic deficit at national level, which must be compensated for by progress in democratic control at European level.
And this should be the role of the European Parliament.
Now, currently, we know where the matter stands. Article K9 is a snare, because it is an instrument in the hands of the president which he can use as he pleases.
Furthermore, the Court of Justice is deliberately distanced from cooperation in the third pillar, and this creates a jurisdictional vacuum, which is, at the very least, paradoxical in such a sensitive area, in which the rights and freedoms of the people living in the territory of the Union are at stake.
Having pointed this out, is it possible to refuse any power to the European Parliament and the Court of Justice, as a recent report did which was put forward for vote in the French Parliament, and to be happy just to claim more power for national parliaments?
This last point should certainly be studied, and I would like to point out that most of the resolutions of our Assembly on the third pillar pronounce themselves in favour of an increased role for national parliaments.
But this cannot be enough.
How can we recognise the need for European harmonisation and, at the same time, preach renationalisation of democratic and jurisdictional controls?
These divergences in the appreciation of the parties who will have to pronounce themselves on the IGC are not encouraging.
That is why Mrs Lambraki is right to demand from the Commission an evaluation of the gains of the IGC to envisage some sort of initiative for Article K9, in the event that these results are too disappointing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Cohn-Bendit has described this debate as resembling a comic opera.
Well, comic operas are often rather slight but entertaining.
By comparison, Mr CohnBendit's remarks were, at any rate, not entertaining.
I feel that we are conducting a ghost debate, not just because of the echoing emptiness of Parliament but mainly because Article K9 has long since become obsolete.
It plays the same part in the Maastricht Treaty as the appendix does in the human body - it may once have been significant, but it has long since been overtaken by evolution.
So what we have here is a ghost debate.
Article K9 died of its own inadequacy.
It has occasionally been described as a bridge to the first pillar, but this bridge was mined from the start.
Partly because it required a unanimous vote in the Council - and you know how hard that is to achieve in contentious matters - and partly, too, because the agreements in question had to be ratified in accordance with the various constitutional provisions of the nation states, a process that can take forever.
K9 has demonstrated its total inadequacy and is now the subject of discussions in the negotiations of the Intergovernmental Conference.
But even if nothing really new arises at the Intergovernmental Conference regarding the transfer of responsibilities from the third pillar to the first, even then we cannot invoke Article K9, because it has proved unwieldy.
Something else has become very clear, which is that we still have here an unresolved conflict between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
The point is that the third pillar includes Article K6, which grants Parliament the right to be informed, and indeed regularly informed, and to be consulted on the principal aspects of the activities - to quote the somewhat laboured wording of the Treaty.
As a general rule, the Council has failed to apply these provisions and has circumvented them.
If the Treaty is essentially maintained in this form after the Intergovernmental Conference, there will be no way of avoiding either a severe conflict with the Council or an interinstitutional agreement which clearly regulates when Parliament is to be informed on matters relating to the third pillar and, above all, when we are to be consulted.
The fact of the matter is that this Parliament has never been properly consulted at all.
Consultation means that when the Council wants to adopt a decision, it submits it to us before adopting it; it means that when it has a draft which is ready for adoption it offers Parliament the opportunity to comment on it; it means that the Council considers what Parliament has to say and accepts its reasons.
Naturally, the Council is not bound by what Parliament wants, but it is required to give careful consideration to Parliament's view.
That has never happened yet, and in every important agreement of recent times the principle has been systematically and criminally disregarded.
That is where the conflict lies - the conflict with which we in this House have to concern ourselves, and which we shall have to tackle as soon as the Intergovernmental Conference is at an end.
The other bone of contention is the procedure.
There is an astonishing degree of unanimity in this House in support of the view that at least parts of the third pillar require communitization, such as the universally mentioned areas of asylum, immigration, visas and external border controls.
I am amazed to hear it.
Community law on asylum would mean a uniform law on asylum throughout Europe, from Finland through Germany and France to Portugal and Spain.
May I ask what form such an asylum law would take? It amazes me to hear Mr Cohn-Bendit declaring in favour of a common law on asylum.
I have never heard any demand from the Greens on asylum law which would have even the faintest prospect of becoming the basis of a common law on asylum, to be valid in the United Kingdom as well as in Sweden and Greece.
Because I am absolutely convinced, for example, that other European partners would not unconditionally accept the German yardstick as a model.
Among other things, that would require us Germans, too, to review our position on asylum with a view to harmonizing it with other countries' laws, rather than just adhering to our own standards.
These are all examples of the implications of demanding a common law on asylum, and I doubt if it would be any easier to find common ground in other areas, either.
So, in my opinion, it comes down to two issues.
First, we need to agree on procedures which will be acceptable to all and in which the role of Parliament is at least described in the same way as it is already set out in the Maastricht Treaty. Secondly, we should then turn to the question of substantive law and look for common ground, and the only way will be for there to be give and take on all sides.
That applies to the Germans just as much as it does to the British, French and all the others.
Mr. President, the matter now under discussion concerns a number of important subjects including immigration and asylum, visas and the fight against drugs, the traffic in people and international crime.
It is my opinion that these are matters which we in Europe must resolve together, and that is the most important point.
The question is how best to resolve them.
There is a need for stronger international and European cooperation and more effective measures.
But, this does not mean that everything be transferred from the Third to the First Pillar and that decisions shall be taken by a qualified majority.
Let us look at drugs policy for example: in Sweden and Scandinavia we have a restrictive drugs policy.
We are not entirely convinced that we will gain a better, more effective policy if it is moved up to a level where decisions can be taken by a qualified majority.
It could lead to a deterioration of our policy with greater liberalisation and legalisation. Both of these measures are directly contrary to those actions we consider vital to get to grips with the drug problem.
We also know that many of our EU citizens and other European peoples believe that drug policy and the fight against organised crime should be given high priority, and rightly so. We must take action.
But many also have doubts about transferring more decisions from national level to supranational EU level.
We must find a way of resolving this conflict.
Transfer of all the areas mentioned in this report from the Third Pillar to the First would involve a huge shift of power from national Parliaments to EU level in matters which are considered typically internal and national by our people, for example, matters concerning the police, customs, civil rights and criminal law.
National Parliaments will also have reduced influence of course if these decisions are transferred to EU level.
Mr. President, the problems of immigration, asylum, narcotics and crime must be resolved.
In my view, they are best resolved through combined action, programmes and plans rather than by amendments of a constitutional nature and the transfer of decision making from national to supranational level.
Mr. President, it is with a sense of disappointment and sadness that I have read this report and listened to the various speeches.
Everyone says the same, that interstate cooperation, e.g. the Third Pillar, is not working, that it is not sufficiently effective and that it must be abolished.
Neither the rapporteur nor the committee has analysed what it is that is not functioning or defined what is meant by effective.
Nor is the question being asked, why is it not working, which is surely the central point.
The simplest and most obvious response is to blame the right of veto and the fact that decisions must be taken unanimously.
Nobody is asking why it is so difficult to reach unanimous decisions.
The obvious answer is that the people and the ministers of the Member States are not prepared, nor do they have the right, to transfer legal matters to the EU and to 'Brussels' .
For the majority of the peoples of Europe, the legal system adopted by their National Parliaments is a matter of identity and democracy.
It is perhaps even more important than the matter of a national currency.
The proposal now is 'communitarise' all or parts of the Third Pillar under the sacred flag of effectiveness.
In plain language what this means is that we wish to give the EU a mandate, the right to trample over individual Member States and people, all in the name of increased effectiveness.
It is even claimed that this will increase democracy and bring Europe and its peoples closer together. This is absurd.
I strongly believe that the result will be exactly the opposite: the distance between decisions makers and citizens in the Union will increase, both metaphorically and geographically.
Criticism against the Union and 'the rule of Brussels' will increase and there is a risk that this will feed extremist nationalist parties and organisations and thereby add to the tension and unrest in the Union.
Is this what we want? No, let us keep and develop the interstate cooperation in the Third Pillar.
Let us proceed at a pace acceptable to our people.
Let us not add to the contempt felt for politicians but instead respect the constitutional laws of the Member States.
In all essential respects I agree with what my two Swedish colleagues have just said.
We are dealing here with a theme, the third pillar, which provokes fairly predictable natural responses, and there are two main reasons for this.
Firstly it is central to the ongoing unresolved conflict between Parliament and the Council, and secondly it concerns an area of integration, perhaps the most central of all areas of integration.
The conclusion of this phantom debate, appendectomy, or whatever else one wishes to call it, is very simple, namely that this article K9, which is supposed to serve as a passerelle for the transfer of issues from the third pillar to Community matters, has never been used.
It is unusable.
Amongst other reasons, this is because of those troublesome Danes who have opposed the adoption of article K9.
The conclusion, therefore, is that it must be removed and that it must be regarded unconditionally as a Community matter.
What we have here is an appeal to the government conference.
I agree with Georges Berthu who spoke on this matter earlier.
It concerns questions which are at the heart of the right to national self-determination.
There is no question of transfer to Community matters.
This is perhaps the most significant undermining of a right to democratic self-determination which belongs to the individual nations.
We cannot on any grounds support this appeal to the government conference to have it made a Community matter.
Indeed we will strive against this.
Mr President, in my view Mrs Lambraki has handled the very difficult issue of the transfer of areas of competence from the inter-government sphere to, effectively, the Community sphere prudently and with a sense of responsibility.
I think we can agree with the conclusion that the third pillar is moribund.
Perhaps the most characteristic example recently has been the total inaction of the European Union in the face of the serious revelations concerning the involvement of people in high positions in Turkey in drug trafficking. The European Union has simply not existed.
The German courts have spoken, the European body which monitors the movement of drugs has spoken, a number of persons in positions of responsibility have spoken, but the European Union has been completely out of the frame.
Certainly, in view of that situation, we ought to avail ourselves of the greater potential for action which the transfer of competence to the Community would offer. With great care and sensitivity, of course, in regard to the matters that previous speakers have raised, and provided that we do everything that is necessary to ensure that in giving the European Parliament and the other institutions the potential for effective intervention and monitoring we do not create a new democratic deficit.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on her report because her conclusions are very close to those drawn by the Legal Affairs Committee.
Article K9, and we should be clear about this, exists in the Maastricht Treaty as a sop to those Member states who oppose the inter-governmentalization of justice and home affairs.
It was a sop to those who lost the battle to communitarize justice and home affairs matters.
In theory, as we have heard, K9 allows for a transfer of certain policy areas from pillar three to the Community pillar.
In practice, it does no such thing for there is a double lock on Article K9.
Firstly, as we have heard, the Council must act unanimously in order to transfer the powers listed in K1(1) to K1(6) and having agreed the transfer, the Council must then refer the matter to all fifteen national Parliaments so they may ratify the decision.
Theoretically we could have other voting systems but in practice we then have unanimity for any matter transferred from the third pillar to the Community pillar.
So it is unlikely to be used and the fact that it has never been used is an indication of just now unlikely it is.
In addition, even if we do make the transfer, the legal base would be 100c so this Parliament would only be consulted about the matter and would have no other rights than simple consultation.
In addition, of course, it does not cover all the matters in the third pillar.
Issues like customs cooperation, Europol, judicial cooperation and criminal matters would not be covered by any potential transfer.
K9 is clearly not a panacea for the problems encountered in implementing the third pillar.
If we in this Parliament were given an example of a third world country that allowed asylum policy, border controls, the right of third country nationals, the fighting of terrorism, the combatting of fraud, the combatting of drug addiction to escape parliamentary or judicial control, we would be horrified.
We would be so horrified that month-in month-out we would be passing urgencies in this Parliament condemning the situation.
Yet we live with that on a daily basis in this institution.
Why?
It seems to me that the operation and existence of the third pillar shows unambiguously that of the four fundamental freedoms that this Community is supposed to be based on, the freedom of movement of persons is the lesser one, even in a Union that does not tire of telling us that we now live in a citizens' Europe.
Until we move the third pillar into the Community structure it will be clear that Europe remains overwhelmingly an economic enterprise.
If we are to speak to the people of Europe, then the people's rights must be covered by the people's Court and the people's Parliament.
K9 might appear on the map of the European Union as a passerelle but if it is a passerelle , it is a footpath strewn with boulders and difficulties and we want to get rid of it and move it into the Community structure.
Mr. President, I would like to congratulate Mrs. Lambraki on her excellent report concerning Article K.9.
The issues surrounding the application of this 'passerelle' are controversial.
The rapporteur has analysed this complicated political issue in a thorough and well balanced way.
The Commission and the Council of Ministers have studied the possibility of applying Article K.9 on two occasions.
The first time was just a few months after the Treaty came into force.
At that time, both the Commission and the Council of Ministers came to the conclusion that insufficient time had elapsed to assess the situation properly.
The second time was in November 1995, when the Commission presented a report to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament which recommended that Article K.9 should not be applied.
The reason for this was that preparation work for the Intergovernmental Conference had already commenced and more and more people were beginning to realise the need for a radical overhaul of the total cooperation on Justice and Home Affairs, in other words, the cooperation within the Third Pillar.
Our conclusion, at that time, was that, at best it would be meaningless to propose the use of Article K.9 and at worst counterproductive.
There was no doubt that any attempt to use this Article to transfer issues to the First Pillar was doomed to failure.
As I have pointed out previously, and now reiterate for you, such a proposal would require either a vote in the Danish Parliament or a referendum.
The only realistic way to achieve a more effective manner of working is to transfer once and for all as much as possible of the cooperation in the Third Pillar to the First Pillar.
When we discussed this issue in the Commission, we were anxious that the decision should not give rise to misunderstanding in the European Parliament.
For this reason, I have repeatedly stated the Commission's stand on this issue.
It is with great satisfaction now that I see that the rapporteur has arrived at the same conclusion in her report.
The Intergovernmental Conference is now moving to a decisive stage.
This is particularly true for matters of Justice and Home Affairs.
The draft Treaty text produced by the Irish Presidency at the conference in Dublin in December largely followed the guidelines proposed by the Commission.
In other respects the proposal is less than ambitious.
The Commission is presenting its views on these sections in the continuing discussions through the participation of Commissioner Oreja.
It is our opinion that the European Parliament should have its say on all matters covered in the Third Pillar, including budget matters in which Parliament itself must play a full part.
The remaining months before the end of the Conference will naturally be marked by intensive negotiations.
It is important that, in these discussions, we concentrate on achieving as good a negotiated result as possible.
This is the only way in which we can tackle the existing challenges for the cooperation on Justice and Home Affairs.
Of course, this does not only apply to the Commission but to all the members of this house who should try to influence their own National Governments.
It is after all particularly important that a huge effort is made to convince them of the importance of changing the cooperation within the Third Pillar so that it becomes better and more democratic and so that we can take on all those serious matters which our voters consider that we should tackle.
Mr President, I wish to thank all the Members who have spoken in this debate.
In compiling my report on this difficult legal and political subject my intention was not so much to put forward solutions but, rather, to try to eliminate the misconceptions that have existed.
And to assume that Article K.9 can solve the problem of the third pillar certainly is a misconception.
I think that I have achieved that.
We no longer have misconceptions.
I will agree with Mrs Gradin. What we have to do now - every one of us at every level, the Commission itself and the members of this parliament and of the national parliaments - is to press the governments in the same direction.
I believe that the time for action in this place has passed, Mrs Gradin. If the Commission had brought its thoughts to us earlier, as we wanted it to, we would perhaps have had more time to influence the discussions in the intergovernmental conference.
As it is now, I can agree in part with Mr Cohn-Bendit that events appear to have overtaken us in terms of time.
Madam President, today we commemorate the 25th anniversary of a horrific event in which 13 people were killed at a civil rights march in Derry in Northern Ireland.
Yesterday in the House of Commons John Hume our colleague tabled a motion supported by many Members from different parties asking for a new international tribunal to investigate that event.
I should like to ask this House to lend its support to my colleague John Hume in trying to find out the truth so that justice will prevail.
Considering that we are voting on the Reding report on terrorism today, it would be appropriate for this House to commemorate and pay tribute to the victims of state terrorism, as well as all forms of paramilitary terrorism in our fight to ensure that people's lives and the right to life is secured for ever.
Although we are not talking about a true motion of procedure, I am happy to make a note of your statement Mr Crowley, which is at one with the intervention by Mr Andrews this morning
Votes
Madam President, I just wanted to tell you and the Assembly that I have detected in the joint motion for a resolution, tabled by seven political groups, a number of significant translation errors in some versions, in particular the Spanish and English versions.
They affect the preamble and not the main body of the motion and its sub-paragraphs.
Could I therefore ask you to call upon the Assembly services to make sure that all versions are correctly translated on the basis of the original version presented to this body by the seven political groups.
Mrs Fraga Estévez, I will undertake to ensure that this is checked as carefully as possible.
On the subject of amendment 3:
There seems to be a problem regarding amendment 3.
It is worded as follows: ' - having regard to its resolution of 25 October 1996 on the communication from the Commission on the implementation of technical measures in the common fisheries policy' .
I have been informed that Mr Gallagher would like this wording to be modified as follows: ' - having regard to the report by Mr Gallagher, adopted by the European Parliament, on the communication from the Commission' .
I must tell you frankly, this seems extremely complicated to me, and in addition Mr Gallagher is not here.
Therefore I am going to put amendment 3 of the Group Union for Europe to the vote in the wording we know.
Madam President, I should apologise on behalf of Mr Gallagher who is not at his desk at the moment.
I have just been informed that in the original text Mr Gallagher's name was mentioned.
It was taken out and this is just to reinsert it into the original text.
There seems to be some misunderstanding.
Mr Crowley, thank you for apologising for Mr Gallagher's absence, but it is not customary practice to quote the names of rapporteurs.
Resolutions are put forward and everyone knows, of course, that they relate to a report which has been backed by one of our colleagues, but generally no reference is made to the names of rapporteurs.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, two amendments are being voted on - Amendment Nos 1 and 11, one tabled by the Socialist Group and the other by the PPE, Socialist, Liberal and GUE Groups.
I would like to give Mr Schulz the floor to see if we can reach an agreement and vote on just one of the two amendments which are practically identical.
Madam President, Amendment No 1 and Amendment No 11 deal with the same problem, and I would like to say a brief word about that. In the debate on this report there was a certain amount of excitement about the question: Can a terrorist organization be accurately defined?
Is it possible to define accurately what it means? Mrs Reding commendably accepted this challenge and included a definition in her report, which makes one thing clear - within the rule-of-law community of the European Union there can be no legal protection for terrorist acts or terrorist organizations of any kind whatsoever.
I want to make that completely clear here.
Organizations like the IRA and ETA cannot expect any protection within the European Union on the basis of any law whatsoever.
It was in order to make that clear that these two amendments were introduced.
So I could withdraw my Amendment No 1, because its content is virtually the same as that of Amendment No 11, if we could agree that we could add six more words to the English version of Amendment No 11, adding 'within the meaning of this resolution' after the words '... cooperation with an armed group...' .
That makes it absolutely clear that what I have just said is covered by this report.
Then I can take back No 1 and we could then vote jointly on No 11.
My dear colleagues, we are not reopening the debate, things must be clear.
Mrs Reding, I wish to know whether you accept Mr Schulz's proposal.
Yes, Madam President, it is an excellent proposal, and I would ask my colleagues to vote in great numbers for amendment 11.
I am going to anticipate slightly, and ask our colleagues if there are any objections.
For Mr Schulz to be able to withdraw his amendment 1, you must understand that this implies that he has our Assembly's commitment that it accepts the oral amendment to amendment 11.
I am therefore asking the Assembly, in slight anticipation, whether it has any objection to there being an oral amendment to amendment 11.
(The Assembly did not oppose the proposal)
Mr Schulz, you may therefore withdraw your amendment.
Madam President, Mr Schulz, there is just one thing I am not clear about.
You said neither ETA nor the IRA nor anyone else would be protected.
But there is a principle in law that every defendant is entitled to the protection of the law until proved guilty.
The French call it la présomption d'innocence , to use a European term for once, so it is...
(The President cut off the speaker)
We cannot get into a debate.
Amendment 1 is therefore withdrawn from the vote.
Madam President, regarding the oral amendment proposed by Mr Schulz.
Am I correct in understanding that Mr Schulz's intention is that legal protection will be denied to people who are accused of terrorist crimes? That is how it came across in the interpretation.
My dear colleagues, we are not voting on the intentions of Mr Schulz.
Mr Schulz has proposed the withdrawal of his amendment on two conditions: that the PPE accepts an oral amendment to his amendment 11, and he has made this oral amendment quite explicit.
Mrs Reding, the rapporteur, gave her agreement, on condition, of course, that there was no objection to this oral amendment being put to the vote.
Therefore it will be, at the time we vote on amendment 11.
This is all quite clear.
The debate on the content is now over.
Madam President, I quite understand that Honourable Members would like to move on.
But as the debate we are holding here at present has caused a great deal of tumult in some Member States, I should like to repeat one sentence: we do not need to make a special point here of saying that a State that is governed by the principles of the rule of law must also observe those principles in its legal organization, no matter who the accused may be.
Mr Cohn-Bendit, too, is well aware of that, and his request to speak was merely for show.
But it is important that we should make this point here: no terrorist and no terrorist organization can derive any political legitimacy from a law...
(The President cut off the speaker)
My dear colleagues, may I remind you that there are explanations of vote, which you may use at your leisure.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, obviously we have voted against this report, which aims to set up thought policing and brainwashing through the media, in particular.
But, while taking account of that and of an amendment which was adopted, we are rather surprised that there were so many votes for and so few votes against and abstentions.
Indeed, amendment 5, which was adopted, and which therefore figures in the final resolution, demands, I quote 'that immigrants from outside the Community should receive equal treatment regarding economic and social rights, recognition of civil, cultural and political rights, particularly the right to vote in local elections for non-European foreigners residing in Europe' .
Well, it would be interesting to see our colleagues from the Christian Democrat and Union for Europe groups, who abstained or voted for the report, explaining to those who elected them that they voted for the right to vote for nonEuropean foreigners in local elections in this way.
I am sure their supporters would be very surprised to learn which way they voted.
The annual motion for a resolution on racism, as prepared by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Citizens' Rights of our Assembly, and as presented this morning, seemed to show an improvement on texts of previous years.
Indeed, for once, the usual amalgam of 'racism' and 'control of immigration' was carefully avoided.
Sadly, these good intentions did not last for long against the amendments which have just been voted in in the plenary session.
We note in it that the European Parliament wishes to 'point out the positive contribution which immigrants are making to European society' (amendment 8), that it 'calls on the Member States to develop their immigration policy in close connection with an adequate integration policy' (amendment 2), an integration policy which is itself made explicit by amendment 5: the European Parliament 'calls for non-Community immigrants to enjoy equal treatment with regard to economic and social rights, and the recognition of civic, cultural and political rights, including the right to vote in local elections for those who have been resident in a Member State for more than five years...' .
This position seems to us totally unacceptable.
To start with, it underestimates the reality of contemporary immigration, which essentially is motivated by the economic self-destruction of certain third party countries, and which constitutes a heavy burden, rather than an opportunity, for members of the European Union.
Secondly, the immigrant population which arrives accidentally in our countries under these condition, must not be considered as having a vocation to stay here for good.
Finally, it is not acceptable to erase the difference between citizens and foreigners by aligning the rights of the latter progressively with those of the former.
Indeed, a nation is a community of fate which citizens share.
You cannot claim the rights without assuming the duties in it.
And to assume them you just have to go through the naturalisation procedure, which those concerned are free to request.
Secondly, you will note that the resolution voted in asks for European competence for combatting against racism, as well as the creation of a 'European observatory for racism and xenophobia' , which, in our opinion, would definitely not bring about any further concrete achievements, other than administration and additional expense.
These are the reasons why we opposed this resolution.
It is important that the European Union should have proclaimed 1997 'European Year against Racism' .
This should lead to all kinds of actions in a European framework to combat racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in a more co-ordinated and effective way.
It should also force the Intergovernmental Conference to include in the revised Treaty a clear, concise and forthright pledge to combat racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism, given the steady increase in ideologies tinged with fanaticism and dangerous fascist ideologies.
All kinds of fundamentalism translated into frightful actions loaded with violence and recalling the horror of the Holocaust.
Silence is an accomplice: the 'We did not know' used as justification in the past and even today by so many people means that we have to act and proclaim time and time again that our culture, in the 20th century, is partly one of cultural and racial mixtures - that is its wealth.
Racism must be fought at all levels and in every way.
This is why we have voted for this resolution, despite the fact that it contains certain points on which we hold a completely different opinion.
These include the harmonisation of asylum and immigration policies, the transfer of actions against racism to the First Pillar and the strengthening of legal instruments.
But we are all agreed on the fact that we wish to assist wholeheartedly in the fight against racism and the resolution does contain many good and important points.
The Austrian Freedom Party Members fully concur with the content of the motion for a resolution by Mr Ford and Mr Oostlander - subject to the reservation mentioned in Mr Lukas's speech - whereby the list which appears in indent 6 is to be understood as an enumerative recapitulation of previous resolutions on the subject in question but not as confirmation of the content of the resolution of 9 May 1996 regarding the ostracizing of the FPÖ and its leader, Dr Jörg Haider.
Fisheries Council
In respect of the vote which we have just held on the Fisheries Council, my Group welcomes approval of Amendment No 5 tabled by the GUE/NGL Group, but I am personally upset that Amendment No 7 tabled by the same Group was not approved.
Both amendments refer to the Fisheries Agreement with Morocco which is one of the most important of the Community's Agreements, and which in my opinion has been tantamount to an abandonment of responsibilities by the Commission in accepting the extension of the biological moratorium period from two to four months without sufficient guarantees - or rather without any guarantees at all - that Morocco will actually comply with that biological moratorium.
Therefore, I hope that the Commission will pay more attention to this subject and in the future will look very carefully into any concessions which it might make, bearing in mind that at this very moment Morocco is the beneficiary of major aids from the European Community.
Our fishing sector deserves protection and we cannot abandon our fishermen to the whim of political decisions taken by the Moroccan Government which might be inspired by other considerations.
Thomas report (A4-0414/96)
) We do not see the need to adopt a joint forestry strategy at this point in time.
The Union currently faces enormous problems adapting its Agricultural and Regional Policies to allow for an enlargement Eastwards.
It is inappropriate to adopt a further joint strategy in another area, particularly as there are already well developed Forestry Policies in the individual countries.
Each country has a forestry policy and authorities for the Forestry Industry.
There is also considerable international cooperation on Forestry Policy within the FAO and ECE for example and well developed international cooperation concerned with mapping forest damage in Europe.
A joint forestry policy would be of doubtful value because there are such different problems in the countries of the Union.
Grazing, for example, is a serious problem in the Mediterranean countries while the Scandinavian countries allocate resources on preventing open meadows and grazing ground from becoming overgrown.
Forest fires are not a serious problem in the Scandinavian countries either.
Scandinavia also has a well organised environmental certification scheme, and it is well known that competitor countries such as Canada and the USA are exerting pressure to introduce common certification standards at a lower level than those currently in force in Scandinavia.
There is a considerable risk therefore that environmental standards for the Swedish Forestry sector would be reduced by the implementation of common certification.
Finally, we consider it unnecessary for the Union to increase its expenditure as a result of this document.
If all the proposals are passed, the Union's expenditure will increase by 350 million ECUs.
The bulk of this amount is allocated to two subsidies, firstly to combat forest fires (which means that the subsidy will primarily benefit the Mediterranean countries) and also to AVS countries, primarily the former colonies.
We consider this to be wrong.
If Parliament wishes to increase its support to combat forest fires there is already a budget entry for this and if we wish to support forestry in developing countries this is best done through the normal channels for development aid.
There is no need for a joint forestry policy in the EU.
Nor is there any need for a joint 'Forestry Strategy' described in the report, which is just another term for a future forestry policy.
The financial aid which would be allocated for this ' forestry strategy' would not benefit Scandinavia, but primarily the countries of the Mediterranean and their former colonies.
The report prepared by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is much better than the Commission's proposal.
In order to stop further drives by the Commission in this and similar matters, as the EU takes on more and more areas, it is best to say no.
I have therefore voted against this report.
I am glad to vote for this excellent report by my British Labour colleague David Thomas.
Although I would be called in a 'townie' in Britain, and despite the fact that I represent a mainly urban constituency, I have good reason to support forestry's future.
The Redrose Forest in my constituency is a wonderful example of the way in which forestry can help meet a variety of important needs.
It creates jobs in an area which has suffered from industrial decline.
It improves the environment for local people, giving them a 'green lung' and cleaner air to breathe.
It provides a welcome new place for tourists and locals alike to visit and enjoy.
So I welcome this report's ideas about information and awareness campaigns, to make sure everyone recognizes that forestry has a positive impact on their life - and that of the planet.
People concerned at the destruction of forests will support the call for the EU to work for an international convention on forest protection.
We should help developing countries to balance their need for economic growth with everyone's need to breathe!
Reding report (A4-0368/96)
My reason for abstaining in the final vote on this report is two-fold.
Firstly, Amendment No 7 which would have explicitly respected human rights for all was rejected.
Secondly, Amendment No 11 which was orally amended, was in contravention of the right of the presumption of innocence to all.
I, along with all members of the House, would not condone any terrorism, whether institutional or paramilitary.
However, we must not allow our opposition to violence to cloud our respect and protection of human rights.
We have voted against Mrs. Reding's report.
We are strongly opposed to terrorism and all forms of terrorist act.
Under no circumstances could we support any movement which uses terrorism to promote its aims.
But the problem with this report is it risks setting aside the rule of law, as several points are not sufficiently clear.
Terrorism must be more clearly defined.
In addition, we must clarify who will define those movements which are to be considered terrorist and which are the 'support circles' for terrorism mentioned in the report.
The report is also aimed at not only establishing Europol but also enhancing its authority.
We are opposed to such a development.
Instead we feel that the well developed Interpol cooperation should be used and made more effective for the work of combating international terrorism.
The fight against terrorism is important but it must not be used to justify a weakening of law and order in society.
The Danish social democrats in the European Parliament vote for Mrs Reding's report, but against the request for harmonization of the penalty framework for serious offences crossing borders.
We share the rapporteur's concern over terrorism that takes place within the European democracies, and welcome a co-ordinated approach to preventing it from occurring.
However, we are obliged to reject the harmonization of the member states' penalty frameworks - even where there is a case of serious offences crossing borders, such as terrorism.
The European populations have different views about the way in which their societies should be governed in terms of penalties.
We see no reason for offending these views as a result of harmonization - especially since there is nothing to prevent us from working together in combating terrorism without common legislation on penalties.
Terrorism cannot be accepted in a society governed by the rule of law??law governed society.
Strong measures are needed to combat terrorism.
It must be fought at all levels using legitimate means.
The development of a democratic and open society is the best way of destroying the seedbeds of terrorism.
One problem with this report is that terrorism is not defined and this could set aside the rule of law?? take law and order out of play.
Practical and technical initiatives at airports, during baggage handling and in data and telecommunications systems must be improved.
The cooperation between Interpol and Europol must be further developed.
It is a mistake to assume that effectiveness is the same as supranationality.
In my opinion, the scope for Europol's activity should not be widened to include anti terrorist activities.
This is a matter for the individual Member States.
Europol must not become an 'EU-FBI' .
With this in mind, I have voted against the report.
Valverde López report (A4-0396/96)
There are two important reasons for voting against this report.
One is that it strongly favours increased federalism within the EU, for example point 28 which complains that the requirement for unanimity 'makes decision making difficult' , and point 32 which requires that 'applicant countries must appreciate' that the EU is 'a process of political, economic and currency unity' and point 30 which complains that certain countries are able to renounce European Court activity.
Practically every point places the emphasis on increased supranationality within the EU.
The other reason is that the report is clearly 'right wing' in its general political tendencies.
For example point 9 states that national authorities must work towards the 'removal of bureaucratic and costly obstacles' for companies in order to create jobs.
To suggest in this way, that unemployment in Europe is due to poor government support for companies is an analysis based on new liberal theories and something which we cannot support.
The report emphasises the progress made by the Union towards the introduction of a common currency.
It also points out the problems associated with EMU, for example, that EMU must be combined with strong mechanisms to facilitate strong cooperation in economic, social and tax areas.
It also states categorically that unanimous decision making must be abolished in the Council.
In view of the fact that the report wholeheartedly supports federalism as the right course of action for the European cooperation, I have voted against it.
Escudero report (A4-0410/96)
We must abstain from voting on this report.
It contains many good observations but we are unable to support some of the points.
Point K describes the four symbols of the 'European Cultural Identity' . These are Judaism, Christianity, Hellenism and the Romans.
But we are forgetting the whole legacy from the Muslim culture and even the Nordic-Germanic mythology and concept of justice.
Point 1 talks about the need for the Council to abandon the requirement for unanimity in favour of the federalist requirement of a qualified majority.
We believe that unanimity is an important protector of cultural diversity in Europe.
In point 23, the rapporteur recommends that the Commission prepare material for schools covering the history of Europe which 'shall be introduced as an obligatory school subject in Member States' .
We do not believe that such propaganda measures will yield any positive results.
Each country must maintain sovereignty over its own education system.
There is no reason to use a qualified majority for matters of culture.
If there is a European identity, it cannot be forced into being through majority decision making. This will just hinder the process.
The structure of teaching in primary schools and the teaching material to be used are best determined at national and local level.
School teaching and its content is not a matter for the EU.
This is why I am voting against this report.
Schmidbauer report (A4-0012/96)
The merit of the Commission's Green Paper lies in the fact that it opens the debate on the situation regarding transport and tackles the problem of 'external factors' (accidents, saturation, pollution, etc.).
I congratulate our rapporteur on her excellent work. She has looked at the problem overall by recommending an egalitarian approach, which is that every mode of transport should bear the external costs which it creates.
Personally, I would also like to highlight the importance we should accord combined transport. Respecting the environment and solving congestion as it does, it represents a competitive option.
Finally, one point remains which will excite strong reactions: the harmonisation of taxes and duties on the scale of the Union.
In this area the Commission ought to adopt a pragmatic approach.
I am sorry that it has not thought about public opinion.
Increasing road tolls, for example, tends to oust lower income households from the use of major highways, and therefore from exercising a fundamental freedom: the freedom to come and go.
On this point the Commission should give us some alternative proposals.
The Schmidbauer report underlines the interest and the necessity of considering the negative external factors associated with transport, particularly road transport.
Indeed the prices paid for any particular mode of transport often cover only partially the real costs associated with pollution, accidents and congestion.
The total cost of these external factors for the whole of the European Union (250 thousand million Ecus per year) reveals the importance of the debate and what is at stake for Europe.
This text must therefore be supported.
Firstly for the economic stakes it induces.
Instituting a more equitable transport pricing system means providing inducements to change the attitudes of manufacturers and users.
This might, for example, manifest itself on the road network by the decongestion of certain areas, leading to the improvement of traffic flow making European businesses more competitive by saving time.
Including the true cost of transport also means giving the various modes of transport an equal chance, giving them optimum conditions for competition within the Union.
And this evolution must be taken into consideration in particular with regard to the liberalisation and the opening up of transport markets.
Next, where economic and social cohesion are concerned, measures to integrate real costs would inevitably reorientate the investment of businesses, bringing about a diversification of modes of transport and the development of infrastructure, enabling the harmonisation and balancing out of trans-European networks.
Finally, I think that certain measures proposed by the Green Paper, such as differentiated taxes according to fuel quality, tolls in congested and sensitive areas, etc., meet the ecological demands being made by European citizens.
The debate must begin on the problems of the real cost of transport within the European Union.
The Schmidbauer report can contribute to it, and that is a further reason for supporting it.
The Danish social democrats welcome the Commission's Green Paper and Barbara Schmidbauer's report in the debate on the area of transport.
Both the Green Paper and the report are a good contribution to the debate.
In the EU it is necessary for 15 countries to reach unity on the political questions that arise each day.
The transport policy is related to a whole series of other areas of policy.
It is therefore important to reach agreement on the transport policy, though there will always be certain aspects about which one or more countries are unable to agree on.
This report is therefore a compromise.
Its content is of a high quality, but there are details on which further clarification is necessary.
Thus there are parts of the report which we in Denmark cannot subscribe to immediately.
However it is necessary to point out that this is a non-legislative measure, and taking all aspects into account, we must allow the debate free reign.
The alternative would be for the policy to come to a stand-still, and sectors such as goods transport would not advance any further: bottlenecks and unfair competition regarding tax, energy consumption, pollution, driving hours and rest periods, etc.
The Danish social democrats have today voted in favour of the report on fair and effective pricing in the area of transport, because it is a good report and because we strongly support the development of parameters governing competition with respect to fair competition.
Not only between those providing transport, but also between different forms of transport.
We agree in principle to votes 3 to 21, but we must enter reservations from the Austrian point of view regarding Recitals 15, 16 and 18, which deal primarily with the harmonization of charges intended to finance roads, because in our case the actual nature of alpine structures makes the building and maintenance of roads and motorways more costly than the European average.
So we could only agree to harmonization for the whole of Europe - especially as regards Recitals 15, 16 and 18 - if there is a guarantee that consideration will be given to this increased burden on Austria.
Schaffner report (A4-0001/97)
We, the undersigned have voted against the Schaffner report for the following reasons:
1.The many vague points in the Union Treaty create uncertainty in Community Law, which in practice gives the courts the right of interpretation. This would be unacceptable in a true parliamentary democracy.2.EU institutions have time after time showed a lack of respect for national sovereignty by exceeding the powers granted to them in the directives, and they continuously extend their power over national legislation without any justification.- Lambraki report (A4-0349/96)
We cannot support the Council decision that immigration, asylum, drugs policy, fraud, cooperation on civil law and certain forms of police cooperation shall be decided by a qualified majority.
We believe the requirement for unanimity must remain.
Common viewpoints arrived at through interstate agreement are a better way of resolving the issues taken up in Article K1 in the long term, than decisions adopted by a qualified majority.
Immigration, asylum and visa policies must be better coordinated.
This ought to happen through unanimous decisions and not by majority decision.
Police and customs matters must naturally be interstate.
To transfer drugs policy to EU level could lead to a worsening of the situation because the Swedish/Scandinavian restrictive drugs policy would be replaced with a more liberal policy of legalisation.
If it became EU policy, the report would lead to a massive transfer of decision making power from the Member States to EU level.
This is why I am voting against the report.
Voting time is now closed.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12.30 pm)
Resumption of the session
I hereby declare resumed the session of the European Parliament which was adjourned on 30 January 1997.
Membership of Parliament
I must inform you that, pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, I have received the resignation of Mr Bernard Tapie with effect from 4 February 1997.
In accordance with article 12 of the Act concerning the election of representatives to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage, the house recognizes this vacancy and informs the Member State concerned of its existence.
Mr Hory has the floor.
Mr President, I should just like to speak briefly on the subject of Bernard Tapie, because what has happened to our fellow Member is, I believe, unprecedented in the history of Parliament and I should like to comment on this with a minimum of gravity.
Bernard Tapie had given his personal undertaking to you, Mr President, and to our Committee on the Rules of Procedure, that he would resign if his criminal conviction was upheld.
He did not want to seek refuge behind his status as Member of Parliament in order to escape the consequences of a sentence which many of us consider to be unjust.
He honoured this undertaking and he resigned.
But nobody, whether here in this House or among French public opinion, is in any doubt regarding the political opportunism which lay behind the legal persecution of which Bernard Tapie is the victim.
One of our Members who is perhaps one of the least sympathetic to Mr Tapie - I am speaking of Mr Thierry Jean-Pierre - even declared on television that the French courts had been used by the political powers in order to conduct a veritable manhunt.
This is why I should like if I may, Mr President, to say before this House - and also on behalf of the French Members of my Group - how proud I was to participate in the campaign for Europe conducted by Mr Tapie and also to express my hope of waging many other political campaigns with him in the future.
Mr President, on a point of order.
It concerns a human rights issue which I raised in December last year and I wish a discussion on the matter under Rule 97.
It is a question of the continued incarceration of Roisín McAliskey in a Category A prison in Britain - Holloway Prison to be precise.
There seems to be a misunderstanding between the British and German authorities.
As I see it, the Germans have no objection to this woman being released on bail but the objection comes from the British Government - quite unnecessarily so, given the treatment this woman is receiving.
Roisín McAliskey is being kept in a Category A gaol without adequate medical care.
She is strip-searched on every possible occasion.
It amounts to an abuse of authority.
I appeal for something to be done about it.
This question is not on the agenda.
I cannot let you discuss it further.
I take note of what you said and this House will take the necessary steps.
I cannot allow a debate on the question now.
Order of business
The draft agenda drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday 13 February 1997, under Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure, has been distributed.
At the sitting of 13 December 1996, Parliament referred the report by Mrs Izquierdo Rojo on technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources (A4-0409/96) back to committee, pursuant to paragraph 3 of Rule 59 of the Rules of Procedure.
At its meeting of 20 and 21 January 1997, the Fisheries Committee appointed a new rapporteur, Mr Adam, and decided to request referral back to committee pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure.
Mrs Fraga has the floor to move the request from the Fisheries Committee.
Mr President, all I have to say is that the Fisheries Committee did indeed decide to request referral back to committee.
I have not received any proposals for changes, but I would remind you that I already informed you on 13 February, pursuant to Rule 34 of the Rules of Procedure, that 71 Members had tabled a motion of censure on the European Commission for its attitude in the management of the BSE crisis (B4-0056/97 /rev.2).
The motion of censure has been forwarded to the Commission.
As indicated in the final draft agenda, the debate will be held at 3 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday.
Mrs Green has the floor.
Mr President, just one very minor request.
At the moment the deadline for compromise texts for the resolution on the Committee of Inquiry's report into BSE is set for 4.00 p.m. tomorrow. That would be before the debate and before the Commission's response had been properly heard.
So I would ask you to see if you could delay that deadline until at least 8.30 p.m. tomorrow evening.
I know it is very tight for your services and I apologise for that.
But it is not appropriate for us to set the deadline for the resolution before the debate and before the President of the Commission has had an opportunity to respond.
If you want, I would suggest keeping the deadline for tabling the joint text and amendments, but allowing changes up until the end of the debate - that is, until 8.30 p.m. tomorrow evening.
That would provide the flexibility you mentioned, in case there are any changes as a result of the debate, and the services could go on working on the translations.
So we will stick to the deadline, but if any changes arise from the debate, they can be introduced up to 8.30 p.m.
Wednesday and Thursday
The Group of the European Radical Alliance is asking for the vote on the motions for resolutions tabled further to the oral questions on the BSE recommendations to be moved to 3 p.m. on Thursday, after the vote on the motion of censure.
Mrs Barthet-Mayer has the floor to justify the request.
Mr President, I should like to propose, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, an amendment to the agenda which you have just proposed.
We would like the vote on the motions for a resolution following the Committee of Inquiry's report into BSE to come after the vote on the motion of censure tabled on this same subject.
There are four reasons for this.
Firstly, we consider the motion of censure we have before us to be a kind of prior question on which we must definitely vote before the vote on resolutions, insofar as it must be treated in the same way as procedural exceptions in parliamentary law.
Secondly, on this same subject, it is traditional parliamentary practice to vote first of all on the text which departs most from the original text, or the most radical text.
Thirdly, if the vote on motions for a resolution were to produce a majority in favour of a condemnation of the Commission's attitude in terms which are less strong than is implied by the motion of censure, the subsequent vote would by that very fact be devoid of any political significance.
Fourthly and finally, the result of this situation would be the unfair treatment of the initiatives of certain Members and Groups. In the case of a majority adoption of a less radical resolution than a motion of censure, a minority of Members would find themselves denied this power of censure which is an absolute prerogative of Parliament.
Mr Puerta now has the floor to speak in favour of the request.
Mr President, I have already put the points the Group of the European Radical Alliance is making today at the Conference of Presidents.
I know Parliament is sovereign and it can decide what it thinks fit by a majority - and we will all respect that.
But it does not make sense, as far as European public opinion and the way we operate are concerned, to allow other factors to interfere with the motion of censure on the European Commission, a dramatic moment if you like, Mr President, when Parliament finds itself obliged to exercise its responsibility.
There is little sense in this interference and it weakens Thursday's vote on the motion of censure.
It could even be said that it contradicts Rule 136 of the Rules of Procedure as well as the development and consequences of the report of the committee of inquiry.
The committee of inquiry did not take a decision to table any resolution.
Nor did it decide to table a motion of censure.
But in view of the gravity of the events and their impact on the health of Europeans, the completion of the internal market and the proper functioning of the democratic institutions of Europe, 71 Members of this Parliament have tabled a motion of censure.
And that motion of censure takes priority.
That motion of censure cannot be disrupted by a prior debate and vote on motions for resolutions.
If we insist on working in this way, I think we will be lacking in self-respect as Members of Parliament, and in respect for what European public opinion is demanding of us.
So on behalf of my group and the 71 Members of Parliament who have tabled the motion of censure, I put it to you, with the full agreement of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, that the voting on the motions for resolutions should take place after the vote on the motion of censure.
In that case, if the motion of censure is unsuccessful, the Members who are tabling the motion of censure would also be able to agree with some of the resolutions established through the parliamentary policy statement.
But we cannot allow it to be said that the motion of censure is influenced for several months afterwards by a policy resolution, when we are taking the serious responsibility of moving a motion of censure on the Commission.
And we are conscious that if the European democratic institutions and this Parliament operated differently it would probably be possible to table a motion of censure or reprimand on the Agriculture Commissioner.
As that is not possible, we maintain the priority of the motion of censure.
Mr Martens now has the floor to speak against the request.
So tomorrow, Mr President, between 3 and 3.30 p.m. we are to have a combined debate on three agenda items: the Medina report, the oral questions with debate, with a debate on the motions for resolutions, and a debate on the motion of censure tabled by Mr Happart and others.
The great majority of the Conference of Presidents thought that we had to follow the normal voting procedure, namely Wednesday afternoon for those motions which had been put down.
The draft agenda says that we are to vote on the motions relating to reports on which the debate has closed.
Under Rule 34(5) of the Rules of Procedure the vote on the motion of censure must be by roll call and must not be taken until at least 48 hours after the beginning of the debate.
The whole question, ladies and gentlemen, is whether our House can, using this procedure, hold an in-depth political debate and whether everyone can in all good conscience reach a verdict on Wednesday afternoon in the vote on the motions, and then at 3 o'clock on Thursday afternoon on the motion of censure.
We want a full and thorough debate.
The proposal is that the three items should be dealt with together: the Medina report, the oral questions with the motions for resolutions and the motion of censure.
I do not think there is any question of an attempt to stop every member of the House from having a completely free vote.
And this is why we and the great majority of the Conference of Presidents suggested that we should hold this joint debate, with a subsequent period for reflection as stipulated in our procedure, before the motions are voted on, and that after a similar but longer period for reflection as required in our Rules of Procedure we should vote on the motion of censure. For this reason we advocate keeping to the agenda as it stands.
It does not stop us from having a free debate, it does not stop us from being free to act, nor does it stop us from having a free vote and I am thus opposed to the proposal to amend the agenda and I urge the majority of the House to approve the agenda as set by the Conference of Presidents.
At the request of the Group of the European People's Party, I shall now put the proposal from the Group of the European Radical Alliance to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request to amend the agenda)
Energy Charter
The next item is the report (A4-0041/97) by Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the conclusion by the European Communities of the Energy Charter Treaty and of the Energy Charter Protocol on energy efficiency and related environmental aspects (COM(95)440-12046/96 - C4-0664/96-95/0237(AVC)).
Mr President, colleagues, the EU's dependence on imported energy is likely to increase from the present figure of 50 % to around 75 % by the year 2015.
It is estimated that the market for energy production equipment in the EU will grow by only 1-2 % per year over the next 15 years.
Environmental protection measures taken in the EU will have little effect unless they are also taken worldwide.
Pollution is no respecter of boundaries.
The Energy Charter originated in 1990 with an initiative by the Dutch Prime Minister, who believed that economic growth could be set in motion in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and accelerated by means of cooperation in the field of energy.
The European Community and its Member States signed the European Energy Charter in The Hague in 1991.
In 1994 a total of 50 parties signed the Energy Charter Treaty and the Energy Charter Protocol, concerning energy efficiency and related environmental aspects, to create a sound international legal basis for the principles and objectives stated in the Protocol.
The majority of the EU Member States have already ratified the Treaty, and Finland will do so before the end of this year.
Russia has yet to ratify it.
The USA was involved in drafting the Treaty, but seems unlikely to sign it, which is a significant shortcoming.
Energy efficiency and energy saving should be promoted throughout Europe.
Particularly in Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS States, energy savings of as much as 30-40 % could be achieved.
Western enterprises could help and advise on the introduction of new technologies, for example through the Synergy programme.
The economic transition in Central and Eastern European countries and Russia could be facilitated by means of the Phare and Tacis programmes, and energy projects could as a result serve as a way of funding the transition.
The Energy Charter Protocol on energy efficiency and related environmental aspects constitutes a good basis for more exacting environmental protection, particularly by promoting energy efficiency.
It is therefore both positive and necessary that the Charter and Protocol endorse a policy of sustainable development, the 'polluter pays' principle and the principle of minimizing environmental problems.
However, they do not contain any legally binding provisions on environmental protection, and this is quite clearly a shortcoming.
When building new power stations, Eastern European countries could be expected to adhere to the same emission standards for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulates as apply in the West.
When it comes to overhauling old power stations, less exacting standards can be accepted.
New projects and measures to be implemented within the framework of the Treaty must also be preceded by a compulsory Environmental Impact Assessment.
Nuclear safety cooperation is also important.
Difficulties in maintaining nuclear power stations have increased in Central and Eastern European countries and the CIS States, as has trafficking in plutonium.
The EU ought - like the USA - to try to purchase weapons-grade plutonium, i.e. that which is enriched to more than 90 %.
By mixing it with depleted uranium, one obtains nuclear fuel with a concentration of 3-4 %, which can no longer be used to make atomic bombs.
Although at the moment nuclear weapons are being dismantled, the enriched plutonium still remains.
Just think: in this way, nuclear power could promote world peace.
Since the Treaty is of considerable importance, I recommend that the European Parliament gives its assent to the Council and Commission Decision to adopt, on behalf of the European Communities, the Energy Charter Treaty and the Energy Charter Protocol on energy efficiency and related environmental aspects.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Energy Charter is a welcome initiative.
It is important to provide a an international legal basis for the principles of energy policy cooperation, energy efficiency and related environmental aspects.
Far too often we have done so much too late, so that it is still hard to us today to find a common denominator.
The Energy Charter has four important objectives: to create an open market for primary energy sources, to facilitate the transit of energy products, to promote technology transfers, which is particularly important for the Eastern European states and the CIS states, and to restrict harmful environmental effects to a minimum and take adequate account of security aspects.
It is that aspect I am concerned with today.
Environmental aspects are incorporated in the Energy Charter in the form of the Protocol on energy efficiency.
I think it is good and also important that we finally have this Charter and, like my colleagues in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I can only recommend that we endorse the first implementation of the Charter Treaty.
But what has been submitted to us is neither fish nor fowl.
Why are energy efficiency and environmental questions regulated in a protocol, leaving aside Article 19 of the Treaty, which is not binding? It is because in case of doubt the provisions of the Treaty take precedence over the Protocol.
The wording of the Protocol is marked by diplomatic phrases which are only moderately successful in concealing its lack of substance.
To try where possible to formulate low-cost and economically efficient energy efficiency policies and take adequate account of environmental aspects, as stated in Article 3 of the Protocol, sounds pretty weak.
There is not one word about introducing binding legal environmental and safety standards for energy-producing plant in the Eastern European countries, at least for power stations that supply, for instance, electricity to the European Union.
It is ironical that Austria is protesting about Mochovce while considering importing electricity from the Ukraine.
The signatory states to the Rio convention were supposed to bring down their energy consumption to the 1990 level by the year 2005.
We are far from achieving that.
Then there was the idea of economizing elsewhere, in less costly areas, e.g., in the CIS or the Central and Eastern European countries.
The greenhouse effect could be curbed effectively if the leaks in the gas pipelines between Siberia and Eastern Europe were sealed.
Even if only 5 % of methane escapes, the greenhouse effect potential is just as great as the potential of the 95 % that remains as CO2 after incineration.
Yet we have wasted this opportunity to lay down binding rules on technology, for instance for investments.
While competition is given high...
(The President interrupted the speaker) I appeal to Members to keep their eyes open and to draw the public's attention to the shortcomings of the Charter.
We approve it because it is better than nothing, but only just.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Energy Charter is the framework of the political agreement between the countries of the east and the countries of the west, and amongst the eastern countries, the Russian Federation looms large.
The world's great gas reserves are in Russia - in the Yamal Peninsula, in the Barents Sea, and in Siberia - and the European Union has embarked on a major programme to increase gas consumption.
I hope the new directive governing the liberalization of the gas market will soon be before this House, and what happens in the Russian Federation is therefore of paramount importance to us.
As other speakers have said, we are fully in support of consent to the Energy Charter Treaty and its Protocol on energy efficiency and related environmental aspects.
We think the treaty is good although, as Mr Stockman said, the action is limited.
In the eastern countries between 30 and 40 per cent of the energy consumed could be saved.
That is a very great deal.
The Russian Federation obtains 60 % of its foreign currency from the export of energy products and this could be greatly increased, and the western countries could also reduce consumption by 20 %.
That would be the best policy for the environment, Mr President.
But we talk a lot and I do not think we are doing much.
From the environmental point of view, I consider it urgent to carry out prior environmental impact assessments and ecoauditing for all measures promoted under the Energy Treaty in the existing installations, so as to correct the massive deterioration that exists - and not in the eastern countries alone, but in our countries too.
There are three levels to the Charter: the treaty itself, the agreements specific to three countries and the concrete measures.
The steps I have outlined should apply to all of them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Energy Charter and the Energy Charter Protocol on energy efficiency and related environmental aspects have already been in the pipeline for quite some time.
And now, here we are, discussing the Council proposal that empowers the Union to adopt the Treaty, and Mrs Matikainen-Kallström's report for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, for which my group will be voting.
The Charter's objectives, from security of supply of energy resources for Eastern European countries to energy efficiency and environmental protection, represent aims and contextual guidelines that have won a broad consensus in the Energy Committee.
I should, however, like to mention two remaining concerns that continue to require the Commission's attention.
The Charter has not been signed by either the United States or Russia and, without these partners, the Treaty seems somehow incomplete, particularly as regards issues of nuclear safety in Eastern European countries - issues that the Charter could, nonetheless, help us to tackle within a cohesive framework.
The agreement could prove to be inadequate if it fails to involve Russia, from the point of view of principles and norms, and the United States, particularly with regard to technology.
The other concern is the effectiveness of our actions with regard to improving nuclear safety in the Central and Eastern European countries that were members of the former Soviet Union.
The reactors in service include some that western experts consider to be intrinsically unsafe and others that require technological improvements if they are to meet adequate safety standards.
On the basis of the norms set by the Charter, a few pilot projects should be undertaken to apply European standards to the better plants in Eastern European countries, so as to create a safety culture and work towards the definitive closure of the most unsafe installations.
The Charter will only have visible results in the eyes of the public if the issue of nuclear safety in Eastern Europe is brought under some control.
Mr President, the Treaty on the European Energy Charter and the protocol on energy efficiency represent a substantial contribution to a cleaner, more efficient use of energy; that is good for the environment and the Liberal Group is very much in favour of it.
Investment in energy efficiency can best be made where the environmental benefit will be the greatest and at present that is in Central and Eastern Europe, where energy savings of 30 to 40 % can be achieved by simple means.
Starting with the extraction and transportation of raw materials.
Western firms can help here with expertise and advanced technology.
The benefits are twofold: lower energy costs and a healthier environment.
This brings me to my second point: the Ukraine, for example, is one of the least energy-efficient countries in the world.
Energy consumption per unit of gross national product is seven times higher there than in the European Union.
Yet two new nuclear power plants are being built with a loan from the EBRD so that Chernobyl can be closed down, and this against the advice of an independent panel of experts.
So my question to the Commission and Mrs Wulf-Mathies is this: can the EBRD invest in new nuclear plants in the Ukraine if this is not the cheapest solution to the energy problem in that country? Is one of the criteria for EBRD loans not that the solution chosen has to be the one which is economically the best and thus the cheapest?
Will you and the Commission, Commissioner, have the courage at last to...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, there was and still is a lot of justifiable criticism of the Energy Charter.
Firstly, for reasons of content and then, of course, also for formal reasons.
Parliament can only say yes or no.
In fact we must of course admit that Parliament did not exactly make great efforts to exert any influence on it - which is regrettable and also rather shameful.
But we must also admit that this is the first time we have ever had international legal provisions on the inclusion of environmental costs and the polluter-pays principle, even if they are not yet entirely binding.
Previous speakers have also pointed that out.
It is after all a small step forward, even if unfortunately these environmental aspects are only set out in the Protocol.
I believe it is a political duty, and of course the duty of the Commission, to ensure that we come closer to the noble objectives and higher aims set out in the Charter.
On the other hand, of course, we must say that the conditions we have at present need to be changed, namely the fact that nobody is responsible for pipelines, nobody even repairs them and everyone says, I only get five, ten or 20 per cent out of it, and that unfortunately the revenue does not go to those from whom it is taken but, especially in the case of Eastern Europe, generally lands in the hands of the mafia.
I think our main task now is to concern ourselves a little with these matters and not just put our hand up and say yes tomorrow; for environmental considerations must not just be taken into account in energy policy but ought to become a central aspect of it.
In the same way, energy efficiency needs to be improved and renewable energy sources must be tapped and used through better transfers of resources and framework programmes.
And that is precisely where we as a Community are setting the worst example.
Let me just remind you of SAVE, THERMIE, etc.
I hope the Commission is listening carefully.
At least we are making a start with implementing the noble aims set out in the Energy Charter.
Mr President, it has taken longer to get the Energy Charter completed than its inventor, former Dutch prime minister Lubbers, ever imagined in 1990, largely because of a growing self-awareness on the part of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
With hindsight it was good that rather more time elapsed, since otherwise the Treaty would have been too advantageous to the West.
The present text is a good compromise between the interests of the countries which produce raw materials and those which buy them.
And yet I still have mixed feelings about this Charter.
Obviously the Eastern Europeans are keen to sell sizeable quantities of fossil fuels.
They sorely need currency in order to develop their own economies themselves.
But in the long term this Charter may push energy prices down since the supply of crude petroleum and gas will become more plentiful.
In my view this is all the more reason to tax energy as fast as possible, because low prices for fossil fuels will not favour the introduction of renewable sources!
In this sense the Charter is actually a piece of old-fashioned short-term thinking, despite all protestations to the contrary.
It is a good thing that the protocol on energy efficiency has been added to the Charter, so that it can be implemented later without too much difficulty.
It shows that thinking about energy savings has now become a commonplace.
Like the rapporteur I have my doubts about the actual implementation of the protocol.
Nowhere is there any compulsion to improve efficiency.
I fully appreciate that a multilateral treaty of this kind cannot impose too many dictates, but an awful lot is left to the goodwill of the Member States.
The environmental measures do far too little to remedy the greenhouse effect, which this Treaty will only make worse.
Nevertheless we too endorse this Treaty. At least it gives some structure and legal certainty to the oil and gas trade.
The Union will in future have to do all it can through programmes like SYNERGY and PHARE to promote energy-saving measures in Eastern Europe, because they are sorely needed.
Mr President, I was there in Lisbon, representing Parliament when the Energy Charter Treaty was signed.
It was clear at that time that unless these protocols were taken very seriously, we could end up with a rather dangerous situation.
We are becoming more and more dependent upon imported fuel, and there are ample resources in the eastern part of Europe and farther afield so, clearly, we can put those two together and come up with a trading situation.
If we just did that, however, and failed to look at energy efficiency and environmental protection, we would end up with a situation which was far worse than the present one.
Let me say that we should, in any case, be making more use of indigenous energy sources and not relying so much upon imported fuels.
The environmental problems have already been named: greenhouse gases - CO2 above all, but also methane, as my colleague, Mr Stockmann, has ably explained; nuclear power, where there are operational problems and, of course, problems in the disposal of waste and in the transport of fuels; and oil exploration and production which also involve dangers.
So we need to have a worldwide environmental strategy with an impact assessment because the environment is worldwide.
Energy efficiency has quite rightly been called the fifth fuel.
It is, frankly, the best fuel.
Where you have a potential 30 % to 40 % saving, which is the case in some of these countries, how absurd that this is not the first strategy, top of the list on every occasion way beyond building unnecessary nuclear reactors.
This treaty needs tightening up.
It is weak.
Above all it needs monitoring.
This is what I ask the European Parliament to take on as a duty: monitor the working of this treaty.
Mr President, the energy situation of the countries of central and eastern Europe is such that we must think about the vital ways of monitoring the efficient use of energy resources and how they can be implemented.
However good the proposals made officially, experience has been extremely hard and inefficiencies have been shown up - together with the harm done to people's well-being which accumulated in a socialist system where market conditions were ignored and, because there was no democracy, people's rights were not necessarily respected.
The efficient use of energy resources must not have undesirable side effects, it must be fair and the economic effects must be positive - it is possible to have an excellent policy which avoids any undesirable side effects.
This is a consideration which must be taken into account especially every time there is a new Commission initiative aimed at improving (rather than worsening) the energy supply situation - it does so in a dubious way vis-à-vis the current Member States of the European Union and incorrectly, without doubt, from the viewpoint of countries which are candidates to join.
Burdening with greater percentage targets the expenditure of families on modest incomes is both regrettable and unfair; higher energy expenditure on more antiquated equipment means damaging the competitive capacity of countries which have still not had an opportunity to modernise.
In those countries, people's living standards is a top priority and most of the pollution in Europe (i.e. carbon dioxide emissions) has been produced by the most industrialised countries - Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and France, responsible for 71.5 % of the total of the European Union's pollution, percentages much higher than their population warrant.
Instead of burdening the budgets of those with less and impeding the development of those who lag furthest behind, the policy of the countries of central and eastern Europe should be, rather, one of monitoring legal requirements for gradually modernising domestic and industrial installations.
By supporting this restructuring, as it has been doing, the European Union would show, without the shadow of a doubt, that it really does want to find the right solution to this problem.
This is, after all, in keeping with the logic behind Article 130R of the Treaty, which takes into consideration the diversity of situations existing in different regions.
Mr President, I believe that the European Parliament should give its assent to the European Energy Charter which was underwritten in The Hague in December 1991.
The Energy Committee of the European Parliament is right to urge the European Commission to press for negotiations with a view to removing uncertainties by conferring a binding force on the protocol on nuclear safety within this Charter.
From an Irish perspective, with the Sellafield and Thorp nuclear installations only 60 miles from our shores, it is just unacceptable that the British Government can sign up for the European Energy Charter without its own nuclear industry being obliged to comply with those provisions.
Greater protection of the environment is, of course, important and the European Union has made a start in the right direction in this regard by finalizing the SAVE III programme which is designed to support measures for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the atmosphere.
A further concern indeed is the liberalization of the electricity and gas networks.
The European and Irish consumer, as well as the individual producers have a right to know if enhanced competition will result in higher energy costs for the consumer and, of course, the employees working in the industry have the right to know how it is going to affect their jobs.
So, the Charter should have dealt with the issue of privatization of energy resources in greater detail, outlining the protection available to the consumer who ultimately would be affected by any changes in this regard.
Mr President, there are grave defects in the Council proposal because the environmental and energy-saving clauses are aspirational only and the Charter will provide no binding legal instruments for dealing with what are admitted on all sides to be really grave environmental degradation and pollution and seriously deficient energy-saving norms in the Eastern European states, which they show no signs of changing.
This could turn out to be a Charter to waste energy, not save energy, and I would suggest to you that would be a very grave and dangerous outcome.
It was particularly noticeable during the exchange of views with Ambassador Rutten and Secretary-General Schutterle of the Energy Charter Conference that instead of defending the difficulties the Union might have in implementing environmental and energy-saving provisions of the Energy Charter, they stated baldly that some Member States did not wish binding provisions for dealing with the environment in the Charter but took the view that these should be dealt with under a separate agreement.
I believe this to be completely unacceptable as a policy for the European Union or its Member States.
The report states that the Energy Charter Protocol on energy efficiency and related environmental aspects provides a good basis for greater protection of the environment, especially by promoting energy efficiency, but the wording is meaningless.
It says that we should encourage cooperation in the attainment of environmental objections and have particular regard to improving energy efficiency.
I would suggest that in the light of the difficulties we have had with making Eastern European states understand the importance of energy efficiency, this is an absolutely meaningless document.
The rapporteur has referred to a bizarre proposal to import weapons-grade plutonium from Russia for use in civil nuclear power plants on the basis that this would promote peace.
I find this an astonishing proposal.
Although it draws attention to the fact that we have an outrageous plutonium economy and that we should not be producing plutonium, I hope we can have a serious debate and discussion on the proposal at some future date.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Mr Papoutsis who is currently in Moscow let me once again explain the Commission's position on this important report.
Let me first underline that the Commission attaches the utmost priority to the ratification of the Energy Charter Treaty and the Protocol on energy efficiency and related environmental aspects.
This Treaty will only enter into force once at least 30 states have ratified it.
At present, therefore, it is where possible applied provisionally.
As I am sure you know, the European Energy Charter - a declaration of intent that is not legally binding - has now been signed by 51 states and by the European Community.
Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, the rapporteur, whom I warmly thank for her report, has described its past history.
So I will not repeat it but just make clear that so far 49 states and the European Union have signed the Treaty that was drawn up on the basis of the political declaration of intent.
This Energy Charter Treaty is the first economic agreement signed by all the republics of the former Soviet Union, the Central and Eastern European countries, the European Community and its 15 Member States and other OECD member countries.
Its main purpose is to create a legal framework for long-term cooperation in the field of energy on the basis of reciprocity and mutual benefit.
The Treaty contains provisions on the development, production, transit and free trade in primary energy sources and energy products, together with the protection of investment and free movement of capital.
The Treaty and the Protocol also contain general statements about environmental aspects and improving energy efficiency.
During the negotiations we did not manage to achieve more than what you have rightly criticized in regard to the non-binding nature of some provisions.
Yet it is an important first step that so many states have in fact subscribed to these principles.
Of course the Commission will be guided by the views expressed here by the European Parliament when it implements the Charter and the Treaty.
In November the Commission submitted the communication and proposal for a Council and Commission decision on the conclusion of the Energy Charter Treaty and the Energy Charter Protocol on energy efficiency and related environmental aspects.
In addition to the conclusion of the Treaty itself, this proposal provides for the European Community and its Member States to deposit the ratification documents at the same time and for a simplified procedure for setting out the European Community's position at the Energy Charter conference.
In December last year the Council agreed a consolidated wording of the decision.
This decision is now before the European Parliament for its assent.
Although the Commission is aware that the wording adopted by the Council differs considerably from its original proposal, it can endorse it in order to demonstrate its willingness to compromise if, as indeed seems to be the case, it is also approved by the European Parliament.
I would therefore like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, because her report points in precisely that direction.
The Commission takes the view that it is politically very important for the European Community to ratify the Energy Charter Treaty as soon as possible so that the Member States can conclude and ratify it in good time.
Nine Member States have now concluded their ratification procedures and most of the others are about to do so.
Conclusion of the ratification procedure by the European Union and its Member States can act as a positive signal for Russia, which has indeed signed but where the ratification procedure is still under way.
I think we can also assume that the other independent states and the Central and Eastern European states, will react to this signal.
The Commission takes the view that the conclusion of the Treaty is very much in the Union's interest and that rapid ratification is especially important to ensure that the other parties to the Treaty and the energy industry do not lose interest in it.
Without a shadow of doubt the Energy Charter Treaty will promote cooperation between East and West, which is in the end in the interest of us all.
So let me ask you again to approve this decision.
Moreover, let me briefly refer to the question put by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel: both EIB and G7 credits are being considered for projects in the Ukraine; to date, however, no decisions have been taken and the reports you described are also being taken into consideration here.
Mr President, I have another question for the Commissioner.
It appears that a report has been produced by a panel of experts.
Might Parliament perhaps be given that report, since it is highly important here, and relevant to my question?
Please bear with me, but I do not know this report because I am merely standing in for Mr Papoutsis today.
But I will pass on your question.
We will then answer it in writing and tell you whether this report exists and what we will do about it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Development problems in Italy
The next item is the report (A4-0405/96) by Mr Podestà, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on development problems and structural measures in Italy (C4-0050/96, C4-0051/96 and C4-0052/96).
Mr President, I feel that Mr Podestà's report is very positive and accurate.
That is thanks to him, of course, but also thanks to an overall working method established within the Committee on Regional Policy, for discussing and researching all cases of structural intervention in all Member States and not, of course, in Italy alone.
There have been in-depth discussions with the Commission.
In addition, meetings have in all cases been organized with the leaders of the Member State concerned - representatives of government, parliament, local and regional authorities and the social partners - and the same applies in the case of Italy.
This is why we are now in a position to reach some general conclusions.
Certainly, as regards use of the Structural Funds, Italy is lagging seriously behind, even in comparison with some other countries - and this delay is all the more worrying as it is depriving weak areas of resources and investment.
We have to acknowledge - as the report does, and I would like to reiterate that acknowledgement - the fact that the Italian Budget Minister has given a serious undertaking to make good the delays.
I also recently had a meeting in Brussels with the Commissioners responsible and we undertook to make good the delay by the end of this year.
This is a difficult and ambitious objective, but it can be reached if a similar commitment is made by all ministers - by all ministers and, in particular, by all the regional and local authorities concerned.
In particular in Italy, most of the Structural Funds, in terms of quantity, are of course concentrated in the regions covered by Objective 1, that is, in southern Italy, as has already been pointed out.
The worst delays concern some of these regions - not all of them - but in particular the largest of them: Sicily, Campania and Apulia.
If we can achieve results in these regions, the overall picture changes dramatically.
We therefore need special measures, but we also need commitment on all sides, a much stronger and broader political awareness.
We must call on Members of both the European and Italian Parliaments who represent these areas to make a special commitment in this respect.
The special measures required are reprogramming of objectives; speeding up expenditure by regional authorities, including, where necessary, modifying and strengthening administrative structures; and also giving consideration to the possibility mentioned in the report of replacing the public agencies responsible for implementing programmes in serious cases where resources are persistently under-used.
This is an extreme and very delicate measure that promises conflict with the agents concerned.
But we have to ask ourselves whether a continuing failure to act would not itself promise conflict with citizens who are being denied the use of these funds and are at risk of losing them altogether.
What, or who, is most important here?
Finally, I should like to point out that this issue of non-use, or of failure to make good use, of the Structural Funds is one that concerns other Member States also.
This raises the issue of an in-depth review of the Structural Fund Regulations and of a simplification of procedures to eliminate bureaucratic delays and problems, with a view to the review of the Regulations due in 1999.
I believe that the Committee on Regional Policy and the European Commission should work hard this year to begin to look at and review these Regulations.
Mr President, after what the rapporteur, Mr Podestà, and fellow Members, Mr Speciale and Mr Viola, have just said, it is difficult, not least because of the croaky voice I am suffering from today, to speak out and repeat some opinions that are commonly shared, particularly by members of the Committee on Regional Policy who have been in a position to appreciate, right from the start, the report that bears Mr Podestà's name, because it was drawn up by him, with the help and cooperation however of all the Committee's members.
This cooperation was mentioned a little earlier by Mr Speciale, the Committee's excellent chairman, and I feel I need to say this publicly, because he enabled all of us to work towards a realistic and objective - since we are speaking of objectives - view of the situation.
Because of its structure, Italy is a country that can be taken as a very valid test case for other Member States.
So, what is the undertaking I should like to call for, seeing that Commissioner Wulf-Mathies is here with us?
I refer to the need for simplification - something that has been so often repeated in the Commission's statements when the Commissioner has attended meetings of the Committee on Regional Policy, that is repeated in Mr Podestà's report and that has been highlighted as a matter of great urgency by my fellow speakers here today.
It is vital that certain procedures be simplified and that the various activities of the Commission, Member States and regions be rationalized and harmonized.
I believe that the crucial issue goes beyond the removal of structural and cultural obstacles.
I believe that what is needed, above all else, is a clear out of certain 'physical cultures' that prevail not only in individual Member States and at local level but also in some major sections of the Commission itself.
What is needed is cultural cohesion with the Commissioner's guidelines and a common objective: the objective I mentioned earlier, which is, I assume, the central point of the report drawn up by Mr Podestà, to whom I offer my warmest congratulations.
Mr President, the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1957 and now, after forty years of European construction, we have to admit that, according to the annual report of the Court of Auditors, most of the errors concerning management of the Structural Funds can be attributed to the Member States.
Various material and formal errors are made in compiling applications for aid, but unquestionably the greatest and most sinister error is the one committed by Member States in obstructing the desire of the regions and counties for political and administrative decentralization.
Too often the maturity and self-management capacities of regional bodies are systematically strangled and conditioned by the centralism of the States of which they are a part, as is evident not only from the annual report of the Court of Auditors but also from relations between the regions and Parliament and from European citizens' faith in the State.
The Italian Government's undertaking to reform the public services and simplify procedures for using the funds required for technical assistance in managing the Structural Funds is not enough.
The more democratic and federal a State is, the more provinces, Länder and regions demonstrate their efficiency and ability to stand on their own two feet as regards the construction of the new Europe.
There are many regional bodies in Europe that are sufficiently capable and mature to maintain direct relations with European structures, but are held back by the centralized organization of the State of which they are a part.
In Italy, some regions that are fifty years old choose not to come of age, whilst others, of the same age, have obviously entered adulthood but are deprived of any independent, democratic, free initiative.
What kind of Europe are we going to construct if this Europe, in its centralism, is a reflection of individual Member States' inability to use the resources available to them?
Let us all work towards ensuring that the scope of the Structural Funds is extended, that they include cultural activities in the areas coved by Objective 5b, and especially mountain regions, but, above all, let us commit ourselves to ensuring that this Europe becomes increasingly democratic and federal, comprising federal States, and that regional bodies can express themselves, in the management of the Structural Funds as elsewhere, and prove that they can do a better job than the State of which they are a part.
Mr President, I, too, should like to thank Mr Podestà for the clarity of his report and the research he has done on the problems concerning allocation of the Structural Funds, not only in Italy but also in other Member States.
It is nonetheless a fact, as all my Italian colleagues here know, that the Community Structural Funds continue to be a vital resource for Italy - but, in particular, for the development of its southern regions, where unemployment has now reached close on 20 %, as is rightly mentioned in the report.
The Structural Funds are, then, an irreplaceable instrument of European solidarity and it is precisely this solidarity that should become the basis of a European identity - without it, no integration of the Community would be possible.
Certainly, we need to take note of the shameful delays that have so far characterized Italy's use of the Structural Funds.
My country and therefore its governments, but also - with all due respect to Mr Moretti - incredible bureaucratic inefficiency at regional level have often led to loss of access to millions of ECUs that the Italian regions really need, be they in the north or the south, for access to these funds has been restricted in both the south and the north.
What has emerged is a unique situation in which Italy is one of the countries that has the greatest need for funds but which makes the least use of them.
I hope that, with the help of the contribution that Mr Podestà's report has made and will continue to make to this debate, both Italy and the other countries concerned will be able to overcome the problems experienced to date.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make two comments on Mr Podestà's full and in-depth report; they concern respectively the 'if' and 'how' of the use of the Structural Funds in Italy.
As regards the 'if' , that is, greater efficiency and speed of use, I take up Point 6 of the motion for a resolution to specify, in the event of delays by regional governments, which alternative public agencies, including replacements, should be the protagonists of local partnerships: for example, agencies and projects involved in regional employment initiatives, which are increasingly common and effective instruments of development in the regions covered by Objective 1.
As regards the 'how' , that is, improved planning, an amendment tabled by the Green Group and signed by me declares that regional development projects must comply with the principles of sustainable development, at both the planning and subsequent phases; the amendment also calls for the involvement of the Ministry of the Environment and nongovernmental organizations.
Mr President, firstly, I should like to congratulate Mr Podestà on his excellent work: it was no easy task, but the result is outstanding.
In concordance with the report, I should like to reiterate a few considerations here.
One of the most marked differences between Italy's situation and that of its main partners is the extent and persistence of regional disparities.
It should be possible, Commissioner Wulf-Mathies, to increase the concentration and efficiency of the Structural Funds and improve the procedures for assessing and monitoring results and available funding so as to ensure that growth in underdeveloped regions is reflected in job creation and support for the process of convergence.
If competitiveness is to be increased, more resources need to be made available for research, development and innovation.
To encourage enterprises to use innovative technologies and develop new products, the European Union should seek a better combination of support measures for capital and enterprises, technology transfers and both initial and further education and training initiatives.
The difficulties encountered with the use of the Structural Funds over the past few years have been, and remain, the cause of serious concern, both for us Italians and for Community institutions.
Attempts have recently been made to tackle these difficulties by introducing some changes to Italian structures: the setting-up of the National Control Centre and the introduction of regional agreements that could serve as a significant expression of the principle of social partnership by involving the social partners, who participate at both the planning stage and the implementation stage, when they enter into binding commitments.
In other words, what we are talking about are agreements whereby local operators, representatives of employees, enterprises and public administrations undertake to implement specific investment projects.
The promotion of local development, by means of measures to trigger small-scale local initiatives, relating to both structures and infrastructures, or by means of aid and services for small and medium-sized enterprises, takes on ever greater importance within a properly planned regional development policy.
This could indeed promote maximum job creation by taking full advantage of a whole series of initiatives that would, individually, generate just a few jobs but could, when combined, produce some worthwhile results for an employment region or area.
Local development measures consist mainly, but not exclusively, of promoting what might be defined as the mobilization of initiatives, capacities and skilled human resources, to generate production systems that look towards innovation and internationalization.
The aim of local development is, in fact, to change the attitudes underlying development strategies.
Full advantage needs to be taken of existing structures with specific professional skills, such as the EBICs, which have been set up to stimulate the local economy in areas with potential for industrial development.
To conclude, I feel that greater attention needs to be paid to three objectives: combating unemployment, promoting equal opportunities for men and women and improving instruments of environmental protection. The environment and sustainable development are often under-valued in areas that are structurally weak.
And all of this is linked to the urgent need for simpler procedures and new methods and models of information-provision.
Mr President, I, too, have greatly appreciated Mr Podestà's report and agree with the comments concerning Objective 2, re-industrialization, which I should like to address for a moment.
It is my opinion that, here too, the delays suggest that the problem is an underlying one, concerning the overall mechanism and perhaps what has, over the past few years, become the modern notion of programming in Italy.
But the fact that, in these areas, we have more concentrated interventions, albeit with fewer funds and, all in all, a method - reindustrialization - that goes hand-in-hand with an existing economic, productive and administrative fabric, should lead us to expect that the delays can be made good more quickly.
Having said this, however, it is my opinion that this experience of Objective 2, which has been a real and very important experiment, not only in Italy, and which has brought the public and private sectors face to face and thrown up new ideas concerning long-term planning, has aspects that we need to address from a critical viewpoint in the reform of the Structural Funds.
I should also like briefly to mention two priorities referred to in the report: firstly, as regards local initiatives, an issue that some of my colleagues here have already addressed, I should like to point out that development requires an alternative culture, a culture of monitoring and promotion, rather than a culture of official control and authorization. And, secondly, as regards cultural activities, which tend to be subordinate to economic development, I feel that, here too, there is a need to establish, in more than a piecemeal fashion, an approach that favours the rebuilding of the economic and social fabric.
Just two more points: urban actions and policy for mountain areas.
Under Objective 2, it has often happened that actions cease at district boundaries.
It has been important to set this limit, but I believe that this points to the need for an organic urban policy and - and the report mentions this briefly - a policy for mountain areas.
Objective 5b perhaps suggests that, instead of implementing a combination of interventions, we need, in future, to concentrate on limited but significant action for mountain areas, not just in Italy but throughout Europe.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate our colleague, Mr Podesta, for his excellent work on what is a particularly sensitive subject for him, as indeed it would be for any of us if we had to assess the impact of structural assistance in our own country.
The European Union's Structural Funds were set up in order to promote lasting economic and social development.
The record of their implementation has been the subject of much criticism, in particular due to the obstacles and delays in the utilization of aid.
But the most striking feature about Italy is that it continues to show extremely deep-rooted regional disparities.
I therefore consider it essential for the European Union to keep up its efforts to ensure balanced development throughout Italy.
The imperfect use of funds does not mean there is no need, but much more generally that the means for obtaining and using the available resources are inappropriate.
It sees to me unacceptable that we have not yet envisaged any system for regions who lose their eligibility under one of the Structural Fund objectives.
As what will prove to be the precedent of the Abbruzes case shows, there is no provision for compensation in order to lessen the shock of a sudden discontinuation of structural aid.
Other regions risk finding themselves in precisely the same situation in the near future.
Are they then going to see all their efforts which permitted the beginnings of economic recovery come to nothing? Without seeking to indefinitely maintain economically vulnerable regions dependent upon financial assistance, I believe it would be irresponsible not to create a transitional support device for these regions.
Failing this, we will soon be forced to accept that the structural measures applied today are a waste of money as the least sign of economic life in a region is likely to result in the cutting off of structural assistance as soon as the planning period ends.
The example of the Abbruzes must lead us to quickly look at what measures can be implemented in order to fill the legal vacuum which surrounds the abrupt termination of a region's eligibility under the Structural Fund objectives.
We must therefore find a solution before 1999, in the framework of the next Structural Fund review.
The urgency of the matter has been amply demonstrated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Podestà, on his skill in dealing with the problems relating to the structural funds measures.
I will not analyse the specific issues, because I think those who have spoken before me have done so very accurately.
I will just refer to some general points which I think it is interesting for us to consider.
One is the concern Mr Podestà has mentioned about the future of the structural funds and the need for the European Union to determine this when the funds are reviewed in 1999.
We note with concern that the gap between the more developed regions and the less developed regions of the European Union, far from narrowing, is tending to increase.
So the problem of applying the structural funds will continue to be important in the future.
Another disturbing issue is the fact that resources have been lost through faulty application of these funds.
In this respect, I believe priority must be given to bringing the structural funds regulations into line with the aim of applying them more effectively.
And finally, I want to highlight the need for these structural funds to be adequate and coordinated with other programmes, MEDA for example, specifically affecting the southern Mediterranean.
Mr President, I want to give warm thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Podestà, and to the committees concerned for their detailed and thorough analysis.
The Commission shares their concern about the inadequate use made of the structural funds and largely agrees with the measures you proposed for making them more effective.
As you know, in July 1995 the Commission negotiated a comprehensive package of measures with the Italian government in order to improve the management of the structural fund programmes.
Among others, this package provides for the creation of new administrative structures, for tightening up the procedures, for practical support measures and improving the skills of the programme managers, more efficient procedures for monitoring, controlling and assessing the programmes and simplified procedures for transfers of resources to the organizations responsible.
It should also be pointed out once again that all the Italian regions also approved this package of measures in September 1995.
I explained it to them all at the time.
For the rest, we made this programme and these proposals as simple as we possibly could, but control and correct financial management are essential and I think it is in all our interests not to end up with difficulties here.
At my most recent meeting with the Italian minister of finance, Mr Ciampi, on 20 January, our talks focused on assessing what has been achieved so far.
The situation as regards implementing the programmes in the Objective 1 regions has improved in relation to the figures for last May given in the report.
At present the payments to the final recipients account for more than 14 % of the total amount, compared with 7.7 % in May 1996.
So there was a clear acceleration of payments here.
Compared with other Member States, Italy is, however, still very much offside, because the EU average is about 35 %.
But once again we must make it clear that this cannot be due just to the complexity of the Commission procedures.
Because of the lack of progress in situ, ECU 1600 million could still not be allocated and we all agreed during the discussions that this situation has to change.
That is why the Commission has once again agreed with the Italian authorities that new expenditure targets have to be set.
Unused resources from programmes that do not achieve these expenditure targets will be deducted and used mainly to finance more successful programmes.
But let me make it quite clear that this does not necessarily mean that in the end we do not also transfer resources to other regions, in the event that no improvements become apparent after a fairly long time in certain regions.
This should induce everyone actually to do something to ensure that the people at whom these programmes are aimed finally benefit from them.
With this procedure the Commission has also introduced the measures you recommended to prevent further losses of Community resources.
The Commission hopes these measures will have a positive effect even in the course of this year and it will carry out the evaluation you called for during the 1998 financial year on the basis of these measures.
Moreover, I have agreed with Minister Ciampi on regular checks of the practical implementation of the July agreement, at both technical and political level.
This applies both to the actual fulfilment of the reform undertakings and to monitoring whether the financial objectives have been attained.
And I would appeal to you: let us not create new structures now but let these new proposals and the cabina di regia finally become operative at all levels.
That is our problem: in theory and on paper we now have a very sensible system, but we need the people to apply it and to support it.
In the case of the new Objective 2 programmes, we have already embarked on radical corrections with the Italian government and I hope that this will be of some help in future too.
We have also made progress in involving the economic and social partners, both in the framework of the 1995 agreement and in relation to the new Objective 2 programmes.
I hope this will also be of help in terms of future developments.
We have also accepted your call, Mr Podestà, for greater emphasis to be put on the economic potential in the cultural sector and have incorporated this aspect in the cooperation with the Italian authorities, for it is quite clear that Italy is particularly well placed to use this economic potential.
The structural funds offer Italy a unique opportunity, with a view to economic and monetary union, to make progress with budgetary consolidation, without disregarding forward-looking investment.
I can only appeal to all those responsible to seize this opportunity.
The Commission, at any rate, will continue to use all its energies to urge that the resources finally go to the places where they are needed most urgently and we continue to hope for your active support.
Thank you very much, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Development problems in Germany
The next item is the report (A4-0002/97) by Mr Botz, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on development problems and structural assistance in Germany in the period 1994-1999 (C4-0047/96, C4-0048/96, C40049/96, C4-0673/96, C4-0674/96).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, reading the titles of the reports on the agenda today one could be tempted to think these are merely routine matters.
But let me begin by briefly explaining why this is anything but a routine matter in the case of Germany.
German unity, which was only possible with the assent of the Member States of what was then the European Community, has given us Germans the chance to see what belongs together come together again, as a former Member of this House, Willy Brandt, put it in 1989.
Primarily this is of course a German task, but it is also a European one, at least insofar as when the former GDR was very rapidly integrated in our common single market, it was - and I want to emphasize that strongly - the first region of the former Central and Eastern Europe planned economies to do so.
That has created a completely new situation for one of the most prosperous Member States of the European Union, Germany.
Until 1990 there were very major structural differences outside the German borders between regions in this internal market, today we have extremely serious differences within the German borders in relation to gross product and prosperity.
By accepting this challenge to create cohesion within its borders Germany is also taking on a European responsibility.
That is why concentrated support from the European structural funds in the new Federal Länder was, is and will remain necessary and is very gratefully received by the people concerned.
Let me just say briefly, over the period 1994-1999 this involved a total of ECU 13 640 million.
European Union support in what are called the old Federal Länder, the territory of the former German Federal Republic, is equally necessary and logical.
There it goes to Objective 2 and 5b regions.
Over that same period, this involved a total of ECU 2 820 million.
Let me now briefly list and address a few of the major development problems that occur in all the target regions, meaning all the German target regions.
The administrative procedures at Commission, Federal and Land level need to be speeded up.
If I may make a personal remark, we tend rather often to hear the different levels apportioning the blame for this, but rather more rarely to hear practical proposals for solutions.
In view of the disturbing trend of the German labour market - I need not quote you the figures here - we must try to adapt the existing aid measures in as simple a manner as possible, which in principle is already possible through the regulation.
In this context, the regional economic and social partners must be involved more closely in the activities of the supporting committees.
Some Federal Länder are doing so in exemplary fashion.
But there are other Federal Länder, in particular among the new ones, where more effort needs to be made here.
It is vital for local employment and development agencies to play a larger role with a view to reducing the current rise in mass unemployment.
The procedures for disbursing the resources must become much more transparent, and I say this as an urgent warning to the German authorities, in particular the Land authorities.
The interim financing in the regions which is often still necessary should be avoided in future.
In view of the widely known budgetary situation, there is a need for action here too.
Allow me briefly to address a major problem in the Objective 1 area, where I am personally involved too.
Let me point out quite clearly that we are dealing with the consequences of structural upheavals which have meant that nearly everything has changed for nearly everyone in nearly every area of life.
This has also created certain psychological problems, which should not be disregarded.
To conclude, let me point out that the European Union's structural funds are a vital means of building up the new Federal Länder and will have to remain so for a long time to come.
In view of the increasingly complex economic and social situation, they must become more flexible and be used more flexibly for Germany too.
All those involved at Federal, Land and Commission level, but here in Parliament too, must make their contribution.
Mr President, Commissioner, Germany is the second strongest country in the EU and the second largest recipient of resources from the European structural funds.
And that is despite the fact that Germany is supposed to be and indeed is one of the strongest countries in the European Union.
The explanation is that the European Union is paying attention to the situation in Germany and, as the rapporteur Gerhard Botz just said, is giving massive support to the new Länder.
But the European Union is also assuming responsibility for the weaker regions in the old Federal Länder.
It is important to note that, for as Europeans we want to pay attention to the regions, to regional differences.
In Germany the European Union is assisting what are regarded as the fallen giants in Objective 2 regions.
These are the industrial regions that have to overcome problems for which they need our support because they are engaged in structural adjustment measures; they were the motive force in Europe for many decades and they therefore deserve our support.
Secondly, the European Union is also assisting the rural regions, which are quite different from the industrial ones because they have to tackle different problems, namely the lack of infrastructure and also the fact that the European agricultural policy creates difficulties for them.
In terms of disbursement of the structural fund resources, Germany is unfortunately no paragon.
In 1995 only 21 % of the funds earmarked for Objective 2 regions were disbursed.
In the case of Objective 5b regions, the figure was only 51 %.
So opportunities were missed, opportunities to promote development but also opportunities to bring the people closer to Europe by making it clear to them that Europe is looking after them too.
In the near future we will monitor the disbursement of the funds more practically, critically and promptly in the committee and at every opportunity, so that we really can make more progress with using the funds in Germany too.
We know that the application procedures are to be improved and in view of the further development of the structural funds we should take what the regional representatives have said very seriously, in relation also to the findings of Gerhard Botz's report.
We must try when we further develop the structural funds to simplify them, to concentrate them, to strengthen partnership and avoid duplicated assistance, and in particular to ensure transparency, so that the people can see on the spot what is happening with the European resources.
We must no longer allow resources to be pocketed without it being made clear that the European Union is assuming responsibility for all those people in Europe who live in regions that need assistance.
European assistance in Germany can stand up to scrutiny.
We support it entirely.
Of course we will continue to point to the problem areas and try to bring about improvements where these are necessary.
We fully and entirely support the outstanding report by my friend Gerhard Botz.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group let me first acknowledge and express my appreciation for the common efforts made by Germany and the European Union towards the economic recovery of the new Federal Länder and the successful contribution of the structural funds towards improving the situation in German Objective 2 and 5b regions, as the rapporteur also did so well in his report.
For the future too we regard the structural funds as an essential expression of European solidarity with the disadvantaged regions of Germany.
This report is a mid-term evaluation of the development problems and structural fund measures.
It is up to Parliament and the Commission to draw conclusions from it for the next programming period.
Let me list a few of these conclusions and also of the experiences drawn from current practice.
The current procedure for drawing up EU assistance plans and operational programmes and for implementing these programmes does not make nearly full use of the possibilities for simplification provided for in the regulation.
For instance, in 1994 the Commission did not permit a uniform programming document to be drawn up.
Instead it insisted on what are called multi-fund programmes, which unnecessarily increased the administrative procedures for implementing the operational programmes.
At the same time, as a result of constantly increasing and changed requirements in relation to evaluating, reporting, etc., the administrative statistical procedures have also increased sharply.
The Commission interprets the respective regulations very broadly - or at least this is what was constantly confirmed in practice.
Other major problems are the legal uncertainties, which result in different interpretations of various assistance aspects, such as final recipients of the assistance, costs eligible for assistance and so forth, together with the rules on actual expenditure, which create a considerable and unnecessary burden for undertakings and local authorities who have to pre-finance the costs.
That really is the crunch.
Transparent and unambiguous rules with clearly demarcated figures need to be adopted, which also take due account of the budget laws of the individual Member States and make specific provision for advance payments.
Commissioner, the new structural fund regulations must restrict the type of indicators required to the respective assistance objectives.
They must expand the rights and responsibilities of the Member States in administering the EU resources and they must widen the powers of the flanking committees and not make their decisions subject to additional confirmation by the Commission.
The economic effects of the assistance and their acceptance by the economy and the regions could be measurably and considerably improved by these proposed measures, without incurring any extra expenditure.
I believe that Mr Botz's report offers a good point of departure for this.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, Mr Botz, I think you have produced a splendid report on the structural funds position in Germany, which is an obligation for Germany - as you yourself said so well - and an obligation for Europe.
These funds have to cope with the problem of the new Länder as regards infrastructure, not to mention everything corresponding to their application for environmental improvements and, above all, for the creation of employment and hence major support for small and medium-sized firms, which can best generate employment in those territories.
You have highlighted two important points in your report which could also be applied to other States.
The first is the importance of involving the social partners in decision-making, application and monitoring of the structural funds.
The second, equally important, relates to direct participation by the Länder authorities: they are the best placed to ensure more effective application of the structural funds, in line with the principle of subsidiarity.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there have been some changes in the nature of structural assistance since the Delors White Paper, which enshrined the concept of 'sustainable development' .
Delors also made it clear that basically regional development must be interpreted more broadly.
More emphasis was accordingly laid on environmental protection and the using structural change as a means of creating new jobs.
Germany wasted this development opportunity.
There they rake in EU resources and pass them on to the Länder via the instrument of Community assistance, following the economic policy model of the 1950s.
Yes, esteemed colleagues, you have understood me correctly.
In Germany the structural funds cannot be used for the same broad spectrum of assistance as has been customary throughout Europe since 1994.
The main victims of this are the five new Länder and because they have no financial reserves they have to rely mainly on what they can assist jointly with the Federal Government.
But the small and medium-sized undertakings have also suffered, which is why so far there are no SMUs in the new Länder, even though assistance has been going on for a long time.
We cannot just let this continue unchecked and should aim now at decisive changes.
I would ask you to that end to support the amendments tabled by the Greens in the European Parliament.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all Mr Botz rightly says in his good report that rising unemployed is the biggest social problem facing the united Germany.
But real unemployment is far higher in the new Federal German Länder in particular than the statistics suggest.
The European Union and the Federal German Republic have certainly used the European structural fund resources successfully to improve the situation in the Objective 1 regions in the new Federal Länder and the Objective 2 and 5b regions in the old Federal Länder, although unfortunately there were considerable delays in the latter case, Commissioner.
It is essential to avoid such delays in future!
It is not easy to achieve the aims of creating and protecting jobs in the new Federal Länder, although ECU 13 640 million have been planned for 1994-1999.
In the Objective 2 regions, ECU 1 590 million are also to be set aside for the economic and social restructuring of industrially backward regions.
The lion's share of ECU 1 130 million goes to NorthRhine Westphalia and Berlin.
Lesser amounts go to states, for instance c.
ECU 32 million to Bavaria.
Instead they will receive ECU 1 230 in Objective 5b assistance.
This assistance is very important for the rural regions, especially in states such as Bavaria and Lower Saxony, for instance to enable them to tap new agricultural income sources, create new jobs and to promote training and further training.
Commissioner, at this point I would like to address your plans for concentrating and improving the efficiency of the structural funds after 1999.
In the event that Objective 5b assistance really is abolished, it is vital for rural development and assistance measures to continue, otherwise we will risk a further flight from the land and an unhealthy growth of conurbations.
At the same time, you want to assist the environment, which is damaged by this kind of trend.
Ladies and gentlemen of the European Parliament and of the Commission and the Council, when you continue with the development of the structural funds, do not forget to assist the rural areas and the people who live in them!
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I agree that the Botz report gives an objective picture and a critical view of the development problems and structural measures in Germany over the period 1994 to 1999.
Commissioner, I think it was a good idea for this report to be submitted during the first half of the reference period because that can enable us to deal with the problems that have been identified during our further handling of the structural funds and thus make effective use of the remaining time to promote structural development in Germany.
What are the crucial points in the Botz report? We must seek to improve the coordination between the various funds.
That means that the consultation and service capacities have to be expanded to make it easier to identify potential assistance areas.
Furthermore, in my view it also means that in future we should concentrate on fewer but more effective programmes and press ahead with them.
The application procedures have to be simplified.
And here, Commissioner, we are fully and entirely in agreement with our Italian colleagues.
After all, we cannot continue having advisory offices in order to help us find our way through the bureaucratic European application procedures.
In their own interests the regions must be more closely involved in the decision-making processes.
This applies in particular to the pilot projects, for which only 1 % of structural fund resources are available but which involve a lengthy and costly application procedure and in the end are not authorized for lack of resources.
We must make Europe more visible, more comprehensible.
The structural funds make a splendid contribution to the adaptation of the European regions.
Major differences exist between individual regions in Germany too.
I would wish, indeed I would demand that all European resources that go to the regions are also clearly recorded as such and shown in figures.
Following the German saying 'Do good and tell about it' , this would give the European Union a better image and reputation in the regions.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes Mr Botz's comprehensive and balanced report and I hope that we will be able to translate most of its findings into practice.
The shock of the labour market situation in Germany, but also the very serious economic break-ups in East Germany make it very clear why the Federal Republic comes second only to Spain and Italy in terms of overall assistance from the structural funds.
As a number of Members have pointed out, this fact is unfortunately too little known in Germany itself, which is why I can only support your efforts in that direction.
For the rest, it is not just a question of making friendly gestures but also of the Federal Government and the Federal Länder in question publishing details of structural fund participation.
Between 1991 and 1993, the structural funds helped create and preserve more than 220 000 jobs in East Germany and I hope the figure will be even larger not just in East Germany but in Germany as a whole over the current assistance period.
Let me also point out that the European resources that go to Germany are not just a continuous and calculable source of finance but are also a tangible expression of European solidarity.
So I welcome the fact that the report takes a most positive view of this contribution from the European structural funds both to Objective 1 regions and to improving the situation in the German Objective 2 and 5b areas.
The Commission broadly endorses the conclusions in the report regarding the development problems and confirms the priorities it set, jointly with the Member States, for the period until 1999: namely combatting unemployment, the environment and sustainable development, improving competitiveness - especially in the case of SMUs - and equal opportunities.
They have been clearly defined in the Commission's guidelines for the new programming period 1997-1999 for Objective 2 areas and these projects have proven themselves, as the new German programming plans show: the Commission has accepted six out of nine programmes on principle since the end of January.
In saying this I also want to make it clear that this time we are deciding the programmes early in 1997 and that we have effectively countered the criticisms that have been made about delays here.
For the rest we intend to submit similar guidelines for the mid-term review of Objective 1 areas.
I think we should use this forthcoming mid-term review to take critical stock of the situation, for I believe we should regard the dramatic decline in growth of Objective 1 areas, i.e., in East Germany, and the rise in unemployment as a reason to check all the planned measures once again in terms of their effectiveness and, where necessary, to adjust the programmes accordingly.
Mr Botz, in your report you address a widespread concern in the new Federal Länder in noting that the first green shoots of economic recovery in 'regions of hope' must not be jeopardized by a premature reduction in support rates.
Let me therefore point out, and with reference not just to the East German regions, that firstly, we must guarantee solidarity with the poorer Länder and regions in future too and secondly, even if they achieve the GDP targets, which unfortunately is unlikely to be the case in East Germany in the short term, we should avoid any sudden breaks in assistance.
Abruzzi, which was referred to earlier, is in fact quite a good example of slow phasing-out, rather than the reverse.
I think we should look at the situation in practical terms.
I also want to make it clear here that we will not forget the rural areas when we review the structural funds.
As you rightly pointed out, Mr Botz, one of the most important tasks for the new generation of programmes is to simplify the implementing and financing procedures.
There are certainly areas here where improvements are needed.
But let me also point out, and recently I have undertaken a number of trips round the various regions, that the East German Federal Länder now regard the EU instruments as more flexible and targeted than the German 'joint scheme' .
Perhaps we should draw a lesson from this that we do not only need major changes in the Commission and that there is in fact some reason to believe that we can all achieve improvements through cooperation and partnership, on the basis of the subsidiarity principle.
For the rest I hope that the SEM 2000 procedure concerning eligibility for assistance will bring some relief even in the short term.
On the question of evaluation, I know this subject keeps being brought up.
The German Federal audit board criticized the fact that the German aid instruments contain almost no target projection, no quantified objectives and no rational evaluations, and I think this explains why the Germans groan so much about the European requirements.
But I believe that if more account was taken in Germany of the Court of Auditors and its reservations we would also find evaluation easier.
I would also point out that Member States' budgetary laws are far more complex and less flexible than the European Union legislation.
For instance, as you know, they do not have the transfers of resources we have under European law and which are a particular advantage to backward regions.
And when you consider that the majority of resources are based on advance payments and only the last 20 % depend on the measures actually being taken, I do believe this is a very generous system.
I hope you are taking note that the interest that has meanwhile accumulated in Bonn also benefits the regions.
Let me just point out again that of course we cannot say on the one hand that we want strict controls, that we want sound financial management, while on the other hand we just keep paying advances and do not make sure that in the end the measures really have been carried out and carefully executed.
I believe this procedure allows for great flexibility and I would wish to see it presented as being as transparent as it actually is.
Let me conclude with two pieces of good news. Firstly, at the end of 1996 the payments backlog in the new Federal Länder was basically made up and the only remaining delays are with Objective 2 and 5 programmes.
These delays do indeed exist, but here gain we have a good chance of making them up.
That applies in particular to Objective 2.
Secondly, we have made substantial progress with establishing the principle of partnership, and I hope this will make the programmes more effective and lead the regions to identify more closely with their EU programmes.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Cohesion policy and the enviroment
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0360/96) by Mr Hatzidakis on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission communication on cohesion policy and the environment (COM(95)0509 - C40141/96).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report that I am privileged to present to you today deals with Community cohesion policy and the environment.
It relates to the Commission communication on the subject - which, I must say, is a very good document - and examines the effects which the Union's policies to promote economic and social cohesion are having, and may have, on the environment in the Member States and regions which are the recipients of assistance.
The quality of the environment has a direct bearing on the quality of our lives and should therefore be a matter of continuing concern to us.
The degradation of the environment which has already occurred poses great dangers.
As I say in my report, the Union's cohesion policies can actually have a prejudicial effect on the environment in some cases.
All necessary measures must therefore be taken to eliminate these adverse effects and to harmonize the cohesion policies with the goal of environmental conservation.
We have to find the golden mean via which the cohesion policies can in themselves contribute to the fostering of sustainability.
It should be understood, also, that development and environmental protection are not necessarily mutually incompatible, as was believed in the past and as many still believe, but that they can actually complement each other.
A good environment is often a main prerequisite for development.
A region blessed with good environmental conditions is certainly more attractive to investors than one with a damaged environment.
For example, cleaning up beaches and setting up a biological purification plant in a tourist area, particularly in the regions in the south of the Union at which the cohesion policies are principally aimed, not only benefits the environment of the area but also makes it more attractive for tourists and therefore contributes to its development.
In order to achieve these objectives, however, the cohesion policies need to be changed and reformed in a number of ways.
I list the requirements in my explanatory statement, and I will mention a few of them quickly now.
Firstly, it is essential to boost the environmental dimension at every level of the planning and implementation of the Union's cohesion policy.
This can be achieved through increasing the appropriations for the environment, improving the quality of environmental projects and creating the potential for purely environmental Community initiatives.
Secondly, as regards the Cohesion Fund, which, as you know, finances actions in the transport and environmental sectors, the distribution ratio of 50 %: 50 %, which so far, despite the clear improvements in relation to the past, has not been fully respected, must be strictly observed.
The greater emphasis should be placed on promoting the most environmentally-friendly solutions, by giving priority, for example, unlike at present, to railways over roads.
As far as the environment is concerned, support should be given for actions which are more directly environmental, such as afforestation and the combating of desertification in the Mediterranean area.
Thirdly, the particularly important institution of the environmental impact assessment needs to be reformed. Assessments are carried out at present, of course, but their effectiveness is very questionable.
They must take place before the project is approved and be carried out by persons who are independent of the contractors, and they must be binding.
Fourthly, it would be helpful if the Commission could initiate a study to find a widely accepted methodology for measuring the possible environmental impacts of projects and actions.
Fifthly, there is a need for an improvement in the functioning of the monitoring committees. This must, of course, be pursued in close cooperation with the Member States in order to avoid undermining the principle of subsidiarity.
It would be a good thing, furthermore, if a body of environmental monitors were to be established at Community or national level.
This body would monitor compliance with the environmental conditions on a continuous basis and be able to impose fines or other penalties in the event of violations in accordance with 'the polluter pays' principle.
Sixthly, an important role can be played by the broad range of undertakings known collectively as eco-businesses - the great majority of which are small and medium-sized - which engage in such activities as pollution control, the production of new, energy-saving technologies and the provision of services for waste management and reduction.
Here we have a good example of the combination of the agreeable with the beneficial: environmental protection and also the fostering of development through the support of small and medium-sized enterprises which create permanent jobs.
Lastly, assistance should be provided for environmentally-friendly activities, such as eco-tourism.
I would like to thank all those who contributed to the completion of this report with useful observations, proposals and amendments.
In its final form, as presented to the House, it satisfies me almost completely.
I have tabled only two amendments, one of which is purely technical and the other a more substantive formulation of a particular point.
In finishing I wish to say that I hope that the conclusions of this report are taken seriously by the Commission and, most importantly, that they can be discussed in the framework of the impending reform of the structural funds.
The Community's cohesion policies must in future be made even more environmentally-friendly. As I said at the beginning, we all of us have to grasp that development and environmental protection are not mutually incompatible objectives but, rather, that they can complement each other, and that, indeed, they must complement each other in order for development to be sustainable.
Madam President, the House has seen the opinion of the Environment Committee so there is no need for me to repeat everything that it says.
I would just like to say a few words in connection with three or four of the points that are mentioned in it.
I believe, firstly, that we need to move more purposefully towards a policy of serious and responsible pricing of natural resources. These resources are often used wastefully.
I think, in particular, of water and energy resources. Green taxes could help, but, unfortunately, there seems to be very little progress in that direction.
The second point that I feel obliged to mention, without elaborating, is the need for integration of the objectives of sustainable development with the common agricultural policy.
A third point, and one that we feel merits particular attention, is the need to make sure that national selection of environmental programmes is not distorted by political or electoral pressures.
The Commission will have to exercise more control in this regard and start to impose sanctions at some juncture.
It is not acceptable, for example, to select Pharaonic projects involving the diversion of rivers when water-saving and small projects would be more beneficial.
Another point is nature conservation.
We think that too little attention has been paid to investment in terms of nature maintenance and protection.
Here one sometimes finds baffling violations: environmental investments supported from the Cohesion Fund, such as biological purification plants, which actually damage the environment because they are constructed in woodland, and therefore necessitate the felling of trees, or on beautiful pieces of coastline or even in vulnerable biotopes.
I could give examples of such projects in Greece and elsewhere.
The integration of sustainable development objectives into routine policy practice will be promoted very substantially if the very interesting report provided for us by the committee and the arguments adduced by Mr Hatzidakis, which we endorse, stimulate action on these points.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as part of the budgetary authority our House has shown, with what is called the greening of the budget, how much importance it attaches to environmental policy within the Union's expenditure policy.
Of course this applies very much to structural and cohesion policy, especially in view of the fact that many of our citizens fear that the Union uses their taxes first and foremost for onesided industrialization and that this tax revenue is then used to repair and remedy the environmental damage this has caused.
The very good report by Mr Hatzidakis now before us also leads one to suspect that the Commission is still not taking this disquiet felt by the people seriously enough.
There is no other way to interpret the lack of meaningful and in particular comparable data on the percentage shares of expenditure on the environment.
I believe that as Members of Parliament we must be particularly concerned to have transparent data on expenditure before us and to be able to check it accordingly.
Moreover, we must emphasize that, as stated by the rapporteur, there is still an imbalance between transport infrastructure projects and environmental projects.
We expect the Commission to take rapid, concrete action as a means of emphasizing the importance it attaches in cohesion policy to its projects, which are right as such, in the field of environmental expenditure.
We know that in the medium term too there will of course be a need for action here after 1999.
The social democrats in this House support the report and congratulate the rapporteur again on his detailed and good work.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in its communication on cohesion policy and the environment, the Commission presents a detailed and illustrated overview of the factors necessary for achieving complementarity between cohesion policy and environment policy, a complementarity which presupposes that development has the least possible impact on the environment and that both can go hand in hand in harmony.
First of all, I want to congratulate the rapporteur on his report analyzing the measures necessary to obtain that harmony.
As Mr Hatzidakis rightly points out, the strategic objective is sustainable development.
However, we still have a long way to go in applying cohesion to achieve truly sustainable development, even though progress has certainly been considerable.
In fact, in implementing the programmes, the Commission concentrates priority action on the environment in terms of legislation and regulations.
However, as the rapporteur points out in his report, considerable efforts are needed and progress must be made on evaluation and control of the programmes, both before they take place and afterwards.
The Commission recognized this in the seventh annual report on the structural funds in 1995, when it stated that it remains necessary to improve both evaluation and environmental monitoring of the programmes.
As regards the 'cohesion countries' , the same report notes that the Commission is concentrating on water management measures and efforts should be geared towards another type of measure which promotes respect for the environment, because there is a danger that areas as important as nature conservation will be left to one side.
Still relating to the 'cohesion countries' , we support Mr Hatzidakis' thesis on transfer of technical resources and knowhow from the most developed Member States to the least developed, within the framework of the Union's cohesion policies, because that can have a positive effect on the environment of those countries.
And finally, mention must be made of the primordial role the local and regional authorities need to play, because their participation in the decision-making process and the management of the programmes must inevitably be increased to achieve greater efficiency, as the environmental impact is most obvious at local and regional level and that is where the most direct work on sustainable development can be done.
Madam President, I agree that the Hatzidakis report is an excellent one, but for the Commissioner's benefit I should say that two years ago we had more or less this self-same debate in Parliament and singularly little has improved since then.
We need to realize that a clean environment makes a region more attractive to inward investment.
So spending out of European funds to improve the environment frequently proves economically beneficial - this should really be the basis of the cohesion policy.
We note in Mr Hatzidakis' report, but in the opinion delivered by the Environment Committee too, that this cohesion policy is responsible for a lot of environmental damage in the European Union; that is unacceptable and it violates the Treaty.
We have to improve environmental impact assessment and make it more accessible to those concerned.
That means that the programmes too must be the subject of environmental impact assessments.
I refer you to paragraph 12 of the resolution.
In this way the principle of prevention can at last be properly applied.
Lastly, Madam President, there must be greater concern under the cohesion policy for protection of the natural world.
Too much environmental spending is still going to projects concerned with so-called water infrastructure.
And that is detrimental to nature.
Madam President, we want action from the Commission so that we do not have to keep on asking it for the same things.
Let us see the Commission buckling down to the task so that we do not have to repeat ourselves next year.
Madam President, the Hatzidakis report contains a number of important recommendations for the Commission's future structural policy.
Regional aid goes back a pretty long way in Europe.
Its objective was always purely economic.
In other words, it was geared to increasing growth, restructuring economies and narrowing the gap between levels of prosperity in the Community.
All of these were very worthy aims but they had one serious handicap: they took hardly any account of damage to natural values or the environment.
Provided there was growth, all was well.
But things are now changing, albeit in dribs and drabs.
It is good that DG XVI has announced that the link between cohesion and environment will be made clearer.
But the Hatzidakis report reveals that this announcement has one major shortcoming; it is not specific enough.
What exactly is the Commission going to do to now to establish economic cohesion in a sustainable manner? That is the billion-dollar question.
I can imagine the following points: there should be efforts to create a separate Community initiative to safeguard or improve the environment and a certain percentage of structural fund monies should be set aside for compensatory measures.
The principle of compensation should be a routine part of the planning procedure.
In some countries of the Union this is the case, but it certainly is not in those countries which receive the lion's share of structural fund money.
It has come to my notice that some people do not even know about this principle's existence.
So what should we go for? In large-scale infrastructure projects, for example, for the building of &#x02BC;wildlife overpasses'.
This will preserve the habitats of rare animal species at a relatively low cost.
We hear a lot of talk about a certain percentage of the total costs of building a road or railway line.
I should like to hear what the Commissioner thinks about these compensatory measures.
Does she think it feasible to have provision for these included in the structural fund regulations?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report. It is a thoughtful and well-corroborated piece of work.
After the speeches and comments of the other members, there is very little left for me to say, but it will not be futile, I think, or a waste of time, if I add a few words about certain points.
The environment is unquestionably one of the most crucial issues with which the European Union - and not only it - has to grapple, and I think everyone now recognizes that.
The time when the environment was a subject of concern to just a few people on the margins of politics has gone.
Today the requirement for economic and social choices and activities to be adapted to the environment's capacity to withstand them is accepted almost universally.
The European Union's cohesion policies must provide for a substantial strengthening of the environmental dimension in the framework of their future implementation.
These policies have done much to promote development and progress in recent years, but it is a fact that development very often increases the burden on the environment.
It is essential, therefore, that economic policies are targeted towards the goal of sustainable development.
Protection and conservation of the environment is now a top priority. If that priority is ignored, the results for us, in our own time, will be devastating, and future generations will be left with a massively devalued inheritance.
The supranational and, frequently, global scale of certain environmental problems demands cooperation at the local, regional, trans-frontier and international levels.
The European Union has great moral, economic and political standing in the world, and it must use its influence more effectively to promote international efforts to solve the global problems and foster sustainable development.
As I finish, let me stress this: the environment depends on what we do collectively; the environment of the future will depend on the actions that we take now.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, human welfare is inconceivable if the ecosystems are not protected. Their deterioration would make growth unsustainable.
So environmental protection must be a crucial objective of regional policy.
Cohesion and environment are, and must increasingly be, two basic objectives of European Union action.
The horizontal nature of both and their priority application to all Community policies already appear in the treaty - articles 130 A to 130 E.
The Commission is on the right track with its communication, although it should be required to augment both policies.
The backward regions need aid to protect the environment - their environment, our environment.
We must move to real convergence in quality of life as well.
Maintaining and empowering the cohesion fund in the future, strengthening structural funds measures and Community initiatives targeted on the environment and, in particular - I want to stress this - raising awareness, not only of national governments, but also of regional and local authorities and of citizens in general, are the essential routes to regarding the environment in the rural and backward peripheries of Europe as an investment in the future, generating employment and balanced and sustainable development.
Let me end by congratulating Mr Hatzidakis on his report and on having succeeded in intelligently incorporating the valuable contributions of the Committee on Environment and the Committee on Budgets of this Parliament.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, once again the European Parliament is definitely going to reassert its commitment to the principles aimed at guaranteeing the environment dimension in the elaboration and application at all levels of the European Union's cohesion policy.
These are the unalienable principles and guidelines which we have always defended and which we demand, and which we still continue to consider vital for making it possible to achieve sustainable development.
The introduction and observance of new and better rules in the environment field is, of course, something positive: to achieve and reinforce controls and actions underpinning their respective implementation is something which can only, obviously, be supported. Giving support to products and transfers of ecological technologies is something which is relevant and a natural approach for developing a European Union with greater internal cohesion.
These good ideas and examples, together with the good guidelines put forward, could continue to take up all of my time - and I should also congratulate Mr Hatzidakis on his excellent work.
But there is always a 'but' .
Sometimes more than one.
In this debate there are also buts, and I should like to refer to them.
We should like to see the implementation of these rules and guidelines simultaneously applied with equal consequence and effectiveness in every aspect of Community action, from agricultural policy to agro-industrial policy to industrial activities, more generally, in particular where - in the less developed countries and regions of the European Union - it is responsible for a large share of highly harmful toxic emissions which could actually damage the future of human life.
We, therefore, find it hard to comprehend the huge relative deficit and even the virtual non-existence of basic infrastructures supporting economic activities in the cohesion countries, from transport to the infrastructures related to water supplies and provision - for example, in my country using the waters of the Alqueva - and it is incomprehensible that these should not be analysed with more thoroughness.
Insisting on subjecting cohesion policies to environmental criteria is absolutely defendable but we doubt the goodwill of those promoting it - as they support it in an almost exclusive or obsessional way.
Therefore, we have more or less serious fears that, behind the unquestionably good ideas and guidelines, lurk strategies which aim at making it more difficult to restore the balance and or at impeding genuine economic competitiveness rather than being truly interested in defending and promoting internal cohesion in the European Union.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, while travelling to Strasbourg today I read an article in a Spanish newspaper on concern about the environment amongst the international scientific community.
It has an ambitious proposal: to gear all its forces towards the century of the environment - the coming century - and provide all possible information to those taking the decisions.
The report Mr Hatzidakis is presenting today on the Commission communication on cohesion policy and the environment specifically mentions the wide concern this issue arouses, not least amongst ourselves.
The need for Community structural measures to prevent the environment deteriorating, highly rational use of environmental impact studies, sharing the cohesion fund 50-50 between infrastructure and environmental projects, more effective monitoring committees, creation of a specific Community initiative on the environment... ladies and gentlemen, all this cannot remain a mere wish list, but has to be transformed into tangible reality.
Development and the environment - as our colleague points out in his report - cannot be opposing concepts but must be complementary.
Systematic dialogue with local and regional authorities, investment in better training for women and men working in the sector - 80 % of whom are fairly unskilled, greater attention to preventive measures, better technical assistance from the Commission and enshrinement of the principle for selecting the most beneficial or least prejudicial measures for the environment are - as Mr Hatzidakis says - fundamental factors for making progress on the road to a Community regional policy increasingly committed to our environment and with the already established principle of sustainable development.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, to avoid repetition, I will just emphasize a few points:
First, I note that the results of the cohesion policies in terms of regional development are positive overall.
Second, it is good not only for the less developed regions, but also for the rich regions - thus fulfilling the forecasts for the single market.
With criticism of the regional development policies growing, the European Commission must evaluate the beneficial repercussions of the regional development policies on the richest regions of the Union.
Existing preliminary data on the transfer of wealth and capital between more and less developed countries could surprise those critics.
Third, I agree with the rapporteur that the regulations on the cohesion fund are not always complied with, either in letter or in spirit.
The Commission must be vigilant and ensure that the 40 % of the fund allocated to environmental policies really does go to them.
Fourth and last, there should be a more binding obligation to carry out an environmental impact study, not just a formal one as at present.
Similarly, for the concept of sustainable development to be effective, projects in progress must be monitored and on completion their environmental cost must be evaluated.
I end by congratulating Mr Hatzidakis on his excellent report.
Madam President, I think that, on the whole, we have a good report before us.
It highlights several weak points in our environmental policy.
It also states categorically that care of the environment must permeate all parts of the Union's policies.
For this to happen, there needs to be a firm legal basis.
This is why I think that point 13 in the report, which discusses the Directive and the environmental implications is especially important.
It is quite clear that this Directive, in the current climate, is too weak and vague on several important points and that it needs to be improved.
I would like to give a concrete example of this.
It concerns the building of the Öresund bridge which forms a permanent link between Sweden and Denmark and which will have grave environmental consequences.
It is extremely doubtful that this Directive was considered when the decision was taken to build this bridge.
While building work has already commenced on the bridge there is a court case underway in Denmark to establish how far the EU directive has been fulfilled.
It is quite obvious that environmental concerns are put to one side if they happen to be in conflict with greater economic interests.
It is precisely for this reason that a firmer legal basis is needed to enable us to intervene and prevent implementation of a project until we are certain that the Directive has been properly complied with as far as environmental consequences are concerned.
I would also like to express my support for amendment proposal No. 2 from the Green Group which concerns the provision of financial support for environmental organisations which participate in the supervisory committee.
I think this is a very important issue.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Hatzidakis, because I think he has done excellent work.
He has focused our attention on a key issue today and in the future.
The structural funds certainly needed a pretty strong and radical rethink, and he has done that. It would be a major advance if the proposals made in the report became reality.
When we talk about the structural funds and employment, we must recognize that the structural funds are not designed to generate immediate jobs, and we need to concentrate on what we should expect of the structural funds.
First, no environmental abuse must be committed in the use of them, as has happened in the past, and serious and far-reaching mistakes that have occurred must be corrected; secondly, European Union cohesion policy must contribute to the protection, improvement and empowerment of the environment in Europe.
I think that is the report's objective framework.
We must not expect things of this report that it cannot and should not provide.
We should concentrate specifically on its aim: to guarantee that environment policy is implemented along with cohesion policy.
The report also gives a clear warning - and I shall end with this point, Mr President - that the cohesive character of European Union environment policy is not always guaranteed.
It could be said that environment policy is actually liable to be accused of being 'anti-cohesive' .
As the report states, environmental issues should not be used to disguise competitiveness.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Hatzidakis, on his excellent report and on initiating a rethink as well.
For too long environmental issues have been seen as a brake on development, as an obstacle, principally in the countries of the south of Europe which need that development most.
But this report sets out a different scenario, viewing the environment and its inclusion in cohesion policies as a development factor in itself.
First because respect for the environment helps create agreeable surroundings, which is in turn a vector of productive investment, be it industrial or in the services sector.
And secondly because the environment is a productive sector in itself, and a great generator of jobs too, with some growth indicators higher than in traditional sectors.
I also want to stress that this report seeks to involve regional and local authorities in the planning, monitoring and evaluation stages for the structural and cohesion funds, and I would add implementation, where the regions have that power.
Madam Commissioner, I imagine you are highly sensitive towards the European nations and regions which do not have statehood, but which, in full application of the principle of subsidiarity, bring decision-making closer to natural reality and the citizens.
So you will quite understand that my message to you is to pay particular attention to point 16 of the resolution.
Just as in the Middle Ages certain kings who were powerless in comparison to the feudal lords sought alliance with the towns to progress political and social development, so the European Commission and the regions must give each other mutual support to progress regional cohesion and the construction of Europe, rising above the inertia of the States in this regard.
So I am convinced that greater regional participation in the planning, monitoring, implementation and evaluation of these funds will help improve and optimize them, and that this improvement will include the deepening of the environmental aspect of cohesion policies.
Madam President, as has often been observed here, and as the rapporteur has clearly shown, cohesion policy is inseparable from environmental policy.
The environmental dimension and sustainable development absolutely must be taken into account in all Structural Fund and Cohesion Fund measures.
For this reason I do not particularly like the idea of setting up another new fund, this time for environmental policy, because the environment ought precisely to be an element in the operations of the Structural Funds.
No such step should be permitted, because it would damage the environment.
I also support the use of EU budget and Structural Fund and Cohesion Fund resources for direct environmental protection measures because employment and the environment are often seen as being in conflict with each other, but this is actually a misconception.
There are regions where sustainable development can be achieved only through sustainable development of the environment, for example where tourism is concerned - a field in which it is predicted that a great many new jobs will be created in the future.
It does not make sense to develop tourism services unless at the same time measures are taken to ensure that we have clean water, clean beaches and unspoilt nature.
Regional development or regional planning is a new element in the Union's activities. By means of it, an effort is being made to devote attention to environmental aspects on a European scale.
Here I should like to stress only that in order for this Interreg II C initiative to succeed fully in those regions where it is implemented, it is essential to ensure that both the EU Member States and the third countries involved in the programme can participate fully.
At present only Member States receive support under the Interreg II C programme, and this could mean that the third countries are not sufficiently motivated to play their part in this cooperation.
Madam President, environment and cohesion, two priorities which, albeit recognised in the letter, are not effectively applied to political practice in the European Union. But why?
Because, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, they hit at the heart of the matter.
Indeed, the thorough application of a concept of sustainable development is undoubtedly the solution for the future but it creates problems for those looking for immediate results.
If Europe wants to be a future force, or rather a force with a future, it must rely on these two essential values: protecting the environment and cohesion, not only economic but also social and educational cohesion.
These are the poles of the axis which defines a sustainable Europe.
The Cohesion Fund and the Structural Fund were not and are not questions of the European Union's generosity.
They were an act of lucidity because strengthening cohesion is just as essential for the strong countries as for the weak members of this open and competitive society.
Let us not lower the tone of the debate by attributing the defence of this point of view to national interests.
I defend here the interests of Europe as a whole and I think that by defending a better European Union, I am defending my country.
The exceptionally high quality report by Mr Hatzidakis, which takes up many points in the equally excellent opinions accompanying it, sums up the essence in points 1, 2 and 3.
I shall not repeat them but I would insist on their political importance.
In points 6, 8, 12, 15, 19 and 21 he puts forward solutions which deserve the full attention of the Commission.
Instead of a 50/50 balance, as suggested by the report, for transport and the environment, in my view it would be better for the Cohesion Fund to stimulate integrated policies on these aspects.
And I will be the first, ladies and gentlemen, to urge my country to do the same.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, first I want to congratulate Mr Hatzidakis, because in his report he has made it clear that one of the prime objectives of the cohesion policies is to achieve sustainable development which does not destroy the environment.
To achieve it, the various cohesion programmes and measures must be directed not only towards regional development but also towards strengthening respect for the environment.
So the Commission itself must effectively respect the 50 % split between transport infrastructure and environmental measures in the cohesion fund.
We must applaud the ever greater sensitivity that exists both at Community level and at regional and state level to target sustainable development which does not regard economic development and respect for the environment as essentially contradictory objectives, but as compatible and indeed complementary.
To give just one example, the annual report on the structural funds, which I am studying for the Committee on Regional Policy, deals transversely with the environment.
The various instruments the European Union has available must be strengthened and environmental impact studies must be made compulsory.
We must give the committees monitoring work in progress greater power, and increase cooperation between the Commission and the Member States and NGOs.
The various Community initiatives and measures covered by article 10 of the ERDF must have a more profound effect on the protection and promotion of the environment, providing support systems for the SMEs involved and sectors like ecological and rural tourism, and indeed agriculture.
More extensive and continuous dialogue with the regional and local bodies is fundamental because they are the direct recipients of cohesion policies and jointly responsible for their implementation.
Unfortunately, the policy the European Commission is pursuing has not always respected the spirit in which the structural and cohesion funds were created and has occasionally been anti-cohesive, because, when presenting the various proposals in environmental matters, the Commission does not really take account of the differences that exist between the various Member States of the Union nor their consequent financial obligations for the conservation of their natural heritage.
Environmental problems are different in countries in the north and south of Europe and, logically, the economic and financial solutions will therefore be different too.
This should prompt a change in European Commission policy towards presenting the various proposals after studying - and accepting - the particular characteristics of each Member State, and their own environmental problems and particular financial obligations.
All this means - and I am finishing, Madam President - the European Union must put all the necessary resources in place to finance a new policy deriving from the Single Act - environment policy - in order to support the tremendous efforts countries in the Mediterranean crescent, like Spain, have to make to apply certain Community provisions because they have a greater natural heritage.
Madam President, I hope you will allow me to detain you for a while but I believe the careful report drawn up by Mr Hatzidakis and the discussion in this House make it urgently necessary for me to clarify one or two points.
First I want to make it clear - and you will realise that if you look at Mr Hatzidakis' report and the communication from the Commission - that we broadly agree on the principles involved.
However, I would have hoped that you would take more account of the written information passed on to the Committee on the Environment on 3 July last year.
I would also urge you to take account in your conclusions of the fact that we are adhering to Community law currently in force and have to observe the principle of subsidiarity, which means that even if we agree with your demands we simply cannot infringe the rules that currently apply.
Finally, we must not forget that the structural funds are already promoting very substantial environmental investment, e.g. in the Objective 1 regions where this assistance accounts for about ECU 1 600 million, and I think this is indeed an example of cohesion in environmental policy.
Nevertheless, we are actively engaged on translating into practice the measures announced in the communication of 22 November 1996 on cohesion and the environment and the letter of 8 December, known as the declaration of intent.
In relation to the cohesion fund, we are aiming at dividing the funds equally between environmental and transport projects over the entire 1993-1999 planning period.
Indeed the most recent planning figures demonstrate that we can achieve this if we act consistently, thanks to the improvements in 1996 and the very strong pressure the Commission will exert in future years too.
Let me also point out that no major project is authorized without the necessary, prior environmental impact assessment and that compensatory measures are not just required but are also co-financed from the structural funds.
But, firstly, as one speaker pointed out, the environmental impact assessment directive is not as watertight as we would all have wished and secondly, I would have liked the ministers and the governments, with whom I had very serious differences on the question of taking account of the environment and sustainability in their investment policy, to have heard this debate now, for they sometimes see me as something of an environmental visionary rather than as someone who wants to carry through this Parliament's common objectives.
For the rest, of course we also involve local and regional authorities, but unfortunately they are not always on the side for which you have fought here today either and there is some conflict among them too, which I hope we can resolve jointly by making them more aware of these issues.
At programme planning level, we want to tighten up the preventive measures in future and encourage a change of course towards sustainable development.
But I would ask you to consider that all the major programmes for 1994-1999 were already approved before this Commission took office and that this is the legal basis on which we have to work.
We had one practical opportunity and we have made use of it, namely for the second programming stage of Objective 2 for 19971999.
In April 1996 we set out guidelines for the new Objective 2 programmes, in which the environment was one of the four priorities on which we laid special emphasis.
And we were successful in this, as can be seen today, for new programmes are only approved if they place priority on the environment and the provide the requisite environmental details in the form of what are called environmental profiles.
Progress has also been made in involving environmental authorities.
The mid-term review of Objective 1 and Objective 6 programmes which will occur this year also offers the Commission an opportunity to evaluate not just purely economic aspects but also questions of sustainable development.
However, I must point out that the cohesion fund and the structural funds are not environmental funds but that they are regional development funds and that we have to try to establish a sensible balance between what are at time very disparate interests.
For the Objective 1 and Objective 6 mid-term reviews the Commission is establishing a new matrix for qualitative environmental indicators and we hope that will take us forward a little too.
For the rest, the INTERREG 2c Community initiative also places emphasis on the environment, the protection of resources and water management.
Even the current programmes contain some - admittedly only some - qualified information on environmental objectives and indicators.
Mrs Bjerregaard, Mr Fischler and I have therefore set up a working party to work jointly with environmental experts in define certain key indicators that can be identified fairly easily and then applied.
Since the funds are administered decentrally and the Member States' national and regional authorities are solely responsible for selecting the individual projects, we have to start with the Member States themselves; and let me point out again that there is no obligation on them to notify smaller projects.
So we can only try to raise their awareness of these issues.
That is why we are organizing environmental seminars for fund managers and members of the monitoring committees in the Member States.
The first pilot seminar was held in Ireland in November 1996 and there will also be seminars in Portugal and in Greece in the first six months of this year.
At the same time the Commission is carrying out further training schemes for its own staff, aimed primarily at the strategic evaluation of environmental effects and environmental impact assessments, and over the past year trained environmental officers have been appointed in nearly all the services of my departments.
In reply to the call for new structures let me say that in my view we do not so much need to create new structures as to integrate the environment in all regional assistance measures and we will seriously endeavour to do precisely that.
As speaker just said, the seventh annual report on the 1995 structural funds attaches great priority to the environmental dimension.
The annual reports on the cohesion fund and the structural funds will do the same in future and we will thus comply with our obligation to make a report.
In accordance with the letter of 8 December 1995, for new large projects of a value of more than ECU 50 million the Commission will confirm in an environmental impact note that the project in question will not have any harmful environmental effects or that any such effects will be remedied during the execution of the project.
My services, working together with DG XI, have now drawn up an improved testing document.
I will submit the new environmental impact forms to Parliament as soon as the ongoing analytical work is completed.
The project lists will also be published in the Official Journal and appear in the annual reports on the cohesion and regional funds.
Lastly, the Commission has continued its constructive dialogue with representative environmental organizations and non-governmental organizations in order to improve the transparency of structural policy projects.
But I do realise, because I have discussions on these matters constantly and almost every day, how far we still have to go and how much support we need, particularly in the Member States, if we are to achieve our aims.
So I continue to rely on your support.
Thank you, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.10 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on page 14 of the minutes: the list of questions called.
I tabled a question on working time specifically addressed to Commissioner Kinnock.
This appears way down as Question No 100, and not in the section addressed to Commissioner Kinnock.
There may be a simple explanation, and this may be due to a little slip-up or mistake in the administration.
However, as Mr Smith and Ms Oddy also had sensitive questions on transport covering the transport of nuclear waste and they were also put into this section, I am getting rather suspicious that there are some dark forces manipulating the agenda.
I seek your assurance that this is not the case and I seek your help in getting this matter raised properly.
Mr McMahon, I am not aware of the existence of any dark forces manipulating our proceedings.
I certainly hope that no such forces exist, and that the error you point out can be corrected.
Mr President, just to confirm what Mr McMahon said, my question was on the transport of nuclear material.
I do not know whether that comes under the umbrella of dark forces but I would appreciate an investigation into the matter.
I can only tell you that it is not we who decide which Commissioner answers questions: the Commission decides that, but, as I said before, if there has been an error it will certainly be corrected as far as the drafting of the text is concerned.
Mr President, the same dark forces have not been at work on my question.
My question on the same issue does actually appear under Mr Kinnock.
So, there is something strange going on: sexism, perhaps?
Thank you, Mrs Ahern.
We shall pass these comments on to the Commission so that matters can be put right.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Decision on urgency
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to oppose the use of urgent procedure.
The Council began by taking some months to complete its deliberations, without any regard for the decisions of this House; it then high-handedly amended the programme as it saw fit; and finally it asked the Legal Service to clear up any procedural questions.
The response of the Legal Service was to issue a warning: it told the Council to consult Parliament again because the proposed amendments were so far-reaching.
This is not the proper way to proceed.
I think that the committee must carry out a fundamental re-examination of the issue.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Mr President, I ask you to refer to the services, please.
Today's session news - the Strasbourg Notebook - about yesterday's opening session absolutely gives the wrong impression.
It is absolutely wrong on what happened yesterday regarding the request to change the time of the vote on the BSE motion of censure.
It states that Pauline Green, London North PSE, requested the House to delay the vote on the motions for resolution scheduled for voting on Wednesday at 12 noon.
That is absolutely wrong.
I did nothing of the sort.
It misleads the media and the outside world.
On behalf of my group could you please get it withdrawn immediately.
Thank you, Mrs Green.
Your remarks are authoritative; of course they have nothing to do with the Minutes, but we have taken note of what you say.
Social security schemes
The next item is the report by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten (A4-0018/97), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending, for the benefit of unemployed persons, Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community and Regulation (EEC) No 574/72 laying down the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 (COM(95)0734 - C4-0116/96-96/0004(CNS)).
Mr President, the Commission's proposal is designed to enable those who are unemployed to spend longer than the three months currently allowed looking for work in another country without losing their entitlement to unemployment benefit.
The Commission put forward a similar proposal in 1980 to give people freedom of movement and the best possible chance of finding work.
That proposal came to nothing, but this time, I gather, it stands a good chance of success.
The conditions for transferring unemployment benefits to another country are very strict.
You have to be really determined, because getting permission to do it and looking for work in other countries is not so easy, however pleasant they may be.
You have to have savings behind you, because looking for work in another country means that you will get the lowest rate of benefit for the shortest period of time.
This prevents abuses of the system, and means that only job-seekers who are genuinely motivated receive help.
The proposals on the amount and duration of the payments and the requirement to register as unemployed and actively to seek work have the full support of the Committee on Social Affairs and your rapporteur.
There are two more minor points on which I have tabled amendments. What do we do about someone who is unemployed but undergoing training?
Does that person also have the same rights if he is registered in another Member State? I have put forward an amendment on this.
Then there are the frontier workers.
They too are now free to choose: whereas before they had to be covered by the statutory scheme in their country of residence, they can now elect to come under the scheme in the country where they work.
This is good news, and is something which the European Parliament and I myself called for in the 1995 report by the Committee on Social Affairs.
However, there is something slightly strange here.
In one Member State, Luxembourg, where there are many frontier workers, workers are free to choose, but it is the country of residence, in other words Belgium, which foots the bill.
This is a proposal which may be fine for the workers themselves, since they will not notice any difference, but it is an anomaly in the system, and I think that systems which constantly need exceptions are not acceptable.
The Committee on Social Affairs shares this view, and I have therefore tabled an amendment to the effect that, since the Luxembourg Government will suddenly be facing enormous costs, the transitional scheme agreed should apply for no more than five years. I would point out to our colleagues from Luxembourg that they must remember that frontier workers who become unemployed in their country have also contributed to its social security budget.
So this is another point on which I have tabled an amendment.
I should like to take this opportunity to tell the Commissioner, through Mr Flynn, that Parliament has greatly appreciated working with officials at the Commission, particularly those directly involved with the very difficult dossier concerning Regulation 1408/71.
I should also like to reiterate our thanks to Mr Rob Cornelissen and wish him every success in his new job.
We know that Mr Verschuren, who is now also there beside you, will certainly show the same commitment in tackling this dossier, and I would ask the Commissioner to pass on our congratulations to him and his colleagues.
There is one final comment I should like to make.
We have recently encountered a number of problems in dealing with Regulation 1408/71 because one Member State after another has been introducing cutbacks in social security and trying to bring it under their tax systems, which are not coordinated.
I would therefore urge Mr Flynn to bear this in mind and to make sure, if we really are to coordinate social security and taxation for frontier workers, including in Regulation 1408/71, that there is only one choice.
The University of Maastricht has just produced a report on behalf of employers' and workers' organizations calling for this one choice, so let us try to streamline things a little better.
It is something I feel strongly about, because it could help us to solve many problems in future for our frontier workers, who are after all the daily embodiment of what Europe means.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs OomenRuijten, not only on her excellent assessment of the Commission proposal that we are discussing today, but also on her ability to look ahead.
Indeed, certain aspects of the Commission proposal, such as those concerning the unemployment benefit rights of frontier workers, were mentioned by the rapporteur in her report adopted by the Social Affairs Committee on 15 May 1995.
Hitherto, when employed persons who have always resided in another Member State have become wholly unemployed in the Member State of employment, there has been a problem in defining their rights.
The solution adopted has varied according to the type of worker involved.
While frontier workers have automatically been subject to the legislation of the Member State of residence, other types of worker - in particular, seasonal workers - have been able to choose between the systems of the two Member States concerned.
This has been a significant form of discrimination against workers who, every morning, have to cross a border - which is often no more than an artificial demarcation line - in order to go to work in a neighbouring locality.
On the one hand, these workers have to deal with the regulations of two different countries: their country of employment and their country of residence.
And, on the other, this situation represents a major obstacle to the completion of the internal market, in particular the establishment of the free movement of workers.
In this context, the Commission proposal seeks to extend the possibility of choosing between the unemployment systems of the Member State of employment and the Member State of residence to frontier workers.
I therefore welcome this proposal, which will bring about a significant improvement in the circumstances of this group of workers.
It is true that a number of matters concerning these workers - those relating to the health benefits of their families, for example - still have to be resolved before the free movement of workers, which constitutes a central pillar of the internal market, is achieved.
But it is also true that this proposal represents a major step forward for a large number of European Union workers; and you have the honour, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, of having promoted and fought for those workers' rights.
This report also deals with some important matters concerning the movement of persons who are in receipt of unemployment benefit.
A system is proposed whereby an unemployed person who is in receipt of unemployment benefit and wishes to go to another Member State to look for work - or to accompany his or her spouse - will, for the first three months, retain his or her entitlement to benefits under the legislation of the competent state, namely the Member State in which he or she was last employed.
Payment of those benefits will be made on behalf of the institution of the competent state by the institution of the Member State in which the unemployed person is looking for work.
And, after the initial three-month period, should he or she not yet have found a job, the unemployed person may continue to draw benefits in the Member State in which he or she is looking for work, with some restrictions as to duration and rate.
I should like to end, Mr President, by congratulating the rapporteur and underlining the fact that this report represents a major step forward in the promotion of workers' rights - promoting the mobility of EU workers - and in the completion of the internal market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on behalf of Mrs Hermange, as you have been informed.
The regulation under consideration today guarantees real freedom of movement for workers in the European Union, by ensuring that social benefits will be continued and social security schemes will still apply.
But this text is now inadequate, given that unemployment has become an inescapable reality.
Indeed, it is now more vital than ever to enable those wishing to seek employment in another Member State to do so, and to broaden their horizons, by simplifying the relevant procedures and protecting their living and working conditions.
President Chirac has, on several occasions, drawn attention to the importance of such a process, encouraging young people to look further afield and to demonstrate professional and geographical mobility.
They must, however, be given the wherewithal for this mobility, and not discouraged from finding a niche on the broader European job market.
That is why it now seems necessary to me to amend the regulation in favour of the unemployed, who must be allowed to seek work in another Member State without losing their entitlement to unemployment benefit, currently restricted to three months.
Someone seeking work in another Member State must be able to obtain social benefits in kind without any difficulty and, above all, must have access to health care.
In this way, we will strengthen both the European social model and the competitiveness of Europe's economy, based on a skilled and well-motivated working population.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for her text and, on behalf of the UPE Group, I fully endorse this report.
I should like to add, in my capacity as rapporteur for the opinion on the Green Paper on obstacles to transnational mobility, presented by Mrs Cresson, that - as Mrs Hermange says - the scope of this regulation should be extended as a matter of urgency to cover students, since they are preparing for the future of Europe when they study abroad in another Member State.
It is up to us to give them hope by recreating the conditions for a more prosperous and more humane Europe.
Mr President, I think that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has given us an excellent assessment of the legal aspects of this regulation and the issues arising from it, so I shall concentrate in my speech on a number of points which I think the Commission and the Council should consider.
If these amendments to the regulations are to be successful, there needs to be close cooperation between the national authorities responsible for employment and the payment of benefits.
I myself have experience of how employment organizations in different Member States cooperate, in my case Belgium and the Netherlands.
I can assure you that it is not easy to get these organizations to work together, not least because they are unable to exchange data because their computerized registration systems are not compatible, for example.
The Member States do not take account of the fact that this sort of cooperation involves extra costs, particularly in border areas, and it is often difficult for the authorities concerned to find the money. This is a point that I would ask you to put on the agenda for the Council, Mr Flynn.
I also hope, and I would refer here to the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs, that these amendments to the regulations will also help to solve various problems that are still dragging on, such as between Belgium and the Netherlands, for example, where pension rights have been accumulated in one country, but neither country will pay the pension.
I entirely agree with what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten said about taxation, and I would go so far as to say that national legislation should not be introduced without some kind of assessment of its impact on frontier workers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this may appear to be a technical report, but in fact it is a very political one, and I should like to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for taking a step in the right direction.
Until now, border regimes have been black holes in our system of social security; as far as people in or seeking paid employment are concerned, Europe has allowed the existing national social security systems to be side-stepped.
Mrs OomenRuijten's proposal, which we support, is to move from that situation at least as far as a system based on the highest common denominator - and that would be better than nothing.
However, in our view, if unrestricted freedom of movement across borders is really to be feasible, we need to go beyond that model to one based on the lowest common multiple: in other words, one which effectively applies the best arrangements of both the countries in question.
Such a system is financially feasible, and it would clearly make cross-border job-seeking a more attractive option.
For this reason, we have tabled an amendment.
We take the view - and I would put this to Commissioner Flynn - that our borders must be transformed into thresholds, linking and offering access to people who are in or seeking paid employment.
Europe must become a place of greater social justice where social solidarity is ensured; it cannot continue to be a black hole, swallowing up existing social security systems.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes the positive attitude of the European Parliament on this particular proposal.
The Parliament shares the Commission's opinion that unemployed persons should be able to spend more than three months as currently foreseen looking for work in another Member State without losing their entitlement to unemployment benefit.
You also endorsed the proposal to grant frontier workers who become unemployed the right to choose between the benefit schemes of the Member State of residence or the Member State in which they were last employed.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has produced a very good report; I thank her for it.
She suggests three very useful amendments.
The first is in line with the Commission's Green Paper on obstacles to transnational mobility in the areas of education, training and research.
Mr Pompidou made particular reference to this matter as well.
The second seeks to delete an exception foreseen for Belgium. That seems justified to me following the very narrow interpretation of the Court of Justice which it gave in the Spataro judgment just last June.
Thirdly, the ten year transitional period on the refund to Luxembourg by the neighbouring Member States of certain unemployment benefits could indeed be reduced to five years.
There is an amendment tabled by Mr Schörling and Mr Wolf which would affect the balance of the Commission proposal and we are not in a position to accept it for that reason.
So the Commission is prepared to forward a modified proposal endorsing the ammendments proposed by the rapporteur Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I would also like to thank her most sincerely for her very kind words concerning the services and the staff and I would be glad to convey that to them.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Social protection
The next item is the report by Mrs Weiler (A4-0016/97), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the report from the Commission on social protection in the European Union (1995) and on the Commission communication - The future of social protection: a framework for a European debate (COM(95)0457 - C4-0518 and C4-0524/95).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that we are about to deal with an issue today that ought to have been back on the European agenda some time ago, and I am glad that the Commission has provided us with a very useful discussion document.
We have debated these matters at some length in committee, with experts and NGOs, and I am also pleased to say that both the Irish presidency and now the Dutch presidency have taken the opportunity of working with us to organize specialist conferences.
I should also like to thank all my colleagues for their constructive help with my report, and I would ask them to appreciate that I have not been able to take on board all the amendments that were submitted.
I had to disregard some of them because they would have distorted the clear line I wished to take in my report, or because they tended too far towards privatization of the social security system.
On the other hand, while I have a great deal of sympathy for Amendments Nos 27, 28 and 29, they are unrelated to my report, and in fact belong in another context.
Over the past six months, there has been a basic consensus throughout the debate that the European social model is a positive factor for Europe as a location for business, and that what we all need is to reform the system, not to cut it back.
I should like to make it equally clear that reform does not mean harmonization.
National parliaments will continue in future to decide what form their social security systems ought to take.
Nonetheless, the European Parliament and our institutions need to become more closely involved in and committed to the process than they have been in the past.
Demands are being placed on us, for example as regards the urgent need for directives that will ensure freedom of movement for workers.
Demands are being placed on us in terms of changing social structures and the need for measures to accompany new patterns of work in Europe: for example, atypical conditions of employment - not only part-time employment, but the many and varied individual forms of atypical employment conditions that now exist in Europe.
And demands are being placed on us - and this is the nub of the matter - in terms of working together with regional and national bodies to combat unemployment, because we all know that unemployment is the main cause of the financial problems in our social security systems.
That is also the reason why we have asked for an employment chapter in the revised Treaty.
One important call from the committee is that systems should be made more employment-friendly, in other words some of the burden should be shifted away from the labour factor, and new sources of funding should be found.
The Member States could, and indeed should, seize the opportunity to take a more environmentally-aware approach, with environmental tax reform.
We are making a proposal along these lines.
It will be up to the Member States to decide whether or not they wish to include such new sources of funding in their plans.
We have worked out responses and suggested solutions to problems in Europe that are similar in all the Member States and all industrialized countries.
These include, for example, the ageing of the population in Europe, the legitimate desire of women to have paid employment, and the new patterns of work and employment flexibility that I have already mentioned.
We wish to pursue the debate with the Commission, the Council, the social partners, NGOs and welfare organizations in the Member States.
Ladies and gentlemen, in my report I have put forward a package of proposals.
I should be grateful if you would give them your approval; if you would support the need for further work on the subject and our desire to do that work; if you would back our call for some type of institutional forum for jointly exploring solutions and pursuing the debate.
I would therefore ask you to vote in favour of my report.
Mr President, first I should like to thank Mrs Weiler for her report and also Minister Melkert for his overview of the Dutch presidency's position on matters relating to this report.
We all have a common point of departure in this debate and an understanding that social protection is the cornerstone of the European social model.
That has been very clearly stated by Mrs Weiler.
However, the challenge we are facing today is how to modernize Europe's social protection systems and how to adapt them to a new situation in a rapidly changing world without abandoning the core values of solidarity and cohesion.
This is quite difficult and is going to be a complex task in which there is no overnight or miracle solution.
Because of the complexity and uncertainty, I proposed at the end of 1995 the launching of a new initiative on social protection which I called the framework for a European debate on the future of social protection.
The idea was that each Member State should find its own set of solutions to satisfy its own particular systems.
At the same time the ability to learn from one another and to react quickly is a key factor for success.
The European Union has a valuable role to play in acting as a catalyst in this process and in learning and in adapting, and I am grateful to the European Parliament for its contribution to this debate.
I am pleased that you have reacted so positively.
The discussion here today reminds us of two things: firstly, the future of social protection is a complex question; secondly, the debate is an essential one and one that cannot be ducked.
In that framework for the European debate on the future of social protection, the communication from the Commission has analysed a lot of the common challenges that are facing us: how to make social protection more employment-friendly; how to improve the financing of the social protection systems and how to cope with the ageing of European societies, especially as far as old age pensions are concerned; and how to better manage health care systems.
There is the other great challenge which has a clear European dimension too: how to accommodate the full implementation of the internal market with the diversity of all of the national systems; and how to better reconcile that diversity with both freedom of movement of people within the Union and the freedom to provide services.
I regard a lively debate as being fruitful and I welcome such a debate, not least because I see the rich diversity of experience, culture and opinion that exists in the Union as one of the great strengths of the Union and it is reflected in this debate.
This richness and diversity are the source ultimately not of the problems, but of the innovative solutions to the problems.
So the question has to be asked - and Mrs Weiler makes this point too - where do we go from here?
Let us not forget that we have the clear backing of the Member States in this exercise.
All of them agree that highly-developed social protection systems are important, worth keeping and worth building on.
But they also recognize that preserving the systems means reforming them, not least because so much has changed since they were first put in place.
In 1992 the Council outlined in a recommendation on social protection what it saw as the common objectives which would determine the reform of these national systems.
The Weiler report states in Part V of its explanatory statement that today the aim must be to continue that debate, and I agree with that.
But not just to continue.
We have to take on board the need to move it up a gear, to move it up to the next step.
That is why I am so pleased to see Mr Melkert here today giving us an overview as to how he sees this debate progressing during the Dutch presidency.
He is quite right when he says that in Amsterdam just last month at the conference which was organized by Mr Melkert on behalf of the Dutch presidency on social policy and economic performance, I announced that the Commission would soon be presenting a communication on improving social protection systems in the Union.
The communication will seek to map out the next stage in this process.
This communication will have two purposes: to indicate the route along which that modernization can be pursued, and secondly to present some specific proposals for European-level support.
In all of this we must get around to finding some practical and feasible solutions.
In presenting the communication we will obviously seek to take careful account of Parliament's contribution to the debate so far, as set out in Mrs Weiler's report.
Today's debate has shown that this is an issue of particular importance to all the institutions and in particular to Parliament.
I should like to emphasize that I very much welcome the active interest which has been shown in this debate and I hope we can count on the full support of Parliament as we carry forward this process.
I believe this is one of the great debates of our time.
First of all, Mr President, I should like to welcome Mr Melkert to the House of which he himself almost became a Member some time ago, but the selection committee thought he was too young and needed more experience at national level, a recommendation which he has more than fulfilled.
I thought one of the best things about the conference on social policy and economic performance was that for the first time in years, social policy came out of the shadows, and none of the speakers felt the need to defend themselves against right-wing criticism, but spoke confidently about how important social policy is in itself and for the economy.
Many studies carried out for the committee clearly show that a fair system of social security and sound economic performance are not mutually exclusive but mutually supportive, and that good social protection is not just the icing on the cake, but one of the essential ingredients of the cake itself.
There is also an implicit criticism here of the way in which the European Union has launched and conducted major projects up to now.
Whether it be the internal market, EMU, the information society or enlargement, the social dimension has always been the poor relation.
It is therefore not surprising that there should be serious discussion in the Member States, and finally also in the Netherlands, about whether it makes sense to go through with EMU.
Now, I myself support EMU and the stability pact, but we must not forget that social progress and employment are the aims, and monetary policy is simply the means to achieve them.
It is important for us to be having this debate today on the future of social protection in Europe, as discussed in Barbara Weiler's excellent report, but we must also realize that we have to start building this future now.
This means reforming our social protection schemes, because otherwise they will not be affordable in future, and because at the moment they are not sufficiently employment-oriented, and so we need to try to find a balance between flexibility and security.
But it should also mean developing a common economic policy which is not primarily designed to meet the EMU criteria, but should also aim to create jobs.
We need social objectives and instruments at European level if we are to balance our one-sided monetary policy.
This was one of the conclusions of the conference in Amsterdam, and it is one of the reasons why we need a chapter on employment in the Treaty and why the social protocol needs to be improved and to apply to all Member States.
Many of the social protection reforms needed would have to remain a matter for the national and local authorities, but as Europe becomes more integrated and with the single market, the purely national interest is less prevalent.
Social cohesion in other Member States is now in all our interests.
One of the most controversial issues in the debate on this report in the Committee on Social Affairs was the question of convergence.
There has been quite a commotion in the United Kingdom and elsewhere about whether even the very word convergence should be mentioned in the texts, and I find this very strange.
Article 17 of the Treaty, which the United Kingdom also signed, makes it quite clear that the common market is to promote the harmonization of social systems and free trade, and is to combat unfair competition.
This is also spelt out in a 1992 declaration which also calls for progressive convergence, for the same reasons.
It is extremely ironic that this declaration was adopted under the UK presidency, and bears the signature of one of the most Eurosceptic Tories.
I hope that this will encourage all UK Members in the vote tomorrow to stop complaining about such issues.
I think this is really all that needs to be said.
It is, I think, generally accepted that the various systems need to be reformed, and the main thing now is to decide how and to what extent we can win the support of the people of Europe for this.
Mr President, there are currently several challenges facing our systems of social protection: a demographic challenge resulting from the ageing of the population, an economic challenge due to unemployment, and a social challenge, not least because in Europe we must preserve the concept of solidarity.
Faced with these challenges, it is not enough for us in Europe merely to adjust the present system by introducing rules designed to remove obstacles to freedom of movement; the EU must also square up to its responsibilities.
The issues concerning the future of social protection are fundamental ones; they are tangible ones too for our fellow citizens, who wish to see a Europe which is closer to them, and it is through the concept of social Europe that they will gain a better understanding of Europe's problems.
It is now vital, therefore, to open up a debate at European level on the future of social protection, comparing our experiences and ensuring that a thought-provoking exchange of ideas will produce - if not immediately a convergence of views - then at least a coordination of provisions, whilst respecting national cultural differences.
However, I believe that social security schemes should certainly not be reformed in a rigid way, but must be adapted to new conditions of employment, particularly with regard to flexibility and mobility, as a number of other Members have pointed out.
I would also add that this notion of solidarity is compatible with greater personal involvement, with more individual responsibility on the part of our citizens.
Furthermore, given the extent of sociological and economic change, greater protection should be afforded to the family.
That is why I have my doubts about the rapporteur's proposal that, to take account of changed family structures, there should be independent schemes for men and women.
I think that to individualize social security schemes in this way would in fact be detrimental to the cohesion and harmonious development of society.
Mr President, I too should like to thank Mr Melkert for coming here today, and I should like to take the opportunity to raise an issue of considerable concern to me: the democratic deficit in social security and employment.
The Minister said that he wants a dialogue with Parliament, on which I believe him to be sincere, and I think he has put forward some very good proposals on the convergence of the social labour market and employment policy, and on employment policy indicators.
But what guarantee do we have that once the Dutch presidency is over, the whole thing will not go off the boil and Parliament will scarcely have a say in the matter? In the meantime, life goes on and, in the follow-up to Essen, the first steps are about to be taken in the process of renewal and change on the labour market.
I would point out to the House that if the Member States do not achieve convergence and, as Mr van Velzen has already said, they have to make great efforts to catch up on various issues like EMU and the stability pact, we could well find ourselves in a situation where industrial unrest makes our Europe look a great deal less solid than it does now.
I would therefore urge the Minister to ensure that this dialogue between the Council and Parliament remains on track throughout the Dutch presidency.
The question here is whether we wish to preserve or change.
I think the Weiler report makes a number of good points, but I also think that we need above all to dare to make changes.
My proposals both in committee and in the amendments before the House are not so much about whether we need to dismantle as whether we want to change.
On the subject of pensions, I do not think we need to worry about having capital cover schemes instead of redistributive schemes, and I would urge Mrs Weiler seriously to reconsider our amendments so that our group too can vote for this report, which contains a number of good ideas.
Mr President, when we speak of the future of social protection in Europe, we are at the same time speaking about the whole future of Europe.
In my opinion, Barbara Weiler's report demonstrates very clearly how important it is for us to overhaul social protection systems in order to meet the requirements of a changing working environment and that we should also try to find new sources of funding for social security in order to maintain it at the same high level in the future.
The Weiler report calls for the adoption of common EU minimum objectives for social protection.
I entirely agree with this.
However, the issue is not an easy one to us in the Nordic countries, for reasons to which Mr Hatzidakis, among others, has referred here.
We are afraid that the minimum could easily turn into a maximum.
It is therefore important to ensure that common minima can always be exceeded if a decision in favour of this is taken at national level.
I also endorse the view expressed in the report that the EU's social policy requires a stronger legal basis.
The Social Protocol should become part of the Treaty, and it should be possible to take decisions on its application by a qualified majority.
On the subject of social security funding, I should like to stress that this is not just a question of an expenditure item, as is readily assumed.
Spending on social protection pays for itself many times over.
This applies both to society and to enterprises.
Employees who feel socially secure are in a better position to place their creative abilities at the service of enterprises.
It is not only more humane but also economically more efficient to support people when they have problems rather than allowing the problems to lead to exclusion or crime.
Cuts in social protection necessitate many times greater expenditure on prisons and the maintenance of strong police forces.
If we wish to guarantee the security of Europe's citizens, the answer lies rather in improving social security and social services than in stepping up policing.
Mr President, the Commission's document, which formed the basis of Mrs Weiler's report from the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment on the future of social protection, was meant create a framework for debate and to establish a basis for joint discussions.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Weiler because, in my opinion, she has put her message across very clearly prior to this discussion.
My own interpretation is that, if a society is unable to share its resources to achieve social protection and social solidarity, but creates divisions and social exclusion instead, that society has failed.
Civic solidarity is a fundamental requirement for a modern and democratic society; it is important that we remember this in our discussions.
I also agree totally with the statement from the Economic Committee and the argument that there is reason to be deeply concerned over the future of social protection in Europe.
A large proportion of the Union's activities actions are currently concentrated on promoting markets and competition.
Large-scale reductions in public expenditure, convergence criteria for EMU, stability packages and high unemployment create social unrest and social exclusion.
It is dangerous when economic growth and competition have to increase whatever the price, at the cost of social protection.
This is why I consider our amendment proposal No.9 to be so important, where we point out that reductions made in unemployment and social benefits are aimed at lowering the general level of wages.
Under no circumstances must this be allowed to fall below the current level of the minimum existence wage.
This applies equally to social security benefits.
I am also of the opinion that social protection should be covered primarily by collective social insurance, in other words, protection provided by the State and a system based on a collective agreement between employers and employees.
Social protection systems in the EU are all structured very differently and pitched at differing levels.
For this reason I consider that harmonisation is neither possible nor is it desirable.
There is a description of harmonisation in the report which, according to Mrs Weiler, is a translation error.
But, looking closer at point 19, I find that I cannot support this point because it means that explanation 23 is to be included in the Treaty and it refers to Article 117, which just happens to concern harmonisation of social systems.
On the other hand, I do think that coordination is required and also a number of minimum levels of social protection agreed between Member States to avoid social dumping and to satisfy employees' rights and promote free movement of people.
The requirement for the regulation of unsocial working hours is also an important point in the report as is our amendment proposal on financing social systems.
We must look seriously at the idea of alternative forms of taxation, i.e. to move the burden of taxation from work to environmentally related taxes, such as the carbon dioxide tax.
Mr President, the Weiler report is an extremely important one and has come at just the right moment, in my view.
When we talk to people in the street, they often see a growing conflict between free trade and social responsibility.
They say that the free single market is increasingly abandoning its fundamental social role, and they give a number of examples of this.
The phenomenon of relocation is now on the increase throughout the European Union, technological production methods are given precedence over labour, and there is discrimination against frontier workers.
Within the Member States themselves there are widening psychological gaps, such as between those in work and the unemployed, and between young people and pensioners.
This is why we urgently need a new social model which re-establishes the link between social security and the real role of the economy.
The rapporteur proposes a very useful model in which our most valuable achievements are regarded as the cornerstone of society.
Of course, we need to recognize a number of facts that have affected most Member States in recent years.
There have been, and still are, serious problems with financing, and most of our social protection schemes are still based on social orders which are now outdated.
What I mean is that 40 or 50 years ago, it was quite reasonable for social security to be mainly financed by contributions from labour, since it was a period of high employment.
Other sources of funding were simply unthinkable.
But society has changed, and high unemployment, a falling birthrate and changes in family structures mean that there are fewer and fewer people to keep the system going, while on the other hand the need to fund the social security system from labour taxes has caused labour costs to rocket.
In my country, for example, the difference between a worker's gross wage and what he actually receives is reaching surreal proportions.
These are the sorts of conditions that kill jobs, and they are the start of a vicious circle which will ultimately undermine the very foundations of the social security systems.
One of the central paragraphs in the Weiler report is paragraph 9 on alternative methods of financing, which I think presents a very useful and fair proposal.
There is just one more point I should like to make about this whole situation.
In all the discussions on European monetary union, there is far too much talk about taxation and far too little about social issues.
It is high time that we adopted a much more practical approach, and the Weiler report sets us an excellent example.
Mr President, when I read Barbara Weiler's report, I was reminded of a Danish song which goes something like this:
(The speaker sings) ' Tread carefully, young lady, because the stage is uneven' .
I have heeded this advice, because taking careful steps in the socio-political arena is something which for me, as a Dane, is a very important point to emphasize.
As has already been mentioned, social policy is a very sensitive area in Scandinavian countries.
I agree with Mr Hatzidakis that it is important for us to have a high level of social protection in Europe and in the European Union.
But I do not at all agree that we should harmonize social legislative systems.
What I mean is that it is important to be careful when recommending in the report that, amongst other things, there should be increasing co-ordination of social protection regulations.
It is also my view that we should be careful about formulating minimum requirements, because my Finnish colleague is quite right in saying that there is good reason to fear that minimum requirements would become maximum requirements.
This is what we have experienced in Denmark in the area of the working environment where the excellent Danish employment regulations we had earlier subsequently became very poor regulations, precisely because of considerations regarding competition.
What I am saying is that there are possible grounds for fearing that coordination along the lines of competitiveness will adversely affect the social protection regulations.
I also believe it to be an extremely bad idea to introduce social insurance regulations at a Community level based on a qualified majority.
In general it is my view that one would be misusing employees' freedom of movement in order to attribute greater legislative powers to the European Union than it currently has.
I think it too much to expect that citizens in the European Union will want to move from one Member State to another.
From my past experience as a social worker I can say that it is very difficult for an individual - especially if one has a family - to pull up the tent pegs and move from one country to another where the culture may be very different.
I would therefore ask that considerable thought be given to this, not least in the context of the conference of governments, and that we tread carefully.
You have a fine voice, Mrs Jensen, but you caused a few problems for some of the interpreters who were unable to rise to your level.
Mr President, I hope you will forgive me for taking the floor without being able to break into song like our colleague, but I do nevertheless have a few words to say.
We can welcome the repeated statements from the Commission, and in the Weiler report, concerning the need to preserve a European model of social protection as a factor of social peace.
It seems to me, however, that the Commission must be cautioned against any attempt to downgrade our social security schemes in the name of so-called European harmonization.
Since each of our countries has its own social traditions and social history, it would be more advisable to retain and restore the most advanced national schemes, and to develop the others.
It is in fact the responsibility of each state, nationally, to take clear steps to safeguard and further develop a system of social protection which guarantees everyone health insurance, unemployment benefit and a pension, but also a system that will promote and support the family.
State policy and intervention in support of the family, primarily through parental pay, should be used to boost the birth-rate, if we are to prevent our redistributive pension schemes from collapsing under the weight of our ageing populations.
In social terms, it is a matter of urgency and a vital necessity to introduce a broad-based family policy in the nations of Europe.
I would add that any policy designed to unravel national social security schemes would expose our citizens to market forces or the inevitability of private insurance, both of which are completely antisocial options.
Each national state should act as a guarantor and provider of social protection, and should reassert its social function.
I would also say to our colleagues that if they wish to maintain effective models of social protection, Europe must turn its back on its ultra-liberal, free-trade, internationalist economic policy, the main effect of which is to produce unemployment in Europe.
Opening our borders to international competition is totally irreconcilable with preserving our social security schemes, and the lack of social clauses within the WTO is criminal for our economies and social systems in Europe.
Customs duties must be reintroduced immediately and allocated to family and social policies; a social VAT must be levied on imports so as to reduce the economic imbalances caused by differential social costs; and the terms of trade - of which we are victims rather than beneficiaries today - must be redefined.
Otherwise, the good intentions and the fine social sentiments expressed here in the House today will be swept aside by the devastating effects of international economic competition.
Mr President, in recent years the problems facing social protection systems have become dangerously acute.
Policies designed to curb public spending, the widespread tendency for companies to relocate outside the European Union and the placing of capital in short-term unproductive investments and in speculative stock market activities have led to unprecedented levels of unemployment in the Union.
Social exclusion and poverty are tending to encompass ever wider sectors of the populations.
Those trends are likely to become more marked.
We should be deeply concerned at the unfavourable evolution of social protection systems - not only on social grounds but also for economic reasons.
Reducing the workforce to poverty and dissolving the social protection system cannot be a basis for any kind of growth.
Mr President, we need to be worried and to take account of the risk that an untested switch in funding from work-related contributions to alternative tax solutions could lead to a total collapse of the social protection system, particularly in the atmosphere of budgetary pressure that is prevalent in all of the Member States because of EMU.
I consider it vital that the Commission should carry out an urgent study of developments regarding the ratio of workers to pensioners which is evolving very unfavourably and with unforeseeable social consequences. In addition, a study must be made immediately of the trend in production and in employment and working hours in the coming years and of the implications for the social protection system.
The consequences of EMU and of the policy constraints that stem from it on social protection and on the financing of social insurance, health and education systems need to be made starkly clear.
We need to understand that putting everything in the hands of the market carries enormous dangers for social cohesion.
The market by itself has never in the past generated full employment, not social protection or social institutions.
It is high time we recognized that truth, for the sake of the peoples of Europe.
Mr President, the main contribution to society of the so-called 'conservative revolution' of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan was to attempt to dismantle the welfare state.
Fortunately, they did not succeed; but I am not so naive as to think that the attempts to dismantle all aspects of state social protection now belong in the past.
The one-track approach, which now seems to permeate and contaminate everything, insists on reducing reality to the market-place, deregulation and individualism, denying any role for the public sector, politics or the State in the structuring of society.
The supporters of the new one-track approach have abandoned the most wanton elements of the past, but still maintain the urgent need to dismantle all aspects of the welfare state, on the pretext that it will not be viable in future.
Clearly, they see themselves administering what today is managed by the public authorities.
But why is it that individualism is viable and solidarity is not?
Why should a private pension fund be more viable than a state social security scheme? Some years ago, when we in Spain were seeking to join the common project of European integration, we did so because Europe meant freedom, but also because it provided a reference point for a society which had adopted the principles of the welfare state: indeed, in difficult times, it was the European social model that provided the backbone for our society by institutionalizing the social rights of citizens.
The fiscal crisis of the State must not lead to the dismantling or reduction of a system that has provided the backbone of our societies. It is better to think in terms of reforming, correcting and modernizing, with a view to giving rights to those who really need them.
Opting to reform, correct and modernize is the best way to shield the State from its detractors.
And the best way to avoid being conservative is to face reality boldly.
The common Europe which we champion as social democrats is built on the defence of human rights, pluralist democracy and social protection.
In the face of the challenges now before us, which are addressed by this excellent report - defending social protection, an issue closely linked to that of employment - we cannot act timidly or stay on the back foot.
Achieving a high level of employment will strengthen the prospects for state social protection.
Defending flexibility and security is a commitment, just as making progress towards social convergence - and making the same efforts to achieve it as we do to achieve economic convergence - is a commitment too.
Hopefully this report - which, I repeat, is a good one - and this debate will serve the cause of progress and construction, and not that of destruction - although for that we have to continue to believe in politics, the public sector and the role of the State, to believe in ideas and values.
Mr President, it is no exaggeration, in my view, to say that the existing levels of social protection in the European Union today are by far the highest in the world.
We should all feel proud to belong to the most mutually supportive society on earth.
If we wish to preserve this valuable asset, however, we clearly have to increase our levels of employment.
We shall only succeed in safeguarding our social protection system to the extent that we are able to maintain a strong, competitive and job-creating European economy.
All the rest is mere rhetoric and populism.
Over the last few years, many people have accused the European social protection system of being responsible for the loss of competitiveness of European industry.
They have tried to create a dichotomy - which in my view does not exist at all - between social protection and the competitiveness of our economies.
The reasoning put forward by those who uphold this dichotomy is as follows: in an increasingly open and globalized world economy, products manufactured in Europe have inevitable added costs which those manufactured in Asia, for example, do not.
Asian manufacturers thus have a competitive advantage over European manufacturers.
There are two possible responses to this charge: the first is to support the dismantling of our social protection system; the second is to seek the means of ensuring its long-term survival.
I am firmly in favour of the second.
It is true that the existing tax burden on employment in the Member States is making it difficult to achieve a level of competitiveness that will enable us to maintain market share in competition with other countries.
But we all know that price is not the only factor to determine the competitiveness of a product: there is also quality, design, innovation, and so on.
Europe must seek further ways to be competitive, alongside price reduction.
In the meantime, we have no choice but to continue our efforts to increase the competitiveness of the European economy, so that our social protection system can be maintained. We must make progress with deregulation in the fields of energy and telecommunications.
We must step up the training of the workforce. We must invest more in research and development, and secure more participation of the private sector in this type of investment.
We must seek to bring about a monetary union in which as many Member States as possible take part, so that as much as possible of the European economy can benefit from the first-class macroeconomic environment which the union will create.
With regard to the Commission communication which we are debating today, I welcome this document, which represents a good starting-point for what must be a serious, rigorous and in-depth debate on the future of social protection in Europe.
However, I regret to say that I am unable to support the report by Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, because at the present time, I cannot endorse a report which seeks to transfer the Member States' funding responsibilities to the European Union.
That is putting the cart before the horse.
We must first make substantial progress with the standardization and harmonization of benefits, particularly with a view to establishing freedom of movement and the freedom to provide services.
Lastly, Mr President, there are many marginalized members of society, with physical or mental handicaps, who do not have a job and are looking for one.
At the same time, there are other people who have a job, but wish to give it up in favour of social security benefits such as sickness benefit - at the expense of the taxpayer.
There is a need to combat fraud on a continuous basis, to increase resources, and to promote the constant exchange of ideas and experiences between all those working in the social field.
Mr President, the subjects dealt with by the Weiler report are very complex ones, because changing demographic realities in the Union are characterized by a general increase in the average age, a fall in the birthrate and - we must not forget - an increase in the age at which young people enter employment.
All this inevitably results in a state of crisis in the present social protection system, further heightened by the increased globalization of markets and the resulting need for greater competitiveness on the part of enterprises and of the entire European economic and production system.
The logical result of this must be greater flexibility in the regulations governing employment, and certainly not a further increase in tax burdens.
It is not the principle of solidarity that is at issue here - indeed, we would particularly stress the importance of family protection - but the current system of social protection is no longer able to continue as it is: it is too cumbersome and too inefficient.
That is why we believe it is necessary to encourage people to arrange additional, supplementary private insurance, so that in the field of social protection, as elsewhere, public and private schemes compete against each other to increase the overall efficiency of the system, and so that new, atypical forms of employment can also be taken into consideration: the Council has blocked this issue for years, but we believe that concrete results must be achieved quickly.
This report provides a solid basis for argument.
However, because it fails to satisfy us on certain points that we regard as fundamental, we do not think we can approve it, although it does include some passages of high quality.
Finally, I would like to emphasize one last point contained in Amendment No 29, where it is stated that it is necessary for multilateral agreements to include environmental and social clauses based on the model of an international labour organization.
That is a point which we will support.
Mr President, a secure social welfare system is an important part of a democracy but it is primarily the responsibility of Member States.
The EU can assist through coordination and cooperation.
Establishing minimum standards is one way of doing this but there is always the risk that minimum standards can become maximum levels.
The principle task for the EU in this area is to coordinate activity and any decisions should, as I see it, be taken unanimously so as not to change for the worse those social security systems already in place in Member States, as there is a risk that this could happen.
Today's society is at present demanding changes.
The level of knowledge is constantly changing.
We must establish systems and methods of ensuring that further education becomes a process for life and not, as it is today, something which takes place during the first 7-10 years.
We must develop an active labour market policy which includes further education and training as a component of lifelong improvement.
All forms of social dumping must be stopped.
Mrs Weiler's report is very positive in many respects.
New protection systems must be developed and we must prevent variation in levels of provision.
There should be a guaranteed basic pension in all Member States, but it ought also to be possible to increase this through personal insurance.
A very important proposal is the change in the method of financing the protection system through alternative forms of taxation, which reduce income tax and increase tax on the use of environmental resources and energy.
Mr President, the Weiler report - and I must congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent work - deserves our support and should be paid our full attention.
But the fact is that people are so concerned with other things, with other areas which they see as national when in fact they are transnational, that very little attention is paid to the questions of social protection in Europe and its future, in what really should be the subject of a Europe-wide debate.
The two Commission communications, the basis of this report, offer food for thought in this debate and the motion for a resolution which the European Parliament is due to transform into its resolution makes good use of them through the Weiler report.
But no less important, quite the contrary, is the explanatory memorandum accompanying this proposal which contains material for considerable thought and debate.
Any position based on Article 2 of the Treaty of Rome, which the Maastricht Treaty did not alter, defining the general objectives of the association of the Member States, and on Article 117, which Maastricht also did not change, or undermine, clearly imposing the principle of political orientation, almost appears strange since it is becoming increasingly necessary.
The principle of social equalisation in progress represents or should represent the cornerstone and philosophical basis of the construction of a Europe forming a mosaic of different national situations and the product of cooperation and solidarity between and on behalf of its people.
We must congratulate Barbara Weiler on emphasising this legal basis and, in particular, the progressive characteristic of a dynamic which seems perverted because all that is mentioned is technical and nominative harmonisations, and divergencies or negative convergences are confronted on the social plane.
Obviously this debate cannot be exhausted in the discussion of a report nor should it be.
But it is already positive that we can recall that these subjects are both vital and urgent.
I only have time to make one particular remark, and I would like to draw attention to point 21 in the proposal as the subject for debate which has to remain open in terms of evolutions in employment, working time and free time.
As the results of a point in the opinion issued by the Committee on Economic Questions, by Mr Theonas, I should like to say that we really must begin to look upon the social aspect as the very kernel of all discussions as well as the organisation of men and women's free time, articulating working time and leisure time, and we should not refer to 'unemployed' time because there can be and has to be, also, living time.
Mr President, what distinguishes Europe from the United States, Japan and many other countries today is a social model which is unparalleled anywhere in the world.
What in fact is the advantage of the unemployment rate in the USA being only 6 %, if almost 40 million Americans are without any kind of social cover? Let us never forget that the European social model has been shaped by history, by suffering and by the campaigns which were waged - as soon as the industrial revolution began in the late eighteenth century - in mines, in workshops and wherever men, women and children were being exploited.
Let us never forget the often unequal battle fought by the trade unions.
And now we often hear it said, in various quarters, that this system is old-fashioned, out of date and too expensive.
That is outrageous!
Some even go so far as to hope that it will collapse.
Let us not use the building of Europe and social harmonization as an excuse to call for the dismantling of our achievements, in other words to look for a 'social lowest common denominator' .
It is undoubtedly too soon to move towards complete harmonization in the fields of social protection, pensions, family policy and health.
But it is certainly not too soon to coordinate all our efforts, and to bring about truly progressive and genuine reforms.
A social code of conduct is desirable as of now.
We do have one, but it is not being respected.
The British Government rejects both the social charter and the Maastricht social protocol, and Mr Major has taken it upon himself to undermine various directives, despite the reprimands of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
What is the point of the Fifteen building a house together, if one of the architects rejects the plan for the foundations? I fervently hope that political change will take place very soon in the United Kingdom, so as to clarify matters in a country where casualization is spreading, and where the unemployment figures have deliberately been underestimated - by the admission of none other than the Employment Minister.
Have lies become the doctrine of the British Government?
I see three major challenges in terms of modernizing and harmonizing our social security schemes.
The first, and by no means the least important, is unemployment: 20 million people are unemployed and 50 million marginalized!
Our social expenditure is set to spiral.
We need to attack this evil at its root, by devising a fully-fledged European policy to relaunch and boost the economy in order to create jobs.
The same applies to pension schemes: we are blandly told that there will not be enough young people to fund pensions by 2005; pension funds and other financial mechanisms are therefore being set up, but without any thought being given to a European family policy that would break away from the individualism which is pervading society.
The second challenge is the single currency.
Once our countries use the euro, in other words when they all have the same exchange rates and interest rates, they will be left with only two weapons for attracting investment: one fiscal and the other social.
In both cases, unless we are careful, we shall see a lowering of standards.
The third challenge is the funding of our social security schemes, which are too heavily based on income from employment.
I believe that the burden must be shared, and that a system of funding through capital taxation must be introduced.
Mr President, will it be possible in the future to maintain the diversity which exists among the social systems of the different European countries? The Commission's report on social protection in 1995 does not give a clear answer to this question.
Everyone will no doubt agree that discussion should be encouraged and experiences exchanged at European level, which could lead of its own accord to some degree of alignment of national laws.
But that is not exactly the question asked by the Commission.
It is in fact asking, in a roundabout way, whether a supposedly integrated economy should be matched in the near future by an integrated system of social security.
It would seem more logical to us for diversity to be maintained, so that each country keeps the right to govern itself in accordance with the real needs of its citizens.
However, this diversity will of course have to be accompanied by a regular exchange of ideas and experience at European level, and must also preserve freedom of movement for workers through mechanisms for the transfer of acquired social rights from one country to another.
The Commission does not seem entirely satisfied by this type of answer, however, since it is raising other arguments.
Firstly, its document states that transnational companies, which are becoming more and more numerous, will experience increasing difficulty in setting wages in different countries and in moving employees from one country to another.
This argument seems to us to reflect a vision of Europe which we cannot share.
It is not convincing, and must not lead to the systematic subordination of national freedom of management.
Secondly, the Commission expresses concern about the distortions in competition which could be caused by diversity in social security systems, since companies in countries where social protection is generous might be put at a disadvantage.
This is a valid question, but we are surprised that the Commission is raising it with regard to Europe, but does not raise it more often where it is a hundred times more glaring: with regard to international trade relations.
That is where the Commission could operate most usefully.
Mr President, Commissioner Flynn, Mr President-in-Office, the invitation to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs to approve a motion for a resolution on the two documents transmitted by the Commission - the communication on the future of social protection and the report on the state of social protection in Europe - confronted the rapporteur, Barbara Weiler, whom I congratulate on her efforts, with the task of clarifying the term 'social protection' , which is not to be understood simply as social security, in the sense of collectively arranged insurance, but also as including social protection provided by the government and schemes resulting from collective insurance arrangements as well as private ones.
There are two ideas that interest me.
First, it is necessary to clarify the role of the European Union in the field of social protection, which must be more active and provide for schemes organized in consultation with the Member States, and support the gradual convergence of social protection systems in those States, developing a set of joint minimum criteria and preventing competition from causing a steady erosion of social protection.
Secondly, and I find it difficult to go into more detail here in the two minutes available to me, some agreement will have to be reached both with the Commission and with the rapporteur on the fact that the social protection schemes will have to be adapted to the changing needs of the labour market.
It is worth recalling the tendency to reduce contributions payable by employers and employees, especially those on lower incomes and, consequently, lower wages.
The buttressing of the pension system by means of supplementary insurance is to be encouraged and diversified, with a view to achieving a further reduction in the number of victims of social exclusion and guaranteeing an appropriate living standard for all our citizens, who, whatever happens, must be able to feel protected and able to look to the future with confidence.
The national parliaments must give more debating time to social security, bearing in mind the need to encourage and sustain a high level of employment.
Where there is unemployment, clearly, there can be no social security.
Nearly 20 million unemployed people in Europe can tell us about that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the communication from the Commission on the future of social protection and its report on social protection in Europe 1995 form the basis for Mrs Weiler's resolution.
Social harmony is, in my opinion, a valuable asset.
That is something that South Korea has had to learn by bitter experience in recent weeks.
Therefore, it should not lightly be put at risk.
The fact is that we must overcome the difficulties which have emerged in Europe's various social systems as a result of rising unemployment and the growing proportion of elderly people in the population.
It is important to discuss these issues at European level.
However, discussion is not enough.
Action is needed, and reforms are inevitable.
But they should not be viewed simply in terms of reducing or axing parts of the social security net.
Efforts to improve employment opportunities in the EU, particularly for women, have not been very successful so far, to put it mildly.
Under Article 117 of the Treaty, progress should be made towards harmonizing living standards and working conditions as we move forward.
Unfortunately, we have not yet made a great deal of headway.
There are many problems to be resolved.
Some of them arise from the multiplicity of systems and the question of freedom of movement.
Earlier today, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten delivered a report on this aspect.
Unfortunately, the Council representative was not present.
Perhaps, Minister, it is not too late for you to express a view on that report.
We would be very interested in what you have to say.
Turning now to the reduction of non-wage labour costs: non-insurance benefits are a burden on labour-intensive small and medium-sized companies and, of course, on employee contributions.
This is an area where action must be taken.
Yes, working hours should be made more flexible, but not merely in order to suit employers, without regard for the needs of families and workers.
Greater flexibility should only be introduced where it takes account of the interests of both sides.
I believe that active social partnership can solve many problems.
But they will not be solved if employers concern themselves only with shareholder value and fail to see further than their profits.
Nor will they be solved if trade unions are concerned only for those in work, without giving any thought to the unemployed.
The future of social protection is a matter of great importance for the European Union.
It is time for the social protocol to be included in the Treaty.
Coordinating social protection systems at European level will not be easy.
I am talking about coordination: harmonization is something that will take much longer, because these systems have developed over more than a century.
The situation is further complicated by the impact of globalization.
In the future, appropriate clauses must be included in trade agreements to ban social dumping in the form of child labour or forced labour; these practices simply cannot be accepted as the norm.
The WTO agreement in Singapore was a small step in the right direction, but unfortunately only a small one.
The rapporteur has done an enormous amount of work.
How the Group of the European People's Party decides to vote on the report will depend on whether certain amendments are adopted.
Unfortunately, if compromise on these points proves impossible, we shall be obliged to reject the report, and I would regret that very much.
Mr President, the rather woolly wording of this resolution and in particular the Commission documents on which it is based actually masks a barely concealed desire to Europeanize the entire social security sector, which was, incidentally, exactly what the former Commission President Jacques Delors wanted.
As a Fleming, I can say as a matter of principle, and I speak with some knowledge, that this would be a very bad idea.
In my own country, the question of splitting up the social security system is currently very high on the political agenda.
What this means in practical terms is that both nations, Flemings and Walloons, are better off running their own social security schemes than leaving it to the federal government.
So what experience has taught us in my country is that Flemings and Walloons have different ideas of what social security should involve, different priorities and very different mentalities when it comes to using and funding the scheme.
Now, if we are already facing fairly dramatic problems within the common Belgian social security scheme, where there are only two nations with fairly similar levels of prosperity involved, think of the exponential increase that is likely if social security is organized on a European scale.
In short, a genuinely social system of social security would be best organized by the individual Member States and nations in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, and this is not being selfish and by no means excludes other forms of solidarity between nations.
I also have to say that the various social security schemes in Europe have managed to achieve genuine and extensive harmonization over the last few decades without interference from European bureaucracy, and we are not in a mess, despite what some people seem to think.
Finally, it must be said that the economic strait-jacket that Maastricht is tightening around us is threatening to lead to social disintegration in many countries, and this too is a lesson that we really have to take on board today.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Weiler for an excellent report.
Our great challenge is to combine growth and employment while still maintaining, or preferably improving, existing social protection systems.
The question is sometimes asked, is there really a European social model? We have, in fact, three or four different social models in Europe.
It is true that there are differences, based on historical traditions but there are also similarities, considerable similarities.
Above all, every social security system is based on solidarity, solidarity with those who are sick, with those affected by unemployment or industrial injury and also solidarity with the elderly and with families.
In addition there are a number of problems or challenges for the future, and it is this which makes the discussion so interesting.
The greatest challenge is of course unemployment which affects the cost of the system and its income.
I think that we should create a social system which aims to prevent social dumping, and which facilitates as much mobility as possible.
I do not share the view expressed by many here during the debate that we should avoid minimum standards.
I think that a strategy of introducing minimum standards and the opportunity to achieve a better social standard is a truly excellent strategy for the social sector.
I also think it is important that the decisions for this sector are adopted by a qualified majority.
History has shown the necessity of this; we have one country which is continuously obstructing and preventing social development in the other countries.
The second challenge is that of demographic development.
This can be viewed as a problem or as an opportunity.
We will have a greater proportion of elderly people in Europe but this will also introduce an opportunity to create jobs.
This point is also connected with the third challenge, that is the entry of women into the workplace; the opportunity for men and women to be able to combine work with children which also involves the development of care for the elderly and for children.
A previous speaker said that Weiler's report favours the harmonisation of finance.
This is not the case.
On the other hand, Mrs Weiler does indicate a number of possibilities for finance.
I have already mentioned the most important which is that we must reduce unemployment to reduce costs and increase employment to bring in a higher income to be able to finance the system.
But there is also a question of shorter working hours and changes in tax which I strongly support.
Many say EMU is a barrier to this work.
I do not think so.
Naturally, I do not fully support the economic policy, I think that there are too many cutbacks and not enough growth promoting measures.
But from a long term point of view a balanced budget is good for the social system as well.
Finally, Mr President: this is an important debate.
I do not want to see a social system with basic protection or standard security but a system which contains both of these and a system which as far as possible is financed through solidarity in order to minimise the need to look to the private sector for solutions.
Mr President, I believe that the high level of participation in this debate bears witness to its timeliness and importance.
It is rare that so many Members speak on an issue of concern to us: in this case the future of European social welfare systems, which have many points in common - as previous speakers have pointed out - in the sense that all the Member States have some kind of state and collective provision for social protection and income support for those citizens who need it most.
We believe that social protection in Europe is under threat: because there is a trend towards privatizing certain aspects of these social welfare systems; because there is growing unemployment and job insecurity, and a rapid increase in the number of single-parent families in which the head of the household is a woman; and because of the drive for competitiveness, the relocation of firms and the continuous movement of capital for speculative rather than productive purposes.
That is the harsh reality, therefore; and it is a harsh reality which the European Union has to face.
We therefore share the concern expressed by the rapporteur and draftsman at the fact that economic and market considerations are being put before social considerations.
We believe that this situation must be reversed, and that social cohesion has to be our prime concern.
So we believe that there is a need for active policies on employment - a high level of employment is essential for us to meet the social security bill; for a guaranteed minimum income for those persons that require it; for the role of the State in social security provision to be maintained; for the creation of a European observatory to determine whether poverty and social exclusion are increasing or declining; and for the Member States to cooperate amongst themselves and with the non-governmental organizations working in this field.
Mr President, the two communications from the Commission and Mrs Weiler's report prompt me to offer my thoughts on two fundamental facts which I believe must be central to our deliberations. The first is demographic change, partly the result of social achievements and their success; the second is the changes in the structure and forms of employment, partly as a result of the application of the IT revolution to manufacturing and the processes of globalization.
It is from these two basic facts, I believe, that the crisis in the welfare state has arisen, bringing with it the need for us to intervene across the board in this area.
The crisis in the welfare state is not just a crisis of public funding - rather, I believe, the key lies in the other aspect of the welfare state, which was the high level of employment. Unemployment, therefore, has been the main reason for the crisis.
Development, of course, is one answer but it is not the only answer: it is necessary but it is not enough, precisely because in the present circumstances it does not automatically guarantee a return to fuller employment.
This, then, is an area in which government must intervene, both nationally and at European level.
The first task we face, as I see it, is to tackle these new problems realistically and not to be afraid of our own ideas.
I am thinking about the caution which I have noted in this House, and in the European Union, regarding such matters as reduced working hours and policies on working time. Yet these could be a valuable way of transforming restrictions and rigidity into greater freedom and greater opportunities for personal choice.
We need, then, to add new words to our vocabulary, words that could be conjugated so as to make them serve the needs of a plan for positive social change: as I said previously, reduced working hours, time policy, flexibility.
It is important to realize that flexibility is not painless or free of charge and that public funding -properly and scrupulously audited and designed to encourage productive retraining of human resources - will continue to be essential.
So, while our points of reference will continue to be social justice, equality and democracy, we need to redefine welfare to make it easier for men and women to move from one profession to another, from one job to another, from one place to another, from one age to another.
And this is where Europe comes in, with a part to play which does not usurp the functions of the Member States but is nevertheless fundamental.
Well, then, I believe that the notion that budgetary discipline and monetary stability are sufficient to survive in the world of economics is a senseless one.
The single currency and the Stability Pact, in the form of straitjackets and without a similar pact for development, will not motivate Europe; without a pact for development and without a social Europe, Europe cannot stand on its feet.
So among those matters that call for greater commitment I would mention, specifically, rethinking the concept of Europe to strengthen - and certainly renew - its social model, its elements of social cohesion, protection and development of individuals and of human resources, which will be able to set their mark on a new, positive European identity.
Mr President, it seems to be becoming politically fashionable now to say that we cannot afford to maintain the European model of social protection.
Barbara Weiler says quite clearly and, in my opinion, quite correctly, that we cannot afford not to maintain that system and that we should not even want to.
It would be morally wrong to remove or reduce the support that we offer to people when, for whatever reason, they are in need, be it as a result of age, disability, health or unemployment.
The only way that we can act efficiently, effectively and humanely is to provide that support from the public purse and through public institutions.
Hiving it off to the private sector will be less effective in terms of meeting people's needs and also inefficient in purely financial terms - it is more costly.
Apart from being morally wrong to abandon the social protection model that we have in Europe, it would be a huge mistake in practical terms.
Social solidarity is not just about altruism: it is about ensuring that our society can function properly and move forward progressively.
As the rapporteur says: ' social protection systems help to establish social consensus which is an important precondition for sustainable economic development' .
I strongly endorse the call in the Weiler report for the European Union not just to debate this issue but to act to ensure that Member States respect the commitment to a high level of social protection, and to assist in the convergence of social protection systems to prevent harmful competition in the single market from eroding social protection systems.
We should look at making our systems more employment-friendly and seek to eliminate barriers to moving from benefits to work.
The most important point in the Weiler report - and this focuses on the real problem, the real reason why our social security bills are so high - is that we are faced with such a high proportion of unemployed men and women, so the real challenge to all of us here in the European Union is to create a Europe of full employment.
The rapporteur clearly knows this and knows that you do not punish the victims of society's failures just because benefit bills are going up; you tackle the real problem, which is to get people back to work.
Mr President, I should like to say at the outset that I fully endorse the excellent report by my colleague Barbara Weiler, and the Commission's report.
I shall be voting in favour of both.
Since my time is short, I shall confine myself to just one very specific point of detail, but one which I believe is of the utmost importance.
Paragraph 11 of Mrs Weiler's report states that: ' the European Parliament warns against privatization of social risks, particularly in the field of health care' .
I would draw your attention, Commissioner, to the fact that our social protection as a whole will be at great risk unless we guard against a trend, in a growing number of countries, towards a reduction in health cover, on the pretext of making savings, improving management or giving beneficiaries more responsibility - all of which are valid arguments - and towards a transfer of risk from compulsory schemes to top-up schemes.
On this basis, topup schemes may gain more and more ground, to the extent that, as is the case in certain fields - eye care and dentistry - and in some countries, they will become a condition for primary care, since the residual burden can be so substantial.
Indeed, unlike compulsory schemes, voluntary top-up schemes are not subject to any rules; it is the law of the market-place, of business geared to profit, which is applied to them.
The danger is that welfare institutions based on solidarity, inclusion and mutual benefit will lose out to commercial firms attracted only by a growing market, whose approach would be risk selection, exclusion and individualization.
You will remember, Commissioner, the unfortunate experience of the Blue Cross foundations in the United States, which were so full of life 50 years ago, but which are now dead and buried.
There we have the key to what has become of the American health care system.
I urge you as of now, Commissioner - and I have appealed to the authorities responsible for social affairs in the Commission to follow this approach - to subject the entire health insurance sector to rules which ensure solidarity, inclusion and non-selection of risk, and to make it impossible for providers to profit from illness.
Conflict between insured persons and shareholders must be avoided.
Health, a sector that concerns us all, cannot be regarded as a profitable market-place.
That applies equally to top-up schemes.
I would urge the Commission to take up this matter, and to generate a debate on compulsory and supplementary health schemes as they affect the population as a whole.
Mr President, I have listened to the debate with great interest, and I think it has shown that there is now greater support for more detailed discussions on the whole issue of social protection in the Member States and coordination at European level.
I have just one brief comment to make on what Members had to say.
It strikes me that in this discussion on support for social protection, it has been suggested that there are conflicts of interest where none should really exist.
It is an accepted fact, I would point out to Mr van Velzen, that it is in everyone's interests to achieve a higher level of social cohesion, but this need not be incompatible with the existence - both now and in the future - of a wide variety of schemes.
It is not scheme diversity but a communality of purpose that should guide our policy-making over the next few years.
The suggested opposition between economic independence and support for the special situations of families need not exist if men and women have greater freedom of choice both on the labour market and in bearing responsibility for the family; any suggestion of a conflict of interests here will simply lead to unnecessary polarization.
Thirdly, the suggested opposition between individual and mutual social security and pension schemes also does not necessarily exist.
It is true, as Mr Rocard pointed out, that where there is no statutory obligation to provide cover, the advent of individual insurers on the social security and pensions market could bring risks that ultimately undermine the very foundations of social security.
But combinations of public and private schemes are possible and are being tested in the Member States, including in my own country.
It is worth developing these possibilities further, provided that a number of statutory conditions are applied.
I would warn against attempts to contrast what people refer to as atypical forms of work and the usual forms such as full-time work, in terms of the basis for the functioning of the labour market.
Is it not the case that even the expression 'atypical forms of work' is increasingly at odds with what is actually becoming the norm on the labour market, and will have to become the norm if work is to be divided more fairly between men and women? Today's atypical forms of work may become tomorrow's typical forms.
This is something else for the Commission to consider when it looks further at this whole issue.
In conclusion, on the subject of a European social model, I would point out that we are not yet in a position to define the broad outlines of this, but we know we must work on it if we are to be able to establish, in five or ten years' time, a system which is truly balanced: balanced between the rights and obligations of employers and workers, between flexibility and security, with institutionalized confidence in and between the social partners that will symbolize a European system which the Member States will also use as a basis for the inevitable process of convergence between employment and labour market policy.
Mrs Weiler's report has been a most important contribution to this whole discussion, and it is also extremely important - if I may make so bold - that the House should approve it tomorrow, since it is vital to bridge these alleged conflicts of interest with sound arguments, and to send a political signal to both the Council and the Commission.
It will also be doing justice to the visionary work of Jacques Delors in his White Paper a few years ago, which showed us exactly how greater cohesion and reliance on partnership should form the basis for the Europe of tomorrow.
Thank you very much.
I must inform you that for technical reasons it was not possible to translate, print and distribute all of the amendments to this report in all languages.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Price indication
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0015/97) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position of the Council (C4-0530/96-95/0148(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on consumer protection in the indication of the prices of products offered to consumers (rapporteur: Mrs Oomen-Ruijten).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a directive on the indication of the prices of products offered to consumers has a very lengthy history.
For years now, since as early as 1979, attempts have been made in various directives to introduce rules for indicating the prices of products, but the rules were complicated and did not seem to work.
The system included compulsory and voluntary pricing at European and national levels from which exemptions could also be granted, again at European and national levels.
The result was a jumble of different indications, and consumers were still not able to compare prices with one another, which was actually the aim of the whole exercise.
When in December 1994, barely six months before the transitional period expired, the Commission asked for the system to be extended, Parliament could not agree, and we asked the Commission to come up with an entirely new proposal for a simple, clear system that would apply in principle to all products, a system that would make it easier for consumers to compare prices when choosing which product to buy.
The new proposal which the Commission put forward in April 1995 followed Parliament's recommendations, which we were pleased to see.
It makes it compulsory to indicate the purchase price and, where relevant, the price per unit quantity.
I say where relevant, because exceptions are made to this requirement where the nature or purpose of the product makes the unit price meaningless, or where indicating it does not provide any clear information for the consumer.
Another point which I would like to clarify is the issue of wine, whisky and so on.
The report includes a very clear amendment in the definitions which states that with units of measurement customarily used in the Member States for certain products, such as wine in 0.75 litre bottles, the price per litre need not also be indicated.
This has meant deleting some provisions from the Council text because they were superfluous or likely to be confusing.
There are also a number of sectors which are entirely exempt from the requirement to indicate unit prices, and here I would prefer to go further than the Council and exclude from the directive goods sold in hotel and catering establishments, in hospitals, by itinerant traders, in vending machines, recreational establishments, canteens and so on.
A great deal of nonsense has been talked about price indication.
People have said that the report does not take account of small retailers, a claim which I absolutely reject.
We do take account of the corner shops of this world, which - I would point out to my British colleagues in particular - are to be given a six-year conversion period.
And unless they already do so, they do not have to indicate prices on the shelves as is customary in large retailers, they simply have to obtain a list from their suppliers to be displayed somewhere in the shop, so that customers can see what the prices are.
So I am not discriminating against small retailers by any means.
The next problem, particularly for the UK, is what constitutes a small retailer?
We have tabled an amendment here giving the Member States the chance to determine who is 'small' and who is 'large' , and what exceptions need to be made.
I would urge Members to look very closely at Amendments Nos 23 and 24 which, far from making life more difficult for small retailers, actually make it easier for them.
There was also some concern about the euro.
A number of colleagues have said that introducing compulsory price indication will immediately mean having to show the unit price, the selling price, plus two extra prices during the transitional period.
And, if there is a special offer, another two prices again.
I have taken up a proposal from the Economic and Social Committee here by saying that there should be a maximum of three prices, including for large retailers.
I would also ask Members to read the report again, and you will see that the euro will be in circulation long before the completion of this transitional period.
The transitional period will last for six years, plus another two years for the directive to be transposed into national law, which makes eight altogether and brings us to the year 2005, by which time the euro will, I hope, have long been in circulation.
Whatever problems there may be, there are answers to all of them, as people will see for themselves if they only read the directive.
In our report, I and the other members of the committee followed the lead given by the Economic and Social Committee, which delivered a unanimous recommendation.
Parliament has taken this as the basis for the position it has adopted in its amendments, and I have added flexibility where necessary and where possible.
I hope that you will support these amendments.
Mr President, once again it is my pleasure to compliment Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on her emphatic pursuit of these consumer interests and the care she has taken over the amendments which we are presenting here at second reading.
I want to say at the outset, on behalf of my group, that we are supporting all the amendments that were tabled in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We will also support, on reflection, Amendment No 24 in the name of Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and her group.
I want to say why we feel this confidence at this stage.
It is not because we have no misgiving about this proposed legislation, or indeed about the burden that it may in time place upon people, some of whom will be vulnerable.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has referred already to the position of small shopkeepers in the United Kingdom and I shall come back to that.
But the bedrock principle of this proposal as amended, which I hope it will be by Parliament, will be to give consumers the power to compare prices quickly and easily, not to be misled by packaging and to assess the kind of value for money that they are receiving.
It is absolutely imperative that they get that.
The directive can deliver it and I hope will do so.
But it has to be able to deliver mindful of the concerns and worries that have been expressed, not just in my country, but in other Member States as well.
One of these concerns has been the definition of what a unit price is and how it can indicate not merely the kilogramme, the litre, the metre or whatever, but also that unit of quantity which is widely used in the Member States concerned.
I am glad to say that I believe that the British loaf, and other items cherished in my country, can be appropriately indicated in terms of price notification.
Parliament has also said that certain products should be excluded where it would be nonsense insisting on unit pricing, such as furniture and so on.
We have an amendment here which also protects, I am very glad to say, those who are selling products where the total price is not the unit price.
This is what the consumer needs to know, particularly for home sellers and those who are going door-to-door with products, e.g. cosmetics salespeople and so on.
My last point is about the position of small shops with regard to implementation.
It is right that we provide here for a six-year delay in implementation, that we have a thorough review before that deadline approaches and that all the Member States enlist the relevant professional organizations to ensure that small retailers are adequately informed in due time of what the provisions must be, particularly in relation to the marking on the shelf of the products concerned.
There is a potential for trouble here but there also is a potential for much good for the consumer.
Mr President, I was very interested to hear what Mr Whitehead said about supporting the amendments from the rapporteur, and we shall certainly not let him forget that.
This is a very difficult directive for the European Parliament to consider.
It certainly looks as though it is a good thing.
Ostensibly the idea of giving consumers more information ought to be a good idea, but I contend that this has been ill thought out by the European Commission and is in fact likely, as Mr Whitehead said when he raised these misgivings, to mean that consumers have, in the end, possibly fewer outlets from which to purchase goods, as small shops may close down as a result of this very directive being put into operation.
I would like to draw attention to some of the amendments which I have difficulties with.
My difficulties are shared by the other British Members.
Amendment No 5 is a very curious amendment indeed.
The amendment means that the Member States will be unable to exempt sales of works of art and antiques from the unit pricing obligation.
I cannot see how you would apply unit pricing to antiques.
With the best will in the world, what does this mean? Does it mean that if you are selling Chippendale chairs they are quoted as price per leg, for example?
Amendment No 7 is a crucial one where the report seeks to delete the exemption for small firms.
I have noted what the rapporteur has said on this about the transitional period of six years, but I think that would simply be a period of six years when some small shopkeepers would decide simply to throw in the towel and go and work for Honda - in my constituency - because it would not be worthwhile continuing to try to struggle with the extra weight of regulation which this directive means.
I note what the rapporteur says about Amendments Nos 23 and 24 regarding the possibility of putting up a list of products and unit prices.
I do not think that would work, given that some even quite small shops sell a very large number of things.
Amendment No 10 deals with the question of the one-year period by which time the Commission shall review the directive.
It seems to be quite extraordinary to say that the Commission shall review this directive one year before it comes into operation.
What happens if the Commission then finds that there is indeed a burden of cost on small shops? It has commissioned a survey on this already.
What happens then? It seems to me that the Commission's text is far better than the one being proposed in the report.
I agree that Amendment No 13 contains good and sensible exemptions, but Amendment No 18 is also useful in the sense that it draws attention to my problem with the Chippendale chairs.
If it is useless and indeed meaningless to apply unit pricing to certain areas of goods, then why not allow the Commission the original text covered by Recital 7?
To sum up, I am afraid that this directive is not one with which I have sympathy.
I am always in favour of giving consumers more information, but I am afraid, as I say, that the likelihood is that the extra burden of regulation which it will entail will simply mean that small shops close down and consumers' interests are hurt.
Mr President, this directive - and the rapporteur, whom I thank for all the work she has done - have set themselves two ambitious objectives.
The first is to protect the consumer, and the second is to simplify the administration of the regulations.
Protection of the consumer does not at present include the provision of clear price information, especially regarding any indication of the sale price per unit of quantity for products marketed in pre-packaged form, whose prices the consumer is unable to compare with the prices of similar products.
The second major objective, on which I would like to dwell for a moment, is the simplification of the existing regulations.
As far as simplification is concerned, this falls within the scope of the principle of subsidiarity, for which reason it will be a matter for the individual States to say what they understand by a 'small shopkeeper' .
We can imagine two possible systems: one based on the type of service, in other words self-service or traditional, and one based on floor area.
Obviously, however, a store with 100 square metres of floor space is not the same thing in Greece as it is in Germany, and so it is right that it should be up to the individual Member States to determine what they will understand by 'small shopkeepers' .
There is one final aspect which I would emphasize with a degree of concern - the need to help small catering and entertainment concerns, so that they are not forced to bear overheads which would eventually have an impact on the final price of the products.
The Commission has recently, and rightly, invited tenders for a product coding and reading system.
We hope that this reading system will be as close to the market as possible, precisely in order to prevent some form of technological intervention from creating irregularities and disparities between small and large outlets, and to enable the entire retail trading system to respond to the requirements of a changing market.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work on this directive.
I think it important to stress that we must endeavour to unite two opposite views.
One of these is the perspective of consumers, and the other is the perspective of companies.
Some of the speakers from the different groups have already referred to this problem.
We in the Liberal Group are very conscious that consumers must be able to use the internal market and to compare prices.
We therefore agree with the directive and also support the Committee's amendments.
Regarding Amendment No 24, our group is in favour of this.
Having said that, I would like to draw the Commission's attention to two questions.
The first is that there are some situations which are not mentioned in the directive, but which I regard as important.
The second is that there is more than the perspective of the consumer; there is also, for example, the perspective of crime prevention.
I am thinking of the example of shops that sell gold and silver items for whom it may be particularly difficult to show prices in the window because it might encourage some people to smash the glass and steal the diamonds, gold items and precious stones on display.
If prices are shown, it is obvious that thieves will only take the most expensive items.
This is an important area and I would like to hear the Commission's views on how we can attempt to solve this problem.
The other is the question of how the prices are shown, i.e. the question of price marking or price indication .
Price marking is a technologically poor solution if each individual item is to be marked, whereas price indication can be displayed on the edge of a shelf or in some other position.
It is important that we strive for a system which does not work against technological development in the retail trade.
All of us here in this hall have been through Brussels Airport where they have a very smart, informative system for giving prices in a display.
We must ensure that this directive facilitates technological development in the retail trade, both for large and for small enterprises.
Mr President, Parliament adopted a number of amendments at first reading, some of which the Commission has incorporated in its amended proposal.
There are just a few amendments left to which it still objects, for one reason or another.
We know what a tremendously sensitive subject this is for shopkeepers, who are all going to have to put these requirements into practice in their shops.
We feel that the rapporteur has made a number of useful and practical proposals for price indication, and I think that Amendment No 15, which states that there should be a maximum of three prices shown on the product after the introduction of the euro, is particularly practical.
Consumers must not be confused by having too many prices on or by the product, and I cannot understand why the Commission has not accepted this amendment.
Perhaps it could give us an explanation.
I also think a clear distinction must be made between foodstuffs and non-foodstuffs.
I myself would not find it so terrible if the directive only applied to foodstuffs, since the unit price is always the most useful for consumers doing their daily shopping, whereas with non-foodstuffs there are all kinds of quality factors involved which make comparisons more difficult.
I fear that the Commission system is simply going to create a great deal of administrative fuss, and I cannot see how this will benefit the consumer.
The procedure proposed by the Commission in the new Article 6, requiring the Member States to produce lists based on the common nomenclature, seems particularly long-winded.
We are talking about thousands of products here.
Fortunately, Article 7 offers scope for this requirement to be waived for a number of products.
In trying to protect the consumer, we could end up going to the other extreme and creating more problems than we solve.
For the rest, I am happy to support this report.
Mr President, I too would like to compliment Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on her report.
It is an excellent report and I support the call on Commissioner Bonino to initiate an information campaign dealing specifically with the difficulties of the introduction of the euro into the consumer's pocket in the year 2002.
It is very important that consumers are aware well in advance of the actual physical changeover of currency of the real worth of the euro compared with the punt.
One of the issues which should be raised in this consumer campaign must relate, as has already been mentioned by the rapporteur, to the introduction of dual pricing in our shops and supermarkets in euros and in punts.
This is a recommendation which I have supported as a member of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection Committee.
The time frame for economic and monetary union has been set out and, as we all know, those countries who will be the first to join the EMU will be selected in 1998 on the basis of the 1997 economic statistics.
I am pleased to say that Ireland is well to the front in that regard.
That was initiated, of course, almost ten years ago by former Commissioner Ray McSharry as Irish Minister for Finance.
Incidentally he was aided by the present Commissioner Padraig Flynn who was a member of the cabinet in Ireland at that time.
This has, of course, put Ireland in the solid economic position which it is in today to meet the convergence criteria of EMU.
The central banks of these countries will then converge under the auspices of the European Central Bank in 1999.
In the year 2002 the euro coins and notes will become a reality and we hope be jingling in plenty in the pockets of the citizens of Europe.
However, we must not make the same mistakes that surrounded the introduction of decimalisation in Ireland in 1972.
Many people, especially old people, were confused as to the worth of the new Irish coins and notes at that time and were taken in by unscrupulous dealers.
We must learn from our mistakes in regard to decimalisation and ensure that they are not repeated when the single European currency is introduced.
I am confident that the Irish and European consumer organisations will support this proposal and that EMU will become a reality in the near future despite the apprehensions of certain members of the Union.
We must all face up to this fact and facilitate this process as much as possible.
Mr President, there are a few points I feel I have to make to the Commission and also to other Members.
First of all, I think it would be advisable for those who tabled Amendment No 24 to withdraw it in favour of Mr Garosci's amendment, Amendment No 23, which spells out for the second time the exception which applies to small retailers.
Secondly, I would point out that there is a mistake in Amendment No 15 on the euro, which states that three prices shall be indicated, whereas the recital says that they may be indicated.
The wording of Amendment No 15 should be altered to read may instead of shall.
Thirdly, there is the question of whether or not the unit price should be indicated for non-foodstuffs.
I agree with those speakers who commented on this, and I would draw their attention to Amendment No 18, which states that the unit price need not be indicated where it is meaningless to compare a number of products with each other, such as at an auction or for items such as nails, and so on.
Finally, I would urge Mrs Jackson to look again at the entire directive and its consequences.
She has picked up a number of points from the recitals which are actually already covered in the articles.
If she does this before 12.30 p.m. I think she will feel happy about voting with the rest of her group.
Mr President, I have a question for Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I did not quite understand whether Amendment No 24 had been withdrawn. Is it therefore Amendment No 23 we are to vote on?
What is meant by the words - and I will quote them in English because I have the English edition: Member States shall specify which small retail businesses shall be permitted to defer application of this Directive? What are the criteria we are to choose?
Is it each individual Member State which must determine these criteria? I think Mr Garosci was quite right to point out that 1000 m² in Greece is very different from 1000 m² in Germany.
How do we ensure fair competition, and how do we ensure observance of the principle of proximity at the same time? I would very much like to have an answer to this.
I would prefer to leave it up to the Member States to decide on the exceptions to the rule.
The example you gave was a good one, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen.
The situation in a town with many small shops in Greece is entirely different from the situation in the Netherlands, for example.
I want the Member States to be able to decide for themselves what they classify as small and what they classify as large.
If I could just add one more comment, I had some very detailed discussions with the officials from the Commission on Amendment No 9, the fifteenth recital, and the article on the euro.
The aim of the Committee on the Environment is that when the euro is introduced we should not then have a system where two, four or even six prices are indicated, but only a maximum of three.
The Commission sent me a document suggesting how we could be more flexible about the three prices, and it is now proposing to do nothing at all, which means that we will have the six prices.
But this is not what I want. I would urge you to have another look at this with your legal experts.
I have looked at it very closely, and we actually share the same opinion on the matter, but the effect of not adopting this amendment is not what either of us would want.
Then there is Amendment No 25.
I myself was not in favour of supporting this.
Amendments Nos 23 and 24 make it easier for small retailers to apply the system, and I would urge you to consider them.
I have no great difficulty in principle with what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten says.
What we are saying is that we would like to see it in a broader context and a little later on, dealing with the 'ins' and the 'pre-ins' and the whole question of the general framework of the process.
That is the only difficulty we have and we would ask you to consider that it might be better if we dealt with it a little later on.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended for five minutes until voting time)
Votes
Madam President, I should just like to make something clear to honourable Members to prevent this vote becoming a repetition of the misunderstanding which happened with the previous one.
We are voting today on three - and only three - amendments which have been the subject of a negotiated compromise between the rapporteur and the Commission.
Some Members may still have the ten amendments preceding these latest ones, which have already been voted on and adopted during the previous vote.
I would therefore ask you, Madam President, only to put the last three amendments to the vote, all together, partly because they have already been approved by a large majority in the Committee on Agriculture.
That is what I was proposing to do.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, the amendment regarding Recital F is quite simple: it is simply concerned with updating certain data on unemployment in order that the most recent data available can be inserted.
In Recital F, on page 4, last line, after 'rate of unemployment' we read: ' which is 21.3 % in the south, compared with 7.1 % in the north and 10.2 % in central Italy, the national average being 12.2 % (ISTAT figures - December 1996) and the community average 10.8 % (EUROSTAT figures - September 1996)' .
So as you present it, this is both simple and complicated.
This simply means updating the rates of unemployment, but since there are seven or eight such rates, this might seem rather complicated.
There are a number of problems in the translations, and I would therefore ask that we should work from the original document and have the translations checked again, particularly the German version.
If I understand you correctly, you are objecting to the oral amendment.
I am referring to the written document.
We should use the original document for the vote, because the translations are not entirely accurate in every case, especially in the German version.
The meaning is quite clear in the original, but not in the German text.
So in short, if the House - which I am about to consult - has no objection to voting on this oral amendment, you wish the figures to be checked to ensure that everything is in line with the original version.
Madam President, I do think it is probably incumbent upon this House to produce up-to-date reports but I would also insist that the statistics are checked not only by national or regional indicators, but with Eurostat, to make sure that we have the latest, up-to-date figures and not figures which some Members may wish to insert to make their case look worse in terms of their structural funds.
Mrs McCarthy, I can assure you straight away that it is the Eurostat figures which are referred to in this oral amendment.
(Parliament agreed to the tabling of the oral amendment) - On paragraph 4
Madam President, I asked for the floor merely to point out that paragraph 4, in the last few lines, provided for the verification of certain data which could be done on 31 December 1996.
This has been done, and so the proposal is to delete everything which, in the English text, comes after 'to the weak regions of Italy might be lost' .
So the last sentence of paragraph 4 lapses.
So, Mr Podestà, you are proposing to delete the final part of paragraph 4, following the phrase you quoted from the Italian text.
I put that to the House.
(Parliament agreed to the tabling of the oral amendment) - On Amendment No 7
Madam President, I had asked Mr Dell'Alba, as the signatory, to withdraw this amendment, except for the last phrase, reading: ' therefore calls upon the government to consider the matter more carefully' .
This last phrase should be added to the original text.
In other words, you would like the ARE Group to propose an oral amendment to its own amendment.
I would therefore ask for the opinion of Mr Dell'Alba.
Madam President, bearing in mind what the rapporteur has said, I would ask you to put the first part to the vote, as the rapporteur is clearly opposed to it, and then to put the remaining phrase to the vote.
Madam President, my group does not have a copy of this amendment, nor does it exist in the actual amendments which have been tabled.
Therefore, I feel we cannot vote on it.
I really do think that all this is becoming very confused.
There are two solutions.
Either Mr Dell'Alba agrees to an oral amendment, in other words to his amendment being limited to the final phrase, as Mr Podestà has proposed, and I would then see if the House accepts that oral amendment; or he maintains his amendment as it stands, and I put it to the vote.
What is your view, Mr Dell'Alba?
I can accept the oral amendment.
Madam President, I would simply like to make it clear that the whole original text is unaltered, apart from the addition of the phrase read out a few moments ago.
The phrase in question therefore reads: ' invites the government to give further attention to this matter' .
Madam President, I should like you to give us the sense of the amendment again, because we are voting on a text and we must know what we are approving.
Would you be kind enough to say again to what paragraph and to the end of what amendment this phrase is to be added.
It seems to me that the situation really is very confused.
I shall therefore put the amendment to the vote in the form in which it was tabled by the ARE Group, and as it now stands.
I think that will be much simpler, since otherwise we shall produce something very confused.
Madam President, we are going to object to that.
In fact, the amendment has not been tabled and has not been circulated.
Obviously it was not tabled within the deadline and I have yet to receive a very clear explanation.
Therefore, on that basis we do not wish it to be moved and will vote against it.
The amendment was tabled, Mrs McCarthy.
I have Amendment No 7 by the Group of the European Radical Alliance which was tabled in the proper way.
Mr Podestà asked the group to withdraw it.
That has not been done, but the amendment was indeed tabled.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I would point out that this is another instance where the translations need to be checked.
Some parts of the German version read quite differently.
It is therefore important to look again at the original text, including that of the amendment on assistance with the costs of training the monitoring committees.
This is a particularly important amendment which is needed in the report, and I would therefore ask that it should be checked again and that the House should support it.
Thank you for pointing that out, Mrs Schroedter.
Clearly, if there were to be a mistranslation of such an important amendment, or indeed of any amendment, it would be a very serious matter, and we shall check that very carefully.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, amongst other problems, Mrs OomenRuijten's report raises that of frontier workers, whose situation, I can assure you - as a Member for northern France, a frontier region - has been deteriorating in recent years.
The more progress is made in European integration and - in theory - the less important borders become, the more national, not to say nationalist, reactions are complicating and adversely affecting the lives of frontier workers.
This is an intolerable situation!
The Commission really must take this matter up with the Member States, and the European Union must bring forward rules which are in keeping with our principles and our Treaties.
It is, after all, somewhat remarkable that in many cases frontier workers, who might be called the first Europeans, should now regard the building of Europe as a setback in respect of their own circumstances.
From this point of view, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report goes in the right direction, and I compliment her on it, but there is still a great deal of work to be done.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the European Parliament's report on the Commission's proposal to extend by three months the period in which an unemployed person moving to an EU country other than his homeland is entitled to receive unemployment benefit.
The Danish Social Democrats have a positive attitude to an extension of the existing three-month period in which an unemployed person is entitled to seek employment in another Member State.
There are, however, certain points in the proposal on which we would like further clarification, to ensure that an unemployed person's situation is not made worse on expiry of the three-month period.
These have to do with the administration and control of an unemployed person's benefit, and with the question whether, according to the proposal, it is the Member State in which an unemployed person is seeking work that is required to take responsibility for that unemployed person.
Recommendation for second reading by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten (A4-0015/97)
The two main subjects of this recommendation for second reading are: firstly, the protection of consumers by ensuring that adequate information is provided on product prices; and, secondly, the simplification of prices through indication of both the selling price and the unit price.
This is the most appropriate - and simplest - way of informing consumers, since it enables them to compare the prices of the products they wish to buy.
Indication of the unit price will be helpful to consumers, because it will enable them to choose between products sold in different quantities.
This new system, which will replace the old system of giving only the package price, without referring to the unit price, will provide consumers with more information and increase their ability to compare and choose.
I shall therefore be voting in favour of the recommendation.
We have chosen to support the report, although we do not think that the EU has anything to say on this issue. We believe that consumer protection through price labelling on products for sale is best handled at national level.
We have chosen however to support what we consider is best for the consumer, hence our support for this report.
We cannot support the amendment proposals concerning the single currency because we do not support the principle of a common currency, nor do we believe that this will ever come into being.
As for consumers, we think it will be very hard for them to make sense of all the different prices which will be displayed.
Santini report (A4-0337/96)
Madam President, I hope that Mr Santini's report will bring this banana saga to an end.
I would briefly remind the House that we import just over 800 000 tonnes of bananas from Guadeloupe, Martinique, Madeira and so on, and from what might be described as former European possessions in Africa and elsewhere, with two million tonnes coming to us from Central America.
In seeking to protect its company, Chiquita, the United States - for some inexplicable reason, since it does not produce any bananas itself - decided that two million tonnes, with a customs duty of only ECU 75 per tonne rather than ECU 825 per tonne, was not enough.
It obtained 2 200 000 tonnes, then 2 300 000, and is now asking for 2 500 000.
Our German colleagues, or more precisely Germany, has always been very supportive of Chiquita's position, probably because all the German political parties were receiving backhanders from this multinational company.
That is an open secret.
At last, thanks to Mr Santini, we have arrived not at a half-way position, but at a moderate one.
To my mind, this issue is very symptomatic: it shows how the building of Europe is completely dependent on the wishes of the United States.
An increase in the customs quota would definitely benefit Swedish consumers.
We would like to see a more open market for bananas on the world market.
Our goal is that Swedish consumers be given a choice when buying bananas.
They should be offered best quality bananas at the lowest possible price.
Naturally, we would like consumers to be able, if they so wish, to buy bananas which have been produced by the best methods from an ecological and social point of view.
There are very good grounds for opposing the EU's current joint organisation of the banana market.
We are against the EU's current trade policy concerning the import of bananas.
The current policy is bureaucratic, it is unfair to many countries, particularly in Latin America and leads to higher consumer prices.
We cannot therefore vote for a proposal which does not reform the current system.
We support those proposals which favour the import of fair trade bananas which have been grown under approved ecological and social conditions.
We consider the compromise proposal (No 16) to be much too weak to support the import of fair trade bananas.
For this reason we have chosen to abstain from voting on the Santini report.
We, as consumers, should be able to buy whatever bananas we like and we cannot accept a quota system or any other type of restriction on the type of bananas which should be given priority.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations was opposed to the adoption of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, but supported the final resolution contained in Mr Santini's report.
Our group takes the view that this resolution preserves the main structure of the trading preferences granted to the banana-producing ACP countries, whereas the Agriculture Committee's amendments contain provisions which conflict with the interests of those countries.
Given the unchecked globalization of trade flows, this text has the virtue of preserving one vital and effective aspect of our cooperation policy: tariff quotas.
The fact is that for several years now, a campaign has been under way to outflank our traditional partners, for the benefit of the multinationals.
This is not a question of pitting certain economic interests against others, but of defending a tried and tested form of development cooperation.
It is also a question of protecting those producers who have opted to apply much higher social standards than many others.
I am pleased that the efforts of certain model producers have been highlighted in Mr Santini's report.
Our group is opposed in principle to the possibility of transferring ACP quotas to other producers, especially since the definition of 'exceptional circumstances' jeopardizing Europe's supply of bananas from the ACP countries does not strike us as a sound basis for a lasting relationship of cooperation.
On the contrary, this constitutes a major break with a preference system which was established for the benefit of some of the poorest economies in the world.
If it is to operate effectively, this system must be based on reliability and trust, and not on constant doubt.
Matikainen-Kallström report (A4-0041/97)
The thinking behind this Energy Charter protocol is positive and the proposal contains many good suggestions and views which we support.
Regrettably, most of the positive points in the report are lost, because environmental regulations have not been included in the report, but are only to be found in an attached protocol.
In addition these regulations are not legally binding, which means that they will not be a force to help change the energy system to an ecologically sustainable system.
Unfortunately, it is our experience that non binding environmental regulations are rarely implemented.
There are a large number of examples from within the EU of countries which have not even complied with the binding environmental decisions which have been adopted.
This is not a good basis and we would have liked to have seen an energy regulation agreement which included binding environmental regulations.
Podestà report (A4-0405/96)
Madam President, I wish to make this explanation of vote on Mr Podestà's report mainly to thank him and congratulate him on his work in producing this important summary on behalf of the European Parliament on the problem of the administration of the Structural Funds in Italy, but also because I feel that something must be said about the annoyance that we, as elected Members of the European Parliament, cannot help feeling about the way in which the Structural Funds are administered in our country.
As we know, an important meeting took place on 22 January between Mr Ciampi and the Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, at which it emerged that Italy's total backlog at the end of 1996 exceeded one and a half billion ECU, equally distributed among the various Funds.
Well, in a situation of budgetary rigour, in a situation where Italy and its government are asking the Italian people to make sacrifices to secure entry into Europe, the fact that one of the founding States of the Community is in serious structural difficulties, not to say incapable of administering these funds correctly -so that we are constantly having to ask for delays and extensions, and then the national authorities are forced to step in to remedy the shortcomings of the regions - is absolutely intolerable.
I would have hoped that the European Parliament would be more critical, providing more of a spur to the Italian government, not by way of intervening in its internal affairs but simply in the interests of the proper functioning of the institutions.
In particular, we believe that the Control Centre is no longer an appropriate instrument, and that what is needed is a body with greater authority and greater powers.
This is the only way in which we can make up the backlog and achieve the objective of administering the Funds with greater awareness and consistency between expenditure and commitments entered into.
In this hope, my group has voted for the resolution, motivated by the desire to spur the Italian government to greater efficiency in its administration of the Structural Funds.
Without wishing to question the objectivity of the rapporteur, I consider it dangerous, in principle, that Parliament's rapporteur is from the same country whose support is being evaluated.
For reasons of principle, Parliament should always make efforts to use a rapporteur who has no interest whatsoever in the issue under discussion.
Botz report (A4-0002/97)
Without wishing to question the objectivity of the rapporteur, I consider it dangerous, in principle, that Parliament's rapporteur is from the same country whose support is being evaluated.
For reasons of principle, Parliament should always make efforts to use a rapporteur who has no interest whatsoever in the issue under discussion.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
BSE
All I can say, Mrs Lalumière, is that the Council was contacted by the presidency of Parliament, but replied that it was not able or did not consider it appropriate to attend today.
That is all I know, and all that I can tell you.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing with an extremely important matter.
Whatever has to be said to the Council will be said through the appropriate procedures, which anyone may use.
But we are not going to become sidetracked and enter into a question which - however important it may be - is incidental to this debate.
I give the floor to Mr Happart, the first signatory of the motion of censure.
Mr President, the Socialist Group welcomes and endorses the report and recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE.
This Parliament is today demonstrating that we take our role of monitoring and controlling the unelected institutions of the European Union very seriously.
This is the first time that the powers given to us in the Maastricht Treaty to investigate alleged contraventions or maladministration under the auspices of a committee of inquiry have been used.
My group wants to pay tribute to those colleagues who have been engaged in the committee of inquiry.
They have worked hard to identify and expose the tragic series of events which have devastated the beef industry across Europe, ruined the livelihoods of so many farmers, rural workers and people engaged in the ancillary food business and, worst of all, has led to debilitating illness and death for some of our fellow citizens and put so many others at risk.
I wish to make clear that for my group at all times the paramount concern has been the health of the people of the European Union.
The work of the committee of inquiry has demonstrated unequivocally that the blame for the BSE crisis lies fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the current British Government.
It was its single-minded, blind, ideological commitment to deregulation that led to a catalogue of disastrous decisions on which BSE evolved.
(Applause) My group has long believed that a simple commitment to deregulation is as outmoded and dangerous a concept as is a simple commitment to regulation.
What is needed is appropriate regulation: regulation to protect the health of the public and regulation to secure the safety of consumers is, in our view, necessary in a single market.
The BSE tragedy is a sad and dramatic example of what can happen when the health of the public and the safety of consumers is sacrificed on the altar of business expediency and profit-enhancement.
(Applause) The British Government is to blame not just for the impact in Britain but because, by its mismanagement of the crisis, far from containing BSE in Britain it allowed its contaminated animal foodstuffs and infected calves to continue to enter the market and food chains in the rest of Europe.
This really was negligence of the worst sort.
I am confident that all decent-thinking British people know that if such games had been played with their health and safety by any other government in the European Union they would be unforgiving.
The British tabloid media would do well to ponder on that fact before they indulge in any further xenophobia on this issue.
(Applause) The sight last night of the British Minister of Agriculture, Mr Douglas Hogg, being saved from a motion of no confidence in the House of Commons on his mishandling of the BSE crisis by a disreputable political fix with the Ulster Unionist Party really beggars belief! If, as we are assured, beef from Northern Ireland and other specified herds in Britain has not been infected in the same way as other beef in Britain, why was it not acknowledged months ago, thereby saving Northern Irish farmers from the catastrophic financial consequences of recent months?
Why is it that the British Government only agrees to pursue so-called special measures when it faces a motion of no confidence in the House of Commons? It is this kind of cynical, opportunist behaviour which destroys confidence in Britain and the rest of Europe and demonstrates that the British Government does not put health and consumer safety - let alone economic good sense - at the top of its agenda.
Mr Douglas Hogg, the hapless Agriculture Minister, refused to come and give evidence to our committee of inquiry, despite the fact that all the governments in the Union - including the British Government - had given an undertaking that they would support the work of Parliament's committee of inquiry.
Last night in the House of Commons Mr Hogg said that it would be an abnegation of British sovereignty for him to give evidence to us here.
He is one of those who argues that sovereignty in a democracy rests in its parliament.
I am one of those who believes that sovereignty resides in the hands of the people.
(Applause) However, the Council cannot hide from criticism in this affair.
It succumbed to pressure from the British Government; it watered down Commission proposals in the Agriculture Council and generally used the elite club of the Council to look after national interests rather than those of the people of the Union.
It reinforces the view of my group that the Council, when acting as a corporate body, hides behind the members' individual democratic legitimacy and acts together in a secretive and unacceptable way.
I want to say now to the President of the Commission that this was a disaster waiting to happen.
The European Commission is culpable: it was not as if the Commission had not been warned that its structures and decisionmaking on food safety and public health were seriously flawed.
As long ago as 1989 in the Raftery report this Parliament stated: ' If we want a genuine single market for food then we must establish a genuine, independent, strong and open regulatory body which will be seen to put the interests of consumers above those of producers, processors, distributors and the catering industry.'
Yet again, in March 1992, in my report on the reform of the Scientific Committee for Food this Parliament said: ' The process of achieving a satisfactory scientific base for matters relating to food safety will be judged by Europe's consumers according to whether it is sufficiently independent, transparent and effective.'
In that report Parliament demanded a single unit in the European Commission to deal with food under the auspices of the consumer policy service, a common food policy, an independent scientific committee for food, proper consumer representation on that committee, transparency in the appointments made to the committee and proper consideration of the public interest in areas of food and consumer safety.
How much more could this Parliament have done to demonstrate that European decision-making in food safety was in a mess? The litany of shambolic decision-making, lack of accountability and evasiveness shown by the Commission and its officials throughout the BSE saga has left the Commission weakened and vulnerable.
So, sadly, it has taken a crisis of this magnitude to create the conditions for change.
If the President of the Commission is to be believed, then change we shall have, and we welcome his statement.
But we are not content with promises.
That is why in our resolution to wind up this debate we commit ourselves to watching very carefully just what action the Commission takes to fulfil its promises made here today by its President.
If the reforms are not genuine, appropriate or fast enough to deal with the recommendations of the committee of inquiry, then my group will join with others in tabling a motion of censure on the Commission at an appropriate time in the months before or during November of this year.
Finally, my group will not support the motion of censure on the European Commission before this House today.
We do not consider it an effective political strategy to censure this Commission before it has had the opportunity to put its own house in order.
We are interested in a serious attempt to reform in the interests of public health.
Furthermore, we are convinced that a successful motion of censure at this stage would simply lead to an institutional crisis which would last for months and not do one single thing to strengthen public health or consumer protection at European level.
(Applause) There are those who consider that the publicity and chaos which would accompany the dismissal of the Commission would somehow cleanse the system.
My group does not believe that to be the case.
That the President of the Commission has come here today to set out before this Parliament a package of reforms which, if carried through, should go some way to really cleansing the system, is a tribute to those who have worked so hard in the committee of inquiry and a measure of the effect which this Parliament, if it takes its powers seriously, can achieve.
The committee of inquiry identified the faults and the reforms necessary to end those faults.
It is now our political responsibility in this House to see through those reforms to completion, and we intend to do so.
(Loud applause)
I should like to begin by congratulating the chairman of the Committee of Inquiry, Mr Böge, the rapporteur, Mr Medina, and all the other committee members.
Our group endorses the findings of this report.
The description of the mismanagement that occurred at the height of the BSE crisis between 1990 and 1994 is absolutely incredible.
In 1990, it had already been scientifically proved that the infecting agent could be passed from one species to another, and this should have added urgency to the scientific research being carried out.
Yet the research results from 1990 onwards were meagre, to say the least.
Between 1990 and 1994, veterinary BSE inspections were suspended in the UK.
The Medina report says that the then Commission attempted to hide the truth and to blame Parliament for the suspension, whereas the decision was actually taken by the Commission itself, having caved in to pressure from the UK.
During the same period, with the sole exception of the directive on embryos, no Community legislation on BSE was passed at all.
Between the extraordinary Council meeting on 6 and 7 June 1990 on the first BSE crisis and 1994, in other words over a period of four years, there was not one single Council debate on BSE, yet it was during this period that 75 % of the cases of BSE were identified in the United Kingdom.
In mid-1990, France and Germany considered imposing trade restrictions on British beef, but Commissioner MacSharry threatened to take them to the Court of Justice.
The Medina report also says that there is written evidence that the then Commission supported a policy of disinformation towards the general public which also affected the Community institutions themselves, in that when the supply of genuine information was cut off and the Commission was no longer doing its job, the Council too was kept in the dark.
The report identifies the UK Government as the body mainly responsible for the BSE crisis, and it points to six occasions when successive governments violated Article 5 of the Treaty and refused to obey the rules of fair and transparent cooperation.
As you know, Article 5 of the Treaty sets out the principle of loyalty to the Community.
However, the Council is also to blame for the passivity and delays in fighting the epidemic in the UK, for taking wrong decisions and providing poor coordination in protecting public health, and for the disinformation of the public.
The Committee of Inquiry's report makes it quite plain that the previous Commission also made serious errors and showed critical failings during the period of mismanagement at the height of the BSE crisis between 1990 and 1994, and that the political responsibility lay with Commissioners MacSharry and Steichen.
We think that Commissioner Fischler should take the opportunity in this debate to explain the two errors which he is accused of making in the report.
However, as the Committee of Inquiry said, the political consequences of this inquiry will be felt in the changes of structure, policy and personnel which have to be made in order to repair the serious omissions and errors of the past.
The Commission's political responsibility now lies in carrying out these fundamental reforms, because, as the Medina report says, this will serve the Committee of Inquiry's purposes better than simply dismissing the Commission outright.
Our group therefore confirms that it has confidence in the Commission to implement these reforms.
It needs to take urgent action to restore the credibility of the European Union by giving public health and consumer protection precedence over economic interests.
Ladies and gentlemen, would even Dr Faustus ever have thought of breaking with an age-old tradition and feeding meat-and-bone meal to ruminants?
How has anyone ever dared to take risks with infant foods? It is quite obvious that the Commission has a clear legal basis here for exercising its powers under Article 129 in the field of public health and Article 129a in the field of consumer protection.
There is an important issue here for the IGC.
The Commission must quickly bring forward proposals for setting up an independent 'public health protection' unit.
We must support the introduction of codecision for agricultural matters.
We must have a general ban on feeding meat-and-bone meal to ruminants or waste products from sick animals to other animals.
Individual disciplinary measures must be taken where officials have acted incorrectly, Mr President of the Commission.
Those responsible must be punished for their mistakes.
The public must not be allowed to think that no sanctions are being taken.
Our political position is this: we reject the motion of censure, and we reaffirm our confidence in the Commission to carry out the necessary reforms, but if they have not been carried out within a reasonable period and at the latest by November this year, we will be obliged to withdraw our confidence.
Mr President of the Commission, we worked together in the Maastricht negotiations on a new Treaty on European Union, and even at that stage we identified certain inadequacies.
We were forced to accept a compromise that we intended to improve at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
We have now reached a stage where many of our fellow citizens no longer believe in what we are doing at European level.
Social problems, the despair that people feel when they are faced with unemployment and see no future for their children, the despair they feel in the face of international organized crime, the mafia, the drugs problems, and the despair they felt when their very health was put at risk, must make all those in positions of responsibility in the European Union who are currently preparing the new Treaty realize that not only must our decision-making procedures be changed - though this too is important - but we must also try to get to the very heart of the social problems that millions of people face and the fear they feel, and we must let them know what we are doing about it.
I hope that the BSE tragedy has brought this home to all those responsible for giving the European Union a more hopeful and human face once again.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, I should also like to congratulate most sincerely the rapporteur of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE, Mr Medina Ortega, its chairman, Mr Böge, and all the members of the committee on the exceptional quality of their work, despite the numerous and unacceptable obstacles put in their way in carrying out this task.
The report before the House today is well-documented, precise and objective, and does not confine itself to recording the serious failings on the part of the European institutions but, in a very responsible way, seeks to propose measures to remedy those failings and ensure that unacceptable bad habits do not persist.
I would even say that the members of the committee have done more.
After listening to Mr Santer, I feel they have achieved a miracle: the Commission was suffering from blindness, but suddenly it can see clearly what is going on in its departments.
The committee's report nevertheless remains a crushing indictment of the functioning of the European institutions as a whole.
The revelation of such widespread failings fully justifies the loss of confidence in the European institutions on the part of our citizens that we are witnessing today.
The total and deliberate lack of transparency in the conduct of European affairs prevents the instruments of democratic control - Parliament and the press - from performing their function on a day-to-day basis.
Furthermore, this lack of transparency allows national or private lobbies to prevail over the Community or general interest.
These lobbies have virtually taken over some Commission departments, as well as the extraordinary advisory scientific committees, whose variable geometry is determined by the particular interests that are being pursued in them.
More seriously still, the Committee of Inquiry's report reveals a de facto abdication of responsibilities by the Commission and, to a lesser extent, the Council: by the Commission, in its inability to resist the political pressure of certain Member States; and by the Council, in the effective delegation of powers to management committees with no political legitimacy.
Consequently, from 1990 to 1994, the Commission carried out no veterinary checks whatsoever on the United Kingdom's measures to combat BSE, for the sole reason that it would have annoyed the authorities of that country.
Lastly, the report reveals that, in the implementation of Community policies, there are grey areas in which the responsibility for taking action is poorly defined.
This ultimately results in each institution passing the buck to the other institutions, or to the Member States, in a show of total incompetence.
If we wish to restore the confidence of Europe's citizens in the Union's institutions, there is an urgent need to take action.
Should this take the form of imposing a political sanction, through an immediate vote of censure on the present Commission - which undoubtedly bears some of the responsibility for the failures identified, although a much smaller share than the British authorities - or on the previous Commission, whose President we would have liked to give evidence to the Committee of Inquiry?
For my part, I believe that if we wish to be effective, we must enjoin the present Commission to take all the measures within its remit proposed by the Committee of Inquiry, as a matter of urgency.
It is a question, above all, of establishing transparency in the decision-making process - something which is fundamental to all democratic activity.
If the Commission does not do so within a reasonable period of time, then we must not hesitate to censure it.
We should interpret the proposals for the reorganization of the Commission's services and for the reform of the consultation and inspection procedures, which Mr Santer has presented, as a sign of goodwill which will have to be confirmed.
Over and above this, however, I believe that the report of the Committee of Inquiry should be forwarded to the Intergovernmental Conference, so that the representatives of the Member States can draw the necessary conclusions from it as regards the structure and functioning of the European institutions.
In sensitive areas such as public health - and, in future, public security, if it is decided to bring the third pillar into the Community domain - is it not appropriate to make it absolutely clear who does what, so as to eliminate the grey areas which serve as a pretext for failing to take action when it is necessary?
Is it sensible to transfer powers and responsibilities without ensuring beforehand that the recipients of those powers and responsibilities are able to take them on? Is it possible to guarantee that a Commission with 30 members will be capable of functioning in accordance with the principles of collective responsibility and independence from the Member States that are laid down in the Treaty?
The Member State governments that will soon be facing national elections, and the Members of the European Parliament who will be standing for election in 1999, will be judged by their answers to these questions.
Let us take advantage of the coming months, ladies and gentlemen, to give a positive response to the concerns of our fellow citizens, which the BSE crisis has highlighted to an extraordinary degree.
(Applause)
Madam President, the report from the Committee of Inquiry is now been presented, and it is our responsibility to determine what consequences the report will have.
We have already heard a response from the chairman of the Commission, Mr Santer, and I would like to refer back to this.
In 1986 BSE was quite unknown.
No one knew much about it, but it was thought to be similar in nature to scrapie in sheep, not infectious and not transferable to humans.
This was at the start of the disease.
But on 20 March 1996 the British Government admitted that it could not be ruled out that the disease could be transferred to humans.
At the same time there emerged a new form of Creutzfeldt Jakob's disease which affected young men in particular.
These announcements spread panic amongst consumers and the beef market collapsed.
It is clear that consumers were nervous, since the disease - if it could be transferred - did not manifest itself for 3 to 7 years.
The Commission was very hesitant in dealing with this, and Parliament was not satisfied.
It was therefore decided, as a provisional solution, to set up this Committee of Inquiry to determine whether, on the basis of the Treaty, this new Committee could really serve the purpose of resolving those problems in the Commission which people felt were unresolved.
On behalf of the Liberal Group I am able to say that the task has been resolved by the Committee.
This has involved very intense, but justified, criticism of the Commission, about which more can be read in the report.
There is also strong criticism of the British Government.
Most of all it is difficult to understand how the British Government, which initially took the right decisions, allowed 5 years to pass before implementing them.
This is why BSE was able to become so extensive, and why it was carried over to France, Switzerland and Portugal.
But it is not we who elect the British Government; that is the responsibility of others.
We are left with the question of how we are to protect consumers.
I can say that our proposal to separate consumer protection and veterinary control is a right solution.
I must say, however, that it is not so easy to implement because we come up against the principle of subsidiarity, and states tend to defend this jealously.
But I am in favour of having a supranational body which can control the national authorities and inform them as to what the problems are.
Finally we come to the question of confidence and loss of confidence.
Parliament has shown that it is equal to the task of controlling the Commission.
It also has power to assume the Commission's role if it feels that the latter is not fulfilling it correctly.
The Committee's work shows that we have brought to the Commission a number of proposals which we expect it to examine and to resolve on the basis of the principles we have put forward.
I can now state that the Commission is ready to go a considerable way, further than I had expected.
Before the autumn comes we will see how far it is able to go in practice.
Otherwise we have the weapon of article 141, namely that of bringing a vote of no confidence, preferably after the summer holidays, if the Commission does not live up to what it promised and to the wishes we have expressed.
So I believe Parliament has been given significant powers, and these are being used, but they must be used sensibly.
One must never misuse the significant powers one has been given.
They must be used with care, and I believe that this is what will happen in the autumn if the Commission does not live up to its own formulations.
Madam President, the members of our group have signed the motion of censure after reading the conclusions of the Committee of Inquiry.
However, I can assure you - and I can assure the Commission - that we had no preconceptions with regard to this motion.
The Medina report lays bare the serious political and administrative errors committed above all by the British Government, with the complicity of the Council, but also by the Commission, both in the days of Mr Delors and under the current presidency of Mr Santer.
The report leaves no room for doubt.
The way in which the Commission dealt with the serious BSE problem, which turned into a crisis with incalculable social, economic and health consequences, was disastrous.
The Commission is charged with having put economic and political interests before the protection of public health and consumers.
The previous Commission failed to ensure the necessary veterinary controls, and it is clear that absolutely no checks on BSE were carried out in the United Kingdom between May 1990 and June 1994.
As for the present Commission, there is the unacceptable lifting of the embargo on gelatine, and its attempts to conceal the truth and shift its own responsibilities onto Parliament when the latter decided to carry out this inquiry.
The fact that the Commission's mishandling of the crisis has had consequences for human health, cattle breeding and the Community budget which to a large extent can no longer be rectified is particularly grave.
For all these reasons, we are fulfilling our difficult duty of tabling a motion of censure.
The European Parliament must fulfil its obligations and exercise the powers of control conferred on it by the Treaty.
The British Government is subject to the control of the House of Commons.
The European Commission must answer to this Parliament - which has repeatedly called for increased powers, without having exercised successfully those it already has.
The Committee of Inquiry's conclusions make clear the vital need for this motion of censure, which calls for the Commission to assume responsibility for the errors and omissions in its handling of the BSE crisis over a period of seven years, in accordance with the principle of the continuity and collegiate nature of the Commission, although the actions of the successive Agriculture Commissioners are particularly reprehensible.
Today, we should be expressing political condemnation of acts committed in the past - the recent past - before putting forward recommendations for the future or giving such a favourable welcome to Mr Santer's statement, which was more like an optimistic speech of investiture.
While recognizing the good intentions of those who are confusing the past and the future in their resolutions and threatening to table a motion of censure in a few months' time - in November, so they say - we profoundly disagree with their approach, which is not in keeping with the European Parliament's basic duty to exercise control, or with the priority of tabling an unconditional motion of censure, without any strings attached.
In a democracy, the majority decides, but the minority may be in the right.
Today, the rightness of our stance is based not only on proper parliamentary procedures or Parliament's unavoidable duties.
Beyond opportunistic motives or party discipline, it is based on our position as Members of Parliament and defenders of the health and interests of the European citizens who elected us.
I should like to end by adapting a traditional saying: ' Friends of Plato, but friends of the truth even more' .
The European Parliament must be a friend of the Commission, but a friend of the truth and Europe's citizens even more.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee of Inquiry has carried out its task.
I should particularly like to thank the chairman, Mr Böge, and the rapporteur, Mr Medina, for the excellent work they have done.
There was a good atmosphere in the Committee of Inquiry.
Every effort was made to bring the truth to light, and this is also reflected in the report we have presented.
When we began our work, we were almost speechless at what we encountered.
You tell us, Mr Santer, that it could not be known at the time how dangerous this BSE disease was.
If this was not known at the time, then no measures could have been taken, and we would have had to say: we do not know this, or we take a different view.
But that did not happen.
Measures were taken, but they were not implemented.
The ban on feeding animal-based meal was ignored.
What did happen? Animal-based meal was used as feed up to 1995.
One has to assume that all the mad cows went through the cycle of being fed animal-based meal, and 700 000, a million or one and half million animals at risk from BSE - we do not know how many - entered the human food chain.
It was said to us: we had no powers to carry out inspections.
It finally turned out that between 1990 and 1994, 37 inspections were carried out in the United Kingdom.
However, BSE was removed from the check-list, in other words tests were carried out on meat quality in the United Kingdom, but no longer on BSE.
It is quite clear that an inquiry report in 1990 revealing scandalous conditions in British slaughterhouses was deliberately mislaid in the Commission; it did not reach the political leadership.
So far, we have not been able to establish where it went astray.
Attempts have been made to discredit scientists, the opinions of minorities have been trivialized and the WTO has been used as a tool.
I do not need to spell out the details once again.
You have seen the report of the inquiry - and in any event, it is incredible.
And all this justifies a vote of censure against the Commission.
If we are saying that we do not wish to hold this vote of censure now, it also has to do with the fact that we know you are an expert when it comes to making announcements, Mr Santer!
You have made an excellent speech today, and it is somewhat difficult to send you packing after such a speech.
But while we hear the message, what we lack is the belief.
We want actions, not words.
That is why there was quite a long and intense debate on this vote of censure in the Committee of Inquiry, and I then made a proposal to suspend the vote.
It was thought that you might say today: this is of no interest to us.
Then we would have tabled the motion of censure.
The votes are here, and we have collected the necessary one tenth of Members' signatures.
But it was clear to us that you would make these announcements today, so we are putting you on probation for a year, and we shall see what is produced by these demands.
You have dealt with them today, and I have to say I am surprised at the generosity and also the determination with which you have announced reforms.
If they come, there will not be a vote of censure in December, that is fairly clear.
If they do not, then the vote of censure will be held.
Make no mistake, Mr Santer - you cannot, as in the past, pick all the good things out of Parliament, do what suits you and file away the things that do not.
Through this committee of inquiry, Parliament has gained a new degree of self-confidence.
After BSE, nothing in Europe is the same.
We shall have our say on issues of health, nutrition and agriculture.
We shall no longer allow an arrogant administration - which is still in place and of which you are now the political leader, namely this Commission - to think that it does not need to take any account of the proposals and initiatives of the European Parliament.
If Parliament's proposals had been implemented, if we had had a right of codecision when the mad cow problem was at its peak, then this BSE crisis would not have assumed such proportions.
We should very probably not have had to deal in this way with the consequences which may lie ahead of us.
So I would say that the point is definitely to use this crisis to move forward, to give the European Parliament the rights it needs in order to exercise legislative control over the administration and to ensure that the Commission moves in the right direction.
I am particularly grateful to you, Mr Santer, for saying that we must embark on a fundamental overhaul of the agricultural policy.
These have always been our demands.
If we proceed in that way, we shall not experience another crisis, but benefit the people of Europe, do our job properly and assume our political responsibility.
Madam President, I never, in the first instance, believed we needed a committee of inquiry.
Unfortunately, what I have listened to today has proved that to be correct.
I have listened to the debate and my worst fears have unfortunately been confirmed.
No one can claim any glory from the present problem, not the United Kingdom Government and most certainly not Mr Hogg - I would not defend them for one moment - nor the Commission or the Council.
Yes, mistakes were certainly made.
We must learn from them and make sure they never occur again.
We help no one - certainly not the consumer or the farmer - by further hyping the situation and making outlandish statements that are unprovable and are simply designed to get into the newspaper headlines.
The benefit of hindsight is the most wonderful thing of all.
We all can sit here today and be total experts and make no mistakes.
I agree with the chairman of the committee when he said that we must bring BSE to an end once and for all.
BSE must be wiped out but that will take time.
We have seen other outbreaks in other countries recently.
I would, like to address one point to Mr Santer, because he stated here today - and I think it is important that he made that statement - that he wants a better environment and higher standards of control in food. I agree with all that but will he ensure that the food imported to the European Union will be of the same high standards?
Will he also ensure that the farmers of the European Union do not have their hands tied behind their backs while others in the world are allowed to produce what we are not allowed to produce in the same way? If you want high standards then make sure it is universal and right across the board.
It is also unfortunate today that Mrs Green decided to turn this very important debate into party politics.
I welcome her recognition of the high standards in Northern Ireland.
I welcome the fact that she said that our farmers have been unfairly treated because they never should have had the ban placed on them in the first place.
I have no doubt that Commissioner Fischler will take that very much to heart.
I am not going to be parochial today but I am sure Mrs Green would not deny any small political party anywhere the right to achieve the best for all their people, would you Mrs Green?
Could I suggest further to Mrs Green that she takes another look at the figures because the figures I saw this morning showed that Mr Blair lost by 13 votes.
Now there are nine Ulster Unionists in the House of Commons and maybe Mr Blair should have got all his as Labour members out if he wanted to win.
Could I also say to Mrs Green, as a final point, that some of her former party leaders were also very generous to my party when they came along to have discussions with them.
And I have no doubt that some day in the future they will be back again if the occasion arises.
I thank you, Madam President, very much for your patience and I want to make it very clear that I will not, in any way, be supporting any motion of censure against the Commission.
Madam President, after the death of more than 167 000 cattle - a veritable massacre, the infection of a further 800 000 cattle and their entry into the food chain, the suicide of more than 20 farmers, the death - their brains destroyed - of some 20 young people, after a six-month inquiry and two hours of debate, what stands out is the hypocrisy prevailing everywhere.
And the explanation for this - perhaps the only one - is the belief in a Messiah which lies behind this whole affair.
What do we see? Hypocrisy across the board!
Hypocrisy, in the first place, with regard to the civil liability: after all, someone manufactured this meal!
It did not fall from the sky, as the representative of the British Government would have us believe.
And that someone is the de Mulder brothers in the United Kingdom.
No one talks about that - except perhaps Mr Medina Ortega, who says somewhere in his report that he has his doubts.
And someone, or some people, imported this meal into France!
Again, they could have been traced from customs documents.
We know their names - Caillot, Glon - but we do not talk about that.
The British Government just stood by, it let things go, it allowed exports - it let people be poisoned!
And now compensation will be provided on the basis of solidarity, rather than responsibility.
The British, pure as snow, will not have to pay - not even for their international responsibilities.
But their hands are not clean.
And there is hypocrisy with regard to the political responsibilities.
You are not alone, Mr Santer, I will grant you that.
Fortunately for you, you have accomplices - because if you did nothing, the Council did nothing either!
And the European Parliament: what did it do? Mr Happart alerted it to the problem in a number of oral questions in the House.
I myself said to Mr MacSharry in this House, on 11 September 1990, that there was a risk of a zoonosis, that the source of the infection would spread from the United Kingdom to the rest of Europe, and that there was a need to take preventive measures!
Parliament was aware of the problem.
Mr Vasco Garcia drew up a report on the subject, and Parliament said and did nothing!
At the same time, the media remained silent for six years.
The Castille note, which 'Libération' published in 1996, had appeared in the consumer magazine 'Que choisir?' as early as 1990. But what had they all got to hide?
What were they covering up? Why, Mrs Bonino, as they say in Italy, the 'omerta' ?
The explanation is the belief in a Messiah!
The obscurantist Euro-federalist sect is like the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Young people die of new variant CJD, and there is silence.
There was silence between 1990 and 1994 because the Messiah - the single market, the Maastricht Treaty - was coming.
But if in 1992, the people of France had known that cattle were being fed the remains of sheep that had eaten the remains of infected cattle, the French President could have bleated all he liked about his prostate: the Maastricht Treaty would never have been ratified in the referendum of 20 September 1992!
That is what they were protecting.
And what are they protecting today? I listened to your speech, Mr Martens.
You have a prodigious talent, but what do you use it for? You suggested that we should remain silent once again, because this time it is the single currency which is at stake!
So poisoning was allowed in the name of the single market and the Maastricht Treaty, and now it is continuing to be allowed in the name of the single currency!
Mr Santer donned a penitent's robe with a cord of British leather.
He came shuffling his feet.
He humbly begged our forgiveness, it is true - but then there is the question of genetically modified maize.
He forgot to wear his penitent's robe then.
Nothing has been learnt from the BSE tragedy.
The same mistakes are still being made.
Adopting the motion of censure is the least that we can do.
What is now at stake, ladies and gentlemen, is the credibility, the legitimacy, of the European Parliament.
If you refuse to understand that, you will, like all members of religious sects, create a rod for your own backs.
I have received eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5).
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, on 16 July 1996, in response to a request from Parliament, Mr Santer made a statement on behalf of the Commission on the BSE affair.
He attempted to calm things down, although we were confronted with evidence that certain Commission departments had pursued a deliberate policy of disinformation and concealment, during the time of both the previous and present Agriculture Commissioners.
It is true that Mr Santer declared unequivocally in his statement that the protection of human health was the Commission's paramount concern.
In fact, however, it took Parliament's painstaking inquiry to force the Commission to take action.
Mr Santer said in his statement, as he is saying now, that he wished to involve himself personally in this matter.
I sincerely hope that he is successful, but we should not attempt to conceal the profound lack of confidence that has taken root in this Parliament, as well as amongst the general public, in the Commission's ability to turn things round.
The Committee of Inquiry's report reveals maladministration on a breathtaking scale by the main players in this affair - the British Government, the Commission, and also the Council.
Reading it should be widely recommended, as a kind of civic instruction manual for the future citizens of Europe.
It strikingly illustrates the fact that the single market - whose praises we sing - can produce the worst excesses if the market is allowed to regulate itself and the rules on health and consumer protection are not applied.
I should like to draw four conclusions from this inquiry and report.
Firstly, the very existence of this document is an inescapable fact for the Commission, as well as for the Council and the British Government.
It should be made very clear to the general public that the European Parliament's right of inquiry, and the way in which it has exercised that right, represent a step forward for democracy in Europe.
It demonstrates that impenetrable European and national bureaucracies can be forced to become more transparent.
It demonstrates that the elected representatives of the European people can make the truth prevail in the face of compartmentalized and arrogant administrations.
Secondly, we should not try to conceal the terrifying truth that emerges from this report.
The pursuit of profit and the logic of economics have prevailed, to the detriment of consumer health, because the main political actors - the British Government, the Commission and the Council - wished it to be that way.
Overcoming this philosophy will be extremely difficult.
You will need a great deal of energy and willpower to do this, Mr Santer.
Above all, you will need the support of those European political forces which do not talk solely in terms of profit, deregulation and liberalization, but which wish to see a prosperous Europe in which human and natural values are respected.
Thirdly, a number of Members are seizing on the BSE crisis in an attempt to discredit the Europe of the Maastricht Treaty.
From the far left to the far right, there are many people who wish to take advantage of this affair to push Europe into a crisis that will permanently weaken it and give rise to the widespread re-emergence of nationalism, the ending of the process of economic and political integration and, ultimately, new confrontations between the countries of Europe, weakening it for good.
The Socialist Group will not join in this game.
It will not support the motion of censure, because it embodies the very opposite of a desire for reform.
We wish to give Mr Santer and the Commission, and the Council too, an opportunity to put their house in order.
In a few months, we shall be able to assess the changes which they will have set in motion.
Fourthly, the general public is clearly entitled to ask how Parliament intends to follow up the report of the Committee of Inquiry.
In other words, what means does Parliament have available of bringing pressure to bear on those principally responsible? As regards the Member States' governments, it is of course up to the national parliaments to assume their responsibilities.
But the Member States must also stop protecting senior European officials who were appointed from their national administrations.
If the head of the Commission is unable to take the action he thinks fit in respect of these officials, in the interest of the Community, then it will never be possible to establish a different culture.
Mr President of the Commission, I personally am confident of your success.
I am not sure whether it is enough that are you are personally bringing all your weight to bear on this issue.
You must also have strong allies within the Commission.
We can only hope that the President of the Commission is successful. If he is not, he will emerge discredited and weakened, with his powers diminished.
No one wishes to see that.
So go ahead, Mr Santer!
Do not hesitate to be ruthless this time!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, what we are discussing today is not just another of those political and technical problems, some important and some less so, that normally occupy us, but a matter which has almost certainly cost the lives of 16 people to date and has plunged the single market into the deepest crisis it has faced since the day it was first set up.
In the light of that, what matters is not political tactics or defending one's own party: what matters is the need to do everything possible to ascertain the truth and prevent any possible repetition of these events, and here we must be guided first and foremost by our own consciences.
That was the principle which motivated the work of the Committee of Inquiry, and the results presented to Parliament today bear witness to that.
The basic conclusion which I am sorry to have to draw from those results is that both the United Kingdom and the Commission and Council of the European Union, which bear the main responsibility for what has happened, have in essence attached more importance to commercial interests than to the protection of animal health and, above all, human health.
What we have learned makes it absolutely obvious that a radical change is needed in the way such crises are handled.
As far as the United Kingdom is concerned, it is only recently that there have been positive signs of this change occurring; now it is the turn of the European Union.
We need to see a structural change in the internal organization of the competent Directorates-General: we therefore welcome the plan to create a single unit for the protection of public health which will undertake the functions previously entrusted to various administrative personnel, between whom there was absolutely no coordination.
In addition, the powers of the veterinary inspectorate must be increased, guaranteeing it what it has certainly lacked previously, which is a stable function and adequate independence.
Similarly, scientific research must be stepped up into BSE and into the variant of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, something on which the European Union has hitherto spent very little.
I also hope that an immediate start will be made on a complete review of the comitology, involving the Intergovernmental Conference where necessary.
This will allow matters to be handled less secretively and more efficiently in future, which is essential if the citizens of Europe are to regain confidence in their institutions.
Finally, to relieve some of the pressure on the beef and veal market and do something tangible to set consumers' minds at rest, everything necessary should be done immediately to introduce compulsory labelling enabling everyone to identify the origin and quality of the beef or veal he is buying.
All the initiatives I have called for here are included in the reforms promised today by the President of the Commission, and that gives us cause for optimism.
However, I now come to consider more specifically what emerges from the report regarding the responsibility of the European Commission, and it is clear that the Commission was unable, or worse still unwilling, to act sufficiently quickly to deal with this crisis.
Although it is true that we cannot censure the Commission that is now in office, because it bears only part of the responsibility, most of which lies with the previous Commission, it is equally true that we can nevertheless require the Commissioners, subject to a very precise time limit, to adopt a policy of reform and rectification, unless it wishes to share the responsibility of its predecessors and of those others, headed by the United Kingdom, responsible for the general mismanagement of this crisis.
In calling upon the European Commission to follow the lines recommended by the Committee of Inquiry, with the threat of censure if it fails to conform to those recommendations, our intention is not to discredit the Community system but, rather, to strengthen it.
After all, a Commission and Council that are more transparent, more attentive to the needs and protection of the public, and freer of the pressures exerted by lobbyists and national governments, together with a European Parliament exercising democratic vigilance over the actions of the other institutions, cannot fail to provide the sound basis that we want Europe to have.
Madam President, anyone rising to speak after two hours of debate obviously has a problem in finding anything new to say.
I shall try to find something new, by expressing a regret felt, I believe, not only by myself but also by many other members of the Committee of Inquiry - a regret that we did not hear the person who might perhaps have been the best witness to, and was a participant in, the events of the recent and more distant past.
I refer to the former President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, whom some of us would have liked to question.
The proposal to call him was put to the vote, and those of us, myself included, who were in favour lost by the narrow margin of seven votes to six.
I believe that many clarifications that we would like to have today, for which we are asking the present Commission, could have been obtained from that dominant figure, and that the decision not to involve him was probably prompted by an excess of respect.
Speaking at this late stage, now that the questions of responsibility have been clarified and the history of this affair outlined, I have the opportunity to look directly to the future and put forward a number of concrete proposals.
So I shall begin by asking the President of the Commission to apply Article 169 of the Treaty, whereby the Commission over which he presides may call upon the United Kingdom to make some form of reparation - not merely moral reparation, I hope - to Europe's citizens as an appropriate penalty for the harm caused to the other Member States.
And I also call upon him to draw the attention of Europe's citizens to the content of Article 215 of the Treaty, which tells them how to take action against the European Commission and the other institutions to obtain compensation for damage they believe they have suffered because of the malfunctioning of the European institutions.
I believe that if the Commission were to take this action it might make it clear to the public that there is a desire to make good the damage caused.
I believe, ultimately, that although there are some who want to see heads roll immediately, there are many who would be more interested in seeing proposals in place that might remedy the damage.
The result of this would be a more appropriate and controlled application of Article 175, by the terms of which the European Parliament can bring an action against the Commission for its failure to act and indeed may do so precisely because the Commission has not invoked Article 169.
None of this, clearly, rules out - I have specifically clarified this with the Legal Service - the possibility of applying Article 144.
We in the UPE Group are in favour of the deferred censure, partly because of practical considerations.
As has already been pointed out several times in this House today, dismissing the Commission would, among other things, prevent it from taking immediate and concrete action to implement the conclusions of Mr Medina Ortega's report.
We would like to see immediate action, and we cannot help wondering how that could be achieved in the absence of an operational Commission.
At this point I turn to look the Commissioner, Mrs Bonino, straight in the eye.
Public health: the burden will be yours, and I do not envy you your task!
I call upon the European institutions to have the courage to approach the crucial subject of safeguarding the health of the public, with resolution and with all the available scientific data.
Their first task will be to try to answer a fundamental question: what causal relationship is there today between BSE and the old and new forms of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease?
At the outset of the inquiry, some six months ago, the answer offered by the scientists seemed to be a macabre echo of Pontius Pilate: ' There is no reliable scientific proof of the existence of transmissibility to man, but nor is there any proof to the contrary.'
Good, or rather bad!
After six months of effort, the testimony given by a handle of courageous scientists enables us to rewrite that verdict, more or less as follows: ' There is no reliable evidence that the old form of Creutzfeld-Jacob disease derives from the BSE epidemic, but suspicion is growing, in the light of evidence of vertical and horizontal transmission between animal species.'
That suspicion is growing, especially, with regard to the new form of the disease, which has taken fifteen human lives within a few months - fourteen in the United Kingdom and one in France.
Just a statistical freak? I can't believe that!
Similarly, our doubts increase if we look at the older statistics.
In the last five years, in the European Union, there have been 302 cases of death caused by the 'old form' of this disease in the United Kingdom alone, as against a Community average of 30-50 cases.
Another coincidence? Once again, I do not think it is just a case of misleading statistics.
So this research is needed urgently, and that consideration will be in our minds as we vote tomorrow.
We will vote for a 'soft' censure, or else the day after tomorrow, on Thursday, we will vote for a censure involving immediate resignations.
Let me remind you that, whatever our decision may be, we must be aware that the choices of the European public will depend upon it for at least 15 years.
Because, Mr President, that is the grim length of time which the scientists have said will be necessary to verify the effects of the possible spread of BSE, through Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, to thousands and thousands of European citizens - not just the British!
Madam President, I am absolutely sure that an immediate vote of no confidence against the existing Commission would be absolutely wrong.
It would be futile in that the culprits are elsewhere and go further back in time.
Having said that, and having heard the President of the Commission's speech today, if that is ruled out and the things that have been demanded in this report are performed upon, then that judgement on this Commission should be left to another time.
If this Parliament decides to go for the soft option we have to follow through if those targets that we set are not actually met.
One of the things that has struck me particularly during this hearing is the situation between 1990 and 1994 when the BSE crisis was at its height.
The UK Government passed the correct legislation in good faith but then failed to make sure that it was implemented properly.
In addition the Commission failed to check that those particular regulations were being implemented.
It is indeed ironical that while inspections were taking place throughout countries outside the European Union to make sure that the imported products were in order we had a major problem and a major health risk in our own animals here in the European Union.
One of the other things that has particularly suffered is the credibility of government.
In the United Kingdom we had assurances from scientists for many many years who said there was no risk to human health and then that was overturned very suddenly.
There was also supposed to be no risk of maternal transmission and yet that was changed and what we have now is a lack of confidence among consumers and the population generally about what the government is telling us and the scientific evidence we are being given publicly.
I am particularly concerned that Douglas Hogg did not come to the Committee to give his opinions.
That was a sign which was interpreted by my own constituents as being cowardly.
He was seen as not representing the views of the British Government sufficiently and as saying 'I am guilty' by implication.
I am concerned that there is still under-reporting elsewhere in the European Union and we have to make sure that this is seen as a European problem and not just a British one.
Madam President, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Medina, the committee chairman, Mr Böge, and all those colleagues with whom I had the pleasure of sharing many hours of hard work in the Committee of Inquiry into BSE.
Mr Santer, the seriousness of the Commission's failings in its handling of the BSE affair, and the risks to public health which they produced, are clearly demonstrated by the Committee of Inquiry's report.
The Commission neglected its legislative and monitoring duties during much of the period in which the disease was developing, placing political and economic interests before the protection of public health and giving rise to serious human, social and economic consequences.
Moreover, in their appearances before the Committee of Inquiry, the Commission's representatives sometimes acted in bad faith, concealing information and often preventing the committee from carrying out its work effectively.
The fact that the Commission even attempted to shift its responsibilities to Parliament is extremely serious.
Mr Santer will recall his appearance before the committee and the series of exchanges that we had with him concerning Parliament's supposed denial of funds for research.
The Commission is a collective body, and the principle of continuity within the institutions makes it responsible for all its actions, regardless of the particular composition of the College of Commissioners.
It is argued that not all Commissioners bear the same degree of responsibility, but the collegiate nature of the Commission makes its responsibility a collective one.
As part of the institutional framework, the European Parliament must call for responsibilities to be assumed, and if Members read the Committee of Inquiry's report carefully, they will have no doubts about calling on the Commission to assume its political responsibilities in full.
The fact is that the extent of the committee's recommendations was made necessary by the scale of the responsibilities incurred by the Commission, the Council and, of course, the British Government.
Only part of Mr Santer's speech referred to the committee's recommendations. However, I should like to ask Mr Santer a question before the House: why now, at the last moment, these measures, these administrative changes, this desire for transparency and improvements?
Why now, Mr Santer, given the seriousness of the BSE affair? I have absolutely no doubt that the conclusions of the Committee of Inquiry, as well as the threat of a vote of censure, have forced the Commission into presenting these proposals now.
I have no wish to call into question the good intentions of the majority in the House, which wishes to introduce the new procedure of a suspended and conditional vote of censure.
But while my group offers to cooperate fully in ensuring that the committee's recommendations are implemented, I should like to draw attention to certain factors that are inherent in a motion of censure.
A motion of censure can be tabled to call for responsibilities to be assumed that were incurred in the past.
The effects of the mishandling of the BSE crisis are irreversible, and the seriousness of the Commission's failings in its handling of the affair, and the risks to public health to which they gave rise, are clearly demonstrated by the Committee of Inquiry's report.
I believe that this is the fundamental question, therefore.
In my view, any other course of action by Parliament will side-step the issue of calling for responsibilities to be assumed for what happened in the past in relation to BSE.
The Commission must fulfil its role, but not under the threat of a vote of censure or any other means of coercion.
Moreover, I do not believe that it is Parliament's role to exert this kind of pressure.
With regard to this matter, Parliament must not engage in considerations of political expediency.
If we fall into that trap, we shall be guilty of the same sort of behaviour for which the Commission is being criticized.
In the face of such serious responsibilities, I believe that the only instrument of control available to Parliament is a vote of censure.
That is why my group supported the tabling of a censure motion.
Mr Santer, you made a slip, at the end of your speech, when you said that the time had come to create a Europe of health.
This highlights, to my mind, in the clearest and most basic terms, the issue that we are debating today: the fact that the protection of public health and of consumers is a fundamental principle of European integration should never have been called into question.
Consequently, Mr Santer, I consider that the Commission should now perform an act of dignifying European political life by submitting its resignation.
If it submits its resignation and, tomorrow, the Council...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, on a point of order.
I thought this House should know that just a few minutes ago in the House of Commons the British Prime Minister John Major, in answer to a question about the report from the Committee of Inquiry which we are discussing this afternoon, referred to it as 'a load of tosh' .
For those of you who do not know that word it means complete and utter rubbish.
So the British Prime Minister considers the report we are discussing this afternoon to be a load of rubbish.
When Mr Nicholson accuses me of making this partypolitical, perhaps everybody can now understand why.
Let me avoid using an agricultural expression, since this word rubbish refers to our specific findings. One of the expectations of the European public is indeed that we should make progress with the major goals of European integration, but another is that, where necessary, we should take our pitchfork and clear out the stable.
That is what is involved here, not least as regards the detail.
Madam President, in view of the comments which have just been quoted, one can only hope that the Prime Minister's political career will one day be buried underneath this rubbish.
You have asked here today, Mr Santer, where we would be if common sense had prevailed in the past. Certainly, we would be living in a more democratic, more social and more ecological Europe, instead of in an uncontrolled market and under the rule of technocrats.
However, it is not the task of the European Parliament to bid a sad farewell to common sense, but to demand it and to exact retribution when it is ignored.
Did it really take you 16 deaths and 23 suicides among ruined farmers in the UK, Mr Santer? Did it really take you the necessary, but nonetheless barbaric destruction of more than a million cattle?
Did it really take you the amount of ECU 10 billion in compensation to realize that there was a lack of common sense in the EU's policy, to discover the need to control economic interests through that policy and to safeguard human dignity?
But common sense has not simply ceased to prevail in Europe - people in positions of responsibility have stopped behaving sensibly.
The Commission too has given economic interests and political considerations priority over common sense.
Who forced the Commission, Mr Santer, against all common sense - and here I quote from the report - to play down the problem of BSE from the outset; to give the beef market priority over human health; to pursue a policy of disinformation which ultimately interfered with the Community's ability to legislate; to ignore the warning voices of scientists; to have blind faith in industry lobbyists? Who forced the Commission into inefficiency, political weakness, and a policy of concealment and obstruction towards Parliament?
Perhaps it is the fact that, in its heart of hearts, the Commission also believes in and has committed itself to an aggressive neo-liberal ideology.
Is it not true to say that this dominance of economic interests over common sense and human dignity extends across the whole agricultural sector?
Do we not see the same attitude in the brutal imposition of the convergence criteria for entry into monetary union, with its acceptance of escalating unemployment figures, growing poverty and social crises?
Do we not see the same attitude in the Commission's decision to authorize genetically engineered maize, with the same disregard for warning voices and the same subservience to industry? Do we not see the same attitude in the role played by the Commission at the Intergovernmental Conference, where it has not put forward dynamic proposals on the comprehensive democratization of the EU, the development of a social area in Europe and an ecological alliance?
Make no mistake about it, Mr Santer.
If the Greens are proposing a qualified motion of censure today, it is not because the Commission does not deserve to be censured, but because there was no prospect of us securing the necessary majority, because the failure of such a motion would have been portrayed by you as an acquittal, and because through a qualified motion of censure, we see a slight chance of opening the door for the return of common sense, after its period of exile from the European Union.
Madam President, as well as being highly damning of the UK authorities and the Council, this report also proves that, through its failure to act and its negligence, the Commission played along with the ultra-liberal system which is at the root of this crisis, without regard for animal or human health.
People have died in this affair, but we do not have the courage to make legitimate use of our powers with an immediate vote of censure! How many more cattle will have to be slaughtered, how many more deaths will there have to be, for some of our colleagues to stop regarding - with unacceptable contempt - the immediate tabling of a motion of censure as mere posturing?
Let us not confuse the past and the future.
There is no point in shilly-shallying with a delayed-action motion.
What is done is done.
Let us come to the House on Thursday to censure the Commission unequivocally, by virtue of its continuity as an institution, and in spite of the pressure that is being brought to bear on some Members.
Let us not disappoint the European citizens in our countries, regions and constituencies, whom we represent.
They are expecting us to defend them with courage and determination.
Let us not give them further cause to doubt the political establishment.
They must be able to believe in us, so that they continue to believe in Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Alleanza Nazionale delegation fully endorses the conclusions reached by our Committee of Inquiry.
There is no doubt, after all, that the Commission underestimated the seriousness of the epidemic, gave precedence to commercial interests over the protection of public health, failed to ensure that the interests of Europe as a whole took priority over the specific interests of Britain, and mishandled the conclusions of the expert reports and scientific opinions, failing to translate them into the appropriate and obvious political decisions.
We should remember that the Commission, despite various alarm signals and questions - I recall one by Mr Muscardini from 1994 - was unwilling or unable to provide detailed information on the market in bone-meals, at the very time when those meals were being identified as the pathogenic agent of BSE; it was unwilling or unable to relate the information and warnings coming from the European press, among other sources, to the possible connections between the disease affecting cattle and the transmissibility of that disease to man; its handling of relations with the British political and health authorities was suspect to say the least, perhaps even; it proved excessively vulnerable to pressure exerted by the manufacturers of bone-meals and companies operating in the beef and veal industry.
But this relates to the past acts of the Commission, and only the learned authors of the Maastricht treaty could do worse than this Commission. The worrying thing is that these negligent attitudes, in spite of the verbal assurances from the new Commissioners of their complete availability have been repeated at least in the behaviour of some of the Commission's officials and services, who have supplied only some of the documents requested and have given testimony designed more to defend the personal positions of their colleagues than to help uncover the truth.
Ladies and gentlemen, in this predicament what is at stake is our credibility - the credibility of a European Parliament whose prerogatives, powers and representative status are unknown to the European public, or at least not seen by the public in their true light.
If the present Commission - which clearly has no political responsibility for the acts charged against the previous Commissioners - were to fail to censure, in decisive terms, those of its officials who have not only committed culpable and criminal errors in the past but are still, even today, persisting in a conspiratorial and perverted attitude, then this House would suffer grievously in the eyes of European public opinion.
The Alleanza Nazionale delegation, then, condemns the performance of the previous Commission, considers that a motion of censure against the present Commission would be inappropriate and excessive, but proposes that the European Parliament should - if the Commission disregards the content of the Medina Ortega report - set in motion a whole series of measures, including obstructive measures, designed to block and scale down the prerogatives of the Commission in the field of Community legislation.
Mr President, first I should like to thank Mr Böge for the very competent way that he chaired the many meetings of the committee.
I would also like to thank Mr Medina Ortega for reflecting in his report the many views that were put forward by members of the committee, many of which we have heard repeated ad infinitum during the course of the day.
I have to take issue with many of the points that have been made.
Unfortunately, because of personal reasons, I was not present at the final vote.
The chairman understood my position.
I would have voted against the report had I been there.
I have submitted a minority report which sets out the chronology of the action taken in the United Kingdom since 1986.
To do this, having been a member of the committee, would not normally be my style.
Indeed, as many members will accept, I tried to convince by argument and amendment within the committee.
However, at the end of the day I was confronted with a text which was so blinkered in its approach, so faulty in its assertions and, it has to be said, so unfair in its criticism of the efforts that were made in my country at all levels to combat BSE that I felt I had to put the record straight.
I cannot summarize that report now because there is not enough time but I wish to make one or two points.
At the outset I declare an interest.
I speak as a farmer whose cattle herd has suffered from BSE.
I have, therefore, witnessed personally the action programme and the dedication of the scientists and veterinarians in trying to get this problem and the measures taken to try to control it fully understood.
One recognizes of course the overriding factor of human health.
From 1989 to 1990 the measures that were taken in my country were designed to protect human health.
It should be emphasized again and again that no scientist has yet been able to establish a conclusive link between BSE and the new variant of CJD.
The report recognizes the amount of money spent on research.
Mr Medina referred to this.
There is also the related research and the amount of money put in for the Meat Hygiene Service.
More has to be done, as Mr Santer himself accepted, in this whole field of research.
However, the assertion that obstacles were put in the path of scientists is certainly not supported by the evidence that I heard and to suggest that nothing or too little was being done to eliminate the problem from our farms, is an insult to our farmers.
It is a slur on the professional integrity of all those involved in the eradication programme.
So the idea that there has been sort of British conspiracy within the Commission is utterly fanciful and unworthy of a report of this House.
Never in the history of agriculture - and I have been there for quite a long time - have so many healthy animals been destroyed and in such a short period of time.
A further cull, as we know, is on the way and this clears the way for the five points that were agreed at Florence.
From this committee's work, the public was entitled to expect establishment of the facts and acknowledgement of the efficacy of the measures taken.
Criticism of past mistakes is certainly important.
We can all benefit from that in the sense that we recognize its importance.
But I regret that not more members of the committee felt able to visit Britain to witness the level of progress and the achievements which have been made over the last ten months.
Those who came were positively influenced by the measures they saw in operation.
Today I welcome the proposal that has been made by the President of the Commission to hold an inter-disciplinary conference so that consumers can look forward with confidence to the quality standards we all want to achieve and to a Europe devoted to health.
Mr President, concern for public health must the overriding consideration for everybody associated with the food industry.
In this regard the role of farmers and processors is crucial.
The role of legislators and their enactment and enforcement of food and public health regulations are also central to a safe food industry.
The BSE crisis is a disaster for both consumers and producers alike.
Consumer confidence in beef is at an all-time low, and consumers expect and deserve better from us.
The Committee of Inquiry has made an important contribution to the debate and in this regard we must congratulate the rapporteur, the chairman and the members of the committee.
My colleagues, in my group from Ireland, will not be voting in support of the censure on the Commission.
However, while I agree with the general thrust of the compromise resolution, I would like to express my reservations regarding paragraphs 4 and 5.
I would certainly prefer if the references to manipulation and culpability were amended.
The link between meat and bonemeal and BSE is clearly established.
The enforcement of the ban is central to the elimination of BSE.
More importantly, the implementation of an effective traceability programme from producer to consumer is crucial to the overall success of our campaign to restore consumer confidence.
This raises the question of the safe disposal of offal from the meat-processing sector.
It has huge environmental and cost considerations.
At the outset of this debate I advocated an urgent research programme into the safe use of this material.
I now reiterate that call.
I was pleased to hear President Santer acknowledge that mistakes were made by the Commission.
Of course mistakes were made. And mistakes were made by this Parliament.
We are all human and we belong to human institutions.
It is my view that no Commissioner, from MacSharry to the present Commissioner Fischler - and I include as well Commission officials - would deliberately embark on a campaign to endanger public health.
Nothing I have heard in this debate would cause me to change my mind.
Judgement on the action of the Commission must be based on the circumstances at any given time.
It is easy to be the hurler in the ditch.
It is easy to evaluate past events with the wisdom of hindsight.
I believe that all of us who are committed to resolving this issue now have a profound responsibility to work together in a cohesive manner, with the interests of the consumer and producers in mind.
We have correctly spent time examining the origins of this crisis.
Now is the time to set out a comprehensive strategy to address the situation in relation to the future.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate not only the Committee of Inquiry but also all the national parliaments, including the House of Commons in the UK, for ratifying the Maastricht Treaty which made this committee of inquiry possible.
I think we can say that no national committee of inquiry could have achieved what this one has, and I think it has clearly extended the vital powers which this House enjoys.
I naturally also share the view that public health must always take precedence over market interests.
As every speaker has already said, many mistakes were made, but I do not think it right to table a motion of censure at this stage.
We can do so later in the year, if necessary.
I agree with what the Commission said, that there must always be a division of responsibilities between the policymakers and the policy monitors.
I welcome the plans outlined by President Santer, and we look forward to seeing them implemented.
I also think that we need more research at European level.
In the past - and with BSE this was too much the case - it has only tended to be carried out in the United Kingdom, which might make people suspect that the results were given a one-sided interpretation.
I too am in favour of having a quality assurance policy for agricultural products, but I only hope that farmers will also benefit from this, which has by no means always been the case.
Finally, we have seen that the non-public decision-making procedures in the Commission, on the CouncilCommission circuit, in the management committees and so on were not enough to prevent the most major crisis imaginable in the beef sector in Europe from occurring.
The only solution is to have more openness, which means greater codecision powers for the European Parliament.
Mr President, the Committee of Inquiry's damning conclusions make the responsibilities clear: the primary responsibilities of the British Government - whether Lord Plumb likes it or not - which cynically allowed the export of contaminated meat-and-bone meal that was banned on its own territory; the responsibilities of the manufacturers; and those of the Member States' governments - and there are no representatives of the Council here today.
Moreover, the report is a complete indictment of the Commission: negligence, administrative failures, a policy of disinformation and, above all, deliberately cynical decisions.
During your hearing, Mr Santer, you took cover behind scientific opinions in an attempt to justify your decisions.
But scientists as such do not take the decisions, and I would quote Guy Debord: ' However much they participate in the decision-making process, they can only influence it by associating themselves with one of the clans, or by gaining the confidence of one of the politico-bureaucratic cliques which vie for power and take up important scientific and technical issues for show, or which, far more often, need experts to dress up in scientific clothing decisions that have already been taken and have other motives' .
You have confessed the motive for these decisions - and I mean 'confessed' , because this was indeed a crime, and may prove to be a crime against humanity if an epidemic has to be declared in a few years' time.
That motive was the establishment of the single market.
That has been the Commission's priority since 1989.
The dogma of the free movement of goods was transformed into the freedom to contaminate cattle and humans.
And what of public health?
It was, as Mr Santer told us during his hearing, a matter of concern to the Commission.
No, Mr Santer!
Public health is a duty, a responsibility, and as the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas put it, responsibility does not sleep and leaves you with a furrowed brow.
That is why our group has used the procedural means available and joined with Members from other groups in tabling a motion of censure.
We need to set about reforming the CAP in such a way as to free it from an economic rationale which is leading to an over-intensification of farming, resulting in damage to the environment and product quality.
We need to curb the measures to liberalize and deregulate public services in the areas of human and animal health, we need to provide for funding to compensate the victims and, above all, we need to ensure the continuation of research.
Because the only way to compensate those suffering from the disease, Mr President, is to ensure that they can be treated in the future.
Mr President, I have a minute's speaking time left, which I should now like to devote to you, Mr Fischler.
The main thing is for a different agricultural policy to be introduced which serves to strengthen a rurally based economy.
That is what is said in the report, and it was confirmed by Mr Santer.
I should like to point out here that we have adopted a number of decisions in Parliament, for example the one on clover in relation to set-aside.
You will know that baby food is now only meant to be produced from organically farmed products.
You know that Parliament does not wish to see the use of genetic techniques in the area of organic food.
You are aware of the House's views on genetically engineered maize.
You know that some points are still in dispute as regards the legislation on trade in seeds.
On the whole, you support the socio-ecological approach to the countryside. I therefore think we must take Parliament's decisions seriously and engage in cooperation, not least with regard to milk.
If we can manage to get the cows back in the fields through a reform, then the bull will carry off Europa once again, of that I am quite sure!
(Laughter and applause)
Mr President, with mad cow disease we have seen ten years of total unconcern and criminal slackness, for the sake of ever greater profits.
The main blame lies of course with the United Kingdom, which allowed meat-and-bone meal to be produced under extremely dubious conditions.
Decisions were taken on the basis of biased recommendations, and studies were commissioned and paid for by the beef industry itself.
This seems incredible in itself, yet the Council of Ministers just stood by and watched.
For years, the Commission allowed a situation to continue where no veterinary checks on BSE were carried out, and the present Commission too must share responsibility for this.
Senior officials said that they were forced to give in to political pressure.
There were even attempts to sabotage the Committee of Inquiry, and the truth about gelatine was simply brushed under the carpet.
In any normal democracy, those responsible for blunders like this would be dismissed.
That is why we support the motion of censure, but the text which goes furthest is not even being put to the vote, on the orders of the biggest groups, which is an example of Parliament too evading its responsibilities.
President Santer has now made a public confession, and I only hope that he puts his statement into practice.
Mr President, the report by the Committee of Inquiry blames the UK Government and the Commission for a number of serious errors.
The Commission is accused of taking too much account of the market and too little of public health, of not having obtained independent scientific recommendations, of having made light of the problem for too long, and so on.
Although the previous Commission was to blame for most of this, the present Commission does not escape the criticisms.
While scientists advised caution, the Commission lifted the ban on exports of gelatine, tallow and semen from British bulls.
However, as far as we are concerned, there is no question of a motion of censure: it is easy to condemn with hindsight.
What matters now is how far the Commission assumes its responsibilities with regard to the failures mentioned in the report.
Its announcement that it is to set up a new directorate to coordinate consumer policy and public health is a step in the right direction, but it still needs to make its policy much more transparent, and to improve research and monitoring in cooperation with the national authorities.
The recommendations in the Medina report will be an excellent test here.
However, not everything it contains has our backing.
Its calls for the codecision procedure to apply to the CAP would certainly increase Parliament's powers, but have nothing to do with the BSE problem.
And the recommendation to restructure the CAP by promoting extensive agriculture is not relevant to the beef sector.
Discussions on this must take account of broader issues such as food supply, farmers' incomes and environmental protection.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the BSE affair has cost many human lives and jeopardized or indeed destroyed the livelihood of many cattle farmers.
It has created uncertainty among consumers throughout Europe and has cost the European taxpayer billions of ECU.
In its report, the Committee of Inquiry into BSE - for whose excellent work I would express my great appreciation - has drawn attention to the failings on the part of the United Kingdom, the Council and the Commission.
The report makes these clear through numerous examples.
However, I do not wish to become absorbed in the detail of the report, which shows above all the great shortcomings of the present concept of Europe.
My concern is to demonstrate that the shortcomings which have been identified are symptoms of a sickness that is inherent in the system.
The report of the BSE inquiry shows that the institutional structure cannot function as it exists at present.
The control mechanisms cannot work, where they exist at all.
My concern is the fact that the Commission has assumed de facto responsibility for legislation, without ever securing democratic legitimacy from the citizens of Europe.
My concern is that the Commissioners and the officials of the EU are acting without transparency, that they arbitrarily pass on or withhold information.
My concern is the way in which responsibility dissolves into a labyrinth, so that ultimately no one is responsible.
Finally, my concern is whether, even though all these defects have been revealed by the committee's report, there is any realistic chance of holding the Commission and all the other players to political account.
I very much regret that, on the basis of the present legal situation, the motion of censure on the Commission also affects Commissioners who have no responsibility in this matter.
However, the findings of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE do require measures to be taken.
Only in this way can the European Parliament live up to the image it seeks to have.
For this reason, we shall support the motion of censure tabled by Mr Happart.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the chairman of our committee, Mr Böge, on his work, and the rapporteur, Mr Medina, on steering his excellent report to a successful conclusion.
We are currently engaged in a long and momentous political debate, in which I shall endeavour not to repeat what has already been said.
Momentous, because of the importance of the subject under discussion: BSE, about which hardly anything is known - neither what the pathogenic agent is, nor how it is transmitted.
Momentous, in terms of its unusualness in this House - since this debate is being followed throughout the European Union, as it concerns human health, and that is an extremely serious matter.
Momentous, in terms of its development - from the establishment of a committee of inquiry to the tabling of the first ever motion of censure on the Commission, because of the seriousness of the facts revealed by the inquiry. The first ever motion of censure tabled in this Parliament, ladies and gentlemen: that is no laughing matter.
This affair has a past, a present and a future.
It has a past, in which the facts and the responsibilities of all the main players are clear: the British Government, as the main protagonist; the Council, with its silent support in meetings of ministers; and the Commission, as the institution which not only gave others a free rein, but did not do what it should have.
It has a present, and here I should like to be more specific.
We are dealing with an issue which we now know affects human health, and in respect of which neither silent support, nor giving a free rein - or turning a blind eye - nor political alliances are acceptable.
The obligation to safeguard public health is paramount.
And we would give a bad impression - and even worse, abuse the democratic mandate bestowed on us by our electors - if we failed to condemn these events.
In this affair, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, there is a great deal for which the Commission must be called to account.
With regard to the gelatine issue, for example - a phoney debate, as Mr Böge calls it - it is once again clear that political decisions are being taken over the heads of the scientific committees and against their advice, for reasons which at best are purely economic.
However, what is more serious, especially serious in my view, is the lack of openness and cooperation on the part of certain Members of the Commission, who have still not provided all the documentation requested by Mr Böge, even though we shall be voting on the matter tomorrow.
Mr Santer, this is not a responsibility of the previous Commission.
It is a responsibility of the present Commission: it is your responsibility.
We all know how the College of Commissioners works, and if it has failed to abide by the interinstitutional agreement - as it has done - which requires it to make such documents available, it may be by accident or for some other reason.
But even if it is by accident, it is still unacceptable.
If this is the way it has behaved in this affair, what are we, or the Union's citizens, to think of the lack of coordination, information, control and transparency that prevails in DG VI, or the demotivation of its officials, who see responsibilities moved up and down and back and forth?
The Commission should have made a gesture of magnanimity and self-sacrifice by assuming the individual political responsibilities which exist and by subordinating these individual interests to the interest of the institution as a whole.
Because sometimes, Mr Santer, you have to lose a battle in order to win the war.
And the war, in this case, is a war for the credibility of the European institutions - and more particularly the Commission, which as a result of this sorry affair is losing its accumulated stock of credibility and giving ammunition to the critics of European integration, whose numbers have understandably increased as a result of the Commission's lack of sensitivity in some of the policies that it presents.
I would urge you to bring forward a practical, viable and forward-looking plan: not cosmetic changes, but genuine reorganization.
Changing the Directorate-General is not enough.
Do not increase the amount of bureaucracy.
Discuss the plan with everyone involved, and do not expect miracles or individual saviours.
Stand by it, and require everyone else to stand by it in equal measure.
That is your challenge, Mr Santer, and your duty.
In any event, Parliament will know how to make good use of its powers and fulfil its duties, the first of which is to demand that the protection of consumers' health should be guaranteed.
And that is what all the citizens of the European Union are calling for and insisting on today.
Thank you, Mrs Redondo.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am aware of the great importance of this debate and the difficulty of summarizing your views in the limited amount of time you have available.
Nevertheless, I must ask you, with all due respect, to try to keep within your speaking time as far as possible, since otherwise the speaking time of later speakers will have to be reduced.
I am not making a value judgement about your various speeches, but I must ask you to organize your speaking time carefully.
And you should know that when you hear the hammer, it is your responsibility to end your speech, not mine.
I would stress that these remarks are not addressed in particular to Mr Rosado Fernandes, who now has the floor for three minutes.
Commissioner, if I had not signed the order paper for a motion of censure, I would almost be on your side and apologise to you for the tons of words which come out of this Parliament.
In fact we are a 'word factory' !
And you, at the Commission, very often are not an 'action factory' .
In this respect I should say that, at this moment of truth, which reminds me slightly of a certain type of Spanish or Portuguese spectacle, there is a whiff of adrenalin, as some people seem to be afraid of others.
Of course, I think that the Commission should be punished because, as it is the body chosen by governments, it is also a sort of joint government commission.
And, of course, it is not an elected body. It is meant to be the guardian of the treaties and to do its work.
But there have already been too many censures.
Censures could also be made against the European Parliament because, instead of cruelly passing an immediate censure motion it has opted for an even crueller system, that of delaying the killing.
People have been afraid in the past.
They have raised all kinds of arguments - that there was a government vacuum in Europe, that the market has been given preference over people's health, as we all know that the Commission could have defended both the market and public health, in the same way and at the same time.
One thing does not prevent the other!
The fact that is that impunity was used and it still exists throughout the European Community because, for example, I am against making the United Kingdom the only 'scapegoat' .
The truth is that other countries also could have reacted!
The truth is that the Commission could have reacted!
The truth is that when Commissioner MacSharry - who is also in the dock now - prevented countries from blocking the sale of meat, the countries could have done it themselves.
Political cowardice does exist, and there is nothing to be done about it.
That is why there is now that whiff of adrenalin I spoke of!
And of course, it seems that we are in a minotaur situation.
I must confess that I cannot see any labyrinth at my door, I do not see any need for Ariane's thread to get me away from the minotaur and, of course, for that reason I voted against the censure motion.
I think it was high time for the European Parliament to shoulder its responsibilities, shake off its fear and get rid of this smell of adrenalin.
I know that it is very difficult to do so.
But personally I find that it is not so hard for me to do so and also I rather like many of the present Commissioners.
Mr President, a vote of censure on the Commission at the present time is inappropriate.
This motion of censure is not only regrettable, but will be counterproductive for our image, since it forces Parliament to adopt a confrontational stance towards the Commission, although we know that it will ultimately back down.
Furthermore, Parliament is aiming at the wrong main target.
The villain of the piece is not the Commission, and certainly not the present College of Commissioners.
The Temporary Committee of Inquiry's report is quite clear on that, moreover.
I have no wish to play down the serious operational failures on the part of the Commission's services during the period when it was headed by Jacques Delors.
However, as everyone knows, the villain of the piece is first and foremost a national government over which we have no say.
That government, which is currently approaching an electoral campaign, should celebrate the fact that it is the Commission that is in the dock, whilst its own clearly documented crimes are quietly forgotten.
In these circumstances, a vote of censure is inappropriate, disproportionate and excessive.
Furthermore, the Commission is making amends for its past mismanagement and implementing a series of internal reforms designed to prevent a repetition of the mistakes that were made in its assessment of the seriousness of the crisis and in its handling of it.
This is the price of maintaining an institution's credibility, and I believe that Parliament has successfully performed its monitoring role by stirring things up and forcing a reorganization.
I am confident, Mr President, that in similar circumstances in the future, the imperatives of human health will take precedence over any other considerations.
This call to order as regards the priorities which must always be observed is a fine victory for Parliament, which has essentially won its case.
Mr President, there is a rather grim joke going around the Palace of Westminster that the British Government's interpretation of BSE is 'blame someone else' .
How can anyone place any trust whatsoever in the present UK government? First of all, we have Mr Hogg who has boycotted the Committee of Inquiry set up by this Parliament.
He is matched by Michael Forsyth, the Minister responsible for Scotland, who has been boycotting Brussels for many months.
His only contribution was to try to ban the flying of the European flag in Scotland on 'Peace in Europe' day.
These are the people that are asking us to blame the Commission and not them.
Yesterday, Mr Hogg said, and I quote: ' There is a strong case for Northern Ireland. The case is very powerful and I will urge the Commission accordingly' .
On the same day, Lord Lindsay, his junior Minister was saying in Brussels: ' I categorically deny that there has been any special deal for Northern Ireland' .
We hear today, on the grapevine, that £9.4 million is being spent in Northern Ireland.
I would like some confirmation, if the Commission has it, of these details.
Five months ago, the same Lord Lindsay had the effrontery to tell the Scottish farmers that Scotland can lead the UK out of the beef export ban.
Such irresponsibility and contradiction has to be recorded in the annals and in the record of this House.
What concerns me most is who pays the price for this incompetence?
It is, of course, the beef exporting farmer that I represent in Aberdeenshire and Angus and also the Northern Ireland farmers.
They are being made the scapegoats and it is time we pinned that blame where it belongs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, the main part of my speech will take the form of a letter - I hesitate to say a satirical address - to Mr Santer and his team, but firstly I should like to say something to the President of Parliament.
I do not believe that Parliament has increased its stature by its choice of date and time for the vote on the motion of censure.
Indeed, scheduling the vote for Thursday afternoon seems to me to be particularly provocative, when we know that the majority of Members leave Strasbourg after voting time at 12 noon on Thursdays.
I fear that, once again, we shall have the air of opportunists, if not political schemers.
You are a convinced European and an optimist, Mr Santer, and I also know that you are fond of Bordeaux wines.
That is why I like you, and why I wish to do you a favour.
I shall therefore be calling on my parliamentary colleagues to vote in favour of the motion of censure against you and the Commission. And why?
Because, while the responsibilities that can be laid at the door of the British Government are enormous, while those borne by the Delors Commission are clear, your Commission also bears a share of the blame.
The Commissioner with responsibility for agriculture, Mr Fischler, is sitting next to you.
He deliberately put the BSE dossier under wraps for at least two years.
Six months ago, he started to relax; then he clamped down, and he sometimes concealed important information, as you well know.
Mr Fischler, you are of the same political persuasion as me.
You are a man of honour.
If, as I think you do, you believe in Europe, you will resign.
You will do us a service, and you will do a service to the Europe in which you believe.
Mr Santer, this is a damning report.
I believe that the European Union has failed in its duty to protect public health and its citizens.
All of Europe knows it.
The Union's citizens will therefore fail to understand why such a serious misdemeanour is not punished.
That is why I shall be voting in favour of the motion of censure.
The moment that you and your Commissioners leave, the Union's citizens will begin to have faith in a Europe that is courageous and transparent enough to dismiss you.
And by going, you will enable the Europe in which you believe to move forward.
And then - rest assured - very quickly, in a few months, because the Member States' governments will wish to see you return - you are a good administrator and a good politician - you will come back with most of your Commissioners: Mrs Bonino, for example, who performs her duties extremely well, and even Mr de Silguy and Sir Leon Brittan.
Of course, you will have to let some of them go - especially Mr Fischler, and perhaps certain others - because their time is up and there is a need for change.
At that moment, the European Union will make a fresh start with a better image - thanks to you.
And that is why, Mr Santer, I shall do you a favour and support the motion of censure.
Mr President, perhaps this is a dream.
In any event, please ensure that it does not turn into a nightmare.
Thank you, Mr Bébéar.
Let me give you a provisional answer to the part of your speech addressed to the President of Parliament, and remind you that Rule 34(5) provides that the vote on a motion of censure shall not be taken until at least 48 hours after the beginning of the corresponding debate.
I think the timetable is tight enough.
Secondly - and I regret to have to say this, Mr Bébéar - it should not be forgotten that Thursday and Friday are also working days during the part-session, and as valuable as any others.
Mr Brinkhorst now has the floor for one and a half minutes.
Mr President, this debate may be of historic significance if it means that, as Mr Santer said, the iron ring that has surrounded the CAP for 40 years is finally broken.
This may happen, but I have seen no conclusive evidence of it so far in this debate.
The Commission has finally realized that power and monitoring power are two different things.
Consumers have been ignored for far too long, and this is why so many people here in the House are keen to see action instead of words.
Do we really have to wait until November? It is not in the interests of either the Commission or Parliament to wait nine months for practical steps to be taken.
The Commission will not have Parliament's confidence until these measures have been implemented, as Mrs RothBehrendt said. How many people will be involved?
What will the budget be? Whom will it really be monitoring?
People's suspicions will not be allayed until these measures are in place, so I hope we can agree on September rather than November.
I see that the Dutch presidency has sent a representative, and I have to say that as a Dutch Member I am extremely sorry that the presidency is not here in person, since it gives the impression that it is covering up for the stonewalling attitude of the UK Government The fact that the Council is not here simply shows the arrogance of power.
I would have expected my presidency to behave rather differently.
Mr President, the responsibility for the BSE crisis is shared by many, but real responsibility lies with the Common Agricultural Policy and all EU institutions are responsible for that, including Parliament.
It has created production conditions of an extreme, stressful and artificial nature.
It has crossed national boundaries and facilitated the spread of disease via animals and foodstuffs.
It has encouraged an imbalance in the location of slaughter houses leading, as a result, to animals being transported over unreasonably long distances.
It has, to put it bluntly, been developed on the belief that plants, animals and the soil can be treated as dead material.
BSE is the first great warning to those who have conducted this policy for decades.
The free agricultural market is an outdated idea, it must be replaced, root and branch, before an even greater crisis befalls us.
Mr President, everyone is joining forces today to condemn a serious operational failure on the part of the Community institutions.
In an attempt to be objective, however, I would point out that the Commission proposed a ban on the export of British meat-and-bone meal to the markets of the other Member States as long ago as 1989.
That proposal was rejected by the Council.
There was therefore a known risk.
The Commission should have adopted a different, more cautious approach, it is true; but this is a very long step from saying that we wish to lay the principal blame in this affair at the door of the Commission - a step which I believe it would be absurd, if not dishonest, to take.
The main culprit in this affair is undoubtedly the British Government.
It is clear that if, from 1988 onwards, it had adopted the necessary slaughter measures and banned the marketing of meat-and-bone meal, the outbreak of the disease could have been halted.
The BSE crisis was caused firstly by the criminal negligence of the British Government, which only acknowledges the existence of Europe when it wishes to promote its own interests.
It was also caused by the conspiracy of silence on the part of certain Member States, which instructed their experts in the Standing Veterinary Committee not to divulge information regarding the affair.
In these circumstances, an immediate vote of censure on the Commission does not make sense.
A conditional vote of censure is appropriate, however.
But who should be punished, and how?
Sanctions must be imposed on the British Government, which is guilty of seriously violating the rules of the internal market and organizing a large-scale economic crime, and which should be brought before the European Court of Justice.
Sanctions must also be imposed on those Member States which connived in the trafficking of British meat-and-bone meal, especially Belgium, which was at the hub of this trade, as revealed by the Mattei report to the French National Assembly.
I believe that it is important to get to the bottom of things, and to identify the real culprits and punish them.
The prestige of Parliament and the Union in the eyes of the citizens who will ultimately be our judge depends on this.
Mr President, as we all know last night in the House of Commons the British Agriculture Minister, Douglas Hogg, survived a vote of censure by the skin of his teeth.
All the more reason, therefore, for us to explain here today, from a European perspective, the crass incompetence of the British Government's handling of the BSE crisis.
There can be no question but that the Medina report is a trenchant condemnation of the British Government and a powerful exposé of the mistakes of the Commission.
Like Mr Whitehead, I have reservations about some of the recommendations in the report, but in a most graphic way I recognize that it shows that the British Government was slow to respond to the unfolding crisis.
The reports demonstrates how measures were enforced half-heartedly and it highlights the sheer incompetence of Douglas Hogg's vacillating administration.
Last week the British Government made a highly emotive attack on the Medina report.
But what was significant was that no attempt was made to contradict one of the central messages of the report: that it was the British Government which was principally responsible for BSE because of the deregulation of the meat-rendering industry in the early 1980s.
Similarly, I have to say that I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation of why Douglas Hogg was unable to attend the committee of inquiry's meeting.
Given that the Permanent Secretary, Mr Packer, who attended in place of Mr Hogg, informed us that BSE was an act of God, we perhaps should be grateful that Douglas Hogg did not attend.
If Mr Packer blamed God for what happened, goodness knows whom Mr Hogg would have blamed!
This report shows that the buck stops with the British Government.
As was stated in yesterday's Financial Times, for 11 long years the government continued saying that British beef was completely safe, despite the contrary evidence which was emerging.
The result has been that 15 people have sadly died of Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease; farmers and farm workers alike have suffered unprecedented hardship; the British taxpayer has had to fork out £3.3bn, and over one million cattle have been culled.
The British Government's policy of non-cooperation was, as we all know, a farce.
Douglas Hogg's charm offensive throughout Europe was a disaster and the British Government declaring that the Florence agreement was good, then bad, then good again served only to cause confusion and dismay.
Despite all of this, the ban on British beef remains to this day.
Surely the lesson for the British people is that for the ban to be lifted the Conservative Government has to be removed.
Let us hope that this will happen in the very near future.
Mr President, one of the most important roles of the European Parliament is the monitoring of the actions of the Commission.
The monitoring by the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry of the various aspects of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy affair, involving the United Kingdom, the Council and the Commission, has been assiduous, despite the shortage of time and the fact that certain circles in the Commission were not always helpful, principally with regard to the furnishing of important documents, some of which have still not been made available.
The Committee of Inquiry has carried out its monitoring without bias, and the results are clearly stated in its report, which presents the facts, attributes responsibility as appropriate and makes recommendations to prevent the same sort of thing and the irregularities in the workings of the Commission happening again.
Allow me to recall that one of the labours of Hercules was to clean the Augean stables.
I believe that the chairman of the committee and its members and the rapporteur have performed a similar, herculean, task.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this crucial juncture, as the work of the intergovernmental conference nears completion, we must examine the European Union's priorities and ask ourselves how best we can serve the interests of the citizens of Europe to whom we are responsible.
We must be scrupulous and satisfy the citizens' sense of justice. The Commission has to be put on a new course, and that can be achieved only through a restructuring of its services and, above all, through the adoption of new basic principles.
To that end, the fairest way forward - one which combines sanctions with the requirement for a new approach - is a conditional expression of censure.
Acceptance by the European Parliament of the report of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE will entail, of itself, the attribution of responsibilities as between the United Kingdom, the Commission and the Council and, also, to senior officials. In my view, Parliament should adopt a rigorous and condemnatory approach.
That approach will also be constructive because of the things that are being demanded from the Commission. Firstly, that it should put its house in order and initiate the requisite disciplinary action against the persons responsible for the mismanagement, regardless of their seniority.
Secondly, that it should forward a proposal, in the context of the intergovernmental conference, concerning the application of the co-decision procedure to the CAP.
Thirdly, that it should move quickly towards full reorganization of the scientific committees and to ensure that their operations are based on purely scientific criteria.
Fourthly, that it should reorganize the directorates-general, in cooperation with the European Parliament, in order to establish a suitable structure for effective protection of human health and the environment.
Espousal of the precept that the health of human beings is the fundamental priority, and that it must, of course, take precedence over the financial expedience of the common market, is imperative.
We believe this to be the only way of ensuring that the citizens of Europe can regain full confidence in the actions of the Commission and be convinced that it is the true guardian not only of the treaties but also of their health and the environment.
If the Commission fails to act quickly, and in accordance with the Committee of Inquiry's recommendations, you can be sure, Mr President of the Commission, that December will be the final month of your Commission.
Do not think that you can fool us with half-measures.
We want full compliance with the committee's recommendations and immediate withdrawal of your authorization, which is still applicable, of the lifting of the ban on gelatin.
We ask you to rescind that decision immediately.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to concentrate on three points.
Firstly, of course, the relationship of trust between many Members of the House and the Commission has been shattered.
However, the most important thing has to be that political conclusions are actually drawn from this whole scandal, that reforms are introduced.
Here I would like to address Mr Fischler personally as the Agriculture Commissioner.
I sometimes have the impression that you are in a rather protected position, because there is no vote of censure on individual Members of the Commission.
But you will be judged on whether you do two things now.
And these are my second and third points.
It will not do for a country or a government to cause enormous damage and then not to have to pay for it.
A great deal of money has been spent on repairing the damage.
This must be retrieved - if necessary through an action before the European Court of Justice.
That is very important.
And there is another point on which you should be focusing, as Mr Santer also said in his speech: the principal mistake in this series of events was a misguided agricultural policy.
And you are responsible, Mr Fischler, for seeing that a change takes place here, a move away from an industrial agricultural policy and towards an ecological policy.
You will be judged on that basis, and we shall link the question of censure to that point.
Mr President, despite the lack of clarity in your announcements, Mr Santer, most Members will no doubt attach your speech to the decision which I hope we shall adopt by a large majority tomorrow, because then in a few months' time we can check what has become of them.
I have the impression that there is a large measure of agreement with the Commission here in the House that there can be no cost-cutting when it comes to protecting the health of our citizens.
That has always been the case, but the principle has not been observed.
The policy has not been adapted to it.
The British Government stands at the head of the chain of cause and effect in this failure, and the Commission has failed as well.
The Council of Ministers has not covered itself with glory, and we should also exercise some degree of self-criticism: despite early warnings from the committees, for example, we did not produce a majority for any radical change in agriculture policy.
So, was BSE a matter of chance? Was it an accident?
It was not. One of its causes was the British Government's complete misunderstanding of deregulation, and also to some extent the mistaken idea of deregulation put forward by the Commission and some sections of Parliament.
Another cause was the misguided agriculture policy.
I am not speaking out here in favour of some wonderfully cosy form of small-scale agriculture.
We have large units; if we have large herds, then large areas go with them.
These too can make ecological sense, but we certainly do not have both things at the moment!
I am quite sure you need a new Director-General, Mr Fischler.
If someone is responsible for fire prevention and does not do his job properly, you cannot then employ him as a fire-fighter!
That is not on, believe me!
I would say quite clearly once again: we in Parliament cannot simply make demands.
We need to play our own part in the forthcoming reforms, and I will certainly be appealing to many colleagues on these lines.
When we come to tackle a reform of the agriculture policy - and not just here in Europe - I shall be reminding them of what has been said here in connection with BSE.
BSE was not a matter of chance!
And the Union must play its part.
We first have to change what is no longer acceptable in our European Union, for example the way in which we produce meat.
We do eat meat!
We are omnivores, after all.
But then we must consider certain things with regard to animals, and also with regard to human health.
And we need to do this throughout the world.
Unless the EU, with its strong market and from its general position of strength, also uses international agreements to try to change this way of producing agricultural goods, then not only will BSE have been a painful and unpleasant warning, but there will be worse to come, since if we go on behaving as we have done up to now, worse things are guaranteed!
Mr President, as a member of the Committee of Inquiry I voted for and I fully support the Committee of Inquiry's findings and recommendations.
The British Government was found to be responsible for starting the disease, for taking inadequate steps to prevent its rapid spread and, up to very recently, to eradicate it.
I hope that has now changed.
In particular it was found that the British decision to alter the manufacturing process which lowered sterilization standards for meat and bonemeal used in compound feeding stuffs for cattle allowed the emergence of the disease.
Whatever savings in fuel were achieved, this reckless change in standards has now cost consumers, taxpayers and especially farmers several million times more than any possible savings.
Having eventually banned the use of meat and bonemeal the British Government then completely failed to implement its ban.
Worse still, it allowed contaminated meat and bonemeal to be exported without restriction, thus contaminating herds in neighbouring EU countries.
I welcome President Santer's statement today, but since 1989 the European Commission has been slow to recognize the seriousness of this disease and it failed to supervise the British response.
It allowed contaminated meat and bonemeal to be traded freely throughout Europe.
Furthermore, the Commission carried out practically no veterinary inspections in the UK at a time when tens of thousands of animals were being infected annually in that country.
The Commission's lack of activity since 1989 in respect of BSE must rank as one of the greatest failures of public administration in recent history.
Most, but not all, of the fault lies with previous Commissions, as the report clearly establishes.
The report from the Committee of Inquiry incorporates a number of amendments which I tabled because I believe that BSE spread outside Britain mainly through exports of contaminated meat and bonemeal.
I have therefore included in the report a call for legislation to ensure meat and bonemeal is never again used in ruminant feeds and that ruminant feeds cannot be produced on any premises where meat and bonemeal is present.
The committee also accepted my proposal that meat and bonemeal be sold only under special licence and that, in addition, a full list of ingredients be displayed on all compound feeds.
Obviously these rules must be implemented in all Member States and backed by strong legislation.
Moving to the future, for the future we must double our efforts to eradicate the last remnants of this disease and restore public confidence in the high quality of our food products.
We must work incessantly to convince our own consumers and customers in exports markets that our beef is safe and wholesome.
The Commission must implement all the recommendations in our report and this must be done efficiently and immediately.
I will support the conditional motion of censure if the Commission does not satisfy our demands.
Our position is very clear.
We require strengthened monitoring and a reinforcement of current eradication measures.
We require a reorganization of the Commission's personnel and a refocusing of policy.
We require immediate progress in setting up the veterinary agency in Ireland to accurately supervise this work.
Mr President, the report by the Committee of Inquiry gives a clear picture of the major problems underlying the BSE crisis, the events which led to the problem and its causes.
I should like to thank the Committee for this.
The BSE crisis has understandably shaken consumer confidence in beef.
To restore that confidence will be the Commission's principal task in dealing with the crisis from now on.
According to the report, the previous Commission underestimated the BSE problem and concealed its seriousness.
The Commission neglected its duty to monitor compliance with veterinary rules in the internal market.
Under the Treaty, the Commission is responsible for monitoring compliance with Community legislation in the Member States.
The Commission is responsible for instituting legal proceedings against any Member State which violates Community legislation.
I should like to know how the Commission intends to shoulder this responsibility.
At the various stages of food production in the Union, the BSE crisis has already cost more than ECU 2 billion.
Those who have been forced to foot the bill are innocent farmers, whose support has been cut and is continuing to be cut.
What damages should be paid by those who made mistakes?
I support the conditional vote of no confidence to compel the Commission to take those unavoidable decisions to enable it to monitor Member States' compliance with Community legislation.
The effectiveness of the common market is at stake here.
This is particularly important because food safety and human health are affected.
If necessary, the Commission should introduce heavy, conditionally suspended fines for breaches of Community legislation wherever there is a danger to human health.
Mr President, given that Parliament, through Maastricht, has acquired the right to use a collective vote of censure as a parliamentary weapon, every Member of this supreme representative body within Europe should handle it responsibly.
In the vote on the Medina report, 16 members of the Committee of Inquiry voted against the limpest of motions from the Socialist Group, so that the report which is now before the House was adopted without the planned recommendation for a qualified vote of censure.
The press was full of this, as we know.
Now we are retrieving the situation with some appropriate resolutions, which we shall be voting on tomorrow.
This opposition - on my part too, I would point out - was not ducking the issue and did not reflect a lack of courage, quite the opposite.
The motion in question amounted to an even more toned-down vote of censure, no time for it being set and the date of December 1997 being deleted.
Those who threaten to use a vote of censure - of whatever kind - from the very beginning of an inquiry, and then in the end produce only the limpest forms of words, are damaging not only themselves, but Parliament as a whole, since everyone can see the reason for the lack of enthusiasm which has been mentioned: most of the Commissioners who would have to go would be from the ranks of the social democratic group!
Furthermore, the main point at issue here is surely not to demonstrate the guilt or innocence of the Commission which is now in office.
For us as elected representatives, the point must rather be our duty to restore to European consumers the confidence which they demand and deserve.
In other words, we MEPs would be well advised to join with the Commission in forming a counterbalance to the Council, rather than acting against it, above all in the light of the negotiations currently taking place at the Intergovernmental Conference.
That does not prevent us from expressing our views to one another plainly and frankly, and that is the point at issue today here in the House.
What is to be done? On the basis of the recommendations in the Medina report and Parliament's resolution, the Commission should now rectify its omissions as quickly as possible and correct the flaws which have been highlighted by the Committee of Inquiry.
The statements by President Santer indicate that the Commission is ready to do so.
However, should this not be carried through within a reasonable period of time, contrary to expectations, in other words by the end of this year, then we should not just raise a warning finger, as was the case with the vote in the Committee of Inquiry, but would really be obliged to hold a vote of censure pursuant to Article 144 of the Treaty.
Many positive things can be said about mad cow disease.
Without mad cow disease it would have been more difficult to incorporate animal welfare as a key principle in the new EU treaty.
Regard for animal welfare could have hindered the EU's and Great Britain's acceptance of an epidemic with hundreds of thousands of sick animals.
Without mad cow disease it would have been more difficult to stipulate that cows should only be fed with food their digestive systems can tolerate, i.e. one should not try to turn herbivores into carnivores, which is what happened when lorry-loads of meat and bonemeal were sent out from factories to cattle breeders.
Without mad cow disease attention would not have been focused on the fact that Great Britain has failed in its monitoring of meat and bonemeal companies and has not ensured that export bans were complied with, preventing EU inspectors from checking for mad cow disease on their visits to Great Britain.
Without mad cow disease not so much attention would have been focused on the special committee system which is decisive for much of the agricultural policy, or on the fact that scientific experts are actually regarded as merely an extension of the authorities themselves.
Without mad cow disease not so much attention would have been focused on the fact that the EU decides on agricultural policy in a more restrictive manner than for other areas of policy, even though the agricultural policy is one of the longest-standing areas of cooperation and this remains the area which accounts for half of the EU budget.
The general directorate for agriculture is certainly in need of a good airing.
Article 43 is now out of date, and the European Parliament does not have any influence over this.
Witnesses from the Commission have constantly spoken about taking account of the internal market, but they have made recommendations against the background of article 43.
This is not consistent.
Without mad cow disease we would not have had this golden opportunity which can now be used to the advantage of openness and democracy.
We do not want a Committee of Inquiry which is able to provide us with masses of documents which we should have received automatically.
The EU must have transparency in its administration, and mad cow disease helps to illustrate this need.
Without mad cow disease there would not have been the same drive in favour of a real consumer policy.
Our appreciation that the regulations governing marking must be in order has increased.
What we most need now is a reform in which those responsible for agriculture take account of health, consumers' rights and animal welfare, and in which they are not allowed to shirk their responsibility.
Those responsible for agriculture must also be made jointly responsible for a policy on foodstuffs.
The production of foodstuffs is, after all, the main point of an agricultural policy; one should not therefore be able to shirk responsibility for ensuring that food products are healthy.
When health and consumers' rights are the main issue, any reasonable person will understand that we must have the necessary time for the Commission and the Council to alter their routines and for the government conference to change the legal basis.
A vote of no confidence now will divert attention from the necessary reform of the EU in favour of a superficial debate on scapegoats, and this would be senseless.
Mr President, as members of the Committee of Inquiry we have carried out our work honourably, we have gathered facts, exposed abuses, identified those responsible and made recommendations.
Now the House must decide on the political follow-up to all this, and I hope that common sense will prevail.
An immediate motion of censure condemning the Commission's policy naturally appeals to some people's imagination, simply because they hope it will look good in the media, but it would be a destructive step to take at a time when we are trying to give people constructive reasons to have confidence in us.
What is more, the mistakes which caused the problem to escalate are not the fault of today's Commission, but of the United Kingdom, previous Commissions and the Council, whose presidency is conspicuous by its absence here.
And an immediate motion of censure would mean postponing other measures which cannot be delayed.
What we must do, ladies and gentlemen, is not provide bread and circuses for the public, but prove that we are capable of using the instruments of power available to us as they were intended, so as to ensure that we have a policy which guarantees the highest possible food quality.
We have already heard a great deal of talk about how to achieve this.
If everyone comes to realize that the long-term interests of farmers and consumers go hand in hand and acts accordingly, then we shall be back on the right track.
It is also time to put the spotlight back on ethics again.
Ethical considerations make life easier because they rule out certain choices from the start.
This is not one of my own ideas, it was an idea that was put forward by the President of the present Commission at a bioethics conference at the end of the 1980s.
I leave it to you to judge whether actions speak louder than words.
Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, for the time being we are happy to accept your statement of intent, but we also expect you to act on it.
How far you succeed will determine whether concern for the public interest is restored to its rightful place, which is why we shall have to monitor your actions very closely.
But there is another reason why we must hope that you succeed in implementing your planned reforms and Parliament's recommendations: our vote of confidence at the end of the year will depend on it.
Mr President, reading the excellent report by Mr Manuel Medina was a shocking experience.
It revealed the tangled web in which all concerned are involved in one way or another.
Behind everything else, however, one senses the urgent desire of the government of one Member State to play down the BSE problem, even to the extent of blackmailing the other institutions.
It is unfortunate that at least the previous Commission's officials and the Council, partly for this reason, on a number of occasions actually covered up the suspicions which had arisen, thereby preventing prompt measures to resolve the problem.
The investigating bodies set up by the Commission with an advisory and monitoring remit later turned out to be very one-sided, and their scientific competence has also been called into question by Parliament's Committee of Inquiry.
The main responsibility for the BSE crisis rests with the British Government.
The previous Commission also bears a large measure of responsibility for the cover-up and for its indifferent management of the affair.
Now it is necessary to carry out quickly the measures which Parliament's Committee of Inquiry has recommended.
The present Commission should be judged above all in the light of the seriousness with which it bears the responsibility now conferred on it and how quickly and effectively it acts upon the Committee of Inquiry's proposals for improving administration and monitoring.
The most important thing is the health of the European public.
Mad cow disease must be eliminated and at the same time measures must be taken to ensure that nothing similar can happen in the future.
A vote of no confidence in the Commission would not now promote the attainment of these objectives.
In future it must be possible for Community decisions on human and animal health and the required Community legislation to be based on scientific knowledge which is as sound and impartial as objectively possible.
Decisions which have been taken must be adhered to, and it must be possible to check effectively enough that they are watertight.
The subsidiarity principle must not mean that one Member State has the right to deceive the others and to ignore Community legislation concerning human health while at the same time expecting the others to display budget solidarity, so that it is the others that end up having to pay.
This is also a serious reminder to the Intergovernmental Conference of the areas where flexibility must not under any circumstances be permitted.
It has already been said repeatedly here what is basically at stake: an agricultural policy in which it is imagined that nature can even be altered so as to turn ruminants into carnivores.
Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by quoting from Karl Valentin: ' Everything may already have been said, but not yet by everyone!'
An unqualified motion of censure on the present Commission is not an appropriate political means of doing justice to the findings of the Committee of Inquiry.
The committee has indeed identified some serious breaches of consumer protection, but at the same time it has become clear that too little effort was made to prevent the spread of the disease, with its disastrous consequences.
Many farmers in Europe have therefore had their livelihoods seriously damaged, and some have been completely ruined.
That point has not yet been made today.
Meat processing businesses have gone bankrupt, because at times the trade in beef came to a complete standstill.
Furthermore, an unprecedented degree of uncertainty has been created among consumers.
This is a question of general responsibility.
In the forefront there is one Member State which bears a large proportion of the blame for today's debacle.
However, both the Commission and the Council of Ministers, together with the scientific committees, have also seriously neglected their duty of care.
The Committee of Inquiry has clearly demonstrated the inability of the authorities in question to take effective measures to combat the disease.
With our motion for a resolution, we wish to usher in a new beginning, so as to avoid such catastrophes in future.
Although Parliament, through Mr Böge, myself and many other colleagues, sent specific proposals to the Commission and the Council as long ago as 1989 and 1990, these have never been taken into consideration.
The European Parliament is therefore calling for a full right of codecision in all areas of agriculture policy, since effective combating of disease must involve animal marking, clear guidelines and certification in the production of feed, and also strict controls.
The internal market can only function with appropriate legal bases.
Through our resolution, the Commission is being given an opportunity to introduce an improved strategy for combating disease and for protecting human and animal health.
You now have the chance, Mr President of the Commission, of doing precisely this in conjunction with Parliament.
Finally, I should like to thank Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Böge.
Your work has been excellent and exemplary, and we have gladly played our part in it.
Now it is your turn to do something sensible with us!
Mr President, I should like to join previous speakers in congratulating both the committee chairman, Mr Böge, and the rapporteur, Mr Medina, on their work in the committee.
I believe that the objective of investigating alleged contraventions or maladministration in the implementation of Community law in relation to BSE has been met in full, and that reading part A of this report will answer any questions in that respect.
We are also bound to mention a factor which is noted in the report itself, and that is the obstructive attitude adopted by the Commission and the British Ministry of Agriculture, which could surely have cooperated more fully in clarifying certain points.
I should like to underline the three sets of responsibilities highlighted in Mr Medina's report.
Firstly, there are the responsibilities of the British authorities, in terms of their failure to implement stringent animal or human health measures, their total lack of control over the manufacturing of meat-and-bone meal, their indifference to the fate of British meal exports, and the pressure they brought to bear on the Commission and the governments of other Member States - including my own - to relax or lift the embargo on beef and, subsequently, on gelatine, tallow and semen.
As the rapporteur makes clear, it was not so much a question of a lack of standards or legislative provisions, as of a refusal to abide by the rules of fair and open cooperation which must govern relations between the Member States of the Union.
Secondly, there are the responsibilities of the Council.
And, thirdly, there are the responsibilities of the Commission, mainly its mishandling of the BSE crisis, which is closely linked to Commissioner MacSharry, and in which the stability of the beef market was given priority over the protection of human health, and a clear policy of disinformation and minimization was conducted.
There was a widespread lack of coordination between the relevant Commission departments, and a failure to attach sufficient importance to the protection of public health in the Union.
Lastly, there were no veterinary inspections.
All in all, the Commission left a great deal to be desired in its handling of the BSE crisis, and committed serious errors and omissions.
I therefore support all the rapporteur's recommendations for the future - although at least two of them, in my view, deserve to be highlighted.
The first concerns the need for the Commission and Parliament to set up a joint body to monitor and review the measures to be adopted, including those that President Santer has set out in Parliament's debate today.
And the second concerns the need to ensure the transparency of the debates of the advisory scientific committees and, in general, to reform the rules governing their work in such a way as to safeguard their independence and advisory function.
Only if we draw the necessary conclusions from the mishandling of this crisis will we be able to prevent a repetition of the errors that were made.
I shall conclude by saying, Mr President, that as the rapporteur points out in his report, since the creation of the European Community, no single issue has affected people's daily lives as much as this.
We are obliged to repair the damage which the BSE crisis has caused to the idea of Europe throughout European public opinion.
Mr President, mass livestock farming, mass consumption, mass culling - this road to disaster needs to be avoided.
There is no doubt that there have been serious failures of crisis management with regard to BSE: firstly by the British Government, as our group chairman Mr Martens said, and by the Commission in the period from 1990 to 1994.
It is therefore essential for the Commission as an institution to be called to account, on the basis of the joint motion for a resolution tabled by the PPE and PSE Groups.
This does not mention blame, but specifically invokes the Commission's responsibility for implementing the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry.
Moreover, individual and disciplinary measures must be taken in respect of the officials concerned.
The fact that the President of the Commission himself, Mr Santer, has admitted to mistakes reinforces our belief that this Commission is able and willing to do all it can to avoid a repetition of the errors of the past, and to justify the confidence which our chairman Mr Martens expressed in the Commission on behalf of the 15 delegations in the PPE Group.
The declaration that priority will be given to consumer protection and health policy in the EU is an important signal, not least for the citizens of Austria.
I would particularly highlight the Commission's intention only to have recourse in future to scientists whose independence is guaranteed.
Another welcome reform is the checks introduced between this stage and legislation.
We are pleased to see that the European Parliament, as the representative of our citizens, is gaining increased codecision in matters of health, consumer protection and agriculture, and also that at the Intergovernmental Conference, Article 129 will be amended so that our citizens' health will take priority over all other interests.
It may be that today we have seen a turning-point in the relations between the European Parliament and the Commission.
Perhaps these can now be placed on a new footing, after the salutary shock provided by the BSE crisis.
Like the chairman of the PSE Group, Mrs Green, we too are ready to put our trust in the Commission for the time being, but we shall remain vigilant in the interest of our citizens.
Mr President, the development of the European Union will depend on whether its citizens espouse the idea of European integration because they feel that their interests are being represented.
A policy which gives priority to business over people and which puts the functioning of the market above public health is letting down the citizens of Europe and thereby ultimately calling into question what it professed to support.
Mr Santer, you have spoken of a health union today and announced many changes.
But surely these changes, or at least some of them, would have been possible at the start of your Commission's term of office?
Was a crisis such as BSE really necessary to prompt you to act and introduce reforms?
The report of the Committee of Inquiry, for which I am extremely grateful to Mr Medina, has identified omissions, errors and shortcomings and - just as importantly - made proposals for the future: reforms which are necessary to protect public health, to restore the confidence of our citizens and to allow for democratic controls.
However, that means giving responsibility for food issues to the Commissioner who deals with consumer protection, together with all the necessary resources!
It means using Article 100a as the legal basis for all the legislation on food!
It means having public access to the reasons behind decisions, with transparency in the scientific committees and advisory bodies, and in the allocation of studies and the organization of seminars.
It means creating a European equivalent of the US Food and Drug Agency, with all the independence that is required.
I therefore expect that the green paper on the future of food - which was announced a year ago, and to which several of my colleagues have referred - will contain these necessary reforms, since otherwise there is no point in discussing it.
I now expect that action will be taken quickly, and that the Intergovernmental Conference will be used to discuss with the Member States the necessary reforms of the institutions.
For this reason, I am opposed to a censure motion at the present time.
If heads are made to roll, it does not mean that reforms can actually take place, but without these reforms - which have been announced, and which I hope will not remain simply announcements, and Parliament will be monitoring this very closely - there can be no further development of the European Union.
But surely that is what we all ultimately wish to see!
Mr President, as I listened carefully to Mr Santer the following scene came into my mind: a ship, caught up in a great storm, is in danger of drifting on to rocks and breaking up, and the captain, instead of sending out an SOS to try to save the situation, sits in his cabin writing in the ship's log the provisions that he intends to buy in the port, assuming that he arrives there...
The arguments put to us here today by Mr Santer concerning the political responsibilities of the present Commission as regards the gelatin issue are the ones that he put to us at his previous appearance here before Christmas, when he failed to convince any of the members of the Committee of Inquiry which has since unanimously pointed the finger of blame at the Commission.
I cannot understand why he did not propose today one of the measures that the committee recommends, namely the rescinding of the decision on gelatin.
It is not because of the Commission that the decision has not been given practical effect, but because the United Kingdom government has not requested an export licence - and I point that out in order to acquaint this House with the true facts.
The Commission has referred to changes in its working practices, but there has been no mention of the counterarguments of the commissioners who disagree with the changes, and nothing has been said about which changes are to be made at Directorate-General V1. We agree that appropriations and money are required for the investigation not just of BSE but also of new diseases.
We understand the situation. Having violated nature in the name of economic growth, we are being faced every day with new problems and new, unknown, diseases, and those diseases have to be investigated as well, of course.
In the course of our own investigations something else quite deplorable took me by surprise: the 15 Member States are equal under the Treaty, but we noted that some are more equal than others.
One such is the United Kingdom: effectively it rejected Community controls, and the Commission acquiesced in that situation. Yet at a time when BSE was wiping out the herds of the United Kingdom, 34 of the 40 inspectors - and be reminded of the Commission's claim that it is short of inspectors - spent a long time in Greece.
Why were they there?
They were investigating swine fever. And quite rightly so, but it did not need so many of them because the presence of the disease in Greece and Germany had already been notified and a general ban had been imposed on meat from all of the regions from the very outset.
A month ago, Mr President, in Strasbourg, I met the mother of a young British man, aged 19, who had died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
With great dignity, she said to us: ' I cannot get justice from the government of the United Kingdom, and I just want your Parliament to tell me who is to blame.'
I believe that Mr Medina Ortega's report, this splendid report, gives the answer.
The material that we gathered with such difficulty under the guidance of the committee chairman, Mr Böge, is, I think, material that can be used by any interested party for the attribution of criminal and civil responsibility, since we ourselves do not have that competence.
Mr President I want to put on record one part of the United Kingdom that has been seriously wronged in all of this awful mess that we are in, and that is Northern Ireland.
No part of this Community has a traceable system like the system in Northern Ireland.
No part of this Community has a better health record and no part of this Community has done everything in its power to conform to what this Commission has said.
Yet we find that part of the United Kingdom is sinned against not only by the British Government, but also by this Community.
I hope that this Community will take note of what I have said.
I have said it to the Commissioner - and the Commissioner agreed with Mr John Hume and myself and Mr Nicholson - that we were streets ahead of other parts of the Community as far as animal health is concerned.
I hope that this great wrong which has been done to Northern Ireland will be put right.
Thank you, Mr Paisley.
Ladies and gentlemen, with Mr Paisley's speech, we have come to the end of the list of speakers, and I am informed that the Commission now wishes to speak. Mr Fischler will speak first, then Mrs Bonino, and lastly President Santer.
I therefore give the floor to Mr Fischler.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of this debate, which for me has had four distinguishing features: it has been a very clear debate, a very constructive one for long periods - I would even say the most intellectual debate I have experienced since I began attending Parliament - and an extremely exciting debate.
President Santer has set out the Commission's policy very clearly, and there is no need for me to repeat all of that here.
At the same time, this policy provides the answer to most of the questions which have been raised.
I too will try to state my views clearly and concisely on a number of points.
Mr Martens put two questions to me. Firstly, there was the decision on gelatine.
Mr Böge himself said in his speech that there had been a phoney debate on this issue.
I can only agree with him there, because not an ounce of British gelatine has left or will leave the United Kingdom without every possible guarantee of safety.
As I have already explained to the House, the decision on gelatine has been put on ice.
The Commission based its decision on the opinion of the Scientific Veterinary Committee, which enlarged on the scientific knowledge available at the time.
In the meantime, however, the state of knowledge has changed.
Therefore, until all the new questions which have arisen have been clarified, the de facto export ban remains in place.
The second question was the provision of information to the Committee of Inquiry.
Mr Santer has referred to the instructions which I gave.
I do not think any further comment is needed on my part.
However, Mr Böge also drew attention to the key point here today, which is that we should learn lessons for the future from this debate - all of us!
I entirely agree with that in substance, and I would even stress that much more is at issue here than just the question of BSE.
For some years now - not least in my previous activities - I have been pursuing a new concept, a new approach to agriculture policy which I have to say has not always met with unqualified approval.
Let me mention some of the principles which I regard as crucial for the future.
Firstly, in my policy I am building on the alliance between the consumer and the farmer.
Secondly, I think we must all recognize that quality is more important than quantity!
Thirdly, protecting health and the environment must be our constant concern. What do I mean by that?
Today, the consumer has a right to expect that, from the barn or the field to the table, continuous checks and quality assurance are guaranteed.
It is also a question of farmers embracing the principle of sustainability, which includes animal protection and keeping livestock in an appropriate way.
These are not merely statements and announcements, ladies and gentlemen.
I have also launched a series of practical measures.
I would remind you of the hormone conference, of the conference in Cork, of the extension of the organic farming regulation to animal products, of my initiative to simplify all the veterinary legislation, and of the ban on veal crates.
I am pleased to say that several of these proposals were also received favourably by Parliament, and I am counting on further cooperation in the future, as has indeed been called for.
I have a further comment in this context on BSE.
I should like to point out that some important initiatives have also been taken here by the Commission.
I would remind the House that before the crisis was discussed in March last year, the so-called Weissmann Group was set up by me to devise a new research programme for this entire sector.
And I would remind you that it was the Commission which introduced the export ban in March.
It was the Commission too which proposed the packages of measures which the United Kingdom has to implement, and a proposal is also now before Parliament for improved animal marking and better labelling of meat products.
I do agree with one thing, however: we need much more transparency.
I believe that here too our model, for example the way in which we organized the hormone conference, has been a pointer for how to deal with such questions publicly in the future.
A reform of the advisory committees for agriculture is now imminent, and controls in the health sector have also been proposed, as Mr Santer mentioned.
I believe that the Commission and Parliament need to chart this new course in agriculture policy together.
One thing must be clear: to do this, we first need the expression of confidence which you have given us today and, for my part at least, I shall do all in my power to do that justice.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be quite brief at the end of this debate, since today I mainly wish to let you know my feelings, which are that there are no miracle solutions, and we must all be aware of that.
However, on the part of the Commission there is a firm political commitment, a wish for transparency and good will.
The challenge which the Commission and Parliament must take up is enormous: we have to invent a European model of public health monitoring and protection.
It is indeed a challenge, because no such model currently exists.
We must all display a spirit of inventiveness and responsibility.
According to my initial understanding of this dossier, we have no more than an embryonic capacity for inspection and control.
I wonder, for example, if there is not a need to revise the inspections mandate.
I am also wondering about the legislative process, since it must result in overall coherence: it is not enough just to transfer the departments of DG VI to DG XXIV.
There are enormous problems to resolve, therefore.
We must get the mix right: we have the ingredients, let us first see if we have enough of them, and then let us turn them into policy - and that will be no easy matter.
Nevertheless, an initial set of measures have been adopted at administrative level.
And, as President Santer rightly said, this is only a first step.
For the rest, we have sketched the broad outlines.
We still have to flesh out our proposals and give ourselves the means to implement them - and that is also a challenge.
We have launched an internal audit to determine the scale of the resources needed.
I wish to say that I am entirely prepared to have an initial meeting with you towards the middle of March, as soon as the audit has been completed, that is.
I have no illusions: three weeks from now, my ideas will not be perfectly clear - quite the opposite.
That is why I wish to seek your views on the health monitoring policy that we must put in place.
Then I intend to come back to Parliament in April - before presenting the official communication which Mr Santer referred to - so that we can define together a model that will enable us to rise to the challenges.
Furthermore, it is not only the BSE affair that is at issue: there are a number of other dossiers - to which you have referred - which are receiving our full attention, not to say giving us cause for concern.
There is a legislative problem, ranging from the green paper proposals to the question of product liability - but I shall not list everything.
You are well aware of the dossier's complexity.
We must summon up all our energy, capacity for invention and sense of responsibility.
Many of you have experience in this field.
I consider it my duty to drawn on everyone's experience, whether at the level of consumer associations or ministries - as you will already have observed.
Moreover, in my hearing before Parliament two years ago, I was questioned on my responsibilities, but I did not have these responsibilities at the time.
It would therefore be wise for us to agree on an appropriate model of health monitoring and protection for our fellow citizens.
As I said at the beginning of my speech, there are no miracle or overnight solutions, and we must all be aware of that.
We need resources: if we wish to implement policies, we must provide ourselves with the necessary means.
And I am counting on your support in this, because as Mr Böge rightly said, we have a natural alliance.
We still have to make that alliance bear fruit.
Thank you, and, if I understand things correctly, we shall be seeing each other again before long.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have listened very carefully to the numerous speakers in this important debate.
Commissioners Fischler and Bonino have responded to a number of observations and let you know their feelings at this stage.
I do not wish to reopen this debate, which has been extremely dense, but constructive.
I should like to say firstly that you, the Members of the European Parliament, have done your job by presenting and debating the report of the Committee of Inquiry.
And I am able to say with confidence that the Commission will continue to do its job, in the interest of Europe's citizens.
Like you, I would have wished the Council - which, as an institution, is equally involved in this affair - to take part in this debate.
Over and above its political differences, Parliament as a whole is concerned to ensure that, from now on, considerations of human health are taken more into account in the framing of Community policies.
I share that concern.
I said so earlier, and I indicated the practical measures to be taken in my speech.
As for the Commission, in the light of the committee's conclusions, it will do everything it considers necessary, in accordance with its institutional prerogatives and its sense of the general European interest.
And I hope that others - for example the European Parliament - will have the courage to break certain taboos when we come to discuss food policy and the future of the CAP.
Mr President, I said in my speech that I wished to assume the responsibility of the College of Commissioners - and I take that word seriously.
I must say to you, in all honesty, that that is what I have been doing at the head of the Commission for the last two years.
All the measures we have taken since the British Government's announcement of new scientific data last March have been guided by that principle.
There was the decision to introduce a total embargo immediately, despite the vigorous protests of the British Government.
And that embargo is still in force.
There was the decision in principle to lift conditionally the embargo on certain derived products, which was taken on the basis of the scientific data available to the Commission at the time.
I would stress, moreover, that that decision was not implemented in practice, for the reasons that Mr Fischler has just given.
And, lastly, there was the proposal for a framework agreement, which was adopted by consensus at the Florence summit.
That agreement lays down extremely strict rules for examining any request for the lifting of the embargo, partial or otherwise.
In conclusion, I wish to reiterate - as Mrs Bonino has just done - the Commission's commitment to cooperating with Parliament, with due regard for our respective competences.
Similarly, I welcome the offer of cooperation that Parliament has made.
That is how I interpret the report presented and debated this afternoon.
As Mrs Bonino just said, the Commission is prepared to keep Parliament regularly informed of the progress of its work.
May some good come from this disaster, and may Europe become a better place to live for its citizens: that, ladies and gentlemen, is my most fervent wish.
Thank you, Mr Santer.
Ladies and gentlemen, with Mr Santer's speech, the joint debate on the BSE crisis is closed.
The vote on the Medina Ortega report and the eight motions for resolutions will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
The vote on the motion of censure will take place on Thursday at 3 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.40 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-0001/97).
Question No 44 by Gary Titley (H-0014/97)
Subject: Failure of Member States to recognize each others' academic and professional qualifications
A constituent of mine, a highly qualified Modern Languages teacher married to a Frenchman, has found that her qualifications are not recognized by the French authorities.
She has consequently not been able to find appropriate work teaching languages in French schools.
What action is the Commission taking to ensure mutual recognition of language teaching qualifications? What comments does the Commissioner have on the French authorities' approach?
The Commission is aware of the matter raised by the honourable member.
The Commission's services have received numerous complaints about the problems encountered in France by teachers coming from other Member States.
As far as teachers are concerned, in fact, the applicable directive is 89/48/EEC, which relates to a general system for the recognition of higher education diplomas gained as a result of professional training courses lasting a minimum of three years.
The basic principle of that directive is that the host Member State must permit a Community citizen to carry on a profession within its territory even if he is not in possession of the national diploma required for that purpose, provided that he is in possession of the diploma required in a different Member State in order to embark upon or carry on the same profession.
This recognition confers upon the migrant worker the right to embark upon or carry on the profession in question on the same conditions as a holder of the national diploma.
When the appointment of teachers takes place by means of a competitive examination - as is the case in France where public education is concerned - recognition authorizes migrants to participate in the competition, though without offering any guarantee that they will be successful.
The French authorities can, furthermore, require migrant teachers to undergo a probationary period on the same conditions as French citizens.
They may not, however, require Community citizens who are already teaching in another Member State to take the French training course in order to earn the diploma required in France.
That is the background, and the conclusion drawn from that background, given the circumstances, is that the Commission has instituted proceedings for infringement against France, pursuant to Article 169 of the Treaty, with regard to its failure to apply to teachers the Community rules on the reciprocal recognition of diplomas.
I am delighted to hear that the Commission is taking action on this matter because the constituent of mine who I referred to has a first-class degree at an English university in French and German, is a fully qualified teacher in the United Kingdom and has a Master of Arts in German.
Her mistake was to marry a Frenchman and go and live in France where she has been refused employment as a teacher despite having considerable experience of teaching.
In fact, the only employment she can get is with French private schools as an animatrice , which is a very low grade of occupation.
So dire has the situation become that this lady is now proposing to return with her baby to the United Kingdom to find work, leaving her husband in France, and intends only joining him during the school holidays.
Forty years of integration have ended up with a divided family despite all the fine words about mutual recognition of qualifications.
I can therefore only urge the Commission to take the most effective and rapid action.
Forty years after the Treaty of Rome it is not good enough that we are dividing families in this way.
I should just like to stress again, after the remarks by the Member of Parliament, that the Commission is making use of the measures provided for by the Treaty.
There are currently two infringement procedures under Article 169 of the Treaty and, if necessary, the Commission would not hesitate to bring the matter before the Court of Justice.
Mr President, I too was very pleased with the Commissioner's answer.
On a slightly broader point, I wonder if he could say what progress, if any, has been made in bringing professional bodies in other areas together to persuade them to recognize qualifications in each of the Member States.
In particular, there seems to be a problem with university degrees.
Professional bodies, say in the United Kingdom, recognize that a degree in law from a British university goes some way to meeting the professional qualifications for a lawyer but not necessarily a degree in law from a French university.
Perhaps law is not the best example because of the different legal systems.
But it might be the same in architecture or any other profession.
Clearly if the same rights of accreditation are not universal throughout the European Union, this does amount to a restriction on the mobility of labour and harms the single market.
Yes, this is a very general and important question. I will provide a general answer by saying that this is indeed a key aspect of free movement of people and of effective citizenship in the Union.
We are addressing this sort of problem by combining three facets of action: information, enforcement and finding out whether further legislative action is needed.
Regarding information, you all know the Citizens First programme through which we convey to our citizens effective information on how to work in another Member State of the European Union.
This is useful because it provides citizens with this information, and provides useful feedback about the obstacles they actually encounter.
Regarding infringements, I just mentioned one case vis-à-vis one Member State.
Finally, the third aspect of our action is finding out whether any further legislative action is needed.
May I remind Members of Parliament that the free movement of people falls within the remit of the high-level group shared by Mrs Simone Veil.
Through her help and the help of her colleagues we are finding out whether any further legislative action may be required in this field.
Question No 45 by Per Stenmarck (H-0044/97)
Subject: Tax-free sales in the EU
In Written Question E-3061/96, I argued that an impact assessment should be carried out before tax-free sales are abolished on ferries operating between EU Member States.
I asked the Commission whether it was prepared to carry out an analysis of various aspects.
The answer given by Commissioner Monti (20 January 1997) indicates that tax-free sales will be abolished on 30 June 1999. No study of the impact this will have on employment, export industries, the price of goods and tourism would be carried out.
Those responsible for taking decisions must spend as much time as possible seeking answers to questions concerning the possible impact of their decisions before actually taking those decisions.
What impact will the abolition of tax-free sales with effect from 30 June 1999 have in the areas referred to above?
This is a recurring theme, and an important one. The Commission can only confirm its answer to the honourable Member's written question E-3061/96.
The Commission has to comply with the Council decision abolishing - from 30 June 1999 - duty-free sales within the Union.
The Commission does not consider it appropriate to undertake a study of this matter.
In any case, the Commission regrets that, hitherto, the sector of activity concerned has not taken advantage of the lengthy period available to it to prepare a strategy for adjusting to the abolition of the tax advantage deriving from these sales, even though five years have passed since this decision was adopted.
I may add that the Commission is convinced that, since a study is not necessary, the mere fact of announcing it would send a distorted and inappropriate signal to the industry concerned, which could further delay the adjustments required for that industry to adapt to the decision adopted so many years ago and due to take effect on 30 June 1999.
Commissioner, I have asked this question and a number of other questions on the same subject in order to ascertain whether we are living up to what we say, and whether we are prepared to accept the logical conclusions of those things we continuously maintain are so important.
When tax free shopping is abolished, there will be consequences, there is no point in closing our eyes to this.
Despite this, we have not undertaken any form of analysis worthy of such a name before taking a decision on the matter.
This is why I am asking that we do this now before the decision comes into force and I think that we should postpone bringing the legislation into force pending this analysis.
We must surely be aware of what we are doing before we do it.
A number of EU Member States have carried out their own analysis of what is likely to happen.
If we weigh it all up together, we are talking about a reduction in income of perhaps 4 million ECUs and approximately 100 000 jobs throughout the EU will disappear.
Even if this figure is an exaggeration, half that figure would still be disastrous, particularly as we are striving to reduce unemployment not increase it.
The question is: Are we prepared to accept these consequences while continuing to maintain elsewhere that we are doing all we can to reduce unemployment?
I must make it clear to the honourable Member that the decision under discussion is a binding decision, that all the facts relevant for the purposes of taking an informed decision were taken into account at the time, that the existence of intra-community duty-free goods was considered incompatible in principle with a single market, and that, as often happens in economic affairs, while the existence of the duty-free system offers advantages for some there are very serious disadvantages for others: for example, the general retail trade is certainly damaged by the existence of duty-free sales in certain locations.
The duty-free system, for example, distorts competition between modes of transport, and so on.
All these are considerations which were duly taken into account at the time the decisions were taken.
What must be borne in mind is that an unusually long period of adjustment was in fact allowed, which can best be put to use not by conducting and repeating studies of a familiar situation but by the operators concerned working out the necessary adaptations and adjustments which will be required by the new situation, a situation that was announced some while ago.
Mr President, I have a further question concerning the same subject so I am attaching it to Mr Stenmark's question.
I agree with the Commissioner that this is a matter of principle for the free internal market.
If we follow principles, then tax free shopping must be abolished and not continue to be part of the internal market.
But sometimes reality is in conflict with principles.
Then the question is whether we should stick to our principles or adapt to reality as it stands.
As it happens the Swedish Maritime Authorities have carried out a study which I have here in my hand.
It shows that a large number of jobs will disappear in Sweden in those areas dependent on shipping.
What am I to say, as someone who comes from a port area and who is continuously fighting for employment in Europe and telling my people that the European Union is also active in this area, what am I to say to those who work in the ports if we abolish tax free shopping? They will not believe a word I say about tackling unemployment.
In this case I think that we should put aside our principles in favour of reality, in other words, we must accept that employment is the key issue at present for the European Union.
As you know, the great undertaking of constructing the single market has one primary aim: making the European economy more competitive and so benefiting employment.
The reality to which my attention is drawn is a reality in which, today, certain jobs in specific sectors are certainly assisted by the existence of duty-free.
But we have to remember that those jobs have to be set off against the non-existent jobs in other sectors, in other modes of transport, in commerce at large, by which I mean the retail sector, outside the duty-free industry.
So it is precisely the need to have a workable single European market that obliges us to eliminate these distortions that make it less efficient, among which I must certainly include the distortion represented by duty-free sales.
I would also like to point out that, in the case of airports for example, duty-free sales would certainly not be abolished on extra-community flights, and I must emphasize that one of the advantages of the shops and stores that exist at airports, quite apart from the tax advantage, is that they are able to appeal to a public which has time to spare while waiting for a flight and would undoubtedly make purchases even irrespective of the abolition of the tax advantage.
Firstly, I would like to say that I am not a particularly strong supporter of tax free shopping per se, but I am quite concerned about the consequences of abolishing it.
To cite a concrete example: many ferry lines cross the Baltic Sea.
All the shipping companies have problems with profitability and tax free shopping represents a relatively large proportion of the income for these companies.
North of Stockholm, there is only line operating all year round between Sweden and Finland, the line between Umeå and Vasa.
It is very doubtful if this line will even survive if tax free shopping is abolished.
This would break up the close cooperation between these regions which are in otherwise receiving support from the EU via Interreg, support which is particularly allocated to cooperation on lines of communication.
It also means that trucks will have to travel hundreds or perhaps thousands of kilometres further.
Will the Commission be introducing special measures to ensure that important lines of communication, which are already supported by the EU, will survive the abolition of tax free shopping if there are particular reasons to do so?
This argument is often put forward, namely that tax-free sales constitute a source of funding for transport infrastructures, or for certain forms of transport, in particular through the fees - often quite high - which the operators of sales outlets have to pay in order to pursue their activities within these infrastructures - airports especially, but also others.
As regards tax-free sales on board ferries, for example, there is no doubt that these represent a not inconsiderable part of shipping companies' revenue, enabling them to offset their running costs and even to maintain unprofitable routes. Tax-free sales could therefore be regarded as operating subsidies in the transport sector.
The Commission takes the view that if a subsidy is to be provided by the Community in this area, then specific solutions should be sought which are separate from indirect taxation mechanisms.
We are all, I think, in favour of transparency.
If state aid is deemed necessary, it should be requested, evaluated and, if appropriate, authorized as state aid - and not take place in a disguised way, through taxation, in contravention of the principles of the single market.
I will allow Mr Watt to speak, despite the stipulation in the Rules of Procedure that only two persons may put supplementary questions.
Mr Watt, you should know that the Rules of Procedure state that only one or two other Members are entitled to put supplementaries in addition to the author of the question.
The Commissioner referred to the disadvantages of duty-free and he cited a number of areas where be believed there was a negative impact on, for example, the retail sector and the transport sector.
Would the Commissioner make available to this Parliament the studies that back up these assertions?
I made a number of assertions which are based on a number of elements from several sources accumulated over time.
I confirm that the Commission has no intention of making any further study.
This was, on the other hand, also the position which emerged from recent consideration of this matter at the ECOFIN Council.
Question No 47, by Mrs Kirsten Jensen, is not called, as the subject is on the agenda for the partsession and will be debated on Friday.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 46, 47 and 48 lapse.
Mr President, I should like to consult you on a point of order.
Is it possible to take over another Member's question.
No?
Very well.
Question No 49 by Mark Watts (H-1041/96)
Subject: Channel Tunnel safety
The Commission will be aware of the serious fire in the Channel Tunnel on 19 November 1996.
What action, under Article 75(1)(c) of the Treaty, 'measures to improve transport safety', has the Commission taken with regard to the Channel Tunnel?
What representations has the Commission made to the UK and French governments concerning safety in the Channel Tunnel, and has any reference been made to the design of the freight wagons?
Is the Commission concerned that the UK Government refuses to release safety reports on the Channel Tunnel, and will the Council make representations to release this evidence?
Will the Commission make a statement on the fire in the Channel Tunnel?
As the honourable Member may recall, I said during the Committee on Transport and Tourism meeting on 18 December that the Commission attaches the greatest importance to maintaining the very highest level of safety that is usual in rail transport.
Clearly safety is a major objective of the common transport policy and it is essential that all forms of rail transport, including the channel tunnel, are at least as safe as conventional rail.
At present the Commission is not aware that there is any evidence to show that relevant Community legislation has been called into question by the accident in the tunnel.
When the results of various investigations become available the issue of Community action might then need to be considered.
Inquiries into accidents which occur during railway operation are, as I think the honourable Member may know, strictly within the legal competence of Member States.
I can, however, inform the House that the recently approved directive on the carriage of dangerous goods by rail specifically allows for higher than normal safety standards in the channel tunnel.
The design of freight wagons is however not a matter for the Commission.
Finally, the Commission is not aware that the United Kingdom has refused to supply information as suggested by the honourable Member. I am familiar with the honourable Member's very close and very active interest in all matters relating to the channel tunnel and I will certainly keep him informed of any developments which will be relevant to him.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his comprehensive reply.
I understand that he has done his utmost within his competence as Commissioner to thoroughly oversee this matter where it falls under his responsibility.
But I am sure he would understand my concern when he says he will comment when reports become available.
We are seriously concerned that, for example, the French inquiry report will not be published or made available to the public and indeed, the deliberations of the channel tunnel safety authority will, not necessarily be made fully available, in particular all the background papers that related to the approval of the semiopen wagons which played a key role in causing and spreading the fire.
Could the Commissioner not join with me in pleading with the British Government to open the books in this case and allow the public to judge for themselves whether or not the channel tunnel is safe?
That means publishing all the documents relating to the channel tunnel safety authority.
Without those, I would submit that we are not able to judge whether or not the tunnel is safe.
Mr President, I am grateful to the honourable gentleman.
I think that the history of inquiry reports into major incidents of the kind that took place in the channel tunnel demonstrates that all authorities, as well as the general public and operators, have the greatest possible vested interest in the maximum openness.
It is the one means that guarantees not only that lessons are learned but that lessons are seen to be learned.
As the author is not present, Question No 50 lapses.
Question No 51 by Nuala Ahern (H-0023/97)
Subject: Safety of coastal communities from radioactive shipments
At the time of the first shipment of highly radioactive vitrified nuclear waste from France to Japan in 1995, shipment took place without disclosure of information concerning the route.
On arrival it was discovered that one of the canisters had corroded and was leaking radiation.
With regard to the present shipment of highly radioactive vitrified nuclear waste that left France in January 97, what responsibility does a Member State (e.g. France) have to inform the Commission of the route that is being taken and has France so informed the Commission, and what measures has the Commission taken to inform and safeguard the coastal communities en route in the event of an emergency on board the ship, the Pacific Teal?
Within the European Union information to Member States and the Commission on the shipment of radioactive waste is ensured through the following two provisions: first, Council Directive 92/3 relates to the supervision and control of shipments of radioactive between Member States and into and out of the Community.
It lays down a procedure for ensuring that shipments of radioactive waste take place only after all the states involved have given prior informed consent.
Standard forms and documents for the application of this directive were established by a Commission decision in October 1993.
Information to the Commission is ensured through reports on the implementation of the directive, which have to be submitted every two years by the Member States.
Second, the information on transport by sea of radioactive materials, including radioactive waste, is also covered by Directive 93/75.
This directive obliges the operators and masters of vessels carrying dangerous or polluting goods to provide the competent authorities of the Member State of destination or of departure with detailed information about the ship's intended route and cargo.
The Commission does not receive direct information about individual shipments of radioactive material, nor does the Commission have the task of informing coastal states in case of an emergency on board.
The provision of such information is, however, an obligation for the Member State concerned under the directive.
Thank you for your reply, Commissioner, which was quite explicit.
I understand that the Australian Government has been informed of this particular shipment. Could you confirm or deny that specifically?
If that is so - and your reply appears to indicate that Member States of the European Union would have prior information and give consent to shipments along their coastal highways and byways - then can you confirm that in the case of shipments along the Channel, the Bay of Biscay, the Irish Sea, the North Sea and the Atlantic coast of the European Union, all the Member States would have been informed of such shipments and would have consented to them?
Could you confirm that specifically?
I am grateful to the honourable Member. If she has particular information relating to Australia, I would be very happy if she were to write to me explicitly about it.
Whilst clearly we do not have competence in this area, we certainly maintain interest. That would be supplemented by any information she can provide.
On the whole question of transit shipping, a proposal for a Council directive setting up a European ship reporting system - so-called Eurorep - was adopted by the Commission in December 1993. It aims at extending the notification requirements of Directive 93/75 to all vessels carrying dangerous and polluting goods which are in transit off the European coast and bound for a country outside the European Union.
However, in the absence of a political agreement in Council on the Commission's text, Eurorep is still on the table before the Council.
The imminent ratification by the Community of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea gives a stronger legal basis to our proposal with regard to international law and hopefully that will allow a re-opening of the discussions within the Community on the proposal.
I look forward to hearing further from the honourable Member.
I should just like to say to Commissioner Kinnock that I will certainly write to him specifically about the Australian information.
But can he tell me whether the Member States along the route have actually given permission for this transit?
It sounds from his answer that they should have.
Have they actually done so? Can he tell us that?
I will investigate that precise question and provide the honourable Member with the precise answer.
Question No 52 by Florus Wijsenbeek (H-0030/97)
Subject: Aid to a Walloon transport undertaking
Does the Commission consider it consistent with the objectives pursued as regards both combined transport and equal conditions of competition for the Walloon government to grant aid amounting to Bfrs 200 million to the TTS (Bierset) road transport undertaking for the purchase of oversized rolling stock for the transport of motor-vehicle parts from Germany?
The Commission services first request the Member States concerned to supply full details of the aid within fifteen working days.
If there is no answer or if the answer is incomplete, the Member State is again asked to give detailed information within another fifteen working days and is warned at that point by the Commission that the Commission has the power to issue an injunction.
On the basis of the full information provided in the answer the Commission may decide to raise no objection to the aid or it may decide to raise no objection to the aid or it may decide to open proceedings under Article 93(2) because of doubts or because of lack of information.
If the Member State has ignored the request for information, the Commission may issue an injunction to obtain the information.
The injunction may also order the Member State to suspend payment of the aid pending the outcome of the investigation or the injunction can require the Member State to supply the information needed by the Commission to take a decision on the case.
That was the best non-answer I have ever received from the Commission.
The procedures are well known to me.
I brought this matter to the Commission's attention especially and gave the information needed on what has happened because I would like the Commission to take a position and to tell us, as Members of Parliament, if it agrees with this kind of state subsidy or not.
If it does not it should take immediate measures.
So I would like to have the Commissioner's view on whether or not he deems this kind of support to be valid.
The Commission was not aware of the existence of such financing but it sent a request for information to the Belgian authorities in order to establish whether there could be an unnotified state aid.
It is difficult to accept that in providing a full and factual answer on the whole procedure of state aids, the Commission should be accused of providing non-answers.
Accurate, truthful information is accurate truthful information.
Question No 53 by Sören Wibe (H-0043/97)
Subject: Construction of the Bothnia line in northern Sweden
The Swedish government recently decided to build a new railway, the first stage of which is to run from Sundsvall to Umeå.
The railway will improve access to northern Sweden and in future provide a link between northern Sweden and northern Finland.
In the long term, a link is also planned into the Murmansk region.
Might Sweden be eligible for EU support for the construction of this railway and, if so, from which part of the EU budget could such support be sought?
The Bothnia line is not presently included in the trans-European transport network and its inclusion was not requested by Parliament or by the Council during the procedure for the adoption of the trans-European network guidelines.
As it is not considered as a project of common interest within the terms of the legislation it cannot benefit from financial support under the trans-European networks budget.
Furthermore, as regional funds covering this area do not include transport infrastructure and the funds available bear no relation to the likely cost of the project, they cannot be used to co-finance the project either.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his answer even if it was rather negative.
This concerns a railway line which lies a long way from here, perhaps 2 000 kilometres or more.
It is however an extremely important line for the region involved, particularly for the transport of goods.
I do not understand the Commissioner when he says that this has nothing to do with our common interest.
This is a line which will quite obviously be used to link Northern Sweden and Northern Finland, and also North Western Russia at a later date, with the other European railway networks.
The fact that it is not included in current plans is simply because the decision to build it was only taken quite recently.
My next obvious question to Mr. Kinnock is whether it is totally out of the question to include this extremely important line ex post facto in the Transeuropean Railway Network.
I am grateful to the honourable Member.
Firstly, the idea of including the Bothnia line in the transEuropean networks is not - to use Mr Wibe's phrase - ruled out, simply because there has to be a revision of the guidelines in 1999.
I would also point out to him that in order for any project to be considered for inclusion in the trans-European network, and therefore liable to be supported from the budget, it has to have the support or nomination of a Member State government.
If the Bothnia line is not in the trans-European network proposal, it is firstly because it has not been nominated by a Member State, secondly because it was not included at the point of its parliamentary consideration and thirdly because on further consideration the Council did not include it.
If there is a proposition from the Swedish Government and if the proper procedures are followed it is possible that the line could be included.
But that is entirely up to the initiative of the Member State.
Question No 54 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0047/97)
Subject: Scandinavian Express Loop
The prospects for improving links between a number of Swedish and Norwegian towns and cities by rail are currently being discussed in Sweden and Norway.
The project, provisionally named the Scandinavian Express Loop, will establish a Stockholm-Östersund-Trondheim-Oslo-Stockholm rail loop.
It also incorporates the Atlantbanan line, which was the subject of earlier discussions.
The lines already exist but require upgrading to take express trains.
What prospects does the Commission see for EU financial support being made available for this project?
The Atlantbanan line is included in Annex I of the Decision on Community guidelines for the development of the trans-European transport network as a project of common interest.
The southern section of the line is also included, as the honourable Member will know, in the Nordic Triangle, which is one of the fourteen priority projects endorsed at the Essen European Council and in the legal decision that has been presented to and accepted by this Parliament.
The line is one of the components of the ambitious project called the Scandinavian Express Loop.
As a project of common interest, the Swedish part of the line could benefit from Community financial support under the TEN budget line but as yet the national authorities concerned have not requested any Community contribution.
On the basis of the information available, it does not appear that other Community funds could be used for funding this project.
It seems indeed that the Swedish part of the line is going to be totally financed by the national railway infrastructure authority, the Banverket .
Thank you for your response, it was not as bad as I thought.
It means that the planning process which is already underway between Sweden and Norway can continue, which perhaps would not otherwise have been the case.
Irrespective of this, it is important that the line is included in that part of the planning process which allocates funds.
It is a line which will go in a circle from Stockholm, to Östersund, then towards Norway across Trondheim and then to Oslo and back to Stockholm.
My next question to the Commissioner is: What else does the Swedish government have to do to further its request for sufficient funds for this line? Is it possible to approach Norway for funds, over and above the Interreg cooperation which exists between the countries and which already includes this line, to push this project forward?
I regret to say that as a result of the decision of the Norwegian people, that country is not in the European Union.
Consequently there is no call we can make upon Norway so far as complementary development of infrastructure is concerned, even though I know that the good relationships between Norway and other countries does mean that there are joint attitudes in policy insofar as infrastructure is concerned.
But unfortunately, as a result of the outcome of the referendum, giving positive messages to that country is not part of the Commission's function.
So far as support from the TENs funds is concerned, the step that would have to be taken, as I pointed out in an earlier answer, is for the Swedish Government to make an application.
This would have to receive due consideration.
But because this particular project is recognized as being one of common interest, depending upon its maturity, the chances of its getting financial support from the Community would be at least as favourable as for comparable projects.
Is there any possibility of including projects of transnational importance of this kind in the trans-European networks? If so, how should the two governments concerned act upon that?
Presumably, as I am certain Mr Wijsenbeek knows, they should act positively and collectively, because of the terms of the provisions that exist under the current legislation, because of the need for a revision in 1999, because of the fact that these projects by definition have long planning and development periods.
I hope that we can embrace projects of real trans-European value more widely in a future period than we can at the present time.
Consequently I hope that Member State governments will bear in mind their responsibility for making initial proposals and do so in the context of the existing legislation and the nature of the trans-European network priority projects and, indeed, the whole philosophy of the network scheme.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 55, 56 57 lapse.
Question No 58 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0032/97)
Subject: 'Learning in the information society: action plan for a European education initiative'
This action plan (COM(96)0471) is a welcome initiative on the Commission's part, but it should nonetheless be stressed that certain important considerations are simply ignored.
There is no provision for handicapped people, although the latter surely count as major beneficiaries of the information society, given that new data processing technology allows the limitations imposed by certain handicaps to be reduced or even eliminated completely.
With the end of the HELIOS programme, the Commission undertook to integrate the programme's objectives into all its policies.
Would it not therefore be possible find a place (with appropriate budgetary funding) for the handicapped within the action plan in question?
The action plan for a European education initiative relates to primary and secondary education.
Therefore, it includes as a target group all pupils attending schools at these levels, including handicapped children.
It is clear that the new information and communications technologies, adapted for educational purposes, can make an effective contribution to the learning process for handicapped pupils, in particular those who have physical difficulties in attending school, but also those with cognitive difficulties.
The implementation of the action plan is based on the use of existing programmes, such as Esprit, Telematics, Leonardo da Vinci and, above all, Socrates, within the framework of the corresponding decisions, procedures and budgets.
As regards Socrates, the European Parliament and Council decision adopting this programme provides for the special needs of the handicapped to be taken into account within its various sections.
In keeping with the new Community strategy on handicaps, adopted by the Commission in its communication of 30 July 1996, and in particular its concept of mainstreaming, and in view of the Council resolution of 20 December 1996 on equality of opportunity for handicapped persons, the implementation of the action plan for a European education initiative will certainly incorporate the needs of the handicapped.
This aspect will also be taken into account in the follow-up to the Green Paper on the social aspects of the information society.
I am very grateful that I am here and able to receive this answer.
Mrs Ahlqvist is lying in bed with a temperature some 2 000 kilometres from here.
She is very sorry that she cannot be present.
What she wanted to say on this matter is that she cannot find any measures for the handicapped in what is otherwise a good action plan for a European initiative on education.
I am grateful for the response to this question.
I think that Commissioner Cresson has really demonstrated a willingness to embrace the opportunities for the handicapped created by new technology.
The physically handicapped will be able to improve their prospects for increased mobility on the labour market and the mentally handicapped can have a totally different form of contact with the world around them.
I hope now that, during the tendering process for this plan, we will make good use of the fact that by including these aspects early on in the purchase negotiations we can adapt this technology at reasonable cost for use by the handicapped.
Yes indeed, and what is more we encourage any progress that can be made in this field.
There are computer systems for blind people, for example, which enable them to write in braille.
Likewise, there are various systems for people who are unable to move; these aids to communication are becoming more and more powerful.
I am therefore absolutely convinced, as you say, that in the context of the Commission's procedures and the overall objectives of the texts to which I referred a moment ago, we shall be able to make significant and satisfactory progress towards increasing the involvement of the handicapped in information networks and knowledge systems.
Of course, there is always room for more progress, and research projects must be mounted as well.
In the field of educational software, for instance, where we have a small unit which has begun work, very specific solutions can indeed be found for these different categories of people, because there is not just one form of handicap.
Question No 59 by Joan Vallvé (H-0034/97)
Subject: Implementation of the Socrates Programme
In February 1996 I asked the Commission whether Recital 11 of the Decision on the Socrates programme - on the possibility of including certain languages which, without being official EU languages, are recognized at national level and are used to a significant extent as teaching languages in universities, as is the case of Catalan - could be mentioned in the 1996 handbook for applicants to the programme.
The Commission replied that the recital could be expressly mentioned in the 1997 handbook for applicants.
Has the Commission taken the necessary steps to this end, bearing in mind that this would enable the provisions of the Decision on the Socrates programme and the Reding report adopted by the EP in December 1990 on languages in the Community and the situation of Catalan to be better applied?
As regards the implementation of the Socrates programme, the Commission wishes handbooks for applicants to Community programmes to be explicit and straightforward.
The present text of the 1997 Socrates handbook refers to teaching languages in the participating countries, without specifying these languages.
The Commission's services are currently taking the necessary steps to ensure that - in addition to the 11 official languages of the European Union - the 1998 handbook will expressly mention other languages such as Catalan, Galician and Basque, with a view to promoting cooperation between universities.
In any event, the absence of this explicit reference up to now has not prevented the Catalonian universities from taking a very active part in the various schemes under the Socrates programme. For example, they have sent 3000 students on placements abroad, and have received the same number of students from universities in other Member States.
I am very satisfied with that reply.
I am speaking French in order to make myself understood more directly.
I certainly hope that your promise, namely that the 1998 handbook will make reference to what was established in recital 11 of the Socrates programme, will have a better chance of being kept than the reply which you gave me approximately a year ago, in February 1996, when you made a similar promise to me that the 1997 handbook would include that reference, whereas it does not.
I hope that the matter will be taken seriously this time, and that in 1998 the handbook for applicants will expressly mention the Catalan language. This will be in keeping with Mrs Reding's resolution, which we adopted in 1990.
Yes, Mr Vallvé, I can definitely promise that the next handbook will indeed refer to the various languages I have just mentioned - Catalan in particular, but others too.
Mr President, I have two brief supplementaries to put to the Commissioner.
Firstly, would it be possible for there to be a survey across all the programmes within your remit which take account of Parliament's concerns about minority languages? After all, this issue affects a very large number of people in the European Union.
Catalan can hardly be called a minority language; it is one of the more widely used languages.
Secondly, we have approved the supplementary protocols to the association agreements which allow Socrates and other similar programmes to be extended to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I was the rapporteur on this, and I should like to ask the Commissioner to what extent the protocols have now been implemented, and with what degree of success.
What I can say is that it is difficult for me, here and now, to give you a list of the places or circumstances in which minority languages are taken into consideration.
However, if you wish, I could send you such a list in writing.
As regards the extension of Socrates to the CCEE, this initiative is still in its infancy; it is being developed and satisfactory progress is being made, naturally at an appropriate pace.
Many students from the CCEE are coming to our universities.
Conversely, a number of students from the European Union are going to universities in the CCEE.
However, we are still in the very early stages of these initiatives, which will be able to benefit to some extent from various programmes, most notably Phare.
Question No 60 by Hubert Pirker (H-0036/97)
Subject: Leonardo Programme
What measures will the Commission take to dismantle the barriers that hinder EU-wide exchanges of trainees and instructors (teachers and instructors in undertakings) within the framework of the Leonardo training and mobility programme?
As far as the Leonardo programme is concerned, there are a number of barriers - since this is your question - affecting the transnational mobility of young people and their instructors.
That is why the Commission published in 1996 a Green Paper on obstacles to transnational mobility in education, training and research, with a view to provoking a wide-ranging public debate and devising courses of action to remove these barriers.
Broadly speaking, we can identify two types of barrier which are hindering placements and exchanges under the Leonardo programme.
Firstly, there is the legal status of trainees and the question of the transparency and recognition of vocational diplomas.
The fact that the right of residence for EU citizens in another country, without a residence permit, is currently limited to three months represents a barrier to mobility, in the sense that priority should be given to longer placements, which are of course more worthwhile and of greater value to the young people concerned.
For this reason, the Commission is to make proposals with a view to improving the conditions relating to the right of residence, social security and taxation.
As for promoting the recognition of vocational diplomas throughout the Community - by implementing the 1985 Council decision on the equivalence of vocational diplomas - the lack of any real progress in this field is, to my mind, extremely worrying, and I entirely share your concerns. The Leonardo programme is helping to improve the conditions for greater transparency and the recognition of diplomas, in that transnational placements and exchanges organized under this programme must be validated and certified.
Leonardo is thus fully playing its role as an innovative experiment, which will enable us to announce a specific proposal on the form of the European status of trainee.
I must confess that this problem is an extremely complex one, however: it is much more difficult for young people to move around the European Union than for goods and capital, even though Europe came into being for the sake of its citizens.
Many problems are being encountered in connection with Leonardo and trainees, but also with students and, for example, unemployed youngsters who no longer receive their benefits if they go abroad; there is the barrier of low wages being paid, the problems of young people who go to another country on placement, and those of young researchers - all these are very widespread problems.
I think that Parliament should indeed lend its full support to the fact that the mobility of our citizens, and in particular of young people, is absolutely crucial for developing an awareness of European citizenship.
Many obstacles are also being encountered because these problems are horizontal ones which involve several ministries within a government: employment, social affairs, sometimes home affairs, and in certain cases education.
It is therefore very difficult to persuade the Member States to accept satisfactory measures.
If we wish to make the status of trainee something worthwhile, if we wish split-site training courses to become a kind of Erasmus for trainees, which is our aim, it is clear that we shall all have to pull our weight, and I am relying heavily on Parliament in this matter, which really is a crucial one in terms of an education policy for the people of Europe.
Thank you for your comments, Mrs Cresson.
I see in practice the extent of the problems involved in implementing the excellent Leonardo programme.
However, I think it is extremely important that every possible resource should be harnessed to allow the transfer of innovation, to facilitate mobility, further training and education for trainees, because this measure also has the potential to prevent unemployment - and that is such a serious problem for us.
I am glad, therefore, that there is a commitment to act, and that you too realize where the problems are.
I am also aware of some additional problems, because in practice it is difficult even to set up an exchange of information between companies which are prepared to participate in the mobility programme, to organize exchanges of trainees and instructors between one country and another.
In practice, I also encounter major problems on the question of whether to count the exchange period as holiday time or as part of a period of training.
Can you see any possible means of removing these additional barriers too?
I think that the problem you are raising - if I have understood correctly - is that of recognition by companies of the period of time spent, and the work done, by a trainee in another Member State of the Union.
It is clear that the problem of accrediting skills is a very topical one, and that it does not relate only to traineeships.
The question is how to assess the equivalence between vocational levels within one occupation in different countries.
We are currently working on this issue.
If you have had an opportunity to read the White Paper on education, on the learning society, you will have seen that we are seeking to establish skill accreditation schemes with different occupational groups.
For example, we are working with the European Banking Union, and a number of other professional associations, to obtain recognition of knowledge acquired not only by trainees during their initial training, but also throughout the lifetime of a worker or employee who wishes to work in another Member State, to enable that person's level of skills to be assessed correctly, even if he completed his education many years earlier.
So we are starting to explore this whole issue, which affects traineeships but also lifelong learning for workers.
Question No 61 by Marie-Paule Kestelijn-Sierens (H-0037/97)
Subject: Importance of clinical research at European level with a view to determining a therapeutic strategy for treatment
Independent clinical research at European level with a view to determining a strategy for treatment is an important contribution towards optimizing the treatment of cancer and other diseases which require a multidisciplinary approach.
Does the Commission have any plans to include such research in the Fifth Framework Programme on Research and Development? Is the Commission prepared to encourage Member States to simplify national statutory obligations - which often differ quite remarkably - in respect of this clinical research and to bring them more into line in the interests of progress in treatment?
As far as clinical trials at European level are concerned, since research on cancer - as well as several other diseases - requires a multidisciplinary approach, it stands to benefit in particular from research carried out through multi-centre clinical trials in Europe.
Such trials have, therefore, always played a major role in the Union's medical research programmes.
Multi-centre clinical trials should continue to represent an important aspect of medical research activity under the fifth framework programme.
They should be included both in the key action on viral and infectious diseases and in the research work on the treatment of degenerative illnesses, provided for in the programme on discovering the resources of living beings and the ecosystem, one of the six major programmes set to constitute the fifth framework programme, as outlined in the communication adopted by the Commission on 12 February.
The problem of harmonizing the rules on clinical research in the Member States is different in the case of drug trials from that of trials involving other treatments, such as surgery, radiation therapy or the various combinations of these methods which are widely used in treating cancer.
The provisions in the field of drug trials are harmonized at Community level as part of the rules on the marketing of drugs, for which the Community is formally competent.
That is not the case for other types of clinical trials, which the Member States are responsible for regulating.
Since the Commission cannot intervene directly here, all it can do in this case is encourage the Member States to align their respective rules in the context of cooperative research work on cancer and other serious diseases; the Commission provides a good deal of support for such work through the framework programme.
Thank you, Mr President, and thank you, Commissioner, for your reply.
I asked this question on behalf of the European organization for cancer research and treatment, a European body based in Brussels which organizes clinical research into cancer.
Clinical research is essential for determining the most efficient and up-to-date treatment for cancer, and not only benefits patients but also offers the prospect of making cancer treatment cost-effective.
It is thus an important and valuable method both from the medical point of view and also in public health terms, which is why I think - and I am grateful to the Commissioner for acknowledging this - that it should have a place in the Framework Programme on Research and Development.
As far as the differences in legislation in the Member States are concerned, I agree that all the Commission can do is to encourage the Member States to bring their legislation into line, and I look to the Commission to put this into practice.
Yes, indeed.
In fact, I am familiar with the organization to which you refer, whose work is extremely intensive and worthwhile.
Ethical assessment of clinical trials is governed by different laws or regulations in each country, and it is true that this area falls within national competence.
What I would point out, in an attempt to move our thinking forward in this area, is that an international conference on clinical trials and ethics is to be held in Brussels on 9 and 10 September 1997.
It will deal in particular with problems linked to the ethical assessment of research protocols for clinical trials.
Moreover, under the research programme on biomedicine and health, and with specific regard to the ethical, social and legal aspects of medical research, researchers have been invited to submit projects on this topic.
I think that an international conference of this kind, which will undoubtedly attract a large audience, will - if successful - enable organizations like the very active one you have mentioned to persuade the Member States' governments that harmonization is absolutely vital, if adequate exchanges of information are to take place.
Questions Nos 62, 63 and 64 will receive written answers.
Question No 65 by Ioannis Theonas (H-0909/96)
Subject: Steady decline in the iron and steel sector in Greece, and notably Chalivourgiki Ltd
The economic crisis has had a particularly damaging effect on the iron and steel sector in Greece where production and the workforce have been steadily declining.
Following the accession of Greece to the ECSC the only two blast furnaces in Greece which belonged to Chalivourgiki Ltd have closed, followed by the company's electric furnaces, the iron production section has been put on shiftwork and now the reinforced concrete sector is also closing, resulting in the loss of more than 2500 jobs.
Will the Commission say whether it intends to take special measures to maintain and develop the iron and steel sector in Greece and particularly the steel industry which faces extinction and to maintain employment, and to examine whether the employers who are reported to maintain similar industries in Wales and Switzerland are guilty of illegal practices?
Mr President, the restructuring of the steel industry is a process that requires the industry to adapt continually to technologies and markets, and the Commission has been monitoring that process for many years already.
Of course, the task is one for the industry itself in the first instance, but obviously a range of accompanying measures is needed, including in particular social measures, measures in relation to external trade policy and also, where necessary, programmes to generate new employment.
We agreed with the industry two years ago that we had an overcapacity of some 19 million tonnes of hot-rolled steel.
Since then, capacity has been reduced by around 11 million tonnes, and a further 5 million tonnes are still to be shed.
This means that although we have not achieved the capacity that we and the industry judged to be appropriate, the removal of the overcapacity has had a positive effect on the remaining operators in the industry.
There have been no more job cuts, and today the industry is operating, by and large, at a satisfactory level in terms of prices and volumes.
This may not be true of each individual company, and in the particular case of the Greek steel industry, it may well be that certain companies face more serious problems than those experienced by companies in other Member States.
We will naturally help in such cases, and we are already looking at conversion to other possible forms of production through the RESIDER II programme.
At the request of the Greek Government, and by the unanimous decision of the Industry Council, we have created the possibility, under the new rules for steel subsidies, of extending regional aid to help the Greek steel industry with ECU 50 million up to the year 2000, subject of course to the condition that this will not entail any increase in production capacity.
As regards the illegal practices that were referred to in the question, it would be helpful if the accusation could be rather more specific.
The fact is that in many of these cases of illegal practice, we are simply talking about a more competitive industry in another Member State or - from my own experience - in a third country such as Switzerland.
Illegal practices are not always involved: often it is simply a case of a competitor performing better than the local industry in the home country, and it is difficult for the Commission to offer help in such a case.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I think that it simply confirms what stands out clearly from the question, namely that the very serious difficulties that the Chalivourgiki undertaking in Greece has been faced with stem from the policy of the European Union - formerly of the EEC, but now of the European Union - to cut production in the Union. This policy has had a particularly damaging effect in my country, and the problems that it has caused for the country's only undertaking in the sector are leading to a gradual shutdown of the industry and the loss of thousands of jobs.
Now, however, this undertaking is swiftly being converted from a production company to a trading company, at the very time when huge projects are under way in Greece for which iron, at least, is needed; iron that is now being imported from Turkey.
I would therefore like the Commission to take note of the consequences of that policy and also of the fact that the undertaking in question, while claiming that it faces problems of competitiveness, is moving to other countries - to Switzerland and Wales, and even to the United States - and starting up operations there.
The supplementary question introduces nothing new.
I have already explained that we began by agreeing with the industry, including the Greek industry, that we had 19 million tonnes of overcapacity.
Overcapacity causes problems.
It puts pressure on prices.
Even extremely competitive companies were recording losses.
Four years ago, virtually no one was still earning enough to cover their costs.
Therefore, our main problem was how to eliminate the excess capacity.
We did not decide where capacity reductions were to take place.
The Commission did not take it upon itself to say that this or that amount of capacity had to be cut in Greece or France or Germany.
The industry itself made those decisions, on the basis of competitiveness.
I am sorry if the Greek steel industry in particular was not sufficiently competitive in this respect to withstand the competition from other countries, but if it is the task of the Commission to see that the same conditions apply throughout the Union, then obviously it cannot make exceptions.
We cannot allow state subsidies in Greece just because the steel industry there wishes to maintain jobs.
If we did so, jobs in the UK, France or Germany would have to be lost.
We have an overall responsibility.
We take that responsibility seriously, and it is up to each company to see that it remains competitive.
I cannot make any special allowances for a Greek company.
Question No 66 by Caroline Jackson (H-1039/96)
Subject: Food additives and public information
Article 8 of Directive 94/36/EC states that the Commission will undertake a programme of public information so that the significance of the most frequently used E-numbers, indicating the presence of particular additives, will be better known.
Mr Bangemann stated in July 1996 that a study on this subject had been completed.
What has happened to it, and what does the Commission plan to do next on this subject?
I know that Mrs Jackson is right - indeed she is always right.
And she is quite right to ask why we have not yet begun this programme of consumer information.
According to the terms of the directive that we adopted, we should have started it last year.
The problem is - and I really would ask Mrs Jackson to bear with me here - that implementing this type of consumer information campaign in this particular area is an extraordinarily complex task.
Because we did not want to get it wrong, we commissioned an agency to tell us, on the basis of a study, how to set about the task and where to begin.
The study - which Mrs Jackson may already have, and I should be glad to give her a copy of it if she does not - comes to the very conclusion that we ourselves had feared: it is not clear how to put this information across to consumers.
There are a variety of additives.
Consumers understand why some of them are there, but in the case of others they do not understand at all.
Let us take the question of colourings, for example.
Colourings, which are permitted - not least by decisions of Parliament, I would add - are generally seen by consumers as completely unnecessary.
They want to know why foodstuffs need to be coloured. Or let us take the question of perishability.
It may be possible to explain perishability to consumers, but their response will be: ' Very well, if a product is perishable, then that must be indicated.
I do not want any additives to make it keep longer.'
In other words, we face the problem that it is impossible in practical terms to explain to consumers the decisions that we have jointly taken and consider to be sensible.
That is the situation, and we cannot change it.
Of course, we do have the option of cutting everything out, allowing no more colourings, no more preservatives or similar substances.
That would push prices up substantially, for example in relation to perishability.
Consumers would have to pay significantly more, and I am sure they would not like that any better.
To put it another way: the study that we commissioned gave us no useful indication of how to proceed, or of what strategy we need for implementing this.
That is the problem in a nutshell, Mrs Jackson.
I hope you can advise me.
I do not know what to do.
It sounds as if I could get two salaries here - one as a Commissioner and one as a Member of the European Parliament.
Technically speaking, would the Commissioner not agree that the Commission is in breach of the law. Under Article 8 of Directive 94/36, it is stated quite clearly that the Commission will undertake a programme of public information.
The Commissioner's answer says this is all too difficult.
I would like to ask him if he will bring forward a plan by the end of 1997 on this?
Will he give us an undertaking that he will bring forward a proposal for a campaign of public information by the end of 1997 and whether in doing so he will undertake to consult with consumer organizations as to the inclusion in such a campaign of better information to consumers regarding the most frequently used food additives?
The Commissioner seems at a complete loss having received the report of the agency which the Commission itself commissioned.
It is really no good for the Commissioner simply to hand this question back to me and say he does not know what to do, that it is all too difficult.
There is a legal requirement on the Commission to do something.
I do not deny that there is a legal requirement.
By the way, Article 8 says that the Commission has to launch a campaign in conjunction with consumer bodies, the European Parliament, the Member States and the food and retail industries in order to inform consumers about the evaluation and authorization process of food additives.
We are trying to do that.
Because we did not know how to approach the problem we looked for advice from professional people and they cited things that Member States had done and which had been a complete mess.
I do not want to start a programme - even if I am obliged to do so and I do not deny the obligation - in a way which wastes taxpayers' money.
That is the reason why we looked for advice.
Of course I can launch the thing tomorrow.
That is possible but I am not sure whether it would be a success.
Therefore the Commission has offered all the parties mentioned here - Member States, food and retail industries and especially consumer organizations - to discuss the outcome of that study and to seek a way to solve the problem.
I can promise you that we are ready to start at any time but I want to start with something which is reasonable.
It is easy to be an activist.
It is not so easy to be rational and to try to achieve something.
At the beginning of my political career I was an activist because that paid off but at the end of a political career you feel you should do things in a more reasoned way.
Question No 67 by Alan Donnelly (H-1043/96)
Subject: Organizations representing Internet service providers
Following the Commission's progress in releasing draft legislation on various issues concerning the Internet, does the Commission not feel it essential to support the industry itself by assisting in bringing together organizations representing Internet service providers in the Member States of the EU and throughout the rest of Europe?
Mr President, what Mr Donnelly says is quite right: not only in the case of the Internet but also with regard to other infrastructures, we shall only succeed when providers of content, and particularly service providers, assume their proper role.
The problem of making contact with this industry arises from the fact that it does not yet present a uniform front in the way that the hardware producers or operators do, for example.
These sectors have been organized for some time.
They know what they want, and they have established relationships with the Commission.
This is not yet the case with the service providers.
However, they are in the process of becoming organized.
Only last week, I held a two-day conference with the major service providers to establish just what sort of conditions will have to be created to facilitate the provision of this type of service.
However, this was merely a first informal contact, and we need further formal contacts.
We have set up a working party consisting of representatives of the Member States, net operators and suppliers of equipment and software, as well as Internet service providers and other providers of content.
The report of the working party was mentioned positively in the Council decision of 28 November.
This will enable us to establish an initial framework, and we shall then reconvene the working party.
I cannot tell you anything more at present.
However, Mr Donnelly was quite right in saying that we need additional formal contacts in this area, and in particular contacts with the European Parliament.
I hope that when we are in a position to submit the report that we are preparing on illegal and harmful content, the House will have an opportunity of saying more on these issues, in particular self-monitoring, liability, filter technology, evaluation systems, etc.
The German Government has also offered to hold a conference on these questions in the summer.
The Commission is cooperating with the German Government, so that we can use this conference to evaluate ideas on how to solve this problem.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his answer and the fact that progress has been made in recent weeks in informally contacting service providers.
But I would draw three things to his attention.
First of all, we have always identified the area for creating jobs in the information society as being through the service providers.
Secondly, we accept that when we try to deal with small- and medium-sized enterprises in the traditional sector we always say it is very difficult to contact them.
That leads me to the third point.
Since this is an emerging market, surely we should try now to find national networks of service providers so that we can actually have a dialogue with them.
The United Kingdom has a very efficient network of service providers. It has offered to act as a focal point.
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether, with the help of the European Parliament, we could try, perhaps before the summer recess, to organize a further meeting with these people, using the UK as a focal point for it?
I have no hesitation about organizing such a working conference together with the European Parliament in order to look at the experience in Great Britain.
I know also from my own experience, thanks to invitations from active Members of Parliament - I did not say Labour Members of Parliament, I said active Members of Parliament - that in Great Britain there is very positive activity in this field.
So I am more than ready to do that, even before the British elections.
That concludes Question Time.
The questions that were not taken because of the time factor will receive written answers.
Commissioner, thank you for being here and for your answers.
Aid to rail, road and inland waterway transport
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0011/97) from the Committee on Transport and Tourism, concerning the common position of the Council (C4-0584/96-95/0204(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1107/70 on the granting of aid to rail, road and inland waterway transport (rapporteur: Mr Tamino).
Mr President, I should like to remind the House, briefly, that this is a document which the Commission drew up back in July 1995 and whose purpose was to extend Regulation 1107 of 1970, on the granting of aids for combined transport by rail, road and inland waterway, to the years 1996 and 1997.
That document highlighted the urgent need to grant this extension at short notice and explained the reason for which the aid in question was still needed.
I would also recall that it was stated in that document that transport prices reflect social costs, which in fact was detrimental to combined transport by comparison with road transport, thus resulting in the urgent need to extend the mechanism for providing support to the intermodal services.
The document, then, highlighted the necessity for these aids.
Parliament, first in the Committee on Transport and Tourism and then in plenary session, in fact agreed that it was a matter of urgency to try to reach approval on this proposal for a regulation: in fact, at the end of 1995 the Transport Committee approved a proposal, with various amendments, which were accepted in February 1996 by a plenary sitting of the European Parliament.
The amendments that were made on that occasion related especially to certain aspects: the need to encourage more environmentally compatible transport systems and to highlight the fact that a financial equilibrium between the various modes of transport had not yet been achieved.
These two amendments were incorporated into the joint proposal, but other amendments which I as the rapporteur had tabled and which I believed to be of significant importance, were not incorporated, in particular one which endeavoured to highlight on the unique aspects of transport through mountainous areas, as in the case of the Alps, though these problems are well known.
This amendment was not incorporated into the joint proposal; nor, more significantly, were those amendments which related to the problem of whether to delete or retain Article 4 of Regulation 1107 of 1970.
Before coming to the subject of that Article 4, there is one preliminary comment I should like to make.
In view of the genuine urgency, and in view of the very quick decision taken by the European Parliament, we found ourselves discussing that provision again a year later - at the beginning of 1997, in other words, when the objective was to extend the period to include 1996 and 1997.
That, I must admit, is somewhat perplexing, and I wonder today what purpose is served by an extension until 1997 only.
Are we sure that we should not, in fact, extend it beyond 1997? Now, it is in this context that the problem of whether or not to retain Article 4 arises.
Although it is true, as has been stated, that Directive 91/440 caused Article 4 to lapse de facto, it is also true that Article 4 relates to aspects which do make these aids to the combined transport system possible.
Eliminating Article 4 of Regulation 1107 of 1970 - without having replaced it with a different provision - in fact makes it difficult if not impossible to continue with those aids in the near future.
On the other hand, it was the Commission itself which pointed out that financial equilibrium had not yet been achieved, though without it it would not be possible to encourage more environmentally compatible systems.
The question I ask myself, therefore, is whether it may not be necessary for the Commission to identify a line of action which would enable us to achieve that objective.
In this situation, the Committee on Transport did not find it appropriate to accept the amendments which I had tabled: as a result, we come to this House with a provision like that proposed by the Commission.
I favour this provision, but I felt it appropriate, specifically in order to prompt an answer from the Commission, to reintroduce certain amendments, in particular in order to understand what procedure is envisaged in the near future regarding aids to the combined system.
Mr President, my group is happy to comply with the Commission's urgent request to approve the common position.
The scheme in question must be extended as soon as possible, otherwise the 1996-97 period which it is intended to cover will have elapsed altogether.
We shall not on this occasion be supporting the amendments which the rapporteur is insisting on putting forward, for reasons he has just explained, though we agree with them in principle and voted for them at first reading.
Combined transport must move forward, quite literally, for reasons which everyone knows and which have been repeated on various occasions.
We and the rapporteur can be happy in the knowledge that the Commission and the Council seem to be agreed on this.
Anyone who has read the Commission communication on an action programme for combined goods transport - Pact 2 - and anyone who recalls what the White Paper on railways had to say, cannot but give their wholehearted support to an active policy in this field.
Then there is also the fact that we always tend to think of road-rail when we talk about combined transport, and overlook inland waterway transport.
We cannot emphasize too strongly that a high-quality and efficient fleet of inland waterway vessels could provide much more environmentally-friendly transport than at present, without excessive cost or investment.
In conclusion, following on from some of the comments made by the rapporteur, I should like to ask the Commissioner when we are likely to see a complete revision of Regulation No 1107/70.
Extending existing arrangements with retroactive effect is a sloppy way to go about things, and should be avoided as much as possible in future.
And in view of the Commission communication on Pact 2, we might also ask if it would not be more convenient to bring all forms of aid for combined transport under one system, and whether the revision of Regulation 1107/70 could not mark the start of this.
It might actually be a good deal easier than we think to make the situation more transparent.
On behalf of the European People's Party I would like to welcome the Commission proposal and, indeed, the Commissioner here this evening, and congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Tamino, on his treatment of this proposal.
The Regulation 1107/70, as amended in 1992, sets out the mechanism for aid for combined transport for last year and this year so it is indeed timely that, in the month of February, we are nonetheless looking at this extension of the regulation.
It is important to recognize that non-road modes of transport experience disadvantages, not least through the inequality of distribution by mode and by type of use of infrastructure charges.
Combined transport suffers particularly in this way and we, in the European People's Party, accept that.
It is important to review the existing mechanism of support for inter-modal services. Account must be taken of the diverse national situations.
The Commission proposal will continue to permit Member States, under the principle of subsidiarity, to select the form of aid most suitable and conforming to their national priorities.
The proposals therefore allow the possibility of national aid for combined transport infrastructure for transfer facilities between modes and for specialized equipment for inter-modal transport.
While the granting of aids for combined transport would be exempt from the strict authorization procedure under Article 93(3) of the Treaty, Member States would be required to inform the Commission of aids granted in the form of an annual estimate at the beginning of each year and subsequently report at the end of the financial year.
The attraction of the new regulation is that the bureaucracy required by both the Member States and the Commission will be reduced.
This is a welcome change.
Under the proposal it will be for each Member State to decide what, if any, form the support will take.
While the European Union emphasizes combined transport, I hope that both combined transport and conventional freight operations will be supported by this measure.
My group endorses the Commission proposal setting out the categories of aid which are legitimate with the aim of overcoming the particular handicaps experienced in the development of inter-modal or combined transport.
It is understood that the aids will apply in the short term and will have a positive and beneficial effect on the development of combined transport.
The proposal to extend Regulation 117/70 deserves Parliament's support since it is just this type of aid to combined transport which we believe is in line with the European Union's future transport policy.
It is also a means of strengthening the position of railways and inland waterways in the European transport market.
At the very least, until such time as the level of competition between the different modes of transport is reflected in the reality of grants and proposed harmonization conditions, these aids are a modest means of providing compensation in the interests of a sustainable transport policy.
In conclusion, we congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
I am delighted that the Council, in adopting a common position, has incorporated two key amendments from the European Parliament and on that basis we should now approve the common position and I have therefore great pleasure in commending it to the House.
Like everyone else, my group too supports the proposals before us and congratulates the rapporteur on them.
We do not oppose his amendments in principle, but as Mr Castricum said a moment ago, this is not the right time to be pursuing them, particularly when the Commissioner - and perhaps he would like to give us details of this - has just been instructed by the Council to have further talks with Switzerland on transalpine transport.
My group is also rather pleased to see from the common position that the idea of stopping further aid altogether after 1997 is under consideration.
Why is this? First of all, because we have seen that simply carrying on providing aid for combined transport is tantamount to flogging a dead horse.
Combined transport seems to be taking a smaller and smaller share of the transport market, rather than increasing, and it would therefore seem that freedom of choice for shippers is gaining the upper hand.
Our group welcomes this as a very positive development that should be extended further, which is not to say, of course, that we should not be glad to see environmentally-friendly forms of transport taking a greater share of the market.
Decisive factors here seem to be the lack of further liberalization of the railways, the high costs of transferring goods from one form of transport to another, and finally, Commissioner - and I should like to hear what you have to say on this - the fact that it is impossible for transporters to take responsibility themselves for transferring and unloading from rail transport at the place of destination.
This is an area where we would join Mr Castricum in calling for more detailed legislation in future.
Mr President, combined modes of transport, or to be more accurate a system in which each mode of transport is considered individually, is not only a European transport project with respect to capacity and prices offered to those buying transport.
It is also an environmental project.
It is a project which takes account of bottlenecks and which can be made economically justifiable.
Like my colleague, Mr Castricum, I also support the Commission's initiatives and hope that the Council will follow these up, but I would also advocate the expansion of these initiatives.
Member States must involve themselves more fully in these activities, and must be made to see that this is a joint European project, not local projects.
The strategy until now has been that Member States themselves be involved in the selection of areas of investment, not at a European level, but at a local level.
This must change in the future.
There seems to be a continued failure to realize that points at which sea, rail and road systems meet are often good junctions.
What we are missing is the category referred to by the term short sea shipping.
This is an important aspect of the development of combined transport modes in Europe, and I hope we can agree to an extension of the programme so that it can continue after this year and next year.
Because what tends to happen is that we wait until traffic develops, then attempt to regulate it.
It would be good if, at a joint European level, we could attempt to regulate traffic before it has developed, and make new provision for it.
Market forces will not take care of this problem by themselves.
We can propose as many toasts as we like at the prospect of a combined transport project. But nothing will happen until we can agree at a European level.
It is therefore not just a question of deregulation, privatization, or any other scheme we can dream up.
It is a question of how determined we are to regulate in order to create the modes of transport we wish to see.
I wish the Commissioners good luck on the Council as they seek to convince the various ministers that these projects are worth investing in.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this issue is certainly important enough in itself to merit serious discussion.
I agree with most of what my colleagues have said.
We on the Christian Democrat side of the House support the common position and hope that the Commissioner will table a proposal for a followup regulation without delay, so that we do not find ourselves in 1999 discussing the follow-up regulation for 1998.
I should like to highlight two points in particular.
I believe it is extremely important to extend the aid regulation to include support for combined transport, because we all share the objective of moving long-distance freight transport increasingly onto railways and inland waterways and also - as the previous speaker mentioned - short sea shipping, in order to make our roads in the Community safer and to conserve the environment.
We also agree with the second concept in the common position and the Commission proposal, that of simplifying the way that aid is monitored in this sector.
However, we still have certain reservations.
These concern the need to ensure two things - and I would ask the Commissioner if he could give a guarantee in this respect when he addresses the two new concepts in his reply.
My first question is this: if individual authorizations are not to be compulsory in these aid procedures, how do you intend to ensure that the Commission will continue to monitor the aid with the same degree of care? Exemption from individual authorization cannot mean exemption from aid monitoring, and I should like to have your assurance that you will make your staff fully aware of this.
Secondly, if individual authorizations are no longer required, how shall we ensure that when aid is granted to one company, another company, city or region does not find itself disadvantaged without having any say in the matter?
This is what happens in practice: competitor companies say that they had no idea what subsidies had been applied for, because the details were not published anywhere, and they ask how they are expected to register their misgivings when they only receive the news a year after the event.
That is why I believe, Commissioner, that even with the simplified procedure, some thought must be given to ways of informing competitors and allowing them to raise objections - in the interests of promoting competition, as opposed to distorting it.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mr Tamino for his well written report.
It is my fundamental political conviction that providing conditions for free trade and free competition is also the best way of resolving Europe's various transport problems.
This is why I am essentially sceptical about economic support and subsidies.
Now that we have reached the second round of discussions on this matter and have a common position from the Council of Ministers, I believe that we can say that this has all the makings of a good decision.
The Tamino report is about improving combined transport.
Undisputably, this is of great importance; there is every reason therefore to encourage it.
How this is done, is also of importance.
Investment in combined transport cannot be made by continuously raising taxes and an even higher and more unfair distribution of freight costs.
These are already widely divergent in the various EU Member States and all too often this is a great disadvantage to countries which already have long transport distances and high freight costs.
This large and continuously increasing disparity must not be allowed to grow larger.
This means that the most important way of encouraging combined transport does not lie in direct economic support.
Instead, we should be working more towards the proposals in the White Paper which has been presented to Parliament and which covers the revitalisation of Europe's railways.
The fact that Europe's railways are continuously losing their market share of goods transport is a big problem.
But the way to counteract this lies more in stimulating the railways in other ways rather than by the direct provision of economic support.
The most important boost would be to simplify goods transport across EU national boundaries and to introduce more open competition than we currently have.
For this reason, the most important decisions that we can take for this sector, to encourage both the railways and combined transport, are not the decisions which we are taking today but those which are still to come.
Mr President, could I first thank the House and the rapporteur Mr Tamino for his very useful work on the amendment to Regulation 1107/70 on state aids to inland transport.
The result of these efforts is to underline again Parliament's strong commitment to promoting combined transport and that, as ever, is welcome.
By approving this common position, the House ensures that the rules in Regulation 1107/70 concerning aid to combined transport will remain in force this year.
Since those rules will, however, expire by 31 December we must obviously prepare the structure of a new regime that meets the needs of the future.
With that specific purpose in mind, my services are currently working on a report on the current state aid practices of Member States based on the answers they have given to a Commission questionnaire.
The result of this work will obviously provide an informed basis for the revision of Regulation 1107/70 in exactly the way Mr Castricum was seeking.
Naturally in due course I would be pleased to have a detailed exchange of views with the House on ways of establishing a legal framework which will allow the continued and appropriate promotion of combined transport.
It would be relevant to discuss Mr Castricum's idea relating to the project action for combined transport at that juncture.
The PACT programme is going to be extended to relate to short sea shipping and I hope that Mr Sindal will see that as evidence of our sustained commitment in the Commission to the development of that very important aspect of combined transport.
Meanwhile, I should say to Mr Jarzembowski that I agree with his emphasis on effective monitoring and on fair conditions and he can be absolutely sure that the Commission not only will sustain its current efforts but constantly look for even more effective and incisive ways of producing exactly the results that he seeks.
On the specific matter of the report before the House, I note that Mr Tamino, as he said, has re-submitted two amendments which both the Commission and the Council rejected at the first reading stage.
I must inform the honourable Member that in the view of the Commission, both amendments continue to be inappropriate.
I hope therefore that he will not persist with them and will concur with the recommendation of the Committee on Transport and Tourism to approve the common position without amendment in the fashion argued for by Mr Wijsenbeek.
I express my gratitude for the continuing constructive attitude of honourable Members in supporting development in combined transport and I look forward greatly to the next stage of provision for the future.
Mr President, I put two specific questions to the Commissioner concerning the stage of unloading and the matter of Switzerland.
I hope I will receive a more detailed answer later on.
Mr President, I will be speaking in detail about Switzerland in the committee which I know the honourable Member will be attending next week.
I thought I might save it for him as a late Valentine but early Easter gift.
(Laughter )
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Investor compensation schemes
The next item is the report (A4-0047/97) by Mr Janssen van Raay, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text (C4-0058/97-00/0471(COD)), approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive on investor compensation schemes.
Mr President, I am pleased to see that Commissioner Monti has now arrived alongside Commissioner Kinnock. The Chamber may seem empty, but I can assure you, Mr Monti, that I have just walked through the building and there are 300 Members currently sitting glued to their television screens watching this debate in their offices.
So we have the House's undivided attention.
Secondly, the most important point I should like to make is to stress how successful the conciliation procedure introduced under the Maastricht Treaty has been.
I very much appreciate the fact that under the Irish presidency, when the last such procedure occurred, we were able to reach a successful compromise through the intervention of Commissioner Monti and the Irish Minister.
With swine fever currently sweeping through the Netherlands, I was particularly interested to hear this afternoon's debate on mad cow disease, and I thought to myself that if Amsterdam I or Maastricht II extended the conciliation procedure to all areas of cooperation, it would be a major step forward.
What Minister van Aartsen said was not logical, of course: he cannot first welcome measures against the United Kingdom and then grumble about the measures which the Commission has, in my opinion as a Dutchman, quite rightly taken against the Netherlands to protect public health and consumer interests.
The only thing which the Minister should have done was to ensure that no pig-farmers suffered loss.
This Commission deserves a pat on the back from President Santer, which is more than could be said for the last one.
The point I wish to make is this: if we had had the conciliation procedure then, so that we could have worked directly with the Commission and the Council, it might have been much easier to find a solution.
I have to say that we are extremely pleased.
We negotiated up until the last minute, as you know, to try to get Parliament's ideas adopted.
Thanks to you, the Council adopted many of Parliament's amendments at second reading.
I always think of ourselves as a kind of House of Representatives and the Council as the Senate, with the Commission playing the absolutely vital role of intermediary.
It is up to us to ensure that European legislation is introduced which is acceptable to everyone.
The various sections of the Delors package do not seem so important individually, and even the investor compensation scheme does not seem all that important at first sight.
However, it forms the cornerstone of a major package of legislation, and as such it is extremely important for consumers and investors.
We naturally find it unfortunate, I have to say, that the export ban has not been lifted.
We would have preferred to allow the countries offering the highest levels of protection for investors to compete with countries which do not offer any.
As you know, Mr Monti, we urged you to include this amendment right up to the last minute.
But when the AdvocateGeneral in the proceedings between Germany and the Commission and the Council told us that it was out of the question, we gave in.
We are now relying on the Commission, and this is my main point, to ensure that the highest possible level of protection for investors is introduced in all countries of the European Union, and particularly Greece. This was one of the amendments agreed in the compromise with the Irish presidency, and we really are counting on your cooperation.
I should in any event like to thank Commissioner Monti for the role which he personally played in achieving the compromise with the Irish presidency.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for ably piloting this legislation through the three readings in this House and through the conciliation procedure.
Despite the small number of MEPs who are present tonight, this is a very important piece of legislation. It protects small savers and small savers' savings.
Small savers are the backbone of the banking industry. Small savers scrimp and save.
There is a great deal of fear in the European economy at present, fear of job losses, fear of what will happen in old age, fear of what will happen if people have periods of sickness, fear of what will happen to children.
Savings are used to save for old age, periods of sickness, helping children through studies and helping grandchildren.
Loss of savings can be a personal tragedy for the families concerned.
This piece of legislation protects those small savers.
Without saving we have no investment.
So this piece of legislation is absolutely essential both for the prosperity of Europe as a whole and for the prosperity of the individual families concerned.
I thank the rapporteur and the Commission for putting this protective directive before the saving consumers of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we all know the problems that are currently confronting social security systems throughout Europe.
The simple question of whether our pensions are secure now exercises not only the Germans, but an ever increasing number of the Union's citizens.
The call from the Member States for more private pension provision cannot be ignored.
It is not surprising that many people are attracted to invest in securities - a sector of the financial market that is as sensitive as it is risky.
Against this backdrop, the directive on investor compensation schemes takes on further topical significance.
The most important concern is to protect small savers.
We should therefore welcome the fact that, after a tough battle between the Council and Parliament, a compromise has been reached, opening the way for the directive to come into force.
Once again the codecision procedure involving the Conciliation Committee has proved its worth.
Small investors must be able to deal with branch offices of companies selling securities in the Community, or receive securities services in the context of the international trade in services, with as much confidence as when dealing with domestic companies.
That is why investor compensation schemes must be in place in all the Member States, to ensure that small savers at least have a uniform minimum level of protection in the event of a securities firm being unable to meet its obligations to its investors.
We introduced legislation some time ago to provide for this type of protection - albeit through very different systems - in the case of credit institutions.
Here, the uniform minimum compensation of ECU 20 000 per investor has been set at a level that is designed to protect the interests of small investors.
It is also designed to allow the Member States to stipulate that investors must bear a proportion of any losses.
However, competition is part and parcel of the internal market, and this brings me to my main criticism of the directive.
The rapporteur has already discussed this point in detail.
The Council takes the view that the level and extent of cover offered by the various compensation systems should not become an instrument of competition.
The Council fears that the market will be disrupted if the branch offices of securities firms can offer better cover than a securities firm licensed in the country where the securities are bought.
To put it plainly, the European Parliament sees the arrangement which the Council is proposing as a ban on the export of services by securities firms based in countries where the system offers a higher level of cover than that of the country in which the branch office is located.
Only the fact that this arrangement, or export ban, will not apply after December 1999 has prompted the House to give way here in the interests of reaching a compromise.
It should be noted that in the course of the Conciliation Committee procedure, Parliament succeeded in ensuring that compensation will be calculated on the basis of the current market value of the securities, and will be paid out without delay.
The compromise that was reached thus takes account both of investor protection and of the need to maintain confidence in the financial system.
It represents a significant contribution to the completion of the single market, and that is why my group recommends that the compromise should be adopted.
In the few seconds available to me, I naturally cannot examine the excellent compromise worked out by the rapporteur in any detail, but I should like to congratulate him on it.
J.K. Galbraith once announced at a hearing of the American Senate that the stock market boom which was happening at the time would not last, and from that moment the markets started to plummet.
I hope I shall not have the same effect, but I think we can assume that the market boom we are experiencing will not last, and that one of these days it will start to dip.
Now that investors have found out about the stock markets, the way in is often through investment firms.
It is therefore a very good idea, and I am grateful here to the rapporteur and the Commissioner, to spread the asset formation and the risk in this way, also among those not previously involved.
As a Liberal, I wholeheartedly welcome the fact that small investors are now to be given a certain guarantee.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to begin by thanking the parliamentary delegation, and in particular the rapporteur.
The proposals which have been presented to us as the outcome of the conciliation procedure represent a sensible compromise.
This was obviously necessary.
The adoption of a directive was urgently required to facilitate the free movement of capital under Article 7a(2) of the EC Treaty, and it was necessary to make the legislation compatible with the directive on bank deposit guarantees.
The main problems were the objections to the need for a directive, given the principle of subsidiarity, and the question of the export ban.
The very fact that the latter has been a bone of contention is, in my opinion, the best argument in favour of the directive.
Potential distortions of the market needed to be countered.
The proposal that the export ban should apply only until 1999 allowed an acceptable compromise to be reached on this point too.
The only appropriate response to this balanced proposal is for the House to adopt it.
Mr President, it may be the case, as Mr Janssen van Raay said, that this Chamber is not particularly crowded this evening, but it seems to me that the speeches we have heard have really cast light on every aspect of this very important problem, which has been so well solved.
In this context, I should like to express, on behalf of the Commission, both institutional and personal congratulations: institutional congratulations because we have seen a fine example of the workings of a conciliation procedure; and personal congratulations to the rapporteur, Mr Janssen van Raay, and to all the members of his delegation for their efforts to achieve an agreement with the Council last December on legislation of such major importance.
The importance of this directive lies in the fact that, together with the directive on investment services and the directive on the financial soundness of banks and investment enterprises - directives which are already in effect - it will constitute one of the fundamental pillars of the single market as far as the securities sector is concerned.
It seems to me that the speeches made by Mr Oddy, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, Mr Wijsenbeek and Mr Ullmann have really highlighted the various aspects of this single market that we are constructing for the citizen - a market which can therefore, thanks to a directive like this one, widen the spectrum of citizens, whether small or large savers, who can invest in securities.
At the same time this provides a boost to the savings/investment cycle and so stimulates the growth of the European economy for the benefit of future generations and creates a mechanism of confidence.
So although it may seem to be a technical provision, perhaps a rather dull provision, I see it as one of great economic and social importance.
I therefore congratulate Parliament again on the key part it has played in achieving this result.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting closed at 11.20 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I refer to page 1 of yesterday's Minutes.
Both Mr Smith and I raised the question of the list for Question Time and the fact that the questions we had tabled to Commissioner Kinnock on transport were not included in the transport section.
We wondered whether there had been a simple administrative blunder or whether there had been some political manoeuvre to prevent embarrassment for the United Kingdom Government.
The President in the chair, Mr Imbeni, said he would report the matter to the Commission.
Has the presidency had any news from the Commission about what happened to these questions?
Mr McMahon, the matter is being dealt with, and the Commission will decide which Commissioner is to answer your question.
That will certainly be discussed, and the Commission is free to decide which of the Commissioners will answer it.
Madam President, I was well aware who the Commissioner would be: I tabled the question on transport to Commissioner Kinnock, who is the Transport Commissioner.
Now someone in this institution - or in one of the two institutions - decided not to refer it to Commissioner Kinnock.
I want to know whether the failure is in Parliament's or the Commission's services, and I want to know whether it is a simple administrative blunder or a political manoeuvre!
Only the President can find that out!
No, Mr McMahon, it is neither of those things.
I can only repeat what I have just said.
The questions are submitted to the Commission as a collegial body, and the Commission itself then decides who will answer a particular question.
In other words, neither we nor you can decide in this case that Mr Kinnock will answer your question.
We shall pass the matter on, and then the question will be answered.
Madam President, if I may, I would like to make two small comments on the Minutes.
I refer to page 22 of the Spanish version, and I have been able to check that the same applies to the Italian and French versions.
During the debate on BSE I had the honour to take Mrs Pery's place in the chair, and when Mrs van Dijk was speaking I gave Lord Plumb the floor.
The substitution does not appear in the Minutes.
I am flattered to be mistaken for Mrs Pery, but I do think the accuracy of the minutes demands a correction.
The other point, Madam President, refers to page 23 and as far as I know only affects the Spanish version.
I have checked the Italian and the French and they are correct, but in the Spanish version, at the start of questions to the Council and the Commission, Mr Avgerinos' name does not appear, and as I understand it, he was chairing the sitting.
These are small points, Madam President, but to be meticulous in our work, I think they need to be pointed out.
Thank you very much. That will be corrected.
As far as the confusion is concerned, there ought to be no problem in changing that too.
I have just heard that in the other versions which you did not mention these omissions or errors were not made.
But they will be corrected in the versions to which you referred.
Madam President, a number of foreign lorries have been marooned for two weeks now in northern Spain.
Despite efforts by the Spanish Government to find a solution the situation in some places is particularly grim.
Tyres are being slashed, windows broken and two lorries have been set on fire.
I urge our President, Mr Gil-Robles, to use his good offices with the Spanish authorities in order to convey Parliament's alarm and our deprecation of this situation and to point out to the Spanish authorities that they have a duty to safeguard the free movement of individuals and goods.
Mr Cornelissen, that was not a point of order.
We are now dealing with comments on the Minutes.
We shall certainly pass that on, but for the moment I would ask you to confine yourselves to comments on the Minutes.
Madam President, I thought Mr McMahon was doing very well and did not need my assistance but I am really astonished at the reply you gave him.
If it is the case that the Commission will decide for itself which questions to answer, then why are we asked to address questions to specific Commissioners? Why is part of Question Time designated to specific Commissioners?
We addressed our questions to Mr Kinnock. Someone took a decision to take them away from Mr Kinnock and place them so far down the agenda that they would not be reached.
Who took that decision? We believe there were political forces behind that, and could you tell us what happened?
Dirty work at the crossroads, you know: the nuclear industry is very much aware of these things.
I believe there has been a misunderstanding on your part.
I said before that the Commission decides which Commissioner will answer the question.
I did not say that the Commission decides which question will be answered.
That must have been misunderstood.
Incidentally, the Commission is, of course, listening to what is being said here, and I have no doubt that there is a possibility that Mr McMahon's question will indeed be answered by Mr Kinnock, but that is not something we can dictate.
I can only pass it on with an explicit request that Mr Kinnock reply to the question, which I shall do.
(Parliament approved the Minutes.)
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
The next item is the vote on objections relating to the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance (Rule 47).
Item I - Human Rights:
Madam President, on the subject of human rights.
I have two points to raise.
Firstly, a request has been received to replace our human rights resolution on Vannunu with one on the war criminal Brunner.
We would ask the honourable members who made that request to agree to Brunner being an addition rather than a replacement.
That is my first point and my second one is an urgent plea to the Greens to withdraw the new item they want to add under the human rights heading, namely the matter of the detainee Roisín McAliskey. Why?
Because negotiations are currently ongoing which might be frustrated if this question is put on the urgency list at this time. It is the result which counts and I thus ask the Greens not to press for this to be added to the agenda today but to withdraw their request.
Mrs D'Ancona, the objection I have received was tabled by the PPE Group, and the deadline for motions has actually passed.
This means that I cannot simply grant your request - and I do understand what you want to achieve - unless the PPE Group expresses its agreement.
Madam President, the proposal made that we should withdraw this resolution is completely out of order because the Parliament has to debate human rights abuses within the Union and it is quite clear that this Parliament has an opportunity to do so today.
It will be too late to do it later.
Negotiations have been going on; letters have been going backwards and forwards but nothing has actually happened.
The Parliament has to address human rights abuses within the Union.
We are debating human rights issues right across the world and we cannot ignore what happens in our own Member States.
Thank you very much, Mrs McKenna.
Beef labelling - veterinary controls - cattle registration
The next item on the agenda is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0037/97 by Mr Papayannakis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0460 - C4-0546/96-96/0229(CNS)) regarding the labelling of beef and beef products; -A4-0033/97 by Mr Olsson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposals for: I.a Council Directive (COM(96)0170 - C4-0334/96-96/0109(CNS)) laying down the principles governing the organization of veterinary checks on products entering the Community from third countriesII.a Council Directive (COM(96)0170 - C4-0335/96-96/0110(CNS)) amending Directives 71/118/EEC, 72/462/EEC, 85/73/EEC, 91/67/EEC, 91/492/EEC, 91/493/EEC, 92/45/EEC and 92/118/EEC as regards the organization of veterinary checks on products entering the Community from third countries; -A4-0022/97 by Mr Mayer, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0460 - C4-0545/96-96/0228(CNS)) establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals.
Madam President, first let me congratulate Mr Papayannakis for his excellent work.
It is important in today's market that we try to rebuild consumer confidence in food.
In the past, food was produced and consumed locally.
People knew where food had been produced, how it had been prepared and what the consequences of eating it were.
It was often the case that if infection or other problems were present that people in the local area were more resistant to these problems.
Today we no longer have a local market for food.
Nor do we have a national market for food.
Today we have a European and also a partially global market for food.
It is good that there is a free flow of goods and services in the European Union and I also positively support the aim to increase world trade.
But it is not good if this free flow leads to the further spread of infection and diseases, diseases which can affect livestock and people.
This is why it is so important to keep track of what we are eating and to inform consumers where food has come from and how it has been produced.
As for the report by Mr Papayannakis, there are two main issues which we must consider: the first is whether the labelling system should be voluntary or obligatory, and the second is whether it should only apply to whole pieces of beef or to beef products as well.
I am well aware that obligatory labelling has its difficulties.
But I think Parliament would be sending out the wrong message if it accepts a voluntary system.
My party group is in favour of an obligatory system.
I am also well aware that it can be difficult to label manufactured products; often we end up with a long list of products in ever smaller quantities.
In such cases, there can be obstacles to labelling manufactured products.
But, I still think that we must find practical ways, and the Commission must help in this, to set limits so that obligatory labelling can, in principle, also be applied to manufactured meat products.
With that, Madam President, I would like to turn to my own report which is essentially about the same thing, food safety, but which concentrates on food imported from third countries.
In this respect I would first like to thank Mr Kindermann and the Agriculture Committee for their very valuable views concerning a number of details which we on the Environment Committee did not have access to.
I would also like to thank the Committee on Budgets which sent a letter with their comments on the report.
The proposal concerns harmonisation of veterinary control regulations on all products of animal origin imported into The European Union and the introduction of veterinary checks for each shipment at an approved veterinary control station.
A database called ANIMO is to be used in connection with this for communication between the different stations.
I view this proposal positively and support its main points.
It will simplify a number of areas which will be helpful.
But introducing a common system also means that we must increase our efforts to restrict import fraud.
There is also one point of view which I have a particular interest in laying before you; it is perhaps particularly of Swedish or Scandinavian interest, but that does not make it any less important.
Article 2 of the Directive also affects certain plant products.
In this instance, this means hay and straw, which will be examined because they can also be infected with foot and mouth disease.
Today, we have other problems as well.
This includes the import of soya meal, for example, which can contain salmonella.
This is a matter of great concern, particularly to those of us who have made great progress in eliminating salmonella, Sweden and Finland for example.
There is also a passage which says that respect must be paid to the special requirements of individual countries.
This has a role here as well and it would be useful to include something of this nature.
I have one amendment proposal concerning penalties.
This is really only a detail.
In accordance with Swedish Law, we would like to see the final decision on penalties made via the courts and not administratively.
In addition, we are also proposing, and this may seem a little strange, that we postpone introduction of this until 1st January 1998, because the computer system required is not yet in place.
For this reason, it cannot be introduced in accordance with the Commission's proposal on 1st January 1997, which is a date which has already passed.
Madam President, I think that covers the points that I wanted to add to the discussion.
The Environment Committee has recommended both the amendment from the Agriculture Committee and their rapporteur Mr Kindermann, and that from the Committee on Budgets and I believe that we will be able to reach broad agreement on this report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a proposal from the Commission is on the table today, aimed at establishing common rules for the control of animal products from third countries.
The completion of the internal market and the associated abolition of border controls make it essential to harmonize import conditions as a prerequisite for the termination of the bilateral agreements.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on whose behalf I drafted the opinion, welcomes the Commission's proposal, which simplifies the existing provisions and adapts them to the new situation.
It seeks to introduce strict rules in particular areas in order to ensure the protection of public health.
The cessation of the existing independently conducted identity checks is acceptable, because such checks are to be part of the future inspection system.
Quite apart from the poor and occasionally misleading translation into German, the proposal contains some unclear formulations, which we are trying to eliminate through our amendments.
We hope that the Commission will accept these amendments we have proposed.
We continue to appeal to the Commission to rethink its position on the selected legal basis.
It states in its own proposal that the common system of veterinary checks is governed by the aims of completing the internal market and harmonizing health protection.
Especially in the light of the present discussion in this House and among citizens outside on the subject of BSE and of the Commission's correct decision to relieve the Directorate-General for Agriculture of its responsibility for veterinary checks, the Commission should really have come to realize that the monitoring of animal products has far less to do with the organization of the agricultural market than with public health and consumer protection.
As far as Parliament is concerned, the knowledge and experience we have amassed in the last few weeks and months show that the only appropriate legal basis is Article 100a in conjunction with Article 129a. I am also thinking particularly of Mr Mayer's comments here, which I fully endorse, when he said that we should extend the scope of this legal basis to take in the other two reports being presented to us today.
Madam President, yesterday we were expressing the concerns of European consumers and consumers outside the Union on the whole question of beef.
Today we are taking appropriate measures to meet some of those concerns.
I welcome the new urgency and activity of the European Commission in this area.
I reject the criticism that this proposal imposes unnecessary administrative costs on farmers.
It is absolutely necessary to do this to consolidate the markets which European farmers have for their meat products.
It is necessary also to reassure people in third countries who buy our products.
We produce a million tonnes of beef in the European Union that have to be sold in third countries.
It is common knowledge that consumers outside of the European Union are increasingly aware of health and safety aspects of the products which they buy from us.
So, this measure is important for all these reasons.
I have to express the concerns of the Committee on Budgetary Control in the area of cost.
We have maybe 70 million bovines in the European Union. We spend ECU 60b annually.
Something like 70 % of that is paid in individual premia.
So it is extremely important from a bookkeeping point of view that we know exactly where these animals are and how to calculate correctly the amount of money that should be and has been spent.
The Budget Control Committee also has a concern that this regulation did not include sheep and goats.
We spend nearly another ECU 2b in this particular area.
We thought that since sheep and goats were included in the original Directive 102, that they should have been included in this one as well.
On behalf of the Budget Control Committee I would urge the Commission to bring forward legislation to give us further assurances in relation to the spending of this money.
Madam President, in principle I agree in general with what Mr Mayer told us.
Besides, everything provided for by the regulation and the amendments that improve it needs to be done, if meat is to be labelled.
Unless we have a system for the recognition and registration of cattle, it will not be possible to label beef and other beef industry products.
However, Madam President, I want to stress the magnitude of the effort that will be needed to register the 95 million head of cattle in the European Union in data-bases and monitor their movement.
That is something which would have been unthinkable only a few years ago, but which is necessary today and will cost a huge amount, the cost of the Community bodies' folly to say the least.
It is the price we will be paying for the profit enjoyed by others thanks to their stance throughout the BSE crisis.
There is, however, a problem Madam President.
Some countries are nearly ready to go ahead with that system, while other Member States are very poorly prepared or even entirely unprepared.
If we want to avoid creating loopholes for illegal economic methods, smuggling and other suchlike, which would ultimately go against the interests of public health, I think it will be necessary to adopt the amendment we voted for on the Environmental Committee and which essentially calls on the Commission to prepare and finance a special programme to harmonize the laws in all Member States and to supply the necessary electronic and other infrastructure, so that the recognition and registration system can be implemented as soon as possible throughout the European Union.
Madam President, the proposals we are today discussing are, in my view, very important.
I see a strong connection between the subject of today's debate - Mr Mayer's report - and what we were yesterday discussing in relation to the BSE crisis.
I believe that it is very important that we introduce a system for the identification and registration of cattle that is effective, sound and secure.
At the same time, I very much appreciate the argument concerning the labelling of beef and beef products which, as has been stated in the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, has to be made compulsory and not just voluntary.
In my view, these are important signals that we need to give to consumers who have currently lost all confidence in beef and beef products and all other products of animal origin. That loss of confidence has been triggered by the methods of husbandry, the problems - from time to time condemned - involved in the transport of animals and the difficulty in identifying the origin of the product that turns up in processed form on our tables.
On top of all those difficulties, in themselves chronic, structural and indicative of the problematic state of the beef and beef products' market in Europe, we then had the BSE crisis which made the situation considerably more complicated.
I therefore believe that the system of passports for the animals, the data bases, the ear-tagging and the registers kept at each holding which my group believes should be absolutely compulsory - with no exemptions even for transitional periods which would in fact make them optional - are all extremely important factors both in terms of health and veterinary controls and to prevent fraud in the administration of the premiums provided for by the common agricultural policy in the beef and beef products sector.
I believe, Commissioner, that we need soon to identify guidelines for reform of the common organization of the market in beef and beef products; this is an issue on which announcements have been made on several occasions, and I believe that all of our countries and, more particularly, the producers of the European Union, are right to demand that we should move on rapidly from words to deeds.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in the wake of the BSE issue and the crisis of confidence it has engendered among consumers, the three proposals on the registration of cattle and the labelling of beef, as well as the Olsson report, are of great importance.
It is quite simply vital that we succeed in restoring consumer confidence.
The possibility of proving the origin of cattle and beef will be a decisive step in that direction.
The Commission's strategy of providing for the registration of cattle and for the compulsory introduction of both a database and animal passports is the correct approach.
We should not let ourselves be put off by supposed technical difficulties.
The experience of some Member States with databases has shown that they have considerable potential.
It is undeniable that the 1992 Directive has not been satisfactorily transposed. Perhaps it was never properly transposable.
Speculation about the origins of individual animals remains rife.
We should be in no doubt that the real work to implement the new Regulation still lies ahead of us.
For example, steps must be taken to ensure that exchanges between the databases of Member States actually work in practice.
What use is it to a French farmer if he is offered an animal from Spain but has no knowledge of its precise origin because its data are only available in the Spanish database, to which he has no access, or vice versa ?
I simply cannot understand why the Commission wants to allow fourteen days after importation for compulsory identification of animals from third countries.
This provides scope for fraud to take place during that very period.
I emphatically support the amendment tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development whereby imported animals would be identified immediately, as the Mayer report states.
The entire system, however, will only serve its purpose if the evidence of origin can also be communicated to the consumer.
For that reason we need beef to be labelled all the way through to the shop counter.
We in the House are agreed that a voluntary labelling system as proposed by the Commission is the wrong way to restore consumer confidence.
In my opinion it is futile to rely on market forces to create a system of labelling.
As long as there is no blanket provision for the labelling of such products throughout Europe, distrust will continue to prevail among consumers.
Only a compulsory labelling system can remedy the situation.
The message given by the Commission to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection was this: if labelling is voluntary, meat products and other by-products, such as those containing gelatine, can be included in this Directive.
But the result of that will be a lot of labelling, a lengthy process and a great deal of concealment.
What you are presenting to us here is a conjuring trick.
According to these proposals, eight details about the animal from which the gelatine is derived must appear on packaging such as a cream carton: the date of slaughter, the sex of the animal, the method used to cut up the carcass, to name but a few.
That is unrealistic, and we should steer well clear of it.
I naturally understand the motives of those who advocate a far-reaching compulsory system here too.
It is a fact that we need to give a clear signal after the BSE crisis, to prove our determination to make a fresh start.
The question, however, is whether this is possible with a set of requirements that can scarcely work in practice.
I can only warn against pursuing that approach.
While we may understand the motives, we must ask ourselves whether public confidence would be far more seriously dented if such labelling were to prove impossible and if, in trying to meet our obligation to deal with this matter, we were seen to be doing something that was perhaps incomprehensible and perhaps even mistaken - for that situation is on the cards. What will happen when that sort of thing occurs?
How do we then hope to restore consumer confidence? I believe we should only put verifiable information on labels.
Of course, no Member State should be prevented from adopting rules of its own, but at a European level we should not go through with this.
What should not, however, be rejected, Commissioner - and this is my earnest plea - are our demands that the reports be dealt with under Article 108.
After yesterday's speech from Mr Santer, I believe you will find it easy to agree to these demands.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has unanimously endorsed them.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has agreed that negotiation on the matter is legitimate.
So we are well on our way.
Madam President, I in turn wish to point out how sensible it was to schedule this debate for the day after the BSE debate and also to link these three reports, which in fact complement one another, like three links in the same chain, producing an important outcome: new guarantees for consumers and also new obligations for producers.
However, there is still perhaps too little involvement of third parties who are also important here: by this I mean the wholesalers and retailers who are in fact, at the point of marketing, important links and have also to be made to take responsibility, particularly as regards labelling.
I wish to dwell for a moment on the agricultural world and the problems that this new development could cause.
Hitherto, with the ear-tagging and inventory, more or less all farmers - even the smallest of them - were able to manage fairly easily.
But it cannot be denied that this new legislation brings on to the farm elements previously quite unfamiliar in this context: computers, in the first place, which require a different kind of professional training and maybe even a new kind of worker.
It is plain that all of this may involve - and I am certain of this - new costs and a different professional commitment, even though improved qualifications will result.
Therefore, I am in favour of this new development, but before we give someone a car, I think it worth checking whether they have a driving licence, otherwise it would end up off the road.
This then is what I propose: a staged reform, particularly as regards the introduction of the data bases which, if they are to be reliable, have continually to have data fed into them by a substantial percentage of producers.
The proposal that we create a 'buffer year' after the 31 December 1997 deadline seems to me to be reasonable. And here I am thinking above all of the small producers, the hill farms in which - given the small number of people working them - all of these innovations could cause consternation and confusion.
Once the data base is complete, we can think in terms of a passport, an undoubtedly fascinating and ambitious proposal, that would accompany cattle movements, the rearing and the whole of the life of the animals, to the point of the final certificate which we shall be able to identify in the label, the final stage in a system of documentation that has always to be based on clear and comprehensive data to guarantee the quality and thus the characteristics of the product - a clear indication of origin, methods of processing and any veterinary controls.
That applies particularly to the by-products of meat processing.
I am thinking here with some concern of the famous hamburgers, so much loved by the young people listening to us here and in relation to which these labels are more important than in other areas of meat processing. The hamburger whose origin, content and, above all, quality are frequently still a matter of hoping for the best.
Mr President, I represent Somerset in North Devon, which is the cattle heartland of the UK, and what we do not know about beef and beef products is hardly worth knowing.
We have been gravely hit by the recent crisis in confidence in this sector.
That is why I welcome these Commission regulations and indeed Mr Papayannakis' suggested amendments, because I feel they are essential to restore public confidence in the whole of the beef industry.
My group favours an obligatory system of labelling.
We believe that while geographical origin is important, it is certainly not the conclusive or definitive factor.
What we want to see is the kind of things asked for in Mr Papayannakis' Amendment No 4 on minimum standards.
We want to see labelling that would cover also genetic engineering techniques and the use of stimulants in beef production, although here we prefer Mr Tamino's Amendment No 29 to those put down by the rapporteur.
I believe that it even is more important to label processed goods containing beef and beef products than to label the meat itself, even if this is difficult.
This is the area where public confidence is really at its lowest.
It is important that the public be aware - and this is something Liberals have striven for in the European Parliament - of exactly what goes into the foodstuffs that they are buying.
I believe, too, that stricter labelling requirements would help farmers. Farmers have lost control of their industry.
They have lost control of the industry upstream, where the feedstuffs manufacturers are concerned, and they have lost control of the industry downstream to the large food chains.
Requirements that would help boost public confidence would also help farmers to regain control over this important industry.
Therefore, Liberals in this House support the idea of an animal passport.
I would like to conclude by suggesting to the Commission that we will need, very shortly, a much wider review of food labelling requirements in the European Union.
We have a whole mass of regulations; these need to be brought together in one document.
Madam President, I believe that, as the debate has made clear, the whole House understands that the time has come to introduce these three provisions and hold a joint debate on them, as they are interlinked.
They are interlinked first and foremost because there would be no point in having labelling - which we want to be compulsory - if we are unable positively to identify cattle, hence the need for the ear-tagging, the data bases, the passports for animals, the farm registers and, in future, the possibility of electronic tagging also.
All of these are vital measures that have to be brought into effect as rapidly as possible, so as to be able to offer a guarantee of results.
The aim is to be able to guarantee citizens and consumers positive controls and, therefore, labelling which we believe has to be compulsory for beef and beef products and, in future, for other kinds of meat also.
In addition to being compulsory, the label has also to be absolutely clear, also according to the guidelines already accepted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the basis of the amendments tabled also by the Greens.
Of course, we believe that this could have been done earlier and it was not necessary to wait for the BSE crisis before getting this far.
But now that we have reached this stage, we must demand that what was said yesterday in the Chamber by President Santer should be done very quickly.
We are therefore expecting the Commission to state clearly to us today that the label will be compulsory and that it will not therefore be opposing the amendments tabled to that effect.
We are also expecting a label that is very clear - one reason why I am hoping there will not, for example, be objections to the reference to genetically modified organisms. That is also why there has compulsorily to be included on food product labels information on products derived from genetically modified organisms.
The legal base, as pointed out in the Papayannakis and Olsson reports, should be Article 100a, and we expect Commissioner Fischler to say as much directly; nothing else is needed, it is sufficient that the Commission accepts it.
DG XXIV needs to be reorganized in such a way as genuinely to protect consumer health but it has also to be given adequate staffing and resources.
Finally, we are expecting a real reform of the CAP in which the problems of the environment and consumer health take precedence over questions of quantitative production.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, cattle breeding is having a hard time of it, not only because of mad cow disease but a lot of other factors too.
On 20 February it will be exactly two years since a veterinary inspector was cold-bloodedly murdered in Flanders and this killing is thought to be he work of the widely established hormone mafia.
The illegal use of growth promoters in the beef industry remains a very serious problem.
So the identification and labelling of beef are significant initiatives.
And they complement each other.
The first move is identification and registration, and labelling is the logical next step.
I have a few reservations, however.
The Mayer report includes the Agriculture Committee's Amendment 19, which wants producers to be given extra ear tags and passports so that they can themselves replace any lost ear tags and complete them legibly.
To my mind that is extremely dangerous because it may lead to all manner of dubious goings-on.
In my country, for example, we have a very good identification system.
But there are dishonest cattle producers who often use forged ear tags and this practice is commonplace amongst the hormone mafia.
The availability of extra blank or uncompleted ear tags or passports would really be an open invitation to fraud.
My second worry: the plan is for a voluntary labelling scheme.
I share Mr Papayannakis's concern that a scheme of this kind will create a dual market which is socially unfair.
One will end up with an expensive market of labelled products and a cheap market with unlabelled products, and that is not on.
Thus labelling must be universally compulsory, that alone will do.
And my last point is this: some farms have introduced an electronic system of identifying their cattle.
This works by the electronic recognition of chips implanted into the animals.
It automatically registers any movements of the animals and is useful not only to the farmer but also to abattoir recording systems and even to the central databases.
My question to the Commission is this: has Mr Schleicher already studied this system? Is it practicable, what does it cost?
I should be glad to know.
Madam President, Commissioner, the report by Mr Papayannakis on the labelling of beef and beef products is to be welcomed, particularly where it confirms that labelling should be compulsory to provide accurate information to consumers of beef or beef products.
Had this happened in the past, we should certainly have been better protected from the risk of a BSE epidemic.
Currently labelling is voluntary and that is why, by approving the report, the House would be rejecting the Commission proposal seeking to make labelling optional.
Good sense and courage are needed here: either we try to win back the consumer confidence or we try to work in the interests of some breeders who are seeking to make matters worse by refusing to make public what should appear on the labels: provenance, processing, shelf-life and additives used in the product marketed.
I agree with the view that operators who import meat or meat products from third countries ought also to label them.
Alleanza Nazionale is in favour of the labelling of beef and beef products, although it is aware that some animal control measures may involve substantial operational difficulties and require a considerable organizational and financial input.
In an earlier speech on BSE, I said dura lex sed lex .
Today, I have to say that we cannot have our cake and eat it, therefore we need to talk not only in terms of preventive measures - for instance, the identification and registration of cattle and computerized data bases - but also in terms of maximum clarity where the product is being released on to the market.
Yes then to the labelling of beef and beef products: we need at least to agree that information on the origin and processing of meat has to be compulsory.
We shall be voting for the amendments designed to secure this.
Madam President, I should like first to pay tribute to the excellent work done by all the rapporteurs and in particular Mr Papayannakis, both in his own report on the labelling of beef and also in writing the opinion for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on Mr Mayer's report on the identification of cattle.
We all know the background to these two reports, and also that by Mr Olsson, which were linked by the Commission.
One of the key issues that emerged yesterday in our very long debate on the report of the special committee on BSE was the need to be able to identify and monitor cattle if BSE is to be eliminated.
One of the great problems in identifying the right cattle to be slaughtered in the UK was the lack of accurate records.
Sometimes both farmers and the public at large see that BSE-free herds have been slaughtered first whilst herds that had had cases of BSE were left in limbo, their owners knowing that the cattle would be culled at some time but not knowing whether to buy in extra winter feed or not.
The proposals for the proper registering of herds by means of ear tags, individual cattle passports and computer bases are to be warmly welcomed.
It is important that information about parentage, herd, date of birth and farms where held should be easily checkable.
Given the particular situation in Europe at present, the Environment Committee is proposing amendments to add information on feeding, hormones and medicines.
There is increasing consumer anxiety about the effects on human health of excessive exposure to antibiotics.
Indeed, if animals are reared more extensively, as was discussed yesterday, there will not be the same fear of infection which has led to antibiotics being routinely added to animal feed.
Consumers want to know that they are not ingesting excessive residues of antibiotics when they eat meat.
This is why the labelling scheme fits in with the registration scheme which has to be put in place to provide the information required for the accurate labelling of beef.
Mr Papayannakis rightly proposes that the labelling should be compulsory and that beef products, not just beef, should be included in its provisions.
This is very important since it is more often prepared beef products, rather than beef itself, which present a risk of infection.
This is because they are often made from mechanically recovered meat and meat from parts of the carcass not normally on sale in supermarkets and butchers.
This is not just about BSE.
More people have died recently from E coli in the UK than from the new strain of CJD as a result of eating contaminated beef products.
The very elderly and the young are particularly vulnerable to such infections.
Of course hygienic preparation and thorough cooking can reduce the risk, but knowing that these products will have to be labelled as to the exact origin of the meat, including what the animal was fed on, will be a great incentive to manufacturers to ensure that these meat products are made only from wholesome raw materials.
With the emergence of BSE and the new CJD in humans, we in Europe and especially in the UK have had a dreadful warning that we must not take risks with either human or animal health in pursuit of maximum profit.
We must examine agricultural practice, monitor what goes into our food more exactly and give our consumers the information they require to give them confidence in the wholesomeness of what they are buying and eating.
The Environment Committee - certainly its Socialist members - are making tough demands upon the Commission in terms of the information required, the need for the labelling scheme to be compulsory and cover beef products as well as beef and the need for rapid progress to be made in implementing the measures.
The Socialist Group feels that we have a duty to promote public health and consumer protection in Europe.
Our farmers and the beef industry can only benefit in the long term by the re-establishment of well-grounded consumer confidence.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the BSE issue, it is true, has permeated the recent work of the European Parliament.
The report by the Committee of Inquiry tried to reconstruct and interpret the past, and I am sure that it will have repercussions.
But now, I believe, we must set about charting our course for the future.
We must see the present crisis as an opportunity to make improvements.
Foremost among these improvements will be the restoration of consumer confidence, which has plummeted so alarmingly in the last few years.
I need not reiterate to this House that the BSE crisis has brought countless farms to the brink of ruin.
It is imperative that we succeed in taking swift measures to help these farmers throughout Europe whose plight is no fault of their own and to regenerate meat consumption.
The identification of cattle and the labelling of meat and its derivatives have surely become imperative.
The aim must be to remove the anonymity of meat.
The consumer in the supermarket should not only have a quality guarantee but should also be able to identify exactly where the meat has come from.
Accordingly, I consider it essential that both the identification of cattle and the labelling of beef be introduced as quickly as possible on a compulsory basis.
I am well aware that this involves a great deal of organizational and financial input, but too much damage has already been done in the cattle industry for anyone to be content with half measures now.
I believe that the proposed system of identifying individual animals with ear tags and maintaining computerized databases, animal passports and farm cattle registers can work well if people want it to.
Besides the Member States, the Commission will also bear special responsibility for providing the necessary technical infrastructure; this must not entail disproportionately high costs, particularly for small producers.
I believe we can also learn from the BSE crisis that in future we must look beyond the market and profits and give due consideration to the protection of the health and interests of consumers too.
It seems vital to me that imports from third countries should also be subject to equally strict criteria and to compulsory identification and labelling.
By a foreseeable date it must be possible to identify reliably the exact origin of every single cut of meat on sale in the European Union.
There are ethical and moral boundaries.
Politicians are required to recognize these and to act accordingly.
They must take the interests and needs of the citizens of Europe very seriously.
Madam President, on the 20th March last, the declaration on the possible transmission of BSE to man by the consumption of beef has caused a widespread crisis in consumer confidence, and consequently an unprecedented economic loss for beef farmers.
Our institutions have tried to act.
Eleven months have already passed and we are talking seriously about regulations, cattle registration, labelling and monitoring.
It is never too late to do good.
Consumers still have every reason to be distrustful, if they know the conditions under which some farms rearing livestock for meat are run, the food products and drugs used and the possible consequences on health.
The time has come to reassure them, on behalf of the majority of farmers who do their job well and yet are also penalized.
A significant deficiency of the European texts and their implementation has now become striking: inadequacy of the Directive 92 establishing the framework of the cattle identification system, but also lamentable implementation.
In fact, it was not until 1996 that some countries began to apply it.
The Mayer report confirms the draft regulations for identifying and registering animals, but also encouraging effective health monitoring of herds and also the management of farming subsidies.
The immediate creation of data banks is imperative.
The directive on the monitoring of products originating from non-member countries also needs to be simplified.
The immediate and compulsory labelling for beef and its derivatives is essential.
This is of course the most important measure that will be able to restore credibility.
And we support it, as we support the institution of sanctions.
Confidence is not decreed; it is earned.
In this case, it is re-earned.
This is why we will support the content of these three reports and congratulate the rapporteurs.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs for these important reports.
Consumers demand animal products which are safe and unproblematic from the point of view of health, and they also insist on an assurance that the conditions in which animals are reared and transported ensure a satisfactory standard of animal welfare.
The Community particularly needs to make progress with regard to animal transport in the EU, so much negative publicity has there been on this subject.
In the ELDR Group we regard a compulsory marking and registration system for cattle and marking of beef and beef products as essential measures and as means of restoring consumer confidence in beef and beef products.
A compulsory marking system will be more effective than a voluntary one.
Parliament's opinion calls for an animal passport system covering the whole of Community territory and computerized databases to enable animals' origins, movements, whereabouts, slaughter etc. to be monitored openly.
The report's explanatory statement quite rightly observes that the system must not become too complicated, bureaucratic, expensive or partially overlapping, as will happen if, for example, four different systems are set up.
I would therefore ask whether it would not be sensible to introduce animal passports only for animals which move from one country to another.
In implementing the system, it ought to be possible to use common sense in the Member States to ensure that the measures taken and their cost are in the right proportion to the benefits they yield.
If a centralized animal register which exists in a Member State is operating effectively, so that all the necessary information can be obtained from it, that should be enough. After all, the production structure differs from country to country, and it ought to be possible to take this into account.
It is very important to restore consumer confidence, and I would therefore urge the Member States and the Commission to act quickly with the aim of introducing the system at the end of this year.
The Olsson report on the principles governing the organization of veterinary checks on products entering the Community from third countries is also very important from the point of view of safeguarding consumer health.
The basic principle absolutely must always be that agreements entered into must not endanger the health of consumers or animals.
A third country's legislation should be considered equivalent only if the level of safety for which it provides is at least as high as that conferred by the EU's own legislation.
As a representative of Finland, I would warn the EU authorities against any departure from this principle, since I know that, particularly with regard to the agreement with the United States, the EU would be willing to compromise even the present level of safety if the EU could thereby correspondingly increase its exports.
I hope that the BSE crisis has at least taught the Commission that, even in the business world, a high standard of ethics and morality, which is above bribery, should be adhered to.
Animal welfare provisions must be incorporated in these agreements.
Madam President, there are at least two lessons we must learn from the BSE crisis: the first is that with regard to livestock production, two checks are better than no checks at all, and secondly we can no longer rely on only the actions and decisions of the Member States to give a Community guarantee to any food product.
For the safety of European consumers, a general Community check is more than ever necessary.
The Commission bases itself on the illusion that stating the geographical origin is sufficient to protect the consumer, and it is therefore proposing optional labelling.
With just reason, Mr Papayannakis would like to improve this system which is more than just incomplete with the introduction of additional information: place of birth of the animal, breed, sex, and also the breeding and fattening regions and method of reproduction.
These amendments of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development link up with those of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection - it may never happen again - and aim to render it compulsory to label meat and derived products.
We naturally strongly support this step.
After the BSE affair, which the Commission was hardly able to keep abreast of, the remaining uncertainties require more than ever that we observe the principle of caution.
Moreover, compulsory labelling must be linked to the system upstream, of birth registration and continued identification proposed by Mr Mayer.
The current situation now imposes the tracing of domestic animals as a basic guarantee for both farmers and consumers.
Nevertheless, there must be a system which is effective without being too restrictive for the farmer.
The new regulations must recommend a single identification at European level, without which the lessons of the BSE crisis will not have served much.
So that the regulations can be applied by farmers in their daily practice, they must be simple and combine in a single procedure the current administrative obligations, registration and information to the appropriate authority (passport criteria and information).
This requirement could be reduced to one registration, of which one copy is reserved for the appropriate authority and another for the passport.
Finally, as one must draw information from the current situation, it appears wrong and dangerous not to require that an inspector go into the farms to check ear tags and staff.
In this respect, we naturally support Mr Olsson's report.
Colleagues, I submit for your reflection the fact that we have under our eyes three reports on a delicate subject, three pieces of evidence that the Commission is continuing only to half deal with the matter in order not to displease certain systems which would like to be as liberal as possible, and which are therefore the most propitious to fraud.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to deal with an important aspect of the BSE issue, namely the identification of animals, but also the labelling of beef.
We in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development agreed that compulsory identification should also apply to beef products.
I hope that the Commission will endorse our view, because we believe that farmers are not the only ones on whom responsibilities can be imposed - and it is right that they should be imposed, and we do support that - but the processing industry should also be brought into line.
The tendency of the processing industry to buy as cheaply and anonymously as possible must be stopped, partly for the sake of consumers but also partly for the sake of producers, since processing companies would then have less freedom to keep changing suppliers.
Compulsory labelling would enable producers to set realistic prices but would also help consumers by enabling them to trace the origin of meat.
To put it rather tritely, if I bought beef produced by Meier and Company, and if, as a consumer, I was very satisfied with it, I should assume that Meier produced good beef; if, however, on my next visit to the same retailer the label showed that the meat was not from Meier's, I should want to know why that supplier was no longer being used. If the answer was that the meat could be bought more cheaply from another company - which, of course, is normally the motive for changing suppliers - that rationale would have nothing to do with quality but would be based purely on business considerations, which might not be understood by consumers.
They would prefer to stay with the supplier they knew and trusted, and that reinforces our position.
Allow me to end with one more thought.
When we speak of all this registration, Mr Fischler, we must not, of course, confuse registration with the fight against BSE.
When we feed registered cows with infected meat-andbone meal, they will still become mad cows - or registered insane cows; let us be clear about that.
Registration is an aid and an indicator for consumers, but it is not a remedy for BSE, if I may reiterate that quite plainly.
Madam President, at the end of the '80s, the European Parliament adopted the Borgho report on the labelling of food products of controlled quality of origin.
To date, provisions have not really been made for this report to be followed by effects.
I believe, Commissioner, that what we are asking through these three reports is titanic work, but necessary for ensuring the confidence of the European citizen and consumer in its institutions.
Labelling, quality, fraud, traceability: all these points go together and one still wonders how it was possible to take so lightly this contract between the authorities and consumers.
In a manner of speaking, one cannot now say, when consuming products imported from Great Britain, whether or not they contain gelatin.
These products are in circulation.
I have been informed that problems also arise with registration, when animals change State and the receiving State wishes to re-register them under their own registration.
All this causes delays which naturally lead to fraud.
No one is safe, no one can guarantee that he will play the game right up to the end.
It is our role, it is your role, to demand that a system be introduced which will ensure traceability.
Commissioner, transparency and cooperation between institutions urge me to ask you to apply Article 101 of the joint decision to identification and traceability, as one cannot guarantee the cohesion of a system without demanding that all points be governed by the same procedure, that of transparency and cooperation.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if what the press says is true, the Ministers of Agriculture held exploratory talks on this subject in Brussels on Monday.
Exploratory talks!
This battle over an electronic button in the ears of cattle is, in my view, a surefire means of breeding Euro-exasperation.
Why, I wonder, do we need so much time for the whole introduction process? Besides the labelling of meat, it is planned to introduce computer-based identification of cattle in the EU.
The points at issue are when the measures should be introduced and whether they should be compulsory.
In my opinion, identification and labelling ought to be binding obligations for all Member States by the end of the millennium at the latest.
In Germany this is scheduled to take effect on 1 January 1998.
In many regions there are already successful programmes under which labels of origin are prescribed for meat products.
The use of a memory chip will make it possible to store all the necessary information on origin, breed and ownership.
The data may be retrieved at any time by means of a scanner.
Needless to say, Commissioner, I should not wish the electronic component to be found by the customer when he carves his Sunday joint at the lunch table, so the question of a sensible niche for the microchip, based on practical experience, will certainly have to be discussed somewhat sooner.
Sadly, however, I have to note that the secondary industries related to agriculture are not always equally interested in the transparency of markets.
The supply of beef of guaranteed origin still leaves much to be desired. For that reason I have to ask what the cost of this proposed Regulation will be.
Its implementation will surely entail a considerable amount of expenditure in the Member States.
I believe that care must be taken to ensure that the hard-pressed agricultural sector in Europe is not burdened with excessively high costs.
The entire measure will be considerably cheaper than the bill we have run up over this whole BSE issue to date.
The funding of the new system from EU or national resources must, in my view, be legally guaranteed.
The planned official identification of animals imported from third countries should also take place immediately upon entry into the Community.
Madam President, we spent a full day yesterday discussing the impact of BSE on public health and the serious consequences for our farmers, the food industry and employment, and we are, of course, also conscious of the consequences for our competitive position in world trade.
It is right and proper that we put in place the most stringent controls in the entire area of food production, right through from producer to consumer.
In my contribution to yesterday's debate I highlighted the urgency of implementing a full traceability programme from producer to consumer.
With modern technology and proper animal coding, this procedure, as we now know, is possible and is already considerably advanced in my own country, Ireland, where we have pioneered a traceability programme in the lamb trade - the first within the European Community.
We are also considerably advanced in relation to the most modern technology in identifying all our other animals.
I also come from a country where meat production, and in particular beef production, is an important economic sector, because we export 85 % of our entire production.
So it goes without saying that BSE has been a disaster for Ireland.
The quality of Irish beef is renowned.
It must also be put on the record that from the moment of the first suspected case of BSE in my country we implemented a full-herd slaughter programme.
Our farmers are now the innocent victims of circumstances beyond their control, and the Commission must give practical recognition to their economic plight.
I must say that I am somewhat concerned that a statement from President Santer yesterday would seem to imply that the BSE crisis will lead to a more radical reform of the common agricultural policy than was originally anticipated.
This to me indicates a panic reaction, and we must not allow our understandable concern with public health - and it is proper that we should be concerned - to unnecessarily undermine the importance of the common agricultural policy as an essential management support measure for sustainable European agriculture and, in particular, its importance in keeping the maximum number of farm families on the land of Europe and, as well, in the broader context of rural development, to which I know our present Commissioner Fischler is totally committed.
In conclusion, I wish to put on the record again my appreciation of the Commissioner's commitment to agriculture and to rural development.
I will defend his position anywhere, on any platform or forum in Europe.
Madam President, BSE is a serious European problem.
Everything possible must accordingly be done to overcome it and repair the damage it has caused.
From the measures in hand and those of which we know it appears that the Commission's resources are being reinforced and the scope for supervision improved.
An animal and plant disease unit is being set up in Dublin, individual marking of cattle is being improved, and databases are being established.
Marking of the origin of beef is being rendered more precise, and meat imports are to be monitored more effectively.
The question is, does the European Union repose too much confidence in monitoring and administration? For example, the cattle marking system amounts to an enormous population book-keeping exercise; it relates to millions of individuals, which, moreover, are replaced rapidly.
It is intended to enter in centralized files, inter alia, particulars of a cow's mother, sex, all pastures where it has spent any time, and date of slaughter.
Is it realistic to assume that Europe's cattle can be individually monitored by means of centralized databases, or are we just creating an enormous bureaucracy?
On the other hand, is the focus of the monitoring right? BSE was able to spread because farmers trusted their own countries' veterinary authorities and their morals, and because they trusted feed producers, while using legal and approved feed.
Is it not here that more resources are needed? Making it possible to trace beef is purely a retrospective monitoring measure, and will not remedy serious damage after the event.
Madam President, there is a silver lining to every cloud.
It took the epizotic disease of BSE and its dramatic consequences on human health and farmers' incomes for the European Union to decide to reinforce and harmonize cattle identification and registration measures.
In this respect, we feel that the Mayer report, which goes further than the European Commission proposals, is in the right direction, although one should avoid increasing the obligations imposed on the States.
For example, to impose on each farm ear marking, a computerized data base, a register and passport for the animals, risks not only increasing bureaucratic provisions, but could also lead to fraud, because of lack of sufficient financial means or the complexity of the legislation.
One has the impression that with these proposals, the Commission and the Council are trying to clear themselves of ten years of laxism concerning animal imports and identification, and that they are now going over the top to try to regain a somewhat waning credibility.
Ladies and gentlemen, we quite rightly wish to restore consumer confidence in beef.
And at the same time, the European Commission is authorizing the import of genetically-modified corn; perhaps tomorrow hormoneproduced beef, under pressure from the Americans.
Is it not a great hypocrisy to take measures, certainly necessary, even if some have a dual purpose, and at the same time eliminate frontier controls and write off the liability of the British government, which is primarily responsible for the mad cow crisis?
Let us remember that the BSE crisis has already cost European tax-payers over 23 thousand million francs for 1996 alone.
The beef interprofession wonders whether, if the animal is born and has been raised and slaughtered in the same country, stating the country of origin is indicated.
Similarly, if it comes from different countries, the statement must indicate one of the origins, and in all cases the place of birth and the place of rearing.
To the traceability of the animal, it would be appropriate, Madam President, to add the guarantee that the animal has always been fed on grass or cereals.
It is under only this condition that the link of confidence between producer and consumer will be re-established, and that the beef market will regain its pre-crisis level.
Technical measures have never replaced a political desire which has cruelly failed our politicians in this major BSE crisis, as in many other fields.
Madam President, yesterday this house debated the report of the temporary Committee of Enquiry into BSE.
The report clearly illustrated the importance of an effective system of animal identification in the European Union.
European rules on the identification of animals have been in place since 1992, although not implemented satisfactorily in all Member States.
I am in no doubt that the BSE crisis would have been far more severe had it not been possible to trace those animals which potentially carried the infection.
Inability to trace the 1989 and 1990 British cohort in the UK was one of the major factors which delayed the agreement of the UK's BSE eradication plan.
Whilst this week marks the end of the temporary Committee's enquiry it does not mark the end of the crisis.
Normality will only be restored when European citizens are confident that such a crisis will never be repeated. This can only be achieved when effective legislation and controls are put in place to allow swift action to be taken should a risk to public health ever appear.
Part of that control system requires a rapid identification of animals which potentially pose a risk. This is not only to protect consumers, but also to protect farmers and tax-payers against the unnecessary slaughter of healthy animals.
Such a system must be European-wide as such crises are seldom confined to one Member State as the BSE crisis and the current problem of swine fever have shown.
For these reasons I welcome the Commission's proposals and I am disappointed by the attempts of the rapporteur Mr Mayer to weaken the system proposed by the Commission.
In a week when some members of the European Parliament are calling for the resignation of the European Commission for not taking sufficient action to prevent the BSE crisis it would be rather contradictory to vote against the kind of preventive measures which could have changed the course of agricultural history over the last ten years if they had been in place.
Madam President, an old proverb tells us that every cloud has a silver lining, and today's silver lining comes in the shape of these three reports.
I should like to congratulate everyone who has worked on them.
We must ensure that we identify young animals which come from third countries.
This point has been addressed.
It is absolutely essential that we insist on this compulsory identification.
Everything required of the enterprises based in our single market must also apply to imports, otherwise we are talking about half measures.
The electronic identification system should be introduced, and I recently read, on a very prominent page of a prestigious daily newspaper in Germany, an essay on three identification procedures.
I must say that each of the three procedures undoubtedly represents a prudent solution, but the challenge at the moment lies in finding out which of them is best.
But without such identification we shall make no headway at all.
I might also add, of course, that such electronic processes can usually work out cheaper in practice.
Identification naturally costs money, but what about the enormous amount of money that non-traceability has cost?
So this is hardly the direction in which the argument should be pursued.
The matter is urgent.
We are, of course, in an awkward situation if we are saying this while Mr Mayer, on the other hand, is moving an oral amendment to have everything dealt with under Article 100a.
Commissioner, I am fully aware that, in purely theoretical terms, this will result in a delay.
It can last for up to a year, but here is my appeal to you: perhaps in this Parliament we might demonstrate how quickly codecision procedure under Article 100a can be implemented.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, I have no doubt you would agree with me on that.
We should set a good example here by applying Article 100a in record time, thereby also sending a message, perhaps, in the spirit of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The gentlemen who head our national governments get themselves terribly bogged down; everything takes such a very long time.
We agree on the substance; there are no disputed points as far as that is concerned.
I therefore call upon you to deal with these reports as tabled here together with us in a summary procedure under Article 100a.
Madam President, I agree very much with Mr Goepel when he says that the Commission should grin and bear it in relation to Article 100a.
I support that.
It is certainly grinning, but is it bearing it?
What we want here, in considering these three reports, is an acknowledgement that the world has changed utterly in the wake of the BSE crisis.
Things are not as they were.
The old comfortable attitude to the regulation of agriculture has gone - gone for good and quite rightly.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, as some of my colleagues have said, accepts, welcomes and supports the Olsson and Papayannakis reports, but it has problems of the kind that have been referred to earlier with the Mayer report.
The reason for that, simply, is that we do not believe that the proposal should be watered down in the way that the rapporteur has proposed. We are certainly not in favour of amendments which constantly refer to keeping costs down.
What is cost here?
It is not just the cost to the farmer of taking the necessary precautions. It is the cost to the Community if those precautions are not followed through.
We have a saying in my country that if you think education is expensive, try ignorance. The same is true of information.
We need to have the information in place and we need the legal base which will allow us in future to have a proper concern for consumer matters.
That is what shifting the legal base of these reports from Article 43 to Article 100a would do. It would give Parliament codecision; it would be appropriate to proposals which are essential for the smooth functioning of a single market in which consumer priorities have their proper place.
Only if we get that shall we be doing our job as a Parliament and acting in the spirit of what President Santer said yesterday in his speech of repentance and contrition.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the reports by Mr Olsson and Mr Mayer are very much interlinked as both of them are aimed at ensuring consumer safety, in terms of consumer products from European Union countries and other countries.
As far as the Olsson report is concerned, I would like to know why the Commission is presenting directives and not regulations? If every Member State should implement the same controls, why not make it compulsory through a Council regulation?
As far as the Mayer report is concerned, I would like to make a few remarks.
The first is that I agree totally with the rapporteur when he says that it is not logical to make the register for identifying animals compulsory and the beef labelling system voluntary.
Both of them should be compulsory, otherwise the whole effort to identify animals will make no sense.
The second remark is that labelling should compulsorily specify the origin of the meat and also the fattening method used.
We should also specify which controls the animals have been subjected to.
The third remark is to emphasise the fact that the European Union cannot think up a whole set of measures of this type without accepting that it has to co-fund the expenditure inherent in these operations to be carried out by the Member States.
Many of the problems which currently affect the field of animal and public health are related to the fact that these activities have never really been recognised as genuine Community policy.
My fourth and final remark is that although I fully agree with the aims of these measures I think that their progressive extension to all types of animals - and even vegetable products - will, in the end, entail very difficult red tape to manage.
Therefore, I think that it is time to think very seriously about setting up an institution of the 'Food and Drugs Administration' type - this was already referred to by the President of the Commission yesterday - which would mean that no products could be sold without its authorisation.
After all, what we have gone through with BSE and other animal diseases, without prejudicing critical analysis of the action taken by the Council, the Commission and the Member States, could be put down, at the end of the day, to the non-existence of a genuine common policy in this area.
From this point of view, we are suffering the effects of the 'non-existence of Europe' .
Now that the revision of the Treaty is being debated, I hope that our political leaders will not lose this opportunity to analyse the profound causes of these problems.
Madam President, I think back to this time last year and I wonder, if we had had this debate in February 1996, whether there would have been quite such a consensus in favour of the Commission proposals and in favour of the Mayer report.
The BSE crisis changed everything. It changed the way many people thought.
When I spoke to farmers in my constituency they wished that they had a unique selling proposition which could prove that their herds were BSE free, that they were free of antibiotics or whatever.
Had this had been the case, they could have then gone out and sold their products much more forcibly.
They tried as hard as they could but the fact is that there was no agreed recognition by the national authorities, by local authorities or by consumers that would prove that their meat was alright, that it was good to eat - a good quality product.
We need to ensure, in the global market, with global media, that we can protect those parts of our industry which come under attack so often and frivolously on occasion.
We cannot afford to have these massive collapses in confidence in our food. I believe in this meat labelling scheme.
I must concur with the last speaker, I am concerned about the voluntary nature proposed by the Commission for the end-product, but I believe that these meat registration and labelling schemes will ensure that if we have another disaster in our industry, we can ensure those parts which are not affected, will not be affected.
This has my full support and I hope that we can implement this scheme as quickly as possible.
One final point, the farmers will need finance to make sure they can implement the schemes and I hope that some thought is being given to that.
Madam President, Commissioner, we all know that, even in a federal state, not all states obey the rules of public morality.
Therefore, I am not completely in agreement with my friend, Arlindo Cunha, when he says that only a Union policy could put an end to the immorality that we see around us.
We know that Arkansas is not as honest as New York.
At least, that is what the newspapers tell us!
Now I think that meat and meat products should compulsorily be controlled, and they should compulsorily be labelled.
I also lend huge importance to the Olssen report, because I think that at this moment - and my country is one where this happens - meat imported from the East is not being controlled.
Only a while ago Portuguese veterinary surgeons were protesting against the lack of controls on meat entering the country.
I think that, in this case, the Commission, instead of ducking this accusation, has sufficient moral authority because it is appointed by the Government and the States, to say openly and transparently that they are not proceeding properly.
It makes no sense to continue covering up frauds for a small amount of money and it is not logical that we should put public morals on the line.
From this point of view, the Commission is guilty because, as it is the guardian of the Treaties, it should not hide behind public morality, it should not hide behind controls and it should discuss the possibility of funding activities in the various countries where it should be carried out.
Madam President, I assume that the Commissioner is well aware of the political importance of his intervention today, which is separate from that of the President of the Commission of a few hours ago.
He has just told us, and this is very positive, that he wanted to change legal basis and adopt Article 100, but in the same breath, after giving us the carrot, he comes with the stick saying that he will not be able to accept the amendments demanding compulsory labelling.
I find that that is an extraordinary contradiction, and would like to have confirmation of my interpretation.
Perhaps I have misunderstood, but on the one hand we have the 100 A, and on the other hand the Commission does not support Parliament's amendments.
So what is the advantage? In the end, nothing.
We already knew that the Commissioner would naturally want to make very liberal use of his red pen in his response to our amendments.
However, Commissioner, I believe that the supreme principle is the restoration of consumer confidence.
And for that reason we must push through practicable rules.
Compulsory specifications for cattle identification and beef labelling can be rapidly implemented.
I believe that, even with Article 100a as the legal basis, a message could be sent, as Mr Goepel said, that it need not take eleven months but that it is possible to adopt the relevant regulations more quickly, even on this legal basis.
That is all.
Madam President, I once asked Commissioner Fischler in a debate if he was willing to study the introduction of an electronic system, chips, whereby the animal could be monitored throughout its life.
My question is whether he is prepared to look into the practicability and cost of that?
Madam President, first, I would like to say how valuable it is that the Commissioner has changed the legal basis to Article 100a.
This is in line with Mr. Santer's words yesterday which pleases me.
Otherwise there are no further problems, or at least not many, as far as my report is concerned.
The Commissioner has accepted the bulk of the amendments, although not the proposal concerning the committee system, i.e. that more power is transferred to the Commission and that preparation work is carried out more openly.
It would certainly have been helpful if this could have been accepted.
One comment I must make about Mr Papayannakis report is that it would have been useful if it had taken a more robust attitude, i.e. the Parliamentary view of obligatory labelling of meat.
I am practical so I realise that this is difficult.
But I still believe that we must send out a tough message otherwise nothing will change.
If the Commission now introduces a long transition period, there is a risk that a long time will elapse before there is any action.
This is why I think it is so important for Parliament to give a clear signal during the day's session.
Madam President, Commissioner, the simultaneous interpreting was a bit too fast and I did not quite catch all that, so I will ask you to answer three very simple questions, after first thanking you for accepting the change of the legal basis.
The first question concerns the list of information that must feature on the label.
You said we ought not to debate that, since for the time being it will not be compulsory, it will be optional for a while.
I believe - and I would like your opinion about this - that even if labelling remains optional for a time, the labels should show certain specific data.
The fact that the labelling is optional does not mean that everyone can declare whatever he likes. That would be unacceptable, and would render the measure pointless.
The second question, Commissioner, concerns products.
There is talk of labelling meat.
The Environment Committee and the rapporteur, myself, insist that labelling should be applicable to beef-based products and processed products - i.e. by-products.
I did not grasp your own position: do you accept that, or not?
The third question concerns the single system, the harmonization of the system for recognition and registration of cattle.
Some countries have no such system and must acquire one very soon, so that the single system will work.
I asked you whether you are considering setting up a special programme for that, a funded Community programme.
I did not hear, or did not understand your answer.
Ladies and gentlemen, perhaps this really has been somewhat rushed, but where there is a need to respond to so many points without taking up an undue amount of time, that is simply bound to happen.
So first of all, let me spell out quite clearly once again that the Commission accepts Article 100a; I merely pointed out that it will have certain consequences.
Secondly, the Commission accepts compulsory systems.
There was no question of our making the animal identification system voluntary - it absolutely must be compulsory.
The only question was whether labelling should be voluntary or not.
Here, too, we accept compulsory labelling.
However, I do ask you to appreciate the situation we face. If we say 'Compulsory - full stop' , this means that we must allow the Member States the necessary period of grace.
We should then effectively have a legal vacuum in that interim period.
That is why we saw fit to propose the introduction of a voluntary system for the transition phase, but that does not mean - and let me reemphasize this clearly too - that during the transition phase anyone can do as he wishes; on the contrary, regulations must still be observed, for instance in relation to the information the label must contain.
Once more there are two separate questions here.
Whether or not I produce labels is a matter of choice.
The content of the label itself, however, has to be subject to clear rules.
Only thus can it work properly.
In connection with various amendments which I rejected, I stated very clearly that, in our view, they would not exactly improve the system.
In fact, certain of them could create grey areas; moreover, in some respects our proposals go further than those of Parliament.
I do believe that the Commission is entitled to highlight that sort of problem and in the first reading here - assuming now that Article 100a is our legal basis - to reject such proposals.
I thank the Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place at noon.
Welcome
I am pleased to welcome to the House a delegation from the Republic of Yemen, led by His Excellency, Mr Mohammed Abdo Said, the chairman of the Finance Committee in the Chamber of Deputies.
Your delegation is honouring us with your visit at the second inter-Parliamentary meeting with the appropriate delegation of the European Parliament.
I note with pleasure that relations between the European Union and Yemen are excellent and that our contacts at Parliamentary level have shown our mutual desire for cooperation.
May I wish the Yemeni delegation profitable meetings and an excellent stay in Strasbourg.
Veterinary medicine residues in food
The next item is the report (A4-0035/97) by Mr Kenneth Collins, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Council Regulation EEC No. 2377/90 laying down a Community procedure for the establishment of maximum residue limits of veterinary medicinal products in foodstuffs of animal origin (COM(96)0584 - C4-0683/96-96/0279/(CNS)).
Madam President, I should say at the outset that the view that I express this morning is the unanimous view of Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and I wish to make it clear that it is unanimous.
Maximum residue limits - so-called MRLs - are the permitted levels of chemicals in animal products used for human food. They are covered by a Council regulation that was established in 1990 and was due to expire in December 1996.
The concept is a very important one: what is the safe level of each chemical for humans to eat?
It is as simple as that, and so it is a matter not just of industrial policy or veterinary policy, it is a matter of public health.
The market was split in two in 1990.
There were old substances - so-called - more than 180 of them already on the market, which were to be progressively tested in order to have MRLs established, and there were new substances which were yet to come onto the market and which would have to have MRLs set before they were allowed to be sold.
All the old substances were to be assessed and given MRLs by the end of 1996.
This did not happen, meaning that all the substances currently without MRLs would, in fact, have to be banned from the Community unless legal action was taken.
The Commission was very slow to produce the proposal.
The old regulation expired in December 1996, the new one was not transmitted to Parliament until 10 January 1997.
The current situation therefore is that there is a legal vacuum.
The present Commission proposal tries to do two things: it tries to extend the time limit for the evaluation of chemicals, and we can accept that as it is clearly necessary; but it also tries to classify the substances used in animal clinical trials.
A laudable aim, but I am afraid that two or three weeks is not sufficient time for Parliament to examine this properly and deal with a very important aspect of public health.
We need an assurance that all the remaining MRLs will be carried out within a given timescale, if we agree to an extension.
The committee is in no doubt that an extension is necessary, and we are prepared to go along with that. But, frankly, the rest is not good enough and, in our view, we must make public health our top priority.
Moreover, the Commission proposal does not reflect concerns about clinical trials.
Companies, we are told, have not always supplied the right information, sometimes even because the Commission has not always made it clear what it wanted and there are far too many substances whose trials have not even begun, never mind been completed.
In this context, we cannot allow the risk to public health that untested chemicals might pose.
So we accept the logic of extending the deadline, but we cannot accept the rest of the proposal.
We have not been given time and we do not think it provides sufficiently for consumer safety: it is not complete and it leaves consumers, as well as drugs companies, in the dark.
The European Parliament has only one reading on this - it is an Article 43 proposal - and we understand that the Committee for Veterinary Medicinal Products may well report to the Commission in two weeks suggesting changes to the testing system.
And yet here we are today being asked to allow this through on the nod.
That is not satisfactory.
The proposal, the timescale and substantive policy measures are all quite different. There are no rules in the Treaty to allow us to split this.
Moreover, in spite of the fact that the Commission has been asked to demonstrate what the legal argument is, so far, at 11.40 a.m, it has not done so.
I have not heard from the Commission what its legal argument is on the basis of the Treaty, and it is not for want of asking.
I was promised it an hour and a half ago this morning and I still have not received it.
It would have been preferable to fill the legal vacuum, but I am afraid that unless the Commission is able give a clear commitment that it will withdraw that part of the proposal that refers to the substances and agrees to proceed only with a timetable extension, then I am mandated by my committee to say quite clearly that we will take this back to committee for further amendment.
That is the unanimous view of the committee.
Mr Bangemann is indicating that he is surprised. I do not know why he is - if, indeed, he is - because it was made clear at the committee stage that this was the unanimous view and it was made clear to him in a letter only yesterday.
I hope that the Commission can see its way to withdrawing the proposal which refers to the substances.
I hope the Commission can agree to proceed only with the timetable.
If it will do that, then I am quite happy to recommend to Parliament that we agree to the timetable change, but my committee is quite adamant that it will not agree to the rest.
Mr Bangemann has asked to speak.
I do not know whether it is for a motion of procedure or for a personal reason, but I noticed that he reacted very strongly.
So I will call upon him to speak straight away, with the permission of Mr Collins and the other persons intervening, whom I shall call upon subsequently.
Madam President, let me say first of all why I asked leave to speak just now - not because I am annoyed, but because we must begin by identifying the nature of the problem together.
I gathered from Mr Collins' comments that there are still some uncertainties.
For that reason I should like to tell you at this point what we think about the matter and how we believe the problems can be solved.
Firstly, we certainly do not require Parliament to voice its opinion on the substance of the proposals within two weeks.
Parliament can have the time it needs to examine these proposals carefully.
The more recent developments can also be taken into consideration, and the Council - as Mr Collins knows - has confirmed in a letter to me that it will not decide on the substance before Parliament has formed and formulated its opinion.
The letter was also sent to Mr Collins, as I have just heard.
This means that nobody, either in the Council or the Commission, expects Parliament to deliver its opinion on the substance in a few days or hours, let alone here and now.
That is not our wish, nor is it the wish of the Council.
The Council has given a commitment.
I believe that, in the interinstitutional dialogue, we should not assume that it will break a commitment which is recorded in writing.
But, in order to relieve Parliament of this concern too, I can tell you now that, should the Council intend to decide without any parliamentary input, a scenario to which I attach no credibility whatsoever, we would withdraw the proposal.
We can do that at any time.
We would prevent the Council from taking a decision without Parliament having spoken.
All we ask - and Mr Collins has even said he would support this - is that Article 14, in other words the extension of this time limit, be dealt with now, otherwise we shall get ourselves into an impossible tangle with regard to medicines that have been on the market for years and are perfectly harmless.
That is the problem.
It has taken a long time; that is true.
This, however, is not the fault of the Commission. The Agency in London, for example, does not have enough staff, and the industry, as Mr Collins also said, has not always made the necessary documentation available.
So the technical legitimacy of a two-year extension of the time limit is not, to my knowledge, being questioned.
Madam President, I believe you will appreciate that it was necessary for me to say these things again here.
The substance, the proposal as a whole, is not at issue.
The Council will not decide before Parliament has delivered its opinion.
Parliament has all the time in the world, however much it needs, and the Commission hereby promises that if the Council did not honour the commitments it gave in its letter - and this is a purely abstract hypothesis - we should withdraw the proposal, which would then no longer exist.
The only thing we ask for as a matter of urgency is the application of Article 14, and that is legally possible.
Madam President, the protection of animal breeding and human health are today priorities among the activities of the European Union, especially after recent events related to BSE.
At the same time, the operation of the single market must be adapted effectively, so that products in circulation or to be circulated will ensure the protection of health and conform with the rules embodied in international agreements.
The Commission proposal we are debating concerns the adaptation of the Regulation establishing maximum residue limits for veterinary medicines in foodstuffs of animal origin.
With this proposal, the Commission is trying to adapt the Regulation by entrusting the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products with the task of examining applications for the establishment, amendment and extension of MRLs, and to streamline the decision-making process by means of this centralized procedure.
At the same time, adaptation is considered essential because the Community must respect the obligations that stem from the agreement to implement sanitary and phytosanitary measures, reached during the multipartite negotiations of the Uruguay Round.
The objective aimed for should not just be to adapt the Regulation, but to make a real contribution to the protection of public health, so that the establishment of uniform MRLs will permit the free movement of foodstuffs and veterinary medicines and effectively safeguard the protection of consumers in the single market.
The first issue relating to the adaptation of the Regulation involves extending the timescale for the evaluation procedure.
The difficulties that have emerged in connection with evaluation at Member State level, and in connection with the newly constituted European Agency, which only began operating in 1995, compel us to extend the timescale by two years, within which the Agency must complete its evaluation.
Here, it must be stressed that to ensure public health and consumer protection entails placing restrictions on hazardous substances, which must be assessed by December 1997.
Madam President, the aim of this proposal is to ensure that the taking of medicines by animals destined for consumption does not present any danger to the consumer.
Veterinary medicines leave residues which persist for some time in animals, and are therefore likely to pass into the products destined for human consumption: meat, offal, milk and eggs.
The harmfulness of these residues depends mainly on their degree of concentration in the foodstuffs in question, that which is called 'maximum residue limit of veterinary medicines in foods of animal origin' .
This is a technical definition, but it clearly states what it means.
This limit was fixed by the regulation of January 1992.
Since this date, no drug authorization has been issued without this maximum limit being fixed.
Four hundred pharmaceutical products were awaiting this authorization, which should have been issued before the 1st January 1997.
Unfortunately only 200 have been examined.
The remaining two hundred are threatened by immediate withdrawal from the animal treatment market, which would have catastrophic effects on the agro-food industry, without public health benefiting either.
We therefore ask for the date to be carried forward to the 1st January 1999.
However, it would be dangerous and contrary to the protection of public health for foods originating from animals subjected to clinical trials to be consumed before a maximum limit - final and not provisional - has been established.
It is therefore essential for animals subjected to clinical trials not to be destined for consumption before this final limit is established.
Madam President, once again what we must bear in mind here is the safety of the consumer, and in this case his safety in relation to veterinary medicine residues in animal products.
First essential point, deadlines.
For the potentially most dangerous substances, it is of fundamental importance for these to be evaluated between now and the 31st December of this year, and if not prohibited from the 1st January 1998.
Having said that, in view of the delay by the Commission, it is normal to accept an extension of three years for the other products which have yet to be evaluated by the European Agency.
This deadline is necessary, otherwise over 200 old products would be withdrawn from the market immediately without distinction between the good ones and the bad ones, which would not be fair.
Second essential point, clinical trials.
The Commission's text is vague and imprecise on this point.
It concerns the consumption of food coming from animals which have undergone clinical trials and contain in the organism residues of substances, some of which could present risks to the consumer.
In the light of the crisis we are experiencing in the sector - and on this point I fully agree with Mr Lannoye - the entry of these drugs into the food chain is unacceptable.
Madam President, I think we have to be clear about this.
In intention I do not differ at all from Mr Bangemann. I want to make that quite clear.
There the similarity between me and Mr Bangemann probably ends. I do not know that too many people have noticed many similarities in the past anyway.
We accept entirely - everybody in the Chamber; everybody who has spoken and those who have not - that the time limit has to change.
It can go to the end of the century, roughly speaking.
We need about another three years in order to achieve the testing requirements.
Where we are at variance, however, with Mr Bangemann is what you do legally with the rest.
While I respect Mr Bangemann's intention to say to the Council: ' You cannot make a decision because you have not received Parliament's opinion' , the fact is that there is only one proposal on the table. There is only one reading on that proposal on the table because it is proposed under Article 43.
Parliament has no mechanism at all for splitting it and neither, so far as I can see, does the Commission or the Council.
What we have is a declared intention that they will not proceed.
I am afraid these letters that I have received are not of official status. They do not reflect anything at all in the Treaty.
There is nothing in the Treaty so far as I know - I hope Mr Bangemann can change my mind on this - which says that such a letter of intent constitutes a legal obligation.
If there were such a thing then I might be persuaded to change my mind and the committee might be able to change its mind as well.
But at the moment we do not have the guarantee that Parliament would be allowed to give an opinion on something which it has already given its opinion on because there is only one reading and one regulation.
That is the nub of the problem.
If we can solve that, if Mr Bangemann can show to us what the legal base for all of this is, then we might be able to change our minds.
At the moment I can see no way forward at all, even though I agree with his sentiments and, I guess, he agrees with mine.
We are of one intent but I am afraid that our view in Parliament is that we cannot have sufficient trust in the procedure that is being suggested to make it happen.
I do not think that Mr Bangemann would be in a sufficiently powerful position vis-à-vis the Council to force it either because he would have no legal base for so doing.
Madam President, I am grateful to you for giving me the time and I am also grateful to Mr Bangemann for his explanation.
I know that we are supposed to vote on this in the next half hour or so.
I wonder if it might be possible for us to vote tomorrow instead. Then I will have an opportunity to explore this personally with Mr Bangemann and his services and we might clarify the situation to our mutual satisfaction.
If you would agree to that, I think that would be the best solution.
I think it is an entirely reasonable proposal.
I turn to the House as we would normally have had to vote on this report this morning, at noon.
Are there any objections to us accepting this slight amendment to the agenda, namely postponing the vote on this report to tomorrow noon's voting time?
(The House indicated its agreement with the proposal) The debate is closed.
The vote will be held tomorrow, at noon.
My dear colleagues, Mr Whitehead has put forward a request which I would like to grant.
Mr Whitehead is present, but he categorically cannot be here this afternoon, and he would like to deliver his report.
It is 12.01 p.m.
I will ask him to speak now for this purpose, asking him to observe the speech time so that we can then pass on to the vote.
Consumer policy priorities (1996-1998)
The next item is the report (A4-0317/96) by Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication of the Commission (COM(95)0519 - C4-0501/95) on priorities for consumer policy (1996-1998)
Madam President, I thank you, not least because of the difficulties in which you have been placed earlier today.
I am under no illusions that Members present here have come because of interest in what I have to say.
However, they are assembling to listen to and to participate in a vote on consumer priorities in the matter of BSE and other things.
I wish to take my allotted five minutes to present the report which has been waiting for the attention of Parliament for more than two sessions and which relates to the consumer priorities set out by Mr Prendergast which survive him, which survive Mr Papas' time as Director-General in DG XXIV and which are now for the attention of Mr Reichenbach.
The fact that it has taken so long and the fact that we still have to try to acquire critical mass for Mrs Bonino and her cabinet is sufficient emphasis on what we are trying to say today.
I am glad President Santer is present, whether or not he is listening to what I have to say.
We believe that a framework for consumer priorities within the Union needs essentially to look not at a whole Christmas Card wish list of things that might be done in an ideal world but a clear, brief and accurate list of the things we need to do, things which need to relate to the central role that Article 129a should have for us postMaastricht.
We believe that we need priorities clearly set out for Mr Reichenbach and his team.
Further measures to ensure consumer access to justice inside the courts as well as outside them, right across the Union: concrete legislative proposals and measures to ensure the protection of consumers' financial interests and we shall be returning to that in the debate on Mrs Marinucci's report this afternoon; better information that converts consumer information into consumer power; a sustainable food policy in the interest of consumers, and here I note the new powers that Mrs Bonino has.
I hope we will hear from her this afternoon as to how she will use them and I welcome what President Santer said yesterday in what was a historic day for this Assembly and for its relations with the Commission in terms of the priorities we are giving to food, health and safety.
Finally, the establishment of a single, clear, basic definition of universal service which can be applied on a sectoral basis as we move towards the liberalization of key sectors of the market.
In the time available to me I do not want to expand in any detail on any of these.
I would just say that I feel we have been remiss in not giving these areas a priority which they deserve.
In terms of access to justice the Commission is now at least making steps towards the publication of plans but it needs to go further to secure the mutual recognition of conditions for receiving legal aid throughout the Community and to enable consumer organizations in countries like mine, as well as public bodies, to bring class actions where there are infringements of Community legislation.
We also need to hear further from DG XXIV and Mrs Bonino exactly how they will use the extra staff and the new powers they have for policing the Community as a whole in the issue of health and food safety.
The research we should do, and which the Commission should sponsor and finance in this matter, needs to look at related issues of human and animal health which have always been given a low priority because the consumer interest has never been pre-eminent.
I hope here that in matters like the investigation of the new variant of CJD we will see a commitment not just in the Member States, including my own, but by the Commission as a whole to look at this scourge and how it has developed.
There are many things I could have said and perhaps there will be an opportunity to engage with the new DirectorGeneral and with Mrs Bonino at a later hour.
I regret that this debate has been so placed that it has to be both truncated and partitioned by the interval.
(Applause )
Thank you, Mr Whitehead.
In view of the circumstances, it was not possible for your intervention to have the desired hearing as everyone was waiting for the vote.
The debate on Mr Whitehead's report will be continued this afternoon at 15.00 hours.
Welcome
Mr President, I am rising simply to seek clarification: there is a clear contradiction between what President Santer said yesterday in his report, on page 8, which refers to systematic and compulsory labelling as the Commission preference and the statement we have today had from Commissioner Fischler who rejected all the amendments calling for the labelling of beef and beef products to be compulsory.
Before we take a vote on this issue, we want to be sure what the true position of the Commission is. Is labelling compulsory or not?
Is it systematic or not? The statements we have listened to did not imply that.
To say generally, as did Commissioner Fischler, that the Commission 'generally' agrees that this should be compulsory but that there is to be no obligation or deadline for the immediate future is tantamount to not accepting that principle stated yesterday by President Santer.
Before we move to the vote, we want to be clear about the Commission position!
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very grateful for this intervention, because it does enable me to put something straight.
The honourable Member was evidently not listening this morning.
(Loud protests) I explained this morning that the Commission accepts the possibility of basing all three proposals under discussion here on Article 100a.
The Commission also explained this morning that it clearly endorses a compulsory system.
Nevertheless, I did venture to point out that a certain transition phase will be necessary until we can actually have this compulsory system operating throughout all the Member States, since it requires an appropriate form of animal identification and of animal registration, which have to be carried out with the aid of computer technology.
So that those Member States which already fulfil all the conditions are not prevented from introducing a system of labelling during the transition phase, we believe it makes sense to allow voluntary labelling during that first phase, a view which, incidentally, met with the approval - or so it seemed to me at least - of most of those who attended the debate.
Now is not the time to debate this subject.
Questions can be asked when we get to the report.
I should just like to ask Commissioner Fischler one question: how long is the transition phase?
I have just said that such questions must be put at the appropriate time.
Mr President, on a point of order which I tried to raise some moments ago when your predecessor, Mrs Fontaine, was in the Chair.
When my colleague, Philip Whitehead, was speaking he was shown a distinct discourtesy by a large number of Members of this House: he was not being listened to, people were coming in and showing a complete lack of respect.
Mr President, you referred to the visitors in the Distinguished Visitors' Gallery.
I do not know what sort of impression it would have given them a few moments ago - and it is possibly a little better now - but I hope that you will be able to use your gavel properly so that order is maintained in this Chamber and that speakers are heard with the respect that Mr Whitehead was not.
(Applause )
Thank you very much for making that point, Mr Evans, because as you could tell, it was not just Mr Whitehead who was hardly listened to, but the Presidency itself, when calling for silence for this vote we would like to get on with.
I should just like to ask Commissioner Fischler one question: how long is the transition phase?
I have already told you those questions must be put at the proper time.
Mrs Fontaine was referred to personally and is asking for the floor.
Votes
Mr President, my reference to the regulations is based on Articles 127, 122 and 43.
Even if the radical Alliance group tried, by its amendments, to improve the compromise, we remain critical of a procedure which we feel is a renouncement of the European Parliament in an exceptionally grave affair.
We therefore have a basic disagreement, but my reference concerns the question of procedure which has led to the vote which will be held.
On Monday, Mrs Barthet-Mayer and Mr Puerta stressed the very strong reasons for postponing this vote to after that on the motion of censure.
Parliament decided otherwise and did not follow this demonstration, which was nevertheless very strong and based on considerable Parliamentary evidence.
I will therefore not return to the matter.
Mr Hory, this issue was settled on Monday in accordance with the established procedure.
I therefore naturally cannot allow it to be raised again in a manner which is rather an explanation of vote, since you invoke the article on explanations of vote.
I am sorry.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I would like to mention three points:
Firstly, may I remind our colleagues that Mr Fischler told us that the Commission accepts the change of the legal basis and the adoption of Article 100A, in other words, what we are doing today is the first reading.-Secondly, Mr President, from the vote list it appears that I proposed to Parliament that it should reject all the amendments which imply that the labelling system should not be compulsory. In my opinion all those amendments ought to be rejected, because the system must be compulsory, and the same applies to all the amendments that restrict labelling to meat alone, whereas your rapporteur's proposal...
... and the proposal by the Environment Commission is that the labelling system should apply to all beef products, preparations, processed products and by-products.
Thirdly, Mr President, Mr Fischler said that the Commission was in favour of compulsory labelling but is asking for a transitional period, and he stated that this is the reason why the Commission did not accept the amendments on compulsory labelling.
That caused indignation among many Members.
I would therefore like to ask Mr Fischler this question: Could we reverse our thinking on this, in other words, could the Commission accept all the amendments imposing compulsory labelling, but in parallel and not in conflict with them, add an article stipulating the transitional period required for the Member States to adapt, and asking that the said period should be as short as possible?
(Applause)
Mr President, as the rapporteur rightly stated, because of the change in the legal basis this is now a first reading.
I therefore believe that we can come back in the context of the second reading to the wish expressed by the rapporteur.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, may I just remind you that I moved an oral amendment this morning for the legal basis to be changed from Article 43 to Article 100a and that the Commission has accepted it.
As you know, oral amendments cannot be put during voting.
But we will take note of it and it will appear in the Minutes so that the Commission can accept it, if it sees fit.
The Committee on Legal Affairs should also be informed.
That way we can respect the Rules of Procedure and go to the vote without this oral amendment.
I must inform Members that there is a corrigendum to the German version of this report and that Amendments Nos 1 and 28 do not relate to all the language versions, but an appropriate linguistic solution will be found with those involved in due course.
I must also inform you that the text of Amendment No 17 of the report by the Committee on Agriculture appears in the text of Amendment No 16 presented for vote in the part-session and Amendment No 35 has been withdrawn.
We are examining the motion for a regulation.
Mr President, before we proceed to the vote, I should like to hear Commissioner Fischler's acceptance of what Mr Mayer just said.
Ladies and gentlemen, may I welcome Mr Wole Soyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, who came to see me this morning to tell me about the situation in Nigeria, on which Parliament is now fully informed.
Mr President, it is hardly surprising that a British Conservative would like to state a case as to why we voted against the Medina report this morning.
If I had been a fly on the wall yesterday I could well have heard some people trying to make us believe that the British Government was trying to promote BSE in our country.
I have to say that I regret very much the attitude that has been adopted by this House, because it missed the main point.
We cannot rewrite history and that is what the report tries to do. It tries, in fact, to produce its own prejudices which are not backed by facts.
The committee really needed some scientific instruments to help it to come to the right conclusions - perhaps a retrospectoscope, because that is what it has used by trying to look back and not recognize that this was a new disease and a new situation that had arisen.
Let us all be very clear.
I am sure this Parliament and we, as British Conservatives, want to promote health and confidence. There is no doubt about that.
Therefore we should look and see the situation in the United Kingdom itself: consumption is practically back to normal; the beef industry is practically back to normal, and the measures that the government has taken in the United Kingdom have worked.
One cannot say that about the rest of Europe, and it is the lack of confidence that has created the problems.
The report does not identify the causes of the disease.
It only serves, as I say, to promote prejudices which are not backed by facts.
It is very easy to knock, it is very easy to be a narker and always to complain, but to do something positive to cure the problems is entirely different.
The production of animal protein seems to be the basis of the problem.
We have followed the practice in the United States and they do not seem to have a BSE problem there.
There are many issues I would like to address, but let me say this: Parliament seems to be ambivalent about what it is trying to do with Mr Hogg, the Minister.
It says, on the one hand, that he had a legal requirement to come and yet the resolution just adopted states that the institutional agreement needs to be strengthened so that we can demand him to come.
I would submit that there is not currently a legal base for that demand to happen.
Mr President, we voted against the joint resolution, as a conditional censure cannot be defended on a legal basis, and moreover the departments of Parliament had observed it.
A conditional censure cannot be defended on a political basis either.
In reality, a conditional censure is a phoney censure.
We have therefore voted against this joint resolution.
However, tomorrow we will vote for the motion of censure, as the mad cow problem is not, as some people try to make us believe, the fault of bad luck.
Nor is it the fault of the system.
To be precise, it is the fault of the people in charge of the system. And the people in charge of the system, with all due respect to the preceding speaker, are the British government on the one hand and the Commission in Brussels on the other.
Consequently, we will vote for the censure.
And this will have a certain effect, at least with regard to the French representation, as with the voices of eleven deputies of the French National Front, there will probably be a majority of French representatives in this Parliament who will vote on the motion of censure tomorrow.
One of the lessons to be drawn from the 'mad cow' affair concerns the state of chaos of health controls in Europe, which has allowed the spreading of contaminated meal and meat, and thus of the disease itself.
This aspect of the dossier remains misunderstood, but it teaches us a great deal on the manner in which European institutions currently operate.
From the point of view of the single market, which was to eliminate all import controls on internal frontiers - hence also health controls - a directive 89/662/CEE reorganized the system: the principal health supervision was no longer incumbent on the importing country, at its frontiers, but on the country of origin - in this case the United Kingdom for its meat exports.
However, this formula has cumulative inconveniences: it lays the burden of control on the partner who has the least interest in exercising it vigilantly.
To correct this bias, ' federal' controls would have to be established for the supervision of exporting countries; but this complicated structure would prove oppressive for national sovereignties, and also costly, as an army of officials would have to be recruited in Brussels.
That summarizes in a few sentences if not the causes of mad cow disease (which originates from an agricultural policy contrary to nature), but at least the causes of its spreading; the European Union has abolished its national controls, without introducing, or even first devising, other properly operational systems to take the relay.
What is the current situation? With fixed customs on internal frontiers having been abolished and documents which accompany goods having been eliminated too, controls are becoming very difficult.
They are exercised here or there, on the spot, with no serious documentary base and when goods are already circulating on the internal market of each country.
Under these conditions, fraud of every kind multiplies.
The chaos is complete.
A frightening indication has just been given by the report of the Committee of Inquiry of the French National Assembly on mad cow disease, with regard to customs control: none of the persons in authority interviewed - minister, central administration directors, presidents of professional syndicates - has been able to provide reliable figures on imports into France, during recent years, of animal meal of British origin.
Thus the European Union is now in a state of health disarmament, not by accident, but because of a policy which I do not hesitate to qualify as conscious disorganization destined, in the minds of the apprentice sorcerers who conceived it, to cause chaos in the European state.
One cannot fail to compare this very similar situation with the disorder which reigns with regard to collecting intra-Community VAT since the abolition of internal frontiers.
How can we get out of this? The naive immediately seize on ready-made solutions which the Commission hands out to them: more Community regulations!
More Community agencies!
More Community controllers!
But no one has tried to find out how much the installation of such a system, standardized and centralized on a European scale, could cost, or even whether it really can be achieved within a short time.
There is nothing stopping us from obtaining experience in this respect, but we must not rely on federal control of health regulations for an immediate escape from the crisis and chaos.
Rather, we believe that the single market has been vitiated by the dogma of the Commission, according to which it was absolutely necessary to abolish all frontier controls and all goods accompanying documents.
Free circulation has thus become free contamination.
To emerge from it, we must question this policy.
I welcome the serious challenge to the European Commission by the European Parliament to clean up its act on BSE.
In response to the EP's inquiry into the BSE crisis, the President of the European Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, in the presence of 11 other Commissioners, implicitly conceded that there was much wrong with the system which should be reformed.
The report by the European Parliament which attacks the UK Government's role throughout the BSE scandal is also severely critical of the Commission and of former Commissioner Ray MacSharry, who if not involved directly in a process of disinformation and down-playing the scandal, has been accused by the committee of inquiry of at least 'turning a blind eye' .
Wilful short-sightedness by the Commission has done no favours for Europe's consumers, nor even in the end for the EU's and Ireland's beef producers.
I strongly welcome the fact that responsibility for food policy is now to be removed from the auspices of the Agricultural Commissioner.
I also support the idea of a European equivalent of the FDA (Food and Drugs Administration).
Through the Liberal Group, I agree not to censure the Commission now but to give it a few months to right the wrongs of the past through major food policy reforms.
If the BSE crisis has done nothing else it has thrown into sharp focus the overriding need to concentrate on consumer protection and to address consumers' legitimate fears.
The institutions of the European Union and Member State governments must now work together to protect consumer interests at all times.
As such, the approach taken by the British authorities throughout this has been deeply regrettable.
Britain has taken an arrogant approach, insensitive to the implications of its behaviour for its partners in Europe.
While I welcome the concern of the Committee of Inquiry to fully investigate the BSE crisis I am puzzled by the approach they have taken in certain regards.
They called EU Commissioners and officials but did not call the man who had ultimate political responsibility at the time: the then President of the EU Commission, Jacques Delors.
The failure to call Mr Delors before the committee is a startling omission and only serves to question the fact as to whether the committee was even-handed in its approach. Why was Mr Delors not called?
Has it anything to do with the fact that the committee had an in-built socialist majority? Why did Mr Delors not come forward to protect and defend the Commission?
The best way to address the BSE crisis now is not to look backwards with the perfect wisdom of hindsight but to establish a comprehensive strategy that will protect and reassure the European consumer.
Of necessity this means the British authorities will have to take a more cooperative and responsible approach.
I voted for the compromise with misgivings.
Our Parliament should not be threatening to censure the Commission when the real culprits remain in office in the UK Government.
They created the BSE problem and allowed it to spread and become endemic in many Southern areas.
They failed to contain BSE and have behaved atrociously with their 'Policy of Non Cooperation' and arrogant rejection of Europe's offers to finance a sensible eradication programme.
No wonder Europeans are now calling for compensation for the damage wreaked by the UK's incompetence.
Alas, we Scots cannot seek compensation for the destruction of our beef export markets and we are not as well protected against England's BSE as our fellow Europeans.
My Euro-seat accounts stupidity has unduly penalised my farmers.
In the absence of reason in Westminster, and at their own costs, Scottish beef producers created their own 'BSE free' quality assurance scheme which the Scottish Secretary denigrated and undermined 'in the interests of UK unity' !
My Party sought to cite the Scottish Secretary's name in the Censure Motion against Mr Hogg in Westminster this week.
Michael Forsyth banned the flying of the European Flag in Scotland.
May the Union Jack flying over his Scottish Office remind Scots of the UK's betrayals, and may the European Parliament condemn the cynicism of the UK's 'BSE' policy of 'Blame Someone Else!'
Concern for public health must be the overriding consideration for all involved in the food industry.
In this regard the role of farmers and producers is crucial.
The role of legislators, at national and European level, is also central to a safe food industry.
Consumer confidence is now at an all-time low.
The primary responsibility of the institutions of the EU and all Member State governments is to protect consumer interests at all times and in doing so to restore the level of confidence in beef as a quality food product.
The European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into BSE is but one examination of the entire BSE crisis.
While I support all endeavours to resolve this crisis, I am not satisfied that the committee was entirely even-handed in its approach.
Its criticisms of former EU Commissioner MacSharry are unjustified.
Ray MacSharry has already very effectively refuted criticisms made of him by the committee.
However, I would like to add that it is easy to evaluate past events with the wisdom of hindsight. It would be more accurate to evaluate these circumstances in the context of the particular time.
Ray MacSharry was one of the great reforming Commissioners of recent times and Irish farmers owe him a great debt of gratitude.
The committee of inquiry will not dim this reputation in any way.
It is important to bear in mind that the real culprits of the entire BSE saga are the British authorities, who have displayed great arrogance and total insensitivity to the implications of their behaviour for their fellow EU Member States, not least Ireland.
Any future strategy to resolve the BSE crisis must include a responsible and cooperative response from the British authorities.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left has not signed the motion for a joint resolution and has abstained on the vote.
There are two reasons for this position.
As we will be voting tomorrow on a motion of censure on the Commission, it is an interference to include in the agenda a resolution which affects the motion of censure.
As the United European Left has decided to support the censure motion, it considers it inconsistent to vote on a resolution which interferes with such an important matter.
The joint resolution proposes to postpone the censure motion and make it conditional on the Commission applying certain measures, and that is another reason for our abstention.
A censure motion can only apply to past liability and cannot dictate future actions.
That is our basic reason for not voting on the joint resolution.
The report of the committee of inquiry into BSE notes that the Commission has incurred irreversible liability.
If liability exists and is irreversible, the procedure is to present an immediate motion of censure.
The postponement of the immediate motion of censure is a complete dereliction of Parliament's duty of control and the joint resolution is an attempt to justify that dereliction.
Parliament's efforts to uncover the facts concerning the chain of events which provoked the BSE crisis should have yielded valuable lessons for the future administration of agricultural and food safety policy.
Instead the work undertaken by the Committee of Inquiry is being undermined by the motion of censure before this Parliament which, if successful, will result in the sacking of all the present College of Commissioners despite the fact that most of the events which ultimately resulted in the BSE crisis took place before this Commission even took office.
This motion of censure is welcome news for the British Government which has consistently tried to divert the attention of the British public away from their own government's primary responsibility for this entire crisis by trying to blame the European Commission for the failings of their own Ministers and public servants charged with responsibility for food safety policy.
Those responsible for this motion should reconsider their action and, in my view, concentrate their efforts on working with the Commission to ensure that any lessons learned from the investigations undertaken by the Committee of Inquiry are reflected in the future administration of agricultural and food safety policy at both European and national level.
The final report of the Committee in Inquiry is severely weakened because of the Committee's failure to call a number of key witnesses.
Why, for instance, did the Committee not call the former President of the Commission and well-known socialist politician, Jacques Delors?
In my opinion, former President Delors, who bore ultimate political responsibility for the actions of the European Commission would have confirmed the comprehensive rebuttals of his agricultural Commissioners against the allegations concerning the activities of the Commission's services during the Delors era.
Criticism of the actions of the Commission during the Delors era reflects badly on former President Delors and he should have been given the opportunity to refute these criticisms.
Equally puzzling was the failure to call the Presidents of the Scientific Veterinary Committee during the relevant period.
The Committee would surely have been assisted in their investigations if they had had the benefit of evidence form the specialists who had a central role to play as this problem developed into the major crisis it ultimately became.
A further puzzling aspect of the Committee's work was the decision to make documents containing damaging allegations available to the public before the individuals in question even had an opportunity to address the Committee.
Former Commissioner MacSharry was the victim of this kind of questionable practice and the Committee should have the common decency to apologise for putting allegations against him into the public domain one month before he even had the opportunity to offer evidence to refute these allegations.
It is worth recalling that when the former Commissioner addressed the Committee he refuted these allegations in a detailed, open, effective and comprehensive manner.
Finally, the report of the Committee of Inquiry was severely damaged by the failure of the British Minister for Agriculture to attend and give evidence before the Committee.
Clearly, one of the lessons to be learned from this whole affair is that Committees of Inquiry must have the power to legally compel witnesses to attend and give evidence.
Otherwise, the final report of such committees will be based on incomplete investigation and, as in this case, the excellent work undertaken by colleagues sitting on these committees will be devalued by factors beyond their control.
President Santer spoke very sympathetically yesterday of the European Parliament's criticism of the Commission.
He admitted that the work of the Commission in past years has been highly inadequate and that none of the action which should have been taken to shield the citizens of the European Union from danger has actually been taken.
If this is recognized, Mr Santer, it must also have consequences.
It emerged from the meetings of the parliamentary Committee of Inquiry that some officials - even senior officials - of the Commission were obviously not prepared to cooperate with the European Parliament.
Officials such as Mr Legras or Mr Mansito even obstructed the work of the Committee of Inquiry, although they, as the head and deputy head respectively of Directorate-General VI, bear immediate responsibility for the defects that were discovered.
Such conduct must surely have consequences.
Officials who demonstrate incompetence cannot simply be allowed to continue in their posts.
In the case of Mr von Moltke of the Directorate-General for Tourism, as you know, the recent pressure exerted by the European Parliament was successful.
We must also mount the same sort of pressure against DG VI.
But of course we must not target officials as part of a strategy of catching the small fry and letting the big fish go free.
The Commission, and above all its President, must take political responsibility for the shortcomings of their institution.
The existence of BSE did not just come to light yesterday, as we all know.
Nor has the Santer Commission only been in office since yesterday.
To date there have been 16 deaths from BSE in Europe.
How many deaths would have been needed before the Commission took any action on its own initiative? Political responsibility for the professional misconduct of civil servants always lies with the competent ministers, or in this case with the commissioners; that is a fine European, or at least British, tradition.
Commissioner Fischler should simply have mucked out his Augean stable sooner.
And he should not act now as if his predecessors had made all the mistakes.
The Green Group tabled a proposal for a 'suspended vote of no-confidence' in order to emphasize this political responsibility.
This threat seems to have been necessary to persuade Mr Santer to admit publicly for the first time to the glaring errors made by the present Commission and the previous one.
Other bodies, of course, have failed us.
The conduct of the British Government can only be described as malevolent and ignorant.
An action for damages against the United Kingdom (and that country's animal meal and meat industries) before the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg is the only appropriate response.
Mr Borchert and the other European agriculture ministers have also failed us.
They remained inactive far too long and placed economic interests above the lives of their citizens.
Responsibility for the BSE scandal, of course, also lies in the structures of the EU.
The single market has led to a reduction in the standard of consumer protection.
We Greens have always warned against the creation of an internal market without proper ecological and social safeguards.
But of course for the economic liberals in all parties, from Mrs Thatcher to Mr Bangemann, the deregulation of protective mechanisms has been the paramount aim.
We are now paying the penalty for this misguided form of European integration.
Effective control mechanisms for consumer protection have never been established; in the domain of agriculture the Commission has been its own judge and jury.
Simply setting up a new directorate-general for consumer protection within the Commission is far from enough.
It is high time we had an independent European food inspectorate.
And it is high time we had greater transparency and more rights for the European Parliament.
The meetings of all specialized committees of the Commission will have to be accessible to the public.
No-confidence motions against specific politically responsible Commissioners must also be permissible in future.
And the European Parliament must have a right of codetermination in future on all questions of agricultural policy.
And of course we need a completely different European agricultural policy.
The feeding of meat-and-bone meal to herbivores must be generally prohibited.
Such meal may only be fed if high safety standards are applied, which is not the case in Britain's deregulated agricultural industry.
Financial incentives must be created for welfareorientated animal husbandry and levies and conditions imposed for industrial mass production of livestock.
We Greens have always advocated organic farming and welfare-orientated husbandry and have been severely critical of European agricultural policy.
The BSE scandal, in this tragic manner, has now proved us right.
Mr President, I was not a member of the Committee of Inquiry on BSE, nor have I had any speaking time during the plenary debate. Nevertheless, I feel I should state clearly that, if the report of this temporary Committee of Inquiry had been put to the vote here, I should have been unable, for the following reasons, to support it:
The statements regarding the political responsibility of the Commission - past and present - and of the previous Commissioners for Agriculture, as well as the present one, for errors and omissions are too sweeping and are devoid of any differentiation, often condemning out of hand without considering the reality of the situation over the years, with the result that an objective observer of developments from Delors to Santer and from MacSherry to Fischler simply cannot accept such indiscriminate accusations.
This was compounded by the fact that the Committee of Inquiry did not even have the courage to summon President Delors.
It is quite unfair to tar Mr Steichen with the same brush as Mr MacSherry, and it is quite simply grotesque to want to send the Santer Commission packing but not even to invite Mr Delors to give evidence.
It is a pity that the Committee of Inquiry, which has done a lot of good work, has shot itself in the foot by assigning guilt in this entirely indiscriminate manner.
On the other hand, I wish to state categorically that I welcome the recommendations made by the Committee of Inquiry for future action and, after the courageous statement made by President Santer yesterday, I am sure that the Commission will act on these recommendations with the measures that we and the people of this Community have every right to expect, in order to eradicate the cattle disease and to give due priority to the health of our citizens.
The report of the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into the management of BSE has revealed the internal malfunctions of the Commission.
Naturally, one must not overlook the various responsibilities of the United Kingdom, the Council and the British meal manufacturers.
In the minority position I presented, I showed the advantage of creating an independent organization which would enable decisions to be taken free of suspicion or influence.
This is why I stated that this Agency should be subject to EN 45004 standards.
However, in addition to setting up an independent agency, it is also necessary for the control departments of the member States to be subject to the same international rules for ensuring conformity.
It is with great interest that I have learned of Mr Santer's proposals on the envisaged reorganization of the Commission.
However, even if the measures submitted are interesting, this cannot call into question the responsibilities for the past management of the dossier by the Commission.
This is why I have signed the tabling of the motion of censure and will of course vote for it tomorrow.
If individual censure of a member of the Commission were possible, many of us in this House would have censured Mr Fischler.
I think the management of the Agriculture Commission has significantly damaged the Commission as a whole and his attitude at the committee of inquiry left much to be desired - and just yesterday in the debate he was not even listening to the speeches by such distinguished Members as Mrs Redondo Jiménez.
To vote for a motion of censure on a Commission for events which occurred before it took over has no basis in logic or politics, so tomorrow I shall vote against this initiative.
But putting conditions on the Commission, as in paragraph 7 of the joint resolution, to my mind means weakening the action of the Commission in the face of the challenges the Union has to face in the coming months, including the Intergovernmental Conference.
I have always thought that the interests of Parliament lie in having a strong Commission and not a Commission loaded down with conditions.
So for once I will depart from the my group's position and vote against conditional censure.
The members of the European Parliament, elected by universal suffrage, must defend European citizens.
Their health is the most precious possession, and they hold their elected politicians responsible for it.
We have been able to measure it in France, in the 'contaminated blood' drama.
This is why we have taken the initiative of a Committee of Inquiry to throw light on the so-called 'mad cow' drama.
The conclusions of this report are crushing.
First of all, I would like to denounce the enormous responsibility of the British government.
By her policy of phytosanitary deregulation in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher authorized the lowering of the temperature for the manufacture of meal.
By thus lowering the cost of the product, the British government and some industrialists made this meal lethal!
The British government then prohibited it in its country, without checking the implementation of this measure, without closing its frontiers and without authorizing European health committee controls.
The responsibility of the Brussels Commission is equally engaged. It appears that certain officials voluntarily slowed down the circulation of information and hindered all transparency in this terrible affair.
Both must now acknowledge their responsibility and sanctions should be taken.
This is why I will vote for the compromise resolution, and will ensure that all the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry are implemented, mainly those relating to the engagement of the responsibility of the British government, who is mainly liable.
But I cannot agree to leave unsanctioned the heavy faults committed by the current Commission in the management of the crisis.
I will also vote for immediate censure, on Thursday.
The mad cow drama and its retinue of catastrophes have led us to set up a Committee of Inquiry, the first to deliver its conclusions to Parliament.
The result of this first investigation is, despite the obstructions, a crushing verification for the Commission.
The hearings and report are like a journey in true grandeur to the country of lies, deceit and disinformation.
The Commission appears like a kingdom where, sheltered from all democratic practices and far from the realities of the land, lobbies are kings.
The Commission is proving to be an opaque world where every one blames someone else, where in fact no one is ever responsible, where scientific information is concealed and manipulated, where concern for public health is systematically sacrificed in the interests of the market.
Not happy with not protecting consumers, the Commission prevents others from protecting them, which is even more serious.
It has thus prevented States such as France and Germany from protecting their nationals from contaminated meal imports.
The charge raised up by the Committee of Inquiry is without appeal.
Although, by a contrived procedure, Mr Delors escaped appearing, the persons responsible are clearly identified.
No one - neither the victims of the terrible disease, nor our ruined farmers nor the contributors called upon to finance the slaughter plans - no one, I say, would understand that our Parliament, after discovering the erring ways and identifying the persons responsible, is not proposing any sanction.
This is nevertheless what the Medina Ortega report does: from the crushing verification it ascertains, it draws paradoxical proposals.
Has the Commission failed? Its duties should be extended and reinforced.
Has it shown itself indifferent to public health? It should take full responsibility for it.
Has the European Parliament not exercised particular vigilance? Its powers should therefore be extended as far as joint decision in the agricultural field, which risks ruining the very architecture of the common agricultural policy.
This is why our group, although it has taken an active part in establishing the Committee of Inquiry and in its work, has eluded the conclusions of the latter, presenting a minority position.
This is why we cannot accept the joint resolution and have circulated our own resolution.
This is why we have played a determining role in putting forward the motion of censure, which alone appears to be up to the drama caused by the carelessness of the Commission.
If we really want what we claim to want, i.e. to stop a scandal like the one we have just uncovered from happening again, the opportunity is not to be shied at under various pretexts.
Our citizens are expecting this frightful drama to be followed up by something other than the announcement of an inter-disciplinary conference on health and nutrition...
No way is it a question of overturning a pseudo-government which is not the Commission.
It is a question of rejecting recourse to ideological connivance between supranational institutions against the Council representing the States, which the President of the Commission has just launched again in order to hide his responsibilities.
It is a question of playing the only role that can justify the existence of this Parliament: controlling the Commission officials, and not making accomplices of them.
To do so calmly, faced with this sadly exemplary case, we should make our decision with awareness, knowing how to go beyond the instructions of parties, the admonitions of ministers and the pressures of Commissioners, to sanction clearly and solemnly the laxism, carelessness and irresponsibility.
Of course we can accuse the Commission and the British Government of negligence over the handling of BSE.
But for Parliament to deliver a vote of no confidence against the Commission is really going too far, especially as the mistakes which have been made were primarily made by former Commissioners.
A vote of no confidence under these circumstances would be no more than an empty political gesture.
The results of the temporary committee of inquiry into BSE must be interpreted in the spirit and letter of the treaties and derived legislation as well as the principle of subsidiarity.
From this viewpoint it is very clear that all the primary responsibility lies with the United Kingdom Government, which has a duty to protect the health of persons and animals and has shown utter negligence in this area.
Thus, the report states that the greatest weight of responsibility falls on the United Kingdom Government.
The committee has demonstrated the negligent conduct of the United Kingdom.
There were many negative aspects to the United Kingdom's conduct and one of them was the failure to guarantee an effective ban on feeding meat and bone meal to ruminants; not respecting the national bans preventing the import of meal from the United Kingdom; putting pressure on the European Commission not to carry out inspections.
Similarly, the United Kingdom Government did not adequately apply the commitments it made in the Council of Ministers in 1990 and finally, the European Parliament vigorously censures the United Kingdom for its blockade of the Community institutions.
Also responsible are the companies which exported animals carrying BSE, and beef products and derivatives.
In due course they will be facing compensation claims in the courts for public and criminal liability.
The European Commission's responsibility lies at another level.
The Commission has powers of higher inspection, that is, the power to inspect national inspection services and require fulfilment of European legislation.
That is why the parliamentary committee of inquiry stresses the responsibility of the European Commission in prioritizing the interests of managing the market and lacking foresight about the risks to human health and the spread of the disease to other countries.
The European Parliament also censures the European Commission led by Mr Delors for failing to carry out inspections during the period 1990-1994.
As regards the responsibility of the present Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Fischler, he must answer for various acts of negligence, in particular the Commission's decision to lift the ban on exports of gelatine, tallow and semen.
Here the Commission must accept responsibility as a college for having acted against the opinion of the scientific committees.
The same can be said of the group of Member States in the European Council which supported the measure.
For the future of the European Union it is important to draw the institutional consequences.
The European Union needs real executive powers of direct inspection as well as higher inspection and the capacity to withdraw products from the market automatically and ban their sale, both inside and outside the European Union.
Similarly, it must be given powers to require strict fulfilment of Community legislation by the Member States.
Recommendation for second reading Tamino (A4-0011/97)
The subject presented here is important as it discusses in depth transport intermodality.
It is clear that today, throughout Europe, the distribution of infrastructure charges according to type of transport and the assumption of social costs in transport prices are marked by serious inequalities.
These inequalities are naturally to the detriment of non-road modes, and consequently combined transport.
In this context, I can only agree with the Commission's draft regulations, for two reasons.
First of all, the Commission proposes to prolong the existing device of financial support to inter-modal services, while leaving the member States freedom of choice in the allocation of these aids.
Then, the Commission's proposal goes in the direction of a reduction in procedures, mainly replacing the a priori control it currently exercises by an a posteriori control.
I believe that the aids thus supported constitute a very interesting means of compensation in favour of development of inter-modal transport, placing the emphasis on the important position of navigable waterways.
I also voted in favour of the common position of the Council which the Committee on Transport and Tourism recently adopted.
But these aids are still too little in relation to the real requirements.
In fact in the medium term, beyond these mechanisms of compensation, it will be necessary to apply a transport policy which is really centred on intermodality.
For this, in the first place there must be true harmonization of competition conditions at European level.
There should also be regulations which encourage the integration of all real costs in the pricing of different modes of transport.
In this respect, the Commission has put forward, in a recent Green Paper, the stakes for the internalization of external costs generated by transport.
It is a very important element of Parliament's reflection on inter-modality, and it is in this direction that European deputies must continue their efforts to promote an increasingly intermodal form of transport.
Weiler report (A4-0016/97)
The reports just presented by the Commission show that the cost of social protection in the countries of Europe has increased very rapidly over the recent period (from 24 % of the GNP in 1980 to over 30 % today), and that this drift is, for the most part and more or less everywhere, due to unemployment allocations.
If we wish to save our social systems, we must reduce unemployment, and to do that, we must first understand where it is coming from.
The Commission's reports are far from this, since they see it first as the result of a general recession.
Unfortunately, this is not the case.
The current recession comes within an extended and gradual slowing down of the European growth trend of twenty years.
This results from the interaction of two different but closely overlapping causes: the opening of our frontiers without precautions and the relatively high level of our wages and social charges.
In an open economy, the charges which burden employment in Europe feed unemployment, which increases social protection costs, which in turn are a slightly heavier burden on growth, slowing it down and increasing unemployment further.
This is the vicious circle we are shut in, which, if we do not take action, is leading straight to increased compulsory levies, even an explosion of social systems and the rise to power of a society of everyone for himself, throwing an entire proportion of the population into extreme poverty.
The paradox of the situation is that everyone virtuously condemns this type of society, but very few venture to combat the causes, which are primarily the bureaucratization of certain social systems, the absence of Community priority for employment and the release of a simplistic world free trade policy, which is a perversion of true free trade.
To rectify the national social systems, it is obviously necessary to reform their operating rules: to better target aids, and abandon passive support measures in favour of active measures which encourage the unemployed back to work, as proposed by the Commission.
But we must also favour cheaper and more competitive management rules for social bodies, while remaining within the framework of rules of public solidarity.
Finally, the problem must be raised of Community priority for employment, and the related problem of maintaining without limit the minimum social income for the long-term unemployed from non-member countries.
But these reforms would not suffice to reabsorb unemployment if they did not attack at the same time the difficult problem of fair foreign commercial relations in a world-wide economy.
The determining question in this respect is as follows: how, in a completely open and unprotected economy, can a country or group of countries decide tomorrow on a higher social policy than that of its neighbours, without increasing its charges and thus disqualifying itself in competition?
Curiously, this essential question, which the Commission identifies perfectly with respect to relations between European countries, as I mentioned during this morning's debate, is hushed up when it concerns relations with the rest of the world.
However, in the latter case, the problem is infinitely more serious, and it is that which, through a deterioration in employment, places the heaviest handicap on the future of our social systems.
It is understandable that after upholding the conclusions of the Uruguay Round, neither the Commission nor the European Parliament wished to hear these truths.
However, we must take stock of them one day if we wish to rectify the situation.
The ELDR Group welcomes the initiative on the debate on the future of social protection in Europe but has not given its support to the Weiler report.
The main reason is that it contains a number of conservative proposals which are not consistent with the new development needed at European level.
The Group welcomes the more progressive contribution of Dutch Minister for Social Affairs and Employment Melkert to the debate and hopes that the Commission will proceed along new and progressive lines.
The public finance crisis, the constraints associated with mass unemployment and the development of the age pyramid are leading the European Union to enter fully into the debate on the future of social protection in Europe.
On this subject, Mrs Weiler's report (PE 220.210) is in the right direction.
For all that, we must draw the European Parliament's attention to section 11 of Mrs Weiler's report: ' ... takes guard against the privatization of social risks, especially with regard to health' .
We think that this section would have merited further development, as it constitutes one of the major challenges of this debate.
In fact we consider that there is a large risk for the entire fabric of society not to be attentive to a drift which, under cover of economies, alleged better management and laying responsibility on the user, leads States increasingly to reduce 'health' cover and transfer risks of compulsory joint systems to supplementary systems.
These supplementary systems, which are increasing, are subject only to market rules.
The danger is now that we will see our health system drift towards the American model (risk selection, exclusion, individualization). Health cannot be considered a lucrative market.
We request that, right from now, the Commission takes over this point and opens the debate on 'compulsory and supplementary health systems and general interest' .
Mr President, my dear colleagues, the Commission regularly presents an up-todate report on social protection in all Member States, in order to give political decision-makers a good perception of the situation, which should enable them to implement the best social policy possible.
It is necessary, but not enough!
Our colleague Mrs Weiler tries to clarify the very concept of social protection, and invites the European Union to play a more important and more active role.
It was needed!
The history of the construction of Europe is partly based on the aim of guaranteeing and seeking a higher standard of living, which passes for a high level of social protection.
Many of us are convinced that our societies do not suffer from too much solidarity, quite the opposite.
And now it is the associated questioning of this aim which so much abuses the European idea itself.
The Union thus has every interest in investing in its social protection and not considering it as a burden on the economy, but well and truly as the expression of a society model, or even a motive power of productivity and so growth.
The Union is in the process of completing its economic union, inviting all the Member States to respect the convergence criteria defined in Maastricht.
This is a necessary stage.
Is it Utopic to hope that in Amsterdam, in June, the Council will establish social convergence criteria aiming to ensure, for all citizens of the Union, the highest possible level of social protection, while safeguarding and renewing our social security systems?
One can also fear it and so, above all, we must henceforth militate for that, as it is vital for the European ideal!
Our colleague's report is orientated towards a social integration of Europe, combining our acquired knowledge, developing citizenship based on the social aspect and solidarity.
There will be no Europe without a social Europe!
All the inquiries show it, European citizens are anxious about the consequences of the single currency on social protection.
Quite rightly!
The constraints linked to the application of Maastricht criteria serve as a pretext to governments to put pressure on wages costs and make cuts in social expenditure.
As explained by the Commission in its communication on social protection: ' The globalization of the world economy and the imperatives of competition will probably necessitate a continued moderation of the growth of wages costs.
It will be more difficult, under these conditions, to increase company contributions and charges' .
In the name of strict short-term financial profitability of companies, on the one hand it is a question of reducing their contribution to the redistribution of the wealth produced, and on the other hand of transforming the health and security requirement into a vast market open to the appetites of large financial groups.
Health and social protection would thus be considered simply as goods, making it more difficult for the population to gain access to care.
In all Member States, there flourish old recipes for individualization and privatization of risks, with capitalization being presented as a remedy in the face of distribution.
In its communication, the Commission relays this offensive, wishing to place social protection in the context of European competition.
It wishes to introduce market elements in the social protection sector, and even instigate competition between the health systems of the Fifteen.
The report by the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and the Working Environment corrects these orientations.
In particular, it requests that the social security regime continue to rest on the principle of solidarity, and pleads for a transfer of the tax burdening labour to other sectors. Our group estimates that the taxation of capital movements and its contribution to social protection would make it possible to lighten the cost for workers.
Our group rejects the strictly economical approach to social protection, which aims to commercialize everyone's legitimate aspiration of security, and to turn it into goods.
We request that the principle of solidarity be maintained and made widespread to meet the need for security of the people, the need to protect yourself and to provide jointly against social risks.
Only systems of social protection and social security based on solidarity permit a high level of social protection and services for everyone, with a good contributions/efficacy ratio.
They allow the risks of social fracture or pauperization of a proportion of the population to be reduced.
The maintenance of a high level of social protection is linked to the values of solidarity, respect for individuals and democracy, values which are ridiculed if one applies the rules of competition.
We are anxious to do something about social dumping but do not consider that standardising social security systems and national labour market policies is the best method of achieving this.
This is why we are abstaining from the final vote.
We think it is important that each individual in the EU has the right to reasonable basic levels of social security.
The Weiler report contains a number of sensible points covering actions to promote employment and sustainable economic development.
Taking action against social dumping is also important.
But it was quite clear, from the debate and the report, that this is the first stage towards harmonisation of social welfare.
This means that we cannot support the report.
We think that each individual country should take their own decisions on social legislation, decisions which they consider necessary and reasonable.
This is a national matter and not something which should be dealt with at EU level.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Weiler report.
This report expresses concurrence with the Commission that Member States should uphold the commitment to promoting a high level of social protection and assist with the gradual coordination of Member States' social protection regulations for the creation of minimum standards.
Overall the report contains sensible considerations and provides scope for an interesting debate in the future.
The Danish Social Democrats are interested, however, in obtaining further clarification of certain points, e.g. the situation of people who work in border areas.
It is also our opinion that the dividing up and financing of social services should remain a national affair.
The Weiler report clears the way for a thorough debate on how to create real freedom of movement for the people of Europe.
The report reflects the views of all sides of this Parliament.
From a British perspective it is interesting to note that the report reflects a Council Recommendation signed under the British presidency in July 1992.
Norman Lamont, the then President of ECOFIN, signed the Recommendation on the convergence across Europe of social protection objectives and policies.
The 'Lamont' Recommendation of 1992 underpins much of what has been said in this report and what has been agreed today in Parliament.
It pleases me and the European Parliamentary Labour Party to find such strong support for this report. However, we could not agree to support the amendments which called for a new tax on carbon fuel and an extension of qualified majority voting in the area of the social protocol.
We have abstained on those two issues.
The Commission's report on social protection in Europe in 1995, commented on by our colleague Mrs Weiler, proposes a general disputable framework, but nevertheless hides some analyses which are very relevant, especially on interruptions or reductions of activity in order to provide care.
The Commission states that family care reduces the cost of social protection, enabling handicapped people, young children and the elderly to be better taken care of, mainly thanks to the permanent presence of the spouse who performs this service.
The Commission's report emphasizes in this respect the importance of the informal services rendered by the family, when one of its members does not have a remunerated job in order to be able to look after young children, handicapped adults or disabled elderly persons.
The Commission emphasizes, with regard to the importance of these services, that the benefits which are now attached to them are entirely inadequate, especially if a career is interrupted.
The specific allocations created in certain countries (child-minding allowance, handicap allowance, etc.) are very low and the spouse who has interrupted a remunerated activity to provide this type of service is in effect penalized: lower social insurance and unemployment benefits, reduced retirement pensions, ineligibility for additional pensions, etc.
These services provided by the family, particularly important for the whole of society, are all the more so now that the population of elderly people is increasing greatly in European countries.
As our society is also characterized by a growing number of women in remunerated work, it is more difficult now for many women to provide important informal services free of charge.
The Commission unfortunately confines itself to these facts and analyses and does not venture forth into innovative proposals which would be of a nature such as to permit the maintenance and development of these informal services, which it acknowledges would permit a significant reduction in social protection costs.
It might therefore be useful for the Commission to continue its reflection by examining in particular to what measure the introduction, for example, of a parental wage instead of the existing specific allocations, would encourage the development of informal family services which our society, in its current structure, needs most and from which it would draw the most benefit.
The future of social security in Europe is purely and simply crucial to the future of Europe.
Developments to date, in which the labour force in the Member States has seen 'Europe' being used in practice as a battering ram to break down the national systems of social security, must be radically reversed.
We must change to a supranational strategy of social security and integration, creating effective forms of solidarity and cohesion within and across national boundaries.
Mrs Weiler's report points cautiously to some objectives for the future.
That should be supported, precisely because of the current preparations for a monetary union which, unfortunately, is headed in the opposite direction.
At the same time it should once more be stated clearly that our Europe will forfeit its future if it does not really take these first cautious steps, not to mention the necessary parallel steps in other areas, ranging from the restoration of full employment to the establishment of a supranational right to strike.
Papayannakis report (A4-0037/97)
Recently there has been growing and justified lack of confidence on the part of consumers about eating beef and beef products, as a logical consequence of the scandal of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, popularly known as 'mad cow disease' .
This disaster is at the root of consumers' indignation at meat continuing to be marketed as an 'anonymous' product, with its origin not stated.
The whole distressing situation makes clear the need to establish better control over production, the first requirement of which is modern production of meat products, geared to consumers needs.
As a first step a clear labelling system is required to inform and reassure consumers about the quality and true origin of these products.
Better labelling and an effective identification and registration system for beef cattle are indispensable both in production and subsequent marketing.
Under the circumstances I shall vote in favour.
We have chosen to vote for the report on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the labelling of beef and beef products, although we think it would be better for this to be controlled and determined nationally.
We would like to make it very clear how important we think it is that Member States themselves are able to introduce stricter labelling requirements if they wish.
We are supporting the report as we consider it to be better than the Commission's proposal.
We particularly support the view that labels on meat must include information on any potential embryo modifications or the animal's transgenetic origin and information on the use of antibiotics and stimulants during feeding.
Mayer report (A4-0022/97)
We have voted against the Mayer report as we feel that the basic fault lay with the EU Agriculture Policy itself.
The BSE crisis should be seen as the first warning, a challenge to us to reform agricultural policy.
The proposal for this system of identification and registration of cattle is linked to policies pursued by the EU, the fact that border controls are about to be abolished.
This is already very clear as far as salmonella is concerned.
We think the introduction of this absurd identification and registration scheme for cattle is the wrong way to tackle BSE. We should instead be concentrating on a total ban on the use of carcasses in animal feedstuffs.
It is deplorable that such a large organisation has to be established in order to control the health of cattle within the European Union.
If this is considered necessary in current circumstances then we must accept it.
But, once BSE has been eradicated, I would like to see this huge organisation trimmed, and a thorough evaluation carried out to see if there is still any justification for its existence.
We have not been affected by BSE in Sweden and we have always been able to control disease in cattle without developing a gigantic control body such as the one currently being proposed.
By using relatively limited border controls, we have managed to avoid BSE, salmonella and rabies.
I would like to add the following observations here: spokesmen for the free market maintain that deregulation will bring huge gains as the costs of regulation and support systems disappear.
But, in this case, the free market must develop new regulations and support systems.
We are justified in asking whether anyone will benefit from a heath or economic point of view, as a result of a free market for, in this case, trade in agricultural products.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.21 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Consumer policy priorities (1996-1998) (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report by Mr Whitehead (A4-0317/96), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission on priorities for consumer policy (1996-1998) (COM(95)0519 - C4-0501/95).
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, in its first paragraph, article 129a of the treaty makes reference to article 100a as the most appropriate instrument to deal with all the legislative, regulatory and administrative measures of the Member States intended for completion of the single market.
The treaty also permits other actions complementary to those carried out by the States in the area of consumer protection.
The authentic single market, the real single market, will only be completed when consumer protection applies in transborder disputes.
And this requires a series of legal, economic, social and informative measures.
From the legal point of view, which is my committee's remit, it must be stressed that the rights of consumers, as parties in cross-border disputes, will only be effectively protected by a combination of the following measures: at the international level Member States must recognize their duty to apply the 1968 Brussels Convention, the 1980 Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations and the 1965 and 1970 Hague Conventions, on unification and on the taking of evidence abroad respectively.
We need to put impetus behind a study to identify the reasons why, despite the existence of the Brussels Convention, difficulties are still experienced in securing the enforcement in one Member State of a civil judgement handed down by a court in another Member State.
The possibilities of widening the scope of the Rome Convention on the law applicable to the commercial field should also be analysed.
It would be a good idea to create a Community instrument which incorporates the principles of the Vienna Convention on international purchase and sale contracts and promote an initiative, within the third pillar, aimed at establishing an enforcement order for unpaid debts.
Turning from the international level to the Community level, we would like to propose the following measures: strengthening out-of-court dispute settlement, which is simpler, faster and cheaper, as long as the possibility of recourse to the courts is respected.
We think the Commission's action plan to promote out-of-court procedures should be implemented as soon as possible.
The European Parliament and Council Directive on injunctions is a very fine instrument to promote recognition of the right of organizations, businesses and consumers to act, to give judges powers under the existing conventions, so that they can take decisions based on law applicable to the grounds for the dispute even if the violation only has an impact in a market other than the national market.
Parliament's resolution on payment periods contains interesting suggestions which are worth looking at.
Under this resolution, interest payments for delay to creditors would be statutory and automatic, as would compensation for costs incurred in the recovery of debts, in accordance with tariffed fees to be determined by a suitable public authority.
The legal procedures for the recovery of late payments and the costs entailed also need to be harmonized.
Finally, Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is important to support the criticism made in the Whitehead report that the Commission does not include a detailed timetable for the priorities for consumer policy 1996-1998.
The lack of it can turn these priorities into a mere wish-list which does nothing for the credibility of Union consumer policy.
Finally, we should use existing international and Community instruments to continue to achieve genuine consumer protection at all levels.
Mr President, Commissioner Bonino, I am not one of those Members who are in the habit of offering very profuse thanks to rapporteurs, firstly because it takes up speaking time and secondly because I firmly believe that all our rapporteurs produce good reports.
Today, albeit in Mr Whitehead's absence, I should like to make an exception and thank him very sincerely on behalf of my group for his work.
I thank him not only for analysing, criticizing and proposing improvements to the consumer policy priorities envisaged by the Commission for 1996-1998 but also for evaluating the 1993-1995 priorities, which enabled us for the first time to perceive clearly the targets that were set and whether we had achieved or missed them.
Some of the priorities have had to be carried over into the programme for 1996-1998.
It was not until 1996 that we debated which measures had to be taken in response to the discussion on the Green Paper on Access to Justice.
We have adopted the draft directive on injunctions at the first reading as a preventive measure for the collective protection of consumers.
I hope that we shall soon be receiving the common position from the Council.
We have also discussed the Commission Action Plan to promote out-of-court settlement procedures.
This measure will be highly beneficial if the Member States are prepared to set up impartial bodies for all products as well as for services.
However good the legislation we create at European level may be - and good European legislation is needed - it will be of no use to consumers who want to make full use of the single market unless they can assert their rights quickly and at reasonable cost in their own language out of court, or indeed in court.
As Mr Whitehead said this morning, the 1996-1998 priorities look like a wish-list for Europe's consumers.
In my view they are simply unspecific.
The important thing for us is that the Commission is finally tabling common provisions; these have not hitherto existed, which has denied consumers the full benefits of the single market.
The Green Paper on Food was announced for 1996.
We are still waiting for it.
It has, if we reflect on this week's BSE discussion, become even more urgent. What is the Commission doing?
Announcing that it will bring an action against Germany and possibly two other Member States before the European Court of Justice for having excessively strict national legislation on pesticide levels in baby food!
Does the Commission somehow believe that parents will comprehend such a measure? This Parliament has always insisted that baby food must be free of pesticides.
We shall be going on to discuss the report on consumer credit and the report on the Green Paper on financial services.
Both reports show where legislation is urgently required.
Cast off your diffidence, Commissioners!
In matters of consumer protection, we as a Parliament are right behind the Commission!
Mr President, first of all I must thank Philip Whitehead for the enormous amount of work he has put in on this.
Why do I make a point of saying that? Because, and the Commissioner should take this a little bit to heart, the communication on priorities we are considering is to my mind far, far too wide-ranging.
I think the priorities for 96-98 leave a lot to be desired.
And I am thus grateful to the rapporteur for having achieved an appropriate result.
I totally agree with Mr Whitehead that the communication should have been a far more detailed, more thoroughly thought-out programme and that it should have indicated how and in what way the Commission intends to attain the objectives it has set itself, and with which I have no problem as such.
It should in my view have included a far clearer list, with priorities.
May I pick out a number of sticking points? Firstly the question of legal redress.
A Green Paper came out more than three years ago.
In connection with the item of legislation for which I was rapporteur we said that at all costs the right of collective action, in whatever form, had to be established and I know that some Member States had a lot of difficulty approving the directive on distance selling.
But anyway, my question is this: how are you going to establish this and what proposals are you going to come forward with? I think the Green Paper which you produced three years ago ought to have generated some action in some form or another.
And I also urge the House to consider extrajudicial procedures.
You may think I am riding my pet hobbyhorse here, and I am, but I think we can often help the consumer far faster, more cheaply and more efficiently if we offer a lot more incentives for settling disputes than we do at present.
I have to declare an interest here, not a financial one but an emotional one, since I am chairman of the Dutch Foundation of consumer dispute settlement committees. This currently comprises twenty five or so committees, in which independent rulings are handed down by consumers and representatives of various industries and manufacturers, and it works extremely well.
I think we should do rather more in this area, and perhaps because I am proud of what we have achieved in the Netherlands with consumer bodies, I think we should enable more people to benefit from our experience than we do at present.
Then there is a question which came up yesterday too.
As I recall, Mrs Behrendt said something about it. I refer to the Green Paper on food.
I do not know what is happening about this.
Will the Green Paper have to be adjusted in the light of all the new agreements and all the new policy measures we are busy shaping?
Can we perhaps have an answer on this? Because if we are to act to calm the fears of the European consumer I think we have firstly to act fast and secondly we have to know the deadlines to which we are working and what changes are likely to come.
We are going to be talking about financial services this afternoon, so I will not go into those now.
In conclusion, something I would have liked to see in the proposals but which is not there: how will the European Commission, possibly in conjunction with European consumer bodies and with business and industry, go about getting rules established through self-regulation in areas where there is no legislation and where legislation is perhaps not needed? Perhaps we might see a list of proposed measures here too?
Mr President, the Liberal Group can express nothing but great satisfaction with the Whitehead report and its attempt to introduce a system of priorities.
One of our great concerns in the Liberal Group is that we not only create a Europe for companies, but also a Europe for citizens, a significant aspect of which is a Europe for consumers.
There are two important aspects which we would emphasize.
One of these is the consumer's freedom of choice, and the other is the consumer's access to the courts.
I will not go into the latter because the last three speakers have already spoken on this at length.
But the question of the consumer's freedom of choice is very, very important.
We in the Liberal Group are staunch supporters of the internal market, but the counterpart to the internal market is free choice for the consumer.
We can say, to borrow English expressions, that we are both internal market freaks and at the same time free choice freaks.
A prerequisite for achieving free choice is that we, as consumer, are given information, which is why I would like to ask the Commissioner about the marking regulations.
We heard yesterday that Mr Santer went all the way and promised that everything should be marked, and that all modified products would be marked.
This is a great declaration of confidence on the part of the Commission.
I also hope that the Commission realizes that this form of marking is not a miracle cure in itself.
It requires clearly defined marking, and not least it requires information as to what the markings mean.
So I very much hope that one of the priorities of implementation of the marking regulations is that the Commission will undertake to provide information on what constitutes the basis for modified food products, and information on the criteria used as a basis for marking, to ensure that we have free choice and that we are not overwhelmed with a whole host of markings which we are unable to interpret.
Thank you. I look forward to the Commissioner's response.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I realize patience is needed because we Members here may repeat each other, but we do have enormous interest in Mr Whitehead's report.
And Mr Whitehead's report, which was unanimously approved, says what all of us are saying, more or less.
But in the time I have available, I want to highlight a few important points.
First, Mr Whitehead himself, the rapporteur himself, welcomes the Commission's ten priorities covering information to consumers, easy access to justice, food safety - very topical in Parliament this week - and other issues which directly affect consumers' rights.
But we all endorse the criticism about failure to evaluate the previous period, up to 1995, and also perhaps of lack of detail on the period up to the year 1998.
Mr Whitehead himself establishes a very concrete strategy for identifying the problems: identify the objectives of consumer policy, establish a strategy for achieving them and then a timetable for putting them into practice.
I think that is the fundamental criticism.
Because things were done in that period and the Community institutions lack credibility on food safety, for instance on mad cows, contaminated blood, growth hormone, and transgenic maize and transgenic soya, which we will be putting a question on, because there is great concern on the subject in Spain.
A survey shows that in many countries 60 % to 80 % of the population is against consuming products developed through genetic engineering, out of anxiety about their effect on human health.
So one of today's priorities is food safety and the establishment of an independent food safety watchdog.
Finally, we agree with all the points.
We are going to vote for Mr Whitehead's report - we know the Commissioner is sensitive to it.
And, of course, it is our duty to be the voice of the disquiet felt today by the European public about food safety and their health.
And we feel compelled to repeat that, although I appreciate that it is tiring for you, because you are hearing it so many times this afternoon.
Mr President, may I thank Mr Whitehead for the highly constructive cooperation, particularly with regard to the labelling of packaging, in this report of his.
I likewise wish Commissioner Bonino every success when she sets about coordinating food safety at the Commission.
I believe that she is a good person for the task.
I should like to draw the attention of Members and of the Commissioner to one detail in this report.
Paragraph 19 refers to an EMU information campaign conducted by Parliament and the Commission.
Regrettably, my Group cannot vote in favour of this paragraph or welcome such campaigns. It has just emerged that the Commission is requiring independent researchers and experts to give a written assurance that if the Commission sends them to discuss EMU at various events organized by citizens, the experts should undertake to speak only in accordance with the Commission's line.
I consider this very dangerous.
Thinking of the current BSE debate, Commissioner, how can we continue to trust the experts sent by the Commission if this kind of thing is going on?
I have tabled a question about this, and I should like to know in what other connections the Commission requires such promises of loyalty from independent experts.
Mr President, I too would like to wish Mr Whitehead well with his far-reaching report, for the most positive thing one can say about the Commission's statement on consumer policy, to be realistic, is that it is far too vague and superficial.
As consumers we need something better than this.
Regarding DG XXIV's newly added areas of responsibility in the context of consumer protection, I fully agree with Mr Whitehead that there is an urgent need to draw up a set of priorities and to replace the Commission's general statements with concrete time frames and plans of action.
There is also need to promote the labelling of products with environmental and energy information, and to establish consumer legislation in all Member States.
Basically one can divide thoughts about a European consumer policy into two different approaches.
One can either, as Mr Whitehead has done, argue for the setting up of European consumer information, with campaigns and information centres, or - and this is the argument which I myself support - one can argue that the already established national consumer organisations should work together for an appropriate re-adjustment, in concrete terms by strengthening BEUC, and then acting jointly in the political arena.
I believe we must recognize that it is would be too difficult and too expensive to produce a completely harmonized consumer policy and consumer information system, because the needs are simply too varied.
But despite this lack of uniformity, we will of course vote in favour of Mr Whitehead's report.
It is only a proactive consumer policy which can give the EU's internal market its legitimacy and effectiveness.
That is why it must begin, first and foremost, with the government conference.
It is there that the consumer policy must be strengthened.
It must be clear from the introduction to the treaty that the EU gives due consideration to consumer policy, in just the same way as it gives due consideration to sustainable development.
The treaty must brace itself for a series of other areas, so that it can also become a clear goal to promote consumer policy considerations and consumer interests.
Article 129 A is still lacking a number of points of clarification and improvements.
Only in this way can consumer policy take the important position it deserves.
Mr President, our work in this House, within this structure, would amount to very little indeed were we not to place consumers at the forefront of all of our activities. A policy on consumers is not in fact a sectoral issue.
A sectoral issue may be the crisis in the engineering industry, the banana market or other similar matters, but the consumer should take precedence in every objective we set ourselves, in every activity and in every directive we establish.
Every day, there are thousands of undertakings - small, medium-sized and large - which work, produce, employ, create jobs, development and investment with one prime objective: to work to satisfy consumers.
In that context, we are grateful to the Commissioner for the important document she has drafted and agree with what the rapporteur and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten have said because the fact is that the priorities for action have particularly to be supported at this time.
We welcome in particular the five aspects which the rapporteur mentioned and to which I wish rapidly to draw your attention: making it easier for consumers to have access to justice in the courts; constantly converting consumer information; promoting a sustainable food policy in the consumer interest and guaranteeing consumer access to a universal service.
There is one last point which we consider particularly important at this juncture, namely the introduction of the euro.
With the introduction of the euro, Europe's citizens will finally identify themselves as such, able to travel around the 15 Member States, making their purchases in shops, supermarkets and travel agencies using a single currency, and perhaps they will then at last feel they are citizens of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, consumer policy increasingly requires a Europe-wide perspective of the problems because of the political attitudes which tend to saddle Europe with responsibility and label it incapable.
Europe should not therefore be perceived by consumers as an ideological choice but as a way of exercising a continual check on the interests of the individual states within a European context.
Having said that, it is well-known that in some Member States, concern for consumer rights has developed at a slower pace than in Europe as a whole.
Italy is certainly one of them, and the development of an awareness of consumer rights there has certainly been the result of the activity and initiatives of the various associations which have had to work without any backing from central government.
We are calling upon the Commission to act resolutely in relation to Italy which - and this is a scandal - is still without national framework legislation on the representation of consumer rights.
For years we have seen government and parliament squabble about who has responsibility, but the opposition appears to be very strong, more especially because the consumer groups are expressing a demand that lies outside the control of the political parties.
In congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Whitehead, on the well-structured motion for a resolution concerning the 19961998 programme, which we support in all respects - legal, economic and social - Alleanza Nazionale must ask the Commission to increase its support for the movement in the countries of southern Europe, where the presence of organized consumer groups is very much small in comparison with the four million units that exist in Europe, mainly in the countries of northern Europe.
By guaranteeing the short and medium-term development of consumer associations we shall in fact avoid undermining the Maastricht Treaty which, while it recognizes a new consumer function in education and other important sectors, also creates new areas which are likely to remain inaccessible to associations with less clout.
Mr President, I also want to congratulate the rapporteur on the excellent report he has produced.
I know that his work has been greatly appreciated by consumer organizations throughout Europe, including BEUC in Brussels, and I wholeheartedly endorse his conclusions.
This, the third consumer programme, offers an inadequate analysis of previous efforts, little continuity from past programmes and no coherent strategy for the future.
Given the establishment of the internal market and the imminent introduction of the single currency, consumer policy must be implemented on a pan-European basis rather than by Member States acting alone.
There also has to be full implementation of existing legislation, as well as simpler and more efficient redress facilities for ordinary citizens.
Obviously, the most important and topical challenge facing consumer policy is indeed the BSE crisis.
Since the Whitehead report was adopted in the Committee on Environment, a number of major events have taken place, the most important being the transfer of responsibility for food safety to DG XXIV.
DGXXIV's new duties in this field were given further impetus yesterday when the Commission announced to the House their response to the BSE report.
I agree with President Santer's claim that the European Veterinary Office based in County Meath in Ireland can play a vital role in restoring consumers' confidence in food safety procedures.
I, too, would urge the Council to reconsider its attitude to this office.
I also welcome the decisions to place all relevant scientific committees under the authority of DG XXIV and to establish a new unit on the assessment of public health risks and the inspection of foodstuffs also under DG XXIV.
I am however concerned that the Commission might be repeating the mistakes already clearly identified in the BSE report.
The tasks of the Veterinary Inspection Office and the new food safety units must be clearly established from the very outset.
If not, then the European consumers will continue to remain deeply sceptical about food safety standards in Europe.
Mr President, what I am saying in my few remarks follows on very neatly from what Mrs Malone has just said. I should like to reinforce her requests to the Commission.
Like her and like other speakers, I regard this as an absolutely hopeless document which really was not worth writing.
I do not know whether or not the author is among us but I hope not.
I hope he or she is no longer with the Commission, certainly not in DG XXIV.
If this is all that the Commission can come up with on consumer protection, it is not really worth putting it in the Treaty, and I imagine that Mrs Bonino has to all intents and purposes disowned it.
There are some very important areas where consumer protection can work at a Community level, and I say that as a British Conservative.
The three areas which I would focus on particularly are safety, information and help to consumers.
I would say that the Commission should examine the way in which consumers need these three elements, because of the activities of the Community, in particular with regard to cross-border trade.
On safety we have to ask ourselves what DG XXIV was doing about BSE when this was being drawn up.
It is not referred to anywhere.
Here is a great crisis boiling up on the margins of Europe, on the margins of our consciousness, that is being dealt with by DG VI when one presumes that DG XXIV was saying nothing about it.
Well, that is history.
But now I should like to invite the Commissioner to use the opportunity of this debate to tell us - and Mrs Malone raised the point - what is going to happen about food safety.
If DG XXIV, the consumer protection directorate, which produced this document, is now going to be in charge of food safety, then who will actually be involved? Will it be the same staff, or are people going to be drafted across from DG III and DG VI?
Or is it going to be left to the authors of this paper?
If so Heaven help us.
Secondly, on the matter of information, I should like to draw the Commissioner's attention to a point which I raised with Commissioner Bangemann yesterday regarding food labelling.
Section 6 of this document states: ' it is not clear that all the information provided on food labels is really helpful to consumers.' It then goes on to say that it is not going to do anything about it.
I have moved an amendment which I hope the Commission will accept saying that the Commission should live up to its obligation to produce more information to consumers about the E numbers on food labels.
That is essential.
Finally, I would reinforce what the rapporteur has to say about legal aid.
If there is one thing my constituents want out of a consumer protection policy, it is more information and more assuredness that they know what is going to happen if they get into difficulties in another Member State, in particular with regard to buying things such as property: how much help can European law give them here?
At the moment, very little.
Mr President, I do not know whether it was a coincidence, but almost all the speakers on this issue so far have been women.
I do not know whether that tells us anything.
Fortunately there is yourself and the rapporteur too, who has produced an excellent report.
In my short speech I would like to stress the great gulf that exists between the general principles, between - if you will - the Commissioner's sincere and 'hyperactive' intentions, between the legislation on the one hand, and the real situation prevailing in the Member States so far as consumer protection is concerned.
And this does not just concern BSE, but a range of other issues as well.
I think that particularly in my own country, Greece, one only has to switch on a television channel and in no time at all one can see all the European Union's principles and guidelines being infringed.
And here, I would like to say that I am surprised by the fact that while we see correct trends and impulses from the Commission itself, at the same time some of its services are intervening and putting the interests and protection of consumers in second place, while top priority is reserved for the interests of certain major economic units, as has characteristically happened with the arraignment of Sweden or Greece before the European Court of Justice over the issue of restrictions and bans on the advertising of toys.
While I am on the subject of television, Mr President, I would like to say that there are clauses on consumer protection, protection of the viewer-consumer, for example relating to television without frontiers, concerning the timing of advertisements, etc., which at least in my own country are completely disregarded.
As for the advertising of drugs, you turn on the television and see one drug after another being paraded in campaigns addressed at adults, minors, children and so on.
Consequently, I think that in the context of implementation by the Member States of the basic regulations and guidelines on consumer protection, there is still a long, long way to go.
Mr President, it is rare for Parliament to urge the Commission not to go too fast.
Usually we are trying to spur the Commission on.
Mr Whitehead, the rapporteur for the Environment Committee, urges the Commission to be more modest in its overall ambitions for consumer protection and I back him fully.
The report exudes a spirit of realism which is most apposite, I think, in consumer policy.
So I am largely happy with the recommendations made in Mr Whitehead's report.
Consumer policy is a relatively young policy area which has a number of inherent limitations.
Firstly it is an area which is largely governed by private law.
I would venture to say that if policy is good, government involvement with the consumer is minimal.
Secondly, an awful lot depends on the cooperation of business and industry.
If there are powerful consumer bodies which are good at getting their message across clearly to the producers of goods and services, the battle of consumer protection is already half-won.
Thirdly, the European policy is aware of its own limitations.
Precisely because the area is one governed by private law the Commission often cannot do much by way of legislation, unless existing European directives can be invoked.
So I welcome the report's recommendations for strengthening the position of the consumer by spreading information (paragraphs 20 to 26).
We have far more clued-up consumers than splendid laws, which will in any case be invoked by only a very small number of consumers, however aware they are.
It is a well-known fact that consumer awareness in the southern countries of the European Community is as yet less well developed and organized.
And this is where we need to start, not with all manner of rules and regulations.
So I also think it is a good thing that the Commission begins by publishing most of the ideas which emerge in green papers rather than coming out straight away with incompletely thought-through draft legislation on which no agreement is then possible in the Council.
I am thus very amenable to the rapporteur's suggestion that the proposals under the previous programme of consumer policy priorities should be consolidated and I compliment him warmly on his excellent report.
The European Commission will benefit by it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Whitehead, on an excellent report and his indefatigable work with the consumer intergroups.
Perhaps if the Council and the Commission had listened to him and to the intergroup earlier, the 'mad cow' problem - and others - would not have arisen.
Commissioner, I should like to throw down a challenge to you.
The challenge is that you withdraw this document because it is no good. Commissioner, this document is bad.
This document was drafted by a team under a former Director General who has since been replaced by Mr Papas, who went to the Committee on the Environment and said that the document was no good, and that he was not in agreement with it.
Now Mr Papas has already gone and has been replaced by a new Director General.
This document is not a legislative text, it is not a law with amendments, it is a text of political guidelines, setting priorities.
Therefore I should like to ask the Commissioner if the text of political guidelines is bad and cannot be put into practice, what is its use? I think it would be better to withdraw it - and I think that the rapporteur agrees with what I am saying, because I have already had an opportunity to discuss this with him - and present a document which might be more concentrated, with less priorities and which could really be transformed into a genuine action programme.
In this case, I promise her that all of us, in all of the political groups, from every part of the spectrum, will be here to support a report which has just four or five priorities for political action to help consumers in the coming years.
That is what is needed.
The rapporteur, after all, sets five priorities with which I agree: access to justice, either through courts, through arbitration machinery or through other mechanisms, the protection of the financial interests of consumers, improved information, converting consumer information into consumer power, a food policy and a human and animal health policy which is different to the one pursued so far and a clear and simple definition of what a universal public service is and how it can be applied.
Just two comments to finish up: I would like her to use Article 129A, more often, as this is a weapon which she has at her disposal and which she has not used so far.
We think that it could be used more often.
The other point is about a policy of granting subsidies to consumer defence organisations.
A few years ago the European Parliament - I was one of its authors - tabled a motion increasing the budgetary amounts for consumer protection associations in order to give them more support especially in the countries where they are lacking, such as Ireland and the southern countries of Europe, and also giving support to smaller associations.
On the contrary, the current policy has lent support only to the large European organisations, often forgetting that it is in the countries where consumer organisations are smaller and weaker that they are the more necessary.
Mr President, Members of Parliament, I must say that I am rather disconcerted by this debate.
First of all, may I remind you that this plan was presented to Parliament on the 3rd November 1995. You must have examined it in depth, as you presented to me a report on the priorities in February 1997!
So, my dear friends, let us be serious!
Mr. Pimenta, this plan is presented under my name and I dare hope that the Director-General has not betrayed me. If you think that he has done so, why did you not say so?
That really would be something that would call for disciplinary sanction.
And this Parliament is apparently very fond of disciplinary sanctions. It would have been preferable, rather than to say it publicly today, to have the kindness to let the Commission know sooner.
I remember very well that before this document was submitted to the Council and to Parliament, Parliament had asked me not to present a detailed action plan, but a general outline of intervention policies.
And if you read this document, you will see that the Commission has chosen as new priorities - as had never been done before - public services, financial services and the information society, and not products any more.
You should have thought about these priorities!
Because had I had to wait for your opinion before starting to do anything, since November 1995, I would have done nothing until today.
The debate should therefore be put back into context.
While waiting for you to reflect - since the 3rd November 1995! - the Commission, which had been asked to present a political plan, and not a plan of action which it worked out subsequently, presented a total of twelve proposals for directives concerning all the policies.
Out of these twelve, three - i.e. one quarter - concern consumer policy, and more precisely access to justice, guarantees and consumption credit, which is being discussed this afternoon.
After which, we presented you with the Green Paper on financial services, which will be debated shortly.
Parliament then rejected the remote financial service, which we will present again.
Everyone must therefore assume their responsibilities, as frankly, I hardly find it acceptable that the Commission is placed under accusation without recognition of everything it did in 1996.
Mrs Jackson, if you think that the document is of no value because it does not mention BSE, your government and your party could have been of major help to this institution and to the Commission if it had informed us of what was going on.
I would remind you that in 1996 the Commission formed the inter-service group.
We came up with three memorandums and the vademecum for consumers and the document - and maybe this is a detail you did not take on board - was presented in November 1995 and the crisis erupted in March.
(FR) Indeed, our relationship has always been loyal.
Having said that, I do not wish to review everything we have done, for example with regard to the pursuit of legislative activities, indication of prices, comparative advertising, etc., but I find the comments I have heard here to be rather unfair, hardly generous and most inaccurate.
Moreover, I would like to say that I obtained the powers with regard to health control exactly a week ago.
I would like to ask the Members of Parliament to be calm, as we will have to define together what it would be best to do.
I do not have a miracle solution, Mr Whitehead, and I have already said that I would come and listen to you in the middle of March to find out what you are proposing.
For example I believe that, bearing in mind my new responsibilities, it would be good for me to re-examine the Green Paper on food law - which was nearly ready - in the light of the changes in policies and priorities which have just been decided.
We have made a leap forward to the advantage of the consumer, but we should now set to work without excessive demagogy.
That is a challenge we must take up together.
I find it rather strange that I am asked today what are my decisions, my programmes, my ideas or - worse - those of the Commission regarding health, controls or the scientific committee.
I received these powers only a week ago!
I am not thinking so much of you, but of other interventions we have heard today.
Having said that, I will nevertheless reply to some more specific observations that have been made.
As regards the Green Paper, it was ready in the inter-service consultations, but I feel that in the new situation that has come to light since last week, it is my duty to re-examine it and see whether it is possible to push things a little further.
Mrs Kuhn, as regards baby food, one can always dream of revolution.
This does not prevent current law from having limits.
For as long as the treaty is not amended, the Commission is obliged to apply it as it is, and Mr Bangemann has started a proceeding against Germany for hindering free circulation.
We must respect the rules, whether or not we like them, until we come to change them.
As regards the instructions, I hope that it is an exceptional case, but I am very willing to find out more, as I did not know about it.
I do not wish to launch into a reply on a subject that I do not know, but I would like to learn more, in order to determine whether it is habitual practice or a particular case.
As regards subsidies to organizations - I am returning to the last remark from Mr Pimenta and others - we have been reproached for distributing money without exactly knowing why, while we introduced a procedure for encouraging consumer organizations to work together on Community projects, and we tried not to grant operating subsidies any more, but only to support specific projects.
I think we are now ready to publish in the Official Journal the result of our work, which has not been easy.
For southern European countries whose need is greatest, I myself sent a special adviser to the four countries, to meet all the consumer organizations, which are now in a position to make proposals.
I would like action from the consumer associations, rather than to tell them myself what they should do.
After a year's work, we are in a position to start projects covering the four countries of Mediterranean Europe - Italy, Portugal, Greece and Spain - in order to reinforce a consumerism culture which is little developed in southern Europe.
As regards Article 129 A, as you know, six member countries have submitted an amendment to the CIG; we ourselves have presented an amendment to Article 129.
We hope in this way to be able to promote the reinforcement of the consumer and health policy.
I would now like to talk about food labelling.
At this stage, I can only confirm what Mr President said yesterday in his speech - I quote: ' I argue for the gradual introduction of a proper food policy and, in this context, I am in favour of compulsory and systematic labelling' .
The DG XXIV has already launched a consultation and study involving consumer associations to try to define jointly what would be clear, important and pertinent information, so that consumers are no longer flooded with a tide of information in which they are lost.
For the moment, opinions largely conflict, and we will have to cut short as matters have reached political level, but we wanted to know at least the ideas of the consumer associations.
I do not know whether I have answered everyone.
I had a comment for Mr Garosci on the subject of the Euro, which is one of our concerns and which we are trying to discuss with the appropriate Commissioner.
I hope to have answered all the questions.
On financial services, we will hold a debate now.
I will therefore come back to it in detail with my colleague Monti.
With regard to the new health controls, the meeting with Parliament is fixed for mid March.
Mr President, as I had to speak this morning perhaps the Commissioner did not hear me and I should therefore like to address two specific questions to her.
Firstly, does Mrs Bonino agree or disagree with what her Director General said in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection about the consultative paper? Secondly, in view of what I said this morning, when will she be able to bring forward the Green Paper on food policies?
I wish her no harm. I want to see her strong and powerful.
We know the pressure she has to fight against within the Commission. All we want now is a certain candour in that matter in this debate.
Just one comment, Mrs Bonino.
You more or less accused our committee of having taken too long.
First of all, it takes several months before a committee receives the relevant documents.
You mentioned that we have also received the draft directive on guarantees for consumer goods.
I wanted to introduce it in committee in March, but when I had had the paper for four weeks, the Commission ordered a cost-benefit analysis.
That is fine, but I should not then be blamed at some future date for not working.
A word on baby food: I would recommend that you check whether, apart from the Baby Food Directive, there is an appendix somewhere with maximum pesticide levels.
If I remember rightly, that has never been done.
We have no European specifications.
Mr President, just to be quite clear: I cannot react to a statement by my Director-General because I have not been informed.
So, if you let me know - and possibly if you had let me know - it would be much more useful.
In any case, if you let me have the documents, I will certainly take a position.
On the Green Paper on food, as I told you, it was ready at service level, so it could come to the college.
Owing to the new responsibility and weight that we have as consumers, I have to take this opportunity to review the Green Paper and I will do it in the light of an empowerment that has been given to consumers.
So I cannot say that it will be ready tomorrow or next week, I am just saying that it was ready, but now there is scope to strengthen it.
But, certainly, in one month or two we can present it back to you.
On pesticides: again, you are asking me questions which I have just received, and we have to discuss this together.
I am not criticising Parliament for the delay, I am just saying that in the meantime of one year I have acted, Mrs Jackson.
This is not a worthless document.
Parliament asked me for a policy document and not for a plan of action, but it also got a plan of action.
So you have simply to decide when you ask for a document what you really want.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Green paper on financial services
The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Marinucci (A4-0048/97), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission Green Paper on 'Financial services: meeting consumers' expectations' (COM(96)0209 - C4-0339/96).
Mr President, financial services have become increasingly important to families and consumers.
The variety of financial services offered to consumers has increased, as has their use but, as a result of a lack of information or regulation or because of failures to act or fraud on the part of unscrupulous operators, many citizens have suffered damage and others have developed prejudices.
In this sector also, the internal market offers consumers new opportunities but it can also add to their unease and increase the disadvantages.
The fact is that while, on the one hand, competition and the opportunity of choosing between suppliers of these services, including from outside the national territory, add to consumer freedom of choice, the differences in legislation may be the source of new problems.
It is no coincidence that the use of crossborder financial services remains limited.
Consumers may refrain from using more advantageous or less expensive services because they lack the necessary information or, indeed, security.
We therefore need Community legislative action, and this is something that has become all the more urgent as we look to the achievement of monetary union.
In December 1995, at the same plenary session at which the exclusion of financial services from the proposal for a directive on distance selling was confirmed, the Commissioner, Mrs Bonino, undertook to the House to present a Communication which would - and these are her words - contain an action programme or even, should it prove necessary, a directive.
The House welcomed the fact that that promise was very shortly followed by the submission of the Green Paper we are today discussing.
But we do not agree with the Commission when it says that the aim of the single market in this area has largely been achieved through some 50 directives.
Furthermore, the second part of the Green Paper itself analyses the problems that still exist, such as the possible discrimination against non-residents, the lack or poor quality of information, the lack of rules on intermediaries and the lack of fiscal harmonization.
But that is not the whole story: to take just a few examples, in the area of insurance: a cooling-off period is provided for life assurance only but not, for example, for insurance against fire and theft.
As regards intermediaries, and again in the field of insurance, there is a recommendation dating from 1991, but it is by no means binding: there is no protection against the fraudulent use of credit cards.
Here too, recommendation 595 of 1988 did not have the effect of inciting the Member States to take positive measures to protect consumers.
On the issue of consumer credit, directive 102 of 1987 does not cover new services that did not exist at the time of its adoption.
The concept of the general interest has therefore to be better defined.
The reference in the banking directives, and the second banking directive in particular, allows scope for serious legal uncertainties.
And the list goes on.
The problem of distance selling, finally, dealt with in the third part of the Green Paper, is not covered by the legislation in force.
The relevant legislative committees have discussed the Green Paper in great detail and very perceptively and have overwhelmingly focused their proposals on the need for a coherent and complete Community legislative framework that takes a horizontal approach to problems recurring in more than one sector and a vertical approach to specific issues such as distance selling.
While we await the Commission response, I recommend to honourable Members - who are not now present in the Chamber but will, we hope, be here tomorrow - the amendments approved by a more or less absolute majority of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the opinion I drafted on this Green Paper for the Economic Affairs Committee I came largely to the same conclusions regarding the continuing problems which the consumer encounters over financial services.
The Economic Affairs Committee has identified five.
One: the internal market is not really working.
Using the national interest as an excuse, Member States cling to national laws which protect their market rather than their consumers.
It is time a case was brought before the European Court against the mandatory bonus/malus scale, the mandatory no-claim discount, the outlawing of interest-bearing sight accounts and other things.
To prevent further impediments a common definition of the general interest is also needed.
Two: the absence of fiscal harmonization forms a serious obstacle to the free movement of financial services.
In some Member States life assurance policies are still not tax-deductible if they are taken out in another Member State.
That is unacceptable.
Three: the dubious activities of non-regulated financial intermediaries, often operating by post or telephone, cast a shadow over the whole sector.
There must be Community rules on qualifications for and the exercise of this profession so that the consumer can sort the wheat from the chaff and know he can trust financial service providers.
Four: the provision of efficient and clear information must enable the consumer to reap the benefits of the single market in financial services.
He must be given enough knowledge of the advantages and know what enforceable rights he has in that market.
Financial service providers must operate voluntary codes of conduct as a way of optimizing the quality of information made available to the consumer.
And lastly I would advocate a further extension of the role of independent ombudsmen for the banking and insurance sector.
They must report on their activities so that those concerned can learn the necessary lessons and they must henceforth be involved in the preparation, realization and evaluation of legislation in the financial and insurance sector.
These are the issues which the Economic Affairs Committee regards as paramount.
I disagree with the rapporteur on one point.
I see no justification for a separate directive on distance selling of financial services.
For financial services the difference between transactions concluded at a distance and those not concluded at a distance is less relevant than when one buys a simple consumer good such as a book or a sweater.
Financial services are a different kettle of fish.
They are not visible or tangible and consequently they entail trust irrespective of whether they are sold at a distance or face to face.
The Liberal Group thus sets great store by rules to ensure better guarantees of the integrity of those who offer financial services.
Ladies and gentlemen, my Group is largely happy with the points made in Mrs Marinucci's report, but we do not want legislation always to be the first and preferred instrument of policy in solving these problems.
The sector of banking, insurance and investment is already the subject of no fewer than 50 directives and still the consumer cannot fully reap the benefits of the single market.
My Group suggests that the solution to some problems should be sought for example in voluntary codes of conduct, and that additional legislation should be proposed only where it is necessary.
Because legislation usually means an increased cost which is invariably passed on to the consumer.
We must indeed strive, not for more but for better and justifiable legislation.
I should appreciate the Commission's views here.
Madam President, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights has welcomed the work done by the rapporteur and has put to the committee responsible for the substance a number of points which I wish briefly to mention.
We have, in particular, stressed that Community legislation should be designed to guarantee greater competition on the supply side, effective freedom of movement on both the supply and demand sides, provision of adequate, accurate and effective information for individual consumers - who seem to us to be the least well protected under the current legislation - and greater transparency and certainty regarding cross-border contracts.
We have also sought to stress that Community legislation should act to limit the costs of cross-border contracts; promote the use of the language of the potential client; promote the search for and acquisition of information by one contracting party on the other on the basis of respect for rules governing personal data; promote the exercise of the rights of each contracting party in the Member State of the other contracting party; promote consumer information and education; guarantee respect for the principle of mutual recognition and ensure that due respect for the regulations of the client's Member State of stay or residence does not hinder effective freedom of movement and competition between financial products.
Those are some of the issues we sought to highlight.
It seems to us that there is still, at this stage, much to be done to provide genuine protection for consumers in this sector.
We are in any event persuaded that the Commission intends moving in the right direction by filling what we consider to be a number of gaps in the Green Paper.
Madam President, Commissioner Bonino has left us but it is worth remembering that this Green Paper is the result of a promise she made during the debate on distance-selling. Since she accused the Parliament today of dilatoriness, it is also worth remembering that it was not introduced to us in either the timescale or the form that was promised.
I want to congratulate Mrs Marinucci on what she has had to say about these matters for our committee and, indeed, for the Parliament.
She has done an admirable job.
When one looks at the Green Paper the heading is perhaps the most impressive thing about it. After that we get far more on summaries of the existing provision with regard to the financial services than we do of the future challenges.
What I want to say, is that we need to have more questions asked than this kind of tokenism.
The rapporteur rightly says that what we need is a clearly defined framework covering issues that are common to all financial services legislation, supplemented by vertical measures covering issues such as the distance-selling of financial products and the market for credit.
The more the single market develops and the more the proportion of cross-border trade develops, the need for consumer protection will also increase.
If the Commission recognizes that at a very simple level, it is surprising that they will not look at the issues which are involved as financial services themselves develop with the possibilities for consumers being ripped-off in the process.
The Marinucci report begins and ends with the recommendation that we begin to move towards a directive that will specifically protect consumers in this field.
That is what we have called for - constantly. That is what we said was necessary when we debated distance-selling in this House a year ago.
We are supporters of the single market. We want it to work but at each stage it must keep pace with levels of consumer protection that match the sophistication of those who might prey upon the consumer.
Commissioner Bonino and her newest Director-General would do well to ponder on how they use their extended power.
I hope that her colleague will report the strong feelings of the House on that matter.
Madam President, it is worth remembering that the whole debate on financial services actually got going after the European Commission initially included financial services with distance selling in the distance selling directive. Parliament endorsed that, the Council of Ministers scrapped it and we then had a debate in the second reading.
At the first reading - I say this for Mrs Kestelijn's benefit, she was nodding her head emphatically - at the first reading it was still firmly in there and not one of your Liberal members put down any amendments to get it removed.
At the second reading, when the Council had removed it, you did manage to get it removed by a couple of votes.
And then we had our debate.
Then we had a promise from Mrs Bonino that there would be a green paper on financial services because some people in the European Commission, notably Mrs Bonino, realized that something would have to be done.
The Green Paper appeared, and a list was compiled of the various laws governing banks, insurance companies and share dealing, and a number of problem areas were identified.
What I find unfortunate is that no concrete proposals were put forward.
I had hoped to see some.
I put down a number of amendments to Mrs Marinucci's report, aimed at impressing upon the Commission the need for rules on financial intermediaries.
My belief is that we shall also need legislation on electronic money transfers and credit and payment cards.
For the benefit of Mr Monti I would say that we sorely need this.
Then there is credit registration: no mention is made of this anywhere.
We know that there is voluntary credit registration in most of the Member States, and we know that some of those voluntary credit registrations liaise with each other, and I think the European Union should give an extra boost to that.
That is not to say that we have to do it ourselves, but we can give encouragement so that some form of greater cooperation takes shape.
If you apply for a loan from a distance and it is not known what level of borrowing you already have, what commitments you have entered into, that can cause problems not only for those receiving the loans but also for the provider.
So I think that some measure of support needs to be given to this voluntary cooperation which already exists in a number of countries.
Madam President, the specific question I should like to put to Mr Monti is whether or not he really intends to come up with a separate piece of legislation on distance selling within the next year.
I say that with a backward glance at Mrs Kestelijn; I am not happy that people should have fail-safe guarantees if they buy an insurance or savings policy or whatever from a door-to-door salesman, and that if sitting in your easy chair one fine evening you order something from the TV which has major consequences later, the supplier has no obligations towards you.
That is not covered.
Madam President, I hope the Commission will at last grasp that something needs to be done, that the decisions which have been taken must be reversed, and that a prompt debate is needed with a view to legislation.
It really is very necessary.
Madam President, I too agree that anyone reading the title of the Green Paper 'Financial services: meeting consumers' expectations' would say that this is a very useful and necessary thing, which especially in the countries in the South such as Greece, would make a serious contribution towards serving the needs of consumers, especially those who do not read the Financial Times, those who probably do not know many foreign languages, cannot read the small print, and do not have attorneys.
In other words, they might think that such a directive would have a serious and positive social dimension.
However, I think that when one looks more closely, it becomes evident that the directive deviates a long way from the ideals that inspired its title, it is mainly limited to remote sales and new electronic systems, as Mrs Marinucci very rightly stresses in paragraph 5 of the motion for a resolution, while a very broad sector relating to banks, insurance companies or securities is not covered by the directive at all.
I think this means that the Green Paper contributes very little to solving the problems it is supposed to address, and it mainly draws attention to the great gulf which must be bridged, because I think that with the development of technology and the increasing numbers of small savers, the problems to be addressed are indeed very serious and very difficult for the consumer to discern on his own.
Madam President, let me begin by thanking the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mrs Marinucci, for their support for the Commission initiative; that support is reflected in the report the House is today debating.
The report is also the product of the work of the two associated committees, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and I should like also to thank warmly the rapporteurs for those two committees, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens and Mr Florio.
On the occasion of the vote on the second reading of the - now adopted - distance selling directive, the Commission said that in agreeing to the exclusion of financial services, it would undertake to assess the need to protect consumers in relation to the distance selling of financial services and, more generally, the whole of the financial sector.
And we have done just that.
Today's report backs the effort the Commission has made to strengthen the protection of consumers as natural persons.
At the same time, taking into account the high level of interest attaching to consumer policy in the field of financial services, I have, together with Commissioner Bonino, undertaken to present a communication as soon as possible.
This will mark the Commission's official response to the wideranging consultation launched via the Green Paper, by establishing the priorities and time-scales for the measures we intend taking.
That communication will, of course, take account of the opinion of this House.
I shall discuss briefly the individual proposals that have been the subject of detailed discussion between Mrs Bonino and myself and on which we are in agreement.
Basically, we are able to accept various of the proposals put forward and I am referring in particular here to paragraph 5.
The report rightly points out that the absence of a clear definition of the concept of the general good may lead to its being applied in such a way as to create barriers to the free movement of services.
In the field of banking services, the Commission has already published a draft communication on the exercise of the freedom to provide services and the concept of the general good, firmly established in the second banking directive.
And I intend to finalize that communication as soon as possible and set under way a similar process of reflection for insurance services.
Paragraph 13 of the report calls upon the Commission to set under way a dialogue with the professional associations and bodies to identify, where possible, agreed solutions to disputes between consumers and the industry.
We intend encouraging dialogue between the parties at a European level, as frequently already happens at a national level, to promote codes of good conduct, in particular as regards consumer information.
I therefore intend monitoring closely its application and, should this prove unsatisfactory, I shall provide for binding legal instruments.
The dialogue has already been launched and needs to be extended.
The important paragraphs 14 and 15 of the report call for a variety of proposals.
Although we support the underlying objective, we are still considering whether or not horizontal legislation would be the most effective solution.
As regards consumer information in particular, we are considering inviting the parties to enter into discussion in order to have professional codes of conduct drawn up by the end of 1997.
After an appropriate period to allow for these to be applied, the Commission will monitor the results and, should that prove not to be a helpful approach, it will undertake to propose more binding measures, the feasibility of which will be considered at the same time.
But I do think it would be difficult to apply a measure on the quality and security of financial products. It would also be difficult to arrive at an appropriate definition of their content and purpose.
Turning to the competence and integrity of financial intermediaries, we are persuaded that legislative measures concerning non-regulated intermediaries in the insurance and banking services sector are useful, and these measures are to be put to the Commission shortly.
As regards the problem of access to basic services, a detailed analysis of the situation indicates that there are many different causes and that the impact differs from one place to another.
The Commission intends monitoring closely the experiments under way in the Member States.
Similar considerations would apply to excessive debt, and here I would suggest giving priority above all to measures designed to educate and inform consumers.
Let me now move on to the vertical measures, Madam President. We shall shortly be proposing to the Commission a proposal for a directive on the distance selling of financial services; this is based on the provisions of the general directive that has already been adopted but takes account of the particular features of the financial services sector.
This would protect consumers by according them, for instance, the right to a cooling-off period, where appropriate, and to information, and would also allow the industry to benefit from a market without frontiers which would otherwise be hampered by differing national legislation.
As regards credit cards, pre-paid cards and home-banking, we are looking into the appropriateness of proposing legislative measures at this stage, given that the market is developing at a great pace - we have therefore to consider whether this is appropriate just now.
An alternative solution could be substantially to revise the 1988 recommendation, extending it to cover new methods of payment and, possibly, following this up with more binding measures at a later stage.
As regards those technological aspects which require special handling, while we accept that the suggestion is timely, we propose dealing with them on a sectoral basis.
On the issue of mortgage credit, we agree that there needs to be a more detailed review - in particular on the point of transparency - before further measures are taken.
The Commission has recently set under way a study, the results of which will be available by the summer of 1997.
We therefore propose informing the House of the results of that study along with the necessary measures, if appropriate.
In that context, we have also to bear in mind that all of the vertical measures involve some standardization of the financial products, and this would automatically lead to greater transparency of the markets but would also make it easier for operators to reach agreements on prices, to the detriment of consumers.
Finally, in response to the demand of the House for initiatives in the insurance sector, I have to say that the Commission will be proposing, by the summer, a directive to protect the victims of accidents that have occurred in a country other than their country of residence.
I shall conclude with a number of rapid comments on points raised during the debate: in the area of bonus-malus , the Commission has already opened infringement proceedings; on the point of fiscal harmonization I fully endorse what was said in the Marinucci report and, as you will perhaps be aware, as Commissioner with responsibility for taxation, I have launched an effort to make the measures designed to coordinate taxation more effective, and that is something which will certainly affect the financial institutions also; it is our intention that completion of the internal market will be momentous and will be geared towards those who are its end-users, namely consumers themselves.
The Commission has undertaken to submit an action plan for the completion of the single market in time for the Amsterdam European Council.
Particular emphasis will be placed on the services sector, including financial services, and we believe that all this benefits consumers.
As you will remember, the Commission does not hesitate to propose legislative measures when they seem appropriate and beneficial to consumers.
The most recent examples of this have been the guarantee of bank deposits, the guarantee on investments - on which agreement, I am pleased to say, has just been reached - the directive that has been approved on cross-border payments and the new measures we have today announced in the House.
Firstly, Madam President: did I understand correctly that there is shortly to be legislation on financial services and distance selling? Can you confirm that?
How soon is shortly? Secondly, concerning payment cards: I know that our fellow-parliamentarians who addressed this matter in the eighties together with business and industry made a heartfelt plea to us for legislation.
I find the Commissioner is rather reticent about that. Can he tell us a little more?
Madam President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his very clear statement of what the Commission is committed to doing.
I largely share his point of view but I wonder why we should defer the question of credit cards given that they have now become common currency.
We know that another recommendation would have more or less the same effect as the last one.
I do not understand why further evaluation is needed here.
While I appreciate the need in regard to other issues, where there is perhaps need for reflection, I do not understand the need for it here.
On the matter of the general good also, is it sufficient to draw up a communication and then wait still further?
This too seems to me to be an issue on which the time is ripe.
I am very grateful for the information on the forthcoming proposal for a directive on the distance selling of financial services and hope that this will in fact come into being quickly.
I am grateful to both honourable Members for their questions which give me an opportunity to provide specific details.
As regards the legislation on the distance selling of financial services, I have already said that we believe this to be a useful measure and can tell you that we are aiming to submit it by September 1997.
On the issue of the new methods of payment: we intend to take action.
We are assessing - responsibly, I think, given that these are such new developments - the best way of doing this.
I wish simply to point out that this matter is the focus of particular attention, including by the banking supervisory authorities.
New methods of payment may involve problems of stability and security which may conflict with the contrasting needs of competition.
And so, from the point of view of the consumer also - and, as I believe I have made clear, we attach great priority to consumers - there are cases in which it is not clear which is the best solution because while consumers certainly have an interest in markets with a high level of competition, they also have an interest in financial instruments and methods of payment that are extremely stable and secure.
We are assessing the best way of balancing out these - at times conflicting - interests.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Union policy towards Algeria
The next item is the Council statement on Union policy towards Algeria, followed by a debate.
Madam President, we are talking today about Algeria and quite rightly, in my Group's opinion, since Algeria is a frightening example of a very deep-rooted social conflict which we see elsewhere too, the secular state clashing with violent fundamentalist groupings.
The situation is demoralizing and seems hopeless.
Dozens more people have lost their lives in the last few days.
The present Government has not yet managed to stamp out the violence and there seems to be no political solution to the conflict in sight.
Algeria look set to become a kind of North African Yugoslavia.
Moderate groups have no chance in the battle going on between the Government and the armed islamic groups.
We naturally condemn the attacks in the strongest terms, but at the same time find it hard to give unequivocal support to the Algerian Government.
It still has a credibility problem.
There can be no unconditional support, as the President said just now.
What counts is to isolate the terrorists completely.
It is easy to agree on that, but the Algerian Government cannot do it by itself.
National dialogue, with a place for everyone and elections in which all peaceful parties can take part, are needed to achieve that objective.
The Government has taken a few steps along that road and must continue, with encouragement from the Union.
The people of Algeria must again have a chance to make their views heard.
The elections must be free and safe.
What, for example, is the Algerian Government doing here to persuade those parties which do not want to cooperate? Whether or not the elections can succeed is one of the big questions.
The European Union can at least try to further this process of dialogue and elections and I think the Algerian Government would welcome it; we can stimulate national dialogue, insist on room for a civil society, on fair elections with maximum participation and fair terms for all, and where problems arise the Union must not hesitate to offer itself as a mediator.
The Algerian Government does not always seem able to make bridges to large sections of the public.
Until it can, it is impossible to isolate the terrorists totally and find the way back to a more peaceful society.
The EU should take action as outlined in the compromise resolution now before us, in the form of collective measures by the Union, a signal that the EU takes its relations with the region seriously and does not back away from serious problems.
Unanimous action by the Union is needed and collective measures like this are an excellent basis for it.
The question is whether the Union, the Dutch presidency, will have to courage to go for it.
Let us hope so, because the region will never be really safe if the Union avoids this kind of problem, this kind of wasp's nest, and it is at the same time a stern test of the Union's human rights policy and its efforts to integrate human rights into its strategy for the Mediterranean region.
Mr President, I listened to your statement with a fair degree of astonishment.
You spoke of trust in the Algerian Government, but you overlooked the fact that Mr Zeroual was only recently talking about extermination.
If that is a basis for trust, I am quite astounded.
You also said that reforms have taken place.
I am absolutely convinced that virtually no reforms have been implemented yet.
There is one thing you must not forget, Mr President-in-Office: it takes two to live in peace, but only one to start a war.
In this case it is not right to pick and choose negotiating partners either, as Mr Zeroual does; on the contrary, a statesman must speak to everyone.
This means being open and accommodating.
Allowing religion to influence these matters is not entirely helpful.
It must not be forgotten that many occurrences are ascribable to the feeling of despair that arose from the democratic elections simply being cancelled because their result did not please the potentates, who are noted, moreover, for their corrupt practices.
That simply must not be forgotten, Mr President.
That is why we must be clear about something else too. Terrorism is a consequence of many sins that have been committed.
Since the French moved out of Algeria, there has been one dictatorship after another.
There has been no democracy, and what they call democracy today operates like this: parties are declared to be democratic and selected to take part in the elections, while the Algerian people are not allowed to present the parties of their choice.
We must therefore consider the situation as it really is and be absolutely clear about the fact that it is high time to consider the basic principles of peace here.
We regard peace and reconciliation in Algeria as vitally important.
We said that in Barcelona.
We say it again and again.
But it will never be achieved if we only support one side, criticizing it mildly, perhaps, but not demanding the fundamental prerequisite of democracy, namely that all parties be allowed to take part in the elections on a basis of equal rights and opportunities.
We must therefore follow an unequivocal political line here.
A second aspect, Mr President-in-Office, is that we shall not succeed on our own.
The European Union is far too weak to take real action at the present time.
Let us not forget that we have already ruined our reputation as it is in Bosnia and elsewhere.
The plain fact is that we are regarded by many as a paper tiger.
We should therefore be trying to ensure that other forces join us in the peacemaking venture in Algeria.
It could be the Arab League, which was mentioned in our resolution.
It could be the Organization of African Unity.
We shall not manage it alone, so if we are serious in our intent, we must make a concerted effort with other bodies.
There is something else we should not forget. There is such a thing as a brave pursuit of peace.
We saw it with General de Gaulle.
He succeeded.
He was prepared to speak to his adversaries, and that led to the solution which undoubtedly resulted in certain benefits for France too, painful though it may have been for the French people.
I have visited Algeria many times, and I know what that meant to the French people, including those who lived in Algeria, but we have a responsibility towards that country.
We are in a Community with the Mediterranean region, and the path you have described to us, Mr President, will certainly not lead to peace.
We must apply quite different principles, and that is the purpose of our resolution.
Madam President, President of the Council, it is not without some outrage that I speak today in this context to denounce yet again the fresh outbreak of blind terrorism experienced by Algeria these past few hours.
I would like to send a message of solidarity to all those who are fighting, in peril of their lives, against terrorism, for the enforcement of democratic rights and respect for human persons.
I am thinking in particular of women and children.
The situation in Algeria preoccupies all Western democracies who are seeking positive dialogue whilst respecting cultural differences.
The European Union is searching for an association agreement with Algeria, wishing to establish structured political dialogue.
Last December, the European Parliament already voted on a resolution concerning Algeria, which the UPE group neither signed nor voted on.
This resolution certainly had the effect of irritating President Zeroual and sowing the seeds of misunderstanding between the European Parliament and this country.
Why do we have to go through it again now?
What is new that has not been evoked in this context? The new important element which would justify further statements of opinion is the start of an electoral process, the exact dates of which have not been decided but are expected to be at the end of May, beginning of June.
Discussions have been undertaken with all the parties, except the FFS.
All the parties have let it be known that they would take part in the elections.
In the face of this situation, how can the European Parliament play a positive role? Certainly not by relaying the declarations of one or another party.
Even less by posing as lesson-giver through resolutions which risk reducing dialogue between members of Parliament and Algeria, with the issue of successive resolutions which lead to negative reactions.
This is not the wish of our group, UPE, whose desire it is to respect and consider as responsible the declarations of the political authorities of Italy, Spain and France, and also those of the United States, which refuse to practice political interference disguised as mediation.
That we, as members of Parliament, are concerned about the situation is normal.
But for goodness' sake let us keep to our own place.
Let us plainly condemn terrorism and violence.
Let us support the successful performance of the electoral process so that it may take place with complete transparency.
Let us take part in the observation missions organized for this purpose, so that the result of this electoral consultation cannot be contested by anyone and democracy can finally be installed in Algeria, favouring the re-establishment of peace.
We are replying today to the invitation of the Council, which desired a debate on Algeria.
Does this initiative have to lead to a resolution, or would we prefer to invite the Algerian Foreign Affairs Minister, who holds bilateral dialogue with our countries, to come to talk to our own Foreign Affairs Committee, and answer questions posed by the members of Parliament? It is not by voting on resolutions such as that put forward today to our vote that we will encourage a climate of meetings and dialogue.
So my group will not vote in favour of this resolution.
Like the Council, we say that Algeria deserves confidence and critical support.
Madam President, this year Ramadan will have been one of the most murderous in the history of Algeria.
Over 300 Algerians, men, women and children, have died.
The GIA promised terror... it has certainly kept its word.
Nevertheless, the Algerian authorities do not appear to be unduly concerned about this terrorism, which they qualify as 'residual' .
The dirty war thus continues with its procession of victims, for the most part civilians.
The constitution of armed militia by the authorities is tending to precipitate the infernal cycle of vengeance and to lead inexorably towards civil war.
The spiral of violence which Algeria is experiencing is allowing the authorities to justify and consolidate the legislation of exception which it has introduced.
Since the end of Ramadan, press accounts issued during these last few days have recorded over 200 deaths.
The methods used by the armed groups are becoming more extreme; entire villages are thus being burned down and their inhabitants are suffering the most abject barbarism that can be imagined.
The population lives in permanent anguish, threatened either by bombs in the towns, or by massacres in the villages.
The resolution passed here by our Parliament last December was, it is true, severely condemned by the Algerian authorities.
I am sorry, and we are sorry, as all we did was denounce the atrocities whose victims are the Algerian people, this people who rejects violence and wishes to live freely and in dignity, this people who, more than any other, aspires to peace, freedom and democracy.
To regain peace and eradicate the terrorism which rages in Algeria, the government must establish dialogue with all the democratic opposition.
The European Council will have to assume its responsibilities and take part in the negotiations which will allow Algeria to go towards truly democratic elections, next June.
The good mark accorded to the Algerian team by the Commissioner Mr Marín seems to be to be rather naive in the current political and social context.
And with reason: the new law passed yesterday by the national Council of transition aims to harden the conditions of creation of political parties; all references to religion, language or region are prohibited.
The social climate is not ceasing to deteriorate, over one quarter of the population is unemployed, and naturally the young are the most affected.
Entire families have nothing to eat, for lack of decent incomes.
For all these reasons, the Council and the Commission must be excessively vigilant with regard to allocating aid.
The Euro-Mediterranean agreement must be targeted on development projects and projects which recognize the important role of women.
The European Union must aim to support an economic transformation of Algeria, so that it can change from a State-controlled and oil-dependent economy to a more diversified economy with more emphasis on the private sector.
This aid must be accompanied by conditions to be met with regard to fundamental human rights.
Although it is true that it is not possible to imagine the construction of a democratic State without freedom of expression - as declared by Mr Zeroual - the Council must exert pressure so that the censure on information in the field of security may be lifted.
The new draft law on the press which the government is preparing to introduce aims to muzzle the press.
It is unacceptable for fundamental human rights - which include indefeasibly freedom of expression and consequently freedom of the press - to be called into question.
Although I can understand the difficulties facing the Algerian government, I cannot accept that, every day, civilians pay with their lives for this violence which unfortunately has become established in Algeria.
We must help the Algerian government and people to reinstate well-deserved peace.
It is also a matter of our credibility.
Madam President, when horror reaches such a degree, reason often fails to accompany our actions.
Here, we are behaving as if to give lessons was not our duty.
With reason, we gave lessons on South Africa.
With reason, we are giving lessons on Turkey.
And if we wished to give lessons on Algeria, well, we are giving lessons on Algeria.
Let us stop lying to each other.
Representative of the Council, stop, in your naivety, which is the naivety of French foreign policy, saying: ' Everything is fine in Algeria - things are going in the right direction' .
A book has just been published, by Graham Fuller, who was the former CIA official for the Middle East, in which he explains that American policy aims for victory by the FIS.
I would like to know what Western and democratic countries want in Algeria. There is the same political framework as in Afghanistan, where the Americans played the integrists, with the broken pots we know about.
On the other hand, it is clear that we are on the side of the Algerian victims and people.
It is clear that we condemn religious integrist terrorism.
But it is clear that Mr Zeroual's government will not take Algeria out of the rut it has fallen into.
That is our problem.
Let us stop lying. When we now say we would like a solution involving dialogue, we must obviously ask the so-called Islamic organizations to condemn, not only politically but also morally, the use of terrorism.
But it should also be said that the Islamic family code was introduced by the FLN, that Mr Zeroual's government maintains the Islamic family code, that Mr Zeroual's government also wants an Islamic state.
That is the terror of Islamic terrorism.
Why am I saying this? Because I believe that we should push each other towards a certain laicity.
We should push each other in a certain direction, and this means dialogue between murderers.
Because some, I do not say all the government, but some of the institutions of the Algerian state are sheltering murderers, as on the other side there are murderers.
In this dramatic and difficult situation, there is no easy solution.
Does the FIS have to participate in the elections?
I do not know. Should it be excluded?
I am not sure. But if we do not move in the direction of democratic dialogue with a special European envoy, we will come to grief.
We must give lessons in politics to all those who dream of a society that does not exist in Algeria.
Madam President, in Algeria, in a few months, a few thousand people have been killed either by murderers who adorn themselves with the tawdry finery of Islam, or by solders transformed into executioners.
Several years of this regime have led the Algerian people to a state of absolute despair, but the time has nevertheless come to recall the contents of the texts signed by the Algerian government in Barcelona, in 1995, on the exercise of fundamental freedoms and human rights.
The signing of an association agreement between the European Union and Algeria is on the agenda.
Parliament must render its attitude strictly subject to the guarantees the Algerian authorities will give with regard to keeping the promises they have made.
I am not sure that we have to give lessons!
At all events, my country, which already has many towns in the hands of racists and xenophobes, would be in a particularly bad position for doing so.
Instead let us be glad to see an electoral consultation take form on the horizon in the next few months.
But a previous disturbing interruption of voting somewhat darkens this horizon.
It remains that a sort of rationing for access of candidates must be avoided.
All the political forces which oppose violence, which refuse to approve, excuse or 'understand' it, must be the recipient in this political battle.
As regards the conference which would bring together all the parties concerned, it is probably premature and a cessation of the massacres would probably follow talks held protected from the eyes of the press.
With regard to the proposal of mediation that could help the Algerians emerge from the drama which is tearing them apart, it arouses considerable emotion, especially among those who consider such a proposal as imperialistic, colonial, what do I know?
It should be said to all anti-colonial and anti-imperial supporters - among whom I count myself - that by force of being held back by blame or a guilty conscience, we should therefore accept that, as in Bosnia or the Middle East, a special envoy of the President of the United States should take the place that we have not had the courage to occupy.
Madam President, Algeria continues to offer us a devastating spectacle of daily barbarism.
The multiplication of armed groups places national unity in peril.
The confrontations between progovernment militia and armed integrist groups maintain a permanent climate of violence in both urban and rural environments, which is ruining and discouraging efforts of development.
A country which has all the necessary assets for achieving a rise similar to that of Asian countries is spoiling its chances and squandering its assets.
What can Europe do to help the reconstruction of the Algerian nation? Firstly reaffirm, very clearly, its desire for the survival of Algeria as a State.
We have nothing positive to expect from a disintegration of the unified Algerian State.
Within the Arab world, sound States constitute the best possible counterweights against the propagation of an Islamic fundamentalism which generates instability.
No one will gain advantage from Algeria sinking into a 'hundred year war' and forming, on our southern border, an area of long-lasting instability.
Instead each of our countries has an interest in that it should emerge from chaos, even if in a fumbling manner, and become a stable pole, organizing its development in partnership with us.
The development of Algeria and better mastery of migration phenomena are unquestionably linked.
Secondly, it is best to avoid anything that can feed civil war.
In particular, avoid irresponsible interference, partisan gesticulations or irrelevant parliamentary resolutions which each Algerian faction immediately hastens to turn to its advantage.
It would be the worst possible service we could render Algeria to give the impression that we are with one camp rather than another.
We do not have to take the place of the Algerians to determine their fate. What we can do, if necessary, is to help ensure that the forthcoming legislative elections are as incontestable as possible, so that political confrontation replaces armed confrontation.
We can also propose cooperation principally orientated, within the framework of the association agreement, in favour of reconstituting the social fabric, so that Algeria can one day have the intermediary bodies and mediation authorities necessary for the operation of a democracy.
Madam President, so the House is trying once again to take a position on the civil war in Algeria.
What will it lead to? Nothing.
Because a text of this Parliament will have condemned violence, denounced terrorism - blind, of course, as if terrorism were anything but blind! - denounced infringements of human rights, called on democratic elections and dialogue between all parties and expressed its support for democratic forums, will the number of deaths decrease in Algeria?
No one is deceived and, in particular, none of the signatories of this text, nor you, Mr Cohn-Bendit and Mr Kouchner, nor the self-proclaimed intellectuals, brought together at the Mutualité by solidarity with the Algerian people.
You know well that the calls issued from Boulevard Saint-German in Paris or from this floor will not save a single Algerian life.
On the other hand, it is our compatriots who are risking to pay with their lives for some remarks whose only effect is to increase the fervour of the Algerian terrorists, both those of the Islamic opposition and those of the military power, already active in our urban centres.
But bombs do not concern those who do not travel either by RER or by metro.
In actual fact, some wish to redeem themselves for behaviour in that which stands instead of conscience, media opinion.
They are often the same who, in 1980, partisans of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, of the Vietcong in Vietnam, Maoists converted in the 'New Philosophy' , the press, show business, advertising, signed petitions in favour of the 'boat people' , victims of their ideology.
They carry a fairly high responsibility in the misfortunes of Algeria, which do not go back to 1992, but to 1962.
Some of our colleagues - is it not so, Mr Rocard? - have devoted their youth to supporting the FLN terrorists!
In 1962, did they not bear witness to the 3, 000 Algerian-born French people deported to the FLN death camps, the 150, 000 harka members scalded, buried alive, emasculated, dismembered by their friends! Did they show one hundredth of the compassion they now show for the Nomenklatura fellaga ?
I remember Melouza, I remember all these crimes against humanity... but who will judge these crimes against humanity? It is true that the victims were French and that the French are subhuman and do not have the right to justice or to the court of History.
In defence of the latter, it could be said that they were not the only ones.
All the governments of the Vth Republic, after delivering French Algeria to the killers of the FLN, did not stop supporting the Algerian dictators from Ben Bella to Zeroual.
This support cost dearly.
In 1962, our compatriots were led to believe that the withdrawal of our nation from the frontiers of France would have the advantage of relieving them of the burden of Algeria.
Untrue!
This burden has become crushing.
By the million, Algerians are leaving the poverty which engulfs their country.
Each year, we are paying tens of thousands of million francs to the Zeroual nomenklatura , which only gives us spit in return and now even prohibits the teaching of French in Algerian schools.
In January 1992, our leaders took part in the Algerian civil war, supporting the military coup d'état which quashed the first free elections.
Our country has been gradually dragged into this conflict.
At the time, we were the only ones in the House to point out the dangers of such a position.
What should we do now? In the first instance, protect the nationals of our States.
In the short term, our governments - and the French government in particular - must stop supporting the faction which is currently in power, prevent the arrival of Algerian nationals and re-establish order in districts harbouring terrorist networks.
For the rest, you do not know what to do, and moreover you cannot do anything.
Madam President, no one with the slightest concern about human rights can possibly be other than horrified by the savage murders and devastating atrocities perpetrated in Algeria over the course of the last five years.
Let us at least agree on that.
Every day brings new massacres like the thirty-three villagers beheaded to which Mr Patijn referred.
Schoolgirls have been murdered for refusing to wear a veil.
Trade unionists have been killed like the leader of the General Workers Union.
Innocent people are targeted.
In this Parliament we surely are going to condemn that out of hand and condemn all those who support it.
It is said that some of these people receive funds from Iran and other fundamentalists centres in the Middle East and that there are people in Europe who are supporting them.
We must take whatever action we can to oppose terrorism of that kind.
The Algerian Government must of course recognise that it cannot underestimate the immense importance of upholding democratic values and human rights if it is not to alienate those who oppose fundamentalism but believe in freedom and democracy.
We welcome the proposals to hold elections later this year.
It is vital that everything possible should be done in the difficult circumstances which prevail to enable all genuinely democratic forces to participate. That is not the position yet.
In the long run, however, we must recognise in the European Union, as well as elsewhere, that people in the developing countries throughout the world are being driven towards support for intolerant and violent movements by the experience of increasing poverty and deprivation.
Neo-liberal economics which result in more unemployment and hopelessness will bring in new recruits for fundamentalism and other intolerant creeds and fan the flames of terrorism and violence.
Only by achieving better living standards for all can we provide the conditions for the advance of democracy and human rights which we all support and I hope that also will be borne very much in mind by the Council.
Madam President, for quite a long time now European citizens have been horrified - and that word has been used quite a lot in this debate - by events in a country very close to the southern countries of Europe, and as a Spaniard I am particularly aware of that.
The terrorists in Algeria are knifing hundreds of innocent citizens almost daily, including women, children and journalists, as the President of the Council has mentioned.
We cannot keep silent in the face of such barbarity as human beings, let alone as politicians.
But it also requires a very cool head and considerable objectivity, prudence and wisdom to grasp the complex problem it raises.
Algeria is a Maghreb country, and like all the Maghreb countries, its political, economic, social and cultural development has special features which should not be forgotten.
Countries like Spain, Italy and France, which are close geographically and in terms of their economic and social inter-relationships, are especially sensitive to the vagaries of the events taking place there, and hence they affect the interests of the European Union as a whole very directly.
The Euro-Mediterranean Conference is a good forum for extending the search for solutions contributing to the stability of a zone which affects us all.
The policy of assisting the economic and social development of those countries is intelligent and right, because the spread of fanaticism and violence has economic roots in underdevelopment and real misery and hunger.
Furthermore, everything that can contribute to its political development, in terms of technical support and observation of its electoral processes and in the sphere of dialogue with the government, which has to deal with the terrorist violence, will undoubtedly contribute to bringing that country closer to the democratic culture and respect for human rights espoused by western countries.
The European Union cannot turn its back on what is going on in Algeria at this moment.
A great deal is at stake. The Council must bring forward initiatives which foster understanding and dialogue between the political and democratic forces in that country and cooperate in the fight against terrorism, which is unfortunately being transmitted to our own European soil.
Finally, the European Union must play an active role to avoid projecting the poor image it has had in other conflicts very close to us in time and space.
Madam President, the citizens of Algeria will only be able to live together in peace when the terrorist crimes have ceased and the process of democratic transition has been restarted. This calls for a dialogue between the representative political forces which can isolate the men of violence and allow a free and pluralist general election to be held.
That is the direction European Union action and, of course, this Parliament's support, should take, rather than the one proposed in the resolution. We should work towards an agreement with Algeria, which would benefit both parties, contribute to solving the socio-economic problems of that country, for example massive youth unemployment, and promote full respect for human rights of both men and women.
To end the Algerian tragedy, it is essential to guarantee the stability of the Maghreb and the Mediterranean, a priority objective for Europeans and even more so for neighbouring countries like Spain.
Because, Madam President, it would be quite wrong to see European action in Algeria as an exclusively French issue.
France has political responsibilities, but the first group of speeches in this sitting have shown that we too have the right and indeed the duty to speak.
Madam President, what is at stake in Algeria is the safety of the people, and also respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, the stability of the Mediterranean basin and the future of EuroMediterranean policy.
The European Union cannot remain silent, powerless and passive in the face of the dramatic events that are taking place in that country.
We must first of all denounce the blind violence in which the Islamic terrorists are indulging, the daily massacres, the cars exploding in the streets of towns, the systematic massacre of journalists, intellectuals, of all those who commit the crime of wishing to think freely.
But we must also denounce with equal vigour the violence and infringements of human rights committed by the security forces.
The legitimacy enjoyed by the power following the presidential elections does not make all the means it uses also legitimate.
Barbarism should never be answered with barbarism.
That said, it would be dangerous to class together scandalous extortion, which must be denounced, committed by the authorities and the criminal fanaticism of the integrists.
The sometimes scandalous behaviour of the authorities must not incite us to showing more complaisance towards the Islamic terrorists.
The democrats must also be supported.
One often forgets that there are democrats in Algeria.
I am sure that they represent the majority of the Algerian people.
These democrats are unfortunately divided, which is a factor of weakness, but they all lead the same courageous fight against the power at the risk of their lives, also against the Islamics.
We must therefore show them our solidarity and give them our support.
We must urge the Algerian government very strongly to finally open a dialogue without second thoughts, with all the democrats in Algeria and all the politicians and groups which would agree to renounce violence.
Finally, we must announce our confidence in the Algerian people.
Many Algerians today despair of their country.
They see no future at the end of the road of pain and suffering.
We must help Algerians to believe in Algeria, to be aware of Algeria's assets, as Algeria does have assets.
First of all the quality of the men - and especially the women - who are fighting often with admirable courage.
In May 1992, I had a long conversation with President Boudiaf.
He told me his dream of making Algeria the leading Muslim country which, without renouncing its roots - all its roots - could become both a democracy and a nonreligious country.
A few days later, President Boudiaf was assassinated.
I believe that we must help the Algerians represent Mr Boudiaf's dream on their own behalf and make it a reality.
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, despite the parliamentary respect you are entitled to receive from me and the respect I accord to the fine parliamentary speeches - flamboyant, emotional, stirring speeches - that we have heard this afternoon in this debate, with all due respect I do not think this is what is needed in Algeria now.
What is needed is effective policy, no more, no less.
We need to help.
And we need to be capable of knowing how to help in the right way.
Last Ramadan indeed resulted in an escalation of violence and terror.
Faced with that we must condemn the massacre - and we do. We must also combat it with all the weapons at our disposal.
Mr President of the Council, the next general election must become a genuine step forward towards democracy and peace.
And for that to happen I have two suggestions.
The first is for Algerian women to play an important political role in the future.
Efforts must be made in that direction.
It is possible and it will be effective.
Algerian women should lead civil and political society in that country.
And the Algerian people will support this aim.
The second proposal is for the European Union to join forces with Algeria to provide some minimum guarantees of safety and freedom at the next elections.
That is the kind of action we need.
Mr President of the Council, the motion for a resolution the European Parliament is going to adopt also makes positive points which need to be taken into account.
Since 11 February, President Zerual and the representatives of the various political forces have been involved in the necessary dialogue we are calling for, and that is an encouraging sign.
Sending observers to the next general election is another positive signal.
I repeat, we must act effectively.
Let us do so.
Madam President, I am grateful to all those who have spoken for their blunt and unconditional condemnation of terror and mindless violence.
But I think that the great majority of speakers also advocated continuing our cooperation with Algeria and I should like to stress the importance of that again.
The peoples of the European Union and Algeria are, if you like, &#x02BC;condemned' to work together.
For reasons of geography, for reasons of history and for social and humanitarian reasons.
And from the European point of view we do that with total respect for the cultural and religious traditions of our North African friends and total repudiation of the fundamentalists' abuse of those traditions.
The Council remains willing to work with the present Algerian Government provided we are convinced that it is working to restore democracy and better respect for human rights.
We thus call on the Government to hold elections in 1997 and to make them open and free.
For our part I repeat that the European Union is prepared, as part of its Mediterranean policy, to give structural aid on a longterm basis for the social and economic development of the Algerian people under a bilateral cooperation agreement.
Thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office.
I should like to inform the House that I have received six motions for resolutions under Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-0001/97).
Question No 1 by Wayne David (H-1026/96)
Subject: Police treatment of Sonia Esmeralda Gomez Guevara and Carmen Velasquez
Is the European Council aware of reports by Amnesty International concerning two Guatemalan girls, Sonia Esmeralda Gomez Guevara and Carmen Velasquez?
It is alleged that the two girls were detained on the 18th street in Guatemala City, accused by three uniformed men of being street children.
The men apparently threatened the girls by saying that they would be arrested for marijuana possession if they did not go with them to the police station.
En route, the girls were dragged into a back alley and, allegedly, Sonia was raped by two of the three men.
To date, I have received no reply to my correspondence from either the President of Guatemala or the Guatemalan Embassy.
Will the European Council inform the European Parliament how it intends to bring pressure to bear on the Guatemalan government on the issue of street children in particular and on human rights in general?
I should like to comment as follows on Mr Wayne David's question concerning the treatment by police of Sonia Esmeralda Gomez Guevara and Carmen Velasquez.
The Council has not discussed the matter to which the honourable member refers.
As he is aware the Council attaches great importance to human rights and fundamental freedoms.
In the context of renewing the San José dialogue, to which Guatemala is a party, the promotion of human rights, including the issue of street children, is seen as a key objective which must be given priority in the European Union's relations with the countries of Central America.
This is apparent too from the fact that the development cooperation programmes of the European Union and its Member States in Guatemala are aimed particularly at promoting human rights and providing information and training on human rights.
I thank the President-in-Office very much indeed for that encouraging response.
However, I wonder whether I could press him slightly further, and ask if he would explicitly state that, unless there is an improvement generally in the human rights situation, the European Union would consider withholding development aid funding?
Secondly, is the Council prepared to make any kind of representations concerning the specific case which I have cited in my question?
In view of recent political developments in Guatemala I wonder if now is the right time for the European Union to draw attention to political conditions there.
I recall that very recently an important process of political reconciliation was completed there, something absolutely essential if democratic conditions are to be fully restored, and if human rights, including the rights of street children, are to be properly upheld, and in these circumstances there is little reason at present to do anything specific on behalf of the European Union.
As part of the San José dialogue, which resumes in a few weeks' time, we shall of course raise this specific issue in the appropriate manner.
Question No 2 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-1029/96)
Subject: Multilingual computerized services
What plans does the Council have to promote language diversity so as to encourage multilingual computerized services?
On 21 November 1996 the Council adopted a multiannual programme to promote linguistic diversity in the information society in the European Community which exactly meets the concerns of the honourable member.
This programme, which has already begun and for which a total of 15 million ECU has been earmarked to be spread over three years, has the following objectives: firstly to encourage the use of technologies, aids and methods which will cut the cost of information transfer between languages and of developing multilingual services.
Secondly, to further the growth of the language industries.
Thirdly, to encourage the development of multilingual services.
The Commission is responsible for implementing the programme and for coordinating it with the other programmes of the Community.
I am delighted the Council has decided to boost all activities to facilitate the introduction of all its languages into electronic communications, but I have to remind you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that we are faced with an urgent operation which ought to be completed, if possible, even faster than the three years you have announced.
It does not seem reasonable to continue with the current situation, where most or all computerized information services are offered exclusively in English, because that is an assault on the linguistic diversity of the Union, and an obstacle to the corresponding language industries, which are so important.
The Council has told us today that it has made a budget of ECU 15 million available for the promotion of a programme of linguistic diversity within the Union.
That is not much, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, but at least it is a start.
I note that a series of objectives are mentioned - all of them are important, and naturally they include employment.
But I want to draw attention to the fact that, in addition to this, there should be recognition of the importance of facilitating access for SMEs to this type of facility and reducing the conversion costs.
I shall end, Mr President, by saying that all this is necessary because, unfortunately, the goal of a single language is not as close as the goal of a single currency.
My thanks to the honourable member for prompting me on that.
Coming as I do from a language region of 22 million people, rather smaller than your own, I understand your concern very well and I shall pass your comments on to the Council and Commission so that we can see if in the course of implementing this programme we can add some particular refinements.
Question No 3 by Mihail Papayannakis (H-1030/96)
Subject: Convergence criteria and defence spending
The recent debate and commentaries concerning the 'criteria' set by the Treaty for the inclusion of individual Member States in EMU are a matter of particular interest.
It has been increasingly suggested by many different, more or less official circles that the fulfilment of these criteria by each individual country is subject to a 'political interpretation', although the content of this 'political interpretation' varies from case to case.
The Council has already formulated a policy on this matter, representing as far as possible a uniform view.
Would it be possible, for instance, for a 'political' discussion and interpretation of this kind to cover the disproportionately high defence spending of one country (whose purpose is not to solve economic problems) if, for example, this spending accounted for a higher proportion of GNP than the average in the other Member States, so that at least the excess spending would not be taken into account in a 'political' evaluation of the progress of this country towards EMU?
My answer to Mr Papayannakis is as follows.
Regarding the possibility to which the honourable member refers I must say for the record that under the current rules for EMU the convergence criteria are entirely clear.
Defence spending usually counts just like other government spending when calculating the maximum deficit which must remain below 3 % of gross national product in every Member State, and if that level is exceeded it may mean the denial of access to stage three of EMU.
Mr President, I do not know whether I understood the President-in-Office's answer correctly.
Military expenditure is clearly public expenditure.
There is no questioning that.
Yet, in Dublin the following issue was discussed: that it could be debated whether the 3 % limit is being exceeded and whether that is permissible, since there are exceptional circumstances independent of the wishes of the Member State.
It must be accepted that situations exist in which extraordinary military expenditure may be both exceptional and independent of the wishes of the Member State, especially when that expenditure is motivated by threats of force which are in any case internationally prohibited.
So the question I asked the President-in-Office was to what extent, in such a situation, would it be possible to regard that kind of expenditure as a justification for exceeding the 3 %.
I find the honourable member's whole case somewhat hypothetical.
In principle I think we cannot, for the correct application of the convergence criteria for Economic and Monetary Union, really differentiate between categories of expenditure; spending is spending.
Special extraneous circumstances are more concerned with special economic circumstances and not so much with external threats.
Take my own country, for example.
About half my country lies below sea level.
But I do not expect special treatment on the convergence criteria because of the especially high costs of pumping out all that extra water.
Question No 4 by Anne McIntosh (H-1033/96)
Subject: European Union measures to combat paedophilia
Will the Council outline the measures it proposes to take to ensure a common European Union approach to tackle the sexual exploitation of children, including measures that will ensure judicial cooperation between Member States in this area?
In view of the Council decision to agree to joint action to fight paedophilia, can it give further details on the multi-annual programme (1996-2000) for the training and exchange of persons involved in combating the problem? In what ways does the Council envisage that its budget will be utilized?
Mrs McIntosh has asked an important question and I shall respond for the Council as follows. The European Council in Dublin expressed its abhorrence at the sexual exploitation of children and trafficking in human beings and undertook to take all necessary action against it.
The European Council called on the Council and Commission to implement the measures agreed by the Council during the Irish presidency in an ongoing manner and to consult about the further measures required.
As the Council previously indicated in earlier replies to the honourable member, the measures, some of which admittedly have not yet been formally adopted, aim to improve police and justice cooperation and they also relate to training.
The measures are as follows.
Firstly, a proposal by the Irish presidency to have trafficking in human beings included in the remit of the Europol drugs unit.
Secondly, a Belgian proposal for a programme to encourage exchanges and training for persons in charge of measures to counter trafficking in human beings.
This is the so-called STOP programme.
It would need a budget of 6.5 million ECU.
Thirdly, a proposal by the Belgian delegation and others to compile a list of experts and specialist bodies with a view to preventing trafficking in human beings.
Fourthly, a Belgian proposal for a collective approach to the prevention of sexual exploitation of children and trafficking in human beings, together with measures for cooperation among Member States.
The Council attaches great importance to the need to have these issues tackled swiftly and efficiently and the Dutch presidency will also give these things high priority.
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
My concern is that now in 1997 we are half way through the multiannual programme. It would be easier for us in the European Parliament to monitor this if we knew in some more detail what these measures are, as they are agreed.
The President-in-Office referred to the work of the outgoing Irish presidency.
Could he share with us his priorities during his tenure of office? For example, the Irish President-in-Office was very keen on safe streets and proposed measures to make them safe for children as well as adults.
I particularly welcome the cooperation we are going to see between the police and the courts, with an emphasis on training.
I am particularly concerned that the Internet is being abused by both pornographers and paedophiles.
If, for example, there is ever going to be a national register of known paedophiles within a Member State, would this also be shared between the other Member States' authorities?
Let me fill the honourable member in a bit.
The motto of the Irish presidency was not just &#x02BC;safe streets' but also &#x02BC;sound money'.
I have taken due note of what she says.
Please do not hold it against me if I cannot give you a precise answer at the present time, but I shall ask the Council, and notably the section of it which deals with justice and home affairs, to brief you later either in writing or verbally at a meeting with the Legal Affairs Committee on progress in the programme's implementation.
I would like to return to the subject of the Internet.
I am sure the Minister will agree with me that the Internet at the present time is still in its infancy.
We know that paedophiles are using the Internet.
Would the President-in-Office agree that this is the ideal moment to establish a European Union and, indeed, a worldwide code of conduct with mandatory ability to cut off sources which allow paedophile material to be accessed via the Internet? This is an opportunity which we really ought to take and I hope the Minister can give us some concrete assurances in this regard.
I share the honourable member's concern for efficient ways to tackle misuse of the Internet for the sexual exploitation of children and paedophilia.
The Council of justice and home affairs ministers, and the telecommunications ministers too, are currently working on this.
The main concern is to stop abuse by means of good national and international agreements and measures, but at the same time to prevent the huge economic potential of the Internet from being fragmented and weakened by a multiplicity of uncoordinated national measures.
Question No 5 by Irini Lambraki (H-1036/96):
Subject: Funding Community action to deal with exceptional circumstances
Everyone knows that agricultural production is directly dependent on weather conditions and a number of other unforeseen factors.
Effective measures to deal with the problems which arise from time to time - either from acts of God or from other causes, such as the recent case of BSE - often come up against the failure to provide the necessary appropriations in the budget.
Does the Council consider that a mechanism should be created for tackling such exceptional circumstances, and what does it think of funding Community action by creating a specific line in the budget?
In reply to Mrs Lambraki I should say first of all that the European Community budget contains a number of headings under which emergency aid can be given to victims of natural disasters.
They include heading B 4/3400, emergency aid to victims of disasters in the Community.
Likewise all headings under Title B 5.2, which fund interest subsidies on loans for natural disasters occurring in the Community, and aid was provided under these to victims of the Italian earthquakes in November 1990 and Greece in March 1988 and September 1986 and of the hurricane in Madeira in 1993.
We also have Title B 7.2, which covers food aid and humanitarian aid to population groups in the developing countries who are the victims of natural disasters or serious crises.
In general and in line with the Treaty the Commission is responsible when drawing up the budget for proposing a level of budget appropriations as close as possible to anticipated needs.
In the second place the recent BSE crisis has shown that the Community is reliably able to be flexible and to find the resources it needs to meet dramatic and unforeseen situations which cannot be categorized as natural disasters.
The existing provisions and existing practices thus suggest that crises such as the BSE affair can be absorbed perfectly well.
So I do not believe it is necessary to have large sums in reserve at all times to meet possible unforeseen emergencies.
Mr President, I would agree with the President-in-Office if I had not scrutinized the lines to which he referred.
Line B4, Mr President-in-Office, involves not a single ECU.
Title B5 which you mentioned relates to specific cases of natural disasters, such as earthquakes, which happened in the past.
It does not apply to the present.
Title B7 provides for European Union aid, not to the EU Member States, but to third countries.
So the three lines you mentioned are not relevant to my question.
You also said, however, that in the case of the BSE crisis we did indeed find it possible to help with the great economic problems created by BSE.
But, Mr President-in-Office, we found the resources to do so only by taking them from other lines, in other words farmers in other EU countries were deprived so that we could help Great Britain's livestock breeders.
It was right to help them, but not to the cost of other breeders or farmers in our countries.
For that reason, I believe that this reserve of 1 billion ECU - it is a reserve today, it is for the needs of agriculture, Mr President-in-Office, and we are holding it in reserve - could be used within the scope of the EAGGF to create a fund under the control not of the Commission but the Council, which would be used in cases such as BSE and other agricultural disasters in all the European Union's countries.
I understand the thrust of the honourable member's argument, but I hope she will agree with me that we have to abide by a number of premises.
Firstly, whether you agree with this or not, when drawing up the budget in the Council we work very strictly within the agreed financial perspective and the budget ceiling.
If you ask for a large sum to be hived off for a general contingency reserve, that means that when the budget is drawn up that sum will of necessity be unavailable for legitimate, predictable budgetary spending.
The cuts will be entered afresh.
But what happens is that with a budget of some 70 billion ECU you find in the course of the year that here and there the funds are not fully used up, and these can then be used to cope with special unforeseen emergencies like the BSE crisis.
I do not regard it as sophisticated budgetary policy to set aside very large contignency amounts which directly reduce the expenditure items which have priority and which are predictable.
In reply to Mr Sjöstedt I must say that it is true that when the Intergovernmental Conference addresses the question of greater cooperation under the third pillar it will have to consider the question of how to integrate the cooperation which already exists amongst the Member States which are parties to Schengen and how to implement it.
I can confirm that special consideration will be given and is already being given as part of those deliberations to the position of Norway and Iceland, which concluded a cooperation agreement with the Schengen countries in the form of the agreement signed on 19 December 1996, though it has not yet come into force. But it is too soon to say anything pertinent about how exactly all that will translate at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Further to the response from the Council of Ministers, for which I am grateful, I have three supplementary questions.
The first is whether we need a new agreement with Norway and Iceland if the Schengen Agreement is incorporated into EU law, or whether we can use the agreement which is already in place and which has been signed by representatives from these countries.
My second question concerns the role of the courts: If, as a result of the amendment of the Treaty, the EEC Courts will now determine issues concerning the Schengen Agreement, does this mean that Iceland and Norway are now under the jurisdiction of the EEC Courts?
My third question is: If the Schengen Agreement is incorporated into the Treaty, how will we be able to distinguish what was originally the Schengen Agreement or what was Europol, for example, or any other aspect of the work which is currently part of the Third Pillar? Will it not be impossible, in practice, to keep these matters separate when we are considering how they will apply in cooperating countries.
I think it is still too soon to talk about whether a new agreement is needed with Norway and Iceland as a result of any change in the treaty relationship between the European Union and the countries cooperating under Schengen.
Perhaps it will be, and in that case the Schengen Member States plan to consult with Norway and Iceland at the appropriate time.
We shall see to it that we never confront Norway and Iceland with surprises or faits accomplis on this.
Concerning your second question about the case law of the European Court of Justice. If the European Court of Justice is given powers over parts of the total scope of Schengen cooperation, if it ever comes to full integration of Schengen into the European Union, we shall need to regulate the position of Norway and Iceland in greater detail.
And the case law of the European Court of Justice in relation to Norway and Iceland is nothing new; there are also special links to the Court's case law under the European Economic Area.
The question is whether, if Schengen is ever integrated under the third pillar, it will still be possible to differentiate.
Of course, that is just a question of good drafting and good implementation of the agreements, so that one little signature concerning the integration of Schengen does not create great confusion about what exactly Norway and Iceland are tied to and what they are not tied to; that is simply a question of good agreements and my feeling is that within the whole concept of flexible cooperation under the third pillar this is no big deal.
Mr President, I represent Bavaria here, and I should like to ask you first of all whether the timetable has been fixed for the accession of Austria and Italy to the Schengen Agreement and what you can tell us about the current timetable for accession.
Secondly, I should like to ask you about security at the eastern borders of the European Union.
As President of the Council I cannot and should not answer the question about when and how Austria will sign the Schengen Treaty.
I hope you will appreciate that, and concerning your further question about security at the Union's eastern frontier, I suggest you put it first to the appropriate authority in Bonn, in line with the usual rules on subsidiarity.
I would like to link this to the question asked by Mr Sjöstedt a moment ago concerning the confusion which could arise if the Intergovernmental Conference proposes that the Schengen Agreement be incorporated into EU law.
My question is: Would it not be more sensible to wait until the existing agreements have been discussed in the respective Parliaments of Sweden, Norway and Iceland? There could be great confusion if the Schengen Agreement is incorporated into EU law before these agreements have been ratified by the respective parliaments.
You are putting a question now not to the President of the Council but to a member of the Intergovernmental Conference; I must make the distinction.
I should say firstly that it is not every year that we have an Intergovernmental Conference, so waiting means waiting sine die , and I think it is most important to remove the uncertainty which has arisen because we have a legal situation developing under the first and third pillars of the European Union on the one hand, and a different legal situation and legal practice as part of cooperation under Schengen which are poorly coordinated with each other.
I freely admit that, it is an institutional weakness in an area of cooperation, and that cooperation is judged an exceptionally high priority by all Member States working together both in the European Union and under the Schengen Treaty.
The issue you raise of how exactly the relationship between Norway and Iceland will look once freedom of movement for individuals is regulated within the European Union is a question which also needs consideration under Article 7A of the Union Treaty.
The parallel existence of free movement for individuals under the European Union and the existence of the Nordic passport union must be properly regulated either under Schengen or by the European Union, and I do not buy the idea that all that will lead to great confusion or insurmountable problems.
In my capacity as Dutch state secretary I myself headed the negotiations we had with Norway and Iceland about integrating them into the Schengen cooperation process and I found that it was all very flexible.
I have come to expect the whole approach of the Nordic countries and of Norway and Iceland in particular to be that they choose pragmatic approaches and solutions which fully preserve the sovereignty of these two countries; that is something which has never been in dispute.
I anticipate no problems at all here, and I think your suggestion that we shall create confusion and should delay the whole thing amounts to a desire to back away from problems which urgently need to be sorted out.
As the author is not present, Question No 8 lapses.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 9 by Manuel Medina Ortega (H-1045/96):
Subject: Design of the 'Euro' banknote
Does the Commission consider that the new design of the 'Euro' banknote, which includes on the reverse side a map of Europe which excludes Crete and other Greek islands, the French overseas departments, the Portuguese archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, the Spanish archipelagos of the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands and the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, is the most suitable reflection of European identity?
Question No 10 by Ulf Holm (H-0085/97)
Subject: Composition of the euro coin
There have been reports in the Swedish media that the euro coin will contain nickel.
This would have very unfortunate consequences for its users, as nickel is one of the commonest sources of allergy by contact, more than one in ten women being affected.
Is the Council aware of this problem?
Does it intend to make the euro entirely nickel-free?
The questions put down by Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Holm both concerned the physical appearance of the new Euro notes and coins.
Firstly, as far as notes are concerned the European Central Bank alone is empowered to commission the printing of bank notes.
The European Monetary Institute oversees the technical preparation of the Euro banknotes.
The European Monetary Institute, in its press release of 13 December 1996 when the model to which Mr Medina Ortega refers was presented, emphasized that firstly, it would go on working together with the designers to improve the banknotes and, secondly, that the European Central Bank would decide in 1998 on the final design and when manufacture of the notes should begin.
As for the Euro coins, I think Mr Holm asked about these, I can tell you that the directors of the mints are currently studying the technical specifications for the coins.
The shape and materials to be used in the Euro coin were discussed for the first time by the Council of the Union's finance ministers on 27 January.
And here, I should stress, the nickel content of the coins or whether their composition should include nickel, was discussed.
The Council of finance ministers asked the group of mint directors to carry out a more detailed study and suggest solutions.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, first I want to say that I am reassured by your remarks because we still have until 1998 for the final design.
I would just like the European Central Bank to be informed, through the Presidency of the Council, of the concern of millions of European citizens who live in the Canary Islands, the Azores, Madeira, the Greek Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, in other words a series of very important territories, because this map does not show their territories, so it could be thought that the currency is not valid in these regions - given that there does seem to be an identification between the map and validity of the currency.
The problem may seem trivial to you, but it is of fundamental concern to the inhabitants of these regions and I would like an assurance that the Presidency of the Council will transmit the concern of the Members who represent these regions.
I shall be happy to pass on Mr Medina Ortega's comments to the European Monetary Institute.
Thank you for the response from the minister responsible.
I am pleased that you have not adopted a definitive position on the issue of the nickel content of coins.
It is indeed possible to produce coins which are totally nickel free.
In Sweden, for example, we have both ten crown pieces and five crown pieces which are nickel free.
You have spoken about reducing the percentage of nickel in new coins.
Swedish one crown pieces contain a maximum of 25 percent nickel.
It would be interesting to know what percentage level we are talking about here.
Mr Holm will appreciate that he is at this point questioning the President-in-Office of the Council.
I would suggest he waits to see the mint directors' report to the finance ministers and the conclusions which the finance minsters draw from that report.
Question No 11 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-1046/96):
Subject: Threats by Mrs Ciller against a Member State
All the news agencies report from Ankara that, on her return from the European Council meeting in Dublin, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mrs Ciller, made the following statement at the Turkish capital's airport:
'If Europe does not accept the hand of peace that we are extending and Turkey remains outside, then Greece should really be fearful.'
How will the Council respond to such a direct threat to an EU Member State which is totally contrary to the spirit of the July 1996 Declaration of the '15'?
The Council attaches great significance to the further development of the European Union's relations with Turkey in both the economic and political fields.
But a number of issues affecting relations between the European Union and Turkey still remain to be resolved.
In line with the Council's declaration of 15 July 1996 the presidency is continuing its efforts to develop its dialogue and cooperation with Turkey further, with a view to helping in the search for solutions to questions still outstanding.
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office for his answer.
However, I would like to tell him this: I am one of those who support Turkey's European orientation.
I would even go as far as saying to the Council's representative that I am in favour of Turkey's full accession to the European Union, subject to one condition, however: that Turkey accepts the European Union's principles concerning democracy, human rights and dignity, and the economic limits established by the EU for any country that wants to become a member of the European family.
However, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the substance of my question was not answered. I ask you, therefore: is the Declaration by the Fifteen of July 1996 valid?
If it is, how long are you going to wait for Mrs Çiller to answer you whether she accepts it or not?
And if she does not answer you, because eight months have passed, Mr President-in-Office, how does the Council intend to react? And a final question relating to recent statements by Mrs Çiller: what is the Council's position on statements by Mrs Çiller that unless the European Union goes ahead with talks on Turkey's accession to the EU, Turkey will never allow Cyprus to accede to the European Union?
The declaration of 15 July 1996 was concerned not so much with Turkey's accession to the European Union as with getting the customs union with Turkey operational and that is the point at issue.
To my mind not all the conditions have altogether been met and I think it is a matter of urgency that the Council should continue its dialogue with Turkey to reach total agreement on the conditions stated in this 1996 declaration so that the customs union can, as far as the Council is concerned, become operational as soon as possible.
As the author is not present, Question No 8 lapses.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 13 by Thomas Megahy (H-0005/97):
Subject: Age limits in recruitment to EU institutions: advertisements in Ireland
What arrangements is the Council making for advertising its recruitment competitions in Ireland after the adoption of the Employment Equality Bill 1996, which prohibits age discrimination in published employment advertisements?
Question No 14 by Brian Crowley (H-0097/97):
Subject: Discriminatory age limits
Does the Council consider that establishing low age limits for prospective applicants for employment in European Institutions discriminates against a large proportion of the workforce, and, furthermore, will the Council take immediate steps to abolish the 35-year age limit for applicants for administrative posts in the European Institutions?
In reply to the questions put by Mr Megahy and Mr Crowley, I will deal with them both together, as you have indicated.
The recruitment procedure for officials of the European Union is governed by the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Communities and thus solely by Community law.
This guarantees uniform treatment in all Member States.
The procedure for recruitment via an open compeition is set out in Article 29 and Annex III of the Staff Regulations.
According to Article 1(g) of Annex III the notice of the open comeptition may if appropriate state an age limit imposed to take account of special situations.
Thus in practice the age limit is raised in certain cases, for example by five years to allow for the bringing up of children below school age or to allow for military service or handicap.
In this way the age limit can be adjusted to take account of certain sectors of the labour market.
For the last two years the Community institutions and organs, the Council included, have decided to streamline their recruitment methods and have pledged themselves to recruit officials by publishing notices covering several institutions, unless a specific institution has specific requirements.
They also decided, for budgetary reasons and reasons concerned with certain stated quality criteria - I refer you to Article 27 of the Staff Regulations here - to apply a general age limit of 35 for eligibility to take part in an open competition for the entry grades.
And the entry grades are D4, D3, C5, B5, A8 and A7.
The budgetary reasons arise primarily from the fact that the contribution period for payment of a pension is 35 pensionable years.
I refer you to Article 77(2) of the Staff Regulations.
As for the quality criteria required in Article 27 of the Staff Regulations, it has been established that the age limit of 35 enables officials to be recruited who do, as the Staff Regulations require, meet the most stringent requirements of ability and performance.
For entry to the interim grades, in particular grades D1, C3, C1, B3, B1 and A5, the age limit is generally 50.
Lastly I should stress that under Article 27(2) of the Staff Regulations officials are selected without reference to race, creed or sex.
I thank the President-in-Office for his very comprehensive answer on the general issues.
I might say that I am not at all convinced that he has made out any good argument for discriminating against older people by limiting their age to 35.
I hope that when the IGC concludes - and the Dutch presidency will play a big part in this - there will be an anti-discrimination clause that makes this impossible in the future.
My specific question related to the situation that now seems to be arising in one Member State - and I congratulate Ireland for taking this step - which has banned advertisements that imply age discrimination.
What I want to know is this: if the Council is recruiting in Ireland - and it ought to be able to recruit in Ireland for jobs in the European institutions - has it considered how it is going to be able to recruit there if the Irish Government says that it will not allow age discrimination in advertisements in its papers? How then is the Council going to attract people from Ireland into these jobs?
Does the President-in-Office not think that it would be better to take the Irish example as a lead and apply it throughout the Community, for then there would be no problem?
I think it is premature to predict exactly what the Intergovernmental Conference will say on the subject of banning discrimination.
I take on board your question about Irish law and Irish recruitment practices.
I can only say that we are talking in this instance about Community law which has general application and that Irish law is applicable within the territory of the Irish Republic.
Irish law is not specifically applicable to the recruitment of European Union officials.
I also wish to thank the President-in-Office for his very comprehensive answer and also for his very comprehensive non-answer, because even though Mr Megahy and myself were tabling two different questions from maybe two different angles, the result we want to see is the same.
I am not sure that I agree with the President-in-Office when he says that it is premature to speak about what the result of the IGC will be, because this Parliament has already put down several proposals with regard to an antidiscrimination article for inclusion within the new Treaty.
In the draft Treaty prepared by the Irish presidency during its term of office last year, there was also a specific article relating to anti-discrimination, mentioning, in particular, age.
I wonder whether the President-in-Office is aware of the demographic survey which the Commission has carried out in the European Union, which shows that the population is getting older and that if we want to fill positions within the European Union institutions, then change is required with regard to the age limit.
I am happy to see that for the higher grades the age limit is 50 years, but maybe all grades should be able to recruit at an equal limit and we should look at that immediately.
I am grateful to the honourable member for his observation concerning the Irish presidency's proposal for the IGC, but I stand by my reply that it is premature to speculate about what the IGC will decide on matters of non-discrimination.
I appreciate your demographic arguments, but I will answer them by saying that EC rules and laws are not cast in stone and that if the labour market and the demographic situation require it, we can look at this again.
At the moment I have no reason to ask the Union institutions to follow a recruitment policy different from the existing one.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for that comprehensive reply.
I agree with my colleague, Mr Megahy, that the rationale behind this is a bit difficult to follow.
For budgetary reasons he said, and that concerns pension entitlements.
Surely there must be the situation of someone who is over the age of 35 bringing a pension in with them and would that not count as well? Surely, you are not saying that no one over 35 can be sufficiently competent to take a position in one of the European Union institutions?
I would like to ask the President-in-Office if he is not prepared to re-examine the situation in the light of the demographic developments Mr Crowley has talked about.
Perhaps he would be prepared to re-examine it, given that the rationale behind it, both on pensions and competence, are not sufficient and that it is worthy of reexamination purely on the grounds of discrimination.
To be honest, the staffing policy of the European institutions is not really my speciality.
I am not aware that the present basis of recruitment has meant any problems in recent years for the European institutions in maintaining a body of high-quality personnel.
So I see no reason at all to frame initiatives now to change the existing practice or change the rules.
In the interests of completeness I should say that this is a matter on which the European Commission has the right of initiative and that if the European Commission feels either that the labour market is no longer responding to the rules in force or that there are serious problems concerning this question of the principles of non-discrimination, I think the European Commission will not hesitate to use its right of initiative.
I am very glad to hear that these rules are not cast in stone and could be changed.
It is important to come back to the increased longevity of the citizens of the European Union.
Bearing in mind that people are living longer and need to work longer, the apparent need for more experienced people and the excellent decision that has been taken by the Irish Government, could the Council not now, without waiting for the IGC, examine the situation and bring forward proposals to abolish age discrimination throughout the whole of the European Union?
I shall pass on the honourable member's concern to the Commission and Council.
Question No 15 by Ioannis Theonas (H-0007/97)
Subject: Turkish threats over installation of missiles on Cyprus
23 years after the invasion of Cyprus and the continued occupation of 40 % of the island's territory by Turkish troops, the USA and Member States of the EU - ignoring Turkey's manifest arms superiority - are ordering the Republic of Cyprus not to buy a Russian missile defence system on the grounds that it will upset the 'balance of forces' in one of the most militarized regions in the world.
Does the Council believe that it is the inalienable right of the Republic of Cyprus to strengthen its defence capability and, if so, what measures will it take in response to Turkish threats against Cyprus should it install the anti-aircraft defence system? Does the Council support the proposal to demilitarize the island under international guarantees with Turkey withdrawing its occupying troops and settlers in the context of a just and viable settlement of the situation in Cyprus on the basis of UN resolutions?
Does that objective form part of the EU's initiatives for the region?
The question which Mr Theonas raises is an important one.
The Council calls on all those involved to exercise restraint and to avoid any action liable to hinder or complicate the talks to be held later this year under the auspices of the international community.
Recent events in Cyprus have shown once again the urgent need for work to be done, under United Nations guidance and in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions, to reach a comprehensive political settlement for Cyprus based on a bi-communal and bo-zonal federation.
The Council favours demilitarization of the island.
The Council reiterates its full support for the UN Secretary-General and his special representative on Cyprus.
On 25 February next the association council with Cyprus will be meeting.
One of the things to be discussed will be the political situation in the Eastern Mediterranean and of course in Cyprus itself.
The European Union has repeatedly urged Turkey to work towards a solution for Cyprus in line with the UN Security Council's resolutions.
Ambassador Heaslip, the presidency's spokesman on Cyprus, will be working closely with all the parties involved and will frame the necessary initiatives.
As regards the promotion of security through European Union initiatives for the region, the Council would point to the Euro-Mediterranean process under which confidence-building measures are being developed as one aspect of our political and security partnership.
Mr President, I want to thank the President-in-Office for his answer.
However, I also want to express my grave concern about the fact that the European Union has so far avoided condemning Turkey's threats against Cyprus.
Of course, I support a political solution for the Cyprus problem.
In no case would I wish for any kind of military solution.
Yet, I think that it is every country's duty to strengthen its defenses, and of course, defensive armaments are of concern to anyone planning to attack.
Unless those missiles are not considered defensive.
But at any rate from what has been said, and from what I know, they are defensive weapons, while Cyprus repeatedly receives threats from Turkey even regarding its right, if you will, to accede to the European Union - a point concerning which the President-in-Office had nothing to say - threats that Turkey will block its accession unless and until its own demands are satisfied.
I appreciate the honourable member's concern.
The Council will maintain regular contact with all the parties involved, including the Government of Turkey and the Government of Cyprus, and will do all it can to defuse the political tension as far as possible.
Although I worked for the Ministry of Defence for years I do not now want to start a debate on the strict need to procure rockets with a range of 150 km as a legitimate means of defence against threats on Cyprus.
Question No 16 by Alfred Lomas (H-0008/97)
Subject: Hostages in Kashmir
Bearing in mind the severe winter conditions in Kashmir, will the Council press the Indian Government to make fresh efforts to secure the release of the hostages?
In reply to Mr Lomas I can say this.
Since the beginning of this hostage affair in Kashmir the European Union has made a number of approaches to the Indian and Pakistani authorities asking that no effort should be spared in bringing this crisis to a happy conclusion.
Unfortunately no progress has been made and reports reaching us about the hostages in recent months have been sparse and contradictory.
The presidency will leave no stone unturned in its search for news of the hostages and will continue to raise the matter with the authorities in the countries concerned.
I thank the Council for that reply and for the efforts it has made in the past.
But things do seem to have gone rather quiet of late, although people in Kashmir itself are extremely concerned and have been working - particularly the JKLF - to secure their release.
It really is the problem of the Indian Government. After all, it controls Kashmir.
That is why my question asks for pressure to be put on the Indian Government.
As well as that, would the Council not agree that the real solution to stop all these sorts of acts - and there have been many deaths in Kashmir over the years - would be to grant the people their self-determination?
To take the last question first, I think the solution to the Kashmir question has to be sought by direct talks between the governments concerned.
Whether or not that should result in self-determination or something else, the European Union is in no hurry to say.
I have taken due note of the honourable member's concern about the hostage affair.
I shall think about whether a little more pressure might be appropriate.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his reply to Mr Lomas.
Despite the action that the Council has taken in the past, I would like to know what further action the Council proposes to take over the next few weeks to deal with the hostage situation which has now dragged on for some considerable time, causing a great deal of suffering to the families involved, and also what political action it will take to bring about a solution to the situation in Kashmir, which should be based on the principle of self-determination.
That is what the people themselves want, let alone the governments involved.
This is an issue of concern to millions of constituents in Great Britain and certainly to thousands of my own constituents who have links with Kashmir.
My thanks to the honourable member for the very pertinent way in which he has put his concern across.
I must once again give the lie to the idea that the Council is not interested in Kashmir.
The Kashmir question is discussed very regularly in the committee of political directors.
We are looking very carefully for suitable avenues of approach, either direct measures or perhaps in future the sending of a troika mission so that we can not only be au fait with the situation in Kashmir but also talk forcefully to the Indian and local authorities about matters like this hostage question raised in questions here.
Question No 17 by Sir Jack Stewart-Clark (H-0015/97):
Subject: Role of the EMCDDA in the Dutch presidency's work programme
I note that the Dutch presidency in its presentation of action to be taken calls for a 'multi-annual programme for the exchange of knowledge by the Member States on research methods, public information campaigns and facilities for specific target groups'.
It adds that 'close cooperation between health professionals, the judicial authorities and the police is of essence' there.
I am surprised that the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has not been mentioned as such.
Will the Council please confirm that EMCDDA will be used to the greatest possible extent to ensure that coordination among the various bodies takes place properly?
I can answer Mr Stewart-Clark's question as follows.
At the European summit in Dublin a progress report was given on the fight against drugs which named a number of specific focuses for action in 1997.
One of these was that a greater role should be given to research in the combating of drugs.
Research features prominently in the recently adopted Community action programme on prevention of drug dependence which is part of Community action in the area of health.
One of the programme's objectives is to improve knowledge about drugs, drug addiction and methods of prevention.
A central role will be played here by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, EMCDAA.
When approving measures under the Community action programme the Commission will take account of the work of the Monitoring Centre to ensure that there is no unnecessary duplication of work.
I hear what you say, but we have created this monitoring centre in Lisbon at great expense.
It is absolutely vital.
There are a series of what are called detox centres in each of the national countries which are linking in to the drugs monitoring centre.
It is absolutely vital that that monitoring centre is given support by the Council and by national governments.
The reason why I put down this question, Mr President-in-Office, was because you talked about the exchange of information on various subjects connected with drugs.
The monitoring centre was not actually mentioned at all.
So my question really is: firstly - and you partly answered this - is the Council completely behind the monitoring centre, and secondly, will the Council make certain that the retox centres in national countries are given full support and that the quality of information coming from them is as good as can possibly be?
I can answer the first of the honourable member's pertinent questions with an unreserved yes.
We believe that the Monitoring Centre merits our wholehearted support, given the scale and seriousness of the problem we face in Western Europe with drug addiction and trafficking.
There is another reason too and that is to some extent a factor given the Dutch approach to the problem of drugs.
We think that paying more attention to prevention and stopping people from coming into contact with the world of drugs and addiction is, together with crime control, one of the key ways in which we can get on top of this terrible problem more effectively. It is a problem we have been grappling with for years and shall be grappling with well into the future.
I share the honourable member's underlying belief that if you have to get a complex problem under control you have to monitor it, you have to know, you have to measure and above all you have to have reliable and comparable data on the various forms in which this problem may manifest itself and how it manifests itself in the different Member States.
I am thus totally in favour of the approach the honourable member advocates.
I shall certainly bring it to the attention of the Dutch Health Minister who is, incidentally, an expert on the control of drugs.
Question No 18 by Niels Sindal (H-0018/97)
Subject: Ratification of Europe Agreements
Two years have passed since the Europe Agreements with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were signed.
However, a number of countries (Belgium, Greece, France, Italy, Portugal and the UK) have still not ratified them.
What steps will the Council Presidency take to ensure that these countries ratify the agreements?
In answer to Mr Sindal, the Europe agreements of association with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were signed on 12 June 1995, that is to say just over a year and a half ago.
Since then the ratification procedure has been under way and at present the procedures have been completed in nine Member States.
As the honourable member knows, each country follows its own procedures and practices.
It is not my place to go into those further or comment on them.
But one should not have the impression that the procedures to ratify the Europe agreements with the three Baltic states are not progressing satisfactorily.
Ratification of the Europe agreements with other countries in Central and Eastern Europe have also taken a while, two years.
The procedures for other important agreements such as those with Russia and the Ukraine, signed in June 1994, are still in progress as well.
I should point out that the presidency loses no opportunity of reminding Member States of the need to speed up the procedures for ratifying the various agreements which have not yet been completed, including those with the Baltic states.
So the presidency is confident that those Member States which have not yet completed the ratification procedure for the agreements with the Baltic states will take the necessary steps to do so speedily.
Thank you for that response.
I am pleased to hear that the Council does not see any problems, but the Council must understand that certain countries applying for membership, namely Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, have been concerned by the fact that there has not been the same enthusiasm as that shown by the Union to other applicants, e.g. Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
We have decided that all are equal in their application for membership.
My question, therefore, is: can the Council confirm that the Commission has no favourites in its readiness to accept new countries? I must say that this is the impression I was given as the former Chairman of the Delegation for Relations with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
I hope you can answer this.
I can confirm that the Council has no favourites among the eleven countries seeking to join the European Union.
Membership will as far as possible be based on objective application of the criteria set by the 1992 European Council in Copenhagen.
The point which makes these ratifications so urgent is the situation in which we find ourselves in other areas.
I am referring to the fact that government discussions are underway, and six months after they are concluded, we must commence membership negotiations with the Baltic States.
It is clear that there is concern that we are not giving these issues enough thought.
Now you have stated, Minister, that it is your intention to stress these issues continuously.
I have to assume that you will do this in the Council of Ministers and that you will encourage your government colleagues, in those countries which have so far not ratified, to request their governments to tackle the issues as soon as possible.
If this happens then I do not believe there is any cause for concern in the Baltics or in this House.
My feeling is that there is no reason for disquiet in the Baltic states, nor for them to be worried about the process of defining the whole accession strategy which will start later this year once the European Commission has produced its opinion on the proposed form of negotiation.
If you as members of the European Parliament are worried by the slow pace of the ratification procedure followed by some Member States, I suggest that everyone who knows national members of parliament who do not push those procedures forward adequately should get in touch with them and keep them on their toes!
Question No 19 by Jan Andersson (H-0020/97)
Subject: Initiatives to curb demand for drugs
Drug abuse is widespread in Europe.
The trafficking and use of synthetic drugs is on the increase.
Member States' views on how to combat drugs differ, but it is high time that the EU formulated a strategy to deal with the increase in abuse, which must include measures to curb both the supply of and the demand for drugs.
The Netherlands Presidency's programme contains a number of general ideas for action on drugs, such as measures to combat drug trafficking and exchanges of experience of various preventive measures. Whilst this is commendable, no mention is made of measures to curb demand.
What practical measures will the Netherlands Presidency take in order to reduce demand for drugs?
I should point out to the honourable member that under a decision of the European Parliament and Council on 16 December 1996 a Community action programme on the prevention of drug addiction was approved as part of measures in the field of health.
This programme includes a whole range of incentives and support measures aimed at achieving this objective.
The programme in question is geared broadly to two areas of action.
Firstly, action to obtain and evaluate data, the objective being to improve knowledge about drugs, drug addiction and their consequences, together with knowledge of methods and means of preventing drug addiction and its attendant risks.
This will be done in particular using information held by the European Drugs Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, which was mentioned just now, and the resources available under existing Community programmes.
The second area of action is information, education and training, where the aim is to help improve information, education and training on drug addiction with a view to preventing drug addiction and its attendant risks.
This will target young people in their own environment, at home, school, university, in their leisure pursuits, and it will target particularly vulnerable groups including former drug users.
The Commission will be working on the finer detail of an action programme.
As the honourable member rightly supposes, the Dutch presidency will also concentrate on the sharing of experience gained in the prevention of drug use.
We shall also look at which elements of the collective strategy against drugs, adopted by the Council in December 1996, merit implementation in the area of preventing drug addiction.
For the benefit of honourable members, not only Mr Andersson but others too who like myself are very much exercised by this subject, I should say that the Dutch presidency will be giving very high priority to the whole question of studying and eliminating the drugs problem, together with its control and its treatment by the judicial system.
I would like to thank the Council for their answer.
The reason for my question is that there are generally speaking two ways of fighting drug abuse, by tackling both supply and demand.
We must use both these methods.
We all agree with this as far as supply, i.e. trade in and manufacture of synthetic drugs, is concerned.
But at the same time we know that, no matter how many producers and wholesalers we bring to book, there will always be drug abuse as long as there is a demand.
This is why I think that demand is the most important issue, and most important of all is to ensure that young people do not begin using drugs at all.
I have two questions one concerned with this issue and another concerning the response given to Mr StewartClark.
Firstly: do you also think that the most important initiative in tackling drugs is to prevent young people from even trying them? Secondly: amphetamines and other synthetic drugs are now being produced in Eastern Europe.
Should not we in the EU be 'cleaning up our own backyard' now that we are in contact with Eastern European countries?
I agree with Mr Andersson's analysis, which draws a clear distinction between supply and demand.
I think there is a large measure of consensus and policy agreement within the European Union about how to control supply.
The main objective is to suppress drugs, to counter international organized crime and in this respect Mr Andersson rightly calls for relations with third countries to be borne in mind.
We know that the rapid processes of social change in some Eastern European countries have led to special risks in the transportation and manufacture of hard drugs and I can assure you that account is taken of this fact in the Council's work.
I said just now that the Dublin summit resolved to set up a group of senior representatives who will shortly come up with suggestions to counter organized crime; they will of course be examining large- and medium-scale drug trafficking and will make a point of looking closely at relations with third countries.
As for controlling demand, because we are talking here about great cultural differences between countries and widely differing approaches, I think we need in future to acquaint ourselves a lot better with each others' experience, and I touched on that partly in my reply to Mr Stewart-Clark.
There is plenty of room for closer cooperation between Member States, between specialists in the Member States, coordinated by the Monitoring Centre.
We believe that in the Netherlands, prevention has been a key factor in analysing keenly and controlling the consequences for society and the whole of our youth, and I can assure you that this presidency will not relax its endeavours in this area.
Question No 20 by Nuala Ahern (H-0022/97):
Subject: Prior notice of radioactive shipments to en-route countries
In the light of the fact that in signing the Barcelona Convention the French Government has clearly accepted its responsibility, in regard to shipments of radioactive and toxic materials from French ports, that prior notice should be given to countries en route, does the Council believe that France and the UK have similar responsibility in informing en-route countries in respect of nuclear cargoes sent by sea from their reprocessing facilities at The Hague and Sellafield respectively?
A number of rules are relevant to Mrs Ahern's question concerning the movement of radioactive materials.
There is firstly Community legislation, namely Directive 92/2/Euratom of 3 February 1992 on the supervision and control of movements of radioactive waste between Member States and into and out of the Community.
Secondly there are the rules on the movement of nuclear materials, drawn up by the International Atomic Energy Agency and, thirdly, there are the rules governing maritime transport, the IMO code on the carriage of dangerous goods by sea.
This body of legal and administrative regulations also applies to movements of radioactive waste originating in the reprocessing plants which the honourable member mentions, namely La Hague and Sellafield.
Regarding the applicability of the Barcelona Treaty, which the honourable member mentions in her question, I have to say that this is not pertinent here.
This Treaty concerns carriage through the Mediterranean, whilst these reprocessed wastes from La Hague take a totally different route; they are destined for Japan and do not go through the Mediterranean.
At the same time I should point out to the honourable member that it is not the business of the Council to guarantee compliance with international treaties which the Member States have signed in contexts other than that of the European Union.
This is an individual responsibility incumbent on Member States, at least to the extent that Community law is not involved.
Currently there is a nuclear shipment from La Hague in France wandering around the planet between France and Japan. Can the Council confirm that notification has been given to states en route?
You say it is not for the Council to monitor but who is monitoring it?
Is it Euratom?
Is the Member State itself responsible for informing other states? Have the other states been informed?
Who has informed who and who wants to be informed?
And is prior consent given by states en route.
I know that the Australian Government has been informed.
It has made a public acknowledgement but we are not too sure what actually happens within the Union and in the space between leaving European waters and entering Australian ones.
Have states en route also the right to be informed and by whom? Who does this informing apart from France and the UK?
I understand Mrs Ahern's concern for these sensitive matters, but I must make the point that this is a debate between the Council of the European Union and the Parliament of the European Union, so I can only really talk here about the obligations imposed by the laws of the European Union, in this instance the Community legislation of Euratom, but these have specific requirements which are monitored too by the European Commission. You mention the question of notifications to third countries.
These are not governed by the Community's laws and regulations, the organs of the European Union play no part in them, and if you want to know what the obligations covering movements of this kind are I must refer you to the obligations undertaken under the International Atomic Energy Agency and the IMO, the International Maritime Organization. Within these bodies individual EU Member States - I cannot recall off the top of my head which they are, I hope they will forgive me - are required to meet their own treaty obligations vis à vis third countries.
This is not an area in which the European Union has any powers.
I am sorry, Mrs Ahern, but you are not entitled to come back.
I would love to let you, but I cannot give you the floor.
Mr President, we have reached the end of Question Time, and I should like to protest against the reply given to me by the President-in-Office when I asked about controls and security at the external border of the EU, a reply which implies a violation of the Treaty. Citing subsidiarity, he suggested that I address my question to Bonn.
He did not tell me, however, how that position could be reconciled with the third pillar of Maastricht, with the principle of a European Union without internal frontiers, nor did he tell me how Bonn is supposed to control the eastern border of the EU from Finland down to Greece.
Mr Posselt, you know that we have not yet completed Question Time and that you are out of order.
As the author is not present, Question No 21 lapses.
Question No 22 by Alex Smith (H-0028/97):
Subject: Nuclear reprocessing plants and leukaemia
The 11 January 1997 issue of the British Medical Journal (Volume 314, pages 101-106) published a detailed article on the measured occurrence of leukaemia in young people living close to the nuclear reprocessing plant operated by COGEMA at La Hague on the Cotentin Peninsula in Normandy.
Considering earlier studies of cancers around the Sellafield reprocessing complex in Cumbria by Professor Gardner and high levels of leukaemia near the Dounreay nuclear plant in Scotland, will the Council now investigate (and review) the health and environmental implications for the citizens of Europe arising from the continued operation of those reprocessing plants in the European Union?
Mr Smith asks about reprocessing facilities.
I will echo my predecessor in his reply to an earlier question from the honourable member and say again that the Council attaches great importance to ensuring that a high level of safety and health is guaranteed in nuclear activities within the European Union.
In this context I would remind the House that the Council recently adopted Directive 96/29/Euratom, laying down the basic standards for the health protection of the general public and workers against the hazards of ionizing radiation.
This Directive tightens up the existing standards to take account of the latest scientific and technical information.
If the Commission sees fit to put forward new proposals with an eye to the possible adaptation of Community legislation in line with new internationally recognized scientific facts, then the Council will certainly address these.
It is for the Commission to monitor the developing situation in that field and to check whether the research to which the honourable member refers has universally recognized scientific validity.
I am not, of course, denigrating this research which, as I understand it, is the work of eminent specialists.
It is for the European Commission to take further action here.
I thank the President-in-Office, who I am standing behind once again, for his reply.
This week we have debated a report by a temporary committee of inquiry, which criticised not only the Commission but the Council for not acting quickly enough on a public health matter.
Here we have another potential public health danger, and given the reply that the President-in-Office has just provided, could I say that things should be taken more seriously.
I would ask him whether he will undertake to ask the Commission to review the credibility of this study which was done in the Channel Islands and see if it warrants some further examination or adjustment of the regulations which cover it at the moment, particularly in the light of the public health concerns?
In response to Mr Smith's further question, I shall bring this research directly to the European Commission's attention.
I would like to thank you for your various answers here tonight.
You referred to the Euratom regulations and directives a number of times, but the Euratom Treaty might as well be on the planet Zorg for all the democratic control that we have on it in this Union.
It should have been reviewed well before now and incorporated into the Maastricht Treaty or gotten rid of totally.
Would you confirm that the Dutch presidency has amendments to the Euratom Treaty on the table at the moment, during the IGC process and that it will look at those amendments and/or institute a review of the Euratom Treaty itself during the IGC negotiations?
I am not quite sure I grasped the humorous allusion which the honourable member made.
If the allegation is that those responsible for implementing the Euratom Treaty are fast asleep, I must refute it.
Secondly, there are currently no proposals on the table at the Intergovernmental Conference to amend the Euratom Treaty.
Thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office.
As questions Nos 23 to 43 were not taken, they will be the subject of written answers.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Consumer credit
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0345/96 by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 87/102/EEC (as amended by Directive 90/88/EEC) relating to the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning consumer credit (COM(96)0079 - C4-0243/96-96/0055(COD)); -A4-0010/97 by Mr Caccavale, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission report on the operation of Directive 87/102/EEC for the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning consumer credit (COM(95)0117 - C4-0185/95).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the draft directive amending the consumer credit directive is a small but significant step in the direction of more consumer protection.
The main thrust of the amendments concerns the definition, which is binding upon all Member States of the European Union, of a uniform method of calculating the annual percentage rate of charge.
This will have a particularly advantageous effect for consumers, because it makes it easier for them to compare financial services products on a cross-border basis.
Furthermore, the Commission's proposal carries out a certain degree of harmonization of bases for assessment, inasmuch as the annual percentage rate of charge will now be calculated for the year on the basis of 365 or 366 days.
However, in my report I propose that the standardized calculation for the year should be made only on the basis of 365 days.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has given its support to this proposal, as have the votes of my group.
This clarification is necessary because the Commission's version is liable to be misunderstood and it also allows the calculation to be made on a basis that is equal to the number of days.
Calculation on such a basis, however, would involve disadvantages for the consumer.
It would mean that the actual value and the actual period of time would have to be used in each case, with the result that in February, for example, we would have only 28 days, whereas in January we would have 31.
That would mean that the actual interest would change in months of different lengths, despite the nominally uniform rate of charge.
The comparability of interest rates would thus be restricted.
Since this draft directive does not undertake a complete harmonization of the bases for assessment, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is also opposed to the Commission's proposal to introduce a symbol when quoting the actual interest rate.
The Commission would like to make it clear, by means of this symbol, that the actual rate of interest quoted has been calculated on the basis of the consumer credit directive and is comparable with the equivalent rate of interest in the other Member States.
However, since the cost elements that have to be taken into consideration in the calculation still vary considerably from one Member State to another, for example the discount, which is taken into consideration in one country but not in another, there is no genuine comparability of the actual interest rates.
Such a symbol, therefore, could be misused in order to deceive the consumer, and would be contrary to the aim of the proposal.
As far as the Caccavale report is concerned, I should like to make the following comments. Naturally the citizens of Europe are first and foremost consumers.
Therefore the Commission's reports on the incorporation, into national law, of the provisions governing consumers, and their application in the Member States, are of particular importance.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, in its report, did not merely make a critical evaluation of the Commission's report; it also attempted to offer practical solutions to the questions raised by the Commission.
I should like to highlight two points in particular.
The Commission would like to extend the consumer credit directive to include loans for the purpose of renovating or modernizing a building which are not secured by a mortgage.
In its report, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights states that it is against such an extension, and in my view it is right to do so, because to include such loans within the scope of the consumer credit directive would involve a disadvantage to the consumer.
It would no longer be possible to provide such loans, which are tied to a specific purpose, at the favourable mortgage interest rates, but they would have to be provided only at the higher, consumer-credit interest rates, to the disadvantage of the consumer.
My second point is that the Commission has raised the question of the appropriateness of a European directive on mortgage credit.
The Committee and my group take the view that such a European directive at the present time is something that they cannot agree to.
Mortgage credit is inseparably connected with security and application procedures, which differ greatly between different countries.
European-level regulation of mortgage credit would therefore mean approximating the security and application rules at the same time, hence ultimately the EU-wide harmonization of national property law provisions.
This, however, would not be compatible with the principle of subsidiarity.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the market in consumer credit has expanded very rapidly in recent years and will experience exponential growth in the years to come.
It is, however, the case that we have today a situation in which one contracting party is in fact the privileged party.
This is not just a matter of the legislation or, to put it better, though legislation too has its impact, it is clear that we are today living in an economy based on the supply-side.
The fact is that the financial institutions are in a position to impose their own choices, their own products and their own contracts - including those containing barely comprehensible clauses - because the supply-side is very frequently limited and inflexible.
That is why we believe it is necessary to have European legislation that extends, in some way, the 1987 directive because, within the meaning of Article 100a(3), as well as Article 129a, first sentence: ' The Community shall contribute to a high level of consumer protection' .
But if we are to protect consumers we do not require legislation that is merely protective.
We do not believe that protective legislation is needed.
As the Commissioner, Mrs Bonino, frequently says, the consumer is not a species under threat of extinction; but we do need to speed up a process that encourages consumers to take an active role, that protects their right to seek and obtain useful information, that secures respect for their rights and interests and their wishes, as freely exercised and expressed.
That, then, is why we are thinking in terms of legislation that provides horizontal and parallel regulation, that does not form a superstructure over the legislations of the Member States and that is able to regulate the rights of consumers and users and relations between their associations and the public authorities. It has also to provide possibilities for less time-consuming protection by the courts and the conciliation procedure now needed to guarantee the kind of uniformity throughout the Community - not cumbersome but stable - necessary for the proper operation of the internal market.
We believe that, in order to protect consumers, we have basically to apply the principles of free competition, and that means offering consumers genuine choices and according them both the right to choose between different products and the right to change without incurring a penalty.
We therefore see the consumer as an informed and mobile player, in line with clear rules and with due respect for the commitments entered into. We see the consumer as having a real power of choice, and that can and will act as an incentive and a steer to producers themselves, who will need to make an effort, including at an economic level, to innovate and be creative.
A broader range of supply and greater competition will mean that consumers are given real freedom of choice between several products and therefore the possibility of exerting an influence on the supply-side and on the development of the market.
Currently, it is quite apparent that citizens who enter into contact with the banks and financial institutions have difficulty in evaluating the various services on offer.
That is why consumers must ask for and obtain all sorts of information; they must learn to make comparisons, choose, avoid excesses and plan their own commitments.
Transparent behaviour and clear statements of conditions are, in the final analysis, needed to secure both the protection of the more vulnerable consumers and, above all, market efficiency.
That is why we are drawing attention to a number of crucial points in our report.
A new concept of the consumer, for instance, broader than that contained in the corpus of European law and that is able to cover all - including small businessmen - who find themselves at a disadvantage in relation to the financial institutions, at the very same disadvantage as Community consumers find themselves in relation to the financial institutions.
Of course, we do not wish to revolutionize the concept of consumer as such, but we believe that this is an important and substantial point which may properly be related to the specific sector of consumer credit.
And that is why we have recently tabled an amendment which we would ask honourable Members to support so that this new concept of the consumer is able to stimulate market opening and variety of supply and generate more competitiveness and greater competition.
We also believe that lack of openness in the market in consumer credit is most apparent from the usury that exists and the transfer to the black market of a whole range of possible and potential consumers who do not find in the banks and financial institutes the variety of offer they need.
We also believe that - in relation to mortgage credit, for example - evaluation is needed.
We are not against the idea of extending the 1987 directive to mortgage credit also.
We have tabled an amendment on this that leaves the question open and would ask our colleagues in the other groups to support it.
We are asking them to support the Commission's idea.
Mr President, I wish to end by making a couple of important points.
We would ask that the House support the amendments concerning the standardization of contracts with a view to a self-regulating code of conduct; we ask the House to back the extended concept of consumer as well as the possibility of making a close assessment of the concept of mortgage credit; we ask the House to support the new concept of opening up the market and opening up competition.
Mr President, I should like to state my position regarding the Caccavale report, not the MosiekUrbahn report. The timetable of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights forced us to issue an opinion as early as the end of April last year.
We as a Committee are asking the Commission to amend the 1986 directive. Why should credit for the initial financing of a professional activity not fall within the scope of this directive?
Why, when consumer credit is advertised, should there not be minimum requirements that are, for the person seeking the credit, informative, comprehensible and truthful? Why should new forms of credit, e.g. credit-card loans, not be covered by an amended directive, or by a directive of their own?
Why should there not be a cooling-off period in all Member States? How can we reduce usury and overindebtedness for an increasing number of citizens of the European Union?
Can this perhaps be traced back to the fact that many credit providers do not possess the necessary training and probity? Do we not need a European provision on this subject?
Our Committee believes that we do. The 1986 directive was intended to help to harmonize national provisions.
It was adopted before the Single European Act came into force.
It required a unanimous vote in the Council, which means that everybody agreed on the lowest common denominator.
But when it came to implementing the directive in national law, things turned out very differently.
In some cases substantially better protective regulations were introduced, but there was no sign of any harmonization, and this makes things difficult when it comes to cross-border activities.
I should like to point one thing out to Mr Caccavale. Paragraph 16 of the resolution says there should be no Community rules for credit secured by mortgage.
In the explanatory statement, however, it says that Community rules are appropriate.
This is, at the very least, a contradiction.
Our Committee is asking for a directive.
It is precisely here, in this grey area, that there plenty of negative examples involving the treatment of French citizens by German banks.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I want to congratulate Mr Caccavale on his determination in getting his report through, because I must say that his zeal to find consensus on the numerous amendments to his report has produced a debate more like a diplomatic negotiation than a parliamentary vote.
The internal market is going through an essential stage. After the great fanfare of 1992, we are immersed in the application stage, the final objective of which is to bring Europe closer to the daily lives of the citizens.
They will be more aware of the value of the Union when they can effectively use instruments to defend their rights or carry out financial operations solely for consumption, outside its territory.
Consumer protection at European level as regards credit is becoming increasingly complex, as a result, amongst other things, of the free play of supply and demand and the imminent entry into force of the third stage of monetary union, which presents a crucial legal problem around the principle of continuity of contracts.
As mentioned in points K and L of the report, credit policy is still a matter for the Member States, although they must respect Community law.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, will the day ever come when consumer credit is a Community matter and has ceased to be a state matter? Would it not be an important, impressive achievement for the citizens?
As we said this afternoon on the Whitehead report, one of the great difficulties about credit is settling disputes. I will not dwell on that because we must prioritize simplicity, as I said this afternoon, because transfrontier situations are involved and the cost of credit must not rise to the point that it becomes impossible or only possible on paper.
Mr Caccavale's report takes up a series of basic principles of civil law which give me great satisfaction as a lawyer: the reciprocal obligation to give correct and complete information (principle of good faith), capacity of the parties, agreement on the essential elements of the contract, the cause, the object and the purpose.
There is just one point I would like to express a difference about, point 10 of the report, because it establishes absolute unilateral cancellation.
Surely there is a contradiction here with the principle of continuity of the contract? The application of the contract, according to the time-honoured theory of civil law, must never be at the whim of one of the contractors.
To conclude, Mr President, I want to say that the law represents or should represent the golden mean.
That is why I have enthusiastically supported the report, particularly the point on usury.
But the law must be neither interventionist nor dirigiste .
It is enough for it to create an appropriate and balanced environment.
Mr President, Commissioner, we have all admired your conduct both today and yesterday.
The report by Mr Mosiek-Urbahn is also welcomed in my native country, Finland, which is one of the countries which will be affected by the amendment.
Consumers welcome it: we will gain a better effective rate of interest and a uniform European system.
That is all I wish to say about the Mosiek-Urbahn report.
There are many points in the Caccavale report which point to the need for further analysis.
This will be necessary when we finally achieve a uniform capital market through the third phase of EMU.
The experience we have of deregulation of the capital market has already shown that there are huge differences between Member States.
In Scandinavia we currently have an over supply of capital which has definitely improved the position of our people.
The biggest problem, as I see it is for the marginal groups, those who basically cannot get any form of credit, those on low incomes, those with a poor credit rating and those who were left with debts when the economy overheated.
We must have regulations in the future which protect this group's legitimate interests.
I think that the problems we are discussing today are middle class problems, which is a fairly typical occurrence in the current political climate.
Caccavale's report also shows quite clearly the problems which face us if we wish to standardise regulations for the capital market.
We are hampered by the fact that standardisation of regulations concerning civil rights is not easy.
The term mortgage used in one part of Europe means something totally different elsewhere.
I think that Caccavale's attitude, that we should approach this with an open mind, is something which my group would be able to support.
This will be necessary if we really want common rules for both bankruptcy and for credit.
I also welcome point 9 of the proposal which concerns stricter regulations governing advertising.
Point 9 in the Caccavale report has a totally different meaning to the proposal on business communication which we will be discussing at some point in the future.
I hope that we will study point 9 and revert to it when we do discuss business communication.
Mr President, in both the report and the draft amendments to Directive 87/102, we are dealing with an important aspect of the provision of financial services in the context of the European Union, and we are doing so in a situation in which all the relevant considerations are influenced by our preparations for taking decisive steps towards monetary union.
I should like to express my respect, and my gratitude, to all those involved at the Commission and to the rapporteur, for their evident circumspection and attention to detail.
In view of the importance of the issue, I should like to thank Mr Caccavale in particular, for raising the question of an expanded definition of a consumer, i.e. a consumer in the sense of a free citizen.
In that respect I am definitely in favour of Amendments Nos 1 to 5, and I support them.
Unfortunately, Mr Caccavale, I cannot say the same for Amendment No 6; in this case I believe that your original version was more precise than what you are now proposing.
There is no denying that I have the impression that the final horizontal regulation of these difficult matters requires the completion of monetary union.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate both the rapporteurs, Mr Caccavale and Mrs MosiekUrbahn, for their reports.
But I would like to use this opportunity to highlight the difficulties that people on low or no earned incomes have in the European Union and the fact that credit must not become a source of financial assistance simply for those who are well-off.
People without security or assets have great difficulty obtaining credit.
In Britain many people have to rely on consumer catalogues because that is the best way that people on low or no earned income can obtain credit.
I would also like to raise the issue of people who are very mobile and their credit ratings.
In Britain, for reasons not really understood by myself, people who move a lot do not have such a good credit rating as people who are very stable.
This is taken as a measure of whether people should be allowed credit.
I also think that it is unfair - and this has been highlighted as a problem recently - that people living at the same address as someone with a bad credit rating also have difficulty getting credit.
Indeed, if you were to go to a high street and make multiple applications for shop credit cards on the same day, that could lower your credit-worthiness.
I think the Commission must look at the way that organizations measure credit ratings and the ability of consumers to correct not only their own credit ratings, but perhaps those of members of the family.
I also think that the Commission should do whatever it can to encourage credit unions because these are very useful for people on low incomes and encourage self-help.
Finally, I would like to draw the Commission's attention to the micro-credit conference that was held between 1 and 4 February in Washington, which tried to highlight the usefulness of micro-credit to people who cannot traditionally get credit from normal credit organizations.
This is also applicable to industrialized nations.
I would like the Commission to take it very seriously indeed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are indeed having a day brimful of debate, proposals and initiatives on financial services.
I congratulate the House because, just two years ago, when I took on this portfolio, I thought the financial services and consumer sector was a field that was not exactly taboo but very sensitive - the kind of thing that places those on opposite sides particularly on edge.
This shows that the approach we opted for - and which seemed the most time-consuming - drafting the Green Paper on financial services and thus inviting everyone to a dialogue and to make proposals, proved in the end to be perhaps the most effective approach.
I in fact believe that now, in the light of the responses to the Green Paper, not even the producers of financial services can claim that the problems do not exist because they have actually been documented.
But I think that all of that was discussed this afternoon, in connection with the Marinucci report, with my colleague, Commissioner Monti.
To deal more specifically with the two proposals on the table - more precisely the proposal concerning the first report and your comments on the proposal for a single mathematical formula - I do not need to remind you just how long-standing a dossier this is, debated by the House on several occasions.
At any rate, it seems to me to be important that we have somehow reached the final stage.
In that connection, I wish to clear up three specific issues.
As far as the symbol is concerned, the Commission takes note of Parliament's view.
I wish simply to say that it was introduced and backed by a number of Member States; if then there is a change of view, the Commission can only note it.
As regards the period of time used as the basis for calculation: the standardized or the actual calendar year are clearly both possible criteria, and they both have a certain logic behind them.
The Commission wishes only to stress that the criterion of the actual calendar year is more precise than the standardized year - which you are proposing - which would perhaps be easier but, from the point of view of the consumer, simply less precise in terms of the calculation.
In addition, rounding-off the result of the calculation, as the House is proposing, seems to me to be counterproductive because while it may be a simplified formula, for the purposes of informing the consumer, it is important that the statement of the actual annual rate should be as accurate as possible.
Finally, since the Commission has frequently wished to see a deadline of one year set for the transposition of directives, it must welcome the fact that Parliament's amendment gives a deadline approaching that, albeit a little longer than the one proposed by the Commission: at any rate, we are moving in the same direction.
One last comment concerning what we might describe as the positive list, or the negative list of the elements to be included or left out of the calculation.
As you will be aware, the Commission's initial proposal contained the idea of a positive list which, as you will remember, was rejected.
We now therefore have the negative list of elements to be excluded from the calculation.
I have, however, to say that the research conducted by the Commission in preparation for this directive showed that the final outcome is in fact practically the same whichever method is used: the Commission has put forward the negative list because the earlier approach was rejected.
At any event, the Commission is certainly prepared to study along with the House means of achieving greater harmonization, including by inviting the Member States to submit data to show that these problems exist.
I have to tell the House that the material the Commission has received from the Member State which created the most problems in relation to the negative list, namely France, frankly revealed no evidence to back any of those concerns.
In conclusion, it seems to me that we should all welcome the fact that this directive is now on the way to completion and that, therefore, as far as consumers are concerned, the adoption of a single mathematical formula for calculating the actual annual rate, although still limited in some respects, represents a major step forward as compared with the legislation of ten years ago.
Turning to the report on consumer credit, I wish to make just a few points, perhaps to clear up some misunderstandings that may have arisen and that I am anxious to sort out.
It is clear that the Commission agrees with Parliament's perception that the market in consumer credit has expanded rapidly over the past ten years.
We have only to remember that at the time of the current directive, 87/102, hire-purchase was still more or less the only form of transaction.
Today, however, from credit cards to other means of payment, things have changed greatly and will change still further as the processes become more internationalized with the introduction of the single currency and the euro.
For all of those reasons, the Commission - and I think that Commissioner Monti announced this today - intends putting forward a directive amending the old directive on consumer credit, in the light also of the Green Paper on financial services. And it will also be providing a package of initiatives - on which it will be presenting a legislative proposal - on intermediaries, not only in the insurance sector but in the credit sector also, specifically in order to respond to and resolve a series of problems that you have raised.
Let me describe to you, by way of information, some of the features of this new amended directive: first of all, the increase in the ECU 20, 000 ceiling as currently set; extension of the scope of the directive which could cover loans for renovation work not secured by mortgage - and I shall return to this because it seems to me that there continues to be a degree of misunderstanding here; extending it, for example, to cover, misleading promotional sales; the ban on promissory notes and a whole range of other elements that you have mentioned.
All in all, a directive the substance of which has been genuinely amended.
Let me now consider, simply in order to prevent misunderstandings, paragraph 4 in which the House rejects the Commission proposal to include in the scope of the directive loans for renovation and modernization work not guaranteed by mortgage.
Your rejection of this seems to me to be based on a misunderstanding because any extension of the scope of the directive to cover renovation and modernization work does not, in our view, seem to pose a threat to the market in loans for renovation guaranteed by mortgage, clearly bearing in mind the particular features of the latter type of loan.
It seems to me, then, that on this point, greater clarity could perhaps help us each achieve a better understanding of what the other is trying to do.
As regards paragraph 16, which rejects the idea of Community rules to harmonize mortgage credit, here again what we have is a misunderstanding because it is not the Commission intention to align the national laws in force or the provisions of civil law - that would not in fact be possible - but simply to set under way a process of reflection on the possibilities and ways of extending to cover that form of credit also the rules on information, transparency and protection provided for in the current directive.
Moving on then to my third point: as far as paragraph 10 is concerned, and this limits to consumer goods only the right to early payment which the Commission is in fact proposing as a general principle applicable to all forms of credit, Parliament's position appears generally to be too restrictive.
I believe that it is possible to be more flexible and not restrict ourselves to a position of the kind that emerges from the report.
Finally, paragraph 12 also seems to the Commission to be too restrictive.
Our view is that it is necessary to fix a uniform cooling-off period of longer duration and of more general application than envisaged in the amendment which, for reasons not clear to me, seeks to limit this possibility to consumer goods only.
In my view, the Commission approach is more broadly-based and more beneficial to consumers, and I would ask the House to consider this in the light of what I have said.
Finally, I have to say that I have some reservations of an institutional nature when it comes basically to equating the rights of consumers and small and medium-sized undertakings.
Clearly, I support these views at a political level but, I repeat, I do have some reservations of an institutional nature in the current circumstances - in relation to consumer policy, competence and the Treaty itself.
However, I take the view that this is the purpose of the institutional dialectic and that we need institutions that stimulate new approaches - including from the cultural point of view - and new forms of assimilation. Consequently, although the current institutional position prevents me from accepting those paragraphs, I do consider this an important step in opening up a debate - that is currently cultural rather than institutional - on the approach we should be taking and, more generally, our philosophy of the consumer and citizen, interpreted, of course, as encompassing small and medium-sized businesses also.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon tomorrow.
Recognition of qualifications
The next item is the report (A4-0003/97) by Mrs Gebhardt, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive establishing a mechanism for the recognition of qualifications in respect of the professional activities covered by the Directives on liberalization and transitional measures and supplementing the general systems for the recognition of qualifications (COM(96)0022 - C4-0123/96-96/0031(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are, admittedly, not too many people present at the plenary session at this time of night, but we should still take this debate seriously.
The groups within this Parliament, having undertaken serious preparation, have something to say about the simplification of the recognition of professional qualifications in the European Union.
We are not talking about peanuts here; we are talking about fundamental citizens' rights which are repeatedly allowed to go to the wall, in contrast to the economic interests of the internal market.
What is at issue here is the recognition of equal abilities in commerce, crafts and industry, which the citizens of the fifteen Member States can understand, and which will make it easier for them to live together within this Community.
If one looks at this recognition directive in simple terms, one might imagine that somebody had got hold of the legislative procedure broom and swept together the crumbs of thirty-five individual regulations.
But it is not as simple as that.
This directive has another dimension.
It creates clarity with regard to professional development opportunities in the European Union, and it strives for equality, which is a fundamental citizens' right.
I was not able to take part in the French revolution, but where would we be in Europe now without the objective of égalité ?
Translated into present-day terms, égalité means equality of opportunity.
In Europe, that means that an equivalent qualification must be valid everywhere.
This is how we create freedom of movement for our citizens.
This is no great discovery.
We are simply creating a situation of normality.
In earlier times, craftsmen in particular had their journeyman years, before finally settling down permanently somewhere.
But let us go back to the idea of qualifications as a prerequisite for carrying out an activity or setting oneself up in business in commerce, crafts and industry.
This does not mean that they have to be acquired in the same form everywhere in the European Union.
It means that we must mutually recognize knowledge of equal value, without a lot of bureaucracy.
Let me give you an example: it was rather ridiculous that the German Federal Land of Bavaria, following the fall of the Iron Curtain, did not want to recognize the DDR Abitur.
In East Germany, the Abitur, or school-leaving examination, was obtained after twelve years of schooling, whereas in Bavaria, children obtained their Abitur after thirteen years.
Yet there is no reason to suppose that Bavaria has produced more great scientists than the eastern part of Germany.
It is the same throughout the professional world of Europe.
Anyone who is master of his craft, who knows his job, is just as good in Rovaniemi, in the Arctic Circle, as he is in Paris, Athens or some little town in Southern Germany.
This is what the directive is intended to emphasize, and it also creates more clarity than the previous regulations.
For this reason, the Commission's proposal is very much to be welcomed.
From the citizens' point of view, however, it still contains too many ifs and buts.
As a Parliament, it is not so easy for us to get rid of them, but we can do something to improve the proposal.
With this in mind, a number of amendments have been tabled.
We shall be discussing these amendments and taking decisions on them, and we expect the Commission to go along with Parliament.
But this is not going to be so easy.
What the Commission has placed before us is something that has been drafted without any great enthusiasm, it will be extremely difficult to make it comprehensible to the general public, and it has various shortcomings.
This is demonstrated by the number of amendments that have been tabled.
These amendments show that once again the European Parliament is having to do the work of the administration.
That is not what we were elected for.
We were elected in order to ensure, by means of policy decisions, that 370 million people can live happily together in both the present and the future.
And what have we got in front of us? A document that was intended to simplify and make more transparent the opportunities for professional development in Europe.
Regrettably, the Commission has not only shifted its own responsibilities onto the European Parliament: it is now making our work even more difficult by ensuring that we do not receive sufficient information.
Even greater simplicity would have been desirable, as would even more clarity, but these things cannot be achieved without the necessary information.
Therefore I invite the Commission - and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is with me on this - to provide Parliament with this information without delay, so that we can rapidly improve this half-hearted directive and really give people, in commerce, crafts and industry, freedom of movement and freedom to establish themselves in the Member States of the European Union.
We are now taking a pitifully small step in that direction, but we, as a Parliament, owe even these small steps to our citizens.
In future, the Commission must not prevent us from taking bigger steps.
Perhaps I could just add one more thing. It would have been nice if we had been able to carry out these simplifications in Article 4, but this was not possible because there were, quite simply, no reports available on the experience gained from the thirty-five earlier, individual directives.
I am not a member of the Legal Affairs Committee, Mr President, but as an MEP I do take an interest in citizens' rights.
I am thus especially happy with Mrs Gebhardt's report, happy because I now have something positive to tell our young visitors here in Strasbourg and Brussels and especially happy now that in 1997, the year in which the Maastricht Treaty is to be revised, we have an instrument with which to counter the creeping Euroscepticism apparent amongst our people.
This is of course a theoretical thing which brings a welcome degree of simplification and clarification to our Community law and in practical terms broadens people's opportunities for exercising their profession and promotes occupational mobility as well.
And that is important, because almost daily we talk in Parliament about jobs, and this is good for jobs.
Mrs Gebhardt says that there is now greater equality of opportunity from the North Pole to Southern Germany.
I think, for example, that doctors in the Netherlands will now have more chance of finding work in a neighbouring country like Germany, for example.
That is fantastic.
She thinks it is still too little. I say, better this little step than nothing.
I think it provides excellent mortar for the bricks of this European home we are building, and my Group is very pleased with this report.
I compliment Mrs Gebhardt on it and I think we shall be voting in favour tomorrow.
Mr President, the development of the system for recognising diplomas is fundamentally linked to citizens' basic rights to move freely and exercise their profession, as well as to the attainment of equal treatment.
This Directive seeks to simplify Community law and render it more open from citizens' point of view.
Unfortunately, progress in this direction is still inadequate.
There is still a considerable need for further development in the years ahead.
As far as matters of principle are concerned, an important change was introduced in the late 1980s when the socalled euro-professions objective was abandoned - in other words, the attempt to harmonize professions - and instead a start was made on recognition of diplomas and other documentary qualifications.
This system must now be made to work openly and without discrimination against anybody.
The flood of complaints demonstrates that much still remains to be done at Member State level to eliminate obstacles.
From the point of view of members of the public, it is important that the so-called procedural guarantee should operate in practice in all situations.
Member States should compare applicants' qualifications with those required in the host country, and if equivalence is established, an application for recognition should be granted.
The applicant should also always be given the opportunity to show that he has acquired in some other way a skill which was lacking, if he has no diploma in evidence of it.
In my view this is a very important gain in flexibility.
The rapporteur rightly expresses surprise at the fact that it is not possible to obtain up-to-date statistics on a matter which affects citizens' rights to such an extent.
It is high time that the Member States were required to forward to the Commission information particularly about those problems which people still encounter if they wish to exercise their profession in another Member State.
Only on this basis will it be possible to determine what changes need to be made and to introduce them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's proposal for the recognition of qualifications in respect of the professional activities covered by the directive on liberalization and transitional measures is to be welcomed.
To be quite honest, I wonder how this long title is supposed to be comprehensible to all those members of the general public who are affected by it. We often speak a language here that many people cannot understand at all, and people often do not realise that proposals of this kind are actually to their advantage.
In spite of this, I support this proposal, and especially the remarks made by the previous speakers.
There are two gentlemen here, but so far they have not said anything on this subject.
One has the feeling, therefore, that this is really a subject that is only of interest to women, but that is not true.
I believe that, especially in a Europe of citizens, where freedom of movement plays a very important role, at least on paper, but also in our thoughts, it is absolutely essential that we should remove the obstacles that hinder this freedom of movement.
For the different qualification requirements of our education systems, and the often difficult mutual recognition of qualifications and professional experience, are preventing professional people from practising their profession and becoming established in another European country.
Therefore the directive that we are discussing, on the recognition of qualifications, is intended to help to make such recognition easier and quicker.
From conversations with people who are affected - and I have many such conversations in my region - I know that many people who are currently unemployed would actually be prepared to work in another region, but they do not know how to set about it, because they have a very large number of obstacles to overcome before they are actually able to work in another region.
I think it is important that we should deal with this question, so that people who have a qualification can go to another country.
I myself did so, twenty-five years ago, and I could recite you a long list of the problems that I encountered in doing so.
I hope that we are able to clear up these problems, and that in future a Europe of citizens will be constructed, in which the European concept really is firmly established in the minds of all the people.
Mr President, this report appears to be of a technical nature but is in fact of huge political importance because it concerns citizens.
On behalf of the Commission, I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Gebhardt, on this very clear and cogent report presented on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
This was certainly no easy task, given that the proposed directive is very complicated, involving the codification of 35 directives and the introduction of machinery for the recognition of diplomas for a large number of different professional activities.
Fortunately, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights approved this report, thereby avoiding prolonged debate on the technical complexity of the proposal.
It has thus backed the work of the Commission in simplifying Community law and has confirmed the assessment of this proposal for a directive made by the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment which considered it to be a contribution to the fight against unemployment.
For the most part - I am happy to tell you - the Commission is able to accept all of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs.
While I say that the Commission is happy to accept all of the amendments, I have to say categorically that I reject one thing Mrs Gebhardt said when she used the expression 'without enthusiasm' .
Even though the House is not perhaps packed at the moment, I would like it to understand what is being done with its support, with your support, to construct the Europe of citizens.
The Commission approach is to give priority to the citizen.
The citizen is something more than the consumer - to whom my colleague, Mrs Bonino, referred a short time ago - more than the saver or worker: the citizen is the entity for whom we are all working.
The approach of this Commission is to work for the Europe of citizens even in relation to what may appear to be the most economic-based aspect: the single market.
And this proposal, on which we have this evening Mrs Gebhardt's excellent report, reflects the approach of the Commission: priority for the citizen, simplification, transparency and information.
Far from 'lacking enthusiasm' ! We are very enthusiastic, thanks also to Parliament's support in the construction of this single market for citizens, this Europe for its citizens.
Let me now draw your attention to the measures that have been taken recently to give real substance to what could otherwise be the flimsiest form of European construction: we have the Simone Weil Group mandated to consider the real problems of freedom of movement; the package of proposals I have put forward for the abolition of frontier controls within a framework of security; the ever-increasing number of actions for infringement we are bringing against the Member States, in particular for breaches of directives concerning the free movement of citizens and the recognition of diplomas.
But in addition to that, and as Mrs Zimmermann rightly said, it is not enough to construct Europe for citizens: we need to develop information for citizens, we need to ensure that citizens are aware of the possibilities Europe is creating for them.
Within that context, and again with the support of the House, but with the enthusiasm of first the Commission and then Parliament, we launched the programme Citizens First - Burger Europas, specifically designed to provide the outside world in this area also with detailed and accurate information which will finally enable citizens to understand what Europe is really doing for them and will allow us, via extensive telephone feedback, through the Internet etc, to understand the real obstacles citizens encounter in exercising their rights of European citizenship.
And so, I am certain, that at this point, Mrs Gebhardt will agree with me that we are taking this measure enthusiastically, not with any lack of enthusiasm, and we know that the European Parliament is backing this difficult but very important Commission initiative.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 12 noon tomorrow.
Staff Regulations of Officials of the Communities (Equal treatment of men and women)
The next item is the report (A4-0046/97) by Mrs Lindholm, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the amended proposal for a Council Regulation (Euratom, ECSC, EEC) amending the Staff Regulations of Officials and Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities in respect of equal treatment of men and women (COM(96)0077 - C4-0565/96-00/0904(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to congratulate Mrs Lindholm on her report, for which I was appointed draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights.
With the approval of the amendments tabled to the final report, the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Communities will represent a good model in terms of equality of treatment.
It is vitally important to provide a progressive legal model in this matter for several reasons, two of which I would like to consider.
First, because it explains the principle of equality of treatment clearly and fully in one administration, when the practical and legal application of that principle is turning out to be so difficult and problematic.
Secondly, because it is willing to adapt, unlike most sets of rules, to current social circumstances, recognizing the existence of and increase in de facto partnerships - both heterosexual and homosexual - in our society, and according them the same rights as others.
It is a priority to introduce these corrective measures because they are crucial to reversing discrimination against women by which, with equal training and ability, it is men who gain the higher positions.
In addition to seeking to correct this process, the measures and amendments are positive because they are transitional measures and do not adversely affect formal equality, since they are only intended to correct inequalities in the sphere of appointment, promotion and development, and the preference is of a temporary nature.
Finally, I want to say that the principle of equality of treatment for women - for which we have worked and continue to work so hard - and the principle of equality of treatment for homosexuals, which was dealt with in a parliamentary resolution in February 1994, are regularly flouted and the battle to apply them has to be waged day after day, so they must be included in the regulations, as they are in this one, and I trust we will approve it.
Mr President, this evening we are talking about the status of officials and the employment of officials in the institutions of the European Community.
I believe that the European Community in particular must set an example by implementing what we are always discussing here concerning the equal treatment of men and women in all areas of our Community.
Regardless of whether this is in the area of employment or in other areas, the important thing is that we should set a good example, and that we should be the ones to show what we in the European Union want.
On behalf of my group, I should just like to comment in detail on one or two points.
Mrs Lindholm has already made it very clear that people who live in a permanent relationship should not continue to be discriminated against by being given different treatment.
We cannot have a situation in which I receive equal treatment only when I have acquired a certain status, namely by landing safe in the haven of matrimony.
Nearly twenty years ago I entered into a marriage because I knew that if I did so I would be taxed differently and would gain certain advantages.
We cannot have a situation in which we acquire our marriage certificates for that reason alone, and I believe that it ought to be possible for me to have equal rights without having to get a piece of paper from the state.
There are many people who live for years in a permanent relationship and who are disadvantaged purely because they have not taken a trip to the Register Office.
This applies not only to salaries, but also to social insurance, in cases of sickness and in many other areas.
I believe that in our open society it is time we put an end to this.
The second point that I should like to raise is the question of the age limit.
I should like to add something to what Mrs Lindholm has already said.
The fact that women have a different career pattern because they take time off to have children and then go back to their jobs later is not the only issue at stake.
Last year, we had what was known as the Year of Lifelong Learning, and we talked about the fact that going back into education for a second time provides people with new opportunities and/or a new career.
Is it not possible that the age limit would be an obstacle here?
Many people do not take their A Level equivalents until the age of 30, and only then do they go into further education or to university, and these people then have no chance at all if there is an age limit.
The age limit must be removed.
Mr President, I have five points to make.
First of all, my group fully supports all aspects of the report concerning equal treatment for men and women.
In fact, we consider that equality to be an achievement of the historical process, the final act more or less, after the freeing, at least in theory, of the slaves, blacks, children, foreigners and people of different race.
We welcome a completely new and far-reaching approach to equality in relations between men and women also.
My second point, however, is that we have some reservations concerning Amendments Nos 3, 8, 10 and 11 which we shall be voting against because they introduce, unintentionally, I believe, an element of discrimination by equating the family, based on heterosexual marriage, with de facto partners and homosexual couples.
Well now, there is, in my view, an obvious and clear difference between entering into a public and specific commitment vis-àvis the state and society in order to form what our international charters and our constitutions describe as 'the fundamental group unit of society and the state' - and I am quoting by heart Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - which should be recognized and protected by the state, and, in contrast, not entering into that public commitment which, in the case of homosexual couples at any rate, cannot be linked to the ability to procreate. That, after all, is why the family is the fundamental unit, because it is in the interest of both society and the state that there should be children and they should be brought up within the family.
Not only that, those who enter into marriage subject themselves to a range of rules laid down by public law because this is in the public interest, and that does not happen in the other examples.
We have only to think about the reasons for annulling a marriage and for divorce and the conditions of marriage and divorce.
Moving on to my third point, I want to make it absolutely clear that in relation to individuals of different sexuality also, in particular homosexuals of all kinds, we have to uphold the principle of equality.
That needs to be stated categorically and backed by the force of the Christian democratic ethic also.
All human beings are equal and that has to be clearly stated.
But the fact of enjoying equal dignity does not mean that institutions that are per se different may be treated as equivalent.
And now to my fourth point. Why is the family described in our international charters, including the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, as a 'fundamental unit' ?
Is it a public asset or a private asset to be protected? What is a matter of public interest, and I have already said this, is the possibility of producing children, otherwise the principle of freedom applies: everyone should do as they please and the state should guarantee only freedom but should neither encourage nor protect.
It may be said that companionship also, the fact of being together is something that needs in some way to be protected.
I am prepared to accept that line of argument but it then needs to be developed fully and not applied exclusively to companionship of a sexual nature.
Companionship that is based on culture, psychology, science, friendship or distant kinship may also deserve protection - why not!
My last point: I do not deny that there are special situations; I am receptive to those who say: but what about when there are children?
What about when there is a whole life lived together and based on mutual support? I am receptive to this!
But I believe we need to undertake a process of reflection and to make certain distinctions. Not in every case then, but in some specific cases.
It is one thing to encourage and quite another to take circumstances into account.
All in all, I believe that we need to embark on a process of reflection, but this should not take place behind closed doors but in the open, with wide-ranging discussion of this particular issue: the problem of companionship and de facto partners.
There is no need to try to sneak in an issue which is in fact hugely important but that cannot be dealt with in the context of a regulation of this nature.
Mr President, Commissioner, I must say that when the committee discussed the proposal for this report from this good and tenacious rapporteur, it presented a sorry spectacle for a relatively new member from the Scandinavian countries.
But I am glad that we have been able to unite across many groups in trying to correct the situation described by the rapporteur, the 'collapse' of this report, and that we have now presented amendment proposals which we believe have a good chance of being accepted.
I do not want to speak on behalf of Scandinavia but I would still like to say that there are those watching what we do and how we vote here tomorrow, as some of the Union's credibility as a defender of women and of equality will be decided through the vote taken by us tomorrow.
For this reason I hope that the group's common proposal will be accepted.
I am also pleased that we will be able to carry out useful goal driven work on equality as a result of the proposals presented, and that there will be legal support for the intentions which both the current Commission and the Commissioner present have stated, i.e. that we are striving for a more equal representation of both sexes in the Union's institutions.
We must continuously have this at the back of our minds, otherwise hidden forces will be working in other directions and we need a plan to guarantee success.
We are also talking about age discrimination.
I support the proposals that have been presented.
As for equal status for various forms of relationship, I cannot see that this poses a threat to marriage or the family in any of the Member States.
It is more of an opportunity.
Those proposals which have been put forward to recognise registered partnerships of varying sorts, other than traditional marriages, do not encroach on the law of any country.
Mr President, of the amendments passed in Parliament's part-session of November 1993 and put forward for incorporation into the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Communities, the Commission has only adopted the one expressly prohibiting direct or indirect discrimination based on sexuality.
The fact that the Commission did adopt that amendment is of course a step forward which we must appreciate.
But there are other amendments geared to drawing up measures to convert the prohibition of direct or indirect discrimination into practical reality, measures such as the creation of a committee responsible for promoting and monitoring the application of the principle of equality, bringing forward appropriate programmes of positive measures, and proposing a system of promotion for officials based on a preference clause, and the Commission has ignored them.
Its lack of sensitivity cloaks a basic problem: the institutions have limited autonomy to deepen and broaden the principle of equality of treatment.
And this is because the progression from formal legal principle to reality raises a certain number of issues which affect different social spheres: from state administration of social services and social security to changes in family and domestic roles, and none of these issues can be dealt with individually, because they go beyond politics and administration deep into usage and custom in society.
But in terms of rights - particularly individual rights - European legislation has been intended to be a model, and has sometimes succeeded in establishing a legal, and also a moral, point of reference.
And now is the time for legislators to shoulder this responsibility.
It is not just a case of legislating for the Staff Regulations of the Officials of the Community; it is also a matter of constructing a working model for economic and social rights and for promoting systems which constitute an expression of equality of treatment, and the end of all legal forms of discrimination based on sexuality.
So we need to adopt the amendments if we want the European Union to become a model in promotion of equality of treatment.
Some may say these regulations had more limited aims, and that they were amply fulfilled by general rules on the principle of equality in the system applying to officials, without going into detail.
But the elimination of discrimination based on sexuality obliges us to go into detail: legal guarantees of equality of treatment cannot disregard details like the under-representation of women, their vertical segregation in management spheres, their horizontal concentration in certain activities and, in the case of European officials, in certain categories.
Not to deal with these issues would leave the principle of equality of treatment devoid of content, the opposite of what is sought by these amendments, which have my support, on behalf of my group.
Furthermore, equality of treatment as a means of deepening democracy must extend to all Community citizens, in matters of labour, civil, contract and commercial law, regardless of their sexuality and their chosen lifestyles.
Otherwise individuals would be penalized for their behaviour and their freedom of choice would be limited.
So it is necessary to recognize the right of de facto partners, heterosexual or homosexual, to benefit from social provision.
Finally, taking on these commitments means making progress towards not only a more democratic society but also a freer society.
I think the Commission has a duty to pursue that aim.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the present case we are dealing not only with equal treatment between men and women in the staff regulations of officials of the European Communities, but also, as Mr Casini has just explained so impressively, with the removal of discrimination of any kind on grounds of sexual, religious or philosophical orientation, in other words, exactly as set out in Amendments Nos 3, 8 and 11.
The European Parliament has a double obligation here.
It cannot fall below the standards adopted by other transnational institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank or the European Monetary Institute, and neither can it forget the decision on equal treatment for persons of the same sex living in a permanent relationship, which was taken by this House in February 1994.
There are no legal or theological arguments against such a decision: no theological arguments, because neither in the Old Testament nor the New Testament tradition is there anything to indicate a preference for one specific family structure, and no legal arguments, because the exercise of personal freedoms cannot be limited to a specific religious, sexual or philosophical orientation, particularly in regulations governing public services.
It would be contrary to the liberal basic principles of the European Union if any restrictions of any kind were to remain in the staff regulations for its officials.
Mr President, the European Radical Alliance group fully supports the aims of the draft regulations submitted to us.
If the European institutions wish to continue playing an active role in the fight against sex discrimination, they should start by giving an example in the treatment reserved to their officials and agents.
This is why my group also approved of the general inspiration behind Mrs Lindholm's report; in fact we co-signed most of the amendments which take up this inspiration to improve the Commission's draft.
Speaking on my own behalf, and aware of the fact that I am going against the current of current trends, I must nevertheless say that I do not feel it possible to support amendments 5, 12, 13 and 14, which pose a true problem of political philosophy, as they establish an inequality of right in the recruitment and promotion of Community officials.
In the case in question, it is not only equality between the sexes, but a different vision of society.
The main currents of thought latched onto these problems a long time ago.
The ideologies which, to sum up, I will call 'collectivist' , tend towards an 'equality of situation' , with the known consequences on freedoms and individual responsibilities.
As regards liberal ideologies, they continue to rest on that which I will call the 'principle of charity' : one relies on individual initiative to correct the inequalities of situation.
For my part, I am radical and I refer to the principle of justice whereby discriminations based on objective criteria (race, sex, language or origin) must be condemned and the equality of rights and chances must be ensured.
This is why, with the men-women problem, I prefer qualitative equality to quantitative equality.
This is why, more generally, I think that an inequality of fact is not corrected by creating an inequality of right, unless we move towards an 'ideal' society where each man and each woman occupies a place assigned to them by arithmetic calculations.
In so far as I am concerned, I do not want such a society.
Mr President, Commissioner, my dear colleagues, the Council's draft regulations submitted to us have received the approval of our group, but I am led to make two comments, one on procedure, and the other on substance.
As regards procedure, Mrs Lindholm's first report was rejected after discussion of the amendments, on the 27th January, in a meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs. What happened?
Non-consensual amendments had only just been passed, often with a majority of only one, as mentioned by this report.
At the time of the final vote, the conversion of a positive vote into an abstention, by a member of the Commission who found that the report did not go far enough, led to equal votes, and so to the rejection of the report.
In the same stride, the motion for a legislative resolution, submitted to the vote rather rapidly, suffered the same fate.
I would like to say that I am happy to point out that on the 6th February, the Committee on Legal Affairs accepted as its own a draft I had made in accordance with the letter of the regulations and the logic of the procedure, which aimed to invite it to issue an opinion on the Commission's initial draft.
The text thus adopted permits our discussion of this evening.
It does not prevent the debate and it also permits the filing of amendments in a plenary session.
Having said that, I would like make a comment on substance.
The situation of inequality of treatment of men and women has led to the adoption of measures which raise serious legal problems, calling into question the very basis of our republican regimes.
To sum up, we have moved from a system of quotas in the positions offered to a system of positions reserved by the famous positive discriminations.
I agree with what my colleauge, Mr Hory, has just said.
He could have quoted the famous phrase of a Communist minister of public office: ' In an inegalitarian society, one must be inegalitarian in order to re-establish equality' .
This actually raises two problems.
The first is of a legal nature.
The constitutional Council in France, the constitutional Court in Italy, the constitutional Court in Germany and the European Court of Justice in the Kalanke judgement, have condemned the measures which systematically favour, in an equal situation, the recruitment of women in the name of the famous principle of equality.
But this also poses a philosophical problem relating to the nature of these positive discriminations and to the fact that they call into question the very basis of our democracies, as it is the very concept of citizenship that is in question.
What should we do? We must naturally plan some equality measures.
We should also proceed with instigations, as sometimes happens in the political parties.
We must not make a mistake in the debate.
I am not sure that the amendments proposed there are eighteen which come from the same signatories will permit advancement.
In proposing measures as contestable as the amendments which have been mentioned, or amendment no. 3, or amendment no.
10 on non-marital community, or amendment no. 11 on the partnership registered as statutorily equivalent to marriage, the authors of these amendments shift the debate.
They take the risk of seeing the Commission's draft rejected.
For the excellent reasons just expounded by Mr Casini, we will not vote in favour of these amendments.
After all, if they were approved and if then the Commission's draft were rejected, the situation of women would not be improved.
This is why we wish to keep to the Commission's text.
Mr President, I welcome the rapporteur's report.
It goes a great way to removing the inequality that exists not only for women, but also for men and women who are victimized because of their sexual orientation.
The amendments put forward by my colleague, Mrs Zimmermann, and others also go a long way to try and remove this particular form of discrimination.
In answer to the last speaker and also to Mr Hory, you cannot remove centuries of inequality by just turning around and saying that we are going to rely on the same men to give women justice.
That is just not going to happen.
Thank God women are beginning to catch up with that.
In the past 50 years we have seen women striding forward and pushing themselves forward to make sure these inequalities are removed.
When Mr Hory first spoke, I thought that given the generous statements he made to Mrs Lindholm, he was going to come out very strongly in favour of removing these discriminatory barriers and going a certain way towards equal representation of women.
But he turned around and struck at the very core of the report by saying that he could not support Amendments Nos 5, 12 and 14.
Amendments Nos 5, 12 and 14 are those amendments which actually say to the Commission: ' You will ensure that there is genuine equality in your ranks when you are recruiting personnel' .
My own particular concern with this report is on Amendment No 18.
I believe that you have to go further than the courts to deter inequalities.
I also agree that we have to struggle within the places where people work.
Therefore it is important that we actually give shop stewards and workers' representatives these tools to sort out the problems prior to them going to court.
That is why I believe that Amendment No 18, which we have tabled in the name of the Socialist Group, should be supported by the House as a whole. It would allow those workers' representatives to obtain the records of various officials in order to compare them with the records of others who are standing for positions.
I must stress that what we are talking about here is the work experience.
I look at the German translation and its says 'Laufbahnen ' .
From my German colleagues I understand this refers to curriculum vitae.
The correct interpretation, as I understand it is 'Arbeitserfahrung ' , which is work experience.
Can we ensure, Mr President, that you and others, including the staff secretariat check out the amendments as they are tabled to make sure they reflect the wishes of the Members that tabled them? That particular amendment is tabled wrongly.
The translation is wrong.
I trust and hope this House will correct it.
Mr President, I speak for the Dutch section, a small section, of the Christian-Democratic Party which hopes to have some reinforcements tomorrow.
I have been busy for two and a half years with petitions from European officials calling for equal rights; these were homosexual couples.
Sadly I have got nowhere.
I constantly had to prod the then Commission to dig this dossier out and dust it off.
I am grateful to the rapporteur and those honourable members who have put down amendments for giving this subject another chance today.
Employers, good ones at least, know that a happy home life is good for people's work.
It is good for people's work if there is someone at home who cares about the worker.
That does not apply in the European institutions.
Janet marries John, we push the boat out, and no one worries about the financial consequences.
If twenty years later John dies, Janet is taken care of for the rest of her life, no problem.
It is very different in the case of Robert and Arthur, and even more so for Jill and Jean, because women get an even worse deal here.
This difference, Mr President, is called discrimination.
A term reviled in this House, except when applied to homosexual couples.
Dutch bosses employing a staff policy like this would find themselves in jail.
Not here.
Here the employer sits at his desk and pontificates about discrimination everywhere else in the world, but not amongst his own staff.
I have two clear questions for the Commissioner.
If Parliament adopts the resolution and the amendments tomorrow, what will the European Commission then do about the Staff Regulations? How long does it have to take before this discrimination is in fact removed?
Why is there no respect for the laws and constitutions of the Member States which handle these matters rather well? Why does the European Commission not have the courage to help people like Arthur, who cannot get a residence permit for Belgium, and use its influence with the Belgian Government so that these people do not have to flee to the Netherlands to live and commute to Brussels to work?
The European Commission does nothing about it.
Self-respecting politicians want a society which survives, amongst other things, by loving its neighbour. An employer can do his bit here.
Two people who care for one another have a far better chance in society than if each is alone. Everyone accepts that, except the employer, the European institutions, when it comes to officials who cannot or do not wish to marry.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity of informing everyone in the House that I come from Stockholm.
In Stockholm, the majority of 'families' consist of one person.
As for the logic which says that children are a necessity for a family, I think that homosexuals should also have the right to adopt children, and that would be that problem solved.
I welcome the work by Mrs Lindholm to get EU institutions to take European Parliament resolutions seriously, resolutions where we speak in favour of equality and non discrimination, resolutions which have been repeated many times here in the House and accepted with considerable agreement.
Maintaining an age limit when recruiting and refusing homosexuals living in a partnership or living together their rights, those rights enjoyed by their heterosexual colleagues, is not just active discrimination but also repudiates national legislation, including Swedish national legislation.
We have the capacity to speak with great dignity and with very fine words.
Now, during the forthcoming vote on the Lindholm report we have the opportunity to turn these fine and proud words into reality by voting in favour of the amendment proposals presented.
I hope now that, not only the majority of members will vote for these amendment proposals, but all members will do so, even if the discussions in committee may suggest the opposite.
I hope this so that we can give substance and credibility to words such as competence, equality, equal rights and rights for all, regardless of age, sex and sexual preference.
If we vote against these amendment proposals we will be actively contributing to discrimination and also actively contradicting ourselves.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the arrogance of many men - and I would like to make it clear that I mean many, and not all - is quite unmistakable, even in this House.
To say that equality is possible if we simply make everything absolutely equal in legal terms is really so arrogant that one can hardly comprehend it.
All the things we are discussing here - curriculum vitae, employment structure, the world of work, the conditions governing appointment and promotion - all these things are based on the lives and experiences of men.
And they say to us, in all seriousness, ' Yes ladies, all you have to do is to become like us men, and then you too will have equal opportunities' .
Do they seriously believe that that is what we want, that we do not want to carry on being ourselves?
Surely that is not true! Really that cannot be true!
The family is a valuable thing, it is true, but it is not everything.
We should not forget that the family is not, in fact, the norm, or the universally applicable way of life in our society.
It is becoming less and less so.
And a family does not mean having a marriage certificate.
Family means people with children, and what does a marriage certificate have to do with that?
It is a question of living together, of being together, and that is what has to be taken into consideration, regardless of whether the people who are living together are of different sexes or the same sex.
There is no reason why these people should be disadvantaged merely because they say quite openly, ' I live as I am, and I would like to have the same opportunities and the same options as other people' .
There is no reason why we should deviate from the basic principles that we have already adopted here in the European Parliament.
We adopted these, as Mr Ullmann has just said, as long ago as February 1994.
Mr President, the Commission proposal on which Parliament is now being consulted has a long history behind it.
The Commission first forwarded a proposal for consideration by Parliament four years ago, in March 1993.
The proposal has two objectives. It seeks firstly to incorporate in the Staff Regulations the principle of equality between men and women, and secondly to make it possible to adopt special positive measures to improve the position of women if conditions are discriminatory from women's point of view.
Parliament delivered its first report in November 1993.
On the basis of it, the Commission altered its proposal and incorporated in it the principle of non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.
It was only in March 1996 that I was able to forward the Commission's modified proposal to the Council, because before the Staff Regulations can be amended, extensive consultations are required, particularly with staff representatives.
As it was a very long time since the Commission had made and altered its proposal, Parliament asked the Council for a further opportunity to state its views, and this request was granted in October 1996.
Now the committee has tabled numerous amendments.
They relate both to equality between men and women and to the principle of nondiscrimination on grounds of sexual orientation.
I should like to stress that the Commission proposal now under consideration is only a small and partial reform, and not a complete administrative reform.
The objective should be to adopt this small and partial reform, now that four years have elapsed, so that we can concentrate on the need for bigger changes.
The debate has mainly focused on two issues, on which I should like to make a few comments.
One concerns the age limit and the other the position of cohabiting couples.
The proposal suggests that age limits for competitions to recruit staff to the Community institutions be abolished.
This idea has been debated over a very long period, and the arguments for and against are well-known.
I should like to stress that the Staff Regulations permit the use of an age limit but do not require it.
Thus there is no requirement to operate age limits under the existing rules.
It would be justified to reflect about when the use of an age limit is justified and when it is not, and to consider the matter separately from case to case.
One practical problem about which I should be happy to speak to the committee at greater length is the organization of competitions.
Most recently in 1993, when a competition for young A-grade officials was held in twelve Member States, there were 50 000 applicants from the twelve countries with nine languages. Ultimately, 600 were placed on the reserve list - that is, just over 1 %.
It was an enormous administrative task and tied up huge amounts of administrative resources.
If a similar competition were to be held now, as it shortly will be, the number of applicants from all 15 Member States would no doubt be substantially larger, yet at the same time the number of new jobs will be significantly smaller, because of budgetary constraints.
The age limit has been used as one method of controlling the number of applicants.
How justified it is is debatable.
On the other hand, I should like to stress that age limits have not always been applied as a recruitment condition.
Many temporary staff have been recruited by the Commission without any age limit being applied, and many of them have gone on to become permanent officials through internal competitions.
Last year, at my proposal, the Commission approved a new policy on temporary staff, which is as follows: in future, two types of competition are to be held - one type for young generalists and one type for older staff who already have work experience.
The intention is that all competitions should be open and public, both those for younger applicants and those for mature candidates, but the mature ones would be required to have specialist knowledge.
This procedure has already been used when recruiting in the new Member States.
For the more junior A-grades, young people with little or no work experience were recruited.
Separate competitions were held for more mature staff to be employed as A-4s or A-5s, higher up in the hierarchy.
I have just compared the results of these competitions, when recruitment began.
Of the young applicants from the new Member States who were placed on the A-grade reserve lists, 51 % were women.
In the more mature age group, only just over 30 % of the applicants placed on the reserve lists were women.
This undoubtedly reflects social development.
The position of young women is already a good deal stronger now than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
But this is a matter which should be considered case by case.
I am not sure whether it is essential to abolish all the rules concerning age limits.
Each case can be considered on its merits.
But as I have said, the Commission is now also opening competitions to more mature applicants.
I shall now turn to the principle of non-discrimination on sexual grounds.
The Commission is aware of the problems of cohabiting couples and the unequal position in which they find themselves, and it has sought solutions to the problem.
Last summer, the Commission approved an administrative reform guaranteeing homosexual and heterosexual cohabiting couples all the entitlements enjoyed by married couples which it was possible to grant without amending the Staff Regulations, that is, on the basis of the Regulations as they now stand.
I have heard that the European Parliament and the Council are preparing similar reforms.
I would encourage Members to keep abreast of these developments.
Parliament now proposes that the Staff Regulations should also be amended so as to entitle unmarried couples to the same social and financial benefits as married couples. This is quite justified from the point of view of equality.
But before the Commission submits a proposal to this effect, we need to make a political judgment. What I mean is this: the Council's attitude towards the entitlements of officials has, to put it mildly, been hostile, and it has on a number of occasions proposed substantial cuts.
If we propose that cohabiting couples should be placed on a footing of equality with married couples, there is a risk that the Council may respond by abolishing those entitlements enjoyed by married couples which do not exist in many countries.
One should reflect carefully on whether to take this risk, because we shall also have to discuss the matter with staff representatives.
I do not personally have anything against the idea.
I entirely agree that married couples and cohabiting couples should be treated equally.
The danger is simply that the Council may take the view that equality should be achieved by abolishing married couples' privileges, thereby securing a position of equality for cohabiting couples.
All in all, I should like to say that, on many points, I agree with Parliament's amendments.
But what needs to be decided now is whether to proceed with this small, partial reform, which has already been in the pipeline for four years, or whether to reopen the debate and the consideration of the proposal.
One alternative is to take a decision on this small reform now and then go on to prepare a complete revision of the Staff Regulations, which in many respects needs to be undertaken before enlargement.
Unfortunately, the timetable for dealing with such matters is enormously protracted.
This proposal has taken four years: how long will it take if we embark upon a complete reform? It might be a good idea to discuss this with the committee.
Even just internal negotiations and consultations with staff organizations take a huge amount of time.
The procedures are lengthy.
If something is to be done, it should be done in such a way as to be completed within the lifetime of the present Parliament and Commission.
May I thank the committee for the interest it has taken in the issue; I shall be happy to continue the discussions on this and related matters later.
Mr President, I put three clear questions to the Commissioner and I have not had answers to them.
After two and a half years I think I am entitled to some.
The Commissioner says he agrees with the amendments, but he does nothing further.
The Commission has the right of initiative.
Let us now see the Commissioner doing something, and let him at least give me an answer to my questions.
I will repeat them: one, what will the Commission do if Parliament adopts the amendments tomorrow?
Two, how long will it take for the Staff Regulations to be amended and, three, why are the laws and constitutions of those countries which do have equal rights not respected by the European institutions, by the European Commission? Please, Mr President, will you see to it that Parliament receives answers to these three specific questions.
Mr President, I have just said that we ought to reflect on whether or not to move towards a decision on this partial reform at all.
If there is a desire to do so, a decision should be taken on the proposal as it stands.
If we want to reopen the whole subject, we shall probably have to go through a procedure which will take a couple of years longer to complete.
In compliance with the principle of cooperation with staff, we shall have to enter into fresh consultations on this whole subject.
The Commission needs to think about this.
Personally I would be inclined - although this is a matter for the Commission to decide - to take a decision today to approve this small reform; the views stated by Parliament could then be taken into account when considering the Staff Regulations as a whole.
Another point which is legally problematic is this: can the Staff Regulations of the European Communities treat nationals of different Member States differently?
So far, legal experts have held that the Staff Regulations must treat all officials equally.
They do not provide any legal scope for discriminating among officials on the basis of their nationality.
This is what the experts say, and since this is the legal interpretation, it is difficult for the Commission to deviate from it.
As Member States' views change - we do now have a couple of countries which have granted rights, and made arrangements for registration, for cohabiting couples and particularly for homosexual couples - this of course improves the chances of getting changes through the Council.
I should be very happy if the Member States' views developed in such a way that things could be put in order in this respect.
The third point to which I have drawn attention is the unavoidable need for a political judgment as to whether we should propose equality for married and unmarried couples.
Is the Commission ready to run the risk that, as a result, married couples' existing privileges, particularly those of a financial nature, may be abolished and equality may be secured in this way?
Many people may regard this as a simple matter, but I can assure you that from the point of view of the staff organizations the issue is a very delicate one.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at noon tomorrow.
(The sitting was suspended at 11 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
: - The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I have a comment on the Minutes.
On page 18 of the German version, Item 16 (' Union policy towards Algeria' ) the motion for a resolution tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists mentions my name.
I am not supporting this motion.
Furthermore, I informed the services that I was withdrawing my signature.
Mr Sakellariou, that will be pointed out at voting time.
The correction will be carried out.
(The Minutes of the previous sitting were approved)
Mr President, the House will recall that I, along with other Members, have raised on a number of occasions, the incarceration of Roisín McAliskey, who is seven months pregnant, in a category A jail.
The Foreign Minister in Ireland has clarified with the British Ambassador to Ireland and the German Ambassador to London, that there is no objection by the German Government to her release from jail.
I would now call on you, Mr President, to ask the British Government to release this woman from jail as a matter of urgency.
Mr President, I just wanted to point out that we had a full debate on this matter yesterday and that it is not in order to return to urgent resolutions which were not adopted.
Thank you very much, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
We have taken note of your remarks.
ONP and universal telecommunication service
The next item is the report (A4-0049/97) by Mrs Read, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive (COM(96)0419 - C4-0581/96-96/0226(COD)) on the application of open network provision (ONP) to voice telephony and on universal service for telecommunications in a competitive environment (replacing European Parliament and Council Directive 95/62/EC).
Mr President, colleagues on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy will know that this is the third attempt on the voice telephony proposals, even before the deadline for liberalization on 1 January 1998.
I want to place on record that the committee, and indeed this Parliament, have worked at considerable speed to facilitate these proposals going through their various stages for the telecommunications Council early in March.
This was not an ideal way to work but I think we have done remarkably well in the circumstances.
This, as you know, is the proposal under the telecommunications dossier which has the most direct consequences for the citizens of the European Union.
It is for that reason that the committee has concentrated on certain consumer aspects of these proposals.
The fear is, of course, that operators will concentrate on the most profitable segments of this market and that is, very often, not the ordinary domestic consumer.
We have tabled amendments on universal service - so central to these proposals - on consumer protection, and a number of my colleagues have tabled most helpful amendments which strengthen the Commission's proposals, particularly on the rights of consumers' organizations to be consulted about changes.
There are amendments to protect low-income consumers and I welcome the Commission's own ideas on flexible payment schemes.
I have tabled amendments supported by the committee and retabled many on behalf of my group about protecting disabled consumers.
It is not often widely appreciated, but some of the developments in the field of telecommunications technology can disadvantage certain disabled consumers.
For example, text telephones are of almost no use to blind or partially-sighted consumers.
We have put down amendments about the quality of service and about the protection of consumers in rural areas - isolated areas or less populated areas.
I would be particularly interested in Commissioner Bangeman's comments on the question of to what extent these proposals should cover mobile telephones.
I know this has been controversial and not necessarily supported by all political groups in this House.
I would ask them to listen carefully to what the Commissioner has to say and perhaps consider their vote accordingly.
It is true that the mobile telephone market is developing at very different rates in the different Member States.
But I think it is very clear that this will sooner or later be one market.
It seemed to me, and the committee supported me, that we should make some moves towards this now.
The field we have chosen is in the field of funding of universal service and that of consumer protection: fairly small but significant moves and for me the most coherent and logical place to start.
It is not without interest this week, when we are debating this report on voice telephony, that the record-breaking World Trade Organization agreement has finally been concluded.
It was interesting that both the Commission and the WTO itself took credit for that agreement - I am sure both were due that credit.
It highlighted what an immensely lucrative, important industry this is - in its own right and as an adjunct to so many industries.
We welcome the agreement and recognize particularly the marker that has been set down and hope that the European Union will move towards the pricing levels consumers in the USA enjoy.
At the same time we realize that this is an industry which I am sure will want, and which certainly can afford, the basic consumer protection measures I am sure that this House will support.
That is all the comments I have to make.
I commend the proposal to you and assure the Commissioner and the Council that the Parliament will do all it can to make sure that this measure proceeds at a suitable pace to meet the deadline of 1 January 1998.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the impending liberalization of the telecommunications market offers the European economy a wealth of possibilities and areas of activity with important repercussions for employment policy.
But, despite the inconspicuous and purely technical impression it gives, it also represents an important social challenge.
In the existing economic and social circumstances, general access to the network -which really means the affordability of the services - is a sine qua non for equality of opportunity and non-discrimination.
So the nature and extent of the liberalization of the market in this sector must always take due account of the consumer's interests.
Today, a certain minimal service has already become an economic and social necessity of life. Liberalization must ensure that those with special needs - the elderly, the handicapped, people on low incomes and those living in geographically remote areas - receive that minimum service at an acceptable price.
That is the essential thing - a rule of communication, especially for the lower strata of society, the less well-off, and indeed, this also shows that voice telephony is an important instrument for social integration - and, if negligently handled, can become a substantial factor in disintegration.
That is why there has to be a fair social dialogue, in which consumers and consumer protection organizations have a binding say in the decision processes regarding general controls to ensure fair competition and the necessary price transparency, the setting-up of various discount schemes for private and business users, investigations into suppliers holding a dominant position in the market, and also the continuing development of new systems.
This will create much greater transparency, and that is what we need.
This is merely a just complement to liberalization, as I see it, a complement that is necessary in the interests of the market economy and of democracy. But the key to this particular directive, or so I believe, is that the consumer must benefit to the full from technological advances in voice telephony.
From my angle, the angle of consumer protection, there are five essential points here. One is that prices must be affordable and fair.
The second is that the services offered must be of a high quality. The third is transparency of prices and services, the fourth is access to the law and assistance with certain kinds of arbitration procedure, with disputes, and the fifth is the involvement of consumers in technological changes.
But if everything fails to work properly, there is something we must think about even at this stage.
If free competition and suppliers' sense of responsibility fails to result in an appropriate standard, we must give thought even now to minimum standards at European level and to the consequences for suppliers who fail to meet those standards.
If, then, at the end of the day, it proves possible to supplement and enrich the proposed directive in a practical way with Mrs Read's report, then we shall be able to say that we have achieved an advance in terms of consumer policy, and I hope that that is what will happen.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Mrs Read on the exceptional work she has done.
She has produced a report of high quality under great pressure of time and the Council on Telecommunications has every reason to be extremely grateful to Parliament for its rapid work.
It is now up to the Council on Telecommunications to follow this same example for the Parliament does not intend to hold up this business and impede liberalisation on 1 January 1998.
The interest of universal service lies of course in a liberalised market as does also consumer protection.
This immediately raises two important questions of policy - firstly: what does universal service cover, and secondly: who is paying for it? With regard to what universal service covers, with the development of a liberalised market with European telecom firms which must be able to develop as fully competitive parties on the international market, means on the one hand that very close attention must be paid to the new responsibilities they will have to assume.
On the other hand you cannot ignore the question of consumer interest.
There is a tension between these two elements which must be carefully balanced.
Another important aspect is that what is technically possible in one country may not yet be possible in another.
So you cannot afford to ignore the differences which unfortunately exist within the European Union.
And finally it is important to take account of the convergence between fixed and mobile telephone networks and the fact that there are going to be major technological changes in the coming years.
That means that the definition of universal services which we are now discussing is limited in time and must apply to the whole of the European Union.
An EU-wide definition of universal services is very important to ensure that only services for telecom firms which are covered by the EU definition need to be paid and to prevent them being hit with yet another universal services charge imposed on market parties.
That is why Amendment No 10 is so important.
My group is of the opinion that for the time being mobile telephones should not be included in the universal services because of the major differences between the EU countries, but we must keep that door open because of convergence.
That is why we kept the door open in Amendment No 7.
That brings us, Mr President, to the second political question: who pays, who contributes to the costs of the universal service?
My group believes it should be clear at this time that only providers of voice telephony services via the fixed net, in other words not the providers via the mobile net, should be expected to contribute towards the costs; but we must examine in due course the extent to which they should also be expected to contribute.
Hence Amendment No 15 in which that is proposed.
What we want to avoid at all costs is that new service providers are already obliged to contribute now to the universal service.
That would be most undesirable, it would hamper the creation of the information society.
Mr President, I wish to draw attention to the problem of the disabled.
There is a tendency to provide them with as much as possible for free.
But I do not think that is wise, for not every disabled person is the same.
Some are economically very independent and I think they themselves would take it as an insult and a blow to their emancipation if they were to receive special treatment.
So do not try to settle that now on an EU-wide scale, but do it at a more local level.
The same holds good for the socially weak.
A measured, de-centralised approach is to be preferred.
I am totally in favour of helping the socially weaker to avoid social exclusion, but that should be done specifically at the lowest level, namely in the region, city or country, and not on an EU-wide scale.
Mr President, time passes quickly, January 1, when the free market for telecommunications services will be introduced, is fast approaching.
Generally speaking, I could say that we in Scandinavia; Sweden and Finland, have had a free market since 1992.
Our experience of the free market has been good; any problems, for example problems connected with providing a service to sparsely populated areas, have been relatively trivial.
Our experience shows that the best way to achieve a free market is to establish basic legislation which gives a framework for the regulation of the market.
The market then needs to be supervised by us as elected representatives.
We can ensure that any anomalies which we do not want are put to rights.
What we mean by this is that we must be ready with legislation for a liberalised market, but we must not introduce more regulations and laws than are required to enable the market to function properly.
This is our experience in Scandinavia.
The most important areas to regulate are consumer safety and protection and the right for everyone in the information society to benefit from new technology.
Our group would also like to emphasise that this issue is not just one of technology, but it is equally a matter of democracy and equal rights for those living in peripheral and sparsely populated regions and of equal opportunities for all, for the old, the young, the handicapped and those who, perhaps, do not normally work with this form of communication.
Mrs Read's report is basically a sound report.
Our task as elected representatives is to supervise the market and ensure that we meet public and civic needs.
All suppliers must be obliged to provide finance for public services.
It is important to ensure from the beginning that civic interests are represented.
We would prefer not to include mobile telephones in this report and we will vote for such proposals in the House when voting takes place.
For the most part we are in favour of the committee's amendment proposals and will lend our support to them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we must follow Mrs Read's example in relating this report to the WTO agreement, though that agreement is even more ambiguous than has previously been pointed out.
There is still the intention, instead of a transition to a new development model which will be viable in the future, to overcome the present difficulties of capital accumulation by opening up what had previously been public sectors to the private markets and private competition, and that does involve problems.
I believe we can perfectly well debate this matter here in connection with the question of the mobile telephone service, because it is true, as Mrs Read said, that this is going to become one market, and the Commission's strategy and tactics of splitting it up into smaller and smaller sectors for technical reasons and regulating them in different ways carry less and less conviction.
In this connection I would like to thank Mrs Read very specifically for having repeatedly stressed the cohesion of this whole voice telephony sector, as compared with the Commission's piecemeal strategy. Perhaps, too, this may have enabled the other side of the House, which is not with us at present, to grasp that flexibilization or liberalization can only be regarded as advances if we really take our regulatory function seriously, if we really succeed in providing the necessary government-backed guarantee for all, particularly including those population groups and regions which have to face up to handicaps, obstacles and problems.
This includes the universal service, and universal service in a more dynamic form.
It includes the need for the consumer associations to play their part.
It includes specific guarantees for the disabled, in this sector more than others, and I can only stress that point.
Communication is a public asset.
Part of it can be supplied privately.
It can be opened up to the private sector, but it must be regulated so as to retain government control over it.
I wish to begin by congratulating Imelda Read, who worked very quickly, and very painstakingly and clearly set out her case, which I support.
Mobile phones should be included, unlike what the previous speaker said. This is a growing market.
I know that it is not growing at the same rate in all the Member States but, nevertheless, it is a developing market and will, I imagine, become more and more commonplace everywhere in the EU.
So mobile phones should be included.
This must also be a universal service.
I have a certain interest here because I represent perhaps one of the remotest parts of the European Union - the Highlands and Islands of Scotland - 90 islands.
The people in my islands have the right to expect the same access as anybody else, whether they come from a very populous country like the Netherlands or a big city.
I am concerned to ensure that it is a universal service, and I start off by saying that that would be essential to my support for this proposal.
We have talked a bit about people with special needs.
I was distressed to hear the speaker from the Group of the European People's Party say that we would demean disabled people by offering them special tariffs.
I do not see that at all.
These people have a disadvantage and are entitled to our support and should get a special tariff for the service.
The mobile phone companies or organizations are very profitable.
This is indeed a profitable segment of the industry and I do not see why we should not oblige it, before it is too late, to make this a universal service, with special conditions to help disabled, handicapped and blind people.
People with a mobile phone should have the right to have an entry in a directory if they wish, with the same right not to be in the directory if they do not wish.
So I hope that this House will support the principle that Imelda Read has so well explained of having a universal service.
Mr President, a more liberal market for telecommunications will create about 1.3 million jobs in the year 2005, according to a French research agency, but not in the telecommunications sector which will see a drop in employment.
But improved telecommunications technology will stimulate employment in other sectors.
It strikes me that private telecommunications firms are in favour of liberalisation and state firms are against this process.
They apparently have a lot of hidden unemployment they want to conceal.
That is why we must produce regulations which work to the benefit of nationalised firms.
The European Parliament should not be misled by the short-sightedness of trades unions who are only interested in the effects on jobs in big nationalised companies.
This debate is about the progress of the liberalisation process: will we meet the deadline of 1 January 1988?
We hope that we shall not see a repetition of the post dossier where France, Germany and the southern Member States apparently want to see liberalisation postponed until 2003.
The European Commission is apparently going along with this.
But does the Commission not realise that the longer one waits the sorrier the state of the post sector and the telecommunications industry in Europe will become. To stand still is to backslide.
Either that or the Commission is running the risk of a parliamentary inquiry in the future into they way it is dealing with the telecommunications and post sector.
Liberalisation is fine, but not at any price.
That is why we developed the idea of the universal service.
I think that this concept is feasible if it is not defined too broadly, for then we would be keeping monopolies in position whereas the aim is to liberalise the market.
Universal service forces companies to serve the whole market and not hive off the best bits.
But the more refined the requirements for the universal service the higher the costs of the basic services.
Too much regulation harms the weaker groups, which are precisely the ones we want to protect.
We must try to find the best solution here.
With this in mind I support Amendment 10 to Article 3, but Amendment 19 to Article 7(1) is clearly a case of over-regulation.
The seriously speech-impaired opt for a private text telephone.
This service is included in the universal service.
A public variant is therefore unnecessary.
On the question of tariff I think we should abandon the concept of a fixed maximum tariff.
Competition is not served by establishing a uniform fixed price based on costs, nor are consumer interests.
Costs are not an appropriate yardstick; they may be much higher in one Member State because of an inefficient nationalised company there.
Mr President, in general, we support the rapporteur's proposals and, in particular, those concerning consumer protection by quality of service, information contracts and settlement of disputes, and we are also in favour of the introduction of families as a special category of users.
We support the rapporteur's proposal to extend application of the regulations concerning consumer protection to users of mobile telephones, though it is obvious that the directive should not govern mobile telephones, since the fixed telephony and mobile telephony markets are still separate.
Another aspect involving consumer protection is the social aspect.
The introduction of flexible payment schemes to prevent disconnections when more vulnerable users, and especially low-income families and/or disabled people, find themselves in difficulty, must be supported without question.
As regards the options concerning the universal service, I wonder whether the Commission's proposals are not somewhat more realistic, in the short term, than those put forward by Parliament.
For the moment, any overly broad definition of the universal service would involve unacceptably high costs that would stifle competition.
In the long term, we need to arrive at the proposed solutions but, in the meantime, it would be useful if the Commission could develop some costing forecasts for the various levels of the universal service.
It would also be helpful if the Commission could instigate research on internal relations within the Member States concerning the free market and competition in this sector, respect of the regulations and any illicit profit-making or illegal use of sources.
The liberalization of telecommunications markets will be a highly significant event; if it is to be achieved in full, it is important that the directive we are discussing here, like the others included in the package, be adopted as soon as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, there are many here who have stated that this sector currently under discussion is a sector which is fast developing and a sector which indeed needs to be allowed to develop quickly in order to bring about a competitive market and a competitive industry in Europe.
We know that huge investment is needed in order to have real access to information in all parts of Europe.
Bearing in mind what has gone before, I also think it better that we do not regulate.
I am a little concerned that both the report and the Commission's proposal suggest that we should.
We know what services were available, but it is more difficult for us to predict what will be required in the future.
There are no 'free lunches' and what we are concentrating on at the moment is guaranteeing old levels of service.
There is a risk that we will take resources away from necessary future developments.
Such development could bring about fantastic opportunities for the handicapped, for example, to participate in society in a totally new manner.
As my colleague Mr Lindqvist has already said, in the Scandinavian countries we have had fantastic results following liberalisation.
For instance, the cost of a long distance call in my native country Finland has gone down by seventy percent and the number of telephone boxes has increased by a quarter since liberalisation was introduced.
Consumers have benefited from this liberalisation.
We currently have a situation in which different Member States are at different stages of development.
For this reason Member States need the freedom to decide how they will support the handicapped and the freedom to decide which rules they will apply. They may support the handicapped through social support for example.
I have expressed a certain amount of concern in my statement from the Legal Committee which has not been included by the Economic Committee.
We would like to see restrictions on when national regulatory authorities can intervene.
We know that national regulatory authorities are not always totally free from a monopoly situation.
There is a risk, therefore, that they will intervene in a way which is discriminatory.
In conclusion, I would like to support what Mr Lindqvist said, that mobile telephones should not be included, as they will stand in the way of the future developments which we need.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of what is happening worldwide, the WTO negotiations show that Europe did the right thing in aligning itself with the mainstream of events.
So we must pay tribute here to the Commission and to Parliament, because without them the telephone market would never have been liberalized.
It must be said that we achieved the relatively satisfactory results we can see today by going against the wishes of the Member States and utilizing the resources provided by the Treaty.
We must never forget: if there had been no Commission, if there had been no Parliament, we should still be dealing with fifteen totally partitioned telecommunications markets, fifteen monopolies or virtual monopolies.
That is the situation, and it was right that the House should be reminded of it.
In essence, we in this Parliament are agreed - and I congratulate Mrs Read - on the problems of competition and price transparency, the need to set reasonable prices, and the fact that there must be a universal service to protect the consumer.
So where do we still disagree? Our intentions are the same, but we disagree about ways and means.
We share the same objective: we want as many citizens as possible to have access to as many quality services as possible at prices which are as low as possible.
But how are we to achieve that? The question which greatly divides us today is whether we should, as of now, make the mobile telephone subject to the same regulation as that envisaged for the fixed telephone.
This is where opinions differ.
They differ because we, for our part, believe that the important growth of the mobile telephone is due to the effects of competition, and will achieve the objective I have just stated much more efficiently than it can be achieved by any other means.
If we try at this stage to impose on operators the burdens of the universal service, it will result in a fatal price increase.
Mrs Ewing and Mrs Read have to understand that there is no such thing as a free service.
It takes a certain kind of mentality - which I shall not call socialist - to believe that things can be easily distributed and that one can be very generous on behalf of the community as a whole.
But there is always a cost, and if you ask those operators to bear additional costs today you are going to slow down the distribution of the product; people who cannot afford to pay for a mobile phone today will never be able to afford it.
Look at what happened in Sweden, in Finland, in the United States.
Mrs Read said, ' I hope that European citizens will very soon be able to enjoy the same services at the same price as the citizens of the United States.'
But if the United States had followed Mrs Read's policy, it would never have arrived where it is.
It arrived there by following the opposite line.
It imposed universal service conditions once the results of competition had become established, at a time when a vast majority of the population already had access to quality services at very attractive prices.
This is a mistake we must not make.
We must wait until mobile telephony has acquired a market share in the region of 30 or 40 % - and then impose universal service charges.
It happens very quickly.
It is easier to impose a directive than to create a network, not to mention the fact that it is also much cheaper.
Mr President, I can follow on from what my friend Fernand Herman has just said.
I think, though, that he does Mrs Read an injustice in believing that, in the report she has presented today, she proposes a policy which would be the precise opposite of what has been done in the USA.
That, at any rate, is not the impression her work makes on me, even though I agree with Fernand Herman in principle.
So I should like to start by thanking Mrs Read.
We owe a debt of gratitude to her, and to the whole Parliament, especially because she had to work so quickly.
I regret that, but, as you all know, the deadline of 1 January next year is putting pressure on us all.
I am sorry to have to tell you that I cannot promise that this will be the last time we discuss ONP and all the other subjects we have talked about in past years, because convergence - both technological and economic - will bring together all of these previously separate markets, and of course that will compel us to adopt new approaches.
However, that is not our subject today.
Our subject today is first, if you like, the fundamental question of the various policies and secondly a subject involving very practical conclusions.
But since the practical conclusions are themselves inevitably somewhat dependent on what is regarded as being right in principle, a valuable first step is to verify once again, by reference to what Mrs Read and others, and Fernand Herman too, have said whether our fundamental approach is right.
First, I should like to refer once again to the fact that we now have a liberalized market - this is no longer in any way disputable, even by unreconstructed Marxists like Mr Wolf.
This situation is perceived as an improvement on a public sector monopoly.
That is a very substantial step forward, because I can well remember that when this debate began there were still people advancing the argument that Mrs Ewing has just touched on once again today: communication is a public asset, and so we need a public sector organization and preferably a monopoly to ensure a better service for all.
I can remember back to the beginning of the liberalization debate.
What Mr Fernand Herman has said is right: Parliament and the Commission have achieved something substantial here, and we are not at the back of the queue but - as the WTO negotiations clearly showed - the concepts we have developed make us leaders in the field, technologically and politically, so that we have no reason to fear whatever comes next from the WTO.
But - because I myself was a target for the attacks and because it always amuses me, so I remember it clearly - in the early debates the issue really was: are deregulation and liberalization even possible at all, or are they just fantasies conjured up by these ultra-liberals? And now, thank God, and I say that not with the arrogance of someone who was right all along but simply because the result is a good one, everyone can see that the ultimate result of liberalization, when you draw the bottom line and add up the pros and cons, brings major advantages for the consumer, in particular, and that gives me great satisfaction.
Because the fact that we can now operate with lower tariffs, not only for data transmission but also, especially, for the telephone service, has become obvious.
And that should be our starting point.
Here, as elsewhere, competition means that prices fall and quality rises.
That is not to say - nor has the Commission ever said - that we should now leave competition to run itself; of course there is a need to regulate certain matters which do not automatically arise from competition. The great question that always confronts us is: what arises automatically from competition and what has to be regulated?
And, if it has to be regulated, then how? This is very difficult to predict, because technological development goes hand in hand with competition here, and many things are quite different from what they usually are in industry.
I have always made that point.
Now let us go back to the question of the 'universal service' .
The nature of the product range and the nature of the costs arising compel every supplier to offer as wide a range as possible.
The argument that one regularly hears to the effect that people will concentrate only on the things that pay - either on major population centres or on the well-to-do and on companies which can afford the telephone and are going to have to afford it - is wrong.
Of course, it will happen in some cases.
That goes without saying.
There will be suppliers - there already are - who initially concentrate on large companies and, indeed, are forced to do so because in the first instance they do not have an extensive network.
But having an extensive network is always more profitable, because the more customers you can reach the more convincing the service you can offer.
And then you can reduce costs as well.
There are companies today - and if I'd said this a few years ago no doubt you would have laughed at me - giving away handsets, for example, free of charge, because they are not interested in the apparatus or the profit it can bring but in the service.
Fine, you may say, OK, that's just another way of passing on the costs, their charges are higher as a result.
No, because this is another area where there is competition now - I see Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf staring at me in amazement, because as an agricultural expert he has absolutely no experience of competition and this is all something completely new to him.
There are companies today who provide free phone calls if the user accepts that he will occasionally be interrupted by advertisements.
That may not be very pleasant, of course, especially in the case of certain personal phone calls.
To be suddenly interrupted by advertisements is something that would certainly upset Mrs Lulling and me.
But that isn't what matters.
What matters is that if someone wants to make free phone calls, he can make them - he has no need to pay anything at all.
My argument is precisely this: let's just wait and see what competition produces in the way of universal access, which is no longer any kind of financial or other problem for anyone, including the disabled.
Of course there are certain kinds of disablement that require technological solutions, that is true enough.
But even there, I believe, technological progress will make many things possible that we today still regard as impossible.
That is the first point.
What I mean, then, is that you should not regard the problem of universal access as being mainly one to be solved through social policy.
It is mainly one to be solved by technological advances and the development of the market.
What problems remain, is the question that arises next, and how are we to solve them?
I am convinced that there certainly is a continuing need for regulation, especially in the case of positions of market dominance.
And the question that arises here is: should mobile telephone suppliers not be treated differently? Do we not need to adopt an asymmetrical procedure, penalizing the supplier who has a fixed network, a de facto monopoly, and making things easier for the mobile phone operators, the newcomers to the market?
Originally we thought this was the right approach.
Now we are wondering whether we may not be able to restrict it. For example, both should be treated equally when it comes to entries in the telephone directory.
So that motion for an amendment can be accepted.
And there are other things we should regulate here today, which must certainly be the same for both.
But it is right, of course, that anyone who has this kind of permanent network still has an enormous competitive advantage at present.
We are trying to regulate that, by regulating access to the network.
It is not true to say that we are simply leaving it unregulated.
And, here again, there will in future be competition between networks, and we will still have to deal with Mr Hoppenstedt's report.
For example, personal satellite communications will also enable us to overcome this bottleneck situation whereby some people today are still owners and users of fixed networks.
Once there is competition between networks, the situation will look completely different.
Those are just a few ideas.
I hope we will succeed in coming up with a regulation here which makes allowance for justified interests but does not result in the situation against which Mr Van Velzen rightly warns us: we may make the development of such things so difficult from the very start that not even this success, achieved through competition and technology, for disabled persons or other socially disadvantaged groups, is achieved.
If we fail to allow such a network to develop at all, then, even retroactively, we shall not be able to enjoy the benefits of this utilization.
The big question here, going far beyond the confines of this sector, is: to whom should the costs of social policy be passed on - who should bear them? And I believe the simplistic principle once again put forward here by Mrs Ewing - they earn so much money, so they can afford to pay for it - is wrong.
Just ask the mobile telephone operators, who have to make a substantial investment at the outset and do not yet earn as much income as the older companies, what they have to finance in the way of start-up costs and how difficult the situation is for some of them.
And even if they did a very great deal of money, it would still be open to doubt whether that really is a sound principle.
We talk about unemployment in the European Union.
Our unemployment is much higher, frighteningly so, than it is in the USA.
Why? Because we constantly penalize the labour factor.
No one can be naive enough to believe, after all, that that kind of cost burden on a company is not passed on.
Of course the company has to pass it on in its costs.
But the transmission of data, in general terms, has become the most important production factor of all today.
If we require it to bear the additional burden of the social policy, we will be hounding more and more jobs out of Europe.
So we must finance the social policy from the earnings of business.
We must have the courage, when we want to do something, not just to lose it in the financing but to finance it openly from the budget.
That's where the money has to come from - from taxation - and then we can think about what we want to do for whom.
That would be the right way of creating jobs, too.
A final word on the WTO question.
The enormous step forwards that this represents is widely underestimated.
This market today is worth six hundred billion dollars worldwide - and the percentage growth rate is in double figures!
That means that if we can succeed in maintaining and improving the position we have in this sector today, that is one of the very few hopes we have of creating new jobs.
That is why this WTO resolution was so extremely important for us, and it is a very good thing that other resolutions have followed, so that we have finished up with a sensible regulation.
I should also say something briefly about which amendments we are accepting and which we are not.
But, as this is the first reading, I may then give a full report to the rapporteur.
First, as I have already said, we are entirely receptive and willing to accept the principle rightly stated by Mrs Read, that we must now give consideration to consumers, and to particular groups of consumers.
For that reason we are accepting Amendments Nos 2, 3, 10, 13, 14 and 41.
There are some amendments we prefer not to accept, for the reason clearly stated by Mrs Thors: there are certain social entitlements which can be handled better at regional and national level, where people have a better idea of what is what.
For that reason we are not accepting Amendments Nos 11, 15, 21, 34, 36, 44, 46 and 49.
As far as the inclusion of mobile telephony is concerned, the point mentioned by Mr Van Velzen and others, we are willing to accept Amendments Nos 5, 7, 9, 16, 23, 26 and 42, in whole or in part.
That is how things stand today.
Once again, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot promise you that we will not have to return to this topic again, and again, in future years.
Mr President, I want to raise a point of order about the order of voting.
But I cannot resist saying to Mr Bangemann that operators want to offer free telephone calls to some subscribers for the same reason as banks sometimes offer free banking facilities to students: they see this as a lucrative and profitable sector in due course.
We can see here in this industry what will be the global Klondike gold rush of the next millennium.
It really is an immensely profitable industry.
But I want to ask you, Mr President, and the services whether you would consider the order of voting at 12 noon?
This is the first reading, but a codecision procedure with some complicated amendments and some split voting and at least one important vote of principle on the inclusion of mobiles.
It is unthinkable that we should not get to this by 12 o'clock.
I ask you to take it early in the order of voting so that we can give it proper consideration.
Mrs Read, I shall forward your remarks to the services responsible, who will put the problem to whichever of my colleagues will be in the Chair.
It will be for him or her to decide.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Telecommunications - satellite personal communications services
The next item is the joint debate on:
the recommendation for second reading (A4-0051/97) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive (C4-0633/96-95/0282(COD)) on a common framework for general authorizations and individual licences in the field of telecommunications services (rapporteur: Mr Van Velzen); -the recommendation for second reading (A4-0050/97) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision (C4-0634/96-95/0274(COD)) on a coordinated authorization approach in the field of satellite personal communication services in the Community (rapporteur: Mr Hoppenstedt).
Mr President, today we celebrate a very important triumph - namely the words of the Director General of the WTO, Renato Rugiero, after the conclusion of a WTO agreement on opening up the telecommunications market world-wide.
The Commissioner has already referred to this.
If the European Parliament approves today the amendments we have tabled, then we shall also be celebrating a victory for at long last, after many years of messing around with directives on licences, the European Union will have a framework for telecommunications licences in the Member States.
The new WTO agreement stipulates specifically that the signatories will set up regulatory bodies, guarantee interconnection rights at reasonable prices, but above all the signatories of the agreement guarantee transparency and non-discrimination in licence decisions.
The EU directive before us today will therefore serve as an important link for the Union itself and the Member States of the Union to fulfil their international WTO obligations.
What does the transparency in the EU licence decisions consist of? First of all the telecom companies must announce well in advance the conditions and form of the licences, whether an individual licence or general authorization.
The system of general licences based on specific legislation is of course preferable to a bureaucratic system of individual licences.
That was precisely why this directive came up against so many problems in the Council.
The amendment I have laid before the House today will therefore help to emphasise the general licences more in the future and not so much the individual licences.
Secondly, the going price for a licence may not be set exceptionally high.
This is also where telecom companies in the European Union have problems.
Some Member States are planning to demand high prices for licences and thus create an unfair advantage for sitting telecom firms since they never needed to pay for a licence.
That is why I am also pleased that this directive sets out clearly that it is only the administrative costs of granting licences that can be recouped.
Thirdly, the aim of transparency is served by making the licensing conditions basically the same throughout the Union and by not making the procedures for granting licences too complicated or too diverse.
Different procedures with obscure requirements are currently thwarting Europe's telecommunications industry at the moment.
That is why harmonisation is highly desirable.
Fourthly this kind of licensing system must offer scope for the service providers.
But even with all these welcome developments there are still some serious predicaments in the path of this directive.
That is why we must be aware of the enormous pressure of time that Parliament is under if we want to have a liberalised market by 1 January 1998.
After we have completed our work the national parliaments still have to pass this legislation.
But I must say that the cooperation procedure with the Council and Commission has not been satisfactory in my eyes.
Last May we voted in the first reading on this licence directive in the expectation that the Council would determine its view on this directive very quickly.
That expectation was misplaced, however, because it was only at the end of December that we received its common position, and many compromises were agreed on in the dark chambers of the Telecommunications Council and Member States with Member States making guesses about the practical feasibility of matters.
This process took place in silence, without any public debate, without any democratic accountability and without any information about why Member States took the views that they did.
Furthermore the Commission changed its original favourable position on some of the EP's amendments in the first reading during Council discussions.
It would be to the Commissioner's credit if he were to explain to the House here today his reasons for the change of heart, for example why the Commissioner welcomed the amendment on mutual recognition but later changed tack.
If we do not yet have complete harmonisation then mutual recognition is still an effective instrument for creating an internal telecommunications market; agreements have also been made in the WTO on mutual recognition while the European Union itself is unable to reach agreement on this issue.
The European Parliament has shown itself very willing to cooperate.
It preferred to start with a restricted directive rather than dragging its feet or running the risk of this directive being blocked in the Council in the second reading. Liberalisation is a higher good.
I wish specifically to address the President-in-Office of Council, Mrs Jorritsma, to ask here that if the European Parliament approves this report today will she accept the specific responsibility of acting on this legislation with speed.
And by that I mean that I expect that the Council Presidency will pass this directive in the Telecommunications Council on 6 March without any problems.
There are of course other points of concern in this directive.
I shall mention a few.
The Member States still have too broad a margin to introduce restrictive licensing conditions.
We still do not know if the one-stop shopping procedure will be passed.
We have now become dependent on an international club of telecom regulators, the CEPT and the ECTRA where the Commission's position is far too restricted.
There are still too many opportunities for national regulatory bodies to put through their own desiderata.
It would be highly desirable if we could set up one single large committee.
The Commission would be doing the sector a great service if it were to set up a kind of telecom legislation help desk in the near future where the national regulatory bodies could come with their questions on European telecom legislation, for this is how you could start the groundwork for setting up a European regulatory authority.
The Commission now has the important job of ensuring the strict compliance with the contents of the directive.
It must pay close attention to the prices being asked for licences, the Member States' compliance with deadlines and the conditions attached to the licences.
I think that these will be the most important issues in the immediate future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to preface my actual report with a few comments on matters of principle, to make the significance of the report clear.
The commercial use of space satellite systems for global communications is a subject which, only a few years ago, would still have been regarded as something from the realms of science fiction.
Today, times have changed.
Technological progress, deregulation and the convergence between broadcasting and telecommunications are currently contributing to the creation of a global satellite infrastructure which in turn opens the way to new commercial applications.
The SPCS systems - personal communications satellites - under discussion here are only one of many possible examples of new satellite services.
The step from space travel research projects to the commercial use of satellite communications is of the greatest economic and political importance to Europe.
Satellite communications offer new markets for European industry and so, of course, also create jobs for the future.
At the same time, the new satellite systems, especially because of their geographical range, advance the process of economic and social cohesion in Europe and, most of all, the cohesion between Europe and the rest of the world, and thus the development of the global information society.
Regrettably, however, Europeans have long underestimated this enormous economic and social potential of satellite communications, and so failed to formulate a common policy.
Exceptions confirm the rule, and I turn to Commissioner Bangemann and point out that encouragement was given here at a very early stage.
I should like to mention, once again, the WTO Conference in Geneva in November 1995, at which, as far as new systems of frequency distribution and occupation were concerned, the Americans pipped the Europeans at the post.
The Americans are far ahead of us in the commercial utilization of the new satellite systems, because of Europe's lack of foresight, enterprise and co-ordination.
American companies are already launching the first satellites - well, the experiments failed because of the carrier system, but they are going to keep on trying.
I am more than happy that Europe, in general, now seems to be awakening from its slumbers.
The European Commission's communication on space travel of December 1996 clearly illustrates how important the promotion of applications and markets in satellite communications is for the purposes of improving Europe's competitiveness.
I therefore welcome, too, the proposed action plan on satellite communications, which will certainly also include the SPCS services, and I hope that it will encourage European industry to take action and invest.
The most important prerequisites for future investment include legal certainty and agreed procedures for the awarding of frequencies and licences.
We have already heard about this elsewhere.
Only a harmonized European policy on approval can prevent fragmentation and allow the satellite services to be introduced quickly.
Which brings me to my report.
For Parliament, it is a source of extreme satisfaction that the Council has largely accepted the compromise proposed on the basis of the first reading.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy thus approved the common position unanimously, except for a small, logical change in timing.
From the institutional standpoint, we have here an excellent example of constructive and pragmatic cooperation between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
I can only hope that this example is followed, and in this context of course, as the rapporteur, I must refer to the laborious procedure with telecom.
My colleague Mr Glante is one of the most long-suffering Members of Parliament sitting on these committees, and I must say that it is simply unacceptable for so much time to be wasted before the joint procedure with the Council and Commission eventually produces a result on a subject of this kind.
As proposed by Parliament, the aim now, instead of a selection procedure at EU level, is harmonization in the utilization of frequencies and the approval conditions for satellite services by CEPT.
However, the mandate for CEPT is tied to a clear schedule.
Should the Commission or any Member State form the impression, which is entirely conceivable, that work within CEPT is proceeding too slowly, the Commission can take action at EU level.
It remains to be seen whether CEPT can fulfil its mandate efficiently and effectively and justify the confidence placed in it.
The co-ordination procedure proposed here is an experimental move.
If it fails to come off, we shall have to try a different approach.
The WTO Conference has been mentioned several times previously.
I need not repeat everything, or the content of the discussions, but the expectation is that about 1700 satellites will be launched into earth orbit in the next few years.
This number may be slightly too high, but there will be a large number of satellites together, of course, with the preceding valorization of the carrier systems and all the other derived benefits.
The satellites, of course, will also take the information society a step further along its road, not just terrestrially, in other words with the existing networks, but via satellite to Africa, the island states and the whole world.
How much added value can be expected from this has also been stated earlier.
I should like to quote one parameter from a newspaper, which says that the agreement is good news for companies, and of course for consumers too, who now spend more on telecommunications than they do on oil.
In other words, there are gigantic sums at stake here, and I believe that the regulation we are proposing here will do a great service to the European Union as it moves forward to satellite communication, satellite networking and the networking of the telecommunications sector as a whole, and will thus represent an enormous step forward.
Thank you for your attention, and I have no doubt that we in this House will adopt a unanimous resolution on this subject.
Mr President, I want to start by congratulating my colleagues Mr Van Velzen and Mr Hoppenstedt as is customary on these occasions.
It is a small and select band of us who are involved in this very specialized area.
I had thought that we should make a giant Advent calendar both for Parliament and the Commission and we could tear off the days as we near the day of liberalization.
Perhaps fairly soon in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy we will take the opportunity of asking the Commission what will be the consequences in these various respects if we do not meet this self-imposed deadline.
It is true that these two proposals are key building blocks in meeting that target and I want to say that the Socialist Members of this House will be supporting both these reports.
Mr Van Velzen has rightly pointed out the long history of the attempts to come up with a position on licensing, and I am very pleased that the emphasis of his work and of the Commission's was that there should be a presumption in favour of general authorizations rather than individual licences.
We all know that the granting of licences and the conditions attached by some Member States to the granting of licences have been unduly restrictive and protectionist and there are cases before the European Court in this respect.
Mr Van Velzen is absolutely right that we need to create a clear and predictable licensing environment and of course he is right to say that there should be clear time limits.
If ever there was a case that 'justice delayed is justice denied' it is in the field of licensing and interconnections currently going through the conciliation process.
If those who want to enter this market cannot get a licence on clear and fair terms and within a reasonable timescale, that will be a major obstacle to achieving the goal.
So, we have no hesitation in supporting both Mr Van Velzen and Mr Hoppenstedt.
In his comments, Mr Hoppensted rightly said that the question of the convergence of the technology and the limitless possibilities of the technology were a guiding factor in the drawing up of his report.
He is absolutely right.
He also talked about big money.
Many people not used to dealing with high finance find that when you start adding on the zeros and the billions it is very difficult to imagine just how all-encompassing this industry is.
But it is true that many of our hopes, for example, in the field of employment and of life-enhancing technical progress, centre on this particular field.
I congratulate my colleagues.
They will have our support when it comes to the vote and we look forward to seeing the Commissioner to discuss both the possibilities and the problems should we fail to meet that target in some respect.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, two more interconnected aspects of the great jigsaw of the liberalization of telecommunications are directly associated with these two common positions: the regulation of service licences and coordinated authorizations in the field of satellite personal communications services.
We should congratulate Commissioner Bangemann and the European Parliament, represented by its rapporteurs Mr Hoppenstedt and Mr Van Velzen, for the speedy and pragmatic work that has been so rapidly completed, keeping us in line with the deadline of 1 January 1998.
In my report at first reading in the Committee on Research into Satellite Communications, I suggested a number of amendments, later taken up and adopted by Mr Hoppenstedt in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, with a view to redirecting the European Commission's role towards harmonization and away from selection procedures, with priority being given precisely to the urgency of service supply, already technically ready for take-off, with European enterprises participating on the basis of a more structured and formal selection procedure at Commission level - a procedure that would, inevitably, have been longer and, in my opinion, unnecessary for satellite services, which are inevitably restricted to a small elite of international operators.
I am pleased that the report produced by the Committee on Economic Affairs and the European Commission's approval of that report have quickly brought us to a common position.
I am delighted that an effort is being made to simplify and standardize interconnection procedures, including those for satellite communications services; that the concept of one-stop-shopping has been taken as a point of reference in the directive on licences; and that restrictive measures have been concentrated only on areas where the natural resource, the frequency spectrum, is limited.
With regard to administration of the frequency spectrum, I note that, in the USA, the Federal Communication Commission has adopted a truly ultra-liberal approach, putting frequencies up for tender to any operators that have applied and awarding them to the highest bidder, thus raking in huge amounts of capital - I seem to recall the figure of 20 billion dollars, which, just to give a point of comparison, is virtually twice NASA's annual budget - that can then be used for further investment.
Perhaps we should have reservations about this way of proceeding, but I feel it is worth considering the priority our main competitors are giving to market forces in a context of rapid growth, both in technological terms and in terms of the demand for services.
As regards the report on licences, I should like to mention Mr Van Velzen's recommendation that, between now and the year 2000, the various committees for Community telecommunications legislation be consolidated, and I agree with the need, which I feel is implied in the report, for a European regulatory body.
I think the Commission should submit a communication on how such a body could be set up, to open the debate with Parliament and Council.
The launching of the information society seems ever closer and more possible.
The work completed by the World Trade Organization on opening telecommunications services as of 1 January 1998 and on the free movement of data-processing products really gives us an idea of a world-wide movement that also involves many countries lying outside the traditional USA/Europe context and projects us forward into the great adventure of the 21st century.
Our task is to provide the Union with the rules that will best serve to increase the competitiveness of the industry involved in telecommunications and audiovisual products and services and also make our society more interconnected, better informed and, therefore, I believe, more cohesive and democratic.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must start by thanking both rapporteurs most sincerely for their efforts and congratulating them on the results.
This is an intensely political subject, and one of fundamental interest, too, because the issue here really is the creation of new systems, new market incentives.
On the one hand we must meet the needs of an open market, and on the other we know that there is a very special need of regulation here.
I believe, though, that the Commission has been able to find satisfactory answers to most of these questions.
The situation is that market access can be structured on an objective, non-discriminatory and transparent basis.
Commissioner Bangemann deserves our sincere thanks for that.
Starting out with the idea that the issue at present is to bring something to the table that is politically feasible, I expressly welcome the Commission's proposal.
I would like to add, though, that, in my view, it would have been more desirable, politically and economically, to grant more powers to the European Union institutions in this sector generally, and also in the licensing procedure and in the area of international co-ordination in particular, to enable a more efficient system to be obtained at European and global level.
I only hope that this failing will not have a seriously disadvantageous effect on Europe in the global race for access to satellite communications services.
At any rate, the Commission will need to play its part effectively in its role of observation and co-ordination.
Bearing in mind that the liberalization of the telecommunications sector is scheduled for January 1998, the adoption of a resolution is of course a matter of great urgency.
I am glad that we have succeeded in taking an important first step in the right direction, even under such heavy time pressure.
It will be important, though, not to lose sight of further technological developments but to continue adjusting the general conditions to suit developments in this field.
Once again, many thanks for everything that has been achieved.
I believe a good start has been made.
Mr President, I should like to remind Commissioner Bangemann of his days as a social liberal, and to remind him too that social policy can look forward, and not just backward.
Economics is not a natural process.
It has to be constituted on the basis of social policy - the not particularly unreconstructed Marxist Polanyi called it 'embedding' - otherwise there is no way in which we can avoid certain destructive tendencies from the outset.
Now to the reports.
We too support both reports and congratulate our colleagues.
The harmonization of licences in the internal market certainly makes sense, though we regard the proposed six-week period as too short.
My answer to Mr Hoppenstedt is, of course, we would have to have a debate on space travel.
But that is not what we are doing.
As I see it, we must think back once again to Parliament's original position, because in this very House we have the problem of the worldwide monopoly which Mr Bangemann has rightly referred to here - I think the issue in question was on-line services.
That is the task in store for us.
Unless Europe is given a stronger role, unless the Commission has more opportunities to act, this trial run of the co-ordination procedure will prove something of a lame duck.
That is what I fear.
Even so, that is how we are going to have to do it, given the time pressure that has been put on us.
And I would like to say another word of criticism about that.
We are once again in a position where we have to decide on individual questions without really having time for a broad strategic debate.
That is annoying.
We really ought to be proceeding together, and the Commission's action programme clearly offers a framework for that.
But we also need to relate this to the detailed debates - the technical debates.
Unless we succeed in doing that, we shall constantly find ourselves in this kind of rushed situation, and that is a bad thing.
Even so, we are going to vote in favour now.
But I would like to make one more point: we must tackle the problem of the global monopoly.
We must tackle the problem of active, constructive involvement of the European Union within the World Trade Organization, and that will probably require more extensive rules than are to be found in this lame compromise.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hoppenstedt, it really is very reassuring and helpful to pat one another on the back as far as the TEN telecom consolidation is concerned.
I think many procedures go very smoothly, very quickly, as this report has shown.
Some start very quickly and then slow down.
TEN telecom consolidation got off to a rather laborious start, but I hope we shall be reaching a compromise very shortly.
Some of my hopes here rest on the Dutch presidency.
I should like to concentrate on the Hoppenstedt report.
As the rapporteur very correctly says, Europe is lagging behind the USA, the leaders in matters of satellite communications.
This is all the more painful in that these satellite communications are a logical complement to the existing high-speed infrastructures, or indeed make them possible in the first place.
This makes it all the more amazing that the Member States have reacted so negatively to the Commission's proposal and have been unable to agree on a procedure to be implemented by the Commission.
This reaction is particularly amazing when you consider that it is those same Member States that are constantly calling for a global reaction to global challenges, which certainly include satellite communications.
It is simply amazing that Europe can reach agreement on a common monetary policy and a common economic policy, and even implement them, but cannot agree on something like leaving the awarding of satellite frequencies to a European institution.
The compromise proposed by the rapporteur has our support, and is likely to provide an adequate solution to the problem we face.
I hope that the co-ordination of the selection of service providers and the harmonized use of frequencies, to which the Member States have committed themselves, really will function in practice and will not result in constant, tedious negotiations that will leave Europe even further behind in this area.
I believe in giving praise where praise is due, so a word of praise for the Council.
Regarding the conformity of the licensing procedure with the ONP text, there is an unusual degree of unanimity between Council and Parliament, and I welcome that.
In conclusion, may I thank both rapporteurs and express the hope that Honourable Members will give unrestricted support to this compromise when we come to the vote.
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
Since we still have a few minutes left, I can invite the two rapporteurs to speak again, if they so wish.
Mr President, you will not be surprised to hear that I am very pleased with the Commissioner's reply.
I have noted that six airmails are booked in with Mr Böge, the chairman of the BSE Committee of Inquiry.
I shall personally ensure via the interconnection that it also happens.
The second point I wish to make is the following: I agree with the Commissioner that working towards a European Regulatory Authority will be heavy weather.
I welcome your start with an informal working group in the Council.
But I also urge that the Commission should perhaps make a start on a kind of help desk which can contribute towards creating a relationship of confidence with the national regulatory authorities.
I believe that could become a confidenceinspiring move.
Finally I would like to ask this: you have just received, as I understand it, a very voluminous study on the added value of a European Regulatory Authority and I wonder if you are prepared to forward a copy of it to Parliament, or at least to those people who are on your advent calendar.
Thank you, Mr Van Velzen. Commissioner Bangemann, would you like to respond?
Mr President, first let me thank Mr Van Velzen for what he has said about this question of co-operation.
Of course the Commission will co-operate on this informal committee, meaning that we shall play a part there together with the presidency.
With that in mind, I believe that we should now start by trying to get this confidence-building process in motion.
This bundle of papers to which you refer may be on my desk - I haven't read it yet - but we can certainly give you access to it.
We have acted upon these repeated requests of yours to commission this independent study, which will deal with the problem of setting up a European regulatory authority in the telecom sector.
That inquiry has not yet been finished - it is nearing completion now.
But it does show the level of interest in the possibility of a European regulatory authority, and it also identifies what possible functions of such an authority might be regarded as the most important by the players in the market.
The inquiry is also examining the question of the legal framework within which such an authority can be set up.
However, it is not examining the question of whether such an authority should be set up or not, because that of course is a political decision.
It is being proposed, though, that the inquiry should be made accessible to the public over the worldwide web.
So that alternative method of access may be available, but we will also ensure that you have direct access to it.
We are proposing to organize a workshop within the next two months at which we can present the study and then hold further discussions on the subject.
The work should be finished by around the end of February and, as I said, you will be receiving a short version of this 'executive summary' in two weeks, at the most, and then of course the full report in due course.
I didn't actually want to continue the debate.
But I am glad that the Commissioner has offered to make it available via the worldwide web.
We probably know what you're offering us; otherwise I might have to give the exact number.
But that can probably be obtained easily enough.
I am very grateful that we can now opt for this form of access.
Perhaps we should run a test and make it available only over the worldwide web, to find out how many Honourable Members really are connected to it.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.50 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon)
Mr Gollnisch, as you were speaking, I was wondering which of the Rules of Procedure your intervention was based on, but in any case we are not going to debate the matter.
Votes
Mr President, since this is an unusual procedure, we need to be absolutely clear about what we are voting on.
The question is whether mobile telephony should be included in this Directive or not.
That is a very fundamental matter, and so we will be voting yes or no on this question.
I believe that the voting procedure should be made absolutely clear, so that all of us really are certain about what point we are voting on.
Mr von Wogau, the chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is right.
It is a crucial amendment and I hope colleagues here will vote for it.
But to be absolutely clear, it does not ask for mobile phones to be included in every aspect of this proposal, only in certain key aspects covering the funding of universal service and consumer protection.
Then people really will be clear what they are being asked to vote on.
(Parliament adopted the draft legislative resolution)
Mr President, this vote was on the agenda yesterday, but it was postponed in order that the procedure could be clarified.
This relates to maximum residue limits in veterinary medical products of animal origin.
The proposal is in two parts.
One changes the timetable so that instead of the original directive expiring in 1996 as it did, it would expire much later because the Commission needs the extra time in order to assess the substances.
The second part relates to the substances themselves and frankly, it is not possible for Parliament to assess that part in the time we have available.
We were asked for urgency on one article, and one article only.
This created some difficulty.
Between yesterday and now I have taken further advice from Parliament's services.
We have consulted with Mr Bangemann's cabinet and also with the Commission's legal advisor.
We are all agreed that the present urgency procedure, as requested by the Council on 11 February, applies only to the extension of the time limit for setting MRLs for certain old substances.
We all recognize - Mr Bangemann and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection - that this time-limit has to be prolonged.
We are also therefore agreed that as long as Parliament votes only on that issue, it cannot be regarded as having given its opinion on the whole original proposal.
Mr Bangemann, in effect, said this yesterday.
He also said yesterday that if, by any chance, the Council tried to adopt legislation based on the original proposal, he would simply withdraw it.
I would be grateful if the Commissioner would reiterate that for the benefit of Members who were not present at yesterday's debate, because a great many people were coming into the Chamber when Mr Bangemann had us in thrall with his speech.
He made a speech in English, French and German yesterday.
He is to be congratulated on his linguistic skill.
However, what we have done is this.
I have asked Parliament's services to produce a revised draft legislative resolution as a kind of ad hoc way out of this difficulty.
That ad hoc resolution has been discussed with the political groups this morning and they have, so far as I am aware, all accepted it.
The revised text is available but unfortunately only in English because of the time constraints.
It may be that you would want it to be read aloud.
I am happy to do that.
In conclusion, subject to whether you want me to read it out or not, I recommend to the House that it votes, first of all, only on the Environment Committee amendment to Article 14 of the Commission proposal and on the revised draft legislative resolution in respect of which no amendments at all have been tabled.
The relevant amendment - if I remember rightly - is Amendment No 8, originally tabled by Mrs Jensen, and there is an all-party agreement on that.
If the House will agree to that then it can make both Mr Bangemann and myself happy at the same time.
This is a coincidence which has not always been achieved.
Mr President, I am glad that yesterday's efforts have produced a result.
It was probably an avoidable misunderstanding, but such misunderstandings often have more serious consequences than the unavoidable kind.
To make things completely clear, let me place the following on record: the Council requested the urgency procedure only for Article 14, the provision which is intended to extend the time limit for the evaluation of substances already on the market, in order to fill a legal vacuum that exists.
Parliament's opinion, therefore, can logically and with complete legal propriety only relate to Article 14.
This means that Parliament has not yet been consulted on the actual substance of the proposal, but only on Article 14.
The Council, meaning the presidency, has again stated in a letter to Mr Collins and myself, and to others, that the Council does not decide on matters of substance until Parliament has expressed its opinion on them.
So the Council will not be taking any final decision.
The Council has confirmed that in writing.
But since Parliament still has doubts - I don't know whether distrust is the right word - there are certain doubts about the Council, not about the Commission, on this occasion, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, you trust the Commission blindly...
(Noise, heckling) ... all right, let's say certain Members of the Commission, let's limit it to that.
Obviously I cannot speak for the Council; I myself do not share these doubts, in view of the letter, but if the Council, contrary to all expectation, should take or wanted to take a general decision, the Commission will withdraw its proposal so as to make that impossible.
(Parliament adopted the draft legislative resolution)
The Green Group has pointed out that in the Dutch translation of this report, the expression 'sexuele geaardheid' should be considered replaced by the expression 'sexuele voorkeur' .
Mr President, back-door attempts are being made to replace the normal term in Dutch 'seksuele geaardheid' (sexual orientation) with a term which is not usual in Dutch, namely 'seksuele voorkeur' (sexual preference).
The translation of the English 'sexual orientation' is 'seksuele geaardheid' ; I object to the back-door way in which an attempt is being made to change the content of the Dutch text.
Mr President, this kind of problem is far from simple, it is all connected with so-called political correctness and we must be careful here in this House; ' seksuele geaardheid' (sexual orientation) is a very correct term, also politically correct term, in Dutch society and that is the one that should be used in this report.
Mr President, I have been speaking Dutch for 53 years and Mr Blokland is absolutely right.
Before the final vote on the report
Mr President, before we proceed to the final vote and pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure, I should like to propose that the report be referred back to committee.
I would remind the House that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights rejected Mrs Lindholm's report and that, at the end of a long debate, we unanimously agreed to submit the Commission's proposal to Parliament unamended.
Amendments have been tabled by some political groups.
Those who had tabled other amendments in the Legal Affairs Committee have refrained from doing so, in line with the spirit of that committee's decision.
But I believe it is out of order for amendments to have been proposed and voted upon, and I think that respect for the powers of the Legal Affairs Committee requires that the text should be referred back to it for a decision, in any case, in the light of the decisions taken in this House.
Mr President, I agree with the proposal made by my colleague, Mr Fabre-Ausprey, for reasons I do not need to repeat here; I know I am one of the people to whom he has alluded.
I, too, believe that this document should be referred back to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which could then resubmit it to this House.
Mr President, what I was going to say has in fact already been said, which is that we agreed in committee to proceed in this way.
In addition, unless I have totally misunderstood the order of proceedings, Parliament can put forward their proposals in the part session.
I am therefore in favour of voting here and not reverting to the committee.
(Parliament rejected the proposal to refer the report back to committee)
(Parliament adopted the draft legislative resolution)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to express the recognition and appreciation of those of us who have signed up to this solution, to the Members who have worked so hard on the draft resolution on Algeria. At the same time I want to remember what we all know: that Algeria is experiencing a terrible tragedy.
Parliament passed a resolution on Algeria in December.
Yesterday we listened to a statement from the President of the Council which struck me as extremely cautious.
I believe - and the Members who signed with me believe - we should think again before approving a resolution which contains certain statements many of us do not agree with.
There is no urgency because we passed a resolution in December, and the matter needs further thought, so we think it is better to adjourn the debate for two months.
Besides, haste is always inadvisable.
And I will give you the proof, Mr President: I have before me various language versions of the document we are supposed to be voting on, which contains only one amendment - Amendment No 1.
In every text, in the different languages, Amendment No 1, which seeks to add a new paragraph 7, refers to the situation in Sarajevo and Mostar.
You will have realised already that this has very little to do with Algeria.
It is a material error, but it reflects the haste with which we sometimes deal with such delicate matters.
So I request this adjournment under Rule 131 of our Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I agree with Mr Cohn-Bendit, that goes without saying.
(Parliament rejected the request to postpone the vote) Joint motion for a resolution, on behalf of the ELDR Group, the PSE Group, the ARE Group, the V Group, the GUE/NGL Group, and the PPE Group, to replace the following motions for resolutions: B4-0061/97, B4-0067/97, B4-0086/97, B4-0097/97, B4-0145/97 and B4-0146/97, concerning the situation in Algeria
(Parliament rejected the joint motion for a resolution)
I put it to Parliament that the sitting should be extended for a few minutes, so that we may vote on the Caccavale report.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
I voted for the Van Velzen report with some reservations.
Licences issued for mobile telephone networks need to be creative of user-friendly systems.
They should not be allowed to create monopolistic arrangements for air-time providers.
Experience shows that they issued 'locked in' contracts and are guilty of overcharging for their services.
I would like to see greater real competition which would result in realistic charging and higher standards of consumer service.
Gebhardt report (A4-0003/97)
The general system for the recognition of diplomas and other educational qualifications was adopted in 1989 (between 1991 and 1994, 11, 000 people obtained recognition of their diplomas).
It was supplemented in 1992 in respect of courses involving less than three years' higher education.
However, this system does not cover every situation.
Professions which have been the subject of specific mutual recognition directives (six medical professions and architecture) and those in the fields of trade, industry and crafts are excluded from the scope of application of the general system.
Today's proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relates exclusively to professions in the fields of trade, industry and craft.
For some years, these professions have been the subject of 35 directives of two types: liberalizing directives to eliminate the various obstacles (such as the nationality condition) to freedom of establishment and the provision of services; and transitional directives to guarantee recognition of acquired experience in the absence of mutual recognition of diplomas.
The proposal is that a single directive should be adopted to confirm the regulatory provisions of the 35 existing directives and introduce procedural guarantees for applicants with a view to simplifying Community legislation and increasing its transparency.
This is very important!
The Member States are obliged to grant the application for recognition when the applicant's qualifications are equivalent to those of a citizen of the host country.
If these qualifications cannot be attested, the applicant must produce proof (with information relating to good repute, financial standing and proof of the existence of insurance) that he possesses the requisite qualifications.
The State's decision, then, has to be taken within a brief period (within four months from the making of the application) and must be supported by a statement of reasons.
This underpins the rights of the citizens and helps to promote mobility and the implementation of freedom of movement and, consequently, the reduction of unemployment within the European Union.
The European Parliament wishes the Commission to inform it, and the Council, of the application of the directive in the Member States.
It also wishes to reserve the right to participate in any decision on an amendment to the directive.
I am fighting for a civic Europe - a Europe of citizens.
The proposal and the Gebhardt report are moves in that direction.
That is why I support them, and I congratulate the rapporteur.
Articles 52 and 57 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community make provision for freedom of establishment and the free provision of services.
These articles are of direct application, as established by the decisions of the Court of Justice.
This means that professionals - doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, etc - are entitled to provide their services and pursue their activities in another Member State.
They are, in any event, required to join the professional register in the country in which they intend to pursue their activities and to respect its ethical rules.
The professional association of the host Member State is required to recognize the qualification issued by the authorities in the Member State of origin.
But certain problems have arisen, with some national governing authorities pointing to major differences between training/specialization courses or even between university courses.
By so doing, they have denied or severely obstructed recognition of the qualification concerned.
To get round these problems, the EC adopted a set of harmonization directives concerning particular professions (vertical directives).
In 1989, Directive 89/48/EEC introduced a new horizontal system applicable to all qualifications and diplomas.
This system was subsequently complemented by Directive 92/51/EEC, for qualifications acquired on completion of courses lasting less than three years.
The general system so set up for the mutual recognition of diplomas and qualifications means that liberal professionals may exercise their activities in any Member State.
The obligations with which they must comply are as follows:
they must have a valid diploma or qualification that gives them access to the profession in a Member State; -they must be in legal possession of the appropriate professional qualification and be a member of the appropriate national association; -they must join the professional register in the country in which they intend to pursue their activities.The governing authorities of the Member State cannot refuse to recognize valid qualifications and diplomas issued by the country of origin.
They can only, on justified grounds, require awareness of the ethical rules of the profession.
The report produced by Mrs Gebhardt concerns a proposal for a directive which would include professions originally governed by sectoral directives in the general system for the mutual recognition of diplomas and qualifications.
This would complete the general system for the mutual recognition of diplomas and qualifications and, for this reason, our group will be voting in favour of the report.
Mr President, I am especially keen to support this report today as, like many of my colleagues, I have been angry to learn of well-qualified people from my own constituency who have been denied jobs in other Member States.
In my view there can be no excuse for further delay from national governments in this area.
One of the great attractions of the EU for many skilled people should be that they have the option to follow their careers in other parts of Europe if they so wish.
I particularly welcome the idea that, in cases where the authorities refuse to recognize someone's qualifications, they should be obliged to allow that person to submit evidence of their knowledge or experience.
It is also important that these new proposals from the Commission allow for a right to take cases to the courts.
By all means let the Commission report back on how well governments implement these measures within five years - but I urge all my colleagues with similar cases to bring them to the Commission's attention as I have done this week.
Five years is too long to ask our constituents to wait for their skills to be valued across the European Union.
Read report (A4-0049/97)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are a few months away from completing the liberalization of the European telecommunications market, and we already have a number of directives on the subject.
They complement each other, sometimes overlap each other and even contradict each other, and here we are today amending a directive before it is even applicable.
I know how technical the issue is, and what is at stake, but I do regret the fact that the procedures are so cumbersome and the texts so unreadable, just ten months away from what will be nothing short of an economic and psychological revolution.
Nevertheless, I do have the opportunity today to restate our commitment to the universal telecommunications service in a competitive market.
This concept is quite a novel one, and it is the result of a grim struggle by a majority in the European Parliament.
It enables our concerns to be refocused on the consumer, even if not as completely as we would like, and that in itself is very important.
If, as one might expect, liberalization has beneficial effects for the telecommunications market, there are also some who say that competition will bring positive benefits for the consumer, and we can hope that it will.
But it must also be said that the market is never aware of the imperatives of planning, of equal access to the service for all, and of social justice for underprivileged groups or areas.
So although, like the rapporteur, I commend the efforts made by the Commission to take due account of these factors, I also say that we must be vigilant in supporting anything that contributes to social cohesion and the installation of a genuine universal service.
What is more, at this stage of the procedure, and with the benefit of hindsight, I mistrust the amendments which the Commission, and especially the Council, will make to this text.
That is why I believe that Parliament must send out a very strong signal along these lines.
The undersigned have voted for those points in the Read report which we consider of most benefit to the consumer.
At the same time we are, in principle, against commercialisation and so called market making for the basic infrastructure.
This process has led to the destruction and fragmentation of the infrastructure to the detriment of system distribution. It has produced a lower level of openness and increased differences in standards between regions and consumer groups.
Coordination between national, state telecommunications companies would have provided greater and fairer technical development and rationalisation.
The Swedish example before liberalisation is an illustration of this.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report on the ONP conditions for the voice telephone service and provision of the necessary supply services in the area of telecommunications.
The Danish Social Democrats are very satisfied with the report and welcome it in the campaign for a general deregulation of the telecommunications market.
The Danish Social Democrats agree that consumers must, as a general rule, be offered services such as connections and reasonable prices, but we do not believe that the only possible way of ensuring this service is a situation in which Member States are required to introduce arrangements for the financing of these necessary services.
The Danish Social Democrats agree that it must be possible to make emergency calls from public pay-phones free of charge, but taking account of the prospect of disproportionately high costs, we are not in favour of the idea that there should be pay-phones for the transmission of written texts to the same, or to a similar, extent as there are ordinary publicly accessible pay-phones.
The Danish Social Democrats agree that services based on telephone transmission should be available to consumers at a reasonable price, either free of charge or for a nominal sum, but we do not feel Member States should have to cover any difference that might arise between the actual cost of the service and the reasonable price paid by the consumer.
The Danish Social Democrats agree that a subscriber should be protected against having his telephone disconnected in cases where, for instance, there is a dispute between the subscriber and his telephone company over the validity of a telephone bill; on the other hand, we would make it clear that it is generally a reasonable contractual consequence for a telephone to be disconnected if the bill is not paid.
Lindholm report (A4-0046/97)
Mr President, I believe this report contains a number of highly dubious provisions.
First, it appears to legitimize positive discrimination in favour of women.
The distinction which the rapporteur makes between formal freedoms and real freedoms is worryingly reminiscent, to me, of the distinction made by the Marxists in this context, and we know that where there were no formal freedoms there were no real freedoms either.
I am inclined to say that 'where there is no formal equality, there is no real equality either' .
The second point I would like to challenge relates to the implicit recognition of homosexual marriage.
It is not up to me, any more than it is up to anyone in this House, to pass judgement on what takes place between consenting adults.
The problem is whether the community should be required to acknowledge forms of union which are not geared to procreation.
Procreation is the only reason for the social protection enjoyed by marriage, and it is the reason why I still believe it is undesirable, in our society as in any other society, for the law to give special protection to other forms of union.
The principle of equality of opportunity and treatment between men and women is one of the philosophical foundations of our European Parliament.
It is right that the Community institutions should echo that, and the proposal for a regulation which is before us is along the right lines.
Our rapporteur has made various proposals regarding that regulation which we can only endorse.
One of these is the establishment of an equal opportunities committee within each institution.
Furthermore, and in the context of the benefits and rights granted to married officials, the rapporteur would like to extend those provisions to unmarried couples, whether heterosexual or homosexual.
Parliament would do itself credit if it were to draw up identical rules for all individuals, whatever may be their sexual orientation or their attitude to marriage.
The problem is, quite simply, one of justice.
We are very pleased today to learn that Parliament has voted in favour of abolishing discrimination against homosexuals and increasing equality between men and women employees in the EU institutions by proposing concrete changes to the rules of service which are approximately 50 years old.
As the amendment proposals are totally in line with the Commission's proposal and are a tangible version of this, we urge the Commission to act in accordance with Parliament's decision as soon as possible.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the European Parliament's report on the Commission's proposal to change the regulations governing civil servants in EU institutions.
The purpose of this, on the one hand, is to promote equality of treatment for both men and women in terms of employment conditions. On the other hand it is aimed at extending the ban on discrimination, so that this will also include sexual orientation.
The Danish Social Democrats have a positive attitude to promoting equality between men and women.
We therefore support the report in as much as it simultaneously provides opportunity for promoting the rights of homosexual men and women in EU institutions and, in the longer term, provides a good starting point for promoting opportunities open to them in the Member States.
Whitehead report (A4-0317/96)
Mr President, the protection and defence of consumers, that is, all of us, is one of the cornerstones in the construction and development of the single market and the Treaty on Union.
But the third Consumer Policy Programme (1996-1998) is inexplicably lacking in many of the advantages and positive measures of the previous programme.
Basically, the third programme is a wish-list for European consumers, without clear and specific commitments.
The programme's 'priorities for action' cover a wide variety of spheres involving consumers' interests, but, I repeat, they are vague and imprecise, like almost everything else the Commission has presented recently.
Once again, it must be stressed that if we want to make progress properly and effectively, the Commission's first priority must be to complete outstanding activities and consolidate and evaluate the work done in the period 19931995, so that this new programme can be set up on the basis of experience.
None of this has been done, and besides, the programme lacks a coherent strategy, a timetable of specific commitments, an action plan, and so on, to progress consumer policy in line with consumers' interests.
The amendments tabled battle to improve it, but if these serious gaps are not filled it will be difficult for the Union to boast that the citizen, as consumer, is one of its priorities.
These points will determine my vote.
We have voted in favour of the Whitehead report as we are very anxious to improve consumer protection in the Union.
There are currently considerable shortcomings in this area and we support many of the proposals which have been put forward in the report.
But we think that the main problem, that the free movement of goods is considered more important under EU law than environmental and consumer considerations, is not sufficiently highlighted.
We are totally opposed to point 19 in the report which expresses its support for the EU propaganda campaign for a single currency.
It is a good thing that the position of consumers is to be strengthened on the internal market through increased consumer information, better labelling of food, and better access to resources and raw materials etc.
This section of the report is good.
The long term goal must be to improve the standing of environmental and consumer demands on the market.
But we cannot support the EU's minutely detailed regulation which is proposed through the introduction of common rules for distance selling of financial services, for interest on late payment by creditors, for sanctions for non payment and the harmonisation of collection procedures.
We are also against point 19 in the report which expresses support for the publicity campaign for the Euro.
Marinucci report (A4-0048/97)
It is sensible to strengthen consumer rights and interests in the area of financial services, banks and insurance services for example.
But there is no reason to regulate all this at EU level for example by regulating distance selling of financial services.
This is why I have voted against this report.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Mr Caccavale has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I asked the previous chairman, Mr Anastassopoulos, if my report could be voted on this morning.
Now, quite unexpectedly, the agenda for this morning's vote has been changed and I have not had the opportunity to put my report to the vote.
There are now two possibilities: either we put the report to the vote this afternoon, immediately after the motion for censure, or - and this is the option both I and my group would prefer - we postpone it until the next part-session in March, since, obviously, this evening's vote would not have the same significance.
Thank you very much, Mr Caccavale.
You have already detected the 'enthusiasm' aroused by the possibility of having to vote on your report after the vote on the motion of censure.
I think it is preferable, for your own report and for the agenda, if we take it in March.
Thank you for giving us that opportunity.
Mr President, I refer to the decision you have just made at the request of the rapporteur to put this off until March.
Presumably he cannot be here this afternoon.
Before you make that decision, could you check with the Council programme to see whether or not this might be on a Council agenda.
If it is, that decision is quite unacceptable.
I will check and try to make sure the Council is present.
Thank you very much for your advice, Mr Collins.
Mrs Green, I did not refer to some personal reason of the rapporteur's.
I said voting on this report immediately afterwards could delay our business.
And as the rapporteur offered two options I welcomed the second, which presents no problem: voting on the report next month.
I think the Council will be present, if it feels that is appropriate, and we will do everything we can to make sure that it is, but as the decision has been taken and no problem has been raised at this time, it is agreed that the vote will take place next month.
Welcome
BSE (Vote on motion of censure)
Mr Happart has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, this is not a point of order but a procedural motion.
I should like to know what Mr Santer is going to do for the human victims and for their families.
(Mixed reactions) What Mr Santer is going to do about...
(The President interrupted the speaker) who betrayed the inter-institutional agreement...
Madam President, I voted in favour of the censure motion because I do not wish to be an accomplice of the Commission in this serious affair.
I am aware of the responsibilities of the Delors Commission, but those of the present Commission are overwhelming, because Mr Santer and his colleagues 'knew' for two years!
As soon as they knew, they should have alerted the institutions, the Member States, public opinion.
They failed to do so, because it was Mr Major who took that initiative last spring.
As soon as they knew, they should have proposed the necessary steps to protect public health.
They failed to do so!
As soon as they knew, they should have given their loyal support to the parliamentary Committee of Inquiry!
They failed to do so.
And, today, the Commission is refusing to safeguard the moral, material and financial interests of the Community and its citizens by taking the necessary steps against a Member State.
As the protegé of Parliament, the Commission is emerging from this crisis weakened and discredited.
I am sorry to see it - it is not good for the institutions and it is not good for Europe.
A better solution would have been a strong vote of censure, to enable a new, reconstituted Commission to return to work in a healthier climate.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the censure motion.
Bearing in mind the exceptional gravity of the BSE affair, I should like to explain that vote orally.
The Committee of Inquiry, under the talented leadership of its Chairman, Mr Böge, did a remarkable job.
President Santer and Mrs Bonino - and, incidentally, we are very glad that Mrs Bonino is now in charge of an essential part of the department in question, in accordance with the structural reform we wanted - responded favourably yesterday to some of our questions regarding major points in Mr Medina's excellent report.
Our duty is to remain vigilant, and it is with regard to that strategy of vigilance that differences of opinion have arisen.
Some of us felt it was right to vote in favour of immediate censure, but the majority thought that the threat of censure would be a more effective way of exerting pressure to ensure that our recommendations are in fact put into practice - more effective than packing the Commissioners off home when virtually none of them has done anything at all discreditable.
I shared that point of view and supported the joint motion for a resolution, which recommended that procedure in point 7.
It seemed to me, therefore, that voting to put the Commission to the test one day and then voting for immediate censure the next would be totally contradictory and would never be understood by the public.
A choice had to be made.
Each of us voted with his conscience.
Personally, I am at ease with the choice I made.
I am deeply convinced that the strategy adopted by Parliament yesterday, by a very large majority, will be seen during the coming months to be the most effective way of preventing such crises.
Madam President, I was one of the 71 signatories to the motion of censure against the Commission, and I am one of the 118 Members who voted in its favour.
My purpose in tabling that motion and voting for it was not particularly to condemn any individual Commissioner but to censure the whole of the Commission, the Commission as a collegiate body, the Commission in its entirety and as a continuing entity, both before and after the changes of 1995.
I shall not dwell on the grounds for the censure.
It was necessary to sanction certain serious irregularities, especially those so ably expounded by my colleague Edouard des Places in his speech on Tuesday.
'Responsible but not guilty' is a formula we reject, and one that I reject personally.
If it had been censured, the Commission would in all probability have been reappointed immediately, but no one could have said that we had done nothing.
Well, the motion of censure will have an effect even so.
As with the investiture of President Santer, as with what is going to happen next month with Community transit, the European Parliament has denounced it, the European Parliament has condemned it, and at the end of the day the European Parliament has backed down.
After this unsuccessful motion of censure, this backing down, there will be no more motions of censure.
That is one of the beneficial effects of this operation.
Madam President, I did not vote in favour of censuring the Commission.
Not that I wasn't tempted to do so.
I even recommended my group to support the censure vote, last week, and I regret the fact that the principal groups in this Parliament - including my own - thought it better not to censure the Commission with a clear, massive and immediate vote.
I regret it because such a vote, apart from sanctioning a Commission which I freely accept was not solely or even principally responsible, would have been a salutary shot across the bows of the institutions and the Member States, a few months away from the IGC, inviting them to question a decision-making system which has displayed its fundamental flaws, bureaucratic opacity, dilution of responsibility, and a system of sanctions which is rigid yet full of holes, making it impossible to reach the guilty parties and forcing us to sanction the whole Commission for the fault of one Member - slaughtering the herd, as it were, because of a single sickly animal.
I understand that the groups did not share our view - neither my own group nor the Socialist Group.
So we had a choice between two attitudes: a vote of no political significance to express individual disapproval, or supporting a strategy of conditional censure which does have some real value.
Mrs Fontaine has said everything that needed saying.
Personally, I made a choice between the ethic of conviction and the ethic of responsibility - between a politically insignificant protest and an effort to induce the Commission to put its house in order.
Madam President, on Tuesday night in this House I made my position clear in a speech on BSE.
I said that Northern Ireland had been sinned against, both by the United Kingdom Government and by the Commission, as well as by the Council of Ministers and Parliament.
Yesterday I voted against the joint resolution on the findings of this special Committee of Inquiry on BSE because I do not believe that any British minister is answerable in law to this Parliament or any of its committees.
On Monday night, as a member of that British Parliament, I voted a censure motion against Mr Douglas Hogg.
I also totally opposed the findings of the Committee of Inquiry in demanding that compensation money paid to UK farmers be paid back.
Consequently, I could not today vote for the censure motion on the Commission tabled by those who want what I believe to be outrageous measures applied to my country.
That is why I abstained in this vote.
Madam President, I abstained.
This is a difficult position to be in.
I know it amounts to not voting in favour of censure, but I didn't want to vote against it either, because I believe that the deferred censure formula is the right one.
It is the right one if we regard the next few months as a sort of stay of execution, which the Commission must use to carry through essential reforms.
I am not sure how determined the Commission is in this respect. Furthermore, the way in which President Santer has just left the Chamber once the vote had gone his way might give us cause for scepticism and anxiety.
But it should be clearly understood that many of us - many of us who, today, did not vote for censure - will vote for it at the end of the year unless the essential reforms have been instituted.
That is why the Commission would be wrong to regard today's vote as giving it free rein.
A clear-sighted view would be to regard it as a serious warning, because today's vote was a success for those who tabled the motion of censure.
Madam President, it has been said that one cannot blame a new Commission for the old Commission's negligence.
I agree with this view.
Both Commissions deserve blame.
The former Commission, through its negligence, was guilty of manslaughter.
The present Commission has covered up this offence and has refused to cooperate so that a full explanation can be reached.
In my view this is even more culpable than the actions of the former Commission, and this is my reason for not supporting the majority view about postponement, but instead to hold a vote of no confidence today.
I have no confidence in the Commission.
A Commission which will not even issue a telephone list of the Commission's employees.
Such a Commission's disregard for general democratic principles, and the general principles of transparency, does not deserve confidence, but replacement.
We representatives of the Suomen Keskusta party in the European Parliament consider that the Commission has been guilty of serious negligence in dealing with BSE.
We supported the resolution adopted by Parliament on Tuesday although in various respects we considered its formulation inadequate.
We did not support the vote of no confidence in the Commission because the worst negligence was committed during the previous Commission's term of office.
We supported the resolution calling on the Commission to take speedy and effective measures to prevent the spread of BSE.
If the Commission fails to carry out the measures called for by Parliament in this resolution, we are prepared to give serious consideration to a vote of no confidence in the Commission.
As a member of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into BSE, I was able to spend six months studying the main aspects of this affair.
I voted for censure because I am deeply convinced that the United Kingdom bears a considerable responsibility and that the mistakes, failings, errors and dissimulations of the Commission are obvious.
That applies, of course, to the Commission under the presidency of Mr Delors, but also to President Santer's Commission.
There is no doubt, as I see it, that the Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr Fischler, is responsible; he began by underestimating the situation, then went on to conceal some reports and block others.
It would have been desirable, for the honour of the Commission, for Mr Fischler to resign from his post.
The fact is that the European Union, through the agency of the United Kingdom and the Commission, has failed in a fundamental duty - the duty to protect the health of its citizens.
Public opinion in the Member States would be unable to understand our failure to sanction such a failure.
That is why I voted for censure, even though I appreciate the significant advances represented by President Santer's proposals with a view to correcting past errors - one way, as it were, of acknowledging the responsibility and culpability of his Commission.
We have been confronted by one of the most crucial problems that a Member of Parliament can encounter in the exercise of his duties.
Ethical stringency, the way in which we see our duty as Members of Parliament, the defence of the health of our fellow citizens which is their most precious possession, an analysis of the irregularities that have taken place and the ways in which they can be remedied, the desire to ensure that Europe is constructed on a healthy, solid basis, and also respect for the persons concerned - we are not a court, after all - all these principles arise simultaneously in connection with this matter, and at the end of the day they must determine how we vote.
Conversely, anything which might be seen as the result of a mere episode in the development of the trial of strength between Community institutions or as the defence of strictly national or even commercial interests, or as the commonplace course of an essentially diplomatic game, or worse still as political protection, is not worthy of consideration in connection with the moral problem that has arisen.
Provided that these principles are accepted, I believe the motion of censure must be carried.
Of course the British Government and the previous Commission bear the main responsibility, but the report by our Committee of Inquiry showed that the present Commission bore its share of that responsibility.
And, at this time, it is that Commission on which we are being asked to give a verdict.
The fact that other institutions may be at fault cannot exonerate it completely.
I cast this vote despite the esteem in which I hold the Members of the Commission and its President, and a number of senior officials of the Commission.
I vote with my conscience, convinced that this is what our fellow citizens expect of us in a debate such as this.
And, contrary to certain widely held opinions, I am conscious as I cast my vote of playing my part in reconciling public opinion and the politicians, and bringing our fellow citizens back closer to the idea they would like to have of the integration of Europe.
The motion of censure which I sponsored, and for which I and my colleagues in the Europe of Nations Group then voted, was aimed first and foremost at the Commission because of its irresponsible behaviour in the mad cow crisis.
But, over and above that, it was also an accusation levelled at an entire European system which, through its aberrations, has allowed the manipulation of information, the paralysis of the nations' defensive reactions and the propagation of the disease.
The main value of this affair is the new light it casts on the real nature of the European institutions.
First, the Commission - this one and its predecessor - bears an overwhelming responsibility for its part in this tragedy.
A responsibility arising not from a single or chance act but, rather, from a consistent pattern of behaviour, observed over a long period and inherent in the very objectives which the Commission has made its own.
Having adopted as a priority objective the establishment of freedom of movement, which it misinterpreted as meaning the abolition of all border controls, it saw a threat to the single market in every suggestion made by a Member State with a view to re-establishing national controls, even going so far as to threaten them with proceedings before the Court of Justice, both in 1990 and in early 1996.
Now, whatever the real faults of the British Government may be, they cannot explain or excuse the inertia of the Commission in confronting the dangers, its abandonment of the principle of caution, its failure to get to grips with the public health aspect, an attitude which it carried to extreme lengths when, as late as June 1996, it managed to push through the conditional lifting of the embargo on gelatin, tallow and semen, all with a view to re-establishing freedom of movement as quickly as possible.
Anyone in any doubt need only leaf through the pages devoted to that episode by the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry.
You will find such damning phrases as 'political pressures' , ' gave in to manipulation by the industrial sector' , ' low degree of transparency' , ' lack of credibility of the Commission's positions' , ' at present trying to avoid part of its responsibility' , etc.
After all, it was indeed the present Commission, not its predecessor, which on 18 December last year authorized the introduction onto the European market of American transgenic maize, still driven by its obsession with freedom of movement, obstinately deaf to warnings and blind to the lessons that it should have learned from mad cow disease.
When obstinacy is carried to this point, we can no longer talk of an isolated error - this is a deliberate attempt to force through, at any cost, a perverted form of integration, whatever it may cost the peoples of Europe.
No one can help wondering, after all, by what mysterious reversal the powers of commercial regulation delegated by the Member States to the Commission, essentially for the better protection of the peoples of Europe, have thus been used against those very peoples, to break down their defences for the benefit of shameful financial interests.
Anyone who takes note of this reversal, and better still analyses the mechanisms by which it took place, will tear away the veil of hagiographic propaganda in which the Commission has shrouded itself and see it as it really is.
But, apart from the institution targeted by this motion of censure, we want to question a complete European system which is being developed against the interests of Europe's peoples.
We condemn an agricultural policy whose aim is integration into the world market via a productivity race.
We condemn a unification which would prohibit any controls at the internal borders and any possibility that an individual country could safeguard the vital interests of its population, or even its own concept of health, security or environmental protection.
We condemn the political view that holds that, for the ultimate good of its peoples, Europe should be integrated stealthily by omniscient technocrats who alone can overrule our personal interests.
We think, on the contrary, that Europe's agricultural objective should be high-quality production, necessarily protected by some form or other of Community preference; that the single market must tolerate the right of nations to differ or to defend themselves, something which in our view is not incompatible with a rational interpretation of free trade; and finally that the European Union, to make good its democratic shortcomings, must be returned to the direct control of its Member States, a task which, from today, should become the priority of the Intergovernmental Conference.
An empty gesture - that was the predictable effect of this premature filing of a motion of censure against the Commission.
That is the expected result of a campaign which was not designed to succeed, just to make a demagogic political point which has attracted support in certain unsophisticated quarters.
It is not enough to table a motion of censure, hoping for a bit of media coverage - what is needed, too, is a strategy calculated to make it achieve its end. Otherwise it is simply an empty effort to amuse, not to say abuse, the gallery.
Now, we all know that making use of this procedure is a novelty.
If we want to make it a successful novelty - it is regrettable, of course, but it is happening - this House needs preparation to enable it to overcome its delicacy.
It was necessary to abandon a futile initiative in favour of one that might prove effective; that was the point of the resolution adopted yesterday and the 'conditional motion of censure' which I and other honourable Members support.
This is a double-barrelled weapon: first, it places the Commission under surveillance and should encourage it to mend its ways in this area, and in others too; secondly, it gives Parliament time to prepare itself to take the plunge, if necessary, and accept its responsibilities.
Haste and impatience rarely ensure success.
Today's motion of censure was premature.
Tomorrow, either the Commission will have changed, or it will be changed!
After reading the admirable report by the Committee of Inquiry, one can only be appalled by the responsibility borne by the British Conservative Government.
By giving priority to deregulation at the expense of all health considerations, by denying any danger of damage to human health and by failing to observe the ban on exports of bone meals, the British Government acted recklessly and in some cases culpably.
The European Commission, for its part, has committed a number of obvious errors to which we cannot close our eyes.
How can we not call for penalties against an institution which has played down a crisis affecting public health? Who was it slowed down the adoption of simple safety procedures for inactivating the meals?
Who was it that lifted the embargo on gelatin?
Who was it that acted in such a way as to give the market preference over public health?
Not only that, but the lack of clarity within the Commission during the handling of the BSE affair is evidence of unfair use of the institutional agreement.
The vote on the motion of censure against the Commission is a political response to that institution's demonstration of its lack of any sense of political responsibility.
How can we claim to be creating a Europe based on solidarity if it is incapable of protecting its citizens against diseases released by its own industries?
In the interests of the Union's citizens, then, and having regard to the responsibility ethic, we must censure the actions of the Commission.
There are grounds for criticising the Commission's handling of mad cow disease, but the criticism is not so serious as to warrant a vote of no confidence.
Had it been possible to direct the vote of no confidence towards the British Government or the previous Commission, I would have voted in favour of it.
As it is, I have not done so.
The parliamentary decision is putting pressure on the Commission for future action.
These demands are reasonable and I will support them.
But I will not support the motion that Parliament will combine these demands with the threat of a vote of no confidence if they are not met.
Parliament always has the opportunity to dismiss the Commission so there is no need for it to tell them how it should act in the future.
If the Commission has the confidence of Parliament then it should be treated with respect; if there is no confidence, Parliament should dismiss the Commission.
There is no need for an in between stage.
A lack of clarity in this respect damages both parties and reduces the impact of the European cooperation as a result.
A vote of censure against the European Commission is a serious act, and we should admit that it may not be the best way of dealing with this situation.
After all, let us not forget that the main responsibility lies with the British Government, whose attitude to this case has been unspeakable from the start.
Then comes the responsibility of the European Commissioners, who failed to do their duty, thus making the last two Commissions collectively liable.
The fact remains that, today, the situation is so serious, the collective liability so great and the risks to the future so terrible that we cannot allow this day to end without a political show of force.
Admittedly, we had a sound resolution yesterday which puts the present Commission under the gun.
I approved of it, and I voted for it.
But today, Thursday, 20 February 1997, confronted with the motion of censure as tabled, we cannot in all conscience sit back and see it receiving no more than a few dozen votes.
That is why I shall be voting in favour.
I am voting for it not in order to condemn any individual but in order to condemn a course of action that calls for condemnation, an intolerable collective irresponsibility, criminal blindness.
I am voting for it in the hope that it will make it possible to stop what still can be stopped, to make good what absolutely must be made good, and to compel all those responsible to be vigilant in the future in order to ensure that no such tragedy occurs again.
This issue is so grave that it is hard to understand how something like this could have happened in the European Union.
Reading the report of the temporary committee of inquiry into bovine spongiform encephalopathy, there is no doubt that the Commission deserves to be censure for its downright failure to fulfil its responsibilities in terms of prevention and protection of public health.
If the Commission's responsibilities are collegiate and that is why it was impossible to vote on each Commissioner individually at the beginning of this legislature - as requested by the European Parliament - then, by the same token, responsibility today encompasses the entire College.
The argument is clear, especially on such an issue, which is criminal from every point of view and where there can be no contrivance: the health of the citizens cannot be put at risk and cannot be negotiated over.
My vote of conscience merely reflects what I have said.
The way the BSE epidemic has been handled, especially by the United Kingdom, and its utterly tragic consequences for consumer health require a response from this Parliament that is not just convincing but also responsible, and which will help to guarantee proper protection for citizens in terms of public health.
So Parliament must condemn the British Government strongly and clearly as the great and genuine perpetrator of the BSE crisis; and it must also denounce the Council's culpable silence in the face of the British Government's lack of action and transparency.
But it also has a duty to demand that the Commission follow up the recommendations contained in the report of the temporary committee of inquiry into BSE, adopt the legislative, organizational and personnel measures proposed in it without delay, including measures to guarantee the independence and solvency of the scientific committees and put an end to the dysfunctions which currently exist within the Community's administration.
It must also demand that the IGC be asked to institute the necessary reforms to allow Parliament to participate fully in drawing up legislation relating to public health and the CAP.
That is why I voted in favour of the resolution on the results of the committee of inquiry into BSE yesterday.
Because in it, as well as condemning those really responsible, we require the Commission to adopt measures to prevent another epidemic which might threaten the health of the citizens and to implement them within a set time-limit, failing which we will move a motion of censure on the Commission.
Responsibility tends to be condemned with grand but empty gestures.
So I think a motion of censure on the Commission now - especially considering that the real fault lies first with the British Government and secondly with the Commission presided over by Jacques Delors - would be irresponsible and a mere gesture that would do absolutely nothing to deal with the causes of this very serious BSE crisis.
So I have voted against the motion of censure.
Following the proceedings of the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry, the European Commission has been held responsible for serious errors and omissions.
It is entirely logical, therefore, to draw the appropriate political conclusions.
The Commission, as an institution, must accept its responsibilities and pay the penalty.
That is why I have no hesitation - I am in favour of an immediate censure.
The present Commission has covered up the activities of its predecessor and has not shown the transparency that the Committee of Inquiry had a right to expect.
While it would seem that there is no doubt about the political responsibility of the agriculture commissioners, Mr MacSharry and Mr Steichen, especially for the period 19901994, the present Commissioner, Mr Fischler, quite apart from obvious errors for which he must be called to account, has obstructed the proceedings by concealing certain matters, as witness the existence of memoranda that were not sent to the Committee of Inquiry.
That is serious.
The Commission is a collegiate institution.
As the law stands at present, only the institution as a whole can be sanctioned.
But there is nothing to stop our governments from reappointing Jacques Santer and those Commissioners who have done nothing wrong. Indeed, it would be logical for them to be reappointed.
And it should not take too long.
The European public would not understand it if the European Parliament were to do nothing.
I believe that immediate censure is the only appropriate penalty to put an end to the irregularities and compel the new Commission to take the necessary structural and political decisions swiftly.
We must have both efficiency and ethics.
Furthermore, if the present Commission were to fail to take such steps, I should have no hesitation in censuring it twice in six months.
The Commission's serious responsibility for the way BSE has been handled and for the risks to public health is unequivocally stated in the report of the committee of inquiry.
In view of those statements and given the collegiate nature of the Commission, the principle of the continuity of the institutions and the responsibilities ascribable to the present College of Commissioners, the European Parliament must exercise its duty of control with dignity.
What is more, the Commission misused the interinstitutional agreement, hid the truth and unjustifiably attempted to lay some of the blame on Parliament.
Damaging the harmony of the European institutions in that way is unacceptable and deserves censure.
Only a new Commission can command the legitimacy to implement the recommendations of the committee of inquiry.
To strengthen the construction of Europe, fulfil Parliament's duties and uphold the commitment that Members have to society, we are obliged to demand the resignation of the Commission.
The repercussions of BSE on human health are only beginning and Parliament must remain free of any blame.
That is why the United European Left tabled the motion of censure on the Commission and why it has voted for it.
I have given my support to the resolution adopted by Parliament yesterday (Wednesday 19th February 1997).
I have done this because I consider it important that the concrete demands for improvements, stated in the resolution, to prevent a similar crisis in public health must be implemented by the Commission.
This is necessary to improve the work in the field of public health and by so doing increase confidence in the European Parliament's elected representatives.
But, in my opinion, the resolution is too weak.
This is why I also made the decision to vote for the vote of no confidence in the Commission, even though I realise that this should firstly be directed towards the British Government and the previous Commission.
The current Commission also has a responsibility in this and the investigating committee's report is so lacking in openness and analysis that a vote of no confidence is justified.
In the case of the 'mad cows' , the Commission has committed a number of sins, not venial sins, of failing to control, inform and apply transparency, which can be sanctioned with a motion of censure, at least as a condition for restoring consumer and citizen confidence in European institutions.
The European Parliamentary's Committee of Inquiry has competently denounced these failures, showing that the Parliament is an effective control body.
However, it so happens that in the constellation of culprits for this present situation, the current Commission is just the latest and last in line, after the Council, the veterinary committees, the British Government and the previous Commission.
After all there are no Community competencies in matter of public health which are sufficient to lay all of the blame with the Commission.
There is an urgent need to create them in the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Treaties do not provide for the individual responsibility of Commissioner.
Yet this could be out of proportion with the collegiate responsibility of the Commission as such.
The success of a motion of censure would mean that the European Parliament will have taken power, in an institutional framework which is still dominated by the States and for which the European Union is not prepared.
Since the Commission is not appointed by the European Parliament, it would be difficult to avoid a situation in which an incoming Commission would not be the same as the present one.
This would open a crisis which could actually take the focus off efforts to bring about a single currency which are mobilising both the institution and the states and, by extension, the full democratisation of the European Union.
It would be a better approach to set the current Commission a deadline to carry out the necessary reforms in the sector of animal production and offer vital guarantees to restore confidence.
If this is not the case, we will have to pass a motion of censure, and then I think it would be more likely that we could achieve a much broader majority calling for that.
For the time being I think we should give our support to the 'green revolution' and 'compulsory labelling' announced by President Santer of the Commission.
I am against a full motion of censure on the Commission at this stage because I believe that to dismiss the present Commission for the failure of its predecessors would be wrong.
In any case I do not believe that even the former Commission was guilty of criminal negligence, even though it did fail to recognise the potential danger and failed to take appropriate action.
The Council of Ministers was equally responsible for these failures.
National governments also have responsibility for the safety of food and they failed also to warn consumers of the potential danger.
So why should we unjustly make a scapegoat of the present Commission and plunge the Union into a political crisis? Such action would resolve nothing and disrupt the very work that must be urgently done.
What we must now do is recognise the weakness in our administrative system that has led to our failure and effect the necessary changes.
We must also base all our future decisions on the best scientific knowledge available to us.
Thanks to on-going research, much more knowledge is available to us today than it was eight years ago.
It is our good fortune to be better informed than our predecessors.
I know the BSE problem is indeed a very grave one and that an estimated 15 people have died from the associated disease of CJD.
Nevertheless, it has affected a very small number compared with the thousands who die every year in the EU alone from the failure of the food handling industry to practise good hygiene.
Recently 15 people died in one Member State from food poisoning as a result of eating contaminated food from one small wholesale establishment.
Hundreds of thousands of people die in the EU each year as a result of smoking tobacco and consuming alcohol and yet we subsidise the production of those products, even though we have unquestionable scientific proof of their threat to human health.
Some of the intemperate statements in this House and elsewhere have created the impression that beef products carry a significant risk to health.
In fact the risk to health from eating beef is very insignificant, no matter what part of the EU it comes from.
I will vote for the motion of censure against the Commission, for a very simple reason.
We approved the investigative committee's report on the responsibilities of the European Union's bodies and of the British Government for dealing with BSE.
That report is very clear and its conclusions are shattering and unquestionable, and in any case nobody has questioned them.
So the question to be faced by every Member of the European Parliament was and is how it would have been possible for a motion of censure not to be tabled!
The motion, of course, is only directed against the Commission, and that indeed, collectively.
But our statutory system does not provide for censure against individual Commissioners, and much less so against the Council of Ministers or individual governments.
As representatives of the European Union's citizens who must be committed to the protection of their rights, public health, and their security in everyday life, it is our elementary duty, within the existing framework, to react and apportion responsibilities and impose sanctions, to the extent and wherever that can be done.
We cannot plead that in this matter, economic and political interests took precedence over public health, and none of our institutions reacted accordingly.
It is then that we would have an institutional crisis, and not in the event that the European Parliament approves the motion of censure.
As one who is unreservedly pro-European, I consider that Europe needs powerful institutions and that those are tested and demonstrate their worth when times are difficult, and not just in day to day administration.
According to what a number of Members have said, the European Parliament had a big day on Tuesday.
I am sure that was also the impression made on the many groups of visitors who had the opportunity to follow the debate on the findings of the Committee of Inquiry into bovine spongiform encephalopathy or, more popularly, BSE.
But what they certainly did not know was that, overnight, perfectly ordinary Members of Parliament had become learned specialists in BSE, setting out to hunt down someone on whom to blame the harm caused to people and animals by the BSE crisis.
I too share the view expressed by many others that the main objective of a humane policy must be to guarantee the preservation of human and animal health.
That objective is, quite simply, one of the primary welfare duties of the state.
For that reason, I also agreed with much of what was contained in the joint resolution.
The government of the United Kingdom cannot and must not be allowed to get off scot-free for its misconduct and mismanagement in the BSE crisis. The obscure activities and manoeuvrings of the committees on veterinary medicine and health questions cannot and must not be allowed to continue as they have in the past.
The earlier Commission under J. Delors was aware of that, but it was the Commission under J. Santer that took action.
It may even be true to say that not everything that could have been done was done, but many things were set in motion and the first results are already being seen.
There may have been justification for criticizing the activities of the Commission's officials, but calling for the resignation of President J. Santer was exaggerated.
I feel I should also note that the criticism levelled at the Commission was very violent, but the Council escaped almost unscathed.
That may be because amongst the Members of this House there were so many former ministers.
The same applies to the question of compensating farmers who have suffered as a result of the BSE crisis.
Here again, Parliament would have been well advised, in the light of the appalling errors made in the United Kingdom, to be much more vehement in calling for Europe's farmers to be compensated by the British government, the manufacturers of the bone-meal and the exporters.
Various figures were cited during the debate: 15 deaths from Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, 30 suicides by farmers threatened with bankruptcy, 100, 000 or even more people who may have been infected by eating beef tainted with BSE, and many hundreds of thousands who may have the same fate to look forward to.
Although the first figures I mentioned are certainly right, it must be said that the others are based on pure conjecture and, I am sorry to say, will do nothing to provide a new impetus to beef and veal consumption.
People have been told to panic, and they have.
So anyone who expected this debate to have a damage limitation effect among the public will now have to see that the very opposite has been achieved, and that the consumer has been made even more uncertain.
I am sure that farmers will be grateful.
As a politician, who should try to cater for all possibilities, I wonder what will happen if the universally awaited scientific report on the transmissibility of BSE from cattle to man, which is to be compiled by an independent Swiss professor, turns out differently from what many people are assuming - in other words finds that there is no evidence of transmissibility to man.
I trust that, in that case, Professor Weissman and the scientists working with him will not be dismissed as charlatans, and perhaps all those who have called so vociferously for the resignation of President Santer will themselves draw the obvious conclusions and pack their bags.
I have no doubt that there is more to come in this affair, and in that expectation I shall vote against the motions of no confidence in President Santer's Commission.
Together with my colleagues in the Europe of Nations Group, I voted in favour of censure.
Why?
Because it is not enough simply to expose the responsibilities and disastrous slackness of the Commission - they must be penalized.
That is what the families of the victims expect - those who work in the stricken meat industry, and all those who elected us so that we could be vigilant in supervising the activities of the Commission.
I voted in favour of censure because I do not accept the principle of 'responsible but not guilty' .
But, some will say, it is Mr Delors's Commission that is responsible and you are penalizing Mr Santer's Commission.
That argument disregards the principle of continuity inherent in any authority.
It disregards the fact that, although Mr Delors's Commission does indeed have a great deal to answer for, Mr Santer's Commission has covered that up, while pursuing precisely the same irresponsible policy regarding gelatin and transgenic products: the same casual attitude to scientific data, the same structural permeability to pressure exerted on the Commission by lobbyists, the same indifference to public health.
The same lack of transparency, the same obstructiveness: Parliament's Committee of Inquiry had the utmost difficulty in obtaining the basic data it needed, especially from the Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Fischler.
So, even leaving aside the matter of human responsibility, it is the institutional mechanism that is at fault, and it is that mechanism that must be totally changed if confidence is to be restored.
I voted in favour of censure because I didn't want the lessons of this major crisis to be wasted - I wanted the Intergovernmental Conference to feel the full effects of the mad cow crisis.
The BSE story has demonstrated that, when the appointed authority usurps the function of the elected political representatives, when the Commission wields supreme political responsibility in a particular area, it is not effectively protecting the fundamental interests of the European public but is acting as the agent of special interests.
We cannot, then, rely upon a body that functions in that way or delegate to it the exercise of whole areas of our own sovereignty.
I voted in favour of censure because if, in such a clear-cut case, the European Parliament fails to accept its responsibilities with regard to the Commission and abandons the attempt to control the Commissions's activities rigorously, it no longer has any reasons to exist.
If it becomes the function of the European Parliament to protect its own - the European Socialist Party protecting Mr Delors, the European People's Party protecting Mr Santer, this party protecting that Commissioner - and if, at any rate, its function is not to protect public health in Europe, then the fact is that we are operating within a system of connivance rather than democratic control, an oligarchic and ideological system where the Commission is taboo, above censure, whatever it does.
In a system like that, anything can happen.
I voted in favour of censure because the lesson that Mr Santer seems to want to learn from the crisis is to use is as a justification for another institutional power play: the generalized application of the codecision procedure, extending it to include the Common Agricultural Policy.
This panic-stricken advance is scandalous and unacceptable.
The time has come to stamp on the brake - which is up to the IGC - and halt this perverse mechanism which the Council, out of weakness, is allowing to develop; a mechanism whereby every crisis, every failure by the supranational bodies serves as a pretext for the seizure of additional powers and resources.
So the Commission has failed in its duty? Well, we'd better give it greater powers and additional officials....
It is time for the Council to get a grip on itself and comply fully with its political responsibilities, preventing any other administrative body from taking its decisions for it.
The principle of subsidiarity, too, needs to be revived: each government must be able to take its own steps to protect those who elected it, imposing higher levels of protection than those laid down by the European Union and establishing its own control mechanisms in such important areas as health safety.
This is the only way for the European Institutions to recover any credibility now that they have been so severely weakened by the devastating revelations of the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry.
The fact that the motion of censure was tabled by a large number of Members from all parts of the political spectrum and all parts of Europe shows a growing awareness that the European institutions are in need of radical reform.
If Europe is to be saved, we must as a matter of urgency put a stop to the malfunctionings of the Community machine, to the proliferation of irresponsibility.
The Commission must be put in its place, and the Council must fully accept its political responsibilities: it is now a matter for the IGC to take concrete steps to reflect these essential lessons of the mad cow disease crisis.
The European Union is the hard core of world democracy, and as such it has certain duties, particularly when it comes to setting an example.
Nothing can exonerate us from those duties: not the general esteem we feel for the members of the present Commission, not the concern we might feel not to obstruct the requests by any particular State currently under consideration in Brussels.
The question that confronts us is how democratic control is to be exercised within the Union.
Public opinion today is sceptical or lukewarm regarding the prospects for continuing progress towards European integration.
Too often, our citizens feel remote from the decisions being taken in their name - in their interest, as we tell them.
They can clearly see the Commission's dual power: the power to propose and the power to act.
But how that power is controlled is much less clear to them.
They can only feel consternation as they are bombarded with information on the proven failings of governments and the stratagems adopted in certain quarters - by the British Government and European officials - to conceal the truth or delay its exposure, and so protect national or private interests in a field as vital - literally vital - as human health.
These irregularities have been taking place over a period of several years, and this House cannot settle for undertakings and promises to do better.
A strong signal must be sent out to all those who may be disappointed and tempted to abandon the high hopes that swept this continent in the aftermath of the terrible Second World War.
By voting for the censure motion we are casting a vote of confidence in Europe's institutions and declaring our complete awareness of Parliament's role as the protector of the citizens' rights and freedoms.
I abstained in the vote on the motion of censure against the Commission given the findings of the BSE Committee of Inquiry, because:
to vote for would be committing a half-injustice turning the present Commission into a scapegoat for malfunctionings which occurred before they took office and for which, apart from the Commission, others are responsible, namely the Council; -voting against would be boosting a Commission which, while continuing to give signs of a glaring lack of leadership and a resulting overall loss of strategic direction (already foreseeable when it was invested), but above all an excessively political understanding of subjects of general interest to the citizen, such as public health, really ought to be censured, and if it does not mend its ways, punished.The truth is that there really is a 'lack of Europe' in the field of public health just as there are generally speaking in the fields of the third pillar which more directly concern the citizen.
With a few individual exceptions of honour this Commission is undoubtedly responsible because it has failed to focus on a situation which could easily become explosive and even uncontrollable.
If it were voted for, however, the motion of censure would be a 'red card' .
I think that given that we are now in the early stages of the Intergovernmental Conference, it is better to show a 'yellow card' in the shape of a joint resolution, which was adopted yesterday, and with which I agree.
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the topical and urgent debate on subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0058/97 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the situation in the Great Lakes region; -B4-0076/97 by Mrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco and Mr Pons Grau, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the murder of development aid workers in Rwanda; -B4-0092/97 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the situation in eastern Zaire; -B4-0101/97 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in eastern Zaire; -B4-0114/97 by Mr Fernández Martín and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in the Great Lakes region; -B4-0116/97 by Mr Carnero González and Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the situation in the Great Lakes region, especially in eastern Zaire; -B4-0129/97 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the Great Lakes region.
Madam President, in Zaire we are faced with the result of a lack of coherent and positive action on the part of the European Union and other international powers.
Bloodbaths will undoubtedly escalate into war.
Lack of unity and determination to send in international forces is destabilising the third country in the region of the Great Lakes.
When is enough enough? The General Affairs Council of 20 January saw a repetition of the same thing: too little, too late.
Commissioner Bonino's report was clear and it must lead to the European Union unitedly calling for international intervention.
Next week the Council must decide on a common approach to an international force.
Even if the positive rumours on peace talks under the leadership of Mandela are true, an international force must be an important element of creating a lasting peace.
The mercenaries must be stopped.
The humanitarian crisis in Zaire must be ended quickly by having the troops create humanitarian corridors to save the dying and the refugees.
I understand the criticism from the President-in-Office of Council of the international tribunal in Arusha.
But there should be no suggestion of withdrawing aid.
At most it may only be used as a threat. We must do everything within our power to improve the quality of the tribunal.
That is why we must also be prepared to increase aid, and of course the Member States must change their internal legislation so that they can lend their support to that tribunal.
The Union cannot afford to lose any more time in coordinating its policy more effectively.
If it loses more time it will once again also lose its credibility.
Madam President, this is not the first time we have discussed the appalling situation that exists in Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi.
Once again, that region has fallen a prey to violence, bringing tragedy to thousands of civilians, refugees and displaced persons.
In this situation, I should like to follow the example of Mr Bertens - even if we didn't sign the same motion - and express the concern felt by the entire Socialist Group.
And its regret, too, at seeing that neither the European Union nor great powers like the United States have really got to grips with the problem by launching sustained diplomatic initiatives and deploying a multinational force with a mission not to wage war but to protect civilians and try to support moves towards peace.
Today, the situation is deteriorating, but we can also see where the responsibility lies: with the governments concerned, admittedly, but also with those Europeans who become involved in that region and supply their 'know-how' and their 'technology' .
I have to say that it is really nothing to be proud of to see mercenaries operating in that region.
So what do we suggest? Obviously, that everything possible should be done to obtain a cease-fire within the framework of a regional conference for peace, security and stability in the region, which could be held under the aegises of the UN and the OAU.
But if holding such a conference requires making use of means other than mere diplomatic initiatives, I believe that is a necessity to which we must face up.
We call upon the Council to adopt a joint action programme which would enable it to act in other ways than by adopting resolutions.
We call upon not only the European Union ministers but also the United Nations to support Mrs Bonino's initiative, so that full accounts should be available, enabling a way to be found of solving this refugee crisis in eastern Zaire.
We have seen Mrs Bonino on television, clearly showing her emotion and also her anger at seeing children, women and old people suffering the effects of this situation.
There need to be humanitarian aid channels, if indeed from the political standpoint, we are at present unable to achieve any result.
Finally, we believe that the situation in the region can only be normalized if, during this conference, all the problems are tackled.
There is the problem of the inviolability of frontiers, but there is also the problem of democracy and respect for human rights.
Democracy in Zaire!
Many people believed that President Mobutu, Mobutu the dictator, might work in favour of stability in the region.
We can see how wrong that is.
He too bears responsibility for the present chaos, and we can only hope that everything possible will be done to open the way to democracy in that country, as the only means of bringing peace.
And there must be justice for Rwanda, too, justice for all.
I believe that a great deal needs to be done before reconciliation can be achieved, but once people are conscious of living under the rule of law, conscious that they can return to their homes unmolested, the chances of achieving that reconciliation will perhaps be better than they are at present.
That is the message we want to give to the Commission, which is represented here, and to the Council, which is not.
We call, as a matter of urgency, for very strong action to be taken.
Madam President, the heart of Africa is trembling and quivering with violence, violence that claims more victims, shifts national frontiers and threatens countries with disintegration.
Such a country is Zaire, the nucleus of the African continent.
Old colonial links with Europe have long since stopped being any guarantee.
On the contrary, it is precisely arms supplies from Europe that have prevented the people from participating in power in those countries and so helped to create this chaos.
At last there is a wise African leader who realises that the disintegration of Africa will mercilessly drag the rest of the continent down with it.
Mr President, let the Union use this debate to support this wise African leader in his appeals, to support him in every possible way, to stop arms supplies, to withdraw the mercenaries, for it seems as if the phenomenon of unemployment has now turned into one of mercenaries in Africa, not just Zaire, but also Angola, Chad, everywhere.
Withdraw the mercenaries, set up humanitarian corridors with a military and UN guarantee, call on the new secretary-general, Kofi Annan, to protect the refugees for that is the job of the UN.
Madam President, as the author of the motion for a resolution tabled by the Group of the European Radical Alliance on this crisis in the Great Lakes region, I should like to explain why I did not feel I should call upon my group to endorse the compromise reached by the other groups.
I had two reasons.
The first was that I felt the degree of urgency had been underestimated - not only the urgency of humanitarian aid to the Rwandan refugees in Zaire and the displaced Zairean civilians but also the urgency of the aid to be provided to the Rwandan authorities to enable them to accept a million refugees who are now returning to their country, and those who want to return there.
This really is a matter of urgency.
Nor did I see, as far as our urgent procedure is concerned, what value there was in emphasizing our commitment to the territorial integrity of Zaire.
It may well be an important matter, but I do not feel that it is worthy of an urgent resolution, and I fear that this step may be interpreted by the protagonists in the crisis as a declaration of support for the Kinshasa regime, a declaration which seems to me inappropriate.
That is why, when the time comes, I shall also be opposing the amendment proposed to us by our friends in the Liberal Group on the subject of a military intervention force, because I fear that, having regard to the present situation in eastern Zaire, any form of military intervention - even designed to ensure safe passage for humanitarian aid - may seem to be a territorial statement in a conflict which primarily concerns the Zaireans.
I hope, therefore, that the Security Council's resolution, especially through its proposal for a regional conference, will make it possible to find a lasting peaceful solution to benefit the entire Great Lakes region.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Seldom has a debate been held in the European Parliament in such dramatic circumstances as is the case today.
Commissioner Bonino said on her return from Zaire that she was returning from hell and that the situation in Eastern Zaire was an intolerable scandal.
Not to mention the never ending executions in Burundi. The most recent information indicates that the refugees in Zaire are not so much trying to escape the war but to escape wide-scale slaughter which threatens not only the indigenous population but also refugees, first and foremost women and children.
Recent history in Central Africa was dreadful but what is happening there today is no less so, and what makes events there even more scandalous is the incomprehensible attitude of the United Nations.
Do I have to remind you that last December it was decided to set up an international intervention force which was disbanded a week later, on the pretext that the Rwandan refugees had returned home, whereas it is now quite clear that there are still several hundreds of thousands holed up in the woods of Zaire. Emma Bonino said she met people who were officially dead.
And what about the camp where there are more than 5, 000 children without any parents? They are dying like flies, and who cares about them?
The credibility of the United Nations is really at stake. Why was the information that the United States is believed to have held not passed on?
Masses of modern weapons are being used in the battles between so-called rebels and the remains of the Zaire military. Where do these weapons come from?
Why is nothing done to act on rumours?
Why do nothing to dispel the rumours that Western powers are somehow involved in the invasion in Zaire? Why can we now read reports which state that the spoils to be gained in Zaire are 'enormous' ?
To quote verbatim from a document: ' the riches to be shared from Zaire are enormous' . And who understands anything any more of Mrs Ogata's stance?
Did we not hear the rebel leader Kabila say that the new Berlin conference should be convened? Do those who short-sightedly support something like that realise that that treatment of Africa is grist to the mill of nationalism in the world and of demanding changes to frontiers or countries on the basis of ethnic background?
Right from the beginning this Parliament unanimously said that all military operations in Kivu had to stop.
It goes without saying that the refugees must be able to return home, that they should do so or find shelter somewhere else, but be able to do so without any pressure.
And a tribunal worthy of the name should be able to fulfil its task.
The United Nations must realise that the equivocal policy of last December seriously detracts from their power.
If the weapons fall silent, the international conference for the countries of the Great Lakes regions must be held.
Or do people want to hide the truth here as well? A European policy on Africa makes no sense if we are unable to convene this kind of conference.
Let this House at last raise its voice so that it can be heard by the whole world.
This Parliament condemns imperialism, in Africa as elsewhere. It upholds peace, development, tolerance and the protection of human rights.
It is now time to see if we mean it seriously.
Madam President, there is now an obvious lack of political and humanitarian interest in what is happening in the Great Lakes region.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons are now at the mercy of geo-political strategies originating from Washington and Paris which are blocking any relief activities in the region.
The USA is supporting Tutsi military regimes that are being maintained and developed on the basis of balances determined by their mono-ethnic armies and the commercial traffic these armies control.
Europe and France, on the other hand, are giving their support to the dictator Mobutu, who is actually the cause of so many disasters in the region.
Caught in the middle are millions of innocent, starving Africans who are paying a totally unacceptable price for our crazy foreign policies.
It almost seems as though the USA has opted to foster chaos and use those in power in the region to impose its policy, instead of doing what ought to have been done, which is to promote a multinational buffer force that might have enabled the Great Lakes region to move towards the future democratic legitimization of those regimes, the international conference for a regional solution and the economic reconstruction and institutional reform of Rwanda, Burundi and Zaire.
But all of this is happening partly because of the unacceptable divisions between the Member States of the European Union, whose very credibility is at stake in this crisis.
I am referring to the Council of 20 January - noncommitted and unproductive Council which says a great deal about Europe's inability and unwillingness to intervene in the area.
This is a decision that shocks us and which we utterly reject as a dark stain on the tradition of European solidarity that makes us, even without striking a blow, a party to the death of thousands of people every week.
The resolution on which we shall be voting today and which my group supports sounds this cry of alarm and proposes a set of measures that we trust will be ratified by this Parliament.
Madam President, the continuing civil war in eastern Zaire will plunge the population even deeper into their appalling suffering.
It is always the civilian population that bears the impact of such suffering - the women, the children, the old men, the young.
The latest news tells us that not only has the government of Zaire been hiring mercenaries, but that there has been widespread rape of women and girls.
We should help to find a political solution.
What form might that solution take? We must support the UN's initiatives.
The latest initiative by Nelson Mandela makes sense; he says that a solution lies in Africa itself, and that we should support it with technological and financial resources.
There is a need for an action plan for humanitarian aid for southern Africa.
The mercenaries must be pulled out.
The first thing we can do to help is to look at the situation in our own countries.
Here, close by, we have the Foreign Legion.
That is an example of a mercenary force which is being sent out there, isn't it?
We must ensure that such things no longer happen, that we support the War Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda, and that this has a deterrent effect.
Nor should we abandon our development policy.
If we have budget cuts here, the money for civilian development will be lacking.
And, finally: an immediate stop must be put to such things as weapons coming from Germany and, as rumour has it, the police equipment for a dictator like Mobutu being provided by German political institutes.
That is a major contribution to peace.
Madam President, if I may I should like to clear up that last point immediately.
Mr Telkämper refers to rumour.
We should not stoop to peddle rumours in this chamber.
If an attempt is made, in a country where such tragic events are taking place, to help with the training of security forces so that they can develop into civilian police forces, without the institutes being responsible for arming them, then I believe that, too, represents a contribution to achieving the objectives this House would like to see achieved.
But now for the subject of today's motion. The catalogue of disasters at this time in the part-session has become almost a matter of routine.
Time after time, too, we hear that the action taken has produced no effect.
So I regard it as an absolute necessity to come up with a different kind of action.
If the problem of the overcrowded refugee camps cannot be solved, if it is impossible to achieve what Mrs Ogata has called for - the disarming of the militia in the camps - then the question arises of whether we should not direct our efforts towards decentralizing those camps, making it impossible for so many militia men to find concealment among 200, 000 refugees, and for bandits to pursue their flourishing arms trade there.
We constantly hear - it happened again in this presidency's paper - words like 'concerned' , ' demands' , ' condemns' .
Those words have not solved any problems yet.
Europe, too, must finally get its act together and send troops, a military force to safeguard humanitarian rights.
And when we come to debate Mr Fassa's report in due course, we shall find that same demand expressed by the Committee on Development.
And I hope that this approach will enable us to enforce the law, instead of just demanding it.
Madam President, the European public has reacted with indignation to two catastrophes: the one which has taken place in the Great Lakes and - another political catastrophe - the fact that the European Union has been incapable of intervening to put an end to the destruction of human life taking place in the Great Lakes.
There are even countries like Spain which have paid with the lives of three aid workers for the presence of civilians and the absence of European Union policy in that part of Africa.
There is indignation about what is happening and the lack of intervention, but there is also indignation about the known causes, the conflict over spurious strategies and indeed the continuing de facto support of dictators like Mobutu Sese Seko.
We hope the recently adopted United Nations Security Council resolution will operate in favour of a political solution to the situation and that the conference mentioned in our resolution will finally be called, which also requires the European Union to engage in joint action as demanded in the text.
Madam President, the Commission shares the deep anxiety - the dread, perhaps I should say - of this House about the situation in the Great Lakes.
It understands the concern of the European Parliament to increase awareness of this subject within the international community.
You are doing something that needs to be done.
The escalation of this violence could further exacerbate the political problems and widen the scope of the humanitarian crisis in that region.
On behalf of the European Union, the Council presidency has just made a declaration on Zaire, inviting the warring factions to negotiate an immediate ceasefire and facilitate access for the humanitarian organizations to enable them to bring aid to the distressed populations.
In view of the gravity of the humanitarian situation in Zaire, Mrs Bonino undertook a mission from 30 January to 2 February with a view to facilitating access for humanitarian aid in the east of the country.
As I understand it from listening to your speeches just now, this was indeed one of your main concerns.
I should also remind you that an appeal was launched on the occasion of Mrs Bonino's trip and does seem to me, in fact, to have created international awareness of the problem.
Regarding humanitarian aid work, Mrs Bonino made a point of stressing how its implementation was being baulked at present by security problems and administrative difficulties.
That was why my colleague Emma Bonino made representations to the government calling for the international human rights conventions to be respected.
The protection of humanitarian organizations in the countries where they operate is a matter to which the Commission pays the closest attention.
Let me remind you of the recent murders, including the killings of representatives of these humanitarian organizations, especially in Rwanda.
Those murders have had a very powerful and easily understandable impact on the personnel of the humanitarian agencies, many of which have reduced their programmes or are even thinking of withdrawing.
Although the immediate problem today is to find a way of resolving the deteriorating situation in Zaire and Burundi, and although you have rightly emphasized your concerns about this, referring to the problem of the arms traffic and other problems associated with the impossibility of establishing humanitarian aid channels for the present, the ultimate objective of the European Union's efforts must be to find a global solution.
It is up to the international community to bring the warring factions to the negotiating table and find answers that will enable us to resolve this crisis.
The purpose of humanitarian aid is not to resolve the conflict.
Unfortunately, the reason why humanitarian aid is needed is that there is no solution to such conflicts.
That is why the Commission welcomes the recent resolution by the United Nations Security council on 18 February emphasizing the urgent need to protect refugees and displaced persons and to make it easier for humanitarian aid to reach the victims.
I can assure you that the Commission will be unsparing in its efforts to ensure that that resolution is translated into action.
Madam President, I should like to raise a point of order pursuant to Rule 108.
Since Mrs Günther reacted to what I said, I should once again like to emphasize expressly that I did not imply that the Hans Seidel Institute was involved in the training of the police force of the dictator Mobutu or helping to arm that police force.
Mr Telkämper, that was more like a declaration than a point of order!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0082/97 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the crisis in Albania; -B4-0089/97 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the situation in Albania; -B4-0093/97 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in Albania; -B4-0105/97 by Mr Roubatis and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Albania; -B4-0113/97 by Mrs Pack and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Albania; -B4-0126/97 By Mr Alavanos and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the situation in Albania; -B4-0138/97 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in Albania.
Madam President, Commissioner, the situation in Albania is highly explosive.
The dreams of making a fortune of a large part of the population have been shattered and the hard reality of daily life in Albania is making the people extremely bitter.
It is not of course up to the Union to help out the Albanian people financially when their gambling goes wrong.
But we do have to call on the Albanian government to act properly in this situation.
Repression, violence, arresting the opposition, gagging the press is not the way to end the unrest.
That is like a red rag to a bull.
The Commission and Council should call on the government of Mr Berisha to abandon their repressive methods and make a fair, payable and responsible gesture to the duped people of the country.
The government must try in a dialogue with the opposition to find a solution to the current economic and political crisis.
Further democratisation and liberalisation are needed to haul Albania out of the mire.
The Union must be prepared to offer its help here.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely concerned about the situation in Albania, but I am even more concerned about the consequences it might have and about the European Union's response at a time of such terrible difficulty, which could have serious implications for the country's future economic development.
I do not want to see anyone taking advantage of this to aggravate an already difficult and delicate situation.
As members of the European Union, we have a moral and civil duty to give Albania as much help as we can to prevent total destabilization of the country and region.
We need to act as carefully and correctly as we have done in the past, and I recall that we sent observers to follow the most recent elections in 1996, who were able to verify the honesty and correctness of those elections.
The Commission should, within the framework of its programmes, provide technical assistance for the reform of the financial and banking sectors, since, as a result of the collapse of the pyramid investment schemes, Albania is now facing a deep financial and economic crisis.
And this is undoubtedly a personal disaster for a large part of the population in Albania.
Finally, we need to support President Berisha in his calls for law and order, while deploring and condemning the violence of the suppression that has left four people dead and hundreds injured; and we need to urge the Albanian authorities to conduct, as soon as possible, an investigation to identify and condemn those responsible for the misappropriations that have led to the ruin of thousands of small savers.
And lastly, we need to support Albania's political leaders, of both the majority and the opposition, in their attempts to restore calm in a population that is living through a very dark moment.
Madam President, Albania has a population of three million, equivalent to one of the smaller regions of the Union.
Here again, we can see that the Union, the Commission and the Member States, too, especially some States such as Italy, have been working on numerous projects but have achieved little.
A great deal of money has been spent, as usual, but little attention has been paid to an essential feature of the rules of the game - the establishment of certain guarantees and systems to ensure that the irregularities that have taken place are not repeated.
We know all about these pyramid saving schemes.
We have seen them before in Romania.
Commissioner van den Broek told us that the Commission had been abreast of affairs for many months and that, despite the scale of the financial resources released for Albania over the last five or six years, the Commission was unable -which I find incredible - to put a stop to this business before it exploded.
That is absolutely staggering!
I think it really is high time for the European Union to adopt a foreign policy worthy of the name. Otherwise, we shall go on spending money, it will cost us a great deal, and we shall not even achieve a minimal result - a minimum of development in these countries.
Madam President, a few years ago I visited Albania, just after it had become independent.
It was the most depressing experience of my life.
The depression was caused not by the poverty - I had been to a lot poorer countries in my time - but by the look of shock and hopelessness on the faces of the local inhabitants.
Indeed, going to poor countries, one often sees extensive economic activity on a small scale.
In Albania there was nothing.
People were stunned and had no idea how to respond to the changes.
I became aware then of the enormous gulf that lies between our line of thinking and their line of thinking.
We talk very glibly about democracy and market economy without realizing that both these things require a major effort and, in fact, are part and parcel of our upbringing.
It is very difficult to introduce these into an area which has never known democracy and never really known a market economy.
It was always obvious that Albania would encounter serious problems and, of course, this is exactly what has happened.
We should not be too surprised at the pyramid schemes because they are basically get-rich schemes.
One of the messages that we have been giving to these countries is that if you embrace capitalism you get rich very quickly.
Well, the reality of capitalism is that a lot more people get poor very quickly and most of us trudge along in the middle, having to work very hard to keep our heads above water.
That is an important lesson to be learned.
Another important lesson to be learned is that democracy is not simply about going to the ballot box to elect a government that then behaves like every other government before it.
Democracy is about a proper interplay between the forces of any particular society.
So in this resolution on Albania we have sought to condemn - as we should condemn - those who have tried to manipulate this situation for their own reward.
We are concerned about the reports of the involvement of international crime and gangsters in these get-rich schemes and we have condemned, of course, the action of the government.
Having condemned, what we have to do is look at how we can improve the situation.
What we have sought to do in this resolution is to draw attention to the need for the EU to provide specialized assistance, particularly for financial institutions and the building of financial institutions.
Let us not forget that the history of capitalism in the United Kingdom is strewn with get-rich schemes which have collapsed and banks which have collapsed - this is nothing new.
We have to use our experience and work closely with the Albanian people and their government to try to build proper financial institutions which will open up their economy and develop prosperity.
On the one hand, we should condemn, on the other hand, let us have a look at how we can help them more effectively.
It has been said that Albania is crucial to the region, if we lose control of Albania, we lose control of the region.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I must thank Mr Titley for his very wise remarks, and I am glad that he has said what he has, because I see it the same way that he does.
Unfortunately, our motion is not quite as balanced as what Mr Titley has said and what I am going to say, but that's what happens, unfortunately, with motions.
Vast numbers of Albanian citizens handed over their savings to confidence tricksters who promised them incredible profits.
Infected with gold fever, people were incapable of attaching any credence to timely warnings - the supposed prospect of fabulous wealth simply befuddled their senses.
They were easy prey, precisely because they had no experience whatever of such hideous excesses of capitalism.
Today, confronted with the grim reality, they are naturally trying to place the blame not on themselves but on the government.
It may well be that the government failed to warn them early enough, but without rock-solid evidence and in view of the euphoria of the investors, the job may simply have been too difficult for them.
When they did broadcast warnings on television in September 1996, they were not believed.
But the misfortunes of the population and the problems the Albanian government faces as a result are too great to be abused for selfish ends.
Unfortunately, the opposition is doing just that, criminally exploiting the unrest for party political purposes.
Hooliganism directed against public buildings and the police does lasting damage to public order, and must be stopped.
The fact that there were some cases where this was done without the appropriate sense of proportion is very regrettable.
People were killed, and that is terrible.
Obviously, those responsible must be called to account.
How many Members took note of the moderation and democratic maturity with which the Albanian parliament conducted the debate on the proposed declaration of a state of emergency, and then eventually rejected it? All of them were more or less blinded, the opposition politicians no less than some members of the government.
But now everyone should be trying to pick up the pieces as quickly as possible and refraining from untenable accusations or suspicions.
The government has begun to pay back the small amount of money retrieved, and will continue to do so.
The Committee of Inquiry must clarify the background, and the EU Commission should help to reform the finance and banking sectors and provide strong support to the government as it works to build the sound and credible structures of a market economy.
So, please, let us not confuse cause and effect, and let us not make party political capital out of these matters.
Our thoughts must be turned to the misery suffered by the Albanian people, and to the urgent matter of enlightenment.
Madam President, in just one minute all I can do is ask the Commissioner two things.
Commissioner, I will not ask you for your opinion about the political situation, human rights, the rule of law, or any of those ardent issues in Albania.
Can you give us the Commission's estimate of the losses brought about by the so-termed pyramid systems? I hear talk of two billion dollars.
Far above the gross national income of the country itself.
The magnitude of those losses, Mr Commissioner, shows that this was not accidental, as some here are saying, nor any oversight.
A system was in play.
Eight banks were involved, four of which have declared bankruptcy, and we are waiting for the others to do so as well.
A new economic situation is arising.
And the second question is: with what image, with what perspective is the Commission cooperating with Albania? What advice is it giving that country?
Towards what prospect is it urging Albania? Because there are some who have confused capitalism with gambling and public fraud, and nothing else.
Madam President, I, too, should like briefly to express deep concern at the deterioration of the political situation in Albania that has been triggered by the collapse of the pyramid investment schemes, and also at the heavy-handed response of the Albanian Government and police.
The incidents that have occurred should somehow have been avoided and every effort should have been made, in particular, to prevent situations in which people died.
The Albanian Government has proved itself totally incapable of responding to the accusation of collusion with the companies that embezzled investment funds.
I cannot believe that Berisha and his government were unaware of what was happening, that is, massive fraud at the expense of the Albanian people.
I therefore believe that, in pointing to the dangers of the presence of international criminal organizations, we should also point out that the Albanian Government needs to conduct a full and transparent investigation and, at the same time, launch a dialogue with all the opposition parties, for, without dialogue, it will be impossible to achieve the political stability that is so vital now.
The European Union must provide the Albanian Government with the assistance it needs to enable it to restructure the current savings system and introduce appropriate legislative measures to tackle this emergency situation.
Madam President, when the situation in a small, troubled country, Albania, is dramatic, when that country is part of a wider volatile area, when the economic ruin of thousands of small savers threatens to destabilize the newly emergent democracy, when there are serious suspicions of Mafia involvement, I believe our reaction should be immediate and realistic, and not confined to wishful thinking about Jeremiads or ideologically tinted advice.
The first requirement is to offer technical aid capable of restoring the discredited banking system.
But if even that is to be effective, it must go together with generous economic support.
At a time when we are all talking about the globalization of the economy, it is tragic that a small country in a sensitive area of Europe should be allowed to founder economically and politically because of unscrupulous profiteers and incapable governors.
Madam President, the Commission naturally shares the deep concern of this House at the serious social unrest that has recently broken out in Albania as a result of the collapse of these pyramid saving schemes.
Mr Papayannakis has asked what the scale of this calamity was.
According to studies by the International Monetary Fund, very substantial.
They are talking about 30 % of GDP, one billion dollars.
So this is indeed a major crisis, which is why we are concerned, though I can tell Mr Tamino that we are also concerned at the violence of the social unrest to which this protest has given way.
Mrs Baldi and Mr Dupuis have asked what the European Union is doing and why it has taken no action? The problem is that Albania, having regard to its past history, has no adequate, or sufficiently sophisticated, legislative and regulatory framework to govern its financial and banking systems.
That is why, since 1992, the PHARE programme has been granting substantial aid to Albania - aid which does indeed extend to the reform of the banking system and, especially, the privatization of a number of state-owned banks.
The situation subsequently improved, and Albania enjoyed a considerable degree of economic success, particularly by complying with the ideas of the International Monetary Fund.
The problem is that a substantial and rapid deterioration took place in 1996, leading the Commission, from the end of October last year, to offer Albania technical assistance in solving the legal problems which were being and are being caused by the control of these so-called pyramid investment funds.
But the Albanian authorities refused the Commission's offer.
I can tell Mr Titley and Mr Lambrias that we are trying to help the Albanians.
That was why the Commission sent a mission to Tirana on 5 and 6 February - as recently as that - to prepare the PHARE operational programme for 1997.
On that occasion, we were able to assess the impact of the crisis and come up with new aid proposals.
However, as things stand, I am sorry to say that the Albanian authorities are still preferring to find their own solution to the problems created by these saving schemes.
The Commission is sorry that the Albanian Government has rejected its proposal.
This refusal is worrying - I should make this clear - because three or four so-called pyramid companies do still exist and their future is uncertain, to say the least.
I gather that the offers of assistance made by the International Monetary Fund and by the United States were also rejected by the Albanian Government.
In view of this, and in these circumstances, with the prospect of a further deterioration in the situation, the Commission has asked the Council presidency to raise the matter at the 'General Affairs' council next Monday, 24 February.
The Commission is suggesting that the Union should first invite all the parties concerned to show restraint and refrain from violence.
The Commission further believes that it would be as well to remind the Albanian authorities that resorting to undemocratic ways of resolving the crisis could have profound repercussions on the quality of current relations between the Union and Albania, and especially on the negotiation of a new agreement between the Union and Albania.
In other words, if we want to achieve any results in this matter we must combine humanity with firmness.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
53rd session of the UN Human Rights Commission -B4-0063/97 by Mr Bertens and Mrs Larive, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on China and the United Nations Human Rights Commission; -B4-0077/97 by Mr Barros Moura and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Commission; -B4-0091/97 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Commission; -B4-0094/97 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the resolution on China/Tibet in the UN Human Rights Commission and on the standpoint of the UN Member States; -B4-0111/97 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Commission; -B4-0123/97 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left on human rights - Geneva; -B4-0142/97 by Mrs Müller and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Commission; -B4-0062/97 by Mr Cars and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the abolition of the death penalty; -B4-0095/97 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the most frequent cases in many countries throughout the world in which the death penalty is imposed; -B4-0124/97 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left, on the UN Human Rights Commission and on the abolition of the death penalty; -B4-0134/97 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the death penalty; -B4-0098/97 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the grave human rights violations in western Turkestan (Xinjian);
Iran -B4-0059/97 by Mr Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on Iran; -B4-0075/97 by Mrs García Arias and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on Iran; -B4-0108/97 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the Iranian writer and publisher Faraj Sarkouhi; -B4-0119/97 by Mr Vinci and Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on human rights in Iran; -B4-0143/97 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the disappearance of the Iranian publisher Faraj Sarkouhi, his brother Ismail Sarkouhi and his assistant Parvin Ardalan;
Mordecai Vanunu -B4-0070/97 by Mr Crampton and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the continuing solitary confinement of Mordecai Vanunu; -B4-0144/97 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the continuing solitary confinement of Mordecai Vanunu;
Chad -B4-0057/97 by Mrs André-Léonard and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on human rights violations in Chad; -B4-0118/97 by Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on human rights violations in Chad;
Indigenous peoples of Indonesia -B4-0065/97 by Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the violation of the rights of indigenous peoples and the clearing of tropical forests on the Indonesian island of Yamdena; -B4-0130/97 by Mrs Hautala and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the violation of the rights of indigenous peoples and the clearing of tropical forests on the Indonesian island of Yamdena.
Madam President, The Union must speak out strongly at the coming meeting of the human rights commission in Geneva.
It must be properly prepared to reach a common position at the UN Commission on Human Rights.
The preparation appears to be better than last year, but there is still room for improvement.
Last year our position was coordinated in Geneva and this time the coordination is taking place three weeks earlier in Brussels.
But I still think it regrettable that not more time is devoted to it.
Better preparation increases our chance of successfully influencing the UN Commission.
Today this House must get it clearly across to the Council that China, Turkey, Burma and East Timor are part of the list of priorities.
Next week's Council meeting will take the decision.
I hope that the President-in-Office of Council will come out clearly on the universality of human rights, for example, which are also to be applied to China.
The new, and perhaps also the old, Chinese leaders must be condemned, if necessary without fear in the UN context, for the deterioration in human rights in their country; it is clear everywhere that the situation has not improved.
The Council must speak out loudly in Geneva in favour of an international coalition without any consideration of possible economic retaliation on the part of the Chinese.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to try to use my 60 seconds to say something sensible on the subject of what this Human Rights Commission and its 53rd session are about.
Mr Ferber, talking rubbish is a human right too, so we can forgive your heckling!
It is difficult to make a selection among so many different topics when we come to debate this 53rd session.
As Parliament's rapporteur on the subject of the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, I should like to ask those representatives of the Council and the Member States, and of our Parliament, who are going to attend this conference in Geneva to make this question a central point of debate, alongside the traditional, political debates that are held there: what has gone wrong in a society which has become brutalized to the extent reflected in what we now know of the sexual abuse and exploitation of children? In particular, I call upon the European nations to reflect that we must pay the most particular attention to this phenomenon in our own countries and we must eliminate its causes and its effects if we, as Europeans attending such a conference, are to have long-term credibility when we point the finger at human rights violations outside Europe.
So I ask those travelling to Geneva to consider this subject especially carefully.
Madam President, the motion for a resolution lists some ten countries, but the most important one for me is China.
It is the biggest country, the largest population, a growing market, attractive to Western investors, and no sign of movement in the human rights situation.
I mention the occupation of Tibet, the situation in Turkestan and Inner Mongolia, the lengthy prison sentences for dissidents, including Wei Jingsheng.
This is the China whose successor to the late Deng Xiaoping must be persuaded that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies to the whole of this earth.
China - because very shortly Hong Kong will come under the rule of Peking and the first signs of oppressive machinery are already visible there.
China - because the opposition there is hoping for a slow but sure rise in the degree of tolerance and openness.
China is coming to the human rights conference in Geneva, a unique opportunity to get together with our colleagues from the American Congress who so recently sat on the platform to use our transatlantic relation in the pursuit of respecting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which every dissident on this earth calls on - these are the values we want to see implemented.
China cannot be allowed to hide behind so-called Asian values, for these do not apply to this earth.
Madam President, I entirely agree with Mrs van Bladel.
I believe there are many good reasons for concentrating on China, and not because of the passing of the self-styled Great Architect who unfortunately forgot the fifth and most important modernization, as Wei Jingsheng put it: democracy.
There are 1, 200, 000, 000 living in China outside the rule of democracy, and that applies more especially to millions of Tibetans, Mongols and Uighurs in eastern Turkestan.
I am very glad that this House, for the first time, is beginning to discuss them.
For these people, deprived as they are of democracy and liberty, it is an important and urgent matter for the European Union to confront the situation with firmness and not to do as it did last year when, for weeks on end, we witnessed delaying tactics on the part of the European Union - tactics which eventually resulted in a position that was not defended and on which no attempt was made to reach a consensus with the other Member States of the Commission on Human Rights.
This year we need a firm position.
I believe the signs are encouraging.
Mrs Albright has told us that the United States is prepared to support the same resolution as the European Union.
So we need to press on resolutely along those lines, and to put pressure on the European Union governments that are still resorting to passive resistance.
I think it is right to name the countries concerned: they are your own country of France, Commissioner de Silguy, and Italy.
The European Union must adopt a strong and unanimous position.
Only by doing so will we be able to escape from a mood of resignation in the face of the grand design being offered us by the Chinese leadership - development without democracy.
Unless Europe starts to put up a determined fight, that grand design will take a stronger and stronger grip, not just on China but also on many other countries throughout the world.
I believe the time has come to say so, loud and clear, and to take the necessary action.
The sessions of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva are, you might say, something else that comes round once a year.
But I believe that we in this House, more than most, should take them very seriously as a possible yardstick for worldwide respect for human rights.
Because this is a situation in which diplomats scrutinize the worldwide human rights situation while giving the most careful consideration to the interests of their own countries, that scrutiny carries a great deal of weight with the various states.
The European Parliament is more motivated by considerations of democratic policy, and so here too there are occasionally differences.
With the aid of the EU Commission - and I must contradict Mr Dupuis here, to some extent - the Council appears at such conferences as the co-ordinator of the Member States, and last year demonstrated a consistency which is astonishing for our Member States.
So we should like to pass on to the Commission and the Council the points that have emerged from past years' work as being necessary.
Nothing much has changed - the problem countries are still the same.
The list is a long one.
This afternoon, some of those problem countries will be dealt with here.
Nor should the death of the reforming Chinese politician Deng prevent us from drawing attention to the constant human rights violations in that country, as indeed other Members have done, and that point should not be removed from the Geneva agenda.
The motion for a resolution calls for other things too, of course, things that we feel should really be taken to heart by the Human Rights Commission, such as the development of standards or conventions for impunity, or for the trial procedure for politically motivated crimes.
This is becoming a key question in more and more of the world's countries as they make the transition from dictatorship to democracy.
Then there is the protection of children against sexual abuse and exploitation: I think that what Mr Schulz said applies in reverse as well, and that if we have, for once, achieved something good in our own countries we have the right to promulgate it elsewhere.
Majority opinion in this House favours the abolition of the death penalty, and we should always clearly emphasize that.
The questions relating to indigenous peoples, too, have become very important.
We therefore call upon the European Union and the Member States to treat human rights as a really central issue in the structuring of foreign policy and relations between peoples.
Madam President, I should like to call the Commissioner's attention to a specific human-rights issue: the question of the death penalty.
It seems strange to have to raise the subject in this House on the threshold of the year 2000; and yet it is a human-rights issue that persists in many of the countries with which we have relations.
As the Commissioner knows, Europe has, over the past few centuries, developed a strong humanitarian culture and I wonder why so little is being done to convince our partners and third countries to abolish the death penalty or, at least, to introduce a moratorium that I hope would become definitive.
I believe the Geneva Conference could be an opportunity to reach at least this major objective, and I think it is right and important that the European Union should coordinate its Member States in this respect and exert pressure, actually at the Geneva Conference, to obtain the moratorium I should like to see.
Madam President, unfortunately we cannot totally prevent some of our citizens from committing crimes, even such serious crimes as murder.
But we can, quite rightly, demand that States do not legitimate such crime by themselves killing, that is executing their citizens.
The prime evidence for me that the European Union is based on humanitarian feeling and respect for life is that all Member States have abolished the death penalty.
Madam President, the European Parliament has also reason to be confident that all Member governments will be reminded of Parliament's wishes in this resolution during the meeting with the UN Commission on Human Rights, and that they will demand a universal, all country, moratorium on execution.
Parliament should request the President of the Commission to give an account of the Member States handling of this matter.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on this rare occasion when you are not immersed in matters relating to the single currency but have found time to consider human rights, I should like to address you very specifically, as other honourable Members have already done, on the matter of the death penalty and the moratorium which we are asking the Member States to apply and which we should like the Commission to support at the next conference of the Commission on Human Rights, to be held in Geneva.
This is a very important subject.
On the eve of the third millennium, it is intolerable that the death penalty should still feature in the penal codes of most members of the international community.
The European Union should launch an initiative at the UN General Assembly in favour of an immediate moratorium, something that would make a great contribution to advancing the cause of human rights.
The idea is one of particular interest to certain Member States, including your own, Commissioner, if I am not mistaken.
I hope that the Commission, too, will be attentive to it.
Madam President, I can agree with a great deal of what Mrs van Bladel, Mr Dupois and Mrs Lenz have said about China.
At best, the events in China last night may herald a new era in the country.
The revolutionary old guard which was forced to struggle in tough conditions for self determination for China and against foreign influence and attempts to isolate the world's largest country have now gone.
At best, and I know that many take a more pessimistic view, the new generation will be able to realise that no country can play a role of any importance in the year 2000's globalised world if they do not totally respect human rights.
In my capacity as leader of the Chinese delegation I have had many contacts with the Chinese both with the government and those in opposition.
Many Chinese believe that we, here in the European Parliament are pursuing a particular campaign against China.
They have counted the number of resolutions adopted which criticise China.
I think it is important that we stress to China that we are not running a campaign against China, but a campaign for human rights.
There are very few countries on this earth that have not been criticised by us at some point in time; even countries which are members of the European Union are criticised.
It is therefore a campaign for human rights directed at all those who do not respect them.
There are also a number of people in China who believe that we are not aware of the existence of other traditions and cannot accept such a thing.
They think that we want to force all sorts of European traditions and values onto them.
I cannot understand this at all.
Human rights are not a particular European invention.
Europeans do not have an awful lot to boast about historically in terms of human rights.
Human rights are a universal value. European representatives must also stress that we are not trying to force European human rights onto them, but that we are trying to make everyone understand that universal human rights are part of modern society.
As the leader of the Chinese Delegation I have, of course, sent a diplomatic message of regret at the passing of Mr Deng, as the death of any person is a loss for someone.
In the same way, I must send a message of regret that human rights activists are still sitting in Chinese prisons, simply because they want to add a fifth modernisation to Mr Deng's four modernisations.
Of course, opposition is as much a part of the present as the labour camps and the death penalty are a relic of the past.
Madam President, I want to draw the attention of the House in particular to paragraph 8 which calls for the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples at the level of the UN Commission on Human Rights as agreed by all parties involved, including indigenous peoples.
This is a very important declaration that we are being asked to support.
Parliament has an honourable record in supporting the rights of the aboriginal peoples who can only too easily be forgotten because they have no states to protect them.
Often, even the right to the land they live on is challenged by the states that surround them.
We adopted, as a Parliament, a resolution in 1994 calling for the establishment of a delegation with the indigenous peoples.
This will be pursued this year.
This is very important indeed.
It will give a sign of encouragement to peoples whose survival is at risk.
When we talk about endangered animal species, we should certainly support them. But there are many peoples, languages and cultural groups which are also facing grave threats.
So I urge you to support the entire resolution and, in particular, to give ringing endorsement to paragraph 8.
I ask the Commission to take this forward with our support to the United Nations.
Mr President, The Iranian author Faraj Sarkouhi has been viciously attacked by the authorities in Iran.
His assistant Parvin Ardalan appears also to have been attacked.
This is a despicable act and we in the European Parliament wish to make our views known on this.
But it is the 'critical dialogue' which our Member Governments are supposedly conducting with Iran which is even more amazing to us.
We in Parliament find it difficult to see that this has led to any positive concrete results.
If Iran does not soon show signs of increased respect for human rights and reconsider its attitude to torture, executions and conspiracies against the lives of non Iranian citizens, this critical dialogue must be reviewed and a new policy using different political means towards Iran must be put in place.
Mr President, I, too, should like to address the Commissioner on this issue, since we are, today, strongly condemning the State terrorism practised by the Iranian authorities. But this is not the first time we have done this and I wonder what good it does, whether it actually does any good to go on and on condemning, without really doing anything.
Far too many of the regime's political opponents have been killed over the past few years, in various places throughout the world, by the special services of the Iranian security forces.
It has even happened in my country, in Italy.
These security forces continue to threaten Iranian citizens who are living in the Member States and conducting legitimate political activities against the regime.
I believe that Europe's policy with regard to Iran is too complaisant and that what we and, in particular, the European institutions should be doing instead is to pursue a hard-hitting policy. For what is happening in Teheran today is that there is apartheid against women, democracy is being treated with contempt every day and physical attacks on opponents are a matter of course.
It seems to me that the situation is very serious and sufficient to require special action that, in my opinion, has unfortunately not yet been taken.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as other Members have already said, the human rights situation in Iran really is worse than it has ever been.
Women, religious minorities and intellectuals who venture even the faintest criticism of current policy become victims of blatant repression and brutal persecution.
A clear sign of the steady deterioration is that even the official figure for executions in the year 1996 has doubled to 110.
We know that this is only the tip of the iceberg, and that the number of unreported cases of people being abducted without any form of due process, subjected to the most cruel tortures and then murdered is far greater.
The latest examples of these terror tactics are the repeated disappearance of the publisher Sarkouhi, who was previously held captive in November by the Iranian government and maltreated for 47 days, and - as Mrs Lenz and others have mentioned - the latest increase in the bounty on Salman Rushdie.
Both of these, incidentally, represent attempts by Iran to influence the outcome of the Mykonos trial in Berlin, which has now produced clear proof that the Mullahs have been responsible for the murders of opposition figures abroad.
Time and again, the intolerable circumstances in Iran and the policy practised by the regime of the Mullahs and its secret service of exporting terror have prompted the European Parliament to utter strong words of criticism.
But that criticism is directed not only against those in power in Iran but also against governments within the European Union, and especially against the Federal Republic of Germany.
That criticism is directed against the unqualified commitment to the policy of so-called critical dialogue.
The time really has come to accept that this so-called critical dialogue has failed.
It has been of use to economic relations, and it has repeatedly provided confirmation for those in power in Tehran that their policy can be pursued with impunity.
As far as human rights are concerned, this so-called critical dialogue has changed nothing, and yet the preservation of and respect for human rights is the most important issue of all!
Mordechai Vanunu
Mr President, three previous resolutions passed by this Parliament since 1990 have been ignored by the Israeli Government.
There have also been many questions.
I asked both previous Prime Ministers of Israel and was told that the whole matter was one for the Israeli justice system.
It is not and was not.
It is our concern.
Vanunu revealed to the British press that Israel had nuclear weapons.
Also, he was kidnapped from an EU country, Italy, against international law.
However, that is in the past.
What is not is that for over ten years Vanunu has been kept in solitary confinement in a so-called civilized country, in conditions which Amnesty International describes as cruel, inhuman and degrading.
He is certainly treated far worse than either the American or British spies who were sentenced for selling their secrets to the Soviet Union.
This resolution is really an appeal for clemency. Vanunu cannot damage Israeli security.
I ask the Israeli Government to end the solitary confinement and to arrange for an early release of this long-serving prisoner.
Mr President, ten years' solitary confinement in a cell is an inhumanity, but in all honesty we must admit that recently Mr Vanunu has regularly been offered additional privileges which he has rejected.
I also think that his situation should be improved but my group cannot support the motion for a resolution in its form before us today.
I would have much preferred this House to spend its energy on a matter in the same region which is so important in relation to human rights.
Mr President, for a long time now Germany, France and Greece have been calling for the extradition of the former SS-officer and war criminal, Alois Brunner.
This man is in Syria. When can justice be given to the victims in France and Greece?
If Syria is of good will and wants association agreements with the EU then let it go ahead with the extradition of Mr Brunner.
Mr President, the Middle East is working slowly towards peace.
The Hebron agreement has at last been produced.
The visit here this week in Strasbourg of a joint Israeli-Palestinian parliamentary delegation is a sign that business can now be done with both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
The time is also ripe for another breakthrough.
Mr Vanunu has been in solitary confinement in a small cell for more than ten years because of the alleged security risk that he is said to represent ten years after the event.
In the light of the changed circumstances my group calls for clemency and for attention to be paid to the human rights aspects of this sad case.
But this House must be realistic.
I am honest enough to say that the request to all concerned to produce all the evidence on Mr Vanunu's arrest is ludicrous.
If paragraph 4 is not deleted - and we shall table an amendment to that effect - then the Liberal Group will most unfortunately be forced to vote against this motion for a resolution.
Chad
Mr President, I am deeply concerned about the situation in Chad.
The allegations in the resolution are very serious indeed.
I was also in Chad for the first stage of the legislative elections and I shall be returning to Chad this weekend for the second stage, on your behalf, at the invitation of the government of Chad.
Today the Prime Minister of Chad has come to Strasbourg on the eve of the elections.
I have had a meeting with him.
The Prime Minister has offered the opportunity of a prison visit, besides certain meetings in Chad this weekend, which I have accepted.
The Prime Minister is aware of the grave concern of this European Parliament.
I welcome the Prime Minister to the European Parliament and I say to him that we are aware of the recent history of Chad and that there has been some progress in human rights, but we are in no way satisfied.
The government of Chad and this European Parliament have a responsibility to cooperate in order to deliver a radical and urgent improvement in basic human rights, to allow Members of the European Parliament in Chad this week to collect further first-hand information and to defer the vote today until March in order that we can make substantial progress.
I appeal to all parties to let us do this, to set a timetable and to take this issue more seriously than simply to adopt the resolution, so that we can make progress in Chad and have a vote, if necessary, in March.
Indigenous peoples of Indonesia
Mr President, Yamdena is an island in Eastern Indonesia, and the Indonesian Government has granted very extensive logging permits to certain forestry companies.
Our concern is that this logging may be carried out without any regard for the rights of indigenous peoples.
The area is also extremely ecologically diverse and rich.
Has the Commission sent any kind of fact-finding mission to the area? It promised to do so in informal talks with Members of this Parliament last November.
I should also like to know what view the Commission takes of this matter.
The Commission has supported many forest protection projects in Indonesia, but now, in a way, the basis for this protection of forests is under threat.
Will the Commission step up its measures to protect forests in Indonesia, including the Yamdena region?
I shall answer all the questions in the order in which they were asked.
As regards the 53rd session of the Commission on Human Rights, I must tell Mr Dell'Alba that I am indeed unaccustomed to dealing with the human rights clause in connection with matters pertaining to the euro, but I shall do my best today to answer the questions that have been asked.
As you know, the Commission is paying the closest attention to the preparations for this next session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Like Mr Schulz, indeed, I find it very difficult to make a choice among all these subjects.
Human rights violations are, sadly, very widespread on this planet, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, and in every case they are always firmly condemned by the European Union - not only firmly but effectively, too, as you will see if you refer to most of our agreements which include 'human rights' clauses.
The European Union is particularly active at the United Nations and never misses an opportunity to restate its concerns on this matter.
As far as China is concerned, I can tell you that the Union intends to resort to what it considers to be the most appropriate means, while being careful not to jeopardize the prospects of resuming the bilateral dialogue.
We need to take effective action here, while being careful not to appear ridiculous or lose our credibility.
What matters, I believe, is the result.
The question of a resolution on the human rights situation will be debated at the Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers next Monday in Brussels, Mr Dupuis, and I can tell you that a joint approach with the United States is a possibility.
Bilateral contacts with the Chinese authorities have also been established on this subject.
Regarding your other causes for concern, I can tell you that the European Union does intervene, as a matter of priority, in the areas of children's rights and women's rights.
Mr Dell'Alba, Mr Cars and Mr Pettinari have mentioned the problem of the death penalty.
I believe that the Commission has no jurisdiction on this.
I shall therefore pass on your message to the Dutch presidency.
I can assure you, as far as I am concerned at any rate, that I entirely agree with your analysis and with your concerns, and I believe that, at present, there is not a single European State that still applies this penalty.
I believe we should indeed be agitating for its abolition internationally.
Unfortunately, however, I can only give you a personal commitment on that point.
The European Union has also tabled a draft resolution on children's rights, covering the problems of forced labour, sexual exploitation, children in war zones and street children.
I believe this draft resolution is supported by a majority of the Member States of the European Union.
Point two: human rights in Iran, including the case of Mr Sarkouhi.
The Commission is aware, like Parliament, of the gravity of the human rights situation in Iran, where repression seems to have hardened in the course of the last two years.
However, it is my duty to inform you that the Iranian authorities have sent a request to the United Nations special envoy in Iran with a view to obtaining technical assistance from the UN in areas such as penal reform, the training of judges and aid to the NGOs involved in women's affairs.
As Mr Pettinari says, we must condemn the human rights violations.
To disregard such acts can only, as I see it, encourage their continuance, which would be unacceptable.
The European Union therefore strongly condemns these blatant violations of basic rights by Iran.
I recall that Iran has signed the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and should abide by its undertakings if only for that reason.
Like Mr Newens, therefore, the Commission strongly deplores the announcement by a private body of an increase in the bounty offered for the death of Mr Salman Rushdie.
Within the framework of the critical dialogue - and no, Mrs Roth, that dialogue has not broken down - the European Union is endeavouring to obtain further assurances from the Iranian Government regarding Mr Rushdie's safety.
That is why the Commission is calling upon the Iranian Government to condemn this action unreservedly and to encourage the body concerned to withdraw its bounty.
Also, like Mrs Lenz, the Commission is very concerned at the fate of Mr Sarkouhi, an Iranian writer and publisher.
According to our information - or at least to information available to us - Mr Sarkouhi has allegedly been arrested and tortured on several occasions during the past two months.
The Commission is asking the Iranian Government to provide all information in its possession regarding Mr Sarkouhi's situation, and it also intends, with the support of the Member States, to bring pressure to bear upon Iran for his immediate release.
Point three: Mr Mordechai Vanunu.
The Commission is still keenly aware of the matter of Mr Vanunu's solitary confinement, and I can tell Mr Telkämper and Mr Crampton that we are concerned by the conditions of that confinement.
Similarly, the Commission is paying close attention to respect for human rights in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, and these matters regularly appear on the agenda of the bilateral discussions with the Israeli authorities.
The Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement recently concluded between the European Union and Israel is to be ratified shortly.
Within the framework of the political dialogue with Israel that this agreement establishes, the European Union will be better able to exert a positive influence on human rights issues, and especially on the problem of Mr Vanunu's imprisonment.
Let me remind you that the Union - and the Commission in particular - will be able to base its arguments on the clause which makes respect for human rights an essential element of the agreement; if that clause is not observed, the agreement lapses.
With regard to Chad, the Commission considers that the transition to a pluralistic regime has brought a significant improvement in respect for political rights in that country.
However, the situation still gives cause for concern.
The outrages perpetrated by the forces of order, which you mentioned, are jeopardizing the country's democratic achievements.
In particular, firing on offenders is a serious breach of human rights, which are an essential element of the fourth Lomé Convention under which Chad has certain obligations to the European Union.
Let me assure Mrs André-Léonard and Mr McGowan that the Commission has already made representations to the Chadian authorities asking that the orders given to the police should be compatible with respect for human rights.
Furthermore, the Commission is calling upon the Government of Chad to take all necessary steps to ensure significant progress in respect for human rights and the establishment of the rule of law.
Finally, regarding the tropical forests of the Indonesian island of Yamdena, the Commission is paying close attention to this matter, as you know, and to the question of deforestation and its consequences for the local people and the environment.
The Commission has not sent a mission to the area, Mrs Hautala, but it is helping to finance studies that are taking place, because sustainable forest management is the keystone for the Indonesian development cooperation programme being administered by the Commission.
At present, more than ECU 71 million has been earmarked for projects in this area.
The Commission has also embarked on a review of the priorities for the development programme with Indonesia.
Within that framework, the possibility of undertaking micro-projects, especially in the sectors of water, sanitary infrastructures and education, is currently being examined.
I must however make the point that the room for manoeuvre available to the Commission in its attempts to influence the situation in the island at short notice is, ultimately, very small.
After all, the assessment and approval procedures for development projects normally take between 20 and 30 months, and that period, sadly, means that it is not always possible to take into account the damage that may have been caused to the environment.
I therefore believe that the granting of aid to local NGOs devoted to defending the rights of the local people is worth considering.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 pm.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0087/97 by Mr Cars and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in former Yugoslavia; -B4-0090/97 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in former Yugoslavia; -B4-0099/97 by Mr Vandemeulebroucke and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the political situation in Serbia; -B4-0104/97 by Mr Wiersma and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Mostar and Eastern Slavonia; -B4-0127/97 by Mr Carnero González, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in former Yugoslavia; -B4-0139/97 by Mr Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina and eastern Slavonia; -B4-0156/97 by Mr Pack and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in former Yugoslavia.
Mr President, Carl Bildt, who is chief representative for the EU in the former Yugoslavia, often talks about the need for time and the fact that we must be patient.
Likewise, the UN representative for Human Rights often speaks about the need for time to resolve the problems in the former Yugoslavia.
Like them, I would like to emphasis that this is often the case.
But, at the same time, it is also important for us to demonstrate in various ways, that although the passage of time is not leading to such rapid progress as we would have hoped, this does not mean that we have lost our interest in and commitment to the former Yugoslavia. We still want to find a definitive solution which means that human rights are respected and that people can live freely where they so desire.
I believe that the resolution under consideration today and our continuing discussions are primarily a means of expressing Parliament's desire to press on in its quest for further action concerning the former Yugoslavia.
I would like therefore, on behalf of the liberal group, to express our concern over what has happened in Mostar: over the fact that acts of violence there have added to the difficulties in the search for a final solution, and that the international police task force are quite obviously not adequately equipped to be able to resolve the situation.
We can also express our regret over the fact that we have not found a decisive solution to the Brcko-issue and we hope that we will also have better success here in the future.
With regard to this latter situation, we would like to conclude by saying that it is important that we maintain the desire for cooperation and mutual understanding between the UN and Europe which was demonstrated in Brcko, and that pay due attention to this in our final decision on the future of Brcko.
Mr President, I would endorse the remarks of the previous speaker.
What we are confronting is the difficulty of balancing the rights of the various communities who used to form part of Yugoslavia.
In Mostar, we have the Croat and Muslim sides and it seems to me that the only way we can get some kind of solution is to have a kind of de facto federation of Mostar on both sides of the Neretva river.
Likewise, the delicate situation in Brcko I think may be resolved by a similar compromise.
Here, at least, we have the Dayton solution to allow the situation to stay as it is for at least one year under Serb control.
At this stage, in both cases, we have to be patient and ask the people on the ground to be patient and to let the situation settle down a little, and after a year we will review it.
Likewise, the position in Kosovo at the moment is potentially dangerous.
We have to ask that the rights of Albanian speakers are fully respected in that area so we do not create a new flashpoint just when things are settling down elsewhere.
Mr President, as Mr Macartney has just indicated, there are a number of problems in the former Yugoslavia which concern us at the moment but perhaps the most symbolic has to be the situation in Mostar.
Mostar, after all was the city of EU administration, and Mostar shows the strengths and weaknesses of the EU initiatives in former Yugoslavia: the strengths, because there is no doubt that in Mostar we have seen tremendous technical assistance which has helped rebuild it; the weaknesses, because, of course, Mostar has shown the lack of political will by the Council of Ministers to support some of its rhetoric.
Of course, we all remember that terrible day when Mr Koschnick nearly died.
He was given very little support by the Council of Ministers.
What we have in Yugoslavia, is not peace but an absence of war and we are currently hoping that in the absence of war the communities will start to live with each other again.
But it is very much more hope than anything else.
It is clear from recent events, most noticeably in Mostar, that things are not working as well as we would like.
We have seen the weaknesses that were inherent in the Dayton Agreement, the inability to deal properly with de facto ethnic cleansing, the impression that was left by Dayton that it might be possible to create some sort of Croat federation within the Bosnian federation, which is really behind much of what is going on at the moment.
The inability to deal with the big states, most notably Croatia, and President Tudjman's activities, particularly in relation to the Croat community in Mostar and the inability also to deal with what I suspect are the real villains behind the situation in Mostar, that is the gangsters on West Bank who have clearly got the city tied up for themselves and do not want normal peace to be resumed.
We have to make it clear that it is vital for the international community not to allow Mostar, given its symbolism, to get out of control.
We need the international police task force and indeed the stabilization force to be more vigorous in keeping the communities apart; to stop the cowardly attacks which we have seen recently in Mostar; to investigate them and to take action against the guilty parties.
Quite frankly, if we feel that the international police task force does not have enough power then we ought to be looking at how to increase those powers so that they need not stand helplessly watching people being attacked, injured and, even killed.
We ought to also send out a very clear message that much has been done in Mostar.
The international community has spent a huge amount of money, if that work is undone, if those projects are destroyed again, the people on the ground have to understand very clearly: the international community is not going to be prepared to find the money a second time.
This is the last chance for Mostar.
We must not allow it to be destroyed and we should, in fact, give no more support to the West Bank until they are prepared to work together with the rest of Mostar to build a peaceful community.
Mr President, it seems to me that, unfortunately, there is once again a risk of renewed fighting in former Yugoslavia.
The tensions in Mostar are evidence of the fragility of the cold peace in the Republic, and the international arbitration committee's inability to give a definitive response as regards the status of major cities in the area is a sign of the former Yugoslavian authorities' unwillingness to base their countries' future on multi-ethnic co-existence and reconciliation.
Many parts of the former Yugoslavia are showing signs of a clear lack of political will to deal with the causes of tension through dialogue and policy.
For this reason, the Commission and Council should, in my opinion, make it very clear that European aid for reconstruction is dependent on a policy of co-existence, the free and safe return of all refugees to their home towns, irrespective of their ethnic origin, and respect of the new institutions set up as a result of the Dayton Agreement.
I therefore call on the Commission not to sit back and simply watch the rising political tension and to urge the Council to accept its responsibilities and demand full compliance with the Dayton Agreement from all its signatories.
Mr President, as previous Members have already said, the situation that is emerging in the former Yugoslavia demonstrates the limitations of the Dayton Agreement, which our group has pointed out on several occasions.
These limitations have given rise not to peace but, at best, to an absence of war.
But it is not simply a question of going beyond the Dayton Agreement; it is also a question of actually implementing that Agreement.
Instead what we have is a situation in which the Agreement is still not being fully implemented and in which nothing is being done to move towards full implementation, resolve the emergency and make the shift from an absence of war to peace.
For these reasons, we are very concerned about what has been happening in the various parts of the former Yugoslavia, and particularly, because they are so symbolic, in Mostar and Brcko.
In particular, I should like to point to the need to reinforce the mandate and increase the capacity of the international police task force, whose action is crucial for any peaceful development of the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In the case of Brcko, this means that we need to acknowledge that the safe return of refugees must be guaranteed and that the Deputy High Representative must be provided with the necessary resources to enforce his mandate.
In this respect, I should like to stress that it will be impossible to establish any real peace if refugees do not return and if there is no guarantee that the committee provided for by the Dayton Agreement to deal with the return of property will become operational.
In addition, we obviously need to guarantee dialogue - something that we, the Green Group, have long been demanding.
Mr President, I should like to begin by condemning the acts of violence by the Bosnian Croats in the strongest terms.
Secondly, I would expect anyone who can exert any influence on those responsible for this conduct or misconduct to do so immediately.
Thirdly, I would also expect the perpetrators to be punished and removed from office.
However, I would also like to draw attention to the fact that present events in Mostar can trace their origin back to errors committed at Dayton and particularly to the recognition of the so-called Republika Srpska, from which the Serbs today infer that they have nothing to do with Bosnia Herzegovina.
And that has made it very difficult for the Bosnian Croats to renounce Herceg-Bosna.
Secondly, I would call attention to the fact that Sarajevo is becoming more and more of a Muslim city, making it difficult for non-Muslims to enjoy equal rights there.
We should similarly be aware of both these facts, and ensure that this does not constantly give rise to further protest campaigns in Mostar.
Thirdly, I would like to say that the weak attitude of the European Union's contact group regarding the maintenance of Bosnia-Herzegovina as a multiethnic entity, as laid down at Dayton, is to be condemned.
The consequence of it is that other Dayton signatories, Croatia and Serbia to be specific, are also less than totally committed to implementing the Dayton Agreement as quickly as possible.
Fourthly, I should like to point out that those in the region who are standing by Dayton, meaning those who want to let the refugees return home and are actually doing so, should receive swift and really visible support.
They must be allowed to expect that their Dayton-style good deeds really will be crowned with success, that it is visible, that they receive their reward.
That is the only way in which we shall be able eventually to persuade others to do what they actually promised to do by signing - observing the provisions of the Dayton Agreement.
Ladies and gentlemen, while it remains impossible - in Brcko, in Mostar, in the Republika Srpska and in many places in the Muslim-Croat Federation - for refugees really to return, and as long as we are unable to name a day by which the refugees must be allowed back, we shall continue having difficulties.
We have had good experience of deadlines in the European Union.
We have one at the moment, for the euro.
I think that in the case of Dayton, as well, we should try to set a deadline by which the refugees must be returned, because only the return of the refugees can enable reconstruction aid to bear fruit and peace to be restored.
Mr President, I should like to begin by expressing my complete agreement with what Mrs Pack has just said - I too believe the Dayton Agreement bears a very great responsibility for many of the problems we are witnessing in the former Yugoslavia, problems which are now becoming particularly acute in Mostar and Brcko.
I must admit, though, that the present motion for a resolution fills me with astonishment in certain places at the constant use of double standards.
When we listened to the announcements about the city of Brcko on 14 February, we were first told that the city would be awarded to the Serbs.
Not until this rightly provoked massive protests from the Muslims and Croats was it announced that the decision would be deferred for a year.
Well, we can already begin to imagine what kind of decision will be taken in a year's time.
There will be a capitulation to the more vociferous and probably stronger claimants, the Serbs, although until the Muslims were driven out they were by far the largest ethnic group in Brcko, followed by the Croats, with the Serbs ranking only third.
Every faction in the world that pursues a policy of ethnic cleansing is now gazing spellbound at Brcko - because they see the possibility that their dangerous and degraded activities may be ratified by international arbitration.
That, in my view, is one of the main dangers.
Nor, following the experiences of recent months with the Serbian part of Bosnia and the flagrant disregard of numerous provisions of the Dayton Agreement, must we allow ourselves to be deluded into thinking that Brcko, once it is under Serbian control, will function in the future as a crossroads through which the historical highway to the north, of vital importance to Muslims and Croats, can pass.
As soon as international control ends, that gateway will be closed.
We should, after all, learn a lesson or two from history. Wherever an unnatural corridor has been created, it has led to the next war.
We need only remember what a disaster the Polish corridor brought down upon us.
One more point about the motion on Mostar.
It would be nice if, at least occasionally, we were to honour the legal principle of audiatur et altera pars , instead of blaming everything on the Croats, which is what always happens here.
Mr President, the Commission is keeping a close watch on the matters raised by honourable Members regarding the former Yugoslavia.
First, may I say that as far as the implementation of the civil aspects of the Dayton and Paris agreements are concerned, the present period is one of consolidation.
The Peace Implementation Conference clearly indicated, at the last ministerial meeting in London, what results were to be achieved during this period.
Despite the progress already made, many problems have yet to be resolved.
Some honourable Members have just emphasized, rightly, the fact that not enough is yet being done to comply with the promise of collaboration with the International Criminal Court.
That collaboration is one of the main political conditions for access to reconstruction aid.
The European Commission thus feels that, in the case of the Republika Srpska, it can only implement projects aimed at improving collaboration between the two Bosnian sectors.
If the country is to achieve the reconciliation it needs, it is an essential condition that war criminals should be handed over to the judicial authorities.
It should also be recalled, in this context, that many of the refugees come from regions that now form part of the Republika Srpska, and that the presence of war criminals in those regions is obstructing their return.
On the other hand, the central government of Bosnia-Herzegovina is functioning, but important decisions certainly still need to be taken, especially on the economic front, regarding such essential matters as the functioning of the Central Bank or the adoption of a single currency for all the Bosnian areas.
These steps are essential for the economic stabilization of the country, and a necessary condition for the mobilization of donors.
Politically, cooperation within the Federation still leaves much to be desired and, Mr Titley, events in Mostar are seriously prejudicing relations between the Croats and the Muslims.
The Commission has drawn the attention of all parties to the fact that the situation in Mostar is crucial for the cohesion of the Federation.
The Commission has stressed the need to do everything possible to prevent the situation from deteriorating.
I should remind you, even so, that the European Union has mobilized considerable resources in men and material to try to reconcile the population of Mostar.
We must not allow the action of a few unruly elements to frustrate these efforts.
Regarding Kosovo, which is another stumbling block in relations with the former Republic of Yugoslavia, I am sorry to say that there still seems to be no sign of a solution.
The authorities in Belgrade must understand that this obstinacy is preventing any progress in their relations with the Union.
The Commission regrets the fact that no Union presence is yet being tolerated in Kosovo, and that Belgrade is even refusing to grant a visa to Mr Vanderstoel, the SOEC High Commissioner for minorities.
Finally, the arbitration decision regarding Brcko has been provisionally adopted.
The international community has now taken on the task of creating, next year, the political and economic conditions that would enable that decision to become final.
The European Commission will be assisting this process by launching, within the framework of the reconstruction effort, projects which may help to improve the situation.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0069/97 by Mr Ford and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism; -B4-0100/97 by Mr Hory and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the rise of the extreme right in the European Union, especially France; -B4-0117/97 by Mr Pailler, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on threats to freedom of expression and creation; -B4-0131/97 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the resurgence of racism and neo-fascism in Europe; -B4-0136/97 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the introduction of visa requirements for minors who are dependents of immigrants in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Mr President, the purpose of this motion is to demonstrate, with reference to a list of facts which could unfortunately be even longer, that racism today is indeed an actual and growing reality throughout Europe.
Although each country has its own specific national features in this area, the foundations of racism are the same everywhere: in essence, the instinctive and simplistic rejection of those who are different, different in their skin colour or their culture, or alternatively a deep-seated and longstanding social crisis, portrayed as inevitable by succeeding governments which refuse to equip themselves with the resources to master it.
France takes the biscuit - if I can put it that way - with its political translation of these two foundations of racism into the electoral successes of the National Front.
The French Government, which, though protesting, allows attacks on freedom of expression and creativity and allows cultural censorship to operate in Toulon and certain other cities, is violating democracy.
A form of hypocrisy that ill conceals ultra liberal orientations which further increase insecurity and poverty.
In any case, what can you expect of an administration that makes use of laws such as the Pasqua laws and the Debré laws; which exploits, by legitimizing it, the racist argument of the far Right parties, equating a foreigner with an illegal immigrant and an illegal immigrant with a delinquent? Rap, hip-hop, contemporary creativity in general, all these artistic movements which have been censored or threatened with censor are shot through and enriched with the diversity of the world's cultures, and call upon us to open our hearts and minds to welcome the foreigner in the words of Jacques Prévert: ' Strange strangers, you are part of the city, you are part of its life.'
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Year against Racism is being celebrated everywhere.
But celebrations are not enough, and there is one thing they must certainly not be allowed to do - they must not be allowed to obscure reality.
And reality, in the European Union, is marked by routine racist violence, increasing xenophobia and a rising tide of anti-semitism.
The figures on violence are shocking.
On 7 and 8 February alone, a Vietnamese, a Lebanese asylum seeker and two Polish citizens were attacked and very seriously injured in Germany, and a 17-year-old punk was a victim of racist violence in Magdeburg.
But another reality is the ambiguity of a policy which talks about anti-racism while at the same time intensifying institutional racism and institutional discrimination.
As a first example, take France.
The previous speaker has already mentioned this.
The draft Debré law enormously increases the already stringent provisions of the famous or infamous Pasqua laws, elevating denunciation to the status of a duty and a law, under which anyone who provides lodging for a foreigner is obliged to disclose his personal details.
This is the basis for xenophobia, for new splits in society, for disintegration and violence.
No wonder that the French National Front, the original source of such repellent policies, is growing.
As a second example, take Germany.
Federal Interior Minister Kanther gets himself appointed as national coordinator of the European Year against Racism, and what is the very first thing he does?
He introduces compulsory visas and residence permits for the children of German residents entering the country from the traditional labour recruitment countries, especially Turkey.
This new regulation affects 800, 000 children.
Is that Germany's idea of integration, when Turkish children are degraded and marginalized as second-class citizens, when the right to a family is apparently supposed to apply only to German families, and when these children are declared to represent a threat to order and security?
Human rights are indivisible, here as elsewhere.
The regulation imposed by the Federal German Government is a blatant violation of human rights and must not be allowed to set a new example in Europe!
This regulation violates laws, it violates the UN Convention on Children.
The deteriorating social situation of Turkish workers is discriminatory against these fellow citizens and breaches the terms of the association agreement.
I should like to know what the Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties and also as the guardian of the implementation of the association agreement, is going to do about it.
Mr President, I realize that this may not entirely be a point of order, but I seem to recall that it was the French Socialist Government that made it compulsory for foreigners to obtain temporary accommodation certificates.
If I am wrong, I hope someone will correct me!
Mr President, Commissioner, we can always rely on Mrs Fontaine to be totally relevant and scrupulously precise.
Quite simply, the purpose of the temporary accommodation certificate is no longer the same.
We introduced it in 1992 as a way of persuading the police that an accused foreigner was in a regular situation and could therefore be given a document to establish his place of residence.
That is what that instrument was at the time it was introduced, with my full agreement, by Robert Badinter and Pierre Bérégovoy. Once it is perverted to become an instrument to enable the police to keep track of the holder, that is an about turn, a complete perversion.
And I am afraid that, in that interpretation, my dear Nicole, it is Mrs Roth who is right.
But, that said, you have put the history book straight.
Thank you very much, Mr Rocard.
All of these speeches which are slightly off the agenda are extremely interesting and, as it were, have given a breath of fresh air to the monotony of some of these debates. The presidency looks upon them with a certain amount of sympathy but, in any case, he must do his duty.
Mr President, the lack of future prospects for many unemployed people, the fear of those at risk of losing their jobs, the sense of marginalization or exclusion - these make up a very large part of the stockin-trade of those far Right movements which seem to be enjoying a fair wind in most States of the European Union.
Can we wonder at the fact that fear, uncertainty and indifference are exploited by those movements for dubious purposes?
The attitude of the political community, confronted with this situation, should be neither simple nor simplistic.
The least appropriate attitude, and I may say the most dangerous, would be to model one's political action on the methods that are resulting in the electoral successes of the extremist parties, for the simple reason that the electorate will eventually, sooner or later, prefer the original to the imitation.
No: action against racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism must adopt a multi-disciplinary approach, appealing to actors from the most varied backgrounds, and in particular from community life, the last resort when all others have demonstrated their inability to get to grips with these problems.
The European Union, for its part, should redouble its efforts to carry through the activities and campaigns already in progress.
I am thinking particularly of joint actions between the Council of Europe and the European Union.
The development of...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, one of the original motions for a resolution before us was entitled 'On the threats to the freedom of expression and creative art' , which I can only interpret as a really burlesque form of humour, of absurd theatre of the highest degree, especially as it was tabled by the French communist party, a party which has more than won its spurs in the sphere of threats to freedom of expression.
Be that as it may, I for one have long stopped getting enraged about yet another resolution on the so-called fight against so-called racism and so-called xenophobia.
These are phenomena which only stay alive and take on greater importance in the crazy minds of a few intolerant people who try to brand any form of protection of national identities with these terms of abuse.
First of all I see that the protectors of the national identity are being increasingly applauded.
Just look at the exemplary democratic election victory of our colleague Bruno Mégret in Vitrolles.
And look too, for example, at the German Federal Chancellor Kohl and whether a country with millions of unemployed can really afford millions of non-European guest workers.
Secondly I must say that the paper indignation of this empty Parliament is not taken seriously by any sensible person in Europe any more.
To give you one example: after the vote on 30 January on the European Year Against Racism the Flemish Christian-Democratic members of parliament told their own electorate that they had admittedly voted in favour of the resolution but that they were really against it.
Well now, if even the Christian Democrats can allow themselves such funny jokes and cracks against this House, you surely cannot expect me to take this circus seriously?
Mr President, the joint motion for a resolution concerns the dangers of the re-emergence of racist and xenophobic attitudes in some of the Community's Member States and, more specifically, France and Germany.
If Alleanza Nazionale were a movement that wished to conceal and disguise its feelings on the subject, it would have made a tactical decision not to speak on this resolution.
Instead, and precisely to demonstrate our complete good faith and our unequivocally anti-racist and anti-xenophobic stance, we should like to argue that this resolution is a very poor policy document, and this for two main reasons. The first is that the left-wing opposition parties of various Member States are hoping to take advantage of a vote in favour by this House to use it against their respective centre/right governments.
It is no mere accident that no mention has been made of the Italian Government's recent proposals concerning the expulsion and non-admission of non-EU nationals - proposals that are based on, and even go beyond, French and German legislation on the matter.
The second reason for opposing this resolution is that it attempts to assimilate the word 'right' with the term 'racist' . The intention, therefore, is to suggest that anyone who is right-wing is also racist and that anyone who is a racist can only be a right-winger.
This is a semantic strategy, whose masters can be traced to the centres of the former Communist world that specialized in disinformation.
For the Communists, anyone who was to their right was a Fascist and to call an adversary a Social Democrat was an insult and a put-down.
We reject this subtle strategy because our observations both of history and of recent events show that racist and xenophobic attitudes have been adopted by numerous States and governments that have defined themselves as, and indeed are, left-wing.
To cite just a few examples, I would like to remind fellow Members of the way in which the Communist Ceausescu treated the Hungarian minorities, of the way in which the Tibetan minority is being oppressed by Communist China and of the fact that all the ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union were humiliated, deported and lumped together by a left-wing totalitarian ideology.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Nordmann has just told us that the only way to fight racism and xenophobia is by putting a stop to illegal immigration.
I have rarely heard such rubbish!
I come from a country where Hitler collected 43 % of the votes in 1933, and we had no illegal immigration in Germany then!
But what we did have in Germany then was a vast economic imbalance and a vastly unjust distribution of economic resources.
And that is what we have today in the European Union between the population groups and the social classes, and it is what we have, for example, in the relations between this Union and the southern hemisphere or eastern Europe.
Those are the causes of the pressure of immigration upon the European Union, pressure which is being massively exploited by the ladies and gentlemen on the Right for their own unpleasant purposes.
Let me just say one thing to Mr Vanhecke: when he says he no longer gets het up about anything, that's not news to us.
And when he says he welcomes the electoral victory of Bruno Mégret, we even believe him.
Except that Mr Mégret has not won an electoral victory, because Mr Mégret was not allowed to stand for election at all, because Mr Mégret is a criminal who was not allowed to stand!
His wife won the election.
Over on that side of the House there are always characters making out they have nothing to hide.
They have more skeletons in their cupboards than the rest of this Parliament put together!
I say that again, unambiguously.
And as for you, Mr Berthu, your ranks include a whole bunch of people with long criminal records, sitting here pretending to be the crème de la crème of European politics.
I just have one thing to say to you, Mr Berthu: the only good thing about Mr Vanhecke is that he freely admits being a fascist and a racist.
As for what you have said here, my only comment on that is this: if I can read Le Pen like a book I can read you like a paperback!
I really feel I have to say that.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, as I spoke so quickly to start with I am going to add another ten seconds on the end.
There is a very important point that we have not yet mentioned today, the fact that this whole debate we are holding, which to some extent was forced upon us by the far Right, completely overlooks one point.
There are victims of racism in the European Union - Mrs Roth has pointed that out - everyday victims, and I wonder where people like Mr Nordmann...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, to be brief, I do wish Mr Schulz would stop constantly resorting to Stalinist methods.
The best way to fan the flames of racism is to start by being slack about immigration controls and then go on to draw endless parallels between racists and those of us who are making an honest effort to defend the people whom we have a duty to protect.
Don't worry, Mr President, I don't intend to re-open the debate.
But I did ask the Commissioner a question, and I asked him politely, and so I would like an answer.
What is the Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties and also as the guardian of the association agreement between the European Union and Turkey, going to do about the introduction of visas for children and compulsory residence permits for the children of immigrants, for about 600, 000 Turkish children? In my view it is incompatible with the provisions of the association agreement.
That's what I asked you, and I would like an answer.
I can tell you that, as the Commission is the guardian of the treaties, it will ensure that the Treaty is strictly respected, in accordance with the mandate given to it.
As regards the specific question you asked me I am sorry, but, lacking the necessary information, I cannot give you an answer though I have taken careful note of the question.
I shall report it to Mrs Gradin, and she will answer you directly in writing.
Mr President, now that this debate has ended, I wish to make a personal statement pursuant to Rule 108.
Mr Schulz impugned all the members of my group when he attacked Mr Berthu just now.
He did so, according to the translation I heard, by referring to the so-called criminal records of members of my group.
I demand that he retract his allegations.
We in our group are not under any suspicion of having...
(The President cut off the speaker)
That concludes the debate.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Before the vote on the resolutions on Chad :
I should like to ask if the authors of these resolutions are leaving them on the table.
I have received confusing information on this. This is because of the visit to Strasbourg by the Prime Minister of Chad, who has made specific offers to the European delegation that will be in Chad this weekend.
Are the authors maintaining the resolution or taking my advice, which I spelled out in detail, that this should be withdrawn for a month?
I have heard rumours, but I have received nothing official.
Work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1996
The next item is the report (A4-0019/97) by Mrs Baldi, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the outcome of the proceedings of the ACP/EU Joint Assembly in 1996.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, naturally I cannot but praise and ratify the full approval already given in the Committee on Cooperation and Development to the excellent report from our colleague, Mrs Baldi.
Reading the report, the incorporation of the concept of development into the idea of foreign policy stands out. Something like that happened in the world of science a few years ago, adding the letter D for development.
Something like that is going on now.
A European foreign and security policy unaccompanied by intense activity to promote development in the most backward countries is inconceivable.
Not for nothing is the Community the world's biggest donor, taking its own funds and those of the Member States together.
So Mrs Baldi's call for the development aid budget to be integrated into the general budget of the European Communities is not unreasonable, but very sensible.
So is her call for cooperation and coordination between Community action as such and what the Member States are doing, because while they are not necessarily contradictory they are frequently parallel rather than convergent.
It is also important to mention some points Mrs Baldi has stressed in her document: the work the ACP-EU Joint Assembly is doing for peace - work that we must do together and not separately, as has sometimes happened (and that is a criticism).
For example, missions should be rationally planned for the current year, which is something the European side has thought of doing or proposing in the Joint Assembly.
A six-monthly plan, even an annual plan, for joint travel - subject, of course, to emergencies that may occur - would be a reasonable way to have a presence in countries where conflict exists, could flare up, or is possible.
It is also satisfactory - and the rapporteur mentioned this - that the democratic representation of the ACP countries has undoubtedly improved and we are on the point of implementing genuine measures to ensure this representation, a reflection of the process of democratization which is happily in progress, not without upsets and setbacks, in many of the ACP countries.
Of course, these upsets and setbacks include those caused by tragic situations like the one we have analysed this very evening - the Great Lakes - or the new Nigerian tragedy which the illustrious Nigerian Nobel Prizewinner, Wole Soyinka, told us about in the European Parliament a few hours ago.
There is an interesting mention in the document of the initiative by the ACP Council of Ministers to hold a summit meeting.
And perhaps this should not be just an ACP summit but a joint summit with the European Union. As I have said, Europe is making a major contribution to development - this is very well illustrated, for example, in the work of the ECHO office assisting refugees and in the next Green Paper, which we await with great interest - and it is certainly worth the effort to make that contribution even greater.
Mr President, I too, on behalf of the Liberal Group, would like to offer my warmest congratulations to Mrs Baldi on the quality of her report.
It is indeed of great interest, because it shows very clearly how the Joint Assembly has evolved, especially if we cast our minds back to the state of the Joint Assembly in particular, and European Union policy in general, only a few years ago.
Through Mrs Baldi's report we can follow a policy undergoing transformation, an evolving policy, gradually adopting a new form to take account of the changes that have happened in the world since the late 1980s.
In this context, it is important to reassert, as Mrs Baldi does, the need for a very strong commitment by the European Union to a development policy which some would like to see relegated to a much lower priority behind other policies, especially those concerned with opening up towards the East.
Differentiation - the second aspect of this development policy - is also very strongly emphasized.
The need to adapt our actions, as best we can, to local situations and differences in level between the various partners is very forcibly brought out, especially in the call for a policy which concentrates more on the needs of the most disadvantaged sectors of population.
Our group also approves of the emphasis placed by the rapporteur on the need to retain the preferential schemes benefitting the ACP States in respect of a number of products, especially bananas, sugar and cocoa - schemes which are still valuable instruments in the service of development and ecological equilibrium.
We in the Development Committee have discussed various projects, particularly in relation to cocoa, and have heard some extremely interesting statements by representatives of the Member States.
Finally, the emphasis on parliamentary representation and increased consideration by the European Union for the requirements of democratization shows that the Union's policy is finally emerging from the stereotyped Third World approach and coming directly to terms with the idea of genuine cooperation.
Mr President, I, too, support Mrs Baldi's report because, like her, I feel the ACP Joint Assembly continues to be a very important parliamentary instrument linking the northern and southern hemispheres.
No other body puts representatives of so many countries on an equal footing at all levels, bringing them together to discuss development, democracy and human rights.
It is, then, something that needs to be maintained and developed, as is also demonstrated by the importance of the initiatives taken by the Joint Assembly in 1996.
In this respect, I should like, among other things, to stress the value of the mission that was sent to Angola very soon after the last session of the ACP Joint Assembly, and which enabled us to see from the inside the problems Angola is facing and the tragic blocking of the peace process.
Whatever the fate of relations between the ACP States and the European Union, which we are discussing on the basis of the famous Green Paper that has been much mentioned in this debate, the experience of the ACP Joint Assembly should, in my opinion, be treasured as one to be repeated.
It would, therefore, be unacceptable if an end were put to a dialogue between North and South that is, quite honestly, one of the few truly positive experiences that European development policy has generated over the past few decades.
For this reason, I also agree with, and emphasize, the references made to the budget in Mrs Baldi's report.
Mr President, Mrs Baldi has presented us with a very detailed report reflecting what happened at the two meetings.
She deserves our thanks.
I welcome her detailed treatment of the various points, for example how important it was for the NGOs on the ACP side to join us in a discussion process, and that we adopted a clear stance towards Nigeria and that it was right to impose sanctions in that case.
That was also confirmed this week by the visit of Wole Soyinka, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.
I believe it should be emphasized that the ACP Assembly adopted an unambiguous position with regard to landmines - prohibition.
The production and exporting of land-mines are to be outlawed.
I agree, I believe we should accept that as an obligation and really ensure that no further production of land-mines takes place in our Member States.
But the other side, the development policy side, is important too.
Rehabilitation, caring for the victims, are obligations, and in fact I believe that those who produce these mines should be reminded of their duty.
Another aspect which Mrs Baldi mentions is the free trade area with southern Africa, Article 39.
I believe that the upshot of the ACP sessions will be that our negotiations with South Africa will be successful.
The essential point, of course, is the future of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly: the concept of parity, the concept of co-operation as a new form of future external policy, and the structuring of the European Union's foreign policy beyond the content of the Green Paper.
I should welcome it if the suggestions produced by this Assembly, and the ideas and proposals contained in the new Green Paper, were to contribute - with a view to Maastricht II and the future foreign policy - to our having a separate pillar or section that says we want a non-military foreign policy.
In reality, we now have a situation in which development aid funds are being cut back.
We have no power of co-decision over the ACP budget.
It is right that Mrs Baldi should point this out.
The Member States must understand - and we have said this before - that these funds are budgeted.
I believe all this should be combined together to form a non-military part of the budget.
That is the only way to offer these countries prospects for the future.
The rapporteur writes - correctly - that the ACP states include two-thirds of the world's poorest countries, and I know of no other assembly that consistently pursues these concepts of parity and dialogue and so helps to shape foreign policy.
We should retain that.
After the Green Paper, we must arrange a new form of co-operation with the ACP countries.
I believe we could also expand it to include a few other poorer countries, and that this forms part of the non-military sector of a European Union foreign policy.
Mr President, the Baldi report accurately reflects the hopes and fears expressed during the proceedings of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly during the year 1996.
It has the virtue of representing a clear signal of our Parliament's commitment to the spirit of Lomé.
But it possibly understates the contradictory nature of the various policies pursued by the European Union in the fields of trade and development, a point that is causing great concern to our partners.
Is not trade preference, literally the backbone of the Lomé system, at risk from the external economic policy being pursued by the European Commission? Why are we committed to retaining a Community development policy?
Because we believe it to be essential that the development of Africa continues to be recognized as a priority joint interest of the European Union. Admittedly, we must always pursue the idea of renewal in the details of the Lomé process, by giving preference to aid to civilian actors or decentralized cooperation, for example, but while still retaining its spirit, which is based on trust and predictability.
We must also be very vigilant against attempts to outflank the Lomé process and deprive it, little by little, of its content: ever-increasing concessions granted to non-ACP banana producers; a challenge to the status of cocoa in Europe by various food industry combines; the perverse effects of trade preferences granted for strategic reasons to drug-producing regions.
We know today that there is more than one case where doubt exists as to the real origin of certain products, especially fishery products, coming from these countries.
There are choices to be made.
Are we going to allow a foreign trade policy based on commercial bulimia, devouring everything in its path in the cause of systematic, undifferentiated openness, or do we want to reassert the principle that one of the fundamental policies of the Union is the desire for privileged cooperation, especially with Africa, reflecting both a desire for solidarity and a need for security?
We shall be voting in favour of the Baldi report, even though we disagree with the communitization of the EDF, because it clearly restates the solid foundation, legitimacy and necessity of close future cooperation between Europe and Africa.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mrs Baldi on the quality of her report, which is not only an interesting and thorough presentation and assessment of the main work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1996 but also raises much further reaching reflections which might make it possible to strengthen the role and improve the functioning of that Assembly and, generally speaking, deepen and revitalise relationships between the European Union and ACP countries, for which the Joint Assembly is a vital vehicle.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say that the ACP-EU Joint Assembly has gradually become a more interesting and more effective body.
Most of this is due to the seriousness and dynamics of the body, led in particular by Lord Plumb, who is here with us, but also due to the quality of the reports which have been presented before the Assembly.
I think in particular of Mrs Baldi and Mrs Maij-Weggen, who have presented extremely interesting reports on the question of mines or transport in the ACP countries, which both for the Commission and the participating countries have proved to be of great importance and of considerable impact.
It is the quality of these reports and our commitment to this institution which could bring about more improvements to the Joint Assembly.
Personally, I like taking part in the Assembly's debates.
For many ACP countries, it is a forum of outstanding democracy and a place where they can see democracy at work.
Many times it is a better example than ten books or a lot of rhetoric.
Mr President, I think that the Baldi report is a very interesting analysis of this matter, and I think that to add anything to it would be superfluous.
I would just like to thank the European Parliament for the interest and commitment which it has shown in the functioning of this institution which has been decisive for the constant improvements which have been noted.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 9 a.m. tomorrow.
Development cooperation policy
The next item is the report (A4-0028/97) by Mr McGowan, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on complementarity between the Community's development cooperation policy and the policies of the Member States (COM(95)0160 - C4-0178/95).
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking my colleagues on the Committee on Development and Cooperation because this report is very much a product of a great deal of work by them.
I would also particularly like to thank the President of Parliament, who has been under some pressure from the professional offices of Parliament about an important paragraph in the motion for a resolution in the report - paragraph 21 - which outlines the whole range of initiatives that the Development Committee intends to take.
I was asked to remove them but the President supported me, although he pointed out that, in fact, the Development Committee could take these initiatives without putting them before Parliament.
But the feeling is that development policy, the complementarity, coordination and whole future of development cooperation is so important that this should be brought before the House.
I wish to thank the new President for this.
The report speaks for itself but it is, of course, drawn up against the background that complementarity between the European Union and Member States is now a Treaty obligation.
It is something we have a responsibility for and it is also something that the guardian of the Treaty - the Commission - has a specific responsibility for, and I may say it has been extremely helpful with its advice.
The lack of complementarity and coordination between the Union and Member States should not surprise any of us here when we look at the lack of complementarity and coordination and, I have to say, consistency within the European Union itself.
So often development cooperation policy, trade policy, foreign affairs, environment and agriculture - if I dare mention the name - are pushing off in completely different directions, so the fact is that we in the Union are not very good at coordinating, complementing and being consistent.
This provides an opportunity for many of the Member States to continue to pay lip-service to the importance of coordination.
They all say in principle they support it, but the reality is that there is very little coordination about, and I look to the present Dutch presidency to take this more seriously than it has been taken in the past.
Mr Pronk, the President-in-Office, is one of the most able and experienced Development Ministers in the history of the European Union.
But I have to say that I am not even convinced that Mr Pronk is totally committed to pursuing a policy of coordination within the European Union and I hope that given his ability and influence we can expect both him and the Council of Ministers to behave better.
Member States so often use development policy for other purposes: as an arm of foreign affairs, an arm of narrow national interests, an arm of the arms industry, an arm to support the oil industry.
This, generally, is a reflection of the lack of priority that is given to development cooperation.
The poorest people in the world are becoming more numerous and poorer because of unemployment and other problems.
We often say in the European Union that we cannot really continue to afford our own welfare states and social security services.
In exactly the same way, some Member States say that we cannot continue our responsibilities in the rest of the world.
The debate on racism brings this to light.
But we cannot afford, for selfish reasons alone, not to cooperate with people in every country, and particularly those in developing countries.
It is time for us to take on some of the big issues.
Through the Development Committee we have taken on the issue of landmines.
We know that everybody deplores landmines but, of course, they are still produced and still planted in many parts of the world.
It is now time to take on the whole arms industry and arms trade, because six of the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations, which includes Britain and France, account for 85 % of the world's arms trade.
It is time to take on the multinationals.
I pay tribute to Richard Howitt, my colleague here, for the work that he is doing in Colombia.
I wish the Commission would be even stronger in helping us to take on some of the oil companies.
This really is about self-help practice by the European Parliament. We advocate this in developing countries.
We need a new world order based on an awareness of interdependence, but that means mobilizing support at the grassroots from the public.
I feel our Member States underestimate the concern that there is amongst some of people we represent, some of the poorest people we represent, some of the youngest people we represent - some of them are here tonight.
If we do more in our own communities and work more with the elected Members in the Member States, we can achieve a great deal together.
Mr President, let me start by saying clearly that this debate tonight is about one of the great failures of EU development policy.
Coordination is just not working.
Article 130x of the Treaty is not being upheld.
Mr McGowan is absolutely right in his report when he says that all that we hear about coordination is rhetoric and that coordination is not followed in practice.
There is an important onus on us tonight in this debate to ensure that we do not add to that rhetoric and that we identify the real barriers and real reasons why coordination is just not taking place.
In the time available to me I will address just three.
Firstly, we have to concentrate on how far priorities for development aid are still being determined within the Member States by historic, commercial and political interests.
We are still talking about tied aid in the late years of this century.
For Member States the question is not one of how aid can best be coordinated, but one of donor competition: how far they can buy influence by being the biggest donors in particular situations.
At a time when there is increased pressure on the public purse in so many of our countries, too many officials in Member State governments see the question as one of competition between the development aid budgets in the European Union and the funds they themselves can disburse within the Member States.
The second barrier concerns the fear in Member States of ceding power to the European Commission.
We see this through the absurd Comitology committees which operate in Brussels.
We criticise them frequently for their cost, bureaucracy and secrecy.
Yet if there is any reason for these committees, it is surely to have a two-way dialogue about coordination of aid.
But it does not work.
It is a one-way dialogue.
The Commission gives the information.
The Members States do not.
We see it too in the individual delegations and missions, where we find suspicion and hostility between embassies and between delegations of the European Commission.
Finally, the barrier is the staffing of the Commission.
There are only two people in DG VIII who are responsible for operational coordination and only one person in DG I B, and we are looking at a decrease in the number of staff in delegations to individual countries.
Unless we are prepared to deal with those barriers, there will be no coordination.
We will not have the necessary concentration on the quality of aid, on the participation of less developed countries themselves.
Tonight, let us hear what proposal is going to be made to follow up the pilot exercises.
Are they just going to stand alone or are we actually going to see some action on them?
Madam President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr McGowan warmly on his excellent report.
This report comes at a very opportune moment because the informal Council for development cooperation is meeting on 28 February and 1 March in Amsterdam and this is precisely one of the most important subjects of his report.
So it is very appropriate that we are debating this report at this time, and it would be even nicer if my good friend Jan Pronk were also here.
This is the second time this week that a Dutch minister is obvious by his absence.
But I shall not criticize Jan Pronk because I know he is an excellent minister for development cooperation and I worked with him for five years in the Dutch Council of Ministers.
That is already one reason for not criticising him too severely, but he would have been well advised to come here if only to listen to what Mr McGowan had to say.
I hope that he will nevertheless be informed of the contents of this debate.
Madam President, although development cooperation has often produced many good results we must admit that it has also given rise to many complaints about its effectiveness.
Sometimes that is due to bad management in the countries themselves, sometimes it is due to wars and natural disasters, acts of God, but sometimes it is also due to bad coordination of the donors' aid. And when the latter is the case, Madam President, we must accept the responsibility and learn how matters can be improved.
Allow me to give you three examples of strange coordination that I myself have come across in practice during my travels.
Up until the eighties Zambia received a tremendous amount of development aid just because it was such a pleasant country; so much so that more than half of the national budget came from development aid.
Everybody knows that is bad for a country.
It stifles initiative and responsibility and yet together we were unable to reduce it.
And that is a sign of bad coordination.
In Mauritania and Senegal I was there when a Dutch agricultural project which was on the border of Mauritania and Senegal had to be passed over to the local population.
But they did not really want to do that and went to Denmark to see if they would take over the project.
And even the European Union was apparently unable to call these two countries together and make sure that did not happen.
And in Nepal I saw a complaint from two NGOs who complained that a leprosy project was being offered on such attractive terms that even the regional government was asking for backhanders.
You really wondered what it was all about.
These are only a few examples of bad coordination.
Where, Madam President, are the major problems? Mr McGowan has mentioned the most important one: since 1994 the Union has had an integrated foreign policy.
Our commissioner for development cooperation, Mr Pinheiro, also has responsibility in his field for foreign policy, trade and human rights, and that works well.
But in the Member States these areas are still kept separate.
And when I look at the differences in the amount of aid, at the differences in guidelines and the differences in the places where aid is given, then I must come to the same conclusions.
There are four countries that reach the OECD norm of 0.7 %.
The others fall far short of that figure.
And as far as guidelines are concerned, as our Socialist colleague has just said, there are major differences between Member States.
Some view development aid as something given to help really poor countries.
Others see it as an extension of foreign trade and yet others regard it mainly as a means of keeping the balance of power in place.
And we all know which countries that applies to.
And then, Madam President, there is also a third problem when we come to cooperation with multilateral organisations, the IMF, world bank, or whether cooperation with the NGOs, where completely different guidelines are being followed.
Some countries work with very many NGOs, others with very few.
The Commission has tried to coordinate matters in some countries.
It may well be understandable that the Commission has not tried to get all Member States singing from the same hymn sheet.
No, what happened is that a number of pilot projects were started in Bangladesh, the Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Costa Rica and Peru and there they decided to try to coordinate them in the country itself.
Ambassadors met and coordinated the projects. That works well until you realise that the messages the Member States are sending out are quite different from what is having to be coordinated round the table.
Madam President, the time has come for the Member States to sit round the table and try to work out a better system for coordination.
This is absolutely essential.
The most important point is that this can make aid more effective and the European Union is the largest donor in the world when it comes to development aid.
Most developing countries receive more than half of their aid from us.
In Africa it is as much as 65 %.
I sincerely hope that Minister Pronk, even if he is not present here today, manages to make a breakthrough on several points in this sphere in the informal Council meeting and I hope that Mr Pinheiro will report to him on what we have said here in this debate.
If that happens, then the European Council will in my view have done something positive for the Union and for the Member States, but especially for the developing countries.
Madam President, Commissioner, I warmly congratulate Mr McGowan on his report; I am pleased that the previous speaker, a friend and colleague, has already said what I intended to say.
Because development cooperation has nothing to do with whether we are political opponents or not.
Mr McGowan's report has identified very many weaknesses.
The Member States show very little determination to coordinate their policy on development aid with each other and with the Union.
I too could fill an evening's programme with slides on my experience of 27 years in developing countries, on the striking difference between the Union's, then the Community's, development cooperation and the bilateral interests of various European Member States.
The Member States, as I have already said, want their policy on development cooperation to be effective and efficient.
Now the best effectiveness is achieved by coordination, as you explained so clearly in your report.
But the Member States do not appear to be prepared to do that.
The inevitable conclusion is that they are prepared to sacrifice the quality of the aid for their own image in the world, they want to secure their so-called sovereignty and equate foreign policy with foreign interests and foreign relations.
I find this extremely worrying.
Reduced effectiveness diminishes the chances of development in the countries concerned and undermines public willingness to help in our countries, which in turn means that the poor countries will suffer again in the future.
I repeat for the second time: we must put a stop to that state of affairs. We have been saying that for the past 30 years.
The Union's standing in the world means that the Member States must adhere to European policy guidelines.
I hope that these policy guidelines will be set in this Parliament.
The Union needs to be coherent in its foreign policy, as can be seen yet once more in our approach to the Great Lakes region, our fisheries policy, agricultural policy, and particularly in our arms export control.
Mr McGowan included that one too.
I hope that the Dutch presidency, that promised to act on coherency in policy, will put this item high up on the agenda.
I agree with Mrs Maij-Weggen that it is regrettable that Minister Pronk is absent from this debate on Mr McGowan's excellent report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe Mr McGowan has presented us with an important and essential report on development policy, which could provide an opportunity for a debate on future strategy and prospects.
I don't think this is an occasion for soap-box oratory.
Let me start by making two points.
In our societies, development policy is a non-starter.
As Mrs Maij-Weggen just said, only four countries are achieving the self-imposed target of 0.7 % of the gross national product.
The last Community budget showed a reduction in real terms, and there have been further reductions in the Member States, too.
Secondly, there is no such thing as a European development policy.
What we have is 15 individual policies, plus an additional Community policy.
That is the real situation.
Recent years have shown no sign of the co-ordination called for in the Maastricht Treaty, and nor does Maastricht II.
Maastricht II is supposed to introduce institutional reviews, as Article 130 tells us.
But what is the actual position? It is not even on the agenda yet.
Mr Pinheiro, can you arrange for this to be added to the agenda? Our governments seem to have no interest in it.
And then, when I come to look at the budget: in recent years we've seen environment and development, women and development, drifting towards zero.
NGOs are to get more.
Although we are prepared to take on more personnel at the Commission, the budget situation requires economies.
A few high officials will use up most of the money.
Then we also have an internal structural shift.
The mega-programme has been adopted by the governments without funds being made available, and those funds have been taken away from development policy.
So I can't help wondering what the strategy actually is.
Mrs Maij-Weggen says that the Community is the world's biggest provider of aid.
Yes, the net outflow of capital in many countries is much greater than what they are getting, and we can all see that more people are hungry, more people are poor, more people are dying.
Yes, we do need a non-military foreign policy.
My last request is for Maastricht II to introduce an institutional reform; Mr Pinheiro, we need a strong minister, a strong commissioner for this non-military development policy to supplement the foreign policy in the military and security sectors that we have with the CFSP.
Madam President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance completely endorses the terms of the communication from the Commission and Mr McGowan's report.
For us, this goes without saying: anything which - in conception, in decision, in financing, in action on the ground and in evaluation - allows enhanced additionality between the development policies of the Union and the Member States is welcome as far as we are concerned.
But perhaps I may be permitted, following on from what Mr Bertens has said, to take this report as an opportunity to dream of a situation where this problem would no longer arise, because the Member States would delegate their powers and resources in the matter of the development cooperation to the European Union.
I represent a country, France, where people are more enthusiastic about bilateral aid than they are elsewhere - partly for historical reasons, perhaps, but definitely because of economic and diplomatic influences.
People tell me it would be in the interest of France to maintain and reinforce this bilateral cooperation.
I can't help wondering what that interest would be, and what century we're living in.
And I can't help wondering it even more when I attend debates and votes in this House.
I find France being condemned - just now, an hour ago - for the part its troops are said to be playing in Chad, in the suppression of crime but also of political opposition.
I hear it said that France is accused of meddling in the internal affairs of a country like the Central African Republic.
I am led to believe that France, aided and abetted by Belgium, has played a not insignificant role in triggering and exacerbating the crises in Rwanda and Zaire and I also learn that French aid, distributed unconditionally to dictatorships, is fuelling every conceivable kind of chaos and corruption.
And anyone can learn, as I do, that on the pretext of special bilateral relationships France is very often to be found occupying a neo-colonial position, a charge that is only too well founded and against which France has no defence.
So where does France's interest lie? My conviction is that it would be in our true interest to put our resources at the service of a European development policy which would suddenly take on a new scale and a new ambition.
That seems to me to be, over and above the necessary conditionality, the future of our national cooperation policies, and I believe that the Commission would earn much credit by submitting a proposal for the gradual communitization of the resources of national development policies.
I might add, as a rider to our recent deliberations on racism, that if France really did have special reasons, based on a shared history and a shared culture, to maintain bilateral cooperation with the African States, well, in that case, it might offer better hospitality to immigrants coming from those States.
Madam President, first of all I should sincerely like to congratulate Mr McGowan on his excellent report on the vital question not only of the complementarity of the co-operation policies but also aspects of co-ordination and coherence.
To a great extent the Commission shares the analysis made by Mr McGowan of the situation concerning the lack of real progress in application of the Treaty on European union in this field.
Indeed, despite adoption by the Council, in 1992, of a number of resolutions and conclusions on the complementarity, co-ordination and coherence of Community aids and those of its Member States, the results obtained to date, albeit palpable, are manifestly unsatisfactory.
The Commission also goes along with the rapporteur's finding that one of the main reasons for the lack of progress is the lack of interest shown by certain Member States towards strengthening this co-ordination.
The logic of bilateral co-operation is profoundly distinct from the logic of Community co-operation.
We are increasingly oriented towards programmes, towards integrating strategic development in the various countries, together with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, in other words a strategic logic, whereas bilateral aid is nearly always oriented towards projects and not for programmes or whole sectors.
That is why complementarity, synergy, co-ordination are words which should be of interest to both sides.
Unfortunately, for reasons which have already been given by members of the European Parliament, there is still a certain amount of shortsightedness on the part of certain Governments, who refuse to see that synergy and co-ordination help the countries to strengthen their own action.
Mr Pronk and myself, when we were making preparations for the Dutch presidency, picked out this subject as one of the vital matters in which progress had to be made, despite the difficulties which we knew we would face. That is why we thought of trying to attack this problem through practical cases of lack of co-ordination, lack of coherence and lack of complementarity.
At the next informal meeting of the Development Ministers which is due to take place at the end of this month, we shall be focusing on this very subject which Mr McGowan has identified in his report.
Finally, I should like to say that there are certain legitimate reasons why the European Development Fund is not included in the Community's general budget.
There are good reasons. However, I must say that the Commission continues to think that the advantages which this has, be it when devising policies or in assessing them or in applying them largely outweigh the small disadvantages which might exist for some Member States when it comes to the European Development Fund budget.
I have to insist and ask, in one way or another, that changes be made to this in the scope of the IGC.
I am sure that, if the European Parliament had to play a fundamental role in discussing the European Development Fund's budgets, some of those aspects of policy co-ordination would play a leading role, not only in reports drafted by some of those members of the European Parliament who are most interested in the subject but by the European Parliament as whole.
Mr President, I should like to sum up by saying that I hope that this subject will come before us again, because it takes two to tango and if we tango together then we can put political pressure on the other partner by acting repeatedly.
As far as the Commission is concerned, once again all I have to do is thank the European Parliament for the interest, commitment and support that it has shown in this attempt to improve the co-ordination of our action with other Member States.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Relief, rehabilitation and development
The next item is the report (A4-0021/97) by Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Co-operation, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on linking relief, rehabilitation and development (LRRD) (COM(96)0153 - C4-0265/96).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the traditional division between humanitarian aid, rehabilitation and development is increasingly seen as artificial, whilst their interconnection is receiving ever greater attention.
These are the two issues covered by this report and the attached motion for a resolution, which I shall briefly summarize here.
The first part is devoted to the humanitarian aid of the European Union and, in particular, the role played by ECHO.
We cannot deny that the past few years have seen a sharp increase in the Community's humanitarian aid.
Various issues are involved here, but I shall discuss just four of them, the first being the need for coordination.
A primary aspect of coordination is political and organizational coordination.
As was suggested even in the original draft of the report - and, on behalf of my group, I am tabling an amendment in this respect - it is vital that we set up a single agency for this type of problem.
The second aspect of coordination is what is known as operational coordination, that is, coordination between non-governmental organizations and the Commission's delegations.
In this regard, we know that agreements have been standardized, and this is a positive step, in that it guarantees stable relations based on clear, known rules.
However, with so many signatories and the marked differences between them, consideration needs to be given to the possibility of adding annexes to contracts.
This would make agreements with non-governmental organizations more flexible.
A second aspect is the question of visibility, and the report looks at its underlying significance, asking, in particular, where we want visibility, at home, in recipient countries or with other donors, and what we want to achieve by it.
A third aspect is that of fund-raising.
In this respect, the report suggests collecting money directly from the public.
Such an initiative would have an important role to play in furthering visibility, since it would increase public awareness of humanitarian issues, without being to the detriment of non-governmental organizations, which could be actively involved in the collection process.
An amendment to that effect is being tabled.
A fourth aspect is the setting-up of a European volunteer service in the field of humanitarian aid.
I feel that the action already taken by the European Union to set up a European civilian service could be integrated here, with the emphasis being placed on development work.
I come now to the second part of the report, the section on linking relief, rehabilitation and development.
In April 1996, the Commission produced a document divided into four sections, the first of which covers ways in which relief measures can take better account of development objectives and requirements.
In this respect, I should like to point out, in particular, that the document stresses the importance of country-specific impact analyses being conducted before relief actions are initiated.
A second section concerns rehabilitation and post-crisis assistance, where there seems to be a need to expand upon the Commission's very commendable document by involving local civilians.
A third section concerns development actions and the risk of emergencies.
The Commission's approach, which focuses on the notions of risk and vulnerability, is highly commendable but, if we are to be sure that account is taken of all the important issues, we need to realize that this is only one side of the coin.
The only way to ensure that initiatives are really successful is to accord the same importance to the skills and abilities of individuals, and so ensure the involvement of the very people we are seeking to help.
A fourth and final section covers man-made emergencies.
Conflict prevention should be an intrinsic element of policy in this field.
One issue not covered by the Commission document is that of the political dimension of humanitarian aid.
However, one cannot be blind to the fact that, although they are supposed to be neutral, humanitarian actions sometimes have political consequences.
The Commission should, therefore, evaluate the implications, case by case, and, if possible, seek to ensure that actions fit in with initiatives on conflict preparedness.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I must first congratulate the rapporteur, who is nevertheless my friend, Raimondo Fassa, for his excellent report, and I must also thank the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee who have favourably received all the suggestions made by this committee.
These suggestions essentially related to two aspects: first, improved prevention, especially in the form of support for the creation of the International War Crimes Tribunal and secondly the Union's capacity for analysing and detecting conflict situations.
Regarding the Union's capacity for intervention - which I think is a very important point - this report makes a special plea for the reform of the CFSP and the possibility of continuing diplomatic efforts and military and civilian intervention.
Pursuing this argument, and here I must take this opportunity to stress the point to Commissioner Pinheiro, the report calls upon the Commission to study the possibility of setting up a European corps consisting of civilian and military units, capable of undertaking operations to keep and re-establish peace.
At a time of capitulation on the matter of entrusting the southern command of NATO to a European, at a time when discussions on the creation of a European pillar within NATO are becoming more and more difficult, at a time when discussions on the integration of the WEU into the European Union institutions are becoming bogged down, at a time when we can look back on the disaster of Operation Turquoise, at a time when the Union has for four months proved incapable of making up its mind to intervene in the Great Lakes region, at a time when there is no specific proposal on the reform of the European Union's common defence and security pillar, it is not unrealistic to think that the Union might demonstrate a minimum of creative imagination and equip itself with a European intervention corps to handle these operations of maintaining and restoring peace.
This corps would be made up of military and civilian units specially trained for this kind of situation; troops, doctors, people capable of setting up and running refugee camps; a military corps, in other words, which would not be an agglomeration of national units but would be made up of European troops under a European flag.
A proposal of this kind, which is financially viable for the European Union, could be put into practice rapidly.
All that would be needed would be to make an immediate start, undertaking the necessary studies straight away, and if the political will existed a decision could be taken as early as June when the reform of the treaties is under discussion in Amsterdam.
Madam President, Commissioner, personally and on behalf of the Socialist Group I should like to congratulate Mr Fassa on his report.
It demonstrates that the conventional distinction made between relief, rehabilitation and development is increasingly artificial, and that we have to strengthen the interrelation between these three types of action.
Indeed, Community humanitarian aid significantly increased between 1990 and 1995, unfortunately as a consequence of the growing number of crises which arose in those years.
But we should also bear in mind the fatigue which has begun to show among donors and the economic problems that many Member States are encountering.
Maintenance of high levels of humanitarian aid, despite all of that, could threaten development in the coming years, something which should be of particular concern to us.
Therefore we need close co-operation between the Member States and the Commission in order to make the Community's humanitarian aid as effective as possible and it is vital that we define a global strategy - as the rapporteur made a very good case for - which is coherent in terms of its application.
This co-ordination should be part of the action taken by the third countries, specialised organisations and international agencies and NGOs.
Mr President, Commissioner, given the stagnation or even the decrease in most aid programmes, the Commission really must create the necessary financial conditions so that, once and for all, we can begin to give priority to the prevention of conflict.
It is also very important to make European public opinion aware of the importance of development aid in the medium term so that we can show the cause and effects of relationship between poverty and humanitarian crises.
Another very good idea would be contributing a European voluntary service, at Community level, for future Community action in the fields of development and humanitarian aid.
We should also pay increasing attention - just as the rapporteur properly pointed out - to the interrelation between short, medium and long term types of aid, through a duly coherent approach.
Nor should we forget - and the Council unfortunately does so - that there is no between long term means for remedying human suffering than conflict-prevention, and so we must take action as soon as the situation in a country demands it of a preventive nature - diplomatic, economic, media, publicity, etc.
The measures proposed by the rapporteur, Mr Fassa, which take into consideration all of these aims, deserve my loudest applause, and I sincerely hope that they will meet with due response by the Commissioner and the rest of the Commission.
Madam President, Commissioner, I do not feel that the role of humanitarian aid should be developed at the expense of long-term development actions.
For some time now, we have been seeing substantial amounts of funding being transferred from cooperation to humanitarian aid, both within the Member States and in the European Union.
I feel, quite honestly, that this is an unacceptable situation in which the richer countries of the world are sacrificing their political responsibility and which I feel needs to be challenged.
Humanitarian aid is, of course, more attractive, or at least appears to be more attractive, to public opinion; it is more pleasing to the heart, has more power to move people and is, therefore, given more coverage in the press and mass media.
What I feel we ought to be doing instead is to make the European public more aware and convince people that the only way to promote international stability and growth in the poorer countries of the world is through development-cooperation policy and extensive funding for that policy, which implies, in particular, dealing with the lack of economic and political democracy that is a feature of relations between the northern and southern hemispheres.
I, therefore, support Mr Fassa's report, which makes a number of proposals for improving the links between humanitarian aid, development aid, rehabilitation and economic restructuring.
The report expresses strong support for the actions of non-governmental solidarity organizations, which are often the first to accept responsibility with their courageous presence in areas of conflict.
I am also strongly in favour of ECHO, whose operational principles show that only real, effective and on-going coordination of European relief actions will achieve the desired objectives.
I believe that, in some ways, ECHO is the pièce de résistance of foreign presence in the poorer countries; I believe that we should guarantee ECHO the secure resources it deserves and should ensure that it no longer suffers the uncertainties of budgetary reserve practices that should not pertain in the humanitarian sphere for policies whose aim is to help those in real difficulty.
It is my opinion that a stern warning should be given concerning the sabotaging by the Council and Member States of the coordination of development-cooperation policies at European level that the Commission had so courageously proposed.
What we are now seeing is a sort of re-nationalization of European cooperation, which is a backward step.
It is nothing more than a deliberate political choice by Member States' governments, taken in the name of a neo-colonial policy that should no longer exist and which is having the insane result of Member States taking action in the poorer countries in downright competition and so frustrating each other's efforts.
If we are to achieve all this, there needs to be a political will that should be restated by this Parliament, and I believe that adoption of the Fassa report - which I hope to see and towards which I shall contribute with my vote - would be a small step in that direction.
Madam President, it is high time we started using the enormous wealth of knowledge and experience that already exists, instead of constantly setting up new bodies with new personnel who have to start from scratch again.
I am thinking along such lines as the idea of a voluntary European service for development work.
NGOs have long experience and this is used for the precise purpose of avoiding sending unqualified workers to developing countries.
Instead one should seek to involve the local communities.
There can be no point in sending young unqualified Europeans to developing countries, especially those experiencing catastrophic circumstances, just to help Europe's unemployment figures.
NGOs also have some experience in country-specific efficiency analysis through their local knowledge and collaboration with the local NGOs.
So why not ask the NGOs and ECHO to enter into a close working relationship in order to produce these country-specific efficiency analyses? I remember how Oxfam, for instance, a whole year before the Rwanda catastrophe, pointed out time and time again what was likely to happen there.
There had to be some form of intervention, Oxfam said, but no one listened.
Nor do I understand why it should be necessary for ECHO and the Commission to advertise themselves, bad advertisements at that, and I would like to know how much EU money or ECHO money is being used on such advertising.
I take exception to the section on reform of the common external and security policy, and feel, in general, that points 11 and 12 are somewhat jumbled.
But I am pleased that the proposed changes concerning the role of women and active participation have been included in the report.
Unfortunately a minute or two is not long enough to thank Mr Fassa for all those areas for which he deserves credit.
Madam President, rapporteur, the report we are discussing argues for the redesigning of current links between emergency actions, the rehabilitation phase and development processes, so as to make European intervention more effective.
Our group feels that any such link between emergency aid, rehabilitation and development must necessarily be achieved by strategic planning that embraces all the political, social and technical aspects of development logic and should encourage the harmonization of action being taken by the European Union, individual Member States and the United Nations.
Strengthening of the CFSP therefore seems to be vital, just as uniting the competent services within a single body, which would guarantee the coordination and timeliness of actions, seems to be a way of marking the shift from words to actions.
We are now witnessing crises that could certainly be defined as chronic and serious, and the very fact that they are protracted could allow optimal planning of actions, which could be transformed from initial emergency aid into the more specific form of targeted aid.
We are of the opinion that the Executive's actions should take account of the needs of the weakest population groups, such as women, old people and children, and that they should encourage local markets by promoting the potential of local supply.
We are, therefore, in favour of the creation of a European body comprising both civilian and military bodies, which would collaborate with WEU to help in resolving crises and restoring peace. We are also convinced of the need for a permanent international tribunal to put a halt to crime and punish the guilty; of the need for stricter controls on exports of armaments; and of the absolute urgency of launching a genuine policy to prevent natural disasters and resolve armed conflicts.
Madam President, may I begin by expressing my support for the general thrust of this excellent report and the approach adopted by the rapporteur.
In my contribution I would just like to highlight the main points of the REX committee's opinion.
First of all, we acknowledge that the Commission makes a valuable and important distinction between the different types of disaster - from pure natural disasters which may nevertheless have structural causes or be endemic in nature to limited natural disasters: floods, earthquakes, etc., and then manmade emergencies involving violent conflicts.
In the latter often the institutional and administrative framework for development has collapsed, whereas in the former basic institutional and administrative structures remain largely in place, although disrupted or temporarily overwhelmed by the emergency situation.
That is obviously a very complex situation but, nevertheless, one which requires a flexible response.
Then, of course there is the need, referred to by the last speaker, to support and encourage local markets as trading structures, and that is a major element in assisting rehabilitation.
In fact, in many cases it would be the very basis for rehabilitation.
I would like to stress the importance of those involved in the design of relief rehabilitation and development programmes taking decisions to support interventions which promote the functioning or re-establishment of local markets and national or regional trading structures.
No discussion of this nature is ever complete without some reference to the role of the arms trade, and when we talk of major humanitarian disasters, very frequently the arms trade is mentioned and we believe, in the REX committee, that it is essential that the European Union should take steps to establish a code of conduct for the arms trade in regions of countries where obvious tensions exist and conflict is either imminent or under way.
Finally, relating to the link between the document and current European Union practices, the Commission's approach to the links between relief, rehabilitation and development appears somewhat theoretical and involves a number of basic assumptions regarding the capacity of the European Union to implement this fairly ambitious approach.
I have had a number of very good exchanges with the relevant people in the Commission and the authors of this document and I have told them that I am very glad to see it here and that I think that the document is excellent and goes a long way towards meeting the proposals being made by the European Parliament over the years.
Nevertheless, my main concern is still whether this document can find an effective follow-up in the day-today implementation of European Union relief, rehabilitation and development aid, and perhaps more attention needs to be paid as to how things are functioning at the moment before going into proposals for the future.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I must sincerely thank the rapporteur, Mr Fassa, for his work on this report.
Now, I should like to deal briefly with one or two points.
What I particularly welcome about this report is that it has dealt with the question of military protection for humanitarian activities.
This is a problem that confronts us again and again, and in recent times, especially, humanitarian aid organizations have increasingly been the victims of acts of violence.
I also believe that this is an area in which we can implement a little bit of common foreign policy on behalf of the Union, and so I also welcome the opinion of the Foreign Affairs Committee regarding the Peace Corps.
I share the previous speaker's view regarding the problems of arms exports.
But although a number of European countries have very strict rules governing shipments of weapons to areas of conflict, there are always criminal elements that find ways and means of coming by arms and then supplying those arms to crisis areas and elsewhere.
So negotiations are all very well, but they are not a final answer.
Another point concerned with aid to disaster areas and sustainable development is, in my view, that where emergency aid is concerned we cannot quibble about any human rights violations - the victims of the disaster come first in this instance.
But in the case of continuing and continuous development work - development aid - we must indeed pose the human rights question, and I regret to say that there is one point on which I must contradict my esteemed colleague, Robles Piquer: not even a degree of prosperity in a country or improved living conditions can justify human rights being trampled underfoot, and I cannot feel any respect for a statesman who has done that, even though we are supposed to speak no ill of the dead.
Madam President, the Commission wishes to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Fassa, on his report and is in general very favourable to its conclusions and recommendations.
The report is a very positive step in the process of formalizing an approach which has been marked throughout its development by continuous consultation with a wide range of interested parties.
The Commission would like to single out a number of points highlighted by the rapporteur for particular comment and also to provide Members with an update on the way the linking relief rehabilitation and development approach is being applied, as well as to comment on some issues of importance concerning humanitarian aid and ECHO.
I am convinced that the effectiveness and efficiency of aid efforts cannot but be improved through a proper understanding of the reinforcement of the links between the different phases of relief, rehabilitation and development.
Equally important, and as highlighted in Mr Fassa's report, is the need to coordinate actions of the Community and the Member States and indeed, beyond this, to ensure that there is good coordination between the Commission and the other major international organizations and agencies.
Only then can we ensure coherence and promote efficiency.
Another crucial point is the need for better targeting of aid to the people in need.
This can be very difficult to achieve, especially in humanitarian crises involving massive refugee flows and insecurity, but it is nevertheless essential both to make the best use of funds and to maintain public support for provision of life-saving aid in the longer term.
Furthermore, much humanitarian aid has had to be provided in conflict zones, where the civilian population has been increasingly affected, or even the direct target, of violence.
In such circumstances, the humanitarian community is faced with many basic and yet extremely difficult questions as to the neutrality and impartiality of aid.
Questions are rightly asked about how manipulation and looting of warring factions can be avoided, how human rights abuses are countered, how aid workers are protected and so on.
Many of these legitimate concerns lie behind the points raised in the report before us.
The Commission clearly recognizes the serious difficulties involved in providing humanitarian aid in these situations.
The awareness of the inherent risks and an on-going analysis of situations prone to crisis, whether due to political or economic reasons, is an important part of this work.
It is, however, necessary to realize that the problems encountered vary considerably from one crisis situation to another.
The Commission makes great efforts to coordinate with partners such as NGOs, the Red Cross and UN organizations, to adapt the response in each situation.
The report brings the issue of conflict prevention to the fore and this is naturally welcomed by the Commission.
The importance of prevention cannot be overstated; prevention of conflict and promotion of a level of structural stability are central to the linking relief, rehabilitation and development approach and as you are aware the Commission has prepared a Communication on this subject which is currently being discussed in the Council.
The Commission is also delighted to see that the rapporteur deals specifically with gender and that this issue has also been highlighted in the opinion delivered by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
The gender aspect figured prominently in the Communication on linking relief, rehabilitation and development and in ECHO's work in 1996 and will continue to do so, being an essential part of making our humanitarian assistance equitable and effective.
Women and men have different vulnerabilities to crisis and often different ways of coping with them.
Overall, men tend to have more options than women, as they generally have greater control over resources, greater mobility and decision-making power.
Therefore, we need to work out how this can be accounted for when planning and carrying out humanitarian operations and make sure it is actually implemented in the field of operations.
This concern also links up with the points raised in Mr Fassa's report on local and regional capacities.
It is all too easy to destroy fragile and fledgling markets with ill advised or poorly focused programmes.
The involvement of local personnel and strengthening local institutions to deal with disasters can prevent many of the negative effects of disaster relief which have been observed, where expatriate staff and resources on many occasions have completely overwhelmed and sidelined local efforts.
This is an area that we are particularly sensitive to in the Commission.
Indeed it is our aim to encourage the private sector which we view as the powerhouse to fuel growth in the ACP countries.
It is in this spirit that we believe that better development reduces the need for emergency relief, that better relief contributes to better development and that better rehabilitation eases the transition between the two.
Progress in implementing the linking relief, rehabilitation and development approach has been marked by a number of milestones.
Indeed, as linking relief, rehabilitation and development is seen very much as an approach which is widely applicable to a variety of situations, its influence has been pervasive and its progress rapid.
Those responsible for the development and implementation of programmes have at their disposal a technique which attaches itself to existing programmes, because all that is required is that the programme be developed with linkages in mind and based on coordination, both internal and external.
The mere fact of considering, at the earliest stages, the future implications of actions taken now helps to focus on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of aid.
Task forces are probably one of the most tangible and pragmatic ways of witnessing intra-Commission cooperation and coordination in practice.
They have been set up in those regions where the approach is most advanced.
The two best examples to date are the task forces that have been in place for some time now for Haiti and the Great Lakes region.
Others have been in place for longer such as in Liberia.
Informally, and thanks to the appeal of and the need for this new approach, coordination and interservice cooperation is better than ever before with the advantage that it is now backed by the Commission's Communication and the fruitful debate it has provoked.
It has been transformed internally within the Commission into a Joint Instruction signed by the Directors-General of all external DGs and the Director of ECHO and sent to all external services and delegations.
The linking relief, rehabilitation and development is not confined to the Commission.
Member States are invited to participate fully in the work and the Commission is pleased that the Council has agreed that the Commission and Member States should work together on the preparation of global policy frameworks for certain countries and regions.
This report has highlighted many important humanitarian aid issues and is a welcome step in the linking relief, rehabilitation and development, where Parliament has always been supportive as well.
Madam President, I am sorry for speaking at length but this is the kind of report and subject in which much of the substance of our day-to-day action in many of the most difficult areas is at stake.
Therefore I thought my response deserved to be a bit longer in order to express some of our concerns.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
I declare the sitting closed.
(The sitting was closed at 8.05 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I refer to the Minutes.
As regards Amendment No 5 to the Lindholm report.
I was recorded as abstaining on that particular vote. I had in fact intended to vote 'Yes' but my fingers had the 'curse of Pasty' and I just got it wrong.
So can I be recorded as having voted for that particular amendment.
That will be attended to, Mr Hallam.
Madam president, on item 7, ONP and universal service for telecommunications.
Yesterday's vote was an extremely difficult one and I fully sympathise with there being the odd mistake, but I would like this corrected.
It says here that we voted three times on deleting the word 'exclusively' .
Now it would appear to be correctly reported in the Minutes, but afterwards it has three times been wrongly incorporated into the directive; I would like to ask through you that your services correct this.
The Minutes are excellent but the final text is incorrect.
That is all I wish to see corrected.
I understand your point, Mr van Velzen, and the necessary corrections will be made.
Madam President, I am not referring directly to the Minutes, but rather to the verbatim report of proceedings for Wednesday.
In that report, the inadequate answer given by the Council to my supplementary question to Mr Sjöstedt has been reproduced correctly, and the comment I made later with reference to the Rules of Procedure is also correct.
However, the actual question that I asked has mysteriously disappeared, and has been replaced by a question that I put to the Irish Council Presidency last year.
I just wanted to point out that this means that in some mysterious way parts of the verbatim report of proceedings for December have found their way into the verbatim report of proceedings for February, namely Wednesday.
We shall do everything possible to sort that out.
Are there any other comments?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Votes
I have voted against the McGowan report on complementarity between the Community's development cooperation policy and the policies of the Member States.
I am a firm supporter of improving development aid but I believe that this should take place at national level.
The main aim of the report would appear to be to strengthen the EU's combined Foreign and Security policy and to 'contribute to the international recognition of a European identity' which is written in the text of the resolution.
I come from Sweden, a non aligned country, and I believe that our country can make a significantly greater impact in the world as an independent progressive nation than we can by having to adapt to, what is in practice, a super power controlled CFSP.
We have voted in favour of the report as we support the aim to coordinate the EU's development aid and to avoid duplication of work.
On the other hand, we are totally opposed to the complete harmonisation of development aid for EU countries.
We think it is important that EU Member States continue to operate their own independent aid policies under their own banners.
The Treaty of Maastricht stipulates that the development policy of the European Union should complement that of the Member States.
But that complementarity requires coordination between the Union and the Member States.
And this is where very little happens in practice.
Mr McGowan's report clearly illustrates this.
This evil is rightly described as a result of the Member States' lack of political will.
The report unfortunately fails to make the point that this identified lack of political will is a result of the difference in approach of the Member States.
In some development policy is part of trade, in others it is part of foreign policy and at the mercy of political interests.
Think of the French in Africa.
Such a difference in aims makes coordination far from easy.
I have therefore no great expectations of the measures proposed in Mr McGowan's report.
That is regrettable in that the effect of development cooperation will suffer.
But with the lack of political unity in Europe I think it wiser to take the existing political reality and make maximum use of the opportunities for coordination rather than strive towards the lofty ideal of a coordinated development policy for the Union.
In the explanatory statement Mr McGowan says that public opinion in the Netherlands accepts a relatively high percentage of GNP being spent on development aid precisely because this gives the Netherlands a strong national profile.
That is true, but that support cannot be expected for a European policy.
That is why development should be coordinated within the Union wherever possible but should primarily remain a national policy.
And more particularly so because development aid is not about enhancing the Union's image in the world on the basis of the amount of money spent on development cooperation, but it is about having the greatest effect in the developing countries.
These are the reasons why we are abstaining on the McGowan report.
Fassa report (A4-0021/97)
I have voted against the Fassande report on EU humanitarian aid.
I am in favour of developing humanitarian aid but I cannot vote for the report because it strongly advocates a strengthening of the combined Foreign and Security policy and a further rapprochement between the EU and the WEU.
We agree with the ambition of coordinating the EU's development aid and making it more effective.
But we cannot support this in the irrelevant context of phrases such as 'strengthening the Union's combined Foreign policy' and other similar phrases or in the context of requests to the Council to strengthen cooperation with the WEU.
We think that the EU should be a civil organisation and that the WEU should be dissolved.
There is absolutely no reason for the EU to establish a military force together with the WEU which shall be responsible for 'peacekeeping' initiatives.
This proposal must be rejected.
Clearance of EAGGF accounts
The next item is the interim report (A4-0043/97) by Mr Mulder, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the postponement of the discharge to be given to the Commission in respect of the clearance of the accounts of the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF for the 1992 financial year (com(96)0417 - C4-0259/96).
Madam President, we have had a European agricultural policy for many years now, and for many years it has been the subject of severe criticism.
I shall not dwell on the merits of this criticism at this juncture. But there is one thing that must be quite clear: where there are regulations, these regulations must be respected, and where there is expenditure it must be according to the rules.
Over the years this Parliament has raised considerable doubts about the implementation of these financial rules.
That is why on 17 March 1995 this House adopted a resolution that henceforth there should be a separate discharge for the agricultural expenditure in the Guarantee section of the EAGGF.
The Court of Auditors also announced that it would produce annually a special report on this expenditure.
In April of last year Parliament had its first debate under this procedure and the conclusions it reached still make very interesting reading.
First of all last year's resolution concluded that the personnel services in charge of the control were seriously understaffed.
Last year's resolution called for the appointment of fifteen additional members of staff.
One year further on we see that only three new members of staff have been appointed.
A second important point from last year's resolution is that financial corrections were made which should only be made for technical reasons; political decisions have no place here.
One year further on we see in the report from the Court of Auditors that the Commission has not adhered to that rule.
If we now turn to the 1992 expenditure itself we see that from a total expenditure pattern of some ECU 30 billion ECU 800 m had to be reclaimed.
And secondly, the Commission granted certain favours to countries which the Court of Auditors says were not justified.
I want first of all to take the case of the beef storage in Ireland.
This is quite strange.
The control services of DG VI realised something was not right and made corrections of 5 %.
The Commission's financial controller said that was too little, that serious errors had been made, it would have to be 10 %.
DG VI then confirmed this idea and repeated that it did indeed have to be 10 %.
Ireland protested, but the technical services of the Commission dug its heels in, but then what did the Commission as a political body do?
It rejected the advice from its technical services and decided on 5 %.
The loss to the Community budget was in the region of ECU 30 million.
In the case of production aid for cotton to Greece the same kind of comments can be made.
The loss to the budget from the cotton case was about ECU 30 million.
In all these cases the Commission fended off criticism from the Court of Auditors by saying that they had given the Member States the benefit of the doubt.
We disagree with that, Madam President.
What lessons can be learned from all this? First of all: lack of personnel must not be used to excuse inadequate control.
Investment in staff pays off abundantly in the future.
Secondly: a post facto correction of ECU 930 m, and according to the Court of Auditors it will probably be much higher, is just unacceptably high, more than 5 % of the agricultural budget, and has to be brought under control either by better supervision or by better regulations.
And thirdly: it is inadmissible that the European Commission buys off compliance with regulations by reducing financial corrections for a specific year although no improvements in that budget year were identified.
Furthermore, there is in our view the major question as to whether the maximum financial correction of 10 % is indeed enough.
We want an extra financial correction of 25 %.
Last year this Parliament gave the European Commission the benefit of the doubt.
We shall not do so this year.
We are postponing approval of the 1992 agricultural expenditure until the conditions I have laid down are met.
We shall have to ensure that in future agricultural expenditure is in order and that the Member States, both the public and the governments themselves, do not have the impression that the Commission is improperly implementing this in the future.
Madam President, were we talking about the 1995 clearance of accounts, we could say there is something rotten in the state of Denmark and we could have been referring to feta cheese.
However, we are not referring to the 1995 accounts but the 1992 accounts and we can say that there is something wrong in the state of Ireland and several other Member States when you look at the clearance of accounts.
Mr Mulder worked very hard on this report and the Committee on Budgetary Control has not taken it lightly.
There are worrying aspects about the way in which agricultural resources are treated and when we get to clearance of accounts there always seem to be problems.
The Court of Auditors, in their report, highlighted them quite succinctly and if you look at the two cases which Mr Mulder mentioned, the beef problem in Ireland and the cotton problem in Greece, there is a great deal to worry about.
I get the impression that it is like a Dutch auction - not that I have ever been to a Dutch auction - but that is how we decide what is and what is not due back to the Community.
Hence the reason for the proposal of the 25 % figure.
It always seems to be a matter of 'well, we may have had some irregularities, there may have been some bits of fraud but we do not have to pay all the money back' .
The concern of the Committee on Budgetary Control is the very fact that we are never sure how much the Community should be claiming back and what the Commission should be doing to retrieve monies that are being wrongly paid.
In paragraphs 8 and 9 of Mr Mulder's explanatory statement, there are two quite important points.
He says: ' Thus there is no avoiding the impression in this case (that is the Irish beef case) that the Commission ultimately yielded to political pressure and was no longer guided in its decision by the magnitude of the loss to the Community's budget.
Consequently, it has not only accepted losses to the Community budget but also disavowed the work of its own services.
Furthermore, the Commission could possibly be accused of not treating the Member States equally since the flat-rate corrections for France and Italy in connection with the storage of beef were not adjusted downwards, .....' .
It is an extremely worrying case and when we see the ECU 100m from Greece which was not claimed back, it gives us a great deal of concern.
In Paragraph 20 of the explanatory statement, Mr Mulder says: ' All in all, the losses to the Community budget can thus be put at over ECU 1b, occurring in the early 1990s and only now being offset, and that only in part.'
We had great hopes for the arbitration procedure.
We hoped that the arbitration procedure would begin to clarify matters, to make matters far easier.
We hoped that we would not see Member States going to the Court of Justice but now we see the Irish, having got a pretty good deal on the beef case, appealing to the Court of Justice against the Commission's decision on the clearance of accounts and this leaves us little room for optimism.
I think the most telling point of Mr Mulder's report is in the very last bit where he says: ' another question also needs to be asked: are the corrections proposed by the Commission possibly too low to offset the loss to the Community budget?' That is a question that the Commission really needs to respond to.
On the two recommendations concerning the delay of discharge, can I say that I hope the Commission does not think Parliament is playing games by setting in December the figure for the amount of staff within the different departments and then coming back in March recommending extra bodies.
They are two different proposals at two different times.
I am sure Parliament and the Commission can come to some agreement on what is the best way forward.
Madam President, we are faced with one of those situations in which the average European citizen is likely to understand none of what we are saying or, worse still, to misunderstand and have a rather confused idea of how we regulate the Community's administration.
As we have heard, administrative and bureaucratic disorder involves losses to the Community budget as a result of the appalling arrangements for advances paid in excess or the other accounting sleights of hand.
We are currently discussing beef meat in Ireland and aid to cotton production in Greece, but there could also be other examples.
As far as agricultural spending is concerned, it is perhaps really time to simplify matters.
On several occasions, Commissioner, you have spoken, at the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, of the need to bring up-to-date and simplify the CAP and, I think, the administrative system also. But the time has come, above all, to involve the Member States on a global and continuing basis.
We need to do this to avoid having to chase up, after the event, rather as we are doing with this report, the mistakes that have resulted from misinterpretation or arbitrary interpretation. Furthermore, our rapporteur, Mr Mulder, whom I congratulate on his meticulous work, now tells us that we also have grounds for criticizing the Commission, guilty of having yielded to political pressure exerted by the Member States and having managed its own internal services somewhat chaotically to say the least.
I do not believe this to be an issue for the Committee on Budgetary Control only; it is a problem that brings in other areas of responsibility also.
It is, certainly, the responsibility of the Committee on Budgetary Control to identify how properly to recover funds that the Member States have improperly, though we hope not deliberately, abstracted.
We have also to point out that it is still up to the Member States to decide on how 80 % of Community appropriations are to be subdivided.
We should not therefore wage a war of religion between one state and the next or between the Commission and the Council, even though a minimum of flexibility is needed, is vital to prevent excessively rigid bureaucratic obstacles.
In my view, at any rate, we need constantly to be checking and monitoring to be sure that these issues are being properly interpreted and it is not left to the Commission, in the end, to foot the bill.
I am amazed that alongside the bad examples of Greece and Ireland, Italy does not for once appear.
I think that this inability of the European Union to function properly at an internal bureaucratic and administrative level is then reflected in administrative and managerial chaos at an external level, in relation to Europe's citizens.
As we speak, Commissioner, once again in Italy, at this very moment, farmers and milk producers are facing the police, they are being charged by the forces of law and order because they need to demonstrate in front of the factories of the big multinationals in an effort to limit the damage caused by the infamous quotas, the surpluses of which they are the victims rather than the perpetrators.
That too is the product of poor administrative information and poor internal management.
Madam President, compulsory repayments from advances out of the agricultural guarantee funds are regularly the subject of discussion between the Commission and the Member States.
There is nothing inherently wrong with that.
But they should only be about whether the Commission has correctly estimated the amounts which were wrongly paid out.
Mr Mulder's report shows that the Commission's action was unfortunately also dictated by other criteria.
A declaration of intent on the part of the Irish government on improving the control system was sufficient for the Commission to lower the 1991 flat rate correction for Irish beef storage from 10 % to 5 %.
That went against the advice of the financial controller who said that the identified shortcomings were no reason at all for reducing the fine.
This situation is intolerable.
The Commission should not reward Member States for promises.
Compliance with Community regulations should be a matter of course.
The Mulder report further shows that the Commission has not been consistent in laying down sanctions.
In 1991 the same kind of infringements were identified in France and Italy as in Ireland.
These countries did not protest and had to pay the full 10 %.
In the light of the incorrect use the Commission has made of approving the accounts I support the rapporteur in postponing the discharge decisions.
First of all it must be clear that it is only the damage suffered by the Community that determines the amount of the flat rate corrections.
In this it is essential that the criteria for flat rate corrections should be more clearly defined.
Madam President, the amount of the total financial corrections - ECU 800 m for 1992 - shows that the application of Community regulations still leaves much to be desired.
This is not only a financial problem but it is also extremely harmful for the reputation of the agricultural sector and the Union.
That is why I agree with the rapporteur that the services in charge of approving the accounts should be enlarged in order to increase the reliability of the financial corrections.
That does not detract from the fact that proper financial management is first and foremost the responsibility of the Member States and is impossible without the cooperation of the national supervisory bodies.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Mulder has presented a very well-balanced report here today, and in this report he has, to a certain extent, got to the bottom of the problems facing the Commission when the latter takes its decision with regard to the clearance of the accounts submitted by Member States.
The Commission has to get back from the Member States any expenditure which has clearly not been made in accordance with Community law.
The only thing is, ladies and gentlemen, that such black-and-white situations are unfortunately rare.
In most cases, the Commission has to assess the risk to the EAGGF that arises as a result of insufficient compliance with the regulations, especially those that concern the efficacy of the measures carried out by Member States to control applications for aid.
Accordingly, it then rejects part of the expenditure, a part which is in proportion to the risk involved.
The level of expenditure that is to be rejected is considered very carefully, in accordance with fixed guidelines, taking fully into account the arguments of the Member States, and after consulting a body of independent, senior figures.
The fact that the Commission reclaims money is a strong incentive for Member States to control Community funds in accordance with the rules.
In many cases, therefore, they improve their control measures as soon as the Commission's auditors inform them of any shortcomings.
Whenever this has happened, the Commission has always decided in their favour when determining the rate of correction in cases of doubt, because one of the Commission's most important objectives is to motivate the Member States to improve their control systems constantly, rather than to punish them.
Ladies and gentlemen, as regards the reduction of the correction for Ireland from 10 % to 5 %, I should like to make the following comments. The Commission's auditors found that in 1990 and 1991 in Ireland, there were major shortcomings in the control system for the intervention buying of beef, and therefore, for both these years, a flatrate correction of 10 % was proposed.
Both Ireland and the arbitration body took the view that controls in 1991 had improved, and that the risk of loss in that year was therefore lower.
However, at the time the auditors were not convinced of the effectiveness of these improvements, because intervention buying had been suspended with effect from 1993 until the date of the decision on the clearance of accounts.
No intervention buying took place.
Therefore the financial controller did not feel able to agree to a reduction in the correction.
So the Commission, on the grounds of fairness, decided in favour of the Member State, as it always does in cases of doubt, as I said earlier.
I can tell you, however, that in the mean time, once intervention buying had resumed, inspections were carried out in October/November 1996 and the results of those inspections were entirely to the Commission's satisfaction.
On the second question, regarding the cotton situation in Greece, this entirely exceptional correction of 25 % represents the maximum possible loss to the Community budget.
As part of the measures taken to improve control procedures, the Greek authorities carried out ex-post controls at the ginning plants, which showed that the actual losses were very probably not more than 10 %.
In those circumstances, we could not stick to a correction of 25 %.
In connection with the comments that have already been made, pointing out that the corrections amount to more than ECU 800 million, and that one might well deduce from that that the EAGGF funds were poorly managed, it is essential to make it clear just how big a percentage this sum represents, measured against the total funds, and also to point out that ECU 415 million, i.e. more than half the total sum, concerns a single case, namely the noncollection of the coresponsibility levy for milk in Italy and Spain.
If you treat this amount separately, then the remaining sum amounts to only 1.3 % of Guarantee Fund expenditure.
I do not think that that gives anyone grounds to conclude that the funds are poorly managed.
The Commission is also prepared to review its guidelines for determining the level of correction, along the lines requested by Parliament, in order to clarify and place greater emphasis on the principles that it is, de facto, already observing.
This review will be completed by the end of June, and until then we shall keep Parliament informed of our findings.
At any rate, corrections as high as 25 % should be undertaken only after very careful consideration, because the legal bases on which the Commission acts rarely allow a correction to be undertaken that amounts to more than the actual loss to the Community budget that may possibly have arisen.
Moreover, corrections cannot be made automatically in all cases in which the Commission requires controls to be improved, but only in those cases where a provision of Community law has not been complied with.
However, the Commission also considers it desirable to increase the number of accounts clearance staff, and it will endeavour to find the extra positions recommended by Parliament.
I would just ask you to bear in mind, however, that the sort of staff required for this highly specialized task can seldom be recruited internally, and the number of new jobs is strictly limited.
Against this background, I hope I can count on your support as we seek to achieve this objective.
In this connection, I should like to thank Mr Wynn, in particular, for his comments, and finally I should also like to express my thanks to Mr Mulder again, and to the House as a whole, for this constructive report.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Madam President, our group will be voting in favour of Mr Mulder's report.
We agree with his conclusions, by the terms of which the discharge to be given to the Commission in respect of the clearance of the 1992 EAGGF accounts will be postponed and made subject to certain conditions.
We also agree with the analysis contained in Mr Mulder's report, especially regarding the two decisions by the Commission which prompt this postponement.
And, finally, we agree with the conclusions he draws from that analysis.
No revisions should be called for, even if that is difficult to accept in the light of the substantial losses suffered by the Community budget, amounting to nearly a billion ECU.
The Commission must amend its procedure for the clearance of the accounts so that a reference to any improvement in controls cannot in future result in a retroactive reduction in the flat-rate corrections.
We also agree with the call for a flat-rate correction of 25 %.
I should like to take advantage of this vote to emphasize the difference in relation to the 1992 discharges to the Commission and the 1993 discharges on Parliament's budget.
I hope that the postponement of the discharge for which we are going to vote will not result in a contrary decision and will be followed by genuine results, and that the discharge will be refused until such time as Parliament's demands have been met. That, in any case, will be the firm position of the Europe of Nations Group, in order that, in accordance with what the group has always maintained, substantial sums from the Community budget should be appropriated in accordance with the legal rules and there should be genuine control exercised by the Members of the European Parliament to ensure that the interests of the citizens of the various nations of Europe are safeguarded.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Assisting spouses of the self-employed
The next item is the report (A4-0005/97) by Mrs Lulling, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the situation of assisting spouses of the self-employed.
Madam President, those responsible for drawing up our agenda are too often guided by a special scale of values and priorities for reasons that reason knows nothing of.
So it happens that the report which I have the honour to present on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights - a report which is of interest to at least 10 million assisting spouses in the European Union, and perhaps even twice that number - has been relegated to this sparsely attended Friday morning sitting.
It is true that we have been in competition with mad cows, the number of which in the European Union is equally unknown.
It is true, too, that the sad fate of the millions of assisting spouses working in their husbands' businesses, with no legal status, no independent social security, no financial security in the event of divorce, no claim on the assets to which they have contributed - is a less emotive subject than mad cows for those Members who, this week, tabled a motion of censure against the Commission.
This is 1997.
In September 1994, the Commission presented a report on the disappointing progress made in implementing the 1986 Directive on the application of the principle of equal treatment for self-employed men and women, including assisting spouses.
That directive failed to arouse our enthusiasm, because its content could be described as 'decaffeinated' by comparison with the Commission's initial proposal, but it did at least have the virtue of existing. I would not deny the fact that progress has been made in some Member States, but, more than 10 years after the adoption of the directive, the majority of spouses participating in the activities of the selfemployed are forgotten people, invisible workers.
As the report on the application of the directive - drawn up by the Commission after a delay of at least three years - has not been presented to Parliament, the Committee on Women's Rights has had to compile an own-initiative report on these invisible victims of discrimination, the assisting wives working in millions of family businesses, especially in agriculture, the SMEs, crafts and trade, though not excluding those with professional spouses.
I felt that no purpose would be served by lamenting the past and the all-too-obvious fact that the 1986 directive has sadly failed in its purpose. I felt it would be better to look to the future, to make specific proposals to add muscle to the 'decaffeinated' directive of 1986 - proposals capable of providing a remedy to the precarious situation affecting these assisting spouses, especially in cases of divorce or the death of the husband.
We do realize - subsidiarité oblige! - that the amended directive we want can only create a framework within which the Member States will have to take action to achieve the objectives which I shall now summarize: we want assisting spouses to have a legal status, enabling them to choose between the status of employed spouse, partner spouse or collaborating spouse; we want it to be compulsory for assisting spouses to contribute to social security schemes covering illness, invalidity, accident and old age; we recommend tax incentives meaning the inclusion in the business operating expenditure of the remuneration actually paid to the spouse, on the two conditions of course that this is the normal remuneration for services actually rendered and that all the legally required deductions and contributions should be made.
We also think that measures should be taken to ensure that assisting spouses who have worked for many years in the family enterprise are no longer disadvantaged in terms of inheritance and succession. Finally, we want appropriate representation for assisting spouses in the professional organizations and chambers of the sectors concerned.
In my own country, as regards invalidity insurance and pension schemes, for example, there has been provision since 1988 for compulsory contribution by assisting spouses, but with the possibility of an exemption.
The reality is that because of this exemption - which is too easy to obtain - out of 2000 craft enterprises where it is obvious that spouses are actively participating in the business, only 164 are affiliated under this rule.
The situation is equally appalling in trade and in the liberal professions. Why is this?
Lack of information, fear of the cost of contributions - even though they are tax-deductible - or, quite simply, negligence or lack of interest.
Legislators, which is what we purport to be, must know that it is often necessary to do people favours despite themselves, especially in cases where they tend to shy away from the expense.
That is why we have also proposed compulsory registration for assisting spouses, so that they cease to be invisible workers.
It has been pointed out to me that, in the United Kingdom, this demand would no doubt be blown up out of all proportion by one section of the press as a platform for yet another campaign against Europe.
I should be happy for that to happen - at least public opinion would be alerted and would know that our Parliament is doing something for these invisible workers.
I know that the Commission is in the process of organizing round tables with the organizations concerned with a view to debating the needs of assisting spouses.
I was able to attend the first of these round tables.
If this process continues, and if the Commission draws the conclusions it should from these round tables and from our report, I for my part can promise it that it will run no risk of a motion of censure.
If that were not the case, I should see no better reason there - at any rate, no better than the reason we have been discussing this week - to censure a Commission that disregards the fate of tens of millions of citizens of our Union.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. I totally agree with Mrs Lulling.
The fact that this report is being taken on a Friday of the Strasbourg part-session is already an indication of the lack of interest in this subject.
It is a true reflection of the situation of assisting spouses today.
The assisting spouses are usually described in state registers as 'with no profession' or 'house mother' or 'housewife' .
They are often a major unknown factor for social security.
In reality, however, they are an indispensable aid to their husband.
The Liberal Group therefore warmly welcomes this own initiative report but would welcome even more enthusiastically the Commission's proposal for amending the existing directive.
The assisting spouse deserves more than just recognition from her husband and family.
Circumstances such as divorce, death or invalidity of the spouse can put an unexpected end to this recognition and herald in total misery.
To the report.
What I think is particularly important is first of all that we opt for a compulsory system of registration and enrolment with an insurance.
We have seen from the French system that a voluntary system does not produce the expected reaction.
Secondly, we need a legal statute which despite being compulsory should be sufficiently flexible, especially with regard to calculating the contributions.
If we make the granting of a statute too complicated we risk unwittingly creating a category of concealed assisting spouses, and that is certainly not our intention.
I also support the rapporteur's proposals for greater awareness and encouraging those concerned to register their spouses in a tax incentive scheme.
I regret to have to say that the Belgian government is barking up the wrong tree on this point and is turning the clock back.
As of 1 January of this year they have stopped allowing independent workers to set part of their income in the name of their assisting spouse and is therefore killing off this tax incentive.
The assisting spouse can henceforth only be registered as an employee or business manager, but for many liberal professions this is impossible in view of the deontology of the liberal profession and company legislation.
There is no longer any question of flexibility.
But hopefully the new European legislation will persuade the Belgian government to think again because what it is currently doing is very like the Echternach procession.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that we can soon have here a debate on the legislative proposal on assisting spouses.
I would be interested in hearing the Commission's plans on this score.
Mr President, what used to be called atypical work has now become typical.
The instability and precariousness of labour relations, the fruit of the flexibility of the so-called labour market - never seen to be sufficiently flexible by employers - has now been expressed in the significant appearance and increase in the numbers of self-employed persons.
Whereas in many cases self-employed persons are nothing more than workers who have lost their legal status but retain a real occupational status which is identical to the previous one, in other cases self-employment is a new and different activity replacing what used to be called typical occupational activity.
This evolution has led to others in the cumulation of discriminations and the situation of assisting spouses of selfemployed persons, usually referred to as the wives of self-employed persons, to which particular attention should be paid.
We congratulate the rapporteur on doing so in this report.
Given that we are talking about the assisting spouses of a derived and very heterogenous group of workers, it may be estimated that, despite the lack of definition of professional status and the difficulty in quantifying them, they must be much larger in number than the 3 million referred to in the Commission report on social protection.
Given that three-quarters of them are women, they could even account, in a single Member State such as Greece, for a quarter of the female population liable to be considered as active.
As Mrs Lulling emphasises in her report, and I take this opportunity to compliment her on her work, Directive 86/613 is unsatisfactory especially because it fails to define the status and is ineffective vis-à-vis the right to social protection of this group of workers.
That is why it must be amended and it must be amended this year, 1997.
The set of proposals made in the report deserve our agreement in principle and can act as a good working basis for a new directive aimed at dealing with situations which must not lead to the enshrinement, by old and new means, of discrimination against women in the world of work, because, in this case, of the virtual lack of visibility
We must also support, as a complement to the prerequisites of the directive to be replaced which have not been complied with, the concretisation of initiatives such as debates and round tables giving the interested persons a real chance to take part in defining their needs, status as well as the wording of the new directive.
Mr President, I pay tribute to the very welcome initiative taken by the Committee on Women's Rights in producing this report in favour of providing decent social protection for assisting spouses.
Like the rapporteur, I too deplore the years of delay, the time wasted by the European Commission, years that could have been used to good effect for a better exchange of views between the various parties concerned.
None of us can reasonably deny the need for legislation on this; as to whether the protection scheme set up should be optional or compulsory, I think that question does not arise.
Experience in Luxembourg has shown that nothing is achieved by inviting voluntary contributions.
The reason for that failure is blatantly obvious: small- and mediumsized enterprises and the self-employed, in every country of the Union, already bear a crushing weight of taxation and charges of all kinds, which incidentally the big multinationals find it too easy to escape.
Also, as well as making it obligatory for the Member States to organize social protection for assisting spouses, we have a duty to make it compulsory to provide proper information to the workers concerned and to require the national authorities to manage the money they collect with due care, contrary to the habits adopted by the majority of governments in the States of the Union, whether Left or Right.
Mr President, the own initiative report which we are now assessing, drafted by Mrs Lulling, whom I must compliment, is a work of enormous difficulty given that it refers to a group of millions of invisible workers, so invisible that statistics officially categorise them as 'inactive' categories.
They are inactive because they are not registered as unemployed nor are they seeking work because they do not lack a job, but it is neither recognised nor remunerated.
This situation applies in particular to the wives of self-employed workers who assist them working in fields or in any type of tiny family business which can be found anywhere and which employ, according to studies which have been carried out, millions of people.
Both Community legislation and national legislations when they, rarely, make express reference to the situation of the spouses of self-employed persons - such as Portuguese legislation - come up against the reality which is quite different from the spirit of the law.
Women still very often see it as their duty to help their husbands or companions without being paid and they look upon this huge work - which is not included in the calculation of the GDP of any country - as an obligation which their status of spouse requires.
If we accept this and consider the fact that they are not recognised by law and have no rights whatsoever, we can then understand why we are talking of invisible workers: they work but earn nothing, they work but they have no social rights, even where the law so provides.
That is why I agree with the proposals made by the rapporteur, as well as the amendments, aimed at withdrawing all of these working people from their clandestinity: compulsory inscription of assisting spouses in social security schemes, making it compulsory for Member States to take not only appropriate legal measures but also to make attempts so that they can be effectively applied, introducing incentives to family businesses to comply with these obligations, all of these are proposals which have to be supported.
That is why it is vital that the Commission should prepare a new directive on this subject, from the social and financial points of view.
After all, there are many more workers who are not counted in GDP or entitled to social security.
I also think that the proposals for greater flexibility in the system and its adaptation to business size are particularly pertinent, as well as the proposal that in many small family businesses social security costs should be deductible from their profit declarations.
Finally, I would call on self-employed workers associations to regard it as their binding obligation to fight for the social situation of the spouses of their respective partners.
Again I wish to congratulate the rapporteur and I hope that this proposal, which the European Parliament will undoubtedly approve today, will very shortly be converted into a proposal for a directive by the Commission.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the Committee on Women's Rights and the rapporteur in particular on taking the initiative to highlight the situation of the assisting spouse and to put forward proposals to create a statute at long last for a category of the population which is large in number but small in statistics.
I hope to hear later that the Commission has been inspired by this for its legislative work.
Mr President, I have been following this matter since long before the 1986 directive and I have always wondered if the statute of the assisting spouse would be as empty and insignificant if this group were to consist mainly of men.
As far as I am concerned the situation of the assisting spouse is a yardstick par excellence for the continuing discrimination between men and women.
In my own country, Mr President, that is Belgium, the assisting spouse is the only group of people who are permanently active in a profession without being covered by a compulsory social statute.
But 97 % of this group is made up of women.
This situation cannot of course be separated from the still poor representation of women in professional and interprofessional organisations and in the political decision-making process.
If women are not there at the table their interests are not defended as well as they could be.
What we need in all Member States of the Union is no more and no less than a statute based on the same automatism as that of the self-employed, farmers and the liberal professions, namely a statute that offers social and legal protection for every risk which is present.
The other side of the coin is undoubtedly a certain price tag, but where no-one denies that there is a price to be paid for everything for respected self-employed entrepreneurs, all sorts of objections are raised when it comes to the assisting spouses of these entrepreneurs.
Mr President, I conclude with the thought that the fact that we have to discuss this here in the year 1997 is not only incomprehensible but downright scandalous.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the Committee on Women's Rights and in particular its rapporteur Mrs Lülling, for their excellent work.
The report we are debating today is a clear proof of the European Parliament's interest in the promotion of issues such as equal opportunities for and equal treatment of women and men.
I believe the issue of equal treatment for women involved in the activities of their self-employed husbands is a particularly important one.
As you know, that issue was addressed at Community level for the first time in 1986, with the adoption of Council Directive 86/613/EEC of 11 December 1986.
Assessment of the measures undertaken by Member States in that area reveals, as the report too points out most clearly, that a great deal still needs to be done, both in relation to social security and concerning the position and recognition of the role of the spouses of self-employed persons in the family business.
As Mrs Gröner too stressed, we must not forget that the lack of progress in that area partially reflects the traditional view about the role of wives in family businesses.
A view which makes no distinction between marital and entrepreneurial coexistence.
There is indeed a tendency to regard the contribution of wives to family businesses as a self-evident extension of conjugal duties.
The lack of progress also reflects the difficulties that exist concerning the adaptation of social security systems, and concerning the expenditure incurred by that adaptation for family businesses in which both spouses are working together.
The Commission is aware of those problems.
We have funded many studies, which demonstrate the serious lack of social protection for assisting spouses.
At the same time, however, it is also true that existing possibilities for voluntary insurance or for the acquisition of a separate legal status are not taken up.
On that point I would like to say that the issue of assisting spouses is included among the objectives of the Fourth Medium-term Action Programme on equal opportunities.
The Commission has undertaken to carry out a careful assessment of the situation, to include broad consultations with all interested parties.
Our aim is to examine the possibility of submitting an amended directive that will respond to the real needs in that sector.
The round-table discussions you welcome in your report and in which you played an energetic part, are the forum for the consideration of the issue.
But if we are to understand the obstacles in the way of improving the social protection of assisting wives, we need more information about their views and about the attitude of professional organizations.
For that purpose measures and policies must be implemented which are flexible, owing to the complex nature of those obstacles and also because the social protection of assisting spouses is related to issues such as the recognition of their role in family businesses, as both Mrs KestelijnSierens and Mrs Thyssen stressed very clearly.
Nowadays, society is undergoing important changes.
Women want to undertake a more active role in the labour market at all levels, as Mrs Torres-Marques too stressed.
However, we are encountering difficulties, and mainly lack of funding, as Mr Ribero very clearly emphasized.
We face problems such as the lack of appropriate services to offer business advice, a lack of suitable professional training, and a failure to recognise the abilities of those involved.
Besides, agricultural reform and changes of the CAP will radically alter the lives of farmers, and in that context the improvement of women's status in family farming enterprises must be one of our priorities, as Mrs Flemming stressed.
All those factors must be considered together in the discussions about the self-employed and their assisting spouses.
Mr President, I would again like to thank Parliament for its support on this issue of equal opportunities, and to congratulate Mrs Lülling once more on her excellent report.
I am sure our collaboration will continue with the same aims and priorities.
Nowadays, equality of opportunity between men and women must be emphasized so that we may respond to the demands of our times and develop more effective policies to bring women into the labour market.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr Papoutsis.
The rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, now has the floor.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Papoutsis most sincerely for his very positive speech, and I should like to place on record what he has just said, i.e. that the Commission will submit an amended draft directive.
Since Mr Flynn was unable to be here today, I should like to express the hope that the fine words of Mr Papoutsis will be followed by action on the part of Mr Flynn.
Thank you very much, Mrs Lulling.
The debate is closed.
The vote will now be taken.
Before the vote on Amendment No 4
Mr President, I should like to alert this House to the importance of this amendment because in the text of the report we referred to social security contributions based on personal income. This in fact is a very ill-chosen expression, because there is no country and no compulsory insurance scheme in which contributions are paid on the basis of personal rather than professional income.
The amendment clarifies this point.
I should therefore like this amendment to be adopted, together with the different wording, because it is better than my own, which referred to a ceiling basis for social security.
The alternative wording refers to a flat-rate basis.
I think this is an important detail, but if honourable Members fail to agree with the second part, I shall call for a separate vote on the first, because it is never possible to collect contributions on the basis of personal income.
This is not done anywhere, and I would emphasize that.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Leghold traps
The next item is the oral question (B4-0002/97) by Mr Collins, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, to the Commission, on the position of the European Commission on leghold trap legislation.
Mr Collins has the floor.
Mr President, this is the on-going saga of leghold traps. It is a sorry tale of Commission misdemeanour.
Members will recall that leghold traps are a particularly vicious way of trapping wild animals for use in the fur industry, a way which causes the animals extraordinary and unnecessary pain.
Members will also recall that last year's report on leghold traps by Carlos Pimenta, which called for their banning, was supported by a huge majority in this House.
On 9 December of last year, the Environment Council followed our lead and demanded full implementation by the Commission.
That was on 9 December.
On 18 December the Commission flatly rejected that demand.
So Parliament voted for it last year. The Council voted for it in December and on 18 December, the Commission, which is not elected nor accountable to anyone, rejected our demands.
The Pimenta report calls for humane trapping procedures and was cleverly written so as to avoid conflict with the European Union's commitments under GATT and WTO.
It even goes so far as to impose a ban on fur from animals caught in leghold traps and to allow for its lifting when agreement has been reached with third countries to stop leghold use.
This agreement would not even have to be in force for the ban to be lifted. It was merely to be agreed.
The European Parliament managed to strike a blow for the principle while giving third states ample room for manoeuvre.
Yet we hear now that the Commission is considering proposing a new regulation which seeks to exempt Russia and Canada.
It has no justification.
It displays a complete disregard for the democratic voice of Parliament as well as the decision of the Council.
I have written to President Santer and this morning I received a reply from him.
I do not accept his reply.
It is a brave attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
The Commission must recognize that the question of leghold traps is an issue of animal welfare.
This is not just about trade.
The Commission cannot allow principle to be subsumed in a desire to placate trading partners.
It must have the courage of our democratic principles.
Our Commissioner and our Commission must stop being the representative of the WTO in Europe and must start being the mouthpiece of the European Community in the WTO.
They have their priorities the wrong way round.
That is why the question is raised today, because the General Affairs Council meets next week and the Environment Council meets in March.
The Commission must realize what a hornet's nest it has stirred up by its decision and I ask it to tell us today how it squares its decision with respect for democratic procedures and principles.
I would like the Commission to tell this House why legislation it has passed is not being implemented and I would like the Commission to give this House the assurance that it will consult both Parliament and Council before adopting any international agreement on leghold traps.
Lastly, I demand that the Commission this morning tell us clearly that there are no circumstances and nor will there be any in which it will seek to frame legislation that avoids the need to consult the European Parliament and avoids the need to observe the wishes of the Environment Council.
I hope the Commission can give us these assurances this morning.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to tell you that President Santer responded by letter on 4 February 1997, to the letter sent to him by Mr Collins on 23 December 1996.
In his answer, President Santer explained clearly and in detail the Commission's views about the issue.
The Regulation is fully in force and applies to anything relevant to its orders that takes place within the Community.
The only difficulties arise in connection with the application of the Regulation's provisions on external trade.
Let me remind you, however, of the starting point.
Council Regulation (EEC) No 3254/91 on leghold traps provides two separate options for avoidance by third countries of the trade restrictions imposed by the European Union on fur imports, either by banning the use of leghold traps, or by the use of trapping methods that comply with internationally agreed standards for humane trapping.
Those options available to third countries demonstrate the intention of legislators, where international standards are concerned, to solve the issue of compatibility between the commercial measures specified in the Regulation and international trade rules.
Unfortunately, however, as you know, the international standards had not yet been established when the specific order came into force on 1 January 1996.
That was because of the unsuccessful outcome of the work of the International Standards Organization, work which the European Commission had no chance to influence.
Consequently, the regulation could not be applied under the conditions and for the purposes laid down in the text.
For those reasons, in November 1995 the Commission decided to defer the implementation of the regulation for one year and to propose to the Council that Regulation 3254/91 should be amended.
More especially, the aim was to make it possible to negotiate an international agreement on standards for humane trapping with the main fur exporting countries, i.e. the USA, Canada and the Russian Federation.
Until recently, the Council supported the approach proposed by the Commission, as is proved more especially by the instructions it gave the Commission in June 1996, instructions relating to the negotiation of an agreement on standards for humane trapping.
The European Parliament, at the first reading of the proposed amendment of Regulation 3254/91, also backed the negotiation of such an agreement, but at the same time it called for the immediate application of the restrictions stipulated in Regulation 3254/91 and for them to remain in force until the agreement in question had been concluded.
It is not true that the Commission ignored that call.
On the contrary, we considered that a ban on fur imports would not contribute to the creation of appropriate conditions for constructive negotiations.
The value of an international agreement, which would for the first time establish rules for the control of the trade, should not be underestimated.
As you know, in December 1996 an agreement was initialled on international standards for humane trapping by the European Community, Canada and the Russian Federation.
The Commission conducted the related negotiations on behalf of the Community, in full compliance with the rules of the Treaty.
More especially, the Commission confirms that the agreement is on the one hand fully consistent and compatible with the orders of Regulation 3254/91, and on the other hand entirely in accordance with the Council's instructions to the Commission in June 1996.
The Commission is also convinced that this cohesive, ambitious and legally binding agreement is the best means to ensure the substantive improvement of the level of protection for trapped animals in North America, the Russian Federation and Europe.
At the same time, the agreement safeguards the legitimate trading interests of the subscribing parties.
In contrast, the absence of an agreement would probably lead to trade disputes, which could not achieve anything in relation to the protection of animals and, in addition, the absence of an agreement would have fundamental negative economic and social consequences both in the EU and in other interested third countries, mainly for the native populations.
Furthermore, a trade dispute would undermine the credibility of the Community's trade policy, which is clearly always opposed to the use of unilateral trade measures with extraterritorial applicability.
For that reason, on 24 January 1997 the Commission submitted to the Council a proposal for a decision on the European Community's approval of the agreement.
Of course, and always in accordance with the rules of the Treaty, the Council will be asked for its opinion concerning the specific proposal.
At the same time, the Commission has set in motion the action necessary for the implementation of Regulation 3254/91, as it was asked to by the Environment Council of 9 December.
In fact, the Official Journal has already published the Commission's regulation on the certificates that importers must hand over to the Community's customs authorities before furs can be imported.
As for the list of third countries, the Commission's procedure mentioned in Article 5 of Regulation 3254/91 is still in force.
Finally, and again in accordance with the decisions of the Environment Council of 9 December, the Commission has made contact with the third countries involved.
The aim of those contacts was to examine the possibility of amending the agreement initialled by Canada and the Russian Federation.
And I would like to inform you that just a few days ago certain meetings took place, in New Orleans on 14 February and in Ottawa on 17 and 18 February, to convey the Environment Council's requirements to the interested countries.
Those contacts have not so far borne fruit, and the Commission is now waiting for supplementary instructions from the Council, so that it can take the matter further.
I would like to assure you that the European Commission not only respects and accepts Parliament's role and parliamentary control but also, as you know, we have repeatedly demonstrated that we try in every way, even beyond the statutory framework established by the Treaties, to cooperate with the European Parliament, especially on issues of this kind which are not only sensitive for economic activity, but mainly also, touch upon the sensitivities of Europe's citizens.
I therefore also want to assure you now, that the Commission will continue to keep Parliament informed about developments in this context.
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commissioner a question about what he has just said.
He referred to the likelihood of bringing this into operation in December.
Since we are dealing mainly with the northern hemisphere, would he not agree that it is rather silly to have the cutoff date half way through the trapping season? Would it not be more logical to make it this summer?
Thank you very much, Mr Kellett-Bowman.
I do not think that is exactly a point of order.
It is rather a question of chronology.
But Friday's flexibility allows me to give the Commissioner the floor if he wants to reply to Mr Kellett-Bowman's chronological concern.
Mr President, I would like to assure Mr Kellett-Bowman that the mechanism will become operative as soon as we reach the agreement that will make its implementation acceptable to all the Member States.
Mr President, as the Commission has got nowhere with these further negotiations, it has manoeuvred itself into an utterly indefensible position on the leghold trap regulation.
Not only has it defied Parliament but it has also defied the Council of Ministers which is truly breathtaking.
In the interest of unfettered free trade, the Commission seriously expects the European Union to lie down and effectively chew off its own leg just as 600 000 fur-bearing animals caught in these barbaric legholds do every year in Canada so that fashionable women in Europe can wear fur coats, and the fur trade and the Canadian Government can continue to make millions of dollars.
These are the traps that the Canadian Government does not agree are cruel.
It all started with the tuna/dolphin issue when trade won over environmental needs.
Now the Commission is prepared to sacrifice what some may feel is the soft option - furry animals - both on leghold traps and in the cosmetic industry, in the hope of winning free trade trade-offs.
Well, it won't do!
This WTO business is getting completely out of control and so is the Commission.
The so-called draft agreement on the leghold trap with Canada and Russia represents not so much a compromise but a suicide note.
For instance, Article 13 says: ' No party may impose trade-restrictive measures on fur and fur products originating from any other party' .
That makes a complete mockery of our legislation!
Faced with the stubborn refusal of Canada to stop the use of leghold traps, the Commission, ignoring its mandate from its masters in Europe, has simply said: ' O.K. keep on with your cruelty and we will keep buying your furs - everything is fine!'
More than 60 nations world-wide, including of course, the European Union, have banned the use of the leghold trap so there is no unfair domestic advantage to the European Union here.
Furthermore, Article 20 of GATT contains the perfectly adequate defence of an import ban under measures which are acceptable if they are necessary to protect public morals.
These public morals need protection.
Civilized nations cannot put up with sacrificing public decency and environmental imperatives on the altar of free-trade.
There have to be some limits and the leghold regulation sets down the limit that we want implemented in this particular case.
We want a little backbone from the Commission.
Mr President, I am sorry but once again Sir Leon Brittan is hiding behind his colleagues on the Commission, who are not to blame, in that he is not appearing here today to discuss something for which he has sole responsibility.
The speech by Commissioner Papoutsis - and I hope he does not take this as a personal attack because it was not his speech but Leon Brittan's speech - is a set of lies.
First of all, the 1991 Regulation is still in effect and it has not been revoked by any legal act approved by the European Parliament or by the Council.
The Commission has not implemented it and the Commission has actually suspended it by means of a letter by two Directors General.
This is not admissible in legal terms.
Secondly, Sir Leon Brittan, the 1996 Regulation - which as has already been said here today was presented by the Commission - was rejected at first reading by the European Parliament which voted against the Commission's proposals.
The Council of Ministers did not follow this up and it has not approved the common position, as it is so far away from the Commission's position.
The third lie, Commissioner, is when you said that the agreement reached with Canada was in keeping with the Council's terms of reference.
Yet the same Council, on 9 December last, specifically said in its decision that the agreement with Canada was not in compliance with the terms of reference which it had awarded.
Stop lying, Sir Leon Brittan!
We can discuss the substance of this.
What I cannot accept is that you should come here and play with democratically elected parliamentarians whose duty it is to control the legitimacy of the decisionmaking process.
This is a question of substance and it is also a question of the respect for institutions.
I am offended by the way in which the Commissioner comes here and lies to us!
Finally I should like to put two questions: as Mr Collins said, what is the legal basis which has been given to these agreements with Canada and Russia? Is the Commission trying to replace the co-operation process with a process of simply consulting the European Parliament?
What does the Commission really want?
Does it want to exclude the European Parliament!
And finally where is the money for scientific research, and for finding more humane methods of trapping animals?
Mr President, I shall not repeat the sad history of this dossier.
Ken Collins, Carlos Pimenta have traced it admirably.
Our group fully agrees with you and yet I must say that in view of the brief reply from the Commissioner it would appear that commercial interests are far more important than animal welfare and democratic principles.
He said that if we had put it through we would have had serious problems in the field of economic relations and trade interests.
That is the wrong starting point if there is a 1991 directive which says that animal welfare should take precedence over trade interests, and the Commissioner and the whole of the Commission is ignoring that.
I consider the role played by the Commission in this straightforward leg trap affair is highly suspect.
The Commission acted against the will of the European Council of Ministers, against the will of the European Parliament.
All of us, both the Council of Ministers and the Parliament, wanted an import ban on fur from countries which still allowed the leg trap.
This Commission decision goes against all earlier agreements; Commissioner, you and your colleagues should have another look at the videos, and they you will see just how cruelly these animals are captured.
This is not a resolution or an opinion from Parliament against hunting, but it is against a cruel method of capture.
We hope, now that the Commission is threatening to forget about an import ban and planning to enter into an empty free-wheeling agreement with fur exporting countries, that the European Council of Ministers will act quickly to make an import ban effective for the European Union and correct the ways of the European Commission.
Mr President, for the past two years this House has been fighting a Commission to bring about an import ban on fur which has been obtained by means of the leg hold trap.
We reel from one surprise to another.
First of all the regulation is postponed and now a compromise is proposed that really cannot be understood as a compromise.
The Commission has managed to threaten to take to court the only country that planned to implement the regulation at the correct time. How on earth is that possible?
Did the Commission really think that it is cleverer to present this so-called compromise, this agreement, to the Council of General Affairs rather than the Environment Council because the Council of General Affairs may listen more carefully to trade arguments and less to animal welfare? It is quite clear that Commissioner Brittan won a victory here over Commissioner Bjerregaard.
I want to make several appeals.
The first is to the President-in-Office of the Council of General Affairs, Mr Van Mierlo, not to accept this point on the agenda of the Council of General Affairs and to pass it on to the Environment Council where it belongs.
Mr Van Mierlo would be compromising his colleagues and making a mockery of them if he were to accept this.
The environment ministers, at least an overwhelming majority of them, have indicated that they are unwilling to accept this agreement.
I also appeal urgently to the Commission to stop going along the road of the least resistance and tackle the environmental debate, the animal welfare debate and the debate on nature in the WTO context.
For it is quite clear that that is being ignored in the WTO and that if we want to save anything here then this urgent question must be put on the agenda where we must win the day.
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled under paragraph 5 of Rule 40 of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the Commissioner's reply, I should like to say that I very much welcome the fact that Mr Collins has raised this oral question at this particular time.
Since we have only an incomplete knowledge of the results of the negotiations between the EU, Canada and Russia, on the subject of which many critical voices have been raised, it is high time that the Commission kept Parliament comprehensively informed.
I am rather surprised at the length of time it take for this House to be to some extent informed about the draft agreement, whereas lobbyists and other groups have the complete texts of agreements made available to them.
In this respect - and thank you, Mr President, for having already given an indication in this direction - Parliament should use the resolution that we are about to adopt as a means of giving a signal.
I also support the objectives contained in the motion for a resolution that has been tabled, in which the emphasis is placed on attitudes towards leghold traps.
Traps that are cruel to animals must be made to disappear, and on a worldwide basis.
Other traps may be used only if they are not cruel to animals.
That must be the guiding principle.
All we need to do in order to proceed further is to refer to Mr Pimenta's report from last year, which tackled the many and various aspects of this problem, in other words, prohibiting traps that are cruel to animals, developing international standards for humane traps, taking into consideration the special role and situation of indigenous peoples, and clarifying the trade-policy aspects.
At the same time, I should like to warn against the possibility of achieving precisely the opposite effect by acting too ambitiously.
As a negative example, I would simply refer you to the case of Brent Spar, where incorrect information resulted in a great loss of credibility.
In my opinion, the activities of the past week, and the heap of paper that landed on Members' desks, was over the top.
I really don't have anything against lobbyists, but in the interests of the case itself we need a more balanced argument.
We shall only succeed in getting the countries concerned to alter their behaviour if we can appear credible to their people.
This applies initially to the indigenous peoples, who are the ones who are directly affected.
We must also take into consideration the special characteristics of their cultures and, when we have processed the results, we should draw the appropriate conclusions.
Mr President, in this Parliament, I am one of those who belong to the Working Party on Hunting, and I also represent the protection of animals, because I am convinced that a true huntsman, a true hunter, is also a protector of animals at the same time.
As such a man, I should like to thank Mr Collins with all my heart, for having brought up the question of these inhumane traps again.
I have been a Member of this Parliament for 18 years now, and I can tell you that this has been going on throughout the whole of that time, and I regret to have to say that on the Commission's side there have repeatedly been manoeuvres to postpone and obscure the issue, so that it has not been possible for us finally to take a clear decision.
We have, admittedly, taken some decisions, but then these have not been implemented, for which various excuses have been given.
Here I should like to place special emphasis on one point in particular: there has been a lot of reference to humane traps.
Perhaps it is possible to make such traps, but the sort of traps that are currently described as humane, at least in the press, are almost as inhumane as the previous kind.
The fact that you cover the traps with a bit of rubber makes no difference at all to an animal's legs.
The tragedy is that the animals, especially in Canada, sometimes have to live in the traps for days, in horrific circumstances.
I believe, therefore, that we have an absolute duty to make the Commission seriously aware of the fact that now, finally, we want to see actions, not words.
What I mean is that we should not go to New Orleans, and heaven only knows where else, but that we should finally take action, on our side.
I know that there is major resistance, but then resistance exists in order to be overcome.
I would therefore ask the Commission - and I have also just agreed with the Böge motion, because I considered it right to issue it with an ultimatum - to pay attention, because our patience is slowly running out.
Mr Pimenta has the floor for a personal statement.
Mr President, half true is as bad as a lie.
The Council of the Representatives of the Member States rejected in January the list of countries which the Commission wanted because the Commission had included Canada and Russia even with a preamble saying that it was provisional.
Please Mr Papoutsis it is not your fault.
You do not know the details.
Do not try to protect someone that does not deserve protection.
Mr President, first of all I want to say that I am not trying to protect anybody.
I am trying to defend the authority and decisions of the European Commission, and as you know, the Commission takes collective decisions and is judged by all the other institutional bodies and subjected to parliamentary control on the basis of those collective decisions.
As for the list of specific countries, as I told you earlier, the Commission submitted it to the Council.
The Member States did not agree, and from that standpoint, we are delaying not through any fault of the Commission's, but because of the Council's inability to reach a decision.
Secondly, as for the Council's instructions you referred to, which were given to the Commission which followed them to the letter, please let me, Mr President, include in Parliament's Minutes the Council's Minutes, which I will hand in to your Secretariat.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The vote will now be taken.
Mr President, I find it remarkable that, in voting against amendment no. 3, certain facts were denied, but I will now address these.
I will vote against the proposed resolution because I am convinced that an unthinking repetition of the demand for implementation of the enactment provisions for the issuing of an import ban on furs would get in the way of using the route of negotiation in order to achieve a system which, in the long run, would do more for animal welfare, because what we are dealing with here is the trapping of animals in Canada, the USA, Russia and the EU, where millions of animals are constantly being caught by means of traps.
But we are far from fulfilling the requirements we are laying down in the regulations.
Leghold traps are banned publicly in the EU, but this does not apply to private land, and they can be bought, with instructions for use, on the European Parliament's doorstep.
Traps are mostly used to catch pests, and an import ban on skins will not act as any incentive to stop the use of traps for this purpose.
Through negotiation, however, we can ban all forms of cruel traps, to the benefit of the animals concerned.
I know that, before the regulations were adopted, an abortive attempt was made to negotiate, but this does not mean that the present negotiations would suffer the same fate.
The negotiations which the Commission has started with Canada, the USA and Russia are the first international agreement to focus on animal welfare.
Let us not jeopardize this, destroying the basis for these negotiations, by bringing a WTO action which could go on for years, without in any way promoting animal welfare.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Genetically modified maize
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B4-0003/97 by Mrs Breyer and Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the marketing of genetically modified maize; -B4-0005/97 by Mr des Places, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, on the placing on the market of genetically modified maize; -B4-0012/97 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe on genetically modified organisms; -B4-0013/97 by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the request for a moratorium on the entry of genetically modified maize into the European Union; -B4-0014/97, by Mrs Barthet-Mayer and Mr Kouchner, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the placing on the market of genetically modified maize; -B4-0015/97, by Mrs Roth-Behrendt, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the placing on the market of genetically modified maize: authorization procedure; -B4-0016/97, by Mrs Grossetête on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the placing on the market of genetically modified maize.Mr Lannoye has the floor for a point of order.
Mr Lannoye, I have looked up Rule 131 and you have the perfect right to make that request.
But allow me to give you two pieces of advice: first, Mr Lannoye, Friday is a working day as worthy as any other and, therefore, I think it is a sign of respect to all the Members who are here to regard it as such.
The second point is that no commitment can be made at this time about the agenda in the next part-session.
That is a matter which depends entirely and exclusively on the preparation of the agenda.
What we can do now is decide to adjourn the joint debate.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will therefore listen to one opinion in favour and one against and then we will put it to the vote.
Mr Lannoye, you have the floor.
Mr President, I am no great expert on the Rules of Procedure, but I can read and I note that Rule 131 (1) states that a political group may move that a debate be adjourned to a specific date.
That is what I have done.
The 'specific date' is Monday 10 March, as the first item on the agenda for the March part-session.
This seems to me to be in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
I will certainly take up your point and pass it on to the Conference of Presidents which in principle determines the agenda, as you know, and I am sure it will take account of your argument, but the Chair cannot make any commitment now.
Mr von Habsburg has the floor to speak against Mr Lannoye's proposal.
Mr President, I should like to say that I am totally opposed to Mr Lannoye's motion, not because it is not justified rhetorically, but because it will simply mean ruining Friday as a working day.
We were elected to serve our constituents, regardless of whether they are many or few in number.
Here at least, quality is a substitute for quantity.
We have often found this to be the case, and I would therefore ask Members to vote against it whatever happens.
I should like to thank the President for having said the same thing.
Friday is just as much a working day as any other.
Thank you very much, Mr von Habsburg.
The Chair would never want to influence a vote.
I understood that the reasons Mr Lannoye gave went way beyond the fact that this is Friday.
So in this case, I - who always advocate dignifying every working day, including Friday - would not want any vote to be influenced from the Chair.
The Chair must be absolutely neutral when it comes to a vote, up to the point that, in general, it does not even cast its own vote.
Mrs Pailler has the floor to support Mr Lannoye's proposal.
Mr President, I think this is a particularly important debate, following the casting of 118 votes in favour of censuring the Commission on a very closely related subject.
We should therefore like the Commissioners responsible for the matter to be present and we should like there to be enough people here for this debate to be as dignified and serious as it deserves to be.
Yesterday, Mr Caccavale asked, for completely obscure reasons, although there were plenty of people in the Chamber, for his report to be postponed, and I believe that no one took umbrage at that.
Well, that was Thursday, and his report was postponed.
I don't see why we can't have the courage to postpone a subject as important as this to a time when more Members will be present, together with the Commission and perhaps even the Council.
Thank you very much, Mrs Pailler.
I shall now put the request to adjourn the joint debate to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request) Mr Ford has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I presume that the list of speakers is closed, so that those Members who did not think it important enough to stay here this morning will not suddenly decide that this is an absolutely fascinating issue when it is on a Monday evening!
Can you confirm that the list of speakers is closed?
Mr Ford, you are well aware, because you are a very important member of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, that the list will be opened again for the debate so that those Members of Parliament who wish to take part can do so.
Mr Rübig has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I find it irresponsible that such an important debate should be postponed.
That is not a point of order Mr Rübig.
It is a personal opinion - and a very respectable one - but it is not a point of order.
Parliament has made the decision freely by a vote which is final in a democracy.
The Presidency is obliged to respect the majority will of Parliament.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, once again I have had the agreeable duty of chairing these exemplary Friday sittings.
I hope you all have a relaxing weekend and, once again, let me thank all the services of Parliament for their work and you, ladies and gentlemen, for making it so easy and agreeable to chair this sitting.
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.30 a.m.)
Resumption of session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 21 February 1997.
Communication and statement by the President
I have to inform you that last Friday I sent a telegram of condolences to the parents of the little girl, Lubna Benaisa, whose body had been discovered the previous day in the city of Brussels. I did so on my own behalf and on behalf of all Members in the sure knowledge that I was expressing the feelings and sadness of the whole Parliament at this further barbarous act perpetrated against those who are most vulnerable.
May I also say how touched I was at the splendid example of dignity and unity shown both by the Benaisa family and by the entire population of Brussels.
I should not like such an important occasion as International Women's Day, which was last Saturday, to pass by without some mention in Parliament.
The celebration of International Women's Day has become incorporated in the political calendar as a major event.
It is a day for considering the progress made in the building of a fairer society with greater solidarity, a day for setting objectives, for continuing to move towards the full integration of women in all areas of life on an equal footing with men.
At times such as these, when unemployment figures have reached record levels in some Member States, those principles need to be reiterated; we need to take a stand against exclusion and avoid any backsliding in the timid progress achieved.
This year the celebration of International Women's Day coincided with a key moment: the Intergovernmental Conference for revision of the Treaties setting up the Union.
The Conference is taking stock of various positions, already setting the guidelines for the new texts on which the development of the Union will be based in the future.
The building of Europe has played a leading role in the slow process of breaking down the historical barriers between women and of the labour sector.
The Treaty needs however to incorporate more global plans forming the basis of an equal opportunities policy and specifically to include some mention of positive measures against discrimination.
The proposals contained in the text which the Irish Presidency prepared are a very important step in this direction.
Parliament will see that they are consolidated and incorporated in the new treaty.
However, we do not need to wait for the results of the Intergovernmental Conference to continue with the building of a legal framework which is better tailored to promoting equality of opportunity.
To this end great importance must be attached to the development of Community legislation.
The proposal for a Council Directive on the burden of proof in sex-discrimination cases is the cornerstone of the new system of legal protection.
I think the Union's institutions should set an example, as pointed out in Mrs Larive's report adopted last autumn; the European civil service is an ideal field for putting into practice an ambitious equal opportunities policy enabling women to be involved in the highest levels of decision making.
Although the European Parliament is the institution with the highest percentage of women in its higher administrative grades, the figure is barely 20 %.
Efficient administration cannot allow this inequality.
It is not, however, merely a question of percentages.
We need to change attitudes, review the procedure for entry into the European civil service, offer occupational training programmes opening up new horizons for mobility and provide real opportunities for both women and men to pursue a career and have a family.
Last Friday I met representatives from the European Women's lobby and a delegation from the Joint Committee on Equal Opportunities from our institution, who put to me a series of specific proposals for furthering the building of a society with greater solidarity and a more efficient administration.
I undertook to work within the framework of my office to achieve those objectives. I know I can count on your firm support for that.
(Applause)
Mr President, I am naturally very grateful to you for having made this surprising statement and for the fact that you are so well informed about the dossiers that are currently with the Committee on Women's Rights.
I would like with you to refer back to this 8 March in the knowledge that the statement that would be issued by the Commission and its president presented difficulties in connection with the important dossiers that we have put on the agenda this morning.
As the chairman of the Committee on Women's Rights I defer to that, and I am grateful to you for having begun this sitting by referring back to 8 March.
You mentioned a number of things which are still causing a host of serious problems, such as the preparation of the intergovernmental conference and the proposals laid before it by the Irish presidency.
I do not want to disappoint you, of course, but in the area of women's rights the Dutch presidency is also having a go at sifting out a number of these issues.
The anti-discrimination paragraph is one case in point.
Mr President, I am particularly pleased that you are prepared to place your hand on your heart and to concede that in the European institutions, including the European Parliament, there are far too few women in senior posts. And because you have stated that so clearly I assume that over the next two and a half years you will, among other things, take the opportunity to make drastic changes to Parliament's recruitment and promotion procedures, in order that women, too, can be afforded the chance to make a career.
I hope that in April, in the presence, then, of the Commission and Mr Santer, we shall be able to speak together about women's issues on a broader front.
I thank you for this statement.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on the basis of Rule 19 (4) of our Rules of Procedure, I should like to offer you my thanks and my congratulations.
Everyone in this Chamber knows that Parliament aroused the anger of the French authorities by the resolution it adopted on 20 February against racism and xenophobia.
It was my group, the European Radical Alliance, which tabled the motion for that resolution, and we wish to restate that it was legally defensible and that the preamble to the Treaty requires the Union and its Member States to respect the fundamental rights as guaranteed and defined by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.
Legally, then, the resolution was defensible, and as one of the draftsmen of the motion I should like to make it clear that it was also politically defensible, since we were calling for the withdrawal of a French draft law and, especially, of a provision introducing, as it were, compulsory informing by requiring people to report the departure of foreigners to whom they had provided accommodation.
Politically, then, we were in the right, as proved by the fact that the French Government eventually withdrew the most contentious provision.
So instead of calling attention to some alleged failing of the European Parliament, the French Government should have thanked us, among others, for having helped it to avoid a political error.
In fact, however, the French Government compounded its error with a more serious one when the French Minister for Foreign Affairs saw fit to say that our Parliament was unworthy of the name of Parliament.
I shall not comment on that.
As I said at the outset, I simply wanted to thank you, Mr President, and congratulate you for having firmly stated Parliament's position and, at the same time, put the incident into perspective.
After all, the incident in itself was nothing.
What was important was what the incident revealed: the fact that the French Government, having uttered no condemnation at all of the racist declarations made, has identified as its enemy - the European Parliament!
This shows a curious notion of the balance between the institutions, and tells us what France's position will be in the future conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference.
For our part, we wish to state in this House that we shall continue to take action every time a challenge is mounted, within a Member State or outside the Union, to the values of European humanism - the values on which our efforts at European integration are based.
(Applause from the ARE Group)
Mr Hory, I thank you personally, but I think I must allow those who have asked to speak to do so.
Mr President, last Thursday at the Conference of Presidents every group leader present at that meeting offered to you their personal congratulations, and those of their group, for the very dignified stand that you took in Paris in support of this Parliament and its resolutions.
Mr Hory has just made a long political statement.
I just want the House to know that we had all expressed our congratulations to you for the dignified position you took.
(Applause )
Mr President, on behalf of our group I have written to you to congratulate you on your stance, and I must point out that all of our French Members were at your reception in Paris and that they have joined with the rest of our group in agreeing with your stance.
I confirm that to you now.
This subject was also discussed, I believe, in the Conference of Presidents. When we discuss urgent subjects in this House, we must ensure that we do so in a representative manner.
You have emphasized - and I will say it myself - that the topical and urgent debate must occupy a more favourable position in the part-session.
I can only endorse your words, Mr President, and say, on behalf of my group, that we are in full agreement with you on that.
Mr President, I too should like to express my thanks, and my belief that you were right to react immediately because the whole incident really was quite incredible.
The European Parliament conducted an intensive debate on racism and xenophobia, and then did something that sets it apart from a good many governments: instead of confining itself to formal declarations, it actually expressed unwelcome criticism, directed not just at the Debré draft law but also at the plans announced by the German Interior Minister, Mr Kanther, to introduce visas for children.
So the European Parliament did what it is supposed to do - a political act.
The reaction of the French Government in saying first that questions of human rights and fundamental freedoms within the European Union are a matter of internal affairs, as Mr Chirac and Mr Hervé de Charette stated, and secondly that the European Parliament has shown that it is superfluous, is completely unacceptable to us.
My view is that by adopting this resolution the European Parliament showed that it is anything but superfluous - that it is capable of a political reaction and of doing more than just coining formal phrases.
I would like to ask you, too, whether there has been any reaction from the French Government.
Has there been any kind of apology for what the Foreign Minister said? I think an apology is the least that could have been expected.
Has Mr Chirac commented at all on his remarks? If you have heard of any such developments, I hope you will let us know.
Thank you very much, Mr Roth.
I regard the matter as closed and I therefore naturally did not think that any kind of public apology was needed, especially since Mr Hervé de Charette, when addressing the French Assemblée Nationale, expressed his respect for the European Parliament.
What is more, I shall very probably be meeting Mr de Charette in Rome within the next few weeks to deal, of course, with the most important topics which are of interest to this Parliament and to the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, I refer to the Minutes of 20 February.
I have noted an omission in the verbatim report in connection with the resolution on the human rights meeting in Geneva.
I refer in particular to what was said concerning China. I urged the delegation from the United States Congress which was present in the gallery at the time to speak up for human rights in China in line with our established values.
I cannot find this in the verbatim report, Mr President, and I hope that a correction can be made.
Mrs van Bladel, we shall check to see whether part of a speech or of a resolution has in fact been omitted from the Minutes.
Thank you very much, Mr Nordmann, but I would remind you that any Group is entitled to raise this question with the Conference of Presidents if it thinks that is what is needed.
In any event, I shall inform the Conference of Presidents of what you said and they will consider it as they think necessary.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I am very pleased to answer your question.
The letter was not sent to the 626 Members, but to those for whom Parliament did not have a fax number.
All Members - and there are many of them - who have provided the administration with their fax number received a fax to the same effect.
Mr President, you mentioned just now the unanimous support of all the groups for the position you adopted during your visit to Paris.
I must ask you to note that this unanimity cannot include the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
You did indeed do what a president of the European Parliament logically must do, and reflected the will of the majority.
Nevertheless, I would remind all those who make ringing declarations on the importance of Parliament's activities that this famous - and umpteenth - resolution on racism and xenophobia was adopted on that memorable Thursday afternoon by 106 votes to 101, and that in actual fact, by expressing its opinion as it does on Thursday afternoons about a more and more varied and less and less carefully considered range of subjects, the European Parliament undermines its own credibility.
What the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Hervé de Charette, said merely echoed what might be thought by any objective observer of the European Parliament who studies the content of its resolutions.
The fact is that Parliament sees fit to express an opinion on any subject at all.
It did so that afternoon, despite the fact that a national parliament, which is the expression of State sovereignty, the incarnation of democratic legitimation, the representative of an entire national population, was debating that issue. It did so although it had no jurisdiction in the matter.
The position expressed, you should know, reflects the point of view of a great many European citizens.
I believe, Mr President, that we should learn another lesson from this incident, as well as the one pointed out by Mr Nordmann, which I endorse. We should ensure that texts that appear on Thursday afternoon's agenda are carefully prepared and concern Parliament's areas of responsibility.
In following the procedure you know about, especially on the occasion of the visit here by the French Head of State, Parliament will have encouraged several countries, including France, to refuse to extend the powers of a Parliament that does not deserve them.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I am not going to comment on the substance of your speech, which I respect as I would any other.
I must, however, call your attention to the fact that there is no provision in our Rules of Procedure authorizing Parliament, or anyone else, to declare texts inadmissible in substance.
It is the political groups that must ensure that these texts are introduced, or voted upon, in a manner consistent with the dignity of Parliament or with the criteria that each group finds appropriate.
Unlike other parliaments, which - legitimately - confine their agendas to items introduced there by governments, our Parliament has a different tradition and the Presidency cannot limit amendments, whatever they may be!
(Applause)
Mr President, I would like first of all to congratulate you on your wonderful statement with regard to the celebration of International Women's Day.
In that context I would like once again to draw the attention of the House to the ongoing plight of Roisín McAliskey, a prisoner held in a British gaol, Holloway Prison; who is held in Category A status; whose status has been reduced slightly in the last number of days; but who is seven months pregnant and does not have full access to proper, 24-hour medical care.
As well as that, there are still no arrangements to ensure the safe delivery of her unborn child.
I ask this House - we pleaded last time and we plead once again - to show its support on humanitarian grounds; not to make any judgement on whether Miss McAliskey is guilty or innocent, but purely on humanitarian grounds to call on the British and German Governments to give her full access to proper medical treatment and to ensure that her child can be born in normal circumstances, without her being shackled to prison officers, and that she will be allowed to keep her child after the birth.
I would point out that the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs is dealing with the matter you mentioned and will be submitting appropriate proposals to the House.
Mr President, I am sure most colleagues will recognize that sitting at your side today we have a new Secretary-General of this Parliament.
Not only is it right to welcome him, but it is also right to inform him that most of us recognize the fact that his is a very important and influential position.
Whilst welcoming him we recognize the fact that this Parliament has been extremely well served by its Secretaries-General in the past.
I am sure that we all wish him good luck and success in his new position.
(Applause )
Thank you very much for that, Mr Provan.
Mr President, I should like to speak on Item 16 of the Minutes, ' Genetically modified maize' .
During our last part-session, the various oral questions relating to this subject were put back to a later date, specifically the present part-session, according to the Members present, at any event.
I note that the Minutes give no reason for the postponement of that report.
The Members felt that the Commission was not represented by a sufficiently knowledgeable person - neither Mr Fischler nor Mrs Bonino nor Mrs Bjerregaard saw fit to attend that debate, and yet it was a very important debate on an essential question, a question that may become more serious in future years and, who knows, give rise at some stage to a repetition of the mad cow crisis.
I therefore believe it to be essential, Mr President, for the Minutes to show why a postponement of this debate was requested.
That is not necessary in principle, Mr Berthu, but we will check.
The reason will appear in the verbatim report, in the speeches made by the various honourable Members, which will clearly show the reasoning of those who proposed the postponement.
(The Minutes were approved)
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed; the following amendments have been proposed or incorporated:
Monday: I suggest, in agreement with the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, that we reverse the order of the two reports by that Committee. That is that we deal first with Mr Van Velzen's report on the Green Paper on Living and Working in the Information Society then move on to Mrs Waddington's report on the Commission's White Paper on Education and Training - Teaching and Learning.
Are there any comments?
(The order of business was adopted)
Tuesday: The Green Group has asked for the joint debate on the six oral questions to the Commission on geneticallymodified maize, which was postponed last Friday, 21 February, to be added to the agenda either for Tuesday evening or for Thursday afternoon.
I would mention that the Conference of Presidents has decided to include this topic in the April part-session.
I call upon Mrs Breyer.
Mr President, we asked for this to be postponed last time because the Commissioner with overall responsibility, Mrs Bjerregaard, thought it unnecessary to be present for this important item on the agenda.
As you know, there has been a great deal of controversy about the approval of genetically modified maize, and some alarming studies have now been produced which confirm that there is a grave health and ecological risk.
Because of that risk, both Austria and Luxembourg adopted regulations in mid-February to ban imports.
We were unanimous that it cannot be right for just two countries to protect their populations; we must debate the matter here in Parliament and clarify our position on these disregarded studies and the authorization of this product. Even within the Commission there were those who asserted that this decision was taken on the basis of an economic debate, on the basis of the interests of the genetic engineering industry and the USA, and that the question of health risks had been pushed into the background.
So we regard it as a matter of urgency for this debate to be held before the end of this month.
Why? If those products come onto the market now, there could be problems if we conclude, in April for example, that the granting of the application to market them was inadmissible, because by that time the products would already be on the market in every European Member State except Luxembourg and Austria.
So I would ask you once again to arrange for a roll-call vote on our request, so that this extremely important matter can be debated during the present week.
Mr President, I do not know whether the interpretation into Greek conveyed exactly what you said, but I have noted a particular point several times because it creates confusion: it is not the Conference of Presidents that makes decisions.
The Conference of Presidents can only propose a decision to Parliament.
There is a difference.
It is Parliament that decides.
I should like to ask that the point should be noted, to avoid misunderstandings.
I put the green Group's request to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Wednesday and Thursday (unaltered)
Friday:
Mr President, I notice there is an item on the agenda relating to the organization of the common market in rice.
To my knowledge, although it was in the working document, it was never discussed in the Conference of Presidents.
Frankly, my group is not in favour of placing it on the agenda for this week.
We would prefer that it was deferred until April.
So I would ask you to put that to the House, because I think other group leaders will confirm that there was no agreement on the matter in the Conference of Presidents.
The other item concerns Wednesday evening.
You will see that one of the last reports on Wednesday evening is the Linkohr report.
This is a second reading.
If it is not taken on Wednesday - as you know, things can sometimes crop up - can we be assured that it will be dealt with first thing on Thursday morning, since it must be voted on by lunchtime Thursday?
As regards the last point, Mrs Green, it is no problem to continue the debate on Thursday morning if it does not end on Wednesday.
That does not entail any change in the agenda.
As for the first point you mentioned, it is no trouble to put to the House the request you are making on behalf of your Group to delete from Friday's agenda Item 42, oral question to the Commission on the serious crisis in the rice sector tabled by Mr Fraga Estévez, Mr Colino Salamanca, Mr Fantuzzi and others on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr President, I want to say that we agree to the request made by the spokesman for the Socialist Group.
I have consulted some of those who signed the oral question and they fully agree that it should be debated in the April part-session.
I put to the vote the Socialist Group's request to postpone until April the debate on the oral question on the crisis in the rice sector.
(Parliament agreed to the request)
Mr President, I should like to take advantage of this unanimous vote, which has altered Friday's agenda in a sensible way, to ask you and the Conference of Presidents to review a situation that has remained unchanged at the last three or four part-sessions, whereby agricultural topics have regularly been taken on Fridays, often as the last item on the agenda.
Apparently, that decision was a deliberate one, so as to encourage better attendance on Fridays.
Given that this objective does not seem to me to have been achieved, I would ask you - and I believe that I am speaking for many of my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture - to restore agricultural items to more popular days of the week, in order to ensure that such items receive the attention they deserve, starting with this serious problem of rice.
Thank you very much, Mr Santini.
I think that all the members of the Conference of Presidents are here, will have got your message and will take acount of it as they deem appropriate in their decision making.
(Parliament approved the Agenda thus amended)
Future of Schengen
The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs van Lancker (A4-0014/97) on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on the functioning and future of Schengen.
Mr President, Mr Fischbach, ladies and gentlemen, in the remarks she has just made Mrs van Lancker used a key sentence regarding the debate on freedom of movement in the European Union when she said that this debate is taking place more and more on the basis of renationalization, a dangerous renationalization to my mind because - as was also made clear in Mrs van Lancker's report - a debate is being triggered in the Union which resembles two trains approaching each other on the same track.
We do have in the European Union, on the basis of Community law, free movement of services, capital and goods; but we do not have freedom of movement for individuals.
On the one hand we seem to have created a Union in which we can move cows around wherever we like and in whatever condition we like, without being checked, where we can transfer money - as much as we like, for as long as we like and as often as we like and where we like; where we can transport any kind of service - take the example of the building industry - often outside the law, without being prosecuted for it. And yet a decent citizen, a Member of the European Parliament, say, wanting to travel from Germany through Luxembourg to France to come and do his job here, has to be checked every time because the French Government says it must watch its borders to ensure that no Dutch drug dealers get into the country - and that is what happens not just to the honest citizens who sit in the European Parliament but to many other people too.
There is no escaping the impression that we have a European Union in which we can do anything we like with money, with goods and with services, but in which citizens are denied freedom of movement on the flimsiest of pretexts. Most of those pretexts are something to do with the fact that governments - and I am prepared to say so quite provocatively - are no longer able to get to grips with their problems of internal policy, whether economic or social, so that they arrange their border controls as a theatrical production in order to calm their own populations, saying in effect, ' Everything's under control on the crime front provided we have enough policemen at the borders.'
Just how dim do the governments of the Member States really think their own citizens are? Do they really think that by disregarding Schengen they will persuade drug dealers to turn up at the border between Luxembourg and Belgium with their suitcases and wait politely to be asked if they have anything to declare?
Mrs van Lancker also mentions, rightly, the fact that the Schengen Information System is to be abused and employed as a defence mechanism against illegal immigration, which cannot be brought under control, incidentally, because there are still not enough people in the European Union who say frankly that we are a continent of immigration and that is why we have rules on immigration.
Unless we ensure that the Schengen framework applies throughout the Community, then we shall experience something - I address this observation to you, Mr Fischbach, as Chairman of the Schengen Executive Committee - which the Council might like but we in Parliament would not - a situation where freedom of movement in the European Union is implemented not on the basis of Community law, which is where it should be implemented, but on the basis of inter-governmental co-operation outside Community law, at the level of bilateral treaties, the end result of which would be that the Council would say, yes, we do have freedom of movement, but we don't have it where it legally belongs.
That is why it is indispensable for this Parliament to say today that we want freedom of movement.
We have a very favourable attitude to the constructive elements of the Schengen Agreements, but we want a guarantee that these arrangements will have a basis in Community law with parliamentary control.
When, on 14 June 1985, the founding countries of the Schengen area signed the agreement that bears that name, they certainly had in mind Montesquieu's words 'political freedom for a citizen is that peace of mind that comes from the opinion each man has of his own safety' .
When this agreement came into force in March 1995, that same philosophy was supposed to prevail.
But certain countries soon found a few imperfections in the system.
The Netherlands referred to their difficulties connected with passenger control at Amsterdam-Schipol airport.
France, in turn, invoked the safeguard clause contained in Article 2 of the Convention, partly because of the failings of the Schengen Information System and the slackness regarding migration flows, and partly because of the weakness or even recklessness of certain Member States with regard to drugs.
Today, these problems remain, though in diluted form.
On reading Mrs van Lancker's report you could sometimes get the impression - without too much exaggeration - that the Schengen area amounts to a prison universe, that personal freedoms are under threat and that the right to freedom of movement which is a foundation of our Union no longer exists.
That impression is incorrect.
On the contrary, in order to breathe life into the spirit of Schengen, we need to reinforce it with essential accompanying measures, in order to construct a Europe where security and freedom go hand in hand.
We must not forget that the Schengen Agreements, imperfect though they are, have enabled the citizens of the signatory States to understand the true meaning of the freedom of movement required by the Treaty, still a dead letter but living in the spirit of Schengen.
That is why my group will be unable to vote for this report, without certain amendments, although I do share some of the rapporteur's concerns.
I am thinking of the need for better co-ordination between the various bodies that will determine the success of Schengen - Europol, SIRENE, SIS - and the conformity of the handling of the databases with the conventions of the Council of Europe.
Mr President, first I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the report she is presenting here today. The report makes a clear, thorough and critical analysis of the functioning and future of Schengen.
The freedom of movement of persons is one of the four freedoms to be achieved within the framework of the Treaty on European Union. The Schengen Agreements are dated and should be replaced by Community legislation, so that judicial control is in the hands of the Court of Justice of the European Communities and democratic control is in the hands of the European Parliament.
As regards the functioning of the Schengen Agreements, we regret the emergence of new types of discrimination: on the one hand between citizens of the Union on grounds of nationality and on the other with regard to the citizens of third countries legally resident in the Union.
The implementation of the Agreements also warrants some criticism, since it has led to the adoption of a series of police and legal measures based on a tightening of security and to an immigration limitation and law enforcement policy.
The abolition of frontiers should not lead to systematic controls in frontier areas or to the hermetic sealing of the external borders.
Finally I should like to voice my concern about the fact that the Schengen information system is used chiefly as a data bank for undesirable aliens, including foreigners with no previous criminal record or who are without means.
In short, we must continue to move towards the freedom of movement of persons, turning the Schengen Agreements into a Community policy, avoiding any kind of discrimination against citizens of non-member countries legally resident in the Union and without turning Europe into a veritable fortress.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the governments involved like to see Schengen as a success story.
Last year we were proudly presented with a first annual report - the only source, incidentally, from which the public can find out anything at all about the way Schengen operates!
That report was mainly concerned with such things as the hit rates for the Schengen Information System with its 3.7 million data sets.
It was concerned with the high density of controls at the outer borders and with the so-called compensatory measures at the internal borders.
It was - as Mrs van Lancker has already said - really a report on co-ordinated defence against refugees.
The opening of the internal borders was the sugar coating designed to conceal the taste of the new barriers at the external borders of Schengen, and to legitimize the fact that new Schengen frontiers have been created within the European Union.
This opening of the borders is really only a pretty fiction, if that, because what has really happened is that the borders have been shifted inwards a bit.
Perhaps we are not checked as often as we used to be, but try asking black people or people of Asian origin.
Their very appearance makes them suspect!
The undemocratic way in which Schengen came about and the undemocratic way in which it operates have often been criticized in this Parliament.
Despite that, an unchanged co-operation agreement has now been concluded with Norway and Iceland, obliging those countries to accept Schengen without any ifs or buts, but depriving them of any right of co-determination or right of representation on the Executive Committee.
This is a two-class system, and as far as I am concerned it is also the model of a European heartland which I really do not want!
What is now being proposed for the Intergovernmental Conference, which is that Schengen should be adopted, is not at all the communitization that we are demanding - in other words the merging of Schengen with the European Union.
Instead, Schengen is to be taken over unchanged in its existing undemocratic form.
We reject that vigorously, because it will also undermine the guarantee of the continuance of the Treaty.
I hope this principle will be maintained.
Then we will enthusiastically support Mrs van Lancker's report!
Mr President, I can't help feeling that this report is just another way of asking a familiar question: what kind of Europe do we want? Do we want a Europe of governments or a Europe of citizens?
Our governments tell us they want to bring Europe closer to the citizen. In fact, though, it's the same old story - all show and no substance.
European citizenship is still an objective, not a reality.
The free movement of persons is a constitutional basis for that citizenship, pursuant to Article 7a of the Treaty.
Now that ten million German marks or pounds sterling can cross the continent in a few milliseconds, the obstacles placed in the way of the free movement of human beings are becoming completely intolerable.
With Schengen, we're getting bogged down in intergovernmental matters, we are ratifying an inequality, a form of discrimination as between the citizens of the Union and, even more so, towards citizens of third countries.
There is a lack of democratic control, a lack of legal control, a lack of solidarity and a surfeit of hypocrisy.
Because, let's not beat about the bush, my own country signed - that's hardly the word, it proclaimed - Schengen and immediately withdrew from it, because of a bomb in Paris or because it disagreed with the policy of one of the Union governments on marijuana.
Where this subject is concerned, it will probably be up to the IGC to find a solution, given that the structure is a temporary one which should be integrated into the third pillar, which should be communitized.
Not only that, but the Council's unanimity rule should be revoked on any question relating to the movement of persons, so that Europe can finally become a Europe of Europeans.
Mr President, Mrs van Lancker's report on the functioning and future of Schengen is the result of an own-initiative manoeuvre by the European Parliament in a field in which it has no powers.
First, because the Schengen Agreements are external to the Union.
Secondly because in so far as it might concern the third pillar, this House has not received a request for consultation from the Council presidency, pursuant to Article K6.
So what we have here is one of those cases of interference by the European Parliament which, if anything, are harmful to its image, the more so in that the arguments put forward in the motion for a resolution seem to us to be very far removed from the feelings of the public and of most of the governments involved in the Intergovernmental Conference.
Let's take one example.
One might legitimately wonder whether the Schengen Agreements, which have often been described as an experimental laboratory, can be extended to the whole of the Union.
But the way to answer that question is to start by learning the lessons of the experiment.
Otherwise, what would be the purpose of the laboratory? Well, there are at least two inescapable lessons which the European Parliament is failing to learn, though fortunately the governments of the Member States seem rather more aware of them.
First, it is totally inappropriate to suggest that all personal checks at the internal borders should be abolished - incidentally, we deplore the fact that the European Parliament sees fit, once again, to condemn the French Government for its anti-drug controls at the Belgium-Luxembourg border although those controls are perfectly legitimate and perfectly lawful.
Secondly, the list of accompanying measures provided for by the Schengen Agreements should be reinforced, not truncated as the European Parliament suggests and as Mrs van Lancker has once again demanded, especially when criticizing the data on undesirable aliens contained in the SIS, the Schengen Information System.
These accompanying measures should be reinforced, Mr President.
For example, we should ensure the efficient functioning of the system for declarations of entry into the territory, which applies to nationals of third countries when they cross an internal border of the Schengen area.
Turning a blind eye to such essential security problems is no way for the European Parliament to gain the sympathy of the citizens of the Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after all this criticism I am going to take up the cudgels on behalf of the Schengen Agreements.
The Schengen process is functioning in Europe, which is more than you can say of most institutions.
It has brought specific advances in freedom of movement, meaning that the citizen has acquired the opportunity to experience Europe.
Many citizens can now travel straight through from Finland to Portugal without stopping, even though there may well still be room for improvement in certain details.
So this is a positive result, and, incidentally, one that makes it clear that something can be achieved through flexibility in Europe by allowing some to move forward rather more rapidly than might have been the original common intention.
That is a clearly positive signal for Europe.
When Mr Schulz complains that any beef steer can wander across borders unobserved and unchecked, but he himself has to show his passport, the perfectly reasonable explanation for that is that Mr Schulz is clearly not a beef steer and so must expect to be checked from time to time.
Apart from the abolition of the internal borders, Schengen also of course includes improving the security of the external borders - and not just as a defence against crime, especially organized crime, but also as a defence against a second problem which weighs heavy on many European States, the problem of illegal immigration.
Here again, Schengen has brought progress.
The Schengen Information System gives us, for the first time, efficient co-operation between police forces, and it may become apparent that such co-operation has more to offer than checks at the internal borders.
Overall, therefore, we are in favour of this process and we want to see it continue.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Van Lancker on her excellent work.
It has clearly raised a number of points which today's debate might help to clarify.
I think we must start by acknowledging one thing: with every day that passes, we are dealing a mortal blow to the European people's confidence in Europe, since we promised them that these obsolete and ridiculous internal borders would be abolished as from 1 January 1993.
I believe that although Schengen is a step forward, it is not enough in itself, given that it results from an intergovernmental agreement and not an initiative from the European institutions.
Schengen must obviously be extended to the whole Community.
I do wonder, however, whether behind all the hairsplitting and quibbling by colleagues on all sides over the various accompanying measures - which is in fact a pretext for not pressing ahead with the idea of applying Schengen throughout the Community - there is not ultimately a lack of political will to proceed with European integration, particularly as regards the third pillar.
It is crucial above all, in my opinion, to abide by the principle laid down in the European treaties and in the Schengen Agreement: Europe as an area of freedom and democracy, under the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice and with democratic control over the processing of data.
That is why we are calling for guarantees for our citizens - it is clear that the tightening of security must not be used as a pretext to restrict their freedom!
Mr President, I find the report submitted by Mrs Van Lancker to be very interesting in every respect, especially as she ventures to highlight the serious problems arising from the Schengen Agreement.
I am for example referring to the lack of democratic parliamentary control over the Schengen Agreement and the lack of openness in Schengen - important sections concerning the application of the agreement are still, as emphasised under item 11, classified as secret.
Furthermore, Mrs Van Lancker points out that the Schengen Agreement is part of the more restrictive and brutal refugee policy currently being developed in Western Europe and that Schengen is above all about control; if one reads the actual text of the agreement, several of the paragraphs are not about freedom or flexibility but deal with various methods of control.
For us in the Nordic countries who are opposed to membership of the Schengen Agreement this is an important argument.
It is good that they have been acknowledged by Parliament as we are often accused of scaremongering when highlighting these facts.
The Scandinavian countries are currently in negotiations on joining the Schengen Agreement.
However, for the last ten years, the Nordic countries have had a Passport Union in operation which is would be replaced by the Schengen Agreement.
The report emphasises how well this Union operates.
For Scandinavians it represents a passport freedom which cannot be compared to that of the Schengen Agreement as it is combined with the right to control domestic borders, a situation which is entirely incompatible with the Schengen Agreement.
Today it is proposed to abolish the Nordic Passport Union and replace it with the less workable Schengen Agreement.
In the long run, this would jeopardise the passport union between the Scandinavian countries since Iceland and Norway, not being members of the EU, could be excluded at any time from the Schengen Agreement should they not agree to particular decisions.
In addition, should the Schengen Agreement become supranational, a constitutional amendment would be required in Norway, for which at the present time there is not a sufficient majority.
In addition, we must consider the probable outcome of referendums on the results arising from the Intergovernmental Conference, which I believe will produce a negative response from the Scandinavian countries.
Accordingly, I am of the opinion that the negotiated agreement should be put on hold and not be put into effect while the negotiations of the Intergovernmental Conference are in progress.
Mr President, the attempt to arrive at a Union policy and at totally free movement of persons by using Schengen as a testing-ground is something that I have never been able to support.
It has always struck me as a utopian concept prompted by an optimistic view of humanity.
Certainly, I can see the additional benefit of an intergovernmental Schengen with unanimity in decision-making as a prerequisite.
In such a framework one could get to grips with the 'free movement of persons' experiment in a credible manner and work further towards police cooperation in Europe.
I do not share the view expressed by Mrs Van Lancker in her report that Schengen must quickly be communitized.
Nor do I agree with the manner in which she lambasts the functioning of Schengen.
The report is rather critical of the flanking measures which, as far as the Council is concerned, are prerequisites for the free movement of persons within the Schengen framework.
I am very pleased that the Schengen testing ground for policy, as I have called it, has induced the realization that these measures are essential.
Because what sense is there in having free movement of persons if the security of those persons cannot be guaranteed as a consequence?
To imagine that a huge free internal area can be established without there being any need to worry about the consequences smacks of naivety.
Obviously, the political goal has become so revered that the risks, the risk of diminished security, for instance, are being accepted into the bargain.
The report of the Committee of Inquiry into transit fraud in the movement of goods that is to be debated this week is a good case in point in my view. You throw open the borders but fail to take adequate account of the consequences and, because of that, you do not put in place the measures that are need to forestall the problems.
I can give provisional support to an inter-governmental Schengen that will work towards the free movement of persons and a high level of security for the citizens in a realistic manner.
However, the Van Lancker report is an entirely different kettle of fish, and the future vision of Schengen that it presents is something that I cannot possibly support.
I do not think I am a cow either, as Mr Nassauer pointed out about my colleague, Mr Schulz.
I think it is something which unites us not only with the socialists but with everyone in this hemicycle, but that is not why I am pleased not to be checked. However, when I see labels entitling my luggage to travel through airports, whilst I on the other hand, have to show my identity card or my passport, I do feel a little perplexed.
Evidently, as has been mentioned here, Schengen is a step forward towards freedom of movement and we are not going to deny that.
But it is such a cautious step and above all so unclear that some of us are concerned about it.
We have moved forward it is true, but how? With exclusively intergovernmental agreements which it is difficult for the European Parliament to check and for the national parliaments to control in view of their extra-national nature.
We are anxious to know whether we are to continue like this or, as has been said so often, whether we are to have a Community legal basis which will help us to take those matters forward.
The report therefore seems to me to be opportune and I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the content.
Flexibility has been mentioned here.
Flexibility to move forward.
We might discuss that, but in principle we should be in agreement.
So to move forward, but how? I think we need to move towards greater democracy, more rights, more freedoms and, above all, without agreements between the Governments placing too much emphasis on certain problems, for example immigration.
I know it is a problem, but we cannot work simply by stressing only the security or frontiers aspect to press for 'solutions' which are to say the least not very transparent.
Yes to doing the right thing by the citizens; yes to fulfilling the promise we made - and I include myself in the 'we' as one of those with an interest in seeing this European Union progress; yes to the promise we made for a free and open European Union in which we can travel; yes to being able to call upon the Court of Justice of the Union to uphold that; yes to as flexible a Union as is desired, but one which is moving forward, not towards a scenario in which - as seems to be the case in the CIS - we should have little to offer with the States nevertheless rapidly reaching agreement saying 'don't worry, at least as regards security, your security, we shall reach agreement; yes indeed, just don't tell us how' , but rather towards a scenario of greater democracy.
Mr President, mobility is exactly what the Schengen Agreement is about, something which ought to be of general interest to the majority in this assembly.
People expect to be able to move freely across internal national borders.
But you cannot ask citizens to accept the resulting inadequate safety and security measures or an increased inflow of narcotics from a neighbouring country.
Mobility should benefit the people not criminals.
That is why compensatory measures are required.
Where would we be today in the development of mobility without the driving force that Schengen constitutes? The Scandinavian countries should participate, as suggested, preserving the Nordic Passport Union.
As far as Norway and Iceland are concerned, practical solutions must also be found in the future.
Following the difficulties at the committee stage, Rapporteur Van Lancker has shown a willingness to negotiate.
However, misunderstandings are not unusual in a matter like this, for example the purpose of Schengen being to prevent general immigration when in fact it is illegal immigration which is being curbed, something which most parties would otherwise approve.
It is in people's interest to push for mobility and this involves a number of measures and actions.
The revisions of the treaty now also make it possible to incorporate gradually the terms of the Schengen Agreement as the Commission has already constructively proposed.
This would also increase the level of control for the people.
If Parliament decides to oppose the security measures, we risk becoming a stumbling block to the idea of mobility, an impossible position for Parliament.
Parliament should adopt an unambiguously positive attitude towards the Schengen collaboration.
Mr President, Mr Fischbach, making Europe into one large single market with no internal borders, simply from the commercial and economic standpoint, is a grave error.
We have seen that in the Renault Vilvoorde affair, where the lack of European social rules became apparent to anyone.
The same thing is happening with internal security.
To open the borders for free movement without giving any thought to the essential corollary of public safety is scandalous.
How do you expect our citizens to support the European plan if they form the impression that Europe is not doing enough to protect them against crime?
It was to fill this gap and compensate for the shortcomings of the Community institutions that the intergovernmental structure of Schengen was created.
And Schengen has thus become a laboratory where it is possible to test, on the ground, those actions and structures which should subsequently be integrated into the framework of the Treaty on European Union, if only to institute that Parliamentary control and those legal guarantees which, for the present, are lacking.
So I see Schengen as a positive initiative, which is certainly not being used to bully the citizen, as the van Lancker report implies, but is in fact offering him a guarantee of his personal safety.
Police activity against criminals, thieves, the Mafia, drug pushers, illegal immigrants, must not be reduced - it must be increased and integrated into the European structures.
Because only then, Mr President, Mr Fischbach, will we gain the support of the peoples of Europe.
Mr President, for me, Schengen is an instrument which effectively combines security with freedom of movement.
Anyone who only wants freedom of movement has obviously failed to understand Schengen as an instrument of security for the citizens of Europe.
Anyone who says no to police checks, no to the inclusion of undesirables in the Schengen Information System or no to the ruling on third countries has not understood Schengen.
Similarly, anyone who dismisses Schengen as an instrument to counter immigration has also failed to understand it.
What we need is a security instrument, and that is what Schengen offers.
Anyone who assembles an antiSchengen package in the form of a motion like this or a report like this must ultimately expect these proposals - which are directed against public security - to be rejected.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted with today's report on the functioning and future of the Schengen Agreements, and I wish in particular to compliment the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and its rapporteur, Mrs Van Lancker.
This draft report highlights the special nature of the Schengen Agreements, which on the one hand are a contribution to achieving the goal of abolishing checks on persons at our internal frontiers - in accordance with Article 7a of the Treaty - but on the other are taking shape outside the context of the European Union.
Attention is drawn to this point both in your assessment of the present functioning of the Schengen Agreements and your comments on the future.
The Commission's position on Schengen is well known.
From the outset, the Commission has looked favourably on the Schengen initiative as a testing ground for, or a forerunner of, the European Union, albeit designed to be replaced gradually by Union instruments.
In this context, at my initiative, the Commission put forward three legislative proposals in July 1995 aimed at achieving this objective throughout the Union.
In view of the Union's slow progress towards this goal, and given that even if all the proposals were to be adopted quickly, there would still be no guarantee of their immediate implementation, the importance of Schengen has not only been confirmed, but has in fact increased.
Indeed, Schengen and its extension are the only means of allowing our citizens to benefit, as of now, from the right to freedom of movement and security.
However, this does not mean that Schengen is the best of all possible solutions or that it is perfect in all respects.
The report brings to light various shortcomings.
I share many of your concerns, first and foremost as regards the lack of transparency. But I do not share all your concerns, as I shall make clear in a moment.
On the subject of transparency, I can tell you that, as the Commission's representative on the Schengen Executive Committee, I insisted before the committee that the public should be given more information on Schengen.
As a result of what I said, the Executive Committee decided to send the European Parliament the first annual report on the implementation of the Schengen Agreements.
Personally, I attach the greatest importance to providing our citizens with information on their rights, and to the fact that they will not lend their support to the building of Europe until we present them with a single market which allows ample freedom of movement for goods, services and capital, but also for our citizens themselves. This, as has been pointed out, is still inadequate.
It is vital to inform our citizens, as proved by the recent 'Citizens of Europe' information campaign carried out at Community level.
I believe that a similar initiative to inform our citizens should be undertaken on Schengen, for example to tell citizens of third countries who are resident in the Schengen states what rights the Agreements give them, in particular the right to travel - carrying their residence permits and under certain conditions - without the need for a visa.
The second major concern highlighted in your report, and one which I share, relates to democratic and judicial control over Schengen.
Schengen is not entirely outside democratic and judicial control, given the role played by the national parliaments and the courts of the Member States concerned.
It would seem logical, however, since Schengen is one means of ensuring the entry into force of Article 7a, for the European institutions - especially the European Parliament and the Court of Justice - to be able to operate in this field.
Let us now move on from these considerations concerning the institutional inadequacies of Schengen to your views on the future of Schengen, which I broadly share.
Firstly, the abolishing of internal border checks on persons is an objective of the Union, and should therefore preferably be achieved by means of the Union's decision-making procedures and legal instruments, which are gradually to replace those of Schengen.
We must therefore continue our efforts to gain approval for the proposals we have presented to the Council on this subject.
As regards the second priority for the future which is singled out in your report, only if this approach proved unproductive should an alternative solution be considered, namely the integration of Schengen into the Treaty on European Union.
Here too, I share your views.
It would be acceptable to integrate Schengen into the Treaty on European Union only if it contributed added value in institutional terms.
This means that the integration of the Schengen acts into the Treaty would have to take place alongside the granting of competences to the European Union institutions.
Mr President, Mr Nassauer has just been kind enough to refer to me.
I should like to repeat once again what he said.
I had mentioned the fact that cattle can travel unsupervised in the European Union, while I have to produce my passport.
Mr Nassauer saw fit to observe that all this means is that the border guards take note of the fact that I am not a beef steer!
My thanks for the compliment.
At the same time, Mr Nassauer pointed out that he is apparently one of those who can travel unchecked from Finland to Portugal.
If I have to show my passport because I am not a beef steer, I should like to know what the border guards think Mr Nassauer is to excuse him from showing his passport!
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
The information society
The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Wim van Velzen (A4-0045/97), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission's Green Paper on Living and Working in the Information Society: People First (COM(96)0389 - C4-0522/96).
Mr President, the great European projects always have the same failing in that the social dimension seems constantly to lag behind.
Take European integration, the internal market, EMU or, now, the information society: the social issues always come low on the agenda.
After all the attention given to the electronic highway, the focusing of attention on the social aspects brought a breathing space.
However, my acquaintance with the Commission's Green Paper has given me mixed feelings.
Not so far as the sub-title 'People First' is concerned, given that it suggests lots of things that ought to please me.
To read it, however, is to be disappointed.
The 'people' are considered principally as workers, and the reports by the forum on the information society and the high level group, which could have projected a very full picture, are largely ignored. In actual fact, a large section of the report is taken up just by employment and training, and that is all right as far as it goes.
There is interesting information, for example, about the speed with which knowledge becomes obsolete and about modifications in organization. But in the final analysis I feel that the whole thing is viewed too much as an automatic process and that too few critical questions are asked, for example, about the driving back of the hierarchy and the broadening of organization and the repercussions of that with regard to the decline of the less skilled and less specialized work of which we in Europe have a tremendous need.
I have the impression also that the report suffers from over-optimism.
It 'should' all turn out well if we introduce the information and communications technologies quickly and if we 'liberalize' as much as possible.
In my view that does not make sense, and I can point to a report drawn up by the Commission not so long ago that declared, in fact, that expectations about employment could be positive after the year 2000 when there should be positive growth in new ICT sector jobs.
But in the year 2000 it is obvious that very many traditional jobs will be destroyed, more than a hundred thousand of them.
On account of the optimism, which is quite understandable, insufficient attention is paid, in my opinion, to what I will call the flanking policy.
If you start from the understanding that many more people will be unemployed, and, certainly, there will be the 20 million that are permanently with us, then an instrument that would shorten working time and make more use of the capacity in the tertiary sector would offer an exceptionally interesting strategy. Unfortunately, this is totally ignored in the Green Paper.
Furthermore, absolutely no attention is paid to what I will call the insider-outsider problem.
Discussion about the information society is focused only on people who have work, and thus all those people who are not in work, who are unemployed, or retired or not involved in the employment process for some other reason, are left out in the cold.
The way is therefore opened up to a dual society if nothing else.
I found the blinkered attitude regarding education particularly painful.
When I look at what is said about education I note that attention is paid only to people who themselves want to adapt to the ICTs rather than to something other than that: the application of new technologies to help solve actual problems of society such as unemployment, poverty, environmental pollution and the divisions in our society.
Education is more than vocational training.
Education is also the passport to a culture, the vehicle via which people are introduced to our culture.
That aspect is completely ignored in the Green Paper.
What is therefore necessary as regards the action programme that will be formulated here after the adoption and processing of my report is that in all circumstances it should have balance.
The Commission must avoid placing all the emphasis on employment. Coordination and societal factors must also receive attention.
At the moment the Commission is suffering, in my opinion, from serious over-heating.
Amidst the enormous flood of reports it is almost impossible to see what the Commission's vision is, because in various ways those reports contradict each other.
The action plan for new legislation must be less diffident.
The Commission must not block new developments; it must stop putting a brake on them all the time.
It must grant the time for them.
And there are new areas of weakness to prepare for, in connection with teleworking, the security and health of the population and the protection of employees, in which the Commission can set out the ground rules via directives.
The Commission must shake off its timidity and clearly mark out the rights and the responsibilities of the European authorities, and it must become more active than is now the case in the field of legislation.
Mr President, I am addressing the House on behalf of Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, who is unfortunately unable to attend.
When we look at this document we can only say that it is the opposite of what is desirable - a flexibility derived from principles.
What happens here is that the principles are formulated first - as Mr Van Velzen has just pointed out - and then the opposite course is pursued.
Above a firmament of bright ideas and good intentions we then have a substructure, a basis of practically oriented historical materialism of the cynical variety, and the only thing left to politicians is to push ahead with adapting man to the new technology.
There is a fundamental philosophy here, which says: living means functioning, living means working, living means participation in capitalist competition.
So really only private entrepreneurs are living.
There is also the implied promise that the information society will open up these delights to more people, but I think Wim van Velzen was right here when he put the question another way, from the standpoint of the socially disadvantaged.
I think it needs to be put even more radically - as a question of power and supremacy relationships and the new opportunities for social and political emancipation, a question which is linked to the new technology and the new organizational concepts it has produced.
If we picture the information society, without any advance preparation, impacting on our present hour-glass society, where insecurity and the downward differentiation of wages are affecting more and more groups in society, then we get the effect of a huge new proletariat which has to be entertained by 'tititainment' , as they say nowadays, a petit bourgeoisie of passive users and a new nomenklatura who hold the power and are the masters of the game.
Secondly, in a situation where communication is taking on totally new dimensions as a result of the creation of virtual realities and communities, we have the two sides of one coin, the culture industry, bringing passivity to the masses in the guise of activity, and the secret services, centralizing relevant information and screening information as a way of activating the elite, and this is made worse rather than better by the information society.
We in this House have very often criticized the Commission's piecemeal tactics in the past.
Here we see something of those tactics surviving.
Mr Bangemann has already promised this House that he will do better.
There is to be a framework directive.
The report by the high-level group of experts suggests that the possibility exists of a more comprehensive approach.
The action plan we have been promised will, we hope, mark the end of this onesided procedure.
The role of government, too, requires discussion: is it to function as a residual parameter or is it to become a leader of innovation?
We need greater clarification of what might be fair methods of standardization, whereby it would not be just to those economic groups which exert the most pressure that are able to impose their interests as general standards.
We need to overcome the previous lack of synchronization between technological, entrepreneurial and regulatory development, which time and again has thrown away opportunities for planning, and, if I may just add, ceterum censeo : the overdue socio-ecological reconstruction of Europe's societies must not be put off any longer.
Even the possible transition to the information society cannot offer the slightest excuse for doing so.
Mr President, a European policy which hopes to claim by right that it wants to put man at the centre of the information society must see man in all his many different roles and interests.
It is about man as an employee, and it is also about man as a citizen.
In the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, the Green Paper takes too little account of the latter aspect.
As the draftsman of the opinion, therefore, I must emphasize the following requirements to be met by any future policy for the creation of the information society. The applications of information and communications technologies which make things easier for the citizen in his everyday life, in his dealings with the authorities and in his democratic involvement, must be enhanced, and more must be done to promote them.
Unfortunately, there is too little evidence of this in the documents available to date.
Unfortunately, too, we cannot help noticing that public services, such as legal information services, are lagging behind the private ones, and that entertainment pays better than useful information for the citizen.
A second central requirement of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is that the information society should be provided with a stable legal framework and that a higher degree of legal security should be guaranteed for all participants.
We know that there are a great number of directives and legislative projects in preparation in this area, and we believe it is high time that some of them were implemented as rapidly as possible.
They certainly include the sector of distance working, but, equally certainly, they also include questions of consumer protection, questions of security in payment transactions, copyright and many more.
A third central requirement to be met by the future legal order for the information society is that it should take greater account of the convergence of the information and communications technology media, which will result in the future mediamatic society, to guarantee an integrated policy for all media and services, and - this is particularly to be regarded as an appeal to the Member States - the further discussion of a centralized European telecommunications authority.
Mr President, the period in which we are now living is often described as a 'crisis period' , but it is, rather, a time of radical change in society.
This decade, in contrast to previous decades, is undergoing a process not of evolution but of revolution; everything is speeding up, intensified by the effects of technological progress and resulting in globalization of the economy, with market forces predominating, while the position of people in the West, comfortably settled with their ageing technology, is becoming increasingly precarious.
Capital, information and goods travel at the speed of a computer signal; we have entered the information society and its impact on daily life is growing, bringing with it benefits but certainly also numerous drawbacks, if we are not careful.
The rapporteur, Mr Van Velzen, has done his job well, and I congratulate him all the more warmly because I share his point of view.
It is true that, for the public, employment, work and training are not the only values on which the information society in the European Union should be founded.
Unfortunately, although the Green Paper proposes also to deepen the political, social and civil dialogue, it does not really take account of the everyday lives of ordinary people and the disruption to their way of life which will result from the information society, thus creating new forms of isolation and, probably, a two-speed society as a consequence of disparities between generations, social strata and geographical areas.
The Green Paper lacks a human and personal dimension.
The Union's declared aim of supporting the job transformation process does not take sufficient account of the additional danger of job relocation to third countries as a result of teleworking facilitated by the new information technologies.
Retraining is the main focus of the planned measures to overcome workers' lack of skills.
There is therefore a danger of a gulf appearing between the generations.
Not just the vocational aspects but also the social aspects of redeployment should be considered.
The question should also be raised of the cost to the family budget of using the new information technologies: licence fees, subscriptions, purchases of software, CD roms, diskettes or cassettes.
The problem in fact is that there are disparities between people's purchasing power within the European Union and a consequent danger of creating a two-speed Europe.
From the cultural point of view, the Green Paper does not consider the increasing use of the new technologies in national libraries, museums or photo libraries, and therefore fails to do justice to their beneficial effects on knowledge.
Furthermore, though I have no desire to question the universal use of English in the computer world, this practice could impoverish that language, and if it becomes the common language of too many people it could diminish the use of the languages of the smaller countries.
Finally, caution is required: the information society must not set up barriers between the generations, between those who have the information tools and those who cannot acquire them.
Moreover, we should not underestimate the intellectual danger inherent in assimilating this information
In a word, I should like to call the attention of the Commission and the Council to the need to educate the various users who will be living in a society that their parents will not have been entirely successful in decoding.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Wim van Velzen, as I know what application and discipline he has brought to his work and the serious approach he has taken to the drafting of this helpful report.
In the face of the challenges and social consequences wrought by the 'information society' it would be a good thing if the European Union were to plan ahead in order to set up a joint legislative framework suitable for regulating some of these consequences already mentioned: telework, privacy, linguistic differences, the effect on health, on schools, on teaching, the protection needed for users as such and as consumers, etc.
No-one can say at this stage precisely where the information society will take us because it is a future which is still taking shape, a future which is developing and which is constantly at the experimental stage.
But we must indeed move forward in order to avoid the most negative of the possible consequences: precarious nature of new jobs, greater inequality, new monopolies, uncontrolled networks, risk of cultural uniformity, more financial speculation, etc.
We must at the same time accentuate the positive aspects which the information society will bring, because we have before us a predictable new model for economic growth and as such it should have a positive effect on employment.
As a new model for economic growth it will have risks, different risks, some of which we know and others at which we can now only guess.
The spread of information society technologies will change the structures of production, demand and employment.
Although the technologies of this information society are creating new products and new services, they will produce substantial social changes, but in the medium and perhaps in the short term, new job opportunities might appear and we must be able to seize them.
Our objective should be to ensure that the information society does not accentuate the differences between our regions, but rather acts as an instrument for cohesion; it should not swamp more people in the duality of our societies, but should favour social integration; it should not merely encourage financial speculation, but should encourage productive investment; it should not create new uncontrollable monopolies but should help to develop diversity and pluralism.
This is one of those debates we shall come back to; it began because, as I said, the information society is at the development stage and is bound up with many aspects of our lives - amongst other things with a matter so fundamental as employment.
Mr President, I think that this an important report and one which, given the continuing bias towards technology and economics in the Commission's thinking, is particularly apposite. I say that as a former rapporteur for the committee.
The great importance of information technology for Europe is fully acknowledged and stems from the strongly rising share of the sector in the European economy and from its function as a catalyst for other industries in Europe. That, also, is a fact.
It should be borne in mind, however, that in the information society people must eventually learn to work with the ICTs.
At present most people in Europe are still not equipped to make good use of the ICTs.
Given that situation, the call by Mr Van Velzen and Mr Pex for coordination is quite justified.
I feel that in the future the Commission, in its interaction with the Council, and the European Parliament must do much more to coordinate the various policy areas.
If Europe is to win through in the field of the information and communication technologies it is essential that action be taken to that end.
We must be prepared also to use our structural funds and action programmes for, among other things, new pricing methodologies and new eventualities.
Currently, the stipulated regions are suffering neglect because the structural funds are, above all, badly focused.
But in the future the result will be not only regional neglect.
There will also be neglect of groups. I call for that to be borne in mind in future policy.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Van Velzen, as well as the draftsmen for the other committees, for having presented a report which is constructive and certainly of great interest, despite being somewhat critical in places.
Your analysis and conclusions, Mr Van Velzen, show that the drafting process took a considerable period of time and required a detailed knowledge of the social aspects of the information society.
The Commission's Green Paper, launched at a European colloquium in Dublin at the end of September 1996, generated a debate throughout Europe on the many aspects of the information society, as also identified by the High Level Group and the Information Society Forum.
A clear consensus on the need for further action has emerged from a wide range of institutions, organizations and individuals: national governments, EU institutions, committees, trade unions, businesses, professional associations, health boards and, in particular, both national and European voluntary bodies.
This consensus is centred on the need to do more in a series of key sectors to create a greater awareness of the aspects of the information society: to encourage the development of an approach to learning at all levels of the information society; to boost employment and stimulate job creation; to modernize the institutions related to working life and legislative activity; to develop human resources and overcome the skills gap; to promote social cohesion through empowerment and social integration; and to build on Europe's cultural diversity in creating a European route to the information society.
Reaction to the Green Paper did also reveal concern in some areas, however: the compatibility between flexible work organization and job security; the balance between what one might call the winners and losers on the employment front; the relocation of production to all corners of the earth; regional imbalances in terms of access, availability and adaptation; the risk that equality of opportunity may not be guaranteed for all; and sustainable development for all sectors of employment, work, life and democracy.
The Commission is currently preparing a follow-up communication entitled 'Prioritizing the human dimension: the next steps' .
As you will see, its three main objectives are well balanced: coordinating the process of ensuring that the implications of the information society are properly understood and followed through in the social arena and on the labour market; incorporating an 'information society' dimension into all social strategies and actions, in particular at European level; and identifying specific actions designed to promote the potential of the information society and take account of its relevance to the social policy area in its entirety.
I can assure the House that this communication will be compatible with and complement the other actions undertaken by the Commission in this sector.
On the detailed questions which have been raised, I would merely point out that the Commission is preparing a new communication on vocational training and the information society, which is to address itself to many aspects of lifelong learning.
This communication will complete the Commission's action plan 'Towards a European education initiative: learning in the information society' .
Mention has also been made of teleworking: the Commission will not be presenting a proposal on this topic as such before the end of the year, as requested, since the aspects relating to teleworking are to be tackled in a Green Paper on work organization to be published by the Commission within a matter of weeks.
The purpose of this Green Paper is to stimulate a debate, in the context of the social dialogue, on work organization as it affects teleworking.
As regards one final question of detail - on improving consumer protection - I would say that, to my knowledge, the Directorate-General responsible for consumer policy is in the process of drawing up a communication on ways of enhancing consumer protection.
I should like to end by congratulating the rapporteur once again on his excellent work: it is a most useful contribution to the communication which the Commission will be presenting very shortly to the House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Lifelong learning
The next item is the report (A4-0056/97) by Mrs Waddington, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission's White Paper on Education and Training - Teaching and Learning - Towards the Learning Society (COM(95)0590 - C4-0597/95).
Mr President, the Commission should be congratulated for initiating a debate on the need to create a learning society in the European Union.
The White Paper provides an analysis of the challenges we face in the global economy where new technologies are radically changing the nature of work and requiring a workforce that is highly-skilled, flexible and qualified.
However, the challenges we face in Europe are even greater and we must plan to create a learning society which recognizes the modern and difficult problems and provides opportunities for all our citizens to contribute to economic and social progress.
If these challenges are not met, the alternative is economic and social decline.
In my report attention is given to three additional challenges: firstly, the ageing of the population of Europe; secondly, the danger of the growth in social exclusion, and, thirdly, the relatively low and, in some cases, declining level of public expenditure on education and training.
Analysis of these three factors suggests that more emphasis should be given to lifelong learning rather than simply concentrating on initial education and training, that the problem of educational underachievement and the need for particular groups currently marginalized to gain skills and qualifications must have a higher priority, and that a larger range of actors, including the social partners, must have a role, with Member States and the European Union, in examining the means of creating, sustaining and resourcing the learning society.
I will give a few examples.
Our workforce is ageing: in ten years' time 80 % of the technology we use today will be outdated but 80 % of the workforce will be working on the basis of knowledge at least ten years old.
School failure is increasing: the OECD suggests that 15-20 % of European students leave school with no useful qualifications and the decline in demand for unskilled workers is resulting in a growth in long-term unemployment for those without marketable skills and flexibility.
Yet only 7 % of the unemployed are undergoing training, and this proportion is actually decreasing.
The percentage of total public expenditure on education and training has declined in 11 out of the 15 Member States in the last 10 years.
Both the USA and Japan spend more than we do.
The benefits of education and training have been well documented.
Empirical evidence points to a positive correlation between education and employment, higher earnings, productivity, economic growth, equality and quality of life, greater social cohesion, improved health, reduced crime and enhanced environmental awareness.
This evidence, documented during the 1996 European Year of Lifelong Learning, and the results of the very wide consultations carried out on the White Paper, strongly suggest the need for further action.
The motion for a resolution includes a number of concrete proposals in addition to those proposed by the Commission, in particular concerning lifelong learning, combating social exclusion and the development of partnerships for resourcing a learning society.
We are asking for the budgetary authority to increase funding and the Commission to undertake research and pilot programmes and to mainstream education and training in Community programmes.
Action is certainly needed and we are inviting the Commission to review its current plan for action and prepare a more comprehensive and detailed proposal and to reconsult this Parliament on its revised plan.
This report, with its critical evaluation of the issues and its suggestions for improvement, will be a positive contribution to the creation of a European learning society.
The significance of education and training, both for work and for democratic life, requires this European Union to take fundamental steps to invest in the future of all our people, young and old, and to ensure that all our programmes and all our resources are devoted towards creating a society in which all individuals have the opportunity to learn to skill and to reskill at all ages.
I look forward to the view of the Commission on our proposals.
I very much hope that this Parliament will universally support these proposals and that we will shortly see concrete action proposals coming forward and be able to see, within the lifetime of this Parliament, clear and actual benefits from the work undertaken.
Mr President, if education is society's main way to develop the individual's physical, intellectual and moral potentials, training is the organization, provision and acquisition of the necessary qualifications, mainly for professional life.
Consequently, education and training assist the better development of the abilities of individual people and their participation in society.
Nowadays, in many of the European Union's Member States, the educational systems are not well enough prepared to meet the challenges of international competition, technological change, company requirements, and the working world, so as to provide a workforce with a high level of specialization.
Bearing in mind the principle of subsidiarity, the Commission accepts that the Member States have primary responsibility and has proposed activities that they should undertake and measures for the support of those activities at Community level.
Our opinion is that education and training should be viewed from a more cohesive standpoint, and should aim to promote and encourage original thinking and to offer a sufficiency of qualitatively trained human resources, especially in the areas of research and technology.
To promote such a dimension in education and training, it is essential to have more effective coordination of national and Community action in research, technological development and education, and greater cooperation between programmes for innovative initiatives, research activity and industry.
Mr President, I now want to mention a number of factors which I consider important:
As for Objective 1, in other words encouragement of the acquisition of new knowledge, we consider that the creation of a centre for information resources and mobility for students, researchers and academic staff should aim to promote interdisciplinary approaches in new sectors.
The Commission should also include in the recognition of key skills, research ability in sectors at the cutting edge of technology.
The production and use of educational IT multimedia appropriately adapted for the education systems in the Member States and for their respective cultural and linguistic particulars, should also be supported.
As for Objective 2, namely the development of closer links between the academic and industrial worlds, we call for the creation of communication channels between the two.
In the context of the SOCRATES and LEONARDO programmes, we also call on the Commission to ensure that the mobility of students, researchers and academic staff between universities, research centres and companies will include periods of recognized research and training activity in branches related to industry, and to support and develop information and consultancy service networks.
We call on the Commission, in cooperation with CEDEFOP, to promote the creation of networks for the exchange of information and the monitoring of experience in successful methods of lifelong professional training.
As for Objective 3, the fight against social exclusion, we believe that the use of networks and multimedia in the field of education and training reinforces the effort to ensure equal access.
Finally, Mr President, so far as equal material investment is concerned, we call on the Commission, in cooperation with the Member States, to look into methods of providing tax incentives for companies and individuals which invest and participate in lifelong professional training.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the response to the White Paper has been for the most part positive.
Especially at this time of unemployment in Europe, especially among the young, the education debate has taken on a particularly serious significance.
Sue Waddington's report, on which I offer my sincere congratulations and my thanks for the pleasure of working with her, is particularly valuable because it takes account of the EU's latest studies of education policy, which indicate that even in the EU countries the standard of education leaves something to be desired, that public expenditure on education is falling, and that although better training does increase individual educational opportunities it is still far from being a guarantee of a job.
The conclusions of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media concentrate on three points in particular.
The first is finance.
Susan Waddington also touches on this point in her report, when she says that the cost neutrality referred to in the White Paper must on no account be allowed to set a trend, because the SOCRATES and LEONARDO programmes are already underfunded, and that additional financial resources should imperatively be made available.
Secondly, the committee calls upon the Commission to rethink its present action plan and to include other aspects, beginning with lifelong learning and extending to measures to combat social marginalization.
This certainly does not relate only to the school of the second chance, but especially to basic and further training programmes, integration models, active learning, consideration for the disadvantaged, the role of teachers, and educational and vocational advisory services.
All of this must be included, as must the learning of foreign languages.
Our committee has given particular attention to this, and requests that not only the EU languages should be included.
Education and training cannot be left to the efforts of the individual but are a function of government.
The State takes the primary responsibility for them.
This is the only way of avoiding a split in European society between the informed and the ignorant.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for an excellent report.
Education is increasingly important, not least from an employment point of view.
If Europe is to compete on the world market in the future, it is imperative that our workforce is well-educated. I believe that the competitiveness of Europe lies in advanced technologies and the accompanying well-educated workforce.
As mentioned by the rapporteur, a basic education is not enough.
In view of the rapid changes and advances in technology, we must adopt the concept of lifelong learning.
In addition, education plays an important role from a class point of view.
Class differences used to depend on the amount of property or money owned.
Today and in the future class differences will depend much more on whether you possess knowledge or not.
Hence the importance of education being offered to everyone and not just a few.
Currently it is often the case that people with a higher education background also benefit more from education during the latter part of their lives.
We must create a society where everyone is able to enjoy a good education.
Naturally prospects vary, but the objective of education is that it should be tailored to individual needs.
I say yes to a second chance, but not in a segregated system.
It is the mainstream education system which must give a second chance to those who need it.
I would also like to strike a blow for the integration of pupils who are disadvantaged.
They should be able to participate to the greatest possible extent in mainstream education.
Finally, as regards positive discrimination, we have at present a number of vocational education programmes, some largely attended by men, some largely by women.
Positive discrimination should be possible so as to achieve a more equitable balance between the sexes.
Mr President, I should like to turn the spotlight briefly on flexibility.
We all know that the working world has changed completely in recent years.
We can assume that most of those who are now going out to work for the first time will have to retrain three, four or five times.
In other words, flexibility is an absolute must, and lifelong learning - constant relearning - is a necessity.
Only those who really do offer that flexibility and are willing to learn more and relearn will have really good prospects of staying in work.
What politicians can contribute here is assistance to enable the individual to achieve this flexibility.
I believe that the European Union has done a good job here with the range of educational and mobility programmes it offers, such as LEONARDO or SOCRATES or all the programmes to be implemented in connection with the Structural Funds, such as LEADER or YOUTH START or NEW and so on.
All this is important as a way of giving the individual in the job market a real chance to absorb education and experience genuine mobility.
I believe these programmes are also needed because that same mobility helps to transfer innovations between the many small and medium-sized enterprises.
But the big problems that exist when it comes to implementing all this lie in the fact that there are major obstacles in, for example, the mutual recognition of diplomas awarded as a result of training in the various Member States.
Problems also arise with user information, and with the wide variety of national rules.
It is unclear, for example, what counts as paid holiday and what counts as working time, or what allowance is made for training.
What we need, therefore, is a package of measures from the Commission to ensure that all these barriers are pulled down as quickly as possible so that these programmes can help us to pursue an active employment market policy in the interests of those concerned.
Mr President, globalization of the economy, liberalization of the labour market and the information society, assuming, in our view, that its consequences are properly handled, are making lifelong learning a central concern for us.
Employees must be afforded regular opportunities for education and young people in training must learn how to handle new computer techniques as early as possible.
Entirely new forms of education and teacher training need to be devised.
The information society, which we have rightly debated, will, I believe, force the European Union to claim a steadily bigger role for itself in this field.
Exchanging information is no longer enough.
We must also embark on the coordination of national policy.
The European Union has a key part to play in attuning the differing education systems of the various Member States to the situation in order that Europe can be properly equipped for the world market.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for the impetus that she has provided in that direction.
Mr President, I heartily congratulate Mrs Waddington on her report, since as a result of the additions and the adoption of many of the amendments presented in the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment by various Groups, the Commission's White Paper has been vastly improved.
This report places the accent on the Commission's giving priority to the subject of education within its agenda and considers that matters such as social exclusion and sexual equality will be greatly improved as a result of education and lifelong learning.
The economic development which might be achieved as a result of education and training is qualitative and not quantitative and it is therefore necessary to regard this development as better not greater.
Educational changes on their own cannot bring about socio-economic changes but inequalities will disappear to a large extent with education and training, since they make it easier for people to obtain better jobs and thus promote greater equality.
We ourselves would ask the Commission to consider the matter of education and training within the framework of an overall project for social change linked to training of the workforce and to the other social and economic projects within this great scheme to build Europe - which is on everyone's agenda.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur for a report full of good and constructive criticism and many excellent proposals, some new from the rapporteur and some amendment proposals to the Commission's White Paper on education.
I believe it is particularly important to show that the impact of demographic change with an increase in the number of senior citizens ought to spur Member States to invest in adult education and in learning as a lifelong project.
However, we must also be aware of the risk of reducing the allocation of resources to schools and to vocational courses; this may lead to fewer teachers who may then find it increasingly difficult to help pupils with learning difficulties, as a result of which we will have pupils leaving school without an essential basic education.
This, in turn, will lead to increased social tension.
When it comes to creating a system designed to give a second chance, I share the views of the rapporteur.
We must try to achieve this through the mainstream education system and invest in a multiplicity of areas as regards teaching methods and increased opportunities.
Furthermore, although technology is vital in schools, the most important factor, the key to good high-quality education is well-educated teachers.
In addition, there must be an adequate number of teachers and we must have an environment which is inspiring for both teachers and pupils.
However, I do not agree with the rapporteur in connection with the detailed plans of action for education.
I will, in this matter, support amendment No. 3 which encourages Member States to draw up their own action plans for education.
Mr President, as in every sector - and especially that of the economy - we shall have a multispeed Europe in the social sector too.
I would congratulate the rapporteur on the hard work and commitment which have gone into her comprehensive report, and I share her view that the purpose of education and training is mainly to secure growth which creates jobs, to guarantee social benefits and to combat exclusion.
In my opinion, these aims can only be achieved if the Member States are encouraged to act independently, so that strategies and projects are coordinated by their own local and regional governments.
Like individual countries, Europe will become great if it can promote culture and employment for its citizens and teach its young people to become adults.
Teachers have a major role to play in this process, and that is why they should be obliged to familiarize themselves with the culture, language and traditions of the places where they teach: they should return to the classroom and be examined once a year as to their suitability for teaching, by panels set up by the local and regional authorities.
What is more, Parliament should set an example to the young people of Europe by reorganizing itself on the lines of a truly federal Europe, in which local and regional bodies have more powers, including the right to group together and negotiate agreements with regions in other Member States.
This would be a further incentive for the young citizens of Europe: a cultural commitment combined with stronglyheld democratic convictions would stimulate the building of a real Europe of peoples and citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to applaud the Commission's initiative in publishing the White Paper on education and training. I also commend the rapporteur on her excellent work, which has helped to improve the White Paper.
I should like to deal with two aspects: the first is the very close link identified by the rapporteur between training and one of the challenges faced by our society, namely the globalization of the economy.
On the one hand, the process of globalization is radically changing patterns of employment and creating problems of adapting to new social and economic conditions, but on the other, it can also offer major opportunities if it is accompanied by substantial investment in training.
I am referring here to training for young people to broaden their skills base, training in the sense of learning foreign languages and as a means of bringing schools and businesses closer together, but also training as a way of giving adults the ability to adapt to change.
In short, training - as long as it is expanded and upgraded - is the key to regarding the current changes and innovation as an opportunity.
For this reason, I endorse the rapporteur's comments and her appeal to the budgetary authority for more funding to be made available not only in the individual Member States, but also at European level for basic training, lifelong learning and research.
My second point concerns women.
It is true that the education of girls and women has increased significantly in recent years, but some sectors still remain heavily dominated by men; positive action is therefore required to encourage girls and women to take up education and training, particularly in scientific and technical subjects.
Mr President, many surveys have shown, and we do not need to debate it, that education and training contribute decisively towards the fight against unemployment, increasing employment and boosting the competitiveness of the economy.
It follows, I think, that what we should aim to do is combine general education with the cultivation of professional skills, so as to create an educational system whose aim will be to teach those in education how to learn, both now and in the future.
With that in mind, in the context of this report I would like to dwell on a number of points.
First, we must not forget that the instrument available to us as the European Union for the exercise of policy is the European Social Fund.
Here, there is much that we can do to improve effectiveness, first of all, and secondly transparency, so far as the activities - of the ESF, I repeat - are concerned.
Secondly, we should focus our efforts on dealing with the consequences of the information society which is on our threshold. It must not be an eclectic society, but one that involves everyone.
Thirdly, we should place particular emphasis on foreign languages, all the more so since we are involved in the single European market.
Fourthly, we should increase the resources earmarked for the LEONARDO and SOCRATES programmes, which are ones that create European added value in the sector we are considering.
Fifthly, I want to mention CEDEFOP, the Centre for the Development of Professional Training.
I consider that demands and developments in the sector of professional training demonstrate the need for the Centre to exist, but at the same time they stress the need to support and of course to mobilize the Centre, which by the way, has its headquarters in my own country, Greece.
Mr President, I should like to thank the various committees, and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Waddington, and the draftsmen, Mrs Hawlicek and Mr Trakatellis.
The Commission's intention in publishing its White Paper was to contribute to the debate on the future of our society, especially as regards the role of education and training in the face of current social change, with particular attention being given to ways of halting the tragedy of unemployment.
Clearly, this debate is very closely bound up with Europe's chosen model of society.
It is a matter of offering European citizens common values and objectives, in particular the development of lifelong education and training.
Ever since the publication of the White Paper, the concept of the learning society has occupied a pivotal role in our thinking.
The opinion of the Committee on Culture, presented by Mrs Hawlicek, highlights this aspect and takes up a number of proposals made in the White Paper: raising the general level of culture, and encouraging creativity and critical awareness, as well as language proficiency.
Basically, the three main factors of change identified in the White Paper - globalization, the information society and the scientific and technological revolution - have not been called into question; they are becoming more and more widely accepted as a basis for discussing educational matters.
That was not the case until recently. However, both Parliament's report and a number of other responses have emphasized that these three factors are too limited, and that two others in particular should be examined, the impact of which was somewhat underestimated in the White Paper.
The first is demographic change. Parliament's report, like that of the European Trade Union Confederation, draws attention to this point.
The transformation in the age pyramid of the working population in Europe has too often been overlooked.
In particular, it has become clear that such changes are contributing to the considerable increase in the training needs of adult workers, and that the debate should not be restricted to young people.
It should be pointed out here that the Commission will very soon be submitting to the Council and Parliament the first European report on access to continuing training in the Union, which follows on from the Council's recommendation on this subject in 1993, along with the guidelines to be followed in this key area of vocational training policy in the Community.
The other point which has given rise to some reservations and even criticism concerns the role of the main players and protagonists, above all the social partners.
The various representatives of the world of work have a crucial role to play here, and Mrs Boogerd-Quaak and Mr Lindqvist have proposed making additions on these lines.
Parliament's report also criticizes the lack of analysis of Member States' education systems in the White Paper, as Mr Menrad in particular pointed out.
In this respect, it should not be forgotten that the purpose of the White Paper was to generate a far-reaching debate on social change, and not merely on education systems. Moreover, the Commission's work programme provides for the drawing-up of a substantial number of documents on education systems, with key data on education and, for the first time, vocational training, a report on continuing training, and interim reports on Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci.
A clear response should be given to two concerns which Parliament's draft report considers crucial and which were raised during the debates in both the Committee on Culture and the Social Affairs Committee: these relate to the question of funding.
Parliament's report sets great store by the need to bring funding into line with the objectives of the White Paper and the creation of the learning society.
It should be borne in mind that the White Paper proposed a series of experiments which we have carried out under the existing Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci action programmes, within the budgets already earmarked for those programmes; additional resources have been made available through the Structural Funds for second-chance schooling in particular.
The Commission is now working on a proposal for a decision on the funding of the Socrates programme for the next two years, and we count on Parliament's support.
What does the Commission intend to do thereafter? Before the summer, it intends to submit to the Council and Parliament a communication setting out the results of the various debates which have taken place at local, national and Community level in the various Community institutions, within economic and social bodies and with experts.
The report will take account in particular of the suggestions which emerged from the thematic conferences organized by the Commission on the five objectives of the White Paper, and of the lessons which can be learned from the implementation of the objectives themselves.
This communication will not be limited to drawing general conclusions, but will explain - objective by objective - the difficulties which have been encountered and the lessons learned.
The timetable laid down by the Council decisions establishing the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes is helpful in this respect.
The Commission is to submit an interim evaluation report for each programme in 1997 and, during the first half of 1998, its proposals for the continuation of these programmes beyond their expiry in 1999.
In the evaluation report on the achievement of the White Paper's objectives, the Commission will set out guidelines for a more broadly-based implementation of these objectives.
This report and the interim evaluation reports will enable both the Council and Parliament to hold initial policy debates in late 1997 or early 1998.
In this way, the proposals for revising the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes, to be put to the Commission towards the end of the first half of 1998, will be able to draw on these policy debates.
Here we share the House's wish to see a special initiative to promote an apprenticeship scheme, without at this stage defining the instrument to be used.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Operation of aeroplanes
The next item is the report (A4-0063/97) by Mr van der Waal, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(96)0413 - C4-0541/96-96/0209(SYN)) amending Directive 92/14/EEC on the limitation of the operation of aeroplanes covered by Part II, Chapter 2, Volume 1 of Annex 16 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, second edition (1988).
Mr President, Directive 92/14 stipulates that, as from 1 April 2002, the operation of what are known as Chapter 2 aeroplanes from airports in the European Union is prohibited because of their noise emissions.
In addition, the directive prohibits the use of Chapter 2 aeroplanes which are more than 25 years old and fitted with engines having a by-pass ration of less than two.
Exemption from this prohibition was granted only for developing countries.
The Commission's proposal amending this directive is aimed, first and foremost, at increasing the number of exemptions.
That is considered necessary because when the directive was adopted some developing countries did not apply for exemption in respect of a number of their aeroplanes and also because the number of Chapter 2 aeroplanes that are more than 25 years old has increased.
The Committee on Transport can agree with this as far as genuine developing countries, such as Lebanon and Swaziland, are concerned, but finds it difficult to include a country such as Saudi Arabia, because although that country is on the OECD list of developing countries it is also listed as being in the high income category.
The Committee on Transport has tabled an amendment which tightens up the definition of developing countries in order that only the poor countries for which the directive is designed can benefit from the exemptions.
It is worth pointing out that the Saudi aeroplanes listed for exemption belong to private individuals.
A second alteration relates to the restrictions on the operation of Chapter 2 aeroplanes.
The Commission is proposing that carriage by Chapter 2 aeroplanes be concentrated at certain airports which, together with other airports, form part of an airport system, and we are sympathetic to that proposal.
However, the Committee on Transport wishes to go a step further and to make it possible for Member States to restrict the access of the noisiest planes.
The strong growth in air traffic and the more stringent noise requirements being imposed at airports impose a need for ever-increasing economy in the allocation of the available noise space.
At Schiphol airport the take-off and landing of a Chapter 2 plane takes up the 'noise space' of a minimum of five comparable Chapter 3 planes.
At nights the ratio can even be one to ten.
In view of the great embargo placed on restricted capacity Chapter 2 aeroplanes, the Member States ought to be able to restrict the access of such planes to their airports.
We can support most of the other amendments of the Commission.
One of them rightly makes the subleasing of a Chapter 2 aeroplane by a developing country to a company in another country impracticable.
Exemptions will be applicable only for the developing country to which they are assigned.
The Committee on Transport has sharpened this stipulation up a bit.
In finishing I will just add that because restriction of the use of Chapter 2 aeroplanes is quite feasible by the year 2002 we have tabled an amendment requiring that the Council and Parliament be consulted about any further widening of the list of exemptions which might be considered.
Mr President, Commissioner, the amendment to Directive 92/14 represents part of our efforts to achieve greater compatibility between air transport and environmental protection.
It seems logical that, when environmental factors are taken into account, technical feasibility, and the economic consequences too, must result in exemptions, but care is needed to ensure that these exemption arrangements are not abused.
The Group of the European People's Party therefore welcomes the Commission's proposal and all the rapporteur's proposed amendments, partly because they clarify terms such as 'air carrier' and 'operating licence' , which previously led to misunderstandings.
We also agree with the deletion of the aeroplanes from Saudi Arabia.
Quite apart from the fact that, for the purposes of the Directive, the exemptions are not supposed to result in everincreasing numbers, the way the exemption should be looked at in this case is that the term 'developing nation' is difficult to reconcile with these privately owned aircraft.
The Group of the European People's Party also welcomes the fact that the terms 'leasing' and 'subleasing' are explained in more explicit terms, so that more can be done to prevent them.
The procedure is simplified by the introduction of a committee, though we consider it important that this refers only to deletions and that further additions to the exemption arrangements should still be a matter for consultation with the Council and Parliament.
The Group of the European People's Party will therefore vote for this report and all the amendments, and hopes that the Commission and Council will accept the amendments because in our view they all conform to the spirit of the Directive - a healthy compromise between environmental protection, or noise abatement in this instance, technological feasibility and economic consequences for genuine developing nations.
Mr President, please allow me to address the following hard question directly to Professor Monti who is responsible for the internal market and related stipulations.
The established airlines of the Community which carry passengers out of the Community are being placed at a disadvantage at the airports of the Union, which have stringent environmental protection and noise pollution requirements, on account of two aspects imposed by the Commission.
Firstly, access from third countries, from so-called developing countries: I refer you back to what both of the previous speakers have said.
Secondly, the admission of new entrants to the airports can only come at the expense of the established companies because you are opening up the market without retaining the slots reserved for the long-standing companies which have spent a great deal of money adapting their aeroplanes and engaged in substantial investment.
Then along comes a new entrant with a Chapter 2 aeroplane who has adapted nothing and who must, according to you, get access to the restricted noise space.
Is that what you consider to be a common market with a level playing field? I would like an answer from you personally.
Mr President, the report under consideration deals with various ways of reducing aircraft noise.
The proposal made by the Commission is beneficial in many ways, but it is important that it is supplemented by the additional proposals and amendments made by the Committee on Transport and Tourism. These, for example, give Member States the right to impose further restrictions on access for the noisiest types of aircraft and even to go one stage further and actually ban such aircraft which do not fulfil the criteria as set out in the annex.
I assume that the Commission does not object to dealing with the problem in this way.
I believe it to be vital that the work on reducing aircraft noise is something which is continuously pursued.
It is especially important that a substantially greater level of investment in research and development is made in this area.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I speak in this debate principally to mention a problem at a regional airport which is a perfect example of the problems that can arise in connection with this matter.
For a number of years now Ostend has been a haven for Chapter 2 aeroplanes flying in from, among other places, Egypt, Nigeria and Zaire, and for the noisy old aeroplanes of companies such as Africa International.
I have shown the exemptions list of Annex I of Directive 92/14, and also the revised Annex in the new Commission proposal, to people living in the airport neighbourhood who have joined together to fight against sleepless nights and to make a stand for normal residential comforts.
They tell me that a great many more Chapter 2 aeroplanes are flying into Ostend from developing countries than the respective annexes allow.
Commissioner, there is surely something wrong with the implementation of these rules.
Although the competence lies with the Member States, I hope that the Commission can and will rap the fingers of those countries which are disregarding the rules.
Mr President, I should like to say that the Group of the Party of European Socialists does of course support Mr van der Waal's proposals.
I believe that problems of this kind should always be viewed from the standpoint of the common good - the defence of local communities and of the public interest.
And, sometimes, there is a contradiction between the economic interest, the opportunity for every citizen really to be able to use this mode of transport, and the interests of the population living near the airports.
Contradictions of this kind have to be overcome with the aid of suitable democratic legislation.
Mention was made just now of the problem of Ostend airport.
The saga of Zaventem airport would take hours to recount.
On several occasions, the population have filed complaints about noise nuisance, especially sleep disturbance caused by night flights.
Several judgments have been given, but not always along the lines for which the locals hoped.
There is a problem here with the application of the legislation by the Belgian Government, and another problem with the evaluation of nuisance and the disturbance it creates for the population.
I will end with a question to the Commissioner: how can it happen that the idea of an exemption for private aircraft can be defended in this House? I believe this is a real problem for several airports, especially Brussels.
I cannot understand this approach.
Other airlines and other aircraft have to respect various limits.
It is surely not right that, on the pretext of additional economic benefits, some companies are governed by different rules.
In conclusion, people at Zaventem, and at Brussels more generally, are expecting solutions to these problems and we hope that the Commission will listen to what we have to say.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the House for including this item on noisy aeroplanes on the agenda for this part-session, and by congratulating the Committee on Transport and Tourism and its rapporteur, Mr van der Waal, for drawing up the report in such a short period of time.
I am well aware that the European Parliament is very concerned about the problem of aeroplane noise emissions.
In this context, it is justified for certain questions to be raised about the content of the Commission's proposal to amend an existing directive on the gradual withdrawal of the noisiest types of aeroplane.
It might indeed appear contradictory to find in this amending directive on the limitation of the operation of noisy aeroplanes an increase in the number of aeroplanes belonging to developing countries which receive an exemption.
There is, however, a logical explanation.
When Council Directive 92/14/EEC on the gradual withdrawal of the noisiest aeroplanes - the so-called Chapter 2 aeroplanes - was adopted, it was felt that account should be taken of the difficult economic circumstances of air carriers established in developing countries.
The directive therefore laid down the conditions under which aeroplanes entered in the registers of developing countries and operated by air carriers in those countries may be exempted from the provisions governing withdrawal from service, until the final deadline of 31 March 2002.
At the same time, the annex to the directive listed the individual aeroplanes in developing countries which qualified for this exemption.
However, certain aeroplanes in those countries had not been notified to the Commission by the time Directive 92/14/EEC was adopted, and are thus not included in the annex.
The main purpose of the Commission's current proposal is therefore to update the list of aeroplanes in the annex to the directive, so as to avoid any legal uncertainty regarding the situation of aeroplanes from developing countries.
However, with a view to ensuring a uniform and more rigorous interpretation of the existing directive within the Community, the Commission also decided to introduce a number of definitions and changes of wording.
Application of the amended provisions should lead to a stricter approach to requests from air carriers for exemptions, and thereby improve the effectiveness of Directive 92/14/EEC in terms of reducing noise emissions around airports.
Finally, the Commission deemed it appropriate to allow Member States to concentrate the operation of the noisiest types of aeroplane at the airport least sensitive to noise emissions of those belonging to a given airport system.
This provision will not detract from the balanced approach pursued in Directive 92/14/EEC, which takes due account of technical, economic and environmental considerations.
Mr Wijsenbeek was kind enough to ask me a question specifically related to the competences of the Internal Market Commissioner rather than the ones I am representing here this evening.
In response to his question I would say that the additions to the list are aircraft which were already operating.
So they are not new entrants but were not included in the original directive because they had not been notified.
These new additions have now satisfied all the criteria laid down in the directive.
Their addition is therefore merely a technical change.
(IT) In considering the amendments adopted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, I think it is important to stand by the balanced approach to which I referred a moment ago.
As far as aeroplanes from developing countries are concerned, it is essential to make the text as rigorous as possible, in order to avoid any abuse of the exemptions for aeroplanes currently operated by air carriers established in certain developing countries.
I am therefore pleased to tell the House that the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 3 and 7, since they tighten up the conditions under which an exemption remains valid.
However, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 6, since they would conflict with the balanced approach of the directive; nor Nos 4 and 8, since these would oblige the Commission to propose a further amending directive in order to include in the annex a limited number of aeroplanes operated by developing countries which could enjoy an exemption in the year 2000; nor Nos 5 and 9, since Saudi Arabia is included in the official international list of developing countries, and its aeroplanes listed in the annex comply with the criteria laid down in Article 3 of the directive as amended by this proposal.
The amendments which we can accept will enable the Commission to tighten up the provisions relating to developing countries, whilst at the same time preserving the overall balance.
I would once again express my thanks to Mr van der Waal and the Committee on Transport, and would apologize to you, Mr President, if the complexity of the subject has caused me to go beyond my allotted speaking time.
Mr President, I have listened carefully to the Commissioner but I have not heard a reply to the rapporteur's question about whether airports, casu quo the Member States, have the scope and the right to keep Chapter 2 aeroplanes out if they are finding it difficult to stay within the noise norms. That, of course, is the question that is always being put to us by our constituents, by the citizens.
If the Commissioner cannot answer the question here and now can we expect a written answer?
Mr Cornelissen, that is not exactly a point of order. It is a question which the Commissioner will be able to answer, but perhaps not at this particular moment.
Mr President, I believe that I can answer by referring to the approach known as global harmonization.
Three amendments, Nos 1, 2 and 6, seek to allow the Member States to impose limitations on the operation of Chapter 2 aeroplanes in individual airports.
Members may not be aware that such restrictions are subject to the procedure and conditions laid down by Council Regulation (EEC) No 2408/92 on market access.
Since the purpose of Directive 92/14/EEC is global harmonization, taking account of the technical, economic and environmental impact, the Member States are not allowed to impose more restrictive measures, for example a total ban on the operation of a Chapter 2 aeroplane before it is 25 years old.
However, without prejudice to Article 9 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2408/92 on market access, if serious environmental problems arise, Member States may impose operating restrictions - not a total ban on operation, but operating restrictions - such as a night curfew for Chapter 2 aeroplanes, provided that these do not result in a total ban on the operation of such aeroplanes.
What is more, Member States may levy higher landing fees for noisier aeroplanes.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
Closing of the session
I declare closed the 1996-1997 session of the European Parliament and announce that, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty, Parliament will meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow, Tuesday 11 March 1997.
(The sitting was closed at 8.20 p.m.)
Opening of annual session
I declare the 1997-1998 session of the European Parliament open.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to point out that I was present yesterday.
I am not on the attendance register.
I probably forgot to sign in but I took part in the roll-call vote, which you can check.
Mr President, I am now called 'Marcet s' .
Mr President, it is simply that I do not find my name anywhere, despite the fact that I signed in.
You had better check the lists as well, please.
Mr President, just to say that unlike Mr Poettering I am not listed, yet I am absolutely sure I signed in and took part in the debate.
Mr President, my name was not misspelt, for the simple reason that it does not appear in the Minutes even though I was not in two places at once and was sure I was there yesterday.
Mr President, I was present too but am not on the list.
Mr President, in my case, Mrs Guigou and Mrs Guinebertière have been cloned, so she should come first and I second!
Mr President, my name is listed too.
Perhaps someone thought it is Theatos in Greek.
I am actually called Theato, but I was not present either.
Could you please have my name deleted.
Mr President, I was not only present, but am sure that I signed and I am not on the attendence list either.
Mr President, I have a proposal to make.
In view of this complete mess, it would be best if we declared for the first time that all the Members were present.
That would settle the matter.
Mr President, let me start with the good news: my name is on the attendance list.
But it is also mentioned in Item 14, in the debate on the information society, whereas in fact the speaker was my colleague Wim van Velzen.
Perhaps this could be amended.
Mr President, I am not mentioned in the list of those present, but I am listed among those who took part in the nominal vote.
Yesterday's voting list is correct and the names have been corrected.
The matter could therefore easily be rectified by using the voting list.
Mr President, I was present.
I signed in and I voted in a roll-call vote but my name is not there.
Ladies and gentlemen, I note the problem, which is one that affects many Members.
We will prepare a revised version of yesterday's attendance list, to deal with all the problems that have arisen.
This, of course, is the first time the new computer program has been used.
We will see how it turns out once it has settled.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Decision on urgency
I have to tell this House that the Committee has decided to vote against this urgent procedure, that is it does not accept the urgency requested by the Council because it does not find that reasons put forward by the Council to be well founded.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Mr President, the Committee is in favour of the urgent procedure and already reported yesterday that the subject could be debated in the plenary session.
(Parliament approved the request for urgent procedure)
Cloning animals and human beings
The next item is the debate on the statement by the Commission on cloning animals and human beings.
Mr President, Commissioner, ' Dolly' would no doubt have been a good subject for a Robert Louis Stevenson, H. G. Wells or Aldous Huxley novel and our colleagues in the Green Group have cleverly reminded us of that with the sense of drama typical of them today.
The subject of cloning is fuelling the irrational speculations that tend to find their way into and sometimes cloud our debates whenever we address questions of bioethics.
As responsible politicians it is our duty to keep a cool head, to look at and evaluate the scientific risk, without which no progress is possible for mankind, while initially upholding a few basic principles and elementary precautionary measures - no doubt there will be other reactions later.
My group is in favour of affirming clearly that all human cloning must be banned.
In fact I note that we go even further in the Rothley report where we propose banning the patenting of any intervention relating to reproductive genetic cells, which goes beyond cloning as such.
So we support the Commission line in this regard.
We clearly affirm the principles of the dignity and integrity of the human body and must reaffirm them here this week.
We believe that the Advisory Group on bioethics, to whose work Mrs Cresson just referred and to which I pay tribute, needs to be transformed into a genuine European Union committee on ethics in order to give the politicians a clearer choice, without however taking their place.
This is no trifling matter, for our diversity of our traditions and cultures becomes manifest when we come up against bioethical questions; yet this is a necessary progress.
Mrs Cresson raised the question of a moratorium, although this does not apply to interventions with the human body where we have to impose an immediate ban.
Perhaps one solution could be to impose an initial, limited moratorium on animal research.
Finally, we believe we need transparent and effective information to guarantee that the debate remains calm, to avoid any panic reactions or deadlocks that could prejudice the future of mankind.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a clone is a collection of cells all born from the same parent cell; their genetic stock is totally identical and gives them the same appearance.
In the case of plants, reproduction by cloning is a natural process.
In the case of animals and humans, the real twin, known as a 'homozygote' , which is the result of the splitting of a single egg, represents a natural clone.
There is nothing disturbing or shocking about all that.
However, are we allowed to manufacture artificially human clones by fusing the genetic stocks of two parent cells in order to reproduce identical individuals, given that individuals are by definition different one from the other since every human being is unique?
Why does our Western society feel so strongly about this? A team of researchers in Scotland has just managed to produce a cloned sheep from the single somatic cell of an adult, parent sheep, i.e., without any sexual reproduction.
The possibility of producing an individual that is entirely identical to its precedent, without any fusion of the parental gametes, is an assault on biodiversity, on the hazard of birth, which makes each of us a unique being.
It is becoming possible to apply it to human beings, which opens the door to all sorts of aberrations.
Yet we must not diabolize a technique that can bring progress if used on animals for the preparation of vaccines and medicines that are useful if not vital to human beings.
In the United States, despite the proposals of the political leaders, some scientists are reluctant to advise a moratorium.
One such is Professor Harold Varmus, Nobel Prize winner and director of the NIH.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is in the nature of scientists always to doubt, but the politician who is aware of the vagaries of human behaviour must, in his capacity of legislator, attempt to evaluate them more closely.
Here in Europe we must consult the bodies responsible for bioethics, the Council of Europe, Unesco, the United Nations, and proclaim that we must ban all cloning of human beings, whether directly from the nuclei of embryo cells or indirectly by whatever method of asexual reproduction, using ovocytes from which the nucleus is removed as vectors and the nuclei of somatic cells as the basis of the genetic patrimony.
So we must forbid any financing of this kind of research on human beings.
That means we must set up the necessary monitoring system so that we can apply dissuasive and even penal measures, which could even include economic sanctions.
These would be imposed on any states linked to the European Union that embark on this road, which is a minefield of risks and traps.
Mr President, ever since the cloning of an innocent little animal has been so widely publicized in the media, we have plunged into the most breathtaking simplifications, as shown, incidentally, by the fact that some of our colleagues rigged themselves out in extremely misplaced and even grotesque masks a few minutes ago.
People are referring to the monstrous experiments carried out fifty years ago without pointing out that it is not warped scientists who produce totalitarian regimes but quite the reverse.
A democratic state has the means to protect society from abuses in every area and to ensure respect for the rights and freedoms of the individual, in biotechnology as in other research fields.
In our view, research on living beings is a source of progress.
Tomorrow we will have eradicated genetic diseases such as mucoviscidosis and phenylketonuria.
Tomorrow, transplants of animal organs - a field in which cloning can in fact prove useful - will enable us to make up for the shortage of human organ donors.
Given the rapid progress of this kind of research, it is important for the state to define the limits of and monitor rather than block this research; it must monitor the effects of this research on health and monitor respect for the integrity of the human being.
At national level, scientific and medical ethical committees would act as guarantees in every research centre.
At international level, as has been said, a number of conventions, from the 1946 Nuremberg Code to the 1996 European Convention on Bioethics, have already banned any useless genetic manipulation that conflicts with our concept of the human being, such as cloning, implanting a human embryo in the uterus of a different species or vice versa, and so forth.
All we need do is to introduce systematic bans, within limits, under an international convention or under agreements with other countries such as the United States or Japan, where genetic research is very advanced.
Ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of the third millennium let us not give way to the irrational fears of the first millennium in face of research which can have its dark side but which can also promise a future to men and women afflicted by disease.
Man's greatness resides in his constant desire to know the world around him and to know himself.
Mr President, the cloning of Dolly the sheep has opened a Pandora's Box.
What can in practice be done with mammals will soon be done to humans.
It seems that the nightmare of human beings as a stock of spare parts and a reserve of children stored in the cold box is becoming a reality.
In cloning mammals we are taking the first step into Huxley's Brave New World.
To clone people would be horrific, a violation of human dignity, an attack on the individuality and integrity of man.
Man would be degraded into an object, into biological material.
This breach of ethics must be prevented.
But ethics cannot just begin with our own species.
Cloning animals is also reprehensible.
It degrades animals into mass products, living conveyor belts.
Live animals are regarded as mass-produced goods, as machines, which will give a boost to the intensive stock-farming that is so cruel to animals.
Today we are all talking about ethics and the risk of breeding humans.
But the individual and unique quality of life does not just begin with humans.
Dolly and other animals are also living beings.
We agree on calling for a ban on cloning humans.
But how do we as the European Parliament stand on the cloning of animals? We must ban that too.
We must not simply become accustomed to the plague and warn against cholera.
The cloning of mammals already represents a shift of ethical boundaries.
The cloning of animals and humans must be taboo.
This insidious ethical breach is a step into a future that fills us with horror.
In 1993, following Jerry Hall's experiments in cloning human embryos, the European Parliament called unanimously for a ban on cloning.
Yet nothing happened.
The statement by the Commissioner and the position of the EU Commission are pitiful.
It has refrained from taking comprehensive political measures.
Today the Commissioner merely said that it was considering taking action.
EU money continues to flow directly or indirectly into ethically dubious projects.
Although cloning infringes a basic ethical consensus in our society, the EU Commission delegates the question of cloning animals to the Biotechnology Advisory Group.
What a demonstration of political impoverishment and eyewash!
The advisory group has even been instructed by the Commission to ensure that gene technology gains acceptance.
Society must set ethical limits for science and not the reverse.
Shifting the ethical discussion to committees that have no democratic legitimacy is merely at attempt to tranquillize the public.
We must not remain silent on the matter of the economic basis for this either.
To ban cloning while at the same time permitting cloning and cloned living beings is absurd!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, modern biotechnology offers us great opportunities.
This afternoon we will be discussing the Trakatellis report on the use of micro-organisms for producing medicines and other substances.
I am in favour of being very liberal about this because we have to support the undertakings in making advances here.
But now comes the big 'but' . When it is a question of applying this to human beings, of manipulating human beings, I think we cannot be strict enough.
Mrs Cresson referred to a consensus against human cloning.
This consensus still seems to exist.
But unless we are very careful, it will very quickly be eroded and I have already heard some disturbing statements made.
Just as in the case of seed manipulation, people will argue that surely exceptions can be made in many individual cases, so that in the end we will no longer be able to avoid an ethical breach.
And let me openly ask this: why should a society have the power to stop cloning once and for all if it is not in a position to stop parents in Europe from aborting their child if it is a girl and they wanted a boy? This is intolerable and shows that we have already gone too far in many areas.
That is why I agree with those speakers who say that we must act very quickly and very strictly now, using every available means at European level and at UNESCO level.
What we are discussing now is not progress for human dignity but a threat to human dignity, so we have to take very strong action.
A final comment on the Advisory Group on Biotechnology and Ethics.
It has been said here that it should deal with the question.
If my information is correct - and this is my last question - the situation is that this advisory group will only be working until June and that it has a whole lot of other jobs to do too.
Then it is to stop for six months, after which it will be set up again.
I do not think we can allow ourselves that at this stage.
The group has to continue working and if it is to have a new membership, perhaps this can be done at the same time.
But then Parliament should also be involved in the appointment of its new membership.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject is not a new one, and has not suddenly descended from the skies like a thunderbolt.
We have known about it for 15 years.
At that time certain restrictions were imposed, but they have not proved sufficient to halt this uncontrolled advance.
This raises a number of questions:
Who has been financing this research?
Governments, or the private sector?
Who monitored the research protocols, especially those funded by governments, so that today we can say with certainty that those experiments were carried out only with animals? Nobody has so far been able convincingly to disprove information that such experiments have also been carried out with human beings.
Neither has anybody so far disproved what we all read the other day in one of the United Kingdom's major newspapers, that there is a four-year old child in Belgium who is the product of cloning.
And we, ladies and gentlemen, are still sitting here and talking at the theoretical level. Very well, the Committee will be formed, and I favour its formation.
However, Madam Commissioner, I have not heard what sanctions we as the European Parliament will be imposing in the event that researchers exceed the permitted limits and the experiments are extended to human beings. Will those penalties be theoretical?
Will they only be penal? Or should there be huge financial penalties, especially when the experiments are funded by governments?
I very much fear that the same thing may happen as in the case of BSE. We will debate, debate, debate, and when the tragic outcome of experiments in human beings appear before us, then like the foolish virgins in the Bible, we will shed tears over the ruins that we ourselves, through our own incapabilities, will have created.
Mr President, a clear 'no' to human cloning is emerging from the debate; but I believe that an unequivocal 'no' to cloning of animals is needed too, because where there is cloning of animals, there is almost bound to be cloning of human beings as well, and we really ought to be wondering today how we ever came to be talking about cloning.
Here we must stress the link with the development of genetic engineering and the links with the patenting of transgenic animals.
The consequence will be series production of living beings outside the laws of nature, and instead of animals being bred by natural reproduction they will be produced non-sexually, like plant cuttings.
The laws of nature are clearly being overthrown, just as they were with BSE.
The purpose of such techniques is not scientific knowledge, but industrial production of a commercial product, for example, animal organs to be used as spare parts for human beings.
But human beings and animals are not machines whose organs can be automatically replaced by organs adapted from other animals.
As regards scientific knowledge, we have already known a great deal about cloning for fifty years, so the technique is well known; but it does not mean everything that is possible has to be done.
That mistake has already been made by applying knowledge of the nuclear structure of matter to make the atomic bomb.
Freedom of research cannot be confused with the free will that led man to use that deadly bomb, that led to Chernobyl incident and BSE.
How many more incidents have to happen?
Experiments in cloning may have succeeded in establishing a new frontier in bio-genetic research, but they have opened up the problem of the limits that should or should not be set on experimental scientific research.
In fact, while cloning represents an important scientific achievement, in a society where there are great needs to be met by scarce resources, it is ethically necessary to study, classify and regulate such experiments.
So in our view a high-ranking scientific committee should be set up to study the ethical and legal implications and the possible scenarios opened up by genetic cloning.
We should also support the conclusions of the European Council's resolution of 16 March 1989, as well as the results of the first Convention on Bio-ethics, approved in December 1996, which banned both human and animal cloning, and we should work to impose limits on the scientific process that respect ethical values and serve to shield the human being from possible manipulation by science.
Mr President, there is no limit on the curiosity of scientists.
There is nothing they do not want to know but there has to be a limit put by society on that curiosity.
Fifty years ago or more there was no limit and we know what the results were of allowing scientists to discover anything they wanted to.
There is consensus this morning amongst us from fifteen different countries that there has to be a limit on the cloning of human beings until we have thought about it.
There has to be control on animal cloning.
I come from the country where this experiment took place.
In the United Kingdom there are limits, there is legislation and there is a regulatory body but the average citizen of the United Kingdom was not aware that this sort of work was being carried on.
The average citizen must be aware of what work is being carried on when we get near to the frontiers of what is acceptable and in some cases beyond those frontiers.
The European Union exists partly so that we can work together and give value and share our experiences.
Therefore I am delighted that when we look at the fifth framework programme, as we looked at the fourth, we from all those fifteen countries say: ' That is enough.
You may be curious but you are not going to work on that subject.'
The consensus this morning amongst most groups shows that the Commissioner is quite right to take further the regulatory body that she has in mind and she has seen that there is a wish to have that strengthened.
I can assure you that the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy will be looking very carefully at the ethical dimensions of the fifth framework programme.
Mr President, I am glad I can speak in this debate.
I suspect that, including the Commissioner, I am the only person taking part in the debate this morning, who has actually been to the Roslin Research Institute.
I went there in November with Mr Martin, Vice-President of Parliament.
I must say that one of the things wrong with this debate is that nobody has paid tribute to the talented research team at Roslin which has conducted these experiments.
It is time somebody did so.
It is also time that some people read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.
The point of this book is that it is the brainwashing that matters, not the cloning so I wish people who refer to it would read the book.
The technology is important.
It brings benefits: it brings problems.
There is no question about that.
There are implications for science and implications for medicine and we would be well advised to recognize that there are ethical problems in using the technology.
There are ethical problems in not using the technology as well. Both sides of the argument need to be examined.
I am aware that under the Commission presidency of Jacques Delors the Biotechnology Advisory Group was set up.
I took part in discussions leading to it being set up and I am pleased that Mr Delors at the time took that brave new initiative.
But the problem with this Group is that it does not have a high enough profile.
Most people in this Parliament do not know of its existence.
They do not know who are members, how people become members, what its agenda is and how that agenda is set and they have not seen its reports.
If we are going to take this whole question of ethics seriously, we need to give the Biotechnology Advisory Group a much higher profile.
We need to know all these things.
We need to know who the members are.
We need to know how they are appointed.
We need to read their reports and we need to give them the responsibility not just of investigating the ethical problems but also of making recommendations for the future conduct of this kind of science.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt and others made reference to the fact that there are international implications.
Of course there are.
We cannot assume that because we have something under control in the European Union it is universally under control.
It is not.
Therefore, when Mrs Roth-Behrendt suggested that Commissioner Cresson should have responsibility for promoting discussions among the Americans and Japanese and so on, she is absolutely right.
How quickly that can be done is another matter but I have no doubt whatsoever that we need a global solution to what is a global problem even if it has all arisen from a nine-month old sheep that is living in the equivalent of a sheep's Hilton Hotel at the moment.
I should like to assure Mrs Breyer that there is no cruelty involved in Dolly.
She is a very happy sheep and probably rather happier than are Members in this Assembly.
The debate is closed.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37 of the Rules of Procedure .
The votes on those motions will be taken on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Closing of the Renault plant in Belgium
The next item is the debate on the statement by the Commission on the closure of the Renault plant in Belgium.
Mr President, the announcement by Renault to close its plant in Vilvoorde has caused shock and consternation.
This is a reaction that I fully understand.
The loss of 3, 100 jobs is a disaster for the workers concerned, for their families and for Vilvoorde itself.
The decision by Renault has also provoked outrage because of its abruptness and its apparent lack of concern for the rights of the employees.
Renault management, in a manner which I can only describe as irresponsible, did not comply with its obligations as regards information and consultation of workers' representatives prior to its decision.
In this respect the provisions of the European Works Council Directive and the Collective Redundancies Directive have been completely ignored.
There are many calls for new European legislation.
I understand this.
But we must also appreciate the present situation is fully covered by the two existing directives.
The relevant national measures contain machinery to ensure their enforcement.
However, there has to be a serious question mark over whether the scale of sanctions envisaged under national law is sufficient to act as a real deterrent against non-compliance.
In this regard it is useful to recall that in 1992 the Member States rejected the Commission's proposals for tougher sanctions on noncompliance by companies with the worker consultation and information procedures.
I believe that we have now reached the situation where we need to complement the existing Community rules with more general rules to make information and consultation compulsory on a permanent basis for all relevant aspects of the management of companies at national level.
In this context, the issue of adequate sanctions for non-respect will be a crucial one.
I will propose to the Commission that we proceed in the coming weeks with the first-stage consultation of the social partners at European level on this issue.
I sincerely hope that we are able, through this action, to strengthen the protection of workers.
I know that the European Parliament has been asking for such rules for quite a long time, and in your recent report on the Commission Communication of 14 November 1995 on worker information and consultation you again supported this idea.
So I can count on you to help to obtain this objective.
But the most important lesson to be drawn from the situation concerns the credibility of the European process.
The Vilvoorde case shows that we still have some way to go to strike the right balance between corporate and economic needs on the one hand and the social requirements of workers and society as a whole on the other.
Getting that balance right is crucial to ensuring popular acceptance of the integration process.
This is why I believe that the incorporation of the social protocol in the Treaty is vital in this respect: to ensure that social legislation applies and is implemented across the territory of the Union as a whole.
Without this the internal market will not function.
This case raises other issues too: questions regarding the need for tighter monitoring of state aids, closer coordination of fiscal and social charges.
These are very sensitive issues.
The Commission will examine them attentively to see what can be done.
It is ironic, however, in this respect, that Renault was one of the first companies to conclude in 1993 a voluntary agreement with workers' representatives in anticipation of the implementation of the European Works Council Directive.
I believe that Renault's conduct in this matter may do much to poison the position and hinder the hitherto non-legislative approach to implementation of the European Works Council Directive.
We all know that companies are called upon to make hard commercial decisions, but if industry loses its ability to make those decisions as transparent as possible and fails even to attempt to explain the reasons to the workforce, or to seek to negotiate alternatives to closures, then the very core of our social consensus is under attack.
Such an attitude would be reprehensible enough within one country, but when the issues are transnational in nature, then the need for openness and consultation is even greater.
The threatened closure of the Vilvoorde plant is a huge blow to the workers and their families.
I can only hope that out of this tragedy might come a renewed awareness of the need for adequate social measures to accompany the internal market and a renewed determination to implement those measures in an effective way.
If this is so then all will not have been in vain.
Mr President, how can it be that Renault, a car manufacturer in which the French Government has a major shareholding, can decide virtually overnight to close its factory in Vilvoorde?
How can it be that the same company is planning to open a new plant in Spain shortly, with EU and Spanish Government support? How can it be that Renault can overtly and blatantly ignore European directives on collective redundancies and the European works councils, when the French Government put its signature to those same directives?
These are the questions which the workers from Vilvoorde were asking when my group met with them at their demonstration in Brussels last Monday.
Today Renault workers are marching in Paris.
Since the announcement of the closure Renault workers in France and Spain have acted together in a signal of support for those workers and their families who will be thrown out of work in Belgium.
Today, my group sends its support for those families; but frankly that is not enough.
Pious words, solidarity, support and sympathy may make us feel better; they may also make it more difficult for those individuals affected to express their bitterness and anger towards a system which is destroying them, their families' fortunes, their hopes for the future.
But for us, Mr President, the challenge is clear: is the Europe we are trying to build, the Europe we believe in, going to defend these people's rights or not? Is our Europe going to insist that its laws are respected and enforced?
Is Europe going to make it easier for the working people of the Union to take part in a discussion of their future?
Mr President, on this occasion it is the car industry and Renault which are concerned.
Tomorrow, who knows? We in this House cannot stop industry making decisions to close or relocate plants, but we can insist that when a company is in receipt of European Union subsidies, then that company must have a clear sense of responsibility and commitment both for the funds which it has been given and for the workforce whose labour and livelihoods are entrusted to them as a result of that investment.
In the view of my group, Mr President, subsidies should be linked to a long-term plan for the development of the industry concerned; and we call on the European Commission to ensure that that link is developed, industry by industry, in a structured way.
We in this House should look to our own decisions and make sure that we are not accomplices through our budgetary allocations.
And if it is so easy to ignore directives, with virtually no repercussions on the businesses involved, then we must urgently ask for and insist on a review of the effectiveness of the two directives concerned.
Let us start insisting on the repayment of subsidies where it is clear that a company has reneged on the spirit of an investment - after all that is what we do with projects funded under the European Social Fund: we demand the money back if they are found to be in breach of their agreement.
Why not the Renaults of this world too? We are told all too often that there is no longer any morality in politics.
Surely there has to be ethics in business too.
There has to be a sense of responsibility towards the workforce.
If painful decisions have to be made - and we know they do from time to time - then it behoves the managers to make them in a fair way, with full discussion with the workforce, enabling them to take part in the search for solutions for their shared future.
(Applause )
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Renault, which for a long time was nationalized and which served as a social show-piece, was recently privatized. Most of its capital is owned by private investors and it now faces competition from world markets and has to adapt its industrial plant, which is too widely dispersed and diversified in Europe.
Hoover and JVC in fact did the same recently.
We must look at the decision to close the Vilvorde site in this context, not as an isolated measure or a sanction but quite certainly as a strategic industrial decision that will enable Renault to cope with the fact that European automobile market has declined more than expected from the Commission's forecasts - based on the fact that in 1996 less than three million vehicles were sold - and, in the long term, to protect the jobs of 140 000 Renault employees who would have suffered the consequences if this decision had not been taken.
In the eyes of public opinion, it is indeed difficult to see why a French undertaking should decide to close down one of its sites outside its own country; but this decision, for which the Renault management is entirely responsible, was certainly encouraged by a relative and comparative analysis of the production costs.
That is why this decision, which disturbs us so much, must induce all those who are responsible for the future of Europe to realise the need to create a European social area.
It was indeed in that spirit that Jacques Chirac submitted a memorandum to our European partners more than a year ago concerning the adoption of a European social model.
The creation of a European social model and a European social area is as important as social dialogue.
Pending that, the heads of undertakings must, however, apply the instruments at their disposal properly; for in this situation of merciless competition they cannot, for economic reasons, not observe the rules of the game in relation to human beings.
Unless they do so, revocation action will have to be taken in the absence of agreement or dialogue.
At the same time, in the framework of the intergovernmental conference, it is important for the social protocol to be incorporated in the treaty.
Mr President, the brutal and unilateral decision taken by the management of Renault to close its subsidiary in Vilvorde profoundly shocked European public opinion.
This attitude, which reflects the most savage form of capitalism and which I cannot accept, has thrown 3 100 workers and their families on the streets.
Yet Renault was one of the first companies in Europe to conclude voluntary agreements on worker information and consultation, as the Commissioner pointed out.
So why did it infringe the directive setting up European works councils and the one of collective redundancies? Do the laws of the market in themselves justify the shameful dismissal of skilled workers, the victims of globalization and pitiless competition?
I am a liberal, but I cannot tolerate the law of the jungle. I have always been in favour of an economy in the service of man and not vice versa.
Today the people of Europe no longer understand and, in particular, will no longer tolerate unjustified closures of companies and the lack of solidarity between the Member States of the Union.
Europe cannot progress unless the governments that make it up demonstrate a genuine social and collective conscience.
This crisis, one among many, one too many, will, we hope, be the long-awaited spark that will fire the creation of a social Europe.
The solidarity of the Renault workers, be they Belgian, French or Spanish, will have set a good example to everybody.
It is up to us, and above all to our heads of government, to do their utmost to incorporate the social protocol and the provisions on promoting employment in the coming treaty.
I believe in Europe, in union among our peoples, in our human resources, which constitute our wealth.
Let us not sacrifice them on the altar of pure profit.
Mr President, I have little time so I will confine myself to a few comments.
First, regarding the Renault decision, clearly the method is unacceptable.
An undertaking or a company cannot decide the social and economic collapse of a region without any kind of consultation or redevelopment programme.
Renault did not respect the two directives, on collective redundancies and on works councils.
What do we conclude from that? Of course the Commission has no way of enforcing respect for these directives.
There is no provision for sanctions.
However, it could ask Renault to review its decision and, if it does not, to refuse it and other firms that pursue the same practice access to a whole range of potential benefits.
I am thinking of access to Community programmes, to R&D programmes and to any structural fund assistance.
Turning to the structural funds, my first comment is that it is unacceptable for undertakings to apply a specific method that consists of aggregating the advantages offered by the use of the structural funds or the cohesion fund and delocalizing in relation to this cohesion fund and these structural funds.
In short, it is unacceptable to play on social disparities.
Of course, this calls for action by the European Union at the current intergovernmental conference.
My second comment is that it is essential to encourage an extensive economy and to discourage an intensive economy, just as we are against intensive farming.
Let me point out in this regard that the OECD is currently considering a multilateral agreement on investment, which promises us lots of new Renault cases.
I think we must be extremely careful here.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ten days ago more than 3000 workers fell victim to capitalist terrorism.
What else can we call Renault's decision to close its plant at Vilvoorde?
Even specialists in the car-making sector have been absolutely stunned by the developments, since Renault Vilvoorde was regarded as a model plant.
It was modern and productive, and its workforce had been extremely cooperative, accepting greater accountability, more flexibility, longer working hours and above all lower wages.
It all goes to show just how scandalous this decision is, and Vilvoorde has become the latest in a long line of plant closures.
In 1986, we had a debate here in Parliament about the tyre manufacturer Michelin, which had made its workers collectively redundant on the last day before the summer holidays.
That must never be allowed to happen again.
Ten years further on, pitifully few of the promised social improvements have actually been made.
What good is Europe for the millions of unemployed if it does not recognize the right to work as a basic human right? What good is the Union if it cannot even ensure that its own legislation is properly enforced?
The planned closure of Renault Vilvoorde actually contravenes two directives, the 1984 directive on works councils and the 1975 directive on collective redundancies, as well as Belgium's implementing legislation.
The second of these two directives was tightened up after what happened at Michelin, but by no means enough, since it simply introduced sanctions for anyone failing to comply with the European legislation.
In 1991, Parliament adopted a text which would have made collective redundancies by multinationals invalid if they did not follow the provisions of the directive, but once again the Council of Ministers refused to follow our lead.
So now the multinationals have carte blanche , but the fact is that even the European multinationals could not care less about the Council, the Commission or the European Parliament.
For them, the only voice they need to listen to is that of their shareholders.
Nobody else.
And who holds a 48 % share in Renault? The French State.
That is why I propose that the French Government should use its position of power to force Renault to hold an extraordinary general meeting as soon as possible, with only one item on the agenda: the reversal of the decision to close Renault Vilvoorde.
The French Government claims that it is serious about Europe, so it should use its share ownership to force Renault to obey the European directives.
The Renault decision has proved that the unanimity rule in the Council needs to be abolished.
The Amsterdam summit must change things so that decisions with social implications are taken by a qualified majority, if the Treaty is finally to be taken seriously.
Today, social Europe is an empty vessel.
Over the last 21 years, only three European directives have been introduced on works councils.
Two of them are involved in this issue today, and both have been flouted.
Seven other directives have been held up in the Council for years.
The Commission too needs to do more than just keep an official record of how directives are transposed, and the motion for a resolution which I have tabled on behalf of my group puts forward a number of practical proposals in this respect.
Ladies and gentlemen, tomorrow marks Europe's fortieth anniversary.
We have now had ten days to consider Renault Vilvoorde's problems, ten days in which we have seen just how little progress has been made in those 40 years.
Mr President, let me say at the outset that it is always a tragedy when a workplace closes or moves to another country, not least for the employees.
In this particular case, the closure of the Renault plant at Vilvoorde in Belgium, the EU Commission has shown an enormous amount of interest.
One might wish that such interest were always shown when a workplace closes or moves, and perhaps especially when the reason for the closure has something to do with money from the EU Structural Funds.
I would like to inform Parliament of a concrete case in Denmark.
It concerns the American-owned Boston Scientific Corporation at Stenløse, where 258 employees will be put out onto the street at the end of 1997, because the firm is moving to Ireland with support from the EU Structural Funds.
It is quite unreasonable and does not constitute a proper use of EU funds.
Money from the Structural Funds should not be used to switch unemployment from one Member State to another.
That is surely a distortion of competition.
Mr President, there is more to this whole question of who is responsible for thousands of Flemish workers at Vilvoorde being made redundant without even the slightest attempt at consultation.
It is all too easy just to point the finger at the Renault management, but in fact the European Commission and the Belgian Government must also take their share of the blame.
Firstly the Commission, whose indignation at the closure of the Renault plant had a very hollow ring, in my opinion.
It is the Commission which is always saying that the car industry needs to be moved to cheaper countries such as Spain or Portugal in order to put up stronger competition against non-European producers.
It is the Commission which grants billions in subsidies for these relocations.
And it is the Commission more than anyone else which turns a blind eye to unfair competition from third countries.
So if it is true that Renault is to transfer a large proportion of its production to Turkey and Brazil, we should now be asking ourselves what measures the Commission intends to take to prevent many other companies from doing the same in future, leaving Europe an industrial graveyard.
Do not think that I am in favour of out-and-out protectionism.
I am simply saying that there is absolutely no point in making European firms, which pay their workers relatively high wages and are subject to all kinds of rules and regulations, compete with countries where social legislation, environmental regulations and so forth are virtually non-existent.
This is not free trade, it is suicide.
Blame must also, and above all, be laid on the shoulders of the Belgian Government under Jean-Luc Dehaene, which has allowed our wage costs to become some of the highest in the world, which for years has scorned our demands for more firms to have their financial and economic base in Flanders, and which has sold out practically the entire Belgian economy to exclusively foreign and French interest groups.
It is also the Belgian Government which has meekly accepted the Walloon socialists' demands and has prevented the Flemish economy from bringing its wage costs down.
We are now counting the cost of this policy.
The fact that Dehaene knew about the closure days in advance and chose to make monkeys out of the Vilvoorde workforce shows just what sort of a man he is.
It is as well to know these things about someone whose ambition it is to become a member of the European Commission.
Finally, I have to say that the manner in which Renault is carrying out this closure is also absolutely scandalous.
We know Mr Schweitzer to be a typical example of the French socialist apparatchiks .
So this is the human face of socialism!
Mr President, unlike Mr Vanhecke, who has just given us a laughable account of who he thinks is to blame for all this, I should like to thank the Commission for its severe condemnation of the sudden closure of Renault Vilvoorde, and for its commitment regarding the measures which it has just announced.
Commissioner, I hope that you will act on what you have said, and that Renault Vilvoorde and the international solidarity we are currently seeing will give new impetus to progress on social Europe.
I agree with you that Europe's credibility is at stake here more than ever, because how are we to explain to people that the Commission can intervene to prevent firms from receiving government aid, but not to prevent closures where even the most basic rules of worker consultation have been flouted?
That is why I am particularly pleased that you are proposing to tighten up the directive, and I hope that you will press on with this as quickly as possible.
I would urge you not to leave it up to the Member States to decide on the sanctions to be introduced, but to establish them at European level, because everyone knows that if you leave it up to the Member States, it will simply lead to more competition in terms of attracting investment.
I would also urge the Commission to establish instruments which it can itself use in future to intervene in cases where legislation is as blatantly flouted as it has been with Renault Vilvoorde.
I also expect the Commission to use all its political and legislative powers to enforce the existing directives, to force the management to reverse its decision and to seek alternative solutions such as shorter working hours, which have already been proposed.
I hope that all the government leaders and politicians who are now so indignant about the Renault Vilvoorde closure will refuse to accept a revised version of the Treaty which does not focus on employment and social policy, and will force the negotiators to arrive at a new agreement.
Mr President, Renault's sudden decision to close its Belgian plant at Vilvoorde is seen by many people as a double failure: the failure of Europe and the failure of the liberal market economy.
But I see it as neither of these things.
If a major European employer and producer inflicts the consequences of its company strategy on the community as it has done here, then that community is entitled to examine the company strategy and question whether it is sound.
Until two years ago, Renault was a state-owned company and the French State is still a 47 or 48 % shareholder.
So if Renault represents the failure of any form of capitalism, it is state capitalism.
But there is more to it than that.
A liberal market economy is not a licence to be short-sighted.
We have known about the problems of Europe's car industry in general, and that of France in particular, for years now, and I cannot help thinking that the Renault management, having spent far too long carping and complaining, has now tried to find a way out by suddenly closing one of its plants outside France, one of the most productive in its group.
In doing so, it is not only flouting two European directives, it has also dealt a severe blow to people's faith in European solidarity. It is doing Europe a very bad service, and that is a most regrettable state of affairs.
Mr President, we had the opportunity to hear the workers in question last week and we are amazed that they are so surprised at the decision of a company which shows a total lack of respect for their work, their effort and their future - and for the future of the region in which the company is located.
We are amazed, let me repeat, that they should be so surprised.
We agree with what Mr Santer said about the lack of credibility of the European institutions when a question such as this arises; it is correct.
We spend months and months here discussing certain directives on the protection of workers' rights and when the moment of truth comes no effective sanction can be taken to see that they are respected.
In a letter sent to the Group chairmen, the management bases its decision on competitiveness and I think we should start to reflect about where this zealous pursuit of competitiveness of European industries and of world industries in general is taking us.
We shall never be able to compete with the starvation wages and union rights of the countries of the third world and Eastern Europe.
This is therefore a race we cannot win.
The Renault factory has in the past six years increased its productivity by 200 000 units and has cut its workforce by 7 000.
Now it seems that is not enough; greater productivity must be sought; greater competitiveness.
It seems to us that the European Union should manage to get sanctions imposed against companies which do not comply with Community law and the Commission and the Parliament would be well advised to demand the revocation of a decision which so clearly runs counter to Community law.
We do not think this will be the last case; strong measures need to be taken requiring negotiation with the workers, as called for in the European Works Council Directive and the Collective Redundancies Directive.
Mr President, the sudden announcement of the closure of the Renault plant at Vilvoorde in Belgium, where 3100 people are to lose their jobs, is a tragedy, particularly since - contrary to the European directive - the workers have not in any way been consulted.
Given that Renault is a multinational, some sort of action is obviously expected from the European Union, and it is understandable that Commissioner Van Miert should launch an inquiry into Spain's plans to provide government aid for the Renault plant there, and that Commissioner Flynn should review the rules on the consultation of workers.
But could the Union be doing more? It has been suggested that Renault, as a French firm, was always far more likely to close a plant in Belgium than one in France.
Be that as it may, it is absolutely clear that workers must be given the same protection, no matter which Member State they are in.
Any closures must be accompanied by a carefully considered social programme, and that is what is lacking here.
However, do we not also have to accept that a multinational firm which is forced to make cutbacks for economic reasons is perfectly entitled, in the single market, to concentrate production wherever costs are lowest?
Mr President, the ominous decision by the French government, of which Mr Schweitzer is merely the executor, to put not just 3 000 but 6 000 Belgian workers out of a job confirms France's resolve to join the United Kingdom and Germany in the club of nations that expect only advantages from Europe, without accepting the constraints involved in elementary solidarity between our nations.
This is not a new situation.
The workers in my country, Belgium, have frequently been the victims of intraCommunity delocalization over the past 15 years.
The first salvos were fired by the English when the United Kingdom repatriated British Leyland's motor vehicle assembly line, which had previously been sited in Wallonia.
To cite only the automobile industry, let me remind you of the successive closures of the Tudor battery production units, then of the Champion sparking-plug producers and the serious threats looming over the Volkswagen factory workers in Forest.
This situation gives rise to several comments.
Firstly, the intransigent attitude of the Renault bosses should give some food for thought to a few francophile politicians who dream of attaching Wallonia to France.
Secondly, I am thinking of the inevitable retaliatory measures the consumers will spontaneously take by boycotting all products made in France which, in the final analysis, are far from irreplaceable.
Finally, I think the time has come for Belgium to claim back from France the three billion new French francs stolen from Belgian savers in 1994, when the French public company AGF took over the Belgian insurance company Assubel.
Three billion French francs is more than enough to secure the jobs of the Renault workers in Vilvorde, and also of the Clabeck workers in Les Forges.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that is what could and should have been avoided if Europe had taken the necessary solidarity measures for the workers of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today Vilvorde has become a kind of symbol, and a revealing one.
If we look closely at the situation, we will have to examine the responsibilities of all concerned.
What was the strategy adopted by a state that held 48 % of the shares, i.e., more than the blocking minority? Certainly it was not a posteriori disapproval.
Is the French government, by its inaction, trying by any chance to ruin the mixed economy?
In face of the on-going industrial revolution, in face of the trend towards international capitalism, has Europe given itself the means of countering this by maintaining its social system?
Europe has created a framework that encourages competition and deregulation, translated by the development of surplus production capacity; it has established a competition policy that encourages alliances outside Europe and makes it difficult to form genuine alliances between Europeans, as a result of which employment is becoming the main variable of adjustment.
The social horrors that are the end result of competition, of run-away capitalism, render meaningless the Commission's assurances that the primary and automatic means of protecting jobs is acceptance of maximum flexibility.
The closure of the Vilvorde plant demonstrates, if indeed demonstration is necessary, the risks of social dumping.
One reason this unit was closed was that labour costs there were 25 % to 30 % higher than in other sites.
Tomorrow, if we do not act, other dramas will open our eyes to the risks of fiscal dumping, of environmental dumping, right inside the European Union.
The Europeans will turn against Europe unless it formulates a genuine industrial policy that is in their service, provides public financing of research that matches up to the requirements, opens a social dialogue worthy of that name.
How could we not agree with Jean-Luc Dehaene who said that 'in the social sector, coordination at European level is the only possible response to the individual strategies of the multinationals' ?
Yes, we must indeed incorporate the social protocol in the treaty and abolish the unanimity rule in areas where it still applies in the social area.
Some representatives of the right are now advocating a social Europe.
I feel like saying: ' I dare you!' .
Go on then, persuade your governments to adopt a real chapter on employment at the intergovernmental conference.
But I do see a glimmer of hope in this affair.
For years we have been lamenting the absence of a union movement able to face up to undertakings pursuing a multinational strategy.
As history teaches us, social dialogue and regulation are rarely granted.
They are obtained by struggle, by the play of forces.
If there are incipient signs of dialogue, all the better!
I hope it will become obligatory when the euro forces our Member State governments to adopt a coordinated European economic policy.
Once again, what we are suffering from is not a lack of Europe, but a Europe that is too liberal, that is too commercial, too intent on free trade.
We are suffering from the absence in Europe of an industrial strategy in the service of Europeans, from the lack of regulation and solidarity, the lack of a political and social Europe.
Mr President, I should like to cool the tempo of the debate a little, that is release a little steam to reduce the pressure.
We are debating a key bi-national question.
I do not want to introduce another country to produce a tri-national debate, but simply to put things into context.
The closure of the Renault factory is of course very sad.
It is a decision by the management of Renault and we express our solidarity with the Vilvoorde workers.
But what we must not do is to link this closure with the fact that the Renault company is wanting to expand production in Spain.
That is not solidarity, since Spain too is European union country which any company can move to provided it complies with the laws in force.
I think that in this case Renault is trying to comply with the laws in force and will make use of the economic, social or fiscal options permitted under those laws.
I do not understand how the two subjects are being mixed together here and I am sorry that I had to speak because I think these are two totally separate subjects: the Vilvoorde closure is one thing and the expansion in Spain is another.
What the European Union needs to do - and here we are trying to build it and we have not been engaged for many years on the project and things cannot be achieved all at once - is to have social and fiscal legislation on all matters which is homogenous throughout all countries.
That would prevent factories in the European Union from moving from one country to another, since similar costs would be incurred.
Neither would the multinationals then be so inclined to move from one European Union country to another, as has happened in Spain, or to third countries.
There is just one more question - would this debate have taken place had not Vilvoorde been the Commissioner's home town?
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to stress once again in this debate that the basic problem is that the Renault management has broken a number of national, European and international regulations.
The issue is not whether Renault was right to close its plant at Vilvoorde on economic grounds, although I wholly agree with the severe criticism which has been levelled against the Renault management.
But I do not agree with those who are taking advantage of the situation to launch an attack on Europe or to target the free market economy.
I would point out to my Belgian colleagues that the Catholic-socialist coalition, which always presents itself as the stalwart defender of a social Europe, actually opposed the Commission when it proposed to tighten up European legislation on this subject.
On the other hand, the approach adopted by Volkswagen in Germany shows that it is possible to deal with such cases properly even without stricter legislation.
More jobs are soon going to have to disappear, not just at Renault in France but in the European car industry as a whole, since overcapacity is currently running at 20 to 30 %.
The most important issue in this whole debate is the need to create an industry-friendly climate in Europe with lower labour costs and greater work flexibility if we are to arm ourselves against worldwide competition.
Mr President, first of all the loss of 3, 000 jobs at Vilvoorde is an absolute tragedy for the workers and their families, and a tragedy for Belgium, the country which is experiencing this social tragedy and justifiably feels its commitment to Europe has been betrayed.
A tragedy, but sadly nothing new: the whole of the 'eighties and these early years of the 'nineties have been littered with such tragedies.
Even today similar tragedies are taking place in other European countries: at Sorces de Clébecq 2, 000 steel workers, 1, 000 of them Italian, are threatened with redundancy, the German miners are likewise threatened, Philips on the outskirts of Milan has just announced the closure of the factory which will be transferred to Poland, where the Danzig shipyards are closing.
Tragedies, but nothing new.
What is new is the struggle of the workers, European unemployment, the meeting today in Biancourt, the development of an initiative.
This is a Europe being born, but unfortunately it is also a denunciation of a political and economic Europe which is not there and which is guilty by its absence.
This Europe needs to be discussed in depth.
There are political reasons for the current episode.
Europe does not have a social policy, it only has Maastricht monetarism.
So Europe is suffering from social dumping from the outside and the consequences of its deflationary policy on the inside.
There is no industrial policy, there is no policy to reduce working hours, there is no policy of public control over the multinationals.
Commissioner Flynn, you spoke of dismay at the closure of Vilvoorde; I speak of dismay at your communication.
The powerlessness this Parliament and the Commission are demonstrating in this case is utterly indecent: either Europe succeeds in recovering a sense of itself, or else events like this condemn not Renault alone, but the inability of this Parliament and Europe to respond to the problems of the workers and the unemployed.
Mr President, let me point out to my Spanish colleague, without reference to my speaking time, that the Renault town in Belgium is not the Commissioner's town but the town of the Belgian prime minister and of the President of the Commission, whom we would have liked to have here.
Let us not despair of Billancourt, despair of Vilvorde, despair of Europe!
For many years Renault was the social show-case of France.
Today it is the flag-bearer of social Europe.
The brutality of the decision, the number of workers involved, have created a new awareness among the unions, the governments and the Commission and I hope this will not prove to be a flash in the pan.
We appreciated what the Commission and Commissioner Flynn said.
But let us not speak in double talk.
We are fed up hearing the Commission spell out the credo of competitiveness and blame the workers for wage and salary costs being high and not flexible enough.
I am not inventing this, it is written in the Commission's report on the European automobile industry.
I think in the present case the problem is not wage costs but the profitability of the automobile industry in a context in which, in the end, we wonder if anyone can still afford cars with so many people unemployed!
So what do we now expect of the Commission? Two things.
The first is short term. I myself do not accept the idea that the closure of Vilvorde is a fait accompli .
There are means of pressure.
And when we talk about Commission aid for the Spanish company, we do so precisely in order to put pressure on Renault not to close Vilvorde.
And if the Commission wants to be consistent it should apply this pressure to persuade Renault to keep the Vilvorde plant open, to protect the jobs in Vilvorde.
We must not accept this closure.
Secondly, what we expect of the Commission is of course for it to make proposals, not only to improve the directive on works councils but also to ensure that undertakings do not play Lego with the units of undertakings.
That really does require strong action.
Lastly, I hereby make an appointment with the governments.
On 17 June the governments are due to approve the results of the intergovernmental conference.
Quite frankly, no matter whether it is the Belgian government, the French government or any other, they must finally change the Treaties at this intergovernmental conference and lay the foundations for a social Europe, otherwise they will not be being consistent.
Let me add that I invite all those colleagues who have spoken in support of Vilvorde to join us on Sunday, 16 March at a demonstration on employment.
Mr President, in a few decades time, when historians and students of our times try to unravel their mysteries, the word Renault will be a key.
Through Renault, they will find out that there was a time when labour was made more flexible and precarious, when social rights were reduced, when modernisation took place, and when workers thought they were going to have a fair share of modernisation and all they got was unemployment and social exclusion.
Through Renault, they will understand also how it was that in the beginning of 1997 a multi-national company in the automobile industry shut down units and threw thousands of workers on to the dole queues just because they were having difficulties - and at the same time their shares rose significantly in value on the Paris stock exchange.
Through Renault, they will even have an illustration that just as European construction between equal Member States was taking place, some of them were more equal than others.
Because what happened in Setubal, in Portugal, only merited a pious resolution with no consequences whereas what happened in Belgium aroused strong reactions of solidarity, demonstrations, strikes and even the Commissioner did not hide his Belgian origins.
This should not necessarily be denounced but it should be remembered, given that other situations and postures meant that a European Commissioner was obliged to give up the defence of national interests, in the case of the Portuguese.
I will be strange for those historians and students of the time in which we live that on the same day as this debate, in the same European Parliament, another debate on the restructuring of the automobile industry - based on a report by a very high-up member of the PSE - did not focus on social problems or even refer to them.
Whoever has the job of writing today's history will find some very strange and incomprehensible matters.
I hope that the position of the European Parliament on this issue is going to be comprehensible for them, in terms of its social content and its consequences for the future.
Mr President, it is difficult to understand the attitude of the management of Renault in announcing from one day to the next the closure of a production plant in a European country; but it is not right to involve other countries in this problem and to point to Spain in this context; let us not confuse the issues.
This closure is not bound up with the opening of new factories in Spain and this decision by Renault does not appear to be linked to new production centres in other European countries.
The only people responsible - and they must be answerable - are the Renault bosses.
No-one else is responsible.
This calls in question not only the scant nature of social Europe, but the very idea of Europe.
If such things take place in a Europe we would like to regard as a joint Europe and we do not worry about them, then there is something seriously wrong with the very edifice of Europe.
Intangible concepts such as the market heartlessly and mercilessly dictate plant relocation or closure and concentration.
If the market, capital and immediate profitability are not neutral, then neither should be the defence of jobs and union rights.
Renault should not only respect Community legislation, but it should also bow to European public opinion.
Unfortunately it is not the first factory to be closing and we must be aware that industrial strategies do sometimes entail these sad consequences.
But here we are faced with a surprise decision with no respect for the minimum rules of the game required without consultation and without negotiation.
If we simply stand by and watch these problems we shall be guilty of ineffective resignation.
It is not a problem of thousands of Flemish workers.
I should prefer to call it a problem of thousands of European workers, and we express our solidarity with them.
Dialogue between both sides of industry is the best instrument for settling labour relations.
This is a specific case in which such dialogue should be used to channel a very serious problem.
Renault must accept that industrial and labour relations do have their purpose.
Talks between the management of Renault and the workers' representatives should find possible solutions to this problem which is on a European scale and there must be solutions if such dialogue is possible.
I have received one motion for a resolution, under Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure .
Mr President, I wish to thank all those who have contributed to the debate this morning.
It has been a worthwhile debate and it is only right and proper that the House should deal with the matter, for at least two good reasons.
Firstly, there is the right we have to show the depth of our feeling concerning the decision taken by Renault on this closure.
It is also right that we show solidarity with those people threatened with the loss of their jobs, and with their families, who are going to suffer distress.
Both Parliament and the Commission have put employment right at the top of their political agendas.
It is extremely difficult to accept the laying-off of good, well-trained, professional workers at what was and is understood still to be an industrially and economically efficient plant.
This plant had the most flexible workforce one could contemplate in this sector and it is very difficult to understand the decision to close it down.
Secondly, this particular closure raises a number of important issues of European Community policy.
There can be no questioning the right, or indeed the necessity, to make commercial decisions affecting investment, location, operation and even closure of industrial plants in these increasingly competitive times.
That is always clearly understood.
But rights and powers, of course, bring matching responsibilities.
The question here is very well stated by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens when she says that Renault have broken the rules.
They have broken the rules and it is for others to pursue this matter under the national implementation legislation.
That is what is contemplated and that is the way it should be addressed.
The internal market provides an arena without internal frontiers - the biggest of its kind in the world - where business can prosper, where capital and goods move freely, and where competitiveness and industry is encouraged.
But no business can prosper without the goodwill and the commitment of its workforce, and those that purport to be multinational companies cannot renationalize whenever it suits them.
It was very clearly stated in the communication on this particular industry some while ago that social dialogue is an important aspect in dealing with the structural arrangements that would be necessary for its development.
You cannot disregard that, as has happened on this occasion.
That is the message that should be sent.
I would say that there is good point in condemning the action by Renault.
It was wrong, and it is unacceptable to deal in such a cavalier fashion with the rights of workers as they are enshrined in law. And it is for those who consider these rights infringed to take up the case in their jurisdiction where necessary.
That is why the social and economic dimensions are always cited as two sides of the same coin.
In my opening statement I set out the situation of existing legislation in regard to the laying-off of workers in situations such as Renault in Vilvoorde.
I pointed out the weaknesses in the matter of sanctions and I have indicated my intentions with regard to filling these gaps and the strengthening of Community measures on information and consultation of workers.
I would say to Mrs Van Lancker: the law is there and should be implemented; and before seeking new legislation as an immediate and quite understandable reaction to such situations, we must always remember to test the existing legislation.
If it is found wanting, then there is a good case for seeking its amendment.
But I would sincerely suggest that the existing legislation is strong and should be pursued; and, if and when any aspect of it is discovered to be in need of amendment or extension, then I would not hesitate to come back with such a proposal.
But others, of course, must also play their part.
Industry must take a fresh look at its responsibilities in an internal market which encourages its competitiveness and its prosperity.
In this particular case Renault, and indeed the government which holds a 48 % share of the company, must abide by European and national law, both in the letter and in the spirit.
The government - all governments - must ensure that in a people's Europe which is to be worthy of that name, social and economic dimensions must be given balanced attention with equality of treatment and protection rights right across the Union.
I believe that the Intergovernmental Conference will provide an opportunity to do just that.
A disastrous closure like this shakes confidence.
It is important now - as it was at the time - always to mobilize all our forces and energies to restore investor and consumer confidence that will bring growth and increased employment.
The role of social policy as a productive factor is a key element in this equation.
We must not lose sight of that fact in our preparations for the final stages of the IGC discussions and the Amsterdam Summit and in the ongoing initiatives we are taking with the social partner.
In the immediate future I will be coming forward with some important proposals in the social area, particularly on social protection and new methods of work organization; and there will be, as I stated in my opening remarks, the proposal on information and consultation at national level.
I would like to use that instrument in the proposal, to fill any gap that might have arisen or appear evident following the run-through in this particular case insofar as it is pursued at national level.
A successful conclusion to the Davignon Group would also unlock the company statute proposal and be a considerable boost to the internal market.
We have also to look forward to the successful outcome of the negotiations between the social partners on part-time work, and this too would be extremely useful.
Finally, I wish to say that, in my opinion, no company, irrespective of its size or influence, is entitled to dismiss its workers and to disobey the law in the cavalier fashion we have witnessed in this particular case.
It is contrary to law and to the spirit that we thought endowed all the actions making up the integration of Europe and the internal market.
The united response that we have here will do much to indicate to all those who have responsibility in this matter that it is not acceptable to act in an irresponsible fashion such as we have seen in this case.
Workers' rights are enshrined in law and they must be respected in the spirit as well as in the letter of the law.
That is the basis on which agreement is reached in the first instance, and to disregard that basis is just a recipe for industrial relations chaos.
Damage to the building of Europe has been caused on this occasion. Let us be clear about that.
So I wish to stress again that the social dimension is vital if we want European integration to succeed as a precondition for the support of European citizens for the European ideal.
We would look forward to a better response in future from those who have responsibility in this regard.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Let us hope that this debate will have the best possible effect on the situation facing Renault workers.
Industrial competitiveness
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0052/97 by Mr A.J. Donnelly, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions 'European Automobile Industry 1996' (COM(96)0327 - C40493/96); -A4-0040/97 by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the Commission communication on an industrial competitiveness policy for the European chemical industry: an example (COM(96)0187 - C4-0273/96); -A4-0036/97 by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission's communication: ' Shaping Europe's maritime future - a contribution to the competitiveness of maritime industries' (COM(96)0084 - C4-0211/96) Draftsmen of opinions: Mrs Estevan Bolea, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on external Economic Relations Mr Belleré, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism Mr K. Collins, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection ( 'Hughes' procedure).
Mr President, I would like first of all to start by discussing the three reports collectively because, as you said, this is a joint debate on industry policy and I think it is very timely given the earlier debate we had on Renault and the very helpful response given by Commissioner Flynn that we look collectively at these three industries because, while of course the automobile sector, the maritime sector and the chemical sector are three clearly different industries, it is very clear to me that there are very similar characteristics in the way in which we have to try and provide an environment for those industries to operate within the European Union.
They all face similar challenges of intensified global competition and rapid structural change and I think it is in that context that we need to have this debate this morning and I am sure it is in that context that Commissioner Bangemann will respond on behalf of the European Commission.
Given that over 3, 000 workers have just lost their jobs following the Renault decision I think it is also very important that we give some thought to the links between competitiveness, productivity and employment because we talk too much in this House and in the European institutions about competitiveness but we do not link it to the issue of productivity and employment.
Competitiveness in itself is not an end, it must be a means to an end, and that of course is to try and improve productivity and to try and improve employment opportunities.
We have to get out of this orthodoxy within the European Union of assuming that competitiveness in itself is the answer to all of our problems.
The issue of restructuring, transfers and plant closures is creating a growing atmosphere of insecurity among workers and the public in general, and it is essential that the European Commission come forward with proposals that can deal comprehensively with this issue.
We accept that it is a complicated and complex matter in terms of industrial planning when you get transfers, restructuring and plant closures taking place.
In that context if it is complex then we need a series of ideas and initiatives and solutions to ensure that we can try and take away the terrible feeling of insecurity that now exists within the European Union.
Insecurity leads to demotivation, and that is part of the problem that the European economy is facing.
I hope the Commissioner, when he responds, will take account of these issues in the general debate on industry.
I want to use the rest of my time to talk specifically about the car industry, because this is Europe's biggest industry: it represents almost 2 % of the gross domestic product of Europe, it employs directly about 2 million people, it contributes to the revenue of the European Union over ECU 220 billion.
It is an extremely significant industry and, frankly, if we continue as we are going today in the way in which this industry is planning for the future, we are going to see substantial job losses in Europe.
We have got the problem at Renault, you have seen the problems at Enfield in London and at Halewood in Liverpool in the Ford company.
We are going to see further pressures on this industry unless we can try and devise a plan for the future.
So the first thing this House calls for is for Commissioner Bangemann, with the Parliament, to convene a meeting of the CEOs of the major car manufacturers in Europe with the components industry sector and the trade unions to see if we can put together a high-level grouping that can plan for the future of this industry.
We want to see greater support given to the 'car of the future' initiative.
It is an excellent initiative but it needs more resources and more support.
We want to see greater progress made on the issue of international harmonization of standards.
It is crucial if we are going to have a global market and a globally competitive market within the European Union that we move forward on international harmonization.
And then specifically, on a number of initiatives, we need to make sure that the vehicles we produce are the sort of vehicles that will be acceptable, not only in our own market, but in the United States and in the other markets around the world, and the sort of product that the consumer wishes to purchase.
That means we need to look at new technologies in the field of emissions and fuel consumption.
We need to look at motor electronics, further improvements in vehicle safety, electric and hybrid vehicles, lightweight vehicle structures and materials, optimizing of production techniques, and systems for the recycling of all vehicles.
I recognize that we already have something like 56 directives on the statute book as far as the car industry is concerned.
We cannot simply, as legislators, pursue this agenda without consultation with the industry and so what I would appeal to in the spirit of consultation and collaboration is for us to move forward rapidly to look at this new agenda in consultation with the industry, the trade unions and the research sector so that we actually look forward to a secure future for Europe's biggest industry and we can stop the present decline.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the chemical industry is the second-largest sector of manufacturing industry in Europe.
It provides 1.6 million jobs and has the highest export share of all.
The largest chemical companies in the world are located in Europe, so their basic situation is almost comparable.
Like the automobile industry, the chemical industry has to react to global market changes.
The annual turnover of ECU 350 billion, which is equivalent to between 3 % and 4 % of total European GDP, offers a good basis for the future.
The Commission communication on the competitiveness of the chemical industry is almost a model project, because it was drawn up on the basis of dialogue with the industry.
In this connection I must definitely praise the Commission, which is so often criticized here!
Commissioner, if you have deserved praise, you should also accept it!
However there is one point which could have been improved on: participation by workers' associations was inadequate; this could do with improving.
The radical structural changes and increasing globalization have led to a lasting regional shift in markets and production centres.
Some of the reasons are the growing strength of new competitors in the Asian and Pacific region, the opening up of the Eastern European countries and their increasing integration in the world economy and the more intensive competition in the European internal market.
The global structure of the chemical industry will have to adapt to the changing regional structure of the world chemical market.
For instance, competitors in Asia, the Middle East and Eastern Europe are already able to offer many chemical products, especially standard products, at substantially lower prices than European companies, despite an entirely comparable product quality and reliability of supplies.
In these standard areas the chemical industry has also forfeited its technological advantage because these technologies are available worldwide.
The globalization of markets and the siting of new production plants in the growth regions - which is often criticized but is necessary to the companies' survival - meant that employment in the chemical industry had to be cut by 25 % in recent years, to a workforce of only 1.6 million today.
One of the future tasks of the chemical industry therefore - given the need for more market-oriented production - will be to protect employment in the chemical sector on a lasting basis and to offset the loss of jobs in traditional chemical branches by the creation of new jobs in forward-looking technologies.
Here, Commissioner, biotechnology and genetic engineering, active substance and natural substance chemicals, environmental technology, new materials and the development of complex system solutions can do much to replace unprofitable product lines.
That is why I also believe it is important, as the committee noted in relation to research projects, for the chemical industry to be involved more closely in the task forces as a multi-disciplinary industry rather than being marginal, for it can make contributions to the car of the future, to the traffic system, to synergetic solutions that go far beyond what the Commission has suggested to date.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has given profound thought to this.
We organized a hearing.
We took account of the views of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and the end result was a report that met with broad approval.
Given the difficulties of the task, in connection for example with ensuring a minimum level of environmental legislation while cutting back on environmental rules that act as an obstacle to the production of chemicals and to the position of Europe as a centre of chemical production, the 55 votes in favour and only 2 against are certainly gratifying.
This intensive consultation has shown that the Commission provided a good basic document but that our proposals can improve it.
So it will be up to you, Commissioner, to show you are prepared to accept our good proposals, which have broad support.
We take the view that the chemical industry could be an exemplary area for the Commission and the Member States to promote the social dialogue on technological lines of development.
That would gain new product lines the necessary acceptance.
It might also mean that the much-discussed question of the CO2 tax, which the committee is rather sceptical about - we do not believe it is a solution for ensuring competitiveness - can be discussed objectively and without ideological bias.
The same applies to the development of the infrastructure, a pipeline network that would improve the transport of dangerous goods.
I believe that in this overall context the Commission's communication is a useful one.
Let me conclude by thanking all those who have contributed, the Commission, the associations that played an active part and the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy; I believe that all in all we can be satisfied with this report!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to follow Mr Donnelly's example and introduce what I have to say about the shipping industry with a few more general comments concerning the problem of industrial policy in Europe.
The main factors that determine the course of European industry nowadays are three in number: its persistently low productivity, its essential failure to make the most of the potential of new technologies, and the pressures stemming from increased public awareness of environmental issues.
The combination of those three factors in today's circumstances has a restraining effect, like a brake, on the progress of European industry.
With a new and creative combination, the brake could be changed into a driving force, and that should be task of industrial policy.
New technology can increase productivity, and that, in turn, can create additional wealth, part of which can be devoted to improving the environment.
The critical question is why the creative procedure is so slow in coming, and the only serious answer that has been put forward to that question is that the slowness with which economic activity is expanding, the relative recession that has been affecting us since the beginning of the 1990s, and even before then of course, and the relatively low levels of investment, are making it difficult to promote new technology.
More particularly, for the types of new technology that concern us now, namely information technology, other difficulties are amplified by the fact that the consumer public is not aware, and has not had sufficient opportunity to become aware of the potentials of new technology, so as to create the necessary large-scale consumption and production demand.
In the case of IT we must not only invest in equipment, but also in the creation of new markets.
Now, so far as the shipping industry is concerned, despite the fact that it employs 2.5 million people, it has for a long time been considered a branch condemned to decline in the face of competition from countries with low labour costs and lax rules of operation.
The idea that Europe can counter low labour costs by making the most of its own comparative advantage, new technology, and lax rules with services of high quality, and that upon those foundations a new, modern, dynamic and competitive industry could be built, is precisely the creative idea that the Commission, and the Commissioner honouring us with his presence here today, as well as our common creation, the forum for shipping industries, have been promoting since 1991 with their initiatives.
Implementation of that concept can create a new, real industrial revolution in the branch, with incalculable gains for Europe, but none of this will become a reality without effort and constructive cooperation by all those involved in the branch.
Shipowners must take advantage of the fact that present fleets are quite old, and speed up the process of their replacement.
Postponement may gain them some short-term profit, but it undermines competitiveness and hence profits in the longer term.
Banks and financing organizations, at a time when employment among the productive workforce in shipping is temporarily restricted - and I say temporarily because the volume of merchant shipping is forecast to double over the coming 15 years - should transform flexibility of funding and low interest rates into a serious incentive for new investment.
Crews should strive for and demand from the Member States retraining in the new technologies.
They should also cooperate to establish flexible employment and crew composition systems that will facilitate the application of new technology in ships and throughout the branch.
Shipbuilding enterprises must be relieved of the necessity for State subsidies and must reconquer the position they once held in international markets.
Port authorities and enterprises have a key role to play, since they can interlink land and sea transport in ways that will multiply the present level of productivity.
But of course, it is the State and Community authorities which bear the greatest responsibility, because it is up to them to secure conditions of competition for European shipping, reductions of financial cost, and upgrading of the human resources.
Above all, however, they should review the general framework of employment in the economy because, Commissioner, without the acceleration this involves and without much fuller employment, I am afraid that the penetration of new technology and the new industrial revolution, and with them the restoration of Europe's former dynamic status, will be postponed indefinitely.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the chemical industry is facing constantly growing worldwide competition, especially with all the companies that can produce at lower costs.
This has already affected employment in Europe.
It is an industrial branch that is export-oriented and should remain so for economic reasons, in order to give further support to the European economy.
This branch of industry provides high-grade jobs in chemistry and in related industries, such as the automobile industry and the computer industry, since it can offer solutions which it has developed.
So it is important if not vital for the chemical industry, as a highly innovative branch of industry, to promote new development in forward-looking disciplines, such as biotechnology, which can lead to new products and processes and also reduce the burden on our environment.
However, European companies responsible for these innovations should have the same protection under patent law as those in other parts of the world.
On the question of environmental protection: we must realise that modern environmental protection, as practised in Europe and all the other industrialized countries, is inconceivable without the chemical industry - we need think only of the catalytic converter.
There is a great environmental potential here.
So we should support the chemical industry in its endeavour to resolve environmental problems.
Special attention should be devoted to small and medium-sized chemical companies.
Often it is they that develop and apply the new technologies that lead to definite improvements in existing products.
Quite often this also creates new jobs.
Such companies should be granted start-up aid by suitable measures such as the provision of risk capital.
Above all, their lives and survival should be made easier by deregulation.
The chemical industry is one of the few industrial branches in Europe that has on principle not required state aid because it was always able to restructure by itself and to adapt to the constantly changing situation on the world markets.
Our political aim must be to support it in this in future and not to hamper it by over-regulating.
Finally, many thanks to Mr Langen for his very good report and for accepting the proposals of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at least I have one thing in common with Mrs Heinisch and Mr Langen, namely that we are all aware of the special responsibility of the chemical industry.
Otherwise, we do not really see eye to eye.
Let me make a few comments in this regard.
I am convinced that the chemical industry - and the Committee on the Environment shares my conviction - has a special responsibility for healthy, environment-friendly products and for healthy, environment-friendly production.
The conclusions the Committee on the Environment draws from this - Mr Langen is shaking his head, but luckily he said this in his statement too - are different from those drawn by Mr Langen, the chemical industry and Mrs Heinisch.
For in view of the tensions facing the chemical industry we must do two things, on the one hand to generous with the chemical industry but on the other hand be strict with it.
What does that actually mean, to be generous and yet to be strict with it - and, incidentally, also with the Commissioner? Mr Langen interrupted by saying something the others did not understand.
I shall have something to say on that in a moment.
Nor will I try to dissect his report in detail, although it would be easy to do.
If I did so I would sound like a primary school teacher.
To be generous with the chemical industry does indeed mean to give it the measure of reliability, of status, that it needs.
To be strict with it means ensuring that it produces products that do not damage our environment and our health.
So there are a few faults to find with Mr Langen's report, which the Committee on the Environment does not support as it stands and which my group luckily will not support as it stands either - but I am saying this by the way.
We in the Committee on the Environment are currently working on a report on voluntary agreements, in which we attempt to clarify what voluntary agreements can achieve and what they cannot.
They can certainly not replace legislation.
Nor do I agree with Mr Langen that it is urgently necessary to reduce the number of environmental rules in order to offset locational disadvantages.
That is why I do not find it acceptable for the report to anticipate a result which this Parliament has not yet decided on.
Moreover, lower energy prices are not something this Parliament has emphasized in the past.
One last point and I shall finish.
For a long time this Parliament debated a CO2 energy tax without results.
I admire the courage of my colleague in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in talking about it, but saying so little also produces mistakes and therefore both I and the Committee on the Environment consider this part wrong.
The maritime industries have been considered dated, in decline and that is not true.
It is not true, ladies and gentlemen, because there are no obsolete industries; there are obsolete technologies.
It is true that at this moment the European shipbuilding industry - to be specific naval shipbuilding - accounts for only 20 % of the world market, but that figure could be greatly increased.
Maritime industries include not only the building of naval vessels and ship repairs; they include also the harbour services, the industries which use maritime resources such as fishing, the farming of fish, shellfish and algae and above all the industries engaged in extracting oil and gas from under the sea.
There is therefore much to do in Europe, but we must clearly make far-reaching changes beginning with training for those working in these sectors, first modernizing and updating our industries -and I want to mention oil tankers.
There are at the present time some 3 600 oil tankers navigating the globe - and 10 % of them need to be scrapped forthwith since they do not meet the requirements.
Europe has seen the most serious oil-spillage accidents, although only 30 % of oil passes through our ports.
In addition 10 % of capacity needs to be replaced. That is 700 new double-hulled oil tankers need to be built incorporating electronic security systems for safe navigation.
The European Union, our industries, could build a large proportion of those 700 vessels.
Many more oil rigs could also be built and a new specialist industry could be built up for the scrapping of oil rigs.
We have over 40 abandoned oil rigs which need to be scrapped and I do not know whether we are prepared with the industry which that requires.
Finally, in the fields of research as well as of energy we have much work to do and we have put various requests to the Commission - and Mr Katiforis has been good enough to include our requests in his report. These include ensuring that the existing directives are complied with so that vessels entering our harbours are safe.
Moreover we think that the Commission should draw up first a recommendation then a regulation on the replacement of obsolete oil tankers - and there are 700 of them, ladies and gentlemen, as I said.
The new ones must be doublehulled with twin engine rooms, dual propulsion system with separate cargo bay and equipped with the necessary electronic devices.
But we are also of the opinion that the European Union's maritime terminals and other ports - and we have the power to make this compulsory - should have the facilities required to receive domestic waste, spent oil and waste water and thus to help to improve the environment as a whole.
Mr President, following on from what has already been said, I would stress that what makes the maritime industries special is their close involvement in the international trading activities of the European Union.
That is why the Committee on External Economic Relations has already done so much work on the maritime industries and shipbuilding in particular, such as the report which it drew up in 1995 on the OECD agreement on competitive conditions in the shipbuilding and ship repair sector.
Ninety per cent of our external trade and 30 % of our internal trade goes by sea, keeping two and a half million people in jobs.
The role of maritime transport is set to increase, especially in connection with the Mediterranean partnership and cooperation with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, such as Poland and the Baltic States.
It is regrettable that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has failed to take account of much of the work done by the Committee on External Economic Relations and many of the recommendations in our report, a fact which I find very disappointing.
It is extremely significant, I believe, that shipbuilding is doing very well in places which have been able to adapt to new technologies.
And where is it struggling? Precisely in those areas where competitive conditions are poor and there is unfair competition.
The biggest threat to European shipbuilding is that it is far too occupied with its own affairs, instead of working together to try to establish its position on the international market.
The entry into force of the OECD agreement will be vitally important for European shipbuilding, and I have to say that the position adopted by the United States, as the only country which has not yet ratified it, is very disappointing.
I think it is vital for us to have fair competition within Europe, and for us to try to encourage fair competition internationally through the OECD agreement.
Finally, reference has been made to the need to step up activities in the field of research and development.
I would add that this costs a good deal of money and must not be allowed to result in further differences in operating conditions for the maritime industry in Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in its 1994 communication on an industrial competitiveness policy for the European Union the Commission presented a strategy for a horizontal approach to a modern industrial policy.
Promoting immaterial investment, improving industrial cooperation, ensuring fair conditions of competition and modernizing the public authorities are still fields of action of strategic importance to the competitiveness of the industrial sectors we are considering today.
In its resolution at that time, Parliament laid strong emphasis on the importance of this approach but also drew attention to other points; I want to address two of them.
The first point is that the guideline for industrial development is socially-oriented and environmentally compatible products and product innovations.
Secondly, we pointed out that besides the recognized growth areas, such as communications technologies, biotechnology, environmental technologies, in short hi-tech, great emphasis must also be placed on stabilizing and improving the competitiveness of traditional industrial sectors.
By this I do not mean old industries but existing sectors that must remain competitive by being modernized, taking competitiveness as meaning a high user quality and high environmental quality of the products in question.
In any case I regard the term 'obsolete industries' as dubious.
In Germany an entire branch is currently being brought into disrepute by the use of this term, which is ruining not just that branch but also the net product chain including its modern technologies.
But that is what happens when auto-liberal waffle takes the place of modern industrial policy.
Nobody in the chemical industry or the automobile industry dreams of talking about obsolete technologies.
Rightly so!
For they are the two most important manufacturing industries with their 3.5 million jobs and the world market shares they still retain, which goes to show that they are key industries for the European economy.
In the case of the maritime industry Mr Katiforis indeed pointed out that it too was until recently regarded as obsolete.
Only in recent years did people begin to realise again that for economic and strategic reasons its decline must not only be checked but in fact transformed into a recovery.
So let me just indicate two aspects of strategic importance to the sectors we are discussing today.
The first is the importance of investment in education, training and continuous training, but not only with a view to improving technical skills.
It is just as important to promote and foster the creativity of all those involved in the production process.
In that sense, social dialogue has a key role to play in improving competitiveness.
The second is the need for the sustainable development of high-grade, quality products using clean technology, i.e. not environmental after-care when the damage has been done, but environmentally compatible products and processes.
Only then is it justified to use the term the Commission takes as the heading for its communication on the chemical industry: an example.
Mr President, during 1996 the number of newly registered cars within the EU increased by 6.5 percent.
However, this is a considerably lower figure than at the end of the 1980's and the beginning of the 1990's.
This is, in my opinion, a growing problem as the vehicle parc is simply getting too old.
It is a step in the wrong direction, especially in the light of the fact that all new cars on European roads are both safer and more environmentally friendly than a car whose next stop is the scrap yard.
Bearing in mind that nearly 50, 000 people are killed every year on the roads of Europe and that vehicles, especially cars, are a major factor in our environmental problems, it is important to reach the kind of decision which will favour the development and wellbeing of the car industry in Europe.
In the light of the Donnelly report and the previous debate concerning Renault, there is cause for wondering whether we politicians really ought to try and influence the course of events.
Of course, there is no doubting the serious implications of the possible close down of the Renault factory in Vilvoorde in Belgium.
However, at the same time we politicians should move cautiously when it comes to interfering with a company's plans for the location of its operations as our actions may result in the company establishing its business not in Belgium nor Spain or anywhere else within the EU for that matter, but outside Europe's borders.
Then we will all have lost out.
In my opinion, it would instead be beneficial to turn the EU's car industry into a leader.
I believe that we politicians have a greater opportunity for influence here, as parts of Europe's car industry are already leaders, in areas such as for example increased safety measures.
Several companies are also making significant progress in research into hybrid vehicles or battery technology, for example, in order to find alternatives to the current internalcombustion engine.
This must, as I see it, be one of the most fundamental challenges within the environmental area.
It should be welcomed.
I am convinced that Europe's car industry can succeed in taking up the challenge and developing an alternative which is both competitive and commercially feasible.
It may take 10, 15 or 20 years, but the car industry will succeed provided that we do not put any further pressure on it.
My question to Commissioner Bangemann is whether the members of the Commission are willing to draw up and work diligently towards such an environmental target.
Mr President, a well-known European motor manufacturer recently received publicity in the French newspapers which demonstrated the defects of the motor car, reminding us that it causes pollution, and is dangerous and costly.
Nevertheless, that company and every other European company continues to produce cars and is trying to eliminate these defects every day, making the car safer, more accessible, cheaper, less polluting, and so on, because the car is our daily companion for recreation and, more importantly, work.
This effort is also called for by the rapporteur, whom I congratulate, and the Committee on Economic Affairs as a whole, in the resolution we are debating.
It is our duty to confront and overcome the problems of today's motor car so that we have increasingly suitable vehicles tomorrow.
More generally, the economic, social and hence occupational role of the motor car is now being reviewed from top to bottom.
The progressive automation of factories and the loss of jobs involve drastic changes in a sector which is suffering from a consumption crisis but which has directly provided some 2 million jobs up to now, not to mention the indirect jobs.
So we have two demands: the first is the acceleration of the renewal of the current stock of obsolete and polluting motor vehicles - particularly lorries and buses - in part through the fiscal measures and allowances envisaged.
I am thinking especially of Italy, where the government could finally extend the right of companies to deduct the VAT paid on the purchase of vehicles.
This would reduce the incidence of VAT on the overall economic activity of the firm.
This must take place by strengthening the internal market and placing clear conditions on the non-European market: we must confront the United States and Japan on the safety and efficiency of the car, as established in Washington in April 1996.
The second demand is to develop the car of tomorrow and transform the current European task force so that it takes on a strategic and pro-active coordinating role, using its resources primarily to protect the environment and develop the skills of those who work or might eventually work in the sector.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing taken together three sectors which are of enormous importance in the European Union's production system: the chemical industry, the automobile manufacturing industry and the maritime industries.
They all have problems in adjusting to the great challenge which the European Union itself accepted with the GATT Uruguay Round and its effects for progressively greater commercial openness at world level.
Our competitors are no longer, as was traditional, the United States and Japan, but in addition to those countries the emerging economies with cost structures which make them very competitive on the international markets.
It would be very negative if we were to allow the difficulties of some companies in these sectors - which have become particularly apparent over the past week - to lead us into a protectionist position, trying to protect certain markets and avoiding international competition.
I think that what European industry needs to do - and the Commission needs to give guidance - is to increase competitiveness, as considered in the various reports, avoiding all temptation to embrace protectionism.
We must consider which are the most important aspects and try to strengthen the three areas mentioned in former President Delors's White Paper, that is improving research and development, improving external markets - and, of course, international promotion - and improving education and training.
Mr President, in March the European Parliament adopted my report on industrial relocation both within the EU and worldwide.
Now the Renault case has given the Commission cause to take some of the measures called for by Parliament in that report.
The Commission proposes to investigate the ways in which businesses relocate to areas where they receive support from areas in respect of which no support is paid.
The European Parliament also called for the Commission to set up a monitoring unit to collect information on the relocation of businesses.
I should now like to know whether the Commission, spurred on by the Renault case, intends to set up such a monitoring unit to analyse the reasons for which businesses change their places of activity.
I give you the floor, Mr Blokland, for two minutes thirty seconds. You will the last speaker and the sitting will then be suspended and resumed at 3 p.m.
Madam President, something very disturbing happened this morning: on a request for urgency on Italian fisheries - the conversion of certain fisheries activities practised by Italian fishermen - it was not possible to take the recorded vote we have regularly called for.
The UPE group was in favour of urgency.
Unfortunately we did not have the option of a recorded vote. I asked for the floor in vain, I was not allowed to speak.
Unfortunately, because of this unpleasant incident, Italian fishermen were not able to make their voice heard in this Chamber.
The issue of the 'spadare' is an emergency facing employment, vessels and fishermen in Italy.
Unfortunately we were not able to deal with this sensitive issue.
I repeat: we were in favour of urgency because it could have solved an longstanding problem; we could have given the signal Italian fishermen are awaiting from this Parliament.
The Council and the Commission were in favour, but unfortunately Parliament decided to reject urgency, denying us the chance of a recorded vote.
Mr Tajani, if you were treated unfairly this morning, I think you have now had a chance to express yourself very freely, speaking longer than the one minute allocated to you.
Mr President, I do not want to start a debate but only say that this Parliament decided to take that position because a serious Parliament must have the time to do its work.
So we voted to look at the matter in April, as we undertook to do in committee.
Votes
Madam President, I should like to thank those Members who have placed their trust in this report.
I should also like to say how astonished I am at the position adopted by the PPE Group, with whom we negotiated long and patiently to reach agreement as far as possible.
In spite of all our efforts, they still voted against the report, and I have to say that I cannot understand why.
Madam President, Mrs Van Lancker is quite right.
We did have various discussions to try to reach a joint position between our two groups.
A number of compromise amendments were proposed, but there were also a number of points on which we were unable to reach a compromise, particularly in connection with asylum policy and immigration policy, and it was for this reason, because the Socialist Group did not share our views, that we were obliged to vote against.
But Mrs Van Lancker was quite right, we did have a number of discussions.
Our Parliament is deciding today on a technical adaptation of a legal instrument, with the object of reducing aeroplane noise.
Under this directive, aeroplanes originating in developing countries will be granted exemptions in relation to landing rights.
Through the report by my colleague Mr van der Waal, our parliamentary committee is asking the European Commission to define the term 'developing nation' .
Indeed we must not level accusations against a country like Saudi Arabia on the grounds of the exemptions granted for some of its aeroplanes.
However, we must also note that these are private aircraft and that to grant them excessive exemptions would restrict those that might be granted to the aeroplanes of national companies in developing countries, since the text provides for a limited number of exemptions for these countries overall.
Noise nuisance is a crucial problem for areas bordering on airports and a solution must be found that is acceptable to all parties concerned.
I hope the Commission will take account of our position.
I have voted for the report.
Certain developing countries cannot fulfil the requirements of a low noise level, making exceptions necessary.
However, the number of exceptions should not increase.
It is unacceptable that private airlines in 'rich' developing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Lebanon should account for most of the exceptions while the 'poor' developing countries such as Uganda and Zimbabwe are granted only a few.
This report is acceptable to the Green Group in the European Parliament because it allows the Member States the scope to introduce more sweeping measures to prevent noise from aircraft.
Amendment No 9 also removes the exemption for Saudi Arabia, which is hardly a poor developing country and where the aircraft are in fact privately owned.
However, these few technical measures are only some of what is necessary to reduce this increasing source of noise pollution.
The Commission's Green Paper on noise and its communication on a strategy against noise pollution indicate that wider European restrictions, such as on night flights to all European airports, will have to be considered.
This should ensure that in the fierce competition between the neighbouring Euregio airports of Bierset, Beek and Cologne-Bonn, for example, flights are not transferred to the airport applying the least strict rules, in this case from Cologne-Bonn to Bierset.
Caccavale report (A4-0010/97)
It is important that consumers' interests are safeguarded and strengthened on the consumer credit market.
However, the report goes too far in the direction of harmonisation towards a single European civil law that I cannot support.
As pointed out by the Committee, harmonised mortgage loans cannot be supported as these vary considerably in regard to the financial regulatory systems of Member States.
Van Lancker report (A4-0014/97)
Madam President, the Van Lancker report is based on a premise that has done considerable damage to Europe over recent years.
It suggests that questions of security or controlling immigration do not come top of the list and that the main thing is rapidly to abolish border controls in order to promote the merging of nations.
We are dealing here with the advance of an ideology that tramples the citizen underfoot.
The document before us regrets, for example, that the implementation of the Schengen agreements is geared mainly to restricting migration and to maintaining law and order.
Everyone with a grain of common sense is more worried that is doing the opposite.
Moreover, as usual the report calls for the abolition of all internal border controls, including checks on nationals of third countries.
It even encourages a new fad, the supposed need to guarantee a procedure for applicants at the external borders to appeal against refusal of access as though, over and above specific cases of the right of asylum, there was a general right for foreigners to enter the territories of the Union countries.
This position says a lot about the underlying implications and intentions of the European Parliament, which, let us not forget, is also calling for new powers in relation to immigration.
In this context, it is no surprise to find that the majority of this Parliament is in favour of relaxing the compensatory measures provided for under the Schengen agreements.
My group, on the contrary, would like to see them tightened.
During yesterday's debate I already referred to fact that the system of declarations of entry into EU territory which nationals of third countries have to deposit is not working at all.
Let me add another example, drawn from recent French experience.
Our National Assembly has just adopted in second reading an immigration bill providing that any foreigner who leaves French territory must hand in his residence permit to the police services.
But what will he do if he leaves France via an internal Community border where, in principle, these checks would no longer exist?
The chairman of our law committee agreed on the need to reopen negotiations with our Schengen partners.
That is therefore a new point to be added to the list of complementary measures.
It would be more useful to resolve this kind of practical problem than to reach for the sky by abolishing frontiers.
Madam President, I would like to give an explanation of vote both on my own behalf and that of the British Labour Members here.
We finally voted in favour of this report because there was a very great deal in it that we believe is right and needs to be said and should be supported by this Parliament.
However, I want to make it clear that there are some parts of this report on which we have grave reservations.
They relate in particular to the later paragraphs, from paragraph 47 onwards.
We cannot support and indeed voted against those paragraphs which call for the end of unanimity in Council on justice and home affairs issues; we cannot support calls for total judicial control over free movement by the Court of Justice; and we cannot support calls for communitization of third pillar issues.
These are matters which we and our party back home are clear on and we cannot go along with them.
But we voted in favour of the report as a whole because we believe that the many things it says that need to be said and the good in it outweigh our reservations about it.
I wanted to make those explanations.
Madam President, the EPP Group voted against Mrs van Lancker's report because we are in favour of the Schengen process on principle, because we recognize that Schengen has brought more freedom of movement in Europe and has therefore also allowed many citizens to experience positive European developments for themselves.
We must also underline that the dismantling of internal border controls must go hand in hand with better protection of our external borders.
The Schengen process does indeed make provision for the need to make our external borders more secure when the internal border controls are dismantled.
We must also make quite sure that the Schengen report is not used as a pretext for interfering in any national asylum policies.
There have now been a number of changes to asylum law in Europe, mainly with the aim of preventing any abuse of it, and this endeavour must not be undermined via a Schengen report.
For all these reasons, and because we are in favour of Schengen, we decided to vote against this report, which does not take account of these considerations.
Madam President, I should just like to comment on what the rapporteur said about the discussions held between the Socialist Group and the PPE Group.
These were successful on a number of points where the report was improved, but there were also a number of fundamental issues which we felt were unsatisfactory, and we were finally obliged to vote against them.
I consider legal and illegal immigration to be a very important issue, and it is one of the major social problems facing our countries today.
Illegal immigration is on the increase, and it is even happening on an organized scale.
It is not a coincidence that hundreds or even thousands of people from Ghana should appear at certain periods.
It is not because the situation in Ghana has suddenly deteriorated, but because 'people-trafficking' has now become big business.
The European Union, or the Schengen area in this particular case, must not be laid open to this kind of abuse.
In other words, I agree with what Mr Nassauer said: the fact that we have abolished our internal borders does not mean that our external borders can be left unprotected.
We cannot vote for this report.
We have a number of reservations about several points concerning the arrangement of the Schengen Agreement.
The possibility that Sweden as a member of Schengen would have to extend the list of countries whose citizens are required to possess a visa when visiting Sweden has met with criticism.
We have also expressed concern that this will, in various roundabout ways, result in a more restrictive refugee policy in our country.
There is also a question mark over whether Sweden as a member of Schengen will be able to determine independently the level of its controls at its "internal' borders.
This question has also aroused apprehension in the debate in Sweden.
It has, among other things, been pointed out that Sweden may have problems with the future harmonisation of the drugs policy of the Schengen countries.
We do not yet know the implications that the removal of border controls between the Schengen countries will have on the younger generation as regards drug tourism.
The Schengen collaboration is an interstate co-operation.
This we believe is good.
However, it does mean that each country has a right to say yes or no to whether they want to participate in each of the interstate forms of cooperation.
We should of course open up Europe for its people, which for us means giving people the opportunity to travel freely without the need for a visa and to be able to work anywhere in Europe.
We do not believe that border controls aimed at preventing the free movement of drugs, weapons, crime, etc. conflicts with the principle of mobility for the people.
It is not a barrier to the mobility of people to have to show a passport at the border.
Under items 31 and 32 of the report, France's border controls against Belgium and Luxembourg and the use of these to put pressure on the Netherlands to adopt a more restrictive drugs policy is being criticised.
We cannot support this report.
First of all, we believe that individual countries must be entitled to maintain such border controls as they deem necessary to prevent for example the inflow of narcotics.
Secondly, we believe that France is doing the right thing in applying pressure on the Netherlands to alter their irresponsible drugs policy.
'Yes' to Schengen, ' no' to a fortress Europe: that is the watchword of the report we discussed today.
That does not worry us, but we are concerned about Schengen acting as a brake on free movement and security, actually becoming a pretext for hermetically sealed frontiers accompanied by the establishment of new administrative controls which may attack individual freedom and the rights of Community citizens themselves first, and then citizens from third countries who are legally resident in Community territory.
The right to free movement and security must come under democratic control and hence the vigilance of the national parliaments, so that national legislation is adapted to the Schengen agreements in full respect of international conventions on asylum, protection of individual privacy and human rights.
But the limited duration of the agreement, the absence of transparency, the lack of parliamentary control over it, and the delay in replacing it with Community legislation demonstrate that the various Member States have little enthusiasm for abolishing controls at their internal frontiers.
In our view, the only thing that remains to be done is to get the most out of existing measures.
We believe that the information system, much criticized because it is currently used as a database for undesirable foreigners, should be geared to the need to prevent real dangers and specific crimes and therefore obey the technical requirements of security.
We concur with Mr Van Lancker in asking for the European Parliament to be informed about planned measures and decisions relating to all third pillar justice and home affairs matters, with a view to bringing that sector finally into the Community.
Finally, in our opinion, to debate issues inherent to the agreement like free movement of persons, asylum policies, external frontiers, legal information, the fight against the drug traffic, international fraud and organized crime, we need to open up a discussion which will end in the abolition of the unanimity rule in the Council.
Anttila, Lindqvist, Ryynänen, Virrankoski and Väyrynen (ELDR), Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen and Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) We fully agree with Mrs Van Lancker's criticism of the Schengen Agreement as regards the apprehension over 'fortress Europe' , the policy for dealing with people seeking asylum and how SIS is used primarily as a data base for 'unwanted Third World citizens' , etc.
Our list of criticisms of Schengen is very long.
We do not, however, share Mrs Van Lancker's conclusion regarding the legal incorporation of the Schengen Agreement into the Treaty.
For this reason, we are voting against the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Schengen agreements were initially intended to guarantee the free movement of the citizens and residents of Europe by abolishing internal frontiers while strengthening police and judicial cooperation at the Union's external frontiers.
Today, however, the philosophy of Schengen has been substantially modified, to the advantage of 'Fortress Europe' .
The application, monitoring and administration of Schengen are, at present, still obscure and essentially geared to security, for it has been diverted from its initial aims.
So where is the European spirit?
The Schengen dimension has itself been distorted.
Moreover, France is not always prepared to abolish its customs controls with Belgium and Luxembourg.
This is bad in terms of Schengen's image and, indeed, totally ineffective.
The situation is serious enough to deserve condemnation.
Certainly, we must consider the need to protect the Union from clandestine immigration, but does that mean we have to resort to uncontrolled procedures and multiply the administrative constraints which, in the final analysis, jeopardize human rights? I say NO.
As the rapporteur points out, the Union must live up to its ambitions.
If we want to combat clandestine immigration effectively, we will have to have common policies on the right of asylum, external borders and the fight against crime.
Once the third pillar becomes reality, we will manage to check the flows of migrations effectively and to combat all forms of crime equally effectively.
I hope therefore that the intergovernmental conference will reach conclusions in its debates and that the governments will take account of our recommendations and expectations!
We can hope and dream... but the information we have so far on the progress of the current negotiations does not inspire much optimism.
I am always somewhat surprised by the way the European Parliament approaches the Schengen agreements and by its deep distrust of the endeavour to protect a fundamental freedom of the people, their freedom of movement.
It is without doubt essential to have genuine parliamentary and judicial control within the intergovernmental Schengen system.
In an area where fundamental freedoms are at stake, the people have to be protected against arbitrary administrative and police action, whether they are Europeans or third-country nationals.
So I fundamentally agree with the report when it maintains that 'the abolition of checks at internal frontiers must not be accompanied by the introduction of new administrative checks which would infringe human rights' .
There is, however, a real problem: the rise in international crime, the growing sense of insecurity among the people, the inability of the national authorities to combat crime at European level by themselves, the need to act here and now in the interests of Europe.
Of course we can argue interminably about the powers of the national parliaments, the institutionalization of the CSA or the proposals to the IG on the third pillar.
For the people, however, what is most important is direct action in the field, to achieve results that will improve internal security.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats voted against the Van Lancker report because it contains many points that conflict with Denmark's reservations as regards cooperation on justice and home affairs.
The report expresses concern over the lack of democratic control of the Schengen arrangements, in which neither the European Parliament nor the Court of Justice are sufficiently involved.
There may be some justification for this view but, for as long as the cooperation is intergovernmental, it is the job of the national parliaments to exercise democratic control.
If the structure of the Schengen cooperation is to be changed, that must happen within the framework of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The report wants the Schengen Agreement to be integrated into general Community law.
The Danish Social Democrats take a sceptical view of this, since we wish to maintain the Nordic Passport Union alongside the Schengen cooperation.
On behalf of the Spanish Partido Popular delegation in the PPE and speaking personally also, I should like to draw attention to the following aspects in the Van Lancker report.
In general terms, the line taken by the PPE, the various public utterances of its members, both those who hold government office in the Member States as well as in particular those within the group in this House, have clearly shown that we are in favour of developing the freedom of movement specified in the Schengen Treaty and even more of the need to incorporate Schengen within the institutional framework of the Treaty on European Union and within the Community framework of the internal market - the development of the fourth freedom - the freedom of movement of persons - as laid down in Article 7A.
Similarly it is clear - and it goes without saying that the PPE as a whole and in particular the current Government of Spain of which it forms part and the Members on whose behalf I am speaking - have always fully defended the need for a joint approach on the part of the Community institutions to the great transnational problems facing the European Union in the realm of the third pillar and we are particularly keen to see the creation of a common area of freedom and security.
But we are against the partisan, partial and therefore methodological and legally incorrect use by any particular party of a resolution with the characteristics which emerged from the final vote.
In fact this is not the forum for debating asylum policy, still less to nod through requests so fraught with inappropriate consequences, such as the automatic suspension of resources in any asylum proceedings.
We are therefore clearly in favour of strengthening the principles which inspired Schengen: abolishing internal frontiers and instead having stronger external European Union borders.
Our final vote against the report must be seen in this light.
I want to voice my disagreement with certain sections of Mrs Van Lancker's report, as a French MEP but also on behalf of Jacques Donnay, MEP and president of the Conseil général du Nord.
We should pay particular attention to problems linked to drugs, since this is, unfortunately, a serious matter for the Department of the North.
A few figures are worth repeating: over a period of four years, the number of drug addicts charged in the Nord - Pas-de-Calais region has more than doubled.
That same region has the highest rate of summonses relating to traffic offences and drugs use in the country.
This is no doubt related to the region's economic vulnerability, but also to geographical factors.
Our proximity to states that do not apply the same policies we do in this respect encourages a traffic that has spread far beyond our urban centres and affects the entire territory.
In this context, we can only hope that temporarily at least some form of border controls will remain.
That is why I oppose Mrs Van Lancker's report where it refers and alludes to drugs controls in France, notably in unamended paragraphs 5, 31 and 32.
Of course this border surveillance can only complement the policies we are carrying out in the field: the North has taken a number of measures whose effectiveness is generally recognized.
In any case, in all these areas I actively support closer cooperation with the Netherlands and Belgium in the search for means of reducing the damage caused by drugs.
We must join forces in order to become more effective in the area of prevention, treatment and research.
I believe everyone shares these concerns.
That is the purpose of the first Franco-Dutch meetings on drugs now taking place in Lille, with the participation of our Belgian neighbours.
Wim van Velzen report (A4-0045/97)
I want to draw particular attention to three points raised in Mr van Velzen's excellent report.
The first is the importance of the universal service, in the context of liberalizing telecommunications, especially for certain peripheral areas, but also for certain population groups.
If the information society is confined to certain urban centres and socio-occupational groups this will lead to a two-tier society that is fundamentally unequal and unfair in terms of general access to the most up-to-date know-how.
Secondly, it is important to create legislation on the media which, by limiting their convergence, will help safeguard and stimulate pluralism of opinion and freedom of expression for all.
Thirdly, it is important to protect the consumer.
At present the information market is chaotic.
The ordinary consumer - I am not talking about the specialist - has to spend large and sometimes unnecessary sums on equipment.
The European consumer should therefore be offered access by means of an objective agency that will protect him against the dominant position of imports from Japan and the United States.
These considerations, the Green Paper, the report by the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, must rapidly lead to practical decisions with a view to rendering the information society more dynamic while also rendering it useful to all concerned.
We are voting for the report.
Decentralised and network orientated business organisations with flatter hierarchies are good.
The same goes for shorter working hours, teleworking, investment in small businesses with the whole population and all regions being given the same opportunity to participate in the development of the information society.
This should in principle be decided and put into effect by all the social partners in the labour-market and by individual Member States.
There is, in our opinion, no reason for the EU to legislate on this.
We are also against a collective fiscal policy within the Union.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of the Van Velzen report on the Commission's Green Paper on Living and Working in the Information Society.
The Commission's Green Paper is strongly criticized for laying too much emphasis in its analysis of the information society on work, jobs and the competitiveness of the economy.
The report therefore calls for more emphasis to be placed on how best the information society can be organized to benefit the individual, so that all get equal access to the information society.
The report opens up a broad debate on continuing training, teleworking and parttime employment, which will have much greater importance in the future.
The Danish Social Democrats take a positive view of a broader debate on the consequences of the information society for the individual and therefore consider that Mr Van Velzen has opened up an exciting discussion.
However, the report contains certain points on which the Danish Social Democrats are sceptical.
The Danish Social Democrats do not think that there is any immediate need at European level for legislative action to regulate matters affecting working conditions as a result of the development of the information society.
The application of technological innovations, especially those that are certain to create deep rifts in the structure of society, can be justified on no criterion other than man himself, and his needs. Under no circumstances can innovations justify disregard for their human basis and subjugate man to technology and to the savage laws of the capitalist market.
We have in our hands a Green Paper on 'Living and Working in the Information Society' , whose letter let alone spirit do nothing to advocate the priority of the human factor and respect for the rights of working people.
We have before us a draft for the conversion of man into a mere cog-wheel, and indeed one of the cheapest and most flexible on the market.
The proposals made and the measures promoted are dominated by the concepts of market cost and competitiveness, and intensify the effort to deprive working people of their rights and acquisitions, and to cripple and dislocate the very concept of labour.
The control of working people and citizens is becoming ever more effective with the disorganization of labour protection systems, working time, social welfare, health and safety.
Those measures are not a natural consequence of the rate of development and application of technologies, information and communications.
The driving force for this policy is the huge amount of finance devoted to the acquisition of vast and quick profits.
The Green Paper makes it clear with the most cynical frankness that 'the proposed social model is based on competition between enterprises' and calls for a 'stable and dedicated nucleus of working people' prepared to serve the needs of companies for rapid adaptation to market developments.
It is therefore quite clear where and how the new technologies are to be used: wherever and however they can generate greater profits.
The future of man in such a society is evident: uncertainty, insecurity, and conflict with his own needs, which will no longer shape his environment but be shaped by it, so as to serve those who determine that environment in the best, quickest and cheapest way.
Plans such as those of tele-working and the isolation of people from the social context are plans to lobotomize man and turn him into a cheap and pliable raw material for profit.
They are plans to create multiple-speed societies, societies of the one-third and the categorisation of citizens and working people, societies in which the unemployed, the aged, and the retired will be marginalized.
In clause 23 of the report the establishment of a 'European authority' for data protection is proposed.
I do not believe that the citizens of Europe benefit from this continuous demand for new authorities under the auspices of the EU.
The probability is that this will create even more bureaucracy.
I believe that the problem is best solved through national authorities.
That concludes voting time .
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Industrial competitiveness (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the reports by Mr Donnelly, Mr Langen and Mr Katiforis.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin my two minutes' speaking time in the debate on industrial policy by repeating that it is imperative for us to have a European industrial policy based on voluntary agreement.
Our economic strength, our independence, our future, and above all our employment and unemployment rate depend on that.
This is true of the maritime industry, it is true of the chemical industry and it is true of the automobile industry.
In relation to the automobile industry, I first want to congratulate Mr Donnelly on the quality of his report and congratulate the Commissioner and the Commission on its responsible Communication.
Of course I am in favour of setting up a panel of representatives of the automobile and components industries, trades unions and user groups in order to define our future priorities and research strategies.
Research efforts are needed to reduce pollution caused by motors, of course, but also if not above all by fuels. We must also continue with our efforts to improve safety.
There are still far too many casualties and fatalities on our roads.
All this is important.
But, ladies and gentlemen, above all we must protect the European automobile industry as such from unfair and unjust competition and social dumping and do our utmost to develop it.
This can be done by looking at all our European directives and decisions, asking the same question each time: will it promote employment, will it lead to a rise in production, consumption and market shares?
Lastly, and this is what I regret most on reading the documents under discussion today, the human dimension, the social dimension is missing.
This morning's debate on Renault made that clear and the scandal of delocalization is even more serious in relation to the building of Europe.
Without a political and social Europe, the rest is but crocodile tears.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Christian Democrats support the basic lines of the Commission's communication on Europe's maritime future.
Parliament also takes the view that as one of the largest trading blocs in the world the European Union needs a competitive maritime industry in the long term too.
But the broad outline is a little vague, Commissioner, and not likely to halt the decline in shipbuilding or the use of flags of convenience by ships from European shipyards.
We both know that the meetings of the Maritime Industries Forum which you initiated many years ago have not come up with any major new ideas in recent years.
There are a number of individual projects, but it seems we cannot expect much more in the way of general ideas from the Maritime Industries Forum.
And yet we, the whole Parliament, believe that we need a new approach based on intensive consultation between the Community bodies and the economic circles concerned, be they shipyards, shipbuilding firms, suppliers, port authorities, etc., because only if the economic circles concerned commit themselves to voluntary agreements can we really secure a future for the European Community in the maritime sector.
Let me address another two or three points very openly and plainly. On no account will there be higher subsidies for shipbuilding.
People are still hoping that the OECD agreement will also be carried through in the USA and that shipbuilding subsidies can be abolished in general.
The shipyards simply have to maintain or achieve productivity and competitiveness through their own efforts.
And when I look at a country that I know well l find that the mediumsized shipyards are very much able to become competitive through their own efforts.
The only means of helping the shipyards available to us in the Community is, for example, to withdraw sub-standard ships from circulation through more stringent port controls and thereby indirectly to meet the demand for new ships.
Unfortunately the Commission has not taken up Parliament's call for the EUROS register for maritime shipping.
Mr Bangemann, we must however reject the Commission's current policy of allowing the Member States to apply different aid systems since this leads to distortions of competition within the Community and even carries the risk that EU shipyards will fly the flag of another European Union country if, for example, the fiscal system is more attractive in the Netherlands than in another large Member State.
Surely we cannot allow it in an internal market for shipyards to fly the flag of another country that has a more favourable tax system!
Apart from the framework conditions, which have to be uniform, the Commission must also pursue a consistent shipping policy.
We cannot have DG IV preventing or hindering alliances between European shipping companies, which are urgently necessary to the survival of these companies, by pursuing a misguided competition policy.
In that regard the Commission's industrial policy must also encompass the right kind of competition policy.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, as a representative of a historic maritime region, Genoa, I would like to mention some of the concerns of seafaring folk who see their calling threatened by the transformation of the maritime sector.
I am particularly thinking of the employment difficulties facing young graduates of naval colleges and the fall in enrolments at naval schools.
I think we need proper competition policy on the Union's external front, based not only on State subsidies but also on criteria for equilibrium, efficiency and protection of employees' rights.
In this regard we are following developments in the CSCE agreements closely.
On the internal front and in terms of economic initiative, I want to emphasize some of the recommendations our rapporteurs have made: the contribution to harmonizing the maritime policies of the Member States, the investment in port infrastructure and safe traffic control systems within the framework of the trans-European networks, and the contribution to training seafarers.
I believe the Union should promote synergy through research and technological development programmes in research centres, universities and industry to generate innovation in an industrial sector which is becoming increasingly similar to aeronautics in terms of structure, equipment, control and communications.
The Union should cooperate with the Member States to promote a policy of sustainable transport, using fiscal incentives, supporting projects and completing integrated systems.
I propose specific inclusion of coastal regions undergoing transformation because of the changes in maritime transport in the structural funds intervention areas.
Finally, given the reorganization of international freight traffic, returning to the Mediterranean route via Suez for structural reasons, I invite the Commission to consider the need for a joint study with maritime sector operators of the requirements of these regions, both in terms of their strategic relevance to the Union and in the context of the new relationships of cooperation with Mediterranean third countries.
Thank you Madam President.
I want to make my remarks in the context of today's wider debate on Renault and the discussion now on industrial policy, and largely to make one basic point.
The role of Europe is to try to ensure that European industry can win a greater share both of its domestic European markets and of global markets; and we should help to enable, not to enfeeble, European industry in the strategies we pick.
There is no doubt that unemployment is the major challenge that faces us in the next decade, and frankly in relative terms Europe is bad at creating jobs.
The problems arise in terms of the taxed wage - the difference between what people take home and what people pay them overall is a problem; rigidity in the labour market is a problem; and we cannot shrink from those problems if we want job creation.
What I welcome today in the Donnelly report and in the Commission's earlier report, is that this is the type of strategy that enables.
It sets standards in environment, it sets goals for research and development, it helps to add something to the global challenge for European industry.
That is where we are best placed, and I hope we go on with that kind of policy, though not into a more dirigiste form of economic management.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in this whole cocktail of debates we are holding, I can only discuss the proposals on the chemical industry in the short time available.
First and foremost I would like to say that I do not quite understand the general attack launched by my Socialist colleague a moment ago.
Of course we Greens also voted against the Langen report as a whole, but it is not true, Mr Langen, that this changes nothing, and I want to make that quite plain here.
When we say that we take the view that economic instruments are a cost-effective means of tackling environmental problems, that is surely a step in the right direction, but of course that is not all we want to achieve today, at the end of the 20th century, in relation to the problems that chemical plants, the transport of chemicals and chemical products create in our everyday life.
That is to say, it is a small step but certainly does not mean that we and the Commission can stop there.
Let me add a few last words, and of course they are addressed specifically to Mr Bangemann, although I do not believe he will or can meet this demand during his term of office, but perhaps his successor can.
These words are as follows: if you want to formulate an industrial policy for tomorrow, you cannot focus purely on efficiency but must take into account that the environment always plays a very major and important role.
Madam President, I should of course like to thank the rapporteurs, Mr Bangemann and the Commission because in fact the Commission is presenting to us elements of European industrial policy from a sectoral point of view and that reassures many of us.
Nevertheless I should like to comment on industrial policy and consultation of the workforce on the basis of this morning's debate which he attended.
I have since examined the reports as regards consultation of the workforce and actions speak louder than words.
We were discussing consultation at companylevel, the European company, but we have not discussed what the Commission can do for worker consultation by means of its industrial policy.
Of course the report does mention a high-level consultative group in the automobile industry and, as regards the maritime sector it mentions a task force and the European Maritime Industries Forum.
But my question focuses on the subject of the workers.
The ECSC Treaty is coming to an end and that Treaty was a good European industrial model over the years when the sectors it covered were developing.
It dealt with the various fundamental aspects: conversion policy, policy on technological innovation and social measures (it appears that in the future social measures are to be reduced merely to the question of training of the workforce).
But that Treaty featured one very important aspect and that was the consultative committee of workers and management.
That model is no longer a valid model for the Commission.
Since Community industrial policies are constantly leading to the conversion and transformation of companies, how can we incorporate in this sectoral consultation the European trade unions?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, whether we are talking about the automobile industry, the chemical industry or the maritime industry, Europe is facing the challenge of international competition.
Some people think they can meet it by barricading themselves behind national protective measures, which is quite unrealistic and utopian, or behind European protective measures, supposing that were possible politically, which I very much doubt as things stand.
Economically, this kind of protection offers no prospects, given that the European economy is de facto integrated in the world market.
Both the Langen and the Donnelly reports have the merit of pointing in the right direction, which is to adapt to this challenge, in other words to make further research efforts to improve the products in question, further investment efforts to improve productivity and further rationalization efforts to improve competitiveness at world level.
On the Donnelly report, I basically agree with all his proposals.
I have but one remark to make, a critical one, on something he does not mention.
Not to mention certain things is rather like sweeping the dust under the carpet.
Not a word on the question of labour costs.
Not a word on the rigidity of the labour market.
Not a word on those useful points that Mr Cox made, and that are after all fundamental questions that cannot be avoided simply by disregarding them and emphasizing all the other things.
I know this is not a popular subject.
I know that your party does not like tackling it, but hiding their head in the sand never saved anybody.
So I believe we should have the courage to look things in the face.
I know these are measures that are not easy to take, especially now.
On the Langen report, I think most of what was decided is good and goes in the right direction.
I was very surprised this morning listening to Mrs Roth-Behrendt to hear her say that she believed the Committee on the Environment took an entirely different view.
This is not what transpires from the texts.
Either Mrs Roth-Behrendt was speaking in her own name only or one would have to suppose that the Committee on the Environment does not entirely endorse her views.
I do not know the background, but I did not see any major divergences between the documents submitted to us.
There may be some differences of emphasis, but that is quite logical and normal.
To conclude, Mr President, let me say this: we must remain consistent with ourselves.
Everything we are proposing today in the three reports goes in the right direction, as I said.
But we must also realise that if that is what we want, we cannot adopt other legislation tomorrow that goes in exactly the oppositive direction.
This Parliament reputedly disregards the consequences of its legislative measures.
We find we are no longer competitive, our costs are too high, our bureaucracy too ponderous, etc.
But not a week passes without us here in Parliament voting with more or less enthusiasm, depending on our position in the Chamber, for legislative measures which in each case represent further costs or serious handicaps for investment, for research.
So we should learn to control our tendency to legislate to an unreasonable degree.
The objectives we are pursuing in relation to the environment and social protection are legitimate.
We must concern ourselves with this; but we must also concern ourselves with the general objectives, which are not always or not all equally reconcilable.
Madam President, I, like the other speakers, would congratulate the rapporteur and also the Commission for bringing forward this whole debate at the moment because we are at a vital juncture within the development of the European economy.
In particular I can, like Mr Herman, support fully the points laid out in the Donnelly report.
They are innovative and visionary and are an appropriate response to the changing circumstances in which we live.
The Langen report on the chemical sector is particularly important to my own constituency of Munster, and Ireland in particular, because in Ireland at the moment there are 18, 500 people employed in this sector.
It accounts for over £5 bn worth of exports and contributes over £200 m to the Irish economy.
And advances in technology with new research techniques mean that the people employed in this sector are generally very highly qualified.
Over 40 % of all the people employed in this sector are graduates with third-level education.
It is important, when we are placing so much emphasis on one aspect of increasing education qualifications and increasing the opportunities for lifelong learning, that we provide a proper regulatory framework for employment creation in that area.
I agree fully with Mr Herman.
We must be logical.
We must adopt a flexible approach to ensure that Europe can remain competitive in the world market and global market in which we now live.
I would call on this House to ensure that we do not put in place any hindrances to the development of this industry, which is a vital sector for the economy and employment creation.
Madam President, free competition and free market forces are necessary to safeguard the competitiveness of European industry.
The Liberal Group therefore wants to ensure free competition in the European car industry and thereby also to secure economic advantages for us consumers.
Hence we have tabled two amendments, Amendments Nos 6 and 7, with a view to tightening up Regulation No 1475/95 on block exemptions in connection with distribution and servicing agreements.
This is a Commission regulation providing for exemption from the rules on free competition enshrined in the Treaty of Rome.
I very much hope that the rapporteur, Mr Donnelly, and my colleagues in this Chamber can support these two amendments.
I also hope that Commissioner Bangemann will act on the terms of Amendment No 7 calling for the Commission to put a stop to the systematic infringement by motor vehicle manufacturers and importers of the Block Exemption Regulation.
I likewise hope that the Commission will take up paragraph 1(d) of the resolution and set up a High Level Panel for the motor industry on which all interested parties will be represented, including the independent motor traders and, of course, the consumers.
At the same time I propose that this High Level Panel, as one of its first tasks, call a conference on the very important subject of the impending changes in the motor industry.
Madam President, I wish, like other speakers, to take the opportunity to thank the rapporteurs and, in particular, Mr Katiforis for his detailed analysis of the problems facing Europe's marine industry, the comprehensive approach he has taken to tackling these problems and his conclusions.
However, there is a glaring inconsistency in Europe's approach to the maritime industry.
Every year this Parliament approves millions of ecus for the KONVER programme to assist small businesses to diversify from the defence industry into civilian production.
But, at the same time, we penalize larger companies in the defence sector with over 230 employees that wish to diversify.
One of these industries is naval shipyards.
Due to the downturn in orders for warships these yards have to look elsewhere for work.
If, however, these naval yards tender for civilian contracts within the European Union, they are immediately at a disadvantage due to the fact that they do not receive the same subsidy as civilian yards.
How can we on one hand encourage diversification and on the other hand penalize firms which are attempting to diversify? It is the economics of the insane.
If we truly believe in diversification and changing from defenceorientated production to civilian production, then we must tackle this problem.
I, therefore, would ask and request that this House support Amendment No 4.
Madam President, we are having a whole day on industrial policy today: human and animal cloning, the maritime industry, and now the chemical industry.
As well as congratulating the rapporteurs who have represented us throughout the discussions, I should also like to congratulate the Commissioner for taking such a serious approach to industrial policy.
I think this is important for Europe.
Our chemical industry is considerably more advanced than that of the United States or Japan, and we should be keen to hold on to this advantage.
It is a sector which could set an example for many others, and the best thing about this proposal is that it finally sets out in black and white who needs to do what to strengthen our competitive position, it being clear that the main responsibility in this respect lies with the chemical industry itself.
The Commission and the Member States must establish the basic conditions, such as by introducing clear environmental legislation and a framework for self- regulation, which could play an important part in making the industry more effective, cleaner and safer.
I therefore cannot agree with my colleague Mrs Heinisch when she says that the chemical industry could be deregulated.
Let us have clear and simple legislation by all means, but the industry is such a sensitive one that deregulation is really out of the question, in my view.
One category within the chemical industry which could do with a little more attention is the small and medium-sized firms.
Almost all the legislation is designed for the major companies, and the small and medium-sized firms do not have the manpower to meet all the requirements.
Let me give you an example.
In the European Union, firms are required to give details of the composition of their products on the label, and chemical firms must indicate not just the composition, but also the proportions of the ingredients.
Just imagine if you were a small firm which had developed a new product after years of research and then had to hand your recipe over to your rivals.
Mr Bangemann, you look like a man who likes to eat well: just try asking the head chef in a five-star restaurant whether he would be prepared to do this. I think the answer would be no.
The Commission must of course provide clear environmental legislation and try to reduce CO2 emissions, but the environmental improvements being brought about here in the West would be of even more benefit in Eastern Europe, where their impact would be that much greater.
Madame President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank Alan Donnelly for his good and expert report.
The Renault motor concern has announced that it will be closing its factory in Vilvoorde in Belgium completely and will be making staff redundant in France as well.
At the same time it has the nerve to apply for EU support in Spain.
If Renault puts its worst-case scenario into practice, breaking EU rules, this will be a complete farce.
Is this an indication of how industry intends to get in shape for the euro? Euro could well become a dirty word among the unemployed, and no wonder.
Those who called for flexibility should remember that each unemployed person has shown 100 % flexibility on his own part.
Economic growth alone will not banish unemployment, and structural interventions will thus ultimately also be necessary.
The plan should be to move the priority from taxing labour to taxing added value.
This would encourage employment in the service sector and would at the same time permit the growth of the information-intensive sector.
Let machines do the boring work and let people serve other people.
I look to the Commission for initiatives in this sector.
In almost all the EU Member States the economy is being thrust into the straitjacket of the EMU cohesion criteria.
The problem is that the timetable for achieving the criteria is very fast and they are interpreted too strictly. Everything is now happening in an environment of record unemployment and difficult social conditions.
The most serious shortcoming is of course that unemployment is not one of the criteria.
I therefore propose that two types of security should be included among the hard EMU criteria: economic security and social security.
Because monetary security does not appear to create social security or significantly to improve employment, Parliament should commit itself in particular to including social security among the EMU criteria, so that we can be saved from future Vilvoordes.
Madam President, there are two things I would like to stress.
One is the situation we now have in Europe, with a constant proliferation of state aids and ever more ways in which competition is being distorted.
We talk about liberalization.
Parliament contributes substantially to this process.
But at the same time there are countries which are lagging seriously behind in the on-going process.
It is immensely difficult to get the European people to believe in what we are trying to achieve when they see firms moving out of their country with support from the Union.
It is difficult to get the European people to believe in our project when they see state aid going to various enterprises behind the Commission's back and being approved after the event.
My colleague, Mr Miller, is proposing that shipyards be supported in switching their production from naval to ordinary merchant vessels: support for shipyard reconstruction.
Shipbuilding capacity in Europe is already huge.
This is an example of how regional interests come into conflict with one another.
I can well understand Mr Miller's proposal.
But if I were to speak on behalf of the European shipbuilding industry - I do not, but if I were to do so - we would get into problems of excess capacity.
There was some talk of holding conferences.
We have had many of those.
But we have a problem of what to say to the people of Europe.
We constantly get into situations which run counter to the policy we actually want to pursue.
I therefore appeal to the Commissioner to focus the Council's attention on these situations.
It is not just that a firm can get aid to move from Denmark to Ireland; we also have competition in the field of taxation.
A company does not pay much tax for the first ten years after setting up in Ireland.
It does in the rest of Europe.
Hence we are not merely concerned with competition policy here; we are also talking about fiscal policy and state subsidies.
Madam President, I would like to speak on the Commission communication on Europe's maritime future.
I am sure you will agree, Madam President, that since 'all the nice girls love a sailor' , it is important that we nurture and support our maritime industries and, in particular, the seafarers and their training for which I would like to think that the British Government has set a positive example.
I would like to throw down a challenge to Commissioner Bangemann and his colleagues today.
We must ensure a level playing field throughout the European Union.
I would urge the Commission to make sure that state aids to ports and ferry companies are phased out as far as possible.
Currently there is no transparency in the application of state aids.
I hope the Commissioner will agree that he must address this and that it cannot be right that, for example, Stena/Sealink are actually making British seafarers redundant because the Dutch government, as Mr Jarzembowski mentioned earlier, is choosing to protect its own seafarers by giving a preferential tax rate.
That has to be wrong.
I would refer the Commissioner and the House to Mr Belleré's opinion and in particular paragraphs 8 and 9 in which we call for free and fair competition between transport modes with all modes of transport fully bearing their own costs including external costs and where we call for free and fair competition to be encouraged between the Community ports and between maritime shipping lines.
If the Commission does nothing else after today's debate, I hope it will seek to establish a level playing field and seek to remove gross state aids such as those practised in Holland which I believe are grossly unfair.
I support Mr Belleré's opinion and, indeed, Mr Katiforis' report.
Madam President, congratulations are in order to the Committee and its rapporteur, Mr Katiforis, for the proposals presented, drawing attention to the arrangements and measures which could lead to improvements in maritime transport, in this case (and I am going to focus on this particular case).
Accounting for 90 % of extra-Community traffic and 30 % of intra-Community traffic of goods, maritime transport is the cheapest, least congested and least polluting means of transport, all facts which means it should be given increasing importance.
In addition to what has been said, however, we must pay more attention to the articulation of maritime transport with other means of transport, in particular rail and road, as this is the only way of improving and giving a more complete coverage of European territory, including landlocked regions and countries, which are less favoured.
Along these lines, more importance should also be given to the use of small and medium-sized harbours and ports, which are able to accept ships which account for more than 60 % of Community traffic.
Apart from thereby avoiding congestion in large parts, something which is quite unnecessary, it also is an excellent way of achieving full coverage of territory, as already mentioned, in the interest of a more efficient network of supplies in all resources and improving the well-being of all Europeans.
I think that these were some of the points which had to be added to this debate.
Mr President, as one of the last Socialist Group speakers today I would like to clarify certain points which have arisen during the debate with regard to the report by Mr Langen.
The Socialist Group welcomes this report.
It shows a clear understanding of the problems facing the chemical industry in recent years.
The industry is in a state of constant change brought about by the development of global competition.
This means that we would support the majority of the actions proposed in the report to assist the industry to adapt to meet this competition.
However, there are still certain points of difference between the Socialists and the Christian Democrats that go beyond nuance.
There are issues relating to the liberalization of energy supplies and the deregulation of the regulatory framework as they apply to the industry, on which we cannot completely reach agreement with the Christian Democrats.
In particular there is the use of voluntary agreements in the promotion of a carbon dioxide tax.
The Socialists see voluntary agreements as having a complementary role to legislation, but not as a substitute for it.
As regards the carbon tax, we see it as almost inevitable that some Member States will introduce this.
So it must be sensibly prepared.
The future of the European chemical industry is in building upon the basis that we already have: high-value industry producing high-value products, with a well-trained work force that is well paid and rewarded for its tasks.
That is the future of the European chemical industry, not deregulation, and not an approach to competition which means cheapest is best.
Madam President, there is no doubt that Europe's shipping industry is characterised first by a dramatic decline in the shipbuilding sector, and secondly by a decline and transformation of the great European fleet into a fleet of convenience.
In my opinion, the responsibility for this disastrous course of the shipbuilding industry is the policy of competition implemented by the European Union and its Member States for a number of years.
The shipbuilding sector has declined by 82.5 %.
The question is: is it possible for Europe's shipbuilding industry to compete with that of the Far East under conditions of competition at the level of workforce remuneration and with full deregulation of the market? The answer is no, and I think it is time for a different policy.
Madam President, I wonder whether the policy, the direction which specifies 'training, education and up-to-date technologies' for those who work in shipping, has any value at all when almost all of Europe's fleets are governed by bipartite agreements and employ crews from the Far East, very cheap crews which even create dangers for the safety of shipping.
These questions are not answered either by the statement or by the report of our colleague Mr Katiforis.
The question, of course, is who decides what is wrong or right.
The Commission always does that!
Sometimes not!
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
The information society, culture and education
The next item is the report (A4-0325/96) by Mrs Morgan, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the information society, culture and education.
Madam President, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has always acknowledged the importance and significance of the information society for our future economic wellbeing.
There is no question of the fact that we loudly applaud the efforts to provide universal access to the new communication methods and welcome the great strides made in the infrastructure development throughout the continent with the help of EU finances.
Nevertheless, if we all pull together we will inevitably come to the point - perhaps not now, perhaps not in this century - some time in the 21st century where we are all linked to the information society. But then what?
Why would anyone want to use it? The Culture Committee was extremely aware that there had been a serious lack of focus on the content aspect of the information society and the need to concentrate both on educational and cultural opportunities and obstacles that the information society will throw up.
This is why the Culture Committee decided to initiate this report.
We are all aware of the speed of developments in this field and since the original draft we have been delighted to see that many of the report's recommendations have already been implemented or are at least being given serious consideration.
It is interesting to note that even last night, it was not just the Commission that responded, but Jacques Chirac, in a speech, made a commitment to connect all secondary schools to the information society by the year 2000 and to reduce VAT on multimedia products.
I hope this is restricted to educational multimedia.
Before I go any further, it is important to inform you why I have introduced five amendments to my report, introducing a timetable calling for their implementation by the year 2000.
Some Members have asked: ' Why the year 2000, why not 1999 or 2001?' The reason is simply because the comparative study, pilot projects and teacher training can all be accomplished by this date.
If we do not set targets in the timetable, we will not have a framework on which to base the propositions contained in this report.
For that reason I hope everyone will support these amendments.
The European Union must set benchmarks.
I have just heard that Mr Bangemann is very keen on benchmarks so I hope he will take up the idea of benchmarks in this report.
It is important that Member States across the continent reach these benchmarks. Otherwise we will develop into an information-rich elite which will do nothing to help the social cohesion across Europe.
The first thing we should do is equip our children with the tools of this new trade but in order to do this we must equip our teachers first.
Member States should be looking at the introduction of compulsory IT modules within teacher training courses.
This must be supplemented with lifelong learning so they can keep abreast of new technological developments.
Parents should also be encouraged to take an interest in order to avoid a technical generation gap developing.
These technological developments are occurring at such a pace that it is important that we take a look at what is possible so that we adapt our educational institutions accordingly.
Computers can be made so small these days that pupils could easily hide them from both teachers and parents.
They could even hide them in their trainers.
Data retrieval will become second nature to many pupils.
Recently I visited a school in my constituency where the pupils were given an assignment which was to go and draw a picture of an atom.
One of the children came back with the latest picture from the home page of MIT.
That is the kind of level of education we are talking about.
They must therefore be taught how to analyse the information they receive.
We must ensure that they learn to interpret the data and assess it in a critical fashion.
Most importantly we must ensure that women take up the opportunities offered so that they do not become further marginalized in the 21st century.
There will also be opportunities for slow learners to develop at their own pace, and, crucially, for rural areas so that they do not feel marginalized.
We will always be confronted with the question of who will pay for the new technologies, particularly in the educational field.
It makes sense, therefore, to look at examples of best practice and see how we can develop public and private partnerships to provide and ensure quality for future generations.
The new technologies could change our whole culture and the way we run our lives.
But culture in the narrower sense of the term also needs to be addressed.
Where better to ensure access to culture than through our libraries? The effect of information technologies on our libraries could be enormous.
That is why we are delighted to see that the Commission has again responded to our calls for a Commission report on libraries and IT to be produced.
Finally but crucially, I am proposing the creation of a millennium archive.
This would be an archive in digital form of the EU's fifteen Member States' major national cultural collections. Open access should be given to all EU schools, colleges and libraries.
But it is important that we act now.
There is a major threat that the sale of exclusive digital rights may go to the powerful multinational companies, thereby restricting members of the public from seeing their own cultural heritage.
Madam President, I wish to begin by warmly congratulating the rapporteur on her excellent report.
There is a great deal in this report, so much that in the allotted time I am going to find it difficult to pick out the real points.
For this reason, I want to concentrate on paragraphs 27 and 28 - the position and role of libraries in Europe - to which the rapporteur has just referred.
The existence of libraries is a mark of a civilized society: an educated and sophisticated society has good and easily accessible libraries.
By contrast, those who wish to distort history or suppress sections of society have often destroyed or suppressed libraries.
It is our role to ensure that the immense power of the information revolution does not leave out, damage or neglect our libraries.
They are crucial links to bridge the gap between rich and poor, to provide vital knowledge of other cultures and other languages - social cohesion, as the rapporteur has just said.
In the information society of the future - a society to which this report more than well refers - libraries must have a major role.
Eluned Morgan has just spoken of data retrieval, and electronic storage of and access to materials and information provide wonderful opportunities, mixing the physical realities with virtual roles.
This can be expanded, new opportunities can be extended to the benefit of millions and whole collections previously inaccessible to most people can now be made easily accessible at many different outlets - public libraries, schools, colleges and all educational establishments.
But these are opportunities that a free market will not provide.
A world where making money is the sole objective will not see this as a priority.
The role of the European Union therefore becomes more important than ever, to protect our culture and our heritage certainly, but also to open new doors to the millions not to the few - doors that will remain closed if we leave the market to its own devices.
This though is an area that has really only been touched on; it is one that deserves more attention.
I support the call on the Commission to come forward with a green paper.
I am delighted that it has indicated its support for this and hope very much that it will move quickly so that the libraries are not left behind.
The rapporteur has presented an excellent report.
I congratulate her.
Cymru am byth .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to congratulate Mrs Morgan on the quality of her report, a report that calls for several remarks on our part, with which I am sure many here agree.
Over a period of some years now, many Europeans have become familiar with the new concepts of communication.
France indeed spearheaded this cultural revolution by giving every French household access to minitel.
Addressing the question of young people, President Jacques Chirac emphasized the urgent need to combat illiteracy and to give access to information technology to the greatest possible number of people, mainly by making it more affordable.
This is a vital issue for Europe.
The decisions we take must reflect this sense of urgency, for the new information technologies are advancing very rapidly.
Those extraordinary educational tools represented by the multimedia must be used in a targeted manner.
They must become the necessary accompaniment to traditional educational material such as books and the written word; but under no circumstances must these various educational tools compete among themselves, for that would be disastrous.
We must also support our young people in deciphering this language so that we do not dehumanize it and we must also protect its content.
To protect does not mean to barricade; on the contrary it means enabling each individual to express his or her vision, especially in cultural matters, on the basis of respect for all.
Needless to say, at a time when we are all shocked by news of terrible barbarities, we must protect minors more effectively both in the creation and the dissemination of software.
Once we have taken these precautions we can rise to the great challenge of promoting the establishment of networks and contacts between north and south, between urban and rural regions, tourist and industrial regions, in order to encourage our European co-citizens to carry out joint projects.
The sharing of common experiences and common know-how is an important factor in our fight against unemployment and more generally our fight against social division.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mrs Morgan's excellent report is welcome, because it is high time to stress the central position of education and culture in the information society.
Now is the time to redirect our resources towards developing content and improving quality.
The market in multimedia for education is a growth area in which there is a need for cooperation between producers and users and for the cultural and linguistic adaptation of products in order to encourage Europe's diversity.
The INFO 2000 programme should contain more support to this end, and the research programmes should stress the development of multimedia and programmes with an educational purpose.
It is also essential for the Commission to produce rapidly for discussion its Green Paper currently in preparation on libraries, and open up the important debate on public access to electronic information, copyright from the user's as well as the producer's point of view, the place of books and reading and the professional profile of work in the library and information sector, and educational needs in the modern network and information society.
The problems have long since ceased to be quantitative even in terms of information, and are now to a far greater extent qualitative.
Its a matter of whether everyone manages to obtain the information which is relevant to them and whether they have the capacity to assess and select from this information.
Madam President, the Morgan report has the merit of focusing attention on the central importance of the cultural and educational dimension of the information society.
The new technology certainly represents an extraordinary opportunity but it also conceals extraordinary risks.
The two principal risks are exclusion and homologation.
It is obvious that the most disadvantaged strata of society risk further marginalization by not possessing the cultural and economic tools to gain access to information.
Furthermore, technology left exclusively in the hands of private initiative risks reducing culture to the banal, by progressively eliminating the individuality and expression of different local cultures.
That is why we think the measures and initiatives set out in the Morgan report are crucial, particularly as regards teacher training.
The Member States must commit themselves, amongst other things, to converting their national cultural collections into digital form to contribute to creating a European archive.
And the Commission could enter the vast heritage of our museums, art galleries and theatres into the network of available information.
Madam President, first let me voice a regret.
I think it would have been preferable to consider this report at the same time as the White Paper we discussed yesterday, for I find the difference of legal basis not just factitious but also detrimental to political coherence and effectiveness.
Turning to the report we are considering today, I want to congratulate Mrs Morgan on the quality of her work.
She was intelligent enough to avoid the two pitfalls of systematic rejection dictated by fear of progress and blind admiration for that progress.
The central issue in this debate is whether the development of these new technologies is synonymous with progress in the science of education, that is to say, whether it is likely to reduce inequalities.
For even if these new communication technologies enable us to effectively combat failure at school, we also know that the cost of the equipment is a source of inequality.
So we have to find a fair balance between the acquisition of these basic disciplines and access to the new technologies, for the keyboard, the screen and the mouse cannot become the only writing tools and exercize books of the 21st century.
Mrs Morgan's report has many good qualities and courageously points to a number of dangers, while at the same time showing the potential for culture and education.
But I think it suffers from certain illusions in relation to family life, school life and culture.
The crisis facing many young people in their family and in society springs from difficulties with language and communication.
Mastery of a language and skill in using it to make oneself understood and more able to live with others comes mainly from time spent together, from the richness of interpersonal communication.
The tools provided by information technology are useful for people who are already in a structured situation and who will therefore benefit from the extra potential they offer.
The problem arises when this structure, in relation to language, in relation to education of the mind, and therefore judgment, does not exist.
In such cases, using machines is no palliative.
So we are faced with a number of illusions here.
The domain of school life and culture is also the domain where people discover a taste for making an effort.
To pretend that intellectual work, that culture, is easy, is in everyone's grasp, is in a sense easy to consume, is a great illusion.
This taste for making an effort, for progress in seeking the good, the true and the beautiful, is very much dependent on the richness of interpersonal communication.
In information technology, the screen is omnipresent.
In fact the word 'screen' should make us stop and think.
I fear that these tools are marvels only for those who are already structured, already well-versed in this general culture, which will enable them to profit from them, while they pose a serious threat if we regard them as a palliative.
Madam President, the globalization of trade which raises the level of knowledge, the arrival of the information society which will radically transform the nature of work and the organization of production, together with the acceleration of technical and scientific progress are the scenarios of the future, obliging the Union to reflect now on how it can respond adequately to the new demands of the world of work and education.
There are two possible responses on these issues; upgrading education generally, which is the indispensable basis for acquiring new technological skills and developing student and worker mobility, but above all the implementation of a system which permits any individual to gain access to general education and develop approaches to work by adapting training methods to changes in day-to-day reality, due precisely to the globalization of the economy, the rise of the information society and the development of the scientific and technological society.
With the vast mass of messages immediately available in today's information society, teaching cannot remain confined to the scholastic microcosm, but must train the citizens of tomorrow to be able to identify the best strategy for accessing what is most appropriate, useful and relevant in the mass of available information.
If we want to exorcise for good the demons that escaped from Pandora's box when technological progress lifted the lid, our training systems must become the mirror of society, reflecting it in their methods and technology.
Europe is lagging behind in the information sector and this is a serious obstacle to defining educational policies and approaches that are right for the times.
Information is coming as a genuine shock involving change in the very concept of civilization, and that means we will have to change our educational culture.
In fact, a veritable metamorphosis is needed if we are to meet the obligation to train young people for the jobs of the future. The technology obliges mankind to think about nature, economic and social problems, management of space and time and the phenomena of decomposition of materials.
It will be an imperative to adapt the system to the new demands.
The Socratic philosophers themselves, always seeking truth despite their scepticism, would have accepted that education must be adapted to the new needs!
Madam President, the new information technologies are going to have an enormous impact on the fields of education and culture.
There are great opportunities as well as serious risks.
The information society provides an opportunity to reduce the educational and cultural disadvantages of the handicapped, people living in rural areas or those who for economic or other reasons do not have access to the traditional channels of education and culture.
But the reverse side of the coin is that the information society might also exclude large groups of the population, as in previous industrial revolutions opening up a chasm between those acquiring the knowledge and those lagging behind. Because in the future society of knowledge those who have access to information by means of the most modern means and continue their training throughout their lives will get the jobs and a decent standard of living.
On the other hand those who do not have such training will remain marginalized and condemned to unemployment and low-skill jobs.
We are dealing then with a question of equality of opportunity, social justice and making the most of human intellectual resources, which are the main source of wealth in European societies.
The Member States must make an effort providing schools with the required computer equipment so that multimedia education is available to all, since many families, for obvious economic reasons, are not able to buy multimedia equipment.
At the same time teaching staff must be trained and informed so that the new technological instruments are introduced into teaching practices.
From the point of view of culture, our European cultural, national and regional heritage is available in digital form.
The multimedia products thus produced give easier distribution of and access to this cultural heritage, particularly for young people.
Museums, monuments, cultural sites etc can be recorded and educational centres and libraries given free access.
The RAPHAEL programme deals with that; it lacks only financial resources commensurate with its ambition, just as a major injection of cash is required to provide schools with the appropriate funds.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is scarcely another economic sector that is experiencing such a boom as information technology.
The EU Commission, and especially Mr Bangemann who is here today, are surpassing themselves in the production of documents, communications, green papers, etc., but I am glad that Mrs Morgan's report raises a painful subject, namely the lack of political measures in relation to the cultural and educational aspects of the information society.
The advantages of the new media are sufficiently well-known and we keep being told about them, and about the opportunities for the labour market; but we must also look at the risks of the information society and try to counter them.
The global data networks are particularly difficult to control.
Many legal questions relating to copyright and combating international crime remain unresolved.
Nor will I conceal the fact that in individual cases they could lead to anonymization or to Internet junkies in need of therapy, as became apparent in the Netherlands last week.
Both the inexhaustible benefits that keep being cited and the unresolved adverse side-effects makes one thing clear: the European Union must rapidly take account of this headlong development.
But it must not just do so by giving support to technology but must ultimately endeavour to take educational and cultural measures.
We must provide our educational establishments, schools, universities, further education colleges, with adequate computers and network access.
We must also interlink them.
We must include libraries in this network.
But we must also ensure that the teachers are adequately prepared and that they are always kept up to date, that they do no limp along behind the young people they teach in terms of their knowledge.
If they are to transmit the new technologies, they must also be able to transmit the means of using them properly.
It is important to ensure that everyone who is interested has a chance to take part in this high-speed development.
Above all, we must not make the mistake of regarding these means of communication as an end in themselves but must use them as meaningful aids, like the surgeon carrying out an operation who consults overseas colleagues or the pupils in our countries who get to know each other and their cultures via the Internet.
In that way we can do away with borders in the fullest sense of the word.
Nobody should be afraid of the human teacher being replaced by a virtual colleague one day or of the written book becoming a museum-piece.
Information technology is only a support.
We must aim to give it a meaningful educational and cultural content; we must not just concentrate on technical questions.
I hope that the Morgan report has made that as clear to others as it is to me.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Morgan has given us a masterly demonstration of the very important decisions and deadlines that the information society represents.
It is fundamental that everyone should be guaranteed access to information so as to benefit from all the educational and cultural opportunities in the public and private sector which arise from the new technologies.
Particular attention must be paid to the developing countries so that they are put in a position to evaluate and adapt the potential of the information technology to their own experience.
The potential for using the new information and communication technology for executive purposes is enormous.
In fact it represents an opportunity to deal with problems of illiteracy and educational failure, the development of open and distance learning and adult education, linking schools and language tuition to the network.
It also represents challenges and opportunities for libraries through interconnection, thus promoting the economic, social and cultural life of the Union and access to the national cultural collections of every Member State, pooling Europe's vast and precious heritage of sites, monuments, museums and visual arts.
We need to bear in mind that books, newspapers and the other means of communication based on the written word will remain extremely important.
The Commission must continue its initiatives to improve internal consultation in the information sector and draw up a plan of action for the future, creating a permanent working group to coordinate initiatives relating to culture.
Finally, we must continue to consider the cultural and educational aspects of the information society, the risks it presents and the benefits it offers, in a calm, just and balanced atmosphere.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we too consider Mrs Morgan's report an excellent one, especially the section concerning technical and educational questions.
However, one problem of concern to Austria is being rather overlooked.
We have a nationalized telephone system.
In Austria it is up to the state to ensure that every pupil and every student obtains access to this information society.
This relates even to minor problems, such as a second home telephone line that does not cost more than an ordinary family can afford.
We are running the risk of producing a two-tier society of pupils and students, which conflicts with the old idea of general and free compulsory schooling.
If the state insists on continuing to control the telephone system, we must make it clear that we are living in a historic time in which the state has the responsibility to ensure that all pupils and students have the same access to learning and studying.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Morgan for the work that she has done.
The main objective for us social democrats is to fight against the devastating unemployment affecting millions of people, many of them young.
I am personally convinced that one way of creating new, lasting and environmentally friendly jobs is through the information society.
Information technology has already initiated an industrial revolution.
To accept this does not mean that we are allowing technology to rule our lives.
For me it means that I will work to ensure that information technology improves peoples' lives and not create new divisions between social groups or geographical areas.
We need European computer programs for education: CD-ROM or Internet-based.
These are not intended to take over the role of the teacher, a role that will become ever more important with the increasing amount of information made available to students.
Technology must be introduced in the classroom at an early stage and teachers must be trained and supported to enable them to exploit the vast potential of information technology.
In addition, IT opens up new horizons for the disabled both as regards education and on the labour-market.
We must focus on democratic, social, cultural and educational interests, rather than economic and technological.
If you concentrate only on the infrastructure and the technology and not the contents of the services, the most important component in the information society, i.e. the human being, will be forgotten.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I consider the own-initiative report very important, for it emphasizes my view that culture and education are a major factor of innovation and growth in the new environment of the information society and that great importance must therefore be attached to them in the shaping of this society.
On no account must the new means of communication be looked at independently of the information that is transmitted.
The aspect of educational quality is fundamental, especially in regard to the introduction of the new technologies in the educational field.
It is also important to discuss the new concepts of teaching and learning methods.
Firstly, the teachers need to be trained adequately.
They have to learn to change their traditional role as sources of knowledge and make more and more use of the new technologies in their teaching and help the pupils to learn how to choose, so that they take a critical approach to the material transmitted to them.
Of course it is also vital to have continuous and intensive further training of teachers.
But this message goes to parents too.
They form the basis of our society, so that acceptance of the new technologies and the concept of the information society, and thus their success or failure, largely depends on them.
So I am strongly in favour of virtual parental education and of the creation and development of virtual libraries; indeed I have proposed a project of this kind to STOA.
The aspect of lifelong learning is also very important.
The information society relies less and less on material resources and energy, but far more on human know-how.
I agree with the rapporteur that in the past the Commission's measures to promote various multimedia projects were too diffuse and often confusing for the applicants.
I therefore welcome the Commission's educational multimedia joint call, which is finally coordinating the various programmes more closely and therefore making them look more user friendly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too congratulate Mrs Morgan on her most important report.
After so many statements of principle and given that even the Commission sometimes seems to feel a certain multimedia euphoria, let me make a few comments on three practical questions in this area.
To what extent are the Commission's multimedia activities actually integrated in the individual Member States' educational policies? Is there a coordinated, overall plan?
I very much doubt it. The Commission says that all the schools in Europe should be networked.
But at present less than 5 % of European schools have access to the Internet or other networks. So how can there be equal access to new media and therefore to new employment opportunities in an increasingly mobile Europe?
Limited-time subsidies from Telecom or through the Commission's pilot projects for schools are all very well and good, and I welcome them.
But of what use are they to committed teachers and trainers if the follow-up financing of projects is not secure? We must promote good, cross-frontier projects and additional modules in vocational training, in order to make foreign-language teaching more lively and effective.
They are all pending.
Another question that has not really been clarified - and here I am turning to the Member States - is how rapid and how comprehensive the teacher training and further training is in this area.
Let me point to one aspect: here it is also a question of the educational and social opportunities of schools to have a positive guiding and stimulating effect on young people in terms of their private computer consumption.
I need hardly mention that the halt in the recruitment of young teachers, who are after all computer literate and trained now, is having devastating effects.
Let me end by turning to the Commission. Mr Bangemann, I would like to point out that unlike Mrs Heinisch I think the programme descriptions and application procedures for the European Union's multimedia programmes are too remote from the people and lack transparency.
There is too much red-tape involved in the application procedures.
The procedure for the multimedia joint call last December is very confusing because it docks onto various programmes, as practical experience shows.
Given the variety of management committees each of which only takes partial decisions for a particular project, it is almost impossible for new applicants to participate flawlessly.
So I really would ask you to give this serious consideration and to create a programme that is transparent and also usable by newcomers.
Mr President, the Morgan Report is an own-initiative report of the Culture Commission.
I think we had to stress the fact that without co-ordinated educational actions and without a cultural perspective, European information society would be an empty balloon.
Our generation, which invented the information superhighways, now has before it the greatest of challenges, either to turn it from a Pandora's box into an Ali Baba's cavern or to transform the danger of the pulverisation of information and the uncontrolled circulation of products into a marvellous area of knowledge and memory.
Since time immemorial, Europe has been the continent which has been aware of its long past and which has insisted on transmitting to others.
This is what distinguishes us from other world cultures, that of America, because it is so young and has such a short history, and those of Asia because, being so old, they were always selfsufficient.
Therefore, if possible before the year 2000 - and we cannot over-emphasise the urgency of acting in fields which could grow at rates of something like 40 % a year - I repeat that we must take essential measures:
Commission studies setting out all of its activities in this area, comparing measures and funding systems in the different Member States and assessing their relative effectiveness; -compulsory training for teachers and young people, guaranteeing at the same time technical support accessible to everyone; -strengthening the Community budget, setting up a sub-title in this area and the framework programme and transferring to the development of content some of which has already been earmarked for infrastructures; -stimulating national inter-school and university networks, creating economies of scale; -giving incentives to associations between enterprises and teaching establishments through tax breaks and other means to stimulate the quality of production and build this very important bridge between education and leisure.What we must do, Mr President, Commissioner, is make sure that the communication and information technologies - which we should now stop calling 'new technologies' - should not be seen as an end but as a means for selecting and communicating knowledge.
I must congratulate Mr Morgan on having condensed into his report the essence of these concerns, which are concerns for us all.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur.
The report is very good and will help us in the work we have already started on.
But I also have a request to all those who took part in this debate: we are not just producing paper for the sake of it but are trying to make our contribution to showing where something still needs to be done and how it should be tackled, and we are also trying to bring together the various bodies that have to work together in this area.
It would be useful if the debates sometimes also took note of all the things we are already doing.
For it is not true that we have concentrated only on technology or on infrastructure.
From the outset we have emphasized the question of content, as it is generally called, and the fact that we are speaking in terms of an information society shows quite clearly that we have considered this sociological, social and of course also cultural aspect right from the start.
We have created a Forum for the information society which brings together all the forces, the unions, the creators of culture and those involved in the media.
This Forum has adopted its first annual report.
For the rest, Members were also invited to it and even those who did not take part can read up in this report how hard we are trying to come up with solutions, especially as regards schools and libraries, i.e., generally accessible public culture.
For instance, this Forum has instructed two of the six working parties to deal specifically with these questions, namely libraries and the development of the media in general, and secondly, schools and learning and the related vocational training questions.
I am not suggesting that we have lapsed into some kind of blind enthusiasm, for that is not the case.
From the start I have always said that there is no reason to assume the world is coming to an end.
On the other hand there is no reason to assume that the world will now become a paradise.
We have to use these new instruments in areas where they are meaningful and useful; in areas where they are not, we can do nothing and in areas where they have bad results we have to do something about this.
Which is to say that in this case too we are taking a very pragmatic approach.
As the rapporteur has just done, I want to draw your attention to the report by the Task Force on Educational Multimedia.
You must not say that this is just another document.
You know that the task forces which Mrs Cresson and I set up are an attempt to make research policy more transparent but also more effective, because it can consider and try to resolve certain practical problems.
This task force has concerned itself specifically with all the questions raised in Mrs Morgan's report.
I will not read this document out to you now.
You can of course obtain it from the Commission.
It is dated 1996 and is numbered SEC 96/1426.
It describes everything we are doing at present, which is a great deal.
Incidentally, it also says that we must simplify the call to tender forms and the procedures that have to be gone through before becoming eligible for assistance, as you said, and I hope we will manage to do that.
However, it is sometimes difficult, for we cannot complain of any lack of interest.
I have just heard that we receive between 600 and 1000 applications for one programme.
On the one hand that is very pleasing because it shows the broad interest that exists, but on the other hand it shows how difficult this task is.
Let me just make two or three other comments on more general questions that have come up again.
I very much support what has been said about culture and creative work.
It should not be assumed that creative work can be democratized.
That is wrong.
The access and instruments required can be democratized and made generally available.
But to assume that will make us into a society of geniuses is wrong, because creative work will remain work, and presumably, if it is creative, if will remain the work of the few, of a minority.
We should not deceive ourselves that there will be any wide interest in this culture.
But what the information society actually can do is to create easier access to what is perhaps at times rather hermetically sealed data.
Here we should not reject new tools either.
For instance, if there is a problem we should not have to rely only on the book as the traditional means of gaining access to information but also have other, smarter, processing tools for looking at problems.
We know from our experience with schools that there are now many new opportunities for pupils who cannot come to terms with the relatively abstract system of the written word and do not find that way of thinking very easy but who think in a different way.
We certainly have to be innovative here.
So these opportunities should not be rejected from the outset but should be exploited.
But nor should we succumb to the error of thinking we can now live in what might be called an entirely different cultural world.
The other prejudice is to say that is what is done on the basis of public law is of higher quality, while what is done under private law is merely dirty money-making.
That too is nothing but prejudice.
In any case, if you look at what is actually being done in the Member States to connect schools - and the informal Council in Amsterdam adopted a report by the Swedish minister which showed how this is done in Sweden and wants to use it to formulate guidelines for the Union as a whole - then you will see that much of it is financed by private initiative, at least in the initial stage.
Of course this cannot be left to private initiative indefinitely, but at least the private sector has made a start.
And here I also want to say in favour of the large public telephone companies that they are being very active here, that they are cooperating with the school book suppliers and are processing the information that in practice already exists in school books and disseminating it in this new way.
So quite a lot is already happening, with the help also of the private sector.
People should not assume that things are always better if they are done by a public law institution.
We need only look at some of the television broadcasts produced by public broadcasters to see that they do not always match up to the high cultural standards these organizations require of themselves.
So here too I would ask you not to throw out the baby with the bathwater but to try to do what is necessary. Incidentally, we have one other difficulty that I must mention.
In these areas, often it is not the Member States that are responsible but sub-organizations of the Member States - such as the Länder in Germany - which means we have a double hurdle to overcome, but I am quite hopeful here.
To my surprise, at the conferences we have held so far the Member States did not keep telling us to go away and mind our own business!
On the contrary, they told us to work something out, to show us something!
Show us what we can achieve with this!
That can only be useful to us.
So once again my thanks to the rapporteur.
I hope that when we produce our progress report we find we have a considerably higher number of schools on the network by the end of the year and achieve this very well.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to inform you, at the request of the President of the European Parliament, that this morning, in the city of San Sebastian, the psychologist at the city's Martutene Prison was shot dead, presumably by an ETA terrorist.
The killer was taken into custody.
Convinced that he was interpreting the feeling of the European Parliament, the President has sent a message of condolences to the victim's family and the Spanish Government, lending his support for it to continue to fight all acts of terrorism with determination.
Genetically modified micro-organisms
The next item is the report (A4-0070/97) by Mr Trakatellis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive 90/219/EEC on the contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms (COM(95)0640 - C4-0271/96-95/0340(SYN)).
Mr President, one of the most important fields in biotechnology concerns the applications of genetically modified micro-organisms produced in laboratories by altering their genetic material.
Those organisms are among the most important tools of biotechnology, which by means of genetic modification, can cause a micro-organism to produce a useful substance, such as human insulin.
Those applications have an important influence on issues relating to health and disease, nutrition, environmental protection, agriculture and other important sectors of human life and activity, and consequently investigation of the potentials of genetically modified micro-organisms must go ahead, because it is a field full of promise.
However, we do not exactly know the nature and dimensions of the risks involved for man and his environment from genetically modified organisms, and it is precisely for that reason that work with such organisms must take place in areas appropriately designed to cope with every kind of risk.
Now that Directive 90/219 has been implemented for seven years, its positive and negative points have become clear.
That Directive must now be amended to respond to present-day developments and needs.
I consider that the demand expressed by universities, pharmaceutical companies, industries and SMEs for a simple, clear and flexible framework is both reasonable and logical, so that they can go ahead with their work and investments without uncertainty and lack of clarity.
At the same time, however, we must bear in mind the great importance attached by the various bodies and groups to the protection of health, the environment and biodiversity from dangers associated with genetically modified micro-organisms.
Precisely for that reason, the proposal to amend the Directive should strive for the greatest possible administrative flexibility, not at the cost of safety, but to create a framework that is simple, clear and easy for users and the responsible authorities to implement.
A warning bell must be rung here: flexibility and clarity of the framework must not conflict with the rules of safety.
The danger of an accident sometime in the future is all the greater because the field is continually expanding, and consequently, as we saw with the 'mad cow' crisis, with its disastrous effect upon the beef market, a simple accident is enough to give a bad name to the industry of biotechnological applications and lead it into crisis.
Improved information for citizens residing in close proximity to areas in which genetically modified micro-organisms are used, but also more general transparency and information of the public concerning the new knowledge and applications of biotechnology, is the best guarantee for the safety, investment and development of this technology in the European Union.
The main elements which in my opinion should be modified in the Directive proposed by the Commission are as follows:
First of all the definition of what a micro-organism is, is complete as given in the old directive.
In contrast, the addition which the Commission proposes to make to that definition creates problems, and it is scientifically difficult to accept that animal or vegetable cells can be defined as micro-organisms.
The replacement of the word 'restrict' with the word 'prevent' is necessary, because whereas the first implies some exposure of man and the environment, even if restricted, the second excludes it.
And that is consonant with the treatment of wastes proposed by the Commission.
Thirdly, the classification of work and its associated risk is a step in the right direction.
However, we believe that it is certainly scientifically difficult to prove that all projects in category 2 are low-risk ones.
This is because they involve micro-organisms such as staphylococci, streptococci, diphtheria colibacteria and tetanus clostridium, which are recognised as fairly dangerous towards human health.
Furthermore, category 3 projects are characterized by the Commission as medium-risk.
That is an inconsistency, granted that Directive 90/679 already characterizes them as high-risk.
For example, the AIDS virus cannot possibly be considered medium-risk. It is of course high-risk.
The main problem with the Commission's proposal is precise assessment of the risk.
That point is very unclear.
We have tabled amendments which define in a much better way how that risk is to be assessed.
The assessment will of course be based on estimating the risk to human life, to the environment, and finally, the combination of those two risks together.
It is important to allow the possibility of adapting the directive.
However, we consider that certain essential elements should not be capable of change by commitological procedures and we consider it unacceptable for such elements to be present in the directive's annexes.
As we know, yesterday the Legal Committee discussed the extent to which the present directive should be based on 130 S, when we would have a cooperation procedure, as opposed to 100 A, when a co-decision procedure would be required.
I should like to stress two things:
First, this directive is directly related to the practical application of methods for the production of biotechnological products, hormones, vaccines, drugs and foods, and it is clear that the cost of research for the development of those products in the context of the directive, will be passed on in the price of the end products.
This is precisely where harmonization of the rules is needed in the context of the internal market.
But even where doubts exist about the extent to which measures are available for the internal market and automatically under 100 A, I would like to remind you, as a second important factor, of the decision we took recently in this Parliament on health protection issues.
Parliament's decision on 19th February was clear, in that where health issues are concerned it wanted the co-decision procedure.
What I would like to ask the Commission is why there were two texts from different Commission Services during the preparation stage, and finally, which of the amendments will the Commission accept?
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of my colleague Alain Pompidou, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Research.
Today we are discussing the contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms.
The objective is the dangerfree exploitation of the micro-organisms produced by this technology, which appeared in the 1970s.
This is not a new procedure but a procedure that is now well-known, correctly handled and in relation to which we must distinguish between objective and potential risks.
If a genetically modified construction, or the act of obtaining it, presents a risk, that risk can manifest itself in different ways depending on the characteristics of the operation.
The experience gained over the last 15 years has led to a review of Directive 90/219, with a view to adapting the administrative provisions to the real risks of the operations and take more account of international technical recommendations on bio-safety, namely the protection of human health and the environment.
In relation to risk management, we must ensure that there is close correspondence between the level of risk defined by more accurate evaluation and the complexity of the administrative procedures.
Thus to each level of risk there correspond conditions of containment and experimental practices that depend on both the type of organism and the mode of use.
That is the purpose of the amendments for which our group will vote.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I would like to welcome this report and thank the rapporteur for the immense amount of work he has done.
The proposal, as we know, sets out measures to protect human health and the environment from the risks associated with activities working with genetically modified organisms in contained conditions.
That means basic research in laboratories and institutions, but also industrial production: for example, brewing, vaccine production and some activities in the food industry.
It will certainly become an important part of the regulatory regime for the biotechnology industry.
We recognize that the present directive needs reform in the light of technical progress and experience gained in the last few years.
The Commission proposal is generally acceptable in principle but we feel we could go further in some areas by focusing particularly on those activities that pose the most significant risks: namely, activities using those organisms listed in Classes III and IV in the risk categories.
In addition, we consider that all the technical annexes to this directive are important and should be subject to adaptation by a technical committee that operates in a way that respects the modus vivendi and which we would hope to see developed into a true partnership between the Commission, Parliament and the Council in the coming few years.
A further concern of the Socialist Group is the issue of risk assessment.
This must be uniform across the Union.
We need to detail this clearly in the annexes to ensure that we have a uniform level of risk assessment across the Union.
In addition, we also think that the containment and control measures, particularly in some aspects of the technical annexes, could be improved.
These are detailed in some of the amendments that we will be supporting.
Finally, I would draw attention to the issue of civil liability.
This is an essential safeguard.
The Commission must accept the need for people carrying out activities in this area to accept legal responsibility for the consequences of any accidents.
We need the Commission to explain clearly its position with regard to this subject, and how it will advance the issue of civil liability, not just in this sector, but in other sectors where human health and the environment could be threatened by inappropriate activity.
In conclusion, I would ask the Commission to accept Parliament's amendments and utilize them to improve the text; to ensure that progress in this area takes place in the atmosphere of public trust and confidence which is necessary if the industry is to prosper.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the proposal it submitted on 6 December 1995 to amend the implementing directive the EU Commission is taking account of more than twenty years of worldwide experience in the use of genetic engineering.
In line with current international scientific knowledge it has introduced new and clearer distinctions, providing for four classes of risk instead of the former two, as is already the case in many European countries.
The proposal also abolishes the distinction between research and trade, which was not very useful in practice.
The proposed changes therefore bring greater simplicity and avoid any unnecessary red tape, since they make the administrative procedure as tight as is possible without sacrificing safety and the industry supports them almost without reservation.
This kind of safe cutting down on red tape is most important to the position of Europe in biotechnology.
To delay these changes would give European research and industry disadvantages in competition, in relation particularly to the USA and Japan, for no practical reason.
I welcome the Commission proposal and the opinion of the Committee on Research and I thank Mr Pompidou.
He managed to improve on the innovations in the Commission proposal with a few very good amendments, without affecting or even putting at risk the simplification and clarification that have been achieved.
Moreover, Mr Pompidou has successful demonstrated the great importance of this directive for European research establishments and managed to induce the Committee on the Environment to accept many of the proposals.
I think the amendment calling for liability insurance in relation to environmental damage would be difficult to carry through in practice.
Moreover, the Commission is in any case intending to draft a white paper on environmental liability, which it will be presenting shortly.
It is doubtful whether there is any point, given this situation, to anticipate the Commission proposal and run the risk of the various rules conflicting with each other.
Mr President, I will concentrate on three points.
The first is the procedure for the proposal.
The second is the reason for amending the Directive, and the third is the content itself.
With regard to the procedure, I will not dwell on the particular legal arrangement by which the Directive should be covered.
Opinions may differ as to what is most appropriate.
But I would stress that it is highly unsatisfactory to have a proposal for debate here in plenary on which a compromise proposal has already been put forward by the Presidency in the Council dealing with points on which there is wide disagreement.
It may be claimed that it is because Parliament has been too long in discussing the matter but, whatever the case may be, it is not a satisfactory situation.
It also seems to show that the Commission and the Council are all too well aware that Parliament's only real scope for action is to say 'yes' or 'no' to the proposal as such, while the Council and the Commission in reality can cock a snook at the amendments we put forward.
As regards the reasons for amending the Directive, the Commission maintains that there may be grounds, in an area in full spate of development, to look again at a directive which has its origins in the 1980s, although it was not adopted until 1990.
The problem is that the Commission nowhere mentions the scientific results and experience in the light of which the Directive is said to require amendment.
We are thus expected more or less to take the Commission's word for it and adopt the proposal without actually knowing who the Commission has consulted on this matter, who its advisers were and so forth.
As I have said, there may be grounds for amending the Directive, but the need for an amendment should be documented.
On the content itself, the key issue for us is that the level of protection must not be lowered. This leads me on to point out that, on the amendments regarding classification, the crucial shortcoming of the proposal is that there are no guidelines on how classification should be approached, hence individuals are allowed considerable latitude to classify as they see fit.
This means that we will be supporting a number of amendments in order to make the proposal more acceptable.
Mr President, our Group is in agreement with the excellent work done by Mr Trakatellis and with the additional material by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy under the guidance of Mr Pompidou.
Nevertheless in view of the well-founded state of public alarm, above all as regards genetic engineering, we have tabled two separate amendments pointing out the possible risks and thus preempting the consequences.
To be specific, we think that in the annexes, both in the assessment and classification and in the procedure for urgency, details should be given as to which biological chains, living species, could be affected and how to deal with the risk - because now it is possible to give that information.
Mr President, although the laboratory directive was not adopted until 1990 and has not yet been transposed in many Member States, the Commission has already made a proposal providing for massive deregulation and a drop in environmental and safety standards.
Let me refer to two points.
We need liability for the environment and for human beings, and here I would quite openly ask the Commissioner why the scientists themselves should not be held more responsible? If the situation is as the industry and science promise us, namely that biotechnology is safe, why are they so vehemently against liability?
Secondly, authorization once a specified period of time has elapsed.
I think it is totally irresponsible for authorization to be given on expiry of a certain period of time and for that period to be reduced from 60 to 45 days!
Surely it is absurd that I have to wait longer for authorization to park my bicycle in a certain place than for the authorization of a research laboratory working with pathogenic, genetically manipulated organisms.
We do not need lower environmental and safety standards; what we need is more environmental standards, more safety and above all more transparency!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since 1990 the European Union has had the strictest legislation on biotechnology anywhere in the world.
Some Member States have been even more stringent when transposing these European rules into their own legislation.
In my view this caution was justified.
But meanwhile we have gained worldwide experience in the use of biotechnology.
The stringent rules in Europe are increasingly proving to be an obstacle to Europe's position in terms of research and applying the research findings.
Let me give a clear example: a European industrial undertaking, a chemical firm, has 26 research and development establishments, of which 6 are in the European Union, 20 in North and South America, South Africa and the Far East.
Genetic engineering is one of the most important key technologies for the next century and has broad applications in medicine, pharmaceutics, agriculture, food production and the environment.
Genetic engineering and its innovations will have a decisive effect on every country's economic development in the decades to come.
The 1990 directive on the contained use of genetically modified micro-organisms was based on the scientific knowledge of the 1980s.
Our group fully supports the Commission's aims in the proposed amended directive of reducing unnecessary bureaucracy - and I mean unnecessary - while at the same time ensuring the necessary precautions and safety measures.
That includes adapting the system of classification to existing international practice and revising the technical annexes, which are no longer up to date.
Instead of two there will now be four classes of risk, which will make it much easier to assess the risks and take the necessary protective measures.
My group considers it particularly important that the European Parliament will in future be involved fully in any major changes to the directive.
If the risks can be controlled, as has been shown in the past 20 years, I think it is also our responsibility as Christians to look into the chances offered by genetic engineering and to use this technology in a responsible manner.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, technology strides on, new findings mean that laws have to be adapted.
And that is a good thing.
But presumably it will remain a secret on what experience the Commission is basing itself here.
The development of this technology and the associated research has to go on for more than a mere five or six years before we can gain an overview of the possible results of the use of genetically modified micro-organisms.
For that is how brief our experience is with the directive before us.
That is why I consider two amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection most important.
Once concerns information to the public.
In the name of democracy and transparency, the safety measures must be made known.
In this area, public information is the real guarantee of safety.
So it is not enough for the public only to have access to information on emergency plans.
The information must actively be provided to the public.
That is one demand.
The second amendment is based on our recent experience with the Commission; I am thinking, for instance, of the authorization of genetically modified maize.
This experience shows that we have to set very tight limits to the area where the Commission can make major changes and take major decisions by itself.
That is why it is very important to set very narrow limits to comitology.
That is the second major amendment we tabled.
Nevertheless I have serious doubts whether the necessary safety will actually be guaranteed even if all the amendments are accepted.
The future will tell, and I hope the story will not be a sad one.
Thank you Mr President.
I very much hope that when the Commissioner replies she is able to give us quite a detailed position from the Commission on the various amendments put down.
I would like to ask her to circulate, before the vote tomorrow, a list of those amendments that the Commission is likely to accept and those amendments which it finds difficult to accept.
This has been done in the past and it would be of enormous help to us.
It is clear from the debate on cloning which we have already had this week that the usefulness of scientific endeavour in the genetics field has come under very close scrutiny - and I think rightly.
It is also clear that after the BSE crisis we have found it necessary to focus attention on the potential risk to human health from a hitherto unsuspected, possibly microscopic source.
In this context it is understandable that some colleagues are dubious about this proposal, which seeks to streamline approval procedures in a very sensitive field.
I am glad that the committee under Mr Trakatellis' guidance has felt that it could support the directive, with some amendments to tighten it up.
However, I would like to draw Parliament's attention particularly to Amendment No 22 to this directive, which has been put down not by our rapporteur but by the Energy Committee, and to draw attention to its importance.
I very much hope that the Commission is able to accept it.
There is a real danger for this Parliament and for the people who elect us that this will be one of our few moments of involvement with the draft directive, and indeed the final directive on the contained use of genetically modified organisms; that once this directive is adopted - as I think it will be - we will no longer be able to exercise any supervisory role.
Amendment No 22 by the Energy Committee does make sure that the European Commission would submit to Parliament a regular report on what is happening as a consequence of this directive.
I recommend that amendment to the House and I very much hope that the Commission will be able to accept it.
Mr President, I must devote the first few seconds of my speech to a matter unrelated to the Trakatellis report, but bound up with collective ethics.
The President kindly announced to us a few moments ago the immediate response of the Presidency of Parliament to the latest ETA terrorist attack and I am deeply grateful, as a Spaniard, for the solidarity of the citizens of Europe; but the citizens of Europe, whom this Parliament represents, should know that this feeling of outrage at each ETA murder is difficult to reconcile, from the moral point of view, with the retention of the right of asylum within the European Union for citizens fleeing Spanish justice in connection with these terrorist activities.
Thank you very much, nonetheless, for Parliament's swift response, Mr President.
To return to the subject of the Trakatellis report, I must say that, in spite of the large number of amendments it contains - which might suggest that it is a very controversial and polemic report - I nevertheless think, as some speakers have mentioned, that irrespective of the amendments - very partial ones -which have been adopted or which are to be put to the vote tomorrow, the whole Parliament is agreed that this proposal for a directive is timely and necessary and that the report is an excellent one - my congratulations to Mr Trakatellis - and that most of the Committee's amendments are aimed at combining prudence on the part of the public authorities, which we are, in laying down a legal framework with continuing to make use of the resources obtained as a result of genetic engineering.
Consequently, I think that everything has moved towards making the United Nations proposals on bio-diversity, which date from 1992, compatible with one another; in this respect, the upholding of the security and dignity of the human race is compatible with the industrial use and continuing research into this subject.
This directive has two objectives, firstly the safe use of genetically modified microorganisms and secondly to stimulate biotechnology research.
The Commission's proposals need to be improved in two main areas: firstly in relation to damage liability, as has been said.
Anyone working with genetically modified micro-organisms must be liable for any damage that may occur if they are released.
Here I take a quite different view from Mrs Heinisch.
Secondly, there is the question of the legislative processes. Parliament must not be deprived of its right of codetermination in relation to any changes to the scope of this directive.
That applies to Annexes I and II of the directive.
For these are not, as might appear at first glance, technical rules but concern the core of the directive, namely safety.
It did not help us in trying to assess the Commission proposal that the Commission's general report on the application of the directive is still not available.
Mrs Bjerregaard, you should see to it that it is made available.
In its reply to my written question the Commission announces that it will present its report at an unspecified date in the course of 1997.
According to the directive it should have presented it last year.
I hope that with its proposed speeding up of the authorization procedures, the Commission will in future also provide the required information to the public and the European Parliament more quickly and at least keep to the prescribed time-limits, i.e., penalize the Member States suitably for any delays in transposing the legislation.
In view of its negligence in relation to BSE, I think it is all the more necessary to draw the Commission's attention to these renewed delays.
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur, Mr Trakatellis, and the rapporteur for an opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, Mr Pompidou, for the thorough work that has gone into this report.
As we all know and as has been stressed in the debate here today, the regulation of the GMO area is a difficult matter, and it is high on the political agenda.
Directive No 90/219 is a horizontal directive, and it builds on the precautionary principle.
It is intended to ensure that the development of the technology does not endanger human health and the environment.
The Directive thus regulates the rules of play or the safety precautions that must be observed by laboratories conducting research and carrying out work on GMOs.
This Directive covers a highly technical area, which is in a process of rapid development.
It is a field which also has considerable implications both for employment in the EU and for industry.
Experience with the Directive hitherto has shown some weaknesses.
Let me name them; they are: unsatisfactory classification of GMMs, inadequate guidelines on risk assessment and containment measures, lack of flexibility as regards adaptation to technical development, lack of consistency between notification and administration requirements on the one hand and the risk inherent in the activities in question on the other hand, and excessive administration in connection with low-risk activities.
The Commission's proposal observes the precautionary principle, while at the same time setting out to solve the practical problems which have arisen in connection with the existing Directive.
The most important changes are that the administrative procedures and notification requirements will be adjusted to the risk inherent in the activities involving genetically modified micro-organisms and - a point raised by several speakers - they will be classified into several risk groups.
Procedures will be simplified, provided that does not lower the level of safety, and clear minimum requirements on containment and control will be introduced for each of the four risk classes; and it will in future be easier to adapt the Directive to technical development.
Of the 68 amendments tabled, the Commission can unreservedly accept Amendments Nos 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 17, 19, 31, 41 and 42, 49 and 56.
They all serve to clarify the principles in the Commission proposal.
The Commission can in part accept Amendments Nos 4, 11, 27, 30, 35, 37, 38, 39, 43, 47, 48, 54 and 55, and it can in principle accept Amendments Nos 7, 8, 14, 15, 17, 21 and 22, to which Mrs Jackson in particular sought a reaction, 23, 24, 25, 64 and 68, which should however be formulated somewhat differently so that they do not create problems in new areas.
I would like to make just one observation regarding Amendment No 37, because I think that Mrs Gebhardt was indirectly referring to this proposal, namely the question of the legislative procedure for Annex I. The Commission can in part accept the requirement that the full legislative procedure be applied for Annex I. A full legislative procedure, as you know, offers the advantage, sought by several speakers, that both Parliament and the Council have an influence over amendments to the Annex.
Following on from that, the Commission cannot accept 31 of the amendments, and I will comment briefly on some of them.
To begin with, there is Amendment No 1, which means altering the legal basis for the Commission proposal from Article 130s(1) to Article 100a.
We cannot accept that.
It is not because the Commission does not sympathize with Parliament's desire to be fully involved in the legislative process.
We strongly support that.
However, as I understand it, there is no legal authority under the present Treaty for selecting Article 100a in preference to Article 130s, unless the scope of the Directive is altered significantly, so that it has a direct bearing on the internal market.
There is no doubt that the fact of choosing between one or the other of these two provisions amounts to discriminatory treatment of Parliament in a quite incomprehensible way.
I myself hope that this matter will be put to rights by new Treaty amendments.
Let me also add that the proposed amendment of the legal basis would mean that the Member States would not be free, as at present, to introduce stricter requirements for containment and control than those laid down in the Directive.
The present provisions mean that Member States can lay down stricter standards in their own legislation than those required under the Directive.
If the legal basis is amended to 100a, it will mean full harmonization and the Member States will no longer have this freedom.
As a result they may be obliged to weaken their containment and control measures in order to comply with this amendment, and that is of course not desirable.
Amendments Nos 18 and 20, calling for a separation between Class 3 and Class 4 activities as regards notification requirements, cannot be accepted.
Such a separation would, in the Commission's opinion, complicate the practical application of the Directive and lead to confusion.
The Commission does, however, realize that the intention of these amendments is to strengthen the administrative supervision of such high-risk activities.
The Commission therefore proposes that both these aims be achieved by requiring express consent for subsequent uses in respect of both Class 3 and Class 4.
The Commission is not in a position to accept Amendments Nos 44, 45 and 46, which seek to limit the scope of the Directive in such a way that only laboratory work for research purposes is included.
The reason is that the Commission wishes to regulate all activity involving laboratory work, irrespective of the final purpose of the work in question.
Then there are Amendments Nos 26, 36, 50, 57 and 58, which we also cannot accept, because they mean that information to which the public may have access, or aspects of activities on which the public may be consulted, would be limited to health and environmental protection and emergency plans.
In the Commission's opinion, this is not desirable since it is important that the public should have confidence that gene technology is being satisfactorily regulated.
In the Commission's view, it would be questionable to leave it up to the notifier to decide what should be covered by health and environmental protection and emergency plans.
For the same reason, the Commission also cannot accept Amendments Nos 32 and 33.
According to these, the information to be given to the authorities responsible and the Commission in the event of an accident would only include those aspects that relate to the possibility of serious damage.
Again, an unfortunate limitation from the point of view of the public interest.
Concerning Amendments Nos 13 and 28, it is correct, as Mrs Heinisch said, that we are working on this matter in the form of a White Paper, and I can say that I entirely share the view of Mr Bowe and Mrs Breyer that it is particularly important to have the question of liability dealt with under EU auspices.
While I do not wish to go into detail on all the rejections, let me just mention Amendment No 39, in respect of which the Commission can accept committee procedure IIb, which allows the Council to adopt arrangements other than those proposed by the Commission, instead of procedure IIIb as provided in the Commission proposal.
As regards the Commission's report on experience with the Directive, this requirement already arises in Article 18(3).
The report will be sent to Parliament.
Parliament's proposal that the decisions and minutes of the advisory committee be made available to the public cannot be accepted, since it is not in conformity with the new interinstitutional agreement between the Commission and the European Parliament on transparency and public information in connection with committee meetings.
At the same time I stress - although it goes without saying - that the Commission will honour its commitments under this agreement in full.
The Commission can accept the principle underlying Amendment No 15 tabled by Mr Bowe, but does not think that the wording of the amendment is in conformity with the intention.
Instead, the Commission would propose an amendment requiring that good microbiological practice be regularly assessed.
I will close by again emphasizing the value that the amendments which have been accepted in whole or in part add to the Commission proposal.
An example of this is Amendment No 9 from the rapporteur, Mr Trakatellis, which strengthens the application of the precautionary principle.
Under this amendment, if there is any doubt as to the risk class within which a given activity falls, the higher class would be assigned until sufficient documentation is available.
As I have said, the amendments help to tighten up and clarify the Commission proposal. They will thus assist in bringing about more appropriate and effective outline legislation to achieve the high level of safety we all want to see for activities of the type covered by the Commission proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately I have to put another question. It is important both to Mr Bowe and to myself to know your position, Commissioner, on liability.
You said very little on Amendments Nos 28 and 30.
You said you agree with both me and Mr Bowe, but also with Mrs Heinisch.
That is a major contradiction.
We had asked you specifically whether you believe there should be more selfresponsibility in relation to this science? That would mean assuming liability.
Anything else, Commissioner, would mean indirect subsidies.
I would like your position on that too.
Last point: I cannot understand how you can say that transparency and access to information would infringe an interinstitutional agreement.
We have the environmental information directive and you are bound to take account of it.
So I really would urgently ask you to answer these two questions.
They are quite elementary and the credibility of biotechnology is at stake here.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, you did not answer me why in your directive there is an inconsistency relating to the previous Directive 679, which concerns the protection of working people from biological factors.
In that directive it is mentioned that category 3 is a high-risk category, while in this directive it is said that category 3 is a medium-risk category.
That is a serious inconsistency and I would like to ask you: do you consider that working with genetically modified AIDS virus is a medium-risk occupation or a high-risk occupation? I therefore urge you to correct that inconsistency, because the Commission had two texts, one official and one unofficial which differs from it in important ways, and in this connection the unofficial text indeed agreed with the previous directive.
I would also like to ask you: what do you intend to do about risk assessment? Will you accept our amendments which give completely clear indications about how risk is to be assessed?
Mr President, when I spoke earlier, using up a great deal of my speaking time, I made a brief attempt to answer the question on liability. I said then that I agreed with Mrs Heinisch that the Commission should now draft a White Paper on the subject, after we had first discussed some of the matters in a communication.
That is because we regard it as a horizontal matter, which means that we cannot deal with the question of liability in the sole context of the proposal under discussion here.
At the same time, I stated my agreement with the remarks of Mrs Breyer and Mr Bowe on the importance of the subject.
I therefore hope that we can return to the matter in a broader context.
I do not think there are problems as regards transparency and public information in connection with the agreement in place.
In my answer here to Parliament, I argued quite specifically in favour of public involvement, and I rejected some of the amendments because I think that they would diminish public involvement, and I referred in that connection to the agreement entered into with Parliament.
With regard to the question put by Mr Trakatellis, I will say that I concentrated in my answer on addressing the various amendments which have rightly retained Parliament's attention, and it is our impression that there is no material difference between the directive Mr Trakatellis refers to and that we are discussing here.
The problem is that these directives use different classes, and that is what we have tried to resolve in the proposal in its present form and in our acceptance of the amendments I commented on during the debate.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item on the agenda is questions to the Commission (B4-0019/97).
Question No 28 by Mary Banotti (H-0116/97)
Subject: Interim trade agreement with Israel
Is the Commission satisfied that Article 1 of the interim trade agreement with Israel is being both properly monitored and implemented?
Will Parliament receive a report from the EU special envoy to the Middle East, with particular reference to the special tasks assigned to him in the Dublin Declaration of December 1996?
The Israeli authorities are well aware of the importance the European Union attaches to the rule of law and to strict respect for the undertakings to which Israel has subscribed by her adherence to international conventions on human rights and the Barcelona Declaration of 1995.
The monitoring of human rights and respect for democratic principles in countries linked to the EU by association agreements is carried out in accordance with the rules of CFSP.
Under the present interim agreement respect of these principles is periodically monitored.
Once ratification of the recently concluded Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement between the European Union and Israel is completed, the Union as a whole will be in an even better position to exercise a positive influence regarding all human-rights-related issues in the framework of the political dialogue with Israel established by the agreement.
A specific human rights clause stipulates that respect for democratic principles and human rights constitutes an essential element of the association agreement.
The EU special envoy to the Middle East peace process reports regularly on his mission to the Council through the presidency and the Commission, with special regard to his mandate, as outlined in the decisions of the Ministers' meetings of 28 and 29 October 1996 and the Dublin Declaration of 14 December 1996.
The Commission is fully associated with the special envoy's tasks.
The special envoy has recently reported to Parliament on the occasion of the hearing at the Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
Since Sir Leon has galloped through the answer at enormous speed, I will have to ask him if he would give me a copy of his answer.
I am also really concerned about the question of exports from Palestine and the difficulties many producers are still experiencing when trying to export their goods - and I understand fully the need for security and everything else - because of an excessive amount of rather exigent security checks at the border.
I would also be interested if Sir Leon could tell us why it is considered necessary to register some of the Palestinian produce as being Israeli in order to facilitate its export to European markets.
I would of course be delighted to provide a copy of the answer.
I am sorry if I spoke too quickly; I was anxious not to take up too much time.
On the specific points, they are not related to the matter of the monitoring of the interim agreement or to the report of the special envoys, so I am not in a position to give a specific answer to them.
But I will certainly draw the attention of those in the Commission dealing with these matters to the points raised.
The first point to be borne in mind is that Community regulations and directives apply throughout the Community and not just in the United Kingdom.
On average nineteen regulations and two directives were adopted each week in 1996, most of them concerning the common agricultural policy.
These figures are taken from Celex, the publicly accessible interinstitutional database.
They do not, it should be specified, include regulations of what can be called transient status, that is, those which concern the day-to-day management of Community policies such as the common agricultural policy, instruments whose titles appear in ordinary non-bold type in the Official Journal and have a period of validity of between a few days and a few weeks.
In addition - and I think this is very important - it should be emphasized that almost exactly the same number of regulations and directives as are adopted each week also expire or are repealed each week.
The global practical effect therefore is that the sum total of regulations and directives which are applicable in the Community remains more or less constant.
Many thanks to the Commissioner for his very illuminating response.
Members will be aware that over recent weeks Sir James Goldsmith has been funding an extremely expensive poster campaign in the United Kingdom saying, amongst other things, that Brussels 'spouts' , to use his word, over 100 rules and regulations every week which the United Kingdom must obey.
I think the Commissioner's response today shows how that poster campaign is not just misleading, it is actually totally untrue.
I would like to ask the Commissioner to give this House an undertaking in the very near future that the Commission will embark upon a campaign in the United Kingdom, spelling out, as he has done to this House today, exactly what the situation is.
Can I first of all say that the honourable gentleman has done a public service in giving me the opportunity to put the record straight and to correct misleading impressions that may have been given.
As to conducting a campaign, I am not sure that the Commission's resources extend as far as those of the honourable gentleman who has been referred to, but in general terms I certainly think it is important that we should put the facts out as clearly as possible, and this is one of the facts that will now be available to the Commission through its offices in London and other parts of the United Kingdom to make the true facts known.
I myself, in a slightly different context, last week in London, launched the European Movement's campaign to present the facts on Europe generally, that is, an all-party and non-party campaign to present the facts; it is given support by the Commission financially too.
Thank you very much, Sir Leon, but may I put a question to you and earn my keep and prove worthy of my office as vice-president.
I should like to be able to call upon you to speak, which would accord with the procedure we follow in this Parliament.
I know that you like to reply right away out of courtesy to the Members, but I too should like to play my part and earn my keep.
Question No 30 by James Provan (H-0126/97)
Subject: World Trade Organization
The Uruguay Round Agreement of the GATT means that EU agricultural trade is operating within a global trading system and that future agricultural policy decisions must take account of this.
As we prepare ourselves for a new round of World Trade Organization talks it seems imperative that the EU should put itself in a strong negotiating position.
What action is the Commission currently taking to bring this about?
It is undeniable that agricultural trade operates within the global trading system.
It is the agreement on agriculture negotiated in the Uruguay Round which sets the ground rules for agricultural trade.
The question of future negotiations is taken up in the agreement on agriculture which foresees that, and I quote: ' Negotiations for continuing the process will be initiated one year before the end of the implementation period' .
The Commission is aware of the need for an in-depth preparation of the negotiations, which are due to start at the end of the century.
The Commission is ensuring that work is put in hand in a timely fashion so that we are placed in a strong negotiating position from the outset.
I thank the Commissioner for that very interesting and, I am sure, correct answer.
Many of us in this House, however, are concerned that whilst maybe certain DGs within the Commission are interested in trade negotiations, it appears that DG VI in particular - the agriculture directorate - is perhaps hanging back a little bit.
The feeling is that we really have to take a major step to try to ensure that reform of the CAP is seen to be continuing, and that is not highly apparent at the present time.
It would be helpful if the Commission were to take an initiative fairly quickly to make the agriculturalists and the farmers in the European Community aware of the fact that these negotiations will be coming and that if we do not take the correct steps to reform the CAP before those negotiations we will be on the wrong foot and on the defensive.
I should just finish by saying that I hope the Commissioner understands this and that DG VI will therefore be fully involved in all the negotiations that he is going to be undertaking.
The agricultural community is well aware of our commitment to resume negotiations, as agreed in the Uruguay Round, and all parts of the Commission are also aware of this.
With regard to the question of the evolution of the CAP, there are, of course, a number of pressures pointing in the same direction: one is the prospect of new negotiations in the context of the WTO; another is the prospect of enlargement and a third is, of course, internal pressures of a budgetary kind, relating to the cost of agriculture.
All of those are coming together and will mean that the common agricultural policy will have to evolve further.
But it is also fair to say to our trading partners that they cannot expect to get any further progress ahead of what has been agreed in the Uruguay Round, which is what some of them tried to do in the period before the Singapore ministerial meeting of the WTO.
What was agreed was that the process of analysis and information exchange should take place, but no more than that.
So it is quite natural that, in defending ourselves from premature pressure from the outside world, we should take a properly cautious position.
But I can assure you that will not prevent us doing what is necessary, being aware of the timescale and the cumulative factors that will bring to bear, and we shall make every effort to bring about a situation in which all parts of the Commission work together to handle this issue.
A strong bargaining position is for me the same as aggressively helping European farmers to obtain a reasonable share of an increasing world market.
There is a concern within the EU about free competition in this market.
I believe this concern to be exaggerated.
It is in my opinion important to adjust EU price levels to those of the world market.
A certain level of compensation may be required, but the profit would still be there.
Do the members of the Commission share this view?
As, at the moment, we are simply working on the process of analysis of information exchange, it will not surprise the honourable Member to know that the Commission has not formulated its negotiating stance for the next round to begin in some years' time.
It would be very unusual to do that at this early stage.
But I understand the force of the honourable Member's point and I have no doubt that it will be a rich contribution to the evolving debate.
Since the author is not here, Question 31 falls.
Question No 32 by Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler, which has been taken over by Mr Schnellhardt (H-0170/97)
Subject: Support for environmental protection and the land rights of indigenous peoples under the EU-Canada action plan
According to a study by the Sierra Legal Defense Fund, even following the introduction of the most recent forestry law in the Canadian province of British Columbia (British Columbia Forest Practises Code), 92 % of the felling undertaken by the major timber companies is still carried out as clear felling, with the directives on watercourses also being disregarded in most cases.
In addition in th great coastal rain forests which are the traditional territory of the Nuxalk Indians, large parts of their land are being released to timber companies for clear-felling under long-term lease licences.
What joint actions will the Commission take under the Canada-EU action plan to hal these clear felling practices and the destruction of the territory of indigenous peoples, thus also implementing the international obligations for sustainable development entered into both by the EU and the Canadian government (e.g. the Convention on Biological Diversity, Agenda 21)?
Chapter 3 of the EU-Canada joint action plan contains specific language concerning preservation of the environment in general and sustainable management of forestry in particular.
In the action plan the EU and Canada, for instance, commit themselves to exchanging information and reports on forestry issues.
The action plan furthermore provides that the EU and Canada will work together at the UN Commission on Sustainable Development and will continue to work on a successful conclusion of the Commission's work on the sustainable management of forests.
There is thus a clear mandate in the action plan to continue and further develop cooperation and dialogue with regard to forestry and the environment.
The action plan is, however, not considered to be a legally binding agreement but rather a statement of intentions and political will to cooperate on a wide range of issues.
The EU and Canada agree that a legally binding international regime for sustainable management of forests is necessary and we are working together to initiate negotiations on a global forest convention under the auspices of the United Nations.
An opportunity to raise forestry-related issues with Canada on a bilateral level already exists through the so-called ad hoc Working Group on Forestry, which is part of the EU-Canada annual high-level consultations on the environment.
At the last meeting of the working group on 24 October last, the Canadian side mentioned that Canada is launching a new aboriginal forestry programme.
With regard to the question of indigenous people, the Commission and the European Union are deeply attached to promoting sustainable development practices which take due account of indigenous peoples' human rights, including land tenure and the preservation of traditional lifestyles.
The European Union has raised these issues repeatedly in relevant contexts, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, and, in line with the conclusions of the Rio Conference of 1992, it has always emphasized the link between the promotion of human rights and respect for the environment.
Thank you, Sir Leon.
Mr Schnellhardt does not wish to speak, so we have come to the end of this block of questions.
Whilst we are waiting for Mr Van den Broek to arrive, I suggest we break for a few moments.
(The sitting was suspended for a few moments)
Ladies and gentlemen, now that we have had a few moments of welcome relaxation - for which we gratefully than Mr Van den Broek - I suggest that we resume our sitting.
I have to inform you that Question No 33 by Mr Graziani on the situation in Albania will not be considered because, as you know, it is being discussed within the scope of this Parliamentary session.
Question No 34 by Leen van der Waal (H-0117/97)
Subject: Customs levy imposed by Ukraine on humanitarian aid
According to reports in the Dutch press, Ukraine abolished the tax-free import of goods constituting humanitarian aid on 1 January 1997.
Aid is now subject to a customs levy of some 30 % which has to be paid by the recipient of the aid.
Although the measure is designed to counter any misuse of the opportunity of importing goods free of tax, it is reported that the activities of bona fide aid organizations are also being adversely affected by the customs levy.
Can the Commission confirm these reports and indicate what steps might be taken in order to secure the free export by bona fide aid organizations of goods constituting humanitarian aid?
I should like to make the following points in reply to Mr van der Waal's question.
The Ukrainian Parliament adopted a law on 17 December 1996 abolishing the exemption enjoyed by humanitarian aid from import duties, VAT and other taxes.
The law came into force on 8 January this year, and was designed to eliminate abuse and fraud in the sending of aid consignments.
The Commission contacted the Ukrainian authorities through its delegation in Kiev in an attempt to resolve this problem, and the European Union troika brought the issue up at its meeting with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Mr Udovenko, on 5 February in The Hague.
The troika was given an assurance by the Ukrainian authorities that an amendment to the law would be brought before parliament to restore the tax-free status of humanitarian aid.
On 20 February, the Ukrainian Parliament adopted a resolution giving the government the power, in the short term, to allow humanitarian aid to be imported tax-free, on condition that each part of the consignment is properly labelled.
This provided a legal solution to the problem.
However, donor organizations and their counterparts in the Ukraine are being advised to contact the Ukrainian authorities or their embassies before sending any aid.
Organizations receiving funding from the Commission, such as through ECHO, and which encounter problems should contact the Commission delegation in Kiev.
I hope that this answer has reassured Mr van der Waal.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his answer, and in particular for the trouble his office has taken over this matter.
It does indeed appear that there is legislation in the pipeline which will once again make the import of these goods tax-free, and I think we need to concentrate now on the period until this legislation comes into force.
The Commissioner suggested that we should look to the embassies for as much help as possible, but I can foresee problems here, in that wherever the aid supplies arrive, permission will be needed to release and distribute them, and instructions will be needed from the authorities in Kiev if all this is to run smoothly.
These are details which we cannot expect to resolve at the moment. Perhaps the Commissioner could tell us if the European Union ambassador could also be notified about aid consignments that are to be sent, and if he will promise that the Commission will constantly monitor the situation.
I think it would indeed be best for anyone sending aid to contact their counterparts who are to receive the goods, their own ambassador or the Commission delegation.
I think I would be overstepping the mark if I said the Commission delegation would handle all the consignments sent to Kiev by the Member States, aid organizations and so on.
So as I said, if the goods are financed by Community programmes such as our humanitarian organization ECHO, then of course our delegation can be approached.
Otherwise I would strongly recommend contacting the appropriate national embassy.
If there is not an embassy, then our delegation will always be pleased to help.
Commissioner, thank you very much for your answer, but I would like to put a practical question.
There are still difficulties today, especially in countries bordering on others where there is genuine misery.
Would it not perhaps be useful for the Commission to try to come to a general agreement at least with the states that have already applied for membership of the European Union, in other words with the 11 states that really do want relations with us? We need a general agreement that also covers the question of transit in the various states where there really is misery - Romania for instance - so that we can resolve this problem, for to act through embassies takes a very long time and is very bureaucratic.
Muchas graçias, Señor Presidente!
I entirely agree with Mr von Habsburg that the countries which have applied to join the European Union are certainly not expected to cause any problems here, or else have already agreed not to obstruct goods in transit, to take the example he mentioned.
But the country in question here is not an applicant country, it is Ukraine, and as you know we have a partnership agreement with Ukraine which specifically states that in areas such as goods in transit, the goods must not be discriminated against compared with goods of national origin.
In this respect, I entirely agree with Mr von Habsburg that we must try to eliminate these kinds of obstacles, even with countries with which we have partnership agreements.
However, I fear that this will have to be done on an ad hoc basis each time the occasion arises, because in this case, for example, the levy on humanitarian supplies and so on was reinstated quite unexpectedly, and we were forced to intervene at a political level to have the decision reversed.
We shall have to make sure that the new rules are applied throughout the country, but I am confident from our contacts hitherto that there will be a considerable improvement in the situation.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
Question No 35 by Ursula Stenzel (H-0128/97)
Subject: Phare - Poland
Since its introduction in 1995, the Phare programme has been the most important financial instrument for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
However, implementation of Phare is beset by major problems because the programme is very fragmented and its funds are poorly allocated.
What is the Commission doing to utilize Phare programme funds more efficiently in the important preparatory stage?
What specific measures are being introduced in favour of Poland with a view to using Phare programme funds to prepare that applicant country's administrative authorities for accession? Does the Commission plan to step up training for Polish officials to familiarize them with current EU law?
As you know, the Phare programme began in 1989, primarily as a programme of technical aid to assist the process of economic conversion and reform in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
As part of the pre-accession strategy, Phare was identified in 1994 as the ideal financial instrument for helping the associated countries to adopt the 'acquis communautaire ' and to complete the market reforms and economic restructuring required in the medium term to make them eligible for membership.
In view of the political timetable for the enlargement negotiations, we are currently planning a fundamental reorganization of both how the aid is allocated and what it is allocated for, in other words of the entire implementation system.
The aim is to help the applicant countries with the transposition, interpretation and enforcement of the 'acquis ' , and it will make Phare more effective and useful as the main financial instrument for helping the applicant countries to prepare for membership of the Union.
In 1995 and 1996, Poland was allocated a total of ECU 377 million, 82 % of which was divided between just six sectors: transfrontier cooperation, transport, agriculture, small and medium-sized businesses, regional development, and the well-known Tempus programme.
The aid in these sectors was concentrated on promoting the integration process either in material terms or in the fields of legislation or education.
Harmonizing legislation and institutional consolidation are important elements of these programmes and are sure to be continued in future.
Together with the Polish Government, the Commission is examining the further concentration of Phare assistance to support the Polish Government's national integration strategy.
On the training of government officials, I can tell you the following: in 1992, Phare financed a public administration reform programme in Poland which played an important part in the development of the new law on government services and the central government reforms introduced in 1996.
The European Institute for Public Administration is currently holding training courses for officials in Poland which are also being funded by Phare, and funding is also being provided for a Dutch organization to give veterinary inspectors important training in methods of quality control.
From 1997, funding is to be provided for further specific institutional consolidation and training for officials on the Union 'acquis ' , in line with the government's new priorities under its national integration strategy, which I mentioned earlier.
I have just one small supplementary in relation to the training of officials, which the Commissioner referred to.
I hope that it would be possible, since officials of the Polish parliament and Polish ministries will have to deal with this Parliament and assist, in the course of time, Polish Members of this Parliament, that the training could also involve links with Parliament and, indeed, Members of Parliament.
In this context I was pleased to be invited along with others to speak last autumn to a group of officials from the Polish parliament who were visiting London under the auspices of one of the London universities.
It seemed to me that the officials were very keen to know more about Parliament.
Could we take account of that in what is being organized?
We would be more than happy to look into this matter.
I would also point out that we are very much in favour of the Poland/European Parliament joint parliamentary committees which meet at certain times and which may well provide opportunities for exchanges of information between MEPs and members of the Polish Parliament.
More generally, however, I agree with the honourable Member that in our democratization programmes, for example, and our programmes designed to strengthen democratic institutions in Poland, consideration must also be given, wherever the need arises, to providing information for members of parliament as well.
Thank you, Mr Van den Broek.
Question No 36 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0129/97)
Subject: Partnership and cooperation agreements with the countries of Central Asia and Mongolia
What is the Commission's proposed time-frame for approval of the partnership and cooperation agreements with Central Asia and Mongolia?
Three partnership and cooperation agreements have been signed with Central Asian countries: Kazakhstan in January 1995, Kirgizstan in February 1995, and Uzbekistan in June 1996.
For these agreements to be concluded and enter into force, they must be ratified by the national parliaments in the Member States and, of course, by the European Parliament.
Hitherto, the agreements with Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan have been ratified by the parliaments of seven Member States.
The European Parliament has ratified the agreement with Kirgizstan, but the agreement with Kazakhstan is still pending.
The process for approving the partnership and cooperation agreement with Uzbekistan began only recently and it has therefore not yet been ratified by anyone.
The Commission has also been instructed by the Council to negotiate a similar agreement with Turkmenistan, but so far there are no plans to negotiate such an agreement with Tadjikistan, where there is still a situation of armed conflict.
Finally, it is also not planned to enter into negotiations with Mongolia in the foreseeable future, since relations between the European Community and Mongolia are already covered by a trade and cooperation agreement which came into force on 1 March 1993.
I thank the Commissioner for the information he has this afternoon given to this House.
In any case it is very clear that there is still a long way to go and the pace is slow.
In fact, as the Commissioner has told us, the cooperation agreement with Uzbekistan signed in June 1996 has been ratified by Uzbekistan only.
I should like to ask whether Finland has ratified recently.
In the case of Kazakhstan it was in fact seven.
Kazakhstan itself has serious problems with the democratic deficit and has not ratified either.
The case is similar for Kirghizstan.
It appears that this Parliament, which has still not ratified any of the three agreements mentioned, is proposing to ratify the Kazakhstan agreement after tomorrow.
In any event, as regards the three which the Commissioner mentioned, Mongolia, Turkmenistan and Tadzikistan, the process should be speeded up as far as possible since the main objective is to step up political dialogue with these countries.
I entirely agree with what the honourable Member said regarding the need to speed up the procedures for approving agreements which have been concluded, or are about to be concluded.
I had the pleasure of accompanying the Dutch presidency and President Santer to the Moscow summit ten days ago, and if I tell you that the partnership agreement with Russia was concluded two years ago, as was the agreement with Ukraine, and we are still struggling to have them both ratified, you will have some idea of the effort required to persuade all 15 Member States to conclude the ratification process in good time.
In this particular case, there has been an additional legal complication caused by the accession of Finland, Sweden and Austria, which now also have to go through the ratification procedures.
But you may be sure that the Commission is doing everything it can to speed things up, since there are no actual political obstacles in any of the cases to which you referred.
Can the Commissioner comment on the current human rights situation in Uzbekistan, and does he think the situation there is suitable enough for the EU to proceed with the ratification of a partnership and cooperation agreement with that country? I would be interested to hear his views.
The reason why the Commission recommended that the Council should give it a mandate to negotiate a partnership agreement with Uzbekistan was because of the country's importance in the Central Asian region, and not because the democratic and human rights situation there is ideal.
What persuaded us to approach the Council, and what persuaded the Council to agree to our request, was the fact that we were convinced that the government of Uzbekistan was entirely open to discussions on its human rights record, and indeed talks are still continuing.
So while I would agree with Mr Truscott that the situation leaves something to be desired, it is also true that Uzbekistan is open to dialogue, and continuing to work on the partnership agreement could be an incentive for it to improve the quality of its democracy and its record on human rights.
Thank you, Mr Van den Broek.
Ladies and gentlemen, with Question No 36 we have used up the 20 minutes allocated for this block, so I must therfore first thank the Commissioner for the time he has given us, then tell you that Questions 37 to 44 will be answered in writing.
So, ladies and gentlemen, we can move on to the next block which comes under the jurisdiction of Madam Commissioner Bjerregaard.
Question No 45 by Ivar Virgin (H-0077/97)
Subject: The creation of wetlands
Wetlands are able to trap nutritive salts and can protect our seas against eutrophication which poses a threat to the reproduction of animal species.
This is a big problem in the Baltic Sea.
The current EU programme for environmental improvements in agriculture, Programme 2078, includes incentives for the creation of wetlands, though only in the case of the area set aside for this purpose.
Support for the investment required to create wetlands capable of trapping nitrogen would benefit the environment, especially with regard to eutrophication.
Does the Commission intend to change the rules so as to make this type of support possible?
Mr President, under Regulation No 2078 of 1992 the Member States must introduce programmes for environmentally compatible agriculture, but the detailed formulation of the programmes is in the main left to the Member States.
There is nothing to prevent a Member State from using Regulation No 2078 to create wetlands at any suitable location on the territory of the State.
It is not obliged to limit such measures to specially designated areas.
Within specified ceilings, the Community can contribute to the financing of such projects.
I will merely confirm the conclusion Mr Virgin drew from my answer.
Clearly, there are various economic possibilities for supporting these areas and various forms of co-financing which fall within the powers of the Commissioner for Agriculture.
As there are a good many questions to answer, I will refrain from going into detail on the matter, but there are a number of facilities that can certainly be used.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
Question No 46 by Tom Spencer (H-0114/97)
Subject: Endocrine-disrupting chemicals
Is the Commission aware of increasing scientific evidence which points to human and wildlife reproduction and hormonal balance being affected by a cocktail of chemicals passed through the food chain, through industrial emissions and products, and present in consumer food packaging?
These hormone-mimicking substances, known as endocrine disruptors, have been shown to have direct effects on animal reproductive systems and have been linked to declining human sperm counts, increased evidence of reproductive cancer, such as breast cancer and behavioural problems and neurological deficits.
Given that existing EU legislation on toxicity tests and release of harmful substances does not cover the effects of endocrine disruptors at present, what action does the Commission intend to take to safeguard future generations?
The Commission is well aware of the question of endocrine disruptors which affect various parts of the general hormone system, including reproductive systems, on which possible effects are mentioned in the question.
There is now no doubt that these effects exist, but there is doubt as to what could be called the mechanism of action. There is also doubt as to the causal relationships, and test methods are lacking.
Irrespective of this uncertainty, there are some rules in the field.
We have classified as toxic to the reproductive system a number of substances which probably have effects on human health due to endocrine disruption.
Substances such as PCB and DDT, which have often been mentioned as endocrine disruptors, have of course long been banned for other reasons.
It is true that Community legislation on test programmes for industrial chemicals does not cover toxicity to human reproduction or effects on wildlife.
That is a deficiency, because there is a need for test protocols to establish which of the hundreds of thousands of substances on the market can cause the endocrine-disruptive effects described.
In the Framework Programme For Research, and the arrangements under it for bilateral cooperation with the USA, the Commission has given top priority to the development of screening methods to identify potential endocrine disruptors and to new methods of assessing new side-effects, which are not covered by current legislation, as well as epidemiological studies to determine the extent of the problem.
Thus, while it recognizes that there are certain effects on humans and the environment which may be due to disruption of the endocrine system by industrial chemicals, the Commission will seek to clarify how great the problem is, develop these screening methods and establish the causal relationships with a view to selectively regulating specific substances or groups of substances within the framework of a comprehensive programme.
I thank the Commissioner for that thoughtful answer.
I suggest that this is a clear case of when we should observe the precautionary principle that if even 50 % of the threats implied by our current state of scientific knowledge prove to be real, then we are facing a very serious and very complicated challenge indeed.
I ask the Commissioner to confirm that we might expect from the Commission some specific work in the research programmes of the European Union (things which both the Commission and the European Environment Agency do directly), using her considerable influence to encourage both industrial and theoretical research in this area; and secondly, that she might consider, with her colleagues in the Commission, a review of how this threat impacts not just on the Environment Directorate but across a broad sweep of Commission proposals and activities.
I entirely agree that these matters must remain subject to the precautionary principle, and I also agree that that principle must be applied extensively in the research programme.
I mentioned in my answer that we had already ensured that it would be applied, and I also consider it important that we continue to build on that.
I think it may be appropriate to look at the matter in a broader context and, in the light of the brief debate we have had here, we will consider how we can tackle it on a somewhat broader basis than dealing with it solely as an environmental issue.
Apart from the matter of endocrine-disruptors raised by Mr Spencer, the Commissioner will be aware that there are others areas where EU legislation does not cover the ingestion of harmful substances through both the food chain and the water supply.
Will the Commissioner also consider looking into EU standards to encompass the recent outbreak of crypto-spirillum bacteria in the UK? I have submitted a more detailed question on this matter but would be interested in hearing the Commissioner's initial thoughts on the issue.
I cannot promise to answer all supplementary questions on substances we need to look at more closely in connection with the question put by Mr Spencer.
We have already got to grips with some of these problems in the context of the Drinking Water Directive, of which the questioner is no doubt also aware.
I understand from Directorate-General XI that we have not concerned ourselves specifically with the problems raised by the questioner, but we will look at them in the context indicated.
Would the Commissioner agree that things seem to have been moving very slowly on endocrine disruptors, and could she give any dates by which she hopes there might be some results from the research? Could she tell us whether she is planning research simply on substances in isolation, or whether any work at all is going to be done on the cocktail effect, which many people feel is particularly dangerous in this field and about which very little is known?
When we discuss these problems relating partly to human health and partly to the environment, we very often get into a situation in which we quickly need scientific results other than those immediately available to us.
It very often happens that the results we get are such that we rightly become concerned over a development and feel the need to act.
On the other hand, we cannot do that without ensuring that it is thoroughly investigated.
We cannot act on suspicion. Hence, as I said in answer to Mr Spencer earlier, we are endeavouring to move things forward on the research front and to secure some of those results.
Clearly, we are also endeavouring to prioritize these subjects which are giving rise to concern among the population.
I am sorry that I cannot give a more precise answer at the present time, but I am not in a position to do so.
I am only aware that we have got things moving on the research front.
How far we are forward and when I shall be able to present any results, I am not able to say in the context of Question Time today. But it provides an excellent opportunity to seek some clarification of the matter, and I will make sure that that is done.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerragaard.
Question No 47 by Konrad Schwaiger (H-0124/97)
Subject: Decimation of fish stocks by cormorants in the Rhine and other EU inland waterways
Is the Commission aware that the destruction of fish stocks by cormorants in and along the Rhine has become a European problem?
Is it aware that in late 1996 thousands of fishermen from France, Germany and Switzerland held a mass demonstration in Strasbourg to draw attention to the cormorant menace?
Does the Commission regard the Land government of Baden-Würtemberg's 'Cormorant Decree' of 16 December 1996 as an appropriate and adequate measure for decimating cormorant populations in internal waterways in which they were not indigenous?
Would it not be desirable to consider other measures to bring a permanent cross-border reduction in cormorant numbers?
Is the Commission contemplating, if they continue to proliferate, removing cormorants - at least temporarily - from Annex 1 of the bird protection Directive?
It is not the first time I have had the occasion to answer such a question. We are aware of the rising number of cormorants in certain regions of the EU, which are widely regarded by anglers and fishing interests as having a negative effect on fish stocks.
The situation was described in a recent study from 1996, entitled Cormorants, Phalacrocorax carbo, a first step towards a European management plan .
This report does not contain any particular indications or complaints of observed damage to leisure or commercial fisheries on the Rhine, but I am aware that the subject often crops up in public discussions.
On the other hand, the report does point out that the species has attained positive conservation status.
In order to take account of this fact and the many and varied viewpoints and concerns manifested on this subject, the Commission will present a proposal to the committee concerned to remove the sub-species from Annex 1 to Council Directive 79/409 on the Conservation of Wild Birds.
The Commission will also urge Member States to cooperate on controlling populations of this sub-species.
In fact, the Member States can control the populations of species locally under the terms of Article 9 of the Bird Directive, if they wish to take action at places where cormorants constitute a problem.
As regards the Cormorant Decree of Land Baden-Württemberg of 16 December 1996, the Commission has not yet received notification of any such a measure.
Mr President, Commissioner, are you aware that the Committee of the Regions' working group on agriculture has also drawn attention to this problem and that the ministers of agriculture of various regions are now also addressing the Commission on this question? The first cormorants appeared here, in this area on the central Upper Rhine, in 1973.
In the late 1970s there were 10 pairs.
Now there are 20 000.
Are any further studies needed here given that fishermen and anglers are already on the streets to draw attention to their problems? Should we not take joint action here and consider culling the stock to a reasonable level?
Your answer seems rather hesitant to me.
I do not think my answer was particularly hesitant.
I pointed out that a proposal would be presented to the committee concerned to remove the sub-species Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis from the Directive. I also stated in my answer that we would be urging Member States to cooperate on controlling populations of this sub-species.
So I think my answer gave a sufficient indication that we are looking at the problem and are putting the matter before the committees and authorities which will have to deal with it.
Emphasizing my support for the wild bird directive, it is important to say that angling is the biggest participation sport in Britain and, I assume, in Europe, and it is important to show that we listen to the points made to us by anglers.
It is not just a problem on the Rhine, it is a problem in the UK too, where, for example, the Billericay and District Angling Society in my constituency, which has over 3, 400 members, has seen the fish depleted in the 22 different waters which they use for angling.
It is a voluntary association but they had to spend £1, 700 last year to restock with fish waters that have been depleted.
I do not want to see the culling of wild birds but I would like to see every alternative explored.
I particularly ask the Commissioner two things: firstly, will you accept that there is a European dimension to this? It is the depletion of fishstocks in our coastal waters and the failure of the common fisheries policy which is driving the cormorants inland.
Secondly, will you comment on the position of the British Government where the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has said it will take three to five years before it reports on this? If they can act under Article 9, as she said, will she not talk to them so that they can act more quickly?
I have to say that I am not aware of the reaction pattern of the British Government on this matter, but I stress again that what I have said here today is that we will use the Directive on the Conservation of Wild Birds to ask the committee concerned whether this sub-species, Phalacrocorax carbo sinensis by name, not a particularly easy one to say, can be removed from Annex 1, so that we can solve this problem which has been raised in various quarters.
If I understood the Commissioner correctly, she intends to remove cormorants from Annex I of an earlier directive.
I find this most regrettable, because the link between cormorants and fish stocks has never been clearly proved.
The main threat to fish stocks is actually overfishing, so we would be changing Annex I of the earlier directive for the wrong reason.
I would hope that the Commission will change its mind on this, but Parliament will naturally have an opportunity to give its opinion on the proposal once it receives it in writing.
But at this stage, I do not agree at all with what the Commissioner intends to do.
I was of course not proposing that Annex 1 should be removed from the Bird Directive.
I was referring to a single species of cormorant and, on the basis of the information available to me and the DirectorateGeneral, I will present to the committee responsible the proposal I have indicated.
Mr President, I have to say that I do not think I have a really satisfactory answer to give to these two questions.
I will say to Mrs de Rivera that, at the 16th meeting of the Standing Committee, a common position was presented on progress achieved on the setting up of a marine nature park in Greece.
A number of matters falling within the sole powers of the Community, such as fisheries, could not be dealt with, however, because the Commission had not yet received the mandate it had asked for from the Council.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the response, as the Commissioner said, is not at all satisfactory.
Therefore, if she says it is not satisfactory, I must ask her whether she does not fear that there will be no common position by December 1997, which could affect the protection of species in the first place; if we are going to manage to arrive at a joint position by December 1997 what changes will have to be made?
Will the Commission be better organized in order to reach agreement? And thirdly, are talks due to be held beforehand with non-government organizations, as is usually the case?
As I said, I did not think it was a particularly satisfactory answer to give. Of course it is not unusual that we are not able to discuss a matter because there is no common position.
Prompted by this question therefore, and against the background of the representations I have received from the NGOs which have a special interest in this area, I intend to ensure that we do not end up in such a situation again.
We must do what we can to move things forward in the Council - there is a recommendation from the Commission on the matter - so that we can get to play a more active role.
So at least I can promise that, prompted by the questions raised in Parliament today, we will do what we can to avoid getting into such an unfortunate situation again.
I could understand you answering both our questions together, but it should not be so difficult to give me a separate answer to my question on what consultation arrangements there have been over the past five years between the Commission and the Member States.
It must be quite easy to answer.
I am not just interested to know whether the Commission will in future come prepared with a common position since, without it, we block fifteen votes, i.e. everything that is to be adopted by qualified majority in conjunction with the Berne Convention cannot be adopted when the Commission blocks fifteen votes, votes that cannot be used.
That is in itself extremely unsatisfactory.
But, after we got a habitat directive, the way things went was that the Commission met with the fifteen Member States at the preparatory meetings of the Berne Convention Standing Committee, where a common position was established.
Does the Commissioner think it appropriate that the Commission should determine the common position of the fifteen Member States at a time when the NGOs were not yet in the picture and there was no possibility of taking into account the views of the NGOs, since the NGOs cannot be present at this preparatory meeting? I hope that it is clear what I wanted to ask about, now that time is so short.
No, I was not trying to get out of giving Mrs Sandbæk an answer to the question she had asked.
I merely pointed out that there was a connection between the two questions and, in essence, I do not think the answer I gave to Mrs Sandbæk was all that much better than the one I gave to Mrs Rivera.
As regards the formal consultations, there is no requirement that such formal consultations should take place in this area. So I cannot of course say that there have been so and so many consultations, because there was no obligation to hold such formal consultations.
It is not so long ago that we had a discussion on financial support to the NGOs, in which we had the occasion to discuss the role of NGOs in the environmental field and in which I clearly stated my view that we should try to involve the NGOs actively in the work.
That also applies in this area, and I think there is much to show that we are pressing for an improvement here. We must make sure that we make progress on that.
Mr President, the Commission's recruitment and staff policy is based on the principle of equality.
Under this principle all suitable candidates are treated equally and all members of the Commission's staff have the same possibilities for career development.
The Commission looks favourably on all measures which promote the integration of disabled people into the Commission's working environment.
The Commission has issued guidelines for the recruitment of disabled people.
Its aim is that these guidelines should come into use in all the EU bodies.
The guidelines relate to all areas of working life: recruitment, education, career development and the working environment.
In this they also comply with the principles which the Helios programme stresses.
An official will be appointed to follow up the implementation of the guidelines. The Commission's new buildings will have to comply with the national legislation on access to public buildings for disabled people in the country in which they are situated.
The rules concerning Commission buildings contain strict criteria on the adaptation of buildings to meet the needs of disabled workers.
Very briefly, firstly, my question was not specifically about recruitment policy but policy towards existing personnel.
I should like to give the Commissioner a hypothetical example: if a 62-year-old, registered blind official was working in an external office - in other words he is only three years from retirement - and he is comfortable in that office, can find his way around about it and there are no complaints about the quality of his work, would he think it a reasonable policy towards disabled people to consider compulsory transfer of that individual back to Brussels at that stage of his career?
Mr President, it very difficult to answer hypothetical questions.
If this occurred to a disabled person who was carrying out his duties well and wanted to carry on working, I should gladly do my best to ensure that he was able to continue in his former duties, if this was in the interests of himself and the Community.
In such matters an employer must show a great deal of flexibility.
The Commissioner mentioned making Member States' buildings accessible to disabled persons.
Would he be in favour of having discussions with the other institutions at Community level to ensure that all our buildings - parliamentary buildings, the new Council building, and any agencies the Commission has - would be able to be accessed easily and speedily by disabled persons?
On his recruitment policy, would he look again at the problem of discrimination on the grounds of age, which has been a considerable difficulty? Would he enter into discussions on the recruitment policies on ageism as well?
Mr President, we have a project on this very subject which is just now being launched.
Its purpose is to organize an architects' competition together with the Brussels institutions and the Belgian authorities.
The aim is to create pedestrian ways between the buildings which can be safely used by disabled people.
At present moving safely from one building to another in Brussels is completely impossible for disabled people too.
We will be discussing this matter among the institutions on Monday, and on Tuesday we will be meeting the Belgian authorities.
I am prepared to bring up this matter of rules governing the buildings themselves with the officials responsible in other institutions too, at our meeting on Monday.
I am prepared to return to this matter later.
Concerning age limits, the Commission has decided on a new policy for the recruitment of officials on fixed-term contracts.
This will mean that the Commission will continue to hold competitions for young applicants of under 32 or under 35 years of age, but also for older applicants at A4 to A5 level where the age limit will be considerably higher, even up to 55 years.
The aim is thus to achieve more differentiated competitions.
I would like to ask the Commissioner, following on from his own response just now, with regard to access to buildings and discussions between the European Union authorities and the Belgian authorities, what plans, if any, he has in his role to consult with the disabled people themselves to ask them what access and what kind of special facilities they may need.
All too often in these architectural situations everybody goes by the textbook, and when you look and ask a disabled person afterwards what the textbook solution is like, firstly, invariably it is more expensive than what disabled people want themselves, and, secondly, it is actually not right for what they require themselves.
I would just point out one factor alone: that in the new buildings we have in Brussels it is impossible for a person in a wheelchair to move from the B block to the C block or from the B block to the A block, because the passageways are too narrow.
Therefore you have to go down in a lift to the ground floor and cross across the buildings outside or inside and get to another lift and go up there to get from one side of the building to another.
Mr President, I have spoken on this matter with individual representatives of disabled people but the Commission has not heard their opinion at organization level.
I would be glad to speak on this issue with the honorable Member and hear of his experiences.
It is clear that people who have personal experience of a disability will understand the matter best.
Mr President, in 1996 there was an underspend in the payment commitments on the Structural Funds of 5.2 % or ECU 1200 m.
In 1994 and 1995 the underspending was even more significant.
In 1996 the utilization of appropriations in Objective 1 areas was 99.3 % and in Objective 2 areas 98.3 %.
In 1997 by the beginning of March 14 % of Objective 1 appropriations and 27 % of Objective 2 appropriations had been spent.
This shows that the level of utilization of appropriations may vary considerably from one objective area to another during a calendar year, but the differences do not always remain the same throughout the year.
It is also useful to note that appropriations are transferred within budget headings to improve the efficient use of resources.
The Commission estimates that it will be able to deal with the requests for payment during 1997.
But at the same time it has stated, in connection with cuts made in the Structural Funds by the budgetary authority, that it intends to propose additional appropriations during the course of the budgetary year if this proves necessary.
In this connection it is still too soon to assess the individual points of the 1998 budget.
The Commission will take a decision on these in April 1997.
Mr Commissioner, I thought I heard that 98 % of the payment appropriations under Objective 2 had been implemented.
Could you please confirm that? Is it correct that 98 % of the payment appropriations under Objective 2 have been implemented for 1996?
If that is so, then the ECU 1 000 million reduction in payment appropriations suggested by the Council at its July 1996 meeting seems all the more incomprehensible to me, since that reduction in payment appropriations referred only to Community Objectives 2, 3, 4, and 5 - and excluded Objectives 1 and 6.
I should like to know therefore whether the Commission shares my surprise that the Council should make this reduction exclusively as regards those objectives and whether the Commission considers that the Council made this proposal not for technical reasons of implementation, but for political reasons in line with the interests of certain Member States.
Mr President, the Council did indeed decide to cut the appropriations in this way.
When the Council decided to cut payment appropriations, the Commission thought it best that these cuts should be made equally for all the objective areas.
However, following a very long and difficult discussion, the Council decided to exempt Objectives 1 and 6.
I can however state that our commitment appropriations have been largely used but that there has been clear over-budgeting for payment appropriations.
There has been significant saving of appropriations.
I do not myself believe that there will be any special problem in dealing with payments during this year.
If there should be any such problem, we have already announced in the Council and in Parliament that the Commission will produce a draft supplementary and amending budget.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
Question No 59 by Charlotte Cederschiöld (H-0169/97)
Subject: Making the Commission more efficient
The Commission has launched several projects aimed at boosting its efficiency, including SEM 2000.
The Community's institutions must be made more efficient, as many citizens will lose confidence in the Community if it does not operate as it should.
Are the efficiency-boosting measures going according to plan, and what economic benefits have they already yielded?
Mr President, when it took office the present Commission stated that an important objective was to reform its financial and staff management structures.
This administrative development project, known as the SEM 2000, aims to rationalize administration and create a new administrative and budget culture for the Commission.
At the third stage of the project cooperation will be tightened up between the Member States.
This is important because 80 % of the appropriations in the budget are administered in the Member States.
A working party made up of representatives of the Member States' finance ministries is currently working to improve the management of Community funds, and its work has progressed very well.
The working group's first report, which contained numerous proposals for measures, was prepared in December last year and had a positive reception in the Council and in the European Council.
In general, the administrative development work is progressing according to plan.
As time goes on the necessary reforms will improve the efficiency of the use of Community funds.
I agree with the honorable Member that administrative reforms are very important in boosting the confidence of the EU's citizens.
I do not yet wish to put a figure on our results, but Parliament will have an excellent opportunity to assess these results annually when the Court of Auditors report comes out for Parliament's inspection.
I would like to thank you for an encouraging response, but I also understand that there has been some criticism from members of the Committee who have pointed to unreasonable working methods and bureaucracy.
This criticism has now died down, which is all to the good, provided that it is based upon considerations of efficiency rather than on constructive criticism that is not allowed to come to the fore.
SEM 2000 has many beneficial part-projects.
Amongst other things, the preliminary checking level, on payments, is to be increased.
Three quarters of all payments are to be checked.
Has this been done and has it produced a better result?
In addition, not enough has been done on the personnel side of things.
We are aware of the large number of people employed by the Commission.
SEM 2000 has for example taken up 23 of the positions of which 8 are on A2-level.
Does the Commissioner know how many are directly employed by the Commission, how many work on a consultative basis and how many are used by the Commission as third party contractors? I would be grateful for information about the number of people working for the Commission and maybe some figures as this would make it easier for people to assess whether the work is being carried out in a more financially efficient manner.
Mr President, I would say to the honorable Member that the Commission is currently preparing a significant administrative reform.
Our objective is, in connection with the 1998 draft budget, to take significant measures to decentralize administration.
This will imply a reduction in in-house bureaucracy and greater powers begin given to the DGs to work in their own fields and at the same time increase their responsibility.
We aim to decide on this matter at the end of April together with our decision on the budget, so that the first stage of the reform can enter into force in January next year.
At the same time the Commission is preparing a broader set of measures in connection with the 'Santer package'.
When the funding packages for the years after 2000 are proposed, the Commission must also propose in that connection a concept for the Commission's role for the years 2000-2006: how its activities can be made more efficient and more transparent, to enable it to accept the challenge of enlargement.
At the end of July, in connection with the first communications on the Santer package, Parliament will have an opportunity to debate this.
As regards criticism in general, I regard this as the basis of any healthy debate.
It is even better if the criticism contains suggestions for improvements and how the implementation of reforms might be speeded up.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
Ladies and gentlemen, with Question No 59 we have come to the end of the time which is allocated under our agenda for questions to the Commission.
Questions 60 to 94 will therefore be answered in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.20 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-0019/97).
Question No 1 by Mr Crowley (H-0098/97)
Subject: Second-chance schools
According to the Commission, five million young people between 16 and 25 years of age left school without a diploma and another 2 million are at risk of doing the same by the end of the century.
Does the Council consider that this serious social problem requires urgent action and will it now invite the Commission to develop partnership programmes with Member State governments with a view to utilizing European Social Fund resources to offer these young people training in skills which would better assist them to get a job?
I would like to thank you for the opportunity of being here with you today.
I would answer Mr Crowley's question as follows: the question refers to schools for second-chance education and I would point out that for a considerable time now the Council has been paying special attention to the problem raised by Mr Crowley. In 1984 and 1987 the Council in its conclusions stressed the need for an ongoing campaign to combat illiteracy.
On these occasions the Council and the Ministers of Education emphasised the serious consequences of school failures.
And again in 1987 and 1989 the Council and Ministers drew conclusions and adopted a resolution which specifically dealt with combatting failures at school.
The importance which the Council and Ministers attach to professional training for future opportunities for job seekers is evident from the fact that since 1976 the Council and Ministers of Education have passed thirteen resolutions or conclusions on the subject.
This illustrates the continual attention which the Council pays to this problem.
May I also remind you that in the decision of the European Parliament and the Council of 23 October 1995, which called for 1996 to be the European year of life-long education and training, the subjects for that manifestation included promoting professional training which ensured that all young people could acquire qualifications and promoting continued education and training.
I would also remind you of the Council decision of 6 December 1994 on deciding an action programme for the development of a European Community policy on profession training, the so-called Leonardo da Vinci Programme, which covers Community measures to improve professional training systems and provisions in the Member States by means of pilot projects and transnational programmes.
The Leonardo da Vinci programme stipulates, and I would refer Mr Crowley to part 4, section 1, that Community aid is given to initiatives in the Member States to set up transnational partnerships in this field and training to submit transnational pilot projects.
As to the question of possible finance from the Social Fund, I would point out that Article 8 (2) of the decision to determine the above-mentioned Leonardo da Vinci programme stipulates, and I quote, ' The Member States have, within their responsibility to implement Community provisions, the possibility of creating links between this programme and the structural funds in accordance with the provisions on the implementation of the structural funds' , end of quotation.
So there is already a link between Leonardo and the social fund.
Finally I would point out that under Article 10 (4) of the decision, the Commission must by 31 December 1997 present an interim report on the implementation of the programme to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee and the Consultative Committee for Professional Training.
As soon as that report is available an assessment can be undertaken into the way in which the above mentioned provisions have been implemented.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his very lengthy and informative response.
However it did slightly go off the mark, because the question related specifically to the opportunities for secondchance education.
In particular I am looking at people who are at risk, whether because of social problems and their lack of access to formal education, or because of dropping out of formal education and getting involved in crime and other activities.
What I would like to ask the President-in-Office is, accepting that high priority has been placed on this issue in the Council in the past, why is it that we are still facing this problem?
Why is it that we have failed to look at the structural problems that are causing people to drop out of education? Finally, why is it that the Council as an appropriate body cannot work together in exchanging best practices? - because there are many Member States where there are fantastic second-chance educational facilities that do not seem to be available in other areas.
I would ask the President to bring this back to the Council if possible.
Question No 2 by Mr Camisón Asensio (H-0103/97)
Subject: Madrid to Lisbon high-speed train service
Is there any likelihood that the projected future high-speed railway line linking Madrid and Lisbon will pass through the Spanish region of Estremadura?
Mr Camisón Asensio's question refers to the route of the future rail links between Madrid and Lisbon.
I must reply that the decision on this kind of high speed railway link and the relevant route is a decision for both Member States.
I recall that this link was included in the decision 1682/96/EEC of the European Parliament and the Council of 23 July 1996 on community guidelines for the development of transEuropean networks.
In the map annexed to this decision, no. 3, 3.5, this link is described as a planned high speed railway link, but the exact route, however, is not given.
Mr President-in-office of the Council, thank you for the information you have given us.
I have to say, though, that in recent years hundreds of documents have been distributed - quite a lot of them by the Council itself - some of them with a profusion of colours showing a hypothetical high-speed railway line between Madrid and Lisbon.
The natives of Madrid and Lisbon, the inhabitants of Estremadura and La Mancha knew that the improvement was of great interest, albeit in the long term, and the proof of that is that it is not even included in the trans-European networks.
But this 'in the long term' , since it is feasible, does bring some hope.
Now we are told that it is a question of a multi-modal link between Spain and Portugal and the rest of Europe and I am in fact asking this question in order to dispel the doubts once and for all.
We see that there is still some doubt, but there is still hope from the Commissioner's words.
And since there is hope, let us keep on hoping; but finally we see that the work has not been abolished, since the multi-modal Lisbon line has been approved from Lisbon to France via Valladolid.
I welcome the fact that Mr Camisón Asensio and myself are totally ad idem on the priority of this project and on the importance of international links between Member States.
As you are aware, the European Council in its meeting in Essen came out strongly in favour of top priority being given to community involvement and to the financing of high speed links.
As I said, the question of the actual implementation and choice of route are matters to be decided on by the Member States but nevertheless the European Council and the Council as such have always considered it a high priority.
I am tempted to say, but I may be too outspoken, that it is up to your colleagues in the European Parliament to exert your influence when you can, and try to ensure that the higher priority of financing high speed links is reflected in the budget.
Question No 3 by Mrs Sandbæk (H-0108/97)
Subject: EU and CITES and elephants
The African elephant (Loxodonta Africana) was listed in Appendix I of the CITES Convention at the 7th COP held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1989.
Southern African nations opposed the ban on the grounds that their elephant populations were well managed and in many cases growing beyond the carrying capacity of their land, and wished to resume a legal and controlled trade in elephant products for the benefit of conservation and rural communities.
Southern Africa is home to 50 % of the total population of the species.
CITES COP 10, to be held in Harare, Zimbabwe, from 9-20 June 1997, will address the issue and analyse proposals from several Southern African countries. Will the European Union honour CITES Resolution conf.
7.9 (the Somali amendment) and support the down-listing of any elephant population that meets the criteria of the CITES Panel of Experts' review? If not, why not?
Does the EU have plans to compensate those countries for losses of conservation revenues from an ongoing ban on the sale of elephant products?
Mr President, I would answer Mrs Ulla Sandbaek's question as follows. The Council has not yet received the Commission's proposal on discussing the EU's standpoint to be taken during the tenth conference of parties to the CITES Convention.
And I am therefore unable to give a specific answer to the questions put by Mrs Sandbaek.
I would, however, like to point out at this juncture that the report from the panel named in Resolution 7.9, the resolution quoted by the honourable member, forms only the basis for the parties' talks on any requests for transfers from Annex 1 to Annex 2.
I am equally unable to comment on any possible loss of income resulting from the protection of those animals, as elephant products will not longer be allowed to be sold, nor on whether the EU intends to compensate the countries concerned.
As I said the Council has yet to study the Commission proposal which has not yet been presented.
Since this has yet to be considered by the Council, I should like to ask it to take account of the fact that the panel of experts set up to review CITES has given its opinion on the elephant populations in Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe, which states that these are not under threat and are increasing, and in the case of one of these countries, the panel has said that it is very probable that the proposal will have a positive effect on elephant conservation and community conservation and development programmes in the country.
This means that there will be a positive effect if controlled sales of ivory are allowed.
Could you perhaps comment on this?
I agree with Mrs Sandbaek, but now I am talking in general terms, that with proper wildlife management it should be possible to market the products resulting from that wildlife management.
The only thing is that it must be properly balanced against the more general and wider measures of tackling the ban on illegal trade, particularly in ivory.
There is a certain area of tension there and we should always assess that sensibly.
Once the Commission has presented its proposal on the CITES Conference I shall bring Mrs Sandbaek's remarks to the attention of the Council.
Question No 4 by Mr Bianco (H-0110/97) and Question No 5 by Mrs Ahlquist (H-0148/97) on the situation in Albania will not be taken as the issue is already on this week's agenda.
Question No 6 by Mrs Banotti (H-0115/97)
Subject: Interim trade agreement with Israel
Is the Council satisfied that Article 1 of the interim trade agreement with Israel is being both properly monitored and implemented?
Will Parliament receive a report from the EU special envoy to the Middle East, with particular reference to the special tasks assigned to him in the Dublin Declaration of December 1996?
The article to which Mrs Banotti refers in her question is often called the human rights clause.
Respect of human rights and of democratic principles is an essential part of the Barcelona process, the cooperation between the European Union and the countries of the Mediterranean.
It is an integral part of all Euro-Mediterranean association agreements, including the interim agreement with Israel.
The European Union therefore follows closely the human rights situation in countries with which such agreements have been concluded in order to ensure that the conditions for the agreement are being respected.
That refers to both Israel as it does to the PLO, with whom the European Union signed an interim agreement on 24 February last.
Under the joint approach in relation to the appointment of a special envoy for the peace process in the Middle East the envoy on the authority of the Presidency must report to the Council of General Affairs.
This in no way prevents Parliament from inviting the envoy to the relevant parliamentary committee for an exchange of views on the subject raised by the honourable member.
Mr President-in-Office, are you satisfied with the reports that are coming from the special mediator?
Do you anticipate that he will give direct reports to the relevant parliamentary committee on a regular basis? There are disturbing reports that the Palestinians are still encountering considerable difficulties, particularly in relation to the export of their goods from Gaza and the somewhat exigent security measures which can have a detrimental effect on these products before they are exported: products, for example, such as flowers which form a significant part of Palestinian trade with Europe and which, when exposed to the sun, very quickly die.
Ambassador Moratinos was appointed at the end of last year as the Council's special envoy to the peace process in the Middle East.
His first job was to pull out all the stops to concentrate his total attention on restarting the peace process which had grounded to a halt, especially the situation in Hebron and the evacuation in Hebron by the Israeli army.
I can assure you that the Council, and especially the Dutch presidency, is extremely pleased with the work and achievements of Mr Moratinos in the peace process.
At the present time, for Mr Moratinos has been in his position for only a few weeks, I have been given special reports on the human rights situation.
Mr Moratinos has specifically been asked to observe that since relations between Israel and the Palestinian authorities and the Palestinian people require close monitoring, as does action on breaches of human rights.
It is also regularly discussed in normal contacts between the Council and Ambassador Moratinos.
Mrs Banotti's question of impediments to trade is also being monitored by the Council and the Member States.
What we are particularly concerned about here is doing everything possible to stimulate economic activities and create economic opportunities in the Palestinian areas in view of the unemployment and the social problems in these regions; a strong economic basis is essential for stable, peaceful relations in the Palestinian regions and between the Palestinian authorities and Israel.
The smooth resumption of trade is regularly addressed in our talks with Israel and with the Palestinian authorities, especially with the leadership of the PLO.
We are aware of the situation.
It is an old subject of discussion, but the European Community, the Commission and the Council will not let it be dropped from our talks.
Question No 7 by Mrs Hautala (H-0120/97)
Subject: Groupeuro
In the context of the Information Programme for European Citizens (Prince), the Commission has established a network of independent EMU experts called Groupeuro.
The Commission demands that they sign a statement whereby they agree that 'they may speak in a personal capacity for a part of their lecture, provided that they state explicitly that they are going to do so and do not express any views contrary to those of the Commission.'
Is the Council aware of such demands by the Commission?
Does the Council find them helpful in order to convince the European citizens of the single currency? Is this declaration in accordance with the ethics normally expected of scientists and with democratic, pluralist values?
In reply to Mrs Hautala's Question on the Groupeuro, I would point out that the Council is unaware of the Commission's rules for the activities of a network of independent EMU experts that was set up in the context of the information Programme for European Citizens, the so-called PRINCE programme.
The Commission is entitled on its own responsibility to take a decision on this information campaign and the conditions attached thereto.
The network to which Mrs Hautala refers was set up independently by the Commission under its right of initiative conferred by the Treaty, and I would ask her to consider putting this question to the Commission and not to the Council.
.
(FI) Mr President, I would point out to the President-in-Office of the Council that in fact I also put this question to the Commission, because it is indeed as you say, and the Commission has the right to make these rules itself.
I received a written answer today and I am concerned that the Commission really supports this practice.
Certainly in Finland and a number of other Member States it has been severely criticized.
How can we trust the experts sent by the Commission if they have already been gagged and bound to support the Commission's point of view? Worse still, the Commission says in its reply that in such circumstances it is perfectly entitled to ask for such guarantees of loyalty.
This in its way is an even more wide-ranging practice and in my opinion it will be good for the Council to be aware of this.
I should also like to tell you that Commissioner Liikanen, who represents a slightly more modern and perhaps more democratic concept of administration, has condemned this practice today in the Finnish press.
I hope the Commission will take up a position on this and will talk to the commissioners about it because this project is important to the Council as well.
My first problem was that I was unaware of the Commission's regulation, but I now have a second problem, namely that I do not know the Commission's answer to Mrs Hautala's question, so this debate is rather bizarre.
If she thinks the Commission's activities in her country hinder normal events concerning the European Monetary Union, then the government in Helsinki will not fail to raise the matter with the Commissioner responsible either directly or through its own Commissioner.
But I find it rather difficult to answer this question on the basis of documents and information with which I am not familiar.
I must say that I am rather surprised that the Council is not taking this matter more seriously.
The Council should after all be responsible for whether these types of methods are acceptable or not.
The matter cannot be waved aside with the excuse that you do not know anything about it.
First of all I find it deplorable, ignorant even, not to know what is going on in one's own organisation.
Secondly, I think it ought to be a matter of principle to reply when you are given a question and not to refer the matter to another institution, especially as it is the Commission's own proposal that is being criticised and the Council has overall responsibility for what is happening in this area, as has always been the case with the Council and the Council's representatives.
My question is what action the Council plans to take bearing in mind the information given by a Member of the European Parliament.
To avoid any misunderstanding: the Commission has a responsibility of its own to provide information on the implementation of legislation and the implementing decisions concerning the European Community and it is not up to the Council to monitor the Commission in all details.
I repeat that it is difficult to continue discussion on these questions and answers because I do not know the Regulation nor the Commission's answer to the written questions put by Mrs Hautala.
As Mrs Stenzel is not present, Question No 8 (H-0127/97) falls.
Question No 9 by Mr Bertens (H-0132/97)
Subject: Developments in the negotiations on the ban on anti-personnel mines
The European Parliament has declared its unequivocal support for a ban on anti-personnel mines.
It has also welcomed the action recently taken by the Council in this matter on the Community's behalf.
APMs are currently being discussed both in the 'Ottawa process' and at the UN disarmament conference. The UN conference is, however, in danger of grinding to a halt over other issues.
It is therefore extremely important that the European Union should give a high priority to the Ottawa process.
Does the President agree that the first follow-up conference in the Ottawa process in Vienna was a success, partly because it was attended by more than 100 countries?
Can he guarantee that the Council is committed to the Union's active involvement in the Ottawa process, regardless of the activities of the UN disarmament conference?
What specific action will the President of the Council take to ensure that the follow-up conferences in the Ottawa process, like that in Brussels in June, are successful, with a treaty being concluded at the end of the year?
I understand that Mr Bertens has put three questions and I shall take each of them in turn.
I agree with Mr Bertens that the participation of 110 countries in the Vienna conference must be regarded as a great success.
This large-scale participation demonstrates international concern about the problem of land mines and anti-personnel mines in particular.
At the same time, however, it is equally clear that major efforts still are required to overcome the differences of opinion on the content of a general ban on antipersonnel mines and the way such a ban should be implemented.
On Mr Bertens' second question I would say that in the past the European Union has supported the Ottawa process on various occasions.
All 15 Member States took part in the Ottawa and Vienna conferences.
Land mines and the way in which a total ban should be effected is the subject of intensive EU coordination.
It is also important to adopt tactics which offer the greatest chance of results.
The forum is a means, not an aim in itself.
In deciding on its tactics the Union also takes account of developments in the various fora, including the Geneva Disarmament Conference.
The European Union recently decided to try to start negotiations in the Geneva Disarmament Conference on an effective world-wide ban on the use, production, possession and transfer of anti-personnel mines, with the aim of producing a treaty as quickly as possible.
This negotiation process does not in any way exclude active EU participation in the Ottawa process.
At this stage, however, it is impossible to determine what the future specific contribution of the European Union in the Ottawa process will be, independent of developments in the conference on disarmament and elsewhere.
To Mr Bertens' last question I would reply that the Presidency assumes that all 15 member States will make a constructive contribution in Brussels.
I cannot yet indicate the specific content of the EU contribution in Brussels.
As I have already said, it will partly depend on developments elsewhere.
The Presidency has proposed to the Member States that coordination meetings should start at the beginning of June.
I would like to thank the Council warmly for its commitment to a total ban on the most inhumane weapon we know, the anti-personnel mine or the anti-people mine.
I am also pleased that the Ottawa process is not only being closely monitored but that it is also regarded as a good forum.
I hope that this forum, which was instigated at Canada's initiative last October, will lead some way or other by the end of this year to like minded countries supporting a convention.
I regret that land mines will not feature prominently in the disarmament conference, as also happened in 1995 and 1996.
I realise that there are some five Member States of the European Union, including France and the United Kingdom, which prefer it that way, but I hope that this Presidency at any rate will use its diplomatic endeavours to change that position.
On behalf of the Presidency I wish to stress the absolute political priority of containing an international plague which has got completely out of control.
Land mines used to be a military weapon, nowadays they are an instrument of terror which in the wrong hands spread death and destruction.
The Presidency lays great store by coordination prior to the Ottawa process but especially in developing formal disarmament negotiations which could under the auspices of the UN bring about a treaty on the ban on production and trade in anti-personnel mines.
Resistance to such a concept will have to be broken down and the economic interests will undoubtedly also have to be considered, but this process has been started and we shall bring it to a conclusion as best we can.
I just wish to thank the President-in-Office for the excellent, lengthy and detailed answer on this important subject.
I just wondered, following Mr Bertens' third question on follow-up work, whether the Council is aware of the large level of publicity that was generated on this very subject by the visit to Angola with the Red Cross of a former member of the British Royal Family, Princess Diana.
Does the Council feel that she and other international celebrities have a role to play in perpetuating the serious publicity that could be given to this highly important issue?
The Council as such has taken no note of the visit of a member of the British royal family to Angola.
I personally learned about it through the media, and without commenting specifically on that visit I think it is very important to create sufficient political support to put an end to land mines as an instrument of terror.
People with vision and power to motivate other people can in their own way contribute to public awareness.
Question No 10 by Mr Wibe (H-0133/97)
Subject: Tax-free sales in the EU
The Commission stated in its answer to a question on 18 February 1997 that there was no need to investigate the consequences of abolishing tax-free sales in the EU and that the decision to abolish them had been taken long ago, so that there had been ample time in which to adapt.
Commentators believe about 100 000 jobs in all to be at risk if tax-free sales are abolished.
Ferry services between the Scandinavian countries in particular earn vital revenue from tax-free sales.
Many routes, such as that between Umeå (Sweden) and Vaasa (Finland), could close if tax-free sales are ended.
In view of this, does the Council not think that an impact assessment should be carried out before tax-free sales are abolished in 1999? If such an assessment indicates that the consequences will be severe, e.g. for employment or ferry services in Scandinavia, the Council ought to be able to review its decision, e.g. by extending the time limit for its implementation, at least in the case of ferries.
Is the Council prepared to commission an assessment of the impact of ending tax-free sales and is it prepared to postpone implementation of the decision or grant exceptions, e.g. in the case of ferries operating between Member States?
Mr President, I would answer Mr Wibe's questions as follows. I would remind you that tax-free sales in intra-Community travel does not mesh with an internal market without frontiers.
That is why the Council in adopting the directives on the abolition of tax borders, with effect from 1 January 1993, decided to put an end to these tax-free sales.
The Council is equally aware of the economic problems and social consequences this means for the sectors concerned.
That is why it decided a long time ago to allow a long transition period, namely from 1 January 1993 to 30 June 1999, during which these tax-free sales may be enjoyed by travellers in intra-Community travel.
Thank you for that brief reply.
I have learnt that when discussing these types of reforms one ought to ask oneself: Where is the beef? Or to put it in 'European terms' : Where is the profit?
In this case, I cannot see any profit for anyone involved.
In a theoretical model with unlimited competition and a balanced market reforms of this kind could possibly bring a financial profit.
However, in the EU, as it is at present, with 20 million unemployed, such profits do not exist.
It should be mentioned that in Sweden we are talking about approximately 5, 000 jobs, primarily on the ferries, that will be lost.
For the Community this must be closer to 10, 20 or 30 times more, in addition to the indirect effects of freight becoming more expensive.
I believe it is wrong to push through this type of reform when the levels of unemployment are as high as they are.
I therefore appeal to the chair of the council to bring the matter up for discussion and to at least initiate an analysis of the implications of these amendments.
I take note of Mr Wibe's comments. I think he has a rather one-sided view of this issue.
The major winner of this policy change in Europe is the treasuries of the Member States which will have considerable increases in their excise revenue because the big tax-free sales, which were always an anomaly for normal intraCommunity traffic, will cease and be replaced with normal tax levies.
I also think that the major winner will be public health as the problem of alcoholism may well be slightly reduced.
May I thank the Council for its reply, even if I think it was somewhat negative.
I can understand the principle that an internal market should not have duty-free trade.
The most important question is on the other hand what is to be done to reduce unemployment in Europe.
It is undoubtedly the case that this proposal will have negative consequences for employment, particularly in those countries furthest away from the centre of Europe.
These countries will be worst hit.
Through its Minister of Labour, the Netherlands have, in other matters, put forward exceptionally good proposals as far as employment is concerned.
This is currently the most important issue, one that must take precedence over any principle.
Reality is more important than any principle.
Employment is more important than abolishing duty-free trade.
My first reply may have been somewhat short, my second reply to Mr Wibe was short but to the point.
I think that if you want a serious discussion on this we must approach it in a serious way.
My basic assumption is that tax exemptions, particularly excise on cigarettes and alcohol, for this is what it is all about, for normal intra-Community trade is a total anomaly.
Now it is a fact of economic life that a certain economic activity has grown up around this anomaly, on ferries and tax-free sales at airports.
That is what the whole discussion centred on when this measure was being prepared, away back in the eighties, so there is no question of any surprise element here.
And in addition to that there was a six-year transition period.
I think that everyone who wittingly benefited from this anomaly was warned in plenty of time, plus the transition period, so that they could do whatever was necessary to switch over to other types of marketing of their transport services from the sale of cheap alcohol.
I also think that you are underestimating the macro-economic effect in general.
I think that if you investigate the amounts the British treasury is currently losing through tax-free import of alcohol in lorries, or perhaps not lorries, but in any case in the luggage of her own citizens, I think that treasury loss could finance a large number of new economic activities in Great Britain, for example, which would more than compensate for the activities on the ferries.
And I think that if you are insisting that some kind of injustice is being meted out to a specific group, then logically you must be presenting a one-sided view of affairs, with which I cannot agree.
The President-in-Office has himself said that it is time to start tackling this matter more seriously.
I would therefore like to give him the chance to do so by asking him two specific questions that he should be able to answer more or less in detail if he agrees to the abolition of duty-free trade.
The first question is: How many people will be without work if the EU decision to abolish duty-free trade between Member States is implemented in 1999? The second question is: If the ferry companies' income is to be reduced by approximately 30 per cent, which probably will be the case if duty-free trade is abolished, how will this affect transport charges?
Mr Stenmarck will not be surprised to learn that when he bombards me with such a specific factual question that I do not have the information at my fingertips.
But I would say that you can never isolate that from other facts if you calculate the effects of abolishing tax-free sales on ferries.
In the English Channel it is related to the opening of the channel tunnel or other new forms of transport.
So it cannot be seen in isolation.
I also do not think it opportune to continue this discussion solely from examining the consequences for one sector alone.
One could equally say that this measure produces a considerable increase in revenue from excise for the Swedish or British treasury.
That can be used to help promote economic activities or reduce taxation which will also help to stimulate the economy.
So if you want to have this debate we must have it on the basis of serious wider considerations with account taken of all aspects which are relevant and which are based on accurate statistics.
Question No 11 by Mrs Kinnock (H-0140/97)
Subject: Combatting international corruption
Can the Council assure Parliament that preventing and combatting corruption on an international scale will be added to areas listed in Article K.1 of the TBU as a matter of common interest with a view to cooperation and common action?
I would reply to Mrs Kinnock's question as follows.
As she will appreciate, I feel that in general terms and in particular as President-in-Office of the Council it is not my place to dwell on what is being discussed in the Intergovernmental Conference as these are matters for negotiations between the Member States and the Council as such has no role to play there.
I can however confirm that this question, which was included in a draft proposal from the Irish government for the Intergovernmental Conference, is receiving full attention.
I cannot, however, give her the assurance she is seeking on behalf of the Council.
That depends on the final result of this Intergovernmental Conference.
I can inform the Honourable Member that after the protocol to the Convention on protection of the financial interests of the European Community was adopted in September 1996 the Council continued to work on combatting international corruption.
Parliament gave its opinion on that in a resolution on 15 November 1996.
There is every reason to hope that the irregularities referred to by the Honourable Member have already been tackled under the present Treaty.
I thank the President-in-Office for his response and I appreciate the difficulty he has in being more specific.
However, I would like to pursue one or two issues with him.
Under the third pillar, bribery within the European Union is a criminal offence. So why is it that we do not make a similar commitment when dealing with third countries?
Would not such an initiative be desirable in developing countries and countries in transition, as well as within the European Union? Since the Council was not able to be more specific, I should like to ask the President-in-Office if he would be prepared to welcome a Commission proposal designed to secure such a development in developing countries and countries in transition with respect to bribery and corruption?
I must consider that carefully because the subject raised by Mrs Kinnock, international bribery and corruption, covers an enormous area where the European Community as such, for example through its responsibility for international customs traffic or its development cooperation programmes, is involved in the most varied ways, including in relations with third countries.
I can assure you that it is certainly taken into account in the normal execution of programmes and activities and in the general functioning of the European Community, and not only because the European Court of Auditors warns where the European Union runs the risk of entering the danger zone on this point.
When it comes to judicial cooperation and detection cooperation with third countries then the matter becomes somewhat more complicated because the whole responsibility of the European Union is based on intergovernmental cooperation and one of its shortcomings, I must admit, is that it is difficult to develop very constructive cooperation with third countries on the basis of the third pillar.
This subject as such is not really on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference but will be studied in a group of senior officials which was set up by the Dublin European Council and which was instructed to report in a very short time on organised crime in Europe and beyond, in so far as Europe is involved.
As I understand it attention will also be paid to improving the judicial and administrative working of cooperation with third countries in preventing and detecting fraud and crime.
Question No 12 by Mr Sjöstedt (H-0141/97)
Subject: Opt-out from the third stage of EMU
It seems most likely that a majority of Members of the Riksdag will vote against Sweden taking part in the third stage of EMU at the beginning of 1999, even if it fulfils the convergence criteria.
Sweden does not officially have a derogation from the relevant part of the Treaty.
Does the Council take the view that, in order to settle this matter, Sweden should, during the current IGC, follow Denmark and the UK in applying for a formal exemption from the third stage of EMU? Or would it be equally acceptable for Sweden simply not to sign up to the common currency, regardless of what the Treaty officially says?
First of all I would say in reply to Mr Sjöstedt's question that the European Council in Madrid fixed the starting date for the third stage at 1 January 1999.
Under Protocol 11 to the Treaty the United Kingdom, however, is not committed to proceeding to the third stage of the Economic and Monetary Union without its government and parliament specifically deciding to do so.
Under Protocol 12 Denmark announced it would not proceed to the third stage of the Economic and Monetary Union, at least until further notice.
Under the Treaty of the Union or a treaty of accession all other Member States decided to participate in the third stage on condition that the Council, in the composition of heads of states and government, and I refer in this context to Article 109J(4) of the Treaty of the Union, confirms they meet the conditions for participation, the so-called convergence criteria.
Member States not meeting these criteria will be granted a derogation under Article 109K.
Any Member State may itself determine which procedure should be applied, including the role of its parliament, in order to prepare for the above mentioned decision of the European Council.
During the fourth sitting of the negotiation conference on Sweden's accession to the European Union the conference took note of the declaration to that effect made by the Swedish delegation.
As to the operation of the Intergovernmental Conference, it is not up to the Council to comment on the conference agenda or on any initiatives the Member States may wish to take.
I thank you for a detailed, legal reply to the question.
However, the question also concerns a very specific political reality that I am sure Mr President is aware of, i.e. that the majority of the Swedish Parliament probably will decide not to be part of a single currency from 1999.
Despite the reply from the Presidentin-Office, I still want an answer to the actual question. Do you really mean that a country can do this?
Or does the council prefer to make changes in the actual Treaty during the Intergovernmental Conference? Surely this is something on which the council has a viewpoint.
I would like a clearer reply to my question about which model the council prefers when Sweden decides not to be part of the single currency.
I have tried to explain clearly the legal situation of the accession process to the third stage of monetary union.
I would point out that the decision will only be taken in a year's time, that a lot of water can flow under the bridge between now and then and that I do not wish to jump the gun, either with regard to decisions in the European Council or decisions by the Swedish government or decisions by the Swedish parliament or decisions any other Member State may wish to take under Article 109J a year before the due date.
I would, however, urge you not to speculate on what might happen, we still have a year ahead of us to prepare the way.
Mr President, I should just like to ask one question, and at the same time I must apologize, because we could not hear very clearly over here, so I only think I understood what the President-inOffice of the Council was saying. My question is as follows.
Is there really any point in speculating about what will happen in Sweden in the year 1999? As far as I know, elections are due to be held between now and then and, to judge by current public opinion, there is likely to be a change in the majority, in which case the whole thing would be invalidated.
It would be better to cross that bridge when we come to it.
Mr Habsburg's comment is exactly in line with what I myself said.
I said that there was no point in speculating about any decisions to be taken by either the Swedish government or the Swedish parliament or the Council or the government of the Member States in a year's time, and a year in politics, as Mr Habsburg well knows, is a long time.
I should like to take both Mr Papayannakis' and Mrs Daskalaki's questions together.
Under the conclusions of the European Council in Cannes in June 1995 accession negotiations with Cyprus on the basis of the Commission's proposals begin six months after the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I would add that account will be taken of the results of that conference.
This is the Union's starting point which was confirmed again to the government of Cyprus at the meeting of the Association Council on 25 February 1997.
Close coordination within the international community to support the efforts of the United Nations is essential in order to reach a general settlement in accordance with the resolutions of the UN Security Council leading to a federation with two communities and two zones.
The prospect of Cyprus joining the European Union offers a chance this year to find a solution to the old and thorny Cyprus issue.
As confirmed in its conclusions of 6 March 1995 the Council believes that Cyprus' accession to the European Union should lead to greater security and well-being for each of the two communities on the island.
It should help the northern part of the island to catch up in economic terms and to improve growth and job prospects.
The Council believes that the Turkish Cypriot community ought to appreciate more the advantages of Cyprus' accession to the European Union and overcome its misgivings.
The Council has asked the Commission to make the necessary contacts with the Turkish Cypriot community, in agreement with the government of Cyprus.
The Council equally confirms its stance of not recognising the authorities of North Cyprus.
It was with this aim in mind that the current financial protocol was signed in June 1995 to support the efforts for a general settlement of the Cyprus question.
An amount of ECU 12 million was earmarked for possible confidencebuilding initiatives agreed with Cyprus.
It is expected that additional funds may be made available to finance programmes and projects to promote the development of the whole island.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for your answer.
I agree with most of what you said, and am very pleased to do so.
However, the decisions you described, on the one hand recognition of the Republic of Cyprus as a partner in talks, and on the other hand participation of the Turkish Cypriot community in the negotiations, a participation which the Republic of Cyprus has in any case accepted and proposed, those two decisions should lead towards some development, some outcome.
My question, therefore, is this: Can you tell us now when the European Union is to meet with Cyprus in the context of political dialogue, in the context of structured dialogue with a view towards accession? Because since we agree about the general principles, progress ought to be made.
I am telling you that time is passing.
So when will meetings take place to further the structured political dialogue?
Mr President, I am particularly grateful to the President-in-Office of the Council for his detailed answer, and I share the view expressed by Mr Papayannakis that along general lines it is a very good answer. However, I would like to return to the subject of structured dialogue.
I want to ask, indeed to insist a little, on the following: granted all these difficulties and facts that we all know about and that the President-in-Office mentioned earlier, does the Council have a view about any specific timetable for this resumption of structured dialogue? And in any case, what must now be done to overcome the previous difficulties?
The Council will undoubtedly resume talks on the small difference of opinion, because the disagreement was about one small sentence, on the political declaration to prepare the structured dialogue.
I am confident that this will also be taken in the wider context of these talks, for it is not about the structured dialogue with Cyprus at all. It is about creating the political conditions for the Council's commitment on starting the accession negotiations with Cyprus being put into action without hindrance.
That is a commitment the Council which is standing by and which we also want to put into action.
We want no political complications there.
It is part of a wider context which involves Greek-Turkish relations and relations between the Turks and the European Union which affects all parties - and I would point out in this context that the European Parliament has also a certain responsibility of its own here - and which should contribute to the whole complex of political sensitivities and political risks being brought back to manageable proportions, to the political difficulties being reduced to problems which can be resolved and to the accession prospects of Cyprus being fulfilled.
My reply will not completely satisfy Mr Lindqvist because he is asking about the Intergovernmental Conference and I am unable to give him an answer on behalf of the Council.
I do not think it opportune to answer, but from my own observations and involvement in the IGC I would just like to assure Mr Lindqvist that the matter he raised is receiving a great deal of attention.
I would even go further and say that it is one of the main subjects of negotiations within the framework of reviewing the second pillar of the Treaty on European Union.
I thank you for the reply, even if it did not reveal anything new.
For a Member State such as Sweden, the question of military alliances is very important.
It is important in the light of Sweden's long experience, 180-200 years, of being a country free of military alliances.
However, it is also important for the future to preserve what the people and the parties more or less agree on.
It would therefore be a loss and a dilemma - a rather serious dilemma - if new regulations were introduced into a future EU Treaty, which would take the matter even further than the regulations, which still apply and which even during the referendum in 1994 caused an intense debate in our country.
I do understand that the members of the Council cannot say at the present time what will come out of the Intergovernmental Conference.
However, the matter is important from our point of view which is the reason for asking the question.
Question No 17 by Mr Needle (H-0154/97)
Subject: OECD recommendations on combating bribery
In 1994 and 1996 OECD member states adopted at ministerial level a set of recommendations on combating bribery in international business relations.
Very little has happened in terms of implementation.
Would the Council share the view that a concerted, simultaneous action of the 15 Member States would be a means of breaking the deadlock and of carrying other OECD members along? Should not one of the first steps consist in ending tax deductibility of bribes paid to foreign officials (which creates considerable distortions of competition and represents a major obstacle to development)?
I would like to say the following in response to Mr Needle's question. It is correct that the OECD Council adopted a recommendation on 11 April 1996 inviting the OECD members states to review their tax legislation and end tax deductibility for bribes paid abroad.
As a result of this recommendation and of other current discussions, such as those in the Council of Europe, some countries have either ended tax deductibility of bribes paid abroad or are planning to do so.
As this issue in some countries is linked to a possible change in their penal legislation, in particular the penalisation of corrupt foreign officials, it may take some time for the legislation in the various member states to be revised in the light of the OECD recommendation.
Although this is a recommendation adopted outside the framework of the Community and therefore does not come within the powers of the Union, the Presidency will certainly pass on Mr Needle's request to the delegations.
I would just mention in this context that the Council is currently working on a draft agreement making the bribing of officials from the EU Member States a punishable offence.
The Council views corruption as a very important matter.
We must unequivocally condemn the practices of individuals who unscrupulously harm the whole community and tax payers in particular.
It goes without saying that the Dutch presidency will leave no stone unturned in dealing with this subject.
I thank the President-in-Office for that very encouraging reply and I am delighted that, taken together with the question from Mrs Kinnock earlier on, we have had a welcome and very positive response on this important subject this evening.
I should like just to press you on a couple of small points about what can actually be achieved, particularly given the slow process in the Council of Europe and the OECD.
Does the Council believe that the Commission could be encouraged to use the legal instruments already available to it, in particular in the field of competition rules, for example, and rules governing the internal market?
Lastly, given the initiatives about which you have spoken in the framework of the OECD and the changes by the World Bank, does the Council intend to press for new European Union procurement rules so as to prevent corruption more effectively?
On the implementation of the OECD recommendation which concerns tax legislation and penal legislation, it strikes me that regulations on competition and the internal market do not directly affect this discussion, so I must think carefully about this one.
For the time being I am unable to answer your question on European rules on procurement.
I think it very important that the European Union, which is responsible for a large number of invitations to tender every year, should be extremely wary of any shady practices involving tenders.
I think the European Commission and the European Court of Auditors must constantly be on the alert.
The Council Presidency will not fail to play its part.
As Mr Pirker is not present, Question No 18 (H-0165/97) falls.
Mr Pirker's office told me that the Bureau had been informed that I would be taking over Mr Pirker's question.
Mr Pirker's office was kind enough to inform you, but it was not kind enough to inform us as well.
I was told that the Bureau had been informed.
I am sorry, but that did not happen.
Question No 19 by Mrs Cederschiöld (H-0168/97)
Subject: Deadlines in areas which are part of the third pillar
The IGC is discussing the introduction of deadlines in areas of the third pillar that are now being transferred to the Community domain.
The term 'deadlines' in this case means the year by which Member States must fulfil the requirements imposed by virtue of communitization.
In the Council's view, how will the introduction of such deadlines affect enlargement of the Union?
On Mrs Cederschiöld's question on the deadlines for transferring powers under the third pillar, I can only say in my capacity as President-in-Office of the Council that this too is one of the many proposals being discussed in the Intergovernmental Conference.
As my predecessors and I myself have said on various occasions in earlier replies to questions on the workings of the IGC, the Council is not a party to this conference.
It is therefore inappropriate that I say anything further here today.
I repeat that it is not opportune for me to comment on the content of the Intergovernmental Conference, but Mrs Cederschiöld put another question which does fall within the remit of the Council.
She asked about the link between the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference and the start of accession negotiations.
I wish to state that the Dutch presidency attaches the greatest importance to doing everything in its power to conclude the Intergovernmental Conference under its presidency, and that is because of the political link between the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference and the start of accession negotiations.
The Intergovernmental Conference, including the work of the think tank under Mr Westendorp, has already been on the go for nine months and we consider it of the utmost importance that the governments of the Member States meeting in the conference continue to make themselves available during the final three months to conclude the conference properly.
I fully agree with Mrs Cederschiöld that we keep the periods for starting accession negotiations - and we all know that these negotiations will be rather lengthy and that they have to be followed by a ratification process - as short as possible for precisely the reasons adumbrated by Mrs Cederschiöld, namely that we cannot afford the expectations of the applicant countries to be dashed through internal division and procrastination.
Question No 20 by Mr G. Collins (H-0174/97)
Subject: Cot deaths
Despite efforts to prevent Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, the number of deaths rose in Ireland in 1996 following a steady decrease during the previous five-year period.
Will the Council outline the ways in which it believes the European Community can contribute to preventing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome? Does it consider the 5th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, in addition to research in the fight against age-related diseases, should support research into SIDS and, finally, will the Council encourage the setting up of a Union-wide register of cot deaths which will enable all unexplained cot deaths to be notified, as is the case in Ireland, to the respective Departments of Health and relayed within the EU?
As Mr Andrews is not present, Question No 21 (H-0176/97) falls.
Question No 22 by Mr Gallagher (H-0181/97)
Subject: Compensation for Irish fishermen
The fishing industry and the fish-processing industry in Ireland have been severely hit by the storms of recent months.
Will the Council now instruct the Commission to immediately bring forward an urgent compensation package to assist fishermen and those involved in the fish-processing industry affected by these severe storms?
In reply to Mr Gallacher's question on compensation for Irish fishermen for the damage suffered from the storms of recent months I wish first of all to express my sympathy to all concerned.
I must point out that it is not the responsibility of the Council to request the Commission to present proposals for compensation.
It is up to the Member States concerned to bring this matter to the attention of the Commission which is authorised to grant emergency aid to victims of disasters.
I want to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
However I do not accept what he suggests, that it is a matter for the Member States to make a case to the Commission.
He also suggests by implication that there is a fund there.
Could I draw the President-in-Office's attention to the fact that the Commission made a case to the Council of Ministers in March 1995 and it included a proposal for aid for the establishment of bad weather unemployment funds. This was rejected by the Council of Ministers.
That contradicts what the President-in-Office has just said.
I am asking the President-in-Office now, is there a fund there and if there is a fund can he give me details of it? If there is no fund will the Council now give favourable consideration to the proposal which was rejected in March 1995?
I am not familiar with the 1995 proposal which was rejected by the Council or by Parliament, I am not too clear about that.
I cannot comment on it.
The Commission has funds for emergency aid.
But this form of intracommunity aid for victims of disasters comes specifically under the authority of the Commission.
The Commission decided independently on 16 October 1996 to use ECU 300, 000 for victims of the severe floods in Ireland in January 1996.
Incidentally Parliament may ask the Commission itself to release funds for victims of disasters by adopting a resolution, for example, in its debates on urgent questions.
As Mr Papakyriazis, Mr Ephremidis and Mr Theonas are not present, Question No 23 (H0184/97), Question No 24 (H0190/97) and Question No 25 (H-0191/97) fall.
Question No 26 by Mr Posselt (H-0193/97)
Subject: Enlargement and internal security
What stage has been reached in the cooperation and structured dialogue with the Central and Eastern European candidate countries with regard to internal security, and what implications does this have for the security situation on the EU's external frontiers?
In reply to Mr Posselt's question I can say that the structured dialogue with the Central and Eastern European countries started in June 1996 under the French presidency in Luxembourg.
It entered a new phase in March 1996.
A specific subject is given top priority attention during each presidency.
During the second half of 1996 the dialogue concentrated on the problem of drugs.
A seminar was held on that subject on 24 and 25 October 1996 and the conclusions of this seminar adopted as such by the partners on 28 and 29 November 1996.
A meeting of the working party 'Drugs and Organised Crime' was held with the Central and Eastern European countries on 10 March.
The Council services are currently implementing the conclusions of that meeting, which include a number relating to internal security, for example exchange of information, monitored deliveries and rules on the control of precursors for chemical drugs.
The dialogue is now concentrating on asylum problems.
The conclusions will be presented to the Council in May.
Specific practical problems of border controls are being dealt with under the so-called 'CIREFI' , which is an EUwide data bank on asylum affairs.
The applicant countries have already attended meetings in the past on this subject.
A second meeting with Central and Eastern European countries on this matter will be held under the Dutch presidency.
Mr President, thank you for this very precise answer, and I should just like to ask whether certain elements of the cooperation that would be expected to result from membership might perhaps, given the length of time the negotiations will take, be given priority, in the interests of cooperation and in the interests of public security.
For example, could not EUROPOL start working directly with the police forces of the candidate countries, and could not the structured dialogue be extended to cover three issues that are particularly explosive, namely the slave trade, an area in which organized crime is already earning more than in the drugs trade - and secondly the theft and smuggling of works of art, which is a major problem in Bavaria and the Czech Republic, and thirdly the drugs problem, which has already been mentioned?
I reply to Mr Posselt's second question I would say that the Council attaches the utmost importance to cooperating with Central and Eastern European countries on the prevention of and fight against organised crime. Organised crime does not stop at the borders of the European Union.
Central and Eastern European countries are just as concerned as ourselves.
The Union and Member States attach great importance to giving this top priority, including the areas mention by Mr Posselt.
There are still some restrictions which have not yet been solved but we are working on them.
The first restriction is that the Europol Treaty has not yet been ratified.
Practical cooperation in the immediate future can only be on the provisional European Drugs Unit which has a limited capacity.
We must keep that in mind.
But I believe that as soon as Europol is ratified and the necessary human and financial resources made available then it can quickly be extended to the Eastern European countries.
Another aspect I would refer to, and I already mentioned this in reply to Mrs Kinnock's question, is the shortcoming in the institutional means of the third pillar; specifically, it is very difficult to make agreements with third countries under the third pillar.
I have already mentioned that the group of senior officials dealing with combatting organised crime, a group set up in Dublin by the European Council which is to report back to Council in April, will also discuss this aspect of cooperation between the European Union and Central and Eastern European countries in fighting organised crime.
Question No 27 will be answered in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
Driftnets
The next item is the oral question by Mr Arias Cañete, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, to the Council (B4-0017/97 - O-0001/97), on driftnets.
Mr President-in-office of the Council, I thank you first of all for being here and for being willing to discuss the future of driftnets with us.
As you know, the Commission has a proposed amendment to the current regulation on technical measures seeking to ban driftnets exceeding 2.5 kilometres in length as from 31 December l997.
This proposal dates from 1994 and thus far neither the Council nor the Commission has done anything to break the deadlock.
I am putting this question to the Fisheries Committee to underscore our conviction that various events which have taken place since 1994 in the legal, legislative, social, economic and environmental spheres, have placed the Commission proposal in a totally different global context.
We therefore think that the content urgently needs to be reviewed.
Although there have not since 1994 been the serious disputes seen in previous years, that was because inspection vessels were permanently deployed by sea-bordering countries as well as a Commission monitoring vessel.
That has all proved so costly that it appears that the Commission does not intend to deploy its vessel for next summer's fishing year in the Atlantic.
That will no doubt mean that the member countries will step up their inspection activities, because those of us who know the fleets well are aware that the dispute is still lurking beneath the surface and that rules are still being broken, as the Commission's own reports indicate.
It seems clear that nets of 2.5 kilometres are not an economic proposition for most ports and the proof is that many countries, under pressure to carry out inspections, have dismantled their driftnet fleet as uneconomical - as in the case of Ireland and the United Kingdom - or for other more complex reasons nonetheless directly related to unprofitability, as is the case with Italy.
On the other hand, we in the Council, Commission and Parliament are currently working on a new proposal for a regulation on technical measures.
Is there any point in approving this proposal when there is still an amendment to the previous regulation which is still dragging on and which has not even been included in the new proposal?
Another original - and in my opinion very important - aspect arises from the approval of the New York Agreement on trans-zonal and highly migratory species which the European Union is preparing to ratify.
I would draw attention to some of the points in Article 5, particularly 5 (f), according to which the states undertake to reduce to a minimum contamination, depletion of stocks, waste, fishing by equipment which is used once then discarded, accidental catches of species of fish or other creatures outside the scope intended, by the adoption of measures which include the use of gear and techniques for selective fishing which do not harm the environment and which are not expensive.
Other sections of this Article might be mentioned, but I think that is sufficient to make the point that promises are not being fulfilled with regard to these nets.
There again the ecology movement and those Member states most concerned about the environment have a much clearer view of driftnets nowadays than they had in 1994 and what happened with regard to the United States' threatened embargo against Italy, which directly affects the entire Community tuna and sword fish production, further demonstrates what we can expect if we do not tackle the problem.
Finally, Mr President, I should like to remind you of another factor which has been largely responsible for the changes cited: this Parliament's own resolution on the banning of driftnets dating from 1994 and which was, moreover, by excluding the Baltic and use within the 12-mile zone, instrumental in securing the agreement of the northern countries of the Union.
We therefore think that there are sufficient aspects left to warrant a new proposal and that, if it makes the requisite effort, the Council can find a way out.
On behalf of the Committee on Fisheries and in view of the arguments put forward, I ask for that effort and that impetus.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, I believe it is right to hold this debate, and to be able to go deeper into the matter next month, when we will be dealing with the conversion plan for driftnet fishing, which affects Italy.
Italy, or more accurately its new government, has taken a firm line on the issue and it is highly likely that within three years it will have succeeded in moving fishing vessels using driftnets up to 2.5 kilometres in an acceptable direction.
The plan is voluntary and will therefore involve those intending to convert their own businesses.
But the problem has to be dealt with not just from a distinctly Italian viewpoint, but taking account of a wider area surrounding the Mediterranean.
We are convinced certain resources are being overfished and overuse of driftnets is creating problems, not least environmental ones.
This has been scientifically proven.
This problem reaches beyond Italy to third countries, because the risk is that once the European fleets have been converted, the use of driftnets could easily proliferate in the third countries.
So there has to be a conversion plan covering the whole Mediterranean and it is also important for Europe to develop its Europartenariat role with Mediterranean countries, encouraging awareness in these countries of the environmental effects of this type of fishing.
We also have to recognize that there are fleets fishing indiscriminately in the Mediterranean - I am referring to the Japanese and Korean fleets - as well as flags of convenience ploughing those waters and having an enormous impact on fisheries resources.
That is why the problem of driftnets has to be analysed jointly with the complex effort in the Mediterranean fishing sector.
Other types of fishing and other fishing gear are extremely prejudicial to the maintenance of certain very delicate species. Dolphins and 'caretta caretta' turtles are of course suffering significant repercussions from other types of fishing too, like longline.
So I believe we must press ahead with controls, but recognizing our duty to comply with the Community regulation setting the length of driftnets at 2.5 kilometres.
I believe this is a fundamental point we must keep to.
In my opinion, Mr President, your answer is completely unsatisfactory.
You say that there are no constructive proposals.
But from whom? In my opinion, these constructive proposals are lacking on the part of the Council, and certainly not on the part of the European Parliament!
We have already, on many occasions, given our opinion on the problem of driftnets.
In the past, we have always prohibited them - quite rightly - because public opinion, which is what we represent here, regards the protection of marine creatures and the maintaining of the ecological balance as being threatened by these nets.
The fishing industry also means safeguarding people's economic and social living conditions.
However, we must be extremely careful here, particularly at a time when those areas where fishery resources are available are experiencing losses.
The use of driftnets brings with it two negative consequences. First of all there is the problem that when driftnets are used the species to be caught cannot be selected.
In addition, sea creatures are senselessly killed by these so-called 'ghost nets' .
Even if we have to make a distinction between the fishing problems in the North Pacific, the South Pacific, the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, the Mediterranean and within the twelve-mile limits, the fact remains that, basically, the use of driftnets is disastrous everywhere.
We should continue to set an example on this issue, in accordance with our previous decision.
Some updating is needed.
The Council's acceptance, possibly revised, of the Commission's 1994 proposal is therefore absolutely vital and a matter of great urgency.
In order to defend its interests and values, and those of other communities and countries, the EU must find a way, within its own institutions and within the international bodies concerned, to achieve an immediate and appropriate prohibition on the use of driftnets, and at the same time come up with the necessary effective control measures.
Mr President, if a man wants to drown his dog he first accuses it of having rabies.
Nowhere is this proverb better illustrated than in the case of driftnets.
First of all, there is the question of what is included in the mixture. To lump together under the same heading the nets that are used in the Mediterranean and those that are used in the Atlantic really smacks of trickery.
In the Mediterranean, they fish for swordfish, a rare species.
The fish are very scattered, which makes it necessary to use very long nets, whereas in the Bay of Biscay, which is the subject of my proposal, they fish for tuna, a species which occurs in abundance and which is found in shoals, so that it can be caught in nets that are not so long.
It has also been claimed that nets that are 2.5 km in length could not be profitable.
Yet this is just a generalized falsehood.
You only have to go and check.
And people did go and do just that - two boats were chartered by the Community in 1995-1996 - and checks were carried out - 60 to 70 inspections per season - and no infringements were found.
Now we are being led to believe that these nets would be diabolically efficient, but do you know what percentage of tuna is fished using nets? Is it 80 %, 50 % or 25 %?
Not even that much, but less than 12 % of the total catch!
So what arguments are we now left with? The resolution contains only one: the argument that driftnets are described as non-selective, and the bigger they are, the more this is true.
But this argument completely ignores the study carried out by the IFREMER, which covered two seasons and included observers from five countries. The conclusion of this study was that the rate of selectivity is 85.8 %; in other words, it is one of the most selective methods of fishing.
Finally, what would be the consequences if French tuna fishermen were to abandon this technique? It would be a disaster as far as resources are concerned.
In actual fact, these are fishing vessels that derive 50 % of their annual turnover from the tuna-fishing season.
If they are denied this opportunity, they will have no alternative but to give up fishing for tuna, and carry out their winter occupation, which is trawl-fishing, all the year round. This would have an effect on species, such as the hake for example, which are very much at risk.
Mr President, if it had been up to the European Parliament there would have been no need to ask this question because away back in 1994 we said that at the end of that year there should be a ban on drift nets.
I would just remind you of our report.
There is no need either for me to explain why we in this House object to what happens with drift nets.
Mrs Langenhagen has described that in sufficient detail.
The Italian drift nets in particular catch less than 20 percent of the total allowable catch of tuna and sword fish, the remaining 80 percent is by-catch.
I do not need to explain how serious that is for the marine environment.
Now the President-in-Office of the Council says that the Dutch presidency will do its best to discuss this proposal again, this proposal that was last discussed in the Council on 22 April.
I would ask the Council to take seriously the Commission proposal, namely for a ban with effect from 1 January 1998.
I wish to ask the President-in-Office of the Council when it will be put on the agenda and how the Presidency intends to prepare this for the coming Fisheries Council.
Mr President, it is three years since the Commission presented its proposal on the banning of driftnets and the decision is still blocked within the Council.
Although governments, such as the Italian government, are prepared to adopt measures to reduce the use of such nets, these initiatives are not sufficient from any point of view and there are Member States which have banned them, but until there is a generalized ban the situation will be exactly the same.
It is argued that fleets from third countries are still using such nets.
Let us not fool ourselves - until the European Union bans them it will be impossible to take action against third countries to persuade them to desist.
Moreover, the European Union tries to excuse itself by carrying out monitoring operations, which do not basically affect the problem and which, furthermore, are exorbitantly expensive in relation to their effectiveness.
There are weighty arguments for banning the use of driftnets. First reasons concerning the environment and the conservation of fish stocks.
When these nets are used approximately 80 % of the catch is accidental which has an enormous impact on protected species.
Banning such nets is fundamental, both for the sake of conservation of resources and the protection of endangered species.
There are also reasons of an economic nature which militate in favour of banning these nets.
They are not very selective, affect other fishing activities and place those fishing with selective methods at a distinct disadvantage.
Let us make no mistake.
These nets do not even benefit those using them.
Some governments are turning this into a state issue, but that is another matter.
The market situation, the low quality of the catches which these nets yield and the high investment and amounts for amortization make their use uneconomical.
The fishermen indeed are the prisoners of the investments they have made.
The reduced profits which these catches bring pushes the amounts for amortization up to excessive levels.
Some governments ought then to deal decisively with the problem of conversion for the sake of their own fishermen and future generations.
Fishing in the Community and throughout the whole world is facing an unprecedented crisis caused by the lack of resources and the problem of the market.
Driftnets are an example of what should not be done in fisheries policy.
The Council should be aware of that and solve this question once and for all.
Here is a challenge and a great opportunity for the Netherlands Presidency.
Mr President, like others, I too must express a certain disappointment at the reply from the President-in-Office of the Council, because I do not believe it can be said there is a lack of constructive proposals.
The problem is that we have before us a 1994 Commission proposal, a series of positions taken by the European Parliament, but also a UN resolution.
Given this situation we might have expected coherent decisions from the Council and action to obtain positive results from the Presidency-in-Office.
Why are we asking for a total ban on the 'spadare' ?
The answer is that the 'spadare' is non-selective tackle, as has already been mentioned, and it is used not only in the Mediterranean, but also in the Atlantic. In particular it is used on French, English and Irish fishing vessels, although the practice has tended to decline in recent years.
But there is no doubt that the greatest impact is occurring in the Mediterranean.
This impact can be summarised as follows: according to the International Whaling Commission, the 'spadare' , so-called because it is used to catch swordfish, kills around 5000 dolphins and dozens of sperm whales every year.
Furthermore, the target species, the swordfish, constitutes only 17-18 % of the catch, which demonstrates the non-selective nature of this type of fishing.
Furthermore, according to the FAO, swordfish stocks are being overfished.
This means that a decrease in fishing would involve an increase, by weight, in catches which currently comprise young fish which often have not reproduced.
In the Mediterranean, the area at greatest risk, an Italian fleet is now operating and, perhaps increasingly, fleets from third countries.
The only way to control these third countries is to state that the European Union no longer uses the 'spadare' and establish trading relations with third countries creating disincentives against using the 'spadare' .
That is the only credible solution.
Either there are advantages to 2.5 kilometre net lengths or there are not.
If there are advantages, the complaints are incomprehensible; if not there are two possibilities: either fishermen who say they use 2.5 kilometre nets are using longer ones, or they would benefit from a change in direction.
So the only way to guarantee Italian fishermen an income and a future in fishing is to ban the 'spadare' completely, carry out a conversion process, use more selective methods that are less dangerous for the environment and cement relationships with third countries to ensure control of the use of the 'spadare' in that zone.
Why, Mr President, are we resuming here today the debate on driftnets, when the only new scientific evidence confirms their selectivity, and when other types of fishing equipment are being developed that are highly questionable, such as the 'naveran' , for example?
Why is it that we are trying, at all costs, to stir up a controversy which has already been settled, to the best possible advantage to everyone?
The last two long-finned tuna fishing seasons in the North Atlantic have demonstrated the responsible behaviour of driftnet fishermen, who have been strictly observing the 2.5 km limits.
This is proved by the very large number of national and Community inspections that have been carried out on French tuna fishing vessels.
These two seasons have also shown that vessels can use both nets and lines at the same time, and that these two techniques have proved to be perfectly compatible.
Finally, it has been proved that minimum profitability is possible within the framework of the 2.5 km limits.
But let us not forget that, for many fishermen, accepting the 2.5 km limits represents a considerable sacrifice.
Some of them have given up fishing, and there are also all those who naturally based their calculations regarding their vessels' capacity and their investments on the rules that were in force at the time, when the limit was 5 km.
Dropping it to 2.5 km has placed an extremely heavy burden on them in the form of extra costs.
This is not, therefore, the moment to give them the impression that the rules might be changed again.
As far as driftnets are concerned, we must stop stirring things up for political reasons, and stop maintaining this climate of uncertainty and anxiety.
What our fishermen need, on the contrary, is for the rules of the game to remain stable. They need a lasting regulatory framework if they are to be able to carry out their difficult occupation with the necessary degree of forward planning.
What we have to do, Mr President, is very simple.
First of all we must remember that the driftnet is a vital piece of working equipment for many fishing communities in Europe.
We must then confirm the fact that there is a system of rules, and that there is one system that applies to everyone and to all fishing areas, and that that system is the 2.5 km limit.
Even if this is harsh, at least it has the merit of being clear.
Finally, we must also make sure that everyone is scrupulous in applying it, both third countries and, of course, the Member States concerned, all of whom should send out an inspection vessel during the next season.
It is by doing this, Mr President, and not by fanning the flames, that we shall avoid a return to past conflicts, which are harmful to everyone, and it is in this way that a lasting peace will be brought to our fishing grounds.
It is in this direction, Mr President, that our parliamentary group would like to see the Council, in its wisdom, proceed.
Mr President, we are conducting an old debate here, since it goes back to 1994, when Carmen Fraga - who is to swordfish and tuna what Astrid Lulling is to honey or what I myself am to vines - the passionate advocate of the swordfish, first brought up this subject, this problem of the conflict between net and line.
At the time, the Commission proposed a ban, but a ban that would come into force after a period of four years. This period will come to an end at the end of December 1997.
Carmen Fraga Estévez herself wanted an immediate ban, with no variations, though as it turned out there would have been some variations - an immediate ban except for the Baltic (why the Baltic?) and for territorial waters, but it is true that, as far as the twelve-mile limits were concerned, the coastal State would have sovereignty.
This is a problem of a Hegelian nature.
It is a dialectical problem, because the good and the bad are not only on one side.
It is true that there are opposing economic arguments: the hundreds of Spanish fishermen, who are, moreover, Carmen Fraga's voters, and the Italians.
We went, with Mrs Péry, to Palermo, where 500 Italian fishing vessels are involved.
On the other hand there is the question of financial equilibrium - Mr d'Aboville, or the Mayor of Luçon, was talking about this just now - the financial equilibrium of the sixty fishing undertakings, or the sixty vessels, of the Isle of Yeu, and all the problems that would arise from having to convert the fishing fleets.
Mr Baldarelli mentioned this a few minutes ago.
And then there are the ecological arguments, the real walls round the Atlantic - 20 km in the case of Italy - against which everything is battering, just like in the days of the Second World War!
The turtles, the dolphins, would die!
If we look at the real situation, the actual wastage, if I may call it that, is only 2 %, though I admit that that is already too much.
I should like to remind you of what the fishermen of Sicily said to us.
When we went to see them, they told us that, although they understood what was happening to the dolphins, they were themselves under threat of extinction.
Father and son, they have always fished for a living.
The little dolphins were at risk of disappearing, but then so were the little fishermen!
They also pointed out that the Koreans and the Japanese were not affected by the ban.
But will the dolphins make a distinction between a Korean net, a Japanese net and an Italian net? This poses a problem.
There is also the risk of intensive fishing.
I think that Mr d'Aboville said just now, for heaven's sake, that it was something like 12 % of the catch.
The Commission, in its wisdom - which is rare, and therefore worthy of comment - has finally, for once, arrived at a sort of compromise, which originated with the United Nations, and which the UNO itself adopted in 1989: a 2.5 km net instead of a 5 km net.
It involved cutting the net in two, if I can put it like that.
One net, one piece of fishing gear.
But with all the risks that this involved, all the problems of damage to nets, and the time it takes to change a net, this could mean losing at least one day's fishing, if not more.
I thought that with this compromise we had managed to put an end to the psychodrama, the neurosis, about fishing nets in the Bay of Biscay. And it was all being done under supervision - eight inspectors to keep watch over the long-finned tuna, eight EEC inspectors!
If British cows had had as many inspectors as tuna fish, we would probably not have had that other drama.
So, the tuna war will not take place, because, and Mrs Fraga will understand what I am saying, we should stick with the 2.5 km limit.
This is a compromise, and it will enable us to restore peace to the troubled waters of the Bay of Biscay.
Mr President, the key word in this question is 'balance' .
We must try in the first place to find a fair balance between viable fishing activity on the part of the Community fleet and the conservation of resources.
Despite what some French colleagues have said, the fall in the number of scombroid species in the Bay of Biscay is alarming and it is a result of the use of these very nets.
Balance means in the second place equal treatment for all.
Driftnets have been banned for Spanish and Portuguese fishermen since the 1986 Treaty of Accession.
Fishermen from other countries use nets up to 2.5 kilometres long and in the Bay of Biscay nets up to 25 kilometres are allowed.
We ask that the use of driftnets be banned in general, irrespective of area.
We also ask the Council to tackle the question directly, to take a decision on the banning of the nets and at the same time to settle what amounts of compensation would be appropriate.
We should also like to call attention to the paradox involved in importing into the Union large quantities of fish caught by foreign fleets using these nets.
Could we be selective in our imports so that we put the brake on driftnets not only for our own fleets and our own waters?
Finally, Mr President, during the transitional period the Commission should ensure there is more monitoring.
Although they are not sufficient, the two vessels chartered by the Commission and other measures taken with regard to fishing for tuna in coastal waters were decisive in reducing tension and avoiding the sad events of 1994.
Mr President, the reply from the Presidency of the Council could not have been more misleading. It gave no indication that things would move any faster.
We get the impression that this proposal will still be excluded from the agenda or systematically blocked within the Council.
And that we find disconcerting, as is the obstinacy of some Member States, because the only thing which the stepping up of monitoring over the past few years by the Member States and the Commission has shown is that driftnets of the regulation length are not economically viable; some Member States' fleets have stopped using them and where they are still used it is thanks to aids granted by some Member States.
These are fishing techniques which, when all is said and done, are ecologically harmful, uneconomical - within the letter of the law - and which, moreover, in the present situation for some Member States actually cause commercial disputes with third countries.
I the circumstances the Netherlands Presidency has a golden opportunity to settle this question which cannot simply be left to one side in the general revision of technical measures.
It would be absurd if, in a situation where there was over-capacity when the new multi-annual guidelines were being discussed, we were to continue to allow the use of non-selective fishing techniques.
The amendments proposed by Parliament might provide the flexibility needed to achieve the requisite majority in the Council - so that could not of course be the Commission's original proposal.
In conclusion, Mr President, I urge you to include this question in the agenda of this Council and to establish the necessary contacts and talks to make it possible to achieve agreement there on a solution which would constitute a step forward in the development of a responsible and sustainable common policy.
Mr President, we are against the proposal for an immediate ban on driftnets in the Mediterranean because it would only hit Community fishermen, while third countries' vessels would continue to fish without rules or controls.
No-one would argue that driftnets are harmless or have no impact on resources, but it is obvious that immediate abolition would not only fail to produce the desired results, but would look like discrimination to the fishermen and have serious consequences on jobs.
The consequences would be especially serious for Italy, bearing in mind that this activity goes on almost exclusively in the Objective 1 area, and public order problems cannot be ruled out.
Italy itself is now demonstrating willingness to find a solution.
A 'spadare' plan has been drawn up, the fruit of an agreement between the government and the organizations in the sector, and providing for financial participation by the Community.
The Commission's proposal for financial support has already been analysed and judged favourably, at the Council of Fisheries Ministers last December.
But the fishing vessels are being fitted out to start the fishing season even now.
So the Community must give a clear signal of its determination to resolve the issue of Italian driftnets positively, so that the fishermen and shipowners do not find themselves, yet again, starting the season in an uncertain and precarious atmosphere.
The commitment we are seeking from the Council, Mr President, is to adopt the support measures to the Italian plan as quickly as possible, bearing in mind the extraordinary situation which justifies not only recourse to the FIFG but also access to other Community funds where the quotas intended for Italy are not fully used.
Mr President, as some previous speakers have said, the Council's answer seems to me to be far from sufficient on this problem of fishing with driftnets.
I am referring only to the problem seen in the Mediterranean and the specific harm which such fishing with driftnets causes for the fishermen, to be precise in the Balearic Islands, which suffer the damage occasioned by the presence of over 500 Italian vessels fishing with driftnets.
It has often been said that the Mediterranean is an ailing sea, a sea with problems concerning the conservation of species.
The conservation of these species depends on the use of fishing techniques which are as selective as possible and driftnets can never be a selective system of fishing.
I have approached the Commission on several occasions concerning the harm being done in the Balearic Islands by this type of fishing.
It has been indicated and stated that the date for prohibition would be December 1997 at the latest.
I cannot see at the moment that the Council is intending to meet these deadlines envisaged, which will do serious harm to some Community fishermen.
Mr President, Mr President-in-office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the words of the President-in-office of the Council really are misleading.
Previous speakers have mentioned this and I must repeat it.
We were hoping for much more from the Presidency of the Council and still more from the Netherlands Presidency.
The current impasse in which the legislation on driftnets finds itself is simply untenable.
It has been said here that the Commission asked for these nets to be discontinued from the end of this year - Parliament has repeated it on many occasions - and it appears, ladies and gentlemen, that we are going to have to keep on repeating it.
Allowing time to go by without solving this problem makes the situation worse, detracts from the credibility of the Community institutions and leads to undesirable situations, such as the present situation in Italy where there is pressure from North America, as mentioned here also.
A new fishing year will be opening soon bringing with it the risk of confrontation between Community fleets and the deployment of costly patrol and monitoring measures which could be avoided, since the problem is none other than the manifest incompatibility between fishing methods, as has been mentioned here; on the one hand the traditional and selective methods which respect the environment and on the other the destructive driftnets.
It is known that nets of 2.5 kilometres are not profitable.
The same course which the Italian government has taken for conversion by means of the corresponding aids should be pursued for the Atlantic and those Member States still using it, thus settling the problem which keeps the fishermen on tenterhooks and each year costs the Community budget dearly.
The new situation in the Mediterranean, Mr President, the proposed exclusion of the Baltic should make it possible to obtain a better majority in the Council to break the deadlock on this problem finally as Parliament has requested.
It is the Council which is in a position to solve the problem.
I might say that the Netherlands Presidency could not be in a better position to achieve this historic political success, since it is not directly involved.
We therefore request the Council to show political responsibility and coherence.
Since we were not satisfied with what the Council said, and I think most Members agree with me, we ask them not to give up until these 'walls of death' have been totally eradicated.
Mr President, firstly, I wish to take the opportunity during this debate on fisheries to refer to an incident off the south-west coast of Ireland on Sunday last on a bright, sunny day, with calm seas and good visibility.
The incident involved the 16-metre Irish vessel, Exodus , and the 33-metre British vessel, the Seahorse , crewed by Spaniards and Portuguese.
An inquiry is under way by the Irish authorities.
I suggest to the House that the Commission keep itself fully informed of developments relating to the inquiry and that it keeps the Committee on Fisheries fully informed.
I hope that we will have an opportunity to debate the outcome of the inquiry at a later stage.
I call on Parliament to send its condolences to the relations of skipper Danny O'Driscoll who died as a result of this incident and, indeed, to the community of Castletownbear.
I, for one, am not disappointed at the response from the Council as the Council is being realistic in relation to the driftnet issue.
If it is intended to ban driftnets, then logic would suggest a ban on beam trawling or indeed any other method of fishing deemed to be deleterious to the environment.
Since a reduction of the limits to 2.5 km, there has been a 66 % fall in tuna landings in my country.
There has been no economic analysis or consultation with the industry and scientists have never recommended a ban on driftnetting.
Mr President, I too want to sympathize with the relatives of the fisherman who was drowned off the south coast of Ireland in a collision which took place on Sunday.
I want to refer to the question by Mr Arias and to say that I admire his tenacity and that of Mrs Fraga on this question.
But obviously there are two sides to it.
Most of the public sentiment surrounding the whole question of driftnet fishing comes from experiences in the Pacific, where everything is entirely different, where the tuna fish swim close to dolphins and where driftnets do cause a loss of other sea life besides what they are intended to catch.
In the Pacific, also, nets are 40-50 km in length and that is an entirely different situation from what we have in the Atlantic.
We should remember that a net 2 1/2 km long spans a distance of about 1, 500 metres when deployed in the Atlantic.
It is a fairly insignificant length of net in that situation.
We should remember we are not dealing with the Atlantic.
What I want to say is that we should try to find a solution.
There are two problems, but what we have here is mainly a conflict of interests between the French, on the one hand, who use long liners, and the Spanish, on the other.
What I would suggest is that if we as a Community decide that nets may not be used, then the people who are prevented from engaging in the legitimate practice of catching tuna fish with nets should get compensation.
A sensible solution would be that if the French and the Irish and British are forced out because their system of fishing is unacceptable, then obviously the Spanish fleets will catch more fish and they could concede to the Irish and the British and the French other quotas of similar value and everybody would be happy.
The tuna would be caught in the way that is acceptable to us and the French and Irish and British would not have to sustain any losses.
That is an obvious solution: either financial compensation or compensation in some other form.
We should not use spurious environmental arguments to condemn a practice that we know and is scientifically shown to have no implications other than the catching of tuna fish.
Thank you, Mr President.
It is reasonable and necessary to increase production in the fisheries sector, always provided that is accompanied by increased selectivity.
Driftnets to not achieve that selectivity, but rather pose a threat to the resources/production ratio mentioned previously.
To give an example: just imagine that if the 400 Basque and Gallician vessels were to use those nets the stocks of scombroid species in the Bay of Biscay would be wiped out forthwith.
That therefore implies a threat to the environment, unprofitability, incompatibility with traditional nets in the same waters, conflict between fleets, real difficulties as regards control and the risk of commercial sanctions.
Something must therefore be done.
I should like to put a specific proposal to the Netherlands Presidency: the Presidency of the Council could spearhead an agreement between the Member States for the final solution of this problem.
You, Mr President of the Council, mentioned the consideration of initiatives to achieve voting by qualified majority in the Council.
Consider the possibility of excluding the Baltic from that initiative, laying down the definitive ban on these nets from 31 December 1997. And try to associate States such as Italy with this initiative - Italy's Minister for Fisheries, Mr Pinto, said in Venice on 29 November last year that he was in favour of taking these nets out of the Mediterranean, in exchange for the compensatory measures which you have mentioned as a socioeconomic alternative.
The Member States which might oppose these measures - the United Kingdom, France and Ireland - do not constitute a minority sufficient to block the procedure.
But they could join forces with a majority with an alternative plan for conversion from driftnets in the Atlantic - a plan financed from the FIFG which could in the course of 1997 and 1998 finance: first the cost of the investment already made in driftnets; secondly training for fishermen in more selective methods of fishing for the same species - tuna; thirdly the investment needed for conversion.
Please try to convince governments such as the British government that during the last fishing year it spent six hundred thousand pounds to monitor fisheries activities which brought in only four hundred thousand pounds from catches by only five vessels.
This is one alternative - the other is to carry on with an unresolved environmental problem, a latent conflict in Community waters, vast Commission expenditure, gaps in the legislation described annually in the Commission reports and finally the threat of commercial sanctions by the United States which will adversely affect the entire Community market unless the Italian problem is solved.
The ball is in the court of the Netherlands Presidency.
As we just heard, Mr Imaz San Miguel has given the President-in-Office the floor.
I imagine Minister Patijn wishes to reply, as several Members have criticized his earlier speech.
The Dutch presidency, and the Dutch in general, are well known for knowing their way about water.
Unfortunately I have not yet learned the art of walking on water.
That is the kind of skill expected when it comes to reaching a Council decision on the Commission proposal of April 1994.
With the best will in the world the Council has been unable to produce a qualified majority on the basis of the Commission's current proposal.
You may regret that, but that is the political reality and it also means that no legally valid decision can be taken on the basis of the Treaty on European Union, which is the constitution of our community.
But there are two ways of producing that result. Either the Commission amends its proposal so that a number of Member States currently against it can change tack, but I fear that the Commission is unlikely to do so because it would then have to come here and explain to you why it has amended its proposal and would then be subject to the same kind of criticism as the Council presidency, or the Council presidency tries to overrule the Commission with its own compromise proposal, but that requires unanimity and that is quite out of the question.
You have encouraged us to do everything in our power to bring the Commission proposal of April 1994 to a successful conclusion.
If we see a chance to do so we shall take it, but the Dutch cannot walk on water.
The other track, even if this is apparently blocked at the moment for political reasons, is to act, for example, on the basis of the Italian government's proposals to work through structural measures aimed at the fishing communities in Italy to phase out the use of drift nets by these communities and encourage them to switch to other techniques or other economic activities.
There is a Commission proposal from December last year, I believe, which invites the European Parliament for an opinion and I would urge you not to block this second track and to produce your opinion as quickly as possible so that something can be done which might produce a tangible effect in the Mediterranean.
Preserving the marine environment is a Council priority, but in realistic terms of everyday politics it will have to be balanced at all events against economic and regional interests.
If we win that one there will be a decision in the Council, but if the diversity of the Community is such that no agreement can be reached then you are left without a decision and I unfortunately must say that at the moment that is what it looks like - unless you can give the Commission some political margin for manoeuvre to amend its proposal so that a majority in the Council can accept it.
We cannot continue the debate, Mr Eisma, because we have another item on the agenda.
But what exactly was your point?
Does the Commission share the wish expressed by the President-in-Office of the Council to amend the Commission proposal?
Mr President, on behalf of Commissioner Bonino, I should like to stress that the Commission certainly also regrets the fact that no progress has been made on this matter in the Council.
As we have heard, the Commission's proposal has been pending there since 1994 and, according to the information I have received, the Commission has repeatedly indicated to the Council that it is in favour of a compromise being reached which could secure a qualified majority.
I can only reiterate what I gather has already been said a number of times, namely that we are in favour of a solution being found which takes account of the economic interests of the fleets in question and of the relevant environmental considerations.
On a point of order, Mr President, I do not consider that the Commission has answered the question put by the previous speaker and I would ask if the Commission could indicate soon whether in fact it is thinking of playing an active role in the drafting of a new proposal.
Fishing off the coasts of Angola and Guinea
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A4-0013/97) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol defining, for the period from 3 May 1966 to 2 May 1999, the fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for by the Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Angola on fishing off the coast of Angola (COM(96)0323 - C4-0475/96-96/0176(CNS)); -(A4-0385/96) by Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing, for the period 1 January 1996 to 31 December 1997, the fishing rights and financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the European Community and the Government of the Republic of Guinea on fishing off the Guinean coast (COM(96)0111 - C4-0270/96-96/0084(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since 1987 the European Union has had Fishing Agreements with Angola.
First of all, a three-year Agreement and since then the Agreements have been renewed every two years.
The current Agreement which is valid from May 1996 to May 1997, covers the fishing fleets of five Member States - Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and the Netherlands - and includes a considerable enlargement of the possibilities of fishing off those coasts.
It maintains catch levels for prawns and shrimps - species of extremely high value, and substantially increases fishing opportunities for bottom long and surface longliners, specialising is sea bass and other demersal species and including for the first time pelagic fishing for horse mackerel and Atlantic mackerel.
This Agreement costs a total of 40 million ECU, which is a considerable increase over the previous Agreement, which cost only 18.5 million ECU.
There are three fundamental reasons for this increase, the first, the most important one, is the increase in the period of duration of the Agreement which has gone up from two to three years; the second reason is a considerable increase in the possibilities for fishing given to the Community's fleet; the third reason is the updating of the cost of compensating the Angolan State, which had not been updated since 1992.
I should like to emphasise the fact that this Agreement is also innovative in other areas, in particular in that it very much respects the principle of conservation of fish resources, allowing for the possibility of declaring biological rest periods on the basis of scientific data calling for them.
It also sets maximum capture limits on the more sensitive species such as shrimps and prawns.
On the other hand, I should like to emphasise the fact that although this Fishing Agreement - as is the case of all fishing agreements - is a commercial agreement, it also respects the principles of co-operation and development, in particular because it finances activities such as scientific research into fish resources, bursaries, the promotion of the local fishing fleet, and it also increases from three to five the number of sailors who can sail on Community ships, in addition to providing for vocational training for those same sailors.
Our conclusion, as rapporteur, is that this is a positive Agreement for both sides: for the European Union and for Angola.
It is also positive because it increases from two to three years the duration period, which should give shipowners risking their capital some stability.
Finally, I should like to draw the attention of the European Parliament and the Commission to the habitual delays in consulting the European Parliament, something which is now part of our history!
I should just like to point out that this Agreement was signed by the Commission with Angola on 2 May 1996 and that the European Parliament was only consulted for its opinion on 12 September 1996.
This is really very strange!
On 12 September, in other words just a fortnight before the deadline for paying the first amount due under the Agreement.
This is a sign that something is not working quite right here.
The rapporteur notes that, in fact, in order for the institutions to be properly respected, we really must change the administrative and political machinery so that the European Parliament can be consulted within a reasonable length of time and so that its opinion can really have an effective influence on the decision-making process.
I do not think that this is asking too much.
Mr President, I would echo some of the points which my colleague, Mr Cunha, has made.
But let me say that in approaching the discussions on this issue, I first of all took what seems to be the rather unusual step of consulting the Embassy of the Republic of Guinea and tried to get their input into the report.
I commend this to others who find themselves in the same position because they very much appreciated that we were talking to them to get their opinions.
The agreement was already reached so that no aspect of it could be called into question. But they made some comments to me on behalf of the Guinean Government, which I was able to incorporate in the report.
First of all, it has to be said that Guinea is desperately dependent on revenue from agreements like this for its ordinary governmental functions.
So they have a rather weak position because they are so dependent on the EU for revenue.
Nevertheless, within the agreement there are some new developments which show exciting possibilities for using these agreements towards the development end of the spectrum.
We often talk about the dilemma of whether these agreements should be trade agreements or development instruments.
Parliament has repeatedly said we should move more and more towards seeing them as development instruments. Mr Crampton has made this point in his own contribution to Parliament, as have many others.
So it is good to see that the Guinean agreement begins to move in that direction.
For example, there are for the first time specific grants for scientific research and for study and training built into the agreement as well as the amounts of aid offered for general revenue, some of which will find its way - this is always the defence of this kind of system - through the priorities of the relevant government to schools, clinics and development of that nature.
So we should not rule out that aspect at all.
However, the potential for these agreements is enormous.
A country like Guinea, which is one of the poorer countries of Africa, has a great potential if it can achieve stability, which I think it has now achieved despite the instability in the region, if it can exploit the economic zone which it possesses.
This is a problem because it faces invasion by foreign boats.
I am not talking about EU boats - at least we have an agreement which regulates that - but a number of fleets from elsewhere, particularly from Asia which have been found in violation of the territorial waters of the Republic of Guinea.
Guinea is, at the moment, very vulnerable.
We really have to look, as the EU, at that problem and look towards a regional solution right along the West African coast.
This, I know, would be welcomed by most of the countries in Africa with which we have agreements.
They feel vulnerable to blandishments or the simple invasion of boats from parts of the world other than the EU.
In 1958 Guinea became famous in Africa because when De Gaulle said to the French colonies 'Do you accept the new French Union of all the colonies?' , they all said 'oui' but Guinea said 'non' .
And the famous 'non' of Sekou Touré was met with a whole lot of reprisals from the French.
Guinea suffered quite severely for standing up for its principles and becoming independent.
Ironically, two years later, all the other colonies which had said 'oui' were also being given their independence, no questions asked, and a lot of aid.
I have a lot of admiration for the Guineans for standing up for independence but they have a backlog from that period to cope with.
So, as we approach countries like Guinea, we should be generous in our interpretation.
In conclusion, I should like to say a few words about the comments from the other committees of Parliament.
The Committee on Budgets is absolutely right on its procedural points.
Every time this Parliament makes the same point saying: ' we want to be concerned and consulted before the agreement takes effect' , and every time it is ignored.
Mrs Jöns has made the point very precisely and I would support all her arguments.
Likewise the Committee on Development and Cooperation, as I mentioned, made absolutely the right point in saying that these agreements should be seen as tools of development.
These agreements are important. We take them seriously in Parliament.
I wish, however, that we could get the Council and the Commission to build us into the procedure in a more effective way so we could really feel part of that process.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking here on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, and I should like to emphasize the following points. As the previous speaker has already said, we are dealing here with agreements that were initialled in December 1995 and May 1996.
The history of these two agreements proves yet again how important it was that we should finally improve the procedure for keeping this House informed and involving it in the concluding of international fishery agreements.
I hope, in any case, that the kind of evasive tactics demonstrated by part of the budgetary authority will now be a thing of the past.
The code of conduct that we adopted along with the 1997 budget was intended to ensure that this would be the case.
Not to be consulted until five (and in the other case four) months after the initialling of the agreement is bad enough!
But for the Council to go on to decide that the agreements should be provisionally implemented, and for the Commission then to pay out not inconsiderable sums of money to Guinea and Angola, namely ECU 2.7 million in one case and in the other case as much as ECU 13.5 million, without having consulted our opinion, that really is too much!
In other words, the Commission, as it generally has done in recent years, took the Council's decision on provisional implementation as a sufficient legal basis for paying out the first tranche.
One might almost be forgiven for thinking that our opinion counts for nothing any more!
Therefore I would ask the Council and the Commission - and I am sorry that the Council representative is no longer here - that in future negotiations on fishery agreements they should observe the code of conduct, and when concluding an agreement they should inform both the Committee on Fisheries and the Committee on Budgets regarding the progress of the negotiations and the financial consequences.
This is what we agreed jointly - and I emphasize the word jointly - in the code of conduct.
The code of conduct also lays down that the Council, the Commission and the Parliament should do everything possible to ensure that the procedures involved in the legislative process are carried out as rapidly as possible.
But this also means - and I would ask the Commission to take particular notice of this - that the Commission should begin its negotiations with non-member countries in good time, so as to leave enough time for the rest of the process to proceed properly.
It would be nice if these requests did not have to be repeated, rather like a prayerwheel, every two years!
Mr President, one of the key characteristics of the global fishing situation at the moment is that stocks worldwide are heavily depleted.
We have to ask ourselves why that is the case.
One of the major items which has always been identified with that stock depletion is the overcapitalization of the global fishing fleet.
One of the reasons for that overcapitalization is the vast sums spent by national governments on subsidizing longdistance fishing industries.
That in itself means that there is a race to fish in order to make enough money to service that capital, that agreements are made with different countries in order to move fishing volume away from home waters into other EEZs elsewhere around the world.
That is exactly what international fishing agreements, as concluded by the European Union, are all about.
It is that subsidy that has caused the overcapacity that has led to the depletion of stocks.
It is a cycle that has to end in order to protect fish stocks for fishermen for the longterm future.
That is why the Liberal Group in this Parliament is the only one that is actually facing reality and saying that the public subsidization of fishing agreements has to stop.
That is why within both these agreements we are tabling amendments that say that the fishing fleets, the vessels and the owners themselves who benefit from these agreements should pay the full cost of these agreements, and that they should no longer rest on the taxpayers of the EU - not because that is bad in itself but because through subsidy we have overcapitalization and continued depletion of stocks.
I ask this Parliament to support those amendments to ensure that we safeguard our fish stocks and fishing communities for the future.
Mr President, this opinion is just once again a pro forma, a formal intervention in the legislative process on an Agreement which has already been carried out.
Against this background, it is no surprise that the European Parliament should be less and less happy with international fishing agreements.
This is an institutional problem but it is also a procedural one, a methodical problem, given that the Commission systematically confronts the European Parliament with a fait accompli.
It is important that this should not penalise fishermen and other people connected with the industry, who depend on this vital aspect of fishing policy: international fisheries agreements.
An approach to these Agreements which is solely based on cost benefit is reductive, limiting, equivocal; what it is aimed at is ending the so-called international fisheries agreements.
Against such a tide, I should say that this is a good Agreement - I am talking about the Agreement with Angola, for both the European Union and for Angola itself.
Let us hope that the shipowners and Community fishermen using it can benefit in full from the fisheries opportunities which have already been negotiated.
Mr President, I agree with a lot that has been said about the lack of consultation with this Parliament and I hope that the Commissioner present will take that back to the Commission.
We need to be fully involved in the presentation of these fishing agreements right from the start.
Like Mr Mccartney, I went to the Angolan Fishing Ministry and talked to them and they were dreadfully concerned.
They were going to sign the agreement because they needed the money.
I do not think that these developing countries, especially countries that have gone through such a tragedy as Angola, should be forced into that position.
But they need the money and they were saying quite clearly they do not think they will be able to monitor this agreement.
They will not be able to monitor 1, 500 km of coastline with seven outdated boats and no airplanes.
So we ought to help them.
We ought to help these developing countries.
Our fishing agreements ought to be coherent with our development policy.
This is the theme, or one of the major themes, of the report I shall produce for this Parliament in May.
I have to stress this.
We have a responsibility all of us, particularly to the developing world, and particularly to countries which were our colonies in the past to whom we have not shown the respect they deserve.
We need to help them develop their own fishing industries so that in the long run - and I emphasize the long run because it will be the long run - they are able to export their own fishing products and get the added value of their fishing industries for their own development.
Mr President, I welcome the renewal of the fisheries agreements with Angola and Guinea, because they benefit European fishermen and consumers and also help Angola and Guinea who thus receive a significant source of income.
The mutual benefit is assured by making fishing by local and European fleets complementary activities. The cooperation agreements with both countries have also been strengthened, as mentioned here, as have aids to the fisheries sector in the form of technical programmes and practical occupational training, for example.
This, it seems to me, is a question of a few balanced and fair protocols entailing a cost for the European Union which is reasonable.
The ACP countries must also be helped of course with monitoring measures in their waters in order to conserve stocks and also to drive out those factory ships fishing illegally.
We must deplore, as we so often need to, the fact that the Commission and the Council relegate the Parliament to a very marginal role beneath its station in budgetary matters.
The information submitted to us by the Commission is normally very scant and consultation of Parliament - which is one of the budgetary organs - scarcely takes place; everything arrives late, wrong and when the agreements have already come into force.
I think the European Parliament should act, but extremely carefully if it wants to kick the Council and the Commission into action, for fear of accidentally kicking our own fishermen in the process.
And we must stamp out the image which some people with a bad conscience have of these fisheries agreements with the ACP countries; they are not agreements which harm the population nor do they threaten the local fisheries sector.
The European Union pays a fair amount of financial compensation and the agreements are beneficial for the development of those countries and at the same time keep our fishermen in employment.
Mr President, the Commission would firstly like to thank the rapporteurs for these two excellent reports concerning fisheries agreements.
As regards the new protocol to the fisheries agreement with Angola, it should be pointed out that this creates increased scope for a variety of fishing activities.
Also, the fishing opportunities for shrimps and prawns are maintained and a new type of fishery is included - pelagic fishing - which opens up the agreement to other EU countries such as Germany and the Netherlands.
It should be emphasized that the agreement's period of validity has been extended from two to three years, and this longer timescale will provided more stable conditions for Community shipowners.
For the first time, the annex to the protocol allows the Angolan authorities to introduce a biological recovery period.
The financial compensation has been increased to take account of the new fishing opportunities created by the agreement.
As regards Amendments Nos 1 and 3, the Commission agrees with the sentiment they express, but is unable to endorse them.
The Commission already ensures that information is provided in an appropriate way on implementation of the agreements, in particular at the meetings of the Committee on Fisheries and prior to each meeting.
Nor can the Commission accept Amendment No 2, since when the interinstitutional agreement was negotiated, only the Mediterranean financial protocols were included in the classification as non-compulsory expenditure.
The other agreements were excluded, such as those on fisheries.
The Commission cannot approve Amendment No 4, since the Council lays down negotiating directives individually for each agreement, but not when every protocol is renewed.
When the Commission negotiates these protocol renewals, it ensures that the directives it was given by the Council are respected.
Turning to the fisheries agreement with Guinea, the Commission believes that the new conditions for fishing by the Community fleet in Guinean waters can ensure that the agreement is implemented more effectively, while observing the fundamental requirement that fishery resources should be conserved.
Through this new protocol, the Commission and the Guinean authorities have sought to encourage EU vessels to return to Guinean waters, a return which was started under the previous protocol, and to provide Guinea with resources that will enable the country to improve the supervision of its fishing zone and combat illegal fishing.
The technical and financial provisions of the protocol have this dual aim, and this applies in particular to the provision concerning the special financial contribution for fisheries surveillance bodies.
As for the amendments which have been tabled, the Commission cannot endorse the four amendments, since the first three fail to make a clear distinction between the aims, the thinking and the procedures which are specific to the fisheries agreements with the ACP countries and those which are specific to the European Development Fund.
It must also be considered that even if the outcomes which the Commission is aiming at in the negotiations on fisheries agreements are of a commercial nature, in the sense that a balance is being sought in the concessions made on each side, these outcomes respect and are in keeping with the measures being applied as part of development policy.
On Amendment No 4, the Commission would point out that the protocol does not impose an obligation on Guinea to submit a report on the detailed use of the sum referred to in Article 6.
However, the Commission will make enquiries of the Guinean authorities as to how this sum is used, and will then pass on the information to the European Parliament in an appropriate way as part of the current information procedures.
In conclusion, I should like to say that I will of course ensure that the Commissioner responsible, Mrs Bonino, is made aware of the fact that Parliament wishes to be involved in the process at an earlier stage.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
(The sitting was closed at midnight)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
I am very happy to respond, Mr Andrews.
Pursuant to Rule 24 of the Rules of Procedure, the Conference of Presidents is the body responsible for all political relations of the committees of this Parliament.
It is therefore standard practice for a committee seeking authorization for a visit, to approach the Conference of Presidents, and the Conference of Presidents will either grant it or not.
So my letter was sent with the knowledge of the Conference of Presidents, to make clear that it was not a committee delegation authorized under the Rules of Procedure.
I have to comply with the Rules, whether I like it or not.
If you do not agree with this procedure, the simple remedy is to change the Rules of Procedure and dispense with the powers of the Conference of Presidents, and then every committee will be able to send as many delegations or groups as it likes.
What is not possible, Mr Andrews, is for a Committee to skip the authorization and send three members, giving the public impression that the committee has sent a delegation.
I was told it was not a committee delegation in a letter from the chairman, Mrs D'Ancona, and I merely informed the government of the Member State that it was not a committee delegation.
I did this precisely because there was confusion in the media.
And if, when I ask the chairman of the committee for the relevant information, I am told that it is not a delegation from her committee, that is what I tell the British government.
Because it is important that there should be no ambiguity.
Mr President, given that we use all customary respect in our dealings with one another, I think that the proper procedure, before you write a letter to the British minister telling him that this is not an official delegation, would be to inform the Committee chairman, namely myself, beforehand.
I do not think this is a very nice way of doing things!
Mrs D'Ancona, I would remind you that I asked you for information on the matter, and you told me in a letter that it was not a delegation from your committee.
When I saw that the press was describing it as a delegation, then, with the knowledge of the Conference of Presidents, I merely conveyed what you told me in your letter to the British government.
I could not say that a delegation was not being sent and then leave things ambiguous.
I could not do that, because under our Rules of Procedure the Conference of Presidents must have control over relations of bodies of this Parliament which might have a political impact.
That is all I did, and I believe the Conference of Presidents, which I informed, was fully in agreement on the need to remind all Parliament's committees that, when they want to send delegations, they should communicate that and ask for proper authorization.
And if they do not, they are not delegations and we must make that known.
Mr President, I know how important it is for a lawyer and a President of this Parliament to respect rules.
However we are talking here about the will of the various groups in Parliament who wished a delegation to go.
If you get a proper request for an official delegation, can you assure us that you will assent to such a request in view of the particular concerns of Members of this Parliament on humanitarian grounds? There is nothing unusual about parliamentarians visiting this prisoner.
Many Irish parliamentarians have already visited her.
I think it would be symbolic and possibly helpful if you were to assent to such a request.
Mrs Malone, I have said this twice, but I will happily say it a third time. It is not my responsibility, it is the responsibility of the Conference of Presidents.
You must put this question to the Conference of Presidents.
Any Member may visit any prison on his own behalf whenever he wants, and be admitted.
On his own behalf.
As a Member.
He does not need authorization from this Parliament or from the Conference of Presidents.
A delegation of Members on behalf of a committee or delegation must have permission from the Conference of Presidents.
I cannot give it, I have to put the request formally to the Conference of Presidents.
I cannot do anything else.
Mr President, I would like to pick up a comment of Mr Andrews.
He stated that you had written a letter to...
Not another word on the matter.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am very sorry, but we cannot have a debate on it.
Mr President, I wish to deal with another matter which comes under your authority, namely the use of the Chamber and the premises associated with it.
In the corridor I noticed a display of photographs of personalities, some of whom are called famous, one or two of whom I would call infamous and one whom I would call thoroughly discreditable.
I refer to the photograph of Robert Maxwell.
Robert Maxwell was responsible for stealing millions of pounds of pensioners' funds in my country.
He is responsible for conning his way into the confidence of highly placed politicians and receiving their support at a time when he enjoyed authority.
He is responsible for the suppression of free speech in the press of my country by the use of litigation.
So I would ask you, Mr President, to consider whether Robert Maxwell's photograph should be removed from the photographs outside the Chamber.
(Applause)
Mr Falconer, it is the Quaestors' responsibility to authorize displays, and I shall convey your request to them immediately.
Mr President, just to clarify what someone said earlier.
The Home Secretary in England is, in fact, the Home Secretary of the United Kingdom...
Mr Thomas, I have said I will not accept another word on the subject.
Mr President, as regards the voting on the Van Lancker report, item 49, the second part of the final resolution, I am mentioned in the voting protocol to have voted yes.
My intention was to vote no.
I would appreciate if the protocol could be amended to rectify the matter.
Very well, that will be taken into account and will appear in the Minutes.
Mr President, the same applies to me.
I am recorded as having voted yes in these matters when in fact it should have been no.
That will be corrected.
(Parliament approved the Minutes as amended)
(The sitting was suspended at 9.25 a.m. and resumed at 10.40 a.m.)
Community Transit System
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A4-0053/97) by Mr Kellett-Bowman, on behalf of the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into the Community Transit System; and-the draft recommendation (A4-0054/97), on behalf of the Temporary Committee of Inquiry on the Community Transit System, on the report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Community Transit System.
Mr President, it is said that we all have the writing of one book within us.
I feel this must be mine.
It represents three volumes of evidence, the committee's report and 38 recommendations concerning the transit system.
The Committee of Inquiry was charged with the responsibility of giving details of the extent of transit fraud, stating who is responsible and making recommendations to improve it.
The Court of Auditors and the Commission have jointly suggested in the past that about ECU 750m were lost by the transit system in a five-year period.
After investigation, my estimate is that at least ECU 3.5b a year are lost.
Such is the vulnerability of the system that there is no reliability in the data and I could not dispute much higher figures.
The single European market has been a success for business, but no business has succeeded as well as crime.
If you measure it by growth of turnover in profits, criminals have had a very good time indeed.
How is it done? The importer has to pay taxes, duty and excise only at a destination within the Community, and none at all if the goods are leaving the Community.
All that has to be done is that a piece of paper has to find its way back, by the post, to the point of entry with a stamp on it and a signature.
How is the customs official able to be certain that that stamp and that signature show that those goods have either been properly paid for in tax and duty or have left the Community? Thousands of kilometres away the fraudster is able to hoodwink the system, and this has been happening.
As a result, the goods disappear into the European marketplace.
Who loses? We all do: the European Community budget, the Member State budgets, the legitimate traders who, after all, pay their taxes, honest operators in the system and insurance companies who have to pay up the guarantees when the transit cannot be shown to have been completed.
Who is to blame? I suggest we all are because this has been going on gradually since the beginning of 1993 when we opened the frontiers.
The Council and the Commission have presided over a system which was designed in 1968 for six countries, then stretched to 12 and beyond the point where we knew there was trouble in the system; three Member States were added, the EFTA countries were added and even last year, on 1 July, the four Visegrad countries were added into this system which was failing - a total of 23 countries on a paper-based system.
The current figure for transactions during a year is now reaching 20 million.
Of course the Committee of Inquiry could not accept this situation and has made a series of recommendations.
First of all, faced by 15 customs services operating in a single customs area, we have made a recommendation that the Commission should find a framework in which those customs services can act together as if they were one.
They should have the same rules, the same methodology, the same powers of inspection both at ports of entry and in the territories behind them.
A feeling of esprit de corps should be created where they can exchange information about malefactors in the system instead of taking little interest in anything that happens beyond their frontiers.
Of course the Committee of Inquiry supports the Commission's proposal to bring computers into the system. They will not solve the problem but they should make it much easier for that clearance document to be issued electronically so that the customs services can be aware that something has gone wrong within days, instead of waiting for weeks, for months or, in some cases, even over a year before investigations start.
We have made it so easy for the criminals.
We think that an investigative service, rather like UCLAF, should exist to follow through the reports of something going wrong in transit.
We would like to see the judicial services in all the Member States find some way of working together so that clever lawyers cannot come to court and get the criminals off far too easily because the legal services of different countries are unable to work together.
We would like to see the Commission negotiate with Switzerland to make sure that those safe havens that exist in Switzerland for the criminals and for transfer of ownership of goods should be brought into a control which is sympathetic to the transit system as it is working in the other Community countries and the other members of it.
We would like to see the Commission be able to take powers when manufacturers, particularly of cigarettes, are not fully cooperative with the authorities in stopping their products from reaching the black markets in our Member States.
We would like to see the applicant countries clean up their act before they come into the Community.
We in this Parliament will have a say because now, Parliament decides, at the final vote, as to whether new entrants come into the Community.
This committee has been an exercise in cooperation between Members from different countries and Members from different groups.
It has worked in a totally non-partisan way. I want to pay tribute to the members of the committee.
I want to thank the Chairman, Mr Tomlinson.
He has led the committee and created the sort of precedents which I think will be useful to Parliament for Committees of Inquiry in the future.
I want also to thank all those people who have given evidence to the committee.
In almost every case - I can think of only one exception - it was voluntarily offered, either in writing or in person, where they could be questioned in committee, or sometimes in both forms.
They have been most helpful.
We could not have found out what was happening in the Community without a great deal of help from many of our citizens.
I want to thank, particularly, the staff of the Committee of Inquiry.
When we saw you on Monday we reported how the staff who have been appointed to the Committee of Inquiry had done a superb job.
We also told you of the work done by the printing services and the translation services.
We know that many midnight candles have been burnt.
We know that they worked right through last weekend in order that we could have these volumes before us on Monday.
So it is with these thanks, Mr President, that I want to present you with the report and invite the institutions of the European Union to take note of these recommendations and act upon them.
(Applause )
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have already pointed on another occasion to the quality of the work done by the Committee of Inquiry, the first such committee ever set up by the European Parliament.
Here I want to give particular thanks to its chairman, Mr Tomlinson, and to the rapporteur, Mr Kellett-Bowman, as well as to all the members of the committee.
On behalf of President Santer and all our colleagues, let me stress the importance the European Commission attaches to this report.
The report makes a major contribution to the debate on customs transit.
It states that the Committee of Inquiry managed to bring the question of transit out from the recesses of administrative action and onto the political scene, and I entirely agree with that and would underline its importance in relation to the reform activities we now expect.
The report highlights the fundamental role played by customs in relation both to the functioning of the single market and to international trade and economic growth.
With the completion of the single market, the customs administrations have come under crossfire.
Initially the emphasis was on the abolition of frontiers and internal controls.
Far too often this process was simplistically associated with the dismantling of structures. That obscured and undervalued the continuing role of customs in administering the Community's external borders, preparing the applicant countries for enlargement, fighting fraud and implementing trade agreements.
Perhaps the European Commission, in its 1993 programme, did not entirely understand the importance of the new challenges facing the customs either, and this was reflected in its political analysis.
Secondly, the Member States did not manage, and some also did not really want, to adapt their customs administrations to the Community priorities, giving precedence instead to national concerns.
Here too, I am sure, it was a question of inadequate political awareness.
It is not my intention, Mr President, to comment on each chapter in detail or to respond to every single recommendation.
I prefer to indicate the way in which we propose to take account of the recommendations, in particular those addressed to the Commission, in determining our policy.
I shall briefly summarize my observations on what I regard as the five fundamental points highlighted by the Committee of Inquiry.
I am using the term 'highlighted' in the fullest sense of the word and in a spirit of admiration: the Committee of Inquiry has given a new political form to various elements, which gives us all a clearer vision of the problem and of the necessary solutions.
These five points are as follows: the question of a European customs service, the investigative services, reform of the transit system, relations with the European economic area and the associated central and eastern European countries, the question of unpaid duties.
Firstly, the question of the European customs service.
The analyses of the crisis carried out by the Committee of Inquiry reveal that many of the problems encountered in transit derive from anomalies in the operation of the customs union, which therefore needs global reform in the framework of customs policy.
The report recognizes that many of the difficulties affecting transit are a direct result of the fact that the customs union is made up of 15 different administrations.
Although the report does not postulate the creation of a common customs service, the Commission notes that it strongly recommends the establishment of a European framework that will, as the rapporteur said, enable the 15 national customs services to act as one.
That is the most important practical objective.
Thanks in particular to Parliament, we now have one instrument for working towards one goal: ensuring that 14 customs administrations can work as one.
Let me refer you to the 'Customs 2000' decision approved last December.
Some of the recommendations put forward by the Committee of Inquiry are specifically provided for in the 'Customs 2000' decision and, having participated closely with the delegations of the European Parliament and the Council in the conciliation procedure, I can say that the political lines set out by the European Parliament have been reflected in and acted as practical forerunners for that decision.
The second area I want to dwell on briefly is the investigative services.
The Commission is in favour of the recommendations on the creation of a common investigative service and a centralized European Union customs office.
This is also consistent with the need to standardize the administration and implementation by the customs services of the rules on combating fraud, as called for by the Committee of Inquiry.
The Commission fully endorses that approach.
Of course this proposal cannot be implemented via the 'Customs 2000' programme, which is aimed at other objectives.
I am sure my colleague, Mrs Gradin, will be happy to respond to any requests and to look at these questions in greater depth.
It is important for the Commission to play a greater part in the control activities in order to fight fraud effectively.
That would imply far closer coordination between DG XXI and the activities of UCLAF.
The recommendations on the organization of the structures, powers and administrative responsibilities in the Member States are closely related to those on improving the investigative and inquiry structures, as are those on judicial cooperation.
And, Mr President, I must say that in this context the report has come at a good time, given that it also clarifies the need for a successful outcome of the negotiations in the Intergovernmental Conference on increasing and strengthening joint action in matters relating to the third pillar.
The third question is the transit system.
In this context, let me point out at once that the Committee of Inquiry, starting from an analysis of the system and the serious problems to which it gives rise, rightly situated this question in the framework of a more general problem.
With that in mind, my services have organized wide-ranging consultations both within the Commission and with the Member States and other countries involved in the common transit system, as well as with the entire private sector.
As you know, the Committee of Inquiry was closely involved in this process which led, early in February, to the Conference on Eurotransit in which 250 public and private sector representatives took part and which was also addressed by Mr Tomlinson.
The Commission now proposes to translate the results of these consultations into a range of practical measures.
I can assure you, Mr President, that the Commission will take the fullest account of the recommendations by the Committee of Inquiry; moreover, by the end of April I intend to submit the action plan for reform for the College's approval.
The Commission endorses the overall conclusion of the report, namely that the transit systems are essential to trade in Europe and outside Europe, but that they are in need of radical reform.
Allow me to say that the Commission also examined this question at the beginning of this Commission's term of office, in its communication of March 1995, followed by another in February 1996 and by the interim report on the transit system last autumn.
The work done by the Committee of Inquiry, which sheds so much light on the situation and provides strong political impetus, will be of great help when it comes to translating these initiatives into action.
Fourth point: the European economic area and the associated central and eastern European states.
The report voices serious concern about the functioning of the common transit system and its enlargement, last July, to the four Visegrad countries.
I have already expressed my views on the political timeliness and technical soundness of this enlargement and the fact that so far it has not had any dramatic effects per se.
I will confine myself here to a few comments.
In the Commission's opinion, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain three different types of transit system - Community transit, common transit and the TIR.
The Commission will be submitting practical proposals on integrating Community transit and common transit in a single convention.
The Commission is also working towards closer cooperation with Switzerland, a point the report discusses at length.
To that end we have concluded a mutual assistance agreement which constitutes not just an important technical instrument but also demonstrates a real political wish on the part of Switzerland to cooperate with the Commission. The Commission assumes its full share of responsibility for the decision to extend the system to the Visegrad countries.
Having said that, I stand by the undertaking I gave to the Committee of Inquiry - and I know how much importance Mr Tomlinson and Mr Kellett-Bowman attach to this - that there will be no further extension of the common transit system until it has been reformed and computerized.
Finally, Mr President, the fifth and last point I wish to discuss briefly is a delicate one: that of unpaid duties.
Here I will confine myself to a brief comment and leave it to my colleague Mr Liikanen to go into more detail if necessary.
The report calls on the Commission to make a proposal on cancelling unpaid duties if these are due to poor administration.
However, it is difficult to make a proposal of this kind that would take account of the particular situation involved in every single case.
The customs code provides for the refund or cancellation of the duties in individual, analysed and justified cases, but makes no provision for this kind of general measure.
The Commission is aware of the potential final implications for the operators concerned, however this question can only be resolved by legal means and by checking the merits of each case.
Otherwise, all kinds of abuses would be possible, to the detriment of the European tax-payer and the financial rigour we are all facing.
In any case, the Member States can secure favourable payment terms, on a case by case basis, and the Commission encourages them to do so.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would say that it is not possible in the time available to do justice to the wealth of detail in the report, which really is a very comprehensive one.
It contains 38 recommendations, many of which call on the Commission to make proposals and carry out studies or encourage the Member States to take specific measures.
The report calls on the Commission to show greater political leadership and on the Member States to show a stronger political resolve.
It is also clear that if the Commission is to play a more important part, that will increase the workload, especially for DG XXI and UCLAF.
This implies the availability of adequate human and financial resources. Whatever the transit system that emerges in future, we need sufficient funds and staff to ensure that the system is correctly applied, controlled and adapted to change.
The Commission counts on Parliament's support in obtaining adequate financial and human resources and is resolved to make its contribution towards directing the Member States' attention more closely to these questions.
The success of the reform will depend also on the courage and determination shown by the Council, the national customs administrations, the economic operators and the European Parliament.
In this context, I intend to fully involve the Internal Market Council and the ECOFIN Council in the transit question, to ensure that they too assume their responsibilities, a need that is often and rightly underlined in the report on which, once again, let me express my very warm congratulations.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The applause from honourable Members is sufficient evidence that the proposals you have put forward and the commitment you have undertaken were greatly appreciated by this House.
Madam President, Mr Tomlinson, Mr Kellett-Bowman and the other members of the Temporary Committee of Inquiry have produced a detailed report on the transit system outlining its weaknesses.
These were also highlighted in the Commission's transit report which was passed to Parliament in April last year.
Organised criminals exploit the weaknesses of the system and this results in large losses for taxpayers and companies within the European Union.
The Committee of Inquiry has proposed a series of measures to be taken.
We now need the political will to carry them through.
As already mentioned by my colleague Mr Monti, the Commission will continue to work constructively on the issue.
I hope Member States and the other institutions also are willing to take action.
We must together create a flexible and at the same time safe transit system as this is vital for the Community.
The system was after all created to simplify the flow of goods through the Community.
Since then a common internal market has been set up with 15 countries participating.
The Berlin Wall has fallen and the borders with the East are open.
This is important and constructive.
Trade has increased enormously and has become internationalised.
However, the control system has not adjusted to the increased flow of goods through the Community and applicant countries.
The Committee of Inquiry's report is constructive and basically supports our efforts within the Commission to modernise the system and make it more effective.
The principle task for us all is now to reform the transit system quickly without hindering free trade.
There should be improved controls. Investigation into suspected frauds must be made sufficiently effective to deter criminal gangs.
It is encouraging that several of the recommendations in the report are about increased control and more effective investigations.
Two of my areas of responsibility are directly affected, i.e. financial control and the battle against deception and fraud.
Recommendations 2 and 3 propose a joint Customs investigation body and a joint office for information and analysis.
These are interesting proposals.
The Commission's experiences from its work with UCLAF show the importance of the police, Customs and other specialist co-operation in the battle against deception and fraud.
The current system is totally inadequate but I believe that these proposals complement each other well.
I hope Parliament also realises that if these changes are to be carried out, financial resources must be made available for the additional investments required in this area.
This will have to be taken up again in the budget discussions.
In addition, a regrouping and restructuring will be necessary within the Commission.
The proposal to strengthen and facilitate the judicial collaboration between Member States is also in line with the work started by the Commission.
As you know, several initiatives have been taken.
Various long-term programmes have commenced.
These promote the exchange of experiences and education between the different categories of employees fighting international crime.
One of the programmes, Grotius, is aimed at judges, prosecutors and others within the legal system.
Another programme, Sherlock, is generating a mutual understanding on how to deal with fraudulent documentation.
A third programmes under the name of Oisin is working for the police in our Member States to develop co-operation procedures.
The Council of Ministers and the Commission are at the same time discussing a formal legal structure for a more effective legal collaboration within the Union.
This relates to proposed regulations for direct contact between the justice offices and the setting up of a network between the Union's examining magistrates.
The exchange of information between crime investigators and the magistrates must improve.
An important proposal has been made as to how the exchange of documents between the courts can be made quicker and more efficient.
We would like the courts to be in direct contact with each other and not to have to go via embassies and the Foreign Office.
Another proposal discussed concerns the mutual recognition of employees' legal status.
A proposal for a joint registration of criminal investigations and a register of judgements has also been tabled.
All of this is concerned with the fight for better communication on cross border crime.
However, these discussions are as you know very slow, partly due to the unmanageable decision-making process of the Maastricht Treaty for the Third Pillar.
I hope the Intergovernmental Conference will change this and give us a better and more effective decision-making instrument for legal collaboration.
An example of the current system's slowness is that none of the four important conventions signed by the Member States has been ratified.
These are the conventions on Europol, co-operation between Customs, extradition of criminals and protection of mutual financial interests.
I therefore wholeheartedly support the Committee of Inquiry's recommendation No. 16 which requires the prompt ratification of the convention to protect Community financial interests and which also should apply to all the other conventions.
This convention was after all signed two years ago.
However, not a single country has honoured the agreements they signed.
If we are to have these instruments and facilities at our disposal it is important to get a response from the Member States.
Recommendations 19 and 20 involve the Member States introducing an extraterritorial legislation, i.e. that the courts in a Member State are given jurisdiction over Customs violations even if the violation has been committed in another Member State.
This is a very important instrument that we need.
In addition, UCLAF would be entitled to provide evidence in conjunction with proceedings in our Member States.
I share the opinion of the Committee of Inquiry that the Commission ought to be given a legal right to use our evidence in court.
The Commission should in my opinion be able to take legal actions in a criminal case and to give evidence in courts on the same basis as the national authorities.
A similar concept has been presented within the high-level group who are also attending the meeting with our Heads of Government in Amsterdam discussing international organised crime.
As regards recommendation 27, the Committee of Inquiry suggests the outstanding debts caused by poor administration on the part of Customs should be written off.
I must say that I am not sure whether I agree with this and believe that the matter should be thoroughly discussed.
I cannot quite understand how writing off the outstanding debts of the Customs can improve Customs controls.
After all, it does not concern the Customs' own money but that of the tax-payers.
There must be other ways of supporting the Customs who work with great efficiency and integrity despite manpower reductions and an increased flow of goods.
What we need to do is to develop co-operation between Customs officials throughout the Community.
Using all these means, the Commission should be able to create effective transit controls.
Finally, I would like to say that the Commission appreciates the report submitted by the Temporary Committee of Inquiry.
We will most likely have reason for coming back to this in due course.
Mrs Green, I should point out that the Presidency did strongly express the hope that large numbers of Members would attend this debate.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group and on my own behalf, I want to congratulate Edward Kellett-Bowman on his months of work, of which this extensive and welldocumented report is the tangible proof.
I also want to acknowledge John Tomlinson's effective and probing chairmanship, which enabled us to extract more information from many witnesses than they initially seemed disposed to volunteer.
Underlying the problem of Community transit there is something more than crimes committed by organized mafias who corrupt the system for gain, which equates to loss for Community taxpayers.
The fact is, underlying the unsatisfactory functioning of the system there is also the clash of two different customs cultures.
One which favours maximum speed in putting goods through customs at the cost of control and the possible loss of customs duties and another which reverses those priorities.
Broadly speaking, this division distinguishes the countries where Community transit originates and the countries where that transit terminates.
The conflict between these two customs cultures has done much to degrade the Community transit system.
The temporary committee has demonstrated that customs cooperation between the Member States must be urgently strengthened.
It has also demonstrated that customs policy has frequently been used as an arm of trade policy, thus endangering the maintenance of the system, which is vital to the functioning of the single market.
The temporary committee has also demonstrated that fraud and smuggling is not sporadic, but is already a genuine Pan-European problem; a striking example is cigarettes, where testimony after testimony has demonstrated that they are being smuggled throughout Europe.
We are aware that the development of the work and recommendations of this committee has been followed with interest from Commissioner Monti down to each and every one of the national administrations concerned, and those recommendations must be basic to the Council's agenda to ensure that customs cooperation is strengthened and the system survives.
Beyond the timescale of the report lies the future of Community customs and the answer to the question of whether a single market can operate with five separate customs services or whether we should look for some way of advancing towards a common customs service which does not undermine national sovereignty but does deepen the Community dimension. Above all, ladies and gentlemen, it must be clear that the European Parliament has detected a problem and that the various political forces will jointly and correctly analyse the causes and provide concrete solutions.
Like Mrs Green, I do not think there can be a better example of what this European Parliament is here for.
Mr President, Commissioner, I never thought that I would derive pleasure from a Committee of Inquiry and discover that, even in a democracy, a benign despot and friend can carry out the work of a Committee of Inquiry, as Mr Tomlinson has done with great success.
I must also say that I never thought that the United Kingdom could produce someone who with such competence, calm, patience, ability to synthesise, could carry out such magnificent work, which could be considered - as I do - a handbook on 'fraud and how to fight it in Europe' .
It could be concluded that there are various important subjects, information, co-ordination, monitoring, intervention, which have been not dispensed by the Commission, given that at that time the Commission acted as an alibi, in a way that I judged worthy of condemnation, for the Member States.
The Member States have the old knowledge of the old kingdoms which used to protect pirates and even ennoble them. Very often they protected fraud as a way of carving up trade and a very efficient way of competing with their opponent countries.
This is true!
What proof of political perfidy!
Ennobling fraud is something which I have felt in my Government and others in a hypocritical, surreptitious and Tartuffe-like way!
And this is what is going on!
This behaviour has to be changed by the Commission.
I trust in the honesty of Commissioner Monti, I trust in the honesty of Commissioner Gradin, because this is a question of public morals and honesty. This is what kept together the Committee of Inquiry, that is what mobilised our governments to come up with answers, when often they were very unwilling to do so, and which transformed our action into a success thanks to both the rapporteur and the Chairman of the Committee.
I propose that we fight this state of affairs: it gives arguments to fanatical free traders, who like fraud in order to be more competitive; it gives arguments to organised crime which thanks Europe for the situation which it has created for it; and it gives arguments to those who oppose European construction, because fraud is an antidemocratic means of promoting profit and a completely ruinous way of destroying democracy. That is what I think and this is the message I wished to convey, while giving my thanks to the Chairman, to the Rapporteur and, with my impressions, to the Commission.
Madam President, let me say at the outset that the Committee of Inquiry has done a great job; and I personally must join in the applause, which is not ritual but really is due to the rapporteur who managed to put it all together so ably and to reflect the unanimous view of that committee.
The committee worked with great determination and we must give credit for this to its chairman, Mr Tomlinson, whom I thank for his work.
Madam President, the evidence shows that there was an enormous amount of evasion, with significant losses to the Union's budget and therefore also to that of the Member States.
We cannot hide the fact that in 1993 we saw a flight forward, in the sense that politics took precedence over reason.
A single market was established overhastily, without taking account of the devastating effects of 15 different organizations, with profoundly different customs systems.
In fact, the level of intensity of the controls differed and there were also very marked inequalities because of the significantly lower commitment on the part of some countries.
Italy, for example, which maintained its strict customs controls, was heavily penalized.
All this has had serious consequences, such as inadequate protection of the Union's financial interests, major distortions of competition and the wide margins offered to organized crime, which has found new opportunities for making big profits.
We also note the egoistic approach hitherto taken by the states, which has resulted in the Council's inability to act together with the inertia of the Commission; in fact the Commission could often do no more than stand by and watch because it was unable to find any margin for the necessary discussions with the Council; to our satisfaction, we hear from Commissioner Monti and Commissioner Gradin that the Commission is now beginning to move, and this is due - as we must recognize and as was honestly recognized today - to the new awareness created by the Committee of Inquiry.
The work of the Committee of Inquiry has stirred up the stagnant waters of those who preferred not to see and not to know.
The gravity of the situation is plain for all to see.
We must therefore immediately draft a customs protocol that defines an equal level of control in the 15 Member States in order to avoid the present extremely serious distortions.
We also need an efficient and rapid information system so that we can move away from the current paper-based system and switch to a computerized system and to the use of modern technology in order to monitor movements in Europe by satellite.
Finally, we must activate 'Customs 2000' as a first approach to reforming the transit system and to a single European customs system.
That is the only solution we can see for the future.
Globalization means more rapid trade, free of bureaucratic red tape; this must be achieved without any serious losses of revenue or opening up new opportunities for organized crime.
The committee's activities have shown up an alarming fact: if more people had been aware how inadequate the system actually is, there would have been even more evasion; if the people of Europe had been aware of the scale of funds that disappear from the Union's budget as a result of these inadequacies, that would certainly have increased their distrust in Europe.
So we can no longer tolerate this but must act and act at once!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have all received the four volumes detailing everything which is going wrong.
Going wrong in the Community transit system.
It is a fascinating dossier and impressive in terms of the result.
Not only do we see what is going wrong, we also see what can and must be changed, and I must make a point here of paying tribute to reporter Kellet-Bowman.
He has been an outstanding reporter, and the secretariat too has done a splendid job.
I must also compliment Mr Tomlinson on his excellent chairmanship of this Committee.
We are talking about fraud totalling at least one billion, one billion ECU.
The system is totally out of date; it is oldfashioned and actually invites fraud.
Organized crime has naturally homed in on the weakness of the system.
The Committee too concentrated on a number of very specific dossiers: cigarette fraud is one example and I am particularly pleased to see that a number of supplementary points, a number of comments I made, about fraud involving meat and livestock for example, were incorporated.
This dossier is concerned solely with fraud which uses road transport but one has to bear in mind that this is not the only route; the mafia bosses are very inventive, they are switching in some cases to using air and sea routes.
They are also switching to other Member States, and to other tax havens; Switzerland had and still has a very bad reputation in this regard, and Cyprus is now going the same way.
Many people at grass roots level advocate a single Community customs administration.
That is perhaps the ideal scenario, but it would be better, and the rapporteur agrees, for us to take more concrete measures.
Extremely concrete measures, practical steps towards co-operation.
UCLAF needs to be given a lot more scope.
It has already broken a lot of new ground: UCLAF is required not only to record everything that goes wrong but primarily it has to be a channel for information, a nerve centre and above all UCLAF must be empowered to forward dossiers to the judiciaries of the Member States.
Parliament must appreciate this and consequently UCLAF must be given a bigger budget so that it can be more directly in touch with the general public.
The report makes a whole series of specific proposals: for the setting up in the immediate future of an EU Customs Academy, the use of new technologies and the need for computer and IT methods to co-ordinate all areas of malfunction.
We need to do what can be done already.
It became apparent from our visit to Antwerp and Rotterdam that co-operation within Benelux is immediately feasible and co-operation in Northern Europe can be organized too.
The job is not yet finished, Madam President.
Fortunately the Committee on Budgetary Control will be taking the work forward and I shall make available to it my dossier which contains up-to-date figures for the United States plus statistics.
I am happy to say that Mr Kellet-Bowman and Mr Tomlinson are members of this Committee and they will certainly see to it that the work continues.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, the report by the Committee of Inquiry is an admirable document in its account of the failings of the Community Transit System and the scale of the fraud.
In undertaking this substantial workload, which has taken thirteen months and involved thirty-seven meetings, the thirty-four members of the Committee of Inquiry - and its rapporteur and chairman - have, beyond doubt, complied with the mandate laid down for committees of inquiry in Rule 136(1) of the Rules of Procedure, which is, and I quote: ' to investigate alleged contraventions of Community law or instances of maladministration in the application of Community law' .
Although I agree with the diagnosis thus arrived at, I cannot endorse the proposals made.
That is why I expressed a minority opinion, and I ask all honourable Members to read that opinion, which appears on pages 207 to 210 of the report.
My point is that I would have liked to see preference given to the swift introduction of effective measures.
To quote one example: the crucial problem of the illicit trade in cigarettes, on which the Committee quite rightly dwelt at length, is the subject of just one recommendation, the establishment of a working group.
Instead of this rapid introduction of effective measures, the Committee proposes as the main objective the establishment of a single customs service operating within a European framework.
This is an ideological measure, which the Committee itself recognizes would not meet the need for immediate results and would involve considerable structural upheavals.
So the report is a missed opportunity, typical of the attitude of this Parliament which so often denounces, criticizes and condemns but fails to go far enough in the search for effective solutions, preferring dogmatic and ideological ones.
That is why I voted against the final report and against the recommendation - in which, I am sorry to say, I differ from my colleagues.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the single market brought us the four celebrated freedoms.
Did it not also bring a fifth, namely freedom of movement for fraudsters, smugglers and black-marketeers? Finding the answer to that question was the task of the committee of inquiry, which investigated in the course of 16 hearings, various fact-finding missions and numerous meetings the devious routes goods can take after coming into the EU free of customs and excise duties under what is basically a regulated system and the way they can cross the entire continent, with the appropriate duties not being levied until goods reach their destination.
If I may go straight to the committee's conclusion, to which several references have already been made here, the transit system is working badly at the present time.
That is hardly surprising in view of the fact that it was created in the late sixties, when the Community was smaller and the volume of trade was lower.
Today there are up to 18 million operations per year at some 3000 customs posts in more than 20 countries.
Drivers, hauliers and customs officials play an active part in the transit system, but there is also a passive role played by the beneficiaries of fraud, namely the final recipients of smuggled goods, most of whom belong to criminal organizations.
They derive their profits from the difference between the duty-free import price and the selling price obtained on the black market.
This means that heavily taxed items such as cigarettes are particularly susceptible to fraud.
A containerload of cigarettes has a customs and excise value of about one million ECU.
Fraud costs the EU and its Member States billions in customs duties, VAT and excise duties.
In spite of the single market, the diverse powers of the national customs authorities end at the borders of their respective Member States.
Their working methods are archaic, comprising ponderous paper exercises with documents and rubber stamps that are easily forged.
Cuts in staffing and resources prevent comprehensive controls.
Spot checks alone are not enough.
A lack of cooperation and reluctance to recognize evidence from other countries make it almost impossible to prosecute fraudsters.
Furthermore, the fact that VAT is levied in the country of consumption rather than the country of origin is virtually an invitation to commit fraud.
How could this have happened? In creating the single market, neither the Commission nor the Council considered this debit side.
Parliament, however, certainly did issue warnings, Mrs Wemheuer!
And for years the mounting losses were ignored.
The supreme achievement of the committee of inquiry under its dedicated chairman, John Tomlinson, consisted in bringing to light the abuses of the transit system.
Our sincere thanks are due to the rapporteur, Edward KellettBowman, and the secretariat for the enormous amount of work they have done.
Like a thread, Madam President, running through the committee's 38 recommendations is its awareness that a European customs service ought to be the long-term aim.
In the meantime, however, measures are proposed with a view to creating a common framework for the transit system.
The Commission view on this has been very clearly expressed today, for which I am grateful.
The Commission has already taken initiatives, and I should like to put on record here my thanks to Mrs Gradin and Mr Monti.
Greater efforts, however, are also needed in the administration of justice, in matters such as judicial assistance and the treatment of evidence.
In general terms, it is apparent that some important aspects of customs procedure are political in nature and are closely associated with political reality.
That is why the Commission and the Council, which, I am gratified to note, is also represented here today, need to demonstrate their desire and their efforts to follow up the recommendations of the committee and to achieve progress in the context of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Parliament, and especially its Committee on Budgetary Control, will monitor and support such measures.
Thank you, Mrs Theato.
The debate is adjourned. It will resume at 3 p.m.
Mr Martinez has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, in this very House, at the entry to the Chamber, there are young people handing out political tracts.
It's not particularly relevant that they are directed against the French National Front - they might be against the Communist Party or against the Socialist Party - it would come to the same thing.
Mr President, I ask you to use your presidential powers to have an usher put a stop to a situation in which this Chamber is becoming a distribution centre for political tracts.
You are right, Mr Martinez.
Every Parliament deserves respect and of course - this building is very large - leaflets can be handed out somewhere that is not right in front of the Hemicycle .
Votes
I just want to say that in connection with this particular item I have a copy of a letter from the chair of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy which has my name on it as apparently agreeing to this.
I never indicated any such agreement.
Some similar process took place as we just now had and I did not have the space to indicate my disagreement with this proposal and I now do so.
Thank you very much, Mrs Ahern.
The statement you have just made will be included in the Minutes.
Mr President, I would like to remind Parliament that Amendment No 37 provides that the Commission cannot change substantive points that are in the annex. It accepts a number of them which are basic to the directive, for example risk assessment, which is the core of the directive.
Unless that amendment is adopted, it will remain possible for committees to change the substance of the directive.
I therefore ask Parliament to adopt Amendment No 37.
After the vote on the amended Commission proposal
Mr President, we were able to have a thorough debate yesterday on the proposal on which Parliament has now voted.
I explained then why the Commission was not in favour of a change in the legal basis.
I also emphasized that, on the other hand, the Commission was inclined to follow the amendment which meant that Parliament would exert its full influence on the annexes, something that was advocated by several speakers.
There has of course been no further development overnight, except that we must naturally look at the amendments which have been adopted here in Parliament.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I consider it my duty to point out to the House an inaccuracy in relation to recital F. In Amendment 12 it is alleged that the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine expressly bans cloning and that this is the first prohibition of cloning in international law.
That is untrue, as many other Members are aware.
I consider it important that this is clear before we vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, the next vote on our agenda is with regard to the Renault closure.
In the gallery we have men and women trade unionists who, since yesterday, have been here, coming directly from the demonstration in Paris, representing the 3, 100 people of the Renault factory in Vilvoorde who will be made unemployed if this decision goes through unreversed.
I think we should welcome them to the gallery and demonstrate our support for their cause.
(Loud and sustained applause )
Thank you very much, Mrs Green.
I know you understand the institutional limitations on the Chair, but your words will appear in the Minutes, with mention of the emphatic support of this House has given them.
Mr President, let me respond to Mrs Green's friendly words of welcome to the ladies and gentlemen in the gallery by expressing my disapproval of the way she has chosen to draw the attention of Parliament to this situation.
(Heckling and applause) We are all freely elected Members of Parliament, and I attach a great deal of importance to the right of a Parliament to decide freely without pressure from the streets and without pressure from the gallery.
That is what I wish to have placed on record.
(Uproar in the public galleries)
Silence in the gallery! Silence in the gallery!
Ladies and gentlemen in the gallery!
Ladies and gentlemen in the gallery!
Silence!
Ladies and gentlemen in the gallery, please listen to me.
Ladies and gentlemen in the gallery, you know that our Rules categorically prohibit demonstrations of any kind from the gallery.
So if you are not silent, it will be my sad duty to have you removed.
So please maintain silence.
And to you, Mr Konrad, I have to say that in this Parliament every Member has the right to speak.
And there is complete freedom in this Parliament to express opinions through the vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, the debate on this matter has already taken place, so we will move to the vote.
Please help me complete the vote successfully in the calm appropriate to such an important matter.
Joint motion for a resolution on the closure of the Renault plant in Belgium
Before the vote
Mr Giansily is asking for the floor.
He may speak after the vote.
(Mr Giansily insisted) Mr Giansily, I must remind you that as long as I am in the Chair, I will make the decisions in this House, right or wrong.
I have told you I will give you the floor after the vote, so please sit down.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you do not respect the work of Parliament, I shall be forced to remove you.
Parliament's work must be respected!
Ladies and gentlemen, as a section of the Hemicycle has already voted with its feet, let us get on with our work.
Mr Giansily, if you do not respect the Chair, I will have you expelled from the Hemicycle.
Leave the Chamber, Mr Giansily!
Ladies and gentlemen, pursuant to Rule 109 of the Rules of Procedure and after calling Mr Giansily to order repeatedly, I am using my powers under the Rules to expel Mr Giansily from the Chamber.
Ladies and gentlemen, please calm down.
The Chair has taken a decision in accordance with its powers under the Rules.
Mr de Vries is asking for the floor.
I think we are all aware that the issue we are about to vote on is extremely sensitive.
We are also aware of the fact that there are a number of important differences of detail which have to be resolved through the vote.
We owe it to the people of the Renault factory that this vote proceeds according to the standards of this House, quietly and in a dignified manner.
Mr President, as we all should, I fully respect your authority.
I do not wish to question your authority as President of this session.
I want to make that absolutely clear.
However, in view of the fact that it is now after 1 o'clock, it might be advisable to take this vote at 3 o'clock right after the lunch break, so that we can do it in peace and quiet.
Therefore, I propose that we suspend the session.
Ladies and gentlemen, I must remind you that if you accept Mr de Vries' proposal, it will not be possible to take this vote this afternoon, and it will have to be taken tomorrow.
Secondly, I think we can calm down and make progress.
Mr Martens has the floor now.
(NL ) Mr President, I think the best thing Parliament can do at this time is to approve the resolution backing the workers at Vilvoorde.
But, Mr President, in order to restore order in the House and Parliament needs order to be restored, I would ask you to suspend the sitting and sort out the incident which has just occurred involving a member of this House.
So I would ask you to suspend the sitting so that this incident can be dealt with and we can vote on the resolution in a calm and orderly fashion.
Mr Martens, if I adjourn the sitting, then under the Rules of Procedure the vote will have to be taken tomorrow.
So given the importance of the vote we are going to take, I would rather resolve the situation if the whole House will assist me.
The incident began because Mr Giansily asked for the floor.
Ladies and gentlemen, please bear in mind, that during the resolute demonstration in the gallery, the Chair acted energetically, warning that if it happened again those responsible would be expelled from the gallery.
After that there were various interventions.
So as not to delay the vote, I told Mr Giansily I would give him the floor after it had been taken.
You have the floor, Mr Martens.
Mr President, it is perfectly possible to suspend proceedings for five or ten minutes to settle the matter and then let us vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, after consultation with the group presidents, and irrespective of their assessment of this incident and their agreement or disagreement with the action of the Chair, we are going to resume the session and give each political group one minute.
I ask you to cooperate with the chair, because it is important that we get on with today's voting.
Mrs Dury has the floor.
Mr President, I am glad you were able to find a way of resuming our sitting on a dignified basis, something we all want because we are anxious to vote on this motion.
Yesterday, I heard many honourable Members talking about social Europe and their support for the Renault workers in every country, not just at Vilvoorde.
I hope they will now give substance to their words by voting in favour of our motion.
And I am also looking forward to hearing them speak now.
I am very glad this solution has been found.
Let us cast our votes worthily, and with dignity, to show those who doubt us that the European Parliament can support a social Europe!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what we have to do now is the customary and proper work of this House, that is to say we must approve this resolution.
As I said just now, this is the most important thing we are required to do, and we must learn to behave like a proper and worthy Parliament.
Our main weapon here is the debate and an expression of solidarity in the form of these resolutions.
All of us feel for these workers whose livelihood is under threat.
So what we have to do is to show respect for the rules of Parliament and to conduct a fair and honest debate.
So let us now vote on this resolution.
Mr President, what happened just now is completely unacceptable. This is not a trade union meeting, this is a parliament!
We were in the process of voting. You should not have allowed Mrs Green the floor.
You should not have allowed people in the gallery to speak, and when these incidents occurred you should immediately have suspended the sitting and ordered the galleries to be cleared.
I believe that in these circumstances, with this kind of pressure, it is impossible for us to vote.
If you continue with the vote I shall refer it to the group chairmen at the Conference of Presidents.
Having said that, I call upon my group not to participate in the vote but to leave the Chamber.
As has already been said, Mr President, the gravity of the issue we are dealing with requires us to fulfil our obligation.
We have already re-established calm debate in Parliament.
I congratulate you on the decision you took to resume the sitting and you have the support of the majority of the groups through our group presidents.
We will deliberate and take a decision.
Today we are celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome and, after this morning's fine speeches it would not be much of a celebration if we could not hold an ordinary though very important vote.
I have to add that our group was surprised at the wording of point 8 of the joint resolution expressing the hope that the management of the company will draw up, in agreement with the workers' representatives, a company plan which will make the dismissals acceptable.
We cannot support this resolution, we withdraw our signature and we ask for rejection of point 8 so that we can support the resolution.
Mr President, please take note that we withdraw our signature from the joint resolution.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Renault crisis is so serious that it is easy to understand these demonstrations of emotion and a certain amount of excitement.
But precisely because this is a very serious business, our duty is to keep calm, as others pointed out just now.
Our job today, our responsibility, after debating this matter, is to vote upon it.
Some may vote one way, others the other.
That is our political responsibility.
Whatever may be the procedural incidents in connection with the Rules of Procedure which occurred at the start of voting, and which we can return to in due course, I believe we must now vote - very calmly, very peaceably.
Mr President, you are responsible - as Jean-Claude Pasty said just now, and he was right - for the incidents that have occurred.
You cannot, in this Parliament, continue giving preference to particular speakers. If you give the floor to one Member you should give it to another if he asks for it, at the same time on the same subject.
That is called democracy.
In a democracy, giving preference to some Members over others is forbidden.
Next, I have a question to put, first to you and then to the Bureau.
There are visitors in the gallery. I myself brought two groups of visitors here this week.
The seats in the gallery are booked, as of now, until December.
Which Member allowed entry to the people responsible for the demonstration?
Out of which quota?
When did he reserve them? That is a very specific question.
You allowed - and I am not challenging the presence of the people who are there - but you, quite simply, allowed them to be applauded although they were not an official delegation.
You have not put Mr de Vries's motion to the vote, although under Rule 111 you must put it to the vote.
I now ask you to put to the vote the motion tabled by Mr Pasty that the sitting be suspended under Rule 132.
Mr President, I personally am delighted to see the Renault workers here with us.
But I am not going to tolerate your giving the socialist Members an opportunity to conduct electoral propaganda when we all known that the Renault works was shut down by Mr Schweitzer, who is a socialist himself and a friend of Laurent Fabius.
I say that for the benefit of Mrs Dury, and I warn the Renault workers that the socialists are going to take up their fight, although if they are unemployed it's because of the socialists.
Secondly, for the benefit of Mrs Green, who has taken advantage of her position to conduct electoral propaganda.
I would remind her that the United Kingdom has caused much suffering to Belgian workers, since, in the 1980s, the British Leyland works was also relocated to the United Kingdom.
On that occasion thousands of Frenchspeaking Belgian workers were put out of work, and nobody cared.
We, for our part, defend the workers, and we do not do what the socialists have done today: lying and cheating as they always do.
Thank your very much, Mr Féret.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has formally requested a suspension of the sitting, and I must put that to the vote.
I shall now put the request to suspend the sitting to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request) Ladies and gentlemen, we will therefore proceed to the vote on the joint motion for a resolution tabled by five political groups, as Mr Puerta has just told us the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left has withdrawn its support for the joint motion for a resolution.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr Giansily has the floor for a point of order.
Better late than never, Mr President.
Mr President, my actions just now were not prompted by any aggressive intent as far as you were concerned - I simply wanted to ask you what Rule you were using to suspend the vote in order to give the floor to a Member who just happens to be the chairman of the largest group in this House and cause us to vote on an important motion under pressure from a number of individuals in the gallery.
In doing what you did, Mr President, you did no service to this House.
Our Parliament lacks credibility outside these walls.
It is regarded as a quaint assembly.
There are people here who, when they were thirty, were shouting 'let's smash it, let's smash it, let's smash it' and now those same people this morning are saying 'let's vote, let's vote, let's vote' .
I believe, Mr President, that all those who are present here voted for you in the election for the vice-presidents because there was a consensus, and it seems to me that the consensus in this House is, first, to show respect for its Members.
And when you get into an absolutely incredible situation where you have people in the gallery shaking their fists at Members of Parliament, and your response to this is to say that the Member concerned should be excluded from the Chamber, that, Mr President, means that you have failed in your duty and that if you were an honourable man you would resign immediately.
Mr Giansily, I always aim for institutional balance when I am in the Chair.
I can make mistakes, but I am not aggressive either with you or with anyone else, and I am always willing to learn.
So although your words are unmistakably aggressive, I shall try to learn from them and I hope to do better in the future.
Mrs McIntosh has the floor for a point of order.
Thank you, Miss McIntosh.
I said earlier - and I will say again now - that, in application of paragraph 1 of Rule 19, I take full responsibility for what has happened during this sitting and I am prepared to answer to the Bureau of Parliament and the Conference of Presidents at any time.
Miss McIntosh, I have worked to paragraph 1 of Rule 19 and as long as I am in the Chair I will continue to do so, however hard it may sometimes prove to be.
Mr Falconer has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I want to place on the record of this House that during this afternoon's discussions, particularly during the distressing scenes, Members of the British Conservative Party were seen making obscene gestures towards people in the public gallery.
I strongly deprecate this, and I would ask that at some point in the future, some sort of disciplinary action is taken against those Members.
It is quite wrong that Members of this House behave in that disgusting manner towards people who have just lost their jobs.
Thank you, Mr Corbett.
I have to say again, and to you too, that the Chair assumes every one of its responsibilities including those you have just pointed out.
When positions differ in the House the Chair must take a decision and cannot please everyone.
It must try to do so in what it considers the most correct way, sometimes in the way that will defuse the situation, always in line with the Rules of Procedure.
So I was actually trying to stop the debate opening up again, and progress the vote - I did not succeed and I called the House to order - and then I took a different view with the group presidents, who helped the Chair extricate us from a tense situation.
I do not want to reopen that tense situation.
I shall allow all who ask to speak to do so, but I think we have succeeded, if not in resolving the incident satisfactorily - it is still open for further consideration - at least in moving our work forward and taking a vote which everyone, absolutely everyone, considered very important.
Mr Pasty has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, your first duty as the president of the sitting is to ensure respect for the Rules of Procedure.
Well, you should not have given the floor to Mrs Green because we were voting.
Mrs Green made a political speech.
She was not making a point of order or an explanation of vote, she was making a political speech.
Once that had happened, all Members were within their rights in asking for the floor.
All.
One per group.
And that was what you did not do.
You actually refused to do it, which is a very serious matter.
Then we had some even more serious problems, because there were disruptions in the gallery.
We respect the people in the gallery, because they are our guests, but they must respect the Members of Parliament.
Well, the behaviour we have witnessed was an attack on Members of Parliament.
And you, Mr President, should immediately, and without waiting for someone to ask you - that is what the Rules of Procedure say - have suspended the sitting, because that was the only way to re-establish order and call for the galleries to be cleared.
You failed to do so.
I shall refer this matter to the Conference of Presidents.
I also want the Bureau to consider it, because your behaviour was unacceptable.
I would even call you a repeat offender, because I can recall another incident, also involving the gallery, when you were in the chair.
That was a problem about people without papers.
So this is not entirely a coincidence, and I want this matter to be referred both to the Conference of Presidents and to the Bureau, because it is intolerable that vice-presidents should behave as you have.
Thank you, Mr Pasty.
I take note of your remarks which will appear in the Minutes.
I have repeatedly said that I hope you will discuss this matter wherever and however you think appropriate; but I do think that we should put it to one side now. Still, I am feeling generous at the moment as there are no more votes to take.
Mr Cox has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I asked to make this brief intervention following the observation of Mr Corbett.
I am sure that in the strict technical detail of the Rule he cited he may be correct.
But as a political observation the point lacks any utility.
Today's comedy of errors and misjudgments would be gravely compounded if the error of naming Mr Giansily for expulsion was on some technicality to be followed through.
He had the right to intervene and I regret that he was not facilitated as others were.
Were he to be expelled on a technicality, as an act of solidarity I would wish to be expelled with him.
Thank you, Mr Cox.
Mr Seppänen has the floor for a point of order.
(FI ) Mr President, I support the procedure you followed in this case, but I should also like to point out that Mr Giansily was expelled from the Chamber on a decision by the President.
In my opinion the speech made in this connection is justified.
We cannot expel a person from the Chamber and subsequently allow him to take part in votes and make use of his speaking time.
The person in question belongs to the same group as Mr Pasty, who on a former occasion voted on behalf of another member in this Chamber.
Now a member of the same group does not leave the Chamber even though he has been expelled, but subsequently takes part in the debate and the vote.
In my opinion this matter ought to be brought before the Conference of Chairmen, if this kind of thing is to be permitted, it would mean that anyone could be present, even if he or she had been expelled from the Chamber.
Mr President, I think we should come back down to earth.
You criticized Mrs Green.
But you did then call Mr Konrad.
Mr Konrad saw fit to be provocative.
I found his remarks provocative towards these guests who have come here with their emotions running high, fearing for their livelihood, with their jobs on the line, with families who do not know what will happen to them.
Whereupon, Mr President, you also criticized these guests and told them to be quite otherwise they would have to leave the gallery.
We know that it is not right to agitate from the public gallery, but these people were surely unaware of that!
Let us come back down to earth! What lies behind these emotions?
Why are they so anxious?
Should we not be pleased - and this question concerns the very identity of this House - that people who are troubled, who are fearful, who expect political action from our Parliament, have come to us. And then to demand, as several Members have done, that they be expelled is, in view of the problem facing these people, in extremely bad taste.
Secondly, I should like to make a personal statement.
A Member called Féret, a representative of the Front National, called both Mrs Green and myself fascists.
I utterly repudiate that!
It was a Member representing the Front National, mark you, who used the term 'fascist' to describe a Social Democrat and a Green.
That, I believe, speaks for itself!
Mr President, my concern is not with your behaviour, or indeed with the behaviour of the demonstrators in the Gallery.
My concern is with Mrs Green's behaviour, because she knows perfectly well that it is not the tradition of this House to make interventions designed to influence the outcome of the vote immediately before the vote.
It was Pauline's decision to engage in that piece of street theatre, using the very emotions and concerns of those demonstrators to make a political point at an inappropriate moment in the conduct of this House's business, which led to the subsequent chaos.
If anyone is culpable for this morning it is not you, Mr President, it is not the demonstrators, it is not the Members of this House, it is Mrs Green for putting us in an impossible situation.
If she thinks that is the kind of behaviour that will reassure people that the Labour Party is ready for government, she has a lot to learn.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid we are going to have a Mediterranean lunchtime, but all the same, each and every one of you who asks for the floor will be able to speak.
At this point I would like to apologize to the interpreters.
We are abusing their services.
I am sure they will continue to work with us, but I do want to apologize to them.
Mrs Green has the floor on a point of personal explanation.
Mr President, I was named and abused by Mr Spencer and I am entitled to respond to that.
If he is telling me that he never at any stage engages in politics in this House, I am mightily surprised.
Last night we had a discussion with the Renault workers.
It is appropriate that we should acknowledge the fact that these people were here.
Let us face it: what is wrong with actually being able to come face to face with people who are being thrown out of work? I do not know whether Mr Spencer finds some embarrassment in the fact that the British Conservatives voted against the resolution.
Perhaps that is the basis of his problem: he was confronted with people who are losing their jobs and who saw that he and his Members were voting against the resolution.
Well, I am sorry if he is embarrassed, but he knows very well that there are often people in the Gallery from industry who are actively encouraged and supported by Members from that side of the House and people who come from all other lobbies.
Is that not the same sort of thing? Why is it when it is trade unionists whose jobs are on the line that this is somehow an embarrassment or difficult?
Thank you, Mrs Green, but I have no way of closing this debate today while people are still asking for the floor.
Mr Spencer is asking for the floor again.
I would ask him not to make personal allusions or we will never finish.
Mr Spencer has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, it is not a question of playing politics in this House, it is of seeking improperly to influence a vote, using a piece of street theatre, which I know Mrs Green will come to regret.
That is my last word on the exercise.
But it was Mrs Green who initiated this shambles.
Mr President, I think that attempts to improve matters often make them worse.
There are a number of us here waiting to give explanations of vote.
I think that rather than continuing with a debate which should not be taking place, it would be a good idea to proceed with the explanations of vote.
You are right, Mr Bourlanges.
This report continues the debate on the use of genetic engineering, a matter that arouses conflicting feelings.
Our opinion is that the directive now being discussed is too vague in raising the political issue and is instead extremely technically orientated, concentrating on detail and creating a misleading picture.
The question concerned, which after all is somewhat ill-fated, requires clarity and order, not least so that citizens are able to follow the debate.
We have nevertheless decided to support the report including most of its proposed amendments and can only regret the vagueness with which the report has been put forward.
In recent decades a new threat has appeared on earth, the uncontrolled and unthinking interference in complex systems which nature itself took hundreds of millions of years to perfect.
In the name of scientific progress and the fight against disease, people are trying to intervene in the genetic codes perhaps of all living creatures, including human beings.
Nobody can guarantee that the number of possible diseases that can be dealt with by genetic interventions will be larger than the unforeseen new ones that emerge from laboratory teratogenesis.
The possible consequences from mutated species are neither foreseeable nor immediately apparent.
They will become apparent as the result of the disasters they create.
There is a very serious risk that genetically modified organisms will become the pollution of the future, a pollution with the ability to reproduce, migrate, transform, multiply, and worst of all, antagonise the natural species that have neither the time nor the ability to resist and create defence mechanisms, since natural development takes thousands of years, while artificial development takes only months.
The accidents from the military and peaceful applications from nuclear energy will look like harmless fireworks compared with the invisible and silent conquest of entire continents by the higher neogenetic order.
On the other hand, it is very difficult and dangerous to suppress and control what the human mind has already discovered.
It is not our purpose to reject new discoveries and technologies absolutely and out of hand, but to demand uncompromisingly that technological development should not go against nature, part of which is mankind, but that they should be compatible with it.
It is dangerous, in the name of ensuring the operation of the internal market and the smooth function and improvement of competition, to ignore the probable consequences and promote procedures and legal frameworks essentially concerned only with the multiplication of economic activities, the creation of a market and the securing of competitive investments, which allow dangerous margins for deviation from the control mechanisms and provide no guarantee of respect for ethical imperatives.
In that spirit, we believe that the Council Directive on genetically modified organisms should be reviewed throughout.
It is essential to set up a pan-European scientific body with the participation of citizens, to assess the appropriateness of programmes, assess risks and benefits, establish strict regulations and maximum safety conditions, and monitor compliance with them.
It is urgently necessary to enlighten public opinion completely objectively concerning the potentials and use of genetic engineering, so that these issues, which are so important for the future of mankind, may be understood, seen in the correct perspective, and so that their consequences may be appreciated.
I very much fear that what has been attempted so far, mainly by large multi-national companies in the food sector, is focused on the reassurance of public opinion, the elimination of risk, and the creation of a climate of acceptance.
In many respects, the proposals by Mr Trakatellis are an improvement on the existing proposal for a directive, and they have the feature of requiring more restrictive legislation in this sector.
It is a good thing for the precautionary principle to be applied and for a general assessment of the classification of the activities in question to be carried out.
However, I cannot support the proposal because of the amended legal basis.
The Committee on the Environment is proposing the use of Article 100a as the legal basis, whereas the Commission's proposal is based on Article 130s.
It is being said that this amendment of the directive is not in fact a matter of environmental protection, but of harmonizing the rules in this sector.
I do not agree.
Research into the use of GMMs has many possibilities, but these activities must take place under conditions which safeguard human health and the environment as far as possible in future.
It is thus absolutely essential for the individual Member States to be able to make their legal requirements stricter at national level, as allowed by Article 130s.
I am therefore unable to vote in favour of using Article 100a in this case - the only thing that would be achieved by this is that Parliament would gain more responsibility.
Unless a different legal basis is applied, this means that individual Member States will lose the right to maintain stricter legal requirements, and that is not appropriate.
Mr President, I have supported this report today as, like many people, I am concerned that genetically altered organisms are already in the food on our supermarket shelves.
In the light of the recent spate of food safety scares, we need as much information as possible about the scientific progress of genetic modification techniques. Who is altering which plants, animals and foods?
What are the potential benefits or dangers for human beings and the wider environment? These are the kind of questions which people need answers to.
So I welcome the report's emphasis on preventing threats to people and the environment, rather than just limiting them.
The report also rightly points out the need to strengthen health and safety measures in this area of science.
The supply of information to the public is also rightly stressed.
I do not doubt that this area of scientific development offers potential benefits to us all, but like every concerned consumer I want the maximum information possible so that I can make up my own mind.
Genetic modification is a complex field, but that is not an excuse for keeping people in the dark about its implications for their lives.
Soulier report (A4-0065/97)
Mr President, I must first congratulate my colleague André Soulier on his excellent report, which was adopted unanimously by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
The European Parliament had already delivered its opinion on 16 April 1996, on the basis of a first report by André Soulier and approved a multiannual programme intended to promote international co-operation in the energy sector.
Today, we should place on record our amazement at the attitude of the Council, which amended Article 8 on commitology, and decided to consult Parliament again.
The result of this change of method was not only to create a delay but also to introduce a substantial change, since the initial budget of ECU 10 million has been reduced to ECU 7 million for 1997.
I entirely approve the position taken by the rapporteur, who considers that the sum voted through by Parliament and the Council should not be reduced.
However, in order that the SYNERGY programme should not be further delayed, and pending an in-depth debate on the subject, I am in favour of my colleague's report.
Arias Cañete report (A4-0061/97)
The Swedish Social Democrats strongly object to the rapporteur's proposal that the subsidy granted to squid suppliers in the Canaries should not have a time limit imposed upon it.
The group has therefore chosen to reject the report.
Cunha report (A4-0013/97)
The fishing agreement ought to be designed so as to benefit the parties and to guarantee ecological balance.
Several of the fishing agreements with third world countries are expensive for the Community and at the same time too much of the catch is not taken by local fishermen.
The Swedish Social Democrats are therefore cautious about this fishing agreement and are of the opinion that this and similar agreements should be paid for by the fishermen who will benefit from the fishing rights thus negotiated.
The Greens have voted against these fishing agreements for two reasons.
First, we feel that the basis on which these agreements are negotiated is not acceptable.
Such important matters as scientific assessment of the impact of fishing on the target and non-target species, control and surveillance of fishing activities, coherence with the development and environmental policies of the European Union and impact of the landing provisions on local markets are given insufficient attention in EU fisheries agreements with developing countries.
Second, we share with many of our colleagues a resentment against the procedure, which presents Parliament with a fait accompli for each agreement.
We are asked our opinion long after the negotiations have concluded and the boats have begun fishing.
We protest this situation with a vote against the two agreements.
Faced with declining fish stocks in its own waters and overcapacity in its fishing fleet, the EU has chosen to buy itself fishing rights in third countries.
We need to ensure that we have sustainable fisheries in EU waters, but the same applies - and even more so - in the developing countries, where fish are one of the few resources to which the poorest people have access.
Small-scale fishermen from African countries who are engaged in inshore fishing have expressed their concern at the effect of EU vessels fishing in their waters.
It takes longer to fill a boat with fish, and they are forced further and further out to sea in vessels which are not really suitable for the purpose.
The question is whether the EU is actually in the process of exporting the EU fleet's ruthless exploitation of fish stocks to the waters of third countries.
It is alarming that whereas other ACP countries are reducing the EU's fishing of shrimps and prawns, Angola has kept it at the same level.
For bottom and surface longliners, the fishing opportunities have been increased.
And new species have been included.
Is this because Angola is simply not following the general trend? Or is it because the fisheries agreement between Angola and the EU does not take sufficient account of the real state of fish stocks and, more generally, of the developments in the fisheries sector in Angola?
It is also a matter for criticism that the opinion of the Committee on Development has not been taken into consideration.
Here I am thinking in particular of the committee's insistence that such agreements should ensure mutual benefits for the parties, and that a certain percentage of the catches should be landed in the country of origin.
It is a good thing that the budget for the development of the fisheries sector in Angola has been increased.
But here too, there are questions to be asked.
There is no specific information on how these resources are to be used.
Without this, we cannot be sure that they are being used to develop a sustainable fisheries sector in Angola.
I shall therefore abstain from voting, because the Committee on Fisheries has taken only very little account of the opinion of the Committee on Development, despite the fact that Angola is a developing country.
And I believe that all fisheries agreements with developing countries should include a binding code of conduct.
Macartney report (A4-0385/96)
The fishing agreement ought to be designed so as to benefit the parties and to guarantee an ecological balance.
Several of the fishing agreements with third world countries are expensive for the Community and at the same time too much of the catch is not taken by local fishermen.
The Swedish Social Democrats are therefore uncertain about this fishing agreement and are of the opinion that this and similar agreements should be paid for by the fishermen who will benefit from the fishing rights negotiated.
Waddington report (A4-0056/97)
Through the medium of Mrs Waddington's excellent report, I congratulate the European Commission on the presentation of the White Paper.
It is true that the modernization of our education and training systems will enable our European society to meet the challenges of the future (the information society, for example).
Also, in my capacity as a local councillor, I am sensitive to the action that the European Union might take.
By way of example, in January 1996, we set up for my town of Istres the third plan entitled 'information technology - schools' .
This project, which places a strong emphasis on multimedia, marks a significant step forward in terms of the number and power of the software packages made available to teachers and pupils, and the opportunities for accessing them.
So, at the beginning of the school year in September 1996, we conducted a successful experiment involving linking head teachers to the town's central server, on which is installed the database on children attending school; this aspect of the information technology plan also helped the main parties concerned - school services, head teachers and the inspector - to have better control of events at the sensitive period at the start of the school year.
If it is desired to 'change up' and connect to the Internet, it is certain that the local authorities alone will not be able to bear the financial burden of such a project.
The European Union's activities should be at this level, focusing on the allocation of substantial financial resources.
I hope that the Commission's action plan really will take account of the needs of local authorities and will not be confined to aid for projects which small or medium-sized communities would not be able to implement within a reasonable time.
The Danish social democrats voted in favour of the Waddington report on the Commission's White Paper which, as we know, deals with general education and vocational training.
A number of criticisms are made of the White Paper in the report, for example that the Commission focuses exclusively on young people in its analysis and does not take account of the ageing of the population in Europe.
The report also expresses the fear that the gap between 'those who know and those who do not know' will become wider.
To prevent this, there will be a much greater need in future to focus on the concept of 'lifelong learning' .
The report therefore seeks initiatives from the Commission to increase the population's opportunities for further training both within firms and in the education system itself.
The Danish social democrats take a positive view of the debate introduced by the Commission's White Paper and the Waddington report.
However, they would stress that, like the rapporteur, they are critical of implementation of the White Paper's proposals for establishing 'second chance' schools at EU level for groups which are especially vulnerable to exclusion from the information society.
We believe that adopting educational policy measures is a national matter.
This is an area which is covered by the principle of subsidiarity.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Gahrton, Holm, Schörling (V), in writing.
(SV) We have voted for the report - Teaching and learning - towards the learning society as it contains favourable proposals and constructive criticism of the Commission's White Paper on education.
We cannot support the proposal in the report (items 49 and 55) which says partly that we should combine education and vocational training within a relevant EU policy and partly urges the Commission to prepare detailed action plans for education.
This action should be reserved for Member States.
Is Europe fit for the 21st century?
Have those in positions of political, economic and social responsibility understood how we can hold our own in international competition? Or have calls for flexibility and mobility, further training and foreign-language skills been falling on deaf ears?
In her excellent report, in which many amendments proposed by our PPE Group were included, Sue Waddington presents an opinion on a Commission White Paper which totally omits the social aspects of education.
While the interests of young people are at the heart of the White Paper, the educational needs of women, older people and the marginalized do not feature.
We need an educational offensive - on the one hand to enable us to compete in the world and on the other hand for the personal development of the individual.
The consequences are:
1.For the EU: The resources for LEONARDO and SOCRATES must be augmented.
The European Parliament will support Commissioner Monti in this endeavour.
In view of the need for budgetary discipline, phased annual increments make good sense.2.For the Member States: The depletion of research and development budgets must be stopped.
Short-term policies must give way to strategic thinking and action.3.For businesses: Anyone who only pursues cost-saving strategies is squandering his future prospects.
If businesses are to identify market niches and improve their products, they need motivated staff who benefit from appropriate further training inside and outside their place of work.4.For schools: There must be an end to narrow specialization.
With a broad basic curriculum and with a grounding in abstract reasoning, young people will be able to engage in several different occupations in the course of their lives.
The White Paper on Education and Training has been generally welcomed and has attracted largely favourable comments.
I too believe that it represents an important stimulus for the education debate that is necessary at European and national level.
I am not entirely happy, however, with the title of the White Paper.
The use of the term 'kognitive Gesellschaft ' for 'learning society' in the German version is imprecise as well as inadequate, because general education must not be purely about cognition but must also comprise emotional, social and ethical learning processes.
We must not lose sight of the aim of instilling values.
For that reason I moved that the subtitle be amended to 'Teaching and learning - an ethically defensible way towards a knowledge-orientated society' , but that, unfortunately, was not adopted by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Be that as it may, I am pleased that another of my amendments was incorporated into the opinion of the Committee on Culture and is also reflected in Mrs Waddington's report - albeit in less emphatic form than I should have wished.
It is about the importance of pre-school education for all, and especially for disadvantaged children, as a means of enhancing equality of opportunity and hence of preventing social exclusion.
The nursery school, as the initial stage in the education system, must be the focus of far greater attention than has hitherto been devoted to it in most European countries.
The findings of brain research show that a large number of skills and inclinations are established during the first six years of human life.
The earliest possible introduction to general education, with special emphasis on artistic elements and on exposure to foreign languages in the context of games, promotes creativity and lays the foundations for a broad educational spectrum.
This type of pre-school education can also prevent social exclusion, since it ensures that all children are given an appetite for learning through fun and games even before they begin primary school.
This makes me hopeful that the Commission's 'second-chance schools' scheme, which - contrary to the wishes of the Member States - has already been launched, will become increasingly superfluous as the target of integrating all young people into the mainstream system comes closer to fulfilment.
I agree with Mrs Waddington that, instead of 'second-chance schools' being set up as separate institutions, the conventional education system ought to be enhanced so that it is capable of offering a sufficiently wide range of courses and qualifications and of guaranteeing a global system which offers opportunities for everyone.
I also believe that the role of teachers in the information society must assume far greater importance than is accorded them in the White Paper.
Many teachers still regard the use of modern information technology as unnecessary, as something of a 'gimmick' that can be used on a voluntary basis, a passing fad that will not assume any great significance in years to come.
They often feel uneasy at the prospect of all the new demands these innovations will bring.
It is obvious that the role of teachers will change considerably with the introduction of these new technological developments.
Although teachers will not entirely lose their conventional role as 'founts of knowledge' , they will certainly have to see themselves as more than this; they must teach individual pupils how to select, understand and use the data offered to them.
Part of teacher training must therefore be focused on the increased use of new technology, which must also be the subject of continuous in-service training.
In addition, the White Paper must place stronger emphasis on the key function of parents and the family, who must be drawn into the whole process of meeting these new educational demands.
As the main representatives of our society, they must ultimately accept and support the new developments, though without losing sight of the important task of inculcating values.
That is why I advocate a system of intensive training for parents.
Finally, I should like to add a few words about the aspect of acquiring foreign languages.
It is desirable, of course, that language training should be promoted, but I nevertheless consider it unrealistic to set our sights on a situation in which everyone speaks at least two foreign languages.
I am intrigued by the Italian approach of primarily supporting the passive command of a language.
That would lead to greater understanding between nationals of different Member States without the need for them to acquire fluency in the other language.
It is unquestionably true that passive mastery of a language is far easier to achieve than active mastery.
I find this approach interesting and worth pursuing in future discussions on the subject of language learning.
On the whole, I am in agreement with the proposals in the White Paper, but I do believe that tangible measures will have to follow soon.
I also welcome the report by Mrs Waddington, who addressed many other important issues.
Cloning raises deep ethical, philosophical and practical questions concerning the use and abuse of genetic engineering and the commercialization of human genetic research.
The cloning of human beings, whether experimentally, in the context of fertility treatment, pre-implantation diagnosis, tissue transplantation or for any other purpose whatsoever, cannot under any circumstances be justified and must be banned.
Until a consensus is reached in our society as to whether cloning techniques should be permitted at all, cloning of humans and animals for all purposes should be banned in the EU.
The patentability of such techniques and the resulting biological substances must now be prohibited and the proposed directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions amended accordingly.
There must be an immediate withdrawal of all EU funding for research or development, whether provided directly or indirectly, for cloning techniques in animals and/or humans and the publication of a list of all such projects which have received EU funds.
Mass production of animals through cloning techniques inevitably leads to the narrowing of genetic diversity of domestic animals, undermines the ecological basis of food production and debases the ethic of husbandry of these animals.
The cloning of domestic animals leads to a new level of rationalization of livestock production, further stimulates the industrialization of agriculture and undermines any of the current attempts to reorient the CAP towards sustainable agriculture.
We must convene a citizens' conference in each Member State to consider these questions and we must have a Human Genetics Commission to monitor and advise on all future developments.
As a Green Deputy I was unable to support the compromise resolution which made no mention of animal cloning.
In a debate provoked by Dolly the sheep, it is unbelievable that the other groups chose to omit any reference whatever to animals and settled for a weaker version of the resolution passed unanimously by this House in 1993 on human cloning.
As politicians, we have a responsibility to address the difficult issues as well as the easy ones.
The interrelationship between human and animal cloning is evident and as the previously insurmountable barriers between the species becomes invisible, we need to have the courage to call a halt to cloning all animals, not just human ones.
The economic instruments which drive the research agenda include the protection afforded by patient law.
If we are to ban cloning, then we must give practical effect to that ban by including a comparable ban in the patent directive.
On the structure of an ethical review, I think we have got the emphasis completely wrong.
It should not be a matter of which committee of experts is more expert than the other.
It should be a matter of broad public consultation and debate in order to establish consensus in our societies as to the future direction and application of new reproductive technologies.
The citizens should inform the administrators, not the other way round.
Amendments to meet these objections have been rejected here today and I have abstained in protest.
The new research findings from Scotland are frightening.
Our opinion of this is totally clear: We cannot accept the cloning of either humans or animals.
For us the ethical aspects carry great weight and we demand a total ban not just on the cloning of humans but also the cloning of animals.
Cloning of animal tissue is totally contrary to our view on animals and how we should treat animals.
The cloning of animals intended for slaughter leads to a further rationalisation of animal production, more far-reaching industrialisation of agriculture and also undermines our aim to change agricultural production in order to achieve an ecologically sound agriculture.
It is important to establish that reseach projects within the EU should involve research into cloning.
If this proved to be the case, these projects should be terminated immediately and all funding repaid to the EU.
As a Green deputy, I was unable to support the compromise resolution which made no proper mention of animal cloning.
In a debate provoked by Dolly the sheep, it is unbelievable that the other groups chose to omit any reference whatever to animals and settled for a weaker version of the resolution passed unanimously by this House in 1993 on human cloning.
As politicians, we have a responsibility to address the difficult issues as well as the easy ones.
The interrelationship between human and animal cloning is evident and as the previously insurmountable barriers between the species become invisible, we need to have the courage to call a halt to cloning all animals, not just human ones.
The economic instruments which drive the research agenda include the protection afforded by patent law.
If we are to ban cloning, then we must give practical effect to that ban by including a comparable ban in the patent directive.
On the structure of an ethical review, I think we have got the emphasis completely wrong.
It should not be a matter of which committee of experts is more expert than the other.
It should be a matter of broad public consultation and debate in order to establish consensus in our societies as to the future direction and application of new reproductive technologies.
The citizens should inform the administrators, not the other way round.
Dolly, the world's first clone of an adult animal, may be a photogenic sheep, who looks well on the front pages of newspapers.
But behind the nice photographs lurks a sinister threat to genetic diversity, the most fundamental principle of nature.
Animal cloning should be viewed in the context of the BSE crisis and the negative effects of industrialized agriculture.
Cloning would encourage excessive inbreeding and could lead to a rise in mental and physical disorders among livestock.
How are consumers going to be shielded from the consequences of genetic pollution in the food chain?
Dr Ian Wilmut, the scientist at Edinburgh's Roslin Institute responsible for Dolly, has stated that there was nothing to stop the techniques he used being applied to human embryos.
The idea that humans should be cloned would seem more akin to Hitler's thinking about the Aryan race than any responsible application of scientific progress.
Cloning of animals also raises serious ethical issues about the cruelty which humans inflict on animals in the name of science.
Later this week the European Parliament will debate a report about the Commission's failure to agree plans to phase out animal tests on cosmetics.
There seems to be no political will on the part of EU leaders to stamp out the unnecessary suffering of animals and cloning will only lead to further experiments on animals and greater suffering for them.
Cloning is the biggest problem currently facing the European Parliament, not so much because identical animals can be reproduced, which is necessary for the good of mankind that is always seeking a way of feeding itself, but because man himself is in serious danger, man who is unique and unrepeatable.
Commissioner Cresson assured us that ethical and moral principles would be respected.
However, we have to clarify what ethical and moral mean.
Sometimes, if not frequently, it is the majority in the European Parliament that decides what ethics and morals are.
Moreover, Mrs Cresson assured us that the Commission was consulting experts on the question of cloning, including high-level experts.
But we need to quantify the experience of these experts and check where and in what environment they acquired it; we need to know where they come from and how they acquired their expertise, what their concept of ethics and morality is, whether they are from the left or the right or somewhere else.
Only if we receive replies to these questions can we be sure of what the Commission tells us.
I will vote in favour if I see genuine respect for ethical principles, real ethical principles, respect for the natural order, in which man is regarded as unique and unrepeatable, in which there are clear rules and definite norms that do not distort the created world.
As a Green deputy I am afraid I cannot support this motion for a compromise resolution.
I should gladly have supported any declaration that was at least as rigorous as our decision of 1993 in condemning the coordinated irresponsibility of industrialists, scientists and politicians which has now been demonstrated in the cloning of animals.
We must not wait until the first wave of attacks has passed before we set about protecting the dignity of mankind.
Human dignity is already under threat when animals are reduced to mere carriers of biological material, to the living meat factories extolled by Mr Pradier.
With ideas like that, it will not be long until people are also categorized on the basis of their utility, with the superior beings gathered into the fold and allowed to live their lives in a world governed by the insane ethics of the possible and the inferior beings treated as walking sources of organs for spare-part surgery - an idea that might sound familiar to you.
These are no Green delusions along the lines of Huxley's Brave New World but ideas expressed in the Bioethics Convention and reflected in the views presented there on the merits and demerits of human beings.
That is why I personally feel very strongly that the European Parliament must emphatically and consistently oppose any attempt to erode this ethical position and must stand together against the cloning of any living being whatsoever and against any research to that end.
On the scale of fundamental values, liberty is at the heart of any ethical debate.
That is why, in health matters, the consent of the patient is an absolute prerequisite for any treatment affecting him.
But if circumstances dictate that his consent cannot be obtained, then the consent of his parents or guardian may be obtained instead, at least if the expected results of the treatment are sufficiently clear and probable for this power to be delegated.
On the other hand, if the treatment offers no benefit to the patient, it must be prohibited, because the starting point here is the principle that the consent is refused since it cannot even be obtained.
That is the case with human procreation by cloning, whatever may be the method used.
After all, when it comes to medical assistance with procreation, there is already a particularly serious ethical objection raised by the technique of micro-injecting spermatozoa into an ovum, since it involves a choice, a deliberate selection of reproductive cells.
In the cloning of human beings, whether by segmentation of the egg or by transgenic technology, as was the case with Dolly the ewe, an absolute prohibition must be maintained.
After all, the genetic characteristics of the new human being would be totally predetermined.
It would be impossible to imagine a more comprehensive assault on his liberty.
Insufficient thought has been given to this fundamental characteristic of human procreation: the fact that natural fertilization is totally indeterminate apart from the single voluntary act of the parents, which is their act of sexual union.
This indeterminate nature of fertilization is the strongest original defence of human liberty.
It has been partly set aside by medical assistance with procreation.
What society has felt to be tolerable in order to remedy the infertility of a couple is already, in itself, a violation of this protection of human liberty.
That violation must not go further.
It should also be emphasized that both medical assistance with procreation and cloning methods confirm that the fertilized egg is indeed a human being.
Contrary to the conclusions which some people have seen fit to draw from the spontaneous segmentation of the egg which produces identical twins, the uniqueness of the original egg which then gives rise to the existence of two human beings does not prove that that egg is not a human being.
It is a human 'strain' , which then gives rise to two human beings, each with a different personality though with the same genetic material.
But the difference between identical twins resulting from spontaneous natural segmentation and identical twins resulting from artificially induced segmentation is precisely that the former are indeterminate while the latter are under human control.
The frontier which separates these two events is the same frontier that separates the sphere of human freedom from that of total slavery.
The prohibition of cloning must, in any human society, be as fundamental a prohibition as the prohibition of incest.
The main debate on the social consequences of scientific research established the need for social control over science.
That may raise a conflict between freedom of research and other social values, but no-one should be scandalized.
Science is not just an intellectual explanation of nature.
Science is part of the praxis and its economic and social consequences in today's world are immense.
They also represent power.
These external consequences are the theoretical legitimation of regulating science by law.
The regulation of scientific activity implies its integration into the social framework generally.
Far from being restricted, freedom of research finds its fulfilment under the law.
Only the law can reliably ensure the principle of freedom of research.
Parliaments are responsible for good order in society and cannot tolerate the development of any scientific and technical activity without the necessary mechanisms being in place to evaluate risk and deal with undesirable consequences.
If restrictions have to be imposed, that is an imperative of the democratic state.
The social impact of genetics and public anxiety about uncontrolled advances underlie regulatory action at national, European Union and world level.
So it is essential for the European Parliament to make a statement at this time, to reaffirm the right of each individual to receive a genetic heritage which has not been manipulated, to ban the cloning of human beings and to call for criminal legislation against any attempt to violate that law.
That is essential if human dignity is to be genuinely protected.
Having said that, it is important to forestall confusion about the current debate on control of techniques and cloning.
A careful distinction must be made between cloning human beings and cloning cells and animals, which is an essential tool in biomedical research.
Every ethical and legal safeguard must be put in place so that the essential rights and values of our society are preserved at all times, but we have no right to paralyse scientific progress when it is helping people fulfil their destiny as human beings.
The equivocation demonstrated by many Members here on the cloning issue evidently stems from two (historically linked) fallacies:
The first of these is the ontological fallacy, which reduces reality to objects ; these are then contrasted with subjects , which are regarded as something quite different and inexplicable.
This in turn makes the idea of identity a virtual impossibility, reducing it to the objective category of sameness .
Leibniz's metaphysical principle of the identitas indiscernibilium paves the way for an indifference observable in the domain of engineering science, an attitude of 'What I cannot tell apart, I have no hesitation in calling identical.'
At some point, this 'undermined' identity is then quite conveniently repudiated, and the individual becomes the victim of his own technical reproducibility.
The second is the ethical fallacy of absolving us humans from any type of responsibility for our fellow creatures, which are regarded as mere 'things' or indeed 'machines' , from any bonds of sympathy we might feel towards them.
That engenders an attitude of systematic denial of responsibility for anything extraneous to ourselves, an egocentric withdrawal from the full implications of our own practice.
That also throws the door wide open to misanthropic practices.
Anyone who artificially defines us humans as something entirely detached from the community of living beings, of 'sentient beings' , to quote the succinct English expression, is capable of making other, no less artificial distinctions, for instance between mere humans and 'superhumans' or between 'subhumans' and 'proper' people...
Renault factory
Mr President, my explanation of vote comes at an appropriate time following the serious incidents and manipulations that have just taken place in this Chamber.
The decision by Renault to close an industrial site at Vilvoorde should have been an occasion for careful consideration of the chain of causes and apparently irresistible forces that drove this reputable company to act in such a manner.
Instead, all we were vouchsafed here today was a deluge of wrong diagnosis, hypocrisy and rabble-rousing.
I have heard speakers saying that the only solution was to integrate the social protocol into the Treaty and establish a social Europe where decisions would be taken by majority voting.
Yet social directives in themselves cannot save jobs when purchasers are finding products too expensive.
In this respect, the European Parliament seems to me to be nourishing somewhat irrational notions of economics.
I was also sorry to hear from certain quarters in this House, including some on the Right, calls for the demand to be supported by the restarting of the Structural Funds, a solution which amounts to stripping the tax-payer to dress the consumer, and even calls for job-sharing, a solution which again usually amounts to stripping the tax-payer, as always, but this time in order to dress the worker.
I also heard speakers on the left casting doubt on efforts at budgetary restructuring, probably with the implication that it was necessary to be in a position to subsidize Renault in order to retain jobs.
Unfortunately, that idea would merely take us further into the cul-de-sac.
If we really want to make the human dimension Europe's priority concern, we have to pose the problem differently.
The real situation is that although Renault is no doubt a victim of its own mistakes, it is also, like so many other enterprises, a victim of the global policy of free trade to which the Union has so recklessly opened its doors.
The public are well aware of that, just as they are well aware that the single currency will call for even harsher adjustments and will thus increase the power of the steam-roller of globalization.
For all these reasons the public are well aware, without needing to be told, of the responsibilities of Brussels which, throughout this debate, this House has made every effort to conceal.
Mr President, I am bound to say that the fury of the socialists reminds me of Oscar Wilde's phrase about the rage of Caliban seeing his own face in the glass.
After all, why are the socialists so vehement about this business unless it is because the Renault management was brought in by a socialist government, because it is made up of socialists, and because it is undertaking - extremely clumsily, I must say - institutional responsibilities entrusted to it?
I think the main issue here is the desire of the socialists to escape their own responsibilities.
I voted against the motion.
It did contain some very good things, but I voted against, because I believe we are making a mistake that mirrors the mistake made by Renault.
We are rightly accusing that company of having misunderstood its role and the provisions of the law in acting as it has acted.
But we are stepping outside our ground when we presume to give it advice and tell it that one particular strategic situation must be preferred to another.
We are not paying the bills, so we must not make the decisions.
Mr President, the Renault workers were in the gallery earlier, but they could well have been preceded by the miners, because the coal mines have also been closed and coal is to be brought in from Australia and Vietnam.
They could also have been preceded by those workers in the steelworks whose blast furnaces have been quenched to enable steel to come in from Thailand.
And they could have been preceded by the textile workers, because the European textile industry has been shut down so that textiles can be brought in from SouthEast Asia.
And how hypocritical it all is, because if Vilvoorde is being closed it is because of Japanese transplants - five Japanese factories in the United Kingdom - because there are Japanese transplants in Spain and in Germany, because there are Korean cars.
So, clearly, the structural funds have been used - that is to say that the European tax-payer has paid to create unemployment in the car industry, just as he paid for Hoover, which was relocated to Scotland and left France.
As for reality, Ford understood what reality meant when it paid its workers so much.
If the car industry is being closed down, the reason is that no one is buying cars, and if no one is buying cars, the reason is that there are 20 million unemployed, and if there are 20 million unemployed, the reason is that free trade in Europe has put them out of work.
The motion for a resolution is a signal of solidarity with workers now being threatened by the closure of this factory.
Just over a year ago we had a debate on an identical case of a decision to cut staff in readiness to close down a factory and move a production line away from Setubal. This was a decision taken by Renault.
The same Renault factory, which enjoys Community aid and is closing production units built in the first place in order to receive them.
This case demonstrates the existence of double standards in the Commission: the strictest rigour in order to apply liberalising competition rules; but no rigour in order to have European social rules complied with (rules on collectives dismissals and European company boards).
It also dramatically confirms the fact that a social Europe comes behind the Europe of the market and currency.
The strong reaction by European socialists means that we do not go along with policies which entail firing workers against Europe and breaking the social consensus which is the very foundation of the European Union.
Fortunately Renault workers in different countries have understood that their fight to face up to 'globalised' capital has to be united on an international scale and that the solution is not by withdrawing behind national frontiers.
Unreservedly supporting their fight for the right to work, we also wish to say that it is identified with the fight for a social Europe and a policy based on active participation and in the popular fight.
Having due regard to the quite appalling conditions under which Parliament voted on the motion for a resolution regarding the closure of the Renault works at Vilvoorde, we felt we should not take part in the vote.
We would have preferred this vote to be taken in circumstances appropriate to the serious nature of the problem.
To our very deep regret, that was not the case.
The USA and the Far East are benefiting from the additional difficulties which European business is experiencing due to the closing down of the Renault car factory in Belgium.
Many company boards are now discussing whether to move planned investments outside Europe.
Renault should have followed the rules and consulted its employees before deciding to shut down the factory.
However, the resolution from the European Parliament takes the matter even further.
The claims and the condemnations will bring further difficulties for companies and consequently reduce their willingness to invest.
The European Parliament aims to improve social conditions and employment, but the methods used are doing exactly the opposite.
Employment in Europe will never benefit from companies being prevented from adjusting their position to face up to new competition..
We should instead be facilitating new company start-ups and attracting new foreign investment in Europe.
Increased competitiveness, rather than more regulations, will make it possible to avoid 'the European model' collapsing socially.
Renault is a State-owned company which has left it too late for any necessary changes.
The fact that a multinational company like Renault has been subsidised by the EU highlights the drawbacks of those company subsidies from the EU which the EU itself actively encourages on a large scale through their own Structural Funds.
The method is certainly deplorable, as Mr Chirac and Mr Juppé have asserted - it was the least they could say - but the substance of the affair is much more serious, and there are lessons to be learned for the future of Europe, if there is to be a future.
Although I would remind opponents of the European Union and of Maastricht that Europe is not responsible for this intolerable situation, it is demonstrating its limitations and its inability to prevent the situation, just as it demonstrated its inability to prevent the relocations of undertakings from one Member State to another.
Of course we must support the Belgian and French employees of Renault, and I do support them.
But we must also provide support to the European car industry, and fight for a social Europe which prohibits such actions by management.
The way to achieve this is through new European powers, new directives, stronger unionization of Europe and the mobilization of all Europeans who want different European policies and reject unbridled free trade.
For this reason, although I unreservedly support the motion, I say that it is not enough.
There are political responsibilities to be accepted.
It is illogical to deplore the closure of a Renault works while accepting total liberalization elsewhere.
Enough crocodile tears!
The resolution adopted a moment ago on the closure of the Renault factory in Vilvorde is a most important document in relation to European social policy.
It is important because it goes beyond the case in point and reflects the relationship between European Union and industrial policy.
The resolution does not deny either the problem of competitiveness or the need for restructuring, but firmly calls for respect for the rules.
In fact, this restructuring and arbitrary closure contribute not only to rising unemployment but also to creating an economic insecurity that may have a serious impact on the growth of consumption, social conflict and, in short, economic growth in general in the European Union.
It is important because it condemns the use of dismissals alone to resolve the crisis without patiently seeking alternative solutions, which is inconsistent with our attempt to construct a Europe that is more attentive to the problems of its citizens.
It is important because it points out that the closure of large companies has a very adverse effect on the entire environment they have created and on the local area in which they operate.
It is important, above all, because it blocks any multilateral decision-making and does not involve social consultation, which is typical of the unbridled capitalism that is breaking up the European social model.
But this resolution is also important because everything that is said and written about Renault also applies to all the other identical or very similar situations that have occurred in Europe, even if they do not all come before the European Parliament.
To give just one example: hundreds of workers in Monza are facing the same dramatic situation because Philips is moving its plants elsewhere.
We are now in the process of negotiation and we hope that this very strong resolution will also help resolve the difficulties facing other workers in Europe.
First, I must strongly condemn the methods employed by the Renault company, whose abrupt decision shows a scandalous disregard for the human aspect of the crisis affecting the company.
I also acknowledge that the attitude of the management has been contemptuous towards the workforce, whose feelings of anger and confusion I understand and share.
However, I also deplore the fact that the European Commission has not succeeded in providing for situations like this, and that the industrial policy pursued by the European Union has been incapable of dealing with the economic and social consequences of the necessary restructuring of certain large undertakings, especially those in the motor industry which have been so seriously hit by the crisis.
In order to prevent any recurrence of this kind of situation, I hope that the European Union will in future take more effective action and encourage and support solutions which are less expensive in human terms.
The EU has over a long period of time given priority to matters relating to the economy, trade, markets and competition.
The time has come to push other questions higher up on the agenda, e.g. social and employment issues.
To prioritise these matters is not the same thing as decisions being made by a supranational majority.
On the contrary, these issues should be dealt with by Member States.
The EU can for example set targets for employment while the measures to reach such a target are developed and carried out at the national level.
We have voted in favour of the resolution opposing the shutting down of the Renault factory in Vilvoorde.
The resolution is an important statement by the European Parliament against an employer who has been shown to be ruthless and brutal to its employees.
We identify ourselves with the Renault employees' fight for their right to work.
As regards the resolution, we do not agree with the proposal to make the social protocol a part of the Treaty as that only would strengthen the supranational development of the European Union.
Social rights can be guaranteed and made obligatory at interstate level, which is preferable.
I deliberately took no part in this vote, to demonstrate my disagreement in principle with this kind of text.
It annoys me that this House sees fit to adopt resolutions on any topical subject.
While I would not go so far as to call it interference, I do think the subjects covered in these motions are really inappropriate.
Of course I keenly deplore these lost jobs, and the methods employed by the company.
And I hope that the European Parliament will not adopt resolutions of this kind in future, resolutions which simply record the facts and pass judgement on them. I hope that instead it will contribute to an effective industrial and social policy which will make it possible to avoid situations like this, which unfortunately bear witness to the serious crisis through which some sectors of industry are now passing.
I should like to say something about the principles on which the independence of our proceedings are based, Madam President.
At the end of the previous sitting we had a very long series of points of order.
I shall not raise them again, of course. A good number of them referred to the independence of Parliament's proceedings and the fact that no influence of any kind should be exerted on them.
I would now like to remind you of another principle, citing what the French call the principle of secularity, and what one might call in any language the neutrality of public institutions with respect to religious influences.
On leaving the sitting just now, at about 2 p.m., I found - not for the first time - a religious choir performing in the entrance to the European Parliament.
A talented choir, but a religious one.
I am not disputing their talent or artistic quality, just...
(The President cut of the speaker)
Mr Hory, I do not know what happened there.
We have a very full agenda, and we must press on with it.
Perhaps you can let the Bureau have something in writing.
But what you are doing just now goes beyond the Rules of Procedure.
I am afraid I must rule you out of order.
Madam President, I am citing the Rules of Procedure.
Yes, I know you said which point was at issue, and that is clear.
But if you wish to give more information than you have just done, then please do it in writing.
We shall then take note of it, but we shall not have any further discussion on that point now!
Community Transit System (continuation)
Madam President, Mr Kellet-Bowman and Mr Tomlinson have already covered the substance of the report most excellently this morning so I am left with the slight problem that there is little else to add.
One needs just to read the report.
That is essential, because then the context becomes clear.
But I have a couple of points to make.
So far very little attention has been paid to the issue of the 100 % guarantee for sensitive goods.
And one think which the report tells us is that the system for transporting sensitive goods by road has jammed up completely because of this 100 % guarantee and that these goods are now looking for other ways round, including smuggling.
So I should like to hear a little more from the Commission about the prompt courses of action which might be taken.
Listening to Commissioner Monti this morning, I had the feeling that he was rather dismissive of the problem of Switzerland.
Because I do not think that we have solved it with our co-operation agreement between the customs administrations.
Switzerland is a far more serious problem.
It is of course too absurd to see professional butter smugglers on German television, standing proudly in their gardens telling ZDF how they do it, when we can do nothing at all to stop them.
So we shall have to be rather tough in our negotiations with the Swiss, given their missed opportunity for honorary membership, on this question of those who protect the fraudsters operating on Community territory or with the territory of the European Union.
The Dutch presidency was not represented at our previous debate on the Inquiry.
It seems to be the case again this time too.
I am doubly pleased because I think that when it comes to another section of this report, namely the need to improve investigation and prosecution, this is an area for the IGC.
Without wanting powers in respect of investigation and prosecution to lie exclusively at European level, it is vital that Member States should agree on ways of making the European Union function as a kind of clearing house both for investigation, and thus the collection of information, and for prosecution.
I have already heard it suggested in Dutch circles, by the Justice Minister I think, that there should be a European magistrate attached to Europol.
I believe this kind of idea needs to be taken forward as a way of resolving the problems entailed in transit fraud.
It seems to me, Madam President, and I hope this will be possible at the IGC, that we must devote all our energies to this whole problem, because it has not been addressed with sufficient vigour so far.
Madam President, in the short time available to me I should like to point to the European Parliament's achievements in the context of the Committee of Inquiry's operations.
And first of all, of course, to say that it has justified the idea of those who thought of the idea and undertook the responsibility of setting up a Committee of Inquiry in the European Parliament.
Madam President, I must say that those achievements are:
Firstly, that the Committee of Inquiry established the groundrules, mainly procedurally, concerning how Committees of Inquiry ought to function.
This Committee of Inquiry solved many procedural issues and in essence interpreted the Inter-institutional Agreement in the best possible way.
Another achievement is that it succeeded in upgrading the problem of the transit system from a purely technocratic issue to a political issue, as indeed it is.
I must say that if the Committee of Inquiry had not intervened, the impasse in which the European Union's technocrats had become trapped, would have persisted and led to a collapse of the system.
We were literally able to save the system.
A further achievement is that as a Committee of Inquiry, we were able to extract political commitments.
This means that the Commission - and later, I think, the Council - have for example committed themselves not to extend the system until its computerization has been completed and unless the necessary reforms are carried out at the same time.
Finally, I should say that not only did we secure political commitments but, in parallel, we have been able to differentiate the existing policy.
I must tell you that we were faced by the following phenomenon: on the one hand, we had those mixed committees or groups between Member States and Commission officials concerning customs issues, which always agreed among themselves, but on the other hand, when we received answers to questionnaires from the 15 Member States, we found profound disagreements between the Member States, in flagrant contradiction with what the representatives of those countries had said and declared in Brussels in those mixed committees and working groups.
In other words, the system was totally unreliable.
I now hope that the Committee's conclusions will demonstrate that.
Let me finish with two comments: first, the subject of Switzerland.
I address the Commissioners and refer to Recommendation No 29, which Mr Mulder also mentioned.
Secondly, Recommendation No 23, with which we call for an extension of responsibility to the guarantee system.
Guarantees cannot possibly be given on the basis of any 'freight forwarder's' 'word of honour' .
The carriers too must be involved, as well as the owners of the goods transported.
Madame President, this is a good report that is being presented, the result of thorough and extensive work.
We have learnt a lot about how the internal market, through deception and fraud, has become a profitable market for organised crime and especially how Switzerland is being in this context.
Both legal and illegal economic players have taken full advantage of the internal market.
The European Union and Member States have lost several billion ECU in VAT, duties and excise to the benefit of the organised criminals.
As mentioned earlier by Mr Tomlinson: if a mere 1 per cent of the transits are fraudulent then 4.5 billion ECU will be lost to us, or in the case of 2 per cent, up to 9 billion ECU will be lost to us.
The Commission must be criticised for being passive for so long.
We have not reacted promptly to the increased number of frauds resulting from an out-of-date system.
The collaboration between national Customs Departments must operate as if they were one and the same authority.
So far, this has not been the case.
The Commission must in agreement with Member States introduce a common policy for physical control applicable throughout the European Union, not just at the border points and there must be limits on journey times, as well as route restrictions.
These regulations must be applied consistently by Customs Departments in the Member States.
The first step is to computerise the outdated 1968 transit system.
A computer system is however not one-hundredper-cent safe against tampering.
The Commission must therefore also utilise other high level technologies such as for example optical cards.
These are based on laser, cannot be erased and are able to store an enormous amount of data.
They are of high quality, durable and can be connected to all types of computers.
Criminals are well organised and exploit all of the system's loopholes and are at present one step ahead of Member States and the European Union.
Together with the Member States it is now high time for the Commission to accept the implications of the free market.
All the loopholes in the regulations of the European Union must be plugged.
An effective physical control system at all borders as well as selective controls throughout the European Union must be introduced.
New technology is a must.
The Customs Departments in Member States must cooperate as if they were one and the same authority.
Organised crime cannot be allowed to flourish any longer.
It is time for the European Union and Member States to act.
The Commission and Member States must actively carry out the recommendations made in the report.
Madam President, the elimination of internal frontiers resulting from the single European market as of 1992 marked the take-off of the Community transit problem.
In parallel with the vast and undeniable benefits derived from free movement since 1993, criminal organizations and unscrupulous economic operators have begun to find loopholes in the system and take advantage of the virtual absence of frontier controls.
The high fraud figures, involving loss of fiscal income, are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of existing fraud. This is seriously depleting Community coffers and also means potential losses for law-abiding businesses.
What is more, business, national authorities and the European Commission continue to contradict each other about the total figures for fraud, demonstrating yet again the depth of confusion and the urgent need for serious reform of the Community transit system.
An illustration of that confusion is the extension of the Community transit system to the Visegrad countries.
I want to put on record here that that decision was taken administratively, and not politically as such an important decision should have been.
And the extension of the transit system to the Visegrad countries is a clear example of the need to deepen rather than widen.
Computerization must be the first objective in the context of reform of the system, with over 18 million annual transit operations to be handled.
It is clear from every point of view that the current system of despatching documents from one customs service to another is archaic, produces enormous delay and facilitates forgery of those documents and the stamps that accompany them.
I must not fail to recognize here the giant strides made by various countries, including Spain, in the process of computerizing the system.
The reform of Community transit ought to simplify operations for businesses as well as find mechanisms for customs and legal cooperation especially in terms of detection of fraud, imposition and implementation of sanctions, and control of discounts and exemptions.
To conclude, I want to mention that many witnesses at the temporary committee of inquiry on the Community transit system talked about Switzerland or the Isle of Man.
I want to talk about tax havens like Gibraltar as well.
The Rock authorities are so lax that it has become a territory that encourages the problem we are dealing with here through money-laundering.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report presented to the House by the Chairman of the Committee of Inquiry, Mr Tomlinson, should not have had the title 'On transit fraud' .
It would be better named 'Report on self-delusion' .
The self-delusion in question is that we think we have succeeded in setting up the internal market.
However, Mr President, the word 'internal' contrasts one area with another, external area, from which it is supposedly distinguished by some effective dividing line.
In the case of the internal market, the dividing line is the single list of tariffs.
But it is not sufficient for a single tariff list to exist.
It must also be applied in an effective way.
And the effectiveness of its application must be judged with reference to carriers acting in bad faith, because those acting in good faith will comply with the law through their own volition.
If we ask any smuggler of Marlboro cigarettes what difference he sees between the market in Detroit and our own internal market - and such surveys in depth have been carried out by our committee - he would answer that the only difference perhaps is that in America he pays some taxes, while in Europe he pays no tax at all.
The report has also sketched out the anatomy of the reasons for that situation.
The explosion of fraud is due to fragmentation of the Community's customs services.
Responsibility for compliance with the tariff list rests with 15 different customs services.
Among those services we have removed a large part from the frontiers they had learned to guard, and in that way, we deprived them of part of their mission.
However, we have not asked them to guard a real Community whole, we have not given them a true Community mission, we have not given them a sense of Community purpose, nor a Community conscience, nor even a service organised at Community level, which would of course settle the issue of a Community conscience.
It is hardly surprising that chaos has ensued.
Until we create a common customs service, let us not be surprised that smugglers move freely through our internal market.
And that, I think, is the main message of the report presented to you.
Correct and logical proposals for the reform of transit will not solve the problem if we continue trying to implement them within the framework of this fragmented customs service.
Faced with this situation - which does not just apply to customs, since the situation is more general - many countries have decided that specially reinforced cooperation is needed between them.
However, before having recourse to that last resort, would it not be right to consider where matters might have matured to the point when we might be able to establish a cooperation common to all? And this, before we have recourse to reinforced cooperation, which is simply a euphemism for the hard core, to succeed where we can.
What would be more logical than to have a common customs service covering a real, common, integral Community?
Madam President, Mrs Green said she thought it rather poor that so few people were present here at the start of this debate.
I find it rather good that we can now work in an atmosphere of calm.
Because what we saw here a short while ago was anything but calm.
So I prefer to have Parliament as it is now.
I think the Committee of Inquiry has been a very good thing.
I myself am terribly alarmed.
I am not a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and when you find yourself in the middle of all this without being a member of that Committee, it give you quite a fright to see what bad shape the transit system is actually in.
If you had wanted to dream up a system offering maximum opportunities for fraud, this is the system you would have thought up, I think. I cannot account for it otherwise.
The sums involved are staggering, as the report tells us.
The Dutch Government has admitted that in the Netherlands alone there are outstanding tax and import duty arrears to a total of one billion guilders.
A second point I wanted to emphasize was the question of the 10 % which Member States are allowed to retain for the purposes of setting up an efficient customs system.
Most Member States retain more.
The Netherlands fortunately does not, but nevertheless three-quarters of the entire customs and excise service is paid by Europe, a point which the Finance Ministry conveniently forgets to mention, though it is always quick enough to mention the sums it has to pay out to Europe.
I think our Inquiry has shown up another potential problem, namely the danger that under the single market Member States may lose out on revenue, thereby depleting the tax basis so that as a result even more tax has to be drawn from that ready source of revenue, income tax.
And in the context of jobs and the labour market that is the last thing we want.
It is unfortunate that co-operation by the customs administrations is so poor.
Many honourable members have already mentioned this.
Likewise the case of those countries which cause us truly enormous problems, and here I fully agree with Mr Dankert who said that Commissioner Monti rather shrugged them off, I refer to Switzerland, the Isle of Man, Cyprus and Gibraltar too, countries which provide shelter on a large scale and refuse to co-operate in any way whatsoever even though they know that the European Union is being defrauded of tax and customs duties on a huge scale.
Something has to be done about this.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our committee of inquiry has proved that the European Parliament intends to fulfil to the letter its mandate to defend the interests of the taxpayers, and our task now will be to ensure that we actually put into effect the results of the excellent work performed over these last 15 months, a task that has to be undertaken together with the Commission and the Member States.
But it must be remembered that, at a time when budgets are being consolidated in the Member States, our fellow citizens are suffering under so-called savings packages and that nobody can expect them to go on enduring cuts in pensions, in social security payments, in education, etc., while this Union and its Member States leave the door open to this type of fraud racket and look on as billions in tax revenue are lost.
Another consequence for us will have to be that we begin at long last to formulate our policies along with those affected by them.
We established that the Member States have cut thousands of jobs in the customs services.
It is perfectly plain that those who remain there feel frustrated.
At the same time we must take on board their experiences of this imperfect transit system.
We shall have to speak at some time during the next few months, Commissioners, about our position on the system of preferences.
That cannot only be a foreign-policy decision; we also have to know how to implement such a system, how to control it.
We still remember well several customs people telling us that the various regulations of the common agricultural policy are virtually an invitation to fraudsters.
Here too the Commission will have to make appropriate proposals.
You will find that we, as Members of Parliament and of this committee of inquiry, will be on your side as you undertake this work.
Madam President, I am pleased that I have been able to participate in the work of this temporary Committee of Inquiry; indeed, of having played a small part in bringing it into being.
It was some two years ago, in the early months of 1995 that I collected the signatures of 25 % of the Members of this House to call for a Committee of Inquiry into the problems of Community fraud.
I took that initiative because my constituents certainly do take seriously fraud against the Community, as Mrs Green said this morning.
I remember an interview I had with former President Hänsch, when little seemed to be happening as a result of that request, and he said we should only use those powers if we were sure they would be successful.
I can now say to the President they have indeed been successful.
I pay tribute to the chairman of the committee and the rapporteur.
That success has already prompted change in Community transit practice by the Commission, the customs services, transporters and freight forwarders themselves.
It has even caused the smugglers to change as they have reverted to old-fashioned smuggling rather than Community transit fraud.
But further work needs to be done.
The Committee on Budgetary Control must keep hold of this.
I have little doubt that Mrs Theato will see that will happen.
It is simply disgraceful that the system is not yet computerized.
There is not a bistro in this city where a cash card cannot be linked by remote link to a central computer.
We must give customs officers at least as much modern technology as we give the average French bistro.
The temporary Committee of Inquiry has exercised its powers as it did into BSE as an important new power of Parliament.
These two committees have treated their role differently but in my opinion both demonstrate the value of the new procedure.
I am pleased to see that the Council of Ministers has attended our debate and I thank them for that.
On the conclusions: the Committee of Inquiry was right to hold back from proposing a single customs service.
Just because the cooperation currently is not adequate, it does not follow that a single service would have worked better.
The message, however, is clear to national customs services: we benefit from the single market, we want cross-Community trade to grow, and we want the customs services to cooperate, as it says: to operate as if they were one.
That is not a bad aim for the customs services. It is not a bad aim for Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my thanks to Mr Perry, because of course it was his initiative that led to the appointment of this parliamentary committee of inquiry.
The first committee of inquiry worked hard, and its work is starting to bear fruit.
If you keep in touch with the media, in the Swiss, the Austrian, the Spanish media, across the whole of Europe, you will learn about cases that were once more likely to be swept under the carpet.
Cigarette-smuggling, the smuggling of vegetables, livestock and meat, are on the agenda, and if we assume that a container of cigarettes can yield a profit of one million ECU, a container of alcohol can fetch ECU 400 000, a container of butter or meat ECU 45 000, or a container of sugar 12 000, it becomes apparent that smuggling is certainly a lucrative business.
Individual States and the European Community are defrauded of tax revenues and excise duties, but honest dealers also suffer - the ones who pay their taxes as a matter of course and who end up having to pay higher taxes because the fraudsters have spared themselves that expense.
And of course the insurance institutions also come off worse, which results in higher premiums.
It is the European consumer who foots the bill.
The European Parliament is a protector of the European consumer, and that is why it was necessary for the committee of inquiry to subject this whole issue to intensive scrutiny.
It is also the case that the Community transit system entails expenditure, especially for those Member States whose territory adjoins the eastern border of the EU and which therefore have to assume a disproportionate share of the cost of customs controls.
Consideration should be given to a compensatory payment to these countries from the Community budget.
On the other hand we also concluded that the European Commission needs to engage in new activities, that the focus must be on ways of making these activities efficient, on potential streamlining measures, and I believe this would be of real benefit to the European Community purse.
But another key point is surely the question of training.
We urgently need the customs academy that was referred to, and it would be logical to establish that academy at a border, where the customs people, the types of officer who will be the trainees' superiors in practice, can provide training in customs clearance procedures.
It is also important that a forgery-proof basic document should be issued, one which can also be copied, that the stamping process should be based on the latest high-tech methods, and that the paramount aim should be to organize considerably simpler, faster, more efficient, more transparent and far cheaper procedures - far cheaper for business and for the Community.
Madam President, I too thank the rapporteur for his excellent work, together with the committee and its chairman.
I must also say that from the Commission's initial replies it seems to appreciate that work and to have given an important undertaking.
I want to emphasize one particular aspect raised in recommendations 14-20, judicial cooperation, because there is a very close link between the proposals on this and the more general strategy to combat fraud, a fight we know must be waged and where we are sadly making slow progress.
I believe we must look at things as they are.
We cannot try to combat fraud properly with palliatives or cumbersome instruments such as those we normally adopt within the third pillar, including conventions.
The recommendations also refer to reciprocal recognition of proof.
This aspect which seems to me to be raised in point 16 is directly related to the construction of a European legal area which will enable the judiciary to cooperate directly, unlike the present situation; as you know and as the appeal judges of Geneva whom we received here in the European Parliament recently noted, today the average number of replies to applications is between 2, 3 and 6 %.
A judge who asks a foreign colleague for proof of criminal acts does not receive replies in more than 10 % of cases.
Because we cannot tolerate all this, I believe that when we come to revise the Treaty we must set out a specific legal basis which will provide for this kind of judicial cooperation and lay down the conditions for a legal area confined for the present to the question of fraud, given that fraud undeniably involves large sums of money and comes under the competence of the Union.
I would therefore call for these recommendations to be flanked by a strategy for putting the renewed fight against fraud at the top of the third pillar during the Intergovernmental Conference.
Madam President, I want to congratulate Mr Kellett-Bowman, Mr Tomlinson, the committee, and indeed the staff who have worked so hard on this particular report.
As other speakers have said, it does show Parliament at its most hard-working and efficient.
I endorse the recommendations in the report and I think the report clearly shows that cigarettes offer the fraudster a huge mark-up between the duty-free price and the actual sale price right throughout the European Union.
Illegal trade in cigarettes in my own city of Dublin accounts for 10 % of the total market.
That is a huge figure, 4 % nationally, 10 % in Dublin.
We should reflect also on the fact that it is not only organized crime that prospers: cheap cigarettes on the black market can help the manufacturer expand its market share at the expense of rivals.
It is a very depressing feature of the availability of cheaper cigarettes that it encourages young people to smoke - and especially young females now who are beginning to smoke.
Finally, I would appeal to those people who buy black-market cigarettes to remember that they are putting money into the hands of ruthless criminals who are possibly also engaged in laundering money from drugs.
Madam President, the problem of fraud in the evasion of customs duties is one of the great unresolved challenges facing the European Union.
This form of fraud costs the EU billions annually.
It is as evident in my country of Ireland as in any other EU Member State.
As has been said by the previous speaker, on some of the main shopping streets of Dublin illegal tobacco is openly sold, and this represents a considerable loss to the Irish exchequer.
But it is also a source of frustration and anger for law-abiding citizens.
I hope that this report represents the first stage in a concerted battle against this type of fraud.
The wide-ranging recommendations contained in the report should be implemented, and soon.
However, the most crucial ingredient in tackling this fraud is political will.
The present situation, with 15 different Member States implementing 15 different customs regimes, is not conducive to success.
It is now vital that the EU establish a framework for customs services effectively functioning as if they were one.
This point is explicitly recognized by the Committee of Inquiry.
It is now up to the Member States' governments to take the initiative provided by this report, and I urge the Dutch presidency to examine this issue as a matter of some urgency.
The other vital ingredient, of course, is resources, and the excellent proposals contained in this report will not become a reality without adequate financing.
Again, this is a serious matter for consideration by the governments of the Member States, and finance for these measures would be a good investment on the part of the EU.
The initial expenditure required to tackle this fraud would be more than compensated for by the gains in revenue by the Member States.
There is a key role for EUROPOL in the implementation of this report.
There is no doubt in my mind that the same individuals involved in this trade are also involved in drugs and other such activities.
Striking a blow against transit fraud would also represent a positive step against organized crime, which is one of the greatest problems facing the European Union.
Madam President, the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into fraud in the Community transit system has investigated thoroughly and produced a very readable report.
My compliments to it for this.
It emerges very clearly from the report that when the single market was being put in place neither the Member States nor the Commission had the slightest idea of the opportunities for fraud it created for those whose intentions were dishonest.
The fact that customs administrations were cut back instead of measures being taken to offset the disappearance of the internal borders speaks volumes here.
I am happy to endorse many of the recommendations which the report makes for measures to counter customs fraud.
But I emphatically distance myself from the call for a Community customs service as referred to explicitly in the Treaty and implicitly in the recommendations.
In this regard I support the minority opinion at the end of this report, which recommends primarily that co-operation by Member States should be intensified.
I also disagree with the report's recommendation that UCLAF should be converted into a European fraud detection agency.
It is striking that the Committee of Inquiry says that failure to set up a Community customs administration is a violation of the subsidiarity principle.
But that principle applies only to policy areas in which the Union shares powers with the Member States. Justice affairs and investigation are not part of them.
Nor must they be. They represent vital functions of the sovereign national states which make up the Union.
All things considered I shall vote in favour of the draft recommendations because they include several good ones and because ultimately a European customs administration is not in fact included.
I have listened with great interest to the debate which the House has just held on the report of the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into the Community transit system.
May I start by complimenting you and congratulating you on completing this report.
I am grateful to the Committee of Inquiry for this most important investigation.
The Committee was the first to get down to work since the European Parliament secured the right of inquiry under the Maastricht Treaty and my particular thanks are due to Chairman Tomlinson and not least to reporter Kellet-Bowman.
Speaking personally, I should like to extend my tribute to Parliament as a whole.
I think it was a good choice of subject here. Secondly, the timing was right, thirdly the job was tackled in a practical manner and, fourthly and very importantly, useful information has been gathered from society itself.
I think that this should be the norm in future inquiries. I am glad that a precedent has been set.
The fact that the report you have debated broadly involved all the parties concerned and that the views of the business world were widely canvassed as well, will undoubtedly have been helpful in this analysis of the problems which have beset this sector for ages now.
This involvement also reflects the importance which Parliament attaches to the link between governments, business and industry and ordinary people in Europe.
More generally, the efforts of the Committee of Inquiry have once again made it plain that Parliament too wishes significantly to boost efforts to tackle fraud involving EC budget funds.
The Council too, together with the Commission and European Court of Auditors of course, is committed to this.
High priority must be given to countering fraud and to the better management and scrutiny of Community resources.
After all, fraud and the poor management and waste of these resources undermine Europe's credibility in the eyes of its citizens.
Measures against these things are of paramount importance.
For this precise reason I repeat that I welcome this Inquiry.
Transit fraud involves a number of aspects.
On the one hand the very basis of the single market is threatened and particularly the free movement of goods. This is crucially important to prosperity in Europe.
On the other hand, and the report points this up as well, there are complex problems in customs co-operation which play into the hands of the fraudsters.
Please understand if I refrain for the moment from commenting on the substance of these on behalf of the Council.
The report has not been discussed by the Council so any comments on it by myself would be premature.
What I would say is that in the recent past, partly as a result of the Committee of Inquiry's activities, much has already been done at both Community and national level to combat transit fraud.
In 1995 the Council adopted a resolution calling for computerization of the transit system by 1998.
And agreement has recently been reached on a customs cooperation treaty between the European Union and Switzerland.
This opens the way to solving part of this problem.
I should also say that since the European Council in Dublin the high-level group on organized crime has been set up. This will shortly be reporting and will shed considerable light on these matters.
It has addressed the strengthening of Europol's role in this kind of matter and the question of contact magistrates and justice cooperation which Mr Dankert mentioned.
I will of course brief my colleagues on today's debate. It goes without saying that the Council will give close consideration to the report and its recommendations and will attach its own conclusions.
The presidency will endeavour to get the report placed on the agenda as soon as possible.
The same goes for any proposals which the Committee may wish to make.
At the end of the current presidency a progress report will be given on these activities which I shall ensure are pursued with the utmost vigour.
Measures against fraud are a top priority.
The European citizen is after all entitled to powerful and efficient protection of the funds in Europe's coffers.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Council, I have listened with great interest to the statements on Mr Kellett-Bowman's report and on behalf of the Commission I want to sincerely thank all the speakers for their important political contribution to the debate.
It is clear that at this point the debate is looking towards the implementation of the reforms of the transit system and, more generally, the reform of the customs policy.
First of all, it has emerged very clearly that the transit problems are not technical, sectoral questions but represent a political problem that involves the entire customs system; secondly, the functioning and very credibility of the single market, the core of European integration, are at stake here; thirdly, a problem of this scale, with such major implications, calls for global solutions that combine all the planning, prevention, management, monitoring and control measures in a unitary strategy.
The completion of the single market depends on this reform and on a range of changes to customs policy and, I would add, to the policy on duties.
These aspects must and will take up their rightful place in the action plan on the single market which the Commission will be presenting to the European Council in Amsterdam.
It is also clear from Mr Kellett-Bowman's report and from the debate to which we have all listened with great interest that it is rather artificial to draw a distinction between the first and the third pillar and increasingly difficult to defend doing so.
We need effective measures at European Union level in order to protect the interests of the European tax-payers and the European citizens.
Investigation into fraud is most important, as some speakers have pointed out, but prevention is equally important and the Commission intends to confront this challenge head on, together with the 15 Member States.
Let me emphasize that the Commission is prepared to assume its responsibilities.
Parliament has clearly demonstrated its commitment in this matter; I hope the Council and the Member States will do the same - and we have just heard an important statement from the President of the Council - by making their political contribution and rapidly adopting the proposals put before them.
Finally, let me give warm thanks for the words of appreciation addressed to the European Commission, which I would also like to extend to our services, who have worked very hard with me.
For the rest, we will all continue to cooperate fully with the European Parliament.
Let me once again congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Kellett-Bowman, and the chairman, Mr Tomlinson.
Madam President, I just wish to address a word of thanks to both the Dutch presidency and the Commission and add a sentence with a question to each of them to take away with them.
First, to the Commission, because it has reminded us that there may well be additional costs involved if it follows the recommendations - and I heard it from both Commissioners.
I just ask them to ensure that the Commission, as a collegiate body, accepts its responsibility for including those costs in the preliminary draft budget for 1998 and not to leave it to Parliament to do its job for it.
Second, to the Council: I noted very clearly and welcomed very much that the Dutch presidency said it would draw its conclusions and will produce a report.
I should like to ask the Dutch presidency to ensure that that report is formally and officially communicated to Parliament so that it can be taken into account in the continuous monitoring of the follow-up.
With those two questions, I thank both the Commission and the Council for their active participation in this debate.
Thank you, Mr Tomlinson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Albania
The next item is the situation in Albania, with Council and Commission statements followed by a debate.
Madam President, partly in reply to oral questions to the Council from MEPs Ahlquist and Bianco, I am happy to report in detail on the alarming situation which has arisen in Albania and the steps which the European Union has taken so far as a result of it.
To enable us to understand the situation, let me outline briefly the background to the present crisis.
To begin with, the political and economic reforms in Albania which followed the upheavals of 1990-1992 proceeded smoothly, but in the run-up to the parliamentary elections of May/June 1996 the pace of the reform programme slowed.
Fiscal and monetary policy became less rigorous, leading to an excessively large budget deficit and a rise in inflation.
Consequently Albania no longer met the criteria of the International Monetary Fund and new tranches of the structural adjustment loans provided by the international financial organizations were frozen last year.
During the 1996 parliamentary elections the OSCE observers identified irregularities which favoured the Democratic Party of President Berisha.
The Government of the Prime Minister, who has now resigned, was thus very short on legitimacy and credibility.
The present political and economic crisis prompted by so-called pyramid investment schemes has to be seen against this broader background.
These pyramid schemes began a few years ago when Albanian workers living abroad transferred their earnings back into the country, a country which did not have a properly functioning banking system.
Most of these schemes involve little if any economic activity and are purely speculative.
Most of the Albanian population invested in them. They put in not only their ordinary savings, but often sold their houses, livestock and so on.
The total amount invested in pyramid schemes is not known, but the International Monetary Fund puts it at about one and a half billion dollars or 40-60 % of Albania's current gross domestic product.
When these schemes collapse in a country which is still extremely poor, the economic and social consequences are thus enormous.
It is feared that hyperinflation and massive poverty may result.
There are also major political repercussions, especially as the present Government ignored the warnings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank and some members of the Government may also have been involved in the pyramid schemes.
Confrontations in the country quickly became acute after the beginning of the crisis at the end of 1996. Between Government and opposition parties, between the north and south of the country and between Government and people.
The public is demanding that the Government compensate them for their losses.
The Government cannot do so.
Government and opposition parties accuse each other of seeking to make political capital out of the crisis.
Particularly in the south of the country where the socialist party, the erstwhile communists, traditionally have their power base and where the pyramid funds have since gone bust, the tensions are at fever pitch.
Countless citizens have looted weapons from the army and police. There have been killings and woundings.
It is feared that sizeable numbers of refugees will flood into Greece and Italy and that the tension may spill over to the Albanian population in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Kosovo.
Constant talks are going on between the European Union embassies and Albania about foreign nationals living there. Unless foreigners have pressing reasons to remain in Albania they are being advised to leave the country until further notice.
As regards measures by the European Union, I can tell you this. The European Union held consultations about these alarming developments at a relatively early stage.
This prompted the decision of the General Affairs Council on 24/25 February to send a high-level official joint mission of the presidency of the European Union and the Commission.
This mission took place on 27/28 February.
In talks with its opposite numbers in Tirana it particularly stressed the need to refrain from violence and to respect democracy.
All political forces in Albania were also urged to resolve the crisis through dialogue.
In talks with President Berisha, Prime Minister Meksi and Minister Sheru and the leaders of various opposition parties, the mission also found the attitudes of both Government and opposition to be extremely inflexible.
Since then, following that mission, the situation in Albania has worsened further.
The Meksi Government offered its resignation on 1 March, on 2 March a state of emergency was declared, on 3 March President Berisha got himself re-elected by parliament for a new five-year term.
Press freedom has been curtailed by extensive censorship. The work of journalists, both Albanian and foreign, has been made impossible.
In the light of this further worsening of the situation the European Union has sought, through closer consultation with all the parties involved, to help control the political conflict and create conditions for stability so that the country can resume its process of reform.
Given the special position of a number of Member States of the Union, the Council President, Mr van Mierlo, accompanied by the European Commission, held consultations in Rome and Athens on 6 March on the situation in Albania and then went on to Tirana for talks with President Berisha and members of the Albanian opposition.
Shortly before the EU presidency arrived in Tirana President Berisha and the political parties agreed on a statement.
This pledged support for the restoration of public order and called for people to surrender looted weapons within 48 hours.
The President promised an amnesty to citizens who obeyed this call and had not committed any crime.
Military operations would also be halted against those in control in a number of towns in the south.
The President would, on the basis of as broad a consensus as possible, start consultations for a new government and a new prime minister.
Lastly, a committee would be set up to ensure transparency in respect of pyramid schemes.
The parties to the statement announced their intention of holding the dialogue in public.
During the visit by the Council President meetings were held with President Berisha and representatives of six political parties.
Mr van Mierlo also met twice with his Albanian counterpart Sheru.
In all these talks he deprecated all forms of violence and pressed for human rights to be upheld.
In his talks with President Berisha the EU President emphasized the need to restore freedom of the press, including access for all parties to state television.
Given the present Government's lack of legitimacy and inadequate democratic credentials, Mr van Mierlo told President Berisha that if order was to be restored a parallel course had to be set offering the prospect of a new parliament and a government with sufficient support.
To this end democratic requirements had to be met such as a new constitution and a new electoral law.
An interim government, as broadly based as possible, should ensure these developments and restore order to the economy.
The EU presidency urged the President to announce elections quickly, to be held at a time acceptable to all parties.
The OSCE would have to be closely involved in this process of democratization.
The President was then urged to hold prompt consultations with the personal representative of the OSCE President-in-Office, former Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitsky, who was due to visit Tirana on 8 March, the day after the visit of the EU presidency.
In addition to these parallel lines leading, on the one hand, to the restoration of public order and, on the other hand, to the opening of perspectives for democracy, the problem of pyramid investments needs to be settled.
Cooperation with the IMF and World Bank would seem appropriate here. The presidency urged this course of action too.
In talks with members of the opposition the EU presidency took this same line.
They were made aware of their heavy responsibility to prevent further violence and were asked to use all their influence to prevent further violence in the south and to ensure that weapons were surrendered.
The presidency also endorsed the recommendation of the Council of Europe, which had a parliamentary mission visiting Tirana at the same time; this urged the opposition, out of respect for the principles of democracy, to take their seats in the Albanian parliament and take part in its work.
To conclude: unsurprisingly, the views of President Berisha and the opposition were very different.
President Berisha was unwilling to yield to violence and thought that the calling of elections at gunpoint would set an undesirable precedent.
He thus saw no reason for concessions until such time as weapons had been surrendered.
The opposition, however, believed that by handing in its weapons the south would put itself completely at the mercy of President Berisha's Government which it considered undemocratic.
Without extensive concessions beforehand the people would not accept this.
They also denied having enough influence in the south to persuade the people not to use violence.
Given these diametrically opposed positions, it follows that the significance of the aforementioned joint statement of 6 March by all the political parties was not clear.
The presidency told the Government and opposition parties that the European Union was prepared to provide further support for economic and democratic development in Albania, as long as the country made it possible for the EU to do so by restoring order and making internal changes.
If necessary the Union could also provide emergency aid, but I would make the point that Albania has already been receiving considerable aid since 1992, per head of population actually the highest amount given to any country in Central and Eastern Europe.
The presidency hopes that the progress made in recent days can be consolidated.
President Berisha has indicated his agreement to a government of national unity and early elections and has in the meantime appointed a member of the opposition to form a broad coalition government.
This is an important step towards a more lasting solution.
And I welcome the efforts being made by the Italian Government to foster dialogue between the Albanian Government and the opposition further.
The presidency will liaise closely with its colleagues in the EU and the OSCE to monitor the situation and where possible to take further steps to end this serious and unstable situation.
Madam President, the Council President has given a detailed and clear account, so the Commission can be brief.
Naturally I endorse Mr Patijn's words and, as you heard, the Commission was part of the missions to Tirana.
I think I can say that this debate is most timely.
Now that a compromise has been reached between the Berisha Government, between President Berisha and the opposition, partly at the prompting of the Council presidency of the European Union, of OSCE missions headed by former Chancellor Vranitsky and missions from the Council of Europe, it is vital now that pressure is brought to bear to ensure that this agreement is indeed adhered to rigorously, both by President Berisha and the opposition parties.
The agreement provides for a transitional government of national unity which is being formed now and subsequently for measures to prepare for general elections in June.
Madam President, I strongly urge the European Parliament to pass a resolution calling on all the parties to act on this hard-won compromise and to adhere strictly to its terms.
And I have my reasons.
We have in the meantime spoken to members of the opposition who have the feeling at present that the rebellion cannot be suppressed unless President Berisha resigns.
That would be a direct breach of the agreed compromise.
Consequently, whatever one may think about the legitimacy of the Berisha Government, or what it has or has not done in the past year, whatever one thinks about the precise motives of the various parties making up the opposition, all of which together concluded this compromise with President Berisha, one thing is certain: if this compromise is not complied with, anarchy will reign in Albania and the rebellion will indeed be uncontrollable.
It is thus for President Berisha and for the opposition to urge the rebels to lay down their arms and re-open the way to normal democratic relations.
If that does not happen, we fear that the future looks black for Albania, and the only ones to suffer will be the people of Albania itself.
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, I cannot but endorse your appeal for support in your endeavours, at least on behalf of my own group, although I am sure I speak for every other group too.
I also agree with you that all parties must now signal their determination to make this compromise succeed.
To that end, it must be made perfectly clear both to President Berisha and to the other parties what will happen if it does not succeed.
I assume you have the full backing of Parliament on this point.
Now is certainly not the time for criticism or for asking whether the signs could or could not have been read in time.
But I should like to state briefly that some factors must make us think, must make us wonder why we are suddenly faced with this desolation in the Balkans. All of us - I say 'us' deliberately, for I do not wish this to be perceived as referring to a handful of people - have relied very heavily on one person.
In other areas of European security policy too, it sometimes happens that, when our interlocutor is a person at the head of the State, a person we can trust, we believe that this is enough to make things happen.
Albania has proved that this is not the case.
I was in Albania myself.
I also spoke to President Berisha.
We really have allowed undiluted capitalism - I might almost say exploitive capitalism - to develop after the dictatorship, in the wake of the most inhuman system seen in Europe in recent times.
The so-called freedom under exploitive capitalism - perhaps even in conjunction with the political system - has ultimately impoverished very many people.
I therefore believe it is time to pursue a preventive policy here.
If I consider the explosive situation that could develop if a spark were to fly towards the neighbouring region of Kosovo, which will also be the subject of a resolution here, Mrs Pack having been there with a delegation a short time ago, it is not only legitimate but also absolutely essential to initiate political intervention and to try and guarantee human rights - which is precisely what have been unable to do in recent years in Albania, as elsewhere - and prevent the emergence of huge floods of refugees.
We are all aware of the suffering this causes, and we all know from our own countries how people's basic attitudes can become a problem when unnecessary influxes of refugees occur.
That is why I believe you have decided on the proper course of action, and we can continue with political intervention if we pursue it vigorously with the support of the entire European continent.
Albania is ablaze and Kosovo is in turmoil.
If the spark flies, there may be nothing left to save.
Let us extinguish the flames of crisis in Albania before it is too late.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in Albania is extremely difficult, as we have just heard.
Unfortunately, many Western press reports from that country have done nothing to clarify the situation but have confined themselves to laying the blame on President Berisha and his Government.
Let me say, however, that the source of the troubles in southern Albania is not political, but lies in the collapse of the pyramid investment schemes and in President Berisha's attempt last autumn to put an end to Mafia activities, especially in the southern part of Albania.
Many speculators and crooks who were defrauding ordinary people saw their financial success evaporate and exploited the misery of these people for their own ends.
Sadly, the opposition, consisting largely of old Communists - whom not even their political soul mates in the Socialist International would accept as members - also used this situation for the political purposes they had failed to achieve through the ballot box.
I do not share the opinion of the Council representative that everything went wrong last year.
The fact that the local elections in September produced the same results as the elections in March shows how the outcome of the March election is to be judged.
I am not speaking of the irregularities, which were eradicated, and I believe you should also take account of that.
For these reasons, when you speak of the Berisha Administration, you must proceed on the assumption that it is a legitimate government.
The proclamation of the state of emergency has to be understood, or so I believe, in the light of the despotism to which the people of the south have been subjected.
Which Western Government would stand by and let that happen in its own country? May I say to the representative of the Council that the dismantling of a legitimate Government with Western assistance is, I believe, unprecedented.
When similar things were happening in Russia, not one of you would have dreamed of cutting Mr Yeltsin adrift.
The idea that the old faces of Communism, who bear responsibility for the lack of democratic traditions, are now supposed to establish democratic conditions under pressure from abroad is grotesque.
The Berisha Government has made considerable progress towards democracy and a market economy, as this Parliament unanimously acknowledged last autumn.
It is therefore wrong to lay the whole blame at President Berisha's door.
We know full well that he is not without fault.
But the reasons for the terrorism and anarchy in the south are to be found elsewhere.
It must also be said that we have scarcely any conception here of the antagonism which has existed for hundreds of years between various regions and is now erupting into open hostility.
The arrangement that has now been concluded between President Berisha and the opposition parties must be implemented by both sides, and so I cannot accept being approached today by anyone asking me to help ensure that Mr Berisha leaves the country and receives asylum somewhere or other.
I do not believe that this is the proper way to honour an agreement.
The European Union must help to create democratic structures, to promote education and training, to establish market structures backed up by a genuine system of social protection and to promote investment and thus create jobs.
Should the arrangement that has now been reached by President Berisha and the opposition fail to take the heat out of the situation, which I must sadly assume, since the origin of the crisis is not political - a fact we are trying to demonstrate here - an international task force will have to be sent in to restore peace.
There is one point on which I am in full agreement with the Council representative: I too am in favour of a thorough examination of the occurrences in Albania.
Madam President, the chaos prevailing in Albania is not new.
The rising is spreading and moving northwards. On the television we all see people bearing arms - yesterday on the television I saw young children with weapons - and moving around all over the country.
These are very threatening things. At the same time, the government seems increasingly unable to control the situation.
I do not agree with Mrs Pack. The economic scandal was a reason, but one that was the tip of the iceberg.
The crisis was older than that, the situation was explosive even without it, and we too bear some responsibility.
Sometimes, when I look at some of the Union's policies, I get the impression that we are like those parents who think their duty is done when they have filled their children's pockets with money.
They themselves are never there, and they never supervise what that money is used for.
That is what we have done with Albania, to which we granted aid - and very rightly so - and which we must continue to aid if it is to emerge from the present crisis.
But we must maintain a presence and know what happens to the aid we give.
On the other hand, we supported President Berisha, sometimes provocatively so, under the impression - which is something I do not understand at all - that he, as he says, was not formerly a communist.
But President Berisha has not appeared out of nowhere!
The situation in all those countries is peculiar.
We supported him without warning him about certain consequences of his acts, and the results they would have - and we have seen those results.
Now, the chaos is threatening to spread all around. We all know very well how problematic the area is.
We know what is happening in the countries neighbouring Albania, and we know that two of them, which are Member States of the European Union, Greece and Italy, could be facing direct problems. Indeed, Greece shares a common boundary with Albania.
What must happen now? We must help, of course, we must talk with all the political powers in the country, because otherwise developments could surprise us greatly.
And this, as the Commissioner said, in a spirit of compromise.
But we must at long last work out a long-term policy and maintain a presence, not just keep paying out.
Madam President, it would take too long - and we do not have the time - to examine the distant causes of the extremely serious and devastating crisis that has hit Albania, the decades of economic weakness and total lack of democratic or even basic structures.
The situation we are confronting is clearly extremely difficult: there is a danger that outbreaks of violence could spread to neighbouring Kosovo, with the risk of mass migrations towards Greece, Italy and other European Union countries.
But it would take too long to go into all this again.
I believe that today Parliament has something to say to the Council and the Commission.
In our view the relations that have been established are correct and timely and the line taken by the Council and the Commission over the past weeks of worsening crisis is a positive one that deserves Parliament's support.
This line involves three demands, that are also set out in the document to be submitted to Parliament tomorrow for its consideration: firstly, a government of national unity, and it seems to me that this has been achieved with the appointment by the President of the Republic of a prime minister from the opposition; secondly, the holding of new elections; thirdly, the undertaking given by the European Union, and by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to give financial aid to Albania, subject to full respect for freedom of the press, the reestablishment of democratic rights and economic normalization measures in that country.
We believe these three points are fundamental.
Of course certain countries, such as Greece and Italy, play a particular role, but we want to emphasize that they must do so in the framework of the European Union's policies.
Madam President, the events taking place in Albania do not come as a bolt from the blue.
In our opinion, at least, they are the result of the policy exercised towards Albania and its people by the governments of some Member States and by the European Union's bodies.
They are the result of the many-sided aid and support given to Mr Berisha's antipopulist and autarchic regime.
The elections marked by violence and irregularities, the despoiling of the peoples' savings and the country's very economy by the unscrupulous Berisha regime, have not only received no condemnation by the United States and the European Union, but on the contrary, I think they have even had and still have substantive support and approval.
Some of us here, therefore, share responsibility for the explosion of the Albanian people.
Despite this, we are still unable to draw the necessary conclusions and we continue along the same slippery path, trying to solve the problem by suppressing the popular rising and by comprehensive and all-round aid to Mr Berisha.
We cannot understand that in Albania there is now a new reality imposed by the people's rebellion, which is already finding political expression.
Madam President, Albania's people are up in arms and are calling for two things: Mr Berisha's departure and the return of their money.
If the European Union really wants to show solidarity towards the Albanian people, it must adopt and demand promotion of the following four points, which have already been stated with related amendments:
First, the Berisha regime must come to an end.
The electoral process must establish a new President and a new Parliament.
Second, the people rebelling in the South must be represented in the political processes, through their political representatives.
Third, the leader of the Socialist Party and all political detainees must be set free immediately.
Fourth, generous military and economic aid must be provided at once, aiming both to compensate the citizens and to strengthen Albania's economy.
Finally, I would like to express my complete opposition to any plan for the intervention of international military forces in Albania, a thing which could lead to unforeseen situations all over the Balkan area.
Madam President, we are facing a truly dramatic situation, with the risk of civil war in Albania, a risk caused not only by the collapse of the pyramid investment schemes that we discussed last month too, but also by the reactions of a government, Berisha's government, which has little by little proved to be more a regime than a government, reacting with authoritarian measures to the popular demonstrations by the Albanians and ending with intimidation of the opposition press, a government whose representative, Berisha, no longer represents the people, as we saw from those demonstrations, and which had already shown signs of lack of democracy when we condemned the elections that were held in a manner that was anything but democratic.
Despite all this, he found nothing better to do than to have himself re-elected President of the Republic for another five-year term.
In face of this situation we must not forget either that a month ago we as the European Parliament had expressed our serious concern: the day after those elections, which were rigged, we expressed our deep concern about the consequences this could have, consequences which would, to say the least, prejudice the democratic dialogue between majority and opposition.
As early as 8 February 1994, the Member who preceded me in this Parliamentary seat, Alexander Langer, stated that Albania was not yet a normal democratic state, that ordinary democratic life was not yet fully developed, and called on all the European Union institutions to confront this situation, for if we are not able to confront a situation such as the Albanian one, how can we hope to confront all the problems of Eastern Europe as a whole?
For these reasons, the European Union, the Council and the Commission must undertake to promote a new détente based on the formation of a new government, on new elections held under the aegis of the OSCE; we also propose the appointment of a special Council envoy for south-eastern Europe to monitor the situation and to represent the European Union there on a permanent basis.
As has been said, if this crisis widens, it could have disastrous consequences for Kosovo, for Macedonia, and ignite the entire Balkan area.
Clearly, Parliament cannot fail to support and approve of the attempts to reach a political settlement to the civil tensions presently afflicting Albania.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance therefore supports the process of national reconciliation agreed upon by the various political forces in Albania; however, this process seems as yet to have failed to convince the Albanian public, which has risen up against the outrage perpetrated against it by the so-called pyramid saving scheme, a demonstration of all the worst excesses of a free economy.
Furthermore, we have learned that within the last few hours the anti-government insurgents have apparently begun to march on Tirana.
Might we take this opportunity to question the relevance and validity of European Union policy, which has already been found lacking on several occasions in this region? We had felt that the collapse of communism would automatically lead to democracy.
The reality is that it is the hardest possible way of learning democracy, amid all the after-effects of communism.
We had also believed that all anti-communists would necessarily be democrats.
The reality is that we had so ruthlessly abandoned half of Europe to its fate for forty-five years that the only anticommunists whose voices could still be heard were, in some cases, the wilder variety of liberal economists or adherents of some form of ethnic or religious obscurantism, or even autocrats - unrepentant former communists in many cases.
Today, there are three political conclusions we can draw from the Albanian crisis.
The first, emphasized by Mrs Daskalaki, is that we must stop allocating European aid without worrying about the use made of it in societies that are ill prepared for liberalization.
The second is that we should as a matter of urgency establish a European military force capable of intervening, at least, in crisis situations arising within Europe.
The third, more general, is that we should stop bickering and push ahead with the enlargement of the Union without which Europe will remain an amputee, cut off from half of itself, and that in order to achieve that we must encourage regional regroupings instead of imposing a totally unbalanced procedure of dialogue on weak and isolated nations.
Madam President, once again, sadly, the European Union has bungled, as it has done in so many cases.
The mistake it makes is always the same: unable to find a united and effective political line rapidly, the Union hopes to make up for its political deficit by opening its purse, but money alone does not help resolve problems and sometimes even exacerbates them.
It happened in Bosnia, in Mostar, in Zaire, and it is happening in Albania today.
In October, when the first signs of the Albanian crisis emerged very clearly, Europe responded with: ' let's give Albania some money' , i.e., give it to the Berisha regime, closing its eyes to the obvious abuses and electoral rigging by the president.
Since then, in the space of a little more than four months some ECU 500m have poured into Albania, the most generous per capita aid the European Union has given.
It hoped that this injection of funds would stem the tide of the crisis, whereas it actually precipitated it; when the crisis worsened a fortnight ago, the European Union merely mouthed words and did not even manage to convene the summit of the foreign ministers of the 15 called for by Greece and Italy.
A week after the start of the insurrection, a technical committee met - note that this was a meeting not of ministers but of ordinary officials of the EU Member States - to identify a common line of action for the Political Committee.
At present the Council seems to be flying a little higher; what I have said represents a further condemnation of the lack of a common foreign policy; in its absence, we cannot talk of Europe or of integration.
Madam President, the President-in-Office told us that we have granted vast amounts of aid to Albania and indeed over the past five years we have given that country 450 million ECU.
The question is, what good did that do to the Albanian people, and of course to us.
I think I can tell you: it created a savage and barbarous capitalism in that country, which has incited its citizens to rebellion.
And secondly, we created an autarchic and anti-democratic system.
Furthermore, between 1992 and the present day, there has been an orgy of arms and drugs smuggling in that country.
We also know about the economic structures that were created, the pyramid.
Over that period, those five years, we devoted very little time to what should have engaged our attention, namely unemployment, the flight of hundreds of citizens to neighbouring countries, and of course, we did nothing about the elections in May 1996.
We Socialists at that time called for the elections to be repeated.
Unfortunately, you took no heed of us.
And without any reason, we accepted that law about genocide, which excluded dozens of opposition politicians.
Even today, we still tolerate the imprisonment of Fatos Nano.
I think we should call for the immediate release of the only person who could probably still restrain those who have rebelled.
The events in Albania have shown us how difficult things are in Balkan Europe.
And I think there is one positive factor: the Presidency has acted correctly.
It listened to the countries with experience and a prolonged presence in the area - Greece and Italy - and operated effectively.
I think the Commission's actions have also been positive.
However, we must persist.
The problem is indeed a political one.
If Mr Berisha really loves his country, he will have to let others in his party and from the other parties govern that country, and he ought to leave calmly and quietly so that the Albanian people can solve their own problems.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the dramatic events of the past seven weeks, during which Albania has been sliding ever deeper towards breakdown and chaos, as a result of the economic disaster caused by the swindle perpetrated by the finance companies more than ten years ago, which has put thousands of families into penury, are being observed with great attention and concern by the international community and in particular the neighbouring states, Greece and Italy, which risk an influx of waves of refugees whose circumstances could be exploited by criminals.
Mrs Pack is right to call on us not to make hasty or partisan judgments, such as some I have heard in this Chamber.
President Sali Berisha agreed with the opposition on guidelines for a political solution and managed to achieve an agreement on setting up a government of national reconciliation made up of all the political forces and working towards national peace; at the time, the opening of a dialogue was greeted with shouts of joy and of rage by the rebel towns.
Under the agreement, the president called on the parliament to pass a new law granting a general amnesty to all civilians or soldiers who took part in the revolt following the collapse of the finance companies, provided they handed in their weapons, and announced new elections within two months, monitored by international organizations, as already happened in the last administrative elections, which were proved to have been fair.
He also called for financial aid for reviving the economy and humanitarian aid for the hardest-hit parts of Albania.
In Valona there is currently no light or water and living conditions, especially from the health point of view, give cause for concern.
In the light of all this it is therefore necessary to make the utmost effort to approach this delicate problem in a balanced, calm and unbiased manner in order to resolve the situation and continue the process towards further democratization, paying particular attention to the cultural integration of this important part of the Mediterranean basin.
Madam President, it is great to hear that a transitional government has been agreed, that elections will be held within two months thanks to European pressure, but despite this the news reported by the media is not exactly good.
I am afraid that civil war is imminent and I wonder how the Council and Commission and indeed all of us can prevent that.
Anyway, I am glad that the Council President laid it on the line to President Berisha last weekend.
Berisha's authoritarian and undemocratic behaviour is one of the reasons for this crisis.
The Council President was right to warn him against using force and quite properly urged him to respect press freedom and democracy, an admonition which he will probably ignore, as observers expressly complained he did at the time of the elections.
Madam President, the Union is a big neighbour of Albania and its biggest provider of aid.
Per head of population it is the Albanians who have expected and received the most from Europe.
I am curious to know how these promises for the future will stop the Albanian Government and the Albanians themselves from cutting each others' throats so that we end up with a situation of a little country with big poverty.
The Union must remind all the parties where their responsibilities lie, must show military restraint and point towards democracy.
Let us hope this is not the last time we get to talk about Albania, but that next time we do so on a positive note.
Madam President, I listened both to the President-in-Office and the Commissioner, and I hope that all they told us will take place and progress in the best possible way.
I would just like to express once more three minor reservations, because if I remember rightly, we had the same debate about the Bosnian situation.
Firstly, are you taking account of the complete split that exists at this time in Albania between the central political scene and its machinations, and the armed insurgents devoid of leadership? Today, Commissioner, as we speak, they are just 40 km from Tirana.
Secondly, are you aware of Mr Berisha's complete untrustworthiness within and outside the country, in economic matters, and in every respect? He shares the blame for the pyramids.
He did nothing to stop the pyramids, as you told us.
He shares complicity in the highest degree.
How can you contemplate any sort of agreement with him?
And thirdly, unless there is some promise on our part, not from the Albanian regime which is completely untrustworthy, that those who lost their money in the robbery of the century - 35-40 % of Albania's national income - will get back at least their starting capital, do not expect any optimistic outcome in Albania.
Madam President, I too regard it as a notable success of the European Union's recent initiative that the majority and the opposition have accepted the path proposed to them, the path of agreement, of national reconciliation in two important points: a more united government and the announcement of new elections.
At the same time I consider it regrettable that the Dutch presidency, in its recent statement of position, did not refer to Parliament's February resolution which foresaw the risks of the situation in Albania and pointed the way forward by agreement.
Let me add that, unfortunately, the agreement on the formation of the new government was reached with some delay, in a situation in which the two parties no longer control the country; we must be aware of this because otherwise we run the risk of discussing an imaginary situation.
This aspect must therefore be firmly underlined and brought to the attention of the Commission and the Member State governments.
We must realise that there are not just two forces in play in Albania now, but that there is a third force, the rebels, weapons in hand, whose violent action we have rightly condemned and must continue to condemn.
However we know that this force, which will be difficult to silence by the agreement, does not regard as sufficient the two points of the agreement between the majority and the opposition to which we referred; it also demands the disappearance of Berisha from the scene.
So new complications can still develop in this situation.
We must not think we have reached a definitive political solution.
We have merely opened the way for a possible political solution which, among others, must be pursued immediately so that the government can be formed rapidly.
Further steps will have to taken towards effective stabilization.
I believe that the European Union must intervene directly and play a major mediating role, seeking also to make contact with the third force in play, the armed rebels, in order to persuade through negotiation to lay down their arms.
Throughout this phase we must of course coordinate economic action with political action.
As Mr La Malfa said, economic action and political conditions must go hand in hand.
I also believe that the Albanian question should lead us to reflect on the limits of monetarism, which was quite clearly and evidently a fiasco here, and to realise the need for political action to re-establish a Europe that is political and not just monetary.
Madam President, I too believe that this Parliament must not turn away from the essential question, which is to restore a minimum of authority in Albania so that order can be restored in a situation of crisis that risks sparking off a dangerous civil war.
I agree with Mr Occhetto that there is a third force in play.
At present the rebels control 13 towns and have occupied a quarter of Albania and they are in possession of a large quantity of arms, so that Albania risks becoming a large arms depot without any guards, as one member of the opposition put it.
The situation risks going beyond the control of both Berisha and the national coalition government.
So I cannot agree with Mr Occhetto when he says that the disappearance of Berisha from the scene could ease the situation.
Let me draw your attention to a comment made by a member of the opposition, namely that at this moment Berisha is essential to the restoration of a minimum of law and order, which would otherwise become more difficult, and that the weapons stolen by the nine thousand rebels in the north could lead to a risk of civil war between north and south, along the lines of ancient linguistic and tribal divisions.
So what is needed is to bring all the components together.
I agree with the proposal by Commissioner van den Broek to try to create a minimum of legality, starting from the agreement reached between Berisha and the new opposition government and the job entrusted to a representative of the Socialist Party who, coming from the south, could try to finalize this agreement.
The European Union and the Council must take all the appropriate measures; in this context I note that the WEU, when it met in Athens, expressed its own practical position on the question.
As the President said, we must not only observe events but act with far more determination to achieve at least the minimum objective of avoiding the present serious risk of civil war and the breakup of Albania.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Council, I believe that what has been greeted as a success for Europe, the very fragile truce achieved in Tirana, is nothing of the kind.
Indeed, the European institutions should cry mea culpa for their inertia up until today, leaving aside the disbursement of a whole range of economic aid, which was in many ways useless and at times schizophrenic: first we abandoned Albania politically, then we elected Berisha a national and international hero, then we dropped him on the grounds of fraud and undue pressure during the elections.
Today we should not be surprised to see the situation suddenly worsen: the factions are out of control, out of any kind of control, either by Berisha or by his opponents. Nor do I believe in the genuine nature of this revolt against what was the culmination of the famous financial fraud; rather I believe that, in the south at least, political, partypolitical factors in a certain part of the country were at play.
I therefore believe that at this point Europe must assume its responsibilities for the future, especially for what was not done in Albania.
We should not be surprised if the various situations in the Balkans worsen politically and then degenerate into civil war.
That is why it is so very important for Europe to say mea culpa and to conduct itself in a different manner.
Let us follow the example of those who invest in peace, in stability and in human rights!
Madam President, in my view the compromise reached is, at this point, the only instrument that could put an end to the violence.
I therefore join in the Commission's appeal to Parliament - and will do so in the resolution tomorrow - to press for its implementation.
It is true that the riots have not ended: in reality there is no truce, there is simply an agreement that needs to be implemented and there is the risk of Kosovo becoming embroiled.
I agree with Mr Occhetto that we need to take direct measures for the south of Albania, as the Italian government is endeavouring to do through the presence of our ambassador in the south.
I believe that Europe therefore has every reason to attend to this aspect, in order to put an end to the riots and help the country hold new elections.
In my view the European Parliament's main task is to bring about the announcement of new, orderly elections. We all know these would be the first orderly elections given that - and we too are guilty here - we supported a government and a president although we knew the election had been rigged; we decided on this approach, this support, in the name of monetarism and financial commitments.
We made mistakes, yes, but we must not make new ones: we must therefore encourage orderly elections.
Let us see whether, with the direct support of certain governments - I am thinking of the Greek and Italian governments - and a major commitment by the European Union, we manage to make the necessary contribution, for otherwise, as has been said, there is a risk of civil war.
Madam President, the Members who spoke before me have indicated that the situation in Albania has gone completely out of control.
An undemocratic regime, combined with unscrupulous economic exploitation, has reduced the entire population of that country to destitution.
Although it is impossible not to sympathize with these people, and although their sense of despair is more than understandable, any resort to arms must be clearly and roundly condemned.
Civil war would be no solution in this situation.
It would only further exacerbate the crisis.
A way out of this dilemma must be found now.
The escalation of violence has to be halted.
It is good that the first move has been made to resolve this crisis together so that democracy can finally be given a chance in Albania too.
The creation of an all-party coalition and the announcement of democratic elections are first steps along this path.
We very much hope that all parties will now comply with the agreement, but these are all only first steps.
What is more important is that the new Government that is subsequently elected and the new Parliament should also make it their duty to implement democratic and economic reforms.
It is obvious that people in Albania will only be prepared to lay down their arms if they are offered a democratic and prosperous future.
The European Union bears responsibility not only for the development of Albania but also for the development of the entire region.
It is regrettable that in recent years almost every time we in the European Parliament have spoken about developments in the Balkans it has been in connection with crises.
Although we have concluded cooperation agreements with many countries in the region and even association agreements with some of them, and although we are trying, through the PHARE programme, to give active support to the reform processes in those countries, developments there have repeatedly taken us by surprise.
As this debate draws to a close, the request I should therefore like to make to the Commission is that in future we, that is the Council, the Commission and Parliament, discuss how democratic and economic reforms in those countries can be better and more effectively supported and how we can target the PHARE programme more selectively.
I believe we can help the population more effectively in that way than by merely appearing as firefighters whenever there is a crisis.
Madam President, we face a situation of the utmost gravity.
Neither President Berisha nor his government are blameless in the existing situation.
As you know, the OSCE/ODIHR report criticized the recent elections.
Everyone agrees the failure of the investment pyramid-schemes has been a tragic occurrence for numerous Albanians who have lost their life savings.
The government has allowed this to happen.
But we must get this matter into perspective.
There are still in the country numerous individuals who are members of the Hoxha regime.
There is strong evidence that in the south of the country there are links with the Albanian mafia, with their drug smuggling operations to Italy and elsewhere.
I remind you that one of the main reasons behind the problems arising in the town of Vlorë was the impounding of 100 high-powered speedboats, many used in trans-Adriatic smuggling operations.
The EU must show understanding of the situation.
More than ever there is a need for a cohesive approach amongst all Member State governments and international organizations to this problem.
President Berisha has shown some belated wisdom in bringing an all-party coalition government, and now a socialist prime minister, into office.
He needs to be supported, not castigated, but he, for his part, must be helped to recapture the confidence of the Albanian people by showing absolute respect for the law and the constitution, enforcement of human rights and the holding of fair elections.
These should be carefully monitored with assistance from the European Parliament amongst others and the media, too, should be supervised by the European Institute for the Media.
The implications of civil war and escalating violence are of immense and imminent proportions, not just because of Albania itself, but because Albania is a powder keg.
In Kosovo, already a tense situation, over 80 % of the population are of Albanian origin.
In Macedonia a substantial minority are Albanian.
Both these countries could become involved. Neighbouring Greece can be sucked into the problem.
Madam President, to conclude: we need to see a cohesive, balanced and strong approach to the plight of Albania.
Disunity, delay and weakness can set the Balkans alight.
This must not happen.
We cannot allow another Bosnia through lack of resolve: we must set up a crisis mechanism; we must have a single body for dealing with the situation.
We hope to see action upon these things.
Madam President, the European Union's policy in Albania, with its support for Berisha, was a mistake.
If the Council had heeded the European Parliament when Fatos Nano was arrested and had done something about that, if it had listened to the European Parliament after the irregular elections, if it had taken note of the European Parliament's resolution last month and acted immediately, or even if it had kept its distance from the Berisha regime like the United States, things would perhaps have been better today.
This legitimacy of the Berisha regime cannot now continue.
The President-in-Office of the Council cannot come here and say 'yes, we are calling for new free elections, because the previous ones for the Albanian Parliament were not free' , and then accept a President who was elected by that illegal Parliament under conditions of martial law.
And that is not all.
Mr Berisha must go, and the sooner the better, because that is the basic demand of all those who live in the South of the country and because it could bring an end to the process of civil conflict and unrest in Albania.
With this in mind, I call upon the President-in-Office, if he wishes to be constructive, to say 'yes, the Dutch government is prepared to give all the necessary guarantees and immediate political asylum to Mr Berisha, so that the situation in Albania can be unblocked' .
And one more question: are the Council and the Commission going to raise with the present Albanian government the issue of freedom for the political detainees, and especially Fatos Nano? I would like an answer from Mr Van der Broek.
Following my detailed statement I will repeat that the presidency and the Council are monitoring the situation in Albania hour by hour.
In so doing we call on the EU embassies in Tirana and we maintain very close contacts with the governments of the European Union Countries most directly affected, in Rome and Athens.
At the same time we are continuing unrelentingly with our initiatives vis a vis the Berisha Government and the other political parties.
Our parallel objective is the restoration of public order in the immediate future and that can only be done if we pursue our second objective: the credibility of the Government must be restored by means of democratic reforms and elections within a period of a few months.
It is primarily in the interests of the Albanian people that total anarchy should not take over in Albania.
Secondly, it is important for the region as a whole that this most unfortunate situation should not produce a ripple effect.
In answer to the previous speaker's specific question about political prisoners, I can confirm that the subject was raised by the Council President during his visit to Tirana.
Madam President, I am happy to echo the words of the Council presidency and would add that in Albania the fuse is smouldering.
The explosive situation there is a threat not only to Albania's own people but also to her neighbours and the whole of the region.
So I think we have to ask ourselves whether it is not time to consider how far President Berisha and the previous Government and indeed the opposition parties or others are responsible for the serious acts of violence we have seen.
Whether it is not time to consider and to press, collectively and with one voice, for the advice which we ourselves gave to the President and opposition parties that they should form a government of national unity and announce elections, whether it is not time to insist forcefully that the political compromise reached should be carried out as it stands.
Since that is the only chance which the people of Albania will in fact have in the short term of having a democratic say in how their future should be and also of coming to terms with the past.
Lastly, Madam President, surely we must see to it that the parties to the compromise, the parties which signed up to this agreement, not only carry it out rigorously and faithfully, but also that each of them calls on the rebels to lay down their arms and put an end to the violence, expressing their opposition via the ballot box rather than the gun.
If Council, Commission and European Parliament can send that powerful message a last chance will perhaps remain.
If it does not work we shall have nothing to reproach ourselves with, but it seems to me that efforts to undermine the compromise which we ourselves recommended does no service to the credibility of the European Union.
Madam President, a number of speakers have referred to the coup d'etat developing in Albania.
A number of organizations - the OSCE, the European Union, the Council of Europe - have been to Tirana and have engaged the government in discussions.
What concerns me if there is a developing crisis that may have an effect on other countries, is that there should be some mechanism for crisis management between these organizations and including defence organizations like NATO and WEU.
Can the Council confirm that at the meeting on Saturday of foreign ministers this point of crisis management and coordination - contingency planning - will be on the agenda in case the situation gets worse?
Albania does not feature as such on the agenda for the informal meeting of foreign ministers, but it will certainly be discussed.
Given the current situation I think the ministers will be forced to consider it.
I can neither confirm nor deny that military preparations have been made by NATO, the Western European Union or any other organization.
I do not think it helps to clarify the position of the European Union countries if I speculate on military intervention in a civil war.
That seems to me one of the last priorities which we in Europe should have.
Madam President, I just want to remind the President-in-Office of one question.
He could answer me with one word.
I asked him whether the Presidency has taken or is taking an interest in the release of all the political detainees, including the leader of the largest opposition party, the Socialist Party, Mr Fatos Nano.
I would like an answer from the President-in-Office as before, particularly about Mr Fatos Nano.
I thought I had already covered the honourable member's question.
The matter was raised by Mr van Mierlo during his visit to Tirana.
This gentleman, Mr Fatos Nano, was also expressly discussed.
The debate is closed.
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled on the basis of Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Welcome
On behalf of Parliament, I welcome a delegation of Members of Parliament from ten Mediterranean States which are signatory to the Barcelona Convention.
We welcome them.
I am sure you would also want me to say to them on your behalf how much importance our Parliament attaches to increased co-operation with the Mediterranean countries.
We know that this offers us a prospect of stability and peace, and this Parliament is devoting as much effort to consolidating its relations with the States of the southern Mediterranean seaboard as it is to strengthening its relations with the eastern States.
We are well aware that peace depends on this balance. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen!
(Applause)
Follow-up to the Barcelona Conference
The next item is the report (A4-0027/97) by Mr Sakellariou, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the joint report by the Presidency of the Council and the Commission on Mediterranean policy - follow-up to the Barcelona Conference (7987/96 - C4-0414/96).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, just under 16 months after the Barcelona Conference of 27 and 28 November 1995 and a good month before the follow-up conference in Malta, we are to debate in the House today a report which seeks to evaluate the results of the first Barcelona Conference and to put forward new proposals and requirements for the follow-up conference, which will be held in Malta this time.
I should like to start, Madam President, by saying how delighted I am that today's debate is taking place in the presence of our fellow parliamentarians from the Mediterranean countries with which we founded this special EuroMediterranean partnership in Barcelona.
I believe we are experiencing the start of a special form of parliamentary cooperation that can enrich the Barcelona process and generate fresh momentum to the quest for peace, security, economic development and understanding between our cultures for the benefit of our peoples on every side of the Mediterranean.
I bid a warm welcome to our colleagues in the gallery.
In the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and in the Committee on External Economic Relations, as well as in almost every relevant delegation and joint committee, we have been holding detailed discussions on the various aspects of our Mediterranean policy.
I have received a wealth of suggestions and support from other Members. I should like to thank my colleague and friend, Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos, whose name stands for many others and whose opinion on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations provided very valuable additions to the report before us.
Ladies and gentlemen, the results of Barcelona, in the form of the unanimously adopted Barcelona Declaration and programme of activities, but also the results of the work that has been carried out since the conference, are particularly encouraging.
Especially in the domain of the political and security dialogue, which has become one of the main pillars of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, impressive results has been achieved.
A list of confidence-building measures has been drawn up and a plan of action devised, which serves to guide the work of the competent departments of the Commission.
But I believe that the core element in this domain is the formulation of a Euro-Mediterranean charter for peace and stability, through which dialogue and crisis-prevention are to be institutionalized.
That is precisely what this Parliament is seeking too.
For this reason I believe that, in our debates in the European Parliament as well as in our dialogue in the framework of the parliamentary Euro-Mediterranean forum, this charter should serve as a focal point.
A whole series of other valuable proposals in this domain are on the table.
It is the joint responsibility of Parliament, the Governments and, of course, the Commission as well to ensure that laudable declarations of intent are turned into specific practical policies, serving to promote peace and security for all nations of the region.
From the huge catalogue of tasks for the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, I should like to refer in particular to one point that I personally believe to be extremely important.
Migration has always played a prominent role in cultural exchanges between the two sides of the Mediterranean.
That will not change in the future either.
But the increasing economic disparities between the countries which people are leaving and those to which they are migrating, compounded by unresolved employment and social problems in the latter, have resulted in a combination of cheap populism and crass racism from intolerant die-hards, which has given rise to increasing discrimination against immigrants.
The position of the European Parliament against racism and xenophobia is not only well known but also exemplary.
It should serve as the basis for a policy of non-discrimination within the scope of the new partnership.
We need a contractual framework for regulated immigration, and we must formulate together - a task which I regard as eminently suitable for a parliamentary Euro-Mediterranean forum - a charter of immigrants' rights, in which the differing interests of a governmental and humanitarian nature would be harmonized.
I shall conclude now by taking the liberty of switching to Spanish, in order to address Vice-President Marín in his own language:
In conclusion, I would like to thank the Vice-President of the Commission, Manuel Marín, for his support and his personal commitment to Mediterranean policy.
Your staff and you yourself have always given us inestimable support.
I hope this fruitful cooperation will continue and indeed increase in the future.
Ladies and gentlemen, I look forward to the debate on my report and thank you for your attention.
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Sakellariou on a very comprehensive report.
I would also like to join with him in the congratulations to Commissioner Marín for the efforts he has made in relation to this subject.
Also we must not forget the initiative taken by the Spanish presidency which got the Barcelona Conference off the ground.
Clearly in the situation following the fall of the Berlin Wall, where we are looking at security in a broader framework of political, economic and social stability, the Mediterranean initiative is of vital importance if we are to maintain and build the security of the region.
However, there are a number of observations I should like to make.
Firstly, there is no doubt, despite all the efforts contained in the Mediterranean process, that unless we guarantee the peace process in the Middle East, everything we do will be undermined.
So we must keep the importance of that peace process very much in our minds.
Secondly, it is important that Member States of the European Union show their commitment to this process by ratifying the association agreements which have already been agreed; and I underline the importance of Amendment No 14 which Mr Sakellariou tabled.
Thirdly, what governments can do is by its nature limited.
The key to success in this initiative will come if we attract private finance.
It is therefore incumbent on the recipient countries - if I can call them that - to ensure that there is a proper legal and political framework to attract capital.
In particular, we must ensure respect for intellectual property rights, appropriate tax regimes, effective competition policy and maximum transparency in the relationship between public and private institutions.
For our own part, we must place much emphasis in the assistance we are giving on ensuring that the proper framework is established, in particular in relation to banking and the finance sectors.
Fourthly, we must intensify the dialogue on human rights.
This is not a bolt-on addition.
It is the essential requirement of modern economic expansion.
Freedom is both a political concept and an economic one which is vital for the development of the region.
Fifthly, we must intensify the cooperation on water supplies.
That represents a great challenge but also a great opportunity, and I will be interested to hear the Commission's response to Mr Sakellariou's suggestion of a European Mediterranean water agency, which seems to me to go beyond the Declaration of Marseilles of November of last year.
Sixthly, we must intensify regional cooperation in order to ensure that countries are working very closely together so that they become very much inter-related.
Finally, it is important that we develop greater mutual understanding.
We need to explain what the European Union is trying to achieve with the single currency project and with enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe.
We also have to explain to our citizens what we are trying to achieve with the Mediterranean project because, as Mr Sakellariou has already indicated, there are many misunderstandings about our aims.
Therefore we need to increase publicity about the objectives of the European Union.
Madam President, I wish to join colleagues in welcoming this report and congratulating Mr Sakellariou.
I took the opportunity of looking at the list of speakers in this debate and I see that the overwhelming majority are from southern Member States.
I wish to say, therefore, that the success of the Barcelona process is not just important to the south of Europe, but to all of Europe.
My own country has been fascinated by developments in Mediterranean policy for many centuries.
This is a process in which the whole of Europe is engaged with the whole of the Mediterranean.
Secondly, I wish to echo those who have supported the parliamentary dimension of this process.
It is right that we should honour and welcome the work done by ministers, Commissioners and civil servants.
But if this process is to be a success, it has to be a meeting of minds and a meeting of peoples, and that needs to involve the parliaments of the states.
In the next two days we will try, with the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and our distinguished guests, to work out what the framework of a Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Forum would look like.
Finally, I welcome what might be called the holistic approach of the Barcelona process - its multidimensional nature.
The problems of the Mediterranean demonstrate, more dramatically than perhaps anywhere else, that foreign affairs is not just a series of unconnected and unpredictable crises.
Those things which we call politics, which we call foreign affairs, respond to underlying trends.
We know that demographic, environmental and economic issues interrelate to produce the political problems and the migratory flows to which Mr Sakellariou referred.
They build on the complexity of the historic cultural legacy of many millennia of interaction in the Mediterranean.
It is perhaps dangerous for a politician to advise other politicians to study history, because we all have our favourite national historians.
However, I recommend that anyone involved in this process should study the work of that great French historian Braudel and his classic study on the Mediterranean at the time of Philip II.
There they will see clearly laid out the interrelated system of culture and economics that is and always has been the Mediterranean.
Mr President, I warmly thank Mr Sakellariou for his good work.
His report fully recognizes the strategic importance of the Mediterranean.
I too welcome our friends and colleagues from countries on the other shore of the Mediterranean.
I believe that it is absolutely essential to shift the balance of European policy towards the south because the Mediterranean area is particularly vulnerable to the emergence of a new wall of incomprehension between north and south, between the Christian and the Muslim world, between the rich and the poor world.
This has to be avoided and in this context the Barcelona process is most important, as is partnership with the countries on the other shore of the Mediterranean.
I also agree with Mr Dimitrakopoulos when he says that genuine Islam must not be regarded as fanaticism or intolerance but is to be regarded as a culture, based on tolerance and respect for the opinions of others.
If we are to make progress along the road towards political partnership, I believe there are several important preconditions, among them the fact that Europe must become a unitary political interlocutor that is able in some way to bear its great burden of freedom and democracy, as reflected in the Convention on Human Rights, the Court of Justice, the principles of the rule of law and democracy, pluralism and tolerance.
I am concerned about an economic aspect.
Although a champion of the free market and economic liberalization, I believe that in the case of agricultural products we cannot move from protectionism and international agreements of a dirigiste nature to the liberalization of trade.
That would be extremely detrimental to Europe and in particular to the European countries bordering the Mediterranean.
Mr President, the follow-up to the Barcelona Conference has to be the next step in the dynamic process of rapprochement between Europe and its neighbours around the Mediterranean Sea.
But the prevailing climate is not calculated to raise expectations overmuch.
The Middle Eastern peace process is in trouble, and that in turn affects the Barcelona process.
The aspirations voiced in Mr Sakellariou's report are very laudable, but I maintain that they are not very realistic.
We have to move forward step by step with concrete plans and not lapse into fine speeches.
Regrettably, our Group thinks that many of the proposed amendments to the Sakellariou report go too far.
Of course this House must give a lead and ultimately the OSCE model must be practicable and the Euro-Mediterranean stability pact has to be an interesting idea.
But first of all we should concentrate on rounding off the bilateral agreements with our partners.
And the Barcelona process is useless unless we are consistent.
For example, the recent statement by a number of senior Christian Democrats that the Union is a Christian community, so that Turkey, for example, cannot join, will have hit a nerve throughout the Mediterranean region.
And I totally repudiate that statement.
The Union does not judge people by that kind of outdated criteria and we must insist on respect for human rights and democracy and make it clear to Turkey, for example, what criteria she must meet if she is to join.
Those criteria are valid both for Turkey and for a number of other countries in the region.
Mr President, supporting the Barcelona process today means deepening it, in the first instance politically, where Europe must build genuinely autonomous regional security with its Mediterranean partners, by reducing to the maximum the presence of powers alien to the area - remembering the United States bases and fleet - and by making promotion of democracy and respect for human rights the fundamental aim - remembering Turkey, Algeria and Morocco. We must also implement measures to promote trust, stability and conventional and nuclear disarmament, which calls for a regional organization based on similar principles and procedures to the OSCE.
Security in the Mediterranean will be impossible without adequately solving a number of open conflicts, completing the Middle East peace process, self-determination for the people of Western Sahara, and reunification of Cyprus.
Barcelona cannot go against itself.
The Union must sponsor economic and commercial integration in the region, but not on the basis of free trade at all costs, which ends up destroying the quality of life of the working classes or financial support to International Monetary Fund adjustment plans, but, on the contrary, promoting models of sustainable development from which to reduce problems like debt, promoting gender equality and youth employment, combatting the deep causes of migratory flows, which must not and cannot be tackled by policing or restrictive and quasi-xenophobic frontier policies, and restoring an extraordinarily degraded environment.
All that should be present in the Barcelona process and sponsored in the next meeting in Malta together with three other measures: promotion of cultural understanding between the north and south coasts, introduction of mechanisms to involve the public, and the creation of a permanent interparliamentary forum with powers of consultation and proposal.
If all that is fulfilled, the Union will be laying the foundations of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in which all participate, which is essential for its own stability and which is not perceived as a mere strategy to gain market quotas or impose neo-colonial ideas.
Mr President, I want to point out that many of us had expected rather more of the Barcelona Conference, such as a shift of balance southwards of European Union policy, which is all too often aimed rather more towards the eastern countries.
Perhaps one of the limitations of the Barcelona Conference is that it demonstrates the absence of a genuine European foreign policy.
In fact it has been concerned mainly with creating a large free trade area without constructing a solid and durable system of wider and more structured forms of regional association.
The causes lie in the fact that participation in the system is limited only to 12 African coastal states, excluding Libya, Albania and the countries of former Yugoslavia, that the aim is to promote the free movement of goods while in fact hindering the movement of persons, and that there is no genuine democratic dialogue between all the components of civil society on both shores of the Mediterranean.
However, the Barcelona Conference was a first step, which we cannot dismiss, towards the necessary approach to relations between the Mediterranean countries.
For that reason we Greens endorse the report by Mr Sakellariou and congratulate him on his excellent work.
In particular, we regard as most important the call on the Commission to draw up a special report on the human rights situation in the 12 non-EU signatory states and the proposal on the establishment of a European civil peace corps in order to strengthen humanitarian action, achieve a peaceful resolution of conflicts, prevent the outbreak of new conflicts and provide the requisite confidence-building measures.
This is a proposal the Greens have always put forward.
We also propose a discussion on disarmament, on the need for arms limitation, the need to establish a nuclear-free zone in the Mediterranean region.
We agree on the need to develop the MEDA programme in a positive way and to aim at debt cancellation, linked to compliance with the principles of the declaration, with a view to promoting sustainable development and to achieving that aim by means of renewable energy sources and energy savings.
So we hope the European Parliament will be adequately represented in Malta and that all the non-governmental organizations will be present at a civil forum financed by the European Union.
Mr President, the Barcelona Conference marked a major turning point in the creation of a Euro-Mediterranean pole.
That in no way reduces the necessity to conduct a regular review of progress in the working areas that have been opened up, to ensure that the spirit of Barcelona endures.
And, as Mr Sakellariou's excellent report recommends, it is important that the European Union should move further down the road to Euro-Mediterranean co-operation.
As far as my group is concerned, it seems to us fundamental to strengthen trade relations while adopting the objective of reducing the trade balance deficit.
Furthermore, sustainable development of these regions presupposes sound management of resources, and especially of water.
Politically, we would like to see some relaxation of the common policies of conflict prevention, and greater attention paid to the subject of human rights.
Nevertheless, the spirit of Barcelona will only be fully realized if culture is given the importance that was attached to it at the time of the Conference, as a catalyst and as a means for bringing peoples closer together and combating intolerance and racism.
That is why my group will be supporting the amendments designed to strengthen cultural exchanges, the role of civilian society and the heritage conservation policies.
Mr President, the Sakellariou report has the merit of emphasizing the priority importance which we should now attach to establishing close co-operation with all the Mediterranean seaboard States.
For Europe, in the aftermath of the cold war, the Mediterranean horizon has become the horizon of security.
The two essential factors for that security, as inseparable as the two sides of a coin, are the economic development of the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean, and the control of migration flows.
This latter consideration is not only an essential precondition for the internal security of the European States but also the mainspring of our partners' development.
They must be able to rely on motivated human resources, on a trained elite which has a greater, more public-spirited interest in the development of its own country than in the illusory attractions of an expatriate existence.
It should be a constant concern of our co-operation, and of its necessary renewal, to prevent encouraging this brain drain.
Mr Sakellariou proposes the creation of a co-prosperity zone in the Mediterranean.
That is indeed the path of genuine co-development which we should be taking, in order to ensure that the Mediterranean can one day become a zone of lasting stability.
For that purpose, we hold trump cards which others do not.
The long tradition of friendly and co-operative relations between some of our countries is a precious asset to the entire Union.
After the unfortunate failure of an initial ambitious attempt at a Euro-Arab dialogue, a new dynamic is seeking to become established on the basis of the Barcelona Declaration.
We must succeed this time, by asserting Europe's Mediterranean priority clearly, resolutely, lastingly and realistically.
Mr President, the thousand Mediterraneans of Brodel, the old and new civilizations on the African and the European coast that have existed through the course of time, distrustful of one another and sometimes even inimical, have created the foundations for a common future through the Barcelona Conference.
It produced a final declaration, the fruit of that strange North-South summit that advocated global cooperation, to be implemented at three levels: a more intensive political dialogue, the development of economic cooperation, more attention to the social, cultural and human dimension.
Now, a few months later, we have to criticize the inadequacy of the European initiatives.
The time has come to translate into action the lofty intentions of the final Declaration of the Barcelona Conference.
In our view, the Council must convene regular follow-up conferences, in an attempt to identify the most appropriate measures to be taken, and must look into innovative formulas aimed primarily at debt cancellation, but also formulas for conversion, which does not mean cancellation but means converting reduced debts into expenditure devoted to development, to training programmes, to the requisite adjustment of the legal framework so as to make it into a comprehensive and consistent whole under the agreements.
A future Euro-Mediterranean stability pact could include, among others, a contractual commitment to acknowledge and respect the territorial integrity of all the Mediterranean partner states and a clause on establishing a nuclearfree zone throughout the Mediterranean basin.
Mr President, first of all I want to welcome our friends from the Euro-Mediterranean parliaments and say that this has been a great achievement. Commissioner Marín, you know how strongly Parliament advocated this policy.
It could be said in general that the Euro-Mediterranean policy has already produced a result because it has affirmed and legitimized the European Union's political role in the Mediterranean and improved our relations with the countries on its shores.
Today we are here to celebrate this fact, regarding it as an acquis : now we have to see how we can move forward.
Of course, the practical implementation of this policy involves greater difficulties than its establishment.
We have been aware in recent times of the difficulties and delays: there were delays in the definition of the MEDA regulation; we still need to define the charter of what is known as the stability pact which we hope will come into being in Malta, in response to a proposal - and this is important - from the ARE group; we wanted to have the Commission's indicative regional programme in April and, finally, we need to make every effort to incorporate finance, firms and trade associations in the Euro-Mediterranean policy.
We know there is an obstacle, namely the instability in the Middle East: but we have always emphasized the objective links that exist between establishing the Mediterranean policy and the peace process in the Middle East.
We must speed up the establishment of relations between the civil societies. We can establish relations between institutions up to a certain point, but then we need relations between socieities.
They need to establish closer contacts among themselves; we have to find ways of achieving this, including new ways, we have to invent them. Of course this will be difficult, but we must do so because this will lead to more rapid and more frequent direct relations.
If we are to involve the societies in this process it is important that we look into means of setting up a permanent, although not cumbersome inter-parliamentary structure.
We need enormous progress in decentralized cooperation, which will encourage relations between areas and regions and activate the wealth of our cultures, our people, whose operational, entrepreneurial capacity will be enhanced by direct contact.
What we must do now is to encourage this direct contact: any instrument, any ideas on this will be welcome and you, Commissioner Marín, will always have our support along this road.
Mr President, first of all I too would like to congratulate Mr Sakellariou on the excellent report he has presented.
Euro-Mediterranean partnership is based mainly on three fundamental pillars: the political and security pillar, the economic and financial one and the social, cultural and human one.
At present the state of the art of these three pillars is generally speaking satisfactory, nevertheless in each of the three cases, problems are apparent which, if not resolved, could jeopardize everything.
As regards the first, political and security pillar, we cannot deny that between the Barcelona Conference and now there have been more military encounters between member countries of the partnership and that their attempts to successfully conclude their respective peace processes have stalled.
Although there is no provision for any link between the peace process and partnership, these problems could end up weakening it.
The European Union must therefore have greater influence in the Mediterranean region and assume a political role which, considering the importance of its financial role, should be a wide-ranging one.
On the second, economic and financial pillar, the progress made is increasingly evident.
However, we have to note with disappointment the difficulties encountered in the administration of the MEDA programmes, which have forced the Commission to freeze them temporarily following the weighty report by the Court of Auditors.
Turning finally to the third, social, cultural and human pillar, it has to be said that this has been subject to considerable delays, both because of the difficulties with the MEDA programme and because of our Parliament's delays, since it has not yet created the forum which should become the ideal meeting place for EuroMediterranean civil society.
In the time between the Malta Conference and Barcelona III, the European Parliament must therefore seek to institutionalize a permanent dialogue between the various civil societies in order to avoid the risk of constructing a Euro-Mediterranean edifice without foundations, without the fundamental and reciprocal awareness and confidence that is needed between two societies that are still suspicious of each other and different.
I am therefore happy to welcome the colleagues from Mediterranean third countries who have come here and the proposal to set up a first meeting between the members of our and their parliaments.
I also urge you strongly to ensure that this does not remain an isolated event but is the forerunner of an institutionalized and regular dialogue.
Mr President, I too extend a warm welcome to our colleagues from the Mediterranean region.
What we have to do now is take the Barcelona initiative forward in practice and Mr Sakellariou's report provides a particularly good starting point.
Since the beginning of this stability policy I have had one complaint. Only the countries of the south are making any effort here, and happily Mr Spencer has the same impression, so things will have to change.
Perhaps under the Dutch presidency there will be a change of emphasis at the followup conference in Malta.
In any case I hope that considerable attention will be given to asylum, migration, drug trafficking and organized crime.
But, Mr President, Mr Titley put it best of all.
There will only be stability and security in this region if human rights are respected.
I am glad that all members of the Foreign Affairs Committee are prepared to consider my proposal that we should adopt the OSCE's model for monitoring human rights in the region.
That would, one hopes, take us some way forward.
Because unless there is a move towards democracy and above all reciprocal integration on the part of these countries, well, there will be no stability in that region without progress in that area.
Regarding reciprocal co-operation, Mr President, I regret that one of our newest partners under the interim agreement, the Palestinian authority, has, at least if the media reports are true, just issued an invitation to the United States, the European Union and the Arab countries to attend talks in Gaza which exclude their Israeli peace partner.
If that is true it is not consistent with the spirit of the Barcelona Treaty, but I hope these reports are not true.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with the fundamental points of Mr Sakellariou's report and my group's support of it, expressed by Mr Bertens, and also with the very positive evaluation of Vice-President Marín's work and results.
I agree on the significance of the establishment of a European Union Mediterranean policy in Barcelona in November 1995, under the Spanish Presidency.
But on the other hand I have rather more reservations about certain economic aspects.
Mr Bertens spoke more about political aspects and I want to refer more to economic aspects, given that, for one thing, the delay in approving and subsequently implementing the MEDA regulation has slowed down other projects and dampened the expectations established at Barcelona.
Secondly, I must stress the need to develop projects which really contribute to economic development and meet expectations - above all economic expectations - in the area and which, as has already been said here, are encountering some reticence as regards finance.
That reticence must be overcome at the London meeting - an important meeting, to my mind, although I do not think it has been mentioned so far - and finally, as Mr Sakellariou said, much easier access to such projects must be extended to small and medium sized companies.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Sakellariou because in his report he deals coherently with the three basic pillars of the Barcelona statement and also proposes alternatives to solve the problems which may be generated by political cooperation, cooperation in security, economics and finance, and cultural, social and human cooperation.
However, Mr President, since we are totally at one with the soul and spirit of the Barcelona Conference and perhaps to add another angle to this debate, I want to draw attention here to the great sacrifice and far from beneficial consequences that blindly strengthening Euro-Mediterranean cooperation involves for the industrial sectors of objective 1 regions.
The majority of these regions are in the Mediterranean basin and have industries similar to those of the third countries.
I particularly want to highlight the damage that strengthening free trade under Euro-Mediterranean cooperation will cause to the Union's agriculture and textile industry if we fail to recognize that the least favoured regions in the Union itself will be seriously prejudiced and face more difficulties than they already do in achieving the desired level of development. There is also the added risk that the security and stability of existing agreements with third countries in the Mediterranean basin will be seriously prejudiced.
Mr President, as the Barcelona Conference confirmed, Europe is part of the Mediterranean Basin and the Mediterranean Sea is, for all the countries surrounding it, an inland sea - a sea that belongs to us all.
So we need to learn to work together, all of us who have lived together.
We must therefore have joint projects in economic development, research, energy programmes and environmental protection.
Together, we must guarantee our common security, fight for peace and equip ourselves with specific means for doing so, as the Sakellariou report proposes, through a charter.
Together, we must defend human rights and combat racism, intolerance and all forms of fundamentalism.
We also need - jointly, again - to further the advance of democracy where it is insufficiently established and defend it where it exists, with all due respect for our differences, naturally.
Finally, Europe has a duty to reduce the debt of its Mediterranean partners.
That will be a strong, specific signal which they are all expecting from us.
In conclusion, as chairman of the Europe-Israel delegation, I offer my warm congratulations to Mr Sakellariou for the quality of his work and the excellence of his report.
I also call upon the whole European Parliament and European Union to understand that our future, in every area, will depend on our dealings with the southern countries in general, and the Mediterranean seaboard States in particular.
We have done some good work so far, but we must bear in mind that there is a great deal still to be done.
Mr President, I think that for the first time following the Barcelona Conference it has become possible to establish an authentic policy for the Mediterranean in global and organic terms.
However, there are several essential conditions for achieving this objective.
The first is to accompany the partnership with genuine technical support measures in order to attain the objectives that have been set.
It is extremely important not to seek to impose a policy from above but to reach appropriate agreements with the individual countries on establishing the specific policies of the three pillar defined in Barcelona.
I cannot go into all the aspects in the time available and will confine myself to one observation.
I have in my hands the calendar of events produced by the Commission. There are undoubtedly deadlines in regard to matters of major importance, but which mainly concern questions of security; that is correct since the objective of peace and stability is an important one.
The economic aspect is also extremely important. But there are still very serious weaknesses as regards the entire question of cultural activities, which is also an essential aspect if we want to resolve, not by imposing solutions but through genuine development, matters relating to the closer integration of the Mediterranean countries and if we want to create a stronger sense of identity among all the countries by means of cultural initiatives of which, however paradoxical, there are only two: the usual customary attention to the audiovisual media, given the importance of television, but also, which is perhaps very important, the awareness of the programmes to be transmitted given that this signifies genuine policy-making.
From this point of view, I too want to praise Mr Sakellariou's report, without disregarding the important contribution made by Mr Dimitrakopoulos.
Mr President, I want to begin my speech by congratulating Mr Sakellariou on encapsulating Euro-Mediterranean policy in a report which I regard as most opportune, taking stock of our efforts so far and establishing lines of action.
I also want to record that when we speak of Euro-Mediterranean policy we need to be able to face up to our responsibilities; the work we lost for budgetary reasons last year could have converted our commitments into reality.
That must be taken into account, if we want to preach by example.
As regards lines of action, I think the stress laid on shaping the Mediterranean as a multilateral area is very important. We are not just planning the establishment of a free trade area, but also the construction of an area of peace and prosperity fundamentally founded on experience based on common values and on upholding democracy and respect for human rights, within a structure on the lines with the former Helsinki Conference, later the OSCE, leading to stability in and participation by all the countries in the area.
On the economic side - although I have to be brief - I do believe it is important to stress not only participation by the public - provided for, at the time, in the MEDA Regulation - but especially the effort to provide backbone and organization which has to be made in the majority of the Mediterranean countries so as to be able to consolidate their own structures as societies.
Finally, Mr President, I think that the great objective of our Euro-Mediterranean policy must be to replace fear, mistrust and conflict with a policy which really makes the Mediterranean Mare Nostrum .
Mr President, I too would like to welcome our Mediterranean friends and colleagues, and also sincerely to congratulate Yannis Sakellariou on his work.
The Barcelona Conference confirmed the European Union's interest in the Mediterranean and the great importance of that area for the whole of Europe and its development.
Europe has understood that peaceful coexistence in the area cannot exist unless the great problems faced by non-Community countries in the Mediterranean Basin are addressed, problems which essentially amount to democracy and development.
It is therefore in the European Union's interest, and at the same time its obligation, to help those countries on the basis of an equal relationship, and with respect for their cultural characteristics.
We must not forget that the Mediterranean is an area in which different cultures and different religions meet.
We consider it to be a very positive fact that great emphasis is placed on respect for human rights and the protection of minorities, because those are among the basic problems of those countries.
The issue of peaceful co-existence in the area relies on respect for territorial integrity and on the inviolability of frontiers, and is an essential prerequisite for partnership relations to develop between the European Union and the countries of the South.
For this, we consider it essential to create a mechanism to guarantee compliance with those principles, because, unfortunately, there are countries that took part in the Barcelona Conference but which are failing to comply with what was agreed, and so continually creating tensions and persisting, in contravention of all international law and order, with the occupation of a large section of an independent state.
I think it is very important to pay particular attention to the subject of migration.
Most of the immigrants are in the Community and come from Mediterranean countries.
Besides the necessity to find solutions which will address that issue, we must also understand that the problem cannot be solved in the host countries, but in the countries of origin.
It is for that reason that the European Union must help the development of those countries, so that the flow of migration can be stemmed.
Mr President, first I want to congratulate Mr Sakellariou and everyone here.
Secondly - and I believe it is just to do so - I want to congratulate the European Commission on its achievements this year and particularly the Euro-Mediterranean policy.
Mr Spencer spoke in this Chamber of the need for all the countries of the Union to feel that Euro-Mediterranean policy belongs to them.
I am optimistic about that.
The involvement of the British Government at the London Conference is an example.
But I think we must also try to make progress, looking to the future, in the sense that all the other policies of the European Union should also incorporate the spirit of the Euro-Mediterranean Conference.
I do not need to go to the Commission, I do not need to speak about European policies in support of this, I only need to stay in this House and see the papers we produce.
We will not be able to maintain credibility much longer if, alongside reports like Mr Sakellariou's - reports which use terms like partnership or cooperation - we will find words like 'danger' in speaking of questions relating to agriculture, security or frontiers.
The immigration issue and Member States' policy on it is particularly flagrant, compared with what we say in the section on cooperation in the social, cultural and human areas of the Euro-Mediterranean agreement.
I also want to say that the ECU 64, 000 million earned by exports in 1995, producing a positive balance of ECU 18, 000 million, speaks for itself in answer to some of the questions raised in this House on the problems Euro-Mediterranean policy may cause to certain European regions.
I think we ought to avoid that kind of comment as much as possible, and make clear what is really happening.
I want to end by referring to a subject I am already weary of - the Islamic danger.
I just want to mention one specific case: a Pakistani woman has taken her father to court because he would not let her marry the man she loved.
Conflicts like that have often arisen in the European Union, but I do not know of anyone going to court to resolve them.
Mr President, looking at the Sakellariou report and its well-intentioned proposals from a northern or north-eastern perspective, I feel that there are some very interesting dissimilarities between our case, the Baltic Sea region, and the Mediterranean.
One of them - and that is my concern here - is that too many Mediterranean countries have a long way to go before the body politic is free from the influence of religion or, as I would personally put it, religious superstition.
The Protestant tradition in the north makes separation of religion and political power easy.
We note the conflict between some government circles in Turkey and the army, the latter representing Atatürk's idea of a lay society.
We should also note that even among countries living in some sort of fragile peace there is no widespread acceptance of peace and what it means.
Here the question of the media comes in.
The little I have seen of the media coverage in the non-EU countries along the Mediterranean showing events in other countries along the same shores is often distorted and one-sided and does not contribute to an understanding of the cultural and political diversity of the area.
I see a possibility for the EU to exercise moral power and pressure on the countries in question, which is probably the intent behind many of the good proposals in the report by Mr Sakellariou.
At best, the EU's financial contribution is small if you, for instance, compare it with US payments to some countries, especially Israel and Egypt.
Sometimes power comes with money, but not always.
The report supports an enhanced EU presence in the area.
The intentions are good.
Nowhere is there mention of the fact that US involvement has been crucial and will be crucial in the foreseeable future.
I hope that this will change.
It also depends on the will of the people along the Mediterranean.
How is this will expressed in a dictatorship?
Mr President, I too believe that Mr Sakellariou's report is important because it allows our Parliament to review the need for major advances in the Euro-Mediterranean partnership policy decided in Barcelona.
It is true that some important progress has already been made, but it will be vital in Malta to move ahead with the charter for peace, stability and the full implementation of the cooperation provided for in the MEDA and the EIB regulations.
This is a fundamental strategy for the European Union and must be regarded as such so that attention can be directed towards the south, beginning with the near south, and the processes of peace, stability and mutual understanding can be strengthened.
That is why I say that it is vital to set up a parliamentary forum, an institutional meeting place between the European Parliament and the parliamentary assemblies of the Mediterranean third countries.
We must admit that there are delays, but we will rapidly assume our responsibilities; this is our duty and we must do it as soon as possible.
Lastly, let me draw attention to a few points.
It is true that we must create the conditions for more balanced trade between the European Union and Mediterranean third countries and promote the growth of intra-regional trade between the third countries in the Mediterranean basin; but as Mr Bianco said, we must also emphasize the importance of cultural dialogue, of cultural awareness, of the common features of the Mediterranean basin and of the differences, with a view to mutual respect and recognition, which is the basis of understanding and tolerance.
The value of such a dialogue was emphasized during an important meeting in Italy between writers and intellectuals from the Mediterranean EU countries.
I believe that culture and politics do not come second but in a sense come first and create the right conditions for development, for Euro-partnership, for economic partnership.
We must never forget that!
Thank you, Mr Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Progress of the Intergovernmental Conference
The next item is the oral question (B4-0018/97/rev. O-0030/97/rev.) by Mr De Giovanni, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, to the Commission, on the progress of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, Parliament is expressing serious concern about the progress of the negotiations at the Intergovernmental Conference.
We have the impression there is an impasse and a rather serious situation.
We also know that we have reached a very delicate point in the history of European integration, on the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome which was celebrated this morning, and that we have been faced, especially since 1989, with problems on an entirely new scale.
We have reached a kind of moment of truth: we are either on the eve of substantial progress or on the eve of possible regression.
We need only think of two fundamental issues, such as enlargement and monetary union.
What will happen in relation to these two major questions if we do not transform the institutions? So the Intergovernmental Conference has a historic responsibility; but the impression we get is that the negotiations have not yet produced any outcome, three months before they finally come to an end.
Is that true? I am asking the Commission.
How does the Commission intend to put pressure on the governments? These are specific questions which we are putting to the European Commission today.
The European Parliament is trying to do its part and to lay emphasis on certain problems.
In its resolution it highlights three essential questions.
It states emphatically that the prerogatives of Parliament are the real cornerstone of the democratic legitimacy of the Union.
Parliament is concerned about this.
I have the impression that this process could come to a halt, could indeed backtrack, because there does not seem to be any real balance between closer integration, the development of the Union's policies and competences and Parliament's own power of legislation and control.
Increasingly large grey areas are appearing within which committees carry out tasks that could also tend in a negative direction.
So we call resolutely for co-decision to be extended to the entire legislative area, for the European Parliament to have control functions, for widening and extending qualified majority voting, for transparent legislation.
The second question is the creation of an area of freedom, justice and security, i.e., the establishment of European citizenship and the extension of non-discrimination, that is to say the construction of a genuine European civil society.
But is this possible without any real integration of the important areas of home affairs and justice? Parliament believes it is not, otherwise everything will remain subject to government negotiation.
But can we have a thousand Schengens? Obviously not!
So here we call for the involvement of the Community institutions, a specific role for the European Parliament, a specific role for the Court of Justice.
Lastly, the Pandora's Box of closer cooperation, which is becoming the real issue at the Intergovernmental Conference.
How so? We have the impression that this cooperation is becoming a pretext for an Intergovernmental Conference that is not able to resolve the major issues before it.
We need only remember that if the majority question were resolved, it would scarcely be necessary any more to call for closer cooperation.
Parliament can see the risks inherent in this prospect: the possible destruction of the balance between states, of cohesion, the possible seeds of fragmentation of the Union, of the very fabric of Europe.
That is why Parliament is sounding the alarm and sending a vital political message to the states, to the governments, to the Commission: where closer cooperation is necessary it must occur within the Treaty and not outside the Treaty, with the guarantees of the Community institutions and procedures.
And it may become possible under the Treaty, but on specific conditions, some of which we cite in the resolution: unified institutional systems, the maintenance and development of the acquis communautaire , respect for the principle of the equality of all states and citizens, respect for the principle of solidarity and cohesion.
Lastly, what does unified systems mean? As my final point let me take the indivisibility of the European Parliament and its powers.
We must point out - as I pointed out to those governments that referred to the possible division of Parliament - that the European Parliament is a parliament of the people and not of the states and must therefore remain indivisible.
As such it will be the guarantee that even if situations arise that are temporarily different, this will not affect the unity of the European project.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, forty years of the European Community represent both a historic success and a present obligation for us.
European integration is built on continuity and change.
If the Intergovernmental Conference is to achieve satisfactory results, the European Parliament, in accordance with the Dublin Document, must now formulate its position on controversial issues during the current negotiations and before the treaty is drafted in May.
Firstly, the European Union needs majority voting in the Council and, of course, parliamentary codecision for the whole range of ordinary legislation.
That is the key issue of the reforms, because the effectiveness of the Union depends on it.
Secondly, the EU also needs certain exceptions from the precept of concerted action, but only as a last resort, as a means of avoiding sustained obstruction.
This is also - regrettably, I might add - an unavoidable condition of our capacity for enlargement.
Thirdly, the EU needs team spirit, cooperation and movement - not flexibility; although that enigmatic term sounds good, it means nothing and leaves unbounded scope for interpretation.
That dilutes the acquis communautaire and leads to a Europe à la carte .
We must consider critically, and in some respects anxiously, the current state of negotiations at the Intergovernmental Conference, precisely because we want to make the Amsterdam summit a success.
We need that success, because 40 years of a European Community based on supranationality and solidarity could not, for example, prevent the Renault affair.
We all had to experience the brutality with which economic power was unleashed here against people's jobs and against the European welfare state.
We cannot continue to run along behind the decisions of multinational companies and suchlike; we have to pursue better policies, active policies.
That is exactly what the citizens of this Union expect of us.
It is also the very basis of democracy in Europe in the 21st century.
Mr President, this is a crucial time, as the Commissioner has said.
In a few months' time this Intergovernmental Conference will reach a conclusion and the Dutch Presidency is committed to presenting its draft at the beginning of May, just a month and a half away.
That is why, Mr President, we in the Committee on Institutional Affairs thought it was the right time to consider the issues on the conference table through the questions put to the Commission by the chairman, Mr De Giovanni.
And I want to add that, in the draft resolution we passed in the Committee on Institutional Affairs by a large majority and which the House will vote on tomorrow, we sought to uphold two things: continuity and consistency with previous resolutions of the European Parliament.
Continuity, because the European Parliament has expressed its position on all the questions of this Intergovernmental Conference in the Bourlanges-Martin and Dury-Maij-Weggen reports and in the Dublin Resolution, which analysed the Irish Presidency's document.
Our intention was to concentrate on various major issues which have arisen as the debates in the Intergovernmental Conference have progressed.
One of the issues on the table at the moment is the third pillar.
I think citizens in all our countries feel security is threatened, and - I think this is enormously positive - they feel that Europe should also take responsibility for this area which so closely affects their lives.
I also want to say, Mr President, that expectations about 'communitarization' of the various sectors of the third pillar have currently dimmed a little.
I think the resolution Parliament is going to approve leaves matters very much in line with previous resolutions.
It fully clarifies where Parliament stands on the areas to be 'communitarized' , first of all, and secondly, where there is enhanced cooperation, what conditions must be assembled to bring matters to a conclusion.
We are going to include terrorism as an objective for 'communitarization' in an amendment my group has presented, Mr President.
Enhanced cooperation is the second main section dealt with in that resolution.
Before getting into the detail, we are going to defend the philosophy of this Parliament, which is the extension of qualified majority in the Council and co-decision in Parliament.
I am sorry the Council is not here, but I would like someone to tell me why this Parliament has only been granted co-decision in certain sectors.
What is the conceptual, philosophical, and political reason why Parliament does not have co-decision in all sectors? I do not think there is one, Mr President, and we will therefore continue to reiterate our demands.
In the second place, enhanced cooperation should not be the 'gadget' of this conference.
Enhanced cooperation does not solve the problems.
Enhanced cooperation - let it be clearly stated - is just a necessary instrument to avoid progress being blocked by a Member State which is causing deadlock.
If that did not happen there would be no need for enhanced cooperation.
And I shall end, Mr President, by saying briefly that our resolution establishes the conditions under which enhanced cooperation will be possible.
I am sure subsequent speakers will address other aspects of this resolution, which I hope will be approved tomorrow by a large majority.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when the Intergovernmental Conference on the revision of the Treaty began in Turin on 29 March last year, the participants assigned it three tasks: to equip the Union with efficient institutions with a view to enlargement, to provide Europe with a genuine ambition in the fields of diplomacy and defence, and to improve the organization of the third pillar - justice and internal affairs.
The intention was that all this work would take us into the Europe of the 21st century, a closer-knit, more democratic, more mutually supportive Europe.
Without prejudging the results, a year after the IGC began, recent events have shown on more than one occasion the limitations of the Union's present architecture with, for example, the failure of the Commission in the BSE tragedy and the inability of the Union to respond to the sufferings of the Renault workforce at Vilvoorde.
It is on this last point, like Mr Schäfer, that I would like to alert the Commission and the Council.
Over and above these three challenges which the IGC is to meet, is it not time to construct a social Europe, time to discuss calmly the tragedies brought about by unemployment, and, better still, time to try to prevent them or mitigate them? Are we going to wait until our 18 million fellow citizens who are out of work are called upon to come and demonstrate their discontent in this House to force us to vote under pressure?
Confronted with the globalization of trade and the technology explosion, are we simply going to offer the men and women who make up our Union's population this desperate choice between insecurity and unemployment? The Eurobarometer poll of February 1997 showed that the fight against unemployment was regarded as a priority by all our fellow citizens, and should be the main objective of the IGC.
Ladies and gentlemen, are we finally going to give Europe the means to follow a third road - the road of employment and social justice? Yes, the time has come to define a genuine European social model, as President Chirac said at the opening of the IGC.
Finally, harsh and even painful though it may be, the present situation does give us an opportunity to realign the IGC, with a view to constructing a Union that works for mankind, and avoiding the temptation simply to clean up our institutions, necessary though that may be.
Mr President, Commissioner, as you were saying a moment ago the Intergovernmental Conference has embarked on its final phase.
I have the impression that, even more than at the start of the Conference, public opinion has been traumatized by human tragedies such as the closure of the Renault works at Vilvoorde, and that it will not tolerate timid advances that have no positive effect on the functioning of the institutions - that fail in other words to provide the necessary solutions to meet the anxieties and allay the scepticism of Europe's citizens.
As things stand today, there is no doubt that it is within the third pillar that the most significant advances seem to be occurring.
It is true that there are public expectations regarding security, the fight against drugs and against organized crime.
Our motion emphasizes the requirements in this area.
But the Council would be wrong to think that that would be enough.
Inadequate advances in the areas of the first and second pillars will set the seal on the failure of the conference, and the European Parliament will have the duty of relaying that disappointment.
As Mr De Giovanni has recalled, Parliament has indeed consistently shown and demonstrated in all its resolutions the concept it had of the development of the institutions, now, and especially, in the context of enlargement.
In the first pillar, we have called for qualified majority voting to be made general in the Council for all legislative acts, together with the extension of the co-decision procedure and the lowering of the majority threshold.
Where has the Intergovernmental Conference got to with the second pillar, Commissioner? We should be glad to know about that.
Enhanced co-operation can only be a last resort solution, in the event of a deadlock, a possibility which must be considered.
Our resolution clearly shows that.
This morning we commemorated the fortieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome.
Those who were involved in that historic moment for our ancient continent had ambitious aims and, above all, the political will to achieve them.
Despite the difficulties, they held to their course and they did so in a spirit of solidarity.
Ambition and political courage - that is what I wish for today's participants.
Mr President, the solution recommended by Mr De Giovanni is designed to strengthen the unity of the institutions and to democratize them. He is quite right, and I approve.
However, one major problem has not been dealt with.
In the absence of any common social and economic policy, economic and monetary union will not work.
The mad cow crisis has shown the need for a common public health policy; the Vilvoorde case has shown the need for a common industrial policy; the transit problem has shown the need for a common fiscal policy.
Tomorrow, we shall need a common banking policy, etc.
But the present institutions of monetary union will not allow these policies to be evolved, and the Intergovernmental Conference has excluded them from its agenda.
In conclusion, I see two alternatives. Either we succeed in developing, beginning during this present Conference and continuing afterwards, a genuine common institutional framework for economic and monetary union and the first pillar, with the capability to move forward together; or we will have to make up our minds to advance, with deep regret, by the path of intergovernmental co-operation, reinforced in the first pillar.
That is what I have emphasized in an amendment which I commend to the House.
Mr President, by means of the amendments proposed to the part-session, the members of the Green Party would like to reinforce the text of the resolution in areas which we believe are fundamental and which also ought to be fundamental to the IGC, i.e. democracy, openness, freedom and human rights and mobility for the people.
For us, democracy is to respect each other and each others' differences.
We must lead the way for the new Member States to be respected and not impose religious or cultural restrictions but be open and democratic.
We strongly oppose the proposal from the Dutch presidency to alter the anti-discrimination clause and to remove matters concerning sexual preference, age and disability.
In order to guarantee a democratic foundation for membership of the Union, we believe there must be a withdrawal clause.
Such a clause should give information on how one withdraws from the Union and how much it would cost.
Furthermore, it is also necessary to change Clause 23 to specify that a civil foreign policy within the framework of an pan-European security system is needed and that all decisions should be unanimous.
Unfortunately, I have to exceed my time by saying that I am dissatisfied with how this resolution has been dealt with by the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
The matter has been dealt with far too quickly.
We have been given proposed amendments, texts and oral amendments sitting down.
We have simply not had a chance to look at these proposals properly.
I would therefore like to caution against the incredible speed with which decisions are made in the European Union.
How can citizens participate in the discussions and understand all the new terms being used?
Please take note of my warning and do not do what the Committee on Institutional Affairs did a while ago!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must join in the protests of Mr Méndez de Vigo at the absence of the Council which, although not officially obliged to be present, knows, through its officials, that the policies and decisions of this Parliament are determined in this Chamber and that therefore if it is interested in hearing them, it should do so here.
In regard to the resolution as a whole on which our group will be voting - hoping it will obtain the consensus desired by so many other colleagues - I want to concentrate on the question of closer cooperation and address an appeal and an invitation to Commissioner Oreja to examine the content of the resolution that is before us for our approval tomorrow and the content of what has emerged from the activities of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, and not only in relation to the indivisibility of Parliament; that is a question raised by the Dutch presidency with solutions that are pretty fanciful and which I hope will soon be reviewed as regards the Commission's role.
I know that the Commission per se would be inclined to give up its role of guardian, of pillar of defence of the structure of the Treaties, of the Union and of what the Treaty requires of it. But we regard closer cooperation as an internal instrument of the Treaty system and therefore the moment one or other country blocks a process of integration, the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, has to put forward an initiative, since we cannot leave this task solely to the Member States.
That is why I am glad Parliament is moving in this direction and I hope this will assist the Commission in its deliberations.
Mr President, the forty years that have passed since the Treaty of Rome was signed can be divided into two periods in terms of the evolution of public opinion.
Until the early 1980s, the communities were becoming established and the institutions were finding a degree of balance, with the Luxembourg compromise and the creation of the European Council.
During that period, Europe was working to achieve recognition, and it gradually came to be regarded in a favourable light by its citizens.
But, since the mid-1980s, it would seem that the trend has been reversed: the institutions have lost their equilibrium, the democratic deficit has been increasing and, above all, confidence has been eroded.
Many of us have seen it in our own countries, and it is certainly true in France: if there is public controversy today on unemployment, immigration, insecurity or free trade, the European Union is instantly perceived as a source of threat, not of hope.
This astounding reversal of opinion needs to be studied seriously; its causes must be analysed if we hope to get back on course.
For my group, the essential cause is the way Europe adopts objectives which are very far removed from what the public expects.
And this gap itself arises from a lack of national control over the European institutions, a lack which is far from accidental but is an integral part of a system which has specifically adopted the objective of bypassing national sovereignty and is now, as it were, being hoist with its own petard.
On this fortieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, the Intergovernmental Conference must see it as its task to re-establish the conditions that will enable the Union to regain the confidence of its citizens.
That is why my group is not associating itself with the motion for a resolution on behalf of the Institutional Affairs Committee which is being put to the vote, because it is too supportive of the fad for communitization at all costs and majority voting which, in the past, has helped to strengthen the European authorities while weakening the nation States.
That is also, Mr President, why my group has tabled a counter-motion based on the principle of strengthening national control over the European Union and developing the flexibility needed to adapt the Union better to the needs of its citizens.
I have received two motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr De Giovanni's excellent resolution gives me an opportunity to introduce an important point into this debate, relating to something which could seriously jeopardize European development.
As a consequence of the pressure to achieve rapid economic integration, the development of this Union necessarily implies security cooperation and the need for closer cooperation in the domain of internal security.
The freedom of movement we all desire for Union citizens as well as third-country nationals in the European Community is discussed in depth in the context of Community law but also as an area of intergovernmental cooperation, for freedom of movement goes hand in hand with certain aspects of internal security.
These aspects of internal security, reflected in Europol, in the European information system, in the convention on the crossing of external frontiers and in the Schengen information system we discussed yesterday, all entail close cooperation among Member States in areas in which the Community, though operating on an intergovernmental basis, still encroaches very systematically on civil liberties.
I need scarcely mention here that I personally, along with many of my fellow Members, would prefer this to happen within the framework of Community law and under the control and legislative jurisdiction of the European Parliament.
Be that as it may, the fact that this is not the case, while at the same time responsibility for these processes is increasingly being removed from the national Parliaments too, carries the implicit danger that a democratic deficit will emerge in the realm of the third pillar and will be accurately identified as such by the EU public, thereby further eroding confidence in the democratic legitimacy of European action.
That is why it is extremely pertinent that the resolution contains a reference to the particular need for action in the domain of the third pillar and the implementation of Article 7a of the Treaty on European Union.
Mr President, forty years after the Treaty of Rome was signed, we are now debating its third review in an atmosphere which is, unfortunately, melancholic.
In principle, the European Union's general report should fill us with satisfaction and optimism.
But the impasses ahead of us in the negotiations justify pessimism and concern.
President De Giovanni gave a good account of the more general reasons for our concerns.
I fully agree with them, and without circumlocution I should add that I fear the crisis ahead of us.
The most probable result of Amsterdam or Luxembourg is still at this time, in my view, a minor embellishment of the Treaties and not any decisive progress.
To these general concerns, I should add the more particular ones felt by the representatives of the smaller countries.
It is not enough to reiterate the principles that have held sway during these 40 years and have brought us so many successes: unity of our institutional system, preservation of the Community's achievements, the principle of equality, the principle of social cohesion, and the maintenance of balance.
We must also respect and reinforce those principles, and never depart or turn aside from them, as the Commission itself did recently, with its proposals concerning its own composition.
I say to Mr Marcellino Oreja that one cannot have equality between Commissioners of first and second rank in the name of a supposedly more effective Commission.
Such a structure is not more democratic.
That is not how to maintain balance and we cannot accept it, nor of course propose it to the parliaments and citizens of our countries.
Mr President, I believe that Europe can only get ahead by demonstrating consistency with the principles sometimes threatened by the interests of certain major players.
We will continue to fight for that.
We want it, but at this time I do not know how much we can hope for it.
Mr President, we are today celebrating the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome.
Addressing this hemicycle, I have in mind the idea that in forty years it should have been possible to do more for European construction and do it better.
This is my maiden speech and I felt that I should be ill at ease with the meaning behind that thought.
I should like you to know that I, too, am concerned with the effectiveness of the European Union.
But should we sacrifice peace, security, freedom, democracy and solidarity to efficiency? Should we sacrifice, for the sake of urgency, the most noble objectives which have led us from the signing of the Treaty of Rome to this point?
The old adage 'More haste, less speed' still holds. I think that one of the reasons for Europe's success comes from the solidity with which it has been built, on a great deal of work, tough negotiations and genuine consensuses, in other words it has been achieved because people have taken things slowly, and there was no attempt to impose anything, there was always a concern to convince states voluntarily to adhere to ideals.
When we pass votes so that in the year 2057 our descendants can commemorate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, I too would like to go along with that vote.
But I would like to honour those who before us thought of Europe, who acted in order to transform it and who entrusted us with the task of continuing it, and this means fair recognition of the fact that taking things slowly has always been the reason for its success.
Therefore today we must make sure that we can explain what we want, where we are coming from and where we are going as well as how to do it.
Citizens of the Member States of the European Union have that right: and we who legitimately represent them here must carry out our duty.
Madam President, allow me to explain briefly what disturbs me about this debate.
Many Members are behaving as if we were awaiting a latter-day Pentecostal miracle in Amsterdam, whereas it is perfectly plain that this Intergovernmental Conference is unlikely to reach agreement on any major political issues, neither on fundamental rights nor on the composition of the Commission nor on flexibility nor on new provisions for majority voting.
Everywhere there are conflicts and total disunity.
Yet at the same time everyone describes unity as the prerequisite for our launching the enlargement negotiations.
It is therefore very important that the European Parliament should not become bogged down in details but should address the main issues in its resolutions.
That is one point.
The second is this: I expect the Commission to adopt a more positive approach.
What we have heard the Commissioner saying today is not enough, namely that he expects a conclusion in Amsterdam but does not know how it will materialize.
How can things go on like this? The third is that it is vital for us to ensure and insist that our national Parliaments exert pressure on their governments.
That is absolutely critical, because it will be too late otherwise, and we shall be jeopardizing not only the existing Union but also enlargement and the European project in its entirety.
There is no more time to lose!
Mr President, it strikes me when reading the proposed resolution that I live in two different realities: a political reality in Sweden and on the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
At home, I have never met a voter who for example demands a uniform voting system.
I have also never met anyone requiring Union citizenship or a statutory majority in matters concerning criminal law.
I do on the other hand encounter constant criticism about the lack of true democracy in the European Union.
The greatest problem of the European Union is not the Third Pillar or flexibility but the lack of a democratic legitimacy.
This is why it is so serious that the Intergovernmental Conference does not appear to be doing enough in this area.
There do not seem to be any public meetings in the Council of Ministers which otherwise is a matter of course in a democracy or of transparency in the legislative assembly.
The wording about the principle of public access to official records looks to be very feeble.
The authority of the Commission which is subject to very weak parliamentary democratic control seems to be very much on the increase.
This is a step towards a diminished level of authority for democratic national parliaments and towards stronger supranationality.
We are heading towards a 'new Maastricht' and a new confrontation.
Finally, I would like to say that I share my colleague Mrs Schörling's criticism of the way this resolution has been dealt with.
An obvious example is that we do not even have access to the proposed amendments when discussing the matter.
This is one thing we ought to be thinking of when requesting more authority, i.e. to find a working method that really functions democratically in Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, rarely in the history of the EU has the gulf between the dream and reality been so painfully obvious as it is today.
With the celebratory speeches for the fortieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome still ringing in our ears, all we have to study are the confidential proposals of the Irish Presidency.
I wonder whether the Europe of freedom, justice and peace has anything at all to do with the Europe that is being envisaged and worked for at the Intergovernmental Conference.
The truth is that the European Parliament is discussing its n th resolution, and I fear that the Intergovernmental Conference will consider this n th resolution to be just as irrelevant as all the others or at best an inconvenience.
Perhaps there is food for thought in the fact that the presidency of the Council has not even found it worth the effort to attend a debate of such central importance in this Parliament today.
It is not a matter of turning the prayer wheel over and over again; what we must do is to reflect on the political instruments with which, in the final weeks and months before the crucial meetings of the Intergovernmental Conference, this Parliament can actually step up its pressure on the Conference to a far higher level.
By instruments of pressure I mean drastic measures, ranging from a vote of censure on the Commission for not heeding the voice of Parliament on this matter to blocking the budget for a European Union that we cannot regard as the Europe we owe to our people.
Mr President, in my brief speech I would like to draw the attention of the Commissioner, Marcelino Oreja, as a doctor of law, a professor of international law, a diplomat, a former minister of foreign affairs, a former Secretary General of the Council of Europe and today a highly effective commissioner, to an issue he is well aware of.
This morning we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome.
As many previous speakers have said, and as the Commissioner knows, the Treaty of Rome - and the Treaties of the Communities, born of the Treaties of Paris and Rome - are distinguished for establishing an innovation in international law: the creation of supranational communities, in which relations between the States are not governed by traditional international law.
At this moment, I fear that the Council of Ministers is on the point of making a great discovery - we would describe it in Spain as 'belated discovery of the Mediterranean' .
There are people who suddenly discover things which have been there all the time.
Well, the Council is on the point of discovering international law.
In other words, a Community based on Community law is about to be transformed into a Community under international law, like the United Nations Organization.
Not to speak for too long, and as the Commissioner will be present at the Council negotiations, I would like to give him a little advice. He should remind the Council how this Parliament operates.
Because I was quite struck by the Council's proposal that only Members of Parliament from the countries involved in flexibility should participate.
That means if Mr Haarder, for example, is in the Chair and an issue comes up where neither England nor Finland nor Greece are part of a flexibility arrangement, Mr Haarder, who is now chairing the sitting, will have to identify each Member one by one, call the ushers and expel those Members from the Chamber one by one so that the procedure can go forward.
But another flexibility arrangement comes up next, which includes England, Sweden and Finland, but not Portugal, Spain and Germany, so again the President will have to call on each of those Members to leave and recall the others.
That will be highly entertaining and we will have great fun with it, but as I said before, I am afraid the rediscovery of international law by the Council will kill off this Community we founded 40 years ago.
Mr President, the Dutch presidency has removed age, handicap and sexual orientation from the anti-discrimination article.
That is a disgrace.
The presidency is suggesting that the existing provisions are enough for measures against discrimination and that is a load of hogwash.
The Commission has, after all, been complaining for a long time about the lack of a legal basis so I should like to know what Mr Oreja thinks about that.
It seems as if the presidency is really afraid that an article with no direct effect but requiring unanimity may be too expensive and here it is not money but rather decency which is important.
Equal rights for the elderly, the handicapped, gays and lesbians is an elementary cultural norm which should find a place in our new Treaty.
Article 119 on equal treatment for men and women, the Irish formula, equal pay for work of an equal value is, as we know, to be scrapped.
Does that cost too much as well? There is not a single parliament anywhere which knows what to do about this proposed article.
It shows that Europe seems increasingly set to become a cosy ministerial talk-shop.
Where is the Dutch commitment to greater democracy? I feel desperately let down.
Mr President, it is not surprising the Council is afraid to show its face considering the proposals it has made, because the Dutch Presidency has achieved something quite difficult: it has made things worse and shown us that things always can get worse.
The proposals it has presented are a definite step backwards.
Perhaps it is a tactic and the intention is to make us happy to go back to the bad position we were in before, because the situation now is worse.
We are definitely worse off today than we were yesterday and we are going to be even worse off tomorrow, on both institutional matters and political and social matters.
Besides, the most serious backsliding is precisely in the two areas of most concern to the citizens of Europe: women's rights and the democratic deficit.
There is a fear of consolidating, or giving powers to, the most responsible, most democratic, most representative institution in Europe, which is the European Parliament, but there is no fear of empowering the officials and bureaucrats who are populating the Europe of today, a Europe which is pure democratic deficit.
Democratic control is the question in Europe today, and the question tomorrow will be what control there is over the European Central Bank and its vast accumulation of power.
Mr President of the Council, Mr Commissioner, Mr President of the European Parliament, we are going to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome just by saying 'more democracy for Europe' .
Mr President, today should really be a day of great celebration, because the Rome Treaties produced many good things.
We should be grateful to the founding fathers of Europe, men like Schuman, De Gasperi and Adenauer, for having shown timely statesmanship, vision and courage.
A vision of how, after two world wars, Europe could move forward in peace and prosperity.
And the courage to take the necessary steps to that end.
Mr President, it is not a day for celebration.
Many present-day heads of government, and the Dutch presidency too, do not have the courage or vision needed to achieve the necessary break-throughs at the IGC.
I can name three respects in which things are not going too well.
There is the issue of equal treatment, the issue of flexibility and the third pillar.
Starting with equal treatment, which Mrs van Dijk already mentioned.
We expressly asked for a broad article on equal treatment and anti-discrimination to be included in the Treaty.
It now appears that on a number of counts the elderly, the handicapped, sexual orientation, the presidency is backing off.
We find that unacceptable and I can assure you that Parliament and our Group will shortly be testing the Treaty on this point.
The second point is flexibility. We are increasingly worried about this.
We are forced to conclude that flexibility is increasingly being used as an excuse for the failure of solutions in other areas.
Not only foreign policy, but internal security and environment policy as well.
And when that happens, flexibility will not be a positive alternative, but an excuse and a weakness which will destroy the Union.
The resolution now before us thus imposes a number of tough conditions on this flexibility, the most important of which is the need to exercise democratic scrutiny.
And the fact that the Dutch presidency does not see fit to subject the farm budget to democratic scrutiny is doubtless an ominous sign.
Flexibility without such democratic accountability is unacceptable to us too.
And then there is the fight against international crime.
If this area is not included under the first pillar, and so far we have seen no official documents suggesting that it is to be, and if decisions are not taken by qualified majority, then we shall not solve this problem in Europe.
It means quite simply that we shall not be able to control drug trafficking, trafficking in human beings and the arms trade, and that Europol will remain weak and toothless.
The Dutch presidency is failing to give a lead here because it wants to keep drugs out of the third pillar or out of the first chapter of the Treaty.
But this shows us really that thanks to coffee-shop opinion in the Netherlands the internal pillar is being held hostage to international crime.
Mr President, the lights for the IGC are not at green.
They are not even at orange.
They are red.
And red is the colour of shame.
The shame of a Council which cannot do what was done in the fifties, namely show courage and vision.
Things are looking bad for the IGC.
We shall wait and see, but I hope things improve, otherwise we shall have some fierce criticisms to make afterwards.
Mr President, when in 1986 the Single Act was concluded, Altiero Spinelli stated in this chamber, with his great political and moral authority, that the mountain had given birth to a mouse.
What would he say today if he had to make a statement about the Intergovernmental Conference?
The obvious political inability to tackle the problems linked to enlargement and the lack of definition as to progress towards the single currency, through an effective deepening of political and social integration in Europe, has led the governments to turn into decisive subjects internal security and strengthen co-operation.
It is without doubt that the increase in crime and popular insecurity linked to the unification of the European area calls for an ability to make joint responses which are also efficient, whose lack at the moment is a serious factor in the lack of prestige and the rejection of the European Union itself.
The Intergovernmental Conference has to respond to this in democratic terms.
Strengthened co-operation is being presented as a means of making progress towards European construction by overcoming the resistance of certain countries.
But how can we understand strengthened co-operation without first of all having guarantees in the Treaty of extending qualified majority voting, specifically to prevent blockages which stem from the right to veto?
In the face of known proposals, it only makes sense to demand that we enshrine strengthened co-operation so that it cannot lead to an à la carte Europe and so that it guarantees institutional political unity, equality between the Member States and economic and social cohesion.
At the moment there are no guarantees of this, however.
On the contrary, we must beware of the possibility of this being enshrined into a genuine system of 'directoires' , which we should only reject and fight.
The worrying tendency of the proposals coming out of the IGC to regress to methods of intergovernmental decision with reductions in the European Parliament's own powers, would only worsen the democratic deficit and the deficit of citizenship which exist at the moment in Europe.
Mr President, in backing this motion for a resolution we wish, above all, to oppose, for the sake of democracy and solidarity in the European Union, the plans for breaking up the Union by these most unwise proposals.
Mr President, when we commemorate a truly historic event like the signing of the Treaty of Rome, I do not believe we should concentrate entirely on reliving a past act, however honourable it might be.
I believe, Mr President, we should draw out the essence, the principles and the values of a fundamental act which changed the face of our continent, interpreting them and examining them as the key to the future, particularly in terms of stimulus for the years ahead.
I think the lesson to be drawn from this commemoration is as clear as day.
I think a view of Europe firmly based on the tangible, the material, is a legitimate view of the project.
But against this balance sheet view, this view based on the notion of net contributor or net beneficiary, I believe the time has come to revisit the values which inspired the founding fathers of Europe, ideas of peace, concord, understanding and solidarity.
And they must all be understood a little in the light of circumstances and our own time, because the European Union of today was once a common market.
That position has been superseded, Mr President, and we have moved on from the concept of consumer to the concept of citizen, and from the concept of Common Market to the concept of Parliament, alongside the Commission, giving decisive impetus to the project of integrating Europe, which is now at a key point in its timetable.
Europe must be roused from its lethargy and move in the right direction, and that can only be done by combining pragmatism with a vision of the future.
I think that is the message that needs to be sent to the Intergovernmental Conference: put figures at the service of ideals, stop concentrating shortsightedly on the coming elections rather than on the coming generations and let everyone seek their own best interests in the common interest.
Mr President, I am grateful to Commissioner Oreja for being with us, because we have to ask the Commission a question in order to give our opinion to the Council, which is not represented here.
What can we say to the Council except that it is guilty of hypocrisy, that the problem today is to secure the advance of democracy, and that the objective of the national governments is, as it were, to force the Intergovernmental Conference to withdraw.
Basically, if they could abolish the European Parliament they would be more than happy.
Not only that, but they would not have to contribute a token presence once a month.
Let me give three examples.
First, during the previous part-session, we adopted a resolution on human rights and the Debré law.
President Chirac took umbrage and, as a consequence, the French Government has been wondering in the National Assembly how it can muzzle the European Parliament and prevent it from delivering any future opinions on human rights and the third pillar.
Secondly, we have for several months been refusing to approve the agreement with Turkey because of the human rights situation there.
The Council has become annoyed at this attitude, so that the conclusions of Dublin propose that Parliament's right of assent should be limited to the association and enlargement agreements, depriving us of any power over agreements which have budgetary implications, and impairing the right of co-decision.
Why? Because we are a nuisance.
Thirdly, we are told that progress is being made in the area of the third pillar.
Well and good, but in practice the European Parliament is being sidelined in favour of the national parliaments.
Well, national parliaments have a much more partial view of affairs.
Not only that, they can be manipulated, because they depend on government majority systems.
And why is the European Parliament not to be allowed a say? Because it is a nuisance!
In these circumstances, my questions will be addressed not to the Commission, since we are in agreement, but to the Council.
I shall ask the Council: what are you really defending in the interests of advancing democracy? Tell us frankly what your intentions are with regard to the European Parliament.
Yes, we are a nuisance, and no we are not a conservative parliament. But that is the price of democracy.
Thank you, Mr President. The technical quality of the European anthem this morning was appalling.
We must ensure that the European project does not suffer the same fate as our anthem.
We need to enliven our act.
Although we have good reason today to celebrate forty years of the Treaty of Rome, which have brought peace and at least relative prosperity to a large part of Europe and to the people there, we also have reason to worry about the future of Europe.
The main subjects on which we consider the state of negotiations at the Intergovernmental Conference to be absolutely unsatisfactory have been referred to on several occasions today.
Without genuine institutional reform we shall be placing the European project in jeopardy.
Majority voting must become the norm, and in future there must be no more European legislation without the exercise of full codecision rights by the European Parliament.
If no breakthrough is achieved on either of these two questions during the remaining three months, the Intergovernmental Conference will not have been a success.
This in turn will put the start of accession talks with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe at risk.
As an Austrian, I firmly believe that there is a place in this united Europe for our Eastern neighbours too.
But to that end we must create a Union that is able and willing to accommodate these new member countries.
We must not jeopardize the work of the past forty years.
In the remaining months we really must do all that is humanly possible to work out sound and sustainable solutions, especially to the major institutional problems, which the Council has so far been desperately anxious to avoid.
On a point of order, Mr President, before Mr Oreja answers: numerous colleagues have commented on the fact that the Council is not present here.
To my mind the fact that we are embarking here on a debate formally entitled &#x02BC;Questions to the Commission' should never be a reason for the Council to think that it need not attend.
That really reflects a failure to understand Parliament's procedures. The Dutch presidency should appreciate that.
As I understand it, there is to be an oral amendment to the resolution tomorrow.
I think it would be a good idea for us to establish that the Dutch presidency and other presidencies too should attend all the important debates in this Parliament.
I wanted to say that before Mr Oreja begins his reply.
Mr President, I want to thank all those who have spoken here today.
Their words are of immense importance to me in the work I have to do on behalf of the Commission at the Intergovernmental Conference.
There is something I want to tell you because I have noticed a mood of pessimism in many of the speeches we have heard here.
I want to say that the Conference has not yet entered the final stage, which is the negotiation stage, and you know from experience what the previous conferences were like.
You remember the 1985 Conference and the 1991 Conference so you are perfectly aware that we did not really get into the negotiating stage until the final straight.
There has been no real negotiating so far.
We only began to approach negotiation a few weeks ago.
Up to now there have been monologues, hardly even dialogues and, of course, what there has not been is real negotiation.
Negotiation is starting now because now we have documents for discussion.
Consequently what I do want to tell you is that the role of Parliament is very important at a time like this.
I think you can have a decisive impact if you do everything possible to set out your positions clearly and as you know, the great majority of them are shared by the Commission.
For example I do not remember a single discrepancy between us in the speeches of your representatives at the Intergovernmental Conference.
And after those speeches I have always made clear the degree of consensus that exists.
So I do think this is the really decisive moment.
We are on the eve of 25 March, but we are also on the eve, in practice, of the Amsterdam European Council.
This is a decisive moment and we will see what happens.
I really have nothing to reply to because there have not been any questions to the Commission as such, and that is evidence of the great consensus between us.
Some issues have been raised, for instance Mr Dell'Alba's point, also made by Professor Medina - professor and master, I am delighted to acknowledge that here - about the European Parliament's participation in enhanced cooperation.
You know the Commission's position.
It is the same as Parliament's.
We do not believe the unity of Parliament can be broken.
That would not make sense and that is the position we have expressed, both in our report and, very particularly, in the speeches I have made in the Intergovernmental Conference.
I also want to say a word on Mr Anastassopoulos' reference to the role of the Commission.
'Know thyself' is probably the most difficult precept.
But in the end, only the Commission has said what it thinks of itself, after expressing its view on the other institutions.
I want to comment on Mr Anastassopoulos' remark about first and second class commissioners in the Commission.
I do not entirely agree.
There are no first and second class commissioners, there are commissioners who have an assigned portfolio and there may be commissioners who do not have an assigned portfolio, which does not mean that their remit is less important.
Forgive me if I share a personal confidence: I remember that when I started the negotiations for Spain's membership of the European Communities, a central role in that College of Commissioners was played by Commissioner Natali, who was responsible for all enlargement issues, but he did not have a portfolio.
So what I regard as important is having a good balance. Now, as long as there is a proper allocation of responsibilities to those commissioners who have been assigned a portfolio, I do not think holding or not holding a portfolio necessarily implies first or second class commissioners.
I think we have tried to strengthen something we consider essential: the legitimacy of the Commission.
And in this connection, we have made clear the European Parliament's role in the election of the President and in the recognition or investiture of the College of Commissioners.
I think that is essential.
And I can tell you that personally, as a member of the previous College of Commissioners, I now feel that I have greater legitimacy, not least because of the hearings that were held here with the various members of the Commission prior to the final investiture.
That all strengthens legitimacy and I think that is very positive.
And finally, I also want to reply to Mr Frischenschlager's point about there being no agreement in the conference and that it was not enough for the Commission to say we were hopeful without saying how agreement would be reached.
I venture to say that there may not be agreement on the Commission's issues but first, the Commission has a report covering its views on every issue, and second, we are continuously making our views known and I have made it clear exactly what our thinking is as regards common foreign and security policy, and what we think about the role of Parliament and the role of the Commission in the third pillar. We are making these points daily and I frequently do so in the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
But in any case, I want to tell you that I have been greatly enriched by this meeting, by being here and receiving encouragement from Parliament, and by the essential feeling that Parliament is the cornerstone at this time because it represents the people.
So I want to appeal to Parliament at this critical and significant time, on the eve of 25 March, and above all on the eve of the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference, to keep us continuously in touch with Parliament's thinking so that we can move forward in the right direction.
Mr President, I am sorry to prolong matters, but I put a very specific question to the Commissioner.
I have not had an answer to it and I would like one.
I asked him what the Commission thinks about the Council's position that anti-discrimination safeguards for the elderly, the handicapped and gays must be covered in the current package of social measures, when I thought the Commission had always said that there was not as yet any legal basis for that.
So I should like to hear from the Commission whether it thinks that this position of the Dutch presidency is indeed correct or whether it cannot do anything about it.
I had in fact made a note of that but I overlooked it amongst all these papers.
This is an open question.
The principle of non-discrimination has been accepted in relation to this matter and should appear in the treaty, which represents a step forward because, for me - and this is the position of the Commission - a central idea is that everything affecting citizenship - and citizenship is human rights - must be governed by non-discrimination.
Two criteria have been applied to the list of what we understand as non-discrimination. One generates a long list of what non-discrimination covers, and the other gives a generic description.
As regards actual description, one of the questions which some members of the Intergovernmental Conference have raised is whether or not this means - specifically in relation to people with disabilities - recognition of a legal basis and, as a presumption of that, whether there would be common policies.
That is not the intention of other members of the conference.
So it is an open question, and the issue will be looked at again in April. At the moment we can make no progress, specifically because the Dutch Presidency has not taken a final view on the matter.
Mrs van Dijk can be sure that I will take careful note of what she wants - I think I feel very close to the positions she herself maintains - and I hope I will be able to give her an answer here, in this House, or in the Committee on Institutional Affairs, when this matter is back on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference in April.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.55 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Budget guidelines for 1998
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0080/97 by Mr Tillich, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on budget guidelines for 1998 - Section III; -A4-0079/97 by Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on budget guidelines for 1998 - Other sections.
Mr President, I should like to begin by sincerely thanking the relevant committees of the House for their cooperation in producing the guidelines, and I am also grateful to the Commission, which is represented here today, and indeed to the Dutch presidency, for the climate of openness in which the negotiations on the guidelines have so far been conducted.
I believe that these will form a sound basis for proceeding with the discussions on the 1998 budget.
The budget of the European Union for 1998 - just like the 1997 budget - has to be efficient and transparent, but it must also be focused exclusively on programmes and projects which represent added value at European level.
The aim must be to contribute to job creation and social and economic development in the Union, and at the same time to support the Member States in their efforts to meet the convergence criteria for economic and monetary union.
Most importantly, the Commission should improve its forecasting of agricultural expenditure - subject to monitoring by Parliament - and the Commission's preliminary draft budget should already reflect the impact of agricultural prices.
In my view, the call from some Member States for zero growth is unrealistic.
The European Parliament will approve a moderate increase, but only if the outstanding problems - the creation of a reserve under the agriculture guideline, the absence of legal bases, the question of second and third pillar expenditure and Parliament's right to be consulted, and the classification of expenditure - can be resolved in a way that is acceptable to the House.
Parliament is also calling on the Intergovernmental Conference not to alter the budgetary rules of the Union in any way that would tend to restrict the budgetary powers of the House.
As general rapporteur, I am proposing the following priorities for 1998: combating unemployment by focusing European resources on investment and job creation; using innovative credit arrangements to support small and medium-sized enterprises which are creating viable jobs for the future; beginning the process of preparing applicant countries for accession to the European Union; developing a suitable instrument to facilitate the inclusion of these countries in all the policies of the Union, while at the same time initiating a process of adjustment to EU policies to take account of the specific problems which enlargement poses for the Member States; supporting existing youth and education programmes which have a clear multiplier effect; and getting the cultural programmes moving once again.
I have some further observations on the individual categories. Category 1 holds the key to achieving the success that the Council is seeking with the 1998 budget.
The Commission and the Council must appreciate that with an overall budget increase of 3 % - leaving the Structural Funds untouched, in line with the decisions taken in Edinburgh - and zero growth in the other categories, they will still have to find ECU 2.3 billion from agricultural spending if they wish to move towards zero growth.
Fair enough: we await their proposals.
As regards the greening of agricultural policy, I would point out that this simply means incorporating the protection of the environment into all areas of Union policy, as proposed by the House and implemented by the Commission.
I would therefore suggest that the two committees concerned - the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment - should reach agreement over the coming months on how this is to be achieved.
Turning to category 4, the priority which I am proposing in my capacity as general rapporteur is as follows: the most important element will be the creation of a pre-accession instrument that will provide for structural changes in the Commission's services in 1998 and a programme for the pre-accession phase, as well as the requirements which will then emerge.
We expect the Commission to bring forward appropriate proposals to this effect in time for the first reading.
As regards the poor utilization rates of the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes, we are talking here about EU taxpayers' money.
If no takers can be found in the recipient countries for what is on offer, there are reasons for that situation.
With regard to category 5, we need better administrative management.
The cumbersome Eurocracy must become an efficient authority at the service of European citizens and businesses.
I would ask you to support the guidelines when we vote tomorrow.
Mr President, the guidelines motion for the 1998 budgetary procedure for the other institutions is very clear.
In the general framework that is set out in paragraphs 1-44 it makes it quite clear that the circumstances that we are facing are not austerity, but they are not encouraging of anything approaching profligacy.
They are adequate without encouraging any degree of excess.
We talk very clearly there about the need to honour our interinstitutional agreements to keep below the ceilings of the financial perspective and we point out that the suggested 3 % increase in appropriations should not constitute a target to be reached, but a guideline not to be exceeded.
There is very clear reference in the report to human resources which, without going through it all, points out that there has, in fact, been a 23 % increase in staff appropriations over the last 10 years.
Some of that has been related to posts linked to enlargement, but the most important paragraph is paragraph 10, which points out quite clearly that the Committee on Budgets commends to this House the view that as in 1997, no new posts should be created in 1998 for the other institutions overall.
It does, however, point out the special circumstances that confront the Court of Auditors.
The Court of Auditors has had the responsibility laid on it by the Maastricht Treaty to produce the statement of assurance.
In order to get the necessary staff working on that, the normal, value-formoney audit work has suffered and that needs to be taken into account by this part of the budget authority.
Under human resources it specifically underlines the need for each appointing authority to justify each proposed upgrading of post so that we do not just get global proposals, but a justification relating to them.
Paragraph 12 refers to the minimum recourse to external consultants.
I should make one point quite clearly to the House: this does not say do not use them, but only use them where their expertise is specifically necessary to complement the work of Parliament.
I turn to the part of the report that deals with appropriations for property and supplies.
I particularly draw the House's attention to paragraph 15 in which we reaffirm the European Parliament's policy of property acquisitions in as short a time as possible, consistent with other budgetary demands.
This really is intended to be an endorsement of the existing position of Parliament's Bureau's where they are talking about purchase over a period of 10 years.
It goes on to recommend this as an appropriate policy for other institutions and urges interinstitutional cooperation to this end to be accelerated.
I now turn to the part of the report dealing with information technology and information policy.
Of course this is a report that covers all institutions, but as we are mainly parliamentarians here, I take a parliamentary example.
Information technology produces good, bad and indifferent.
I visited today Parliament's web-site.
On the positive side I discovered, for example, that the report of the Committee of Inquiry on transit fraud that was presented this morning is already available on the Internet in five languages: English, Dutch, Swedish, French and German - very positive.
On the negative side, while still visiting the parliamentary web-site, I went to look at work in progress in parliamentary committees and I came up with the remarkable fact that no documents were found.
It shows that our information policy is a somewhat mixed bag.
There are very clear recommendations about the need to get consistent standards in our information policy, in our information technology policy, and not only in relation to them, but in relation to those imaginative projects which are so imaginative that not all Members of the House fully understand them, such as the Epicentre.
So there are very clear guidelines there.
I commend the report to the House.
It was overwhelmingly supported in committee and forms the basis of aspirations to deal with the other institutions' budgets in a single reading.
The only thing that might possibly stand in the way of that is property policy.
The key to the solution is in the hands of our absent friends, our friends from the Council who have chosen not to be with us here this evening.
Mr President, Parliament's Agriculture Committee expects to co-operate well with the Committee on budgets.
We think that both parties gain from good co-operation and we have every confidence that Mr Tillich will ensure that it really is good this year.
Looking more closely at the farm proposals we see that agriculture has been experiencing zero growth for many years now.
There is perhaps an explanation for this: the agriculture guideline is not in itself a reason to spend money, it represents a ceiling, unlike the structural funds which do specify how much has to be spent each year.
I think it is hard to explain to the man in the street and above all the man in the street in Europe that spending on the structural funds has to rise this year by 8 %, when there is still a whole pile of about 30 billion which has not been spent.
What is the logic of that? Even if it was agreed in Edinburgh in 1992?
To me one of the most difficult features of the farm budget is that the income supplements per hectare are not being maintained.
If more income support is really to replace price support as the future policy of the Union, that policy must be credible, and it will not be if we move the goalposts half way through.
So I think, and the resolution says this, that we need to have a thorough discussion in the budgetary authority concerning category B1.
What exactly is compulsory expenditure and what is non-compulsory expenditure?
Compulsory expenditure is that used to support prices and incomes and non-compulsory expenditure is used for other things, ideally covered by category B2, for example, which as I said just now is already overfunded.
We are keen to have this debate, Mr President.
Mr President, the fishing industry, as you know, is one of strategic importance for the seaboard regions of the entire European Union, where it represents an often irreplaceable source of jobs and economic development in these particularly sensitive zones.
Even though the Common Fisheries Policy does too often adopt an approach which is more remedial than positive, it nevertheless plays a not insignificant role in these sensitive regions, to the benefit of fishing communities.
This Common Fisheries Policy can be broken down into a number of aspects which are closely connected to each other although they appear on different budget lines.
That is why, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, I hope the rapporteur will be able to preserve the overall cohesion of our budget, which represents an indissoluble whole.
How can the technical resources of the CFP be deployed if the financial resources are lacking for the control system? How is a reasonable orientation plan to be implemented if the Structural Funds are not preserved?
That was the argument with which I approached the chairman of the Committee on Budgets and yourself, and I thank you for having already taken into account, even if only partially, the requests I made.
Finally, regarding the fisheries agreements, I would remind you that, during the May part-session, we were asked to vote upon the Crampton report on the development of international fisheries agreements.
Those agreements are a source of employment for a very large number of structurally sensitive maritime regions.
I would also remind you that these fisheries agreements assist the development and stability of a number of less favoured States where fisheries can represent an important resource, and that those States include a number of our ACP partners.
I would therefore ask the rapporteur to retain intact the line of credits corresponding to these important agreements.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group.
The first thing I want to do is to congratulate the two rapporteurs.
Mr Tillich has been extremely kind in the way he has conducted his negotiations with the various groups and taken on board a lot of the suggestions, and Mr Tomlinson has done his usual exemplary work.
I have to say that the Tillich report is far too long, but that is not the fault of the rapporteur.
Here we have a document which is a statement of our main priorities ahead of the Commission's PDB.
It is not a resolution for the first reading, which a lot of people seem to think it is.
However, when you have 135 amendments and 11 committees giving an input into that guideline you are bound to end up with something far more than the short, succinct document we all wanted.
You will notice that the text does not refer to an austerity budget, as it did last year.
Nor does it explicitly state that the Parliament is prepared to help reduce expenditure.
The reason is quite simple: last year Parliament went along with such a strategy in the hope that the Council would reciprocate by helping us solve some of the problems we have to live with, such as the problems of a legal base on a lot of the lines, and the problem of getting an agreement on classification and expenditure, to name but two.
Our group is not prepared to go down that route again.
We are prepared to play our part in Parliament in getting the best budget we think is achievable and we are prepared to do that in good faith with the Council.
We have to hope we will see the same good faith displayed by the Council.
I say that because when you see our amendment to paragraph 3 you will understand our concerns.
The same feeling is displayed in paragraph 4 of the rapporteur's guidelines where we expect the normal dialogue we have with the Council to be improved.
Mr Tomlinson said that when we go to the trialogue meetings to see the Council, it is a dialogue with the deaf.
It is always the same procedure, whereby we make our points clear and the Council fails to respond.
We have to hope that the experience over the past years with the Budget Council will now cease and that we will get a genuine dialogue in its place this time with the Ecofin Council.
As Mr Tomlinson said, it is a pity that there is no one here from the Council to hear that.
I said that the guideline document was too long.
It could have been made a lot more precise, and it could have been very concise by just consisting of paragraph 5(a).
If we had said paragraph 5(a) we would have covered a lot of our priorities in one sentence, because that priority talks about combating unemployment.
Parliament's budget should reflect Parliament's political priorities.
The political priorities of my group are centred around job creation.
It is job creation policies that we will support above all else.
That is a message we want to get through to the Commission and to the Council for both the PDB and the draft budget.
I will now turn to the various categories.
If the Council had been here I would have addressed the following point to it directly, and I hope the message gets back to it.
If the ad hoc procedure which we talk about at length is to be adhered to, and if it is to be meaningful, we expect the Council to be honest about it.
We want it to be honest with us and to say that it thinks it is a procedure that Council and Parliament have to go through to come to a conclusion about agricultural expenditure and the problems that exist therein.
If it is going to go through the routine that it has gone through the last two years, which in the main is just a charade of going through the motions, knowing full well that at the end there will be no real conclusions, it should say so now.
If it did so it would save everybody a lot of time.
It would save us time, it would save our effort and we would not be making fools of ourselves by going through this joke of a procedure - which in my view is what it has been over the last two years.
Therefore, I would hope that the Council can take it far more seriously and I hope the Commission will relay that to the Council.
While we are talking about Category 1, I would say to the rapporteur that my group will be supporting Amendment No 11 tabled by Mr Rehder and others.
However, there is a mistake in it and I would ask the services to correct it.
It should have been tabled as an extra paragraph 10(a) new, rather than replacing paragraph 9.
With that correction, our group will support it.
On Category 2, our group has no plans to follow Parliament's action of last year which we voted against when ECU 1 billion in payments was removed from the structural funds.
However, we are concerned about the problem of the gap between commitments and payments which is not helping job creation.
It may well be the fault of the Member States, but we have to make it abundantly clear to those who are concerned about this that if we want to create cohesion, prosperity and jobs, the structural funds should be utilized to their fullest.
We support paragraph 13.
It is only a pity that we need to be saying something like this within the guidelines.
On Category 3 our group has, as in the past, seen TENs and research and development as essential vehicles for future job creation, as it does when we give help to SMEs.
Our amendment to paragraph 21 is to indicate that we are not simply talking about certain types of road when we talk about trans-European networks; and the amendment to paragraph 22 is to clarify the position of the ECU 200m for research and development.
Also in Category 3, not just under big programmes but on those smaller lines which Parliament considers to be priorities, such as youth, education and culture, we will also be giving our full support.
On external action, the Commission really does have to take heed of paragraphs 27 and 28.
Let me add: ' We ain't joking' when we talk about PHARE and TACIS.
We expect something far more concrete from the PDB.
In our debates in the Committee on Budgets we have made it quite clear that the present objectives for PHARE cannot be continued, and the key words should be 'pre-accession strategy' .
On Category 5 the text is quite explicit and I do not have to say anything on it.
Finally, on the Tomlinson report, you will see that it is extremely well prepared.
Mr Tomlinson has involved as many people as possible.
There is only one amendment in the plenary and I think that says it all.
I would like to thank our own Secretary-General and the Director-General for Personnel and Finance for taking part in this debate, for being part of this gathering tonight and for showing such an interest in these guidelines.
It is a darn sight more than can be said for the Council.
(Applause )
Mr President, as the previous speaker has done, I should like to congratulate both our rapporteurs here this evening.
My comments will focus principally on Mr Tillich's report and the Commission report on the Commission budget for 1998.
However, I would like to say that Mr Tomlinson has done an excellent job in his report.
We all know that he is a forward-looking man, rather like Batman visiting his website, and we like to know that he is well ahead of us in these information technologies and making sure that Parliament will be well provided.
Turning to Mr Tillich's report, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur.
It provides succinct guidelines so we are giving a clear message to the Commission and the Council this evening.
It is a pity that the Council is not here.
It does not augur well for the rest of our dialogue.
We understand that the presidency does not take quite so much interest in such a day-to-day process as the annual budget procedure is now becoming.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I should like to clarify our position as a group.
In the 1997 budget we focused on maintaining our commitments under the inter-institutional agreement, which we did not wish to see disappear then, nor do we wish to see it disappear during this budget procedure.
Our second plank was to go for zero, or almost zero, growth in the 1997 budget, as the European Union is preparing for the single currency.
The position this year will be somewhat altered in so far as the way the Council is prepared to enter into dialogue with the Parliament as part of the budgetary authority is concerned.
That leads me to make three specific points regarding the preparations for the 1998 budget.
Firstly, we want to see outstanding items resolved and we encourage the Commission and the Dutch presidency to focus on the item of the legal basis in particular.
This has been trailing for some time and we think it should now be fully resolved before the first reading of the 1998 budget.
Equally, we wish to make sure that the demands of Parliament vis-à-vis the Intergovernmental Conference, in particular the example of obligatory and non-obligatory expenditure, are taken up within the Intergovernmental Conference and that we reach a satisfactory solution on it.
Secondly, when it comes to specific priorities, the guidelines are extremely clear.
They give four priority areas.
The Group of the European People's Party would like to make sure that those projects which have a multiplier effect, giving real value for EU money, are not dismissed simply because the Commission or the Council in its input into the guidelines would like to see certain projects which are dear to Parliament dismissed.
We want to make sure that we get value for money and we will insist that there is clarity in the way in which the analysis is done on the particular lines.
We will examine the Commission's report on that.
Finally, the most important part of this budget - and I think my group will share this view - is the pre-accession strategy.
Terry Wynn has rightly drawn attention to that in paragraphs 27 and 28.
At the dawn of new challenges for the European Union, we know there will be reports coming from the Commission later this year on what kind of strategy we should be following for enlargement of the European Union over the next decade.
It is surely in the 1998 budget that we need to take account of that as a first step.
Mr President, as you see, you have eventually given me the floor spontaneously, and, personally, I welcome that.
The subject is an important one.
As too often happens, it is not one to arouse the enthusiasm of the multitude, because all we see here are the same faces as usual: the members of the Committee on Budgets, Commissioner Liikanen and the administrators of the Committee on Budgets.
But, as all these people have eventually come to know me quite well, I feel sure that none of them will demand my exclusion, and that I shall be able to express my group's opinion, seriously and calmly, on the budgetary guidelines and on the reports by Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson, whom I congratulate on their efforts.
These budgetary guidelines have to be seen in the new economic context: a context where the markets are taking account of the forthcoming introduction of the single currency.
In particular, I have no doubt that the pressures on Europe's currencies, which have enriched speculators in recent years, were largely related to the uncertainty felt by the market about the coming of the single currency.
The lowering of interest rates, the return of savers to Europe's stock exchanges, the collapse of the relationship of the monetary investment companies with variable capital and the recovery of the dollar are all signs that economic activity in Europe is returning to normal and favourable omens for a recovery of growth - the one essential condition for new job creation.
That is why our group supports paragraph 1 of the section entitled 'General comments' in Mr Tillich's report, and I myself attach particular importance to the following phrase of that paragraph: ' to support the Member States in their efforts to meet the convergence criteria' .
I think something needs to be added to that, to set in motion the ideas put forward just now by Mr Wynn when he said that we want the best budget achievable: the best budget achievable is not the biggest budget achievable but the budget in which best use is made of the appropriations.
And I believe the problem of increasing the volume of the budget for 1998 is not the crucial problem - the crucial problem is knowing when we shall finally see implementation rates that are maximum implementation rates.
This is why we naturally support the four priorities defined by the Committee on Budgets, because one of those four priorities seems to me to be of the utmost importance.
I refer to the exploitation of the job creation potential of the SMEs, because the hope of a recovery of growth is the one essential condition for new job creation.
On agriculture, our group is still firmly committed to the principle of compulsory expenditure, and I say yet again: the agricultural budget is not a budget, it is an instrument of market regulation which should be thought about in economic terms and not in budgetary terms.
That, by the way, is one of the reasons why I find myself so frequently disagreeing with Mr Brinkhorst, though that didn't stop me supporting, at the meeting of the Committee on Budgets, his amendment which is now the subject of paragraph 4 of the Tillich report, because I believe that the opening of a genuine dialogue with the Council will be one of the essential conditions for the success of our budget.
I take this opportunity to say that, once again, I am shocked that the Council is not represented at this debate.
Regarding the utilization of the appropriations, it is clear that the considerable shortfall in take-up of the PHARE and TACIS appropriations should make us seriously consider redeploying those appropriations which are not used.
I think it is unacceptable to find ourselves with ECU three billion that have not been used and are going to be returned to the exchequers of the Member States at a time when we are facing desperate situations in other sectors.
I do of course support the stepping-up of efforts and the additional financing for mine clearance in the former Yugoslavia, because I believe that the only way to induce refugees to return to the former Yugoslavia is to rebuild, and that it is impossible to rebuild any housing until the mines have been cleared.
I shall be much briefer about Mr Tomlinson's report, confining myself to a very short comment on the appropriations for property and supplies.
Our situation with regard to property is an unnatural one.
The rental system for a Parliament which, at least in the minds of its founders, is intended to last forever should not lead to the enrichment of the property promoters who carry out the transactions.
Especially as regards the incredible affair of the basement floors of the 'Caprice des dieux' , I trust we shall reach a satisfactory solution before the end of the year.
We shall also be asking tomorrow for a separate vote on the end of paragraph 16 of Mr Tomlinson's report.
Our group cannot accept a secret accord between the President of the European Parliament and the Luxembourg Government.
Mr President, as rapporteur for last year's budget I would like, first of all, to wish my successor, Mr Tillich, every success and my old friend, Mr Tomlinson because 1998 is again a crucial year, perhaps not so much in financial terms but for what this budget contributes to progress on the institutional dialogue.
As a European and a Dutchman I am sad to see that the Council presidency is again absent as it was during the BSE debate.
I would like to ask Mr Liikanen what he expects of the dialogue.
The 1998 budget is only going to be a success if outstanding questions not resolved in the 1997 budget are resolved.
These points have been made by others.
I would simply like to strengthen this point by saying that if we cannot resolve them, clearly we are going to enter into a confrontational phase.
Secondly, 1998 is very important because it will show whether or not budgetary powers which actually exist will be taken away.
Again this depends on the absent presidency.
Pillar II and pillar III will become very important in the future not so much in monetary terms, but in terms of accountability and democratic control.
Priorities have been established and I am very happy that we have fewer priorities this year than we had in the first instance last year.
I am happy that all colleagues participated in this point.
I would also like to stress the aspect of the pre-accession.
We are living in a phase where very soon Europe will be much more than the 15 countries that we have now.
Therefore it is necessary to redevelop instruments not only for the new countries joining, but for existing countries.
My group will plead for something like PIMs for countries which, at the present time in the European Union, need to reorient themselves because they will be under special pressure.
It cannot be an excuse to delay the adhesion of new countries but it will very much facilitate what at the present time cannot yet be done.
Finally, agriculture remains important.
The ad hoc procedure last year was a failure because of interinstitutional issues - I hope we can resolve this - and also because of extra-institutional issues.
Again I would like to ask the Commission what it expects the absent Council to do on this point?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur, Mr Tillich, is steering the House in the right general direction with the priorities he has identified.
In practice, however, one has to ask exactly how unemployment is to be tackled and preparations made for enlargement to the east, and how these things will be costed.
To my mind, this also begs the question of how these two priorities relate to one another. I believe that they are very closely related, because the Europe that we live in is already an entity, even if the rate of progress towards accession varies in the ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
We have a part to play in shaping the process of structural change which is taking place throughout Eastern Europe - a process intensified and accelerated by the prospect of accession to the EU - just as we are involved in the structural change that our Member States must undergo in dealing with an industrial policy which has to some extent run its course.
Surely it follows, therefore, that we should take a joint approach to the challenges which are involved in this process of structural change in Eastern and Western Europe, and learn from one another? The lessons of our current structural policy could usefully be applied in Eastern Europe, and vice versa.
That is why, as well as the pre-accession instrument which the rapporteur has provided for in category 4, I am proposing a specific structural instrument in a new, additional category 2a.
This would also serve to emphasize the gradual budgetary transition from external to internal policy as regards the applicant countries.
At the same time, by creating a negative reserve, we would produce a technically neat solution which does not affect the present obligations to the Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first let me encourage the President in relation to the surmenage we have imposed on him today; Mr President, you have my full solidarity!
I also welcome the Secretary-General who is in the gallery for the first time, I believe, at this night sitting on two reports.
Of course I must also praise the two rapporteurs.
However, I must express some concern about the Tillich report, and in part also about the Tomlinson report.
In relation to the Tillich report, improved by the amendments, I have one major anxiety which I want to share with you in my brief speaking time.
I think it is inconceivable for Parliament to tackle the budgetary procedure in a rigorous manner and in the context of a zero-growth budget without regard for the outcome of the Amsterdam Conference and what might happen if, please God, the European Union finds means of responding concretely to the challenges which we have discussed so often and so seriously: unemployment, etc.
This timid approach to things, saying that as from March we do not intend to increase the Community budget by a penny, do not intend to increase the staffing by a single post, while the other institutions are to acquire more powers by virtue of the Amsterdam Conference - the Commission could have more powers, the Union as such could acquire responsibility for new policies - this timidity which forces us to calculate, as though this were our priority, the number of annual leave cases where the place of origin is outside the European Union - I certainly do not regard this as an encouraging start.
In particular, Mr President, I am referring to a question that was central to our discussions during the last term and to which Parliament devoted much energy, to the point of nearly deciding on a motion of censure on President Santer and the entire Commission. Not a word is said in the report about the priority we attached to this question and which the Commission is prepared to support at our incentive, namely the need to carry out more rigorous controls on the quality of human food to ensure that we have a health and food policy that is concrete and controlled by the Commission.
Not a word on all that, Mr Tillich!
I have here some amendments which I hope you will examine with attention.
We had a joint amendment which was inexplicably rejected.
I really hope Parliament restores it so as to introduce a minimum of logic into the subject of our debate.
As for food aid and humanitarian aid to third countries, we have discussed the extent to which the lines would be taken up and utilized; we have already pointed to the cases where cuts need to be made.
They are budget lines - B7-210, B7-212, B7-217, B7-219 - which have utilization rates of 180, 160, 152 %; well, what are we saying to this? 'Estime important d'évaluer l'efficacité de la politique de l'aide humanitaire.'
Qu'est-ce qu'on doit évaluer?
In fact we must encourage this policy and make it work.
I have tabled an amendment on that too, which I hope will be adopted.
Thank you, Mr Dell'Alba.
Thank you both for your intervention and for your words of encouragement, but please rest assured that this Presidency has great staying power.
If you wish to test it out, you may do so on Friday morning, when I shall still be in the chair.
However, I should say that, generally speaking, when honourable members comply with the Rules of Procedure - as they usually do - presiding over a sitting is not a chore, but a pleasure.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Tillich, having acquainted myself with Mr Tillich's report I took the liberty of comparing his proposal with that put forward by the Commission regarding the 1997-98 farm product 'price' package.
The sum was easily done: a 3 % increase in the general budget, a 0.5 % increase in the agricultural budget, an 8 % increase in the Structural Funds.
In a word, a cut in the agricultural budget relative to the guideline, on the pretext of non-utilization of the sums appropriated to the EAGGF for several years, and an increase for the Structural Funds even though it is common knowledge that we do not use 70 % of the sums appropriated.
A case of double standards that requires an explanation.
Your proposal for agriculture, coupled with the Commission's, puts us - and will put us - in serious difficulties before the 1999 international negotiations.
If these proposals are accepted as they stand, Europe will be committing a serious strategic error by reducing these payments for the major crops.
Allow me to remind you that, even as we debate the matter, the exact opposite is happening in the United States.
Their new legislation provides cereal growers, until the year 2000, with a level of subsidies at least equivalent to what it was previously.
So our competitors are going to step up their farming activities and gain market shares.
We, as usual, are going to do the opposite and we - or rather you - are going to bear the responsibility.
In the light of this situation, our group proposes two simple amendments whose common objective is to safeguard the future of our agriculture.
First, the European Union must keep its promises to our farmers, and secondly the Maastricht convergence criteria must not be used as an alibi.
Considering the weakness of the Commission's proposals, it is therefore necessary to retain the principle of compulsory expenditure for all the agricultural lines.
I cannot believe, Mr Tillich, that on this fortieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome you failed to take account of the great success of this Common Agricultural Policy by condemning it.
Mr President, although I am opposed to the Government of my country, I find the position of the Council of Ministers more logical than those of the Commission and this Parliament.
The proposed 3 % increase in expenditure seems to me excessive.
In every European country the equivalent expenditure - in other words the investment or intervention expenditure - is not increasing.
It is stable or even declining.
Consequently, genuine austerity would not be to increase expenditure by 3 % but, at the very least, to leave it unchanged.
The only acceptable rate of growth for European taxation and European public spending is zero.
That would be a strong signal to the tax-paying citizen.
A brief digression: in the southern French towns where the electorate has voted for mayors belonging to my political party, the National Front, local taxation will fall in 1997.
That is something that is extremely well received by public opinion and by the taxpayers.
It is an extremely strong signal.
Parliament would do well to follow that example, the more so since the increases proposed to us are essentially being justified by the 8 % increase in the Structural Funds.
That increase is unrealistic.
It is unrealistic because everyone knows, and indeed everyone is saying, that there is a wide gap between the appropriations committed and the appropriations taken up.
Providing for excessive expenditure, over and above what can possibly be used, is quite obviously a source of waste.
Everywhere where appropriations are too high - which is the case with the Structural Funds - there is the danger of waste, the danger of clientage.
The justification offered for this expenditure on the Structural Funds, and on other lines, especially social policy, is the justification of employment - the struggle against unemployment.
Unfortunately, the Structural Funds do not create jobs.
They move jobs.
They put jobs on wheels, trundling them around Europe from one place to another but without ever creating new ones.
What could create jobs in Europe is different trade policy, different relations with the rest of the world, but not the Structural Funds.
Incidentally, we had an example this morning - I am sorry to go back to this - the Renault business.
What happened? The European Union allocated a number of Structural Fund appropriations to the States of southern Europe, specifically Portugal and Spain.
It was obvious for Renault to build factories there, factories which produced cars more cheaply than other factories further north.
The Structural Funds contributed to this job creation in southern Europe.
And yet, in this case too, what we have is not expansion but regression: the trade-off is the closure of the Vilvoorde factory, which will probably persuade Europe, through the Structural Funds, to make appropriations in order to compensate for the job losses.
In a word, the Structural Funds do not create jobs - at the most, they move them.
The social policies for combating unemployment are ineffective, or at best they try to make unemployment more bearable.
That is no way to improve the situation in Europe.
Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate the two rapporteurs who are in the chamber on their reports, but I will concentrate on Mr Tillich's report and, owing to the lack of time available, will deal with only a small number of aspects.
We refer to this report as 'Guidelines' , i.e. its aim is to guide the Council, to provide a course to be followed, to inform the Council that these are Parliament's priorities.
The Council would be wise to bear this in mind for its first reading.
The first piece of advice for the Council is that there are still a number of disputes outstanding which are of great significance for Parliament.
We would like to resolve these matters once and for all, together, and they include the matter of the legal basis for many budget lines, particularly those lines about which European citizens are extremely sensitive.
Mention should also be made of the problem of classifying expenditure. This is an important topic given that the European Parliament is one of the branches of the budget authority.
The next piece of advice from the European Parliament to the Council is that this House is very clear about where its policy priorities lie, about where emphasis should be placed, and the most important matter is the fight against unemployment.
No one should be in any doubt that unemployment is a real domestic tragedy for whomever is affected by it.
I would like to end by expressing a wish - please would the Council read the verbatim proceedings of this debate, so that it knows what has been going on, since it has not deemed it necessary to attend.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Tillich on his excellent report and also because, in this exercise, he has continued to make use of the formula of cooperation between the various parliamentary committees, inaugurated in the budget for 1997, which is proof of the openness and cooperative mood of the Committee on Budgets.
A result of this openness has been that no fewer than eleven parliamentary committees other than the Committee on Budgets have formulated amendments to these budget guidelines: 39 of the 134 amendments tabled come from these committees, despite this not having been an easy task.
The translation of the report was available on 25 February and the period available for submitting amendments ended on 4 March - there was barely time to react, especially since the ordinary parliamentary committees do not receive the privileged treatment in terms of time periods, translation, availability of rooms and permission for meetings which the Committee on Budgets has.
I would like to concentrate on the amendments tabled by the Committee on Regional Policy - although not all were accepted in their entirety, many were incorporated into Mr Tillich's report, either directly or via compromise amendments. Others no longer needed immediate approval in the light of the report's final text.
The original wording of paragraph three of the report caused the Committee on Regional Policy much concern, since it accepted from the commencement of the budget procedure not only an average increase below the ceiling fixed in the financial perspectives but also wanted to apply that reduction equally to all expenditure categories, which meant that not only would expenditure within Category 2 be cut back but, also, in this exercise, the reduction would impinge on commitment appropriations. This signifies ignorance of the fact that the amount allotted to the Structural Funds, referred to in the financial perspectives, not only constitutes a simple authorization but also an expenditure target, as derives from Article 12, paragraph two, of the Framework Regulations of the Structural Funds.
We are therefore grateful that the Committee on Budgets has amended that paragraph three in the terms given in the compromise amendment tabled by Mr Tillich, including within the demands presented to the Council respect for the compromises established in the Framework Regulations of the Structural Funds.
It is our belief that the budget authority must not compromise either growth or employment.
For the same reasons, our committee was concerned by the original wording of paragraph 12 of the report and we believe that Mr Christodoulou's amendment 72, which amended the said paragraph, is more appropriate, since it firstly points to the need to continue the structural policy, in accordance with the Edinburgh agreements, and also expresses its concern about the percentage of payments made, asking the Commission to issue a detailed report and submit proposals aimed at rationalizing and improving the effectiveness of these policies.
Overall, we think this is a reasonable report and I would like to conclude by congratulating Mr Tillich once again on his having written a report which makes the requirements of budgetary austerity imposed by Economic and Monetary Union compatible with continuity of economic and social cohesion.
(FI ) Mr President, the reports under discussion create a good basis for the preparation of next year's budget, and I should like to congratulate Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson on their reports.
The primary objective of next year's budget has been defined as the prevention of unemployment.
It occupies both the first and second places on the list of priorities.
Unemployment is a terrible scourge in Europe.
There are already nearly 20 million unemployed and unfortunately no end to the growth in unemployment is in sight.
Neither is it possible to talk of European cohesion if our citizens consider that the European Union is not capable of reducing unemployment.
Still less can we speak of cohesion when there is a lurking suspicion that the European Union's policy itself increases unemployment.
Thus the fight against unemployment must be seen to be a particularly central task for the EU as a whole.
In the creation of new jobs, small and medium-sized enterprises occupy a key position.
It is therefore right and proper that the budget's second priority area is improving the operating conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises.
The structural funds have a key role to play in strengthening business activity.
The concern expressed in the report about the large discrepancy between commitments and payments in the structural funds is partly justified.
There is no point in committing funds if they are not used.
Over the last five years almost 20 % remained unused.
Mr President, subject to these comments I still have great hopes of next year's draft budget.
Mr President, my group cannot settle for the report before us as adopted by the Committee on Budgets.
I particularly regret the fact that the necessary rigour that this 1998 budget should show has virtually disappeared in the report.
At a time when the Member States are being asked to make substantial efforts to reduce their budget deficits, to reduce their public spending, and in some cases to increase taxation too, it is wrong to have this kind of increase in expenditure in the European Community's budget, following the increases contained in the 1996 and 1997 budgets.
The Commission must be told that we want to subject ourselves to the same climate of austerity as is being imposed on all the Member States, and that climate must prevail in every sector of Community spending.
I also regret the fact that the principle of subsidiarity, which had rightly been invoked by the rapporteur, has disappeared at the budget review stage.
I do of course support the comments made by my colleagues Mr des Places and Mr Souchet regarding support for farmers' incomes.
I should like to add two further points that explain my group's hostility to the report.
The first relates to information policy.
The report says in its opening paragraphs that the necessary effort must be made on behalf of information policy.
Here again, in an austerity context it would be appropriate not to spend too much on selling the citizens of the various countries of Europe what is going to look increasingly like pure propaganda.
Finally, Mr President, we are also unable to support paragraph 37, which refers to the establishment of a genuine European Foreign Service.
Mr President, this morning when we celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome President Santer said that an economic Europe calls for a social Europe.
In the Tillich report, the European Parliament emphasizes the importance of employment, regarding it as the absolute priority, the importance of the social dimension of the European Union and the major contribution that Community funding makes to achieving social objectives.
So I consider it essential for adequate funds to continue to be earmarked for the various social policy activities financed by the Union.
I too am very displeased at the absence of the Council, with whom we want to reach agreement on the legal bases.
Frankly, I consider this attitude incomprehensible and also as unnecessarily inflexible vis à vis Parliament in particular.
I also believe it is fundamental not only to sustain our training policy but also to include in the financing of this chapter the objectives listed in the White Paper on education and training.
Today Parliament voted on a report that specifically evaluated the White Paper.
I would ask the Commission to continue with the work it began in 1996 on monitoring the utilization of the European Social Fund and establishing more systematic relations with the Member States in this area.
This work showed that there was an improvement in the rates of utilization and demonstrated that the criticisms - like those voiced here tonight - about the under-utilization of the Structural Funds and the Social Fund are in fact unjust: we must examine and check where the problems are and tackle them, to ensure that the available resources are used in full and in the best possible way.
Mr President, at this stage it is most important that we should have a clear view with regard to the agriculture budget of what the contribution of the European Parliament must be to this important section of the budget.
I think we realize already that the farm budget is now debated far more intensively than in previous years.
Above all in the Committee on Agriculture.
Only very close co-operation between the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Budgets can ensure that we play our proper part as Parliament and improve the quality of the budget as a whole.
The need here is for greater transparency, more realistic spending estimates and consequently the best possible use of the funds which are available for non-farm budget items.
This first report of Mr Tillich's inspires confidence.
I hope he will demonstrate the requisite inventiveness and flexibility so that the committees concerned can agree a common view and enable the European Parliament to do likewise.
Moving on to the substance.
For the first time we have proposals, prompted by the agriculture budget, to change the income supplements in order to meet the spending criteria.
But those criteria have first been looked at unilaterally by the Council.
The agriculture guideline appears not to have played any part at all here.
More strangely still, the proposed reductions in income supplements are to be permanent, whilst the reason for them is somewhat exceptional in nature, namely the BSE crisis.
I think that this way of operating farm policy is not conducive to creating confidence amongst the producers concerned.
They are entitled to serious and in-depth consideration of the system on which they depend for their livelihood and control of which has passed almost totally to the European institutions.
Mr President, firstly allow me to thank the rapporteur, Mr Tillich, for his flexibility when discussing his document in committee, a place where there are not only contrasting ideological and regional views but also the contrasting views of the Council and of the Commission.
It is therefore obvious that it will be difficult for the House to exert an influence if the rapporteur's principal concern is not to achieve broad consensus on the document in question.
For the sake of such consensus I think it right that the idea of the budget having to draw inspiration from subsidiarity should have been discarded, when it is precisely the budget which is the instrument implementing Community policies, not the instrument determining subsidiarity.
I am in total agreement with the priorities the rapporteur sets out in point five of his report, provided we do not forget the amounts set in Turin.
Referring to point 2, therefore, however logical it may appear that the level of commitment appropriations should be established as a function of actual forecasts, I believe there will be less conflict if we keep to the Edinburgh agreements.
It would be something else again for us to conclude that the Financial Regulations have to be revised again in order automatically to render the commitments not used by the beneficiaries null and void.
Mr Tillich, it is difficult for us, via an annual budget, to attempt to condition programmes which have already been approved - utilizing EAGGF expenditure is not the best way to influence the environment.
Perhaps the big question mark which remains regarding this budget relates to PHARE, TACIS and MEDA.
How can we be more realistic - which is what we want to be - without breaking with the amounts agreed at the Cannes European Council?
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Tillich for his report and congratulate him on trying so hard to represent almost everybody's point of view.
In his general remarks he makes the point about helping the national governments to achieve the Maastricht criteria.
I have to say that this is unrealistic.
We spend 1.22 % of the GDP of the Community.
National governments spend 46 %.
Whether we go up or down a percentage point or two will not in any perceptible way affect the ability of any national government to achieve the Maastricht standards.
Yet in spite of the smallness of the budget that we spend there are, generally, quite a number of voices talking about reducing spending.
I think this is unrealistic.
Mr Tillich makes the point about his four priorities, which Mr Fabra Vallés referred to and supported.
I support too small- and medium-sized industries, unemployment, youth and culture.
These are important.
But we have already committed 80 % of the budget in agriculture and structural funds.
If we are to make any meaningful contribution to the policies proposed as priorities then we have to have at least some expansion in the amount of resources available to us.
In the area of agriculture Mr Tillich does not say much.
But he does imply that by changing the regulations we can save money.
This certainly would be bad faith and bad politics because the reform of the common agricultural policy in 1992 was intended to take us up to the next round of GATT agreements.
We should look forward to the day when we will be able to increase productivity and improve farm incomes to reduce agricultural spending.
I sincerely hope we will. Nevertheless, for the moment it must remain.
We worry too much.
It was a six-year programme.
It is more important that it be well spent than that it be all spent.
Mr President, the European Parliament has tonight debated its priorities for the 1998 general budget.
The role of the Commission at this stage is to listen.
The institutions will have a first discussion of their positions in the trialogue on budget priorities on 9 April this year.
The Commission adopted its budget orientations for 1998 at the end of January.
It is the second time that the Commission has done so.
This procedure is one of the first innovations to strengthen financial management in the Commission and it has fulfilled the expectations.
On substance the Commission decided to continue to pursue the approach of budgetary rigour which it started with the 1997 budget and which was subsequently strengthened further by the budget authority.
The first reason to maintain a rigorous orientation is the same as last year.
The Member States are continuing their often painful efforts to get their public finances in order in the run-up to economic and monetary union.
Of course the Community budget is not big but it must, within its limits, encourage and facilitate these efforts.
There is also a second reason which is gradually becoming more important.
As the next round of enlargement approaches, the Community's finances have to be prepared.
This has implications both for the level of spending and for the Community structural programmes.
These questions will be discussed in more detail after the Intergovernmental Conference but a smooth transition to an enlarged Community will only be possible if the remaining time is used for the required adjustments.
In its budgetary orientation debate the Commission also decided on a new method to re-establish budgetary rigour.
In fact, the traditional approach of following the financial perspectives with some small margins would not be appropriate for 1998.
It would in fact lead to growth rates of 10 % or even more for the Community budget.
Compare this to an expected growth of less than 3 % in the Member States.
It would be simply impossible to explain such budgetary generosity at Community level to the citizens and taxpayers of Europe.
The Commission has therefore adopted a new approach to reflect on a justifiable overall growth rate first and then to discuss the priorities within such a framework.
For 1998 it has decided to aim at limiting an increase to as close as possible to 3 %.
I noticed from Mr Tillich's draft report that the Commission and Parliament agree on the need to support the Member States in their efforts to meet the convergence criteria.
The discussions on the appropriate growth for the 1998 budget should not be overshadowed by preconditions which are, or could be, beyond reach.
Mr Brinkhorst asked me a question about the willingness of the Dutch presidency to contribute to a mutual understanding of these issues.
I cannot comment on the results but I have to say that the Dutch presidency has shown a lot of interest in the budgetary issues.
The best sign of that is that the budgetary issues will be discussed at two Ecofin Councils even though the presidency is not here at present.
(Interjection from Mr Tomlinson) I must say to Mr Tomlinson that this morning there was another important report in this Parliament which was closely and intently followed by the presidency.
The Commission objective of 3 % is not only inspired by the expected developments in the Member States.
It also appears to be a reasonable compromise between the imperative of rigour and respect for the existing commitments of the Union.
At the level of the financial perspectives this concerns in particular the commitment appropriations for structural funds.
The decisions of Edinburgh imply a growth rate of some 8 % compared to 1997.
That is quite high in the current circumstances.
However, unless there is an agreement in the Council and Parliament that the inter-institutional agreement should be modified - and I take it from the draft Tillich report that Parliament will not be party to such an agreement - the Commission will respect the spending objectives for commitment appropriations in Category 2.
As far as payments are concerned, any over-budgeting must certainly be avoided.
While it is difficult to meet an overall target of 3 %, if 8 % growth is accepted for one-third of the budget, it is not impossible.
But it requires a very small growth of expenditure in the other categories.
Of course this does not exclude the reinforcement of a few particular priorities if other activities are reduced or some phased out.
The Commission has not taken a position on the balance between the categories but it is obvious that a rigorous outcome can only be acceptable if all the institutions live up to their responsibilities for different parts of the budget.
Thus the Commission adopted a proposal last week for the agricultural price package for 1997 and 1998 which is compatible with its overall budgetary strategy if - and this is crucial - the Commission proposals concerning adjustments in the cereal sector or equivalent savings are adopted.
With regard to Category 4, the Commission is working on a review of PHARE in the direction envisaged by the rapporteur and this issue was also raised by Mr Wynn and Mr Elles.
I hope the Commission will be able to discuss the matter next week or in two weeks at the latest.
As far as its own House is concerned, the Commission has decided to propose another year of zero growth for its staff, except for enlargement and it has agreed on new quantified initiatives to redeploy its human resources to priority activities.
In closing I would like to express my best wishes to the rapporteurs, Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson, as well as the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, for a successful budgetary procedure for 1998.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
North/South cooperation to combat drugs
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A4-0059/97), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on North/South cooperation in the campaign against drugs and drug addiction (C4-0630/96-95/0167(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Liese).
Mr President, let me first compliment the rapporteur, Mr Liese, on the excellent work he has done over the past months and on succeeding, with the cooperation of all of us, in getting the Committee on Development and Cooperation to express a unanimous view for the second time running.
The development of cooperation in fighting drugs and drug addiction is an objective that Parliament set itself a long time ago and does indeed represent the search for an intelligent response to a problem that affects the life of millions of people in the world, in both northern and southern societies, which pollutes political, social and economic relations at international level and which is today the main source and principal means of support of the most profitable forms of international crime.
In the field of combating drugs and the spread of drugs, development cooperation also acts as an important example of international solidarity and cooperation with third countries and is an intelligent, preventive and more effective method of confronting and resolving problems that directly affect our societies.
There are three fundamental objectives which the Community institutions have set themselves with this proposed regulation: firstly, to reduce the impact of drugs production as a factor of stimulating demand for the consumption of these drugs; secondly, to reduce the power of the mafia and the cartels, by cutting the ground from under their feet and reducing their sources of supply; thirdly, to reduce the central economic position of drug production in large areas of the developing countries.
We must seek an intelligent solution because we have to form an alliance with the people of the south for whom the production and trade in drugs is often the only or main means of subsistence.
From that point of view, reference has rightly been made to the central role played by education to increase the awareness of the populations concerned, but even more important is to associate development and anti-poverty policies in the efforts to combat the production of drugs.
It was rightly pointed out that it is not enough simply to tackle the direct problem of replacement crops: action is needed within the organization of society in order to combat the power of the mafia, by strengthening the role of women and formulating alternative development projects based on the economic recovery of productive systems and, more generally, on social improvements.
After Parliament's first reading, the Council accepted some of the approved amendments.
However, we note that some questions have remained on the sidelines, in particular the key role of women, the social and environmental implications of the activities relating to human rights, and sound management.
That is why our group will vote for the 23 amendments approved by the Committee on Development.
Mr President, I read this Council of the European Union common position through with great interest.
I see there an extremely impressive range of activities which are planned.
We are actually going to try and help the developing countries!
This is very laudable because, after all, we are exporting synthetic drugs to these countries, and for once we are not blaming them for exporting to us.
But then I know, because I have had something to do with drugs, and I have recently been talking to Mr Gelbard, a Secretary in the State Department in the United States, they have spent US$1, 000m on crop eradication in Bolivia.
They have not yet touched Peru because they have not had much cooperation.
And then I see that all this great work which is to take place from 1998 to the year 2000 is going to cost ECU 30m.
I just ask you to compare the US$1, 000m which has been spent by the United States on crop eradication in one country, with the ECU 30m which is going to be spent over the period 1998 to 2000 under all these plans which are so well drawn up, so carefully thought through. What are we doing?
Are we serious? I cannot believe we are serious if we are spending that sort of money.
I have no more to say.
Mr President, in congratulating Mr Liese on the quality of his report I would like to concentrate on the three amendments which I, once again, put forward with his support.
First, Amendment No 3: the need to avoid contradictions between the EU policy to combat the drugs trade and those of the World Bank and the other financial institutions.
Alternative development opportunities for producers of drug-linked crops in developing countries are too often jeopardized by unfavourable macro-economic policies imposed directly or indirectly on those countries.
Peasant farmers find it increasingly difficult to produce other crops competitively for export under prevailing conditions of structural adjustment.
Our regulation should make reference to this and require the Commission to work with the Member States, within the international institutions, to reduce these.
Second, Amendment No 4, which seeks to ensure that criteria for deciding a country's eligibility for EU support and for evaluation of the projects will be defined in dialogue between the Community and partner governments or organizations.
It is extremely important that the EU does not follow the example of the United States which, in some countries, has unilaterally made drug control assistance conditional on the attainment of crop eradication targets.
Not only is the long-term value of forceable eradication questionable, but eradication driven by conditionality is provoking serious social instability in countries such as Bolivia and Colombia.
Third, Amendment No 5, which seeks to give priority to enabling small peasant producers to take advantage of EU trade preferences.
It is the small-scale rural sector, including those cultivating drug-linked crops, that should be the object of our development assistance in this field, and hence should be the object of the regulation.
All of us in this Parliament are united in our determination to combat the drugs trade.
But this regulation should recognize the practical measures which are required if the EU's policy of joint responsibility for the drugs problem is to be realized: respect for genuine cultural differences, an anti-poverty focus and a framework of fair trade can succeed where repressive measures have failed.
In our regulation let us commit ourselves to these objectives.
, Vice-President of the Commission. (ES) Thank you Mr President, and good evening to everyone sharing this solitude.
Many thanks, Mr Liese, for your report - you may rest assured that the Commission has made the campaign against drugs one of its priorities.
The use, production and illegal trafficking of drugs are, together with money laundering, problems which a large number of countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia have to deal with.
The illegal production of drugs is tending to become internationalized - this is no secret, and you state this in your report - and it is no longer just a few developing countries which are cultivating and converting coca crops, opium poppies or cannabis in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East or Asia.
Industrialized countries and other developing countries have, unfortunately, also begun to produce so-called designer drugs, or synthetic drugs.
In addition, illegal drugs use has now become a public-health problem for a growing number of developing countries, not just for rich nations.
This globalization is very closely linked to the profits which can be derived from drug-related activities. It is well known that such profits are huge.
However, money laundering is not the privilege of the industrialized countries with advanced banking systems, but goes on everywhere to a certain extent, from East to West and from North to South.
The European Union, as you will know - to reply to one of Mr Howitt's concerns - has distanced itself from certification policies as practised by the United States and we have incorporated the principle of shared responsibility, both in our policy position in Vienna and in the future position to be adopted by the European Union at the forthcoming General Assembly of the United Nations on the subject of drugs.
Shared responsibility in the sense that although a great deal of the responsibility lies with the producer countries - that fact cannot be denied - there is also a great deal of responsibility on the part of the consumer countries, and it is our belief that only by assuming the principle of shared responsibility - co-responsibility - will it be possible to set up the bases for an international dialogue which will enable us to eradicate this plague.
We do not believe - you are quite right - that unilateral certification measures will achieve positive objectives in the campaign to combat drugs.
There is one absolutely elementary question, mentioned by Sir Jack Stewart-Clark, who is well versed in drugrelated problems since he has in the past prepared several reports for this House.
This budget line is really very modest as a specific line intended to combat the drug problem.
However, we should not forget that, principally in the Mediterranean - specifically in the case of Morocco - or in Latin America - Bolivia and Peru - a considerable part of the cooperation programmes currently being implemented is essentially aimed at promoting alternative crops.
Allow me to pass on some information about Bolivia: alternative crops in the Chaparé region in Bolivia are being financed by the European Union.
The United States has made no contribution whatsoever.
A degree of care should be taken when presenting such impressive figures in the campaign against drug trafficking, since a distinction must be made between development cooperation funded by military sources and development cooperation funded by the forces of law and order.
To be sure, if, in its report, the European Commission were to include all the national budgets of the 15 Member States - all the expenditure for Scotland Yard, the French Gendarmerie , the German police, the Spanish Guardia Civil and Italian customs officers - the amount spent by the European Union to combat the drugs problem would also be an impressive figure.
However, this matter has to be viewed from different standpoints.
It will not come as news to anyone that this specific budget line could hardly be more modest.
Yet, let me give you all a warning: the European Parliament, namely you yourselves, in the 1996 financial perspectives decided to reduce the already modest sum of ECU 11 million by one million.
As a consequence, it is difficult to ask the Commission for an explanation of why you decided to further reduce the already modestly funded budget line.
However, I say again, a large part of development cooperation programmes targets such problems.
Naturally, there are problems such as the safeguarding of human rights and global poverty-alleviation policy - in this respect we can accept the European Parliament's recommendation - and I am pleased, Mr Liese, that you are pleased with the Commission at least this evening - you cannot imagine how happy we at the Commission are that this House is pleased with us, because it has not happened very often - and I am also pleased that we are in a position to accept virtually 90 % of your amendments, although a few do cause us some problems.
Some of these are basic matters, such as Amendment 4; another would be Amendment 21, particularly given internal Commission organization.
We always prefer logically to present budget-line implementation at the end of the year and not in the first 6 months, because, generally speaking, the Commission identifies projects in January, February and March, and approves them in April, May and June, for implementation from October, November and December onwards.
As a consequence, from our viewpoint, working at the end of the year corresponds to the logic of internal work organization.
As for Amendment 3, you will be aware that the Commission is not, as such, an integral part of international institutions.
This role falls to the European Union which is generally represented by our honourable Council of Ministers.
Anyway, thank you.
This report is valuable and offers guidance, but I still have misgivings about its lack of a global character, particularly in budgetary terms, as such a character would lend credibility to this interesting drugs-related policy.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
Do allow me to congratulate you on your excellent pronunciation of Catalan and also for having pointed to what you referred to as, if I have understood correctly, ' shared solitude' . However, since we are discussing such an important subject this evening we will have to trust that a careful reading of the Verbatim report of proceedings will make up for non-attendance.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Population policies in developing countries
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A4-0057/97), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on aid for population policies and programmes in the developing countries (C4-0631/96-95/0166(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Nordmann).
, rapporteur. (FR) Mr President, I hope that population matters will produce the same positive feelings in Parliament and the Commission as everything that has been said on drugs.
In the hope of creating those feelings, I shall not go back to basics because Parliament has already declared on several occasions that it favours support for population policies in the developing countries - support provided by the Union which respects the humanistic values of individual freedom of choice while at the same time serving as a vector for the better development of health services.
This is the philosophy Parliament has tried to institute, and it is the same philosophy that underlies the proposal for a regulation under consideration.
At second reading, we might share the sense of satisfaction Mr Liese referred to earlier at what we might call a statistical level, because I believe that 26 of the 40 amendments tabled at first reading were retained in the common position.
It should also be noted that those amendments which were not retained relate primarily to the formulation or relative flexibility of the action framework and that the Committee on Development did not see fit to assert a kind of proprietorial vanity regarding some of them.
The first of the amendments on which we should like to insist concerns a reminder of certain financial commitments entered into on behalf of the Union, especially at the Cairo conference in 1994.
The Union had announced its intention, between now and the year 2000, of increasing its financial aid to population policies in the developing countries to ECU 300 million.
Although the Commission did not submit any financial memoranda at first reading, the sums set down by the Council fall terribly far short of what had been announced, hence one of our amendments recalling that commitment.
That being so, not everything has been said, and not everything will be said at voting time, and of course we will have to have a budgetary strategy for monitoring this matter.
The second amendment, which is something of a formality, relates to the problems of commitology.
The Council having declared itself in favour of a regulatory committee, our own committee, conventionally, asks that responsibility for verification and monitoring of the policy be entrusted to an advisory committee.
There remain a number of amendments which were tabled by Mr Liese, rightly I believe, in so far as they reintroduce points adopted at first reading.
They also reintroduce provisions which were not retained by the Committee on Development.
That is why, irrespective of the validity of Mr Liese's position and the respect one may feel for it, I, in my capacity as rapporteur, shall have to vote against these amendments.
Once again, they relate to very slight differences of standpoint, with the exception perhaps of Amendment No 8, the adoption of which, as such, would be likely to raise practical problems of implementation in certain difficult or urgent cases.
However, setting aside the debate which this amendment might cause, I think I can conclude by saying, Mr President, that we should close this procedure with the same sense of satisfaction as in the previous debate.
Mr President, population growth is a problem for the development of many countries.
However, it is by no means the only cause of poverty, and my group is convinced that it is not the main cause of poverty in the developing countries.
Population growth should not, therefore, be used as an excuse for refusing essential aid and trade preferences.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that population growth must be vigorously tackled.
Solutions must be found which take account of the people concerned.
Personal experience has convinced me that it is not the case that families, and particularly women, are happy with large numbers of children.
It is the women who are seeking information about birth control, and they are also seeking practical help.
I think it is right that the European Union should offer that information and practical help.
Of course, we all realize that this means more than just distributing condoms.
An integrated approach is needed, and education - particularly for women - is also a key to tackling population problems effectively.
Our group has a special concern which has already emerged in the debate: we are particularly anxious that unwanted pregnancies should be avoided.
On the other hand, because we are dealing here with a budget line for population policies and demography, we also wish to see the decision of the Cairo Conference being implemented.
In other words, abortion should not be a means of birth control.
If we are talking here about demography, as opposed to general humanitarian aid, then this is not the place for argument about abortion under medically unsatisfactory conditions, because we are dealing here simply with population policy.
The fact is that we cannot agree on the question of abortion, nor are we going to reach agreement, whether in Parliament or in the European Union.
And our amendments are not designed to produce a European Union view on abortion.
Of course we must take the Cairo Conference seriously, in so far as what we are dealing with here is population policy.
I should therefore be grateful if the other groups could signal their willingness to accept Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 in particular.
These amendments were tabled by other groups at first reading: Amendment No 5, in particular, came from the Socialist Group.
The point here is that no support should be given to countries or organizations that use compulsory abortion and infanticide as means of controlling the population.
In my view, there can be no serious argument against such an amendment.
Therefore, I would ask once again for your support on this point.
Mr President, in tackling this problem I should also like to say that the demographic problem, although it is not the single cause of the problems of developing countries, is nonetheless a problem which cannot be overlooked.
Consequently it seems to me that the conclusions of the Cairo Conference are perfectly appropriate conclusions and they should be defended by all of us, including the final consequences, namely concerning abortion, which at the conference in Cairo undeniably was presented as a process which must not be looked upon as a form of contraception, deserves our support.
In any case, the demographic problem affecting developing countries is a problem which calls for a very serious effort in terms of training and prevention.
There is a set of policies which ought to be developed and, consequently, we must very seriously bank on public health policies and also the development at the appropriate level of policies on sex education, which are compatible with any positive approach to this problem.
In the perspective of the positions set out by Mr Nordmann, these seem to me to be extremely correct.
On the one hand, we must consider that the Union's undertaking concerning the strengthening of aid to democratic programmes in developing countries up to 300, 000 million escudos by the year 2000 is fundamental as a minimum contribution for developing these questions, and also the questions of comitology seemed to me to be extremely well dealt with by the rapporteur.
We must concentrate on committees such as the FED, MED and ELA, because it is by means of information, hearing and continuous consultation that this problem can be dealt with in a proper and positive way by the European Union and be developing countries themselves.
Mr President, we consider it extremely important that, as part of these measures, the European Union should fulfil the commitments it entered into at the Cairo conference on population and development, and do so on a scale that will effectively enable the provision of widespread access to family planning in the developing countries.
On that basis, my group will back the report which has been tabled, and we hope that it will be adopted in a form which does not entail a one-sided view of the world.
I cannot conceal the fact that we had a controversial vote in the Committee on Development on certain amendments which have now been tabled again in plenary.
We share the concern of the PPE Group that developing countries should be equally entitled to participate in tendering, and to that extent there is no disagreement here.
However, we wish to make it quite clear that our group is not prepared to support those amendments that seek to promote a very one-sided view of the world.
It remains to be seen how the House will vote.
I should like to return to the question of the UN conference in Cairo, since we believe that this conference represented a significant step forward in terms of opinion forming, and contributed to raising awareness and making people realize that we have to achieve slower population growth if we are to avoid the unfortunate situation that exists in many developing countries, where improved economic growth is outpaced and eaten up by population growth.
There is no disagreement on the fact that compulsory measures should have no part to play here, but on the other hand we believe that we should not lay down too many preconditions which involve interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.
Ultimately, what we are dealing with is an extremely wide range of attitudes among people of different cultures, and it is not for us to lay down more preconditions than are absolutely necessary.
One piece of progress in Cairo which, as a feminist politician, I should particularly like to mention was the agreement by the conference that women themselves can decide freely how many children they want, and when they want to have them.
This consideration also conditions our view of the report, and we should like to see it adopted in that spirit.
, Vice-President of the Commission.
(ES) Thank you, Mr President. Thank you very much, Mr Nordmann, for your report which sets this evening's debate against an atmosphere of mutual understanding between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament regarding a matter as important as demography, covering both population aspects as well as health and production worldwide.
In global terms, the Commission's priority objectives which, I believe, are largely shared by the European Parliament and the Council, are three in number. Firstly, enabling women, men and adolescents to come to a decision freely and with full knowledge of the facts about the number of children they have and the timing of any births; secondly, contributing to the creation of a socio-cultural, economic and educational environment which makes it possible to exercise this option fully, especially in the case of women and adolescents, through the condemnation and eradication of any form of sexual violence, mutilation and abuse affecting their health and dignity.
As something of a response to Mr Liese's concerns, the European Community particularly endorses the position on abortion, adopted at the Cairo Conference, condemning its use as a method of contraception.
Thirdly, we wish to make a contribution to developing or reforming health systems in order to increase access to them and the quality of reproductive-health care provided in the case of men and women, including adolescents of both sexes, thereby significantly reducing the level of risk to the health of women and children.
The Commission's initial proposal has been altered considerably - Mr Nordmann is right - by the incorporation of many of the amendments proposed by this House on first reading.
I would therefore like to offer my thanks for your collaboration on this specific aspect.
I would like to make the following comments on the amendments endorsed by the Committee on Development and Cooperation: the Commission is in favour of Amendment 2, which relates to the use of Committees; as regards Amendment 1, on increasing Community financial support for population policies and measures by ECU 300 million by 2000, the Commission - I have to point this out to you - will not be in a position to introduce this possibility on purely technical grounds, since the Regulation - or the legal base of the Regulation we are discussing this evening - will enable a legal base to be attributed to a budget line, aimed at demographic matters, which also consists of a very modest sum: barely ECU 8 million, aimed at financing pilot projects.
Now I would like to comment further on the discussion I had with Sir Jack Stewart-Clark concerning the money spent on combating drugs.
Population policy does not come under solely that particular budget line, because if you take together all the policies we implement - Latin America, Africa, Mediterranean and Asia - and what is done under bilateral programmes with various States receiving our aid, the sum of ECU 300 million is exceeded with interest.
Yet again, as happens with the Community budget, we come up against the form that matters should take: if we were to look at population policy-related expenditure contained in the Lomé Convention, in Latin America, the Mediterranean and Asia, you may rest assured that ECU 300 million would be exceeded.
If an attempt were made to set up a budget line of over ECU 300 million applying only to population matters, we will have the same problem as we have with the 'drugs' line.
A choice has to be made, and I believe that we are confronted more with a problem of presentation, of how the Community budget is spent, than with a dispute over figures with the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Next, there is a series of amendments - numbers 3 and 4 - with which we have problems on a number of objective grounds.
Amendments 5 and 8 we regard as unnecessary because the criteria relating to these amendments are already sufficiently contained in the recitals of the common position.
However, I would like to give you an example of something that is being done in the population field, namely the three most recent decisions we have taken under the terms of a bilateral cooperation project, to demonstrate that we are well above ECU 300 million.
The first piece of evidence is this: the ECU 200 million subsidy for the family welfare programme in India, to support the implementation of a new series of policies to be centred on family planning and also on global harmonization of reproductive-health measures.
In India alone, in terms of family welfare, we are already spending ECU 200 million.
The 'Asia' initiative on reproductive health - ECU 25 million - which we recently signed with Dr Nafis Sadik from the United Nations Population Fund last month relates to an innovative programme for working essentially in Asia.
To finish, a further bilateral example: in the Philippines, there is an ECU 19 million mother-andchild programme which will help to reduce the risks facing pregnant women and women in labour or who have just given birth, thereby reducing maternal mortality rates.
I wanted to mention these examples - India, ECU 200 million; United Nations family-planning programme in Asia, ECU 25 million; and the most recent decision regarding the Philippines, ECU 19 million - to demonstrate that if we add together all we are doing on various bilateral cooperation programmes, the Committee on Development and Cooperation should have no trouble in confirming that, in this specific case, we are meeting its requirements - our presentation, however, is, of course, different.
Thank you, Mr Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
Fourth framework programme in research, technological development and demonstration (1994-1998)
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A4-0084/97), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision adapting for the second time Decision 1110/94/EC on the European Community fourth framework programme of activities in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1994-1998) (C4-0041/97-96/0034(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Linkohr).
Mr President, on Monday the Committee on Research adopted my report by a substantial majority - two members abstained, while the others voted in favour.
Our message is relatively simple.
We take the view that the funding should be increased by ECU 200 million, as opposed to ECU 100 m; that funding for all the programmes - with the exception of research into BSE, which has already been treated very generously - should be doubled; and that an additional ECU 33 m should be provided for research into renewable energy sources and water.
As regards the amendments, all I have to say is that no amendments were received on Monday, but clearly a whole series of amendments has now been tabled.
Speaking as rapporteur, I have to recommend that we reject them, because while I have every sympathy with some of the amendments, I am representing the view of the committee.
Moreover, the substance of many of these amendments is already included or at least implicit in the report.
The conflict which lies ahead of us is not, however, about the amendments.
It is simply about money, and I would strongly urge the House that it should demonstrate the maximum degree of solidarity in adopting the report if we are to have a chance of success in the Conciliation Committee.
I am relatively confident because the Committee on Budgets is behind us, which means that we can expect some genuinely tough negotiation.
On the substance of the report, I find it somewhat disconcerting that the Council took so long to reach a decision in the first place, and that it could not then see its way to providing a further ECU 100 m.
I would remind you that the ECU 100 m in question is not an additional sum of taxpayers' money: it is a sum which Parliament made available from savings in other areas, and we shall be able to save a further ECU 100 m in the new budget. In other words, the funds can be provided through reallocation.
So the money is there.
ECU 100 m is already in the reserve, in any case, although it can only be paid out when there is a legal basis for doing so.
I would remind you here of a point that has often been made, and is rightly referred to time and again by the Commission: Europe's competitiveness is, unfortunately, declining rather than increasing.
This assessment is no less accurate for being constantly repeated.
Declining competitiveness is what lies behind the loss of a great many jobs in Europe.
Part of the reason why we spent so much time this morning discussing Renault's problems and the related difficulties is the fact that Europe has given away its competitive edge - and done so knowingly.
Nonetheless, I hope that this debate and, in particular, our disagreement with the Council of Ministers will at least send out a small signal.
I know that ECU 100 m or ECU 200 m is only a fraction of Europe's annual spending on research, but it could serve to point the way ahead.
Unfortunately, there is no lobby for research.
Researchers themselves are above taking to the streets, and they do not count, as far as the political parties are concerned, because there are not enough of them.
The researchers have to rely on Parliament, therefore, and I hope that we shall achieve a substantial majority on this issue.
If Parliament approves the report, as I hope it will, then I also hope that we shall move into the conciliation procedure as quickly as possible and waste no time in coming to a decision, so that notices can appear in the Official Journal.
The fact is that if the procedure is not concluded in time, even the best decisions will be useless because it will be too late to pay out the money.
I would therefore ask the many Members who are present here to give this report their backing.
Mr President, first I should like to congratulate Mr Linkohr, not least for his patience in this apparently never-ending saga of the refinancing of the fourth framework programme.
Speed is now essential.
Months are slipping past; brain-power is being wasted.
So we hope this decision will be taken speedily and implemented.
I regret very much the apparent absence of the Council of Ministers, although I may be wrong, from this important debate.
The main priority of the European Union is jobs.
One way, though certainly not the only way, of creating jobs is to make ourselves more competitive through research and development.
We have problems in society which research and development will also help with.
And the European Union adds value.
This is the view of academics and industrialists.
There is a multiplier effect.
Therefore it is all the more bizarre that the Council of Ministers and the Member States that compose it wish to repatriate money where it does not have that added value.
We are disappointed at the cut from the expected ECU 700m, which of course led to the drawing up of proposals, down to a paltry ECU 100m, over one-third of which is to be spent on BSE.
We in the Committee on Energy, Research and Technology wish to express our very warm thanks to the Committee on Budgets for its support.
It is forward-looking.
It has made research and development one of its priorities and has found more money to be spent on research and development.
It is the committee that found it.
It expects some sort of recognition for its efforts from the Council and the Commission.
Turning briefly to the content of Mr Linkohr's report and the way in which we expect that money to be spent - and remember this is co-decision - some of the European Parliament's priorities are reflected in Mr Linkohr's report: our wish for landmines to be investigated, for inter-modal transport, educational multimedia and, in particular, renewable energy - and I must make it clear that the Committee on Budgets made it a condition that a proportion of that extra money would be spent on renewable energy.
I am told by medical researchers that the amount to be spent on BSE is unrealistically high.
However, in the interests of the speedy adoption of this report, we will go along with this.
But, we do not propose to double that amount when we double from ECU 100m to ECU 200m.
This is a sensible report.
Let us all support it and get it through quickly.
Mr President, as a group we shall support this report, although we have certain qualms about doing so.
Incidentally, I should like to say that the rapporteur has my admiration for the work that he has done.
He has my admiration not least because he was involved in a conciliation procedure two years ago, the outcome of which was ECU 700 million in a reserve - in other words 5 %.
Without wishing to belittle Parliament's powers of codecision - and nothing could be further from my aim - I have to say that this begs the question of whether the entire procedure is justified by such an outcome.
One thing really amazes me in all this.
We wish to invest in the future - today we had workers from Renault here, and we have problems with the miners in Germany - but what are we doing?
In the very areas that have a bearing on the future - research, development and possibilities for industrial conversion - we are trying to save money!
I would not mind if the money saved at European level was in fact being spent effectively on research at national level.
But there, I have to say, I have my doubts!
In any event, I am convinced that for the future of our research policy, we must find a form of financing which does not entail debating budgetary changes in the middle of the framework programme.
I was involved in the process four years ago: it was not satisfactory then, and it is not satisfactory now.
Secondly, I have some reservations concerning the Commission's role in all this, and I have already spoken about these.
Just how seriously are we to take proposals that begin by providing for task forces with ECU 700 m of funding - for which a great deal of pressure was exerted - if those proposals can subsequently be changed at the stroke of a pen? What happened to the package when it emerged that we were to receive not ECU 700 m, but only ECU 100 m?
Looking now at the list and the allocation of resources, I honestly have to ask what difference two million here or there will make. What has become of our package?
Having a package also implies finding the courage to state what we do not want - and we did not manage to do that.
For myself and my group, all this is a learning process.
I am convinced that for the fifth framework programme, we need a different type of cooperation.
Perhaps we also need different structures, and in any event I shall do my best to ensure that we cooperate positively.
It is with some degree of resignation that I will now conclude and offer the rapporteur my full support.
However, this is not the way to prepare for the future.
Mr President, the common position presented to the Council is a step backwards compared with Parliament's first reading.
At this historic moment, when the importance of research is increasing day by day, I believe it is wrong not to give more coherent funding to this programme, which would enable the European Union to improve and develop coordinated research, so that the Member States can act together in the common interest.
We note that the European Union is finding it increasingly necessary to compete with the United States and Japan and the emerging economies, where research funding is and always will be more consistent and more conspicuous.
The increase proposed by the Council gives more precedence to its own financial priorities without taking account of the proposals made by the European Parliament in the 1997 budgetary procedure, when it decided to set up an ECU 100m reserve for research.
That reserve would indeed make it possible to increase the framework programme funds by at least ECU 200m.
So the Council's attitude has in fact made the efforts of Parliament futile.
With such financial premises I think it is worth noting, as Mr Linkohr has done, that the increase of ECU 200m would, among others, have made it possible to earmark some of the funds for renewable energy sources, which are also important for the Mediterranean area.
It is in this area that Mr Malerba and I tabled an amendment, underlining the importance of a new form of renewable and non-pollutant electrochemical energy, what are called combustion cells.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the common position 35 % of the ECU 100m are allocated to research on BSE, vaccines and viral diseases.
This is indeed extremely important to public health and the future of the European Union; however, as other rapporteurs have pointed out, perhaps that 35 % is being allocated at the cost of other important areas.
Finally, I hope the Council will do the necessary to amend its own common position and that negotiations will begin as soon as possible to remedy this situation.
Mr President, my compliments to Mr Linkohr on the work he has done so far on the topping up of funds for the fourth framework programme.
Mr President, my Group is unhappy that the original increase of 700 million ECU for the fourth framework programme has been cut by the Council to just 100 million.
This is because the BSE affair has caused the Financial Perspective to be exceeded and because the Council refuses to modify the Financial Perspective.
But, Mr President, Parliament now finds itself lumbered with the problems which the Commission and Council themselves brought about by failing to react to the BSE crisis in time.
Thanks to Mrs Cresson's proposal Parliament is also faced with a fait accompli since just 35 MECU of the Council's paltry 100 MECU are being set aside.
Once again for BSE, rather than the 15 million ECU which Parliament had proposed.
My Group is not in agreement with that.
Only if the Council is willing to increase the budget to 200 million ECU will 35 million ECU for BSE be acceptable as a proportion.
If the Council will not do this my Group, using the criteria of the Committee on Budgets, will again seek to have 100 million ECU set aside for research prior to the 1998 budget.
The Council must understand once and for all that it is the European Parliament which has the last word on research spending under the budget procedure.
Mr President, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left supports the recommendation made by Mr Linkohr on supplementary financing for the fourth framework programme.
However, there are three points we would like to highlight: firstly the cut in the amount of financing, which is a retreat from the commitment the European Union must make to research into the development of a competitive society and the creation of jobs. This is a very serious matter.
Secondly, we are concerned at the surreptitious introduction of the concept of 'Task Forces' as a vertical philosophy as opposed to the horizontal philosophy of successive framework programmes, and it introduces what I believe is a worrying new aspect into preparations for the fifth framework programme.
Thirdly, it makes reference to the need to embark upon research into the welfare of the elderly, a problem which will be of crucial importance to Europe's population in the future, and we therefore recommend that the amount earmarked for research into BSE be reduced by a similar amount, as there is no justification for so much funding to be allocated to this area.
Mr President, a lack of curiosity is an indication that a person is growing old.
And a society which does not engage in organized research is on the way to decline.
But obviously, one also has to ask what people are curious about, and what is being researched.
It requires no great leap of the imagination to envisage people who are curious about extremely destructive - even self-destructive - things, and unfortunately that is an analogy which applies to our European societies.
If we look at what the package actually contains, there is aeronautics, fingerprint technologies and industrial engineering with a view to economizing on water use: that accounts for ECU 60 million already, by my calculations.
BSE research as a whole accounts for ECU 34.5 m, and a closer look reveals that this is intended mainly for animal experiments which are expected to yield results in about ten years' time.
That is not where the BSE problem lies: the problem is that we need to change our agricultural policy and stop feeding animals on animalbased meal.
Looking too at the research that is to be undertaken into information and communication technologies, one sometimes gains the impression that it is all about preparing for escape into virtual reality, as opposed to investigating the interface between social processes and technological change, and all the possible options and objectives which this entails.
In the programme as a whole, ECU 147 m is devoted to research on socio-economic issues, and this in a society which is undergoing radical social and environmental change.
Something is seriously amiss here.
Considering the problems that confront us, the priorities are wrong.
Mr Linkohr has made a few adjustments: in particular, the ECU 33 m for non-nuclear energy is clearly a positive change, but it is not enough to convince us of the value of the concept.
After all, this is a retreat from the position at first reading, and the situation that we are forever bemoaning - the fact that Europe has lost or deliberately given away its competitive edge - is actually connected with the need to develop a sense of curiosity about the social, technological and scientific problems that we face.
So far, that is not what we are talking about here.
We shall abstain.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I address you this evening on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, a task which is all the more pleasurable in that today, for once, we have heard nothing but good of that committee.
That was a point worth emphasizing, and it is a pity there are not more of us here to hear a tribute which was as unusual as it was well deserved.
As the rapporteur pointed out, and as other honourable Members have also pointed out, it was indeed the Committee on Budgets which, in the course of the 1997 budgetary procedure, managed to snatch the hundred million with which the Commission is making us a proposal today.
I should add that this business of the refinancing of the fourth framework programme combines a broken promise with a sorry display of weakness.
The broken promise was broken by the Council, because, in the course of the negotiations on the fourth framework programme which we conducted with Rolf Linkohr and a few other colleagues, the Council did indeed undertake to provide 700 million of refinancing.
And now it has not done so, pleading that 'Ecofin doesn't want to revise the financial perspectives' .
What a climb-down by this council of research ministers!
And what a display of weakness by the Commission which, having come up with an ambitious initial proposal - and all credit to you for it, Commissioner - based on 700 million suddenly caved in completely after what was said at the subsequent Ecofin Council in Florence: ' no 700 million, we'll try to find you something' .
In fact, the Commission didn't find anything.
It was Parliament that found the 100 million, and will find another 100 million in the 1998 procedure.
That is why I call upon the Commission to support the proposals by Rolf Linkohr and the European Parliament.
Because we are going to have another 100 million in 1998.
That makes 200 million.
So I call upon the Commission, here and now, to support Parliament.
Mr President, I commend the rapporteur for his report.
I congratulate him on raising the ante to ECU 200m and for pursuing his own aim on the subject of land mines.
This will make some of my constituents happy although they fear that most of it will go to consultants and there may not be so very much to show by way of practical results.
I have to note that the original figure of ECU 700m was cut back by the Council.
I am not surprised that they applied a tight rein to this figure because, it has to be said, the Commission and Parliament were not able to put forward a clear signal of a coherent set of priorities.
It seems to me that a fluctuating number of taskforces on a variety of topics rather smacked of people looking around for ways of spending money, instead of coming forward with a carefully reasoned programme of action to complement the fourth framework programme.
So I commend the rapporteur but I hope, as my colleague, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl has said, that we can learn from this process when we address the fifth framework programme.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank the Members of the Committee on Research, and especially the rapporteur, Mr Linkohr, for all their work.
As he always does, Mr Linkohr has made a balanced and constructive reply to the Council's common position.
That reply focuses on the essential thing: the total appropriation for the financial supplement and its allocation.
It is clear that this will raise problems for the Council, which had difficulty in reaching agreement on the content of the supplement.
As the rapporteur also points out in his explanatory statement, it took the Council over six months, after the European Parliament's first reading, to achieve the necessary unanimity to adopt a common position.
That shows, once again, that although co-decision is useful because of the constructive exchanges to which it leads, the Council's unanimity rule is at odds with the desire to make the Union's research policy effective and able to react to events.
Solving this problem is not the least of the issues facing the Intergovernmental Conference.
After all, the debate on the supplement has gone on all too long.
The sums at issue are not such as to upset the balance of the budget.
Various projects are having to wait, projects whose importance is common knowledge such as TSE and educational multimedia.
In many respects, then, it seems important to me that we should send a positive political signal to the scientific and industrial world.
Despite these circumstances, there are prospects that Parliament and the Council will be able to resolve their differences.
All parties will have to contribute to that.
The Commission will be unsparing in its efforts to achieve an acceptable compromise.
And, indeed, the foundations for such a compromise are beginning to become apparent.
The Council has accepted research into the detection and destruction of antipersonnel mines as a priority subject.
It has thus adopted an essential amendment from the European Parliament's first reading.
Mr Linkohr, for his part, does not dispute the importance of intensifying research into transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, or TSE.
This is an urgent measure, as Mr Medina Ortega's report on behalf of the Committee of Inquiry emphasized.
It is encouraging that it has been supported by both Parliament and the Council, both in principle and as regards the total appropriations, based on the analysis submitted by the Commission in its action plan last November.
It is in the hope of encouraging a compromise between the European Parliament and the Council in the coming weeks that the Commission does not, at this stage, wish to endorse the amendments proposed by Mr Linkohr, although I do have a great deal of sympathy for their tenor.
In this context, incidentally, the Commission expects to allow, in its provisional draft budget for 1998, a sufficient margin to enable the budgetary authority to go beyond the ECU 100 million already shown in the 1997 budget.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on Budgets and Mr Desama for their invaluable assistance.
Finally, a word about the timetable.
The fourth framework programme, for which the financial supplement is intended, will finish next year.
The fifth framework programme is already in preparation, and the Commission expects to submit its formal proposal next month.
We therefore need to finalize the financial supplement quickly to make it operational and to prevent any interference with the discussion of the fifth framework programme.
The European Parliament's speedy conclusion of its second reading has set a good example, and I thank Parliament for it.
Thank you, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at noon.
And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have some good news for you.
Today's sitting is now at an end, so, with your permission, I would like to thank all our colleagues and you yourselves for what Mr Chichester has referred to as an even-tempered debate which has nonetheless been significant and which for me personally, I must confess, Ladies and Gentlemen, has been very encouraging.
Many thanks to you all, therefore, and good night.
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I refer to page 14.
I was not the only Member to speak at that particular stage of the day, but I did put a very specific question.
I should like the reply to be equally specific.
I asked on what basis the people in the gallery had been given access to it. Since then, like everyone else, I have seen television footage which enabled me to confirm that none of those concerned was carrying a visitor's pass.
Am I going to get a reply? If so, when?
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I remember that, it happens that I was present, like most of us, when you made your request.
I cannot give you an answer at this time.
The meeting of the Conference of Presidents of the political groups is to take place this afternoon, and I will remind it of your request, so that you can be answered.
I will be very brief.
I am not here to talk about workers who have tried to defend their livelihoods.
I am here to address a question of someone who stole from the workers.
Yesterday I raised the question of Robert Maxwell's infamous picture in the outside gallery.
I sought assurances at that time that the President and Quaestors would investigate the matter.
Can you advise this House why Robert Maxwell's picture still remains outside this Chamber? A known crook still has his picture in the frame outside the Chamber!
Mr Falconer, the subject has already been drawn to the Quaestors' attention so that they can take the necessary action.
Mr President, I have a request in connection with yesterday's disturbance in the gallery.
I would ask you to have the film taken of the incident examined.
I have heard that the film shows two things: firstly, that a group of these people sang the 'Internationale' with raised fists - I myself heard singing, but I could not tell exactly what was being sung; and, secondly, that someone gave a speech to the camera calling for a different kind of Europe.
It should be checked whether this is true or not.
I hope that it is not true!
Mr von Habsburg, I confess that it surprises me to hear that you, with all your knowledge, have not heard of the Internationale!
But we all learn new things now and then.
Mr President, I would just like to support what Mr von Habsburg has said.
We raised a number of points with the President-in-Office yesterday to ask why, Rule 101(3) having been broken, our guests in the tribune were not escorted out of the Chamber so that we could have continued the vote in peace.
I would request a reply.
When do you think that reply might be?
Mrs McIntosh, your question will be answered after the meeting of the Conference of Presidents of the political groups this afternoon.
Thank you, Mr President.
Yesterday one of our colleagues was named and asked to leave the Chamber.
That action was not carried through.
Could the Bureau, which is meeting now and will meet later this week, please now give us the status of Parliament's rules about colleagues being named and asked to leave the Chamber? If colleagues do not leave the Chamber, what status do the rules of this Parliament have any more?
Mrs Crawley, I am quite sure that the Bureau, as well as the Conference of Presidents of the political groups, will this afternoon look into the situation that arose yesterday and we will see what conclusions they reach.
Mr Pasty, there will be a meeting this afternoon and I think you will have the opportunity to put other questions as well.
Mr President, I think it is very important that we take the rules and procedures very seriously indeed and it is helpful when Members here who have information can clarify positions.
But is it really proper that this Assembly should be listening to concerns and seeking and getting information from people like Mr Pasty, who is a well-known cheat and double-voter in this plenary and is again wasting our time on matters of procedure?
I would not like us to continue with remarks of that kind, and I ask you to refrain from making personal comments under any circumstances.
Mr President, the only way to sort out all these problems properly is to set up a committee of inquiry, because yesterday's problem struck deeply at the dignity of Members of Parliament and it is a recurrent problem.
So I formally ask for a committee of inquiry to be opened to investigate exactly what has happened.
The Conference of Presidents of the political groups will be meeting this afternoon.
I am quite sure the Bureau too will discuss these matters.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Agreements with Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan
The next item is the joint debate on four recommendations, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy:
by Mrs Hoff (A4-0026/97), on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the conclusion of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and Georgia, of the other part (COM(96)135-5872/96 - C4-0320/96-96/0092(AVC)), -by Mr La Malfa (A4-0024/97), on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the conclusion of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Armenia, of the other part (COM(96)136-5871/96 - C4-0319/96-96/0093(AVC)), -by Mr Lambrias (A4-0025/97), on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the conclusion of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and Azerbaijan on the other part (COM(96)137-5870/96 - C4-0318/96-96/0094(AVC)), -by Mrs Lalumière (A4-0069/97), on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the conclusion of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and Kazakhstan on the other part (7804/95 - C4-0344/95 and C4-0360/95-94/0221(AVC)), and on six reports on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations:
by Mr Kittelmann (A4/0081/97), on economic and commercial aspects of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Georgia, of the other part, -by Mr Kittelmann (A4-0038/97), on the proposal for a Council Decision on the Interim Agreement on trade and trade-related matters between the European Community, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and Georgia, of the other part (COM(96)322-8890/96 - C4-0566/96-96/0180(CNS)), -by Mr Kittelmann (A4-0031/97), on economic and commercial aspects of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Armenia, of the other part, replacing the trade and cooperation agreement with the USSR, on which official contractual relations are currently based, -by Mr Kittelmann (A4-0064/97), on the proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion by the European Community of the Interim Agreement on trade and trade-related measures between the European Community, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the Republic of Armenia, of the other part (COM(96)321-8891/96 - C4-0686/96-96/0179(CNS)), -by Mr Schwaiger (A4-0082/97), on economic and commercial aspects of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, of the other part, and-by Mr Chesa (A4-0099/94), on the economic and trade aspects of the Partnership Agreement between the EU and Kazakhstan.
Mr President, the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Georgia was signed on 22 April 1996, in the presence of the President of Georgia, Mr Shevardnadze.
In the Union's view, this partnership constitutes a long-term commitment - as it says in the agreement - to bring together the people of the European Union and Georgia in the course of the generation to come.
Naturally, this should also serve to integrate Georgia into the international economic and political system.
This agreement includes a section containing economic and commercial provisions, but also a very important political chapter.
The political section stresses that cooperation between the two partners is to be based on the recognition of common values.
It is therefore extremely important that respect for democracy and human rights has been laid down as a fundamental condition for cooperation between the two parties.
In the case of Georgia in particular, it should be acknowledged that since independence, and especially since the political unrest of 1993, important advances have been made in the process of democratic reform.
In political terms, therefore, Georgia now enjoys civil peace.
The only black mark continues to be the lack of political solutions to the Abkhazia and South Ossetia crises, which would allow Georgia to regain its territorial integrity and to resolve the refugee problem.
The European Union and the OSCE must therefore redouble their efforts to bring about a peaceful settlement of these conflicts.
In economic terms, it should be pointed out that following the collapse of communism in the former Soviet Union, production in Georgia suffered serious setbacks.
Between 1991 and 1994, its GDP fell to around a third of the 1991 level.
During the same period, the country suffered inflation rates of up to 15 000 % per annum.
With the restoration of peace and the establishment of the democratic political system, however, the process of economic reform began to take hold.
Hence in 1996, Georgia's GDP grew by some 15 %, and inflation was kept down to around 25 %.
The new PCA will align Georgia's economy more closely with that of the European Union, and this will be of tremendous importance to the country's future development.
Naturally, it is to be expected that trade between the EU and Georgia will increase substantially as a result of this agreement, but the Union has also committed itself to making a financial and technical contribution to the process of economic reconstruction and reform, and to the pursuit of sustainable development in Georgia.
Over and above this, however, investment by European companies in Georgia will continue to increase.
Also, because of its geographical position, Georgia will be able to act as a bridgehead for trade between the European Union and the other Transcaucasian and Central Asian countries.
The consolidation of Georgia is therefore essential not only for its own benefit, but also in the regional context, where Georgia is an important stabilizing factor.
It should be noted that a number of projects for the construction or rehabilitation of oil pipelines, railways and other transport infrastructure have already been drawn up.
In this context too, the agreement is extremely important.
Given that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement will strengthen Georgia both politically and economically and thereby consolidate its independence, I would recommend to Parliament, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, that it should give its assent to this agreement.
It can be sure that in doing so, it will add a new, long-term dimension to relations between the European Union and Georgia, a country which is rich in tradition.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Hoff has largely foreshadowed what I wish to say.
The Committee on External Economic Relations also recommends that Parliament should give its assent to the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the Interim Agreement with Georgia which are now before the House.
In discussing countries such as Georgia here - and in due course Armenia and Azerbaijan - we must all try to resist the temptation to treat these countries as a single problem.
Transcaucasia is a region, and we are of course dealing here with three independent, sovereign states which are extremely sensitive and which must be distinguished from each other in terms of their problems.
I say this because I frequently see people adopting a judgmental attitude in our parliamentary debates, offering unsolicited advice and suggestions which are not always helpful.
If we are to assess the situation in Georgia properly, we must bear in mind - as Mrs Hoff also said - that it is not always easy for the people of Georgia to comprehend the transition from a communist system to a democratic society, since the former Soviet Union provided Georgia with massive economic support because of its geographical position.
By comparison with other regions, the situation in Georgia was relatively good, so that the collapse of communism and the quest for new structures and the new democratic possibilities opened up by a market economy was accompanied by some particularly serious problems.
Of course, Georgia's relationship with Russia is still an important factor, above all for psychological reasons.
Even today, the 'big brother' of the past sometimes cannot resist meddling in areas that are none of its business.
If we wish to understand the situation in Georgia, we must also take account of the Abkhazian minority, which held an unduly prominent position in the 1970s, compared with the Georgian majority.
One of the areas in which the European Union is able to provide fundamental help is the development of democratic institutions throughout Georgia. And it is already doing so.
In the process, it must of course keep sight of the close link between cooperation and respect for human rights.
The work carried out by the UN, the OSCE and the European Union has already had a stabilizing effect and will contribute to the emergence of sound conditions in Georgia in the long term - sound conditions in the sense that the attitude of individual citizens to achievement and personal success will help to consolidate the country's democratic structures.
We must always remind ourselves of the fact that providing these countries with effective economic aid is essential to make their democratic structures viable.
What we are now witnessing in Albania and elsewhere is the result of economic failure.
People and political parties that are still inexperienced in terms of democracy are dependent on economic success.
The importance of this Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the Interim Agreement lies in the fact that we are helping Georgia in good time!
It is especially important for us to bear in mind that Georgia is currently making great efforts to obtain both financial and security-related support from Russia, France and Germany, as well as from the World Bank; that a sound legal environment for the privatization of state-run undertakings has been created; that the privatization of the agricultural sector is making rapid progress; and that by the end of 1996, some 90 % of the privatization of small businesses had been completed.
All this has meant that many of the problems in Georgia have been eased, and it is now up to us to give political support.
If we can do so, I am sure that our political will in respect of this country will bear fruit, because we need to help the people there to help themselves.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the transition from the communist political systems to democratic political institutions and market economies is presenting enormous and evident difficulties.
These difficulties have been significant in every country from the Soviet sphere.
Some of the central European countries - Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, etc. which had a national political tradition and relatively developed market economies, in a sense, have nevertheless experienced great difficulties. But for them the process of liberation from the Soviet system has been a kind of return to the national identity.
This has not been the case for the countries which actually belonged to the Soviet Union, for example Transcaucasus, which we are discussing this morning.
Many of these countries have reached independence without having had a history as a nation, or a specific and recent history as a nation. Countries like Georgia and Armenia have a very ancient cultural tradition, but have not rediscovered their identity since 1989.
We have to understand the enormous difficulties these countries face as they set about constructing a market economy and a state for the first time.
Mrs Hoff and Mr Kittelmann have mentioned, in connection with Georgia, that Europe has a strategic interest, both from the geo-political point of view and from the economic point of view, in stabilizing and assisting the development of those countries.
So it is right to sign cooperation and partnership agreements, and I refer here to the excellent report by Mrs Carrère d'Encausse on all the countries in this area which provides our Parliament with a framework for their problems.
Of these three countries, Armenia perhaps has the greatest problems because of its lack of natural resources, unlike Azerbaijan which has oil resources, and because of its geographic location, locked in an enclave with no outlet to the sea.
To make matters worse its relations with Turkey have been extremely difficult for centuries and were made more acute at the beginning of this century - as Members know, Turkey still blocks trade and relations with Armenia even today, and we hope this block will be lifted. Armenia also has difficult relations with Azerbaijan, exacerbated by the longstanding dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.
In this whole framework our cooperation agreement is very important.
Armenia's leaders are not the same as in Soviet days.
Of course there have been positive developments and there have been problems.
When Parliament monitored the 1995 elections, we observed certain violations, like the exclusion of one important party from the political battle.
Unfortunately we were forced to recognize similar and possibly more serious problems in the 1996 presidential elections which were accompanied by numerous reservations from the observers and by numerous protests from the opposition forces.
However, it should be recorded that the situation has improved recently.
I hope Parliament will give its assent today to these important agreements which relate not only to economics, but above all to political dialogue through which Europe and Parliament can carefully monitor the development of political rights, civil rights, freedom of information, and so on, to establish an ongoing relationship which can promote the evolution of increasingly solid democratic institutions, increasingly rooted in the conscience of those countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I therefore hope our Parliament will give assent today to the cooperation and partnership agreement with the Republic of Armenia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on External Economic Relations is also asking Parliament to give its assent to the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the Interim Agreement with Armenia.
In recent years, the political background to Armenia's economic situation has unfortunately deteriorated badly.
The break-up of the Soviet Union, in which the Armenian economy held a privileged position - receiving a disproportionate amount of support in comparison with the other Soviet republics, for political and geographical reasons - and which provided Armenia with both its supplies of raw materials and its clientele, had a drastic impact.
The war with Azerbaijan and the resulting destruction led to shortages and extreme isolation.
Since the decision was taken to switch to a market economy and to introduce private enterprise, however, the situation of the Armenian people has steadily improved.
It is important to note that as a result of these combined factors - these upheavals - Armenian society is in a relatively unstable situation, in which the country's democratic structures are still fragile and there are sometimes revolts against certain changes and innovations, with consequent mistrust on the part of potential investors.
Basically, we must remind ourselves that Armenia's democratic structures are still developing, and that, partly because of the poor economic situation, it is hard for the democratic parties to formulate common goals - something we are able to do in our democracies as a result of tens or hundreds of years of practice.
We must be fair in our assessment of Armenia.
This country needs our help.
However, we also need to focus on Armenia's particular situation.
Here too, excessive lecturing is unhelpful.
On the contrary, we must try to encourage Armenia's development, showing tolerance and solidarity.
Obviously, the energy crisis has also contributed to Armenia's extremely difficult economic situation.
The economic blockade and the existence of a decrepit and poorly motivated bureaucracy - the usual communist inefficiency of the past, one might say - are also seriously hampering development.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is still on the agenda.
It has sapped Armenia's strength and is still having a detrimental effect on the country's development and political stability.
It is to be hoped that the current ceasefire will eventually lead to a settlement of the conflict, although this is not yet in sight. Of course, this is also causing serious problems for the country's economic situation.
If the positive economic trend which is now emerging stays on course; if the move towards democracy, which is becoming more stable, can continue; if we can turn our promises of help into practical assistance; if the international aid organizations can boost the increased self-confidence of this small country of Armenia through their presence on the ground; if, in the course of dealing with the multitude of other problems which the European Union is required to solve, we can remember that this is a country which is particularly dependent on our help, then we shall make an important contribution.
We must fulfil our commitments and give our assent to the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which has important financial implications for the Union, but which in terms of Armenia's problems is no more than a drop in the ocean.
In conclusion, I would urge the House to make use of this Partnership and Cooperation Agreement to encourage the country's political leadership and democratic forces not to abandon the path of democracy, despite the problems which are facing them.
That is the most important contribution that we can make to Armenia's development.
Mr President, in recommending the expression of a favourable opinion on the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Azerbaijan, I hasten to make it clear that I far from agree with the principles of the policy of unhesitating self-interest usually known as 'Realpolitik' .
On the contrary, I continue to believe that the pursuit even of manifest mutual economic interests should be discontinued when it disregards flagrantly inhuman situations and contributes to the perpetuation of illiberal regimes.
Azerbaijan certainly has many problems for a variety of reasons.
In no way can it be considered to respond to the standards of our own values and principles.
The open wound of Nagorny-Karabach in Azerbaijan, the situation of the refugees, and the economic situation in one of the potentially richer countries owing to its oil production, disappointed our ad hoc delegation when it went there and found that democratic processes in that country are quite deficient.
Yet, the Committee on Foreign Affairs supports the agreement on partnership relations, based on the reasonable hope that despite the continuing weaknesses, despite the unsolved problem of Nagorny-Karabach - though there is an international effort to solve it, the Minsk Group, even if no ultimate solution has yet been achieved -, and since, fortunately, Azerbaijan has ceased its policy of violent repression, we can make progress.
Our incentive is the conviction that even if Azerbaijan is in a more difficult situation than the other two Trans-Caucasian countries, Georgia and Armenia, we ourselves, as Mrs Carrère d'Encausse very rightly said, ought to take an overall view of the problem and be consistent in the policy we ought to apply towards those three countries in a strategically and economically important area at the periphery of Europe.
That is exactly the aim of the agreement signed a year ago in Luxembourg, and it is high time to implement that agreement if we really aspire to many-sided improvements in Azerbaijan and cooperation between the three troubled Trans-Caucasian countries.
For that reason, the Committee on Foreign Affairs unanimously declares its favourable opinion to the Commission and the Council, and recommends the same to the Member States, because the Union's Member States also have to ratify this agreement.
However, we remain and must remain constantly vigilant concerning developments in this strategically so interesting area of the Trans-Caucasus, until the gradual and progressive normalization of relations and until true democracy prevails in that country.
With this in mind, the Committee on Foreign Affairs expresses its favourable opinion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Azerbaijan is a potentially wealthy country.
The oil reserves in the Caspian Sea are greater than those of Saudi Arabia, and the country's industrial, agricultural and services sectors offer good opportunities for development.
However, the consequences of the war, the environmental damage caused by irresponsible oil extraction in the Soviet Union in past decades, and the unresolved problem of a million refugees from the war are all placing a heavy burden on Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan is almost on the doorstep of the European Union's proposed enlargement to the east, and in a few years' time may well only be separated from the EU by the Black Sea and the Caucasus.
European investment is extremely welcome in Azerbaijan, and is particularly sought after by the oil industry, the transport sector and the burgeoning construction industry.
Azerbaijan is now increasingly taking steps to create a favourable environment for such investment.
A crucial precondition for overcoming the economic crisis, however, is the planning and extension of transport links via Georgia to the European Union, as well as infrastructure networks for oil and oil products.
All the options in this respect must be viewed in terms of their economic efficiency and environmental impact.
As we have already heard in some detail, the starting-point for the EU's partnership and cooperation agreements with the three Transcaucasian republics - Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia - is the need for regional cooperation and development.
In short, their purpose is to frame a comprehensive regional approach which, from the European Union's point of view, combines the economic and financial aspects, includes the substantial humanitarian aid that is being provided, and does not neglect the opportunities for political dialogue now available to us.
It is above all through increased cooperation between Azerbaijan and Georgia - and also Armenia, if it so wishes - that the vast oil resources of the Caspian Sea can be exploited for exporting to the European Union and the rest of the world, as well as for local processing.
Only then will the door to economic relations with Europe genuinely be open.
At the same time, however, regional economic cooperation can help to reduce the political tensions in the area.
It is therefore only by making efforts to link up with the trans-European networks and other transport, energy and communications infrastructure that cooperation with Europe can be made possible.
In political terms, the point is to help stabilize these three states, which are now of course, as former members of the Soviet Union, in the process of fundamentally reorganizing their societies, economies and political decision-making structures.
As a peaceful partner and working together with Russia and Turkey - not against them - the European Union can achieve something.
The Black Sea and the Bosporus are the main lines of communication here.
Europe is too far away to be able to play the leading political role in the region.
And, naturally, it has no wish to do so.
However, it is in great demand as an honest broker to bring about economic progress and peaceful cooperation.
With France now holding the presidency of the Minsk Group of the OSCE, Europe has an excellent opportunity to work towards the rapid establishment of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.
It is of paramount importance in this context to remove the legacy of the war.
The blockade on Armenia must be lifted - as has already been said - the occupying forces must be withdrawn, and the autonomy and right to selfdetermination of the majority population in the disputed enclave must be guaranteed.
The refugees must be enabled to return home or, if this is not possible, they must be settled in new areas.
New housing, jobs and social services for a total of 1.3 million people in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh must be created.
In the process, the European Union must pay particular attention to the need to build homes for multi-ethnic families.
In the framework of the Fizuli pilot programme, the towns and villages around Fizuli, which have been completely destroyed, must be rebuilt with European Union aid, as a matter of priority.
A new infrastructure axis based on the extension of transport links and energy and communications networks must be developed.
The Union's support should be earmarked in particular for the Traceca programme, which addresses all these needs together.
Mr President, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy supports this agreement with Armenia for a number of reasons.
Firstly, Armenia is the country which has suffered most from the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Secondly, it has still not recovered from the great earthquake of 1988. And, thirdly, it has suffered enormously from the prolonged conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
However, we fail to understand why the agreement makes no attempt to find a solution to the problem of the Medzamor nuclear power plant, which according to the US Department of Energy Intelligence is one of the most dangerous reactors in the world.
Everyone knows that.
The Commission itself says in the annex to the agreement that the EU cannot accept the decision to reopen this plant.
Nobody disputes the fact that Armenia has to obtain its power from somewhere. We all know that.
But the simple reason why there is currently no solution to this problem is that Armenia's neighbours are systematically blocking its gas supply. The Union must therefore take steps to ensure that Armenia's gas supply is restored, but it cannot simply turn a blind eye, as it were, to the Medzamor nuclear plant being recommissioned.
That is unacceptable, since it is widely recognized that Medzamor represents a greater danger to us all than Chernobyl.
We have a twofold task, therefore: ensuring that Armenia's gas supply is restored, and that Medzamor is shut down.
That is what our committee wishes to see.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, I deliberately allowed you to overrun your time quite considerably.
Of course, in this Chamber I have often maintained that a speaking time of one minute is not enough to allow a proper expression of views by any Member, and that is the only point on which I, personally, am prepared to deviate from the effort I otherwise make to stick strictly to the limits.
Mr President, first I must apologise for my error in being absent from the Chamber when you gave me the floor earlier.
My report, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security, relates to Kazakhstan.
The European Parliament is being asked, today, to give its assent to the Partnership and Co-operation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Kazakhstan, of the other part.
I will briefly remind the House that this agreement was signed on 23 January 1995 but that the assent procedure has been frozen for two years - two years! - because of what is regarded as the unsatisfactory political situation in that country.
On the other hand, the interim agreement which we approved on 19 April 1996 has just come into force, a few days ago.
The time has come, therefore, to reconsider whether we can now give the green light to the main agreement.
This question of political expediency was carefully considered by the Foreign Affairs Committee at five meetings, most recently on 27 February this year.
Today, our Committee is in a position to put forward a number of arguments.
Admittedly, Kazakhstan is not yet the kind of democracy, respectful of human rights, that we should like to see.
Observers, those of Amnesty International for example, are very critical.
However, the country has demonstrated its desire to move closer to Europe, and with that in mind has instituted a number of reforms which meet the requirements contained in the 'democracy clause' of the partnership agreement.
For example, parliamentary elections took place in December 1995.
They were not ideal, but they did take place.
Since then, the new parliament has adopted a number of laws, firstly in the economic sector in order to encourage foreign investment, and later in the civil and political sector.
Furthermore, 1997 looks like being a very productive year for legislative work: 65 draft laws are to be presented to Parliament.
They cover, in particular, the rights of the Kazakhs and the rights of minorities, which are very numerous and quite well recognized and respected in Kazakhstan: there is a Russian minority (accounting for 38 % of the population) but there are also German, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Tartar, Uighur, Byelorussian, Korean, Azeri and even Polish minorities, too.
Moreover, despite very serious economic difficulties and equally pressing social problems - wages and pensions are often not paid - the political situation is generally stable.
It is true that President Nazarbayev - who holds very sweeping powers under the Constitution - is not a man to brook any anti-establishment activities, although a political opposition does seem to exist and to be growing in strength.
I refer to the Hazamat opposition movement, which is based on the socialist party, and the Respublika opposition movement, which is dominated by the communist party.
The quite favourable trend of events thus emphasized by the observers should enable us to approve this partnership agreement, and I welcome that.
After all, Kazakhstan, though it is a long way away and little known to most Europeans, is an important and even essential country in that part of central Asia.
Encircled by two great powers, Russia and China, and close to the turbulent and sensitive zone comprising the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the southern Soviet states -Kirghizstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tadjikistan - Kazakhstan occupies an essential strategic position.
The balancing act so skilfully carried on by President Nazarbayev between his various neighbours will not be uninfluential for that region and, indirectly, for us.
All the more so since Kazakhstan still has some extremely important nuclear bases on its soil.
It is the world's third-ranking nuclear power, although the striking force is under the exclusive control of a unified high command in Moscow.
Economically, Kazakhstan is not in good shape.
Its GNP fell by 58 % between 1991 and 1997, but it does have substantial natural resources which are likely to make it an important trading partner in the future.
In particular, it has reserves of oil and natural gas.
In conclusion, Mr President, for the various reasons I have outlined, our Committee today recommends you, after two years of observation and reflection, to vote in favour of this partnership and co-operation agreement.
Mr President, I have provided the opinion for the Committee on Budgets on the agreement with Azerbaijan.
The subject of my opinion was the effects on the European budget of this agreement.
It appears, at first sight, that the effects would be fairly minimal.
These effects would come through loss of revenue, through the increased imports from that region or if they affected our food supplies through agricultural exports or the cost of export refunds.
While the Commission has not given us information related to the budgetary costs, it seems that these will be very small.
We have to consider that Azerbaijan has 7.5 million people.
Their economy had been deteriorating for four or five years up until last year, GDP was dropping by 15 % to 20 % annually and stands today at around $400-500 per capita.
Quite obviously a country in that economic situation is not going to be in a position to do very much trade.
Apparently more than half of their exports are to the former Soviet Union and Iran, and about 20 % imports and exports to the European Union.
Their total imports are about $1.5b and exports something less than that.
Obviously this country is in a very weak trading position and is going to have very little effect on the finances apart from the direct transfers provided for in the TACIS Programme, which is a different subject from the one that I am dealing with.
The Budget Committee very much welcomes this agreement and hopes that it will serve to improve the political and economic situation; that it will develop to a point where it will contribute much to the economic and political welfare of Azerbaijan.
We also hope it will be fruitful from our point of view.
Exceptionally, I will also allow Mr Chesa to speak.
Today we began quite a bit earlier and I am afraid some Members were not aware of that.
However, I would ask the speakers at least not to be late, because I am not disposed to let them speak whenever they turn up in the House.
Mr President, we are concerned this morning with the fourth Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the Transcaucasian States.
The nature of such agreements has undergone a radical change, since they are now concerned with partnership and co-operation rather than with mere trade relations.
The present partnership agreement with Kazakhstan, concluded for an initial period of ten years, provides for the institution of a political dialogue and cultural cooperation, together with important agreements relating to the economic and trade sectors.
With regard to trade, the parties mutually agree on most-favoured-nation treatment in all matters connected with customs duties, provisions relating to customs clearance, transit, warehouses and transhipment, and methods of payment and payment transfers.
The rules governing the sale, purchase, transport, distribution and use of goods on domestic markets naturally take account of the limits imposed by GATT to aid developing countries and the new situation as regards relations between the Kazakh Republic and neighbouring States.
With regard to economic co-operation, the agreement relates to the following sectors: economic and social development, human resources development, support for enterprises (including privatization, investment and development of financial services), agriculture and food, energy and civil nuclear safety, transport, tourism, environmental protection and regional co-operation.
Thus, Kazakhstan and the European Union are undertaking to work closely together on the basis of common values, with the Union thus providing support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of these new independent States, with a view to helping safeguard peace and stability in Europe.
Mr President, before the Commissioner leaves, I should like to ask a question as Chairman of the European Parliament's Delegation on relations with the three Caucasian Republics.
What the Commissioner told us is very significant and important, and we all agree with it.
My question is this: since that area is so important for the European Union, why is there a Commission delegation only in Georgia? Why is the European Union, in the form of official delegations, absent from Azerbaijan and Armenia, when countries such as my own, Greece, has embassies there?
I listened to the question very carefully, and I can only say that I entirely agree with Mr Alavanos that the reasons preventing us from having representations in all the new independent republics of the former Soviet Union are entirely financial and logistical.
I am very pleased that we have been able to open a delegation in Tbilisi in Georgia, and we would like to do the same in other countries which we regard as important, as we have explained in talks with the Committee on Budgets.
There are currently no plans, I think, to expand the number of delegations.
I hope there will be further possibilities next year, but then there will also be competition from other former Soviet republics.
We already have an office in Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan, but not in Uzbekistan, for example, which has specifically asked to have one.
We are doing our best.
Mr President, I just have one question, because this is something that was decided on by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Do you not think, Commissioner, that every penny we invest in the Medzamor nuclear power plant through the TACIS programme is a penny wasted, because it simply cannot be made safer?
It was brought back into operation because Armenia's gas supply was cut off by its neighbours.
Would it not be better for us to concentrate our efforts on ensuring that the country's gas supply is restored?
Then the Medzamor plant - which is situated in an earthquake zone, moreover - could be shut down again.
Would it not be better to devote our time and money to that, rather than to patching up something which cannot be patched up?
Is there a timetable for the decommissioning of this nuclear plant, Commissioner?
To start with the last question, according to the timetable which the Armenian Government is following, the plant is due to close in 2007.
We think this is too late and have urged them to consider an earlier date, and my answer to Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz is that we must try everything we can.
If the plant cannot be closed as quickly as we would like, then we can always try to ensure further improvements in its nuclear safety.
But I know that the basic problem with this reactor is that it is situated in a fault area where earthquakes and the like can occur, and this is something which it is difficult for the TACIS programme to deal with.
So as I said, we shall do everything we can to limit the risk, including trying to bring the closure date forward and giving consideration to alternative energy programmes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, speaking in my capacity as vice-chairman of the Transcaucasian delegation, I should like to offer my sincere thanks and congratulations to all the rapporteurs for their reports.
They further highlight the great importance of these PCAs for the efforts of the countries concerned to develop and consolidate their economies and new democratic structures.
However, in Transcaucasia as elsewhere, democracy must mean that everything possible is done to safeguard social peace.
This means that every citizen must have a roof over his head, enough to eat and a job.
Above all, he must be able to express his opinions freely.
And this leads me to the issue that I wish to draw to everyone's attention once again today: respect for the right of freedom of expression and for human rights.
In Georgia, there is hardly any problem in this context.
It is indeed a pleasure to talk with our young colleagues in the Georgian Parliament about their work, about the situation in Georgia and our relations with each other.
We are all constantly amazed at the rapid progress Georgia has made in the development and consolidation of its democratic structures.
There are problems in other areas, though, and especially in the two other Transcaucasian states.
In Azerbaijan, although oil production is promising a rapid economic upturn, very few people are able to participate in democracy.
Clan thinking and the resultant clan rule are conditioning the development of both democracy and the economy.
The country is governed autocratically, and the government parties and President Aliyev not only determine the broad lines of policy in a dictatorial way, but also decide as they see fit on the scope which the already weak opposition parties have for taking action.
The European Parliament cannot simply leave the monitoring of respect for human rights to the Helsinki committees and Amnesty International.
Their work is invaluable, but we too have a responsibility in this context.
The Armenian Government is exploiting the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh to justify the suppression of the opposition.
For this purpose, President Ter-Petrossian is invoking former Soviet laws under which he himself was imprisoned during the Gorbachev era. Now he is using those same laws to ban a large number of opposition parties.
We are thus repeatedly seeing trials in Armenia which can be described without hesitation as political.
This also applies to some extent to the so-called 'Dro Trial' , where a group was found guilty of committing acts of terrorism, and sentenced accordingly.
Quite wrongly, however, an attempt was previously made to link this group to our socialist sister party, Dashnaksutyun.
It was even claimed that the 'Dro Group' had acted on the orders of Dashnaksutyun.
Thankfully, that accusation was rejected as false and unsustainable by Armenia's Supreme Court, and Dashnaksutyun has now been fully rehabilitated.
However, I would question the degree of reinstatement of Dashnaksutyun and of the associations and organizations affiliated to it.
There is another trial, however, which has not yet been concluded, the so-called '31 Trial' .
This involves 31 wellknown opposition politicians, all of whom took part in a large demonstration to protest against vote rigging in the presidential elections in Armenia in September last year.
Although the organizers of the demonstration have now been freed, thanks to international pressure, the trial against these 31 politicians is continuing.
According to reports by Amnesty International, they are still being held in prison under inhumane conditions.
Armenia's political, economic and military dependence on Russia is also a cause for concern.
Russia supplies Armenia with many essential goods, and maintains army and air force bases in the country, including on the border with Turkey.
Of course, I sympathize with the fact that Armenia is doing everything it can to improve its economic situation.
It was not without reason that, in its resolution of 17 January 1997, the European Parliament called on Turkey and Azerbaijan to relax their economic blockade on Armenia.
Nevertheless, I wish to stress once again that economic hardship cannot serve as a pretext for undemocratic behaviour.
In adopting the Carrère d'Encausse report in January, we made our position on the Transcaucasian republics quite clear.
We wish the economic development of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia to take place within the framework of a social market economy and with respect for the environment and human rights.
That is what I wished to emphasize again today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the early years of the newly independent Transcaucasian republics were marked by wars, the persistence of the communist old guard and control by the Kremlin.
Only now are Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan gradually managing to find their feet economically and politically.
However, lasting development will only be possible when the ethnic conflicts that are essentially a legacy of the Soviet era are resolved.
At least there is no longer fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan - the guns have fallen silent.
It is undoubtedly the case that Moscow originally stirred up this conflict so that it could appear later as a peacemaker and gain influence in the region.
The plan worked: today, Russia is again the leading power in Transcaucasia, Turkey has had to swiftly abandon its ambitions in the area, and Armenia is in any case more dependent on Russian support than its fellow Transcaucasian republics.
As we know, normal relations between Armenia and Turkey do not exist.
Turkey is supporting the linguistically and ethnically related Azeris in the war over Nagorno-Karabakh, and has closed its border crossings with Armenia.
And for the time being, they remain closed.
The conflict over this enclave is undoubtedly Armenia's most serious domestic, international and financial problem.
In terms of regional politics, it is part of the international poker game for the oil resources in the Caspian Sea.
On the plus side, however, one should mention that Armenia has an ethnically very homogeneous population of 3.7 million inhabitants, who can work together to develop the country.
In any event, Armenia is more ethnically homogeneous than any of its neighbours in the region.
Although it is geographically part of the Near East, the people of Armenia - and of Georgia, incidentally - feel themselves to be European at heart.
The region's religious connection with the East is also alien to the Armenians: Christianity is the dominant religion in the country, in the form of either the Armenian or the Orthodox Church.
Like Belarus, Armenia used to play a special, technically-oriented role in the former Soviet Union. This applies to the chemical and textile-processing industries in particular, and that is undoubtedly also a point which must be taken into account in our cooperation with this country.
The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Armenia will serve to underpin the existing close cooperation with the European institutions.
One objective of the agreement is the progressive integration of Armenia into the open international system.
This applies to both the political and the economic sectors.
Through this agreement, the European Union will help Armenia to consolidate its sovereignty, thereby contributing to the stability of the region.
Mr President, the partnership and co-operation agreements we are debating this morning have one thing in common: they relate to countries on the southern border of the former USSR, whose emergence from the Soviet system has proved difficult, although the difficulties have varied from case to case.
In Transcaucasia, to use a generic term for the four countries, independence has come against a backcloth of the Karabakh war between Azerbaijan and its Armenian minority, which of course could hardly be disregarded by neighbouring Armenia, cut off from its kin by the artificial territorial arrangements of 1922.
In Georgia, the separatist intentions of Abkhazia, supported and manipulated by the Russians, have jeopardized the territorial integrity of the Republic.
In the farthest east of central Asia, Kazakhstan embarked in 1986 on a phase of violent confrontation between the two main ethnic groups living in that republic - the Kazakhs and the Russians.
The balance sheet of this turbulent emergence from Communism is a contradictory one: 20 % of Azerbaijan's territory is now occupied, as a result of the war, by the Karabakh Armenians.
The refugees have had to flee the war zones and are unable to return to their homes.
Their destitution is terrible, in Azerbaijan, in Georgia and even in Armenia.
In Kazakhstan, despite the conciliatory attitude of President Nazarbayev, the Russians have become second-class citizens and want to leave.
The proportion of Russians in the Republic's population has fallen from 45 to 36 %.
However, other areas of the picture are more encouraging.
The cease-fire has not been broken in Karabakh for two years, and the Minsk group is to resume working to try to transform the cease-fire into a permanent peace - not a simple matter.
In Georgia, too, the situation between the Georgians and the Abkhazis is becoming less tense, and there are already hopes that the refugees will gradually be enabled to return to their homes.
Finally, in Kazakhstan, the Kazakhs are trying to reassure the Russian community and convince it that it will be able to remain in a country that needs its skills, on condition that it accepts linguistic restrictions.
If I have dwelt at length on the difficult path to independence in these four countries, it was because I wanted to emphasize that they are suffering, most of all, from the existence in their territories of a multiplicity of national communities and cultures, jumbled together in conditions imposed upon them previously by the Soviet system.
The inter-ethnic hostilities in Transcaucasia and Kazakhstan are, admittedly, a story that goes back a long way; but closer to home they are the result of a deliberate intent on the part of the Soviet authorities which, by complicating inter-ethnic relations and stirring up the kind of hostility and violence whose effects we still see today, were deliberately trying to facilitate their control over those living in the remoter regions.
Hence the bitterness and hostility and tragedy within those States, leading to behaviour that our democratic tradition has found it hard to comprehend.
Condemned to live together within borders which often bear little relationship to their history and their desires, the peoples of these countries are having to learn tolerance and the fair treatment of minorities.
The five years that have passed since they became independent are all too short a time to learn the values of democracy and mutual respect.
Now that we come to assess their achievement in this area, we must take into account the tragic history that they have in common.
We must take into account the crises which marked their emergence from Soviet control.
We must take into account the advances they have achieved, even though we deplore - I understand and agree with all that was said - their countless failures to meet democratic standards.
All I ask, ladies and gentlemen, is that when you pass judgement on these countries you should be sufficiently clearsighted to bear in mind their appalling past, and to bear in mind, too, the progress they have made and their hopes for the future.
All these countries need the aid and attention of the European Union.
If they are bound to the Union by the agreements we are now debating, they will move forward - with our support and with the moral authority these agreements will give us - along the road they have already taken, a road they intend to follow to the end.
Europe must provide itself with the means to require these countries, in exchange for our partnership, to adhere not only to the aid we give them but also to all the principles of democracy.
By following this course of action on the borders of Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan and China, we shall extend the domain of democracy and hope that, eventually, it may spread beyond those borders.
So, Mr President, the European Parliament is to give its opinion on a series of partnership and co-operation agreements with Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
My group will certainly be voting in favour of these agreements, intended as they are to lay the groundwork for closer and closer co-operation in economic, commercial and political matters, and to institute a dialogue worthy of that name.
I should also like to congratulate all the rapporteurs who have expressed their opinions on this subject.
The agreements in question are intended to further the cause of progress in the fields I have mentioned, and are applicable to countries which, although to varying degrees, are trying to overcome the obstacles which still lie in the way of transition, or rather transitions: transition from a planned economy to a market economy, transition from a totalitarian political system to democracy and the rule of law.
The starting signal has been given, though the sometimes hesitant progress highlights the difficult and uncertain nature of the road.
One thing is certain, one thing which I have learned in the course of my contacts with countries which, only recently, were suffering under communist dictatorships: those countries cannot emerge unaided.
Incidentally, to emphasize the difficult aspects of economic change, for example, I should like to quote Lech Walesa, who is supposed to have said, ' anybody can change an aquarium into fish soup, but changing fish soup into an aquarium takes a miracle.
The same thing applies to changing a planned economy into a market economy.'
What I mean by that is that the entry into force of the co-operation and partnership agreements is only a framework - a useful framework, certainly, but incapable on its own of guaranteeing that the reforms embarked upon are irreversible.
We need to go further.
Everything argues in favour of an unprecedented mobilization of our technological and scientific resources, even our teaching and human resources, because such efforts will help to speed up progress towards more democracy, more law, more economic and individual freedom, and more independence too.
We absolutely must do everything we can to further exchanges.
It is a job for experts.
We are suffering from considerable unemployment in our own countries, including intellectual unemployment.
We are seeing the loss of an experience asset which we could easily redeploy to assist reconstruction in these countries.
It is not enough to improve the macroeconomic parameters of these countries - we also need to take action to help farmers, lawyers, shoemakers, shopkeepers, restaurateurs, hoteliers, small and medium-sized enterprises to find the way forward towards greater liberty and independence in the economic sphere. The same applies to changes in the democratic area.
Unfortunately, the speaking time allowed to me makes it impossible for me to finish.
Mr President, I would like to say that the three Caucasian Republics are the gateway between Asia and Europe, where ancient civilizations come together. They are now the point of contact and the dividing line between Christianity and Islam.
They are countries with a burdensome past, which are undergoing intense regional conflicts.
From that standpoint, as all the speakers and Commissioner Van den Broek have rightly said, what they need is a steady, consistent and dynamic political approach on the part of the European Union.
Here, we must be careful, especially we in the European Parliament.
I would like to congratulate all the rapporteurs.
However, we should take note that this multiplicity of reports, this competition between the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on External Economic Relations has resulted in the fact that Parliament itself is required to take a series of mutually contradictory decisions, with the result that our intervention and presence is not convincing, not consistent and steady, and that some of us here appear in the eyes of third parties to be friends of Azerbaijan and enemies of Armenia, some as friends of Russia and enemies of Georgia, and vice-versa.
That is a weakness which we are repeating today, and I think we ought to be very careful about it.
Along with the weakness I have mentioned, we should note the absence, for budgetary reasons, of European offices from that region, which has enormous potential but is also a simmering volcano.
In my opinion, it is wrong that all the multinational companies have offices in Azerbaijan, and countries that can do little, like Greece, have embassies in Azerbaijan and Armenia, while the European Union is absent when it wants to intervene in a meaningful way.
The Commissioner told us - and this is very important - that the European Union is the main provider of financial aid in that area.
I, however, cannot help thinking about Albania.
We must not forget that Albania was the country that received a great deal of finance, and look at its situation now.
Consequently, I think that besides financial aid there must be intervention on behalf of democracy and especially some intervention to solve the regional conflicts, particularly today when the Minsk initiative seems to have become dormant.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, you have primarily been talking in terms of the importance of the Transcaucasian region for Europe.
That precisely describes the character of the PCAs, which are theoretically based on partnership, but clearly tend to favour the Member States of the Union and their interests in the region.
Questions such as the progress of democratic development, the civil rights situation, the development of a free and democratic system of justice, the ability to cope with the flood of refugees in the region, and the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan are becoming increasingly incidental.
But an equal partnership means one in which the whole population is able to participate.
The European Union must above all contribute to the stability and development of the region, and not simply display its interest in exploiting the region's oil reserves and establishing a secure corridor for the pipelines.
The region urgently needs peace, so that investment can take place and infrastructure can be built and interconnected.
This means firstly that the OSCE agreement must contribute to the reduction of the region's military capacity, since only then will a comprehensive strategy bring results.
The PCAs will be an important building block in this process, as long as they are implemented in a balanced way, for mutual benefit and in real partnership, and are actually geared to the region's needs.
The prospects for this are very varied.
In Georgia, we are seeing the first signs that the political situation is stabilizing.
The country's second government is taking care not to reignite the conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, although there is still no institutional solution.
The situation between the warring parties of Armenia and Azerbaijan is quite different.
There is a front line in that conflict which crosses Azerbaijan.
It is heavily populated by troops on both sides, and a part of Azerbaijani territory is occupied by Armenian troops from Karabakh.
The border is the front line, not the internationally recognized frontier, and it would take a single spark to cause the fighting to flare up again.
The OSCE's demand for the stepping-up of the process of achieving a peaceful settlement in accordance with its principles, including the key requirement of the creation of an autonomous region enjoying the maximum degree of self-government within Azerbaijan's internationally recognized borders, was not accepted by Armenia.
However, the Irish presidency endorsed the OSCE's statement and all its demands.
Since then, the sensitive talks on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh have ground to a halt.
This means that around a million refugees who have already been living in tents, mud huts and goods trucks for five years will have to continue to endure this situation indefinitely.
The UN's demand for repatriation of all refugees is not feasible for the foreseeable future.
If Europe is assuming that safe third countries will be found for these refugees in the present situation, it is simply deluding itself.
The UNHCR has confirmed to me that neither the political nor the legal position is conducive to finding safe third countries, especially for Armenian and Azerbaijani refugees.
A peace agreement is a precondition for economic cooperation. Otherwise, it is simply not on - or do we intend to invest in Nagorno-Karabakh through the Latschin corridor?
In my view, therefore, we must link the ratification of the PCAs to the conclusion of a peace agreement. That must undoubtedly be a precondition, and only then will we be able to give our support to a coherent and responsible foreign policy action.
It is an illusion to believe that economic action is possible in the current situation!
Mr President, the partnership agreements we are studying this morning send a clear, consistent and positive political signal to the infant Caucasian republics.
They serve the security interests of the European Union States in both the short and the long term.
The Caucasus is not at the ends of the earth - it is on our doorsteps, and what happens there has a direct impact on our security.
That is why our group is glad to see that these agreements take due account of questions of environmental and nuclear safety and the efforts to combat organized crime and drugs trafficking.
In the longer term, our objective must be to help achieve lasting stabilization of the situation in that region.
We must not exaggerate the importance of these partnership agreements, but they can help to achieve this, first and foremost by endorsing the sovereignty and independence of each of these young republics which have just recovered those benefits after the collapse of the soviet system and are particularly attached to them.
While encouraging the difficult process of co-operation in the region, we must nevertheless respect the specific characteristics and identity of each State.
The differences are important: two of these States have a Christian tradition and a European culture; some have got rid of their former communist masters while others have kept them on in re-incarnated forms, following elections that have sometimes been suspect.
Overall, though, the agreements can help to encourage the establishment of democratic practices and the development of the market economy in societies which are tackling the considerable problems of transition, as Hélène Carrère d'Encausse recalled just now. These countries justify the institution by us of certain forms of aid, provided, Mr President, that they are really effective and do not have the paradoxical purpose of compensating for the disastrous effects of blockade policies against some of these States pursued by some of our partners in the region.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate all the rapporteurs on their excellent reports, which cover interim agreements and partnership and cooperation agreements with the three Transcaucasian states of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia and the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan.
This House has already adopted Mrs Carrère d'Encausse's report on Transcaucasia, which provided the background for the PCAs with three out of the four countries we are dealing with today.
I would like to thank her warmly for her earlier contribution on this subject.
We are dealing with two separate regions of the world in this debate - trans-Caucasia and Central Asia.
Both regions are very different, although they share certain characteristics: both formed part of the former Soviet Union and inherited a dislocated command economy and a political system subject to Moscow.
Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and, to a lesser extent, Georgia and Armenia are heavily influenced by the presence of the Caspian Sea and, particularly, the exploitation and transportation of oil.
All four countries are seeking to assert their independence from Moscow while cooperating in varying degrees with the Commonwealth of Independent States.
To a certain extent the interim agreements and accompanying PCAs are intended to encourage the independence of these countries and assist with the transition to market economies and democratic development.
It is important for the EU to build up relations with such countries which lie in an important geopolitical region.
Kazakhstan lies between Russia and China and near to Iran and politically unstable Afghanistan.
Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan sit between the Caspian and Black Seas, with both Iran, Turkey and Russia as near neighbours.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorny Karabakh and the fighting over Abkhazia in Georgia make this a volatile region.
Economic and democratic development in three of the four countries has been weak.
As Mrs Hoff's report shows, only Georgia, with former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze at the helm, has managed to hold free and fair elections and resist a lurch to authoritarian methods.
We have seen rigged elections in Armenia and Azerbaijan, while in Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev has flouted the country's constitution and cowed the opposition.
These countries need to improve their democratic and human rights record.
I agree with the points Mrs Lalumière has made on the current unsuitability of the nature of the partnership and cooperation agreements to be signed by these countries.
It is misleading to give the impression that the EU and the European Parliament endorse the level of democracy and human rights in Kazakhstan, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
So, in adopting all these reports, I hope the House will continue to monitor closely the situation in the countries concerned.
By developing closer relations with these four countries, the European Union must work to develop prosperity, peace and democracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, now that the leaden casing of the USSR has melted away, we can make one observation and one request.
The observation is that in Transcaucasia, as in many other places, the problems with nationalities, borders, minorities and ethnic and religious differences that existed in the past have survived almost intact. Sometimes their effect is supplemented by the legacy of fragmentation practised by the USSR, as in Nagorny Karabakh, for example.
The request is that we should approach this situation in a totally new spirit, aimed at finding lasting solutions.
That is the context of the joint agreement on Armenia which we are being asked to approve today.
To give that country the opportunity to strengthen its independence, to deepen its democracy, to open up more to international relations, to orient itself towards a market economy, to diversify its trade flows which are too exclusively geared to the former USSR, to achieve the lifting of the blockade and then develop a sound, trusting policy of regional cooperation with its neighbours - those are the objectives of this agreement, and I approve of them.
I hope that Europe will use its influence to ensure that these things do happen, and to ensure in particular that Armenia has the right of freedom of trade, one of the foundations of the rights of nations, which will enable it in particular to close down a dangerous nuclear power station and will also be an essential condition for lasting peace in that region.
Mr President, I have a series of two or three observations.
We are debating about three or four republics in the Trans-Caucasian area, about the same number or more in Central Asia, for all of which we have allowed a very brief joint debate.
My comment is that the debate is superficially organised, it assumes that we are dealing with soulless issues that can all be dealt with in the same way, whereas in fact these are countries, peoples with ancient and modern civilizations and cultural, religious, economic and social traditions.
They cannot all fit into a single mould and be dealt with in one debate.
This poor organisation of the debate encourages me to make a second comment.
Despite the good intentions of the rapporteurs, all the reports and recommendations we have heard have a common characteristic.
And what is that? They betray a patronage, a didactic spirit, and an attitude like a rich uncle who holds the purse strings and dictates what people are to do if they want to see any of it.
And I will go on to say that we have learnt nothing, at least from the example of Albania which is much smaller in size and in every other way, and where such machinations led to the present situation, which has literally exposed and ridiculed the entire policy of the Community and American influences in their treatment of these new republics, as you call them.
My third observation, Mr President, because I do not wish to be negative, is that we must be careful, we need a proper approach, and we must view those countries, those peoples on an equal basis. We must respect their dignity and history if we wish to establish relations of cooperation and productive agreements with them.
Otherwise, it will seem that beyond our own intentions or those of the rapporteurs, there is an underlying Community policy which aims to plunder those countries and establish neo-colonial commitments and relations. And the price for that will be paid both by those peoples and by the peoples of Europe.
Mr President, allow me to make a brief contribution in my capacity as president of the Delegation for Central Asia and Mongolia, to demonstrate our support for the cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan being discussed today.
It is our sincere belief that this agreement will assist this young republic in consolidating its new-found democracy, in developing its economy and in completing the process of transition to a market economy.
As has been stated, we are aware that Kazakhstan's record regarding the protection of freedom, respect for human rights and consolidation of the democratic process is unsatisfactory, but it is also a fact that some positive progress has been made, allowing us to hope that that country has now started on its way down the right road, leading to implementation of the agreement.
To delay doing this might be counterproductive and may risk a return to the previous state of affairs.
This republic is of great value to the European Union in strategic terms and its stability is of utmost interest to the Community.
Do not forget that we are dealing with the world's third-ranking nuclear power, a country which has significant mineral, energy and textile resources - including space installations - , one which is on the dividing line between Islam and Christianity and which is home to a significant Turkish-speaking minority, and also Russianspeaking and Polish-speaking minorities.
We are in fact dealing with an area which is not so very far away since, ultimately, Turkey and Eastern Europe are the closest and most natural routes towards the European Union.
To sum up, Mr President, the agreement creates optimum conditions for mutual development of economic and cultural relations.
The only matter outstanding is for us to cast our votes, so that Kazakhstan's political situation can allow this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate on the PCAs with these four countries, on which we have to decide, is one of crucial importance.
That applies both economically and politically, because this will be an extremely important region in the future.
It contains major reserves of natural resources, especially oil, which are probably far greater than is currently estimated.
Someone gaining the friendship of this region will always be better off than someone losing it.
Secondly, of course, the question of Islam is a particular issue as regards two of these countries.
There are two Christian and two Islamic states in the region.
The two Islamic states are mainly inhabited by Turkish peoples who have close links with the Turks.
I therefore have to say quite clearly, once again, that our policy towards Turkey is breathtakingly short-sighted.
We need this country; we need it vitally, because it represents the alternative to certain other powers in the region which are extremely dangerous.
The Turks are clearly well aware of this.
I have been to Turkey several times recently, and I know just how many people from these two Islamic states are currently living in that country, where they are receiving training.
I would almost go so far as to say that there are two countries which give us a good example of how to provide development aid: Turkey and China.
Turkey, because it delivers its development aid primarily to the people - in other words, it is finally restoring to the peoples of these countries the structures of which they were deprived during the period of Russian rule. And China, because it applies its development aid at grass roots level, especially in Africa, rather than promoting large-scale projects - like some other donor countries - which often do not have a particularly beneficial effect on the regions concerned.
We must therefore also think of these two states in political terms.
And we must cooperate with Turkey in this region, because that is in Europe's long-term interest.
As far as the two Christian states - Georgia and Armenia - are concerned, I should firstly like to say that it is certainly right that we should develop relations with and assist Georgia, but this should not mean that we put our trust in Russia's Gauleiter in Georgia, Mr Shevardnadze.
This man was once used to counter Georgia's freely elected president, Mr Gamsakhurdia, who was subsequently murdered.
I do take some interest in Georgia, I belong to the bureau of the group for human rights in Georgia, and I can assure the House that some extremely serious human rights violations are being committed there.
That must be constantly emphasized.
We are somewhat naive about human rights questions.
We see violations in some places, but not others.
And we should definitely see them in Georgia.
With regard to Armenia, I know that many people criticize President Ter-Petrossian.
Nevertheless, we should not forget what he has done for Armenia, how he has built the country up.
It is therefore also important for us to maintain good relations with Armenia, and especially to use our influence finally to bring about a settlement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which takes account of the legitimate rights of both states and makes it possible to ensure the restoration of order in a region where we have interests.
Mr President, thank you for giving me the floor.
I was not able earlier to give the opinion of the Committee on Budgets on the interim agreement between the European Union and Armenia.
I should like to do so now, after what Mr McCartin has said about the partnership agreement.
He was a member of the Committee on Budgets, which delivered a favourable opinion.
He was responsible for the comments that honourable Members have heard.
Of course, the Committee on Budgets has delivered a favourable opinion on the interim agreement.
It did so unanimously, in response to a proposal by myself.
It obtained the figures it wanted from the Commission, relative to what is mentioned in the written opinion.
Having regard to the fact that the general partnership agreement required Parliament's assent, and the importance of the interim agreement, the Committee therefore welcomed the fact that the Council consulted Parliament.
I should add that I personally endorse the comments that have been made about the importance of Armenia to the European Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.36 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon)
Mr President, I would just like to pass on my good wishes to the Bureau for the taking the enlightened decision to remove the photograph of Robert Maxwell from Parliament's premises.
It is just a pity that it took them twenty-four hours to do so.
What a pity you had to qualify your praise.
Mr President, I should like to ask The British Conservatives, especially Mr Cassidy, during this voting time, to refrain from making obscene gestures to people in the public gallery.
I am sure Mr Cassidy will give that assurance.
Mr President, of course for Mr Hallam a gesture has to be obscene to be believed.
Laughter)
Welcome
I should like to welcome here today a delegation from the Parliament of Lithuania, the Seimas , led by its chairman Mr Racas.
He is accompanied by the Lithuanian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mr Rinkunas.
The delegation is visiting Strasbourg to meet its counterparts in the European Parliament and has held meetings yesterday and today.
The association agreement which has been signed between the European Union and Lithuania and which will put Lithuania on an equal footing with the other associated states in its relations with the European Union is still awaiting the ratification of three of the Member States.
As the European Parliament called, through the Oostlander report, for a policy of equal treatment of all the associated states, we hope that the ratification process will be completed shortly so that an EU/Lithuanian Joint Parliamentary Committee can be established.
Chairman and colleagues, we welcome you to the Parliament.
(Applause)
Votes
Mr President, with reference to Amendment No 5, I have heard that a number of groups have problems with this amendment because it contains the words 'countries or' .
I would therefore propose an oral amendment deleting those words.
The amendment would then read: ' Organizations which approve of or encourage compulsory abortion or sterilization and infanticide as methods of controlling population growth shall be excluded from Community support' .
The words 'countries or' would therefore be deleted.
Does anyone object to this oral amendment?
Mr President, there are in fact countries which approve of and officially engage in these practices.
They should accordingly be referred to as countries.
Simply referring to organizations, on the pretext that we can make that include countries if necessary, is in my view unacceptable.
(Parliament rejected the oral amendment)
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since yesterday, we have had as our guests Members of Parliament from ten Mediterranean countries who have been meeting us for the first time in the context of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and the Barcelona process.
In the course of our very interesting discussions, our colleagues put forward a number of constructive proposals, whose inclusion in my report would have added to and enhanced it.
I explained to them that our Rules of Procedure unfortunately did not permit the tabling of amendments at the last minute, but I wish to put on record that I share a number of their reservations concerning this report.
However, we shall now vote on the report.
Amendment No 6 :
Mr President, I have consulted my colleagues in the PPE Group, and they agree that this amendment could be misunderstood.
I would therefore propose a compromise oral amendment adding the following phrase to the end of recital A, which I shall read out in French:
' ... and recognizing the consistent follow-up by subsequent presidencies, starting with the Italian presidency...' .
That is all.
If the House agrees to this oral amendment being put to the vote, Amendment No 6 can be withdrawn.
(The amendment was withdrawn)
Amendment No 13 :
Mr President, I do not know why our colleagues in the Liberal Group have tabled this amendment.
It simply seeks to delete a phrase from this paragraph, the important phrase concerning the establishment of a nuclear-free zone in the Mediterranean region.
That could be done by means of a split vote.
Amendment No 11 :
Mr President, I would like to propose adding the word 'maintenance' to the word 'restoration' , and the word 'archaeological' to the phrase 'promotion of artistic and historical monuments' .
(The oral amendment was accepted)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I would propose that the second paragraph of Amendment No 11 should incorporate the present text of the motion for a resolution, with five words being deleted.
You all have the text in front of you.
I shall read it out in the amended version in French:
' rejects any proposal to list in the Treaty a large number of conditions to be fulfilled before Article 7A, providing for free movement of persons, comes into force; strongly criticizes the fact that this text does not provide a role for the European Parliament and the Court of Justice' .
I understand that there will be a roll-call vote on Amendment No 11.
That seems to me a very relevant consideration as to whether we should accept this oral amendment.
In principle I would be against ever accepting an oral amendment that then leads to a roll-call vote.
It seems to me that a roll-call vote engages the political responsibility of Members of this House in a way that is unusual and we should be given notice of that.
I might even argue that under Article 119(1) a request for a roll-call vote only applies to the amendment as printed and put before us and cannot apply to an oral amendment.
Would the Liberal Group be prepared to withdraw its request for a roll-call vote?
I would like to reply to Mr Schäfer.
I understand that it concerns an oral amendment to Amendment No 11 tabled by the Liberal Group.
It replaces the whole of paragraph 8, not just the second paragraph. Could you confirm that?
If that is the case and if the Socialist Group supports Amendment No 11 entirely we are willing to withdraw the request for a roll-call vote.
If he only wants to replace the second part of the paragraph then we maintain our request.
It replaces the whole paragraph.
Then we withdraw our request for a roll-call vote.
Mr President, for the House's information, I think it would be helpful if the Member who proposed this oral amendment repeated exactly what he wishes to delete, because in my opinion it amounts to a criticism of the Dutch presidency, and is of course politically motivated.
(The oral amendment was accepted)
Amendment No 14 :
Just for fun, Mrs Van Dijk wishes to propose an oral amendment.
Not just for fun, Mr President, but because I really do not think it is clear either to the Members of the House or to the public just what this amendment involves: what is it exactly that the Dutch presidency has deleted? I should like to clarify the amendment, which would then read in English:
strongly opposes and refuses the proposal by the Dutch presidency to delete sexual orientation, age and handicap from the anti-discrimination article put forward by the Irish presidency.
(The oral amendment was accepted)
Before the final vote :
Mr President, I have discussed this matter with various groups, and it appears that, although we were unfortunately not aware of the fact before the deadline for tabling amendments, the Dutch presidency did not attend the debate, and everyone was extremely angry about it.
I therefore propose to add a paragraph - you have the text of it in front of you - which reads as follows in English:
strongly regrets the absence of the presidency of the Council during yesterday's debate on the development of the Intergovernmental Conference and condemns the presidency's apparent lack of interest for the views of the European Parliament.
(The oral amendment was rejected)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, this afternoon we are due to vote on the Tillich report, but I would like to draw attention to an error. Paragraph 10 states: ' Considers it essential that, if Member States...' , but instead of 'Member States' it should state 'Council' , which, legally speaking, is not the same thing.
I think the relevant services should speak to the rapporteur and correct the error before we move on to the vote.
Mr President, I am sorry to have to say that when I asked you how long you thought the voting would take you said five or ten minutes.
It has taken 15-20 minutes, but that is not my point.
It is becoming customary, and the same is continuing this week too, for the voting to continue until half past one or a quarter to two.
I consider this unacceptable.
We have said very many times that voting should end at one, or ten past one, or even a quarter past one, but no later.
If there are so many votes to be taken, let the voting start at 11.30.
I ask you to convey both to the President of Parliament and to the Conference of Presidents what I have said, because I think that the Members are not at all disposed to give up their lunch when they work 12 and 15 hours a day.
There is a view in the Conference of Presidents that now that we have established a set beginning time for votes we should not alter that.
If we change the time it creates problems.
Mr President, I have two points to make.
It seems extraordinary to me that a political group can put down an amendment and then ask for a split vote on their own amendment which happened on Amendment No 9 in that final vote.
Could that be looked at by the Bureau? It leads to a lot of confusion.
Secondly, we all admire your presidency.
We all admire presidents who congratulate rapporteurs.
But there are a lot of reports which come to this House with a huge number of amendments.
The rapporteurs who get concise reports to the House which do not take up a great deal of voting time deserve congratulations but maybe some of the others do not.
I must congratulate my colleague Jean-Thomas Nordmann for his recommendation for second reading, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Co-operation, regarding aid to population policies and programmes in the developing countries.
It should be pointed out that this text was adopted unanimously by the Committee on Development, and that the European Parliament's amendments have the virtue of recalling the commitments undertaken at the Cairo conference, especially by increasing Community financial aid to population programmes in developing countries to ECU 300 million by the year 2000.
Furthermore, Parliament made a point of clarifying which committees had responsibility for each major region: the ACPs, the Mediterranean States and the Latin American and Asian States.
Population programmes can only be introduced at the request and with the participation of the States concerned, but they are today the only means of countering population explosions.
That is why I am voting in favour of Mr Nordmann's recommendation.
Linkohr recommendation (A4-0084/97)
Already at the initial discussion of this report, I voiced criticism as to how the new research funds for the fourth frame program were to be used.
As a supporter of the Green Party I do not agree with the proposal on how these funds are to be used. Too much money is for example put towards outdated means of transport when we ought to be investing in the development of economical and ecological means of transport.
In order to try and make some changes, I have proposed three amendments which I will naturally vote for.
However, I am not sure if we should give more money for research.
According to Swedish studies there is no evidence of research at EU level being more valuable than the research carried out in Member States.
I believe it would be more beneficial if the Member States invested the money in research in their native countries (including the international research exchange currently taking place between universities) or to support basic mainstream education.
Alan J. Donnelly report (A4-0552/97)
I spoke in the debate yesterday to express my support for the Commission's communication and for the essence of the Donnelly report.
In this area, as in many others, we need a genuine European industrial policy.
I support an increase in research and also in forecasting studies, but more is needed in order to develop production and to combat unfair competition and social dumping.
The Renault case gives us cause for concern, but lamentations are not enough.
In order to keep factories there have to be cars to be manufactured and buyers to buy them.
Finally, I say again: Europe must not impose rules upon itself that its competitors do not impose on themselves, particularly in the area of mergers and direct or indirect government intervention, whether in the United States or Japan.
The Europe of the free single market is showing its limitations, and is now at risk of killing off the European idea as such unless it moves forward to a political and social Europe, an industrial Europe, a Europe of employment.
That is the fundamental problem raised by Renault, and not a problem of form or even of method.
I have voted against, because no new legal framework is required.
There is a need to conclude the agreements stipulated in the accession treaties and to complete the review process promised by Commissioner Bjerregaard, as Parliament has already decided.
Langen report (A4-0040/97)
I have voted for the report but do not agree with the proposal to construct a network of pipelines between factories in Europe.
This would be too dangerous both from a safety and environmental point of view.
Much more emphasis should have been placed on the chemical industry's own responsibility for the environment, particularly with regard to waste from the industry.
Europe is truly at a crossroads.
Either it goes further down the road of neo-liberal deregulation as indicated by the Molitor Group, or it genuinely takes the road of comprehensively developing its environmental and social capacities for the future.
There is a need for political decisions to promote the development of a sustainable industrial policy worthy of the name, one which does not regard industrial production as a matter for manufacturers alone.
Environmental considerations are part of the production process, just as employees - with their skills, initiative and responsibilities - are part of a business, and not just a disposable source of labour.
Issues such as the introduction of eco-taxes and taxes on particularly harmful substances such as chlorine, the rehabilitation of contaminated areas and the long-term usability of certain substances and products are still on the agenda as matters of urgency, even though Parliament has not adopted a clear position on them in this report.
Only in this way can the conflict between sustainable social efficiency and a purely economic approach be resolved - even if this is a message that Commissioner Bangemann is apparently still not prepared to take on board.
Katiforis report (A4-0030/97)
In theory, the maritime industries provide a shining example of something that is simple yet difficult to achieve: a long-term, viable component of a mobility and production system that respects the environmental constraints within which people live, whilst encouraging the social progress that gives history its meaning.
In practice, however, the opposite is unfortunately the case. The overlong predominance of the neoliberal model of economic policy has wrought havoc in this sector throughout the world: the international fleet is ageing and far from 'state of the art' in terms of safety and environmental protection; the employment culture in the shipping industry has largely gone to the dogs as the result of flagging-out and the creation of a racist hierarchy within crews; environmentally and socially responsible coastal shipping and inland waterway transport is being undermined by unfair competition from the road transport sector; and the potential of ports and coastal towns as sites for innovative production and especially processing is in no way being sensibly exploited.
The means of reversing this unfortunate trend are well known, and are to some extent set out in the practical proposals from Mr Katiforis.
We need global solutions, but we cannot wait for them.
Europe can and must take the lead here by playing a more active role within the IMO, but also by introducing its own strict regulations wherever necessary.
From port state controls, through the introduction of stricter safety rules for vessels calling at Union ports, to the regulation of coastal shipping - whatever the United States and Japan are doing, the European Union must do to the same degree.
Morgan report (A4-0325/96)
Mr President, unlike many of my colleagues, I supported Mrs Morgan's proposal in the vote on Amendment No 20, since I believe that the cultivation of minority languages, for which she argues as a particular matter of concern in this report, is extremely important.
We advocate the protection and promotion of minorities throughout the world in our resolutions.
And we repeatedly advocate it as a principle in our list of demands to the IGC, I am glad to say.
But I believe that we must also do so when it comes to actual competences within the Union - legislation and practical measures.
It makes no sense to defend a principle and then not apply that principle in practice.
I therefore wish to thank Mrs Morgan for her report, which has my full and complete support.
The Danish social democrats voted in favour of the Morgan report, which deals primarily with the training of the population in the use of information technology.
The report points out that the rapid developments in information technology could easily lead to new inequalities in society as a result of differential access to the new information and communication technologies.
The existing social divisions would thus be deepened, with the risk of further marginalization of already disadvantaged groups.
The Danish social democrats would urge that initiatives should be taken to spread the knowledge of information technology in the education system, so as to avoid any marginalization of particularly vulnerable groups.
It is only through education and further training in the use of information technology that everyone can have equal access to the information society.
We do have one criticism of the report, however, as it completely fails to mention the situation of women in the information society.
Unless special attention is given to women's opportunities for education and training in the information society, there is a fear that women will become completely detached from the developments in information technology.
I should like to start by saying that my group will unhesitatingly vote in favour of Mrs Morgan's report.
As I said during the debate, we regard this report as an important element of European educational policy and we welcomed many of the suggestions that were made.
Because, although the information society must be regarded as a positive element in the provision of a modern education, we must nevertheless remain vigilant: the campaign against academic failure and the reduction of inequalities must remain our priorities, and there is no certainty that multimedia development is always beneficial to the achievement of these objectives.
We should also like to take advantage of this debate to say how sorry we are that this review of education, so basic to the future of young Europeans, was the subject of two debates: yesterday evening's debate on the White Paper on the information society, held in the absence of the Commissioner responsible for it, Mrs Cresson, and the present Morgan report of which Commissioner Bangemann is the sponsor.
This entirely artificial division is, unfortunately, not a matter of chance because it reflects the highly dubious division because these reports on the basis of their having two distinct legal bases - training on the one hand and the information society on the other.
Even so, I believe that for the sake of consistency in our work, it would be as well to regard the education requirement as one and indivisible.
Committee of Inquiry recommendation (A4-0054/97)
Mr President, the excellent report by the Committee of Inquiry on Community transit highlights the crucial errors that have been committed during the last ten years with regard to European integration.
This transit system, which was designed to enable goods from third countries entering our territory to move through that territory without paying any customs duty or tax before arriving at their destination, is now a hotbed of tax fraud which is costing billions of ECU to the exchequers of the Member States and to the Community finances.
Why does this fraud exist? The Committee of Inquiry began by pointing out a number of technical reasons associated with the obsoleteness of a system that uses paper as its medium, disregarding information technology, and which has failed to cope with the increase in trade transactions.
But the Committee also, and more importantly, demonstrates that the abolition of checks at the Union's internal borders enormously facilitates fraud, since a load can cross the whole of Europe without any country knowing it is there and without anyone knowing, if it happens to disappear, in which country the offence was committed.
That is why the report rightly concludes that there was, and I quote, a 'lack of foresight by the Commission in the introduction of the single market, which has been guided by the principles of market liberalization and the abolition of controls' .
The report adds, perhaps disingenuously, that this lack of foresight by the Commissioners was incomprehensible.
In fact, in my view, it is entirely comprehensible since the issue as far as they were concerned was to ensure that the dogma of the abolition of controls won the day at all costs.
Well, it is clear today, perhaps pending the arrival of other systems that do not yet exist, that the internal customs services are still valuable, especially for keeping control of the transit of goods.
Furthermore, the report by the Committee of Inquiry, which does not venture to suggest that controls should be reintroduced at the internal borders, recommends that, listen carefully, I quote 'the customs code should be amended to permit spot checks anywhere within the territory of the European Union' .
That's progress: abolish the controls at the internal borders and then increase them everywhere else.
In conclusion, our congratulations once again to the members of the Committee of Inquiry for their intellectual honesty, and may we express the hope that the European Parliament will take the initiative to institute other inquiries of the same kind in connection with the problem of the borders, for example regarding intra-community VAT fraud.
The Kellett-Bowman report, the result of the efforts of the Committee of Inquiry of which I was a member, is intended to define the problems encountered with the setting-up of the Community transit system, established on the territory of the European Union and extended to include Switzerland, the EEA countries and the Visegrad States (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary).
It also proposes measures designed to improve the functioning of the transit system.
It is a good report that reflects the good work done by the Committee of Inquiry.
It should be remembered that the transit system allows the temporary suspension of customs duties, excise duties and VAT until these are paid at the destination of the goods.
The system is clearly indispensable for the functioning of the single market, but there is a need to combat crossborder fraud and to halt the loss of revenue, which amounts to several billion ECU since 1990.
This level of fraud is intolerable.
That is why, in response to a proposal by the Committee of Inquiry, the European Parliament proposes that the transit system should be computerized as quickly as possible, that a system of physical control should be set up throughout the territory of the European Union, and that a specific legal framework should be set up with 'mutual recognition of evidence' , a 'centralized legal office' and national customs services functioning as if they were one.
I approve of these proposals.
The European Parliament considers that this problem of fraud control must be a subject of discussion with Switzerland and negotiation with the countries of central and eastern Europe and with Cyprus, not forgetting the customs union with Turkey.
Finally, the Committee of Inquiry welcomed the fact that the Commission accepts that it will not further extend the transit system until it has been reformed and computerized.
It is also happy to have succeeded in having the necessary resources for this project appropriated in the European Union budget.
It is only logical for there to be co-operation at EU level between national Customs Departments to fight fraud.
The Swedish Green Party remains opposed to the introduction of an internal market which automatically results in, for example, customs frauds as mentioned in the Committee of Inquiry's report.
We take this matter very seriously and believe that the national Customs Departments within the EU must co-operate in order to prevent smuggling.
However, we strongly disagree with the introduction of a common Customs Department at EU level, as mentioned in recommendation No. 1 and at several other places in the documents of the Committee of Inquiry.
The Danish social democrats would like to thank the chairman and the rapporteur of the Committee of Inquiry for their excellent work.
The report indicates that the transit system is on the verge of collapse, and that Europe is being swamped by an obdurate form of crime as never before.
Thanks to the report, the politicians and the Commission have had their eyes opened to the problem, which many had approached with blinkers on.
The Danish minister responsible for taxation has written to us thanking the committee for its good work, and offering to the Commission that Denmark could act as a pilot country for the data system that we wish to see introduced to improve the transit system and to stop the abuses which are taking place.
The report shows that arrangements between individual states will not solve the problem.
The welfare of each and every person in the European Union depends on the secure and efficient administration of the internal market and the import and export system for the massive quantities of goods traded and transported every day.
The decision of the European Parliament to investigate the detailed workings of the system was therefore well justified.
We have found that the system is under strain and is not capable of efficiently handling the volume of trade.
Furthermore a relatively low, but unacceptable, level of fraud and irregularities have been found.
However, given the antiquated system in use it is a miracle that the level of fraud is so low.
Any level of fraud and irregularity is unacceptable and forces us all to pay more taxes.
The loss of one container of cigarettes, it is reported, costs us £800, 000 in lost revenue.
Up to 15 % of the market for cigarettes in some Member States is supplied by the black market.
The extra taxes we must pay to make up for these losses runs to several billion pounds annually.
Of course, the problem of the inadequate transit system for the transport of goods in Europe is not related to the existence of the European Union.
Most of the increasing volume of trade would have occurred in any case and exposed the inability of the system to cope effectively.
What seems to have happened is that responsibility for the system is not clearly defined and both the EU and the individual Member States have neglected the problem to some extent.
I therefore fully support the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry to improve the Community transit system.
We must computerize the control systems, make them more efficient and effective and reduce bureaucracy and delays on the external borders.
These measures are necessary in any case and will help eliminate fraud from the system especially if, as we propose, they are backed up with spot checks and mutual recognition of evidence.
As I did in my speech in the debate, I wish to declare my support for the Committee of Inquiry's report.
However, I wish to sound a warning that the transcript of the committee's proceedings could easily be misused as a virtual instruction manual for customs fraud.
I would therefore recommend that some thought be given to how such an undesirable outcome can be prevented.
First of all, I must congratulate the chairman of the Committee of Inquiry, Mr John Tomlinson, and its rapporteur, Mr Kellett-Bowman, for their exceptional efforts over the last 15 months.
In the seven years during which I have had the opportunity to follow the work done by our Parliament, there has never been a parliamentary project on the same scale as this report on efforts to combat fraud against the Community budget.
What I do rather regret is that our parliamentary committee, while endeavouring to find compromises, was unable, or perhaps unwilling, to play its most important role - as the driving force behind the progress of the European Community.
At a time when everyone is discussing the introduction of the euro as the single European currency, we are retreating in the face of a problem of European customs administration, necessary though it unfortunately is.
When you think that, according to certain cautious estimates, several billion francs are being lost each year, those losses are liable in the short term to undermine the confidence that Europe's citizens still place in the Community institutions.
It is true, too, that this evil has many causes: bad faith on the part of the recipients of the Community's funds, inadequacy of the controls carried out at both national and Community level, problems of proof and problems with the application of effective penalties, not to mention omissions and inaccuracies in the Community texts.
A second point I should like to make is the lack of any desire for change on the part of the Member States with regard to Community law.
In my view, the Member States should be induced to take action so that breaches of Community rules are subject to the same punishments or penalties.
I believe, in fact, that the Community must be given a punitive power - the power to impose uniform punishments to penalize breaches of its regulations anywhere in Community territory.
Mutual assistance in legal matters, as applied at present, is not really an instrument for combating fraud against the Community budget.
The Commission cannot make use of it and cannot really control it.
The European Union is a victim of fraud, but it relies on the goodwill of the Member States to be told about it.
Any positive action in this field is conceivable only if the Member States and the public really take cognizance of the fact that money from Brussels is not someone else's money.
We have every reason to be impressed with the extensive work of the Temporary Committee of Inquiry when mapping out the extensive frauds in connection with transits.
We also agree with several sections of the analysis presented concerning the shortcomings of control by national Customs authorities.
However, we oppose the conclusions and the recommendations made by the Committee and especially disagree with the solutions aimed at strengthening the centralised structure of the Customs, e.g. the proposed introduction of a common framework 'to make the national Customs Departments work as one' .
The current Intergovernmental Conference has expressed considerable doubt as to whether the sovereignty of Member States over the Customs should be removed.
This doubt is shared by the Swedish government.
The European Union's own experience of supranationality, e.g. the Common Agricultural Policy, Structural Funds, various programmes for Eastern and Central Europe, leaves much to be desired as far as efficiency and control in the prevention of fraud is concerned.
The problem of fraudulent activity must instead be solved by strengthening national Customs Departments, not least when it comes to the employees, and by expanding the co-operation between all European states.
Europe is after all much bigger than the European Union.
Albania
Mr President, I voted against the joint motion for a resolution in the end, even though some of the worst of the Socialist Group's amendments were rejected.
What concerned me was recital D, however.
I do not believe that undermining President Berisha's position at the present time will serve the cause of peace.
I believe that we must press him to compromise, and he is doing so already.
Undermining his position is the most dangerous thing that we could do, however.
That would make the peace process impossible for the foreseeable future.
The second point I should like to make is that there is a great deal of hypocrisy in this debate.
Parliament has frequently attempted to mobilize resources and other forms of support for Albania.
It has been thwarted by the Council and by certain Member States, in particular Greece, and what concerns me here is that now that the results of this mistaken approach are emerging, people are pointing the finger and expecting a society which has been isolated for decades to behave like a democracy which has been established for hundreds of years.
Moreover, it is those who have done the least for Albania and have blocked Community aid who are now being most critical of the country.
With relatively modest resources, we could have created a model of development in this small country.
Now we have lost that opportunity, and I therefore protest at this hypocrisy!
Although the negotiators for the PPE Group made great efforts and managed to improve the text, I too am unable to support the joint motion for a resolution, because it does not correspond to the facts.
It still pins the blame on the democratically elected President Berisha, a patriot and a democrat who made a crucial contribution to the liberation of his people from the totalitarian communist yoke.
The truth is that southern Albania is the stronghold of a mafia which, together with the KGB, largely controlled the pyramid investment schemes.
What happened was not a popular uprising, but a coolly planned operation by organized criminals to prevent the implementation of President Berisha's measures to eliminate them.
The strength of these criminal elements lies not least in the powerful support which they receive from across the border.
It is therefore in no way in Europe's interest to allow these elements, who call themselves social democrats but who reject socialist internationalism, to lead the people of Albania back into slavery.
Sakellariou report (A4-0027/97)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Barcelona Conference of November 1995 aroused enormous hopes in all who dream of a genuine Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
And yet that conference, a major political act of reconciliation for the Mediterranean, was no more than a starting point.
Today, everything still remains to be done and the effort required is still enormous, as are the potential gains.
Mr Sakellariou's report does indeed stress the need to move farther and faster unless we want the EuroMediterranean partnership to remain nothing more than a free trade area.
With this in mind, the report before us today stresses the avenues to be followed and the essential steps to be taken.
In the context of the political and security partnership, violations of the principle of respect for territorial integrity (committed by Turkey against Greece and by Israel against Lebanon) calls for agreements to be drawn up on the subject of conflict prevention.
The proposal that the Mediterranean should become a nuclear-free zone needs to be taken into account at the next Euro-Mediterranean conference.
There are also other essential factors that will determine the success of a pact of stability and security for the Mediterranean.
The States of the southern Mediterranean seaboard must be enabled to achieve higher living standards, with know-how transfer replacing development aid.
The problem of water in this region is one of fundamental importance.
The creation of a Euro-Mediterranean water agency, responsible for all activities relating to the water supply of the Mediterranean basin, might enable conflicts in that area to be resolved.
Finally, we would stress the need for the emergence of a democratic area between the two seaboards.
Hitherto, nothing has been done to implement the idea of bringing the various parliaments closer together!
A genuine parliamentary body for the Mediterranean must come into existence.
Here again, everything still remains to be done.
The idea of a Mediterranean parliamentary forum must, as of now, move beyond the theoretical stage to lay the foundations of a genuine area of democracy, trade and mutual understanding.
, in writing. (ES) I would like to express my full agreement with giving a parliamentary dimension to the process initiated by the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference and, at the same time, I would like to mention the following with regard to the report:
The first Euro-Mediterranean Conference marked the beginning of a new stage in relations between the Mediterranean countries and Europe.
A 'before' and an 'after' .
A new policy had to be inaugurated even though the European Community's Mediterranean policy had already been in existence for 20 years. However, its purely trade-related approach and system of unequal treatment with a basis in colonialism resulted in its failure.
Perhaps the essence of the first Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona was, therefore, that it constituted a change in procedures and in the way in which Euro-Mediterranean relations were regarded - from that time on, such countries began to be regarded as partners and associates of the EU; and the relationship procedure has become one of mutual agreement, based on principles of reciprocity and association aimed at shared work and objectives.
It is therefore essential to observe these rules.
We must pay close attention to how we have to go about things!
We must be careful that there is no possibility that, via this report, the EP should be seen to be making decisions unilaterally without the prior agreement of our partners and against their will.
As Vice-President Marín stated yesterday, the Euro-Mediterranean process must now be consolidated - this must be a priority - before new requests are made.
Finally, we should also have regard to the territorial approach: each partner must have its own relational space, in addition to the shared space, with no one feeling marginalized or relegated.
We should also protect the integrity of the Mediterranean area which is unambiguously defined by nature, geography, culture and history.
One can only agree with Mr Sakellariou's report and his broad encouragement for a Community partnership with the Mediterranean States on matters of security, stability and economics.
I have read this report very carefully, and I note that in the chapter entitled 'Economic and financial co-operation' , reading between the lines, there is evidence of a desire to change the Common Agricultural Policy.
This impression is confirmed in the explanatory statement where Mr Sakellariou frankly proposes a reform of the CAP and rapid liberalization of the trade in agricultural products.
For some time, I have been unable to escape the feeling that every report, or virtually every report, going through this Parliament becomes a pretext, directly or indirectly, for the reform of the CAP.
That reform, if there is to be a reform, must not be sketched out in odd paragraphs of reports that are more or less remote from the subject.
This pillar will have to be dealt with as such, through a process of in-depth analysis within the most competent committee concerned, which is the Committee on Agriculture.
However, I must caution those of us who favour a swift reform.
We have just formally celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the Treaty of Rome, and we must never forget that the Common Agricultural Policy, along with the ECSC, was the first pillar of European unity.
We should be cautious and vigilant. We must not be in such a rush to dismantle and dispose of our Common Agricultural Policy, which has done so much to hold our 15 Member States together.
Despite the generally positive outlook described in the report on the Barcelona Conference, there is one prospect which can hardly fail to alarm a particularly frail group of European citizens: farmers.
This is explicit in the explanatory statement, though it appears in more veiled form in the resolution.
The relevant sentence is in paragraph 14 under 'Economic and financial cooperation' , where establishing a free trade area by 2010 is mentioned.
To achieve this objective, structural reforms of the various economic policies are proposed, starting with agricultural policy.
The point is made that there can be no free trade area unless there is rapid liberalization of imports of agricultural products from Mediterranean third countries.
It is right to emphasize the importance of a very close relationship between Mediterranean countries, and bilateral agreements between some of them have already been in operation for several years, as a result of which European Union markets are in fact already penetrable.
It is important for the measures to balance Community protection and free trade with third countries.
The agriculture of third Mediterranean countries is highly competitive with Community countries in terms of seasonality and plant variety.
Those countries also have the advantage of infinitely lower labour, land and processing costs.
IGC
Mr President, not liking to inconvenience too many people I shall make my explanation of vote orally.
The House has just debated, for the first time, a new idea floated at the Intergovernmental Conference - the possibility of enhanced co-operation, meaning joint actions which would not automatically involve the fifteen Member States but would be organized as required, possibly with a smaller number of participants.
This is what my group prefers to call, using a broader term, differentiated co-operation or a multi-speed Europe.
The most striking point, though, is that this idea - which could result in a Europe that is less rigid, less monolithic, better adapted to the specific needs of all concerned and therefore closer to the citizen - is being received by the European Parliament with extreme mistrust and a plethora of restrictive conditions.
This House is wedded to the idea of unitary progress, within a single institutional framework, to the point of caricature when it goes so far as to proclaim that the European Parliament, in its entirety, has the right of codecision regarding the legislative framework and administrative spending of differentiated co-operation, even when these joint actions would, by definition, involve only certain Member States and not all.
We believe that methods like these, on the pretext of introducing flexibility clauses into the Treaty, are in fact going to burden it with bureaucratic procedures which would obstruct everything and result in even greater rigidity.
That is why my group tabled, at the Committee on Institutional Affairs, numerous amendments designed to introduce genuine flexibility.
We believe that differentiated co-operation must be decided upon very freely by the participants, provided only that it is not in conflict with the Treaty and does not prejudice non-participating Member States.
The organizational form to be taken by these joint actions must also be very free, in other words free of compulsory intervention by the Community institutions, subject to any necessary co-ordination within the Council.
These proposals seem to us to offer a prospect of ending the current deadlock by returning the institutions of cooperation in Europe to the exclusive service of the citizens' needs rather than of a federalistic ideology.
Our basic view is that the European Union should be a cooperation between independent states.
Unfortunately, the proposed resolution is going in precisely the opposite direction.
The resolution is in favour of increasing decision making by qualified majority vote in the Council of Ministers and increasing the influence of the European Parliament.
This will only lead to an even more ambiguous situation as to who is responsible for the political decisions in each of the Member States.
We believe that national parliaments should be the highest decision-making forum in Member States.
Consequently, we cannot possibly vote in favour of this resolution.
We must also put on record the substantial increase in the number of resolutions issued by this House in connection with the IGC and before and after the summit meetings held regularly in the European Union.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton and Holm (V), Bonde and Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) The proposal involves an intensification of co-operation from a mainly interstate co-operation to a federal state.
For us development in this direction is unacceptable.
We are therefore voting against the proposal.
Common regulations could result in equal salaries for all members of the European Parliament which would increase the salaries of the Swedish members considerably, especially if the common salary is calculated as a percentage of the judges' salaries in the courts of the European Union as proposed by the Presidency of the European Parliament during a press conference in Sweden.
This would most likely delay a settlement of the most controversial alternative regulations on expenses, e.g. the regulation concerning the travel allowance for business class travel when there are many other possibilities of travelling by less expensive means.
The most natural thing would be to start by changing the more controversial regulations on expenses, e.g. the travel allowance, so that payments in excess of actual costs are not made.
I cannot vote in favour of this resolution because of the paragraphs on reinforced co-operation.
Regardless of the usefulness of paragraphs 17 to 27, in particular paragraph 26, for refocusing and limiting, aligning a set of conditions in whose framework we can devise a concept of strengthened co-operational flexibility, simply accepting these with no strings attached seems to me dangerous for the following reasons which I shall set out in brief:
1.-Per se, the notion of flexibility is contrary to the concept of integration and is difficult to make compatible with a single institutional framework, opening the doors to institutions by measure, which shall be decentralised, independent and outside Community States, as is proper in the case of public international law.That would lead to as many institutional regimes for decision-making as there are acts of co-operation between the Member States, which is contrary to the methodology of a single Community law, support for common institutions, from which rights and obligations stem for the Member States, for organised civil society and for the people themselves.
' Flexibility' is the opening towards the legal disintegration and transformation of the European Union into a diplomatic international organisation which has nothing to do with a Europe organised on the basis of Community law, legally guaranteed by the Commission and by the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
2.- It must be made clear which role the Commission will play as guardian of the Treaties, what would be the nature and measure of its autonomous and initiative free right and in particular what role the European Parliament would play in the decision-making process.3.-It is, furthermore, on the role of the European Parliament in a flexible Europe that the biggest doubts remain as far as I am concerned. Members of Parliament have a single and indivisible mandate, entrusted to them by the electors - even relatively to the countries which sought opting out following Maastricht, those exceptions never prevented Members of Parliament from the countries which are 'out' from voting on policies which were not binding on them.
If ever those countries which have opted out decide to obey the rules, such that the countries which were 'in' organise themselves in the framework of legal disciplines which are different from the common disciplines, it is obvious that the European Parliament will no longer be based on equality and an identity of powers.
There will be as many mandates and powers as there are acts of co-operation which will gradually lead to a European Parliament of variable geometry and number.
This road is too risky and dangerous and in the long term would call into question the very usefulness of the European Parliament.4.-Finally, it is quite clear with flexibility, in the image which already is occurring today with the Schengen Agreement, that the European Parliament will have no powers to intervene in policies produced in a different framework from that of the Community.
Subjects of reinforced co-operation would be subjects which are external to the European Parliament.
It is difficult to make such an approach compatible with a European Community where decisions, to some extent, are bolstered by a democratic vote, which means reinventing a Europe on which, in terms of democracy, everything will be far aware from controls and desires of the people.For all of these reasons, because this flexibility destroys the legal armour of the European Union and accentuates the technocratic character of decisions, because flexibility is an open door to those who think that the European undertaking is a heavy one, I am voting against this resolution on flexibility.
The European Parliament and its members have no right to pretend that their eyes are closed.
Our Parliament could, if it wanted to, make a valuable contribution to the essential in-depth reform of the European Union's present institutional system.
The quality of the work that has been done by our first two parliamentary Committees of Inquiry, into mad cow disease and into the Community transit system, shows that Members of the European Parliament can, on occasion, demonstrate good sense, competence, a sense of reality and a zeal to expose the truth.
What do we actually learn from these two reports? They expose, arrestingly and very specifically, how sadly the European institutions have lost their way since the mid-1980s: the susceptibility of the Community system to the interests of the lobbyists at the expense of those of the public; the extent of the problem of fraud, a structural secretion of the supranational institutional system; and generalized irresponsibility in the absence of any democratic control over the Community actors.
Can Parliament learn the lesson of its own investigations? It should, in all logic, infer that there is a need for swift action to correct errors on such a scale that they largely explain why the public has lost its enthusiasm for European integration.
How can this be done? By abandoning efforts to secure the infinite growth of what is literally an 'institutional monster' , of ever-increasing remoteness, complexity, opacity and uncontrollability, and start enthusiastically advocating genuine, controlled subsidiarity.
But what do we actually find? Parliament takes no notice of its own observations, especially those regarding the failings of the Commission, when determining its position on the IGC.
To the contrary, every error it identifies becomes one more pretext to justify the intensification and expedition of the process of total communitization, the supposed panacea to cure all ills.
Having denounced the ravages of the Commission's bureaucracy, Parliament promptly recommends that it be strengthened.
This schizophrenic contradiction between relevant analysis when Parliament inquires and inappropriate recommendations when it deliberates is preventing this House from being a credible influence when it comes to proposals for institutional reform.
It is high time that Parliament abandoned empty slogans and ideological dogma.
No one would believe our lack of interest in putting right the errors that we ourselves have listed.
The IGC provides a unique opportunity for doing so.
By building on the very serious investigatory work it has begun and drawing specific conclusions from it, our Parliament can help to put European integration back on the rails and heading in the right direction, in line with the intentions of the founding fathers and the present expectations of the public.
If our institution fails to take this opportunity offered by the IGC it will bear a heavy responsibility, because if these errors continue the very idea of Europe is likely to be in jeopardy.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Welcome
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0199/97 by Mr Colajanni and Mr Colom i Naval, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the resumption of negotiations on the status of Tibet; -B4-0220/97 by Mr Bertens and Mrs Larive, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the negotiations between China and Tibet; -B4-0240/97 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the opening of negotiations without prior conditions between the Beijing government and the Tibetan government in exile; -B4-0258/97 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the opening of negotiations between China and Tibet to resolve the Tibet problem; -B4-0261/97 by Mr Moorhouse and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Tibet.
Madam President, this week saw the opening of the fortieth meeting of the UN Conference on Human Rights in Geneva, which is scheduled to continue until mid-April.
The House may know that Amnesty International has published a report for the meeting which names a number of countries where the most systematic and serious human rights violations are taking place.
This extremely interesting report also puts forward a number of suggestions as to how the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Europe could work together to develop a European human rights policy.
What I would like to talk about now are the countries which Amnesty names in the report.
It will come as no surprise to anyone here that one of the countries accused of systematic and continual human rights violations is China.
We in Parliament are therefore right to keep a close eye on the situation.
We cannot simply say that we have discussed it often enough, so we should not need to do so again.
We need to do it every time, unfortunately.
One of the ways in which the Chinese Government demonstrates its oppressive nature is in its treatment of Tibet.
This too is something we have discussed on a number of occasions and are discussing again this afternoon, because we in the House would like to make it clear that we wholeheartedly support the Dalai Lama's proposal for talks on the future.
We hope that his offer will also be given serious consideration in Geneva, so that the parties could perhaps enter into talks through those channels.
This is what is needed at the moment to end the hopeless situation in Tibet: talks between the Chinese Government and Tibet.
Madam President, over the last year, we have seen the Chinese authorities step up their campaign of terror against the Tibetans yet again.
They have even made it an offence to possess a photograph of the Dalai Lama, for which dozens of monks have been arrested.
The campaign against the Dalai Lama and his followers has taken many forms and has recently become much more violent.
The Tibetans have been deprived of nearly all their fundamental human rights, and the world has simply stood and watched as the Panchen Lama has been held in captivity by the Chinese.
Why?
The Dalai Lama has responded without violence and his calls for talks deserve our support.
He is not asking for independence, he simply wishes to have cultural and religious freedom.
This time, he has even made the concession that independence is not a precondition.
The Union must use its contacts with the Chinese authorities to get these talks started.
We hope that China will come to realize that oppression does not work, either with Tibet or Xinjiang.
China's new leaders must see that they are simply turning the international community and their own people against them.
My group has every sympathy with this resolution today.
Madam President, I think that other speakers have sufficiently stressed the importance of this motion, which calls for negotiations to begin at last between the authorities in Peking and the Tibetan government in exile.
Despite a very bad start, I think the compromise text is satisfactory.
There is still room for improvement on one point, however: I feel that we cannot, in a European Parliament text, limit the aspirations of the Tibetan people to cultural and religious autonomy.
The Dalai Lama, when he visited Parliament, was very clear on that point: Tibet must have full and complete independence, even though the Dalai Lama, in the interests of promoting a dialogue with the Chinese authorities, was willing to give way on defence, security and foreign policy.
Otherwise, and it does seem to be very important to emphasize this, the Tibetans must be in a position to govern themselves without interference from the Chinese authorities.
I think this is a particularly urgent matter.
Today, as we know, the Tibetans are already a minority in their own country; so we must act quickly, and I believe this motion is along the right lines, but the Council and the Member States should start making serious representations at the United Nations to demand that the question of the decolonization of the Tibetan people, and indeed their survival, is finally taken into account and dealt with by the international community.
I must thank all my colleagues, James Moorhouse in particular, and our Liberal friends for having combined effectively to change the purport of this motion, and I hope it will be adopted.
I ask you all to vote in favour of the amendment which would eliminate this restriction on religious and cultural autonomy.
We must be quite clear about this, and therefore I once again urge those who have not yet done so to reconsider their votes on this amendment.
Madam President, this is by no means the first resolution we have debated about the situation in Tibet.
Indeed no fewer than eleven previous resolutions dealing with various aspects of the problem have been adopted by this House over the past ten years.
This is a clear indication of the deep concern felt about the plight of the people of Tibet, a situation which continues to deteriorate, one regrets to note: so much so that there are real fears that Tibetan culture will become still further eroded.
One can only conclude that the Chinese aim is to cause the extinction of Tibetan culture.
The particular significance of this debate is that among other matters it follows the death of Deng Xiaoping and takes place three days after the anniversary of the Chinese occupation of Tibet.
Along with Olivier Dupuis, I joined 3-4, 000 demonstrators from all over Europe in Geneva on Sunday to mark the anniversary of the initial occupation of Tibet.
That was a vivid illustration of the degree of support behind the Tibetan cause, which was prominently featured in the world news.
But the crucial point of our resolutions, which have a common thread, is that we now have the opportunity, we believe, for fresh negotiations about the future of the Tibetan people, with a possible move towards selfgovernment.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama has indicated that he would not be pressing for full independence provided that Tibetan culture, the way of life, can be safeguarded.
So we feel that we should back this new approach and hope that it will really come about.
I look forward to the reaction of the Commission.
Madam President, I should firstly like to say how pleased I am that the House is once again debating the situation in Tibet.
This problem has been discussed often enough, but little has been done about it.
That is no reason to stop discussing it.
Over the last ten years, we have had to listen to a great many speeches about bloody conflicts around the world, but I think we can say without cynicism that a war waged against the soul and culture of a people can ultimately be more devastating than a purely military conflict.
However, that is exactly what China's treatment of Tibet amounts to.
The people of Tibet are largely prevented from practising their religion, whilst their temples are renovated beyond recognition - a tried and tested means of repression - and their cultural artefacts are shipped off to China.
I shall not address the wider issue of torture and human rights violations, as previous speakers have already done so.
When we consider that, according to a report by UNESCO, some 50 % of the world's cultural heritage has been destroyed in the course of this century through ignorance, and very often through communist vandalism - in Cambodia, for example - it is clear that a stop must be put to China's actions in Tibet.
The joint motion for a resolution refers to the cultural and religious autonomy of the Tibetan people.
In this respect, however, and here I agree with Mr Dupuis, I firmly believe that it does not go far enough.
It should also refer to the independence - with the exceptions referred to by Mr Dupuis - and the right to self-determination of the Tibetan people.
We should also not forget that the leader of the Tibetan people, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, has indicated to the Chinese Government his constant willingness to engage in talks, without making any substantial political demands; his overtures have just as constantly been rebuffed by the Chinese authorities, however.
To my mind, Parliament is therefore obliged to adopt a clear and unequivocal stance on this issue, especially since a similar situation is now threatening to engulf the Uigur people of Chinese Turkestan.
That is all the more reason, I believe, why we in Parliament really do have a duty to speak out for the right to self-determination, religious freedom and democracy in Tibet.
Madam President, the motion has been drawn up with the inspiration not of the Holy Ghost and by Christian authors, but at the instigation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama as he is referred to in the motion.
All that has been said demonstrates the tendency and effort to liberate Tibet and censure the Peoples Republic of China, by maintaining that Tibet is under Chinese occupation.
Tibet has been an integral part of China for centuries, it is today, and it always will be.
Do not those who tabled the motion consider that if their fanciful plan were ever to come about, this would lead to destabilization in that part of the world? And they take as their point of departure what was said by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who when he came to the Political Committee of our Parliament as the representative of the Tibetan people and I asked him how and in what capacity he represented the Tibetan people, answered: ' Ah, you have no idea!
In the name of the theory and practice of reincarnation' .
Such then are the enlightened members of the European Parliament, those who have drawn up this motion, who are also inspired by the spirit of reincarnation in what they say in their resolution.
Madam President, I will vote against it because the motion does nothing to help relations between the European Community and that great country, the great market, but by making them more difficult, facilitates the penetration of American and Japanese multi-national companies.
That is what this resolution will achieve.
Is this unsuspected, or is it motivated by suspect interests?
Mr President, I think our Parliament should recognize the benevolent and devoted commitment of the Italian and transnational radicals to the Tibetan people's struggle for their rights.
If they were not constantly monitoring what is going on in Tibet and raising the issue, this tragedy would probably not have the profile it has in Italy, Europe and the UN.
The Italian Right is so sensitive to that struggle and solidly behind it, that during a recent demonstration of solidarity, many of our members hung out the Tibetan flag on town balconies and the much berated Berlusconi-Fini government was the first in Europe to receive a visit from the Dalai Lama in exile.
Having said that, we will obviously vote for the joint resolution because we are convinced that the only way to help the Tibetan people is to call on the Chinese government in every form and in every international forum to abandon its arrogant and prevaricating policy and finally concede the fundamental rights which will allow the Tibetan people to safeguard their identity and hence their survival.
Madam President, this question involves the human rights and the right to self-determination of the people of Tibet.
No one, not even the People's Republic of China, is entitled to restrict human rights on the basis of their own philosophy or culture, let alone annul those rights.
As the previous speaker said, Parliament must therefore use all the means at its disposal to defend the human rights and the right to self-determination of the Tibetan people.
One thing is clear: the European Union and this Parliament can only interpret the right to selfdetermination as this is set out in the Helsinki Final Act, from which it follows that the right to self-determination does not imply the right to alter borders arbitrarily, since that violates the right to self-determination of other peoples.
That being so, we must stand up for the Tibetan people's right to self-determination as a cultural and human right.
I therefore support the call made in Parliament's resolution for the question of Tibet to be placed on the agenda of the UN General Assembly.
, Vice-President of the Commission. (ES) Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, an unchanging aspect of European Union policy regarding China has been the importance accorded human rights.
The Commission is therefore determined to improve the situation in Tibet and also shares the concern of this House about this subject.
The Commission condemns any attempt by the Chinese authorities to suppress freedom of speech and of religion and deplores the current situation in Tibet.
As you will be aware, the European Union has made constant reference to human rights issues in Tibet and the religious dimension of Tibetan identity in bilateral talks with China - both in the political sphere and regarding the specific subject of human rights, and at an international level.
The European Union intends to continue its efforts towards consolidating a constructive and positive relationship with China.
As regards Tibet, the European Union's traditional line of action has been to attempt to foment direct dialogue, direct negotiation, between the Chinese authorities and representatives of the Tibetan people, including, naturally, the Dalai Lama.
At various times, both through specific approaches and via dialogue in international institutions, the European Union has expressed its concern regarding the fate of the Panchen Lama appointed by the Dalai Lama.
As you will already know, the European Union has always demanded guarantees regarding the safety and freedom of the Panchen Lama and will continue to do so.
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0198/97 by Mr Colajanni and Mrs Terrón i Cusí, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the Israeli Government's decision to approve construction plans in Jerusalem; -B4-0219/97 by Mr Bertens and Mr Vallvé, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on new settlements in Jerusalem and Israeli-Palestinian relations; -B4-0224/97 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the peace process in the Middle East; -B4-0233/97 by Mr Pradier and Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on Israel's policy of new settlements; -B4-0248/97 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on East Jerusalem; -B4-0264/97 by Mr Provan and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the Middle East peace process.
Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, the 6500 dwellings authorized in the Arab district of Jerusalem by the current Israeli government undoubtedly herald, Madam President, an extraordinarily serious crisis in the extremely complex peace process which we have all supported in the past and continue to support.
In the Oslo Agreements, it was understood that, until such time as current phases and negotiations are completed, Jerusalem must retain its present status. That is a subject for discussion during the third phase.
Therefore, although good and faithful friends of Israel, we are given great cause for concern by the step taken by Netanyahu and we support this common resolution to the effect that the conservative government in Israel should not pursue this building project in East Jerusalem.
This decision, Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, can only help to undermine what has been achieved in such a difficult peace process and - Heaven forbid - could again open the flood gates to tension and violence which it would be difficult to stem.
Madam President, the peace process still has a long way to go.
There may be agreement on Hebron, but new obstacles have now emerged.
The Israeli Government's decision to go ahead and build a new development in East Jerusalem was extremely unwise.
It may not contradict the letter of the Oslo agreements, but it certainly contradicts their spirit.
The negotiations on Jerusalem which form part of the last phase of the entire process are going to be difficult enough in themselves, and the Israeli Government must understand that its decision may only do it more harm than good in the long run.
The European resolution may have been blocked by an American veto in the Security Council, but there too there is growing unease.
Israel is playing with fire.
Furthermore, it needs to be made clear to the Palestinian President, Mr Arafat, that his attitude is also not helping the peace process.
He must not add fuel to the flames by threatening a unilateral declaration of independence for the Palestinian State.
And the European Parliament must not allow itself to be drawn into taking sides.
Now that the Union has a role to play in the peace process, the European Parliament must also behave responsibly and in an even-handed way.
Madam President, the decision by the Israeli Government has to be seen in a specific context.
Not only that, it is all the more serious because of the existence of other measures which may be less spectacular but indicate the same desire to compromise the peace agreements.
The context I refer to comprises, first of all, the texts: UN Resolutions Nos 242 and 338, which very specifically exclude any further forcible acquisition of territory, together with the European Parliament's resolutions, especially that of November 1996, and the Council's latest declarations.
Quite apart from these texts, though, we have History and the lessons it can teach us.
There is the symbolic significance of this region to the entire world.
There are other examples, such as the example of South Africa, where men of great worth are trying to overcome the difficult legacy of a bloodstained history through dialogue and negotiation.
Above all, perhaps, bearing in mind the values on which the Member States of the European Union are based, there is the need to proclaim that there is much more greatness in respecting an adversary, especially when he is down, than in constantly indulging in a show of force.
We must give our support to those, even in the Israeli community, who are concerned about future relations between Israel and the Palestinians.
Madam President, the Israeli-Palestinian agreement on Hebron gave a new stimulus to the peace process and raised hopes of new, constructive initiatives.
Before the ink was even dry on that agreement, the Israeli Government was creating a further obstacle to the peace process by deciding to authorize the building of a new settlement of 6500 homes in Arab East Jerusalem Jabal Abu Ghneim.
This project is designed to drive a permanent wedge between the eastern sector of Jerusalem and the Palestinian autonomous territories.
Jerusalem would thus be completely cut off from the West Bank.
It is an illegal decision, because the final status of East Jerusalem will have to be discussed during the third stage of negotiations, and because both sides have undertaken to refrain from any action that might change the situation on the ground.
The Israeli Government has been supported by the United States, which used its veto against a United Nations Security Council resolution banning the establishment of any settlements that would change the status quo laid down in the signed agreement.
The peace process is thus, once again, in jeopardy.
This House must firmly condemn the decision taken by the Israeli Government, with the complicity of the United States, and demand compliance with UN Security Council Resolution No 242.
We must call upon the Council to become more involved in the peace process and to use all means at its disposal, including economic and political sanctions, within the framework of the agreement with Israel to persuade the Israeli Government to apply the peace process, respecting the Oslo Agreements and the United Nations resolutions.
Madam President, we are delighted that we have this opportunity of debating this issue today.
We are at a stage in the development of the peace negotiations in the Middle East which is causing great concern.
I am sure there are many who are greatly disturbed to hear that the Israeli Government has decided to go ahead with the building of the settlement in East Jerusalem.
All settlement building, particularly in this sensitive case of Jerusalem, risks damaging the peace process and preempting the final status negotiations that we all want to see concluded in a successful way.
We should urge the Israeli Government, therefore, not to proceed with these plans as we need to get a direction which is more positive.
We cannot expect a positive outcome to some of these negotiations while decisions which are seen to be confrontational are taking place.
Confrontation is not what we want to achieve.
We want to make sure that the peace is re-established and can move forward rapidly.
That is not happening at the present time.
Mr Arafat has decided that he wants to take up the cudgels and combat what he sees as some difficult situations in East Jerusalem.
Furthermore, we see even worse evidence today in the exchange of letters between King Hussein of Jordan and Mr Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel.
That is a very serious development.
If one reads the correspondence as it has been published in some of the newspapers today, we are heading for something really quite serious.
I hope Parliament, therefore, can support the resolution when we come forward.
But this resolution must be well balanced and recognize the fact that there are difficulties on both sides and it is both sides that have eventually to come together and reach agreement.
Madam President, circumstances dictate that I must first express my condolences, on behalf of this House and my group, to the people of Israel, the families concerned, and the government of the country for the terrible incident on the Jordanian border, which has resulted in the death of several Israeli children.
And I do so as a friend of Israel and its people, and as a citizen of a country which has indissoluble ties of guilt with that country and its citizens.
It is precisely for this reason, however, that I wish to make it quite clear that I unreservedly share Parliament's concern and regret at Israel's colonization policy in East Jerusalem, and that I therefore support the demands set out in the joint motion for a resolution.
I should like to take this opportunity to say something personal, as a Christian and a theologian.
Jerusalem is the city of three world religions, and Judaism undoubtedly lies at the root of them all, but I wish to say that the Jerusalem of the twentieth century and, I believe, of future centuries will remain the city of Yad Vashem, the city of remembrance of the most systematically planned and executed attempt at genocide in the history of mankind.
Clearly, therefore, this city must possess a special moral authority within the international community.
However, this moral authority also has political implications, and I would therefore call on the Israeli Government to consider whether its colonization policy in East Jerusalem is in keeping with the moral authority which - for the reasons I have given - this city undoubtedly enjoys within the international community.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Israeli government's decision to create a new settlement in the Arab sector of Jerusalem has regrettably given rise to a deterioration in the Middle East peace process, and we are currently at a delicate and difficult stage.
Like the rest of the European Union's institutions, this House has repeatedly demonstrated its support for dialogue and peace.
Therefore, given our responsibilities as a player on the international scene, this Parliament must urge the parties involved to refrain from taking steps which might lead to an erosion of the confidence needed to pursue the application of the agreements and not to prejudice the result of negotiations regarding the permanent status of Palestine, particularly when, as recently as 24 February last, the European Union signed a provisional association agreement with the Palestine National Authority in which an evaluation is given of the special legal position of the Palestine Authority together with a provisional period identical to the transitional period of autonomy set by the Oslo Peace Agreements.
Our principal concern in the European Parliament, as we have repeatedly demonstrated in this House, must be and has always been the achievement of a lasting and stable peace in the region.
An essential condition for the achievement of peace in the region is strict application of the spirit which prevailed in Oslo, given that dialogue is the only way in which to arrive at a peaceful solution.
On very many occasions the European Union has condemned the settlements in the occupied territories as being illegal under international law, and they constitute a major obstacle to peace.
We have to bear in mind that this decision affects not only political interests, but also human interests - the interests of those citizens who feel themselves under siege and denied the right to free movement in order to carry on the activities of their everyday lives and, principally, to gain access to their place of work.
Dialogue and cooperation between the parties to the Oslo Agreements are, I say again, the only ways in which potential conflict in the region can be resolved.
I would like to conclude by calling upon Mr Arafat and Mr Netanyahu to allow wisdom to prevail and to have recourse to negotiation as opposed to confrontation, for the benefit of their peoples.
Madam President, what is happening at the moment is extremely depressing.
Israeli children have been killed visiting a peace project in Jordan, and Israel's plans to build a new development have put further pressure on the peace process.
There should be no building work, no new intifada by the Palestinians and no declaration of a Palestinian State, since these all undermine the agreements.
With your permission, I should like to make one or two personal comments on the subject of Jerusalem.
East Jerusalem was captured as a result of a major external offensive.
It is a city of great significance to the international community.
Since 1967, it seems, there has been a broad degree of religious freedom throughout Jerusalem.
The Bible mentions Jerusalem 811 times, and Jews throughout the ages used to long to live there.
The Koran, however, makes no mention of Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem question, as I have maintained right from the outset, is a matter for the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Last month, we saw both groups working very positively with each other on two occasions here in Parliament.
Outside intervention serves no purpose: they must sort things out for themselves.
And they will do so, of that I am confident.
Madam President, the compromise motion that we are in some danger of adopting has several defects.
The first is inaccuracy.
Israel could fairly be accused of excessive respect for the Oslo Agreements and of standing by the letter of those agreements, but not of violating them.
Now, this kind of inaccuracy gives the impression that we favour one faction rather than the other, whereas impartiality is what is needed.
Not only that, but this one-sided view is combined with dangerous short-sightedness, because developing a fixation with one point of a complex process where there are extremely difficult political equilibria to be respected on both sides is to miss the overall logic and consistency of that process and the difficulties which have to be faced both by the Palestinian leader and by the Israeli Government.
Madam President, peace is like a great painting: viewed from close up it breaks down into blobs of colour, but the aesthetic dimension requires a longer view, and then we see that there are sometimes areas of shadow that bring three-dimensionality and colour to the whole.
Madam President, Israel's plans to build a major Jewish district in Jerusalem, Har Homa, are coming under fierce criticism.
From a psychological point of view, the decision is admittedly not very wise, but in legal terms, there is little that can be said against it.
The Oslo agreements do not prohibit the development of a residential district such as Har Homa, they simply specify that the legal status of Jerusalem will not be changed without a definitive agreement on the subject between Israel and the Palestinians.
Building work does not affect the official status of Jerusalem.
We must also remember that the building plans are not an isolated incident, but mark the continuation of the policy of successive Israeli governments to surround East Jerusalem with a ring of Jewish districts.
The background to this decision is the fact that during the Six-Day War in 1967, West Jerusalem was bombarded from the surrounding hills.
We must also remember that the view is still widely held in Israel that Jerusalem will always be the indivisible capital of the State of Israel.
After the initial optimism regarding the Hebron agreement, the peace process appears to have ground to a halt.
However, the very fact that the agreement was reached made it clear that the Netanyahu government was able to overcome the divisions of opinion in Israel about the peace process.
It was adopted by a surprisingly large majority of 87 to 17 in the Knesset, and there were hardly any protests against it.
But we should not forget how careful the Israeli Government is going to have to be, now that the negotiations with the Palestinians have entered a phase where a number of sensitive issues such as the status of Jerusalem have to be resolved.
However, there are also more and more developments on the Palestinian side which are presenting problems for the talks with Israel.
Contrary to the agreement to resolve problems through direct negotiations, the Palestinian authorities took the issue of the building plans straight to the Security Council, and Mr Arafat's calls to liberate Jerusalem and unilaterally to declare a State of Palestine have cast a pall over the conclusion of the Hebron agreement.
Furthermore, the network of government institutions which the Palestinian authorities are developing in East Jerusalem is actually contrary to the Hebron agreement, and the fact that the process of amending the Palestinian national charter is still not finished is equally unlikely to encourage Israel to trust the Palestinian authorities.
Outsiders little realize what a difficult predicament Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat are in, both in terms of their relations with each other and with regard to their own people.
This being the case, other parties should act with restraint.
It is not likely to help the peace process if the European Parliament constantly interferes in the incidents which regularly occur between Israel and the Palestinians.
Madam President, I should briefly like to ask the House to consider what would have happened if this incident had occurred a few years ago.
We can indeed see from the prudent reaction of the Israeli Government, which declared from the outset that this was an isolated act, that we have moved a considerable way forward.
Secondly, nowhere does it say in the Oslo Agreements that development in a city with a population of 600 000 must be stopped for several decades; nor does it say that houses can only be built for Israelis, and not Palestinians.
Thirdly, I would ask the House to recall its fears when the present government was elected and to consider the progress which has since been made.
We should be highlighting that progress instead of always pointing an accusing finger, not least since the Knesset has so far refrained from criticizing us in the European Union for possible failures in our own area.
, Vice-President of the Commission. (ES) Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Commission fully supports the declaration issued by the presidency of the Union and its Council of Ministers on the very day the Israeli government approved the plans for the building of a new settlement in East Jerusalem.
The Commission regards the settlements in the occupied territories as contrary to international law and as constituting an extremely grave obstacle to the peace process.
The European Union's position regarding the status of Jerusalem is clear and unambiguous: East Jerusalem is covered by the principles of Security Council Resolution 242 in that the acquisition of territory through the use of force is prohibited.
The Union, therefore, cannot and must not agree to East Jerusalem being regarded as part of the territory and sovereignty of the State of Israel.
The Israeli/Palestinian peace agreements explicitly prohibit the building of settlements inside or outside Jerusalem.
In addition, the Union is of the opinion that the fourth Geneva Convention fully applies both in East Jerusalem and in the occupied territories.
The Council of Ministers and the Commission therefore consider the Israeli government's decision as particularly negative and unjustified at a time when the peace process was beginning to pick up again on account of a series of positive steps, such as the agreement regarding the Hebron protocol, the release of Palestinian female prisoners and an increase in the number of Palestinian workers with permits to enter Israel.
I can confirm that the peace process is at a very delicate stage and tension must be reduced. Naturally, the European Commission condemns the dreadful incidents of this morning on the border with Jordan and the regrettable deaths of a group of schoolgirls.
Madam President, this debate on Kosovo is to some extent the continuation of yesterday's debate on Albania.
In fact on that occasion many speakers made it clear that the crisis in Albania could explode throughout the Balkans, particularly in the areas where there is a significant Albanian minority, like Kosovo and Macedonia.
We must reiterate that the Serbian government is pursuing serious and unacceptable repression against the Albanian community of Kosovo and that Community is really experiencing major tension and pressure at the moment.
In fact, although the confrontation in Serbia, which is important for democracy, has fortunately been nonviolent, one repercussion has been an increase in repression against the Albanian people of Kosovo, and what has happened in Albania encourages the tendency to have recourse to arms.
Fortunately the Albanian people of Kosovo have so far preferred to use non-violent methods of passive resistance under the guidance of the leader of the Kosovo Democratic League, Ibrahim Rugova.
But can we expect a situation like that to last for long? It is obvious that such tension can have serious repercussions.
That is why we support action to promote dialogue with the Belgrade government, create the bases for reconstruction of society, and make it possible to open a European Union delegation in Pristina.
Madam President, Kosovo is not an unfamiliar subject in the House.
It has long been a powder keg, and we have drawn attention to this repeatedly.
The easing of the situation in Serbia - if one can call it that - has brought Kosovo back towards centre stage, and that is a good thing.
The people there are becoming impatient.
There is the threat of assassinations by the Kosovo Liberation Army and these cannot be ruled out, even though the leader of the Democratic League is continuing to seek a peaceful solution.
This motion for a resolution also relates to another matter, however, which really cannot be passed over in silence: the conditions in the prisons, which are leading to torture and death, consequences which a delegation from our Parliament has been able to see for itself.
In our motion, we are therefore renewing our call for the release of the prisoners, for freedom of the media, and for the start of a genuine dialogue, with a view to finding a solution for the people of Kosovo who have long been subject to repression.
We are calling on the Serbian Government finally to open the office in Pristina for which we have long been asking and which has already been agreed to by the Commission - and as the UN special rapporteur, our colleague Mrs Rehn, has also requested - to show the people that the European Union is standing by them.
I believe that we should be exerting a great deal more pressure here, in order to make Europe's stance in Kosovo really clear.
Madam President, two factors have changed the situation for the Kosovo Albanians: one is the increasing Serbian oppression, the other the Albanian resistance movement which has now started to execute all those they call collaborators.
The result is that Albanians are caught in the cross-fire from at least two directions.
Another event that most likely will be of consequence to the Kosovo Albanians, although we do not yet know in what way, are the open confrontations and the skirmishes occurring in Albania which is now one of the trouble spots in Europe.
Today's debate and our resolution is really a manifestation of Parliament's wish for the Council of Ministers and the Commission to act.
First of all, we would like to call a conference to discuss the situation in Kosova.
We are looking for analysis units in the treaty which hopefully will be agreed in Amsterdam.
Such a conference may not solve all problems but will demonstrate a desire to analyse the matter better and to find a reasonable solution for Kosova.
Madam President, I can basically endorse what was said by Mrs Lenz, although I must correct one thing.
There is not just a threat of assassinations, they have in fact been carried out, which means that this form of violence has taken place alongside the violence on the Serbian side, in the prisons and so on.
So the first thing we must call for is certainly that this violence should come to an end.
But Mrs Lenz was right to say that Kosovo is a powder keg, and we also have to realize that the Kosovo question can only be solved within the context of the overall situation in Yugoslavia.
I should therefore briefly like to mention the following five points, which seem particularly important to me and to our group.
Firstly, there must be fair and transparent elections, in other words the elections which take place must really offer every person, every party and every section of the population the chance to present their programme and their candidates.
Secondly, there must be media laws, but above all media practices too - and this was brought home to us on our visit to Yugoslavia - which correspond to freedom of the media.
It must also actually be possible for human rights abuses, whether in Kosovo or other areas, to be described publicly and discussed, because there are many citizens who know nothing at all about these, since such matters are concealed from them in many cases or across the board.
Thirdly, the European Union and above all its cities and regions must support the new municipal authorities, thereby signalling that this new democracy also has Europe's full support.
Fourthly, there must of course be full recognition of human rights, in particular the minority rights of all groups.
In this context, I would very much refer to the Hungarian minority.
Lastly, a real solution must be found to the problem in Kosovo.
It is important here to make it clear to all sides: stop the violence, take part in talks, and find a solution within Yugoslavia.
If we are talking here about holding a conference, then all the factions must be prepared to engage in dialogue, and the European Union needs to spell it out to all of them that this dialogue must take place inside Yugoslavia.
We can provide help from outside, but the solution to the problems must be found in Yugoslavia itself.
Madam President, since we are talking about Kosovo, I would like to make a few things clear.
I should not dream of questioning the merits - even the excellence - of the intentions underlying this motion for a resolution, nor of underestimating the gravity of the events taking place in Kosovo because of the two communities living there.
There are four reasons why I personally felt I could not endorse this motion.
First, if words have any meaning, it seems to me inappropriate to refer, as this motion does, to apartheid in connection with Kosovo.
Secondly, I also regard it as inappropriate to exacerbate the ethnic divide by calling for support for Albanian civil society only, whereas it is the entire civilian population in the region that deserves aid and consideration.
Thirdly, our attention is constantly being caught by thousands of human rights violations throughout the world.
Yet always, obsessively, prompted by those who regard it as literally a crusade, Parliament comes back to condemnations of Serbia.
I am not aware that our past resolutions have had any pacifying effect in the Balkans.
Fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, amid countless difficulties, a democratic dialogue seems to be taking place in Belgrade.
Is this any time to obstruct that dialogue and fan the flames of anti-European paranoia in Serbia?
Let us not forget that the day will come when we will have to integrate Yugoslavia into Europe.
Argentina
Madam President, this debate should be looking not just at the problems of the native peoples of Argentina, but at the problems of the entire population.
The native population does of course deserve our attention.
Half a million people are being deprived of the land on which they live, and speculators are pushing them out even further.
This must be stopped, of course, and it is an issue that should be broached in the Union's contacts with Mercosur.
But we must not just consider the native peoples.
Argentina is still carrying the burden of the past, and the legal authorities are still refusing to cooperate fully in investigating all the disappearances during the junta years.
Those who stand up for justice face intimidation and opposition.
The famous 'mothers of the Plaza de Mayo' , the symbol of Argentina's legacy, still do not really know what happened to their children, and they too are being hampered in their quest.
Democracy and freedom of expression are still being covertly undermined in today's Argentina.
Critical journalists have even been killed and newspapers gagged.
Democratic activists have been murdered, and the situation is deteriorating, but the authorities refuse to acknowledge the facts.
Human rights violations must be punished, even those committed by members of the armed forces: they must accept this in Argentina, otherwise there can never be a proper feeling of democracy in the country.
The Union's representatives must draw the Argentine Government's attention to these issues.
Democracy and respect for human rights are the foundations on which relations between the Union and third countries are based, including Argentina.
Madam President, the European Union bases bilateral cooperation on respect for human rights.
The conditionality clauses appearing in the texts of agreements with Latin America have served to consolidate democratic systems and also - and this is a fundamental aspect - to help guarantee the freedoms and rights of citizens.
These conditionality clauses are quite distinct in their philosophy from certification procedures and are, on the eve of the new millennium, the most positive contribution being made, in the context of globalization, to humanize international relations and the expansion of democracy.
If this House is on occasion critical of situations where there are abuses, shortfalls or breaches, such criticism must be understood as a positive contribution aimed at strengthening democracies and defending the weakest against injustice and inequality.
The resolution we are debating today on the problems facing the Mapuche communities aims to make a positive contribution in helping to resolve an acknowledged conflict because, if this conflict did not exist, the Pulmari Interstate Corporation set up a few years ago would not exist either.
The shortfalls detected in this corporation's system of management, the judicial processes open to indigenous leaders and the departure from set objectives through errors in interpretation have given rise to deep concern in social sectors and the Argentine Parliament itself has heard voices raised in favour of amending the regulations governing the corporation.
Lastly, and within the general context of the defence of the human rights and freedoms of all Argentine citizens, we call upon the authorities to remain active and vigilant.
Our Parliament awarded the Sakharov prize to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and maintains close cooperational links with that group of women, the majority of them now old ladies, who are history's record of a time of madness which left thousands of victims and much pain and grief in its wake.
Harmony in Argentine society is being achieved with difficulty but with tenacity.
The problem is not solved by attempting to deny that there are, on occasion, attacks which are, without doubt, perpetrated by minority groups unwilling to accept a pluralistic democracy in which all citizens have a role to play.
Nor is it solved by limiting constitutional guarantees.
Therefore, Madam President, our Group will be supporting each and every one of the paragraphs of this resolution.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, we are all aware of the political will behind your call for the conditions of the clauses in defence of human rights to be complied with when agreements with the Mercosur countries or the one with the Argentine are signed and we condemn once again the three human rights violations already denounced here.
These are the death of a journalist, José Luis Cabezas, in January, when the death of Salvador Aguirre, a defender of human rights, remains unpunished, and there was an attempt to assassinate a friend of his.
We condemn the expulsion of the Mapuche Indians and also the threads made to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
In my opinion, the Commission is in a position to demand the following of the Argentine government: firstly, that the lands, regarding which such suspicion persists, should be returned to the Mapuche indigenous peoples; secondly, that an investigation be started to ascertain the nature of the threats against the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo; and, thirdly, that crime should not go unpunished in Latin America.
What I mean is that if a photo-journalist is assassinated and the murder of a defender of human rights remains unpunished, I am convinced, Mr Commissioner, that you have in your hands the power to put pressure on the Argentine government.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the treatment of the Mapuche in Pulmari by the Argentine Government is illegal and marked by shameful corruption.
It deserves our condemnation, and the fact that this has turned out so weakly in the resolution is only because of the appeasing influence of the PPE Group.
We are concerned about the Mapuche, and we are also deeply disturbed at another sign of growing repression in Argentina.
This involves the press.
In the past, the press has played a crucial role in this country.
I would remind the House of how it revealed the terrible human rights abuses by the armed forces during the military dictatorship, or how it shed light on the scandalous corrupt practices of Argentine politicians and officials.
I am thinking of how it reported on revolts against the government's disastrous economic policy in several provinces of the country, or how it has supported the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who are constantly under threat.
The precondition for all this is freedom of the press.
But that is now in jeopardy.
On 25 January, the photojournalist José Luis Cabezas was killed because he was trying to shed light on the dark and criminal machinations of certain politicians.
We condemn that, and I hope that when President Menem visits Brussels in the coming months, he will clarify these events for us.
Madam President, I would say to Mr Telkämper that there is a difference between lecturing people in a positive and a negative way.
The relations between Europe and Argentina are undoubtedly among the closest that exist between continents, and that is also why every word we say here is interpreted very sensitively in Argentina.
If we are devoting this resolution chiefly to the indigenous peoples, whose very existence had previously been denied, then I would say that in our view that is an entirely good and sensible thing.
It will therefore also have the support of my group.
However, I do not believe that the situation in Argentina is as disastrous as Mr Bertens also portrayed it, but precisely because we are Europeans, because we have many political groups here, we have to exercise a proper influence and actually talk to the Argentines about these matters.
Of course the murder of a journalist is a terrible thing.
Of course it is right to discuss such things as the threats to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo - who incidentally are here nearly every month, and hold talks with us.
My group will only be requesting a separate vote on this paragraph because we do not think it is right in terms of the methodology of the resolution.
But the resolution will certainly have our support.
Women's rights in the world
Mr President, this part-session opened with President Gil-Robles' timely and much appreciated speech on International Women's Day and, a few hours from its close, we turn to the issue of women's rights, focussing our attention on women in countries which do not belong to the European Union.
The European Parliament and the European Union renewed their commitment to them in the debate and resolution passed after the Peking Conference, and the Commission and Parliament have referred to them in the programmes and initiatives in progress.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, we are speaking of women who suffer particular violence linked to the customs of their countries, and, with all due respect to the cultures of those countries, the European Union should contribute to eradicating that violence: I refer to sexual mutilation of such humiliating cruelty that it is difficult to describe; women and children beaten, raped, forced into prostitution and even starved.
Those of you who took part in the meeting yesterday in this Parliament on women refugees' right to health were horrified to hear that women and their children in concentration camps are at direct risk dying of hunger because those who distribute the food - and they are always men - refuse to recognize them as heads of families.
Women are suffering the violence of fundamentalist interpretation of their own religion.
Women are risking their lives in the ongoing struggle by demonstrating publicly against violation of their rights, which are fundamental human rights, as the Peking statement confirmed.
As we commemmorate and celebrate International Women's Day, we should be thinking of our less fortunate sisters with reaffirmed commitment.
The suffering and outrage faced by those women goes far beyond any discrimination and difficulties we European still have to bear on the eve of the third millenium, and we must condemn that and take urgent action against it.
Madam President, wherever it occurs in the world, fanaticism - religious or nationalist - leads to human rights violations and in particular to violations of women's rights.
That is no exaggeration, as we can see from the UN statistics which show that the overwhelming majority of victims of human rights violations are women and children.
Wars and other nationalist or religious conflicts very often lead to the subconscious or conscious suppression of women.
Women are ordered to do certain things, but are prohibited from doing others.
Women must not go onto the streets, women must not receive an education, women must not work, but women must ensure that their men are well looked after.
They are raped and abused and even sexually mutilated.
And all this is often perpetuated by those in power.
A number of things need to be done as a matter of urgency.
Women's rights need to be put higher on the agenda in the Union's and the Member States' international and bilateral relations with countries where these kinds of things occur.
The right to asylum on the grounds of sexual persecution must be recognized, as a vital step towards ridding the world of this problem.
We must work very hard, both here and outside the Union, to have the sexual mutilation of women banned.
That is why it is vital for the UN Human Rights Commission to appoint a special observer to monitor cases of sexual mutilation, so that we can have a clearer picture of what is happening and actually do something about it.
Madam President, a day devoted to women's rights is all very well, but it would be even better if we had any certainty that the European Union would fight all the year round for women's interests, in Europe and elsewhere.
Because, as we know, women are the primary victims of human rights violations, in breach, incidentally, of all international conventions.
So we have a duty to take action to put an end to this discrimination.
Another subject of concern is sexual mutilation.
UNICEF puts the number of female victims of this, worldwide, at 130 million - an enormous figure, and all the more appalling in that it is still rising.
So, contrary to the sometimes deceptive impression that women are becoming better integrated politically, economically and socially, not only is their status not progressing, or not yet progressing sufficiently, but in some cases it is regressing, and to an alarming extent.
First, we must be concerned by the proliferation of these Islamic fundamentalist movements which are reducing women to the status of minors.
In this respect, the situation of women in Afghanistan seems to me particularly detestable.
The Taleban who came to power a few months ago are forbidding them, in the name of the Sharia, to work, to speak in public or to participate in public demonstrations.
The wearing of the veil is obligatory, and adulterous women are stoned, as in the Middle Ages.
So we must react firmly, condemning such activities of course, but also withdrawing all forms of co-operation with Afghanistan until such time as the basic rights of its citizens are once again respected.
Also, the European Union must fight for the immediate, unconditional release of Frédéric Michel and José Daniel Llorente, two French citizens employed by ACF, who were arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned simply for having lunched with some sixty Afghan women.
We cannot tolerate this kind of arbitrary action, or the terror tactics used against these women.
Madam President, a good many points have already been made here with which I entirely agree.
I shall therefore not repeat them all now.
I think that in Afghanistan, there is the worst official repression of women that we are currently aware of in the world as an official policy.
However, this topic is also dealt with in the other resolution marking International Women's Day.
It cannot be made clear often enough how vulnerable women's rights still are in many countries.
The world women's conference in Beijing is over.
Europe should now be in the very front rank of those helping to put into effect the decisions that were secured with great difficulty, in other words to campaign against the trade in women, girls and children, to combat prostitution, child labour and sexual mutilation in traditional societies of a kind that we still see to some extent in Europe, for the most part among emigrants.
Once they have left the family unit, perhaps expelled from it, women are often regarded as fair game, and it is almost inconceivable in our emancipated society how they can be pursued.
However, we do need a cautious approach to help us win these women over to our side, because a society can only change from within.
But we must support this in our contacts with governments, and I hope that Commissioner Marín will do this in particular, since he was once responsible for women's issues here in the European Parliament, in his dealings with the Committee on Women's Rights.
Madam President, we should be hanging our heads in shame that, today, in March 1997, it is necessary to reiterate firmly that the rights of women and of minors (especially minors) are an inalienable, integral and inseparable part of universal human rights.
This only reveals that women and minors are still not yet universally considered to be human beings.
This is just point 1 of our motion for a resolution.
I agree with the reiteration and the firmness, but at the same time I wanted to share with you the shame that I feel.
The preamble to this motion did not paint a full picture.
There is a lot missing, in particular on the social front, in what is independent from religious options and cultural atavism and what results from considering others, of either sex, as bearers of merchandise to be exploited.
Therefore, fortunately, this is just a rather weak show which justifies indignation as well as shame.
Equally vehemently, I would like to express solidarity and condemnations of what we are going to approve.
Not as an act of relieving my conscience but - also! - as a reaffirmation of a determination to fight.
In a practical way.
On a day-to-day basis.
Leyla Zana
Madam President, fourteen months after being awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize, Leyla Zana is still being held prisoner in Ankara, together with three other Kurdish Members of Parliament, for having, in her capacity as an MP, asserted the Kurds' right to their culture.
Leyla would not forgive us, today, for simply referring to her prize and her detention in a spirit of sentimentality.
After meeting her in prison in Ankara and at the time of her trial, I still remember a young woman of incredible strength and determination.
Her struggle is our struggle - the struggle for respect for democracy and universal rights.
Today, she is in prison, and we in the European Parliament can do nothing about it.
We voted - though my group did not - for customs union.
Although I didn't vote for it, I did want to believe in it.
Today, though, we have to acknowledge - with great reluctance - that we were right.
Because from that time onwards violations of human rights in Turkey have escalated.
Today, I am no longer able to visit Leyla Zana, as I used to do before customs union.
We have frozen the agreements, which of course increases the problems faced by the Turks, and human rights are still being treated with contempt in that country - a country which we like to see as being close to Europe but whose government makes no concessions and laughs at Europe.
Let me end by allowing Leyla Zana to speak for herself, in the words she used to me when I visited her in prison in Ankara. 'I am a Kurd and I am defending my identity.
I believe the role of women is very important.
As a woman and as a Kurd, I want this bloodbath to end.
I want it all to end.
My struggle for human rights will advance the cause of democracy in Turkey.
I am clear-thinking, and a price has to be paid for that today.
I am here for the Kurds, and for the Turks as well.'
And I should add that she is there for us, to show us what the dignity of democracy means.
Madam President, the imprisonment of Mrs Leyla Zana epitomizes Turkey's failure to respect freedom of expression.
She has not committed any terrorist crimes, she only said what she thought.
At present, there are three countries which are holding their own Sacharov prize-winners in prison: Turkey, Burma and China.
This puts Turkey, a European country with which we have signed a customs union and maintain close relations, and which is a member of the Council of Europe, in exclusive company.
When is this country going to keep the promises it made to the Union, or at least to the European Parliament when it voted in favour of the customs union?
Four of the six Kurdish members of parliament are still in prison, and should be released immediately.
If Mrs Ciller meant what she said at the beginning of this week about improving human rights in her country, she should start by freeing these four members of parliament and, of course, Mrs Zana.
As a way of solving a problem, imprisoning members of parliament is the most counterproductive.
The Turkish Government must be persuaded to begin talks with the democratic Kurdish organizations.
This is the only way to reach a permanent solution, and the only way in which we can hope to cooperate successfully with Turkey - which is, after all, a European country.
Alois Brunner
Madam President, in this Chamber on 30 January, a few days ago, we debated and voted on what was in my opinion a fundamental declaration on racism, xenophobia and antisemitism, on the opportunity of 1997 - the year against racism.
In 1995 we paid tribute to the 50 years since the Holocaust.
However, today we see the recurrence of some effort to tarnish the memory of the victims and deny that the genocide ever took place.
My compatriots, my Jewish fellow-citizens in Thessaloniki, paid a heavy price in blood during the Holocaust, and one name stands out in connection with the annihilation of Thessaloniki Jews, the name of Alois Brunner.
Recently, articles in the international press have repeated that the war criminal Brunner is still living, and is in hiding in Syria.
The motion which I have the honour to present today on behalf of my political group, asks the Council of the European Union to take specific and energetic action to expose and prosecute Brunner.
Because crimes against humanity cannot be forgotten, and we here must be certain that no war criminal will remain unpunished.
That is the highest symbolism, the vigilance and the sense that we attribute to the year against racism, xenophobia and antisemitism.
Madam President, the personal history of Alois Brunner is a history stained with the blood of innocent people, Jews from Thessaloniki and victims of racism.
It is one more instance of the psychopathy of the Second World War criminals.
While nothing can bring back lost lives, the dispensing of justice is a historical imperative and helps to heal the wounds created by the personal history of Alois Brunner.
For that reason, Alois Brunner must be found, exposed, condemned and punished as an example.
You have before you a motion which the European People's Party supports and calls on you to vote for.
Madam President, the question of whether there is any point in having urgent resolutions is the subject of debate in every committee and working party in the House, but if ever there has been a useful resolution, it is the one tabled by our colleague from the Socialist Group today.
The subject should have come earlier on the agenda.
Brunner was an assistant of Eichmann, who was responsible for the deaths of 125 000 people and for the deportation of Jews from Austria, Greece, Yugoslavia and France.
If Syria is serious about wanting good relations with Europe and showing good will towards the peace process, then it should hand this man over.
Commissioner Marín, you visit this region often, including Syria.
I hope that you will make sure that our wishes are delivered to the right address.
The last known address was 7, rue Hadat, and I expect you to bring a reply back with you.
Boat people
Madam President, this resolution concerns the drowning of 282 immigrants off the coast of Greece on Christmas Day last year.
This was a crime either of omission or, more likely, of commission, when their boat was deliberately rammed and sunk.
There has been no major investigation into this crime against humanity; it has disappeared into a judicial black hole, because the authorities in Greece, Italy, Malta and Egypt - all involved in this passage of illegal immigrants - have largely ignored the problem.
Some of the people who could bear witness to it in fact have been extradited and sent back to India by the Greek authorities and, therefore, are unavailable to provide evidence.
Unfortunately, this is but one incident of many: in 1993 the human rights organization Amsterdam United estimated that 393 people had died trying to enter the European Union.
Illegal immigration is illegal immigration, but it does not imply that the death sentence is available.
What we need and want is coordinated action to track down and prosecute those people engaged in this crime, no matter where they are - whether they are in or outside the European Union.
We need coordinated action by EUROPOL and by EUROPOL via INTERPOL around the world, because until that happens these crimes will continue to be committed and people will continue to suffer the death sentence for merely wanting to travel to the European Union.
Madam President, the episode just mentioned by Mr Ford is one of many episodes which unfortunately occur periodically in the Mediterranean and along its shores.
At the moment there is a criminal racket in illegal transport of migrants, encouraging clandestine immigration.
This racket is also linked to the racket in illegal labour, employed in domestic service, agriculture and construction, but also unfortunately in prostitution.
Women and children are particularly subject to this abuse.
The criminals we are talking about are unscrupulous people and effective action must be taken against them.
For this reason we ask for an investigation into abuses victimizing clandestine workers. We also ask for maximum respect for the human dignity of these migrants and real determination to deal with those who profit from the difficulties and needs of our neighbour peoples.
I think this should be put on the agenda for the EuroMediterranean Conference in Malta on 15 and 16 April.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make a statement of principle: the Group of the European People's Party is in favour of discussing human rights, it is in favour of any violation of human rights being pointed out and punished, and in favour of preventive measures being taken wherever possible to stop such things occurring.
However, the discussion of human rights should not be misused simply to drag into Parliament topics from the left and generally ideological wing of the House, with the aim of scoring political points here and there on various issues.
It should not happen in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, where the left demands such things as the right to health or the right to social security under the heading of 'human rights' , and certainly not as part of the topical and urgent debate.
We are in favour of human rights abuses being pointed out, of targeting the discussion on that point and focusing on it.
The PPE Group will therefore be voting against this motion tabled by Mrs Roth and Mr Ford, because it simply seeks to impose on us here in Parliament an ideological debate on migration policy and police cooperation in Europe and beyond, and ultimately threatens to obscure our main concern - and that of the Union - which is to protect human rights.
I could in fact have cut you off pursuant to Rule 47, Mr Pirker, because you were not speaking on the subject, but engaging in a discussion of principle.
I was pleased that at the end you did nevertheless use the term human rights, which helped me to avoid making such a decision.
That brings us to the end of this debate.
Mr Marín will now speak on behalf of the Commission on all the issues which have featured in the debate.
, Vice-President of the Commission.
(ES) Madam President, I intend to answer all the various points individually. I will attempt to be as brief as possible.
Firstly, on the subject of Kosovo, the situation there is indeed characterized by serious violations of human rights and ongoing frustration of the legitimate political aspirations of Kosovo Albanians, and it continues to be one of the main sources of concern for the European Union in that region.
Given the current state of unrest in Albania, there is a risk that this will become a still greater source of destabilization.
The European Union's position has always been to seek greater autonomy for Kosovo within Yugoslavia's internationally recognized borders.
It has also urged the Belgrade authorities to begin a dialogue with the Kosovo Albanians in the presence of a third party.
However, I regret that I have to say that such efforts have still not borne fruit.
Violation of human rights continues and Belgrade maintains that the status of Kosovo is a purely internal matter. In a similar manner, Belgrade rejects the European Union's request that it also establish a presence in Kosovo.
Full normalization of relations between Yugoslavia and the European Union will be possible only if Belgrade fully respects human rights and the rights of minorities and grants the necessary degree of autonomy.
The European Union will continue to urge the current and future authorities in Yugoslavia to make progress towards that objective, but it will also have to make it perfectly clear to the Kosovo Albanians that it does not support their claims to independence.
Genuine democratization in Yugoslavia would facilitate a solution for Kosovo.
Consequently, the Commission is drawing up a strategy to support democracy, civil society and independent media.
As regards the Argentine, in recent years the European Commission has generally supported efforts by Latin American countries to establish and consolidate genuine democratic states which have respect for human rights.
It will therefore continue to monitor the results of efforts on the part of both civil society and the authorities to continue down the road to justice and the full safeguarding of human rights.
This is an appropriate approach under the terms of both the 1990 bilateral cooperation agreement between the European Union and the Argentine and the more recent agreement signed between the European Union and the Mercosur countries in December 1995, in which it was laid down that one of the common values we share - and upon which our relations must be established - is, in fact, based on respect for human rights.
During the period from 1990 to 1996, the European Commission financed a series of initiatives aimed at developing and consolidating the rule of law, including respect for human rights, the total amount of this being ECU one million two hundred thousand.
Amongst other things, support was given to work carried out in connection with the Association of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who have, as you are aware, benefited from Community aid on several occasions, particularly in the form of assistance in identifying their missing children.
Likewise, we have recently been implementing a very interesting programme in connection with the situation of detainees in Argentine prisons, amounting to a sum of ECU 300, 000.
I have to say that, in this area, we have found the Argentine authorities to be most open in their approach.
More specifically, as regards the indigenous Mapuche communities in the Neuquén region, we share the concern of this House and I am able to inform you that the current situation is as follows: the Argentine government has not rejected political dialogue with the European Commission on this matter, quite the contrary; it has accepted a plan under which, on 15 February this year, the Secretariat for Social Development of the Nation has, in agreement with the Governor of Neuquén and the indigenous communities themselves, set up a committee whose task is to propose a resolution to this conflict within 90 days.
The solution has been a positive one.
I cannot deny that, naturally, the Argentine authorities immediately submitted to us a project for the economic and social development of this region whereby, perhaps via the economic and financial cooperation chapter, it will be possible to achieve the small advances which, ultimately, if we persist in our efforts, will eventually bear fruit.
Finally, in connection particularly with the Wiqui Matacos indigenous communities in the northern region of Formosa, I would like to inform you that the Commission has just approved a cooperation programme worth ECU 5.5 million, also in collaboration with the Argentine authorities.
This means that, independently of the pressure it is possible to apply - to respond to some of your points - it must be acknowledged that the Argentine authorities are cooperating, are allowing us to work and, in the case of the Mapuche people, we have at least entered into a 90-day moratorium period, and, in the case of other minorities, have initiated economic and social development projects which already have concrete form.
Now, the matter of women and the problematical situation of women in Afghanistan.
Naturally, the European Commission fully shares the views of the European Parliament and we believe that the extreme interpretation - I would stress the word 'extreme' - of Islamic law by the Talibans is behind the setting-up of this system which so discriminates against women.
Lastly, there is yet another series of questions relating to the internal situation in Afghanistan where, regardless of the efforts it might be possible to make, it does not appear possible in the short term to work with the Afghan authorities, in political terms, outside the NGOs system owing to the internal situation of that country.
Consequently, I have little to offer you in the form of a concrete solution and can only join with you in condemning the current situation there.
As for Leyla Zana, we have, of course, called upon the Turkish authorities a number of times, urging them to make a significant gesture in the case of Leyla Zana and also in the case of other imprisoned DEP elected representatives.
Some but by no means all have been released, as Mr Bertens has informed us.
We are still calling for an improvement of the human rights situation and for the country to continue with democratic reforms begun at the end of 1995.
Such reforms are essential, particularly since the Turkish government is currently putting itself forward as a candidate for full membership of the European Union.
I am able to tell you that we are aware of the open-minded approach - or at least the announcement of an open-minded approach - on the part of Mrs Çiller in adopting, between now and the end of 1997, a law abolishing remaining obstacles to freedom of speech in Turkey.
This is good news and a positive step forward.
We do not believe that all problems can be solved in this way, but this is the kind of thing we want, namely ongoing and continuous development, albeit one step at a time.
The Commission has also been making representations in connection with the presence of Alois Brunner in Syria, as has the Council of Ministers' troika .
What I am able to tell you is that the Syrian government categorically denies that this war criminal is present on Syrian territory.
There are reports by journalists but, when we requested confirmation at a formal diplomatic level, we were told more than once that this war criminal is not in Syria.
Be that as it may, the Commission naturally shares the view that war criminals must be detained and put on trial.
Now for the matter of the boat people spoken about by Mr Ford and other members of this House - of course, this is nothing more than exploitation of citizens from third countries by criminal networks organizing clandestine immigration!
We are, of course, aware of this problem and agree that trafficking in human beings and working illegally must be combated and that the clandestine networks involved in the transport of migrants must be brought to justice.
Now, three points related to this subject: a number of measures have been taken in connection with the specific subject of trade in human beings for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
In January this year, approval was given to a joint action relating to the typification of the behaviour of traffickers and to improved cooperation between Member States.
A training programme, the STOP programme, has been organized, the aim of this being the exchange of information and training in the campaign against trafficking in human beings and the sexual exploitation of minors.
In December 1996, approval was given to a joint action whereby the mandate of the European Drugs Unit was expanded with regard to trafficking in human beings.
And the Union, the European Drugs Unit, has already commenced work in this field.
Secondly, on the wider question of the criminal networks organizing illegal immigration there is a regular exchange of information within the corresponding Council Working Group, which is called the Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on Crossing of Frontiers and Immigration.
An attempt is being made to review the entire field of offences relating to illegal immigration.
Illegal immigration promoted by criminal gangs and by criminal networks is essentially a crime and, although this may appear trivial, we must direct our attack at the very basis of the organization of such networks if we wish to be effective.
Thirdly, the Council of Ministers has been looking at the problem of illegal working on the part of citizens from third countries and the text approved by the Council of Ministers indicates that illegal trafficking in manpower should be regarded as a crime and be subject to criminal penalties.
Such penalties must be effective and make it possible to block additional benefits or other advantages accruing to employers.
The legislative work being done by Member States and the authorities themselves signifies a major change and, therefore, what we are doing -in connection with a subject Mr Ford is sufficiently familiar with - is also to apply the budget line for the campaign against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism to this subject.
Attempts are being made - an old debate you took part in many, many years ago - to, in some way, draw up a political response.
However, I would say again, according to the data available to the Commission, these are criminal networks which must be viewed essentially from the standpoint of control and, naturally, of criminal and judicial repression.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0197/97 by Mr Morris and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the NonProliferation Treaty; -B4-0221/97 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the Non-Proliferation Treaty; -B4-0229/97 by Mrs Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the revision of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and Nuclear Weapons Convention; -B4-0241/97 by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the Non-Proliferation Treaty; -B4-0253/97 by Mr Alavanos and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Madam President, the development of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, is an enormous threat to the safety of the Union and that of the world.
The European Union has also played an important role in halting the spread of nuclear weapons and in disarmament.
As indicated by the Canberra Commission, no one will be entirely safe until all nuclear weapons are destroyed.
During the nonproliferation conference in 1995 and the inspection conference it was decided to extend the Treaty for an indefinite period.
Parliament is playing a key role in matters concerning nuclear weapons. This does not mean that the agreement runs without supervision or that there are conditions attached to its extension.
The Preliminary Committee will meet in New York on the 7-18 of April.
The work will then begin to bring about a new and effective monitoring of the non-proliferation agreement.
Each step towards nuclear disarmament is naturally an encouragement for the non-proliferation treaty.
Article 6 of the Agreement does in fact stipulate that the nuclear powers should disarm their nuclear weapons.
In our resolution and proposed amendments we have emphasised the importance of the statement from the International Court on the illegality of using nuclear weapons. The Canberra Commission's report on a nuclear free world and the official opinions of the ex-generals and ex-admirals in December 1996 as to the responsibility of the nuclear powers to work in good faith for nuclear disarmament.
These opinions are important contributions for the realisation of Article 6 of the NPT.
We would also like to remind you of the U.N. General Assembly's resolution on the launching in 1997 of negotiations leading to a convention on nuclear weapons.
The resolution asks the Council to present a series of proposals in order to reinforce the NPT and the work of the European Union in conjunction with the NPT conference in New York. These proposals could for example include combined action to be taken jointly to concentrate on the point at issue, the revision of both the agreement and its principles and aims, a new formal system for the reporting of the results achieved and any future proposals for implementing the NPT and finally that the Preliminary Conference in the year 2000 be used only to prepare for the Inspection Conference, so making it possible for the three previous preliminary conferences to discuss the point at issue.
We request that all Member States immediately ratify the test-ban treaty and act together to persuade other states to do the same.
Finally, we ask the Member States to support the negotiations starting in 1997 that could result in an agreement on the elimination of all nuclear weapons.
Madam President, my thanks to Mrs Theorin, who has just expressed my very thoughts on this issue. There are still one or two points I should like to make, however.
We all wish to see progress on nuclear disarmament, and this is why the forthcoming meeting of the Prepcom in New York is so enormously important.
The revision of the NPT could give fresh impetus to the whole process of nuclear disarmament, and the Union played an important role in the conclusion of the NPT in 1995.
The Council must take this new opportunity to bring its considerable influence to bear by speaking with one voice in the negotiations, and by seeking compromises between the two extremes.
That is why we have urged the Dutch presidency, through Mr van Mierlo, to give this issue its closest attention.
The Union must make every effort to ensure that the revision conferences are well structured and effective by focusing them on evaluating how far countries keep the promises they make during the international negotiations.
The first task is therefore to ratify the CTBT and to introduce measures to ensure that it is implemented as widely as possible.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the joint motion for a resolution which has been tabled by six groups contains nothing that we have not been saying for a long time already.
Parliament is thereby closing its eyes to the latest developments.
There is no doubt that nuclear weapons are being internationally shunned.
Maintaining the nuclear threat, let alone planning for a first strike, is now even being rejected by the generals, because it has no strategic advantages but would bring endless suffering to mankind and the environment for generations to come.
1997 is a year of major steps towards nuclear disarmament.
At the Clinton-Yeltsin summit, far-reaching proposals on the dismantling of strategic nuclear arsenals will be on the agenda.
Parliament must insist that France and the United Kingdom take an active and serious part in these disarmament efforts and proposals.
If it wishes to be credible, Parliament has a responsibility to prevent the Non-Proliferation Treaty from being furtively undermined in the harmonization of the common foreign and security policy.
It has a responsibility to call for negotiations on disarmament now, and to ensure that the capacity of France and Germany to act is not suddenly Europeanized and furtive talks with Germany or attempts to create de facto situations at the FrancoGerman summit do not become the norm.
Do you not think, ladies and gentlemen, that it is worth campaigning for a nuclear-free Europe, as a symbol of a Europe which is at peace?
Madam President, I think we should be talking about civil nuclear disarmament as well, because according to information published recently in the press there are nuclear power stations that cause pollution only at low tide.
That's just one example among many.
In Japan, too, it has been noted just recently that the civil nuclear installations were quite dangerous.
So I am not going to focus on military applications.
I am very glad, though, that Commissioner Marín had the patience to stay with us a few minutes longer because when it comes to disarmament an important problem involves bringing in India and Pakistan.
India, in particular, has a neighbour which is not exactly a shining example of democracy but is powerfully armed: the People's Republic of China, a member of the Security Council and one of the nuclear powers which, broadly speaking, determine the speed of disarmament.
It is absolutely essential to include India, which has major security problems, including 30, 000 km2 of territory still occupied by the People's Republic of China, and which is in no condition to negotiate and guarantee its security.
As Mr Marín has responsibility for that part of the world, I hope he will find an opportunity to take some appropriate action.
Madam President, I would say to the last but one speaker that Germany has no nuclear weapons, does not wish to have any, and will not have them.
I should just like that to be noted.
As a member of the Committee on Development, I see with some concern that it seems possible that certain countries are making the possession or development of nuclear weapons into a kind of status symbol, so we do need to look particularly critically at the course of events with regard to the newly industrialized countries.
We have to rely on the good will of all those who sign such non-proliferation and test ban treaties.
But we never have any means of ensuring compliance with these treaties.
I therefore welcome the statement in the joint motion for a resolution that greater efforts are needed in this direction, and that countries must be enabled genuinely to accept agreements of this kind on test bans and non-proliferation.
Madam President, Enrico Fermi wrote that anyone who is not afraid of nuclear energy is not normal.
He was implicitly stating that fear is a common heritage and collective fear is therefore normal.
People want to escape this situation and ask for protection from nuclear fear.
The means are now available and offered to us by the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which is strengthened by the agreements already signed on review times and by the disarmament principles and objectives.
But we are asking the Council to put the necessary pressure on Member States to ratify the treaty preventing nuclear experiments as well, and to intervene with those countries which have not yet complied with the nuclear moratorium, and indeed to provide for possible suspension of existing cooperation agreements.
, Vice-President of the Commission. (ES) Madam President, on the eve of the first meeting of the Preparatory Committee in the strengthened review process of the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty, which will be taking place in New York from 7 to 18 April 1997, I am able to inform you that the Commission is of the understanding that the European Union will do its utmost to play a constructive role at this meeting in order to obtain positive initial results and to put back on the right road, from the very beginning, the new review process of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
With this in mind, the Commission is of the opinion that all the Non-Proliferation Treaty rights and obligations must be reviewed without exception since the Treaty is the cornerstone of the international non-proliferation mechanism.
The decision adopted in May 1995 on the principles and objectives of non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament is an important document for evaluating application of the NonProliferation Treaty and the European Union wishes to take maximum advantage of what is offered by an improvement in the review process.
As for the specific questions Mr Dupuis put to me, my impression is that, after having accompanied various troikas to the countries you mentioned, I do not, in the short term, envisage any significant movement on the part of any of the parties you mentioned.
Naturally, however, the European Union's position has been openly presented.
I am certain, finally, that members of the European Union will take the objective of this resolution into account, since it is virtually along the same lines: when embarking upon the second review process, the objective is to review effectively and without exception all - I repeat - all the rights and obligations deriving from the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Naturally, this is a recommendation the European Union will make, but I will not hide from you the fact that debate on this specific question will always be very, very difficult and complex.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has taken a firm, clear and determined position to condemn the policy of violating human rights pursued by the Iranian authorities - including the persecution against Salman Rushdie, which are quite obvious successive violations of human rights, which are quite obvious at the Sarqi prison, which are quite obvious in international terrorism, which may be inspired by the Iranian Government.
We are condemning and quite clearly setting out our position.
However, through this resolution we wish to manifest our solidarity with the people, because our fight, our criticism, is not of population but of the government concerned. We should launch an appeal so that, through humanitarian organisations, we can offer all of the conditions of solidarity to the people themselves who are victims of this recent earthquake.
Madam President, Mozambique, the Azores and Iran have each suffered from a natural disaster, and I should like to express my own sympathy and that of my group with the families of the victims and those who have suffered.
It goes without saying that we fully support the aid to be provided there by the Union.
However, Madam President, I should also like to express my own regret and that of my group at the fact that no agreement has been reached on adding the Algerian situation to the list of emergencies.
Although this is not a natural disaster where we could bring aid, I do regard terrorism as a disaster, and one which unfortunately certainly exists in Algeria.
The suppression of freedom of expression, violations of human rights and terrorism are everpresent in Algeria, and I cannot share the optimism of Mr Ataf, whom we heard this morning claiming that the elimination of terrorism is just a matter of time.
When speaking on this subject previously, I stressed the fact that the press is muzzled in Algeria.
Well, silence perpetuates oppression.
The press must be given back its voice, because it is being subjected to fundamentalist violence and governmental pressure.
Every time the Algerian authorities are accused of human rights violations, they react with indignation.
There is no doubt about one thing: but for international solidarity, the independent press would long since have disappeared in Algeria.
In conclusion, Madam President, I deplore the fact that the European Parliament has still not defined any clear position regarding the Algerian problems.
Observer status at the forthcoming elections would result in increased commitment by the European Union, but, unfortunately, we have not yet been invited to attend.
I venture to hope that the Algerian Government will review its position and that we shall be able to continue working together calmly and dispassionately.
You have completely confused me, because you did not speak on any of the subjects on the agenda.
Storm in the Azores
Madam President, last December the Azores were assailed by violent storms which provoked terrible damage especially on the islands of São Miguel, Graciosa and Flores, while the harbour at Punta Delgada and the population of the Povoação district were the worst hit.
Fortunately there were no deaths.
But the estimates for the cost to rebuild and repair the damage exceed 13, 000 million escudos.
If it were not for the prompt action by the Portuguese Government and the Government of the Autonomous Region of the Azores and the solidarity of the communities in the islands, Christmas for these European citizens would have been much sadder.
The fact that this is an ultra-peripheral region, where people are faced not only with isolation and structural backwardness but also frequent damage caused by storms, means that perhaps now we should set up a special fund aimed at dealing with this type of situation.
After all, this is not the first time this has happened, and there are even plans in the new guidelines of the Community INTERREG Initiative to cover natural disasters, floods etc.
On 19 December, I sent a letter to the President of the Commission calling for Community support for the Azores.
I must thank Mr Santer for his positive reply, which informed me of an extra 26 million ECU to repair public and farming infrastructures on the islands.
We hope that we will see further signs of this willingness to support the needs of the peoples of the Azores.
Despite this we have decided to present once again this motion for a resolution whose approval we hope will show European solidarity with the people and the regional government of the Azores and support enshrinement in the Treaty of a special scheme to deal with and help ultra-peripheral regions of the European Union.
It is not our habit to turn people's suffering into an act of demagoguery.
At the European Parliament and in the Azores, the reason behind our proposal is to help our fellow-citizens.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I come from the Azores.
Of course, I did all I could to make sure that this issue should be the subject of the European Parliament resolution.
This was justified given the extent of the damage done and the need to continue programmed investment.
I did not succeed in having this put on the agenda of the part-sessions of January or February and these storms took place back in December.
There are signs that some people seem to think that my position in the Azores was more important than having this resolution passed.
I therefore resolved to back the initiatives taken by others and back it even though, in this case, the text of the resolution is completely innocuous.
It is important, very important, that this text should be approved, in the end and despite everything.
The interests of the people concerned should always come before meaningless one-upmanship.
I hope that it will be the beginning of a new position in the future, where the people themselves are more important than other issues.
As for the situation of the Azores, there is a lot to be done.
We really must get humanitarian aid to the families concerned and it is vital that we add to the support already given.
Portugal can resort to the Cohesion Fund in order to finance investment in the fields of transport and the environment.
Inexplicably, to date, since the Cohesion Fund was launched, it has never been used for the Azores.
Finally, it is fundamental to ensure direct support by the European Union to farmers who have lost their crops.
And yet there is no proposal on this!
Madam President, obviously I am also behind the people of the Azores after what has happened and on this matter we have already presented and formulated a particular type of process, but the reason I am speaking before you today is because of another situation, a recent event which took place in Mozambique.
This is a situation which has arisen after terrible floods which have had tragic consequences: dozens of dead, some 400, 000 homeless, 25, 000 of whom are trying to find refuge in neighbouring countries, crops destroyed, infrastructures destroyed, problems of a possibility of epidemics, in particular of cholera and malaria, in other words a truly tragic situation, particularly important when we bear in mind that this is a very poor country.
That is why I am here today and I think we should bear in mind the assessment which has been carried out by the Mozambican Government of damage, something around 30 million US dollars, and therefore I would like to ask the Commission to take action on this matter and also - since the Commission is here, to give us an idea about the possibilities of taking action in this field in general.
, Vice-President of the Commission. (ES) Madam President, regarding Iran, the Commission naturally shares the concern of this House for the victims of the earthquake which struck the province of Ardebil in Northern Iran.
There have been requests from the humanitarian aid department of the United Nations, the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent and we have at this time placed ourselves at the disposal of these organizations, through ECHO, and are offering to do all we can on behalf of the European Union to coordinate aid, above all for the earthquake victims.
Up to now, we have had no concrete response either from the United Nations, the Red Cross or the Red Crescent, but as soon as one is received, our response will obviously be a positive one.
As regards the Azores, a first consideration is this: the meteorological system of all Member States is sufficiently advanced and the problem is not predicting major downpours or hurricanes, because you are all well aware that hurricanes, typhoons, periods of extremely cold weather and rain can perfectly well be predicted.
The problem is that human beings are unable to stand up against nature when it is unleashed and it is therefore impossible to prevent catastrophes which are therefore referred to as natural disasters.
I can confirm to you that the Commission has already taken a decision to earmark ECU 26 million for the Azores operational programme, within the Community framework of aid for Portugal, which means that de facto solidarity has been established between the metropolitan peninsular area of Portugal and the government of the Azores because, finally, a transfer of internal income from the continental part of the country to the islands is now taking place.
We believe this is a good and positive step targeted specifically at assisting victims of the disaster.
As for the floods in Mozambique, our delegation is perfectly up to date with the situation in the regions in central Mozambique affected by the floods.
The Maputo delegation is in contact with non-governmental organizations present in the region.
Regarding potential action by the European Union, we will be able to act straight away since we have compensation funds available in Maputo and equipment which can be mobilized immediately to alleviate, in addition, problems which arise for the affected population.
The only thing both our delegation and ECHO are telling us is that it will be necessary to wait for the waters to recede before a proper evaluation of the situation can be made.
This is not, therefore, a problem of financial resources - the financial resources exist - but simply one of whether or not it is possible to work out in the field.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Did you have something further to say, Commissioner?
, Vice-President of the Commission. (ES) We have finished ten minutes early.
I shall therefore now suspend the sitting.
We shall begin the votes at 5.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.20 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Votes
Madam President, I would just like to recommend that the House adopt this amendment, provided that a reference is added to the Committee of Inquiry into the Community transit system, as well as that on BSE.
I was hoping that the rapporteur would delete the last three words.
These are guidelines for the 1998 budget and the last three words are: ' and subsequent budgets' .
We really should not be voting on those three words.
It would be far better if those three words were deleted and if the rapporteur could take that on board.
. (DE) I agree with the Socialist Group, Madam President.
(Applause and isolated heckling) - on paragraph 37
Madam President, before we vote on this paragraph, I ask you in your capacity as President to make a decision to declare the end of this paragraph inadmissible.
The Commission of the European Union is the guardian of the Treaties.
We can hardly ask it to violate them.
But we are now asking it to present to us, before the end of this year, a plan for the creation of what is literally a European Foreign Service.
Indisputably, no provision of the Treaty allows such a service to be set up.
So this part of the paragraph is not admissible.
We knew of course that this problem would be raised.
The services responsible have considered this question and the paragraph is in fact admissible.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to give a very warm welcome to the members of a delegation from the standing committee of the Land of Baden-Württemberg, who are visiting Parliament and have taken their seats in the official gallery.
I should note that this meeting forms part of the exchanges on European media policy and the exchange of information between our institutions.
I sincerely hope that this meeting will be a very fruitful one, especially as regards relations between the European Parliament and the regional parliaments of our Union.
Votes (continuation)
The first Tillich report was absolutely unacceptable since the objectives of the Treaties concerning solidarity and economic and social cohesion were completely absent from it.
Similarly, the principles set out, such as that of subsidiarity, which in practice means translating a rejection of social policies, sent back to national level, and the re-nationalization of common policies, or indiscriminate cuts in all budgetary chapters, were unacceptable.
Thanks to almost 140 amendments tabled and the excellent work carried out by the Committee on Budgets, we are now faced with a much more sensible, balanced and pro-European report.
The main reasons which have led me to vote in favour of this report, in its new form, are:
the clear and systematic affirmation of the principle of economic and social cohesion; -the elimination of any reference to subsidiarity; -the express consideration that the Structural Funds make an important contribution to strengthening the economies of beneficiary regions and helping Member States to meet the convergence criteria and that the revision of regulations, to be presented by the end of 1998, heads in the direction of rationalisation and increased efficiency; -the condemnation of the negative attitude of the Council in relation to social policy (compulsory approval by unanimity) and the decision to include pilot projects on social exclusion, the elderly, the disabled and families, as well as strengthening activities designed to help with the execution of a sexual equality policy; -the willingness of the European Parliament to make an active contribution to setting up at European level a general policy to combat organised crime; -the importance of making budgetary allowances for the new needs of European citizens and promoting in practice the creation of jobs, both directly and by means of support to small and medium-sized undertakings.
One of the good things about the Tillich report is that it focuses on a small number of priorities for the 1998 budget.
The emphasis on helping small and medium-sized firms is particularly welcome, since this is where the greatest potential lies for creating jobs.
On the other hand, I think it is wrong to include in the priorities a number of youth, education and culture programmes, which are all areas where European policy should not encroach on the Member States' responsibilities.
The report also rightly criticizes the growing gap between commitments and payments under the Structural Funds.
The amount of unused appropriations has grown into tens of billions since 1986, and the ceiling for appropriations that was agreed at Edinburgh was manifestly too high.
Many projects do not meet the Commission's criteria, and there is also the fact that each Member State has to match at least half of the European subsidy provided, so that in years of budget discipline, the system is clearly much less successful.
The budget amounts should at least be based on realistic expectations.
Finally, there is agricultural spending, where strict budget discipline is also needed.
I do not agree with paragraph 10 of the Tillich report, which urges that savings should be made by changing the regulations.
In 1992, it was decided to have a programme which shifted support from prices to incomes, and this was completed in 1995.
However, the Union will now have to bear the budgetary consequences of this decision, and direct income support is now a heavier burden on the European budget than price support ever was, as we can see from the enormous increase in spending in the cereals sector.
Then there are the extra income allowances that were introduced to compensate for lower prices: if these are now to be axed, as the Commission proposed in the prices package for 1997-1998, it will mean reneging on the Commission's earlier promises.
The report attempts to use the current BSE crisis to justify reducing incomes in the cereals sector, but BSE is a one-off problem, whereas the reduction in the extra income allowances is likely to be permanent.
All things considered, I decided to vote against this report.
On the Kittelmann report (A4-0031/97)
Ever since antiquity, close cultural and historic ties have existed between Armenia and a number of European countries.
Also, the existence of large communities of Armenian origin in some Member States, including France, calls for a closer partnership between the European Union and Armenia.
Armenia, the smallest of the republics making up the former USSR, long since undertook economic and democratic reforms.
However, in a region as unstable as Transcaucasia, this landlocked country has been exposed to intolerable economic pressure from its neighbours Turkey and Azerbaijan.
As the rapporteur emphasizes, the economic embargo imposed on Armenia because of the conflict in Nagorny Karabakh must be lifted without fail!
Although the growth of the Armenian economy has been facilitated by the cease-fire since May 1994, the political instability of the region is having many adverse effects on the country.
The new Partnership and Co-operation Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Armenia, concluded for a period of ten years, is intended to promote economic and social reforms and the restructuring of the economic and trade systems.
Hitherto, Armenia has not really been the main concern of the European Union.
The change of attitude by the Member States thus indicates the dawning of a new period of co-operation between the European Union and Armenia.
The Greens regard the implementation of the PCA with Armenia at this stage as a serious mistake, and were therefore unable to vote in favour of it.
We approve of close relations between the EU and Armenia, but Armenia is still in a state of war with Azerbaijan.
The peace talks are not making progress.
The OSCE's call for the moves towards a peaceful settlement to be stepped up - on the basis of OSCE principles and with the key requirement of an autonomous region with the maximum degree of self-government within the internationally recognized borders of Azerbaijan - was not accepted by Armenia.
The talks on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh have since come to a complete standstill.
Linking the implementation of the PCA to a peace agreement would not only have given the necessary impetus to the peace negotiations, but possibly also have led to them being swiftly concluded.
The majority in Parliament has declined to see this opportunity, and has casually loosed its grasp on an important instrument of legislative potential within a CFSP.
In the draft texts produced by the IGC, Parliament's legislative rights with regard to international agreements should be drastically curtailed.
Perhaps things have to reach that point for the House to realize how important such apparently minor contributions can be for peace in Europe, and what far-reaching effects they can have.
The Greens are also critical of the fact that the Council has incorporated a so-called repatriation clause in the text of the PCA, thereby linking economic cooperation to the repatriation of refugees, without the necessary conditions for this existing in the country.
On the Schwaiger report
The Greens regard the implementation of the PCA with Azerbaijan at this stage as a serious mistake, and were therefore unable to vote in favour of it.
The Green Group approves in principle of a PCA with Azerbaijan, and sees this - if it is implemented on the basis of partnership - as a valuable aid to the conversion process, to the extent that the EU assistance is geared to the real needs of the region and not just provided for reasons of self-interest.
However, the fact that Azerbaijan is still in a state of war with Armenia and that a front line runs through the middle of the country excludes 20 % of it from participating in the benefits of this aid.
That is why there must first be a peace agreement with Armenia which includes the lifting of all regional economic blockades.
This also means, however, that Azerbaijan's interest in an attractive proposal for self-government for Nagorno-Karabakh, on the basis of internationally recognized principles, must be brought to the negotiating table without delay, and the negotiations thereby taken forward.
Given the dramatic situation of expulsions in Azerbaijan and the absence of a proper rule of law, both in terms of fair jurisdiction and civil rights, the linking of the so-called repatriation clause to the cooperation agreement is both unreasonable and incompatible with the UN convention on refugees.
The Greens would criticize the Council for creating an unjust form of linkage here, shaped by its own interests in securing demarcation.
We doubt that things can be dealt with quite so simply when it comes to the settlement of conflicts.
There is still a broad gulf between intentions and actions in Europe's foreign policy in terms of achieving peace on the continent.
On the Chesa report
Preparation for UN General Assembly Special Session of June 1997
The next item is the report (A4-0083/97) by Mrs Dybkjær, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission entitled: ' a common platform: guidelines for European Union preparation for the United Nations General Assembly Special Session to be held in New York in June 1997 to review Agenda 21 and related outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992' (COM(95)0569 - C4-0656/96).
Madam President, just in the last few days, two clear examples from the heart of Europe - Paris and La Hague - have shown that the world is a long way from sustainable development.
The first example is the warning signals which are now being posted in Paris.
If the pollution becomes just a little worse, cars will only be allowed on the roads in Paris every other day.
The second example is the escape of radioactivity at La Hague.
In other words, we have car pollution on a scale which we used to think was reserved for places such as Mexico City and, at a pinch, Athens, which is after all a long way away - with apologies to Greece.
The pollution has now struck deep into Europe's central nervous system, just as the escape from the processing of nuclear waste is of a scale which we used to think was reserved for the former Soviet Union.
It is against this background that we should view today's report, which deals both with how we should put our own house in order and move towards sustainable development, and how we should bring our influence to bear on the international stage.
Having made these introductory comments, I should like to thank the members of the committee and also the Committee on Development for their work on this subject.
I am pleased that there has been such a broad measure of agreement on an approach which seeks to tighten up the negotiating proposals put forward by the Council and the Commission.
Clearly, this gives added weight to the European Parliament, and that is badly needed.
I was present at Rio in 1992, and I remember well what the atmosphere was like when the conference came to an end.
There were certainly no wild scenes of jubilation - the results were not far-reaching enough for that - but there was a certain satisfaction at the adoption of Agenda 21, and that sustainable development had thus been put on the global agenda.
The mere fact that the countries promised each other that they would work positively towards sustainable development was a step forward in itself.
Now, five years later, we unfortunately have to ask ourselves if the world's leaders had their fingers crossed behind their backs when they delivered their promises.
As already illustrated by my opening comments, things are still moving in the wrong direction in a number of areas.
We shall not have to foot the bill for this, but will pass it on to future generations, who will have to pay it with compound interest added.
It is becoming more and more expensive to achieve sustainable development, the longer we wait to take action.
The first task of UNGASS must therefore be to make clear the seriousness of the situation and to put sustainable development back at the top of the international agenda.
At the same time, it should be stressed that we do not need prophets of doom.
We should recognize the progress which has been made, in spite of everything: no one should be led to think that the task is so great that this is not of any use.
That only leads to paralysis.
We should be forward-looking, which means that we should be constructive, purposeful and realistic.
Ultimately, this is a question of political will, and it is appropriate for us to start by showing some of this ourselves.
In practical terms, this means that the European Parliament has laid down a limited number of key priorities, which show where we ourselves should take action, where the world must take action in the first instance, and what we therefore expect as regards the final outcome of UNGASS.
The EU has a very special responsibility which we are not fulfilling at the moment, neither internally nor externally.
Internally, we are still a long way from sustainable development.
Clearly, our international negotiating position is weakened if we are unable to put our own house in order.
We need to tackle this, for example by revising the fifth action programme on the environment.
Externally, the EU has not supported the developing countries to an adequate extent.
The other rich countries certainly have not done so either, indeed they are actually worse than us, but that is no excuse.
It is incredible that only three of the Member States are fulfilling the Brundtland report's recommendation that at least 0.7 % of GNP should be donated in development aid.
The most important thing for the developing countries, however, is for them to be integrated into the international economy.
Sustainable development is not only about the environment, as the rich countries might otherwise seem to think.
It is also about creating reasonable conditions for the developing countries to move forward.
The aim is to improve the partnership between the rich and poor countries in order to encourage sustainable development.
Such a partnership can only be successful if we recognize that different parts of the world have different problems.
In our part of the world, the problem is overconsumption.
In others, it is called survival.
If leaders from all over the world are still meeting at these international conferences, it is because there is coming to be an understanding that we live in a world of common fate.
Our task now in UNGASS is therefore to evaluate, to reassess, to revitalize - speaking more figuratively, to give the process a kick in the pants.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the PPE Group supports the report by Mrs Dybkjær on the subject of sustainable development.
Unfortunately, the Rio Conference has so far produced very few really positive results.
This situation has to change, and I am pleased to say that we agree on that here in the House.
For example, if the production of CO2 continues throughout the world as indicated in the last five years, the result will be an economic, humanitarian and environmental disaster.
The argument which is often put forward - that the European Union is not in a position to solve this problem throughout the world, because of course we are not responsible for all the CO2 emissions, and there are high rates of increase in India or China, for example - is unacceptable, although it is a comfortable argument if one wishes to do nothing.
If we, as major industrialized nations, cannot manage to reduce our emissions of CO2 and other harmful substances, then those who are campaigning for environment policy in the newly industrialized and developing countries will have no chance of success.
We must therefore act as a positive role model, and more should be done in this respect.
At the same time, however, we must act intelligently.
I always put it dramatically and say that we do not need to go back to living in caves, but must use modern technology to cut down on CO2 and other harmful substances.
Only then can we be a real model, because the people in the developing countries would also like to achieve prosperity, and we have to show that - with modern technology - sustainable development, prosperity and conservation of the environment are all possible.
I believe - and once again this is a very current issue, which was discussed yesterday by the Commission - that fiscal measures are also needed for this purpose.
The Commission's proposal for an energy tax is a weak one, but it is at least a step in the right direction, and the European Union should at last begin to take some action here!
Madam President, the European Union has so far been principally an organisation for trade, economy, markets and competition.
This is good, but it is now time for environmental issues, social questions and employment to move up on the agenda, partly because this is necessary for world development and partly in order to strengthen our relationship with the general public and to increase their confidence in the EU.
This is an excellent report and a good example of how these questions can be raised.
I myself had an opportunity of visiting Rio de Janeiro in 1992 during the U.N. conference on the environment and development.
I was not in any way representing the Government, but a non-state organisation, Stockholm County Council, plus an environmental organisation called 'the People's Campaign Against Nuclear Power in Sweden' .
The whole experience was fantastic and left me with an urge to achieve something positive.
I believe that the conference was a breakthrough, although mainly in terms of public opinion.
The actions taken as a result of the conference were however rather poor.
In many areas the development has in fact gone backwards, some of these areas being the ones raised in Rio; the question about biological diversity and the climate.
This must be changed!
The report reveals many beneficial proposals that must be carried out if we are to produce a credible environment policy for the world around us.
Let me take up some examples and their positive aspects: Agenda 21 has been introduced by many countries.
As an example I can mention that this program has been tried by the Swedish communities for every individual citizen to be able to work with environmental questions locally.
We have accepted Agenda 21 for the Baltic Sea and have made some progress in our work.
As mentioned in the report, we must also raise the level of our ambitions prior to the conference in New York.
The EU i.e. our Member States, must also set a good example, so that we at least can fulfil the minimum requirements of the environmental directives which we ourselves have adopted.
Our concern for the environment must be incorporated in all areas from transport to energy, consumption, trade and the contact with developing countries.
The proposal for binding international legislation and an environmental court is very good.
I would also like to emphasise the following things: Alternative fuel, bioenergy instead of nuclear power, extended environmental labelling and manufacturer's product responsibility - all this will simplify environmental choices for the individual person which is the best method of improving the environment.
The question of a carbon dioxide tax must be resolved and we must also ensure that procurement is carried out with regard to environmental issues by the communities, the county councils and by nations.
The European Union can become a powerful instrument in pushing forward environmental improvements within the EU and in the world at large.
This is an excellent report.
It is now up to us to make this work successfully.
Madam President, in truth, I am unaccustomed to speaking for four minutes, so I don't know if I will be able to use them up.
We agree with the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, with Mrs Dybkjaer's report and the amendments that other Groups have tabled.
She herself recommends modifications to her report which also improve the text at the end.
We are in agreement with some significant aspects of her report.
Firstly, she states that it is indeed true that there have been positive results since the 1992 Rio Summit, for example the Climate Change Convention and the Biological Biodiversity Convention.
However, the following is also true, namely that we are further away now from genuine sustainable development than we were in 1992.
And it is also true that the European Union must take a very active part in the forthcoming United Nations Summit.
As she herself says, we probably lack the credibility we ought to have, since the objectives the European Union set itself in Rio have not been achieved.
Perhaps it should be remembered - this is an extremely significant debate taking place within the Committee on the Environment - that it will be very difficult if not impossible to succeed in limiting CO2 emissions at their 1990 level.
The Commission itself acknowledges that they cannot be limited - they will only increase.
There is also a call for the environmental aspects to be integrated into the Treaty.
This, for us, is a fundamental aspect.
For many years there have been calls for environmental policy to be common to all European policies: agricultural policy, industrial policy, economic policy, etc., but this is not how things are, integration has not yet been achieved.
We therefore agree with what the rapporteur says about the need to have specific objectives, to state precisely what these objectives consist of and the fact that there should be a proper plan aimed at achieving them.
I would not like to end without emphasizing something extremely important in the report which was key to the Rio Summit and is still key today.
By this, I mean the failure to transfer resources from the developed to the developing world.
The rapporteur herself quotes figures in her report which are truly illustrative, stating that, in 1990, the richest 20 % of the world's population enjoyed 30 % more income than the poorest 20 % and that, in 1995, this percentage had doubled, the income difference between the poorest and the richest populations being 60 %.
Therefore, if we do not achieve progress in this direction, it will be very difficult to fulfil the Rio objectives and to renew commitment to them at the forthcoming United Nations Summit.
In short, I hope that, tomorrow, Mrs Dybkjaer's report will be approved at voting time, because this will constitute a platform document enabling the European Union to adopt a united front at the forthcoming UNGASS Summit, this being the next summit to review, restore order to and give new impetus to the Rio objectives.
In truth, if we were to look at the contents of Mrs Dybkjaer's report in all its minute detail, we would have to devise a different economic and consumer-oriented model because, if the developed world does not reduce its level of consumption and does not help the developing world increase its own level of consumption to survival levels, it will be very difficult to impart renewed vigour to these objectives.
I believe that the European Union, together with the Non-Governmental Organizations and local and regional authorities, has to play a fundamental role at the forthcoming United Nations Summit.
Madam President, the Green Group also congratulates Mrs Dybkjær on her report, which it welcomes.
In Rio, the industrialized countries accepted the main responsibility for the worldwide environmental crisis and for correcting the ecological mistakes of the past.
As yet, no action has followed this expression of remorse.
That point has already been made.
Environment and development policy is stagnating, and indeed we should actually be talking about a 'roll-back' in environment policy.
Nor has the EU taken on a pioneering role.
It gauges its measures not by the scientific need for them, but by the willingness of industry to compromise.
Of course, the same also applies to the Member States.
Hence the energy tax in Germany is blocked by the argument that Brussels is responsible for it, and Brussels argues that the responsibility lies with the USA and Japan.
It is clear to us that the sparkle of Rio has gone.
Now we can see the reality.
And the reality is that we have no biodiversity convention, no biosafety protocol and no climate protocol.
Kyoto is scheduled for December, and we still do not know if we shall succeed in adopting a protocol on climate protection there.
And we are still miles away from a convention on forests.
Not even Rio could agree on that.
We must therefore put the subject of sustainable development back at the top of the world's political agenda.
The Special Session of the General Assembly in New York must send out some clear political signals, to the effect that implementation of Agenda 21 needs to be binding - too many of its provisions are still optional.
We really need binding force here, the introduction of minimum social and environmental standards in world trade, a binding framework convention on climate, with a biodiversity convention containing climate and biosafety protocols, and an agreement on the protection of forests.
I hope that UNGASS succeeds in doing this, because otherwise Rio will have achieved nothing, and we shall be set back years in our discussion of the environment.
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking both the Commission and the rapporteur, Mrs Dybkjær, for their very positive efforts towards making a success of the UNGASS conference at the end of June 1997.
This will be difficult enough, since the enthusiasm for Agenda 21 that was generated in Rio in 1992 is now ebbing away.
Of course, this is partly because steps are now having to be taken to put sustainable development into practice.
Targets are having to be set, schedules met and past promises kept.
In short, the time has come to do battle to reduce environmental damage in both the developed and developing countries.
This is all taking place against a background of declining interest in the environment and development.
Other subjects such as unemployment and meeting the EMU criteria are competing for the attention of governments and public alike, and it is obviously difficult to keep attention focused on long-term projects such as environmental protection and development.
That is why it is so important to give the environment fresh impetus as an issue.
We need not only a strong and effective policy, but also people, leaders, who are capable of putting it into practice, leaders whose personalities are likely to inspire and who are prepared to persevere in the long term.
Mrs Brundtland has been doing this for a long time now, and her report made a noticeable difference to people's thinking on sustainable development.
Now that we have come to the actual implementation of Agenda 21, perseverance will be important.
Will the main players be able to get to grips with the practical implications of Agenda 21?
I think the Commission and the rapporteur have identified a number of good priorities here.
We certainly need flexible organization within the UN, with better work structures and more money, but the main need is for all countries to show determination in working towards the targets set, particularly on climate policy, for example.
New York will be a very important preparation for the conference in Kyoto, and the Commission is right to focus on it.
It is encouraging that the Dutch presidency has succeeded in reaching agreement on the CO2 reduction target for 2010, and although we really need much more than 15 %, at least we now have agreement within the Union.
We will have to do everything we can to persuade the United States to come up with a percentage target too.
I think that this form of 'burden-sharing' that we have now developed in Europe could well serve as a model for the rest of the world.
It is logical for the biggest users to bear the heaviest burden, and since the United States accounts for more or less a quarter of all energy consumption each year, it must have certain obligations towards the rest of the world.
I sincerely hope that it will take the lead on environmental policy, because otherwise UNGASS will not be a success.
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists supports Mrs Dybkjær's report.
We are facing the reality that the rich countries have not shown sufficient commitment to the priorities agreed at Rio, either in their own actions or in helping the Third World.
Species and habitats, especially forests, are still declining across the world and this underlines the pressing need for agreement on a forest convention.
The Commission's communication is predictably cautious and Europe must take a lead at UNGASS in calling for a more far-reaching programme, in particular to demand binding environmental legislation and targets.
We should be looking more carefully at the non-compliance issue and the implementation of existing multilateral environment agreements.
UNGASS is a step on the road to the Climate Change Conference in Kyoto in December and climate change continues to pose an enormous challenge.
There seems to be little momentum to change the status quo.
It is essential therefore to push for an agreement on abatement of greenhouse gases and a target for CO2 reductions of 20 % by 2010 with more to follow.
The only way that we can begin to forge a partnership with poor countries is for ourselves to show a good example so that we in Europe should be working towards this reduction by 2005.
Vision and leadership are the missing ingredients at the moment to meet the global environmental challenge and we need both of these at both of these conferences.
Finally, the European Parliament must formally be associated with the European Union delegation to these conferences and I look forward to a commitment on that from the Commission.
Mr President, it has taken five years for many of those who criticized the organization, development and results of the Rio Conference in 1992, who even went as far as organizing a parallel meeting, to now recognize that the objectives and items that were approved at Rio continue to be a reference point, a very important reference point for future decades.
I had the honour of representing this House at the Rio Summit and I am pleased that there is this convergence and that there is now recognition that it was a landmark in history acknowledging, at world level, that the concepts of sustainable development and environmental protection were complementary and not opposed.
In my opinion, much more progress has been made than is being acknowledged today in this chamber.
I pay tribute to the laudable effort Mrs Breyer and other colleagues have put in and to the concern they show. They see everything in fairly black terms.
My feeling is that we ought also to see the situation somewhat more 'greenly' .
There is, however, one topic which causes me concern, because it was a problem at the Rio Conference, namely the European Union's presentation: governments and the European Commission have to come to an agreement to the effect that this joint Commission/Parliament resolution genuinely represents the European Union with a sole voice at the conference.
This is a call we have to address to all governments.
I also believe that it is fundamental to insist on the final resolution - there are some essential points.
One worthy of special consideration must be the request to governments that they strengthen the environmental dimension of their macro-economic policies.
Another must be giving a higher profile to the considerable problem of trade at world level and of environmental protection, which is another concern of this Parliament. National policies must be consistent with international resolutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank Mrs Dybkjær for her excellent report, even if it does not make pleasant reading.
A temperature increase of 2ºC by the year 2030, a rise of 50 cm in the world sea level, an alarming fall in the area of rain forest - the unwelcome trends in the environment go on.
We rejoiced at Rio.
Today, we are disappointed.
We have hopes of New York.
Perhaps this is our last chance.
We all know that first the forest dies, then the people.
Climate change is alarming, there is a shortage of fresh water, there is radioactive waste - why do we make no progress, when we are all familiar with everything?
In my opinion, a very important point here is the fact that many countries, including a good many in Europe, still believe that economic development and conservation are opposites.
That is wrong!
Conservation creates jobs, it gives fresh impetus to the economy, it is a great challenge for research and technology.
The Germans invented the social market economy.
The Austrians - I am proud to say - invented the eco-social market economy.
This means using the market mechanisms for conservation, it means creating economic incentives to reward environmentally friendly conduct and to punish pollution.
And it also involves using taxes to exercise control.
I believe that only the EU will really succeed in providing the necessary political weight for conservation and development aid.
Only the EU, only the rich countries, only the economically developed nations can really succeed in reconciling the economy and the environment, and in enabling both the economy and the environment to flourish!
, Vice-President of the Commission. (ES) Mr President, the debate in this House today is undoubtedly very opportune, given preparations for the special session.
I would like to thank Mrs Dybkjaer for the report she has submitted on the subject.
As you know, last November the Commission approved a communication regarding this matter and the Council approved its conclusions in December. In the intervening six months up to June 1997, account must be taken of all the important preparatory work that is being done.
With this debate and with your report, Mrs Dybkjaer, Parliament has the opportunity to play a part in defining priorities with a view to the special session, bearing in mind the changes which have occurred.
Firstly - this is the Commission's opinion - it must be acknowledged that there was no real progress at the Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization last December on subjects relating to commercial exchanges, trade and the environment.
In addition, as predicted, negotiations regarding a protocol on the Climate Change Convention, establishing binding objectives in the form of a reduction of emissions of greenhouse gases, are proving, predictably, to be very difficult.
Lastly, the Intergovernmental Group on forests concluded its deliberations last month without defining recommendations on a whole series of key topics, including the need for a forest convention.
Obviously, all these topics - commercial exchanges and the environment, climate change and forests - require political impetus at the highest level at the special session.
The resolution is on target regarding this point and, naturally, the Commission would be delighted to continue conversations with the European Parliament with a view to defining our strategy on the basis of our 1996 communication, which is still our major strategic approach.
As regards climate change, as a number of members have pointed out, certain decisions have already been taken in the Environment Council which relate to the reduction and quantification of harmful emissions.
Although the target is 2010, an agreement between Member States has finally been reached.
It might be thought that progress on reductions could have been made more rapidly, but the fact that an agreement has already been arrived at on this thorny subject at the Council of Ministers is one more step forward.
In this context, we regard it vital to concentrate on legally binding reductions by 2005, 2010 and 2020.
The demand formulated in your report, in subparagraph 18 D of your resolution, for a global maximum emissions limit, is interesting, but, to be realistic, you ought to accept that this will in any case be a fairly long-term aim.
Another very important priority for the special session which the European Commission would like to highlight is the growing scarcity of fresh water and the implications of this for people, agriculture, food security and also poverty.
Finally, there is another very important matter mentioned in your resolution: the flow of finance to developing countries, sustainable development naturally having to be supported by both public and private development aid.
This is obviously an important aspect influencing sustainable development which makes it possible, as some of you have stated, to export environmental technology.
Therefore, as Mr Valverde rightly pointed out, there is no such contradiction between development and environmental protection; there are many complementary aspects and it is important to make progress aimed at increasing this type of capital transfer.
Admittedly, in overall terms over the last few years, the increase in direct investment in countries in the southern hemisphere has been spectacular, but one has to look at this critically since, although the figure is spectacular in global terms, we can see, if we examine the volume of investment, that what is actually happening is that there is a concentration of such transfers towards so-called emerging regions which are in fact developing very rapidly. This does not reflect reality in all countries, much less in the poorest countries.
Lastly, I would now like to refer to the Commission's working programme on sustainable development. We think that, over the next few years, we ought to define a series of priorities.
It is our belief that the limits set in the resolution are appropriate for effective progress.
Lastly, regarding European Parliament participation, the Commission obviously agrees, as in the past at the Rio Conference, that the European Parliament should participate in the United Nations General Assembly session.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner how this institutional participation is envisaged.
He mentioned that the European Parliament will be represented, but how will the Commission itself be represented and how will matters be coordinated with the Council? Will the Member States have to waive their right to take part on an individual basis and will there be just one spokesman?
I ask this because, at the Rio Conference, our role was somewhat uncoordinated.
Secondly, will we be able to take to this Conference an evaluation of the national plans agreed to by the various governments which signed the Rio Agreements and, above all, Agenda 21? The Commission has given us no information on this aspect.
, Vice-President of the Commission. (ES) Bearing in mind that the Intergovernmental Conference will apparently be able to rationalize this problem, I am able to tell you what the Commission would like.
Regarding this subject, as regarding all others connected with external relations, the Commission supports the Presidency of the Council/General Secretariat of the Council + Commission system representing the executive part and the management part.
Then we think that the European Parliament should be represented within the Community delegation as Parliament.
I believe this is the most rational approach.
To move on, you mentioned something which could involve us in a potentially lengthy debate.
At the next Summit, if you will allow me to call it that, it will be very difficult for the European Union to be represented by one party.
The EU made a public undertaking at the Rio Summit - as both you and I remember very well - to make available a budget of ECU 2000 million, this being aimed specifically at solving problems arising in connection with the future of the world environment.
We all know that our Member States were never able to approve such a figure nor even to agree as to the distribution of such an amount.
We have to recognize this fact.
Very few States have fulfilled their financial undertakings contained in the Rio Group's decisions.
In my opinion, what we need now is prudent reflection together with the Council. The next step, naturally, will be to bring up the matter of evaluations of each and every one of the Member States which, I believe, it will be possible to do together with the Commission.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Withdrawal of GSP from Myanmar
The next item is the report (A4-0085/97) by Mrs Theorin, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposals for Council Regulations:
I.temporarily withdrawing access to generalized tariff preferences for industrial goods from the Union of Myanmar (COM(96) 0711 - C4-0085/97-96/0317 (CNS)II.temporarily withdrawing access to generalized tariff preferences for agricultural goods from the Union of Myanmar (COM(97) 0058 - C4-0086/97-97/0041 (CNS)
Mr President, I welcome the three reports from the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Development and Co-operation and the Committee on External Economic Relations all of whom support the proposal.
I am glad to be able to say that the Committee on Foreign Affairs also stand unanimously behind the proposal.
In December 1994, the European Union and Burma entered into an agreement giving certain industrial products generalised tariff preferences.
On the 1 January this year, an identical agreement concerning agricultural products came into force.
The agreements can be revoked at any time in the case of forced labour.
The definition of forced labour in this connection was defined by the Geneva convention in 1925 and 1956.
The Commission has on the basis of the complaints about industrial products and agricultural products which in June 1995 and on 1 January 1997 were filed by the European Trade-Union Organisation and the International Free Trade-Union Organisation, carried out an investigation into alleged forced labour in Burma.
The result of the investigation showed the military regime had made forced labour a frequent occurrence and a demonstrable reality.
Forced labour means mass deportation of men, women and children in conjunction with the construction of certain infrastructures that often lead to the people forced to work being killed or mutilated.
The human rights situation in Burma has been of concern to the European Union and the European Parliament for a long time.
I have in the explanatory statement described the human rights situation in the country.
The military regime came into power by force in 1988.
A reasonably free election was allowed in 1990 but the leader of the democratic party, Aung San Suu Kyi, who in 1990 was awarded the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought by the European Parliament, was not able to stand for election.
She has been under house arrest since 1989.
The democratic party won the election with an overwhelming majority, but the military regime did not respect the election result and remained in power.
According to information received, 18 per cent of the elected Members of Parliament are being held as prisoners.
San Suu Kyi has requested that all foreign investors should pull out of the country which is what Pepsi, Levis, Apple and other companies have done.
There is strong evidence that human rights are extensively violated, e.g. summary executions, torture, rape and other harassment of women, assault and battery of prisoners, etc.
In addition, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, religious freedom and mobility are also being severely restricted.
According to Amnesty, two thousand people are today imprisoned as a result of having demanded human rights reforms and harsh restrictions still apply to Aung San Suu Kyi.
Amnesty International declared the year 1996 as the worst year this decade for human rights in Burma.
The European Union is now not alone in reacting to the situation in Burma.
In USA, a proposed bill has been drawn up for action to be taken against Burma.
In addition, many companies from both the USA and the EU have now cancelled their investments in the country, in many cases as a result of a consumer boycott and other pressure campaigns.
However, it is embarrassing to see that certain European companies financially, politically and morally support the military regime by still being involved in projects with the regime.
Forced labour has been used for building hotels, roads and other infrastructures.
A large group of Members of the European Parliament has therefore pleaded with Club Med in a letter today to halt its tourist packages to Burma.
The Commission's proposal to impose specific sanctions against Burma is entirely new in its way and well worth supporting - and we give them our full support.
This is the first time that the European Union has proposed sanctions against a country that is consciously violating human rights through forced labour.
I therefore appreciate - even if it is an obvious point for me to make - that Parliament has been heard in this matter.
The regulation about the generalised tariff preferences lays out in detail how a temporary cancellation is to be carried out.
How they are to be reinstated is however not mentioned.
Hence, I have proposed that the Commission should continuously monitor the circumstances surrounding forced labour.
Should there be evidence of forced labour ceasing to exist, the Commission should, after thorough investigation, submit a proposal to the Council which after having informed the European Parliament should decide whether the regulations should all be revoked.
Naturally, it is of the utmost importance to inform and consult Parliament about the reinstatement of the generalised tariff preferences.
It would not only be ironical if Parliament was not to be consulted about the reinstatement of the preference system, as Parliament was consulted on the cancellation of the generalised tariff preferences, but totally unacceptable from a political point of view.
Finally, let me call attention to an irritating detail.
The result of the Commission's investigation has not been made public.
I have in my capacity as a rapporteur asked Commissioner Marin on several occasions if I may study the contents of this report but have always been refused on the basis of some official legal reasons.
I do not disbelieve the Commission's conclusions arising from the investigation but see it as a question of principle.
Parliament must be able to study the documents in a matter of this sort.
The least one can request is therefore for the rapporteur to have access to or to be able to study the investigation documents; this is crucial when introducing tariff preferences.
It has been a hard day's night for the Commissioner and for us all.
However, I still wonder, Commissioner Marin, if we ought not to look into the possibilities of finding a solution so that Parliament can gain an insight in the future; I can accept that it has not happened this time.
I have hopes of Parliament supporting the proposal unanimously and that the Council on the 24 of March will decide to revoke the generalised tariff preferences.
Anything less would be a scandal and would create a strong political reaction.
Mr President, the European Union is for the first time imposing sanctions on a country which is violating workers' rights, and we must welcome this decision to withdraw Burma's access to the generalized preference system.
For many months, we in this House have been campaigning for measures to be taken against this military junta in Burma, as mass deportations of men, women and children continue to take place.
The Burmese army is involved in these practices and is maltreating these victims of forced labour.
According to the ICFTU, the number of people involved is 800, 000, several thousand of whom are said to have died already at these sites.
Consequently, on 6 June 1995, the international trade union confederations filed a complaint with the Commission requesting that Burma be excluded from the GPS as far as industrial products are concerned.
On 1 January 1997, the same unions filed the same complaint with regard to agricultural products.
Two-thirds of Burmese agricultural and industrial exports benefitted from tariff reductions at that point.
In view of the appalling disregard for human rights, it was essential that the European Union should react, even if it did not go as far as a full trade blockade.
However, we would like to see the Commission adopting an even more pro-active attitude: in addition to the decision taken by the European Commission, it would also be appropriate for the Member States and the Council to adopt an identical position towards Burma and impose harsher sanctions, the more so since, although these procedures are commercial, their political impact must not be underestimated.
In addition, Burma's membership of ASEAN causes a serious problem.
Although this is exclusively a matter for the States making up that body, it would be appropriate for the European Commission to maintain pressure on the States in that region and to reinforce what it calls the critical dialogue that it seems to have instituted.
Finally, I should like to make one comment on behalf of my group, because we would like to see the same determination applied to every country that shows this kind of contempt for workers' rights and indulges in forced labour, which is slavery under another name.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Theorin on her excellent report which has been brought before the House today.
Action against Burma is well overdue.
I welcome the proposal to withdraw access to the GSP or generalized tariff preferences for industrial and agricultural exports.
This will cost Burma an estimated ECU 2, 262m in additional customs duties.
The grounds for these economic sanctions are quite clear.
The use of forced and slave labour in Burma breaches the Geneva Conventions of 25 September 1926 and 7 September 1956 and Conventions 29 and 105 of the International Labour Organization.
There are other broader moral grounds for taking action against Burma.
SLORC, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, is a brutal military dictatorship which violently seized power in 1988.
SLORC refused to accept the result of the 1990 election which was won by the opposition National League for Democracy.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who won the 1990 election, has been the victim of house arrest and continual harassment.
Apart from the killing and wounding of slave workers, the general human rights situation is appalling.
Disappearances, rape, arbitrary arrest and execution are the order of the day.
Political opponents, ethnic minorities and the wider population face daily intimidation and worse.
Against this background it is to be welcomed that a number of US and European companies, including Heineken, Carlsberg and PepsiCo, have pulled out.
But other companies still trade in Burma, turning a blind eye to the human rights abuses occurring all around them.
TOTAL Oil company and Club Med continue to do business in Burma.
There is documented evidence of human rights abuses at the sites of TOTAL's gas pipeline project, including the execution and torture of forced labourers.
This is just not acceptable.
What are these European companies doing with Burmese blood on their hands? The European Union should continue to question Burma's possible future membership of ASEAN.
ASEAN's credibility will only be damaged if Burma is offered membership of this prestigious South-East Asian club in the near future.
It will also complicate ASEAN's relations with the EU.
For many years the European Parliament has called for a clause guaranteeing the fundamental rights of employees to be included in agreements when the EU grants generalized tariff preferences.
Such social clauses could be used to improve human rights across the world.
Certainly when our political and trading partners fall below universally accepted standards of human decency, it is right that the EU should impose political and economic sanctions.
I warmly support Mrs Theorin's report.
I hope the EU maintains the pressure on the Burmese authorities so that they feel compelled to embrace democracy and liberate the Burmese people from their suffering and oppression.
Mr President, Burma is a country with a violent military dictatorship, and with an elected opposition leader - or really an elected president - who received 80 % of the votes and has been under house arrest and effectively held hostage for six years.
It is a country where 80 % of the elected members of parliament are imprisoned or have disappeared.
It is a country where a sizeable section of the population are obliged, through forced labour, to help to build all manner of government projects, a country where slave labour is being used.
It is a country where, according to Amnesty International, the worst human rights violations are happening at the moment.
There are still people who ask what is wrong with this relatively unknown country, why the United States Congress has passed a law banning investment, and why the European Union is proposing to withdraw its tariff preferences, which is effectively the start of an economic boycott.
I hope that all these facts show that the regime in Burma is not fit to govern and can no longer be respected or tolerated by the international community.
I am delighted that the Commission has reacted positively to Parliament's resolutions of July 1996 and October 1996, and has put forward this proposal to withdraw the system of tariff preferences.
I should also like to congratulate the Commission on its careful work in determining the nature and scale of the slave labour.
It has done a most thorough job, so no one can accuse it of proceeding hastily and without due care.
In 1994, I was Parliament's rapporteur on the preferences system, and we were then very careful to include the clause which we are now using.
And this example - the first time the clause has been invoked - shows that it contains some good provisions and can be applied in practice.
I am therefore quite happy with the approach we adopted in 1994.
Parliament is sure to approve this sanction against the military regime in Burma today, and the next step is now up to the Council.
I would like to ask the Commissioner what the situation is in the Council. Does he think it will approve this proposal fairly quickly?
I have two further comments to make before I end.
This proposal to withdraw the system of preferences marks the beginning of an economic boycott.
If this does not help, we must be prepared to go as far as the US Congress, and ban investment.
Secondly, as has already been mentioned, we should urge people not to go on holiday to Burma, and we should call on all holiday companies and tour operators to stop organizing trips to Burma, because the hotels and all the rest of the infrastructure for the tourist industry are being built with the help of slave labour.
I hope that the steps we are taking in Parliament today are quickly followed up by the Council, but I hope most of all that the opposition leader who is currently being held hostage will one day become president of her country, that the members of parliament who are in prison can one day take their seats, and that human rights will be respected.
I wish Burma well, and I hope that our actions here today will do some good.
Mr President, according to various sources more than 2 million Burmese are involved in forced labour.
This 20th-century form of slavery spares neither men, women nor children.
These victims of Burmese army brutality are used for every kind of work, including the building of major infrastructure projects, projects on which, alas, thousands of Burmese have already died.
I should point out that 3 % of the Burmese GNP comes from this forced labour.
Let us note that suspending access to the GPS for Burma would have a primarily political and symbolic impact, rather than any particular impact on Burmese exports to the European Union.
Also, this measure would enable us to endorse Mrs Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and leader of the Burmese opposition, who tirelessly advocates the imposition of sanctions against her country's military government.
Pursuing a policy of interventionism in economic affairs, the Burmese military government is continuing to violate not only human rights but also children's rights, despite the fact that it has been a signatory of the Convention on Children's Rights since 1991.
The population exodus continued in 1996, affecting 200, 000 people including thousands of children.
In the cities, children are still being arrested and detained, sometimes for simply having distributed leaflets on the public highway.
I fear there are also a great many children forced to do unpaid labour on building sites, at the risk of their lives.
Then there is the traffic in young Burmese girls sold into prostitution in Thailand.
We already knew that the children's rights situation was extremely serious, but it must be said that it deteriorated in 1996 when the government refused access to the United Nations Special Envoy for Human Rights.
Withdrawal of the GPS is intended as a sanction to force the Burmese military government into a dialogue with the opposition aimed at restoring democracy in that part of the world.
For the first time - and we must welcome it - the European Commission is proposing to sanction a country for violation of workers' rights.
Parliament, of course, supports that initiative.
We hope that the Council will follow suit.
Mr President, I personally, and all of us I believe, think of children as fragile beings deserving of our protection, and we cannot tolerate for much longer a system in which children are raped, abused, enslaved and even murdered for the gratification or profit of mankind.
Mr President, today's debate is quite timely as industrial leaders in different parts of the world are pressurizing governments into dropping any plans for sanctions against Burma.
Earlier this week the US-ASEAN Business Council, which represents the cream of American and South-East Asian business people, made a strong denunciation of economic sanctions against Burma.
Instead it called on the US to adopt a strategy of constructive engagement with the Burmese authorities to maintain economic links with Burma while pushing for change.
Constructive engagement was exactly the policy which Ronald Reagan pursued in South Africa.
That policy prolonged the suffering of black people and it was only when the international community was mobilized into taking strong economic measures against South Africa that the apartheid regime crumbled.
Recent events in Burma also show the need for decisive action at EU level.
The oppression of Burma's six-millionstrong Karen minority has become increasingly ferocious over the past few months.
The Karen are seeking an autonomy which the British guaranteed them when they made Burma independent in 1949.
There have been numerous allegations of mutilation, rape and indiscriminate firing on civilians fleeing across the Burmese-Thai border.
The Burmese military junta cannot use its ongoing conflict with the rebels of the Karen National Union as an excuse for attacks on civilians.
Amnesty International has estimated that almost 2, 000 people were arrested for political reasons in Burma last year.
The vast majority of them are believed to have been involved in entirely peaceful activities.
When the Burmese Prime-Minister-in-exile visited Dublin recently he expressed fears that the European Union would ease its pressure on the generals in power for trade reasons.
We need an assurance from both the Commission and the Council that this will not happen.
The Greens fully support the EU's decision to withdraw trade preferences for Burma on both industrial and agricultural goods, but more action needs to be taken.
TOTAL, the French state-owned oil company, has been active in Burma for many years and there have been allegations that it has used forced labour, including child labour, in its work.
A few months ago it, along with the US company UNOCAL, signed a new contract with Burmese oil and gas enterprises to expand natural gas explorations in the Andaman Sea.
This summer ASEAN is expected to admit Burma as a member.
During the ASEAN January meeting efforts were made by certain foreign ministers to keep human rights off the agenda.
If Burma is admitted the EU must raise its ongoing abuse of human rights there at every opportunity.
Mr President, Presidents of Parliament pass by, honourable Members come and go, but Commissioners remain.
That is all to the credit of Commissioner Marín and it is all to our advantage, because the Burma question is one of his cases and I am very glad it is.
I think this decision to suspend the GPS is particularly important because a meeting to set up an international network of support for democracy in Burma has just been held in Tokyo.
So I think that the signal that could be sent by the European Union is particularly important for the Asian countries, many of whom attended this forum in Tokyo and exhibit a great deal more interest in this matter than the European Union does, I must admit.
But that doesn't mean that it isn't important.
Also, I believe the decision is an important one because it is the first of its kind in the European Union's policy.
This is in fact the first time we have used such a strong instrument of economic policy in the interests of defending human rights and advancing democracy.
I congratulate Mr Marín for having handled this matter as he has.
I should say to previous speakers who believe that Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi has a great deal of charm - which is also my belief - that there are other people in various countries in that region, such as Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan and many other dissidents, who also have a lot of charm.
I hope that will give them ideas for the future.
I shall not ask Mr Marín if he thinks Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi is particularly charming, but I would like to ask him if he thinks - and I hope he won't pass this straight on to Sir Leon Brittan - that it would be possible, at the request of the European Parliament, to launch similar procedures for other countries in the region.
I think that the present case involved an initiative by the unions, but would it not be possible for Parliament itself to take the initiative in similar procedures to suspend the GPS for other countries in the region? To my way of thinking, this would represent a determined and positive step by the European Union towards strengthening its foreign policy.
Thank you, Mr President.
First and foremost what I would like to do is to add my congratulations to those of the rest of the House to Mrs Theorin for her excellent report and very sensible amendments to the text.
It is also very good to have the opportunity to congratulate the Commission on what is a historically significant action.
I think the action on preferences on industrial and agricultural products is very welcome, although the complete ending of trade, particularly by oil companies such as TOTAL and Premier, is sadly not yet likely.
But those measures do at least bring the EU into line with the strong US position.
What I would like to do is actually share some views - from experience, rather than just received through the media.
If you go to Rangoon covertly as I and others did late last year you unequivocally see the child labour and the forced labour on the roads in Rangoon district, building the hotels and the roads there.
You see the high emphasis that the SLORC regime places on international investment there.
Today I and colleagues Kinnock, Thomas and Ford have presented a strong protest to the Club Med travel company here in Strasbourg, demanding that they stop their tours and their activities there and take notice of the others that have pulled out, however attractive the Burmese people and country are.
Vital though western action is, SLORC will continue to be underpinned by neighbours such as China, who, it is alleged, have a flourishing, poisonous, underground drugs and jewel trade through the country.
This directly funds and nourishes the repressive regime which is murdering indigenous peoples near and across the Thai border as we speak tonight.
In that context the moves to include Burma in ASEAN are deeply depressing but predictable, and I call on the Commission in all trade negotiations with the ASEAN states to urge them to reconsider.
I hope that these actions on GSP are effective and do weaken the SLORC, but while they take effect I hope that this House will recognize the dedicated work of all the people striving for democracy in Burma, as well as the Burma Action Group, other networks, and NGOs, keeping open international contacts and channels of hope.
We in this House cannot debate Burma every month, but we must think how we can help the Burmese people every day until they are free, and this report and these proposals are a part of that process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when the European Union granted tariff preferences to Myanmar - formerly Burma - in 1994, the political situation there was already extremely tense.
Nonetheless, relief was given for certain industrial goods and agricultural products, not least in the hope that improvements in the social situation could be achieved.
The opposite has happened.
In Myanmar, human rights are trampled over, and ill-treatment, arrests and torture are everyday occurrences.
The democracy movement is subject to repression, and for years now Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, President of the National League for Democracy, has been under house arrest.
She is a holder of the Sakharov Prize and of the Nobel Peace Prize.
How can we effectively combat a regime which treats those holding different views as criminals? As has already been pointed out, the forced labour taking place in Myanmar is a form of slavery which breaches the international agreements, the Geneva Convention, the ILO Convention and so on.
Suspension of the tariff preferences is absolutely essential.
In the opinion of the Commission, the Council, the NGOs, Amnesty International and the State Department, human rights abuses in Myanmar increased further during 1996.
It has been and remains the aim of the European Parliament to make development cooperation dependent on respect for human rights, an example of this being last year's cooperation agreement with Nepal.
Parliament must therefore be consulted before any future decisions by the Council on the restoration of tariff preferences, as rightly proposed by the rapporteur, Mrs Theorin.
A legal basis exists for this to happen.
We must continue to apply pressure through the political and economic means at our disposal.
No consideration can be shown towards ruthless policies.
At the same time, we wish to give a sign of encouragement to the democracy movement in Myanmar.
Its peaceful resistance to the junta which has seized power is exemplary.
It deserves both solidarity and success!
Mr President, I welcome the Council's proposals to withdraw access to GSP for both industrial and agricultural goods from Burma.
Hopefully this action will put further pressure on the military dictatorship of the SLORC in that sad country to stop its massive use of forced slave and child labour to construct its infrastructure of hotels to try to boost its tourist trade.
Last December Mrs Kinnock and I visited Aung San Suu Kyi clandestinely. We videoed an interview with her.
Her message was absolutely crystal clear: End investment in Burma; impose sanctions.
Clearly these would not be without impact on the Burmese people.
Yet the need for action was absolutely clear to her and who better to speak for the Burmese people. In 1990 her party, the National League for Democracy, received 80 % of the votes.
When Mrs Kinnock and I returned from Burma we took the opportunity to meet both with Commissioner Marín and the Irish presidency.
They were both sympathetic but were awaiting the response from the regime to a request from the Commission for an investigation team to visit Burma to investigate the allegations of forced labour.
Within a few days of our meeting the Burmese junta peremptorily refused permission for the Commission to visit.
We therefore congratulate the Commission and the Council for moving so swiftly.
I would particularly like to congratulate Commissioner Marín for the very tough line he took in Singapore and the way he stood up to the criticisms from some Member States.
I also hope that the industrialists of Europe are listening to this and that TOTAL and Club Med will follow the line taken by Heineken, Carlsberg, PepsiCo, Levi, Apple and Thomas Cook.
Two final points.
The European Parliament is rightly emphasizing its links with Asia.
As one of the Bureau members of the Japan delegation, I had a meeting yesterday with other representatives of Asia delegations to talk about ASSET II, an inter-parliamentary meeting between Members of the European Parliament and the Asean parliaments.
I hope it is crystal clear to everybody that will only include Asean parliaments with which we have a relationship.
Finally, I would like to ask Commissioner Marín if he could assure us that the Council is not now going to block this proposal because of the actions of a fag-end government in one Member State.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.05 pm)
Approval of the Minutes
The minutes of yesterday's session have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, on page six of the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, three reports are listed under what is referred to as the 'Hughes procedure' .
I would prefer in future for the correct rule from the Rules of Procedure to be quoted, instead of using the name of some random Member.
We have actually finished with the approval of the Minutes, but I shall pass on the suggestion that we could perhaps add something to the expression 'Hughes procedure' , in order to make it clear to those Members who do not understand what is meant by that expression.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President. I just wish to inform the House that tomorrow morning in Liverpool a commemorative service will be held for our late colleague Ken Stewart.
The President's Office has very kindly agreed to send a letter of condolence. I want to record my thanks to the President for that.
Given that the Commission is here, I also wish to mention that last week the Commission issued a press release supporting an expedition to investigate the wreck of the bulk carrier Derbyshire , which vanished in the Pacific in 1980.
This was an issue which Ken Stewart fought long and hard for in his years in this Parliament and he would be most pleased that the Commission is investigating this.
Indeed, as we all know, he fought very hard on all issues of maritime transport, for the safety of those who earn their living and the passengers who sail on the ships.
So we are pleased to record that the Commission supports the expedition.
Ken would be pleased.
Thank you for this information.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I refer to the tragic events on the Israeli-Jordanian border yesterday.
I would ask the presidency to send an appropriate note of condolences to the people of Israel and particularly the families involved.
Thank you very much Mr Hallam.
Madam President, I should also like to go along with the request made by the previous speaker and send my condolences in respect of the terrorist attack perpetrated yesterday in Israel, which cost the lives of six schoolchildren and a teacher at the Jordanian border.
I think that there are deeds which go against the peace process but there can be no greater assault than the irreparable loss of human life.
I think that the Parliament should therefore send its condolences and condemn acts such as this one.
Thank you very much Mr Vallvé.
Madam President, I should like to say that I share Members' special commitment to the Middle East.
I would ask Parliament to observe a minute's silence, so that we can give special expression to these tragic events, and show how much we, as Members of the European Parliament, wish to be involved, in every way, in the events taking place in the Middle East.
Thank you very much Mr Sichrovsky.
Votes
Madam President, on a point of clarification.
Yesterday, Commissioner Marin made it clear that he understood that this decision was going to have to be made on the basis of unanimity.
Certainly, in earlier discussions, the point had been made by the Commission in formal discussions that the decision in principle which required unanimity had already been made and the implementing decision would only require a qualified majority vote.
Can the Commission look at this point and come back to us?
I will gladly arrange for this point to be checked again, but obviously I am not in a position, here and now, to give any opinion other than the one given by my colleague yesterday.
Madam President, there are a number of countries where the human rights situation is very depressing, but in Burma the situation is particularly extreme.
The military regime abuses people in the most terrible manner, not only by using forced labour for infrastructure projects, but also by forcing people to work as pack animals transporting arms and ammunition for the army.
As the rapporteur also described, slave labour is not the only abuse in Burma.
People are being driven out, being forced from their homes and killed.
The desperate plight of the two million minority in the Karen tribe deserves special consideration here.
The United Kingdom promised when it left Burma in 1948 that this overwhelmingly Christian tribe would have the right to self-determination.
A few weeks ago, the Burmese army started a major offensive against the Karen National Union, triggering a flood of refugees across the border into Thailand, which then refused to protect them.
So in addition to the issue of forced labour, there is every good reason for the Council to consider the Karens' desperate fight for survival against the Burmese regime and the Thai Government.
This is the first time that the Commission has proposed to apply world trade sanctions on humanitarian grounds, and it has certainly done its work very thoroughly.
Forced labour is one of the grounds for withdrawing preferences mentioned in Article 9 of the regulation.
From what Commissioner Marín has said, the Council seems certain to adopt the proposal unanimously on 24 March.
One question that has not been answered is the conditions attached to the continued withdrawal of preferences. Will the preferences be restored if forced labour is abolished?
Or will it be a condition that the human rights situation in general must be improved? And how does the treatment of Burma relate to countries like China, Cuba and Libya, where there are also many human rights abuses?
We hope that the Commission will be able to give us details in due course.
We unreservedly support the proposal to withdraw tariff preferences for Burma.
Dybkjær report (A4-0083/97)
We are nearly blue in the face using the term 'sustainable development' , given the virtual paralysis of the European Union in developing this concept worldwide.
At various times, we in the European Parliament have already maintained that the Rio Summit, for many European leaders, was little more than a photo opportunity and unfortunately we have been proved right.
There is no political will and without political will and economic solidarity, with so little north-south dialogue, it is going to be very difficult for us to achieve the aims of Agenda 21, since as the rapporteur properly points out, the worldwide environmental situation has gone from problematic to alarming.
The European Union must take much of the responsibility in order to achieve any success in the New York Conference.
What do I want them to be told? I think that the current Commission is going through bad times - that is why it is necessary for the European Parliament to play the role which the citizens of Europe have given us in this area and strengthen its presence at that Conference.
Therefore, my vote is going to be above all a sceptical one.
Permanent abandonment premium for winegrowers
The next item is the report (A4-0077/97) by Mr Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1442/88 on the granting, for the 1988/89 to 1997/98 wine years, of permanent abandonment premiums in respect of wine-growing areas (COM(96)0706 - C4-0047/97-97/0009(CNS)).
Madam President, Council Regulation No 1442/88 of 24 May 1988 on the granting, for the 1988/89 to 1997/98 wine years, of permanent abandonment premiums in respect of wine-growing areas was last amended by Regulation 1595/96 of 30 July 1996.
The amended regulation provides that the Member States shall designate the regions affected by the grubbing-up measure.
This decision may be made subject to conditions designed to guarantee a minimum level of production in the areas in question and respect for the ecological balance.
I should remind the House that, on the occasion of the debate on the 1996/97 price package, I and a number of other Members tabled certain amendments on grubbing-up.
Those amendments were rejected in the plenary on the ground that there were not enough vines in the European Union.
At that time I highlighted the specific problems of Charentes.
Unfortunately, some of those in the trade adopted a somewhat demagogic stance.
I regret that because, in view of trends in the production and consumption of wine products in the European Union, there is clearly a structural surplus for the 1996/97 wine year of around 15 million hectolitres.
The abandonment policy therefore needs to be brought more into line with economic and environmental reality so that it provides stronger incentives and ceases to be irreversible.
Rapid answers are therefore needed.
To achieve that end, a number of measures are proposed.
The first is to extend the period of applicability of planting rights, which at present is only eight years, eight wine years, after that in which a duly declared grubbing-up of vines has taken place.
Some wine-growers are therefore tempted to replant their vineyards before the date on which their right to do so expires.
The new system should make it possible to extend this period of validity to twelve wine years, and this should include the rights currently held by wine-growers.
Next, a temporary abandonment scheme is proposed.
The abandonment premiums as defined by Regulation 1442/88 involved permanent abandonment and caused extreme inflexibility, which renders the measure less effective.
The new system proposes temporary abandonment for a period of 12 years, with a premium of 40 % of the permanent abandonment premium, and the abandonment may be the subject of a transfer as referred to in Article 7(2), second subparagraph, of Regulation 822/87, or replanting within a period of eight years after grubbingup.
These measures could both improve the transfer of enterprises, inter alia by enabling young wine-growers to become established more easily, and at the same time help enterprises to respond to developments in their market.
Temporary abandonment is therefore a dynamic rather than a static response to changes in markets and enterprises.
The measures proposed in this chapter are not contrary to current provisions planned for the 1996-97 wine year, but would allow wine-growers additional measures to increase the flexibility of enterprises in relation to market trends.
In the particular case of wines subject to Article 36, it is important to consider the value of this procedure.
It is clear - the main example being the special case of Charentes - that producers obtain very high yields, far exceeding the capacities of the traditional outlets, which consequently disrupt the traditional markets of other wine-growing regions.
Finally, with regard to regional development, it should be borne in mind that some regions are economically dependent on wine-growing.
Permanent abandonment entails an irreversible loss of economic potential.
For obvious reasons, both temporary and permanent abandonment must remain voluntary, and therefore no element of compulsion should be introduced.
That, Madam President, is what I wanted to say about this report.
Madam President, in some European wine-growing regions we are witnessing an escalating crisis of excess production which should be eliminated immediately by a carefully structured programme of action.
We support Mr Martin's report, because it contains not only immediate measures to achieve this but also useful suggestions for the future.
The immediate measures are those proposed by the Commission for the 1996, 1997 and 1998 wine years, but they are merely a stopgap. They do not solve the whole problem.
This is why our group studied the second part of the report, on the improvement of the grubbing-up procedure, with the greatest interest.
The need now is for the Commission to move quickly to present proposals aimed at reforming the common organization of the wine-growing markets, a project which has been hanging fire for two years although the European Parliament previously made proposals on the occasion of the Fantuzzi report.
As far as this reform is concerned, the abandonment aspect must take due account of the rapporteur's proposal.
Apart from the looming crisis, it is absolutely essential to preserve a future for our wine-growing regions.
The only way of achieving that is voluntary, temporary grubbing-up rather than permanent abandonment.
It is a matter for regret that the House did not follow our lead on the occasion of the 1996-97 price package by voting in favour of the amendments proposed by our group, which have now been adopted by the rapporteur.
We were told at that time that there were no wine surpluses.
Well, we know today that the European Union has had to distil no less than 15 million hectolitres during the present wine year.
What a waste! What losses for our wine-growers!
Let us retain a degree of flexibility in the management of wine-growing enterprises, through temporary grubbing-up.
And let us remember that any permanent abandonment entails the equally permanent loss of the right of production, and that the land thus released can no longer receive aid under the CAP.
Regarding the specific case of Charentes, it would be suicidal to abandon permanently, as some people have nevertheless suggested, some 20, 000 hectares - 25 % of the wine-growing potential of the region.
Those vineyards would be allowed to lie fallow, and we would see the loss of a vital economic asset in that region and the destruction of a traditional human equilibrium.
For these reasons, we urge that the reform of the common organization of the markets be pursued as soon as possible.
Madam President, Mr Klass has expressed my group's position and I do not want to repeat what he has said.
Instead I want to make the link with the general issue implicit in this morning's debate, which is the need to renew structural measures in the wine-growing sector to update rules that are now obsolete and no longer capable of meeting current needs.
As other members have said, action must certainly be taken to reduce the surplus further, focusing on quality and market outlets. Action must also be taken through measures like grubbing-up and replanting to reinvigorate the wine-growing sector for the future and take account of the real situation in the geographic areas of the European Union.
I do not know if the solution is to renew the COM which, by the way, was approved by Parliament a year and a half ago. Nor do I know whether we also need to review the proposals we made then.
I do know that last year I myself tabled an amendment to the 'price package' , which was passed by the Committee on Agriculture and which made it very clear that Regulation 1442/88 on grubbing-up was such an antiquated, obsolete and rigid regulation that it should not be extended and that there was therefore a need to draw up a new regulation which would take account of the need to establish a market balance between demand and supply, affecting the nation states, but also specific geographic areas.
An example is the region of north east Italy where all of local wine production is sold and where further market outlets are needed.
So we need to have a more flexible instrument which reflects the specific positions of European Union regions.
First of all, we should like to thank the rapporteur and Parliament for accepting the urgency of this proposal.
It goes without saying that we shall have to make the changes proposed here if we want to continue to operate the measures that have proved so successful up to now.
Naturally this is not a final arrangement to improve the organization of wine-growing areas and wine markets; that much is absolutely clear.
Those speakers here today who have said that of course this is only a continuation of what we have already been doing are quite right.
However, the Commission has not said anything different.
On the contrary, in this regulation we have indicated, yet again, that this arrangement is needed only until the final measures have been proposed and adopted.
I should like to thank you for the debate that we have had here today.
We have no problem in accepting all three amendments, and so we shall now be able to push this measure through very quickly.
The fact that it is to be implemented by the Member States, and that difficulties may arise in the process, is quite right.
That is, after all, what happens when you have a system of subsidiarity.
If certain tasks are delegated as a result of subsidiarity, then of course it becomes more difficult for those who have to take on those tasks.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Madam President, naturally I have supported the excellent report by Mr Martin, because the interests of our wine growers are at stake.
But I did so with a heavy heart, because of course any withdrawal from production of wine-growing land means a setback as far as our culture and civilization are concerned.
Mrs Klaß was right when she said that the areas of poorer land should be the ones to be set aside.
Often, however, the only question is how to decide which are the poorer areas.
We are fortunate today, that our session is being presided over by a President who represents one of the best wine-growing areas of Europe, namely Lower Franconia.
I am very glad about that, because it sends out a positive signal, because we must be quite clear about one thing: set-aside is a setback.
We must do more to concentrate our deliberations on the effects on people's health of moderate wine consumption.
We must urge the Council Presidencies to finally do something about it.
Unfortunately, Ireland and the Netherlands have done nothing, and so we are now putting our faith in Luxembourg, which is itself a wine-producing country.
Finally, I should just like to say, quite clearly, that we should be doing all we can to spread the message that, as Europeans, we should be drinking less Coca Cola and more wine.
We are voting in favour of the report, especially as we believe the entire policy of helping to close down vineyards on such a large scale is wrong.
It should be the market and the individual wine-grower who should decide when to close down a vineyard.
In addition, the proposal would involve higher subsidies for closing down vineyards in the Charente region.
Setting a longer timescale will also facilitate payment of the subsidy.
In summary, the proposal involves an expansion of the subsidy policy which we cannot possibly support.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Guarantee against losses for EIB loans
The next item is the report (A4-0078/97) by Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision granting a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects outside the Community (Central and Eastern Europe, Mediterranean countries, Latin America and Asia, and South Africa) (COM(96)0586 - C4-0018/97-96/0278(CNS)).
Madam President, guaranteeing European Investment Bank loans in third countries has long been a concern of the Committee on Budgets.
Historically we have seen a pattern of role reversal in which the European budget has been assuming all the risks and yet the major political decisions have been taken by the European Investment Bank.
In a resolution of Parliament on loans and guarantees last year in July, Parliament expressed yet again some basic principles that the Budget Committee has long held: firstly, the necessity to protect the Union's general budget from exposure to higher loan risks; secondly, the need to ensure an adequate provisioning of the guarantee fund in relation to the level of risk coverage; thirdly, the assumption that defaults on guaranteed loans are increasing, as well as the risk to the European Union budget.
Because of the historic position we have taken, it was Parliament that insisted at the time of the last major revision of the financial perspectives that there should be a separate guarantee fund established in order to protect the budget from exposure to the guarantees it gave to EIB loans.
At the European Councils in Cannes and Madrid it was concluded that the European Union would extend the lending and borrowing activities of the Community to third countries.
We, as they say, had established the principles on which we wanted to see those guarantees provided.
The proposal that has now come from the Commission, instead of renewing specific mandates to those parts of the world that are mentioned in the title (Latin America, Asia, South Africa and the Mediterranean), is seeking to renew the loans together globally, under a single mandate; and also, simultaneously, to make the expiry dates coincide with the period covered by the financial perspective while reducing the guarantee to the European Investment Bank to 65 %.
Although the Commission proposal was made properly and in due time, the Council of Ministers has been laggardly indeed in the way it has dealt with it.
Once again I draw the attention of the House to the fact that something that could be the subject of conciliation seems to be debated without adequate representation from the Council.
We have approved, in principle, the aim of the ECOFIN Council which was expressed as far back as November 1995: that the responsibility of the European Investment Bank for loan risk should be increased.
We consider that the chosen proposal was an interesting change in the approach.
But it is clearly inadequate, in our opinion, to achieve the declared aim.
We feel that there is still the possibility of the European Union budget being exposed to greater risk than before in the proposal that the Council has chosen to follow.
The reduction of the guarantee will, we believe, lead to an increase in the global amount of the loans available, thus increasing the potential risk to be borne by the European Union budget.
The responsibility of the European Investment Bank is increased because the risk that default payments are more than 65 % is close to zero.
In considering what is a highly technical but also highly political proposal, the European Parliament Budget Committee has proposed two amendments, which follow the traditional view expressed in this House.
At the same time, the Budget Committee is commending to the House the somewhat more political, less technical amendments that have been adopted by the appropriate committee to give an opinion - the Committee on External Economic Relations.
With those few introductory remarks I commend the report.
I urge the House to support not only the two amendments of the Budget Committee but those that were tabled by the REX Committee in its opinion and have subsequently been adopted by the Budgets Committee.
Madam President, the subject of guarantees by the European Community to the European Investment Bank against losses for loans granted for carrying out projects in third countries is of great importance for the European Union's co-operation policy.
The EIB's loan operations are in keeping with the objectives of that co-operation policy.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is globally to renew all of the existing mandates concerning third countries.
The uses and instrument of the European Union's co-operation policy means that the guarantees which the Community gives the European Investment Bank for external loans should be shared out in a balanced way among the different regions.
That is why I wish to express my satisfaction to the Committee on Budget and Mr Tomlinson for having approved and incorporated into their report the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations which I hope will also be approved by the Assembly as whole.
The need for the European Investment Bank to step up its activity to finance exemplary transfrontier projects between countries in the Mediterranean Basin and the lack of appropriate infrastructures in the areas of transport and telecommunications are one of the main obstacles to development of external and interregional trade as well as regional co-operation in general.
It is therefore necessary to guarantee improved visibility of the financial effort.
It is necessary for the citizens to perceive and know that the Community is taking part in the joint financing of projects together with other international financial institutions.
The need for the assessment of the functioning of the new guarantee system to include an assessment of its economic and social impact on beneficiary countries is a vital element which will allow these countries to accelerate their economic development and guarantee the most effective possible use of resources and guarantees under the Community budget.
I also wish to mention the timetable suggested in the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations, adjoining the report, and the demand for periodic information from the Commission to the European Parliament on the economic and social impact on the beneficiary countries of these loans.
I also wish to express by satisfaction at seeing that Amendment No 4 has been included - in it the Committee on External Economic Relations proposes that the overall guarantee limit should be redistributed among the regions in order to strike a coherent balance.
In the Commission document it was possible to note a timetable for loans from 1997 to 1999 in which Asia and Latin America were the only regions in which the volume of guaranteed loans remained capped to the level of 300 million ECU.
This has been resolved by the last amendment and I should like to thank the European Parliament for approving these amendments and the Tomlinson report by the Committee on Budgets.
(FI ) Madam President, the European Investment Bank was founded to promote those objectives which the EU considers most important. Financing must also be directed at third countries.
The activity of the European Investment Bank is not risk-free, because it is directed at projects in which the common good has to be defended and striven for.
If it was risk-free, financing would be obtainable for development projects from other lending institutions, and the European Investment Bank would be unnecessary.
The report before us states that the financing risks are divided into political and economic risks, and that the EU guarantees only the political risks.
Political risks are regarded as arising from the banning of foreign currency transfers, compulsory payments, wars and internal unrest.
This definition seems obvious, but in practice it is hard to distinguish between political and economic risks.
Economic difficulties are, for example, also often caused by internal insecurity and unrest.
Very often it is political difficulties which cause damage to economic activity.
Therefore, in my opinion, a practice ought to be introduced whereby loan decisions contain a political risk assessment, otherwise, when a default occurs, the temptation may be to blame purely political factors.
Two types of practice would be possible: either each country in question would be assessed in advance and a decision taken for that individual country on what proportion of the EIB's risk in the country was political in origin; or each financing decision should have an assessment annexed to it concerning the division of the risk between political and economic factors.
As I said, inability to pay arises only rarely from a single factor.
Therefore in my opinion the concept of political risk should be agreed upon in such a way that, in the event of a default, the damage would be divided in advance into political and economic risk.
For example, if the bad debt was ECU 1 million and the political risk had been assessed in advance to be 40 %, under the proposal in this report the European Union guarantee would be only ECU 400 000.
In other words, this decision would not be allowed to cause the relationship between the political and economic risk to be changed subsequently.
Mr President, subject to these remarks I am prepared to adopt the report.
Madam President, once again our discussions here today have concentrated, quite rightly, on the question of how such risks should be covered, and that is, of course, Mr Tomlinson's main proposal.
Mr Tomlinson knows that this question has been discussed within the Commission, in other words in the Budget Committee.
We indicated that the system proposed by him, in our opinion, need not be applied, at least at the present time, for the following reasons, which I shall quote in English:
'The new Guarantee system for EIB lending in practice is because of the substantial improvement on the outlook of the possible defaults for 1997/1999 relative to the recent past and the probability of the Guarantee Fund reaching its target amount in 1997 and the likelihood that the fund would be able to cover potential defaults in the medium term.'
These were the reasons given to Mr Tomlinson for the Commission's position.
He asked then for a note which we gave him and he was kind enough to judge it as interesting but not relevant.
(Laughter) Of course we took note of that as well.
I would propose that for the time being we can accept the first half of the first amendment but for the rest we would like to stick to the present system, as we have said.
If Parliament wants to go to a conciliation procedure that would be interesting - and relevant!
The Commission noted the applause with which Mr Tomlinson's speech was greeted by his colleagues and I began to fear that he was preparing himself for a cabinet post in the next government.
However, when he was praised by Otto von Habsburg, this fear disappeared.
(Laughter)
Madam President, I deliberately only took four and a half of my five minutes because I thought thirty seconds might be needed to reply to the Bangemann circus.
When you heard those words read by Mr Bangemann it shows the predictive capacity of the Commission depending on a crystal ball.
It was promising that everything in the future is likely to be better than the empirical evidence of the recent past.
Hope springs eternal!
We have to be more prudent with our responsibilities for the Community budget.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, on a point of order.
Very briefly, Madam President, Mrs Green, the chairman of the Socialist Group, is not here, but I am sure that what I have to say will be passed on to her.
I should just like to follow her example in extending a welcome to a group of visitors in the gallery, who have come here in accordance with the rules...
(The President cut off the speaker)
This is not the time for speeches.
I am sorry, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, but we are going to hold a vote now, and this is not the time for giving a speech.
The Rules of Procedure do not allow it.
Perhaps you could say what you want to say personally to Mrs Green.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
RTD cooperation with emerging economies
The next item is the report (A4-0066/97) by Mr Pompidou, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission entitled 'Promoting RTD cooperation with the world's emerging economies' (COM(96)0344 - C4-0494/96).
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, I am standing in for the rapporteur, Professor Pompidou, who has been called away to Paris - as you mentioned, Madam President - by other commitments.
I do so with pleasure, both out of respect for Parliament and because of the involvement I have had in the debates on this report in the Committee on Research and the Committee on External Economic Relations.
The Commission's communication on cooperation in science and technology with the emerging economies covers design and implementation of specific cooperation instruments adapted to the characteristics of groups of countries with economic situations not classifiable under traditional categories for developing countries.
There is a continuum of economies in transition between rich industrialized countries at one end, and really poor developing countries at the other.
Economies in transition are progressing towards industrialization at their own pace and therefore present dual features, with prosperity and poverty existing side by side, state-of-the-art technology alongside underdevelopment, economic sectors and people on welfare, aggressive firms on the international market, demographic growth and economic expansion attracting foreign investment to high addedvalue businesses. All this means cooperation on a basis of equality with our companies and research institutes is now possible.
Amongst the emerging economies I naturally want to mention China, India, Brazil and the countries of south east Asia, sometimes called 'the tiger economies' .
Describing a developing country as an 'emerging economy' does not mean that country immediately moves into the category of industrialized country.
The best formula needs to be examined case by case.
Here I should mention that it is part of the remit of the Committee on External Economic Relations to discuss whether a specific protocol on research and technological cooperation detailing the sectors concerned, should be included in each new association agreement that the Union establishes with third countries.
The report from the Committee on Research concurs with the European Commission on the parallel use of different assistance and cooperation instruments when those countries present dual characteristics.
The motion for a resolution emphasizes the need for any cooperation in advanced sectors of science and technology with the emerging economies to be organized within a framework of equal rights and responsibilities so as to permit genuinely reciprocal benefits, taking account in particular of the protection of intellectual property and the safeguarding of employment.
One important point in the Pompidou report relates to setting up a research exchange programme with the emerging economies.
The European Union is host today to less than 10 % of the population of young researchers from Asia active in western research laboratories, the great majority being concentrated in the United States.
As well as making their intellectual ability available to their host countries, these young researchers often return to their countries of origin, where they become part of the management class, formers of opinion and culture, and they bring with them the baggage of personal relationships developed in the countries that hosted them.
Given the imbalance as regards presence of Asian researchers in the Union, there is a real risk that the European Union will lack visibility and that could translate into commercial difficulties.
The student and researcher exchange initiatives with the emerging economies must be strengthened in the Fifth framework programme, keeping them on as reciprocal a level as possible.
This criterion of reciprocity should be geared to stimulating collaboration in areas where the emerging economies have already shown a high level of competence and competitiveness, and in the final analysis that is the core of the Pompidou report, which I naturally recommend to the approval of Parliament.
Thank you, Mr Malerba, for your words and for so efficiently standing in for Mr Pompidou.
We are aware of your excellent knowledge of this subject.
Mr President, the Socialist Group warmly welcomes the communication from the Commission on the emerging economies and the need for closer cooperation in the research and development area, and very much welcomes the report by Mr Pompidou.
We are sorry he is not here this morning but we congratulate the rapporteur nonetheless and also thank Mr Malerba for the very considerable attention he has given to this very important issue.
These economies are developing very rapidly.
We know that the Japanese and the United States are already very firmly established in these areas, so there is a need to act decisively and quickly.
The biggest difficulty we have, though, is to put it into some sort of picture.
I received in my mail this morning some interesting figures showing world energy demand.
If you look at the per capita use of electricity, for instance, the countries we are talking about use at the very most only one third of what we are using.
Some of them you can hardly see on the chart.
If you look at the density of vehicles we are up at 500 per 100, 000 population and when you look at the countries that we are talking about in this report you need a magnifying glass to try and work out what the vehicle density is.
A tremendous explosion is going to take place in the not-too-distant future in the scientific and technical area.
The subjects that have been highlighted by the Commission for attention in the agro-industry area, in health, in communications technology, non-nuclear energy and biotechnology are all very relevant to this explosion and we very warmly welcome the way in which the Commission has put this together.
There are going to be specific workshops in some of the countries and some specific studies on space technology, engineering, seismology and advanced materials.
It is obvious from the communication that a great deal of work has been put into it.
We hope that this will also build on the bilateral arrangements that are already well in place between Member States and these emerging economies.
It is important that the Community should be involved in this.
It should not just be a question of bilateral help.
We very much need the Community dimension as well.
The specific measures that the Commission has highlighted are a necessary part of the approach to ensure that the programme is not one that just looks at short-term industrial gain at the expense of long-term effective and beneficial cooperation.
The Commission has got the ideas pretty well right as far as that is concerned.
We also have to recognize that these economies are not all the same: some are advancing faster than others and some are advancing in different sectors, so that it needs a very wide approach, but nonetheless a very specific approach as far as each of the countries is concerned.
The social and environmental issues that affect each country also have to be taken into account.
I was able to attend the symposium that the Commission held last November and I would like to draw the attention of the House to two very important issues which emerged from that symposium.
There was not a consensus and I hope these questions will be resolved by the operation of this programme.
The first is whether we should be concentrating on the scientific end of cooperation or on the technology development part of it.
You can argue it both ways.
I must confess that very often my personal preference is to look more at the technology end rather than the scientific end.
But I do not believe that you can completely separate them.
The other interesting question was whether technical cooperation leads to business cooperation or whether it is business cooperation that leads to technical cooperation.
Probably the answer is, as in most of these types of question, that it is a mixture of the two.
I hope that the programme the Commission has put forward will help us to have a better understanding of these areas, because the contribution this has to make in the Fifth Framework Programme is what we must really focus on.
Mr President, I must begin by making it quite clear that we support this motion for a resolution to foster RTD co-operation with emerging economies.
However, it is very important to be cautious when qualifying a given country as an 'emerging economy' , since the combination of macro-economic criteria is not always applicable in given cases.
You will have to, advisably, resort to a case-by-case examination, dealing with each agreement on its merits, and ensuring that prosperity is simultaneous with its development.
We mean that, in developing agreements, we should put the most possible emphasis first of all on mutual benefits, ensuring social and economic results of European interest and social prospects which are favourable for the European Union as a whole, as could be the results of job creation; secondly, in the legal protection of the results and thirdly in seeking a fair joint funding set-up.
On the other hand, we believe - given the dual character of these economies - that an undeniable consequence has been that of improving human rights in emerging economy countries, since we believe sincerely that, with the right type of project, this improvement in human rights situations will come about normally, since it is known that human rights nearly always evolve alongside the improvement in social, economic and cultural levels.
This circumstance, together with that in paragraph 7, calls for a fair social and economic development, while paragraph 11 calls for conduct based on solidarity and paragraphs 4 and 9 are perfectly in keeping with application of bilateral agreements, which means that it is unnecessary to have any amendment on these matters.
We also think that, generally speaking, the guidelines contained in the Commission communication are the right ones, as well as the emphasis on this particular aspect contained in the motion for a resolution which means that the PPE Group wishes to congratulate Mr Pompidou and also the Commission for its communication.
Mr President, our Group is in full agreement with the Pompidou report, which has made a worthy contribution and far-reaching improvements to the Commission's communication on RTD cooperation with emerging economies.
However, we have tabled an amendment aimed at improving trade union rights in these countries, calling for the proper establishment of cooperation relations in the field of research.
We feel that the process of globalizing the world economy has led to other things, benefits of the European Union, and capital being invested in these countries, motivated by the high profits which can be reaped despite meagre salaries and the lack of trade union rights.
We also feel that in the process of improving the profitability of these economic structures the introduction of research as an extra component should be added to that of low salaries.
This overview means that any cooperation and undertakings by the European Union in terms of research programmes should be turned into yet another opportunity to fight one of the most dramatic consequences of globalisation: mass unemployment and the miserable exploitation of the working masses.
Therefore we advise that, in addition to all of the conditions and precautions which have been properly introduced by Mr Pompidou and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, we should add a clause for the respect of trade union rights, since we have seen young children working, we have seen a lack of trade union freedom, we have seen hazardous work and an increase in working accidents in these countries as well as the use of violence - the epidemiologist Jaime Breihl pointed out that one of the most dangerous epidemics in these countries is violence.
Therefore I think that we should back this motion, but as long as the amendment which we have tabled is passed as well.
Mr President, in principle, cooperation with the world's emerging economies is to be recommended.
It has already been pointed out that these countries differ widely from one another, but even within the countries themselves, the differences in the distribution of poverty and wealth are very great.
It is therefore difficult to draw up a report that is relevant to every situation, and that is evident from this report.
The basic needs and living conditions of the whole population are to be taken into consideration.
That is one positive feature of this report.
In this context, however, I wonder why there should be no partial financing.
This means that only large-scale research projects will be supported, and that leads to centralization, so that it is then questionable whether there will be any narrowing of the gap between rich and poor.
I take the view that specific projects for the poorer sections of the population, and technologies for the prevention of famine situations, e.g. in the areas identified, could also bring about synergistic effects.
The encouragement of regional cooperation is also approved by us, as are programmes for exchanges of scientists, researchers and engineers.
Improving the agricultural situation is a very important issue, and we discussed this at the FAO Conference.
However, there is no mention here of the fact that this situation is often the result of the property-ownership conditions in these countries.
Often there is no famine situation, but famine occurs because of the unfair distribution of property, and population growth, which is mentioned in this report, is not the cause.
The BSE scandal shows that the encouragement of agricultural production on an industrial scale is the wrong approach for the world's emerging economies and developing countries.
Someone has just pointed out that the human rights situation has to be taken into consideration.
I believe that this should be included in agreements of this kind.
If we conclude an agreement with China, then of course we must not forget about human rights.
If this is not possible - and at the moment we have a disagreement with Mexico here - then these agreements should not be signed.
Finally, on the report as a whole, I believe that it is a blank cheque for the Commission.
The question is, what will the Commission do with it?
I hope, Mr Bangemann, that you will do your best, so that we shall not, at some subsequent date, have to set up a committee of inquiry on this report!
It is extremely important, for the future position of the European Union in a global world market, that the Commission and the European Parliament should recognize the special position of the so-called emerging economies of the world, in other words, those countries that can no longer be classed as developing countries, but at the same time cannot be regarded as real industrial countries.
These countries harbour an enormous, in some cases unexploited, technological talent potential, they attract considerable foreign investment, and in some areas of state-of-the-art technology they have long been our competitors.
These countries have already developed remarkable economic power in some sectors, and it is no coincidence that more than a few well-known European companies use Indian software, for example.
Japan and the USA already have strong positions in these markets.
The same applies, to a lesser extent, in the case of some Member States of the European Union.
However, it is high time that the Commission, too, aimed its policy in these countries more towards those sectors that are already developed, and sought to achieve European participation in the state-of-the-art technology markets in these countries.
The current action plan is an initial step in the right direction.
It reveals the need for the European Union to take definite steps in order to ensure that it does not lag even further behind Japan and the USA in these countries, but starts to catch up with them.
It is clear from this that countries which in some fields already occupy a very strong position can no longer be treated on the basis of development-aid criteria alone.
On the contrary, our efforts must lie in the direction of effective cooperation in our mutual interest, cooperation in the sense of partnership, with the same rights and obligations, and in the sense of reciprocity, as the Commission puts it in its report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's communication must be examined in conjunction with the European Union's strategy in the context of the Fourth FRDP.
One of the specific objectives of that framework programme is cooperation with non-member countries and international organizations in the field of research and technological development within the so-called INCO Programme.
On behalf of the PPE Group I welcome Mr Pompidou's report.
I too believe that future cooperation between the European Union and the world's emerging economies should not be based exclusively on the purely economics-based definition of this concept that has prevailed up to now.
In recent decades, each of the countries concerned has had to cope with emerging industrialization against a background of very different starting conditions, and this has influenced their continued development.
This has been my experience, particularly in the context of our work in the Latin America delegation.
For this reason, I believe that every cooperation agreement between the European Union and the so-called emerging economies should be examined individually.
I agree with the guidelines proposed by the Commission, and I believe, especially, that an initial exchange programme for scientists, researchers and engineers should be submitted soon, in order to encourage future cooperation in the field of research.
In addition, I should like to emphasise that it would be desirable for a final report, containing an evaluation of this programme, to be produced by the end of 1998, which is when the Fourth FRDP comes to an end.
We must not underestimate the strong position that some of these emerging economies already occupy in the world market.
Moreover, we must expect some of the countries that are at present emerging economies to become industrialized countries within the next ten or twenty years.
Others, which need more time to develop, have a population situation that will lead to their becoming major sales markets, regardless of their stage of development.
The European Union must have a common, strong and positive strategy in the field of cooperation in research and development, because cooperation that is pursued intensively now will bear fruit in the future.
Mr President, I am pleased that we agree with Parliament on almost all the major issues relating to cooperation with the world's emerging economies in our research and development policy projects.
This is probably due, amongst other things, to the fact that we began our dialogue with Parliament some time ago, with a statement of principle.
It has been proved again and again that if such a dialogue is opened at an early stage, then a whole range of difficulties will already have been removed by the time it comes to implementing what has been planned.
This is good news, not least because, as all the speakers have quite rightly said, it is absolutely essential that we should undertake new initiatives in this area, for several reasons, including, of course, the fact that these emerging economies constitute what one might call a mixed bunch.
Because the countries concerned are slowly emerging from the developing stage, however, we should not pick up on all the major difficulties that this implies, and all the development-policy considerations involved.
This is a very clearly defined and specific programme, and so I think that we can allow ourselves not to try to solve all the problems that arise from development policy.
Somebody mentioned human rights. This is a general problem that concerns our cooperation policy, and we have no intention of treating it here any differently from the way we treat it in other areas.
Mr Adam has pointed out that we may have to decide between technology development projects on the one hand and scientific research projects on the other.
We want our Fifth Framework Programme - and this is a sort of preparation for the Fifth Framework Programme - to concentrate more on the technology issues, one of the reasons being that here we can share the responsibilities between the Union, on the one hand, which should be concentrating on these matters, and the Member States, on the other, which are in a position to be much more active in basic research at university level.
This will probably also mean that what Mr Adam said will become increasingly the case, in other words, that in this type of cooperation too, the accent will be placed more on technology development programmes.
There is one point that has been the subject of a somewhat controversial debate between Parliament and the Commission, and I should just like to add here that the Commission's position may possibly develop further, and that is the question of how research programmes should be funded when those programmes involve cooperation between undertakings which will later become involved as competitors.
Should such a research programme be funded in its entirety, or should it be financed only for the European participants, because the other participants will turn up as competitors later? The traditional approach that the Commission has opted for here, following, I might add, a proposal from Parliament, is that in such cases only the European participants should be funded.
I say that this approach is traditional because, as you know, in our thinking on industrial-policy we no longer see such a big contrast between cooperation and competition.
One can cooperate and yet at the same time be a competitor, and there are many companies that do this, when they combine their resources for a limited purpose and for very clearly defined reasons, and then later compete against one another when the product is on the market, because such a product is, after all, only one part of the overall supply.
This might also be a conceivable solution, but it is clear that these more modern considerations require time, and perhaps they may also require some convincing examples.
I should also like to thank the rapporteur and his deputy again for their excellent cooperation.
A lot of Parliament's work has gone into the report and, as I have already said, if we start work in good time, then, Mr Telkämper, we shall certainly have no need for any committees of inquiry.
You seem to regard a committee of inquiry as a sort of threat, but I can assure you that the Commission regards a committee of inquiry as a normal element of democracy.
I would not go so far as to say that we look forward to committees of inquiry, but naturally we accept them.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution) I call on Mr Malerba to congratulate Mr Pompidou on our behalf.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I wonder whether you would accept a genuine mistake.
You have just called a roll call vote and I automatically pressed the button.
This is not my seat - this is Mr Lomas' seat.
I pressed the button with Mr Lomas' card in it.
I hope you will accept that as a genuine mistake, and the record can be amended accordingly.
This will be checked and, if it is the case, your remark will be taken into account and the necessary rectification carried out.
The demographic situation
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0042/97) by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission's report on the demographic situation in the European Union (1995) (COM(96)0060 - C4-0143/96).
Mr President, I should like to thank and congratulate, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights and also my political group, Mrs Boogerd-Quaak for the excellent work carried out on this 2nd yearly report on the demographic situation of the European Union.
We should like to send our thanks for her sensitivity in incorporating virtually all the content of the Opinion issued by the Committee on Women's Rights.
I regret that, as is usual in the European Parliament, when there are subjects related very directly to women's issues, the family and in the case with older people, there are always put at the end of the agenda.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, this report is a snapshot of developments in Europe and ways in which those developments affect the success or failure of a project which, day by day, is based on an economy of productive and technological processes which are increasingly directed at competitiveness and effectiveness rather than human resources.
The effects of the drop in the birth rate and the drastic ageing of our population have considerably altered the reality of a social Europe for the 21st century.
Old Europe will be full of old people.
To the so-called third age we will have to add a fourth category, the fourth generation, whose needs will have important effects on social, health and pension matters.
There will be two generations of non-productive sectors and the productive generation will go on decreasing in ratio.
Obviously, in this debate we will have to look at central subjects such as the cost of employment, the possible increase in retirement age, the conditions for early retirement, private pension systems and the cost of social security in general.
On these aspects, the rapporteur would like the Commission to launch a debate on the future of old age pensions in Europe and to draw up a list of creative solutions and new methods for funding systems.
I should like to congratulate it on its suggestion because we must also show imagination and properly manage all existing resources in order to renovate social and health services so that they are properly tailored to the needs of our peoples.
We should also be happy at the fact that life expectancy has increased but we should not forget that this life expectancy in some cases will be independent while in others it will be dependent.
The loss of autonomy creates the need for aid and this should be dealt with quantitatively and qualitatively without the expenditure by states on welfare policies growing excessively.
As far as social matters are concerned we have to emphasise the fact that in the last twenty years we have seen significant changes to family structures, which have led to the diminution of the number of people in family units and a redefining of the role of women.
This makes it more difficult for elderly disabled people to count on the traditional support of their families which they used to be able to in times gone by.
This problem is getting worse in urban areas, where houses are small, there are architectural barriers, as well as economic problems and a lack of alternative resources.
There has been an increase in the number of elderly people living alone, something which is acknowledged as a factor of social risk.
That is why it is so necessary to develop social health projects which are innovative and which, incorporated into existing welfare policies, can ensure an increase in the living standards of young people and elderly people alike: crèches for young children and day centres for elderly people, home help and, above all, an assessment of the findings of the application of these measures which, bringing together the private and public sectors, have forced people and the authorities to set viable priorities in terms of existing economic resources available at a given time.
We have to boost measures for reconciling family and working life, generally reducing working hours, granting parental leave for men and women alike.
We must families with children, especially single parent families and disabled families.
Enabling women to take part in working life will actually contribute to economic growth, but I would not like to conclude without recalling the great service which women do to their families and all of those women who help their working spouses despite the fact that they do not figure in the statistics and that the European Union has only been dealing with their situation since 1986.
If the European Union really wants a good working population it will have to count on the potential of women.
Yes, to the tertiary sector, but new forms of part time working, atypical working and temporary work should be shared with men without giving up on progress before the arrival of the Euro, and in the Intergovernmental Conference we should locate human dignity in its proper place.
Mr President, I would like to thank rapporteur Boogerd-Quaak for an exceptional report and for the excellent co-operation while drawing up the same.
We are in the middle of an enormous transformation in society.
In Sweden, my native country, we do not quite have such a dramatic future in front of us as the past we have just left behind.
We are at different stages in this development, and it is important not to become pessimistic over this.
We see the costs piling up, but there are also opportunities with such a development.
Progress is dramatic and will affect all strata of society.
The number of older people will increase drastically, and the most elderly people in particular will need substantial medical care, etc.
At the same time both the active working population and the number of children and young people will decrease.
As mentioned, this will affect all areas of society such as for example the pension system.
I believe that the pension system must be altered in all of the EU countries.
It is important to have a flexible system that gradually allows for working life to give way to an albeit active life which can still play a useful role in society.
We are also talking about equal pension systems.
This is not the case with the current private systems which are calculated purely on a financial basis and with women often living longer than men and therefore having to pay more for their pension.
The state systems should therefore equal with a good basic pension both for men and women.
We need to expand health care and medical services, particularly for older people.
New types of housing are required.
We must change society, public transport, accessibility and convert our houses to make them accessible for all people.
This is another area of society that is being affected.
Education has already been mentioned.
If we look at the changes in the active working population, the number of young working people is decreasing while the older group of working people aged between 40 and 65 is increasing.
At the same time, society is constantly undergoing changes as a result of advances in technology.
This tells us that a basic education is no longer sufficient for our young people.
In order to compete, we must continually educate the people throughout their working life.
This is where most of the population is found and these are the people who will need to take part in the development of new technology.
We must of course increase the birth-rate.
If we look at the labour market, the problem cannot be solved through immigration.
Immigration would have to be enormous. The problem can only really be solved by women entering the labour market.
In this area, different countries are at different stages and development will continue.
However, as result of this it can no longer be left to women to care for the elderly and children, but all of us, men and women, will have to share this responsibility.
Society must also play a part.
Child care must be expanded and an insurance system created making it possible to combine parenthood with a working life.
Finally, I would like to say this: let us not just see the problems but also the opportunities.
The opportunities exist, not least when it comes to the third age and the fact that older people should be considered as a resource.
Mr President, Europe is increasing as far as the age of its people is concerned. Europe is decreasing as far as the number of its people is concerned.
Is our position in danger? Are the data on which these developments are based even meaningful?
Can they be used to develop strategies? In the Commission's second annual Report on the Demographic Situation it is clear that, in addition to the three generations that we have been familiar with up to now - young people in eduction, people of working age, and pensioners - a new generation is emerging, that of the over seventy-fives.
Their numbers are growing considerably.
It is a good thing that people are remaining active longer, thanks to medical progress and better health care provision.
On the other hand, however, there is a shortage of care, integration and solidarity.
This increase in age has serious consequences for our social security systems.
There are considerable differences of opinion between Member States, as well as considerable differences in distribution.
Matters at issue include the level of pensions, in one country basic protection, in another the essential performance-related element, here the lengthening of people's working lives, there the forced early retirement scheme, which operates at great cost to the tax-payer but which has led to hardly any additional jobs for young people.
As ever, women get less than their fair share when it comes to calculating pensions.
Of course measures have to be fundable, and so we have to say yes to the reform of social policy, but at the same time we must say no to the dismantling of social policy.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak is to be congratulated on her report, which sets out specific priorities.
We agree with her about greater differentiation in the light of the vital regional differences between densely populated towns and isolated villages.
The effects on traffic planning, regional planning, housing policy and social policy are very grave, as are the effects on our European structural funds.
The amendments proposed by my group, the Group of the European People's Party, have been included almost without exception, and relate to the world of work.
Fewer and fewer people are employed here, though those that are employed are highly productive.
Bigger companies, in particular, are unfortunately sacrificing the experience factor.
Experience is becoming a handicap.
People are excluded or dismissed, instead of taking advantage of their knowledge, their meticulous work, and their reliability, and it is quite likely that their innovative potential is being totally underestimated.
Participation in the labour market must be extended.
This applies to younger people, the proportion of whom, in the total population, is declining drastically, though this is no excuse for 'running down' educational measures.
On the contrary, future opportunities are increased by a more broadly based basic education system, with many different qualifications and language skills.
The same applies to women, who are still just as disadvantaged as ever, in everything from pay to working hours.
What are we actually doing, in policy terms, to achieve a more child-friendly society, again in the light of the demographic data that have been described to us? This is a broad field for European 'added value' , which could be used to coordinate national policies, to supplement them and - to stay with the metaphor - to fertilize them.
Mr President, I too, on behalf of my group, would like warmly to congratulate the rapporteur on this exceptionally interesting report.
The fact that Europe's population is ageing is not new, we all know it.
The dramatic reduction of the birth rate on our continent and the parallel increase of average life expectancy, together with headlong economic development and the increase in population shown by some other parts of the planet, make the situation here particularly disadvantageous.
In the report by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, not only is a clear picture presented of what is happening, but in addition, we are given a specific warning.
This is the second report on the demographic situation in the European Union with 1995 as its reference year.
This time the report is selective, because it aims to present a first general picture at the Community level of the predominant factor of our democratic future, in other words the extent and acceleration of the ageing process among our population.
I would like to dwell on three points which the rapporteur considers to be basic areas that will suffer serious consequences from the ageing of the population, because they are very interesting: the labour market, social welfare systems, and health care.
She would like to see increased proportions of participation in the labour market, especially among groups in which these proportions are below average. We are speaking about women, young people, immigrants and the aged.
The report also points out the consequences in the area of social welfare, concerning the type of risks insured, the obligations to provide finance, and the distribution.
In addition, a phenomenon is examined in depth which the Commission mentions only rather marginally. That is, the inequalities created by demographic developments, on the one hand between different regions, and on the other hand between urban and rural areas.
It is also worth noting that demographic development has an important effect on the Union's economic and social conditions.
For all those reasons, our group supports the report and will vote in favour of it.
Mr President, demography is and must be the basis of all representations of society.
Because man is, and must be, both the end of society and the means which constructs it.
Demographyy cannot be looked upon as an expression or statistical representation of isolated man, each one, each number, one woman or one man.
Demography reflects social evolutions and dynamics.
In the apparent innocuousness of numbers, all of this represents a real and well clarified story of people living in society.
The concerns brought to us by this report - and I must very warmly congratulate Mrs Boogerd-Quaak on her excellent work - on the basis of the Commission document, are very relevant, they are some of the most essential concerns and they deserve a different degree of attention and another position on our agenda.
Demographic evolution is, within safe limits, something which is predictable.
Demographic structures alter according to rules which we can minimally know and minimally influence.
Participation in the labour market, social security and pension, health care and regional asymmetries are, it almost seems needless to say, indelibly marked by a predictable demographic evolution.
To ignore this and pretend to be surprised, to overlook something that can be predicted and prevented only shows that people have not been placed at the centre of our attention.
Problems such as reducing working hours, in the framework of a determined organisation of time according to certain structures, and that of funding social security would not exist, or would have a totally different dimension, if society were not blinded by the objectives of profit making and the accumulation of capital.
We, Europe, are a continent which is losing in terms of demographic weight.
This is a certain fact in quantitative terms but it can be debated if we take quality which we could have in terms of elderly people, life experience, experience of work, a truly human capital.
This is a debate which leaves us frustrated because it is not at the basis of all other debates.
In any case, let us know how to make the most of the little that we have achieved.
Let us use this report as a means of promoting a continued debate on this subject.
Mr President, I think that Mrs Boogerd-Quaak has produced a very good report, but my group feels there is still something missing.
I will come straight to the point.
I have no intention of joining in with everyone else in saying how terrible these demographic trends are, because to tell the truth, with the natural resources at our disposal, it is probably not such a bad idea for there to be a few less of us in future.
In fact, I think it can only be a good thing for the environment and the planet.
Of course, it will be a challenge to find a solution to the problems we shall face in the short term, as I am sure we would all agree.
Quite honestly, I do not think it is sensible to pay 'breeding bonuses' as a means of tackling these problems.
I do not think that expecting people to lie back and think of Europe is the right way to go about things, even if it worked.
What we need to do is to ensure that we have a child-friendly environment in which both men and women are responsible for bringing up their children, and in which they can have enough parental leave and childcare facilities to make it less complicated for them to have children and easier for them to bring up their children in a normal way.
Things are made extremely complicated for them at the moment, and it is not without good reason that women are delaying having children longer and longer.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak's report calls for more privatization, particularly in the pensions market, but I am not convinced that this is a good idea.
More privatization also means that women will have to pay more premiums into private pension schemes if they live longer, and I wonder whether this will actually be the case.
Looking at taxation, we can see that more care will be needed, and that taxes will have to go up if the burden of care is to be a collective responsibility, rather than being left to women.
So taxes will certainly have to be increased.
But what is tending to happen in the European Union? The Member States are using taxes to compete with each other and are cutting collective provisions to the bone.
Finally, the Dutch presidency has insisted on deleting age from the non-discrimination article.
How could they think of doing this, when we are going to have to rely more and more on older people to be active in future, not just among their friends and families, but also at work?
Mr President, the sole merit of this report is that it calls attention to the disastrous demographic situation in the European Union.
But it is strangely silent regarding the causes of the falling birth rate, of which the rapporteur pretends to be unaware, and the measures proposed seem to me to be contrary to the most elementary common sense.
If European couples are having fewer children, the reason, quite obviously, is that they regard the future as very uncertain, and that the Member States of the European Union grant no financial incentive, or not enough, to those planning large families.
The possibility of parental leave associated with a reduction in working hours is a proposal which would be ineffective in practice.
Only the introduction of a parental wage, enabling women - or those men who wish to do so - to devote themselves fully to the education of their children can improve the birth rate.
This measure, which has recently been applied in France although timidly and inadequately, has already produced positive effects.
In any case, it is impossible to consider the problem of the falling birth rate without mentioning the infanticide laws adopted by the European Union countries.
Those laws have allowed, with absolute impunity, a form of genocide which is unprecedented throughout history, literally a crime against the peoples of Europe.
In this context, we cannot escape the fact that the masonic lodges which plotted this massacre of the innocents are the same who are now preparing to campaign in favour of euthanasia.
First the unborn children, then the old.
Already I, as a physician and a humanist, have long been faced by the agonizing question: where are they going to stop?
Among the solutions suggested by the rapporteur, there is one, the one that recurs most insistently, which is disquieting.
It aims to increase the influx of immigration from the Third World, endorsing what has just been said with a straight face by a Belgian government minister, a socialist, who is not yet in prison, who said, ' Immigration is a blessing for our country, ' heedless of the inexorably lengthening queues of unemployed people of every nonEuropean nationality, political pseudo-refugees, coming to Belgium because they can earn more there without working than they can in their home countries by working, while in ten years the proportion of non-European foreigners among Belgium's prison population has increased from 15.4 to 28.7 % - proof, if proof were needed, that the cumbersome policies for immigrant integration are ineffective.
I am equally surprised to see this report proposing a new European development policy for rural areas.
If this means a U-turn away from the suicidal measures regularly adopted by this Parliament on matters such as the setaside of farmland, the fixing of quotas and the grubbing-up of vines, I need hardly say that it has my enthusiastic support.
Also, Mr President, on reading this report I was struck by the phrase - a socialist invention - ' the inalienable right to health' .
No doctor, however qualified, can guarantee his patients' health.
Only God can give health.
It would be better to talk about the right to receive care, the best care, for everybody.
This is an elementary precaution - otherwise, why not take the principle further and talk about an inalienable right to intelligence?
Talking about health, this report again echoes the unending liberal chorus: let's privatize social security.
How can anyone imagine for a moment that insurance companies, whose sole ambition is to make money, would do better than systems based on national solidarity at financing the cost of medicine - an ever-increasing cost because of technical advances and increasing life expectancy.
Of course, there are reforms that are needed, and they will be painful for some.
In particular, there is the need to depoliticize the mutual insurance associations in Belgium.
And in conclusion, Mr President, I must say, and say again, that it will be impossible to create employment in Europe while we continue to let ourselves be overrun by every conceivable product manufactured outside our borders, in countries where the cost of labour is 40 or 50 times less than it is here.
We must free our enterprises from the social burdens they bear, replacing those burdens with a social VAT from which our products will be exempt on export, though it will be applied to imported products.
We must turn our backs on global free trade, on unbridled, stateless liberalism, which will eventually reduce our populations to starvation.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Boogerd-Quaak on her excellent report, but I would also like to thank the Commission for its Report on the Demographic Situation in the European Union.
With this report, the Commission has given us a document that shows everyone - Parliament, the Commission, and above all the Council - that there is an urgent need for action.
The figures themselves are nothing new; they come as no surprise.
We all examined these problems intensively in 1993, the European Year of the Elderly and of solidarity between generations.
At the time, the Commission published many different, helpful studies, and Parliament unanimously approved the Fayot-Chanterie report, which incorporated the recommendations of the Senior Citizens' Parliament.
So what has happened in the meantime? Although no one doubts the urgent need for action as a result of the alarming demographic developments, so far nothing has happened.
Or has it? Although the foreseeable changes in demographic structure will affect mainly the labour market, and it is urgently necessary to promote education and training measures, and above all women in employment, with accompanying measures such as child care, in the Member States secure jobs are being changed into casual jobs with no social security, training measures are being cut short or omitted, and the financing of child-care facilities is being reduced.
Unemployment in the EU is becoming an increasingly pressing problem.
Yet so far the Council has been unable to decide, when revising the Treaty, whether to include a chapter on combatting unemployment.
Now we come to pensions.
It is mainly elderly women who receive inadequate old-age pensions.
The demand for a minimum pension, which would guarantee everyone a decent standard of living in their old age, has been up for discussion for several years now.
Those Member States which ought to have taken action, however, have so far not made a move.
Guaranteeing health protection, medical treatment and health care is becoming increasingly more complicated because of the rapid rise in the number of older and elderly people. So what are the Member States doing?
Almost everywhere they are cutting back on health protection and, as far as guaranteeing health care is concerned, they are making practically no effort to make the necessary provision or to train health-care personnel.
So what has been happening at EU level since 1993? The action programme for the elderly expired in 1996.
The Council, in other words my country, Germany - and I am ashamed to have to say it - and the United Kingdom, have blocked a new programme for the exchange of information and the encouragement of innovative projects.
Parliament and the Commission had asked for the revision of the Treaty to include a non-discrimination clause, and the Irish Presidency, thankfully, included it in the Council draft.
Last week, however, we learned that the prohibition on discrimination on grounds of age and disability has been scrapped, and so I am appealing to the fifteen Member States to reinstate, in the draft treaty, the prohibition on discrimination on grounds of age and disability.
Mr President, we are conducting a very important debate on the implications of population change inside the European Union. It is astonishing that, while demography is a science where forecasts can be reasonably accurate, little account is taken of the implications of those forecasts in policies for dealing with relevant problems at national level, and to a certain extent at Union level as well.
Very important issues have been touched on here: the implications of the new equilibria which are going to emerge for the labour market, for immigration policy - an issue we must certainly return to - and for reform of the welfare state and the pensions system.
In all this it is still possible to discern the continued illusion that state intervention can respond to every problem.
State intervention can certainly provide some solutions to the new problems: it can provide a better legal context, for example for the labour market. But there is no doubt that we must enhance the role of the family and the voluntary sector to find answers to these problems.
The family must be at the centre of our concerns and our actions.
In fact the family has the answer to the rise in the birth rate and to better demographic balance, and to problems like welfare in an ageing society.
The voluntary sector can also play a major role.
We talk a great deal about subsidiarity, but we must reestablish the fundamental importance of responses from citizens, from families, and from the voluntary sector, and reduce the illusion that state and public intervention can produce a satisfactory answer to these problems.
Mr President, our Group as has already been pointed out, is fully behind the report drafted by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, as well as the major amendments and improvements tabled and introduced by the Committee on Women's Rights, as already pointed out by Mrs Benassar Tous.
However, I should like to point out that demography, the demographic phenomenon, is not a phenomenon which is autonomous of society or without a consequence of economic models; that has always been the case, from prehistory until today.
The growth in human population in prehistory is the consequence of changes which took place in the palaeolithic age; growth during the Middle Ages is also a consequence of changes which took place, and the same is true of the beginning of the industrial revolution.
At this moment in time if the population is actually diminishing in Europe and having problems, then this is due to our economic model and should send out a clear message to our people: there are too many people and too many young people and at the same time there is no possibility for demography to advance.
Therefore, I think that we have to be responsible and we have to ask questions about the economic model which at present is throwing young people off the work market and suggest changes to our economic model.
If we carry on this way we are going to go over the precipice and the proposals which we would like to put forward are the following: first of all, an urgent reduction in working hours, because to do the opposite will not create jobs for everyone; secondly, we must maintain the welfare state because that is the only way, with increases in employment, that we can maintain pensions and offer appropriate conditions for health, social services, etc; thirdly, we must fully incorporate women into the labour market, and respect all of their rights.
This is the only way in which we can head towards the fully employed society which is the only guarantee for European demography to be a favourable and positive perspective.
Otherwise we are saying one thing and doing another.
Mr President, we all have a vested interest in this report, because none of us is getting any younger.
I, too, want to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent report on the Commission's second annual report on the demographic situation in the European Union.
I come from a country, Ireland, which in some ways is out of step with the major demographic trends evident in other EU Member States.
Recent figures show that the population could increase by up to 10 % over the next 10-15 years.
Of course, our birth rate has fallen remarkably since about 1980, but we still have one of the highest proportions of young people in our population.
The current healthy state of the Irish economy, including a labour market which has increased by 10 % over the last 5 years, has meant that our dependency ratio is actually improving.
The rapporteur correctly identifies the major demographic challenges that we face here in the European Union and that we will have to meet in the future.
Firstly - and many people have mentioned this - is the whole question of the number of women at work, and this will obviously now be increased.
This, in turn, means that we will have to have employment policies that are much more female-friendly than in the past: we need shorter working hours, more job-sharing and improved maternity laws.
Secondly, we should encourage older people to remain at work longer if they so wish.
There is a significant step which the Commission could take with regard to this and that would be to abandon its ridiculous age-discrimination policies.
Thirdly, the Member States will have to redesign their pension scheme policies - and this has been mentioned too by many speakers - so that the principle of solidarity between the generations can be maintained.
Of course the Commission must now immediately initiate the debate on the future of old age pensions in Europe and work out new ways of financing these systems.
People cannot go on working until they are in their nineties; we have to provide some equitable way of paying those pensions in the future, and now is the responsibility and the time to do that.
Finally, the European Union's and the Member States' policies must give greater attention to maintaining a healthy democratic division between urban and rural areas.
The Commission, in the review of the structural funds, must give consideration to the various regional imbalances.
Mr President, first of all I should just like to say how very much I congratulate Mrs Boogerd-Quaak on her report, and of course I also welcome the Commission report.
I believe that it is very important for us to keep on tackling this subject because, quite simply, we have a responsibility towards future generations.
It is therefore important that we should concern ourselves with this subject.
I should like to take up one point that is frequently mentioned but seldom really discussed, and that is the role played by healthy families in the context of population development.
In those regions of Europe where the traditional family still plays an important role, the changes in the national economy resulting from the shift in the population age structure are much less noticeable and more easily coped with than in those regions, and above all in large conurbations, in which the destruction of the family has already reached an advanced stage.
A functioning family is simply in a better position to absorb difficulties, because the parts of the family are less dependent on state institutions.
However, I should also like to make it quite clear that when I talk about the family I mean a father, mother and children living together and, if possible, another generation as well, and I do not mean an informal arrangement in which partners of the same sex live together, or a relationship that simulates a marriage, of the kind that is, I regret to say, mistakenly promoted in the Lindholm report.
Unfortunately, our tax legislation in most cases punishes families who have children, whilst at the same time it gives material advantages to childless couples and couples of the same sex, thereby making an enormous contribution to the negative development of the population age structure and the distribution of wealth.
In this sense, I see the report as a clear appeal for families to be given more support in future, and for less support to be constantly given to small, vociferous minorities.
Mr President, the excellent report by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak deserves our applause because demography is an extremely serious problem.
Our age-pyramid already seems to have a very weak base, which means that it is bound to collapse.
We must stop Old Europe being converted into a decrepit and regressive Europe and that is the role of the European Parliament.
The excellent report which we are debating today insists greatly on means of attacking the effects of the demographic crisis.
However, I think we should try to look at the causes.
Demographic movements only change in that they correct the causes in the medium term.
Therefore, I think that this report, which is a very good approach from the point of view of social assistance, should also have a couple more viewpoints added to it.
First of all, the cultural one.
We really must favour family life.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy we are spending money on favouring the Euro; it should also favour the family and family values, parenthood; we should eliminate a certain hedonistic and materialist life style which is latent in the substratum of modern society.
We really must favour family life, parenthood, respect for elderly people; all of this has to be the object of cultural promotion, just as women's rights and just as the future single currency will also have to be promoted.
Finally, in terms of direct taxation, we really must make sure that family expenditure is not taxed, as happens in some of our member countries.
Mrs Banotti wishes to speak. I would ask Mr Bangemann to be patient.
You have the floor, Mrs Banotti.
We can meet outside too, if you so wish.
We are coming to the end of a long week.
Thank you very much for the invitation.
Mr President, There are many things on which Mr von Habsburg and I would not agree.
Unfortunately, for feminist women, the family has become sort of battleground.
Notwithstanding by feminist credentials, I have to say that I still believe that the family is the most satisfactory and effective social union for the care both of the young and the old.
That does not mean that the women become the primary carers and the rest of the activities in those units is carried out by the men.
I see the family as having a very real relevance both at the beginning and end of life.
Mrs Malone is quite correct when she says that our birth rate is rising but, unfortunately, it is rising in areas where the children do not have the best possible advantages for the future.
My mother died a month ago.
She was the mother of six children and we were all able to give her the care and love she needed at the end of her life.
I have one child, as do many people in this Chamber.
Who is going to take care of us when the time comes - not just financially but also with the love and attention that the elderly need at that stage in their lives.
We have to think about this.
We have to put a real value on those who care at both the beginning and end of people's lives.
This applies to both men and women.
I am happy to see that in the caring provisions men are increasingly becoming, for example, state-registered nurses, giving wonderful care and cheering up the old ladies.
I hope there will be plenty of men around when I need care at the end of my life.
It would make life a lot happier for me - and also for you Mr Bangemann.
Mr President, I have just one question for Mr Bangemann.
Following his lyrical observations on the state of the world in general, I would very much like to know whether he is really of the opinion that the various contributions that Members have made to the debate were all reactionary and ideologically tainted, and only his remarks were modern and ideology-free.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his comments, but I did not hear him say that the report contains a number of excellent recommendations across a broad spectrum, which he intends to adopt.
I should like to hear him say that.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The Commission's report on the demographic situation in the European Union and the European Parliament's report presented by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, are somewhat discouraging documents. They highlight the scale and increasing speed of the aging process in our population, which they regard as 'the factor that will dominate our demographic future' , but fail to offer any analysis of the causes or propose any ideas that might remedy the situation.
Indeed, Parliament's report merely offers partial suggestions for adapting the labour market, the social systems and healthcare to the supposedly inevitable presence of an increasing proportion of elderly people in the future.
But these adjustments will not take us very far.
The Commission, moreover, explains in its own report that in order to compensate for the global financial burdens caused by aging it will be necessary to achieve an increase in productivity far beyond anything that has been achieved in the past - an improbable hypothesis, since aging itself, by increasing the average age of the working population, is liable to reduce productivity.
This situation seems all the more worrying in that the excess social burdens caused by the older population are going to have a little more impact, in the medium term, on the competitiveness of European nations against the young populations of South-East Asia.
In this world of runaway free trade, which the European Union has so irresponsibly helped to bring about, the burden of aging is going to be yet another handicap for us, accelerating unemployment which itself, as we all know, generates additional social burdens and handicaps.
To limit the damage, we should have secured acceptance, during the GATT negotiations, of the legitimacy in international trade of certain forms of duty to compensate for excess social costs.
Sadly, we are now farther away from that than ever.
Probably, then, we are laying the foundations here for social disasters that none of our political leaders will have had the courage to oppose or even the foresight to predict.
At any rate, the two reports under consideration today say nothing about such disasters, which we regard as an additional cause for regret.
Nor do they say anything about the only radical solution - the possibility of a family policy to boost the birth rate.
Such a policy has, in fact, reached a total dead end in many European countries, and certainly in France, for shortsighted budgetary reasons but also for other reasons that we hear less about, perhaps because they illustrate too graphically the vicious circle in which we are locked.
Today, according to statistics recently published in France, 70 % of families with more than six children are foreign, as are 50 % of families with five children.
Furthermore, the incentive effect of an improved family policy must logically be stronger among foreign parents who have come from poor countries.
Finally, two-thirds of births in all large families in France are of African or Maghreb origin, which is soon liable to cause far greater problems of integration than those we face today.
Overall, then, in these circumstances, no government dares give a fresh boost to family policy, for fear that the easing of the burden of aging that would result might not be overcompensated by an increase in the burden of integration (which itself, I may note in passing, may be a handicap in international competition).
Total deadlock.
So everything follows inevitably from something else.
Unless the countries of Europe and the Union radically change their immigration policy, there is a serious risk that none of these problems can be solved: not the problem of family policy, not the problem of the birth rate, not the problem of aging, not the problem of the vast gap in competitiveness which is opening between this continent and the rest of the world.
The Report on the Demographic Situation in the European Union is sensible and helpful, because it expresses the essential aspects of development in the Community, and offers everyone the opportunity to understand the effects of individual projects on a specific area.
We too note with concern the ageing of the population, the rising costs of social security schemes and the changes in family life.
However, we believe that immigration, and improved access to the employment market for immigrants, is the wrong approach.
The problems are much more likely to be solved by reforms, beginning with family policy, and passing via tax incentives and better social protection, through to the restructuring of the social security system, turning it into a combined system of personal provision and state provision.
It is precisely in times of high unemployment - and in the course of this week we were given a sample of what is happening on our streets - that we need to ensure first of all that our own citizens have work.
In the Year against Racism and Xenophobia, we should not forget that unemployment and social insecurity often give rise to racist attacks on immigrants, who then become the scapegoats for this short-sighted policy.
And it is essential that we should prevent that.
In consideration of this clarification, however, we non-attached Members are voting in favour of the report by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak.
As the number of elderly people in EU countries grows in relation to the working population, a policy aimed at economic growth will become increasingly important.
This is not made clear enough in the report.
This is not an explanation of vote, it is to follow up the point I made earlier this morning.
As Members will recall I raised a point on the resolution on the suspension of GSP to Burma, asking if the Commission would clarify whether in fact it required unanimity or qualified majority voting to implement the measure, because it was not the decision in principle but an implementing decision.
I am pleased and grateful to report that since the point was raised this morning the message has been conveyed to Commissioner Marín and he has confirmed that the decision will be by qualified majority vote and not by unanimity as was stated in the debate yesterday, which of course means that no single country will be able to block the measure when it is discussed on 24 March.
I would like to thank the Commission and in particular Commissioner Marín for the swift clarification of the position.
Thank you Mr Ford.
I have no doubt that Mr Bangemann will pass that on to Mr Marín.
You have the floor, Mr Hallam, on a point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order.
As you know, there is going to be a general election in the United Kingdom within the next few weeks.
A Member of this House is actually a declared candidate in this general election.
I was half expecting to see him put in an appearance this week, or possibly even to vote.
I wonder whether it would be possible for you, as President, to write to the electors of Putney in London, pointing out that Sir James Goldsmith has hardly taken part in the proceedings of this House during the time he has been elected.
What on earth is he doing seeking another job when it is quite obvious that the job he already has is beyond him?
Mr Hallam that was not a point of order and I cannot answer your question.
Adjournment of the session
We have completed our business.
I should like to thank everyone who has assisted us and you, yourselves, for helping me.
The calmness of this session does nothing to reduce the importance of its content. I think that as a result I am going to have a most enjoyable week-end.
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12 noon)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 14 March 1997.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 14 March have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, before the sitting begins I should like to mention here a political incident which does not appear to me to be very pleasant in so far as it concerns the Honourable Member, Mr Martens, who stated in Lisbon that the party with which I cooperate is a party of the extreme right.
In an interview published on 29 March Mr Martens accused the CDS-Partido Popular, with which I work as an independent and of which my colleagues, Mr Girão Pereira and Mrs Celeste Cardona are stalwart members, of being an extreme right-wing party.
And why? The answer is simple: because we dared to support a referendum in Portugal on the Maastricht Treaty.
Not a serious crime.
This party was then expelled from the PPE and it was Mr Martens who came to Lisbon to do this dirty job, making uncharitable threats and by differences of opinion...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Rosado Fernandes, that is neither a point of order nor a personal statement, since it is something which took place outside the Parliament.
Rule 108 covers the rebuttal of personal remarks made within the Parliament, but not the discussion of a political row which took place outside the Parliament.
I am sorry, but I cannot allow you to make such a speech now.
It is my duty to cut this speech short, since it is bound to give rise to other personal remarks on topics which are neither on the agenda nor have any bearing on the Rules of Procedure.
I am sorry, but it must be so.
... (without microphone) directly personal to us all.
I think I have always avoided making personal attacks; it is not my custom to do so and I should like...
I think that personal attacks are typical of the decadence of our democracy, are typical of those who want to conceal the fact, for example, that the Social Democrat Group has gone over to the PPE...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I am sorry, Mr Rosado Fernandes, this is not a personal attack.
These are political opinions, but this is not the time for them according to the Rules of Procedure.
I regret that I cannot allow you to speak.
Mr President, can I simply point out to Members that the signing-in sheets are now back inside the Chamber.
I hope Members will draw that to the attention of their colleagues who may be wandering around outside looking for them.
Thank you, Mr Balfe.
You know that this was at the initiative of the Quaestors, who tried to find the least inconvenient way possible.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, on the subject of the agenda and the work of the Conference of Presidents under Rule 28 of the Rules of Procedure, unfortunately Parliament has still not set up a monitoring committee in order to ensure that the requirements of the Committee of Inquiry on BSE are met.
Despite many letters, following the decision by the Committee on Agriculture, you have still not replied to them.
Since 1 April of this year, a regulation now has to be implemented, in accordance with which the animal carcase units would have to work in accordance with specific quality criteria.
But they are not doing so!
This Parliament ought to be raising the issue of this requirement, which was one of the main requirements, with the Commission.
This is not possible, however, because the committee has not yet started to operate.
I have the impression that the setting up of this committee will continue to be postponed, by one political group which is being guided by electoral considerations.
We cannot make the reputation of this Parliament take second place behind the electoral considerations of one Member State.
Therefore I should like to ask you to press ahead with the setting up of this committee, so that this Parliament can do its work properly.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, you cited Rule 28 of the Rules of Procedure, but Rule 28 envisages written questions, not oral questions, concerning the work of the Bureau.
The Bureau has already taken note of the question you mention and will be taking a decision at the appropriate time.
The question was submitted during the Bureau's last meeting since it was not possible previously.
The Bureau has many matters to deal with.
It will take a decision on Thursday if the time is right, otherwise as soon as possible.
Mr President, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has just made certain comments.
He did not have the courage to say what he meant; he talked about one particular country.
As a British Member of this House, and leader of the Socialist Group, can I make it entirely clear that I wrote within days of the BSE Temporary Committee reporting asking that we should deal with the follow-up committee immediately.
If he is referring to my group, there has been no attempt whatsoever to keep it off the agenda.
Mrs Green, no reference was made either to you or to your Group, so that explanation was not called for.
Mr President, I would assume that, according to the announcement of what was decided by the Conference of Presidents, a decision on this ad hoc committee will be taken at its next meeting.
That is my intention.
It will depend upon you, the Chairmen of the Groups, whether it is taken or not.
Order of Business
We shall continue with settling the order of business.
The final draft of the agenda drawn up pursuant to Article 95 of the Rules of Procedure by the Conference of Presidents has been distributed; the following amendments have been proposed for inclusion:
Mr President, I should like to point out that the Committee on Budgetary Control approved these reports quite properly in accordance with the rules, and I very much regret the fact that the Council did not take the opportunity to give its opinion on them within the proper time limit, thereby forcing us to separate these two reports from discharge in general, and postpone them to the April II sitting.
Moreover, that is the last date on which we are conducting this approval debate and on which a decision can be given, because according to the budgetary rules we are obliged to give approval by the end of April, or to give our opinion on approval in the part-session.
I want to make this point quite clear here, and I very much regret the fact that we have now had to take this step.
Thank you very much, Mrs Theato.
I hope the Council will take note of that observation.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left has asked for a statement by the Council and the Commission on the closure of the Renault factory at Vilvoorde to be included on the agenda.
The Council has said that for its part it will not be issuing any statement, since it does not regard the matter as falling within its ambit.
The Commission would be willing to do so on Wednesday, although Wednesday would be fairly problematical as regards the agenda which is already quite full.
But of course the decision rests with the Honourable Members.
Mrs Moreau of the Confederal Group of the European United Left /Nordic Green Left has the floor to explain the request.
Mr President, the decision to close the Renault factory at Vilvoorde, which is an indication of the current construction of Europe, based on putting employees into competition with one another, has raised a legitimate wave of protest.
This House has echoed this by adopting, at its March part-session, a resolution which requires of the Council and the Commission, I quote, ' That they do everything possible to have the decision by the management of Renault revoked' .
One month later, where do we stand? The management of Renault, which has put forward no concrete proposal, stands by its decision.
The workers are continuing their actions and the occupation of the site, and they enjoy the solidarity of the employees of the Renault factories in other countries.
Two court decisions, one Belgian and the other French, have blamed the management of Renault.
The Nanterre tribunal has forbidden the closure of the Vilvoorde factory to be proceeded with.
This House cannot be content with having adopted a resolution and not be concerned about the follow-up this receives.
What is at stake is too serious.
For this reason, in conformity with Article 96, paragraph 1, of the Rules of Procedure, my group proposes an amendment to the order of business, with the tabling for the Wednesday sitting of the statements from the Council and the Commission reporting on the measures taken in the spirit of and out of respect for the European Parliament's resolution of 12th March last.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this is the moment when social Europe is beginning to grow, thanks to the struggles of the people concerned.
The initial court proceedings have shown that there is also a real chance of further development, and at this historic moment this Parliament should start to play its role as the sounding-board of the European public, and should look after the interests of the people concerned.
Therefore we should give ourselves time to deal with this issue.
Ladies and gentlemen, pull yourselves together and do it!
Millions of unemployed people, millions of marginalized people are looking to you for action.
If you refuse them, then you will be showing them that you are pursuing a vision of European construction that has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with the interests of the people involved.
It is for this reason that no one in this House can vote against this request.
Mr Martens has the floor to oppose the request.
Mr President, last week, the workers at the Renault factory at Vilvoorde gained an important victory.
The sudden closure of the plant was declared unlawful by a tribunal in Brussels, and also by a court in Rennes.
A completely new situation has emerged.
I heard this morning in my country's media that the trade unions have accepted the principle of resuming work, because the closure of the plant is now unlawful and an entirely new procedure is beginning.
They are going to hold a ballot on this on Thursday morning, in which all the workers at Vilvoorde will take part.
The situation has completely changed.
In these circumstances, I think that an opportunity exists, and that it is legitimate for the normal methods and procedures for consultation in the event of collective redundancies to be applied.
I have also heard that the Social Affairs Council will be meeting on 15 April.
In these circumstances, since legality has been restored by two courts and a new procedure is under way, I think we must give every chance to the discussions which are being called for by the workers and their trade unions, and it does not seem appropriate for us to hold another political debate on the matter.
We still strongly support the interests of these workers, and it is in their interest that I would ask for this new procedure to be given a chance.
I put the request of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Thursday and Friday:
(No proposed amendments submitted) .
Mr President, I just wanted to raise a point with regard to the statement from the Commission and Council following Mr Alavanos' report on the Middle East and ask whether the deadlines could be adjusted.
As I understand it, the deadline for the resolution is set for this Thursday and it is to be voted on at the April II partsession. It seems to me that if we are going to vote on such a sensitive issue as the Middle East at the April II partsession in Brussels, then it really is more appropriate to set the deadline nearer to that part-session.
It is a very sensitive political issue.
I am sure much will happen in the interval and we should allow ourselves to do something more up-to-date at the time rather than establish a deadline this week.
Mrs Green, the next Conference of Presidents will set the time-limit for tabling resolutions.
It is better like that as we can take any points into consideration.
Mr. President, my point concerns the agenda for this week.
We are intending to discuss Ms Terrón i Curí's report on the European Information System on Wednesday.
There have been some problems while discussing this report in committee as the papers are not available in Swedish.
At our last meeting we discussed this matter very thoroughly indeed.
Finally, Mr. Cederschiöld and I, since we were both present, decided that we would not, so to speak, hinder the committee further.
Instead we abstained from participating in the vote in the hope that Swedish texts would be available prior to this session.
Currently only the section covering motivation is available in Swedish, nothing else.
Neither the Council document nor the report itself is available in Swedish.
As we all know, this is a very important report covering an important issue.
But from our point of view the situation is totally unacceptable, and not having access to texts in one's mother tongue is not in line with good working practice.
I refer you to and request that this report is postponed until the documents are available in Swedish.
Mr. President, this point concerns the same issue raised just now by Mrs Lindholm.
I would like to emphasise one aspect of all this, namely that we did discuss whether to proceed with the debate but not the voting, despite the fact that there was no translation.
I think this would be wrong.
I do not think we should proceed with either the debate or the voting until the documents are available in Swedish.
I think, therefore, that the whole subject should be removed from the agenda until the translations are available.
Mrs Cedersschiöld, that is what the Rules of Procedure say and, if, therefore, the text is not available in Swedish and Finnish, we shall not vote.
Mr. President, I am pleased that the President has shown an understanding of this matter.
But if we are now intending to set the translators working day and night so that these texts will turn up the day before the vote, how on earth will we have time to read them and form an opinion on them? Surely this is not what is meant by working on equal terms.
We must have the same opportunity as other nationalities to read, discuss and work.
I find this totally unacceptable and move that the subject is postponed, perhaps even until the next session, by which time we may have the Swedish translation.
Very well, Mrs Lindholm.
I put to the vote the proposal to withdraw from the agenda the report which is not available in all language versions.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
Mr President, you have now removed from the agenda both of Mr Kellett-Bowman's reports on discharge.
In that case, however, we ought to make provision for dealing with them during April II.
They are not on the agenda now, but we must, as a matter of form, fit them in.
I do not know when they will actually be dealt with, but whatever happens these reports must remain on the April agenda.
Mr President, I too am very anxious to obtain clarification with regard to the agenda for April II, because the Commission has stated that on the Wednesday morning it will be deciding which countries, in its opinion, meet the deficit criteria and which do not.
That decision will, therefore, be an extremely important one.
For a long time, we have been asking the Commission always to notify Parliament first when such decisions have been taken, and only then to notify the press.
Commissioner de Silguy has said that he is prepared to clarify this point at 3 p.m., and that the press conference will not be held until afterwards.
I believe that this represents substantial progress in our relations with the Commission, and I therefore think that it is very important that this statement - and, as I understand it, this has already been agreed - really can take place at 3 p.m., in other words, right at the beginning of the April II sitting.
Mr von Wogau, in the final draft of the agenda for Wednesday, 23 April there are two Commission communications: one on equality of opportunity between men and women and the other on the broad economic policy guidelines and excessive deficits.
Each will be allocated 45 minutes for questions and answers.
As regards what Mrs Theato quite rightly said, I think that the appropriate time to consider the day for including the information mentioned still pending before the Council would be at the meeting of the Conference of Presidents this Thursday.
We do not need to fix the date and time now; we hope to have more details by Thursday to consider the inclusion.
(Parliament approved the Order of Business thus amended)
Animal experiments in the field of cosmetic products
The next item on the agenda is the debate on the report by Mrs Roth-Behrendt on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission report on the development, validation and legal acceptance of alternative methods to animal experiments in the field of cosmetic products - 1995 (COM(96)0365 - C4-0662/96) (A4-0017/97).
Mr President, allow me first of all to say something that will come as no surprise to anyone, in fact, basically, I am just repeating something I have said before. For eight years I and many other members have been campaigning in favour of a total ban on animal experiments in the field of cosmetic products.
This campaign, however, has met with only very limited success.
If, in my speech here today, I am somewhat milder than I have been in the past, it is only because I do not want the Commissioner who is present here today, Mrs Bonino, or her officials, to be punished for the crimes that have been committed by her predecessors, because unfortunately that is what has happened.
In 1993, this House decided, quite clearly, that there should be no more animal experiments in the field of cosmetics, on the grounds that there are already 8, 000 ingredients that have been tested on animals.
Any other new ingredient to be used for cosmetic products would have to be tested using alternative methods, i.e. in vitro, and not on animals.
We asked the Commission to report to us, on an annual basis, regarding the progress that had been made.
Unfortunately, almost no progress has been made at all.
The fact that I am speaking on the subject today, somewhat belatedly, is due to the fact that the report that I prepared for the Commission's annual report was removed from the agenda at the last sitting.
In the meantime, the Commission, in its haste, allowed the committee to meet in order to approve technical amendments, and that committee took certain decisions that, by its own standards, were relatively mild.
In spite of this, I am now asking the Commission to accept the report that I have prepared for Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and to take on board the wisdom that it contains, because this technical committee has done nothing about it.
Let me just refer to two of the three points I have in mind, and then ask Mrs Bonino two questions.
First of all, in 1993 we decided, for reasons of common sense, that if, by 1998, no alternative methods had been developed and validated, then we would have to allow a one-off postponement of the ban on animal experiments, for a period of not more than two years.
I would now like to ask Mrs Bonino whether she agrees with us that the year 2000 has to be the final cut-off point for animal experiments in the field of cosmetic products, and that there can be no further extension.
Unfortunately, the decision taken by the technical committee on 20 March is not so clear-cut.
I would then like the Commission to establish beyond doubt that now - contrary to what has occurred in the past - it is being made quite clear that none of the animal experiments that are used has ever been validated.
A requirement that we expect, and indeed demand, that alternative methods should meet, is not being met by these animal experiments at all!
Therefore, will you, Mrs Bonino, establish beyond doubt that, when it comes to validations, you will not set any requirements that are higher than those set for animal experiments?
And will you also take note of the fact that most animal experiments have never been validated, which means that they have never really been put to the test, and that therefore they are of only very limited relevance? If we are to abide by international agreements, and apparently the OECD is an authority as far as the Commission is concerned, then will you also establish beyond doubt that the OECD is trying to eliminate and abolish as many animal experiments as possible by validating alternatives?
Will you also establish beyond doubt that the OECD has received a satisfactory number of applications for the approval of alternative methods?
And finally, Mrs Bonino, will there be a seventh amendment to the cosmetics directive in the near future? I know that always in the past the technical committee and its staff have kindly given advance notice; at the time, the sixth amendment, together with my 1993 report, led for the first time to our demanding a ban on animal experiments in the European Union.
As you can imagine, Commissioner, a seventh amendment would take more account of Parliament's wishes, and you would therefore receive the measure of support that you would no doubt like to have. I should therefore like to hear your answer.
Will you, in the near future, be proposing a seventh amendment to the cosmetics directive? And will this seventh amendment finally make it quite clear that no more finished products will be tested on animals?
I was convinced that the sixth amendment had already made this sufficiently clear, but apparently that was not the case.
Therefore I expect the seventh amendment to have that effect. I should very much like to hear you tell us when you will be giving Parliament its chance, within the legislative process, to make its position known and to support the millions of people in the European Union who are demanding that there should be no more animal experiments in the field of cosmetic products.
Mr President, I find Mrs Roth-Behrendt's generosity quite amazing.
She has been very kind to the Commission and I understand why.
This is not the Commission which failed so abysmally in the past, it is a new Commission.
Nevertheless, I contend, the responsibilities of the old Commission transfer to the new one and I am deeply disturbed that this Commission is as subject to the influence of the lobby as was the old one.
It is only a parliament and parliamentarians which can respond to the many thousands of letters which we collectively receive on this subject.
I must also say that I find it very upsetting that we have missed the boat.
If this were a situation where co-decision applied, we would have had a much greater power and influence over the Commission.
Just as on the last occasion, cooperation has meant that we have been overruled.
I wonder if the possibility has occurred to the Commission that we as a parliament might look at measures which are not directly related to this issue and possibly threaten to hold them up in order to get our way on this subject.
We have never tried this tactic before.
It seems to me that our only alternative would be a motion of censure for failure on the part of the Commission to do what it promised.
We tried that only a month ago and of course in those circumstances we were obliged to support the Commission - and rightly so.
However, we cannot be constantly rebuffed by the Commission as if we had no democratic accountability to our constituents.
When she responds to the debate, I would ask the Commissioner to deal with some of the following specific questions, arising from the resolution before the House. Firstly, may we know what draft measures are to be proposed to us?
'Draft measures' could mean anything. Secondly, could we have some indication as to what has happened so far?
No clear explanation was given in committee. We are told that there are no detailed statistics available.
Why not?
Who collects the statistics? Where do they come from?
What has the Commission done to chase up these matters? If the Commissioner does not know then who does?
This has all very much been lost sight of. Once again the lobby has been more effective than anyone else.
That is a totally unsatisfactory situation.
The Commission and Parliament should take joint responsibility and ensure that animals are no longer abused in the way they have been in the name of commerce.
Mr President, the EPP Group will be supporting Mrs Roth-Behrendt's report and would like to congratulate her on it.
We have taken a keen interest in this issue and recognize that the European cosmetics market is very important.
It accounts for about 40 % of the world cosmetics market.
Even though the actual number of animals involved in testing for cosmetics is relatively small, our aim, like that of the rapporteur, would be to reduce it to zero.
We draw attention to the fact that it is not actually known how many tests for cosmetics within the European Union involve the use of animals since most Member States are failing to comply with the obligation to collect those statistics, including Germany.
I hope Mrs Roth-Behrendt will take that message home.
Secondly, it distresses me to agree with Mr White in the context of the British general election, but it seems to me that the only people approaching this issue with any urgency at all are Members of the European Parliament and members of outside pressure groups.
This is curious since the European Union has a framework for a ban available in the 1993 Directive.
It is also curious because the European Union has some claims to be a democratic body.
I would like to call on the Commissioner, when she speaks, to give us a timetable for the early banning of any requirement to test finished products on animals.
It is also very important that we show greater clarity and urgency in developing and validating alternatives.
I, together with Mrs Roth-Behrendt and some other Members of the European Parliament visited the European Centre for Validation of Alternative Methods of Testing for Cosmetics at Ispra in northern Italy.
We found it in a pine forest. It was, I believe, previously the Italian Centre for Nuclear Energy.
I have referred to my notes.
I note that Dr Balls, the director of the centre said to us in December 1995 that he believed that it would be possible to ban, from 1998, all the following tests on animals for cosmetics: finished products, skin penetration, photo-toxicity, skin irritation, mutagenicity, eye irritation and sensitization.
There is something very curious going on here where the director of the centre said in 1995 that this would be possible by 1998 and yet the Commission has not come up with any proposals.
I wonder whether this has anything to do with the troubles that the Commissioner can see ahead relating to the World Trade Organization, and the fact that it may not be possible to bring this legislation in as originally envisaged in view of our obligations under certain GATT rules.
If that is the case, then I, and I suspect, Mrs Roth-Behrendt as well, would be prepared to be very combative on this.
What is the point of having a European Union position on this issue, which is very important to many people in Europe, if we cannot do anything about it because of international rules? Surely we should test those rules to the ultimate.
Mr President, the ban on the marketing of cosmetic products and ingredients which have been tested on animals is due to enter into force on 1 January 1998.
Unfortunately, however, as other speakers have already pointed out, the Commission takes the view that this ban should be postponed for two years.
I should like to be somewhat stricter than the rapporteur, Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
The resolution says that no part of the ban should be postponed for more than two years.
I would like to have this two-year period taken as a maximum, and I would ask the Commissioner if she sees any prospect of reducing it.
Because a maximum is just that, and it also means that you can go for less.
I think this whole affair is very unfortunate, and we shall also be voting against the two amendments tabled by the UPE Group, because they are simply trying to weaken the resolution drawn up by the rapporteur.
It seems to me quite senseless that animals should have to suffer so that yet more cosmetics can be produced.
And I also feel that the Commission does not have sufficient grounds for proposing a postponement.
If you look at the Commission's annual report, it shows that there has been a casual approach, a lack of effort to secure the implementation of a ban on animal testing in 1998.
It is a great pity that the Commission has made so little progress and is now taking refuge behind such things as the WTO and risks to health.
And if we look at paragraph 3 of the resolution, we see that the Commission has failed in not even being able to provide detailed statistics on cosmetic testing in the Union.
I would ask Mrs Bonino to look at paragraph 3 and to respond by telling us how things can be improved, so that at least some better statistics can be obtained.
The Commission would have appeared in a better light if it had gone to more trouble over the international recognition of alternative testing methods.
We must also not forget that there are already some 8000 ingredients which have been tested.
The Commission would have done better to oblige the cosmetics industry to use these existing ingredients and finally introduce a ban on further animal testing.
Mr White says that one response might be to dismiss the Commission.
I hope that the Commissioner's reply will be such that we shall be rather more generously disposed than when we started this debate.
Mr. President, first, I would like to say that Mrs Roth-Behrendt has written a good report.
But, a new situation has arisen since the decision taken by the technical committee on 20th March which changes the basic circumstances.
It must be said that this was a very negative decision; settling this issue has once again been postponed to some very indefinite future time.
The decision is negative for several reasons.
Firstly, of course, because of the subject matter: This is an ethical question and it is totally indefensible to use animal testing in the production of cosmetics.
Secondly, the format of the decision is totally unreasonable, i.e. that we have a technical committee which is, in practice, creating legislation.
This is not the way a democratic country, for example, would operate.
It is also disturbing that the technical committee will once again postpone the decision in two years time if it has not found sufficient alternatives by that time.
We cannot possibly accept this way of working.
The Commission must also take some criticism for remaining passive on this issue and for once again taking the initiative of postponing the ban.
Of course alternatives are slow to appear when it can be seen that the ban is continually postponed; we are contributing to this slow pace as there is no clear date by which testing must stop.
And now a new argument has appeared on the scene: it is said that the World Trade Organisation will prevent the introduction of a ban on sales.
This is a very dubious argument, particularly as it is really impossible to know whether or not the organisation will approve such a ruling until we have tried to introduce it.
If the World Trade Organisation does not approve it, we can refuse to accept the decision without first attempting to fight for the introduction of such a ban on sales of this type.
We support the report and would like to see a ban as soon as possible both on sales and on testing themselves.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if we look at this affair by the light of day, we can see that the Commission has perfected the art of evading directives or regulations that have already been adopted.
It really is a scandal that the prohibition on animal experiments, which was due to come into force on 1 January 1998 - and which in any case has been known about for four years and repeatedly postponed - is now to be postponed yet again, until the year 2000.
It is neither technically nor ethically justifiable for millions of animals to have to die, in the nastiest possible way, merely so that the cosmetics industry can produce a few more pots of cream, when there are already millions of little pots of cream and such like products.
The majority of the population of the EU rejects the idea, as proved by the millions of signatures that we have received.
Parliament is against the idea as well.
Nor is it acceptable that there should be arrangements to allow exceptions to the rule.
If it is not possible to prove in vitro that a new ingredient is harmless from the toxicological point of view, then we must simply do without it.
We already have enough of them anyway.
In any case, it is time we decided, once and for all, whether we should always carry out research into everything using animal experiments.
Something that has been proved harmless in animal experiments may nevertheless cause serious reactions in human beings.
This has already been proved on innumerable occasions.
It cannot and should not be possible to keep on and on postponing something!
Remember the leghold traps!
Something that this House decided on a long time ago is being postponed, by bringing up all sorts of odd arguments, statistics, the WTO and whatever else happens to occur to us.
Then you either say that we do not want such laws at all, and what Parliament has decided is all very well and good, but in principle we shall do as we like - at least that is what it has looked like recently.
But I reject this viewpoint, and I also reject animal experiments.
I like to use cosmetics, but not like this.
It is high time that we stuck to the decisions taken by this House.
That is why we were elected, and that is what the public expects of us.
Mr President, at first sight, the ban on animal experiments to test cosmetics or the substances of which they are composed should be a matter of consensus, as each of us is naturally opposed to any act of cruelty to animals.
An important observation becomes necessary, however, when one examines the matter.
A favourable decision on this ban could well be fatal for the European cosmetics industry, which is the world leader.
Most third countries, in fact, require this type of experimentation and our most aggressive competitors - the Americans and Japanese - will have no hesitation in continuing tests on animals in order to place on the market products which they will sell throughout the world, including in our countries.
Moreover, is it really cruel to test a product by applying it behind a rabbit's ear or, at worst, by instilling it onto a rat's cornea, to check that it does not develop conjunctivitis? Mrs Roth-Behrendt's report wants to authorize alternative methods only.
But what are they? I know of only one which is scientifically reliable, and that is experiments on human beings.
As a plastic surgeon, I am very well informed on this subject and I can tell you that the Americans are past masters in these techniques. In California, in particular, it is common to recruit in prisons volunteers who, for a fistful of dollars and a reduction in their sentence, agree to expose themselves to the sun for ten hours at a stretch with a mixture of sun lotions on their backs.
These prisoners - volunteers for science - always come from a socially disadvantaged background and most of the time they are immigrants.
Are we - in Belgium, in France or elsewhere in the European Union - going to appeal to North African delinquents in our prisons in order to subject them to experiments? As a humanist all my life, I cannot reconcile myself to this and the writer of this report will be hard pressed to explain to me in the name of what moral principles protecting a rabbit's ears and a rat's conjunctiva takes priority over the health of immigrants, even if they are delinquents.
Mr President, every time we have this debate here in Parliament we have to clarify many concepts if we want to avoid a dialogue between deaf men.
One indisputable fact is that scientists the world over are in favour of alternatives to animal experiments, where they exist, because they are easier.
No-one prefers to use animals since, amongst other things, the work is more difficult and very much more costly.
The debate is not therefore whether we are in favour of or opposed to the alternative methods.
The real debate lies in determining whether people's right to health can be protected with the alternative methods which now exist.
That must be this Parliament's chief concern.
What sometimes happens in the field of rights is that there are conflicting forms of good.
Where the promotion of animal welfare which conflicts with the good of protecting people's health, we must opt for the second form of good which is a higher form.
Moreover, in this Parliament we often have great political voluntarism.
There are occasions unfortunately when we cannot overtake science.
Mention has been made of the Research Centre at Ispra and it has been said that they cannot do much; here too there is confusion between the faculties and the capacity of the Ispra Centre.
Alternative methods will arise from international research and not from any specialist voluntarist centre.
We can encourage, we can act, we can spend money, but it will be international research which finally comes up with these alternative methods.
Mr President, I would like to make it clear that I fully support one of the previous speakers in the view that what we are considering here is human health.
It also has to do with human vanity, and this is quite a different matter.
So I would like to thank the rapporteur for an outstanding report, though in fact it was a little more biased - as others have pointed out - than it should have been, which was of course quite natural.
But the issue it brings to our attention, and I hope the Commissioner will understand this, is that it is in fact quite unacceptable that we should postpone the ban so that it does not come into effect in 1998.
There is absolutely no justification for doing this.
There is an abundance of cosmetics on the market.
We can make do with those that are available.
We have ample opportunities.
There is no reason for researching further products unless this can be done using alternative methods.
As others have pointed out, it is wholly unacceptable that these decisions be taken by technical people.
This is a question of policy, so it is logical that the decisions should be taken by politicians, not be technical personnel.
Unfortunately this decision making process demonstrates all too clearly how strong the cosmetics lobby is in the European Community.
There is no defence for this when we consider the fact that 40 % of the market in this area is located in Europe, but it is precisely for that reason that we should give a lead in preventing animal experimentation.
It is lamentable that the Commission should succumb to the lobbyists' activities.
It would be sending the wrong signal if we once again postponed the ban.
If we do so, the industry will simply think that we will do the same again next time and may in fact become indifferent.
Mr President, Commissioner, the purpose of the Roth-Behrendt report is to summarize the progress achieved by the Union in the development, validation and legal acceptance of methods which could replace animal experiments in the cosmetics sector.
It also refers to the 1994 report of the Commission, which confirmed the lack of valid alternative methods to replace animal experiments and confirmed the Commission's commitment to at least reducing the number of animals used.
I must stress that with regard to certain tests, specifically those for eye irritation, skin absorption, phototoxicity and photo-irritation, and those basic tests relating to mutagenicity, the Commission report did evince a degree of optimism regarding the possibility of testing valid alternative methods.
Our view is that the differences of opinion between the European Parliament and the Commission are still unresolved, because we are concerned here with a conflict between the principles of free trade and the assertion of non-commercial values in animal experiments in the field of cosmetic products.
The European legislator can legislate in respect of any product in circulation within the Union, but he must follow the dictates of international law, because when European enterprises export to third countries which require animal experimentation for European products, these must conform to the laws of those countries.
Furthermore, the rules endorsed by the European Union at the GATT negotiations do not allow us to prohibit the circulation within Europe of foreign products that have been tested on animals.
To summarize, imposing stricter rules on European producers than on their foreign competitors could sound like discrimination against the former.
To eliminate any such possibility, at least for the time being, the Commission should delay for a few more years the directive prohibiting the marketing of cosmetics that have been tested on animals.
Mr President, I think it is quite incomprehensible that the Commission once again feels that it has to postpone the issue for two years, and I should like to take this opportunity to say to those ladies and gentlemen who believe that there are no alternative methods that that view is totally incorrect.
It is not true, for example, to say that there is no alternative to the eye irritation test.
This fact is now established knowledge at international level.
If that is what you maintain, sir, then you do not know what you are talking about.
It is also complete nonsense, in this context, to quote a few poor prisoners on whom some kind of tests are being carried out.
Every woman and also every man who would like to use perfumes would do without them if they knew that, in order to manufacture these products, somebody has to be tortured.
I too can quote a statistic, from the Federal Republic of Germany, where the provisions in force are particularly stringent.
This statistic was published in 1997.
It refers to thousands of dogs and cats.
There are millions of animals tortured year after year.
And all of you, ladies and gentlemen, who perhaps have a dog at home, and who think about what else you can do to make its life better, should just try to imagine how you would feel if it was your dog that somebody was going to test a cosmetic product on.
I believe that enough research has been done, and that there are enough alternative methods.
We all know why this issue is really being postponed: it is exclusively for reasons of trade policy.
It has nothing to do with a lack of alternative methods.
Mr President, having heard what Mrs Flemming has to say, it is obvious that both the Commission and the Member States accord very little importance to the concept of animal protection.
The Commission's annual report for 1995 makes it quite clear, at any rate, that the Commission is totally lacking in commitment when it comes to implementing the restrictions and halting animal experiments in the cosmetics industry.
Although the cosmetics industry itself has carried out a certain amount of research that is worth mentioning, the Commission has to a large extent limited its own action to merely coordinating certain validation programmes.
It is a fact, unfortunately, - and scientists are by and large agreed on this - that research methods not involving animal experiments are still not sufficiently well developed in some areas.
I should therefore also like to give my support, in particular, to the rapporteur's demand that research and development work aimed at discovering alternative methods for tests in the cosmetics field should be included in the fifth R & D Framework Programme.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner Bonino.
The rapporteur, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, has asked to speak.
Mrs Bonino, please allow me to ask you a few questions, so that I can be certain that I have understood you correctly.
I am normally quite mild in my dealings with those sections of the Commission that you represent, but if I had heard your speech earlier, I might not have been in quite such a mild mood.
I am not happy about much of what you have said.
It is superfluous to argue about what percentage of animal experiments are used for cosmetics, because you know, and I know, that there are very many animal experiments carried out to test ingredients that are also used in the cosmetics industry, which do not appear in any of the statistics.
Nor is it a question of whether there is enough money for Ispra.
As far as I am concerned, the matter at issue is the conclusion, and the conclusion is that there are no validated alternatives.
Have I understood you correctly, in that you said that with effect from 1 January 1998 there will be no more animal tests for finished products?
That is what I understood you to have said, and we are agreed on that point.
That would be one contentious issue fewer.
For those members who have not been following the issue for quite such a long time, let me begin by saying that this Parliament first requested this in 1993.
We have for a long time been in agreement with the scientific representatives that this ought to be possible and that it is self-evident.
If compounds and ingredients have been tested on animals, then the final product no longer needs to be tested.
Do you take this view as well? Then 1 January 1998 is the appropriate deadline!
Have I understood you correctly in thinking that you said you would be submitting a seventh amendment to the cosmetics directive under the co-decision procedure? If so, when will this happen?
My last question refers to a point that has been annoying me for some time now, namely GATT.
I understand all too well what you are saying. But do you share my view, that your two proposals, firstly to make an exception for the territory of the European Union and then for products that are imported into the Union, cannot be justified, either on ethical grounds or in the interests of European competitors?
Do you also share my view that the Commission would do better to take as a basis Article 20 of the GATT agreement, which clearly states that other laws are justified on ethical grounds? Have you tried to use the rules as your basis, and have you also perhaps tried to fight a little?
Mrs Bonino, you are normally so full of fighting spirit. In this case you have me on your side, but if I were in your position I hope I should have rather more courage.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner Bonino.
The debate is closed.
The voting will take place tomorrow at noon.
Maize and genetically modified organisms
Mr President, the Commission has agreed to the authorization of genetically modified maize, although it has not been possible to dispel the doubts that exist with regard to health and the environment.
It has bowed to pressure from industry, and has sacrificed the consumer and health protection.
The majority of Member States were against the marketing of this product because of the risks attached to triple gene manipulation.
The results are ineffectual antibiotics, increasing allergies and chemical-contaminated soil.
Transgenic maize is a time bomb as far as consumers and environmental protection are concerned.
For example, there is a real fear that the built-in antibiotic resistance will cross over into human disease pathogens.
This could mean that ampicillin will be forever lost as a treatment for disease.
The Commission is thus accepting the fact that human beings will have to be exposed to disease pathogens without any protection.
In the meantime, there is now absolutely no dispute, scientifically, about the fact that foreign genetic material can pass into the gastro-intestinal tract via food, without being fully decomposed.
It has even proved possible to detect foreign DNA later in the cells of the body.
The question arises as to why these risks are being ignored, and why consumers are thus being used as guinea pigs by the genetic engineering industry.
The approval for the marketing of transgenic maize is a slap in the face for consumers, and you, Commissioner Bjerregaard, have ignored not only the health and ecological reservations, but also the provision of transparency and the consumer's wish that genetically modified products should be labelled as such.
Genetically modified maize is being palmed off on consumers, and keeping everything secret like this is contrary to consumers' interests.
This is almost like a kind of forced feeding.
By giving approval for the marketing of this product, you have irresponsibly turned yourself into the lackey of the genetic engineering industry. Commissioner, we expect some answers to our questions today!
Why, for months on end, have you tolerated the illegal importation of transgenic maize? Is the information correct, i.e. that you have given the USA an undertaking not to intervene?
Although the Commission is responsible for foreign trade, did you deliberately fail to take action when these illegal imports became known? Are the accusations made by your colleague, Mrs Bonino, true, i.e. that in approving transgenic maize, economic interests took precedence over consumers' interests?
And how, Commissioner, do you propose to cope with the ban on imports that exists in Austria and Luxembourg?
Are the rumours true, when they say that the Commission will try to withdraw only as far as the formal aspects are concerned? Why do the ten genetically modified plants for which marketing licences have been applied for not fall within the scope of the novel food regulation, and why do you want to leave it to the genetic engineering industry itself to decide what type of labelling should be used?
We expect the marketing of transgenic maize to be abandoned until all reservations have been taken into consideration.
The principle of taking precautions, and the protection of the environment and of consumers, must take precedence over economic interests, and we therefore want to hear your position with regard to the accusations regarding the marketing approval and the question of how to proceed further.
Mr President, on 18 December last the Commission took a decision which we consider disastrous, authorizing the placing on the European market, for all uses and without specific labelling, of thousands of tons of genetically modified maize together with cereal substitutes derived from this maize, which originated in the United States and were then stocked in our ports.
Essentially, this decision seems to us very serious on two accounts.
First of all, we do not know for certain the ultimate consequences of dispersing genetically modified organisms into the environment or into the food chain.
By transferring genes, one is in fact transgressing the species barrier and upsetting the equilibrium of the genome, without knowing how nature is going to react.
It seems to us that, in granting this authorization, the Commission has shamelessly broken the rule of prudence which it had, however, sworn to us, after the mad cow affair, that it would respect from then on.
Our concern is further increased when we see the great haste and lack of thought which prevailed at the decision of 18 December.
The opinions of the scientific committees, on which the Commission claims to have relied, are vague and laconic - in this case a few lines each, we are told - whereas the risks of transgenic maize are of the utmost seriousness: dispersal of pollen into the environment; the risk of seeing weeds become resistant to herbicides and the necessity for new, more expensive products to fight them; the risk, in human beings, of resistance or allergy to certain antibiotics; endangering the lives of bees, as the toxin contained in transgenic maize, and which is designed to kill the European core borer parasite, is a poison which the plant will continue to produce permanently; etc.
It is clear that, in this affair, the population of the countries of Europe is once again being launched into the unknown, blindfolded.
This is all the truer as the Commission's decision was not even subordinated to specific labelling.
No doubt we will be told shortly that this labelling is going to come, but it is not there and we reply at once that we do not believe in it, as it will never be possible to label everything unambiguously, particularly by-products.
Moreover, we are already being told that it will not be possible to apply this labelling to the transgenic products which have already been authorized, or for which the authorization procedure is under way.
Finally, and in any case, neither Member States nor the Commission have the moral right to let a product which poses such risks be distributed on the market, even if it is labelled.
Faced with this European deficiency, some Member States have taken decisions, either to ban cultivation or to ban importation.
We say that you cannot have one without the other: banning cultivation but not importation would not, in fact, lift the threat hanging over human or animal health and would, moreover, put our maize producers in an untenable position in the face of foreign competition.
We therefore solemnly ask the Commission to revoke its decision of 18 December, even if this means causing a dispute at the World Trade Organization.
In any event, some day we will have to know where we stand and whether we do or do not have the right to defend ourselves.
Ladies and gentlemen, the market for products obtained through genetic engineering, which is developing very rapidly at a world level, presents two major problems.
First, that of the safety of these products; secondly, that of the competitiveness of the Union's Member States in relation to third countries.
The problem of safety, first of all, which is a dual one: food security and environmental security.
Food security consists in making sure that the new, genetically modified products are not harmful to our health and that of our descendants, in other words, that of the human race.
We must therefore arrange for all the necessary tests and experts' studies to be conducted, by authorities which are independent of all commercial and political pressure.
As for the safety of the environment, we must be sure that the modified plants are not a source of pollution by creating in their surroundings - for example through hybridization or pollination with neighbouring plants - new, dangerous species which are resistant to all methods of destruction and are thus a threat to our plant and animal environments.
Personally, as a scientist as well as a political representative, I think that purely and simply banning these new products raises the second major question - the competitiveness of the States of the European Union in relation to the competitiveness of third countries.
We must not conceal from ourselves that at world level these new production techniques will gradually replace the traditional techniques for plant selection which are used at present, and that they will replace them not only in the field of plant selection but also, most probably, in that of animal selection.
The world market will thus rely to a great extent on the products resulting from this technology.
The United States are already exporting their transgenic maize, Japan is exporting its genetically modified soya, and banning these products in the European Union would very likely put its Member States in an inferior position where trade and health are concerned.
Because of the dual problem of competitiveness and safety, it is thus important, first of all, to suspend the authorization to import genetically modified products into the European Union, because the national authorities of Member States are not all in agreement and a large majority is even opposed to this.
Moreover consumers, who have not yet been reassured about these products, are mistrustful, which is understandable, after the bovine spongiform encephalitis affair.
Finally, the regulation on labelling, which would enable consumers to make an informed choice between products which are genetically modified and those which are not, has not yet come into force.
On the other hand, to enable the Member States of the Union to remain competitive in relation to world competition, the marketing within the European Union of seeds for producing widely cultivated plants should be authorized, as some Member States, such as France, in particular, have a lead which they could easily lose at the expense of the development of the European Union.
Some Member States, indeed, such as the United Kingdom, are already placing on the market products derived from genetically modified organisms, surrounding them, of course, by all the necessary guarantees - as we have said - as regards nutritional and environmental safety, in order to protect European citizens by guaranteeing them the quality of products derived from perfectly monitored European production.
If this is not done, we shall be at the mercy of foreign produce from third countries, which we will not be able to monitor with all the necessary safety.
In conclusion, I would earnestly ask the Commission, on the one hand - I repeat - to ban the importation of genetically modified products and, on the other, to authorize the placing on the market of a certain number of products generated within the European Union with all the necessary guarantees, so as not, finally, to put us in a drastically inferior position compared with third countries.
Mr President, we are not so concerned about the economy - which Mr Cabrol spoke about - as about the health of European consumers.
And in this case we are not merely mouthpieces for voicing the concern of consumers, particularly of Spanish consumers.
Over 100 cargoes of genetically modified maize have arrived in Spanish ports.
This has given rise to great concern and we have even received letters from trades' unions on the matter.
As spokesmen, we think that the European Commission was too hasty in December in authorizing the marketing of these genetically modified products.
It seems to us that more attention was paid to economic factors, such as pressure from the United States and the multi-nationals, than to the health and safety of Europeans.
We believe there should be a moratorium on the marketing of these products.
I live in a region which goes by the name of Asturias which has come into the international limelight recently with the signing there of an agreement on human rights and bio-medicine.
To put it briefly, that agreement stressed that human rights must take precedence even over scientific interests, research must be carried out in a responsible way and care and caution must be exercised when scientific discoveries are implemented.
I think the same rules must be followed in agriculture as in bio-medicine: care, caution and a constant awareness that health and human rights take precedence over any other consideration, especially any economic consideration.
We therefore, Madam Commissioner, in our motion for a resolution, request a moratorium on these foodstuffs and we think this is the way the Commission must take until rigorous scientific testing shows that there is no problem for human health and the environment.
We do not think there is any guarantee of that at the moment.
Mr President, after what we have just experienced with BSE, one might have hoped that the Commission would change its method of taking decisions.
I am afraid I have to disillusion you: the introduction of genetically modified maize shows us that the reverse is true.
In December 1996, the Commission, contrary to the opinion of thirteen Member States, authorized the introduction of transgenic maize.
To justify its position, the Commission hid behind the opinions of the scientific committees which, moreover, still leave room for doubts, as the commissioner responsible for consumer affairs had remarked.
Of course, there is the threat of the World Trade Organization, which is being brandished about as the big policeman of the world of trade, ready to deal severely with us if the European Union does not accept transgenic maize.
But, in doing this, the Commission is taking decisions with no regard for European producers, public health or the protection of consumers because it provides for no labelling of this maize.
To get to the nub of the matter, in agriculture, animals and plants have always been selected: first of all, by conserving the finest specimens and, next, by crossing them to obtain the most vigorous hybrids.
It is nature itself which puts up barriers to impossible or monstrous crossing.
The new technology for gene transfer, however, overturn all natural bioregulations.
There are no more scientific or technical obstacles to the creation of genetic mosaics and, responding only to the profit motive, man plays the sorcerer's apprentice.
In agriculture, what are the objectives of the producers of GMOs? Resistance to diseases, to parasites, to herbicides, aesthetic and conservational criteria, but also, let us not forget, unlimited productivity.
Yet risks to agriculture and the environment remain.
Thus modified soya has led to allergies in animals and modified maize has three genes, one of which, being toxic for the European corn borer, could quite possibly lead this insect to develop greater resistance one day and to proliferate.
The second gene, which is resistant to a powerful herbicide, could lead to an increase in soil pollution and the third, finally, which is resistant to an antibiotic, could be transmitted to bacteria, or to animals, or even to mankind.
And yet GMOs are not the panacea of agricultural development!
Rural development, the technological mastery of fields and of the environment, the gradual increasing of yields, the fight against diseases - all are possibilities to be exploited with methods which are modern and more natural and, above all, easier to control.
And what of consumers in all this?
Will they always accept the artificialization of their food, and no transparency about its contents and mode of production? And if European consumers started to refuse GMOs in their food, what would become of this market?
Some major agri-food groups are in fact already thinking, strategically, about a 'guaranteed GMO-free' label.
Let us be clear about things.
We must not get the discussions mixed up here.
We must make it quite clear that biotechnology for treating genetic diseases constitutes a different problem, because of its limited distribution under medical control, unlike agriculture, where distribution is widespread in nature, and not under control.
What I, personally, refuse, at the present state of our knowledge, is to cross an ethical and philosophical limit in order to produce more, and always more, the pipe-dreams of the future.
Finally, however it may be, whatever one may think, to get back to GMOs in agriculture - the subject that concerns us today - the minimum is to inform the consumer and, therefore, clear labelling.
The minimum is also a wideranging public debate which precedes political decisions and, why not, which leads, concretely, following Austria's example, to the application of a moratorium on the placing on the market of genetically modified organisms.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of my group to express our concern at the recent decision by the Commission to endorse the placing on the market of genetically-modified maize modified by Ciba-Gigy, now known as Novartis.
During the time leading up to the Commission decision, considerable public concern was expressed about the safety of genetically-modified products and the new risks to public health and the environment that they might pose.
On this particular application from Novartis for the maize, especially strong objections were raised in Member States and within the European Parliament.
In the UK an independent body of experts which advises the Government expressed serious concern about the presence of a bacterial gene in the modified maize which is coded for resistance to the antibiotic ampicillin.
This gene inactivates a number of antibiotics which are extremely important in clinical and veterinary medicine.
It could immediately be functional if it was transferred from genetically-modified maize into a bacterium, for example in an animal's stomach.
Though this risk is considered remote, the committee thought the risk was unacceptable and recommended that the gene be excised before the maize could be used as animal feed.
Despite this advice being publicly available, and despite the opposition of most Member States, the Commission took the decision to place the genetically-modified maize on the market without restriction on its use.
In addition, extremely worrying and as yet unquantifiable concerns exist about the possible creation of new forms of allergy in foods caused by the transfer of genetic information from other species into species commonly used as foods.
This needs to be thoroughly researched and quantified before potentially fatal accidents take place.
The decision is even more incomprehensible when we consider that there was no deadline by which the Commision had to reach a conclusion to its consideration of the application, and that the novel foods directive which might have permitted labelling, was due to come into effect shortly afterwards.
All this gives the impression that economic and commercial pressures were put before consideration of public health and protection of the environment.
The Commission must therefore justify its decision in far greater detail than it has previously done and give good explanations for its motivation and thinking in arriving at that decision when it did.
Finally, does the Commission not agree that this series of events demonstrates serious defects in the approval process laid down in Directive 90/220 controlling the deliberate release into the environment of genetically-modified organisms, and will it please tell us what steps it is bringing forward to ensure an urgent review of that directive.
Mr President, we are here, in this Parliament, normally, to defend the consumer, the European citizen, whom we are supposed to represent.
Yet I often have the impression that we forget the European citizen and, in this affair, we have been able to see that the European Commission had, yet again, proceeded with a great deal of haste, without referring to that transparency which we all wish for and which is absolutely vital when what is involved is actually a problem as essential as that of food safety.
Today, we are discussing transgenic maize.
I fear that we will often have issues of this type to discuss, within our Parliament.
It is thus important for us to make our positions clear and for us to situate what we must do as regards the protection of the consumer, who absolutely has to know whether he can be sure what he is eating on his plate every day, sure of the quality of the product he is eating.
We have in fact been able to reproach the European Commission with having taken this decision to place American transgenic maize on the European market, a decision which was taken in far too much of a hurry, while a certain number of questions were being raised in the countries of the European Union, and some countries were actually banning the introduction of this American transgenic maize, for the moment, while other countries, like France, were refusing to allow the production of this transgenic maize on their own territory.
These are thus so many questions which, quite rightly, represent so many causes for anxiety to the European consumer, concerning this transgenic maize's resistance to pesticides.
Will we one day stop using more and more pesticides, which are particularly harmful to the environment, to nature and also to health? And will the questions which are being asked on this maize's resistance to antibiotics be answered?
Will this be transmissible to human beings?
These are all the questions that we are asking ourselves. Still others could be listed, and other speakers have already spoken about them sufficiently.
It is because of all these questions, it is because of all this distress, that we absolutely must, today, respond with the greatest possible precision and, while awaiting responses, we absolutely must make it our duty to suspend any authorization for this transgenic maize on European territory.
I believe, finally, that it would be, for us, the European Parliament, the way to show the citizens of Europe that this Parliament, worthy of the name, is here precisely in order to support them and to make provision for the future of the generations to come.
That is what I wanted to say on the subject of the introduction of this transgenic maize.
I believe that it is absolutely essential to be particularly vigilant and prudent, and to think too of our farmers, who are in fact asking us to have a little more confidence in them.
This debate is not confined specifically to the release of genetically modified maize onto the market but concerns the whole issue of genetic modification.
It might have been thought after the BSE crisis that the matter of food safety and consumer interests would be placed very high on the agenda, but obviously this matter is not placed high enough on the Commission's agenda.
In this case we know, as many of us have already pointed out, that there is also a gene which is resistant to antibiotics, which may pose a risk.
We ought to be particularly careful therefore with this particular type of genetically modified maize.
But of course commercial interests, i.e. financial interests, have been allowed to take precedence over food safety and I think there are grounds for reiterating our reproach of the Commission for this fact.
It is in fact irresponsible of a company to release a product over which there are still some question marks and which is not totally controlled.
But it is also irresponsible of the Commission to allow the spread of such a product until the outstanding questions have been answered.
I am not saying that we should be dogmatic and negative towards genetic modification and gene technology.
I believe that the technology in itself may benefit mankind in many ways but so far we have not built up the necessary safety mechanisms to be able to use the technology to the extent which we are using it. My question to the Commission is: How can we put this right?
How can we improve the controls? How can we guarantee the integrity of labels and are we going to prevent the spread of genetically manipulated maize until these measures have been introduced?
Before I ask Madam Commissioner Bjerregaard to reply, I should like to mention that I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled in accordance with Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
I call upon Madam Commissioner Bjerregaard.
Mr President, honourable members, I am pleased that the Commission has the opportunity to explain what it has done and the role it has played with regard to geneticallymodified maize.
Before I go into the details of the decision-making process concerning GMO maize, I would like to make a few more general comments on the matter we are discussing today.
As we all know, the GMO area is a very complex one, as well as being an important and sensitive issue for European citizens.
The GMO area is fraught with intrinsic conflicts.
It involves considerable interests, so it is not easy to please everyone.
But whatever views you or I may have about GMOs and the formula adopted - perhaps before you came to Parliament and before I was Commissioner - for the EU's policy in this area, the fact is that we now have GMO products which have to be assessed in accordance with the existing EU regulations, namely directive 90/220/EEC in the version in which it was originally adopted.
This is as procedural directive which is designed to ensure a risk assessment of GMO products so that only certain products are allowed onto the market in the EU.
The thinking behind the directive was the wish to encourage, not to hinder, but to encourage a certain development of the GMO industry.
It does not therefore get us anywhere today if, when considering the actual administration of directive 90/220/EEC, we confuse this with a discussion of the extent to which we subscribe in principle of the use of GMOs in our products.
In view of the purpose of directive 90/220/EEC, and the framework within which we are working, this would, in my view, be a somewhat meaningless debate.
Having said that, I would like to add that I see it as my primary task to set priorities and work so as to ensure that concerns about health and the environment are taken seriously.
I will therefore start my report today with the latest developments relating to GMOs, namely the Commission's decision on Wednesday.
In the thorough debate which followed the approval of maize in December, the question of labelling has been by far the most dominant issue, and one which unites both those who are completely against GMOs and those who see it as a great technological advance.
What it comes down to is that consumers should know what it is they are getting.
This is a view I share, which is why I have worked to ensure that we in the Commission take the same decision.
Thus on 2 April the Commission adopted a further amendment of directive 90/220/EEC regarding technical information.
This amendment was aimed at tightening the requirements to provide information in annex 3, so that in the future applications would have to provide the following information in their applications: There must be special labelling of the GMOs they wish to market, in addition to certain molecular data which will be entered into future registrations.
This last point has not been the subject of the same degree of attention, but it is very important if developments are to be monitored.
When, as is to be hoped, the Commission's draft takes a positive lead from the Committee for directive 90/220/EEC, in the future applicants will have to attach to their applications details of the proposed labelling which will include the technology used to make the product.
In cases where the product is sold in combination with non genetically-modified products, the label, or other accompanying document, will contain information on the possible presence of GMOs.
Thus labelling would always be required.
With a little willingness to co-operate on the part of the Committee for directive 90/220/EEC, it could very soon - one would hope within the next month or two - become a binding legal requirement that GMO products permitted under directive 90/220/EEC should be labelled.
We are not therefore talking of guidelines, but of compulsory labelling, and these rules would of course apply in all Member States.
The new annex 3 cannot of course be applied retrospectively to previous applications or to applications which have been forwarded to the Commission in connection with the rules contained in directive 90/220/EEC.
However I have been encouraging applicants to meet the new requirements and use the new labelling voluntarily.
This has been done in the form of letters to the companies involved.
It should be noted here that Europabio, in a letter to the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, dated 25 March 1997, reported that its members would be prepared to introduce more detailed labelling and information to their products under directive 90/220/EEC.
In the case of maize from Ciba-Geigy Novartis it is worth pointing out that this company is a member of Europabio.
It is my understanding that the Commission, through Commissioner Bangemann, is to adopt measures, under all circumstances, and in the context of directive 79/112/EEC, for the labelling and forms of presentation of foodstuffs, which will mean that maize and soya, in terms of their use as foodstuffs, fulfil the same labelling requirements as the requirements in statutory instrument 97/258 on new foodstuffs, or the Novel Food regulations, as they are usually known.
It is also my understanding that Commissioner Fischler is working on a proposal for novel feed.
I believe the Commission's acceptance of my proposal for amendment of annex 3 to directive 90/220/EEC is an important first step and also a very important political signal to Parliament; but first and foremost, of course, it is a signal to consumers and others who have long sought an improvement in the level of information and transparency in this area of GMO products.
I call this a first step because the question of labelling will of course be one part of the complete revision of directive 90/220/EEC, so that Parliament can bring full political influence to bear on this important issue.
We hope that, as planned, the Commission's proposal to amend directive 90/220/EEC will be available before the summer recess.
This also represents a first step in as much as on 2 April 1997 the Commission also decided that a communication should be produced on a consistent labelling policy for the whole of the GMO area.
This communication will naturally be submitted both to Parliament and to the Council.
Thus the debate here today will be of value for this further work.
I hope, therefore, that we can work together so that the Commission is able to engage in a productive and constructive debate on the best possible basis with respect to the communication on the common labelling policy in the whole GMO area.
Now a little about the maize question itself.
I believe we have done what we could, under the existing regulations, with regard to the Ciba-Geigy maize, and I would like to say a little about this.
Directive 90/220/EEC contains a carefully defined procedure for the marketing of products that contain genetically-modified organisms.
In practical terms this procedure is based on an assessment of the possible risks to health and to the environment if the GMOs in question were to be introduced.
In the formal sense the procedure, as laid down in the directive, is a committee produced procedure from a type 3A committee.
As Parliament will know, this framework lays down certain restrictions on the Commission's scope for action.
On 15 March 1995 the Commission received the CibaGeigy maize application.
The application was forwarded by the competent authorities in France with a positive report, in accordance with the directive procedure.
Having carefully examined and assessed all the information submitted by Ciba-Geigy and the Member States, on 11 April 1996, the Commission, fulfilling its obligation under the procedures laid down in the directive, provided the Committee for directive 90/220/EEC with a draft resolution to permit the marketing of the maize in question as though it were any other conventional type of maize.
The proposed decision did not meet with the necessary majority vote, i.e. a qualified majority in the Committee, as a result of which the Commission, in accordance with the procedure laid down in the directive, was obliged to forward the proposal to the Council for its decision.
The Council (Environment) was unable to reach a decision on the matter on 25 June 1996, i.e. it could neither reject nor accept the proposal.
It was France which had recommended approval, and despite the lack of support, France would not withdraw the application.
In view of the fact that Austria had provided further information in support of its opposition to the product, I recommended that the Commission obtain the necessary scientific backing so that the proposed application could be re-assessed.
For this purpose the Commission consciously chose to provide assurances in terms of health and protection of the environment which were higher than what was required for strict fulfilment of our official obligations under the directive.
In other words it was a case of a new creation as far as the assessment of the product's safety was concerned.
The Commission therefore gave the scientific committees for foodstuffs, feed and pesticides, three committees in all, all the information that had been provided by Ciba-Geigy and the Member States, as well as the information from Austria of course.
We encouraged them to express their views on those aspects which gave cause for concern.
The committees were also given the information which Great Britain was to submit at a later date.
As already mentioned, although, with respect to the procedure contained in the directive, the Commission should have taken a decision on marketing of the maize in question speedily, the Commission waited, because of the absence of a response from the Council and in spite of commercial pressure which was exerted on the Commission, until it received the reports from the three scientific committees before it took its decision on the matter.
The reports, which were submitted on 9 and 13 December, confirmed the earlier view, namely that there were no grounds for believing that the genetically-modified Ciba-Geigy maize would result in harmful effects for health and the environment.
It was on the basis of these reports, and not for financial or other reasons, that the Commission took the decision to allow marketing of the maize in question.
The reports did not therefore give the Commission a scientific basis or justification for not permitting marketing of the GMO maize.
Regarding the question of the possible harmful effects from the gene for ampicillin resistance, the Commission can report that this matter was examined thoroughly by the scientific committees for foodstuffs and feed.
To supplement their own findings, these committees engaged in consultation with external experts on the matter on 6 December 1996, during which they concentrated in particular on the possibility of the gene being transferred to humans and animals, and the effects on health which such a transfer might have for humans and animals.
After this consultation the committees concluded that there were no grounds for believing that the gene for ampicillin resistance in maize could be detrimental to the health of humans or animals.
Some of the honourable members have stated that there are documents on the long-term risks for health and the environment in connection with the genes that are found in this maize.
However, none of the scientific committees which examined the application and all the information made available was able to find any scientific basis for such effects.
Since the Commission took the decision to permit the Ciba-Geigy GMO maize, it also decided to publish the reports from the three scientific committees.
The Commission's secretariat therefore made arrangements for an official submission to the European Parliament.
Thus on 18 December the Commission took its decision on the basis of the reports produced by the three scientific committees which, as we already know, were unanimous.
This decision came into effect on 23 January 1997 and, following announcement of the necessary consent by the French authorities at the beginning of February, the product was cleared in terms of any adverse effects on health or the environment.
The maize may therefore be used like any other type of maize, but the decision does not of course exclude the application of other EU legislation.
With regard to France's attitude, the Commission can only inform Parliament that on 5 February 1997 France, in accordance with the directive, granted Ciba-Geigy consent to market the Bt maize for use as any other traditional type of maize.
In order that this maize may be cultivated in Member States, however, it is first necessary that it be incorporated into the common lists of plant types, in accordance with Council directive 70/457 which once again has been modified by directive 90/654.
This directive does not deal with the health or environment aspects.
It lays down the requirements which plant types must fulfil in order to be regarded as new types.
Member States may reject applications for the registration of plant sorts if they are of the opinion that they do not fulfil the necessary requirements.
According to the Commission's latest information, the maize has not yet been included in any plant type catalogue, which means that the maize cannot yet be cultivated in any EU country.
On 14 February 1997 - and this is the last aspect I will deal with here - the Austrian authorities informed the Commission that marketing of the Ciba-Geigy maize had been banned in Austria on the basis of a ruling that came into effect on that same date.
This position had also been arrived at in accordance with the directive, namely article 16.
In addition Austria submitted a scientific justification for its use of article 16.
The information submitted by Austria was naturally presented to the three scientific committees which had dealt with the original application, for their comments, and the Commission has not yet received the committees' assessment of the information.
Against this background Luxembourg has taken similar action, and Italy has done the same.
I hope that, following my explanation - which I must acknowledge has been rather detailed - Parliament will recognise the role the Commission has played in this matter and that it will concur with our reasons for approving the Ciba-Geigy maize in line with the directive.
I also hope that I have been able to demonstrate that the Commission has displayed the greatest care and taken advantage of all the courses of action available to it, in accordance with current legislation, in order to take as cautious a decision as possible.
We did not take our decision until we were sure that all the safety aspects had been thoroughly examined.
By means of our last decision on the labelling of all GMOs within the area of application of directive 90/220, we have ensured that consumers know what they are getting.
Mr President, we asked for this debate so that we could discuss with the Commissioner the question of what happens next, now that Luxembourg and Austria have declared a ban on imports.
I understood the Commissioner to have said that she is not prepared to examine in depth the new scientific evidence that these two countries have submitted, and that she is also not prepared to examine Parliament's proposal - which I hope we shall be voting on tomorrow - to the effect that any decision should be postponed until all reservations have been removed, including, for example, the reservation - which has not been examined at all - that this foreign genetic material can be absorbed by the gastro-intestinal tract.
We are faced with a major problem involving democracy and consumer policy.
I should like to ask the Commissioner how she feels about postponing the decision until investigations have been carried out.
I should very much like to know how she assesses the studies and findings that Austria has submitted, and I should also like to know - and I have already asked this question - why this product is not covered by the novel food regulation.
I cannot understand what all the fuss is about.
We are here to conduct a debate, and if the Commissioner has not answered these questions, then it is our job to raise them again.
Mr President, would you please ask the Commissioner to deal with these specific questions, which have not yet received an answer.
Mr Bowe, I cannot give you the floor while another Member is speaking.
I have not yet given you the floor, and in any case you cannot raise a point of order while another Member is speaking.
It is for the President to call the speakers!
Mr President, on a point of order.
I am somewhat confused.
I thought we must have started Question Time to the Commission although it is only Monday.
I was absolutely astonished because I thought the Commissioner was going to reply to the debate and that we were going to hear other people speak.
I was astonished to hear Mrs Breyer speaking again and asking questions.
Can you assure us, Mr President, that in future we will follow the list of speakers and not allow Members to intervene with long questions out of turn?
Thank you, Mr Bowe, but under the Rules of Procedure I could give the floor to Mrs Breyer, and I did so.
Normally no Member can speak twice on the same subject, but when a Member is a rapporteur, as in the present case, the President can give her the floor a second time.
Mr President, I have listened attentively, Commissioner, to what you have said, and I gather from your very correct and very comprehensive remarks that you, as a person, have taken a great deal of trouble to ensure that the consumers of the European Union are protected and informed.
Most of us, here in the European Parliament, have never doubted that anyway.
Unfortunately, as the Commissioner who spoke before you has already indicated, the Commission always takes its decisions as a collective body.
We can remember perfectly well which Commissioner, in the past, was in favour of labelling or consumer information.
As you can well imagine, I very much welcome your remarks about amending the annex to the directive controlling release into the environment with regard to the labelling of all genetically modified products - all of them, please note, which goes farther than the novel food directive.
This Parliament has been campaigning for a very long time to ensure that seeds, genetically modified foodstuffs, and other products too, are labelled.
Until now, the majority of Commission members did not agree with us but, even when progress moves at snail's pace, sooner or later it will reach even the Commission.
I am not quite so much in agreement with your comments on the approval of genetically modified maize.
The main reason for our oral questions was not labelling, but first and foremost the conviction that many of us hold, that the approval of this genetically modified maize has happened too soon, and perhaps should not even have happened at all.
At all events, it comes at a time when doubts about safety have not been completely removed.
And I have to admit, Commissioner, that your remarks have done nothing to remove by own doubts.
However, your comments have once again made it clear that not only is the comitology procedure that is used in the European Union unsatisfactory, but it also, quite obviously, leads to blatantly wrong decisions.
It is not acceptable that there should be scientific committees, which are not subject to any democratic control, and which take decisions on behalf of all of us. Therefore, Mrs Bjerregaard, I should like to ask you for clarification on this point.
You supplied the scientific committees with all the information, but did you ask them any specific questions? Did you specifically ask the scientific committees, for example, what ampicillin resistance means, or perhaps how an antibiotic gene can act as a marker gene?
Or did you, for example, take a close look at the conclusions of the hearings on this subject?
Did you ask why this genetically modified maize is not permitted in all the US Federal States? And do you share my opinion, and the opinion of my group, that the comitology procedure cannot be in the interests of consumer safety, and that we will therefore have to change it at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, we must thank the Commissioner for the information she has provided.
But we are not much reassured, since we have here two fundamental aspects: one the maize as an end product, a foodstuff, which might very well be fully in line with the approved standards such as the latest regulation on new foodstuffs.
We must check whether these scientific committees have in fact, with the criteria approved in this regulation, been able to give what we might call their seal of approval to this report.
We cannot allow it to be said that this regulation was adopted shortly afterwards because this is not merely an administrative procedure.
It is a question of reassuring all our citizens that the new foodstuff is safe and not harmful to health or the environment.
The second aspect is the seed as a vegetable variety, which is also, from what we have heard, giving rise to many problems.
These are two radically distinct matters.
Finally, we the Members of the European Parliament, have been rather guilty of placing greater emphasis on labelling than on real guarantees that products are safe.
And you and the Commission are now going to solve everything by labelling everything.
Madam Commissioner, consumers demand labelling, but it does not solve the problem of safety.
We would therefore ask for greater emphasis to be placed on safety aspects since, although many of my colleagues have dwelt upon labelling in recent years, labelling is an ancillary and not a fundamental matter.
Mr President, as always happens when we tackle such complex matters, both Parliament and public opinion end up split down the middle because they are motivated by obviously divergent and often conflicting interests.
The consumer, frankly, has been given little information hitherto but has been made wary by unpleasant past experiences such as the mad cow crisis and the hormone business. He tends to curl up into a ball and reject any kind of innovation, and in the light of what we have heard so far I am bound to say that I think he is right!
It has been said that consumers are to be protected as European citizens; but even farmers are European citizens, too, and so they too have the right to consideration and - why not? - protection.
Apart from anything else, it is precisely this group, the country people, a weak group under-represented in this Parliament as it is elsewhere, which is in danger of having to foot the bill for the lack of transparency in European and national legislation, the lack of hard facts from the European scientists who have been conducting the research into this subject, and above all the contradictions between Commission and Council and everything that revolves around those institutions.
And so what we have is fear, disorientation and worry.
Fear, partly prompted by the speed with which Luxembourg and Austria closed their borders to the trade in transgenic maize.
No problem for them, because this kind of product is not of major importance to them.
It is amazing that France, having said yes, suddenly said no, on grounds that are frankly not very convincing.
In Italy, too, we said no, not on the basis of reliable scientific information but because of widespread emotive reactions.
You'll never be wrong if you say no, we thought. Health is the first consideration, the protection of public health, and the second consideration is the protection and security of the markets.
Why not try to defend both these objectives a little more coherently? Let us avoid repeating the disastrous mad cow episode, when we were forced to pay - and we still are paying - for errors that could have been avoided!
After all, in favour of transgenic maize it seems that there are certificates issued unilaterally by the United States; but the issuing bodies should be above suspicion: first the Environmental Protection Agency, then the Ministry for Agriculture, and finally the Food and Drugs Administration, although in this latter case the situation may be less clear in that the institution concerned has just recently been the subject of inquiries and reviews.
Precisely in order to avoid what happened in the case of mad cow disease, when in six months this House suddenly had to attend to a mass of facts and scientific information, we wonder why, in order not to waste time, the American research reports were not obtained and compared with the European ones.
That would enable us to avoid a situation where, perhaps in a few months' time, we find that the fears of the consumers were justified.
On the other hand, it would be equally embarrassing and unfair to discover the reverse - to discover that unjustified measures were taken and that the European market had been brought to its knees to the benefit of the American market.
I should say this would be a classic case of locking the stable door, as they say, after the horse has bolted.
In any event, I believe that both this debate and the statements made by the Commissioner reveal a clear intent to adopt a consistent course of action: either transgenic maize can be produced in Europe, too, or we are not going to allow it to be imported.
It seems such an easy solution, so simple.
The only question is why it was not adopted earlier.
Mr President, far from learning the lessons of the mad cow crisis, in other words, of a disaster of which we cannot yet measure all the consequences, the Commission is pressing doggedly on and authorizing the importation, without any restrictions, and the placing on the market of transgenic maize.
This decision was taken by the Commission despite the negative opinion of thirteen of the Member States and the negative opinion of the European Parliament.
It was taken under pressure from the American exporters and the chemical multinationals.
The compromise resolution signed by our group condemns the irresponsibility shown by the Commission and highlights the fact that economic and commercial pressure took precedence over considerations relating to public health and environmental protection.
To the letter, these are the conclusions of the commission of enquiry into BSE.
The Commission has thus learnt nothing.
After beef, it is prepared to let European consumers run new risks by giving the market and free competition priority over public health.
Our group reaffirms that food safety must be the absolutely priority concern in any decision regarding food products.
Transparency must be guaranteed, and the opinion of scientists must be taken into consideration.
No one can be sure that there is no danger to human health, no risk for the environment.
The conclusions of your scientific committees, Commissioner, do not convince me.
Who could have proved, before the mad cow crisis, that the prion was transmissible to man? And yet, ordinary common sense might have suggested that ingesting infected flour could not be without danger.
Life has proved that, but, alas, it was too late.
Does this disastrous experience need to be repeated? It is not true that we have all the safety necessary.
That is why we are asking the Commission to go back on its decision and to promulgate a moratorium on the importation and the placing on the market of genetically modified products, until scientific guarantees have been obtained.
The Commission must respect the opinion of Parliament, most of whose speakers have expressed keen anxiety.
We also propose that, given the complexity of the problems raised, an ethical committee should be set up, at European level, on issues affecting food, public health and the environment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that the serious aspects of this transgenic maize business include the Commission's decision and the institutional aspects it involves.
It is an obscure decision which, as many Members have emphasized, clearly shows how the Commission, at that time at least, had learned nothing from the more serious affair of BSE.
It is a decision, then, which we are once again called upon to contest today, as we have already done previously, and as a large majority of Member States has also done previously; but the Commission has apparently showed an arrogant disregard for those protests, perhaps persuaded by market interests which have little in common with the interests of the consumer and of public health.
So I turn to the Commissioner for the Environment and ask her what the Commission has done in the meantime, perhaps because of Parliament's action.
I know that a Scientific Committee on Genetically Modified Organisms is to be set up, and I know about the proposals made on 2 April and have duly noted them; but I do want to ask Commissioner Bjerregaard specifically: what does the Commission intend to do in view of the decision taken by Austria and Luxembourg to invoke Article 16 of European Union Directive 90/220/EEC, which allows a Member State to suspend the marketing of genetically modified organisms for reasons of public health or environmental protection? Faced with a decision that has been adopted in opposition to your own approach, but on the basis of very serious scientific documentation - because if those two States have taken a decision like this there must be a reason for it - does the Commission not, possibly, intend to suspend or withdraw that authorization, as the European Parliament wishes?
Mr President, we have now heard the Commission's very thorough report and it would now seem possible that there is not in fact anything for which the Commission is to be reproached, but at the same time I feel that this debate - and Mrs Roth-Behrendt has also touched on this - shows that we need to take the procedure contained in 3A into account and that we must ask ourselves what criteria must be taken as a basis for permitting modified plants in general.
It is clearly absurd that 13 Member States should wish to ban a postponement, and that two Member States, who later regretted their positions, should be able to push this through.
It must also be recognised that it is equally absurd to develop plants which are resistant to a fairly specific herbicide when we know at the same time that the waste seed from the sowing process, which contains the resistant gene, cannot be eradicated, so growers are forced to use yet another spraying medium.
It is quite simply wholly unacceptable to grant permission for any use of modified plants of this type.
I therefore believe that, if people wish to engage in this modification exercise, they must establish whether it is possible to do so in such a way that it is viable, that it is seen as socially responsible, and not in such a way that the big firms, which make their living by selling herbicides, end up wasting more money than they have in the past.
Furthermore I have heard - and this is a question to Ritt Bjerregaard - that the Commission stated last week that it intends to propose various amendments to directive 90/220/EEC, at the same time as the Parliament is considering the proposals that have already been submitted to it.
Is it right that we should be considering new proposed amendments to the directive?
Mr President, Austria, like Luxembourg, has imposed a ban on exports of genetically modified maize, on the basis of both ecological and health reservations.
In addition, the people of Austria instinctively reject the idea of genetically modified maize.
I believe that we have a duty to take into account the instincts of the people that we represent here.
In Austria at the moment there is a petition for a referendum against genetic manipulation, and we are expecting a record level of participation.
If you argue that scientists have found that there are no reservations about genetically modified plants, that says nothing about the real dangers: it merely says something about the way science works.
And in this area in particular we all have reason to be sceptical, because we know that a substantial proportion of scientific research has for a long time now been contract research carried out for multinational companies which, for economic reasons, are interested only in their own specialized sector.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission, as a collective body, is obliged, under Article 130(r) of the Treaty on European Union, to enforce and implement the principles of precaution and prevention in order to protect the environment and health.
These principles of precaution and prevention did not enter into the debate when the decision to allow genetically modified maize was taken on 18 December, as we can see if we read the Commission minutes, as published in a French newspaper.
Only a few members of the Commission represented the viewpoint of the citizens of Europe, and spoke out in favour of taking health and the environment into account.
Much greater in number were those who felt that relations with the USA were more important.
That is to be regretted.
The scientific committees have given their expert opinions, and a hearing has also taken place.
It would be interesting, however, to know - and this question has still not been answered - why the British Advisory Committee on Novel Foods, which Mr Bowe has already mentioned, was not invited and involved.
It was, after all, this committee that expressed, very specifically, the reservation about the possible development of resistance to antibiotics.
Nor has it been explained why scientists from the USA were not invited. They would not only have been able to confirm what Mrs Roth-Behrendt has told us, namely that the genetically modified maize is not permitted in all US Federal States, and specifically not in those where genetically modified cotton is already permitted, but they would also have been able to tell us that the IPE has also prohibited the use of genetically modified maize for the production of popcorn and sweetcorn.
What does it mean, then, for European farmers and for European consumers, when the Commission provides only very incomplete information?
I believe that this is particularly important because we know nothing as yet about the long-term effects, such as whether other plants could develop resistance to this crop protection product, or whether there is resistance to antibiotics, because we have not yet had this genetically modified maize for long enough to have carried out a study that might have provided evidence of the long-term effects on human beings, on animals and on the environment.
I think that on the basis of all these facts it would have been more sensible not to take a decision so quickly, but to find out, first of all, what is happening in other countries and other continents, and although it is a good thing, and an important one, that you, Commissioner, are now proposing an amendment with regard to labelling, in the context of the approval procedure for genetically modified products in the European Union, for this particular labelling it has come too late.
We are talking here about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Mr President, the biotechnology industry has long been identified as a key to the future success of European enterprise.
It is one of the areas expected to grow substantially in economic importance over the next 20 years.
I hope it will be the source of many badly needed jobs in all our Member States.
However, to date very little has been done to encourage investment in the research industry in Europe.
Even in this Parliament our discussions often degenerate into unsubstantiated and negative comments which confuse public opinion.
The legal basis on which new foods or food ingredients developed by the biotech industry can be cleared for marketing throughout the European Union is, to say the least, a lot less than clear.
We urgently need a clear and full set of rules on genetic manipulation, indicating the safety tests which must be undertaken before new products are placed on the market.
I would like to welcome here the Commissioner's comments this evening.
In the absence of a full legal basis, biotechnology firms are investing in Japan and the USA, where there is much greater legal certainty about the marketing of new inventions.
So far, we in Europe are unable to ensure the safety of these new products, unwilling to accept evidence from Japan or the USA and, at the same time, we have failed to develop a comprehensive legal basis to deal with consumer safety.
Three separate scientific committees consulted by the Commission before it authorized the marketing of genetically modified maize reported that there was no basis to prohibit, on safety grounds, the marketing of such maize in Europe.
We can reject this advice.
We can say that the scientific committees were unrepresentative.
However, if we are unhappy with the scientific committee system, we must establish another system.
I strongly favour the system established in the USA, which has proven its worth over many years.
The Food and Drugs Administration has a good track record in food safety.
I agree completely, as indicated in the resolution before us, that public health and food safety must be placed at the top of our agenda.
As well as ensuring safety, we must also establish a system for monitoring genetically modified organisms before they are allowed into the environment.
In conclusion, trade in food and food ingredients is global in nature and governed by GATT/WTO agreements.
If our industry and agriculture are to thrive, they must be fully supported by clear and comprehensive consumer protection rules, otherwise they will have to face unfair competition, mainly from the United States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is important to mention that we have nothing against research into and use of bio-technology in agriculture and I must underscore and stress that this is a field in which safety, the risk to foodstuffs, the protection of public health and environmental protection simply must come first in the decisions to be taken.
It is therefore clear to me that the Commission's unilateral authorization of imports of genetically modified maize once again shows that a decision had been taken placing the economic interests of the big multinationals and large-scale importers above those fundamental criteria and priorities.
As we might have expected and did expect - this is nothing new to me - and I have no personal axe to grind with Madam Commissioner Bonino - the Commission has learned nothing from the mad cow crisis which came under its aegis.
The Commission should therefore immediately review that authorization and take measures, jointly with the Member States to see that before any decision is taken on genetically modified products there should first, and I repeat first, be thorough and independent scientific tests plus a detailed public information campaign on the types of manufacture and respective composition.
That is the only way to help to restore consumer confidence and to effectively safeguard public health.
Mr President, the Commission's new proposal for the labelling of genetically engineered products is in itself in order, because it will be able to shed light on one of the grey areas remaining in the novel food provisions.
One might wonder about the fact that the sound reasons expressed by the majority in Parliament did not at the time have any impact on the Commission, after which it is now suddenly bowing to the media storm that has broken out.
In fact the Commission has not come to terms with the compromise reached on novel food.
Even if the Member of the Commission tells us that we are not to consider genetic engineering in general, this does not alter the fact that we face the risk that agriculture in the EU is being pushed in the wrong direction.
We are risking monocultures which are dependent on specific sprayed substances, and precisely because of the monopoly they have and their great expansion, this increases the risk of natural disasters which may even result in a shortage of foodstuffs.
And where is the biological diversity we committed ourselves to promoting?
The Commission is not only under obligation to comply with directive 220.
The Commission must respond appropriately to the whole of the acquis , and it is clear that people on all sides in Parliament are expressing the view that insufficient respect is being shown for the principle of caution and perhaps also in connection with other issues that have already been raised.
For example, a number of speakers have expressed their concern about ampicillin and their agreement in this area that risk assessment is called for, even if the committees have been questioned again.
With regard to the decision-making process it is difficult to argue that a procedure in which the Commission and one Member State can prevail over 13 other Member States is in any sense part of a democratic system.
Such a procedure needs to be changed, and I would like to ask what initiatives the Commission has taken in this connection.
I would also like to ask the Commission Member what procedure would be followed when it comes to inclusion on the list of types.
If a single Member State is against inclusion on the list of types, which EU procedure will come into effect, and which criteria will be used as a basis? Will the type in question be rejected, or will the individual Member State only be able to accept a decision at an EU level?
Mr President, the Commissioner went into a lot of detail in his defence of genetically modified maize but he was not very convincing.
I had the feeling that I was listening again to what we were told about mad cow disease.
We were told something along the same lines in that case, and everyone knows how it ended up. I maintain that this decision has all the makings of a crime against the health of Europe's people.
The Commission should recognize that it has been caught yet again perpetrating a crime against the citizens of Europe. It must stop serving Mammon - Ciba-Geigy, that is to say, and Monsanto, because it, too, is promoting this type of product and seeking a licence - and start to serve the interests of the people of Europe and to look after their health.
Mr President, we made a mistake when we did not proceed with the decision that we took in a previous part-session in connection with the motion of censure against the Commission over the mad cow business. It seems that that encouraged the Commission to continue with such crimes on a systematic basis.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our group does not assume that it has a monopoly on the truth, nor are we so anxious to brand the Commission as irresponsible.
In any case, what the Commissioner has said, recalling the decisions made on 2 April, shows that there is awareness and that efforts are being made, even if a little late in the day, to remedy a situation of lasting legal uncertainty.
The resolution contains two important points, one of which is relevant here as relating to aspects which interact with environmentally compatible agriculture.
Mention has been made here of the collegiate nature of the Commission; yet one does get the feeling that it works rather too much in separate compartments.
A conference was held in Cork on agriculture, the rural world and environmentally compatible agriculture, and at that conference it was said that agrienvironmental measures should become central to the new CAP, and yet here we are moving towards decisions which will endorse a massive increase in the dosage of a particular toxin - a toxin which involves the risk of developing a new generation of insects that will be resistant to an environment-friendly insecticide.
Or we are in danger of making extensive use of a herbicide, with the consequences that can entail for the water in which that herbicide is soluble.
This is another area in which a more circumspect attitude would have been appropriate, profiting from the BSE experience.
We have no prejudice against biotechnology.
It was actually in the Commission's communication of June 1994 on the future of biotechnology that it was stressed how the future of the sector would be governed by a policy of risk control, creating a new feeling of confidence among the public.
That is what we must get back to today, to prevent the citizen wondering just what kind of Europe this is going to be, and whether it is a Europe that is genetically incapable of responding to his fears and anxieties.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am in favour of making the debate about the use of genetic technology more objective.
I believe that genetic engineering is an intellectual technology, a technology of the future, with special significance for medicine.
Biotechnological medicines are already being used today in the treatment of cancer, diabetes, heart attack and multiple sclerosis.
Objectivity, however, has two sides, and therefore, Commissioner, it is still, objectively, incomprehensible to me why the Commission has authorized the importing of this maize, despite the fact that thirteen out of fifteen Member States were against it.
I also find it objectively incomprehensible that the warnings of the Scientific Committee on Food have been ignored.
Did not something similar happen in connection with BSE as well? And, we are told, any effects on health are possible but negligible.
Have we not heard those words somewhere before, and not too long ago either?
As always, ladies and gentlemen, Austria has provisionally banned the marketing of the product in question, following new scientific findings.
But the fact is that because, on the basis of the new scientific findings, there are two issues in particular that have not yet been finally cleared up, namely the question of the possible transmission of resistance to antibiotics and also the problem of the possible development of resistance to the BT toxin, and because further scientific investigations will be necessary in order to come to a definite conclusion regarding these risks, Austria has imposed this ban.
I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, but especially you, Commissioner, to agree that the approval of such a controversial product should be made, once again, the subject of a thorough, objective investigation!
Mr President, I speak in this debate as someone who is both a politician and a scientist.
Science and technology, I am afraid, generally lack the hard certainty of mathematics.
Two plus two will always equal four.
Science and technology are less certain.
They are rarely absolute.
Science is about judgements, about weighing the evidence and drawing the appropriate conclusions.
On the basis of the evidence I have seen and read, my judgement is that the genetically-modified maize is safe for consumers.
But - and it is an important but - I and the scientists (the experts) may well be wrong.
They may not have yet seen enough.
There are many examples of scientists and technologists being in error.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed despite the engineers.
The Challenger blew up despite the technologists.
BSE seems to be transmissible to human beings despite the views of the scientists and the experts.
Therefore, as a politician, I believe it is necessary to give consumers the tools to make different choices from mine or those of the experts, on the basis of their own informed judgement.
This means that labelling is clearly needed for those products that contain genetically-modified organisms - some would say, for those products contaminated by genetically-modified organisms.
I therefore welcome the decision by the Commission on 2 April.
However, what I do not understand is why they talk about retrospective legislation for genetically-modified maize and the other organisms in respect of which permission has already been applied for.
On that basis one would not be able to put health labels on cigarettes because they are already in existence, or to demand that cars that already have been bought by consumers should abide by new speed limits.
I do not want retrospective banning.
What I want and what I now demand, is that in future labelling will occur for all genetically-modified organisms used in food products.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to raise four questions which I regard as fundamental in this debate:
First: I think that the composition of genetically modified products ought to be stated in more detail, as medicines are today, as are the foodstuffs we all know and eat as a matter of course.
However, as one of the previous speakers mentioned, we need to set up clear procedures, safety dossiers, testing, certification, placing on the market which are more akin to the current procedures for medicines than to those for foodstuffs.
I am not yet convinced that Europe has consistent mechanisms for analysing these dossiers, including the impact on the environment, the effect on cultivated areas and possible interaction with other types of crops or animals.
None of this has been done.
There should however be a complete review of the licensing systems.
Secondly: the question of labelling.
I shall simply say that I entirely support what my colleague, Mr Ford, said on the matter.
Thirdly: the question of GATT.
Madam Commissioner, do not be swayed by what Sir Leon Brittan said.
There is no established GATT philosophy on this. GATT settles such questions on the basis of the SPS, the sanitary and phyto-sanitary code, which is a scientific code.
In the absence of any precepts it finds what it can in the ISO standards or the Codex alimentarius .
These standards are very often inadequate because they are not based on the lowest common denominator.
When there is no established scientific basis, as in the case of hormones, the GATT has a problem - a difficulty.
As rapporteur on GATT and the environment I know a little about the relevant legislation and I do not see how it is possible to simply say that GATT is preventing us from taking the precautionary the measures required in this matter.
I should like to end, Mr President, with a final point about agricultural policy which Mrs Jensen raised.
This is the fundamental question.
Quite apart from protecting ourselves with all manner of certificates, we must ensure that there is a place for alternative agricultural products with distribution networks through to the hypermarkets and supermarkets: an alternative not based on such genetically modified products or intensive chemical treatment, otherwise the consumer will have no real choice.
Mr President, Commissioner, to my mind, traceability and labelling are, clearly, and more than ever, common knowledge and, in any case, topical.
The simplest traceability method, where plants are concerned, would obviously be to colour genetically modified products red or blue, with plant-based colouring which is not harmful to health.
In this way, at least, it would no longer be possible to cheat society and its citizens.
I would not like people to be able to misinterpret my words here, and say: ' These MEPs are against modernity and against research' .
No, quite the opposite.
But there is research and research.
Where agriculture and food are concerned, there are enough products available to the consumer, at least for those who have the means of paying for them since, as is well known, those who do not have the means of paying for them are not taken into consideration, isn't that so? We need science, but science must help humanity and not make it eat products which contain death.
Competitiveness, which was put forward as a reason a while ago, carries some weight, and also has its price where human health is concerned.
Now, competitiveness plus competition, monetarism plus finances - this has nothing to do with health.
And, for me, economy is health, as there would be no point in feeding people cheaply if we must spend lavishly on health.
Commissioner, I am not with you when you offer guarantees on the unknown: you act as if you were in possession of the infallible truth.
The speeches by our colleagues give rather an image of the Commission as a political decision-making authority which is irresponsible, if not incompetent.
The Commission has not understood a thing, some will say.
Myself, I think on the contrary that it has understood well that the European Parliament is a House which lacks courage so much that one can impose on it, or even make it take political actions which are all the more important as there is a discrepancy between them and its speeches.
I shall conclude, Mr President, by saying that in February, on censorship, the European Parliament was afraid.
Today, it is weeping over its inconsistency.
So, let the Commission continue to take advantage of it, for the day our Parliament finds the path of courage and pride, playtime will be over!
Mr President, Commissioner, a lot of things have been said, so let me first of all ask a question.
In my opinion, it makes absolutely no sense at all, on the one hand to prohibit the production of GMOs in the EU, and on the other hand to import products made from genetically modified maize, such as popcorn, into the EU, in certain circumstances - and that is my question to you, Mrs Bjerregaard - because to do so is to render meaningless the votes of those countries who are totally against these products, and as far as the consumers are concerned it is just a load of eyewash.
It has not yet proved possible to kindle a deeper public understanding of green genetic engineering, in other words the development and breeding of genetically modified plants.
PR campaigns are not enough to bring about a better understanding.
Science and the economy need to make themselves more understandable. This means taking into account the questions and concerns of the average consumer, the man in the street.
The possible risks of green genetic engineering have been overestimated, in my country for example, according to the opinion of the Technology Council.
The risk of undesirable developments arising from the breeding of herbicide-resistant plants is less than in conventional breeding, because only one gene is being transferred, under controlled conditions, rather than a large number of different genes.
However, things are not made any easier, for those in favour of the prejudice-free treatment of genetic engineering, when the new breeding possibilities are used, for example, to make plants that are adapted to pesticides, rather than the other way round.
This whole debate, including the issue of transgenic maize, cries out for more objectivity.
Transgenic maize, yes or no: to my mind that is not an agricultural question, but rather a question of competition.
Genetic engineering is not the solution to all our breeding problems, and nor is it the loathsome work of the devil which, once out of control, threatens our very existence.
Finally, let me just make the following contribution to this debate. It is a great mistake to believe that, if we did not allow anything new, everything would carry on in as it was before.
Mr President, unfortunately time will not permit me to go into detail on the many questions that have been raised.
This is somewhat frustrating, since it is an important debate and there are many issues which deserve to be commented on.
I would like to start with a more general comment.
There has been a consistent theme to the many contributions we have heard today, and reference has been made to the general political concerns and to the concerns that are being clearly expressed by the populations of Europe.
I see my own task, and also yours as members of Parliament, when such concerns are perceived to exist, as one of finding out what possibilities there are, and what framework we have, for responding to those concerns.
This means that we must ascertain what scope we have for providing assurances in response to the concerns raised.
This is what we have attempted to do, both in connection with the maize and in connection with labelling.
This is the area of difficulty which many other speakers have addressed, and in connection with which neither you as members of Parliament nor I, as the Commissioner, are able to draw on the necessary scientific background for the all issues on which we must take decisions.
What we must do, under such circumstances, is ask people who are competent.
This does not mean that we ourselves have no responsibility.
Nor does it mean that we do not end up with a political decision, because we do in fact.
That is what you do in Parliament, and what we do in the Commission, but we do have an obligation to give the best possible assurances.
I believe this is what we have done.
Therefore I do not think that a number of you have been completely accurate today when you state that we did not take account of the fact that many Member States were against the recommendation to approve this maize.
We did take account of them.
Not only did we follow the procedures correctly in accordance with directive 90/220/EEC when we approved the case.
We also sought the views of three scientific committees, which was not a requirement under directive 90/220/EEC.
We wanted to obtain further assurances.
These three scientific committees then considered the matter and set up a meeting at which they also called on experts from the USA, amongst others, for the precise purpose of seeking assurances, not least in connection with ampicillin.
We may therefore say that we have to this extent sought to make maximum use of the possibilities open to us under the existing legislation, wherever there was any chance to do so.
This of course raises questions about committee procedures, which Mrs Roth-Behrendt and several other speakers have addressed.
Naturally I agree that this is an IGC issue, but it also has to do with the revision of directive 90/220/EEC.
There must not be any doubt whatsoever about the fact that I do not think the committee procedure on which the current directive 90/220/EEC is based is suitable, and it is my view that it must be reworked as part of the revision process; in this way we hope to have a proposal to put to Parliament here before the summer recess.
There is another aspect which affects the substance of the matter we are discussing, and that is the question of marker genes.
It is important here that we produce some guidelines for the future.
I agree with the views which several of the speakers have expressed here today.
I therefore feel it would be right to say that we have done quite a lot to protect ourselves as much as we possibly can.
Equally I agree with Mr Ford, namely that we can do no more than take action against the background which science provides us today.
We have no alternative, and we must take political decisions against the background that present circumstances make available to us.
I am very grateful for the good advice which I will be able to carry across for dealing with the legal aspects of other areas in which decisions are to be made; so I have reason to hope it will have some influence.
I believe it is most important in this debate that we have sought to obtain as many assurances as we can.
As several people have indicated, we have sought to give consumers the best guidance we could by guaranteeing labelling, and we are endeavouring to make up for the shortcomings of labelling, recognising that there are companies which have already sought approval, so I am able to say, on the basis of the reports we have already received, that I am extremely hopeful.
Finally it has been mentioned in various contributions, particularly from the Austrian members of the Parliament, that we should look at the new scientific results that have been produced in Austria.
I agree with this view.
We must of course do this, which is why we have arranged for the material received from Austria to be forwarded to the scientific committees so that they can make an independent assessment of it.
I therefore hope that this debate has served to clarify various uncertainties and I would add that it is my own view that the debate has been useful and that it will prove helpful and of particular value for communications in this whole area, a view which several other members of the Parliament have expressed here today.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Protection of workers against carcinogens
The next item is the recommendation for the second reading (A4-0072/97), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Directive amending for the first time Directive 90/394/EEC on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens at work (C4-0637/96-95/229(SYN) (Rapporteur: Mrs Ojala).
Mr President, it is estimated that every year in the European Union some 10 million workers contract an occupational disease or are victims of an occupational accident.
This represents a considerable amount of human suffering and gives rise to substantial economic losses.
In 1992 the cost of this phenomenon was put at ECU 27 billion.
Article 118 a of the Treaty establishing the European Community stipulates that the Member States must pay particular attention to encouraging improvements in the working environment in order to protect the health and safety of workers.
This represents a major challenge for the European Union.
Citizens feel themselves to be at some remove from the European Union's activities, see no clear evidence of their impact on and benefits in to everyday life.
The measures which the European Union takes to improve the working environment must be credible.
Measures of this kind will help the European Union secure - if it ever does - legitimacy and public acceptance.
People must be made to believe that measures to promote health and safety at the workplace are not simply declarations of intent, but that they reflect genuine concern for workers and their health.
The proposal amending the directive on the protection of workers against carcinogens, currently at second reading, is of fundamental importance.
Its aim is to prevent and reduce the exposure of workers to carcinogens.
Overall, occupational cancer still represents a huge challenge and, in human terms, each case of occupational cancer is one case too many.
For the first time, the proposal for a directive lays down limit values for a benzene carcinogen.
At the same time, the scope of the directive is substantially extended to cover, for example, the pharmaceuticals and cosmetics industry, foodstuffs, etc.
Experts now generally agree that some 4 % of cancer-related deaths probably result from occupational factors.
In a country such as Finland, with 5 million inhabitants, 18 000 fresh cases of cancer are recorded each year.
If it is estimated that some 4 % of those are linked to working conditions, this signifies that some 700 workers contract an occupational cancer each year in Finland.
At European Union level that would represent tens of thousands of cases of occupational cancer every year.
When the proposal to modify the directive was considered at first reading, Parliament expressed its determination and its sense of responsibility with regard to the protection of the health of workers exposed to carcinogens.
It wished to endorse the approach to the improvement of the working environment adopted by the Commission in its proposal.
Parliament tabled 16 amendments to the original Commission proposal, most of which were taken into account by the Commission in its amended proposal.
However, the Council took over only five, a decision which I find less than satisfactory.
In drawing up its amendments, Parliament showed great responsibility, taking into account both the need for better protection of workers and the technological limits to that protection, so as not to pose too great a threat to the economic and production activities of the SMUs.
Although the Council's decision to fix a limit value of 1 ppm for benzene is welcome in itself, it is regrettable that that limit value will become binding only six years after the adoption of the directive.
Benzene is in fact a substance for which no safe limit value can be fixed.
It always poses a risk.
Exposure to a 1 ppm concentration of benzene over a complete working life causes up to 6.5 additional cases of leukaemia per thousand workers.
In my view, it is also regrettable that the Council's position makes no mention of biological limit values and measuring methods.
In the case of benzene, the fixing of a biological limit value would be particularly important, since recent studies have shown that the absorption of benzene through the skin, for example in car repair workshops, represents the main form of exposure to that substance.
The proposal amending the directive on the protection of workers against carcinogens nevertheless constitutes a step forward as regards the protection of the health of workers.
As rapporteur, therefore, I recommend that the common position be approved.
However, in view of the arguments I outlined above, I regard it as my duty to retable the amendments which Parliament adopted at first reading and which the Committee on the Environment adopted unanimously.
I will deal with the amendment tabled by the Greens tomorrow.
However, the final result would have been better for workers if the directive had been considered under the codecision procedure.
Unfortunately, this has not been the case.
In conclusion, I should like to express my warm thanks to the Members of the Commission for the constructive dialogue and their cooperation with Parliament during the consideration of this issue.
I sincerely hope that this directive will finally be adopted during the Dutch Presidency.
Mr President, the Danish Social Democrats are positive about the rapporteur's recommendation regarding the protection of employees in terms of the risk of exposure to carcinogenic substances during their work.
However, in this connection I would like to mention some of the views of the Danish Laboratory Technicians Association in this very area, and I agree that what is needed here is tighter legislation.
I too am not in favour of the establishment of limits for carcinogenic substances since it has been international recognised that it is not possible to set safe lower limits below which carcinogenic substances no longer cause cancer in humans.
As the Danish Laboratory Technicians Association recommends, we must strive for minimal use, and perhaps even for no use at all, so that zero risk can be established in the working environment.
When limits are set for carcinogenic substances at a given level, the daily struggle to comply with those levels, in order to protect workers, is made all the more difficult.
This of course is tied up with the fact that it is difficult to produce a convincing argument against the logical and technical consequences of the knowledge we have about the possible risks as long as one is thinking in terms of limits for carcinogenic substances.
The people from the Danish Laboratory Technicians Association who have advised me, know where the shoes pinch.
This is their daily work and we should listen carefully to what they say.
Political attitudes and feelings in general are seldom a match for expert qualifications.
Mr President, I should first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report.
I think it is her first - although I am not absolutely sure of that - but in any event she has been able to bring this difficult and complex technical report to a successful conclusion.
I also hope - and I say this too on behalf of my group - that the amendments which have been tabled by the rapporteur and the Social Affairs Committee can be accepted by the Commission.
Because the point at issue here this evening is of course what the Commission accepts and what it does not.
If the Commission does not accept anything in the cooperation procedure, then that is always rather sad in terms of our work.
So I am waiting to hear this with great interest.
We are dealing with an extremely serious problem here. Cancer, as the rapporteur has already described, is one of the most serious diseases in the European Union.
We know that substances of this kind can be a major cause of cancer, and so this is a very important matter.
That also means, to my mind, that the whole question of adopting directives under Article 118a is very important.
These often do not involve issues that attract particular attention, but ones where some years later, people see that if the directives have been contravened, very serious damage has occurred. Fortunately, even those who cause the damage sometimes come to realize this, because they have to pay out huge sums in the courts.
That is the whole point of this article. It is also why the article has to stay.
However, I also entirely agree with what the rapporteur has said, that this article must naturally be a codecision article in the future, not one of the kind it is at present.
I think that the Council itself, as often happens in this kind of case, has done some quite good work.
It is also sometimes a good thing to praise the Council, but I would repeat that the amendments, particularly those aimed at securing closer definitions and removing the transitional period, must remain intact.
They are in fact the crucial point. There are of course always some amendments which are easy to accept, but which do not actually add a great deal, but that is not the case with those in question here.
I think the whole House is reasonably agreed on this.
So the only thing we still have to wait for is whether the Commission agrees with our opinion, and I look forward to hearing the Commissioner on this point.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive marks a step forward, especially because for the first time, a limit value is being set for benzene.
Our group supports the rapporteur and shares her view that we need to retable the ten amendments from first reading, in particular the amendment removing the transitional period and those which Mr Pronk has also just highlighted on definitions.
However, this directive is aimed only at achieving prevention by setting limit values for carcinogens.
I see it as my duty here tonight to draw attention to other diseases brought about by other solvents such as toluene, a major cause of the disease organic-psychic syndrome.
This organic-psychic syndrome affects the nervous system and can result in serious forms of brain damage.
The disease is caused by occupational exposure to chemical solvents, and can lead to memory loss and sometimes paralysis.
Surely we cannot take various measures in respect of one disease, but not another?
Because of differences in the Member States as regards the use of solvents in dyes and adhesives, worker protection is not the same in all our countries.
Certain requirements for these harmful substances have long been established in the United States and the Scandinavian countries, for example.
I think that we must provide equality for workers throughout our countries at European level, not just for carcinogens, but for all the harmful substances to which people are exposed.
I hope, Mr President - and I have also obtained some information on this in my own country from the Council - that you will be able to take the initiative on this matter, and that we shall not be left with just this one directive.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive which is being submitted today for second reading meets, in principle, two objectives.
The first is to broaden the scope of the initial directive of 1990, in such a way as to include all the carcinogens present at the workplace and to take into consideration all possible forms of exposure.
I think I can say that this objective has been attained.
All my colleagues are certainly satisfied.
The second objective consists in setting limit values for occupational exposure to a well-known carcinogen - benzene.
And here, I claim that the objective has not at all been attained.
Benzene has, in fact, been known for a very long time as a powerful carcinogen.
There are no more scientific controversies on this subject.
And we know that there is no threshold for harmlessness.
Consequently, it is vital that a limit value should be set to limit the damage.
Many experts think that a limit value of 0.1 PPM should be set.
It matters little whether one talks of PPM or something else - what is important is to compare the limits.
The Commission has proposed 1 PPM, in other words, ten times more.
Today, it appears that, in the majority of work situations, occupational exposure does not exceed 1 PPM.
The Commission is therefore merely ratifying an existing situation.
But where things start to get more serious is where, in the initial proposal, it proposed a derogation of 3 PPM for the oil sector.
This was already unacceptable in itself and, at first reading, we rejected this derogation, although we accepted the 1 PPM.
What is happening today? We find ourselves, at second reading, faced with a common position of the Council which I call scandalous, as it extends the derogation of 3 PPM to all sectors of activity and, moreoever, changes the maximum period for transposing the directive by two years.
It would thus take six years for the 1 PPM limit to be respected.
Consequently, this measure gives the illusion of protecting workers, whereas it does no such thing, and in reality we are, from a distance, following the claims and requirements of the industrial sectors.
So we absolutely have to adopt the amendments and I hope that the Commissioner is going to reassure us by saying that she herself will support them.
Mr President, this Directive concerns our working lives and the regulations which will apply to them.
There are already countries, Denmark and Sweden, for example, which have stricter requirements than the proposal put forward by the Commission.
This shows that it is possible to make tough demands on industry and that these requirements can be met.
All limits must be such that the principle of caution can be applied, i.e. there must be a considerable margin in the limit before the level becomes dangerous.
It is precisely this which is so difficult to determine as there are so many different types of inhalation and many different environmental problems.
This is why, for example, the Commission's limit of 1ppm for benzene cannot be accepted.
Similarly, it is impossible to accept the deadlines quoted which can stretch to six years. These are far too long.
But the Directive is a step in the right direction, which is a good thing as it concerns the level of health and safety we want in our workplaces.
But I do think that any country which wants to go further in this should of course be able to do so.
Mr President, I would first like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Ojala, for the good work she has done on this proposal and for continuing to support the Commission in its endeavours to combat work-related illnesses.
Both the Commission and Commissioner Flynn and myself appreciate this contribution.
Let met first draw your attention to the political significance of the Council's common position.
This is a clear and fundamental expression of how important effective health and safety provisions are in Community thinking.
The most important aim of the Commission's proposal has been fulfilled.
It is based primarily on extending the area of application of the directive so that it also covers a long list of preparations which were not previously included, and then for the first time it aims to establish limits for industrial exposure to a well known carcinogen, namely benzene.
With your help, the directive could be adopted in the very near future.
The Commission would clearly have preferred a shorter transition period before the directive could be fully implemented in the national legal system.
But the different sectors of activity need provisional arrangements so that they can fulfil the directive's requirements.
In consideration of the fact that the current values in most Member States are much higher than 3 ppm, the time allowed is not so unreasonable.
On the basis of what I have said above, I am sorry to have to report that none of the amendments proposed by Parliament can be accepted at this point.
They clearly overlook the fact that the Commission incorporated six of the proposed amendments: 1, 4, 6, 7, 8 and 10 in the amendment proposal, and these are now before Parliament.
However the Council rejected these for reasons which the Commission is able, in part, to understand.
Even if I am today opposing the amended text of the joint position, I can assure the rapporteur and the other members of Parliament that in practice the Commission will consciously take account of several of the proposed amendments, even if at the present time we cannot incorporate them into the legislation.
I am thinking here of proposed amendments 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 in particular.
With regard to the proposed amendments, I would like to remind you that, in connection with adoption of a joint position, the Commission reserves the right, at a later stage, when the amended recommendation is adopted, to come back with specific detailed proposals in light of the scientific results, particularly with regard to biomonitoring and measurement methods.
Regarding biological limits, and here I am referring to proposed amendments 4 and 8, the Commission intends to produce further proposals to establish limits for certain levels in the case of specific carcinogens, where the necessary data is available.
Similarly the Commission will produce clear proposals for uniform measurement procedures.
This is proposed amendment 10, and I also intend to make the Commission's intentions quite clear to the Council when this proposed amendment comes up for discussion.
The Commission is also in favour of the idea of an updated priority list for the limits - this is proposed amendment 3 - in view of the fact that there is no scientific data for all carcinogens at the present moment.
This list does not form part of the legislation, but when the existing data points to the need for a legislative initiative, the Commission will not hesitate to take the necessary action.
I would like to take this opportunity of assuring the rapporteur that the appearance of arsenic and arsenic compounds on the list will be dealt with as a matter of urgency - this is proposed amendment 5.
I hope I have thus been able to convince Parliament of the Commission's desire in practice to follow Parliament's recommendations, and let me repeat, in closing, that the text, in its present form, marks an important step forward, and Parliament has played an important part in this result.
Mr President, do I understand correctly that the Commissioner is not accepting any amendment which has been proposed by Parliament? She wants to study them and so on but she does not want to accept any of the twelve amendments put forward by Parliament?
Have I understood her correctly?
I understood her differently, Mr Pronk, but in any case it is not for me to answer.
, rapporteur - (FI) Mr President, I too listened with great interest to the answer given by the Commissioner and I must say that it is not entirely satisfactory.
The Commission promises to take many things into account in the future, but now, when a solution is required to the problem under discussion, it cannot seem to summon up the will to put pressure on the Council.
Even the Commission's original proposal, which, in my opinion, took proper account of industry and its needs, goes too far for the Council's taste.
This is highly regrettable, since it shows quite clearly that the Council wishes to hedge on this issue.
I know that a further directive is already being prepared, which does give some grounds for hope.
I have heard, for example, that a proposal is likely to be submitted in the very near future on arsenic, as referred to by the Commissioner.
However, I am deeply disappointed that this matter should have been dealt with under the cooperation procedure.
We are rather perplexed, because we have the impression that you, Madam Commissioner, and the Commission in general pay more attention to the Council than Parliament, and as long as such matters are dealt with under the cooperation procedure this will remain the case.
This is precisely the reason why it should be dealt with under the codecision procedure.
Mr President, I shall make this short since I can inform both Mr Pronk and Mrs Ojala that the message is that the Commission is unable to accept the amendments proposed, but with the rider that the Commission agreed with the content of several of them and wished to do more work on the matter.
Mr President, that answer seems so unclear to me that I think Members need to discuss whether to refer this report back to the Social Affairs Committee, so as to achieve more clarity on the matter.
We cannot hold a vote tomorrow on this basis.
Mr President, I must say that, while I quite understand that the rapporteur and Mr Pronk were not particularly pleased with the answer I have been able to give here today, I do not believe anyone can say that it lacks anything in clarity.
I believe that the message about what the Commission is able to accept has been clear, so it is my view that, in light of these considerations, it must be acknowledged that there has not been any lack of clarity.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.41 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I would just like to say something, and I will speak in French so as to be more quickly understood by everyone.
Yesterday I raised a question which our 'Superior' - because I consider you a monk of this monastery - judged to be a personal matter.
I must obey him and I do so with pleasure, in view of the liking I have for him.
However it was not a personal matter, it was a political question.
Indeed, when I speak as a politician, in a political context, I am no longer dealing with a personal matter which I can resolve in the corridors, but a political question which I cannot resolve with my fists in the corridors.
Madam, that is what generally happens.
I wanted to defend the honour of my party.
I know very well that honour is not a fashionable thing, but all the same I wanted to defend it, and I did not want lies to be spread about my party, that is all.
I thereby close the subject, in obedience to the Superior of the monastery and as the monk obedient to and respectful of democracy I am pleased to continue to be.
Mr Rosado Fernandez, I admit that I have trouble deciding whether your speech was for a personal matter, a motion of procedure or a comment on the Minutes, but you have made it so politely that I am very willing to take note of it.
Mr Rack, I will reassure you doubly.
We have not omitted to announce the arrival of a new colleague, because the person is not a new colleague.
Secondly, Mr Klaus Hänsch has not disappeared from our Parliament.
Madam President, I wish to inform the House that yesterday I tried to obtain a copy of the Ford report, which is on today's agenda, so that I could table amendments before the deadline of 7 p.m.
At 6 p.m. the Ford report was still not available in all the official languages, which clearly made it impossible for Members to prepare amendments in good time.
I would ask you, Madam President, whether this is in keeping with our Rules of Procedure. Surely it is now impossible to vote on the Ford report today, given that amendments could not be submitted in time.
Mr Caccavale, I do believe you when you say that you could not find this report.
We are going to check whether it was available in all languages and if not, it will obviously not be possible to vote on it.
We are going to check, I can assure you.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes? It might also be noted that the three observations which have just been made were not about the Minutes.
Madam President, I want to draw to your attention and that of the House the fact that Jimmy Goldsmith's Referendum Party in Britain has provided £150, 000 to the Ulster Unionist Party.
I wonder if £150, 000 is the prop that keeps the Referendum Party represented in a group in this Parliament by Mr Nicholson? Is that the price to be paid for jingoism of this kind?
The Ulster Unionist Party has received so much support from this House time and time again, and at the same time, in the European Parliament, we have the Referendum Party propping up a single Member with £150, 000 for the general election campaign in Britain.
A political group, the Referendum Party, that is a meaningless party in Britain, is interfering in internal Irish politics.
I want to protest very strongly about this.
My dear colleague, you are perfectly well aware that that was not an observation on the Minutes.
Now, we are going to proceed in an orderly and methodical way, keeping to the subject of the Minutes, which I would like to be able to declare adopted once all of you have spoken.
Are there any other comments?
Madam President, on the roll-call vote recorded in the Minutes, I complained profusely that my machine was not working until Mr Harrison pointed out that I did not have my card.
I then asked that my vote against be recorded, but it is not on the list.
Could it be recorded, please?
Mr Wynn, I am told that your name does appear on the list.
In any case we will check.
If your name does not appear, obviously we will make a note of your declaration in today's Minutes.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
(The Minutes were adopted)
Madam President, this is not the first time Mr Andrews has got to his feet in this House and made totally inaccurate statements.
Knowing Mr Andrews it will probably not be the last time.
I find it unfortunate, Madam President, that you allowed him to make such a statement.
I recommend that in future you stand by the Rules of this House and ensure that such assertions, not based on fact, are not made.
I want to make it very clear that what he said in this House was totally wrong, a parcel of lies.
I totally reject what he said.
Mr Nicholson, you know very well that when a colleague asks to speak, one never knows if it is really a motion of procedure or not.
And it is not very polite to interrupt a colleague while he is speaking.
Respect for human rights in the European Union
The next item is the annual report (A4-0112/97) by Mrs Roth, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on respect for human rights in the European Union (1995).
Madam President, I am speaking about the presence of Commissioner Van den Broek, whom I would like to thank for coming here and following this debate.
However, I was wondering, in view of the subject of our debate - human rights in the European Union - whether Mr Van den Broek, who is already following a number of dossiers, is really the competent Commissioner in this matter.
Mr Dell'Alba, I am convinced that the Commissioner is perfectly competent for all subjects and particularly for this, on which he is going to speak in a moment.
(Interruption by Mr Herman: 'The Commission is a college!'
Exactly, Mr Herman!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is to be expected that what has happened in previous years here in Parliament will be repeated once again this morning, namely that the debate on the annual report on the human rights situation in the European Union for 1995 will degenerate into a discussion marked on the one hand by fundamental differences of opinion on what a human rights debate should involve and, on the other hand, by self-interested national and group tactics.
The latter will undoubtedly colour the vote on both sides of the House again today, in all groups, and I regret that very much.
Mrs Roth rightly said, and the debate and vote in committee also made this clear, that it is a luxury for the European Union to draw up two different human rights reports: one on the situation in the Union, and one on the situation in the rest of the world.
It is as if there were two different kinds of human rights: one for Europeans and one for non-Europeans!
It is completely absurd for us to say that today's report sets everything out, but that no Member State can be mentioned by name in relation to a specific human rights abuse, and no Member State can be accused of failing to respect human rights fully and completely.
Because the fact is that a debate has been gathering force in all the political groups over the last few years which is aimed at preventing precisely that, in other words saying that human rights are indivisible.
Verifying respect for human rights has nothing to do with a state's membership of a political union or any other kind of international community, but a great deal to do with whether politicians, governments, administrations - it does not matter where - are capable not only of observing the fundamental rights which they themselves have established, but also of monitoring and, if necessary, enforcing compliance with those rights.
This brings me to two crucial sections of this report, which I should like to bring to the attention of the House.
Mrs Roth deals with the question of the rights of people in detention.
There is no better indication of how humane a society is, how closely it observes human rights, than the degree to which it respects the rights of those who have violated society's basic rules.
They are nevertheless entitled to an assurance of basic humane treatment, access to a fair trial and observance of the fundamental principles of human dignity while they are in detention.
A democratic state or a democratic international organization such as the European Union - which, as Mrs Roth said, points the finger at other parts of the world, and we in the European Parliament are not exactly restrained in this respect, but seek to reinforce such condemnation - must allow the legitimacy of its criticism of the human rights record of other countries to be judged in the light of its own record.
And, as far as the rights of people in detention are concerned, this report makes it clear that the situation in almost all the Member States leaves a good deal to be desired.
This section alone makes it clear, therefore, that we can longer afford to conduct such a debate - which is characterized by individual interests, and by tactics and manoeuvres aimed at securing a majority in order to prevent a disagreeable outcome - if we wish to retain even a glimmer of credibility in the long term.
There is something else that I should like to draw to the House's attention.
In past years, we have sometimes had to put up with disgraceful attempts to turn the human rights report into an ideological battleground at the time of voting.
We cannot afford this in the long term.
I would therefore ask the House to consider, in view of the fact that we proclaim in our reports that human rights are indivisible and equally valid throughout the world, whether we need two different human rights reports.
Should we not have a single report on the human rights situation in the European Union and the rest of the world, to be debated and adopted by the House? I believe that this would serve to neutralize these tactics to some extent.
Madam President, this year as in previous years, the Group of the European People's Party has sought rapprochement and consensus in Parliament to make this annual report on human rights in the Union a balanced, structured, legally correct document which impartially reflects the true human rights position in the Union.
Unfortunately the result is not what we hoped for.
Everyone knows the Group of the European People's Party promotes and upholds respect for human rights, is active in their defence and firmly opposes any violation wherever and however it may occur. That has been demonstrated not only in words but in deeds.
But after what Mr Schulz has said it needs to be put on record that the Member States of the Union belong to a group of countries which guarantee full respect for human rights through democratic and pluralist political systems with effective parliamentary institutions and independent legal systems.
All the same there is no doubt that the risk of violation of those rights still exists in the Union. Such violations must be denounced before this house, but always clearly and meticulously, after detailed study of each alleged case to establish whether there has been damage to appropriate measures of protection and respect for human rights, or whether the violation has been properly dealt with under the national legal and administrative systems.
Obviously, as a co-legislative body, the European Parliament must ensure that Union law develops in a context of respect for the fundamental rights of the human being, because the main aim of any genuinely democratic social project must be the freedom and dignity of the human being.
But we must stress the need for knowledge of national and international law on human rights in drawing up a report on the human rights position in the Union, as well as an exact idea of the legal concepts and strict application of precise terminology.
It is also important to use legal sources as the basis for the document, not reports without legal foundation based on mere statements of principle or accusations which are sometimes unfounded.
These premises are basic to the design and production of the report and if they are ignored the result may be a profusion of pre-programmed statements which make no sense, a quite arbitrary classification and processing of rights, imprecision in the use of legal concepts and excessive attention to isolated cases only reflecting exceptional situations.
Consequently the report on respect for human rights in the European Union must be circumscribed by our principal guide on the road to European construction: the law originating in the treaty.
The treaty establishes the meaning of the concept of human rights to be respected by the Union and its institutions clearly and unequivocally.
As Members are aware, no act or legislation emanating from the European Union or its Member States can contradict the original law of the Union as set out in the treaties.
So a report on human rights must be structured on the principles contained in the Treaty of Rome.
It is true that as law, politics, and economic and social life have evolved, the States have been recognizing other guarantees linked to the welfare state.
The Group of the European People's Party has therefore introduced two amendments urging the parliamentary committees covering social affairs and the environment to prepare appropriately thorough reports on respect for those guarantees as they affect their areas of responsibility.
Let me end, Madam President, by expressing my regret that the Group of the European People's Party finds it impossible to support this report, but this is forced on us because the draft report does not respect the fundamental and necessary legal basis: the Treaty of Rome.
I also want to express my hope that the next report by this Parliament on respect for human rights in the Union will be a structured and rigorous document, a consensual report which is not pre-programmed, a report which does not distort reality to turn it into a political issue.
Madam President, firstly I am anxious to thank Mrs Roth for the work she has done and for the time she has devoted to trying to come up with a text on which there is a consensus.
But in an area in which there should indeed be a consensus, difficulties arise when it comes to the details and when reconciliation of the irreconcilable is ruled out, because then we come up against some real choices of society.
One of the essential criticisms I would make of this report is that it wants to sweep over all aspects of life in society, enumerate all situations, add up all cases of appearance.
It is no longer a report, it is a catalogue.
In wanting to be exhaustive, the report runs the certain risk of being imperfect.
The sick and the well, able-bodied and handicapped, young and old, women and men and others, free and imprisoned, servicemen and conscientious objectors, believers and unbelievers, black and white, etc.
And if I may joke about such an important subject: redheads, Mrs Roth? You have forgotten redheads!
Not so long ago they were the subject of serious persecution.
Seriously, though, I am still convinced that the model of the genre remains the declaration of human rights of 1789.
17 articles, not 171!
Precise, concise articles which apply everywhere.
Everything summed up in its first article: ' Men - from the Latin homo and not vir - are born and die free and equal' .
In wanting to do too much, one also runs the risk of defending the indefensible.
In wanting to defend freedom of celebration of religions and cults, in article 26, without reference to our national legislation, you are also defending one of the greatest scourges which affects many young girls of African origin: circumcision.
Of course, our Europe is not perfect.
Of course, our States still have some way to go.
But here, in the European Parliament, I, like members from every State in the Union, enjoy one of the greatest rights which exist, that of being able to vote against your report.
Madam President, Europe has a good reputation when it comes to human rights, and while the European Union is right to try to improve the human rights situation throughout the world, if we wish to do this with any authority, we must first put our own house in order.
That is why the ELDR Group welcomes the fact that we have this debate on the human rights situation in the Member States every year.
The annual report contains a number of good points, but there are three criticisms I would make.
Firstly, our group feels, after discussing the matter amongst ourselves, that the resolution is too long and that this will discourage people from reading it.
We would therefore prefer to shorten it by a few paragraphs.
Secondly, it needs to be less sweeping in certain places.
The situation in prisons cannot be described as bad in every case, though it is true of some.
And thirdly, the resolution mentions a number of areas where the Member States have sole responsibility, rather than the European Union.
A clear example is paragraph 18 on euthanasia.
The European Union does not need to legislate for this, so we would prefer to drop this paragraph altogether.
Unlike the Christian Democrats, the Liberal Group considers that the report should give some attention to basic social rights, such as the right to a healthy environment, but these are quite different from the traditional basic rights in that governments are only required to try to respect them, rather than to guarantee them.
All things considered, we hope that the debate and the votes on the amendments will produce a well-balanced resolution.
Madam President, our democratic societies must create the necessary conditions to ensure that every person, simply by being a person, enjoys human rights, understood not only as civil and political rights, but also as economic, social and cultural rights.
We cannot speak of human rights today without speaking of social rights.
Issues relating to jobs, wages, working conditions, respect for minorities, the fight against racism, and so on, have a great deal to do with human rights.
Poverty is rising in European Union countries. Increasing numbers of people are victims of this evil for one reason or another and it is essential to promote social assistance and government support to combat it.
We need a policy which promotes fundamental social security and genuinely guarantees equal opportunities.
A wave of racism and xenophobia is engulfing our countries and events in various parts of the Union in the last few days make it clear how serious the problem of racism is becoming.
There is still discrimination against foreigners in Europe, and the law still regards those citizens as a danger to security and public order - targets for police surveillance, not individuals who enrich our society socially and culturally.
Having foreigners and their cultures amongst us definitely adds a socially valuable multicultural aspect which is good for the progress of European society.
We must prevent the development of a hierarchy of people.
Only foreigners from Union countries are good foreigners in the European Union.
All the other immigrants, whether looking for work, refugees, or whatever, are second class human beings with increasingly limited fundamental rights.
In European Year against Racism Member States have a greater duty than ever to guarantee foreign communities protection against racist violence and all forms of discrimination.
And the Community institutions must give priority to funding projects geared to the fight against racism.
A European society which straightforwardly aspires to democracy, solidarity and a high level of respect for fundamental rights, cannot fail to guarantee social security to all its members. And it is wrong to devalue the multicultural enrichment brought to our society by the integration of foreigners.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the annual report on human rights in the European Union can and must be an important opportunity to find out facts, to take stock and make proposals.
The rapporteur, Claudia Roth, and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs have worked extremely hard on this report.
I should like to begin by saying that I am pleasantly surprised.
This report does not actually reflect Mrs Roth's personal opinions.
Rather than setting out her own opinions, which are - if I may say so - quite extreme in some ways, she has made a great effort to give a comprehensive overview of human rights in the European Union.
That is why I am pleasantly surprised, and I would add that the annual report on human rights in the EU must not - as has unfortunately happened in the past - be the cause of a clash of views between different factions.
I hope that this year, Parliament will manage to rise above such unproductive argument, because there are certainly other ways of measuring the numerical strength of the various groups and factions, rather than by examining and discussing human rights.
I wish to make it clear at this point that I shall be voting in favour of the report, even though I cannot go along with certain parts of it; I do, however, agree with its overall thrust and am convinced that it is useful and necessary for progress in Europe.
To stress the need to overcome hidebound attitudes, I spoke out several times in committee against the rapporteur's draft, and I believe that not even she herself agrees entirely with all the paragraphs of the report.
Having read and re-read this report, I have not found any passages in it which are radically at odds with my own views.
I do, of course, beg to differ on certain points, but nothing is fundamentally unacceptable - if it had been, I would certainly not have voted in favour.
The rapporteur has said this morning that, in some respects, her report takes sides.
In one sense it does indeed, in that it is not restricted to human rights as defined by the International Covenant, but covers the broader subject of social rights and social security.
I should like to make one thing clear here.
Given that we are dealing with human rights within the European Union, it would be unproductive not to tackle the subject of social rights and social security.
In short, out of respect for human dignity and the role of this House, I hope that in the vote today, we shall manage to avoid factionalism and a distinction between human rights, on the one hand, and social rights and social security on the other.
If we were to vote on partisan lines, in a small-minded way, we should have to ask ourselves what is the point of voting in plenary if all we are doing is recording votes which are unrelated to the content of the report, but determined only by the hidebound attitudes to which I have referred, and by the composition of the groups.
Quite apart from the need to respect human dignity, I believe that it is also essential to show respect for the European Parliament and its role, which must not be either passive or unproductive.
Madam President, the work which has been done by Mrs Roth was indispensable.
Of course, I realise that a number of criticisms were made on the rather rag-bag nature to which her work has been likened.
No matter.
I think that, whether we like it or not, to fundamental rights and liberties should be added what were once known as the formal liberties, which are those of association, opinion, expression, etc.; we must also take into account the right to receive care when one is ill, the right to education and training when one has none, the right to a decent job, the right to decent conditions of imprisonment, the right to breathe clean air.
Of course.
All of these rights are as inalienable as the preceding ones.
However, it is also true that borderline areas exist, and I am very pleased that the rapporteur has pinpointed a fundamental issue, euthanasia.
You do not play around with life, an area in which you exercise in a very real way a social choice, and that has been stated here.
Nevertheless some definitive advice has been taken here, and I would like the whole Parliament to follow her on this subject.
At the same time, it's true, what can we hope for the future? To make progress, certainly, to make progress with these rights, but really it would not be a bad thing if we could just stop regressing, because, in our countries, the rights of foreigners in particular, are being nibbled at, eaten away little by little, and defending the rights of foreigners in our land is now part of the battle for human rights.
Somebody said that we were dealing with a social choice.
Yes, it's true, it is a social choice, but let us make it clear that, if we want to be faithful to what is required of us, we must work for this society in which men are open to each other, pay attention to each other, that is, for a more brotherly society.
It is for that that I thank Mrs Roth.
Madam President, I have to say that Mrs Roth has interpreted the concept of human rights extremely broadly, but apart from that I agree with a number of the demands and statements that she makes, and I am grateful to her for including the paragraph on euthanasia.
Nevertheless, I have a number of serious objections to the report as a whole.
First of all, there is the fact that it places responsibility for human rights in the Union entirely in the hands of the national governments.
Of course each country is responsible for establishing and maintaining law and order, but it is equally the responsibility of each person in society to accept and comply with this.
Laws and regulations are all very well, but it is we as individuals who determine the quality of the society in which we live.
Think of things such as tolerance, destructiveness and anti-social behaviour.
This is where the root of the problem lies, and if we are to tackle it effectively, we need a clear system of standards and values.
This is what I think is missing in this report. It is merely window-dressing to try to combat the sexual exploitation of women and children while at the same time allowing pornography and advertising a completely free rein.
My second objection is that the report assumes that we are all our own independent legislators.
This might seem a possible basis for a humane society, but if we do not recognize God's law in our lives, then not all human rights are safe from attack.
The weak in society are given protection, but the weakest and most vulnerable of all, the unborn child, is left to fend for itself.
Also, every attention is given to alternative forms of society, yet the report fails to make any positive statements about marriage between men and women, which is what God ordained.
Madam President, in this report, in this interminable inventory which resembles less a poem by Prévert and more a catalogue of a grand raffle, there is everything.
I am not the only one to say so this morning.
There is everything and its opposite.
That is how it is that Member States are to be discouraged from thinking about the possible reinstatement of capital punishment for foul crimes while total freedom of expression is to be given to the killers of children yet to be born.
In Belgium, where I come from, the death penalty was abolished one year ago.
It was buried, in Charleroi, where, several months later, the bodies of young girls were being exhumed, who had been tortured and murdered.
Again we find in this report the tireless socialist cliché of the right to health, when no doctor, even the most gifted, can pretend to give it, only to dispense the best possible care for all.
After that, in this order of ideas, next to the surrealist right to health, I would like to inscribe the duty of intelligence for all.
This report really is in need of it.
Madam President, for my part I am sorry that, as in previous years, this important report on human rights has given rise to the same interminable shilly-shallying when defining the limit of the subjects to be dealt with: the static conception of human rights as opposed to an evolving and dynamic meaning.
Mrs Roth's report, of excellent quality, has not escaped polemics, and I think it is a pity.
Not that the left-right confrontation appears to me to be systematically harmful, quite the contrary, but I am afraid that this opposition on such an important report might put the real division into the background, that which separates the vast majority of this hemicycle, which is conscious that the respect for human rights is one of the essential values of the European Union, from a minority, which will not rest until it has discredited this concept.
Only the right to freedom of expression finds favour in the eyes of the extreme right.
It calls upon this freedom better to pillory legislation which, in France particularly, permits the sanctioning of incitations to racism and the denial of crimes against humanity.
That is why I would like to recall the fact that the United Nations committee responsible for monitoring the application of the international treaty on civil and political rights by the 133 signatory countries made an important decision last November.
It nonsuited the negationist Robert Faurisson, who was claiming that the loi Gayssot attacked his freedom of expression and education.
The committee considers that it does nothing of the sort and that freedom of expression can be subjected to restrictions necessary for the respect of the rights or reputation of others.
You might think this goes without saying.
But it undoubtedly goes much better for being said.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the original aim in drawing up this report was to legitimize the European Parliament's condemnation of human rights violations in other parts of the world.
The report has moved a very long way from this initial approach.
It no longer has that purpose.
Indeed, it is difficult to see how this report can legitimize Parliament's criticism of human rights abuses in China or Zaire.
I should like to give you an example.
The report states that the European Parliament 'advocates the drawing-up at Community level of a binding legal instrument laying down minimum guarantees in respect of income, social protection, and the right to medical treatment and housing' .
With respect, Mrs Roth, how does making such a boundless demand legitimize Parliament's condemnation of human rights violations in Zaire?
The problem with this report is the following: it does not deal with specific human rights violations, but lists political demands.
It has a political agenda.
It sheds more light on the rapporteur's political views than on the human rights situation in Europe.
And that is precisely its weakness.
We must change that, if we wish the report to be taken seriously around the world.
There are some examples of this too.
The rapporteur takes a critical view of the demand for so-called 'zero immigration' .
She condemns the fact that no Member State allows unrestricted immigration.
And that is portrayed as a human rights violation!
Mrs Roth, it is quite wrong to call this a human rights abuse.
You are way out of step with the general political consensus.
Furthermore, the rapporteur rails against the application of the concept of a 'safe third country' with regard to the right of asylum.
Clearly, this is a question open to dispute, but to portray it as a human rights violation is, if you will forgive me for saying so, entirely wrong.
I should like to propose a way out.
I propose - and here I share the views of Mr Schulz - that we abandon the distinction between human rights in Europe and human rights in the rest of the world.
If the concept is indivisible, it must apply in Europe in exactly the same way that it applies in China and Zaire.
I therefore propose that we include in the report only human rights violations for which an action can be brought before the Court of Human Rights here in Strasbourg.
I would suggest that we consider entrusting this task to Parliament's Subcommittee on Human Rights.
This dispute, which is inevitable if such a political agenda is put forward, is helping neither the cause of human rights nor Parliament.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to compliment Mrs Roth on the careful, meticulous work that has gone into this report, most of which I too can agree with, although certain paragraphs are a little controversial, I have to say.
Debate in the House has crystallized very much around what have been defined as the static and the dynamic concepts of human rights - and today is no exception.
I have no answer to that: I do not know which of these two notions is correct. What goes without saying is that we all have to come to terms with rapid change.
The concept of human rights is changing because the rights themselves are changing, in particular so-called social rights.
We cannot, of course, agree with many of the report's prescriptions - to coin a term - concerning social rights, and still less those concerning the right to social security: when the right to social security is taken to extremes and effective social and economic protection is demanded - including the right to a home, to good health, to a family, to beauty, to a wife, to make love, to do everything - well, that is obviously a way of devaluing the concept underlying this report.
However, I do regard economic freedoms as fundamental, but for the opposite reasons to Mrs Roth: it is in fact because the welfare state is overloaded that cases of grinding poverty, exclusion and unemployment exist today.
Of course Europe must set an example, and Mrs Roth is quite right about that: prison cannot be regarded as a place for punishment or, even worse, torture, but is for rehabilitation; trials must be just, so there must be genuine equality between the prosecution and defence; there must always be respect for the rule of law, even when combating terrorism or the Mafia; citizens should not be encouraged to become informers; asylum-seekers must also have a fair trial, including those fleeing from war or famine who are seeking hospitality from us - obviously this does not mean opening the floodgates to immigration.
On all these points we shall naturally be voting in favour of the Roth report; the Italian delegation will vote in favour of the report despite its doubts concerning many paragraphs, such as paragraph 18 on active euthanasia, which we do not understand, paragraph 26 on depriving sects of freedom of religion, where it is unclear what constitutes a sect, and paragraph 142 on the right - amongst others - of adoption for homosexuals.
Madam President, could this report be too reckless, too daring? On sight of the amendments, this would seem to be the opinion of many of our colleagues.
But human rights are not a static thing.
Their definition is prone to change with time, with changes in mentality and in accordance with the conception one has of man and his dignity.
That does not mean that it is okay to reduce the classic corpus of human rights: it retains all its value.
Perhaps the time has come rather to complete it.
Our rapporteur invites us to do so explicitly by adopting the now classic distinction between human rights of the first generation and those of the second.
She invites us to codify and guarantee a third generation of human rights.
Of course the objection can be made that in wanting to increase and extend human rights, there is a danger of stripping them of their impact and diluting the very strong symbolic and political significance which characterises them.
This objection should be taken seriously, but the fact remains that thinking towards an extension of human rights is perfectly legitimate and undoubtedly necessary, if only because it makes us think about the destiny of our society and because it allows us to correct certain developments while there is still time.
This evolutive approach is also justified by the fact that the classic declarations and texts are also the result of an evolution which took place over several centuries before arriving at a legally binding codification.
This is particularly true for legal matters of an international nature, where the time lapse between what had been accepted for a long time at home and a code of good conduct applicable to relations between States is particularly striking.
Of course, there is also this other mismatch between the solemn proclamation of great principles and the sociopolitical realities which, sadly, make human rights remain unheeded.
Mrs Roth has taken great pains to show us that everything is not for the better in the best of worlds, as far as the respecting of human rights and basic freedoms in the European Union is concerned.
This rather damning report may shock some but, in this area, it is important to be particularly exacting and not to give way to the tendency to hide one's face or look away from unpleasant things.
It is upsetting to note that, even where we live, reason of State can take precedence over the respect of principles which should be dear to us.
Madam President, I am sorry that Mr Nassauer has left. What hypocrisy!
A political conception of human rights?
But when Mr Caccavale says that poverty is attributable to the Welfare State and to assistance, which constitute obstacles to economically useful business activity, is that not a political conception of human rights? As for the solid examples, you know very well as soon as the case of one country is cited you make an amendment to erase it.
So, let's stop the hypocrisy!
Contrary to the claims of a large part of the right of the hemicycle, the State can attack liberties.
Power can be abused by the State.
Power often is abused by the State: inhumane treatment inflicted on detainees, calling into question of human rights in the army, etc.
This right wing has still not assimilated the fact that some rights are debts upon society, positive rights, like in France since 1848 for example; the economic, social, cultural and ecological rights are human rights.
As for me, I would like to focus my speech upon immigration, or rather on the way in which certain political forces - and unfortunately some governments - use immigration for internal political ends.
In France, the Pasqua and Debré laws are concrete examples of this.
On the European scale, many decisions place the whole body of immigrants under suspicion and attempt to destabilise their position.
This legislation, whether adopted or under preparation, is an attack on fundamental human rights.
In Paris, as in Brussels and Strasbourg, we must refuse to occupy the ground chosen by Le Pen.
We must stop making immigrants the scapegoats of the crisis, with all the racist and xenophobic drifts which this creates.
To treat strangers with suspicion is to threaten the whole of European society.
Let us say it with force: the problem is not immigration, it is social crisis, unemployment due to the application of economic policies founded on competition with regard to wages, and on social exclusion.
As for customs, there is in this case an inability to take developments into consideration, as well as the will of some to continue to discriminate against homosexuals and homosexual couples, which would endanger marriage and the family.
If only those who would not vote for this report would think about what Descartes said - and I will end with this quotation: ' I do not approve at all of the fact that one should try to deceive oneself by revelling in false imaginings.
That is why, seeing that it is greater perfection to know the truth, even if it is to our disadvantage, than not to know it, I confess that it is better to be less joyous and more knowledgeable.'
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, whenever the question of human rights in the European Union is on the agenda, national sensitivities suddenly begin to dominate again, and indeed under the banner of non-interference in countries' internal affairs, a concept which I remember well as a cornerstone of the human rights policy of the Communist countries.
But the European Parliament is checked here by the European Convention on Human Rights - the only legal framework for any discussion of the protection or violation of human rights.
It clearly was not created with this in mind!
A twofold error underlies this approach.
Firstly, Article F(2) of the Treaty on European Union requires the Union to respect fundamental rights, not only as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, but also as they result from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States, in which the social and cultural basis of human rights is taken into account and amply developed - and certainly not always as restrictively, Mr Nassauer, as in the German Constitution.
Secondly, Parliament is not the European Court of Human Rights and is not conducting a trial, which can naturally only take place on legal grounds.
This is a report which has to draw on the human rights concepts embodied in the relevant UN Declarations, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and lastly the whole body of non-discrimination legislation of the European Union itself: everything, that is, which the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris refer to as the 'human dimension' .
Indeed, this forms part of the Member States' common legal philosophy.
How can it be neglected, therefore!
The purpose of this report is not to freeze human rights concepts and practices at their 1950 level, but to update them in accordance with the totally different circumstances of our times.
Since the Council has just given a lamentable example of the weakness of the European Union's human rights policy, it is now up to Parliament to rouse itself and demonstrate to the people of Europe and the world that a sufficient number of Europeans wish to rectify that weakness.
Madam President, from this side of the hemicycle, we are following with some amusement the division between right and left on the more or less extendable definition of human rights.
But we think that, before creating new rights, it is first necessary to make sure that the fundamental rights are respected, that is, firstly the right to freedom of expression, including for those who think differently from you, including for those who think differently from the dominant cultural or political power.
Because, in truth, it is primarily for political minorities that liberties should be granted and defended.
Right to freedom of expression, right, also, to the freedom of association, including for opponents of power, including for people who meet up to say things which you do not like or which the dominant majority do not like.
Lastly, human rights also mean the right to electoral freedom and trade union freedom.
And there is in France, from this point of view, much abuse where trade union freedom is concerned, since it is only possible for workers to stand for professional elections if they are members of unions which are duly approved and limited by law.
It is not possible to create new unions, it is not possible to stand freely, in France, in trade union and professional elections and this is obviously a very serious attack upon human rights.
This attack has just be stregthened by the Perben law, which limits the liberties which still existed in the civil service in this area.
This freedom is also limited by a number of court decisions taken by sleeping judges, on the orders of the authorities, which have finished up by prohibiting a number of national unions, in particular the Force national-transports en commun (TGWU), which aimed to enable the representation of free workers in the transport sector.
So, yes, human rights in Europe must be defended, but first we must defend the fundamental liberties: electoral freedom, trade union freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of association.
Madam President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Roth on her excellent report.
It confers a political and social dimension on the concept of human rights which sits well with developments in European thinking on the subject. We have moved forward a step or two from the concept of human rights developed at the time of the French Revolution.
One year ago I wrote a letter to the new Greek Minister of Defence, Mr Akis Tzohatzopoulos, informing him of the resolutions and concerns of the European Parliament on the question of conscientious objectors and requesting him to make better arrangements for such cases.
I am glad to be able to tell the House today that a bill providing for an alternative form of national service which will, I believe, finally resolve an issue which has troubled the European Parliament and many of us, too, for so many years, has already been laid before the Greek parliament.
We have tabled an amendment with Mrs d'Ancona which will, I hope, with the assent of Mrs Roth, be accepted, because in Greece, which is the only Member State with no border with another Member State and in which military service is compulsory under the constitution, the issue is quite a contentious one.
I hope that the arrangement that is being made will meet the requirements of the constitution - which makes national service compulsory for all - and make it possible for those who object to bearing arms to serve their country without compromising their principles.
On another point I wish to say that since the fall of the Greek junta in 1974, after the terrible experience of dictatorship, the Greek constitution has actually been very progressive.
It does enshrine and guarantee the right of freedom of association and assembly for all citizens, including those belonging to minorities.
The provision of paragraph 47 in Mrs Roth's report is probably the result of false information, because the Greek constitution does actually enshrine this right.
Madam President, the human rights report now before the House continues the tradition of previous years.
It is certainly not a report on respect for human rights in the European Union, as the title would have us believe, but once again - if we compare it with previous reports - an attempt by Socialists, Greens, leftists and liberals to present to Parliament and the public at large, under the guise of human rights issues, ideological positions which could not otherwise be discussed in such depth.
We in the Group of the European People's Party believe that human rights are simply too precious to be allowed to serve as an ideological battleground.
We therefore recommend that Parliament should return to discussing actual violations of human rights, highlighting and condemning any such violations in the European Union and doing everything possible to ensure that they are not repeated.
Like previous reports, Mrs Roth's report discusses everything under the sun.
It calls for the right to health, the right to social security and the right to a healthy environment.
Clearly, these things must be discussed; but they must be discussed in the committees responsible, and not under the guise of a debate on human rights.
If everyone thinks they are obliged to say something on every subject, Parliament will run the risk of being branded a talking-shop by the public!
I am in favour of things being discussed responsibly by the responsible bodies.
We are running the risk of discrediting ourselves.
When we read that Parliament is concerned at serious and inadmissible human rights violations, the existence of degrading detention conditions and the erosion of basic rights and fundamental freedoms, that it is deeply concerned at cases of torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including cases of death, we could be forgiven for thinking that we were in Burundi or Zaire, and not the European Union.
We must get back to the facts when discussing human rights, and we should not have to remind ourselves where we are.
We in the Group of the European People's Party would like to see Parliament get back to legally enforceable rights, discussing actual human rights abuses and calling for respect for human rights in cases where the path of human rights has been abandoned.
Madam President, one would expect nothing less from somebody like Mrs Roth, whom I consider an extraordinary individual.
Mrs Roth has produced a report which contains a number of paragraphs that some Members have reservations about.
Nevertheless, I have to say that, overall, the weight of this report encourages me to vote in favour of it.
I would cite, for example, the references to the treatment of prisoners and the protection of children.
Taking a position on euthanasia is not a responsibility of the European Parliament.
The lack of concern about the victims of crime has, to a certain extent, been redressed by the amendments adopted in committee.
But much more must be done for the victims of crime.
While I fully endorse giving priority to setting up units to provide palliative care for the terminally ill, so that they can die with dignity, I believe that the sensitive question of euthanasia is not one that should be dealt with by the European Parliament.
There is justifiable criticism in the report of the use of violence, inhuman, cruel or degrading treatment or punishment inflicted on persons on remand by the security forces or the forces of law and order.
Those responsible for such abuses should not go unpunished.
Belmarsh security unit in England, which I visited recently, is a virtual concrete tomb in which prisoners are incarcerated for long periods of time.
Women imprisoned in jails anywhere in the Community must be treated properly and with dignity.
I wish to thank the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, and particularly its chairman, Hedy d'Ancona, for accepting my amendment calling for appropriate facilities to be provided for pregnant women in prisons.
I welcome Mrs d'Ancona's proposed visit to Holloway Prison.
The way in which Roisín McAliskey, an unconvicted prisoner and expectant mother, has been treated in Holloway Prison is outrageous.
In March, the Guardian newspaper wrote that Miss McAliskey's case illustrated how prisoners awaiting extradition or deportation hearings could find themselves treated worse than those who had been convicted.
The Guardian also reports that the German Government has promised Miss McAliskey that, if extradited, she would be able to take her child with her.
I want to thank the German Government and the German Members of Parliament for their understanding of this particular case and for their support for my campaign for the proper treatment of prisoners in English jails.
Madam President, I would like to give two examples to illustrate that the report is, in my view, unrepresentative and far too general.
1) Denmark is named several times, whereas other countries scarcely appear.
I would not wish to conceal the situation in Denmark, but it is quite simply an inaccurate picture of Denmark with respect to the other countries in the Union.
But perhaps this is because we do not have a representative on the committee and can therefore serve as a scapegoat.
For example point 159 is completely wrong and point 33 misleading.
2) If the environment is to be included in these annual reports, then one should point out specific violations of the environment legislation, and not make do with general statements.
In conclusion, Madam President, I must say that the report does not fulfil its function and appears to be in appropriate. I would recommend that future reports be shorter, more precise and more accurate.
Madam President, we intend to vote for Mrs Roth's report because of its comprehensiveness, sincerity, boldness and objectivity.
In addition we shall support it because of the way in which certain sides of this House have spoken against it during the debate.
We shall support it, moreover, because it makes it abundantly clear that if the Community wishes to have credibility it must first of all ensure full respect for human rights within its own borders.
That condition is not fulfilled in a Community in which several of the leading countries are plagued by racism and in which xenophobia culminated in the recent sinking in the Adriatic of a ship carrying women and children refugees from Albania.
We support it also because it makes specific mention of the fundamental right to work and to a proper standard of living - a right which is being denied to 25 million unemployed people in the Community, 50 million who are living on the verge of hunger and an equal number of homeless people.
Finally, we will be voting for it because it insists on absolute respect for nature and the environment.
This, too, is lacking in the Community, because mad cow disease is the result of a violation of nature and the genetically modified maize that we debated here yesterday is also a violation. Likewise, the continued production of nuclear waste by leading Community countries for dumping in various regions of the Community and elsewhere is a violation of nature.
And, furthermore, Madam President, we will be voting for it because on certain points it is critical of Greek policy in this area and - even though one may have certain reservations in that regard - we consider such criticism to be very useful for my country.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let us take an inclusive political view of this matter, rather than a divisive legal one.
It is a question of the equality of freedom of all people as living beings.
We breathe the same air, we drink the same water - as Antiphon the Sophist said, who first expressed the idea of equality of freedom.
The thinkers of the Enlightenment revived this concept, and it was never applied merely to abstract legal entities or property-owners, but to real, physical, historical, social living beings.
In other words, the distinctions that are being made here are artificial.
They were invented subsequently.
We need to develop a human and civil rights policy like the one which Etienne Balibar has set out repeatedly in his most recent publications.
Let us all finally recognize the fact that human and civil rights policy represents a key element of Europe's heritage that is essential to building a Europe which seeks to make its own specific, positive and constructive contribution to the development of human civilization!
Madam President, a report calling for respect for human rights should really be quite straightforward.
If only because of its scope, however, the report which is now before the House does not really lend itself to detailed discussion.
While expressing a general criticism of the report's unclear definition of human rights and echoing some of the points which have already been made, I should therefore like to focus on a particular paragraph - paragraph 146, understandably enough - which attacks Austria's legislation on the age of consent for homosexual relations.
Leaving aside considerations of international law, I see this as an unwarranted interference in Austria's jurisdiction.
Perhaps we Austrians are rather sensitive to German proposals in this area.
Furthermore, this criticism is not justified by the facts.
After long and controversial deliberations on the criminal law amendment bill of 1996, after organizing hearings of experts and taking all the arguments into account, the Austrian Parliament reached the conclusion that the protection of minors was of paramount importance.
In response to the claim in paragraph 54 that the failure to comply with the commitment to freedom of establishment has caused citizens to lose confidence in the European institutions, I would suggest to the House that the public's impression that those up in Brussels, as it is always called, simply wish to brush aside democratically established laws is leading to a far greater loss of confidence.
That is the public's real concern.
And it casts doubt on the professed commitment to subsidiarity.
I was a criminal judge for many years, and I am also the father of a fourteen-year-old boy.
Speaking from both points of view, I wish to say that I firmly believe that the repeated claim that a homosexual orientation is genetically pre-programmed is not exclusively true.
Anyone who has one in their family will know how easily influenced, how immature, young men of that age are.
The report's call for tolerance for homosexuals is not called into question; but tolerance must include understanding for those who wish to protect their sons while they are growing up.
Madam President, I congratulate Mrs Roth on an excellent report and I am very sad that the right and the centre-right have taken the attitude which they seem to have taken a couple of years ago with the Newman report.
We on the progressive side of this House understand individual rights collectively acquired.
Women would not have got the vote had there not been collective action with the Suffragette movement.
Trade unions would never have been recognized had people not combined together to ensure their recognition.
Therefore our experience is different from that of the right and that is why we consider that collective rights are as important as individual ones although we recognize and understand the latter in terms of this report.
Can I, although Mr Nassauer is not here, remind him that the title of this report is in fact human rights in the European Union not human rights in the entire world.
Having said that I believe that individual rights can be acquired collectively, can I point out the relevance of paragraphs 53-59 which concern the right to free movement for European Union citizens?
I believe that the Schengen agreement does not obviate the duty of Member States to comply with Article 7a of the Treaty, but it is being used in that way, and the fact that a number of states have concluded the Schengen agreement does not enhance the fundamental right of citizens to move freely within the European Union.
This is greatly to be regretted since only a limited number of states have signed the Schengen Agreement and therefore the individual right of free movement is not guaranteed even collectively.
That is the reason why I endorse paragraphs 53 to 59 and I say that free movement is a human right essential not only for the citizen but for the working of the European Union.
Madam President, Europe wishes to place itself on a pedestal as an international guarantor of democracy around the world, but without having put its own house in order.
Its statements and declarations, which undoubtedly have a basis in democracy, are going to waste, as are its criticisms, condemnations, reproaches, concerns, indignation, observations and comments, because of the sanctimonious exhortations which it never fails to utter when commenting on the major social tensions which are brought to our notice every day by the diligence of the press agencies.
Whenever social tension erupts in Europe - or elsewhere in the world - it is now customary to accuse the peoples of the EU of selfishness, and their great sacrifices, their tremendous commitment to their work, are never recognized.
All too often, ordinary Union citizens have to shoulder the responsibilities of governments and wealthy capitalists.
The rapporteur mentions a number of sacrosanct rights and principles which the Union cannot overlook, not least because it needs to claim the role of international guarantor of human rights in order to draw a veil over the real, anti-democratic Europe of big business.
The report makes no reference to the Europe of workers and small businesses, whose rights are obstructed every day by infuriating laws. It does not refer to the right to self-determination of the peoples of the Union, nor to the daily injustices suffered by the inhabitants of Sardinia, Corsica, Padania, Ireland, Scotland and so many other peoples whose calls for freedom are systematically ignored and dismissed as selfish.
Mr President, my congratulations to Mrs Roth.
Many of us in this Parliament deal on a regular basis with human rights in the world.
We talk about forced labour and child labour in various parts of Asia and we condemn them, quite rightly so.
Now today, while we concentrate our focus on human rights in Europe I would urge you to look at one section of our society in Europe for whom the situation is no better than anywhere else in the world: I am talking here about women.
We, that is 50 % of us, do not have the right to walk the streets in safety.
Furthermore, the existence of poverty and unemployment throughout the Union constitute continuing breaches of fundamental human rights.
Here I would urge support for the establishment of a binding legal instrument laying down minimum guarantees as regards income, social protection, medical treatment and housing, and particular attention must be devoted to the needs of elderly people.
Finally, I want to endorse the call that is made in the report for Member States to recognize the rights and needs of the travelling community, in particular their accommodation needs, their medical needs and indeed their education needs.
Until we recognize these particular rights we do not have the moral authority to criticize others elsewhere in the world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I was not surprised to hear Mr Dell'Alba ask, as a point of order at the beginning of this debate, to what extent the Commission should be involved in the discussions, given that it has no formal powers in the field of human rights in the Union.
I quite understand why he made this point, but I am nevertheless grateful to have had the chance to listen to the various speeches, which have shown how incredibly complicated this issue is, and how difficult it is to reach a consensus on the human rights situation in the Union.
It is especially difficult to define what human rights actually are, and to agree on whether certain things are simply desirable, or are really needed to correct abuses of the fundamental rights and freedoms set out in international conventions.
The Commission entirely understands that this is a very difficult distinction to make, but at the same time I would point out that when working with the Member States' governments on external policy matters, including the Union's external human rights policy, we in the Commission set great store by the fact that we can be part of an internal debate which is, as we see it, primarily designed to promote self-criticism and self-examination within the Union, so as to increase the credibility of our external human rights policy.
It does sometimes happen in the international arena that we are accused of criticizing various countries for failing to respect human rights while the situation in our own countries still leaves a good deal to be desired.
So I think that this kind of debate, which shows the world outside that we are prepared to take a critical look at ourselves within the Union, can have a very positive effect.
In view of the limited time available, I should like to give a few examples of what the Commission is doing to help to protect fundamental rights and freedoms within the Union.
Take, for example, an extremely important topic which a number of speakers referred to this morning: equal treatment for men and women.
This is a fundamental legal principle and also, in our view, an integral part of democratic citizenship, which is one of the reasons why the Commission has put forward a number of proposals on the subject in the report which it is currently preparing for the Intergovernmental Conference, including a recommendation that the principle of equal treatment should be included among the tasks of the Union.
There is also a proposal to introduce a new non-discrimination article banning sex discrimination, since equality is a basic right.
The Commission has also made a number of statements and recommendations about equal pay for work of equal value, and equal treatment in terms of work and occupation.
I would also mention the role which the Commission has played in combating racism and xenophobia.
Was it not the Commission which proposed that 1997 should be declared the European Year Against Racism? We see this as a milestone for the European Union, in that it was the first time that the European institutions agreed to take practical measures to combat racism from within the Union's existing institutional framework.
In our opinion, this sent out a very positive signal.
Of course, the European Year Against Racism is only part of our overall strategy for combating racism, and real progress has been made on this since the Cannes summit.
I am hopeful that a European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia will be set up in the not too distant future.
Finally, the Commission has stated in its report for the Intergovernmental Conference that the Conference should include provisions in the Treaty banning any form of discrimination and condemning racism and xenophobia.
A further point is that the elements of social security that are specifically designed to prevent poverty and marginalization are naturally to remain the responsibility of the Member States.
Since the 1970s, various initiatives have been launched to help to combat poverty and social exclusion.
Another important subject is the fight against the trade in humans, both adults and children, and the sexual exploitation of children.
On 26 January 1997, the Council approved joint action to criminalize certain types of conduct and to improve judicial cooperation in this field.
The types of conduct covered include the exploitation of children for the purpose of producing, selling, distributing or otherwise trading in or possessing illegal material.
In short, the protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms are indeed tasks which are primarily the responsibility of the Member States, but they are also tasks which affect the whole of the international community, and any measures taken will be all the more effective if all the members of the international community, every organization and every institution, including those of the Union, join forces to promote them.
I should like to end by thanking Mrs Roth for her report, and in particular for the tremendous efforts she has made to produce a report again this year, even if a consensus has yet to be reached on it.
I hope that the foundations have once again been laid for a further constructive debate on this extremely important subject next year.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia
The next item is the report (A4-0110/97) by Mr Ford, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0615 - C4-0070/97-96/0298(CNS)) establishing a European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia.
Mr President, I have just spoken to Mr Caccavale.
The report is now available in all languages.
However, I have tabled an amendment which is not yet available so I accept the ruling that we will vote tomorrow, even though that will cause me some difficulty.
I have been speaking for almost twelve years now on the subject of racism and fascism, xenophobia and antisemitism.
I chaired a Committee of Inquiry from 1984 to 1986 on the growth of racism and fascism in Europe.
I was rapporteur for a second Committee of Inquiry between 1989 and 1990 on Racism and Xenophobia.
I have spoken in a multitude of urgency debates on issues ranging from the bombing of trains in Italy by right-wing terrorists through to the horrors of the desecration of the Jewish cemetery in Carpentras.
In addition I participated in the annual debates on racism on a number of occasions.
However, today is a first.
For the first time we are actually talking about a technical report from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs with an opinion from the Committee on Budgets about a solid proposal to address the issue of racism and xenophobia.
This is a report on a proposal for a Council Regulation for the establishment of a European monitoring centre for racism and xenophobia.
The origins of this proposal from the Council lie with the late François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl who, at the Corfu Summit in June 1994, established a consultative committee including the representatives of fifteen Member States plus the Commission, the Council of Europe and Mr Oostlander and myself from Parliament, to look at the problems of tackling racism and xenophobia.
Over a series of four reports that outlined the need for such a centre, having been asked by the European Councils in Cannes and Madrid to do such work, the Council, following the report of the consultative committee, agreed in principle and asked for further elaboration.
This was done and a full proposal was presented to the European Council in Florence.
The study was approved and the consultative committee instructed to continue its work.
At the Dublin European Council it was reiterated that the Council wanted to press ahead and to see the launch of such a centre at the Amsterdam European Council.
In the European Parliament, we are clearly completely in support of the principle of such a monitoring centre and have demonstrated that in a series of resolutions.
However, we have a few reservations and observations.
Firstly, the European Parliament would like to see not just a counting-house producing an annual, dull, desiccated report consisting of rows of numbers listing racial incidents or even racial attacks.
What we want is an institution capable of drawing up and drawing together local, regional, national and international resources already available all around the European Union and outside, using especially the expertise of the Council of Europe which, very successfully, ran its 'all different, all equal' campaign last year.
We want to draw those together to produce evidence of the best practical means of preventing and combating racism and xenophobia and producing lists of recommendations for local, regional and national governments and also for Parliament, Commission and Council.
That explains the amendments we have tabled - Nos 1 to 7.
I would bring Amendment No 6(g) especially to your attention.
This calls for the establishment and coordination of a European racism and xenophobia information network that draws together specialist centres at regional, national and international level to enable common criteria and comparable data to be established.
I would also mention Amendment No 6(e), that the centre formulate conclusions and recommendations for the Community and its Member States primarily at the request of the European Parliament, the Council or the Commission.
Amendment No 7 calls for information and data to be collected, in particular on preventative measures and means of action.
There is also a new amendment tabled by Mr Oostlander asking us to look at the issue of religious freedom and racism, in particular related to the issue of Islamophobia.
Amendment No 14 requests that we have a representative on the management board from the European Parliament, not a Member but someone appointed on behalf of the European Parliament.
Amendment No 17 deals with the issues of staffing.
In our amendments we deal with two points.
One, that the staff should be recruited with no discrimination on the basis of nationality, race, religion or colour.
Clearly it would be absurd to have an antiracist observatory that discriminated in its staff recruitment.
But more importantly in one sense, we ask that the staff be recruited mainly on temporary fixed-term contracts or on secondment.
We want this to be a clearing house, the centre of a network of expertise that is drawn from those people already involved.
We want to avoid the problems of bureaucratic capture.
Amendment No 18(c) mentions the possibility of outside sources of funding.
Someone asked me where this is coming from.
One might well look towards Switzerland where the Swiss Government has recently set up a fund to fight racism and to engage in research on the issues of racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism.
There are a number of other amendments from the Committee on Budgets.
I agree with them and so does the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
Mr Tappin, draftsman of the opinion, will explain those in more detail.
However, there is one technical point I should like to make.
Amendment No 18, the last part of 4(c), should go to Amendment No 18, Article 13, new 1(a).
This is quite important.
It says that without prejudice to the provisions set out below, the principles and provisions governing the revenue and expenditure of the Community shall be applicable.
That should apply across the board.
My last point is that 1997 is the Year against Racism.
It was meant to be a beginning, not an end.
It will be a severe disappointment to the 12 to 14 million third country nationals and the four million black Europeans if this was to be an end.
There are proposals for Treaty changes to include racism but even if those are agreed in June, it will take several years for legislation to be established.
The observatory is symbolic of progress.
One Member State has indicated that it has problems with Article 235 although the Drugs and Health and Safety Agencies were both set up on that basis.
We believe that our amendments will allow the monitoring of racial harassment, the other problem that Member State has, and my own party believes there will be no fundamental problem in approving such an institution, should there be a change of government on 1 May in the United Kingdom.
I look forward to Parliament adopting this report leading to the establishment of such an observatory at the European Council in Amsterdam in July.
Mr President, Parliament has a long history of supporting the fight against racism.
As colleagues will be aware, last year the Committee on Budgets supported the raising of the budget line to ECU 8m from the ECU 4.7m proposed by the Commission.
Mr Ford has gone into great detail on the reasons why this agency should be set up.
We fully support this in the Budget Committee.
I will just address myself to a couple of points that Mr Ford has taken on board but really are to do with the Commission itself.
As regards the budgetary aspects of this agency, our concerns remain the same as they are with other agencies.
Amendments have been put forward to ensure that it operates according to harmonized regulations including the right of Parliament to give discharge.
We are not prepared, from the Budget Committee or from a Parliament perspective, to have the management board giving discharge.
I wish the Commission would accept this argument without our having to go through this same process every time.
We also seek greater involvement on the part of Parliament and have asked for a representative, nominated by Parliament, to sit on the management committee.
That has now been agreed by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
The next question is the question of own resources.
We argue that the agency should be set up in line with Article 142 of the Financial Regulation and that own resources should be treated as Community resources and shown as such within the budget itself.
However, as Mr Ford has indicated, there may be additional, ad hoc resources available to this agency.
All that we ask is that the staffing arrangements and work programme for those additional resources are funded and kept separate from the budget lines.
As far as the future is concerned, when the organization comes on line, we would like to see our budget line B34114 reduced in a concomitant way.
But the Budget Committee supports the establishment of this agency within the general lines and regulations we have set out for all other agencies.
We support Mr Ford in his proposals.
Mr President, the arrival in the House of right-wing extremists in 1984 marked the start of a series of activities designed to combat racism and xenophobia.
With the Commission and the Council, we have covered this extremely important aspect of European integration - the prevention of another Holocaust and the right to equal treatment of anyone lawfully resident in the territory of the Union - in resolutions, annual debates and the work of the important advisory committee set up under Mr Kahn.
My group sincerely hopes that this year, in which the IGC reaches its conclusion, will also see the implementation of three of the Commission's recommendations.
Firstly, the inclusion of an article on non-discrimination in the Treaty of Amsterdam; secondly, a code of conduct for political parties to prevent normally reputable parties from peddling extreme right-wing views for electoral reasons; and, thirdly, a Monitoring Centre for Racism, which is the subject of this morning's debate.
We also hope that the Major government will abandon its opposition to the Monitoring Centre, because its argument that there is no legal basis for it is both weak and irresponsible.
With a little creativity, we could find other articles as well as Article 235 to use as a legal basis, such as Article 6, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of nationality, or Article 49 on the free movement of workers, Article 160 on education and, in particular, Article 213 on carrying out checks.
A combination of Articles 213 and 235 would mean that we could make the earliest possible start and send out a very important signal, because we must do everything we can to make it clear that we take our fight against racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia very seriously.
Mr President, the setting-up of the Monitoring Centre is really the crowning glory for the Kahn Committee on racism and xenophobia, which has done its best to include the input from the European Parliament in its final proposals.
The rapporteur, Mr Ford, and I have tried to ensure that the House's ideas were reflected, and I think it was a good thing that we tried to include as many of the initiatives put forward in the Kahn Committee as possible, and to refer to some of the European Union's existing projects and programmes, of which there are many in the social affairs, education and cultural sectors.
It is perfectly possible to include racism and xenophobia as part of these, as we have already done with the subject of equal treatment for men and women, which is now automatically taken into account in programmes intended to benefit the people of Europe.
Combating racism and xenophobia is not something that can be done in isolation, but must form part of an integrated approach.
There were a good many points in the Commission's proposal to which our committee - and indeed my group - objected, but we worked hard in the Committee on Civil Liberties with the rapporteur and Members from various other parties, and managed to produce an excellent result without any polarization.
I do not believe in polarization, to hark back to the previous debate.
What struck us as strange was that the Commission proposed an EU organization with the independent nature of an NGO.
This is clearly a feature of what we refer to as agencies, and it may therefore be that the idea of an agency is not such a good one, since it will mean that there is, by definition, little parliamentary control.
We should like the Commission to have a great deal more responsibility and to have political control over what happens to the Monitoring Centre, and we have tabled amendments to this effect.
We should also like the Monitoring Centre to give priority to questions from Parliament and the Commission.
We need to be able to monitor the budget, rather than just rubber-stamping whatever the Management Board puts in front of us, and the Committee on Budgets has our support on that point.
It is in fact unfortunate that the Management Board is organized as if it were a government consultation body.
This undermines the independence of the Centre itself, and we are doing everything we can to have that changed.
We would emphasize that the Centre should be there to serve the research institutes.
It has an enormous budget of ECU 6 million, which has already worried some organizations, such as United.
We think that six million is actually about right, but it must be put to maximum effect, and should therefore be used to help to encourage and promote research in existing research institutes.
We should aim to secure the greatest possible benefit from it, especially given the importance of fighting racism.
This is why we have proposed that the Centre should employ people from the network on secondment or on temporary contracts, so that there is a constant flow of ideas in both directions.
Coordination, harmonization and promotion will be the main functions of the Monitoring Centre, and we hope that it is very successful in helping to combat racism and xenophobia.
Mr President, all instances of racism and xenophobia, both old and new, are utterly contemptible, as we all agree.
But I believe that it is wrong - as has happened once again this morning - to point the finger at one part of the political spectrum, in this case the extreme right, not so much because the extreme right does not sometimes show its racist and xenophobic colours, but because I believe that this way of focusing the debate will encourage, not prevent, racism and xenophobia: the more the finger is pointed at them, the more this phenomenon will flourish underground.
I do believe that the idea of the observatory is justified in theory, but in practice it still strikes me as somewhat vague.
The reason I say so is that it unfortunately remains a dialectical exercise - which will cost the European taxpayer between ECU 6 and 7 million, I would point out - the aims of which have been clearly set out in the report by Mr Ford, whom we would compliment on his work: research, ad hoc working groups, annual reports, conclusions and recommendations, meetings of experts, debates, round tables, other similar meetings, and so on and so forth.
In short, it all seems to me to be a theoretical exercise which may well often prove pointless.
In my view, the root cause of racism and xenophobia is ignorance, and above all a lack of mutual understanding which generates suspicion and mistrust.
Practical ways must therefore be found of exchanging knowledge and information, especially among young people: that is the most effective way of combating racism and xenophobia.
Mr President, I am sorry to bring a discordant voice to what will probably be a great harmony, but I think that what we are working towards is the inflation of some structures.
In short, this observatory seems to me to be superfluous.
When you know the quality of the initiative of the Council of Europe, of which we here are the hosts, and which does a considerable body of work which has been kept under a wraps when it should have been the concern of our entire continent, all of these elements seem rather puzzling to us.
Indeed the kind of institution chosen, a monitoring centre, is part of a movement which consists of accumulating structures likely to do the same work twice over.
Next, it encourages the relaxation of policy and more precisely of political action, in favour of an observational role, which illustrates well the rather slack consensus with which our Parliament is happy to be quite familiar.
Finally, it presents itself as an alternative to civil action which is being increased in the territory of the Union by various associations and which seems to me to be much more important.
Mr President, this is the umpteenth report on racism or the fight against racism which Mr Ford has thrust under our noses, this time about the setting-up of a European Monitoring Centre for Racism.
This new toy is going to cost the European taxpayer around ECU 6 to 7 million a year, on top of the ECU 8 m we have already wasted this year on the European Year Against Racism.
On the pretext of fighting racism - which may exist as a marginal phenomenon, but has not reached sociologically or politically relevant proportions in any Member State - the taxpayer is having to foot the bill for a centre which is merely designed to gag freedom of expression, along the lines of those that exist already in various Member States.
In my own country, for example, there is already one of these 'propaganda units' led by a man called Pater Leman, who has quickly earned the nickname of Grand Inquisitor Torquemada.
What it is really about, of course, is not combating racism, which is scarcely of any relevance anyway, but combating freedom of expression and any policy or expression of national or European preference.
Whenever I read the reports by Mr Ford, I am transported to a different age, back to the stifling totalitarian and intolerant atmosphere of the Spanish Inquisition, the book-burnings in Nazi Germany or the Moscow trials.
This may sound exaggerated, but having seen violent demonstrations just last week here in Strasbourg outside a conference organized by a party which won 26 % of the votes in the region, demonstrations that were welcomed and funded by both the State and Europe, I really do not think it is such an exaggeration after all.
Every day, ordinary people in the Member States have to face the true misery of life in so-called multicultural neighbourhoods, terrorized by violent gangs of foreigners like those who totally destroyed the 'Café Local' in Amsterdam last weekend.
Almost every major city in Europe has a time bomb ticking away, a time bomb of displaced and impoverished people who are presented to us as the 'multicultural society' .
The House would do better to draw up a report on that instead.
Mr President, the Monitoring Centre is a theoretical instrument for combating racism, but in my view, practical measures are still the most effective ones, such as fighting unemployment, crime and the drugs trade; establishing a clear and - eventually, I hope - a Community approach to asylum and immigration policy; and, in particular, promoting education to prevent racism.
I am still not convinced that the Centre is going to be more than just the sum of all the small organizations that are already working to combat racism, and I hope the Commission can give me some kind of assurance on this point.
I certainly do not want to see it turn into just yet another gravy train.
We must not allow this to happen, because we have already seen racism lead to genocide here in our own continent.
The fact is that there is a covert form of racism and discrimination at work in Europe against Islam.
People clearly seem to find it hard to distinguish between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism, and this is precisely what we need to guard against.
Perhaps the Monitoring Centre has a role to play here.
Racism is a complicated issue which causes a great deal of confusion.
Turkey, for example, regards our attitude in relations with it as covert racism, whereas it is actually the logical consequence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I was in Geneva last week, and I found out that the UN Commission on Human Rights is still treating the joint opinions delivered by the European Parliament as intergovernmental statements.
If this is what the prospects are for the Monitoring Centre, then we are unlikely to make any progress at all.
Finally, I would point out that an absolute majority will be required in Parliament for the discharge of the budget of the Monitoring Centre.
Mr President, earlier this morning, we discussed human rights in the European Union and the various kinds of human rights violation.
For some Members, that went too far; for others, not far enough.
The report by Mr Ford which is now before the House deals with racism and xenophobia, and I ask myself whether this kind of human rights violation is the cause of lack of respect for people, or the effect of it.
In today's society, which is built on a sense of community and tolerance, racism and xenophobia are not marginal phenomena, but are regrettably on the increase.
Society frequently tolerates right-wing, xenophobic slogans without questioning their consequences.
At a time when social security is being undermined by unemployment, poverty and organized crime, these problems are not being blamed on inadequate economic management or government mistakes, but on the immediate environment, which is more tangible and more accessible.
People in our society are no longer viewed as a whole.
Some people are allowed to be here because of their nationality; and others, whom we call foreigners, are allowed to stay because they have lived here for a long time.
But there are others who have no right of residence, and whom we should like to see removed from our territory as soon as possible.
There are many other kinds of unequal treatment.
For example, there are people who have work, and there are people who are not given the opportunity to work, because there is no work for them. But people with different religious beliefs, the elderly, the disabled, and so on are also frequently the victims of discrimination.
1997 is the European Year against Racism, and establishing the European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia this year would not only be symbolic, but would represent a natural addition to existing efforts.
The task of this Centre will not only be to collect and process data, but above all to inform, instruct and raise people's awareness of the causes and effects of these phenomena.
History has taught us that racism and xenophobia destroy people and cause enormous suffering.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I wish to congratulate Mr Ford and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on the excellent work they have done, and particularly on the rapidity with which they have dealt with this particular proposal.
I hardly need stress that the Commission and Parliament are completely united in their struggle against the ugly phenomenon of racism and xenophobia and that, on this particular proposal, there are no fundamental differences between us.
It is very appropriate that this matter is being debated here in Strasbourg where, in their demonstrations just two weeks ago, the people showed the repugnance they feel towards this phenomenon.
The setting-up of this observatory underlines the commitment of the Community to defending human rights and, more particularly, to respecting human rights in its legislation and policies.
In order to do this the Community and the Member States must have at their disposal accurate and objective information concerning all the problems associated with racism and xenophobia.
With regard to the specific amendments which are proposed in the report, I am pleased to say that I can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 15, 16 and 19 in full and Amendments Nos 6 and 14 in part.
Those amendments which the Commission cannot accept fall broadly into two groups: the first group are those which change the nature of the Centre or go beyond the original scope of the proposal, and the second group are those which change standard formulae or raise matters of a general interinstitutional nature which would be better dealt with in a different, more general context.
In this respect, I refer in particular to Amendments Nos 13, 18, 20 and 21 which concern budgetary matters.
Let me now look in detail at the amendments.
These are the ones I cannot accept: Amendment No 3 misrepresents the role of the Centre when it speaks of it being 'given over to research' .
Amendment No 5 gives a misleading impression since it overlooks the fact that the Centre will be independent from the Commission.
Amendment No 7 would extend the field of action set out in Article 3 to areas which do not have a specific basis in the Treaty and would, therefore, hinder adoption of the proposal in the Council, where some Member States already have concerns, as has been stated by Mr Ford, about the legal base.
Amendment No 8 cannot be accepted since it is unnecessary: the wording proposed by the Commission is a perfectly standard and adequate formula and the conferring of legal personality is not restricted to application of the Financial Regulation.
Amendment No 11 is unnecessarily restrictive of the Management Board's autonomy.
Amendment No 12 is, in the Commission's view, unnecessary.
Amendments Nos 13, 18, 20 and 21 concern budgetary matters and, as I have said, raise broader institutional questions.
Here the Commission's original proposal very closely mirrors the texts establishing the other agencies and it would therefore be inappropriate to diverge from these texts in this particular case.
Finally, Amendment No 17, relating to recruitment of staff, is not acceptable.
The formulation used in the proposal is perfectly standard and it is not appropriate to change it at this time.
I reiterate again that any differences between us are really minor compared to the large measure of agreement which exists as regards the basic aim of the Centre.
Finally, I wish to thank you once again for the speed with which you have dealt with this particular proposal.
I trust that the Commission's proposal can now go forward for rapid adoption by the Council, amended, as of course it will be, following Parliament's opinion.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for all the work he has done with regard to the centre.
In general I welcome the statement he has made with respect to Parliament's opinion.
The only point I would ask him to look at again on behalf of the Commission is Amendment No 17.
I understand the necessity, normally, for following formal rules but, as I said in my introduction, it would be rather absurd for us to discriminate against people legally resident in the European Union who did not have the nationality of one of the Member States in recruiting staff for an organization fighting racism.
I realize this would not be standard practice but this is not a standard institution.
So I would ask him to look at this point again.
Lastly, in reply to Mr Vanhecke's point about book burning.
They may not be burning them in Orange but they are certainly taking them out of the libraries!
Mr President, I have some sympathy there with Mr Ford.
I recognize the point he is making.
If he could try to see it from my perspective, we are trying to put it into the context of the existing system that operates so far as staff recruitment is concerned.
He has made a point and I will consider it.
But he should understand that a certain system already exists and is applied right across the board, and that this would be a change that might not be possible at this time.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner under what circumstances a standard procedure might be changed.
We cannot simply say that once such a procedure exists, it may not be departed from at any time or in any way.
Surely, given the particular nature of this report and the need to make the Centre as effective as possible, we should also be allowed to change the procedure?
I appreciate the point Mr Oostlander is making.
But you must also try to appreciate that any change would have to go right across the board.
I am prepared to discuss this with Mr Liikanen, my colleague, who is responsible for questions of personnel.
It would not be appropriate I believe to just simply make a change regarding this particular agency without concerning ourselves with its general application right across all of the Union's operations.
I do however take your point.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Growth, employment and convergence
The next item is the report (A4-0111/97) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission's Annual Economic Report for 1997 - Growth, employment and convergence on the road to EMU (COM(97)0027 - C4-0078/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, economic growth in the European Union is like the current season: spring has arrived, but it is still cold.
Despite the excellent starting conditions, business activity is sluggish and not taking off.
The horse has been led to water, but it will not drink.
However, the annual economic report does not reflect this everyday reality in the European Union.
Its tone is too bright and too optimistic, despite the greater realism it shows in comparison with last year, and despite the new attitude to the impact of globalization and technological progress and the role of monetary policy.
Unfortunately, the confidence of economic operators in European growth - and this must be emphasized - remains low.
Only lack of confidence can explain the fact that, despite high company profits, lower interest rates and reduced company taxes, investment has failed to materialize, especially in the private sector. And it is not encouraging that the rate of public investment has also fallen, from 3.5 % to less than 2.5 % of GDP.
I would point to the absence - and this is a weakness of European economic policy as a whole - of clear objectives and sound and reliable decisions in European economic and financial policy.
The Member States have been working with the so-called broad guidelines of economic policy for over two years, without managing to develop concerted and coordinated economic policies.
This is another explanation for the weakness of European growth.
The Member States are still much too far away from coordinating their modernization and innovation initiatives.
The Union will continue to lose competitiveness and jobs if energies are not focused in this area, and if the Community instruments for financing this process of modernization, this innovation revolution, are not finally mobilized.
We must promote a spirit of innovation, strong investment and employment in the European Union.
This requires greater action at Community level.
Then the annual economic report will certainly also show some different results.
Hopefully, the upturn is now gathering pace and unemployment will finally be reduced.
Also important, however, is a different policy approach, which makes it clear that employment policy has to be integrated into virtually all other policies - from structural, regional, innovation and industrial policies to economic, financial and wage policy.
Supply-side conditions in the European Union can certainly be improved - from the easing of cumbersome authorization procedures to the urgently needed reduction of taxation on the labour factor.
It is more important, however, to overcome the weakness of investment, to stimulate domestic demand within the European Union and to boost consumer purchasing power.
We know that anti-cyclical programmes carried out at national level have little effect.
Given that up to two thirds of aggregate demand in Europe comes from outside, demand stimuli that are applied only at regional or national level will obviously peter out.
Hence the need to formulate a European economic policy worthy of the name.
With the introduction of a single currency for a single market covering 90 % of EU production, it will clearly be possible to pursue effective demand management.
The lack of confidence of economic operators is an obstacle to growth and investment.
Ultimately, it is not only private investors who are holding back.
It also has to be said that the investment that is being made is aimed at improving productivity rather than expanding capacity, and is therefore not creating jobs.
The annual economic report fails to highlight this weakness.
It is absolutely scandalous that, although an employment chapter is being drawn up at the Intergovernmental Conference, the European employment pact is still far from being realized. Parliament sees this annual economic report as a unique opportunity to promote the implementation of the decisions of the European summits from Essen to Dublin, not least as regards the employment pact.
Economic development in the European Union requires the following policy approach. First, it must be made clear once and for all that monetary union will be introduced.
The constant creation of uncertainty by the political élites among the public and the markets is counterproductive for investment.
Europe's civil war over monetary union is an obstacle to increasing the EU's economic power.
Secondly, the Community must have an appropriate and balanced policy mix, since it is increasingly difficult to pursue exclusively national policies successfully within the world economy.
There is a need for financial policies which bolster rather than undermine the fragile economic structures.
Thirdly, budget consolidation must continue, but it must be organized and implemented in the medium term in such a way as to ensure that it does not cause additional macroeconomic problems, but makes it possible to continue to pursue sound investment policies.
The implementation of the Delors White Paper has so far foundered, though not because of Parliament's decisions.
Parliament has therefore rightly continued to point to the need to mobilize the Community financial instruments.
Why should ECU 10 billion a year not be innovatively employed in EU infrastructure modernization programmes, via the European Investment Bank?
It is high time for this to happen.
Since the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty, the European Parliament has regarded the broad guidelines of economic policy as a means to implement the provisions of Article 103 and overcome the difficulties of economic and monetary union.
To date, no Council presidency has been able to contribute to surmounting those difficulties, because the Member States have always agreed on the lowest common political denominator.
Perhaps this critical analysis of the annual economic report will help to bring about concerted political action and ensure that a market economy underpinned by a socially responsible economic order and job-creating growth finally sees the light of day in the European Union.
Without the productivity factor that is the welfare state, there can be no stable economy, and the European Union is therefore faced with a creative mission, which it must acknowledge.
Mr President, the European Commission's Annual Economic Report for 1997 comes at a crucial time in the process of integration that has been taking place on the continent since the signing of the Treaty of Rome, and we have just celebrated its fortieth anniversary.
The signatories of that historic treaty could surely never have imagined that 40 years later the problem of unemployment would be the most serious threat to their project for achieving a united, prosperous and mutually supportive Europe.
Everything the Community institutions are currently doing is dominated by the prospect of economic and monetary union.
This new step in the deepening of integration will undoubtedly have positive consequences for resolving the unemployment problem.
So I think this Parliament has a responsibility to collaborate as effectively as possible to achieve monetary union of as many countries as possible under the terms of the treaty.
The Commission's report is essentially positive, because it highlights the effort being made by the Member States to keep that historic appointment.
For instance, my own country, Spain, which has the highest rate of unemployment in the European Union, hopes to demonstrate that only by adopting strict economic measures - aided by the exemplary social agreement on reform of the labour market which is reaching its culmination - can we be optimistic and confident of a hopeful future for jobseekers.
There are certain points in the report approved by the Committee on Economic Affairs which my group finds hard to support, but I want to thank Mrs Randzio-Plath for her willingness to incorporate some of our committee's conclusions into her report.
However, given that I am speaking as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Social Affairs, my task is to analyse the report from the unemployment angle.
Investment in infrastructure, coordination between the various departments responsible for unemployment problems, the creation of mechanisms of financial assistance to small and medium-sized businesses, the elimination of administrative and bureaucratic burdens, the exploitation of new sources of employment in sectors like environment, leisure, culture and the third age, the incorporation into the treaty of a new chapter on employment, with a greater involvement of Parliament in the planning and development of employment policy, and the new formulae to combat unemployment proposed in the Commission's report represent many opportunities for action, so we should not resign ourselves.
But we must act with the urgency that the problem demands.
The Commission's Annual Economic Report is a good document on the whole and should help us, all of us who have any responsibility, try to change the scenario it depicts of weak job creation over the next few years.
European integration has achieved the longest period of peace between the countries concerned, but it runs the risk of being held liable for unemployment if we do not succeed in defeating this problem together.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I would like to thank Mrs Randzio-Plath for an excellent report and we certainly will be supporting her report when we vote on it today.
I want to address my points to the European Commission, because we have to look at the annual economic report and ask ourselves why it commands such little attention in the press and the media, and in the debate that goes on within the European Union, if you compare it to the OECD report.
That report is reported much more widely in the financial press and is debated in the Member States.
There are three reasons why the annual economic report of the European Union seems to have such a low profile.
Firstly it deals largely with the issue of fiscal and monetary policy.
It is too narrow in scope.
It does not deal with the broad structural policies which balance fiscal and monetary policy.
It does not deal in detail with issues related to investment, research and development, training and education.
What we would like to see from the Commission in next year's annual report is a proper balance between these issues.
We need to see all of the economic activities of the European Union analyzed more comprehensively.
Secondly, Commissioner, on growth and employment; we all know, and have debated many times in this House and within our committee, that we have inadequate growth in the European Union and excessive levels of unemployment.
Yet your report largely concentrates on the issues of inflation and interest rate policy which of course are important but in themselves are not the only issues of concern.
What about investment levels? I know from talking to your own economists in DG II that they are very concerned about the inadequate levels of investment within the European Union.
We have an investment rate of only 19 % of GDP in Europe today. We need an investment rate of 25 % if we are going to boost the growth potential and growth opportunity of the European Union so that we can create jobs.
We need to say more in the future about this issue.
Of course the third reason why this report is largely disregarded by the people who debate economic policy in Europe is that it is seen as subjective; it is not seen as objective.
It is seen as largely a theoretical exercise that is now conducted by the European Commission.
We must recognize that this is the E in EMU, it is the economic aspect of EMU and unless we can give the economic aspects of EMU real resonance in the European Union people will believe it is a monetary union only.
That is why I would like to propose to you, Commissioner, that for the 1998 report we should have proper consultation with all the economic players within the European Union and that your own economists should speak to independent experts as they do in Germany and the United States and the OECD.
By doing that we will get a proper debate in the European Union on economic policy instead of the rather sterile debate we have today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for Parliament, the annual economic report represents an important basis for the discussion of the employment situation that will continue over the course of the year.
In the debate in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we were able to see that the realistic optimism which characterizes this report is shared by the majority of members of the committee.
This realistic optimism was also apparent at the Council's deliberations in Noordwijk, where, firstly, the timetable for the introduction of monetary union was confirmed; secondly, the relationship between the countries which take part in EMU from the outset and those which join later was clarified in an agreement on the European Monetary System, and its continuation in a modified form; and, thirdly, agreement was reached on the stability pact.
As chairman of Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, however, I wish to stress that the discussion of the stability pact has not finished, that Parliament will be holding a second reading on this subject, and that we are expecting Parliament's views - and we shall do our best to conclude our debate by the middle of this year - to be taken into account in the final deliberations.
Now to the problems.
We can see that export trends are positive, but that, as the rapporteur has said, domestic demand still leaves a good deal to be desired.
We note that investment is weak, even though the basic conditions for the economy are extremely positive, and that it is essential to boost confidence.
In discussions with economists and investors, I repeatedly observe that confidence in the prospect of clear economic growth is still lacking in many EU countries.
Then there is the totally unsatisfactory employment situation. We are convinced that unemployment is a structural problem, and that the forecast growth rate of 2.3 % will not be adequate to resolve it.
Let me comment on some of the important points raised in this debate.
Firstly, there is the question of having to economize because of Maastricht.
It is widely said that the Maastricht Treaty and monetary union require us to economize.
It must be said, however, that we would have to economize with or without the Maastricht Treaty and monetary union, because total debt in the European Community is far too high and interest charges account for 20 to 30 % of our budgets, on average.
This makes it clear that we are losing our room for manoeuvre and our competitiveness, and that we must continue down the road of budget consolidation.
A second issue addressed in Mrs Randzio-Plath's report is that of the leeway in assessing budget deficits and government debt.
This is a question that will undoubtedly occupy us in the coming months, and we do need clarification in this context.
I would point out that a number of preliminary decisions have already been taken which indicate that the leeway for assessment will be used responsibly.
For instance, the Maastricht Treaty provides that the decision on which Member States participate in the first wave of EMU on 1 January 1999 may be taken on the basis of either estimates or hard figures.
We have now learnt that it has since been decided that this decision will be taken on the basis of hard figures.
A number of other decisions on these lines have also been taken, and I presume that on 23 April, when the Commission presents its assessment of the figures for 1996, Parliament will have the opportunity - in the debate which I assume will take place before the press conference - to request further clarification on this matter.
Mr President, our regular examination of the economic report looks at how the European Union is preparing for the landmark events in its future.
It is our duty every year, when discussing it, to stop and reflect on what has been done over the past twelve months to create genuine economic cohesion among the Member States.
If this issue were to be tackled properly, we would in fact see improvements in the Community in terms of the three main areas covered in the report: growth, convergence towards monetary union and unemployment.
However, the citizens of Europe, and in particular industrialists - large and small - still cannot see any significant, practical results in these three areas, which are so crucial to the economic future of Europe.
The most glaring example of the Community institutions' unsuccessful efforts is their inability to solve the problem of unemployment, which is still the greatest of all those confronting the individual Member States and the Union as a whole.
And if we fail on the economic front, those failings are bound to have repercussions in the social sector.
Excuses can be found if we are incapable of forming a European military corps to help solve the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, but there can be no justification for neglecting to help businesses stay competitive in the market, to grow, develop and hence create new jobs.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has tabled a resolution which, while on the one hand commending the Commission's work, calls on the other for direct, immediate action to revitalize the labour market.
The solution lies principally with small and medium-sized enterprises.
Helping them grow also means making their job more straightforward and less bureaucratic, relieving them of excessive taxation and improving the image of business people so that they will serve as an example and stimulus to young people, who may otherwise be attracted by easier options leading inevitably to unemployment.
Finally, there is one instrument which is both a means and an end when it comes to a successful Community-wide economy: the single currency.
Thanks to the euro, the citizens of Europe will discover, as consumers, that they are living in a large internal market where they can purchase, study and travel in fifteen different countries with just one currency.
Thanks to the euro, industrialists - especially in small and medium-sized firms - will be able to offer their products or services to a market of 370 million consumers. And finally, once the obvious teething troubles have been overcome, the euro will be what compels all the Community institutions and the Member States to think in European terms.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, analysis of the Annual Report for 1997 presented by the European Commission is particularly interesting in a key year for achieving the two objectives of economic and monetary union and the euro.
In the process of economic convergence the economies of the European Union are developing extremely well in terms of inflation rates, interest rates and monetary stability.
The difficulties lie in attaining the targets for reducing debt and public deficits, because, in addition to essential budgetary austerity, it is crucial to meet the forecasts for economic growth, which are the most important indicators - in my view - at this time.
We share the concern expressed in the report on the need to pay special attention to the most serious social problem in the European Union: unemployment.
The high rate of unemployment is significantly limiting the Union's options, and that means we must concentrate on overcoming the grave deficiencies and inflexibilities which are having a negative affect on the productive structure of the European Union. As Mrs Randzio-Plath says in her report, this requires further liberalization of key sectors, more intense application of research and development programmes, deepening of the European internal market and implementation of the Delors White Paper proposals - which are unfortunately blocked by the Council.
I just want to stress that we stand more firmly by our position on the achievement of the European single market and the elimination of inflexibility, than on certain rather interventionist aspects of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, so we will support the amendments that accord with our position and give our overall support to the report on the Annual Economic Report for 1997.
It is a pleasure to begin by heartily agreeing with my colleague, Mrs Randzio-Plath who reiterated and stressed the concern about over-optimistic ideas becoming the officially accepted norm.
In our opinion this optimism reflects an intention and an attempt to create a climate conducive to an economic policy strategy which are in no way worthy of the holy water contained in today's analyses, and similarly cannot, if they are followed, bear out the optimistic tone of the forecasts for the future.
We are aware that confidence is needed to enable the forecasts, as a factor in economic trends, to help to improve the short and medium-term situation, but we do not accept that this strategy and these policies should still be pursued on the basis of a misrepresentation of the facts.
We also note, on the other hand that the report before us clearly lacks an all-round approach taking appropriate account of the essential link between supply and demand, the role of public investment and the effect of keeping too tight a rein on public finances, thus immobilizing this public investment, which is after all essential.
This aspect seems to us to be all the more important in view of the state of the productive economy and, above all, of the social situation caused by the policies elected as regards supply and by conflict and dissension over working and social conditions, which also often means that forecasts are not met.
We therefore think we should once again condemn the insistence upon and speeding up of economic strategies and policies which led to these situations, since it is clear that they could not improve trends before making them worse.
It almost goes without saying that in our view to depict the single currency as a great objective or great national and European scheme, or the panacea for all the economic and social ills, is to create fatal conditions for a fresh wave of frustration - the Chechini announcement, which was not pursued; Maastricht was cracked up to be the opposite of what it turned out to be, the White Paper on Competition, Employment and Growth did not prevent the employment rate from continuing to rise, cure the lack of or weakness in growth or increase competition.
We should like to draw attention to one new point in the Commission report before us - the emphasis placed on the question of the wage spread based on the example of the United States and some mythical downward flexibility, which we can only regard as an unfortunate reference, since it fails to consider situations such as those in Portugal where the range of wages is comparable to that in the United States but where such downward flexibility would exacerbate social inequality which is already on the limit of what is acceptable, if not for the sake of the economy then from the social aspect.
We urgently need to give consideration to cutting through the unfounded optimism, the lack of a global economybased approach, disregard for the social consequences of economic choiced made and the retention and stepping up of undeniably negative aspects.
There is no desire to moderate the strategy and economic policies because they serve certain interests and financial groups.
We understand that, but that only makes it more essential for us to assert more strongly and more doggedly that there are other interests and groups to be supported, other social situations which need to be considered as a matter of priority.
Economic, but not solely economic.
(FI ) Mr President, the Commission's economic report for this year places far too much stress on growth and the strengthening of supply mechanisms.
Mrs Randzio-Plath's report deserves praise in particular for pointing out that at present demand is weak in the European Union.
This weakness in demand poses an obstacle to economic recovery and to so-called rational investment.
In her report, Mrs Randzio-Plath puts forward a number of very interesting and original proposals which our group supports.
She points out that investments should not be treated in the same way as consumer spending, which does not give rise to innovations or foster future development.
This is indeed an idea which should be taken into account in the Maastricht criteria.
The overall impact of public spending should be assessed in the light of longterm perspectives.
It is absurd to make savings today in areas which will later give rise to very substantial costs both for us and society.
It could be said that a sound, sensible social policy also represents a sound, sensible investment for the future.
We could also discuss whether the idea of rational investment geared to the future could not be applied to the entire Community budget, which tends to look back into the past.
Half the budget is accounted for by agricultural subsidies.
Could we not see the Union budget as a whole as creating the conditions for future economic development?
All in all, our position differs from that of Mrs Randzio-Plath only as regards the issue of whether the time has now come to make the transition to the Euro.
Personally I would say that until such time as the thinking behind the Union's entire economic policy has been clarified, and while that policy offers no genuine prospects for the future, it is a somehwhat brave step.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mrs Randzio-Plath for the positive qualities of her report.
Its quality of diplomacy, first of all, when she delights in the optimistic evaluation of the Executive Committee.
Its quality of content above all, when it comes to supporting the process of monetary union while also asking for forceful measures in favour of growth and employment, after recalling the dramatic weakness of demand within the Union.
As far as we are concerned - and we will perhaps be a little less diplomatic - we are even so a little surprised to hear the Committee in its recent report on the beneficial state of strengthened cooperation recall to mind what it calls the 'workforce potential' available to the Union, made up not only of 18 million unemployed, but an additional reserve of at least 9 million people who would enter employment if there were jobs.
Really the fear must be that the European Union might not survive the lengthy conservation of such a heritage.
Mrs Randzio-Plath is quite right to say that after winning the confidence of the markets - which has now almost been done - it is now an urgent necessity to win the confidence of consumers, that is, the citizens of Europe by boosting growth and employment.
The question, of course, is knowing how this should be done, especially when monetarism can no longer be used and when, moreover, member countries, bound by the stability agreement, are unable to provide the necessary answers, since circumstances deprive them of any room for manoeuvre.
The answer therefore has to be European.
It is on a Union-wide scale, we think, that a vigorous policy for growth and employment must be defined and put into effect, undoubtedly as a priority by the means suggested by Mrs Randzio-Plath, namely the revival of private and public investment.
The revival of private investment by facilitating the access of small and medium-sized businesses to credit, we have already talked about.
The revival of public investment by developing network policy, the policy of research and development, and in a more general way, by the development of structural policies.
In relation to that we can only be seriously worried by the spirit of stabilisation, even of reduction, of the means of the Union, which is presiding over the preparation of the Union budget for 1998, over financial prospects in the medium term and the reform of the structural fund.
This is, on the evidence, an economic and political nonsense taking account of the circumstances and the state of our public opinion.
In a more fundamental way, this view runs against the objective of construction of economic , we stress, and monetary Union.
Certainly, the Union must have a stable and secure currency, which is the heritage of all Europeans, protected from any manipulation.
It cannot be deprived of the means of an economic policy which Member States are unable to conduct.
Europe's economic policy will be inevitably complementary to monetary union.
Let us waste no time, let us not allow a period of vacuity of economic power in Europe to settle in.
On the contrary, let us demand that the Executive Committee prepare for us the ways and means of action for economic government of the Union.
Mr President, last year we had discovered within these walls that the Commission's Annual Economic Report contained almost nothing on a theme essential for growth and employment, that of investment.
What is more, the few occasions we found it was mentioned, here and there, seemed extraordinarily lax.
This lacuna has been corrected in the current report, but the passages it devotes to the subject show a worrying situation, as we had feared.
Indeed, with the current rates of investment, the pace of growth of the economy of the Community in the future can only be very slow, which is incompatible with the need to create jobs.
We would certainly see a convergence develop in Europe, but it would be a convergence downwards, towards a situation of major chronic unemployment.
The report seems powerless to explain this situation, and all the more so since, in its view, the return on capital at the end of the day would not be too bad.
So why this languor? In our opinion, the explanation should be sought in the interaction of investment and employment.
Because of the high cost of our workforce, in a context of active competition and the establishment, directly or indirectly, of a sort of global employment market, investment intended to substitute capital for work with the aim of improving competitiveness has been very high.
But as this evolution itself contributes to unemployment, as well as to the development of a psychological climate of depression, demand has remained low and capacity investments, for their part, have not followed.
In all, global investment is trailing.
We would also like to add that it is not enough to say, as the report does, that the return on our investments is the same today as it was yesterday: you also have to show that it is comparable with the situation in other parts of the world, since the market for capital is now also global.
Now, that is not proven at all, and anyway, the Economic Report does not mention it at all.
Under these conditions, it seems to us that to get Europe out of the crisis of languor in which it is struggling, it is a matter of urgency to change policy and renew our thinking on the radical changes globalisation is imposing upon us, a globalisation which up to now we have not been able to control.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, we have all read the Commission's Economic Report for 1997 attentively.
It truly is a beautiful text, technically, well-researched, with figures, graphs and tables.
You can smell professionals at work.
It would be nice to feel able to believe what these gentlemen from the Commission say, but in actual fact, it is hard to do so.
It is hard to believe that globalisation is not a cause of unemployment, because of the unfair competition it inflicts upon our businesses, because of the relocations it brings about, because of the downward pressure it exerts upon wages.
It is a factor of social regression.
It is hard to believe that unemployment is a question of figures and flexibility of the labour market.
Furthermore Parliament's report has the merit of emphasising the pauperisation of our continent and the growth of inequality.
The flexibility of the labour market which you call for is synonymous with job insecurity, with deterioration of working conditions and with social regression.
It is hard to believe that the deflationary policies you are imposing will have a positive effect on growth and employment.
It is hard to understand your dogmatic fixation with budgetary deficit, exchange rates and price stabilisation.
The reconquest and the protection of our internal market should be your priority for producing European goods, in Europe, by Europeans.
Furthermore, the Eurocrats consider imbeciles those who do not think like them and have the cheek to write it, covertly of course, on page 31 of the document.
But there is a vast lacuna in their world of figures and statistics: men are only a variable for adjustment, when they should really be at the centre of all concerns.
What do you think the markets will make of the persistant imbalance of employment when it comes to quoting your single currency, the Euro? Is an economy in good health an economy in which public debt is lower than 60 % of GDP, where the budgetary deficit is less than 3 %, or that of full employment?
Really your open Europe is one of insecurity, social regression, unemployment and poverty. The policy you are pursuing has only one aim: to reassure markets for the introduction of the single currency, but it is for Europeans that you must construct Europe, and that is what you have forgotten.
The debate on the report by Mrs Randzio-Plath will be adjourned at this point.
We now come to voting time.
Votes
, rapporteur, - (FI) Mr President, in my capacity as rapporteur I should like to ask that the vote on my report be held over to tomorrow, Wednesday.
Mr President, to justify this unusual request, may I point out that yesterday we heard the statement by Commissioner Bjerregaard, but unfortunately Commissioner Flynn was not present.
The answers gave rise to some confusion and now Commissioner Flynn and other members of the Commission can provide further explanations.
From Parliament's point of view, it is very important that we should have this additional information before voting and that is why, Mr President, I should like the vote to be held over to tomorrow.
Mrs Ojala, you are asking that the vote be adjourned pursuant to Rule 131.
Should we adjourn it until noon tomorrow or until noon on Thursday?
Mr President, I think that tomorrow, Wednesday, would be a suitable time to hold the vote. Our committee is meeting today and we will be able to discuss the matter at that meeting - Wednesday is thus entirely satisfactory.
(Parliament approved the adjournment of the vote on the second reading on the common position adopted by the Council until noon on Wednesday)
Mr President, excuse me for interrupting, but it seems to me that you committed an error at the time of the vote.
The amendment was not the subject of a separate vote since it simply replaced the first terms of the phrase by terms which were not the subject of a request for a separate vote anyway.
Proceding as you have done, I think that you are going to make us repeat votes which have already taken place.
You should have put the amendment to the vote first, then have taken a separate vote on the rest of the paragraph.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, when I commented at the beginning about confusion being caused in certain votes by various requests from the political groups I also had this point in mind.
It is not necessary for you yourself to have requested separate votes on the paragraph in question.
Other political groups have requested them, and I am effectively obliged to repeat the voting because that is what the Rules demand.
I cannot decide that a vote is not required.
I am obliged formally to do what the groups request.
On paragraph 39
Mr President, I should like to know if paragraph 39 falls because of the adoption of Amendment No 9.
The services of Parliament do not subscribe to that view, Mr Schulz, but I would like to ask Mrs Roth for her opinion.
Mr President, it was agreed beforehand that paragraph 39 would fall if Amendment No 9 were to be adopted.
I have no objection to accepting your view, even though Parliament's services see things differently.
We cannot, therefore, miss out paragraph 39.
On Amendment No 3
Mr President, I have the unfortunate feeling that someone is creating confusion here.
An Amendment No 3 has been tabled.
That amendment must be put to the vote as a whole.
If it is adopted, the original text will be changed; if it is rejected, the original text must be put to the vote.
However, I have not heard anyone asking for a split vote on Amendment No 3.
The rapporteur has not requested it.
Above all, the author of the amendment has not requested it.
I would therefore ask you to put Amendment No 3 to the vote as a whole, as requested by the Liberal Group, and then to put the original text to the vote.
Mr Schulz, allow me to say that you cannot always know what others have requested.
Just because you have not requested it yourself does not mean that others have not done so.
The Green Group has requested a split vote item by item.
On Amendment No 15
Mr President, the Swedish and Danish versions of this amendment have been mistranslated.
They say that legal possibilities are being prepared in Sweden and Denmark.
That is incorrect.
These possibilities already exist in Sweden and Denmark.
There is therefore a mistake in the translation.
The amendment should say that Sweden and Denmark provide for these legal possibilities, since they already exist in those countries.
We will check the performance in those languages.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, my group and I are voting in favour of Mrs Roth-Behrendt's report, which spells out clearly what this House has stated on several occasions, namely the need to leave intact those parts of the directive concerning the abolition of animal experiments in the area of cosmetics.
The report which we have received on this is an inadequate one yet again; furthermore, the Member States have been found wanting, and above all the bodies set up by the European Union to implement the directive have not met their targets.
However, this cannot justify reneging on the commitments laid down in the directive.
So while expressing a favourable opinion on the report, we must repeat - with reference to what the Commissioner, Mrs Bonino, has said - that it is important not only in the case of finished products, but also for the ingredients contained in cosmetics that, as from 1 January 1998, animal experimentation should no longer be permissible, both because it is unnecessary and because effective alternatives exist.
The European body which was to validate alternative methods has failed to carry out the tasks it was given: it must check the literature as soon as possible and identify research which deals satisfactorily with the problem of validating credible, reliable scientific methods which show respect for consumers and avoid unnecessary animal suffering.
The principle challenge we have to take up daily if we want to build a more humane Europe is the struggle against suffering: the suffering of men, but also of animals.
The latter concerns thousands of 'living beings' submitted to experiments every year.
The cosmetics industry is particularly involved in these processes.
More than thirteen types of experimental method, where this industry is concerned, are likely to use animals.
The directive 93/35/CEE, adopted in June 1993, planned, firstly, for 'prohibition of the marketing of products, ingredients or combinations of cosmetic ingredients tested on animals from 1 January 1998' .
Furthermore, within the framework of this directive, the Commission is bound to 'present to the European Parliament and the Council annually a report on the progress made in terms of the development, the legal evaluation and the acceptance of methods which may be substituted for animal experimentation' .
The report by Mrs Dagmar Roth-Behrendt stresses quite rightly that, despite the criticisms made of the 1994 report, the 1995 report still contains no emergency measure on the methods which may be substituted for animal experimentation.
On the pretext of the absence of measures in this area by the OECD and the United States, the Commission has judged it impossible to impose a prohibition on animal experimentation.
Does that mean we should tag along behind the United States? No.
Parliament has a role to play and should lead the Commission to give unrestricted support to the prohibition from 1 January 1998.
The Commission must undertake to start taking measures right now to develop alternative methods of experimentation.
Every year 30, 000 animals die in cruel experiments to assist the production of cosmetics, despite the prohibition, in Directive 93/95/EEC, of the marketing of cosmetics containing ingredients or combinations of ingredients tested on animals and the commitment to promote alternative methods to replace animal tests.
This unacceptable situation is still with us because the Commission persists in delaying implementation of the prohibition and is kowtowing, for the umpteenth time, to pressure from very powerful commercial and financial circles and acting as a loyal disciple of the rules of profit and competition imposed by the big cosmetics manufacturers.
Its systematic disregard of strong public opposition and of the resolutions of the European Parliament constitutes an act of complicity in the barbaric torture of thousands of animals and is discouraging any serious attempt to develop scientifically acceptable alternative methods which could replace animal testing in the cosmetics sector.
It is pretty obvious that no real pressure is being put on the industry to engage in the research and development of alternative methods which can provide a high and reliable level of safety, and that the resources needed for serious research and technological endeavour towards meeting all of the safety requirements and ensuring that the abolition of animal experiments does not lead under pressure of competition to new products, with new and inadequately tested ingredients which may have unforeseen side-effects on the consumer, are not being allocated.
In the light of that there is no justification for postponing implementation of the ban on products tested on animals after 1 January 1998. And there should be no exemptions to the ban.
Quite the opposite, there should be a commitment to take specific measures to ensure that firms and industries which carry out experiments on animals are obliged to participate in development and validation studies and to fund research and work on alternatives.
The EU has problems when it comes to restricting animal testing in general, and to banning such testing in the cosmetics industry in particular.
Regrettably, it seems that the Commission is giving in to pressure from the industry and is totally unwilling to pursue a policy of promoting alternative testing methods.
This means that more than 15 million animals will also be 'used' in European laboratories in the future.
This is an unacceptable situation, especially since effective alternative methods are already available. Because of a clear lack of political will, however, these are not being promoted.
In an effort to explain its inaction, the Commission takes cover behind the fact that the USA has also failed to introduce a ban on animal testing in the cosmetics industry.
In my view, however, this argument does not hold water, since if it did, the EU would be unable to legislate independently of the USA at all.
It is absurd!
Given that the European Parliament - the representative of the people of Europe - is calling unequivocally for a ban on animal testing in the cosmetics industry, there is no valid argument for failing to implement such a ban on 1 January 1998, as Council Directive 93/35/EEC allows.
Such a ban does not have to be to the disadvantage of the cosmetics industry.
On the contrary, if products were to be labelled 'not tested on animals' in a positive campaign, it could even represent an additional selling point on the world market, in the interests of producers, consumers and animals!
, in writing. (DA) The Commission's report is defective and does not seek the objective of implementing the ban on animal experiments.
A ban which should and must be introduced, as promised, and not deferred any longer.
The ban will not mean any adverse effects on consumer safety, and the development of alternative testing methods is already considerably advanced.
I am against standards being based on the principle of the lowest common denominator.
So when the Commission states that a ban on the sale of cosmetics that have been tested on animals is not possible, partly because the USA does not have similar regulations, this is simply a pretext.
Rather introduction of the ban in Europe could have a knock-on effect resulting in international recognition of alternative testing methods.
Regarding research into alternative methods, there is need for a programme of priorities.
Without a framework, incorporating deadlines, it will not be possible to bring anyone to account for violations.
We would then end up with a series of postponements, which is what the Commission's report seems to have been an attempt at.
It is expensive to research and try out alternative methods.
Therefore the ECVAM approved money (9 million ecus over 3 years) must be used for its intended purpose.
In 1996 a delegation of MEPs realized however that the approved money was not getting through in the full amount.
This problem must be corrected.
It is necessary to set up a group or committee which will keep a close watch to ensure money reaches its target.
Otherwise we will get nowhere.
Only a framework and a proper, targeted contribution can encourage these alternative methods.
But whatever it is, animal experiments in the cosmetics sector must stop - and now!
I fully share Mrs Roth-Behrendt's criticism and therefore vote in favour of the report.
resolution on genetically modified maize
Mr President, my explanation of vote concerns the resolution on transgenic maize.
I should like to draw attention to two points: first of all, it is clear that we are about to abandon the principle of prudence, which should be the main principle guiding politicians in the European Union.
Decision-making should not involve risks which are likely to develop into full-blown problems.
In this case, the Commission has clearly yielded to the demands of the representatives of commerce and industry anddisregarded the principle of prudence.
I dare not imagine where this will lead us in the future, when the pressure will be even stronger.
Secondly, I should like to draw attention to the public's right to be informed of decisions which the Commission takes concerning genetic engineering.
At present, the principle of transparency is being flouted and the scientific committees work behind closed doors.
I have been trying in vain for three weeks to obtain from the Finnish authorities documents concerning the authorization place transgenic maize on the market.
In my view, we cannot go on like this: each and every citizen has a fundamental right to be informed of the reasons on which the Commission bases its decisions.
The transgenic maize affair offers up worrying similarities with that of mad cow disease and shows that the Commission has learned nothing, and understood nothing, unless it is the case that it has been pushed by unspeakable forces which it finds impossible to resist.
Once again, the Commission has shown itself to be more sensitive to the necessities of commerce and the free circulation of products than to risks to consumers.
I should say that, this time, there was the added fear of upsetting the United States, which apparently had so little doubt about the malleability of their correspondent that they had already shipped their maize to our ports before they had even obtained authorisation to put it on the European market.
What happened proved them right: the Commission gave way all along the line, after Leon Brittan explained to it, as the press reported, that we had better not upset our relationship with this great nation.
Apart from the obsession with trade and the free circulation of goods, there are other similarities here with the mad cow case.
Firstly, one finds the absence of transparency over the reasons for the decision, and in particular over the soothing scientific opinions which, it appears, supported the Commission's decision, but which were only published in abridged form.
Secondly, the Commission's singular method should be highlighted, by which it used outrageous procedures which exist which give it the right to substitute itself for the Council when the Council cannot come to a unanimous decision, exactly as it had when it lifted the embargo on British gelatine last year.
However it might be noted that in the present case, thirteen States out of fifteen, in the Council, were in favour of the prohibition on importing transgenic maize and that the Commission had no hesitation in defying that crushing majority to place itself in the ranks of the two lax States, of which, sadly, France was one.
Thirdly, as in the mad cow affair, we have seen certain Member States defend their citizens, despite the position of the Commission.
Austria, and even Luxemburg, have prohibited the distribution of genetically modified maize on their respective markets, to protect their populations.
Finally, in this business too, the temptation is seen to be growing in the Commission to attack the recalcitrant States for obstructing freedom of circulation.
Thus are we called to regret once more the fact that the Commission is using the powers given it by the countries of Europe to destroy our defences, when its purpose on the contrary is to strengthen them.
This unworthy conduct - because the Commission's primary concern should be to ensure the security of Europeans - can no doubt be explained by a total lack of patriotism, and a major susceptibility to external pressures.
In their turn these faults are not fortuitous, they arise from the institutional structure itself of Europe today, dominated by a technocratic structure which considers itself superior to the nations and which, because it is so far removed from them, ends up losing all reference to reality and to the needs of people.
The Commission's action with regard to Ciba-Geigy is dubious and irresponsible to say the least but not particularly surprising.
Once again the Commission has bowed to financial and commercial pressure instead of protecting the environment and people's health.
But it is surprising, however, because 13 of the EU's 15 Member States opposed the introduction of this maize onto the market.
It is positive and encouraging to hear that Austria and Luxembourg have not accepted the Commission's decision anyway and are now taking measures to prevent the sale of genetically modified maize on the market.
I hope that other EU States will react in the same way, including my homeland Sweden.
People's concerns about eating genetically modified food are justified and must be taken seriously.
In my opinion, there ought to be an immediate end to the cultivation and sale of genetically modified food.
This situation is more than desirable but unfortunately there does not appear to be any action.
The European Parliament's common resolution is good, even if it is not sufficiently critical in some sections and I have no hesitation in voting for this proposal.
The British Conservative MEPs are strongly in favour of taking all the necessary safeguards to establish that only foods which are safe are placed on our market.
They also recognize that genetic modification is a scientific tool of possible benefit to mankind which should not be dismissed out-of-hand.
Its possible usefulness in terms of the increased availability of food supplies and a diminution of dependence upon pesticides should be subject to rigorous scrutiny.
We believe that two considerations must be paramount in the consideration of genetically modified food: consumer safety and consumer choice.
On consumer safety, we note that the Commission consulted three expert committees before giving marketing authorization to this product.
The findings of those committees and the list of their members are available to Members: for example, the membership of the Scientific Committee for Food is given in Official Journal C218 of 23 August 1995, and subsequent updatings have also appeared in the Official Journal.
Where the Commission can be faulted is in not having closer contact with MEPs, especially in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection so that they get an early copy of the reports of such specialist committees and up-dated lists of their members.
So long as Parliament feels shut out from the work of such committees, suspicion and lack of confidence between the institutions will grow.
On consumer choice, we welcome the fact that the Commission is to propose that all products containing GMOs will have to be labelled, thereby extending the current information requirements.
If Europe's consumers do not want genetically modified products, then consumer power will tell, and firms marketing those products will find that the European market is not profitable for them.
We also welcome the news that Commissioner Fischler is to come forward with a proposal for similar labelling of animal feed.
We believe that with these safeguards Europe's consumers and Europe's farmers will be in the best position to combat competition from the US and to judge for themselves whether they want to choose genetically modified products or not.
We regard the joint motion for a resolution as seriously flawed in its rejection of the authorization that has been given, and out-of-date in that it does not take account of the announcements made by the Commission on 2 April regarding the labelling of all GM products.
It does contain some useful points regarding the need for the European Parliament to be more closely involved in the process of authorization of GM products, and we have supported these elements.
The only honest course open to us in the final vote on the whole text was therefore abstention.
It is unacceptable for the Commission to allow the spread of genetically modified maize on the European market.
A large majority of Member States are against this and public opinion is very critical.
The EU ought to have learnt from the BSE crisis that health and consumer protection must take precedence over short term commercial interests.
There have been insufficient scientific studies.
The maize may be resistant to antibiotics and would therefore pose a great risk to people's health.
It goes without saying that all genetically modified foods should be labelled so that consumers know what they are buying and eating.
The European Parliament condemns the irresponsibility of the Commission, which has authorised Member States to import and market products based upon genetically modified maize in spite of all of the negative opinions of the European Parliament, and which has done this to the detriment of the principle of precaution concerning the health of consumers and the protection of the environment.
France has, for this reason, seized upon this authorisation to permit American imports while prohibiting the cultivation of genetically modified maize, and the inconsistency of such a position can only be condemned.
It is true that the marketing of this maize had been authorised, several days before, thus nipping in the bud a crisis with the Americans, who had a cargo of 'Corn gluten feed' locked up in one of our ports.
Some very large interests are at stake.
I will briefly recall the fact that transgenic maize has been made resistant to the larva of a crop-devastating insect.
Its cultivation, which has already been carried out in the United States and Canada, produces better crops and strengthens the competitive edge of a product in a very competitive world market, as we know.
The uncertainty about long term effects, the desire to reassure consumers still traumatised - and quite rightly - by the mad cow crisis, have weighted the French decision, which many observers have judged inconsistent and preelectoral.
I am not out to reject scientific discoveries, because life is synonymous with evolution.
Furthermore, the region I come from - the South-West of France - has largely profited from progress in seed.
But the recent scandals and dramas which we have experienced must make us more cautious.
If the experts subscribe falsely to the view that there is no possibility of risk regarding modified maize, the Scientific Committee on Foodstuffs has admitted that there is a risk of transmission to humans of the marker gene which is resistant to antibiotics.
This re-evaluation should be pursued and, while awaiting this, authorisation granted to import and market these products should be suspended.
For us, the primary need is for transparency in the information conveyed to consumers.
They must take their responsibilities in full knowledge of the facts, with the mandatory requirement for clear labelling of all foodstuffs containing transgenic products.
This law was voted in by the European Parliament in January 1997 and should soon be applied in all 15 countries.
Mr President, despite its deficiencies, I voted in favour of the joint motion for a resolution, because it condemns the irresponsibility of the Commission which, unilaterally, took the decision to authorise the marketing of genetically modified maize in spite of the negative opinion of the very great majority of the Member States and the European Parliament.
But it should have gone much further than that and demanded that the Commission go back on the decision it made on 18 December 1996, for as long as sufficiently serious independent scientific assurances have not been given on its consequences as regards protection of human health and of the environment.
The same mistakes are being made over and over again: whether we are talking about authorisation to import genetically modified maize from the United States or the lifting of the embargo on gelatine, suet and bovine sperm originating from Britain, they are the same procedures which are leading the Commission to substitute itself for the Council and to act to the detriment of public health and the environment in our States.
No lessons have been learned from the 'mad cow' crisis.
And all over again, the Commission is setting itself up as the defender of economic interests which are not those of the Member States of the Union.
To my very great regret, the French government carries a great deal of responsibility in the process which is currently under way.
It was the vote of the French minister which enabled the Council to obtain the qualified majority, thanks to which the substitution of responsibility could operate to the benefit of the Commission.
It was the French government, with its decree of 4 February, which was the first and is still the only government to authorise the marketing of genetically modified maize (30, 000 tons of which, curiously, had already been in French ports for a month), while other European countries like Austria, Switzerland and Luxemburg decided to protect their populations.
The two French Commissioners have naturally followed in the footsteps of their colleagues, AngloSaxons in particular, to authorise, without hesitation, the entry of MGM on to the market.
Thus we end up in France with the worst scenario: our own farmers are prevented from using the most productive seed, while products of genetically modified seed from third party countries are freely marketed.
Consistency would have had it that the Union impose a complete moratorium (since maize is likely to be followed rapidly by genetically modified soya and rape, with all the risks they bring), until research with convincing results has concluded either that the marketing of this seed is harmless or dangerous.
Why, on such an essential question, be so afraid of a dispute with the United States before the WTO? Or else, is the vocation of the European Union no longer to defend the interests of Member States, aspiring only to become, in the words of Valéry 'an American Commission' ?
Roth report (A4-0112/97)
Mr President, we have voted against the Roth report both because of its aspects which are unrelated to the subject and because of its lacunae and omissions.
Indeed, the Roth report does not speak about the persecution to which the unions are subject in France.
That is how a Force national-transports en commun Union came to be created in France in 1996.
When this union nominated union delegates to the RATP, a major public transport company in the Ile de France, the management took these union members to court.
Several weeks later, these union members presented a list for the professional elections.
This list was refused and there were further proceedings, proceedings brought by the management and the unions of the system and won at the expense of the free union members, the legal system giving in to the demands of the authorities and the dominant unions.
There is therefore a serious attack on freedom of representation and the electoral freedom of workers here.
These liberties are also threatened by attacks by the management of this major public enterprise against national unions: threats against union members and instructions to departmental managers to harass them.
We are sorry that these attacks on freedom of representation do not feature in Mrs Roth's report.
We welcome the Schengen Agreement as an important step towards the right to freedom of movement for the people of the Union.
But we think that the way point 57 of the report is written could allow different interpretations particularly on the issue of using strong measures in the fight against drug trafficking. This is something we cannot accept.
Antilla, Lindqvist, Ryynänen, Virrankoski and Väyrynen (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Lindholm (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) The struggle for human rights is very important everywhere.
In no way does the EU have sole rights in this domain.
Much of the content of this report is totally unnecessary in a report on human rights. Why should the EU become a legal entity and sign conventions?
Why should so many of the measures be raised to a federal EU level? Why do Community level controls need to be introduced?
We are against this and think it is totally unnecessary in an otherwise quite good report.
Of course we will also be voting against the proposal that the European Court should have jurisdiction over the implementation of the Schengen Agreement.
The good thing about the report is that it is progressive on many points and highlights a number of matters which are currently badly handled by EU Member States.
But this does not mean that they would be better handled at community level.
On the contrary, there would be even less democracy in the EU.
We think that the criticism of the repressive and often racist asylum policies is justified.
I voted against Amendment No 43 on abortion information - as it is worded it is unacceptable.
Not even the most radical pro-choice supporters are actively advocating abortion.
Abortion is a choice many women make for a variety of reasons - many tragic.
In Ireland we have a very high level of abortion, disproportionately high in comparison with other EU countries.
I believe our resources should be focused on prevention of unwanted pregnancies and support for those who feel forced to take this choice.
Our constitutional referendum overwhelmingly supported information and freedom of movement.
So do I.
We are sorry that the European Parliament has thought it right, despite our negative votes, to adopt the Roth report which contains a whole series of aberrations, like the request to Member States to recognise homosexual couples and to grant them the right to adopt children.
We also find that the European Parliament has once again declared that freedom of circulation is not a reality in Europe, on the pretext that border controls on persons have not been abolished completely.
Once again, this is not our opinion and when we move around in Europe we do not experience controls as hindrances to our freedom of circulation.
I would, however, focus my explanation of vote on a specific technical point, since Parliament has just asked that the Schengen Agreement come under the competence of the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
We do not agree, for two reasons, of form and of substance.
On the form, we do not see why the Court of Justice, which is a community institution which comes under the fifteen Member States, should deal with specific agreements which certain States conclude among themselves, except of course if the States request it expressly.
But that is not the case here.
This observation should be relocated to the context of the debate at the Intergovernmental Conference on differentiated cooperation, which we hope we will not see become a matter a priori and systematically for the Court of Justice.
On the substance, it is unlikely that matters relating to the circulation of persons, and in particular foreigners, which closely affect public liberties and national sovereignties, will be able to be entrusted to the arbitration of an institution which is not a democratically elected assembly and which is not a national constitutional Court subject to the democratic regulation of each State either.
We are presented with an acute problem, which nobody wants to look in the face, of distortions between the status of the Court of Justice, which was at the start a Court intended to deal with technical problems linked with the interpretation of a well-defined treaty, and the breadth of competence which one would like to give it today, which would result in the serious diminishing of national democracy and straightforward democracy itself.
We hope therefore that the Intergovernmental Conference might demonstrate realism, and that, before any extension is made to the competence of the Court of Justice, it should revise its status in such a way as to introduce into it, one way or another, the right of appeal before national parliaments on questions of principle.
The Roth report looks at important aspects of promoting human rights in the European Union, including reaffirmation of the position of the European committee against torture, support for victims of violence and terrorism, and many others.
However, on the rights of persons in detention, paragraph 76 'reaffirms the principle that imprisonment should IN MOST CASES take place at a location that is as near as possible to the detainee's family and/or social environment' .
The introduction of the words 'in most cases' in the Committee on Civil Liberties restricts a universal right which is implicitly recognized in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, leaving it to the arbitrary decision of governments.
That is why I abstained in the final vote.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of Parliament's annual report on respect for human rights in the European Union (1995) with the exception of point 159.
We believe that the report is satisfactory in general.
Our opposition to point 159 is due solely to the fact that it contains a factual error.
Thus Danish criminal law contains an unequivocal ban on the possession of 'photographs, films or similar items portraying children having intercourse or sexual relations other than intercourse' (Criminal Law § 225, point 2).
This ban also covers paedophile magazines.
I voted with my Group (the PPE) against the Roth resolution even though I supported over 90 of its paragraphs and appreciated many aspects of the rapporteur's work.
The report does, however, contain inaccuracies and goes beyond the scope of a work of this kind, which ought above all to help to bring to public awareness the problems concerning the fundamental rights of citizens in the European Union who deserve better attention and treatment.
On the other hand it seems to me that social rights and environmental rights not only hold a different significance, but should be studied in greater detail by the relevant Parliamentary committees.
In addition to this general criterion which helped me to finally make up my mind about the report as a whole, my criteria for voting on the various paragraphs were as follows:
I voted in favour of many paragraphs on the mechanisms for strengthening human rights, the right to life and the right to freedom of movement, the rights of access to justice, rights of prisoners, the fight against racism and xenophobia, the right to privacy, non-discrimination and children's rights.
I voted against those paragraphs mentioning individual Member States which have not had the opportunity to put their side of the case which must be regarded as States following the Rule of Law, plus those paragraphs dealing with national policies on asylum and immigration when there is still no real European policy in this area;
I abstained on those paragraphs on human rights outside the European Union or concerning events in years other than 1995 and on paragraphs which wove fact in with fiction.
We find it very positive that the European Parliament is making a serious and in-depth analysis of respect for human rights in the European Union, all the more so since there tend to be too many value judgments made about what is happening in this field outside the Union.
There are various significant problems noted within the European Union.
Fundamental rights and freedoms are not infrequently called in question.
Racism and xenophobia are spreading.
There is a growing tendency to curb the right of asylum.
All forms of discrimination are on the increase.
It is important to stress that negative phenomena are on the increase particularly in the social sphere, and they cannot be ignored here, despite what some sectors of this House claim.
The right to a job, steady employment, adequate social security and finally a dignified standard of living are undeniably essential aspects of human rights; this list should also include the fight against unemployment, poverty, exclusion and marginalization.
Mrs Claudia Roth has for the most part approached this subject in a thorough, positive and appropriate manner in her report, which we welcome; we shall be voting for it.
We shall for the same reasons be voting against the proposals tabled which run counter to the spirit of this approach.
When it comes to human rights, Europe must defend its good name on the world stage.
I therefore greatly regret the fact that the opposition of some EU Member States to a resolution which critically analysed the human rights situation in China has meant that the Union is not now tabling a human rights resolution before the UN.
The human rights debate has been supplanted by concern for business interests.
I also wish my negative vote to underline this scandalous situation!
Human rights have no political complexion.
They are neither Christian Democrat nor Socialist.
Rather, they are universally valid, as is enshrined in the relevant international conventions.
The concepts must therefore be clearly defined, and these general principles strictly applied.
Unfortunately, this is not the case in the Roth report.
The report is ideologically biased, and contains many elements which have a great deal to do with economic, social and environmental policies, but absolutely nothing to do with human rights.
It is a ragbag of issues, problems and lists which mean everything and nothing.
I would have preferred to see a discussion of fundamental rights, such as the rights to life, integrity, adequate defence before the courts, freedom of expression, privacy, non-discrimination and the like.
Any report on this subject should, in my opinion, deal with excesses against fundamental human rights such as the freedom of speech, freedom of the press, religious freedom and freedom of association.
It should also investigate and advise on whether the right to legal aid and the right to be allowed to do military service without bearing weapons are being correctly enforced in the EU Member States.
But to expand the term, as has been done in this report, to include the right to freedom of mobility within the Union, social security, the right to medical treatment and so on is incorrect. These issues belong in other political arenas.
Perhaps future issues of this annual report could be extended to include comments on other failings based on a model for good quality of life, such as the right for all citizens to live near beautiful municipal parks.
Of course it is never wrong to demand better health care.
But that is not the point.
The core of our criticism lies in the fact that the term human rights is being confused with the term quality of life through such an expansion.
'Human Rights' has a quite distinct meaning in the international arena.
Point 119 of the proposal for the Resolution complains that more and more districts, particularly in France and Germany, outlaw begging.
Expressing oneself in this way in a report shows that we accept begging as a source of income for some people.
This cannot be tolerated.
That is the end of voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Growth, employment and convergence (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report ((A4-0111/97) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission's Annual Economic report for 1997 - Growth, employment and convergence on the road to EMU (COM(97)0027 - C40078/97).
As long as our governments put all their energy into meeting the convergence criteria, unemployment is unlikely to fall. We know why this is.
Economic growth in the Union is too low.
Average growth of 2½ % is needed simply in order to absorb the increases in productivity and the growth in the supply of labour, but we are not achieving this, and the outlook for the future is poor.
Why is the economy in the European Union not enjoying more robust growth? The Commission has no answer to this.
Like last year, it concludes that all the supply factors such as inflation and wage levels are favourable for stronger growth, but it refuses to believe that the cutbacks of an average of 1½ % of GDP which the Member States are aiming to make in 1997 have anything to do with the low level of growth.
On pages 77 and 78 of the Annual Economic Report, for example, it claims that a further cut in interest rates and the feel-good factor will compensate for the fall in demand caused by the cutbacks.
It therefore feels, quite wrongly, that it no longer needs to insist that those Member States which are in a position to focus policy on maintaining and promoting growth should actually do so.
Yet stimulating employment by promoting growth should be given at least the same priority throughout the Union as achieving the convergence criteria.
And promoting growth and achieving the convergence criteria are not mutually exclusive, of course.
Higher growth not only creates more jobs, but also makes it easier to achieve the convergence criteria anyway.
Both objectives, employment and the convergence criteria, are the joint responsibility of the entire Union, and this is why the countries which already meet the EMU criteria and are enjoying stronger growth should be urged at least to maintain growth at its current levels, for the benefit of other Member States.
Mr President, last year I was the rapporteur on the 1996 annual economic report and I am very conscious of the difficulties under which both the Commission and the rapporteur have had to work.
I wish to congratulate the Commission this year on having got its annual economic report together rather more coherently and rather earlier than last year.
I would also like to congratulate the Commission on a welcome note of realism in this year's annual economic report.
There has been a tendency in the two previous years to be a little bit too sanguine about the prospects for the European Community's economy.
Quite rightly, this year the Commission has highlighted that there has been absolutely no improvement at all in the overall employment position here in the Community.
That remains the fundamental problem which faces Europe.
As the front cover of The Economist said this week: Europe is not working!
The answer to that problem, of course, lies not really within the European Commission and still less in the European Parliament, it rests with the authorities in the Member States.
I am delighted to see that, although I do not agree with everything the rapporteur says in her report, there is an acknowledgement - in paragraph 8 of the resolution - of the harmful effects of 'high statutory non-wage costs on labour' , which leads to a reluctance to hire people.
But, on the other hand, there is a lack of realism: in an earlier reference in paragraph 5(ix) we have the usual rehearsal of left-wing objections to the activities of speculators.
It is not often appreciated that speculators can be Member State governments, for example, who might hold off paying money to the European Community, expecting to have an improvement in their national currencies' exchange rates against the ECU.
There is, however, one thing to which I would like to draw attention: paragraph 26, which calls for an end to 'what is unfair competitive taxation in the European Union' .
If taxation is 'unfair' , it is because some Member States maintain too high levels of tax, and the effect of competition in tax, as in air fares and everything else, should be to bring down tax rates.
That would increase Europe's competitiveness and would also result in a revival of the European job market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to concentrate on our amendments, and in particular Amendment No 9 on growth, employment and convergence on the road to EMU.
Economic growth alone is not an adequate indicator for combating and reducing unemployment.
When you consider that the German Government has promised to halve the number of unemployed by the year 2000, a similar exaggeration with regard to Europe is not difficult to understand.
It is quite wrong to regard growth as the sole driving force and goal of Europe's economies.
Economics and ecology go hand in hand; unfortunately, however, people are coming to this realization far too slowly, and not in sufficient numbers.
The annual economic report - and this will be nothing new to those attending this debate - lacks a forward-looking European economic philosophy.
And I use the word philosophy quite deliberately - it simply lacks the sense that Europe needs to bring its economies into line with one another.
The situation in Germany, which has a publicsector share of 51 %, is totally different from that in the United Kingdom or Greece, for example.
We therefore also need to address the issues of the public-sector share and bringing Europe's economies into line with each other.
With regard to monetary union, let me say the following: we must not begin monetary union by lying to the people.
I would particularly ask Mr de Silguy to bear that in mind.
Paragraph 12 of the annual economic report refers to pension liabilities and the reserves to cover them.
If it is the case, as in Germany, that this question of pension liabilities is not raised, not even in the context of the criteria for EMU, then this is starting with a lie, and the criteria are being fudged.
We must remain credible.
The postal workers in Germany will be the latest to see that something is amiss in that country.
Lastly, I wish to point out that the German version of Amendment No 5 contains a translation mistake.
It should say 'ineffective control' , not 'inadequate control' .
Mr President, Mrs Randzio-Plath's report states, among other things, that one cannot go along with the Commission's proposal on greater wage distribution between the regions.
I am very much sympathetic to this view, since this is not a matter for either the Commission or Parliament to tackle, but something that must be handled locally, either between bodies involved in the job market or in the national parliaments, in accordance with the regulations of the individual countries.
The annual economic report from the Commission also expresses a wish for greater wage distribution within the different sectors and branches.
It is a pity that the rapporteur is not here now because I would have liked to hear her views on this.
The report fully supports Delors' white paper on growth, competitiveness and employment, and this surprises me somewhat because this also advocates wage distribution.
Moreover I must refrain from supporting the resolution to introduce gradually absorbed wages for the least qualified, the young or the long-term unemployed, since in my own country this has always meant a violation of collective bargaining rights which are enjoyed by those operating on the employment market.
And to propose a form of economic control at an EU level would mean going off at a tangent.
Let us give this more thought, and let us instead discuss whether adoption of the EMU convergence criteria is not the real reason for the unacceptably high unemployment rate in all EU Member States, before convincing ourselves and others that the unemployment problem can be resolved by adopting the EMU.
Let us listen to the strong protests being raised against the EMU plans throughout the countries of the European Union.
Mr President, I agree with the rapporteur's view that the annual economic report is too optimistic and does not take the problem of rising unemployment seriously enough.
It makes an over-simplistic connection between competitiveness and labour costs, whilst ignoring the importance of creativity and innovation to both production and marketing.
The mania for budget consolidation in both the public and private sectors is directed too much towards cutting jobs and too little towards investment.
The example of France makes it clear that competitiveness cannot be improved by reducing labour costs alone: despite the reduction of labour costs in that country, unemployment has not fallen, and there have been further losses of market share.
It will therefore be important in the future to take a critical look at the EU's patterns of expenditure.
As long as the bulk of the Member States' financial contributions is poured into support for agricultural overproduction, while comparatively paltry sums are earmarked for research and development, we should not be surprised if the EU's competitiveness is declining.
Mr President, the great debate which casts a shadow over the Commission's Annual Economic Report is, of course, that of employment.
We know that we cannot satisfy ourselves in this respect with the single thought, and that we must find something else.
We cannot satisfy ourselves with economic policies at national level, when monetary policy will be on a Europe-wide scale.
We cannot allow unemployment, poverty and exclusion to develop and leave everything to the market.
The excellent report by my colleague Mrs Randzio-Plath is intended to give a lesson in voluntarism in this respect and, with your permission, I would like to extract two ideas.
The first idea is the need to give a European dimension to economic policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, I come from Luxemburg, a country which every year for the last ten years has created thousands of distinct new jobs, and yet unemployment rises inexorably.
Why? Because the country lies at the centre of a basin of cross-border employment in which unemployment is as high as 10-15 %, or more than that.
This shows very well that a country which is pursuing a policy of growth faster than its neighbours above all is supporting the economy of its neighbours.
And if we want national policies to succeed, we should at least make sure we coordinate them at a European level.
The second idea is the need for a common policy for growth.
The dyed-in-the-wool dogmatists say no, that is not possible.
Because they are absolutely set upon the criteria of convergence for reaching the single currency, they want neither to let another penny go to the Community budget, nor to care about their neighbour.
The Socialists say yes.
Without lapsing into a blissful Keynesianism, they think that it is possible to act upon demand, even with a European budget which is only 1.27 % of GDP.
If I may permit myself, Mr President, to paraphrase Jacques Delors, would the European Union, which is borrowing so that it can lend to Bulgaria and Hungary, not do so to invest in its own quality of life or the future of its younger generations?
Mr President, I therefore think indeed that as the rapporteur proposes, we must have an economic policy of European dimensions and, above all, an economic policy for growth.
Mr President, I am perhaps going to make myself look like a defender of the single thought, which will please Mr Fayot, but that is too bad, I will go ahead anyway.
I would like to give my reaction both to the Annual Economic Report and to Parliament's report.
I would be less critical of the Annual Economic report than is Mrs Randzio-Plath, but I still have a number of remarks to make on the Commission's text.
Like the Commission, I think that the improvement in performance of the European Union should be saluted, and the renewal which is under way should encourage us to continue along the route we have mapped out.
Having said that, and I think everyone agrees, we should not rest on our laurels because we are a long way off reaching the target for growth and for unemployment, which, as we know, is still dramatically high.
Why, in fact, do we have this poor growth rate and high unemployment rate in Europe? For a large part, it should be said, because of the poor economic policies pursued since the beginning of the '90s: budgetary policy which is too lax, monetary policy which has been badly managed, until recently at least, and an employment market which has become too inflexible.
So, my dear colleagues, let us learn lessons from these examples from the past.
We will not solve our growth and employment problems by relaxing budgetary discipline, and we will not solve our growth and employment problems by relaxing monetary policy.
In proposing these kinds of measures, the report which Mrs Randzio-Plath has presented to us misses the mark.
The reduction in real interest rates, which our rapporteur quite rightly hopes for, will not come as a result of this kind of relaxation.
It will result from the pursuit of budgetary cleansing, from the removal of risk premiums on interest rates and therefore from a stable monetary and fiscal environment.
Contrary to what has been proposed to us, we must reduce public spending and obligatory contributions, and to do that, we must implement a number of structural reforms in order that these reductions actually take place and will last.
From this perspective, we have two large areas of work to be done in Europe.
The first concerns the reform of the labour market.
This must, as a general rule if not in all countries, be rendered more flexible.
Above all, we must accelerate the reduction in labour costs, in particular for the least qualified, contrary to what our previous speakers have said.
Because that is where the key to unemployment lies, unemployment among the poorly qualified, which is the largest sector of unemployment in our various countries.
And to do that, there is no other solution than to reduce obligatory contributions.
I am rather sorry that the Commission has not stressed this matter a little more, even if it has mentioned it.
The second area of work concerns the problem of globalisation and the progress of technology.
The Annual Economic report gives an interesting chapter on the subject.
There again, I think the subject deserved to be developed.
Perhaps it will at the next presentation.
I would like to stress one thing on this subject, which is that there is no a priori reason why globalisation should not lead to the creation of jobs, even if this poses a number of problems in the short term, as we know.
Anyway, I will stop there, Mr President.
I would just like to say that, with the PPE group, I and Mr Herman have put forward a number of amendments: the fate reserved for these amendments will obviously determine the group's vote.
Mr President, for twenty years there has been mass unemployment in the European Union.
One of the reasons for this has been the dominance of orthodox economic theories in economic policy.
So the report by Mrs Randzio-Plath is a refreshing change.
It advocates an aggressive, expansive policy.
It offers an insight into the active role played by the public sector in finance policy.
The report breaks with orthodox opinion which is otherwise the hallmark of debate in the European Union and its institutions.
On the other hand the report contradicts itself by expressing confidence in the role of currency union.
It is precisely the EMU regulation system which must bear the greater part of the blame for deflationary policies.
The notion of convergence must be given up in the long-term if we are to deal with the crisis.
We must establish a new freer currency co-operation on a more global basis.
Despite these criticisms the report is still a ray of light in the darkness of dogmatism.
Mr President, crying over spilt milk will not solve the problem of unemployment in Europe.
The obstacles to true economic growth and increased employment are well known by now, and most of the Member States are falling over one another to suggest solutions which they do not then put into practice.
Italy is a bad example, one not to be followed, where the fashion is still to nationalize losses and privatize profit.
The Wages Guarantee Fund applies only to large companies; small firms have no access to it.
Why is the Union wasting time before setting up well-targeted projects in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises?
The data available confirm that the many economic and employment-related problems can only be solved by giving a helping hand to small businesses.
Let us waste no more time: let us invest in infrastructure, transport networks, the environment and energy; let us organize ourselves better, so that small and medium-sized enterprises can benefit from research investment and the Member States can reduce the fiscal burden consisting of taxes and social contributions.
We have been heading in the wrong direction, but we can remedy the situation by putting an end to unfair competition in the fiscal sector: a fiscal protocol should be incorporated into the Maastricht Treaty, containing a good practice guide for Member States on the taxation of businesses and capital.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, this afternoon's debate on the Commission's Annual Economic Report gives me the opportunity, first of all, to commend our colleague, Mrs Randzio-Plath, warmly on the quality of her work as well as the thoroughness and intelligence which are characteristic of her in all her work.
This report also leads me, Mr Herman, to say that the Executive Committee has worked hard, in the context of the treaties which govern us, obviously, and the decisions of the Council of Ministers, without of course forgetting, Mr Herman, the dominant liberal ideology in which our Union basks.
But when you have 18 million unemployed and 9 million people who would enter work if jobs existed, the rather artificial convergences required for the single currency, the small amounts of growth which have no real impact on unemployment, and the proposals which rush towards greater flexibility of work, less social protection and greater liberalism, are no longer enough.
While I approve of some of the Executive Committee's proposals on education and training and on local employment initiatives, I would say, like many others here, that unemployment needs shock treatment, along with effective stimulation of internal demand for goods and services, a reduction in interest rates, an increase in research and development, a less dogmatic and ideological approach to the criteria for convergence, a way of proceeding with restructuring which is undoubtedly gentler, and finally a genuine desire for industrial development.
What it requires therefore - and I am concluding in a general way - is that before any decision is made, all the decision-makers analyse its effects on employment in the short and medium term.
That is how, and it is the only way, confidence will return and, along with a progressive reduction in working hours, unemployment will finally fall.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is unfortunate that the rapporteur is not present for the continuation of the debate this afternoon.
However, I would not have congratulated her, since her report is not as good as others have made it out to be.
In fact, it contains a great many contradictions.
I should like to thank the Commission for a good and generally realistic annual economic report.
The criticism of Mr de Silguy is unjustified, since ultimately it is the Member States which are responsible for economic and financial policies.
The Commission cannot be blamed for the Member States' failings in their entirety.
As many speakers have already pointed out, Europe's main problem is high unemployment - structural as well as cyclical.
Increased growth alone will not be sufficient to remedy these structural shortcomings.
It is certainly needed to create new jobs, but it is not enough.
As the Commissioner rightly indicates in his report, Europe has opted to take an unequivocal free-market course.
Through the single market programme, the Maastricht Treaty and EMU, clear and promising ways to improve the competitiveness of European jobs have been set out.
Key objectives are to establish the free movement of goods, services and persons; to enhance Europe's competitiveness through the liberalization and privatization of important sectors such as telecommunications, transport, postal services and energy; and to extend the trans-European networks, for which the funds are still lacking.
Other important goals are to rein in the State and reduce state responsibilities - a matter covered by the Maastricht Treaty - and also to fight inflation and achieve the convergence of monetary and financial policies.
A currency's domestic stability is ensured in particular by a low rate of inflation.
Europe can boast a number of successes in this respect.
We are agreed - and the portrayal of EMU in the report is therefore accurate - that we can achieve the introduction of the euro, the launching of stage three, without relaxing the criteria and by interpreting them in accordance with the Treaty.
However, what we certainly cannot do - and here Mrs RandzioPlath's report contradicts itself - is take remedial action in the form of short-term, Keynesian anti-cyclical programmes designed to stimulate economic activity, which merely produce a flash in the pan in the wrong places.
On the contrary, we must eliminate structural shortcomings in the right places, as indicated by Mr Fourçans in his speech and amendments, for example by regarding public investment not as a substitute for, but as the basis of, private activity.
Above all, we must promote the flexibility of the labour market and eliminate the problems in the internal market - the remaining barriers to trade, for instance - as soon as possible.
I would therefore urge you, Commissioner, to stay on the right track and carry on with your policies as you began.
Mr President, the excessive optimism of the Commission's report is provocative: it speaks of a successful transition to EMU, of real growth in GDP, of new job creation, of strong economic recovery.
In our country, Mr President, we use the expression 'God first drives mad those He would destroy' to explain the self-destructive consequences that can occur when a person is out of touch with reality.
This Greek popular saying appears to be totally apposite to the case of the European Union's principal institutions.
The persistence with a policy that is increasing unemployment, poverty and social exclusion in Europe by the day is truly remarkable.
The European social model is falling apart; the worker is gradually metamorphosing into someone who just has a job; the labour relations that have been built up through the struggle and sacrifice of an entire century are literally disintegrating; the demands of bankers are taking precedence over the democracy of the people.
I can see no alternative to popular mobilization and a fight by the workers in defence of their rights.
Only then, perhaps, will the European Union draw the conclusions that it should draw.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I had prepared a note, but it shall not speak from it because I want to dispute some of the things that have been said by Members on the other side of the House.
For example, it has been said that we should not rest on our laurels! Which laurels, Mr Fourçans?
Where did you find them? The workers of my country are finding only thorns, and resting on thorns is not very easy.
It has also been said that we must reduce taxes and air fares. Down to what point should we reduce them?
To the point at which the planes start to fall out of the sky?
Are we to have a cost- benefit study setting the added profit of the airlines against the added value of the lives of the passengers who will die? Financially such a thing would make sense: the value of the lives of the passengers is limited.
And, of course, the added profit may more than compensate for those lives. Is that the sort of value judgment that we should be getting in to?
Economics is not an exact science. It is a science full of value judgments, and, before we finish with the technical aspects, we would like you to tell us which of the values out of those that we defend are furthered by the economy.
I am not one of those who believe that unemployment should be used as a weapon for getting on top of inflation.
That, in effect, is what your report advocates.
Not is so many words, of course; but it does, essentially, advance the case that unemployment should be used as a means to controlling inflation.
We would have preferred a different report, because there are ways of getting on top of inflation other than by allowing unemployment to race out of control to the current 12 % and to the 20 % that it will rise to very soon and to the 30 % that will come after that.
Where will it end? This business that began in 1970 when stagflation was tackled to the detriment of the workers, where will it end?
That is what the whole of your case boils down to.
Year after year you say the same things over and over again.
You never make the slightest effort to find another way through the problem.
In finishing I would like to endorse the proposal made by Mr Donnelly this morning that other viewpoints on the matters covered by these reports should at long last be given a hearing so that we can escape from the intellectual cul-de-sac that you have led us into.
Mr President, in the annual report, the Commission calls - rather surprisingly - for greater wage differentiation between the regions.
I cannot think of any arguments in favour of this.
I do know that people in Europe already have tremendous problems with the wage differences between the various countries and the unfair competition which these create, and I can therefore only imagine that the Commission's proposal will force wage levels down, and with them the benefits that are directly linked to wages in many countries, as well as the minimum wage.
I think the Commission's proposal is a really outrageous one, especially when it has not had the courage to bring forward a directive at the same time on a minimum wage.
In other words, it has produced a proposal which will force wages down, yet it refuses to introduce a directive which will give the people of Europe the minimum basic protection that they need.
I think the only sensible thing to do is to withdraw the proposal as quickly as possible.
Another reason for opposing this proposal is that it would seriously weaken the position of the trade unions, and there are absolutely no grounds for doing this.
On the contrary, we should be trying to find ways of improving and consolidating their position as part of the social dialogue that we are forever discussing.
Finally, one of the biggest problems we have is that firms are currently moving to locations outside the Union, and the Commission's proposal is only likely to increase this trend.
I cannot understand why this was not given due consideration.
It seems to be yet another attempt to substantiate the old complaint that the workforce is not sufficiently mobile.
If we want to increase mobility among the workforce, then we need to ensure that something is finally done about harmonizing wages and social security.
This would also mean finding a genuine solution to the problems faced by frontier workers in the areas between the Netherlands and Germany and between the Netherlands and Belgium, which have been under the microscope for ten years now without any sort of useful proposals coming from the Commission.
Mr President, I should like to speak first of all about the Maastricht Treaty, monetary union and the convergence criteria.
We insist on a correct interpretation of the convergence criteria and reject any simplifications or talk of symbols, but after the recent ECOFIN Council and having read the newspapers over the last few days, I fear that we are indeed gradually becoming bogged down in symbolic discussions and that it is becoming increasingly difficult to produce a serious interpretation of the convergence criteria which is in keeping with the spirit and the letter of the Maastricht Treaty.
My second point is that we naturally need to prepare for the third stage of monetary union, and I would refer here to what Mr Cassidy said about fiscal competition.
I am extremely concerned about fiscal competition and the ease with which tax bases can be moved from one Member State to another, and I am afraid that this will mean less money for social protection, and that if we have monetary union while we still have fiscal competition, but without tax coordination, social protection will come under increasing pressure.
Thirdly, the finishing touches were last week put to the stability pact, which is now to be known as the pact for growth and stability.
Commissioner, I wonder if you could tell us where, in the stability pact, ' growth' is described as a proactive objective?
The stability pact rightly assumes that the convergence criteria must continue to be observed even after the third stage, and I entirely agree with that.
But what the stability pact lacks is the growth element.
I would strongly urge you to do something about this.
If you do not and my fears become a reality in the Member States, while you continue to insist that only a monetary free market can ensure the future of the people of Europe, it could mean the end of the European ideal as far as the public is concerned, which is the very worst thing that could happen.
Mr President, I would just like to point out that there are a number of serious errors in the description of the economic situation in Sweden in the Commission's report.
For example, it states that interest rates have never been as low as they are now and that the difference between the interest rates in Sweden and Germany has never been so small as now, but this is totally untrue.
The Commission is basing its information on nominal interest rates but, as every economist knows, it is real interest rates which are important in this respect and these have never been as high in Sweden as they are now.
It goes on to say that the level of savings has gone up in Sweden as a result of lower growth rates, i.e. a sort of reverse Keynesian relationship.
Once again the truth is the opposite: We implemented a tax reform in Sweden which increased the profitability of savings.
The level of savings rose, demand fell and the rate of growth fell as well.
Every Swedish economist is aware of this.
The Commission cites these mistakes to provide an illustration of the fact that economic development in Sweden has been favourable because we have followed the economic policy recommended by the Commission, whereas traditional Social Democratic policies failed.
But it is the reverse which is true.
It was when Sweden ended their Keynesian demand policy, when we started to fight inflation before fighting unemployment, when we started to apply the convergence criteria, or to put it briefly, when we adopted the new liberal policy recommended by the Commission, that Sweden began to have problems.
It was then that our unemployment went up from 2 to 12 percent.
Swedish development is therefore an excellent example of the fact that a traditional social democratic policy works, a policy which tackles unemployment before fighting inflation.
It is my tragic prediction that unemployment in the Union will not be reduced until both the Commission and the Council understand this fact.
Unfortunately, the many errors in the report makes me fear that it will be some time before this realisation hits home.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to address Mrs Randzio-Plath who has demonstrated or tried to demonstrate, in her absolutely brilliant exposé, that Spring is still very cool.
Undoubtedly she was alluding to the ambient temperature this morning, in the streets of Strasbourg.
Perhaps like me after dinner, she might have realised that the temperature had warmed up.
That leads me to think that just because Spring is cool it does not mean it cannot be followed by a beautiful Summer and a rich harvest in the Autumn.
But to take in a good harvest, Mrs Randzio-Plath, you also have to put in some good work.
Meteorological conditions do not explain everything.
That, definitively, is what we wanted to do with the Annual Economic Report, because the report contains all the elements needed for a strategy for an overall economic policy, not only on convergence and economic and monetary Union, but also for growth and employment, which are two themes I would like to tackle now.
Permit me, nevertheless, to make a parenthesis, directed at Mr Donnelly - who, sadly, is not here to hear my reply, which you will transmit to him: he asked for the Annual Economic Report (AER) to be the subject of publicity, a greater public explanation.
Personally, I find this an interesting idea.
We are going to think about it and I think there are several ways to proceed.
First of all, we can think about having the next rapporteur, for the next AER, named earlier and we can hold preparatory discussions with some parliamentarians before publishing the Annual Economic Report.
We can also think about holding a public debate with economists, research institutions, journalists and parliamentarians.
I am ready to consider all of these ideas and work on them.
That is how I would reply to Mr Donnelly.
I come now to my two subjects - which I would like to stress - so as not to waste your time.
First of all, growth.
I think that many of your questions, in this hemicycle, have revolved around the following question: how can growth be improved?
First of all, I would say that growth - perhaps regrettably - cannot be decreed.
It results principally from sound economic foundations.
I am sorry, Mr Willockx, but public deficits have never created jobs.
If they did, we would be in a position of overemployment.
You have accused us of seeking, above everything else, excessive stability, to the detriment of employment policy.
What I say, what I think, is that a sound economic policy is a prerequisite for the constitution of an economic framework favourable to growth, even if - and here I agree with you - it does not make it possible to sort out the unemployment problem entirely, and that these policies must be complemented by other policies.
Why are economic policies orientated towards stability necessary? Because they make it possible to ensure medium-term growth, which will be drawn along by demand and supported by investment.
First of all, growth must be supported by demand and on this subject I would like to stress this: that the Commission does not dispute the fact that demand must accompany growth and that the current deficiency in internal demand explains in part the caution of the current renewal.
I would remind you that growth was 1.6 % in 1996 and that it will be between 2 1/4 and 2 1/2 % in 1997.
But artificial support for demand, which with a budgetary expansion or an increase in wages which was too rapid would threaten the foundations, would be counterproductive and therefore short-lived. Why?
Because gains in productivity are an important driving force of growth and because the reduction in relative prices, in sectors in which productivity is showing a strong increase, makes it possible, indeed, to increase demand for the purchase of goods and services in sectors in which productivity is increasing more slowly and in which, all the same, jobs are being created.
An attempt has been made to demonstrate this on page 34 of the AER.
As your Assembly recommends, this process is facilitated by the suppression of obstacles to innovation and by a policy of research and development which is better directed.
But I would add that demand is picking up again in Europe today, and on a sound footing.
Exports have been the first support for this.
They should now hand over to private consumption, which should grow by 2 % in 1997 and 2.5 % in 1998.
These improved prospects for demand should also stimulate investment.
I come now to my second point, that is growth supported by investment.
The Commission shares the concern of your Assembly, Mrs Randzio-Plath, on the relative stagnation of investment in Europe.
It is true that, up to now, the renewal in investment worldwide is still timid.
However, we can already see an improvement in performance of investment in machinery, even if the construction sector is still slow to react.
I think, and this is not to demonstrate excessive optimism, Mr Ribeiro, that all of the elements are in place for a more open renewal in business investment, which represents all the same 85 % of investment worldwide, particularly thanks to an appropriate return on capital invested and a more relaxed policy mix.
However, more specifically, concerning public investment, I recall that the Commission has always insisted, including in the Annual Report for 1997, that public investment is preserved.
Indeed it is an important factor for long term growth.
The Commission has therefore constantly lent its support to community investment projects, beginning with the trans-European networks.
That is what I wanted to say to you very quickly on growth, an essential condition for the creation of jobs.
Now, very briefly, because time is limited, I will say a few words on the second question, that is the creation of jobs: how can we facilitate the creation of jobs in Europe? On this point, too, the 1997 Annual Economic Report contains some important analyses and recommendations regarding the employment market.
These measures, may I remind you, fall essentially, in this area, under national competence.
Mr Langen has quite rightly highlighted this, moreover.
The Commission therefore invites Member States to assume their responsibilities in the matter.
I would very quickly like to tackle two problems - the employment market and wages policy - which have been mentioned within these walls, this morning and this afternoon.
The employment market, first of all.
The most active policy on the employment market should be pursued.
Indeed, during the period which followed the first oil crisis, the high level of labour costs, wages and non-wage costs, and in some cases, the existence of rigid regulations regarding job security, reduced the interest in labour as a factor of production.
To remain competitive, businesses continued to substitute capital for labour.
However, employment markets in the European Union adapted progressively and this has led to a considerable improvement in profitability.
Mr Berthu and Mr Lukas, and also, to a certain extent, Mrs Randzio-Plath, raised the question of investments for rationalisation - these are necessary to safeguard competitivity, but may destroy jobs - as opposed to investments for expansion, which increase our capacity for growth and therefore employment.
The Annual Economic Report analyses these problems in relation to the substitution of capital for labour.
What we need is to add many more investments for expansion, which create jobs, to the investments for rationalisation.
The conditions of development, at that point, become much more favourable.
But the effects of the employment intensification process of growth are not immediate.
The Commission recommends therefore that the capabilities of employment markets should be improved, their capability of adapting to economic changes, in particular by modernising the organisation of work and by increasing geographical and professional mobility.
The Commission is convinced that it would be desirable to implement pragmatic solutions to broaden the scale of labour costs, according to qualifications and according to region and, up to a certain point, according to sector.
This could be done, for example, by lowering non-wage costs, by lightening the tax burden on the wages of poorly qualified workers - I join with what Mr Fourçans said along these lines - and by instituting first-time employment wages for disadvantaged workers.
But this adaptation of the labour market also involves a certain wage differentiation, which would have to be agreed between social partners.
To judge from your draft resolution, if I have understood correctly, a certain wage differentiation between regions can only favour the downward revision of wages, and can only result in new relocations.
Well, no, the Commission does not share this point of view.
I can reassure Mrs Lis Jensen and Mr Wim van Velzen.
Exactly the opposite!
Provided that they are based upon the different levels of productivity according to region, these differentiations would not lead to any business relocations from one region or from another.
On the other hand, they would lead to the creation of new business activity and new employment in areas with high levels of unemployment.
Allow me, Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, in conclusion, to underline, and to recall, the fact that the Annual Economic Report responds to an overall coherent strategy of growth, employment and convergence which is developing in Europe.
I give as proof the short term reduction in real interest rates in Europe, by nearly 500 basis points since 1993, that is a historical reduction of 70 % - I give as proof also a large, and probably more meaningful, reduction in long term interest rates.
The debate we have taken part in today will enable us, Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, to refine our analysis for the development of the major orientations of economic policy, which I will come and present to you on 23 April, that is, the very day on which the Commission will adopt them.
You will be informed in real time and, then, on the basis of this analysis, we can take the debate on European economic policy up again.
I have a question to put to you, Commissioner. You referred, amongst other things, to the formulation of the broad guidelines of economic policy.
Can you tell the House whether you are prepared to anticipate the debate on the formulation of the broad guidelines of economic policy by letting Parliament know which aspects of the resolution it adopts tomorrow will be incorporated into those guidelines, so that an exchange of views between Parliament and the Commission can take place in good time before 23 April?
Mrs Randzio-Plath, I have only two concerns on this matter: to respect the Treaty and to strengthen the collaboration between your Assembly and the Commission.
First of all, I consider that the intense, active debate which has taken place on the Annual Economic Report already gives us a great deal of information.
I am ready, nevertheless, Mrs Randzio-Plath, if you wish, to organise a working group between a delegation of parliamentarians and my departments, before we have the Annual Economic Report adopted by the Commission.
To respect the Treaty, I am obliged, however, to make it a meeting of an informal nature.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Support facility for balance of payments
The next item is the report (A4-0105/97) by Mr Metten, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament (COM(96)0545 - C4-0588/96) - review of the facility providing medium-term financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments - Council Regulation (EEC) No 88/1969.
Mr President, my report looks at two questions: firstly, whether the existing funding facility for balance of payments problems should continue beyond the start of EMU on 1 January 1999; and, secondly, whether this kind of assistance for payment problems might not also be useful for Member States in the Economic and Monetary Union which experience national difficulties.
To begin with the first question, the funding facility for balance of payments problems has proved its usefulness in the past.
It has been useful for the countries which have had recourse to it, because they obtained cheaper loans than they could otherwise have done themselves, while the other Member States gained stability on the internal market and were able to obtain repayment guarantees through the conditions attached to the loans.
Because the loans are usually paid in tranches, the implementation of the conditions designed to help economic recovery can be closely monitored.
The important thing with this facility, therefore, is that both the recipient Member State and the Union as a whole benefit from it.
The total costs are paid by the beneficiary countries, and the only risk the Union takes is that the loan cannot be repaid, which has never yet happened.
Should this facility now be abolished when EMU begins on 1 January 1999?
Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs recommends not.
Not all the present Member States will be joining the EMU straight away, and the 'pre-ins' and the 'outs' initially outside the EMU might well encounter balance of payments problems.
So the facility should certainly continue until these countries join the EMU.
But even once all the present Member States have joined the EMU, which might be the case in 2002, there will still be a clear need for this instrument.
From 2002 onwards, the first Central and Eastern European countries will be joining the EU, and at least one, Hungary, has already indicated that it will certainly need a few more years before it is ready for EMU.
So there will be a period when countries which have joined the EU but not the EMU could well encounter balance of payments problems.
It is thus a useful instrument which should certainly not be abolished just yet.
This brings us on to my second question.
Would not this facility, which operates via the capital market in the form of loans guaranteed by the Community, be a useful one during the third stage of EMU, particularly for countries facing national difficulties?
The Maastricht Treaty expressly provides for this possibility in Article 103a(2), but no action has yet been taken under it.
One of the possible problems that may result from EMU is that Member States are less able to cope with national upsets, in other words shocks which affect one country and not the others.
Exchange rates will no longer be an option, and the capacity of the budgets to act as shock absorbers will be restricted by the stability pact.
A positive instrument which could help Member States out of an unexpected recession would certainly be very useful, and there is no reason to fear that Member States would be less disciplined if such an instrument were available.
It must be approved unanimously by the Council; there are strict conditions attached, and all the costs are borne by the beneficiary country.
A further factor is that the stability pact, which expects governments to have healthy finances that can cope with less serious national upsets involving less than a 2 % reduction in the economy, is likely to make things worse rather than better for the Member States concerned, since they then face payment of a fine or a deposit.
Mr Zalm, the President of the ECOFIN Council, compared the stability pact to an atom bomb which is there as a deterrent rather than to be used.
Or as President Santer said, it is like a pre-nuptial contract: never intended to be implemented.
That being so, an instrument which served the same purpose but could actually be used would be extremely valuable.
I would therefore call on the Commission to undertake to develop a proposal under Article 103a(2) and to forward it to Parliament and the Council.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, will it be necessary to extend the financial support facility for balances of payments beyond the date set for the entry into monetary union? As Mr Metten has said quite rightly, as far as the first years are concerned in any case - the years during which not all Member States will be members of the monetary union - this facility may still be of some use.
However I will make a distinction, which Mr Metten did not make, which consists in putting on the same footing those countries which would like to join the monetary union, but are not in a condition to do so at present, and those countries which are in a condition to belong but refuse to do so.
It is obvious that if one wishes to encourage Member States to remain outside the monetary union, it will, of course, be necessary to apply advantageous conditions of the aforementioned facility to them.
That is not, I think, the vision we have.
I do not think it is the vision of Mr Metten either, because it is in all our interests that the extent of the internal market should coincide with the territory of monetary union.
From that time, we are not going to give those who fulfil the conditions and who do not wish to join - essentially for political reasons - the additional gift of saying that they will benefit from our solidarity if they have any problems.
We are neither masochists nor sadists, but we must at least keep our feet on the ground.
If we create a structure together in which we would like everybody to participate, we are not going to encourage those who remain outside it to remain outside it!
Personally, I am not going to follow Mr Metten down that path.
The other question which arises is this: will it be necessary, as Mr Metten suggests, to design a facility of this kind and maintain it when monetary union is complete and everyone belongs to it? Indeed, he says, there will still be situations in which Member States suffer shocks which will require that they are helped out.
That is a case which will become very limited.
Why?
Because, when you have a large market, a single currency and, in addition, not only criteria of convergence but also stability pacts, it is obvious that most of the shocks which will continue to occur will be shocks from outside.
Internal shocks will be reduced, it seems to me, to very little.
They will be accidents which may result either from natural disasters, or from political disasters such as prolonged general strike.
It is permissable to imagine similar situations, but in this case, the appropriate technique does not seem to be that which Mr Metten suggests.
That is why I am expressing reservations on the final part of his exposé, and I wonder if it is necessary to imagine, on the basis of Article 103, paragraph 2, a facility similar to the current facility, but intended to sort out the problems of budgetary adjustment of Member States.
I do not think so.
I think that, to confront this situation, it is more sensible to play with the few elements of flexibility which exist in the stability pact because, according to his analysis, Mr Metten records that as being among the problems which will have an influence on budgetary balance.
Now, as regards problems of budgetary balance, it is not a facility intended for the balance of payments which should be used: it is another facility.
And I am quite ready to support the idea that something should perhaps be planned.
Whatever happens, we have plenty of time because this problem will not arise until after the year 2000.
Mr President, the report by Mr Metten brings a most serious issue to the forefront of our discussions: the stabilization of the European economy during and after the introduction of the single currency.
Although stabilization is an important aspect of economic policy in the contemporary economy and in the control of finances, very little is said on the subject at the official level.
So we should be grateful to Mr Metten for his very important contribution and for endeavouring to draw our attention to the subject.
You will all be aware, ladies and gentlemen, that currency stability is a prerequisite for participation in the exchange rate mechanism and, of course, for participation afterwards in the single currency venture.
Although at this moment the mechanism allows fluctuations of up to 15 % from the central parity, it is accepted that the countries which are hoping to move to the euro are striving, unofficially, to maintain much more stringent parities, and already some of them have begun to face balance of payments problems and tensions.
The crucial thing that should be borne in mind now is that it cannot be excluded that those difficulties may become worse when the sheep are separated from the goats, that is to say when the countries which join the euro are separated from those which stay out.
That will be the tricky time, and at that time the stabilization mechanisms must be strengthened and not removed. We must not follow the Treaty and terminate a stabilization mechanism which could be important for those who stay out.
Stabilization problems will continue to exist within the euro system as well, because that system will be composed of economies with varying productivity levels, and it is common knowledge that the existence of such disparities in productivity levels can lead to internal shocks which it will be possible to counter only by budgetary measures in the federated states.
Mr Metten's proposals are flexible on this point.
They use whatever is in the Treaty and I feel that they deserve our support.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group I want to note the elements of agreement and disagreement with the emphasis placed by Mr Metten in his analysis.
Firstly, in the area of agreement, we share the rapporteur's view that this balance of payments facility should continue beyond the establishment of the Euro in Stage III, but only for those states that are in a pre-in condition.
I agree with Mr Herman.
We have got to look seriously at what we owe in the way of solidarity to those who could qualify but clearly choose politically to stay out.
We do not owe them solidarity. They do not show us solidarity.
But in so far as Mr Metten agrees on this and suggests it should continue for pre-ins, I accept that because that is what the Treaty says.
Article 109k(6) provides for precisely such a possibility.
However, when Mr Metten, by the back door - and that is what this is - recycles a balance of payment facility into some kind of a stability pact accelerator/decelerator model to deal with cycles in the economy, I have a problem.
I do not like dealing with so serious an issue through the back door.
The difficulty is that it is a back door mechanism because the balance of payments facility for those states inside the Euro is clearly provided for; in the Euro it will cease to exist.
Why?
Because the balance of payments constraint and problems will cease to exist.
That is perfectly logical.
So if we want to have a discussion about how we conduct a balanced economic programme to cover various exigencies as they arise, let us have it up front and openly.
I do not like the back door.
I take note of the novel, innovative suggestion of the rapporteur, but I do not support it through the back door.
Mr President, very briefly I would simply like to register the complete agreement of my group with respect to the proposals made by Mr Metten as regards both, on the one hand, the maintenance of the current support facility for balances of payments for the benefit of States which will be unable to join the economic and monetary union from 1 January 1999, and, on the other, the creation of a community loan instrument which would make it possible to contribute in a slightly more flexible way to the absorption of macroeconomic shocks which could occur once the third phase comes into effect.
Indeed, we think that it is essential to complete the monetary instruments and add to them other instruments for economic guidance.
We still do not know if there will be a pilot in the cockpit during the years to come - we do not know today - but at least, with Mr Metten's proposal, we are assured that there will already be a first control lever.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the Commission document and Mr Metten's report look in detail at the question of whether the balance of payments facility should continue after the start of EMU, and the rapporteur is rightly concerned about how Member States which have joined the EMU will cope with national upsets.
And what do we mean by national upsets? Natural disasters, mismanagement in a particular economic sector or, in more general terms, an economic crisis in a sector which is vital to the Member State concerned.
He concludes that the defence mechanisms against national upsets come under pressure from EMU, but he is reassured by the fact that Member States will probably be slightly less susceptible to such upsets anyway.
That is still unconfirmed speculation.
Of the examples I gave, it is difficult to see why those types of sectors should be any less susceptible.
The problem is that EMU has no automatic stabilizers.
The stability pact will continue to have a destabilizing effect as long as there is no budgetary equilibrium, since Member States with large deficits are required to pay substantial fines.
Little help can also be expected from the ECB, whose primary objective is price stability.
That is all well and good, but national upsets are almost certain to bring higher unemployment and higher interest rates.
I would remind the House of what the Bundesbank did after the monetary union between East and West Germany.
To avoid the risk of inflation, it simply cut off the money supply.
Inflation was stifled, but interest rates and unemployment soared at the beginning of the 1990s.
In the period between November 1991 and March 1995, there were ten occasions on which a Member State had to devalue its own currency because it appeared too high against the German mark.
Basic economics indicated that this was the right thing to do, and you have to listen to basic economics.
That is the strength of exchange rates: they can prevent unemployment and migration by cutting their coat according to their cloth.
Balance of payments assistance is an artificial device which may help efforts in the short term, but cannot offer a structural solution if that is what is required.
The problem we are facing is not an economic, but a political one.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two points I should like to make.
Firstly, the state of a country's balance of payments is one of the fundamental factors which determines the value of its currency.
If we are soon to enter the third stage with some of the Member States in and some out, or out for the time being, then it seems logical that the existing balance of payments support facility should remain in place, if only to help those countries whose balance of payments could, as Mr Katiforis said, come under even greater pressure once the single currency is launched, to show solidarity with them and to help them towards convergence.
Secondly, the road to convergence, Commissioner - and this is not intended as a criticism, it is simply a statement of fact - has a number of deflationary effects.
I can see this in my own country, which has been making tremendous efforts to achieve convergence over the last few years.
I have always been in favour of making these efforts, but they have tended to cause deflation.
In other words, there is a price to pay.
I think that Mr Metten has come up with a very important idea, that Community loans should be granted not to help countries cope with national upsets, Mr Herman, but to deal with collective shocks as part of an anti-cyclical policy that may yet need to be introduced.
So it could be vital for the Commission actually to expand the Community loans facility, and I would urge the Commissioner to act on this.
The Treaty makes provision for it, and I think it could become an important addition to the traditional methods used in monetary policy.
Mr President, the facility we are discussing today has proved its worth on eight occasions since 1974, four times for Italy.
The assistance provided makes the markets more confident that a particular country can improve its financial situation.
The PPE Group therefore agrees with the Commission that it is likely to continue to play a useful role during the transition to the third stage of EMU, when balance of payments problems could still occur despite the progress made towards meeting the convergence criteria and the continued integration of the markets.
It could even continue to be useful for those countries which are unable to join EMU in 1999, the pre-ins and the new members.
For the countries which have opted out, the facility should be available only until they meet the criteria: beyond that point, our solidarity with them should extend as far as their solidarity with the rest.
However, the PPE Group feels that the facility should not be available for Member States which join the EMU, since it will not encourage the necessary discipline and stability, and will undermine the stability pact agreed last year in Dublin.
That is why we have tabled an amendment to Mr Metten's report, which we have toned down in the hope of reaching a compromise, so that the facility is not an alternative to the stability pact, but merely offers a basic level of support.
The fact that having a financial assistance facility for EMU countries is neither necessary nor desirable is also clear from the fact that the stability pact itself makes an exception for countries with excessive deficits caused by exceptional and temporary problems, such as an unusual event beyond the control of the Member State which has a very negative effect on its financial position, or a very serious economic downturn.
In both cases, the national governments can concentrate on reviving their economies, without having to worry about sanctions being imposed under the stability pact.
In conclusion, my group would urge the Commission to consider, when it makes its new assessment of the facility, what provision the stability pact also makes for the EMU countries.
The facility cannot be an alternative to the pact, nor should it really be able to provide assistance for countries in difficulty, since this is already provided for in the pact.
The PPE Group therefore intends, as Mr Herman said, to vote for the resolution, but only in order to support the Commission, and we leave Mr Metten to be responsible for the substance of the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Metten's report, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the facility providing medium-term financial assistance for Member States' balances of payments, justly highlights the usefulness of this loan facility.
Your rapporteur raises two different questions, which the debate has really brought to light.
The first question relates to the maintenance, for the 'outs' - the Treaty's euphemistic name for those who will not be in the Euro area at 1 January 1999 - anyway, the maintenance, for the 'outs', of the instrument of assistance for balances of payments provided for in Article 109 H after EMU has come into effect; the second question relates to the implementation of financial assistance provided for by Article 103 A, paragraph 2, for a Euro State which is in difficulties.
Very quickly, I will make a distinction between these two elements.
Regarding the maintenance of the current instrument, the Commission - and you must grant me this - can only go by the Treaty.
Now, in accordance with Article 109 K, paragraph 6, of the Treaty on the European Union, the Commission recalls the fact that the 'outs' will continue to benefit from this financial support facility for balances of payments provided for by Article 109 H. In 1998, the Commission will, therefore, proceed to re-examine the current facility.
To do so, we will have to wait until decisions on the passage to the third phase have been taken and the names of the countries who will participate in it are known.
This will be done at the end of April/beginning of May 1998.
We will have the chance to talk about it, I think, in a little while in the Committee on Monetary Affairs.
So what the Commission will have to do will be to check whether the regulation currently in force, that of 24 July 1988, still applies, and secondly, whether the line of 14 million Ecus, let us call them Euros, written into the Community budget is still appropriate.
As you wish me to, I can assure you that the Commission will inform your Assembly of its work as soon as possible, after it has carried out and concluded its thinking on this.
The second problem is that of financial assistance for a State within the EMU.
Mr Metten's proposal calls up two comments from the Commission.
Firstly, Article 103 A, paragraph 2, pursues a different objective to that of Article 109 H. Indeed, it institutes an exceptional facility which should permit a Member State which is, I quote the Treaty: ' in difficulties or is seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by exceptional occurrences beyond its control' to confront them.
It cannot, therefore, be linked to the stability and growth pact.
This pact is permanently in application and I will remind you that, by its preventive aspects, it aims to give Member States budgetary room for manoeuvre which is sufficient to confront difficulties which are not of an exceptional nature.
The second comment is that Article 103 A, paragraph 2, was not created to respond to balance of payments crises, but to really exceptional events, for example earthquakes, tidal waves, or comets which might crash into Member States, the list is not exhaustive, of course.
However, on the occasion of next year's review of this loan facility for balances of payments, the Commission, with the Council and Parliament, will look at how to implement the provisions of Article 103 A, paragraph 2.
I cannot give you any solutions today.
I can, however, tell you that on that occasion we will have to examine four questions.
The first question concerns the appropriateness of a Community regulation to respond to events of an exceptional nature.
Would it not be more appropriate to give the Council the ability to make decisions on a case by case basis?
The second question relates to the definition of instruments covered by Article 103 A, paragraph 2.
They are not solely concerned with loans.
The notion of Community financial assistance - that is the Treaty's expression - does not, indeed, exclude genuine budgetary interventions.
The third question concerns the regulation of application of Article 103 A, paragraph 2.
The fourth question, and I can assure you I will stop here, concerns the possible means of financing of this financial assistance.
These have to be defined.
In conclusion, because I do not want to prolong the debate on this point, I am anxious, Mr President, to thank you and thank the Parliament for its suggestion, which opens a first track for the application of Article 103 A, paragraph 2 once the third phase on economic and monetary union has come into effect.
I can assure you that the Commission will not fail to make the most of this facility when it re-examines it next year, and that we will have the chance to talk about it again.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Competitiveness of European industry
The next item is the report (A4-0113/97) by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission (COM(96)0463 - C4-0622/96) on benchmarking the competitiveness of European industry and the Commission Staff Working Paper concerning a European Quality Promotion Policy for Improving European Competitiveness.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the Commission Communication to Parliament and the report I have the honour of presenting to you have an obvious point of departure: European industry is currently less competitive than American industry and Japanese industry.
As proof of this statement, the Commission Communication presents the loss of market share that European industry is suffering, especially in the emerging markets - the most vigorous markets - while our main competitors, America and Japan, are maintaining their position.
The Commission Communication seeks the reason for this loss of competitiveness. And to find that reason it uses the technique of comparison - or benchmarking - between European industry and its competitors.
Benchmarking can be applied at various levels: it can be used to compare systems, framework conditions, and structural factors which are the responsibility of the public authorities; it can be use to test the efficiency of industry as a whole, or some of its sectors or subsectors; and finally some - or all - of the companies that compose them.
Although all these levels of comparison must concern them, it is obvious that this Parliament and the public institutions should concentrate their analysis on the framework conditions, the responsibility of the public authorities.
And to complete what may be called this 'methodological' or 'introductory' stage, I would say that the Commission starts from the sensible position that competitiveness is not an end in itself, but a means of obtaining better living standards and higher levels of welfare.
And this line of thought, which coincides with what may be called 'revived capitalism' , seeks to define standards of living by using criteria which are non-quantifiable and nonmeasurable, but which have an incidence on the welfare of the citizens.
Sustainable development is one of these and has been emphasized by various groups.
The points the committee had to examine, and which this report centres on, basically cover four areas: services and infrastructure, as they affect competitiveness; the labour market, social legislation and training of workers; capital markets; and finally, the position of research and development in European industry, by comparison with its competitors.
As regards services, there are three basic findings: the purchase of services absorbs 20 % of the profit and loss account of European industrial companies; European services, which affect competitiveness, are dearer than services in the United States and Japan; thirdly, there are sectors protected from competition and therefore less efficient.
And starting from these statements - which I agree with - two measures are advocated: liberalization of services - acceleration of the processes of liberalization already in progress - and opening up to competition - the opening up of those markets in service sectors that are still protected.
In terms of infrastructure, there are two findings in the report: first, that the infrastructure stock, obviously, affects the competitiveness of industry and, secondly that it is desirable to reduce the imbalances between the various regions of the Union to promote their competitiveness and access to the favoured areas.
Starting from these findings, the report and the Communication it deals with come out in favour of benchmarking between our levels of investment and American levels of investment, of seeking formulae for cooperation and collaboration between the public sector and the private sector to finance investment in these difficult times and, thirdly, of encouraging all Union institutions to reduce differences in infrastructure between the various regions, making the principles of cohesion and solidarity effective.
There is just one finding about the labour market: our rates of employment and productivity are lower than those of our competitors and this translates into our lesser capacity to create jobs.
So the stress must be on active measures of training and mobility rather than passive measures geared to mitigate the consequences of unemployment: a review of taxation on earned income which act as a brake on entry into the labour market, especially in the lower bands; the idea that stability and flexibility are not opposing concepts; and, finally, greater recognition of workers' qualifications to make the free movement of workers effective, one of the remedies for coping with the crises of imbalance we were talking about just now.
I end by mentioning the capital market: the restrictions in this market - basically on mortgages, pension funds, etc. must be brought to an end.
And an observation on R+D: our rate is lower than the American rate, the private sector effort is lower here and the American technique of tax incentives achieves better results than the aid we use here.
Thanks to all those who tabled amendments, almost all of which I have accepted, and to the committees which have worked on this report. I believe it can be of use to the Commission in pursuing a technique which we would like to see encouraged at all levels.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, benchmarking is set in the context of both the drive for competitiveness and the pursuit of a new model of sustainable development which is more in keeping with the times.
And in this respect, it should be clearly borne in mind that while determining the level of competitiveness is a market method for gauging efficiency, the economical use of resources and the sure achievement of goals, it is only an indirect method.
In other words, we must not fall into the neoliberal trap of believing that market indicators are the be-all and end-all, and that the most reliable expression of competitiveness is permanent export surpluses.
On the contrary, there must be mutual benefits, as I am sure Mr Bangemann will agree.
A world in which everyone has permanent export surpluses is impossible.
It is therefore a question of countries benefiting each other in the long term, and in this sense, the drive for competitiveness without cooperation is misconceived.
It is important to apply the same criteria to public services and the production of public goods, since they also require the economical use of resources and the sure achievement of goals.
And it is important too for the modern techniques of quality management to be more widely applied.
If we regard benchmarking not as the illusory replacement of policies with self-management of the economy, but rather as a methodical attempt to achieve qualitative goals by means of organized action, then we can begin to refer back productively to the Delors White Paper - in which the two sides of the argument were still unbalanced - and actually use benchmarking to achieve the methodical renewal of policies.
In this sense, Mrs Schörling, on behalf of whom I am speaking, is calling for the adoption of a benchmarking method for employment and environmental policies as well as for sectors of industry, with the aim of speeding up the monitoring and diffusion of best policies and practices that reinforce sustainable development.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his report and also the Commission for its proposals.
This is a report which is of genuine interest to a lot of the small and medium-sized enterprises throughout Europe and certainly to smaller companies in the area I have the privilege to represent - towns like Wolverhampton, Dudley or Halesowen in the industrial West Midlands.
I must stress that for this process to be successful it must be inclusive.
We must involve all the interested parties.
If people feel threatened by the process, it simply will not work: we need to involve everybody in a partnership.
If we do that then benchmarking can be a real opportunity for us to increase the competitivity of our businesses, increase profits in our businesses and, most of all, increase the job creation potential of our businesses.
I should just like to draw attention to three or four key paragraphs.
Firstly, as paragraph 5 states, it is important that we look at specific mechanisms to help our small companies make the most of benchmarking.
Secondly, I should like to see the Commission give us some information as to why certain sectors of European industry actually outperform their counterparts in America and Japan.
We ought to look at our own successes and learn from them and, similarly, learn from the successful cases of countries in Europe which have lower unemployment rates compared to our main competitors, Japan and America.
It is also important that Parliament itself be involved with the tripartite visits which the Commission organizes to America and Japan to look at benchmarking to see what we can learn from other countries.
I hope the Commission would accept that as a positive development.
Finally, in Paragraph 14, Parliament calls for the Commission to look at the quality of our managerial skills in Europe.
Much of the time it is not the fault of the workers but the weakness of our management structures.
We need to look at that and here benchmarking would be very useful.
If we look at this as a partnership approach involving all the social partners, it will be successful and will be a positive asset to us in our ability to create a competitive Europe.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, the report on the promotion of benchmarking - for which I would prefer it if we spoke, in correct French, about location and standardisation of performance - has the support of our group.
We consider that the Commission's document is heading in the right direction when it stresses the three possible levels to the subject, that is, level of performance in relation to framework conditions which should permit the evaluation of the capability of Europe to attract as a production zone because of costs, infrastructure, skills and innovation, that of sectors of activity which should permit the measurement of European industry's capability to adapt to globalisation and, finally, the level of businesses, which comes under their own responsibility but for which Community action could be useful to SMEs and could contribute to harmonisation of the methods employed.
All the same, it is advisedly that the Commission proposes, on the basis of a partnership between industry and the Member States, the establishment of a work programme for 1997 from pilot projects intended to test the validity and the feasibility of the application of benchmarking at the level of the European Union.
Our group gives a favourable welcome to the quality report of Mr Garcia-Margallo y Marfil, as to all initiatives aiming to improve the competitiveness of European industry.
However, we consider, for our part, that such an activity should continue to be principally the responsibility of the private sector as far as industry is concerned and that it should be approached with caution at the level of the framework conditions.
Indeed, we would have a few reservations about the benchmarking of framework conditions if the consequence of it was that matters which are essentially matters for subsidiarity were analysed at Community level, that is, the competence of Member States, such as the organisation of public bodies in their relations with industry, as is the case with energy policy for example.
We also think that it is difficult to make a useful comparison of macro-economic factors without taking account of the individual environmental, economic, social and cultural policy of each State.
We also think that it would be more sensible rather to give greater importance to the benchmarking of the industrial sectors, and we think that there is everything to congratulate, in this respect, in the work undertaken by the Dutch President in the electronics sector.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
He is right to say that we can only maintain our social model and thus our standard of living if we can rely on an industrial sector that is in a position to compete.
I would remind you that the European Round Table of Industrialists has been trying its best for over three years now to put the competitiveness of the European economy on the political agenda, and the interaction between competitiveness, employment and growth was explained in the Delors White Paper.
I am also delighted that the Dutch presidency is making benchmarking one of its priorities.
Benchmarking employment is probably the most urgent task currently facing Europe and our national governments.
Conditions will have to be made much more favourable if our economy is to become more competitive, and I think we have a good deal to learn here from the United States or even, closer to home, the Netherlands, both of which have managed to expand their economies and create jobs.
Government at all levels must constantly test out the business climate and policy in the countries with the best performance and then take whatever steps are necessary, such as making the labour market more flexible, liberalizing government services, investing in human resources, promoting research, and developing and pursuing a quality-led policy.
Only then can we hope to bring about lasting improvements in the competitiveness of our industrial sector and, in the long term, our standard of living.
The Liberals support the Commission's plan to put forward a benchmarking programme, in close consultation with the industrial sector and the Member States, in order to monitor progress in key areas.
I would also point out, however, that the SMEs must not be forgotten here.
Finally, we are also looking forward to having the results of the pilot projects that the Commission has launched, which the Industry Ministers are to examine on 24 April.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to say at the outset that I am in favour of benchmarking and that I shall be voting for the report.
I say that because I would like to avoid wasting time on praise and instead make a few critical observations, having made my position clear on the main point.
The first thing that I want to say on this matter, Mr President, is that it is essential to make a clear distinction between means and ends.
We can compare means, but it is not always easy, and perhaps not desirable either, to compare ends.
The report says that gross domestic product is not a good measure of prosperity.
That is very true.
But gross domestic product is an end rather than a means, and it is not easy to fit it into the benchmarking framework.
Then there is the attractive 'undertaking-economy' example.
Namely, that because benchmarking works well for companies we can transfer it to the economy in general.
Things are not that simple, because two companies of the same type have the same 'objective function' .
It does not follow that two economies have the same objective function, and what constitutes the objective function of an economy is in itself a very big question.
The factor that maximizes the objective function in the one case cannot necessarily be said to maximize the objective function in the other.
One could go to Brazil, for instance, and see canals which are open sewers right by the side of aristocratic neighbourhoods.
I do not know if the Dutch would like the canals of Amsterdam to become open sewers for the sake of competitiveness.
Lastly, Mr President, the strength of competitiveness does not lie in sameness.
When we do benchmarking we necessarily compare the same things; otherwise the exercise makes no sense.
But the strength of competitiveness is not found in sameness, but rather in difference.
It lies in innovation, and as far as that is concerned nothing can help us.
No research into how others do it is going to give us innovative ideas so that we can do something different and thus gain an advantage.
So benchmarking does have a place, but only when closely applied to an undertaking, at the sectoral level and with very great caution, and not to the economy in general.
Mr President, the Commission's communication on the competitiveness of European industry prompts me to make a number of comments.
I welcome the attempt to analyze the parameters for industrial competitiveness in a rational, scientific way, and I agree with the rapporteur on the need to maintain a strong production apparatus in Europe and to eliminate inefficiency and waste, while preserving the essential protection which has been achieved for the weakest members of society.
I should like to dwell briefly on a second point which is of great concern to me, namely the relationship between technology and industrial competitiveness, to which it should somehow be possible to apply benchmarking.
It seems to me that industries and services are no longer high or low-tech nowadays.
As well as boosting productivity and - regrettably - sometimes replacing manual work, technology can improve the quality of a product or service, and therefore creates added value and, in the long term, new job opportunities.
I believe that more should be done to utilize public research to increase industrial competitiveness, and I wonder whether benchmarking could be taken further in this area.
On the one hand, we must continue investing in basic research, without which we would lose out in the future; on the other, greater synergy is needed between expenditure applied to the Member States' research institutes and research programmes carried out by the Union and industry.
It seems to me that the fifth framework programme is designed along these lines, but I think that a further appraisal, based on the criteria proposed in this communication, would be useful for studying and evaluating other measures in terms of taxation, job motivation and mobility, with a view to improving the link between technology and industrial competitiveness.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, Commissioner, one thing is certain: to improve our economic performance and therefore have the chance to reduce unemployment, we must have competitive economies and businesses.
Who disagrees?
One other thing is also as certain: it is necessary to have the means to measure this competitiveness and to act upon its causes and on any hindrances to it.
So I have nothing against the standardisation of performance as a tool, nor anything against comparisons for the purpose of choosing the best solution.
All the same, does it really have to be the case that along the way it is exploited for the purpose of issuing us once again with all the old recipes for the liberal economy and to put the blame for all our difficulties at the door of too little liberalism: public deficit, State aid, flexibility, labour cost, etc. I will end the litany there.
Of course Commissioner, I do not think so, as you know!
And like many of my colleagues here, I would say that competitiveness is not an end in itself.
The end in itself is the reduction in unemployment, services rendered to the public, social cohesion, a better lifestyle for the majority and, of course, for there to be no increase in unemployment, even when the objective announced is the improvement of productivity.
Greater solidarity is needed therefore, particularly financial and fiscal solidarity, and if benchmarking has any use as a management tool, it should perhaps also be applied to the comparison and standardisation of the policies of the fifteen Member States in the domain of employment, with the prospect of a genuine partnership of these States.
In conclusion, Mr President, economic science certainly does need tools - and I approve of them - but take care lest the tool replaces the objective: it is the objective which should be reached using the tool, and if that is not the case harmonisation will always be downwards, and with that we return to the previous debate of the economic situation of the Union.
Mr President, I should firstly like to thank the rapporteur and all those Members who have taken part in this debate, since although the word benchmarking may not at first appear to be particularly meaningful, if we succeed in developing a method for determining why certain undertakings are successful in creating jobs and thereby combating unemployment, it will be an important step forward.
That is the background for our communication, and we are pleased that the Dutch presidency took up this idea immediately.
What is benchmarking? It is not, of course, a scientific or economic end in itself.
It is a method of acquiring certain information.
And it is a method which has the advantage of enabling us to avoid the kind of ideological disputes that Mr Caudron always likes to start with me, and simply concern ourselves with practical examples of things that other countries do better than us.
Clearly, there are differences in results - within the Union, between the Union and the Member States, and in relation to third countries - and we wish to start by analysing those differences at three levels.
Firstly, at the level of undertakings.
First and foremost, of course, small and medium-sized enterprises must be included, and both sides of industry - not just management - will take part in all these deliberations.
That can be a very great help.
Some undertakings have struck better deals than others with their workforce or with the unions, for instance on flexible working hours.
They are more productive and therefore even able to give job guarantees.
For example, the chemical industry in Germany has agreed certain rules on working hours with the unions. Because of these agreements, it has been able to pledge that there will be no more operational redundancies before the year 2000.
So if benchmarking is used properly, it can contribute to the achievement of goals that we presumably all share.
Secondly, we wish to analyse the differences at the level of industrial sectors.
We have already done this in the past, moreover, when considering what policies should be pursued for the car industry in the internal market.
In doing so, one of the most important questions was: is the car industry still competitive?
What do we have to do to make it more competitive? We first examined this in relation to other automobile industries.
We issued communications and drew up recommendations aimed at ending the protection of the industry from foreign competition by means of quotas.
Because the fact is that protectionism - I am sorry to have to tell Mr Caudron, although free trade is a Liberal concept - merely leads to the protected industry becoming weaker and less competitive, so that it has to confine itself to its home market. And if that market is one day opened up, the industry can no longer compete with its rivals.
That was already happening.
As I have already mentioned, we are currently benchmarking the chemical industry - moreover with the aim of improving the skill levels of the workforce, so that if workers remain in the industry they will be more productive, and if their new skills help them to find another job, they will improve their future prospects.
And, thirdly, we wish to analyse the differences at the level of political systems, both within and outside the Union.
Certain Member States - Ireland, for instance - are performing brilliantly.
Ireland is on the periphery of the European Union, but because of its close economic links with the other Member States, it is now performing excellently.
Why is Ireland performing better than a great many of the larger Member States? Germany has already been mentioned.
We should give this some careful thought.
If, for example, a large industrialized country invests money in industries that are clearly no longer competitive, Mr Caudron, I cannot help it...
(Heckling from Mr Samland) I was thinking of the coal industry, Mr Samland, but we can also take the example of agriculture - and perhaps you should reflect on whether your amendments to the Commission's proposals are always in keeping with what you are clearly thinking at the moment.
I sometimes think they are not, but that is something we can discuss.
So if funds are not used well, if - Mr Caudron - black holes are allowed to appear in budgets because state-owned industries are making enormous losses, then we should not be surprised if the money is not available for creating sustainable jobs.
That is a simple fact.
It has nothing to do with ideology.
If you or I, or we together, throw our money down the drain, it cannot be used for sensible purposes.
That is what benchmarking is.
It is not an end in itself, but a tool for achieving goals in the interests of combating unemployment.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Driving licences
The next item is consideration of the second submission (A4-0087/97) from the Committee on Transport and Tourism regarding the Council's directive on amendment of the directive 91/439/EEC on driving licences (C4-0011/97-96/0040(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Farassino).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the second reading of the directive to define a system of harmonized codes for the particulars to be included in the Community model driving licence issued by the Member States.
We have discussed this proposal and the whole question of the driving licence at great length, perhaps even a little too much so.
Parliament adopted its opinion at first reading on 5 September 1996, calling amongst other things for the extension of mutual recognition by Member States to include provisions governing the suspension and withdrawal of a driving licence following an offence committed in a Member State other than the one which issued it, as well as the creation of an advisory committee to assist the Commission.
Of the eight amendments adopted by an overwhelming majority in the House, only two have been taken up by the Council: Amendment No 1, which adds a reference to subcodes to the text; the part of Amendment No 5 providing for harmonized codes 02 for hearing aids and 03 for mobility aids, so as to clarify these particulars, with the addition to codes 70 and 71 of a reference to the EC/UN symbols for third countries; and the part of Amendment No 5 concerning the addition of a code 79 to govern the equivalence between categories of licences issued before the entry into force of Directive 91/439/EEC on 1 July 1996 and the categories specified in Article 3 of that directive.
In addition, the Council has amended the Commission's proposal by making provision for the setting-up of a regulatory committee, to be known as the committee on driving licences, an amendment which the Committee on Transport has accepted.
I must say that I am not at all satisfied with the conduct of the Commission and the Council, which rejected the bulk of our amendments - very important amendments which had been agreed with the representatives of all the political groups in Parliament, in other words with the clear backing of my colleagues and the other groups as well.
On behalf of the Committee on Transport, I basically decided to retable the two main amendments contained in my report which, as I said a moment ago, had already been approved at first reading in the House, seeking to extend the principle of mutual recognition of driving licences by Member States to include their suspension or withdrawal; indeed, it seems quite natural to me that if someone commits a serious offence against the law or human rights or a country's cultural heritage or anything else in one Member State, then that crime should be recognized in another, and the decision of the competent authority in the Member State where the offence was committed should have legal effect throughout the European Union.
That strikes me as common sense.
All I can do, since the Council justifies its rejection of these amendments on the grounds that this question falls under the third pillar, is to repeat that I am firmly convinced - as a matter of principle - of the importance of harmonizing the circumstances for suspension or withdrawal of a licence at European level.
I believe that this is a key element if the free movement of persons within the internal market is to become a reality.
Moreover, I am encouraged by Parliament's recommendation for second reading. All I can do, therefore, is recommend that the House should stand by the position which it adopted at first reading and hope that the Commission and the Council will review their position and accept these amendments.
Mr President, obviously we welcome this report because it serves to harmonize driving licences and develop a system of codes which can be easily understood by all authorities throughout the EU.
It is a positive step towards eliminating difficulties with translation and communication between drivers and various authorities and it will take the 'aggro' out of many incidents.
It will also create more problem-free driving, and we hope that will happen Europe-wide.
In order to make this directive as effective as possible it is crucial that mutual recognition should also be extended - and this is important - to cases where licences have been suspended or withdrawn.
We now have the absurd situation where, for example, a driver from Italy touring the UK might be responsible for a serious accident.
He is then prosecuted and banned from driving in the UK for ten years or even for life.
But he can return to Rome, get into his car in the airport carpark and drive away as if nothing at all had happened.
This is totally unacceptable in the European Union.
Therefore, it seems logical that Parliament should support the two amendments which I have retabled from first reading.
These insist that mutual recognition should be extended to bans on driving also.
This is a logical step and one which all of us should accept as a matter of course.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Farassino for the work that he has put into his report.
The proposed Directive before us on which we must take a decision is concerned with establishing a list of categories which can be included on a Community type driving licence.
This could give information on whether the driver wears glasses for example, or the restrictions placed on a handicapped driver, or if a driver may only drive under certain conditions for medical reasons.
It could also give information on any technical changes to a car which are required in order that the holder of the licence may drive, for example reconstruction of the gear box, clutch, brakes or accelerator, an adapted control unit or other restrictions which a vehicle may have.
The proposal aims to bring about a necessary and important harmonisation.
Of course it would be a great advantage if we could have the same rules for this in all the EU Member States and by so doing make it possible to recognise a driving licence regardless of which country the driver is in and the language in which the driving licence has been issued.
This is of particular importance as people travel across ever more borders and more frequently drive in countries other than the country in which they themselves live.
These measures may seem small but they are still important to our common goal of mobility within the internal market.
But we in the PPE group feel that the rapporteur has gone one step too far in wanting to delve into the area of criminal law as well.
For this reason the PPE group will vote against the amendment proposals which have been put forward.
We do this in accordance with the position we have adopted on this throughout the work.
But we do accept the common position which is under consideration now.
The rapporteur has, in my view, made two mistakes: firstly he wants to make an addendum which in my view really has nothing to do with the core issue.
If we want EU Member States to have common rules for withdrawing driving licences, a perfectly legitimate point of view, we must work towards putting forward a proposal for this.
Simply to add a short addendum is scarcely to be recommended.
Co-operation in the area of criminal law is not that easy.
I think that such a proposal should be considered very carefully.
So it is good that the Council has rejected the proposal in this section, and it is sensible to vote against those of the rapporteur's amendment proposals concerning this matter.
The second mistake which I think that the rapporteur has made concerns the subject matter itself, i.e. do we really want the same rules governing the withdrawal of driving licences in the EU. As I see it, we members must one day all sit down and think about what we want to use the democratic tool of the EU for.
As members of the European Parliament it is easy to rush all over the place and propose many things for the EU to get involved in.
But we must also ask ourselves if this a desirable development. My vision is that the EU should concern itself with a limited number of extremely important issues.
We often talk about subsidiarity.
This word should be writ large on our notebooks every day.
This subject in my view is no exception.
We must make a distinction between those things which ought to be determined by the EU and those things which should be determined by the countries themselves.
Imposing punishment is something which should be the task of the individual Member States and is really not something which the EU should get involved in.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his report, which is all about common rules.
I am extremely disappointed in the Council and, I have to say, in the Commissioner himself.
Perhaps he can tell us why the Council has come up with such an incomprehensible position, claiming that sanctions come under the third pillar and therefore cannot possibly be used here.
The Commission has put forward a proposal to introduce a Community driving licence - which was what my and Commissioner Bangemann's old mentor, the late Cornelis Berkhouwer, always wanted - and now when we have come this far and are ready to introduce it across the Community, there are suddenly objections that if it is a licence from which points are deducted, it cannot be used on a Union-wide basis.
It makes no sense at all, and I hope the Commission can give us an explanation.
Mr President, the Council decided in September 1996 that Directive 91/439/EEC on driving licences, already amended in 1994 to include a temporary derogation for Finland and Sweden, should be further amended.
It is worth noting that the Committee on Legal Affairs decided in June 1996 not to deliver an opinion.
We are now on the home straight, having come to the recommendation for second reading.
In my opinion, Mr Farassino has done a good job in achieving part of the intended objective, especially since some of the proposed amendments - though not all of them - have been accepted: at least there is a system of harmonized codes for the particulars to be included in the driving licence, such as the compulsory wearing of spectacles and the adaptation of vehicles for disabled drivers.
I should like at this point, however, to ask the Council and the Commission what has become of an amendment tabled by the Alleanza nazionale concerning driving licences for persons with mild diabetes.
That amendment should be accepted.
It makes sense to me that Parliament should wish to extend mutual recognition by the Member States to include provisions for the suspension and withdrawal of driving licences, a proposal which the Council has taken on board, moreover, in announcing the setting-up of a European committee, to be known as the committee on driving licences, whose task will be to harmonize an approach to safe driving in the various Member States.
Mutual recognition of driving penalties constitutes a vital element if the free movement of persons within the common market is to become a reality.
Mr President, a driving licence entitles the holder to move freely in a motor vehicle within the European Union. If a citizen of the EU decides to live or work in another Member State, it has hitherto been necessary for him to exchange his driving licence within a certain time limit.
With the introduction of a Community driving licence, that is now about to change, and the 1991 directive must therefore be amended.
For the principle of mutual recognition to be applied in practice, the codes for each type of check must be readable and understandable in every Member State.
That will be helpful for the officials who carry out the checks, but also for drivers themselves.
It is not enough for a document to have the word 'Europe' printed on it: its contents must also be geared to the free movement of persons and the freedom of choice of residence.
This applies in particular to disabled driving licence holders, since the system of harmonized codes will now set out the conditions for driving a motor vehicle in a clearly non-discriminatory way.
To this extent, we welcome the Council's common position.
At first reading, however, Parliament called - and we have just repeated that call in the Committee on Transport and Tourism - for mutual recognition to be extended to penalties, i.e. the suspension or withdrawal of driving licences.
Unfortunately, neither the Council nor the Commission took account of those amendments, and we are now retabling them.
It cannot be the purpose of freedom of movement to make it possible for road hogs whose licence has been suspended in one Member State to continue driving with impunity in another Member State with the same licence.
If the argument of subsidiarity is put forward to defend such an abuse, the people of Europe will have little sympathy for it.
They are not interested in which pillar of the Treaty is concerned, they simply wish to have workable proposals.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the Council's common position on the creation of a standard Community model for national driving licences.
Firstly, this will contribute to facilitating the movement of persons within the Community; secondly, to increasing road safety and enhancing legal certainty and consumer protection; and, thirdly, to facilitating the establishment of residence in a Member State other than the one in which the driving licence was issued.
In order to achieve these goals, it is necessary for all particulars - all additional information and restrictions that must be recorded in a driving licence - to be presented in a non-linguistic form.
The proposed system of standard coding of both the notes on the conditions for driving a vehicle and the notes on the administrative procedures for the harmonization of driving licences will make driving licence endorsements easier to understand and simplify checks on national driving licences, which will continue to be valid.
So far, so good.
But I fail to understand one section of this House: how can you accept the continuation of national responsibility for issuing driving licences - even if on the basis of a standard Community model - and at the same time call for Community legislation on the suspension and withdrawal of licences?
Clearly, double standards are being used here.
Surely matters of justice and internal security are still aspects of the Union's third pillar, and therefore subject to intergovernmental cooperation? I can only recommend the rejection of these amendments, which are in breach of existing Community law and which, I am sorry to say, were adopted by a majority in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I should like to thank the Council for its common position, in which it takes over the amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading and accepted by the Commission.
Mr President. I do not contend that there should be the same legal, or criminal legal system throughout the European Union.
I do not think that is likely to happen.
But it is possible to have several legal systems within one Union or indeed, as in the case of the United Kingdom, one country.
I am an English lawyer.
I am not entitled to practise law in Scotland, and that means I could not plead before a Scottish court unless I went through special procedures.
Nonetheless, a driving ban imposed by a Scottish court is recognized in England.
And all we are saying in this report, or at least all the amendments say, is that such a ban should be recognized throughout the European Union.
I cannot believe that in the world of E-mail and computers it is not possible for there to be mutual recognition of bans and indeed of the points system.
I hope very much that the Commission will have listened very carefully indeed to the point made by my colleague Mr Morris whose amendments I profoundly support.
Mr President, since today's debate has again revolved around the issue that featured most prominently at first reading - because otherwise we are in agreement - I should like to concentrate on that point.
It could of course be said, simply in terms of human logic, that it can surely make no difference if a person receives a driving ban in an EU country which is not his country of residence.
As you know, the proposal provides that if a person receives a driving ban in his country of residence, the ban is valid throughout the Union.
That does not apply if he receives the ban in another EU country, in other words a country that is not his country of residence.
The Commission entirely understands this point of view.
However, as the Council has repeatedly explained - and this is why it did not take over the amendment in its common position - the Member States' legal systems are such that a constitutional problem arises, as well as other legal problems.
And the Commission cannot escape that argument.
I have to beg your indulgence.
Clearly, Mrs Schmidbauer, this will not be supported by Parliament either.
I listened very carefully to the speakers from the Liberal Group, but I was not really able to tell what they intend to do.
In any event, the Christian Democrats will presumably hope to reject the amendment with the support of the Liberals.
And even if the Liberals do not side with the Christian Democrats, there will still be no majority to carry the amendment.
That is what I would assume.
We are therefore debating something at the moment which probably has only theoretical significance.
It may of course take on practical significance if the Council should agree - perhaps at the Intergovernmental Conference - to transfer the responsibility for certain matters to the Community.
Then we can discuss it again.
What Mr Ferber said is quite right: if Parliament retables these amendments - and the rapporteur, whom I wish to thank for his work, has argued forcefully for this - the whole process will remain stalled.
Not all Member States support these amendments as enthusiastically as Parliament.
Then we would not get a result.
That may not necessarily be a reason for not trying to push through Parliament's opinion, but the fact is that then nothing would change.
Then not even the mutual recognition of bans imposed by the country of residence would be possible.
That would surely be an unsatisfactory outcome, whereas the proposal represents a first step forward, which may achieve good results if all the Member States find it reasonable in practice.
That is how the Commission sees the situation.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-0164/97).
Question No 30 by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (H-0225/97)
Subject: Controls and systems of control for the detection of fraud and other irregularities in respect of various agricultural products
The Commission has invoked 'fraud' as the reason for reviewing the COMs in cotton and, more recently, in olive oil.
However, it is strange that almost all the publicized irregularities concern Mediterranean agricultural products.
Moreover, it is only to be expected that fraud will be detected where the control structures (control bodies, etc.) are strongest and where particularly stringent controls are carried out, and that, by the same token, fraud will not be detected where no such controls are carried out, in the absence of the relevant structures and/or prejudice.
Can the Commission say whether over the past five years there has been a balance between the controls carried out by product and measure (for instance, export subsidies, interventions, etc.) in respect of northern and southern products, and whether or not these controls reveal that only the above-mentioned Mediterranean products are subject to fraud?
A number of products are geographically limited to certain Member States.
So it is not surprising that there are irregularities on certain types of assistance in these Member States.
Olive oil and cotton are examples of products which are only produced by certain countries.
The Commission would like to stress that it is above all the Member States which are responsible for controlling the investments to be financed by the Community.
There is specific Community legislation covering controls in the agricultural guarantee section.
It is the Commission's role to ensure that controls are applied uniformly.
This is done through our own on site investigations and through the national control programmes.
Over and above the Regulation on Financing the Common Agricultural Policy there are a whole range of regulations dealing with measures such as export subsidies.
There are also particular rules concerning particular products.
There are special inspection offices for olive oil and tobacco for example and inspection bodies for fruit, vegetables and wine as well.
One of the objectives of the Regulation governing on the spot controls is to ensure that there is a standardised level of protection for the Community budget in all Member States.
Under Regulation 595/91 Member States are responsible for informing the Commission of any cases of fraud or irregularities detected by their control bodies.
The Commission's annual report on fraud clearly shows the great variety of measures taken and generally speaking - this is something we should remember - there is deception in all of the EU Member States.
So the reform of common market organisations is not just limited to olive oil and cotton, but also covers, for example, the recent amendments made in the regulations governing assistance for flax, hemp and cattle fodder. The regulations covering export subsidies have also been considerably tightened.
Madam Commissioner, I am not saying - and I am clear about this in my question - that fraud occurs only in the northern countries.
It does, of course, occur in the southern countries as well.
However, the Commission seems to be focusing its criticism on the southern countries alone, and that is reflected in the revision of the single market regulation in the case of olive oil.
I am fully aware, of course, that Regulation 595/91 obliges the Member States to notify information about fraud that they detect.
From one standpoint I am completely satisfied with the reply of the Commission; with its acknowledgment, that is to say, that the information notified makes it clear that northern products as well as southern products are subject to fraud.
I must, however, make the following points. First, the Commission has given me no figures from the controls carried out by itself, rather than by the Member States, because, obviously, it is from those controls that it gets its figures for fraud.
What figures, for example, are revealed by controls carried out in respect of northern products? Second, if it is true that, as the Commission has acknowledged in its reply, fraud and general irregularities are also noted for the northern products, I find it very remarkable that it is not proceeding with revisions of the common market regimes for those products as well.
Why is olive oil the only example of fraud that the Commission is concentrating on?
The Honourable Member has totally misunderstood the Commission on this point.
In the report which is produced every year both for this House and for the public we have clearly and distinctly shown that there are irregularities in both Southern and Northern States within the European Union.
And it may also be more appropriate to tackle certain products in certain areas individually.
The Commission has recently adopted a new way of tackling assistance particularly for olive oil and there have also been irregularities in this area.
I would like to put two questions to the Commission based on the fact that fraud must not only be controlled, the amounts fiddled must also be recovered.
Unfortunately 90 % of Community fraud is undetected; only 10 % is detected.
First, is the Commission is prepared to set up a single organization to detect fraud in all countries?
Secondly, what criteria does the Commission apply to its power to reduce or provisionally suspend monthly advances under EAGGF-Guarantee? Because money could be recovered in that way and I know it has only been applied in certain very particular cases in southern countries, but I do not know if it has been done for cattle fraud, cereals fraud or other types of fraud.
It is true that the Member States within the Union are not very good at ensuring that payments which have ended up in the wrong pockets are repaid.
We need greater cooperation in this respect to ensure that the percentage of repayments increases.
It is worth mentioning here that the Commission's Financial Control has started to draw up agreements with individual Member States.
These agreements are intended to help find a system for following up each project, for evaluating the use of funds in each country and for achieving a general improvement in cooperation which will encourage us to take care that tax payer's money is handled in a responsible way.
Mr President, I merely wished to repeat a question which has been asked in the past, but has remained unanswered.
The proposed reform of the COM in olive oil does indeed devote particular attention to the situation in the south of Europe.
The only reason given for this reform is combating fraud: I should therefore like to know on the basis of what data and what inspections an approach of this kind was adopted in the case of olive oil, and how many inspections were carried out in this case compared with those concerning other products, for example rice imports from the Dutch overseas territories, or bananas arriving in the port of Antwerp?
According to Commissioner Fischler, who is after all responsible for the agricultural sector, there were a number of reasons which made a change in the form of aid to olive producers necessary, as the aid and the existing organisation was inadequate.
So now for example there is a proposal for a new way of tackling the irregularities which unfortunately also arise within the olive producing sector.
As the author is not present, Question No 31 falls.
Question No 32 by Mr Burenstam Linder (H-0252/97)
Subject: The cost of eastward enlargement
The estimated impact of eastward enlargement on the EU budget has attracted much attention, and the cost of such enlargement is often cited as an obstacle to the admission of new Member States.
The benefits of an improved security situation may be measured only in qualitative terms, but the budgetary impact of redistributing resources from existing to new Member States may be set against huge economic benefits in the form of increased growth.
Academic research has been conducted which indicates that eastward enlargement would benefit the Union greatly.
The debate would be more balanced if the Commission had soundly-based research carried out into the great economic benefits which eastward enlargement would yield for both existing and new Member States.
What are the Commission's views on this, and is it planning to conduct such research?
I should like to make the following points in reply to the question from Mr Burenstam Linder.
The enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is a historic challenge for the European Union.
Enlargement is a political necessity and offers tremendous new opportunities.
If we prepare for the process carefully and execute it well, we shall strengthen peace, security and stability in Europe and stimulate the European economy.
The honourable Member rightly points out that the budgetary impact of enlargement needs to be seen in the broader context of its impact on the Union's economy as a whole.
The enlargement of the internal market with the addition of hundreds of millions of consumers will mean enormous benefits for the existing Member States in terms of greater trade and economic activity.
To be able to take full advantage of the economic benefits of enlargement, the applicant countries and the Union must prepare thoroughly in advance and tackle any post-enlargement adaptation problems effectively.
At the request of the Council, the Commission is working on a study into the effects of enlargement on Union policy and how these are expected to develop.
The Commission will be forwarding this impact study and other related documents which the Council has requested to the Council immediately after the end of the IGC.
The impact of enlargement on EU policy will be set against the expected economic effects in the broader sense, which will therefore also be evaluated.
In addition to the work being carried out by its own services, the Commission is also looking at other scientific research in this field, including research into the anticipated economic benefits.
Let me thank Commissioner Van den Broek for his answer.
The advantages of eastward enlargement have of course been discussed often but it is good that Mr Van den Broek has raised the issue again.
I hope that this impact study will provide a concise analysis and will attempt to make a quantitative evaluation of the benefits of such a step.
Even though the European Union was founded on the principle that integration promotes freedom and peace, the fact that these are indisputably great benefits is not made clear in the debate. Today we are discussing the costs of enlargement which form a considerable barrier to that very enlargement.
There is a risk that enlargement towards the east will become harder.
So I am really looking forward to this impact study and hope that it will also contain this quantitative attempt at calculating the benefits.
I sympathize with the honourable Member's desire to have precise information on the impact of enlargement, but I think it is rather speculative to try to quantify the broader economic benefits and costs of such a complex process, given the often very uncertain factors involved.
That is why I am rather reluctant to give quantitative estimates.
However, I am quite happy to promise to include existing scientific research in our analysis, as I said earlier, although allowance must of course be made for the uncertainty regarding economic developments in the European Union itself as a result of the impact of enlargement on certain aspects of European policy, and the uncertainty regarding future economic developments in countries which have applied for membership.
All these various factors make it difficult to give any exact figures.
I would finally point out to those who doubt the extent to which the integration of the new members will create new economic opportunities that we can already see how much trade has increased with the applicant countries since their transformation in 1989.
There are many sectors, including agriculture, where we currently have a considerable trade surplus, and while we must hope, for the sake of the Eastern European countries, that the situation evens out eventually, at the same time the high level of imports of investment goods in Eastern European countries which are modernizing their economies is one of the positive side-effects of the current imbalance.
As somebody who is about to go to Poland next week with the joint parliamentary committee, I should also like to emphasize the very high levels of growth being achieved both by Poland and the Czech Republic among the applicant states.
Like the original questioner, I should very much welcome from the Commission a breakdown of just how much countries will contribute to the overall economy of the EU, both in terms of expanding markets for the existing Member States and the contribution of those countries to overall economic expansion.
Is the impact study being done by the Commission to consider these positive advantages as well as possible costs?
I shall be quite brief here, because the honourable Member should find an answer to his questions in the report which the Commission hopes to submit in mid-June, and which the government leaders are to use as the basis for deciding, probably at a European summit at the end of the year, what is to be done as regards beginning the accession negotiations.
I would therefore ask you to be patient, because the evaluation and detailed research into the exact figures are already in hand, and I hope that you will be able to get a clearer picture from the reports which the Commission is currently drawing up on all ten of the applicant countries.
I would like to highlight the magnitude of the impact the integration of the eastern countries is going to have on Community agricultural policies, alongside the political importance of their joining the European Union.
But I want to ask whether this impact study we have been promised has evaluated in detail the impact on agricultural policies as regards products and payments.
Here too I must ask for your understanding.
I know that these questions are more than justified in view of the plans for enlargement, but because the government leaders have asked us to report soon, around mid-July, on how all the aspects of enlargement are interrelated, including the impact on Union policy in important areas such as agriculture and structural policy, I can only deal now with certain aspects of your questions.
The honourable Member knows that work has been going on for some time now on reforming the common agricultural policy within the Union, partly as a result of the implementation of the MacSharry proposals and partly as a result of the agreements at the Uruguay Round, and those reforms are now going ahead.
We are also expecting a new world trade round at the end of the century on the possible liberalization of the agricultural sector.
If we also relate this to the forthcoming enlargement towards the east, then it is clear that there can be no question of a radical upheaval in our own agricultural policy, but further adaptation will be needed, just as the applicant countries will be urged to adapt, first and foremost by ensuring that their farmland is privatized, where this is not already the case, and by restructuring and modernizing their agriculture so that the systems can be brought more closely into line.
Question No 35 by Mr Camisón Asensio (H-0214/97)
Subject: WTO Information Technology Agreement (ITA)
Can the Commission explain the conditions agreed on at the recent WTO meeting in Singapore with regard to international trade in the context of the Global Information Technology Agreement (ITA)?
The agreement takes the form of a ministerial declaration adopted on 13 December 1996 in Singapore to which there are fourteen parties, including the European Community.
It sets out the general objective of tariff elimination by the year 2000 for a detailed list of information technology products.
Unless otherwise agreed, tariff elimination is to take place through equal steps beginning on 1 July 1997, for completion by 1 January 2000.
The ITA stipulated two conditions before it could enter into effect.
Ninety per cent of world IT trade had to be covered and there had to be agreement on exceptional staging, that is to say providing for tariff cuts and elimination either ahead of or beyond 1 January 2000.
These two conditions have now been met.
On 24 March, the Council took a formal decision for the EC to conclude the ITA.
It noted that more than 90 % of world trade was covered and agreed to the staging requests of certain participants.
On 26 March, 25 participants representing 92 % of world trade information technology products met, reviewed and approved their respective schedules for the elimination of tariffs on an agreed list of IT products on a consensus basis, thus bringing the Information Technology Agreement into effect.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for that information, but I had hoped he would take the opportunity to clarify what concessions had to be made as regards customs duties on information technology products at that meeting to gain advantages in trade in alcohol, because that was not made clear.
We would like complete transparency about the real weight on each side of the scales, as well as the reaction of the national governments to this agreement, because it is astonishing to promise a three-stage reduction in tariffs on trade in semiconductors up to the year 1999, if we still hope to achieve the planned strong increase in jobs in the European Union through exports, and if greater access is being achieved, as promised, for European industry through better quality of equipment at more competitive prices.
Mr Commissioner, I would just like fuller information on that.
The spirits drink agreement was reached in parallel with the United States while in Singapore, and amounted to the elimination of tariffs on certain spirits which had not previously been covered in the Uruguay Round.
It has, of course, nothing formally to do with the ITA, but it was reached, if you like, as a further concession to the European Union in those talks.
There was a particular problem about the application of this agreement to rum, but the detailed modalities were finalized on 1 March to the satisfaction of the European industry.
As far as the ITA itself is concerned, I mentioned that there were provisions for special staging by agreement.
An understanding was reached with the United States, within the ITA, on the semiconductor issues.
This understanding provides for an elimination of EEC semiconductor duties more expeditiously than under the general rule set out within the ITA, but also in return for that, the elimination in one step of certain US duties of interest to the European Community.
It was a hard-fought negotiation and that was the outcome.
As a result the European industry will participate in the inaugural session of the World Semiconductor Council which was originally established by the United States and Japan, which we were anxious to get into; indeed we insisted on this as a condition for even beginning negotiations with the ITA in mind.
That objective has been achieved.
The Council will overview cooperation activities between industries.
We were extremely anxious that the Japanese and the Americans would be going ahead without us.
Now we will be there as well.
As a result of all this, the European industry warmly welcomes the ITA and thinks that it both reduces the costs for the many industries that are the consumers of imported ITI products and provides new opportunities for European Union ITI product exporters.
Question No 36 by Mr McMahon (H-0221/97)
Subject: Norwegian salmon dumping
Can the Commission inform Parliament what action it is going to take pending its investigation into unfair practices by Norwegian salmon producers and processors in the export of salmon into the EU?
Does the Commission favour quantitative restrictions or a levy in the form of a tax on Norwegian salmon exports into the EU and will the Commission raise the matter with the EEA surveillance court?
Two separate investigations into alleged dumping on the one hand, and alleged subsidization on the other hand, of farmed Atlantic salmon originating in Norway were initiated by the Commission on 31 August 1996.
Both these investigations are well advanced.
Since they are governed by statutory deadlines, any provisional measures which the Commission may impose must be published by 31 May at the latest.
No final decision has yet been taken by the Commission but Parliament will be informed of the outcome.
Should there be a decision to impose measures, they usually take the form of a duty calculated on the CIF import price.
Since no request for safeguard measures has been received by the Commission from a Member State, a quantitative measure cannot at present be envisaged.
Since such action takes place under the relevant Community law on anti-dumping and anti-subsidy which is based on WTO agreements and not on the EEA, it is not considered appropriate to raise the matter in the context of the EEA agreement.
Informal discussions have taken place in the EFTA surveillance authority.
Mr President, while I thank the Commissioner for his answer I would like him to give us a little more information - if I could tease some out of him.
Yesterday, according to the press, there was a meeting of the Advisory Committee in which - it is alleged - several Member States decided not to support the Commission's proposal for action: as a tax of about 12-15 % in particular was mentioned. I should like to ask the Commissioner what actually happened at the meeting yesterday.
Secondly, he says that no Member State has made any representation.
Would he also confirm or deny that the Government of Norway has made representations, and would he confirm or deny that there was no representation from either Raymond Robertson, the Scottish Office Minister responsible for fishing, or Michael Forsyth, the Scottish Secretary of State? Has he had any contact with Mr Robertson since his abortive meeting and contretemps with the Commissioner for Fisheries, Mrs Bonino?
I would like some answers to these questions, please.
I will do my best to give the information that can properly be given.
The honourable gentleman must have misheard me, because I did not say that we had not been approached by any Member State, I said that no request for safeguard measures had been received.
That is quite different from requests for anti-dumping or anti-subsidy measures to be taken.
I can assure the honourable gentleman that the government to which he referred has been active in advancing the case to which he also referred and has an interest.
So, in a word, there is no electoral mileage in this one at all.
I would go on to say that, as far as the Norwegians are concerned, they have made their views known.
I ought just to say, to be quite clear about it, that since fisheries were expressly excluded from the EEA, not least following a demand from the Norwegian Government, the normal provisions of the Community's anti-subsidy and antidumping instruments apply, and we do not accept that Norway is exempt from their application because of its membership of the EEA.
We now know more about this issue due to what has recently been written in the World Fisheries' Report , where it was stated that there are plans for both duties and special penalty taxes.
I hope that what is written in the newspapers is correct because it is obvious that it is not just the Scottish fish farmers who have suffered greatly.
For example in our archipelago in Finland we have not asked for a single Mark in investment assistance from the Pesca programme for fish farming because the situation is such that prices have dropped from 25 to 15 Marks per kilo.
Imports of Norwegian salmon have doubled.
I ask therefore: is there any possibility of using this penalty tax to compensate fish farmers for the damage that they have suffered as a result of imports from Norway.
The honourable lady is quite right to draw attention to the fact that - by implication - if measures are introduced, these will not be for the benefit of any one country or any one group of fishermen.
They will be measures imposed by the European Union on those who are found guilty of dumping or awarding subsidies - if measures are imposed - and they will be imposed for the benefit of all who suffer from that dumping, because the effect will be a duty which will, in future, be payable by those found guilty of dumping or providing subsidies.
The NGOs working in Tibet were consulted at each stage of the project's preparation.
Moreover, specialists who had worked previously with the NGOs contributed towards the writing of the project.
The NGOs have also been fully involved in the reappraisal of the project, which took place in September 1995.
Since then, the Commission has maintained regular contacts with the NGOs, which have expressed their specific interest in participating in the project.
The September 1995 project-appraisal mission concluded that the project, with its specific features of river stabilization, tree-planting and pasture-growing, would have a beneficial impact on the environment.
A full environmental impact assessment study is foreseen as part of the baseline studies, which will be carried out immediately after the start of the project, to ensure that the impact remains positive.
The Commission can confirm that the project has been designed in a way which ensures that it will solely benefit the local Tibetan population.
Tibetan people were consulted in conditions allowing them to express themselves freely during the project design and appraisal phases and will also be in charge of the management of the project if it goes ahead when finalized, as long, of course, as they qualify for the different management and engineering posts concerned.
Thank you Commissioner.
I am sure you will sympathize with the fact that I have to catch an aeroplane to return to the United Kingdom.
I am interested in what you say.
I am glad that you say that NGOs have been consulted.
That is good, but of course I am aware that is a fact that some key NGOs have not been involved at all.
I want to ask the Commissioner for information about exactly which NGOs he is referring to and I would also like to know whether any contact has been made with those NGOs during the last six months.
I would also like to know why the environmental assessment will take place after the start of the project.
Surely it would make a lot more sense if it were to take place before implementation of the project because that would ensure that anything untoward or any difficulties that might occur could be avoided.
I am also pleased that you talk about the design benefiting the Tibetan people.
That is good.
But I would also like to know whether you are ensuring that the delivery of project will also benefit the Tibetan people, not just its design, I would also like to ask the Commissioner to ensure that this is a much more open and transparent process than the last incarnation of this project and that the relevant documents will be available to Parliament and other interested parties.
I am grateful to the honourable Member for her continuing interest in the project.
Perhaps I could deal first of all with the question of the environmental impact assessment study.
As I said, that is foreseen as part of the baseline studies which will be carried out immediately after the start of the project.
In a sense it will be before the project really gets under way, but of course it cannot be done except as part of the project.
In that sense it is happening at the very beginning in order to make sure that nothing happens during the course of the project which renders the situation worse than it was before anything was done on the ground.
So I think we have a common purpose in this which will be achieved in a way acceptable to the honourable Member.
I certainly agree that it is essential to ensure that the delivery of the project is for the benefit of the Tibetan people as well as its design, and the project monitoring is precisely intended to achieve that objective.
I have no interest in anything other than transparency and will continue to keep Parliament fully informed of the process.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the last outstanding points that have to be finalized and without which I would not be prepared to agree to give my final consent that the project should go ahead, are, firstly, that we should be really sure that the project will benefit the ethnic Tibetan population.
Secondly, the NGOs should be allowed to participate in the project implementation, so we have of course been in touch with such NGOs as Médicins sans Frontières and the Save the Children Fund in the last six months, and it is our intention that those NGOs who wish to participate should be enabled to do so.
This has, I know, been of great interest to the honourable Member throughout.
I think that is now finally assured but I will not give my final consent until I am totally satisfied that is indeed the case.
Question No 39 will not be taken as it deals with a subject which is already on the agenda for this part-session.
Question No 37 by Mr Howitt (H-0224/97)
Subject: Anti-dumping duties in the textile sector
In imposing dumping duties on grey cloth, pushing up prices for textile companies in the UK including Greige in Benfleet in my constituency, how does the Commission distinguish between European importers who apply and monitor their own ethical standards against child labour and other breaches of acceptable labour practices, and less scrupulous companies who do not seek to monitor such standards in their suppliers?
Can the Commission also explain how it ensures this measure does not inhibit fair trade access to European markets for reputable producers in less developed countries? Does the Commission plan further action in this respect?
, Vice -President of the Commission. In carrying out anti-dumping investigations, including the one in question relating to the imports of grey cotton fabrics, the Commission is bound by the provisions of Council Regulation (EEC) No 384/96 which reflects the WTO agreement in this area.
The instrument is designed to eliminate the trade distortion caused by imports of goods at dumped prices and does not therefore inhibit fair access to the Community market for producers in any country, developed or otherwise.
As regards the issue of child labour, the Community's revised scheme of generalized tariff preferences, the GSP, permits us to withdraw temporarily and totally or partially the benefit of the preferential regime in respect of countries where the most degrading forms of child labour are practised, namely slavery or forced labour.
Furthermore, the scheme provides for additional preferences, that is to say at further reduced preferential rates of duty, to be granted from 1 January next year to beneficiary countries which effectively respect the standards of certain International Labour Organization conventions including Convention 138 relating to child labour.
In due course the Commission will submit a proposal for a Council decision on such additional preferences and the modalities for applying them.
I have a very simple question.
What answer would the Commissioner give to companies in my own constituency such as J.W. Wilkinson of Kendal and Stead McAlpine of Carlisle who very much fear that the imposition of such high duties on grey cloth will create unemployment, inflation and irreparable damage to the textile industry, not only in the UK but across the European Union?
I do not agree with those who express that view although I respect their sincerity in thinking it.
We have looked into this very carefully.
We must first establish whether there has been dumping - and I think it is clear that there has been.
We then have to see whether there has been damage to the European industry that is engaged in producing the products which have been imported cheaply at dumped prices.
It is clear that there has been damage.
Then we have to look at the whole question of whether it is in the Community interest to proceed, and that means whether there are other people who are likely to suffer more from the imposition of the duties than people who are faced with this competition would gain.
It is fair to say that we have carried out the exercise of looking at the Community interest with greater thoroughness in this case than on previous occasions.
We have looked very carefully at the arguments presented by those who feel they need this protection for their own production and in our view that is a fear which is not justified.
We do not think the effect of the duties will be to deprive them of their own proper business opportunities.
If I thought the balance was the other way I would not have put forward the proposal.
Commissioner, my understanding is that this decision went to the anti-dumping committee where the vote was 7 to 7 with Germany abstaining.
Could you confirm that was the case? Secondly, I understand that it has now gone to the Member States for consultation.
Could you tell me how long you anticipate that process continuing? Will anti-dumping duties continue to be provisionally imposed during that consultation period until we finally get a decision?
If anti-dumping duties are ultimately rejected by the Council of Ministers, is there any question of compensation for those companies who have been adversely affected? Finally, given that the effect of these anti-dumping duties has been to distort the market in the textile industry and the relationship between spinners, weavers and finishers and that European finishers have been put at a serious disadvantage by these anti-dumping duties, is there not a case for anti-dumping duties to be imposed throughout the textile industry and not in just one part of it?
I do not agree with the last point.
I do not accept that it is possible to impose anti-dumping duties in relation to products about which there has not been a complaint.
That is not an available option.
As far as the procedure is concerned, it is not appropriate for me to comment on the committees to which the honourable Member has referred.
It is for the Commission to put forward a proposal to the Council by 20 April.
That will be done.
The Council must decide within one month, by 20 May, if the measures are to be applied.
Thank you, Commissioner, for that reply.
You will recall that three weeks ago in the REX Committee, I asked you the very same question based on an article that appeared in The Financial Times .
You said that The Financial Times was guilty of a piece of contentious reporting.
Do you still hold to that view or was The Financial Times quite accurate in that article?
You say you have carried out all the tests which apply to dumping.
Included in that is that damage has to be shown.
Perhaps it would help us if we knew who had been damaged because, as my colleagues have said, the information we are getting is that certain parts of the industry could be adversely affected and, indeed, employment could be damaged.
Rather than focus on The Financial Times , admirable newspaper as it is, I would prefer to focus on the actual issues which the honourable Member raised.
We all know that the purpose of yesterday's newspapers, however excellent they are, is to wrap up fish.
Therefore I do not think we need to hark back to The Financial Times .
But the substance of the question is an important one.
The answer is that these duties are not just arbitrarily proposed because the Commission thinks that it is a fancy thing to do, but because of a complaint made.
The complaint is made by people who are producing the product which has been imported.
They allege that this has been imported at dumped prices and that it is damaging their legitimate business.
We have no interest in interfering with fair trading. That is why I said that the first test is: has there been dumping?
Are the prices dumped prices? The second question is: has the industry been affected, or does it risk being affected, to which the answer is 'yes'.
The third question is: are there other people, whether they are consumers or other industries, who would be adversely affected and worse affected than the people who made the complaint? We have looked very carefully at that third point.
The Commission finds that there is not sufficient evidence to justify a finding that there would be damage which would justify not intervening, even though the initial dumping case, both with regard to the fact of dumping and its injury appears to have been established.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner. You are doubly thanked, first for your replies and secondly for your patience with the President who repeatedly broke the House of Commons rhythm you were trying to impose on the questions and answers.
But remember, working with eleven languages has its obligations.
Question No 40 by Mr Gerard Collins (H-0246/97)
Subject: Regional policy in Ireland
In view of the overall growth in the Irish economy and with a view to assessing which parts of the country will qualify for Objective 1 status after 1999, has the Commission undertaken any research into the disparities in economic development between the different regions or sub-regions within Ireland and, if not, will it now undertake such research as a matter of urgency?
Mr President, as far as the Structural Funds are concerned, the entire Irish national territory constitutes a single level II region under the NUTS classification system.
Because eligibility for Objective I support is decided at NUTS level II, it has to be assessed on the basis of data for Ireland as a whole, not on the strength of regional or subregional statistics.
However, the Commission recently asked EUROSTAT to provide estimates of GDP per inhabitant for the regions of Ireland at NUTS level III, using the so-called ESA method of national accounting.
According to estimates for the period 1992-94, certain Irish regions were below the threshold level of 75 % of average GDP per inhabitant in the EU as a whole - although by 1995, the figures in question were already showing a significant improvement, thanks to an impressive national growth rate of 8 %.
However, I would emphasize again that these estimated figures at NUTS level III are not the same as those used in the Objective I eligibility criteria, which are applied at NUTS level II.
My sincere thanks to the Commissioner for her reply.
Can she say what information she has, and can she make this information available to us, with regard to the level of development in the different subregions of the country? Can she say to what extent discussions have taken place with the Irish Government on the possibility of sub-dividing Ireland into a number of regions in the context of the regional policy programme expected to follow the present one which finishes in 1999?
Can she say what sort of time-scale is involved in arranging for Ireland - currently a single-zone territory for Objective 1 status - to be divided into more than one region so that areas in the west of Ireland, from Donegal down along the coast to South Kerry or West Cork, might be still considered for Objective 1 area status in the post1999 programme?
Mr President, there has been no application from the Irish Government nor any attempt on its part to alter the existing NUTS classification.
Indeed, it could not be altered without corresponding changes at an administrative level, and I am in no doubt that the present system is more advantageous to Ireland as regards support in the period up to 1999.
It is true that the figures available to us show levels of some 66 % for the border counties, 58 % for the mid-east, 63 % for the midlands and 78 % for the west, but as I said, these are figures from 1994; the new phase of funding from the Structural Funds begins in 2000, and you can see that if the present pace of development is maintained, the figures will not take long to reach the 75 % level.
The Irish Government has not yet come forward with any proposals for a different approach, but should it do so, the Commission would consider them in the same way that it would consider proposals from other Member States.
Question No 41 by Mr Lindqvist (H-0258/97)
Subject: Streamlining the Structural Funds
The day-to-day management of EU Structural Fund operations is heavily criticized on account of its red tape and delays with payments.
The EU also takes money unnecessarily from Member States in the form of contributions, only to give it back to them in the form of Structural Fund assistance.
Would it perhaps not be better to reduce Member States' contributions and allow them to organize and finance structural operations directly themselves?
How will the Commission simplify, streamline and strengthen measures to assist sparsely populated areas and the peripheral regions, cut red tape and prevent situations where money is given with one hand and taken away with the other?
Mr President, Mr Lindqvist, Article 130a of the EU Treaty explicitly lays down the goal of strengthening economic and social cohesion.
In particular, the Community commits itself to seeking to reduce disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least-favoured regions, including rural areas. The same goal applies in the relatively affluent Member States with regard to their less-favoured regions.
Article 130b identifies the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund as the financial instruments available to the Community for supporting its actions to strengthen economic and social cohesion.
Funding for the period 1994-99 was approved by the European Council in December 1992.
There was unanimous agreement on the goals of the Structural Funds, the tasks to be accomplished and the procedure to be followed, including the rules on financial procedure.
Part of the reason for the complexity of the administrative process and the length of time taken for disbursement lies in the need to ensure the efficient financial management, effective control of expenditure and evaluation which European taxpayers are entitled to expect.
Frequently, however, delays also result from the length of time taken for decision-making within the Commission - something we are tackling through the SEM 2000 process - and shortcomings in the administrative and budgetary procedures of the Member States, which hold up the transfer of funds from central government to regional or local level.
Given that the Structural Funds are used to cofinance national measures, it is clear from this situation that national structural policy is not, as a rule, any more efficient than its European counterpart.
Another point to bear in mind is that this Community funding is used for additional, strategic projects which would otherwise be implemented only at a later date or not at all.
The cohesion report identifies some impressive achievements of European structural policy in the poorer and less-favoured regions of the EU, but it also contains a number of pointers for the future, with a view to promoting more effective and transparent use of European money, targeting scarce resources, reducing red tape and putting more emphasis on success.
This applies to all the objectives that are promoted by the Structural Funds, not least those which you mentioned, Mr Lindqvist, of assisting sparsely populated rural and peripheral regions.
The Commission will present its proposals for the reform of structural policy as part of the Santer Package in July this year, and will spell them out in detail in its proposals for a review of the Structural Funds regulation in early 1998.
Thank you very much for such a detailed answer.
My idea that perhaps we should not be sending money backwards and forwards unnecessarily between the Member States and the EU but should perhaps, reduce the Membership fee as I have suggested and instead allow countries to keep this money is just one idea among many.
Another suggestion would be for the EU to adopt certain fundamental positions, for example, concerning jobs, integration projects between different countries i.e. co-operation on integration and the environment: fundamental principles governing the use of the Structural Funds, with the aim of balancing regional injustices of course. Within this framework the Member States could then decide totally for themselves how the money will be used.
A third idea would be to have better co-ordination between EU subsidies and National subsidies, for example by allowing locally elected bodies such as the County Councils in Sweden and the district authorities to decide how the funds should be used.
I would be grateful for comments on these suggestions.
Firstly, as you know, tax policy lies outside the competences of the European Union and the Commission.
Of course, tax policy can be one of the tools of regional development, but it is not part of Community regional policy.
Moreover, Mr Lindqvist, provision exists within the partnership-based approach of our structural policy for the very thing you are advocating, namely taking decisions on projects at local level.
We have monitoring committees, on which regional and local authorities are represented, and it is their job to select projects for support.
Indeed, the fact that the level of funding commitments and payments to Finland and Sweden is still below the Union average is not unrelated to the learning process that we are jointly engaged in - a fruitful process, I might add, and one that is steering us towards closer partnership.
But partnership implies an input from all the partners, and I believe that the experience of the European Union and the Commission has greatly helped the development of regional structural policy in Finland and Sweden in every respect.
That, at any rate, is the feedback we have received from the numerous local discussions that we have organized.
I have a very specific question for the Commissioner.
I have criticised one particular aspect of the Structural Funds, namely that incomes in different regions are calculated using the measure of GNP per capita and that there is no adjustment for the level of buying power.
If these were adjusted using the level of prices in the different countries the differences between regions and countries would be considerably reduced.
Is this something which the Commissioner has considered and which may perhaps be included in the improvements now being talked about?
Mr Wibe, GDP is naturally one of the bases on which the respective purchasing-power parities are calculated, so we do already take this particular factor into account.
Generally speaking, one could of course argue all day about any of the criteria that are used.
A very important consideration, and one which is occasionally overlooked, is the fact that we are not able to gather and compare regional-level data for all the criteria throughout Europe, and this means, for example, that we have to opt for certain criteria, particularly when we are dealing with regional development, as opposed to straightforward national averages.
Question No 42 by Mr Titley (H-0262/97)
Subject: Structural Funds policy after 1999
Can the Commission report what progress has been made in its deliberations as to how EU Structural Funds will be organized after 1999?
Mr Titley, I should like to begin by explaining that the Commission will present its proposals, including those on the important decisions concerning the Structural Funds, in the form of the Santer Package, once the Intergovernmental Conference has concluded - hopefully in July. We are also currently engaged in internal discussions within the Commission.
I assume, however, that your question also refers in part to the problem of delays and the time factor that has characterized the funding period 1994-99, and I should therefore like to add that the timetable which we have now set ourselves will certainly put us in a position to adopt the proposals for the new Structural Fund regulations as early in 1998 as possible, just as soon as a decision is taken on the Santer Package. That would then give the Member States roughly a year in which to prepare their programmes as thoroughly as possible and submit them in good time.
The proposals that the Commission will make will be based firstly on the conclusions of the cohesion report and secondly on the deliberations of the so-called cohesion forum that is to be held at the end of this month, with input from the European Parliament.
We should wait until we have specific proposals before us, which can then be discussed in detail by the House.
I thank the Commissioner for her answer.
I have two questions.
Firstly, in deciding eligibility for the structural funds, unemployment figures are an important element.
Has the Commission received any representation from the United Kingdom Government to the effect that UK official unemployment statistics are an ineffective way of deciding eligibility for structural funds because they conceal real unemployment? My understanding is that the Commission has received such a representation.
Secondly, in deciding the future of Objective 2 regions, will the Commission take into account that Objective 2 regions which have received support have been able to deal with the problem of industrial decline in the past but are still not yet able to show value-added production, and will therefore need to have ongoing support beyond 1999 if they are to regenerate the traditional industrial areas.
You will appreciate, Mr Titley, that such suggestions are unlikely to emanate from the British Government.
I have, however, received papers from certain academic institutions concerning the usefulness of United Kingdom unemployment statistics, and you can be assured that this is one of the issues that we shall look at.
However, I would ask you to bear in mind that we do, of course, receive unemployment statistics from all over Europe, and that agreements exist as to which aspects of those figures we should take into account.
Obviously, one of the issues that we shall be discussing is whether our statistics form an adequate basis for assessing questions of support, not just now but in the future.
As regards Objective II, I would ask you to appreciate that, at this stage, I cannot give what amounts to a guarantee that specific aims will continue to receive support.
We shall have to discuss the entire package of structural support and the criteria on which we intend to base it.
Generally speaking, I certainly take the view that structural policy will have to continue not only to support the most structurally disadvantaged regions in the socalled poor Member States, but also to offer solidarity at European level in dealing with the problems of structural change in the richer Member States.
However, the questions of whether, when and in what form this should take place must be discussed in the overall context of structural reform.
I just wish to ask the Commissioner about another aspect of looking at unemployment criteria.
We have just voted in the Committee on Regional Policy on my report on the implementation of funds in the UK, and we are very much aware that employment rates are higher in the UK.
I am not talking about hidden unemployment in this case, but the fact that the UK is the country creating the highest number of low-paid, parttime jobs.
That, of course, distorts the employment criteria and, indeed, our unemployment figures.
Therefore we have voted to ask that in adopting future selection criteria, in the case of the UK the Commission should take into account industrial change, GDP and the relationship between falling unemployment rates and non-sustainable employment in low-paid, part-time sectors.
I wonder whether the Commissioner could say whether it is possible to look at those criteria in a cross-comparative way, because I fear that we will neither fall within the Objective 1 criteria on raw GDP, nor perhaps be eligible under defined unemployment statistics for Objective 2 after 1999, in which case we will fall between both stools.
Of course, Mrs McCarthy, we shall consider carefully any information that we receive concerning unemployment trends in Member States.
Obviously, however, we have to lay down criteria that will allow us to make general comparisons, and we shall not in future be able to base the selection criteria on special quotas for particular countries.
I would therefore ask you to appreciate that we have to consider the overall applicability of the information we receive, and broadly speaking rely on EUROSTAT figures which - because they have the same statistical base in each instance - are the only ones that can ensure a fair comparison.
Mrs Wulf-Mathies, we are anxious to know what will be the criteria for the future structural funds in the context of enlargement of the Community to poorer countries, and I applaud the fact that aid to the most needy will be compatible with maintaining internal Union solidarity with those regions where structural problems generate unemployment in countries with advanced economies.
Do the studies you have carried out cover the possibility of putting some kind of limit on aid as a function of gross domestic product, in case major Community aid to recently joined countries in a deep state of poverty cannot be absorbed by their economies? Because this is probably the challenge of designing the future structural funds as from 1999.
I would point out first of all that we are in the process of discussing with all those affected and involved what we have learned from previous funding periods and the decisions that we shall have to take on future structural support, and I believe that the Commission is right to begin by consulting widely, rather than leaping forward with proposals and taking decisions which could then only be changed with great difficulty.
However, you are right: of course we shall also try to learn from experience and take into consideration the capacity of future Member States to administer structural support effectively, to absorb the money they receive and provide the necessary cofunding.
Indeed, these three elements are essential if our structural policies are to succeed at all, and we shall certainly take that into account - not least in relation to enlargement towards the east - when we put forward our proposals in the Santer Package.
As the time allocated for this part of Question Time to the Commission has run out, Questions Nos 43, 44 and 45 will be answered in writing.
I want to thank Mrs Wulf-Mathies for attending and for giving these important answers.
Question No 46 by Mr Teverson (H-0197/97), taken over by Mr Mulder.
Subject: BSE and the lifting of the UK beef export ban
When does the Commission anticipate allowing the export of British beef from certified herds, as set out in the submission from the UK Ministry of Agriculture to the European Commission? Does the Commission intend to impose equally stringent health standards on beef from other Member States?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the steps that have to be taken and the rules that have to be followed in relation to the lifting of the ban on British beef exports were laid down at the Florence summit.
Now the United Kingdom has submitted a working document to the Commission which is intended to show that the conditions laid down in Florence have been met.
It sets out the arrangements for certifying exports, and offers scientific opinion justifying a resumption of British beef exports on the basis of those arrangements.
Under the Florence agreement, three further steps are now required.
Firstly, the scientific committees have to discuss the British working paper, and the proposal must be considered by the Standing Veterinary Committee; secondly, there must be a successful Community inspection; thirdly, a draft Commission decision must be presented for approval by the Standing Veterinary Committee.
Clearly, the Commission would not wish to pre-empt this process of consultation and deliberation by suggesting any date for a resumption of British beef exports.
In answer to the question about other Member States, the Commission has already approved BSE control programmes for France and Portugal.
A similar procedure is under way for Ireland.
Although the risk in these countries is substantially less than that in the United Kingdom, stringent measures are being taken to ensure that public health is protected.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for his reply to the question by my colleague, Mr Teverson.
I have a supplementary question on control methods.
Certain countries where the disease has occurred have elected to slaughter individual animals or animals displaying symptoms of the disease, while in other countries whole herds are being slaughtered.
Has the Commission assessed these various control methods and, in particular, what are the implications for the payment of compensation, which is partly to come from European funds?
Excuse me, Mr Commissioner, but the interpreters need to finish informing the various Members in the eleven languages. So if you reply immediately we will not have heard part of the question.
Now that the interpretation is complete, please reply to Mr Mulder.
Mr President, it would undoubtedly be a great pity to lose part of the question.
In answer to the point raised by Mr Mulder, I would say this: firstly, there are of course measures being taken in a number of Member States which could to some extent be regarded as additional precautions, and some of which also go rather further than the Commission requirements.
As regards compensation payments, the question also arises as to whether such compensation should be paid under the heading of health protection measures, or whether it falls within the scope of market regulation.
There are examples of both approaches, and obviously each Member State must reach agreement on possible forms of compensation, and indeed on whether the Union should offer compensation at all in a given case, before it embarks on any activities.
That is the arrangement at present.
There is no clear-cut scientific opinion to indicate that a single specific measure is the right one.
Clearly, the decision also depends to a very great extent on the objective that a particular measure sets out to achieve.
Even as regards the cases that have come to light in your own country, Mr Mulder, there is no single, adequate scientific explanation.
You will also appreciate that in some areas we still lack information, quite simply because not enough progress has been made in terms of scientific research and findings.
On the other hand, this creates a demand for precautionary measures which do have a positive effect, it must be said; but with the best will in the world, it is impossible to say if they are really necessary from a scientific point of view.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to go back to the original question from Mr Teverson - the first part.
He set out a number of guidelines and stages to be gone through but did not actually give any timescale.
Can the Commissioner give any idea of dates when possibly cattle could again be exported from BSEfree herds in the United Kingdom?
I have already stated clearly that no date for a decision can be given at this stage, simply because various procedural steps have yet to be completed.
But I can say this much: first of all, we need inspections to demonstrate that all the agreed conditions have now been met which form a prerequisite for any move towards a lifting of the export ban.
We recently sent an inspection team to the UK whose principal task was to convince us of the extent to which the additional slaughter programme was being implemented.
The inspectors' conclusion on that occasion was that the slaughter programme was only really being implemented in Northern Ireland.
We therefore agreed to send a further inspection team: that is the first point.
As for the specific British proposal, it will now have to be examined by the committee which takes over from the multidisciplinary committee, and that body will also decide which experts should be assigned to consider the matter.
We cannot impose a rigid deadline on the scientists for completing their evaluation of the proposal.
But as soon as they reach a positive conclusion, we in the Commission will lose no time in bringing forward a proposal, and at that stage the normal decision-making process will begin - in other words, the Commission will submit a proposal to the Standing Veterinary Committee.
If the Standing Veterinary Committee takes a decision by a qualified majority, the matter will be settled.
Otherwise, the Commission will have to submit a formal proposal to the Council, and it will then depend on the Council's reaction to that proposal.
If there is a qualified majority of Ministers in favour, then the proposal will be deemed approved by the Council.
But if a majority of Member States are against the proposal, it will fall and cannot be tabled again.
If there is a simple majority of Member States in favour, the proposal will go back to the Commission, which will then take the final decision.
That is the agreed procedure, and that is why it is very difficult at this stage to set any definite date.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by assuring you that the Commission shares the European Parliament's growing concern for the welfare of animals that are traded between the Union and third countries, and it has already expressed that concern in answers to numerous written and oral questions.
For example, at Question Time in December last year, I promised to consider how export refunds for live cattle might be linked to compliance with the transport directive, even where animals were being transported beyond the borders of the European Union.
I am pleased to be able to tell you today that these preparations have been completed, and a proposal will be submitted to the Council and Parliament before the end of this month.
For its part, the Commission has already begun discussions with the Member States with a view to cancelling refunds to exporters who have manifestly failed to comply in full with the rules on the welfare of animals in transit.
However, measures to this effect will require an amendment to Regulation No 805/68 on the common organization of the market in beef, and certain amendments to implementing provisions.
I am pleased to hear that the Commission shares Parliament's concern for the welfare of animals.
The programme to which I referred in my question is in fact an updated version of the same programme which was shown on the continent last Autumn and which caused much discussion even then.
Unfortunately the update shows that no improvements have taken place since then.
For this reason, the majority of the Finnish members of the European Parliament are proposing in a letter to the Commission that export subsidies for live animals outside the Union be stopped. I ask therefore: has the Commission fully discussed the issue which we raised?
Secondly: Is it possible for the executive committee through a separate decision to stop export subsidies as well? Has such a proposal for beef been put to the executive committee?
When we talk about cancelling refunds in respect of live cattle or cattle for slaughter, then as I see it we have to deal with two separate issues.
The issue that I addressed in my answer was that of seeking to cancel refunds in cases where we can prove that a shipper of live cattle has breached Union rules, in particular those of the transport directive.
In the longer term, we might also have a second and possibly more effective sanction in such cases, because as you know, the new transport directive requires anyone trading in or shipping live cattle to hold a licence.
It would also be quite feasible, in cases where the rules are repeatedly broken, to withdraw licences from offending shippers, thereby preventing them from transporting cattle again at all.
The other issue that you raised is whether all refunds in respect of live cattle ought not to be cancelled.
We know from practical experience that various third countries prefer to import live cattle.
For those European Union operators involved in this trade, a blanket cancellation of refunds would mean that live cattle destined for the countries in question would no longer be purchased in the European Union, and would instead be procured overseas or in other third countries.
Already - to offer you a practical example - a significant proportion of the live sheep that are imported into Egypt no longer come from the European Union, but from Australia and New Zealand.
I am sure no one would try to suggest that such a long sea voyage could be less stressful for the animals than the much shorter crossings that would be entailed in importing sheep from countries of the European Union.
I think we should also be clear that even if we are not paying refunds, we need rules to ensure that animals are properly treated in transit, whether or not refunds are involved.
That is why the approach that the Commission has chosen - that of making transport subject to conditions - is the right one to take in the first instance.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his answer, which suggests that things are moving in the right direction.
Nevertheless, I personally fear that these continuing instances of cruelty and these repeated contraventions of the rules will have an impact on consumer opinion and lead to a further reduction in beef consumption.
These problems could be avoided only by halting the live transport of animals for slaughter and slaughtering them in Europe.
For that reason, I should like to ask the Commission whether it intends at least to examine the possibility of halting these shipments and creating the requisite slaughter capacity in the European Union, taking into account religious slaughtering methods?
Can nothing be done to halt the shipment of animals and arrange for their slaughter on the territory of the European Union? Why precisely must animals be transported alive?
I welcome the Commissioner's announcement that a new proposal is to be put forward this month making the granting of Community aid conditional upon compliance with the existing directives.
Then, of course, there are the rest periods, journey times and so on.
What I would like to know is how the Commission intends to monitor whether a transporter is obeying the directives? This has always been our biggest problem: we have no system for checking compliance.
Will the Commission employ extra inspectors to check whether transporters are obeying the rules? If they are not, they should not be given any further aid.
Question No 48 by Mr Harrison (H-0211/97)
Subject: Antibiotics in pig feed
In the opinion of the Commission does the Swedish system of banning the use of antibiotics in pig feed represent a better approach to food safety than the current EU system for which Sweden has a derogation up until the end of 1998?
Does the Commission agree that the use of these antibiotics could be seen to be like the application of growth promoters, where emphasis is laid on maximising productivity at the possible expense of consumer safety?
Is the Commission further concerned that some antibiotics are no longer working to destroy bacteria and that proposals for genetic modification could intensify the problem?
Mr Harrison, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is not yet in a position to answer your question conclusively.
However, it will very soon be looking again at the whole question of the use of permitted antibiotics in feed.
Under the Treaty of Accession, Sweden has a derogation which allows it to retain its own national legislation, banning the use of antibiotics in feed, until 31 December 1998.
Sweden has also been asked to supply the Commission and the other Member States with the scientific data on which it is basing its application for this ban to be extended throughout the Community, and for Community legislation to be amended accordingly.
However, the Commission can assure you, Mr Harrison, that permission for the use of additives is granted on the basis of a very stringent assessment procedure which puts the safety of consumers first.
The Commission recently took an extremely thorough look at the problem of resistance to antibiotics in animals, the possibility of that resistance being transferred to humans and the loss of effectiveness of certain antibiotics, in connection with a particular antibiotic named Avorparcin, and it decided on 30 January this year, on the basis of its findings, to prohibit Avorparcin.
This is a precautionary measure, and it will be reviewed before 31 December 1998, in the light of new test results.
But it should be pointed out that no conclusive link was established between the use of Avorparcin and resistance to similar antibiotics that are used to treat humans.
Nonetheless, the Commission intends to initiate a number of studies on this question, and it has also asked the industry to carry out a programme of surveillance for antibiotic resistance in animals.
I can assure you that the Commission gives careful consideration to the problem of resistance when it is granting authorizations for genetically modified products.
I am not sure your answer will satisfy my constituent, Mrs P. Adams of Nantwich, in several respects.
You did not answer the very last question about genetic modification, whether that will intensify the problem of bacteria which is possibly not destroyed by weakened antibiotics.
I also learnt from you that you were intending that industry should undertake these studies.
Could I have your assurance that you will monitor what the industry itself does in these studies?
Thirdly, you talk about banning Avorparcin.
We could do with more details about that particular precautionary measure as you describe it.
Finally, you talk about the onus being on Sweden to give the scientific evidence as to why it should be allowed to continue to ban the use of antibiotics in pig feed.
Surely it should be the other way round.
Until the case is proven we should be following the Swedish model.
Perhaps in the brief time available, I did not adequately explain what we intend to do, Mr Harrison.
I did say, however, that we are not relying on the industry at this stage: the Commission is initiating its own studies, but we have also asked the industry to be vigilant.
Secondly, it is surely in everyone's interest that the Commission should ask Sweden to inform us of the grounds on which it decided to introduce such a ban, just as it is in Sweden's interest that the ban should apply throughout the Union.
Since the Council of Ministers will take the ultimate decision on the matter, it seems sensible to me that appropriate contacts should also be established with the Member States in relation to this issue, so that the ground can be prepared for presentation of the Swedish case.
I think that this is only logical.
As for the question of genetically modified organisms, another argument which is put forward here is that crosscontamination may have a role to play in the case of one particular product, namely genetically modified maize.
However, I am convinced that, rather than straying into the realms of speculation on this point, the important thing is to carry out the necessary tests or to seek the advice of experts on the basis of tests which have already been carried out.
In my view, it would be a mistake to venture away from tried and tested scientific opinion in this field, and to start taking arbitrary decisions.
Firstly I would like to say that I agree with Mr Harrison that the burden of proof should lie with the Commission and that we should apply a general principle of caution to all artificial food additives.
Then I would like to ask the Commissioner if they are prepared to extend the Swedish exemption for antibiotic additives, so that if the Commission is still reviewing its regulations once the time limit has expired, Sweden can be allowed to extend its ban until the review is complete. I would also like to ask another question in this connection.
There is also another ban on food additives in Sweden which has been in place for a few years.
This is a total ban on all carcass meal in fodder.
Can you here this evening promise that the Commission will never call into question the total Swedish ban on carcass meal?
Mr Sjöstedt, in my view, the right course of action is to keep to the agreed procedure for achieving the objectives that were set out at the time of the negotiations on Sweden's accession.
It was in the context of those negotiations that Sweden requested this ban, which will apply until 31 December 1998.
Sweden has agreed to that.
The first consideration in making such an arrangement was not that the ban should be extended beyond the agreed date, but that sufficient progress might be made in the meantime for the ban to be applied not just in Sweden, but throughout the Union.
So it is with a view to facilitating a decision on the lines which Sweden seeks that I have submitted my proposals.
And I still see no reason why Sweden should not make its findings and arguments available to the other Member States.
That is why I tend to regard debate at this stage about whether the Swedish derogation will be extended beyond 1998 as counterproductive.
As I see it, that question will arise if it proves impossible, within a reasonable timeframe and before the end of 1998, to achieve the main objective of a lasting, Union-wide ban on certain substances.
I believe, therefore, that we should stand by the agreed approach.
As the time allocated for this part of Question Time to the Commission has run out, Questions Nos 49 to 91 will be answered in writing.
Question Time is closed.
On a point of order, Mr President, I regret the fact that although Question Time is clearly divided into three parts, you fail to keep to this and the third part keeps disappearing.
I think we should be able to rely on having the last 20 minutes of Question Time for the third part.
Mr Eisma, I have been keeping an eye on the time, but if one of the parts ran over time, I will be more careful in future.
The remaining questions will be answered in writing and in future I will apply what you have said scrupulously.
If there was any mistake, I assure you that in future we will take care that it does not happen again.
Ladies and gentlemen, the sitting will resume at 9 p.m. The sitting is adjourned.
(The sitting was adjourned at 7.28 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Settlement finality and collateral security
The next item on the agenda is the report drawn up by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on settlement finality and collateral security (COM(96)0193 - C4-0306/96-96/0126(COD)) (A4-0097/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the title of this directive is somewhat obscure.
The Commission is proposing a European Parliament and Council Directive on settlement finality and collateral security.
Exactly what is it all about?
The difficulty is that in Europe today, there is a whole raft of what are known as interbank payment systems.
The purpose of these systems is to process and settle all the transfers of money between banks.
As we move towards the introduction of the single European currency, the euro, we shall have a major European interbank payment system - the Target System - operating alongside the systems that already exist, and this may in turn lead to the introduction of even more such systems.
The problem which this directive sets out to address is one that has surfaced repeatedly, namely the possibility of a bankruptcy at one bank and the adverse consequences this could then have for interbank payment systems, affecting in turn the ability of those systems to function and, in a worst-case scenario, dragging down other banks as well - in other words, the possibility of one bankruptcy leading to others.
The proposed directive sets out to avoid such a situation.
Basically, therefore, this is a proposal for a directive that seeks to put interbank payment systems, and ultimately also banks, in a privileged position as creditors of a bankrupt institution in certain specific circumstances.
At this point, the main area of conflict which we have to deal with here becomes clear.
On the one hand, the concern is to protect payment systems - and therefore also banks.
But on the other hand, one has to ask how far such measures can go without unduly damaging the concept of creditor protection in possible bankruptcy proceedings.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, for which I was the rapporteur, took the view that it made sense in principle to have such a directive.
Overall, however, we felt that the systems of protection and the measures being proposed were too strongly bank-oriented, and that it would be useful if the legislation included certain restrictions with a view to giving creditors greater protection.
The main additional elements that we have proposed are as follows.
Firstly, not every payment system that is agreed between banks should automatically fall within the scope of the directive; only those systems deposited with or notified to the authority responsible for supervision should be covered.
A second modification which we have proposed concerns the fixing of the decisive moment that determines when the protection offered by the interbank payment system, and the insolvency protection, should take effect.
The Commission had originally proposed that the relevant moment should be that of the opening of bankruptcy proceedings.
In the Committee on Legal Affairs, we regarded this as an unsatisfactory solution because, in effect, decisions on the opening of bankruptcy proceedings are often taken in the privacy of a judge's chambers and no one outside knows the precise moment of the decision, so problems of the retrospective settlement of transactions which had already taken place would not be avoided, but would inevitably continue to arise in every case of insolvency.
Finally, the Committee on Legal Affairs decided to choose a different point in time, namely the moment when the banks participating in the payment system are informed of the opening of proceedings.
In recent weeks, we considered this question again within the PPE Group, and the view there was that this moment may also be less than ideal, because there could then be a requirement for proof to be furnished that individual participants in a payment system had been notified.
With several thousand banks participating in a European payment system, that could be very difficult.
We have now tabled a further amendment on this point, Amendment No 21, which we would ask you to support, identifying the decisive moment as that when notification is given to the supervisory body - the central bank or a supervising authority - which then has an immediate duty to inform all other participants in the banking system.
A further unresolved question was that of which law should apply in cases of dispute where there was a conflict of legislative provisions.
On this point, the Commission had originally proposed that the applicable law should always be that of the country where the payment system was located, rather than that of the country where the bankruptcy took place.
Our view in the Committee on Legal Affairs is that this arrangement increases the likelihood of a conflict of laws and we believe, therefore, that where there is any dispute, the law which should apply is that of the country in which the bankruptcy occurs.
These are the three main elements covered by the amendments that have been tabled here.
One final aspect is also important: we are talking here not simply about payment systems - we have also proposed that the protection of the directive should extend to all securities clearing systems.
That is all I wish to put before the House in my capacity as rapporteur.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not one of those who is enchanted by the idea of subsidiarity.
Nevertheless, I have to ask the question: who stands to gain here?
The rapporteur had to refer back to an incident that happened in 1974 in order to make any sort of case for the necessity of this directive.
The Commission has provided no facts whatsoever to demonstrate why it is necessary; instead we are referred to a theoretical danger.
I have some difficulty with this, because there is surely something problematic about sitting down at a desk to think up dangers and then taking steps to prevent them.
That, however, is a very big subject, and I can be brief in what I have to say.
We are in agreement with the rapporteur.
We accept the amendments that have been tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and the new Amendment No 21.
But this brings me to what is a basic problem for the Commission's legal policy.
The difficulty to which the rapporteur referred so diplomatically is a real one.
In both the instances he mentioned, the effect of the Commission proposal is to grant the banks considerable latitude.
In other words, the banks are being excluded from the normal provisions of the law so that they can retain a substantial degree of discretion.
This is a problem, and it applies in relation to the applicable law as well as the question of when a payment system has been agreed.
I share the rapporteur's view that this is an area where we need clear legislation within which the banks will have to operate.
They cannot be allowed to stand outside the law.
And I would call on the Commission, when it is making proposals in future, to ensure that the law applies to everyone.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, it is an honour and a pleasure for me to take the floor to express the unalloyed support of the Group of the European People's Party for the guidelines established in this report by Mr Lehne, rapporteur for the main committee.
This solid support from my group is merited by the rapporteur's excellent approach to his work. Not only has he done an impeccable job technically, he has also succeeded in explaining the need for the directive and the reason for the amendments in terms everyone could understand, when the importance of both is only equalled by their complexity.
So the Group of the European People's Party will vote for all the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Committee on Economic Affairs, and for Amendment No 21 which we have tabled.
Today, Mr President, I want to stress the need for this directive, but above all the importance of the modifications, expertly piloted through by the rapporteur, which Parliament will no doubt approve tomorrow.
In particular, the inclusion of the securities settlement systems in the scope of its application, as well as the block of amendments which respond to the concern of Parliament for the primacy of the principle of legal validity - which is the ultimate guarantee of the proper functioning of the market - and which relates to the law applicable on the dies a quo , and to the need to establish the obligation to lodge agreements on settlement and securities systems with the authority responsible for supervising them.
Finally, Mr President, obstacles to the task of completing the internal market are currently arising from all sides and creating pessimism and the temptation to accept weak solutions, by their nature often poorly defined, which lead to fictitious harmonization and serious distortion when it comes to incorporation into national law.
So this firm initiative from the Commission, with its high quality and wealth of consequences, encourages Parliament to act in fulfilment of its co-legislative function.
Mr President, it is a bad sign that the rapporteur and the Committee on Legal Affairs have already had to table an amendment to the title of the directive, which is incomprehensible.
Settlement finality and collateral security does not mean anything to anyone.
Fortunately, the rapporteur has come up with an amendment that we should all vote for, which at least makes it clear what the directive is about.
The impenetrable fog surrounding this proposal, which the rapporteur has done his best to disperse, merely symbolizes the sceptical approach which the lawyers working on this have adopted, Mr Monti.
However, I do not wish to go into that.
The rapporteur has done his work well and the Commission has reacted accordingly, so let us hope that something good comes out of it.
The main thing - and I am always glad to see the Commissioner here so that I can pass on my thoughts in person - is that all directives dealing with bankruptcy, such as this one, show just how urgently we need to harmonize bankruptcy law.
Mr Rothley has rightly pointed out the theoretical nature of the risk provided for in this directive, but it is high time that we had harmonization in the interests of our businesses.
I know that it is difficult, I know what the problems are, Commissioner, and they are not easy to resolve.
I am also well aware of the problems with the priority list of debtors, which is also not an easy matter.
But every time we deal with issues like this, we come up against the fact that differences in national bankruptcy legislation mean problems for businesses at international level.
And even though I assume we all support the rapporteur and his report, I still wonder if we are giving sufficient attention to the position of the banks.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to compliment the Committee on Legal Affairs and in particular its rapporteur, Mr Lehne, as well as the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and its rapporteur, Mr Katiforis, on their substantial contributions to our examination of this proposal - a highly technical proposal, and a difficult but important one.
Indeed, this proposal represents an important step towards the greater liberalization of capital movements in the European Union.
Whereas in principle the free movement of capital is fully guaranteed, in practice a number of obstacles still remain, such as the fact that payment systems and securities settlement systems are still not adequate to ensure true freedom of movement across borders, because of the existence of different legal systems in the various Member States.
A minimum of legislative harmonization, which is the purpose of this directive, will eliminate the most significant barriers and allow for the creation of real cross-border highways for capital movements throughout the European Union.
I am particularly pleased that the committees responsible have proposed the inclusion of securities settlement systems within the scope of the directive, having obtained a favourable opinion from both the European Monetary Institute and the Economic and Social Committee.
We note, turning to the individual amendments, that this is the thrust of Amendments Nos 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 16 and 17.
Amendment No 1 seeks to modify the title of the directive: although such a change is acceptable to the Commission, its effect would be to indicate in the title that the directive relates to these systems in cases where institutions participating in them are involved in insolvency proceedings.
However, this directive does not concern bankruptcy as such, but only deals with it to the extent that it creates systemic risk.
Perhaps the following title could be adopted: ' proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the systemic risk inherent in payment systems and securities settlement systems' .
Amendments Nos 2 and 3 - which the Commission can accept - add some useful information about the directive: the addition of a provision on a notification procedure, as through Amendment No 6; and another change aimed at improving legal certainty, thereby helping to achieve the goal of the directive, namely the avoidance of systemic risk.
However, the depositing of the agreement on which the system is based with the authorities responsible for supervising the institutions participating in the system, followed by the publication of a notice announcing the fact, strikes us as unnecessarily complicated.
What is more, in several Member States, the authority responsible for supervising such institutions is different from the one in charge of supervising the system itself, which would lead to an artificial division of powers and create confusion.
The Commission therefore has some difficulty in accepting this amendment.
The same applies to the addition of the words 'rules for clearing balances in connection with settlement' in Amendment No 10, since such a wording could detract from the clarity of our definition of a payment system.
For the purposes of the proposal, a system is called an EC system if the law applicable to the agreement on which it is based is the law of a Member State.
That is the criterion which underlies the Commission's proposal, and it would not seem possible to apply a geographical criterion.
Amendment No 11 does nevertheless seek to introduce such a geographical concept by suggesting that a system is located in the Member State where the book entry takes place.
However, for a given operation, more than one book entry may be made with different institutions, such as the clearing house and the settlement agent.
In my view, it would therefore be necessary at least to clarify which book entry is meant; in the absence of such clarification, we find it difficult to accept this amendment.
Amendment No 12 expands the original definition of a third country payment system by using the more general term 'third country system' , so as to include securities settlement systems.
In principle we can accept this modification, but we need to complete it by adding the words 'securities settlement systems' .
Since the central banks carry out transactions in financial derivatives, these must indeed be included in the definition of monetary policy operations, as proposed by Amendment No 13.
Amendment No 16 contains three paragraphs, the first of which gives us no cause for concern.
The second replaces the words 'contracts entered into' with the words 'contracts entered in the EC system' .
But the Commission is using the term 'entered into' to mean 'concluded' , and is not referring to the registration of contracts in payment systems.
As for the unwinding of the settlement and of securities transactions, the amendment appears to be saying that once payments or securities transactions have been settled, they can no longer be unwound.
But the aim of the directive is to protect remittance orders from the risk of unwinding solely while they are within the system, because that is when systemic risk exists; once the settlement has been made there is no longer any systemic risk, so there is no reason to prohibit the unwinding of sums relating to payments already settled.
The effect of paragraph 3 of Amendment No 16 is to delay the opening of insolvency proceedings against an institution participating in the system until the moment when the competent authority formally notifies the other participants that proceedings have been opened.
This seems to be an excessively cumbersome procedure, because news of the bankruptcy of a participant in a system tends to spread very quickly through the financial markets; moreover, such a procedure would extend the preferential regime, as established under the directive, beyond the moment when the participants in the system actually learn of the insolvency in question, which cannot be justified in terms of attempting to avoid systemic risk; we therefore have difficulty in accepting Amendment No 16, and the same applies to No 21.
Amendment No 17 states that payment orders or orders for securities transactions may not be revoked after the opening of insolvency proceedings.
It would seem obvious, however, that if a participant in the system becomes bankrupt, that participant's assets are frozen and revocation is therefore impossible.
I do not see any need for further clarification here.
The Commission's proposal had a different aim, namely to prevent third parties from revoking any remittance order which has been entered into the system, given that such third party institutions cannot do so on the basis of the legislation of the other Member State concerned.
It is clear, in fact, that if this were to happen in respect of a substantial sum, systemic risk could occur: the reference to third parties must therefore be preserved.
Amendment No 18 is acceptable since it helps to clarify the text.
No 19 proposes the deletion of the article whereby, in the event of the insolvency of a participant in the system, the insolvency law applicable is that of the country where the system is located.
That deletion would run counter to the directive's goal of reducing systemic risk, and for two reasons in particular: the need to guarantee legal certainty, and the need to avoid conflicts of legislation.
All of which leads to the conclusion that the directive can achieve its goal of protecting systems from systemic risk only if Amendment No 19 is rejected.
On the other hand, the Commission welcomes No 20, which clarifies the meaning of the text.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that my attempts to clarify matters might cause you to reconsider the advisability of those amendments, in particular Nos 17 and 19, which the Commission does not find acceptable.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The voting will take place tomorrow at noon.
Simpler legislation for the internal market (SLIM)
The next item on the agenda is the report drawn up by Mr Crowley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on &#x02BC;simpler legislation for the internal market (SLIM): a pilot project' (COM(96)0204 - C4-0446/96) (A40108/97).
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for being here for our deliberations on what I consider to be a very important and urgent topic.
The idea behind the single market was one of dynamic movement in the European Union and in 1985 when the Commission set out its idea in the White Paper for the single market programme, there was a belief that this would all be completed by 1992.
Unfortunately we have not been as successful as we set out to be.
However, our optimism and desire to succeed and to go further remains and we should not be diverted from the task of trying to achieve what is ultimately the finest and most efficient goal for the European Union.
The pilot programme SLIM, simpler legislation for the internal market, came about because of the recognition of the need to ensure that the legislative acts which the Commission, Parliament and the Council adopt and ask the national authorities to transpose into national law should be as effective as possible in tackling the specific issues with which they are concerned.
It has always been a downside of the European Union that the format used for the legislation makes it inaccessible to the ordinary European citizen.
Despite the fact that I have been working in the system for three years and have a legal training, on a number of occasions I have been unable to follow the sequence of events which goes to make up the final legislative document.
It is essential that, when we pass laws, there is a definite basis in fact that can be understood by each and every individual, whether a practitioner, a business person, a government official or the individual citizen.
To look at another couple of examples, I would point out that in the Paternoster there are sixty words, in the Ten Commandments there are 128 words, in the American Constitution there are 457 words with 142 added through amendments in the past fifteen years.
In a recent EU directive on the presentation and sale of certain types of products there are 29, 547 words.
Is it necessary for us to have so much verbiage in our legislation. I think not.
I have put forward some very simple and basic suggestions in my report which could help to overcome this problem.
Firstly, looking at the whole area of codification, we can bring together previous legislative acts that deal with the same topic and combine them all into one single individual legislative act.
This could make it easier for the practitioners of law, for the people in business and the employees who have to comply with these laws to find the exact reference they are looking for.
Secondly, as from now we should start to make our new legislation simpler.
Let us lead by example.
Let us set down the yardstick which must be followed by ever Commission and every Parliament after us to ensure that we have a proper, simpler legislative process.
In that regard I would draw the attention of all Members to the length of my report.
There are ten paragraphs in the conclusions.
In a report we dealt with this morning there were 178 paragraphs.
We must lead by example.
Make it simple, make it plain but make it so that no doubt can be cast on its accuracy or leaving it open to different interpretations.
We must encourage Member States not to use the European Union as the whipping boy when they want to bring in bad legislation at national level.
They should not abuse directives by including things that they do not have the courage to bring in under separate national legislation as they should under the rules of subsidiarity.
We must also ask the national governments to ensure that they have a simpler legislative process where individual citizens can understand the whole process.
Finally, I should like to draw the Commissioner's attention to the fact that I am very disappointed with the new projects which the Commission hopes to follow under this SLIM project.
I ask that we make them more relevant and immediate to the task of the single market, in particular focusing on intermediation and distribution of financial services, public procurement, the machinery directive and the directive on the marketing of dangerous substances.
We can make it real, we can make sexy and we can make it understandable to the European citizen.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commission for its proposals regarding SLIM, and also Mr Crowley for his excellent report.
Simpler legislation for the internal market, I believe, has key potential to improve the competitiveness, profitability and, most importantly of all, the job creation potential of businesses the length and breadth of the European Union.
Speaking as somebody from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, this is a key area for us to look at in regard to SLIM.
But success in this area will only come about if we have an inclusive approach.
There are fears and concerns that certain key actors, in particular SMEs and, to a lesser extent, trade unions, have not been fully involved in the SLIM process.
I would stress that for this to work everybody has to feel confident.
What we are trying to achieve is something quite radical and something we ought to be trying to achieve.
I would like briefly to touch on two or three areas which are of key concern.
Firstly, we need to introduce our legislation in such a way that it is impossible for national governments to gold-plate the legislation.
Gold-plating European legislation actually harms the single market, harms competitiveness and the ability of companies to create jobs.
Secondly, we must accept quite clearly that national legislation is far more the enemy than the legislation we generate at European level.
We ought to be taking the challenge of national legislation head on.
The Commission produced an excellent document in February of last year called 'National Regulations Affecting Products in the Internal Market: a Cause for Concern' .
It was never formally adopted by the Commission, yet it shows clearly how it is national legislation as well as our own legislation that creates problems.
The SLIM process, I believe, can be excellent news for small companies in my area of the United Kingdom, the industrial Black Country, and throughout the whole of the European Union.
But we must have this inclusive approach and we must highlight the dangers of gold-plating and the dangers of national legislation.
I would just like to welcome again the Commission's proposals and thank Mr Crowley for his report.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on having succeeded, with such a slim subject, SLIM, to be brief.
That being said, who would not subscribe to the idea of simplifying Community legislation?
But what strike me on this matter, are the superabundance of means and, somewhere, the modesty of results.
Four subjects were chosen by the Commission.
On Intrastat, it is a matter of bringing the number of commodity codes down from 10, 700 to 7, 000, which is no doubt laudable.
On the subject of construction products - I quote our rapporteur - the situation is not very clear.
On the subject of the recognition of diplomas, you are going to make some proposals.
And on the subject of ornamental plants, it is complete blockage.
At this rate, Commissioner, what prospects does this exercise offer? That is the question I would like to put to you.
Is the SLIM exercise an experiment, an experimental mode of legislation called to become a method, or is it already a method of legislative reform in itself? And at the rate it is going, what then is the perspective of this reform?
Will it require ten years, one hundred years or even more?
Of course SLIM does not represent the whole of the strategy of simplification and codification of European law implemented by the European Commission.
But I would like you to give us some indication as to the rest of the strategy, as to the general framework, because once again, even if the method is quite remarkable, the superabundance of means turns out with some rather modest results, if you consider the whole of the portfolio for which you are responsible.
Mr President, it was Montesquieu who urged legislators to be guided by a spirit of moderation.
The rapporteur certainly gave a practical example of that spirit, and it is clear from the Commission's pilot project, which is before the House today, that the spirit of moderation is now to be taken seriously in the process of enacting European legislation.
Following on from the Molitor report, the SLIM initiative represents a further important step towards improving and simplifying Community law, and for that reason it is to be warmly welcomed.
However, I should like to make a number of observations.
The Commission ought to have clearly explained the basis on which it selected the sectors that the SLIM teams have considered.
Such an explanation would have been particularly welcome given that the topics selected were not exactly burning issues for the public.
Suffice to say that one of them was ornamental plants.
The fact that one Member State was keen to have this sector included is surely not sufficient justification.
We need more than that. Sectors which merit urgent consideration in the future include public procurement and financial services, because these are areas of particular importance to our national economies.
However, the Commission ought to begin by focusing on sectors where extensive legislation has actually been adopted.
For that reason, issues such as those of migrant workers and taxes are not particularly appropriate priorities for the SLIM initiative.
The composition of the teams should be transparent and balanced so that they can operate with maximum efficiency.
It is particularly relevant in the context of the SLIM initiative that the Commission should base its approach, in a comprehensible way, on the checklist that was drawn up by Parliament when it presented its response to the Molitor Report.
This should become a compulsory part of the process of drafting new laws or reviewing existing ones, so that tendencies to over-legislate can be exposed.
The whole idea behind the SLIM initiative is to reduce the costs to national economies and business which arise from over-complex legislation.
The aim is to make Europe more competitive and above all to improve the potential for job creation.
But the SLIM initiative will only serve to achieve that aim if its conclusions become a basis for making legislation genuinely more readable and straightforward in practice, and if that effect works its way through to the Member States.
The Commission should pull out all the stops to achieve that aim, and then demonstrate its achievement to the public.
With that in mind, I would encourage the Commission, as a matter of urgency, to push ahead with this project.
Honesty compels me to admit that the Commission often puts forward perfectly clear and comprehensible proposals which national bureaucracies subsequently make such a muddle of that no one can understand them.
That was the first thing I wished to say.
The second point I would like to make is that we unfortunately had the wrong idea about the monitoring report.
It was not the solution we wanted, which is why I am particularly pleased that the Commission has come up with this initiative, and I wholeheartedly support what the rapporteur has said.
The main thing is to ensure that those who deal with the law should find it comprehensible and readable.
Mr Monti, if you could find a way to have the Maastricht Treaty rewritten without changing its substance but producing a text which professors of law could understand, you would be taking a great step forward and I would wish you every success with it.
It is absolutely vital that lawyers at least should be able to understand the legislation we produce.
The examples which the rapporteur gives are very good ones, but our work on simplifying texts and making them more readable must focus on both existing and future legislation.
It is a very laudable project, and I wish you every success.
Mr President, at the beginning of the 1990s in my homeland we had a campaign to simplify legislation, a campaign which was in fact quite successful.
It was particularly good for getting rid of regulations at a lower hierarchical level than laws.
I think this is also important in connection with the SLIM project.
It is not really the legislative work in this House which is affected.
When we succeeded in simplifying things at National level there were cynics who said that it was like carting away standards in a wheelbarrow - then in comes a lorry from the EU.
This comparison has indeed been shown to have some truth in it.
So I also have a desire for the SLIM project to succeed.
As many earlier speakers have already said, it has not produced many results so far.
We have really only seen any form of result in two of the pilot projects.
Those of us in Parliament who have not been so closely involved are asking ourselves: Why did they start with that particular area? This is something which the rapporteur also touched upon.
Why did we start with building products when we know that the Community has tried for years to simplify this sector?
As part of a more open spirit in the work I would also like to see a fair participation from different parts of the region.
As we mentioned in the committee report the area of public procurement is crying out for simplification and there is a need for procedures in several Directives to be standardised.
Why do we continue to have different methods of procurement? The legal committee would like to see procurement subjected to a method of slimming which is more lasting than the slimming methods found in women's magazines in the spring.
We also know that many suppliers and the public sector would like to see a simplification.
The fact that application of the legislation must be safeguarded, something which I understand the Commission has said in another context, is no real answer.
There are examples of situations where Directives have been amended before they have even come into force.
I hope also that the management of the Commission pay attention to the fact that there can be considerable opposition at a lower level from Commission staff.
We could decide, for example, within this sector and other sectors, that from a particular time onwards a regulation is valid for five years unless it is renewed.
I think this is one way to really speed up legislation.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, I hope to congratulate the Commission on the SLIM initiative which can only meet with approval in its principle, even if the pilot project looks, especially in its state, like an operation of aesthetico-legal surgery.
Indeed, I am sorry that the four sectors chosen are so far removed from the daily concerns of European citizens.
What is more, the simplification of legislation relating to the internal market must not in the future at any event, become the Trojan horse of European deregulation, of which you can measure daily the social divisions it creates and the increases in unemployment which it feeds.
Finally, I note with disappointment, as it relates to the future of the SLIM initiative, the total absence of common vision between the Executive Committee, the 'Internal Market' Committee and the Committee on Legal Affairs.
Let there not be any doubt, Commissioner, working less but working more effectively for the well-being of European citizens is the only common challenge which can be taken up to enable the completion of the single market.
Since I only have a minute's speaking time, I shall begin by offering my brief congratulations to the rapporteur.
First point: accessibility.
We have tabled an amendment on this, because we feel that the kind of language and the complicated constructions used are often the result of compromises between the Member States and were not in the original Commission proposals.
Second: consolidation.
There are now so many different types of legislation on various subjects and in various places that these should be consolidated and brought together.
Thirdly, we feel that it is extremely important to include simplification and accessibility in the work being done on fiscal harmonization.
It is precisely these kinds of discrepancies in fiscal treatment that make the internal market so difficult and lead to more unemployment.
Finally, I would point out that the Member States are far more to blame than the European institutions for producing too much complicated legislation.
Commissioner Bangemann made the point here in the House that 80 % of the 440 new pieces of legislation introduced in 1994 were initiated by the Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to thank Mr Crowley and the committees responsible for their work and their support for the SLIM initiative. Let me tell you briefly what stage we have reached and what we are proposing to do next.
Firstly, as far as the first phase of the SLIM initiative is concerned, comments have been made regarding the four pilot sectors chosen and the fact that they are somewhat remote from the lives of our citizens.
I would remind you that the idea of the SLIM project originated at the end of February 1996; I believe that we have carried it out, albeit as a pilot project at this stage, in a far shorter space of time than is customary for the European institutions, with whose pace of work you are familiar. In a true spirit of simplification, we even persuaded the Member States that they need not all be represented in each of the SLIM teams, which was no easy matter; the Member States divided the work among themselves, and we were therefore able to set up streamlined teams capable of deliberating fairly rapidly.
However, the choice of sectors was influenced by the speed with which we wished to carry out this initial pilot.
Are these sectors remote from our citizens' lives? I would say not.
Perhaps ornamental plants might raise a few eyebrows, but INTRASTAT is something that firms were finding very burdensome in their day-to-day operations; as for the recognition of diplomas, please do not tell me that this issue is remote from the lives of our citizens, and the subject of construction products is linked to one of Europe's leading economic sectors, but I am sorry to say is the area in which we have made least progress.
How far have we come in the first phase? On ornamental plants, a large majority of Member States are in favour of simplifying the directive and opposed to an optional directive system.
There is also a consensus on the degree of simplification and the aspects of the directive to be simplified.
The Commission intends to present a detailed proposal by May, in keeping with the timetable which has been drawn up.
As regards INTRASTAT, it might - I repeat - appear to be remote from citizens' lives, but it is extremely close to the day-to-day concerns of firms, in particular small businesses.
In this sector too, rapid progress is taking place: efforts have been made to reduce the number of data to be collected and to alter significantly the INTRASTAT nomenclature.
The Commission is to meet regularly with representatives of industry between now and June, when it will submit a proposal which it hopes will be adopted in November.
Turning to the recognition of diplomas, here the Commission intends to bring forward proposals by the end of the year to establish a simplified method of updating the lists of diplomas benefiting from automatic recognition and to streamline the advisory committee procedure: this provides a partial reply to Mr Cot's question, and in some cases it is a matter of establishing a method, a kind of blueprint, to be used on a case-by-case basis.
The recommendation that the provisions on education and training in the sectoral directives should be re-examined, with a view to laying down competence-based criteria giving more weight to education and training outcomes, rather than to rigid rules on content, is currently being looked at by the advisory committee in the context of nursing education.
As for construction products, I do not deny that this is the sector in which we have encountered the greatest difficulty.
Of the proposals on how to improve this directive, the Commission has opted for the one combining short-term action to lay down the standards needed if the directive is to function properly with an appraisal of necessary modifications to the directive in the medium term.
In the committee responsible for this sector, the Commission came up against vigorous opposition from the Member States to any amendment of the directive.
Here I would make one comment: we are all, in principle, in favour of simplicity and simplification, but what I hope is one of the merits of this procedure is that it demonstrates how difficult simplification is in practice, and how many calls for simplification encounter resistance from those in the Member States who would be affected by simplification.
I therefore hope and believe that this is in itself a useful undertaking and something of a learning exercise, which shows the gap between talking about simplification and putting it into effect.
I should now like to say a few words concerning the second phase and the choice of sectors which Mr Crowley also mentioned.
In the light of internal discussions and requests put forward by the Member States, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and representatives of the sectors concerned, I intend to propose to the Commission very soon that the next phase of the SLIM programme should be based on the following sectors: certain aspects of the present VAT system, financial services - Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn - beginning with the banking sector, the combined nomenclature for foreign trade and a commodity sector yet to be defined.
I have no time to explain why we have pursued this approach or why I intend to propose these particular sectors to the Commission.
Some of you referred with good cause to public procurement: I would point out that simplification in this area is already being considered within the Commission, and is the subject of consultations following the publication of the Green Paper which deals specifically with public procurement.
I would end by thanking you for your support and your understanding of the difficulties, and I would ask you to see this as a practical and pragmatic exercise which will enable us all to move on from the easy matter of talking about simplification to the difficult task of putting it into practice.
Thank you very much, Mr commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The voting will take place tomorow at noon.
Capital adequacy and investment services
The next item on the agenda is Ms Oddy's recommendation for a second reading on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 93/6/EEC on the capital adequacy of investment firms and credit institutions and Council Directive 93/22/EEC on investment services in the securities field (C4-0005/97-95/0188(COD)) (A4-0093/97).
Mr President, the substantive issue in this report is fairly simple.
It is just a question of setting up a committee in accordance with Decision 87/373 of the European Economic Community.
However, it raises enormous questions of procedure, and in particular comitology.
In its original proposal, the Commission proposed a Type III(a) committee.
Parliament, in its first reading, recommended a Type II(b) committee.
The Council, in its wisdom, decided to ignore both the wishes of the Commission and of Parliament and has put in the common position a recommendation for a III(b) committee.
Nor does the common position include a reference to the modus vivendi which was agreed between the three institutions in 1995.
All three institutions are bound by that agreement and that is what should govern this situation.
The common position also includes a number of unusual features such as the committee in question would adopt its own procedure which is not in accordance with Decision 87/373 and the Commission may consult the committee on any new situations.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is quite unanimous that this common position is not in the interests of parliamentary democracy or transparency and it is not democratic.
It simply undermines the position of Parliament.
Consequently, the Legal Affairs Committee voted unanimously to restore the original amendments in the first reading and to return to these in the second reading.
The Legal Affairs Committee is quite adamant that the Council should not seek to undermine Parliament in this way and we wish to go to conciliation to sort out these difficulties.
Since the vote in the Legal Affairs Committee, a number of further concerns have come to my attention.
The declarations made in Council have only just become available and I would criticize this delay.
The Declaration 1 runs counter to the modalities set out in Decision 87/373, as it is the Commission which is assisted by the committee and not the chairman as is usual.
Further, the Member States should have the possibility to convene meetings and have items entered on the agenda of the committee.
In this case, however, the declaration states that it is the Commission and no one else which should submit draft measures to be taken, contrary to Decision 87/373.
The declaration concerning Article 1(6) talks about the practice followed, systematic use and consulting the securities committee when it plans to submit new proposals.
These are illegal under Decision 87/373 and it would be extremely detrimental to Parliament to agree with this pseudo-legal and possibly illegal practice.
The Commission is supposed to be the guardian of the Treaties.
I maintain that the guardian of the people of the European Union is the Parliament. We are the thin line.
We are the organization which protects the public of Europe.
If the Commission and the Council flout the wishes of this Parliament, then we will have dictatorial bureaucracy.
That is not acceptable to the people of this European Union.
The Commission and Council must think again and must listen not only to Parliament but to the people of Europe who are entitled to have transparent and open decision-making and legislation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in fact I hardly need to take the floor here.
I would just say that the PPE Group entirely supports the report by Ms Oddy, and therefore agrees with all the amendments which have been retabled.
We also endorse the criticisms which the rapporteur has just expressed in the debate.
We too believe that this is first and foremost a question of transparency.
We are once again having to deal with this tiresome issue of comitology.
Of course, it is quite legitimate and, to some extent, understandable that each side should choose the system which suits it best and gives it most scope to bring its influence to bear.
However, the Commission and the Council should in fact consider that one of the reasons for the negative attitude displayed by our citizens towards Europe is that many people disapprove of these secret negotiations which remain unknown to the outside world. Simply for the sake of making Europe transparent and comprehensible for our citizens, we should opt for the procedure being proposed here, namely a management committee of Type II(b), and not a Type III(b) regulatory committee.
Type III(b) is the so-called contre-filet procedure.
I have to say that just at the moment I would prefer a faux-filet !
We are opposed to the contre-filet procedure, and we believe that the modus vivendi should be adhered to, as set out in the Oddy report.
Unless we settle this whole comitology issue once and for all, and so as to bring about transparency, then the process of comitology will eventually become one of criminology, and that would not be a good thing for the Commission or the Council, nor indeed for Europe and ourselves.
In conclusion, I would repeat that we entirely support the Oddy report.
Mr President, I am only here to say bravo, Christine!
We support you.
Get on with it!
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The voting will be held at noon tomorrow.
Resale rights
The next item on the agenda is the report drawn up by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the resale right for the benefit of the author of an original work of art (COM(96)0097 - C40251/96/0085(COD)) (A4-0030/97).
Mr President, I should like to say that our committee approved the principle of the artists' resale rights unanimously.
It is important to bear that in mind.
Personally, I consulted widely with artists' organizations, galleries and auction houses on this.
Although, as Mr Cox may perhaps say, when he contributes to the debate later, if you wanted to help artists you might not begin from here, we recognize the political reality of Europe: eight Member States already have the legislation, eleven have agreed it and there is a qualified majority in the Council.
The job of Parliament here is to try and modify and produce the best result possible, which is what I hope we have done in our report from the Culture Committee.
I hope that by voting tomorrow - on a first reading, it is worth remembering - Parliament will actually establish a position which we can then negotiate with the Council and the Commission to make sure that we improve the Directive and then test its impact in the market place.
Mr Cox's amendment is a wrecking amendment suggesting that we have an impact analysis before we have the directive.
It seems to me difficult to envisage how you could do that other than by using some economic model.
It is just a method of delay.
If he was honest, he would admit that.
The arguments of the British Government are well known, but the arguments of the British Government are largely those of Sothebys and Christies.
I should point out that Sothebys has recently been found guilty of international art smuggling on a large scale.
Therefore, perhaps their word is to be taken at less than face value.
They are also owned by an American billionaire, so their European nature is also to be questioned.
It is also worth pointing out that the major auction houses have auction houses in New York, Geneva, Hong Kong - they can sell paintings wherever they can get the best return.
Again, we should be sceptical of that.
The key, it seems to me, is that the artists themselves want this; a quarter-of-a-million artists in Europe want this Directive for a number of reasons, not least to get back part of their heritage and to understand the nature of their market.
We, in Parliament, should be on the side of the artists, not on the side of the auction houses.
Mr President, I want to start by congratulating the Commission on this initiative.
I think the time has come for the Commission to harmonize artists' intellectual property rights in their work through resale right.
Parliament has done serious work on this proposal for a directive in the Committee on Legal Affairs, and the rapporteur, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, has done an excellent job, achieving a very high degree of approval.
I think the twenty-odd amendments passed by the Committee on Legal Affairs, and others presented by the Socialist Group, are aimed at improving the text presented by the Commission.
I would draw attention to some of them, in particular Amendment No 4, which refers to the international conventions.
It is a good thing to harmonize Community law, but if Community law is harmonized and there are countries outside the Community which still fail to grant the authors their intellectual property rights, we will be facing cases of real piracy.
At a time when the whole of commercial and services law is being harmonized, consideration must be given to the appropriateness of drawing up an international convention which removes the reference in the Berne Convention to resale right as a purely optional right.
I also want to draw the Commission's attention to Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 18 - as well as part of Amendment No 9 - which define the scope of resale right to exclude manuscripts, but deal with resale right in a work which has a certain originality and is intended to be viewed.
So we are talking about a work which is an expression of creation and therefore the intellectual property right is protected.
Finally, Mr President, I hope that the amendments from the Committee on Legal Affairs and some of the socialist amendments, which we hope will be approved, can rely on Commission support at the second stage of approval by the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on the stamina and patience which she has shown in drawing up her report.
With this report, she has presented a very balanced and practical final document.
In the light of the closing discussions in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I should like to emphasize in particular once again that resale rights are a matter of copyright in favour of the artist, and not a tax to benefit the Member States.
I think this is a very important point to make.
The discussions revolved around two issues in particular: whether we need to harmonize resale rights at all; and, if so, how these rights should then be expressed in terms of percentages for each band.
The first question - do we need to harmonize resale rights - can clearly be answered in the affirmative.
Where art is concerned, the European internal market is characterized by extremes.
We have some Member States where there are no resale rights, and others where there is a right of 5 %.
We need this harmonization.
The main arguments against are as follows. Resale rights or administering them would consume the proceeds.
The response is that this can be countered by the rapporteur's balanced proposal that the rights should apply only from a threshold of ECU 1000. Also, many of the systems currently in operation serve to undermine this argument.
Another argument which is repeatedly put forward, namely that the art market would migrate to the United States, cannot be sustained.
There are already resale rights in California, and efforts are in fact being made in the USA to introduce them throughout the country.
Turning to the bands and the percentages for resale rights, there are major differences in the Member States.
We spent a great deal of time discussing where to draw a line that was justified on practical grounds, but came to the conclusion that the threshold of ECU 1000 is one which is justified, taking all the counter-arguments into account, and it should be maintained.
The upper rate is also in keeping with the realities of the art market and the interests of the artists involved.
Mr President, this proposal for a directive aims to eliminate major legal disparities between the States, from the absence of resale rights in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, to the highest rates in Portugal.
The Commission, using this disparity, has attempted an average proposal forgetting that, in certain States, the resale right appears in texts, but has no application in fact, forgetting that in some countries in the Union no true art market exists, or exists any longer.
The Committee on Legal Affairs, through the impetus of Mrs Palacio, has attempted a more realistic approach.
Certainly, there is no question of depriving the artist of a genuine resale right over his work: the resale right is a way of letting the artist benefit from the added value which his work gains over time and providing him with an appropriate and uniform level of protection.
But the reality of the figures is implacable: less than 10 % of resale rights benefit artists who are still alive.
What is more, far from favouring young artists, the resale right has a perverse effect.
It lowers the price which the potential buyer is prepared to pay and, for the work of contemporary artists who are already highly rated, it encourages sellers to go abroad.
Today, they go to London or Geneva, but once harmonisation has been achieved under the current conditions of the proposal, it could be feared that the market will move to New York, thus eliminating any art market worthy of the name in the Union.
So, the objective of social protection which the European legislator has set itself will not be achieved.
It seems to me equally important to put in place a significant resale right for the works of artists who are starting out or who are little known, as it is to set the resale right for internationally renowned artists close to zero, insignificant, since the cost of relocating the sale is derisory in comparison with the right which may be earned.
In this domain, as in many others, let us refrain from an excess of zeal, the better being the enemy of the good.
Mr President, I would like to see young artists given good opportunities to work in Europe.
I would like to see the results of their work here.
I would like to see a smoothly functioning art market which offers returns which can then be used to benefit the artists.
This will be achieved if we have many different art dealers and galleries and through reliable art dealers.
If we were to have internationally binding regulations and resale rights which applied in every country which had signed the Copyright Convention the situation would be different.
Then we could support this Directive, but that is not the case today.
I can assure Mr Kerr that experience from countries other than Great Britain has shown the consequences of the introduction of resale rights.
This was introduced in my country and now it can now be seen that art dealing does not take place through reliable art dealers and auction houses i.e. it takes place on a grey market which is not a good situation.
Another consequence of resale rights is that the galleries have started to experience an even tougher time and are finding it difficult to operate, which means that the prices which they are able to offer young artists have gone down.
As we have said, it is not the young artists which will benefit from this, a point which was made very well, I thought, by Ms Schaffner.
We in the liberal group want to see the principle of subsidiarity respected which is another reason why many of us are critical towards this proposal.
We want to see a critical examination of whether the proposed Directive really will lead to an improvement in community principles and if there really are 'dysfunctions' in the market which require regulating.
After all there are no international binding standards which force us to adopt this legislation.
We do not think that the Commission has demonstrated the need for a Directive convincingly or that the lack of a Directive would cause serious disruption.
Let me say - even if Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn has said that this should not be compared with a tax - that those who maintain that resale rights are required for the internal market should also demand a standard income tax in the Union.
For our part, we do not think that the Directive should be introduced until the Commission has drawn up and presented a thorough impact analysis of how the art market really functions and how it functions with respect to third countries.
Such a study I hope would also give an insight into how the diversity of the art market would be affected.
It is as much in the interests of the buyer as of the artist to ensure that there is diversity of players and that there is true competition.
At the same time it is obvious that the proposal will not lead to improvements for artists in those countries where resale rights already exist.
Mr President, the lack of legal harmonization in artists' rights to participate in the benefits generated by their work is currently distorting competition and undermining the proper functioning of the internal market. This proposal for a directive should be understood as an attempt to put an end to this perverse situation, and it is high time to do so.
The Commission is seeking to regulate transactions which give rise to payment, the threshold for the application of the right and the type of resale right.
We agree with the choice of issues that require regulation and also with the generic proposal which inspires the directive.
What we are not convinced about is whether it adequately matches the requirements of the internal market and the protection of the artists' living and working conditions.
We harbour these doubts because of the method of regulating practical aspects of the exercise of resale right.
We disagree with some of the measures put together to regulate this, like the minimum thresholds and the percentages to be received by the artists when their work is resold.
On the first point, we think the minimum threshold is extremely restrictive, and if it is not reduced artists whose works are less well known or valued and give rise to modest economic transactions will remain outside the scope of resale right.
This would enshrine an exclusion which we think should be put right by reducing the minimum threshold to extend the exercise of resale right to the greatest number of artists.
As regards the percentages, it is claimed that these measures give the artist a share in the profits earned by his work.
It seems common sense to increase the percentages, otherwise the redistribution will be more symbolic than real.
So we support the amendments proposing an increase in the percentages.
Finally, I want to point out that the objective of the directive should be cultural as well as economic.
We believe it must aspire to strengthen artistic creation, which is and always has been one of the identifying marks of European culture.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since this proposal for a directive has been the object of sometimes violent criticism, I should like to return to the question of the legal basis - not the one contained in the Union Treaty, which the rapporteur has explained adequately tonight, but rather two urgent legislative needs which this proposal seeks to meet.
The first - and here I agree with the previous speakers - is the ending of a market distortion based on legal differences originating from markets which have a privileged position because of national legislation, since they do not have to take account of resale rights.
There was only one way to correct this false situation, namely to introduce a resale right throughout the Union, with all the consequences that entails.
An area without internal borders must also be a market without privileges.
The other urgent need lies in the unequal treatment of creative artists, as opposed to writers and musicians.
While the latter are protected by copyright against economic fluctuations and the vagaries of the market, creative artists are at the mercy of the marketing strategies of the art trade, if they do not yet have a personal reputation and the influence that goes with it.
In this context, resale rights serve as partial compensation, and as acknowledgement of a right which cannot be denied to these artists.
I should like to make one further comment on the amendment on resale rights which I have tabled, together with other Members.
Our purpose here is to follow as far as possible both the Commission's proposals and the ideas from the artists' associations.
Finally, I should like to thank the Commission for its bold initiative, the rapporteur for the determination and the caution with which she has approached the issue, and the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Culture for his contribution.
This proposal on the resale right sends out a very clear political message, and that is quite simply the European Union's insatiable desire for expansion, or to put it in EU speech: the proposal violates both the principle of subsidiarity and the principle of proportionality.
What is at the forefront of the debate, and what gives weight to the proposal - looked at in rational terms - is a concern about the distortion of competitiveness in that some countries have this resale right, and others do not.
But the existing research shows that the resale right has effect firstly on sales in the country of sale when the work of art in question has a sale price of at least 50, 000 ECUs.
When it comes to less valuable works of art, due to transport and insurance costs, it may simply not be worthwhile selling elsewhere in order to avoid the resale right.
The existing reports refer to an examination of the sale prices of works of art which indicate that 95 % of works of art are sold at prices under around 20, 000 ECUs, that is to say $25, 000.
In other words, the attempts at harmonization contained in the proposal are targeted at under 5 %, probably only 2-3 %, of combined sales.
In all essential respects the resale right is a national matter and that is what it should remain.
For Scandinavian artists, where we have had the resale right - in Denmark's case for several years - the proposal simply means a significant reduction.
Scandinavian artists have, in a joint statement, protested against the proposal and this reduction, which Marianne Eriksson will be addressing in a subsequent speech.
My conclusion to this is that, speaking for myself and for the group, I am able to support Mr Cox's amendment which is aimed at simplicity and seeks an assessment of the need, particularly amendment No 40.
Mr President, I want to pay homage to the Commission which has introduced this necessary draft and especially to Mrs Palacio, who has invested a great deal in this matter and has shown evidence of remarkable qualities, even if hers was at times a thankless task.
I think our Commission has produced a profound piece of work.
It has held hearings, consultations and long debates.
The conclusions I would draw from it are as follows.
Firstly, there must be a harmonisation of the resale right.
This right exists in certain States; it does not exist in others.
This situation distorts the internal market.
It is important that the result of our deliberations is an agreement on the principle of the resale right, even if the rate may be modest, or even minimal where the lowest rate is concerned.
Secondly, the need for the legitimate remuneration of artists, and particularly young artists, must be recognised for works of art which are not of very great financial importance.
Thirdly, we do not have the right to misjudge the globalisation of the art market and the effects of relocation, today to London, tomorrow to New York, Tokyo or elsewhere.
The socialist group has taken these elements into account, which have led it to propose a wide range of rates, going from 5 % for modest works to ensure the adequate remuneration of young artists or works of art by nature not very commercial, to 1 % for more important works.
I would like to make it clear that the rate of 1 % has not been accepted, but it has not been disputed in principle, Mr Kerr, by the representatives of the large British houses you have cited and who were present at our hearing.
So, we think there should be a wide spread as far as rates are concerned.
In the same way, we think that thresholds should start at 500 Ecus and go up to 250, 000 Ecus, that is, to widen the range put forward by the Commission.
I note that there is some difficulty over agreement - including within my group - because of the diversity of traditions and interests.
I will put the question which we will have to ask ourselves at some point: do we, or do we not, want a directive? I hope, for my part, that a substantial majority of you will stand out for the proposals presented.
Otherwise, I am afraid that by letting things go we will see worse relocations, to the detriment of artists as well as to all the intermediaries and other active parties in the art market in Europe.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the work she has undertaken.
The fact that I disagree with her in no way detracts from the hard work she has put in on this report.
My starting point is simply this.
Article 108 of the Treaty is an erroneous Treaty base.
This is not a harmonization measure.
Indeed, the case for harmonization has not been proved.
If the objective were to be harmonization then both the Commission directive and the Palacio Vallelersundi report would fail to hit the mark.
The actual effect of a measure such as that before us tonight will clearly be to drive this art business out of Europe completely and into the welcoming arms of Switzerland and New York.
In any event, as Mr Krarup has said, these proposals lack proportionality.
I would remind the House that if you look at the market in France alone, 75 % of the droit de suite raised goes to only six families.
In my view the principle of subsidiarity should clearly apply here.
I would draw the attention of both the Commission and the House to the fact that three Member State governments are clearly against the application of this directive.
These are Ireland, Holland and the United Kingdom.
There are several reasons for this: the principle of subsidiarity to which I have already referred; the fact that harmonization in this case is simply not justified; thirdly, there is no convincing evidence that the absence of the right in some Member States and the difference between other Member States creates barriers to trade.
Artists' resale rights should be left to national law.
I would also add that the main international copyright convention - the Berne Convention - to which all Member States are party, gives freedom whether or not to apply this right.
This freedom must be respected.
The costs and risk involved far outweigh any conceivable benefits.
Before the present proposals and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's report enter into force, the Commission must conduct and report on a complete evaluation of the impact on the market of resale of the works of art in both the European Union and between the European Union and third countries.
This report should be examined by the Council and the European Parliament should be consulted on it.
I would like to make a forecast.
If this directive and the amendments tabled to the Palacio Vallelersundi report were adopted, it would result in a net loss to the European Union - a loss of earnings and jobs in the European Union.
We simply cannot afford to let that happen.
So, in the words of Mr Kerr, I conclude by saying: Let the market decide and let the market be.
Like a previous speaker, I commend to the House the amendments tabled by Mr Cox, in particular Amendment No 40.
We should vote these amendments through and not those tabled by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi and other colleagues or indeed the Commission report.
There are huge potential job losses and a huge loss of income to all Member States and I regret that while Mr Kerr said that he conducted a very full inquiry, in fact he did not go to all the art galleries in the United Kingdom so they could have benefited from his contribution tonight.
Mr President, in my opinion it is undeniable that the current situation with regard to resale rights in respect of works of art is unsatisfactory and is causing distortions of competition on the modern art market.
However, the main problem stems from the differing legal positions of artists in those countries where they sell their works.
A further cause of inequality is the situation of visual artists by comparison with other artists whose right to payment of royalties for repeated uses of their works is guaranteed everywhere.
The consideration of the directive gave rise to a justified criticism of the so-called threshold level. There is a risk that only established artists or their heirs will benefit from the rights in question.
This is why I support the reduction in the threshold value to ECU 500, as proposed by the Committee on Culture, and a higher level of compensation in the lowest price category, since this would help and encourage new young artists.
The elimination of red tape and the application of the subsidiarity principle must be encouraged everywhere where such measures are justified and feasible.
However, the harmonization of resale rights is justified precisely because it will help bring about more equal treatment of artists.
This harmonization must be carried out in such a way as to encourage artists and the arts in general.
Mr President, unfortunately I cannot pass on my congratulations for this report although I know that a great deal of hard work has gone into it.
But it is our view that this proposed Directive contains regulations which are more far-reaching than required to achieve the stated objective.
If this Directive is adopted it will be necessary not only for the three Scandinavian Member countries of Sweden, Finland and Denmark but also for Norway and Iceland to amend their existing legislation.
This change will bring about a marked deterioration in the rights which Scandinavian artists in the five countries enjoy under existing National statutes.
The Directive, in its current format, takes no account of small national markets.
It has been drawn up with no regard for the conditions in the Scandinavian countries.
If the Directive is adopted in its current format it will mean, in the case of Sweden, that working artists will not for the most part be eligible for remuneration and that instead this will be a benefit to well known foreign artists.
Total remuneration would be halved while administration costs would rise considerably.
As I am running out of time to speak, I refer you to my proposed amendment and would unfortunately, as we say in Sweden, ask that both the Commission and the Committee do their homework again.
Mr President, the European Union's cultural policy is marking time: it is not experiencing a happy period, to put it mildly; there is insufficient will to promote it, and a lack of funds to implement it.
So it is crucial that the legislative framework, which is necessary if there is to be a real single market, should at least take due account of the particular nature of artworks - plastic artworks, in this case - and should actively support all forms of creativity.
Moreover, our enthusiastic support for the extension, judicious harmonization and proper application of resale rights stems from a policy line which we have always vociferously advocated.
Mrs Palacio's fine report records the outcome of intense debate within the Committee on Legal Affairs, and expresses full approval - which I endorse - of the proposal which the Commissioner has been bold enough to present.
It is quite proper to recognize the rights - and we are not talking here about a hand-out - of those who produce works for which they often receive an initial payment that is out of all proportion to their subsequent market value.
So the practical fruits of their success should not result in the exclusive and far superior gain of dealers and large galleries, but should also benefit the original authors on an appropriate scale, be they young or not-so-young.
We are therefore hoping for a broad consensus in the vote in Parliament, and we particularly support Amendments Nos 53, 54 and 55, which are key ones.
We shall struggle hard to defeat the specious arguments which will undoubtedly be put forward to block a long-awaited directive which is both necessary and useful, in order to ensure that a significant part of the market is governed with due regard for original, unique, unreproducible artworks that are an essential reflection of the imagination and traditions of the Europe which we hold so dear.
Mr President, I too would like to pay my compliments to Mrs Palacio: I am not complimenting her merely for the sake of form, but because I am in full agreement with her report. Like Mr Barzanti, I too hope that it will be widely supported in the House.
I believe that everything has already been said, in particular by Mrs Palacio, so I shall confine myself to just one comment.
Ultimately, the difference of opinion seems to me to relate neither to the details, nor to the threshold, nor to the percentages, but to whether or not resale rights should exist at all.
And therefore, since mention has even been made of markets, competition and a possible shift of sales outlets from the European to the American continent, I feel duty bound to say that, above all else, this is a question of justice.
We are talking here about intellectual property, in other words the ownership of something intangible and imponderable - ideas.
And a figurative artist's idea has one specific characteristic: the idea cannot be cloned, to use the latest jargon.
A novelist's idea can, in a sense, be cloned, in that hundreds, thousands or even hundreds of thousands of copies of a book can be produced and marketed.
The same also applies more or less to a musical work, but a figurative artist produces one copy only.
The idea remains in that form and the owner, the holder of the intellectual property, always remains the same because the idea cannot be sold.
There then arises the question as to the usage of that idea, of which at least two features differ from that of a novelist, to stay with that comparison.
The initial sale of a book involves high production costs, and its author receives a percentage, whereas the creator of a figurative artwork receives almost the entire proceeds of the first sale.
But whereas, at a later stage, the sale of multiple copies of a book enables the author to benefit further from its value, an artwork gains in value by being passed from person to person, by becoming known and being seen; in other words, the original has to move about, and its value is linked to its circulation.
It therefore seems to me that it is a question of elementary justice to give the owner of the idea, the artist, an equivalent economic advantage, and that is precisely what resale rights do.
I do not believe that, beyond the threshold percentage, it is legitimate to deprive artists of these rights.
I do not intend to dwell on the detailed objections which have been raised, since some of them strike me as relatively unimportant; the basic issue as I have explained it is, I think, a convincing argument for the adoption of Mrs Palacio's report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to make a point of thanking the Commission for taking this initiative.
I think that what is happening here is very important.
This directive is a very important one.
The differences between rules in the EU are obstructing the internal market and the equal treatment of artists in the Union.
It is completely unfair if a British person who sells a work in Germany or Portugal obtains resale rights, but a Portuguese or German person does not obtain such rights in the United Kingdom if they sell a work there.
This injustice must be eliminated, especially in such a sensitive area.
What is actually the point at issue here? It is to involve artists in the resale of their work.
That is not too much to ask, when one considers that in Germany, for example, artists have an income of around DM 2000.
People cannot live on that.
The market and market conditions are extremely tough for artists.
Half the sale price goes to the gallery owner or art dealer, and it is not asking too much for these dealers or owners to hand over part of the proceeds when they resell these works.
Particularly important here is the fact that this contribution is especially high for the young artists who are not yet well known and do not have so many opportunities.
That is why it is so important for us as socialists and social democrats that the 5 % rate for resale rights should apply to the lowest band.
We set great store by this, and by having this band begin at ECU 500.
There is another problem with Amendment No 57.
This concerns these narrow price bands which are being envisaged.
There are in fact only a few works involved here, and the auctioneers in France have worked out for us that all of 120 works are sold for more than ECU 250 000 each year.
So this means that in general terms there cannot really be enormous sums of money involved, but it is of course a great deal of money for the individual artists.
I also think that the Commission's proposal is a very good one.
If we take a work which costs ECU 110 000, then under the Commission's proposal or our own, the artist would receive ECU 3300; under the rapporteur's proposal, it would be all of ECU 1100.
Is that fair? And do you believe that for the sake of ECU 3300, works will migrate to the United States, when you think of the cost of insurance and transport?
I hardly think so! I would therefore call for this generous scheme to be adopted, without too many disadvantages being created for German artists, who are in fact used to always receiving 5 %.
Mr President, copyright is one sector in which subsidiarity demands - rather than allows - Community intervention.
Only if copyright is harmonized will it be possible for all forms of art to circulate freely.
I am referring both to a single original work of art, as in the case of the plastic arts which we are discussing today, and to works which are reproduced such as books, records and audio-visual material.
We should not however forget that multimedia communications are opening up new avenues for the reproduction of works within the plastic arts.
Resale rights are particularly important in relation to artists in the field of the plastic arts, who are the least protected of creative artists in this matter owing to the unique and un-reproducible nature of their works.
The Palacio Vallelersundi report is a serious and balanced piece of work, since it tries to reconcile the various conflicting interests - those of the dealers and those of the artists.
The Berne Convention leaves it to the discretion of the signatory states whether or not to adopt this resale right, so instead of being a right recognized by eleven signatory states, it is in practice applied badly in practically all of them.
The United Kingdom, which together with the United States has an eighty per cent share of the international art market, is one of the four states which never incorporated this right into its legislation.
There are two reasons which make it urgent to harmonize laws in this field.
First when the internal market becomes fully operational equal conditions for purchase and sale will be required throughout the Community territory, even to prevent the art market from shifting to non-member countries.
Secondly but no less important, the recognition of the social role of the arts as a force for development which should take the form of the setting up of support mechanisms for artists.
Since the law in Portugal is considerably more severe than the present proposal for a directive, I should like to stress the clear advantage of giving consideration to the following amendments proposed by the Committee on Culture which reflect the unanimous concerns of artists: the lowering of the minimum threshold for the application of the provisions of Article 3; the amending of the sliding scale of percentages provided for in Article 4; the promotion of the joint administration of the right provided for in Article 6.
I should also like to point out, as I have done on so many occasions, that it is again clear that Article 128 should be amended so that it can be used as a basis for any texts with a bearing on culture.
This is the only way to bring coherence and uniformity to cultural policy in the Union.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur, who has done an excellent job as always.
After the compliments, let us now get down to the facts.
It is only too easy to take up the cause of artists, but out of all the resale rights, just 9 % goes to living artists, 9 %!
The other 91 % goes to holders of rights and successors in title, and 9 % to living artists!
No mention has been made of this.
Nor does the Commission mention it in its proposals.
Furthermore, the dealers naturally also make money out of this system, between 10 and 20 % in fact, and that is why they are campaigning so vigorously as well.
The people who receive the least are the living artists.
That will be reinforced by the Commission's proposal.
Clearly, harmonization is required.
To get down to the facts, I should like to give an example of how what the Legal Affairs Committee is proposing would actually have worked out over the last 25 years.
I should be glad to provide details of the source on which this is based, but that would take too much time now - it is a very thorough piece of work.
So, let us go back to 1970 and the market in the United Kingdom, where 3072 works have since been sold for more than ECU 100 000.
In the same period, 1970 to 1996, 3630 such works were sold in the United States.
So this is a very tight market, with very tough competition.
If we had had the proposal from the Legal Affairs Committee - let alone the incredible proposals which go beyond that, just the Legal Affairs Committee's proposal - then these 3072 works which were sold for more than ECU 100 000 would have cost the European market ECU 1 033 856 359.
Do you still seriously think that this would not have led to a relocation of the market? Do you still seriously think that with such a cost to the market, sales would just have carried on cheerfully in Europe?
Such an idea is madness! You will ensure that no more works by Picasso or Van Gogh are sold in the European Union, that nothing at all is sold, and that art is no longer talked about in the EU.
That is what will happen!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first of all to compliment the rapporteur on her report and to offer her my support.
Harmonization of the resale right for the benefit of authors in the European Union seems to me a very good and justifiable initiative.
Unfortunately, it is encountering strong opposition.
On the one hand, this opposition stems frequently from ignorance about the actual underlying basis for the right and, on the other, from worry about a major movement of sales of art works to other countries in which the right is not applicable.
The underlying basis for the right is the desire to lessen the injustice suffered by the authors of certain original works of art which are destined to become objects of viewing.
As things stand, such authors, unlike other authors, are not able to benefit from revenues accrued through reproduction rights and the renewed presentation of their work.
We should appreciate that the resale right is actually a right of the author and not a tax, as the opponents would have it.
It is a right which is exercised for the benefit of the author and not for the benefit of some public authority.
Furthermore, it is recognized as such in Article 14 of the Berne Convention.
As regards the danger of a transfer of art work sales to countries which do not recognize this right, it does not appear to be very acute.
In actual fact, the situation should not change very much, given that the regressive scale of percentages applied to successive categories of the sale price makes export of little interest when, for example, transport and security costs are taken into account.
It also has to be said that the existence or otherwise of this resale right is not a definitive factor as regards the movement of transactions, but rather one factor among others.
As far as the United Kingdom is concerned, the danger of a move by the market is small, because what the world is looking for when it goes to London is the experience of professionals in the field and their traditional technical expertise, and it knows that it will find guarantees of quality and security there for its transactions.
That said, I draw attention to the fact that the proposed harmonization can only fulfil its true role if it can be ensured that the Member States will implement the resale right down to the last detail, which in many Member States is not done at present.
In finishing I would like to stress that the international dimension of the art market must of necessity be taken into account.
If the European experience in this field proves positive for the development of the art market generally, and for the promotion of new artists in particular, we must direct our efforts to making this right obligatory in all countries, given that the Berne Convention at present provides only for the possibility of the Member States introducing it into their legislation.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the British European Parliamentary Labour Party.
I wish to make it clear that we are not against artists.
We are just not convinced that the case has been made for this specific proposal and that it will actually help artists.
We are concerned that the art market may move to New York and to Switzerland.
We are concerned about potential threats to jobs.
We are worried about the burden on smalland medium-sized businesses.
We are concerned that small antique and art shops in tourist areas may have difficulty as a result of this proposal.
Consequently, my group will be supporting Mr Cox's amendment, requiring an impact assessment on the art resale market.
I am particularly concerned that the Commission has not fully thought through the definition of plastic arts and the extent to which extra-territorial effects will affect this proposal.
My group is not in favour of reducing the threshold to 500 because of the burden on small- and medium-sized businesses, nor are we in favour of increasing the percentages.
My group will be abstaining on the final vote as we are simply not convinced that the Commission has properly made the case for harmonization in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission, I would commend Mrs Palacio and Mr Kerr on their hard and meticulous work in presenting to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media such a comprehensive report on a matter which is crucial to the completion of the internal market in the art sector.
As the many speakers have indicated, the aim of this proposal for a directive is to eliminate distortions of competition by extending and harmonizing resale rights throughout the entire Community, and to put an end to the discriminatory treatment suffered by the authors of modern artworks.
The Commission therefore attaches considerable importance to this initiative, which does not stand alone but is connected with other measures adopted by the Commission to liberalize the art market.
The Commission can accept nearly all the amendments tabled by the Legal Affairs Committee.
The only substantive amendment which, on grounds of principle, it intends to reject at this stage concerns the percentage rates of resale rights laid down in Article 4 of the proposed directive.
Nor can the Commission accept certain other amendments, from various political groups and individual Members, which are designed to modify the minimum threshold for the application of resale rights, reducing or increasing the percentages to be applied and changing the proposed price bands.
The same applies to the proposal to calculate resale rights on the basis of added value, in other words the difference between the resale price and the sum paid to purchase the work.
The few cases in which attempts have been made to apply similar systems in the past - ones based on added value - have proved unsuccessful as a result of practical problems.
Furthermore, the Commission cannot agree to refrain from harmonizing the categories of works or transactions to which resale rights apply.
To leave such matters to the discretion of the Member States would conflict with the goals of the internal market in the modern art sector.
I would point out that, generally speaking, art galleries should be subject to resale rights in exactly the same way as any other commercial trader in twentieth-century art.
The proposed derogation in favour of commercial transactions taking place within three years of the trader having acquired the work is similarly unacceptable.
I regret that, on grounds of constitutional law, it is not possible after the artist's death to restrict the benefit of resale rights to his or her legitimate heirs.
Finally, the Commission has to reject various amendments seeking to insert in a Community act recitals which state that this same act should not be adopted.
With regard to Amendment No 40, which would make the directive's entry into force contingent on a further assessment by the Commission of the impact on the art resale market - an assessment to be validated by the other Community institutions involved in the legislative process - I must point out that this does not accurately reflect the institutional balance established by the Treaty on European Union.
I am convinced that in a second phase we shall be able to reach complete agreement on this proposal, taking account of all the potential risks for the future art market in Europe.
I thank you once again for a discussion which I personally have found very interesting, because it has highlighted both the complexity of this proposal and the gap which the proposal is designed to fill.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner Monti.
The debate is closed.
The voting will take place at noon tomorrow.
Masses and dimensions of motor vehicles
The next item on the agenda is Mr Barton's recommendation for a second reading on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the masses and dimensions of certain categories of motor vehicles and their trailers and amending Directive 70/156/EEC (C4-0632/96-00/0348(COD)) (A4-0102/97).
Mr President, thank you for that very catchy introduction to this report.
Some years ago we set out to get a Europe-wide agreement on the masses and dimensions of certain vehicles and their trailers in order to create free movement and the single market and all the advantages that will give the citizen.
We have to note that much progress has been made in this whole area.
A clear agreement on this item would have completed that process but to this day the final stage eludes us.
Unfortunately the Council has not been able to bring forward specific measures that would finally complete the process.
Some five years after our first reading all that is now available to us is a common process as to how the national authorities should go about deciding these limits, the maximum permitted values.
The hope and expectation is that this will eventually lead to harmonized results because of using the common process.
It is regrettable that we cannot yet achieve that full agreement.
This report has to reflect that reality.
It is no use our dreaming about these items.
We make two 'friendly' amendments in the report.
These require that when national authorities are using this procedure they give high regard to the safety factors.
I would remind the Commission and Council of the concerns the European Parliament expressed in this regard at first reading, particularly as regards the use of trailers up to 750 kilogrammes without the need for those same trailers to have braking systems.
Parliament has very real concerns about that.
We have not tabled an amendment because the procedure dictates that should be decided at national level - at least in the intervening period.
I sincerely hope that the Council and Commission can also take on board our constructive amendments in this regard.
Hopefully, the Council and Commission will be able to inform the House that the matter will be kept under review, and if this process is not seen to be producing the required results within two years or an indication that it will be successful, we would expect the Commission to bring forward fresh proposals to accelerate that process.
Some Scandinavian MEPs have rightly raised the matter of their concerns about specialist vehicles, especially in the forestry industry.
The question they raise is will European harmonization jeopardize their right to operate their specialist vehicles?
The simple and short answer from this Parliament is that no such danger exists.
Whichever procedure we use to decide the European standards, they in no way stop the national authorities from approving the use of specialist vehicles as they see fit.
The only restriction is that those vehicles do not have the right to free movement to operate in the rest of Europe.
In conclusion, I hope we can now proceed with this proposal and that citizens will soon get the benefits of a safe single market in vehicles and their trailers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful to Mr Barton for his excellent report on this proposal for a directive on the masses and dimensions of certain categories of motor vehicles and their trailers.
The Commission welcomes both of Mr Barton's amendments, subject to a few minor changes of wording.
I would also inform the House that the Commission is prepared, if necessary, to re-examine the situation regarding vehicle safety in two years' time.
I must thank the House for its work on this directive, which is an important step towards harmonizing the legislation of the Member States on the type-approval of vehicles and their trailers, with the exception of motor cars, in respect of their masses and dimensions.
There is every likelihood that the proposal will be adopted and can thus be ready to be applied by manufacturers prior to the entry into force of the directive, which is scheduled for two years after the adoption of the proposal.
I very much hope that Parliament will adopt the proposal at second reading, as Mr Barton has said.
Mr President, I am very happy with the Commissioner's response.
I hope that the textual changes referred to do not mean that we have to take the matter into conciliation.
I would remind the Commissioner that we discussed these matters previously and amended the wording to try and accommodate the Commission.
I am sure it is not the intention of the Commission that we should have to activate the conciliation procedure.
If the textual changes that you now seem to believe would be necessary can be agreed without activating that procedure, I have no problem.
If it would activate the procedure I would ask the Commission to think again.
I will now read out the proposed changes.
I hope the rapporteur will agree on the definition of 'minor' , that I took the liberty to use.
We would like to see changed in Recital 6 - let me read the last four lines which at present say: ' ... and to pursue the constant improvement of safety, in particular regarding to the use of certain categories of carriages or trailers' .
We would like it to read: ' ... and to pursue the constant improvement of safety, in particular regarding certain categories of trailers' .
This would imply deleting the words 'to the use of' and the words 'carriages or' .
I hope this is considered to be minor.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The voting will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.27 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I do not see my name amongst those who voted for the final resolution on maize.
I would like it shown that I intended to vote in favour, like my group.
That will be corrected.
(Parliament approved the Minutes.)
Budget discharge
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0124/97 by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control on the Commission report (COM(97)0048 - C4-0108/97) on the measures taken to follow up the observations contained in the European Parliament's resolution accompanying the discharge decision in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1994 financial year; -A4-0120/97 by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1995 financial year - Section III; -A4-0125/97 by Mr Dankert, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1995 financial year - Sections I, IV, V and VI; -A4-0071/97 by Mr Blak, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the management of the European Coal and Steel Community for the 1995 financial year; -A4-0121/97 by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the management of the sixth and seventh European Development Funds for the 1995 financial year.I should like to extend a warm welcome to Mr Friedmann, the President of the Court of Auditors.
Madam President, it is nice to see so many people here for the discharge debate.
I am amazed at how many people have an interest in this.
No doubt in two minutes' time the room will be nigh on empty.
There are two reports in my name, hence the ten minutes.
In theory I have five minutes for each but for the first report - the follow-up to the 1994 discharge - I can be extremely brief and spend the majority of my time on the 1995 discharge.
On the follow-up to the 1994 discharge, I just want to say that I expect the Commission to keep Parliament informed on our requests in the resolution, not least concerning the few outstanding actions relating to the 1994 DAS.
We will follow the follow-up with interest.
I move on now to the 1995 discharge, which has in the report a motion for a resolution with 89 articles.
It should have been 90, but I will comment on that in a moment.
What is different about this year's request is that at least eleven of those articles call on Parliament to do the work rather than simply asking the Court of Auditors or the Commission, as is normal.
We want to see Parliament play a greater role within budgetary control matters.
The motion for a resolution covers all those areas where Parliament either has concerns or has proposals to make.
I have to say that the main philosophy behind the report lies in the explanatory statement. We do not vote on the explanatory statement - that is we do not amend it, it is just put there as part of the report - but if one would care to read it, then one would see quite clearly the reason for the proposals.
For example: on the DAS, Article 14 of the resolution is, in effect, a condensed version of Paragraphs 9 to 23 of the explanatory statement.
It is in these latter paragraphs where the problems of the DAS are outlined in specific detail.
This is also where you will find the reasons why discharge can be given, even with a negative DAS concerning payments.
I recommend reading it, especially to those who simply take the Court's annual report on the DAS and reach a perception of events that is not quite in tune with reality.
But, then again, in general people do not react to reality, they react to their perceptions of reality.
Another example relates to olive oil.
This is, indeed, a problematic area because the one vote that I, as rapporteur, lost in committee on Monday concerned olive oil.
Paragraphs 31 and 32 of the explanatory statement spell out the problem.
The Commission itself in its recent options paper of 12 February this year clearly shows the continuing problems of this sector.
Do not forget that we are talking about a discharge for the year 1995 and here we have a report in February 1997 saying things like: ' There are inherent defects in the common market organization in olive oil which have become increasingly apparent over time and which mean that efficient control is not always possible...
The inherent defect in the system remained, namely the common interest of producer and mill owner to declare high figures.
Fraud has been detected in the operation of the consumption aid.
Fraud has also been detected in quantities exported with the export refund.
Unfortunately, and particularly in years when olive oil prices are high, it is extremely tempting to mix olive oil with seed oil and make a profit at the expense of the consumer.'
And so it goes on. The report also says: ' Unfortunately, the Member States have not followed the advice of their agencies regarding sanctions with sufficient vigour.
For this reason amongst others the efficacity of the controls made by the agencies is compromised.'
The paragraph that was voted out on Monday night was trying to take action on that particular subject.
My problem is that the article that is missing - the one rejected by the committee - was going for the jugular, so to speak, of the olive oil section.
I have a problem on this.
Were I not the rapporteur - and, as the rapporteur, I am the servant of the committee - I would openly say that the decision on Monday night was a daft decision.
I would also say that here we have a regime riddled with fraud.
I would then go on to say that the Commission, pursuant to Article 13 of the Council Decision of 31 October 1994 on budgetary discipline, should initiate proceedings forthwith to suspend or reduce monthly advances in this sector.
However, I am the rapporteur so, of course, I cannot say those things.
Let me give another example from the report: Article 74 of the resolution calls for ECU 2m to be spent on sports development in the townships of South Africa.
This has been put in because it was part of the remarks to budget line B7-5070, which we, in Parliament, voted on in December 1994 and here we are now, in April 1997.
The reality is that very little, if anything, has happened in relation to that request.
When you look at Paragraph 52 of the explanatory statement, you will see that for that budget line in the year 1995 there were ECU 125m on the line.
ECU 123m were committed, with about ECU 2m being left over, and Parliament's request for sports development never materialized - it was forgotten.
Thankfully, when we discussed it in committee the Commission said, in effect, that it had made a mistake.
In English you could say: ' It's a fair cop, Guv'nor, you've caught us; we should have done it and we didn't' .
Well, I hope that the remark within the discharge will produce results.
It matters to Parliament, and I can assure the Commission that particular article will be monitored with diligence on my part.
Now, good as the explanatory statement is, it does not say it all.
If it said it all it would read like a book; in fact it would be as long as the Court's annual report.
So, the reference to grants for whisky-makers in Article 35 may leave some people confused, because that is not touched on in the explanatory statement.
It is an item which Parliament has followed with great interest and some of us have a theory of how that came about - how the wheelings and dealings within the Council of Ministers and the horse-trading that goes on brought about this ECU 40m for the whisky-makers.
The defence by the Commission in the answers to the Court's comments makes interesting reading.
I would only say: ' Watch this space as Parliament determines whether the ECU 40m is justified or not, because we want to know a lot more about it and to see whether that ECU 40m should be given or whether it should cease.'
In a similar vein, Article 50 asks Parliament to make its mind up over the issue of advanced television.
We have the Court recommending that no more money should be paid and, within Parliament, we have a difference of opinion between the various committees.
Once again, I hope Parliament can discuss it in depth and before the next budget make some concrete proposals on where we stand.
The sectional rapporteurs will each deal with their own areas.
It only remains for me to thank those people involved in drawing-up the report, especially the members of the secretariat.
I commend the report to Parliament and look forward to the results of this comprehensive report being carried out.
Madam President, Parliament has always dealt with the discharge in respect of the budget for Parliament.
It is something new that we now have to deal with the budget for the Court, the Court of Auditors, the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee as well.
And it is also the intention of the Committee on Budgetary Control that the Council budget too should be added to the list next year, since it is of course out of the question that a budget of more than 300 million ECU should not be subjected to public scrutiny.
Compared with the problems which Mr Wynn has raised in connection with the general budget, the budget problems we have with the smaller budgets are of course minor and transparent.
But here too one constantly comes up against the problem of inefficient implementation.
For example the fact that in the European Parliament's budget many of the appropriations earmarked for information were axed simply because the necessary decisions were not taken in time to have those appropriations made.
In this House, partly because of our constant need to use translation and interpreting services, it costs a lot of money when both the parliamentary groups and other bodies of Parliament are obliged to cancel meetings.
We have the problem that it has been not totally impossible but almost impossible to get Parliament's inventories and lists drawn up.
Only in the last few days has a first report been received.
This has been going on for years and no sooner has one list been completed than one has to start work on the one for next year.
In the case of the Court we found that it was all too ready to shoulder financial consequences of problems to do with buildings, which were the responsibility of the Luxembourg Government.
So there is room for the smaller institutions to clean up their act a little.
But compared with the main budget these are relatively minor matters.
A few words more on the main budget.
As Mr Wynn has indicated, a number of rapporteurs have been busy on the various parts of the budget and I have addressed the whole issue of the structural funds.
We in the European Parliament are extremely happy that the Commission, in the interests of sound and efficient management, is striving to improve things as regards implementation of the budget.
But to my mind sound and efficient management should not have to wait till the year 2000.
The interim result is, happily, that agreement has been reached meantime between Commission and Council on the improved subsidiarity rules.
These must now be applied, and we need to complete an evaluation of these rules and how they are applied before we embark on the new programme for the structural funds.
But this improvement of the subsidiarity rules is not yet visibly in place.
Parliament has been calling for years for better legislation to enable irregularities to be rectified effectively.
The Commission regularly replies that nothing is currently being done on that front.
The Committee on Budgetary Control asked the Commission at the beginning of February for a memorandum on the legal means of redress currently available for recovering monies improperly used.
Commissioner Liikanen finally helped me out on that after I had waited one and a half months, though that was not his fault.
If you read the legal texts it is obvious, even giving a very broad interpretation to the existing articles and using judgments of the Court of Justice on agricultural matters where other and far stricter rules apply, and where compliance with obligations is a sine qua non for the receipt of aid, a requirement not imposed by the structural funds, it is obvious that the legislation is inadequate.
In practice the Commission is thus close to the legal line in seeking to recover money under the existing legislation and to my mind it is actually crossing that line if it blocks large sums of money from the European Social Fund for longer periods of time.
Nevertheless it is not proposing to change the relevant legislation but is trying within the framework of SEM 2000 to tighten up the scheme via an implementing regulation on Member States' obligations and the introduction of a system of net reductions.
But the Commission is doing that under the present deficient and thus in my view inappropriate legislation.
The European Commission is trying in this way to get right on its side.
I do not think this is good policy on the part of the Commission which, as guardian of the Treaties, is the body responsible for ensuring that the rules are properly adhered to.
And I think this is happening because the Commission is too timid vis à vis the Council.
That is a grave matter.
It is all the graver in that the European Union keeps telling the outside world how serious it is about combating fraud and irregularities.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Liikanen most heartily.
For five years I was the rapporteur for the Coal and Steel Union, and each year I had a substantial text on my computer regarding the Bagnoli case.
This is now concluded.
Just think, we have completed a case which took only ten years.
This is quite amazing.
I feel as though I almost miss it, and I hope we will soon have another one so that we have something substantial to put on our computer.
I also think that Mr Liikanen is an incredibly clever man because he runs the Coal and Steel Union for nothing.
It is rather a small sum which we are offering.
It is only 5 million kroner and it costs perhaps 10 or 50 times that amount to run the Union.
But OK, I can quite understand that when we need to spend the money on other areas, where we might get into difficulties, it is obvious that we must cut down on administration.
What I would like to talk about is two separate matters.
One of these is the Channel Tunnel.
We have really come unstuck here.
I have received many fine-sounding papers on what we are doing and what we might get out of it.
I am in fact anxious to hear whether Mr Liikanen is going to give me the answer which is the most accurate one, namely that we are using up all the money.
We have now had to convert 10 % of our capital into shares which may not be redeemed for 70 years, and we all know that that money has been wasted.
This represents ECU 25m.
But it is possible for everything to change and for the whole situation to improve, because one of the problems with the Eurotunnel is that the British Government will not grant a licence for 99 years.
But now a new and hopefully better government is on the horizon, which may change this situation and contribute to ensuring that Europe's taxpayers see some return on the money they have sunk into the earth.
I think I have good reason for asking how things are going in the steering group.
We are also participating in this.
There are four banks, the European Investment Bank and the Coal and Steel Union.
As rapporteur I would like to have a report on how things are going, since we get more information from the newspapers than we do from the Commission.
I would like to have an answer to this here.
When we turn to the next separate matter, this is of particular interest to me as a Dane.
Because we have built a large, impressive link, the Storebæltsforbindelsen, and we are very proud of this.
It is become something of a tourist attraction and it means we can cross the water a little faster, though not perhaps cheaper.
But for this Denmark got a loan.
We obtained a loan of ECU 353m.
When the Court of Auditors examined these matters, it pointed out to the Commission that it had actually been provided with a loan which was double the amount justified for the project.
There was in fact only justification for ECU 170m.
I do not know whether this was an uncharacteristically generous gesture towards Denmark that we should have been given double the amount.
But I am a rather upset about this loan because it was used for the provision of transport which, according to the regulations, is absolutely out of the question in connection with this type of ECSF loan.
This has meant that an Italian company won the order, had the work done cheaply in Portugal, transported it to Denmark, paid for by coal and steel money, with the result that in my own electoral district we lost the opportunity of 300 jobs, all due to the hanky-panky that took place.
This is upsetting.
It is particularly upsetting in an area of Denmark where we have the highest unemployment rate, but it is possible that we will be compensated some way or other when there is opportunity.
The Commission has made a fool of itself in this matter.
And we have all recognised this, including when we produced the report.
Normally in Denmark we would say to people who made such a fool of themselves, as in this case, that one was forced to fire them.
We also removed the former leader of the Coal and Steel Union. He has now gained a higher position in the Commission.
But I would have preferred it if people had said: You have not done particularly well here, so we thank you for the time you have been with us.
But now we are faced with a new link, between Denmark and Sweden - the Øresundsforbindelsen.
In this connection I would urge that a full inquiry be carried out regarding all the loans Denmark has received in this connection, so that we avoid repeating what happened with the Storebælt link.
For this reason it is my earnest hope that, as rapporteur, I will be given an answer, either by you, Mr Liikanen, or by you, Mr Friedmann, from the Court of Auditors.
Another matter which is of great interest to us is the payment of interest.
We have found out that the system operating in the Coal and Steel Union operates incredibly badly.
We have been told that 8000 jobs were created, but we do not know whether these are real.
However, it is possible that the figures have been fiddled with, since it is the banks and companies themselves that have reported.
We would rather give consideration to the EIB facilities and to the Copenhagen facilities which have created 45, 000 new jobs in Europe, because these figures are verified and properly recorded.
So here are a couple of questions for you, Mr Liikanen, but I am quite sure you will give me a satisfactory answer.
We recommend discharge, despite these areas of concern.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the particularly explosive aspect of the discharge in respect of the sixth and seventh Development Funds for 1995 is certainly the fact that this House refused to give discharge to the Commission in this area for 1994.
Today I am recommending the House - on the basis of a unanimously approved report by the Committee on Budgetary Control - to give discharge to the Commission in respect of the development funds for 1995, and I would like to explain this recommendation briefly.
First, although the legal framework for the development funds has not changed since last year, the Commission has given repeated assurances that it still supports the principle of budgetization of the EDFs.
The Commission has tabled a formal proposal in the Intergovernmental Conference that Declaration No 12 annex to the EC Treaty be deleted.
This deletion would remove the legal obstacle to budgetization and, at least formally, clear the way for it.
Secondly, another reason for the refusal to grant discharge in 1994 was the matter of the ACP Cultural Foundation.
This problem seems to have been resolved.
Thirdly, the generally positive Statement of Assurance from the Court of Auditors represents a substantial step forward as compared with the situation in 1994.
The Court of Auditors has found that a number of improvements have taken place since 1994. For example: disclosure of the principles of accountancy applied and improvements to the stocktaking and final accounting procedures, enhancement of the analytical account-keeping system for the monitoring of resources, and improved explanatory notes in the financial returns, as a result of which the actual status of implementation of Community aid is easier to assess.
The object of refusing discharge in 1994 was to make the political point in the strongest possible terms that this House could no longer tolerate the loss of democratic control.
Parliament's decision has clearly been taken to heart by the Commission.
Other matters may perhaps arise during the debate.
For the present, however, I shall concentrate on two particular points.
In principle, when one comes to deal with this subject for the first time - even as the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgetary Control - it is very hard to understand how one can continue to operate with instruments like the Development Funds, that have already expired, and at the same time have to operate them in parallel.
This is obviously an art in itself, and it may not advance the cause of the citizens' Europe desired by all institutions of the European Union.
I believe that the Commission, too, should try to find a more intelligent solution than the present system for future Development Funds.
This year, once again, it has to be said that the outflow of funds is unsatisfactory.
Since we are an institution with a political discharge function, I am of course fully aware that special situations in the individual recipient countries have to be taken into account.
We must of course welcome the policy of structural adjustment aid, and the fact that the Commission selected priorities here such as education and primary health care seems indicative of a more far-reaching policy on development aid than those of other financial institutions.
Although we found that the allocations were not always used in a satisfactory manner, we should stick to this policy and continue developing it.
The macroeconomic policy enshrined in the structural adjustment programme must be geared to ensuring the provision of basic social benefits for those living in poverty.
We call upon the Commission to take greater care to ensure that the funds do benefit the most disadvantaged groups among the population and the sectors that are in need of support, to achieve a more efficient distribution.
I should like to emphasize the importance of the Commission's making an even clearer distinction between those recipient countries which are transparent in their use of the allocations and those where their use can no longer be traced.
We can hardly expect European taxpayers to accept a situation where money finds its way to various countries where we can no longer trace what use is made of our tax revenue.
One final point about personnel, which I have added to the motion for a resolution.
I am somewhat wary of the fact that the Commission occasionally gives Parliament a raw deal, for example when it comes to personnel cuts in the ACP countries.
We know that a very high commitment of human resources is necessary in various countries, and we hope that the Commission will come up with a clearly structured human resources plan which will also cover the delegations in the recipient countries.
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee I can say that we are extremely positive about the implementation of the 1995 budget, with one exception to which I shall return in a moment.
I would like to suggest that the appropriations should be spent more evenly throughout the year; if the balance is tilted too much towards the end of the year there is the risk that carefulness and thoroughness may suffer.
As regards the exception I mentioned: this concerns spending on tourism under budget line B5325.
There have been grave mistakes over this in the past.
The Commission told us last November that it had set up a task force which would carry out a special accounting operation to scrutinize measures for tourism funded by the Community since, I believe, 1990.
My question to the Commissioner is whether this work will be finished by June as promised.
I think this is most important since the 'millstone' around the neck of the Directorate-General in question has to be got rid of.
And I am confident that the measures taken will get things back on track.
My request to the Council President now is that he should help to agree the right legal basis so that the funds agreed in the 1997 budget for tourism, namely Philoxenia, can indeed be disbursed.
This is a sector extremely important for tomorrow's jobs, especially those of young people and women. It is a priority for all of us.
So will the Council President please give us a clear assurance on this point?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to present to you the Council's recommendation to grant a discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the 1995 budget.
I am very happy to use this opportunity to brief you on the main points of consideration and the reactions prompted within the Council by the Court of Auditors' comments.
I am sure that you share the view of our presidency and the Council that our two institutions must cooperate in this area too on the basis of good understanding.
Madam President, in making its recommendation on17 March the Council was anxious to stress once again the fundamental need for all players involved in implementing the Community budget to ensure that the spending of Community money goes hand in hand with rigorous compliance with the rules and principles of good financial management, thrift and transparency.
And how can it be otherwise, especially now that our Member States face the financial and budgetary problems which are familiar to you all.
In the Council's view, not one single measure involving Community funds can be taken unless the utmost discipline and sound financial management are practised both beforehand and whilst the measure is being implemented.
By regular checking of whether or not ongoing measures are truly justified, one can guarantee that the economic benefit of the funds freed up is as large as possible.
Implementation of the measures forming part of the SEM 2000 initiative (sound economic management) is a major step in the right direction.
The Council is glad to see that the Court of Auditors fully endorses the efforts being made by the Commission and Member States together to remedy many of the serious shortcomings it has regularly pointed out.
Regarding the position of the Council, I shall confine myself to the most important subjects.
For the details of the recommendation I would refer you to the accompanying remarks and explanation which the presidency gave to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Concerning own resources the Council shares the Court's concern over the functioning of the Community Transit System in the Member States and stresses the need to improve the reliability of the system of information on intra-Community trade.
On expenditure, and specifically agricultural spending, the Council deplores the absence of responsible spending on measures to counter fraud and irregularities.
Given that there has been no costbenefit analysis of this, the Council would like to see this done in a subsequent audit by the Court of Auditors.
Concerning the structural funds the Council agrees with the Court that more transparency is needed in the rules, specifically regarding subsidiarity, and that the working of the supervisory committees and the procedures for certifying spending need to be improved.
The Court's criticism, also expressed in its special report in support of its statement of assurance, will encourage us to continue along the path chosen, specifically as regards subsidiarity and the specific financial corrections required, though a number of improvements have in fact already been made.
More specifically, Madam President, with regard to the European Fund for Regional Development, the Council thinks it is absolutely vital that the Commission and Member States should continue to work together to ensure that the budgetary appropriations set aside for programmes are managed better.
Above all to ensure that sums awaiting disbursement do not build up too much and that there is not a build-up of operations to approve and pay them at the end of the year.
The Council will be asking the Commission to investigate which improvements might be made when the structural fund regulations are next revised to ensure that the use of loans and subsidies is co-ordinated better.
As regards the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, Guidance Section, the Council is asking the Commission to implement measures to improve the management of this Community initiative and the procedures for recovering appropriations paid in error.
Concerning the Court of Auditors' comments on the implementation of the PHARE and TACIS programmes, the Council is aware of the problems inherent in work in this particular area.
Nevertheless it is calling on the Commission to comply fully with the Community rules on the conclusion of agreements and to apply the procedure of registration without compromise.
Like last year, it is calling for better coordination of participants, a clear description of the experts and simplification of the programmes' organization and administrative procedures.
Regarding co-operation with developing countries, Madam President, the Council would point to the importance it attaches to the powers of the financial comptroller and the court of Auditors to scrutinize the use made of Community funds paid over to outside beneficiaries.
Concerning the budgetary appropriations for the institutions, the Council has taken note of the Court of Auditors' comments on a number of weak points of management concerning the staff of external delegations and buildings.
It notes that the Commission is in the process of carrying out the Court's recommendations on the matter.
In the light of all the comments of the Court of Auditors and following thorough deliberation of these, the Council has resolved to recommend that Parliament grant a discharge to the Commission in respect of its implementation of the1995 budget.
Madam President, may I make one further remark on the statement of assurance, which the Court of Auditors issued in accordance with Article 188c and further to which the Council made the statement which has now been forwarded together with the recommendations.
The Council finds that the accounts provide a correct picture of the Union's income and expenditure, even though in terms of the information they provide there is room for improvement.
The Court identified no major errors as regards the regularity of the underlying transactions relating to income.
It did, however, point out errors in the underlying transactions relating to payments so that the Court of Auditors cannot confirm the legality and regularity of operations as a whole.
The Council is worried by this.
Consequently it warmly welcomes the announcement of the SEM 2000 programme to improve the Commission's financial management.
The Council wishes to see this programme implemented speedily and in full so that the various errors in the underlying transactions relating to payments can be significantly reduced.
Madam President, these essentially are the reports which the Council presidency wished to make to you on behalf of the Council.
In conclusion, I should like to take this opportunity of thanking your Committee on Budgetary Control for the substantial work it puts in every year as part of the discharge procedure, and consequently not only on behalf of the European Parliament but of the whole of the European Union.
It now remains for Parliament to exercise its powers and reach a decision on the discharge.
Madame President, Mr Cornelissen asked me a specific question about the Philoxenia programme.
Mr Cornelissen knows as well as I do that the legal basis for the Philoxenia programme and others is Article 235 of the Treaty of the European Communities and that unanimity is required for this.
To date that unanimity has not been reached in the Council, which is why there is no legal basis for the Philoxenia programme.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a discharge decision and a discharge debate are naturally concerned with the past.
We are discussing and evaluating things that have already happened.
I think that any evaluation that deals with the past only serves any purpose if it also indicates what lessons that past can teach us for the future.
It is from this angle that I should like to comment on this discharge on behalf of my group.
What does the future hold for us, then, and what lessons must we learn? We hope for the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference.
We hope for a positive conclusion, so that we can start discussing enlargement.
An enlargement which is not only a political decision but also calls for the celebrated strategy of the pre-accession phase, a strategy that was announced to us by Commissioner Liikanen and one where, we hope, we will be involved in the discussion and in the budgetary procedure.
But enlargement is not all that lies ahead. We can also look forward - with or without enlargement - to a reform of the agricultural policy, a reform of the structural funds in general, and we are going to have to conduct a highly political debate on the financing of the European Union beyond the year 1999.
From this standpoint, the evaluation of the implementation of the budget may take on a dimension that overrides matters of detail.
The resolution which I hope will be adopted tomorrow is, much more than past resolutions, addressed to this House itself.
There were specific instructions to the Committees of this House to be stricter in supervising expenditure and the implementation and efficiency of the budget, and to make critical proposals where improvements are possible - from own resources through fisheries policy to development co-operation.
But we should not lose sight of the fact that the largest areas are the ones that cause us the most concern: the programmes, the Structural Funds, PHARE, TACIS, MEDA, development co-operation.
Strangely enough - and I now turn to Commissioner Liikanen and the President of the Court of Auditors - we are not at all worried about the fraud that takes place, or even about the possible lack of efficiency as such, but what does worry us is the fact that certain funds are not being distributed.
This is the big political problem, the problem we are going to have to examine very carefully in the future, I can tell you that on behalf of my group - that is something we have learned from this debate.
Because it is unacceptable that we appropriate monies to a budget line for political objectives which the Council and Parliament have decided upon, appropriate resources in the budget, and argue about how much money to earmark, and then a year or two years or three years later we find that those resources were never distributed at all.
That is unacceptable!
The Court of Auditors, too, criticizes precisely this same point.
Let me just give you a few figures: ECU 1.9 billion in the case of PHARE and ECU 0.6 billion in the case of TACIS at the end of 1995 -that's a lot of money.
You could really achieve something with that in the context of the strategy of the pre-accession phase if you were to spend it then.
And until such time as that money is distributed, we cannot form any opinions about efficiency and we have no need to concern ourselves with fraud.
But there is one thing that should not be forgotten: undistributed money is not a sign of economy as such. We should not think - and the ladies and gentlemen listening in the gallery should not think either - that if we haven't distributed money it means that we have been frugal with the money they have paid in taxes.
What we have really done is to betray the political objectives that we set ourselves.
That is why we are going to press for that money to be distributed, efficiently of course and in line with the funding commitments.
But to split it up and then pay it out to the Member States in a few years' time is a game that we are no longer prepared to play.
I believe it was a German minister who said that the EU had too much money for development co-operation and not enough administrative capacity to make the best use of it.
If that is true - and in principle anyone might have said the same - then I see a very great danger here: if people think we have too much money and that we lack not just the administration but even the political ability to distribute it, then the result will be renationalization not just of finance but of politics too.
And with that in mind, there is one conclusion we are going to draw from this discharge: we expect that money to be distributed, efficiently and frugally, yes, but distributed as this Parliament resolved.
Madam President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, this is an important day for the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Today we have the opportunity to ask for clear accounts in the Union and the proper use by Community institutions of the resources granted to them.
Today is the day to send a message to the citizens of Europe: a message of transparency and reliability in Community accounts.
If we were to send this message and the accounts were not really clear, we Members of Parliament would be failing in one of our fundamental duties.
That is why the decision on giving discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget for 1995 is so important and so significant.
And that is why the opinions of the rapporteurs and the full process of debating the amendments are so important.
This is not a report that can be approved without a high degree of consensus across the political groups.
So the flexibility shown by the various rapporteurs - starting with Terry Wynn - in accepting amendments which modified their original statements must be highlighted.
In this respect, and with reference to olive oil, I have to say that if Mr Wynn had not been the rapporteur, I would have thought the author of the disgraceful paragraph on olive oil was probably someone who knew nothing about olives or the real situation in the oil market or the irregularities or the frauds.
But as the rapporteur was Mr Wynn, I can say he is a reasonable Member of Parliament who is capable of listening to the arguments of others and achieving a text acceptable to all parties - even if I recognize that he probably does know something about the market for olive oil.
Furthermore, it is clear that the current balance between obligations and resources means the Court of Auditors is at risk of being unable to continue to meet its commitments effectively.
We have an obligation to draw up a more ambitious framework of collaboration between the Court of Auditors and the national control institutions, and the European Parliament should take the political initiative to achieve this framework.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, we are still faced with a political problem in recommending discharge with a Statement of Assurance which, in the rapporteur's own words, is unlikely ever to be positive in its current form.
The political fact we accept with discharge is that the irregularity figures detected are not an indicator of fraud.
We expect the Commission to make a significant improvement in its auditing and we call for the Member States, managers of 80 % of the Community budget and responsible for 90 % of the irregularities, to be increasingly involved in the improvement of financial control of Community expenditure.
We should denounce abuses and uncover all irregularities.
But we should not give in to the temptation of crying 'fraud' to pander to a demagogic populism.
That approach would devalue Parliament and every Member of Parliament.
Madam President, I shall confine myself to Mr Wynn's report and I should like to begin by expressing my appreciation of his customary enthusiasm and dedication in completing his task.
There are a number of positive things in this discharge report.
First of all we find that the number of irregularities has declined considerably compared with 1994.
A fraud level of 23.5 % in1994 was cut in 1995 to 10 % of that.
That is certainly encouraging, but the percentage is of course still far too high.
The problem is, of course, that it is usually the Member States which pay out the money and we have to improve our cooperation with them.
It is unfortunate too that this year again a statement of assurance could not be given.
I think above all the Commission and Court of Auditors need to agree on the right method, the statistical method, which will allow us as Parliament to make a proper appraisal of the facts laid before us.
One thing I should say is that I do not agree with Mr Wynn's conclusions on agriculture and specifically point 24.
The Commission implemented precisely the policy agreed in the MacSharry reforms of 1992.
If spending was higher, then it was, but we cannot insist on a return to the 1992 levels, because that certainly was not agreed.
A last word on own resources, Madam President, is the current estimate of GNP really too high beyond any doubt, or is a more accurate method still possible?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our committee has dealt separately with the experience of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, on the basis of the special reports by the Court of Auditors on EU administration in Mostar and election observation in Palestine.
Unfortunately, we were able to confirm the desolate situation regarding the administration and control of the funds distributed there.
When I say desolate I am not thinking so much of the ultimate destination of those funds as of the institutional blurring of structures and responsibilities between the Council and the Commission which mean that any rapid organization is still impossible and those with local responsibility, such as Hans Koschnik, are encountering serious difficulties.
This is another area in which the Commission must be given complete responsibility, so that Parliament is in a position to give a meaningful discharge in the first place.
An obvious precondition here is that spending under the Common Foreign and Security Policy should remain non-obligatory in future.
Anything else would be a retreat into the obscurity of ministerial decisions, at a time when the need is for greater transparency and democracy.
I would like to ask Mr Friedmann, as a matter of urgency, to give us the opinion on the Common Foreign and Security Policy that we have been promised since 1994 and which was supposed to assist us in our deliberations at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Secondly, I should like to draw attention to the last section in the Wynn report, which refers to the publication of a list setting out all refusals of approval.
As far as this House is concerned there was a dramatic increase here in 1995 and 1996, especially in connection with the equipping of the new Parliament building.
These refusals focused on breaches of the budgetary regulations and of the rules for awarding contracts.
What happened here was that when invitations to tender were issued, deadlines were not observed, the requirement was not quantified, excessively high tenders were awarded the contract, tenders were added to after the event without new invitations being issued, etc.
None of this does anything for the credibility of our own institution, and it stands in urgent need of correction.
In order to counter the proliferation of refusals of approval, it would be of great assistance if the Court of Auditors were to publish them in future in its annual report.
Transparency is the first and most important condition for doing away with this mismanagement.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in my turn I cannot but congratulate the rapporteurs for this package of resolutions on discharge, particularly Terry Wynn, because I will mainly be speaking on his report on the discharge for the 1995 financial year, on the quality of his work, the range of issues covered and his skill.
I think Parliament is fulfilling its role in the procedure of discharge to the Commission extremely well.
All the same, I would personally like to take this opportunity to make one small criticism: with such a vast document, we have ended up by going a little outside the strict framework of discharge.
It worries me to see certain paragraphs, often introduced through amendments.
One example is the staff appropriation for TACIS - a problem which has apparently been settled in the meantime. It worries me when I see that we are asking for an inquiry into the benefit received by women from the development programmes, and when I see that the Wynn report on the 1995 discharge is being used to ask for funds to be held in reserve for the CERI in Florence after a visit by the Committee on Budgets a few weeks ago.
The same goes for olive oil, where highly topical measures are being recommended.
I think we must be careful to ensure stricter demarcation between documents, but that does not detract in any way from the excellent quality of the Wynn report.
Madam President, I shall devote my speech to Mr Wynn's report on discharge to the Commission for the 1995 financial year.
Let me say straight away that my group cannot support this report.
I certainly agree with the rapporteur when he expresses satisfaction with the spirit of constructive cooperation which has been established between the Commission and the Court of Auditors, and when he notes that the Court of Auditors' control of the consolidated income and expenditure account has improved since 1994.
But I find that, once again, the rapporteur and the Committee on Budgetary Control fail to draw the right conclusions from the Court of Auditors' analysis. In fact, just as it did for 1994, the Court of Auditors felt it could not give positive global assurances on the legality and regularity of the operations underlying the payments for the 1995 financial year.
1995 will be a record year, because irregularities have reached the staggering figure of ECU 1.14 billion, or 1.7 % of expenditure.
The Auditors further indicate that accumulated substantial errors relating to the operations underlying payments are of the order of ECU 4, 000 million, or 5.9 % of the amounts involved, far more than the 1 % considered acceptable by the Auditors.
Despite this, as in 1992, as in 1993, and as in 1994, the Committee on Budgetary Control proposes that we grant the Commission discharge.
How much longer will Parliament feel obliged to express its confidence in this way, while waiting for an eventual SEM 2000?
Furthermore, the report comes to the wrong conclusions.
First, by including provisions which have nothing to do with the discharge, as Mr Dell'Alba has just mentioned, and then by proposing ideological measures of 'communitarization' : ' communitarization' of national management and control systems, ' communitarization' of customs services.
These ideological measures are an escape from the real measures the irregularities require.
The latest innovation, the new panacea, is to propose discharge of the Council for the budget.
Madam President, Mr Wynn's report on the execution of the general budget for 1995 confirms the worrying developments noted in previous years.
First, the amount of identified irregularities: ECU 204 million in 1992, 403 million in 1993, 1.08 billion in 1994, 1.14 billion in 1995.
Above all this demonstrates the poor functioning of the single market, the inadequate customs control at the frontiers of the European Union and the muddle of Community transit.
Errors of legality and regularity are increasing too.
In 1994 they represented 4 % of expenditure, and in 1995 nearly 6 %.
This is explained in particular by excessive generosity in the budgets, which leads to lax implementation.
Next, there is the underspend of the appropriations: some 20 % for the structural funds and 24 % for the European social fund, in particular.
But the appropriations for foreign policy have also been underspent.
Here the underspend was essentially due to initial overestimation of expenditure.
It is obviously regrettable that Parliament did not take account of these facts during the budgetary guidelines for 1998 to revise the expenditure on structural funds and foreign policy downwards.
Clearly, where there is underconsumption of appropriations, we must not persevere with pointless expenditure, but cut excessive budgetary estimates and take account of these facts, these observations repeated year on year, during the revision of the financial perspectives for 1999.
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating the four rapporteurs, Mr Wynn, Mr Dankert, Mr Blak and Mr Bösch for their reports.
I want to address remarks to each of the players in the discharge procedure, first of all to Parliament.
Today is quite depressing. What we have in this Parliament, which ought to be taking seriously its responsibilities for discharge, is in effect a meeting of the Budget Control Committee with a few other Members.
They are very welcome but there are far too few of them.
It is depressing to consider the speed at which Members of Parliament rush to propose amendments for additional expenditure to the budget but do not begin to take seriously their responsibility for controlling it in terms of either quality or quantity.
I hope that we can continue to hammer away internally at our own responsibilities.
Secondly, I want to say a few words to the Commission.
They are words of encouragement along the lines of Mr Wynn's report; encouragement by supporting the work of SEM 2000.
That is not just an encouragement in words.
There has been a very practical manifestation of encouragement from the very valuable work of Mr Colom i Naval in supporting the SEM 2000 process.
But of course in saying that to the Commission we are also acknowledging that there is a long way to go.
I want to reiterate in that long way ahead one or two of the things that were said last year and, in particular, remind Commissioner Liikanen about the commitment he made at this stage last year to the policies of greater concentration; what he last year called 'policies of critical mass' , so that we actually have more coherent, more easily identifiable and more readily controlled policies.
I want also to say a couple of words to the Court of Auditors.
Another thing that depresses me this year was referred to by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, namely the statement of assurance.
I am not quite sure that is the correct use of language because it seems to be an abuse of language to call it a statement of assurance.
I am not sure it has not turned out to be a non-statement of assurance or a statement of non-assurance.
But it certainly is not a statement of assurance.
What we are finding is that the message is getting confused.
We have seen a major argument between the Commission and the Court of Auditors about statistical methodology which is detracting from the whole value of the statement of assurance process.
I must say to both institutions: sort that statistical row out and assure us, assure the Member States, assure the citizens that we have an agreed basis for a statement of assurance where we can all have confidence in the methodology.
Unless we have it, in terms of the audit effort that is going into it, we are seriously wasting our resources.
We have to be assured that the statement of assurance is a document well worth having.
I turn briefly to the Council for the last quarter of this precious five minutes.
The Council and Parliament share a common language but I am not quite sure that we yet share a common philosophy.
We share a common language when we all genuflect to words like 'efficiency' , ' sound financial management' and 'proper budgetary discipline' .
I can applaud the President-in-Office of the Council when he says all of those things.
I would value the words even more if I was assured that the effort made by the Council at high ministerial level for the recommendations of discharge equalled as that made in the Budgetary Control Committee.
Mr Wynn has pointed out that 80 % of the expenditure goes to the Member States.
And yet it is the same Council that talks about efficiency and sound financial management that largely makes a mess of the agricultural regulations that make it possible for the fraud and irregularities to take place.
So I ask them, when they talk about Sound and Efficient Management 2000, to not only say this to the Commission but to make sure it is put into practice in the administration of the 15 Member States who are controlling the 80 %.
The very final point is to pick up one thing that Mr Dankert said about his aspiration for giving discharge to the Council.
I just reflect that if we had that power, this would be the year when we would be giving discharge to the Council for that Stalinist look-alike mausoleum known as the Council building, the one that they chose to build by designating it as compulsory expenditure.
That would have been a very interesting contribution to our discharge debate had Mr Dankert's aspiration been available to us retrospectively.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it was no easy matter on this occasion for the Committee on Budgetary Control to submit the report for the discharge in the time laid down - laid down, indeed, by the Financial Regulations.
This was no fault of the Committee.
The Committee worked very hard and very quickly, and I would like to add a particular word of thanks to the rapporteurs, Mr Wynn, Mr Dankert, Mr Blak and Mr Bösch, and to Mr Kellett-Bowman, and also to all members of the committee and to the secretariat.
The reports that are now before the House also reflect good cooperation with the Commission and the Court of Auditors, and my thanks are also due to Mr Friedmann and Commissioner Liikanen.
So why have we had so many problems in the finishing straight?
The main responsibility lies with the Council.
Year in, year out, we receive the Council's opinions on the discharge, which are required by the Treaty, at the very last moment.
And this time was no exception!
We received it one day before we were to vote in Committee on Mr Wynn's long report on the budget.
The opinion on the Development Fund reached us on Monday this week, and the opinion on Mr Kellett-Bowman's reports has not yet reached us at all.
I cannot help wondering what the Council has in mind with this un-cooperative behaviour.
Is it really so uninterested in the correct expenditure of the money received from the taxpayers? Does it believe that giving discharge to the Commission is a mere formality?
However, the Council recommendation does strike a note that consoles me somewhat.
This time the reference to the responsibility of the Member States is clearer than it has been in the past.
Four out of five ECU in the Community Budget are spent by the Member States on a decentralized basis.
So the Member States are also responsible for the proper administration of these resources.
The Commission's task is to monitor that.
This becomes clear in the motion for a resolution.
We will see when autumn comes how far the Commission has complied with the requirements imposed here.
Let me at this point say a word of praise for the Commission, and especially for Mr Liikanen and Mrs Gradin, because I believe that the SEM 2000 initiative launched by them did prompt a change of course by the Council.
Parliament is doing everything it can to support them here.
I need not emphasize, though, that the results of the examination by the Court of Auditors do make it difficult for us to give the Commission discharge.
Once again, the Court's Statement of Assurance is not very encouraging.
Although more than 90 % of expenditure is in order, the remainder is not.
We must reduce this high percentage of error.
It is a good thing that the Court intends to define the errors, and therefore their avoidance, more clearly in the future.
This applies particularly to the agricultural expenditures, where the final accounts for past years have enabled us to identify excessive advance payments and also monies paid in error, which absolutely must be brought back into the Community budget.
The fact that the '95 budget fell 13 % short of the limit of the intended payments may initially look like economy.
On closer study, however, it is apparent that political objectives have not been met.
For example, in the Social Fund, about 24 % of the resources are still unused, and yet unemployment is continuing to rise.
Another worrying example: of the ECU 580 million or so appropriated since 1990 for the safety of nuclear facilities in central and eastern Europe, the Court of Auditors tells us that only 140 million had been spent by '95.
This has to be put right!
If we are recommending giving discharge to the Commission despite this, we are doing so as a kind of downpayment on trust, because we want things to be put right, and we expect to hear in the autumn that a great many of them have been.
Madam President, with reference to the working document on PHARE, I would like to say that I am very satisfied with the conclusion that has been reached in the joint report from Mr Wynn and I am grateful for that collaboration.
That our work is not useless is clearly demonstrated here, in that the Commission has accepted the single recommendation and modified the strategy for the PHARE programme, so that the objective and priorities are geared towards expansion.
We have thus been able to contribute to the preparation of countries seeking accession for EU membership.
I am pleased we now agree that the role PHARE should play is to contribute to a development which will ensure that Eastern and Central European countries can become members of the EU.
As the same time the Commission has acknowledged the wish to improve administration, simplify the decision-making process and to make things more transparent.
I am glad to have these messages, but I can announce that we will follow this up, determine when it is to be set in motion and carefully monitor developments from the committee's side so that it is not just empty talk, but that real change occurs.
If we look at the reports that have been produced over the years, it is the case that we have repeatedly had the same criticisms.
I note that the council is also aware that many of the criticisms are the same from one year to the next, and this also encourages me to urge the Council to do something to change this situation.
It is indeed irritating that one is never able to get the Council's assistance for the necessary decisions to be taken.
My complaint concerning PHARE is that the Commission has not been willing to carry out a combined analysis.
It is important that we know what we are getting out of the different projects, whether we are actually changing anything and whether we are making a positive contribution to improving conditions in countries seeking accession.
Of course we should have used the budget resources Mrs Wemheuer has referred to, but the important thing is to ensure that they contribute towards positive development, and that we get something for our money.
In this connection I find it alarming to hear such stories as the money given to Albania which has disappeared into thin air.
We do not have a clue what has happened to this money.
Finally let me earnestly encourage the Commission to arrange for a thorough overall evaluation so that we can find out what benefit we have from the money we spend and so that we can be sure of support from EU citizens for continuation of the various programmes.
Madam President, I would like to return to the report by Mr Blak on the European Iron and Steel Community and the Court of Auditor's report.
I think that the report is excellent and it is good that three individual issues have been raised as tangible examples so that everyone may understand what this is about.
Above all I would like to concentrate on the issues concerning the Great Belt and the Öresund Bridge.
It is obvious that the Commission has made a mistake here.
Not that this mistake has cost a lot of money but, as a matter of principle, the decision to provide a loan of 353 million ECUs to the Great Belt project instead of 170 million ECUs is a mistake.
This is a very important issue as these funds could have been used for other investments in the infrastructure and to create jobs in other areas instead of merely in the area around the Great Belt.
Above all, with regard to the huge new bridge between Sweden and Denmark, it is important that the money is used wisely and that this project is not favoured over other infrastructure projects which may be necessary.
Unfortunately I do not share Mr Blak's view that the bridge between Sweden and Denmark will be as beautiful and attractive as the one at Great Belt.
On the contrary we do not really want the bridge between Sweden and Denmark.
Madam President, the size of the sums that have gone astray and the obviously out-of-date expenditure structure cannot fail to cause anxiety, to say the least, among the taxpayers in the Member States in the attitude they take to the European Union.
Here we are in a time of drastically rising unemployment in a situation where about 24 % - ECU 1.6 billion - of the Social Fund has not been used, a policy that can only be described as cynical.
At a time when European industry is becoming less competitive, the total expenditure on research is a mere ECU 2.9 billion.
Yet in the same year expenditure on cereals and arable crops alone rose by 22.6 % to over ECU 15 billion, in defiance of the declared objective of keeping costs down in the agricultural sector.
Irregularities in spending on animals and land alone amount to ECU 1.7 billion, or two-thirds of the total sum spent on research.
Discrepancies of this kind prove, first and foremost, the need for the expense structure to be reformed in a way that reflects economic and social reality.
Madam President. First I would like to thank all those who have presented their reports to the House this morning, but especially Terry Wynn; his expertise shines through yet again.
In Wales he would be known as 'Wynn the Discharge' .
There are just two points I want to make.
The first is that, at Maastricht, the European Council, in its wisdom, instructed the Court of Auditors to produce this certificate of assurance - the DAS.
In 1994 it produced one which gave us an extrapolated figure of what seemed to be going wrong, and for 1995, we have had another.
It is that end statistic which seems to be what everybody is interested in instead of all the work behind it.
The fact is that the Council did not will the resources, or the means, to the Court to do all this extra work.
I do not think that the discharge report or resolution or debate is the right arena for commenting on the procedures used by the Court in producing this certificate.
We have squeezed out some amendments to that effect in this report and I think that was right.
I look forward to the meeting to be held shortly with the Court of Auditors and the Committee on Budgetary Control to see what we can do to assist each other in this joint exercise.
Again in its wisdom, the European Council has set up what I like to call a 'constellation of satellites' .
In the report they are referred to as decentralized Community agencies and these second-generation agencies are going to cause us problems.
We are going to cause the Council and Commission problems unless Parliament gets what it has asked for, namely the right to grant discharge and the right of the Commission to do the full financial control job on these agencies.
I have had some good news from the financial control services in the Commission lately to the effect that some interesting work is going forward to remedy this situation which has been the subject of comment year after year from the Court of Auditors regarding the two 'old' agencies, as we may call them, in Dublin and now Thessaloniki.
I want to thank the Court for its work in producing these extra reports on the new satellite agencies, covering their beginnings sometime in 1994 and then 1995.
It was very helpful and encourages Parliament to proceed on the lines which we have laid down.
So I want to thank the Court particularly and look forward to further cooperation between the Court and the Committee on Budgetary Control in doing this interesting work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have been holding these debates on the discharge for many years now, and yet we still find that the procedure leaves room for improvement. We are going to have to go on working on that.
I am thinking, for example, about the incorporation of the so-called Statements of Assurance into the discharge debate.
And I am also thinking about the fact that the Council has failed to complete at least part of its homework on time.
It is only gradually dawning on public awareness, or the awareness of those involved, that 80 % of the expenditures are administered by the Member States.
So it is a step in the right direction if the Council itself has noticed the fact.
But the Member States must also react to the report of the Court of Auditors.
And the Commission must obtain reports on the reactions of the Member States and pass the information on to us; this is something that should be done in future.
But Parliament itself can certainly do something to improve its own work, for example in the co-operation of the other Committees with the Committee on Budgetary Control in connection with the discharge.
In terms of content, the subjects we address are very often the same, especially the shortcomings in the implementation of the budget.
There may be changes from time to time between this area of policy and that, but the problem is fundamentally the same.
Mrs Wemheuer and Mrs Theato have already drawn attention to the political significance of these shortcomings.
There is another matter, though, that concerns me most of all - the need to take more account of own resources.
I am grateful to Mr Wynn for doing so already in his report.
But I regret the fact that the Committee did not support the call for a separate report on this.
Even so, I am hoping that the Court of Auditors will supply us with some additional material on this, particularly with a view to the new 1999 Financial Regulations.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Wynn, all the rapporteurs and Mrs Theato and to say that they are a group of people dedicated to the whole business of getting the Community's finances in order.
The most remarkable thing about the budget for 1995 - by contrast with national budgets, which are plagued with overspending - is that we turn out 13 % below our commitments.
It is not necessarily a good thing, but it is certainly a lot better than the problem of overspending, which we hear so much about at national level.
In the case of the structural funds - which are the one instrument of economic and social cohesion, and which represent a relatively modest amount of money bearing in mind that they transfer between 2 and 3 % of GNP to the Objective 1 regions - the fact that they have been underspent by 19 % is some cause for concern, because they are a rather precious instrument that should be utilized to the full.
Mr Wynn concentrates, of course, on control and recovery of money that is overspent, and on evaluation but, in relation to the structural funds, there is another problem.
My own experience of Ireland, which has done particularly well and is held up as an example, is that the money we have transferred over 15 years - which peaked in 1992, before the present programme - went to public sector pay and social welfare rather than to economic infrastructure.
Anybody who examines closely trends in public spending will find that, and the fact that this has not been identified by either the Commission or the Court of Auditors means that there is some weakness in our system of evaluation.
Although Ireland has made great progress, the lessons to be learned apply in all parts of the Community - because you will probably find the same thing has happened in other areas - and they are that we need to redefine our strategy, narrow our objectives down and harmonize our policies with the individual Member States and regions, rather than trying to have a global regulation for everybody.
If we had done that, Mr Wynn's control and recovery would be less of a problem.
Mr President, the Wynn, Blak and Bösch reports propose to give the Commission a discharge in respect of the implementation of the general Community budget for 1995, as well as for the budget of the European Coal and Steel Community and of the European Development Fund.
The Commission is committed to a careful follow-up to the items raised in the reports and in the resolution.
In fact, considerable work is in progress to address Parliament's major preoccupations.
I would like to mention some of this work.
First, on progress made in the context of the SEM 2000 initiative.
The Member States are now gradually accepting the need for a joint approach to tackling the financial management issues which the Commission launched in SEM 2000, in large part at the insistence of Parliament.
A number of Member States have, for example, already accepted the invitation to respond directly to points made in the Court's reports.
The contributions will be reflected in the follow-up report later this year, as requested in the Wynn report.
That will give you an opportunity to have the information for which Mr Bardong asked.
On the consistent application of eligibility rules for the structural funds, an acceptable solution has now found unanimous approval in Council.
The adoption of the definitive decision is on the agenda of the Commission next week.
In the future, clear guidelines on recurrent eligibility problems will be included in all programming decisions.
This will represent a major step towards the improvement in financial management.
It represents an effective response to repeated criticisms by the Court and the European Parliament.
The second key question concerns possible financial corrections in the structural funds, to which Mr Dankert made reference.
I want to reply to some of your comments.
On this question progress still needs to be made.
The Commission proposes to proceed with a twin-track approach.
Firstly, we are tabling a draft Commission Regulation to clarify Member States' responsibilities for financial control; this will be based on Article 23 of the present Council Regulation on the management of structural funds.
Secondly, we shall clarify our internal guidance on the circumstances in which net financial corrections should be made under the terms of the existing legislation.
This will be based on Article 24 of the above Council Regulation.
With regard to the method, I would like to be a little more precise because I know Parliament's great interest in this issue.
I want to mention the following four points: firstly, the Commission's approach involves the clarification of the application of the existing structural fund regulations using existing legal powers; secondly, it is not seeking to impose new administrative structures on the Member States.
The intention is rather to introduce adequate minimum standards of control which should be applied consistently throughout the Union; thirdly, the Commission is not proposing any fundamental change in the programming approach under which Member States are generally free to switch finance between eligible projects; fourthly and most importantly, it is appropriate to clarify those circumstances in which net financial corrections should be made without the possibility of substitution - for example where there has been a systematic failure in financial control or a refusal to cooperate with the Commission.
Our intention is to apply this fourth position which means net transfers back.
I see that the resolution before you invites the Commission to make a proposal to amend Article 24 of Council Regulation 4253/88 to ensure that effective corrective action is taken in the event of irregularities.
I can confirm that we have not ruled out this option for the future.
We have already undertaken to review the relevant provisions of the Council Regulation before the start of the next programming period and we will take full account of Parliament's views in that context.
I find it quite natural that when we make new proposals for structural fund programmes after 2000, a new regulation is also a part of this global package.
We are not talking about the very distant future.
It is the year 2000 that they enter into force but proposals must be made before that.
However, I agree with Mr Dankert that we cannot afford to wait for this change in 2000 to take action in this area.
Improvements can be made within the scope of the existing regulation, as I said, and it is for this reason that the Commission intends to proceed in the short term with the aforementioned twin-track approach.
In the context of SEM 2000, efforts are being made to improve cooperation with the Member States on budget forecasting and execution.
The tight budget constraints in the run-up to the third stage of EMU reinforce the importance of obtaining the most up-to-date and realistic estimates of budgetary requirements.
We need to take this forward urgently, with a view to the preparation of the 1998 budget.
Actually, this issue was discussed yesterday in the trialogue between the Council and Parliament.
We had a problem with the forecasts in relation to agriculture.
We must make our budget proposal in April.
That is very far in advance of 1998.
If we have a chance to take a further look later this year and perhaps to send an amending and rectifying letter to Parliament that would give a more solid basis for next year's budget decisions.
Parliament's rapporteur on SEM 2000, Mr Colom i Naval, has been invited to attend the next meeting of the Personal Representatives Group in May and then we will try to conclude the issue of the financial corrections.
I shall touch briefly upon two other points.
Firstly, the statement of assurance or DAS.
As last year, Terry Wynn's report describes very clearly the results and the difficulties.
I share his unease about the numbers and their interpretation.
I would like to emphasize that the problem is that there is a considerable lack of experience.
The results from the first two DAS exercises have differed without good explanations on the ground.
This underlines the experimental nature of DAS of which we were all aware from the beginning.
It will take a few years before it is sufficiently mature to provide assurance not only for the auditor but also for the auditee.
Until then all the numbers and especially conclusions resulting from a DAS exercise should be treated with prudence.
Of course when we have discussions next summer with the Court of Auditors on the basis of the DAS for 1996, we will take your wishes into account and we hope as far as possible to arrive at a common language while respecting, of course, the independence of the Court of Auditors in the exercise.
Secondly, on PHARE, the difficulties described by the Court and underlined by the Wynn report can only be acknowledged.
As a first reply, the Commission decided on 19 March new policy guidelines for PHARE.
They re-orient PHARE to two main priorities - institution building and investment support.
The management of PHARE is also to be reformed.
There is to be a simplification of procedures, decentralization of implementation and an increased role for the EU delegations.
Mr Tomlinson mentioned my remarks last year about concentrating on bigger projects which are easier to manage, to have a sufficient critical mass.
PHARE re-orientation is a good example of that.
We are trying to go further in some other areas in the budget.
It is not easy in the Commission but you know as well as I do that it will not be easy in Parliament either.
We must remember that we are now running a budget in a Union of 370 million people.
Small budget lines with a very minor critical mass are actually impossible to execute in the way which would be efficient.
The administrative costs are often higher than the budget sums concerned and there are no possibilities for control.
So we should take a critical look at what can be implemented and how we implement it.
I heard the comment that we have not executed all the budgets.
Sometimes there are sums in the budget lines which cannot be easily executed.
We should not only discuss the political priorities but also how these can be translated into budgetary language which can be implemented.
Coming back to PHARE, further elements will become clearer when the Commission presents its pre-accession strategy after the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference.
This work will be undertaken in close collaboration with Parliament.
It should also facilitate the preparations for the 1998 budget.
Mr Blak asked me two or three very detailed questions.
I hope I can come back to them after consulting my services.
Perhaps next week we can have bilateral contacts on these issues.
Finally, I would conclude by thanking the rapporteurs, Terry Wynn, Freddy Blak and Herbert Bösch, the chairman of Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, as well as all the Members who made a great effort to analyse the report of the Court of Auditors and to identify the key measures to be taken.
Your support is crucial for further progress towards sound Community financial management.
There is a long way to go but we will remain firm and we will not turn back.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Euro-Mediterranean Interim Association Agreement with PLO- Middle East Peace Process
The next item is the joint debate on the recommendation by Mr Alavanos (A4-0103/97), on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of a Euro-Mediterranean Interim Agreement on trade and cooperation between the European Community and the PLO for the benefit of the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Mr President, in normal circumstances this debate on a Euro-Mediterranean Interim Association Agreement on trade and cooperation between the European Community and the PLO would be just a formality.
It is supported, anyway, by all of the political groups, as was shown in the discussions in the Committee on Foreign Affairs a few days ago and also in the vote.
Today, however, amidst the storm that has broken out in the Middle East following the irresponsible decision of the Netanyahu government in Israel to proceed with settlement of the eastern areas of Palestine, this debate on the agreement takes on special significance and should send a clear signal from the European Parliament to the Council of Ministers of the European Union to embark on decisive action and, also, to the protagonists in the Middle East crisis.
There are a number of things that I wish to say about this agreement.
Firstly, it is a singular type of agreement.
It is not an agreement between the European Union and one country, one state.
It is not, even, an agreement between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority, whose legal status does not permit it to negotiate international agreements.
It is an agreement between the European Union and the Palestine Liberation Organization, a novel and singular agreement which is, of course, based on the Interim Israel-Palestinian Agreement, on the basis of which the PLO is empowered to conclude international agreements.
So, one way or another, the Palestinian territories are viewed as regions of the area covered by the Meda programme and the Union's Mediterranean policy.
Secondly, it is an interim agreement with a duration corresponding to the transitional period extending up to 1999 established by the Oslo peace agreements.
Thirdly, it is not a mixed agreement.
It does not presuppose the consent of the Member States and therefore does not require ratification by the national parliaments.
Fourthly, it is an agreement which, literally, has emerged in record time.
The Council adopted the directives on the conclusion of the agreement on 1 October of last year, and the agreement was initialled on 10 December and signed on 24 February of this year.
Of course, when the negotiation process began the circumstances were entirely different from the situation that prevailed when the process was concluded and as it still is now when the European Parliament is being asked for its approval.
As regards the content of the agreement, it is along the lines - specific features apart - of that of the other EuroMediterranean agreements. So I do not need to go into the content.
I would just like to mention two points.
Firstly, the quotas on certain sensitive products may be very restricted after one or two years, as in the case of flowers.
Secondly, we should pay particular attention to the clauses of Article 68 which allow each of the parties to take measures that it considers essential for its security in the event of war or internal strife.
This Article 68 must not be allowed to take precedence over Article 2, but, rather, should be subordinate to it, given that the latter provides for implementation of the clause on human rights, enshrined as they are in all treaties, specifically, in relation to such questions as torture and the protection of democratic principles.
The main importance of this agreement lies, I think, in its political nature.
It strengthens the Palestinian authorities and could contribute to the stabilization of the region and to regional integration, and with that in mind, of course, the European Parliament welcomes and supports it.
However, as we have seen, everything will depend on exogenous factors which could turn this agreement into nothing but a piece of paper with no real significance.
Given that possibility, I think that the adoption of a stable, firm, uniform and effective stance by the Council of Ministers towards the present crisis is perhaps much more important than approval of the agreement by this Parliament.
We must avoid acting like Pontius Pilate as, unfortunately, President Clinton has been doing.
There must be a genuine and clear representation to Israel to stop it putting up housing in East Jerusalem in order to give us hope that the Middle East peace process can be got back on to its feet.
Mr President, the Committee on External Economic Relations is also delighted with the interim agreement on trade and cooperation between the European Union and the PLO, for the benefit of the Palestinian Authority of the West Bank and the Gaza strip.
First, because it will contribute to consolidating an area of peace and stability in the region, given that it is designed to facilitate the development of the former occupied territories, in line with the policy maintained by the European Union since 1970 and making it the major donor of humanitarian aid and aid to the economic and political development of the Palestinian people.
Secondly, because it formalizes, albeit provisionally and only until 1999, bilateral relations between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority, just as this committee requested, and because it confirms the Palestinian people's status as a full Mediterranean partner when the legal status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have been definitively established.
Thirdly, because the democratic basis of the agreement, underpinned by the non-implementation clause, constitutes a contribution to the development of the democratic principles and fundamental rights which must accompany the peace process.
This agreement and its timing during the current difficult situation in the peace process and also with the approach of the Second Euro-Mediterranean Conference are of undoubted importance, above all political.
That is why the Committee on External Economic Relations has endorsed the agreement, but that is also why, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, I must deplore and express my disagreement with the procedure followed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which issued its endorsement without taking account of our committee's opinion.
It is not the first time this has happened, but we particularly deplore it on this occasion, because a ratification procedure is involved and because the agreement is so significant politically.
Mr President, I am grateful for this opportunity of making a statement here on behalf of the Council concerning the present situation in the Middle East.
The Council is extremely concerned at the latest developments in the Middle Eastern peace process.
Although a clear step forward in relations between Palestinians and Israelis was recorded in January with the signing of the protocol on Israeli resettlement in Hebron it transpired that the momentum this created was short-lived.
Israel's decision to build 6 500 houses on a hill close to Jerusalem, called Har Homa by the Israelis and Jebel Abu Gneim by the Palestinians, prompted a marked deterioration in the situation in the region. Tensions are running high.
Trust in the Arab world has declined and the Israeli Government's will for peace has lessened.
In addition to peaceful protests by Palestinians against the decision there has also been violence in a number of places.
Terrorist suicide attacks have been mounted against Israeli civilians.
The Council has made its views clear more than once on Israel's settlement policy.
The European Union regards the Israeli settlements as contrary to international law and inconsistent with Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 which form the basis of a peace settlement.
Israel's settlement policy also pre-empts the outcome of the talks on permanent status.
And I am particularly concerned about the position of Jerusalem.
Manifestly the settlement policy is undermining the peace process and the confidence of both Palestinians and all other Arab countries in it.
Prior to the Israeli decision on Har Homa/Jebel Abu Gneim the European Union had urged Israel through diplomatic channels not to continue with its plans to build there.
When the decision went through the European Union made its opposition plain, through the presidency and in the United Nations.
The Council was appalled to learn of the recent attacks in Israel and condemned them in the strongest terms.
An attack was mounted on a café in Tel Aviv and recently there were two suicide bombs in Gaza.
Clearly those acts of violence have cut the ground from under the peace process.
Innocent civilians are the one who suffer and their feeling of security is very seriously undermined by these attacks.
The European Union has urged the Palestinian Authority to make every effort to counter terrorism in those areas under its control, in line with the obligations it undertook under the interim agreement.
As already happened in the past Israel reacted to the latest terrorist attack by closing the border with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The Council stands by its belief that restrictions on the movements of the Palestinians must go no further than measures genuinely needed to ensure Israel's security.
In the Council's view the renewed acts of violence, which claimed new victims again yesterday, show how fragile the peace process is.
All the parties involved should take stock of their responsibilities in the light of this precarious situation.
And we must not lose sight of the structural measures to help the Palestinian people which are equally necessary to the peace process.
The Palestinian economy is in a very parlous state and a wide and protracted closure of the border with Israel is not acceptable.
The closure will lead to living standards of the Palestinians in the Palestinian territories falling further behind, creating the danger of a breeding ground for unrest, anger and violence.
The European Union is anxious to improve the social and economic situation of the Palestinians and has an extensive programme of aid to this end.
The Council hopes that both parties will refrain from acts which might further undermine the peace process.
With this in mind the Council and the European Union's special envoy on the Middle Eastern peace process, the highly respected Spanish ambassador Mr Moratinos, have had numerous contacts with the parties since the crisis first began.
The Council President has visited a number of capitals in European Union partner countries in the Middle East to prepare for the Euro-Mediterranean ministerial conference which is scheduled for 15 and 16 April in Malta.
The President had in-depth discussions not only on the Euro-Mediterranean process but also on the current situation in the Middle East.
Although the Barcelona process is a separate thing from the Middle Eastern peace process it offers a forum for cooperation to all those involved.
The President expects, and will do his best to ensure, that the Malta conference will be a success in this regard too and will help to defuse the tensions.
Our envoy, ambassador Moratinos, is in constant touch with the parties concerned to explore ways in which the European Union can take constructive action to get the peace process back on track.
When direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians broke down he offered his good offices, which were welcomed by both sides.
He spoke to President Netanyahu and President Arafat, and with members of their cabinet.
He also maintains close contact with his US counterpart Dennis Ross.
He is trying to persuade the parties to resume both their cooperation on security matters and their political dialogue.
After all, progress on both these fronts is needed if mutual trust is to be rebuilt.
Without political dialogue it will be clear that substantial progress is impossible.
The day before yesterday, on 7 April, special envoy Moratinos and representatives of the Member States met in the Council for an in-depth analysis of the situation.
Given the seriousness of the situation we think it is important that the parties should defuse the tensions and seek to resume the dialogue.
Certainly just now it is important that all the parties should strive to get the peace process back on track.
The Council presidency is liaising closely to this end with the United States which has just had talks with the Israeli premier and tomorrow, on 10 April 1997, premier Netanyahu will be visiting The Hague.
Mr President, thank you for giving me the chance to make this statement.
Mr President, I shall not, of course, waste time describing just how bad the situation is.
At this juncture, we are, I believe, to some extent in accord with the Council's position; I share the very grave concern and the way in which it has been expressed here in the House by the President-in-Office.
The past few months have seen the trust that was built up with difficulty between the parties after Oslo, largely eroded.
There has to be trust in a process that has been, and will always be, difficult, but sadly it has been lost.
The European Parliament and my group have hitherto refused to sound the death knell of the peace process - though there are those who wished for just that - or to propose extreme measures, such as requesting that the Council and the Commission freeze the agreements between the European Union and Israel.
We did not do that because it is not for us to be the first to declare, before the actual parties involved, that the peace process is finished. Another reason why we did not do so is because we hope it will be able to resume.
We have exercised caution.
The Organization of Arab States has, however, called into question the new economic and political relations with Israel, which have formed an important step in the peace process.
This is a significant step backwards which reflects the scale of the damage caused to peace in the region in recent months.
The European Parliament is now faced with a new situation and has to decide how to react; how it can make a more helpful contribution to peace. The fact is that Parliament and my group have always and, I hope, will always encourage but also help push forward the peace process.
At this point in time, we need carefully to assess what can most usefully be done.
We are told that, after the unsuccessful meeting with Clinton, the Israeli government is intending to propose global negotiations which will solve at a stroke all of the problems, both the issue of Israel's security and the second and third stages provided for under Oslo.
We are told that the intention is to speed up the peace process, so that it does not last two and a half years but is brought to a conclusion in nine months.
It is not clear to us what elements of this proposal from the Israeli Prime Minister constitute a real possibility and what is simple propaganda and to a large extent the abandonment of peace.
We know - and the Council today confirms it - that the Prime Minister will be meeting with the Council this week, and we are aware of the existence of a letter from the Council to the US government proposing joint action.
We have no idea what all of that will produce.
From that perspective, the House was right not to provide for a resolution at present.
But the House will have to be able to express a view and it may be that it will have to do so during the next part-session in Brussels. It should do this in a way that avoids repetition of the exhortations, warnings and concerns voiced on several occasions in recent months.
Meantime, we welcome the fact the House has moved very rapidly to approve this association agreement, which certainly represents a contribution of the right kind and in the right direction in a peace process that is currently locked in a very difficult phase.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement we are today discussing marks an important step in relations between Europe and the Palestinians and in relations with the Mediterranean generally. It also demonstrates that the European Union is fully involved in the political and economic life of the nascent Palestinian State, and that it clearly intends to move, together with the parties concerned, along the path of reintroducing normality into the Middle East.
That applies more particularly today, at a time when a gradual increase in tensions and difficulties is threatening to sweep us off course.
While the Palestinian side is currently demonstrating a desire to seek European intervention in the peace process, there are others who are seeking to exclude Europe, by standing in the way of the excellent work of Ambassador Moratinos and undermining the aim and scope of the association agreement itself.
It is therefore extremely important that, in the wake of Barcelona, Europe should make clear its own commitment - and not just its financial but its political commitment also - to the region.
The reference to Barcelona and the next conference at La Valletta is necessary precisely in order to link the agreement into the process more generally, the aim being to create a free trade area in the Euro-Mediterranean region by 2010.
It is in fact right to accord the Palestinian people the rights the MEDA programme guarantees to them, and the conclusion of this agreement will mark an important step in that direction.
It is also right to provide the definite legal framework necessary for trade and cooperation with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, specifically in order to reinforce this approach based on openness and mutual interest in relations between the European Union and all the countries of the Mashreq and Maghreb - and peace in the region is the absolute prerequisite for this.
The agreement has a value which is political rather than economic, and we have therefore to mention here the unusual nature of an agreement signed by the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine on behalf of a State that has yet to be recognized and that is struggling to assert its own right to exist, including within its own frontiers as it conceives them.
The hope is that it will be possible by 1999 to arrive at a Euro-Mediterranean association agreement with a Palestinian State fully constituted in compliance with international law and enjoying a peaceful relationship with neighbouring countries.
Mr President, October 1996 to February 1997: these extremely important negotiations have, I would say, been concluded with rare, laudable and exemplary dispatch.
What we have now to hope for is that the international legal status of the Palestinian Authority will be regularized with the same speed and decisiveness, so that when the interim period laid down in the Oslo agreements is over, that is to say at the end of 1999, it will have the full capacity to negotiate with the other States.
Greater dignity and greater authority also mean greater internal stability but, more particularly, greater international prestige. Those are crucial developments if Palestine is to become a real nation and thus be able to negotiate global and lasting agreements.
But - and there are many who have now said this - the essential prerequisite is the restoration of security and acceptable living conditions for all.
That will not be possible until the conflict over the Israeli settlements in territories subject to the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority has been resolved.
Each of these settlements is a powder keg, that is to say a potential danger spot, and anyone, from either side, can light the touchpaper whenever they think the time is right.
Peace above all then, but also free access to the resources Palestine has but has hitherto been unable to exploit specifically because of the controls exercised by Israel. We are thinking here primarily of the sea, the port that not even Gaza has been able to have, despite the fact that there it is before the windows and doors of the houses.
We hope that there will soon be access to these natural resources, but we hope above all to see economic revival, which will certainly come on the basis of agreements of the kind we are today welcoming, but more particularly via initiatives to promote production.
Along with other honourable Members, I was an observer at the elections and noted that, amid the bombs and the fear, Palestinian people are organizing themselves to respond to that appeal.
Those are the people we should be helping, not just through economic and financial intervention but also through some form of technical assistance to enable them to acquire not just political but also economic independence.
The words of the President-in-Office of the Council are consistent with the picture we have of the situation in the Middle East and particularly Israel, and it comes as no surprise to hear him speaking along liberal lines.
It is clear that an escalating situation of conflict has taken over from the peace agreement and the way to peace.
It is clear that the Israeli Government's policy of settlement is one of the major causes of this conflict, however legitimate the statement on Jerusalem which will have to be discussed in the latest round of talks.
The spirit of the Oslo agreements is possibly every bit as important as the letter of them.
The aim is to build mutual trust between the parties.
The interim association agreement being negotiated between the European Union and the Palestinians is one of the building bricks of that policy of trust and will bring a better balance to our relations with Israel and the Palestinians.
It takes into account the realities of Oslo and creates a strong legal framework for expanding mutual trade and cooperation between the Union and the Palestinians.
Happily trade with the Palestinians has already been substantially liberalized and the Palestinians need to expand their economy more if they are to have better prospects for the future.
At the same time we can demand that they respect human rights, a condition of the agreement.
We thus hope that the Union, together with the Americans, will do everything possible to prevent any further escalation.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, ' you can do it if you really try!' That thought is inspired by the association agreement signed between the European Union and the PLO for the benefit of the Palestinian authority.
You have been able to remove legal obstacles and set diplomatic pressures aside in record time to take what may prove to be a great initiative for the success of European Union foreign policy.
A great initiative, certainly, because it in fact confers on Palestine the international recognition it is entitled to.
But it will only be completely successful on one condition: that you do not stop in midstream.
In fact the text of the agreement stipulates that its objective is to support the economic and social development of the Palestinian territories and participate in building an area of peace and stability in the region.
Now, there is no chance of achieving these objectives unless urgent and comprehensive action is taken to end the unprecedentedly grave crisis in the peace process.
So what is to be done? We are aware of the position just adopted by seventy-four non-aligned countries and its political scope is impressive.
And Europe? There is at least one thing we can do: suspend the interim trading agreement between Europe and Israel until Mr Netanyahu's government ends its colonization in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem, in other words until it respects the signed agreements, as it has been asked to do virtually unanimously by the United Nations.
Far from a rejection of Israel, this strong political act would, in our view, be a gesture of solidarity towards those who are bravely mobilizing within Israel itself, like the tens of thousands of men and women who presented the world with a dignified, peaceful and responsible image of their country. They have one aim, which is also ours: to save the peace.
Mr President, In the latest issue of the Journal of Palestine Studies the American researcher William Quant says that if Israel concluded a peace agreement today on the basis of the two State solution, everything which was being sought prior to 1967 would be gained.
So why do they not conclude a peace agreement? 59 percent of Israelis believe that there could be a war.
But 51 percent of Israelis say that they will accept the two State solution.
Why does President Netanyahu not follow the will of the people in his country? I think it is important to remember that Netanyahu represents a particular brand of Zionism, revisionist Zionism which holds the view that it is not only Gaza and the West Bank which forms part of 'lawful Israel' but the kingdom of Jordan as well.
Netanyahu is under an enormous amount of pressure from his own supporters.
He lives quite literally in fear of his life, a fact demonstrated by the murder of President Rabin.
If we really want Netanyahu to conclude a peace agreement he must be put under counter pressure, very strong counter pressure.
One way of producing such counter pressure is through the support given to the Palestinians.
It is a good thing that the association agreement has now been concluded; it could have been much better and much more could have been done.
But clear signals that the European Union and the world community require part of the ultimate solution to be a Palestinian State form a part of such pressure.
But I wonder if we should not go even further, if we should not make it clear in other ways to Netanyahu that he has more to lose by sabotaging peace than by continuing to dream about 'the great Israel' .
I do not want to go into detail here but I think that the Council really ought to consider how Netanyahu can be subjected to enough counter pressure to make him see that he must take the chance now to achieve peace.
There are usually serious wars in the Middle East every eight years.
The next would therefore be in 1998 and I hope that through our combined strength we can prevent it.
Mr President, at a time when the peace process is in a critical state, victim of premeditated aggression and multiple provocation, we will not dwell here on the opening of a tunnel in the Arab town, the repeated cordoning off which prevents an entire population from moving around, the installation of new extremist colonists, the collective reprisals, the deaths resulting from attacks, and the repression.
After two years of step-by-step negotiations, when the Palestinian authority controls exactly 7 % of territory militarily occupied by Israel, we must show our solidarity with the people of Palestine, as well as with the hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens who fervently support peace and respect their Arab neighbours.
The agreement before us today is a factor for stabilization throughout the region.
Its political scope is obviously even more important than its economic and financial side.
The Union must be present on the ground, especially at a time when the American government, which has been so involved, so active and sometimes so effective, now seems to be having difficulties in restraining the ardour of a rabble-rousing head of government.
Consequently the European Union must demonstrate its determination to promote peace and justice.
Mr President, in terms of the existing trade relations between the European Union and the West Bank and Gaza Strip the practical benefits of the proposed agreement with the PLO are not great.
Earlier measures have already largely liberalized trade between the European Union and the autonomous Palestinian territories.
Nevertheless various people have made the point that the agreement is primarily of political significance.
Improvement of the economic and social conditions of the Palestinian people can be of positive benefit to the peace process.
Another point of political importance is that by signing the agreement the PLO and the Palestinian Authority will be committing themselves to ensure that fundamental human rights are upheld.
That too is important in the context of the peace process. But more is needed to get the peace process going again.
The Palestinian administration for its part will do everything possible to stop the terrible killings in Israel.
On the Israeli side, premier Netanyahu last week conveyed a proposal to President Clinton that accelerated talks should be held within six months on a definitive settlement of the status of the autonomous Palestinian territories.
Whether or not this is feasible is hard to say.
In any case the US Government will have to continue its role as active mediator.
Pressure will achieve nothing here.
In the hope that the agreement between the Union and the PLO will further the economic development of the Palestinian territories and encourage the Palestinian administration to conclude a safe and final peace settlement with Israel, we are happy to endorse this agreement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we of the Freedom Party welcome the broader and deeper consideration of political co-operation in the present agreement with the PLO, particularly with regard to the consolidation of democracy and respect for human rights as a way of safeguarding peace and stability in that war-torn region.
In this context, we also greatly welcome the inclusion of a democracy clause, enabling the agreement to be suspended in the event of serious human rights violations.
We must, however, reject the additional importing of agricultural produce into the EU, as in view of the present surplus agricultural production in the European market the importing of more agricultural products would make matters worse for the farmers and could result in a further fall in prices.
We in the Freedom Party have always declared our opposition to the transportation of live animals, especially to countries far beyond the frontiers of the EU, because of the intolerable suffering it involves for the animals, and so we regard it as our duty to demand the deletion of this passage from the Commission proposal, a point on which, unfortunately, no comment is made in Mr Alavanos's report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone recognizes that the situation today in the Middle East, in Israel and the Palestinian territories is difficult, even dangerous, if not explosive. Concern has been repeatedly expressed this morning.
Is it helpful to reiterate that the reasons lie in the programme of the Israeli government parties, in the personality and ideas of Mr Netanyahu, in the resumption of colonization, but also in the appeals to violence of certain Palestinian groups, in the murderous terrorist attacks and the assassination attempts, not to mention certain statements by the Palestinian Authority? I am not sure that this is either necessary, helpful, or indeed positive for the resumption of the peace process that a large majority of the Israeli people hope for and that many Palestinians still support, in spite of everything.
What is really needed is joint international action by the United States and the European Union, and the President-inOffice of the Council has set out the means.
And here I would like to congratulate Mr Moratinos, our European ambassador, on the quality of his work and his determination.
Even if the Oslo agreements allow them and do not prohibit them, the creation of new colonies must be halted, not just because they are a source of tension and short-term deadlock, but especially because they will be unmanageable in the long run, whoever is in government.
But above all terrorism, calls for terrorism, and all the ideas that underlie them, must be denounced, combatted and prosecuted.
Nothing can justify terrorism.
There can be no compromise on this point.
Who, in Europe, in Spain, in France, in Great Britain or in Ireland, to mention just a few countries, would dare to disagree?
In parallel, economic cooperation with Israel must continue in full and, of course, it must be accelerated with the Palestinian Authority.
That is why, as President of the Europe-Israel Delegation, I give my utmost support to the interim Euro-Mediterranean agreement with the PLO, just as I have supported the agreements with Israel and just as I strive to make them fully effective, and rich in programmes and concrete results.
Without these agreements, the very idea of peace through cooperation and partnership would be damaged.
I ask everyone to think about that last point.
The next few days will be crucial.
May good sense prevail and with it the peace all the countries of the Mediterranean so desperately need.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while we are debating the Euro-Mediterranean Association Agreement between the European Community and the PLO in this Parliament today, sadly the situation in that area has degenerated considerably and the peace process has been endangered.
It is more important than ever for the Union to provide the diplomatic impetus to progress the negotiations to achieve peace, taking on the pro-active role that becomes it.
As we have frequently stated in this Parliament, economics is not enough in itself to restructure the equilibrium of the area: economic cooperation must also be accompanied by political initiatives.
That is why we welcome the fact that the basic aim of the provisional agreement consists in offering an adequate framework for a global dialogue which permits the development of close relations between the parties, as well as progressive and reciprocal liberalization of trade, supporting the economic and social development of the Palestinian territories.
Our satisfaction extends to the complementary agreement under the form of a joint declaration on political dialogue, which seeks to strengthen relations between the parties through regular coordination on issues of common interest, like peace, security, democracy and human rights.
But all these positive aspects, ladies and gentlemen, are - as I said earlier - endangered by the deadlock in the peace process.
Security, peace and stability in the area are good for everyone, and we in this Parliament must commit ourselves to strengthening and reinforcing that.
That is why I am formally calling on the international Community from this rostrum to strengthen dialogue between the parties, re-establish the spirit of Oslo and insist on its fulfilment, which means halting Jewish settlement in Jerusalem. This and the commitment from the Palestinian National Authority to guarantee security in the area, controlling the extremist movements which have discovered a suitable culture medium for disturbing the peace process even more.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot allow the extremists to benefit from the failure to fulfil the peace agreements.
Mr President, the interim association agreement with the Palestinian Authority has been finalized at an unusually fast pace, and the proper procedures have not always been followed.
Notably, an important opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations was not considered at the proper time by the Committee on Foreign Affairs and that is a pity.
But that does not affect the new situation for the Palestinians who can now apply for money from MEDA funds.
That means more chances of development for the Palestinian territories but also more dialogue between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority.
It is a provisional agreement, which means that fully-fledged political dialogue cannot yet take place, but in any event it is an agreement which can promote the social and economic development of the whole region and thereby bring stability and be good for the peace process.
Very shortly we shall be holding the Malta conference and we want to see a consolidation of the Barcelona initiative.
We shall be evaluating what has worked and what has not worked and we want to make progress in the areas of security, economic and financial wellbeing and social and cultural policy.
The Palestinian Authority will be taking part in this Malta conference in its new capacity as a more serious partner of the European Union and that is a better position than it has ever enjoyed before.
I am very glad that today, at an early stage of the proceedings and before the conference, we are debating Mr Alvanos's report.
We all know that in the region itself there are turbulent and sometimes negative things going on but ultimately this agreement will help to bring about a positive turn of events in the Middle East.
Mr President, peace in the Middle East will only be achieved by applying the Oslo Agreement correctly in terms of timing, depth and form.
Obstacles are being put in the way of this application at the moment through Mr Netanyahu's unacceptable policy, the latest episode of which has been the start of construction of a new settlement in eastern Jerusalem, violating all the rules of international law.
The European Union must play an active and autonomous role in supporting the peace process.
So we support both the implementation of the agreement with the PLO for the benefit of the Palestinian Authority, and the operations of the European Union special envoy to the region, Mr Miguel Ángel Moratinos, including the proposal for a code of conduct for the parties.
But this is not enough.
The Union should put strong pressure on the Tel Aviv Government by every means at its disposal to make it comply with the agreement.
And I think suspension of the interim European Union-Israel Agreement should be considered.
Similarly, I think the Union should propose that Mr Clinton should take similar action on behalf of the United States, and include this proposal in the framework for transatlantic relations.
Mr President, on the eve of the Malta meeting the peace process is wounded and we must hope it is not dead.
Clearly this situation will have a decisive influence on the outcome of the La Valletta meeting, because it should not be forgotten that the Euro-Mediterranean Agreements are the first offer Israel has had to escape from the enclave situation it has existed in since its creation.
I have two points to make.
First, the statement by the President of the Council must be welcomed with satisfaction, especially coming from this Presidency. I have not forgotten the role played by the Netherlands in resolving a 500 yearold dispute between Israel and Spain.
I think the statement was very clear and for once, as we are always complaining about foreign policy, we must applaud the Council for stating that what is happening is against the UN declarations and that the settlements policy is not only contrary to the Oslo agreements but to the UN declarations as well, which clearly advise against settlements, repeating that at the end, and express opposition to terrorism.
And I would also add that we cannot remain impassive faced with a policy which could bring a whole people to despair and wipe out its leadership.
I think it is essential at this time to reaffirm our commitment to the peace process and assert our complementary and parallel role to that of the United States, aware that negotiation still has to take place between the Israelis and Palestinians, as has happened in the past and in the earlier peace processes - I am thinking, for example, of Camp David, where a predecessor of Mr Netanyahu as leader of the Likud took that step in relation to Egypt.
It is very important to re-establish the climate of confidence and have a code of conduct adopted, which Ambassador Moratinos is trying to take forward.
The process of dialogue must be encouraged, and it is unacceptable that a process in line with the UN resolutions, the Madrid Conference, the Oslo Conference and everything that has happened since - and hence our agreement with the Palestinian Authority - should be exhausted in six months, destroying trust and creating Bantustans.
Here I think our agreement, criticized by Israel, opens up the possibility of making concrete progress.
In my opinion something that empowers the port of Gaza, Gaza airport, the safe corridors, is important, and Israel could give a positive signal.
Otherwise we will find ourselves forced to take more serious decisions as regards our trading relations with Israel.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are four things that command our attention in this short but essential debate.
The first thing is the new agreement between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority.
I congratulate Mr Alavanos on his work and resolution and I, too, want to say that it constitutes an essential and positive step in regard to relations between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority and for the peace process and EuroMediterranean cooperation as a whole.
I therefore support it.
The second thing is the peace process.
I do not think that I need to repeat what you are all aware of with regard to recent events.
However, I do stress that the European Union has an obligation to do whatever it can to save the peace process and that it is essential that it should honour that obligation.
So I am very pleased with what the President-inOffice has said here today.
The third thing is coordination between the parties involved, Europe and the United States. It is a true, perhaps, that the United States has an advantage, precisely because it is a single state with a single foreign policy.
Nevertheless, there is a great deal that Europe itself can do.
We already have the special envoy, Mr Morinatos, who is doing excellent work.
But we must do more to help him and give him the means and the political backing to enable him to bring his task to a conclusion.
The fourth and final thing is the fact that this debate is happening just a week before Barcelona II is due to take place in Malta.
The Barcelona II conference gives Europe a fresh opportunity to set out a new framework based on the trustbuilding measures in the region as a first requirement for salvaging what little remains, regrettably, of the peace process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be brief because in the end the European Commission subscribes entirely to the presentation on the European Union agreement with the Palestinian Authority and the situation created as regards the peace process in the Middle East that the minister, Mr Patijn, has made and we have little to add.
So if I may, I will reply to some of the speeches in order to clarify the European Commission's attitude to the agreement with Palestine, the situation in the Middle East, and the meeting next week - Tuesday and Wednesday in La Valetta, Malta - on the Euro-Mediterranean Conference.
First, the agreement with the Palestinian Authority is very significant politically regardless of its content, which is limited given the current state of the Palestine economy.
Because ultimately, from the moment the Palestinians took part in the Barcelona Conference and signed up to the Barcelona process, it was necessary, as you rightly point out in your report, Mr Alavanos, to respond by putting the Palestinian Authority - and this is the political point - on the same level of institutional, economic, financial and cooperation relations as the other Mediterranean countries.
This agreement does not have the same legal form as the agreements with Israel, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and Egypt, but in its content and future intentions it is obviously exactly the same.
Maybe some day, when I am no longer a Commissioner, I will be able to tell you about all the obstacles and pressures we had to avoid in order to conclude this agreement.
But in the end, it is positive that the Council of Ministers has signed it and the European Parliament is unanimously in favour.
My second comment is on the situation in the Middle East, which has been fully described by Mr Patijn and the majority of speakers.
Last week we had the opportunity to tour the whole Mediterranean with the President of the Council of Ministers, Mr van Mierlo, to assess the situation on the ground, also with a view to the meeting next week in La Valetta.
After talking to the various spokespersons with Mr van Mierlo, I can confirm that the situation is very serious and frankly grave.
This is not a matter of Arab League bad temper.
Nor is it a matter of political positioning which may change from one moment to the next.
It is a very serious matter.
The basic problem, as Mr Barón and others have very clearly pointed out, is simply that the Oslo agreements and the United Nations resolutions are not being respected.
And throughout the Mediterranean the idea has been created, justified or not, that Israel, or the Israeli government, is operating on the basis of total international impunity.
Naturally this has created a very grave problem of confidence in the process itself.
The initiative taken by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers after the meeting on Monday on political cooperation, and the proposal put forward by Ambassador Moratinos are, in my opinion, an intelligent and appropriate way of achieving something the European Commission considers fundamental.
If fresh negotiations are initiated in a form different from the one we are accustomed to, naturally in the form the two parties, Israel and Palestine, decide on, it would obviously be incomprehensible now if the European Union did not participate in the process.
The European Union must now participate in the process.
That would be useful to Israel, useful to the Palestinians, and I venture to say useful to the United States first and foremost.
This time the European Union should be able to participate directly in the negotiations, playing a complementary role.
So we must firmly support Ambassador Moratinos' action, we must support the charter Mr van Mierlo has sent to the United States, and I ask Parliament to support it, and we must support the idea that the code of conduct presented by the Council of Ministers of the Union is the only reasonable way to find a rapid solution to this problem, which could worsen.
Thirdly, La Valetta.
One of the problems which concerned us the most, and which was very difficult to solve, was precisely to detach the Middle East peace process from the Mediterranean Conference.
In the context of the peace process the Arab League has again declared a boycott, withdrawal from all multilateral groups and closing down the offices of political representatives and interest groups, something which has been taking place inside the most moderate Arab countries and those which had already initiated a rapprochement with Israel.
That happened on Maundy Thursday.
But on the same day the Arab side decided it would be wrong to contaminate the La Valetta meeting and that the Mediterranean project had its own content and its own momentum to keep it going.
Naturally, I am not pretending that the context of La Valetta is the same as the context of Barcelona.
In Barcelona there was the euphoria of the peace, the Washington agreement had just been signed, there was a certain political, intellectual and economic relaxation.
The La Valetta meeting is taking place in a context of enormous difficulty, because both the final communication and the resolutions will have to be handled as carefully as possible with the aim of being able to maintain the Mediterranean platform as a separate element which is not predetermined by the peace process.
Mr Patijn's reasoning is correct.
Barcelona, the Mediterranean process, is not the peace process, but there is no doubt that this process can feed the dialogue in the very difficult situation we are experiencing at the moment.
That is what I wanted to say on behalf of the Commission, and I thank Mr Alavanos once again for his report and the European Parliament in general for the welcome it has given this agreement, which is the result of very difficult and complicated negotiations.
Mr President. I have just returned from Palestine and Israel and I would like to ask the President-inOffice a question.
Everybody has been very supportive of Ambassador Moratinos today, but I believe that we in the European Union have been totally sidelined in the process.
Neither the Israelis nor the Americans want to give us any significant role.
I hope very much that the ambassador will be very successful in his efforts there, but with Gaza closed down for three weeks, with the fruit rotting in the streets, with the goats being fed the carnations, something is going to blow in Gaza very soon.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office, does he see any role now for Thiérry Larsson who made such a success of the Oslo peace agreement? I believe that his kind of experience is vital and that we need some kind of audacious political gesture very quickly if we are not to see the whole thing fall down around our ears.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12 p.m.)
Statement by the President
Votes
Mr President, the vote on my report was held over to today so that Commissioner Flynn, who was unable to attend Monday's debate, could give the members of the committee further information yesterday.
I would ask you, Mr President, to give Commissioner Flynn the floor so that we can all hear his important statement.
The proposal before the House involves amendment of a 1990 directive.
The current proposal has two objectives: firstly, to extend the general scope of the 1990 directive so as to cover all preparations - pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and pesticides; secondly, to prescribe specific limit values for atmospheric concentrations of benzene.
It should be noted that benzene will be the first of a longer list of carcinogenic substances to be dealt with in this manner.
At first reading, the European Parliament proposed certain amendments and the Commission accepted eleven of them.
Five of these have been included in the common position taken by the Council.
Six have been omitted primarily because of insufficient technical supporting data and tests.
The Commission was prepared to accept the common position for two reasons.
Firstly, it meant that agreement could be reached on the first substance and thereby provide a precedent for others in this category. Secondly, it offered a potential break-through on a wider range of health and safety measures.
In the second reading the European Parliament proposes to introduce certain amendments which had been omitted from the common position in the Council.
The Commission continues, as at first reading, to agree with the general substance of Parliament's amendments. But in the absence of the necessary technical amendments and technical supporting data, it is obliged to accept the reticence of the Council to take on specific legal obligations at this point in time.
Against this background, the Commission is not prepared to accept Amendments Nos 1-10 in Mrs Ojala's report.
In adopting the common position the Commission indicates its intention to come forward with specific proposals in line with Parliament's amendments as soon as might be feasible.
When it comes to the point of final adoption of the proposal, the Commission intends to formally restate this intention in the Minutes of the Council.
As regards Amendment No 11, introduced for the purpose of advancing the date by which Member States must have implemented all the national laws required to give effect to the amending Directive of 31 December 1998, the Commission is prepared to accept this amendment and to submit a modified proposal to the Council on the point.
The Commission believes that this proposal, as it stands in the common position, together with Amendment No 11 would represent really genuine progress, a view which is shared by the rapporteur - I thank her for it - and expressed in the final paragraph of her report.
I am confident that Mrs Ojala and the other Members of the House who expressed some concern about the position taken by the Commission in the debate on Monday evening, are now reassured of my intention to follow up in a practical way all of Parliament's requests.
Mr President, now that I have heard Commissioner Flynn's standpoint, I should like to state that I recommended the adoption of the amendments in question and that the recommendation concerning Amendment 11, to which I intended to make an oral amendment for 1999, is now superfluous.
I withdraw it, since Commissioner Flynn has stated that the Commission is prepared to adopt as it stands the proposal put forward by the Greens for the period from 1998.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Mr President, we have an agreement with the Commission and the Council which should avoid us having to go to third reading.
Last night the Commissioner stated that he wanted to make some very minor textual changes to the amendments we are about to vote on.
I am very happy to recommend the changes that the Commission proposed - they are an improvement.
What I do not wish to do is to fail to vote on them now and have to activate the whole conciliation procedure on such a minor point.
So, if the Commission is able to present its improved suggestions, I would ask the House to support them in that form.
Mr President, I confirm that the two amendments are perfectly acceptable to the Commission in their present wording.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Lehne report, but against Amendment No 16.
The Danish Social Democrats are of the view that it must be possible in a payments system to exclude a financial institution from participation in the payments system if that financial institution is unable to provide sufficient assurances for covering the payments which the institute is seeking to have effected.
If there is no possibility for exclusion, there is an increased risk that the payments system will lose money, and such losses would then have to be borne by the other members of the system if a given financial institution goes under.
With respect to Article 3 of the proposed directive, all the reported transactions must be included in the payments system irrespective of whether the participant has provided sufficient assurances for covering its payments.
Point 2 of paragraph 1 of Article 3 nevertheless opens up the possibility that a payments system can be set up and that payment orders cannot be recognized until it is established that there will not be problems with clearance of those payments because all the financial institutions have sufficient cover or have provided a surety.
Thus it would be inappropriate to remove point 2 of paragraph 1 of Article 3.
The Danish Social Democrats are therefore voting against Amendment No 16.
Ojala recommendation for second reading (A4-0072/97)
Since arsenic is also one of the transmissible heavy metals, the substances listed in Amendment No 5 really should be included in the scientific evaluation.
Chemical compounds of this kind can become fixed in the human cells in such a way that they are passed on through breast milk, thus posing a threat to subsequent generations.
In particular, there are dangers attaching to these heavy metal compounds in their interaction with other environmentally hazardous substances such as chlorofluorocarbons or cyanides, which are still being used in industry today although alternatives exist.
It is extremely difficult to counter chemical substances which are distributed in trace form over much of the human race.
Efforts must be made, therefore, to use, and re-use, hazardous chemicals in such a way that it becomes impossible for them to spread, even in trace form.
In particular, it should be noted that in the case of some harmful substances - arsenic compounds, cyanides and chlorinated hydrocarbons - the damage to health is not direct; diseases such as cancer may not occur until many years later.
Farassino recommendation for second reading (A4-0087/97)
The sole purpose of the Commission's proposal to amend Directive 91/439/EEC was to convert the conditions on which the holder of a driving licence can drive a vehicle into clear codes valid for the whole of the Union.
Right from the start the European Parliament took up the proposal with a view to bringing about far wider ranging changes to the driving licence.
At first reading it was suggested that the system of licence points be adopted together with mutual recognition of the withdrawal of a licence.
The European Commission and the Council feel, however, that these additions are outside the scope of the Commission proposal.
The common position thus did not include these proposals by the European Parliament.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism, in its recommendation for the second reading, nevertheless called again for penalties for driving offences imposed by one Member State to be recognized in all other Member States.
In the explanatory statement to the recommendation we read that mutual recognition is a fundamental requirement if there is to be true freedom of movement for individuals within the single market.
Whilst I agree with the Transport Committee that serious traffic offences in one Member State should have serious consequences for the licence to drive anywhere in the Union, I feel that this reference of the Transport Committee to freedom of movement for individuals is exaggerated and unconvincing.
I agree with the European Commission and the Council that recognition of a licence suspension or withdrawal comes under the responsibilities of the third pillar and is thus outside the scope of this proposal.
And a proposal for any such recognition cannot be based on Article 75, but must be based on the K articles, with the relevant powers for the European Parliament.
For these reasons I voted against the amendments and the recommendation of the Transport Committee.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against the recommendation from of the second reading of the common position adopted by the Council on the amendment of directive 91/439/EEC on driving licences.
The two proposed amendments in the recommendation provide that suspension of a driving licence in one country would automatically result in suspension of use of that driving licence in all the other Member States.
The Danish Social Democrats vote against the recommendation because it is incompatible with the Danish reservation, in connection with participation in joint action on legal and internal matters, about making criminal judgments effective outside one's own country.
The Danish wishes with regard to joint rules on the suspension of use a driving licence are that there should be a comprehensive exchange of information between the national authorities so that the individual countries are in the best possible position for taking a decision on whether to suspend the right to drive after a licence has been suspended in another country.
I wish to specify the reasons for my vote on the draft recommendation for second reading consequent to the common position agreed by the Council on driving licences.
This proposal for a directive seeks to define a system of harmonized codes applicable to the notes that are to appear on the Community driving licences issued by Member States.
These codes will be particularly useful to European motorists in their daily lives.
Above all they introduce consistency in official documents, strengthening and crystallizing the sense of citizenship amongst residents of the European Union.
That is why I voted in favour of the common decision agreed by the Council.
The rapporteur, Mr Farassino, wanted the common position amended to the effect of mutual recognition between the Member States of provisions on suspension or withdrawal of driving licences.
Personally and on behalf of the UPE group, I think Mr Farassino's two amendments should not have been retained in the context of Parliament's decision.
The idea of mutual recognition of suspension or withdrawal of a driving licence may be perfectly acceptable in itself, but I simply do not think it has any place in a text which seeks to define a system of harmonized codes to be entered on driving licences.
And I do not think such recognition falls within the powers of the Community under article 75 of the treaty.
So in voting on this draft recommendation for second reading, we have kept to the common position of the Council which represents an advance on the road towards 'functional' harmonization of European rules and an improvement in the daily lives of the citizens.
Palacio Vallelersundi report (A4-0030/97)
We think that the right of resale has an important role to play in giving the originator the right to remuneration.
This is why we were pleased to see the introduction of this legislation in Sweden on 1st January 1997.
For reasons of principle, we do not think that this issue should be harmonised at European level but principally our view is that such a move appears to be unnecessary.
The number of large sales which would move to other Member States which have not yet regulated this issue is infinitesimal.
Nor does the need to protect sales of lesser works necessitate harmonisation as these works of art almost without exception find a market within the Member State itself.
The European Commission's proposal for an artist's percentage on the sale of a work of art is ill-thought-out.
According to the British Fine Arts Federation, it could lead to the loss of 5, 000 jobs in London and to the most important sales moving either to Switzerland or to the United States of America.
The British Fine Arts Federation's concerns are shared by the French Commissaires-Priseurs and their equivalents in Belgium and Luxembourg.
The European Commissioner has failed to carry out a cost-benefit analysis of the proposal.
Indeed, it has treated the British Government with scant courtesy in failing to reply to a strongly worded request for a proper cost-benefit study sent by Technology Minister Ian Taylor on 6 March.
British Conservatives supported a call in the European Parliament - in Amendment No 40 - for a postponement of the proposal until a proper cost-benefit study has been carried out.
Sadly, this amendment was defeated.
British Conservatives, too, disassociate themselves from the official position of the Group of the European People's Party which supports the Commission's proposals.
We were not sent to the European Parliament to vote in favour of a proposal which will damage an important British industry.
British Conservatives also believe that the Commission is wrong to bring forward this proposal in the name of the European Single Market.
The art market is global, not European.
According to the evidence submitted to the European Parliament by both the French Commissaires-Priseurs and their Belgian and Luxembourg opposite numbers, 90 % of the revenue which is currently raised by the artists' rights levy in Paris and Brussels is on works of art whose creators are dead.
Only 10 % goes to the benefit of living artists.
British Conservatives are not in favour of depriving 5, 000 living Britons of their jobs for the sake of dead artists!
Resale right is the right of an author of an original work (excluding manuscripts) or his heirs, to receive a percentage on the resale price of his work up to 70 years after his death.
Within the European Union, resale right exists in the legislation of eleven Member States, but it is only really applied in eight.
It is not mentioned in Dutch, Austrian, Irish and English law.
So it is important to harmonize this author's right and to do so on the basis of article 100A (harmonization as regards intellectual property) in order to put an end to the distortions of competition and the discrimination suffered by authors of plastic works essentially depending on the country where the works are sold.
We must bear in mind that authors of plastic works, unlike authors of literary, musical and audiovisual works, only have one main source of income: the initial income from their creations.
Resale right seems to be a form of restitution to allow the author to profit from his work.
In addition to these economic imperatives, it is indispensable to protect and promote artistic creation because it represents the identity of European culture.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the report on the proposed directive regarding the resale right to the benefit of the author of an original work of art.
In Europe as we know it today many of the artists who produce original works of art do not receive a percentage of the price which such works fetch once the artist has sold it.
A number of countries - Denmark included - have attempted to solve this problem by bringing in resale right legislation that would ensure the artist received a certain percentage of the price a work of art fetched when it was sold for the second, third, fourth time, etc.
However this gives rise to a new problem: the fact that art dealers can avoid paying this resale right if they sell the works in countries which do not have that legislation.
The proposal for which we have voted would, on paper, mean a reduction of Danish artists' financial conditions.
However the proposals do not differ greatly from the current Danish resale right legislation.
At the same time it is formulated in such a way that there is a chance of its being voted through the European Parliament.
In this way we would be contributing first of all to ensuring that artists in all EU countries received remuneration more in keeping with the market's valuation of their work.
Secondly we would be avoiding the distortion of competition.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Holm and Lindholm (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) We have voted against this report as we think that harmonisation of the classification of works of art is unnecessary.
This classification should take place through National legislation.
We also think that the issue of what is to be considered original is manifestly a cultural issue which should be resolved at National level.
This report does not maintain a balance between commercial interests and the interests of the artist and represents a marked deterioration in conditions for Scandinavian artists.
The report pays no attention to small or national markets nor to markets for art which are primarily served by young artists where prices are low, often under 1 000 ECUs.
The proposal for a directive enshrining the economic rights of the authors of plastic and written works at Community level is a positive move forward.
Firstly, because the rights in question are not protected by legislation in all of the Member States and, secondly, because of the very substantial disparities between the legislation of the various countries as regards the types of work covered, beneficiaries and the rates payable.
The harmonization of legislation on the matter must, at least, maintain the authors' rights at the present level.
We cannot countenance any form of harmonization which would have the effect of curtailing their rights or of reducing their income.
We disagree with the Commission's proposal to set the application threshold for the financial right at the sale price of ECU 1000.
This would exclude a large portion of the legal acts drawn up in relation to art works, especially in relation to the works of new authors.
We are proposing, as the authors' unions are requesting, that the threshold be reduced to at least ECU 500.
The Commission's proposal on price bands does not satisfy us because, with the situation as it is in the various Member States, it will lead to a fall in the authors' incomes.
However, the rapporteur's amendment is also unacceptable. If the widened upper band that it proposes were to be adopted, the repercussions for the authors would be truly disastrous.
The authors' unions are requesting, and we support their request and have tabled an amendment accordingly, that the rates be set at 5 %, 3 % and 2 % of the sale price for bands of, respectively, ECU 500 to ECU 50, 000, ECU 50, 000 to 250, 000 and over ECU 250, 000.
We disagree with the limitation on the protection of copies proposed by the rapporteur.
We disagree also with the exclusion of manuscripts from the scope of the directive.
However, we consider the strengthening of the inalienable nature of the resale right to be a positive step. This will help to prevent exploitation and the exertion of pressure on the authors and, to the extent that it is possible, place their rights on a par with those of authors of other original works.
For the reasons that I have mentioned we shall vote against the report unless our amendments are accepted.
Ford report (A4-0110/97)
Mr President, Mr Ford's report, which we oppose, seeks to construct a new anti-racist 'whatsit' , that is, a new way of oppressing free people.
Because everywhere in Europe, anti-racist ideology has become a thought police, with its cops, its servile magistrates, and its press kapos.
The situation is particularly serious in certain countries, like the Netherlands.
For saying that when the Democratic Centre comes to power it will do away with the multicultural society, which is a perfectly defensible political objective, the President of the Dutch Democratic Centre, Mr Janmaat, has been sentenced to two weeks in prison by an overzealous judge, Mr Van den Heuvel, who has thus brought dishonour on Dutch justice.
Let me make it clear that if this sentence for a crime of opinion should be maintained at appeal, the Members of the Front National and the Vlaams Blok would insist on visiting Mr Janmaat in prison.
Our Parliament is preoccupied with the defence of human rights in the world.
It ought to put its own house in order.
Anti-racist justice in the Netherlands is no better than in Peking or Djakarta.
Many of the reports which are discussed here in Parliament put the case for the creation of new institutions and organisations.
This report is no exception.
It is rare indeed that we see a report calling for the abolition of an institution or organisation.
We doubt that a European centre to monitor racism and xenophobia is the right way to try to counter prejudice in society.
The aim may be very well intentioned, but we feel that there are many other social costs which are more urgent in the fight against unemployment and poverty in Europe.
Centres such as this tend to produce ever more paperwork while at the same time having little effect on people's everyday lives.
Even if we vote for the report we wish to make known our strong reservations as listed above.
We have today decided not to vote in favour of the Ford report on the establishment of a European monitoring centre for racism and xenophobia.
There are several reasons for this.
Firstly the Council of Europe has done an excellent job tackling this area for some years now, amongst other things by carrying out a successful youth campaign against racism, anti-Semitism, intolerance and xenophobia, in collaboration with a large number of youth organizations and anti-race discrimination movement.
It is our view that the Council of Europe has the greatest competence in this area and we therefore believe that it would be appropriate for the Council of Europe to continue this work.
We find it difficult to see the relevance of an EU centre in this area, especially when we know that the Council of Europe covers a far greater number of countries and thus reaches a wider audience.
Secondly we are concerned about the chosen legal basis, Article 235.
We are against the EU being allowed to increase its areas of competence.
Of course we agree that we should combat racism and xenophobia, but query whether the EU is the best forum for this type of activity.
Randzio-Plath report (A4-0111/97)
Mr President, we have to vote on a report on growth and employment. This is almost a joke when there are twenty million unemployed and almost eighteen million homeless.
The European Commission tells us that everything is going fine: inflation is under control, rates of interest are falling, growth is returning - who knows when, but it is returning!
No doubt it is inspired by the religious virtue of hope!
Mrs Randzio-Plath has also given us an excellent clinical examination of the situation.
We are told that Europe is the sick woman of the planet.
It is true that there is mass unemployment, it is true that demand is weak, and it is true that there is appalling inequality between rich and poor, it is true that the distribution of wealth is such that wealth is moving from the bottom to the top.
Where the analysis is weak is on the causes.
The European Commission maintains that everything depends on supply.
But if the supply of sand is increased in the Sahara that does not mean there will be demand for it.
This clearly shows that the problem is one of demand, not supply.
What restricts demand? Excessive taxation.
What destroys jobs? Immigration, obviously, and the senseless opening up of the frontiers.
Mr President, if the causes are dealt with the problem usually disappears.
We think that the Randzio-Plath report is essentially a good one, on the whole.
But we have certain reservations concerning the sections which state that taxes and social costs must be reduced in order to tackle unemployment effectively.
We think that these comments are far too general for us to be able to share these views in every respect.
I advise readers to pay close attention to the part of the Commission's economic report devoted to the impact of monetary fluctuations.
In fact there are many economic, monetary and indeed political lessons to be learned from it.
No-one has forgotten that two years ago, in the middle of the internal monetary disorders which struck the Community, the Commission published a soothing statement explaining that the macro-economic impact on growth was not very great: 0.25 to 0.5 percentage points.
It even minimized that assessment a little more by adding that this included the dollar effect, external to the Community, and that no strict relationship could be established between the nominal variations in exchange rates and the variation in competitiveness.
In parallel, the Commission haughtily rejected the proposals of all who, like France, proposed to introduce immediate remedies, either by toughening the disciplines of the European monetary system, or by adjusting the structural funds, or again by setting up monetary compensation funds.
Today, two years later, the tone has completely changed.
In the annual economic report presented to us, we read that growth suffered a sudden setback in the second half of 1995, that the deceleration was particularly violent in the countries whose currencies had appreciated during the monetary crisis of spring 1995.
The others were not spared either.
In fact it is explained that in countries whose currencies depreciated, short term interest rates rose, sometimes considerably and the result was a definite slowdown in the economic activities of those countries as well.
'Violent deceleration' , ' definite slowdown' : the words are no longer the same.
The final conclusion is also very different: globally (that is, including the dollar effect) growth in consumer demand, which had reached almost 3 % during the previous 18 months, fell to just 1 % in the second half of 1995; growth in real GDP fell from 2.4 % to 1.2 % in the space of six months, a much larger difference than had been announced earlier.
Commissioner Silguy amplified this disturbing fact by verbally adding that Europe lost 1.5 million jobs at that time.
We need to ask ourselves why the Commission has made this U-turn.
Were its experts so incompetent that they did not notice what any man in the street recognized and my group strenuously denounced, at the end of 1995: the disastrous impact of the internal monetary fluctuations, particularly on France which had tied its currency to the Mark? We will not insult the Commission in such a way.
So what is the explanation?
We think the initial position, the 1995 position, was actually dictated by considerations of political strategy: on the one hand the negative effects of the internal monetary fluctuations had to be recognized (how could the Commission deny them?) and the prospect of the eventual solution of the single currency held out, but on the other hand they had to be minimized to prevent their disastrous nature inciting the Member States to take immediate measures, which would have demonstrated that the problem could largely be resolved without the strong medicine of the single currency.
We do not hesitate to say that this was pure manipulation of the information at the time, and the Commission seems to think it has lost its usefulness today.
The theoretical deadline for the single currency is now quite close, the monetary fluctuations have calmed down, and if it was asked again the Commission could always reply that the deadlines are now too short to take intermediate measures.
So it can afford the luxury of telling the truth and somehow wiping out the traces of its crime, while singing new praises of the future benefits of the single currency.
We should learn the political lessons of this affair: the Commission lied in 1995, at least by omission, and knowingly prevented Member States taking measures to defend their jobs, sacrificing the workers on the altar of the single currency, towards which inexorable progress must be secured.
This says a lot about its authoritarianism and its contempt for people and countries.
But let us not forget that those who lied yesterday may lie again tomorrow.
This is a timely reminder when the Commission is urging us, despite the growing imbalances, to rush headlong into the fusion of our currencies and the unification of economic policy.
We have abstained in the final vote.
The report contains a real and badly needed criticism of the policy of restraint which has marked the Union's official thinking for some time and which has been one of the main causes of mass unemployment and social unrest.
We see the report as a change towards an expansive and demand-stimulated economy.
But we do not share the view that implementation of EMU is advisable.
On the contrary it is the EMU regulations which are the cause of the restrictive and deflationary policies in Member States.
EMU would also involve standardisation of policy in every country which would not correspond to their individual needs.
The expansive policy which the report quite rightly advocates is in contrast to the EU's currency policy which is why the currency policy needs to be changed and the thought of a European currency must be given up.
Currency union ought to take other forms, compatible with an aggressive policy against social unrest and unemployment.
Nor do we share the view that a reduction in company taxation and a reversal of employment rights regulations - under the fascinating name 'flexibility' will have any positive economic or structural effect.
The two EU Structural Fund programmes 1989-1993 and 1994-1999 have clearly assisted in enhancing the economic growth of the Irish economy.
The average income per capita in Ireland is now over 84 % of the EU average and this is primarily due to large transfers of EU monies through the European regional, social, agricultural, fisheries and cohesion funds.
Ireland's recent economic performance highlights what can be done if social partners and government pursue consistent and stable macroeconomic policies building on social consensus.
This is a process which began in 1987 and which has resulted in the most part in industrial peace.
While Ireland is set to be one of the countries which will meet the Maastricht convergence criteria and thus will be in a position to join EMU at Stage I, there are still a number of underlying economic concerns for the Irish economy.
Firstly, Ireland receives over 11 % of the overall EU Structural Fund package 1994-1999.
Post-1999, this figure will come down to about 7 % or 8 % of the EU Structural Fund package 2000-2005.
The Irish Government, which has increased spending sizeably in the last two years, has not put any structures in place to deal with the shortfall in EU monies post1999.
While growth rates in Ireland have varied between 7 % and 10 % in recent years, the Irish Government's spending policies have been geared towards short-term gain with no long-term economic strategy in place.
I believe that Ireland should join EMU at the first available opportunity, but we should implement government policies that take into account the above inflationary increases in public expenditure, the fact that there is still under-funding for essential infrastructure and the fact that it will be difficult to sustain current growth rates while economic activity in other EU countries is weak.
I fully agree that EU Structural Fund monies must and should be directed to those regions whose economic performance and average income per capita is not up to the European average.
There must be maximum coordination of the disbursement of EU Structural Funds through the European Regional Development and Social Funds and regions within Member States whose economic performance is lagging behind that of their European counterparts.
In Ireland, for example, the debate must begin now as to how the next EU Structural Fund monies will be disbursed during the years 2000-2005.
As MEP for the constituency of Connaught/Ulster, I believe that the counties of Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, together with the province of Connaught, must retain Objective 1 status during the years 2000-2005.
Objective 1 status, which entitles regions to the maximum amount of European Regional and Social Funds, is normally only granted to areas whose average income per capita is below 75 % of the EU average.
The counties of Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and the province of Connaught should and must be entitled to the maximum amount of EU monies, because these areas are not performing as economically or competitively as other areas in Ireland.
Let us be clear on one thing.
If the EU is serious about linking Structural Fund polices to economic performance of regions, then the region of Connaught/Ulster will be granted Objective 1 status during the period 2000-2005.
Employment is understandably one of the most serious challenges facing decision- and policy-makers at European Union and Member State level, and while the situation is improving, it behoves all of us in public office to reintensify our efforts to create a favourable environment for further investment and economic growth from which productive new employment can be generated.
With inflation within the European Union moving in a positive downward direction and a corresponding increase in GDP it is more important than ever that this welcome trend is managed in a manner which stimulates further economic activity from which sustainable jobs can be created.
I am pleased to put on the record that the economic policies put in place in Ireland in 1987 are beginning to bear fruit and that our unemployment problem (one of the worst in Europe) has now taken a positive turn with a slow but steady increase in new jobs.
The rapporteur is right to identify the important role of the private sector in employment policy but this will only happen if individual Member State governments put in place policies which encourage and reward investment, enterprise and risk-taking.
In far too many instances the cost of creating a new job is prohibitive - high taxation, national insurance contributions and over-regulation - are factors militating against job creation.
Surely, it is better for governments to make the necessary financial adjustments on the taxation side rather than pay in social welfare the cost of supporting an unemployed person.
In allocating European Union and national Funds to employment projects, special note should be taken of the success of existing community-based programmes such as 'LEADER' and 'County Enterprise Boards' which have the capacity to generate employment at a level not normally reached through national-based schemes, thus helping to retain a reasonable urban/rural infrastructure.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against the report on the Commission's annual financial report for 1997.
In this report the Commission is criticized for not having given sufficient attention to unemployment, and the prospects for growth in the EU are seen as inadequate for effectively combating mass unemployment.
Considerable attention is paid to unemployment in the report.
The Danish Social Democrats agree with the report's approach to the problem of employment in Europe and are in favour of the exchange of information and other policy initiatives in a number of areas, but we cannot support the demand for the establishment of a form of economic government at an EU level, as discussed in point 13.
The Commission's description of the economy is overoptimistic.
EMU will not solve the main problem of high unemployment but runs the risk instead of making the situation worse by increasing the numbers of unemployed through its one sided concentration on price stability and fiscal economic demands.
The committee's statement is considerably more realistic and would also appear to appreciate part of the problem of EMU but it does not draw any conclusions from this.
There is talk of increasing demand and investment without seemingly understanding that it is EMU which is holding back development as a whole and placing a lid on the whole of Europe.
Against this background I have voted against the report.
Unfortunately, a chance majority has resulted in the defeat of a central political aspect of the report - the call for a reduction in working hours as an indispensable factor in a more comprehensive policy for redistributing labour and incomes.
None of the other available instruments takes effect so quickly!
This is a defeat for the new politics that is simultaneously beginning to grow, with the Europe-wide strike by the Renault workers, with the European marches against mass unemployment, precarious employment and social marginalization, with the European Assembly for Full Employment and with the impending Day of Action of the ETUC.
Even though I cannot share the rapporteur's optimism that the punctual introduction of European economic and monetary union, as presently conceived, can be reconciled with a new ecological and social policy, there are many other things in the report that do point in the right direction - the direction of an ecological and social revolution in which the fight against mass unemployment is really given top priority.
Otherwise, the issue is clear: in the debate on the broad economic guidelines, ladies and gentlemen, which are still succumbing to the neoliberal ideology, we shall meet again!
Metten report (A4-0105/97)
Mr President, Parliament has just voted for the Metten report, which unfortunately confirms the fears of all those who think that the costs of managing the single currency will have far more impact on our economies than its achievements in terms of simplification or reduction of exchange charges.
At first sight the report seems to deal with a secondary technical question: a system of mutual financial support between Member States in case of serious balance of payments problems affecting one of them has existed for a long time.
This mechanism rarely operates (the last time it was used was in 1993, for the benefit of Italy) which is understandable because at the moment each country still has the right to pursue a separate economic policy, even if it is more or less coordinated with those of the others.
The question is whether this mechanism should be maintained when the single currency is in force.
The Metten report says it should.
First because some countries will remain provisionally outside the single currency, and above all because a mechanism of this kind will be even more essential for the participating countries, because their economic polices will be merged and it will certainly be necessary to find a common system to help each of them absorb the asymmetric cyclical shocks they might suffer and which will affect all the others.
Here we come to the heart of a crucial debate.
In fact, in the future monetary union as adopted at Maastricht, there is no federal European budget to serve as a shockabsorber in case of crisis, local or general.
So there is no Community instrument for fighting asymmetric imbalances.
Mr Metten has had an idea for filling this gap, and Parliament has followed him without reservation.
He proposes that the baton of the current financial support facility for balances of payments be taken up tomorrow by a wider system, entitled the 'facility for stabilization and growth' which could complete the future stability pact.
But where will the money come from to finance this new system?
We see at work here the perverse spiral which has progressively swollen the bill for the single currency.
As we predicted from the start, in a few years time we will realise that its disadvantages far outweigh its advantages and the costs it will engender are far greater than the benefits it may bring.
I voted in favour of the Metten report since the Member countries involved in Economic and Monetary Union will now have recourse to a medium-term financial instrument should they run into difficulties with their balance of payments.
This mechanism operates through the capitals and loans market guaranteed by the Community budget at a favourable rate of interest.
The conditions for these loans are exceptional and beneficiary countries will be required to submit and adhere to a repayment schedule approved by ECOFIN.
The problem which now arises is that of whether this mechanism should lapse in relation to countries moving on to the third stage of EMU and yet belonging to the EURO, or whether it should be recreated, clearly in other forms but in the same spirit.
It must be borne in mind that for countries belonging to the EURO, the concept of balance of payments needs to be reconstructed, since the majority of operations will be carried out in EUROS.
For example in Portugal approximately 80 % of our trading is with countries of the European Union and, as regards those which belong to the EURO, it will not be possible to measure the financial fluctuations corresponding to the different currencies.
The same will apply to tourism and other currency exchange operations.
Furthermore, it must be borne in mind, as the Commission's Annual Economic report for 1997 says, that the degree of Community openness in relation to the world economy is relatively slight and comparable to that of the United States of America or Japan.
In 1995 European Union openness was approximately 10 % as compared with 12 % for the United States of America and 9 % for Japan.
That indicates that the globalization of trade affects only a limited proportion of the Community economy.
Despite the overall reduction in this amount, the fact has to be faced that countries of the European Union, or the Union as a whole, for exceptional reasons are beginning to have problems as regards balance of payments, above all because, in contrast to what is happening in the United States, for example, workers have less mobility - especially because of language differences - and the automatic stabilizers and the scale of the Federal Budget operate in the United States as shock absorbers.
Thus the European Parliament has just approved, with my support, a resolution proposing that the Commission should submit to us and to the Council a draft regulation on the possibility of assistance in the third stage of EMU for a Member state encountering difficulties in its balance of payments, with the suggestion that the maximum possible benefit should be linked to a percentage of the GDP of the beneficiary Member States.
In our view that instrument is essential in order to face any possible restrictions which the stability pact might create.
Mr Metten's report rightly tackles an important problem.
Unfortunately, it is too hesitant.
Without an effective system of financial compensation, the transition to the third stage of economic and monetary union will prove impossible to arrange in a manner compatible with regional and social policy.
This is all the more urgent in that the demands made by Parliament to the effect that EMS II should be structured so that the burden of adaptation is distributed symmetrically and equitably are likely to remain unfulfilled.
The pact for 'stability and growth' requires not 'support' but total reconstruction. It needs reconstructing as a pact for the joint transition to a new socially and ecologically sustainable development model.
The Metten report provides no energetic orientation here.
It also has nothing to say about the financing possibilities, which is entirely in line with its excessively modest approach.
Such an energetic approach should appropriate about 1 % of the EU's GDP for this kind of compensation and disaster insurance fund.
Then it will at least be able to start fulfilling its function.
New EU sources of taxes and levies (the energy tax, etc.) should be reserved for this.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Situation in Albania
the next item is the statement by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Albania.
Madam President, I am happy to respond to Parliament's request for a statement on Albania.
The situation in Albania remains unstable.
The Government of National Unity under premier Fino is treading a careful line between the socialists on the one hand and President Berisha on the other hand.
There is still wide disagreement between the main political groups.
Whilst the Government has restored order in a number of towns, robbery, looting, banditry and shooting matches still continue.
So the situation is still unpredictable.
Many people are escaping to neighbouring courtliness, especially Italy.
The media are hampered in their operations and a definite date for the previously agreed elections still has not been set.
Provisionally it is likely to be next June-July.
At the request of the Danish President-in-Office of the OSCE the former Austrian Chancellor, Dr Franz Vranitsky, visited Tirana in person on 8 March.
The pressure exerted on the Albanian authorities by the presidency of the European Union, among other things in its talks of 7 March, together with the efforts of Dr Vranitsky and other members of the international community prompted President Berisha to announce early elections.
A Government of National Unity was also formed headed by Prime Minister Fino, a man from the south.
Recommendations were also made for support from the international community in setting up a dialogue between government and opposition, collecting in weapons, preparing new elections, drafting a new constitution and tackling macro-economic problems.
The General Affairs Council of the European Union on 24 March decided to send a mission to Albania to advise the Albania authorities on humanitarian, economic and political issues and on questions of security.
This advisory mission will operate within the framework of the OSCE which will coordinate the efforts of the international community in Albania.
Each of the various international operations has its own part to play.
The picture is roughly as follows: responsibility for overall coordination lies with the personal representative of the OSCE president, Dr Vranitsky.
He will be assisted by an on-the-spot deputy, still to be appointed, who will be nominated by the Union.
This deputy will report to both the OSCE and the Council of the European Union.
But the ultimate responsibility for coordination rests with the OSCE.
Between 26 March and 2 April a mission was in Albania to prepare for the advisory visit of the mission.
This preparatory mission comprised representatives of the Dutch presidency of the Council, the European Commission, the OSCE and the Council of Europe, plus members from the United Kingdom, Italy and Greece.
The job of the mission was to advise on the remit and composition of the subsequent advisory mission and it reported on 4 April.
The results of the mission will be debated shortly both by the European Union and by the OSCE in Vienna.
Although definitive decisions are still needed in a number of areas, it seems likely that the activities of the international community will in any event include the following three elements: firstly, humanitarian aid with the European Union playing the leading role, together with a reinforcement of Albania's police capacity, possibly with the European Union playing a co-ordinating role together with the Council of Europe.
Structural aid will also involve close cooperation with the IMF and World Bank.
Secondly, the more political part: elections, human rights, greater democracy.
In this area the OSCE will play an important part in close co-operation with the Council of Europe.
Thirdly, a multinational protection force to which a number of countries will contribute troops.
This multinational force, which the UN Security Council has meantime approved, is headed by Italy and will provide escorts for humanitarian aid and ensure the safety of international bodies working in Albania.
There will be close liaison between the force commander and the OSCE representative in Tirana.
The European Union and OSCE will be consulting more closely and taking final decisions on the mandate and structure of the advisory mission.
But I will touch on a number of aspects of specific aid provision and possible instruments through which it may be given.
The first need is for law and order and proper policing.
The preparatory mission found that the Albanian authorities need material support and more particularly with a view to the longer term they need advice and training.
To obtain a better idea of training and advice requirements it would be a good idea for the advisory mission to include a team of 20 or so police officials.
The preparatory mission's report says that the police framework envisaged should be a joint effort by the European Union and the Western European Union in cooperation with the Council of Europe.
In addition to advising, the police team can also work in a supervisory capacity in four police districts of Tirana, with the collection of information also forming part of the requirements.
The police team will also make specific recommendations on how the Albanian police can be helped in the short and medium term.
And then the monitoring of the situation. At present the ECMM (European Community Monitoring Commission) is operating in Albania with a group of ten observers.
When the existing memorandum with the Albanian authorities is implemented the work of the ECMM observers can be extended to the whole of Albania and its numbers will be increased to 24.
This wider ECMM presence will enable two to three teams to operate in each region, in the Tirana area, in the north around Shkodër and in the south around Gjirokastër.
A proposal on this must first be accepted in the Council.
As regards preparation of the elections and the democratization process the OSCE will work closely with the Council of Europe on democratization, freedom of the media and human rights.
Secondly, the preparation of elections, technical assistance with the drafting of en electoral law, observation during the elections and perhaps the supervision of the arms amnesty.
Probably a pretty unenviable task.
Finally there is humanitarian aid. As yet there is no talk of a general situation of emergency but this may well arise within a period of a few weeks.
Because the hospitals and the government's strategic food stocks have been looted, because the borders have been closed and because the internal security situation has been so bad, the normal pattern of food and medical supplies and distribution has been severely disrupted.
This may lead to an emergency in welfare institutions such as hospitals, orphanages and old people's homes.
That section of the population which lives on welfare is also vulnerable, about 150 000 families.
Distribution will be targeted at clearly defined categories of people who are in need, namely the institutions I mentioned just now and the weaker members of society.
For the longer term, the preparatory mission recommended economic and financial aid to Albania.
But a precondition of this is security and stability.
It does not seem that much readjustment of the PHARE programme would be needed here.
Commissioner van den Broek will doubtless be able to say more about this.
Possible aid in rebuilding the country's infrastructure can only be meaningfully discussed once the scale of the damage is known.
In conclusion, it must be obvious that given the complex problems in Albania the European Union is faced with a major challenge.
It is equally obvious that aid cannot come from the European Union alone.
Given this background it is most important that the Union should work at all levels with other institutions such as the OSCE and Council of Europe and that the efforts made should be properly coordinated.
It is essential that these efforts should complement each other.
Only if the work of cooperation is structured in this way can the international community give the best possible help in solving the crisis in Albania.
Madam President, the recital of facts by the President-in-Office was interesting and entertaining but, nonetheless, disappointing.
Listing facts, Mr President-in-Office, is not enough. There have been enough words.
The need now is for action.
And not just by the OSCE and the Council of Europe. We need action from the European Union.
The people of a European country are suffering.
They are suffering because of the serious mistakes of a man who came to power, in a devious manner, via elections that were marked by violence and fraudulent practices.
And they are suffering also because most of us chose to sit on our hands after those disgraceful elections last May.
We did not demand that they be declared void and held again.
We did not take the allegations seriously enough at the time, Mr President-in-Office, and there were many of them.
We have all helped to place Albania in its present state of crisis, some of us through silence and some with active assistance to Mr Berisha.
The Commissioner was correct when he said that the crisis is political.
Today, however, is a good day for the European Parliament. The overwhelming majority of Members have agreed on the adoption of a resolution which puts us back on the right track.
It is true that the presence in Strasbourg of the leaders of the main parties in Albania which support democratic change - the presence of those leaders who are here in the Chamber at this very moment - has helped us to get a better understanding of what is happening in that country.
Over the course of the last few days, Fatos Nano, the leader of the Socialist Party, Neritan Tseka, the president of the Democratic Alliance, who is an observer member of the European Christian Democratic Union, and Skender Kinoussi, the president of the Social Democratic Party, have spoken with all of the political groups.
The creation of a government of national reconciliation appears to be the first step in a process of institutional change, which is encouraging.
We now have an opportunity to show that we intend to do something.
The Council of Ministers has not managed to agree on joint action to tackle the problems in Albania.
The European Parliament is now calling on the Council to re-examine its position.
Fortunately, some Member States - Greece, italy, France, Spain and Austria - have understood that something has to be done and now have a presence in Albania.
The Albanian people need us.
They need help not only in order to survive, but also in order to bring about change.
Independent justice, full access to television and radio, free and fair elections, unimpeded participation of all democratic politicians in elections and control of the secret services - those are matters on which we can help.
Mr Van den Broek and Mrs Bonino of the Commission are ready to act.
The Council has a duty to give them the green light.
The Albanian problem is a European problem.
Let us, at long last, do something to help European citizens.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as I said previously during our last part-session here, Albania is an appalling example of what a communist government does to people.
They long remain incapable of dealing with the new freedoms and with the temptations offered by criminal elements, capitalist and otherwise.
I welcome the fact that the Council has given an undertaking today, which I strongly support, in which reference is made to the ECMM taking on important functions in that country in the future.
The fact is that we shall not succeed in creating or consolidating democratic structures with financial aid alone - the European countries also need to send human resources to Albania.
My group welcomes the formation of the all-party government.
We support this government, under President Berisha, but we also welcome the fact that the socialists have returned to take up their seats in Parliament.
We expect all Albania's politicians to take their responsibilities seriously and not simply to wait for us to bring them a solution from outside.
We cannot do that!
We welcome the decision by the Council of Ministers to allow some Member States to provide close joint co-operation by sending troops to protect the humanitarian aid workers and help promote stability in the region.
Of course, a genuinely joint action would have been even more effective, but this flexible manipulation of the instruments of foreign policy is a welcome step forward when we compare it with the way we were hamstrung in past years in Bosnia and other parts of the former Yugoslavia.
Unfortunately, the socialists in Albania are still playing a dubious role.
On 28 March they tried to establish official contacts with the self-styled leaders of the rebels, instead of supporting the lawfully elected town councils and mayors, including some of their own political complexion.
Talks with these rebels must be confined to the objective of disarming them.
If we, as members of the European Parliament, are no longer prepared to support the local politicians who were lawfully elected in September, how can we expect the rebels to do so - especially when their political and professional backgrounds are particularly dubious?
My group is in favour of early elections, but a precondition for those elections is universal access to the mass media and the laying-down of arms.
The latter point is particularly important to allay the fears of these armed gangs felt by normal citizens in Albania - which means the great majority.
The flow of refugees, too, can only be stemmed if anarchy in Albania once again gives way to the rule of law and order, and public order is restored.
With regard to the sharing of the burden of accommodating the refugees, called for in the joint motion for a resolution, I hope the House will understand when I say that I would prefer this call to be addressed only to those who have been most dilatory on this point in recent years.
The European troop contingent must be sent to the area soon.
The issue is not just protecting the humanitarian aid workers but the survival of democracy in Albania as such.
Every day counts.
Madam President, I do not share the optimism apparent in what was said by the President-inOffice about the situation in Albania, which is deteriorating with every moment that passes.
First of all because the UN mandate which, in combination with the good will of some States, means that a multinational force can be sent to Albania, is rather a fragile mandate, since it does not permit weapons to be recovered and the militia to be disarmed.
This is, moreover, a situation in which the Council has again shown itself unable to face up to its own responsibilities out of fear that the right of veto will be used, in this instance - I believe - by the United Kingdom.
The machinery that regulates European foreign policy is not fully functional, and great dangers now threaten the military and humanitarian mission which is about to begin, particularly since there is a great deal of anti-European and anti-Italian feeling in Albania, as a result of the impact of the sinking of the Albanian ship, with the loss of more than 80 people in the Adriatic. There are going to be armed men who are out for revenge and seeking to provoke, ready to shoot at anyone.
On top of all of that are the statements by the Italian Government's undersecretary for foreign affairs, who has been mandated by the United Nations to command the mission and who considers it appropriate to sideline Berisha, although that is outside the UN mandate.
I ask myself and I ask you whether, in the final analysis, the intention is really to reestablish peace and create the conditions for the restoration of democracy or to instal a political party in government in Albania.
Madam President, I should like to start by thanking the Commissioner and Mr Patijn for their reports, and emphasize that the liberal group in this House will of course support all the humanitarian aid projects that have been launched, including the deployment of a military protection unit which, sadly, is once again needed in order at least to safeguard the humanitarian aid.
In this context, though, we should also ask whether the mistakes being made in that country may not be partly attributable to outside influences.
We should remember that no country, relative to the size of its population, has received so much aid from the European Union as Albania - aid provided on the basis of a treaty which laid down democratization as an essential condition; and yet past events there have seen the development of what is virtually a one-party state, excesses committed by the intelligence services, etc.
I ask myself, and I ask you, Commissioner, whether something has not gone wrong here when all this aid has failed to take effect; most of all, though, I ask you why the democratic political principles on which this co-operation was founded have apparently been consigned to oblivion.
This, I believe, is an important point and one we should look at closely.
A second point is this: Mr Patijn has said a great deal about the role of the OSCE in the current operations.
But I would like to ask him this: where was the OSCE when there was a need for someone to call attention to this development at an early stage? Because that is the real and very important task of the OSCE - to function as a political early-warning system for imminent crises.
The OSCE failed to perform that function, and so when we come to give consideration to these events we should include the question of how we can reform this further development of the OSCE.
Albania is another example of how urgently the European Union needs a Common Foreign and Security Policy, and we should therefore do everything we can to ensure that it actually has one.
Madam President, there have been several occasions during this century when Italy has been an occupying and colonial power in Albania.
In an Albania that has emerged from Stalinist dictatorship, the kind of capitalism, Italian mafia and Italian petty politicians we are used to have, in recent years, engaged in all sorts of business at the expense of the poor.
Without the help of a number of Italian banks, the fraud committed through the financial pyramids could never have taken place.
The Italian Government has been and remains one of the most mealymouthed when it comes to condemning the electoral irregularities of Berisha's authoritarian regime and its involvement with the pyramid financial schemes. Two weeks ago, an Albanian non-military vessel, full of women and children, sank in the Strait of Otranto after colliding with an Italian naval vessel ordered to deter it from reaching the Italian coast.
Those are all reasons why it is inappropriate for Italy to be leading a humanitarian mission to Albania.
That is why this is not really a humanitarian mission but a colonial operation using, as a pretext, Albania's request for humanitarian assistance.
That is why this is basically a military operation and why it offers no guarantee of that the way to free elections in Albania and, particularly, to fresh presidential elections will be opened up.
We are calling upon the United Nations to assume full responsibility for a humanitarian action in Albania, instead of contracting it out to Italy, and we urge that the military support for the mission should, most especially, not be Italian.
We are finally calling upon the European Union to take its responsibilities more seriously; it is unacceptable that the Union too should have handed responsibility for Albania over to Italy.
It is yet another symptom of a European construction that is completely impervious to the needs of the people that live in or alongside it.
Madam President, it has again to be said that the European Parliament has, on several occasions, discussed the problem of Albania in recent months, and it has, on several occasions debated the legality of the recent elections which caused all elements of the opposition to reject the outcome.
In its resolutions, the House called upon the interested parties, in Albania, to enter into dialogue and called for fresh elections to be held.
Unfortunately, those calls have gone unheeded and neither the Council nor the Commission has been able to bring forward a common policy on Albania.
Faced with the fact that events are coming to a head and given the worsening crisis the only country to have called for action on behalf of the Albanian people has been Italy. But Italy had a very specific reason for doing so: the growing numbers of refugees fleeing to Italy.
That is certainly no reason for accepting that it should be Italy, and considering it appropriate that it should be Italy, that organizes the intervention and a mission to bring humanitarian assistance to Albania.
Sadly, however, we have to recognize that a common European policy has failed in regard to Albania, and in those circumstances we have also to say that the dispatch of humanitarian assistance is now necessary and that it needs the right kind of escort, in accordance with the mandate set out in the UN Security Council's decision of 28 March.
We have again to say that it is inappropriate that Italy should be leading this mission, particularly since it is not yet clear what exactly happened to cause the sinking of the Albanian vessel with the loss of 80 lives, but we cannot say that that mission - which is a humanitarian mission, a mission that should guarantee a return to civilian life in Albania - should now be blocked.
The aim of that mission should not just be to protect the consignment of humanitarian aid but also to bring the local police forces back into operation via a process of cooperation that is designed to eliminate and disarm the criminal bands and thereby encourage the ability of the independent national Albanian forces to deal with resolving their own problems.
Madam President, as you will have noticed, the last two speakers have given us a glimpse of Italian domestic politics.
I too could point out that a country unable to secure respect for the constitutional state within its own frontiers is perhaps ill-suited to lead this multinational force.
But I say that as a member of the opposition, but having to hear it from influential representatives of the majority, which supports the government that is sending out the mission, is perhaps a little more difficult here in this European Parliament.
I wish to thank Commissioner Van den Broek for being here once again today for issues that fall within his strict area of responsibility, and I hope he understood what I was trying to say yesterday when I referred to the code of conduct on attendance by commissioners.
Madam President, my group will be voting without enthusiasm for this European Parliament resolution on Albania because, as has already been said, the European Union in particular failed completely to prevent and identify the dangers in this whole process of a regression in democracy that we have seen in Albania - even though it seems to me something of an exaggeration to say that four year of free market and democratic freedom have been worse than the 50 years that went before.
The European Union has failed completely in terms of a common foreign and security policy.
The Dutch presidency is about to give us a new draft treaty and will - I hope - learn from this and have the resolve to include, in draft at least, something to prevent the European Union taking the kind of approach and attitude which means that we able only to send observers. For the rest, we offload our responsibilities on to institutions which are definitely not meant for that or on to Member States which are then prevailed upon, with great difficulty and although they do not have the necessary resources, to shoulder the whole responsibility themselves.
We are opposed to this and sceptical about the possibility of elections being held in June. Above all, we take the view that this resolution could have contained a reference to a permanent European civilian and military corps able to provide Europe with a genuine common foreign and security policy.
Madam President, Commissioner, as this House debates the situation in Albania, the Italian Chamber of Deputies is preparing to vote on a text, a technical agreement, requiring the government to implement immediately the decision of the United Nations concerning an aid and security mission to Albania in the form of a multinational force under Italian leadership.
That agreement involved a great deal of heart-searching and was made possible by the great sense of responsibility felt by Italy's centre-right in the face of a majority which has now ceased to exist in our country. Indeed, one element of the latter, the neo-communists, are about to confirm that they will be voting against.
This is a decision of great responsibility, in terms of freedom in Italy, in terms of the nation but also in terms of Europe, since Italy has for the first time been given responsibility for leading an international mission.
While we have to say that it would be unthinkable and unacceptable for two or three thousand Italian soldiers to go and risk their lives in Albania without the backing of a largely united nation conscious that this was a decision that had to be taken - and we welcomed what the Osservatorio romano , an organ of the Holy See, had to say on the subject - we have also firmly to condemn, yet again, the serious failure of Europe to be present and its tardiness to act.
The crisis in Albania has highlighted the need for Europe finally to establish a common foreign and security policy.
It is no longer comprehensible to or tolerable for our own citizens, of whom we are currently asking sacrifices and new taxes to meet the Maastricht criteria, that Europe should not develop the minimum of cohesion needed to send a humanitarian force to a European country in a process of disintegration within a realistic time scale. Even in these circumstances, however, the diplomatic efforts of some countries have, as they say, been pitted against us: bureaucratic obstacles have been put in the way and meetings that ought to have taken place very quickly deferred.
We can only hope that a solution will finally be found within the Intergovernmental Conference, allowing a Community decision in these areas is able to be taken rapidly and by a majority of the Member States.
Nevertheless, we can detect some positive signs. Despite all the delays and the more or less disguised attempts at sabotage, a European peace force is about to leave for Albania.
For the first time, this is an entirely European peace force, which is moving on its way without the usually crucial support of the United States.
A further positive element is that Italy is going to be coordinating the mission and that the other European countries participating in the mission have displayed confidence in Italy. As far as this Italian responsibility is concerned, I wish to stress the contemptible nature of the statements made in Austria by the liberal leader, Haider, who criticized his government not for taking part in the mission but because it had agreed that the Italian contingent should lead it.
Were that racist ranting to be confirmed, it would be of a pair with yesterday's statement by an Italian undersecretary of state, representing the main party of the left in the government, who had the effrontery and arrogance to assign to the humanitarian assistance and security mission the objective of securing the fall of freely-elected President Berisha.
We are clearly dealing here with schizophrenic and irresponsible attitudes and, perhaps, in some cases, a nostalgia for Enver Hoxha's barbaric communist regime.
The hope is that Europe and Italy will be able genuinely to contribute here to reestablishing freedom and democracy in an Albania which has experienced such dreadful suffering.
Madam President, I do not want to make any small contribution of my own to turning this into a debate between Italians: the definition of Italian policy it will be a matter for the Italian Chamber of Deputies, as it was, yesterday, for the Senate.
I want to take advantage here of the presence of the President-in-Office and the Commissioner to point to the need to learn the lesson of a number of critical events which led to this crisis.
Commissioner Van den Broek rightly says that it is not for the moment predominantly a crisis, a humanitarian emergency.
It may come to that, as the President-in-Office said, and it may not take long, but it is above all a sociopolitical crisis.
I would add that it is also a major institutional crisis.
But we have to ask ourselves how matters ever got to this state.
And even though I cannot ask the President-in-Office and the Commissioner to state, unequivocally and clearly, their views about who is responsible for bringing us to this state of affairs, I venture to say that we, as the European Union and as the countries of the European Union, have some share of responsibility, by confirming, for instance, almost blindly, that there was election rigging. We pretended that it was better to accept that outcome of the election, even though we knew that many things had not proceeded properly.
And it was certainly not an acceptable decision - though not, of course, one on which we could intervene - when President Berisha had himself re-elected by a somewhat compliant parliament, and that was probably what sparked it all off.
It was also a mistake to believe the statement given, officially, by the information service, according to which southern Albania had been occupied by armed bands.
Admittedly, there are armed bands and criminals but there is above all violent opposition, of a kind we cannot endorse, to the President for two reasons: his self-election and the financial pyramid crisis.
If then we want to avoid a number of critical events recurring in the future, then we have to take important decisions.
As regards the aid - and I am addressing Commissioner Van den Broek in particular here - we must ensure that the route taken by European Union aid is carefully monitored.
That, clearly, is something we have failed to ensure properly.
As far as the forthcoming deadlines are concerned, Mr President-in-Office, and the elections in particular, I wish to ask you why, even if we have been unable to bring forward joint action as a European Union - and that would certainly have been better - we cannot do so now, making good that absence and supporting the electoral process.
Why can we not have - with the participation of the OSCE and other international bodies, of course - joint action by the European Union to support an electoral process, which ought then to produce elections and a renewed constitution?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, up until now the Council has not decided to undertake joint action on Albania under Article J.3. of the Treaty, but the Commission also has not requested the Council to undertake such action, as it is entitled to do under Article J.8.3. of the Treaty. What has actually been done?
Through its Council of Ministers the European Union has merely declared itself to be in agreement with the Security Council resolution and, at the present time, it is true, is backing the initiatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
For all their lack of riches, Greece and its people have provided and are continuing to provide humanitarian and other forms of assistance to the people of Albania in their suffering and hardship, and a number of other Member States are doing the same.
But the European Union, which has the capacity to give expression to the common will of the governments and peoples of all 15 Member States, is absent from Albania.
Gentlemen of the Council and the Commission, this Parliament does not know the reasons why you do not want joint action. The rumours and whisperings in the corridors do not tell us the whole story.
Is it because of indifference or because you cannot agree among yourselves?
Or could it be that you think that the interests of the European Union are better served by a policy of non-intervention? Whatever the reasons they cannot justify the official absence of the Union from the unfolding situation in Albania.
In the present conditions, and bearing in mind the need to secure the prospects for democratization and economic recovery, the presence of the European Union in its own right and its active participation in events are absolutely vital.
In finishing I would like to say to the Italian Members of all the various political groups who are present in the Chamber that Greece has accepted Italian leadership of the force that will go to Albania and that it has confidence in that leadership.
That decision has been supported by both the Greek Government and the Greek opposition.
With the exception of one small political grouping, we in Greece subscribe to a common position in this matter. And I call on everyone on the Italian side to support the initiative.
At this crucial time there must be no backtracking from any quarter because we all have very substantial obligations to Albania and its people.
Madam President, listening to the representatives of the Council and the Commission made me wonder which Council and which Commission they represent.
I got the impression that they were speaking not for Europe but for another continent, and for another Union, and certainly not for the European Union.
They have not even felt the need to apologize or to express contrition for having closed their eyes in order to avoid upsetting their man, Mr Berisha, even though they knew what was boiling up in Albania.
Ever since the last election parody in Albania, Members of this Parliament from all political groups have regularly rung the alarm bells with questions and always the answer has been the same: ' We inform the honourable Member that we will investigate the allegations and inform him of the outcome.' .
You have never informed us, gentlemen, never.
And by not giving us information in response to our questions you have shown contempt for this Parliament.
The tragic events in Albania have caught you on the hop.
Even now, as you have told us, you are still at the stage of monitoring the situation.
Your rivalries and conflicting interest do not allow you to have a joint policy on Albania and to take joint action in the name of the European Union.
Is it really true, Mr President-in-Office?
Do you now understand that Mr Berisha's police force requires training? Do you really now understand that there is an Albanian mafia and that there is a danger that humanitarian aid will not reach the Albanian people?
You are being given a final chance to pursue the policy objectives set out in the European Parliament's resolution. You are the moral instigators of what has happened in Albania, just as you were the moral instigators of everything that happened in the former Yugoslavia, and it will be the last time that the people of Europe forgive you.
Madam President, in contrast to my group, I have signed and will be voting in my personal capacity for the compromise resolution on Albania, because I approve of what it says and agree that there is an urgent need to send an international humanitarian mission.
The European Union, and Italy in particular, have - in my view - a political and moral duty to help the government of national reconciliation restore a climate of peaceful co-existence and democratic normality to Albania. All of the political forces in Albania, in the majority and in the opposition, including the committees of the south, are asking the United Nations to follow up the international mission that Italy will be coordinating.
To do nothing now in Albania would be a sin of omission through the failure to provide aid, though it is right that Europe should be concerned about the democratic fate of a country which is part of Europe, geographically and politically.
Moreover, the voices raised here too in opposition to the mission, those of my own group, have no immediate valid alternatives to offer, save for general political proposals which do nothing to resolve the short term crisis Albania is experiencing.
In my view, we need to support Prime Minister Fino's coalition government, in all of its political demands, because today that government is the only body we can talk to that is able to administer Albania. And, in that context, in my opinion, President Berisha would do well to shoulder his responsibilities and make an effective contribution to finding a political solution to the crisis in Albania, particularly by making available his own office in the interest of national reconciliation, to encourage fresh elections.
I have now to direct criticism at the Council and the Commission for being conspicuous by their absence in this crisis, leaving it to Italy to manage the problem alone; they simply observed the outbreak of the crisis and the flight of the refugees without lifting a finger.
The Commissioner herself, Mrs Bonino, went completely to ground in her own area of responsibility, namely aid to refugees.
I therefore accuse the European Institutions of having remained inactive and having thus betrayed their duty of support to the Italian Government in the difficult crisis in which it is involved.
I hope that a new common foreign and security policy will be able to prevent fresh crises, including through the use simple majority voting.
In the case of Albania, the solution involves sending in immediately the international force that has my support, and I shall be voting for the resolution notwithstanding the view of my group.
Madam President, I would like to begin my contribution by paying tribute to the many very brave men and women in Albania who have risked their lives and their livelihood in order to try to preserve peace, order and decency in that country.
Their bravery deserves our admiration and indeed our support.
We all know that what is in the back of our minds, and what we fear, is that Albania will turn into another Bosnia, and if that happens the whole of the Balkans will explode.
It is in that context that we have to see our debate today.
So while I would pay tribute to the efforts that have been made so far by the Council and the Commission, we have to say that more definitely needs to be done.
I share the concern that has been expressed by some Members today that the multinational protection force is not sufficiently representative.
Too much emphasis is being placed on Italy in a theatre where history should tell us that we ought not to put the Italians into too exposed a position.
There is a danger on all these occasions of the protection force becoming part of the problem rather than part of the solution. That is the risk we are taking by not having a fuller, supported protection force.
If ever there was a time for European solidarity surely it is now. I agree entirely with those who called for joint action in Albania because history has surely taught us that if we turn a blind eye to the Balkans it will damage us all.
We have turned a blind eye to what has gone on in Albania for too long and we are now reaping the consequences.
We must get humanitarian aid, we must get peace restored, we must ensure there are proper elections based on free media and respect for the rule of law.
That is not going to be easy and it is going require far more effort than we have been prepared to put into it up to now.
Madam President, in two minutes there are only two things I can say: the first concerns the role of the Union in the current crisis in Albania, a role which, despite the support of the UN, does not provide for the Union to assume full and direct responsibility on the basis of the Treaty in force.
It is in fact merely co-participation, even though the mission in Albania lines up a number of states in the front line, starting with Italy.
The feeling is that, yet again, the Union has lost an historic opportunity to exercise a birthright that has to be won on the ground and that noone in the world would, for political and cultural reasons, dare call into question.
The risk is that in the heart of old Europe we are seeing perpetuated the situation that Luigi Sturzo described when he said that in every state all of the citizens are disarmed and only the government is armed.
In our continent all of the states are armed and only international authority is disarmed.
And since there can be no peace without law nor law without sanction, either Europe manages very rapidly to acquire a unitarian structure for security and crisis prevention or our continent is destined to remain a prisoner of the state of nature in which all nations are prone to mete out justice for themselves and slide back into barbarianism, as happened in Bosnia and is likely to happen in Albania.
Secondly, in Albania now, the real problem, as has been said, is not so much all the humanitarian aspects - the need for food and drugs - as the urgent need to restore, on democratic bases, the authority of the state and the sovereignty of the law. In Albania, legitimacy was conferred on that authority and on that sovereignty from the base, that is say through political and, above all, administrative elections.
It follows that, in Albania, there can be no legitimate authority outside the head of state and the head of government.
The mission will have some hope of success only if those basic rules are respected.
It is, however, destined to fail miserably if the Leninist approach that still exists in the socialist party, which has a tendency both to support the Fino government and to establish political agreements with the revolutionary committees and armed bands, is not discouraged.
Madam President, with their statements the Council and the Commission have attempted to feed 'European parliamentary political camomile' to us and, through us and through the media, to European public opinion. That is an odd sort of thing to say but it needed to be said.
Accept the message, because you cannot run away from it!
We are talking about blatant and naked military intervention in an independent European country.
Intervention aimed at shoring up the corrupt, thieving, mafia-riddled Berisha regime which you have nurtured and succoured and are now intent on sustaining.
Neither you, nor the UN under Anan, nor all the international organizations put together, nor anyone else can deprive the Albanian people, who have decided that enough is enough, of their inalienable right to determine the fate of that man.
You, and with you those who put their names to this resolution, and who make no mention of Berisha and support the military intervention without a murmur, have no right to decide from here, from restful armchairs, to send the sons of the European people to kill or be killed in what could well become a bloodbath, purely for the purpose of enforcing unlawful interests and grabbing spheres of influence.
Because that is what the game is.
So accept the message!
This situation will not die away. Sooner or later it will boil up again and you will discover that you cannot establish real democracy at the point of a multinational gun.
You will just create a 'fast food' democracy.
A variation on Berisha democracy!
Madam President, anyone following today's debate will have noted that it has been conducted with cool common sense although, in some cases, not without emotion.
There is absolutely no point, given the present situation in Albania, in moaning about communism and about the successors of communism in Albania, whose part in the proceedings has not been very edifying.
And anyone who still talks about the dubious role of the socialists in Albania should be asking himself whether he is striking the right note.
Because what matters now, as I see it, is that all men of good will should pool all their resources to work to improve conditions in Albania, to work together, and Berisha himself must play a constructive part in this process of reconstruction and do his bit for it.
I should like to emphasize how seriously this House has taken, and still is taking, the debate on the situation in Albania.
I believe the debate, and the joint motion for a resolution, which addresses all the important factors, show that we are prepared to do what is necessary to help support the building of new political and economic structures; all speakers in this debate have clearly expressed that point of view.
The emphasis is on 'joint' , because without joint action the task will not be done.
To this extent, I hope that the announcements by the Council and by the Commission were not just empty promises.
Mention was made at the beginning of this debate of the ECU 500 million or so that have found their way to Albania through the PHARE programme.
The Commission will have to ask itself - not today, but sometime - where that money went to.
At any rate, when I was in Albania I saw nothing of any of the projects that were allegedly being aided with that money.
I believe, at the end of the day, the international community and especially the European Union, the OSCE and the International Monetary Fund, now have a duty to support the macroeconomic development in Albania so that people there can once again have a future.
Otherwise, I think, the long-term prospects for that country are poor.
Anyway, we are willing to do our part.
We will be voting for the joint resolution, even though it is not perfect and does not provide an adequate response to the problem facing us.
The problem is one of trust.
It is impossible from here fully to comprehend the depth of mistrust felt by the Albanian people towards, on the one hand, Mr Berisha, and, on the other, towards us and the European Union as a whole.
That mistrust is very understandable.
There are many here who have supported Mr Berisha and who continue to support him, despite the fact that he bears the biggest share of responsibility for the fraudulent elections and the political crisis and for the pyramid-type savings theft and is the main object of suspicion in regard to every attempt to impose irregular solutions on Albania.
He lacks all credibility.
If we want to restore trust, we must do everything we can to bolster the government of national reconciliation and to establish a European Union influence well in advance of elections and during the elections on all matters pertaining to the restoration of democracy. There must be no hint of support for Mr Berisha.
We must allow him to be marginalized by developments.
Lastly, Commissioner, we must ensure that the victims of the pyramid-type savings theft are compensated. You mentioned that last time, but neither you nor the Council have said anything about it today.
And likewise, unfortunately, there is nothing about it in Parliament's resolution. Without that compensation any political solution will be founded on shaky ground.
In the Belgrade case the European Union sided with the peaceful demonstrators against the Milosevic mayor.
And the mayor fell.
In the case of Bulgaria, it sided with the peaceful demonstrators against the Videnev government.
And the Videnev government was brought down.
It is taking the same sort of stand today on Belarus and Lukashenko.
So we must ask why, even now, there is this support for Berisha and his clique, for the people who are sabotaging the development of democracy in Albania, when the United States, whose lead we generally follow, has already distanced itself from the man? Why this continued tolerance?
The Left Group gave a warning about this when the European Union was monitoring the elections, when even the socialist governments were sending their presidents to pin medals on Berisha at the time of the elections. It gave a warning then and it gives a warning now that, in this political crisis, as Mr Van den Broek has said, we must tackle the political problems first and, above all, neutralize, not for reasons of revenge but for the sake of Albania's survival, the faction which is undermining the democratic process in Albania, before we do anything whatsoever about sending peace-keeping forces.
It saddens us to see the European Parliament effectively rubber stamping the Council's positions and displaying such frightening 'savoir vivre' towards Berisha with this joint resolution, this compromise resolution, rather that trying to give the Council some impetus.
We are requesting that votes be taken on our own amendments which, among other things, call for President Berisha's resignation. I believe that that would improve the situation in Albania.
Madam President, I just rise, since it is obvious that I have not been here during the whole of the debate, to say that my colleague, Hans van den Broek, expresses his strong regrets at the fact that he unavoidably had to leave the Chamber early in order to catch an aeroplane.
Clearly, that would not have been his wish in any other circumstances.
He has also asked me to say that if there are specific questions of detail or information arising out of the proceedings of the debate, to which he will obviously pay close attention, he will be happy to provide answers to those specific questions in writing.
Madam President, I think that we have an obligation to the voters of Europe not to allow false impressions to be created.
It is very important that we in this House should make clear that it is a mistake to think that we did not know that the elections were fraudulent.
We did know that the elections were fraudulent and we did nothing about it.
Secondly, it is not correct that we considered public order to be the highest priority, because if we had really wanted to give priority to public order we would have disarmed and disbanded the secret police.
The people of Albania have taken up arms because we let them down and did nothing.
Situation in Hong Kong
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the situation in Hong Kong.
Madam President, I am grateful to you and to Parliament for asking me to speak today on Hong Kong.
In less than twelve weeks from now Hong Kong will revert to the People's Republic of China.
The Council views the future of Hong Kong with confidence and is sure that the close relations between the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China will guarantee a smooth hand-over of power.
There is much to be gained from a smooth hand-over of Hong Kong.
What happens to Hong Kong is relevant to all the trading nations, including the European Union's Member States, whose trade with Hong Kong totalled some 43 billion ECU in 1996.
Hong Kong is of vital importance as a gateway to China and a financial and commercial centre for the whole of the Asian region.
But we must never forget that the future of Hong Kong is also the future of six million Hong Kong residents who have been promised that they can continue their present lifestyle for the next fifty years.
The two parties involved in the hand-over, the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China, have negotiated extensively and will continue to do so over the next four months and thereafter as well to ensure that the hand-over is smooth.
Many aspects of the transition have already been successfully debated and worked out, for example continuity in Hong Kong's civil service.
The Council hopes that the remaining four months will see the successful resolution through debate of the remaining issues involved in the hand-over.
In recent months a number of events have occurred which are important to the future of Hong Kong.
In December last China set up a provisional legislative body, the so-called Provisional Legislature, which after 1 July will take over the duties of the present Legislative Council, Legco.
The Council hopes that this Provisional Legislature will not hamper a smooth hand-over and the future development of Hong Kong.
The Council assumes that the Provisional Legislature will be replaced as soon as possible after the transfer of sovereignty by a permanent legislature to be elected in accordance with the principles laid down in the Basic Law.
Mr Tung Chi Wa has been appointed as future Chief Executive and has chosen his future council members.
The Council welcomes the appointment of Mr Tung which removes a point of uncertainty concerning the hand-over.
From Tung's choice of top officials and the members of the Executive Council it is clear that he is resolved to ensure a maximum of continuity in the machinery of officialdom, which the Council welcomes.
The death of Mr Deng Xiao Ping, architect of the one country, two systems principle, is not expected to prompt any change in China's policy towards Hong Kong.
It is now time to look to the future and trust the Government of the People's Republic to apply the principle of one country, two systems after 1 July as promised.
A prosperous and stable Special Administrative Region, the SARHK - my apologies for this acronym, but I was not the one who thought it up - is doubtless what the Chinese Government wants too.
Last December's European Council in Dublin once again confirmed the great importance which the European Union attaches to future peace and prosperity of Hong Kong as a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China, together with the European Union's wish to do everything possible to assist a smooth transition.
We are working energetically to continue our ties with the SARHK in the World Trade Organization and in other instances where Hong Kong can act independently by virtue of its Basic Law.
The Council has asked the Commission to put forward proposals during 1997 to secure the best possible guarantee of close economic cooperation with Hong Kong.
The Dublin summit also stressed its full support for the special status of the SARHK and its citizens in every respect, including their right to representative democratic institutions of the kind already in place.
Full implementation of the Joint Declaration is the best guarantee that Hong Kong will remain a success and that its people can continue living the lives to which they are accustomed.
The Council will thus watch carefully to ensure that the terms of the Joint Declaration, an internationally binding treaty between the United Kingdom and the People's Republic of China, are adhered to.
To conclude, many of the requirements for Hong Kong's continued success have already been met.
The economy is healthy and people appear to be facing the future with confidence.
But unavoidably there are also concerns and anxieties at this time.
That is normal in times of change.
Strikingly, it is mostly people outside Hong Kong who are concerned, whilst most of the citizens of Hong Kong itself seem generally more optimistic about the future.
The European Council in Dublin expressed its support for Hong Kong.
The Council will monitor developments up to the time of the hand-over of sovereignty and afterwards too, when China shapes its policy of one country, two systems, in what will then be known as the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong.
The Council has faith in Hong Kong's future and will work for close cooperation in every possible area.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes this opportunity to discuss Hong Kong and I am grateful to Parliament for providing this facility by tabling these motions today.
My references on this occasion will be only to Hong Kong but the House can be assured that the policy approach that I spell out here will be sustained also in the case of Macao which naturally, as time goes by, will be receiving more extensive treatment both in this House and elsewhere.
With the transfer of Hong Kong's sovereignty - as Mr Patijn has just said - just twelve weeks away, this debate is obviously timely but it is also a good moment to look ahead beyond the handover on 1 July and to reflect on how our relations with Hong Kong as a special administrative region of China might evolve in the future.
We believe that Hong Kong will play an important and positive role in our relations with China in the decades ahead.
As the House will know, over recent years the European Union has taken every opportunity to stress the importance it attaches to the future of Hong Kong.
The European Council has repeatedly emphasized the Union's strong stake in Hong Kong's future peace and prosperity.
The European Union's economic interests in Hong Kong are both large in scale and deep-rooted.
Hong Kong is our tenth-largest trading partner with over 100 European Union financial services companies and about 250 regional headquarters of European Union companies settled there.
But our interests are not only economic and commercial.
More Europeans live in Hong Kong than in any other city in Asia and Hong Kong's spirit of openness obviously means that we have many shared values.
So, Hong Kong is and should remain one of our main Asian partners.
In the coming weeks therefore, the Commission will bring forward a communication, which will also be transmitted to Parliament, looking ahead at our future relations with Hong Kong in a comprehensive fashion.
The Commission believes that effective implementation of the Sino-British Joint Declaration and full observance of the Basic Law is the best way to protect the European Union's very real interests in Hong Kong, and of great importance to preserve the well-being of the people of Hong Kong.
We give this clear message to the government of the People's Republic of China at every opportunity.
The effective application of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law will mean that Hong Kong as a special administrative region of China, enjoys a high degree of autonomy, not only in economic affairs but in administration, finance and the legal system.
The Declaration and Basic Law also confirm the essential core freedoms in Hong Kong, including freedom of speech, of assembly, of association and of religion in practice and belief.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Convenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights will continue to apply to Hong Kong.
Of course for reasons that are very obvious there has been much concerned speculation about the continuance of these arrangements in the future.
The arrangements are, however, laid out very specifically in the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law and this must be regarded as the fundamental guarantee for the people of Hong Kong.
It is clearly something which we will be seeking to monitor closely in the years to come and the Commission expects the existing common foreign and security policy mechanisms to give regular consideration to Hong Kong since the CFSP instruments are clearly there to be used.
The depth of the European, United States, Japanese and other interests in Hong Kong is not the only reason to have confidence that Hong Kong will continue to be an important partner to the international community.
The Joint Declaration is an international agreement deposited in the United Nations but, more than that, the international dimension is central to the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.
Hong Kong will continue to be a distinct voice as a separate member of numerous international organizations and will be able to sign international agreements in areas within the Hong Kong SAR's autonomous responsibility.
In the years to come we will be expecting Hong Kong to maintain its status as an active and autonomous partner in economic affairs and in the other policy areas reserved for the SAR.
I emphasize that it is in the interests of everyone outside and inside China to maintain international confidence in Hong Kong.
Uncertainty about the legislative process and about the legal system in Hong Kong can only be harmful to that confidence.
That is why we are concerned about some developments in recent months relating to the Legislative Council and to civil liberties legislation.
This is a sensitive time and it is very important that reassurances are given to the people of Hong Kong and to the international community about the preservation of democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law.
A clear announcement that elections for a new Legislative Council elected on a free and fair basis will definitely take place soon after the handover would be a clear and important reassurance about Hong Kong's future stability.
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, as provided for in the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law will, obviously, be unique but that very uniqueness makes it doubly important that people in Hong Kong, in the rest of China and in the international community give the Hong Kong SAR a chance to work as intended.
I assure the House firmly that Hong Kong will not slip from our sights in the Commission.
On the contrary, as we will propose in the forthcoming communication, we can play our part in maintaining Hong Kong's traditions of openness and internationalism first by following the situation there very closely and secondly by developing contacts further.
We therefore intend to monitor and to report regularly on all aspects of Hong Kong life and I can certainly confirm that this will include an annual formal report to the Council and to Parliament on all questions relevant to EU-Hong Kong relations, not least political and commercial matters, human rights and cooperation.
In addition, we in the Commission intend to build on the progress made in recent years in intensifying ties with Hong Kong, as so many individual European citizens whether students, visitors or businessmen - and many others, including this Parliament, have done.
Since 1993 our office in Hong Kong has played a critical role in developing our relations with the area and we attach great importance to its role as an independent office providing a direct link with Brussels.
That office will continue to perform this function in the future.
We will work to ensure that this intensification of relations continues and we look forward to the active employment of the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law and the further evolution of our relations with Hong Kong in the years to come.
Mr President, could I thank the Commission and the Council for the clarity of their statements and could I also begin by making clear what this debate is not about.
It is not about China.
After 1 July Hong Kong will be governed under the principle of one country, two systems, and logically therefore Hong Kong has to be discussed in its own right and must not be used by people as a sort of Trojan horse to discuss and criticize China.
We have requested this debate for two particular reasons which we wish to highlight.
Firstly, after 1 July Hong Kong will no longer be a solely British issue, it will become a concern for the whole of the European Union.
And secondly, as has been said particularly by Commissioner Kinnock, a peaceful transition of Hong Kong is in the interests of all concerned.
Hong Kong is the world's eighth largest trading entity; it is the regional harbour for south-east Asia; it is the gateway to trade with China and as such is a major motor of economic growth in the world.
A successful transition will benefit us all.
An unsuccessful transition will equally damage us all.
A mishandled transition will, in particular, hamper important political developments in the region - including, it seems to me, China's eventual membership of the WTO, which we all hope will happen sooner rather than later.
Of course there is no reason, as has been said by the Council and the Commission, why the transition should not go well.
The Chinese Government has given a clear commitment to uphold the Basic Law and the Joint Declaration, and I would certainly not wish to question the sincerity of that commitment.
Furthermore, the decision to maintain in place the existing Chinese civil servants in Hong Kong is an important vote of confidence in the area, particularly given the high quality of the individuals concerned.
There are of course one or two areas of concern.
The setting up of the provisional legislature was at worst illegal, as the governor claims, or at best unwise, unjustified and unnecessary, as the Americans have claimed.
The intention to repeal or to amend the Bill of Rights Ordinance - which includes provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights - along with the Societies Ordinance - which was aimed after all at dealing with the Triads - as well as the Public Order Ordinance which deals with meetings and demonstrations must cause us some concern about the future of human rights in Hong Kong.
Furthermore, the way these measures are being proposed by a preparatory committee meeting in secret gives us no confidence for the future.
As the chairman of the Hong Kong bar association recently wrote, the rule of law requires that the process of making and repealing law is open, reasoned and in accordance with the law.
I do not believe these proposals match that requirement and therefore it is important, as Commissioner Kinnock has indicated, that elections for a new Legislative Council are held as soon as possible.
Article 70 of the Basic Law says that these elections should be held within three months of the dissolution of the existing Legislative Council.
Given that it will be dissolved at midnight on 1 July - or one minute past midnight on 1 July - then these elections should be held this year and not next year as some in Hong Kong have claimed.
The rule of law of course is vital for the future, and yet a Chinese official commenting on the provisional legislature says it exists under a legal system different from that of the British Hong Kong Legislative Council.
However, the continuing application of Hong Kong's legal system has been promised in every detail and therefore we must demand that the law is applied consistently, in accordance with the Basic Law.
When I was in Hong Kong a number of people observed to me that people involved in cases of litigation were asking for postponement of their cases to after 1 July, implying that they might be getting special favours after that date.
We must not allow this to happen.
There has to be respect for the rule of law.
Similarly Mr Tung told me in conversation that he does not want to see foreign interference in Hong Kong political activity.
I would agree with that.
After all I have said that Hong Kong millionaires should not subsidize the British Conservative Party as they have been doing up to now!
But there is a question about how far this law goes.
Does it include all political activity, in which case trade unions will not be allowed to participate in the international fora, nor with human rights groups.
The best guarantee of human rights is the ability of people to cooperate at an international level.
It is therefore vital that we get a message across today that human rights are not some add-on extra, they are an essential prerequisite of a modern economy.
You cannot have economic freedom without political freedom.
That is why it is important that the Council of Ministers speaks with one voice on this issue - not as it has done on some other issues recently - and makes it clear that we are committed to ensuring the future prosperity of Hong Kong.
That is why I welcome Commissioner Kinnock's statement that the Commission will monitor the transition in all its formats.
That way we can ensure that all of us benefit from the continuing prosperity in Hong Kong.
Thank you Mr President.
I do not want to spoil the air of unity about this debate, because I know that most of us agree with the resolution tabled before us.
I would, however, only point out to the House that talking about China gives some difficulties to Members of the Party of European Socialists since I understand that the Chinese Communist Party is a fraternal organization of the PSOE.
I would sincerely question why Hong Kong millionaires have not given any money to 'New Labour' , but I think the answer speaks for itself.
I wanted to thank the Council and the Commission for their remarks.
The Council might have had its statement written in Paris: the optimistic tone regarding China's intentions seemed to have been written in French.
The French, I note, are currently in Beijing seeking an end to the EU arms embargo, and I want to thank the presidency for the efforts they have been making to try and get a resolution on human rights in Geneva.
This, I think, will be the European Union sticking to its guns, not trying to sell them to Beijing.
Thanks also to the Commission for a very comprehensive statement which goes a long way to reassuring us that at least the Commission is going to pay some regard to the situation in Hong Kong after the handover.
It is of course true that Hong Kong is of great importance economically to the European Union.
The Commission has already spelt out some aspects of this but I would like to say that there are 45, 000 European citizens in Hong Kong; that the European Union is its third largest trading partner after China and the USA; that Hong Kong is the European Union's twelfth largest trading partner in the world; and that our exports to Hong Kong amount to about ECU 2, 000 per head in Hong Kong, whereas Australia takes only ECU 400 and Japan ECU 200.
Hong Kong has of course been an entrepôt for exports to mainland China for generations but recently, since the reforms in mainland China in 1978, these have risen about 500 %.
There are, as the Commissioner remarked, many European companies which have their headquarters in Hong Kong and there are 44 Hong Kong based banks incorporated in the European Union itself.
So that is some idea of the importance of this territory to us in Europe, not just to the British but to Europeans as a whole.
Might I add that Hong Kong with a population of 6 million produces about 23 % of the wealth of China as a whole and currently enjoys 100 % democracy.
I am reassured that the Commission is going to monitor in particular the political and social developments in Hong Kong after the election and I join with Mr Titley in making the demand that there should be free and fair elections, based on adult universal suffrage, within three months of the hand-over on 1 July.
This, I think, is the most essential of the rightful demands the international community has to make of China when it takes over this territory.
I myself do not share the unbounded optimism either of the Council or of some other commentators.
We need to be very vigilant, and this Parliament as a whole, I hope, will be so.
Mr President, it seems to me that the fragile promises made by China are very gradually being broken; whatever Mr Titley may say, Hong Kong's problem is in fact China, and that cannot be left out of account.
The agreements signed by this major trading partner of many Member States of the European Union are also being broken, given that, according to the new Chinese leadership in Hong Kong, the Legislative Council democratically elected in September 1995 is going to be dissolved, the laws that provide for and safeguard the freedom of the press and the freedom of association are going to be repealed, associations are no longer going to have the right to maintain links with foreign organizations and there will be restrictions on the right of assembly and expression.
If we do not need to be concerned about China, Mr Titley, then I do not know what else we should be concerned about.
I am also, plainly, addressing the Council which has demonstrated an optimism that I consider unjustified in view of the current situation.
I therefore believe that the commitment entered into here by Commissioner Kinnock to ensure that the Commission is able continuously and constantly to monitor the situation in Hong Kong is an important one but it is not enough.
We are demanding that by the end of May there should be a report back to the European Parliament on the human and civil rights situation; we are calling upon the Commission to increase its own diplomatic representation in Hong Kong and for the situation to be closely monitored.
Mr President, it is 13 years since the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration; that is 13 years of the UK telling its European partners: ' Have no fear, Hong Kong is safe in our hands.'
There is now fewer than 13 weeks until Hong Kong becomes a Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China; fewer than 13 weeks for Europe to make up its mind on how to build a coherent common position on Hong Kong and how to deal with unfinished bad business.
The President-in-Office spoke of the importance of Hong Kong to business.
I would like to tell him that bad business for democracy is bad business for business.
His statement to me seemed not to be written so much in Paris as in the hallowed halls of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.
My interest is not just in business, it is in people.
The President's colleague, Mr Van Mierlo, had to write a letter to his colleagues ten days ago about Europe's failure to agree a common motion on China at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
If we are having a problem with human rights for 1.5 billion people, what hope is there for the human rights of 6 million in Hong Kong?
If there is one area where European countries could benefit from standing foursquare behind the European flag, it is on relations with China.
China has announced its intentions to repeal parts of the Bill of Rights Ordinance and 25 other ordinances and to abolish the directly elected legislative Council.
Just last month I went with a group of other Members of this House to Hong Kong, and I can tell the President-in-Office that the fear is not mainly from the outside, the fear is in Hong Kong.
I hope that the Council will join with the United Kingdom in seeking referral of the question of abolition of Legco to the International Court of Justice.
When we were there we met the Chief-Executive-designate, Mr Tung.
He appears to be a good man and he is trying to do a difficult job to the best of his abilities.
But if, when he talks of traditional Chinese values, it turns out to be the same as the Asian values practised elsewhere in Asia or worse, as the famille-patrie-travail once advocated in Europe then the liberal and democratic forces, whom we also met in Hong Kong, will face a daunting task and they will need our continued help.
In conclusion, Liberal Democrats in this Parliament want Europe to have new watchwords on Hong Kong: vigilance, active assistance and zero tolerance.
China is the world's major totalitarian state.
Let us coax it into democracy and liberty.
Mr President, the peaceful solution to the problem of Hong Kong is a positive example of negotiated settlement of a serious bone of contention.
When so many conflicts exist in the world, and even in Europe, the fact that the handover is taking place smoothly - a flexible transition, as the President said - is to be applauded, in my view.
That does not mean everything is settled.
Whatever the case, if we, as a European Parliament, want to contribute to a good outcome and the development of mutually advantageous cooperation with China, we must not proceed as recommended in the common resolution, and my group has not signed it.
I want to make two comments on this subject, While it is right to remember the European Parliament's traditional positions on human rights - positions I support - it is no good trying to regulate the social and political life of the Chinese by making demands which are not made on other governments: those are double standards.
I also want to express my disagreement on the support given to the American law on Hong Kong.
What right has the American Congress to legislate on Hong Kong? We do not know this law, and we are asked to place ourselves inside its framework!
That hardly represents a reasonable position on this issue.
Besides, I discern a very different tone in the Council's statement.
In the latest issue of the Hong Kong Human Rights' Monitor News Letter it is possible to read the following: ' History will judge Britain poorly for holding the Hong Kong people back from political life' .
I think we can summarise the Hong Kong problem by saying that it was created by Great Britain but is being exploited by China.
Unfortunately the introduction of democracy in Hong Kong did not start until after the Chinese-British agreement in 1984.
This is precisely why China maintains that Governor Patten's democratic reforms are against the agreement.
But it is obvious that democracy and human rights have an intrinsic moral and political value which must carry more weight than international agreements which have been entered into over the heads of the people concerned.
Of course there are some positive features in the Chinese attitude which have also been noted in the common resolution.
But there is far more to be concerned about.
I agree therefore with those speakers who are concerned that the Council representative seems so unconcerned about the process which is emerging as the transfer of Hong Kong to Chinese rule.
There is every reason to emphasise strongly the need for continuous monitoring of the events in Hong Kong and to be prepared for action on the part of the Union.
Mr President, my colleague, Mr Titley, is absolutely right when he warns people not to use Hong Kong and Hong Kong human rights as a stick to beat China.
People who do so do not help Hong Kong.
However, he is fundamentally wrong when he says this debate is not about China.
The whole nature of the problem, all the difficulties that we have with Hong Kong are based on the difficulties Britain has handing over its last remnants of empire and on the very strong sense of hurt pride and, indeed, humiliation that China feels in having ceded territory to my country in the past.
I have been listening to Chinese politicians for the past 13 years and that tone of deep resentment is either on the surface or very shallowly beneath the surface.
It is interesting - as an aside - to note that that does not exist with Portugal and Macao.
But none the less that resentment is there.
There are some problems now in coming to terms with that, but it has spilled over into attacks on Governor Patten's reforms.
The argument that they are belated seems to me misguided.
Once democracy is introduced, it is introduced.
It may be a good debating point to say that it is belated, but that really does not have much foundation.
We must understand that those reforms brought in by Governor Patten now have broad support.
That is the key point.
The Chinese seem unable to grasp the essential point, pointed out by Mr Watts and others, that it is not simply a money-making city; its economic welfare depends on the wellbeing of its citizens, and that point has yet to be grasped.
Britain's rule will end.
Something called Europe can provide - to use Hong Kong parlance - the 'through train' to continue interest.
Europe provides a convenient fiction for us to continue a dialogue with the Chinese, free from the colonial past and the colonial resentment.
I just have two further points.
One is specifically to the Council: it must make rapid progress on allowing the SAR passport-holders visa-free access throughout the 15 Member States.
Secondly, to the Commission: I welcome Mr Kinnock's statement.
However, can we press the Commission to draw up a trade and cooperation agreement with the SAR of Hong Kong as soon as possible?
Mr President, systematic abuse and denial of human rights continues in mainland China, yet the Western world remains embarrassingly silent.
Regrettably the reason is patently obvious: commercial interests are dictating the policy towards China in both the United States and many European Member States.
It would seem they would prefer to forget the events in Tiananmen Square and yet at the same time they will protest loud and long about the denial of democracy and human rights in other parts of the world with which they have no significant trade.
I believe this hypocrisy must stop, and must stop now.
Events in Hong Kong after the hand-over in July later this year will be pivotal and revealing as to the role that mainland China intends to play in the region.
China has given undertakings in the Sino-British Declaration that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will enjoy a high degree of autonomy, except for foreign and defence affairs.
The European Union must ensure that these international commitments are fulfilled.
In that sense I welcome the statement of the Commission, although I am concerned about the comments of the Council.
The dissolution of the Hong Kong Legislative Council is an ominous sign, as is the stated intention to restrict freedom of assembly and expression and to alter the composition of the island's civil service.
The European Parliament should work closely with the US Congress to stiffen the backbone and resolve both of the European governments and of the current US administration.
We should also pave the way for the immediate introduction of trade and other economic sanctions in the event of China reneging on its promises.
I believe my colleagues are wrong when they say we should not use this as a debate on the role of China.
The European Parliament should use this debate to make a statement and to send a message to mainland China, saying where the European Union stands.
If the European Union is to be a leading player in international affairs, it must command respect.
It can only do so by putting principle before expediency and human rights before commercial interests.
On 1 July 1997 a unique experiment will start.
As this represents the end of the colonial period one must understand the satisfaction in China with its long-term goal of reuniting Hong Kong with the mainland.
But very clearly this unique experiment can only succeed if one recognizes that Hong Kong for 150 years has been strongly influenced by western cultures apart from the traditional Chinese values of hard work and perseverance.
Many colleagues have underlined that basic values and freedoms, the rule of democratic law and democratic electoral processes are as much a part of Hong Kong as of western Europe or the United States or for that matter any other democratic country.
That is the only basis on which economic progress can continue.
That will ensure confidence not only internationally but also locally, Mr President-in-Office.
I was also recently in China and one should not underestimate the fears which exist in Hong Kong.
But Europeans should look to the future.
Albeit belatedly, the United Kingdom is recognizing this as a European problem.
I would like to add my comments - and I have not consulted with Mr Hindley - to the two specific points he mentioned to Mr Kinnock as the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council.
If we not only take seriously the monitoring part, which of course is absolutely essential, we must also arrive at positive agreements with Hong Kong separately.
I wish to support Mr Hindley that the Commission communication should look at that point very carefully: is there not room for a special agreement with Hong Kong to facilitate investment trade and other aspects which we have mentioned that relate especially to Hong Kong rather than only to China as a whole. And of course secondly there is the person to person part.
That is something which will create great confidence in Hong Kong.
It is quite curious that we do not yet have a common visa policy although I hope that the IGC will move forward at least on this point.
Four or five countries do not have visas, others have, including I believe the United Kingdom.
It would be a very useful sign of Europeanization of this process that we recognize that visa-free entry, as Mr Hindley suggested, is going to be part of the programme and include this in the Commission communication.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission and the Council for their statements.
On 1 July after 150 years of British rule Hong Kong will be handed over the Chinese People's Republic.
Hong Kong and its people have succeeded in turning the territory into a vibrant economy of world class standards.
As has been noted, it is the eighth largest trading nation in the world and has the world's largest container port.
Economic growth stands at over 5 % while unemployment is around 2 %.
Apart from Hong Kong's economic success, the territory has a reputation for a fair legal system and respect for individual human rights.
But there are worrying signs that both Hong Kong's economic success and its political and civil freedoms could be put at risk after the hand-over on 1 July.
The provisional legislature appointed by Beijing should not become a permanent puppet legislature.
When the existing Legislative Council is abolished new elections must be held within a matter of months as both Mr Titley and Commissioner Kinnock have indicated.
Nor should the Chief Executive C. H. Tung allow any erosion of Hong Kong's Bill of Rights or Societies' and Public Order Ordinances.
Freedom of association, expression and of the press must be maintained.
Indeed this is written into the Joint Declaration and Basic Law which guarantee the continuance of Hong Kong's existing way of life for at least 50 years.
China must deliver on Deng Xiaoping's promise of one country, two systems.
Political and civil freedom, as has been mentioned, cannot be separated from economic success.
While I welcome China's recent announcement that it would sign the UN's International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, it should also be pressed to sign the UN Convention on Political and Civil Rights.
In any event the EU should not let up on criticizing human rights abuses in China and it should monitor developments in Hong Kong closely over the coming months and years.
Can I also add that attention should also be paid to the plight of refugees in Hong Kong and I hope that this question is settled swiftly.
In conclusion China should be told the EU is watching and, despite recent wobbles on human rights, will take effective action if human rights and international agreements are violated in Hong Kong.
Mr President, I commend Members of the House strongly on the effectiveness and perception they showed in the course of this debate and say also, as I hope they will have gathered from their previous contact with the Commission, first that many of the concerns that have been registered about current and future conditions are shared by the Commission and secondly that we wish, in exactly the constructive spirit that honourable Members suggested, to pursue our future relations with Hong Kong and, for that matter, the People's Republic of China on the basis of cooperation, certainly, but vigilance too.
I would like to respond very briefly to specific points made by honourable Members.
In response to Mr Caccavale's desire for a report from the Commission on civil and human rights to be produced before the end of May, the fact is that over that period we will be producing our comprehensive communication on the approach to the issues relating to Hong Kong.
I hope that will provide him with the opportunity to consider policy and enable him to make the responses that he wants in the context of that communication.
So far as that is concerned, I would respond to Mr Hindley's very proper point relating to a trade and cooperation agreement with Hong Kong by saying that, in the communication that I have mentioned, consideration will be given to the various options for institutionalizing commercial relations between the European Union and the Special Administrative Region.
So, hopefully, in the context of that communication, some of the points raised by honourable Members today, and I know elsewhere, can get a tangible and practical response.
I must say that Mr Titley, Mr Truscott, Mr Brinkhorst and others were absolutely correct to draw attention to the interdependence between liberty and the development of a modern industrial state.
Mr Watson put the point succinctly but forcefully too.
There have been too many instances where societies developing out of a command economy and away from an authoritarian state have not recognized the link between economic and political freedoms and have consequently collapsed under the weight of their own paradoxes.
Hopefully the People's Republic of China will realize that is almost an inescapable fate unless the development takes an appropriate form on both fronts - cultural and political, as well as economic and commercial.
The consequences of recognizing that will be beneficial not only for that country and for Hong Kong but for the world in general including the European Union.
On the visa point raised by Mr Brinkhorst, I would conclude by saying that the decision about whether to grant visa-free access obviously lies with Member States, as I am sure the honourable Member knows.
But the Commission believes that there are good reasons for all Member States to give serious and sympathetic consideration to granting visa-free access.
The benefits which easy travel gives to developing economic and other contacts, and the importance of demonstrating confidence in Hong Kong's future, suggest that freer access to the European Union would be in the interests of both the EU and Hong Kong.
At any rate it would seem appropriate for the purposes of the common visa list to continue to treat Hong Kong, as now, on its own merits.
I look forward to the further debate that will come as a consequence of the publication of the Commission's communication and I am sure that at that time and for many years in the future honourable Members, like the Commission, will sustain a close and vigilant interest in the affairs of Hong Kong.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Petrol and diesel quality - motor vehicle emissions - atmospheric emissions - fuel economy
The next item is the joint debate on the following four reports on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection:
A4-0096/97 by Mr Mamère, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to the quality of petrol and diesel fuels and amending Council Directive 93/12/EEC (COM(96)0248 - C4-0462/96-96/0163(COD)); -A4-0116/97 by Mr Lange, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on measures to be taken against air pollution by emissions from motor vehicles and amending Council Directives 70/156/EEC and 70/220/EEC (COM(96)0248 - C4-0463/96 - COM(97)0077 - C4-0091/97-96/0164(COD)); -A4-0099/97 by Mr Eisma, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on a future strategy for the control of atmospheric emissions from road transport taking into account the results from the Auto/Oil Programme (COM(96)0248 - C4-0492/96); -A4-0117/97 by Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a Community strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars and improve fuel economy (COM(95)0689 - C4-0015/96)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have the honour of presenting my report on fuel quality, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, in the framework of the codecision procedure.
In presenting this report, I would first like to mention the criticisms which can be made of the studies the Commission has presented on the Auto/Oil directive.
I think Auto/Oil can be described as more of a political study than a technical one.
Let us say there has been an attempt to put technical make-up on the political face.
The study was carried out under the very clear influence of industrial groups, car manufacturers and oil refiners, and, as such, there cannot be much technical confidence in the measures proposed in it.
So there is very strong influence from pressure groups and also a distinct lack of transparency - if the results had been as precise as they would have us believe, the automobile groups, the motor manufacturers and the oil companies would not be so divided about the results of this study. Then there are technical errors: like measuring air quality over 4 square kilometres, in complete contradiction to a 1985 directive which required these measurements to be taken in the most affected areas.
Auto/Oil establishes a target for air quality in 2010.
We think this is too late and we believe this study and this target favour one of two industrial groups.
They favour the motor industry, because we know it takes about fifteen years to renew the vehicles in circulation.
Now it is thirteen years from 1997 to 2010.
So we think balance should be reestablished and we will not really be fighting air pollution and therefore we will not be improving the quality of human health unless we base ourselves on guidelines and values that are much more prescriptive and much more constraining, both for oil, petrol and diesel and for cars. That is the line taken in the reports before you today.
So I say that the economic basis of this Auto/Oil study is clearly geared to and principally serves the interests of the industrialists.
It is hard to see how it serves the interests of consumers, who were not consulted even though they have a strong interest in the quality of the product served to them from the pumps, every day and across the whole of Europe.
The improvements I propose essentially bear on the fact that standards must be set, not targets, and that these standards must be set for 2000 and 2005.
This does not mean that we are opposed to the Auto/Oil II programme; it means that it must take account of studies covering other sectors, which I will mention to you now.
So, taking account of the fact that the Auto/Oil Directive proposes abandoning leaded petrol as from 2000, we propose the distribution through the existing network of two different qualities of diesel: one containing 50 or 30 ppm of sulphur, and attracting tax incentives from governments - which is entirely possible - and a 'dirty' one, at 100 ppm. But at the same time a standard sulphur content of 30 ppm for diesel should be set for 2005.
I can hear the wails from the oil refiners' pressure group - and I know it is knocking on the doors of all my colleagues - insisting that this will be impossible to achieve.
That assertion is false.
We know that the refiners already have refineries producing clean diesel, but not for Europe. For the United States and Japan.
Why should Europe not benefit from this quality of diesel? And when I propose that there should be these two types of diesel, it is precisely to give the refiners time - five years - to make the necessary investment to modernize their refineries so that they can supply us with diesel which is clean and respects our health.
What is seriously lacking from the directive we have been presented with is what we ecologists call the internalization of costs.
All the arguments are built around one idea, the idea of cost-effectiveness.
But we should also be able to talk about cost-benefit.
When an investment is made its impact on the health economy must also be calculated, in terms of fewer people ill, fewer people with lung disease, fewer people in receipt of social security and less spending on health.
I would like to thank all those colleagues whose amendments have improved my text.
Mr President, I have no more time - it has already run out - so I cannot go through all the amendments, but the parliamentary report of proceedings will show which I accept and which I reject.
'With minor modifications our new engines can easily comply with Euro III, and further changes will bring them up to Euro IV by the year 2005.'
That was Alfa Romeo's engine designer.
'A 50 kg weight saving and exhaust levels which are 50 % below the EU thresholds applicable at present and so within touching distance of Euro IV for 2005.'
That was the designer of the new Mercedes engines.
Mr President, Commissioners, I believe these two quotes very clearly illustrate what is now technologically feasible in the European car industry.
And I believe it would be wrong simply to carry on as we are, because we would then be risking the competitive advantage the car industry derives from high technology and exhaust thresholds.
There can be no doubt about it: if we part company with US legislation we shall be the losers, and we shall make things easier for our competitors outside Europe.
So what we need are ambitious targets which will be binding on the whole of Europe, in the interests of the car industry and the consumer.
Most of all, though, of course, we need them in the interests of our environment.
The studies carried out in connection with the auto-oil programme showed that the ozone problems cannot be adequately tackled with the proposed package of measures.
No, we have to do more, and we can do more.
Mr Mamère has already pointed out certain weaknesses in the programme, and I don't want to go over that again in detail.
I think the Committee on the Environment was actually right to suggest essential improvements to the Commission's proposal, though without departing from the original approach.
We do want to adopt a cost-effective, practical approach here, not build castles in the air.
The proposal by the Committee on the Environment contains 10 essential improvements, first - Mr Mamère - improving the fuels, because we know that top-quality fuels have direct consequences for automotive engineering and indeed for all those involved.
For example, a diesel car using the diesel fuel recommended by the Commission emits 25 % more particles of pollutants by comparison with a diesel fuel which is already on the Swedish market and has a much lower sulphur content.
In view of this situation, and with particular regard to the air quality in cities like Athens and Madrid, we need better quality fuel for all vehicles, new or old.
We need them, too, in order to develop a high-level engine technology especially as regards the reduction of nitrogen oxides - and this cannot be achieved with sulphur as proposed by the Commission.
We also need binding limits for the years 2000 and 2005, because we have an internal market.
We want certainty for the investors, for the environment and for the consumer, so merely indicative values are no help at all.
We also know that tax incentives ultimately get things done, and that manufacturers are working towards Euro IV.
This is clearly apparent in Germany, where initial efforts are already being made to license Euro III vehicles now.
Another important point is ensuring durability.
What we need here is an on-board diagnostic system which alerts the driver to any fault in the exhaust system.
And we need this for both petrol and diesel engines.
It is precisely when engines are claimed to be environment-friendly because they consume less fuel that we cannot make any exceptions.
But this on-board system has to be capable of being serviced not only by franchised workshops but also by small garages, automobile clubs and technical inspection facilities.
So repair information must be readily accessible.
We also need a realistic test. What use is it if a car produces outstanding figures when tested at 20 degrees?
When we leave home tomorrow - we all know about this, the Commissioners know and even the people in Greece know - the engine temperature may be only 4 degrees. And what happens to the exhaust performance then?
Tests have shown that cars which comply with very strict values at 20 degrees fail to do so at 8 degrees and then emit more than 20 times as much pollution.
So we do need a cold-start test as part of this package.
And we need in-service tests, a very costeffective measure because manufacturers are naturally keen not to become entangled in recalls.
Not everyone, admittedly, is enthusiastic about these proposals.
I have heard that some car manufacturers are unenthusiastic, and that the oil industry is too.
They have even written me very touching letters about it.
But when I read 'BP - profits up by over 10 %' , ' AGIP - record profits for petroleum company' , ' ELF - profits up 10 billion francs' , then I find the oil industry's investment problems difficult to follow.
In any case, the five major European environmental organizations and 40 million motorists who are members of associations like the ADAC, the RAC, etc. are on our side.
But, to ensure that we have access to independent results, we commissioned a study from STOA which examined the situation in the most heavily polluted city, Athens, and confirmed Parliament's views.
I believe that, overall, there is nothing immoral about the proposal I am making to the Commission and the Council.
I ask them to join us in giving the green light to environmentally compatible cars!
Because if we are going to be dependent on cars for our mobility for the foreseeable future, then those cars must be as environmentally compatible as we can possibly make them!
It is beautiful weather this week in Strasbourg, Mr President.
Sun, hardly any wind and pretty fair temperatures.
One ought to be able to enjoy it and if you go into the park opposite it looks as if people are indeed enjoying the lovely weather.
But if we look out from the lofty vantage point of our offices over the city of Strasbourg, we see a brownish haze hanging over that beautiful city.
Measurements of air quality in the city tell us that the air is seriously polluted on days like this.
And I am talking just of Strasbourg, not of Milan, Amsterdam, The Hague or Paris where it is much, much worse.
That is why we are debating this subject here today.
To ensure that by the reference year of 2010 this brown haze above our cities of Europe has disappeared and to ensure, for example, that the spire of Strasbourg's cathedral can one more reach up into a truly blue sky.
Obviously, Mr President, that aim will not be achieved easily.
The Commission has taken a welcome step in the right direction, I have to say, but it has not stretched itself sufficiently and gone far enough.
One important reason for this is that right from the start the Commission has mistakenly based itself on the principle of cost-effectiveness rather than true cost-benefit analysis.
Precisely because most of the cost calculations came from industry itself, which after all has an interest in costs being high, measures which might have been farther-reaching have from the beginning been ignored.
The Commission has also omitted to take into account in its cost estimates the external costs of motor vehicle transport.
As recently as 1991 the Commission put the cost of car transport to society at 200 billion ECU a year.
These 200 billion ECU are incurred by the damage which motor traffic causes to agriculture, water quality and public health.
And in this programme the Commission seems all of a sudden to have forgotten its own calculations and its own objectives.
Mr President, the Commission has to some extent based itself on the guide values of the World Health Organization.
But strangely enough it has used a method of measuring air quality which conflicts with our own European directive, because the fact of taking an average value, a colleague also made the same point, for an area of four square kilometres, means that the important peak values at busy cross-over points are ignored.
For example the city I come from, The Hague, meets virtually all the standards thanks to the calculations which the Commission has applied.
But I could take you to areas of that city where air pollution makes it unhealthy to live according to the WHO standards.
So I am asking the Commission from now on to use a better method of measurement consistent with its own directive.
I should be glad to hear the Commissioner's view on this.
As regards ozone the Commission has been up to all manner of antics.
The reduction in ozone-creating substances which the Commission proposes will mean that only 37 % of the territory of the European Union will meet the standard laid down by WHO.
Obviously densely populated areas like the Po valley, the Ruhrgebiet and the Benelux countries will not be part of this 37 %.
So the Commission's target is so weak that most of the population if Europe will go on being exposed to excessively high ozone levels.
And I would remind Mrs Bjerregaard of her responsibility here.
Regarding the strategy to be followed, I am very much in favour of setting mandatory standards for the year 2000 and the year 2005.
By the time these directives are approved it will already be 1998.
That means that the year 2005 is not all that far off.
So industry would do better to anticipate that future policy.
It is strange that the Commission saw fit to set standards for 2005 for the car industry alone.
There is after all talk of a very precarious interplay between vehicles and available fuels.
It makes little sense if the right car technology is on the market but cannot function because of a lack of fuel of the right quality.
I am aware of the difficulties the Council is experiencing over this dossier.
It is not the intention that some Member States should impose standards which the other countries find virtually impossible to meet.
Both the Council and the European Parliament must show enough understanding to reach a compromise workable for the Union as a whole.
But I also remind industry of its responsibility.
If it can develop clean, environmentally friendly fuels, its export position in the fuel industry can only benefit.
I urge honourable members to support the proposals currently before us.
The health of those we represent in this House is too important.
We cannot afford to duck our responsibilities here.
We shall adjourn this debate now and resume at 9 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-0164/97).
Question No 1 by Mr Andersson (H-0195/97)
Subject: Enhancing the status of employment policy
Unemployment is the biggest problem facing Europe today.
Many people take the view that EU monetary policy should therefore be matched by an equally ambitious EU employment policy.
Common indicators such as exist for monitoring monetary policy should be established for monitoring the multiannual employment programmes which governments are to present.
How will the Netherlands Presidency ensure that the EU accords the same status to employment policy as it does to monetary policy?
I would like to thank the Council for its answer.
Actually it was the intention that this question be answered during the previous session.
I am well aware of the fact that since then there has been an informal meeting between the labour market ministers in Rotterdam.
I would like to say that the proposal discussed there particularly with regard to indicators is refreshing.
It is true that a proposal was put forward in Dublin on a new chapter on employment but I think that we need to put more flesh on the bones on the proposal from Dublin.
It needs greater definition on the issue of what is to be done at Community level in terms of employment policy.
The statement that employment policy at European level is not the only policy is absolutely true.
It does not detract from what must be done at a local, regional and national level but is more of an additional measure in the form of a coordinated macroeconomic policy for example.
How does the Presidency view the opportunities for improving the proposal which was put forward in Dublin. Will it receive more fleshing out by the fact that we are now also establishing criteria for indicators in the proposal which will be presented to the Intergovernmental Conference?
If I understand Mr Andersson's supplementary question aright, he asks how we rate the chances of the Irish presidency's proposals being applied at the Intergovernmental Conference.
You meant the Intergovernmental Conference?
Yes. So I have an institutional problem in that it is not the Council which is responsible for the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is the individual Member States.
I cannot comment on it here on behalf of the Council.
The talks are now in the final phase. I can tell you that the talks on the Irish presidency's proposal are proceeding apace and it seems to me fairly pointless to keep commenting from outside on a situation which, furthermore, may change from week to week.
That is not to say that even without amendments to the Treaties, and I certainly would not wish to underestimate or indeed overestimate the importance of Treaty amendments, the Council, Commission and European Parliament can do quite a lot as regards, shall we say, the coordinating and encouraging role which the institutions of the European Union can play in improving the prospects for economic growth and thus for jobs.
The presidency has been busy in that area too.
The Committee for the Labour Market, called for in Dublin, has meantime been set up and has got off to a pretty good flying start.
I would repeat that the informal meeting of the social affairs ministers gave a number of very valuable boosts to the Committee's debates and certainly to the whole consideration of what might be done to reduce indirect labour costs at European level by good coordination and good cooperation by the Member States.
Question No 2 by Mr Svensson (H-0198/97)
Subject: The cost of enlargement
Can the Council say now what the total cost of the proposed enlargement of the EU will be and by what amount agricultural and structural fund support to existing Member States will be cut as a result of that enlargement?
Mr Svensson's question to the Council concerns the cost of enlargement.
The honourable member's question is undoubtedly most apposite and the costs of enlargement will have to be considered most carefully in due course.
We need to remember that since the European Council of December 1995 in Madrid the heads of state and government have received reports on alternative strategies for agriculture and the development of the pre-accession strategy to be followed vis à vis associated countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
These reports have since been a major factor in the preparatory debates on these issues.
And I would remind the House here that the Madrid summit asked the Commission to come up as soon as possible with a thorough analysis of the European Union's system of financing, so that immediately after the end of the Intergovernmental Conference, thus hopefully in June in Amsterdam this year, a communication can be put forward on the future financing framework of the European Union for the period after 31 December 1999 which will take account of the prospect of enlargement.
My suggestion is thus that we do not have this debate now, but later when we have the communication which the Commission will be producing as soon as possible after the end of the Intergovernmental Conference.
But once again I agree with the implication of Mr Svensson's question that this is one of the most important issues which will need to be discussed when the political decisions on enlargement are taken.
I would like to thank the Council for its answer.
Unfortunately it is possible to infer that the European Union likes to draw up great far-reaching plans without being quite clear as to how much they will really cost.
The figures, that is the approximate figures which I have received so far have been in the region of between 15 billion and 64 billion ECUs.
The plain fact is that obviously no one really knows.
But I would still like to ask another related question.
Everyone knows that it is politically impossible to turn to the Member States and ask for an increase in the Membership fee.
But this means that we must ask the question: How much of a reduction, roughly, will be required in agricultural or regional subsidies in the Member States in order to finance the proposed enlargement? This is the interesting question for the Member States involved.
In recent years I too have heard these enormous sums mentioned by a variety of authoritative and less authoritative sources.
I have read a lot of reports on this, but I think one needs to appreciate that this kind of expectation or this kind of project has actually always been an extrapolation from existing policy.
For example: what would it cost to apply the common agricultural policy in its present form to the four Visegrad countries? The exercise is pointless, because we know that internal reform decisions and external obligations under the WTO mean that agriculture policy is constantly subject to change and that the cost of our agricultural policy is far lower than was estimated, for example, at Edinburgh, as regards development of the so-called agricultural guideline.
At the same time all manner of other estimates are used, for example this one: policies on agriculture and the structural funds together make up 80 % of the European Community budget, and this structural policy is then extrapolated as well.
But there one is starting from such a static situation that I find it unrealistic to take that as a starting point for shaping policy which will apply in the first decade of the next century.
I urge you not to join in with this kind of speculation.
Let us work together on the basis of cool and clinical analysis which, I know, the European Commission is working hard on at the moment.
President Patijn, I should like to ask you whether you or the Council are familiar with the admirable study by Mr Friedmann, the President of the European Court of Auditors, which shows that the eastward enlargement can be achieved without substantial additional costs.
Secondly, as far as the Visegrad States are concerned, whether you are already thinking in terms of a particular number of States or of the Visegrad States alone, or whether for example you also regard Slovenia and the Baltic States as possible candidates for accession.
I am not myself familiar with the report which the honourable member mentions.
I know that there are opinions and studies which claim that all this can be done within reasonable financial limits, but that assumes certain realities and certain expectations on which I cannot at present comment in any meaningful way.
These are assumptions, speculations, and I suggest we should start the debate once we have a thorough analysis from the European Commission of all the relevant factors, that is to say expected developments in agricultural policy, expected developments in the structural funds, expected developments in the other categories of the European Community's expenditure and expected developments with regard to the financial perspective and the way in which expenditure actually proceeds, as we have done in past years.
I mentioned the Visegrad countries simply because one of the most hotly discussed reports quoting figures in the billions had to be do with enlargement to include the Visegrad countries, but you can take it from me that that implies no judgment on the Council's part as to how the future process of enlargement will unfold and which countries will be involved.
Question No 3 by Mr Roubatis (H-0200/97)
Subject: Participation by Turkish Cypriot representatives in negotiations for the accession of Cyprus
At the last meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers in Brussels, the British, German and French Foreign Ministers requested the inclusion in the text of the common position of a proposal for the participation of the Turkish Cypriot authorities in negotiations for the accession of Cyprus.
However, it is generally known that the European Union only acknowledges the legal government of Cyprus as being entitled to participate in negotiations for the accession of Cyprus.
Does the Council intend to recognize as a legitimate interlocutor the self-styled 'Turkish-Cypriot government, ' which is illegal and not recognized by the international community thereby undermining the exclusive right of the Government of the Cypriot Republic to conduct negotiations for the accession of Cyprus?
Does the Council not consider that the participation of the Turkish Cypriots in the negotiations would put Turkey in a position to dominate the accession procedure at a time of crisis, not only in Cyprus itself but also in relations between Greece and Turkey?
Does the Council consider that changes in the agreed accession procedure for Cyprus might also compromise proceedings for enlargement to include countries of Central and Eastern Europe?
During Question Time in March the Council replied to two oral questions (H-0150/97 and H-0173/97) from Mr Papayannakis and Mrs Daskalaki respectively, explaining its position on Cyprus and the Turkish Cypriot community.
In line with the conclusions of the Cannes European Council of June 1995 accession talks with Cyprus will begin on the basis of proposals from the European Commission six months after the end of the Intergovernmental Conference, taking into account the outcome of that Conference.
The Union's position remains the one established at the meeting of the Association Council on 25 February 1997.
At the same time the prospect of Cyprus's joining the European Union provides an opportunity to push this year for a general resolution of the Cyprus question in line with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council, culminating in a federation with two communities and two zones.
It is important to seize this opportunity as far as possible.
According to the Council's conclusions of 6 March 1995 Cyprus's accession to the European Union must create greater security and prosperity for each of the two communities on the island.
As a result the northern part of the island would find it easier to close the economic gap and prospects for growth and employment would be improved, for the Turkish Cypriot community as well.
The Council also thought that the advantages of Cyprus's joining the European Union needed to be better understood by the Turkish Cypriot community and that its fears on this count needed to be allayed.
The Council calls on the Commission to establish the necessary contacts with the Turkish Cypriot community, liaising to this end with the Government of Cyprus.
The Council stresses that it did indeed fail to reach a consensus on what the Union position should be at the meeting with Cyprus scheduled for 25 February as part of the 'structured dialogue' . But the Council stands resolutely by its position of March 1995, namely that of no recognition for the authorities of Northern Cyprus.
The Council cannot comment on the views of the individual Member States to which the honourable member refers.
I would point out in conclusion that the Financial Protocol signed in June 1995 includes support for efforts to promote a general settlement of the Cyprus question.
The sum of 12 million ECU has been made available for possible initiatives agreed with Cyprus for projects to promote confidence-building measures.
There is also the possibility of additional funds to finance programmes and projects to promote the development of the island as a whole.
I consider it helpful that the President-in-Office has categorically restated the commitment of the Union to ensure that negotiations with the Cypriot Republic are commenced six months after the end of the intergovernmental conference.
Naturally, the Turkish Cypriots will have a place in the representation of the lawful and internationally recognized government of Cyprus.
Moreover, the President of the Cypriot Republic has issued an invitation to participate to the Turkish Cypriots.
What steps have you taken, or do you intend to take, to persuade Mr Denktash to allow Turkish Cypriots to participate on the committees that will be set up to commence the preliminary work and which will afterwards conduct the negotiations with the European Union?
I cannot really give a clear answer to Mr Roubatis's question.
He asks how the Council proposes to persuade Mr Denktash to agree anything with the Greek Cypriot Government. That seems to me largely speculative.
Generally speaking, I think it is most important, if accession talks with Cyprus are to get off to a good start and proceed well, that there should be a clear political understanding between the two communities on Cyprus on their common objectives concerning future membership of the European Union.
I think that will be most helpful to the negotiations.
Like Mr Roubatis, I am pleased there was a firm categorical reply that negotiations would commence six months after the IGC.
However, the Council will know that Turkey is being rather obstructive and has carried this over into NATO and is threatening to block certain moves there if these negotiations go ahead without the North being involved.
Will the Council confirm, positively and definitely, that it will not allow Turkey to blackmail the EU in this way? If the Republic of Cyprus can in some way accommodate the North and include it in its discussions, fine - that is a matter for Cyprus - but can the Council confirm that the EU itself will not go back on the pledges it has made?
As the Council understands it, the Government in Ankara has a veto on the start of accession talks.
I will leave it at that.
I do not wish to anticipate a decision which the Council and the European Council will have to take later this year or next year, namely how the accession talks with Cyprus are to get started.
I should say - and this is not a statement on behalf of the Council - that there are serious doubts within the Council as to whether Cyprus can join the European Union if the political problems on Cyprus persist in their present form.
So the Council is very much concerned to persuade both the Cyprus Government and the Turkish Cypriot authorities and Ankara and Athens that they should do everything possible to create a climate in which the parties themselves are willing to negotiate.
In the first place, of course, that means the two communities on Cyprus.
And in the second place, Turkey and Greece.
They must do everything possible to make sure that there is never disagreement at any time in the future within the European Union about the accession of Cyprus as a result of an unresolved question which has dogged us for the last 25 years.
Mr President, according to the Rules of Procedure, Mr Patijn is here as the President-in-Office of the Council.
I would be very grateful if what he has said about not speaking as the President-in-Office of the Council could be expunged from the Minutes.
Mr Roubatis, the President-in-Office is free to express himself as he pleases in this House and this must appear in the Minutes.
You are free to make your own assessment of it, but in no case can the speeches of the President-in-Office of the Council be restricted, or what has been said ignored.
Therefore what you said just now, Mr Roubatis, will also appear in the Minutes.
Question No 4 by Mr Newens (H-0210/97)
Subject: Cooperation between international police forces
Would the Council make a statement on the implication of the simultaneous police raids made on the offices of MED TV, the privately funded satellite TV station whose goal is to promote Kurdish culture, in London and Brussels on 18 September 1996, and on the maintaining of existing standards of civil liberties and human rights within the EU and, in particular, the agreement said to have been made between the Chief of the Belgian Police, Mr De Ridder, and the Turkish Head of Internal Security, Mr Alaadin Yuksel in July 1996?
In reply to Mr Newens I must stress that the police measures he mentions come under the responsibility of the appropriate authorities in the Member States and not, I repeat not, under the responsibility of the European Union.
So in this specific case it is not the place of the Council to state a view on it.
But in general terms the Council would make the point that with regard to civil liberties and human rights in the European Union all Member States are parties to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms which was signed in Rome on 4 November 1950.
Under Article K2 of the Treaty on European Union matters named in Article K1, including judicial and police cooperation in criminal matters, are dealt with in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights.
I thank the President-in-Office for that reply.
But it seems to me an amazing coincidence that police raids against MED TV occurred simultaneously in London, Brussels, Sweden and Moscow on 18 September if there was no common origin for their action and if this was not provided by the Turkish authorities.
Does the President-in-Office not think that all our efforts to achieve high standards of civil liberty and freedom of expression in the Union will be undermined if European police forces take action on the basis of laws and practice which apply in Turkey or, for that matter, in other states which have lower standards, and that some effort ought to be made within the Union to prevent this sort of thing from happening? Otherwise those things we have tried to achieve on the issue of human rights and freedom of expression will be seriously undermined.
I can only repeat that the actions of judicial and police authorities within their own borders are a matter exclusively for the Member States.
It seems to me completely logical and it is also standard practice for Member States to coordinate their action at international level in some cases.
But the view that standards of international and national law have been infringed here must be tested first of all against the laws of the countries concerned and in any case the individual is always free to challenge the behaviour of Member State governments before the European Commission and European Court of Human Rights.
Question No 5 by Mr Camisón Asensio (H-0213/97)
Subject: Economic and social cohesion and unemployment
Can the Council confirm, with a view to the economic and social cohesion which might be expected to arise from the distribution of the Structural Funds, that priority will continue to be given to the fight against unemployment in the context of the chief objectives governing the application of the Funds under the Dutch Presidency?
In approving the legislation on the structural funds one of the Council's priorities was that these funds should be used to combat unemployment.
And that is and remains the objective.
Thus, for example, during the 1994-1999 programme the Social Fund will, for purposes of combating unemployment, be helping to facilitate access to the labour market, promote equal opportunities on the labour market, expand education and specialist training, expertise and occupational qualifications and promote the growth of employment.
This assistance will be spread over the various structural policy objectives of the European Community and is continuing with undiminished vigour under the Dutch presidency too.
The resulting tasks are carried out by the Commission which is responsible for implementing the legislation and managing the structural funds in close cooperation with Member States.
I would point out here that the Commission, in its communication of 24 March 1996 on structural measures and employment, indicated that it planned to target structural measures more towards the creating of jobs by aligning a few points of the existing planning with the requirements of the legislation in such a way as to place greater emphasis on jobs.
In short, the combating of unemployment is and remains a prime objective of the European Community's structural policy.
Energetic measures to tackle unemployment in Europe are after all a major priority.
We note with satisfaction the concern about the continuing unemployment situation expressed by the Council under the Dutch Presidency, as was also case under the Irish Presidency.
Unemployment is one of the major causes of anxiety for European citizens, especially in certain countries like Spain, for example.
Because of all this, we must hope that the spread of territorial employment pacts within the framework of the structural funds programmes will become reality as soon as possible, including the possibility of participation by the European Investment Bank.
All this will contribute to achieving the essential objective of greater cohesion by reducing the disparities that still exist despite the undeniable advances in the socio-economic development of the regions.
But it is also appropriate to put on record the advantages of improving the procedure by concentrating resources in the most needy regions, simplifying the procedures and respecting the principle of additionality.
Mr Camisón raises the question of regional pacts on employment.
This is an idea first mooted in the communication of the European Commission President, Mr Santer, which became known as the stability pact.
It was one aspect of that.
I know that these regional employment pacts are now being implemented but responsibility for them lies with the European Commission.
So for details I must refer you to the European Commission.
Question No 6 by Mr Pirker (H-0218/97)
Subject: Europol
Europol should be created as swiftly as possible as an effective weapon in the fight against organized crime.
However, one precondition for its creation is ratification by the national parliaments.
What steps will the Council take to ensure that these ratifications take place immediately?
Are there ministers who have expressed reservations about the creation of Europol? If so, which ministers?
What are their objections?
In reply to Mr Pirker I am glad to say that the Member States have undertaken on several occasions and notably at the European Council in Dublin in December 1996 to do everything possible to complete the ratification of the Europol Convention and the Protocol on the Court of Justice by the end of 1997.
To date the United Kingdom is the only Member State which has ratified these texts, in December 1996.
In all other states a start has been made on the administrative and/or parliamentary procedures.
Of course each parliament has its own procedures and ways of operating so that the time scales may differ.
Nevertheless all the Member States concerned have confirmed that the target date can be met.
No major obstacles to ratification have been reported. The Dutch presidency and especially the Luxembourg presidency which will take over next will unhesitatingly seize every opportunity of reminding Member States which have not ratified the agreement of the undertaking they signed in Dublin with a view to this Convention coming into effect before the end of 1997.
Mr President-in-Office, thank you for that reply.
I have another question, though, in this connection.
We all know that the citizens of the Union have a right to security, meaning that they expect the Union to ensure that EUROPOL does eventually come fully into force.
When you say that the Member States are intending to have ratified it by the end of 1997, how much longer will it take in your view until EUROPOL - the preliminary work is being done - is fully functional? Secondly, we know that the situation in the countries of origin is a tragic one.
So EUROPOL must have a strong interest in co-operating with the countries of origin of organized crime, especially in the east.
Does the Council have any plans for activities in connection with EUROPOL which will initiate the co-operation between EUROPOL and the eastern States?
I am relatively hopeful that Europol will be operational fairly soon after the Convention comes into force, since a precursor of Europol, the EDU or European Drugs Unit, is already up and running.
I invite the honourable member and the House in general to pay a visit to The Hague where Europol's precursor is in fact already operational in terms of its organization, institutions and the testing of its cooperation methods, but all this on the basis of a provisional mandate which is yet to be ratified. Europol can only really take off when the Convention has been ratified and has come into force.
And then there is your question about whether Europol will be able fairly soon to initiate cooperation with third countries or whether it will be able to do this at all.
I have to look at the existing legal position here. I think the powers of the European Union and its institutions to cooperate with third countries under the third pillar are currently limited because this always has to be done through international treaty, through intergovernmental construction of the third pillar, and treaties of this kind have to be ratified.
That is a long and complicated process.
Let me say something briefly about the Intergovernmental Conference.
This subject is on the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is looking at how far the legal basis for forging cooperative links with third countries might be strengthened.
Forgive me if I do not report on how the debate is progressing.
For the rest, we have a very practical opportunity now, starting from the provisional unit in The Hague, of forging practical cooperative links with third countries already, naturally under the supervision of the Council of Justice Ministers and later, once the Convention comes into force, within the limitations set by the Europol Convention.
Mr President, if cooperation with third countries is being considered, could we make it a condition for Europol, which is, of course, of immense value in the fight against crime, that it should not take action against individuals based on suspicions of committing acts which are not offences in the European Union but may be offences in third countries which do not recognize civil liberties and freedom of expression in the same way that we recognize them in the Union? I hope, for example, that Europol would not be expected to cooperate in a raid such as that on MED TV, which I raised earlier on.
The Convention setting up Europol does not provide for officials or institutions of Europol to be granted operational powers.
If specific proceedings are instituted in a specific Member State, that is always done under the political responsibility of that country's government and by investigating officials of that country.
Europol officials can never have political responsibility for such measures or responsibility for investigating them.
Question No 7 by Mrs Stenzel (H-0219/97)
Subject: Poland
Following Poland's accession there will need to be transitional periods in a number of areas, including the free movement of persons.
How long will the transitional period be following Polish accession in the case of the free movement of persons?
Mrs Stenzel's question refers to one of the possible results of the accession talks with Poland, but these have not even begun yet and at this stage the Council has not yet taken any operational decisions on them.
As regards the future enlargement of the Union to include the associated countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Poland being one of them, I can only refer to the Dublin summit which confirmed the timetable for the enlargement process which was set in Madrid.
Immediately after the Intergovernmental Conference ends the Commission will be presenting the Council and the European Parliament with its opinions on each country individually and a comprehensive document on enlargement as a whole.
This procedure guarantees that all countries applying for membership are treated equally.
The Commission will also put forward its assessment of the consequences of enlargement for Community policies and a communication on the future financial framework of the European Union as from 31 December 1999, taking account of enlargement.
One of the earlier questions referred specifically to that.
After the Intergovernmental Conference ends, in the light of its results and on the basis of these Commission opinions and reports, the Council will as soon as possible take the decisions needed to get the accession talks started.
Mr Patijn, thank you for that answer, which largely recapitulates the familiar timetable for the accession negotiations and the fact that those negotiations will start on the basis of equal entitlement.
Even so, some fundamental questions remain: is the Council giving any thought to ways of preventing the migration of cheap labour into high-wage countries when the rules of the single market are brought into force in the candidate States? Has any thought been given to how this can be prevented, so that these workers remain in their own countries and have opportunities for employment there?
Mrs Stenzel keeps wanting us to speculate about what the negotiating mandate of the European Commission will be in the accession talks.
I can answer her question by saying we should not jump the gun, otherwise we shall all go away dissatisfied.
You must look at the process as follows and then view it in a broader time scale.
I assume that once the talks start they will go on for a number of years.
I would remind you that the negotiations with Spain and Portugal lasted seven years.
It may perhaps be shorter for the countries of Eastern Europe, but there is a timetable and then we still have the ratification process and by the time the new Member States of the European Union are actually in we shall be somewhere in the next century.
In substantive terms I think it is pointless now in 1997 to make pronouncements, quite apart from the formal argument that all these accession mandates still have to be discussed, on how things should look in the year 2002, 2003 or 2004.
Meantime the legal position in Europe on the operation of the single market and the operation of the labour market is constantly shifting. On the other hand the applicant countries are resolutely preparing to join the single market, including those aspects concerned with freedom of movement for workers.
So a dynamic process is unfolding on two sides.
My feeling is that your question is altogether premature.
I would urge you not to speculate on how the labour market in Eastern and Western Europe will look in the year 2002, 2003 and 2004, what specific arrangements that will necessitate, whether it will require transitional measures or derogations for the new members.
I think it serves no purpose at all and no political purpose to jump the gun on this kind of issue two, three, four elections ahead of time.
That is my feeling.
Question No 8 by Mr McMahon (H-0220/97)
Subject: Technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources
Will the Dutch Presidency give Parliament details of the compromise text on technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources which it will place before the April meeting of the Fisheries Council?
In reply to Mr McMahon's question about technical measures to maintain fish stocks, I would stress that the Dutch presidency attaches particularly great importance to this.
The Irish presidency presented a compromise text on this at the Council meeting of December last.
The Council indicated that it regarded the proposal as a welcome step forward, but nevertheless believed that a number of problems remained to be solved.
The presidency is working hard on these at the moment, but given the highly technical nature of this subject the Dutch presidency does not intend to place this item on the agenda of the Fisheries Council scheduled for next 14 and 15 April.
Nevertheless, the presidency will leave no stone unturned in its efforts to push forward the discussion of this proposal as soon as possible with a view to its acceptance by the end of June this year. So hopefully before the Dutch presidency ends.
I would like to thank the Dutch presidency.
This is the first time we have had official confirmation that there will be no discussions, and no agreement, on the question of technical measures.
It is rather unfortunate that Parliament has been pushing ahead with the Adam report and held emergency meetings only on Monday of this week, being told it was to meet a deadline from the Council.
Yet again, the presidencies, in particular the Dutch, have treated Parliament with a rather cavalier attitude.
If the intention all along - perhaps in some way connected with the United Kingdom election - was not to have it on the agenda, then I am disappointed.
Would the Dutch presidency confirm that what might happen in the UK elections has not motivated them in withdrawing this item from the agenda of next week's meeting?
I cannot confirm that, all I know is that it will be impossible to complete this dossier at the Fisheries Council in April.
Question No 9 by Mr Howitt (H-0223/97)
Subject: Non-discrimination clause in favour of people with disabilities in the Treaty on European Union
Does the legal advice available to the Council confirm that the new Article 6a in the TEU as presented by the Irish Presidency at Dublin, if agreed at Amsterdam, would ensure that in future all Commission directorates-general will have to consider and consult on equal opportunities for disabled people in preparing all draft European legislation and programmes? Or is it your advice that such a clause would simply enable separate actions to be agreed by Member States to prohibit such discrimination at European level?
Secondly, is it your legal advice that new Article 6a - as proposed - would or could not act as a legal base for a future EU disability programme, as a successor to the old Helios programme?
In reply to the honourable member's question I must repeat that it is not the job of the Council to comment on the work of the Intergovernmental Conference and how its work is progressing.
That is a matter for the Member States and the Council cannot be called upon to comment.
I would emphasize that under the terms of Article N of the Treaty, representatives of the Member States are to determine the amendments to be made to the Treaty by common accord.
The honourable member will appreciate that I, as President of the Council, cannot in any way comment on the suggestions he makes in his question.
Notwithstanding that, the Council is convinced that everything possible must be done to help persons with a disability and to enable them to be fully integrated into society and take an active part in economic and social life.
But the subsidiarity principle must be borne in mind here.
Reference must be made to this in determining what should be done at national level and what the necessary benefits are of measures at Union level.
While thanking Mr Patijn for that answer one wonders about his commitment to assisting the IGC to be an open and transparent process.
How can the many people and organizations who have an interest in the outcome of the ICG possibly consider the issues surrounding the draft treaty and give advice to us in this Parliament and to the national governments if there is this stone wall of silence from the Council. In this Parliament, whether we are dealing with the buses and coaches directive, the lift directive or all the issues concerned with the information society, we have to fight and fight to get the Commission to consider disabled people's interest and to consult with disabled people at the outset of legislation.
For the governments to come up with a draft of the Treaty - laudable as it is, and supporting it as we do in this Parliament with regard to actions of non-discrimination for disabled people - that does not cover all of the areas of European legislation would fail to meet the demands of 37 million disabled European citizens.
When Mr Patijn meets the representatives of the European Disability Forum, as he will be doing within the next week, is he going to give them a more open answer and have a more open discussion than we have been able to have in this Parliament tonight?
I can confirm that I am regularly in touch with representatives of a number of social organizations which are attentively monitoring the progress of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I did indeed have a meeting with the representatives of organizations for the disabled.
In these kinds of talks, which are informal, I have regularly provided briefings on the state of the talks and the chances of a successful outcome to those talks.
But officially that is the job of the Dutch delegate to the Intergovernmental Conference. I cannot play that part as President of the Council.
I can of course make use of my privileged position of access to background information, but when I have meetings of this kind, I am there in principle as a delegate for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Question No 10 by Mr Lomas (H-0226/97)
Subject: Interference by EC Commissioner in British elections
In the run-up to the UK's general election, EC Commissioner Leon Brittan is quoted in the British press as having criticized the Labour Party for suppressing debate on Europe.
He voiced disapproval at politicians generally for criticizing the EC, saying that this would undermine Britain.
Does the Council of Ministers approve of its civil servants interfering in a country's election in this way?
In reply to Mr Lomas's question I must do as my predecessors and I myself have done on many occasions in similar cases and that is stress that the Council cannot express a position or a judgment on things which are said outside the formal framework of its meetings, and certainly not when they are said by persons outside the Council.
This appears to be the case with the events which Mr Lomas reports in his question.
These statements are widely reported in the press.
Even civil servants at national and local government level in Britain are not allowed to get involved in electioneering as the Commissioners are doing.
Do you not think some of them - not all - are getting too big for their boots. Jacques Santer recently berated Member State governments who had some queries about the single currency timetable.
These civil servants ought to get on with their own work and leave the political statements to the elected Council of Ministers.
Would the Council not agree with that?
I detect an undercurrent of annoyance in Mr Lomas's questions, but perhaps I can ease that annoyance to a large extent by telling him that members of the European Commission can in no way be called civil servants.
I refer the honourable member to an article of the EC Treaty which he doubtless knows by heart, namely Article 157 which states: ' The Members of the Commission shall, in the general interest of the Communities, be completely independent in the performance of their duties.
In the performance of these duties, they shall neither seek nor take instructions from any Government or from any other body.'
So these are political comments by people who are entirely independent.
Perhaps that will reassure you.
In reply to Mr Morris's question about the dangers of clenbuterol as a growth promoter in animals intended for human consumption I can say that the Council is well aware of the need for vigorous measures to counter the illegal use of anabolic steroids in livestock farming, with a view to protecting the consumer.
To that end the Council adopted Directive 96/22/EEC on 29 April 1996 in order to tighten up the measures taken in 1981 and 1988 and ensure that they were implemented better.
Also adopted was Directive 96/23 on supervisory measures for implementing this tougher policy.
The use of clenbuterol is thus legally banned in the Community except in the case of therapeutic treatment of female cattle during calving and of equine animals bred for purposes other than meat production.
So some use is permitted, but never in animals intended for human consumption.
Regarding the second question the Council has no authority in respect of the case which the honourable member mentions; it is a matter for the judiciary of the Member State concerned.
It is not for the Council to comment.
The President-in-Office has told us that it is not his business to concern himself with what a Member State does or does not do in terms of ensuring that people who are suspected of dealing in illegal growth drugs are prosecuted. This is why I asked the question!
The question ought to be: what has the Council - which is a Dutch Council - done to persuade its own government to extradite Gerard Hoogendik to the USA for offences which have been laid at his door, namely that he has been smuggling and distributing adulterated drugs into the US?
Might there not be a suspicion, in fact, that he has been about the same kind of activity within the EU? If we are to be successful in terms of controlling the distribution of illegal drugs and their threat to our food, then prosecutions must be brought and, in this case, extradition ought to be granted so the American Government can bring this man to trial.
If a Dutch national is suspected of a criminal offence in another country which justifies extradition, the Dutch Government, perhaps with the endorsement of a Dutch judge, will respond if an official request for extradition is received.
But this is not a matter for the institutions of the European Union and I cannot give an answer as President of the Council.
I should like to leave it at that.
Question No 12 by Mr Speciale (H-0231/97)
Subject: The plight of children in Romania
In view of the serious plight (well documented by the international press) of children in Romania, many of whom are living below the threshold of poverty, with an increasing number living on the streets, and in view of the European Parliament's resolution of 12 December 1996 on Romania, what representations does the Council intend to make to ensure that the Romanian Government fulfils its undertakings to improve the situation of children, and what steps does the Council intend to take to adopt, in conjunction with the Commission, the Member States and the Romanian Government, a programme to protect children and a specific programme for street children in the principal cities of Romania?
Mr Speciale raises an important issue.
The Council shares the honourable member's concern over the difficult position of children in Romania.
In general terms I should say that Romania has made a start on a comprehensive programme of reforms to improve the economy.
The Council supports this programme but has at the same time made it plain to the Romanian authorities that accompanying social measures are needed to safeguard the most vulnerable sectors and groups of society.
In this context the Commission, together with the Romanian Government and non-governmental organizations, is helping with a broad programme designed to improve the position of children in the country.
There are numerous projects aimed primarily at orphans.
And the Community has been giving aid of this kind for some time, since the early nineties.
In total a few tens of millions of ECU have been contributed so far.
The Community's latest efforts, in close cooperation with the Romanian Government, have been aimed at policy to protect children.
A budget of 12 million ECU has been set aside for this.
Part of it is from the 1996-1999 guidance PHARE programme for Romania.
The Commission has also reached agreement with the Romanian Government to spend some 3.5 billion lei, or about one million ECU, from counterpart funds which can be generated from the economic reform programme, for the protection of young people in Romania.
Mr President, I thank the Council for its answer and for the sensitivity it is showing.
As you know, this is a very sensitive issue.
There have been televised documentaries that have clearly demonstrated just how grave the situation is. Among other things, there are judicial inquires under way in some Member States concerning abhorrent crimes that seem to link up with Romania specifically.
I therefore believe that urgent action is needed and that it is important that the Council and Commission, along with the Romanian Government, should do all they can to arrive at positive solutions very quickly.
I also wonder how a situation of that kind could arise in the heart of Europe, and I do not know whether the Council has answered that.
I am asking you now, Mr President-in-Office: what programmes for children are already in operation? Are they being specifically organized?
Have there been improvements already?
That basically is the question I am asking you!
I refer to the answer I gave the first time.
This programme has been going for some time.
Since 1990, as I said, there have been European Community measures under the responsibility of the Commission, designed to improve the lot of children in Romania and these measures have recently been intensified further.
For details of those programmes I would refer Mr Speciale to the European Commission.
In general, I share the grave concerns he voices with this question.
We all know that some countries of Eastern Europe are deep in political and social crisis as a result of their transition from a dictatorially controlled economy to a democratic free market economy.
That is having great social consequences, and socially vulnerable groups are sometimes particularly hard pressed and I think we are all very anxious that not only the European Community institutions but above all the Member States, and I would expressly mention the initiatives taken by non-governmental organizations which are particularly energetic in this area in my own country, should play an important role in dealing as far as possible with the worst cases.
As the author is not present, Question No 13 falls.
Question No 14 by Mr Sjöstedt (H-0235/97)
Subject: The EU as an association of free and independent States
Representatives of the Swedish government maintain that the EU is an organization of free and independent States.
Such views are endorsed by the German Federal Constitutional Court's judgment of 12 October 1993, which points out that the Member States are the 'masters of the Treaty'.
However, all of this is at odds with various Court of Justice rulings concerning the precedence of European law over Member States' laws and constitutions.
Such contradictory signals have given rise to differing interpretations as to the nature of the Union.
The IGC provides an opportunity to resolve this matter by making it clear that the European Union is an association of free and independent States whose constitutions take precedence over EU laws and rules.
This is particularly important with a view to the forthcoming enlargement of the EU.
Is the Council prepared to use the IGC to submit proposals which clearly define the nature of the EU as an association of free and independent States?
In reply to Mr Sjöstedt I would emphasize, more in general terms, that I fully share his view that the European Union is an undivided entity of free and independent states. We are indeed free and independent states which of our own free will cooperated on the Treaties establishing the European Communities.
Exercising this same freedom we undertook to comply with the terms of these treaties and help to implement them.
As President-in-Office of the Council I am all the keener to emphasize that the Council and its members attach the utmost value to this communal basis and to the legislation adopted under the Treaty and generally referred to as the acquis communautaire .
For reasons he will appreciate I cannot, as President of the Council, go into the honourable member's more specific request that the provisions so dear to him should be included in the new Treaty.
The Council is after all not a party to the Intergovernmental Conference and it is up to the governments and the Commission too to put forward proposals for discussion at the Intergovernmental Conference.
I would like to thank the Dutch Presidency for its response.
I think that you are being unduly modest.
You certainly must have an insight into the work of the current Intergovernmental Conference and some influence over it.
I think it is important to clarify the legal hierarchy between National Constitutions and EEC Law.
In reality a praxis has evolved over many years in the EEC Courts while a number of Member States have not changed their fundamental law in line with this praxis.
There are also legal cases underway, in Denmark for example which concern precisely this point of the position of the Constitution against EEC law.
I feel that it is perfectly reasonable on democratic grounds to clarify this legal hierarchy between National Constitutions and EEC law.
My own personal view is that National law takes precedence over EEC law.
If I understand the interpreting correctly it seems that Mr Sjöstedt himself believes that national constitutions are more important than Community law.
I myself do not believe that.
In the Dutch constitutional system Community law, enacted in accordance with the procedures laid down by the Treaty of Rome, takes precedence over national law, and even over the national constitution, and it is up to the judges to decide what takes precedence when there is a conflict between legal systems.
Happily, I cannot recall any instance to date where a supreme judge in a national Member State prohibited the governments or citizens of that Member State from living by the rules of Community law.
Then there really would be a conflict.
My personal conviction based, I would have thought, on a sizeable body of case law, but then I am not speaking as President of the Council - your President said just now that I can occasionally say something in Parliament without it being immediately struck from the record - my own personal view is that if the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg clearly rules in a conflict between legal systems that Community law takes precedence over national legal systems, then that is the last word on the matter.
If that were not the case we would be on an extremely slippery slope towards the judicial disintegration of the European Communities and I would ask the honourable member to think about that in relation to his own personal convictions.
Question No 15 by Mr Medina Ortega (H-0237/97)
Subject: Common organization of the market in bananas
In view of the conclusions reached by the World Trade Organization panel as regards the common organization of the market in bananas, what action is the Council proposing to take in order to protect Community producers?
In reply to Mr Medina's questions I can say that, though our information is primarily from the media, the Council too has noted the interim report of the Banana Panel on the European Union's regime for banana imports.
The Council does not know for the moment what the status of this text is.
At any rate, the qualification of an 'interim report' which the authors themselves gave this document suggests that it is a provisional text which may yet be changed before the final document is completed.
So we should make the point that so far no definitive formal conclusion has been reached within the World Trade Organization (WTO) to the effect that the current Community regime on bananas is in violation of the rules. After all, the procedure is not yet completed.
Once the conclusions of the WTO Panel are known, the Council will of course study them with an eye to any consequences they may have for the Community.
The Council would also remind the House that already in 1995 the Commission put forward a proposal aimed at adapting the existing common organization of the market and that it has not yet been able to take a decision, until such time as the results of the WTO procedure are known.
Mr President of the Council, I am grateful for your reply but I would point out to you that in our experience when a question is not put at the right time, the Council or the Commission will say it has not been put at the right time.
I think it is one of today's worst-kept secrets that there exists a document on bananas by the group of World Trade Organization experts which virtually destroys the cement of the World Trade Organization.
And the worst thing is that the main reason for this group of experts' action was a request from a government which does not produce bananas, the United States Government.
And that same United States Government has not accepted the right of any group of WTO experts to discuss the Helms-Burton Law.
Those of us who have practised law know that the law lies in the procedural detail.
And in trade negotiations the current practice is retaliation, so could the Council consider possible retaliation against the United States Government in that if it does not accept the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organization on the Helms-Burton Law, the Community will not accept the jurisdiction of that organization on bananas?
I shall not take up Mr Medina's last suggestion, because in settling international disputes, if we tied everything to everything else, there would be no end to it.
That is one thing I know for sure.
But on this point I would suggest that we monitor carefully the procedure for WTO panels, because perhaps we are seeing problems before they occur.
We have here an interim report which was in principle reliable, which was put to the parties and which has been leaked.
But the parties still have a chance to comment on that report and perhaps on the basis of those comments the panel may change the report and the WTO disputes settlement procedure then gives a further opportunity of challenging any such verdict of the panel.
So I think it is too soon to be thinking already about direct legal measures against that verdict to be taken either by the Commission or the Council, let alone thinking in terms of reprisals or of starting a trade war.
Question No 16 by Mrs Izquierdo Rojo (H-0239/97)
Subject: Attendance by Libya at the Second Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Malta
In view of the wish expressed by Parliament in a number of resolutions, will any consideration be given to the possibility that Libya might be invited to attend the Second Euro-Mediterranean Conference, to be held in Malta on 15-16 April?
) The European Union stands by its position that Libya cannot expect to have normal relations with other states and to play a full part in international forums, including the Barcelona process, until such time as it complies with its obligations under the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.
Given that Libya has not so far complied with those obligations, there is no way that it can take part in the second EuroMediterranean ministerial conference.
I think it is regrettable that the Council has not listened to the European Parliament's repeated request for this to happen.
The Council's reply is disappointing and once again I must deplore the lack of autonomy and courage in the decisions of the Council of Ministers.
Parliament is asking for a Mediterranean country to be offered the prospect of participation in Euro-Mediterranean policy.
I must point out that, as a member of the great Arab Maghreb, that country, Libya, is part of the Maghreb Delegation to the European Parliament, and is working indirectly on Euro-Mediterranean policy here in this very building in Strasbourg, where more than one meeting has been held.
I sincerely believe this reply is a mistake, and I ask the Council of Ministers, between now and 15 and 16 April, the scheduled dates for the meeting in La Valetta, the second Euro-Mediterranean meeting, to open up this prospect.
The European Union can sometimes be very imaginative and could give replies of supreme ambiguity offering reasonable prospects of working with this country which may become very important to Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in the future.
I must remind Mrs Izquierdo Rojo of Security Council resolutions 731, 748 and 883 which she doubtless keeps under her pillow if she feels that way about Libya.
The point here is that these Security Council resolutions mention the suspicion of state-sponsored terrorism.
And in them the supreme body of the community of nations has said that the Libyan authorities must do everything possible to allay this suspicion.
Until that suspicion has been lifted I think the Council has every reason to act as it does.
If I have to talk of disappointments, then I am disappointed at the Libyan Government which is doing nothing to help allay this serious suspicion.
Question No 17 by Mr Gerard Collins (H-0245/97)
Subject: European Structural Funds after 1999
Have there been any discussions within the Council concerning the operation of the European Structural Funds after 1999 and, in particular, does the Council intend to forward guidelines to the Commission indicating the political priorities, notably unemployment levels, which should be taken on board by the Commission when preparing proposals for determining the qualifying criteria for Objective 1 status past 1999?
The European Union's structural policy after 1999 is not currently an issue.
And I cannot give the honourable member the information he asks for.
I would remind you that the European Community in Madrid - we were talking about it earlier - asked the Commission to make a thorough analysis as soon as possible of the European Union's financing system, so that immediately after the end of the Intergovernmental Conference a communication could be presented on the future financial framework of the Union after 31 December 1999, taking account of the prospect of enlargement.
So I suggest that we do not jump the gun and concentrate first on completing the Intergovernmental Conference.
After that the Council will be able to take due note of the Commission communication which I mentioned and which will then form the basis for further talks on, among other things, the future of the EU structural policy after 1999.
My thanks to Mr Patijn for his answer.
I accept everything he has said and I understand the reasons why he said what he said.
And I would like to put it to Mr Patijn that there is need for strong political direction from the Council of Ministers to the Commission, bearing in mind that there is unemployment to the tune of about 20 million in the European Union, which must surely rank as a number one political priority of the Union which has to be addressed in terms of planning for the period after 1999.
This issue should be addressed as a matter of urgency particularly if, as we would all wish, the European Union is to deal with this problem affecting citizens of the Union, and if the required credibility of the Union in the eyes of the people of the Member States is to be won back.
I am grateful to Mr Collins for understanding that the Council cannot say a great deal about structural policy after 1999.
The Council agrees that the whole question of boosting employment in the European Union also needs particularly careful consideration at Union level.
We are aware of that and I would not wish to wait till 1999 to see what the situation is.
I think that on the basis of the policy developed since the European Council in Essen we have the ability to make our current structural policy, under which dozens of billion ECU will be spent in the next few years, as relevant as possible to the fight against unemployment.
Mention has been made of regional pacts.
I think these are matters on which we can already act.
We must not be in too much a hurry to start the very important discussion on how we are going to organize our financial relationships in the light of enlargement in the next century.
I have a very specific and tangible question for the Council.
It is as follows: whenever we finance the Structural Funds or pay general fees to the Union, I have long criticised the fact that the GDP fee is based on GDP alone without any adjustment for buying power in the community.
The calculations which I have made in this respect show that there would be considerable changes if we were to make the natural adjustments and take notice of the level of buying power in each country.
I understand the difficulties in getting this communication through to the Commission but I would like to ask the Council the following: Is it not possible for the Council to put forward the view that even Structural Fund charges should include a measurement of buying power so that Gross National Product can be adjusted in relation to this?
I am not sure I understood the honourable member's question properly.
Do I gather that he is arguing in favour of using real purchasing power parities rather than gross national product as the basis for contributions to the European Union? The ways in which the European Community's expenditure is financed are laid down in the Treaty.
These are firstly import duties, secondly agricultural levies and thirdly VAT.
Gross national product only comes into it for the remaining part.
That is stipulated in the Treaty.
I as a Dutch delegate to the Intergovernmental Conference am not aware of any proposal, even from the Swedish Government, to change that.
I can confirm that a change of policy of the kind you suggest is not currently under consideration.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank the President of the Council for attending and for his answers, and I would inform you that as the time allocated for Question Time to the Council has been used up, Questions Nos 18 to 29 will be answered in writing.
Question Time is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Petrol and diesel quality - motor vehicle emissions
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0096/97 by Mr Mamère, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the quality of petrol and diesel fuels and amending Council Directive 93/12/EEC (COM(96)0248 - C4-0462/96); -A4-0116/97 by Mr Lange, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to measures to be taken against air pollution by emissions from motor vehicles and amending Council Directives 70/156/EEC and 70/220/EEC; -A4-0099/97 by Mr Eisma, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a future strategy for the control of atmospheric emissions from road transport taking into account the results from the Auto/Oil Programme (COM(96)0248 - C4-0492/96); -A4-0117/97 by Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a Community Strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars and improve fuel economy (COM(95)0689 - C4-0015/96).
Madam President, although the report I am speaking to is independent of the reports by Mr Lange, Mr Mamère and Mr Eisma, it must be recognized that together they form a political and environmental package of great merit.
The first proposal we presented in the Committee on the Environment was weaker than the final proposal.
We have accepted amendments from colleagues in the Socialist Group, the Green Group and even the Group of the European People's Party, and as a result I think the report has been enriched.
There are perhaps some sentences that I do not entirely go along with, but as the report was unanimously approved in the Committee on the Environment, I prefer not to dwell on them - for example there are words like 'rejection' of voluntary agreements which I do not support and which could have been worded differently.
But as the report was approved unanimously at the last meeting of the committee, I intend to defend it here.
All the rapporteurs for this package of measures agree on certain points: these relate to air quality, carbon dioxide emissions, and fuel quality.
And we all criticize the fact that more account has been taken of the criteria of industrialists and conversations with them than the views of experts and non-governmental organizations.
Certain points need highlighting.
First, the European Commission itself believes that if energy measures are not taken, the Rio Conference commitment - to be reviewed in New York in June - to stabilize CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000 cannot be met.
This objective seems to be difficult to fulfil, so the Commission's proposal seems weak because it does not specify any legislative measures which might ensure that we achieve these objectives.
The first criticism is on voluntary agreements.
In this Parliament we frequently debate repeated non-compliance with Community legislation.
And if Community legislation is not complied with, it must be doubtful that voluntary agreements will be complied with.
So in the report from the Committee on the Environment, we propose that, in accordance with the provisions of the European Commission's own legislative programme for 1994, a directive be drawn up to cover CO2 reductions, making compliance obligatory.
And we propose that it be presented before 1998.
We also propose that there should be a legislative measure covering a reasonable tax proposal.
And when we say reasonable, we mean we want to avoid burdening the worse off.
The proposal for immediate renewal of vehicles in circulation and the proposal to tax fuel indiscriminately - put forward in an amendment discussed in the Committee on the Environment - make no distinction between those least able and most able to afford them in Europe.
We propose that there should be a legislative proposal which, in short, favours those who pollute least. In the future, when there are cars which can run for a hundred kilometres on three litres of petrol, those who use more utilitarian cars, lighter and less polluting, should have tax exemptions.
And taxes should be increased on those who have more powerful cars which pollute more.
We think such a legislative proposal should be put before this Parliament.
The Commission should not consider it ambitious to aspire to reduce consumption to five litres of fuel for one hundred kilometres, because we believe there is evidence that this is possible - for example, the car proposed by Greenpeace, the ' Twingo Smile' .
We also believe that these measures should be complemented by a definite reduction in fuel consumption through measures which I recognize affect the Member States and the principle of subsidiarity in some cases, but which are of the utmost importance: for example, speed reduction; massive use of public transport - and for this to happen it must be improved; review of land use.
So there are a number of measures the Commission cannot always take and they have to be designed for Member States to take, but they can help reduce CO2 emissions.
Finally, Madam President, Mr Commissioner, if the amendments to the four reports are accepted in general, I believe this package of measures will take us towards the objective of reducing CO2 emissions, transforming the polluted air we now have in Europe into purer air and making fuel less polluting.
Madam President, I am giving the opinion for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on fuel standards and specifications.
I should say, at the outset, that the committee achieved a high level of political consensus on the opinion produced and, in general, there was a welcome for the Auto/Oil Programme as a step in the right direction, whatever misgivings various members may have had about its detail.
In respect of the plans for fuel specifications in the year 2000, the Economic Committee proposes limited reductions in sulphur content targets as against those limits recommended in the Auto/Oil Programme.
We were - one might use the phrase - ' less ambitious' in this regard than the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, though one could pick some other phrases as well to describe the level of discretion the committee chose to employ on those limits.
In respect of the year 2005, the Economic Committee, anticipating an Auto/Oil 2 Programme, suggested Annexes III and IV and sets out in these annexes indicative standards that it would like to see taken into account in an Auto/Oil 2 Programme.
This differs from the emphasis in the Environment Committee, which would prefer, at this stage, to set a mandatory standard right now in respect of the longer term.
In respect of fiscal incentives, the Economic Committee is of the strong opinion that we should employ them, especially in this fuel area, through differentiation of excise taxation.
This could facilitate in Member States, subject to procedures to ensure coherence of the internal market, the introduction of more advanced fuels than those specified as the minimum essential.
Indeed, I note and welcome the Environment Committee's support for this proposition.
The Economic Committee spent considerable time in trying to develop an appreciation of the cost differential impact by Member State and noted that there were considerable differentials in cost for the refining industry between northern and southern countries.
Having regard to this, the committee recommended a limited transitional period for southern states, because we have to be realistic, as well as ambitious, in setting targets.
Overall, I would say our approach dealt more with what I might call the 'political' chemistry than the fuel chemistry in terms of the focus of our concerns.
It is clear from the Commission's communication that the Council is quite divided on this.
I believe it is proper that we in Parliament should not seek to make the best the enemy of the good in terms of possible solutions.
The Economic Committee proposals are realistic and, at second reading, they will be closer to the ultimate centre of gravity of this Institution's bargaining with the Council.
Madame President, first of all I should like to thank all my colleagues for their excellent cooperation.
We have drawn up opinions and reports in a number of committees in a good spirit of mutual understanding.
On behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I should like to thank in particular Mr Lange, who is responsible for the parliamentary report on exhaust emissions from private cars.
It is he who, in the Committee on the Environment took over the relevant proposal from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I should like to draw your attention once again to the fact that we are now being asked to take a decision on binding emission standards for 2005, rather than indicative standards, as proposed by the Commission.
These objectives, criticized by some as too stringent, can be achieved, provided that the appropriate means are employed.
In this connection, in all its opinions and reports Parliament has strongly advocated tax incentives.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy considered the issue in the light of industrial competitiveness as well, and noted that if the European automobile industry does not develop new technologies rapidly, the Japanese will.
It is also very important to tackle the issue of fuel quality, since this has a prompt impact on the quality of the air.
The Swedish and Finnish Governments have commissioned a study which shows that the petroleum industry has overestimated the cost of producing cleaner fuels.
The results of that study have also been presented in Parliament.
All in all, the Commission should revise its approach and base its own proposals on the best available technology.
The result achieved now by Parliament during the first reading will provide an extremely solid basis for the subsequent readings.
Madam President, I am the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism regarding the measure for which Mr Lange is the rapporteur, but I should like with deep satisfaction to express my appreciation of all the reports presented, from Mr Mamère's to Mr Eisma's and that of Mrs González Álvarez, in addition, of course, to the Lange report.
As I agree with everything that has been said so far, I should just like to go into a number of points in greater detail and stress how important it is for the European Parliament not to confine itself to a cost-effectiveness analysis, but emphasize the need for a cost-benefit analysis linked to the relationship with the internalization of external costs, a matter which we have, moreover, already discussed.
We must also give due emphasis to the social, as well as environmental, importance of energy saving and reduction of emissions, rather than to the speed or acceleration capacity of motor vehicles.
For this reason I should like to expand upon certain aspects of my opinion.
Firstly, it is simply not enough to contemplate motor vehicles that can run according to Auto/Oil Programme criteria for only 80, 000 kilometres; we are proposing at least 160, 000 kilometres.
Secondly, we believe that engines should not only allow reduced consumption and improved performance in terms of reducing pollution, but that new engines should be envisaged which are capable of running on new, non-polluting sources of energy, such as solar power or hydrogenic energy sources.
Lastly, it is important for on-board diagnostics systems to be based on minimum criteria standardized at European level, to operate for both diesel and petrol engines and to be designed in such a way as to ensure monitoring and real control.
Madam President, my opinion deals with the future strategy for the control of atmospheric pollution.
The Auto/Oil Programme has been rightly described as ground-breaking with the two industries, the automobile and the oil industries, working together.
Similarly, we in EMAC worked cooperatively to produce our three opinions, finding common positions which enabled us to gain support from colleagues in our committee.
I have to say that was no easy matter for EMAC has at its very heart industrial policy.
We therefore sought a very fine balance between costs to industry as opposed to costs to health.
The outcome, in my view, was a strengthening of the Commission's proposal to a realistic level with a sensible compromise between cost-effectiveness and the best available technology.
Cold start procedures, on-board diagnostics, fiscal incentives for scrappage schemes and overall improvement for fuel quality were all included in my opinion and supported by the Economic Committee.
Such high standards give us two bonuses: cleaner air in Europe and achieving the leading edge of environmental technology.
With such standards we will be able to sell our cars to all world markets and set a standard for all our international competitors.
I am happy to tell you that I made a contribution, albeit small, to these major reports.
But this very week councils in my constituency produced an excellent leaflet entirely in line with Parliament's report, making solid proposals for better air quality in Northamptonshire.
Here again is a fine example of European legislation being in tune with local concerns.
If Parliament and the Commission, as I hope, endorse these reports our 360 million citizens will enjoy cleaner, healthier air and lives will be saved which could otherwise be lost.
It is an admirable objective, a lasting achievement and, in fact, legislation we can all be proud of.
Thank you Madam President.
I have to say right at the outset that I am representing my colleague, Giles Chichester, who is the rapporteur on behalf of the Committee on Research, Energy and Technology.
He has prepared some words for me. They are brilliant, perceptive and highly technical.
I can take absolutely no credit for them.
Mr Chichester has had to go to London because, as the Commissioners may be aware, there is an event on 1 May for which we are preparing in the United Kingdom and Mr Chichester's presence is absolutely essential for that.
Here is Mr Chichester's speech: It is important to recognize the progress towards cleaner air that has already been achieved in the reduction of vehicle emissions.
The Auto/Oil 2000 targets for much lower emissions are a further significant step from the smelly 70s.
It is also important to remember that these measures are aimed at improving air quality in urban areas where the concentration of vehicles is greatest.
The question is: has the Commission set the levels for reduced emissions at the right values or has it been too soft on the fuel and vehicle industries? In particular, are the target values for sulphur in parts per million for petrol and diesel vehicles still too high at 200 and 350?
Under the criteria of cost-effectiveness and reasonableness as well as technical feasibility, the answer is probably yes for 2000, but we should await the review set for 1998 before taking further decisions about further reductions for 2005. Those who want 50 parts per million regardless of cost or technical feasibility must recognize that it is the consumer who will pay for all these measures and that we should proceed on the basis of properly researched and balanced proposals.
Madam President, I wish to give my support to the proposals put forward by the rapporteurs involved in the Auto/Oil Programme, and also to Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez, in her communication on CO2 and cars.
The proposals may appear radical in comparison to the Commission proposal but, in fact, they are only a starting point for future negotiations with the Council.
If you look at what is being currently proposed in other parts of the world, notably Japan and the USA, they are reasonable and comparable with what is being suggested there.
We are debating a package tonight of which all parts are necessary if we are to achieve real progress in all areas, not only protection of the environment and the public health of Europe's citizens, but also economic development and ensuring Europe's future economic development and progress.
The package of measures proposed tonight will give us cleaner fuel.
That will enable cleaner cars to be developed and also, probably, smaller, more fuel-efficient cars.
And that will not just be acceptable in Europe, it will give us cars that are acceptable in other parts of the world to which we can sell and export them.
It will also give us a future in the two very important industries that we cannot ignore and ensure Europe's future prosperity.
We cannot ignore the fact that this package of measures will give our people healthier air to breathe and call, hopefully, a halt to CO2 emissions.
We can also expect that we will do two other things to two important industries.
It will push them in a direction which currently their investment managers do not want to take: investment in new technology, investment in new equipment that will keep them ahead of developments in other parts of the world to ensure that they can provide the products required by the global marketplace.
The investment required to do that is substantial, but necessary.
If we examine the costs, they will be recouped from the millions of motorists that will drive these cars, refuel these cars, that will buy these cars, not just in Europe but in other parts of the world at an average cost of ECU 10 per year, per motorist.
That cannot be a bad deal; it is a small cost for protecting our environment, the health of our people and the future prosperity of Europe.
I urge the Commission to accept these proposals.
Mr President, I have been the rapporteur for the technical committee on the issue of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
It is important to make it clear that a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from private cars will not be achieved through the use of a single measure within a certain limited area.
On the contrary, the technical committee wants to draw your attention to the need to look at the issue as a whole.
A number of measures are required in order to achieve an acceptable environmental solution.
These include taxes, legislation, fewer cars, new types of fuel etc.
The research committee emphasises that the nuts and bolts of these measures is investment in research and technical development.
These issues were not handled in any particular depth in the communication from the Commission, but technical development in this area is far from static, as certain unnamed companies and people are trying to make out.
There are already examples of cars which can, by a very wide margin, meet the requirements which we in the European Parliament have previously set and we would remind the Commission of this.
The community strategy from the Commission is a welcome first step but it is far from adequate from a slightly more long term perspective.
It is important to point out that the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions must continue after the year 2005, with a new goal for the year 2010, one for 2015 and so on.
This is necessary for the European car industry's long term plans and also to enable the EU to achieve the necessary environmental standards which have been set.
So we would remind the Commission that, before the fifth framework programme for research, it must put forward a strategic plan for research into a reduction in the use of fuel in vehicles.
This must contain not only short term solutions but also basic long term strategies for changes in technology, function, materials and production techniques.
Many of the proposals which have been put forward by the technical committee are to be found in one form or another in the report presented by Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez today.
Madam President, I have drawn up the opinion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the report by Mrs González Álvarez.
It may well be helpful just for me to say that, in this confusing mixture.
In combating CO2 emissions, we obviously have to look at the transport sector, because it is after all responsible for nearly a quarter of these emissions, most of which are caused by private cars.
If we are eventually to move towards a sustainable society, the use of cars will have to be dramatically reduced, while at the same time cars will have to be made a great deal more efficient.
However, it is an illusion to think that 'end-of-pipe' technology will rid us of CO2 emissions and so could also provide a solution to the climate change which these emissions are going to produce.
As long as we use fossil fuels, emissions will be the result, and that is why an active land use planning and urbanization policy should be developed to reduce the distances involved and make collective public transport and bicycles more attractive, since by this means 50 % of car journeys can easily be avoided because they are shorter than five kilometres.
Also, some serious targets must now finally be set for the car industry.
Although the technology exists to produce extremely efficient cars which consume three litres of petrol per 100 kilometres, cars are being given bigger and bigger engines and the CO2 emissions are simply increasing.
These are measures which are of genuine use.
But also the introduction and enforcement of a speed limit of 100 km/h - which you may be amazed to learn the Committee on Transport has approved - and campaigns to promote suitable driving and mobility behaviour can make an important contribution.
Reducing CO2 emissions in the transport sector should not just be a matter of fine words, but be developed into a policy at European level.
We have the policy instruments to do this - what we still need is the political will, both from the Commission and the Council.
Madam President, I originally drafted the opinion on fuels for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy but now speak for the Socialist Group.
Yes, the methodology of the Auto/Oil Programme was innovative but it had two problems: firstly, it took a long time, so that recent worries about, for example, particulates were not covered; secondly, the European Parliament was involved at a very late stage.
The European Parliament does not operate on a knee-jerk, reflex system.
We have done considerable research before coming to the conclusions before us tonight.
We used our own research establishment - STOA - to produce for us a paper which indicated low sulphur fuels are essential.
We held a hearing, and other authoritative studies came to the same conclusion.
I want to speak about one thing only - the need for lower sulphur levels, particularly in diesel - for one reason: this would save tens of thousands of lives and would prevent many people from spending their lives gasping from respiratory illness.
Particulates, not identified at the start of the Auto/Oil Programme, are a major contributor to those problems.
The oil companies disagree with the conclusions of Parliament on the grounds of costs.
Let me say this to them: first of all, low sulphur fuels would be more competitive.
Secondly, in any case, they have to refurbish and invest in their refineries continuously.
Thirdly, the cost, as passed to customers, is not exorbitant.
Fourthly, new car technology is only possible with low sulphur fuels.
Fifthly, those Member States particularly hard-hit could have a derogation.
Sixthly, and most importantly, you have an immediate effect when you change the fuels.
For these reasons, the Socialist Group strongly supports the proposals of Mr Mamère.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking tonight in place of my colleague Gérard d'Aboville who had to jump ship at the last minute and asked me to take the tiller instead of him.
Polluting emissions caused by vehicles and the fight for better air quality are disturbing problems calling for long-term vision. That is the subject of the Auto-Oil programme.
The approach is dispassionate, founded on logical and scientific reasoning, which will make it easier to understand and defend the European Commission's positions.
I want to discuss the Mamère report, first of all.
The sulphur content of petrol is currently 400 ppm and the Commission proposes to reduce it to 200 ppm, which is already an important effort, cutting the current threshold by 50 %.
To reduce the threshold even further, to 50 ppm, as the rapporteur demands, does not take account of the cost-effectiveness relationship in the search for better air quality, because above 200 ppm this reduction involves considerable investment for a minimal reduction of emissions.
Other factors should also be considered, for example inspection, maintenance, elimination of old vehicles, improvement in traffic conditions, use of liquefied oil gas or natural gas for public transport, not forgetting electric vehicles of course, which are non-pollutant and silent.
As regards diesel fuel, the first difficulty lies in the sulphur content.
The Commission has set a threshold of 350 ppm, instead of the current 500 ppm, which represents an important effort and a substantial advance.
The rapporteur is asking for a threshold of 50 to 30 ppm, which would also involve excessive cost without appreciable benefit.
So our group asks for the rejection of amendments 42 to 49 (except 46) and maintenance of amendments 51, 52 and 59.
As regards the points raised in the Lange report, it seems unreasonable, indeed counter-productive, to force the motor industry to adopt stricter standards for a lesser result.
In our view the Commission's proposals on the standards for 2000, based on a cost-effectiveness analysis, represent a good compromise between the imperatives of economic efficiency and the indispensable objectives linked to the improvement of air quality.
Madam President, in preparing the new post-2000 emission standards, the Commission has sat down with the automobile and oil industries and established a constructive dialogue.
This new approach has taken longer than expected, so that the Commission has proved unable to meet the deadline laid down by Directive 94/12/EEC.
If the Commission itself does not meet the deadlines, what can we then expect from the Member States? I think it is important for the new requirements to be implemented without delay.
The fiscal advantages for clean vehicles could then be introduced some two years before the new standards take effect. We already have some types of cars which meet much stricter standards than are laid down by the existing legislation.
As regards the standards themselves, both for cars and fuels, the Auto/Oil Programme is a disappointment.
First of all, the background level chosen for establishing permitted air pollution is much too low.
Taking the mean value of pollution within an area of 4 km2 fails to do justice to public health.
What is the sense in opting for a measurement network and mean values, when in reality very high concentrations of benzene, nitrogen oxides and sulphur oxides are recorded in places where there are large numbers of people, such as narrow shopping streets?
For that reason alone, we need to make the emission standards stricter.
But there are technical reasons too.
The automobile industry has known for years how to make substantial cuts in emissions.
What was lacking was the necessary legal force.
Much more can be done when it becomes a matter of necessity.
The same applies in principle to refining.
Here we have to deal with a substantial overcapacity in old refineries.
It may be tough, but the new requirements for fuels are also a good reason for stopping motor fuel production in the older plants.
It emerged from the hearing that the sulphur content, in particular, of both petrol and diesel could be much lower.
As long as our mobility continues to increase, we must reduce the emissions of pollutants, not forgetting CO2 .
I therefore fully support the reports on the Auto/Oil Programme.
Madam President, at a time when the European motor industry is shaken by unprecedented upheavals, there is no question of our being accomplices to its demise and the ensuing social cataclysm, especially in our country where it represents 10 % of jobs.
For our part, we have always criticized the current free trade system; we have always had this economic system imposed on us in areas where competition is distorted and we have suffered.
The motor industry provides an explicit example.
By keeping the currency low, the American, Japanese and Korean governments are giving their manufacturers considerable assistance.
The American government goes even further by massively supporting research.
If we accept certain ludicrous standards contained in the report, we risk killing off the French and European motor industries.
Some of these provisions are technically impossible.
Furthermore, we have been informed of this.
I also want to remind Parliament that emission standards for new vehicles have been the subject of seven successive sets of measures since 1970, decimating emissions from private cars.
And in addition, Madam President, we do not really have a report on the fact that vehicles only pollute towns and there are many other forms of pollution.
There are other solutions too, as Mr Pompidou specified just now, and I do not have much time to mention them: old vehicles, further research into fuel, public transport.
So I think we should be more reasonable today and consider the environment but also oppose certain provisions in this report which go too far.
Madam President, we support the position of the Committee on the Environment of the European Parliament for four essential reasons: competitiveness, public health, improving the environment and enhancing the role of the European Parliament.
Competitiveness because it is essential to develop the clean technologies more swiftly if we want to keep European industry competitive on a world scale.
Whilst the Commission and some elements in the oil industry are pleased that the sulphur content is fixed at 220 ppm for petrol and at 350 ppm for diesel, Japan has already announced a cut of 50 ppm in the near future, which will require new catalytic converters which will reduce the emission of gases into the atmosphere.
Reasons of public health because we think it is necessary to set time limits for the standardization of lead-free petrol, in view also of the universally recognized health hazard.
As regards the Commission's original proposal, we think that an effort should be made, both as regards questions of sulphur and for questions of lead-free petrol, to strike a balance which provides an acceptable exemption for those Member States who do not have the time or the money or rather more time and investment to alter their refineries.
A third point I should like to stress is that this initiative is, taken as a whole, an initiative to improve the environment and this Parliament had two possible courses: either to adopt a more cautious position, along the lines of the Commissions' initial proposal, and thus lose its leverage for applying pressure in talks and strengthening its role, or, as it to opt, as the rapporteur rightly did, particularly with the Mamère, Lange and Eimer reports and, as the Committee on the Environment rightly did, to opt for a tougher position, thus making it necessary to hold talks on the procedure to be followed.
Madam President, we welcome the reports today being debated in Parliament on the future of the motor vehicle, which forms part of the future of the economy, technology and the labour market.
We are, however, requiring motor vehicle manufacturers to take on additional commitments: we are asking them to assume social responsibilities as well.
The environment is, perhaps, the first of these commitments and, fortunately, it is increasingly becoming a fundamental consideration in the activities of the automobile industry.
The Auto/Oil programme which we are debating today basically covers three points: a reduction in motor vehicle emissions to combat pollution, an improvement in fuel quality and control of emissions from road transport.
All these reports, by and large, call for solutions to be identified to provide increasingly environment-friendly motor vehicles and fuels.
We agree, of course, with these objectives, but we have to point out that, at times, a desperate search for improvements can end up being counterproductive.
The Commission has drawn up some good documents and some reasonable proposals.
The rapporteurs have to some extent distorted the Commission's proposals, imagining a future for motor vehicles which started yesterday.
If technical lead times are not respected, costs are increased, leading to a doubly negative result.
Increased vehicle costs slow down sales and renewal of the vehicle fleet, and lead to a crisis in planned investments and consequently employment, without creating new jobs.
In the last 20 years pollution caused by motor vehicles has fallen by 90 %.
A further nine per cent can be eliminated over the next eight years, at a reasonable cost.
For the remaining one per cent, we cannot demand very short deadlines and costs which, ultimately, the consumer has to shoulder.
For these reasons we are critical of some of the proposals made by Mr Mamère and Mr Lange and confirm that we are favourable to the Commission's position as regards most of the programme.
We are critical because, in the final analysis, certain proposals make neither economic nor environmental sense, and fail to take account of other fundamental issues.
There is no mention of electrically-powered motor vehicles or methanepowered vehicles with the combined petrol/methane bi-fuel system.
There is no mention of fiscal incentives for the purchase of a new vehicle, even though it is well known that there are still too many old vehicles on European roads.
In Italy, the average age of a car is 14 years, and, what is more, companies purchasing cars cannot claim exemption from VAT at 19 %.
And yet there are calls to meet impossible deadlines, to carry out tests at -7o , when the temperature in two-thirds of Europe does not fall below zero all year round, or to install OBD in diesel engine cars, which would mean changing all the industrial production systems.
We do not want stricter standards than those called for by the Commission.
The environment is improving without constraints being applied, and without costs which have to be borne by motor vehicle and fuel users.
In short, we intend to adhere to the principle of sustainable development.
Madam President, there are only two ways to improve air quality.
Either change the technical standards for vehicles, or use less polluting fuels, and they are more sensible solutions, after all, than banning traffic every other day.
The cost of the first option is exorbitant, even if we only consider the renewal of the vehicles in circulation.
The second seems more plausible to me and would have immediate impact.
But two groups are in confrontation.
The European car manufacturers and the advocates of bio-fuels campaign for stricter standards.
The oil industry is hostile to that.
So we must research bio-fuels because, like other oxygenated substances, they are capable of, first, improving combustion conditions through the oxygen ratio, secondly, reducing the greenhouse effect linked to the carbon-dioxide content of the atmosphere, thirdly, reducing the sulphur content of diesel and the emission of particles, fourthly, improving the octane of petrol, and fifthly, limiting the aromatics content of petrol, as these substances are highly carcinogenic.
The development of bio-fuels can only happen if excise duties are adjusted.
Contrary to all environmental logic, France, which wants to create a lower excise duty, is finding itself thwarted by the European Commission.
This very morning, I believe, the College of Commissioners refused to accept general reduced rates for bio-fuels.
The amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection will lead to better air quality and encourage the use of bio-fuels, a more effective agricultural outlet than uncultivated land - commonly called fallow and not very respectful of our desire for harmonious land development.
Madam President, the Lange report on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, in which other draftsmen have been involved giving their committees' opinions, is extremely important, as may be inferred from the number of committees involved.
Not least among these is the Committee on Transport, to which I belong, along with Mr Tamino, who is also a draftsman for the Committee's opinion, and whom, along with the others, I should like to congratulate on his excellent work on a complex, topical issue, namely lesspolluting motor vehicles.
The rapporteur and draftsmen all concur in deploring that the Commission failed to involve technical specialists and experts from the various Member States in the research; however, on the whole they welcome the Commission's proposals.
At this point I should like to quote from the various reports; suffice it to say, however, that after examining these reports and the proposals made and opinions expressed, I agree with the view that the costs projected by the Commission for the measures to be implemented to make motor vehicles less polluting seem too high.
Indeed, this is only to be expected bearing in mind that the data comes from the industry, which has a vested interest in overestimating.
Member States are asked to grant tax relief and other economic incentives to the industry to promote the use of environment-friendly engines and fuels.
We should look at this more closely: we have only to think of the criticism levelled at the Commission by the rapporteurs for its failure to include the low temperature and cold-start test procedure in the proposals.
We are also being asked to reduce the sulphur content of fuels substantially in order to restrict emissions of particulate matter in diesel engines and ensure the optimal functioning of catalytic converters in petrol and diesel engines.
I regard as important the idea that there is a need to take prompt action to achieve a drastic reduction in fuel consumption by motor vehicles in a broad sense, by 2005 under the Auto/Oil Programme, with a maximum consumption of five litres per hundred kilometres. This is to restrict emissions of CO2 , which is a prime cause of pollution and the greenhouse effect.
I should like to hark back to Mr Tamino's opinion and say that I agree with his request for us to welcome the amendments intended to promote cost/benefits, energy-saving and reduction of emissions as opposed to speed and acceleration capacity in motor vehicles, and to promote the use of renewable energy sources for vehicles.
My report, now at the codecision stage, on the inspection of motor vehicles and their trailers also took that approach.
We in the Alleanza Nazionale will vote in favour of amendments designed to achieve that objective.
Madam President, the Auto/Oil Programme is an excellent initiative for an integrated strategy designed to reduce atmospheric pollution and based on a different approach to traffic management, technical improvements and measures relating to motor vehicle maintenance and fuel quality specifications.
Indeed, atmospheric pollution causes serious illnesses and therefore triggers high social costs, and, unfortunately, despite the initiatives which have been duly taken in the last few years, levels are pollution are increasing, especially in urban areas, as a result of traffic expansion.
The measures introduced by these new directives undoubtedly imply costs for manufacturers, and, in a Europe united on a basis of solidarity and egalitarianism, these should not impose a greater burden on some countries and than on others, bearing in mind, for instance, sources of petroleum supplies.
But the guiding principle must be protection of the environment and the health of our citizens, who can only make their voices heard through their representatives in the only democratically elected Community institution.
In the legislative process the most suitable solutions and the appropriate and necessary timescales will need to be established, but we have to be clear that there is an obstacle and we must not be afraid to tackle it.
Madam President, on behalf of my group I have been asked to comment particularly on the Eisma report.
I would simply like to say that I welcome the report which sets the scene against which the Lange and the Mamère reports must be regarded.
The Eisma report makes it clear that the European Parliament is not prepared to give blanket acceptance to a strategy worked out by the Commission and the industries concerned.
In fact we are in the rather curious position that many of those who have made representations to us seem to believe that there is absolutely no need to alter the Auto/Oil programme in any respect whatsoever.
That is an unrealistic view with which to come to the Parliament.
Members of the European Parliament will want to probe the validity of the Auto/Oil programme's proposals in the light of the priority which we all want to give to the health of this generation and the future prospects of human life on earth.
Together with Lange and Mamère these European Parliament reports therefore represent, I have to say - not as a trade unionist - a sort of trades union maximum first bid and it is now up to the Commission and the Auto/Oil industries to show MEPs, if they can, exactly where they consider the Parliament's amendments are excessive.
Colleagues should be aware that very high standards will probably call into being very lengthy derogation periods in certain countries.
We also ignore at our peril the points made by Mr Pompidou and Mr Garosci and some of the Members on my left but politically on the Parliament's right.
Those points have to be taken into account.
Two personal points if I may.
Through my connection with the Peugeot company in the United Kingdom I bring some knowledge of the auto industry to this debate and I must emphasize that it is in Europe's interest to have a modern car industry in place giving people jobs but also meeting increasingly stringent emission standards.
Some of the amendments, particularly in the Lange report, require the car industry to conform to very high standards without any particular justification on the basis of gains in air quality.
This is an important point made by Mr Pompidou and we should remember it.
Secondly, a minor point but one which has excited a lot of interest in my country, and I suspect in other countries, is the proposal by the European Commission to ban the sale of all leaded petrol by the year 2000.
I at least have received many representations from the owners of classic cars which can only run on leaded petrol.
Today I have received from the Commission staff a very useful paper justifying this and setting out the whole background and I think allaying the fears of classic car and vintage car owners to some extent.
I only regret that information could not have been available earlier.
We look forward to what the Commission has to say but I would sound a note of warning.
One thing that is quite clear to me is that the Parliament is very, very under-resourced as regards the necessary research with which to back up the points which are made in Lange and Mamère.
I regard the STOA report as completely unreadable and virtually useless to any Member of the House.
There are copies available over at distribution if anybody wants to have a copy of it.
So we look forward to the Commission's reply and if the arguments of Mr Alber, Mr Lange and others are right then clearly Mrs Bjerregaard will accept all the amendments put forward by the Parliament because there can be no other alternative.
We therefore wait with interest to see what Mrs Bjerregaard has to say.
Madam President, there are at least five factors to be considered in the whole operation to improve the environment proposed in the Auto/Oil Programme.
First, the social and human costs of the current level of pollution; second, the objectives to be set; third, the methodology for achieving them; fourth, the deadlines for achieving them; and, fifth, the economic cost to the consumer and industry, and ultimately to society.
We disagree with the Mamère report on the time factor.
We agree on the other factors, but we disagree with the deadlines set in the Mamère report.
Consequently, the Spanish socialists will vote for the Lange report but against the Mamère report because strengthening the objectives for the year 2000 and already setting a second set of objectives for 2005 means that for some countries - including mine - those objectives will not only be very expensive, but virtually unattainable, not to mention producing very serious alterations in supply or geopolitical changes in the market for crude.
Finally, having announced that negative vote, I want to add two points.
The first is that this vote against the Mamère report implies agreement with the deadlines established by the Commission in its proposal for a directive.
In our view the Commission has done serious work, not only from the technical point of view, but also in the political field, and obtained a difficult consensus.
And secondly, the Commission is on the right road and we urge the Commission to evaluate the results automatically a year after this directive comes into force, and to set the second level of objectives as a function of that.
Madam President, I should like to start by saying something about the CO2 question.
I am quite amazed that the Commission should send us a communication about the matter of the CO2 problems in car engineering.
Because I was actually under the impression that this was a classic part of the auto-oil programme.
But if you read through the Commission's programme then you find out why it isn't part of the auto-oil programme, because the Commission is not actually proposing anything except to say that it believes a voluntary agreement is the panacea in this particular sector, starting from Europe.
That can't possibly be right, because voluntary agreements need framework data provided by administrative law, and the Commission proposes no such data.
I must sound a warning note against introducing voluntary agreements without these framework data in Europe.
That is precisely what will lead to the serious distortions of competition that we rightly fear.
At the most, then, voluntary agreements come at the end of the scale.
Then I could quite well image such things.
We need a phased plan for limit values, as far as CO2 is concerned, going beyond the year 2005 and as far as the year 2010.
I could imagine that tax incentives might be a way forward here.
The car concept has got off to a good start.
We have been able to get the contracting parties sitting round a table.
We have been giving the car industry a hard time in recent years, and I think the industry has done a great deal.
But it takes two to tango, and the oil industry dropped out of the dance after a while, Commissioner.
That broke the partnership, and the result of the broken partnership lies before you: a boring auto-oil concept that leads nowhere.
We took off like a tiger, and the Commission's truly lamentable paper has turned our tiger into a rug.
That must not be the aim of this Parliament.
We will change this auto-oil programme, with the corrections made by so many Members, until we think it holds some promise for the future.
I am perfectly willing to talk about transition periods.
The parameters for the exhaust values, and for the fuel values, must be met.
But I am quite prepared to grant transitional periods to those countries, now and in the future, that cannot meet the parameters quite as quickly.
What was the actual driving force behind this programme? As far as I can see, it seems to have been shareholder value.
We will change this programme so that the driving force behind it is the future and innovation.
Madam President, Europe has major problems to overcome at present: unemployment, environmental pollution and many others, too.
The way to solve these problems, without a doubt, is for industrial production to be made environmentally compatible, turning out products that can be sold on the world markets, relying on the ability of the European workers to come up with innovative ideas and technically sound solutions.
The auto-oil programme is a project along these lines, and I believe the objective can be achieved if the amendments proposed by Parliament in the Lange, Mamère and Eisma reports are accepted as they stand.
I should like to thank all three rapporteurs for their efforts, and I would also like to point out that things like a car that covers 100 kilometres on three litres of fuel were still a joke only a few years ago.
People used to think it was impossible to achieve such levels of reduction and innovation.
The Mamère report deals with fuels, and I believe some very important decisions can be taken here, because a better fuel in a less good engine brings an immediate improvement in air quality.
But '3 litre' cars, motor vehicles that run better on less fuel, are only going to be a practical possibility if we can also improve the fuels.
This improving of fuel quality, incidentally, is one of the points where the better environmental standards in the three new Member States might be achieved.
That would at least be a step towards an adjustment in the other direction.
Regarding the strategies proposed by Mr Eisma, the essential thing is for these strategies not just to be described, not just for the industry to be given a clear framework, but for the revision and implementation to be equally functional.
No good legislation ever comes about without revision, and we will only be able to achieve the binding values that Parliament has proposed for 2005 if we keep a constant eye on how everything is being implemented.
Madame President, the proposal for a directive on fuels is satisfactory in principle, since it seeks to bring about improvements in the quality of the air and to protect people against atmospheric pollution.
In Finland, very substantial, and successful, efforts have been made to encourage the use of lead-free petrol and I can tell you that the quality of Finnish fuels already exceeds the proposed standards.
However, the proposal for a directive completely disregards climatic conditions.
It takes no account of the specific situation of Finland as the northernmost country in the European Union, the coldest and the one with the widest temperature disparities.
In the proposal for a directive, summer begins on 1 April and ends on 30 September.
I am pleased to see that the amendments I tabled in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy concerning derogations with regard to the winter and summer periods have been taken into account in the form of amendments tabled by the Green Group.
In April, in Strasbourg, it is summer.
In southern Finland, spring may already be fairly well advanced, but in northern Finland, i.e. more than 1000 km further north, this is certainly not the case.
This is why an adequate degree of flexibility should be introduced into the arrangements for the transition to the winter or summer period, a degree of flexibility which would be determined at national level.
1997 offers a good example of the need for such flexibility: in Helsinki, in southern Finland, the temperature yesterday was -12º.
Without this flexibility, this directive would serve to keep diesel vehicles off the road in Finland and make daily life impossible.
That is certainly not its objective.
I should like to see the Member who imagines that he or she could travel by car in Finland at the moment using summer-quality diesel fuel.
In Finland, we need winter-quality fuel, with a cetane index of 46, rather than 56 as envisaged in the original proposal for a directive.
The inclusion in the directive of a fuel suitable for use in an Arctic climate would eliminate this problem.
This is an important issue that we are discussing here today, and let us bear in mind that this is the first reading.
That is why now is the time to adopt our stance, and perhaps one should also say to deliver our opinion.
I think it must be quite clear that Parliament now has to take its stance, so that it has a definite position to fall back on when it comes to the second reading.
For the Dutch presidency, this is the number one priority in environment policy and climate policy. The Auto/Oil Programme is quite evidently a result of that.
And I can tell you that the Netherlands - the Dutch presidency - is waiting for a strong expression of opinion from this Parliament.
As far as the proposal from the Commission is concerned, however, it is hard to avoid the impression - and this is all very well in itself - that close consultations have been taking place with the industry.
But where were the consumer organizations, the environmental experts and the health specialists? Fortunately, we still have a democracy and a European Parliament.
And that is what we can do here: Europe is a village, because Mr Mamère from France, Mr Lange from Germany, Mr Eisma from the Netherlands and also Mrs González Álvarez have sat down together and clearly reached an agreement.
Do you believe in Europe as a village? It does exist - people work together there, they reach clear judgements and these are now going to be put to the vote.
Let me also make a personal comment, because this is what all this is about.
I wonder how many of you have already had something to do with air pollution and health - I certainly have done.
I have sat up at night in hospital with a one and a half year-old almost suffocating from asthma, with waiting rooms full of children where the doctors told me that the number of asthma patients in Amsterdam had increased tenfold over the last decade, and people say that all this has to do with the air pollution, of which cars are clearly a cause.
I believe that Parliament must adopt a stance on such an issue, because it is no laughing matter, I can assure you of that.
We may not be able to achieve a strong external policy, but surely in our own internal market, we cannot make this kind of mistake again.
I would therefore call on the other groups to adopt a clear stance in this first reading.
Madam President, Parliament has previously shown its strong commitment to the environment as far as cars are concerned.
The regulations governing emissions were considerably tightened in 1989 in accordance with a proposal from the Commission at that time.
With hindsight we have reason to be thankful for that.
In the same way I am convinced that Parliament's proposal for tighter restrictions now at a time that we are considering the Auto/Oil programme is also well motivated and will lead to a cleaner environment.
I fully understand the Commission's attitude that a thorough analysis of the cost of the different measures is required together with a comparison of benefits in terms of a cleaner environment and the saving of lives.
But it was very clear from questioning the environment committee that new computer data opens the way for more extensive environmental measures.
This applies to the quality of fuel, where it is possible to achieve lower sulphur levels at a lower cost, which also has a strong environmental impact.
It is also important that the use of fiscal incentives to achieve lower sulphur contents is not prevented.
Under normal circumstances this would not be a threat to the free market.
The proposal put forward by Parliament on the use of fuel in private cars is, in my opinion, unrealistically tough.
I have more faith in progress towards lower use of fuel with the help of fiscal incentives.
This can then be directed towards new technology, in the form of electric cars and hybrid cars for example, which can bring about radical reductions.
The motivation behind Parliament's demands is carbon dioxide emissions.
I think it is reasonable to compare such measures with other initiatives which will produce the same effect.
A reduction in fuel use of one tenth of a litre per 10 kms by every private car in the EU will certainly reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
But the same effect can be achieved by replacing four coal powered power stations with nuclear power.
The carbon dioxide emission from all private cars in the EU could in theory be compensated for by thirty or so reactors replacing coal power.
It is my opinion that it is important to look at environmental issues as a whole.
Madame President, vehicle exhaust emissions are currently the largest single source of atmospheric pollution.
This is why it is precisely this source of pollution which must be tackled if we are deal effectively with a problem which affects many Europeans, i.e. polluted urban air which poses a danger to health.
European consumers are extremely well informed about the technological scope for improving the quality of the air.
This is why heavy pressure is being exerted on the automobile industry and oil refiners - people are calling for environmentally more friendly cars and cleaner fuels.
As this debate has shown, both are needed, and this also goes to explain why the Auto-Oil programme covers the whole issue of the technical development of vehicles and the improvement of fuels. However, by taking measures to improve the quality of fuels, urban air quality can be improved more rapidly than by waiting for the arrival on the market of new, better cars.
The Auto-Oil programme presented by the Commission was substantially improved during its consideration in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, something for which thanks are certainly primarily due to the rapporteurs.
Parliament is proposing, for example, that the Community should adopt a new way of thinking, involving the use of tax instruments to achieve better air quality at a reasonable price.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection also adopted binding minimum standards and objectives for reducing emissions between 2000 and 2005.
This system has, for example, led to substantial improvements in the quality of fuels in Finland.
In order to encourage everyone else, I can say that this has been achieved in a short space of time and at a genuinely reasonable cost.
Admittedly, transitional periods may perhaps be required in certain countries, but these are more acceptable than a failure to comply with the objectives fixed for the period 2000-2005.
If we are not to lose out in the future, we must show the rest of the world the way forward.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to compliment Mr Mamère on his report.
With this proposal the Commission is seeking to harmonize and improve specifications for petrol and diesel fuel in the framework of the Auto/Oil programme.
As you know, we assessed in that programme the cost of the various measures via which the necessary reductions in emissions could be achieved.
We chose the economically most efficient measures which include the cleaner fuel specifications that we are proposing to bring into force in the year 2000.
In addition, the Commission, as you know, plans to return to the matter at the end of 1988 in order to propose a set of stricter specifications for fuels to take effect in the year 2005.
As regards the inter-relationship between fuel quality and new advances in engine technology, such as catalysers for dealing with oxides of nitrogen, there is still great uncertainty about the economically most efficient linkage between sulphur concentrations and the design of new technology vehicles.
For that reason the Commission believes that it is still too early to fix limit values for fuel quality for the year 2005.
We believe that by the end of 1998, on the basis of the second phase of the Auto/Oil programme which, as you know, is already under way, we shall have the requisite additional information for the taking of a decision at that time on recommended fuel standards for 2005.
At the same time, however, this present proposal allows the Member States to use special fuels, if necessary, as a means of tackling particularly pressing air quality problems in specific zones such as large conurbations.
The characteristics of the special fuels will depend to a large extent on the particular nature of the air quality problems at the selected locations.
For that reason the Commission does not think it feasible to attempt to lay down harmonized standards for special fuels at the Community level at this stage.
Furthermore, we are sure that the quantities of special fuels used will be relatively small, and therefore we do not anticipate that the use of such fuels for local purposes will have any serious market effect.
The Commission also recognizes that a very powerful mechanism for encouraging the marketing and use of cleaner fuels is provided by tax incentives.
The Community already has a framework within which the Member States are empowered to impose varying levels of consumption taxes on different fuels to promote, of course, environmental objectives.
This framework is set out in Directive 81/92/EEC relating to the level of special consumption taxes that may be imposed on petroleum products.
Many Member States, including Sweden, Finland and Denmark, are already using taxation measures based on this directive to encourage the use of cleaner fuels.
As you will also be aware, the Commission approved, a few weeks ago, a proposal on the harmonization of taxes on energy products which is based on the reasoning of this older directive.
In view of the fact, therefore, that Community provisions on taxation measures already exist, the Commission has seen no need to restate them in this present proposal.
The Commission proposal also provides for a ban on the marketing of leaded petrol.
This is necessary because leaded petrol represents a serious source of lead pollution.
The Member States were urged to encourage the use of lead-free petrol via Directive 85/210/EEC in the middle of the eighties.
We therefore consider a ban on the marketing of leaded petrol in the Community after the year 2000 to be quite in order.
We recognize, however, that the ban may create significant short-term problems for some of the Member States, and, in view of that, we have provided for the possibility of a derogation of limited duration in order to give those Member States slightly more time in which to make the necessary adjustments.
The Commission also agrees that the fixing of the air quality values, on which the economically efficient proposals on fuel quality are based, must take account of the need to protect health and the environment.
I can therefore assure you that we shall be paying serious attention to this principle in our future proposals.
The Commission is also receptive to the concept mentioned by Mrs Matikainen-Kallström of taking account of Arctic climatic conditions in the fuel specifications.
After proper study this concept could be incorporated in future via a special text.
Madam President, the Commission can accept certain of the amendments which improve the proposal but do not alter the basic approach.
We can accept Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 6, the final part of Amendment No 1, the second part of Amendment No 8, the first part of amendment No 10 and the first part of Amendment No 31.
In addition, we can accept the amendments which extend the range of tasks in the second phase of the Auto/Oil programme.
These are Amendments Nos 22, 23, 37 and 38.
I am sorry to say that the other amendments are not acceptable for the following reasons. First of all, Amendments Nos 7, 9, 35, 36, 60 and the second part of Amendment No 8 work against the cost-effectiveness criterion as the basis of the proposals.
That criterion is already laid down in Directive 94/12/EEC. Secondly, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 11, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 59 and 62 because they specify measures which have been shown not to be economically efficient in the first phase of the Auto/Oil programme.
Thirdly, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 44 and 48 because they introduce measures which have not been adequately studied or in connection with which there is not, as yet, the requisite scientific data, but which will be attended to, however, in the second phase of the Auto/Oil programme.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 4, 18, 20, 21 and 34 because, in our opinion, they are not compatible with the methodology proposed for the second phase of the Auto/Oil programme for achieving an economically efficient package of measures to apply from the year 2005.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 19 because they disregard the provisions of Directive 92/81/EEC on the use of tax incentives in regard to fuels.
Amendment No 25 is unacceptable because it does not allow reasonable timescales for derogations granted in connection with the ban on the marketing of leaded petrol.
Amendments Nos 28, 29, 32, 39 and the second part of Amendment No 31 are not acceptable because they introduce additional procedures which, in our opinion, are unnecessary.
Amendments Nos 5, 16, 26, 27, 30, 33, 40, 41, 49, 53, 58 and 61 cannot be accepted because, in our opinion, the problems they refer to are not substantive.
The first and second parts of Amendment No 1, the first part of Amendment No 8, the second part of Amendment No 10 and Amendments Nos 14, 15, 17, 24, 54, 56, 57, 63 and 64 cannot be accepted because they introduce details which are either unnecessary or require further technical scrutiny.
I would like to emphasize that even though some amendments cannot be accepted today the Commission nevertheless appreciates that the European Parliament is putting forward interesting ideas for further examination in the decisiontaking procedures that lie ahead.
The Commission has proposed fuel specifications for the year 2000.
Parliament has indicated the need to encourage cleaner technologies via the introduction of cleaner fuels and has proposed values for diesel sulphur, for example, as low as 50 ppm.
I believe that examination of the way in which the introduction of such cleaner fuels, of which adequate quantities are available, could be achieved as early as possible can be incorporated in the framework of the overall package of measures that the Council and Parliament finally decide on.
And thanks to you too, Mr Papoutsis, for your remarks.
I call Mr Lange.
Madam President, if I may I would like to ask the Commissioner for one clarification.
In my translation it says that the auto-oil II programme has begun.
I don't see how that can be the case, because the mandate for it has only just been granted by legislation in Parliament and the Council.
So, if that's right, it can't have started yet.
Madam President, there has clearly been a misunderstanding.
Obviously, we are discussing the Auto/Oil programme and the Council's mandate is, of course, required, as the honourable Member himself pointed out earlier.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Discrimination based on sex
The next item is the report (A4-0115/97) by Mrs Ghilardotti, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(96)0340-C4-0539/96) on the burden of proof in cases of discrimination based on sex.
Madam President, even though Article 119 and six directives adopted since 1975 constitute a firm legal basis for equal pay and equal treatment between women and men, and a very large number of judgments have been given by the Court of Justice in the last 20 years, women continue to suffer discrimination, and one of the main problems which they have to face is precisely that of proving that discrimination based on sex still exists.
For that reason, back in 1988, the Commission put forward for the first time a proposal for a directive on the burden of proof, and the European Parliament approved it with a few amendments, on the basis of a report by Mrs Larive.
The Council discussed this proposal on a number of occasions and in 1993 an understanding was reached between eleven Member States, but as the legal basis consisted of Articles 100 and 235 of the Treaty, which call for unanimity, the proposal could progress no further.
In the meantime, as I said, the Court of Justice has given a large number of judgments in this area, so it is a matter of importance that there is now this new proposal for a directive, which is actually based on the judgments of the Court and initiated through the Protocol on social policy, so that it should be easier to reach agreement on the final text.
This again underlines the need for the Protocol on social policy to be incorporated in the Treaty, because otherwise we would be faced with the second directive on equal treatment not being transposed in the United Kingdom.
This directive is important, and Parliament demonstrates this through the report - because existing case-law has not been uniformly applied in Member States and many women have been, and still are, faced with problems even where there appears to be a prima facie case of discrimination.
As regards the content of the proposal for a directive, I think that it is based on three closely interlinked points; the proposal will not, therefore, be effective unless the directive contains all three.
What are these three fundamental points?
Firstly, the definition of indirect discrimination (Article 2): this is the first time that this concept has been defined in Community legislation.
Secondly, the extent of the shift in the burden of proof, provided for by Article 4: we are looking at, and debating, not a reversal of the burden of proof, but the sharing of the burden between the female worker and the employer.
Thirdly, the procedures laid down in Article 5, which we regard as vital, because they are pivotal in the light of the problems which have arisen in some Member States following non-implementation of the regulations in force.
Both the Commission, in its proposal, and the Committee on Women's Rights, when it prepared this report, examined the Court's judgments in great detail.
The amendments that we are proposing have precisely the objective of making the legal aspects of the problem clearer and more explicit, because this is a technical directive which needs to be very precise and clear from a legal point of view.
In particular, the amendment to Article 2 clarifies the concept of indirect discrimination, which is not yet fully recognized by any national courts.
I would mention that in only three Member States - Italy, the United Kingdom and Ireland - is there a definition of indirect discrimination in national legislation, and the proposals for amendments which we are presenting relate in particular to a judgment which was a milestone in this matter, namely 'Bilka' ; similarly, the amendments to Article 4, which highlight one of the fundamental elements in shifting the burden of proof, namely transparency, relate to the 'Danfoss' judgment.
Another important point is the sphere of application: we add a reference to the directive on parental leave and we regard as fundamental a new paragraph, based on Article 6 of the Social Protocol, specifying that this directive will not prevent positive action measures from being adopted.
I should like to conclude by asking the Commissioner to comment on these amendments, in the belief that, thanks to them, the proposal will contribute towards reducing the number of infringements of the principle of equal treatment, which are still all too common and too evident in many Member States.
Madam President, this particular proposal has taken up a great deal of various Members' time.
Mine was spent originally on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and then, subsequently, as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and then I took part in the rather shambolic vote in the Committee on Women's Rights.
I have to be very careful to stick strictly to my brief as draftsman for the Economic Committee.
I shall therefore restrain my normal exuberance on this matter and simply tell you what the views of the Economic Committee were.
The Committee on Women's Rights largely ignored the amendments of the Economic Committee.
I cannot say I am very upset about that but other members of the Economic Committee might well be.
There was, in particular, one amendment, which my colleagues on the Economic Committee adopted.
It was an amendment to Article 6, which stated: ' A fund shall be established at European Union level to allow individuals to bring test-cases before their national courts with a view to clarifying the enforcement and implementation of the current Directive.'
This particular amendment went on to say: ' This fund shall be financed under the provisions of the fourth medium-term Community action programme on equal opportunities for women and men (1996-2000).'
The Committee on Women's Rights rejected that amendment.
I have to congratulate the committee on having done so, because had that amendment gone through, it would have caused quite a lot of anxiety in the Commission, let alone in the Member States.
We have not finally decided, of course, how we are going to react to this particular proposal but I would be very interested - if I could momentarily step out of my role as draftsman for the Economic Committee - to ask whether the Commissioner has had the opportunity to read the opinion of the European Parliament's jurisconsult dated 19 March 1997 which, among other things, makes the point that if this proposal goes through, the law applicable in the United Kingdom will be more favourable to women than that which would henceforth apply in the other 14 Member States.
I would like to have the reaction of the Commissioner to that statement by Parliament's legal advisers.
Madam President, may I start with a general comment: when significant Community legislation is drafted there is an ultimately political purpose behind both the Commission's initiative and any action taken by this Parliament.
But in carrying out our legislative function under the treaties we must respect the limits that are set for us and the principles of good legislative technique.
In this way we will produce legitimate, clear and effective Community laws.
In that context I consider the Commission's initiative appropriate and well grounded in the treaties and I think the political objective should take precedence over the technical and legal questions in this first reading.
Having said that, from the technical and legal point of view, the proposal for a directive does prompt reservations and - to be blunt - criticisms, particularly in respect of the burden of proof, the non-transparent decisions under article 4, and the procedural rules under article 5.
The plaintiff's burden of proof is established in the proposal in terms which are not only entirely alien to legal technique, but - this is the most serious point - highly imprecise.
Above all, the facts are not presented as evidence to the courts, but are alleged.
This may be a defect in the Spanish translation, but the relevant procedural point is that they are not alleged, but proved.
And according to the Commission's text, the facts to be proved are those which support the presumption of discrimination.
So one or more indicative facts must be proved as the basis for constructing a legal presumption of discrimination.
This raises technical and practical problems: technical because if discrimination can be established through a legal presumption, there is then strictly no need to apply any rule on the burden of proof, the purpose of which, precisely, is to respond to the situations where the facts are uncertain.
The practical problems derive from failure to determine the facts the proof of which is sufficient grounds for the presumption of discrimination.
The rule on the respondent's burden of proof also suffers from lack of precision.
And these same arguments imply that a special rule for the case of the non-transparent decision systems should apply not to the respondent's burden of proof but to the plaintiff's, to facilitate the lifting of the latter, which is actually the problem being addressed.
Amendments Nos 21 and 22 have been presented to escape these difficulties.
On article 5, as I said, I agree with the political purpose behind this rule, but I have to express my doubts from the technical and legal point of view.
That is, I think it can certainly be disputed whether the legal basis chosen provides sufficient coverage for some typical measures, especially as it is optional as well as vague.
Finally, Madam President, Mr Commissioner, referring back to my initial remarks, I suggest we vote in favour of the report as a whole - including article 5, which I have criticized - expecting, as I said at the start, Parliament's political position to prevail in this first reading over legal and technical issues, which we should nevertheless bear in mind.
Madam President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, who is also a member of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, for an excellent report and for the fact that she has taken note of so very many, although not all, of the proposals which arose from this committee.
First I would say that this an important Directive.
It is above all important bearing in mind that there is already good legal praxis but this legal praxis is not followed up in every Member State.
Secondly it is important because we have at last secured a definition of indirect discrimination.
Now that I have emphasised the positive aspects, and the committee is indeed being very positive, I would like to take up two points about which I have some doubts.
One is amendment proposal No. 18, second paragraph, where it seems that certain types of occupation are to be excluded.
I do not think that this is a good thing.
It opens the way for misinterpretation which is very dangerous.
This could be applied to both sexes, we could say that women cannot be policemen, for example, or men cannot go into childcare.
I could envisage some Member States using this text in such a way.
The other section which I would like to raise is Article 4.1c which was not discussed in the social committee but went through as a matter of course.
I know that there has been discussion about point 4.1c in the Council and that the majority of countries want to remove this point while others want it to remain.
By removing point 4.1c the discriminated person's options are reduced, the plaintiff's options are weakened as this point states that the plaintiff does not need to prove that the defendant is in the wrong.
So if we remove point 4.1c the plaintiff must consequently prove that there has been wrongdoing which makes it more difficult for the discriminated party.
I think that this is unfortunate.
Parliament is usually progressive and usually follows the line taken by progressive countries.
But in this instance the Commission has been more progressive than Parliament.
I think this is particularly unfortunate.
Otherwise, I think that this is a really first rate proposal.
As Mrs Ghilardotti has already said in her excellent report, we have a substantial amount of case law and six directives on equal treatment, but practical experience shows how difficult - or even impossible - it often is to prove this unlawful discrimination.
The employer as defendant has the relevant evidence and information, and often does not have to reveal it.
And the national judges frequently have difficulty in understanding and applying the concept of indirect discrimination.
The ELDR Group therefore supports this directive, which shares the burden of proof among both parties and clearly defines the concept of indirect discrimination.
Rights on paper are being turned into rights in practice.
As the rapporteur said, back in 1988, I was the rapporteur on the first draft legislation, which was blocked systematically by the United Kingdom with its 'favourable' law, as is still happening today.
I find this incomprehensible, because no respectable firm has anything to fear from this legislation.
Anyone with a clear conscience can go along with this perfectly well.
Because this legislation - and I say this also to Mrs Lulling - creates no new requirements for undertakings, it has no direct effects, and no woman, Mrs Lulling, will bring proceedings just for fun, but only if she has been wronged.
The directive codifies the case law of the Court of Justice and ensures that it will be consistently applied.
Who can have any objection to that, apart from Mr Cassidy? The Liberal Group very much hopes that after the British elections on 1 May, the new British Government will also take up the directive.
British women too are entitled to the same treatment as all the other citizens of Europe.
Finally, I should like to compliment Mrs Ghilardotti once again, and also the Dutch presidency, which is working hard to ensure that the directive will be approved on 17 June, so that it can then enter into force on 1 January 2000 and European women will have a better chance of judges applying the European law on equal treatment properly, and complying with it.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate Mrs Ghilardotti on her report and our group will vote for the report, as well as the amendments from the Committee on Women's Rights.
We think this directive is needed to implement the principle of equality, which is turning out to be so difficult at this century's end.
The principle of equality is not sufficiently guaranteed by the case law of the Court of Justice, and this has been demonstrated repeatedly by union representatives.
This proposal for a directive introduces very positive elements: the need to establish a definition of indirect discrimination, the compatibility between the application of the directive and the application of positive programmes or measures to protect women, their application before the year 2000 and follow-up application in the Member States, with a progress report to the Commission every three years.
I sincerely hope that Parliament will approve this directive and that we do not have to wait another eight years for another proposal.
I also hope that, in the future, when the treaty has been revised, these issues can finally be dealt with by a majority and not unanimously.
Madam President, I too welcome the Commission's proposal to introduce a shift in the burden of proof in cases of discrimination in 14 of the 15 Member States.
The Court of Justice has been quite unequivocal in its judgments in recent years, and this proposal is in fact no more than the logical outcome of these judgments by the Court.
The Committee on Women's Rights has brought the proposal even further into line with the case law of the Court, which indeed also applies to the United Kingdom, and I am pleased that Mr Cassidy has also grasped this, after all the efforts in the various committees.
Mrs Ghilardotti has certainly done an excellent job.
In this case, it is the Council which represents the fly in the ointment: while it is true that the Dutch presidency is doing its best to get this directive through the Council smoothly, it is also true that it is not having a great deal of success, and I should like Commissioner Flynn to bring us up to date on the state of the discussions in the Council.
It would appear that the Council wishes to trim this proposal to the bone and to include neither the social security directives nor indirect forms of discrimination in this directive.
That is not only bad for the policy on equal treatment, it is bad for the image of the European Union, and it is also in conflict with the case law of the Court of Justice.
I hope that today and tomorrow, the Commission and Parliament will take joint steps together to prevent this.
Madam President, I should first of all like to congratulate the Commission on drawing up this much needed proposal for a directive to stamp out long standing injustices which everyone was aware of but which could not be proved.
I should also like to congratulate Mrs Fiorella Ghilardotti for the excellent report which she drew up on such a legally thorny issue which might well prove to be so important for those suffering injustice, especially women.
This draft directive is of great importance for a country like mine, where attempts have long been made to obtain similar legislation, so far without success.
The fact that the European Parliament has approved this report could be decisive for future developments in this situation, either because the Portuguese Parliament decides now to adopt similar legislation or because the Council of Ministers for Social Affairs comes to accept the new proposals and they are required to be incorporated in national legislation.
The distribution of the burden of proof is a fundamental principle of justice, since it allows the weaker party, which is affected more seriously by unfair and unjustifiable decisions, to have the benefit of much broader means of proof.
The proposal for a directive now under discussion and the amendments tabled will make it compulsory for employers too to prove that they are not discriminating on grounds of sex.
Situations in which it is clear to everyone that women are manifestly under-represented in companies - as is the case with the Banco Comercial Português, where the administration says it does not discriminate in selection on grounds of sex, but where the number of women working is one eighth of the general for Portuguese banks - will no longer be possible because the firms will then have to explain their action.
The inclusion of a clear definition of indirect discrimination, the possibilities for the information to be made available to those suffering discrimination so that they can defend themselves and assert their rights and the control which the Commission and the European Parliament are to have over situations which already exist, will turn this directive into one of the major instruments for making equality of opportunity between men and women into a reality.
I shall therefore vote with great pleasure for this report.
Madam President, for 20 years now, the campaign for women has been waged from Europe, which means that everyone knows, no matter which Member State they live in, that Europe is the champion of equal rights and equal opportunities for men and women.
Many women have benefited from this, and that is as it should be!
At the moment, there are still a number of disadvantages for women in the labour market.
Often, they can only combat these disadvantages with great difficulty, whether their action is against employers or indeed their own authorities.
I have to tell the House that in my days in the Second Chamber, as a member of a government party, I played a part with all the women in the government party and the opposition, and those in the trade unions, to bring a number of the cases mentioned here to a successful conclusion at the Court of Justice.
This means that for the PPE Group - and we have discussed this at some length - there can be no question of the 1979 directive being excluded from this legislation, since that would take the heart out of it.
You may be sure - and I say this to my colleagues too - that the proposal which is now before the House will in any event also be supported by the PPE Group in the final vote.
And not just by me, but by other colleagues too, such as Mrs Palacio, who has looked at this from a legal standpoint and has raised a number of questions.
She has already spoken on the subject, and other colleagues will be doing so as well.
We have some doubts about Article 4, and also Article 5 - not Article 5(a), but 5(b).
What is being asked of small employers here is very difficult.
All of us as MEPs are small employers too.
Furnishing the burden of proof as it is defined here is no easy matter.
I should therefore like to hear from the Commission how the discussion in the Council is proceeding.
Do I understand correctly that, under the leadership of the Dutch presidency, not one Member State is willing to accept Article 5 in this respect? What would happen if an alternative were to be put forward to Article 5(b)?
I am just wondering that out loud.
In any event, in the final vote tomorrow - although we might vote differently on Article 5(b), not least in the light of the discussion we are having here - this directive which will benefit both men and women in European society can also count on the support of the PPE Group.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Ghilardotti report constitutes a comprehensive study of the subject, and after the important things that have also been said by speakers from the various groups it is difficult for me to add anything worthwhile.
I would, however, like to mention two points which, in my view, are non-negotiable.
These are transparency and access to information.
It is well known that indirect forms of discrimination exist in all of the Member States.
That type of discrimination, which usually operates against women, is difficult to prove.
The objective should be to remove all discrimination based on gender, particularly in the areas of employment and insurance.
I agree totally with the rapporteur's proposal that the Member States should be obliged to comply with the directive by 1 January 2000.
In order to bring immediate results it will also be necessary to have constant monitoring of the implementation of the directive.
Transparency must be available for all citizens, but especially for women and all social groups, with regard to decisions and measures which affect them directly, and it must apply, specifically, to methods of recruitment, reasons for redundancy and compliance with maternity law and other such areas.
The problems caused by the absence of transparency are particularly severe.
Those problems generate other problems, such as lack of witnesses or the reluctance of people to act as witnesses and the inability to produce satisfactory evidence when documents are withheld by an employer. These in turn can often lead to exploitation by barristers when the female litigant is inadequately informed as to her legal rights and feels obliged to accept a compromise in order to keep her job.
We are speaking here of flagrant repression of the person and of human rights, that is to say.
As a final point I emphasize that the existing positive actions must be kept in place.
Thank you for listening to me. I await the Commissioner's replies to us.
Madam President, the proposal for a Directive reversing the burden of proof in cases of discrimination based on sex has already been under discussion for 10 years.
I hope we are finally getting there, and that this directive will be approved.
In my work as a personnel consultant I very often came up against these problems, whether in connection with appointments or promotions or pay, and so I know better than most how difficult it is for the women concerned to prove their point - I know that they were unable to succeed in their claims because they were women.
Those women who did go to court had to expend a great deal of effort and time to produce the necessary evidence, and most of them were then unsuccessful in their actions.
The fact is that employers, even the so-called 'small' employers, do start from a stronger position.
Until now, they have not needed to keep detailed records of the discrimination they practised.
So I, too, hope that shifting the burden of proof away from the complainant onto the respondent will be adopted by a large majority in this House.
That would be an important step towards equal treatment of men and women within the European Union.
Madam President, as we approach the end of this night sitting, I can only support those colleagues who are saying that we are genuinely pleased with the fact that, after ten years, a directive is at long last being produced.
For us, this has always been one of the top priorities, I would point out.
It is just a pity that we have to do this with a handful of Members at a quarter to midnight - one could say that the clock has reached five minutes to midnight.
If I may add something to today's debate, I should like to say that I was slightly annoyed by the doublespeak which has often dominated the discussions on the need for this directive, and which is then interpreted by the lobby - especially UNICE, but I have also heard it from a number of Members of the House - to the effect that not many people are happy with it.
The main argument which is used is that the case law of the Court of Justice surely speaks for itself, so that we do not need this directive at all.
So what have we actually been discussing here for the last ten years? If that is so, then I wonder why the lobby has been so violently opposed to it?
Of course, the Court of Justice has done some excellent work in recent years on the definition of indirect discrimination and on the shifting of the burden of proof.
But the problem is that the national courts and national legislators have not always been equally careful in following the case law of the European Court of Justice, let us make that quite clear.
And moreover, there is a tendency for the Court of Justice quietly to reconsider the steps it has taken.
So in my view, it is a good thing that we finally have a solid legal basis with a clear definition, proper procedures, and a broad scope covering all the directives on equal treatment.
I am also annoyed by the fact that a number of Members are still arguing that Article 5 is out of place in European legislation.
I cannot understand this.
We are not talking here about the harmonization of legal procedures between Member States. So this has nothing to do with third-pillar issues.
If information can be something that is not necessary, which it cannot be made compulsory to supply, then I wonder where the Commission stands with all its proposals on information and consultation, because then we cannot ask that from the Member States either.
I would end by saying that I hope the Council will not trim the directive, because otherwise we shall have to reconsider our position at second reading.
Madam President, there is still a long way to go to achieve equality in a Europe of women.
Positive discrimination in favour of women is after all forbidden by the European Courts.
Women in Europe are subject to discrimination both at work and in society as a whole.
Women have lower wages than men, they find it more difficult to get management appointments and have difficulty in gaining promotion.
In addition it is difficult, as many have pointed out this evening, for us to prove this fact, the fact that many of us really do experience sexual discrimination both in our every day lives and our political lives.
It is particularly hard for us to prove that discrimination takes place at work.
So I would like both to thank Ms Ghilardotti and congratulate her on her report as we will find it easier to take action as a result of this report.
It has almost always been necessary for the discriminated person to prove unfair treatment, but of course it would have been better if we could have gone just a little further and perhaps, as we heard earlier, included Article 4.1c which was present in the Commission's proposal.
Despite this I do think that this report is a very good one and I thoroughly support it.
Of course, equality is not just an issue covering women and our rights, but is also a problem which concerns the whole of society.
Shared responsibilities, both at work and in the family mean a better quality of life for both men and women.
Mrs Ahlqvist, I think you were the only speaker who managed to stick to your allotted time!
All the others have over-run.
Commissioner Flynn has the floor.
Madam President, the Commissioner's replies seem to me to be satisfactory.
Judging by what the Commissioner has said this evening, the Commission has grasped the basic objective of our work: the strengthening and clarification from the legal point of view of the fundamental elements of this proposal for a directive: that is to say the definition of discrimination, the burden of proof and the retention of Article 5, which relates to procedures, in other words the three elements which form the substance of the proposal.
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(Parliament approved the Minutes.)
Credit institutions
Mr President, I concentrate on the three amendments by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Commodities are important for the EU and British economy.
Producers, for example those in the agricultural sector, use commodity futures to lock in a known price at which they can sell their future production and so eliminate price uncertainty.
Industrial companies, large and small, use derivative contracts, for example in metal futures, to service their manufacturing needs.
In setting capital charges, we need to ensure that they are proportionate so that EU firms and markets remain competitive to the benefit of both producers and end-users - and of the EU economy as a whole.
The proposed capital charges for commodities credit risk have been set by banking regulators in Basle - there is nothing wrong with that - and the proposed charges make sense for banks.
In theory the same charges should apply to both banks and investment firms.
But in practice the respective regulators view the risk differently.
The purpose of my amendments is to ensure that a proportion of capital regime can be developed to meet the needs both of the commodity firms and of those who use their services in the EU.
The difference between banking and securities' regulators can be illustrated by reference to what the respective regulators see as core business.
A bank, for example, will have expertise in bond markets, which are at the core of the business.
The banking regulators will also have considerable experience and expertise in these activities.
They will, therefore, be aware that, for example, emerging market debt is more volatile than the European government bond markets but will also know that most banks' business is in less volatile bonds and so set the capital charges accordingly.
Commodities are not a core business of a bank and so banking regulators are unlikely to have direct experience of these markets.
Therefore, banking regulators will tend to be more conservative in their approach to setting capital charges for commodities.
The opposite is true for securities' regulators of a firm with commodities as the core of the business.
They have experience of commodities markets and would want proportional capital charges, which reflect the expertise of the firm and the difference in volatilities.
It would not make sense for the securities' regulator to impose charges relating to highly volatile oil products on a firm diversified in metals, which have much lower volatility.
My amendments would give time for the securities' regulators to consider a proportion of capital regime for commodities.
In the meantime, the amendments ensure a minimal level of capital for commodities risk at the EU level.
Mr President, this is a proposal which will amend three directives, namely the directive on coordination of credit institutions, the directive on the solvency ratio for credit institutions and the directive on the capital adequacy of investment firms and credit institutions.
I take the rapporteur's point that this is not simply a minimal change, that the issues at stake are technical and complex.
I congratulate both the draftsperson Mr Harrison and the rapporteur Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn for getting to grips with these highly technical and complex matters.
The first change is to the banking directive which provides for exchange of information with non-banking supervisory authorities in third countries.
With the solvency directive there is a proposal to put churches and religious communities in the same position as public authorities.
This is because it is the custom in certain countries like Germany for the churches to have a tax-raising power.
In addition, there are several proposals to reduce the weighting on specific subjects from 100 % to 20 % or 50 % or other figures depending on the issue at stake.
The capital adequacy directive is very important.
It ensures that credit institutions are solvent and it is an important consumer protection measure for the people of Europe.
Again, this is an amendment to ensure that capital is adequate for over-the-counter trading.
All this illustrates the importance of Parliament's work.
Although it may appear to be rather obscure, all the measures which are being changed today in our debate and in our vote will help to protect the general public and to make sure that their savings are safe.
In a number of cases in Britain we have seen people's savings being at risk and therefore I commend both the work of both the rapporteur and the draftsman and hope Parliament will vote for the report.
First I should like to thank the committee responsible and in particular Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn for their very good work on a highly technical and complicated proposal.
I am pleased about their very positive attitude to this proposal.
I take it as a further sign of the convergence of the views of the European Parliament and the Commission in establishing proper prudential regulation, in particular for credit institutions' and investment firms' activities in the field of derivative instruments.
The Katiforis report of September 1995 on financial derivatives was a landmark in progress towards combining our efforts.
The Commission proposal before you responds to the approach put forward in this report.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 are very helpful clarifications.
They are welcome and contribute to the quality of this piece of European legislation.
Amendments Nos 3 and 4 both address the complex problem of capital requirement - the requirement for great risks inherent in commodity derivative instruments.
The amendments would allow competent authorities for a transitional period to apply significantly reduced capital requirements for different categories of commodity derivative instruments held by investment firms.
Such a capital regime would be in contradiction to the basic principle of equality in the treatment of credit institutions and investment firms.
Similar risks should be treated in the same way, irrespective of the type of institution which is exposed to the risk.
The Katiforis report highlighted the importance of this principle.
Having said this, I should like to emphasize that the Commission is of course fully conscious that the sensible application of principles sometimes requires appropriate exemptions.
However, any such need for exemption, be it in the form of a transitional period for specific institutions or in some other form must be and, indeed, can only be assessed within the framework of work pending on the capital adequacy directive.
Only in the context of this work is it possible to deal consistently not only with commodity derivative instruments and the associated credit risks but with all credit and market risks from all commodity-related business of credit institutions and investment banks.
I expect the Commission to adopt the proposal amending the capital adequacy directive in the next couple of weeks.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Conservation of fishery resources
The next item is the second report by Mr Adam (A4-0122/97), on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources (COM(96)0296 - C4-0388/96-96/160(CNS)).
Mr President, the position of the Commission has not changed.
Mr President, the reason why this is so important is that, if that is the position, that means that the Commission will force the Council to act by unanimity on these proposals.
I just think that Parliament should know that.
Mr President, the viability of fisheries in the waters of the European Community is under threat unless the wholesale slaughter of young, immature fish is stopped.
Five years ago, the Canadian cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland had to be closed.
It has remained closed since with the loss of 40, 000 jobs.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization has stated that two-thirds of the world's species, including cod, lobster, prawns and shrimps are fished to capacity.
Earlier this year, in Aberdeen, scientists claimed that, without a substantial reduction in the rate of fishing, North Sea cod stocks may well collapse.
Cod only reach maturity at the age of four and at present exploitation rates only 4 % of cod survive to that age.
Very simply the fish are not living long enough.
The report refers to the Commission's draft regulation to modify existing technical measures to reduce the mortality rate of immature fish.
Small fish must not be landed, nor discarded at sea.
A common figure for discard is 40 % of all fish caught.
If this could be reduced to zero, much of the current problem would disappear. The measures available to us include a limit to the number of different sizes of nets allowed on board, increased mesh size, the use of square mesh panels, the use of separator panels, close seasons and closed areas and the adjustment of minimum landing sizes to the selectivity of the nets.
At a recent conference in Aberdeen one of the technical papers contained the following statement: ' The conclusion from this research work on square mesh panels is that we can design the gear which can take more or less the required catch profile.'
The technical capacity is there.
Political decisions in the framework of the common fisheries policy are bedevilled by the fact that the scientists' assessment of stocks invariably indicates fewer fish than the observations of fishermen.
Why? One explanation is that the fishermen concentrate on areas where fish are likely to be found.
They use their local knowledge, whereas the scientists cover a much wider area.
Almost invariably the policy-makers, the Fisheries Council, react to the optimistic view.
The Fisheries Committee accepts the need to reduce the mortality of immature fish and the number of discards.
We had to make many compromises to accommodate the differences in national and local fishing customs.
The report, which eventually received widespread support in committee, strengthens the technical measures currently in force in relation to net rules, the use of square mesh panels, the adjustment of minimum landing sizes and additional restrictive fishing areas, and adds a number of species to the list in the annex.
The new regulation will, the committee believes, be easier to monitor and control.
There is also provision for a reasonable transition period before full implementation so that the cost can be absorbed gradually.
Successful operation of this regulation, however, requires much more research work to be carried out.
Current work is largely based on single species criteria.
Multi-species interdependency is still a great unknown.
The socioeconomic effects of variation in total allowable catches are not considered when proposals are discussed in Council.
There is a need to make greater use of the increasing biological knowledge in stock assessment and management, and to integrate scientific technical management and biological factors.
Integrated coastal management schemes, combining physical, biological and human factors into a single management framework, are another component in achieving viability.
A mechanism is needed to integrate the work of the various research agencies which are concerned with fisheries in the European Economic Area.
Success also requires a greater involvement of fishermen's representatives in the decision-making process.
I hope the Commission will bring together at an early meeting fishermen, research scientists and Parliament's representatives.
All these concerns are brought together particularly in Amendment No 2 and the Commission is urged to respond positively and quickly.
In this way we can move forward from the improvements which will be brought about by the implementation of this report and bring viable fisheries nearer to realization.
That is the objective.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, just two points: first to say that we support the Adam report, which represents a compromise, but it is a compromise at least involving Members from the two largest political groups in this House and it is a reasonable compromise.
In the first place we need to get the message clearly across that fisheries resources are not limitless; just recently the FAO even pointed out that over 60 % of fisheries resources were being over exploited. Secondly, in specific cases, as in the case of our amendment - and I should like to thank Mr Adam for having supported it - it was possible to place a protected area of juvenile fish under Community protection throughout zone CIEM IX, which is important for the preservation of this species.
Mr President, the proposal for a regulation presented by the Commission is intended to perpetuate stocks while improving the protection of immature fish.
One would have to be insane not to subscribe to this objective which represents the best assurance for all fishermen for the future of their trade.
A certain number of rules should therefore be adopted.
These rules should be simple and clear, in order to be easily monitored.
Their usefulness should be demonstrated by incontrovertible studies.
They should be compatible with socio-economic realities.
They should be equitable in their effects for the different trades and different fleets.
In fact, it is apparent that no socio-economic evaluation has been carried out.
If nevertheless adopted, these measures risk having a disastrous effect on the profitability of the businesses, calling into question the very existence of some of them.
In this proposal, I note a certain number of sections which seem unacceptable to me.
The increase in basic mesh size is too great.
The range of banned mesh sizes is not positioned correctly, nor is it wide enough to allow a clear separation of pelagic and demersal fisheries.
The restricted areas proposed for hake are also unacceptable.
Their demarcation and their effectiveness have not been the subject of prior studies.
In fact as the Scientific and Technical Committee on Fisheries has stressed, the measure would have considerable socio-economic consequences for certain small fleets.
As far as the Bay of Biscay in particular is concerned, the combination of the measures affecting fishing tackle - added to the restrictions - would be perceived as discriminatory since it would close down a major part of the fleets concerned.
Regarding the single net rule, it would pose major practical problems for multi-purpose vessels.
These problems are all the more acute when these vessels operate far from base, which also makes this measure discriminatory by giving an advantage to other fleets the home ports of which are closer to the fishing areas.
In conclusion, most of the intended measures have been proposed without prior experiment.
The absence of evaluation of their effects on businesses and stocks, as well as their cumulative nature can only lead to their wholesale rejection by the fishermen.
In fact, putting such a plan into practice requires a minimum of support on their part.
For these reasons we will vote against this proposal unless certain amendments which we shall table are taken into account by this Parliament.
Mr President, this is a very important subject for the fishing industry and for the marine environment generally.
One of my fellow MEPs, Sir James Goldsmith, was in my constituency in the UK earlier this week putting forward various views about the fishing industry.
I am interested to see that he has maintained today his 100 % record of turning up and defending the interests of the British fishing industry... by his absence here!
Technical measures have been recognized by the industry as being one of the most important areas for progress.
Although a number of the proposals put forward by the Commission are far from perfect, I congratulate Mr Adam on the effort he has made to put a compromise together in order to present to the Commission a coherent view of the Committee on Fisheries.
Even though this view, in many of our opinions, may also not be perfect in many ways, I congratulate him on his move forward.
Discarding is one of the obscene outcomes of the Common Fisheries Policy and many other fishing management regimes - it is not unique to our own.
Moreover, it is one which the public cannot understand, and which the industry does not like - although I would say the industry is not completely innocent itself in that area.
At any rate it is an area in terms of marine environment that we have to move away from.
I see this particular proposal as an interim measure towards a European policy that actually bans discarding altogether.
There are such regimes in Norway and New Zealand that actually outlaw discarding which, although it still goes on, is probably thereby reduced from some 40 %, as Mr Adam mentioned, down to more like 20 %.
That would be, at least, a major improvement in terms of what we are trying to achieve.
What really comes out of this is that we really need greater enforcement and greater political will to enforce amongst all Member States.
To achieve that, at the end of the day we also need a far more regional fishing policy within Europe rather than the unified sort of system that we are trying to impose at the present moment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, the introduction of new technical measures for the conservation of fisheries resources is, naturally a complex question.
On the one hand we have different local customs and traditions, some clearly more predatory than others.
On the other hand the scarcity of stocks gives rise to and exacerbates mistrust between fishermen, who sometimes legitimately suspect that third parties are using different practices or that there are no general and transparent controls and tallying methods applied.
The difficulty of the matter lies essentially in pedagogical reasons, in confidence and transparency, in matters bound up with income, already very low for fishermen and their families as a whole.
Everyone, without exception, is agreed - and the fishermen are the first to acknowledge it - that fewer juvenile fish must be caught - either by means of checks and tallying of the relevant trade and consumption or by the elimination of more predatory techniques, or by the use of nets which technically keep their shape and are of an acceptable size, or by intensifying and extending scientific research in order to determine exactly for all species when the season should be closed, or by throwing the fish back to guarantee a survival rate, or lastly by the setting up of multilateral computerized and sufficiently verifiable checks.
The objectives to be achieved therefore irrefutably require the progressive introduction of new provisions plus appropriate follow-up of implementation, particularly as regards the financial aspects.
The report does indeed suggest some technical measures which could improve the situation of conservation of stocks quite apart from some others which appear difficult and complex to apply.
The progressive implementation of the new regulation, should the amendments be approved, is guaranteed by the amendment which our group tabled providing for the possibility - requirement - of having a transitional period for implementation, which we hope the Commission and the Council will accept.
It therefore seems apparent that the discontinuing of certain methods or drastic changes in others might entail different costs for those trapping and fishing.
Some of them are directly bound up with direct investment which fishing equipment might entail; others are concerned with the drop in income which might be occasioned by, albeit temporarily, by new methods because of the smaller catches.
In this respect, ladies and gentlemen, let us be clear: either the problem must be faced squarely and investment made giving real aid to change fishing methods and to provide compensation for any drop in income, or this legislation, like any other, will be resisted, will be difficult to apply and will not achieve the objectives which all were and are agreed upon.
The Commission's document unfortunately omits this point.
Mr Adam's report - and I take this opportunity to congratulate him for the mammoth task he had to accomplish to produce the text we are discussing today - deals with the question, we feel, in only a rudimentary way, not clearly or directly enough, whereas it should be the essential factor for the success of the practical implementation of the new technical measures for real effective conservation of fisheries resources.
Mr President, this report is on the Commission's proposal to change the technical measures governing fishing.
As such, it deals with one of the three most important pillars of fishing in the EU, along with control measures and the capacity of fleets.
Laudable as the proposed changes are, in many ways they are merely tinkering around the edges.
If accepted by the Council and actually implemented by fishermen, they will doubtless result in fewer juvenile fish and nontargeted species being caught and discarded.
So they are a step in the right direction.
But even with these measures, EU fishing fleets will still catch enormous quantities of unwanted fish which will simply be thrown away, often dead.
The Council shows every sign of sticking to its old tradition of watering down these proposals so that the improvements in fishing will be even less than is hoped for.
Also under discussion, although not in this plenary session, is the renewal of the multi-annual guidance programme, which has also been stalled due to the Council's inability to make a decision.
Technical measures assume an even greater importance in the likely event that the Council will not adopt a rigorous programme to reduce fleet capacity.
It is interesting to look around at other regions of the world to see how they deal with by-catch problems.
Many countries are light-years ahead of the Community.
Among the measures used in different regions are: the use of observers to monitor a fishery and temporarily close it when there are too many small fish; banning the discarding of fish; and requiring the industry to submit plans on how they themselves will conduct the fishery in order to keep discards low.
I am sure that the Commission is perfectly aware of these other approaches but they are convinced that the Council and the fishing industry do not have the interest or the courage to explore other ideas.
Yet until the EU is able to come to grips with the severity of the problem of discards, and accepts that they are both unnecessary and wasteful, no real progress will be made.
This is a very serious matter, for the use of selective fishing gear occupies a prominent place in both the UN Agreement on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks and the FAO code of conduct for responsible fishing.
These documents, the first of which is actually a legally-binding treaty which has been signed by the EU and all Member States, calls for measures which are more progressive than those which the Commission is requesting.
Thus the package being considered here is not the final word.
I am sure that we will be discussing this issue again in the near future.
I would also like to clear up a misconception.
The Greens are not against fishing or trying to close down fisheries to protect some species.
Rather we feel that fishing must be conducted in a way which not only provides food and employment for local people, but which does not cause severe damage to the marine eco-system in the process.
This can be done.
I also want to speak very briefly about driftnets, for their use is dealt with under technical measures.
In 1991 the Council banned the use of driftnets longer than 2.5 kilometres in all regions except the Baltic Sea.
In recent years the presence of both national and EU patrol vessels has more or less succeeded in enforcing the 2.5 kilometre length limit, except in the Mediterranean.
I have been told that the EU no longer plans to send out a patrol vessel this year in either the Atlantic or the Mediterranean.
I would just like to ask the Commission if this is true.
This situation shows that technical measures must be clearly thought out and that we should not allow for any loopholes or evasion.
Mr President, on the substance of this report, I fully support the objectives of conservation and so do fishermen right across Europe.
But what we have here is a severe procedural problem.
As Mrs McKenna has just said, it is common knowledge that the Council of Ministers has already moved on from the Commission's position.
There is, in the corridors of power in Brussels, discussion about a Council compromise.
When I use the phrase 'corridors of power in Brussels' , it emphasizes how powerless this Parliament is if we are agreeing to discuss measures which have already been superseded.
That was the purpose of the point of order I made at the beginning.
The Commission is asking us to take decisions within a strait-jacket.
Yet within a matter of months there is every likelihood that the position will have moved on.
I would much rather that this Parliament was discussing the real proposals rather than the ones which have already been unofficially superseded.
So we have a grave problem here.
We also had the problem in committee that, because of the so-called compromise that was reached between the two big groups, a whole block of amendments was put through on a 'take it or leave it' basis.
My fishermen certainly have grave problems with certain of those amendments, for example, Amendment No 11, which is quite crucial on the two-net rule and on mesh size.
This approach to a complex and vital subject is not, to my mind, a democratic and satisfactory way to go about it.
I have tabled Amendments Nos 76-80, which I hope the rapporteur and Parliament will support.
We simply recall the agreement between the Council, the Commission and Parliament about consultation.
This says that they will have to take Parliament seriously.
I hope that these will be duly endorsed by Parliament.
However, the only safe way to make sure that we come back to the subject when it is up for real discussion is to reject the entire proposal.
I signal that now as being the position which I would take.
Let us look now at some of the substantive points.
There is always this debate about the differences of opinion between the scientists and the fishermen.
This points very clearly to the need to have both sides brought together and more resources put into cooperation.
Each side tells you stories about the other side.
Occasionally you can get a fisherman who has been out on a scientific boat for a week - I spoke to one recently in Shetland - and he comes back and tells you that his viewpoint has changed.
Likewise the viewpoints of the scientists can change if they get together with the fishermen and find out that they are not all baddies, intent on destroying stocks.
That is vitally important because one of the big problems in the industry is a lack of confidence.
I would support references made by a number of colleagues to the need for decentralized management.
That is also part and parcel of the business of restoring confidence amongst the fishing communities on the whole question of how to conserve fish stocks.
With these remarks I would reiterate that there are some grave procedural problems.
We have to get it right so that in the long-run the fish stocks of Europe are conserved and thereby the fishing communities saved.
Mr President, chance has decreed that we have three excellent reports on the problems of fishing: the report from our colleague Baldarelli, who states the problem of reconversion of fisheries, and more exactly, of 680 Italian swordfish fishing boats in the Adriatic, also raising the question of drift mesh nets; Mr Kinderman's report which aims to complete our blue zone integrating Sweden and Finland to it from 2002; finally Mr Adam's priority report.
As our colleagues have said, we are obviously all in agreement about overcoming this problem of fishing stocks and their management, all the more so since the 100 million tonnes fished each year cause disquiet with all the experts, - and Maurice Aubert of the CERBOM in Nice in particular.
It is enough to see what is happening to Canadian cod which is suffering weight loss and to hear the warning cries from the FAO.
From this it is understandable that the Commission is proposing legislation to guarantee biological security, by providing for an increase in mesh, or even a possible reduction in the number of nets, the banning of fishing in certain areas, restrictions or certain periods.
All this is understandable.
It is true that everyone is shocked by the problems, be they discarding immature fish or the production of fish meal as was practised at one time in Peru, in particular, with otherwise very limited bacteriological quality.
Nevertheless, the problem is that measures are perhaps not suited to the scope of the question.
Indeed it concerns the high seas, with the freedoms guaranteed by international law, in particular, the freedom to fish.
From now on, it is right, certainly, for us to impose measures relating to drift mesh nets in the Bay of Biscay on ourselves for the size of mesh or the number of nets, but there are the Korean, Japanese and Russian factory ships, which plunder without imposing measures on themselves.
Therefore would having a POP No. 4 from 1997 to 2003, not create inequalities to the detriment of our own fishermen? I think there are three avenues for the futures: firstly to develop small-scale fisheries and distinguish them from industrial fisheries.
Secondly, to have the fishing industry evolve from one of gathering fish to one of farming - and there is the crux of the problem of aquaculture, limited to 12 million tons per hour currently in the world.
Finally and above all, to envisage a world solution to the problem, within the framework of a convention similar to that of Montego Bay, but specific to fishing and not simply a general Montego Bay convention.
Indeed the same applies perhaps to fisheries as to the common currency: it may be suited to Europe but the market itself has become global, and fish are not aware of the limits of the European Community.
Mr President, I really think that we should congratulate ourselves on the parliamentary work which, together with the excellent work by the rapporteur, Mr Adams, and his dedication to this report, allows us to submit today, for approval by the House, one of the most important Commission proposals for a regulation as far as fisheries is concerned.
This has taken months of work, in many cases starting completely opposing positions, but the responsible manner in which the members of the Committee on Fisheries have grasped the implications for every fishing sector of the proposed technical measures has enabled us to present a consensus-based text today aimed at improving substantial aspects of the proposal.
The Commission submitted a proposal whose best point was its simplicity compared with the previous complex text. This will facilitate its implementation and the introduction of courageous rules, although in many cases these are too drastic.
Parliament has respected the original spirit, adapting it to what we believe to be the current situation regarding the fleet, and avoiding the trauma that would be caused in many cases by the immediate entry into force of the Community proposal.
Innovative conservation measures such as square-mesh netting, single nets and other rules to ensure greater selectivity as regards fishing gear have been understood and respected, while transitional periods and flexibility criteria have been introduced to ensure the gradual adaptation of fishing boats, fleets and even Member States which rejected them flatly in the original Commission text.
In a fishery such as that of the Community where there is such a variety of fishing undertakings, species and types of fishing, in many cases with strong popular support, the acceptance of a rule which will lead to a single management method must, by necessity, engender a lot of tension and debate.
The consensus reached is perhaps not perfect, but it will result in a rule that is much more acceptable for those who have to apply it, which is the only realistic way of ensuring that a rule is complied with.
Therefore I think that the work of Parliament has been very important in taking the step that will bring the Community fishery closer to a management model that will guarantee the conservation of resources and the survival of a healthy fishing sector in the long term.
I think that this is its best point and I ask the Commission to take account of the suggestions - which I believe are very realistic and timely - put forward by this House.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Adam, who had a very difficult job - I do not want to go into the history of it - and I welcome the Commission's initiative.
Needless to say, I, like all my colleagues and, indeed, like all fishermen throughout Europe, support the principle of technical conservation measures.
But do not take it from that that I accept many of the specific recommendations in the proposals.
Unlike the controls for a reduction in fishing effort, TACs and quotas, which are designed to have direct impact on stock levels, technical conservation measures have the specific task of protecting juvenile fish and, of course, spawning adults, so as to reduce the threat to future yields.
That is a very laudable objective, whether it is mesh size, minimal landing size, closed areas, closed seasons or protection of endangered species.
Remember that all these measures will require additional funds from the fishermen.
I believe the Commission has an obligation to assist them.
I want to highlight the fact here once more that Ireland is one of three countries, together with the UK and Denmark, to have taken steps to propose technical conservation measures to the Commission.
What about all the other countries which talk about conservation measures all the time and have made no proposals? Ireland has taken a leading role in the introduction of technical conservation measures for its vessels and if stock levels off its coast have been depleted, I must point the finger firmly at the Member States which have no regard for technical conservation measures, stocks and the future of young fishermen.
I am particularly concerned about young Irish fishermen. Many Members know which states I am referring to.
Technical conservation measures must be in a language that is simple and readily understood by fishermen.
There must be consultation and there was insufficient consultation with fishermen.
When some Members consulted with fishermen and put down reasonable arguments and reasonable amendments, what happened? They were totally disregarded!
It seems that the two major parties in this House vote against the amendments tabled by the smaller parties irrespective of whether they are logical or otherwise. What are we doing here today?
We are voting against all of them en bloc because we are wasting too much time in this Parliament talking about fishermen and their future! This is totally wrong!
There is no conservation dividend.
There is no set-aside for fishermen whereas there is set-aside for farmers!
We accepted this in principle here last year. Why is it overturned now by the two major parties?
Have they no interest in technical conservation measures, unlike many of the smaller parties?
It is time for a major review of the common fisheries policy - an immediate review.
Bring it forward, not tinkering with the edges, and give back to countries like mine what we rightfully deserve, which is a fair deal from the common fisheries policy.
Other countries, particularly those who came in the 1980s, tried to take over the west coast and then come here and try to give the impression that they are interested only in technical conservation measures.
Give the Irish a fair deal!
Mr President, this is a very difficult area for fishermen and all involved in the industry.
Firstly, I should like to pay tribute to the rapporteur.
I know he worked long and hard to try to find a solution to many of these grave problems.
Whether he has succeeded or not depends on one's particular point of view but I want to pay tribute to him for the long, hard and diligent work he engaged in to find a compromise and a way forward.
This Parliament owes him a debt of gratitude.
When one speaks of conservation and looks at TACs and quotas and all the other areas which affect the fishing industry, to a large extent one enters a minefield where there are no easy solutions.
The truth is that if there are no fish in the sea, there is no future for the fishermen of today or for their successors.
So, we have to find a balance that will suit the fishermen and the industry on one hand and the scientists on the other.
I have a problem with this and that is the conflict between what the scientists say and what the fishermen say. Somewhere along the line we have to reach a stage where the scientists pay more heed to what the fishermen are saying.
After all, they are the people who are out there day after day fishing round the shores of the European Union.
They are the people who have a good idea of the situation and they must have a future in the industry. The ones I speak to tell me that they want the industry protected.
Unfortunately, the Commission seems to be more interested in confrontation than cooperation.
I must admit that I have major concerns about the Commission proposals before us and the effect they will have on the industry.
I also have concerns about how they will be implemented and how they will be policed.
I listened with great interest to Mr Macartney's comments.
If his remarks are correct - and I hope the Commission will address the point he made - we are discussing today something that is already 3, 4, 5 or 6 weeks old.
And the Fisheries Commissioner is not even here - with the greatest respect to the Commission officials, the Fisheries Commissioner should be sitting there.
We, who are interested in the fisheries industry should be able to have an exchange of views with her, get the truth from her, get her to tell us what the situation is.
She is the person who ultimately has responsibility.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the present motion for a Commission regulation covers a very wide and heterogeneous field by dint of the varying nature of the fisheries resources.
Such a diversity of resources necessarily implies a whole range of different fishing methods.
Therefore, faced with such a situation, this regulation could succeed only if it followed three fundamental principles: first taking sound scientific proof as its basis, secondly being realistic in application, which presupposes that is has been appropriately negotiated with the Member States and economic operators in that sector and thirdly that implementation should be on a decentralized basis.
I even think that it will achieve results in practice if it is strictly applied to all types of fishing, since resources are more plentiful on the continental shelves closest to the coast.
On the other hand it is important to remember that this might all prove to be in vain unless financial resources are provided for conversion of fishing equipment and methods and unless appropriate tallying methods are used either at Union level or at the level of the Member States.
As regards Portugal, I welcome the fact that the rapporteur has taken account of some of our major concerns, specifically the designation of a protected fishing area along our coastline.
I thank Mr Adam for his remarkable work.
Finally, I should like to stress that these methods are inalienable from the multi-annual fisheries guidance programme, the famous FGP-IV, the parameters of which need to be set with care and consistency in all Member States.
I hope that in this matter the next Council of Ministers will finally shoulder its responsibility.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Adam because he has made an effort to be flexible in order to attempt to improve a Commission proposal which is not acceptable as it stands.
The Commission justifies its new technical measures by the wish to prevent the capture of juvenile fish - something we all agree with - but these measures are, essentially, of two types: to improve the selectivity of fishing gears and to restrict the activity of these.
It is obvious that the Commission proposal consists of a set of restrictions solely intended to reduce current catches in order to alleviate the adverse effects of the Common Fisheries Policy, which did not live up to expectations as regards conservation of resources.
The failure of the Common Fisheries Policy is due, among other things, to the quite ineffective control policy which did not manage to prevent the activities of boats infringing the rules.
The lack of selectivity is not due to the size of the nets in current fishing gears but to the increasingly frequent use of illegal gears by Community vessels, which cannot be prevented due to lack of political will.
Let us be sincere: can the Commission prove that juvenile fish are caught with regulatory nets? What scientific reports and studies is the Commission using as a basis to establish closed periods and zones in certain regions?
Experience has shown - as is logical - that undertakings do what they can to survive. The effort to survive in many cases involves the committing of infringements - which in most cases go unpunished - of which the Member States, which are responsible for the controls, are aware - and of which the Commission is almost always aware, justifying its failure to act by alleging, rightfully, that it has no powers as regards control.
In view of this, what about the undertakings which scrupulously fulfil the technical rules and have to compete with others which do not?
What are they to think and how are they to act?
What is the point in complying with and toughening up technical measures if the whole sector knows that failure to fulfil these is not penalised and that this is the real reason for the capture of juvenile fish? I think that only those measures compared in scientific studies and tested, and above all which can be controlled and are acceptable from the point of view of controls, should be implemented.
This is really the only solution if we are to have an economically viable, socially responsible fisheries policy which will ensure a balance of resources.
Thank you Madam President. I think the debate here reflects some of the mistrust that exists between fishermen in the different regions of the Community and I have to say regretfully not only between the people involved in the fishing industry but between the national authorities who have not complete confidence in each other's capacity or willingness to police the system.
I want to thank Mr Adam for his report.
He has made a valiant effort to find a compromise and I want to say also that I do not go all the way with the sort of criticism that is continually levelled against the European Commission for its efforts in trying to reconcile conflicting interests.
Particularly in the UK and Ireland we have this hysterical criticism of every effort that is made and the national politicians fail to give moral support to the Community effort to resolve the problem.
The reason why we have a common fisheries policy is that we have a common resource and it cannot be managed by the states individually, so we have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that we have to cooperate and find solutions.
Some people oppose every single measure.
They recognize, or say they do, the need for control but they oppose every single measure that comes forward.
The Commission is then forced to produce the unpalatable solution which at the end of the day it is up to the national governments to reject or accept.
But if the Commission did not make these unpalatable proposals then the national governments and the national politicians would have to face up to their own responsibilities.
If you talk to the people involved in the fishing industry for three minutes, privately and quietly, you will find they all recognize the danger that exists and they all accept the need for measures to improve the situation.
It is true some regions of the Community have better measures. In the Irish Sea, the Irish and UK Governments have agreed better measures in advance of Community progress and they are to be congratulated on that.
I think everybody has to recognize that, at the end of the day, if we are to have more fish, to give more quotas to fishermen, then the only way we can do that is to accept the hard decisions in the short term.
I believe if we do that there is evidence to show we can catch ECU 3 billion worth more of fish in Community waters.
If we could do that, then we could try some reallocation of quotas to those people that feel hard done by.
I want to refer to one major abuse that this does not provide for and that is fishing for mackerel in the western waters with factory ships where four times as many mackerel are being discarded as are being caught because of the higher price for the more mature fish.
This is a disastrous destruction and even if it means placing an officer on every ship we have to stop that.
Fishermen and the fishing industry will have no confidence in us while they can see this going on and the culprits not being arrested.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
The debate is closed.
Diversification for Italian fishermen
The next item is the report (A4-0095/97) by Mr Baldarelli, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Decision (COM(96)0682 - C4-0037/97-96/0308(CNS)) on a specific measure to encourage Italian fishermen to diversify out of certain fishing activities.
Madam President, before I speak on this subject, as we have received various requests for referral, I should like to know how the Commission would react if the report were in fact to be referred back to committee.
The Commission would like Parliament to give its opinion today.
Madam President, on behalf of my group, I ask for this report to be referred back to committee.
Would anyone like to speak in favour of this motion?
I call the Commissioner.
Perhaps I should emphasize that the 1997 fishing season is about to get under way.
To allow for an immediate halt to the activity in question, it is crucial that decision is approved by the Council meeting of 14 and 15 April. It is possible only if Parliament gives its opinion today.
For this reason the Commission is against referral back.
I call Mr Görlach.
Madam President, we know that the Commission is in favour of Parliament deciding today, and the same no doubt applies to the Council.
But on this question, as every group is aware, there are widely differing views in Parliament, and there are good reasons for that.
Even if the Fisheries Council is about to meet, Parliament would be doing itself no favours in relation to the Council position if we were to vote tomorrow.
We should run a real risk of being unable to give an opinion that enjoyed clear majority support.
Nothing will happen, even if the fishing season is about to start.
If we take a few more weeks here, that will truly have no significant effect on the new fishing season.
For these reasons I support Mr Baldarelli's motion.
Madam President, I think it most unfortunate that Mr Baldarelli has proposed referral back to committee at this stage.
My understanding is that there are some technical difficulties on compensation to the Italian fishing fleet which is a separate issue between the Italian Government and the European Commission.
The funding is there because the funding is already approved under regional policy etc.
That is not the main issue.
The main issue, as far as we and Parliament are concerned, is whether we are going to have any influence whatsoever over the Commission's proposal and the Council's decision.
If we do not take a decision today, this Parliament will be acting as a eunuch because the Council can move forward and take the decision without the opinion of Parliament.
I, therefore, am afraid I have to oppose Mr Baldarelli's proposal because the interests of Parliament are greater than the issue itself.
We have now heard one speaker in favour of Mr Baldarelli's procedural motion and one against.
Under Rule 129 of our Rules of Procedure, a vote is to be taken right now.
(Parliament decided to refer the report back to committee.) Mr Imaz San Miguel on a point of order.
Madam President, I would like you to check whether, under the Rules of Procedure, a quorum is necessary for this vote.
No, that should have been moved before.
If someone had made the request before the vote, we should have established that, but nobody did.
Mr Tamino on a point of order.
Madam President, I should like to point out that Mrs McKenna had asked for the floor but no one has found out what it is that she wanted to say.
Mr Tamino, under the Rules of Procedure one speaker speaks in favour of the motion and one against.
Mr Görlach has spoken in favour, Mr Provan against; thereafter, according to the Rules of Procedure, a vote is taken.
So in this case I could not call Mrs McKenna to speak on the motion.
Please accept that fact.
Madam President, it wasn't just a question of making a statement on the matter in hand but also, possibly, asking for the quorum to be checked.
Unless you check whether Members had another request to make, obviously you will not allow them to make it.
I am sorry, but we have adhered to the Rules of Procedure, and this is precisely the procedure they prescribe.
Madam President, I simply wanted to say that I asked to speak before the vote, but the President did not allow me to do so.
I just want to say now that the reason why I asked to speak was to request her to check if there was a quorum.
No, Mr Imaz San Miguel, I called those who asked leave to speak on this motion, and I did not see your signal.
I am sorry about that.
My staff to the right and left of me here did not see you signalling either.
Fisheries management in the Baltic
The next item is the report (A4-0094/97) by Mr Kindermann, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0489 - C4-0017/97-96/0244(CNS)) introducing arrangements for the management of the fishing effort in the Baltic Sea.
Madam President, the proposal before us has to do with the integration of Sweden and Finland into the common fisheries policy.
The principle of free and equal access to the waters of the Member States does not apply to either country, since there are no Community arrangements yet.
The aim of the proposed Regulation is to introduce such a Community arrangement for the Baltic area as a first stage in the gradual inclusion of Sweden and Finland in the common fisheries policy.
In essence, it provides for the fishing effort undertaken by Community vessels in each Baltic fishery to be monitored by the Member States on the basis of logbook records.
The arrangements are to apply to fishing vessels of more than 15 metres' length between perpendiculars.
The fishing effort of vessels shorter than 15 metres will be assessed globally for each fishery.
This is largely a matter of a posteriori observation of the fishing effort, for which the Commission proposes some administrative measures, particularly in the domain of data collection.
The Committee on Fisheries supported the proposed Regulation in principle.
It enables Sweden and Finland to be integrated into Baltic fisheries and is therefore a first important step towards the full integration of both new Member States into the common fisheries policy.
Unfortunately, the Commission proposal does not stop at its proclaimed purpose of monitoring the fishing effort but goes beyond it in several respects.
In particular, I believe that the linkage established in Article 2(2) between fishing permits and pre-existing entitlements to fish and the fact that Article 2(3) fixes the number of vessels at the status quo figure constitute unacceptable restrictions of the fishing effort.
We regard this as an inadmissible encroachment on future decisions regarding future fleet strengths.
And particularly in the Baltic Sea, where there are only four regulated target species, one of which (herring) is in a very healthy state, we believe that such a provision is unwarranted.
The Council, however, is entitled at any time to limit the permissible fishing effort for any fishery if the condition of stocks so dictates.
And further problems are posed by the definition of fisheries given in the annex.
Since the fisheries system set out there is not only intended for the collection of data on fishing efforts but also as a framework for a possible Council decision on restriction of the fishing effort, as emerges quite clearly from Article 5, the significance of the definition of fisheries undertaken here by the Commission must not be underestimated.
It is too rigid and, above all, too bureaucratic, and it does not reflect the existing pattern of fishing in the Baltic.
Nor is it necessary, in order to manage the fishing effort, to undertake a territorial breakdown.
For the purposes of this Regulation it would be quite sufficient to treat the entire Baltic Sea as a single area.
Our only concern in this context is to have fishery records subdivided by target species.
I reject the Commission annex in its present form and believe that the simplified system I have proposed is completely in line with reality and above all that it is consistent with the interests of the fishermen concerned.
Madam President, there is still a great deal of agitation over the last decision on the Baldarelli report.
As the responsible coordinator, I really must say at this point that we shall probably see something happening now that none of us wanted, namely the intervention of the United States in the Mediterranean, which will harm Italian fishermen and hence the Community fishing industry in general.
In that respect Mr Görlach's comments were inappropriate and did not look far enough ahead.
But of course my task is not to give another opinion on that report, particularly since we have now sent it back, but rather to comment on Mr Kindermann's felicitous report.
Mr Kindermann rightly stated that it is high time Sweden and Finland were integrated into the common European fisheries policy.
Sound proposals to that end have been tabled by the Commission.
Be that as it may, Mr Kindermann has seen fit to suggest two improvements.
He has tabled amendments to that end, and the Group of the European People's Party fully supports those amendments.
On the issue as a whole, I must add that the Commission is seeking a fleet limitation, but we in the PPE Group feel that this is misplaced.
A restriction of the size of fishing fleets like that proposed by the Commission is in fact currently being laid down in the Multiannual Guidance Programme MGP IV, and this should not be forestalled in such a manner.
Moreover, we can see that the Baltic fisheries are in exceptionally good shape.
The annual report for 1996 on the German fishing industry produced by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Forestry, for example, states that fish stocks in the Baltic are continuing to recover.
This applies especially to the codling population.
Stocks of herring and sprat continue to be very healthy.
When, incidentally, do we ever hear such good news from the fisheries sector?
The second point of criticism in Mr Kindermann's second amendment relates to the fisheries structure.
The Commission proposal does not seem terribly practicable in this respect.
The rapporteur reemphasized this point very clearly and proposed a logical alternative.
In general terms, I should like to stress that with the accession of Sweden and Finland the Union has two new littoral States of the Baltic Sea among its members.
This means that four of the nine States with Baltic coastlines are now members of the Union.
That will simplify fisheries management in the Baltic as a whole and make it more efficient, because the same set of rules will apply.
It is not only for that reason that we relish the prospect of future enlargements of the European Union, especially since we believe that fisheries policy is but one aspect of European policy, and we must ensure that we create equal terms and conditions for all.
Thank you, Mrs Langenhagen.
With regard to your opening remark, I had no option before, because those who voted decided by a majority of one vote - that is how close it was - to refer the report back to committee.
That is exactly what will happen, which means that it is no longer on today's agenda.
Madam President, firstly, I would like to thank Mr Kinderman for his hard work and for the fact that he has put forward a really essential amendment proposal.
Sweden and Finland are both small countries. The EU is large, but is proposing a much more detailed system than was previously applied in the Baltic Sea.
I may be wrong but perhaps it is a good thing that it is not the Commissioner with responsibility for Fisheries who is here today to listen to our points of view but Commissioner Liikanen instead.
I think these are very important views and the Commission should listen to them and take heed of them.
We have overstepped the limit where fishing capacity exceeds the reproduction level of fish in most of our waters.
Therefore the requirement for sustainable fishery means that we must limit our fishing efforts in various ways.
We have 50 years of experience of a simple limit on the West Coast of Sweden and more recently in the Baltic Sea.
We have limited the number of fishing days, had a break during the summer and have been able to use the coast guards as an effective means of control as they could tell us that when fishing boats were not supposed to be out, fishing boats were not out.
Now we are creating an uncontrollable system which will be impossible to live up to.
I do not think that that is a good thing.
But now we have something which I am very pleased about, Mr Kindermann has put forward a proposal which simplifies the system proposed by the Commission.
I would like to say that one requirement for the Commission's proposal to be used in the Baltic Sea is that we use the proposal now put forward by Parliament which I am certain will gain a majority.
Otherwise we will have to oppose the proposal in its entirety.
Madam President, I come from the North and am not in the habit of passing on congratulations for reports unnecessarily.
But I would like to congratulate Mr Kindermann because he has made some good amendments to the proposal.
I also note that he has said that there is a good supply of Baltic herring so we must be able to increase our efforts to fish herring from the Baltic Sea.
This bodes well for the discussion on continued herring fishing for fodder purposes in the future.
We need to fish for herring in the Baltic Sea in order to counteract eutrophication.
Without fodder fishing we cannot do this effectively.
The rapporteur's proposal is to replace the appendix with a simple table; this is necessary and welcome.
It is the best of the proposals now under discussion and I really hope that the Commission can support the proposal.
It also corresponds to the coastal fishing which is typical in the Baltic Sea.
If the regulation is passed it will be some very rare good news from the EU for the fishing industry in Finland as we will then be able to register boats or fishermen and put an end to the crazy system of fishing peaks with everyone going out at the same time to fish which leads to reductions in prices and difficulties for fishermen.
Finally, I would like to comment on an eternal problem: In the report herring is translated as sill in Swedish and silli in Finnish, the Baltic Fishermen will have a good laugh about this.
It ought to be strömming and silaaki respectively, and the same applied for the Appendix.
I hope that this can be corrected.
, Member of the Commission - (FI) Madame President, as I stated earlier Commissioner Bonino would have liked to have been here today, but at the moment she is attending a meeting of the Consumer Affairs Council.
She sent a letter to Parliament informing it of the situation, but unfortunately it proved impossible to change the agenda in such a way as to enable her to take part in the debate.
I will therefore read out her answer:
The Commission welcomes the constructive approach adopted by the Committee on Fisheries and the rapporteur, Mr Kindermann.
It bears witness to the desire to end the transitional period for Sweden and Finland in connection with the Community's Baltic fisheries policy.
If the parties concerned want open-ended lists of fishing vessels, the Commission will not oppose this.
However, longer lists would increase fishing capacity, which may be at odds with structural policy, in particular the multiannual programmes.
Although the Commission is prepared to accept the thinking behind these amendments, the latter are nevertheless not consistent with Community fisheries policy.
With regard to the annex, the Commission feels that a simplification would be better from an administrative point of view.
However, if this amendment were to be adopted, valuable knowledge would be lost, particularly as regards endangered species of fish.
I will of course inform Commissioner Bonino of the points raised in the debate so that she can take them into account in her further consideration of the issue.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.37 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon.)
Votes
Madam President, perhaps someone from the PPE Group would also like to comment on Amendment 2. The first part of both amendments is identical, and we each actually wanted to withdraw the second part of our respective amendments.
I do not know whether that message came across.
If the PPE Group withdraws the second part of its amendment, I shall also withdraw the second part of ours on behalf of my group, and we should only need to vote once on the identical first part.
Madam President, as Mrs Wemheuer has already said, we in the PPE are also going withdraw the second part of the Garriga Polledo amendment, amendment No 2.
Madam President, it is sometimes tragic when the two large groups in the House agree to delete an important part of an amendment.
This is happening now with the second part of Mr Wynn's amendment.
It is no good simply to say that we need controls; it is better to add that if the controls do not prove effective, appropriate action must be taken, and that is precisely what the second part of Mr Wynn's amendment says.
For that reason, my group would like the second part to be retained.
May I ask for a vote on that?
Mrs Müller, it is quite clear.
Your group is continuing on its own with this second part of the amendment.
I will therefore put the first part of Amendment No. 2 and of Amendment No. 1 which is identical to the vote by roll call.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, excuse me, I had already asked to speak before the vote, but since the problem is likely to recur, my intervention is not without purpose.
Amendment No. 53 added something to the paragraph.
It was to this amendment that the request for a roll call was directed.
We should therefore have voted on the amendment first.
In doing as you have, first the initial text, then the amendment, you have introduced confusion in people's minds.
I would be surprised if the request for a roll call is directed to Article 3, part 3, first paragraph of the directive.
. (FI) Madame President, I have been asked to make a small oral amendment clarifying this amendment.
I should like the word 'and' at the beginning of the sentence to be changed to 'but'.
This does not change the substance of the amendment, but clarifies its thrust.
The relevant sentence should thus read 'but in arctic climate conditions the summer period extends' etc.
If you are now wondering why such a matter should be raised, the explanation can be found in the fact that the Member States with arctic climates were not yet in the EU when the Auto-Oil programme was drawn up.
Nobody described this situation better than the former President of Finland. He stated in this room, before Finland's accession to the EU, that when the cherry trees are blossoming in Strasbourg, people in Finland are still going cross-country skiing..
This is the situation today, 10 April, in Finland.
In order that matters be quite clear, the oral amendment woud state: ' the summer period extends from 1st April to 30th September of each year, but in arctic climates etc.'
(The President noted that there was no opposition to the tabling of this oral amendment) - Regarding Amendment No 64
Madam President, I am informed by the British Foreign Office there is a factual error in Recital M. I would therefore like to propose an oral amendment to which I have the agreement of Mr Dupuis and Mr McMillanScott, to say: ' welcoming the announcement by Chinese authorities that they will sign the International Covenant on Economic and Social Rights and are studying the possibility of signing the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights' .
(The President noted that there was no opposition to the tabling of this oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I am looking at the agenda for today. I really think that if we are going to get into the regular habit of continuing votes from lunchtime at 6 p.m., then it should say so on our agenda.
It has been common practice for that not to happen.
The votes at 5.30 p.m. are for the urgencies.
It does not indicate we will just carry on voting with everything that is left over.
I think we should in future make it clear on our agenda what we intend to do with regard to votes.
Mrs Green, to my knowledge, it is indeed what the agenda for the week stipulates, in any case, since it is what I have seen in it.
I checked in this Thursday's agenda which states: ' 6 p.m. (or after the Rule 47 votes) possibly continuation of the morning's votes' .
This appears, therefore, in the draft agenda for the week, which embraces the various days, and in the agenda for this Thursday as well.
We think that it should have been emphasised in this report under the heading 'Agricultural Charges' that it is not just the charges for cereal crops and rice which are unacceptable but also the other sections of the CAP as well.
Point 24 ought, in my opinion, to end with a demand for a reform of the whole agricultural policy with a view to a real slimming down of subsidies.
Dankert report (A4-125/97)
We think that this report ought to take up the issue of the money wasted in this Parliament moving between Brussels and Strasbourg.
It ought also to highlight the enormous costs connected with the new building work which is now being completed in both of these places.
It is money wasted in this fashion which seriously damages the Union's reputation amongst the people.
Mamère report (A4-96/97)
First of all, there is cause for self-congratulation on the 'Auto/Oil' initiative, the objective of which is to achieve a significant reduction in air pollution by 2010.
This proposal constitutes the outcome of a global strategy, based on a cost-effective approach and on agreement with the principal sectors concerned.
However, it appears that certain improvements aimed at re-establishing the balance of the initial proposal were necessary at this stage of the proceedings.
In fact, certain demands from the rapporteurs, which I judge to be realistic, may contribute to reinforce the effectiveness of these measures.
In particular, the average life of a road vehicle in the European Union being twelve years and pending the renewal of existing vehicles in Europe to meet the new demands, it is necessary to improve the quality of fuels more rapidly to avoid penalising consumers.
I remain nevertheless convinced that the setting up as of today of mandatory standards for 2005 does not constitute the best solution.
In my opinion, it would be more reasonable to proceed by stages and thus to benefit from the evaluation of the standards already in force.
Choices must not be made now which would bind our industries, while technology is evolving rapidly. I am sure it will allow us to carry out a differential adjustment of the standards for 2005, with greater pragmatism nevertheless with regard to technical progress achieved.
The report takes an overall view of the issue of reducing emissions from motor vehicles.
The Swedish Social Democrats are very positive about the proposals presented in the report.
But we would point out that we think that amendment proposals Nos. 25 and 39 are too strict in format.
To focus solely on the use of fuel without paying any attention to large cars constructed with safety as a priority is, we think, wrong.
On the other hand we can envisage a system which within reasonable constraints could stimulate the consumer to chose a fuel-efficient car and to press for both small and large cars.
We think that this perspective is missing in relation to the requirement for lower fuel use in the report.
Our view on this matter concerns not only Mr Lange's report of course but also the report by Ms González Álverez.
The European Parliament has today adopted a comprehensive proposal on how we can significantly improve air quality in the EU.
It introduces a significant tightening up of the limits and requirements applying to the production of new cars - and we fully support these requirements.
It is clear that these requirements have a price.
And industry has complained greatly about this.
But they must understand that the value of human health cannot be set lower than that of a heap of metal on wheels.
We want these improvements for the sake of our health and the environment in the EU.
It is therefore necessary to have more rigorous limits.
Industry must also realize that these improvements will not only mean a competitive advantage in the long term.
The European car industry needs to improve now in order that it might compete with Japan and the USA in the next few years.
In these car-producing countries particularly rigorous requirements have already been introduced for new cars.
This is an example we should follow.
What we need are initiatives that will bring home to consumers how important their style of driving is - e.g. in terms of acceleration and speed.
If we can encourage Member States to promote more environmentally conscious driving, good driving patterns will soon follow.
The cars of the future will be more suited to our circumstances and environment, this is the aim.
We, as politicians, need to introduce requirements, and both industry and consumers need to understand their responsibility.
The automobile sector is responsible for over 25 % of petrol emissions.
The air in our cities is impossible to breathe, cars are flooding our streets and lorries are paralysing our motorways.
The principles on which environmental policy is based are accepted but not implemented.
The prevention of contaminating emissions, the internalisation of external costs in the transport sector and the protection of public health and of the environment are fundamental requirements of our citizens.
Our Parliament must assume its responsibility.
In the specific case we are dealing with today of measures to reduce atmospheric pollution, it must be firmly asserted that the position defended by the European parliament is aimed at protecting the health of our citizens and preventing the continuing increase in the really harmful effects of acid rain, the deterioration of historic monuments and the widespread pollution in our entire ecosystem.
Urgent measures are required.
Everyone should be aware that it is technically possible to improve the quality of fuel and that this is a precondition to making numerous technical improvements to engines.
It is a logical sequence of events.
As citizens we demand pure air for breathing.
This involves trying to have 'clean cars' which must be fitted with sophisticated catalytic converters.
But in order to have clean cars, we need quality fuel.
Improving the quality of petrol and diesel is an essential factor in the technological improvement of vehicles.
Moreover, the use of quality fuels has immediate beneficial effects.
The European Parliament's proposals are not simply good intentions.
They are objectives which can be achieved and are being put forward in order to protect the health of citizens and the environment and to ensure the competitiveness of the European car industry in the global market.
González Álvarez report (A4-117/97)
We support these two reports as they form an important part of the work in Europe towards a better environment.
But we cannot support the European Parliament demand for average fuel use of 0.5 ltrs/10 km for the year 2005 and 0.3 ltrs/10kms for the year 2010.
These limits would kill off a large part of the European car industry.
Technical development in recent years together with the use of fiscal incentives has enabled large reductions in average fuel use to be made.
This is the way forward for the future as well.
Politicians must keep within realistic limits if significant environmental objectives are to be achieved.
I fully support this report which is sponsored by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection of the European Parliament.
It is imperative that the European Union charts an overall strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from cars in order to save greater amounts of fuel and thus help lower atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (of which the EU accounts for 12 % in world terms) and hence limit the climate change now occurring.
I would note in this regard that one of the key recommendations of the Rio de Janeiro Environmental Conference in 1992 was that measures should be implemented to keep CO2 emissions by the year 2000 at 1990 levels.
To attain these objectives the EU must implement the following measures: swift implementation of the auto/oil package which includes a proposal for a directive laying down limit values for car emissions as from the year 2000; implementation of a directive on fuel quality specifications; introduction of a European Commission proposal to reduce limit values for exhaust emissions; introduction of the agreement with the European motor industry and EU car importers to cut the fuel consumption of new cars.
Under this agreement, which provides for a system of checks, manufacturers will be obliged to reduce average CO2 emissions from all new cars within a predetermined period; encouragement of consumers to purchase the most fuel-efficient models by introducing tax breaks; and there needs to be better consumer information about CO2 emissions by means of an appropriate labelling system.
In conclusion, although resolute action needs to be taken at a world level, it is up to the European Union to set the example both internationally and at a Community level in protecting against CO2 emissions.
The debate and Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez' report again bring into focus the importance of agreeing a long-term environmental programme which takes into consideration the impact of CO2 and other toxic emissions and the need to improve fuel economy and reduce our dependence on existing non-renewable resources.
My main interest is to ensure that future EU energy programmes make meaningful provision for the development of a fuel industry based on renewable energy resources.
Europe's energy dependency has increased from 44 % to 52 % and we still have to tap into our renewable energy resources.
This must change.
Renewable energy resources are land-based. Land is our greatest national resource and is the only one capable of generating the raw material for alternative energy.
Alternative energy provides the opportunity for the most profitable and environmentally acceptable non-food use of land. This in turn would boost rural renewal with the creation of employment for our rural communities.
Such technology is already in place, with vehicles running on fuels such as bio-diesel.
The cost-effectiveness of establishing a fuel industry based on renewable resources is dependent in the early stages on the attitude of this Parliament and national governments.
Of course it is vital that we establish a tax regime conducive to the establishment of such an industry.
I believe the loss of revenue through reduced excise duty would be offset by the increased economic activity generated by the new industry and savings through fuel imports.
Renewable energy could also be linked in a positive manner with our forest development programme, thus ensuring the maximum utilization of the by-products of the forestry sector.
Ghilardotti report (A4-115/97)
Madam President, I am in favour of a reasonable and practicable accommodation of the burden of proof in the cases of discrimination, direct or indirect, based on gender.
I have not, however, been able to vote either in favour of certain amendments or in favour of the report, because it goes well beyond that which is necessary or wise to contribute to a more correct application of Community legislation in the area of equality of treatment and equality of opportunity of men and women.
Talleyrand stated that anything which is exaggerated is insignificant.
If the exaggerations and legal incongruities contained in the text which was voted upon here at the first reading were to be retained by the Council - which fortunately will not be the case - such a directive would nevertheless run the risk of not remaining insignificant to women, since it would discourage employers from conducting an active policy for the employment of women.
Now women, Madam President, who cannot find employment any more, are no longer at risk of being discriminated against by their employer.
Is that the outcome we want? I hope not and I await the second reading for the damage to be put right.
We think that the issues dealt with by the report, equality between women and men and a smoothly functioning labour market are extremely important.
The committee and its rapporteur have put forward what is essentially a good report but we think that the report contains an important omission, namely support for the Commission's proposal for Article 4.1c.
The Commission's proposal for Article 4.1.c includes de facto an important factor to improve the position of the plaintiff when allocating the burden of proof in cases of sexual discrimination.
By proposing that 4.1c is removed from the Commission's proposal, Parliament risks helping to strengthen the position of the less progressive States in the Council which would be unfortunate.
We also think that amendment proposal No. 18 in the report, which concerns Article 7.2 (new) could be interpreted and used by certain Member States to exclude people of a certain gender de facto from a number of occupations.
We think therefore that the effect of amendment proposal No 18 could be that the report would include a proposal which opposes one of its basic aims, namely to provide a good foundation for a real step forward for equality between men and women and a modern labour market.
This is an example of a European Commission proposal which will lose jobs - mainly for women.
According to the European Parliament's own legal experts, its effect will be to reduce the protection of women in the 14 countries who have signed up to the Social Chapter.
Paradoxically, British women enjoy better protection under our own Equal Opportunities Act, under British and European Court of Justice (ECJ) Case Law and under the Treaties.
The Commission proposal reduces that protection which is one reason why the British Government applied the veto to the original proposal. the Commission is trying to outflank the British by using the Social Chapter.
Both the Labour and Liberal Democrats in the current election campaigns have promised to sign up to the Social Chapter.
British women beware!
Another objection is that the wrong Parliament Committee - Women's Rights - has led on this proposal.
Gender discrimination is not only a problem for women.
Men suffer from it too.
Men have to wait longer for their pensions than women.
In London, men cannot get their transport passes until 65 whereas women get them at 60.
This proposed Directive should have been referred to either the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and the Working Environment or the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
A further objection is that the Commission proposal is badly drafted.
I have compared the English, French and German versions. They differ in a number of important respects.
For example, the English version refers to the 'prima facie' evidence of discrimination. Neither the French nor German versions use that wording.
(Oddly, only the English version uses Latin !)
The Commission has ridden rough-shod over the opposition of the main employers' organizations in the European Community - UNICE for big companies, UEAPME for small and medium-sized firms and EUROCOMMERCE for the distributive trades. They fear it will become a malcontent's charter.
One bright spot, however, is the defeat of a proposal put forward by British Labour members to set up a special European fund to finance employees who wanted to sue their employers.
Already in 1957, Article 119 of the treaty instituting the European Community stipulated: ' Each Member State provides..... the application of the principle of equality of remuneration between male workers and female workers for the same work' .
Four years before the beginning of the XXIst century, women's salaries are still significantly lower than those of men, and this in countries where they are in a majority of 52 %, where they represent nearly 40 % of the active population and where more than 90 % of them are salaried.
This, also in countries which advocate democracy and equality.
It is true that since 1975, six directives for equality of remuneration and treatment between women and men have allowed a solid legal base to be established which has been generously interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
Unfortunately, the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice has not been applied uniformly in the Member States.
It is therefore high time, in 1997, for a directive to be adopted, which finally obliges the employer and no longer the plaintiff, to prove that the difference in salary between men and women does not arise from a difference of gender.
The advantages which this directive offers are manifold: it defines indirect discrimination which does not lie in considerations linked directly to gender, but in matters of fact, neutral in appearance.
By the very nature of the directive, Member States are required to transpose and therefore to introduce the measures necessary for its implementation into their internal legal system.
The directive must be applied in matters of recruitment, promotion, remuneration and social security.
However, the 'reversal of the burden of proof' is not total; the plaintiff must first establish the points of fact which allow the existence of discrimination to be presumed.
Whilst strongly approving of this directive, I regret, however, that it is not more 'demanding' and that the reversal of the burden of proof is not total and actual.
Does this directive have a reason for existence?
A PPE member from Luxembourg is of the opinion that this is not the case.
It is for this reason that she defended the employer's views in Committee on Women's Rights and she introduced amendments directed at emptying the directive of its purpose.
I do not share this point of view.
Moreover, nor does the government of Luxemburg.
On the contrary, I am of the opinion that, in the long struggle of women against all discrimination based on gender, this legislative text will make it possible to obtain from employers the information necessary to establish the existence of discrimination.
While certain Member States have legislation which already goes further, it is obvious that a vigorous directive is required on a European scale, in order to create a clear legal basis.
The Luxemburg socialists declare themselves to be clearly in favour of Mrs Ghilardotti's report.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Ghilardotti report on the proposal with respect to the Council's directive on the burden of proof in connection with discrimination on the basis of sex.
The Danish Social Democrats take a positive view of the rapporteur's report which is a step towards an effective safeguarding of the principle of equality.
One of women's greatest problems is precisely that of proving that they have been discriminated against on the basis of sex.
Therefore it is a positive step that the legal definition of indirect discrimination be clarified.
However it is also important that the proposal's area of application be clearly worded so that it includes aspects of sex discrimination in the employment market - including hiring, promotion and salaries.
As the rapporteur has pointed out, salaries should also be covered by the directive, since discrimination on the basis of sex often has to do with the issue of salaries - especially when salary statistics in Denmark show that on average women's salaries are 60, 000 Danish kroner lower for the same work of the same value.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance voted for Mrs Fiorella Ghilardotti's report and is eager to congratulate the rapporteur on her remarkable work and her courage.
Indeed it requires a lot of courage even today to become involved in the question of equality between men and women.
We also have difficulty in accepting that the question which we are tackling is still a current one.
For, if we are inclined to make a statement on the question of the burden of proof in the case of discrimination based on gender, it is because this discrimination still exists.
And therein lies the whole problem.
Nevertheless the European Union has had the concern for equality of treatment between men and women close to its heart from its inception.
Article 119 of the EEC Treaty stipulates it and has given rise a series of acts directed at improving the lot of women so that inequalities no longer exist between the sexes.
The European Commission has made this matter one of its priorities for more than twenty years.
Where then does this problem come from? The Council itself does not stop the flow of texts directed at assuring equality of treatment between men and women.
Only it is known that the Council cannot go far in the event that one or other Member State considers its interests are at stake.
This is the explanation for everything.
This is why since 1988 no decision has been taken to resolve the question of the burden of proof, while a text had been submitted to the Council, and the European Parliament had stated its opinion.
Nearly ten years of obstruction, and the necessity to resort to other procedures more limited in scope.
The subject on which we have just legislated, as so many others, shows the extent to which institutional reform is necessary.
If we really want an effective and just Europe, it is time to implement majority rule for all legislation.
I hope the IGC will achieve this.
In any case reality requires it.
The ARE has voted for this text, in order to contribute to the introduction of clear and precise regulations in this essential field, a real equality between men and women and we profoundly regret that this report can only include 14 Member States.
Equal opportunities for men and women and equal treatment at work ought to be considered as a matter of course.
It ought to be equally obvious that every country may draw up their own regulations in this area.
I have voted for the report on the premise that the regulations in the Directive are the minimum standards which give every country the right to draw up or keep their own regulations.
This is also stated in the report and it is on this premise that I have voted for the report.
A shift in the burden of proof from the plaintiff to the defendant is a complex issue, so it comes as no surprise that it has led to very detailed discussions both here in the House and within our group.
The advantage of this is that our position has been given extremely careful consideration, and we were in no doubt that we should vote for the resolution.
Some people have tried to claim that this is all about a dispute between employers and workers, and of course it is perfectly true that the two sides of industry expressed different opinions when they were consulted about this proposal.
Instead of simply underlining this difference, however, the PPE Group felt it was better to get straight to the heart of the matter: there is actually no suggestion of introducing new rights - it is simply a question of making the principle of equal treatment and equal opportunities for men and women, as laid down in the Treaty and in seven directives, legally enforceable where necessary.
It is also not an entirely new departure, since the basic idea behind the directive has already been set out in the case law of the Court of Justice.
It is not even really a reversal of the burden of proof, but simply a shift, so that in proceedings between an employer and a worker, say, or between someone covered by a social security system and the authorities responsible for that system or the regulator in the field, each of the parties is required to make available any information they possess which is relevant to the burden of proof.
The directive simply makes it easier for a person who goes to court to enforce an individual, subjective right.
It is also a means of ensuring respect for a principle which is of such great social importance that it transcends the subjective rights and individual interests of those bringing proceedings.
It is therefore of great political significance.
The only regrettable aspect is that the legal basis was finally taken from the social protocol, which means that this directive will not yet apply in the UK, creating further divisions in our social Europe.
Resolution on Albania
Madam President, anything but a multinational force to protect humanitarian aid! This is a typical military force which will occupy ports, airports, lines of communication and stations; which is proposing to intervene to restore public order, to disarm the population, to protect and secure President Berisha and the Fino Government, and to prepare, in 60 days' time, for political elections.
Add to that the clear intent of the Italian Government to use force to seal every point at which Albanian refugees can illegally embark for Italy.
What is under way here is a dangerous political and policing operation, camouflaged by the humanitarian mandate, on the orders of the government in Rome, discredited and incompetent, which is no longer in any position to guarantee anything except the weakness and vagueness of its own ideas.
The Dutch presidency, moreover, yesterday summarized the situation, cynically, as 'A somewhat unenviable mission' .
Madam President, today's approval in this House of the OECD's so-called humanitarian military mission to Albania marks an unhappy coincidence.
It is, in fact, exactly fifty-eight years since Fascist Italy began its occupation of Albania.
But, of course, it is not this historical reminder, as fortuitous as it is improbable, that prompts the Italian component of the Communist Renewal Party in the GUE Group to express its outright disagreement with the compromise text approved a short while ago.
While expressing the deepest understanding of the requests and pleas put forward by the forces of democracy in Albania, we are unfortunately in no doubt that the OECD mission, under Italian control, will not only fail to provide them with any satisfaction or support but will eventually cause damage - not irreparable, we trust -to the cause of democracy, the return to normality and the restoration of peace in Albanian society.
This military intervention - because it is a military intervention, in the absence of any food or health emergency - marks the culmination of what the Herald Tribune today calls a sequence of tragic errors by the Italians.
We can only hope that these errors will not have fatal consequences for a friendly people who have suffered all too much in the last fifty-eight years.
We Communists, in Italy and in Europe, will continue to do what we can to ensure that this insane military undertaking is over as soon as possible, without further tragic consequences for that population beyond the Adriatic.
We are voting against the joint resolution tabled by the six political groups.
We totally reject the logic of intervention in the affairs of a third country, via the dispatch of a multinational military force, that is expressed in the resolution signed by the conservative and social democratic groups of this Parliament.
The EU is persisting with its unacceptable policy of supporting the forces which have led Albania into its present predicament and is trying to salvage what it can from the autocratic, anti-democratic and thieving regime of Berisha whom the EU itself elevated and imposed on the Albanian people with disregard for the consequences.
Instead of demanding that President Berisha resign forthwith and that the international bodies contribute to compensating the Albanian people for the losses they have incurred as a result of being robbed by the pyramidtype saving schemes that were aided and abetted by European and American profiteers, instead of insisting that the just demands of the outraged Albanian people be met and that committees of the people be allowed to participate in the restoration of democracy and in the economic reconstruction of Albania, the resolution of the European Parliament advocates intervention in the internal affairs of the country and seeks yet again to stop the Albanian people determining their own fate and future.
The conservative and social democrat forces are using the stance of their political stable mates in Albania as a pretext for giving wholehearted support via this resolution to armed intervention, mandated by the UN but with the Italian Government as the chief instigator, aimed solely at facilitating a share-out of zones of influence in Albania and in the Balkans generally.
We utterly reject military intervention in any form, particularly in the Balkans where the presence of foreign forces in all, or at least most, of the countries is increasing the risk of wider destabilization in an area commonly known as 'the powder keg of Europe' .
We are against legitimization and consolidation of the logic promoted by the new order which involves the elevation of military intervention to the status of a necessary condition for the settlement of internal and international problems as a means to furthering imperialistic interests via a military presence and the force of weaponry under the guise of ensuring the distribution of humanitarian aid.
It was with great fervour that this House discussed the sending of armed troops to Albania in order to achieve peace and security.
But a military operation in Albania is a difficult task and could cost many lives, something which cannot be measured in terms of money.
The greatest problem, and everyone agrees on this, is how to disarm the population.
The idea which I presented was that the European Union should establish an office for the purchase of weapons in Tirana.
It would be much cheaper for the EU countries to buy the people's weapons from them than to force them to give them up.
Albanians could also then receive some form of income which may help, to some extent, to relieve the losses which many of them suffered when they were duped into participating in pyramid selling schemes.
Resolution on Hong Kong
My concern about the current developments in Hong Kong is the same as my concern about the internal stability of China as a whole.
We are not managing to make it clear to the government in Beijing that the European Parliament's criticisms are not anti-China, but are aimed at promoting stability in the Asiatic region and in the global village of which China also forms part.
The economic liberalization that China has undergone has not been matched by any liberalization on human rights and democracy.
It is a hopeful sign that China has indicated that it intends to sign a number of international conventions, but it needs to do so as quickly as possible.
I would also hope that China's mission to the European Union will step up its contacts and dialogue with Members of this House at all levels, and that both sides will show the same spirit of openness.
We have abstained from voting on the Hong Kong resolution.
In doing so we want to emphasise that the criticism directed in the resolution towards the action of the Chinese People's Republic is correct.
The protection of democracy and human rights is taken as read as far as we are concerned.
But we do not agree with the format of the resolution as regards point 6.
We see no reason for the EU and its Member States to co-ordinate its action on this matter with the USA.
This is why we have abstained from voting.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m. )
Topical and urgent debate
The next item on the agenda is the debate on highly important topical and urgent issues.
The next item on the agenda is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0294/97 tabled by Mrs Hoff and others on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists on the Treaty of Union between Belarus and the Russian Federation; -B4-0297/97 tabled by Mr Ferri and others on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party on the Treaty of Union between Belarus and the Russian Federation; -B4-0380/97 tabled by Mrs Lalumière on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance on the Treaty of Union between Belarus and the Russian Federation; -B4 0319/97 tabled by Mr Bertens on behalf of the Group of the Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party on the Treaty of Union between Belarus and the Russian Federation; -B4 0326/97 tabled by Mr Schroedter and Mrs Aelvoet on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament on breaches of democracy and human rights in Belarus; -B4-0329/97 tabled by Mrs Sornosa Martínez on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left on the Treaty of Union between Belarus and the Russian Federation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the Commission, we all hoped that another urgent debate on the political situation in Belarus would not be necessary.
We hoped that President Lukashenko would find the path of reason from the irrational route he himself had chosen to follow.
We hoped that the long-overdue acceptance of democratic ground rules in Belarus would become a reality.
There are many models of democracy, but all of them accept fundamental human rights such as respect for the democratically elected Parliament, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom of the press and the exercise of democratic control.
Human rights and the exercise of democratic civil liberties are not a luxury reserved for decadent Western societies which cannot afford to have countries undergoing political and economic upheaval.
They are the civil rights of a humane global community.
Critical ideas are the salt of a vibrant open society.
Freedom is for everyone.
We hoped that a solution would develop which would reflect the situation before the referendum.
We hoped that sweeping economic reforms would be introduced, so that the financial and economic aid packages assembled by the IMF, the World Bank, the European Union and the United States could finally be put into effect.
We hoped that the partnership and cooperation agreement as well as the interim agreement between the European Union and Belarus could be implemented.
The aim of our European policy is not isolation but rather the fulfilment of our responsibility to use financial and economic aid measures in support of our ideas.
The attempt to foster closer regional cooperation between two friendly States such as Russia and Belarus is legitimate.
It is to be feared, however, that this union treaty is a geopolitical defensive strategy against the eastward enlargement of NATO.
Mr Primakov has already spoken of lessening the impact of the NATO enlargement.
My concern is that this is playing on national fears and that the surrender of national sovereignty might one day appear desirable.
Regional approaches and cooperative arrangements should not be defensive strategies but should allow each party to develop as a reliable partner of all neighbouring States, of the European Union, the United States and other international partners and of international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, all of which are prepared to help in what is admittedly an incredibly complex and historically unparalleled process of integration into an existing world economic system.
It is to be hoped that the present draft treaty between Russia and Belarus will lead to a broad national debate, a debate which should be open, democratic and controversial.
We call on the Commission to use the joint statement to examine the impact of these developments on our agreements, and we ask the Commission explicitly to include this examination in the mandate of its joint factfinding mission with the Council and to inform us of the results.
In addition, the report of the fact-finding mission should be delivered to Parliament as soon as it is available.
Despite the massive demonstrations which have taken place, President Lukashenko has got his way and has signed a Treaty of Union with the Russian Federation.
The way in which this treaty has come about is typical of the authoritarian behaviour and attitude of the Belarus Government.
Fortunately, the new liberal ministers in Russia managed to have the scope of the treaty considerably reduced, and its evolutionary nature allows for further debate and consultation before there is any further integration.
The new treaty is only likely to be successful if it is rooted in an environment of respect for human rights and democracy, if it allows criticism from the press, and if it is accompanied by a humane policy towards minorities.
None of this is in place at the moment.
Fortunately, the Belarus Government has promised improvements, and has said that it is prepared to cooperate with the Union on the basis of the Kosto committee's proposals.
The Union must be ready to provide help, and our efforts are needed to promote security and stability in Eastern Europe.
Greater efforts are needed from the Belarus Government before the partnership agreement can be approved.
Mr President, since November there have been huge changes in Belarus.
My last visit in March opened my eyes to a change that had never been apparent during my previous visits.
The way in which this treaty is being handled and the lack of public consultation are manifestations of this change.
The reality in that country is that parliamentarians are being convicted, imprisoned and fined, although on paper they continue to enjoy immunity.
That is why I believe we must not miss the opportunity to invite these parliamentarians here.
Mr Lukashenko's reply to us is very telling, for while he was writing his reply, these arrests were taking place.
The free press is in a no-win situation.
The latest threat is that the newspapers - the only free voices left in the country - are to be closed down.
That is why it is essential that those measures in the TACIS democratization programme which are still possible should be implemented very quickly indeed and that access to them should be granted to all sections of the population.
The most difficult thing at the present time is to continue dispensing aid to the children who are victims of Chernobyl, and I receive numerous phone calls and complaints about the severe problems faced by the NGOs in trying to pass on humanitarian aid to the victims freely and without constant state interference.
I therefore ask the other groups to accept our oral amendment on this subject.
What is particularly disturbing and symptomatic of the development of Stalinism in this country is the creation of state youth organizations with some of the trappings of fascism.
It is important to conduct a dialogue, but the prerequisite of dialogue is the creation of conditions in which it can take place.
Another important point is that support should be given to the OSCE envoy who is initiating round-table talks in order to promote the restoration of dialogue with the forces of democracy, for it is also essential that these democrats be given due recognition from our side and that they do not become fair game for dictatorial actions.
May I just say that the Socialist Group accepts the oral amendment.
Mr President, only a few weeks ago I was in the chair as the oldest Member of the European Parliament, and I was aware then that anyone who is as old as I am will have seen many things and will also have seen the opposite of everything.
I can only say this to you: when I hear the news from Belarus, I am reminded very clearly of the spring of 1938, when Hitler occupied Austria.
The selfsame approach, the selfsame technique, the selfsame language are being used here.
It is concealed totalitarianism, and there is another similarity, of which regrettably scant notice has been taken in our part of the world, namely the fact that the Weimar Republic in Germany collapsed at a time when the National Socialists and Communists together commanded an absolute majority in the Reichstag.
And however much Boris Yeltsin, to whom I might still ascribe a degree of goodwill, might squirm in this situation, we must not forget that in today's Duma exactly the same combination of forces exists as in the German Reichstag of that time.
On the one side there is the whole faction around Shirinovsky, and on the other side there are the Communists, so that we again have an absolute totalitarian majority which, although it may not manage any positive action, is able to destroy any initiatives.
That is the terribly depressing thing about these developments in Belarus.
It is therefore imperative that everything possible be done to overcome this situation.
There is not very much we can do, but we should certainly make our point most emphatically, and we should devote the utmost energy to persuading other bodies, including our esteemed Council, to take immediate action on this issue.
Mr President, there are always masses of resolutions with which all our views can be broadcast, but if these resolutions are given no teeth, totalitarian dictators will make fun of them, if they heed them at all, but they will not take them seriously.
Just look at Mr Lukashenko's repeated declarations, at the way in which he is dismantling civil liberties bit by bit.
Freedom of the press has virtually been eliminated, and parliamentarians, as Mrs Schroedter rightly said, have already been imprisoned.
We should therefore signal very emphatically our solidarity with these parliamentarians, with the opposition in Belarus.
And we should perhaps also demand that our Council finally adopt a decisive and resolute position in this situation.
That is really what is needed here.
I should like to conclude by expressing my sincere thanks to Mrs Schroedter.
She was one of the very first to go to Belarus and to see what was happening there.
I also remember that there were many at the time who ridiculed her, who thought she was imagining things.
But what she saw was no figment of the imagination; it was a demon which, unfortunately, is more alive now than ever before.
Had we perhaps reacted more vigorously at the time, we might have changed something.
Possibly not, but we still ought to have tried.
I therefore ask the House to do everything in its power to exert pressure on Belarus, and on Russia too, so that the situation there can at least be brought partly under control.
The fact is that failure to do so may result in the long run in a terrible international catastrophe.
Mr President, like the other speakers, I fully appreciate the gravity of the situation both in the Federation and in Belarus, but I fail to see why we cannot discuss this in the context of our bilateral relations with those countries, or why we have to discuss it now, just because they have signed a treaty.
I would have preferred the House to discuss the implications for EU policy of the judgment handed down by the court in Berlin two hours ago, when the judge found Iran's supreme state body guilty of the murder of four Kurds in the Mikonos restaurant a few years ago.
That is what we should have been discussing.
And what was this all-important dialogue that was never acted upon? That would have been topical, and we should also have discussed why the American Congress appears to be rather better informed than we are.
And who knows, perhaps we will shortly be having to take a closer look at the D'Amato law?
Our debates now tend to be generated by whatever happen to be the interests of our constituencies, by those NGOs which are the best lobbyists, by our fascination for distant and unverifiable events, and of course by the decisive power that is wielded by the large political groups.
Mr President, I would urge you to change the form and content of these topical and urgent debates.
I was in Geneva, the Council accepted our resolution on notification, and it pursued the debate on the ideas of the individual Member States.
I would urge you to talk to the political groups about reorganizing these topical and urgent debates, otherwise we shall end up going round in ever-decreasing circles, and that is surely not what anybody wants.
Mr President, my dear colleagues, the common resolution which is before us is not appropriate, for several reasons, in my opinion.
First of all, it prejudges the outcome of current negotiations, while the European Union awaits an imminent response from the government of Belarus on the concerns which it has expressed.
It appears that the government of Belarus is currently quite prepared to take account of the recommendations of the European Union.
By adopting this resolution today, we would be making a mistake detrimental to the responsible image which our parliament must show.
Secondly, the draft treaty between Belarus and Russia can only be analysed within the much wider scope of the re-structuring of the CIS, a problem which cannot be put to one side, but which is nevertheless completely forgotten in the common resolution.
This treaty creates a union open to other states; it proposes a level of cooperation greater than that of the CIS and also, at the more involved level of the four way cooperation between Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
It is necessary, therefore to put things back into context.
Thirdly, the common resolution seems to me to be rather devalued, it is no secret, by the presence, among the signatories, of Communists, who are not the best placed to give lessons in basic freedoms and the fight against totalitarianism.
Finally, it is ridiculous to speak of a government which consulted the people by referendum on 27 November 1996.
Since when has an autocracy carried out referenda? In the whole of the history of Russia, I have never seen an autocrat carry out referenda.
It is enough to refer to the history books.
It would be preferable to postpone the vote on this common resolution, or failing that, not to adopt it.
The situation is really in the process of improving thanks to diplomatic discussions and I believe that hysterical or unilateral speeches coming from this chamber cannot but create a climate of mistrust between East and West, which will really do nobody any good.
Mr President, I can entirely endorse the views expressed by my colleagues Mrs Mann and Mrs Schroedter.
But there is one thing that I really would like to make clear here.
Russia is not a dictatorship.
Russia is on the road to democracy.
Of course it has not reached the same point on that journey as the democracies of Western Europe, the point at which we should wish it to arrive one day, both for our own sake and for the future of Russia.
But Russia is on the road to democracy, and we must support its progress along that road.
That is why one of the purposes and concerns of this resolution is to assess the effects that the union of Belarus and Russia would have on our relations with Russia.
The interim agreement with Belarus, of course, has been shelved, and rightly so, because a dictatorial regime is certainly in power there.
But we have a partnership agreement with Russia to ratify, and I hope that will indeed be done in the next few weeks.
Nevertheless, we in the European Parliament will undoubtedly have to reflect on our attitude to a parliamentary assembly of that Union if half of its members have no democratic legitimacy.
That should be at the heart of our discussions.
Mr President, the political and economic evolution of Belarus is certainly a cause for concern - particularly since the last referendum on the new constitution was held in November.
As has been pointed out, a fact-finding mission sent by the European Union concluded that such a referendum could be declared illegal and that the constitution did not establish an adequate separation of powers or the proper control and balance of these.
In response to the conclusions of the mission, which were endorsed by the Council of Ministers on 24 February, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus sent a letter to the Presidency the day before yesterday, the content of which will be discussed with the Member States.
The text of the letter sent by the Belarus Government contains two undertakings: one, to discuss with all the deputies in the 13th Supreme Council the constitutional changes necessary to establish a greater separation of powers.
Second, to discuss with the European Union the establishment of independent control over the functioning and possible improvement of the legal framework in force to protect human rights and the independence of the media.
The Belarus Minister of Foreign Affairs is travel to The Hague today to present Belarus' official response to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers.
Also today, the Political Committee of the Council of Ministers of the European Union will discuss the political situation in Belarus.
If the European Union considers, finally, that the Belarus response is satisfactory, the Commission will examine ways of supporting activities and initiatives to help the Belarus authorities to redress the economic and political situation.
The Commission is monitoring closely the steps taken by Belarus to reinforce its integration with Russia.
Although the current text of the treaty is more of a declaration of intent than a basis for application, the Commission is naturally going to examine in detail the Treaty of Union signed recently between Belarus and the Russian Federation to see whether this is compatible with the contractual relations established with the European Union.
If it is to be acceptable, the said integration move must be totally voluntary, mutually beneficial, open to the outside world and compatible with international obligations without creating new points of dissension.
This is the view of the Commission and, naturally, I cannot give you any information at the moment on the contacts between the Belarus Foreign Affairs Minister or on the Political Committee of the Council of Ministers, because they are in fact meeting at this very moment in Brussels.
I have a supplementary question for Mr Marín.
Under what circumstances is the Commission prepared to enter into dialogue on the arrest of parliamentary deputies and similar flagrant abuses?
The answer is in the text sent by the Belarus Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In the letter by the Belarus Minister of Foreign Affairs, the first condition is, as I said, to discuss with all the deputies in the 13th Supreme Council, the current 'parliament' , the constitutional changes needed to establish a better separation of powers.
The negotiations are under way today.
The Commission and the Council of Ministers will be in a position to draw their own political conclusions once these negotiations are completed.
In any case, as usually happens in all negotiations, the fact that the Belarus Government has handed in a letter and the Minister of Foreign Affairs has come here to negotiate with the Presidency of the Council can be understood as a will to negotiate.
Mr President, I must apologize for not raising a point of order but asking another question. Commissioner Marín, do you know whether the Council will hand over the report of the fact-finding mission to Parliament and, if so, when that will happen?
There will be no problem, Madam.
I wish to stress once again that the political leaders are meeting this afternoon to assess the proposal by the Belarus Government.
Once the meeting ends, you will be informed of the outcome.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The voting will take place at 5.30 p.m. today.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0288/97 tabled by Mr André-Léonard and Mr Bertens on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party on Zaire; -B4-0298/97 tabled by Mr Tindemans and others on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party on the situation in Zaire; -B4-0307/97 tabled by Mr Pasty and others on behalf of the Group Union for Europe on the situation in Zaire; -B4-0309/97 tabled by Mr Hory and Mr Pradier on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance on the situation in Eastern Zaire; -B4-0313/97 tabled by Mr Swoboda and others on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists on the situation in Zaire; -B4-0327/97 tabled by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament on the situation in Zaire; -B4-0330/97 tabled by Mr Pettinari and Mr Carnero González on behalf of the Confederal Group of the United Left - Nordic Green Left on the situation in Zaire.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, hiding in the forests of Zaire are hundreds of thousands of refugees, cut off from any hope of access even to the most basic humanitarian aid.
In the meantime, Zaire is torn by bitter conflicts involving, among others, foreign mercenaries, while many Hutu leaders who played a part in the massacre of the Tutsi in Rwanda are also active in the country.
What is the European Union to do in this situation?
As a minimum, we can only deplore the inconsistency of European policy, in the Great Lakes region as elsewhere; one is tempted to see this as yet another defeat for the common foreign policy, especially as regards the lack of co-ordination between the Council and those Member States which are also members of the United Nations Security Council.
There are, then, at least three things that must be done: the first is to call upon the United Nations Security Council to set up an international peace-keeping force with a mandate to protect the humanitarian organizations, to disarm the Hutu militias and to guarantee the frontiers recognized by international law.
The second is to underline the basic function which the Court of Arusha must undertake in the process of stabilization in the Great Lakes region, where the severe punishment of those responsible for the massacres of 1994 is essential in order to prevent fresh massacres from occurring.
As the third and last step, we must again insist on the creation of humanitarian corridors to bring aid to the hundreds of thousands of exiles and refugees who are now existing in appalling conditions in the forests of northwestern Zaire.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group intends to approve the compromise text on Zaire, because we support its calls for an end to the violence, the restoration of democracy and elections - as we would do anywhere - for a solution to the refugee problem, since around 200 people are dying every day, for an investigation into the massacres in eastern Zaire and action by the International Tribunal in the region, and for political negotiations and humanitarian aid; we also support its calls for those who are creating obstacles on any of these issues to be clearly identified.
We take the view, however, that we should have made a more forceful statement about the future at this point, urging that since no serious steps have yet been taken to prepare for elections - such as organizing a census - the existing dictatorship should not simply be replaced by another one, and calling on the international community not to look favourably at the creation of African states on an ethnic basis.
We find it quite extraordinary that now, at the end of this outdated regime, we should be calling for, and I quote: ' a political solution to the crisis in Zaire... without any external military interference' .
Looking at this statement, one might wonder if it is meant to be a joke, especially since no mention is made of who is supposed to be financing or providing technical support for such military operations.
This is probably a historic moment for Zaire and possibly for the whole of Africa, and it is a great pity that our resolution is not pitched at the same level.
If it had been, we might have been able to map out a better future for Zaire in Africa.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, how many resolutions have already been adopted, not just in this House but in other international institutions too, and how many more will be needed before we see the distant prospect of an end to the crisis in Zaire?
Probably a great many, bearing in mind the frequently ambivalent language of some of those involved.
The Lomé Summit, held under the auspices of the OAU on 26 and 27 March, seemed to give grounds for hope, in view of the undertakings given by the official Zairean delegation and by the representative of the rebel forces, who accepted in principle the idea of a cease-fire and the opening of negotiations.
Unfortunately, as we know, the situation on the ground is very different.
The subsequent negotiations, held in South Africa and currently suspended, were unable to guarantee an ending of hostilities.
We therefore call upon the parties concerned to honour the undertakings openly entered into before the international community, and we demand that the necessary arrangements be agreed and adopted as soon as possible for free and democratic elections to be held under international supervision.
Apart from anything else, may I remind the House that elections were planned in Zaire long ago, before the conflict broke out.
The situation of the refugees in Eastern Zaire is absolutely terrible, and a solution can only be found if a genuine political will exists, especially on the part of the rebel forces.
We therefore call upon Mr Kabila to allow the refugees access to the supply depots, where they will be able to receive the necessary humanitarian aid; and we also ask that the NGOs in the country should have the necessary power and freedom of movement to assist the refugees still scattered throughout its territory.
Regarding the report by the United Nations Human Rights Envoy, Robert Garreton, on the massacres committed by the rebel forces against the refugees, we demand that this matter be clarified, that the extent of the slaughter be determined and that appropriate measures be taken to ensure that justice is done.
Mr President, the news reaching us from Zaire is becoming more and more tragic, and really compels us to step up the humanitarian operation and, above all, to embark upon a strong political initiative directed towards Zaire and the entire Great Lakes region.
In fact it seems that we have reached a major turning point, in that after more than thirty years of savage dictatorship and plundering of his own country, the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko at least seems to be coming to an end - a rule that has been the primary cause of the denial of the most fundamental principles of democracy, systematic violations of human rights and the tragic impoverishment of what is potentially one of the richest countries in the world.
And yet, just yesterday, Mobutu committed a new act of autocracy, replacing the civilian Prime Minister with an army officer and demonstrating once again, if any demonstration were needed, that the existence of democratic institutions is nothing but a farcical sham.
Even so, the political and military structures of the regime are rapidly crumbling under the pressure exerted by the rebel armed forces under the leadership of Laurent-Desiré Kabila, which now control more than one-third of the territory of Zaire.
At present, fighting is continuing at Lubumbashi and in other areas of the country; all the information reaching us suggests that there are thousands of casualties and hundreds of thousands of people driven from their homes, and that living conditions for millions of refugees, especially in the eastern regions of the country, are becoming more appalling day by day.
Faced with this situation, I believe the time has come to make a few unambiguous statements.
One thing that is certainly clear in this situation is that the problems of Zaire cannot possibly be solved by military action.
What is needed, then, for what it may be worth and for what the negotiators may be worth, is that the process of negotiation between the Zairean government and the rebels, initiated by the agreements signed at Lomé, should proceed rapidly and effectively to the point of an immediate ceasefire.
To achieve this, it is necessary that the mediation of the United Nations, outlined by Ahmed Shahnoun, should really be able to count on the co-operation not only of South Africa but of the entire international community, and especially the European Union; when I speak of co-operation, I mean both political and material.
It has rightly been said that the future of Zaire must be based on a democratic government which will allow the material and moral reconstruction of the country; anyone who believes it is enough to replace one dictator with another is making a grave error.
I would add that the humanitarian organizations must be able to obtain direct and immediate access to every region of the country and to assist the refugees, who, if they so wish, must be able to return safely to their countries of origin or, if they prefer, remain where they are now.
The overriding need is to ensure, in every country in that region, a framework of internal and international safeguards enabling the entire population to feel a sense of safety; it is a task, then, for the United Nations, and for the countries represented there, starting with the Member States of the European Union, to prepare the ground for a peace conference and, especially, to resolve to send an international peace-keeping force.
I should like to conclude, Mr President, with a hope, or rather a request: that the European Union and all its Member States, starting with those who have had and still have direct political and economic interests in the region, finally to take on a positive and active role in resolving the existing conflicts and to refrain from supporting old or new 'friends' who are neither respectable nor trustworthy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as regards the terrible plight of the refugees which various speakers have already mentioned, we have been saying for months now that we need to be able to get to them in order to help them.
But this has not happened, and had it not been for the blockade of Rwanda which was supported by the United States, we all know that the situation might have been much worse.
The fact that there was genocide in Rwanda, which I have always bitterly condemned, does not give anyone the right to do things subsequently which provoke further massacres.
I call them massacres rather than genocide, but they are just as serious.
It is a very serious issue.
Secondly, we are dealing with a very strange kind of war here.
Mobutu's army is pillaging its own people and refusing to fight, while Kabila's army is advancing without resistance and should certainly reach the capital.
We have seen examples such as the town of Buta, which was taken by one jeep and three soldiers.
It really is a most unlikely situation.
However, the main problem we are facing today is whether the international community is going to continue to recognize only those who resort to arms as having power.
This is the situation that has developed, with the result that once again the population in Zaire has been totally left out of the equation; yet there are well-organized groups in various areas which have no connection with political parties but which do have their own ideas on what should happen to their country, and which want democracy.
I think it is our responsibility to ensure that the people are heard, and that those who resort to arms should not have all the power.
Mr President, the Mobutu dictatorship finally seems to be on the wane, partly because of the severe blows dealt to it by the military victories of the rebels in the east and partly because of an obvious political instability, as witness the events of yesterday, which delivered control of Kinshasha into the hands of the military.
My group would take a very favourable view of the fall of Mobutu, because we have always regarded the Zairean Government as the real source of instability throughout a vast area of the Great Lakes region.
Of course, the end of Mobutu is not in itself a solution to the Zairean crisis.
I think, rather, that precisely because there are so many problems we should pay careful attention to the efforts being made by the United Nations Human Rights Envoy in Zaire, Mr Garreton from Chile, who on returning from the east of the country claimed he had evidence of savage brutality and slaughter perpetrated by the rebels, and that he actually knew of numerous mass graves.
It will be necessary to take a very close look at these matters.
For this reason, I believe it would be right to call for the setting-up of an international commission of inquiry to shed light on the responsibility for the massacres, and their scale, and above all I think we need to make an appeal in the name of this Parliament, supported by resolutions, to the government in Kinshasa and to the rebels to respect the human rights of the civilian population.
Above all, we must call upon their leader, Kabila, to allow the humanitarian organizations to supervise the refugees, because this massacre of the innocents cannot continue and the international community must be allowed to intervene.
Finally, on the political aspect, I believe that the only solution to the crisis in Zaire lies through dialogue and direct negotiation between the government in Kinshasa and the democratic alliance for the liberation of Congo-Zaire.
All of this may help bring about that process of democratization in Zaire which I consider to be of the utmost urgency and necessity.
Mr President, the confusion reigning in Zaire, the instability of the political situation and, of course, the dilution of principles revealed by certain behaviour, leads to a consensual analysis to stigmatise unjust economic and social policies, to deplore disorder and to condemn a régime which does not manage to convert itself into a democracy.
If there is friction, it is in fact on the following point: How to react? What to do, how to help end the obscene contrast between the riches of Zaire and the depredation of the Zairean people, whose collective inheritance nevertheless represents 10 % of world copper reserves - of 3 to 7 % purity against a world average of 1 %, 80 % of workable reserves of cobalt - the price of which has doubled since 1991, and deposits of diamonds, gold and uranium.
How to react?
Two responses are on offer, each one defended with convincing arguments: the military response and the political response.
Apart from needing to get used to considering them as not always incompatible if force is required to serve clear political objectives - and it is our responsibility to compel our respective governments to assume theirs, - I will state quite clearly that my preference is for a political response, because, firstly, it is our responsibility as parliamentarians; because, next, I believe it to be better to appeal to people's intelligence rather than confining them in their fear and their rancour; because, finally, I believe in those words of Martin Luther King, assassinated in April 1968, which said that injustice anywhere threatens justice everywhere.
It is our responsibility to conduct a war of ideals, that is to say, a political war.
Mr President, we have to confess that despite the tragedy afflicting the mass of Hutu refugees we cannot find a shred of sympathy for those among them who were responsible for the massacres perpetrated against the Tutsi minority.
We do however believe that this chaotic situation must be blamed on the diplomacy of certain European powers which have acted more in the interests of their respective geopolitical and neocolonialist strategies than to bring progress and peace to the countries concerned.
After all, let us not forget the support given to the Hutu assassination squads, who owed their weaponry to the logistical support of a European state, and the recent dispatch to that region of a group of bloodstained mercenaries apparently to fight against Kabila's troops.
To continue supporting Mobutu means closing one's eyes to his inability to provide himself with ministers and government officials worthy of the name; let us therefore take the side of Kabila, since the news reaching us from that region confirms his ability to handle the crisis far more effectively than his adversary.
That said, we believe that humanitarian aid, organized by the European Union and the UN, cannot be delayed, and we therefore support the content of the joint motion for a resolution.
Mr President, the negotiation of the agreements aimed at establishing global peace in the Zaire region must be conducted in the context of an international conference.
This has already been stated by the United Nations, the European Union and the OAU.
The declaration by the Presidency of the European Union of 17 February and resolution 1097 of the Security Council of 18 February are the most recent reference documents on this issue.
Nonetheless, bearing in mind that at the moment the focus of the crisis is the political future of Zaire, it is obvious that the internal stability of the country is a precondition for the success of any regional negotiations.
Therefore hostilities must cease as soon as possible and a dialogue must be started between all the political forces in the country.
Diplomatic pressure must be maintained to achieve a cessation of hostilities and establish a transitional government to resume and complete the process of democracy.
The European Union has always worked to achieve the success of this process and we are willing to continue backing it, if the situation permits.
In a second phase the political dialogue should be extended to the external agents who caused the military conflict in Zaire. A series of sub-regional negotiations should be launched under the aegis of the International Conference on Peace, Security and Development.
This Conference should be open to all the countries concerned and should be devised as a long-term process, not a brief, momentary event.
This is the general - and well-known - view of the European Union on the crisis in Zaire.
As for your speeches in this House, the Commission acknowledges, like you, that the military and political situation in Zaire is very volatile, very changeable and that, naturally, we will have to wait and see what happens.
But in any case we still think that, once the crisis has been quelled, the internal political dialogue within Zaire and the regional dialogue must become key elements so that a new Zaire can finally emerge in the next century, perhaps seeing its future in a different way.
At least that is what the European Commission would like to see.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner Marín.
The joint debate is closed.
The voting will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again it has proved impossible for a delegation from the European Parliament to visit the occupied part of Cyprus under acceptable conditions in order to form their own judgement of the circumstances under which the Greek Cypriots and Maronites are living in the enclaves there.
On behalf of the PSE Group, may I express our indignation as well as our condemnation of this latest affront by the illegal regime in northern Cyprus to the democratically elected representative body of the European people.
We know from numerous reports that the conditions under which the inhabitants of the enclaves live are tantamount to daily violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
In the Vienna III agreement of 1975, certain stipulations were made in respect of the enclaves.
In the 1996 reports by the UN Secretary-General and in his most recent report of 7 February of this year, it was again established that the Turkish Cypriot administration was grossly violating that Convention.
It was also established that these populations do not have access to adequate medical care, which is also a violation of the Vienna agreement.
The right to education accorded them in Vienna is also made largely impossible for them to exercise; in Karpasia at the present time, one teacher is teaching all the children of every age group, there are no secondary schools, and boys and girls who attend school in the free part of Cyprus are not allowed to return home once they reach the ages of 16 and 18 respectively.
That is truly a flagrant breach of the provision in Vienna III on freedom of movement and the reuniting of families.
We emphatically demand that a delegation from the European Parliament, particularly under the aegis of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, be given the opportunity to form its own judgement on the spot and to produce a report.
We call on all bodies of the European Union and of the United Nations to play their part in ensuring that conditions for people in the enclaves are improved, but our overriding concern is that every possible step be taken to ensure that human rights are guaranteed throughout Cyprus, in other words that the occupation is ended and the island reunited.
Mr President, following the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974 a specific agreement was concluded, the so-called Vienna III agreement, under which the rights of Greek Cypriots and Maronites lining in the enclave in the occupied territory were to be protected.
Twenty years have gone by since then, and in an official report the Secretary-General of the United Nations notes that the living conditions of persons living in the enclave are grossly unacceptable.
Three women teachers who have stayed to give lessons to children are encountering terrible difficulties, and out of the 20, 000 people who were living in the enclave in 1974, only about 450 remain, precisely because of the constant persecution that has gone on.
In addition to all of that, the Denktash regime has on two occasions effectively refused - once last year and once this year when the Joint Committee visited Cyprus - to allow Members of the European Parliament to take stock of the situation at first hand, because it was impossible for the Joint Committee to accept the conditions that Denktash sought to impose on it.
Mr President, I think that the time has come for us to take action - all of us, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission and, also, the United Nations - to see what can be done with a view to resolving this issue.
To see what can be done in real terms and not via declarations, because there have already been plenty of those and, as is all to obvious, they have achieved nothing.
For 23 years there has been no progress on the issue and we have actually moved backwards. Surely it is now time to reverse that course.
Mr President, as has been said, the drama being experienced by the Greek Cypriots in their enclaves in the occupied part of the island has lasted for more than twenty years.
No accord or resolution has been observed and, as Mrs Roth and Mr Hatzidakis said again three weeks ago, the Turkish Cypriot leader Mr Denktash, has placed unacceptable conditions on the simple visit to those in the enclaves proposed by the Joint Parliamentary Committee of which I have the honour of being president.
The situation is scandalous.
The European Union has set itself up as a champion of human rights all over the world, from India to the Argentine, from Brazil to Burma, but it is not capable of preventing serious and repeated violations of those rights perpetrated by a country which is a candidate for joining the European Union, three and a half hours away from Brussels by aeroplane.
Mr President, I wish that this resolution, on which all groups will certainly vote favourably, should not be a simple scrap of paper, but that it should become the prelude to concrete and decisive action on the part of the European authorities.
It would be a stain on our white shield of defender of human rights if this problem were only to end up being resolved by the death of the last of those in the enclaves.
We add our voices to those of the previous speakers and, of course, we support everything that is in the resolution.
Please allow me just to say two things that I think should be made very clear.
In Cyprus there has been ethnic cleansing, and it has been going on continuously: it was carried out by force of arms in 1974 and has been continued in a less violent manner ever since.
Out a total of 20, 000 people who used to live in the enclave, there are now 500, and this ethnic cleansing has been carried out so bravely by the army of occupation against children and old people.
That is one thing that we should not forget.
In connection with that situation there is another point that requires mention: the question of credibility or, rather, of the lack of it.
Agreements are signed and not adhered to, both by the government which supposedly administers the occupation forces in Cyprus and by the supposed local authorities.
Mr President, this lack of credibility, which is also evident in other respects, makes the approach of the European Union to Turkey itself and the involvement of Turkish Cypriots in the negotiations on Cyprus's accession, which we support, extremely problematical.
Unfortunately, we can see that it is impossible for those negotiations to be got under way for the time being, and that is very disheartening.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem, of course, is familiar to everyone.
For that reason I do not wish to repeat what other Members have said.
Besides expressing our sorrow and anger at having to discuss this sort of thing yet again, we should also think about what we can learn from it.
I believe we can learn that the idea of borders as limes and fronts, which we in Europe have been exporting to the rest of the world since the imperialism of the Augustan Age and which is still coming back to haunt us, in the form of ethnic cleansing for example, is not a tenable concept.
Instead, we must argue within the UN for forms of strictly regulated confinement, for borders to be regarded as markings which can also contain transitional and overlapping areas, and for mutually binding human rights, which would rule out the type of thing that is now happening to the people of the enclaves.
If we succeed in that, we shall also have moved much further forward in our policy towards Turkey.
I can only comment once again that it is a great pity from this point of view that the Christian Democratic party leaders recently saw fit to try and add a Christian dimension to this notion of borders as fronts, as the limes of Fortress Europe.
That leaves me utterly dismayed.
Madam President, I am not going to start speaking until Mr Marin stops talking with Mrs Theato and decides to listen to the speakers.
Mr Marin is here to listen to the Members and to their questions and observations and to give replies and not to talk with Mrs Theato - probably about the budget and ECUs.
It is precisely because the Commission and the Council are only interested in ECUs and could not give a fig about human rights and human dignity that we are now left with only 500 Greek Cypriots and Maronites in the enclave out of the 20, 000 who lived there in 1974!
We pass resolutions here and you take not a blind bit of notice!
We speak and put questions and you treat us as if we did not exist!
What has been going on today is a disgrace!
I watched from the beginning.
You have not listened to a single speaker: Mr Monfils, Mr Papayannakis, Mrs Rothe, Mr Hatzidakis - you listened to none of them.
It is not worth my while to speak about anything because when you disregard human dignity and the rights of Members and the dignity of this Parliament what on earth can I expect from Mr Denktash? I have nothing to ask of Mr Denktash.
You have prepared a written reply for us.
You will get up and read it to us like a teacher speaking to pupils. You have lost all credibility.
I am ashamed for the Commission, ashamed!
Well, Mr Kaklamanis, you have said a thing or two against the Commissioner.
I shall now give Commissioner Marín the opportunity to reply.
I think the matter has now been settled.
The only thing we have not settled is the issue of the people in the enclave, and that is what we are talking about this afternoon.
The report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Commission on Human Rights confirms that the situation of these people is in stalemate.
For the last 22 years, the authorities in Northern Cyprus have been denying even the most basic human rights to Greek Cypriots there.
For the last 22 years, the Vienna III agreement which President Denktash of Northern Cyprus also signed has been violated.
Mr Monfils and his delegation from this House have already tried twice to visit the people in the enclave, and on both occasions the Turkish Cypriot authorities have either refused permission or have imposed unacceptable conditions at the last minute.
This resolution must make it clear to Mr Denktash once again that it is extremely important for us to visit these people.
As long as he continues to violate the human rights of the minorities in the north, he will continue to sour relations with the other community.
It is in the interests of both communities that a lasting solution should be found to the Cyprus conflict, that much is quite clear.
Respect for the Vienna III agreement is the least that the Greek Cypriots can expect of their neighbours, fellow islanders and fellow nationals.
Turkestan/China:
Madam President, the human rights situation in China is clearly poor and deteriorating further, as we can see from the developments in Eastern Turkestan.
But let me first make this point: this is the first time since Tiananmen Square that the Member States of the European Union have allowed themselves to be outwitted by China in the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
It is disgraceful that the Dutch presidency should have been shown up in this way after making a joint statement on behalf of the Fifteen.
The lack of any subsequent joint action, despite everything that was said, and the absence of any European resolution on the matter were a slap in the face for European unity, for the credibility of Europe's foreign policy and its policy on human rights, and for anyone who thinks he is entitled to have his human rights respected.
The Union must now try to salvage what it can.
The Member States need to present a united front in opposing China's attempts to have this issue taken off the agenda.
Next, and I shall be quite honest here, the Member States must support the Danish resolution.
Denmark is to be congratulated on taking this initiative, and China's threats of reprisals are typical of its arrogant foreign policy and are a further reason for Europe to take a much harder line towards it.
The same hard line must also be maintained as regards the arms embargo against China.
It is trying to get the embargo lifted by offering major orders to France and other countries, but the Union must oppose this as vehemently as it can.
The imminent handover of Hong Kong and the situation in Tibet and Turkestan are just two of the many reasons why we must oppose any lifting of the embargo.
Madam President, I should like to begin by saying how delighted I am that the European Parliament is dealing with human rights in eastern Turkestan and hence also with human rights in China.
As an international body, we have a unique opportunity and an obligation, as Mr Bertens has already said, to be the first to adopt a clear position towards China, to tell the Chinese Government that we regard human rights and basic political rights as indivisible and that we therefore apply them as a criterion in our political action with regard to every country in the world with which we have dealings.
In this context I should also like to speak out quite clearly against the representatives of those countries which made it impossible to adopt this sort of position at the UN Human Rights Conference.
They speak constantly of a critical dialogue, but everyday reality shows that this is usually no more than a cover for economic interests and does not wrest a single concession from totalitarian States.
We only need to see how the butchers of Tiananmen Square are courted by the supreme representatives of the Western world.
But to move on to Turkestan, it must be said that the situation there is a veritable powder keg.
Anyone who, like some of my colleagues here, was able to listen yesterday to the words of Erkin Albdekin, the representative of the Uighurs in exile, must have begun to realize that there is a real need for us to take action here.
It is a time-honoured Chinese practice to use birth control and population transfers to create such a marked demographic imbalance that the homogeneity of an occupied country can no longer be maintained.
Hand in hand with that, of course, goes the destruction of culture and religion in the territory in question.
The politically motivated closure of the Koranic schools and the arrests of teachers of religion speak volumes.
Parliament clearly needs to act here, and I hope that many Members will be aware of this obligation.
Madam President, I think it concerns an important resolution and our friends in the Communist Group will not be able to say that we have been influenced by the American Congress, in so far as this is the first time that a parliament has taken a stand on the Eastern Turkestan Question, that is to say, the Chinese region of Xinjiang.
The situation there is dramatic: as Mr Habsburg has just stated, it is comparable to the situation in Tibet.
What is happening today in Eastern Turkestan is a veritable policy of genocide by ethnic dilution.
It matters that the European Union should take a stand on this subject.
It matters also that we should give another signal to the council, which unfortunately has done the exact opposite to what our Parliament asked and which has had an extremely divided attitude to the Committee on Human Rights in Geneva, as Mr Bertens has reminded us.
I think that it is particularly serious and that it underlines the absolute urgency of reforming our foreign and common security policy.
I think that one cannot continue like this.
New factors are added every day.
The French temptations to export arms have been mentioned.
One can imagine the temptations which this new French offensive in China will give rise to in other member states.
I think that the European Union must, as a matter of urgency, give itself a veritable European policy in field of foreign policy.
I believe it would be particularly important to have information from the Commission and to know what it is preparing for Amsterdam.
If not, in China, as in other parts of the world, all roads will lead to disaster and division, and therefore to the loss of what has been achieved in forty years of struggle for the building of Europe.
Madam President, Eastern Turkestan is just one of many problem areas for human rights in China.
As we now adopt, after the Hong Kong resolution yesterday, another resolution which concerns China we know that the Chinese are listening.
We have already received a written complaint from the People's Republic of China's representative to the European Union.
One of the things which it says is that they cannot accept our interference in China's internal affairs.
I hope that the worthy representatives for China have read today's agenda and realises that we interfere in internal affairs all over the world where human rights are concerned, we are not conducting a campaign against China, we are fighting a campaign for human rights.
Human rights cannot be swept under the carpet because of economic interests.
This is why it is so deplorable that France, Germany, Spain and Italy have allowed economic interests to take precedence over the interests of human rights.
I must add that it is lucky that the smaller states in the European Union are not forced by a qualified majority to keep quiet but we still maintain the right for smaller states to speak out.
This is why Denmark with the support of Sweden and hopefully other smaller states in the EU can carry on this justified criticism against the deficiencies in human rights in China.
Madam President, Commissioner, I really would like to say that Commissioners in general, and Mr Marín in particular, deserve a certain fundamental respect from this House, and when one of them is no longer here we should show greater restraint.
I should like to make some comments on the resolution.
Let me say first of all that the Group of the Party of European Socialists in this House naturally condemns every violation of human rights unequivocally, including those in China, of which there is no shortage.
Secondly, I very much regret that the European Union was unable to adopt a common position on China.
To the previous speaker I should like to say that we also refuse to accept the argument that human rights are an internal matter.
We have the right, and indeed the duty, to concern ourselves with them throughout the world.
Nevertheless, we shall not be supporting this resolution, because its authors have unfortunately adopted a language and tone, especially in relation to the geographical, territorial and political situation, which are not acceptable to us and take no account of the fact that a genuine critical dialogue can be initiated with China.
The point is that if we speak here of Chinese territory and the annexed areas, if a distinction is made between China, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and eastern Turkestan, that sort of language, that sort of tone is no basis on which to seek the necessary dialogue with China, even though we must naturally criticize the infringement of human rights there and campaign wholeheartedly for their observance.
Every resolution should be taken seriously - we should not say, ' It's just a resolution' - so let us consider that, sooner or later, and not as a result of negotiations but by some less peaceful means, China might be dissolved into territories such as those mentioned here.
That is something I would not wish upon the world or upon Europe.
Had you really sought a common approach, another type of language would have been found, and we should have been able to support the resolution, but that, unfortunately, is not possible.
We shall therefore abstain from voting.
Madam President, this is a sad day for Parliament, and responsibility rests primarily with the two major groups.
Because they have decided that we should not have an independent, rigorous and concrete EU resolution against China.
At a point when governments in the EU disagree in the area of human rights versus commercial interests, Parliament has chosen to disassociate itself.
One might ask whether this debate on current, urgent issues is actually worth anything.
Are we only to express an opinion when it is not harmful to us, in other words when it will not cost us anything. Parliament had an opportunity today to support justice, in a conflict between national governments, by sending a clear message on the absolute priority of human rights.
But instead it chose to count pennies and allow commercial interests to prevail.
If this is to be the way ahead, we do not need Parliament.
It indicates that we are only prepared to rearrange commas in the proposed directive, instead of shaping the real political agenda.
At the conference of governments, in which Parliament would like to have more power, we have decided not to use the powers we do have.
This might be to the liking of the governments, but we are letting down our citizens, and it is they that we represent.
People have no use for a parliament which thinks only of money; they want a political parliament.
Madam President, now it is the turn of Turkmenistan.
Another corner of gigantic China has been discovered and joined to the Taiwan-Hong Kong-Tibet-Macao chain of denunciation against the Chinese Government.
It is a tactic that has its roots in the cold war, which certain groups are still keeping alive.
On the other, we, too, agree that intervention is essential when human rights are being violated.
But that presupposes cedibility on the part of the intervening party, which must itself be respecting human rights in its own arena, in its own part of the world.
Madam President, this resolution lacks credibility and supporting evidence.
When this Parliament debates such a matter in such an unsupported manner it undermines its own credibility.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have taken information from certain parties who have an interest in stirring up trouble of this sort for China and you have put your seal on it, drawn up a resolution and brought it here for debate. What is the proof?
Where is your evidence? Essentially you are undermining this Parliament's credibility, and that is one of the reasons - I am thinking of the previous resolution - why even when it has credibility and a well-documented case it is not taken seriously.
Parliament's resolutions are not taken seriously precisely because its standing is undermined.
That has been so in the case of the missing persons in Cyprus.
So many times we raised the issue, and adduced so many facts proving the case!
No one attaches importance to this Parliament, because with manoeuvres of the sort that brought this resolution on Turkmenistan into being it surrenders all credibility and its opinion ceases to carry weight.
Madam President, the recent riots in the Chinese province of Eastern Turkestan when the Chinese authorities executed a large number of Uighurs confirm once again what a terrible reputation China has when it comes to respecting human rights.
The recent history of Eastern Turkestan is sadly a very typical example of this.
The Uighurs have suffered badly under the Communist regime: many were transported during the 1960s, and tens of thousands were executed during the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.
Recent events in Turkestan are also further proof of the Chinese authorities' contempt for freedom of religion.
More than 100 Koran schools have been shut down, and many Islamic priests have been arrested.
According to a report by the American human rights organization Human Rights Watch/Asia, the Chinese Government regards anyone with religious beliefs as a potential security risk.
It is convinced that what it calls 'hostile foreign elements' are using religion to destabilize China and overthrow the government.
The Muslims in Eastern Turkestan are not the only victims of this religious policy: Christians attached to churches which are not officially registered are persecuted throughout China.
In view of these serious human rights violations, it is absolutely deplorable that the countries of the European Union cannot manage to table a joint resolution at the United Nations condemning China.
I therefore support the courageous step taken by the Danish Government, and I would point out that the fact that the Chinese Government actually thanked France for its positive attitude should give the French Government some food for thought.
Madam President, clearly the Leninist view of politics has not completely vanished from among the Chinese leadership if they persist in refusing to recognize, within their State, the right to ethnic, religious, cultural and even political differentiation among the various peoples that make it up.
On this occasion we are concerned with the serious abuses of freedom of religion that have taken place in eastern Turkestan during the last year, which have resulted in the closure of more than 100 Koranic schools and the arrest of more than 180 Muslim clerics, teachers and students.
So Leninism and Stalinism have not disappeared from China when such indiscriminate use is still being made of the death penalty, forced resettlement and compulsory birth control.
All these things can distort the ethnic composition of that region, degrade the culture of the Uigur people and suppress the practice of the Islamic religion.
Equally severe treatment, let us remember, is meted out to the Catholic minorities who even today endure intolerable abuses and restrictions on their freedom of worship.
Alleanza Nazionale will therefore give its support to the motion for a resolution.
Situation in Russian prisons:
Madam President, we probably cannot repeat enough now that human rights are no internal affair but an international issue.
The Russian Federation is one of the signatories of the UN Convention against Torture and of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The Russian Federation became a member of the Council of Europe in 1996.
And yet in Russian police stations and prisons, people are still being tortured with blows and oxygen deprivation almost to the point of suffocation and are forced to remain for long periods in inhuman and painful positions.
Detainees sleep in shifts, because there are no beds for them.
Forced confessions are used as evidence in trials.
In the negotiations on economic aid, the Commission must address these specific grievances and demand that they be remedied.
It must call for the revocation of the decree whereby people can be imprisoned for 30 days without preferment of charges.
It must also insist that the cases of torture be investigated.
Within the action programme and the TACIS democracy programme developed in conjunction with the Council of Europe, it must devote a considerable share of resources to improving prison conditions and to ensuring that prison wardens are trained in the humane treatment of prisoners.
Madam President, here in this House yesterday, we heard a number of complaints about European prisons too.
That is one point.
The second point, however, is that Russia has acceded to the Council of Europe and has thereby accepted a number of conditions which apply to the domain of criminal justice.
The rules governing the manner in which we compel our offenders to mend their ways ought to be observed there too.
This concentration on the rights of offenders, of course, must not make us forget the victims.
But humane treatment is part of a democratically organized social system, and when we complain about conditions in our own prisons, we naturally cannot turn a blind eye to far worse conditions that prevail in other countries.
Even now, we in the European Union are helping with programmes in other countries.
In Venezuela, I recently saw a prison where we are cosponsoring training programmes.
So in Russia too we could help to initiate aid programmes, but these programmes will have to work.
That is the requirement we must spell out very clearly.
Reintegration into society, of course, is another aspect of the criminal justice system as we see it.
Now we certainly cannot expect the Russians to have all of this in place by tomorrow morning.
Nevertheless, we must tell them most emphatically that the conditions in their prisons, especially for young offenders, will do nothing to improve the situation but can only breed more crime, drug abuse and corruption.
That is what we should tell them, even as they take their place in democratic European society by virtue of their accession to the Council of Europe.
Laos:
Madam President, I am grateful to the colleagues who have found time this afternoon to debate the plight of these three men, Thongsouk Saysangkhi, Latsami Khamphoui and Feng Sakchittaphong.
They have been in jail in a remote region of Laos since 1990 and were sentenced at their trial in 1992 to 14 years further imprisonment.
Their crime was to express opposition to the present repressive government of Laos and call for peaceful change towards a pluralistic system of government.
Their inspiration for acting was the events in the autumn of 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe and perhaps that gives us a particular responsibility for not forgetting them.
They were inspired by those events to call for similar peaceful change to democratic plural democracy away from autocratic one-party rule.
Amnesty International recently obtained a transcript of the 1992 trial which demonstrates very clearly that no sabotage or acts of violence were involved.
Feng Sakchittaphong actually said in court: ' I want the democratic change to occur in a peaceful way without street demonstrations, without confrontation and without overthrow' .
This statement was sufficiently subversive in Laos to incur a draconian sentence.
Amnesty International has also obtained evidence about the conditions under which these three men are being held, and I quote: ' They are imprisoned in isolation in a prison camp in a remote northern area of the country in conditions which violate international standards.
They are not allowed to talk to each other, although they are held in the same room and all three are reportedly suffering from health problems requiring medical treatment which they have not received.
Their families are rarely given permission to visit them and they are not permitted regular correspondence.'
Amnesty International believes these conditions of detention constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
I call upon the European Parliament this afternoon to join with Amnesty International in recognizing these men as prisoners of conscience and agitating for their immediate release.
Madam President, fellow Members, my address will be naturally short.
I have spent the best part of my existence on the side of the defence and I know there are no empty words, wherever they are spoken.
From the depths of their prisons, these men wait for someone to speak in their favour and it is known that if Europe is not always aware of its strength and its influence, the further one goes from its centre, the louder the echo of statements made here.
It is therefore important that the government of Laos should understand that there cannot be negotiations or agreements with the European Union if it treats unjustly and in - it must be said - as miserable a manner in this case, people who only ask for justice.
It is therefore my desire that what is said here is heard in that prison.
Bosnia-Herzegovina:
Madam President, I have just been to Bosnia once again and have noticed a pronounced change there, a change which is certainly encouraging in several respects.
There are signs of hope, and one of these hopeful signs is that Pope John Paul II is expected in Sarajevo next weekend - not for a Catholic ceremony, but as a sign of dialogue between cultures and religions.
I was gratified to note that Professor Topic in Sarajevo, whose task is to prepare the visit, is doing so with his organization Napredak, which means that Croats, Serbs and Muslims are all preparing this occasion together.
At the same time, some quite encouraging new developments are also observable in the Serb-held areas of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
For example, in the Serb-occupied town of Banja Luka Bishop Komarica, who has been here in Parliament, and the Mufti of Banja Luka have begun to cooperate very effectively in petitioning the international community to enforce the rights of their Serbian compatriots.
These are undoubtedly hopeful signs, signs that this community of Bosnia-Herzegovina, united by a common destiny, can survive in spite of the dreadful problems confronting it.
On the other hand there are enormous strains on the unity of the country.
One such strain is the threat by the administration of the so-called Republika Srpska to hinder or prevent its residents who are citizens of BosniaHerzegovina - which we continue to recognize as a State - from undertaking the journey to Sarajevo by levying an exit tax of 70 German marks - payable in marks, which, of course, nobody possesses.
Added to that, naturally enough, is the fear of being registered.
Although that is a permanent state of affairs, it threatens to escalate next weekend, even for those people who are entitled to enter Bosnia-Herzegovina under the laws of that country, because transit rights will be denied them too.
And we want to protest vehemently against that, to prevent this sign of hope from turning into a relapse.
Situation in Cambodia:
Madam President, the insecurity and lack of a serious political framework remain the principal obstacles to the reconstruction of Cambodia, which is having great difficulty in coming out of the ruins of a quarter of a century of war.
Nevertheless we do support the mine clearance operations in Cambodia, the only option likely to release the land and allow farmers to cultivate the paddy fields again.
The grenade attempt in Phnom Pen, against a peaceful demonstration by activists of the Khmer Nation party, which left 19 dead and more than 100 wounded, is part of this new build up of tension and violence before which the security forces show a provocative and reprehensible passivity.
The international community must not tolerate violations of human rights any more in Cambodia, particularly as it is contributing financially to the emergence of an economy which favours a political stability which requires the reinforcement of a still excessively faltering democracy.
Free and equitable elections, involving all political groups able to take a stand against terrorism are the only way to guarantee lasting internal peace.
I therefore wish the European Union to support the holding of these elections.
Madam President, I should like to say very briefly on behalf of my group that we support the joint motion for a resolution stressing the condemnation of the attack on 30 March and noting appropriately the public condemnation of the attack by those responsible for the government plot.
We think that the electoral process must be improved and monitored by the European institutions and we hope that this most serious incident will not be repeated and will not cast a shadow over the scrutiny envisaged for 1998, so that the people of Cambodia finally have a chance to cast their vote freely without constraint and with respect for human rights.
Madam President, the opposition leader Sam Rainsy has long been trying to promote democracy and fight corruption in Cambodia.
His attempts have been frustrated.
Democracy and the constitutional state are not yet very strong there, and behind the scenes the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, is doing his best to suppress the forces of democracy.
The attack on 30 March was not the first time that opposition party meetings have been brutally broken up.
No serious investigation was carried out into other government activities against the opposition 18 months ago, and many people doubt whether adequate action will be taken this time, even with 16 deaths and 100 people injured.
The steady deterioration in the political situation in Cambodia makes me and my group extremely concerned about the 1998 elections.
The Union needs to act now and make clear representations to the Cambodian Government.
If we could issue a warning so that preventive diplomacy is given a chance to work, then we should do so now - though not in this resolution, of course - with a view to trying to use the medium of the United Nations and the Union to help Cambodia's fragile democracy.
Madam President, we are appalled by the grenade attack on a peaceful demonstration of Khmer National Party activists in Phnom Penh on 30 March 1997.
Nineteen people were killed and hundreds injured.
The purpose of the attack was probably to kill Sam Rainsy, leader of the KNP in Cambodia, and other prominent opposition leaders.
One policeman was killed.
The dreadful thing about it all is that the police took no action, that this atrocity took place because the authorities allowed it to happen.
And that is symptomatic of the situation in Cambodia.
This situation cannot be tolerated by the European Union any longer.
We can call for a committee of inquiry here; the international public must be informed about this.
Violating human rights with impunity, which is standard practice in Cambodia, must not be allowed to continue.
The best weapon is a free election; free and fair elections will guarantee the democratic structures which will put an end to this state of affairs, and that is the demand we should all be making.
Madam President, fellow Members, a régime is judged by the way it treats its opposition, and it is of no use for this régime to sign a cooperation agreement with us, with the European Union, if it deals with its opposition with grenades and machine guns.
The Cambodian leaders must learn, through our proposals, that the 1998 ballot, its organisation and its conduct will constitute a test to establish whether the European Union is to keep to the agreements reached.
Madam President, welcome though the support for a democratic development in Cambodia by means of free elections may be, it will not succeed in stabilizing democracy there as long as the representatives and sympathizers of the Khmer Rouge are not entirely excluded from the process.
Unfortunately, this left-wing fascist-type movement, which was responsible for the second holocaust of this century, has been integrated into the peace process.
That was a fatal flaw in the Paris negotiations.
We therefore call on the European Parliament to include in all its future demands a stipulation that the Khmer Rouge must be prevented from either direct or indirect involvement in this political process and completely excluded from democratic developments in Cambodia.
Madam President, I will start by answering in chronological order the questions on human rights as put by the Members.
With regard to Cyprus: the Commission is naturally perfectly well aware of the situation of the Maronite enclaves in the north of Cyprus.
I would like to point out that, during the mission by the Council of Europe in February 1996, the late Lord Finsberg had called attention to the many problems affecting the Greco-Cypriot community in the northern part of the island.
In fact, last December the Secretary General of the United Nations and the Security Council deplored this situation once again.
The Commission shares the European Parliament's concern about these enclaves and considers that it should be possible to visit them without any prior conditions.
These problems are similar to the ones the Commission is encountering in the activities it is attempting to conduct in the north of the island, activities which are being impeded by the kind of conditions demanded by the de facto authorities in the region.
As for China and Turkestan, the Commission regrets that it was impossible to reach a consensus within the European Union concerning the resolution on China which it had intended to submit for the next session of the United Nations' Human Rights Commission.
The Commission took advantage of all the opportunities that arose to raise the question of human rights with the Chinese authorities both in the context of the specific dialogue on human rights and of the more general political dialogue.
The European Union believes in a positive approach which would lay the foundations for a constructive relationship.
This was the tenet of its statement in favour of cooperation activities to promote the human dimension in China which could be used as a principle for effective dialogue with this country.
With regard to the events in Turkestan, the Commission thinks that direct talks between the Chinese authorities and the representatives of the Uigur community could undoubtedly contribute to finding a solution to the problems currently facing that region.
As for the situation in Russian prisons, the Commission is aware of the worrying situation in Russian prisons and shares the European Parliament's concern.
We are receiving and monitoring reports on the sanitary conditions in these, the lack of food and the mental and physical ill-treatment.
Through its aid programmes and the TACIS Democracy programme, and in particular the LIEN programme, the Commission is financing various projects to improve the humanitarian situation in Russia.
Jointly with the Council of Europe the Commission is funding a series of projects destined to provide assistance to Russia so that it can fulfil the undertakings it made when it became a member of the Council of Europe.
In relation to Laos, it is clear that the Commission is informed of the Amnesty International report on the three prisoners of conscience and that it has carefully noted its contents.
The Commission is currently trying to collate further details on the background to these cases.
To this end it has asked the EEC Delegation accredited to the Laos People's Democratic Republic to investigate the situation, in consultation with the ambassadors of the Member States represented in Vientiane.
As soon as any new information is available the Commission will contact you in order to pass on the relative details of this initiative.
Bosnia-Herzegovina: the Commission agrees that the Pope's visit to Sarajevo is an important opportunity to unite all the inhabitants of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
It consequently deplores the fact that the authorities of the Republic of Sprska have suggested introducing a charge for crossing the border between this Republic and the rest of Bosnia in order to get to Sarajevo, precisely to see the Pope.
This charge would in addition clearly infringe the freedom of movement of persons covered by the Dayton agreements.
Therefore the Commission firmly supports the efforts under way to persuade the Sprska authorities to reconsider this matter urgently.
As for Cambodia, on behalf of the European Commission I want to reiterate firmly the same feelings you yourselves expressed - and which were also expressed by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers - for the criminal attack on 30 March which killed and injured several members of the opposition who were taking part in an authorized, peaceful demonstration.
Following the signing of the peace agreements in Paris in October 1991, the Commission committed itself, to a significant extent, to the plans to redevelop and reconstruct the country, involving numerous initiatives to consolidate the process of democracy and improve the living conditions of the population.
However, bearing in mind the imminent signing of this cooperation agreement, the European Commission considers that the Cambodian authorities should take the necessary steps to preserve the prospects of peace and the rule of law.
In this context the Commission is contributing to underpinning the democratic process with a specific programme to establish a transparent electoral register for the 1998 elections.
We are interested in signing the agreement in April because - as you know - there is a set of clauses in the agreement concerning the respect of human rights, freedom and democracy and the development of civil society.
Although it may be difficult to understand that, after all that has happened, the agreement is going to be signed at the end of April, we think that this is a good move for both sides since, once we have signed the agreement, the European Union will have a legal basis and the legitimacy to approach the Cambodian Government.
Thank you, Mr Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the debate on the motion for a resolution (B4-0293/97) tabled by Mr Newens, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on human rights in the Republic of Yemen.
Madam President, prior to the unification of Yemen in May 1990, human rights and democratic freedom were accorded little respect in either North or South Yemen.
After unification, there was a considerable improvement until the vicious war of April-July 1994, in which the former leadership of the South was ousted.
Since that date, there have been many gross violations of individual rights.
The recent report of Amnesty International of 27 March 1997 details 'disappearances' , illegal arrests, ill-treatment, beatings and torture of those detained and death sentences imposed on the basis of evidence open to challenge.
Other organizations, like the Yemeni human rights organization, Europa, have produced further evidence, including lists of victims, which cannot be disregarded.
In addition, there is a cruel criminal code which provides for flogging, amputation and death for adultery and acts against the Republic and Islam.
An estimated 1, 250 people who fled abroad after the civil war are afraid to return and have had their property confiscated.
Yemen, however, has agreed to many human rights treaties and has adapted many of their provisions to its own laws.
The reason why they have not been observed, is that the abuses are carried out by armed groups, especially the political security branch of the security forces, which is responsible only to the President.
These abuses must cease and immediate steps must be taken to release those still in detention, commute any outstanding sentences of flogging and amputation, suspend executions and enable refugees to return home without fear of retribution for opposing the government.
It is very important that the European Union should provide aid.
I strongly support the new cooperation agreement but this should be conditional on a substantial improvement in human rights.
All of us want to see the improvement and development of Yemen and to see great strides made in the conditions of the poor and deprived, but human rights and national reconciliation are essential prerequisites to achieving this.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the country of Yemen has a very, very difficult history behind it: decades of division, two systems and part of the country under Socialist mismanagement.
Today it is trying its best to find its way among difficult neighbours.
In many respects the 18 million inhabitants of Yemen enjoy greater freedom than the people of other countries in that part of the world.
Yemen is also committed to the peaceful resolution of conflicts in the region, such as the dispute over an island in the Red Sea or the border problems with the neighbouring State of Saudi Arabia.
The recent kidnappings were brought to a swift conclusion without loss of life with effective assistance from the Government.
Now parliamentary elections are scheduled for 27 April, and I am very much in favour of sending election observers from the European Parliament.
It would also be wrong, ladies and gentlemen, if in this difficult situation we were to threaten to withdraw the very modest amount of financial assistance provided by the European Union.
This means, Mr Newens, that your motion can only be considered in conjunction with the amendments on the table, most of which our group can support.
The country is trying hard to move gradually towards democracy in this difficult situation.
It is isolated, because although the Yemeni application for membership of the exclusive club of Gulf States has been on the table for months, and indeed years, the country's neighbours are still unwilling to let it join.
The country is not covered by our Mediterranean programme, because it is does not directly adjoin the Mediterranean, nor do we have an association agreement with it.
So it would really be wrong of us to leave Yemen in isolation.
This country has done enough to merit support, and with the amendments included we Christian Democrats shall support this motion.
Yes, Mr Friedrich, I am afraid that I am just making things more difficult by proposing one or two amendments.
I think Mr Newens' resolution is an excellent one, but it unfortunately completely overlooks the human rights of women as a whole, so I have tabled a number of amendments to draw attention to their wretched situation. Their position has gone from bad to worse.
Legislation is now being drawn up to come into force after the elections which will ban women from giving evidence in court, and there is also legislation in the pipeline which will reintroduce the possibility of marriage between minors.
In countries where human rights are violated, it is often the case that women suffer particularly badly and are subject to even more extreme forms of repression, and this is what is happening in Yemen.
So however sensitive the situation may be, I do not understand why the Christian Democrats believe that we should put our relations with Yemen before human rights.
In my view, it ought to be the other way around.
Madame President, the protection of human rights in Yemen and, in particular, the organization of transparent, free elections, are questions of special interest to which the Commission is paying due attention.
The Union and other international partners have pointed out repeatedly in the course of contacts with the Yemeni Government that the elections on 27 April next will be a test for its political system.
At the same time we must admit that the development of political structures in Yemen is being carried out in a particularly difficult domestic situation and in a situation of particularly difficult foreign relations.
The Commission and other donors, which include most Member States, preferred therefore to put forward a series of positive measures to help Yemen reinforce its democratic structures.
The European Commission has thus set aside ECU 700 000 to provide technical aid to the organisation of elections, local control and the promotion of the women's involvement in the elections, as well as a whole series of technical assistance measures to help with this entire process.
Of course, Mr Newens, Mr Friedrich and Mrs van Dijk, we know that four opposition parties have in effect decided not to contest the elections.
But remember that, due to the lack of democratic practices, there are still 4 000 candidates in this country representing a half-dozen parties, in addition to a large number of independent candidates.
We should not be surprised either that this phenomenon is occurring because it is the first time that this country is taking steps towards democratic normalisation.
Consequently the European Commission and the Member States have agreed on a solution to make this possible because, in fact, and I must say that Mr Friedrich is right about this, we have had to invent a sui generis solution with Yemen.
A sui generis solution because this is a country which does not have relations with its neighbours since the Gulf States will not let it enter their club, while its relations with the African political environment are also very limited.
Consequently we adopted the idea in the past of concluding a bilateral cooperation agreement.
Why? For the same reason as I mentioned in relation to Cambodia: there is also a clause on human rights in the cooperation agreement with Yemen, which is to be signed shortly.
Once we have signed this cooperation agreement, the Commission will have the legal and international capacity and legitimacy to implement programmes in this country which are aimed at developing democracy.
Furthermore, as regards the elections, I must point out that I hope that some of you will go there, because the Commission has negotiated with the Yemeni authorities to have international observers present.
We hope, therefore, that 40 observers from the European Union will be present during the election process.
I think that it would be an excellent idea if at least three of the Members who are concerned about this issue would go to Yemen to act as observers during the elections.
That would be an excellent idea, Mr Newens.
Thank you, Mr Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, Bulgaria, an ancient country of Europe with a wealth of human and material resources, a country linked in association with the European Union and with prospects of accession, is in a very difficult situation.
It is passing through a severe economic crisis, a crisis which is also social and political, which has developed and come to a head over recent months but which is, of course, a consequence of things that have been happening for many years, since 1989. It precipitated early elections on 19 April, so it is obvious that it has not deflected the country from its determination to stick with democracy.
Bulgaria's geographical and geopolitical position is also difficult and sensitive.
The country has manifested its potential as a stabilizing factor in the region via important initiatives and sacrifices.
With this unanimously endorsed joint resolution the European Parliament is seeking to send a message to the Bulgarian people.
A message that we do care, that we are watching, that we do feel for and support the Bulgarian people in their difficult endeavour, and that we want to restate the need for humanitarian aid to Bulgaria - and not just aid of that type - to be continued and extended as the situation demands.
Madam President, Bulgaria has not yet managed to take off since the end of the dictatorship.
In its defence, the legacy of the past can be invoked, which include the crushing weight of the national debt as well as the embargo against Serbia.
It cannot be denied, on the other hand, that the inability of Bulgaria to engage in true reforms casts a singular shade on the prospects of a country which has, however, set itself some very ambitious targets.
Final observation, I have become firmly convinced that Bulgaria, despite the efforts we have a right to expect from it, will not be able to resolve this by itself.
Bulgaria, with its problems of an exceptional magnitude, raises the question as to whether the cooperation mechanisms with the European Union are up to the challenge.
This country needs to be helped less on a humanitarian level than in its desire to see in-depth reforms through.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the problem in Bulgaria makes several things clear.
Quite a lot has already been said about these things, and Mr Goerens' contribution was also very enlightening.
We must ask ourselves whether the type of assistance and guidance offered to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to help them over their transitional crisis is really adequate.
Other aspects of the issue are the question of which political forces in Bulgaria are doing what and the fact that the political class, the nomenklatura , and the Mafia are neither able nor willing to develop their country, a phenomenon we have also encountered elsewhere.
But we must also consider our own share of the blame.
What can we do to ensure that we actually honour the promises we have made to the Eastern Europeans and especially to those in the Balkans? And we must also ask ourselves very seriously whether our assistance should not go further than merely providing humanitarian aid in emergencies.
Karelia:
Madam President, I should like to deal with the resolution on Karelia and the area around Murmansk.
First of all, may I express my delight at the fact that the European Parliament is finally discussing this region, which is immediately adjacent to the European Union and yet so remote that very few people here are familiar with it.
I am also pleased that many Finnish Members of our House signed the request for an urgent debate, quite irrespective of their party allegiance, as a sign that the situation is critical and that ideology has no part to play here.
The Republic of Karelia and the Murmansk area are part of the northern economic area of the Russian Federation and are therefore somewhat remote, to put it mildly, in terms of the transport network.
During the present century, this area, because of its geographical, linguistic and even cultural closeness to Finland, as well as its strong urge to achieve self-determination, has repeatedly resisted Russian occupation, so it is, understandably enough, not a major recipient of Russian aid today.
Nevertheless, it is absolutely unacceptable that Russia should be putting every conceivable administrative spanner into the works today to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching that region.
It must also be said that control in the region is often exercised by bodies of a non-governmental nature.
The last time I personally took humanitarian aid to that country, I was faced with the rather dubious alternative of placing myself under the protection of the Russian Mafia or of the Afghanistan veterans' organization.
Today is the tenth of April.
The sun is shining here, even at this time of day, but in Karelia and the area around Murmansk it is snowing, it is cold, below-zero temperatures prevail, and people are dying of starvation and hypothermia.
It is quite simply our duty to urge the Commission to make full use of every conceivable programme, such as TACIS, INTERREG or other cross-border programmes and to do everything possible to remedy this catalogue of human suffering in our immediate vicinity.
Madam President, Karelia is of course as much a part of Europe as Sicily, Crete, the Canary Isles or other parts of Europe which we regularly discuss here.
Karelia is part of our history.
It has been under Swedish rule, then Russian, then Finnish and is now back under Russian rule again.
Karelia has been affected by the chaos in Russia more than other parts of the country.
Karelia has been affected by the shock therapy which Russia has been successfully duped into applying, not least by Western European economists with their bad advice.
Of course the European Union has a considerable responsibility in this respect.
It is a 'hot spot' which could result in conflict.
Karelia has a communist government in the autonomous Karelian Republic.
There are groups in Finland who dream about changing the borders and taking back parts of Karelia again.
It is obvious that the socio-economic conditions in Karelia affect the people's outlook which is a risky situation if someone does not soon intervene and ensure that the region receives help.
It is obvious that the European Union has a very great responsibility here both because, indirectly, we are, in many ways, partially responsible for the situation being as it is and also because Karelia, as I have already said, is of course a part of Europe.
Madame President, the Russians find themselves in a strange situation.
The Communist system has been abolished, but the capitalist system is not yet working.
A disaster is unfolding immediately beyond our external border.
Finnish aid shipments have run into major problems at the border - either the Russian customs officials are conspicious by their absence, or duties are simply collected illegally by locals, something which the Russian authorities should put a stop to immediately.
In 1992 the Union sent Russia food aid.
The produce was distributed to food stores and the revenue from their sale was to be used to fund humanitarian aid.
In most cases, exactly the opposite occurred: people bought the Western foodstuffs with what were probably their last remaining savings, but the money went into the pockets of the Russian mafia.
For that reason, the aid must now be shipped directly to the intended recipients, child-care centres, old people's homes, etc, with the assistance of the local authorities.
Otherwise, this aid will also fall into the hands of the mafia.
Madam President, there is every good reason to offer the Bulgarian people humanitarian aid.
The mismanagement perpetrated by the previous government has left the people in a state of despair, hunger and misery.
The situation in the hospitals and orphanages is appalling.
It is therefore frustrating to see that NGOs are having difficulty in getting aid into Bulgaria because so many of the bureaucratic measures introduced by earlier regimes are still in place.
I recently heard of a Christian community in Sofia which has been trying to secure recognition since 1990.
Because they are not recognized, they cannot rent premises or receive humanitarian supplies from sister churches in the Netherlands.
This is particularly distressing for them now that the crisis is so severe.
Moreover, for Christian communities such as this one, not being recognized also means that they are regarded as a sect and even have difficulties with importing Bibles.
There is therefore every good reason to accompany our emergency aid with calls for rapid measures to establish the right to freedom of religion and the right to practise a religion freely.
Madam President, Bulgaria is caught up in a serious financial and social crisis.
High inflation, unemployment and rocketing food prices have put many people into an almost hopeless situation in recent months.
The European Union, as well as other bodies, and especially the private charitable organizations to which Mr Blokland has just referred, have some good projects that are helping to alleviate the worst of the distress.
Children, women, the sick and the elderly are most in need of rapid assistance.
The crisis-management programme of the present Government has been adopted, and I hope that the new Bulgarian Government will continue the programme after the elections.
A clear legislative programme and a restructuring of the economy, accompanied by reforms in the social sphere, are urgently needed.
The Bulgarians need the support and solidarity of all Europeans, since they belong to Europe.
Bulgaria also needs very strong support from us, because the people there have placed high hopes in us.
I hope that after the elections the new Government, together with Parliament and above all with the Bulgarian people, and also with our support, will be able to overcome this crisis.
Madame President, famine is now a fact of life in areas close to Europe.
In Karelia and other parts of Russia bordering on the Union, the situation of children and the elderly in particular has been extremely difficult throughout the winter.
From the beginning of the year onwards, emergency aid has been sent to the region from Finland via the Red Cross and the Finland-Russia Association.
However, the situation has not eased and for that reason we now need the assistance of the Union as a whole.
However, wherever possible local resources and administrative organizations should be involved in the delivery of the aid.
A programme to develop social and health administration in Karelia is currently been financed via the EU's TACIS programme.
These local resources should also be used to deliver the emergency aid, since this will help to strengthen emerging local social structures and improve their ability to deal with such disasters in the future.
In my view, this is a very important matter in this connection.
Madame President, as regards the problem of humanitarian aid for Bulgaria, I would like to confirm that in the past 6 months the Commission has spent ECU 73.6 million on aid for Bulgaria.
This includes an emergency social assistance programme under PHARE amounting to ECU 20 million, a contribution of 1.1 million from ECHO for emergency medical and food aid, as well as ECU 12.5 under PHARE for energy imports.
The Commission's objective is still, first and foremost, to lend support to the process of economic reform and, second, to maintain social aid in order to cushion the social cost of the reforms and reinforce popular acceptance of these.
The remainder of the set of aid measures by the European Union were recently presented by my colleague, Mr Van den Broek, in Sofia.
The terms are: first, a new macro-financial loan from the Union for an amount of ECU 250 million.
Moreover, ECU 20 million under the PHARE programme for technical assistance in applying the Government's reform programme.
And lastly additional social assistance in the context of PHARE for the most needy groups in Bulgaria, amounting to a total of ECU 20 million which will be spent on the existing programme.
Moreover the Commission yesterday took part in a high-level G24 meeting in Bulgaria.
Thanks to various undertakings by member countries to provide aid, it was possible to make good the deficit in financing for Bulgaria for 1997.
Undertakings to provide humanitarian aid were also made and in November a further meeting of the G24 will take place to review the progress made in reforms in this country and to collect funds for the balance of payments in 1998.
Lastly, in our relations with this country we must not lose sight of the long-term objective of membership of the Union.
In return Bulgaria, after many years of underdevelopment, will have to assume the challenges of reform, and the clear political will of the provisional Government to implement such reforms is heartening. This determination will, we hope, be ratified after the general elections on 19 April.
As for Karelia, the Commission is aware of the political and economic situation in the north-western regions of Russia, a situation which is indeed serious, not only in Karelia but also, unfortunately, in many regions of the Russian Federation.
The Commission's humanitarian aid department, ECHO, will carefully examine any practical requests that arise.
However, I must point out that, as mentioned already by several Members, the humanitarian organizations are facing increasingly tough barriers each time they try to get humanitarian aid to the region, as well as problems generally posed by the Russian customs authorities.
This problem of customs controls has already been raised with the Russian authorities.
However, I wish to make one thing clear: problems started to emerge, essentially, from the time that the International Humanitarian Aid and Technical Assistance Office, which used to exist, disappeared in the new government structure.
So far the Russian Government has not adopted a final decision concerning the body responsible for channelling humanitarian aid to those Russian regions which, like Karelia, are experiencing serious problems.
Ladies and gentlemen, in connection with the votes on topical and urgent subjects, I would draw your attention to the fact that the front pages of all the newspapers in Mexico are carrying reports that the European Commission's official representative in Mexico, under pressure from the government there, has withdrawn the subsidy which had been approved for the Human Rights Academy in Mexico until after the elections.
This was why we asked to have a debate on Mexico this week in Parliament, because we knew that it was urgent.
Our request was rejected by the right wing in the House, and I hold you all responsible for the fact that this Human Rights Academy is now not to receive the grant from us that it might have done, because we refused to put pressure on the Commission.
Mrs Aelvoet, you have made your point but as you know the House is sovereign on these matters and it is up to the House to decide what items appear on the list of urgencies.
Votes
Now the Balderelli report has been withdrawn the situation is not as bad as you think.
Mr President, I am deeply touched by the sudden interest of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations in the subject of fishing, especially as its esteemed leader was actually in Newlyn in England yesterday talking about his concern for the fishing industry.
It is a shame that, despite all the Group's roll call votes and amendments, Sir Jimmy Goldsmith cannot even be bothered to be in this Chamber!
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) Report (A4-0094/97) by Mr Kindermann, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation introducing arrangements for the management of fishing effort in the Baltic Sea (COM(96)0489 - C4-0017/97-96/0244(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
We decided at the vote not to support the committee's report.
We think that the report deals with essential issues for the future of the fishing industry and appreciate Mr Adam's work in trying to find a compromise between the various interested parties. But, despite this, we consider that the committee's report does not offer a satisfactory balance on the matter of maintaining fish resources and the need to prevent the introduction of bureaucratic regulations, difficult for the target group to deal with, which would not have any real effect towards the objective of maintaining fish resources.
Although we had our reasons from the outset for abstaining on the Adam report on the proposal to introduce technical measures for the conservation of fisheries resources - which we explained in detail during the debate - then we are doubly convinced following the discussion, in view of the Commission's answers and comments and above we see doubly clearly the real proposals and intentions of the European 'Executive' in this matter.
In fact the Commission was quite clear in its statement that it would not accept the amendment to the report proposing that there should be a transitional period for the implementation of the new regulation - a realistic amendment which we tabled in the Committee on Fisheries which had had the support of the rapporteur.
This Commission position, quite apart from rejecting the financial compensation bound up with implementation of the regulation, raises serious doubts about the real role of the Commission in maintaining fisheries resources.
We trust that the Council of Ministers for Fisheries on 14/15 April will agree to introduce such legal provisions in the final proposal, even though the Commission - as seen here - does not concur.
We trust that that view will be upheld here, in particular by the governments of the Member States most closely affected, which must necessarily include my country - Portugal.
Taken as a whole, the Commission's proposed amendments to the technical measures are a considerable improvement on the present system.
It has managed to produce a package which is better organized and simpler than the existing measures, and by making fishing gear more selective and protecting certain zones, it will significantly help to reduce the catches of juvenile fish.
I particularly welcome the fact that the Commission is to further reduce the capacity of the fleet in the 12-mile zone, which is where the nursery stocks are usually found.
I do not agree with all the Commission's proposals, however, since in my view unnecessary restrictions are being imposed on a number of types of fishing.
The restrictions on fishing for hake, for example, will cause serious problems for pelagic horse mackerel trawling.
It is not right that flanking policies designed to protect juvenile fish should jeopardize the future of major fishing sectors, and any measures to rationalize the fishing fleets should form part of the MGPs.
I therefore fully support the rapporteur's amendments on hake fishing.
The proposed sole limit and the one-net rule also restrict the flexibility of the fishing fleet unnecessarily.
The Commission's proposal may extend the area where sole can be fished, but not far enough, which is why I have tabled an amendment setting the limit at 56ºN.
This should mean that fishermen operating in the rich grounds between 55º and 56ºN do not miss out on their catches of dab, lemon sole, large sole and so on by having to fish with a minimum mesh size of 110 mm.
I supported most of the amendments contained in the Adam report.
I agree with the rapporteur that the fishermen need to be more closely involved, and that certain measures need to have a better scientific basis.
The amendments on selective fishing gear are very much in line with what the sector can achieve in practical terms.
We need to reflect on the proposal to exempt the pelagic fleet from the ban on netting yarn over 8 mm.
However, I do not support the calls for a scheme to compensate fishermen for any loss of income resulting from the technical measures.
The CFP needs to create the conditions for the fleet to be competitive, and income subsidies will simply serve to keep non-economic vessels afloat.
Kindermann report (A4-94/97)
We supported the report at the vote but with the following observation on the position adopted: In principle, we welcome an administrative system which would allow the integration of Sweden and Finland into the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
But we stress that the Commission's proposal has been raised prematurely and cannot therefore make use of any better documents which may come from the IBSFC, preparation for which is currently underway, or of any opportunities which may arise from there for multilateral solutions covering the whole of the Baltic, not like the Commission's proposal which only covers those parts which fall under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of the Member States.
We also think that the Commission's proposal risks placing an unnecessary administrative burden on both professional fishermen and the authorities involved.
The undersigned think that the committee's legislative resolution with its amendments takes better consideration of the above points than the Commission's proposal.
Recognition of higher education diplomas
The next item is the report (A4-0029/97) by Mrs Fontaine, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission report to the European Parliament and the Council on the state of application of the general system for the recognition of higher education diplomas (made in accordance with Article 13 of Directive 89/48/EEC) (COM(96)0046 - C4-0194/96)
Mr President, I confirm that this concerns a report from the Committee on Legal affairs and Citizens' Rights.
The report which I have the honour of presenting to this Chamber refers to the first result from the implementation of the recognition of diplomas within the framework of the very innovative approach which the Commission proposed to us in 1989.
Our Parliament, you will remember, approved this horizontal approach, while bearing in mind, of course, that great vigilance would be necessary regarding the manner in which it would be realised in practice.
We are grateful to the Commission for the very detailed report with which it has presented us at the end of the five years allotted by the directive.
The two objectives sought have been achieved.
The commission is presenting an inventory to us which provides us with very useful information, although I would have liked to have more precise statistics, in particular on the numbers of requests and on the responses - refusals or acceptances - which were given to those requests.
We could thus have yet better appreciated the extent of mobility within the Community.
In the second place, we have today an idea of the improvements required in order that the instrument be operational to the greatest possible extent with regard to citizens.
The important question which arises, indeed, is this: does this directive constitute the practical instrument which the candidates for mobility within the Community wished to have at their disposal, or not?
Mr President, fellow Members, the outcome is a curate's egg.
I must say that our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights has greatly appreciated being able to meet the national co-ordinators who, in each of our Member States, are charged with the actual implementation of this directive.
We also thank the Commission for having facilitated these meetings.
They have allowed us to complete our analysis and to note with satisfaction a positive evolution of mentalities.
Moreover, in its report, the Commission notes that the compensation mechanism by examination has remained the exception, whilst achieving adaptation training courses has not really caused any difficulties.
Among the positive points, let us mention the synergy between Community programmes, Erasmus, which has now become Socrates, and the directive, and also the fact that this directive appears to have encouraged the convergence of our eduction and training programmes.
All this is excellent.
Nevertheless, our Committee on Legal Affairs had unfortunately to note that a certain number of important obstacles remained.
And it is not by chance that more than one hundred petitions have been submitted on this subject since the implementation of the directive.
It is also the reason why I am very much in favour of the amendments presented by Mr Cot and Mrs Schmidbauer on behalf of the Socialist Group, which refer to these petitions.
The obstacles in question are the result of several weaknesses.
First of all, the incomplete and insufficient transfer of the directive into the legislation of certain Member States.
Next, these obstacles are the result of the absence of a precise definition as to the level of higher education.
It is a point which we have raised, particularly during the hearing of national co-ordinators and which must certainly be clarified.
But, in a more general way, these obstacles result from the fact that the way of thinking in the sphere of academic recognition still prevails.
We equally stress the information problem. It is a formidable problem, not just in this connection, as well we know.
But it appears in this case that if the migrants are now aware of their right to recognition of diplomas, the are very largely ignorant of the mechanisms of the system as well as the mechanisms of appeal.
It is now an absolute necessity, fellow Members, for - let me say it clearly - appropriate information as close as possible to citizens.
It is also necessary for the role of co-ordinators, who have done excellent work, to be strengthened.
This is one of the requests we are expressing.
Finally, our Commission on Legal Affairs would like to warn of a difficulty which may arise in the likely event, which we wish to be the case, that mobility within the Community develops in a significant manner.
Indeed, no legislation has been envisaged until now to take account of the numerus clausus which Member States have instituted for certain professions and which limit access to those professions of a number of candidates fixed in advance.
We wish, Mr Commissioner, the Commission to undertake a study on this matter.
Fellow Members, Mr President, based on these findings and these observations, we think that amendments will be necessary.
But we also think that the Commission is wise in proposing a deadline of 1999.
At that time, our field of observation will be wider, our results will be more exhaustive.
From now until then, the greatest possible vigilance is required.
Our Committee of Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights wishes, on its part, to initiate changes, in cooperation with the Commission, which will be required for this important aspect of the real Europe to become fact for the greatest number of our fellow citizens.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur - and in this case this is not empty rhetoric - on his good work.
While it is customary to congratulate the rapporteur, it is less frequent to point to the virtues of Commission documents.
But this is a useful document.
The rapporteur has rightly highlighted several shortcomings, but it is still true, nevertheless, that the Commission is fulfilling its promise: to provide a quite precise view of the situation.
The first conclusion to be drawn - which Mrs Fontaine mentioned - is that it is still early. Not enough time has passed to permit us to draw conclusions that would result in a change in the law.
It is wise to wait until 1999 before revising Directive 48/89.
What are the essential conclusions that emerge from this report by Mrs Fontaine - which is backed by the PPE - together with the two amendments tabled by the Socialist Group? The fact that at time when freedom of movement has not been properly developed as a fourth freedom - as set down in the Treaties - which is leading to discouragement and scepticism, considerable progress has indeed been made in this area, which affords a note of hope that deserves a mention.
This Directive is based on a balance between two articles: article 3 which reflects mutual trust between States: if someone has decided to exercise a profession in a Member State, the mutual trust between the States, a principle of the Treaties, must enable him to continue his profession in another Member State; and article 4 which must be interpreted as a restrictive clause laying down compensatory measures in those cases where there is no equivalence.
Once again the two main currents which have always been intertwined since the start of the process of European construction: on the one hand, the fears and visions of a fortress, a limited, narrow vision, and on the other, the vision of the future, of a Europe with a diversity of culture - and this diversity must be maintained because it is a source of wealth, it is our heritage - but, at the same time, it is a Europe where freedom of movement is a real right, not simply a formal right set down in the Treaties.
Finally I should like, Mr President, to point out that there is an article - article 2 - which states that all of this is aimed at achieving political integration.
However, this cannot be established automatically vis-à-vis nationals of non-EU states as claimed in the report.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, is of course to be congratulated on her report, but she knows as well as I and the Commission do - and I should like to hear what the Commission has to say about this - that it is in fact far too optimistic, and that the Member States, not least her own, take every opportunity to protect their markets, even when it comes to the recognition of diplomas.
I think we therefore need to accept that in the long term, we can no longer leave education policy solely in the hands of the Member States, and that we need to introduce rules at Community level.
Some progress has of course been made, thanks to the Court of Justice - or in this case the Court of First Instance, which ruled in Case 1690, the Panagiotopoulou case, that Directive 89/48 was directly applicable.
I think this was an extremely important ruling.
Mrs Fontaine has clearly denounced the opposition of national professional bodies to the directive on lawyers, and has tried to overcome it - there is at least a little more openness towards the idea now - but I should like to draw attention to another bad example in the very first area in which we made a start on the recognition of diplomas, the medical professions, where France is still indulging in market protection over the 'protégiste dentaire ' .
There is a European directive on this, but the way it is interpreted in France means that for practising their profession there - quite correctly under the terms of the directive - people are still being thrown into prison.
This needs to be put right, and Mrs Fontaine's report should help to do this.
Mr President, fellow members, the report from our fellow member, Mrs Fontaine, is quite excellent and we will vote for it without reservations.
It is true that the Commission's report represents, as our rapporteur has indicated, certain progress in the implementation of a general system for the recognition of diplomas of higher education within the European Union.
Also as a member of the Saint-Benoît brotherhood, I earnestly wish to see the transnational community of universities which already existed in XIIth and XIIIth century Europe re-established in future, thanks in particular to this new legislation, community which was inspired by belonging to a single civilisation, based not only on both the Latin language and Roman law, but also on the Graeco-Christian values which are still ours today.
I do not wish to enter into details of the legislation which are dealt with in Mrs Fontaine's report, but I would like to bear witness to the importance these exchanges can have for higher education in a border region such as mine, that is to say Alsace, by which I was elected and which is situated geographically and culturally at the heart of Rhenish Europe.
Inter-university cooperation already exists on an important scale, particularly between the universities of Baden-Württemberg and Alsace, without forgetting, moreover, Basle, in Switzerland, but this cooperation cannot but be reinforced by the development of a general system of reciprocal recognition of diplomas which is being implemented, but which is still inadequate.
All this appears positive to us and we express our sincere wish that the recommendations advocated by Mrs Fontaine's report be applied as speedily as possible in the years to come.
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Fontaine on a report which is up to the standard that we always expect of her.
Can I say that we on the left in this Chamber, when we talk of the single market, have always contended that there has to be a social dimension to it and when labour is sold in the single market it is inevitable there will be a social dimension and the mutual recognition of qualifications is part of that.
I spoke earlier this week in the debate on driving licences and argued then, as I do now, that part of free movement within the European Union is to recognize that there are diverse legal systems within that Union but that it is nevertheless possible to have a recognition of qualifications and laws.
Indeed, Mr President, you will be aware like me that within the United Kingdom, England and Scotland maintain distinct and separate legal systems and yet nonetheless are able to recognize certain principles within the United Kingdom, and I would argue that the same thesis should also apply to the mutual recognition of qualifications.
Again the Scottish and English examples apply there.
Mr President, you I suspect have different qualifications from mine, but they are mutually recognized within the United Kingdom.
Indeed many argue, and I am sure you would, that Scottish qualifications are, of course, superior to those of England.
Nonetheless, when it comes to higher education, we also accept and understand the need for mutuality.
Can I say in conclusion that I am a lawyer by occupation.
The recognition of my qualification, which shows me with hair and a black beard and is shown by way of a card translated into nine languages, in fact dates from a directive from 1987 before this Parliament was a real Parliament and it shows that we have been working at this problem for a very long time and I hope that, for the benefit of all those young people in the gallery, we will speed up our work so that they can take advantage of the single market with a social dimension.
Mr President, would you please draw the attention of Mr White to the fact that it is now 1997 and this Parliament has existed for a very, very long time.
He probably mixed up the numbers which, for lawyers, are always difficult.
I think he meant 1977, before this Parliament was directly elected.
But as he said such nice things about the Scots I was not going to correct him.
Mr President, I should like to make one or two brief points on Mrs Fontaine's report and also on this attempt to standardize the recognition of diplomas, which is a constant concern to me.
I think that in spite of everything the market must prevail and that a diploma might provide cover for a dunce.
However I think it would be difficult for a diploma to have any intrinsic value and that it should never be a substitute for the work experience which the holder has gained.
I have already taught in America by virtue of my doctorate in classical languages from the Faculdade de Letras, Lisbon, and the American authorities never raised the question of equivalence of qualifications.
They accepted that the work I had done was good enough to enable me to do the job of university professor.
Europe - which never had any concerns about education nor any tendency to make things converge, I do not say as regards teaching, but the quality of teaching in which some countries even regard other countries as having a lower teaching standard -must now face, quite naturally, the problem of recognition of diplomas.
We are all aware that in any given country there are universities, polytechnic colleges or equivalent colleges which award diplomas which are not as good as those in other establishments in the same country.
I nevertheless think that the less meddling there is by the Commission and the bureaucrats in the automatic evaluation of diplomas the better it will be for the freedom of movement of citizens.
But I think it should be fundamental that Europe should be concerned to see some approximation in teaching quality at all levels and not show concern merely in monetary convergence.
That would at least be a more interesting ideal, yielding greater richness.
Mr President, the convergence between academic, university education and professional or vocational training, which has now become necessary, represents one of the methods identified some time ago of trying to counter the employment crisis that is now dominating the entire Community, and not only the Community.
Unfortunately, it is difficult for academic and professional education to play their full part, especially because of the obstacles that occur in the systems of recognizing diplomas, and in particular higher education diplomas.
The degree to which the directive we are discussing today has been applied tells us of 11, 000 citizens interested in the success or otherwise of the system, which encounters its major obstacles with the recognition of academic qualifications.
We believe, furthermore, that this figure refers only to those who have had the courage to complain of a problem they have encountered, and that, sadly, the real situation is much more serious.
Has Europe, then, lost that spirit which, over the centuries, established its great universities as the temples of world knowledge if, today, it is unable to recognize the universal nature of the knowledge imparted in the Community's seats of learning? Mrs Fontaine, then, is quite right to complain of the delays that are taking place with the application of the directive.
We would remind the House, Mr President, that professional qualifications such as those held by surveyors, dental surgeons and many others have not yet gained recognition in all States of the Union and the professions concerned enjoy no particular protection.
We too endorse the call for a closer dialogue between the national authorities and the Commission's services with a specific view to setting up an appropriate system for providing information, a system that must be as transparent as possible.
We also ask you, Mr President, to bring the necessary pressure to bear on the Belgian, Greek and German governments which are currently proving the most stubborn in barring access to the professions for citizens coming from other Member States.
That will send our citizens that European signal which nowadays is too often obscured.
Mr President, much as the standardization of higher-education diplomas is to be welcomed, that does not actually guarantee what the successful completion of a diploma course is supposed to reflect.
In practice it often means very little that graduates of different universities have the same right of access to the various professions in the entire European Union; the only guarantor of equal professional opportunities throughout the EU is comparability of training levels.
The oft-repeated argument that every university and every country should have the right to develop its own curricula is only justified if graduates emerge from their courses of study with comparable qualitative levels of training.
It is therefore especially important to uphold the subsidiarity principle by enabling Member States to decide whether the practice of a profession should or should not be regulated.
It therefore ought to be possible for individual countries, irrespective of mutual recognition of diplomas, to enact their own laws or regulations governing proof of professional aptitude.
The fact is that with no coordination of the various countries' curricula at all, the European Union would soon have a similar situation to that which prevails in countries like the United States, where a diploma from one university guarantees a far higher level of aptitude than the same diploma from another.
In this modern competitive society, where success and promotion depend on the free market, graduates of the so-called élite universities will generally swim to the top.
And if entry to these élite universities then becomes correspondingly more expensive, that will create unfair conditions, with university entrance becoming dependent on the financial clout of students' families or other sponsors.
Free access to the employment market throughout the EU - and that is surely meant to be the whole purpose of standardized diplomas - is therefore not guaranteed by mere recognition of diplomas.
That would be a phoney type of equality and would possess no credibility in the real world.
Mr President, general and vocational education is an instrument of employment policy, adapting professional qualifications to the needs of the internal market and playing an important part in the fight against unemployment.
The education systems of all our Member States are currently underprepared and too uncoordinated to respond to this challenge.
The general system for the recognition of higher education diplomas serves a crucial purpose here.
That purpose is to realize free movement of persons, in other words the right to enjoy citizenship of the Union, to live and work in other Member States, in conjunction with the eradication of unemployment.
In the Committee on Petitions, a considerable number of petitions submitted in recent years have shown us time and again that freedom of movement in this particular domain of recognition and equivalence of diplomas is not working properly.
Petitions give Parliament an overall picture of the problems faced by European and national administrations, of remote and bureaucratic measures, of infringements of principles of Community law and in general of defects relating to European unification and popular participation in the process of European integration.
These experienced flaws in European legislation should be used as a basis for the further development and improvement of Community law.
That is why I welcome Mrs Fontaine's excellent report, and I should like to draw on our experience in the Committee on Petitions to add something from my own point of view as a member of that committee.
The main demand made in this context is that the Directive should also cover professional experience gained after graduation, because that is the only way to ensure that freedom of movement will be exercised in a satisfactory manner to promote education and employment policies in which our citizens are closely involved.
, Vice-President of the Commission. (ES) Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the Committee on Legal Affairs and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, for the quality of her report and also for the interest she has always personally shown in the recognition of diplomas, something which is of fundamental importance for the citizens of Europe who wish to exercise their right to freedom of movement.
We are satisfied that the Committee on Legal Affairs considers it advisable to accept in principle the main conclusions in the Commission report - for instance that the 'General System' Directive 89/94 is meeting the expectations created when it was decided to adopt a new horizontal approach to the question of the recognition of diplomas.
We have found out that in principle you are in agreement with the European Commission as regards the main problems the application of the Directive has given rise to during the first two years of implementation.
Mrs Fontaine said that perhaps more sophisticated statistics were needed in order to make an assessment.
According to the statistics, Mrs Fontaine, scarcely 11 000 citizens have so far obtained recognition of their diplomas in the entire European Union.
Why only 11 000? Perhaps because only two years have gone by.
And second, because many of the problems you have mentioned are obvious and have to be resolved.
What are these problems? First of all, the system of work and relationship of trust.
The relationship and cooperation with the national coordinators is absolutely essential, and a feeling of trust must be established by means of the meetings with the national coordinators.
It is useful to note that, at the joint meeting between these coordinators and the Committee on Legal Affairs, the important role which the national coordinators, who have to apply the directive, must play when it comes to encouraging mutual trust was highlighted; this mutual trust is absolutely essential for the success of the general system.
Only on the basis of trust can the system envisaged in the directive be effectively introduced.
On the other hand, there are other problems such as the definition of the concept of higher education and the balance between article 3 - recognition of diplomas per se - and article 4 which, in certain circumstances, enables the Member States to introduce additional requirements.
I cannot conceal from you the fact that there is a considerable difference of opinion, as you well know, between the European Commission and several Member States as regards the interpretation of these directives.
This has inevitably led us into a rather unfortunate situation: the initiation of an infringement procedure pursuant to Treaty Article 169 against several Member States, which will certainly result in a ruling by the Court of Justice.
Given the importance of the relationship of trust, it is preferable that the system progress by means of relations of trust between the Member States rather than the Commission having to systematically solve problems of interpretation of the directive by means of infringement procedures and resort to the Court of Justice.
I am convinced that the Commission's point of view will prevail, but we all know that proceedings pursuant to article 169 at the Court of Justice in Luxembourg will mean a lot of lost time, regardless of what can be won in the end.
You have called for more information and greater transparency at every level.
The 'Citizens of Europe' initiative was launched recently, one of the main objectives of this being in fact the recognition of diplomas.
Let us hope that understanding of the system will increase as and when the directive is applied, and I think that in general today we are in a relatively better situation than at the beginning.
Two specific points were raised by the Committee on Legal Affairs: the diplomas awarded by non-EU countries and the effect of mobility at Community level on national rules on numerus clausus - a very delicate issue since there are Member States which practice the numerus clausus , while others do not, and there are even Member State which at this very minute are reviewing this option.
What I can say, Mrs Fontaine, is that at the moment the Commission is examining the best solution to solve both the problem of validation of diplomas awarded by non-EU countries and the problem of countries which apply a numerus clausus.
As for the proposed amendments which Mrs Fontaine supports I would like to say that the Commission will make the necessary changes as soon as possible.
Lastly, I would like to thank you and all the other Members who spoke and who highlighted the importance of this issue.
The directive has certainly not achieved cruising speed yet, but you know perfectly well that all the harmonization directives involve a problem of tenacity.
Harmonization should preferably be introduced on the basis of political negotiation and rules of trust rather than by dint of cases at the Court of Justice.
That is the view of the Commission.
No, Mr President, this is not a point of order.
I should like to put a supplementary question to the Commission.
I asked the Commissioner a specific question, and although I quite understand that his Flemish has not improved since he has been living in Bruges, he has not yet answered it in so many words.
He said that we need to work on the basis of the 'Cassis de Dijon' principle of mutual trust.
But I asked whether he did not think that, because of the repeated instances of market protection, our next step should not be to introduce a Community education policy, and he has not yet answered this.
Perhaps he prefers not to, but I should nevertheless like to hear what he has to say.
Mr President, the directive is correct and has to leave it to Member States to ensure the recognition of diplomas.
Perhaps your grandchildren or mine will have the luck to live in a more united Europe with a linguistic system in which language is not a disadvantage, with a system of academic credits which means that it does not matter where a person has studied because there will be automatic recognition, based on a decision at Community level, of all the professions.
You will certainly be proven right, Mr Wijsenbeek, but a Commissioner cannot allow himself to be simply a poet of Europe.
And in my view your vision is too poetic, at least at the moment.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been circulated.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, my name is not on yesterday's attendance list.
That must undoubtedly be because of an oversight on my part, but I can assure you that I was present at yesterday's sitting and can prove it if you would like me to, as my name is on several voting lists.
I hope therefore that this omission, no doubt due to my forgetfulness, can be put right.
I can confirm that I saw you on several occasions.
That will be corrected.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I refer to page 30 of the Minutes, which makes reference to the fact that I made an outrageous personal attack on a Member of this House yesterday.
I wonder whether you could now give Sir James Goldsmith the floor so that he can reply in person to the attack I made on him.
Thank you for that helpful comment.
I think 90 % of the House will not understand what you are talking about but as I was in the Chair yesterday, I do.
Mr President, firstly, I wish to congratulate you on being in the Chair two days in a row, which must be a record.
I refer to page 5 of the Minutes and I congratulate the sessional services for adding my name - almost the first point in the Minutes and I will try to make it the first point next time - and to remark on the fact that I managed to make the vote in favour of the Palacio Vallelersundi report, thereby making it 19 British Labour Members, including yourself, who supported this splendid report on artist resale rights.
Thank you, Mr Kerr.
Votes
The freedom of movement of persons is one of the four fundamental freedoms which every citizen of the European Union should have.
This freedom does not actually exist.
One aspect of freedom of movement of persons is the mutual recognition of qualifications and acceptance of national higher educational certificates by the Member States and consequently by private firms, universities and professional organizations.
In December 1988 a general system was adopted for the mutual recognition of certificates of higher education approving professional training for a minimum of three years' study in higher education.
That acceptance makes it possible to retain a diversity of educational courses.
The Commission has always encouraged the States to gain an understanding of the education systems of their neighbours: national academic recognition information centres (NARICs) in particular have been set up.
It has also reprimanded Greece and Belgium for failure to meet their obligations.
In view of the 1999 complete study of the 1992 directive on a second system for the recognition of professional training, the Commission is wanting to propose some amendments and, for example, to include a provision that account must be taken of experience gained subsequent to obtaining the diploma.
It would in addition be a good thing if the Commission could carry out an in-depth study on individuals actually encountering problems as regards recognition.
The European Parliament congratulates the Commission on its very thorough report which covers the essential problems concerning the state of application of the system for the recognition of diplomas.
Equality of opportunity for people with disabilities
The next item is the report (A4-0044/97) by Mrs Schmidbauer, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission's communication on equality of opportunity for people with disabilities (COM(96)0406 - C4-0582/96).
Mr President, I had intended to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report but must now do this later when she has come in.
When discussing the issue of equal opportunities for people with disabilities, I think that we should begin by discussing the definition of handicapped which most people now seem to hold, namely the term handicap in relation to the surrounding environment.
This means that a handicap is not a static thing but something which can be reduced and perhaps even eliminated through action within the sector of housing for example.
By making housing accessible we reduce or eliminate the handicap.
By improving transport we reduce or even eliminate the handicap.
This is one starting point.
Another starting point is that when we formulate policies for people with disabilities and when we try to create equal opportunities every aspect of society is involved.
Those aspects, which are well described in this report using the term mainstreaming, including housing policy, transport policy, labour market policy and education policy.
A policy for the handicapped is not, as it was traditionally considered, an issue for the social sector but involves every aspect of society.
I will not go into any further detail on this as time is pressing but I would like to touch upon certain areas which are particularly important now in terms of creating equal opportunities.
The labour market situation which now prevails in Europe, with its high unemployment, is very serious.
We have unemployment figures of more than 10 percent.
I myself was involved in a study in Sweden several years ago.
At the time in Sweden we had practically full employment, e.g. only 2 percent unemployment, among the population as a whole.
But for those with the most severe disabilities unemployment was all of 70 percent.
This means that when the labour market situation is even worse these people are affected even more.
This makes our efforts in creating jobs for the disabled and the need for suitable models to be found even more urgent.
I would like to see us review which models are best and exchange ideas with each other as there are different systems in the different countries.
Secondly, I would like to touch on education.
Young people and employees with disabilities cannot currently take advantage freedom of movement because of lack of accessibility.
This is the nucleus of European co-operation, freedom of movement, the opportunity for people to cross national borders in order to study and work etc.
This is an important issue which must be resolved in the near future so that all of our people can take advantage of this freedom of movement.
Finally, I would like to say that the programmes for the handicapped that we have had have been good.
They have primarily been concerned with the exchange of knowledge.
Unfortunately these have been blocked by the Council.
It is particularly important that new programmes are established which are based upon the exchange of knowledge especially in those areas which I have touched upon so far.
As I said, I would like to thank the rapporteur for a good report.
Mr President, let me first of all express my sincere thanks to the rapporteur.
She is one of the idealists who devote a great deal of additional time to this area.
It is quite right: there are 37 million disabled people living in the EU.
They certainly have to struggle with many prejudices and difficulties in our society.
Anyone who speaks with them or about them should always appreciate that they could easily become one of their number overnight.
The Member States are mainly responsible for implementing disability policy.
Nevertheless, I take the view that sensible coordination and inclusion in all EU programmes of the integration of disabled people is desirable.
I wish to emphasize this point, even though I have a very high regard for the principle of subsidiarity.
A new action programme designed on these lines for the benefit of disabled people and their associations, provided they have a 50 % representation on the management board, is therefore necessary to ensure that the structures which have been created do not collapse.
We need to promote equality of opportunity and integration, and to further extend the structures for cooperation.
Regardless of the legal problems, the Commission should carry out pilot actions and preliminary work for disabled people, with the involvement of NGOs.
Securing non-discrimination and the right of access to all Community programmes is sensible and important.
However, rights which exist in theory on paper are not enough.
Otherwise, the same thing will happen to disabled people as to small and medium-sized enterprises: their rights may well be written into many programmes, but they are frequently not translated into practice.
We must make every effort to see that this happens, so that the right results are achieved.
And we must ensure that there is genuine access to all the modern information and communication techniques.
Unfortunately, I do not have enough speaking time to elaborate on this.
To my mind, it is essential that the problems of disabled people should be examined by a high-level group of experts which must be set up in the near future.
In this context, dialogue is important both with the Member States - which, as I said, are primarily responsible - and with the European disability forums, so that progress can be made for disabled people at European level and beyond.
This objective is also supported by my group, and I should like to thank my colleague Bartho Pronk, who was responsible for our preliminary work on this report, but is unable to be present with us here today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that this is a very important report that we should not be dealing with on a Friday morning, but that often seems to be the way with these kinds of issues.
I should like to begin with the last point made by the rapporteur, who called for an article on non-discrimination to be included in the Treaty.
Parliament has produced some excellent recommendations for a balanced nondiscrimination article in the Treaty, but I am most concerned that our proposals will not be adopted as they stand at the IGC, on the pretext that it is too costly to extend the Treaty to cover the disabled.
I find this outrageous.
If we have anti-discrimination provisions which apply across the Union, there can be no question of distortion of competition, and so I would urge the Commission to do everything it can to get this through, because it really is the most important thing that we could do for the disabled.
The right to access is extremely important for the disabled - access to work, access to education, access to transport - and it is for the most part the responsibility of the Member States to ensure this.
The Union can only set an example through its various programmes, and I think we have managed to do this fairly well up to now.
I would draw your attention to another important aspect here, which was also mentioned by the rapporteur: the possibilities offered by the information society for our policy on the disabled.
The disabled can benefit enormously from the new communication technologies, though they may also present an extra obstacle in that they can be difficult to access.
But I see it as an ideal application for these new technologies, which could also give the disabled greater scope for becoming more involved in many social processes.
But we need to work together to make it possible, and that is why I think that the use of information technologies should form part of the Commission's rolling action programme.
Mr President, I believe the problem of disabled people is in fact a more fundamental one than has been described today.
Mrs Schmidbauer is quite right: we need a proper legal basis for social programmes, we need a clause on non-discrimination, we need what Mr Schiedermeier emphasized once again - coordination of national policies - and a high-level group of experts would also be extremely helpful.
A broader issue is also involved here, however, not just so-called prejudices and difficulties, but a questioning of our society as a meritocracy, as an immense Darwinian mechanism of social selection in which more and more people are constantly being filtered out, and in which this relentless process of selection is also still being ideologically charged.
To put an end once and for all to the temptation to construct ideologies from this, whereby the high achievers are sectioned off from the less worthy elements of life, we should in fact take our society forward - at least outside the business world - on the basis that everyone contributes according to his abilities and is cared for according to his needs.
I think we owe that to disabled people!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the excellent report by Mrs Schmidbauer and the work on this subject in general are also extremely important because it is quite simply a fact that when it comes to equality of opportunity for disabled people, large areas of Europe are lagging far behind other parts of the world, especially the United States, Canada and Australia.
I should like to take up just a few points.
This subject is covered most unsatisfactorily by Article 235.
It really is therefore necessary for a new programme to take a rights-based approach, fully involving disabled people and their parents.
I too see no contradiction between a disability policy which is geared to integration and equality of opportunity and a specific disability programme.
On the contrary, I believe that the disability programme can help to achieve the goal of equality of opportunity.
However, something which does not emerge properly either from the Commission's communication or the committee's report is the fact that disabled people are in particular also fully entitled to have their share of pleasure, happiness and enjoyment.
In future, therefore, we shall need to address the question of fully involving disabled people in the areas of culture, sport, tourism and politics.
For example, the wonderful 'Special Olympics' movement, which comes from the USA and was founded by the Kennedy family, is one that you need to have experienced in order to understand just what it means for these disabled adults and children, how it gives them the opportunity to experience sporting competition, to be happy and to exist as full individuals in our society.
Another topic is the scope for deaf people to become involved in politics.
Here in Parliament, we have interpretation into all our languages.
But who thinks of the fact that deaf people should also have a right to be able to take part in political events?
For example, the political movement which I represent here has for some years now also provided interpretation for deaf people at a number of events.
This is another area that we should tackle.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her report and, together with the rapporteur, welcome the Commission's communication particularly the fact that the concept of mainstreaming has been adopted.
I welcome it all the more because it has been brought to my attention that, at the UN's annual general meeting, they set up a special joint committee to focus on women, children and the disabled.
All three groups are particularly vulnerable and distinct.
The norm is able-bodied males.
The rest of us are exceptions to this norm.
Mainstreaming puts an end to this.
As a practical guide, mainstreaming means that special requirements are incorporated into the general, in other words that we make the extraordinary part of the ordinary.
This is the antithesis of segregation and removal of the strange or different to special reservations.
Mainstreaming reduces the need for special solutions, and in this way we are able to prevent the isolation and separation of the disabled.
To put it another way: the disabled must travel along the broad avenues, and not be diverted off into side streets and blind alleys.
I would like to bring out three main points.
First of all the responsibility of the majority.
Ten percent of EU citizens are disabled.
They represent a minority, and a minority without power.
This ten percent is completely dependent on what the 90 % majority decide.
We must all be conscious of this responsibility.
That is why mainstreaming is important.
So that we no longer have this 90/10 situation.
Secondly I would like to stress the special problems connected with early-onset disability, that affecting children and young people, and the consequences of these disabilities for entry to the employment market, and to stress that the EU's education programme must also be for the disabled.
Thirdly I would like to stress that if freedom of movement in Europe is to be a reality for the disabled, we need a wholly different commitment from the one we have today.
Mr President, there are 37 million disabled people living in the EU.
That is five times the entire population of Austria and around 10 % of the population of the European Union as a whole.
This is a substantial number of people, 37 million of them, who have to be integrated, and who are therefore already seen as a fringe group.
Let me put a question: how many AIDS sufferers are there in the EU? Certainly not 37 million, but the population nevertheless has a greater awareness of the problems of AIDS sufferers than those of disabled people.
Do you know why this should be?
I wonder if we have not failed to use advertising campaigns and sympathetic representatives from public life to generate the same amount of interest for disabled people as we have for other fringe groups in society. Is it not also because people are all too easily tempted to suppress these so-called problems and close their eyes to them?
Ultimately, does this not result in a certain lack of interest on the part of donors and the general public, when it comes to opening their wallets? However, we can also see from the example of AIDS the success and the widespread impact which can be achieved in the population by a good campaign.
Only when an awareness of the everyday problems of these disabled people has been created in the public at large do support programmes really make sense. Simply calling for a non-discrimination clause as regards disabled people - even though I am in favour of it - only has a point and is only worth the paper it is written on if the population sees disabled people not as a fringe group, but as part of itself.
Mr President, I very much welcome the Commission's communication and the report which Barbara Schmidbauer has produced on behalf of Parliament in response to that communication.
At various times over the years Members are asked to take up a subject, produce perhaps a single report or opinion on that subject and then move on to new subject areas.
That is not the case with Barbara Schmidbauer.
She has devoted a lifetime of work to the issues of disabled people, working with disabled people, and I would like to thank her sincerely for her work on behalf of this Parliament.
(Applause ) I believe that one valid test of the well-being of any society is the respect that society gives to the fundamental rights of all its citizens.
If we look around this European Union of ours we will see that we are not respecting the rights of disabled people.
The greater part of the job needs to be done at Member State level but clearly the effort varies considerably from Member State to Member State.
At European Union level, as Barbara has said, we do not even at the moment have a legal base to allow a continuation of the work that we have undertaken hitherto.
It really is a shame in my view that the Commission has decided that the first programme it will abandon in the face of the difficulties over Article 235 is the programme in favour of disabled people.
If ministers wish to block a programme in favour of disabled people we should pass them that programme and allow them to expose the fact that they are to blame for that blocking.
As things stand the Commission is allowing itself to be accused of being involved in that blocking mechanism.
Our sincerest hope, of course, has to be that the Intergovernmental Conference will come up with a new programmatic legal base that will allow work to recommence in this area.
Johanna Boogerd-Quaak has referred to the importance of information and communication technologies as a way of improving the lives of people with disabilities.
That is also very important.
If these technologies can dispel the notions of geographic peripherality, it is even more important that they are used to dispel the notion of isolation, of marginalization, of people with disabilities.
But for that to work we need considerable investment in hardware, in adaptations to existing hardware and new software and training to allow disabled people to take advantage of these technologies.
I will finish with what I mentioned a short while ago, namely that we must hope that the Intergovernmental Conference will come up with a new programmatic legal base.
We must also hope that we will see a new nondiscrimination clause in the Treaty.
We have a right to expect, not just hope for these things, and if our leaders do not come up with them they should not be surprised if we as Members of this House refuse to be part of the sales force going out trying to sell a set of Treaty changes that do not respect the rights and concerns of the people that we represent.
Mr President, there are approximately 37 million disabled people in the European Union, about 10 % of the total EU population.
Yet these 37 million people feel excluded and irrelevant to the European Union.
Disabled people are invisible in the Treaties; a provision in the Treaty is vital if the rights associated with European citizenship, such as freedom of movement and freedom to provide and receive services are to become a reality for disabled people according to a document entitled 'Invisible citizens' .
There is a huge disability lobby in the European Union.
Disabled people are becoming angry at the lack of attention that they get.
Even the fact that we have the debate on a Friday when we know there is poor attendance shows the lack of concern that we feel for disabled people.
Parliament should have ensured it received maximum coverage in the middle of the week.
I would like to thank both the Commission for their very good document and also Mrs Schmidbauer for her very sensitive and thoughtful report.
I entirely concur with all the conclusions in it, but I particularly call for an article on disability rights in the Treaty.
The Commission must put its money where its mouth is and actually fund some sensible programmes for disabled people.
There is supposed to be free movement of workers in the European Union under Article 48, yet disabled people have very little chance of being able to exercise this full right unless something is done to enhance their status and their capacity to work in the European Union.
I therefore urge and plead with the Commission: please do something positive as a result of this debate and this vote today.
Mr President, the Commission would like to congratulate Mrs Schmidbauer on and thank for her excellent report on equality of opportunity for people with disabilities.
It is particularly pleasing to note that the Community's three political bodies, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, share the same views on the philosophy underpinning human rights and equal opportunities as expressed in your report and your resolution.
The Commission communication was based on the White Paper on European Social Policy.
The Commission announced its intention of drawing up a suitable proposal taking into account the recommendations of the United Nations concerning the disabled.
This is an important factor in ensuring that EU policy is consistent with international developments.
The objective, as stated a few times in this Chamber today, is to move on from paternalism towards a discussion of the rights of the disabled.
In that sense, the Commission communication is the cornerstone of a new strategy.
Coming back to the report by Mrs Schmidbauer, the Commission shares her view on the positive outcome of the HELIOS programme, which cleared the way for cooperation at Community level with disabled persons.
It has made a contribution to analysing the problems, ensuring proper rewards for the results achieved and disseminating information on the most worthwhile experience gained.
The experience gained in the course of the programme has illustrated the continuing need for a political strategy with regard to the disabled at Community level as well.
The Commission is considering the possibility of submitting a formal legislative proposal to Parliament and the Council, hence the vital need to analyse as a matter of priority the results of HELIOS II, along with the results of pilot projects under way this year and preparatory measures.
As you know, the 1997 budget makes such measures possible.
Two weeks ago, the Commission published a communication giving precise instructions as to how the appropriations are to be used.
It is not always easy for disabled people to participate in all areas of Community policy and much work has still to be done in order to arrive at a satisfactory situation.
The full involvement of disabled people is one of the key features of the new strategy drawn up by the Commission, which has cooperated closely with the European Forum of Disabled People, and all appropriate steps will be taken to ensure that support for that Forum continues.
I should like to thank the author of the report, the committee and all the Members who have contributed to this vitally important discussion on policy concerning the disabled.
The debate is closed.
We shall proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The citizen dimension of the European Union makes it essential for everyone in the Union to have the same civil and social rights and the same freedoms.
The European Union, which has 37 million disabled persons, must evolve still further to reach a state of equality for all.
Most people who are disabled want to live a life of independence and to have a job.
Mrs Schmidbauer's report on the Commission communication on the equality of opportunity for people with disabilities has certain gaps as regards the setting up of a real European policy for the disabled.
Even though the Commission communication does to its credit, break from the paternalistic approach adopted for far too long, it cannot overcome the problem posed by Article 235 of the Treaty.
In fact the Commission communication does not indicate whether there will be other programmes once HELIOS II is developed - the current programme for the disabled.
A legal basis must therefore be decided at the intergovernmental conference in order to enable the Council to vote by qualified majority, no longer unanimously, within the social sphere.
Moreover, the 'inclusion principle' intended to bring the equality of opportunity dimension into all structural programmes, must not make it impossible to pursue specific programmes.
The programmes must, on the one hand, place the accent on involving the disabled in the making of decisions which concern them and, on the other, developing new information technologies which make the lives of disabled people easier.
Integration in developing countries
The next item is the report (A4-0086/97) by Mr Needle, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission - European Community support for regional economic integration efforts among developing countries (COM(95)0219 - C4-0260/95).
Mr President, contrary to one or two comments you had in the previous debate, I think the attendance this morning is surprisingly good - clearly, at least, amongst the most discerning Members.
With regional trade agreements of one kind or another springing up like mushrooms all over the world it would be very easy for Parliament, this morning, to use this as an opportunity to discuss general trends in world trade.
This very week leaders of the World Trade Organization have been here to do just that and to explain why they believe that developing countries are benefiting from that organization's influence.
Not all of us will, by any means, share their optimism.
But what we can do today is to give a broad welcome to the efforts by the Commission to identify firstly, the ways in which developing countries are choosing to integrate their economic structures and subsequently, how the beneficial aspects of that process can be substantiated by the European Union.
By doing that the Commissioners made a desirable first attempt to analyze these important movements and, in our considered response, Parliament is offering a cautious amber light for the Commission not only to move forward in its negotiations with the developing world, but also to clarify its own perspective on its role as one of the most significant global economic powers.
The Commission communication defines regional, economic integration essentially as a higher level of cooperation, in practical terms meaning moves towards the elimination of policy-induced barriers to movements of goods, services and factors of production, whereas cooperation efforts normally aim at reducing other barriers such as transport and communications infrastructures.
The document's general analysis of regional economic trends in parts of Africa, the Caribbean, Asia and Latin America is necessarily truncated as these areas are, of course, subject to rapid change, but the overall content of the document is generally descriptive and thus a useful tool for us.
That last phrase is important, for the world ''tool' stresses how Parliament sees the role of regional economic integration as a means to an end, not the end itself. In discussion it has become clear that this is well-understood by the Commission but our extensive consultation of people and organizations in the world beyond Brussels has shown that clear emphasis is needed.
If regional integration is a stepping stone towards better integration into the world economy, if it is compatible with the general process of gobalization, then it is the most vulnerable groups of countries that need our closest attention, for there is no general scenario and no simple schedule that would comfortably fit all regional integration efforts.
Many studies and respondents to this consultation have pointed out that the least-developed countries, lacking access to information technology, communications and private investment, coping with endemic poverty and thus most heavily aid-dependent, are least likely to benefit from regional integration.
As the Central American experience has shown, fragile democracies can actually be threatened by the lack of political and economic cooperation in such circumstances.
That is why Parliament is stressing the divisive potential of simply grouping those that have and, by omission, those that have not, and is spelling out that while regional integration can be a contributory factor to fostering poverty alleviation, it alone will not achieve sustainable economic, social and environmental development.
That is why Parliament is saying very clearly that models of economic integration in one part of the world - here, we mean those in Asia, North America, or even right here at home - are far from those that would be most appropriate for sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean or elsewhere. The Union's policies towards those regions must be soundly based on an understanding of that principle.
That does not mean that some individual lessons should not be learned from our own experiences and failures and those of others; not least in terms of the avoidance of unnecessary duplication.
It does mean that the EU should always insist on involvement of the very people who will be most affected, through improvement of democratic integration and cooperation, where we clearly ourselves have much to learn yet, and where the improvement of rights for those most often ignored across the world - women, children, indigenous peoples - should be a complementary aim.
Parliament is particularly keen to draw attention to the social and environmental considerations which, in reality, must be at the heart of the best-motivated cooperative efforts but which need tangible support to achieve genuine sustainability rather than just words in treaties.
Therefore, on the whole, Parliament believes that the Commission document appreciates such issues but needs to give them sufficient priority.
We have therefore taken this opportunity to re-emphasize the fundamental relationship between aims, objectives, and the tools to achieve them. If that basis is right then EU support for economic integration amongst the peoples of the developing world who most need our help can be stimulated and perhaps we will, in time, be less worried by some of the warm words and cold deeds from the WTO.
Mr President, regional integration is one of the fundamental causes of change in the world order today.
This report singles out economic integration in particular, although it is clear that for every integration process aimed at well-balanced, sustainable development with a human face, integration must be based above all else on clear political will and decisions.
The scope and effectiveness of many regional economic integration initiatives are limited because of a lack of such solid political backing, and because the relevant political and economic players are not directly involved.
At the same time, the establishment of a regional economic integration area must be underpinned by reliable economic structures and a real willingness to create a common market.
When it comes to integration among developing countries, the role of international donors - and in particular, as far as we are concerned, the European Union - is of fundamental importance in helping to shape a system that matches up to international standards, providing for access to resources and transfer of know-how, without which many projects are bound to fail.
The backdrop here is of course the globalization of the economy and trends towards the liberalization of international trade.
However, as we are aware, market forces alone cannot solve the problems of the poorest and most remote countries; on the contrary, they often tend to widen the gulf between the richest and poorest areas of the world.
It is possible and more beneficial to integrate the world economy by establishing areas for the development of South-South economic, trading and political relations.
Support for establishing and encouraging institutional and human potential in the developing countries is likewise of fundamental importance.
We know very well, however, that domestic and international efforts in these countries must be directed above all towards combating poverty and satisfying the primary needs of the populations.
That is why development cooperation and regional integration must go hand in hand.
Of course, there are no across-the-board solutions, and the rapporteur, Mr Needle, was right to point that out.
Moreover, I should like to compliment him on his excellent work.
Even though, as I was saying, there are no across-the-board solutions, it is only through regional integration that the developing countries can hope to play a specific, important and autonomous role in international economic and political relations, and that is why it represents a top priority for our cooperation policies.
Mr President, it is very encouraging to see that there is increasing cooperation between groups of countries in various areas of the world.
On the American continent we have the Andean Pact and Mercosur, in Africa there are excellent examples in West Africa and the south of the continent, while in Asia the ASEAN group is growing in strength and the Pacific Forum is becoming more prominent.
We could claim, in fact, that the European Community, now the European Union, has been an excellent export, and that our successful cooperation in Western Europe has been an example to the rest of the world.
The formation of these regional cooperation associations is also a sign that the countries concerned are becoming less dependent on Europe and the United States, say, and that the regional independence of these developing areas is increasing.
That is a very good thing, and has been one of the major objectives of our development cooperation efforts in the West.
The question now is how to prepare ourselves for this regional cooperation in developing areas, and how we can promote it.
The Commission document puts forward a number of good ideas here, and Mr Needle makes a number of excellent suggestions in his report.
I should like to pick out a few points which my group finds particularly important.
First, now that there is increasing cooperation between developing countries it is even more important that the donor countries should also work together more.
This means that there must be closer alignment between the 15 Member States on development cooperation, both in Brussels and in the embassies in the developing countries themselves.
Fixed structures need to be established for this as soon as possible by the Commission, which has already launched a number of pilot projects on the subject.
Secondly, as Mr Posselt also pointed out, this is not just about traditional development aid, it is also about the trade relations between the Union and its 15 Member States on the one hand and the developing countries and their cooperation associations on the other, and this is another field in which there needs to be closer alignment at regional level.
The recent agreements with ASEAN were a good example of a joint approach.
However, I would also draw attention to the problems which the SADC area is experiencing.
In talks on a new trade agreement, South Africa asked for greater consideration to be given to the SADC area, in other words to its neighbouring states, and we have to respect this.
There is growing trade integration between South Africa and its neighbours, and we cannot just ignore it.
Thirdly, not all issues are suitable for a regional approach.
Things like infrastructure, energy supply, water management and trade relations are typical examples of issues that go beyond borders, whereas aid for schools, hospitals and so on is a local matter.
So the Commission needs to be careful in selecting which issues need a joint approach and which are best left to be dealt with at local level.
One final point. It is, of course, important that development programmes in developing countries are established not just at national level, but also regionally.
This is what happens now in the SADC area and in the Pacific Forum, and it is an approach that we must support.
I have identified some of my group's priority concerns, but I think that the approach recommended by the Commission and Mr Needle is an excellent one, and we are therefore happy to support the resolution.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for his report and stress three points based on the fact that, in terms of development aid, Denmark is among the main contributors, but at the same time has decided, as a matter of principle, that 50 % should go to multilateral assistance.
Firstly, the absolute need for greater coordination, not only between the EU and Member States, but also between the EU and multilateral organizations.
Secondly - and I am pleased that the rapporteur also addressed this issue - the need to pay far greater attention to sustainable environmental development, in actions and not only in words.
And thirdly, that those of us involved in regional development strive for a high level of self-sufficiency.
Because this will be the best way to achieve sustainable development in terms of the economy, employment and the environment.
We must do this, even if it goes beyond our own commercial interests.
Mr President, as regards regional economic integration, the Commission's objectives are to ensure that there are sustainable development prospects on the one hand and that developing countries are better integrated into the world economy on the other.
We unreservedly support the first objective, save only to point out the need for these societies to move towards democracy, despite the marked preference of the international bodies for strong regimes, which guarantee social stability.
The situation in Zaire reminds us that this social stability is never durable.
Moreover, the interweaving of regional economies already noted in certain areas, helps to strengthen trade between countries in the south and then to fight poverty and consolidate peace and finally to help new aspects of solidarity to develop.
Not all regional areas are of course in a position to embark upon a process of integration, but it is in all their interests to enhance their relations as regards cooperation for various reasons.
First, historical reasons.
We know that the present borders are essentially the result of post-colonial agreements and that they do not necessarily correspond to a traditional scheme of occupation of the territories.
Secondly, for ecological reasons, because watersheds and other geographical features are no substitute for borders.
Finally, for economic reasons, by virtue of the complementary nature of their systems and also, of course, in order to make economies of scale.
The European Union in general and the Commission in particular would be well advised to pay special attention to the role of the outermost regions and specifically the overseas departments thereof the better to structure its economic and development policies and of course the better to implement the funds such as the ERDF and the EDF.
As regards the second objective - better integration of developing countries in the world economy - I am much more sceptical.
Not only because I am not a fanatical supporter of the ultra-liberalism seen in international trade relations, but also because I believe that there will be significant unwelcome consequences, in particular because there is the risk of stultifying speculation to the detriment of sustainable development and also because there is the risk that integration will become an end in itself, in its own right, so that it turns into a mechanism for financial aspiration.
I do not think those are aims which we can include in our development policies.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Needle, has produced a very interesting report on regional economic integration in response to a Commission communication on the subject.
Regional integration is designed to eliminate obstacles to the movement of goods, services, capital and people between developing countries, and it appears very similar to the objectives that we have in the European Community.
But regional integration between developing countries cannot be modelled on European integration.
Developing countries are at a completely different stage in their economic development from the EU Member States, and so a different approach is needed.
An interesting experiment with the West African currency, the CFA, which was intended to stabilize currencies, actually backfired when it became clear that the value of the CFA had collapsed.
Regional integration among the very poorest countries still seems a very risky undertaking to me.
Such countries would perhaps do better to limit themselves to cooperating on issues of common interest.
If a developing country reaches the stage where it looks likely to have a firm position on the world market, and if there are other similar countries in the same region, then further integration would be justified.
But if this is pushed through too early it could harm all concerned.
I wished to make this point, because it is something that I think has not been given sufficient attention.
Mr President, because of the fact that, besides our own rich countries, there are unfortunately many countries which have to rely on the help of others, our western industrialized societies have a social duty to provide aid.
In the past, attempts have often been made to supply this aid purely in the form of financial support.
However, I should like to propose here that in future, development aid should be implemented to a far greater extent than before in the form of specific projects and economic links with the donor countries, so as to ensure a useful kind of support.
This could be done through a substantially upgraded transfer of know-how, for example, whereby the countries and regions in need can be given help to help themselves, a concept to which attention has already rightly been drawn by Mr Posselt.
Our debts and responsibilities towards the poor countries of the world are not absolved simply by providing injections of money.
The question should not be how much we have given, but who has actually benefited from it, and what it has achieved.
All too often, this form of development aid seems to be a kind of moral purchasing of freedom from responsibility, rather than what really helps the people of these countries, namely aid which is targeted, project-related and, above all, effective.
Timely and useful development aid serves both the donor and the recipient countries, not least in terms of avoiding wider political conflicts.
Because the fact is that poverty, need and lack of resources are the most significant causes of war.
Seen in this light, effective development aid is a key factor in preventive peace maintenance, and can therefore also be interpreted as help for the donor countries themselves.
Mr President, in my opinion, the report focuses more closely than the Commission communication on the practical problems which economic integration may encounter, above all in the poorer developing countries.
In that connection, sub-Saharan Africa constitutes a separate, particularly problematically area.
The number of organizations is large, and relations between them are poorly coordinated.
Expectations regarding the ability of these organizations to foster economic integration and development are often too high, particularly as regards the amount of time this may take.
As the report correctly points out, the countries involved here are fighting endemic poverty, so that the programmes designed to combat that poverty will continue to play a vital role in the overall scheme of support.
In theory, the European Union has a good chance of fostering sound economic integration, provided it remembers that integration as practised by the European industrialized countries cannot serve as a model for the integration of the developing countries.
The report quite rightly emphasizes the fact that it is not enough to highlight only the economic dimension.
Due account must also be taken, on a sustainable basis, of environmental aspects, a viewpoint I fully share with the rapporteur.
I should also like to emphasize the need to take political factors into account.
Even after the armed struggle for power has ended, economic tensions are accompanied by political tensions, including the rivalry for political leadership.
This is a point which must be taken into account if sensible, effective support is to be given to the integration process.
In the context of support for the economic integration of the developing countries, the European Union's main task cannot be to open up broader markets for its own Member States, thereby hampering the development of the economy and production in the developing countries.
Measures designed to encourage economic integration must not place too much faith in the power of market forces: the latter may improve macroeconomic statistics, but at the cost of even greater suffering for the poorest sections of society.
In my opinion, support for the economic integration of the developing countries must continue to be guided by these ideas.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank Mr Needle for his excellent report, which has given us a great deal in terms of the economic information it provides.
However, I should like to look at the issue more from the political point of view.
Mr Linser has rightly said that this project, as Mr Needle presents it, is for the most part in Europe's interest.
We have an interest in maintaining peace, and peace is certainly not assured.
The fact is that if one looks at the developing countries, one has to say that there are time bombs ticking away everywhere.
We in Europe are just not sufficiently aware of the fact that there are currently 16 wars going on in Africa.
There are conflicts large and small.
But people only talk about those wars which are reported in the press, and not those on which there are no reports.
Even worse, what is taking shape in the Pacific, the war between Papua New Guinea on the one hand and Bougainville on the other, is one of the cruellest of wars, but who talks about it? Who is aware of it, even though it is of crucial economic importance?
This is a challenge for us.
Moreover, we keep on hearing that there is not enough money for development aid.
I think the money is there, but it is being badly distributed and badly used.
People will go on saying that we must first help the poorest of all, and then the others.
I think the reverse would be more appropriate.
First the countries on the verge of development must be helped over the threshold, since the broader the shoulders which carry the development aid, the better that aid will be for all.
Finally, we must continue to organize this development aid in a rational way.
That means first applying development aid at the level of the people, since while major projects are good in terms of bringing areas together, it is the smaller projects which actually bring development.
Moreover, development aid above all means developing people, and in this respect it is still doing very badly.
Without human infrastructure, we shall not make any progress.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on an excellent job and thanking him for taking into account some of the key elements of the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations.
In particular, I would like to refer to the obvious but important fact that support for regional economic integration amongst developing countries needs to be based on the realities facing developing countries in the individual regions in question.
This requires the European Union to have a highly differentiated approach to regional economic integration and the Commission to adopt supportive measures which are appropriate to the specific circumstances facing these regional groupings.
Against this background, regional economic integration per se should be seen as only one component of a process of building up a regional community of interest on which closer regional cooperation and, subsequently, regional integration can be developed.
This means that equal attention should be paid to the provision of support to other forms of regional cooperation which serve to foster and develop a community of interest, such as cooperation in transport, communications, energy etc.
I would like to stress here that this will require the Commission services to pay far greater attention to the management of programmes of support for functional cooperation in those regions of the developing world where major obstacles exist to the effective initiation of regional economic integration.
Turning from the report to the actual Commission communication, I find it somewhat surprising that in the communication on support to regional economic integration, the Commission argues that a strong case can be made for moving away from unilateral preferences to greater reciprocity between industrialized and developing countries.
Colleagues will be aware of the concern recently expressed by the southern African region over a proposed European Union-South Africa free trade area.
The Commission has recently acknowledged that moves towards a southern Africa FTA will have an effect on the customs revenues collected by developing countries - in many instances, the finances of these countries are in a precarious condition.
Finally, moving towards reciprocal trade preferences could, in certain countries, significantly undermine industrialization processes, which have only relatively recently got under way.
That is why it is crucial that the specific consequences for developing countries of the regions entering into an FTA should be fully assessed before any serious consideration is given to the introduction of greater reciprocity.
The effectiveness of our policy goals will be largely determined by our understanding of these crucial issues.
Mr President, as rapporteur for the ACP Joint Assembly on regional cooperation within the Lomé countries, I give a very warm welcome to this excellent and timely report by Mr Needle.
I want to concentrate on Africa.
I too warmly welcome the Commission's communication as we move into this global economy situation.
It is a good basis for discussion, hopefully on a partnership basis with ACP nations.
The strength of many African states can only be developed on the basis of good economic regional cooperation leading possibly to political integration at a later stage.
Africa has to accept it has to help itself; salvation is in trade not aid.
But we in the EU must assist in building that new economic strength through regional structures.
In a global context the continent of Africa, through the strength of its regions, should logically next be in line for investment from the developed nations, but without political stability and good governance that just will not happen.
Regional cooperation, as has already been seen, can help with conflict prevention and I believe it is only the African nations themselves who can bring about peace and stability by influencing their neighbours.
If the Commission is moving towards post-Lomé regional aid as the new way forward, the fundamental question must be what is the make-up of those regions and how can we focus.
Africa is littered with regions and subregions, with many nations being intertwined with a number of regions.
This to my mind cannot continue and I hope the Commission, in cooperation with Lomé countries, is seriously looking at a feasible structure that is historically, socially and institutionally a grouping that gives a sound basis to work from.
If we do that I believe that all the detail in this report can follow.
Mr President, in congratulating the rapporteur on an excellent report, could I say that this is very important indeed, particularly for the European Parliament, because of the history of the European Union and I would like to build on the point that both Mr Habsburg and Mr Corrie have mentioned in relation to violence, conflict and war.
If we look at Southern Africa we see that the driving force for the launching of SADC was a determination by the front-line states to cooperate, to show solidarity in a determination to get rid of the brutality and the violence of the apartheid regime.
I am sure this was helped by the positive response we saw from various parts of the world, and especially led by the European Parliament, that decided, against the wishes of many Member State governments to support the United Nations' isolation of South Africa and to set up a special fund using our budget provisions here.
Support from this region for southern Africa is something that could be looked at for Nigeria, the Western Sahara, and Papua/New Guinea.
We always need to remember our special responsibilities and opportunities.
It is not so long ago that the late President Mitterrand reminded us that nationalism means war.
We know that the driving force, that successful economic cooperation in western Europe was a determination by a small number of nation states that the history of violence, the history of mass cemeteries and concentration camps would not continue and we could do something about this.
This is why I am very pleased that Mr Needle has mentioned conflict prevention, he has mentioned the political objectives and I would welcome as he does a follow-up by the Commission to put this whole question of regional integration in a much broader political basis in the future.
The debate is closed.
We shall proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Crisis in the rice sector
The next item is the oral question (B4-0020/97-0-0034/97) by Mrs Fraga Estevez, Mr Colino Salamanca, Mr Fantuzzi, Mr Filippi, Mr Happart, Mr Ebner, Mr Jové Peres, Mr Lambraki, Mr Campos, Mr Arias Cañete, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, Mr Rosado Fernandes and Mr Vallvé, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on the crisis in the rice sector.
We are holding today's debate on rice because there is a most serious situation in that sector which has only worsened in recent months and which is affecting both producer countries and countries where rice is processed.
The sad reality is that 70 % of the amount produced is still unsold and will therefore have to go into intervention, which is very exceptional in this sector.
Why have we got into such a situation? In the first place the abysmal talks relating to this sector within the GATT Uruguay Round had disastrous consequences which it is difficult to put right.
Secondly the entry into force of Council Decision 91/482 on the association of overseas countries and territories brought the influx of imports up to insupportable levels.
The result was that during the last marketing year over 200 000 tonnes of prepared basic rice came into Community territory and the amounts for the first 3 months of the new marketing year show a disconcerting steady increase.
As if the situation was not already disastrous enough, Mr President, the European Commission proceeded in January this year, against the opinion of producers and processors to grant a 25 % reduction in customs duties on a quota of 32 000 tonnes of rice originating in Egypt - that in addition to the 25 % reduction already granted to that country.
All these combined problems gave rise, at the instigation of the Italian and Spanish governments, to the introduction of a Commission safeguard clause last February as regards the importation of rice originating in the overseas countries and territories which will apply until 30 April.
Finally we must draw attention in this context to the attitude of the United States of America which are constantly and unacceptably blackmailing the Commission in order to obtain even greater advantages for their rice.
Any such concession, Mr President, would immediately threaten the system of trade between the Community and third countries wiping out Community preference and actually exposing Community production to world competition.
I should therefore, Mr Commissioner, like to put one or two proposals to you for alleviating the situation in the Community rice sector.
First a definitive maximum quantity must be set on which further customs concessions may be granted and that quantity must be compatible with the needs of the current Community situation as regards production.
In the second place, we cannot give in to the blackmail of the United States; that is something which can never be justified and which moreover goes beyond the scope of the Uruguay Round.
And I have to say in this respect, Mr Commissioner, that I have heard that at the last meeting of the Commission's Cereals Management Committee a draft regulation was approved intended to set up a system for the refunding of import duty in the rice sector provided the Americans withdrew the action brought on 13 February before the World Trade Organization against the Community system for the importation of rice and cereals.
I urge you, Mr Commissioner, on behalf of this House to resist the implementation of this project which again runs counter to the interests of this Community sector.
We also ask that, abiding by the ceilings which GATT places on subsidized exports, the 75 000 tonnes not used last year should be added to the figure for this year, which might make the market significantly more flexible.
Food aid might provide a further outlet for a certain amount of rice, which would get rid of some surpluses.
Finally, the common organization of the market in rice might need to be reviewed to bring the three-year plan forward a year, that is to move directly to maximum aid and minimum price intervention.
These, Mr Commissioner, are some of the ideas we wished to put forward and we hope that the Commission will put them into practice if it really wants to solve the problems of a sector which is sorely afflicted by a crisis through no fault of its own, but owing to mistakes on the part of others - mistakes which we hope can be put right.
Mr President, the oral question raised by the honourable Members is indeed a topical one and has already been the subject of a number of discussions over the last few months.
The rice sector, after years of good progress, despite a drought affecting recent seasons, is again in a delicate situation on account of the abundant quantities available, some of which could enter into intervention.
The problem is due, on the one hand, to a very large harvest following the end of the drought in Spain and to very good climatic conditions in the other producer Member States and, on the other, to the increase in imports, based on preferential arrangements and the cut in protection at the frontier, resulting from the Uruguay Round agreements.
The Commission has, therefore, endeavoured to operate a cautious export policy in the early months of the marketing year in order to encourage sales within the Community.
By the end of March, more than half of the rice harvested in Italy - the Community's largest rice producer - had been marketed but in the other Member States concerned, particularly Greece, the rate of sales is lower.
Although imports had increased by 21 %, on 18 March exports were 88 % up on the corresponding level last year and 28 % more rice had been supplied as food aid.
The reform of the rice sector introduced by Regulation No 3072/95 will not take effect until the 1997-1998 marketing year, when the intervention price will be cut by 5 %.
The reduction will reach 15 % in the 1999-2000 marketing year and that will make Community rice better able to compete with imported rice.
At the request of Italy and Spain, the Commission has applied a safeguard clause on imports of OCT rice.
These imports have risen considerably over the last five years.
The safeguard clause, valid for four months and limiting the duty-free imports to a total of 44, 728 tonnes over that period, has contributed to reversing the downward trend in rice market prices.
However, market prices are still at levels below the intervention price and, therefore, the Commission decided last Wednesday that it intends to renew the safeguard clause.
At present, with the intervention period starting on 1 April, exports of Japonica rice are continuing and the Management Committee on 27 February issued two invitations to tender for Indica-type rice, one for husk rice for delivery to Réunion and the other for exports of parboiled rice.
These measures will help to improve the marketing of Community rice in the second half of the marketing year, thereby reducing the quantities that may potentially be offered for intervention.
Mr President, the Community has never shown much concern for the rice sector, which has always got by on its own, expanding without much support and standing on its own two feet.
It has seemed for some time, however, that deliberate moves are under way to chop off those feet, thereby stopping the sector in its tracks.
First there is the question of the OCT imports at zero duty, which are increasing out of all proportion and disrupting the internal market, then the new import quotas resulting from enlargement of the EU, then the agreements with the USA on the cumulative recovery system, and finally more quotas because of the new association agreements: all this makes for an explosive mix, which is already fuelling the rush to place Community production into intervention.
This, to my mind, will create a massive vicious circle: a product imported with only superficial checks, the possibility of fraud, and higher costs to bale out internal production, for which it will be more difficult than before to find a market.
If that is the new CAP, Commissioner, then I am far from content.
The market is disappearing, and prices are depressed by decisions which have nothing whatsoever to do with the market.
What is more, the USA is enjoying a game of cat and mouse: it withdraws its appeal to the WTO on cereals and rice, and just as the Commission is about to adopt the regulation on the cumulative recovery system to give it almost complete satisfaction, it again makes the same appeal only a few days later.
Given what is happening in the rice sector, perhaps the Intergovernmental Conference currently under way could reword as follows Article 39 of the Treaty, which relates to the objectives of the CAP: the Community undertakes to comply with every diktat of the US foreign trade department.
There is in fact no doubt that the USA's appeals to the WTO carry a thousand times more weight than the complaints and protests from our rice-growers.
Yesterday, as you said, the Commission decided to renew the safeguard clause beyond 30 April.
I take note of that, but when will this whole business be settled once and for all by means of a sensible amendment of the Council decision on the association of the OCTs with the European Union? How can it be, Commissioner, that a single Member State can for so long block the efforts of the other fourteen to put right a system that is obviously not working, as the Court of First Instance has confirmed, and which does not even benefit the OCTs concerned?
The presence of the Council presidency might perhaps have been more useful now than ever.
I note with some bitterness that the Council did not choose to attend today and reply to our oral question. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that Community solidarity is a serious matter; otherwise we shall be obliged to agree with the director of Agence Europe , who stated in a recent editorial that free trade in agriculture is often a fig-leaf for selective generosity, in other words it is only practised when considered convenient.
Mr President, the common organization of the market in rice was reformed just over a year ago, striking a balance - which was seen as satisfactory by producers - between the need to protect European production and that to liberalize the sector.
But that balance, painstakingly reached in December 1995, has been shattered by a succession of errors made in the drawing-up of trade agreements.
The Uruguay Round has already been mentioned, with a 25 % reduction in customs duties for Egypt, 300 000 tonnes from the OCTs, increased preferences for US imports and so on, added to which there are the 63 000 duty-free tonnes resulting from the accession of Austria, Finland and Sweden.
With precedents like these, one wonders what will become of European agriculture when we reach the second Uruguay Round and the EU is enlarged to include the CCEEs.
On several occasions, I have attacked the schizophrenia implicit in building up the EU's agricultural policy while destroying its foreign trade policy.
I read in Agence Europe on 1 April that the Council of Agriculture Ministers appears to have detected this schizophrenia and is drawing up measures to improve the coordination of the Union's trade and policy actions.
On rice, the Agriculture Ministers can show their consistency and their faith in the studies carried out by responding to the demands contained in the motion for a resolution that will be voted on at the end of this debate.
The resolution calls on the Commission to analyse the functioning of the COM.
To my mind, one valid purpose of this request is to identify the weaknesses in the Commission's previous assessment of the quality of European rice.
It was said then that there was a future for Indica rice, but nothing was done to promote research into the production of quality grains in Europe, thereby perpetuating our dependence on the USA.
At the same time, Egypt - aided by the United States - has been developing yields and qualities to European standards and even beyond in the case of Japonica rice, offering it on the European market at a high quality standard and a competitive price.
In this way, countries like Italy are doubly penalized: because of the acknowledged limits to Indica, and the more recent freeze on research into Japonica.
The European Union must emerge from its political subordination to the United States in the field of international trade and protect its producers, whose interests all too often take second place behind those of the EU's large public and private-sector importers.
Mr President, four speakers have taken the floor so far: one from Spain and three from Italy.
That alone, Commissioner, is a clear indication of where the main fears now lie as regards the incredible, untenable state of affairs in the rice sector.
Other speakers will of course come in later, but these two countries more than any others will have to pay the price for this shocking state of affairs if it is not remedied.
The quota concessions for rice which have been granted to third countries are, perhaps irrevocably, bringing ricegrowing to its knees, particularly in Italy, which as we all know is the largest producer and which has areas where for historical and traditional reasons this crop cannot be replaced by others.
The chronic shortcomings of the GATT have recently been compounded by the far from transparent rules on compensation for the three new EU Member States: according to EUROSTAT statistics, 63 000 tonnes of duty-free white rice and 20 000 tonnes at a duty of ECU 88 per tonne are the equivalent of some 31 % and 58 % of the surface areas planted in Europe, bearing in mind that the bulk is Indica rice.
All this is therefore conspiring, as has been pointed out, to throw Community production into crisis, submerged as it is by mountains of rice imported from the OCTs: 215 000 tonnes last year, 200 000 tonnes so far and, according to those in a position to make forecasts, 396 000 tonnes by the end of this year.
I too believe that the time has come to speak out clearly and firmly to the United States.
We no longer live in an age when such disputes were settled by declarations of war, so let us try to reach for treaties rather than arms, but quite frankly in other times that is what we would have resorted to.
The United States is accustomed, as it is now demonstrating, to dealing with its foreign relations in a high-handed way; now the time has come to make the USA and its partners - such as the Dutch OCTs - understand that Europe will not put up with such outrageous conduct for much longer.
In this way, we shall also avoid considerable economic hardship.
This year we will in fact obtain less revenue from duty, and the cost of export refunds will increase, as will that of funding intervention buying.
We shall be spending ECU 28 million this year, Mr President; last year we did not even spend one.
Mr President, the resolution before us contains a number of points which I support.
The rules introduced in 1991 for imports of processed rice should not mean that a particular group of farmers are the only ones who benefit, and I therefore feel that the Commission was entirely right to use the safeguard clause.
There are also a number of points in the resolution that I feel are a little too sweeping.
The House adopts many resolutions to help promote employment in poor countries and so forth, and this was one of the reasons why the 1991 rules were introduced.
I have not yet seen any report on the exact impact on employment in these overseas countries and territories, and I should like more information about this before I reach a final conclusion.
The resolution also talks about the need to give more rice as food aid, which would be very easy to do.
However, it has long been proved that if we dump our surpluses - in this case, rice - on the developing countries, it is their farmers who lose out.
I do not think it is right to offer them development aid while at the same time offloading as much as we can of our surpluses there.
So I have mixed feelings about this resolution: it contains some good points, but there are others with which I cannot agree.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the approval of the common organization of the market in rice and the return of normal weather conditions, this marketing year is the first which might be regarded, in terms of the value of the rice produced, as anything like normal.
Normality ends there, though, because for the past eight months roughly 70 % of Community rice production for the 1996/97 marketing year has remained unsold.
There are various reasons for this; we must be clear about how we are to approach them.
With Community production back to normal, increasing importation of rice has saturated and put pressure on the market and lowered prices to an insupportable level for European producers, who are either compelled to sell their produce at less than cost prices, thus ruining themselves, or falling into financial ruin because they are not selling and are opting - or being forced - to place the crop in storage.
In Portugal, my country, the drop in price to the producer may reach levels of the order of 40$00, that is ECU 0.2, per kilo.
The rice imported comes from different countries of origin.
One proportion of such rice is even envisaged in the provisions of existing regulations, respecting quotas and paying import duty.
The other proportion, which is directly responsible for worsening market conditions, comes above all from the overseas territories of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
But that rice is not produced there; those places merely act as transit points giving free access to the Community market earmarked for those territories.
The rice entering the European Union via this route is therefore an import of very dubious legality, it distorts the market and competition, causes the price to drop, and defrauds the Community budget of customs duties not collected. The Commission decision to extend the restrictive measures on the importation of this rice, which have been in force for four months, beyond 30 April are therefore positive.
But how long will that extension last?
Will the same amounts be imported as for the previous four-month period?
How will the situation develop?
What are the details of this decision?
And what is the Netherlands Presidency going to do about this matter which is so close to home? Will it accept the Commission decision?
Will it finally remove the obstacles to the possibility of drawing up an controlled importation scheme from those overseas territories? Or will it continue to play the role of an interested party, continuing to allow competition to be distorted and somewhat vague interests to be protected, leading in fact to the ruin of Community producers?
Ladies and gentlemen, either rice imports must in fact be controlled and measures must be taken to this end with a view to future rice marketing years or this sector will probably not have any future in the European Union.
One further question closely bound up with this problem concerns the approximately 12 % drop in the monthly growth figures for rice, a proposal which appears in the new package of agricultural prices.
Such growth figures are essential for an agricultural marketing year to indicate the requirements for possible storage and placing on the market as a function of demand.
The Commission justifies this proposed reduction by pointing to the fall in the bank rates.
However, the bank rates has quite a different effect for the various agricultural products that they warrant different reductions and we wonder whether even the most significant of them is exactly likely to affect rice, or whether this unwelcome proposal be bound up with American pressure to remove the common organization of the market in rice already being used as a bargaining point for the dropping of the complaint lodged by the United States in the common organization of the market?
And, speaking of bargaining points accepted by the Commission for the withdrawal of that complaint, some people say - and it has been in the news - that these include the recent decision to authorize the importation of 30 000 tonnes of barley with customs duties reduced by 50 % intended for the exclusive production of beer fermented in beech barrels.
I might tell you that, contrary to what the Commission said in reply to one member of my Group, there is only one factory in Europe producing such beer; it is in England and is American owned.
Mr President, faced with such a picture, these examples and these doubts which have not been dispelled, we might rightly wonder whether the Commission is staunchly defending the interests of Europeans or, on the contrary, whether European Union decisions are in fact significantly influenced by outside interests...
Mr Novo, let me remind you that it is not the Presidency which decides upon speaking time but the Members themselves.
When the time which you have allotted is up then I inform you, respectfully but clearly, with a couple of little taps with my gavel on the bench.
But I think you have gone on far longer than discretion would permit.
May I use this as an example to ask Mrs Aelvoet to speak on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament and to ask him to try to keep to the minute and a half allocated to him.
Mr President, the drought a few years ago led to greatly reduced rice harvests in a number of countries in Europe, which were offset by increasing imports from abroad.
Most of these came, and still come, from the United States.
What we are seeing now is that the European Union, fearing another tough fight with the United States in the World Trade Organization, is instead trying to force other countries from the developing areas to export less to the common market in Europe, while still allowing the United States freedom to continue its exports.
All this is to try to avoid conflict in the World Trade Organization.
We have not endorsed the joint motion for a resolution, not because we could not agree with anything it says, but because it contains certain fundamental flaws.
We entirely agree with the calls for a rigorous examination of the operation and efficiency of the World Trade Organization, though we know what the outcome is likely to be.
What we fundamentally object to are subsidized exports in themselves, since these lead to ecological and social dumping.
Mr President, the multiplicity of reasons which have given rise to the present confused situation -which are acknowledged in fact to be the Uruguay Round, the attitude of the United States within the World Trade Organization and certain preferential agreements - clearly show that there has been too little care but too much complacency in various sets of talks.
I personally would like to dwell a moment upon rice being sent via and processed in the overseas countries and territories by reminding Members that the Netherlands and its overseas territories and countries signed the Treaty of Rome and have therefore been part of the Community and the Union since 1957.
Secondly, I would point out that the Union has taken certain measures to encourage the production of rice elsewhere and I want to reiterate what Mr Fantuzzi said when he mentioned just now the competition from rice coming from the overseas departments to point out that it was actually a European Union decision which launched rice production, particularly in Guyana.
In other words there is the problem of coherency between the Community economic policies on the one hand and the development policies on the other; it is as well to remember that it is not a question, should there be a temporary setback in Europe, of setting up protective mechanisms elsewhere, then when the crisis is over, of considering that production might be destroyed with impunity.
Destructuring always entails costs - whether it be within the European Union or within the territories and countries with which the European Union is associated.
Finally I should like to suggest that using rice as food aid is a dangerous and pernicious approach since the effects of destructuring on the economies of the developing countries, of a food aid which is not suited to their eating habits on the one hand and which furthermore does not permanently take the place of local products.
Finally, Mr President, problems have their hierarchy and we must set things out in relative terms.
Let us not confuse any lack of unanimity between the European Union and the United States with the difficulties brought about by other less powerful partners.
Where I come from we have a saying to the effect that when two tortoises fight they know where they hurt each other. There are countries which do not have the shell of the tortoise.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, rice production in the European Union has over recent years been subject to intense competition.
Unfortunately, the Commission and the Council have not resisted these pressures, having made numerous concessions within the scope of the GATT under pressure from the United States.
These pressures have led to an over-reduction of the Community preference.
It also needs to be pointed out on the other hand that the excessive freedom of access granted since 1991 to rice produced in the overseas countries and the overseas territories, which has caused imports to the European Union from these countries to multiply five-fold since then, rising from 58 000 tonnes in 1991 to 300 000 tonnes in 1996.
Consequently the market in the European Union has been profoundly affected, with a marked fall in prices to the producer and in incomes in addition to the problems that over half of European production from the past marketing year is still waiting to be marketed.
This Parliament urges the Commission and the Council to take account of this difficult situation which is facing European Union rice producers and take the measures needed.
These should be focused on two major questions: on the one hand the review of the conditions for access for rice originating in overseas countries and territories and third countries and the fixing of import ceilings; secondly, review of the conditions and concessions made to the United States and some non-member countries.
Finally, I want to underscore the fact that the sector needs some adjustments to the reform of the common organization of the market, which should in specific terms, provide growers with compensation for loss of income caused by any price falls due to commercial concessions made to non-member countries or territories, otherwise a distinction will have to be drawn between rice and other cereals or other arable crops.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, if courage could be imported through the overseas territories, even at high rates of import duty, none of this would be happening.
It is simply not possible to import courage, or to buy it at the supermarket and what the Commission and the Council really need is a spot of courage to face the American colossus, which with its array of weaponry - and this is shamefully never admitted - manages to frighten Ministers and Commissioners.
There is no explanation why Big Brother World Trade Organization should continue to orchestrate as it does all aspects of piracy.
We all know that kings of yore ennobled corsairs; Pirates have become corsairs - handling rice, laundering it, ' processing' it into European rice, not paying duties - as is also the case with concentrated wine must - invading us and almost placing us in a sickening, humiliating position, almost wanting a drought, almost wanting to have aid, almost wanting aid because we are growers; it is a situation which the Commission and the Ministers should be ashamed of.
Neither can shame be bought and there is not much shame in societies which are completely losing their ethical values and which attempt, because of the wretched hunger for gold, to fight one another!
I think it is unacceptable that there should be no solidarity between the European countries to fight off unfair, albeit legal, competition, because not everything which is legal is moral, Mr Commissioner!
It is as well to remember that not everything which is legal is moral because the law often protects morally reprehensible activities, as unfortunately in our present situation.
This is a question of economics, not of specialists or technical experts.
This is a question of good people or bad people deciding the fate of an ever more decadent Europe!
Mr President, the Commission does not seem to lack courage as a collective body and individually, and the same can be said of the Council.
However, in actual fact, the situation is not quite as clear cut as that.
These people have courage as individuals, but collectively they are serving other interests.
That explains why they accede to American pressure. They have to consider other sectors and other, multinational, interests which have established themselves in the Community.
So let there be no self-delusion. Let us look at the situation as it really is.
It was not by chance that the Commission discarded the vaunted principle of Community preference for a whole range of agricultural products: tobacco, cotton, fruit and vegetables, olive oil.
Now it is the turn of rice.
300, 000 tonnes were imported in 1996 from the Antilles by a Community country, the Netherlands. And it is not grown in the Antilles, except for just a small quantity.
It is grown elsewhere and passed through there.
What is the Commission doing about it?
What about Community preference?
Why has this market crisis been generated?
Why the price crisis?
What measures is the Commission taking?
What the Commissioner has said could almost put us at ease if the matter were not so serious. Why, Commissioner, did you arrange for the intervention period to start in April, six months after the harvest, and why can you not take it close to the harvest date?
Why are you restricting imports only for the first quarter of 1997? What is going to be happen in the other three quarters of 1997?
What are the producers supposed to do?
So put aside the pretexts and the hypocrisy. If you have any desire to act like a proper Commission of the Community, like a proper Council, impose measures in favour of the Community's own producers, in favour of those are struggling to earn a living, and stop throwing them out of work.
Mr President, Mr Ephremidis is wrong, and I shall explain why.
I also do not agree with some parts of this resolution.
There is without any doubt a crisis in the rice sector.
There was a drought, so the European Union decided to allow the OCTs, the Netherlands Antilles, the British overseas territories and the French overseas territories to increase their exports, which restored the balance through the 1990s.
Now, however, the drought is over and tension is beginning to rise again in Spain and Italy, so what has the Commission done?
At the very time when this was happening, it agreed to accept substantial imports from the United States in order to solve a problem with GATT.
It allowed imports from Egypt, Thailand and other non-member countries.
Now things have gone seriously wrong, what does the Commission do?
It looks for the easiest way out.
Not getting down to talks with the United States or ASEAN, as that would only cause more problems.
So instead it hits the OCTs, the Netherlands Antilles and the British overseas territories, and that is supposed to put an end to the problem.
It is simply not fair.
I quite understand that something has to be done.
The agreements must be improved, but the Netherlands Antilles has 500 people employed in processing rice.
This is the equivalent, Mrs Fraga and Mr Cunha, of 30 000 workers in Spain, if you calculate it as a percentage of the population, or of 50 000 in France or Italy with their populations of 55 million.
The population of the Netherlands Antilles is only 230 000.
Just think about it. It is ten times worse than the crisis at Vilvoorde, which the Dutch Government is simply refusing to accept.
We cannot do this to the Netherlands Antilles.
We need to find a solution, but whatever misery we cause must not fall only on the OCTs.
I think my French colleagues are right: we need to find a reasonable solution.
It is not fair to blame the Netherlands, Mr Ephremidis, or the Netherlands Antilles.
The Commission itself has made mistakes, and it must ensure that they are put right in a fair and balanced way.
Mr President, I should like to begin by declaring a personal interest in the matter we are discussing, since I am a rice producer.
But, although I am speaking you will understand that it is not on my own behalf, since I produce japonica rice and we are discussing much more specifically indica here.
And I do not think any congratulations are in order as regards the management of Community funds.
First the payments are made then decisions are taken which created a problem affecting the Community aids which you saw as a solution.
We are talking about a product for which there is a shortfall in the European Union and so it is logical that there should be imports.
But how can the lack of control be justified when it has led, as Mr Cunha said, to a five-fold increase in imports over four years?
What is serious also is that it ignores the Community preference clause and that, as has been mentioned, we are bowing to United States blackmail.
Mr Commissioner, I live in the Bajo Ebro district which is home to the delta of the River Ebro and where the inhabitants, directly or indirectly, all depend for their living on rice.
Lands colonized and cultivated for the past 150 years, lands which will once again be condemned to desertification and depopulation, unless you remedy the situation.
It is paradoxical that those representatives from the Community country which best understands what sacrifice it takes to colonize and bring into cultivation virgin lands, should today be the most reluctant to find a solution for the future.
To conclude, Mr Commissioner, I shall quote you one parameter of the seriousness of the problem - and I do not think the weather has any bearing - the per hectare value of a rice field has fallen by half over the past ten years.
When we look at the growth of EU rice imports, we may note that this has happened from the OCT at zero duty.
In 1992 the level of imports was 40, 000 tonnes and it went up by 1996 to 252, 000 tonnes.
Clearly this shows where the major problem is and that is the reason for the Commission's decision to apply a safeguard clause, which decision was taken at the request of Spain and Italy.
That is the main comment I have to make in this context.
For the rest, I will inform my colleague Mr Fischler who is responsible for this sector, on the discussion today.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
I have received five motions for resolutions , tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
We now proceed to the voting on the joint motion for a resolution on the crisis in the rice sector.
(On the subject of an oral amendment to paragraph 1) .
Mr President, I would like to add the following after paragraph 1: ' Considers it absolutely essential for the Union to take appropriate measures on the basis of a public and detailed investigation' .
Why? Because it is obvious from today's debate that the situation is still unclear, particularly as regards the OCTs.
I have given you the text and I would urge colleagues to vote for it: ' on the basis of a public and detailed investigation' .
Mr President, I would point out that there is a undertaking on those lines in paragraph 7, where it says that we ask the Commission to carry out an analysis of the functioning and efficiency of the COM.
I believe that studies can be useful as long as they look at the overall rice situation.
The particular problem of the OCTs is, in my view, a non-problem, in that the Court of First Instance ruled very clearly, at the end of 1995 - in rejecting an action brought before the Court of Justice by the Netherlands on the grounds of public interest for the OCTs - that such grounds do not exist; moreover, this is what enabled the Commission to adopt the safeguard clause which is now being renewed.
So I do not believe that there is any particular problem concerning the OCTs; in any event, paragraph 7 calls explicitly for an overall analysis of the operation of the COM in rice.
I would also point out - the Commissioner did not say this - that the proposed safeguard clause was adopted by mutual agreement between Commissioner Fischler and Commissioner Pinheiro: it is therefore a joint proposal from DG VI and the directorate-general responsible for development cooperation, DG VIII.
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall not start a debate on the question.
Mr Maij-Weggen has made a proposal, stating her reasons; now Mr Fantuzzi has spoken.
I suggest that we ascertain whether there is any objection in the House to our putting this amendment to the vote.
Are any twelve Members against?
(Parliament rejected the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I cannot support the resolution concerning the crisis in the rice sector.
The rice sector was opened up to competition on the European market some time ago, which was a good thing as this has benefited food consumers considerably.
But the improved market conditions for the rice sector have created difficulties for several European rice producers.
The difficulties which have arisen are of course regrettable but I think that difficulties for some rice producers cannot be resolved by the reintroduction of import restrictions or other trade barriers or by particular subsidies for the rice sector which would really distort the conditions for competition on the European market.
We have voted against the Union's policy for the rice sector.
We are against protection on the rice market which will lead to higher consumer prices and will make exports from rice producers in other countries more difficult.
We also oppose the use of increased food subsidies and export subsidies as a method of resolving the Union's agricultural problems.
Food subsidies should benefit domestic production and local markets.
The rice sector in the EU has problems.
But it is important not to draw the wrong conclusions.
The long term solution is not import quotas or export subsidies but a continuation of policies which lead to increased free trade.
The negotiations which took place as part of the so called Uruguay Round made a significant step in this direction.
It is important that the EU takes the lead in this work and takes the necessary initiatives to bring about global free trade as soon as possible.
Mr Hallam has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, as a regular Member of the 'Friday morning club' of which you are the President, I would crave your indulgence.
In the Minutes, there is a 'list of shame' of those people who voted against the Ghilardotti report.
Unfortunately there is a printing error and the names of the British Conservatives who voted this way are not obvious.
I should like to ask that that be reprinted so that we can see these people who voted against giving women enhanced rights in sex discrimination cases.
Mr Hallam, that is not a point of order; it concerns the Minutes.
Mr President, I am sorry, this is on a similar matter, but it is one I have to mention.
While I did vote to approve the Minutes at the beginning of today's sitting, and these are absolutely correct, I have only now been able to compare the various language versions of the resolution on Bosnia-Herzegovina and to see that they are different in all the languages, and also wrong.
That is the only thing they have in common.
I should like to point out that the Minutes correctly state what was adopted, namely that paragraphs 1, 2 and 3 of the original text were deleted and replaced by new texts, whereas paragraph 4 of the original text remained unchanged.
This is a very important point, and I would ask the Sittings Service to correct the matter.
Thank you, Mr Posselt, for your helpful comment.
I shall make sure that the Parliament's officers put the wording right.
I should like to reassure Mr Hallam; over two hours ago I pointed out to members of the staff that the names of my colleagues who, fortunately for me, voted against the Ghilardotti report, are illegible.
We are agreed and I am sure that my conservative friends will certainly want to make it known that they voted against that report.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are all aware that in this House we all want the greatest transparency and, therefore, when errors occur, they will b e put right.
Mr President, when I checked my pigeon-hole about an hour ago, I still had not received written answers to my questions for Question Time.
Normally at this stage in the week I have.
Could you ensure that everyone who is entitled to a written answer gets it please?
Thank you, Mrs Oddy for that information.
I take responsibility for that.
I shall find out why and make sure that answers arrive on time.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, I have to tell you that Parliament has come to the end of the agenda and that the minutes of this part-session will be submitted for Parliament's approval at the beginning of the next part-session.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, may I thank this Parliament's officers, not merely as a matter of form, but sincerely; without their help it would not be possible for us to do our work.
I should like to thank you all too and also to express my appreciation of Mother Nature for granting us this marvellous week of springtime which has rendered this lovely city even more beautiful.
(The sitting was adjourned at 11.30 a.m.)
Resumption of session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 11 April 1997.
May I remind the house that today is 'World Book Day' , declared last year by UNESCO, and therefore I wish you happy reading.
Decision on urgency
I give the floor to Mrs Malone on a point of order.
Mr President, I would like to bring to your attention the fact that an Irish Christian Brother was murdered in Kenya in January and this week an Irish priest, very luckily, just escaped with his life.
I would ask you to ask President Santer and the Dutch presidency to suspend all EU aid to Kenya until the human rights situation has improved.
Thank you very much, Mrs Malone.
Mr Santer is here and we shall convey your request to the Council for it to take more effective measures to tackle the problem you have brought to our attention.
I give the floor to Mr von Habsburg on a point of order.
Mr President, this is not a point of order, but refers to the agenda. That is what we are discussing and I would like to ask a question about it.
Mr Habsburg, may I remind you that, as is the custom, our agenda was adopted in Strasbourg.
In that case I shall not put my question.
Thank you very much for your cooperation.
Mr President, on urgency for aid to shipbuilding: this is certainly still a most controversial subject, in the European Community too.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has discussed this urgency.
There were different views on the subject in committee too.
But the committee decided by a majority to consider the matter as son as possible, not during this sitting but at the earliest possible next one.
And we have taken all the necessary measures to ensure that it can be dealt with as soon and as competently as possible.
We have appointed a rapporteur, Mr Glante.
We will do all we can to ensure that a reasoned opinion can soon be reached on this subject.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to speak to urgency.
Let me first explain the situation.
In its proposal of 19 March 1997 the Commission accepted the notification submitted by the German Federal Government and submitted it to the Council of the European Union on 24 March 1997 for further consideration.
At the same time, the Commission proposal was also forwarded to the European Parliament for its opinion.
This proposal has a rather dramatic history.
It must be looked at against the background of a structural adjustment that occurred very quickly and was very intensive and which, in my own country, meant that within a space of a year and a half more than 40 000 workers were made redundant in shipyards alone.
This enormous change was accompanied by the dismantling of capacity required by the European Union; against this background aid was authorised in 1992.
Much of the aid made available in 1992 was used for the wrong purposes.
It was not invested in the shipyards of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern but misused by the main company Bremer Vulkan, which has since gone bankrupt.
The responsible prosecuting attorney who is investigating the situation said a few weeks ago before the Federal committee of inquiry that the money has gone for ever!
So the funds originally provided are no longer available.
On the other hand, it is clear that in a region that...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, there are three reasons why we should oppose this urgency.
The first was stated by the last speaker, namely that there was misappropriation of funds the last time that state aids were granted to Germany.
Therefore we need to have proper parliamentary scrutiny of this proposal; we should not simply be rubber-stamping a decision of the Council.
Secondly, the shipbuilding aids being offered are going to have a distorting effect on the rest of the shipbuilding industry in the European Union.
What about Finland, the United Kingdom, Denmark or the other shipbuilding areas? We need to take careful account of that.
Thirdly, if we take seriously our work in this Parliament as an overseeing body on state aids and competition policy, we should at least give ourselves two or three weeks to look at this matter and produce a proper report.
If the Christian Democrats vote in favour of urgency, they can never again complain about state aids or competition policy in this European Parliament.
I put the request for urgent procedure to the vote.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure) This item will be included in tomorrow's agenda.
Mr President, you commented that only 265 people took part in the vote, when there are quite a lot more of us than that here in the chamber.
Now that we meet in Brussels, when most of us are used to getting our voting cards in Strasbourg at the door of the chamber, here in Brussels it takes us about half-an-hour to find our voting cards.
I urge you to make access to the chamber easier.
Thank you very much, Mr Wijsenbeek.
I have been informed that you will have to go a bit further to get them because of the preparations for the new buildings.
I am sure that everyone will take the necessary precautions to obtain their voting cards in time.
Membership of temporary committee (vote)
The next item is the proposal for a decision on the setting up of a temporary committee of inquiry instructed to monitor the action taken on the recommendations made concerning BSE.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on behalf of my group, on two of the amendments which are being presented on this text.
The first is Amendment 1 of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, which I would like to withdraw.
As for Amendment 2, presented by the Group for a Europe of Nations, in accordance with Article 124, point 5, I would like, on the contrary, to take it over.
If you will allow me, I will quickly explain to you why, and I do so in the presence of President Santer, who knows well that this temporary committee will monitor closely the very important work which awaits the Commission and the Parliament.
The proposal of the presidents' conference includes twenty members, excluding two of this Parliament's groups, while the Committee of Inquiry envisages the presence of all groups.
Following agreements with the various groups, only the Group of the European Radical Alliance would, in reality, remain outside this committee.
With much humility, I would ask my colleagues to accept, in a spirit of compromise and conciliation, that this number be brought from twenty up to twenty-two and that the various groups may all be allowed to be represented, as anticipated by the Committee of Inquiry.
(Applause from the ARE Group)
Mr President, I do not think we need to discuss these amendments or vote on them.
The Socialist Group has eight members, eight alternates.
Our Group has seven members and seven alternates.
We said we were willing, and we stand by that promise, to give up one member and one alternate.
I think if others in the House, and the Socialist Group in particular, are also willing, we can settle this matter satisfactorily.
I give the floor to Mrs Green to answer personal remarks.
Mr President, I just want to say to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf that was not the basis on which the Committee of Inquiry was set up.
He has his figures wrong.
(Mixed reactions)
I put the proposal for a decision to the vote.
(The Parliament adopted the decision)
Equal opportunities for men and women
The next item is the Commission communication on equal opportunities between men and women.
Mr President, I have two questions for the Commission.
Firstly: When does the Commission intend to proceed with the changes in the terms of service approved by Parliament several months ago, in other words, the terms of service for EU employees? Secondly: In what way is the Commission paying heed to equality between the sexes with regard to the programme for the information society?
It is obvious that current programmes, toys and games attract boys while girls back away from sitting in front of computers. In what way is the Commission taking this into account?
Mr President, as regards the first question put by the honorable Member, I would like to say, as I did earlier, that the Commission has made proposals and has set itself targets to achieve regarding the recruitment of civil servants in its own departments.
As far as 1996 is concerned, and I quoted the figures, we achieved these objectives.
We have also set ourselves targets for this year, at various levels, up to the highest grades.
We have reached, and even passed the targets set for 1996, but we still have work to do because, for the moment, obviously we are talking above all about the recruitment of civil servants relating to the new Member States, where equality has been achieved: 49 % for women, 51 % for men.
In the future, this activity must be pursued in the same direction.
As regards the second question, relating to equal opportunities for men and women, particularly in the use of modern technology if I have understood correctly, in the context of information policy, I can tell you that the fourth programme of activity which we have set in motion to promote equal opportunities contains a certain number of proposals aimed specifically at achieving the objective which you are proposing yourself.
Next year, when I report again on the action of the Community during the past year, it will no doubt be possible to see how we have been able to achieve this objective in 1997.
Mr President, I have a very specific budgetary question.
The structural funds are our most important instruments.
How can you ensure that women, who tend to be hit harder by unemployment than others, obtain more access to these structural funds? How can you ensure that the principle of equal opportunities is applied quite consistently in the operational programmes?
After all, until now only some 5 % has been spent on women-oriented projects. I think that is far too little.
The fourth Action Programme is not enough, the few million ecus being allocated here are not enough to achieve the great aim of full employment.
The money that we allocated last year in many budget lines is certainly a great help.
So how can you now ensure that mainstreaming is implemented and does not just end up as a drop in the ocean?
Mr President, I share entirely the opinion of the honourable Member, which is that, in the fight against unemployment, priority must be given to women, who are the first to be affected because they are worst hit by part-time and short term work.
In fact, one of the elements to set us on this road lies in the use of the structural funds.
The structural funds, as I said earlier, mobilise a considerable amount of money - 145 billion Ecus over six years - but not enough use is made of them, and within the context of the European social fund one of the priority objectives must be specifically the mobilisation of the funds for the engagement of women.
You asked a second question, which concerns mainstreaming.
The Commission has indeed finished drawing up a strategy for the integration of the dimension of gender into all its policies.
I think it is essential not to stay centred on one set policy only.
As is the case for inter-departmental cooperation, reference lines should be introduced for evaluation of the impact of policies on equality between men and women, as well as a follow-up system and suitable training for staff.
This is what we must work towards.
I quite agree, there is still a great deal to be done, and I am relying on Parliament, when the budgetary proposals are made, to give still greater impetus in the areas the honourable Member has targeted.
Mr President, once the Intergovernmental Conference is completed, and I still hope it will be in Amsterdam though I do not rule out the possibility that it may be in Wasserbillig, the accession negotiations with a number of Eastern European countries will start soon afterwards.
I am wondering whether President Santer or the Commission has already begun to analyse the legal and social position of women in these would-be Member States.
In my view they need to in order to ensure that once these countries join, the acquis communautaire, which we already have in this area and which needs to be taken further than the provisions of existing laws in Central and Eastern Europe, must be introduced in those countries without delay, because I feel that is essential for women.
In all honesty I think too, and I should appreciate an answer on this, that it is necessary and I hope there is the will for that in the European Commission, that special aid should be given to that end to women's organizations in the Central and Eastern European countries which are prepared to help to get these thing achieved.
Mr President, like the honourable Member, I hope that the Intergovernmental Conference will conclude with a Treaty of Amsterdam.
You are familiar with the strategy of expansion, as defined by the European Council of Madrid and then by that of Dublin.
Straight afterwards, the Commission will present its proposed opinions concerning the various candidate nations.
Within the framework of these opinions, we must take account of certain criteria which have been set by the European Council of Copenhagen in 1993.
One of these criteria, and it is not one of the most negligible, is that of knowing how successful the countries have been in adapting their national legislation to fit in with the achievements of the Community.
We have established some rules on this.
We have also, with the Phare programme, suggested a certain number of programmes to these countries, but I agree entirely with you that it is an important criterion, not only with regard to women, but in a general way.
The achievements of the Community must be preserved and the legislation of the new nations, the new democracies which are knocking on our door, must be able to take on these Community achievements.
This is an essential point and the Council of Ministers, with consideration for the opinions of the Commission, will certainly attach a particular importance to this.
Mr President, one might be grateful to President Santer for his very informative announcement and perhaps feel that a certain amount of progress has been made, but I wonder whether he can actually understand that this progress is very limited when we look at the actual scale of the problem.
I was privileged to represent Parliament at the Indian conference.
We got a picture of the problem, which concerns 50 % or more of the population - and it is the same in Europe if we leave aside the countries of northern Europe where the situation is actually quite good - whose representation is extremely limited. For instance, only 6.4 % of MPs in France are women, in Greece only 6.3 % are women and in the United Kingdom only 9.5 % are women.
Can the Commission actually understand that such rates of progress are doing nothing to resolve the problem and that much more needs to be done? And is it aware that the legal aspect has now changed following the judgment of the French Council of State that affirmative action does not constitute discrimination?
Mr President, I agree with the Member in saying that much progress has been made, but I would add that this progress has not been sufficient in view of the size of our task.
That is why we must work in many different directions. We already are at the present time, moreover.
I think it is very important that, within the context of the Intergovernmental Conference, which should finish with a revision of the Maastricht Treaty, a number of the proposals of the Irish presidency, which have been retained by the Dutch presidency, and which aim to write equality between men and women into the Treaty, which is one of the missions of the Community, are indeed written into it.
In all its activity, the Commission will aim to eliminate inequality, to promote equality between men and women, to apply, and I think this is very important, a general clause of non-discrimination, in particular on the basis of sex, and to extend the scope of application of Article 119 of the Treaty.
Another point, which I mentioned earlier in response to a question, relates to the policy of mainstreaming, which consists in integrating women's policy into all our policies, and not making of it a policy on its own.
I think, with regard to this, that it is an exercise which will go on for a long time yet, and that it will be accompanied by changes, especially of mentality, in our various Member States, and in the organisation of work.
Finally, you raised a problem which concerns decision-making.
With regard to this, certain actions of the Commission aim to encourage and support Member States which are launching specific action to admit women into higher positions, in which decisions are made.
We are in the process of cofinancing a series of actions, with respect to this, within the framework of the fourth Community programme.
We will draw up an annual assessment of the progress evident in Europe, by means of the annual report known as 'equal opportunities' .
Mr President, first of all I should like to say what a pleasure it is for me to see the President of the Commission here in this Assembly answering our questions on such important matters.
I should like to put this question directly to him. He began by saying that, of all European citizens, women are those who are the least convinced of the importance of Europe.
On that point, I should like to say that this stems from the Treaty itself: women's rights are just not sufficiently dealt with in the text of that Treaty.
I should like to put two very simple questions to him.
My first question is whether the Commission is going to fight with us to ensure that revision of the Maastricht Treaty covers all of the points realting to women's rights which the European Parliament has supported.
And my second question is whether the Commission is going to help us to inform women of these aspects? Let us not forget that the Maastricht Treaty is going to be ratified in most countries by referendum; it is women who will go out to vote in large numbers and unless we have women on our side the new Treaty may well be signed not ratified.
Mr President, this question follows the one which was asked earlier by one of your colleagues, to which I replied by indicating the objectives we are setting in the Treaty.
You are right in saying that the current Treaty, the Treaty of Maastricht, does not lend enough attention to objectives aiming at equality of opportunity for men and women.
I recalled the objectives of the Commission, which tie up with the proposals which Parliament itself presented at the time of the revision of this Treaty.
I will not repeat it, but I consider it essential that, in the Treaty itself, certain objectives aim more specifically at affirming that equality for men and women will constitute one of the Community's missions.
Secondly, one result of the Eurobarometer shows that more men than women trust the European Union.
Work of conviction, of persuasion, but above all of information and communication, must be carried out.
I think it would be wise for all our information programmes - and I mentioned earlier the programme for the Euro, for economic and monetary union - to target women more specifically.
Indeed, whether one likes it or not, they are not merely one half of the population, they are also closer to its citizens, they know the education system much better, they may look after their children, etc.
When one speaks of economic and monetary union, and in the context of the way the Euro is handled, women must be integrated as housekeepers, as consumers, because I think it is on this condition alone that we can make a success of the Euro.
(Interruption by Mrs Randzio-Plath: ' But I work' ) Of course, women at work, too.
That is my conception of the policy of mainstreaming, to which a certain importance must be attached by integrating women into all our policies and not only into specific policies.
Mr President, thank you for your commitment to the cause of women.
Your final remarks are very encouraging for me in favour as I am of the cause of all women.
From this point of view, may I make a request of you, which is at the same time a question: could no completely new path of hope exist for the vitality, economic as well as social and cultural, of our various countries in Europe, in recourse to research, as was demanded at the conferences in Copenhagen and Peking, to evaluate the unwaged work of women at home.
I think that this could be a breakthrough for a redynamisation of the whole of life in our countries in Europe.
I am relying on you to see that the welcome given by the Commissioner at the federation of housewives, in Peking, is followed up.
Mr President, I can respond favourably to this request, because we are currently doing research along these lines and it has been indicated to me that the results will be available at the end of this year.
From another angle, I would still like to say that there should not be too great a polarisation made between women at work and women in the home.
I believe that women who work also have household chores to do, and they perhaps have to do two times or three times the work.
So I will not, personally, I am saying this completely from a personal point of view, have a distinction made between women who work and women who stay at home.
I think it should be necessary to find ways which make it possible to determine the way in which every woman contributes to active and to professional life, whoever she is.
Mr President, as you know, a proposal along the lines of the concerns of the honourable Member was made by the Commission in 1987, and furthermore it remains on the table of the Council.
The Commission has undertaken to find the best way of restarting discussions on the subject.
The question of splitting, which has just been raised by Mrs Lulling, and pension rights in the event of divorce falls, of course, under the much wider theme of the individualisation of the right to social security of men and women.
That takes me back a little to my former activities.
I know the subject well, as the author of a proposal for reform of social security along these lines, in my own country.
This is a very delicate subject for many Member States, but the Commission is trying to make discussions progress as far as possible.
That is how the subject of individualisation came to be tackled in the communication on the future of social welfare, which was recently adopted by the Commission.
I must refer back to a draft report by Mrs Catasta, here, dated 10 June 1993, which contains a proposal for a resolution, which was actually tabled by Mrs Lulling at the time, which had the same objective.
I think therefore that we must aim in that direction and I hope that the communication on the future of social welfare is a good starting point from which to deepen these rather difficult discussions.
As far as the 1986 directive is concerned, regarding equal treatment of women, for independent women, the Commission has committed itself in its fourth programme on equal opportunities to examining the possibilities for strengthening this directive which, as the honourable member points out, does not currently include any particularly effective measures.
Once again we are talking about subjects, social security and tax, which are more than just difficult.
The Commission's preparatory work is moving forward.
Two round tables have been held with those most involved, in which, if my information is correct, members of this Parliament have also participated. Now it is a question of examining the feasibility of the ideas put forward.
The Commission has long recognized that women are undervalued and under-utilized in the SME sector.
How can the Commission help women both as workers and as entrepreneurs in small firms? I ask this because there is a disproportionate disadvantage to women in the unemployment figures and the small business sector is, of course, most fertile in terms of producing jobs.
As you know, the Commission, and I personally, are very committed to the strengthening of small and medium-sized enterprises, because we think that thanks to them new jobs can be created.
It is not large companies which are creating jobs, it is the eighteen million SMEs we have in the European Union, which are capable of doing so.
In this regard, the Commission's objective is to determine the concrete policy and the appropriate measures to improve the situation of independent workers, and their spouses.
The Commission has already organised a round table in which all the interested parties have participated.
We are currently busy collecting together all the information for the purpose of finishing up with a firm proposal for an instrument to be used.
Furthermore, within the framework of the European Social Fund, an initiative exists, the NOW initiative, which also has this objective.
It is further in this direction that we must go in order to respond to your own concerns.
Mr President, Austria has a model system of leave for working women.
They can stay at home, as can the man for the last six months if he so chooses, and, most important, with a guarantee of employment, which makes it easier for women to return to working life.
There is no uniform system of this kind in the EU, which means there is still a major deficit here.
Is there any chance of the EU adopting the Austrian system and allowing women unpaid leave, which would make it easier for them to arrange for child-care and to return to working life?
As you know, social policy falls within the competence of Member States themselves.
The Commission as such, or the Community as such, therefore has no particular competence regarding social policy, neither does it have regarding economic policy.
That does not prevent us, nor dispense us from seeing how we can use the instruments within our reach to make our contribution to the achievement of the objectives you have described.
One of these instruments is precisely, within the framework of social protocol, social dialogue.
Last year, the social partners, within the framework of social dialogue, came to an agreement on a formula, which does not go as far as the Austrian formula, I agree, but which proposes a conciliation between professional life and family life, by means of parental leave, etc.
We have taken up this formula within the framework of a directive, but if we have taken a social directive, it belongs to Member States to transpose it and apply it.
I think that, from proposals modelled on systems such as that of Austria, or other systems existing in other Member States, reflection can be started at Community level, to see how it is possible to grant a particular social status to women who work.
Mr President, I was already beginning to suspect somewhat that this whole field might fall outside your ambit, but fortunately this proves not to be the case.
The Commission communication devotes special attention to the question of taking account of equal opportunities in connection with the Structural Funds.
In order for the principle of mainstreaming to be acted upon, information is needed about the present state of equality between the sexes, and impact analyses also need to be developed.
The existing monitoring and assessment indicators do not reveal certain problems which are important from women's point of view.
The Commission says that consideration should be given to indicators of, and ways of measuring, the extent to which the principle of equality is taken into account in programmes.
Might I ask you, Mr Santer, whether such indicators are being developed by the Commission which could be borne in mind when evaluating the Structural Funds, in order for women to reap the benefit?
Mr President, indeed there is still much to be done, as the Member said, and as I said myself, all the more so since we do not have the necessary instruments yet to create a true Community policy at this level.
That is why I said earlier that it is necessary, within the framework of the Intergovernmental Conference, to introduce a number of principles, objectives, which can be used to develop a more coherent policy in this domain.
With regard to this, and not to repeat myself, I will say, as far as the structural funds are concerned, that a number of developments, a number of programmes are being funded thanks to the structural funds.
This is still not enough, but I think that certain indicators, or as one says today, the benchmarking system, may also constitute an essential instrument for seeing how, little by little, equal opportunities for men and women are approaching.
It is an indicator, as you say, which has not yet been taken up, but it is an idea which deserves thought and deeper study.
Thank you very much, Mr Santer.
Economic policy and excessive deficits
The next item is the Commission communication on the broad economic policy guidelines and excessive deficits.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as your Chamber wishes, I insisted on coming and reporting to you, as soon as this session opened, on the deliberations and decisions of the Commission this morning on the predictions and the general orientation of economic policy for 1997. They are an essential instrument for a better coordination of economic policy for the medium term in Europe.
The Commission can confirm, this year, that the recommended macroeconomic strategy is bearing fruit, as economic growth is confirmed.
On the basis of this encouraging observation, the general orientation is aimed, as your Chamber recommended in its Annual Economic Report, at giving new impetus to the economic strategy of the European Union.
First of all, the forecasts confirm the coherence of the economic strategy recommended by the general orientation of economic policy.
Growth has returned thanks to the stabilisation of public finances, the reduction in the level of interest rates and the control of costs.
It is necessary to consolidate this renewal and ensure that it creates jobs over the long term.
Spring predictions indicate a small revision of growth upwards, compared with those of last Autumn.
Growth should rise to 2.4 % in 1997.
We had predicted 2.3 % in the Autumn.
In 1998, economic activity could increase by 2.8 %.
This renewed growth will permit the creation of two million jobs over 1997 and 1998.
The level of unemployment should start to drop, sadly not far enough, from 10.7 % in 1997 to 10.3 % in 1998.
There will be no substantial reduction in unemployment without strong and lasting growth in the medium term.
To achieve this, the Commission recommends three means.
Firstly to pursue the stabilisation of public finances. This is beginning to bear fruit.
The vast majority of Member States have set themselves the target of public deficits of 3 % in 1997.
I recall to mind the fact that the average deficit of the Union has fallen from 6.2 % of GDP in 1993 to 4.3 % in 1996.
The Commission predicts a figure of 2.9 % for the whole of the European Union for 1997, with thirteen countries on or below the reference level of 3 %.
Within the context of the pursuit of this stabilisation, the Commission is stressing, this year especially, the need to reduce public spending rather than increasing revenue from tax, which is bad for growth.
It is also stressing the need to preserve spending on investment, which is essential to give the Union the potential for lasting mediumterm growth, that is, for the future.
Secondly, the stability of prices must be maintained, as inflation hits the less privileged sectors of society hardest.
Thirdly, the policy on wages, implemented by the social partners, has proved its responsibility and realism.
It must continue to integrate both the objectives of stability of prices, and profitability of investment.
In the vast majority of Member States, these recommendations have already been followed by results in 1996.
We must persevere in this way if we want to create more jobs in the future.
On the basis of these encouraging results, the Commission recommends, as your Chamber advocates, two priorities for conducting economic policy in 1997: employment, of course, structural reforms of the employment market, and public and private, physical, intangible and human investment, which are still insufficient.
Concerning employment, three priority actions are advocated by the Commission.
Firstly, to increase the capacity of economies to adapt to changes caused by globalisation and to increase the potential for growth, it is necessary to promote innovation, research and development, and to improve systems of education and professional training.
Furthermore, it is necessary to pursue investment in trans-European networks.
This emerges clearly from our recommendation to the Council. It also situates the importance of the fifth framework programme of development and research.
Secondly, better operation of the market in goods and services is necessary.
Complete exploitation of the benefits of the internal market alone will make a strong contribution to increasing growth.
Let me remind you that persistent segmentation of the markets, for example because of insufficiencies in harmonisation of taxes and because of excessive regulation, must be abolished.
To this end, the Commission is currently preparing a plan of action on the internal market.
Thirdly, reform of the employment market is necessary to increase the job content of growth.
The contribution of the social partners is, in this respect, exemplary and necessary.
Thanks to the social dialogue, the flexibility of the employment market may be increased by means of pragmatic measures respectful of the attachment of our citizens to high social standards.
It is also necessary to work at a reasonable adaptation of salary structures, in line with differences in productivity at regional levels.
On the subject of investment, today's report is rather disappointing.
Certainly, studies of the current economic climate instance an increasing confidence on the part of manufacturers and the profitability of investments is at its highest since the 1960s in the European Union.
The Commission observes that paid workers have contributed to the stabilisation of the macroeconomic scene by moderation of pay.
It now considers it essential that employers seize the opportunity that the excellence of economic conditions is offering and, for most, of their financial situation, in order to renew investment to create jobs.
This renewal of investment must involve private investment - 85 % of the total, I recall - as a priority, and in all its forms: physical investment, investment in intangibles, investment in people.
But the Commission also recommends that public expenditure on investment be maintained.
It is essential to give the Union potential for lasting growth in the medium term.
It is an investment for the future of the collectivity as a whole.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to inform you that the Commission has just proposed to the Council that it abrogate its decision on the existence of excessive public deficits in the Netherlands and in Finland.
If the Council adopts the recommendations of the Commission, the number of countries which are no longer in a situation of excessive deficit will be brought to five.
These results confirm both the efforts at stabilisation which the Member States of the Union are making and the coherence of our European economic policy.
A majority of Member States will be able to move over to the Euro on 1 January 1999.
I really do believe that.
Confident in finding, Mr President, the full support of the European Parliament for the implementation of these recommendations by the Member States, the Commission, as it has endeavoured to do for the past two and a half years, will continue to associate your Chamber as closely as possible with its work, as it does unceasingly, for the introduction of the Euro within the framework of the conditions and timetable anticipated by the Treaty.
Mr President, I would like to ask Commissioner de Silguy, at this fateful moment of choosing the countries which will participate in the third phase of the approaching EMU, that is Spring 1998, and independently of the conclusions of the Dublin summit, whose shaping was largely the raison d'être of the 'ecofin' Council of Nordwyck and which we are taking for our own, how the question will be asked, for certain States in the Union, about the public deficit in 1997, in that some will not fulfil the conditions of the qualification criteria.
I would like to know whether the Commission can share with us its future recommendations and its attitude on this matter.
In other words, if the deficit is 3.1 or 3.2 %, in countries which have demonstrated that they have followed the correct path, does the Commission actually think that it could accept this slight overshoot?
Mr Giansily, the decision will be taken next year by the Heads of State and of government, at the end of April, or the beginning of May 1998.
The decision will be based upon a recommendation by the Commission, which will be the central element, as the Commission will play a central role in this process.
This recommendation will be adopted at the end of March 1998, in order to take account of the real figures for 1997.
Today, we are presenting predictions drawn up by the departments.
We are not carrying out an entrance examination ahead of time.
Therefore our predictions must not be made to say what they are not actually saying.
Predictions are a photograph at a given moment and not an anticipation of the entrance examination.
Next year, when we have our recommendations made, the Commission must take account of all the conditions set by the Treaty for entry to the single currency.
There are five of these conditions, the famous five criteria, which are not simply reference values.
Added to them there are a number of other conditions, like for example the independence of the central banks.
I must add that the examination must, and this is very important, consider the lasting nature of the convergence.
In other words, it will be a question of making sure that if, in 1997, the conditions of budgetary stabilisation are correct, this stabilisation will continue throughout the coming years.
Indeed, may I remind you that when the single currency is in place, the figure of 3 % will no longer be an objective, but it will become a limit.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner what criteria were used to establish the Commission's forecasts for the Italian, French and German deficits, which the International Monetary Fund and certain German institutes put at the same level of 3.2 %.
Has the International Monetary Fund been excessively severe towards Germany and France or has the Commission been excessively severe towards Italy?
Secondly, Mr Commissioner, I would like to ask you why, when the Commission's recommendation mentions the firm commitment of the German government and the Spanish authorities to achieve the 3 % objective, no such reference is made, either for 1997 or 1998, to the Italian government's repeatedly expressed commitment to keep below 3 % in both 1997 and 1998, with decisions which have been pretty difficult to take in Italy.
Mr President, I will reply to Mr Imbeni that all States are dealt with in exactly the same way, on the basis of the same pattern of reasoning, in defining the conditions.
There is no discrimination.
These predictions are based upon macro-economic aggregates which take into account, in particular, assessments of growth.
As I do not know the predictions of the International Monetary Fund, which are not public, which have not been published, I cannot comment upon them.
I can say, however, that it frequently happens that the different international institutions make different predictions.
That is quite normal. What I do observe, from having done this myself, is that looking back with hindsight on the past, to assess the predictions by the Commission, I can see that we have been at least as good, if not often better, than the other international institutions, and in particular than a number of private set-ups.
As far as the rules which are applicable are concerned, we are taking account of all the budgetary decisions which have been made by the governments, and we are assessing them.
What the departments have done - once again, we are not talking about a decision by the Commission, but an assessment by the Commission's departments - is to make a precise evaluation of the effectiveness of the measures.
As regards Italy, since you are giving me the opportunity to talk about it, I would like to pay tribute to the nation, which, if our predictions are correct, is going to reduce its public deficit from 6.7 % to 3.2 %, that is by 3.5 %, if you listen to us, or by 3.7 % if you listen to the Italian government, it doesn't really matter.
What I do note is the fact that this reduction in the public deficit is the largest ever recorded in Europe for fifteen years.
Consequently I think that the message which emerges clearly from all of these predictions today is a message of encouragement, a message of recognition for the work and effort achieved.
And nobody is to come and tell me, as I replied to Mr Giansily earlier, that these predictions are an entrance examination ahead of time for the single currency.
Not at all!
They are a photograph taken on the basis of data.
The data may be disputed, or observations may be made on them.
The departments are obliged to apply the same data to everybody and to make coherent economic hypotheses.
But these hypotheses are not necessarily the same for every country.
Regarding your comment on the problem concerning recommendations, honourable Member, I have here a text, to which we have made changes this morning in committee, to take account of exactly that, the particular sensitivity of the problem.
In other words, it was not, and is not, a matter of changing the figures which have been drawn up by the Commission's departments, because the figures must be credible, that is, they must not be subject to any political pressure.
Be that as it may, in the presentation, and you will see, in the latest version which you perhaps do not yet have, account is taken perfectly of this difference in appreciation between what the government thinks and what the Commission thinks.
If the Commission is mistaken, that is to say, if its assessment is not correct, and if the Italian government thinks that its measures will be fully effective, well then the figures will be rather different.
But what counts is the encouragement of the overall message much more than a few dozen points.
Commissioner, when referring to the broad economic policy guidelines, you referred to a new wage structure, and I would like to know whether you meant flexibility downwards for wage patterns, along the United States model, referred to on so many occasions in the Annual Report. And does he think that this should be applied in all countries?
I think that it is necessary to see that wages depend on collective negotiation. That is the responsibility of the social partners.
It is not a matter therefore of interfering in this process.
All that the recommendations mean is that the level of productivity by qualification, by region, must be an element to be taken into consideration when setting levels of pay.
In any case, it is not a matter of advocating a general drop in pay.
Don't misunderstand the meaning of our analyses.
Commissioner, the stability and growth pact provides for fines of up to the impressive amount of 0.5 % of GDP. Does the Commission fully agree with such a drastic measure?
Do you not think that dissuasive or preventive measures would have sufficed? Does it not concern you that the pact is being converted into an instrument basically determined by the political negotiation of sanctions?
The need to pursue efforts at reducing public deficits in the medium term is an imperative of the Treaty which has been recognised as such by the Member States.
All the same, slipping over the 3 % is laid down explicitly as requiring sanctions.
That is the Treaty.
The pact for stability and growth gives content to the Treaty's expectations, it specifies what the Treaty provides for.
I would add that, for my part, I hope that these penalties do not have to be applied.
It is in this that they are a deterrent. It is because Member States know that they run the risk of incurring large penalties that they will not put themselves in a position in which they will have to pay them.
To put it another way, these penalties are the deterrent valve which complements the preventive valve.
Enough is never said about the preventive valve of the stability pact, which is coherent, complete, structured, and which makes it possible to ensure that all economic and budgetary policies operate in a harmonious way and in the same direction for all the Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, you say that you intend to send notes to ten countries because their budget deficits are excessive. Yet at the same time you say that it is necessary to invest in the future and in human resources, but what exactly do you mean by that?
What are the practical implications?
Do you not think that these ten countries could find themselves in considerable difficulties? On the one hand you are bringing pressure to bear on them to step up austerity measures in public expenditure, but on the other hand you seem to be coming round to the point of view that it is necessary to invest in the future.
Is it not the case that many of the expenditure cuts which you are urging upon these ten countries will, on the contrary, weaken social security and reduce the human resources which you wish to support? Could you explain what you mean when you say that it is necessary to investment in the future in this situation?
Firstly I would like to make the point that public deficits have never created jobs.
If deficits created jobs, we would know about it, we would see it, and in view of the level of public deficits in Europe, we would be in a position of overemployment.
Historically, I observe that the reduction in public deficits, the restoration of confidence, growth and the creation of jobs generally go hand in hand in Europe, and not only in Europe.
The United States will have a public deficit of 1 % this year, understood in the Maastrichtian sense of the criterion, and to my knowledge they are given as an example when it comes to the creation of jobs.
So consequently, there is no contradiction between the need to develop investment - I am speaking of private investment, since 85 % of investment is private - and the pursuit of the policy of budgetary stability which has borne fruit in Europe.
We are harvesting today the first fruits of this in terms of interest rates and growth.
We must continue along these lines.
What I have said is that, in the context of assessment, at the level of businesses, but also at the level of the States, it is appropriate to see how far we should now concentrate our efforts, taking account of room for manoeuvre where it exists, on seizing the opportunities and renewing investment which will be a factor for growth and the creation of jobs in the future.
Mr President, I would like to return to a topic that was raised once directly and once implicitly by two other colleagues.
In answer to Mr Giansily, the Commissioner clearly remarked that at this point he was not willing to decide the actual passage to the single currency because that is for next year.
Answering Mr Imbeni, he correctly acknowledged and saluted the adjustment efforts made in Italy.
However, if one reads the report, I would put it to the Commissioner that the plainest message that comes from the report in respect of Italy - and this is the major sensitive political question for next year - is that it gives a clear economic policy message that the one-off adjustments in the budget are masking the need for further economic policy change.
Without that, the clear underlying economic message in today's report is that Italy would fail to meet a condition sine qua non .
Is that not the basic economic reality underlying your sums today, Commissioner?
I think that the principal message, when you compare the figures, between 1997 and 1998, is that you realise that the figures for 1997 are in general obtained because Member States have taken isolated measures for stabilisation or one-off measures , in English.
The very clear message which emerges from these forecasts, from these recommendations, is that, where additional measures must be taken for 1998 within the framework of the lasting nature of convergence, it is necessary that these measures are structural and not just one-off.
I think that this is how the tables, the figures, should be interpreted, and once again the exercise which we will have plenty of opportunity to comment on next year, Mr Cox, should not be anticipated.
Mr President, in your recommendations to the Member States I see no signs of the Commission playing an offensive and active role, for we have to remember that there have been proposals before the Commission and the European Parliament since 1993 that seek to ensure that jobs really can be created via infrastructure investment and innovation campaigns and that we really can aim at employment-boosting growth.
Do you not believe that you ought to impose stronger obligations on the Member States here, in relation also to the kind of savings policies pursued in the Member States and to the structure of the consolidation policies in the Member States? Do you not think that in this context the Member States have to make stronger commitments so that we really can achieve cross-frontier successes here?
What is the point of guidelines if the European Commission and the European Parliament are the only ones to repeat them?
Do you not think that there is one recommendation missing from your list and that monetary policy could still play a more constructive part in a suitable policy mix, given the real interest rates, which are still not low enough?
Moreover, it is not the case, Commissioner, that the response to structural change has to lie in...
(The President interrupted the speaker) ... a social dialogue, which you must require of the Member Sates, so that if an economic policy proves successful workers subject to wage restraints can share in this success via a policy of income and asset formation?
Mrs Randzio-Plath asks three questions.
A more active role for the Commission: it seems to me, Madam, that the Commission is not sparing any effort either in the context of definition of the macro-economic framework, or in the other backup measures.
I am thinking about the large networks and the framework programmes of research and development.
Nevertheless the Commission cannot change the decision-making procedures within the Council, and in particular, it cannot replace the rule of unanimity with that of the qualified majority.
Perhaps, and I hope this will be the case, Amsterdam will bring us a solution on this matter.
Having said that, I think that we must not centralise everything at Brussels level, and that we are in a liberal economy, in which subsidiarity must play a role.
It is as necessary to define a stable framework within which to conduct economic policy as a community, as it is that at the level of structural measures, social measures, and a number of measures, I am thinking particularly of the employment market, this definition comes under the specificity of the individual nations, of social dialogue and of contact between the various partners.
The programmes of budgetary adjustment, as I have said and as I repeat, must be credible and socially balanced.
There should be no attempt to oppose budgetary stability to jobs, or budgetary stability to social welfare.
I think that if budgetary stability is pursued, it is really also, and sometimes above all, to safeguard the future of our systems of social protection.
Last comment on the policy mix.
I think that, for a number of months now, it has been patently obvious that the effort which has been made in terms of economic policy has permitted a relaxation of monetary conditions in Europe and that interest rates in Europe have not been so low for a number of years.
The savings which result from this, in terms of billions, for European economies, are considerable.
Policy mix is a good thing, but the relaxation of monetary conditions is only and will only be possible if budgetary consolidation is sufficient.
This appears to me to be an essential element for the future.
Mr President, we have millions of unemployed people.
That is a problem and I think the most important thing is to give these people work again.
Can we in fact assume that the lack of convergence criteria and lack of a single currency are largely responsible for the unemployment we see today? Is that a major cause of it?
Secondly, is it reasonable and possible to reduce the timescale from 1999 to 2002?
Mr President, for several months, we have been watching in the European Union a real race to meet the targets set by the Maastricht criteria, that is, to fulfil the conditions, considered draconian by some economists, for passage to the single currency according to the dates set.
Events of political life bear witness to it every day, such as the recent alarm sounded by Germany, or the reasons put forward by the French government for the dissolution of the National Assembly, and we have witnessed permanent debate on the timetable for Monetary Union.
Without wishing to question the argument for the single currency, we can nevertheless note, in order to deplore it, the very prejudicial effect on European economies and the use of stringent plans implemented by the Member States, to the point that it seems that the priority given to the reduction of public deficits in accordance with the criterion of Maastricht, to mention only one, prohibits any economic renewal, holds back growth and annihilates any effort towards the creation of jobs.
What really positive, immediate measures can the Commission advocate to tackle the catastrophic social situation in the European Union while maintaining unchanged, that is with no flexibility, the priorities inherent in making the single currency a reality? In the relentless pursuit of stablisation policies, does the Commission not glimpse the danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater?
These are ready-made formulae.
I believe I have already answered this question by saying that it is certainly not, today, by kick-starting the economy, by carving out even greater public deficits, by increasing the number of jobs in public services, by increasing useless expenditure, by increasing the number of civil service posts, by increasing everything which is not productive, that the problem of unemployment will be sorted out, because if we followed your analysis, Sir, it would mean that tomorrow it would be our children who would have to foot the bill for the errors committed by such policies.
Commissioner, since Thursday, as you know, in Italy there has been talk only about Commissioner de Silguy's figures and in particular this 3.2 % which would put Italy in a corner, while many other international institutions list the same figures for other countries, one of which you know very well and which is facing an election campaign after which nobody knows what sort of policy will be pursued.
So, the first question I would put to you is this: why this possible difference in approach?
My second question, on Italy in particular, is: what, therefore, is the background reason which makes you doubt the Italian programme? Would it be problems with the structures behind the government's efforts which are not satisfactory to you?
Mr President, a little earlier you called me to order because I had perhaps been rather long answering Mr Imbeni on the same question, so I shall be brief.
There is no difference in approach between Italy and the other Member States in the work carried out by the departments of the Commission as far as the predictions are concerned.
Secondly, I am prepared to support the comparison, with the results in my hand, on the predictions made by the Commission and by the other international institutions.
Generally, experience tends to prove us right.
There is no difference in approach.
Once again there are differences in analysis at the same time on the impact, in 1997, of the finance laws which were adopted at the end of 1996.
There is also a difference in terms of growth.
Furthermore, there is a difference in terms of total quantitative efficacy over the year of the measures which are being taken by Italy today.
But, once again, the levels of difference between the Commission and Italy are extremely small.
I will only take one example so as not to prolong the debate.
Regarding inheritance tax, the Italian government thinks that, in 1997, as the legislation has changed, revenue will be 50 % higher than it was last year.
I think this is perhaps a little excessive.
I could take one or two other examples like that.
But the important thing, I seems to me, is not to question the Commission's credibility, nor to try to put pressure on the Commission, because you would affect the institution, it is rather to consider once again that the Italian effort is an effort without precedent in 1997, in the stabilisation of public finances.
I think it is that above all else that I remember, myself, from the Commission's predictions.
Commissioner, concerning the persistence with the guidelines on reducing inflation even further, when you accept that it is already down to 2 %, I will read you a comment in your own language from today's Le Monde:
A less ambitious target for inflation would be compatible with a more satisfying growth rate and would favour the necessary reduction in unemployment....
That passage, Commissioner, is taken from the report of the International Monetary Fund.
Would you not agree that we can give up chasing even lower inflation and implement the monetarist dogma with a trifle less inhumanity towards Europe's workers?
Mr Katiforis, there are some dangerous slopes which it is better not to chance.
In particular, regarding inflation, I do not think that just because we have controlled it in an appropriate manner for a number of years, its ghost has disappeared definitively from the European Union.
I think we should remain very vigilant.
Secondly, inflation is still at 2 %.
Our target of 2 % is not at all incompatible with, or in contradiction to, our figures regarding employment and what we should do with respect to the fight against unemployment.
I think when all is said and done that we must continue to keep on course, if we want, indeed, to ease the conditions of monetary policy in order to make the policy mix more flexible.
We must not start to get involved in policies which involve playing with fire and reintroducing price rises or inflation into the economy, when one never knows how this kind of policy is going to end up.
Thank you very much, Mr de Silguy.
Illegal and harmful material on the Internet
The next item is the report (A4-0098/97) by Mr Pradier, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the communication from the Commission on illegal and harmful content on the Internet (COM(96)0487 - C4-592-96).
Mr President, the electronic communications network, like the language of Aesop, is the best and the worst of instruments.
However it is necessary to take into consideration the explosion in its use, because, in less than five years, several million citizens have connected themselves up to it.
Very great importance should be attached to the very quantity of information circulating on it, as several hundred thousand sites can be consulted simultaneously.
The quality of this information and this data must also be taken into consideration, since the data is scientific, technical, literary, artistic, commercial, financial, political too, and we will have to talk about that again, and personal.
This development has given rise to two major consequences.
First of all, lack of familiarity with the tool of the electronic communications network has led the anxious, the fearful, to advocate a directive, normative, and even repressive attitude, and often technically ill-adapted solutions.
Secondly, before such possibilities, the lawbreakers have moved more quickly than the good and the list of infractions of national and international laws is considerable.
There is trafficking of all kinds, in humans, of course, in arms, ammunition and drugs.
Furthermore, even exploitation of the credulity of the most fragile elements of the population is expressed commercially, politically, in relation to beliefs, developing all sorts of obscurantism.
Finally and especially, the most fragile element which we must protect is children, whether they are the target of unacceptable messages, or whether they are taking part, which is even more unacceptable.
Under these conditions, the protection of rights causes us to think.
In any case, when one right is sacrificed to protect another, both are lost irredeemably, make no mistake.
A few simple principles should guide our action.
First of all, freedom of expression, which is an absolute right, subject only to rare exceptions enshrined in law.
Secondly, scrupulous respect for private life, and very specifically for correspondence, with electronic mail necessarily being strictly protected.
Recent events which have arisen in Belgium, where we are sitting, have aroused legitimate emotion, to which our Parliament has not been completely impervious.
Attacks on physical and mental integrity, rape, assassination, torture and illegal confinement, have sent shockwaves through even the institutions of this country.
We believe it is right not to give way to a collective ghoul which would have us believe that all the horrors of the earth are coming to invade business offices and middle-class homes, through computer screens.
We should protect and fight in an appropriate way the illegal and harmful content of the network.
There are two things to which we should give priority. Firstly, responsibility and, secondly, solidarity.
First of all, by favouring the establishment of a code of good conduct which has been freely discussed and implemented by all the active parties involved, that is, manufacturers, service providers, site operators and users.
The British model, in relation to this, should be a subject for our consideration and we should probably take our inspiration from it.
Because it is a working group which provides monitoring of the freely accepted regulation, and which also provides a hot-line for users to report serious violations.
This is an internal action which enables the offender to be tracked down and invited to withdraw the unacceptable text or images, and which reserves recourse to the police or the law as a last resort.
At the same time, it will be appropriate to make the user responsible for himself and his family, since it is possible to take action at the level of the family by using screening software, there being always a great temptation to blame institutions, businesses or governments, making out that they are responsible for misfortunes which we are all able and duty bound to avoid.
Madam President, my compliments to Mr Pradier on his excellent report.
The Internet is something which opens up many new opportunities.
Of course there are also many negative effects which we must counter as far as possible, certainly when it comes to protecting minors and human dignity.
But we must take care that our concern to fight these alarming phenomena does not take precedence over the attention we need to give to the cultural revolution of today and tomorrow which the Internet makes possible.
Regarding negative effects, it is most important that we should distinguish between things on the Internet which are undesirable and those which are illegal.
As far as things which are illegal and harmful go, the Internet brings nothing new compared with existing printed media.
The difference lies in the content of electronic information which is harder to police.
But those who use the Net, and the service providers, are easier to identify and far easier to identify than is the case with the present-day media.
The problems of identifying harmful and illegal content are made worse by the fact that the Internet knows no frontiers.
But on the other hand we must also bear in mind the right to confidentiality of correspondence as enshrined in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights.
Member States must not think that they can each regulate this sector individually.
This area can only be tackled supranationally, not only by the European Union collectively but above all at the level of the G7, United Nations, World Trade Organization and OECD.
International co-operation is the only way to prevent the creation of safe refuges from which anyone can pollute the Internet at will.
And the importance of self-regulation must also be stressed.
Mr Pradier rightly talked about setting up a code of conduct.
Legislative measures can only be a support in this area.
I would once again emphasize the parental role.
That is very important and merits special attention.
I am grateful to the Committee on Civil Liberties for having adopted virtually all the amendments put down by the Committee on Culture.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as this report emphasizes, the Internet is extremely important in terms of citizen participation in public life.
The primary purpose of the Internet is not to disseminate illegal and harmful material.
I think that needs to be stressed.
Nor does this material spring to eye immediately.
In fact people have to search for it.
At the same time such material is not just offensive but certainly justifies the need to take precautions.
In my view, the Commission's communication contains too few practical proposals and defers possible solutions to the distant future of global international agreements.
However, the report before us sensibly stresses that the European Union, as an economically strong and technically advanced region, can act as a forerunner in the world.
Going beyond the Commission proposal, I believe the following practical proposals in the report as very useful: the call for a clear sender-recognition code the requirement of minimum standards for service providers, own responsibility and liability for any material provided and liability for any unlawful content made available by thirdparty services if the carrier is positively aware of that content and if he is technically able to prevent its use.
Personally, I regard point 7, which calls for quality ratings for service providers, as problematic.
I believe this project is likely to fall foul of practical problems or that these will at least make things far more difficult.
That is all the more reason for us as Parliament to call for any viable measures to be implemented as soon as possible.
Madam Chairman, we are currently seeing revolutionary development in information technology.
The Internet is an indispensable part of this, particularly in terms of the spread of information.
But there are also destructive elements which must be opposed.
The European Parliament must follow carefully developments on the Internet, but must also be aware of its role, which is to support and facilitate the development of the information society, not to regulate it out of existence.
Mr Pradier's report is extremely perceptive in this respect.
It bases itself on the assumption that the Internet is difficult to regulate, but then complements this view with practical, tangible measures against illegal and undesirable material on the Internet.
When this subject was discussed in committee there were calls for a variety of regulations such as registration of Internet users and a ban on electronic encoding.
We could compare this with those who once wanted to destroy Gutenberg's printing press: there is fear and ignorance of all things new, and people like to think that the ideas of the past are also relevant to the present.
We must remember that the majority of people who use the Internet have good intentions, but there are also those with evil intentions.
Limiting free and global access to information through regulation of the Internet is like throwing out the baby with the bath water.
There are two remedies in the fight against those who use the Internet for evil purposes, that is to give the police adequate resources and to encourage self regulation on the Internet market.
The PPE group have proposed, and had included in the report, that the police must have adequate resources to investigate illegal activity which takes place on the Internet.
This is not a question of introducing legislation which encroaches on people's integrity but of providing resources in the form of knowledge and technical equipment to be able to take action against illegal behaviour.
There is a huge imbalance in terms of resources.
We have also proposed a European quality mark for those Internet suppliers who 'filter' the content of their services, all with a view to facilitating and encouraging self regulation.
In conclusion, I would point out that the Internet is a vital part of the developing information society.
Ten years ago nobody would have imagined such broad use of the Internet or the great range of information currently available.
Similarly, we cannot imagine what the information society will look like in a further ten years time.
The only thing we know is that the Internet has developed without any form of controlling regulation.
Don't let us suppress global 'networking' because of ignorance and fear of things new.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, I would like to thank Mr Pradier for his excellent report and Mr Pex for giving us the opinion of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
The information networks are in full expansion and a massive volume of images and information can travel the airwaves promoting the exchange of knowledge and freedom of expression in countries where it is not guaranteed.
Europe is increasingly beginning to dialogue via the Internet; unfortunately the governments of the Member States have some difficulty controlling it, unable to see the illegal and harmful messages sent over the Internet; furthermore, different States use different legal instruments to regulate national security, the protection of minors and human dignity, economic and information security, the protection of privacy and personal reputation, and even the protection of intellectual property.
So cooperation on law and policy is needed at European Union level and international level, based on new conventions and legal instruments, taking account of the principle of subsidiarity and safeguarding the principle of freedom of expression.
Measures are needed to limit the provision of services by controlling the material travelling on the net, making a fundamental distinction between illegal content, relevant to the legal sector, and content harmful to minors which is essentially relevant to the moral and cultural field.
This harmful content can be blocked through filtration software or, in the case of electronic mail, by using key words.
There is no doubt that both access providers and service providers are responsible for exchange of illegal information and material.
Finally, thanks to the Internet, a vast range of economic and cultural sectors are being transformed, and a range of new opportunities are offered to small and medium-sized businesses.
But these too can be used improperly, so to avoid such abuse it is urgent to adopt new measures and rules of conduct, encouraging self-discipline and promoting a European evaluation system, with educational and awareness campaigns for the public surfing the net, particularly aimed at parents so that they can educate their children.
Madam President, Mr Pradier, on behalf of the Liberal Group my compliments on this excellent report.
The Internet is a huge world-wide network of computers providing a picture of the information and thinking which exists in our society.
A unique feature of the Internet is that it is at the same time a medium for publishing and communication.
Consequently, whatever is illegal off-line is also illegal on-line.
Censorship of the Internet constricts freedom of expression without giving people real protection against illegal content.
Furthermore, censorship restricts the free movement of services in Europe.
One proof of that is the blocking by the German Internet service providers of the homepages of the Dutch Internet provider Access for All .
Companies offering their services via Access for All are being taken for a ride.
In the view of the Liberal Group, it is the politicians' job to encourage developments which make for a more democratic and open society.
So as legislators we should be cautious until greater experience has been gained of the Internet.
We don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water!
It goes without saying that child pornography and racist material are outrageous.
But a cross-border medium like the Internet requires cross-border legislation, starting at the European level.
Here too cooperation between Member States in the area of justice is vital.
Although there are no watertight guarantees, technology would seem to be the best way of keeping illegal material off the Internet, to protect minors.
My Group is in favour of that.
And there is no need for the government to take over from parents here.
The responsibility rests with parents themselves.
Madam President, I myself was one of the people affected by the blockade imposed against the provider Access for All , because my homepage containing information on Europe was no longer accessible to many German users of the Internet.
But thanks to a very simple measure, the simple announcement via the Internet that this blockade was in place, and I can tell you why it was put in place - it was put in place to stop German Internet users from reading the content of the publication Radikal which as you know is banned in Germany but not in the Netherlands. So it was disseminated in the Netherlands through the provider Access for All , though Access for All was of course not responsible for it, and one of its users had placed Radikal on his homepage.
In any event, the blockade was lifted promptly following the simple expedient of users world-wide making 'mirrors' and so publishing Radikal , so that there was no longer any point in the German providers cutting off these providers, because that messed up the Net for German users.
So it was counterproductive.
At the same time it is clear that it is not so easy to act.
Because something which is banned in Germany is not necessarily banned in the Netherlands.
Something regarded in the European Union as generally acceptable in terms of the criminal law is not regarded as generally acceptable in terms of the criminal law in the United States.
In short, even if we seek all manner of wonderful European solutions to curtail harmful influences on the Internet or keep illegal material off it we must bear in mind that different parts of the world may have different views and consequently it is no bad idea to try to regulate this at UN level.
Madam President, the opportunities which the Internet offers in the area of communications are unimaginable.
The first Internet users would have us believe that nothing but good could come of it.
The information superhighway would blaze a trail towards a new social order.
Since then it has emerged that the rapid growth of the Net has brought not only positive applications but also the ability to spread abhorrent information on a wide scale.
Once again there seem to be no grounds for an optimistic view of humanity.
What we see in the world we also see on the Internet.
Pornography, paedophile networks, drug pages and political extremism all contaminate the Net.
So there is no doubt that measures must be taken.
The national states will have to work for effective measures both individually and collectively.
The problem here is that there may be differences between national laws over the definition of illegal and harmful information.
One example is information on drugs, which may be freely available in some countries but banned in others.
It will also be difficult to make legislation on freedom of expression on the Internet different from legislation which already exists for other forms of communication such as the written word, TV and video, though the Internet can penetrate people's lives more easily.
So I am glad that, in addition to active efforts to prevent things which are illegal from being available on the Internet, ways are also being sought of keeping harmful things off the Net.
But I remain very critical about the generally accepted distinction being made between illegal and harmful content.
Child pornography is illegal, adult pornography is only harmful to children.
How about that for a contrived difference? As if pornography was harmless to adults.
The practice of sexual abuse of women and children, sex tourism and child pornography made for adults teaches us differently.
Self-regulation and personal responsibility must remain the priorities, but matters which are beyond individual human control must be governed by clear moral standards.
Madam President, as the recent two-hour warning strike by providers in Austria has shown, the subject of this report is highly explosive.
It is a matter of creating a balance between freedom of expression and cultural services on the one hand, and preventing illegal content such as loathsome child pornography and incitement to violence and hatred on the other.
Like all self-contradictory questions, this is a difficult one to resolve.
And in the case of the Internet there are also technical difficulties involved in monitoring the contents.
The question of liability on the part of access and service providers is a delicate one.
In our view this opinion strikes a sensible balance between the different interests without making too many demands on the providers.
Even though our group believes that the proposals set out in the report could be implemented through inter-state measures, we approve the substance of the report.
Madam President, we in the European Parliament have always agreed that the protection of human rights and fundamental rights must be the top priority in all social and political areas and that these principles must apply even when we face new social phenomena, which can be quite frightening for some people.
So our main yardstick must still be the protection of human rights when we consider harmful and illegal content on the Internet.
However, in the case of such illegal content, I also think it is essential for us to ensure that penal and other sanctions are applied in full through new methods of investigation and pursuit adapted to the Web.
It will certainly also be necessary to provide the police and criminal prosecution authorities with better resources to that end.
But nor can we, as some earlier speakers have pointed out, get round the need at least to establish minimum common criminal law norms in Europe, in order to create a good point of departure for global negotiations.
By its nature, the Internet and other computer networks will call for imaginative forms of self-regulation to combat any illegal and harmful content, and here I think the report is particularly successful and has proposed very suitable measures.
The producers of hardware and software, the providers, have just as much responsibility here as the families, the children and the youth organizations.
I believe that they alone can use the offered filtering software in such a way as to meet the differing cultural and educational family standards in Europe and really offer the families some assistance here.
To conclude, let me call on you once again not to forget the useful effects of the Internet on children and young people when we discuss illegal and harmful content - and the exhibition in the foyer of this Chamber gives a good picture of this.
Madam President, in an interview on this subject our rapporteur described himself as an old liberal - in the sense of old-fashioned - and not an excessive moralist.
I confirm that he has been liberal; he has certainly paid great attention to suggestions from colleagues on the committee and, called upon to deal with illegal and harmful content, he has rightly highlighted at the outset what an enormous revolution this is: the dream of a great planetary community exchanging knowledge through an intrinsically democratic device.
He is right, because President Clinton's social programme mentions two universal ages: the age at which American children should know how to read and write, and the age - twelve, I think - at which they should all know how to surf the Internet.
So it is a marvellous tool and, as an old liberal, our rapporteur tells us about the difficulties facing legislators required to regulate such phenomena. He tells us about the inadequacy of legal measures which threaten either to be window dressing which serves no purpose, or to diminish rather than increase freedom of expression.
The old liberal knows all this and, while he describes himself as not an excessive moralist, he knows and he states that we must address the issue of moral or ethical conduct if we are to prevent an instrument of freedom becoming an instrument of pornography, terrorism, incitement to suicide - as happened recently back home: all virtual, of course.
We must admit that this battle will not be won without a greater sense of responsibility and ethical conduct. Why else call for individual and family responsibility?
How else can standards of quality or a code of good conduct be set, what other basis is there for the regulations we hope to see? Even a multimedia police or cyberpolice will not be enough: we know how much time and money will have to be spent, and we also know how quickly a network can be re-established after discovery.
But I want to say, along with the rapporteur - whom I thank for this document - that we are all old liberals, seeking to understand the new frontiers of freedom and responsibility.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Bangemann, I am glad to see you here today, because the Industrial Affairs Council has also been concerning itself this week with the ongoing action programme.
I think this is an excellent opportunity of getting the Industrial Affairs Council to influence the various other Councils to take major steps in this area.
Looking at Mr Pradier's important report, we see that the Councils of Ministers have said they will take a number of steps, but I do not see all that much progress.
This is what worries me most.
On the one hand, we are supposed to have more co-operation in justice and police matters and, on the other hand, enormous efforts are to be made in the area of education so that the education system in turn can benefit from the opportunities afforded by communications.
This week both Commissioner Bangemann and I attended an excellent conference organized by Mr Donnelly to review those opportunities.
I should like to ask the Commissioner what his plans are in this area for the Industrial Affairs Council?
Madam President, I take a rather more favourable view than the last speaker of Mr Pradier's report.
I want to stick to the question of the Net and how it has changed our whole view of electronic communication.
My professional life has been in broadcasting and that in turn gave way to what in English is called 'narrow-casting' subscription cable and things like that, and there was the person-to-person communication via the telephone.
You could not leave messages for the generality on the telephone apart from leaving a rude message on your answering machine.
Now, however, every citizen is, potentially, his own bulletin board.
We are all websites now.
I would like to be able to take a robust first amendment position on this as has been upheld in the courts in the United States.
In that respect alone, I have some sympathy with what Mr Le Gallou has just said.
There is a danger of thought-police.
There is a danger that we may try to intervene where matters of opinion are concerned.
The dilemma before us today is not over matters of opinion but over matters of intrusion and what happens when people invade the space of others, bringing despair and threatening behaviour to their activities.
Technology cannot be allowed to take liberty by the throat.
Open media can be intrusive and the problem with the Internet today is that we have to find a way of dealing with the various segments within which its operations take place.
We all know that groups which indulge in sadistic and paedophilic practices mask their activities and hide behind other forms of identity.
We have to make sure that the access-providers as well as service and content providers recognize their responsibilities in this matter, firstly, for the identification of each service and secondly for the classification without which filtering will not be possible.
Filtering in itself will be for the responsible people who know a great deal about this system.
There are many other people at risk on the Net today and we have to be mindful of their needs as well.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Small and medium-sized undertakings
The next item is the joint debate on the following three reports:
A4-0104/97 by Mrs Torres Marques, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission on the craft industry and small enterprises, keys to growth and employment in Europe (COM(95)0502 - C4-0503/95); -A4-0034/97 by Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the integrated programme for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the craft sector (multiannual programme) (COM(96)0329 - C4-0490/96); -A4-0100/97 by Mr Garosci, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the coordination of activities in favour of SMEs and the craft sector (COM(95)0362 - C4-0120/96).
Madam President, Mr Papoutsis, ladies and gentlemen, today we are going to discuss what has to be Europe's main problem: employment.
We are always talking about the need to create employment for the 18 million unemployed people, which the European development model has created, without finding a solution, which results from the fact that this is a complex problem, and the need to develop multiple types of action and have a structural character.
The fact that we have not yet found a solution to this problem, which we know to be closely linked to the need for economic growth at a higher rate than that achieved in recent years, results from the fact that the policies pursued and instruments used have not so far proved to be the best-suited for creating jobs.
In 1995, there were about 16 million small enterprises in the European Union accounting for more than 40 million jobs.
In spite of all the challenges that small enterprises are facing today, such as administrative burdens, financing, training, transition to the information society, increasing competition, etc. they are the ones that create employment.
In the last five years, 60-80 % of all new jobs in the private sector have been created by small enterprises, the micro-enterprises being the most dynamic.
A survey published in 1996 under the patronage of the Commission demonstrated that whilst the average percentage of job creation in the 500 most dynamic SMEs was 158 % in the last five years, it was 1035 % in the enterprises with less than ten employees.
With a view to the situation on the labour market, all efforts should be made to ensure that the small enterprises and the craft industry can continue - and even improve - their contribution to job creation.
However, even recognising the important role of the craft industry and small companies in job creation, there is a manifest incoherence in Community policy when it comes to implementing actions and support programmes which are frequently of diminished value, delayed or suspended.
I am especially sorry that the Finance Ministries have yet to give the green light to European regulations guaranteeing loans for job creation, known as the ELISE programme.
So let us see what we expect of the Commission on this matter.
First of all, it should tell us what share of the Structural Funds - EAGGF, ERDF and the European Social Fund - is really given over to SMEs and, in particular, to micro-enterprises.
After all, it is far easier for medium and large enterprises to find experts who know how to fill in the extremely complicated questionnaires presented to them by the Commission.
On the other hand, giving a lot of money to small projects calls for far less effort in terms of analysis and monitoring than giving a small amount of money to large enterprises.
This problem of filling in forms is a vital one.
I should like to know how many members of this Parliament, Commissioners or Ministers, confronted with a Community form, would be able to fill it in.
This is not hot air but I can actually give you examples of leading university lecturers or presidents of professional orders who have already told me about this and complained about the complexity of all of these forms.
After all, we say that we want to support SMEs and micro-enterprises.
So tell me then please, Mr Commissioner, what percentage of the Structural Funds is really given over to this type of enterprise, so that they can create jobs? Instead of creating jobs every year large firms actually sack hundreds of workers.
Is the Commission really willing to simplify the whole process of access to Community funds by small and very small enterprises and, in particular, the craft industry?
The second problem is one of credits and delay in payment.
We need a directive which puts an end to these intolerable situations in which people who do not need them receive loans while consumers and suppliers delay their payments in such a way that economically viable enterprises are made financially inviable. As the Commission itself admits, this means that 50 % of SMEs have a life expectancy of only five years.
The third problem is to do with the tax system, which penalises work and favours capital.
In all Community countries, the majority of those paying direct taxes are workers whereas others get off scot free.
Rules on VAT should be changed so as to make people want to work.
There should be a taxation and tax-related overhaul.
Is the Commission really willing to carry out such an overhaul?
And the final problem which I would like to put to you is to do with education.
The level of vocational education of most of our businessmen is very low.
That is why we really must give support where it is due, especially in remote regions or ultra-peripheral ones which also need support for marketing and exports.
We really must help young people and women in particular who make up two-thirds of all unemployed people.
We really must put an end to this hypocrisy: if the European Council and the governments in general are genuinely concerned about the problem of employment then they should give help to those who create jobs, in other words SMEs and micro-enterprises, the necessary means so that they can do this and increase their production and economic growth, something which the whole of Europe needs.
Madam President, it is too silly for words that we are only now discussing the integrated programme.
My first draft text was finished by the end of November 1996 and a full five months later we are discussing this report in the plenary.
Mrs Torres Marques's excellent report deals with a conference which took place in 1994.
So there are, to say the least, question marks as to the efficiency of Parliament itself.
Then we have the integrated programme.
It is good that the Commission is trying to take a consistent approach to all the SME initiatives it currently has onstream.
And the most important feature of the report is that it indicates, for each programme, who is responsible for co-ordinating that programme.
The Commission does not do this. After studying the Commission's communication I am still just as much in the dark as before about how each part of a programme is co-ordinated and by whom.
That is a pity, because a properly thought-out co-ordination plan would have been very helpful to all those involved and particularly small businesses at which after all the operation is ultimately aimed.
I only hope the special co-ordinating department which has just been set up within DG XXIII will be really effective.
My next point is this.
The integrated programme starts from the premise that small businesses must be helped primarily because they create jobs and so help to resolve the political problem of unemployment.
I have to admit that to begin with everyone involved with small businesses, myself included, was delighted with the high profile which this approach gave to small businesses.
But gradually I have had enough of it.
It is a way of looking at small businesses which does not do justice to the essential value and essential problems of this sector of the economy.
These firms are not different from others because they create jobs, but because their small size prevents them from benefiting from economies of scale.
And the ability to exploit economies of scale is precisely what characterizes the single market.
That is also the reason why we must fight hard at European level to defend the interests of small businesses.
Not because they are sad, not because they create jobs, but because their very nature prevents them from taking part in the single market.
Programmes for SMEs must be shaped with that idea in mind.
Not with the idea that these firms can solve our problem.
The inflexibility which politicians have brought to various areas of the market, for example the labour market, must be overcome by us as politicians and not dumped in the laps of small businesses.
Their programmes are made impossible by constant bureaucratic demands to preserve jobs.
In my report, rather than give another exhaustive summary of all the measures which should ideally be taken, as the Commission has already done, I confined myself to picking out the most important points.
Given that the Council decided to cut the budget for small businesses, my view is that the Commission must concentrate primarily on very specific projects.
I will mention some of them.
Simplification of the burden of bureaucracy on small businesses.
Making UIAPME a part of the social dialogue at last.
Today would seem to be a historic day in that regard, since as we speak UIAPME and UNICE are talking about how to solve this problem, and it has to be solved.
Improvement of the relationship between financial institutions and small businesses.
Preparation of small businesses for the introduction of the euro.
I will come back to that in a moment.
Support for small businesses in gaining access to the information society.
Encouragement for entrepreneurial endeavour and support for specific target groups, special attention to be paid to female entrepreneurs and their spouses working in the same small business.
And then, not least, the problem of succession in businesses.
The passing down of a business from one generation to the next.
In the European Union as a whole that costs 300 000 jobs a year and doubtless quite unnecessarily.
One final cry from the heart, Madam President.
I am not going to tell any more small businessmen that they must prepare for monetary union.
I think it is ridiculous that all manner of idiots in this Union keep rushing into print about whether or not monetary union is going to happen.
What we need is clarification.
If we are expecting business people to invest in a monetary union, the first provider of clarification must be the government which is asking them to do it.
I think that people like Mr Tietmeyer should keep quiet and small businessmen need to be told what is what.
Madam President, it is time we talked big about small businesses.
Jobs for our people in the EU and in Britain are at the top of our political agenda.
Getting jobs is our Holy Grail.
That is why we turn to the SME sector and, in particular to small firms which employ fewer than ten people.
Why? Because four out of five new jobs in the private sector have come from this unsung source.
What can the Commission and Parliament do to help provide jobs through small businesses in the European Union? I strongly support the Commission's third multiannual programme for 1997-2000.
The initiatives it contains are commendable.
However, at the top of the Commission's agenda should be the deployment of DG XXIII's slender resources to vet legislation and programmes which are brought forward by other directorates-general for their beneficial or adverse affect on Europe's small firms.
For example, there are the huge structural funds which are used to favour SMEs throughout the Union, including my constituency of Cheshire West and Wirral in England.
Happy as I am that an SME facility has been set up for Euro-Wirral, is such spending instigated, delivered and monitored by DG XVI or DG XXIII? Is it set against an established, comprehensive SME policy designed by DG XXIII?
I will welcome Commissioner Papoutsis to my constituency in July to witness helpful EU spending of SME funds in Ellesmere Port and on the Wirral.
In the meantime, he might like to ponder how EU labelling legislation can confuse and dismay small businesses if not properly explained and implemented.
There is a small chocolate manufacturer in Cheshire who rails against the big chocolate makers whose larger resources enable them to ride out problems which snag smaller fry.
We should always be sensitive to small firms' needs without, in any way, diluting the force of good consumer legislation.
Congratulations to our three rapporteurs whose reports form this joint debate.
I applaud Mrs Torres Marques' call to encourage a culture of risk-taking as part of education programmes.
We should, in particular, support the inculcation of the entrepreneurial culture in our secondary schools as well as in our universities.
Mrs Peijs rightly recognizes the distorting effect of differential VAT rates on Europe's small businesses.
Hotels and restaurants in the UK, for example, are disadvantaged from being competitive with their continental counterparts because they fail to qualify for VAT remission.
Following on this, Mr Garosci pertinently highlighted the tourism industry as a potent element of the SME sector.
It is very much to be regretted that the Philoxenia programme has been stalled but the Commission knows only too well that two of its babies in DG XXIII - SMEs and tourism - properly nurtured could grow into Europe's biggest job generators.
And jobs are what we want.
Madam President, the report discusses the second European conference in Berlin.
The basic aim was to issue recommendations to the Member States on how to make small and medium-sized undertakings more efficient.
But I think we should look mainly to the future.
Another conference of this kind is being held today and I believe it is urgently necessary to involve the European Parliament in the preparatory work of that conference and in setting its objectives.
At present Parliament is considering three important questions which are particularly important to small and medium-sized undertakings.
First, the SLIM initiative, which gives priority, among others, to simplifying the economic statistics, which are a major irritation for our SMEs; but it also concerns diplomas, for instance.
I think it is important for the future to look at means of cutting down on procedure so that if an undertaking has plans to expand, these can be implemented as quickly as possible.
The SLIM group is carrying out an important analysis here and perhaps the institutions could also consider involving the Economic and Social Committee more closely in this activity in future.
The second question the European Parliament is currently considering is the fiche d'impact .
This is a question of preventive action, i.e., of having slim-line and efficient legal provisions from the outset.
That is of course an urgent task for the European Parliament, which could clear the way by doing away with many provisions that subsequently become a burden for undertakings.
The third question we are currently considering is benchmarking.
Here the aim is to provide comparative facts on own capital resources, tax burdens and wage costs.
This objective approach is a quite central and important point.
Perhaps the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development would be the appropriate committee to do more work in this field, because benchmarking is particularly important for the regions.
We must also reinforce training and further training.
We should consider whether the resources currently available for LEONARDO are adequate.
Let me point out that calling last year the year of lifelong learning was a very important step because it raised people's awareness of the importance of lifelong learning and showed that learning can be an enjoyable pastime.
Research and development is an important area, not just product research but also market research.
We should also consider where small undertakings will find their markets in future.
Madam President, I very much welcome the report on SMEs and join with other Members in congratulating the rapporteurs.
When one takes into consideration that SMEs are responsible for up to 80 % of new jobs created over the past five years, this highlights the potential for job-creation in small to medium-sized industry and also the need for Parliament and governments to create the economic environment for their continued growth.
The fact that half the new projects fail within five years surely indicates that we have neglected to provide their promoters with assistance in the research, market development and management skills which are so essential for their survival.
Cash flow is also a problem for new industries.
However, we should not allow such a high failure rate to discourage us in our efforts to create new jobs in what has been a much neglected area up to now.
Neither should we forget that the failure rate and job losses in so-called large industry is much greater.
From my work in rural development and the number of new jobs created in programmes like LEADER and other Community-based enterprise schemes, I am of the opinion that in the past we have ignored the potential of our human resources, our people, to play a meaningful role in the generation of wealth.
As legislators, we have overregulated their lives and reduced their natural inclination to become entrepreneurs.
Time does not permit me to elaborate on the many aspects of SMEs which require our urgent attention, other than to say that SMEs should now receive greater priority in national and EU programmes for job creation.
Member State governments must put in place a favourable tax regime which will encourage and reward enterprise, bearing in mind that a tax concession which encourages enterprise is far more cost-effective than the payment of social welfare to the unemployed.
We must also assist in promoting marketing structures to cooperatives to enable small enterprises to compete and successfully market their products.
This should also be reflected in EU competition policy.
In conclusion, we should facilitate enterprises which create new jobs in rural areas, regardless of scale.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to highlight the importance of this debate which demonstrates the interest shown by both the European Commission and the European Parliament in SMEs, which are decisive for the proper operation of the European economy and have a major impact on levels of employment.
The three reports which we are examining in this joint debate and which the group of the European Liberal Democrats and Reform Party supports - with some reservations concerning the odd aspect, as we shall see later - deal with and expound a number of aspects which it will be impossible for me to discuss in detail in this short speech, but I should like to point out five of them, in particular.
First of all, the proposals made in the three reports show that we need greater coordination in the European Commission and, in particular, DG XXIII, and we hope that the creation of Directorate C will improve the level of coordination and the application of the European Commission's own actions.
Secondly, it is very important to revise, simplify and improve the fiscal treatment of SMEs, something that must also be applied to administrative treatment, as illustrated by a very graphic example by the rapporteur, Mrs Torres Marques.
Thirdly, we have still made no real progress on easier access to financing.
We have already pointed out the need to set up, for example, reciprocal guarantee companies, risk capital and even earmarking credits from the European Investment Bank, and once again we would like to ask for this, something which unfortunately has not yet been put into practice, despite the fact that we have already asked for this; well, now the rapporteurs are calling for it again.
Fourth, we must emphasise the importance of vocational training.
And finally, my fifth point, is that SMEs must be given easier and improved access to international markets.
Madam President, all the fine words about growth and tackling unemployment in Europe that we heard earlier on from Mr de Silguy will bring no practical result unless specific measures are taken immediately to support SMEs, and in particular small enterprises which, as the Commission itself has pointed out, are the seedbed of job creation.
In fact, craft and small enterprises have accounted for 60 to 80 % of the new jobs created in the past five years.
It should concern us, however, that the average survival time for SMEs is just five years.
The European Union is failing to put in place the measures that are needed to improve the environment in which small and medium-sized enterprises function.
The ELISE programme is still being blocked in the Council.
We have no illusions, of course, about the effectiveness of such isolated programmes in the overall context.
Even so, experience has shown that they do help.
Proper implementation of them could have a positive impact.
The Commission could implement the proposal on reducing VAT for labour-intensive SMEs as a growth incentive and to combat unemployment. It could look at specific measures to facilitate access by SMEs to the credit system on terms that take account of their special characteristics.
In the preliminary draft budget for 1998 it could make more money available for actions in this field.
The unwarranted exclusion of SMEs from collective bargaining and consultation procedures at the Community level must cease.
Madam President, we support the positive recommendations made by the three rapporteurs and the endeavours of Mr Papoutsis to energize the sector.
One has doubts, however, about the long-term prospects for SMEs and job generation when consumption is being squeezed so hard by the merciless austerity programme. And, of course, these enterprises are the first victims.
We feel obliged to express reservation, Madam President, about the effectiveness of the Union's policies which, as in the case of the employment problem, are most notable for producing a lot of talk and no practical effect.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think the question of small and medium-sized undertakings is often discussed from the wrong ideological perspective, as though it were a matter of finally achieving Adam Smith's utopia of a society of lots of small producers.
That is not the real issue.
Inspite of all our support for SMEs and inspite of all the Community's eloquent words we see a process of centralization everywhere, a process during which small and medium-sized undertakings are being forced into dependency on larger undertakings.
Here we need to introduce a specific programme that really takes account of the fact that the crafts, services and self-employment offer new job chances and that cannot and must not act as a breakwater for deregulation and the atomization of small firms but that enables them to benefit from the fact that there are regional economic links that work, benefit from the fact that innovation is also supported by setting the appropriate standards and targets.
In this sense - and looking also at the cooperative and alternative movements in our countries - we consider support for SMEs an important issue.
But that must mean giving real priority to environmental aspects, to economic independence, to improving working and living conditions and, above all, to the development of the local economy and its survival and efficiency, rather than to some utopia of small producers, to the idea that we have to increase the number of small firms in relation to the total number of firms, or whatever.
That is something we certainly regard as misguided.
On the whole, however, these reports tend in the right direction.
I would particularly like to thank Mrs Torres Marques on her useful report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, once again we are debating a subject which keeps appearing on our agenda in this assembly: the creation of employment and stimulating the activity of SMEs.
Sadly we have to admit that the effectiveness of the measures taken by European authorities to fight unemployment is inversely proportional to the time and effort dedicated to it.
For some twenty years now we have been unable to stop unemployment soaring.
There is no lack of explanations or reasons for this drama of continental proportions: the energy crisis, economic globalisation, technological progress and the demographic explosions, in other words we have plenty of explanations but still no jobs.
Fortunately, the countries of the European Union have been pioneers in the creation and maintenance of a system of social protection which protects people from poverty and abandonment and therefore has helped tens of millions of Europeans without jobs.
However, this system is being maintained at the cost of strong fiscal pressure which is making it increasingly difficult not only to create but also to preserve enterprises, especially the small enterprises in existence.
It is also a hard fact that the number of people wishing to set up business and create jobs is decreasing every year.
As far as this situation is concerned, everyone with anything to do with running public life in the European Union is responsible.
At municipal, regional, national and Community level there are more and more regulations imposing endless obligations on people who want to set up such an activity, and you almost need the intrepid spirit of a 15th century explorer to launch into the adventure of setting up an SME in today's European Union.
Perhaps the interventionism of the authorities has in many cases reached an excessive level.
We have sacrificed the spirit of enterprise to guarantee welfare.
Most of our youth have their eyes set on a job in the public administration, they all want to be the civil servants and, although we know that civil servants are vital for a properly run public administration, we have to accept that they do not create wealth.
In this rather wretched context, I would like to add that the proposals which we are discussing, and which my group will support, will not be enough to change things.
For example, it is an excellent idea to bring down VAT, especially for SMEs, and it is also an excellent idea to support cross-frontier cooperation or the training of apprentices and employees employed in craft industries, but in practice small enterprises are being ravaged by growing competition, increasing taxes and costly funding.
When interest rates go down, they go down for the powerful, for those whom the banks see as good customers, but these decreases in interest rates are never applied to small companies.
Large enterprises, not to speak of multinationals, always obtain better financial conditions, better access to markets and better support from the public institutions, which often compete among each other, offering huge incentives for large enterprises to set up business within their municipalities.
Against this background, the authorities must accept the idea of positive discrimination in favour of SMEs.
It is vital to relax the demands imposed on these companies and to reduce fiscal pressure, if we want these enterprises to have any possibility of survival.
Among the measures proposed, I would pick out three: reducing VAT, creating guarantee banks and changing the rules on awarding public contracts so that, whenever possible, priority is given to SMEs.
At the same time, we should bring down some of the barriers to the creation of enterprises and stimulate the development of an enterprising spirit among our young people.
Madam President, all good things come in threes, so we are told.
These reports by Mr Garosci, Mrs Peijs and Mrs Torres Marques on the small- and medium-sized business sector make it plain that the European Parliament is keen to shift European employment into top gear.
But unfortunately the engine is stuttering a bit.
Perhaps because it is starved of fuel, because the Council refuses to free up enough funds for the various SME programmes.
But that is not the main reason.
Mrs Peijs puts her finger on it when she points in her report to a lack of proper co-ordination.
EU programmes cut across national schemes and SMEs themselves are unable to find their way through the subsidiarity jungle.
We cannot blame the Council and Commission alone.
The European Parliament must not just play Father Christmas, but must apply itself to securing more simple and more transparent legislation.
Nor is education be the main villain of the piece, as Mrs Torres Marques would have it.
Risk minimization is not something taught at school, but a cultural and anthropological reality.
It would be rash to burn down the whole system of education just because of one finding.
In practice we see that people with a higher education often combine their careers with a small self-employed consultancy, or start up on their own later in life.
Consequently we should scrap recitals J and K from paragraph 12 of the motion for a resolution.
Creating more jobs is a noble endeavour, but not at the expense of the environment and natural resources.
A sizeable proportion of environmental pollution is created by small businesses.
The recent informal Environment Council debated this problem.
Will the Commissioner tell us what initiatives the Commission intends to pursue in this regard?
Good old Europe; the symphony plays on, more out of tune than ever.
There is assistance, but never enough: many small and medium-sized enterprises and craft businesses have never been helped. Aid application procedures are complex and discourage initiative.
Information is difficult to obtain and only the wellconnected few can get hold of it.
So many proposals and projects, but the reports and opinions are a waste of time and the objectives rarely achieved.
We wonder why 50 % on average of small and medium-sized firms go bankrupt in the first three years of business. Despite this, small and medium-sized firms represent 99.8 % of all Union companies and their ebullience stimulates them to create jobs and boost the economy of the whole of Europe.
On the other hand, many Member States consider this dynamism inexhaustible and have identified entrepreneurs as the one island for perpetrating the worst acts of piracy.
The Italian government has identified this island in Padania and hopes the patience and tenacity of Padanian workers and entrepreneurs will know no bounds.
The latest tax manoeuvre takes another 20 thousand billion out of businesses, forcing them to operate under a double tax burden.
If we want to save entrepreneurs, Member States must adopt unified procedures and provisions to prevent unfair or damaging competition.
This requires the greatest possible simplification of the letter and application of the complicated tax laws, putting the cost of money within the reach of new firms and firms courageous enough to regenerate themselves, investment in research and projects to stimulate and encourage research and, finally, involvement of young people through school so that work is not just a synonym for sacrifice but means collaboration and cooperation.
Madam President, colleagues, it has been calculated that if each small or medium-sized enterprise could recruit one extra employee, unemployment in the Union would be dealt with at a stroke.
There is something of a conflict between potential opportunities and exactions here.
How is it possible - as happens in a number of countries - to adopt such a bizarre approach as to impose on small businesses much the same bureaucracy and obligations as on large ones, for example employers' contributions, book-keeping, value added tax, accounts, audits, compulsory insurance and so on? As a result, the per capita administrative costs of a business employing five people can be just as high as those of a business with a staff of 100.
Mrs Peijs's excellent report quite rightly stresses the need to simplify the regulations applicable to small and medium-sized enterprises.
We need a Union programme to help SMEs to become networked in the internal market.
At the same time, marketing by SMEs should be facilitated, because it is difficult and expensive for small businesses, with their limited resources, to break into big markets.
The way in which taxes are levied is utterly misconceived.
At present, any enterprise which recruits a new employee is penalized for doing so.
Taxation is concentrated on labour, rendering it expensive.
But if an entrepreneur purchases a machine or an automaton, he does not need to pay any wages or any secondary labour costs.
This has led to a situation in which recruitment of people is penalized and the replacement of people with machines is promoted.
It is no wonder that the information society has brought high unemployment.
We absolutely must quickly shift the focus of taxation away from labour, for example to added value, turnover and capital.
This would promote labour-intensive enterprise and employment.
The question is, what does the Commission intend to do to bring taxation up to date in the age of the information society? That is really the issue at stake right now.
Madam President, a year or so ago in another debate on SMEs I quoted a slogan which says that SMEs are not big companies in pocket format, but have many features which are specific to them and they need a policy designed specifically for them.
The Commission acknowledges this specific identify of small businesses and that is a good thing.
But as yet it has not recognized the other reality, which is that by far the majority of firms are small- and medium-sized firms.
Current policy allows for the specific needs of small businesses by granting them derogations.
But a plethora of derogations makes for complicated laws and unfortunately does not always make life easier for the business world.
This is borne out by a Commission study of intra-Community transactions and the INTRASTAT and VAT obligations involved.
So I think there is an urgent need to stop regarding small businesses as irritating mavericks, forever wanting special treatment. Policy must be geared to the realities.
This means that small businesses must be the rule and not the exception.
The Maastricht criteria have forced governments to rationalize their budgets.
Let us now introduce the idea of small businesses as the norm in order at last to find solutions to all the various problems which previous speakers have mentioned.
If governments then show as much enthusiasm for the norm of the small business as we have shown for the Maastricht criteria, we shall be on the right road.
Derogations are good for dealing with minority problems, but when the exempted minority is in fact the majority it is time to change track.
Madam President, I agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, when she says that the Commission is brimful of good intentions but that when it comes to concrete measures, small businesses are all too often left out in the cold.
To be fair, we should say that there has been some progress in European policy on small businesses as a result, for example, of the EASDAQ facility for small businesses and the SLIM project.
But there are quite a few impasses, and I will name two of them.
Firstly, why are small businesses not involved in the social dialogue? Parliament has been advocating their inclusion for a long time.
Secondly, there is still too little being done to provide small businesses with easier access to sources of finance.
Commission and Parliament are enthusiastic supporters of the ELISE programme because of the powerful leverage it provides.
But what do we find? ELISE has been blocked for months now by the national governments.
Hence my question to the Council, but I fear that the Council is not here today, my question is this: when is this obstruction of the ELISE programme going to end?
Madam President, Commissioner, SMEs account for 70 % of employment.
Over the last five years, they have created between 60 and 80 % of the new jobs registered and are, I believe, a source of what must be a priority for the European Union: job creation.
However, they come up against a number disadvantages: administrative barriers, excessive red tape, a lack of participation in social dialogue, a lack of support for training and funding difficulties.
If the European Union really wants to foster SMEs it must make proposals which actually do something; above all, apart from small enterprises, there are also the small craft industries, whose fundamental function is also to preserve the cultural heritage, the traditional heritage of the peoples, and sometimes also the environment.
Therefore, we think it is fundamental to make a proposal, and the Commission really should bear in mind the difficulties which are currently facing small enterprises.
Madam President, we see, as the Commission recalls in its communication, the essential importance of SMEs in the European Union.
Firstly the number of them, since they account for 99 % of all businesses, then their economic power, since they employ almost 65 % of the Union's workforce.
Starting from this observation, in the perspective of a policy of employment and maximum growth, it was essential to grant SMEs a special place, in terms of interest and aid, and an attempt has been made to do this since the integrated programme of 1994.
This programme has now been extended by the 1996 programme, which takes up the same methodology again - multiannual programme, concerted action with Member States, other actions in favour of SMEs - but redefines the objectives in the form of five priorities: simplifying and improving the financial, fiscal and administrative environment, helping SMEs to internationalise, enhancing competitiveness and promoting entrepreneurship.
We consider this programme demagogic in the sense that it is obvious that it is necessary to consider the importance of SMEs in the European economic scene, but is this the best way to do it? Once again, a whole series of good intentions are talked about, but what SMEs need are concrete, effective and speedy measures.
Their strength lies in their flexibility and their ability to react to the needs of the market.
It is in this that I go along with the rapporteur, that is, that it is interesting to look at what SMEs lack.
But they are awaiting more concrete measures.
These are not large industrial groups, mindful of the macro-economic measures taken by Brussels, but small structures which struggle daily to try to reconcile on-going management, the conquest of markets and practical difficulties.
Now, what is the Commission proposing, and in particular in what form and how quickly, to face the structural shortcomings in equity capital of SMEs, the problems of management which they come up against? To meet the needs of SMEs, economic and monetary union, the need to educate and train in business culture or to create a common and simple VAT system are brought up.
Is this not provocation?
Let us start by removing their administrative, fiscal and social shackles at a local level, let us harmonise the VAT systems of Member States and let us create a stimulating fiscal environment which takes account of the particular nature of SMEs. Besides, that is all they are asking for.
It is easy to make grand declarations in favour of the creation of jobs by means of support for SMEs.
But suppose these measures were actually put in place, what would the real cost be? It seems to me that once again we are hearing about another abstract theoretical programme, tracing an observation, while many incidental questions relating to day-to-day management, far from receiving concrete answers, have not even been mentioned.
Madam President, at this time the European Union's main aim should be to boost employment.
But in the framework of globalization the SMEs will only be able to make promising jobs available if they are innovative in their activity.
Innovative activity involves, firstly, research and development.
Accordingly we must improve the aid measures here.
There is a range of different programmes, but at present it is still a jungle and they are not easily accessible to the SMEs.
Participation in the research framework programme is currently still quite inadequate.
We have to produce a package of aid that is specifically geared to the SMEs, both financial and legal aid, so that the SMEs can actually transpose their findings into products.
Here the question of intellectual property and patenting creates great difficulties.
The exchange of findings between small and medium-sized undertakings is not always a matter of course, because afterwards they very often have to compete among themselves on the market.
We should also consider whether it is not possible to administer and utilize the aid, the advice and also the money, including that under the framework programme, more decentrally.
Centralized advice only reaches those SMEs that are able and willing to come all the way here to obtain information.
I think it is our job to provide the information in the field.
Madam President, I must take this opportunity of complimenting Mrs Torres Marques and the other colleagues on their work.
The activities of the craft industry deserve more attention and support and I welcome the intentions of those people who are going to try and bring about the conditions so that this support can be given.
However, in all of these reports, there is link between the craft industries and small enterprises which could lead to confusion or ambiguity.
The activities of craft industries may - and in many cases do - have characteristics of a cultural nature, the respect and transmission of traditions.
They may be - and in many cases are - activities of resistance in which craftsmen continue to be very closely linked to their tools and means of work, and this is not always compatible with a business activity such as it is presented in these reports.
Therefore, while emphasising the positive aspects of these reports, I also wanted to make it quite clear that I refuse to allow them to be interpreted as mixing up certain independent activities carried out by tiny enterprises with the type of work characterised ironically as 'careerjobs' , or 'civil service' .
This alternative is completely unacceptable and we really should deal with the craft industry separately, as it deserves.
Madam President, the special quality and strength of the European economy lies in its structure, which relies so much on small and medium-sized enterprises.
But this small-scale structure also creates vulnerability and disadvantages in a world moving towards globalization.
Crafts firms and small firms often operate only on a local market, nevertheless they are fully exposed to the increased competition in the single market.
The Commission and the Member States must therefore do their utmost to promote systems of cooperation that will allow them to face up to this stronger competition.
Let me point out that the European tourist industry - a potential source of additional jobs - is made up to a large degree of small firms.
So any measures to support small and medium-sized enterprises are of long-term benefit to this major branch of the economy, which unfortunately still has no legal basis in the EU treaty.
Madam President, since I have to be brief let me just take up one point in Mrs Torres Marques' excellent report, which is specially important to Austria, namely the call for special support for small firms in frontier regions.
Firms in the most peripheral EU regions are particularly tempted to move abroad where things are cheaper, thus increasing the strain on the job market within the Community.
It is only the specific structure of these small firms, that are so important to the national economy, the close ties between families and between firms, love of country, cultural roots and the generally better quality of life that stop them from moving elsewhere.
This has quite significant social and cultural implications for the Union and for that reason alone we should provide substantial aid.
Madam President, everything has been said about small and medium-sized firms by now.
There is never a debate in the European Parliament about the huge employment crisis which does not favour consolidating already existing small and medium-sized firms and the possibility of creating new ones.
The three reports make the right points.
The Council of Ministers is determined to block any instrument Parliament approves, like the ELISE programme to promote forms of credit guarantee for small and medium-sized firms.
There is a need to cut bureaucracy, and simplify administration and tax procedures; there is a need to promote access to innovation and to Community policies for small and medium-sized firms.
I could continue but I risk repeating things that have already been said.
I would just like to make one point: very small firms, individual craftsmen, are weak in the world market; they cannot make it.
But when they are part of a positive local context made up of networks of relationships and positive service policies, craftsmen and small and medium-sized firms become factors of competitiveness.
Here I would particularly stress the demand for action from the Commission and the Council of Ministers to put small and medium-sized firms in a position to compete in the market with everyone else.
From this point of view the policy of real services is about strategic choices which promote training and internationalization. It is a policy of real services to encourage small firms and craftsmen and put them on a par with other companies in Europe.
Madam President, allow me first of all to thank the three rapporteurs, Mrs Torres Marques, Mrs Peijs and Mr Garosci, for their splendid work.
Concerning the report of Mrs Torres Marques, I can assure the House that we intend to respond to the call for the introduction of measures in favour of the craft industry and small enterprises.
From what has been said today it is quite clear that everyone agrees on the need for coordinated measures to promote their growth and competitiveness.
As the rapporteur herself emphasized earlier, that is essential if they are to contribute to the increase of employment.
I agree also that training and education systems have an important role to play in creating a spirit of initiative, responsibility and entrepreneurship.
The Commission has had wide-ranging discussions with the bodies of the sector in preparation for the Third European Conference on the Craft Industry and Small Enterprises scheduled for Milan in November.
Craft industries and small enterprises need to be able to turn to intermediate bodies such as their professional associations and cooperatives for help in meeting the challenge of new developments in Europe as they occur.
The Commission will shortly be publishing an invitation for the submission of proposals with a view to providing support for European initiatives embarked on by such bodies.
This invitation will offer opportunities for the promotion of high quality plans, and in particular plans involving young entrepreneurs and women entrepreneurs who wish to become active at the European level.
As regards Mrs Torres Marques' question concerning the involvement of the Regional Fund, I can tell her that on average about 10 % of the total resources of the Fund are disbursed specifically for measures designed to activate and improve the economic environment as it affects SMEs exclusively.
That percentage is even higher in the Objective 2 areas, in the areas which are in industrial decline, that is to say, and in the Objective 5b areas, the rural areas, where the average is between 15 % and 20 %.
As regards the report of Mrs Peijs, I welcome its support for our efforts to improve the coordinative role of the Directorate General for Enterprise Policy.
When Directorate General XXIII was restructured in April of 1996 a new unit, with the principal task of promoting coordinated actions, was set up.
Our main goals are the improvement of access to other Community programmes and more effective coordination with related horizontal Community policies.
We are moving in exactly the direction that Mr Quisthoudt-Rowohl has urged.
The Council also, for its part, has requested the Commission to submit a recommendation on ways of improving the access of SMEs to the Community programmes.
I believe that we are now ready to offer a specific follow-up to that request for the coming twelve months, for the coming year.
Unfortunately, time does not allow me to elaborate on the particular points of Mrs Peijs' resolution.
However, Madam President, I would like to inform you that in general terms I agree with her recommendations, and I hope that the House will give her report its undivided support.
Permit me, however, to emphasize three factors.
First, I completely agree with rapporteur that the big challenge is the single currency, the euro.
I can inform you that the Commission has a number of initiatives in mind with a view to helping small and medium-sized enterprises to prepare for the major challenges that lie ahead with regard to the use of the euro and, at the same time, to prepare their relations with the banking system.
Second, in connection with a point that many speakers, among them Mr Paasilinna, Mr Gonzáles and Mr Hyland, have focused on, namely the importance of establishing a fair taxation regime for SMEs, I can tell you that the Commission is preparing a new system of value added tax for the single currency which we believe will also be of benefit to small and medium-sized enterprises.
The introduction of the new system is scheduled for 2002, but there may well be some delay.
The Commission proposal for the specific legislation is still at the preparatory stage, but we expect to submit it within the first half of this year, by the end of June, that is to say.
However, the negotiations with the Council, on this matter too, will obviously be extremely difficult.
The Member States have strong reservations because in the new system they will be much more reliant on each other than at present, and, as you know, the Council is always extremely cautious on taxation matters.
Third, as regards tourism.
You will be aware that I attach great importance to the development of tourism.
Small and medium-sized enterprises which are active in tourism have benefited from measures included in the integrated programme in favour of those enterprises.
In the next annual report of the observer on SMEs there will be an assessment of the particular situation of small and medium-sized enterprises which are active in the tourism sector under a special heading.
Turning now to Mr Garosci's report, I can say that I believe that the 1995 report of the Commission on the coordination of activities in favour of SMEs and the craft sector provides a complete picture of the Community's horizontal measures for these businesses.
This report is an important tool for the coordination of the Community's activities and programmes.
And, as I said when making reference to the report of Mrs Peijs, the Commission has set the coordination of the Community policies as one of its highest priorities.
We do, therefore, intend to strengthen this dimension of our policy even further, and I welcome the European Parliament's support for this broad objective.
Coordination of the Community's activities has a twofold purpose: to include the SME dimension in the formulation and implementation of Community policies, so that better account can be taken of the particular characteristics of these enterprises, and, as Mr Rübig has urged, to increase the actual level of participation of SMEs in the programmes.
Madam President, we are indeed endeavouring to simplify the administrative procedures. As Mr Paasilinna emphasized so very clearly, so very eloquently, that must be one of our principal objectives in all of the Member States.
I can inform you that only today the Commission adopted a recommendation to the Member States on the simplification of the administrative environment for business start-up; on the simplification of the environment, that is to say, in the very early stages when activities are being commenced and new SMEs are at their most vulnerable.
Training, as Mr Gonzáles Álvarez has stressed, is another fundamental parameter with regard to the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises.
That is why we have paid particular attention to the training of management personnel.
And another central aspect, for both small and medium-sized enterprises and the craft sector, is international cooperation.
In addition, our efforts must be targeted on achieving better access for small and medium-sized enterprises to standardization activities and certification systems.
You have quite rightly placed great emphasis today on the access of small and medium-sized enterprises to finance, and have proposed further development of the SME facility to include subsidized loans for job-generating SMEs.
As you know, the Commission has already proposed an extension of this mechanism. Unfortunately, the proposal did not win the support of the Council.
I share your disappointment, as expressed by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, and I fully understand the importance that Parliament attaches to the matter, as pointed out by Mr Filippi.
Like you, we are disappointed with the Council's refusal to approve the ELISE loan insurance proposal.
However, funding is the very lifeblood of SMEs, so the matter will not go away for long.
I believe that the results of the Round Table of Banks and SMEs are important.
The round table report makes mention of a wide range of best practices which can be adopted by the European Union as a whole. It also contains specific recommendations for improving the access of SMEs to financing.
I can also inform the House that work has been completed on a report on the SME capital market.
The report examines the main obstacles to the growth of the SME capital market and will be approved by the Commission very shortly.
The Commission itself is willing to devise schemes to provide small and medium-sized enterprises with better access to the financing that they need for growth.
I agree totally with Mr Gasólina I Böhm on this matter, and I have requested our services to look for new additional initiatives that can be put in place.
I hope that in the coming months we shall see the results of the preliminary draft evaluation in connection with start-up capital funds.
I can assure you that I shall endeavour to ensure a good follow-up and specific action in this area.
Another important aspect that you have touched on is improved participation by small and medium-sized enterprises in the European Management and Audit System in regard to the environment, the EMAS.
In the autumn of 1996 the Commission set up a trial, a pilot action, in the environmental audit field, called Euromanagement, with the principal objective of helping 500 to 700 SMEs to integrate the new environmental management requirements into their operations and, also, to help a smaller number of SMEs acquire the eco-audit label.
This constitutes a sincere effort on our part to promote the aspects referred to by Mr Wolf.
I must say that I am pleased by the emphasis that Parliament has placed on the need for direct representation of small and medium-sized enterprises. This objective is encompassed in the new multiannual programme for SMEs and the craft sector.
I can tell you also that our services have already begun the preparation of our next report, which will provide more recent data.
These reports will be compiled every two years and will focus on the progress that is being made on including the SME dimension in all of the Community's policies and programmes.
Madam President, in finishing I would like to restate the Commission's strong commitment to the promotion of the interests of SMEs in all of the Community's policies and programmes.
In that regard the views and recommendations of this Parliament are very positive and very constructive, and I promise that we will consider them very carefully.
And permit me, of course, to agree with Mr Thyssen's final assertion concerning the need for the Member States to make coordinated efforts to support their SMEs just as they are striving to achieve economic convergence.
If that is done I believe that we shall see a significant strengthening of the presence of these enterprises in the economy.
Madam President, I wish to thank Mrs Peijs, Mrs Torres Marques and Mr Garosci once again for their reports.
I would also like to thank all of you for your efforts to help small and medium-sized enterprises and for your continuing support for the Commission and the excellent cooperation that has so far been achieved.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Adjustment of the financial perspective
The next item is the report (A4-0135/97) by Mr Tillich, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the adjustment of the financial perspective to take account of the conditions of implementation (submitted by the Commission pursuant to paragraph 10 of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993) (SEC(97)0364 - C4-0111/97).
Madam President, the Tillich report is bone dry, I agree, but frankly its importance is such that there is no excuse for this debating chamber to be virtually deserted.
This short report by Mr Tillich hides the fact that its gestation has been frankly laborious, as well as alarming.
What seems to be beautifully simple, given the presentation by the rapporteur, was drafted in an environment of extreme tension between the two arms of the budgetary authority, tensions which were very different from those which usually arise in serious negotiations between the Council and the Parliament on budgetary matters.
During one part of the negotiation, a majority of the Council tried to impose its criterion on the European Parliament without giving any reason, demonstrating an attitude which, if I were not watching my tongue, I would refer to as blackmail.
May I repeat what the rapporteur said and remind you of the situation: in accordance with the Inter-institutional Agreement of 1993 - a subject on which I was rapporteur - the Commission is meant to make the necessary proposals to adjust the financial perspective at the beginning of each budgetary exercise.
On one hand, on the basis of Article 9, it must notify any adjustment of the agricultural guideline and the amount of the other categories of expenditure in ratio to the change in GDP and prices.
This is a technical and automatic adjustment and the budgetary authority must be forced to accept it.
On the other hand, here I come to the heart of the matter, on the basis of Article 10 of the Inter-institutional Agreement, it must propose an adjustment to credits for Category II, the structural expenditure, in accordance with its execution so that unused appropriations are not lost.
Since 1989, i.e. since the first Inter-institutional Agreement, this has been carried out without any major problems.
However, this year the modest transfer of 562 million ECU from 1996 to 1999 did not obtain the initial go-ahead from the Council, which wanted to add 1, 000 million incorporated in Category II for 1998.
This is a curious way of proceeding, because it set it at one thousandth of the maximum amount expected for payment credits for 1999, but also used a mechanism which was designed to recover non-executed appropriations or, in other words, to announce a non-execution at a time when there was a threat of violation of the political-budgetary agreements reached in Edinburgh.
In the light of this, the Commission has presented a new proposal for a compromise which we can accept - and which we are going to vote for - in order not to lose the 562 million ECU earmarked for the more explicit machinery of solidarity and fighting unemployment in the Community budget.
However, as the rapporteur has pointed out, this cannot be a precedent and I should like to add that only good political will is preventing us from considering this procedure as a covert revision of the financial perspective.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Budgets fully supports, almost unanimously, the proposed compromise as the lesser of two evils.
The Socialist Group will support the rapporteur, whom it congratulates on a difficult task well achieved, emphasising that we would like to see appropriate payment credits earmarked, focusing on operations in Objective 1 and 2 areas, as the rapporteur also suggests.
But we do have questions.
Why has this been so complicated?
If we recall that the decision on those who are to be part of the 'euro club' should be taken on the basis of 1997 figures, what political or economic balances are endangered by the famous billion ECU from 1998? Is there any country which might see its fulfilment of the Union Treaty mechanisms on excessive deficits put at risk?
None at all. It is not national finances, including co-funding, which could put in danger the fulfilment of convergence criteria, because we are talking about thousandths of points of GDP.
We are witnessing a rather hypocritical exercise, ladies and gentlemen.
When the European Parliament committed itself to an austerity budget policy, for a budget which represents less than 2.5 % of the Member States' public spending and only 1.2 % of the Union's GDP, what is this war all about? It is the richer countries which most openly admitted, in the Council of Ministers, that they were unwilling to execute the Structural Fund.
Perhaps we should change our minds over who can benefit from these funds, but there is no doubt that we should do something about these credits which are designed to reduce the gap between the richer and poorer in the Community and to fight against unemployment.
To postpone them, as the Council is proposing, would only make the problem worse.
That is why, ladies and gentlemen, we socialists, fighting for a fairer Europe and for a more effective policy of solidarity, are going to support this compromise measure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the difficulties which the Commission's original proposal met along the way are a very clear example of the difficulties which are going to crop up in the budgetary debate over this year.
Tomorrow, the European Parliament is going to approve a Commission proposal on adjusting the financial perspective which is different from the one originally presented by the Commission.
This proposal is the only one that seems to have reached a certain degree of consensus, a sufficient consensus in the Council - and I say 'seems' because, as the rapporteur, Mr Tillich said, we shall still be in doubt until tomorrow.
If this consensus is not finally reached, there will be a major inter-institutional conflict in which the Parliament will have to support the Commission against the Council, all of this just a fortnight away from the presentation of the preliminary draft budget presented by the Commission for 1998.
A favourable vote by the European Parliament should not conceal the fact that it is not the ideal solution nor is it the only one possible.
We note a reduction of 500 million ECU in the amount of credits earmarked for 1998, an amount transferred to 1999 on the basis of a statement by the Commission, which says that it will not be possible to execute more than 600 million ECU in the 1998 budgetary year.
In any case, we think that the Commission has done everything possible to solve an impasse in the Council which could have made it impossible to fulfil the obligation of honouring the agreements reached in Edinburgh.
Mr President, honouring agreements and guarantees for fulfilling agreements reached within the European Union is the very cement of our credibility and the vital pillar for our political co-habitation.
From this point of view, we accept the Commission proposal in that - and this should be made very clear here - the genuine political debate will come about when we see what the Council makes of the Commission's preliminary draft budget.
The vital agreement on the growth percentage for the 1998 budget, compliance with signed agreements remaining fully in force and maintenance of the figures for payments credits, will very much condition the possibility for the three institutions to reach an agreement over the budget.
Furthermore, the European Parliament must accept that it will have the final say on non-compulsory expenditure in Category II and that it should negotiate for all it is worth on Category I. All I have to do now is congratulate Mr Tillich, the rapporteur, once again on his openness to agreement and compromise.
I think that the Council should cooperate more with the rapporteur and not make his task more difficult than it actually is.
Finally, I hope that the vote tomorrow will bring together more members of the European Parliament than are present here today.
In any case, I hope that the absence of the Council is due to the fact that its representatives are taking a very close look at this latest proposal put by the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Stanislaw Tillich's report on the adjustment of the financial perspective has come at just the right moment to illustrate the brief debate we had earlier with Commissioner Yves-Thibault de Silguy on respect for the convergence criteria, putting before us on the very same day what is a real textbook case.
If we carry over to 1998 the whole of the billion Ecus unused in 1995 and already carried over to 1996, and not used once, we are increasing Heading II of the European Union budget for next year by more than 6 % and we are setting a very bad example of our willingness to respect the convergence criteria.
The reason for this is simple.
By obliging net contributors to contribute from their national budgets the billion in question starting in 1998, we would be showing that we give little credence to the concept of durability, by this giving the feeling that, for our House, only 1997 counts.
That does not seem to me a good policy.
On the other hand, carryover of the whole of the credit to 1999, creates unconcealed and particularly intense emotion in the countries which are the principal beneficiaries of the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds, specifically Greece, Portugal and Spain, who can, quite rightly, express doubts about the genuine willingness of Member States to respect the programming agreement for the period 1994-1999.
The South could find evidence in this to illustrate the evil designs which are sometimes attributed to the countries of the North.
Commissioner Liikanen, who has demonstrated great wisdom on the subject, has arranged things with Chairman Samland such that a transactional solution will be found.
It is this proposal which is the subject of the report by our colleague Mr Tillich and which, I sincerely hope, will have the agreement of the qualified majority of our House and of the Council.
Indeed, it seems to me that 500 million in 1998, which actually generates a saving of 300 million in payments for the same year, and a commitment of 1.62 billion for 1999, is a good solution with, the same year, recuperation of the difference in payments.
So it is that on behalf of the UPE Group I can announce our support for this report, but it seems to me all the same that because of the size of the sum and the sensitivity of the heading, precise indications must be given at the time of the definitive vote for the 1998 and 1999 budgets.
And I share the opinion of Jan Colom i Naval: a sum of one billion Ecus deserved a Chamber which did not look like a desert.
Mr President, the budget transfer under consideration is based on two proposals.
The Commission proposed in March that ECU 545 million which had been saved from 1996 should be transferred to 1999.
In addition, the Council has proposed transferring ECU 1 billion from 1998 to 1999.
If both proposals had been adopted, it would have resulted in an accumulation of Structural Fund commitment appropriations in the last year of the programme period.
This would have caused major problems for those responsible for implementing regional and structural policy.
It was therefore sensible to divide the ECU 1 billion transfer into two and spread it between the last two years of the programme period.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Tillich, on his good work.
The transfer of Structural Fund commitment appropriations now under consideration is already the third in this programme period.
Altogether, ECU 4.3 billion has been transferred to a later year - a sum which can only be described as substantial.
More than 18 million people are unemployed in the EU, and unemployment continues to rise.
In addition, regional disparities are growing in many Member States.
Regional and structural policies therefore face greater challenges than in the past.
The blame for the under-use of Structural Fund appropriations can of course be laid at the door of the Member States, but the EU cannot entirely evade responsibility here either.
An enormous and complex bureaucracy has been established to administer the Structural Funds.
Another obstacle is the strict rules governing the Structural Funds.
The requirement for projects to be innovative is often excessive, as is the slowness with which investment is supported.
These shortcomings can paralyse otherwise rational projects.
If regional and structural policies were viable and effective, this would be reflected in competition for EU Structural Fund resources.
Regrettably, this is not the case at present.
Fortunately, however, this transfer does not eliminate resources, so that it deserves support in all respects.
Mr President, we shall not be opposing the adjustments to the financial perspective, concerning structural actions, as they stem from the modified proposal by the Commission.
It seems to us to be a fairly balanced proposal, in particular as compared with the all-out position, which was unacceptable and really amounted to blackmail on the part of the Council.
It does enable us to recover the 562 million ECU which have not been executed and it also makes it possible to make these adaptations gradually over time.
From our point of view, it is also possible to accept the suggestion made by the rapporteur, a suggestion made by myself, according to which guarantees will be made for the full inclusion of these appropriations in the budget, including the payments for the years 1998 and 1999.
I cannot conceal certain worries, however.
Despite the well-founded reasons of a technical nature, this adjustment cannot be separated from options of a political type.
First of all, that of consolidating budgetary contention which is something we do not go along with.
Secondly, as I mentioned in my opinion on this matter, because this confirms the tendency for excessive concentration of budgetary appropriations of structural actions in the final years of this Community support framework.
And this is no accident.
Apart from other aspects, this situation is very closely linked to the guidelines and measures which are being adopted at Community level with that objective in mind, but on a different pretext.
But these are aspects which we shall have to leave for a future debate.
Obviously there will be plenty of opportunities for that.
However, for the reasons I have already mentioned, we shall be going along with this adjustment to the financial perspective.
Mr President, under paragraph 10 of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993, the Commission presented a proposal to Parliament and the Council for the adjustment of the Financial Perspective to take account of the conditions of the implementation.
The proposal was to transfer to 1999 the allocations for the structural funds and the Cohesion Fund which were not used in 1996 - a total of ECU 562 million.
During the preparation of the preliminary draft budget for 1998, it has emerged that with the transfer of ECU 1 billion of commitment appropriations from 1995, decided upon in 1996, the allocations foreseen for structural operations for 1998 exceeded the requirements.
The excess of available allocations in relation to implementation capacity would be about ECU 500m.
The Commission has therefore decided to amend its original proposal.
In addition to the transfer of ECU 562m from 1996 to 1999, the Commission also proposes to transfer ECU 500m from 1995 to 1999.
The adoption of the amended proposal would secure satisfactory implementation of the programmed expenditure.
It would actually facilitate full budgetization before the end of 1999 of the allocations for the structural funds provided for the period 1993-1999.
I wish to congratulate Mr Tillich for his very good report and also thank Parliament for its good cooperation on this issue.
Finally, I have just received the news that COREPER has also accepted this proposal this evening.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Safety regime for fishing vessels
The next item is the report (A4-0068) by Mr Le Rachinel, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(96)0255 - C4-0255/96-96/0168(SYN)) setting up a harmonized safety regime for fishing vessels of 24 metres in length and over.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report in question is on a proposal for a Council Directive setting up a harmonised safety regime for fishing vessels of 24 metres in length and over.
To grasp the importance of this text correctly, I am going to run through a brief historical outline of the standards and conventions which have been involved on the subject.
Because fishing vessels were excluded from the scope of the 1974 SOLAS International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, the need became apparent to establish a convention defining the rules for construction of new vessels, taking account of the peculiarities of these vessels, as well as the characteristics which equipment associated with the safety of fishing vessels should respect.
That is how the International Convention for the Safety of Fishing Vessels, known as the 1997 Torremolinos Convention, came to be signed in 1977.
However, because there were an insufficient number of ratifications, the 1977 Convention never entered into force.
In 1993, the International Maritime Organisation, the IMO, proceeded with a revision of this Convention by adopting the Torremolinos Protocol.
However, it is only obligatory for vessels of more than 45 metres.
This proposal by the Commission is therefore necessary, as of all the vessels of 24 metres and over, 85 % are vessels measuring between 24 and 45 metres.
The Torremolinos Convention therefore currently applies only to 15 % of vessels.
A consequent legal gap therefore needed to be filled.
We must be glad about any measure which aims to reduce the risks to which fishermen are exposed in the exercise of their profession.
In taking up the provisions of the 1993 Protocol again here, a harmonisation of standards relating to the construction and equipment characteristics of vessels in the European Union has been undertaken, which guarantees a higher level of safety.
The fisheries sector, in its various sections, is an extremely sensitive sector.
Consequently, the introduction of new requirements in terms of construction, safety equipment and on-board procedures, has had to be the subject of particular attention.
The different committees, organisations and associations which represent the sector concerned have been consulted.
They are unanimous in their interest in this new text governing their profession.
Indeed, the difficulties associated with their sector have not been aggravated despite the introduction of these new technical requirements.
Furthermore, the minimal safety conditions necessary for the safety of human life, of vessels and of the environment, are guaranteed.
Thus, because of the economic impact which the application of these safety measures would have on existing fishing vessels, it has been proposed that only the measures initially provided for in the Protocol for existing vessels should be applied to them.
These standards should cover the whole of the Mediterranean and all coastal countries.
When it comes to third countries wishing to fish in internal or territorial waters of the European Union, or to land their catch in the port of a Member State, the situation is a little more complex.
Naturally, they must respect the same requirements as Community vessels, but it will, however, be difficult to control the application of this.
It would mean Member States reinforcing their resources for checking on land as well as at sea.
Anyway, this proposal could be considered a first step on the road to a coherent safety regime applicable to the fisheries sector.
Indeed, following this, it will be a question of looking at how far it will be possible to apply these new standards to fishing vessels of less than 24 metres in length.
Furthermore, safety on board ship must also involve the adequate training of crew in the sector.
To this end, a report by our colleague Eolo Parodi is currently under submission to the Parliament's Committee on Transport.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, safety at sea is a matter for all of us and this report on the safety of fishing vessels, which I have the honour of presenting to you, enables it to be guaranteed.
Let us help it to become a reality.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the Commission's current proposal is the result of a very long and difficult but necessary process aimed at improving the safety of fishing vessels.
The high rate of accidents at sea demonstrates the dangers of this activity and the scant success achieved to date highlights the reluctance of the main seafaring powers to do anything.
Therefore, we must welcome the fact that the Commission has adopted this initiative, which has been needed for a long time, as it should benefit safety in this precarious industry.
The draft directive calls for the extension of the technical provisions of the Torremolinos Protocol to all new boats measuring between 24 and 45 metres fishing in European waters and not only boats flying Community flags, but also boats belonging to third countries fishing in Community waters or landing their catches in European Union ports.
As the Commission itself acknowledges, this is only a first step as it only affects only 4 % of the Community fishing fleet, 57.4 % of the total tonnage and 77.4 % of the total volume of catches.
But the adoption of a directive also seems necessary, at this moment in time, in order to bring into line the legislation of the different Member States and enable them to incorporate specific situations, albeit in keeping with basic common principles.
Therefore, as long as it is recognised that this is an initial measure, we think that this draft directive should be supported and approved as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I should like once again to congratulate Commissioner Kinnock on bringing forward yet another proposal to enhance safety at sea.
I should also like to take this opportunity to thank the rapporteur for all his efforts in steering this measure so swiftly and effectively through the committee.
As he has already outlined the background to this particular proposal which very importantly fills a legal vacuum, I do not need to repeat it
As the proposal says, safety is amongst the most important considerations of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
We are well aware that fishing is one of the most dangerous professions in the world.
In Community waters during the last ten years over a thousand lives have been lost in the fishing industry.
Worldwide many more lives have been lost.
Everyone will recall that the common policy for safe seas called for the measure that, I am glad to say, Mr Kinnock has now brought before this Parliament.
It is important to address the requirement for safety of vessels of between 24 and 45 metres in areas outlined in the directive such as fire protection, life-saving and radiocommunications.
The directive does just that and it will, therefore, command the full support of the Socialist Group.
It will ensure a uniform and harmonized level of safety requirements whilst also avoiding distortion of competition.
In conclusion, while we are on the subject of fishing vessels - and I am sure Mr Kinnock will understand why I raise this - some French fishing vessels have been blocking the ports of Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk, causing great inconvenience to many lorry drivers in my constituency.
I would ask Mr Kinnock - and I apologise for the lack of notice - briefly to comment on that dispute and to see how we can best work together to ensure the free movement of people and goods in the future.
Finally, I have spent a lot of time in the Dover area in the past few days - for reasons which Mr Kinnock will be well aware of - and many of my constituents would like me to convey their best wishes to him.
I am very pleased to do so.
Mr President, I apologise profoundly to Mr Le Rachinel for my late arrival in the Chamber.
It is a discourtesy which I have never committed before and I do not intend to repeat it.
I was detained in another meeting and I tried to time my arrival too finely.
I very much regret that.
Thankfully it is forgivable in the European Parliament - just one sign of its sophistication and grace.
It would not be forgivable in the Parliament with which I was more familiar for twenty-five years.
Perhaps everyone has something to learn.
I also thank Mr Watts for his good wishes which I certainly reciprocate and hope to do so in person in Dover before next week is out.
I am glad to note that there is common understanding on this proposal and that its main objective, namely the harmonization of safety standards for fishing vessels operating in the internal waters and the territorial seas of the Member States, has been fully endorsed.
I am sure we all share the view that, when implemented, this measure will provide further support for our efforts in the Commission, Parliament and the Council to ensure a high and uniform level of protection for human life in Community waters.
That is the primary aim of this proposal.
It will also, however, help to avoid the distortion of competition that can arise when operators make inadequate provisions for safety.
I therefore commend the proposal on those grounds too.
May I express particular gratitude to the Committee on Transport and Tourism and specifically the rapporteur, Mr Le Rachinel, for the excellent report on the proposal.
I appreciate the efforts he and colleagues in other committees have undertaken to consult with the different parties in the fishing industry and I am pleased to note that their response has been almost unanimously positive.
Briefly, I want to react to two specific and very valuable comments made in Parliament's report.
The Commission will readily respond to the specific request that this House be regularly informed on any amendments and any alterations adopted through the committee procedure and we will certainly comply with the Commission's commitments to the European Parliament on transparency.
The Commission also shares the concern expressed in the report that different levels of penalties in the Member States could lead to distortion of competition.
It is precisely to avoid such problems and to ensure full transparency that the provisions of Article 13 require Member States to notify their systems of penalties for breaches of national provisions that are adopted on the basis of this directive.
May I conclude my response to the report by thanking the House for facilitating the early adoption of a common position on this important measure which will promote the safety of fishing activities in Community waters and, in particular, the protection of the lives of European fishermen to whom we all as a Community owe so much.
I will briefly respond to the point rightly raised by Mr Watts.
This morning I wrote to Mr Pons, the French Minister of Transport, expressing my urgent hope that action would be taken by the French Government to ensure restoration of the freedom of movement at and around the Channel ports.
My office has also been in contact with the French Ministry of Transport by telephone.
Mr Pons has naturally been in communication with his relevant colleagues in other departments in the French Government.
That government is now clearly seized of the urgency of the situation.
I hope there will be little delay in securing the re-establishment of the freedom of movement in compliance with the legal requirements of the Treaty and, indeed, the legal obligations of individual Member States.
I am grateful for the opportunity to make that statement to the House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Vessels carrying hazardous goods
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0073/97) by Mr Novo Belenguer, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 93/75/EEC (COM(96)0455 - C4-0544/96-96/0231(SYN)) concerning minimum requirements for vessels bound for or leaving Community ports and carrying dangerous or polluting goods.
Mr President, the aim of Directive 93/75 and that of this amending directive, is to improve maritime safety and prevent accidents, enabling support action to be taken when necessary.
The maritime disasters which have recently occurred in Community waters only add to the huge importance of this Directive and the need for all Member States to take measures with the same purpose.
The Commission proposal contains nine resolutions adopted at the International Maritime Organisation, in particular the inclusion of boats transporting radioactive cargo.
This is not a question of imposing safety standards on packages but providing necessary information to Community port authorities in respect of goods being transported, adopting technical appendices and altering the activities of the relevant Community committee in order to up-date Community legislation and bring it in line with international standards.
We can consider the objectives set out in this proposal to be positive and worthy of the European Parliament's support.
However, in my opinion, there are some loose ends which are not tied up by this Directive.
First of all, the safety measures contemplated in it do not affect boats transiting through Community waters, without docking in a European Union port.
So how can we ensure that these boats are complying with standards and the relevant codes? Perhaps we should propose that the contents of this Directive should also be extended to boats passing through Community waters, without any prejudice, of course, to their right to innocent passage, something recognised in international conventions.
We should not forget that those same conventions also provide for the possibility of confining boats to certain maritime routes.
Secondly, it is surprising and even dangerous to continue to allow the transportation of radioactive cargoes in boats also carrying passengers.
A number of members of the IMO have voiced their reservations over this.
So perhaps it would be wise to ban this practice or, failing that, demand the minimum requisite of announcing the fact and publishing the list of passengers carried on these boats, another aspect being looked at in a specific Directive, 96/574 final, on passenger lists.
Thirdly, Appendix I - which according to Article 6 of the directive should be notified to the relevant authority of the State affected in cases of accidents - does not consider the need to notify the number of crew on board when a boat is involved in an accident.
On the other hand, Mr President, I should like to point out that the amendments tabled and approved in committee have helped to improve the shape of my report.
Concerning these amendments, however, I should like to point out some details and make some comments.
Amendment No. 1 - I have been told that Amendment No. 3 has been withdrawn - refers to radioactive material being transported on boats.
Amendment 7 strengthens the obligation on destination States to convey information received to all Community States along the route to be taken by the said boat.
This was approved by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, where Amendments Nos 5 and 6 were also approved, containing the obligation on boat operators transporting hazardous cargo to inform all of the States affected by its route and not only the destination State.
But possibly this is a slightly complicated situation.
With respect to Amendment No. 8, it should be said that this is a technical addition to Article 11 of Directive 93/75 and it refers to the new numbering of the sub-paragraphs of Article 2 of that Directive, all of which refers to the INF code.
I thought it might also be useful to include in the information to be conveyed to the authorities prior to departure, the number of crew members on board, which should improve the mobilisation of emergency services when accidents take place.
Amendments Nos. 10 and 11 are designed to offer all of the necessary information to emergency services on radioactive cargoes and the procedures to be carried out on board in the case of accident.
Finally, Mr President, Amendment No. 12 on communicating the list of passengers is vital.
Furthermore, in accordance with the draft directive by the European Commission on this matter, published on 25 November 1996, this subject is to be discussed by the European Parliament during the 'mini-session' next May.
Mr President, Mr Kinnock, the Socialists support Novo Belenguer's report.
At the same time we are able to state that, in our view, it is both right and proper that the Commission should improve the 1993 directive.
But we support the twelve amendments designed to tighten up on the directive, though I now hear that one of these may be withdrawn.
We are naturally pleased about our port state controls, but we do not have the reporting requirement in international waters.
We have another report on the European reporting system, which has been a long time coming.
We have discussed whether the present report could act as an impetus for progress in the other matter.
Clearly it makes things difficult if one cannot get ships in transit to report, and direct ships in transit through safe waters.
I would therefore ask the Commission whether it would be possible for us, together with Parliament, to adopt a position on this, since it relates in part to the legal basis for this proposal.
I hope we can move forward.
It is 3-4 years since the other proposal was produced.
We support this proposal, but we would also like to draw attention to the fact that it is not only ships in transit which are the problem.
Use is also being made of substandard ships.
It may therefore be necessary, in conjunction with port state control, for us to have a more rigorous system for ships used to transport nuclear materials.
It is becoming more and more common for many countries to ship such materials abroad using various forms of transport such as rail and sea, and whenever this occurs there are demonstrations.
It is my view that some of the ships are not up to the appropriate standard and fail to report their movements in the right places.
I hope therefore that we can make progress both with EUREP and with this proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the transport of dangerous goods is always of great interest to our citizens, since it is a question of ensuring maximum safety.
In shipping in particular, we have a major responsibility here, for this really is an international problem.
The rapporteur rightly pointed to the importance of this directive, but also to the importance of regulating ships that sail through our waters without calling at any European port.
A speaker has just referred to the port states directive, on the basis of which we were able to regulate quite a few matters for ourselves.
Here we are dealing with a practical issue, which we must tackle jointly.
The Group of the European People's Party will therefore support all the amendments, in order to make the transport of dangerous or polluting goods even safer, give coastal regions lasting and effective protection against pollution or even destruction and ensure the maximum level of safety for the crews of vessels.
So I want to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
He really has tackled problematic questions which we have not so far managed to resolve.
Commissioner, I know you are about to tell us that you cannot accept the majority of our amendments because they do not necessarily belong here.
Nevertheless - and I am asking you this on behalf of the EPP Group too - please take our views and wishes seriously!
Help us, so that we can find a good solution to all these questions, even if we do not manage to do so now with this report.
Mr President, the Green Group also believes the Commission has acted positively in presenting this directive incorporating Directive 93/75 which is designed to improve the system of preventing accidents at sea involving vessels carrying hazardous and harmful substances and mount appropriate rescue operations, and which is now extended, through this new directive, to the transport of radio-active material.
But we think account should also have been taken of the fact that Directive 21/95 on control of ports and other international standards have been issued in the meantime.
So we support the Commission's objectives but we also support all the amendments passed in committee and the way the report has been presented by the rapporteur, whom we thank.
In particular, we think there is no question of excluding movement across territorial waters or the need for containers which may be used for radioactive material to meet AIEA standards.
Mr President, first of all I would like to say that we welcome this report.
I do not think that any of us here can go too far in showing our concern about the handling and the transport of toxic waste, especially radioactive material.
We feel very strongly about this issue in my constituency with last year the experience of the Sea Empress and the impact of that on the local environment.
People in that area are now desperately anxious to get back to normal life, and we would strongly recommend that there should be no complacency shown when it comes to this directive.
The thrust of the Transport Committee's position is to ensure that legislation applies to ships passing through EU waters, not just ships which are docking in EU ports.
Let us make sure that the coastal authorities are aware of the presence of vessels carrying hazardous material.
Local authorities can then, in the light of that information, take the appropriate action in the event of any incident.
Also two main points need to be made on nuclear fluid, plutonium and radioactive waste.
They should be brought under the scope of the directive.
Firstly, we need to ensure radioactive material must only be carried in containers meeting the latest , International Atomic Energy Agency requirements.
Secondly we must make sure that radioactive material should never be transported on ships carrying passengers.
These are minimum conditions which we must insist on.
It is common sense to separate toxic material from passengers and to observe international agreed regulations.
If we do this we will certainly minimize any kind of risks in the whole question of transporting toxic materials, but particularly, of course, nuclear material.
Mr President, could I first of all thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Belenguer, for his excellent report on the proposal.
I am also pleased to be able to follow a fellow Welshman whose concern about the possibilities of accidents at sea producing appalling consequences of pollution is well-known to this House, as it is in his constituency.
I am very glad to note that on this proposal there is a common understanding and an endorsement of its main objective which is to strengthen and to improve the existing directive for establishing notification requirements in order to improve prevention and intervention in the case of accidents at sea to vessels carrying dangerous or potentially polluting goods.
The Commission welcomes Amendments Nos 8 and 9.
The former will allow the committee set up by this directive to take future amendments to the INF Code into account, and the latter, which requires the operator of a ship to provide the competent authorities with information on the number of crew on board, should help to improve emergency responses to accidents at sea.
With regard to the other amendments, I must emphasize very strongly that the Commission shares the concern expressed by the committee about the specific risks related to the carriage of radioactive materials by sea, as well as the weakness of the notification system set up by the 1993 Directive.
As Members have already said in this debate, this does not cover the transitting ships.
We share that concern but I think it worth reminding the Parliament, without any complacency, that 80 % of these ships that are transitting in European waters are in fact bound for Community ports.
Whilst transitting therefore, they are also subject to the requirements that relate to ports and there is some further reassurance in that.
The Commission cannot accept the amendments that Parliament has entered.
It is not because of a divergence of views but mainly because the points which are put in the amendments are already covered by other Commission proposals or because the Commission is envisaging specific new initiatives in this area.
Mr Ferber anticipated me in his remarks - not for the first time, always a sensible contribution - and we are obviously already engaged in undertaking exactly the tasks that he sought.
The same applies to the propositions put by Mr Sindal.
More precisely, the first series of amendments in relation to the conditions of transport of radioactive materials by sea, are outside the scope of this directive which only deals with notification requirements.
That is particularly the case with Amendments Nos 1 and 3, unless Amendment No 3 has been withdrawn, as Mr Belenguer indicated, because those amendments would prohibit the transport of radioactive materials on board passenger ships.
It is also applicable to Amendment No 2 on compliance with IAEA regulations and on Amendments Nos 10 and 11, which would add a number of safety requirements issuing from the INF code to the annexes of the directive.
The Commission is, however, considering various initiatives to strengthen the existing regime applicable to the transport of radioactive materials, including, if necessary, binding legislation for all ships calling at a European port and carrying radioactive materials.
As far as the other series of amendments are concerned, those related to the extension of reporting requirements to ships in transit, the Commission considers that Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 6 are already reflected in the proposed Council directive for a European Ship Reporting System, the so-called EuroRep, which was adopted by the Commission in December 1993, and is still before the Council.
It would be inappropriate and confusing if the Commission was to accept the inclusion of such provisions in Directive 93/75 while discussions could resume at any time in Council on similar requirements as described in EuroRep.
Amendment No 7 requesting Member States to exchange all information, received on a routine basis is unacceptable since this would overburden the relevant national authorities with a huge amount of data, despite the fact that such information could only be needed for safety purposes in very exceptional circumstances.
Finally the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 12 concerning the presence of a passenger list.
It would be redundant as the proposed Council directive on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships was adopted by the Commission on 25 November last year.
Summing up, the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 8 and 9, but, while we share the concerns they reflect, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 12.
May I conclude by again thanking Mr Belenguer and the House for facilitating the speedy achievement of a common position on this important measure which will obviously have a direct and significant effect on the transport of dangerous and potentially polluting goods on our waters.
Could Commissioner Kinnock inform us as to when he might possibly be bringing forward legislation on the whole question of the transport of nuclear material?
I am grateful for the question, Mr President.
Work is actively underway, and has been for some time.
I will not be absolutely specific about a date, because I have no wish to mislead the House, even to the extent of nominating a month, but I can assure Mr Morris that the proposals will be forthcoming.
If he would like to get in touch with me in writing I will try to be more explicit as the weeks pass.
I would be happy to give him a firmer indication when the work has, in our view, reached an adequate stage of preparation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
New maritime strategies
The next item is the report (A4-0067/97) by Mr Danesin, on behalf of the Committee of Transport and Tourism, on the Commission communication 'Towards a new maritime strategy' (COM(96)0081 - C4-0237/96).
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism, briefly but sincerely, for their commitment.
They have contributed valuable ideas and hard work on the amendments which led to the report being unanimously passed in committee.
Ladies and gentlemen, 90 % of trade between the Community and the rest of the world takes place by sea and the percentage is 35 % within the Union.
The Union's future maritime strategy, as proposed by the Commission, is based on four pillars: safety, maintaining open markets, competitiveness and state aids.
I regard the safety issue as fundamental, first because it is linked to environmental problems and the protection of human life, and secondly because, as I will seek to demonstrate, it is the point of departure for maintaining both employment for European seamen and the competitiveness of our fleets.
The human factor is basic: 80 % of all maritime disasters are precisely ascribable to the human factor.
The problem is aggravated today, with multilingual crews finding communication difficult in emergencies.
So it is essential to take every possible measure to preserve skills, foster professionalism and promote training for European seamen.
In addition to problems linked to training, there is - as I see it - a strategic point here: the registers and the resulting flags of convenience.
The situation today is that a shipowner registering a ship under a non-Community flag, especially under certain flags, has massive objective economic advantages, in terms of staff costs, taxes, etcetera.
So it would be hypocritical not to recognize that under current circumstances the problem will be very difficult to resolve.
The first consequence will be the inevitable loss of the very idea of the Community seaman and the competitiveness of our fleet.
The second will be an inevitable increase in the number of sub-standard ships ploughing our seas, with all the easily imaginable environmental consequences.
Parliament has called many times for an aid plan, including financial aid, to stimulate activity in this sector, including a precise definition of the concept of European shipowner, but many proposals have never reached the stage of legislation because of the Council's inability to take any decisions on the subject.
What measures can be applied today to establish a real Community maritime strategy?
We live in a globalized market economy and for the companies involved the constraint of the balance sheet is the basic fact of life. So if the enormous cost advantages of flags of convenience are not balanced by strict safety controls on the one hand and tax incentives on the other, the best intentions will be irredeemably doomed to failure.
One such measure is the Port State Control Directive.
This measure makes it possible to carry out inspections at the port of disembarkation and apply sanctions up to a maximum of impounding the vessel if irregularities are found.
I believe we should give strong support to a Community task force to ensure strict application of the directive by the Member States.
In terms of getting the results we are looking for, it does not seem realistic today to force shipowners to take on Community crew by setting compulsory minimum quotas. This would simply encourage the exodus to flags of convenience, through the natural advantage to the aforementioned balance sheet.
Instead it would be more useful to create conditions, through tax and contributions concessions, which make it competitive to take on European seamen. Any chance of combatting the invasion of open registers is linked to ensuring that they lose their current advantages.
To conclude, I think the Commission should promote genuine measures to protect the Community fleet.
I am talking about the situation - which in my view is unacceptable today - whereby certain non-Community countries, benefitting from Community funding through cooperation aid or other schemes, issue official certificates to vessels far too easily and fail to check their seaworthiness properly, even when they are aware of the risks involved.
I believe we need to have the strength, shown, for example, by the United States but other countries too, to impose a certain reciprocity between Community aid and respect for minimum standards, in order to protect our seamen, our shipowners and our marine environment.
Mr President, The research committee has unanimously accepted my written opinion and supports the proposed deregulation of the EU's Maritime Industry, provided that rigorous international standards of safety and environmental care are maintained together with a moderate level of tolerance for National aid mechanisms.
There is of course quite justified concern over the increasing age of the EU fleet which may require some financial stimulus to improve technical performance standards and criteria.
It is important to note that global initiatives are required in this sector to improve the training and qualifications of seafarers and to make it less tempting for vessel owners to use cheaper poorly qualified crews.
Regard for safety and the environment places demands on the EU shipping market.
This means that research and technical development will inevitably play a key role in ensuring a sustainable and competitive future for the sector in several areas including shipbuilding, vessel safety, propulsion systems and the prevention of pollution.
There is a special programme for transport within the fourth framework programme for research which includes a separate section on shipping.
The committee supports the research programme for the sector but would like to see further development of fuel efficient, environmentally sound propulsion systems, more energy efficient vessel construction and the implementation of a broad socio-economic research programme to investigate the social impact of the maritime science and technology which is developed.
The committee supports the principle of today's working party with regard to future maritime systems and strongly urges that this be extended to the fifth framework programme as well.
The committee requests that, before the fifth framework programme, the Commission allocates increased resources for the development of safe and environmentally sound shipping.
Mr President, on behalf of the Transport Committee Mr Danesin has pointed to the great importance of a healthy maritime sector in the European Union.
On behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations I wish to call attention primarily to the position of the European fleet in the world market.
Competition there is extremely fierce.
In recent years this has led to many ships sailing under so-called flags of convenience.
This flagging out has enormous detrimental consequences for the European Union.
Not only is the Union increasingly dependent for its maritime transport on third-country ships; a significant area of economic activity is also lost as a result.
In the form of jobs, to begin with, but in the long term there is also the risk that coastal activities will be moved elsewhere.
In the Netherlands it has been calculated that a good 70 % of the value added in the maritime sector is generated on the coast.
The process of flagging out can be countered by making the registers of Member States more competitive.
In its communication the European Commission offers Member States the opportunity of taking support measures to help ship owners achieve this.
Now that the Euroregister is up and running, I very much support the Commission's approach.
Since January 1996 the Dutch Government has granted tax concessions to maritime companies formerly under the Dutch flag or based in the Netherlands.
As a result a few dozen vessels have returned to the Dutch flag.
Lastly, I have a specific question for the Commissioner.
Paragraph 33 of the Danesin reports says that maritime transport should not be regarded as an industry which exists merely to serve European imports and exports, but as a self-contained industry in its own right.
That is rather different from the Commission communication which says that maritime transport is a service industry with a subordinate function.
Can the Commissioner confirm that he backs the view of the Transport Committee?
I will end by observing that regrettably the large number of intrinsically well-intentioned pronouncements in the Danesin report mean that the main points are obscured too much by secondary points.
Mr President, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists I would like to welcome this new approach to the maritime sector from Commissioner Kinnock.
Like him, we believe in a vibrant maritime industry for the whole of Europe. It is vital in our view for strategic industrial reasons, strategic employment reasons and to ensure and enhance the competitiveness of the European Union.
And it will of course make a vital contribution to ensuring that we meet our environmental obligations.
I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Danesin, for his cooperative and comprehensive approach, which has secured widespread support, not just throughout this Parliament, but indeed throughout the industry itself.
I am sure tomorrow when it comes to the vote we can as a Parliament give with one voice a clear commitment to the future of Europe's maritime sector.
However we face a stark challenge.
Back in 1970 a third of the world's ships were proud to fly a flag of a European Member State.
In 1994 the figure had fallen to just 14 %.
In my own country in 1979 we had 1200 British-flagged ships, today the total is less than 250.
We face an enormous challenge, not least in jobs.
A third of a million jobs in 1970 throughout the EU, today barely 100, 000.
Two thirds of the whole of the industrial sector maritime industry wiped out.
But our Group feels there is tremendous potential.
Liner growth for example has been almost 7 % per annum throughout the world over the past ten years.
There is growing demand for specialized services and there are clear environmental benefits to encourage the maritime sector.
We particularly welcome the fact that the Commission proposal is based on four key elements: first - safety, secondly - maintaining open markets, thirdly - securing competitiveness and finally - clear guidelines for state aid.
I would like to give a few examples of why we support this new strategy.
On safety, we fully support the Commissioner in his efforts to make non-binding IMO resolutions binding and compulsory through EC legislation.
On maintaining open markets, we support fully his bid to forge international agreements.
In terms of securing competitiveness, we believe in common action to promote maritime training programmes, research and development, and in particular encouraging young people to the profession.
Finally on state aids, we too support revising state aid guidelines to focus more on support for employment, R&D and training, rather than just general state aid provison.
Parliament would also like greater emphasis in a number of areas.
One is to make port state control more effective.
Let us do what we can within the scope of our existing powers.
Let us make more use of the controls such as port state control.
Secondly, we want to encourage more workers back into the industry, particularly EU young people.
That means improvements in working conditions and working hours on board ship.
Third and finally we want to see swift action to tackle the scandal of flags of convenience which are a disease, a plague, spreading throughout the world's shipping industries, and here in Europe too.
They must be tackled if the strategy is to come into reality and provide benefits, jobs and a boost to our economy.
Europe has a proud maritime past, I believe this strategy, as outlined by Commissioner Kinnock, will lay the foundations for a great maritime future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European People's Party, for which I speak, supports and will give its votes to the Danesin report. We compliment Mr Danesin on his work.
The Commission communication on a new maritime strategy is a rather unbalanced text. It contains some good proposals, but on quite a number of points there is a vagueness about its true intentions.
For example, it proposes removal of the share capital veil from shipping companies in the name of ensuring that they comply with civil, taxation and criminal code obligations arising from the operation of ships.
Could it be that the Commission has plans to extend the removal of the share capital veil to other branches of the European economy, such as industry perhaps?
Some of the other proposals are also quite worrying.
First, the establishment of common criteria which the Member States will be obliged to conform with when placing ships on their registers.
Second, the abolition of the criterion of the shipowner's nationality as a condition of registration.
Third, the introduction of a range of legislative measures to control the ownership of ships prior to and over the course of registration.
If all of those ideas are turned into reality, ladies and gentlemen, you can be sure that apart from short distance ships and the ferries there will not be a single European ship left on the Community registers.
Elsewhere in the text the Commission declares that it intends to withdraw its proposals on the Euros register and the Community status of the shipowner which, as you know, this Parliament improved. Why?
What is the purpose behind the withdrawal of those two proposals?
In the motion for a resolution that we are considering the Committee on Transport commends and endorses whatever is good in the Commission communication.
At the same time, it distances itself from other positions of the Commission - some of which I have mentioned - about which it has serious reservations.
In addition, it urges the Commission not to withdraw the proposals on the Euros register and the Community shipowner.
Lastly, the motion for a resolution contains new ideas on reversing the flight of ships and owners from the registers of the Member States, among which is a proposal that the Commission should take a hard look at the damaging repercussions for European shipping and European seafarers' employment of the Black Cutters practice of the International Transport Workers' Federation - the IFS - which is applied globally to third country seafarers working on ships flying flags of convenience.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the shipping industry is truly strategic for Europe and for world trade. It has a magnificent heritage and represents one of the most ancient and noble facets of European identity.
The Commission's communication and the fine report by Mr Danesin highlight the ongoing problems in the sector, which has suffered shipyard closures, an exodus of vessels from Community registers and severe unemployment among seafarers.
This trend must be reversed, especially as I believe the prospects should be more favourable in the years ahead, in view of the steady increase in trade and traffic.
One indication is the overcrowding of the European and Mediterranean routes, via Suez in particular, which are once again becoming the principle arteries of world transport.
So I am in full agreement with the measures suggested by the Commission for training, encouraging research, vessel technology, telecommunications systems and establishing a telematics network, logistics and traffic control, including satellite navigation, and promotion of integrated transport at ports, particularly boosting rail transport and trans-European links.
By contrast, the Commission does not seem to have come up with definitive answers to the phenomenon of shady flags and unsafe sub-standard vessels with exploited crews.
However I think the link made with safety rules is strategic and should be supported in the multilateral WTO negotiations externally and by tax incentives internally.
I hope the Commission will pursue this issue and I fully underwrite Mr Danesin's report.
My compliments to the rapporteur who, like a true Venetian, has shown us how to rule the seas again.
We need to appreciate that 35 % of intra-Community transport goes by sea.
The chances are that this may become less as the big container ships only call at one port per continent.
More of our onward distribution would then need to go by ship than by road.
For that to happen, and both the Dutch Government and this House have secured this in the trans-European networks, we need to strengthen our coastal transport systems.
This requires a number of things to be done.
First of all, we need to improve the training of crews and to spend more money on that.
The Netherlands has shown the way here.
Through tax concessions, as Mr van der Waal said, but on the other hand we must also realize that our schools of maritime navigation have to stay open, for foreigners too.
And we need a better system of group vessel loading.
I believe the Commission should include that in the fifth framework programme with a view to its computerization.
I have also said here repeatedly, on the subject of the Sindal report too, that it must also be possible to use the 45-foot containers routinely used in maritime transport for overland transport too.
Port dues must be kept low, but must on no account create a competitive edge at the expense of the environment and safety or a less rigorous or harmonized policy.
The Union must remain alert to the fact that some islands and peripheral regions have no alternative to maritime transport.
If we are not prepared to make every effort to preserve a viable maritime transport industry in the Community, both the big main ports and the peripheral regions will suffer.
As elected representatives of the people we cannot allow that.
The communication and Mr Danesin's report are thus an excellent starting point.
Mr President, Mr Kinnock, Rapporteur, as my colleagues are no doubt aware, maritime transport is very dear to me and I would like to point out that we in Europe have neglected the development of maritime transport. We have failed to develop an approach with which we can meet the challenges of the future.
We have global maritime transport and we have local maritime transport, and there is a connection between the two.
They are interdependent.
Local maritime transport supplies global maritime transport.
It is therefore important that we see things in context.
But allow me to comment on global maritime transport.
Even if our records show that we have fewer European ships in the ports of the world, and that we have fewer employees, I must emphasize the fact that most ships at a global level continue to be significantly controlled by European economic interests, though this is often under flags of convenience and often involves different registers.
The officers are European, but the crew are from other nations.
What we are complaining about, in fact, is that we are missing out on economic opportunities, because we know that the ships are actually owned by European cities.
Throughout the world there is competition in terms of standards, ship quality, safety and pay.
But, ladies and gentlemen, Rapporteur, one does not improve maritime transport through reductions.
One improves it only by creating quality transport.
It is my view that we need some OECD agreements in this area.
We have our European port state.
This arrangement must be extended so that it applies globally.
We have training for seamen, we have safety mechanisms, and finally we have the discussion on flags of convenience.
It is Danish, Dutch and Norwegian registers that are doing battle with these flags of convenience.
But it is really the same thing: the economy is in Europe, but the ships sail elsewhere, crewed by non-European seamen.
I hope the Commission will be successful in its discussion of navigation and the future.
I hope that, through this discussion, the Commission can produce something better for the agenda.
The matter could be taken up with the big shipping companies operating in Europe and one could attempt to have them realize their responsibility, the obligation they have, with us, to ensure the maritime future of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the House agrees that your communication is a positive step in support of European shipping.
The House also agrees that Mr Danesin's report is an excellent one.
May I therefore make one comment to the Commissioner: we were unanimous in the report in regretting that the Commission's strategy contains timetable for its implementation and that too few of the specific proposals match up to their tasks.
Let me follow on from this.
In the fourth area, the creation of fair conditions of competition for shipping, I would like you to agree now that you will be submitting new proposals, for my Dutch colleagues who spoke here today rightly referred to the laudable initiatives of the Dutch government.
It is our obligation to ensure fair conditions of competition for all shipping companies in the Community of 15.
We cannot have the shipping companies of other Community states, whose budgets do not allow them to introduce aid measures such as the Dutch ones, suffering disadvantages because one country gives special aid to its shipping and then shipping companies flag out their ships to another country.
That does not make sense in a European single market!
So, Commissioner, we are waiting with some suspense to hear whether you can tell us today when you will be making further practical proposals and to what extent these proposals will also take account of the fact that we must have fair conditions of competition between shipping companies, which is only possible if we have the appropriate national framework conditions.
Either all the other 14 countries or - leaving aside Luxembourg - the other 13 countries will take the same tax measures as the Netherlands or we will have to consider whether the Dutch provisions are compatible with Community legislation, for we cannot have seafarers and companies suffering disadvantages because of the lack of uniform conditions of competition.
I await your answer with some suspense!
Mr President, the report by Mr Danesin on a new maritime strategy is a wide-ranging and comprehensive document, which makes it clear that the subject has been studied thoroughly.
Its principal theme is, rightly, broad cooperation and efforts to achieve worldwide organization.
However, one cannot help observing that the report says nothing at all about one vital dimension of cooperation, which is even of decisive importance in ensuring maritime safety.
I am referring to cooperation with seamen's unions.
They do important work in their own field both at sea and in port to ensure that vessels are in the best possible working order both technically and as regards their crews.
The report devotes ample attention to the very same hazards to maritime safety which seamen's unions have spent decades trying to combat.
These are inadequate or non-existent training of crews, defective vessels and the resultant substandard working conditions, which mean that crews' motivation cannot be optimal, and many other similar matters.
It would therefore only be natural to exploit to the full the wealth of experience which seamen's unions have all over the world in improving maritime safety.
At a time when the European Union is adopting a new maritime strategy and trying to influence world standards, there is every reason to hope that this dimension will be utilized to the full in the further consideration of the subject.
The fundamental question is this: to what extent are so-called market forces to be given free rein in determining conditions in maritime transport?
It must be possible to distinguish between maximum openness of maritime transport markets and market forces which endanger maritime safety.
By means of a common decision and agreement and sufficiently effective supervision, it should be possible to regulate these market forces in such a way as to ensure that the maximization of purely short-term economic advantage is not allowed to threaten maritime safety.
Mr President, it is extremely important that we find a way to develop Europe's Maritime Industry so that it becomes both safer and more competitive.
Transport by sea accounts for 90 percent of transport to countries outside the Union.
It is also an important key to free trade which is why we clearly have an extremely important task in helping the industry.
But, in my opinion, there is one area which is lacking in this report and that is the industry's responsibility to deal with the environmental problems which it creates.
It is important in a process such as this, where the Commission is quite rightly trying to take an overall view of the maritime industry, that environmental problems are not forgotten.
There are currently particularly serious environmental problems in the Baltic Sea.
It is one of the dirtiest seas in Europe and the maritime industry must bear a large part of the blame for this.
In recent years, in Swedish waters alone in the Baltic, there have been about 500 oil discharges per year.
The graph shows a curve which is rising catastrophically and quick action is required, which the Commission does not seem to understand.
A considerable part of this has to do with the newly appearing countries around the Baltic.
It would seem that one of our most important tasks is to work towards a situation where many of these countries eventually become Members of the EU so that the Baltic is immediately surrounded by EU countries.
Then we can jointly make far greater demands.
In the short term, a simple remedy would be to do as has been done in Denmark and Sweden which is to allow the discharge of oil, free of charge, in each port.
This is one action to resolve the problem which we should all be able to support.
Let me conclude by asking the following question of the Commission: Is the Commission able to revert with proposals to tackle the particular environmental problems which the maritime industry itself causes?
Mr President, my compliments to the Commissioner and to Mr Danesin for their emphatic choice in favour of a European maritime strategy.
It underlines the broad importance of maritime transport.
The central aims of this policy are in my view the improvement of the European fleet's competitiveness together with better safety.
I will touch on two points.
Firstly, flagging out.
This needs to be vigorously opposed.
It is unacceptable that over half of the EU's tonnage sails under flags of convenience.
That is bad for jobs, bad for safety and it leads to a displacement of economic activities.
Can the Commissioner give us an idea of how far the measures envisaged will reduce flagging out?
My second point concerns the dredger fleet.
The European dredger fleet has a first-class reputation for environmentally responsible harbour clearance and maintenance world-wide.
Will the Commissioner agree to bear in mind the competitiveness of Europe's dredger fleet too in the implementation of the proposed measures? Here I would also like to ask the Commissioner what the position is concerning access by the European dredger fleet to the American market?
Is that access still denied by a very strange interpretation of the 'Jones Act' ? Will the Commissioner investigate and if necessary raise this with the US Government?
In conclusion, I would ask the Commissioner to harmonize the procedures and laws relating to transport between European ports, given the importance of the role of coastal transport.
Mr President, could I first of all commend the Transport Committee and the other committees involved in this report, and of course I express my particular thanks to the rapporteur Mr Danesin, for the work that he and his colleagues have done.
The motion for a resolution now before the House shows a real commitment to advancing the work on the maritime strategy paper.
That has been reflected in most of the contributions in the course of the debate and naturally I am pleased that the resolution substantially concurs with the approach taken by the Commission.
As the House will know, I based my reflections in the strategy paper on the role of the shipping industry in the world, on its difficulties as a global industry and on our common desire to maintain the industry and as many jobs for European seafarers as possible.
Some claim, though thankfully not in this House, that the objectives of competitiveness and employment are somehow mutually exclusive.
I believe that view to be defeatist and wrong, not to say reactionary, and I am therefore gratified to note that the great majority of the comments on the White Paper reflect a similar view.
I am pleased to recognize that the motion for a resolution supports the new strategy and its three main pillars.
The first pillar is the competitiveness of the European fleet.
We all agree that this is essential and we all know that the necesssary expertise exists.
But unfavourable operating conditions over a broad front and for several years have resulted in a loss of competitiveness of our shipping industry.
As honourable Members will know, and some have pointed this out in the debate, the results have been very negative.
First, flagging-out has greatly reduced the number of European seafarers, both in officer categories and amongst ratings.
Secondly, that has had a repercussive effect on shore-based employment, particularly in those tasks where experience at sea is of great value.
Thirdly, hard-hit shipping and related industries have simply moved away from the Community which has obviously resulted in further job losses.
Competitiveness is therefore fundamental to future success as the Dublin Conference on the future of the European seafarer clearly recognized.
It would have been unrealistic to have expected that or any other meeting to produce instant answers to the deepseated problems of European seafaring employment.
But the conference did contribute to identifying issues which need further and urgent attention.
Those issues clearly include the use of incentives and financial support - touched upon by several speakers in the course of the debate - and also the need to make the younger generation more aware of the career opportunities.
Those factors rightly have prominent reference in this resolution before the House.
The issue of state aids obviously has relevance to these matters and I report to the House, and specifically to Mr Jarzembowski, that after having taken into consideration the comments by Member States, by the industry and now by the Parliament, the Commission is currently in the process of finalizing new guidelines.
They will be produced very shortly.
I realize the point that Mr Jarzembowski makes about substance and specifics in the strategy paper and I share his desire for what he described as concrete proposals.
What I wanted to avoid was concrete proposals that actually sink.
That is why in a strategy paper we set out the pillars of policy in the way that we did in the hope, indeed in the knowledge, that it would generate intense debate and further action.
So far that has certainly been the case and I do not intend the matter to rest there.
The encouragement I get from this House, including Mr Jarzembowski, to proceed further, is welcome encouragement indeed.
I am pleased to welcome the support for our thinking in the sphere of external relations.
We all agree on the necessity for open world markets.
It is clear that in those conditions the Community must pursue our interests, especially since we are an open market so far as third country competitors are concerned.
It is only reasonable to expect them to do the same.
Our specific communication on maritime external relations has, as the House will know, recently been published and I look forward to honourable Members' comments on that communication in due course.
The third pillar of our strategy linked safety and fair competition.
That is a proper relationship to stress as we continue to emphasize the urgent need to achieve quality shipping in all parts of the maritime trades.
There is no doubt that the various areas of shipping are affected to different degrees by unsafe operators, but wherever they exist they must be denied the unacceptable competitive advantages that they now gain by neglecting the safety of human beings, the safety of vessels and the safety of the environment.
Seafarers, port workers, the general public and all those operators who obey the rules have a vested interest in ensuring that effective action is taken against those who flout the rules, and by so doing imperil life and gain commercial advantages.
I am grateful for the strong and long-established support of the House on this matter.
Finally, Points 7 and 32 of the resolution call on the Commission to undertake or to sponsor an in-depth study on the practices of the International Transport Workers Federation.
I have to inform the House that the Commission has no real legal authority in this area.
The ITF practices are based on freely negotiated collective agreements between the parties concerned, and, consequently, they are a matter for the labour laws of Member States.
The Commission sees no reason on the basis of the information currently available to carry out any further investigation on this matter.
I therefore, regret to say that the Commission cannot accept this proposal in the resolution.
I hope that the House will understand the reasons and not press the matter.
One of the paragraphs that has been raised in the course of the debate was raised by Mr van der Waal, who asked whether the Commission agrees with Paragraph 35 of the report from Parliament.
I answer very specifically, yes, we do agree, and I hope that neither Mr van der Waal or others, whose interest in this subject is very well known indeed, will interpret any reference in our strategy paper as down-grading or allocating a secondary role to shipping.
It is a free-standing industry, it has its own identity and it must pursue its own interests as an industry.
In so doing it will be serving the remainder of the transport market and many other markets too.
I conclude my specific response to the report by expressing my appreciation for Mr Danesin's report which offers the Commission welcome encouragement.
Perhaps I might take up a little more of the time of the House to respond to some interesting questions that have been raised in the course of the debate.
I must say to Mr Stenmarck that I welcome the issues that he raises relating to the environment.
I can respond by saying that the Commission bases its specific safety and environmental measures to the largest extent possible on existing international rules.
In this respect the international convention for the prevention of pollution from ships, the so called Marpol Convention, sets standards at international level on prevention of pollution by amongst other things, oil, sewage and garbage from ships.
Discussions are on-going within the European Union to supplement these international convention provisions with European Union regulations on exhaust emissions as well as on the subjects that I referred to.
On this point the Commission's response to a request in the December 1995 Environment Council will be to present a communication on a Community strategy to combat acidification.
That will include a chapter relating to action on emissions from maritime transport.
Although not subject to any international rules, it is proposed to submit the sulphur content of sulphur fuels, for instance sulphurous oxide, to control under the Marpol Convention.
In the light of the above and the things I have already reported to the House and the problem of air pollution emissions, particularly from ferries in the Baltic and North Sea, which was specifically raised by Mr Stenmarck, the Commission is monitoring developments within the IMO for the recognition of these two areas as special areas for air pollution measures related to shipping activities.
We are prepared to take appropriate action should the IMO fail to provide a satisfactory outcome.
There is the question raised by Mr Cornelissen relating to the dredging industry.
Time forbids me from answering the other points that he raised.
I have to say that the dredging industry is not covered, as he said, in the strategy paper, but that does not mean for one second that the interests and the significance of the industry are neglected so far as the Commission is concerned.
Their crucial infrastructural importance obviously has to be acknowledged by all sensible people.
They have a direct imput into the maritime industries forum and are especially active in the marine resources panel.
So far as contact with the industry is concerned I happen to have a meeting arranged in the very near future with representatives of the industry in the European Union.
Finally on the point relating to external relations, clearly we only have negotiating mandates thus far with India and China but in all negotiations I can assure Mr Cornelissen and the rest of the House that the interests of the European dredging industry, which offers very competitive performance and excellent standards will certainly be taken fully into account, regardless of the current status of legislation in other parts of the world.
We think they have something to offer, we believe that they deserve opportunities and we believe that fair trade requires that they get access to new markets.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
UK structural measures
The next item is the report (A4-0126/97) by Mrs McCarthy, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on development problems and structural interventions in the United Kingdom in the period l994-1999.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my report on the implementation of structural funds in the UK is the result of a very wide consultation undertaken with both users and applicants for EU structural funds.
Over 2, 000 letters and questionnaires were sent out to partners in the regions and I engaged in over twentyfive hours of hearings in nine different places across the UK.
Nine regions were asked for their views.
Over 300 pieces of written evidence were submitted to my office.
The groups consulted and involved in this report included a very wide spectrum, chambers of commerce, training enterprise councils, the voluntary sector, economic development agencies, universities, local authorities, rural development councils and interviews with government offices.
As such I cannot claim all the credit for this report.
It is not my personal report.
It reflects very much the views of peoples in the regions.
Finally, we held a hearing in March in the European Parliament with a senior member of the House of Lords committee of inquiry into structural funds in the UK and the cohesion funds in the EU.
They presented their preliminary findings to our committee.
Indeed, they were remarkably similar to the recommendations contained in this report, in particular vis-à-vis the problems of delays and bureaucracy.
It was regrettable that the UK Government chose not to send a political representative but fortunately we were able to have a Brussels-based civil servant read out a statement, instead of having the policy of the empty chair.
I should like to thank those across the political spectrum who attended, and provided evidence.
I have added a 50page working document which is a genuine attempt to reflect their views.
I would remind the Group of the European People's Party, and its Conservative Members, that to abstain or vote against this report would be to ride roughshod over and disregard the views of local partners on the ground, although the UK Government is no stranger to that process in its management of funding.
I would like to say how the EU funds have played a vital role in developing economic and social cohesion in the UK.
The result has been that some 240, 000 jobs have been created or maintained, in particular in Objective 2 regions and I would also like to say that they are a clear expression of European solidarity for declining regions and regions lagging behind in the UK.
I know that the Group of the European People's Party did not want me to use that term in my report.
They provide a model of collaborative approach to economic development.
They are welcomed by partners in the regions and they have stimulated new and innovative partnerships.
In fact, they have filled the vacuum and the absence of a UK strategic regional policy and compensated somewhat for the government's winner-takes-all gameshow approach to regional development.
Partners have welcomed this strategic framework and it is an important catalyst to regional economic development.
They have also opened up new opportunities for local communities and the voluntary sector to engage in projects.
There I should like to congratulate the Commission on developing new models of best practice. The Merseyside pathways initiative, the RECHAR initiative in Sheffield Manor Estate, the East Durham partnership and the Northern Ireland Peace and Reconciliation Programme.
We also have examples of best practice in the independent secretariats in Scotland and the ending of top-slicing of the European Social Fund in the Merseyside programmes.
As I already said, they have provided additional sources for regeneration which, due to continued government cutbacks and lack of investment in the regions, have provided a vital lifeline and, in some cases, have led to an overdependency on EU funds.
For the record, UK Government investment in regions has fallen since 1984 by 75 %.
Indeed, the EU funds accounted for half of the single regeneration budget which is the main regional investment fund for our regions in 1995.
So you can see how much they are filling the gaps in the UK.
Where there should be additional funds, in reality they often fill a vacuum.
The real problems we find in the regions centre on the government's mismanagement of funding.
Partners are too often faced with the nightmare of paperwork, too much bureaucracy.
In fact, Michael Heseltine's scheme, Regional Challenge, was heavily criticized as producing more bureaucracy and more paperwork.
The government has yet to provide to the Commission an evaluation of the value for money of that scheme.
There is no transparency, no accountability in the allocation of funding and decision-making bodies are run as government quangos with very little elected representation, although I have to say that the pressures from this House and from other colleagues across the regions has meant that we have made some progress in getting elected members on English regional committees.
I have some examples - in fact I have too many and I cannot give all of them here tonight - of the litany of disasters in terms of delays in the European Social Fund.
It is a pity that Commissioner Flynn is not here tonight to answer some of those questions. For the most part, they are due to government incompetence.
One college in the East Midlands has been faced with the loss of £156, 000 of grant.
One of my local authorities has paid out £31, 000 in interest payments and the voluntary sector now believes there is no practical value or effort in them applying for these funds.
If this government cannot make funds of £1.6 billion work, why should they be trusted with public spending of £300 billion in the UK funds.
As a consequence of this, partners are accruing massive interest rate payments.
One manager of a public/private partnership said: ' We have paid out so much in overdrafts and bank charges that we are considering a new programme sub-measure, support to financial institutions' .
A cynical comment but it shows their frustration with the system.
In Scotland they paid out nearly ECU 0.5m in interest payments in 1995 alone.
Yet we are told that the British economy is booming.
Why is it that since 1994 almost 50 % of people in the UK live in an area qualifying for European financial assistance. This is failure, not success.
It is not a success story.
It is a powerful reminder of the real state of the British economy.
As the cohesion report said, poverty has increased in the UK.
We now have 17.5 % of households living below the poverty line and one in three children live in poverty in the UK.
The question we have to ask ourselves is: Where would Britain be without European structural funds?
How much better could it have been if the British Government had shown a real commitment to partnership. I therefore ask this House to vote in favour of my report and to vote in favour of improved democracy, accountability and a more efficient use of EU structural funds.
Mr President, it would have been nice if I could have praised the rapporteur for her work.
Instead, I must deplore both the manipulation of the parliamentary timetable to bring this report before this minisession and the blatant, partisan, party-political nature of much of the text.
We have just heard a sample.
It is to be regretted that Socialists have broken with the practice of not doing a report on one's own country.
It is quite exceptional for the timetable of a report like this, which is not an urgent legislative matter, to be so compressed that it is brought to the plenary session just two weeks after being voted in committee.
Anyone would think there is an election going on in the UK and the Socialists wish to exploit this Parliament for narrow, national, political point-scoring.
This, of course, is the position with this report.
I particularly condemn the way the Socialist rapporteur has indulged in Old Labour negative knocking of her country, just to score points against her political opponents, and has abused the tradition of this House consensus in the process.
To say that the UK has low growth and low productivity is a travesty of misrepresentation when the UK economy is booming with falling unemployment and rising prosperity.
Even worse to my mind has been the slighting reference to the work of the officials who prepare employment statistics.
It is a slur on their reputation to suggest their figures do not give a true picture.
To be fair, there is much that is sensible in this report.
So all the more pity that the rapporteur has let her Old Labour instincts loose to run down and attack her country in this way and to spoil this report.
Mr President, if an Irishwoman may intrude on this debate and pour oil on troubled waters, I will confine myself to European topics.
I particularly welcome this report and its emphasis on the regional administration of the structural funds.
From my own experience and my Green perspective, this is a very effective way to deal with these funds and can be more effective than national administration.
It is demonstrated throughout this Community that, in particular when dealing with employment problems, local administration can be very effective in dealing with the European funding.
The rapporteur refers to the experience of Scotland where local authorities take a lead in planning with other partners and this has been positive.
In Ireland we need more regionalization and less centralization.
The emphasis in this report on decentralization is very welcome wholly from a European perspective.
Mr President, I should like to welcome the report.
I congratulate the rapporteur.
I know she has worked extremely hard over a long period of time to bring this report before us this evening.
She has held hearings throughout the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland.
Unfortunately she was not prepared to invite people from Northern Ireland to the hearing in Brussels but I am not going to fall out with her on that this evening.
There has been long-standing concern and debate within the United Kingdom on the government position on government programmes and how they are brought about.
The utilization of such programmes has always been of concern, especially when it involves additionality. That has been one of the greatest concerns.
This is an area of great suspicion, not only in my own province of Northern Ireland but in the United Kingdom as a whole.
That must be resolved.
There must be more transparency and objectivity as far as regional funds are concerned.
Centralization in London does not work. Ultimate Treasury control most certainly does not work and has to be ended.
So I am in total agreement with Ms McCarthy on that.
I am also in total agreement with her on the matter of more involvement of local councils and local authorities.
There we would have transparency and accountability and people who really know what is happening.
In Northern Ireland we have district partnerships under the Peace and Reconciliation Forum.
These have been a great success.
Yesterday morning in my own area people who previously could never have hoped to have any input into European affairs, were greeting me as their European representative and saying how glad they were to see me there.
They said how glad they were that Europe was able to contribute money to areas such as Castlereagh and to other parts of the province.
I have one point of criticism.
I was a member of the Committee on Regional Policy for five years and with the greatest respect it is not up to Ms McCarthy to produce such a report.
In future when the committee is appointing its rapporteurs, it should ensure that they are not drawn from the Member State which is the subject of the report.
Rapporteurs should be disinterested and Parliament should adopt this principle in future.
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs McCarthy on her excellent report and also on the research that has gone into it.
Rarely, in my experience, has so much research gone into a report for the Committee on Regional Policy.
This is a very difficult subject firstly because it is difficult to examine in detail the structural funds in any of the Member States.
Secondly, it is particularly difficult in the case of the United Kingdom.
Why is this? We have all the problems which Mrs McCarthy has outlined.
The lack of partnership; I know this because I work in an Objective 2 area and I see these things happening.
There is a lack of partnership in many areas and almost complete lack of democracy on the programme monitoring committees.
We still have problems with additionality, added to which we have the problem that the British Government has removed from local government every scrap of finance that can be used for matching funding.
They are only left with what they have to use for statutory duties.
So, they rely on things like the lottery.
Good God, here we are in the European Parliament and one of our Member States is relying on the lottery for regional funding, while people are still sleeping on the streets. This is ridiculous.
It is wrong and we should say so.
The report clearly states one concern that Mr Nicholson has mentioned, namely that we have no regional government.
We have a deprivation of democracy at local level in Britain and that I hope will at least begin to end after 1 May.
There is an additional problem in the UK.
It has abandoned its own regional policy almost totally.
It is no wonder that the gap between Britain's richest regions and its poorest regions is still continuing to widen.
I have no doubt it will continue do so if these policies persist.
Finally, we have to accept that European and Member State regional funding is an intervention in the market and if we subscribe fully and completely to market principles, this gap will not be closed.
We have to have some limitations on the forces of the market.
Otherwise we will never have cohesion in the European Union.
Mr President, I welcome Arlene McCarthy's excellent and extensive report.
It is a superb analysis of the role played by the structural funds in creating a quarter of a million jobs in the UK between 1989 and 1993, in helping to offset the serious disparity between rich and poor referred to by my colleagues and exaggerated by the political decisions of the present British Government.
In a time of increasing scepticism about the European Union's effectiveness, it is essential to highlight the positive contribution that the structural funds and Community initiatives have made to economic and social cohesion, to encouraging new partnerships and to job and business development.
However, Ms McCarthy's report rightly spells out very clearly what is wrong with the processes which are the responsibility of the present UK Government and which have hindered the effective operation of the funds.
In my own constituency of Birmingham, we have just heard the sorry tale of Objective 3 submissions.
The process of submitting applications this year under Objective 3 of the ESF has been fraught with dreadful problems.
The interactive computer discs prepared by the government for applicants were not sent out from the Department of Education and Employment until 14 February with a closing date for applicants of 10 March.
Even then the discs had not been tested properly and did not work properly.
A week after the closing date for the applications, the Birmingham City Council local authority was issued with revised assessment guidelines for the selection criteria which meant that all Birmingham City Council's initial bids had to be re-written.
This is no way to run the structural funds and no way to run a country.
Perhaps Mr Chichester could double as a stand-up comedian as well as an MEP.
Mr President, there are two important issues to make here particularly for the people on the benches opposite, because there is an allegation that this is a partisan report.
First of all I would like to quote the evidence that was given by the regional CBI.
Perhaps Mr Chichester could check this in the extensive report that Ms McCarthy has put together.
The regional CBI claimed in the evidence that they gave to the inquiry conducted in the United Kingdom, that they were not listened to, that they were not involved properly in the procedures, and that for a government that is committed to the business community, large sums of money were given to the privatized utilities in the United Kingdom, rather than to small or medium-sized enterprises.
The sum of £435m was quoted by the regional employers' organizations.
Surely even Mr Chichester and his colleagues in the PPE must accept that when the regional employers' organizations complain about the way in which these funds are being allocated then even they must listen to what is being said.
In addition, a very senior, recently retired, civil servant, submitted evidence to Ms McCarthy.
In his written evidence he said that there was clear evidence of delays in decision-making by the British Government, inadequate briefing of potential applicants, poor or ineligible applications blocking systems, inadequate appraisal of applications and a potential conflict between the applicants and decision-makers, particularly in the case of the government itself, as the programme manager and applicant.
There was a conflict of interest where the government was the programme manager and the applicant.
This is not a partisan report.
This is an honest report, conducted after an extensive inquiry.
The background document is there for people to see and I hope that all Members of this House realize what a shambles the structural funds are in the United Kingdom and how that money is being manipulated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the Committee on Regional Policy and its rapporteur, Mrs McCarthy, for its excellent report on UK structural measures.
In my view this report shows in exemplary fashion what an important role the European Parliament can play in flanking European structural policy by not just relying on information from the Commission services but supplementing this with hearings in situ and the views of the regions.
So this comprehensive preparatory work means that the report and its recommendations carry great weight.
For instance they indicate the decisive part played by national implementation in the success of European structural policy.
Your recommendations, proposals and criticisms are, therefore, rightly addressed not just to the Commission - after all, we are used to that - but equally to the UK government and the regional and local actors.
National co-responsibility concerns not just the financial implementation of structural policy but even more the quality of the structural measures.
In view of the great number of points raised in the report, I want to concentrate on a few important questions here, for the other points will be dealt with in the Commission's follow-up to this report and I am sure I will have several opportunities to discuss the questions raised about the future shape of structural policy during our regular meetings with the Committee on Regional Policy and with Parliament in the coming months.
The resolution acknowledges that in the UK the structural funds have contributed a great deal to economic and social cohesion, to economic restructuring and to job creation.
I believe that is a very important finding, which I hope will be noted by the people of the United Kingdom.
I am also encouraged by the acknowledgement of the impact that European regional policy has in many cases had on strategic regional planning and local and regional partnerships.
The principle of regional partnership is a crucial aspect of regional policy.
I think the examples you quote, such as Pathways to Integration in Merseyside and the special programme to promote peace and reconciliation in Ireland are indeed important ones, and not just for the UK but for the European Union as a whole; and if I am right, there seem to be no differences of opinion at all among the parties about the positive value of the partnerships in Northern Ireland.
The Commission can indeed offer incentives to improve partnership.
In the framework of current legislation, however, it is not possible for the Commission to determine the type and role of partnership, nor am I sure whether this would always be desirable, because partnership has to be built up from below.
Nevertheless I would emphasize that we have achieved some success recently in England too with partnership, especially in regard to the participation of elected representatives at local level.
Meanwhile the private sector is also represented in numerous Monitoring Committees.
This reflects its increased participation in the programmes.
Moreover, during the objective 2 negotiations, the government recently accepted the possibility of including elected representatives in the Monitoring Committees in all the regions.
Yet I still maintain that it would be desirable also to involve the unions, i.e. all the social partners.
In your report you call on the Commission to introduce improved administrative and financial procedures for implementing the programmes and I believe there is certainly room for improvement here, although quite a lot has meanwhile been done.
For instance, new project evaluation procedures have been introduced, to ensure greater transparency in selection and we have an exchange of information about the most effective means of implementation.In Sweden a conference was held for the secretariats of the objective 2 programmes in 1996, which specifically discussed administrative and financial procedures.
The Regional Fund is also supporting an objective 2 network for exchanges of experience.
I keep being asked about the problem of payments - especially for small organizations, which can soon get into difficulties if payments are late.
But let me emphatically point out again that the European Commission does actually make advance payments, as I also told the House of Lords.
For instance, on signature of a programme we pay 50 % of the first annual tranche, in the case of smaller amounts even 50 % of the total programme amount.
The further payments are made on submission of statements of expenditure that show that the programme is running according to plan.
It is only the final payment for the last annual tranche that is not made until after a full and exact final report has been received.
In the case of the UK, there are indeed delays after the conclusion of old programmes and in the final payment, which in some cases are due to the fact that the financial details forwarded to us are not consistent with the declared expenditure.
But inspite of these problems I believe that progress in transparency has been achieved in relation to the programmes for the period 1994 to 1996.
To conclude, let me point out again that I also agree with your call for the European Union's structural measures to be made clearer to the general public and that this also means an obligation to provide information on the part of national and regional authorities and project backers.
For the rest, that is something I have often complained about during visits not just to the UK but also to other Member States - excluding, as a rule, the southern Member States.
So I only hope that the sound and informative report on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, which basically takes a positive view of European structural policy in the UK, despite the necessary criticisms, will be widely disseminated and thus make an important contribution to providing the necessary information on European structural policy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Development of ultra-peripheral regions
The next item is the report (A4-0128/97) by Mr Fernández Martín, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on development problems in the outermost regions of the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to greet the representation of the Joint Committee of the Spanish Senate and Congress, responsible for European Union affairs, who are in the public gallery.
The ultra-peripheral regions of the European Union were defined in the Treaty on the European Union in the Declaration No. 26 appended thereto.
According to that Declaration, the ultra-peripheral regions of the European Union are the French overseas departments, the autonomous Portuguese regions of Madeira and the Azores and the Spanish Canary Islands.
This Declaration also recognises that ultra-peripheral regions suffer major structural lags, made worse by various phenomena including, to name just a few, their remoteness, in terms of thousands of kilometres, their isolation, their harsh climates, apart from other geographical and demographic factors, high rates of unemployment, education problems, cultural difficulties, etc.
The concept of the ultra-peripheral region was not invented at Maastricht; before their mention in the Treaties, these regions went down long historic roads parallel to the very growth of the Union from the Treaty of Rome until now.
In fact, in the case of France, there was already recognition of the specific features of its overseas departments in Article 227 of the Treaty of Rome.
As far as Spain is concerned, the Treaty of Accession of the Kingdom of Spain to the European Community contained a specific protocol, the so-called Second Protocol, which included the special features of the accession arrangements applied to the Canary Islands, according to which the Canary Islands were exempted from the application of the policies which were then, eleven years ago, the backbone of the European Community.
In the Portuguese case, the special features of the application of Community law to the regions of the Azores and Madeira were made explicit in the Treaty of Accession.
These special accession conditions for what we now call the ultra-peripheral regions have been amended over the years, as the respective accession arrangements have been adapted to the process of integration and construction of the European Union.
The treatment of the specific nature of the outermost regions in application of Community law has been consolidated in the three programmes of options specifically relating to remoteness and insularity - POSEIDOM, in the case of France, POSEMA, in the case of Portugal, and POSEICAN, in the case of Spain, as well as the Community initiative Regis Programme, all of which are in force and will be applied until 1999.
But after 1999 the ultra-peripheral regions will face uncertainty, which would be a blow for their development and hamper the process of economic and social cohesion in the terms of Article B of the Treaty on European Union.
This is an uncertainty added to so many others hanging over the future of the European Union, such as those relating to integration, deepening of the Union and enlargement.
This uncertainty is due to specific local causes related to the fact that they are ultra-peripheral, including structural weaknesses which make them particularly fragile vis-à-vis the impact of the Single Market, without their benefiting from any of its advantages, which either does not function or functions in a very different way - compared with the European continent - in territories located thousands of kilometres away.
Therefore, against the background of the Intergovernmental Conference which is looking at the reform of the Treaties, in numerous resolutions, the ultra-peripheral regions themselves, in the Committee of the Regions, and other institutions of the European Union such as the European Council -in particular at the Madrid, Turin and Dublin summits - the European Parliament has repeatedly come out in favour of the inclusion of an article in the new text of the reformed Treaties granting the ultra-peripheral regions legal recognition, in terms of primary law, which makes it possible to apply specific policies and speed up their development and their economic and social cohesion.
The actual wording of this article to be proposed, which coincides in substance with the proposal already included in the declarations made by the Spanish, French and Portuguese governments at the Dublin summit, is set out in the first paragraph of my report, which is why I am asking the Assembly to vote in favour of it.
I must take this opportunity to thank all of the groups and all of the regional authorities of the ultra-peripheral regions for the support that they have given me in drafting this report which I hope - I repeat - will be approved by the Assembly.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have been a Member for only two months and in this my maiden speech in the shrine of European democracy I feel very happy and privileged to be giving wholehearted support to this report by Mr Martin concerning the need for us to express solidarity with the people of the outermost regions of Europe as authoritatively and effectively as we possibly can and to give real effect to the principle of economic and social cohesion that is enshrined in the Treaty on European Union.
There is an obligation on all of us to be heedful of the hardships, the visions, the hopes and the frustrations of the people of those regions where per capita GDP is low, employment is high, transport costs for goods and raw materials are high because of the remoteness and the education and training systems are anything but adequate.
Coming from Greece, with its many island groups, I am only too well aware of the problems faced by these regions.
The European Union has a duty, on the basis of its legal commitments and, above all, morally and for the sake of fairness, to make a determined and sensitive effort to strengthen the legal, political and economic measures which are designed to reduce regional disparities and to compensate for the disadvantages that stem from the wide geographical dispersion and remoteness of its ultra-peripheral regions.
The measures should adapt Community policies to the requirements of these regions, especially in the areas of employment, transport, taxation, social infrastructures, technology and environmental protection.
But even assuming that that is done, we still lack an integrated European policy and strategy for the promotion of equality of development opportunity in the island regions of the Union, for tackling the problems of those regions effectively and for genuinely strengthening their economic competitiveness.
To meet all of these requirements an integrated European policy must be drawn up and incorporated in the new treaty, both for the 'ultra-peripheral' regions that are the subject of this debate and for all of the European Union's island regions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I must begin by congratulating Mr Fernández Martín not only on his report but also on the methodology which he has used in drafting it, which brought him into contact with many regions, many people and which, therefore, translates the very feeling of many European citizens.
The very title of the report is suggestive, as is the respective resolution, in recommending exclusively the inclusion of an article in the Treaty on European Union to give a specific answer to the special problems of ultra-peripheral regions.
The representatives of the citizens of the 15 Member States, would be focusing their attention on seven regions, some of which are also furthest away from the average parameters of development, finally ensuring that those respective citizens are given a say in European construction.
Approval of this report, therefore, takes on a profound political importance.
It confirms that the European Union notes the difference in a movement of convergence in which the regions adapt to the European Union and the European Union adapts to the regions.
This ability for mutual adaptation is what makes the difference between a Europe with a face, a personality, and a Europe which is completely faceless.
The European Parliament once again accepts that it wants a Europe which citizens can see as their own, because at the same time it meets the great world challenges, while paying attention to all of its citizens.
There are development problems in the ultra-peripheral regions.
The ratio between the different levels of development between the less and most developed is practically 1: 5, a politically and socially unacceptable ratio.
The substantial support of the European Union must be permanently adjusted to practical problems.
Among other measures, there is a proposal for the effective subordination of all European Union policies and measures to the principle of economic and social cohesion.
Secondly, the inclusion in the Treaty on European Union of an article which provides for modulation of policies and the adoption of measures that actually meet the specific and acknowledged needs of the ultra-peripheral regions.
Thirdly, an attempt to make the POSEI programmes meet expectations.
This would relaunch the POSEIMA programme making the most of what is efficient and bringing it into the new areas.
In the Azores, for example, we really must extend POSEIMA to the fisheries sector, relaunch it in the energy sector and open it up to SMEs.
There is also a proposal to concentrate the resources of the Structural Funds in those regions which most need it.
Why not transfer what has not been used in other regions to those regions which most need the money? Fifthly, we must really also make sure that we have funding for projects under the Cohesion Fund, which have yet to reach the ultra-peripheral regions despite the fact that they are the regions which are at the greatest disadvantage because of reductions in public spending stemming from the application of convergence criteria in order to bring in the single currency.
Finally, this text also clearly lays responsibility with the Member States for combating the development asymmetry which has only got worse - by means of aids to transport and energy, while also adopting special tax-related measures.
I can only hope that the representatives of the Member States who are meeting in the Intergovernmental Conference, who have to deal with many and complex questions, will listen to this very loud and eloquent alarmbell which has been rung by the European Parliament.
The very principle of economic and social cohesion is at stake and we are, in this text, affirming the political vocation of a whole project.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the integration of French overseas departments within the Community is a textual reality which goes back to 1958.
The well-established jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Communities leaves no doubt about the matter.
However, in spite of the provisions of Article 227(2) of the Treaty of Rome, then of the Treaty on Union, which provides for adjustments in certain subjects for the application of Community law in these departments, the Court of Justice seems to grant a pre-eminence of legal egalitarianism compared with an essential recognition of the economic and social realities of these regions.
The steps which have been taken for some time by our Parliament, and particularly those of today, are the logical consequence of a collective awakening, on the part of all the institutions of the Union, to the structural handicaps which the seven outermost regions of the Union suffer and to the mitigated result of the sustained effort at European solidarity thanks to specific measures.
All those measures intended to make certain Community rules more flexible to take into account the backwardness of these regions are invalidated by the Court of Justice, through the restrictive interpretation it gives to the notion of specificity.
The Treaty on Union, in its Article 130A, demonstrates an unprecedented political willingness in the domain of social and economic cohesion, even if, must I recall it, the four French ultra-peripheral regions, that is, the majority of these regions, recognised today by the Executive Committee as the poorest in the Union, do not benefit from the Cohesion Fund provided for by Article 130B of the Treaty on Union, because they belong to a home country whose overall gross domestic product renders them ineligible.
The provisions formulated in the draft motion and the protocol which have been submitted to us, are intended to correct this ill-conceived integration by a substantial modification of Article 127(2) of the Treaty on Union.
These modifications, if adopted by the IGC, will give these regions a legal regime which will enable the Community authorities to adapt, by means of derived law, without exceptions in terms of subject, all policies on the basis of the specific features of each of these regions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the populations of the outermost regions, and more specifically those of the banana-producing countries, have been concerned about the consequences of their integration, the degree of solidarity they may enjoy and the Community preference granted them, since the publication of the interim report of the WTO panel on the 'bananas' OCM.
The Fernandez Martin Report, of which I stress the pertinence, gives us the opportunity to demonstrate our political will to make available to these regions the legal means to ensure their full development within the European Union, while taking into consideration and respecting the specific features associated with their environment.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I should like to congratulate the author of this report, Mr Fernández Martín, who has drafted a magnificent report on the ultra-peripheral regions.
These are lessfavoured regions, some of the regions with the most difficulties in the European Union.
Only a few days ago we were celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Treaty of Rome and I remember that Paul-Henri Spaak said, before the Treaty of Rome was drafted, that free markets were not enough to ensure the harmonious and uniform development of all of the regions of the European Union, that the richest regions would profit from this unification of the market and that the poorest regions would be badly affected by it.
On that score, it has indeed been the European regions which have suffered most of all, especially mountain regions and frontier regions, and here we are talking in particular about ultra-peripheral regions.
I hope that the European Parliament will also be able to look at the particular problems facing island regions, which is another subject which really ought to be dealt with.
These ultra-peripheral regions face the problem of a lag in their economic and social development and, in particular, face problems due to their very remoteness.
On this score, it is important that the European Union should take account of the problem which is facing regions in this situation.
One of the most important factors for dealing with these problems is to make sure that they have sufficient political autonomy, political autonomy which enables local authorities to know exactly what the problems are and take decisions accordingly without depending on orders which often have to come from many kilometres away.
Self-government may be one of the most efficient ways of tackling these problems.
But I also think it is a responsibility of the European Union, in terms of economic and social cohesion, to make sure that these regions receive the aid they need.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, over many years it has been difficult, for lack of consensus, to recognise the need for a legal status to translate the permanent disadvantages faced by these regions all of which are characterised by their extreme remoteness, their insularity, their harsh relief and climate, all of which limit and condition their possibilities for developing on the same footing as the remaining territories of the European Union.
These difficulties were only recognised in the Maastricht Treaty by dint of their inclusion in an appended declaration.
It was on this basis that the POSEI programmes were approved, in the launch of which our Group played a decisive role and which, because of legal insufficiencies, had an overall temporary character, incompatible with the permanent nature of the difficulties I have already referred to.
Now there is a consensus that the IGC - Intergovernmental Conference - must include in the new Treaty the status of ultra-peripheral regions.
Therefore, we are going to vote in favour of the excellent report drafted by Mr Martín which deserves our support.
But it is fundamental that now we must begin to take new political steps which could give practical substance to this new legal status.
It is therefore essential that we adapt common Community policies to the regional reality; that we resume and strengthen actions taken in the scope of the POSEI programmes; that we create or develop fiscal, commercial and customs policies which actually promote local investment; that we adapt agricultural, fisheries and industrial policies to accommodate special local production features and parameters and promote diversification; and we should also guarantee that people living in those regions are supplied with raw materials and consumer goods and can circulate throughout the Union without any difficulties.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the populations of islands such as the Azores and Madeira recognition of the status of ultra-peripheral regions is very important.
That is why we are fighting for it so much.
But what will really be decisive and what will really have an effect on public opinion is whether we really can bring about change and that will require practical policies to be adopted in order to tackle any local difficulties which arise.
Mr President, I too find that in this report the rapporteur really has displayed a very strong commitment to the development of the ultra-peripheral regions.
He has described the objective of optimum and sustainable development under these very specific conditions in very great detail and offered many new ideas.
But it is rather curious that the term 'outermost regions' does not really say what the true issue is.
For it is not a question of regions in Europe but of regions in the Atlantic, in the Indian Ocean and in Central America, of former colonies and military bases.
Europe's idea of development was not always the one the local people wanted.
The use of rain forests for a European station in Central America with consumers who come from Paris is not what we understand by autonomous regional development.
That is why we welcome all the report's proposals that are designed to ensure genuine autonomous regional development in these areas and ask the rapporteur to accept our amendments which are aimed at eliminating single crops in these areas and which support his proposals to that end.
We do not accept the idea of introducing a separate chapter because that only establishes the old colonial situation.
We think it is right for this protocol to discuss the specific features of these areas in detail and believe that is an adequate means of satisfying these regions.
Mr President, the ultra-peripheral regions of the European Union are characterised by deep structural backwardness which is made worse by a set of unfavourable and permanent social and geographical circumstances which means that the average GDP of these regions is among the lowest in the European Union.
In recognising this reality and in order to tackle the consequences of the remoteness and insularity of these regions, the Community created a set of instruments including the adoption of specific option programmes known as POSEI and the subsequent inclusion, in an Appendix to the Treaty, of a declaration on the ultra-peripheral regions.
Since 1994, recognition of these special features has been diminished because of changes made to the POSEI programmes; the existing mechanisms and instruments were applied only to some of the areas where they could have been.
That is why it is necessary to include in the Treaty on European Union a whole article dedicated, for good, to the concept of ultra-peripheral regions which makes it possible for the European Union to take adequate and coherent measures in respect of the principle of economic and social cohesion.
As a corollary of the European Parliament's determination to tackle the specific features of ultra-peripheral regions, involving other initiatives, the Portuguese, Spanish and French governments have presented, at the IGC, a joint proposal calling for the inclusion of a specific article in the Treaty on European Union referring to the ultraperipheral regions and the drafting of a protocol to be appended to the Treaty setting out the special conditions for adopting specific measures and derived law.
The amendments which we have tabled and which were approved at the Institutional Committee should strengthen the proposals already presented at the IGC from two points of view.
First of all, making explicit the enshrinement of ultra-peripheral regions, aimed at guaranteeing equal opportunities and economic and social cohesion.
Secondly, promoting the institutional enshrinement in the new Treaty on European Union of the autonomy of ultraperipheral regions.
In respect of this aspect, our aim is to establish that the very bodies of the autonomous regions should be informed when legislative initiatives are being taken, so that the self-governing institutions can actually find out about proposals dealing with specific affairs relating to the regions before they are included on the Council's order of business for discussion.
After all, this is in line with what was proposed in the plans for Dublin II in respect of national parliaments.
I take this opportunity to send my greetings to the populations of Madeira and the Azores and I hope that they will benefit from a real opportunity for development as a result of this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must begin by congratulating the rapporteur who obviously possesses considerable knowledge of the real life situation experienced by the populations of ultraperipheral regions.
It is true that these regions have to face very serious structural and traditional problems but it is even more important to pick out those problems which are related to their ultra-peripheral nature.
We are speaking in particular about their remoteness, insularity, small surface area, difficult relief and climate, which make them terribly dependent on the outside world and are reflected in the very low per capita income still registered in these regions, despite the very positive effects of POSEI programmes, in particular the POSEIMA programme applied in the Azores and Madeira.
It is no accident that these ultra-peripheral regions of the European Union have the lowest GDP per capita.
Being able to establish this difference between structural deficiencies - which albeit considerable and far-reaching could sooner or later be resolved - and the very problems related to the fact that they are ultra-peripheral which is a permanent problem, justifies in itself, in our opinion, inclusion in the Treaty on European Union of every legal guarantee which would enable these regions to be properly compensated.
We believe that through this tiny enrichment of the Treaty it will be possible to adapt common policies so that effective support can be given to the strategic sectors of these regions, such as transport, energy, telecommunications, without harming any of the other vital forms of support which are already being given.
Finally, given that we now recognise the practical effect that these programmes are having on the ground, I think that we should perhaps put right some of the mistakes which have been committed, improve certain areas and, all in all, make sure that the programmes are extended to attain objectives which have been suggested or which are the wish of the inhabitants of these regions.
Mr President, the proposals contained in this report cannot be understood without bearing in mind the real problems which have arisen concerning fulfilment of the principle of economic and social cohesion, when it is applied to action taken in favour of the development of ultra-peripheral regions.
These problems have shown the urgent need to work out a permanent specific status which really takes account of the special features of these territories, governing the implemented policies with a fundamental legal support instrument to act as an effective base when specific measures are taken to deal with the special features of these particular regions.
This report has the virtue of solving this problem by proposing that we set up, through inclusion in the Treaty, a legal base which provides for the specific treatment of these regions.
It also has the virtue of taking a generous look, in the proposal for an additional protocol, at other questions which really need to be dealt with vis-à-vis ultraperipheral regions calling for specific treatment.
Among these questions, on one hand, are the peculiar difficulties facing those regions which justify that the Union should give them greater support, far beyond that afforded by the POSEI programmes, whose limits have been shown by their markedly compensatory character, and on the other, because the POSEI programmes, which to a large extent mix up problems relating to their ultra-peripheralness with structural problems, do not at present guarantee stable development of the ultra-peripheral regions, because it is not enough to take measures to adapt Community policies or compensate for geographical location, unless we really tackle practical problems and end some of the uncertainties due to the void to exist from 1999 onwards.
We think that this report is based on this reality and we go along with its philosophy.
Our Group can support it, as has been demonstrated by the fact that the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, belonging to our Group - Mr Gutiérrez Díaz - has also lent his full support to this report, in that it represents an important starting-point for achieving economic and social cohesion in the ultra-peripheral regions.
Mr President, like previous speakers I would like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his magnificent work.
I should also like to greet, in the public gallery, the Spanish Member of Parliament, Mr Segura Clavel, who is here today with us.
At the same time, I should also like to congratulate Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, our Vice-President, on his magnificent opinion on this subject, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
I should like to point out that most of the speeches which we have heard this evening have come from members of the European Parliament who live in these very islands.
That is why I should like to thank those speakers whom we might call 'continental' , such as Mr Gutiérrez Díaz himself, Mrs Karamanou, Mr Vallvé and Mrs Schroedter.
I think that, at this time, the comprehension shown in this European Parliament of the ultra-peripheral regions is very important.
However, I should like in particular, Mr President, to address my words to the Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, who perfectly understands the problems of the regions, and I should like to point out to her that at this very time, in the Intergovernmental Conference, we must tackle the subject of the legal status of the ultra-peripheral regions.
It is not just that there is no legal status, because in some ways there is in the form of Article 227 or the Acts of Accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community, as well as other expressions of derived Community law, such as Regulation 1911/91 on the Canary Islands. And it also seems to me that the European Commission has supported the proposals by giving them a more stable legal base, through a specific article in the protocol.
I should like to ask the Commission, through Commissioner Wulf-Mathies and the other Commissioners who are here with us today, to bear in mind that this is not a mere whim. I should also like to correct one of the remarks made earlier which suggested that these territories are former colonies - they are not.
For example, in the case of the Canaries, Azores and Madeira, they are part and parcel of national territory and there is a European settlement on those territories.
Please remember the very special nature of this European population living thousands of kilometres away from the European heartland. All we are asking is that they should be given a distinct status which recognises, in a Community treaty, the very special situation in which they live.
Mr President, Commissioner, if we are dealing with a positive report, it is calling out to us.
After decades of integration in the Community, the overseas departments are still ranked among the most disadvantaged in the European Union.
The social and economic indicators remain desperately in the red, with in particular a notoriously high rate of unemployment.
Despite the implementation of specific programmes, despite injections of national and European credits, the economic and social situation there continues to deteriorate.
With the single market and the application of the Treaty of Maastricht, the integrationist logic of the construction of Europe has been strengthened in the overseas departments.
In the name of harmonisation and the constrained adaptation of the Treaty, certain specific features, in particular in the fiscal domain, such as excise duties and certain dispensations, have been questioned and subjected to very strict control by the Commission.
Experience has shown that the Declaration on the outermost regions annexed to the Treaty, but not legally binding, has given no guarantee, nor protection, against the consequences of deregulation, since it has privileged the objective of completion of the internal market.
It is essential, therefore, that in the home straight of the Intergovernmental Conference, the full and complete specific nature of the overseas departments and the outermost regions is recognised statutorily in the Treaty, with a dual objective: to apply specific measures in their favour and to authorise dispensations to Community regulations, for as long as these regions have not caught up with the average social and economic level of the European Union.
Such recognition of the status of the overseas departments in the Treaty could enable the implementation of a new type of development, based upon regional assets and potentialities, while remedying the many handicaps particularly associated with distance, and with insularity.
Finally, this kind of development would allow the inhabitants of these countries at last, at last indeed, to play an active part in their own development.
Mr President, first I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Fernandez Martin, on this report, in which he has drawn the European Parliament's attention to all the outermost regions for the first time.
The report and the motion for a resolution describe the specific disadvantages facing these regions.
The problems he lists also reflect the concerns which the presidents of the outermost regions expressed at our talks last week during my visit to the island of Reunion, where I did indeed find that we are very far away from what we normally regard as Europe, and I think it is important that we should always remember that.
For the rest, your requests coincide with the wishes various economic operators expressed again and again during my visit.
All this makes me even more convinced that these regions will need special arrangements in future too.
Since 1989 the Commission has been endeavouring to take account of their special features in its programmeplanning documents.
This also applies to the Regis I and Regis II Community initiative programmes adopted for 1991 and 1996, to which speakers have already referred.
Like Parliament, the Commission believes - and President Santer has repeated this on several occasions - that the concept of the Union needs to be confirmed, deepened and strengthened for the outermost regions.
It has also supported the draft Treaty article and protocol jointly submitted by Spain, France and Portugal at the intergovernmental conference, confirming this at the last meeting of the intergovernmental conference when this question was discussed.
For unfortunately we must admit that the Posei programmes are increasingly in question in the absence of a clear legal basis.
For instance, the Commission has discovered that at times the Council finds it difficult, during discussions of proposals for the outermost regions, to persuade the Member States to acknowledge the commitments the Community has entered into under the Posei programmes, as the recent application to the European Court of Justice has also shown.
That is why we have to consolidate this concept and thus give the outermost regions the necessary clarity, legal certainty and transparency in order to strengthen their cohesion with the European Union.
In relation to structural fund measures, I simply want to refer to the concerns expressed with regard to aid after 1999 and emphasize once again that in future too the outermost regions, which are the poorest regions of the Community, will be entitled to the highest level of aid.
I also agree with the rapporteur on the need to improve the cohesion of Community policy vis à vis the peripheral regions.
An interservice group already exists for the coordination of the Commission's services and I believe that we can still improve our cooperation with the outermost regions in future too.
Let me therefore thank the rapporteur again.
The Commission will continue to work with you on improving the situation in the outermost regions.
Thank you very much, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Budget discharge
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0138/97 by Mr Kellett-Bowman, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, giving discharge to the Management Board of the European Centre for the Development of Professional Training (Thessaloniki) in respect of the implementation of its budgets for the 1994 and 1995 financial year; -A4-0139/97 by Mr Kellett-Bowman, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, giving discharge to the Management Board of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Dublin) in respect of the implementation of its budget for the 1995 financial year.
Mr President, these two discharge reports should not be burning the midnight oil here in Brussels, they should have been taken as part of the general discharge debate in Strasbourg at the last session on Wednesday morning.
The reason why these reports are delayed is that the Council had not given us their recommendations as to discharge.
These were finally received last week and I would like to thank the Council for sending them to us because it enables Parliament to deal with recommendations for discharge in April, which is the requirement of the rules.
First may I turn to the Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions in Dublin.
I want to thank the Court of Auditors for their report.
I am a friend of the Court of Auditors but I want to make two remarks about this report.
The first is that the early copy before the contradictory process was leaked in Denmark which caused great embarrassment to the Foundation and secondly the tone in English is unnacceptable.
I do not care if the auditor had a bad journey and did not find his hotel comfortable; the nuances in this report should not occur again.
It may not be obvious in the other languages but they are quite clear in English.
The difficulties for these small bodies is that they are not large enough to have their own financial controller.
That means that a great amount of expenditure has to be spent out of the imprest account in order to keep their suppliers happy and it is very difficult for them to divide the legal responsibilities between the authorizing officer, the payments officer and the financial controller.
I welcome moves by the Commission to try and deal with this situation by carrying out Parliament's recommendation of having part-time financial controllers.
I look forward to an opportunity to see electronic visas being issued by the financial controller in Brussels which should get rid of the criticisms which the Court levies.
We are quite happy for the Budgetary Control Committee to recommend the House to grant discharge to the Dublin Foundation.
I then turn to the Centre for Vocational Training which is now in Thessaloniki.
There are two recommendations here, one for 1994 and one for 1995.
I am sorry the Council is not here.
It is the second time I have found them not here on an important occasion.
It was perversity in the European Council which looked round the whole of the European Community to find a European body which did not have the requirement of mobility of its staff written into its contracts.
For that reason they decided to move the Foundation from Berlin to Thessaloniki.
The Council are the rogues, the Council were perverse and they are to blame for the problems which have since arisen.
Had they wanted to kill off the Foundation they probably could not have gone about it in a better way.
However, having blamed the Council we now look to the Commission to pick up the pieces.
The question is whether they have picked up the pieces or not.
We were unable in the Budgetary Control Committee to recommend discharge for 1994, which should have taken place last April, because the Court gave us wind of some rather unusual circumstances whereby the management board and the director had to inveigle staff to transfer from Berlin to Thessaloniki.
I stress it was not their willingness to go to Greece but the fact that the people not having mobility in their contracts very often had social responsibilities which made them choose to work there, responsibilities for older generations, children with difficult health etc., they needed to be in the same place.
We heard about these difficulties so we deferred discharge for 1994 and the Court of Auditors brought us a further report covering the year 1995 which revealed some of the extreme moves which the board of management and the director had to make in order to keep CEDEFOP alive, in order to persuade people to go to Thessaloniki.
Some of them went out of sheer loyalty to the institution and went on the basis that they expected degagement to be awarded to them at a later date.
These people have been good Community servants and have been treated shabbily by the Council, but the Commission on their white chargers should have come to their defence and they have not.
I want to pay credit to the director because he has managed under these difficult circumstances to keep the centre going and I think we can look forward to a useful future and product coming from the institution.
I am fed up with the Commission and I think this will be shown by the fact that two amendments have been put down to this discharge report.
One by Mr Garrigo Polledo on behalf of the Euorpean Peoples' Party Group and one by Mrs Wemheuer on behalf of the Socialist Group.
We want to indicate to the Commission our dissatisfaction with what has happened.
I am going to leave Mr Tappin to speak on the amendments because on the Budgets Committee he has been playing a very useful role in dealing with all the agencies and has been very helpful with this one in particular.
I have great respect for the powers of the Commission and I invite them to use their powers to assist the casualties of this remarkable decision by the Council to move the centre from Berlin to Thessaloniki.
We recommend discharge, despite the problems, and at the same time commend the director for the way in which he has managed to keep going.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Kellett-Bowman on his two reports.
I wish to address my remarks solely to the issue of CEDEFOP in Thessaloniki.
There are two things I want to focus on.
Firstly, the matter of staffing.
Unfortunately, as Mr Kellett-Bowman has said, members of the Council who are the protagonists in the great problem we have with CEDEFOP are not here to listen to our complaints and those of the Court of Auditors on the staffing question.
I feel sorry for Commissioner Liikanen who is being treated rather like a tennis ball, being lobbed backwards and forwards between Parliament and Council, trying to resolve an issue which is not of his making but of the Council's.
It ought to be pointed out to the Commissioner that both Mr Kellett-Bowman and myself have worked extremely hard to try to seek dégagement for the staff remaining in Thessaloniki, Berlin and other capitals and institutions who, because of the terms of their contract, which was originally CEDEFOP, do not seek or are unhappy with the move to Thessaloniki.
We have engaged in correspondence on this and to that end, because of a lack of satisfactory conclusion, we have put down an amendment on behalf of both the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European People's Party to resolve this problem this year.
We would ask the Commission to use his best wiles and skills as a politician as well as a Commissioner to seek dégagement for those staff who are currently unhappy with the false move to Thessaloniki.
This move is preventing Mr Van Rens operating a tight ship in Thessaloniki itself.
The second issue is that of buildings.
The Court of Auditors quite properly has raised the matter of the appalling contract which was agreed between the Council and the Greek state on the provision of a new building.
Although two payments have been made by the European Union, not one brick has been laid.
This is totally unsatisfactory as far as we in Parliament are concerned and for the budget for 1997 we have put the payment for this year on hold until some progress has been made.
This brings me to my last point.
Without the investigative powers of Parliament, many of the problems with Thessaloniki and other institutions would not have been brought to light.
I call upon the Commission, as a part of the budget process for 1997, to bring forward the harmonization of regulations for discharge for all the agencies, so Parliament can have some control over discharge.
Finally, I congratulate Mr Van Rens.
He has been placed in an invidious position in running Thessaloniki.
He is doing a magnificent job but to paraphrase Winston Churchill: Give him the tools so he can carry on functioning as an agency head and not with one hand tied behind his back.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Kellett-Bowman for his excellent report.
I will confine my remarks to the Dublin Foundation.
I know that the Dublin Foundation greatly appreciates the efforts Mr KellettBowman has made and for the measured response in his report.
Recently I visited the Dublin Foundation, as a Member representing Dublin.
As a member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I was interested to see the work carried on there.
I found that it carries out its duties in an open, conscientious and entirely appropriate manner.
Last week members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs had an opportunity to have an exchange of views with the director of the Dublin Foundation and the report before us clearly shows that the Dublin Foundation is managed carefully.
I therefore agree that the discharge should be given for 1995.
Mr President, as was mentioned here by previous speakers, the decision about the transfer of CEDEFOP to Thessaloniki was taken at the summit.
Mr Kellett-Bowman and Mr Tappin have been actively following the case which, unfortunately, includes difficult decisions at a personal level.
There are still a few officials who find the situation unsatisfactory.
As far as the Commission is concerned, we are ready to do what we can for those who want to transfer to Luxembourg.
I wrote a letter to our services to try to find solutions for those.
For the others, we can find solutions on a case-by-case basis.
We are ready to study them with open minds.
Unfortunately the Council unanimously rejected our efforts to find a solution for dégagement in the context of enlargement.
Parliament took a much more favourable view of the possibility of dégagement .
There has been no sign that the position of the Council would change.
Secondly, I have to say that the Commission trade unions are strongly against the solution of a dégagement which would only apply to one part of the personnel.
They feel that if there is any solution of that sort, it should be open to all.
So, I regret that there is no easy answer.
At any rate, we must remember that the officials who have been, and still are, working within the Staff Regulations, have the right to a pre-pension scheme.
It is not very generous but it guarantees a certain basic security for them.
I am going to study the possibilities here but they are, unfortunately rather limited.
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
Before declaring the debate closed, I should like to give the floor to the rapporteur.
Mr President, I had hoped that we might have had sufficient response from the Commission that would have enabled the two groups to withdraw their amendments.
That has not occurred.
I deplore the fact that the Commission is unable to treat these people whom I have called casualties.
They are casualties through no fault of their own and it is pathetic that the Commission is unable to find a route to help them.
Can I ask what solution Mr Kellett-Bowman is proposing?
Mr President, can I be blunt.
The solution I would like to see is the one which follows the undertaking which I thought was given to Mr Tappin and to myself by the Commissioner who has just spoken.
That is why I am cross.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Fisheries restructuring
The next item is the report (A4-0141/97) by Mr Baldarelli, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Decision on a specific measure to encourage Italian fishermen to diversify out of certain fishing activities (COM(96)0682 - C4-0037/97-96/0308(CNS)).
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, as those who have been following the debate can attest, this is a highly significant report affecting part of the Italian fishing fleet. At the same time it is a report which signals a reversal of the trend towards over-capacity of the fleet, and can also serve as an example for other situations in other countries.
Certainly this conversion plan we are going to vote on is rooted in the recognition that these fishing activities are unsustainable. The fact is, drift net fishing in Italy now represents an excessive proportion of licences - some 690 boats are geared up to this type of fishing - and it is having a major impact on the environment.
This consideration was the starting point for introducing a conversion plan which respects the UN directives and the legal approach taken by the European Union in its own regulation setting the maximum length for drift nets at 2.5 kilometres, but also takes account of the very logical debate, conducted in this Parliament and elsewhere, on the danger of these nets to certain species, particularly sperm whales and dolphins.
So there has been sensitivity going beyond the mere regulatory aspect and we must respond to that, even if we are convinced that the central issue is not so much the elimination of this kind of fishing - which has a long historical tradition - as the link with sustainability.
The number of licences must be reduced, part of the fleet withdrawn and part of it converted.
But the fishermen must be closely involved and above all the plan must be voluntary.
That is the line Parliament's committee has taken, considering, amongst other things, the agreement sealed between the professional organizations, the trade unions and the ministry in Italy, providing precisely for voluntary application of this plan, which makes use of Community resources earmarked for Italy - hence not extra resources - and naturally gives fishermen as well as shipowners the opportunity to respond.
We have amended the Commission's proposal to the effect that the financial framework does not relate just to shipowners but also to fishermen, and not just to fishermen of Union nationalities, but also to fishermen from third countries. In fact there are many fishermen from third countries engaged in this type of activity, especially Tunisians and Algerians.
We think parity of treatment of individual workers is a very important principle.
Having said that, we do recognize certain incongruities in the plan: one significant incongruity is that the financial position is very much better for Objective 1 areas than for other areas.
Incongruities like this need to be remedied when the plan is implemented inside Italy, and Italy needs to make the necessary arrangements.
We also think it is important politically to stop criminalizing this type of fishing.
Proposing a research programme to identify the real impact and take account of the comments which have been made by the environmental associations and the fishermen's organizations themselves, will be an important signal to fishermen.
These measures will damp down a certain radicalism developing in this sector which is adding to the unacceptable social tension.
Mr President, much of the debate on this point has been highly controversial, emotional and personal.
That has not exactly helped us to find a solution.
Anyone who has belonged to the Committee on Fisheries for a long time knows how concerned we are with the worries and troubles of fishermen in all Member States, which includes Italy.
Protecting jobs always was and is our central concern.
The Italian fisheries plan we are now due to vote on was negotiated between Italian producer organizations, ship-owners, unions, the Italian government and the European Commission.
It concerns the conversion to new fisheries practices.
The fleet consists of no more than 500 vessels using drift nets up to 2.5 km long for catching tuna and swordfish in the Mediterranean.
But the use of these drift nets is economically unviable and therefore no longer acceptable.
Longer nets have been banned in the EU since the end of 1991, under Regulation 345/92.
The plan restricts the issue of licences for drift nets and provides for their withdrawal and destruction.
The costs and means of financing this plan have been worked out in detail.
This measure guarantees the fishermen concerned financial support for restructuring their fisheries practices.
That is why the Committee on Fisheries accepted the proposed plan by a large majority.
Five draft amendments are included, on the principle of voluntary action, control and discipline in relation to all vessels in the Mediterranean and on support for non-European fishermen on Italian vessels.
The EPP endorses the consensus that was eventually reached on the plan for Italy and, after careful consideration, firmly rejects the new amendments that have been put before us.
Mr President, the Greeks and Spaniards talk of a labyrinth of nets.
In the Mediterranean drift nets are sometimes as much as 25 kilometres long.
The 690 Italian fishing vessels have an average drift net length of some 12 kilometres.
All together that is the distance from Gibraltar to Izmir and back.
You cannot imagine the destructive effect of all this, including by-catches which are not deliberate but which kill the fish.
It seems clear to me that the conversion plan is necessary; it is just a pity that the Commission does not make it clear in its proposal whether and how the nets are to be destroyed.
Moreover, the Commission's proposal offers few guarantees that European money will be responsibly spent.
And I see from my good friend Baldarelli's report that he favours a voluntary plan.
I hope that Commissioner Bonino will not agree to a voluntary basis but will leave it as compulsory.
Mr President, I find it unfortunate that Mr Baldarelli's report shows little commitment to really getting rid of drift net fishing.
It is not good to be constantly saying that counties such as Algeria use drift nets too.
I think that Italy must face up to her responsibilities.
We can help in this and it is thus very important that financial compensation should be given only when efficient supervisory mechanisms are in place and the nets really are destroyed.
To this end I put down three amendments to A, B and C on behalf of the Liberal Group, and I hope and am confident that Commissioner Bonino as representative of the European Commission will accept these amendments.
Mr President, on behalf of the Greens, I would first like to put on record that many studies have demonstrated that drift nets constitute a non-selective fishing method. So we believe, and this has been upheld many times in this Parliament, that the only solution to the current situation is to prohibit the use of these nets, whatever their length, inside the Mediterranean.
To achieve this objective we think an agreement needs to be reached with all the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, especially as the 2.5 kilometres currently in force is not usually respected.
At this very moment - so I am told - fishing vessels can be sighted in the Mediterranean using nets about 8 kilometres long.
Under the circumstances, I believe the existing fleet using drift nets which are a danger to the balance of the Mediterranean must be converted.
We think the Commission's conversion proposal is correct and we entirely agree with the Parliamentary committee's amendments except for one: we do not understand why a European standards agreement should contain a reference to the agreement with the unions.
But apart from that, I simply support what Mr Eisma has already said: to receive these payments, the nets must be withdrawn and they must not be sold to anyone else or they will still be circulating inside the Mediterranean, and we will be paying for not solving the problem.
Mr President, I welcome Mr Baldarelli's report in its present form with the compromise amendments accepted by the Committee on Fisheries.
It acknowledges that the Commission proposal provides a good basis, lays emphasis on the legal framework of the proposal and accepts socio-economic responsibility for all fishermen who find themselves on the Italian vessels concerned.
But however explosive the question of driftnet fishing is, we must emphasize that we are not concerned today with a general ban on drift-net fishing in the Mediterranean.
The proposal before us simply does not concern that.
We have to keep to the existing legal framework here, which still allows drift nets up to 2.5 km in length to be used.
It is up to the Council to change the existing legal framework, after the European Parliament decided in favour of immediately abolishing drift nets in September 1994, following a legislative proposal by the Commission.
In that sense, the measures proposed here do not mean we cannot adhere consistently to decisions that have already been taken and we can continue urging a ban on the environmentally incompatible practice of drift-net fishing.
Yet this proposal can still be regarded as a step towards generally abolishing drift-net fishing because the restructuring plan provides for financial incentives for the fishermen concerned to encourage them to give up this kind of fishing entirely and for ever and therefore voluntarily move beyond the existing legislative framework.
We owe thanks to the rapporteur for not forgetting the situation of the people concerned when discussing environmental questions.
Let me just remind you that the regions in question are almost all Objective 1 regions, where there are few alternatives to fishing.
It is also worth noting that he has accepted responsibility for fishermen from third countries who work on Italian vessels.
We welcome the idea of restructuring the FIFG resources earmarked for Italy in order to implement the plan, but believe that the proposed timetable should be adhered to strictly.
Finally, and this is where we return to the environmental issue, let me place special emphasis on the Committee on Fisheries' request that third countries that fish in the Mediterranean should also be included, so that we can agree rules with them which at least respect the 2.5 km length of drift nets.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that at this point in the debate it is appropriate to stress - the rapporteur has done so but I want to re-emphasize it - that we are not talking about just any sector. We are talking about a sector which still provides work and a living to a great many families, especially in the south of Italy.
The south is deeply ravaged by unemployment.
We are talking about a sector, Mr President, which has ancient traditions, and we are talking about an occupation which unites work, traditions and culture.
And yet it goes without saying - it is indubitable - that intensive fishing by fleets linked to economic powers with interests often external to Italy itself, has caused depletion of marine mammals in the Mediterranean, undermining the ecosystem itself.
That is why the various national and international institutions are usually determined to limit certain fishing activities.
The conversion programme for the Italian spadare fleet that we are debating today responds to the environmental demands for protection and conservation of the Mediterranean but, with the improvements contributed above all by the rapporteur, I think there is also an opportunity to meet certain social and economic demands relevant to southern Italy.
In fact the programme is not about authoritarian and arrogant closure, or about assisted development. Instead its purpose is protection and at the same time prevention of social tension.
I think Amendments Nos 15 and 16 could improve this approach by making the proposals more flexible and more acceptable to the operators themselves.
Mr President, there is often a fine line between aggressive environmentalism and secret deals.
Time will tell whether the commitment is to save the dolphin or to serve interests linked to other sectors in competition with spadare fishing.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, fishing with drift nets is now turning into a real test for the credibility of Community institutions as a whole.
In particular of the European Parliament.
In any case, of our Committee on Fisheries where a lot of hot air has been spoken about responsible fishing and selective methods.
We have condemned these methods on various occasions and have called for their permanent eradication.
Now we are examining a Commission proposal on the Italian Government's plan for restructuring fisheries which, albeit voluntary for the aids which have been provided for, justly and necessarily, we hope will help to encourage fishermen to reconvert and finally, once and for all, give up the use of drift nets, as can be deduced from the recent line taken by the Italian Government at the latest Council of Ministers, in response to the Spanish proposal.
Commissioner, we agree with the main thrust of the Commission's proposal, and with the compromise reached in the second report by Mr Baldarelli.
It is our hope, founded we believe, that following this new and recent line taken by the Italian Government in the Council of Ministers, we can very soon reach a majority so that we can put a stop to the use of these nets, which are known to be harmful, and so we hope that there will be no more conflicts between fishermen and ecologists or pressure exerted against our exports or criticism of the costly control measures, so that we can carry out what the European Parliament has already called for, which is nothing other than a ban on and permanent elimination of the use of these drift nets.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to clarify why I and six other Italian Members of the European People's Party have not thought it right to sign up to two of the amendments which will be put to the vote in this House tomorrow.
These two amendments do not form part of the compromise laboriously reached inside the groups and the Committee on Fisheries.
And we prefer not to jeopardize agreements, especially when they have been difficult to reach.
We do not want to recreate that climate of mistrust, quite unwarranted moreover, which has already cost us one postponement of the debate in Strasbourg and we do not think we should risk a repeat, because our fishermen's priority today is to get the Council decision implemented as soon as possible and at last have some certainty, with the fishing season now so close.
In addition, while we broadly support these amendments, they change little of substance.
What is important from the human side is to accept the amendment which extends the benefits provided for Italian fishermen, to fishermen - properly signed on, obviously - from third countries, generally Maghreb countries.
In conclusion, I want to appeal to the Commissioner, Mrs Bonino, to take every possible initiative to find a forum - perhaps the General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean - where agreement can be reached between the Union and third countries so that regulations and bans the European Union imposes on itself are also valid for others.
It is intolerable for Italian fishermen and European Union fishermen in general to know they cannot fish with the spadare while the Japanese, Korean or Maghreb fleets continue to do so on their doorstep, with more space and more advantages than before.
In that connection, I expect the Union to protect its own fisheries policy consistently and coherently, in this sector too, in Euro-Mediterranean association agreements.
Mr President, this report is a result of an agreement between the Italian Government and the European Commission to restructure the Italian fleet which uses drift nets.
Violations due to the low profitability of methods using nets less than 2.5 km have given rise to persistent protests and even a threat of trade sanctions from the United States, as a consequence of a judgment of the International Court of Trade.
This plan emphasises the fact that drift nets are not profitable.
These are methods which must be brought to an end once and for all in these waters which means that we must plan for their withdrawal and restructuring the industry.
These are appropriate measures and I can only call on the Commission to enforce controls to make sure that these nets really do disappear, are withdrawn, and are not simply transferred to other non-Community fleets.
However, this withdrawal will give rise to a major social problem in southern Italy, an area which is particularly badly affected by unemployment and low economic activity.
The plan of assistance which has been drawn up is also important because it should be possible to restructure the industry and encourage people to convert to other types of fishery.
We really must show European Union solidarity with the Italian fishing fleet.
That is why I wish to congratulate the Commission and the Commissioner in particular.
Commissioner, this plan should make it possible to head towards a final solution of the problem of drift nets in the European Union as a whole.
The Italian situation is a very difficult one, with 677 boats involved.
Application of this plan should make it possible to find a solution in the Council of Ministers which also includes reconverting the Atlantic fleet - which comes to less than 60 boats including the British, Irish and French ones.
The European Commission is responsible for presenting a new proposal to the Council in order to reach an agreement on this.
Commissioner, if you exclude the Baltic Sea from a proposal for a total ban, given the special nature of those fisheries, if we exclude twelve territorial miles and apply a plan to the 60 Atlantic boats which employ some 300 people, with an aid plan which is similar to the one applied to the Italian case, the cost would be around 8 million ECU for Community coffers.
This should achieve a majority in the Council for this set of measures aimed at introducing a once and for all ban on these fishing methods.
Commissioner, I am convinced that, with your usual political courage, you will make progress and bring forward a proposal which would ensure that future resources are preserved while ensuring the necessary solidarity with Italian, French, British and Irish fleets, all of which would be affected by this restructuring.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will concentrate in this reply on some of the points you have raised and on explaining the reasons why the Commission cannot accept certain amendments.
First of all the problem of effective withdrawal and destruction of the nets has been raised. I want to assure Mr Eisma and also Mr Tamino that this point is expressly made several times in the Italian plan, in terms of both incentive and method.
I repeat, it is affirmed very vigorously several times in the government's text.
The problem of third countries has also been raised: it is a concern I share.
It is psychologically difficult to accept that third countries - Japan, Korea and so on - can fish with these nets, but I have to confess to Honourable Members that we have no legal instruments for intervening with these vessels.
As many of you know, we have opened a dialogue to establish codes of conduct, at the Venice Conference especially, because the legal instrument does not allow us to intervene with third countries in international waters.
The Commission's text makes no reference to the issues in some of the amendments because there is no reference to them in the plan presented by the Italian government.
This applies in particular to Amendment No 5 on the possibility of compensation for non-Community fishermen.
However, the Commission is ready to state that if the Italian government wants to take up this option there is no reason to oppose it; but nor was there any reason to impose it.
This is clearly a possibility, but we were not in a position to impose it.
Another amendment the Commission does not intend to accept is No 19, because it relates to a matter which has no bearing on this type of proposal.
In fact it refers to a research project, which is probably very laudable but which really has nothing to do with this proposal.
I would remind Honourable Members that this is a proposal from the Commission to accept a spadare conversion plan, presented by the Italian government.
So obviously the Commission cannot deal with other issues.
I now come to the basic problem which many of you have put to the Commission and which relates to the eradication of these nets.
For the nth time I want to repeat to this Parliament, which is perfectly aware of it, that a Commission proposal for eradicating these nets has been lying on the Council's table since 1994.
As yet the Council has not found a sufficient majority to approve it.
That is the simple truth!
So if Honourable Members can exert any pressure, I think they could usefully target it on the other Community institution.
The fact remains that at the last Council, on the proposal of the Spanish government, which has also sent the Commission a working hypothesis for achieving this ultimate objective, there was a debate which gives the Commission hope that matters are maturing and that certain Member States, so far very much opposed, really are developing a more open position now.
The Commission is therefore committed to looking into the feasibility of a new proposal and, as long as it is confirmed that this will not turn out to be a sterile exercise, the Commission will rapidly present it because it will be another step in the right direction.
Ladies and gentlemen, I repeat: if you have any means of pressure, the Commission would be very grateful if you would be kind enough to apply it effectively to other Community institutions which have blocked this dossier up to now.
Mr President, I want to thank the Commissioner for explaining some of the Commission's wishes, and also for addressing them to the Italian government.
I want to ask the Commissioner if the amendments unanimously approved by Parliament's Committee on Fisheries could appear as a Commission statement of intent when seeking approval in the the Council.
I refer in particular to the concept of voluntary plan and to the provisions affecting third countries.
If the Commission could make such a statement that would be very significant and would respect the will of the Committee on Fisheries.
In addition to thanking the Commissioner for her explanation, I should like to put a very specific question to her: does what she said mean that the European Commission is going to change its proposal at the next Council, because it has received a signal from the Council itself, in order to try to achieve a majority in order to bring in a total ban on these methods?
Mr President, about two months ago we held a debate in Strasbourg with the Council President and the Council President said that the Commission should put forward an amended proposal on the banning of drift nets, because the current situation was deadlocked.
It was impossible to get a majority.
My question to the Commissioner is this: now she has told us that she will be putting forward an amended proposal, when will she be doing that?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I am hoping the spadare plan will be rapidly approved by whichever Council, without waiting for 17 June, I do not know whether it will be procedurally possible to put a Commission statement.
But I will check this procedure and whatever happens I can say here and now that the voluntary plan is explicitly provided for and explicit in the Italian government's plan, and in particular in the second sentence of the fifth consideration of the Commission's proposal.
As regards third countries - I imagine the reference is to fishermen from third countries - the Commission maintains the exclusion of this possibility from its proposal because it does not exist in the Italian government's plan, though it has no objection to extensions of this kind if the Italian authorities want to consider it.
As regards the new proposal, I repeat that there has been a Commission proposal on the Council table since 1994.
The Council could never approve it because some Member States were opposed.
But at the last Fisheries Council there was an orientation debate, where some Member States, including Italy and others, seemed to show more openness. The Fisheries Council was only held five days ago and the Commission undertook to evaluate the political feasibility of a new proposal.
The Commission does not intend to give anyone an alibi by presenting another proposal if the same conditions of political deadlock exist.
That would simply be another two years of research, study and analysis, which would not lead anywhere.
The Commission will only do it if it is sure the conditions for another, equivalent political deadlock are no longer there.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 12 midnight)
Euratom-US cooperation agreement
The next item is the report (A4-0074/97) by Mrs Ahern, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation between the European Atomic Energy Community and the United States of America (C4-0264/96).
Madam President, this report about the agreement on nuclear cooperation between Euratom and the US deals with two issues which have been, and I hope and trust will remain, very important to everybody in this House.
One is the scandalous lack of the democratic rights of this Parliament of control over Euratom, especially when the latter is concluding agreements with third countries.
This is a fundamental issue for this Parliament.
The United States Congress had to assent to this agreement, whereas Parliament did not even legally have the right to be informed.
We cannot continue in this manner in the European Union.
This is the second time that the plenary has dealt with this agreement with the US.
I would remind the House of the resolution in March 1995 which was passed with a large majority.
At that time negotiations with the USA were ongoing and the Committee on Energy, Research and Technology, with some effort, succeeded in obtaining information from, and starting a dialogue with, the Commission on this agreement.
It was in that spirit that this Parliament demanded that it should continue to be informed and involved in this and similar international agreements on nuclear cooperation, including consultation before the conclusion of the final agreement with the USA.
In my report I elaborate that after the resolution was adopted, the performance of Commission and Council was entirely unsatisfactory.
The Commission and the Council apparently decided once more to go it alone as they had done most of the time before our committee enforced its initial, but short-lived, involvement.
I am therefore calling on the House as a whole to remain as firm on its demand for democratic control on this level of EU decisionmaking as in March of 1995 and on other occasions when dealing with similar agreements.
I am confident that you will endorse my draft resolution in this respect, and I call for your support for several amendments which will give the resolution more clarity and make it more specific on democratic control of nuclear agreements.
Concerning the substance of the agreement with the US, the main issue is nuclear cooperation.
The resolution adopted by this House which I referred to earlier established very clearly its criteria of judgment and debate with the Commission and Council, and I quote: ' It wishes to enhance rigorous and effective control mechanisms restricting production, isolation, stock-piling, trade and trafficking of plutonium and weapons-grade uranium and other nuclear material.
It wishes, in particular, to respect the situation regarding the environment and health with regard to nuclear safety and to take part in foreign and security policy with the highest priority to nuclear nonproliferation.'
Non-proliferation has come before this House as a high priority on many occasions and in the resolution we were specific that the highest priority was to be given to nuclear non-proliferation.
Taking these earlier positions of Parliament as a starting point, we have serious doubts about many current developments.
Implementation of this agreement with the US and its predecessor is not the root cause of these worrying developments but they have certainly facilitated rather than mitigated them.
To mention just a few of the relevant issues: who will not be concerned about the plutonium economy with its excessive costs and hazards to our health and environment?
Why maintain and facilitate the manufacturing of MOX fuel and the reprocessing in La Hague and Sellafield which are part and parcel of this plutonium economy?
Are we doing enough to ensure that non-proliferation is not endangered by the continued production of weaponsgrade nuclear materials? Should we not limit rather than increase the transport of nuclear materials in the light of the decision of many countries, including the USA, to deny transport through their air space or coastal waters and what lessons do we draw from the insufficiency of current safeguards to prevent losses of significant amounts of plutonium?
What I am proposing in the report and my amendments is to seek parliamentary consensus on the explicit issue of democratic control of nuclear agreements.
Without denying the differences there may be between us, a shared commitment would help to bridge the huge democratic deficit we are facing in all Euratom matters and would contribute to a more sensible EU energy policy by addressing at least the most hazardous aspects of nuclear energy production.
I welcome the cooperation on nuclear safety with reservations regarding nuclear proliferation and nuclear transports and plutonium stockpiling already outlined.
The dangers of plutonium cannot be underestimated.
Madam President, in my view today's debate is a theatre of the absurd.
We signed the agreement on 7 November 1995 as the European Union; it is valid, and yet we are debating it today.
The stage directions for this theatre of the absurd were, of course, set out in the Euratom Treaty.
I think if we want our citizens to accept us, we can no longer allow agreements to be negotiated behind their backs, to which all we can do is nod or shake our heads, which has no effect on the final decision!
That is not the citizens' Europe!
Nor am I sure that in terms of content this agreement is the best we can achieve.
First we admit that an American law is valid in the European Union.
That is a curious procedure.
Secondly, this agreement sets out a line of development for energy supplies that at least 8 out of our 15 countries do not want.
The UK and France are also engaged in a heated debate about whether to continue using nuclear energy and I am not sure whether the decision will be that we continue using it.
On the question of reprocessing and the plutonium industry, the people of Europe have expressed serious concern.
This agreement provides for these activities to continue.
Thirdly, continuing along this road naturally implies serious safety risks if plutonium, MOX and other fuels are to be transported across Europe, by sea, land or air.
I do not believe we should allow this kind of nuclear tourism in Europe.
In that respect, not only do I not consider the procedure right but I do not consider the substance entirely convincing either.
I am not very euphoric about the results of the reform conference that is meeting now and will be concluded in Amsterdam, but this policy area, which concerns matters that are quite central to our social future, the question of energy supplies, of the Euratom Treaty, must be integrated in the European Treaties and must be subject to democratic control, to co-decision with Parliament.
Otherwise the citizens of Europe will certainly not accept it.
That is why I say: we need democracy now!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are giving our opinion on an agreement that has already entered into force.
We may regret that, and it has indeed been regretted, as we do in our resolution.
Yet we have to take note of it.
We are not the signatories or negotiators of that agreement but have to work within its framework.
Today we are not just discussing nuclear energy.
I am saying that quite openly.
We will have ample opportunity to do so next month when we consider the Soulier report.
Today we have to examine whether we endorse this agreement between Euratom and the USA or not.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has decided to endorse the agreement, on the initiative of the EPP.
Of course what we want is for the European Parliament to be better informed, for us to be able to express our concerns, our interests, especially during the course of the negotiations.
We have reflected that concern too in our resolution.
Let me now express our surprise at the fact that there have been very differing discussions on the subject of the context of the report.
On the question of the transport of radioactive material, the Greens in particular quoted America as a shining example of safety standards.
Suddenly, now that we are discussing the Euratom/USA agreement, people say: the standards are poor, we cannot take them over.
Here it is becoming a question of the credibility of our arguments, which cannot be altered just to suit ourselves, which is why I have a simple request to make at this point.
After all we should not pretend that this agreement with the USA is simply opening the door to the international transport of plutonium.
Nowhere in the world are there such strict standards and requirements as in the USA and Europe.
We have our problems, namely with the Central and Eastern European countries, but that has nothing to do with this agreement and we should make that quite clear here.
The EPP Group basically endorses the resolution adopted by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Apart from Amendment No 1, we cannot accept the amendments.
I am saying that quite openly too.
These are all points that were deleted on our initiative.
You cannot now expect us to endorse these points in plenary.
So we should make a clear statement now.
But we should also do our utmost - and I think there we agree for once with Mr Lange - in regard to the Euratom Treaty to ensure that it is integrated in Community legislation, so that we have a more honest, democratic basis for such agreements in the long term.
Madam President, I welcome the cooperation at least on democratic control which I hear around this House and I welcome the support for the amendments proposed.
We cannot underestimate the dangers of Europe becoming a plutonium economy if this agreement is implemented.
It actively encourages reprocessing at Sellafield and La Hague and increases plutonium production.
Transports of nuclear material will become more common by sea, land and air with all the attendant risks.
Ireland is already at considerable risk from reprocessing at Sellafield and by the year 2010 Sellafield will have reprocessed 545, 000 kilos from waste nuclear fuel.
Under this agreement, more nuclear waste will travel to Sellafield, not only through the Irish Sea but also by air.
This will be reprocessed, creating 160 times the amount of radioactive waste it started with.
We are also very concerned about recent health studies on leukaemia clusters surrounding La Hague.
We have had such studies in Sellafield and it is becoming clearer that reprocessing poses a particular danger to the health and environment of people in Europe.
With huge amounts of radioactive materials proliferating and travelling all over the continent, how can safeguards possibly cope with the dangers? Accidents happen, such as the one where a US aircraft lost an atomic bomb over Spain many years ago.
It did not explode but it contaminated a large area.
It must also be considered that when you have large amounts of plutonium around, there are grave security risks.
It only takes 3 to 5 kilograms of nuclear plutonium to make a nuclear bomb.
There are thousands of tonnes available now and we are increasing the stockpiles.
I want to return to the matter of democratic control of other nuclear agreements.
At this particular time the Commission has informed us about the agreement with Korea.
That is a particularly sensitive area for democracy and we do not think the solution is to conclude nuclear agreements with these countries.
At least we must have Parliament involved in these nuclear agreements in future.
Madam President, I would like to take this opportunity to wish Nuala Ahern luck with her report which, on significant points, tightens up on the agreement which must now be considered.
As rightly pointed out, it is beneath contempt that the European Parliament is not involved in the Euratom agreements.
There is broad unanimity about democratization and opening up of the negotiations taking place in the EU, so it is difficult to understand why the European Parliament was not formally involved in this decision-making process.
The European population just cannot be served by preventing a full public discussion of such an important issue as the use of atomic energy and by having it discussed behind closed doors by officers of the Commission.
The need for the European Parliament's involvement is particularly important in view of the imminent agreements between Euratom and third-world countries.
As things stand, there is practically no information about these countries' nuclear activities.
I also subscribe to the argument that the new agreement between Euratom and the USA does not seem to contribute to reducing the so-called plutonium economy.
On the contrary, the Euratom-USA agreement seems to allow for expansion of the plutonium processing industry, which is wholly unsatisfactory.
If anything this will lead to a greater overall spreading of the risk, and I note that this is also contrary to Parliament's decision to extend the non-proliferation agreement in the context of developing alternative, sustainable energy sources.
Only by voting in favour of the report today can we ensure that future international discussions of nuclear matters will be dealt with in a democratically responsible way.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when reading our colleague's report I had the feeling of attending a play of the Absurd school, possibly written by Dürenmatt or Berthold Brecht.
We are told that the context of the agreement is totally unbalanced.
Here I am referring to points e) and f) which insist on the unilateral approach taken by the United States, at least since 1978, on the lack of reciprocity which exists and the fact that, in nuclear matters, there is still an imbalance between the United States and Europe in terms of forces and the diplomatic relationship.
Secondly, we are told that this agreement was not negotiated democratically, that the Parliament was completely sidelined and that points 4, 5 and 6 of the Resolution demonstrate very well to what extent information obtained by the European Parliament is really completely insufficient for us to be able to judge the conditions in which this agreement is to be applied.
Thirdly, we are told that this agreement is going to develop the plutonium economy, something which is also feared, and that safety standards, in many areas, are lacking, in particular when it comes to air transport.
Our conclusion, after this avalanche of criticism which can be found in the explanatory memorandum and also in the opinion of the Rex Committee, in point 9, is that we welcome this agreement, without the slightest reservation. This really is quite extraordinary, I must say - we reach that conclusion after developing arguments which are completely contradictory.
That is why, as far as we are concerned, we shall not be voting for this text, and we shall take this opportunity to express our astonishment that, when it is a matter of agreements between the United States of America and Europe, first of all we are nearly always told that these agreements are unbalanced and that, despite that, we should nonetheless vote for them.
This is quite revealing of Europe's subordinate position in trans-Atlantic dialogue.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, permit me first of all to thank Mrs Ahern for the report that she has presented to us today.
As you know, this agreement came into force on 12 April 1996.
Mrs Ahern's report deals with many issues relating to the agreement to which I wish to respond.
I wish also to reply to the comments of those who have spoken before me in the debate.
The report deals first with the involvement of the European Parliament on the basis of the Euratom Treaty.
You will be aware that the Commission has submitted a number of proposals to the intergovernmental conference.
In one of our reports we recommend amalgamation of the three communities into a unity for reasons of greater clarity.
In another of its reports the Commission recommends the inclusion of an energy chapter in the Treaty.
On the subject of the provision of information to Parliament, the Commission provided the Committee on Energy with information on the progress of the negotiations with the United States administration during the course of those negotiations at the meetings in December of 1994 and January and March of 1995, while the negotiations were still in progress, that is to say.
In addition, on 19 May 1995 it informed Parliament when the Commission drew up a proposal for a decision for approval of the agreement by the Council.
Furthermore, some time after that, in November of 1995, the Commission's Secretary General for Energy laid a copy of the signed agreement before Parliament's Committee on Energy in person.
The resolution also refers to the repercussions of the use of nuclear energy, and of its use leading to what has been described as a plutonium economy.
The capability to make balanced use of a range of energy resources, with each resource being utilized appropriately, is obviously an important factor for all countries in the pursuit of viable economic growth.
Not all of countries of the European Union utilize the nuclear resource, but it accounts for about a third of all electricity generated in the Union and is, therefore, an important element in energy supply.
Madam President, the draft resolution ascribes to the agreement the purpose of boosting this plutonium economy.
However, the Euratom Treaty imposes no obligation or pressure on the Member States to reprocess their spent nuclear fuel.
As you must certainly know, each Member State decides for itself, just as it decides whether or not to manufacture MOX fuel.
Some countries have opted for reprocessing.
However, the reprocessing of nuclear fuel has been going on in the European Union for about 25 years already, and naturally very great care is taken to ensure that the left-over plutonium is safely managed.
The Euratom Treaty does not impinge on the right of any Member State to choose whether or not to use nuclear energy, or to choose whether or not to reprocess spent nuclear fuel.
Therefore an agreement on nuclear reprocessing concluded with a third country in implementation of the Treaty cannot possibly impinge on the policies of any Member State of the European Union.
I must emphasize that that is explicitly acknowledged by the two parties - the European Union and the United States - in the new agreement that we have concluded.
So it is not correct to say that the agreement encourages reprocessing.
Rather, I would say, it establishes an appropriate framework for making reprocessing involving the use of nuclear material of American origin politically and legally achievable if a Member State wishes to engage in such work, while at the same time providing adequate safeguards in regard to the non-proliferation of nuclear materials in the context of the prevailing multilateral agreements.
In connection with this latter factor the contracting parties have decided that certain rights and obligations should remain in force after the agreement's formal period of validity.
Specifically, it has been agreed that the obligations relating to safeguards, use for peaceful purposes and the physical protection of nuclear materials should apply indefinitely.
The reasoning was that the nuclear materials will still be suitable for weapons purposes, with the attendant potential or hypothetical risk, of course, of proliferation, after the agreement lapses.
These three general obligations will therefore help to obviate the risk of the proliferation of nuclear material after the legal framework which has served as the basis for their supply no longer exists.
The safeguards imposed by the agreement are those provided for in the Euratom Treaty and imposed by the International Atomic Energy Authority in the framework of the agreements concluded between the Authority, Euratom and the Member States of the Euratom.
These measures, which we have already taken, and the cooperation framework mean that the European Union has the most stringent safeguards in the world, a fact which is widely acknowledged by the international community.
The Euratom safeguards ensure, above all, that no nuclear materials - including plutonium - are omitted from the audit when installations are inspected.
The Safeguards Directorate of the Euratom now actually has the technical and administrative means to perform this task.
I would like also to remind you that the Commission participates in and supports initiatives taken anywhere in the world aimed at ending the production of weapons-grade plutonium and at promoting the monitoring of the existing stockpiles.
In addition, in the framework of the Geneva disarmament conference, we are working to get negotiations started on a treaty to ban the production of fissile material for weapons use, and we hope that these negotiations will not take too long to complete once they start.
We are also participating, Madam President, in the work of plutonium stocks management group under the auspices of the IAEA in Vienna.
Madam President, in finishing I would like to say that the Commission believes that this agreement will guarantee security of supply for the European nuclear industry when it handles materials that involve obligations to the United States, and that it will ensure stability and the capacity for long-term projection with regard to the European Union's energy policy as set out in the White Paper.
Furthermore, the agreement helps to strengthen the policy on non-proliferation.
The Commission welcomes the position taken by Parliament's two committees, the Committee on Energy and the Committee on External Economic Relations. I wish to congratulate Mrs Ahern on her work and, of course, to thank all of the Members who have spoken here this morning.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
EC-Chile framework cooperation agreement
The next item is the report (A4-0023/97) by Mrs Miranda de Lage, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision on conclusion of the framework cooperation Agreement in preparation for the eventual establishment of a political and economic association between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Chile, of the other part(COM(96)0259 - C4-0450/96-96/0149(CNS)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, over the last ten years the European Union has reached a whole set of agreements with the Latin American sub-continent in order to boost, at first, and strengthen, now, trade co-operation with that group of countries.
The third generation agreements - that with Chile, still in force, dates back to 1990 - put emphasis on political support to the processes of democratisation, stability and regional integration.
This was the European response to countries which, by dint of their stage of institutional and economic development, are now trading partners as well as political allies.
Of this group of countries, Chile stands out because of its dynamism, its economic openness and its political will.
Chile has been able to overcome many of the difficulties of a political nature which every country must tackle in recovering liberty following a long and terrible dictatorship.
The limits on making democracy even more complete imposed by the current Constitution in the country are nonetheless an impediment to the full development of the Rule of Law, with a clear definition of the functions which each authority should wield in a full democracy.
The European Parliament is aware of the current difficulties of an institutional order in Chile but 1998 is going to be a key year, and it is going to be a time for showing the confidence of the Member States, the Commission and the European Parliament in Chile's future; now we are holding this debate on the new framework of relations whose final objective will be the liberalisation of all commercial links.
This text sets that ambitious objective and opens the preparatory phase for a future association.
The agreement keeps open essential questions: the timing and method for switching to the final phase.
However, I should point out that this lack of determination by no means undermines the political, commercial and economic importance of the first phase, just because this text emphasises the contractual framework and the political will of the final stage.
The European Parliament welcomes the fact that there is a clear reference in the more complete version of the democratic clause with its treatment of human and social rights and the environment.
This compromise, Madam President, will enable us to insist on the need for agreement on the right to unconditional justice and I regret that, once again, I must ask the Chilean authorities, always sensitive to the opinions of the European Parliament, to find a solution to the case of our fellow-citizen, Carmelo Soria, so that we can close for good this case which has been kept going by his family and on which the European Parliament has made declarations on many occasions.
Furthermore, this agreement sets up a regular political dialogue and includes a declaration on parliamentary dialogue which should make it possible to tackle and debate, in an appropriate arena, all of the questions of mutual interest which exist between us.
Economic and trade dialogue is another basic pillar which will be extended to the Parties' relations with third parties.
On this score, I should like to congratulate the Commission for providing for a 'bridge' to make it possible to coordinate the liberalisation machinery with the arrangements provided for in the Mercosur Agreement, and to study the possible participation by Chile in Union-Mercosur cooperation programmes.
We should not forget the Cooperation Agreement on social development, state modernisation - a very important question, training, education, the environment and research and development concerning new technology.
To conclude, this agreement is an excellent instrument, opening up huge economic possibilities for sustainable development and which, as far as the Union is concerned, is also an instrument for lending considerable political support, something that undoubtedly will help Chile achieve full democracy and fully develop the rule of law.
As the rapporteur of the Committee on External Economic Relations, I should finally like to welcome the opinions of the three Committees which have sent their reports to us, which complement certain aspects of the ones which I have been presenting to you and which have been considerably taken into account when drafting the explanatory memorandum of my report.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate my colleague Mrs Miranda de Lage on her excellent report.
She has most adequately sketched out the background to this framework cooperation agreement.
When we debated this in committee, many of us had mixed feelings about the present situation in Chile because of our historical knowledge of that situation.
While we want to support the democratic forces in Chile as best we can, nevertheless we are aware that there is still some way to go in Chile's transition to full democracy.
There is the continued role the armed forces play, the need for a guarantee of independence for the judiciary etc.
Against that background Mrs Miranda has drawn up an excellent report, being aware of these particular circumstances.
That is the general background but specifically I should like to ask the Commissioner to respond to some points about the discriminatory tax regime in Chile on alcohol.
As a supporter of Scotch whisky, I want to focus on that.
I have some questions for the Commission.
This discrimination has existed since 1985.
We are aware that the Chilean Government has procrastinated for too long in bringing forward proposals to remove the discrimination.
We understand that during Sir Leon Brittan's visit, he made it clear that unless GATT-compatible legislation is submitted to Congress by the end of this month, the European Union will request the WTO consultations.
Can the Commission give a categorical assurance that it will stick to this deadline for requesting WTO consultations? We would like the Commission to keep up the pressure on Chile and I should be grateful if the Commissioner would give me a categorical response to that question.
Madam President, before further ado I should like to express the satisfaction of my Group at the certain approval of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Chile, by this Assembly.
This agreement, a mixed one, has a lot in common with the Inter-regional Framework Agreement between the European Union and Mercosur - they are agreements with the same purpose.
The new Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Chile is unlike any of the previous models.
It is a new-style preparatory agreement and does not include any clauses for a positive compromise in order to open commercial negotiations and the step to the final stage, which keeps open essential questions for future association between the European Union and Chile: how and when to proceed to the later progressive liberalisation which will involve reciprocity in terms of all commercial trade links.
In both the European Union-Mercosur Agreement and this one there are certain areas which are not defined which does nothing to take away the importance of the political significance but which, in my opinion, does nothing to clarify the agreement either.
There is no explicit provision for the possibility of extending this agreement to other southern South American countries, and on the contrary, it is a major step that in the Inter-Regional Framework Agreement between the European Union and Mercosur there was no attempt to deal with the need to cooperate in terms of public contracts and Chile has agreed to the inclusion of this in the agreement.
In any case, there is still a lack of more open economic dialogue, and dialogue for coordinating strategy in international fora.
Economic and trade dialogue is limited and circumscribed to bilateral only.
Just as is the case with the European agreement with Mercosur, both parties decided that commercial cooperation should come into effect as quickly as possible, a decision which has been taken without the prior consultation with the European Parliament, which should have been consulted over the content of the trade provisions, and once again there is the same lack of definition concerning the institutional applications and the budgetary consequences.
In any case, the European Parliament should in particular highlight the fact that the said democratic clause or human rights clause has been introduced into this agreement.
At the Rex Committee we made sure that one of the basic pillars of the agreement would be economic and trade dialogue, to be held periodically, and insisted that the agreement should include a very elaborate working plan, including all of the necessary elements for negotiating the creation of a genuine free trade area.
Finally, I should like to express my disgust at the ambiguity of the financial agreements and the lack of care taken by the Commission in this area, both in terms of content and planning, as was pointed out by the Committee on Budgets.
This really does show how weak parliamentary political dialogue is, given that there is not even any mention of the European Parliament in the agreement.
Finally, I must congratulate the rapporteur on her report.
Madam President, the Liberal Group will be endorsing the framework agreement with Chile today.
We shall do this not because everything is fine and we have seen in Mrs Miranda de Lage's excellent report that everything has come together properly, but because we want to support positive developments.
The transition to full democracy is not complete and as Mr Smith said just now, the armed forces continue to play a significant role.
This agreement looks forward to a political and economic association.
Our economic relations with Chile look hopeful.
There is much still to be sorted out but the commitment to reciprocal liberalization is there.
This agreement is consistent with the development of our relations with Latin America which allow for diversity between the various countries but nevertheless form a single whole.
Rather more overall consistency would have been desirable in this agreement.
We now have yet another new model, yet another different model, and once again a serious parliamentary dialogue has been dealt with only indirectly.
Lastly, concerning the ties between MERCOSUR and Chile, it is most important, when we implement this agreement, that we should also bear in mind the implementation of the agreement between the Union and MERCOSUR.
Madam President, our Group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, attaches extraordinary importance to this dialogue with Chile and this decision by the Council to sign a cooperation agreement with Chile, which will very shortly be converted into an agreement for political and economic association.
However, faced with this report which has been very well drafted by Mrs Ana Miranda de Lage, we are in two minds.
On one hand, we agree that a step must be taken - and we are going to lend our supportto it. We are also going to call on the Commission to continue dialogue and taking action, but we feel that many requisites have not been met.
In many cases, we are dealing with rhetoric and not political reality.
When we say that we share common values and democracy, support for human rights, pluralist democracy, we must also recognise that Chile is not a full democracy.
We know that the same is true of other parts of the world, in other nations which are demographically more important with which we have agreements.
We do not want to be hypocritical, we do not want to be sectarian, but we must say aloud that Chile is not a full democracy.
When I had the privilege, along with other members of the European Parliament, of attending the referendum which brought an end to General Pinochet's presidency, that bloody dictator, as president of the republic, we thought that, within a few years, Chile would become a full democracy again. But this has not been the case.
General Pinochet, whose hands are stained with blood, who is politically and morally condemned by all of the international community, who is persona non grata in many countries in the world, because democrats refuse to accept him in their country, still has an important position in Chile - not dominant but important - which means that he is able directly to appoint some of the senators and is able to influence judicial authority to a great extent.
In other words, he has a certain amount of control over Chilean democracy.
I know that Chilean democrats have made efforts to change things and that Chilean institutions are trying to overcome the situation but we have to recognise the state of the country as it is.
This appeal for shared values comes up against the real fact which means that the Chileans are unable to exercise democratic values, and people who have committed crimes in the past are not being brought to justice by any means in the near future.
There are many examples of this, most important of which is the Carmelo Soria case.
Out-of-court damages have been offered to his family but the Chilean Supreme Court has applied the law of amnesty to the authors of his murder, even though he was an international civil servant murdered by the state security services, led ultimately by the man who is the leader of the Chilean armed forces and who really is in control of most of what goes on in the country.
Out-of-court damages are not enough and we are calling on the Commission to continue to make the demands which we know it has already made in the past.
There are other subjects which are no doubt slightly less important but they are still of importance nonehteless, such as the confiscation of assets of European citizens.
In the reports, in particular in the opinions voiced by the different Committees, reference is made to the Clarín newspaper which has not been handed back to its rightful owner.
We know the name of the owner of the newspaper, he is Mr Víctor Pey, but he was unable to get the Chilean courts to restore to him a newspaper in which he holds 100 % of the shares, robbed from his office in a military raid.
These are small examples - and a very big example in the case of Carmelo Soria - concerning human rights abuses.
As for the type of report, we think that an opinion would have been the right form and we are convinced that this will have less of an effect in terms of political and economic consequences.
Madam President, when I went to Chile in September 1995 with the South America delegation, I was almost bombarded by human rights and environmental groups.
They all feared that the new agreement between the EU and Chile would not help resolve the most urgent problems.
They pointed to the limited degree of democracy, to the fact that the perpetrators of human rights crimes went unpunished, to the lack of power-sharing and the continuing power of Pinochet.
'The comparison with the Asian Tigers is inappropriate!' , they said, ' for the country is a tiger without a jungle!'
In macroeconomic terms, Chile may be doing well, but the forests are being cut down regardless, the seas overfished, and the mining of copper and export-oriented farming are bringing the country to the verge of environmental disaster.
In the continent as a whole, the gap between rich and poor is only greater in Brazil.
The Chileans therefore asked whether we could not stand up for full democracy in Chile, for an economic development in which people and not just multinationals have a share, for ecological development.
But when you look at this agreement, you find that it contains none of that.
Chile is simply to become a more attractive investment target for companies and investors.
They are offered more trade liberalization measures, trade and tax legislation is to be geared to the European system.
Does that mean the 91 % dependence on raw materials exports is to become 100 % in future? The agreement merely contains the usual, lyrical phrases about human rights clauses, environmental protection and aid for the poorest groups, Commissioner.
If this were not the case, Pinochet would have to resign before the agreement could have any validity at all.
The Chile-Mercosur-EU triangle is to be the largest free trade area in the world, but who is actually going to monitor the free trading of the free traders? The trade policy aspects of the agreement have already been put into force in advance simply by an exchange of letters.
We Greens will therefore abstain because this agreement is not consistent with the wishes of the Chilean people and, Mr Commissioner, it would be better if you could be rather less lyrical and more clear and realistic for a change!
Madam President, following the agreement with MERCOSUR it is also important that our political and economic links with Chile should be maintained.
As we implement the framework agreement we must give priority to combating poverty and underdevelopment in Chile.
Despite economic growth a sizeable section of the Chilean population still lives below the poverty line.
The framework agreement can also have a positive influence on the process of transition toward parliamentary democracy.
An important section of the agreement is the accommodations reached on the future liberalization of trade.
Although there will be no question of a free trade zone between the European Union and Chile in the immediate future, the rapporteur indicates in her report that agriculture will play a key part in future negotiations on free trade.
The Commission recently published a communication on the WTO aspects of the European Union's preferential agreements with third countries.
This rightly states the principle that inconsistencies with the common agricultural policy must be avoided.
We must thus be careful to see that an accumulation of free trade agreements does not lead to major undesirable side effects in the Member States.
Any future free trade zone with Chile will require fundamental consistency with the WTO criteria and will have to be preceded by a thorough analysis of the advantages and disadvantages.
Mrs Miranda has presented a clear report.
We shall be voting for the agreement.
Madam President, I would like to declare my support for Mrs Miranda's report and make just one comment.
It seems to me that, even with all its limitations, this agreement contains a significant point: the inclusion of the democracy clause, actually responding to the requirements - which Mr Puerta has also mentioned in this House - for full transition to a democratic system, consolidation of the supremacy of civil and political power over the armed forces, independence of the judiciary, and abolition of immunity from prosecution for human rights violations committed in the past: and that means General Pinochet and his followers.
The second point I would like to emphasize is the significance of signing this agreement on the eve of the meeting with the Parlatino, the parliament of Latin America.
I also think we should increasingly develop and rationalize our relations with the whole of Latin America.
This agreement may help, but we have one objective: a comprehensive agreement between the European Union and Latin America, between the European Parliament and the Parlatino.
Madam President, it is not my intention to repeat the ideas which have already been expressed here but I shall just point out whether I agree or disagree with what has already been said.
First of all, it is important to have this agreement with Chile in a framework which is characterised by the loss of competitiveness of European industry, reflected in the loss of market quotas in industrialised countries.
Against this background, relations with Latin America in general and Chile in particular are of particular significance.
Within Latin America relations with Chile are of special importance.
Three important aspects have been underlined in this report: the political aspects, the economic and trade aspects and the social aspect.
I wholeheartedly agree with the speech by my fellow citizen, Alonso Puerto.
I hope that we also agree on demanding full respect of a full democratic model, when we speak about other countries in the Latin American continent.
Secondly, I agree with the rapporteur over the special significance of disagreement just as Chile seems to be abandoning its model of variable geometry in terms of relations with other countries in order step up its relationship with Mercosur.
The reference to the 'bridge' seems to me a particularly intelligent one, a bridge has been built in order to set the final model for relations with Chile in the context of relations with Mercosur.
Thirdly, I fully agree with those speakers who have expressed their concern about the possible social inequalities which the current economic model in Chile could give rise to.
Finally, Madam President, I think that as has already been emphasised by all of the other speakers, it is now time to come to the heart of the matter.
If we want to do that we really must involve the European Parliament and most significantly we must put figures to the aspirations in an explicit amount in budgetary terms, something which I hope we shall have an opportunity to discuss very shortly.
Mr President, the development of closer relations between the European Union and Latin America is of great importance.
I therefore welcome this agreement with Chile and congratulate the rapporteur.
Although the present government wishes to respect human rights, there are still many unresolved cases left over from the military dictatorship of General Pinochet which was responsible for over 3, 000 officially recognized extrajudicial killings.
More than 1, 000 cases are still open.
General Pinochet is to become a life senator after retiring as Commander-in-Chief in 1998, although the Senate is already controlled by the right as the result of previous Pinochet appointees.
It can thus thwart reforms without a two-thirds majority in the Lower House.
Certain military leaders are still anxious to end legal action against those responsible for human rights violations and to uphold the rights of victims.
We need to stand very firm on this.
We also need to recognize the need to fight poverty and not merely give unrestricted approval to a neo-liberal model.
Nonetheless, we should support this report and I once again congratulate Ana Miranda on all she has done.
Mr President, in a few days' time we will be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Chilean conservatives, who are close to our European People's Party.
The fact that this anniversary can be celebrated shows that democracy is alive in Chile.
The reform process in Chile is by far the most advanced and stable in Latin America.
The framework agreement is an important pillar of these democratic reforms.
Under it, Chile has based its relations with the EU Member States on the protection of human rights and the principles of democracy.
Yet the transition to an entirely democratic system is not yet complete.
But when we call for democratic values to be fully applied we must not forget that the basis of democracy is popular participation.
In future the Council should take greater care to ensure that Parliament is duly involved.
Despite this criticism of the Council's approach, I fully endorse Mrs Miranda de Lage's report and the content of the agreement.
In particular I welcome the following points: the call for cooperation to develop the structures of the information society can lead to better understanding between the EU states and Chile, especially if we build our dialogue on the foundations of common values.
The agreement also contains practical aspects that can directly benefit the local people.
During my last visit to Chile people described the problems connected with primary schooling to me.
So I am very glad that this problem has been recognized and included in the agreement.
Speaking from a national point of view, let me also say that Germany is likely to conclude the implementing procedures for the agreement in the near future and is trying to ensure that Chile-EU relations continue to develop in a positive direction on the basis of this agreement.
Mr President, Chile is undoubtedly the Latin American country geographically most distant but closest to the heart of the European Parliament in political terms, something we found out at the time of the referendum and which we also experienced when we were fighting for democracy in the country.
Today, Chile is a mature country, a country which looks towards three continents from an economic point of view, and therefore it is very important that we should strengthen our economic ties with Chile.
However, I should like to refer, Mr President, to something which I had the honour to say on behalf of the European Parliament at the Chilean Congress meeting in Valparaíso, which is that we lend our clear support to the setting up of full democracy in Chile, in which civil law would be a fundamental element.
On this score, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy of the European Parliament supported the work carried out by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee and the setting up of the National Cooperation for Reparations and Reconciliation, and it is also very important that affairs such as the already mentioned Soria case and that of the Clarín newspaper be solved, and in particular that we should put an end to all of the impediments which are standing in the way of Chilean democracy today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome with great satisfaction the Miranda report whose analyses and conclusions on the new agreement between the European Union and Chile recognises and strengthens the work which has already been carried out by the European Commission.
The signing of this agreement will bring about a substantial change in our relations with Chile, in the framework of the European Union's new strategy orientated towards the redefinition of all of our relations with Latin America as a whole.
Chile has stood out in recent years, both in the regional and international context, for the good results of its economy, the dynamism of its diplomacy and its active presence in world markets.
Chile has already signed a number of agreements on free trade with most of the LAIA countries, bilateral agreements with Mexico and Canada, has joined the Pacific Association and signed an agreement with Mercosur.
The new agreement with the European Union is based on this practical reality and recognises the special role of Chile in the southern region of Latin America.
It also sets a final objective which is a very ambitious one: the establishment of political and economic association between the parties.
The mechanism provided for is the same as that which was included in the European Union-Mercosur Agreement.
In the context of the application of the first stage, the parties - the European Union and Chile - held a first meeting of the Joint Committee, on 16 December 1996, in order to work out precisely the institutional mechanisms needed for the agreement to function and the first meeting of the Trade Sub-committee is scheduled to be held later in the first half of this year.
In her report, Mrs Miranda offers an exhaustive explanation of the structure and the potentials of this agreement.
For my part, I shall only reiterate very briefly some of the innovative elements of this agreement.
With the experience which has already been accumulated and dealing with the challenges thrown up by the constant development of technology and industry, cooperation is extending its horizons, in order to include key-sectors such as services, investment, intellectual property, telecommunications and the information society.
Thanks to the system of 'bridges' - so much condemned at one time, now adopted by the Commission - the agreement also provides for the possibility of carrying out joint projects with Mercosur and this is something of particular interest to us.
In respect of some of the actions to be taken, I should like to point out that this agreement, like the majority of agreements which we are signing with Latin American countries, pays very particular attention to correcting social imbalances.
From this point of view, fighting poverty, support for SMEs, action in favour of the weakest sectors of society - young people and women, are perfectly integrated into the cooperation programmes which we are implementing with Chile.
I cannot accept that the problem of the environment is not dealt with in this agreement since the problem of the environment is seen as a vital element of the concepts of cooperation in terms of sustainable development which we are working on with the Chilean Republic.
As for political relations, a great boost has been given to these including the new forum of parliamentary relations.
Some of you have asked how this is going to proceed in the future.
There is news on this and relations have been established, in terms of negotiations, on the basis of the agreement reached with the Chilean delegation at the latest meeting of the Rio Group and - within the Rio Group - the first institutionalised relationship with Chile in Noordwijk.
We have basically agreed on the timetable for the future liberalisation of exchanges and this will be done the following way: in 1997 and until the first half of 1998 the bodies provided for in the agreement - mixed committee, trade sub-committee and various working parties - will focus all of their attention on working out what we have called the 'radiography of exchanges' , in other words working out all of the relevant technical analyses which will make it possible for us to make progress towards the ambitious objectives which have been set out in our strategy.
At same time, in the second half of 1998 or first half of l999, there will be a high level meeting, as provided for in the agreement, in order to carry out the final arbitration and, as of that date, begin final negotiations for the progressive and reciprocal liberalisation of all trade.
This is basically the overview which it was possible to sketch out with the Chilean delegation, last month, in Noordwijk, under the Dutch presidency of the Council of Ministers.
Finally, I should like to make a few remarks concerning some of the speeches which have been delivered here today.
First of all, we think that this agreement, regardless of its content, which obviously can always be judged in one way or another, is also looking for other effects which are not a result the agreement itself but which are very important nonetheless.
First of all, the operation which the European Union is carrying out with Chile, and via the system of 'bridges' with Mercosur, is a strengthening of the model of open regionalism, particularly in the very important area of Latin America, that of the southern tip (Cono Sur).
Yes, the European Union's strategic objective is to develop in Latin America, and in particular in the southern tip, a strong, solid, creative, open economy which is able to have a special relationship with the European Union.
I do not conceal the fact that we are also carrying out this operation because this is one of the rare cases of the world - Mercosur plus Chile - where the European Union is a major economic and trade partner and the main investor, even ahead of the United States and Japan.
In other words, there is a mutual interest in continuing to protect, within this area, a European presence in the political and economic spheres.
Secondly, this is undoubtedly going to strengthen the process of consolidating democracy.
Yes, Mr Puerto, I did say the process of consolidating democracy , because I am not going to deny the fact that there are nonetheless certain grey areas in the Chilean political model.
Obviously we must, along with the European Parliament, continue to put pressure while others can work within the agreement to try to clear up this type of grey area which no doubt still does exist in Chile.
Finally, and because I can see the consternation growing on the face of my friend Mr Smith, I must say that we are very sensitive to the quality of whisky and in particular that of Scotch whisky.
You made a particular request to me.
Indeed, following the dialogue held by Sir Leon Brittan and ourselves we have told the Chilean authorities that the arrangements for protecting 'pisco' , the Chilean national drink, are contrary to WTO rules.
The Chilean government bill, due to be presented to the Chilean parliament, in our opinion breaks WTO rules.
The President of Chile promised, in talks with Sir Leon Brittan, that he would correct the government bill to bring it in line with WTO regulations.
This will be done in April, something else I can confirm to you.
Should we not receive a response from the Chilean authorities, automatically the European Union will ask for the WTO panel to be opened on this subject.
We have explained to the Chilean authorities that the fact of opening a panel does not necessarily create a political problem or create a problem of diplomatic or other understanding.
This is an institution which exists in the WTO and it was invented specifically to resolve amicably and peacefully this type of conflict.
However, I hope that the Chilean Bill is going to be revised so that we do not have to go to the WTO to discuss the problem of Scotch whisky.
And I must not forget Irish whiskey in case there are any Irishmen among us today.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Impact assessment system for firms
The next item is the report (A4-0413/97) by Mr Mather, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the strengthening of the business impact assessment system.
Mr President, many thanks to Mr Mather for his work on this report. It has been a long time coming and we welcome it, and if you will excuse the pun we hope it will have some legislative impact of its own.
As you rightly say, many small businesses have been confused and bewildered by the impact of legislation.
It has not come their way before or had much impact on their lives until suddenly a civil servant tells them it is going to happen.
Clearly it is unfair if those are the cirumstances and within the Employment and Social Affairs Committee we have paid special regard to that, especially the health and safety aspects.
Under Article 118a, for example, there is protection for small to medium-sized enterprizes and I am pleased to see in this particular report mention is made of protection against the unnecessary financial and administrative burdens of any legislation which is introduced.
I could perhaps mention the fact that within the Employment and Social Affairs Committee we have also been seeking to include small to medium-sized businesses within the Safe Report. We have sought to make sure that any legislation that has been brought in has been easily explained.
I was the rapporteur on that particular report.
Unfortunately it is still blocked by the Coucil of Ministers but we hope that small businesses will be able to benefit from that some time in the future if it becomes unblocked.
If jobs are to be created, as they hopefully will be by many small businesses, it will be because we nurture innovation and entreprenurial activity.
It is important that such activity is developed with social policy in mind and for that we need true partnership.
We need partnership between the employer, the employee and the legislators.
Jobs, sustaining good business and political good sense are a recipe for growth.
The assessment of impact occurs throughout the world and the way ahead is to allow the kind of flexibility which brings about competitive strengths for business and fairness in the workplace.
Mr President, the Committee on the Environment is in favour of strengthening the system of business impact assessment.
The Committee's opinion focuses on four points.
We think first of all that unambiguous and simple Community legislation is easier for firms to comply with and easy to monitor.
Secondly, we think that careful business impact assessment has a threefold role, namely to justify the measure proposed, to spread awareness and information and to help in policy planning.
Thirdly, the Committee on the Environment also welcomes the Commission's plan to pay particular attention to economic assessments of the environment.
Fourthly, business impact assessment must henceforth be regarded during debates in the European Parliament as an integral part of the legislative proposal.
The Liberal Group compliments Mr Mather on his report which advocates a tightening up of the existing system of business impact assessment.
The object of this is to evaluate the consequences and costs of European legislation to business and industry.
But if impact assessment looks at effects on the environment, social factors and society as a whole the original purpose of the report will be totally lost.
Environment, safety, health and consumer protection are a matter for the proposed measures to be tested.
If the report is amended the Liberal Group will not be able to support it.
We regard business impact assessment as a necessary quality control which the law carries out on business and industry.
From our first beginnings in 1958 to January 1994 a total of no fewer than 48 000 European regulations, directives and instructions were enacted.
It is obvious that we have quietly reached saturation point.
This House is constantly talking about a European policy on employment.
But it is not a Treaty chapter on employment which will create jobs but a better business climate, and that means among other things better laws.
In short, we wholeheartedly endorse the original report but cannot go along with the compromises reached which water down the force of the report.
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur for bringing forward this challenging and interesting report.
It is a report which can be welcomed and supported by my Group.
It is important that we are always aware of the impact of our work, especially as it affects the ability of small and medium-sized enterprises to grow, to become more competitive and profitable and, for the most important reason of all, to employ more people.
Mr Mather's report fits in quite nicely with the ongoing strategy that has been supported by this House through the work of the flawed Molitor Group onto the SLIM initiative for simpler legislation in the internal market, encompasing initiatives like the benchmarking of industry and the sector-by-sector approach to competitiveness in industry.
This report fits in with what we have been trying to achieve in all those areas and meets something that President Santer himself has said, which is to do less, but to do it better.
We can surely all agree on that.
With all these initiatives, partnership is key, and I am very pleased that the rapporteur has accepted a number of important amendments from the Social Affairs Committee.
These amendments quite clearly demonstrate that this report is about more than just business and consequently has a huge potential for the actual way we frame and introduce legislation as a Parliament.
I hope that this potential will be accepted and taken on board by the Commission and I look forward to hearing what the Commissioner has to say about Mr Mather's report.
Small businesses in towns like Dudley, Halesowen, Stourbridge, Smethwick and Wolverhampton, in my constituency are all the time aware of the legislative requirements that are made of them.
They do not mind redtape as long as it is fair, sensible and necessary.
Civil servants and politicians must always be aware that we have an impact on the ability of our companies to be profitable and to grow.
This report can be welcomed in the sense that it will create better conditions for companies in areas such as the industrial West Midlands to be competitive, to be profitable and to employ more people.
Mr President, first I want to thank Mr Mather very warmly for his extremely important report.
When we consider that 99.8 % of European businesses employ fewer than 250 people we come to realise that the avalanche of European legislation that engulfs these businesses is enormous and that basically most of them have neither the time nor the inclination to look at these provisions.
It may be possible for some large firms but it is not for many of the small ones.
Many billions of ecus are wasted and many man/years used unproductively.
The consumer has to pay for that and in the final analysis this is a major obstacle to competition.
But a poor competitive position means the loss of jobs.
The small businesses do not concern themselves overmuch with these provisions.
And they have thus shown that they are in a position to create new jobs.
Impact assessment absolutely must be given an official legal status.
It should therefore be carried out by external advisers.
Secondly, the European Parliament should consider which provisions are really important or urgent and evaluate which provisions should enter into force at all.
We really should see to it that with our 314 votes we manage more frequently to prevent the entry into force of provisions that do not seem useful.
Thirdly, in future the Economic and Social Committee should be take much more intensive action to evaluate the effects on undertakings once provisions have entered into force.
Furthermore, that committee should also be able to propose initiatives in this area with a view to annulling some provisions.
Fourthly, the costs to the public authorities must be estimated and we should seize this opportunity to show that the EU is a model service-provider.
Service is our success.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
It is short but its brevity belies its significance.
It is a powerfully significant report for the work of this House because it is about legislative quality control.
In the era of doing less and doing it better we need instruments to help us to be better at doing our work.
This report will enhance our role as legislators.
It is important that Mr Mather focused in his Economic Committee report on the role of enterprise in particular.
While I accept that one could broaden the focus, I think the way he drilled it down in his first draft is the way it ought to stay because the greatest problem inside this Union is unemployment.
Throughout this decade we have never had unemployment less than 10 % of the labour force.
It is an abysmal record, compared to the United States and Japan.
We have not allowed enterprise in Europe to unlock itself and to deliver the goods.
Part of the problem is the burden of excessive legislation and bureaucracy.
The key to unlocking enterprise is by putting in the double lock procedure that has been suggested of a greater fiche d'impact assessment which should begin with our legislative review and secondly personal Commission responsibility.
The Liberal Group will support the core of this proposal because it is the real issue.
Mr President, it is quite clear that the current fiche d'impact system is totally unsatisfactory.
The report on the strengthening of this system is therefore a welcome and useful attempt to introduce a method for assessing the impact of EU legislation.
It is important and indeed necessary for the interest groups concerned to be consulted even during the preparatory stage.
It is true that the assessments in this report concern the impact on undertakings and the economy, but the planned strengthening of the system will automatically also have an indirect effect on the social and environmental sectors.
Priority must be attached to providing a more solid basis for the many small and medium-sized businesses, which account for the majority of jobs and help shape the environment, by giving them information on the costs and benefits of European legislation.
Under the current system, there is no need for a detailed cost-benefit analysis when assessing the impact on businesses.
But it is in fact most important to have that analysis.
A careful impact assessment is a most welcome and valuable tool in the search for improved legislation.
If this system is to be implemented successful, the directorate-general responsible will need adequate resources, to ensure that the impact assessment sheets come into wide use.
After all, we are seeking to ensure that the proposed legal provisions are comprehensible and clear to those concerned, that the policy-makers become more aware and more informed and, above all, that politics becomes more accountable.
Mr President, I regret that I am not able to join in the chorous of congratulations for Mr Mather.
I start by arguing that previously his national domestic party said that there was no such thing as society, merely individuals and their families.
It seems to me that Mr Mather is further qualifying that concept by saying also there are just businesses.
We are here to legislate on behalf of the European Union, on behalf of what I believe there is, namely society.
It seems to me that defining a fiche d'impact purely in business terms is extremely dangerous and totally irresponsible.
I speak as the rapporteur on the Water Framework Directive.
One of the arguments that we are making constantly in the Environment Committee is that if we legislate and fail to take into account the cost of not protecting the environment, then the long-term cost of that failure will have to be taken into account by European Union citizens.
I accept that we should take into account the cost upon business, but we need also to take into account the other aspects of legislation.
That is why there was Amendment No 26 by Mr Donnelly, which has now been compromised.
That amendment says that we also need to take into account health, safety, environment and employment, not merely the effect upon small business.
Mr Mather, there is such a thing as society, we are here to legislate on its behalf.
Mr President, I would like first of all to thank and commend Mr Mather for his report.
The Commission's business impact assessment system and examination of the repercussions of legislative draft proposals on businesses is an important element of Community policy with regard to businesses.
It has as its objective the improvement and simplification of the business environment.
The business impact assessment system was introduced in 1986 and at first was made applicable to every legislative draft proposal.
Later on, for reasons of efficiency, the Commission decided that it should be limited to proposals which carry the likelihood of having a significant impact on business and, in particular, on SMEs.
In 1997, out of 16 draft legislative proposals, the Commission decided, on the basis of the selective approach, that only 10 could possibly have a significant impact on businesses and therefore required assessment.
I have very little argument with the general tone of the report and with Parliament's motion for a resolution.
However, I think that the criticism of the business impact assessment system currently used by the Commission is excessive.
I do acknowledge, of course, that there is criticism of the quality of the business impact assessments not only from this Parliament but also in some of the Member States.
I also accept that not all of the assessments are of the highest quality or as good as they could be.
Even so, I believe that the quality has improved over the past two years, and I can assure you that we are constantly striving to achieve even greater improvement of the system.
Our objective is to include cost and benefit analysis as necessary, especially for complex legislative proposals which relate to a wide range of business activities.
This analysis will also need to encompass the impact on the environment, the impact on health and safety and the impact on employment and the interests of consumers.
I agree with your observations on these points.
The Commission's proposal for a Council regulation on the protection of the industrial plan is a good example of a case where business impact assessment reveals the frequently conflicting interests of various business activities.
Allow me to mention one example. The Commission believed that its most recent proposal struck a sensible balance between the need to protect the motor industry and ensuring competitive access to the market for independent parts manufacturers.
Some of the information included in that specific business impact assessment led Parliament to table amendments to the proposal.
The Commission was able, generally, to accept them.
Unfortunately, however, it turned out to be more difficult for the Council to agree either with the initial proposal of the Commission or with the version amended by Parliament.
Mr President, I can also agree with the demands that have been expressed for businesses and business associations to be able to participate in the consultation procedure with the directorates general which are responsible for the drafting of legislative proposals.
Such consultation is very important as a means to gaining a good understanding of the likely impact of legislative proposals.
The extension and improvement of the consultation procedures have been the subject of much work at the Commission. The increase in the numbers of Green Papers and White Papers on various matters in recent years bears that out.
Because what is a Green paper, when we really think about it? It is a process for open constructive dialogue directed towards all interested parties at the pan-European level.
It is, therefore, a consultation procedure on the drafting of better proposals.
These consultations must include discussions with environmental groups - with groups that have a particular concern for environmental protection - and with consumer groups, because it is equally important that their views are listened to and given consideration.
As I have said, it is very important that account is taken of all aspects of the impact. Not just of aspects which may affect businesses, but also of aspects which can affect health, safety, the environment, consumer interests and, of course, employment itself, which is now the number one priority of the European Union and of all of the European policies.
I am particularly pleased that the European Parliament considers that the Directorate General for Enterprise Policy should continue to coordinate development of the business impact assessment system.
I agree also that the consultation procedures for the completion of a business impact assessment should be carried out as early as possible during the scrutiny of a draft legislative proposal.
I have made a note of some of the other proposals that have been expressed, including the idea of reviewing all existing legislation.
As you know, the Commission is examining the impact of particular aspects of legislation in the framework of the SLIM initiative with a view to achieving simplification and cost reduction and, also, in order to reduce the administrative burdens on specific economic activities.
Allow me to point out also that the internal functioning and procedures at the Commission are, as I am sure you are aware, exclusively the Commission's responsibility.
Nevertheless, your ideas, proposals and constructive criticism are always welcome, and we do, of course, give them serious consideration.
I can assure you that I am determined to contribute personally to the improvement of the Commission's business impact assessment system.
We shall do our utmost to improve the level of consultation with all interested parties in keeping with the spirit of the proposals tabled in Parliament's report.
I hope to be able very soon to set out proposals for improvement of the Commission's internal procedures as a means to optimizing the achievement of that objective.
This report of Parliament has come before the House at a good time. I wish to maintain close contact with Parliament on these important matters in the context of the Commission's twofold commitment on the establishment of open transparency procedures and support for SMEs and the promotion of growth and job generation.
Mr President, allow me once more to congratulate Mr Mather on his splendid report and to thank him.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
Aid to shipyards
The next item is the debate on the proposal for a Council Regulation on aid to certain shipyards under restructuring and amending Council Regulation (EC) No 3094/95 on aid to shipbuilding (COM(97)0132 - C40153/97-97/0113 (ACC)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me say first of all that I personally am very dissatisfied that the regulation is being presented as an urgency.
As the proposed rapporteur I could have guaranteed that I and my colleagues would finish our report in the course of the next month.
Nevertheless, in the interest of those concerned, I voted for urgency yesterday.
Let me at this point also give special thanks to those Members with whom we have recently done such good and practical work, and in particular Alan Donnelly.
I think that in this proposal the Commission has given a very detailed and accurate picture of the background and the relevant facts.
In the whole legislative section we are dealing with the different, specific situations in three of our Member States, which we must also evaluate differently.
We must also look at the international aspects of the question of aid to shipyards, and here I am thinking particularly of the problems with the OECD directive.
As an East German Member, I want to emphasize that the blame for the misery of East German shipyards lies not with the shipyards themselves but with the mismanagement by the Bremer Vulkan mother company and the lack of control by the supervisory bodies in the Federal Republic of Germany, especially the Treuhand and its successor the BVS.
As a result only a fraction of the resources needed for restructuring have reached the recipients.
Let me briefly discuss the three amendments, for which I was originally responsible.
On Amendment ll: I would like to withdraw it so that a compromise can be reached on the regulation as a whole.
Amendment 12 is designed to make it clear that this state aid is the last aid that can be granted to the shipyards concerned.
Amendment 13 calls for stronger controls, for EU monitoring; it involves our Parliament in this process and guarantees its continuing participation in it and I hope that urgency will not be agreed again on this subject!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission proposal is designed to cushion the effects of the far-reaching and necessary structural adjustment measures.
We must ensure the continuity and completion of this necessary adjustment process.
We are concerned with structural problems in Greece and Spain, and in particular in Germany, in the Land of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
I briefly described the dramatic background to this question when I advocated urgency yesterday, and the radical structural changes and adjustment processes that are taking place in the span of just a few years.
What is important about the present situation, however, is that the current difficulties cannot be blamed on those they affect, the shipyard workers.
They have not received any of the aid.
This shameful situation is currently being fully investigated by several committees of inquiry and by the public prosecutors in Bremen, Bonn and Schwerin.
The fact that funds were misused has been known for months and the Commission has also given a very precise and responsible account of this.
The Commission proposal contains all the important facts and it is hardly likely that any more information will come to light as a result of further intensive investigations by the European Parliament, e.g. by setting up a committee of inquiry as suggested by Mr Donnelly yesterday.
All that would do is to delay the necessary structural adjustments.
But any delay would only increase the existing uncertainty.
Any delay will make the envisaged privatization more difficult.
Any delay will be bad for business and any delay will jeopardize jobs.
Instead, those concerned should be given a chance to complete their on-going structural adjustments as quickly as possible.
We cannot allow those who have been robbed then to be punished too. What kind of logic is that?
Are those who have been harmed already to suffer even more disadvantages?
Just imagine a similar situation in your own private life and you will soon realise how absurd this proposal is, how absurd it would be for the Commission proposal to be rejected!
If we do not grant rapid aid, then in my view we will be penalizing those concerned even further, and that is bound to meet with incomprehension outside Parliament and to discredit our Parliament.
So I warmly ask you to approve the Commission's very responsible proposal.
Mr President, the Liberal Group is deeply unhappy at the fact that we have been rail-roaded into an urgency.
Having listened to Mr Gomolka's contribution I am even more disturbed that we are not going to give due reflection to this dossier.
A serious question mark hangs over the principle of applying state aids in such contexts but my Group would retain an open mind to a fair-minded review and reflection on the facts.
Can I recall to the House that yesterday's annual guidelines issued by the Commission urge Member States to avoid using state aids to postpone essential restructuring.
The previous speaker is right, jobs may be jeopardized, including jobs in other shipyards if we do not give due reflection to the knock-on implications.
That is precisely why we believe in principle what we are doing today is a virtual abdication of parliamentary rights of review.
We are abdicating our duty as legislators to stand back and to pause and reflect.
In principle the Liberal Group believes this is wrong and in practice we will not be a rubber stamp.
Mr President, I would like to follow on from the point that Mr Cox has made.
The Economic Committee had worked out a timetable that would have taken two or three weeks to give proper consideration to this matter.
I have to say that the decision taken in principle yesterday, particularly by the Christian Democrats, to rubber-stamp this decision, brings this House into disrepute.
I want to ask Commissioner Papoutsis, who I guess is responding on behalf of the Commission, to answer a series of specific questions, and I hope he answers them very clearly.
The first point is: will he guarantee that not one penny of this subsidy will be given as an employment subsidy in any of the three countries mentioned? This of course would mean a competitive disadvantage for other countries in the European Union.
Can the Commissioner tell us whether he feels this subsidy will help or will hinder the agreement of an OECD deal with the United States and our other partners? Many of us believe it brings that agreement into disrepute and that it is now null and void.
Will he tell us whether there has been any dialogue with the other shipbuilders in the rest of the European Union about this deal.
Has he consulted Finnish, Danish, British or French shipbuilders to see what the implications of this deal will be?
If he has not, then why has the Commission not consulted?
What are the implications for the Seventh Shipbuilding Aids Directive?
Is the Commission going to propose an extension of the directive to coincide with this particular regulation and is it prepared to review the ceiling for the Seventh Shipbuilding Aids Directive? Would the Commissioner agree with me that given the sensitivity of this sector of the economy this is a disgraceful way for the Council and the Commission to try to steamroller through a piece of legislation that should have been given proper and transparent consideration?
I think this House brings itself into disrepute by working in this way and I deeply regret it.
Mr President, it is my view that the European Parliament took a very wrong decision yesterday.
A majority of the House's members voted in favour of the urgent handling of the Commission's proposal for new state aid to a number of shipyards in Germany, Spain and Greece.
I find it quite incredible that our Parliament should, of its own free will, isolate itself from a thorough discussion of a proposal which has farreaching consequences for the shipping industry in Europe.
We have no opportunity for discussing the proposal, let alone for proposing amendments.
I believe the proposal will have enormously harmful effects if it is adopted.
Firstly, the proposal goes against all logic.
The Commission has brought and won legal actions against Member States which have paid out unlawful state aid to shipyards.
It is therefore quite illogical that the same Commission should now seek to legalize aid in the sum of over ECU 1 billion.
Secondly, the Commission has not made up its mind about the harm the proposal will do to healthy shipyards in Member States which are not entitled to this aid.
Denmark is one of those countries in which healthy, competent shipyards will be hard hit.
Thirdly, the Commission's proposal does not provide sufficient guarantees that the capacity of shipyards receiving aid will actually be reduced, and the control of payments of aid is also too limited.
Fourthly, the proposal will have unforeseeable consequences for the EU's cooperation with the OECD.
The European Union is obliged to do without new rules for its shipyard policy, until an international OECD agreement is produced.
This agreement has now been broken, and already the USA has protested to the EU.
The proposal submitted will damage the EU's credibility with our people because they will see it as unjust, and it will harm the EU's international reputation.
I therefore urge that we vote against the proposal.
Mr President, this proposal is being handled on the basis of the wrong principles.
A vote yesterday could just as easily have resulted in a different point of view.
126 votes to 133 means that the split is very even.
This also illustrates the fact that we are not properly fulfilling our role as legislators.
Parliament has in a sense sold its birthright, and the consequence is that everything is now 'up for grabs' .
Should the Fincantieri shipyards in Italy, the Le Havre shipyard in France and the Svendborg shipyard in Denmark now come forward with a request to the Commission to obtain aid for their survival? Should they now attempt to undermine the good cooperation we are on the way towards establishing in Europe?
Should they now spoil the OECD agreements? I can only say that Gomolka's speech was rather nonsensical.
It is pure selfishness. We in Denmark can look 100 km across the Baltic Sea where the shipyards are thriving, while our own are closing down.
This is not European cooperation. It is just that some are profiting from others.
I cannot vote in favour of the proposal, but hope that our amendments will be accepted.
Mr President, allow me first of all to thank Parliament and, in particular, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the rapporteur Mr Glante for examining so expeditiously the Commission's proposal for the amendment of Community rules on aid to shipyards for the purpose of facilitating the disbursement of grant aid to certain shipyards in Germany, Spain and Greece which are undergoing reconstruction.
It was necessary to deal with this matter urgently because decisions have to be taken quickly to prevent the future of the yards in question falling into jeopardy.
In view of that requirement, the Industry Council will discuss the Commission's proposals at its meeting later today.
The Commission feels justified in hoping that the Council will at least arrive at a political agreement at that meeting.
Our proposal relates to aid that is required to assist the completion of restructuring programmes commenced some time ago and which are necessary for legal and technical reasons. For example, in the cases of Greece and Spain, the disbursement of aid previously approved has been held back.
In the case of Germany, there have been exceptional circumstances involving the misuse of aid previously approved for Bremmer Vulkan which is now under a bankruptcy order.
This aid will not have much effect on the competitive positions of the yards in question. Any distortion of competition will be largely offset by a substantial reduction of the yards' productive capacity.
In the view of the Commission, the measures are totally compatible with the standstill provisions of the OECD agreement, which because its ratification has been delayed - not by the European Union but by the United States - has yet to come into force.
One of the main factors which has led the Commission to adopt a positive position in the cases in question has been an undertaking from the respective governments not to provide any further aid for the yards for either rescue or restructuring and not to provide guarantees against future losses.
We can expect the Council to reiterate the principle of once and only once.
The Commission is also proposing close monitoring in order to ensure compliance with the terms under which the aid is being approved, specifically as regards the disbursement and use of the aid, the execution of the restructuring plans and the restrictions on productive capacity.
The Commission is grateful to the European Parliament for its positive and constructive stance which, when viewed overall, is supportive of our proposals.
As regards the three questions put by Mr Donnelly, I would like to say that this action does not, in actual fact, strengthen employment.
The categories of assistance are specified in detail in the proposal, and there will, certainly, be control during implementation.
There will be no repercussions as far as the OECD agreement is concerned, and we hope that the United States will concur, precisely because of the great importance of the agreement - because of its overall importance, that is to say.
And let me say, also, that many of the Member States have indeed consulted with the Commission and the competent Commissioner.
Mr President, Parliament has tabled 12 amendments.
Amendments Nos 1 to 10 relate to general policy, such as the Commission's position in regard to the OECD agreement and policy on future aid to the shipyards of the Union.
These matters are outside the scope of the regulation which, in the nature of things, is very specific and confined to establishing derogations from the applicable rules on aid for just three national cases.
It is not feasible to allow reference to these matters in this regulation.
Moreover, to take decisions today about wider policy would be premature.
All of these possibilities remain open.
The Commission will be presenting proposals later this year in order that decisions can be taken before the directive lapses at the end of the year. And those proposals will provide a basis for wide-ranging debate.
For those reasons the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1 to 10.
Your other two amendments relate to the derogation.
Amendment No 12 seeks to amend Article 1 (4) of the proposal with regard to Spain and explicitly states that no more tax reliefs and capital inputs shall be permitted.
The amendment is unnecessary, in our opinion, because its content is implicit in the Commission proposals, which make clear that measures of this type that are not approved by the derogation in question are incompatible with the directive and thus impermissible.
That is to say, it follows from the Commission's proposals that the yards will not be able to receive aid of this type in the future.
The last amendment, Amendment No 13, introduces a new article, namely Article 2 (1) (A), which goes into detail on the method of monitoring.
The Commission appreciates the anxieties which have given rise to this amendment.
However, I can assure you that the Commission, assisted by technical experts, will monitor closely all of the aspects referred to in the amendment.
In any case, in its present form, as a new article, the amendment cannot be accepted. If we were to accept it we would have to submit a new, revised proposal to the Council, and that would cause a delay that cannot really be entertained, bearing in mind the urgency of the matter that I mentioned at the beginning.
Mr President, I have heard the Commissioner thank Parliament for its positive approach, so I would also like to make it clear to the Commissioner that the positive approach was that 133 of the 626 members were for the motion, and that it was only one of the group rapporteurs who spoke in favour of it today.
That speech may have been written yesterday, I do not know; but it seems to me as if we are being treated as a rubber stamp.
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner whether or not there had been consultation with the shipbuilders in the other Member States which will be affected by this.
I understand that there has been no consultation at all on the employment effects that these subsidies will have.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to answer as to whether or not his services have talked to the other shipbuilders and what effect he feels the subsidy will have on jobs in the other Member States?
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity to add further clarification to the reply that I gave to Mr Donnelly a short while ago.
As I have said, the Commission and, specifically, Mr Van Miert, consulted formally with all of the Member States concerning the shape of this proposal and, of course, there were informal consultations with a number of shipyard concerns.
That is the fact of the situation.
As you know, we at the Commission, all of the commissioners, and, in this particular case, Mr Van Miert, take pains in every case to look at all of the possible repercussions in our efforts to find the approach that will be most acceptable to the Council.
And I can assure you that that was done in this case too.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
Welcome
It gives me great pleasure to welcome to the House a delegation from the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic led by its chairman, Mr Daniel Kroupa who is also the co-chairman of the European UnionCzech Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee.
Mr Kroupa and his colleagues are here to make preparations for the next meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee which will be held in June.
It is an honour and privilege to have you with us at this plenary session.
We are aware of the importance of your visit, given the need to ensure that all the necessary preparations are made for the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union.
We look forward to working together with you to ensure that the proper democratic control is exercised at all stages of the accession negotiations, which it is hoped will begin next year.
We wish you a pleasant and very successful visit.
(Loud applause)
Votes
Mr President, I have been informed by Mr Apolinário, one of the Socialist Group members on the list for the temporary committee, that he is not available to sit on this committee.
The Socialist Group will be informing the President of its candidate when our bureau decides.
(The proposals were ratified)
Mr President, we are voting on the conciliation report of what was successfully concluded to create the single market in pressure vessels.
It has been brought to my attention that the Council has adopted a statement in its own Minutes in respect of this Directive.
Parliament has consistently opposed this practice of attempted legislation in secret.
I would remind the House of the position we took on Resolution 12 in October 1995 and also remind the Council that statements made in their Minutes have no legal force.
I would endorse that and point out that the Court has also taken that view.
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Mr President, the following problem has arisen in the document before us: we reached an agreement with the Council about the budgetary procedure.
The President of the Council did not confirm that agreement until 6.30 p.m. last night.
So it was too late to move the text from the explanatory statement to the motion for a resolution.
But it is available to all Members in all the languages in the explanatory statement.
During the debate last night Mr Liikanen pointed out that the Commission and the Council had thereby agreed to this text.
I would ask for it to be pointed out specifically in the Minutes that this text is no longer part of the explanatory statement but is now part of the motion for a resolution.
I will read out the joint declaration .
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, forgive me for interrupting this sitting on a point of order.
I don't know if it is deliberate, but I find it most strange that I cannot understand you at all unless I put on my headset.
I appreciate your voice so much that I would like to hear what you say in English directly.
It is strange that Parliament sits and we cannot understand you.
My feeling is that the volume needs to be a bit higher if we are to hear you.
At the moment we simply cannot.
Perhaps nobody can hear me either.
Unless it is deliberate I suppose we must soldier on like this.
But perhaps you can do something about it.
The Portuguese members of the Partido Popular, in the UPE Group of the European Parliament, declare that their vote for the report on the proposal for a decision of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on the adjustment of the financial perspective to take account of the conditions of implementation, by Mr Tillich, is cast in the conviction that the amount of 1, 062, 000, 000 ECU, resulting from the failure to execute budgeted expenditure in 1995 and 1996, will be inscribed in the 1999 budget and earmarked, in particular, for the 'cohesion countries' , including Portugal, in accordance with the commitment formally made by both the Council and the Commission.
In accordance with this and as a consequence, the UPE, in particular the Portuguese delegation, in the knowledge that the process for negotiating the next budget will begin shortly, will not fail to present relevant proposals, in order to safeguard the position which has now been taken, even though the word given by the Council and the Commission is sufficient for us.
Following examination of the conditions of the 1996 budgetary year, and in accordance with the Inter-institutional Agreement of 29 October 1993, the Commission has asked the Council and the European Parliament to authorise the transfer to 1999 of appropriations not executed in 1996 and not carried over to 1997 to the headings of the Structural and Cohesion Funds, i.e. respectively 545 and 17 million ECU.
A transfer of 562 million ECU which poses no problem to any of the parties.
On the other hand, where there was disagreement was the fact of knowing how to transfer the 1 billion ECU which, following the decision to adapt 1996, had already been re-budgeted to 1998.
Having proposed the transfer of the full amount of 1 billion ECU to the 1998 budgetary year (which would have led to an 8 % increase in structural actions!), the Commission has finally realised that the structural actions were already sufficiently endowed in 1998.
It has, therefore, finally proposed a share-out of the increase in the Structural Funds and Cohesion Funds over two budgetary years: 500 million carried over to 1998 and 500 million carried over to 1999.
A 'compromise proposal' which nonetheless enables an approximate 6 % increase in the Structural Funds whereas the CAP (with a 0.5 %) and the budget as a whole (3 %) have been subjected to austerity, just like the finances of the Member States.
The Council, for its part, rightly thought that it was impossible to commit or spend 500 million ECU in 1998 and therefore asked for the whole amount of 1 billion ECU to be carried over in one go from 1996 to 1999.
Making it possible for it not to execute this amount for another two years would help the Member States to slash their public deficits in readiness for the switch-over to the single currency.
This is a completely irrational position which the European Parliament, in principle, should not have been able to accept...
Waiting for the final position of the Council, the Committee on Budgets, through the Tillich report, has proposed that we should accept the Commission proposal by a vote with qualified majority.
In the absence of an agreement in plenary session between the European Parliament and the Commission, the transfer could not have been carried out and should have remained where it was: the one billion ECU should have been carried over to 1998 and the re-budgeting on 1999 of the 562 million ECU earmarked for structural activities and not used in 1996 would not have been possible.
This leads the Committee on Budgets to say that these 562 million ECU will be 'lost' , since they will be handed back to the Member States.
Our Group tabled an amendment taking up the Council's proposal, an amendment which was judged to be inadmissible when in fact, quite obviously, it was a qualification of the annex mentioned in Article 1 of the proposal for a resolution.
This refusal to examine a proposal enabling the Member States to make real economies in 1998 illustrates perfectly the scant interest which the European Parliament takes in States' interests and those of taxpayers in our different countries.
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that we refuse to vote for the proposal put by the Committee on Budgets which is so remote from the public opinion of the nations of Europe.
Second Bandarelli report (A4-141/97)
While expressing a certain satisfaction at the adoption of a programme of support to the Italian conversion plan for drift net fishing, I must still, on behalf of myself and Mr Tajani, emphasize our disappointment at the fact that certain fundamental principles which appear in the Italian plan have not been understood or accepted by this House.
In the text adopted today the abolition of drift nets is mentioned several times. This is inopportune to say the least, because so far the Council has not taken any such decision, and nor does it seem to have the necessary majority to do so.
So even if the conversion measures progressively lead to total abandonment of this fishing technique, without a Community decision along those lines it does not seem right to us that Italian fishermen should feel guilty about an activity which is still absolutely legal.
Furthermore, joining the conversion plan is voluntary - and it could not be otherwise since, I repeat, no European law prohibits the use of drift nets - and this principle is contradicted the moment abolition is insisted on.
So it comes down to unacceptable and ridiculous demonization of drift net fishing, almost as if this technique was at the origin of the worst biological imbalances to hit the Mediterranean and as if the salvation of that sea therefore depended on total and immediate destruction of the spadare .
Certainly, no-one claims that drift nets are harmless and without impact on resources - no fishing technique is - but it is also clear that this insistence on eliminating the spadare gives the impression that Italian fishermen are being made the scapegoat for a wider crisis, which they are certainly not the most responsible for.
There has also been an unwillingness to take account of another point, but a point which is of fundamental importance for Italy. The extraordinary nature of the proposed measure, which impacts on a socio-economic situation of grave difficulty and would have justified not only recourse to the FIFG, but also access to other Community funds - the ESF and the ERDF - where the quotas intended for Italy were not fully used.
In fact, while the FIFG funds are used to 'reimburse' fishermen who give up fishing, the possibility of using other Community funds as well would represent consistent support for initiatives promoting re-employment and re-training of fishermen who, remember, almost all come from Objective 1 regions.
Aid to shipyards (A4-153/97)
I have always defended European shipbuilding which is still an industry with a future despite the blows which have been dealt to it by unbridled 'world-wide dumping' .
Today, while regretting an emergency debate which has prevented us from having the necessary far-ranging debate, I tabled amendments to call for an extension of the seventh directive, to reiterate the importance of shipbuilding, to demand the principle of parity between the Member States, to declare the OECD agreement on this matter out-dated and to increase the rates of possible aids in all Member States of the European Union to bring them in line with the reality of the market.
Most of my amendments have been voted for but, unfortunately, that which asked for our withdrawal from the OECD agreement, was defeated by a right wing which is slavishly devoted to the United States (which has not ratified it in any case).
However, the proposals made by the European Parliament are an improvement on the initial text.
I hope that the Commission will keep them on board.
That said, everything indicates, following this vote, that we must continue to fight for European shipbuilding. The hidden message is that this is another concept in favour of an offensive European industrial policy.
Pradier report (A4-98/97)
We welcome the report and agree with the rapporteur that it is extremely important to find a solution to the problems which have arisen in connection with the development and use of the Internet.
But we cannot agree with the rapporteur that the best way to achieve the right level of protection in this area is through supranational legislation.
As this is an international problem the route to protection against incorrect use of the net must be through cooperation and coordination of national legislation.
We advocate close inter state cooperation within the framework of the Third Pillar, where democratic control is executed, and indeed should be executed, by the National Parliaments.
It is our view that the report deals with an important topic and is worth supporting.
We must acknowledge the great opportunities in communication created by the Internet while striving to prevent the Internet becoming a means of spreading illegal material.
The report contains a limited number of points which refer to certain fairly insignificant regulations covering the flow of information on the Internet. In the report, these regulations are clearly placed in the context of the use of the Internet to spread illegal material such a child pornography.
In view of this, the aim to regulate the flow of illegal material cannot be considered as anything other than extremely desirable.
But we would like to point out that the aim does not necessarily coincide with available technical capability for achieving regulation.
In tackling the question of technical solutions for regulation we ought to consider carefully the balance between potential infringements on freedom of speech, for example, which such regulation could involve, and the important aim of preventing the spread of material such as child pornography.
I have today voted in favour of the Pradier report on unlawful and harmful material on the Internet.
I am glad that an EU initiative is now being proposed which would oppose the expansion of unlawful and harmful material on the Internet.
It is important, however, that we now convert words into action.
The report gives two possible solutions.
Firstly we could attempt to improve people's ability to decide for themselves what was rubbish on the Internet.
Secondly we could use legislation to ban that rubbish.
In principle I am against restricting freedom of expression.
I would therefore support any initiative aimed at improving people's ability to decide for themselves what was rubbish.
But such an approach is not enough.
As responsible politicians we cannot stand by in silence and watch the Internet develop into a dustbin for all kinds of rubbish.
Speaking personally, for example, I am unable to come to terms with such areas as the rapid spread of child pornography. I also find it difficult to accept that, just by clicking on a button, one can access the recipe for a powerful bomb.
Finally it seems to me reprehensible, as has been the case in Denmark for instance, that the Internet can be used to corrupt others.
In summary it is necessary to use law to ban any rubbish of this type.
I know full well that the possibility of punishing people who violate Internet law is very limited.
This is particularly the case because the Internet crosses frontiers.
Once again we have here an example of an area requiring greater legislative cooperation, internationally and in the EU, if we are to solve any of the current problems.
In this connection I would once again urge that Denmark give up its reservations on EU cooperation in the area of legislation.
Everyone agrees that the Internet network has led to considerable progress in communications and information and more generally people's knowledge of the world surrounding them.
Everyone recognises the rapidity of these upheavals and the dissemination of knowledge brought about by this set of relations and information systems.
However, the framework for this progress unfortunately has not been well prepared and we collectively bear responsibility for that.
However, this new means of communication cannot not be dealt with by our conventional means of examinations and controls.
In other words, we are completely helpless if we are to deal with the spread of illegal or harmful information on the Internet, something we are virtually unable to prevent.
Of course, deviant practices were predictable and it took no time for bandits of all kinds to arm themselves with this very effective tool.
The risk is great! Both in terms of moral and intellectual crime.
The European Union must tackle this problem and the Commission's proposal, in partnership with the Council, to set up structures which should make it possible to issue common rules, even possibly a coding, seems to me to be the bare minimum response.
We are all aware of the difficulty of controlling the Internet.
However, we must, while guaranteeing public liberties, ensure that the content carried on the Internet complies with the law and morality.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Schörling (V), in writing.
(SV) The signatories to this explanation of voting have abstained from voting on Mr Pradier's report.
We think that the report contains both positive and negative points.
Naturally we agree with the view that damaging and illegal material on the Internet must be restricted and that we must find a way of banning the occurrence of such material legally, but we also need to find a way to implement this in practice.
Of course we are against the occurrence of child pornography, racist features and recipes for bombs and drugs.
We think that this problem must be resolved internationally and we welcome existing proposals for an international solution.
On the other hand we do not think that Europol should have authority in this area, because Interpol is the only suitable body.
Nor do we think that this report should be used as a pretext for the argument that the Third Pillar be incorporated into the Community sphere of authority.
There is no reason either, as we see it, for this issue to be raised at Community level as it is an issue which must be resolved internationally.
Peijs report (A4-34/97)
We must make an objection to point 7 of the report.
We, in Sweden, find it incomprehensible that the burden of VAT on small and medium sized companies can be lessened in the long term by adopting a 'principle of origin' .
We are also totally opposed to the adoption of a common system of VAT which is referred to in point 7.
Garosci report (A4-100/97)
In the proposal for the report, observation F recommends a quick deregulation to help companies to develop and enter the market.
But we do not share the view on this approach at all.
Such a deregulation will only lead to increased insecurity in society and it will be the weaker members of society who will pay the price.
Torres Marques, Peijs and Garosci reports
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the three reports on small and medium-sized companies.
It is our general view that initiatives which benefit small and medium-sized companies also promote employment.
In addition these initiatives can also promote a healthy development of the economy.
We would point out, however, that we cannot subscribe to the report's section on the advantages of lowering VAT for small and medium-sized companies.
The latest information has confirmed the gradual increase in the importance of SMEs, which have shown themselves to be especially able to attract investment and create jobs in competitive industries.
There are some 18 million small and medium sized enterprises in the European Union, employing 70 million people (70 % of the working population), and they account for two out of every three new jobs which have been created.
That is why the Commission document and the reports drafted by our colleagues, Torres Marques, Peijs and Grosci, which propose practical measures as part of the promotion of SMEs, should be welcomed.
It is difficult to distinguish between them, as they are all necessary if we are to compensate for the limits which are imposed by the small size of these companies: we should give support to the management of technological information at appropriate levels and effectively cutting red tape which hinders their activities.
Furthermore, we must always also remember that we are now preparing to adopt the single currency.
The SMEs are going to be the main beneficiaries of its introduction, since they are most harmed by the cost of transactions, uncertainty and calculations resulting from the existence of different currencies in the European Union.
But we must make an effort to adapt and this is something which must be done well ahead, with the vital support of the European Commission.
Danesin report
We are of the opinion that the report deals with an important topic and think for the most part that it is a good report.
But we think that the text of point 36 is somewhat vague and could lead to misinterpretation so we find it difficult to support it.
Point 36 refers to state aid for the maritime industry which could be interpreted to mean that the report says that the shipbuilding industry is to be promoted through State aid.
With an interpretation such as this we cannot support point 36 in the report at the vote.
The shipbuilding industry sank into a deep crisis during the 1970s and, as a result of this, was in need of extensive restructuring.
Before the restructuring, extensive national aid was channelled into the industry to strengthen national competitiveness against the shipbuilding industry in other countries.
As a result of this unfortunate aid policy the industry's capacity for development was hampered and the shipbuilding industry in several countries went under completely.
If European shipbuilding is to develop global competitiveness for the 21st century, it is extremely important that the previous unsuccessful aid policy is not repeated.
The collapse of the maritime transport sector in recent decades throughout Europe has been notorious.
This decline has brought with it the disappearance of technology acquired over centuries and has weakened industry's links to it at all levels, in particular shipyards.
The recent crisis of roadblocks in transport which for weeks paralysed European roads and, consequently, the economic activities of various countries, highlighted the urgent need for alternative means of transport, mainly rail and maritime transport.
It seems to me that particularly in the intra-Community markets, in an ever widening Europe, maritime transport can be competitive and offers considerable advantages in comparison with road transport for transporting large quantities of goods; it also has a smaller environmental impact.
Therefore, I think that the Commission communication and the report are two positive documents for the European Union.
Now we must await the implementation of the policies which have been announced.
McCarthy report (A4-126/97)
Mr President, I would just like to thank those Members who voted for my report.
I would also like to object in very strong terms to the personal attacks on me by the Conservative Party last night.
It is sad they resorted to personal attacks when my report very much reflects the views of people in the regions.
I would ask the Conservative Party to address those issues rather than resort to the wrecking tactics which they employed in committee.
I have not been guilty of manipulation of the parliamentary process.
I asked if the Conservatives would call in to the Regional Committee now and again so that we could have this report on the agenda nine months ago.
The Conservatives should accept the verdict of this report and address the issues.
It is not a partisan report.
It is not civil servants who are to blame for the problems, but their political masters.
In the General Election in a week's time people in the regions will judge the government on their inability to deal with regional policy issues.
As a whole we think that the report is a good one but we would still like to comment on a few points.
Without questioning the rapporteur's objectivity in any way, we think that it is questionable, in principle, that the parliamentary rapporteur should come from the same country for which aid is being evaluated.
For reasons of principle, Parliament should always aim to select a rapporteur who cannot, in any way, be regarded as having an interest in the issue under discussion.
It is also inappropriate that some of the text of the report has been used in National political debate in Britain.
It is not our task to write for National political debates in Britain but to carry out an objective evaluation of structural actions.
British Conservatives are voting against the McCarthy report on three points of principle.
First, we believe that reports about individual Member States should not be made by MEPs from the Member State concerned.
Second, we deplore the way in which the Parliament's timetable has been manipulated to bring this report before the House at this time during a General Election campaign in the UK.
Third, we condemn the manner in which the Socialist rapporteur has used this report for national party political point-scoring.
This conduct by British Labour MEPs does no good for the standing of this Parliament and they should realize that Socialists in the European Parliament attacking the Conservative Government in the UK can only strengthen support for the Conservative cause among British electors who are resistant to any extension of European powers - A British Labour own-goal, in effect.
Ms McCarthy's report is a well researched, clear and thorough evaluation of EU regional policy in the United Kingdom.
Because it is such a report, it is essential that careful note is taken of its hard-hitting comments.
There can be no avoiding the fact that from beginning to end the report is a powerful indictment of the Conservative Government.
Time and again the government has failed to uphold the principle of partnership; subsidiarity has been treated with contempt; additionality has been ignored or evaded.
Nowhere is all of this more so than in industrial South Wales.
Here we have seen the deadhand of the Welsh Office failing to make anything like an effective use of the structural funds.
Moreover, the Welsh Office has even been prepared to see millions of pounds of grants, allocated to South Wales, remaining in Brussels.
This is because the government is, of course, preventing local authorities from having sufficient funds to provide 'match funding' .
The additionality rule can be met in various ways and yet the government has done nothing.
This scandal must be brought to an end and I am confident that it will be brought to an end in the very near future.
May I express my grateful thanks to Ms McCarthy for the work of her report.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has drawn up a letter of opinion which shares many of the concerns of this report.
Between 1994 and 1996 ECU 910m was committed from the European Social Fund (ECU 3m over - which came from additional appropriations under Objective 1).
Although on the face of it we find this satisfactory, we agree with the rapporteur that problems have arisen; this is demonstrated particularly in Northern Ireland with the 'new areas' of employment and transparency in selection.
Further execution problems came with PEACE initiative and the absorption of extra funds via that route.
Nevertheless, there were delays here and in agreement between Member States on Objective 2, which meant that execution rates drew close to 95 % for 1994-95 later.
It is appalling that the UK did not take up the Objective 4 funding opportunities between 1994 and 1996, but I welcome the fact that this has now changed.
We are well aware of the issue of late payments and have brought the matter to the attention of the Commission.
We are convinced that this problem is one for each respective Member State to resolve.
The principle of partnership, which we consider a welcome innovation of the 1993 reforms, is adequately developed, especially in the area of monitoring committees.
The absence of the social partners is alarming and incongruous with the idea of involvement of the people of Europe.
In Kent people have complained about this in the Objective 2 area of Thanet and for INTERREG II and other programmes!
Fernández Martin report (A4-128/97)
We agree with the spirit of the report that there are problems in many of the EU's fringe regions.
For this reason special aid is required for these areas.
But we do not agree that the solution to this problem is to allow these regions a special legal basis in the Treaty.
There are after all many other regions in the EU in similar situations.
For example, the distance between Madeira and Brussels is not much further than between Kiruna (Northern Sweden) and Brussels.
But the situation in Kiruna is due to the fact that Kiruna lies within the Arctic circle which obviously creates additional problems.
In order to give the EU fringe regions a real chance of survival large sections of EU policy must be changed instead.
Instead of centralising decisions, the regions must be given the opportunity to make their own decisions and create conditions appropriate to them.
Centralised decision making cannot possibly suit all the regions of the EU. We also see the introduction of EMU as a great risk because the economic policy will make the situation in many of fringe regions of the EU worse.
In view of the above we have decided to abstain in the final vote.
I voted for the Fernández Martín report because it sets out extremely well the problems related to ultra-peripheral regions.
Reaffirming concepts and principles which have already been debated and recognised, it puts forward proposals to solve this problem which seems to me to be completely right and fair, if we are to apply the principle of economic and social cohesion to our ultra-peripheral regions.
The Fernández Martín report shows that the declaration appended to the Treaty on European Union while recognising the structural features of certain regions of the Union, an essential condition for forming the concept of ultra-peripheral regions, is insufficient as a legal base in order to adapt Community law to the specific reality of the ultra-peripheral regions.
That is why we shall be giving our unconditional support to the report in that it calls on the Intergovernmental Conference, in its revision of the Treaty, to incorporate a specific article relating to ultra-peripheral regions.
Another aspect which deserved our favourable vote, is the proposal presented in the report for a protocol to be appended to the Treaty, which, among other measures and actions, makes explicit the commitment by Member States to step up and strengthen the actions already undertaken in the framework of the POSEI programmes.
Ahern report (A4-74/97)
Although the new agreements for peaceful nuclear cooperation, signed in November 1995 between Euratom and the United States, is recognised as an important stage in trans-Atlantic cooperation on questions relating to nuclear safety, nonetheless it is true that this text includes certain ambiguities, in particular concerning the reasons why certain parts of the agreement may remain in force following the expiry of its formal duration.
Reservations also apply to the discretionary power which the American administration has granted itself on information about installations to store sensitive materials and on the list of sites, before any signature of the agreement.
The European Parliament should remain vigilant concerning the sensitive points of the agreement, in particular the generic consent which may only be suspended by the Americans in specific cases, or the non-interference by the United States in international monitoring arrangements.
The same goes for supply restrictions, in particular in enriched uranium and American installations, which the United States imposes and which are to the detriment of our industries.
Threats to nuclear safety will become greater and greater as our planet evolves economically, politically and technologically and this Euratom-USA agreement could improve the surveillance of risks yet to come.
The European Parliament must, however, react quickly to each new development and be properly involved in all future Euratom agreements and other international nuclear accords.
After all, the European Parliament is the sole guarantor of transparency and democracy in this area, the nuclear issue, which is so vital for the European Union.
The agreement between Euratom and the USA brings with it a great danger of creating a global plutonium society with an increased risk of the spread of plutonium, MOX fuel, waste products and other radioactive material.
The agreement will also promote increased processing at Sellafield and The Hague which I oppose.
The agreement will lead to an increase in the number of shipments with enormous amounts of radioactive material in circulation.
From a democratic point of view, the agreement has come about in an unacceptable manner, behind closed doors and without an open and democratic discussion.
It is extremely doubtful whether an American law would be valid on Swedish (or other European) territory.
The agreement clearly shows the great risks attached to nuclear power.
This is why nuclear power should be abolished as soon as possible.
The agreement also threatens to extend the life of the nuclear society.
The report clearly highlights the problems of nuclear power, the transport of radioactive material and the lack of democracy.
I am against the agreement but for the report and have therefore voted yes.
Mahern report (A4-413/97)
Mr President, I voted against the compromise amendments of the PPE and PSE to the Mather report.
We are constantly seeking in this Parliament to protect small businesses against excessively burdensome legislation, over-taxation and red tape.
One of the best ways of doing that has since 1986 been business impact assessment.
The problem was that it did not work very well.
The rapporteur's remit was to improve the way in which business impact assessment worked and make it into an efficient instrument for measuring the effects of legislation on small businesses.
Thanks to the amendments we shall now be measuring the effects on the whole world and we thus have one good instrument fewer.
I thus urge the Commission to come up with a test of effects on small businesses, to replace this instrument which we have now murdered.
) It can never be wrong to establish the best possible idea of the impact of a political decision on various sectors of society.
This is a good custom in Sweden where government discussion and decision is often preceded by studies commissioned by the State.
This report proposes that such impact analysis be carried out on proposed legislation with a view to establishing how industry, particularly small companies, will be affected.
The model can be compared with the environmental impact analysis required under Swedish legislation to determine the effects on the environment of various decisions.
As this, in my view, is a positive development, I have voted for the report.
That concludes Voting Time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12.35 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 24 April 1997.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, I rise under Rule 3.
I regret to have to raise a matter concerning the immunities of this House and a serious contravention of Article 9 of the European Convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Article 9 relates to religious freedom.
Last week a Belgian Government Commission presented a report to its Parliament on the question of religious sects and various cults.
In a particularly lurid and ill-informed chapter on the Pentecostal movement, reference was made to the Christian fellowship active within this Parliament in Brussels.
The reference was clearly intended to place that fellowship within a pejorative context.
The Christian fellowship referred to is apparently a group run by my own research assistant in Brussels.
It only meets on parliamentary premises.
It is ecumenical rather than pentecostal, although Pentecostalists would be welcome.
Research assistants who are Baptists, Catholics and members of other denominations regularly take part in its meetings.
It meets weekly in my office in the Belliard building, or a room booked in my name, and includes the assistants of Members from political groups other than the PSE, such as the PPE and the EDN.
It normally meets in my absence but I accept full responsibility for its activities.
I am now astounded that the religious practice of my research assistant and his friends in my office has apparently been subject to surveillance by the Belgian State.
The Belgian Government has not given me, as the Member responsible, any opportunity to hear or respond to any of the charges implied in its report.
I have no idea precisely what information is being collected, who authorized its collection or how it is subsequently being stored.
I would ask you to seek from the Belgian Government an undertaking that citizens of the European Union, including research assistants of Members of this Parliament, will be free to exercise their religious beliefs free from surveillance, harassment and defamation.
Mr Hallam, the best thing for you to do is to write to the Speaker of the Belgian parliament, asking exactly what has happened.
As we all know, the European Parliament's buildings enjoy extra-territorial status and as such cannot be subjected to any form of surveillance.
I must recall that in principle I support the right of any parliament to take an interest in matters affecting European citizens.
I also defend the European Parliament's rights, but I must also respect others' rights.
That is why in this case the wisest thing is to ask the Belgian Parliament directly.
Mr President, on 24 April a lorry from Murcia driven by Mr Antonio Antolinos was attacked in France, between Marseille and Avignon, while the French police looked on without intervening and even encouraging.
I should like to express the indignation that this attack occasioned and the need to tell the French authorities that they are obliged to respect the freedom of circulation of goods and persons.
When there are problems or differences in respect of the common agricultural policy, they must be resolved in Brussels or here, not by attacking workers or goods from other Member States.
Mr Marset, you know that the European Parliament is not the Community institution with responsibility for this nor does its President have responsibility.
It is for the Commission to ensure the implementation of Community law. it is also for the Petitions Committee of this Parliament to deal with this matter and to urge the Commission to take action.
Mr President, I have to return again to the difficulties which Members experienced in getting here to Strasbourg for this plenary session.
This morning, for some unaccountable reason, for the flight by Air Inter from Heathrow to Strasbourg, a plane inadequate to take more than about two-thirds of the people booked, was put on.
As a result there were tremendous problems and one or two Members of this Parliament were unable to secure a place.
This is totally unacceptable.
Whatever the reasons were, it ought to have been put right.
The ground staff at Heathrow were very apologetic but somebody clearly did not realise the importance of ensuring that a plane was available to bring all the Members and other people to Strasbourg.
I would ask, Mr President, if we could do something.
It ought not to be necessary really but given the inefficiency of some of the airlines it might help.
Could Parliament remind the airlines that the flights on the Monday morning of the Strasbourg session will need to take a large number of Members of this Parliament, not just from Heathrow but from other places as well. This would ensure that they do not forget this and substitute some inadequate plane that is unable to take everybody.
We have had problems of this sort in the past and managed through pressure to get some improvement.
I can remember the time when we were taken back to Heathrow via Dublin.
Dublin is very nice but it is not the right way to go.
Mr Elliot, the Secretary-General will remind the airline of this. Of course, every time I meet the French authorities, I also remind them of difficulties involved in getting to Strasbourg.
Mr President, the European Parliament, this House, has announced that calls for tender are to be invited for furnishings for the bars and restaurant of the Leopold building in Brussels.
In the Netherlands this was announced in a leading daily newspaper.
A Dutch company subsequently indicated to the Bureau in Luxembourg that it was interested in bidding and would like to receive the documents.
A fax was sent on 11 April but there was no reply.
On 16 April another fax was sent. Again no reply.
Finally a letter arrived, in French.
The company then telephoned to ask if this letter and the document were available in English.
The conversation with the Bureau in Luxembourg was conducted entirely in French and although there was a Dutchman close by he was not prepared to come to the phone.
The company was thus obliged to make do with documentation in French only. This is now being translated by an agency.
But the copies are so poor that the translation agency cannot read them.
Consequently the company in question is not able to bid.
I ask myself, Mr President, is this really an open procedure or is it one in which the choice has already been made in advance and everyone is just going through the motions?
Is this an example of an open procedure with transparency and equal opportunities for European firms? It is the European Parliament we are talking about here, and I think the European Parliament should set a good example.
How, Mr President, is the man in the street to take us seriously if we do not treat our own people and our own companies seriously?
There is now to be a visit on 20 May to the site for those intending to bid. Will that tour be conducted only in French as well?
Or perhaps in another language? There are complaints amongst small businesses, the driving force behind jobs in the Union, that European tendering procedures are not efficient.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, these questions should be addressed in writing to the Bureau for a useful reply.
I cannot answer you off the cuff.
The services concerned will study this matter and I shall then give you a full answer as soon as I can.
If our Secretary-General is going to raise the question of travel to and from Strasbourg, I too have a complaint about the train service from Brussels to Strasbourg.
Normally it has an excellent restaurant car.
That makes it very attractive to take this train.
Here too no provision is made for MEPs.
Will you ask the Belgian railways no to discourage people from using public transport by constantly downgrading the service? I gather from my colleagues that we have a broad base of support in the House for urging Belgian railways to preserve their present standard of service.
Very well.
We shall take note, Mrs Eisma.
Order of business
The EPP Group is asking for referral to committee of the report by Brendan Donnelly - on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure - on amendment of Rule 116 of the Rules of Procedure concerning split voting (A4-0089/97).
I give Mrs Oomen-Ruijten the floor to move the request for referral back to committee of this report.
Mr President, the EPP Group is totally in favour of amending the Rules of Procedure to make voting time shorted by no longer holding split votes.
We fully endorse that objective.
But the overwhelming majority of our group believes that if we approve this report it will mean a huge increase in the number of amendments so that in fact we do not achieve our objective.
This is why we are asking the House, through you, to refer Mr Donnelly's report back to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure for reconsideration and to see if abandoning split votes will enable us to cope with the large number of amendments which we expect to be seeing.
Mr President, I have taken note of the request by the EPP Group to refer the Donnelly report back to the committee.
As far as I know the Socialist Group is not against that referral, but i should like to ask the EPP something: could we not hold the debate and then send it to committee before the vote?
That would give our Assembly the opportunity to give its guidelines and opinions.
The donnelly report has not been amended by our colleagues. I therefore propose holding the debate and then, if our colleagues agree, refer it back to committee prior to voting.
Mr President, I think we are happy to agree to the suggestion of the chairman of the Rules of Procedure Committee and so withdraw our request, but we should agree to refer the report back before the vote to take another look at its implications.
I remind the EPP Group that it will have to make its request again, after the debate, for agreement.
Tuesday:
The EPP Group is requesting that the Mosiek-Urbain report - on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - on the supplementary supervision of insurance undertakings in an insurance group (A4-0157/97) be referred back to committee.
I give Mrs Mosiek-Urban the floor to move the request.
Mr President, may I once again emphasize the importance of this request by my Group.
When it was voted on in the Legal Affairs Committee there was consensus on many individual points.
But in the final vote it failed to achieve a majority.
This report deals with a very complicated technical subject.
The absence of any amendments to this report indicates the large measure of agreement amongst various political groupings that the best and most appropriate course of action is to refer it back.
I thus urge the House to approve that request.
(Parliament approved the request for referral)
Wednesday:
The Green Group has requested the withdrawal of the Titley report - on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy - on the challenges facing the European defence-related industries: a contribution for action at European level (A4-0076/97).
Mr Telkämper has the floor to move the request.
I give Mr Titley the floor to reply to Mr Telkämper.
Mr President, I am not sure which report Mr Telkämper is speaking about.
There are only 36 amendments to my report, and most of them have been tabled by the Green Group in any case.
Secondly, my report does not deal with the foreign and security policy architecture - that is left to Mr Tindemans' report, which we are discussing.
Thirdly, this was going to be on the agenda in April but was put back to May in order to allow the groups to set out their positions.
So all the matters which Mr Telkämper has spoken about have already been dealt with.
We have delayed it in order to get this description.
There are not many amendments and I can see no reason at all for delaying any further this report.
(Parliament rejected the request for withdrawal)
The Green group has requested the addition to the agenda of Council and Commission statements on progress in the work of the IGC.
May I remind the House that the Council requested that these statements not be kept on the agenda and the Conference of Presidents agreed unanimously to that request. It was difficult to obtain sufficiently detailed information, given the current situation of the Conference, but that obviously does not deny the Green Group the right to move another request on this issue.
I give Mrs Aelvoet the floor to move the request.
Mr President, it is true that Parliament as a whole originally asked for a debate this week on progress at the Intergovernmental Conference.
All of us here in the chamber know that the proposals put forward by both the Irish and Dutch presidencies, to the extent that they are known, are light years away from what the majority of Parliament defined some months ago as the bottom line.
There is thus every reason for Parliament to send a clear message about what has to be done.
Last week in the Conference of Presidents it was said that essentially the Council thought that a debate, a statement by the Council, would be untimely in view of the forthcoming elections in France.
Well, we know full well that the French elections will hinge on European issues, so how can a debate in this House, reviewing the progress achieved, saying what else can be improved and what absolutely must be improved, be detrimental to the elections in France?
That really is turning things topsy-turvy.
We think it is intolerable that Parliament should not hold a debate when it needs to, and putting it off to June is too late.
We thus insist on a political assessment of the position to date and we want a debate now.
Mr President, as you pointed out, there was, I believe, unanimity in the Conference of Presidents that this item would not be debated this week but at the Brussels plenary following the special European Council on 23 May.
And if I recall correctly, we shall have a statement from the Council in Brussels on 29 May, after the special European summit, and it will be much better for us to debate it then than this week.
We can then have a properly informed debate based on what has been discussed at the special European Council.
The Conference of Presidents thought it far more sensible, intelligent and politically expedient to do this on 29 May in Brussels.
(Parliament rejected the request for inclusion)
Thursday and Friday (no change)
Sittings of 28 and 29 May 1997 in Brussels
(no change)
Legal protection for encrypted services
The next item is the report (A4-0119/97) by Mr Anastassopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission Green Paper: Legal protection for encrypted services in the internal market - Consultation on the need for Community action.
Mr President, if in the information society still more commercial services which are also offered to a selected public, piracy will also spread.
On behalf of the Economic Affairs Committee I entirely agree with the rapporteur that some kind of regulation is needed.
It is of course possible to try to prevent piracy by technical means, but I suspect that this will end in a race which the pirates will win.
I proposed in the Committee on Economic Affairs that the regulation will be needed, not merely a directive, because this would undoubtedly be an effective means of regulation to put into practice.
I do, however, understand the rapporteur's point of view when he says that this is a very courageous idea.
It will not be very easy to get it accepted in the Member States.
For that reason I too can say that a directive of this kind providing a minimum set of rules is now the least which is needed.
This issue also raises very difficult questions relating to the compensation and sanctions to be laid down for uses not complying with the cancellation arrangements.
This can of course lead to provisions of criminal law, but in view of the fact that the Member States are rather unwilling to harmonize criminal law, compensation under private law could also of course be used.
But before we take the step of introducing such legislation, I think it is essential that we answer the questions raised by the Environment Committee, which were put to us a moment ago.
The Environment Committee wishes to know how the prevention of the use of encrypted services would lead, for example, to their being cut off.
We are talking about an awareness industry, and this is by no means a small matter.
I think that the Commission has perhaps not quite answered these questions satisfactorily.
Mr President, the Anastassopoulos report was approved unanimously in the Committee on Legal Affairs.
It is a first report referring to a consultation on the Commission Green Paper on the legal protection of encrypted services in the internal market and it is just part of a whole set of legal regulations worked out by the European Community on the protection of telecommunications and the media in general.
I believe that we are dealing with a new right.
It is a new right in that the European Community is at present playing a vanguard role.
I must congratulate the Commission on the pioneering work which it is carrying out in this area and hope that the Commission appreciates how much the European Parliament is working with it at every stage of this process.
At the moment we are at a stage of offering legal protection to this type of situation.
The problem is that legal protection, especially criminal legal protection, is a national competence.
Since it is a national competence, if we opt for Community regulations, that would presuppose involving the Commission in an area where so far it has been fairly limited in its activity.
Therefore I think that the rapporteur's recommendations that we opt for a directive seem far more appropriate.
I think it is important to determine the exact form for this type of law - as has already been done jointly by the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council in Community provisions.
For example, Directive 93/83 on the Protection of Intellectual Property in Relation to Cable Television and Satellite Television was a milestone in this matter - but we must remember that four years have gone by since that directive was adopted and no serious difficulties in its application have so far been detected.
Recently, the European Parliament and the Council, with the efficient cooperation of the Commission, have reached agreement on revising the Directive on Television without Frontiers and, at the same time, Directive 95/45 on Rules for Broadcasting Signals which is also being applied.
I really believe that all of these legal rules are a completely new approach; that the European Parliament supports the Commission's initiative; that the European Parliament is calling on the Commission to keep taking this approach which, in practical terms in this case, means that the right way is to opt for directives rather than regulations.
Mr President, I am happy to say that this is a report which the Legal Affairs Committee approved unanimously.
The rapporteur has made all the points concerning protection for encrypted services very clearly, notably the fact that piracy in all its known forms is flourishing.
Non-approved decoders are being manufactured, marketed, bought, installed and above all, used.
Furthermore, piracy-related services are being offered.
These services are being advertised and their purpose is to circumvent existing safeguards.
Piracy is a cross-border phenomenon and it also infringes the intellectual property laws.
The Green Paper addresses only the aspect of unauthorized reception of encrypted services.
Analysis of the legal position in the 15 Member States shows how fragmented Europe is as a legal area.
Some countries have legislated specially for this subject, whilst others base themselves on earlier existing laws, and others again have no protection at all.
The inference is obvious: we need harmonization, as the rapporteur himself concludes.
The question is, do we need a directive or do we need a regulation?
The reporter - and the Legal Affairs Committee agrees with him - advocates a directive, because the Member States can apply that more flexibly.
And, as he himself admits, a greater degree of consensus would be needed for a regulation.
In this context I would remind the House of the Slim report, approved recently, in which Parliament once again complains that too much 'soft law' is being enacted.
Consistency would thus suggest that we had a regulation here too.
In any event it is no doubt more realistic - at least unless we decide differently after evaluating the open debate on the Green Paper - to go for a directive to begin with.
Abandoning attempts at harmonization on the grounds that piracy would quickly get round any rules because of the rapid pace of technological development would be tantamount to an admission of powerlessness.
On the contrary, this argument must be a pressing reason to get legal safeguards put in place as fast as possible.
Mr President, I shall make just two points.
It is essential to counter piracy and the pirate industry but it is not just the rights of operators which must be safeguarded.
The consumer interest must also be upheld and this lies in the price and quality of the services offered.
A well-regulated and liberalized market of the kind we want must benefit the user, so that everyone is able to obtain information, even if they have to pay for it, because the right to information must not remain a privilege of the elite.
A second point is that we must take care to ensure that European measures against piracy do not simply move the problem elsewhere.
The problem of piracy is indeed an international one, so initiatives are needed at international level.
Lastly, this is not just a matter for WIPO; it is an important reason to hold further negotiations in the World Trade Organization.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos.
As you know the Green Paper was presented by the Commission in March 1996.
The findings of the consultation confirm the need for a Community legal instrument and the Commission observes with satisfaction that the European Parliament shares its point of view.
Over these months the Green Paper has been discussed in depth by four European Parliament committees, the quality of whose work is well reflected in the wide-ranging report presented by Mr Anastassopoulos.
As for the approach to be taken in following up the Green Paper, the Commission shares the opinion expressed in the draft report that the most appropriate legal instrument would be a directive.
The Commission has already made a clear promise on the principle of making a legislative proposal in the 1997 work programme, presented by President Santer at the plenary session of October 1996.
Following the approval of the report by the European Parliament, and bearing in mind the positive outcome of the consultation, the Commission is now ready to present a proposal which should satisfy the legitimate expectations raised by the Green Paper.
Finally I should like to thank you for your very clear support and repeat the Commission's promise in its respect.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Application of the subsidiarity principle
The next item is the report (A4-0155/97) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission reports to the u Council:
on the application of the subsidiarity principle 1994 (COM(94)0533 - C4-0215/95), -entitled 'Better Law-making' - on the application of the subsidiarity and proportionality principles, on simplification and on consolidation - 1995 (CSE(95)0580 - C4-0561/95), -entitled 'Better Law-making' - on the application of the subsidiarity and proportionality principles, on simplification and on consolidation - 1996 (CSE(96)0007 - C4-0015/97) and-on the interim report on the application of the subsidiarity and proportionality principles (CSE(96)0002 - C4-0355/96)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the documents to which this report refers come, formally, at least, within the framework of the order received by the European Commission from the European Councils held in Birmingham and Edinburgh in 1992 to establish every year a report aimed at the European Parliament and the Council on application of the subsidiarity principle.
On this score, we should first of all highlight the difference between the 1994 report and the later one.
What stands out from the 1994 report is its classical methodological approach, which makes it possible to appreciate the foundation of Community measures vis-à-vis those for which, on the contrary, the Commission has no legitimacy to take, because the criteria of Article 3B are not met.
The 1994 report also underlines quite clearly the problems which the application of the subsidiarity principle came across in practice: in particular, the Commission explains how the attitude of the Member States vis-à-vis the analysis of subsidiarity often responds to questions which have little or nothing to do with Article 3B.
It is also worth pointing out the accurate analysis of the difficulty inherent in the lack of a clear line distinguishing exclusively Community competencies from shared competencies.
As for the other reports, the 1995 and 1996 reports, references to subsidiarity, proportionality, simplification and consolidation, under the generic label of 'Better law-making' , reveal the different approach and perspective taken by the Commission.
I must openly confess that, despite a careful reading, I have been unable to draw a clear conclusion on the application of the subsidiarity principle over this period.
On the contrary, the continuous reference to different initiatives (Molitor and Slim, to quote only two), the confusion of legal principles and technical principles and the welter of rhetorical declarations, paradoxically produce the situation where we are faced with an institution which has lost any real impetus, which is on the defensive and which is only using these reports on subsidiarity, not to explain how it exercises its responsibilities, but as an opportunity to attempt to justify what it does as a whole.
The reports being presented to the plenary session received the unanimous support of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, in that it has very much taken into account the focus of discussions in the Intergovernmental Conference and, in particular, the protocol currently being worked out by the Dutch Presidency, and it is focused on the following considerations: first of all, the subsidiarity principle, which has as its aim the notion that certain decisions should be adopted as closely as possible to the citizens themselves, and this undoubtedly has a clear political dimension.
However, the inclusion of the principle in the Treaties gives it an important legal weight of constitutional import, and regulates the definition and execution of Community actions in accordance with competencies attributed by the Member States without affecting in absolute terms the division of powers within the Member States themselves.
The Community after all is based on the explicit share-out of power.
However, it is incumbent on the institutions of the European Union to take all of the necessary action to carry out the mission, achieve the objectives and execute the obligations which the Treaties impose upon them.
This has been the Assembly's doctrine since the reports by Giscard d'Estaing and Martin, and the resolution abides by that.
Secondly, the subsidiarity principle is active on two fronts: when the Commission plans to take an initiative which goes beyond the exclusive competencies of the European Community, it must demonstrate the legitimacy of its action by explaining, in particular, that the matter has a Community dimension, that it must be taken, that it would add to the efficiency of Community action in general, compared with the action of Member States individually.
This is undoubtedly the corollary of the subsidiarity principle, because we must also insist on the fact that applying the subsidiarity principle cannot stand in the way of the legitimate exercise by the Community of the shared powers which have been allocated to it by the Treaties.
Perhaps we should even call into question areas of activity in which the Community has exclusive power.
To put it another way: application in accordance with the Treaties of the principle of subsidiarity may in no way be translated into a weakening of Community law or an undermining of the acquis communautaire.
By the same token, the resolution which we are proposing expresses concern that, over the period under examination, 1994 to 1996, subsidiarity has often been referred to in order to block the development of initiatives taken in the framework of new policies, in particular in the sectors of culture, the audiovisual industry, energy or research, to mention only a few.
The third axis of the report is to 'act less in order to act better' , to use the slogan of the Commission which we share and applaud.
However, nonetheless, we are concerned at the profusion of preparatory documents in 1996, to mention that year alone: thirteen green papers, two white papers, plus countless reports, communications and action programmes.
We can only fear that this investment in time and resources by the Commission might be to the detriment of legislative activity, in which it holds the monopoly of initiative.
This seems to consolidate the Commission trend to present, when more ambitious initiatives fail and/or as a consequence of the Council's policies, framework directives and codes of conduct.
It is therefore the responsibility of the European Parliament to denounce the risk of creating in this way, in some cases, a more uncertain type of law, a less secure type, so-called 'soft law' - which is less binding and which can be translated into a sham harmonisation and an uncertain transposition into national laws and regulations.
Finally we should also recognise the influence of the situation which - let us be quite clear - can bring about a use which is contrary to the Treaty of the subsidiarity principle, in the lack of progress over the period 1994 to 1996 in vital aspects of the internal market.
Finally, we should refer to the confusion of legal principles with criteria of good legislative practice.
We denounce the fact that the Commission, as has been made quite clear, has felt it appropriate to extend its latest reports on subsidiarity, entitled 'Better law-making' , to measures already planned for in the areas of simplifying and consolidating Community law.
The resolution which we are proposing highlights the confusion which arises from this decision and insists on the vital difference between simplification and consolidation - and clarity as a natural corollary of both of these principles, which are criteria of good legislative practice vis-à-vis the legal nature of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
I conclude, Mr President, Commissioner: monitoring by the European Parliament of respect of subsidiarity in both of its aspects, ie not to do as well as to do , when it is necessary, and exercise by the European Parliament of the analysis of subsidiarity in various Community acts on which it has to give its opinion, should be maintained and even intensified.
To paraphrase the introduction to the 1995 report, as rapporteur, I doubt whether in reality this report, ' Better law-making' , demonstrates - and I quote - that 'the Commission performs the task incumbent on it' .
Where I have no doubt however, is that this is a shared responsibility - and I quote again - ' with the other institutions of the European Union and the Member States' .
Commissioner, Mr President, the European Parliament is aware of its responsibility and will exercise it on behalf of the people it represents.
Mr President, Commissioner, subsidiarity and proportionality are binding rules of a constitutional nature which regulate the exercise of competencies shared between the Community and the Member States.
These rules may in no way represent an obstacle to the development of the internal market nor call into question in any case the acquis communautaire.
A distinction must be made between the legal principles of subsidiarity and proportionality on one hand and simplification and consolidation on the other.
The former referred to the effectiveness of management and the latter to the techniques of transparency.
Both these spheres are complementary but in no case may they be confused.
That is why it is incorrect to extend these principles to the techniques of simplification.
First of all we must assess the need to take action and, after that, actually take action.
The Commission's proposed slogan 'Act less to act better' implies the need to take action and, consequently, the need to know how to act.
Is the effectiveness of Community management compatible with working out and producing rules and documents preparing for legislation in the general or institutional framework? The rapporteur hit the nail on the head and quite rightly referred to this very serious problem.
These actions pose a double risk: first of all, they could lead to a situation where the general public is inundated with paper, documents, acts, only adding to the bewilderment which currently exists and, secondly, could actually be detrimental to legal security.
How do these acts become part of the European Union's regulatory system? Throughout the Intergovernmental Conference there has been an analysis of the way in which the institutions operate and the balance struck between the different powers of the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament.
That is why we must prevent the European Parliament from giving into three temptations: using subsidiarity to renationalise the exclusive competencies of the Community; to use codes of conduct and agreements to neutralise proportionality; to approve Community consolidation in order to introduce substantial changes to the text and if possible modify the legal bases.
The European Parliament must exercise a supervisory role over these temptations.
The work carried out by the rapporteur has been extraordinary in dealing with an especially difficult and complicated report.
Her work is not only enhanced by the talents that she has demonstrated in parliamentary negotiations, but also because she has drafted a report which is a model of simplicity and clarity.
Madam President, if we look at the statistics in the report the situation looks good but as the rapporteur has stated this is not the whole truth.
There have been fewer legislative initiatives but instead the Commission has introduced control through other initiatives.
It is not certain that this procedure increases subsidiarity.
The new procedure also shifts the balance of power between the institutions.
When we are considering subsidiarity I think that we should also look at individual regulations in every draft law; this, I think, is the spirit of the Treaty.
Is this particular regulation really useful or necessary at EU level? Our present work does not include such investigationeither into draft laws or in the House.
Here it is often individual interests which win the day, something about which our group is concerned.
Secondly, I share the rapporteur's concern over the reports which we are discussing today.
I do not think that history will show them to have contributed a great deal to promoting subsidiarity.
It is my opinion that we must give more vigour into the debates on the principle of subsidiarity.
We can do this by including regulations and sections on subsidiarity in the Commission's legislative programme.
We also need better investigations into specific draft laws on subsidiarity.
Despite a directive from the Commission's leaders, investigation into specific draft laws leave much to be desired.
But the real problem lies with those regulations, the individual implementation statutes, which are at a lower level than parliamentary and Council decisions and where there is a lot of scope for improvement.
I recommend that the Commission adopts a time limit which means that any regulation which is not renewed within five years expires and no longer exists.
This would reduce the level of bureaucracy and increase people's faith in the Union.
Madam President, all of us sitting here share a desire to work towards increased democracy, particularly at local level, as close to the people as possible.
That is why we are here.
The principle of subsidiarity ought to be the tool for carrying out this work as it was intended.
Unfortunately, however, it is not working at present.
As the rapporteur has stated, subsidiarity is clearly one of the fundamental standards within the EU.
What is less clear is how it is applied, how it ought to be applied and how it will be applied in the future.
The way the Commission has started to introduce another legal principle, the principle of proportionality, and issues concerning the technical level of legislation etc. into their reporting on the application of the subsidiarity principle does not make the situation any clearer at all.
One thing which must be clarified is the basis and the criteria to use for determining when an issue is to be regulated at Community level and when it can and must be dealt with at National level in accordance with the principle of proximity and as close to those involved as possible.
If the principle of subsidiarity is only applied to the so called 'softer issues' , such as environmental issues and consumer protection, we could begin to suspect that this is not a case of respecting subsidiarity but misusing it instead.
If we wish to permit better and tighter environmental regulations for example, it is possible to decide that tighter national safeguards will be allowed.
It is also possible to use Article 100a, where values other than the purely financial are respected alongside the internal market.
The people's attitude to and confidence in the EU and in democracy in general depends closely on well run local and national democracy and a principle of subsidiarity which works.
So we hope that the Intergovernmental Conference will tackle the issue and finally give the principle of subsidiarity a proper footing and real substance.
Madam President, first of all I wish to express our support for the work carried out by Mrs Palacio because we can also conclude from it that the correct application of the subsidiarity principle should mean bringing European citizens closer to the decision-making process in initiatives leading to the development and consolidation of the European Union.
Along these lines, Madam President, our attention is drawn in particular to the lack of references to the important role to be played by regional powers and, above all, those which have legislative powers.
The encyclical Quadragesimo Anno refers to the injustice of taking away from minor communities what they can do for themselves.
In that we are doing away with the sensation among our fellow citizens of the so-often criticised centralisation of Community institutions and succeeding in establishing appropriate channels so that they can be given appropriate and necessary information - showing them that their problems directly affect the various Union institutions, we shall reach the situation in which we strike the necessary and fair balance in applying the principle of subsidiarity.
It is our responsibility as members of the European Parliament to make sure that the Commission, when it considers it appropriate to put the subsidiarity principle into practice, assesses its own effectiveness in Community terms and its positive effects on sectors which are important for ordinary citizens, such as employment.
These are areas in which regional authorities must assume dominant positions because they are much closer to the people being administered.
It would also be a good solution, a good way of achieving these aims, to strengthen the legislative powers of the European Parliament since, as the most directly representative institution for the ordinary people, it would then be given a greater role in the application of the principle of subsidiarity, increasing its relations with the ordinary people as well as internal democracy in the Community institutions.
Madam President, ' Europe must do less to do better' .
This was a slogan adopted by the European Commission at the beginning of last year, with the aim of reducing the number of legislative proposals and improving their quality.
Looking at the Commission documents on today's agenda, the Commission has taken that to heart.
We welcome it.
The number of legislative proposals is significantly down on previous years.
Clearly the subsidiarity principle does more to help that than is generally realized.
This is borne out by the fact that the Commission withdrew 48 legislative proposals in the period 1994-1995.
In the Palacio report we read that the subsidiarity principle is a legally binding rule and to some degree a warning is given that it must not undermine the powers which the Community has been given by the Treaties.
And I believe there is no danger of that.
Experience shows us that it is more the other way round, with the subsidiarity principle still not being fully enforced.
The reasons for this is that the principle is not a purely legal concept, but includes political and economic aspects too. When applying the principle it is difficult to distinguish between these aspects.
As a result, use of the principle is determined partly by the vision people have of aspirations for European unity.
Those in favour of a United Europe see the application of this principle as part of this political objective.
But in so doing they forget that the Union is a cooperative association of sovereign states.
That means that the authority of the Member States comes first and that of our supranational institutions comes second.
It must also be borne in mind that the subsidiarity principle, as interpreted at the Edinburgh summit, is emphatically designed to resist centralization and keep the decision-making process as close as possible to the people.
I thus cannot endorse those paragraphs in the Palacio report which say that the subsidiarity principle is wrongly invoked as a way of opposing European measures in the areas of culture, audiovisual services, health, employment and so on.
These policy areas are, after all, mainly a matter for the Member States
In addition to cutting down on legislation, the Commission also stresses in its reports the need to simplify and improve legislation.
We should give our approval to this too.
With an eye to proportionality, the amount of legislation and its degree of detail should be kept as small as possible.
But this effort must not be confused with the legal framework of the subsidiarity principle.
Mrs Palacio rightly makes that point in her report.
But these measures to simplify things are no less important if the European legislative process is to work well.
The widening gulf between European administration and the citizens of our Member States means there is every reason to limit the Union's remit and resist centralization and bureaucracy.
This need will be all the more pressing with further enlargement of the Union and increasing diversity among Member States.
The Irish presidency's proposal to add a protocol to the Treaty setting out the operation of the subsidiarity principle is a good idea.
But I am sure that enlargement will force us to reduce still further the responsibilities which the Union discharges at present and to allow the Member States more freedom.
Madam President, it is perhaps helpful to remember, first of all, that Article 3b on the subsidiarity principle did not appear in the Maastricht Treaty out of nowhere. It came in response to a legitimate concern on the part of a lot of people in the European Union.
Those people are very worried about what they perceive as ever-increasing meddling by Europe.
Not to beat about the bush: no sensible person objects even to far-reaching forms of co-operation and debate at European level, but more and more sensible people are wondering about certain manifestations of over-harmonization, excessive European interference in regional or national matters.
I think the imposition of the so-called 'European electoral law' for local elections is a typical example of this - though regrettably not the only one.
The Maastricht Treaty brought a sensitive extension to powers at Union level, among other things in the form of 'new policy measures' .
But the counterbalance to this expansion of powers, the express inclusion of the subsidiarity principle in the Treaties by Article 3b now seems set to become a dead letter.
Proper application of subsidiarity means that normally the so-called 'lower echelons' consider which powers they wish to abrogate to the higher echelon.
But this report shows once again that precisely the opposite approach is being followed in Europe: in the best case, the European authority is asked to think about which powers it perhaps does not want to have; and in the event of a conflict of powers another European institution - the Court of Justice - will decide.
All that seems to me a politically perverse reversal of the subsidiarity principle.
In conclusion I would also say that this debate would really be unnecessary if everyone respected the fact that the European Union is not some kind of embryo federal state, but an 'association of states' , as the ruling of the Karlsruhe Court, the famous ruling by the German Constitutional Court, made plain.
That is the nub of the matter.
As long as a majority in Parliament - I say Parliament because I have the feeling there is some improvement in the Commission - clearly refuses to acknowledge this reality that we are an 'association of states' , to my mind debates like this one have little point.
Madam President, I should like to begin by saying that in our view the principles of subsidiarity model and characterise the decision-making process of the Community's institutions.
Consequently these are constitutional principles, binding on the respective partners and of very great importance for the construction and integration of Community institutions.
From our point of view, at this stage this institution - which we regard as constitutional - must, above all, provide a framework for the balance of powers, between the Community and the Member States whose powers should be maintained, at the present stage, in the intergovernmental sphere.
We feel that the principle enshrined in Article 3B of the Treaty on European Union should not be altered in any way, worked upon or deepened in the negotiations being carried out at the IGC.
We feel that what is at stake is verifying in what terms and in what way the principle is used by Community institutions.
The Commission, on this score, in its most recent report, adopted a fundamental rule according to which it would act less in order to act better.
We fully go along with this fundamental rule.
However, it should also be pointed out that, from our point of view, we really must decide what the vital content of the principle of subsidiarity is.
There should be criteria such as the need and efficiency to determine cases and conditions in which the Commission must, when it shares powers, take action which are proven to be appropriate in order make progress towards aims which must have been common ones.
The definition of what should be seen as a common objective should in our view be worked out on the basis of the principle of proportionality which is also enshrined in the last part of the same constituent precept.
Therefore we would say that subsidiarity and proportionality are concepts which are interlinked and complementary.
All measures consequently should be made dependent on objectives of common interest to be pursued by Community institutions.
There are areas such as the environment and the fight against fraud which should however be subordinated to the subsidiarity principle.
To give a few examples in the area of fighting tax fraud, agreements on mutual administrative assistance, agreements on transfer prices, directives on mergers and splits, directives on the payment of dividends, common rules, also, on simultaneous verification schemes or coming under the definition of what should be understood by common action subordinated to the principle of proportionality and worked out in agreement with the criteria which I referred to a little while ago, namely necessity and efficiency.
Another important point to be included in this matter is a discussion about the role of national parliaments in the process of working out decisions coming under the principle of subsidiarity.
We feel that the national parliaments should play an important role in the stage leading up to a decision and also in later stages, through the respective political control and supervision of the way in which actions are carried out in compliance with the principle of subsidiarity.
Finally, in respect of the possible replacement of current legislative forms by what is designated by the Commission as something permanent, we feel that this process should be limited to the adoption of consultation procedures and discussions before any decision is taken.
This should not be regarded as a regulatory decision.
In our point of view it should continue to be regulated by regulatory forms and, by the same token, bound by the respective targets of those rules.
Mr President, the principle of subsidiarity has become like apple pie.
Everyone is in favour of it but everyone means something quite different by it.
A concept that was developed in the European Union context by this Parliament when it prepared the Spinelli draft treaty on European Union is now actually used by opponents of European Union, who allege that the European Union is becoming over-centralized, that there is a danger of a centralized superstate.
When you think about it, the Union spends only 3 % of public expenditure.
Its bureaucracy is the same size as that of an average medium-sized town in Europe.
There is no real danger of over-centralization in the long-term future.
For the Union to adopt legislation, we should not forget that it first needs a legal base in the Treaties - treaties which have been ratified by each and every national parliament.
Then, to adopt any significant legislation, the approval of the Council is needed, amongst other things. And who sits in the Council?
National ministers, who are part of national governments, accountable to national parliaments.
Not people who are predisposed to handing over powers to the European Union where this is not necessary.
Next time a minister returns home and blames Brussels for interfering, remind him or her that it is national ministers sitting in the Council who have approved the legislation in question in the first place.
Even then, should they overstep their powers, it is possible to go to the Court to seek to verify whether the principle of subsidiarity has been overstepped or not.
That option is available to any government in the European Union.
We should reject the fear stirred up by the likes of Mr Vanhecke just now, by the likes of John Major, by the likes of John Redwood, by the likes of Michael Howard, by the likes of Mr Le Pen, by the likes of William Hague, who would like us to believe that there is a threat to all our countries from over-centralization in Europe.
This is not the case.
There is no real danger of that.
We should have the courage to say that sometimes European legislation is necessary to provide fair rules of the game for the single market, to make sure that there is less regulation by having a single set of regulations for companies instead of fifteen sets of divergent national regulations for them to adapt to.
Yes to subsidiarity. No to using it as an instrument with which to attack the European Union.
Madam President, I must begin by complimenting Mrs Palacio very warmly on her report and of course the Commission too, in the person of Commissioner Oreja, on the progress achieved.
But I think it appropriate in this debate on the subsidiarity principle to emphasize that this very principle stems from Christian social thinking and should thus be applied with this in mind and not, as is so often the case, as a means of helping people to help themselves.
Subsidiarity means nothing more than not allowing a larger unit to do things which the next unit down the scale can do perfectly adequate.
But this shows quite clearly too that subsidiarity must be built from the bottom up and not from the top down.
Subsidiarity must operate equally between municipalities and regions, just as it must operate between the institutions of the European Union and the Member States.
Mrs Palacio's report makes the point very clearly at the beginning that the subsidiarity principle has a political dimension: consequently questions concerning the subsidiarity principle should also be resolved by political means and, where possible, not by the Court of Justice, precisely because the objective should be for Community decisions to be taken as closely as possible to the people.
But as close as possible to the people means that decisions in this decision-making pyramid should be pushed down as far as possible towards the pyramid base.
For me the logical conclusion of this is that we must, beneath the municipal level, also consider the family level, since this is the bedrock of our society and needs to be strengthened accordingly, also on the basis of the subsidiarity principle.
But it is vital too that the subsidiarity principle should on no account be abused to weaken the force of Community law.
Systematic mention of it in the context of the new polices sounds somewhat suspect here.
But overall, this extremely enlightening report shows us that there is still much to be done especially in the matter of defining subsidiarity.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for trying to create a little more clarity as regards the principle of subsidiarity, which was focused on seriously in Edinburgh in 1992 following the referendums held on Maastricht, in which it dawned on Europe's governments that the EU was not exactly a popular project.
In my opinion, this is one of the things that the subsidiarity principle should be used for - to ensure that our citizens have as much influence as possible on the decisions taken, that they have as much opportunity as possible to decide for themselves, and that in any case they are enabled to understand what is going on.
But the subsidiarity principle is still not clearly defined, and is therefore not understood in practice.
I would therefore call for the discussions to be continued here in Parliament, in the Commission, and elsewhere. And as well as urging the Intergovernmental Conference to address the definition of this concept seriously too, we should perhaps ask DG IV to draw up a more fundamental report on what the concept has actually become in practical terms during the period in question, and how it can be specifically defined with a view to applying it in future.
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent and succinct report.
However, Article 3b of the Treaty does not actually define subsidiarity.
I am glad about that, because, as Mr Corbett has rightly said, in the past the concept of subsidiarity has been used as an excuse to repatriate, and I thoroughly oppose that idea.
Let me give a specific example: in the last parliamentary term the Commission, in its wisdom, thought it necessary to protect animals in zoos by coming forward with a proposal for a directive on the position of animals in zoos.
As a result of the notorious Edinburgh Summit, where a number of worthy proposals were put on a bonfire by Mr Major, that particular proposal was withdrawn and has now come back to this Parliament as a mere directive.
In my view, that is a retreat: it will not serve the interests of animals in zoos and amounts to a weak excuse for what we should be doing as parliamentarians.
Therefore, when recital F in this report refers to subsidiarity as a 'dynamic concept' , I think we should add the word 'pragmatic' , because, as recital G says it is 'an appropriate legal technique' . I do not think this presents major difficulties at all.
All we need to do is to ask: what is the objective of any given piece of legislation?
And then we need to ask simply at what level will this legislation be most effective? That is a pragmatic test, and sometimes it will be more effective at Community level and sometimes it will be more effective at national or regional level.
That is simply a question of the application of a pragmatic principle, and we should not be lulled into the belief that somehow subsidiarity is to be equated with only doing things at national level.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mrs Palacio for her dedication, with the skills for which she is known, to the Commission's work on the application of the subsidiarity principle.
I should like to tell her how much I have valued the observations which are both precise and to the point made in her report and by what she had to say this afternoon.
I am also pleased to note that the position taken by the rapporteur in many ways is very close to that of the Commission.
For example the Commission, just like the rapporteur, feels that the subsidiarity principle does not intervene in matters of exclusive competences since, in such cases, it is impossible to call into question the acquis communautaire and, at the same time that differences over subsidiarity should be resolved preferably in the framework of the normal functioning of the institutions, in accordance with the Interinstitutional Agreement of 1993, without excluding, of course, possible proceedings before the Court of Justice.
Just like the European Parliament I should like to say that the Commission, as you well know, has not asked for a revision of Article 3B in the framework of the Intergovernmental Conference.
We are satisfied by Article 3B and we think that it is important for all of the institutions to apply it in practice.
I should like to take this opportunity - if you will so allow - to specify the Commission's position in respect of some of the points which have been mentioned.
In respect of our reports entitled 'Better Law-making' I should like above all to calm your fears.
The Commission in no way confuses the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality with technical instruments making Community legislation simpler, clearer and more accessible or, in practical terms, simplification and consolidation.
The Commission makes the distinction between these different concepts and in no way confuses or mixes them up.
The Commission's approach is a purely practical one.
Community legislation is a whole set of rules and we need to have an overall view of the whole legislation - something which should be made easier by what we have chosen to call 'Better Law-making' .
The Commission has made a promise, and you all know very well that we have applied the subsidiarity principle.
But it is always obviously possible to improve and in particular in those areas which are discussed in the Palacio report.
For example, what the Commission does plan to do is to step up everything concerning the assessment of the consequences of proposed action.
It has already provided for machinery for this purpose and intends to put it into practice and modernise it as far as possible.
Another point which I would like to mention is that which refers to the previous consultation of Green and White Papers.
If this is to be continued, it is obvious that we shall have to do so in a more practical way in the future and in a more specific way.
Consequently, I should like to tell Mrs Palacio that we are aware of this and we have taken note of the remarks she makes on this in her report.
We also feel - and this is a practice which has been pursued over recent years, especially the last two or three years - that, in respect of the practice which we used to have of legislating immediately, now, through the Green Papers and the White Papers, we are consulting society as a whole.
The Green Paper actually asks questions.
In some cases we have had to do so twice: we have had a first consultation, and if we were not satisfied with the responses that we received then we have issued a second Green Paper.
For example, we took quite a long time over the subject of pluralism and concentration of media. Why?
Because we did not really have a very clear idea of what the sector wanted and what society wanted for that sector.
In other words this approach, which is closer to the citizen, is quite different from what used to be done in the past.
First of all, we used to go straight to legislation.
Now we try to find out with greater accuracy what the various positions are.
However, in any case, I would like to insist that we have taken note of the observations made by Mrs Palacio and we are going to try to do something about them.
There is another point where I would like to thank Mrs Palacio for the caution she has shown in respect to particular issues.
However, I would like to calm her fears in terms of framework directives.
As you well know, framework directives are a subsidiarity instrument, recommended by the Edinburgh Summit and adopted by the Commission in certain cases, in specific cases, but it is not going to affect the unity of Community law if it is used in situations where it is justified.
I would just like to tell Mrs Palacio that the Commission makes sure that that is the case.
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteur for all of the remarks that she has made about the progress made by the Commission in the area of informative consolidation.
To conclude, the Commission is still convinced that it is appropriately applying the principle of subsidiarity which makes it possible to adopt appropriate legislation at the appropriate level - and in response to some of the remarks which have been made for example by Mr Corbett, which are along those lines, we agree that this approach brings the legislator much closer to the citizen.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Amendment to Rules (code of conduct for lobbyists)
The next item is the report (A4-0107/97) by Mr Ford, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the code of conduct for lobbyists.
Madam President, Members will recall that we first debated my report on lobbyists in January 1996.
The Socialist Group and the Christian Democrats fundamentally failed to agree, and the result was that the report was sent back to committee.
The public reaction to our failure to institute regulations was very negative and the result was that by July 1996 I produced a new, amended report taking into account some of the considerations and concerns that Members had about the initial report which was adopted by this House with only one Member voting against, if I recall correctly.
That was essentially a framework document to be filled out and it was agreed that there would be three further reports at least: a first report, on a code of conduct, which is what we have in front of us today; a second report, on the control of interest groups, which my colleague, Mr Spiers, is drawing up and is currently before the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities; and a third report, on Parliamentary assistants, that Mr Lehne is drawing up, which is also under discussion in the Rules Committee.
This then is the first of these three reports, further elaborating the report that was adopted in July 1996.
I am tempted in this context to give the same reply as the apocryphal doctoral student who, when asked to explain his thesis, said: ' It is self-evident' , but I shall not succumb entirely.
The main parts were approved all but unanimously by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
It states that lobbyists shall state their interest or the interest they represent when meeting with Members of Parliament, staff or officials, shall not claim any formal relationship with Parliament in any dealing with third parties, shall not circulate for profit to third parties copies of documents obtained from Parliament and shall comply strictly with the provisions of Annex I, Article 2, second subparagraph which states that Members shall accept no gifts - ie. lobbyists may not henceforth offer any gifts to Members.
The lobbyists also need to satisfy themselves that any assistance provided in the context of these provisions is declared in the appropriate register.
There is an amendment here by Mr Donnelly which I shall be accepting, to tighten up that provision, but it does give them some responsibility to ensure that their actions are appropriately reported.
It also says that they need to comply, when recruiting former members of the institutions, with the provisions of the Staff Regulations.
At the moment the Staff Regulations in this regard are an empty vessel.
There are provisions in the Staff Regulations requiring certain categories of former employee to seek the permission of the institution to take jobs in other sensitive areas, but currently there are no members of staff so designated.
This may, however, be something that will change in the future.
The same applies to Amendment No 10 in which we ask lobbyists to observe any rules laid down by Parliament on the rights and responsibilities of former Members of the House where I understand the Quaestors are looking into this matter.
It also says that if a lobbyist wants to employ a Member's assistant, he has to seek the permission of the Member concerned.
That seems selfevident.
Finally, it concludes that any breach of the Code of Conduct may lead to the withdrawal of the pass issued to the person concerned and, if appropriate, his firm.
It is only if Parliament is willing to use this sanction that we shall actually be able to tighten up the provision.
There are two further amendments which are likely to encounter some opposition in the House tomorrow.
One is Amendment No 12 which requires lobbyists to submit each year a report on their activities, with a view to securing the extension of their passes.
There is some concern that this is going to lead to vast reams of paper being produced.
I understand that there are groups in this House that will not be supporting it.
If we were going to support it, I would probably recommend Mr Ephremidis' amendment which asks that lobbyists state what particular assistance they have given to Members; however, the reference in that amendment to 'gifts' is inappropriate, because we have already seen that gifts are illegal under our current provisions.
The final point is with respect to Amendment No 1 which says that only registered assistants working exclusively as assistants shall have access to Parliament under the same conditions as staff of the Secretariat or the political groups.
At the moment our Rules state that Members' assistants have privileged access.
The Socialist Group would like to see the immediate closure of this loophole which actually leads to a situation where Members' assistants can simultaneously work for lobby groups or even lobbyists themselves, but I understand that the PPE would prefer it to be included in the Lehne report which deals with the entire issue of Members' assistants when that is voted on.
We expect them, if that is the case, to deliver that commitment, otherwise we shall create not an obstacle to misuse but a fast track for it by allowing lobbyists to short-circuit the system by employing our own assistants to do work that we are preventing them from doing.
I commend my report to the House and hope that it will be supported tomorrow.
Madam President, let me briefly congratulate Mr Ford on a truly excellent report and on what I believe is a significant and lasting contribution here in Parliament. We now have two reports which lay down rules for lobbyists.
We must remember that this is an issue which deeply concerns many of our voters.
I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that the unregulated lobbying, which has previously been allowed here in Parliament, has been very damaging to our reputation.
So I think that Parliament should be very grateful to Mr Ford for introducing these rules now.
There is one point which I consider to be particularly important.
This concerns the obligation on lobbyists to submit an annual report on their activities.
This is an important point because I think that journalists and researchers, Mr Wijsenbeek, will be able to follow an issue, after it has been dealt with by Parliament, and see which lobbyists have influenced which members and in so doing see which members have possibly been pressurised and which have not.
In this respect, I would really like to have gone one stage further and agree with Mr Metten's original proposal in its entirety as it also stated what should be in these annual reports.
Now this is something which the Quaestors must decide.
Sometimes we are not successful in everything.
But I think that this is a very important step in the right direction.
My group will be very pleased to vote for this report.
We also hope that once we have more experience we can go further and draw up rules which are perhaps even more clear-cut.
Madam President, like the previous speaker I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Ford on what is basically an excellent report.
I should like in particular to thank him for the constructive and open tenor of the debate which he led in our Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
The report he has produced by and large reflects the conclusions of that committee.
Rightly - and I congratulate him on his telepathic powers - he has anticipated two particular amendments which cause us difficulty.
I refer to Amendments Nos 1 and 12.
As far as Amendment No 1 is concerned, our objection is largely procedural.
We think this is a slightly complicated area which it would be useful to look at in rather more detail.
Mr Lehne will be coming out with a report and I would like to take this opportunity of stressing that I see the problem Mr Ford is pointing out.
There are people who are neither flesh nor fowl, neither purely assistants nor people who could be regarded as third parties and lobbyists.
There is a problem and we should work with Mr Lehne and in the committee to ensure that problem is sorted out.
The second matter is more substantial.
It concerns Amendment No 12.
It is something we have already looked at and last year we decided that we did not want to have that double accountability. We did not want to have reports both from the Members and from third parties.
The Group of the European People's Party continues to have reservations about this idea.
It might be disproportionate to any political benefit which accrued, and equally we have a sense that underlying Amendment No 12 is the idea that contacts between Members and third parties or interest groups is something so suspicious, so intrinsically shabby almost, that it needs to be monitored and controlled as tightly as possible.
We do not share that view and we are perfectly content that there should simply be obligations on Members and not on third parties.
With those reservations, we commend Mr Ford's report to the House and we shall be voting for all the amendments in his report apart from Nos 1 and 12.
Madam President, I am perhaps one of those who recall seeing the first lobbyists entering Parliament and being welcomed by us. Because that meant that the European Parliament counted for something.
And when their numbers reached 3500 and Mr Metten was getting nervous, something had to be done. We agree on that.
More to the point, we think it is intrinsically right that the European Parliament should draw up rules to make Parliament more transparent.
I think we are all agreed on that and must offer our compliments to Mr Ford.
On the other hand, we need to agree that we cannot do our jobs unless we are given detailed information, from all manner of interest groups, on the situation in the various Member States.
Only today we referred Mrs MosiekUrbahn's report back because it deals with a complicated technical subject, the implications of which we as ordinary members cannot fully assess.
Just a few comments, however.
Firstly, we agree with the Christian Democrats on Amendment 1.
Secondly, I find Amendment 4 quite simply insulting.
It sounds a bit like a biblical injunction, and you cannot make demands like that in a European Parliament report.
Nor do we like Amendment 12. We prefer Amendment 14.
Madam President, Amendment 12 concerns the annual report; it is completely daft and unnecessary and much too much work.
Madam President, the subject to be dealt with by this report, and by the other, supplementary and additional ones still outstanding before the relevant committee, is truly important but at the same time difficult.
The difficulty is evident from the fact that the subject has been debated since 1994, and in January 1996 in a well known incident when, the report produced by Mr Ford at that time was referred back to committee by decision of Parliament and has now come back before us today.
It is clear that we must debate it with a sense of particular responsibility, because whether we like it or not, there are forces which deliberately or carelessly always wish to slander collective bodies such as Parliament, and their members such as our own membership, by alleging that in one way or another they are bribed, financed or influenced by organized interests.
That must be repudiated in a categorical and secure way.
But granted the situation, I have the impression - though I appreciate the efforts by Mr Ford and the Committee, of which I am a member - that today's report does not go far enough to be convincing.
I will make only two comments.
The first is that we are defending certain lobbies that speak for special interests which are clearly economic and commercial.
These will have access and enjoy a privileged status.
Of course, with very many protective measures, but that will not stop their status from being privileged, while there are social groups of working people and others who do not have that privileged status that 'entreé' , that opportunity for discussion both with various bodies and with MEPs themselves.
And it will then be necessary for those groups to entrust the lobbies to defend their interests, while in many cases those lobbies belong to groups with opposite interests.
This, then, is a form of unequal treatment.
My second comment concerns Amendment No 8, which seems to have been accepted but which I categorically reject.
Madam President, it slanders both Parliament and its Members, and the report itself.
Because this is what it says: ' Members must declare the assistance' - a fine expression - ' that they receive' .
The problem is not whether or not I declare it.
The problem is that I am receiving a bribe - in kind, money or services - and that is not changed by declaring it.
The stigma will still persist that I am a receiver of bribes .
And finally, Madam President, since I too have tabled an amendment, I would like to explain the idea behind it.
This exactly is its point: what kind of assistance can Members ask for from lobbies or anybody else? Facts, arguments, information.
Not bribes, not services, or any other kind of material provision.
It is in that sense that I intend the amendment.
If its meaning is not clear, then I declare that I will withdraw it.
Madam President, going on from what the previous speaker said I should point out that this is a second report by Mr Ford, not the first one.
The first one was indeed referred back to committee but was subsequently adopted by the plenary, and this is a further continuation of it.
By and large we think that clear progress has been made in shaping this code of conduct for lobbyists. Greater clarity is demanded in the sense that stipulations are made of everything that has to be entered in the register, more specifically that lobbyists must state the interests they represent, that they must never be allowed to exploit their parliamentary links as a way of achieving certain goals, and they must not circulate for profit documents which are normally documents freely available within Parliament, etc.
All these are very positive things which have now been clearly stated thanks to this report of Mr Ford's.
Regrettably one thing is missing, and we put down an amendment about it in committee. It was our view that the parallel approach originally shown between the Ford report and the Nordmann report, dealing with MEPs' interests and the need to declare those interests, should also apply to lobbyists.
We put down an amendment to that effect in committee, but sadly it was not approved.
We thus find it most important that the Ephremidis amendment, also one of ours, we put it down together in the plenary, that this amendment should be adopted, so that we have a clear understanding of which gifts, of whatever kind, lobbyists can give to MEPs or their assistants.
If this amendment is approved we shall vote in favour.
If not, regrettably we shall be unable to do so.
Of course we fully agree too with Mr Wijsenbeek that it is a bit daft in a kind of regulation to say something like: don't do anything which may help someone obtain information dishonestly.
That sounds so 'holier than thou' that it will get you nowhere.
But for us the most important thing is that the amendment put down by Mr Ephremidis and the Greens should be approved.
Madam President, at a time when in every country of the European Union the credibility of politicians and politics is being called into question, I believe that the report by Mr Ford and especially the effort behind it - to bring out into the open the function and activities of those who represent interests - is indeed laudable, and I believe that it will make some contribution towards upgrading the way we work.
The actions of those who represent interests in the European Parliament often seems uncontrolled, and indeed I have frequently felt surprise and, I will not deny it, even anger, at the fact that lobbyists have access to documents and information before ourselves, the MEPs.
Very often, they have documents to hand which take a long time to get to us.
For that reason, I think Amendment No 1 is very important, and I would ask all the Members, on all sides of the House, to reconsider their attitude towards it.
It is not enough for us to say that we wish to monitor the activities and function of lobbyists.
We must also find the way to do it, and I think that Amendment No 1 is a first mechanism in the direction of monitoring the activity of lobbyists.
Of course, we are all aware that the effort being made with this report by Mr Ford will not deal effectively with the problem and create conditions of absolute transparency, something which I think all of us here want.
It is, however, a bold step in the right direction and what is needed once it has been adopted, is that we should all co-operate to ensure that the bare letter of this report will become a reality in our everyday operations in the European Parliament.
Madam President, previous speakers have already dealt with the essence of the Ford report.
The proposal requires lobbyists to behave fairly and honestly.
Greater transparency is to be desired here.
The only question is how best to ensure it?
Amendment 1 is certainly not consistent with the rules of the code of conduct.
In formal terms alone, it relates to Article 2 and not Article 3, and it should be debated n the appropriate context, that of the Lehne report.
We can at that point look at a precise definition of what a lobbyist is.
Regarding Amendment 12, which calls for a report on lobbyists, I would say that this amendment is not clear, because it does not say what is to be reported on and, above all, who is to evaluate the substance of the report.
Apart from this, I have further reservations about this amendment, because it gives outsiders only an imperfect picture.
If - as Mr Wibe has intimated - this report is meant to enable journalists, for example, to find out who has been in contact with whom, it is obvious that this information will be incomplete and thus wrong.
Let me repeat the example mentioned earlier.
The report on the scrutiny of insurance groups would then say that talks were held with insurance associations.
It would not say that talks were also held with the supervisory authorities, the Commission and government spokesmen.
Only if all these people, who are lobbyists in the broadest sense of the word, were named, would the picture be complete and accurate.
For this reason too I think this amendment is not appropriate.
But I am anxious to make the general point that our debate here has created a wrong impression amongst the general public.
We need lobbyists to give us comprehensive information on the various facets of various issues, and this activity must be pursued as part of transparent cooperation which can be verified by anyone.
Compliance with the code of conduct will help in that.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Amendment of Rule 116
The next item is the report (A4-0089/97) by Mr Brendan Donnelly, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on amendment of Rule 116 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure concerning split voting.
Mr President, let me begin by saying that tomorrow before the final vote I shall be asking for my report to be referred back to committee.
Some new points and arguments were put forward and, while I would have been happy personally to vote on the report tomorrow, the general consensus is that we should refer it back after the debate, during which we hope that some useful indications will emerge as to how, if at all, it will be possible to improve it.
My proposal in this report is a simple one: it is that in future it should not be possible to take split votes on amendments in the plenary.
I put forward this proposal for three reasons: one is administrative, the second philosophical and the third is political.
The administrative reason is a question of time-saving.
In this Parliament we vote too much and in the wrong way.
What I am hoping to do by my proposal is save time and make the voting that takes place more transparent.
We have been talking about subsidiarity, legislating less but better.
Perhaps my proposal is in the same tenor: to vote less but to vote better.
One or two colleagues have put to me the idea that my proposal would not reduce the amount of time spent in voting.
It might simply be the case that everybody would put forward more amendments in order to cover all the possibilities that might arise in the course of a debate.
I rather doubt that.
At the moment, under our present system, what happens is that shortly before the vote takes place all the coordinators in the various groups look at the ingenious proposals of their colleagues from the other groups and then they ask themselves: can we vote on the first three words of Amendment No 3, let us abstain on the next three words and then we will not participate in the vote on the last three words.
This is a sort of Glass Bead Game, which is time-consuming and which administratively can be shortened.
My second reason is a more philosophical and more systematic one.
It is not the work of the plenary to turn itself into a drafting committee consisting of 626 Members.
The work and role of the committees should be to ensure that when we come to the plenary we do not simply repeat what ought to have been done in the committee.
In this context, perhaps I could refer you, Mr President, and your colleagues via the Vice-Presidents and the President, to Rule 115, which is not sufficiently severely and rigorously applied.
It is made clear in Rule 115 that the normal case should be that voting takes place in blocs on the basis of a recommendation from the competent committee.
I, and I am sure Mr Fayot, as chairman of our committee, will be a little more vigilant in future in trying to encourage the application of that principle.
It is with that thought in mind that I suggest that we would be better advised not simply to duplicate the work of the committees.
My third reason is perhaps the most important one, and that is the impression and impact that we as a Parliament make on the people sitting in the tribunal, the people watching us on television and looking at our work.
I have spoken - as I am sure many Members have - with groups of constituents, of academics, of journalists, of people who have come to our Assembly and have been very surprised at what they regarded as the excessively detailed and nuanced voting, for instance when we vote on the insertion of a particular word or the possible deletion of a particular phrase, and do so not just once or twice but all morning.
That is something which lessens very substantially the positive impact that we as a Parliament can have.
Any parliament has to strike a balance between its internal procedures and the impact it makes on the outside world.
But I genuinely think that we in this Parliament, perhaps for understandable reasons, get too engrossed and too excited by our own internal debates and internal procedures.
In going down the road that I am suggesting we will perhaps lose some nuances which are particularly important and beloved of one or two coordinators, perhaps of coordinators throughout all the groups.
But the reward that we would gain, if we follow my proposal, would be that we would have a more transparent, a more legible set of procedures and it would be easier to convince those watching us that we are concerned to make a favourable impact on their welfare and political and social circumstances, rather than introvertedly concerned only with our procedures.
Obviously, from the reaction of some colleagues this is an idea that needs refining.
But my intention in putting forward this proposal was to set a political signal that this is a Parliament which is open to the outside world, a Parliament which is extroverted rather than introverted.
I certainly stand by that intention and I hope it is an intention that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities will be able to refine and implement, either in my report or in some other form, so that we can look at the whole question of voting on amendments and voting in general in this Parliament.
Mr President, everyone in the European Parliament complains about the long voting sessions, in which many members often vote without knowing exactly what about, respectfully following the recommendations given by their group.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure has looked into this problem of the length of votes on many occasions, which often gives rise to a large number of complaints from our colleagues.
Chapter 14 of our Rules of Procedure is therefore one of the most important, and you probably recall that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure has made a number of proposals to try to shorten voting sessions.
May I for example recall, in reply to Mr Donnelly, that our Committee has often insisted that the President make use of Rule 114.
I am thinking in particular of the recommendation for a vote by the chairman of the relevant committee and by the rapporteur in the plenary session and, of course, block voting.
Unfortunately these recommendations are still a dead letter.
I must therefore insist on the importance of Rule 114.
Mr Donnelly's report therefore refers to split votes, i.e. Rule 116.
I should like to congratulate Mr Donnelly on the work he has done to consider this problem and the way in which he has won over the Committee on the Rules of Procedure which has overwhelmingly approved his report.
If we agree to refer this report back to committee before the vote, a few things should be pointed out.
Mr Donnelly is proposing two things.
The first is unquestionable: the time limit for requesting a split vote.
The second concerns the ban on split votes on amendments.
In fact, requesting a split vote on an amendment is in effect tabling a new amendment, i.e. tabling an amendment on an amendment.
Whereas those who table amendments must follow a whole procedure, requesting split votes is rather an easy option.
Members are therefore called to vote on parts of sentences which differ from one language to another and they are often unable to grasp exactly the meaning of what they are voting on.
Personally, I do not think that Mr Donnelly's proposal is going to lead to more amendments, as Mrs Oomen-Ruijten said earlier when she spoke on behalf of the EPP.
Of course, Parliament has to be given every possibility to express itself, but in a reasonable and above all predictable way.
That is what Mr Donnelly is proposing, with the benefit of an inventory: I have not heard any other proposals and I do not think that there are any other solutions at this time.
But we can always continue to look for solutions if that is what the European Parliament wants.
Mr President, I would like to correct an incorrect allusion that I made to a Rule a moment ago.
I referred to Rule 115 but, as Mr Fayot said, I was in fact thinking of Rule 114.
I hope that can be corrected in the record.
I would also like to say that the question of the EPP's attitude to my report was fully discussed in the group.
It would be unfair to imply that this was simply a frolic of her own by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
It is nice to know that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten obeys instructions sometimes.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, regarding the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, which have been distributed to us this morning, I should like to point out that my name does not appear on the attendance register.
I am sure it's just my forgetfulness - I expect I forgot to sign the register - but since I was here, as can easily be established, I would ask that my name be added in the Minutes to the register of those who were here yesterday.
Mr President, it is the same point as Mr Vecchi's: my name does not appear in the Minutes and I was here yesterday.
Mr President, to clarify the Minutes.
Yesterday you might recall that I raised an issue under Rule 3 about the immunities and privileges of this House.
According to the Minutes: ' the President suggested Mr Hallam write to the Speaker of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives asking for an explanation of this matter' .
According to my memory and also to this document, which is produced by the Session Services, the President undertook to take up my complaint.
I would certainly wish the President to take up the complaint on behalf of Parliament and me as a Member, rather than me as an individual.
Mr Hallam, I take note of your comment.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, I would like to make a comment on today's agenda.
The item of today's agenda on questions to the Commission includes my question on Member States' laws' conformity with Community regulations on competence.
However, despite the fact that this afternoon one of the Commissioners who will be replying in question time is Mr Van Miert, responsible for this area, my question rather strangely comes under the heading 'Other questions' , whereas questions which are dated later than mine have been allocated to Mr Van Miert.
I would like to know how this rather odd situation has come about.
Mr Colom i Naval, I take note of the matter.
We will see the Commission and at Question Time we will be able to clarify it.
Mr President, this is a more general point of order, but I am obliged to raise it.
When, as Members of Parliament, we put certain matters to the Bureau, the latter should give us an answer, whether positive or negative.
That did not happen in the following case: I am a Member of the Delegation to Kazakhstan and the other Central Asian Republics, and indeed, its Vice-President.
The European part of the Delegation met before 1 May and decided that we would go there between 2 and 9 May.
Since they informed me that there would not be any interpretation into Greek, I said that this was very difficult and that I could not go and be deaf and dumb while I was there.
The President of the Delegation said that he would look into the matter and let me know.
A week later, he answered me that the matter could not be taken further to provide an interpreter.
I then wrote a letter to the President of Parliament, telling him that I could not go with a delegation of this type and be unable to communicate.
They told me that the best you can do is to speak Greek, they will listen to you, but the debate will take place in Russian and English, which means that I would not understand anything because I am not as fortunate as you in knowing all these languages.
I therefore told them that again, that was no good.
I have been waiting all this time, and have still not been answered by the President of Parliament, about whether my request was accepted, or if not, why.
Meanwhile of course, the journey took place.
I therefore ask you to inform the President, so that I may be answered.
I think the matter is a personal one, but it is also more general and concerns us all.
Mr Ephremidis, the Bureau desires, but also has a tradition of making every effort to answer any Member concerning all the problems raised.
I will of course ensure that this happens in your case too.
Decision on urgency
Mr President, as you just said, the committee has concluded its deliberations on this report, and Parliament can approve the request for urgent procedure.
(Parliament approved the request for urgent procedure)
Welcome
Organic production of agricultural products
The next item is the debate on the report by Mrs Barthet-Mayer (A4-0156/97), on behalf of the Commitee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) supplementing Regulation (EEC) No 2092/91 on organic production of agricultural products and indications referring thereto on agricultural products and foodstuffs to include livestock production (COM(96)0366 - C4-0481/96-96/0205(CNS))
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, organic agriculture is practised in the European Union over approximately one million hectares and accounts for 1 % of all farming production.
In ten years, the areas farmed in this way have increased ten-fold.
Organic agriculture is now a realistic alternative and a reliable one to intensive farming.
It has no negative effects on the environment and its production, linked to the soil, avoids over production in equal farmed areas.
For this double advantage, organic agriculture should be firmly encouraged.
Regulation 2092 of 1991 covers the production and marketing of raw or processed vegetable organic products.
The report which we are discussing today is intended to extend this regulation to animal organic productions.
Let us look at the background: the text proposed by the Commission in 1996 coincided with the height of the BSC crisis.
If herbivores had been fed in a natural way, i.e. on the basis of grazing and vegetables alone, this crisis would never have come about.
This would have resulted in considerable savings for the agricultural budget which might have been earmarked, for example, instead to supporting the income of more farmers, environmentally friendly farming measures, research, setting up young people in farming, farmers' retirement or the promotion of quality export products.
Unfortunately, this was not the case.
Let us now return to the specific character of organic production.
Organic production presents a number of features: let me remind you of them.
It is a completely free and voluntary step by a farmer.
It is the most elaborate, strongest and most controlled sign of quality of producers for consumers, even if there is still some progress to be made.
This approach is another sign of quality such as geographical indication, protected origins and special guarantees, but it is also different from them.
This approach is the subject of growing demand by consumers.
It is also a sustainable form of production.
In order to extend regulation to animal organic production, we have had the chance of having a very good initial text from the Commission.
Nevertheless it has had to be made more specific in order to be applicable and it has had to be improved in order to make it broader and more forward-looking.
I think that this can be said of water farming, new forms of husbandry such as snails, frogs, ostriches, buffalos, and game, which should also be the subject of extension of the scope of this regulation.
I wanted this regulation to remain sufficiently general so that its application would not be hindered by defining the principles of organic stock raising without entering into very detailed specifications.
I also wanted this regulation to remain flexible enough to limit certain constraints of conversion or excesses of organic puritanism.
However, in order to retain the regulation's coherence and to remain faithful to the trend shown by most of my colleagues on the Agriculture Committee during exchanges of views, I have maintained a thorough approach to the forms of production and, in particular, controls.
That is how we have come to propose an improved definition of controls and the controllability of production, strengthening consumer protection, banning genetically modified organisms, genetic manipulation and living virus vaccinations.
These are bans which are expected by consumers in this specific area and which are thoroughly in keeping with the basic principles of organic agriculture.
But this report also bears in mind the need to protect traditional production such as pigs, cattle, capons, geese and ducks.
To sum up, the amended regulation is both more thorough on controls and forms of production and more flexible in order to facilitate conversion.
But it strengthens the common character of the regulation and prevents competition distortion between Member States and even between regions.
The consensus reached on this report in the Agriculture Committee enabled us to whittle down the 314 initial amendments to just 100 in number.
Nevertheless, there is still one problem to be solved.
We need a sufficient budgetary amount so that the European Commission can effectively perform its control mission in the Member States and guarantee supervision of the equivalent system with those countries.
At the moment the Commission only has two members of staff to carry out these tasks.
We must make sure that the shortcomings revealed by the Committee of Inquiry on BSC should not occur again in the context of organic agriculture.
If there is not a sufficient budgetary arrangement, application of the regulation will not be correctly controlled and this will leave the door open to import frauds.
To conclude I should like to say, as rapporteur, that I am unhappy with two amendments which add incoherence to an otherwise balanced whole.
I should therefore like you to reject out of hand Amendment No 25 which deletes mention of abandon products and Amendment No 85 which deletes common standards on the density of poultry rearing.
On the other hand I should like to ask you to support my Amendments Nos 101 on the budget, 102 on the restoration of 'poultry' standards, 103 and especially 104 on the budget which I referred to earlier.
Commissioner, I was recently able to appreciate, in Austria where I was invited by my colleague, Mrs Schierhuber, the work which has been carried out there in organic agriculture; you know something about that.
May I therefore hope, Commissioner, that you will enable the whole of Europe to follow your country's example.
Mr President, as the rapporteur has already said, and especially since the BSE affair, consumers throughout Europe, much more than in the past, are interested not only in the cost but also in the quality of products and, in particular, the production methods used.
For this reason, in order to restore their confidence, consumers must be supplied with guaranteed and certified products.
New European legislation making it possible to certify clearly and uniformly throughout the territory of the European Union products of animal origin obtained in accordance with the criteria of organic production is an important step in this direction.
We must therefore place on record our displeasure at the delay in the Commission's submission of a proposal following up its proposal on organic farming and extending it to include livestock production. This document was supposed to have been submitted as far back as 1 July 1992, then that deadline was extended to 30 June 1995, and we did not actually receive the document until 26 July 1996.
However, we do now have it, and we regard it as an important document, although there is a need for amendments along the lines already set out by the rapporteur.
In fact, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has already tabled various amendments, most of which have subsequently been accepted by the Committee on Agriculture. In particular, I would call attention to those amendments whose recitals refer to the fact that traditional farming has had a major adverse impact on the environment and also on consumer health, and the fact that it is necessary today - an extremely important amendment, this one - to accept that the Common Agricultural Policy will gradually have to be realigned towards more ecological production of plant and animal products.
We believe, then, that organic farming is pointing the way that must be followed by farming as a whole.
We must also emphasize the amendments opposing the presence of genetically modified organisms, which have no part in organic agriculture or stock farming, and all those amendments in defence of the rights of animals, particularly those concerning the inevitable aspects of their existence - space, food and humane transport and slaughter.
I hope that all these matters will be supported by this House and that we shall thus be able to produce a proposal in the best possible interests of both animals and consumers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I too support the Commission's proposal for a regulation supplementing the existing regulation, and also most of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the rapporteur.
Above all because of the loss of consumer confidence brought about by the BSE crisis, by the debate on the conditions in livestock farming and by overproduction, the meat industry has run into serious difficulties.
The main feature of the rapid deterioration of the market has been a sharp decline in consumption.
Since consumers are displaying a growing interest in organic products - in terms of both quality and range of products - livestock production should be better geared to levels of consumption.
This requires a fundamental reform of quality control systems and a new policy on consumer protection.
In the long term, I believe that the consumer demand for food produced by environmentally compatible methods is opening up considerable opportunities for the agricultural sector, particularly in the less-favoured regions of southern Europe.
However, I am afraid it is an illusion to think that the whole of European farming can become organic.
The total market for organic products is limited at present, and the expansion of such production methods should be encouraged through publicly funded programmes, rewarding farmers for precisely defined environmental performance.
The change to organic farming must be a free decision on the part of farmers and, to be successful, it must take place gradually. Without a smooth and progressive transition, there is a danger that the move will not be positively received and that farmers will become disillusioned.
Expectations are already very high, and that is not an entirely positive thing.
It is also necessary and important for integrated agriculture to be defined, with a view to stimulating this sector.
The Commissioner deserves thanks for his sensitivity in this context.
In his former posts in his native country of Austria, he did an excellent job in this area.
I believe that it is absolutely essential to open up marketing opportunities for organic products and to promote the relevant funding, especially in the less-favoured regions and above all in southern Europe.
I also believe that there should be Community-funded publicity campaigns for organic products, in the interests of public health, but also with a view to promoting measures to improve quality and combat overproduction.
Mr President, of the 50, 000 or so farms in Europe that can be defined as 'organic' , 15, 500 are in Italy.
And, indeed, the four speakers from whom we have heard so far are all Italians - including Mr Ebner, who spoke to us in his mother tongue but is nevertheless an Italian citizen.
This, then, bears witness to the great sensitivity in our country about this type of farming.
But it is only fair to say that we have now gone well beyond the stage of novelty, curiosity and experiment; we have moved on from plant species to systems of biological stock breeding based on the same philosophy, a double-sided one combining respect for organoleptic qualities with the increased profits guaranteed by this kind of agricultural practice.
Organic farming now has its own indigenous economic parameters: it allows farming activities even in sensitive and difficult environments such as national parks and inaccessible mountain regions; it allows a revival of crops and traditions sidelined by intensive and scientific farming; and it reduces costs because of the absence of crop protection treatments and the smaller workforce needed.
But organic farming is not just a return to the past, a form of non-farming comparable to set-aside. It is simply a new model of development, which is based on research, passes through a form of practice that has more to do with culture than cultivation, and eventually leads to a straightforward and transparent relationship with the consumer.
The praiseworthy result is that the regulation on plant products has been linked to and harmonized with the more difficult criteria of animal products.
That, I would say, is the greatest value of Mrs Barthet-Mayer's report - and my group, too, offers her its congratulations - and the principles on which the report is based are especially praiseworthy.
Finally, let us indeed conclude with the hope that this proposal for a Regulation can constitute a clear and hopeful response to the bitterness and gloom cast upon the farming world by the dark and tragic events of the BSE crisis, which brought the entire European livestock industry to its knees but, more than that, did such serious and possibly irreversible damage to the delicate relationship of trust between producer and consumer.
Mrs Anttila, since that was one of your first speeches to Parliament, I did not wish to interrupt you.
In future, however, I ask you to match your speeches to the time available, because otherwise you will put the Bureau in a difficult position.
Mr President, I hope you will be indulgent with those who speak at length, because if one has much to say, one needs a good deal of time in which to say it.
It is important that we are finally discussing here today the extension of the regulation on organic farming to include livestock production.
Fortunately, practice is ahead of policy in this area.
We are not so much setting objectives here as taking on board developments.
Mr Fischler and his country can be congratulated, since 10 % of holdings there have already converted to organic farming, and many more are contemplating doing so.
It can be said that in Austria, organic farming is no longer a niche activity, but is becoming 'conventional farming' .
This shows where a development can lead with political support, and it is surely one that we all welcome.
As the organic associations have established - and this has indeed been established - there has in practice been a development among consumers, who are quite clearly interested in these products. Patterns of purchasing are adapting to them, albeit hesitantly.
This is the most logical form of both environmental and consumer protection, and we have therefore proposed that Article 101 should be adopted as the legal basis.
It is a logical move, and we hope it will be accepted.
We shall examine the matter in the Committee on Legal Affairs tomorrow, and then vote.
If this article is not adopted as the legal basis, then we shall have to discuss the amendments.
As we all know, there is opposition to genetic engineering.
As far as I am aware, the Commission has not yet agreed on its position.
Consequently, if Article 43 is retained as the legal basis, we shall request referral back to committee, so that the Commission is not given the chance of deciding not to fall in with our progressive proposals.
Then we would agree to a debate on the matter. I believe that this is an extremely important issue, and I hope the House will support our move.
Mr President, I would also like this morning to congratulate the rapporteur and to welcome this report.
This morning we have an opportunity to debate a subject that is very close to all of us and to express our views on the development of organic farming.
No matter what our backgrounds, we would all accept that the development of organic farming will surely benefit everyone.
I would also like to say that as we debate this subject we must ensure that we view the development of organic farming realistically, bearing in mind the cost of production.
It will not help the future of organic farming if we lay down such stringent rules that the consumer cannot afford to buy what is being produced.
There is a balance to be struck here: the cost of production should not be excessive because, in my opinion, this will defeat the object of the exercise.
Standards must be uniform throughout the Member States, and Member States must be more supportive in encouraging further development, and especially in assisting young farmers who want to go into organic farming.
It will be younger farmers coming into organic farming who are going to have to address this tremendous challenge.
So Member States must be supportive.
I hope that Mr Fischler and the Commission will ensure that all Member States treat the development of organic farming with a degree of equality.
That has not happened to date, because there are different support structures within different Member States.
I have had complaints in my own region in Northern Ireland, where people wishing to go into organic farming do not - and cannot - achieve the level of support they require.
It behoves us all to ensure that we are able to attain what are tremendous objectives.
It is not realistic to believe that organic farming methods can provide all the food we require in the European Union, but we must work to increase the percentage.
We have got to ensure that we provide this alternative for housewives so that they can freely choose the food they wish to buy for their families.
I take great pleasure in supporting this report and certainly approve of the realistic attitude of the rapporteur.
I certainly would not be supporting anything that would put too much pressure on those who wish to go into organic farming and find it difficult to do so.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two areas which are essential to man's existence and, ultimately, survival: the environment and food.
In today's high-tech world, we need to build a bridge between the two.
It is therefore necessary to adopt a holistic approach, not just base our action on a snapshot of one area or the other.
This proposal for a regulation points the way ahead, in that it seeks to strike a balance between productivity and the environment in relation to organic farming.
The BSE crisis in particular has shown us where farming which is geared purely to mass production can lead, with all its excesses such as the transport of live animals.
Reorienting the system towards organic livestock production and quality control is therefore an important step forward, not only for farmers, but above all for consumers.
However, good intentions often overlook the reality of the situation.
If the proposal is applied to beekeeping, it is clear that there will be no organic beekeeping virtually anywhere in Central Europe, because no one can fulfil the criteria.
On the other hand, if we look at the laxity of a number of developing countries as regards the labelling of honey, the system rapidly becomes absurd.
Labelling only makes sense if strict controls are provided for, so that consumers can be sure that the contents match the label.
It is doubtful whether, where genetically modified organisms are used, it is possible to use the term organic farming at all.
Given that some 1.2 million Austrian citizens - nearly a quarter of the country's voters - supported the petition for a referendum on genetic engineering, it is unlikely that many Austrian consumers would agree that it is.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the expressed intentions of the current review of the treaties is to bring Europe closer to its peoples.
If this is not to be mere rhetoric but a practical effort to offer Europeans the best possible quality of life, the public's demand for wholesome, safe food at an affordable price is one area where the EU Institutions would do well to act visibly.
Therefore, as has been said, it is sadly ironic that despite having brought forward organic crop regulations several years ago, the Commission has only now come up to date with livestock production in the wake of a stream of health disasters related to meat.
However this debate is certainly better late than never and the resulting text is a worthwhile effort to identify, regulate and nurture sustainable forms of farming which potentially offer benefits for our environment, consumers and producers, plus of course the animals.
It is worth noting that those earlier crop regulations have been the subject of many modifications.
As the complexity of Parliament's comments has demonstrated, further evolution is likely to be desirable and necessary in this case.
Consumers increasingly demand simple information about their meat, their eggs and their honey and should be able to look for international protection and advice which they can trust.
A major supermarket chain recently told me that a quarter of its egg sales are now from hens other than battery-produced. So demand is evident but what is the proper definition of free range or farm laid or perchery eggs?
Appealing labels on beef or lamb indicate these are grass-fed but does that mean throughout their lives, or for just part? And what chemicals have they been given as well?
This report has tried to tackle such a wide range of difficult technical issues.
It has undoubtedly improved the Commission text and Mrs Barthet-Mayer is to be congratulated for all her hard work.
But if we are to be serious about making these organic processes competitive, further work remains to be done.
We can encourage producers to move away from seeing animals as just units of production and set high standards of animal welfare and veterinary care on the farm and in transit.
Therefore I ask you to support Amendments 107, 108 and 109.
We can argue for financial stimulants.
We can cut the cost of production through less inputs and treatments and, crucially, we can increase the numbers of people working this sector.
This demands political will and action for the common good so I hope the Commission will today indicate that it sees this as a start, not a conclusion, and that it will also urge action from Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, if we go on stating the case for organic farming alone and treating conventional farming methods as obsolete, agriculture in the European Union will have no future.
It annoys me - and it is misleading - that many people constantly blame the nightmare of BSE on intensive farming: the most recent case of BSE in my country was discovered on an organic holding.
I would congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Barthet-Mayer.
With its proposal to include livestock products in the existing EU regulation, the Commission has taken a significant step towards establishing comprehensive rules on organic farming.
Within this type of farming, livestock products - essentially milk and meat - are particularly important, since this is the area of agricultural production in which the highest added value is generally achieved.
It is therefore crucial for the sustainable development of organic farming in the European Union that legal rules for this area are established.
In doing so, we must appreciate that this production sector is in its infancy, and it is therefore a question of laying down rules which enable agricultural holdings, the processing industry and the food retail sector to build up this market segment rapidly and without an excessive burden of costs.
The great majority of the amendments to the proposal tabled during the discussions in Parliament show that we are dealing not only with a complex issue, but with a very complicated legal text.
In my group's view, it would therefore be very welcome if we could manage to simplify the text to a large extent and make it easier for farmers to understand.
Any increase in detailed rules always means a costly increase in controls.
Using feeds from organic holdings as exclusively as possible is undoubtedly a basic criterion of organic farming.
Our aim should therefore be to ensure that organic feeds are in fact used exclusively, with a suitable transition period.
In this context, I am not impressed with the Commission's idea of imposing what is effectively self-sufficient economic management on organic holdings.
The EU regulation on organic farming must not become a battleground for ideological extremes, but must provide a sensible legal framework.
If anyone wishes to go beyond it by laying down special requirements, they must be free do so.
But these must not be forcibly imposed on everyone else.
In the short time available to me, I can of course only address a few particularly important points.
These include the question of whether we actually need a new, additional livestock units formula for organic farming.
The crucial point is to ensure environmentally compatible stocking densities in organic farming.
And this is guaranteed by the existing livestock units formula and the limits laid down by the nitrates directive.
I am therefore in favour of setting a global upper limit of two livestock units per hectare, in accordance with the nitrates limits laid down by the nitrates directive.
Clearly, the lack of precision in a number of places is also a fundamental defect of this proposal.
General descriptions and wishful thinking have no place in a legal text.
The EU regulation on organic farming must lay down precise rules which are also legally enforceable.
Otherwise, it will add to the loss of confidence among producers and consumers.
I also object to rules which are incomprehensible in practice, such as those on honey.
My time is up, Commissioner, but I wish to say that I can hardly imagine us laying down traffic rules for honey production, with signs telling bees where to fly to and where not.
The German press would once again have a field day!
Mr President, the current position of organic agriculture and its potential development are explained in Mrs Barthet-Mayer's report, precisely and in detail, and I therefore warmly congratulate her.
The potential development of organic agriculture is linked to the needs for safety, quality and confidence in food, on the part of consumers, their concerns vis-à-vis the environment, respect for the well-being of animals, their rejection of genetically modified organisms and the use of synthetic chemicals.
Organic farming is an alternative for farmers who are concerned about the quality of their lives and their work and who would like a more environmentally friendly agricultural production.
It also makes it possible to reserve a dense socio-economic fabric in the fragile rural areas with a very strong awareness of the role and responsibilities of farming in preserving the eco-system and biodiversity, while producing healthy and quality products.
This report, together with the compromise amendments, is a coherent whole which we shall vote for, and this amended regulation will apply immediately in all states, without competition distortions.
French organic farmers are in favour of specific thresholds specifying the load per hectare of density in terms of buildings, respect for sanitary areas, food rates arising from organic farming, limits on treatment using synthetic allopathic products and minimum slaughter ages.
The development of organic farming is only possible if consumers also have full confidence in the control systems and product certification.
Every state will therefore have a role to play to ensure this safety in conjunction, of course, with the Commission.
But we should beware since an excessively rapid development of organic agriculture could make it more fragile and so we should beware of this.
The serious work carried out by Mrs Barthet-Mayer should help us in this and therefore we shall be voting for her report.
Mr President, my compliments too to Mrs Barthet-Mayer for the enthusiasm she has brought to her work.
It is a pity there are so many amendments.
Agriculture, Mr President, has to meet the demands of its customers.
It is clear that demand for organic products is increasing and it is thus logical that the Commission should have proposed measures for preventing unfair competition.
We see that as essential.
We have to lay down rules which can be applied throughout the European Union as uniformly as possible.
But regions are not all the same and so I would argue, as a number of amendments already do, for a measure of flexibility for certain regions.
I think there will have to be some flexibility during the transitional period. That period cannot be the same everywhere and must be kept as short as possible to encourage farmers to switch to organic methods.
I totally agree with Mrs Keppelhoff that it makes no sense to say all products should have to come from one's own farm.
Where cooperatives with other farmers are possible they should be encouraged.
Autarchy is a bad thing.
Lastly, Mr President, it is essential to have a European logo for organic products which is generally acknowledged and readily identified in the European Union.
The same will also be needed, as Mr Ettl pointed out, for products of integrated agriculture.
I hope to be publishing an own-initiative report on this later in the year.
Mr President, I am pleased that today we are able to discuss a proposal in the agriculture sector which for once goes in the right direction.
The Commission's proposal to include livestock in the directive on organic production is of course a response to consumer demand - a demand which has been intensified by the BSE crisis.
With this proposal, we have a chance to give many farmers the incentive to switch to organic methods, while at the same time benefiting the environment.
That is why it is so important that in the rules we lay down for organic farming in Europe, there is a proper balance between conversion time and quality assessment.
By this I mean that it is no use insisting on a three-year conversion period before a farmer can sell his products as organic or use his crops as organic feed.
In my opinion, the rules should not make being a farmer almost a pipe dream - no, they should make it possible for many farmers to earn their living from organic methods.
That must be the object of this proposal.
There is a great demand among consumers for goods which are not genetically modified.
Europe's organic farmers do not wish to have genetically modified organisms in their products, and this ban has already been incorporated into the Codex Alimentarius.
In my view, this is a wish we should support, because these will be the only goods where we know that, in any event, no genetically modified organisms have been used.
I think it is essential for us to be very sympathetic to the calls that are being made in this respect.
I should also like to say that consumers must naturally have an assurance that the goods they buy as organic really are organic products.
We must therefore have a workable means of monitoring organic products and, finally, it is an advantage to have a common EU mark which ensures that consumers can recognize those goods which have been approved as organic at EU level.
I think this is extremely important if we are to have any hope of creating confidence in this respect.
Only in this way can we be sure that consumers know what they are getting for their money.
In conclusion, I would say that I think the report which the rapporteur has produced is a good one, and we should join with the many others in thanking her once again.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal is intended to achieve the same objectives as Regulation 2092/91, which only affected vegetable production, by extending the scope of application to animal productions, in order to establish fair competition conditions between European Union products in the organic agriculture sector and guarantee the free circulation of organic products within the European Union.
It is also intended to improve consumer confidence in this product and foster farming activity to meet growing consumer demand and which, as an added value, is environmentally friendly.
The content of the proposals defines the basic criteria for animal organic production, such as its link to the soil, specific rules of the main parameters conditioning animal rearing, such as the origin of animals, the arrangements for converting production centres to organic farming, animal foodstuffs, disease prevention and veterinary care, as well as the housing and maintenance conditions of animals.
However, I must point out that in some cases these roles are not very practical, because in some cases they are just a mere declaration of principles which have not been translated into concrete objectives to be met by farmers and be controlled by the authorities or control bodies.
On the other hand, the level of requirement and detail established in these roles is not homogenous for the different animal species hence, in the case of poultry, the principles have been developed to the maximum whereas for other species nothing has been specified at all, leaving up in the air important criteria for whole species of animals which are liable to be farmed such as, for example, rabbits.
In any case, this proposal had been long awaited, because at national level there are already rules regulating organic production, and it is felt that it is necessary to bring in rules which harmonise them at European Union level, with sufficient flexibility in order to guarantee regional diversity.
On the other hand, I should like to point out that in my country we already have the conditions to favour the development of ecological animal production, given that we still have an important genetic heritage of local species and breeds of cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, most of which live in the wild and are adapted to their environment, something which favours rearing and exploitation in extensive farming.
These aims have already been reached in terms of organic poultry rearing and there is already a tradition which has been developed, of bee-keeping, resulting in high-quality products given the abundance and variety of honey-producing flowers which exist in my country.
Approval of this regulation is regarded as positive for the organic producing sector but also beneficiary for consumers, since we can foresee growing demand for these products, fostering in turn the creation of mixed animal rearing systems, presenting advantages in this type of farm.
However, ladies and gentlemen, we should not go from one extreme to the other.
I must repeat what others have said, such as Mr Fantuzzi and Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, that this is a secondary activity, which complements traditional farming, which has just begun to make headway and which we in our group decisively support.
Congratulations, Mrs Barthet-Mayer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must compliment Mrs Christine BarthetMayer on her very complete and very thorough report on this subject of the future, organic farming.
In the wake of the mad cow crisis, we have seen growing anxiety among European consumers over the quality and origin of food products.
At the dawn of the 21st century, with a lot of talk about enlargement eastward, reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Cork Conference, sustainable agriculture, organic agriculture is an alternative which should not be overlooked in the case of farmers who wish to preserve or rediscover a quality of life and a certain way of working, with less intensive production, more respectful of nature's cycles.
Organic farming will also make it possible to maintain and upgrade declining areas, some of which have even been abandoned.
For a few years now, organic farming has become more acceptable.
Gone are the times when we used to think of organic farmers as 'very nice but slightly loopy' .
Nowadays, organic farming is being regularly and harmoniously developed since the organic food market is increasing at a rate of 15 % a year.
That is why as elected representatives, it is up to us to define very precise rules and controls, as well as serious product certification, in order to guarantee our consumers the production means and origin of biological products.
Whereas organic farming is still underdeveloped worldwide, in Europe organic farming is a spearhead.
That is why I shall be voting for this very technical but extremely necessary report, in the interest of farming in general and Europe in particular.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to congratulate Mrs. Barthet-Mayer for a good report.
Then I would like to pause for a moment and consider the value of these words since we use the term organic farming for something which covers one percent of agricultural production.
This really means nothing other than the fact that our society is very artificial and that we have far too much faith in non-sustainable methods of production.
In this context organic farming naturally makes a valuable contribution, a spearhead in our development.
I would like to say that, even if we in Sweden have not succeeded as well as they have in Commissioner Fischler's Austria, we did set an objective several years ago to achieve ten percent organic farming by the turn of the century.
We are now fast approaching this level which I find very satisfactory.
We need to create a fairly simple regulatory framework.
I have particular views on genetic technology as I am a believer in genetic technology as such.
But as we currently cannot distinguish between good genetic technology and bad we must say that all genetically modified organisms must be banned in organic farming.
This may not always be the case in the future, as genetic technology may help us to move away from non-natural methods in other contexts.
Let me finish by saying that it is important that we do not make this too complicated or unwieldy.
There is in fact sometimes an unholy alliance between the greatest advocates of organic farming and the worst opponents, they want to make the regulatory framework far too complicated and unwieldy.
I want to see us aim for tough but simple rules and more organic farming.
Mr President, I too wish to add my congratulations to Mrs Barthet-Mayer on her excellent report and in particular on her work in drafting compromise amendments to take on board the many additional amendments submitted to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
For over 25 years concern has been growing in Europe about the way we produce our food in the drive for ever higher levels of production.
Worries centre on whether what ought to be the basis of good human health - our food - is actually contributing to ill-health through overuse of pesticides, herbicides, artificial fertilizers, artificial hormones, routine use of antibiotics and inappropriate animal feeds.
As a result, many of the animals we eat are also suffering ill-health, and cruel conditions as well in many cases.
All this has led to the interest in organic farming as a means of ensuring that completely wholesome food is being produced.
The proposals before us are very much concerned with regulations to ensure that the consumer buying organic animal products really is getting food that has been produced naturally from animals fed on wholesome natural feedstuffs and raised non-intensively in humane conditions.
The report is not specifically concerned with animal welfare as such, but with good husbandry and avoidance of unnecessary stress to animals.
Both the way they are raised and the way they are transported are of great concern to many consumers.
I would therefore urge support for Amendments Nos 107, 108 and 109 on animal transport and space for raising chickens and calves.
Clearly all European agriculture is not going to become completely organic.
But by setting an example of wholesome, animal-friendly stock-rearing, farmers who take this path are showing others what can be done.
Already there are moves in arable farming towards integrated crop management, broadly based on organic principles though not completely organic.
There are two demonstration farms in my Lincolnshire constituency.
I hope that in the same way the measures before the House today will encourage not just completely organic stockrearing but also generally-improved animal husbandry by non-organic farmers, in particular in the raising of chickens and calves, in line with consumer demand.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as we know this proposal for a regulation is intended to apply to the animal sector an existing regulation, dating from 1991, referring to vegetable products.
It is a shame that it has taken so long to appear but, as they say, ' better late than never' .
As a number of members have already said, the definition and promotion of organic production and even the extensive production of farm products are not, as such, a miracle cure for solving the problems facing European agriculture.
We must also be aware that, for merely technical reasons, it is not always possible to practise organic farming in many circumstances, especially in areas with small and very small farms.
We must also be aware that organic agriculture, as a general rule, involves higher production costs, especially initially, which means that it is essentially aimed at an elite of consumers with greater purchasing power.
Despite that, there is no doubt that organic production is a promising dimension of European agriculture for three main reasons: first of all, because it can more easily gain the confidence of consumers, despite the fact that organic production is not the only safe means of production; secondly, because it is a way of upgrading production resources, exploitation systems or regions which in any other ways would have difficulties in competing, especially since the GATT Agreement; thirdly, because it is essentially respectful of agricultural and ecological conditions and therefore is an important way of reconciling farming with the environment and nature.
As I said earlier, no isolated policy will be able in itself to resolve the problems facing European agriculture, an agriculture which is so heterogeneous as ours.
Not even organic agriculture, nor a quality policy, nor a policy of prices and markets, nor a policy of structures will be able, alone, to resolve all of these problems.
All of these policies are necessary, but they have to be balanced between each other and they have to be carried out in a complementary way.
Therefore we must make sure that the common agricultural policy, the CAP, evolves towards greater balance between these different components especially since, in the past and still today, it is profoundly unbalanced, as is demonstrated by 90 % of the budget earmarked for the prices and markets components and only 10 % for structures, not to mention the insignificant budgetary amount earmarked for quality policy and organic production.
We still need to develop a rural development policy which is another important dimension of a balanced future CAP which can actually respond to the needs of all European agriculture systems and not just some of them.
I would like to conclude by reminding you that it is fundamental that we should also work on demanding credible certification by producer organisations to ensure that, at the next GATT round, organic production rules are equal for all of our trading partners so as to avoid any competition distortions by third countries.
I should just now like to congratulate Mrs Barthet-Mayer on her very serious, profound and professional work, which she has carried out in drafting this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Barthet-Mayer, and also the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for their excellent work.
The committees were anxious to make a genuine improvement not only to the basic features of the proposal, but also to many of its technical details.
Since 1991, when Regulation No 2092 laid down the basic rules for organic farming, the latter has been steadily growing in importance in the European Community.
At the same time, Regulation No 2078 of 1992 on environmentally compatible agricultural production methods adapted to the landscape has also contributed substantially to this trend.
However, the existing regulation on plant products now urgently needs to be supplemented with rules on organic livestock production, so that all organic foods can be produced in a climate of fair competition and a high level of consumer confidence can be ensured.
The report strongly emphasizes the need to ban the use of genetically modified organisms and products derived therefrom in organic farming and the processing of organic products.
This view is shared by associations of organic producers and the majority of Member States.
The Commission therefore accepts that the use of genetically modified organisms and products derived therefrom does not reflect the current expectations of consumers regarding organically produced agricultural products and foods.
The Commission is therefore prepared to include such a ban in one of the recitals and in the key Articles 5 and 6 of the regulation, on the basis of Amendments Nos 8, 26, 24 and 28, last indent.
However, the concept of a genetically modified organism must be clearly defined, and for this purpose reference needs to be made in the text of this regulation to the definition contained in Directive No 220/90 on the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms.
This would make Amendments Nos 13, 14, 35, 36, 41, 52, 63, 73 and 112 superfluous, however, since they simply reiterate the ban at several points in the recitals and technical annexes.
Nevertheless, the restating of the ban at a number of key points in Annex I, according to Amendment No 64, can be accepted.
This also applies in principle to Amendments Nos 97 and 99, where they bring the provisions of Annex VI into line with the general ban set out in the articles of the regulation.
As far as the legal basis is concerned, the Commission takes the view that Article 43 is appropriate.
Firstly, this measure is primarily concerned with regulating and promoting organic production methods, and thus has no health policy objectives.
Secondly, it involves integrating the livestock production sector into an existing legal framework and an existing regulation on organic farming.
The legal bases must therefore be consistent.
Consequently, I am unable to accept Amendment No 110.
I can accept Amendments Nos 21 and 87, in so far as they seek to extend the labelling and inspection provisions of the regulation to types of livestock products for which precise production rules will not be drawn up until a later stage.
However, I feel that there is a need for further detailed examination of Amendment No 20 concerning the extension of the rules to the labelling and marketing of organic feeds of animal origin, and of Amendments Nos 23 and 29 on special measures regarding infringements and sanctions.
Furthermore, I am afraid that the additional requirements imposed by these amendments would hinder the implementation of the regulation as a whole, since the Commission and the Member States have only limited scope and resources available for this purpose.
However, the Commission is prepared to reconsider these points in the context of a future amendment of the regulation.
I can only welcome Amendment No 22, which seeks to improve the protection of certain terms that are frequently used to designate organic products.
I can accept the first part of Amendment No 24 and Amendment No 113, which delete the reference to a conversion period in the labelling of livestock products, as well as Amendment No 30 concerning the traceability of livestock products throughout the production and marketing process.
With regard to the introduction of a suitable EC logo, I wish to assure the House that the Commission will begin the relevant preparations as soon as possible.
However, the deadline of 1 January 1998 referred to in Amendment No 31 is unrealistic in my view, and therefore unacceptable.
Nor can the Commission agree to the proposal contained in Amendment No 32 also to use the official logo for products from third countries, since neither the Commission nor the Member States have permanent or direct control over the specific application and monitoring of the rules in third countries.
I have noted with interest the amendments on the earmarking of the budgetary resources needed to implement Regulation No 2092.
Without a precise estimate of the funds involved, however, I cannot officially accept these amendments, although I shall endeavour to ensure that adequate appropriations are proposed as part of the normal budgetary procedure.
And I am counting on Parliament's support to ensure that the necessary funds are actually made available for this sector.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge the fact that Parliament took great pains to examine individually the numerous technical requirements for organic livestock production.
The Commission believes that Amendments Nos 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 16, 19, 22, 27, 34, 47, 48, 49, 55, 56, 60, 62, 66, 67, 69 to 72, 74, 75, 82, 88, 93, 94, 111, 116, 119, 124 and 125 make technical improvements to the original proposal or improve its drafting, and it is happy to accept them either as they stand or in principle, with more appropriate wording where necessary.
On the other hand, the Commission is unable to agree to the technical or drafting improvements sought by Amendments Nos 1, 4, 12, 15, 17, 18, 25, 33, 38, 40, 41, 46, 51, 54, 57, 61, 65, 77 to 80, 85, 90, 95, 96, 98, 100, 102, 105 to 109, 114, 115, 118 and 120 to 122.
Amendments Nos 2, 3, 7, 37, 42 to 45, 50, 52, 53, 58, 59, 63, 68, 76, 81 to 84, 86, 87, 89, 91, 92, 103, 117 and 123 are partially acceptable to the Commission, though here too with more appropriate wording where necessary.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is convinced that, once adopted, this regulation will contribute to the further development of organic farming in the Community and therefore corresponds to the growing interest of consumers in these products.
In conclusion, I should once again like to thank Mrs Barthet-Mayer most sincerely for her efforts in drawing up this excellent report, and Parliament for its extremely positive contribution to this debate.
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place, in principle, tomorrow, to enable the Legal Affairs Committee to give its opinion on the amendment of the legal basis.
Agriculture and producer groups
Mr President, Mrs Redondo has done her work well.
The proposal, of course, concerned the consolidation of three Regulations, a highly technical business.
I should like to take advantage of the Commissioner's presence to ask him two questions. The first, as I see it, concerns a fundamental rethink about the Objective 5(a) measures.
This consolidation, it seems to me, is simply demonstrating a degree of delay: we are tidying things up from a formal standpoint, but from the substantive angle the Objective 5(a) Regulations are beginning to show their age.
It would be necessary to start thinking, in broad terms, about what use has been made of them and what changes are needed: thought should be given, for example, to 2328 - the measures in favour of young people, some of them used and some not - or 866: the schemes for adapting the processing and marketing structures no longer concern investment in new material structures; there is often a need to acquire intangible investments, in trade marks and in structures that already exist, things that are outside the scope of application of this Regulation and detrimental to its efficiency.
That is my first point, then, looking back to the past.
My second question, Commissioner, relates to the future.
I don't want to stray from the point, nor would I want my speech to be entitled something like 'forget about Cork' , but in point of fact since that forum on cohesion it seems that Objective 5(a) no longer has a future.
I would therefore like to ask you to shed a little light on this because, from my understanding of it, the two major thematic or geographical guidelines would substantially exclude the presentation of any further horizontal measures such as those of Objective 5(a).
It actually seems that there are people who would like to do away with the very concept of rurality as an independent category of the structural measures.
I am somewhat amazed by all this, and what I wonder is this: was Cork, in effect, just a weekend diversion or will it really be a strategic axis for the future of the Structural Funds? It does seem to me that this is a very serious puzzle.
With that in mind, then, Commissioner, I would ask you to take this opportunity today to provide some clarification that may be of some benefit to us.
Mr President, Commissioner, the regulation on improving the efficiency of agricultural structures holds the key to the adaptation of farm structures.
The promotion of investment at the level of holdings is very important, and the measures to encourage the establishment of young farmers are of great help.
The front-end grants for the introduction of operational accounting where it does not yet really exist and for assisting young farmers are, in my view, indispensable.
The measures should provide greater support for farm incomes in the less-favoured and mountain regions, since after all, Commissioner, it is your political philosophy to give the greatest possible opportunities to region-wide farming in the EU.
Cooperation between holdings is becoming increasingly important, I believe: firstly, because of the growing pressure of competition; secondly, because of the frequent labour shortages at times of peak activity; and, thirdly, because of the rising cost of machinery per hectare.
Close cooperation is urgently necessary in the reorganization of a great many agricultural holdings, and is increasingly accepted by young farmers.
I welcome the fact that the Commission grasps this necessity in its proposal for a regulation.
I should like to draw particular attention to the amendment to Article 6(4).
We wish to see investment aid for holdings in regions in which the overall number of pig places has demonstrably fallen.
This aid should not lead to the original number of pig places in these regions being exceeded.
However, since we repeatedly advocate regional production, since we wish to phase out long routes, and since the utilization of existing slaughterhouses is only sensible, this amendment should be adopted.
With regard to vocational training measures, as you can imagine, I wish particular attention to be paid to female farm workers, since the direct sale of farm products is primarily their task.
With this proposal, the Commission wishes to strengthen the market position of producers and counter the growing supremacy of the distributive trade.
Overall, this report by Mrs Redondo Jiménez is thoroughly uncontentious.
It makes only minor refinements to the Commission's proposals, and we should especially thank the rapporteur for her work.
Mr President, it is obvious that any farmer looking at all of these rules and all of these regulations and all of these directives sometimes has no desire to invest, to restructure or to group.
We have to get used to Cork - as Mr Fantuzzi said - which is a kind of Vatican II.
We have to get used to various references which are virtually clerical.
The truth is that as we have heard from the different speakers here today the concerns of countries are all different: some are more ahead, some are in the middle and some are behind.
For a country like mine this document is, however, an extremely important one.
It should bring about a restructuring of farms, it should lead to processing and marketing organisations, it should lead to farmers' groupings as well as a concentration of supply, teaching farmers to be less individualistic and helping them to market what they produce, making them really understand that they have to work together and in a community in order to win the fight against the rest of the world's major industrial and trading powers, in a world which is undergoing globalization.
Therefore, I think that all of this needs to be simplified and would benefit from a stocktaking exercise at the end of each year in order to find out how the Member States execute these directives and apply these documents, to find out what the execution rate was and to find out what the Court of Audit has discovered in terms of fraud.
It would be useful for the European Parliament to know exactly how the Member States apply in practice, on the ground, these measures which can only benefit the rationalisation and modernisation of our agriculture.
Therefore I agree with the changes made by Mrs Redondo Jiménez which I shall be voting for.
Mr President, the proposals that we are discussing are essentially a technical adjustment, but their substance is crucial to the continuing rationalization of agriculture.
That is what we are talking about today, and I wish to stress, Mr Fischler, that it is important to switch from the one-sided promotion of rationalization to the promotion of innovation in organic farming that we were discussing earlier.
And it would be sensible to extend this to improving market access for individual holdings, since that creates jobs, whereas rationalization destroys them.
In the area of jobs and the environment, an increase in capacity is also effectively taking place.
If we look at the situation on the ground, each holding will subsequently have an additional 80 or 100 places.
Here too, the brakes must be applied, and I am therefore unable to support Mrs Redondo's amendment calling for aid for increasing capacity in areas where the total number of pig places has not risen but fallen, since this will once again lead to a shift in favour of rationalized, agro-industrial production.
Maybe it is different in her country.
In that case, regional conditions must be taken into account.
Otherwise, in my country, there will be just such a transfer of pig places to agro-industrial concerns, with all the consequences that we are now witnessing in terms of swine fever.
Mr President, the proposal for a regulation which is before the House represents a step towards improving agricultural structures.
If we look at the present system in terms of its soundness and efficiency, the urgency of this measure becomes apparent.
The maxim 'quantity before quality' has lost none of its force.
BSE did not occur by chance, it was an inbuilt consequence of the system.
Nevertheless, it has led to a process of rethinking, which even the powerful farming lobby will find it difficult to stop.
The fact that investment aid will be used not only to increase production, but also to increase quality, is thus an especially positive and important aspect of this draft regulation.
Aid for diversifying sources of income, such as tourism and craft activities, will reinforce the independence and viability of small agricultural holdings.
Similarly, producer and marketing associations are perhaps the answer to the large-scale decline of farming and the resulting pressures on the labour market.
In the environmental sector too, the need to break new ground - which is essential for sustainable development - is being recognized.
The energy and water saving and land improvement measures must be adequately funded, so as to make these attractive to farmers as well as to the public at large.
The strengthening of agricultural structures is a pan-European issue, which has significance beyond the farming profession and forms the basis for ensuring the survival of farming into the future.
Mr President, three Regulations overhauled in a single report: improving the efficiency of agricultural structures, improving the processing and marketing conditions for agricultural products, and the life and the vitality, if I may put it that way, of the producer associations.
A fine performance indeed!
The objective was an ambitious one and the rapporteur, it must be said, has managed to achieve it by pursuing the path of clarity and common sense - another point which it is only fair to make - partly thanks to the previous efforts at simplification by the legal services of the Commission.
In addition to this substantial effort to make the rules easier for the citizen to understand, there are also the amendments, which go right down to the level of offering technical examples: for example, where they focus on the criteria for direct product sales to make life easier both for producers and for consumers, but with rules that tie any marketing activities strictly to the enterprise.
What is important is the incentive to promote energy saving, partly through the somewhat commonplace form, of the efficient distribution and economical use of water resources.
The principle giving preferential treatment to mountain breeds of pigs is praiseworthy; less praiseworthy is the idea of granting aid only to farms whose areas are distinctly on the large side for so-called hill farming.
My group will be voting against these amendments, because the type of activity identified in the three Regulations in question has more to do with micro-farms than with extensive farming.
I welcome the conclusions in the report that invite us to take due account, in any innovation, of the two great challenges confronting the forthcoming reform of the CAP - the enlargement to include the CEECs and the reforms of the Structural Funds.
Finally, the rapporteur is right to remind us of the multifunctional nature of farms, especially hill farms, where a variety of forms of economic activity each play their part.
Among those forms, however, those strictly associated with working in the fields must be the dominant and characteristic ones: after all, tourism, agritourism and crafts are only byproducts; the main emphasis must always be on agriculture.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, regardless of the reasons behind them, what is certain is that many of the guidelines which seem to be contemplated in this regulation are very close to the proposals which for a long time we have been defending on this matter.
In fact, in order to bring about a far-ranging change in the unfair shareout of support which is currently given it is vital that we introduce preferential aids to those on lower incomes and to family farms while limiting or even preventing aid which at present is given to farmers on higher incomes at set limits.
On the other hand, we must reinforce the trend which is already making itself felt to make clear changes to aids given to agriculture in less favoured areas, which have a structure which is very much based on very small farms and/or characterised by rapid processes of desertification.
We regard as positive the changes made by the rapporteur, who we compliment on her excellent work, including support for the construction of infrastructures designed to save water in farming, changes to make exceptions for non-intensive farms, as is the case of pig farms, as well as the possible payment of aids to repair structural damage or destruction resulting from natural disasters.
However, in respect of compensatory amounts for less-favoured farming areas, we feel that the proposed amount for the minimum eligible area in southern countries and regions, including my own country, namely two hectares, would be profoundly unfair and would call into question the essence of the positive guidelines included in the new regulation and the respect of amendments, which would already exclude a substantial share of farms situated in those areas.
That is why we are trying to make the rapporteur aware of the need to take an initiative and table together with us an oral amendment which would eliminate the minimum area conditions.
Finally it is important to stress and reassert the fact that without calling into question the desirable and possible diversification of farming activities, the vital aspects of the future of countryside and rural activity will continue to depend on the direct and permanent development of agriculture and the relevant desire to guarantee future resources destined to improve the social and structural aspects of farming production, making it possible to promote dignified living conditions for all farmers and in particular those who farm in peripheral or under-developed regions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission, I should first of all like to thank Mrs Redondo Jiménez and her colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their report on the Commission proposals which are now before the House.
I am pleased that the Committee on Agriculture welcomes the Commission's initiative of recasting these three regulations on agricultural structures.
This involves a number of minor changes of a purely formal and linguistic nature.
The Commission's aim is to make the regulations clearer and easier to understand, without altering their content.
That is why, quite logically, we are rejecting any amendments which affect the substance of the regulations.
Any debate on altering the substance of the regulations should be conducted separately from that on the present proposals.
Here I should like to take up what Mr Fantuzzi said.
It is certainly not the case that the Cork conference was merely a talkingshop. On the contrary, I continue to support precisely the conclusions of that conference that in principle we need rural development wherever there are rural regions, now and in the future.
I would urge Parliament to continue to support me in this endeavour.
In view of the fact that this is a recasting of the regulations, Amendments Nos 3 to 9 and 15 are being rejected.
For the same reason, the reference to new amendments in Amendment No 1 is inappropriate.
All this goes beyond a recasting of the provisions in question.
On the other hand, we welcome the clarifications and corrections contained in Amendments Nos 2 and 10 to 14, which clearly improve the present text.
These amendments are in line with a recasting of the relevant provisions.
If we can stand by the idea of recasting the regulations, the Commission and Parliament now have an excellent opportunity to help to clarify and simplify our policy on farm structures.
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 12 noon.
Preliminary draft budget for 1998 (presentation)
The next item is the presentation of the preliminary draft budget for the 1998 financial year.
Mr President, serious efforts are being made by public administrations throughout the Union to obtain and to sustain a stable financial environment.
The Community budget must be compatible with these efforts.
At the same time, existing commitments need to be respected, and also the European value added of the Community budget needs to be improved.
Preparations for enlargement have to start with the 1998 Community budget.
Margins have to be built up gradually to facilitate enlargement with limited resources.
But the substance of Community programmes must also start to take into account the requirements of enlargement.
The programmes must be such that they can be effectively implemented throughout the enlarged Community.
At the end of 1997, following the new procedure established in the SEM 2000 context, the Commission adopted a rigorous position on preparations for the preliminary draft budget.
It decided to limit the 1998 PDB as close as possible to 3 %.
Allowing for the full budgeting of the structural actions, as agreed in Edinburgh, this implies a maximum 0.5 % growth for the other categories.
The Commission also agreed to the full integration of the allocation of financial and human resources.
On human resources, it specifically decided for a second year to freeze the total number of staff - except for some small addition owing to the enlargement - and to undertake a compulsory redeployment exercise.
I want to emphasize this last fact: this time the Commission is really redeploying the human resources in order better to serve the political priorities which have been set by the Commission and the budgetary authority.
On 13 March 1997 the European Parliament adopted its guidelines for the 1998 budget procedure.
Based on a proposal of its rapporteur, Mr Tillich, Parliament indicated its willingness to agree with the Council on an overall rate of increase of the budget.
But there is a list of conditions for such an agreement, as you, of course, know.
In particular, Parliament has underlined the importance of real savings in agricultural spending on the compulsory side.
In early April the Finance Ministers decided in the informal Ecofin to be more actively involved in decisions concerning the Community budget.
This was followed yesterday by discussions in Ecofin in Brussels.
This greater involvement of the Finance Ministers is in line with the European Parliament's resolution on the 1997 budget.
One important aspect agreed in the informal Ecofin was that strict budgetary discipline must be applied to all categories of the financial perspective.
There was also recognition that the Interinstitutional Agreement needs to be respected.
Just before the end of April, the Commission, the Council and Parliament agreed to transfer ECU 500m in commitment appropriations for structural actions from 1998 to 1999; and, as the Commission stated, this will not endanger the effective implementation of the programmes.
Taking into account these elements, on 30 April 1997 the Commission was able to adopt a preliminary draft budget fully in line with the objectives stated in January.
Commitment appropriations are to grow by 2.4 %; payments by less than 2.9 % compared to the 1997 budget.
Based on the interinstitutional agreement and the adjustments agreed by the end of April, the commitment appropriations for structural funds are to grow by 6.5 %.
With regard to the payment appropriations, the Commission considers 8 % growth the minimum to meet the commitments.
Of course the actual need of payment credits depends on the invoices presented by the Commission.
For Categories 1, Agriculture, 3, Internal policies and 4, External policies, careful preparations showed that it is possible to limit the growth to 0.5 %.
After yesterday's Ecofin there have been a number of calls in today's press for budget growth to be cut to zero.
I just want to say that if we are talking about cuts in payment credits, which do not change the underlying regulations and commitments, we are not talking about real savings but very often just about a change in the forecast.
Real savings normally require changes to regulations.
The budget proposal for administrative spending, Category 5, has to take account of the high rate of growth in pension obligations for all Community institutions.
The growth rate for next year will be more than 11 %.
Parliament has commented on this issue and the Commission is going to respond on the basis of Parliament's report on the 1997 budget.
As a partial counterweight, all other items of expenditure have been frozen at the 1997 level.
If the other institutions accept a similar line, the total growth of Category 5 could be limited to 1.1 %.
Overall, the Commission proposal is fully in line with trends in national public expenditure.
I now turn to some specific points on the budget.
On agriculture, growth in expenditure can only be limited to 0.5 % if the Commission proposal to cut per hectare aid for cereal producers is adopted.
This decision is important for reasons of agricultural policy but it is also a key signal for the 1998 budget.
It is important to begin to achieve real savings in this sector.
As I said earlier, real savings need to be based on changes in underlying regulations, not only in changes of forecasts.
In Categories 3 and 4 the Commission PDB continues to sharpen the expenditure profile.
As foreseen, in Category 3, it proposes to conclude a fourth research framework programme and to mobilize additional funds for transEuropean networks and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Education and training, the third pillar, consumer protection and the environment are also reinforced.
In my opinion the majority of these priorities are shared by Parliament.
In some details there may be slightly different interpretations.
In Category 4, the external cooperation activities of the Community continue along the lines of the European Council of Cannes.
An important element here is the reorientation of PHARE to prepare accession.
I know that there has been a lot of discussion of that issue in the Committee on Budgets.
Its reorientation is of extreme importance during this year and in the execution of next year's budget.
The outcome of the whole budget exercise will depend on the cooperation of the two branches of the budget authority.
Each side has to take responsibility to adopt a 1998 Community budget which contributes to a stable financial environment and, at the same time, strengthens the key policies for Europe.
The Commission hopes that discussions between the two branches of the budget authority will help to achieve this purpose.
Thank you, Mr President.
I am extremely grateful to Mr Liikanen for presenting the preliminary draft budget and addressing us here in the plenary.
Having looked for the first time at the documents available, I should like as general rapporteur to state my initial views on the Commission's preliminary draft budget for 1998.
The Commission is consistent with its decision on the guidelines of January 1997.
It has allowed for an increase of 0.5 % in all the categories of the budget except Category 2, where it adheres to the Edinburgh agreements and treats the Structural Funds accordingly.
This produces a 3 % growth in the 1998 budget, which in reality amounts to zero budgetary growth once the increase in GNP has been deducted.
The European Parliament stressed in its guidelines that it was concerned to see a budget with European value added, and that it would only go along with the Commission and the Council in approving a modest increase in the budget if the Council opted for budgetary moderation in all categories, and not only in respect of payments - I was glad to hear you say as much yourself - but also commitments.
Moreover, there are still a number of outstanding problems which we should like to resolve with the Council by the end of the discussions on the 1998 budget.
As the Council is aware, these outstanding issues are the legal bases, the classification of expenditure, and interinstitutional matters concerning the budget lines relating to the second and third pillars.
The Commissioner has indicated that the Commission's preliminary draft budget comes close to the targets set by Parliament in its guidelines.
Parliament too would like the Union's budget for 1998 to make a significant contribution to combating unemployment and boosting the potential of SMEs to create lasting jobs.
We also see eye to eye on the subject of the initial preparations for EU enlargement, which will no doubt please many colleagues in the House, as well as those affected by this process throughout the European Union.
Support for youth, educational and cultural programmes has also been built into the preliminary draft budget.
I should also like to address some fundamental comments to the Council representatives who are not here today: the 1998 EU budget has a lower rate of increase than most national budgets in the European Union, and the Member States should not call for pruning of the EU budget alone, but should also put their own budgetary houses in order.
Although our citizens are not directly affected by the EU budget, if the European Union is bled dry financially, then their support for the Union will soon decline.
I now come to some comments on the individual areas of expenditure, the individual categories: I would compliment you, Commissioner, on your success in managing to achieve the same budgetary discipline in Category 1 as in the other areas of expenditure.
It is now up to the Council to take a decision on the savings of ECU 1.35 billion, and those would indeed be real savings.
What is more, the gentlemen's agreement with the Council, as proposed by you, now makes it very likely that a viable budgetary approach can be drawn up for the agricultural sector by autumn 1997 - on the basis of hard data - for the 1998 perspectives.
As I said, you have adhered to the Edinburgh agreements and increased the funding of the Structural Funds accordingly.
I told you yesterday evening, during the Budget Committee's discussions, that the Commission's proposal to enter as of now the negative reserve to secure the peace process in Ireland under Category 2 is quite extraordinary.
Although this is provided for in the Treaties, it will certainly lead to conflicts within both Parliament and the Council, as you know.
I believe that this measure is inappropriate and will require further discussion.
As far as Category 3 is concerned, it might be worth considering an approach somewhat different from the one you have adopted.
Looking at the individual budget lines which are subject to codecision, we note an increase of 2.6 %.
On the multiannual programmes, you have made a saving of 1 %.
For those budget lines which are annual, most of which were included in the budget on the proposal of Members of the European Parliament, you have proposed a cut of 16 %, whereas in the case of your own proposals - the budget lines created at the Commission's initiative - you have scheduled a 40 % increase for the 1998 preliminary draft budget.
Clearly this is not altogether logical, Commissioner!
I now turn to the question of the Veterinary Office.
It struck me, on reading the preliminary draft budget for 1998, that in principle you have earmarked nothing whatsoever for this.
I cannot imagine that you require only human resources, a need of which you have informed us in the supplementary budget.
Surely the Veterinary Office will also need the technical wherewithal to carry out its duties.
You still have to tell us why absolutely nothing has been entered.
In Category 3, you have proposed an increase for the trans-European networks which actually goes beyond the outcome achieved between Parliament and the Council in the Conciliation Committee.
This is all the more incomprehensible when we know that there is of course a considerable debate as to the purpose of the transEuropean networks; the increase of ECU 123 million - a huge 34 or 35 % - therefore obviously needs explaining.
The Commission has already proposed substantial cuts in the area of social policy.
We are familiar with the little game which the Council has played here several times before.
The European Parliament will not simply let this pass.
Let me make just one comment on information policy.
Here the Commission's preliminary draft budget takes with one hand and gives back with the other: in principle, you are making a cut of ECU 3 m, whilst increasing expenditure on general information policy by ECU 1.5 m.
You will be aware, however, that we still have ECU 11 m in the reserve for general information policy.
Your colleague Mr Oreja promised to report by February on how the Commission would like to use these funds, so that they can finally be transferred from the reserve to the budget line.
I would therefore ask you to tell Mr Oreja that the House is still waiting, and will not make a move in this direction unless the Commission does its homework.
I have just one remark on Category 4, Mr President.
The Commission has responded to Parliament's initiative regarding the trans-European networks by in principle making a cut, whereas we entered the ECU 100 m for cross-border cooperation last year in order to link the trans-European networks to Eastern Europe.
We have not yet heard the final word on this matter.
I believe that the individual services of the Commission still need to present a suitable proposal.
The solution which you have now set out, whereby all of this would be dealt with under PHARE, is not a viable one.
Parliament will be devoting particular attention to this issue.
As regards the question of subsidies to support European organizations, I believe that you are taking a rather sweeping approach here, not to say a radical one.
You have simply axed certain budget lines and increased others, which could undoubtedly be discussed at length.
In January, we agreed that you would present us with a report, and you told me yesterday evening that you intended to do so next year.
This procedure is repeated every year.
I would invite you and indeed urge you actually to present such a report this year in the 1998 budgetary procedure.
Then we will both have a general starting-point for our consideration of these budget lines.
Of course, this matter can also be raised with individual colleagues and committees.
We congratulate you on SEM 2000 and MEP 2000.
Your approach is the right one.
The results will only become apparent in the medium to long term, and I cannot say anything more today.
Nor is it likely that we shall reach any definite findings during the 1998 budgetary procedure.
This preliminary draft budget is the first step.
I hope, for the sake of the European taxpayer, that we shall reach a satisfactory conclusion together at the end of the year.
The European Parliament has undertaken to do so, and we are prepared to make a realistic contribution to the 1998 budget.
I should like to make two or three comments about Mr Tillich's intervention.
As far as the Veterinary Office is concerned, the requirements are covered by the additional amending budget which the Commission has proposed.
If it is accepted, we shall have to send an amending letter for next year's budget.
That is the procedure.
As far as the 1998 budget is concerned, our indicative planning includes also part of the human resources for the Veterinary Office.
So, if it is accepted, major priority will be accorded to the Veterinary Office as regards human resources.
Secondly, as regards subsidies, perhaps yesterday I did not make myself totally clear.
Our intention is not to postpone everything until next year: we are ready to come up with the information this year for the Committee on Budgets.
I spoke about the need to have a clearer and more transparent system when we decide about subsidies.
We have too many sources which give subsidies according to different criteria; for any well-functioning budgetary administration the rules should be clear, the same for all and transparent, so that any organization which applies for money knows what they are.
As for public control, that would also be essentially easier.
We are prepared to return to that issue later.
As far as the social actions are concerned, I want to state here that in Category II the increase of resources for the Social Fund is about ECU 1b next year, so this is a major issue.
For Category III our problem is the court case which is still pending.
That is why, regarding those actions which are tied up with the court case, we have not been able to propose more funds at the moment.
As regards information policy, I shall convey a message to Mr Oreja.
I am sure that we shall have a lot to discuss on these matters during this year.
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
Emissions from non-road mobile machinery
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0136/97) by Mr Kenneth Collins, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the measures to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery (C4-0072/97-95/0209(COD)).
Mr President, it is a great privilege to be given the floor to speak on such a riveting topic.
It is only once in a lifetime that people get to make a speech about the measures to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in nonroad mobile machinery.
I am sure that if Tolstoy had thought of such a title then the course of literary history in Europe would have been quite different.
This is in fact a piece of legislation in line with Parliament's desire to reduce emissions from motor vehicles which cause enormous damage to the natural environment and human health.
The legislation aims to reduce gaseous pollutants emitted by combustion engines, especially nitrogen oxides and particulates, and deter non-road mobile machinery.
For those of you who are collectors, this is actually about tractors and combine harvesters although I fail to see why the Commission did not say so.
They are not designed for use on roads but that does not mean they are not a source of damage and therefore regulation is needed in this area which was previously unregulated.
It is good and uncontentious and we are all in agreement with one exception.
Today not only are we talking about a matter with a title that nobody can understand or really care about, we are also talking about comitology.
This is of course a matter, which while it did not exactly decide the result of the British election, will not decide the result of the French election or decide the result of very much else, is nonetheless important.
Comitology is about the way in which technical decisions are made about political matters or how political decisions are made about technical matters.
It relates to that very difficult area.
At the first reading Parliament approved this proposal without any amendment because we thought that it was uncontentious and no political group felt very strongly about it.
We thought it was worthy and DG XI and Mrs Bjerregaard came up with a proposal that met with the approval of all of us.
However, it was then submitted to Council who looked at the comitology procedures and changed them.
After its return to Parliament we discovered that the comitology committee had been changed from a type 1 committee i.e. an advisory committee, to type 2b, a management committee.
To the outside observer this is not a matter of great importance - it is just the faceless Brussels bureaucrats at it again.
In fact this matters a great deal because the change makes the whole decisionmaking procedure of the Community more opaque and less accountable and therefore we cannot approve it.
We are determined to go back to the original position and our amendments are designed to do that.
There is just one further thing I wish to say.
There is an amendment from Mr Lannoye of the Green Group concerning economic instruments and that amendment defined conditions for possible economic instruments and tax incentives.
When this was proposed in committee I supported it and the committee's decision is a reflection of that.
It has subsequently been pointed out to me that it poses certain problems for Member States as it is too restrictive in that it restricts the possibility of Member States improving the situation in their own environment.
Therefore it may well be that Members, when they come to vote on this - and I can see that they are all listening very carefully right around the Chamber to what I am saying at the moment - will want to reconsider their view.
They might even consider not supporting the Environment Committee's recommendation on this one particular amendment.
Mr President, I shall not deal at any length with the first amendment, which the committee's chairman has explained extremely well, but just say something on the subject of taxes and openness.
It may be that we have not found exactly the right wording for Amendment No 2, but I think it would be unfortunate if the amendment were to be rejected, since I believe we need to concentrate on trying to have some economic instruments introduced.
We all know, and the Commissioner better than anyone, that it appears almost impossible to have anything unanimously adopted, and so what we can at least hope for is that the individual countries will have the opportunity to apply some kind of economic incentives, so that we can gain experience of them.
Amendment No 3 deals with openness.
I think we need to emphasize that, now more than ever, it is necessary for us to have openness in our decision-making procedures, and I would therefore call on the Commissioner to look favourably on this proposal.
Mr President, the Commission would like to take this opportunity of thanking the Environment Committee and its rapporteur, Mr Collins, for the care that has been shown in dealing with this proposal, which is a very technical one.
The proposal covers various machines - bulldozers, excavators and combine harvesters - and it is becoming increasingly important to reduce air pollution in this sector, which has yet to be regulated.
The pollution from these sources was already substantial in 1990 and, according to the forecasts, by 2010 it will be almost on the same scale as that from road transport, given that pollution from that sector is being reduced.
The level of particulate pollution will be nearly as high as that from all road vehicles, even if we assume that this proposal is adopted and there is a considerable reduction in engine emissions from new machines, including farm tractors.
The quantity of nitrogen oxides will be around two thirds of the quantity produced by road transport.
Under this proposal for a directive, strict emission requirements will be introduced gradually in two stages, with stage 1 taking effect in September 1998 and stage 2 being phased in between January 2001 and 2003.
The common position is aimed at reducing the emissions of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons and particulates, so that the final reduction as regards these last three substances will be 50 %, 29 % and 67 % respectively.
In the latest research into air quality in Europe in connection with the Auto/Oil Programme, reducing emissions of these substances from all sources is being given top priority.
The common position sets its sights high and, if the directive is finally adopted, it will be the first example of legislation to reduce emissions from mobile sources where the same principles are being followed on both sides of the Atlantic.
If the directive is adopted quickly, it will be the first time ever in terms of legislation on air pollution from mobile sources that Europe - at least for a while - is further advanced than the USA and the rest of the world.
This shows that the new legislation will not only bring benefits for the environment and harmonize the internal market, but will also improve the EU's possibilities for trade.
The Commission would very much like to see the proposal finally adopted in June this year.
This is because of the previous delays, and it would mean that the Member States only have six months to transpose the directive into national law.
The industry has only nine months to secure the certification of the most significant category of engines, and there are only three and a quarter years left of the period of stability between stages 1 and 2 of the emission requirements for that engine category.
We could not have made the timetable any tighter, so any extension of the current legislative procedure would mean a change - perhaps a radical change - in the proposal.
Therefore - and this is also why I have taken some time over my introduction - the Commission took the view that it was appropriate to respond flexibly to some of the Council's amendments and to approve the changes made in the common position, since in this case the Commission has above all given priority to having the text adopted quickly.
I therefore also hope that the discussion of Parliament's amendments will help to avoid any delay.
My reaction to Amendment No 1 is very brief.
The Commission can naturally agree to the introduction of a new recital on the modus vivendi .
Amendment No 2 reinstates the original article from the Commission's proposal.
This sets out a framework on how the Member States can grant tax incentives with a view to encouraging the rapid introduction of engines which meet stricter emission requirements.
The deletion of this article should be seen against the background of the Council's statement that the adoption of the directive does not create a precedent for any future decisions on tax incentives.
I naturally regard this as important, since I share the wish expressed by both Mr Collins and Mrs Dybkjær for the tax instrument to be applied.
A debate of principle was held on this subject as part of the discussions on the Auto/Oil Programme, and let me say at this point that the amendment we are considering today is not in keeping with the line which Parliament took during the debate on that programme, as the rapporteur, Mr Collins, also pointed out.
Even if this framework article is omitted, the Member States are not prevented from introducing tax incentives under the Treaty.
The framework is principally desirable in terms of the internal market.
From the environmental viewpoint, it is not a problem if we do not lay down a framework of this kind.
On the basis of these arguments, the Commission takes the view that it should not accept Amendment No 2 in the form in which it has been tabled, but as my comments indicate, I do agree with its political intention.
As regards Amendment No 3, I would emphasize that I personally am very much in favour of transparency and of public access to administrative procedures.
However, making this committee's meetings public and publishing its agendas and minutes would be incompatible with the current rules on the meetings of committees.
That also means that I naturally cannot accept this on my own initiative.
The proposed amendment would require the current legislation on committees to be amended, and an issue of this kind ought to be resolved in conjunction with other related problems.
So at present, the Commission is unfortunately unable to accept Amendment No 3.
Amendment No 4 concerns the standard committee procedure for adaptation to technical progress.
In principle, the Commission is not against Parliament's proposal for an advisory committee to be employed.
However, we once again feel that, with a view to rapid adoption, a type 2b committee as introduced in the common position does not create any fundamental difficulties for the management and application of the directive.
This is particularly the case in the present situation, since the committee under this directive is closely associated with the similar committee which was established in connection with the framework directive on type approval for motor vehicles.
The Commission is therefore obliged to stand by the common position and regrettably cannot accept Amendment No 4.
I hope that these quite extensive comments have contributed to Parliament's understanding of the background to the Commission's decisions and, finally, I also hope that the directive can be adopted as soon as possible and above all that it will enter into force without delay.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Biocidal products
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0137/97) by Mrs K. Jensen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the placing of biocidal products on the market (C4-0006/97-00/0465(COD)).
Mr President, it is essential for us to establish clearly which chemicals are used in the EU, and where and how they are in use.
There are said to be a hundred thousand different chemicals on the market, but only a few have been through an authorization system which involves a risk assessment, and we see time and time again that chemicals can have terrible effects on nature.
Just think of the debate on the diminishing quality of male sperm, because of chemicals behaving like artificial hormones.
The Committee on the Environment is disturbed by the changes regarding water in Annex VI.
Water is an extremely sensitive subject.
All the time, we hear horrifying stories of contamination from sources which we did not think could cause pollution, and we must insist on having the maximum possible protection for our water resources.
Through this proposal for a directive on biocides, many chemicals will be subject to a process of authorization, and that is in itself a very positive move.
However, our welcome for the general purpose of the directive has been overshadowed by the way in which the whole matter has been dealt with by the Commission and the Council.
When the common position was adopted, the Council of Ministers and the Commission worked out together how parts of the directive could be interpreted over the head of the European Parliament, which is one of the joint legislators.
They wrote 14 declarations into the minutes of the meeting, and these were not attached to the proposal which was forwarded to Parliament for second reading.
I have officially received three of these 14 declarations from the Commission, with the remarkable request that I should treat the declarations - which were an initiative from the Commission - as confidential.
It cannot be right for us to do this.
The European Parliament practises open legislation.
Other EU institutions and national parliaments could learn a good deal from that.
And it should be pointed out that we are not talking here about secret declarations as such, but simply something which has not yet been published.
So the European Parliament is being expected to continue its work on the proposal without knowing the full intentions of the Commission and the Council of Ministers, even though as a joint legislator and a body elected by the people it is directly responsible to our citizens.
It is objectionable that the Council and the Commission should try to legislate in this way, not least in view of the fact that as recently as December 1996, the Council presidency agreed that in future all declarations would be sent to Parliament with the common position.
So the Commission and the Council of Ministers were meant to be agreed in principle that Parliament must have the whole basis for the decision presented to it at the same time as the common position, but they are not demonstrating this in practice.
Generally speaking, declarations should be avoided.
The legislation should show what the Member States have actually agreed upon.
The worst thing about the declarations is that Europe's citizens, who have to live with the rules and laws which we adopt, have no earthly chance of finding out what the rules actually contain, and that the declarations make it possible for the rules to be interpreted differently in each Member State.
They create bureaucracy and a lack of clarity, and should simply not be part of modern legislation.
Other strange things have also been happening in the second reading by the Council.
Two new annexes have been attached to the common position, but it is hard to see what the purpose of these is.
As you know, we in Parliament proposed the framework formulations which were meant to provide exactly the kind of flexibility that many governments wish to have.
The frameworks were designed to give governments the possibility of concentrating their work on the most toxic substances and spending less time on those which are less dangerous.
The two new annexes make it necessary for us to have a clear answer to the following question: what is meant by 'low-risk' ?
The risk is associated with both the substance and its use, just as dosages are critical in the world of medicine.
Using the term low-risk gives the impression that a guarantee of the product's safety is being provided, but danger to the environment is of course precisely what is already being taken into account in the method for authorizing products which the Commission set out in its original proposal.
The other new annex also raises a number of questions.
In the first place, it looks as if it was not even possible to work out what it should be called.
What in Danish are termed 'almindelige handelsprodukter ' appear in English as 'commodity substances' ; in German, they are called something quite different, namely 'bestimmte Wirkstoffe ' .
What these extremely different terms have in common is that they all create an unreasonable amount of scope for individual interpretations.
All this lack of clarity has led the Environment Committee to propose that the annexes should be completely deleted.
Mr President, I would like to give my support to the rapporteur's proposals for this directive at second reading.
This directive seeks to introduce European-Union-wide controls for the marketing and use of biocidal products, which are a wide variety of chemical substances, used to control disease, pests and other nuisances.
We want to see and allow free trade in these substances but, at the same time, maintain a high level of protection for human health and the environment.
I particularly welcome the introduction of a system of comparative assessment, which will ensure that some of the older biocides are replaced by safe and more environmentally-friendly substances and that new substances do not pose new dangers.
The producers of these substances should, within the framework of the directive, be able to market different products and compete in a free and fair manner, but also in a safe manner and one which respects the environment.
However, like my colleague the rapporteur, I have been concerned about the way the Council has formulated the common position and, in particular, has placed many of the declarations on how it will interpret the provisions of this proposal in its private Minutes.
It was only with some difficulty that Parliament obtained these Minutes and managed to examine these secret declarations.
One has to ask: what has the Council got to hide? What is it ashamed of?
Whereas there is a great deal of logic in some of the provisions of the directive - for example, the simplified procedure for some less dangerous substances which are better known, less toxic and pose no serious risk - one has to be sure that these procedures are not abused to the disadvantage of the environment and public health.
Until I can be assured of that, I can only support the rapporteur's opinion that these procedures should not be permitted until we have clear and transparent controls over the way in which they are applied.
The directive has the potential to fulfil the needs of everyone, to protect the environment and public health, to give the consumers a range of products from which they can make a choice and also to enable the industry to sell freely and fairly in the marketplace.
I want the directive to fulfil those needs and I will endeavour to help the rapporteur to ensure, through the conciliation process, that it does so.
Mr President, the directive on biocidal products, which we are discussing at second reading today, is a convincing illustration of the need for European legislation.
Neither at European level nor in the Member States are biocides regulated in any systematic or uniform way.
This directive therefore fills a legal gap and is essential not only to protect the environment and consumers, but also to guarantee free trade in Europe.
Biocides are active substances contained in products such as disinfectants and pesticides, as well as preservatives.
At present, there are some 500 active substances of this kind on the market in the European Union, and around 5000 products containing these substances are manufactured, mostly by small and medium-sized enterprises.
Following Parliament's adoption of a large number of critical amendments - some quite fundamental - to the Commission's proposal at first reading, I can now say on behalf of my group that I regard the common position as a successful balancing act, taking due account of the interests of all concerned. Our group fully endorses it.
We believe that most of the amendments which have been retabled are counterproductive, and we shall not support them.
However, we are extremely concerned, suspicious and distrustful as regards one point which has already been raised by both the rapporteur and Mr Bowe: this is the problem which Mrs Jensen referred to as Commission declarations in the Council's minutes.
Where such declarations cover future technical guidelines and the inclusion of active substances in Annex 1, they can perhaps be tolerated.
However, they cannot be tolerated when they amount to an interpretation of the individual articles of the directive.
These declarations have no legal status for the purposes of the legislation, since they are not part of the act itself, but given that they are intended to interpret certain aspects of the legal text, they do have an effect on it in legal terms.
This is a form of legislation which is not provided for in any legislative procedure set out in the Treaties, and it cannot be tolerated by the European Parliament.
My group and others will therefore seek to ensure during the conciliation procedure that either these declarations disappear from the minutes or their content is incorporated into the existing legal text.
We therefore support some of the amendments, with a view to maintaining the possibility of making a statement in the Conciliation Committee.
Mrs Bjerregaard, please tell us here and now what is the purpose of such declarations in the minutes.
If the entry into force of such an important measure - which is fine in its present form - is now to be delayed, then it is the conduct of the Commission and the Council, not Parliament, which is to blame.
This conciliation process would be superfluous if we clarified matters beforehand.
Therefore, Commissioner, we shall be very interested to hear what you have to say.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what we are considering here is the common position established by the Council on 20 December last year on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the placing of biocidal products on the market.
I would remind the House that the term biocides refers to a very wide range of products including disinfectants, insecticides, fungicides, and preservatives for wood and for the treatment of textiles and structural materials.
All these products contain an active principle, and that is what really has to be controlled, in view of the routine and widespread use of products containing such active principles.
So the significance of the Directive can easily be understood.
It has been calculated that biocidal products actually number more than 14, 000, and that they are placed on the market not only by a few multinationals but also by countless small- and medium-sized enterprises, especially in Italy where such enterprises account for 70 % of production.
The Directive essentially has two objectives: 1) the harmonization of the internal biocide market and 2) a high level of protection for man and the environment.
The common position, which was adopted unanimously, has been accepted by the Commission, since the amendments introduced do not substantially affect either the content or the effect of the Directive.
Moreover, the changes proposed by the Member States clarify or simplify certain aspects of the authorization procedures.
The final text of the common position is more comprehensible and practical and highlights the main aims of the proposal - the protection of human health and the environment - while at the same time permitting free trade in biocides.
The Union for Europe Group is in agreement with the common position and with some amendments tabled here today, but it is absolutely opposed to Amendments Nos 17, 18 and 19.
It opposes No 17 because that amendment is designed to reduce by six months the period for transposition of this very complex Directive - even if an eighteen-month transposition period were to be approved, it would not be observed by any Member State.
And it opposes Amendments Nos 18 and 19 because they would substantially change the balance of the Directive, and it would be difficult for the Council to accept them.
Mr President, the Liberal Group will be voting in favour of the committee's amendments.
I hope that there will be the necessary number of votes in favour of these amendments and against those of the Greens - not because of any fundamental disagreement on the matter as a whole, but because we need to concentrate on the present.
Like other speakers, I shall now also focus on the declarations.
In the old days, international relations were dealt with by a diplomatic élite.
The art was to steer a course between friend and foe; secretiveness was the order of the day, and in any case there were no ordinary people involved to consider asking for advice.
Such has also been the case through most of the Union's history, and it has been shown time and time again that it is difficult to change this state of affairs.
Most recently, we have seen it in connection with this directive, which is a long and complicated one in itself, and therefore in a sense could accommodate everything.
The Council's many secret declarations show that people in the Council still believe that European cooperation is something which should be dealt with by a small élite.
One might imagine that the many surveys of public opinion, which all point to a lack of public support, might lead the Council to think differently.
But we can see that this is not so.
It is incredible that it should be necessary to remind the Council that the development of democracy - and not least the developments in the EU - have meant that openness and the involvement of the population have become a necessary - though not of course sufficient - precondition for legitimizing the decisions which are taken.
It also demonstrates a total lack of respect for the European Parliament - the only directly elected institution in the EU - in that it is expected to sit and discuss common positions from the Council which do not contain everything which has been decided. The Council's argument is that the declarations only serve to clarify the legal text, but why then are they so secret?
Why should they be withheld from the rest of us? It would certainly have been reasonable for them to be incorporated into the preamble or elsewhere, and then perhaps they would have been more immediately comprehensible.
It is not surprising that there is a widespread scepticism about the EU among our citizens, when parts of the legislative texts are kept secret.
The Council's approach is therefore directly undermining the whole legitimacy of the EU.
Mr President, first of all I should like to add my voice to those already heard, deploring the total lack of transparency with which this matter has been dealt, a very important matter.
After all biocidal products concern hundreds of products which, at varying degrees, present risks to living beings.
Some of these risks are acceptable but others are not.
I am thinking in particular of bio-accumulable substances or persistent substances which may have carcinogenic or mutagenic effects and even affect the hormonal systems of mammals, human beings in particular.
These products should be withdrawn from the market as quickly as possible.
But what is the result of the common position in the wake, after all, of the initial proposal by the Commission? It organises the free circulation of substances and in particular of these carcinogenic substances but it has absolutely no aim of redirecting production towards low-risk substances in terms of people and the environment.
The Committee on the Environment has had very little impact on this.
Of course, we shall be supporting the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment but we feel that some of the supplementary amendments, which we have retabled, must absolutely be taken into consideration.
I am amazed to hear the position of the EPP which, in theory, feels that it is not going to be supporting the amendments, even those tabled by the Committee on the Environment.
On a matter of this kind, I think that this is an inexcusable attitude.
I should like to draw attention to the three main amendments which we have tabled.
I have in mind Amendment No 32 which is particularly reasonable - it stipulates that inclusion on the list of authorised products must be refused or withdrawn when there is another product on the market posing less of a risk, or another method enabling the same aim to be achieved.
This seems to be quite logical.
Amendments Nos 34 and 37 introduce the principle of refusing authorization for any subject recognised as carcinogenic and for which there is no harmlessness threshold.
Finally, Amendments Nos 38 and 39 demand that the dossier accompanying the authorization request supply information not only on the active matter studied but also on degradation products.
We know that many degradation products can sometimes be more dangerous than the initial product.
It would therefore be incoherent for no mention of this in the dossier accompanying the authorization request.
These are just some proposals which are far from purist or extremist and which we would like to have approved by the whole of the European Parliament.
Mr President, as Mr Lannoye has already said, this directive does not meet the environmental criteria.
It could be a very significant directive, but it offers no incentive whatsoever to restrict the use of biocidal products.
Of the 450 active substances and 10 000 biocidal products already circulating on the internal market, only a handful will be authorized under the method proposed in the directive.
The EU is primarily restricting itself to harmonizing the opportunities for industrial competition, instead of ensuring maximum health and environmental protection where these substances are used.
The substitution principle must be established here: in other words, toxic products must be replaced by less toxic ones.
As Mr Lannoye said, this is one of the most important criteria.
It would also at last make it possible to compete for authorization.
The European Union should therefore be looking to take up the Swedish type of legislation, which links such authorization to the principle of competition.
The criteria for the authorization of biocidal products are flawed on many counts, but the main one for us is that, in the case of some biocides, no minimum value is set for carcinogenic ingredients.
These ingredients are carcinogenic even at very low concentrations, and biocides containing carcinogens should be withdrawn from the market immediately: given that biocidal products are in such wide use, our objective must be to eliminate carcinogenic substances from them, and hence from the market.
We would also be very much in favour of compulsory labelling for biocides.
Our aim must be to protect consumers and safeguard the environment, and not to give free rein to the biocide industry.
The Commission would like to thank the Environment Committee and in particular its rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, for the considerable amount of work which has been done on this proposal.
It is the final part of the EU's legislation on chemical substances, and also a very important proposal in that context.
I therefore have some comments to make, firstly on the proposal in general and the prospects it contains, and then on what has proved to be the more political debate here in Parliament today concerning the secret declarations.
The aim of the proposal is to harmonize the internal market in biocidal products and the active substances they contain, and to bring about a high degree of protection for humans and the environment.
It covers a wide range of product types, such as disinfectants, wood preservatives, insecticides and anti-fouling products.
Ultimately, it will only be legal to use those active substances included on the list annexed to the directive in biocidal products of this kind.
Decisions on inclusion in the annex will be taken at EU level, with the starting-point being a complete risk assessment based on information from the industry.
When the directive has been adopted, the active substances which exist at present will be reviewed in order to determine whether they can be included in the list in Annex I. This review assumes that information will be provided by the sector and evaluated in the Member States.
A Commission regulation on the review will be adopted in due course.
The directive will also harmonize the national systems for authorizing biocidal products, with common principles for evaluation being introduced.
The Member States will then be obliged to recognize such authorizations on a mutual basis.
At first reading, Parliament supported the basic principles of the proposal and put forward a number of suggestions for improvements in the form of 64 amendments which were adopted.
The majority of these have been included in the common position, for the most part on the initiative of the Commission.
I shall now explain the Commission's stance on Parliament's amendments here in second reading.
Forty-one amendments have been tabled, and of these the Commission can accept 21 completely, partially or in principle.
Amendments Nos 18 and 19 are intended to remove the so-called simplified procedures for low-risk biocidal products and commodity substances by deleting the new Annexes IA and IB.
The introduction of these two procedures is one of the Council's most important contributions in the common position.
The Commission has endorsed this, since it takes the view that the addition of these annexes will generally make the directive more effective, without reducing the level of protection for mankind, animals and the environment.
The advantages are that the emphasis is placed on the most dangerous products, that there is a simpler procedure for less dangerous products, and that it is possible for active substances which may only be used to a limited extent as biocides to be brought within the scope of the directive and thereby controlled.
In this context, I must emphasize that active substances will be subject to the same evaluation procedure for inclusion in Annex IA or IB as for inclusion in Annex I. We are therefore unable to accept Amendments Nos 18 and 19.
The Commission cannot accept the removal of the simplified procedures, but is happy with Amendments Nos 2 and 10, which serve to tighten the controls under those procedures.
We then come to the amendments concerning biocidal products based on micro-organisms.
I should first like to reassure you all.
Biocidal products based on micro-organisms are covered by the directive.
The definition contained in Article 2 of what is understood by biocidal products and active substances is quite clear in this respect.
Many of the amendments - Nos 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, part of 10, 11 and part of 31 - insert into various articles specific references to Annexes IVA and IVB, which contain information requirements relating to active substances and products based on micro-organisms.
The Commission finds all these amendments useful and acceptable, with the exception of No 31, which it can only accept in part.
Next there are the amendments on the committee procedure and initiatives by the Commission.
The purpose of Amendments Nos 15 and 16 is to change from committee procedures 2b and 3b to types 1 and 3a respectively, which is almost a reversion to the Commission's original proposal.
The Commission defended its position in the Council, but was voted down unanimously.
In our view, the directive will certainly be manageable with the Council's text, but we think it would be managed more easily and effectively with Parliament's amendments.
These amendments are acceptable, except that the wording should follow closely that of Council Decision 87/373/EEC and the reference to Articles 29 and 33 should not be deleted.
Amendment Nos 25 and 31 require the Commission to take the initiative at a later stage to revise and extend Annex VI, in particular by incorporating recommendations of the International Maritime Organization, the IMO.
It is proposed that Article 189b of the Treaty should be taken as the legal basis for these initiatives.
The Commission does not disagree with the aims of the amendments, although it feels that as they stand at present, they limit its right of initiative.
These amendments are therefore acceptable in principle.
All the other amendments are technical in nature, and seek to clarify and improve the individual provisions of the proposal or simplify the everyday application of the directive, and at this late stage, just before a vote, I shall not go into further details of them, but simply state the Commission's position.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 3, 13, 14, 20, 23, 24 and 26, except for those parts requiring the deletion of Annexes I, IA and IB.
The Commission can also accept in principle Amendments Nos 8 and 12.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 17, 21, 22, 27 to 30 and 32 to 41.
So much for the amendments and the actual content of the proposal, but I should now also like to comment on the declarations attached to the Council's minutes, which have taken up a good deal of the debate.
The Commission can appreciate that Parliament has difficulties with these declarations.
The problem does not only relate to environmental proposals, but is a horizontal one and must clearly be solved in a horizontal way.
As was evident from the debate, the Council is primarily involved here, and the problem is therefore best resolved in the context of the trialogue.
The Commission's policy is to restrict the number of declarations attached to the Council's minutes.
They should be incorporated in the text itself or the recitals, as Parliament has also underlined here today.
The rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, also referred to the trialogue of December 1996, and here the Commission repeated its wish that the Council should inform Parliament of any declarations attached to the minutes of its meeting and associated with the common position.
In this context, the Council adopted guidelines on the procedure for presenting declarations of this kind on 25 March 1997.
The Commission remains willing, independently of the Council, to fulfil its obligation to keep Parliament informed by forwarding its own declarations to the House, as we have now done.
The proposal on biocides which we are discussing here today was unfortunately presented during a transitional period when no rules were really in place.
An ad hoc procedure therefore had to be devised, and that is why it took a little time for the Commission to forward the declarations.
In this context, I should like to thank Parliament, and especially the Environment Committee, for choosing not to postpone the second reading of this proposal, but instead to work in the declarations.
The Commission entirely supports transparency, and its position is that these declarations should not be kept confidential.
However, the Commission must of course respect the confidential nature of the discussions and minutes of the Council, in accordance with the Council's code of conduct of 2 October 1995.
It was in that spirit that the Commission asked Parliament not to make the texts of the declarations available to the public at the current stage of the procedure.
In the specific case of the proposal on biocides, the Commission takes a positive view of the pragmatic approach which Parliament has suggested, aimed at incorporating the substance of the declarations into the amendments, all of which can be accepted, as already stated, although a few of them only in principle and/or in part.
In conclusion, I should like to reiterate that the Commission supports the common position.
I am convinced that it has found the right balance between the two aims of the directive, namely the internal market and a high degree of protection.
The Commission can accept those amendments which are designed to improve the text itself and certain aspects of its implementation.
On the other hand, we cannot accept those amendments which, in the Commission's view, would disrupt the sound balance which has been achieved during Parliament's first reading and in the Council's common position.
Lastly, I would once again thank all those who have worked on drafting the amendments, and those who have been here for the final part of the debate.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
VOTES
Madam President, with regard to Amendment No 1, there has been some considerable discussion.
May I make my group's position clear.
This report is about lobbying.
This amendment refers to Members' assistants.
As you know, the Lehne report, which deals specifically with Members' assistants, is before the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
I would like to make it clear that my group has been pressing for this question to be dealt with in this report, but we understand some other groups are not happy with it.
If there is a clear commitment from other groups, and in particular from the Group of the European People's Party, to deal with this in the Lehne report, we are prepared to abstain on this report.
I should like to have Mr Martens' comments on Amendment No 1.
Madam President, in response to Mrs Green, we do indeed think that this point will be best dealt with in Mr Lehne's report.
We are thus prepared to abstain on Amendment 1.
We think it is a better way of doing things to deal with members' assistants in Mr Lehne's report, and our Group will be abstaining of Amendment 1.
Madam President, I just wanted to point out that there are nine groups in the European Parliament, not just two.
As far as our group is concerned, we shall be voting for Amendment No 1, in the knowledge that it has no chance of succeeding since the two other groups have decided to abstain.
But in the future I think that any consultations should concern all group leaders.
Amendment No 15
I have been asked to isolate the words 'all gifts or' and 'or officials of the Institution' .
I submit the remaining text to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the rest of the paragraph) Since the rest of the paragraph has been rejected, I do not see how we can vote on the isolated words.
Madam President, there is some confusion.
I do not think that everybody was clear that we were voting on the paragraph minus the two exclusions rather than the other way round.
I do not know if we can do the vote again but there was some confusion.
Does everyone agree that there was any confusion? After all, i did say that I was removing the words 'all gifts or' and 'or officials of the Institution' and that we were voting on the rest of the paragraph.
And the vote was quite clear, it seems to me.
If you want to have another vote, I repeat that we are voting on the paragraph, minus the words 'all gifts or' and 'or officials of the Institution' .
(Parliament rejected the paragraph)
Madam President, concerning the two exclusions.
One referred to officials. That is obvious, because it is forbidden under the Staff Regulations, whilst the other, concerning gifts of all kinds, is a different matter.
I think a separate vote should have been held.
Firstly on gifts and then on officials.
But given that there is no majority for the basic text, further comment is irrelevant.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
The agreement we came to yesterday was that we would go ahead with the debate but that my group would ask for the report to be sent back to committee for further work to be done on it in the light of the debate.
I would like to make that formal request now.
(Parliament agreed to the request for referral to committee)
Madam President, Article 18 of the proposal for a regulation on improving farming structures, document 96/0044(CNS), establishes very restrictive conditions for the payment of compensatory amounts.
It only provides for them in the case of farms larger than three hectares as a whole, and larger than two hectares in certain regions of Italy, France, Spain, Greece and Portugal.
In accordance with this, I would like to table an oral amendment to point 1 of Article 18 proposing the deletion, in the first paragraph, of the expression 'at least three hectares of usable agricultural area (UAA)' and the deletion of the whole of the second sub-paragraph of paragraph 1 of Article 18.
You have all heard the oral amendment tabled by Mr Novo.
Are there at least twelve colleagues opposed?
(Parliament accepted the tabling of the oral amendment)
Madam President, I wanted to speak when Mr Novo tabled his oral amendment in order to say that I, the rapporteur, agree with the deletion of the limits to which he refers in his oral amendment to Article 18.
(In successive votes, Parliament adopted the three legislative resolutions)
We think that the code of conduct for lobbyists which has been presented is excellent.
But it would have been even better if the proposal which was presented in the committee on the Rules of Procedure by my party colleague Mr Metten, of the Netherlands, had also been included.
This proposal concerned the content of the report which lobbyists are obliged to submit each year to renew their pass cards: it contains details of their lobbying of decision-makers in Parliament.
Mr Metten's amendment proposal attempted to ensure that the report contained at the very least information on those issues over which they had tried to exert an influence and the people with whom they had been in contact for this purpose (members, assistants and staff) and the financial or other means they had used for this purpose for each individual issue.
It would have been excellent if this text had been included in Parliament's procedure of work.
It is to be welcomed that we now finally have a political majority in Parliament in favour of taking the consequences of the code of conduct which we adopted last summer and amending the House's Rules of Procedure, so that we have clear rules on how lobbyists are to operate in Parliament.
We hope that the new Rules of Procedure will not be seen as an attack on lobbyists or assistants, but can make it possible for us to work together in orderly conditions.
That has been lacking here for many years.
We have voted for the Ford report.
We think it is step towards eliminating the undue influence which powerful, rich lobbying groups have over the activities of the European Parliament.
A Parliament worthy of the name should pay heed to the political aspects as a whole and not allow itself to be governed by private individual interest groups with money.
We have also voted for amendment proposal number 15.
It really is absurd that there is no ban on the giving of gifts and benefits to Parliamentarians, assistants and parliamentary staff; it undermines the integrity and credibility of the institution.
But it is current EU fact, however absurd, that at the very least all such gifts and benefits should be reported and made fully public.
The Ford report deals with the Code of Conduct for lobbyists in the European Parliament.
While we feel that lobbyists may bring considerable information to us parliamentarians, it is also our duty to ensure the maximum amount of transparency in the decision-making process and in the way in which lobbies attempt to affect our decisions.
In other words, any attempt to influence this process, anything that goes beyond information, must be made visible.
We therefore ask the thousands of lobbyists who are associated with the European Parliament to establish their own professional code of conduct and to comply with it.
Any code of conduct is worthless unless it has the support of those who are involved.
May I remind you that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure is involved in a huge project aimed at creating the conditions for increasing transparency to the maximum in our relations with the outside world?
One of the vital provisions consists in asking members of the European Parliament themselves to declare any gift or any perk which they receive, which should in principle cover any external action of any kind.
This obligation stems from the Nordmann report which we adopted in 1996.
May I also remind you that we are working on assistance and intergroups and these provisions will add to the content of the Code of Conduct?
In any case, this Code of Conduct will only be useful if the quaestors control its application.
But the key word is self-discipline, the ethics that everyone must freely accept in order to make sure that this parliamentary institution operates in utter transparency.
The idea that lobbyists, who are influential in Parliament in many respects, should be required to give an account of their activities annually, is to be supported.
However, the proposals do not go far enough, because some of them are almost impossible to monitor, for example the proposal that Parliament documents should not be surrendered to outsiders for money.
The report should have added a demand that lobbyists should inform Parliament, by means of a public register, of all operational assistance and gifts which they give to Members and officials of Parliament.
However, the responsibility for directing lobbyists to the straight and narrow path cannot be left solely to the lobbyists themselves.
The Members of Parliament cannot deny that they themselves have a greater responsibility.
Parliament has already adopted the Nordmann report in which MEPs are given responsibility for notifying any assistance they receive.
The receiving of gifts was forbidden.
It is time to investiage the extent to which these requirements have been put into practice.
It is the besetting sin of Parliament that it makes provisions and does not even attempt to monitor whether they are implemented.
The report is a move in the right direction so I have voted for it.
The EU organisation must be characterised by both integrity and openness.
Strict rules must apply for lobby work so that the democratic process is not distorted.
There needs to be stringent control over any potential attempts to influence unduly the decision makers within the EU.
Non-profit making organisations such as environmental or peace and solidarity movements must also have the opportunity to participate actively in information activity.
Special financial support should be given to the European operations of such organisations.
A procedure whereby information may be submitted to interested parties for comment should be used to give special interest organisations and non-profit making organisations the opportunity to put their opinions forward in a more organised way.
One prerequisite for achieving equal conditions for different types of pressure groups is that the principle of openness must operate equally for all EU institutions which would make it possible to obtain the information required.
Recommendation for second reading Collins (A4-0136/97)
Following the adoption of the EU rules on the operation of road vehicles, there has been a gap in legislation hitherto on non-road mobile machinery.
This European Commission proposal for a directive on this subject is designed to fill the gap in this area.
It aims to achieve a substantial reduction in atmospheric pollution caused by pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery.
The machinery concerned is intended for industrial and agricultural use, for example, mobile cranes, bulldozers, forklift trucks, maintenance equipment etc.
The European Commission proposal lays down certain requirements and rules relating to emissions, to be implemented in two stages.
Stage 1: From June 1997 to December 1998.
Stage 2: From January 2001 to December 2003.
The aim of this directive is to reduce nitrogen oxides by 42 % by the year 2003.
These provisions will only apply to new machines put onto the market after the deadlines specified.
As a Member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, this directive has my wholehearted support.
Recommendation for second reading K. Jensen (A4-0137/97)
Amendments Nos 18 and 19 of the recommendation for second reading on the proposed directive on the placing of biocidal products on the market seek to delete Annex 1A and Annex 1B of the directive.
These annexes would allow for a simplified procedure to be applied for low-risk biocidal products and for certain commodity substances.
The British members of the EPP Group share the concerns that have been expressed that these annexes appear as titles only in the Common Position.
However, we believe that there is justification for allowing a simplified procedure in certain cases, provided that a thorough risk assessment has been carried out and that there is no reduction in the level of protection for humans and the environment .
Ensuring that control measures are proportionate to the established level of risk would enable resources to be concentrated where they are most needed and would help to reduce the bureaucratic burden on industry.
Anastassopoulos report (A4-0119/97)
The Danish social democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Parliament's report on the Commission's Green Paper 'Legal protection for encrypted services in the internal market - Consultation on the need for Community action' .
Pirate firms are unfortunately growing in number in the audiovisual sector, which means that copyright provisions are increasingly being infringed.
As a matter of principle, it is unacceptable that products should be used for illegal purposes.
Moreover, pirate firms are pushing up the cost of encrypted TV and radio programmes, so that consumers who receive these programmes legally are having to pay higher prices.
The legislation of the EU Member States in this sector differs widely, and in many cases is inadequate.
At the same time, the market for audiovisual products is characteristically an international one.
We therefore believe that there is a need for an EU or international solution regarding legal protection for encrypted services.
Having said that, it is important to stress that any legislation in this sector must not only take account of the interests of service providers, but also those of consumers.
This means firstly that limits must be established on how many and which services can be covered by encryption.
Secondly, we must avoid a situation where providers of encrypted services obtain such a high degree of legal protection that they acquire a quasi-monopoly position in various sections of the market.
Palacio Vallelersundi report (A4-0155/97)
The principle of subsidiarity was introduced as a political principle in Article 3b of the Treaty establishing the European Community and means that actions for those areas where the Community does not have sole jurisdiction shall be taken at the lowest level possible.
The principle is not a supplement to Article 235, namely a means of giving the Community a new way of securing power at the expense of the Member States.
Our basic attitude is that Sweden joined an inter-state co-operation group and that new areas should not be introduced under Community Law.
For this reason we must object to the statements in points 2 and 12 of the report.
The use of the principle of subsidiarity to prevent new areas such as culture, the media, energy and research being brought in under Community Law is, we consider, more in line with our politics.
When the Treaty of Maastricht came into force in autumn 1992, one of its primary recommendations was that the principle of subsidiarity was to be incorporated in key European policies and programmes.
What this simply meant was that local authorities and local communities must be given a greater say in the spending of European monies in their areas.
I am a great supporter of this concept because local communities can pool their creative talent to create employment for their localities.
Europe needs to be decentralized and bottom-up schemes such as Leader 11 and the County Enterprises Board System need to be supported, renewed and expanded.
Too much spending of European monies lies in the hands of the European Commission or central civil service departments such as the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry for the Enviroment.
I am disappointed to see that Directorate-General XVI, the regional policy wing of the European Commission, is looking very closely at possibly srapping the Leader scheme when it expires in 1999.
This would be a very regressive step, a slap in the faces to rural communities and a rejection of the EU principle of subsidiarity, which tries to involve all sections of society in the implementation and administration of European policies.
The Union for Europe Group of the European Parliament wants to see an expansion of bottom-up EU initiatives for both rural and urban schemes and not to dissipate these programmes in any shape or form.
The European Union is still too heavily centralized and needs to be brought closer to the people.
The principle of subsidiarity is an important EU principle.
So we are very disappointed and surprised that the rapporteur has such a negative attitude towards it.
Sweden views the principle of subsidiarity as a guarantee that national and local democracy will not be overruled by the EU.
Our view is that this is a fundamental principle which must be used often.
We would like to emphasise that the EU should only involve itself with those issues which are included in their area of competence as determined by national governments.
The principle of subsidiarity should restrict the opportunities for the EU to take new areas upon itself as is otherwise often urged in various green and white papers.
According to the rapporteur the principle has been a disadvantage for the EU but for the Member States and in particular for the general public we are totally convinced that it has only been to the good.
The Member States must endeavour to use their democratic instruments in all those areas where the EU has no decision-making power.
Clarity is the Alpha and the Omega in this process.
We think therefore that the principle of subsidiarity ought to be given a solid footing and substance.
I welcome the fact that, as a result of the Maastricht Treaty, the Commission has been obliged to look specifically at how the subsidiarity principle is developing in practice.
There is still a great deal to do to ensure that both the letter and the spirit of the Treaty are respected in this area.
I would therefore point out that this duty does not apply solely to the Commission.
All the EU institutions are committed to the principle of subsidiarity, not least the 626 Members of this Parliament.
It is no use for us to make fine speeches about the subsidiarity principle if - when it comes to matters close to our own hearts - we are prepared to take a relaxed view of the principle.
I hope that the Commission's three reports will help to ensure that we too here in the European Parliament will take the subsidiarity principle more seriously in future.
My group did not vote for the Palacio report because of a number of contradictions contained in it: it offers both the best and the worst, as if it had been drafted by two different hands.
The report sets out an excellent analysis of the legal nature of the subsidiarity principle.
In recitals A, B and C it rightly points out that the European Community is based on the explicit allocation of competences, that these competences are not presumed but remain the exception, in comparison with the competences of the Member States, which implies non-interference by Community institutions in the affairs which come under the competence of Member States.
In the same way, the Palacio report highlights the lack of thoroughness shown by the Commission in the various reports on application of the subsidiarity principle.
The question of the respect of subsidiarity principles and proportionality - found in principles of the European Union - is confused with questions of legislative technique in matters of clarity and simplicity of texts.
The rapporteur is also right in denouncing the Commission's propensity to present itself as the exclusive Community legislator.
It is therefore surprising to note that, following such correct analyses, the report makes no recommendations for the adoption of measures which are liable effectively to correct the deviations which it denounces.
On the essential question of monitoring subsidiarity, the report is satisfied with the current situation even though there have been numerous violations of the principle, pointed out in particular in the contribution presented by Mr Berthu on 2 January 1997 as Vice-Chairman of our Institutional Committee.
Neither the self-discipline of the institutions nor the Court of Justice are able to have subsidiarity really respected.
In order to be effective and fully democratic, this supervision must therefore be carried out outside the Community's sphere and in priority be carried out in national parliaments.
Yet this report takes a very restrictive, subordinate and negative view of national parliaments since it merely deplores the fact that they often omit actively to supervise the transposition of Community directives into national legislation.
It is also regrettable that the report should contain a rather unrealistic interpretation of Article 3B of the Treaty on European Union, presented as defining a superiority in principle of Community action compared with the individual action of the various Member States in terms of effectiveness (paragraph 2 of the Explanatory Memorandum), instead of recommending the modification, so that its application should come under ordinary law, regardless of the type of competences exercised at Community level.
Whereas the principle of subsidiarity is a founding principle of the Union it is a total abuse for the Maastricht Treaty to restrict its scope only to competences which are shared, thereby establishing a sort of preserve, that of exclusive competences, where subsidiarity does not apply.
It is in the interest of the citizens of each of our Member States that all levels of competences should regularly be subjected to the principle of subsidiarity, beginning with those most remote from the citizens and the least well controlled, and which therefore are more likely to be bureaucratized or over-regulated.
Yet, far from making such recommendations, the Palacio report on the contrary confirms on this score a completely ham-strung, wary position, asking that the wording of Article 3B should not be revised at the Intergovernmental Conference.
Finally, criticizing the intergovernmental method as inefficient and undemocratic is in complete contradiction with the global approach adopted at the Edinburgh Summit which recommended the choice, by preference, of a type of Community action which would encourage cooperation between Member States, procedures of unanimity or recommendations which appear best to preserve citizens' rights rather than majority procedures which involve a constraint on the minority.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Welcome
On behalf of Parliament I welcome members of a delegation from the Parliament of the Republic of Georgia, led by Mr Giorgi Kobakhidze, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament and Chairman of the Delegation for relations with the EU.
This is the fourth meeting between our delegations, the European Parliament's and the Georgian Parliament's, and the first since ratification of our cooperation and partnership agreement.
We attach considerable importance to our relations, with you and, through you, with the Georgian people.
I have no doubt that the meetings and exchanges that you will hold will be particularly fruitful. I wish you a warm welcome to the European Parliament and to Strasbourg.
Community environmental law
The next item is the report (A4-0109/97) by Mr Ken Collins, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission concerning the implementation of Community environmental law (COM(96)0500 - C4-0591/96).
Mr President, this is the second time today that I rise to speak to a particularly crowded chamber.
On this occasion I wish to talk about implementation and enforcement of European environmental legislation.
I wish to say, right at the beginning, that there is a very patchy record of implementation in the Member States.
According to the 13th annual report on the application of European Community law, the Commission, in 1995, was notified of 265 breaches of the law in spite of the fact that there are over 200 legal instruments to protect the Union's environment.
So there is a problem.
The Parliament has for some years taken a particular interest in how we might improve the record of implementation in view of its importance for the environment as well as for the economic performance of companies in the Member States.
The main problems are secrecy in the Council, compromise texts which are sometimes weak and incoherent, and sometimes the fact that environment law is not properly codified.
With regard to secrecy in the Council it has been suggested to me very recently that no comment from me today would be complete unless I included in this a reference to declarations in the Council.
This was dealt with this morning but a comment was made to me very recently indeed that this is of such importance that I should mention it again.
Having now done so I have kept my word.
Enforcement can be a complex task.
One directive can require enacting several laws at national and regional levels.
And the more complex it becomes the more likely it is that there can be a smokescreen to avoid the key issue of enforcement.
We have to find out where the problems are and the Commission has a duty to police implementation.
The Commission is in difficulty because, in spite of all the rumours, it has very few resources to do this.
It has to rely on notification from citizens or interest groups because it cannot always be supplied with correct or complete information by Member States.
Sometimes the Member States are not aware of the state of play and sometimes one suspects that perhaps they do not want everybody to know what their own record is.
So we do have a problem.
The action we are suggesting takes a variety of forms.
We think that in the first place we need greater transparency.
Citizens have a right to know what laws are enacted and they have a right to believe that all relevant legislation is properly enforced.
So we need to improve access to justice for ordinary citizens right across the European Union.
We are calling for all environmental legislation to be subject to codecision and qualified majority voting in Council.
We think this will bolster both democracy and transparency and improve the availability of information.
We want to ensure that the information produced is of better quality and we want Member States to report on actual implementation and enforcement and not just transposition into the law of these Member States.
It is necessary to codify existing legislation so that it can be intelligible and coherent.
All too often it is only coherent if you have access to a whole library of Official Journals.
Of course the resources for implementation must be sufficient.
There is no point in obliging the Commission to do more if the resource levels are not sufficiently high and if the budget does not include an allocation for implementation of environmental legislation.
Inspection and sanctions must be improved and all Member States must have an inspectorate - which is not the case at present - to be policed at European Union level by the Commission in conjunction with the European Environment Agency on the one hand and the IMPEL network on the other.
On a local note, where such agencies are set up, Member States should not impose on them financial penalties that limit their ability to do the job effectively.
In my own country, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency was set up just over a year ago and it was discovered just a month ago that they actually have to pay about 10 % of their budget in tax because of sloppy drafting of the legislation by officials in the first place.
This is a crazy situation which Member States should not be encouraged to repeat.
This report received cross-party support in the committee.
It is very important and the fact that it does not carry a great many amendments does not mean it is unimportant.
There are only two amendments and I propose to accept the one from Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
Although I have sympathy with the one from Mr Florenz, I do not want to accept it because it unnecessarily restricts the freedom of manoeuvre of individuals and agencies.
Madam President, if so few amendments have been tabled, Mr Collins, one reason is no doubt that you have produced such a good report that there is hardly anything to add to it. You have also incorporated the work done by the Committee on Legal Affairs into your report, so we had no difficulty with it.
You said that there are major problems concerning the implementation and enforcement of environmental law in the European Union.
Unlike other areas of legislation, there is no real economic lobby here to ensure that the Member States do actually enforce environmental law as required.
It is therefore important to devise instruments to meet this need, and above all instruments to ensure transparency.
The rapporteur has already emphasized this point.
The Legal Affairs Committee has therefore proposed some measures to improve transparency, such as transposition tables, greater consultation, and clarity in the framing of legal provisions, something which is particularly important in this area.
One of the key issues here is to ensure the widest possible access to correspondence between the Commission and the Member States.
Clearly, not every item of correspondence can be made public, but Parliament must at least know when Article 169 is being applied.
It must be informed that this article is being applied, when, and in what form.
We do not want the correspondence itself but the information, and we also want something actually done in this area.
The implementation of environmental law also requires that the legislation itself should make provision for funding.
That is why the Committee on Legal Affairs is proposing that the Commission should ensure that its legislative proposals contain provisions which commit the Member States to effective, appropriate and proportionate sanctions in the case of breaches of Community environmental law.
This is a second and much-needed element to be addressed.
Finally, as the rapporteur himself has mentioned, there is the matter of the Environment Agency.
Cooperation between the Commission and the Environment Agency must be strengthened, because the Agency is best placed to have the information needed for legislative purposes.
Such information is very useful indeed, and can be of considerable assistance to the Commission.
Madam President, I am a citizen of the European Union as well as a Member of this European Parliament.
I would like to summarize the rules that the ordinary citizen - such as myself - can follow if he or she wants to make a complaint to the Commission.
It is quite simple.
If you have a complaint you can obtain a form from a Commission office - in my case from London.
The form states that you can make a complaint 'subject to the rules of confidentiality' .
Nobody explains what that means.
I asked for an explanation and was told that it was 'the custom and practice that we usually follow' .
Well, it is a bad custom and a bad practice if it means that the citizen is not able to be kept informed on an open basis rather than on a secret one.
Sadly, when I, as a citizen, made a complaint about the state of affairs in the Severn Estuary on which my constituency abuts, I received no satisfactory information about the progress of that complaint.
Even now I do not know whether the file is open or closed.
I do not know what has passed in the way of correspondence between the previous government of my country and the Commission.
And that is wrong because I have to report back to my constituents.
I am not able to do so, because even though I deleted the reference to confidentiality in my individual complaint, the details about the progress of that complaint have not been given to me.
So clause 10 of Mr Collins' otherwise excellent report is not sufficient.
We as a parliament, and ordinary citizens must be kept regularly informed by the Commission.
After all there is an internal code of procedure which requires that the Commission should keep citizens informed.
Until and unless the Commission complies with its own Rules of Procedure, it has failed in its duty.
Is it not worth speculating that failure to comply with its own rules of procedure might constitute a case for reference to the European Ombudsman? That might be something we could look at on a future occasion.
Madam President, we in the EPP Group think that the Collins report is fine as far as it goes, although we have our reservations about paragraph 11, to which we have tabled an amendment and on which we hope Mr Collins will have second thoughts.
Clearly there is a very serious problem here: laws are passed on the environment and then they are widely ignored.
Reporting requirements are introduced and they are ignored.
Mr White apparently complains from his constituency in England, and his complaint is lost or forgotten and he does not hear anything about it.
No one in Brussels can really say that they know how or whether the law is being enforced, even in crucial sectors of environmental policy such as hazardous waste management, where to date the European Commission has received reports from only six of the fifteen Member States.
In fact you could say, in the presence of the Georgian delegation, that we are - sadly - not a terribly good example of how to apply European environmental legislation.
Fines are introduced, under Article 171 of the Treaty.
They have been introduced rather laboriously but they have yet to be applied.
I hope that when the Environmental Commissioner replies, she may be able to give us some up-to-the-minute news on what is happening to the actions which the Commission apparently announced in January under Article 171 against a number of Member States which have successively ignored European Court of Justice judgments since 1990.
So I agree with the Collins' recommendations on the whole.
It is particularly interesting that Mr Collins has proposed that we should try to bring into play a sort of inspectorate of the inspectors - a small force that might be able to go around examining whether Member States are in fact putting the law into action themselves.
I offer three reinforcements to the points made in the report.
We cannot continue to go on relying on individual complaints, such as those that have been mentioned, on inspection or on self-inspection - by which I mean the reporting requirement.
My three points are as follows.
First, on cost: one of the great deficiencies of the Commission's approach to environmental legislation is that it seems prepared to ignore the cost of legislation.
The real trouble is: will a cost-impact statement work? It does not have to apply to all legislation but we in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection have seen that when a cost-impact statement is put together it is either extremely difficult for the Commission to take action on it or it is completely worthless, as in the case of the impact statement on the bathing waters directive.
I therefore suggest to the Commission that it would be better, if we are going to apply codecision to the whole of environmental legislation - which is highly likely - that at some stage, either at the preliminary draft stage or at the common position stage, the Commission should invite the Member States to state their assessment of the cost of implementing the legislation within their territory.
This should be a published statement by each Member State. It could then be debated.
It would probably be hotly contested by non-governmental organizations, but it would at least drag the issue out into the open, and I hope that idea recommends itself to the Commission.
Secondly, on transparency: the Commission should be more honest with Parliament about the problems it encounters with the Member States.
I do not see any point in preserving confidentiality if all that does is make it more difficult to ensure that the law is being enforced.
As an example: on 19 July 1996, the Prime Minister of France had his office issue a press release stating that the implementation of the habitats directive in France was to be suspended.
We MEPs owe it to my Dutch colleague, Mr Eisma, that he asked a written question in the Official Journal which brought this into the open.
I am afraid that I did not know that this had happened.
None of my French colleagues brought it to my attention and it would have been right for the Commission to come back to Parliament and say: look, help!
The French have unilaterally suspended application to France of an entire directive which Parliament had a hand in adopting.
That at least would have put the French Government on the spot.
As it is, the implementation of that directive is still suspended in France, and that is completely unacceptable.
Thirdly and finally, enlargement: what do we do about enlargement? We are either going to have a very long series of derogations indeed in relation to existing environmental legislation, or we are going to have a situation where new Member States accept the existing bulk of legislation - the so-called acquis communautaire - and then do not do anything about it.
My final suggestion is that when the Commission presents new legislation to Parliament - which it really should have started to do on 1 January 1997 - this should contain an enlargement-impact statement.
Will it be possible even for the most hopeful Member States to comply with the sort of deadlines which we set, for example in the auto-oil directives or, more recently, in the directive of which I am the rapporteur, the landfill directive? They cannot even comply with that directive in East Germany.
It is highly unlikely that any of the deadlines which the Commission is putting forward there would be met in Poland, Hungary, etc.
We need an enlargement-impact statement attached to all environmental legislation put before this Parliament from now on.
Madam President, in view of the shortcomings identified in the application of Community environmental legislation within the Member States - more than one-fifth of violations of Community law in 1995 related to the environment - the Commission has forwarded this communication on improving the implementation of the relevant European Union legislation.
The idea is to think about ways of ensuring compliance with Community legislation without its being necessary for the Commission to take systematic legal action against the Member States.
While emphasizing that it is impossible for the Commission to monitor the implementation of Community provisions on the ground, the report nevertheless puts forward proposals designed to rationalize the application of the legislation and to offer Europe's citizens the necessary information and powers to ensure compliance with environmental law.
The communication also provides for the arrangement of wide-ranging consultations before any environmental legislation is drafted, and the publication of an annual report on the application of Community environment law in the Member States.
In his motion for a resolution, Mr Collins - to whom I offer my congratulations on his excellent work - calls on the Commission to undertake a variety of complementary activities, which we support and which I will summarize here once again: first, the codification of Community environmental legislation; secondly, earmarking a proportion of the funds from each year's Community budget to ensure implementation of Community environmental legislation; thirdly, the creation of an inspectorate; fourthly, attention by the Commission, when drafting legislation, to the process of consultation, which should be broad and systematic; fifthly, the application of the codecision procedure to all environmental legislation, which should be ensured by the IGC; sixthly, close co-operation between the European Environment Agency, which must monitor the efficacy of the measures approved over the course of time in the various countries with the Commission and the Member States; and, finally, the creation of the position of Environmental Ombudsman or of a court to ensure the proper management of environmental and territorial resources.
I should also like to thank the Commission for its communication and the rapporteur for all the work he has done. It is very important for us to deal with the processes of implementation.
What are we actually getting out of this legislation which can be so troublesome? What are we getting out of it in practice?
I therefore think it would be a good thing if we could have one or two indications from the Commission as to how much it wishes to carry through and implement at the present time, and above all what kind of timetable it has, because Mrs Jackson has quite rightly said that we are rather concerned about the legislation in the environment sector.
Enlargement will in fact mean that we have limited scope for implementing new environmental legislation.
And will we even be able to get the existing laws applied in the new countries within a reasonable period of time?
I would say that in its communication, the Commission is reasonably down-to-earth as regards what it can do itself, but of course is somewhat more modest when it comes to what can be done in relation to the Member States.
However, I therefore think it is important for us to establish a rather stronger and tougher line towards the Member States.
As far as I can see, paragraph 4 of Mr Collins' report does in fact match the Commission's statement on page 19 regarding the annual reports.
In my view, it is an extremely important part of this whole process for us to be able to see whether in fact environmental legislation has been notified, so that at least the texts are in order, but what is of course just as important is for us to start actually monitoring legislation on the environment in practice.
That brings me to paragraph 2, and the question of spending on inspection.
This is the really weak point in the Union.
I therefore also think that what Mr Collins refers to in paragraph 6 is important, namely that we should issue guidelines providing for spending on inspections of a certain minimum level, possibly in the individual Member States, since otherwise our environmental legislation will lead to nothing at all.
The last point I should like to raise is the question of the right to bring legal actions.
I think it is very important for us to provide for extensive rights of legal standing, because this is in fact our best ally if we are to try to monitor the legislation.
I believe it is important for us to support the widest possible right to bring legal actions, since NGOs and individuals in the various countries will be our best allies if we are to determine how environmental legislation is being implemented in practice, as the Commission has in a way also indicated.
Madam President, Commissioner, we have no choice but to repeat ourselves because we agree with the Collins report.
We are in agreement with the analysis that it makes of the effects of the failure to enforce or enact Community law in various Member States and we are also in agreement with the proposals that he makes in order to correct this situation.
The truth is that we must accept that, if the rules of the internal market are flouted in any way, then an accusing finger will be directed at the Member State which flouts them.
Despite the fact that environmental law has been flouted on so many occasions, not so many accusing fingers have been pointed at the Member States which have done so.
This explains the analysis made by Mr Collins that Council unanimity, secrecy in the Council, has a negative effect on decisions on the environment.
Complaints procedures are very bureaucratic and inflexible and take a long time.
Ordinary people who want to make complaints feel frustrated and it has to be borne in mind that, according to the Foundation for Wildlife Protection, 80 % of complaints made to the Commission come from ordinary citizens or citizens' associations.
There is also secrecy in the correspondence between the Commission and the Member States.
We are very much afraid that, on occasions, this conceals a lack of interest, a lack of political will on the part of the Member States when it comes to correcting situations - for example, the lack of resources in DG XI, which only has fifteen members of staff to draft legal reports, to produce over 600 reports in fact.
This means that the Commission is unable to have a body of inspectors who would take action in the Member States and clearly denounce any violations.
Coordination between the Commission and the Environment Agency, the creation of a body of inspectors, putting an end to secrecy, the denunciation of inflexible, bureaucratic and lengthy methods which, in the case of nongovernmental organisations working to protect the environment, would make it easier to reach the Commission or the Petiitons Committee, would mean bringing down obstacles to the enactment of Community law.
Last weekend I was invited by a defence body representing the Donãna Park, a biosphere reserve and world heritage area, in Andalusia.
There are three whole built-up areas - one luxurious one - which interfere with the integrity of that park and a dam on the River Guadalquivir will completely destroy the estuary.
Nevertheless, environmental impact studies are not thorough enough and people are tempted by job creation.
Yet these built-up areas provide very few jobs and it would be much better in terms of quality and preparation for the future for employment to be created using human resources properly as well as the wealth of the country itself.
If the Commission does nothing to stop it and if the country itself does nothing, harm will be done to a park which is not only Andalusian or Spanish but European and a part of the world heritage.
When you hear about cases like this or when I saw for myself the deviation of the River Acheloos in Greece, then you realise that it is vital to take the measures which are being proposed by Mr Collins in his report in order to prevent attacks on our natural areas such as the one which is being proposed in my country - and it pains me to have to tell you this.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our group also congratulates Mr Collins on his report.
Surely it must now be possible to make real progress in implementing environmental law.
However, unlike the previous speaker, we believe that the Commission is not only short of staff, but also lacks the political will to enforce environmental legislation.
It often acts for reasons of political opportunism.
Why should not environmental law be enforceable within the Commission itself?
How can the green light be given for trans-European networks, with ever more countryside being concreted over for motorways, even though we know that this will raise CO2 levels? Why was it possible for Member States such as Germany to introduce a law on accelerated procedures which clearly contravenes the need for environmental impact assessment, and also the wild birds directive?
It is up to the Commission to really take account of the environment and not be guided by political opportunism.
Furthermore, greater use must be made in future of the Article 189 procedure; only then will the Commission have any credibility.
It has also become clear that the Article 171 procedure, which the Commission first implemented against Germany, makes a good deal of sense.
We need fines, because they are effective.
The Member States must not be allowed simply to tinker with environmental law; it really must be properly enforced.
Here we need to give a greater role to non-governmental organizations, by which we mean international NGOs and also natural persons.
The environment belongs to all of us, and because that is so, every one of us should be free to bring actions concerning breaches of existing environmental law.
The environment is vital to the survival of future generations, and that is why it must be possible to bring legal actions.
Only then will we be able to ensure that greater pressure is exerted.
To sum up, the Commission must demonstrate more political will and act with greater rigour and toughness.
It must also ensure that environmental law is enforced, as well as improving the right to bring legal actions, since the environment belongs to us all.
It must be possible to bring proceedings against anyone who fails to implement environmental law.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we have been plagued for years by poor compliance with European directives.
The annual report on the implementation of Community legislation shows us that the environmental directives are not doing too well either.
You could of course say that officially that is the responsibility of the European Commission, but that would be too easy.
The European Commission may, under Article 155, be the guardian of the Treaties and of secondary legislation, but one really cannot blame it if not everything is done as it should be in the Member States.
The European Commission has a major responsibility for seeing that European law is incorporated into national law, but obviously it is ultimately up to Member States to implement it.
There are problems in incorporating European law into national law, but they are nothing compared with the problems of implementing the environmental laws in practice, overseeing them and ensuring compliance with them.
I think above all that we need a better system of inspection to deal with these problems.
The situation is more or less the same everywhere in Europe.
Rules are laid down but not obeyed.
The quality of these rules is sometimes questionable, but that is not the main difficulty.
The difficulty is the fact that compliance with them is imperfectly and above all unevenly policed.
Each country has over the years set up its own machinery of inspection.
In some countries the services in question have strong political support, whilst others are totally independent.
And the position varies with the environmental issue concerned.
In some cases scrutiny is even delegated to industry or a consultancy.
I am thinking of environmental audits, for example.
To my mind it would be enormously beneficial for implementation if all inspection services were truly independent.
All too often there are in effect family ties between the political or administrative authority and the inspection services.
If the environmental inspectorate is tied hand and foot to a political body in carrying out its remit, you can forget about proper scrutiny.
There is no question then of radical criticism of government and that is desperately bad for environmental policy.
All too often at present, research findings are suppressed or not allowed to be published.
That may be convenient for the politicians, but it does nothing for the environment.
I would thus like to see the European Commission looking at inspection services in the Member States and primarily checking their independent status.
To my mind the European Commission cannot possibly scrutinize the specific supervisory activities of all the various environmental inspectorates, but a first imperative would seem to be to check their formal and actual independence.
My final comment concerns Mr Florenz's amendment.
This seems to me a clear improvement which sits well with practical developments.
It is necessary that the idea of 'interest' should not be interpreted too narrowly, as Mr Collins fears.
If it emerges from case law that this too often leads to a narrow interpretation I shall not support Mr Florenz.
I should be glad to hear what Commissioner Bjerregaard thinks.
Madam President, Europe has more than 200 environmental laws.
There is room for another bookcaseful, but the question is whether that makes sense at the moment.
Should we not first make sure that what we already have is in fact put into practice? That is what the Collins report is about.
To my mind it is perhaps one of the most important subjects we have dealt with in the House over the last eight years.
The question is whether all this work by hundreds of members of Parliament, ministers, thousands of officials, nongovernmental organizations in their capacity as watchdogs, the media which regularly report on all this legislation, whether all this work actually leads anywhere.
Is it implemented? Mr Collins' answer is that that is very much the question.
The question, again, is thus whether it is not more sensible to look at compliance.
Perhaps we should also look to tighten up these 200 laws further, but first and foremost we must insist on compliance.
Despite the ability of the Commission to draw on Article 155 of the Treaty, compliance is largely a matter for the Member States.
Other honourable members have mentioned this.
Mr Collins also states that failures to comply with the legislation are legion.
And this is blamed on differences in interpreting concepts, as in the case of waste.
Something may be waste in one Member State, whilst it comes into a different category in another Member State.
Or the blame is put on complicated procedures.
But the general conclusion is that so far there is no system at all of independent and equivalent scrutiny at Member State level.
Mr Blokland made this point too.
That is a significant finding, especially when we note at the same time that environmental problems are no respecters of borders, and thus to my mind should be the number one priority in European policy.
Even if we decided tomorrow that we would all revert to being nation states and forget about Europe, the environment would still continue as a transboundary issue.
This is why environmental policy is such an important European policy.
In this context I would also draw your special attention to a gratifying development.
We often deal with unwelcome developments in Europe, but this is a welcome one, namely the Impel network, or 'implementation of environmental legislation' network.
This had informal beginnings.
Officials from the various Member States got together and decided to work together.
This network is interesting in that it transpired in the working groups set up in the meantime that people got together round a table and were able, on the subject of waste for example, to air real questions of fraud and unethical practices.
I should like to ask the Commission if it intends to intensify this network further, expand it and support it in a Community framework headed by the 'inspectorate of all inspectorates' .
I think this would be a good idea.
Madam President, although we are quite right to bemoan the fact that while we have over 200 directives in Europe, all with the same basic aims, we are experiencing major difficulties at national level in terms of transposition and especially implementation, we must ask ourselves at some point what we are actually doing wrong. We shall not make much progress just by repeatedly lamenting the situation and writing a report about it - a report with which I am broadly in agreement.
We have the same problem with environmental policy in Europe as in my own family.
Whenever my children, my wife and I talk about environmental policy, at first we are all full of enthusiasm.
But when I then suggest introducing practical measures, that enthusiasm soon wanes.
This is precisely what has happened on a large scale here in Europe in recent years.
We made a good start with the IPPC directive, which sought to introduce across-the-board authorization procedures in Europe.
After all, industry should no longer be allowed to clean up the air by discharging dirt into the water; an overall approach is needed.
We have used so little force that all we have achieved are ridiculous administrative rules, and hardly any practical measures have been introduced.
That is exactly what we need, Mrs van Putten, when you say that Europe's environmental policy transcends borders.
We need to lay down practical measures, and here we have come up with a new trick: we now no longer say 0.01 or whatever, but demand BAT, best available technique.
This is a splendid environmental slogan, but no one defines what we mean by it in Europe, and so we should not be surprised if the loopholes are exploited.
If I were in charge of an industrial plant, my job would be to find a favourable course of action to take.
We therefore have to define what BAT means: it is certainly not what is still at the research stage in universities, but nor does it mean the practice of 20 years ago.
And here, Commissioner, you need to stand up to other, more heavyweight Commissioners - everyone knows to whom I am referring - and finally bring in quality targets with parameters for emissions and quality levels.
We do not need his foolish proposal on water and river management, but we do need a proposal specifying which toxins those waters should no longer contain.
Our Member States are bright, intelligent and responsible enough to manage their own affairs.
But the criteria stipulating what may or may not be in those waters do have to come from Europe.
We should not be surprised, if we open the door so wide, that interpretation varies from one year to the next.
There are 55 directives on water policy.
What small businessman - myself included - can cope with 55 sets of European rules? I can hardly cope with three!
That is why it is important to provide a guide by setting out parameters, leaving the ways of achieving these targets up to the Member States.
Of course, transposition periods vary.
It is no great feat to transpose a European law into national legislation in Greece.
In my country, which as you know is made up of several Länder - 15 or 16 - it takes rather longer.
But the overall approach is what matters most, in my opinion, and I would propose that besides the national monitoring bodies, which exist and which we support, we should consider if there might not be another option.
I believe that we in Europe have too many detailed rules and regulations, but too few incentives.
I would reverse that situation, laying down very strict targets, but ensuring with the aid of incentives - which could well be tax measures - that we introduce a different form of control.
The Member States are of course responsible here, and we must make it worth their while to implement these controls.
Repeated threats of prosecution alone are unlikely to win anyone over to environmental protection - quite the opposite.
I suggest that we consider a European environmental MOT - like the test which cars have to undergo every two or three years in my country - which would be run on a private basis and issue the certificates required for economic and fiscal measures.
And one last point - I am naturally in favour of allowing our citizens to bring legal actions.
However, I am not in favour of allowing actions to be brought by persons who are quite unaffected and live thousands of kilometres away from a new construction project.
Those who are affected, who live in the region, are more than welcome to avail themselves of their legal rights.
But planning permission in northern Germany must not be held up by a legal action brought 1500 km further south.
Madam President, the Liberal Group sets great store by three paragraphs in the resolution by Mr Collins which we regard as very important.
The first is paragraph 15, which calls on the Commission to bring forward proposals for the thorough and timely application of Article 171 of the EC Treaty to breaches of environmental law.
I should like to hear the Commission's response to this proposal in our resolution, because thorough and timely application of Article 171 is something which has hitherto been absent.
I would also ask the Commissioner when we are going to see Article 171 applied by the Commission.
I know that it has gone as far as calculating the size of any possible fine, but I have not yet seen - and this may be because I am not well enough informed - any proposals or guidelines as to when the first action is to be brought against a country under Article 171, so that we can ensure that crime does not pay in the environment sector.
The second point is the amendment by Mrs Roth-Behrendt, which is strongly supported by the Liberal Group.
Personally, I would like to see declarations abolished altogether, but as long as the declarations are there, they should at least be published.
I was glad to hear the Commissioner's statement before the vote this morning, in which she expressed clear support for our position.
Finally, my third point concerns paragraph 4 of the motion for a resolution, which refers to the publication of an annual report on contraventions in the environment sector.
I would suggest that we might have some ideas here from Mr Monti as regards the internal market.
We could perhaps draw up a kind of league table - I am not sure how many of those present are football players - a league table of countries which comply with the rules, and thus provide a little competition between the countries.
Madam President, in the implementation of Community environmental law there are, explicitly or implicitly, greater questions of European construction at its various levels.
The Collins report - and I must compliment Mr Collins on his work - will help us to consider this.
Let us begin at Community level.
Following loose directives, and the more or less binding directives of action programmes with good but inconsequential proposals, and from a cohesion fund targeting only four countries with the environment as its objective, we have gone to the creation of a genuine Community law.
This will result from the detection of risk situations in that the Commission has registered hundreds of violations of the various elements of legislation on the environment on the basis of complaints, questions or petitions, as well as cases directly detected by the Commission, representing some 20 % of violations registered in 1996.
At the end of the year, over 600 complaints and violation procedures on the environment had been received against Member States, compared with less than 300 in 1995.
Yet the process of implementation takes place by means of transposition to national legislation.
This is disappointing because the delay and laxness in the violation of deadlines established by the Community bodies are far greater than on other matters, harmful to the environment, in which rapidity is the rule.
On the other hand, most environmental legislation coming from Community sources is not directly applicable in Member States and calls for national enactment measures, or adaptation and the creation of means by national legislation.
If the States prove ineffective in the application of what, in this area, they themselves produce, they will be even less so in terms of what they are induced to introduce.
Portugal is no exception.
In fact it will illustrate the situation.
Some Portuguese legislation on environment is enacted by force, in other words Portugal has been made to give in to the obligation to transpose directives in environmental fields.
And it is significant that some of the directives which most complaints concerning violations concern are examples of omissions or failure to regulate in the country: the protection of national habitat, the protection of water from pollution caused by nitrates used on farms, the elimination of waste, refuse, the treatment of emissions from incinerators, water quality.
This leads on to the importance of the local level.
This shows the priceless advantage of combining environmental problems with the needs and features of local communities.
Involvement of political parties and local authorities, environmental protection associations and other NGOs, the local populations, is vital for the definition of environmental policy and should be recognised as an essential element for the genuine adaptation of directives.
After all, the specific problems of each region cannot be dealt with in directives common to fifteen states with very different situations.
It is vital that the infrastructures, the decentralisation resources and close and decisive cooperation with the local authorities should be made a priority, as this is the only realistic approach to lead to a genuine translation of Community legislation and its enactment.
But will this be possible or compatible with the obsession with centralising policies and means, which is not hidden behind this construction which, even if it means excluding other ways and means, places the priority on anything to do with EMU, the single currency, a single central bank and single monetary and budgetary policies?
Community legislation on the environment will have to stop being a pretext and an argument and only will do so when it responds to concerns of thoroughness and applicability, adapted to the realities of the situation.
The Collins report heads in this direction and therefore I congratulate the rapporteur.
However, I think that we should have to be even more explicit.
And that is what I intended to be!
Madam President, listening to a number of speakers here today, one of the most effective measures that the EU has is to impose fines on Member States for not honouring their obligations under EU law.
It is definite that fines will have a positive and quick result.
They should be used more and more often.
I come from a country that has a very bad record as regards obligations under EU environmental law.
Our government has applied over and over again for ever-increasing amounts of structural and cohesion funds without feeling that the EU has any right to scrutinize how the money is spent.
The proposed sewage plant at Galway Bay last year was a typical example.
The Minister for the Environment originally sought EU funding to construct the plant even though it would be located in a special protection area for wild birds.
When the EU's Regional Commissioner refused funding on environmental grounds, he contended that the EU should not interfere in Ireland's planning process.
After intense public pressure he actually agreed to modify the plant's design.
More recently the EU Commission took the first step towards legal action against Ireland for inadequate monitoring and control of water pollution from agricultural sources.
The Commission argued that Ireland had not incorporated the full requirements of the EU directive on nitrate pollution into Irish law.
Farm waste has paralysed some of Ireland's most important lakes.
A study by the Lough Corrib Angling Federation found that the Irish state agencies were involved in little more than a policy of supervised neglect of western lakes.
In the area of environmental impact assessments Ireland has taken a minimalist approach.
No EIA was sought by the authorities on the massive Hilton Hotel project which is planned for the centre of Dublin, even though a revised EU directive adopted by the Environment Ministers in March said that such statements should be prepared for large-scale urban development projects.
The only way we are going to get governments to respect EU law is to impose fines if they do not do so.
I know that many organizations in Ireland fighting on these issues would definitely welcome this step.
Madam President, the position with regard to implementation of Community legislation on the environment is highly unsatisfactory and perhaps even worse than the report suggests.
The thrust of the Legal Affairs Committee's opinion is that attention should be focused not only on checking whether directives have been incorporated into national law but equally importantly whether directives already incorporated are being implemented.
There is in fact only one choice if we are to protect our environment, preserve the environment we live in and ensure sustainable development.
Either we do this through a global European approach, or it just will not work.
Correct and proper implementation of the environmental standards has other consequences too.
It is not good enough that certain Member State should fail to comply with collectively agreed environmental legislation in order to maintain or secure a more competitive position.
Economic integration must not fail because of national divergences in areas where that is totally inappropriate.
Hence the warning that we certainly must not create economic instability within the Community as a result of Member States failing to adopt or implement Community legislation on the environment or doing so incorrectly.
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking Parliament for its report on the communication on implementing Community environmental law.
It is clear from the report that this issue is not only one of great interest and priority for me, but also for the Environment Committee.
I am therefore grateful to the committee, and of course its chairman and rapporteur, for the very constructive work which has been put into this report.
It was also good to see that in their discussion of the communication, both the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee reached a positive conclusion on the Commission's proposals.
It goes without saying - and many speakers made this point - that the implementation of Community environmental law is a vital precondition for enabling Community policy to be effective and thus to safeguard and protect Europe's environment.
I think it was Mrs van Putten who said that these could well be the most important proposals which Parliament had dealt with for many years.
There is a great deal at stake, since when it comes to international relations, the Community must also be able to point to its own results if it is to be a credible player in the negotiations on global environmental issues.
That has unfortunately not always been the case as regards the implementation of Community environmental law in the Member States, as many speakers have pointed out.
The House is aware of the countless examples of this, and the many complaints forwarded to the Commission either directly from individual Member States through Parliament's Committee on Petitions, or by interested Members of Parliament.
I share Mr White's opinion that something must be done about the problems connected with providing information to complainants when a matter is being dealt with.
The Commission is currently examining the procedures and the question of openness in connection with Article 169, not least in the light of the observations made by the Ombudsman.
As you know, I have never taken the view that the number of cases brought before the Court of Justice under Article 169 of the Treaty can be used as a gauge of whether our own policy on implementation and enforcement is a success.
The Commission has always worked actively on this, but court cases are only the tip of the iceberg, since the others often melt away under the Commission's threat to bring an action.
We have now seen something similar happen in connection with the Commission's use of Article 171 as regards the provision on fines.
I do not quite see how it has escaped Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's attention that we do actually have five specific cases which are being heard.
On 29 January this year, the Commission decided to bring five cases back before the Court of Justice, with a request for substantial fines on the Member States.
Here it looks as if the threat of a further Court judgment will be able to resolve these long-standing issues.
That is a good thing, but ultimately it is of course unacceptable that it should take so long.
As Parliament is aware, the five cases to which I have referred are all from the environment sector, and as you also know, they are the very first to be brought under this new provision of the Treaty in Article 171.
The Commission intends to use - and is using - the powers which this provides to ensure that there is complete consistency between Community environmental legislation and the judgments of the Court.
I agree that there is a need for the Commission to play an active role.
Mrs Jackson wished to have some more specific information on the matter, and as I say, the situation is that five cases have been brought.
We believe that three of them have almost been resolved, now that they have come into public view.
Two are still outstanding, and we would say that there are seven other cases in the pipeline.
Clearly, we feel that the more cases we can settle in the meantime, the better, and we regard the instrument of fines as one means of achieving better results.
However, the Commission's communication also deals with how we can ensure positive and active implementation in the Member States.
Here Mrs Jackson gave an excellent example by referring to the habitats directive.
I can say that for the Commission's part, as soon as we were made aware of the French Prime Minister's statement, we naturally also responded in public, as well as taking the matter up with the French authorities.
I had occasion to mention this as an example when I last visited the Environment Committee.
So we do indeed follow things up when we are made aware of declarations of this kind.
But in addition, we are of course interested in helping the Member States to cope with the task they have ahead of them.
Our reason for adopting this approach is that the earlier in the process we can ensure that environmental law is implemented, the better it is for the environment.
Because as we all know, there is not a great deal of point in winning court cases after years of discussions, if the damage to the environment has already been done.
The communication which is before the House today therefore contains three innovative proposals on inspection standards, access to justice and the right to bring legal actions, together with a series of other proposals to improve the present mechanisms at Community and Member State levels.
Parliament's positive reaction to these three proposals is a great encouragement.
Having adopted measures such as the directive on integrated pollution prevention and control, the IPPC directive, it is important for the Council to ensure that its members have an adequate basis for carrying out the necessary inspection tasks.
That is why we are already establishing minimum criteria for these inspections through the IMPEL network, as mentioned by several speakers here today.
The IMPEL network, which includes representatives from enforcement authorities and agencies in the Member States, possesses the practical, down-to-earth experience which is needed for this preparatory work.
The guidelines will not be limited to the tasks which are necessary to ensure compliance with the IPPC directive, but will apply to all Community environmental legislation where the inspection of emissions is a necessary part of implementation and enforcement, as Mr Florenz indicated.
As you know, the Commission's communication does not propose any binding legislation as regards the three proposals I have mentioned.
Nor has that been raised in the Council's interim discussions of the communication.
The approach which has been chosen in the communication is that we begin with 'soft' legislation to see whether the new ideas work.
If it turns out that they fit the bill, they will have to be converted into binding legislation.
I would say that this approach is basically a sound one, but in political terms, I would agree with Parliament that we cannot avoid laying down binding rules.
I therefore very much welcome the House's proposal that legal acts should be drawn up during the lifetime of this Parliament.
This obviously serves to reinforce my wish that in the longer term, these proposals should be turned into legally binding rules.
I believe that this also responds to the first amendment by Mr Florenz.
Besides the areas in which new efforts are required, the Commission's communication sets out proposals for improvements in current practice and procedure in a number of other fields.
I am pleased to say that considerable progress has already been made in these areas.
In Parliament's report, for example, the Member States are called upon to develop training schemes for national regulatory bodies and civil servants to enable them to become familiar with the Community's environmental law.
The Commission has already introduced such training courses at European level, and we are asking the Member States to take similar initiatives in their own countries, adapting them to all levels of their administrations and legal systems.
The communication also proposes that in the customary annual report on the application of Community law, the Commission should publish an extended chapter on the environment, dealing specifically with the implementation by the Member States of Community environmental law for which there is a deadline in the year in question.
This would be supplemented by an annual survey of Community environmental law containing further information on the activities of IMPEL, for example, as Mrs van Putten was requesting, the results achieved by the Member States with regard to reporting obligations under EU law, and on relations with the European Environment Agency, as Mrs Gebhardt mentioned.
I hope that these publications will meet Parliament's wishes as regards the publicising of implementation at EU level.
Both Mrs Dybkjær and Mrs Jackson raised the question of links with the new applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I agree that this is a substantial and important issue.
We have not in fact dealt with it in detail in this communication, and I think we need to find an opportunity to have a thorough discussion of the matter.
We all share the responsibility for full implementation and enforcement of the acquis communautaire in the environment sector.
It is a responsibility which is shared by the Member States, the Commission and Parliament.
I am grateful for the enthusiasm and interest which many people in Parliament have shown over the years in improving this implementation.
Let me emphasize in conclusion that the advantages of our broad approach as regards the implementation of environmental law were clearly demonstrated at the public hearing that was organized jointly by Parliament and the Commission a year ago.
That hearing considerably increased the awareness of this issue among both politicians and citizens.
It only remains for me to hope that the Commission's communication and Parliament's excellent report can persuade the Council that there is a need for substantial improvements in implementation and enforcement.
I therefore look forward to being able to report on the progress which is made in this area.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Dangers of ionizing radiation
The next item is the report (A4-0146/97) by Mr Amadeo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive replacing Directive 84/466/Euratom on health protection of individuals against the dangers of ionizing radiation in relation to medical exposures (COM(96)0465 - C4-0548/96-96/0230(CNS)).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since 1959 we have been faced with the problem of protecting the health of the general public and of workers against the dangers of ionizing radiation.
There have been many Directives to this effect, the most recent being 29/Euratom, adopted by the Council in 1996.
That directive, however, like its predecessors, did not deal with the subject of radiation protection in cases of exposure for medical purposes.
The only attempt to do this occurred in a Directive of 1984, 466, which was intended to complement the directive on basic safety standards and improve the radiation protection of patients without losing sight of the potential benefits deriving from the use of such radiation.
This introduction will undoubtedly give you an impression of the importance of the Council's proposal, on which I have the honour to be the rapporteur.
First and foremost, by comparison with 1984, there has been an enormous increase in the number of cases of medical exposure in the course of examinations and treatment, while at the same time these last ten years have seen a massive increase in scientific and technological knowledge.
Nor can I refrain from stressing the point that, during that same period, Article 129 of the Treaty on European Union gave the Community specific powers in the public health sector.
I must also stress that the proposal for a Council Directive - even though this is an area where progress is taking place at dizzying speed, so that it is difficult to be fully abreast of events - is a sound one, and we should approve it as soon as possible.
At the same time, I must thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for the seriousness, dedication and speed with which it has dealt with this matter; thanks are also due, from the whole Parliament and especially from myself personally, to all those who have worked so courteously and efficiently to suggest improvements to the proposal under consideration.
The growing level of awareness in all Member States of the Community poses a challenge in this sector, as in others. There is ever-increasing pressure for high levels of information, education and training to be available to every citizen - health professionals, technicians and commercial operators in the sector, managers in charge of health services or institutions and authorities responsible for advising both small and large communities - demanding increasing levels of responsibility.
The message could not be clearer: 1) we must reduce the need for medical radiation by using alternative methods, methods which cost the same but involve a greater commitment in terms of time, such as echography, or methods which cost much more such as nuclear magnetic resonance; 2) we must eliminate the use of radiation for unnecessary examinations, 3) we must verify any request for examination with the prescribing physician, who must be responsible for establishing the specific indications for each individual referral; 4) we must ensure more careful use of radiation by those carrying out the examination - the radiologists, in other words - for example by way of appropriate and stringent protection in critical areas not subject to examination, and the use of appropriate sensitive material and techniques to replace conventional radiology, such as digital technology, quality controls and individual index cards for the examinations carried out.
Apart from this, we need to make correct and systematic use of a medical physicist, who will assess each intervention on the instruments used for radiotherapy.
The medical physicist will also check the suitability of the equipment on the basis of the exposure/diagnostic benefit ratio, laying down maximum and minimum reference criteria to be respected.
All this is necessary because, on the threshold of the third millennium, we believe that guaranteeing the quality of life means taking all the necessary initiatives in planning, organization, management and control to ensure complete protection for the individual against the dangers of radiation, in particular that resulting from medical exposure.
The amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment - and I note with pride that all the amendments were tabled by that committee - are intended to make the various paragraphs of the Directive clearer and more specific, and I believe that they are in harmony with the spirit that inspired the Council in the production of this Directive.
I am therefore favourable to these amendments, though I would just like to make one comment about the amendment regarding the radiological examination of pregnant women, because I believe that in these cases it is more appropriate to use alternative examination techniques such as echography and/or nuclear magnetic resonance, rather than impose further limitations and restrictions on the use of radiation.
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for his work.
I believe that this is an issue which must be taken extremely seriously.
I find it very regrettable that the report which we are now discussing is based on Chapter 3 of the Euratom Treaty, on health protection, under which this House is only able to express an opinion but not to address itself to this very important issue through codecision.
As the rapporteur has already said, in recent years there has been a huge increase in the use of X-rays, of equipment using ionizing radiation, and nowadays very many people undergo examinations - routine and preventive examinations - which simply did not exist ten or fifteen years ago.
It is very important, especially in the case of preventive examinations, on the one hand to be able to say to the person: we shall gauge our examinations with this equipment in such a way that you are exposed only to radiation which is strictly necessary.
On the other hand, however, it must certainly be made clear that such examinations can lead to the early detection of very serious illnesses, and can sometimes be used for treatment which will remove the need for an operation.
It is therefore very important to work with great precision in this area, since X-ray examinations of sick people - and even healthy ones - can do considerable harm if too much radiation is involved.
We are all aware of a number of such cases which occurred while this medical equipment was in its developmental phase.
It must also be said in this context that both the Commission's text and Parliament's improvements to it place particular emphasis on the need for quality control in the hospitals and installations concerned, and for the staff to have appropriate training.
Here I believe that the text really must contain the word 'practitioner' , as in the Commission proposal.
According to the legislation of the individual Member States, these may be doctors or persons who have achieved university entrance standards at school and then completed a three-year training course, and who are therefore competent to operate X-ray equipment and other machines.
I believe that Parliament must ensure that health issues connected with radioactive material - X-rays - are removed from the Euratom Treaty as soon as possible and included in the chapter on health protection in the general Treaty.
Madam President, we are discussing a Council directive on health protection here - an important topic - but unfortunately Parliament only has the right to consultation.
I make this point because I believe it must be stressed again and again that Parliament has too few powers.
It is also necessary to make the point because, in their ignorance of the codecision powers which Parliament actually possesses, some of the media often tend to cause considerable anxiety among those concerned, as has happened here in the case of qualified X-ray assistants, who saw their livelihoods disappearing thanks to the European Parliament.
I had to make it clear to the public that, on the one hand, the Council and not Parliament has the final say; on the other, I was also able to set minds at rest by stating that Parliament certainly had no desire to deprive these professionals of their livelihoods.
Since the Commission traditionally comes in for severe criticism here in Parliament, it is only fair to express our gratitude for once for what is an excellent proposal.
And I am delighted that those colleagues who have tabled amendments have nevertheless managed to improve this good text further still.
One thing must be made clear, I believe: the responsibility for what happens lies with the doctor in charge.
He, and he alone, gives the instructions, without this in any way diminishing the responsibilities of those carrying out the treatment.
Initial, further and in-service training have been improved, as has protection for pregnant and breast-feeding women.
This is a very good proposal and a very thorough job of work by Parliament.
We can only hope, Commissioner, that the Council will do justice to Parliament's good work.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the point has already been made that after exposure to natural radiation, medical irradiation is by far the main source of ionizing radiation.
We are thus fully in favour of a revision of the legislation which places emphasis on the principles of responsible and optimum management of exposure for medical reasons.
Rapporteur Amadeo rightly says that we must limit radiation.
But I have faith in the medical profession, as guardians of human health, to do everything possible to ensure that unnecessary or harmful examinations are avoided.
What they do have to do is use equipment which is the best available and is properly maintained.
The costs of this are enormous; but the benefits show that they are necessary costs.
The aim here is not self-indulgence, but reduction of the harmful effects of radiation.
It is not only the patient who will benefit but also the personnel operating the equipment and those who care for the patient.
Ladies and gentlemen, Member States and hospitals should remember that when they are hard-pressed by current cuts in health spending.
Madam President, as a way of introduction I should like to insist on the fact that medical exposure to ionising radiation is no different from exposure of a non-medical type.
The difference resides only in the justification: in principle, medical exposure is directly advantageous to the patient, an advantage which is meant to compensate the harm done by that radiation.
Therefore, quite rightly, the Commission has taken the initiative to amend the 1984 Directive which - I must say this and I go along completely with Mrs Flemming - is a good proposal, even if we thought it was helpful to amend it in a way which is relatively marginal.
Why do we want to change it? First of all because, as Mr Amadeo said, the relevant technologies have been greatly improved and are now widely used.
Secondly, because, since 1991, the International Committee on Radiological Protection has changed its rules on radiation on the basis of two new important elements, which have been the subject of consensus among scientific circles.
First of all, there is no such thing as inoffensive radiation.
Any radiation, albeit at low levels, will be harmful. Therefore it is important to note that there is no threshold.
Secondly, the International Committee on Radiological Protection considers that radiation can pose certain difficulties for the health of unborn children.
It is now known that a foetus of more than three weeks runs a greater risk of cancer following radiation.
We now also know that the radiation of unborn children of between eight and fifteen weeks will result in a markedly increased chance of serious mental retardment.
That has led to the changes which the Commission is proposing, in particular Articles 4 and 11, where it calls for special attention to be paid to exposure without direct medical advantages for the patient or in the case of potential pregnancy.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has found it necessary to slightly tighten up these texts asking that this type of exposure be avoided altogether.
Apart from that, I think that the Commission should support these amendments and therefore produce a text which is completely acceptable for the Council.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report on the protection of human health against the dangers of ionizing radiation associated with medical exposure could from certain standpoints be regarded as complementing Directive 80/636/ECSC, which did consider in general terms the precise subject of medical exposure.
Mr Amadeo, a doctor like myself, has done well to modify the Commission's text with amendments that were then adopted by the Committee, amendments that were broader and more technically relevant, designed to protect the health of those who come into contact with persons who have absorbed ionizing radiation - pregnant women, mothers-to-be in other words, and thus the unborn child.
There is no doubt, as the Commission has emphasized and the rapporteur has repeated, that radiological diagnosis has provided us with preventive benefits, all designed to allow early diagnosis, but it is also true that on many occasions indiscriminate use has been made of radiological diagnostic methods, such as to produce adverse effects.
The need, then, is to promote specific schemes of health education and training directed at every citizen, every health professional, the health institutions and the authorities responsible for them, whether medical or political, and so try to reduce the necessary applications of medical radiation by resorting to alternative methods, as the rapporteur has stated; we need to dispense with the use of radiation for examinations that are not strictly necessary; we need to protect the workforce and the general public against radiation with appropriate and extensive schemes on the ground and in the premises where preventive care and research take place, with, maybe, the assistance of a medical physicist to measure and monitor dosages; well, it does appear to me that both the Council and the rapporteur have made up their minds to pursue this objective.
Madam President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report on this public health issue.
I endorse the decision to update the 1984 directive which will protect people from ionizing radiation during medical exposures.
There are four main reasons for this and most of them have already been mentioned.
However, they are worth repeating.
Firstly, there is the enormous increase in the use of X-rays during medical treatment and tests over the past twelve years throughout the European Union; secondly, the significant progress in scientific knowledge and X-ray technology that has taken place over this time; thirdly, the number of international organizations that have issued more updated recommendations on X-rays, and fourthly, Article 129 of the Maastricht Treaty, which has given the European Union new powers in public health.
So it was clear that the 1984 legislation had to be updated, and I agree with the proposals.
However, we can go further.
Although radiological diagnosis provides undoubted benefits for patients, it entails risks, and for this reason we have to try to reduce the use of medical radiation where at all possible by employing alternative methods.
We must give greater attention to enforcing the highest possible safety level for patients, in particular, as many speakers have already said, for vulnerable women.
I agree with those who have called for Parliament to be further involved by way of co-decision rather than just being consulted on an issue which is of such great importance to our citizens.
I hope the IGC will redress this anomaly.
Mr President, it is a historical fact that both Roentgen, who worked with X-rays, and Pierre Curie, who together with Marie Curie discovered the element radium, suffered the harmful effects of the radiations they discovered and studied for the progress of science and for the benefit of humanity.
Since then, the harmful mutational and carcinogenic effects of ionizing radiations have been confirmed and, unfortunately, there have been many accidents from those effects including ones to people engaged in the application of radiation in medicine, in other words radiodiagnosis and radiotherapy.
Of course, we must stress and not overlook the great contribution of radiodiagnostic methods to the progress of medicine.
Today, however, we know that people should not be exposed to ionizing radiations without good reason, because they cause cell damage.
In the past, and indeed from as early as 1959, there have been Community directives on protection from radiation.
Directive 84/466/EURATOM, however, which relates to the protection from ionizing radiations of people undergoing medical examination, was approved in 1984.
That directive needs to be updated for many reasons, the most important among which are:
a)The considerable scientific and technical progress in the field of radiations for medical use.b)The large increase in the number of accidents taking place in the twelve years since 1984, from exposure to radiation for medical reasons.c)The proposals by international agencies concerning exposure to radiation for medical reasons.d)The enactment of Article 129 of the Treaty of the European Union in 1992, pursuant to which the Community was invested with specific responsibilities in the area of public health.
Thus, the amendment on the replacement of Directive 84/466/EURATOM is more than ever necessary.Among all that is described in the Directive we are considering, I should like to stress the following:
1) A very important factor in radiodiagnostic and radiotherapeutic procedures is the role and presence of a specialist doctor, not only to monitor the dose administered, but also to deal overall with any eventuality and the particular features it might present.
2) During diagnostic procedures, the principle applied should be that of obtaining the necessary diagnostic information with the least possible exposure of the patient.
During radiotherapy, the exposure of patients to radiation should be correctly calculated to constitute the optimum dose.
And most certainly, both during radiodiagnosis and during radiotherapy, those operating the equipment should be protected as much as possible in every way.
3) It is important for the equipment and installations used for radiodiagnosis and radiotherapy to be up to date, and to provide the best possible safety, both for the person being examined or undergoing therapy, and for the working participants of those medical procedures.
In this respect, the Member States also bear a serious responsibility, and must take care to inspect equipment for the production and use of ionizing radiation for medical purposes.
4) The Directive makes special mention of the serious dangers involved in the exposure of pregnant women to radiation, both for themselves and for the embryo, especially when exposure takes place in the abdominal area.
It is fortunate that today there are alternative methods of approach to certain diagnostic problems, and those methods must be used when the situation so dictates, even if they cost more.
The Directive we are considering complies in the best possible way with the Hippocratic maxim 'to benefit or not to harm' .
In conclusion, I would like to express my thanks to the rapporteur for his work, and also to all on the Committee on the Environment and Public Health who contributed towards the formulation of the Directive in the best possible way.
Mr President, there is something rotten even in this matter of radio-protection, this wonderful scientific method to benefit man's health.
There is something dangerous, and the first formal proof of it is that under the pressures of reality, the Council keeps coming back with successive directives which strive in some way to patch things up.
I am afraid that the new directive too does not address the issue radically and effectively.
The report by Mr Amadeo makes an honest and praiseworthy effort, but it too has its weaknesses.
What is involved here, Mr President?
I know that in my own country - and the same thing happens in very many other European countries - such radiological laboratories are being set up all the time, and clearly on a business basis and with business criteria.
There are some formal prerequisites, there must be a responsible radiologist and some protection against radiation.
Those companies, however, which set up such units on the basis of business criteria, constantly solicit more and more custom.
And they secure this by paying commissions to doctors to refer patients to them for repeated, sometimes unnecessary radiological examinations, which are dangerous, while on the other hand, they place terrifying burdens on social security funds.
Furthermore, Mr President, even if the doctors are honest and carry out these examinations correctly, it can happen that the way they are done does not suit the doctor responsible for treatment, who then has to call for another examination with the result that examinations are repeated and the funds are burdened still further.
Finally, Mr President, there is no monitoring, or at least no effective monitoring of the renewal of equipment in those laboratories.
This is where the business criterion of allowing equipment to get old so that writing it off will take longer and be easier, to maximize profits.
First of all, then, this equipment replacement should take place at the instigation of scientific companies and social security organizations - which suffer losses because of it - and every kind of modern technology should be introduced, as Mr Trakatellis emphasized as a person qualified to do so.
Secondly, every patient should have a social security record listing the examinations he has undergone, so that doctors can see them and order new examinations accordingly.
Without such criteria, Mr President, I am afraid that the report, which is good in other respects, will not be sufficient with its proposals and amendments, and sooner or later yet another directive will come along while in the meantime the danger to patients will still exist and grow worse, while companies that literally trade in the health of European citizens will inflate their profits.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I should like to thank Mr Amadeo for his excellent, full and meticulous report.
I must also thank him for his willingness to accept amendments: he has accepted a variety of amendments which I myself have tabled and the Committee has discussed and approved.
If these amendments are taken into account, I believe the Directive will be considerably improved.
It is true that this is a consultation procedure, and that is a serious matter.
In all my speeches in this House I have stressed, and I stress again today as we near the end of our discussions on the Intergovernmental Conference, the need to broaden the scope of the tasks allocated to Parliament in health matters - that is, the tasks referred to in Article 129.
The fact is that it has been common knowledge for some time that ionizing radiation is the major source of radiation exposure for the citizens of Europe.
So this is a very important subject, and certainly not a secondary directive, because radiation exposure is no trivial matter: it means cancer, it means malignant tumours.
Ever since 1984, in the context of the Euratom treaties, we have been trying to regulate this subject.
We did so at the time, but many years have passed since then and in 1996 another directive failed to address the subject of health problems.
That is why the present directive is important, because it broadens the requirements for the justification and optimization of diagnostic examinations of this kind. By justification I mean that such examinations should be undertaken only when they are strictly necessary - only when it is absolutely certain that there is no other, safer way of arriving at the diagnosis.
The same applies to optimization: by optimization I mean ensuring that the technician, the radiographer and the doctor are exposed to the minimum possible risk.
Well, as far as these matters are concerned I believe the present directive has taken account of the most important aspects. The amendments have clarified, in general and in detail, what the minimum exposure must be for patients, but above all special emphasis has been placed on the task of the doctor, in his dual capacity as prescribing physician - whose duty it is to prescribe one set of tests rather than another, and hence to select the least hazardous - and as examining doctor.
His task must be to ensure that the procedure prescribed entails no risk to the patient. Of course, as Mr Trakatellis said, doctors have always followed the criterion 'first, to do no harm' , and will continue to do so, but there is a need for precise standards to be laid down by the Member States.
Not only that, but the Member States will also have to adopt specific guidelines on the decommissioning and replacement of apparatus that is old, obsolete and so harmful to the patient.
In substance, Mr President, this is an important directive which has been improved by Parliament, and I trust the Commission will take it into consideration.
For this reason, it deserves our full and unanimous support.
Mr President, the Commission wishes to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and especially of course its rapporteur, Mr Amadeo, for the support that has been given to the proposal which is now before the House.
I am also grateful for the helpful comments which have been made during the process.
When the Council adopted a directive for the first time in 1984 on the radiation protection of persons undergoing medical examination or treatment, it was in recognition of the fact that this was by far the largest man-made source of radiation to which people were exposed.
The aim of the Commission's proposal to amend this directive is to take account firstly of the scientific and technical developments in the medical field, secondly of the amendment of the 1996 directive on basic safety standards and, thirdly, of the experience gained in implementing the 1984 directive.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 10.
We also agree with the purpose of several other amendments, which can be reworded slightly or perhaps included in a different article so as to ensure the coherence of the proposal.
We can therefore accept in principle or in part Amendments Nos 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 11.
The Commission cannot accept the two remaining amendments, for the following reasons.
Amendment No 6 on the consultation of a medical physicist under Article 4(1)a is seen as superfluous, since the requirement for a medical physicist to be consulted is already clearly established in Article 5(5) of the proposal.
Amendment No 12 to Article 13(2), in which the term 'practitioner' is changed to 'examining doctor' , may lead to misunderstandings.
The term 'practitioner' is used throughout the proposal to describe the person who is responsible for the medical exposure.
The same person is concerned in this article, and we should therefore use the same description.
To ensure that persons undergoing medical exposure to radiation continue to enjoy the highest possible degree of protection, the Commission will submit an amended proposal on the basis of the useful amendments which the European Parliament has presented today, with a view to having the directive adopted by the Council in June.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Trans-European telecommunications networks
The next item is the report (A4-0166/97) by Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text (C4-0166/97-95/0124(COD)), approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Decision on a series of guidelines for transEuropean telecommunications networks.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the trans-European telecommunications networks are the third of the trans-European networks to take shape, after those for transport and energy.
Let me begin with one fundamental comment: the aim of the telecom TENs is to establish a European telecommunications infrastructure which, in addition to the physical telecommunications network, will include generic services and applications for our citizens and businesses, especially SMEs.
The outcome of the negotiations can be seen as positive.
Here it must be emphasized that the successful conclusion of the conciliation process was greatly helped by the excellent coordination and leadership of Mrs Fontaine, Parliament's representative and chief negotiator, but also by the willingness of the Dutch presidency, under Mrs Jorritsma, to accept many of our arguments, as well as the very influential advice of the Commission in the form of Mr Bangemann.
Even though the overall budget for the telecom TENs, ECU 40 million, will not permit any major strides forward, the purpose and aim of the projects cannot be questioned.
The resources available will cofinance and support European projects which would not come about without Union funding.
These EU-funded projects will thus contribute to the development of the information society.
The negotiations concerned elements of substance and technical aspects, the powers of the European Parliament, priorities and satellite communications, which has been added to the list of priorities.
Parliament's key demand in terms of technical aspects was to insist on the wide use of applications.
Generic services such as E-mail and applications were given more emphasis than in the Commission's original text.
The TEN projects are not research projects, since those are included in the fourth research framework programme, but are designed to demonstrate to our citizens and businesses the practical and economic benefits of information and communication technologies.
The Parliament delegation argued successfully that the criterion concerning the transnational nature of projects should be retained; hence there is a guarantee that EU funds will not be used in support of national projects which remain national in the future.
Moreover, Parliament argued successfully for social requirements to be assessed in this decision.
The social consequences of new technologies, for example teleworking, will be taken into account.
The powers of the European Parliament were of course a particularly important aspect of the negotiations for us, and preserving Parliament's institutional powers was in fact the greatest obstacle.
From the start of the legislative procedure, Parliament had insisted that its rights under Article 129c and d should be protected.
Here, our scope for codecision in the procedure for establishing the guidelines for projects of common interest has been retained.
Parliament's powers were fully asserted in the negotiations within the Conciliation Committee, in that a practice similar to the one for the TENs in energy and transport was established.
The projects of common interest are identified in Annex I to the decision.
The annex, to be drawn up jointly by the Council and Parliament, thus sets out guidelines, and the Commission has made it perfectly clear - and has presented a text to this effect - that it undertakes to report on the transposition of these guidelines and to present under the codecision procedure, by the middle of 2000, appropriate proposals for the revision of the list of projects of common interest.
This proposal must be adopted within the following 18 months, in other words by 31 December 2001, when the validity of this annex lapses.
The action is thus guaranteed to continue uninterrupted.
Moving on to the priorities, the annex sets out some priorities which are of particular importance to us.
These are generic services, applications of collective interest concerning distance education and training, cultural heritage, services to SMEs and telematics for transport, the environment and health.
The plan put forward by the Commission, and in particular Mr Bangemann, to include satellite services in the telecom TENs, is of special importance to me personally and also to Parliament, although the Council was initially reluctant to approve it.
This is an indication that satellites will play a far more prominent role in our deliberations in the future than has been the case until now, so that the trans-European networks - connected to global networks - will function even more effectively.
I believe that the reports which are to come next - the satellite action plan or our discussion of it so far, the agreement on personal communications services by satellite and the directive or Commission proposal on the subject of the European Union and aerospace - all demonstrate our clear intention to assess the implications of this issue in much greater depth for the benefit of the public, so as to make it clear that this important sector of European industry needs promotion.
I believe that some important tasks lie ahead of the EU - the Commission and Parliament - in a global context here, and that we must pool our efforts.
We must involve all the major players, including my friend Mr Glante from the PSE Group, who helped us bring this matter to a successful conclusion.
Thank you very much for your attention.
This is the direction in which we are heading, and I believe that it can only lead to success.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a pat on the back is very welcome every now and then in this business, Mr Hoppenstedt.
It was the first time that I personally had taken part in conciliation proceedings, and I must say that I found it very exciting and often very instructive.
I can only endorse the basic comments made by Mr Hoppenstedt, and should just like to add a few of my own.
Telecom TENs, in my view, can only be compared up to a point with the other TENs in energy and transport, where the main aim is to improve or create network infrastructure, in other words hardware.
In the case of telecom TENs, the focus is not so much on hardware as on software, in the broadest sense.
We need appropriate applications, using existing and new infrastructure, which will enable potential users to access these technologies.
We must introduce people - consumers, employers and employees - to these technologies and allay their fears of them.
However, we must also create the conditions for money to be made from these technologies, since otherwise there will be no private investment, which is absolutely vital in this area.
Politics, in my opinion, is nearly always the art of reaching a compromise.
I noticed that everyone became more willing to compromise as time went by.
As Mrs Fontaine will remember, I said in one of the meetings that a good compromise is one which is a little painful to both sides, or to all three sides.
That, I believe, is the case with this outcome.
I particularly welcome the Commission's promise to make a statement to the House on Article 14 of the decision.
This is a crucial aspect of the outcome of the conciliation process and will, I believe, secure Parliament's demand for codecision, and my group will certainly vote in favour of this outcome.
I hope that the House as a whole will do likewise.
Mr President, Commissioner, I really do welcome the fact that we have finally arrived at a positive outcome to this conciliation on the telecommunications networks, both because this final text largely reflects the European Parliament's recommendations and because it is a matter of urgency that these guidelines for European policy should be confirmed.
Hardly a week passes without new microelectronic components appearing on the market, and it takes less and less time to develop digital electronic technologies for network access and navigation and for the compression and storage of data. Although it is true that these things take longer for telecommunications network operators, satellite designers and publishers of audiovisual material, it is equally true that even in this sector events are being massively accelerated by the disappearance of monopolies and the globalization of markets, together with a substantial influx of private investment.
Government authorities, for their part, have powers of supervision and guidance, and may also become important customers for applications such as public information, health, education and regional planning, applications that may involve them at both local and national level.
In the United States this type of symbiosis takes place mainly at local level, I understand, with 'smart communities' on the lines of Silicon Valley, but in Europe the telecommunications networks and the information society can and must become an instrument of policy for the single market, of interregional cohesion and cross-border co-operation.
This is why I also support the recommendation that the Structural Funds, too, should occasionally be used for applications of this type. I would add that the Cohesion Funds could also be used to increase opportunities for the financing of new enterprises in the information society sector.
I also note the part that telecommunications networks can play in our foreign policy, building bridges between different economic and cultural realities. I am glad to note that satellite services, too, have been accepted at least by the Commission in this decision.
In two weeks' time a symposium is to be held in Cairo, organized by the Commission and the ESA and dealing with this very subject - the trans-Mediterranean information society and satellite applications - and I look forward to seeing meaningful and specific signals from governments and from operators in the sector concerned.
I must make one comment on the fact that the guidelines of this decision now relate to the three levels of the network system - applications, services and infrastructures: I believe that in the applications sector the Commission must act as a unifying force for potential users, a pilot customer and a financial support for small and medium-sized enterprises, whereas in the services and infrastructure sectors the Union's main task should be to ensure interoperability and support for technological research.
Finally, I congratulate Mr Hoppenstedt on his report and on his vigorous efforts to strengthen the role of the European Parliament in this decision.
Mr President, Commissioner, the information society provides unique opportunities for people to fulfil perhaps their most basic need for communication, for proximity, the need to speak and express one's views, to communicate with other people and with the world around them.
Development has been rapid with TV, radio, the Internet, e-mail etc., and it will continue.
Our task as elected representatives is to ensure that the information society is made available to all and that those investments which are made benefit the majority and do not damage health or the natural world.
These guidelines were put forward by the Commission in 1995.
During their discussions Parliament has always placed emphasis on the social aspects, public utilisation, the environmental impact and on determining those projects which are in the public interest and under Parliament's influence.
I think that the proposal from the Conciliation Committee, in which I myself participated on behalf of the Liberal group, agrees essentially with Parliament's views in this respect.
I would particularly like to emphasise the cross border aspects and the issues concerning language and culture in less developed regions.
It is also important and beneficial that we establish those projects which are in the public interest and that a number of these are prioritised, such as distance learning, small and medium sized companies, the environment and health and satellite communication.
The Liberal group supports the proposal from the Conciliation Committee.
We think it is a step along the way to the information society and a trans-european telecommunications network for all.
Mr President, we think it is vitally important for the European Parliament to support the outcome of the agreement in the Conciliation Committee aimed at bringing about a final approval after more than a year of tough negotiations of a set of guidelines relating to the trans-European telecommunications networks.
The aim of this decision consists in establishing the main thrust of action which has been proposed and to identify projects of common interest which would benefit from Community subsidies in accordance with the regulation setting the new principles for the granting of financial aid by the Community in the framework of the trans-European network.
Indeed, both the 18 technical amendments and the decision to identify projects of common interest and their priorities and the introduction of satellite communications in Appendix I, including its revision clause, mean that we must approve, in the plenary session, the whole agreement text - for the general interests of the ordinary people of the European Union who will definitely be the end beneficiaries of the proper operation of the programme of trans-European telecommunications networks.
In order for this to take place, this programme must be based not only on a network of telecommunications directed at the major undertakings in the sector but also at fostering the creation of jobs and the promotion of the development of telecommunications in the less-favoured rural areas of the European Union where, because of special characteristics, the proper dissemination of this sector will prove more complicated - as is the case, for example, in the ultra-peripheral regions.
The first step will be to foster the creation of aids for small and medium-sized enterprises in the telecommunications sector, which are generators of a high percentage of job creation in Europe, as well as improving the infrastructures which these enterprises install where there is a lack of telecommunications networks and where it is far from convenient to do so.
In order for this to be done, we must identify, as project of common interest, that which improves these deficiencies and which, in turn, can be applied to areas as important - as has already been said - for our society as universities, transport, health centres and small and medium-sized enterprises, to mention just a few.
Bearing in mind the social purpose of telecommunications networks, it is vital that these projects should be approved, bearing in mind their very nature, their economic viability, their environmental consequences and, above all, as has already been said, their social and economic effects on European society, and in particular the impact on employment.
Finally, the disagreements which have cropped up could be solved if we make a joint effort and try to bring about a solution to the differences between the parties involved. We must unanimously back the assessment made by the European Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee which has carried out such a good piece of work.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today sees the conclusion of yet another co-decision process, this time on the guidelines for the trans-European telecommunications networks, in which the European Parliament has played a fundamental role.
This is a vital sector for the future of European society and economy and is a prerequisite for enabling European citizens and European Union enterprises, especially SMEs, to benefit fully from the opportunities offered by telecommunications in the perspective of the establishment of the information society.
In fact, telecommunication services and networks are fundamental if every citizen, enterprise or public authority is to have access to the type and amount of information that they need, including those situated in the least developed or peripheral regions.
Through this programme, the Community will be backing the interconnection of telecommunications infrastructures, essentially in order to improve competitiveness, especially of SMEs, and to strengthen the internal market, strengthen economic and social cohesion, bearing in mind in particular the need to link up island regions, land-locked regions, and peripheral regions to the more central regions of the European community as well as speeding up the development of activities which create jobs in new growth sectors.
A new project has already been planned for, concerning satellite communications - also coming to be regarded as a common interest sector.
The Commission's decision to set a maximum deadline of four years for proposing the revision of Appendix I, on projects of common interest, the latter ceasing to exist if the deadline is overrun, will, I hope, prevent political holdups in the Council.
From my point of view, as member of the Conciliation Committee, this is a good agreement and it shows how the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament can and must work together to define policies which will have so much influence on the future of European society.
It is also a good agreement because each of these institutions has shown that it can develop the role incumbent upon it: the Commission proposes, the European Parliament defines the strategy and fundamental sectors and it is for national governments to execute the project.
Finally, I would like to congratulate the noteworthy conciliatory effort made by our Vice-President, Nicole Fontaine, and our rapporteur Mr Hoppenstedt.
I have one further question for Mr Bangemann: the telecoms sector comprises hardware, software and manpower.
Where do we go from here? How will you attempt to ensure that this sector is managed equally successfully in the future?
I shall be very brief: all the distinctions which we are working with today are likely to fade away in the future: in other words, whole systems will be developed where it will no longer even be possible to distinguish the hardware, or infrastructure, from the content, or software.
We are therefore assuming that in the future, we shall no longer be able to apply all today's distinctions, but will have to devise entirely new methods.
But we are looking into this, and will soon report back to you. Convergence will be our watchword.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item on the agenda is questions to the Commission (B4-0165/97).
I give Mrs García Arias the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I should like to ask a question on a point of order before this session begins.
One of the Commissioners here today is Mr Van Miert.
I have heard it said that preference is given to questions which are related to a particular Commissioner and this is quite right.
As a result, I still do not understand why questions 77 and 78, put by Mr Joan Colom i Naval, and the first question put by myself, on changes to the rules on television decoders, have not been included in the set of questions put to Mr Van Miert and have been placed under the heading 'Other questions' .
Mr Van Miert is taking these questions along with Mr Bangemann.
Therefore, Mr President, I think that these questions must be included in the debate with Mr Van Miert, because the subject matter of these questions is Mr Van Miert's responsibility.
Mrs García Arias, if you so wish, when the Commissioner is here, I shall give you the floor but I must tell you that the matter of which questions are allocated to the different Commissioners is a decision of the Commission, not the European Parliament.
The Commission disagrees with you and feels that your question comes within Mr Bangemann's competence and not Mr Van Miert's.
The European Parliament has no powers to change decisions concerning Commissioners' competences.
Mr President, on many occasions we have seen this question dealt with by the Spanish press either directly or unofficially, both by Commissioner Bangeman and Commissioner Van Miert.
I understand that you are telling me that it is the Commission which is responsible for deciding which Commissioner should answer which questions; but, when we, as members of this Parliament, decide to put a question to Mr Van Miert we do so regardless of whether we also want to put a similar one to Mr Bangemann.
Mrs García Arias, there is an agreemetn between the two institutions that the President of the European Parliament decides the order of the questions and it is for the Commission to decide who answers what questions.
Question No 30 by Laura González Álvarez (H-0339/97)
Subject: Suspension of World Trade Organization (WTO) proceedings against the US in connection with the Helms-Burton Act
Can the Commission provide information on the grounds for suspending the proceedings brought against the US within the WTO in connection with the application of the Helms-Burton Act?
Has the Commission taken account of Parliament's resolutions on the Helms-Burton Act?
Is the Commission aware that a Spanish businessman has been detained in the US under the Helms-Burton Act?
Given the understanding reached between the Commission and the United States and the commitments undertaken in it by the United States, the Council agreed that the current WTO panel proceedings in respect of the Helms-Burton Libertad legislation will now be suspended but, if action is taken against EU companies or individuals under the Libertad Act or under the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act, or waivers as described in the understanding are not granted or withdrawn, the Commission will request the WTO to restart or re-establish the panel which will then follow its natural course.
The Commission always takes into account the resolutions of the European Parliament when formulating its proposals.
The Commission is aware of the arrest of a Spanish citizen, apparently under the so-called Trading-With-the-Enemy Act.
This legislation existed prior to the Helms-Burton Act.
Commissioner, you have nearly answered our questions but I would just like to say a couple of things to you and put another question.
First of all, I think that most of the members of the European Parliament - and public opinion - welcomed the decision by the European Commission when, in a laudable exercise of independence, it complained to the World Trade Organisation.
And I think that many of us welcome this because it seems that for the first time the European Union was facing up to a decision by the United States which clearly violated international law.
It seems to us that the Helms-Burton Act not only violates international law but it is also an immoral law.
It seems that this agreement with the United States has been reached on the basis of a freeze of Title 3 and on the basis of a possible revision by the United States Congress - which of course has a Republican majority - of Title 4.
Are you sure that this revision is going to take place? And in any case, should we not appeal against a decision to imprison a Spanish businessman on the basis of the Helms-Burton Act?
First of all I should like to say how much I appreciate the support that you have given to the Commission and the understanding that was reached.
I fully agree with the honourable Member about the unacceptability not only of the Helms-Burton Act, but also of the D'Amato Act covering Iran and Libya.
That is why we took action of an unprecedented kind not only in the WTO, but also in European Union legislation.
The understanding between the Commission and the United States is not a final settlement but a preliminary step.
If we do not make the progress we hope to make then we have the full right to return to the WTO.
If action is taken against European companies we certainly will do so.
The particular case of Mr Ferrerro, who was arrested, was under legislation which was on the American statute book long before the Helms-Burton Act. It is not the subject of the dispute between the European Union and the United States.
As I understand the position, the Spanish Government is giving consular assistance to Mr Ferrerro and is in touch with his defence attorney.
Commissioner, referring to the situation of the Spanish businessman, I think you referred to application of legislation which was on the United States Statute Book before the Helms-Burton Act and that, in any case, his defence was a matter solely for the Spanish Government.
My question is this: do you not think that in the exercise of European powers a European citizen - who has been imprisoned over restrictions on international trade - should not also deserve the support of the European Commission and, in any case, the European Council since this is a European citizen we are dealing with?
I can understand, and have every sympathy for, the viewpoint put forward by the honourable Member and, of course, have every sympathy for the Spanish citizen in question.
But it is not the case that every time there is an allegation of illegal activity under a law outside the European Union that the Commission or the Council of Ministers is asked to act.
It is only if there has been a breach of obligations under the WTO.
In the first instance one would expect that question, if it arose, to be raised by the government of the Member State of the citizen concerned.
So far there has not been a suggestion that this is a breach of United States international obligations which necessitates or requires action by the European Union.
I remain open to the examination of that question if it should arise.
Question No 31 by Michael Elliott (H-0334/97)
Subject: Import tariffs
Could the Commission confirm that, following the introduction of European legislation to prohibit the use of hormones in livestock farming, the USA applied extra duties payable on a range of products imported into the USA from the European Union as a compensatory measure?
Would the Commission say what the products were, how much money was involved and whether this practice has been challenged through the WTO?
Mr President, it is true that on 1 January 1989 the United States imposed unilaterally a series of retaliation measures, consisting in the imposition of a 100 % duty on European Community exports to the United States of beef, ham, processed or preserved tomatoes, coffee, low-alcohol drinks, fruit juices and pet foods.
The United States calculated that these measures were worth 97.2 million dollars.
The United States made two small reductions for ham and tomato juice amounting to a further 4.5 million dollars, having reached an agreement in 1989 that the export of hormone-free beef from the United States to the European communities would be allowed.
On 17 April 1996, the European Commission asked for consultations to be carried out, within the framework of the WTO, on these United States measures, on the basis that these measures were contrary to its obligations towards WTO.
Later, given that no progress was made on these consultations, the Commission asked for a group of experts to be set up.
The United States withdrew these measures unilaterally on 15 July 1996.
I am most grateful to the Commissioner for that answer but we have learned in the last few days that it seems the WTO panel will find against the Commission on the complaint taken out by the USA on the issue of EU meat imports containing hormones.
I believe that the vast majority of Members of this Parliament would wish the Commission to appeal against this shocking decision.
So, I ask the Commission to indicate which measures it would take to appeal against any such decision by the WTO.
Secondly, will the Commission ensure that when changes to GATT are being negotiated, the health and welfare of European citizens and their farm animals can be properly protected and not susceptible to the kind of commercial pressure which seems to be being exerted under GATT by the United States?
Mr President, in answer to the second question, the European Commission's position is well known.
We were in favour of developing and strengthening the World Trade Organisation, as a general principle, and actually we think that the arrangements provided for by that organisation are the ones which should enable us to find a solution to the problem which you have pointed out.
Of course, in this complicated world of trade relations, the European Union, Mr Elliott, will sometimes win and sometimes lose.
Those are the rules of the game and I hope that this one should not come as a surprise to you.
That said, there is no doubt that, at the World Trade Organisation, attention should also be paid not only to questions of free trade but also, of course, those which might, above all, concern matters over which European public opinion is highly sensitive and which of course, refer to questions as important as consumer health.
Question No 32 by Concepció Ferrer (H-0325/97)
Subject: Free movement and transport of agricultural products within the European Union
In the light of the attacks in recent years by groups of French farmers on lorries transporting Spanish fruit and vegetable products - especially strawberries - to other European Union Member States.
Has the Commission taken any steps to prevent such attacks occurring this year and thereby ensure that the French Government complies with Articles 5 and 7 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, which guarantee the free movement of goods within the territory of the Member States and within the EU?
Mr President, Mrs Ferrer, under Articles 5 and 30 of the Treaty, it is the responsibility of the Member States to take the necessary measures to guarantee that individuals cannot take action which could interfere with the proper operation of the internal market and the free circulation of goods.
Replying in more detail and having made the principle quite clear to the answer which you have put on Spanish fruit and vegetables, including strawberries, and their transport across France, in exercise of its powers and precisely because the French authorities have not intervened to put an end to the repeated excesses committed by groups of farmers against the farm products of others Member States, in this case from its southern neighbour, the Commission has taken proceedings to make sure that France respects the obligations by which it is bound.
A decision by the Court of Justice in Luxembourg is now awaited.
The Commission has therefore made use of the only legal instrument which it can under the Treaty and, of course, the Commission must hope that a judgment will be delivered.
We are right to hope for this, believe me, because the Commission is in no way passive on this and logically it is paying particular attention to the development of the campaign for marketing fruit and vegetables and in particular raising the awareness of the French authorities, with the independence with which the Court of Justice delivers judgments - which will imply a series of legal consequences and pecuniary ones too - in favour of those who have suffered from this type of attack and we simply hope that, through this co-operation, a much more positive attitude will be taken by the French authorities in the future.
Commissioner, there is no doubt that, in this case, the Commission's powers are limited.
And it seems that it has done what it had to do.
However, this is going to take two years before the Court of Justice.
In the meantime lorries have been set fire to, lorry drivers transporting fruit, especially strawberries, across the border have been the object of violence.
Unfortunately this year, these attacks have once again begun and at least one lorry has been attacked.
Therefore, I would ask you, on behalf of those who have also asked the Commission to take action on this matter, the Federation of Fruit and Vegetable Producers and Exporters, not only to look into this question but also - and I make an appeal to you - to make sure that the Council puts an end to these events which provide such a negative image of European construction and all that it stands for.
I can confirm to you the Commission has been informed that, on 24 April last, a lorry loaded with 21 tonnes of tomatoes was detained and attacked on the motorway between Avignon and Marseille.
The Commission immediately contacted the French authorities.
However, I must say truthfully and in order to put the facts rights, that the judgment delivered by the Court of Justice is logically going to be decided by case-law, Mrs Ferrer, by tradition and on the basis of the precedents of former judgments by the Court. And here I must, therefore, try to be as neutral as possible because this is the real situation - but it could, in fact, hold this state responsible for the damage which has been suffered on its national territory and offer appropriate compensation.
I must point out, regardless of the fact that these attacks should never take place, that is true is that the state concerned by these attacks systematically meets all the demands for compensation.
The Commissioner says that people can claim compensation but he will be aware of the situation of the British lorry drivers who were held up by the French lorry drivers' strike.
There an agreement was made on compensation.
It was agreed that claims for less than £250 a day could be accepted without question.
It was also agreed that claim forms could be designed in English and supporting documents and evidence submitted in English.
And yet the French authorities are now insisting on breakdowns for small claims and insisting that claims be submitted in French.
UK lorry drivers are being discriminated against and I would like to ask the Commissioner what action the Commission will take to make sure that the French Government does not actually hold up the process with complicated requirements and indeed whether he will give this House an undertaking that he will intervene with the French authorities to ensure that justice is done in the case of the British lorry drivers and indeed their Spanish colleagues?
Again I insist that the Court of Justice still has not taken a decision.
However, there is already a series of Court of Justice decisions according to which, when there is a violation of Community legislation by a Member State, it is possible to ask a national court to make that Member State pay appropriate compensation.
In accordance with French law, the French state is responsible for any damage caused to persons or goods as a result of the use of force or violence during demonstrations or similar protests.
As a consequence, this type of request could be made by the British lorry drivers.
I do not think that it is an act of discrimination that claims in France should be submitted in French; this is a matter of French national law and it seems to me totally logical that compensation claims...
(Interruption for technical reasons)
As I see that Mr Marín has taken advantage of the interruption to reply directly to certain members, I give the floor to Mrs Hardstaff.
In fact my question was very much on the same lines as that of Mr Watson and the Commissioner has been kind enough to come round and explain individually.
So I withdraw.
As the authors of questions No 33 and 34 are not present, the questions fall.
Question No 35 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0303/97)
Subject: Priority measures for northern Morocco
The economic and social situation of northern Morocco has been deteriorating increasingly and promises of imminent regional development and Euromediterranean investment have failed to reduce the prevailing scepticism.
What investments have been made in the last three years?
When is the long-awaited road from Tangier to Oujda, which is crucial to the economic development of the region, expected to be completed? Is the Commission aware that the few major companies in the region are closing down?
What is the timetable for the completion of EU-funded projects?
What projects are planned over the next few years?
Through its programmes the Commission is paying considerable attention to economic and social development of the northern provinces of Morocco, in accordance with the priority given by the Moroccan authorities themselves to the subject.
Between 1993 and 1996 the European Union financed projects totalling 118 million ECU in total value.
In addition there have been European Investment Bank loans which, over the same period, came to 267 million ECU plus 471 million ECU coming from the Member States.
In other words over the last three years projects and programmes have been implemented to a total value of 857 million ECU, a third of which approximately was made up of loans.
As far as the completion of the Tangier-Oujda road is concerned, which would be an important factor for ending the isolation of the northern provinces of the country, no firm date has yet been set for work to begin.
On the other hand, the Commission is aware of the difficulties confronting Moroccan enterprises in that area, as you pointed out in your question.
As for the timetable for projects to be financed in the northern Moroccan provinces, as well as programmes whose completion is planned over the coming years, these were established in the Indicative Programme 1996-1997 which was recently established by common agreement between the Commission and the Moroccan authorities.
In particular, this programme provides for a project of integrated rural development and a project for setting up industrial areas, which used to be called development 'poles' .
Further various national projects have also been undertaken in the northern Moroccan provinces.
As you will see the amount of investment over the last three years has been quite considerable and I would also say that, within the programming which was completed a month ago, we have also included a project for integrated rural development in this area as well as the creation of an industrial development zone.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for this reply which is both practical and sets out some of the priorities.
However, I think that there is still a problem in terms of the difference between approved investment and what is perceived as regional development.
This question reflects the true feelings in that area which is undoubtedly one of scepticism, of terrible doubt, among those who ought to be the beneficiaries - in other words, the ordinary people - because in reality that regional development has not actually reached them.
Believe me, Commissioner, we could also approve of projects on paper but this is not a fact.
Therefore my question has a completely constructive aspect and I am looking for a reply to this enormous problem of developing the whole of the Mediterranean area, because we are making a start but we have no power really to deal with the reality on the ground.
You have not actually given much precision or at least as much as I would have liked about practical projects and the timetable involved.
But that is not what is lacking.
I see that there is agreement, as you yourself have stated, between the European Union and the Moroccan authorities and this is quite satisfactory as far as I am concerned.
But what we really now have to do is tell the ordinary people living in the northern Moroccan provinces that this is so, in order for them to be able to take part as we would like, because so far they have seen nothing of the things that we have decided.
That is the problem.
I have to tell you that, in terms of the 1993-1996 projects, on health and family planning, job creation, forestry eco-systems, farming credits and reconversion, the fight against drugs, drinking water and drainage systems, rural roads and tracks and a small involvement by NGOs, as well as intervention by the Farming Intervention Fund and the National Farming Credit Bank, this has already been done.
As for the timetable for 1996 and later: this is now being prepared, because only just before the Malta meeting was the programming completed together with the Moroccan authorities.
This is a partnership and, of course, this has to be discussed and negotiated with the Moroccan side.
A 40 million ECU programme has been established for integrated rural development in the northern part of Morocco and, also together with the Moroccan authorities, a 24 million ECU programme has been established to create an industrial development zone.
This is something which is going to be done
As for the roads, I should also add that a programme has been established already, to the tune of 30 million ECU, which is to be signed very soon, and the first stage has already been agreed by the Moroccan Government.
To the extent that the Moroccan Government asked for an extension to the current road programme and inclusion of the Tangier-Oujda road, in reply to the Moroccan request the Commission might well include some parts of the road, at the same time, I must tell you that we wish to use up all of the money from the MEDA Programme on cement, on infrastructure, because we feel that Morocco has a sufficient level of development so that most of the infrastructures already started can be completed not by means of donations but by means of the loans from the European Investment Bank.
We think that this is a problem of balance.
Of course, I think - and as far as putting this into practice quickly is concerned this is up to the will of the Moroccan Government - the most that we can do is to guarantee visibility which means - if we are to do this as well as we can - that we must conduct the same campaign as we did with the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Funds: every time that there is a road we should put up lots of placards along the road.
However, I think that it is very difficult - not only in Morocco but in any country around the Mediterranean - to make public opinion see - only two or three months following programming - that these European Union backed projects actually have immediate effects on their way of life, in the case of people living in the mountains or on small farms.
This is a process which will inevitably have to be carried out in the long term.
Mr President, the Commissioner was unable to answer Question No 34, but further to that question, I should like to take up the last point he made. What matters is not just resources for infrastructure, but above all cultural cooperation, cooperation on education and training.
We initially made the mistake in Central and Eastern Europe of transferring more money, but neglecting education and training for the people.
Could you tell us about the cultural elements of our cooperation with Morocco and North Africa?
I am very pleased to be asked this question because, bearing in mind the mistakes which had been committed in respect of countries in central and eastern Europe, the 'mise à niveau' programme, to use the Moroccan terminology, in other words the programme for adaptation to a free trade zone, uses up nearly 80 % of all of the MEDA programme's resources.
And yet precisely in applying the MEDA programme we are trying to avoid subsidies which should really be earmarked for the 'mise à niveau' for vocational training, for increasing the standards, above all, of workers in the region's countries, for guaranteeing the incorporation of new technologies, for preparing mentalities, for adapting the industrial fabric -that is where most financial aid has been concentrated.
What we are trying to do is to make sure that the infrastructure - the future infrastructure - in these countries enables them gradually to be incorporated into the system of low interest rate loans from the European Investment Bank.
This is the approach that we are taking.
As they deal with the same subject, the follwoing questions will be taken together:
Question No 36 by Mr Newens (H-0309/97)
Subject: Trade with Cuba
Would the Commission make a statement about the dialogue with Cuba and how it can be reactivated and indicate the ways in which it might be possible to make early progress towards the achievement of a trade and cooperation agreement?
Question No 37 by Mr Bontempi (H-0311/97)
Subject: Trade with Cuba
How is it proposed to make progress in the stalled talks which could lead to a trade and cooperation agreement between the European Union and Cuba?Question No 38 by Mr David Morris (H-0312/97)
Subject: Humanitarian aid to Cuba
Following initiatives by European doctors involved with the Swiss-based 'medicuba' NGO, which raised $100 000 in 1996 alone to finance basic products for the Cuban pharmaceutical industry, what is the Commission doing to ensure that essential medical services and supplies to innocent and peaceful citizens of Cuba are not imperilled by the US embargo and the Helms Burton Act?
I thank Mr Newens and Mr Bontempi for their questions and I shall try to offer some details on the subject which keeps coming up in order to say exactly what we are doing and what we think should be done.
You are perfectly aware of the common position of the European Union vis-à-vis Cuba, as was expressed by the Council of Ministers, on 2 December 1996.
Every aspect and arrangement for relations with that country were specified on that occasion.
The Commission is and always has been in favour of pursuing dialogue with the Cuban authorities in the light of that common position and, therefore, on the basis of the latest information which is to hand: the drafting of the second report by European ambassadors in Havana - we are considering (given that in June the six months for which that common position was in effect will be coming to an end, and coinciding with the time when the Council of Ministers - and I imagaine the European Parliament too - will be assessing the situation and will be taking initiatives) carrying out an assessment of the ideas contained in the ambassadors' report.
How are we doing that? At the moment, the European Commission is perfectly able to demonstrate that, bearing in mind certain very important points which we actually think are fundamental in terms of human rights, opening Cuban society, in respect, of course, of its national integrity, its way of understanding the revolution and its own future, bearing in mind certain requirements the Commission has nothing to regret because we have really made a very important effort in the last three years.
This is the first time that I am giving the European Parliament a concrete reading of the way in which humanitarian aid cooperation is being carried out with Cuba: between 1993 and 1996 we spent a total of 45 million ECU.
This aid includes food, medicine, medical equipment and health products.
The Commission is at present working out a global plan for this year which will come to approximately 8 million ECU and it will deal with the despatch of medicines, raw material for making medicines, food - especially soya oil, meat and milk powder - as well as health equipment for hospitals.
The distribution programme has already been worked out; this will be carried out through hospital centres and pharmacists and will be aimed at the most vulnerable section of the Cuban population - in other words, babies, pregnant women, the elderly and the chronically sick.
This distribution and its follow-up will be carried out by 11 European NGOs which will make sure that the operation is carried out properly and so far they have not pointed out any problem connected with the US embargo policy.
As a consequence, in respect of the first and second questions which I was asked, we think that, at the moment, it is very difficult to determine exactly what the impact is going to be on Cuba's relations wit the European Union.
Secondly, at the moment we are trying to assess the ambassadors' report, which is a recent one.
Thirdly, we shall have to find some type of response given that the common position is only valid for six months and will come to an end in July - in other words something has to be done before July.
Fourthly, the humanitarian aid and cooperation programmes which we are developing have now reached a fairly considerable volume in our opinion and, as far as the execution of the global plan this year is concerned, the decisions which have been taken are the ones which I have just pointed out.
I thank the Commissioner for all the information.
In view of the fact that numerous countries in the world with which the European Union has cooperative agreements and close economic relations have much worse human rights records than Cuba, would the Commissioner agree that there can be no justification for rejecting a Cuban agreement on these grounds, although we will continue to raise the issues in question?
Since the Cuban Government wants a cooperative agreement and numerous European Union Member States have trading agreements with Cuba, why cannot we achieve an agreement on this basis?
I too would like to say that I quite understand the Commission's position; and I also look forward with some interest to the expiry of the common position. It does seem to me, though, precisely because of the pressure exerted by the United States, that we are in danger of lacking a unified strategy on relations with Cuba.
The Helms-Burton affair on the one hand and the understanding reached on trade and the block on any possibility of joint action on the other, make me wonder whether, when the common position expires, it may not be appropriate for us to make a strong, independent effort to define a unified strategy for relations with Cuba, otherwise we shall always be at the mercy of the quota system.
I want to thank the Commission for its full reply.
However, while we can wait to see what happens on the trade front, I do not think that disease and sickness waits for us at all.
There must be a positive response.
As the Commission knows, the US has the genius of producing drugs and medicines much more cheaply than possibly any other country in the world.
But, there is an embargo on Cuba purchasing medicines from the US.
It is, in fact, now accepted that there is an international agreement based on human rights, to the effect that medicines must be permitted to move freely even in wartime.
That is being denied to the people of Cuba.
I would like to ask the Commissioner what actions he has taken to persuade the US to abandon its embargo on the sale of medicines, which are cheap for the US to produce?
Can I take it that the Commission is giving an assurance that trade negotiations can go ahead, irrespective of the US position on the Helms-Burton Act, and that it will be protecting European companies?
You have understood right.
This is included in the common position.
The common position says quite clearly that, to the extent that the dialogue with the Cuban authorities is advancing, if progress is made in terms of opening up Cuban society and the economy, then it will be possible to make decisions with an autonomous and specific decision.
It is indeed possible.
I should like to thank Mr Marín for his explanation.
You are right, Mr President, we are always happy to listen to him.
However, there is a concern which has been made clear in the questions put by my colleagues: how is it that, in the case of certain countries with which we have an agreement - I should not really give an example, but there is a very clear example, that of Turkey, with which we have a customs agreement - why is it that we do not ask them to respect human rights? Our Sakharov prizewinner, Leyla Zana was unable to come here to collect her prize.
However, we do ask Cuba to respect human rights.
Despite my question, I would like to thank Mr Marín for his explanations because it seems that there could be a possibility of dialogue and that is something that we would all applaud.
Of course, I admit that it is quite easy for anyone - and I hope that this is going to be resolved at the Intergovernmental Conference - to demonstrate that the European Union not only has double standards but also has treble or quadruple standards ever since what happened in Geneva on the human rights in China.
Since then, quite frankly - and I say this with respect to the European Parliament - it is quite difficult for any European parliamentarian, Commissioner or Member State, to try to say that we are coherent on this.
Undoubtedly we are not.
That is all that I can say.
Since the time allocated to this part of Question Time has been used up, Questions 39 to 41 will receive written answers.
Question No 42 by Mr Camisón Asensio (H-0299/97)
Subject: Support for renewable energy sources and the use thereof in rail transport
Does the Commission believe that appropriate measures are being adopted by the EU Member States to support renewable energy sources and the use thereof in rail transport?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission considers that the part played by renewable energy sources in the European Union's energy supply system should be amplified.
This indeed, is one of the central messages of the Green Paper 'Energy for the future - renewable energy sources' recently issued by the Commission.
In the past too, the Commission has maintained that renewable energy sources can contribute substantially towards achieving the aims of the Union's energy policy, namely ensuring reliability of supply, increasing competitiveness and protecting the environment.
Community financial support for renewable energy sources is provided mainly from the programmes ALTENER and JOULE-THERMIE.
In our opinion, the use of renewable energy sources should be encouraged in all sectors, including the transport sector.
That branch is responsible for approximately one-quarter of total energy consumption in the European Union, and it is also the branch responsible for the most rapid increase of carbon dioxide emissions.
It must be said, however, that some progress has already been made in the direct use of renewable energy sources for road transport, such as biofuels.
In respect of rail transport, the potential of renewable energy sources is mainly associated with the production of electrical energy, and consequently, with railways powered by electricity.
In some Member States, the contribution of renewable energy sources to the production of electrical energy is, I must say, quite considerable.
As mentioned in the Green Paper, the Commission believes that there is scope for a substantial increase in the use of renewable energy sources, and we are moving in that direction.
The European Commission intends to submit a White Paper before the end of 1997 together with an action plan dealing with renewable energy sources.
The action plan will be based on the Green Paper, and on the results of the dialogue taking place throughout the European Union at this time on the basis of the Green Paper.
The White Paper will also contain a series of special measures for the promotion of renewable energy sources.
I can assure you that in that context, the Commission will give careful consideration to all options for the better use of renewable energy sources, and within that framework it will certainly consider the perspectives offered by the rail transport sector.
Commissioner, it is a fact that rail transport is nowadays the most flexible means of transport and that 48 % of European trains run on the basis of electrical energy produced in carbon-dioxide-free hydro-electric plants.
Given the situation, it is quite easy to see the important role that could be played by railways given the foreseeable demand for energy, without affecting environmental protection, in an attempt to alleviate the greenhouse effect.
This is even more important given the fact that the transport sector - as you yourself said - takes up a quarter - and I think that it probably takes up slightly more than that - of total energy consumption.
Therefore, it seems reasonable that our objective should be to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions by 15 % by the end of the year 2010, adopt a coherent Community strategy in favour of renewable energies, which is fundamental, already putting into practice not only the programmes which you have already mentioned but also 'Altaner' so that, once and for all, we can introduce stability and transparency into national measures to promote renewable energy sources.
Mr President, I do not have much to add to what the honourable Member has just said.
I only want to assure Parliament that the ALTENER programme will indeed be included among the programmes that will be contributing to the promotion of renewable energy sources.
Question No 43 by Richard Howitt (H-0307/97)
Subject: White Paper on voluntary organizations and foundations
Why has this White Paper not yet been published, four years after the initial consultation and exactly one year after the Commission stated it was 'likely to be agreed by the Commission in the very near future'? In particular, when a draft was considered at a meeting of Commissioners' Cabinets recently, what were the precise objections to forwarding the document to the College of Commissioners for agreement?
Will the Commission now give a firm and final date when it will present the draft White Paper to a Commission meeting, to assist all those in the voluntary sector who feel that Europe does not care about them?
Mr President, the proposal for a White Paper on voluntary organizations and foundations has been the subject of much deliberation over the past month, both within the European Commission itself and with the associations, bodies and foundations involved.
It was essential to ascertain the accuracy of the information included in the White Paper for all the Member States and in particular the new countries, Austria, Finland and Sweden, which were not members of the European Union at the time of the initial survey used as a basis for the preparation of the proposal we have before us.
The Commission, then, has developed new initiatives in recent months.
We have had many political contacts with that sector, and this too had to be recorded in the document.
The new internal and external consultations with voluntary organizations and foundations were essential mainly for two reasons: first, because of the enlargement of the European Union, and secondly, so that account could be taken of all the new initiatives developed by the Commission in the last two years - because I remind you that this document first appeared four years ago.
All these amendments have been brought into the final draft of the document which is now in the final stages of its submission to the Commission, and we expect that on 29 May, in exactly two weeks, we will have the opportunity to debate it in the European Commission, and I hope it will be adopted.
I thought the Commissioner was going to disappoint me and then, just as I was grimacing, he brought us a date of 29 May.
So I would like to warmly thank him for that and, of course, we look forward to it.
On a more serious note, I hope that the Commissioner will join with me in regretting the fact that we now approach yet another Intergovernmental Conference, where there has not been systematic civil dialogue of the kind that I know he and we in this Parliament are committed to, so that ordinary citizens and the voluntary organizations in which they are represented have not been given a real say in the future development of the European Union.
I am sure that he will agree with me that a clear and simple statute for associations will enable voluntary organizations and charities to be recognized as full social partners in our deliberations, to engage in the debate about the European Union, to be consulted about draft legislation by the Commission and to promote participation at the grassroots level which is currently so sadly lacking.
Mr President, I am glad that I did not disappoint you and I do indeed hope that the date I gave you, 29 May, will be the day when the European Commission adopts the White Paper on the associations and foundations.
I totally agree with you that this sector needs a new impetus, a new dynamism.
It may offer many alternative solutions at a time when we are trying to create jobs, and I believe that the European Commission will express a favourable opinion along those lines.
Let us then wait for a fortnight, and I hope that after that, all of us, the European Parliament and all the interested associations and foundations, will take part in a civil dialogue at European level in which we will be able to discuss and determine exactly what the future of the social economy and in particular the associations and foundations is likely to be.
I am also glad that we have a commitment to the White Paper.
Voluntary organizations are very innovative and important.
But I would remind the Commissioner that nearly a decade ago there was a promise on some kind of code for the status of volunteers.
Nothing has happened on that either and this needs to be looked into urgently.
Mr President, I share the concern of the honourable Member, a concern which I had indeed expressed myself from the other side of the House, sitting on the benches on the left of Parliament, during the past decade.
As you know, however, a great many discussions within the European Commission have been needed in the past to address these problems, discussions which, as is evident, did not result in any specific conclusion or any specific proposal.
I hope that the White Paper we are about to produce will provide the best and I would say the most modern approach possible to what the honourable Member was asking for.
Question No 44 by Mr Alex Smith (H-0370/97)
Subject: Matters arising from Commission liaison with IAEA
On 12 and 13 December last year, a high-level Liaison Committee meeting of the Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) took place in Brussels to discuss cooperation between Euratom and IAEA inspectors at European Union nuclear plants.
According to a minute of the meeting by IAEA's Deputy-General, Bruno Pellaud, Euratom disagrees strongly with the IAEA on a range of sensitive issues, including IAEA support for Continuous Enrichment Monitoring (CEMO) to detect unauthorized levels of uranium enrichment at URENCO plants.
It also indicates the Euratom supports the German objection to safeguard verification of mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel, of UK origin, at the Unterweser power plant.
Can the Commission explain the steps taken by Euratom to resolve these problems?
I thank the Commissioner most sincerely for that very comprehensive reply.
It must be something of a record to receive a six-minute reply at Question Time.
The reason I raised this question is that MOX fabrication and use is currently expanding significantly all over Western Europe.
Because fresh MOX fuel contains unirradiated plutonium, which is perfectly suitable for a crude nuclear weapon, and this issue was rated ten years ago as a high priority in an IAEA implementation report, I am somewhat concerned that we still fail to see a resolution of it.
How is the Commissioner going to take into account the fact that ordinary nuclear reator sites become direct-use material storage sites? Is he taking that into consideration?
Mr President, I should like to assure Mr Smith that the European Commission and EURATOM will continue their efforts and monitoring in all the plants, including the new ones, to ensure that they respect new technologies and technological development.
We will of course continue the supervision of Sellafield, and that is what we are doing, we are doing it already, we are doing it consistently, and we will continue in the same way.
I welcome the assurance from the Commissioner that he will monitor all plants.
I suggest that he look at the Hunterston nuclear power station where a reactor had to be shut down in March of this year.
Hunterston is in my constituency.
I do not know if it has been brought to his attention in his capacity as Commissioner responsible for energy but perhaps he would look at what happened there with the United Kingdom authorities.
Mr President, I should like to assure Parliament and Mr McMahon that EURATOM's services continually and ceaselessly monitor the operation of all the reactors, including those which are closing down.
We continually monitor the development of technology and the operation of reactors at all levels.
Our basic aim is to conserve the environment and protect the health of citizens, as well as to ensure that the best possible technology is used in the sector of nuclear energy.
Question No 45 by Mr Hugh McMahon (H-0287/97)
Subject: Public services charter
Can the Commission inform Parliament of the reasons for its failure to adopt a public services charter?
Would the Commission not agree that the maintenance of public services at affordable prices, as laid down in a Community Charter, is valuable for Europe's citizens and is an important part of the internal market?
The services of general interest are an important element of the European model of society.
In its communication of September last year on services of general interest in Europe, the Commission clarified the principles of its policies and set out its objectives for the future.
This communication stated in particular the following:
The provisions of services of general economic interest of high quality at affordable prices is an essential objective that has to be guaranteed in the context of the internal market.
The EC Treaty, and more precisely Article 90, already provides for a satisfactory equilibrium between, on the one hand, the objectives of market integration and free competition, and on the other hand, objectives of general economic interest.
The Commission considers that Article 90 has proved its worth in guaranteeing that balance.
The definition of objectives of general economic interest is in principle a national competence that has to be exercised by Member States in respect of the EC Treaty rules.
Any harmonization of these objectives at EU level has to take into account the specific circumstances of each sector.
Sectoral directives such as those proposed for the telecom and postal sectors are therefore the appropriate instrument to achieve this objective.
The Commission actively supports, within the framework of existing competences, in fields such as environment, consumer protection, economic and social cohesion or transeuropean networks, a positive policy pursuing objectives of general interest.
The Commission considers further that an explicit mention of a positive commitment to the promotion of services of general interest should be added in a new paragraph in Article 3 of the new EC Treaty which is currently being negotiated.
In this context the Commission presently does not envisage adopting or proposing any other measures of a general character such as a public service charter.
We favour an inclusion in Article 3 of the existing Treaty through the current intergovernmental negotiations.
Having said this, the communication of the Commission of September last year which I referred to earlier left the option open.
If, for instance, Member States refuse to include such a reference in any article of the Treaty one might consider transforming the communication into a kind of charter but since they are apparently willing to discuss its inclusion in the Treaty we would favour that option.
I thank the Commissioner for his answer.
Can I take it that the Commission is actively pursuing the matter at the IGC of treating this as part of the Treaty? This is all I would like confirmed.
Should that fail to come about, what will the Commission then do?
The answer is yes, but as I said we favour an inclusion of a reference in Article 3.
Some others apparently would prefer a reference in Article 8.
This is presently still being discussed.
The most important thing is that such a reference is included in the new text.
We do not think we absolutely need a charter, but having said this the communication of the Commission commits the Commission to pursuing this kind of balanced policy.
I thank Mr McMahon for raising this.
I am delighted to hear your upbeat and very positive reply.
You will be aware, I know, that I am dealing with a report that is going through Parliament at the moment on services of general interest.
I am going to be asking you to be very dynamic and very cooperative.
This is a very important area for us in the European Parliament; it would like the Union to send out a very positive message of good news for all of our citizens which will more than counteract some of the bad news that they tend to be inundated with at the moment.
I am going to be asking you whether the Commission is prepared to be very openminded and take on board some really very innovative suggestions that are going to come out not only at the IGC but after that concerning the way in which we deal with public services within the European Union; the way in which Commissioners themselves deal with them; and the way in which committees' structures within Parliament deal with them, in order to achieve cooperation between Parliament and the Member States.
So we are working hand in hand.
What we are doing is supplementing the efforts of the Member States.
I want to confirm the positive spirit in which the Commission tries to tackle this kind of problem.
Having said that, we have a disagreement, as you know, about whether or not Article 90 should be modified.
Apparently there are only a few delegations which favour that.
Most of the delegations are apparently prepared to follow the Commission in including a reference in Article 3.
Some others might do so with regard to Article 8.
Well, let us see how the debate turns out.
We are open-minded about it.
Providing something is included in the Treaty, it will be helpful.
For the rest, I firmly intend to continue to adopt a balanced approach and to keep an open mind, while also trying to take into account services of general interest in any policy we develop.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions 46 and 47 will be taken together.
Question No 46 by Mr Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0297/97)
Subject: Transport subsidies to Volvo
The Commission's DG IV has carried out a study into transport subsidies to certain industrial companies in northern Sweden.
Its report proposes that subsidies to the Volvo plant in Umeå should not be allowed.
Transport subsidies to companies in northern Sweden are an important part of Swedish regional policy and a highly significant factor in attracting industrial investment to the region, though they represent only a portion of the additional cost involved in locating manufacturing in the northern part of the country.
On what grounds does the Commission consider that these subsidies distort competition when they do not even cover the extra cost of transport within Sweden?
Why does the Commission regard operations in Umeå as final assembly when the plant only makes components (cabs)?
Question No 48 by Mr Sören Wibe (H-0302/97)
Subject: Transport subsidy for Volvo, Umeå
The Swedish press has reported that the Commission intends to prohibit the Swedish transport subsidy to the Volvo works at Umeå. This would threaten the existence of the factory and with it about 1000 jobs in the area.
The Commission's attitude is based on a consultants' report, the contents of which are, however, being kept secret, even from representatives of the Swedish Government.
According to the press report, one of the Commission's other arguments is that the Volvo factory cannot be regarded as a supplier but as a manufacturer of finished goods.
Does the Commission not consider it unreasonable for a crucial consultant's report to be kept secret from the general public and from the Swedish Government?
Does the Commission consider that this Volvo factory, which makes cabs for subsequent installation on completed lorries, is producing finished goods, or parts of lorries?
As you probably know, a special set of rules exists in the Community governing state aid to the motor vehicle industry.
This has been in force since 1989 and is designed to control and limit flows of state aid within this sensitive sector.
The Commission and the framework view any kind of operating aid very critically, since it relieves the company concerned of part of its normal operational costs and creates an operational advantage for this company on an ongoing basis.
This can be very harmful to competitors in a sector like motor vehicles, since production in this sector is typically organized at European level and ever increasingly at global level.
Transport aid should not therefore be authorized in this sector, even in disadvantaged regions.
The above-mentioned framework also provides that any existing operating aid should progressively disappear.
On the other hand, the framework has a generally positive attitude towards investment aid granted in order to overcome structural handicaps in disadvantaged regions of the Community.
This is therefore a highly sensitive global market in which an operating aid like this can easily bring about a significant distortion of competition.
The honourable Member also refers to the Commission's conclusion that production in Umeå falls under the final assembly and not the production of components.
In general, a plan can be regarded as a manufacturing and/or assembly operation when vehicle bodies are constructed, painted, assembled or trimmed.
If these operations are separated in different plants, at different geographical locations, each of these plants' activities falls under the definition of the manufacture of a vehicle.
In the opinion of the Commission, as well as of various experts of the automotive industry, the construction of completely built-up truck cabs corresponds to the manufacture of trucks.
Like any other integrated vehicle plant, the Umeå plant has a stamping operation, body construction, paint shop and a final assembly operation which a component plant would not have.
It therefore falls within the remit of the existing framework concerning the motor vehicle industry.
To be honest there are certain parts of the answer which I do not understand.
It was said in the Commissioner's response that this aid is a cost advantage.
But in reality the transport aid which goes to Volvo in Umeå only corresponds to part of the additional cost involved in being located in northern Sweden. It costs more to be located there despite the fact that transport aid is received.
It is therefore totally illogical to say that this distorts competition or is a cost advantage.
The only thing which I have seen in the material on this case which distorts competition is that the Commission has approved aid to Scania, another lorry manufacturer in Luleå, a town not far from Umeå.
I also dispute that there is any form of final assembly operation in the factory in Umeå.
I consider myself something of an expert on the issue as I worked there for five years as a cab fitter.
There is absolutely no final assembly operation of finished lorries, only component manufacture.
I also wonder why the background material is still marked secret.
Is it not reasonable that we elected representatives know the reasons for the Commission's decisions and opinions?
First of all, one should understand that we are talking about a sector for which there is a specific framework.
For other activities the Commission accepted that there could be transport aid.
But here we are talking about operational aid in a sector which is highly sensitive.
Can you imagine all automotive plants being given the possibility of compensation because they are located in peripheral regions in the European Union? This would completely distort competition in a highly sensitive sector where there is already overcapacity and where companies or sites located in regions eligible for aid can be given aid but only investment aid.
And that is exactly the situation here.
On the components question, making cabs, with all the different construction stages that involves, can hardly be considered as just making components.
No, this is part and parcel of the normal activities of the automotive industry.
The Commission has always applied the rules concerned in this way and it has to stick to its coherent position in this case as it has done in the past.
Having said that, since this was an existing aid - because when Sweden joined the European Union this aid already existed - we are prepared to discuss with the Swedish authorities how to phase it out and to consider a reasonable period of time during which this aid can be phased out.
That is exactly what we tried to achieve in discussions with the Swedish authorities.
Yesterday I was in Stockholm and talked to the minister responsible for industry in order to find out how we can sort out things in an amicable way.
I wonder if I can have an explanation of two points from the Commissioner.
The first question is: For what sector will you approve the use of Swedish transport aid? Is there any sector in the whole of the mechanical engineering industry in which you approve the current use of transport aid in Sweden?
The second question concerns the final question from Jonas Sjöstedt which was not answered by the Commissioner and that is about the fact that the Commission's decision in this case was obviously based on a consultative report.
The content of this report is being kept secret even from the Swedish Government.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if it is not totally unreasonable that individual governments, which after all are the masters of this Treaty, cannot see background reports which can determine the living conditions and job opportunities for thousands of people in a particular region.
Firstly, in reply to the first part of the question, transport aid can be given and therefore this region in Sweden benefits from a kind of special treatment.
It can be given to activities which are not in highly sensitive sectors, such as steel or automotive activities.
For example, in the case of a steel plant, the Commission could not allow transport compensation aid because it is subject to a specific state aid rule.
The same applies to the automotive industry and, therefore, although the general regime allows this kind of compensation for transport, it is not allowed for sectors such as steel and the automotive industry.
That is the reason why we have to negotiate with the government to find a solution which can be mutually acceptable.
Your question refers to an expert opinion prepared by consultants for the Commission.
Let us be honest, if the Swedish Government, or any other government, seeks an expert opinion, it is absolutely free to do so and can keep it to itself.
No one is obliged to make it public or to send it to the Commission.
Such an expert opinion, which has been based on information given by the company and the Swedish Government, involves highly sensitive information, which the company will certainly not disclose.
Therefore, we are only using the expert opinion to help the Commission to sort things out.
On the basis of this expert opinion, my officials went to the region to see for themselves and we adopted the position I described in reply to the previous question.
So, the expert opinion is used only to help the Commission to sort things out and to make an assessment.
The other question now is: what comes next? Either we find a solution through a mutually agreed formula, which we favour, obviously.
If that cannot be done, then the European Commission has no other choice but to open the procedure.
Again, we would like to avoid that and, therefore, in the coming weeks we will try to find a solution under which there will still be aid for some time but it will be reduced and phased out in due time.
have any negative impact.
Regional political aid, including transport aid to companies in the North of Sweden, is an important part of this.
Is the Commission aware that in the whole of our country, public opinion in the North of Sweden is the most critical of the EU? Is the Commission also aware that the interpretation which is now being made and which threatens to prevent regional political aid to Volvo will make that opinion even more negative, since it is a betrayal in view of the promises which were made before membership?
Is the Commission really not prepared to review this proposal which DG IV has given?
Firstly, there cannot be any misunderstanding about what was agreed during the accession negotiations.
I was already in charge of this file and although we accepted in principle that transport aid could be given for these peripheral regions, it was on the explicit condition that this should not be the case for sensitive sectors like the automotive sector, the steel sector, the shipbuilding sector where specific rules exist.
There are specific rules here and as everyone knows they take precedence over the general rules.
This was made abundantly clear over and over again by me and by my officials.
So I am astonished that some people were surprised that later on we said that for the automotive industry itself and not components as such, operational aid can no longer be given although investment aid can.
For some reason which it is not for me to judge, the Swedish Government refrains from giving aid for investment but is prepared to give aid for operational costs.
That is for the Swedish Government to decide.
Some time ago the company concerned made considerable additional investments so the government could have given some aid for this.
But they preferred to continue to give operational aid which I suppose they must know is not acceptable under the rules of state aid in the European Union.
That is the context.
We are not saying that the plant cannot be given aid but this kind of ongoing running aid is not acceptable because it was not acceptable in the past.
The rules have been applied in a consistent and coherent way everywhere in the European Union and therefore we have to seek a solution with the Swedish authorities to phase it out.
If in future there are additional investments in Umeå, they would be free to give investment aid.
I can understand perhaps that you, Commissioner, are surprised that we are surprised.
But you must understand that the message you are now delivering is complete news to me since even during the Membership negotiations it was said that the steel, cars and shipping sectors would not be entitled to transport aid.
As for the secrecy stamp on the report the Commissioner says that governments also have secret reports.
But it is after all governments which are in charge of the Commission and not the Commission which is in charge of governments.
It is individual governments which are the decision making bodies.
The reason that we want this report out in the open is not because we want to reveal any business secrets which Volvo may have - the Swedish government will not do that.
The reason is that the Swedish government believes, with good reason, that this report contains serious errors.
It is these which we want out in the open for discussion.
I think the Commissioner should have some understanding of this view.
A little question: If you, Commissioner were asked by the Chairman of the Council to make this report public at least for the Swedish government would you do so?
I cannot help it if in some areas the rules of the game are apparently not as well known as I would like them to be.
There are specific rules in the steel sector as many people in this House know.
The principle is that no state aid can be given.
There will be a question about shipbuilding.
There is a seventh directive which sets the framework within which state aid can or cannot be given.
This is the way we have operated for many years.
As far as the report is concerned, it is an expert opinion for the use of my services, on top of which I asked my staff to go down there and see for themselves in the plant.
They received all the relevant information.
They kept me informed and it is on this basis that I told the Swedish authorities that we still had a problem which needed to be sorted out.
As long as operational aid is being given in this sector, it is flying in the face of one of the basic rules applied in the automotive sector.
In order to find a solution to phase it out, we will be flexible.
In the meantime the government can reflect on other ways and means to help the region.
But this is the responsibility of the government and not of the Commission.
It is not up to us to impose any conduct as far as that is concerned.
For the rest, we have nothing to hide.
I can prove to you that in these kind of cases we have always operated in a coherent and open-minded way.
Question No 47 by Mr Hans Lindqvist (H-0301/97)
Subject: Commission review of aid to industrial firms in northern Sweden in respect of transport overheads
The Commission's DG IV has reviewed the aid granted to certain industrial firms in northern Sweden in respect of transport overheads, and a report suggests that aid to the Volvo factory in Umeå should not be permitted.
The granting of such aid to firms in northern Sweden is an important element of Swedish regional development policy and plays a major role in attracting industrial investment to the region.
The aid only partly covers the additional cost of siting production facilities in the north of the country.
Why were the findings on which the decision was based not published immediately, and why has the proposal that aid to the factory in Umeå should be withdrawn been made at this particular time?
This is still the same subject.
At the present moment there is no decision.
We signalled the problem when we agreed during the accession negotiations that there should be a possibility of giving transport aid and that sensitive sectors would be excluded as agreed.
Later we found that transport aid was still being giving to the Volvo plant in Umeå.
Therefore, we said there is a problem, let us look into it and see how we can sort it out.
This should not lead to the conclusion that for other activities in the region concerned, transport aid cannot be given.
I confirm that this kind of aid can be given but not to the sensitive sectors.
It took some time because we wanted to conduct this investigation seriously and, as I said, we asked for an expert opinion.
Later on - rather unusually as we only have a limited number of staff - given the sensitivity of the case, I asked my people to go there and see for themselves and check it on the spot.
That is what happened.
Only then did we find that there was still a problem and then we signalled to the government that either we would sort out a mutual agreement or we would have to open the procedure and pursue the case further.
That is all I can say.
It is desirable to shed proper light on this issue.
But I still do not have an answer to my questions since the questions related to why the report which formed the basis for this decision cannot be made public immediately.
This question has been partially but not fully answered.
The second question concerned the issue of why the proposal for withdrawal of the aid from the factory has come now.
Like my colleagues I am surprised that this has happened some time into the period of Membership and that there is no reason why it should happen at precisely this moment.
It could be that this is in the consultative report but as we do not have access to this - it is deemed, for some reason, to contain information which we should not see - I must ask again: Why can we not see the background material? Perhaps it would facilitate this debate and make the issue clearer.
The other question which I would like an answer to is: is this the beginning of further reduction in transport aid for Sweden?
I thought I had already answered the question several times.
During the negotiations it was made abundantly clear - and I was there myself - that transport aid would be allowed, but not for sensitive sectors.
I cannot help it if later we discovered that operational aid was maintained in the transport sector to this plant.
When we discovered that, we said that it was flying in the face of what had been agreed and in any case it is in contradiction with the framework.
So a solution had to be found.
But since the aid existed before the accession we were prepared to look for a solution whereby the aid can be phased out.
This happened some time ago.
Last year we asked an expert to give some advice to the Commission, for example on the matter of the components.
Apparently some of the components come from the south of the country and go to the north.
Then, as I mentioned earlier, I asked my people to go down there and this took some time.
Then there was a discussion with the government and we told them they would have to offer a solution.
This has gone on for months.
I told the government I would have to open the procedure.
Since there was still some hope that a defensible solution could be negotiated, I was prepared to wait before opening the procedure in the hope that an early solution could be found.
I hope a solution can be found in the coming weeks.
If that is not the case, then I have to be abundantly clear.
This case is dragging on too long and I will have to propose to the Commission to open the procedure.
I think that the Commission's response is inconsistent on several important points.
Transport aid has also been given to Scania, one of Volvo's competitors which is located quite close to the Volvo factory, where rear axles and chassis for heavy goods vehicles are manufactured.
They do precisely the same as in Umeå, in other words make components for heavy goods vehicles.
Scania gets a yes, Volvo in Umeå gets a no.
There has been no explanation given for this.
The other point for which there has been no explanation is the fact that this will distort competition.
The aid which they receive is only a small part of the additional cost for transport in Sweden.
The third point is that you really could give the report to the government; it is not going to reveal any secrets.
But not even the government has been able to see the report.
This strengthens the view that the Commission has something to hide.
If you stop this transport aid, you will destroy an important part of Swedish regional policy.
This is very, very serious.
I think that the Commission should consider its social responsibility.
Remember Vilvoorde!
Yes, just think of Vilvoorde, because in Vilvoorde it is not possible to give state aids, not even investment aids, my dear friend.
You can do so - but then do you come here and try to teach me lessons about it? We have applied the rules coherently.
It has nothing to do with me, if the rules of the game have been explained time and time again and you still do not know what they are even today!
Those rules existed before Sweden joined the European Union.
Sweden accepted them.
As far as I am concerned, all I am obliged to do is apply them in the same way, coherently, everywhere.
In other words, if you have any criticism to make, you will have to go elsewhere.
I do my job seriously as I always have done, and therefore I cannot accept your criticism.
That has to be made clear.
You said, Commissioner, that other transport aid is not out of the question in the region.
I hope you realise that there is a risk that tax-free shopping will cease on 1 July 1999 and that then there will be an obvious need to give aid to traffic between Umeå in Sweden and Vasa in Finland.
Have I understood the Commissioner correctly in that this means you will not oppose general aid for transport between Umeå and Vasa if tax-free shopping ceases on July 1 1999?
I confirm again that for other activities not belonging to sensitive sectors this transport aid can continue.
So that is out of the question.
It is only for sensitive sectors like the automotive industry where there are specific rules, where a framework has existed since 1989, that this is not allowed.
This cannot come as a surprise, because it already existed and it was explained that after accession this type of aid could no longer be given for activities such as car production.
Investment is a different matter, but no operational aid can be given.
That concludes Question Time.
Questions 49 to 87 will receive written answers.
The question time is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.40 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Public service, public supply and public work contracts - water, energy, transport and telecommunications markets
The next item is the joint debate on the following recommendations for second reading:
A4-0158/97, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directives 92/50/EC, 93/36/EC and 93/37/EC relating to the co-ordination of procedures for the award of public service, public supply and public work contracts (C4-0038/97-95/0079(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Langen); -A4-0159/97, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 93/38/EEC on co-ordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors (C4-0039/97-95/0080(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Langen).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the House is sparsely populated at this hour.
It is nevertheless a pleasure for me today to recommend these two directives, which have been under discussion for some time in the parliamentary committees responsible, as well as in the dialogue and the controversial debate with the Commission.
We are discussing two directives in all: to summarize, one deals with public works, supply and service contracts, and the other is the so-called sectoral directive, which covers a number of sectors - water, energy, transport and telecommunications.
The agreement which made it necessary to adapt the directive dates back rather further: it is the WTO Agreement, ratified with Parliament's assent in March 1994, which entered into force on 1 January 1996.
At that time, the signatory states undertook to open up their markets to firms from third countries.
The total value of the contracts covered by the market liberalization measures that were agreed is put at some ECU 350 billion per year.
By virtue of the existing internal market arrangements in Europe, the contracting entities concerned in the European Union have been required to give only limited additional undertakings.
The question arising from the outset was: how, particularly in the light of the sectoral directive, can we guarantee reciprocity?
On the one hand, European contracting entities were obliged to accept bids from third-country firms, but on the other, European firms were also at liberty to take on contracts in third countries.
In our view, this balance was not achieved in the first draft of the directive, because the Commission was seeking to do more than merely regulate what is in effect a relatively straightforward state of affairs.
This led to somewhat lengthy deliberations in Parliament.
Indeed, given the significance of these directives in what is a very difficult overall area, they took an inordinately long time.
As I said, the reason for these debates between the Commission and Parliament was that the Commission was seeking to regulate a state of affairs which did not arise under the GATT Agreement.
We reached an understanding with Commissioner Monti, and I am very grateful to him for his willingness, after the initial round of discussions, to accept most of Parliament's arguments.
We then agreed that, even if the Commission was unable to present an entirely new draft of the directive, it would incorporate the bulk of Parliament's arguments in its revised version.
The Commission was true to its word.
Therefore, after somewhat protracted deliberations - lasting almost two years - we are now in a position to discuss at second reading a common position based on a revised Commission proposal, which now forms a sound basis for discussion.
A few controversial points still remain, which I should like to go into now, and which were also subject to amendments in Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs; however, now that these points have been defused by the Commission, they are no longer serious enough to prevent Parliament from going along with the common position.
So much by way of introduction, before I comment on the amendments and also on the different views of various groups.
One of Parliament's main concerns was that European Union firms should not be put at a disadvantage in relation to firms from third countries.
We rejected tougher measures being applied to EU firms but not affecting firms from third-countries, because this would lead to European firms suffering from distortions of competition.
The question which arises here in the sectoral directive is whether the whole issue of the balance which was to have been established under this directive between public contracting entities on the one hand and private contracting entities on the other in these four sectors belongs in the sectoral directive any longer, now that several markets have been liberalized and state-owned companies have been privatized to a large extent, for instance in the telecommunications sector.
But that is a subject to be discussed in the debate on the Green Paper.
The main bones of contention still outstanding are the technical dialogue and the question of whether entities should be allowed, in complex technical cases, to seek technical advice from firms intending to bid for the contract at a later stage and, if so, under what circumstances.
We are convinced that the Commission's original version was inappropriate, as it would have been detrimental to tenderers.
The Commission has removed this provision from its text and referred to it instead in the recitals in a way which is quite acceptable, but basically carries very little weight.
That is why, as rapporteur, I felt that this recital - the tenth in one directive and the thirteenth in the other - could be deleted altogether.
There would in practice be no change to the legal situation affecting firms.
An amendment by Mr Tappin, who takes a different stance, was discussed in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and here the question is: can corruption be excluded through arrangements for the technical dialogue? I believe that other measures are necessary for that purpose, such as the administration of justice by the courts in the Member States, which are in a position to combat corruption effectively.
The technical dialogue is not the right approach, because there will undoubtedly be loopholes.
Mr Tappin and I tried to find a solution, and this is certainly something to which we can address ourselves together when it comes to considering the Green Paper.
In the context of this directive, we were of the opinion that we should opt for the minimum solution and leave the technical dialogue as it is, without any additional provisions, and that includes the recital.
Over and above this key point, the most controversial one, there are certain obligations to which firms are subjected under the sectoral directive, in respect of statistical reporting and the requirement to inform unsuccessful applicants of the reason for their rejection.
Personally, I believe that the inclusion in the sectoral directive of a provision going beyond the scope of the GATT Agreement could constitute grounds for complaints to the WTO panel.
That is why, Commissioner, we and colleagues from the other groups have decided not to agree to the main point of the compromise amendment from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, calling for publication of the names of firms which have given advice in the tender process.
Since this is the second reading, any amendment must achieve 314 votes.
Some of the less significant amendments on statistical reporting obligations will undoubtedly be successful.
On the key points, I believe, this House will come round to approving the Council's common position on the basis of the Commission's latest proposal here in the House.
In this respect we have, I believe, arrived at a reasonable overall solution after much debate. I should once again like to express my personal thanks to Commissioner Monti for his political wisdom, which eventually prevailed over the rather rigid attitude of his technical staff at the outset, thus leading to a satisfactory solution.
You have followed the matter through, even though last year you were unable to find a majority in the Commission in favour of withdrawing the proposal completely.
Thank you very much indeed, and I hope that this will serve as an example of how, in spite of conflicting views, satisfactory compromises can be found!
Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Langen for his introduction.
There is very little disagreement between the Socialist Group and the EPP Group.
However, we have found ourselves in an invidious position over the difference of opinion we have, as shown in the vote in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on Directives 92/50/EEC, 93/36/EEC and 93/37/EEC, where we voted for transparency, and Directive 93/38/EEC, where we did not.
We have placed ourselves in a difficult position on this.
As Mr Langen said, I have sought with him to reach a compromise.
I have tabled an amendment which I hope will achieve that and I urge colleagues in this Chamber to support this amendment.
My reason for tabling the amendment is because, during the first debate on the Langen report, the Commission's text called for a ban on any technical dialogue between a contracting entity and anyone who wanted to bid for the contract at a later point.
This meant that all the top companies had to exclude themselves from the revising process if they wanted to bid.
This would have stifled innovation and was totally contrary to the best business practice.
However, we were always aware of the problems inherently possible in allowing dialogue.
Giorgos Katiforis outlined them well when he spoke of technical dialogue being used for the setting of impossible standards and of not being able to do anything about it because everything tended to be shrouded in secrecy.
These are the problems of corruption and the reason that we need safeguards put into place.
My amendment seeks to address the problems of competition distortion and secrecy, while supporting the principle of innovation.
It has been tabled with reference to both Langen reports and recitals.
The amendment details the 'advice which may be used in the preparation of specifications for a specific procurement' , that is to say, it effectively sets parameters for a call to tender.
We want to publish who has given the advice, not the advice itself.
Anyone can give advice and still bid for the contract, as long as the advice that has been given does not preclude others from competing fairly.
This language is as close to the Commission's text as possible, in order to ensure that the same interpretation of precluding competition is applied.
If it was possible to make a legal judgment on precluding competition before - and one has to assume it was, since it has been part of the standard directives for many years - it should still be possible now without adding to the legal traps of those directives.
I stress that the second part of my amendment states that 'the buying authorities publish, along with the call for tender, the names of those firms or persons who have advised in the drawing up of the specifications' .
This does not mean that the adviser has to disclose the nature of the advice, for technical secrecy can be maintained - just that the advice has been given.
This should do something to combat the secrecy element.
Publication will be made by the buying authority at the time it publishes the call for tender, so there will be no additional bureaucracy involved.
Because it is the contracting authorities who publish, this will not affect international competition and, incidentally, the United States already has such a requirement for transparency, with which the EU tenderers have to comply.
Procurement involves 11 % of the European Union GDP or ECU 720m of EU taxpayers' money.
After the first reading of the Langen report, the Financial Times of 31 January 1996 accused the European Parliament of being the lapdogs of industrial lobbyists.
At the time I refuted it.
Now, I am sad to say, if colleagues vote against this amendment, which is designed to achieve honesty, openness and transparency, they will have a hard job refuting those allegations this time.
In the interests of harmony, I urge all Members of the European Parliament to support my amendment to both reports.
Mr President, I must begin by congratulating Mr Langen on his reports, which place the problems in the right perspective, and by expressing my agreement with the meaning of the proposed amendments, without going beyond changes needed to comply with commitments made at the World Trade Organisation.
Given the amount involved, worth in the case of the European Union 720, 000 million ECU, approximately 11.5 % of all purchases, the equivalent to the combined GDPs of Spain, Belgium and Denmark, these public contracts call for special treatment by our leaders, as it is impossible to accept the fact that, until recently, only 2 % of all contracts were reached with foreign companies.
We can already see the results achieved by the Directives which have already been approved and which are now in force, reflected in the number of public calls for tender announced in the 'Official Journal' up from 12, 000 in 1995 to 95, 000 in 1997.
The percentage of purchases made from foreign firms has more than doubled, which means that the supplies of public bodies have been greatly improved, while the benefits have also been passed on to the ordinary public in those other countries in terms of both quality and price of services.
Along these lines, it is in turn desirable that enlargement of the market should be extended to third countries, as agreed between 22 of the countries taking part in the Marrakesh meeting, which means that we must now make necessary amendments to Community directives.
But I do not think that it is necessary to go from a minimalist position to one in which third countries have the same opening to markets and exactly the same guarantees if the established rules are not fulfilled.
Even within a country such as the United States of America there is even greater compartmentalisation in calls for tender without an 'Official Journal' to publish them and given the whole of its geographical area; nor is there a common body on the lines of our Commission or our Luxembourg courts, in order to guarantee the uniform compliance with rules at the various stages of action: national, state or local.
From a position of legitimate demands, we are naturally defending interests of our economic agents.
But we are also defending the interests of the citizens of third countries who will definitely benefit from buying European products and services, in many cases offered in more favourable conditions in terms of quality and price, as can be seen at this moment in time with the worldwide success of so many European Union companies, despite the difficulties they have to overcome.
Mr President, in 1995 to 1996 Parliament expressed its reservations about provisions relating to dialogue on the technical specifications and modifications to be made to calls for tender for public contracts - Appendices 12 to 15 of the Directive - in the belief, shared by many experts, that certain aspects of the proposal for a Directive would greatly hold up technical progress and cause considerable harm to the competitiveness of European industry.
In November 1996, following Parliament's rejection, the Commission presented a modified proposal for Directive 93/38.
As for both of Mr Langen's reports, our group is overall favourable to Mr Langen's position.
However, we have a couple of reservations about the forthcoming vote.
In the case of the second Langen report, our group would be unable to accept the new recital proposed by Mr Tappin which, if it were adopted, would be very dangerous for European companies.
The publication of information about innovative ideas by a European company, be it small or large, wishing to test it in the framework of a technical dialogue with a network industry, is unacceptable for that company.
It would be tantamount to supplying information to competitors and discouraging technical dynamism; in this way, the innovative ideas of European SMEs might be taken up by competitors, including those in third countries.
In the United States and Japan, however, no publication is provided for and network industries freely dialogue with their national suppliers in order to establish technical specifications.
In the position it is to adopt, the European Parliament must not compromise European innovative capacities and play the game of third companies, especially the United States, to the detriment of European industry.
Finally, Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5, introduced by the Economic Committee, make a distinction between public and private companies; although the former are subjected to an obligation given that they alone are affected by the WTO-GATT Agreement, it is also true, on the other hand, that Article 222 of the Treaty expressly provides for equal treatment in this Directive - and this must, in our opinion, be maintained - for public companies and private companies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on behalf of the Commission and on my own behalf, I should like to thank Mr Langen for his report and for his highly praiseworthy efforts to bring the respective positions closer together.
As the European Parliament will have noted, the amended proposals submitted by the Commission and the Council in the form of the common position very largely take into account Parliament's wishes.
I in turn, Mr Langen, pay tribute to the spirit of co-operation that you and this House have brought to this stage of the procedure.
Having said that, there are still certain differences between the common position and the proposed amendments: some proposals can be accepted but others call into question the structure and logical basis of Community arrangements and cannot therefore be accepted by the Commission. Finally, there are other proposed amendments which seem to be too mutually contradictory for the Commission to support them.
The Commission has constantly endeavoured to bring credibility and consistency to the Community rules on contracts, two essential requirements if those rules are to be correctly understood and applied.
We therefore hope that the European Parliament will review some of the proposed amendments in the light of the fundamental theoretical reasoning on which the Commission's position is based.
I can tell you now, in broad outline, what the Commission thinks of the various amendments.
The Commission accepts Amendment No 3 to the so-called traditional directives on work, supplies and services relating to the inclusion of the German Ministry of Transport in the list of central procurement agencies.
Similarly, the Commission could take a favourable view of Amendment No 2 in both reports whereby Parliament, by introducing a recital into the directives, adopts the aim of promoting access for small and medium-sized undertakings to public contracts by providing them with appropriate training and information materials.
It is however open to question whether a recital, inserted into the directives on contracts and divorced from the regulatory context of those directives, is the most appropriate and effective way of achieving the legitimate objective in view - an objective which the Commission expounded at length in its Green Paper on contracts, suggesting lines of thought and making specific proposals.
With regard to information to be supplied to undertakings, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3 and 4 to Directive 93/38 on the 'special sectors' , amendments designed to restrict to the State awarding entities alone the obligation to provide essential information such as information on contract awards, reasons for rejection of a tender, the advantages and features of the successful tender, etc.
In adopting the 'special sectors' Directive and extending its application not only to State awarding entities but also to entities which are not State entities in themselves but operate under special or exclusive powers granted to them by the State authority, the Community legislator - the Council, in other words - in co-operation with the European Parliament, intended to treat these two types of entity in the same way, thus putting an end to an argument that has lasted for more than thirty years.
By introducing this equal treatment, the Community legislator avoided the creation of forms of discrimination between Member States whereby the same sector is administered in some States by government entities but in others by entities that are not public but operate under special or exclusive powers. The intention was also to avoid forms of discrimination, and resulting distortions of competition, between sectors subject to the Directive or entities operating within the same sector.
The amendments in question, which as I have said relate to a fundamental and certainly not secondary provision, disrupt the equilibrium at which the Community legislator was aiming and violate the principle of equal treatment enshrined in the Directive.
The same can be said regarding the obligation to submit statistical data to the Commission, which is the subject of Amendment No 5 to the 'special sectors' Directive.
More detailed though still brief considerations apply to the question of the technical dialogue, in respect of which we have two, apparently conflicting, proposals for amendments: Amendment No 1 proposes the deletion of the recital in the 'special sectors' Directive which notes that the technical dialogue cannot, within the meaning of the current Directives, preclude competition; but Amendment No 6 to the same 'special sectors' Directive and in two very similar alternative versions - Amendments Nos 1 and 4 to the traditional Directives - on the other hand, proposes the introduction of a new recital laying down the limits of recourse to technical dialogue and introducing a rule of transparency which will certainly not be ineffective - the obligation to make public the commercial interest which those undertakings that have provided a technical opinion have in the contract in question.
These proposed amendments, I say again, are mutually inconsistent, and this inconsistency cannot be explained on the basis of the admittedly undeniable differences existing between the current Directives in respect of the regulated sectors.
Allow me to remind you that the text of the Commission's initial proposal was quite similar to that of the recital now proposed by Parliament, with the exception of the publication rule, which was not included in the Commission's text, the latter confining itself to reproducing the appropriate provision of the GPA.
In order to take due account, inter alia, of the reservations expressed by the European Parliament regarding the rigidity of that provision, the Commission weakened its wording and scope, converting it into a recital which was confined to noting that the relevant obligation derived directly from the Directives and the Treaty and so did not call for a specific regulative instruction.
I have summarized briefly the route by which we arrived at the recital in the common position.
Why have I done so? To emphasize that this recital represents a half-way point, equidistant between Parliament's two proposed amendments - as it were, an informal advance compromise between those amendments.
A case, if I may say so, of the happy medium.
The solution proposed by the common position also has a further advantage: uniformity of the text, which is the same for all four Directives, in compliance with the cited principle of consistency upon which the differences existing between these Directives can have no effect.
I therefore ask the European Parliament, on the grounds of equilibrium and consistency, to accept the proposal by the Commission and the Council regarding the technical dialogue.
There is one absolutely final observation I should like to make: within the Community, and I refer here to the concerns which I believe Mr Porto was expressing in his speech, the GPA creates rights in favour of contracting suppliers and service providers established in third countries that are party to that agreement - Canada, South Korea, the United States, Israel, Japan, Norway and Switzerland - rights which derive exclusively from the GPA and not from the Directives on public contracts.
The Directives, therefore, do not attribute any new rights to thirdcountry undertakings, nor on the other hand do they deprive them of those rights which they already enjoy under the GPA.
In contrast, Directives on public contracts are exclusively concerned with regulating relations between contracting entities and undertakings in the European Union.
These relations, obviously, are not affected by the GPA.
It is maintained that some third countries that are signatories to the GPA do not guarantee complete and correct application of that agreement.
Canada, for example, is said not to intend to comply with the obligation to make its decentralized authorities subject to the agreement, while the United States for its part has apparently decided not to amend its legislation.
These charges, if confirmed by investigation or on appeal, will have to be dealt with by means of the protective machinery provided by the GPA itself and by the World Trade Organization. They cannot be dealt with in the context of the procedures for amending directives which, I must emphasize, do not regulate relations between the Community and third countries.
In conclusion, Mr President, after so much talk of technical dialogue, let me once again express my appreciation to Mr Langen, Mr Tappin and all their colleagues for the quality of the political dialogue of co-operation on this subject which we have had, and which has not always been easy.
Commissioner, could I make two further points on our proposals on the sectoral directive, regarding the obligations to submit a statistical report, to provide information to successful and unsuccessful tenderers, and for public contracting entities to do so promptly.
This amendment was adopted by a large majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, because we believe that this is the part which is covered by the GPA Agreement on government procurement.
This artificial balance created by the sectoral directive has long since been overtaken by the agreements arrived at between the Commission and Parliament, and by developments in Europe, and we wish to confine ourselves to the part which still requires regulation, without upsetting the balance, which is what you fear.
I do not believe that the matter can be so serious, and would therefore ask once again that when we vote tomorrow, the Commission should reconsider its attitude for the next round.
The second point concerns the technical dialogue.
You are right: the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy did vote somewhat differently - albeit by a slim majority - on the general directive than on the sectoral one.
Mr Tappin's amendment was an attempt to find a mid-way solution between these two opposing positions.
We shall see tomorrow if there is a majority in favour of one of these solutions.
However, it is clear that both positions cannot command a majority at the same time, since they are mutually exclusive.
In that respect, you were right to draw attention to the inconsistency between the amendments which have been tabled.
But that is the outcome of the discussions in committee, and tomorrow we shall have a more positive result.
Obstacles to transnational mobility
The next item is the report (A4-0148/97) by Mrs Todini, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the Commission Green Paper 'Education - Training - Research - The obstacles to transnational mobility' (COM(96)0462 - C4-0580/96).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report which I have the honour to present contains the message we wish to send to the Conference to be held in Maastricht from tomorrow on the very subject which we are debating this evening.
That Conference will base its conclusions on the reactions of all the Member States and their duly appointed national co-ordinators, the institutions and all other parties interested in the subject.
Our message comprises, first and foremost, total support for the Commission's initiative. I must say that the Commission has provided us with an excellent analysis, proposing nine lines of action and, by way of encouragement to continue with this work, making highly specific proposals for the elimination of obstacles to the mobility of students, teachers, researchers, voluntary workers and trainees.
Our committee - the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media - emphasizes the essential role of mobility in the creation of a genuine citizens' Europe.
One of the most exciting ways of enabling young people to adapt to the European employment market is to give them a genuine opportunity to participate in European Union study programmes.
We are therefore stressing the need to reduce socio-economic obstacles to mobility, so that these Community programmes, instead of being addressed solely to a specific elite, which is unfortunately what is happening today - will be genuinely available also, and especially, to the less well-off and to those who have not yet been through higher education.
We are all aware of the successes achieved by the Community programmes - SOCRATES and LEONARDO, for example.
We know, among other things, that in the future the most difficult obstacle to overcome will be inadequate funding - and not just in the future, because it is a very real obstacle already. That inadequate funding is, in part, due to the increasing number of applications - which is certainly a hopeful sign - but more so to a decision by some Member States not to increase the Community budget in future years.
The Community programmes have aroused much interest and offered hope to many young people, and the Council may have to face up to the risk of disappointing them by denying them the funds to bring those hopes to fruition.
We shall shortly be supporting the action programme 'European voluntary service for young people' which is soon to be enthusiastically defended before this House by our colleague Nicole Fontaine.
In that case, too, there will certainly be a need for various guarantees to ensure all participants the necessary legal certainty regarding the right of residence, social security and tax status.
We are also calling for the simplification of the way in which these programmes are administered and the project presentation procedures, and for the speeding-up of the distribution of funds, because - quite apart from the problem of inadequate funding - there are problems in distributing the funds available.
Another point which our committee strongly emphasizes is the need for progress in implementing the system of reciprocal recognition of diplomas, professional qualifications and apprenticeships.
We support the Commission's recommendations and exhortations regarding the concrete creation of a European area of professional qualifications, with the generalized use of the so-called 'teaching credit unit transfer system' , drawing on the system that was brought into being within the framework of the SOCRATES programme and has thus already proven its value.
I must say that very little progress has been made with the comparability of professional qualifications and the validation and certification of qualifications and skills acquired during basic training or in-house training.
We are therefore hoping that every possible effort will be made to move further towards the reciprocal recognition of training modules and apprenticeships, partly - or, better still, especially - by means of clear and specific conventions recognized by all the Member States.
As far as grants are concerned, we call upon the Member States to abolish the practice of territorial grants and, instead, to support the transfer of a young person who decides to undergo a period of training in another Member State.
In addition, I particularly stress the need to improve the dissemination of information on Community programmes for young people.
I believe that this kind of information needs to be decentralized, provided at local and regional level by structures like libraries or neighbourhood associations.
Finally, I should like to ask the Commission's opinion about the proposal we put forward in paragraph 36, where we call for the setting-up of a Co-ordinating Committee with the power to develop the proposals contained in my report, as suggested at the Council meeting in May 1996.
In conclusion, let me say that six amendments have been received and will need to be considered during tomorrow's vote.
Of those six amendments, I feel I can accept Amendment No 1, tabled by Mr Dupuis and Mr dell'Alba on behalf of the ARE Group, since, from a general but sufficiently specific point of view, it highlights the problem of linguistic communication, and Amendment No 6, from Mr Monfils of the Liberal Group, since I regard it as being absolutely in line with the content of the report itself.
Mr President, first of all I should like warmly to congratulate Luisa Todini on her excellent work on this Green Paper.
I am also saddened by the fact that this report is being debated so late at night, which seems to reveal the lack of importance attached to a human Europe but, at least, some of us are and we are particularly attached to it.
Therefore I welcome the Commission's initiative and the desire shown by Commissioner Cresson to make Europe progress and bring it closer to the ordinary people.
I should also like to say that, although the Green Paper offers a good analysis of the current situation and the difficulties posed to people who wish to be more mobile, it proposes possible actions which seem to me still to be too abstract and distant.
That is why I ardently support the proposal by the rapporteur to introduce a binding timetable and create a coordination committee so that this action can come about effectively and in practical terms by means of rapidly applicable measures.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I shall stick in particular to the social and human aspects of mobility.
There are still a number of lacunae here.
It is inconceivable that students moving around Europe should not be covered by a coordinated social welfare scheme.
That is why we propose to extend the benefit of Regulation 1408/71 on social security for migrant workers to students affiliated to a specific national scheme.
Similarly, it is incomprehensible that, nowadays, an unemployed person looking for work in another European country should lose the right to benefits after only three months. We therefore insist that this regulation be revised so that unemployment benefits continue to be paid for more than three months in the case of unemployed persons moving around Europe in search of a job or training.
Finally, when it comes to vocational training itself, a large European programme is absolutely necessary in order to facilitate the mobility of apprentices and trainees, as well as recognition of their status and an encouragement to any companies, especially small and medium-sized companies, which take them on.
Mr President, those are three concrete proposals which should make it possible to make progress towards human and social Europe, a Europe to which our fellow citizens are especially attached.
Mr President, one of the key aims of cooperation on education and research policy in the European Union is to promote transnational mobility.
For individual EU citizens, the possibility of completing substantial parts of their training in another Member State is one of the most important and welcome aspects of freedom of movement within the Union.
European integration and the People's Europe, freedom of movement and international competitiveness all require that mobility between countries should be largely unhindered.
Moreover, the European dimension in education is becoming an increasingly important criterion for the quality and appeal of vocational and general education and research.
The teaching of European awareness, language skills and knowledge of the various political, legal, social and economic systems in Europe, and also the understanding of our European neighbours' ways of life, should be expanded and given further support.
National systems need to focus more clearly on European developments, without becoming involved in issues of subsidiarity.
Regrettably, however, a whole range of administrative and political obstacles still crop up regularly in the work of both the Committee on Culture and the Committee on Petitions.
It is clear from the petitions we receive that, for whatever reasons, a growing number of EU citizens are keen to take advantage of their right to free movement.
Sadly, many of them are still encountering major obstacles.
I therefore welcome the Commission's initiative of a Green Paper to stimulate a broad-based debate on ways of eliminating obstacles to mobility at national and European level.
You will appreciate that I cannot go into full details here and now, and can only pick out a few points.
In recent years and months, we have discussed at length the procedures for the recognition of diplomas and certificates of qualification, and I think that a good deal has been achieved in this area.
The large number of petitions nevertheless shows that there is still much scope for action and improvement.
In my experience, the lack of flexibility in recognizing vocational qualifications is by far the greatest obstacle to mobility.
I therefore agree with the rapporteur that the Member States must take action to improve the equivalence of vocational qualifications by increasing the transparency of certificates and course contents.
I also noted with interest the suggestion of introducing a European status of trainee.
I think that if this were handled properly, it could be a further step in our efforts to make vocational training more practically useful.
However, the details of the Commission's ideas still need to be clarified and discussed.
The Green Paper says nothing specific as regards either the term 'trainee' or what the suggested trainee status would entail.
The legal position of trainees must be such that a traineeship represents an attractive alternative to a university education and is promoted as such.
It should be stressed that the main purpose of such a status would be to promote mobility, and that the term 'trainee' would have to take account of the dual system of vocational training in Member States such as Germany and Austria.
On no account must this system of industry-linked training be jeopardized by European legislation.
Nor should the Member States' responsibilities for shaping the content of their education systems be restricted by such a status.
The proposed mobility scheme for trainees is welcome in principle, especially as it will be a means of reducing the imbalance between mobility measures in the university sector and in non-academic vocational training.
Compliance with the existing framework conditions for vocational training in the Member States would, however, be the prerequisite for such a programme.
I therefore welcome the initiative of establishing a Europe-wide trainee status.
Trainees should be offered the same opportunities for mobility as other citizens of the Union.
In my personal view, the term 'trainee' should not be too narrowly defined, so as to ensure access to these programmes for people who are perhaps not trainees in the usual sense.
This is particularly important given the need for lifelong learning, and I am very pleased that my amendment to this effect was adopted in the Committee on Culture.
I should like to raise one other point which, in the information age, I feel is inseparable from the debate on mobility: the use of modern communication technologies.
These afford a new, virtual form of mobility, even in cases where physical mobility is not possible.
The mastery and use of information technology should therefore be actively encouraged at an early stage, and at best in childhood.
I would end by saying that I am in favour of both the Commission proposal and Mrs Todini's report.
I am grateful to everyone concerned for their excellent work.
Mr President, first of all I extend my congratulations to the rapporteur on her report.
As she says in her explanatory statement, this is the kind of Green Paper that should be published more often.
That is certainly a sentiment that I concur with.
To my mind, the European Union and the European Community before that have too long been too concentrated on money and business.
The free market has been only a free market for goods and capital.
This report, when implemented and operating, will go a long way, I hope, to opening up Europe to more people in the European Union, particularly young people.
It contains, as the rapporteur has outlined, a whole range of positive proposals.
I would like to draw attention to some that I think are particularly important: the call for support for persons with children to enable them to take up the opportunities that training in other countries provides; the need to extend entitlement to unemployment benefit - again very important for those in most need; the need for Member States not to discriminate between training at an establishment in their own country and those in another; the whole question of social protection; and perhaps most importantly, the call in paragraph 29 for a much greater emphasis on the European dimension to education, making certain that we introduce language teaching certainly at a much earlier stage than happens in my own country.
Those of us with a background in education are absolutely convinced that education is the key to overcoming ignorance and, in turn, to tackling the real problems of racism and nationalism, which, if unchecked will be a serious problem to the European Union.
I am not sure whether this report would have helped a group of young people from my own constituency in London who were due to visit Parliament here tomorrow.
Although the group were all legitimately registered students at the College of Northwest London in Wembley, some were denied travel visas to France and so the whole group has had to withdraw from a visit to Parliament.
I am investigating exactly why this has happened but I would hope, if this report does not cover what has happened there, that this regrettable situation can be amended in some other way.
My group will be opposing Amendments Nos 2 to 5.
History has showed repeatedly that efforts to suppress languages breed contempt.
I believe efforts to impose languages would equally create resentment.
I do not believe that Esperanto is the answer.
If it was the answer then the question must have been a particularly peculiar one in the first place.
I believe we should be looking to support major languages and certainly lesser used and historically traditional ones.
Amendment No 1, though, is covered by paragraph 29, to which I have referred.
However, this report shows the continuing need for more financial investment in education and training.
That runs through the report.
I and my group will be recommending acceptance of this excellent report.
Congratulations again to the rapporteur.
Mr President, mobility is an essential condition for European construction.
The ordinary people of Europe should be able to choose their place of residence, work and training, not only by personal preference but also in order to extend their opportunities for study or work.
On the other hand, it is only if we exchange knowledge and experience between organisations in large and small countries, between the richer and poorer countries of the north and south, the centre and peripheries, that we can bring about a genuine European spirit.
Today, pilot programmes for exchanges between young people, students and apprentices, researchers and teachers, are isolated cases and they should instead become the rule rather than the exception within the European area.
With the possible integration of Schengen into the acquis communautaire, now surprisingly nearer to completion, we will at least have the free circulation of goods and persons which characterises a genuine European area without frontiers.
For a country like Portugal, the acquisition of experience in foreign centres, laboratories, universities and companies, as well as welcoming nationals from other European countries and the dynamization that that brings about, are part and parcel of its project for European integration.
If integration and cohesion are the basic objectives of the European Union, then mobility is one of its main instruments.
There are three groups for whom there are especially acute problems of mobility at the present time.
Young people: students, trainees or volunteers; researchers and university scholars, and the unemployed.
What are the problems facing these groups of ordinary people? They face difficulties of recognition and validation of certificates, problems of social security, taxation problems and, last but not least, problems of linguistic preparation.
These difficulties were all identified years ago but there seems there has been no way of solving them so far.
Why? Because the States lack the political will.
Nothing justifies prolonging absurd situations such as those of young volunteers who have to pay taxes on their maintenance grants, or researchers who have to give up a project because of tax burdens, or unemployed people in search of work who are forced to return to their home country after three months; many, many of the situations of this kind exist.
On various occasions, the European Parliament has dealt with obstacles to mobility from different angles.
Once again, apart from this excellent report drafted by Mrs Todini, on the Green Paper on Education, Training and Research, only a little while ago, in the Committee on Culture, we voted on the Fontaine report on recognition of higher education diplomas.
But unless our Member States show greater political will to eliminate difficulties, Commission and European documents will remain dead letters.
And if this happens, future generations will definitely hold us responsible for that failure.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the Commission's Green Paper and Mrs Todini's report analysed very well the obstacles to transnational movement and the challenges in the field of education and research.
We now have enough clarity and information about the situation.
The measures proposed must ultimately be put into practice with the help of a specific timetable and a coordinating committee of the Member States.
There are still many defects to be ironed out.
The priority task is to create a clear and sufficiently broad legal status for trainees and volunteers.
Anyone participating in education and programmes must be guaranteed and consequently the structures in this area must be harmonized.
Childcare and part-time working should not be a hindrance to participation.
It is also important to promote existing opportunities for international exchanges in apprenticeship.
Application procedures must be simplified and payment speeded up.
It is also essential to make the provision of information more effective.
Young people must be guaranteed equal opportunities, irrespective of where they live, to obtain information and to have access to EU education programmes.
This calls for the regionalization of information and the creation of a comprehensive service network.
The most important area in which improvements are needed, however, is the budget for education programmes.
All the other activities put together cannot have much influence unless the funding of the programmes is increased so as to reflect better the intended objectives.
The programmes are now causing disappointment to many people, and the budget for Socrates, for example, is completely inadequate relative to the number of applications and the level of support needed.
Social background and prosperity should not determine participation on the programmes.
The EU's education and training programmes are an excellent instrument for building up mutual understanding, tolerance and thus security.
The Member States should therefore be required to promote them when budget decisions are taken in the Council.
The removal of obstacles to education and research exchanges will be of benefit to all.
Mr President, we agree with the assessment of the Commission's Green Paper contained in Mrs Todini's excellent report, especially regarding the Commission's proposal to create a European 'qualifications space' .
Mrs Todini, in her motion for a resolution, might have been more forceful in criticizing the inactivity of the Commission with regard to the comparative elaboration of professional qualifications on which all mobility hypotheses are based.
This is a challenge affecting an increasing number of young people: we need only consider the number of students who, in recent years, have made use of the Erasmus programme to enable them to complete their studies in another Member State in order to understand that this desire for mobility - the desire to be citizens of Europe in the fullest sense - is deserving of special attention both from the Member States and from our European Institutions.
We are in agreement with the rapporteur when she focuses attention on the training and mobility of young people from less privileged backgrounds, those who are not entering higher education, mature students, the handicapped and persons with dependent children.
But we cannot escape the fact that there are still administrative and political problems of every kind, as is apparent from the work of the Committee on Petitions.
Let me cite the example of foreign language lecturers at universities in the Member States, and in Italy in particular.
The rapporteur's call for a comparative study on working conditions in this category, with a view to eliminating any discriminations and guaranteeing real mobility, seems to us a matter of the greatest urgency and importance.
Mr President, the Commission's Green Paper is an important element in the elaboration of the European policy for education, as defined in Article 126 of the Treaty.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Todini, on the quality of her work.
This is an excellent summary of the obstacles which definitely have to be overcome if we are going to make progress towards the mobility of students, their teachers and researchers.
These obstacles - which we have so often denounced - and I often wonder whether one day we are going to be heard - are still the same difficulties which have yet to be solved.
The Commission lists nine main obstacles.
As far as I am concerned three of them are particularly important.
I do not deny the problem of status and social cover for people on the move, but I should like to insist on the problem of less-favoured young people or those without qualifications.
I think that mobility should also concern them and we must find a way of involving them in all European programmes concerned education and youth.
There is no doubt that the problem of qualifications is a major one and, therefore, apprentices must be given a European status.
From this point of view I think that the model of guilds is an example to follow.
Furthermore, regardless of the arrangements for recognising training, we must also find ways of working out joint teaching modules.
As the European Union is opening up to new horizons, we must also give this mobility new frontiers.
The countries of central and eastern Europe, which have applied to join the European Union, are very soon going to be involved in the Socrates, Youth for Europe and Leonardo programmes.
This should open up the way to new cooperations and many of them.
Ladies and gentlemen, as this goes beyond good intentions, I think we should also emphasise the meagreness of budgetary means at our disposal.
In this European Union of ours, in which 120 million young people aged 18 years or less live, barely a million of them are going to benefit from any of these programmes.
Alas, that too is a reality which we should take into consideration.
I must congratulate Mrs Todini on the sound opinion she has produced.
Transnational mobility is indeed fundamental to continued unification in Europe, which ultimately stands or falls by the sympathy and understanding of its citizens, and increasingly - as far as employment and training are concerned - by the readiness of young people to move about.
The promotion of mobility is in fact a form of employment policy.
This needs to be more widely recognized, and does not only apply to Europe's border regions.
It is curious to note that in many cases, the movement of goods and capital through Europe is less problematic nowadays than that of persons.
I can also see a danger here - and it has already arisen - that if, for example, young people undergoing vocational training are given privileged access to exchange opportunities, then inequality of opportunity in education, which has been reduced considerably in Europe in recent decades, will be resuscitated as a paradoxical result of European contacts.
As we have seen, less than one per cent of young people in vocational training outside universities now take part in exchange programmes and - as has already been mentioned - young students are in effect excluded because ERASMUS grants are worth no more than pocket- money; furthermore, some countries do not allow grants to be taken abroad.
We are all in favour of a European labour market, but we are not giving unemployed people an opportunity to improve their communication skills through language tuition in neighbouring countries.
We really do need rules on the freedom of movement and a departure from the principle of territoriality.
It is also extremely irritating that - apart from these legal hurdles - many administrations in Europe still harbour an inbuilt resistance to freedom of movement.
It is equally irritating when, as happened recently, students are kept waiting for their residence permits for no good reason, or the mutual recognition of diplomas for access to the regulated professions in European countries is either delayed or simply refused out of an egotistical desire to put up barriers.
I hope that we can make some headway here and bring about improvements.
I also hope, however, that the Member States themselves will enhance the European dimension of their education systems, rather than relying unduly on the Commission's efforts to Europeanize syllabuses.
This requires better foreign language teaching, first and foremost.
Finally, I would urge that in future, more funding should be earmarked for exchange programmes in the EU budget.
I see nothing specific on this point in the Green Paper.
The question is, are the exchanges which we are demanding to remain a pilot project, or are they to be offered much more widely one day? Just think that, to put it starkly, less money is being spent on SOCRATES than to support European tobacco-growers.
I could imagine that the Structural Funds might also be drawn on for exchange programmes - in terms of employment policy - so as to give a fair chance to a maximum number of school pupils, trainees and students who cannot rely on parental aid for educational visits abroad.
The amount of funding for our educational programmes should be increased to meet this need.
Last but not least, please bear in mind that information on mobility schemes in Europe needs to be improved substantially and a much better placement system created on the ground, particularly in companies.
As has rightly been pointed out, although these programmes are being overhauled, many people in Europe are totally unaware of their existence.
Mr President, removing obstacles to the free movement of persons is one of the main objectives of European integration, defined in the Treaty of Rome.
However, there are so many obstacles to free movement that I wonder whether free movement really exists at all.
Students, researchers and teachers who wish to travel to another EU country to train under an exchange programme are not always accepted.
Conversely, not all countries have people wishing to go to them.
It is absolutely essential that language learning be supported.
The idea of prioritizing the teaching of the lesserused languages is important because it promotes exchanges to all countries.
Attaining an excellent level in two foreign languages at middle school level is, however, an impossible ambition.
Account needs to be taken, for example, of individual differences and differing opportunities to learn.
In my opinion, efforts ought also to be made to find a lasting solution to the problems of taxation and social security.
In particular, practice on the direct taxation of researchers differs considerably from one country to another and may lead to situations in which a high level of taxation directly prevents movement to a particular country.
Moreover, the refusal to grant unemployment benefit to persons participating for more than three months on a course in another European country is hardly likely to encourage applications to study abroad.
At present, it is hardly possible to speak of the equivalence or mutual recognition of research and vocational diplomas.
I hope that the Commission will take some real measures to remedy this situation.
Voluntary work, which is very closely linked to these exchange programmes, is also not recognized in all countries.
I should also like to know whether the budgetary resources are adequate.
The exchange programmes, which are continually growing and in which there is an increasing interest are unable to cover participants' expenses.
This leads to social inequality.
That being so, not every student has the opportunity to take part in activities which develop an international outlook.
Another argument for increasing the level of appropriations is to enable the Baltic countries to take part in the exchange programmes, a development which I would be very keen to see.
Human resources are the European Community's great strength, and everything must be done to improve the efficiency with which these resources are used.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Todini. I think this is a good report which addresses some very important problems about which much has been said this evening: qualifications, diplomas, foreign languages.
But I also believe there is one huge omission which the rapporteur has tried to make good by accepting one of the amendments tabled, though I feel this is not enough.
That omission relates to linguistic communication.
In a European Union where there are already 15 Member States and 11 languages, soon to be increased to 25 Member States and 20 languages, I think we can no longer go on pretending that no problem of language and of linguistic communication exists. After all, we in this House encounter problems of interpretation every day - as happened this afternoon, for example, when the English booth 'blew up' .
We form part of a small group, representing less than 1 % of the European Union, which speaks a second language and has the ability to understand a third, but this is a small, closed society which fails to realize that for 99 % of the Union's population the problem of linguistic communication - when people move countries and go abroad, whether as tourists or looking for employment or in other situations - is a very fundamental one.
So I believe that we can no longer close our eyes to this problem but must face up to the need to offer all our citizens - not just the small percentage that can go to Oxford or Harvard to study foreign languages - the possibility of sharing a common language of communication.
This is a taboo which must be broken - I call it a taboo because the concept of a neutral language of communication is associated with Esperanto, an old invention which has not enjoyed a good press but, even so, probably represents the only way, in a Union of 25 Member States with 20 different languages, of providing everyone - including those less privileged persons who lack the resources to go to the United States or to the better foreign universities - with the possibility of communicating with the other citizens of the Union.
Thank you, Mr President.
We are glad that Parliament has attached so much importance to the Green Paper, and I should like to thank the various committees for their contributions, and especially the rapporteurs - Mrs Todini, Mr Desama, Mrs Hermange and Mrs Heinisch.
In the course of the consultation procedure a substantial number of reactions and contributions have been received, the quality of which will enable the Commission to arrive at a better definition of the issues at stake and the lines of action set out in the Green Paper.
This procedure forms a counterpoint to the conference which opens tomorrow at Maastricht and which is called upon to play a key role in confirming the results achieved hitherto.
I would again like to emphasize the importance of the free movement of persons, especially as regards groups that have not previously been sufficiently taken into consideration: young people undergoing training, teachers, the unemployed working to obtain qualifications, and researchers.
On this same subject of individuals and freedom of movement, I should also like to say how much I agree with what has been said by some Honourable Members, to the effect that so far much greater progress has been made with the free movement of capital, goods and services.
I would like to assure you that, especially in the area about which we are talking this evening, Commissioner Cresson and indeed the entire Commission - as I can testify in my capacity as Commissioner for the single market - are doing our utmost to make good this defect; the action plan for the single market which the Commission is submitting to the European Council in Amsterdam places great and central emphasis on the free movement of persons, and the 'Citizens First' communication initiative supported by the European Parliament is designed to promote awareness and encourage people to use those opportunities for mobility which already exist today.
Regarding Parliament's contribution, I should like to highlight the very positive reaction by Mrs Todini at the start of her report where, very perceptively, she stresses the concrete and functional nature of the Green Paper.
I welcome this reaction on behalf of the commission - it accurately reflects the keen interest aroused in the Union by the Green Paper.
There are four central themes that guide the Commission's actions.
The first is improving the availability of information. On the initiative of Mr Elchlepp, Parliament calls attention to the need to improve the dissemination of information on the opportunities the Community programmes offer to young people who want to spend a period training abroad.
In this context, the proposal is that intermediate structures should be set up at local and regional level to provide appropriate contact points for the largest possible number of people.
In this connection, the report by the Veil group on the free movement of persons contains a number of proposals relating to the Eures network - proposals which the Commission substantially endorses and which include the strengthening of links between the network and the other Community programmes and initiatives.
With a view to taking advantage of existing structures rather than creating new ones, the Commission is proposing to examine the means to be applied to improve co-ordination between all the networks that are already operational.
Improved utilization of new technologies would make it possible to make these networks even more accessible to the general public.
The second objective is to reduce linguistic barriers.
The Commission is glad to note that this objective - which the Commission itself strongly advocated in the White Paper 'Teaching and learning - Towards a cognitive society' - finds favour in principle with Parliament.
We take due note of the reservations expressed in Mrs Hermange's report regarding the objective of fluency in two Community languages in addition to the mother tongue.
But we take note with interest of the support for the idea - previously expressed on the occasion of the debates following the White Paper - of acquiring passive knowledge of a third Community language.
It must be recalled, however, that in the light of the present wording of Articles 126 and 127 the Community's scope for action in the linguistic field is substantially confined to the Community education and training programmes, Socrates and Leonardo.
Even so, the action undertaken in this context is of considerable interest.
In one area to which Mrs Todini referred, the learning of a foreign language at an early age at school, there are for example some fifteen European pilot projects currently being developed under the Socrates programme.
The third objective is to institute a system for mobility candidates. This applies to researchers and to apprentices.
As far as researchers are concerned, the opinion put forward by Mr Desama will encourage the Commission to submit to Parliament, at an early date, draft measures capable of eliminating the obstacles described in the Green Paper, and the Commission intends to take action on the opinion put forward by Mr Desama.
On the basis of the information we are now gathering from researchers and from experts in taxation and social security, the Commission will prepare a synthesis document intended for the general public.
As far as apprentices are concerned, at the initiative of Mrs Heinisch, the report calls for the adoption of a Community definition and an apprenticeship statute, and also for the implementation of a specific mobility programme for apprentices.
We are currently examining the details of a framework mechanism defining the optimum conditions for sandwich-course training at European level and mechanisms capable of creating the conditions to give apprentices mobility on a Community-wide scale.
Finally, the fourth objective is access to the Community programmes.
The report underlines the need to take greater account of the imperatives of equal opportunity and equilibrium in social policy in connection with the Socrates and Leonardo programmes, to improve access to these programmes and hence substantially to reassess the appropriations intended for them.
From this standpoint, it is simultaneously being proposed that national and Community subsidies should be increased.
In this respect, the Commission entirely endorses the views of Parliament.
We hope that we can rely on the fruitful support of Parliament to enable future proposals in this field to be implemented.
Parliament's comprehensive and detailed report offers the hope of close co-operation along these lines.
Finally, Mrs Todini mentioned paragraph 36.
With regard to that paragraph, which deals with the Co-ordinating Committee, the Commission can express agreement with the idea of a body designed to facilitate a degree of coordination and follow-up, and practical implementation, of the lines of action proposed in the Green Paper.
The Commission will give the most careful consideration to the best ways of organizing this kind of steering operation, with which the European Parliament will certainly be fully associated.
However, as regards the type of committee proposed by Parliament, the Commission cannot yet give a definitive opinion.
The reason is that, as I am sure you will appreciate, it is difficult to give an opinion on this matter before we know whether the type of committee proposed is compatible with the procedures in force and with the principles of the Treaty.
In conclusion, I can tell you that the Commission will in due course, during the Luxembourg presidency, be submitting a detailed analysis supported by a series of proposals for implementing the Green Paper.
As proposed by Parliament, moreover, this proposal for implementing the Green Paper will be linked to a timetable, and I need hardly say that Parliament - which I thank again for its most valuable contribution - will be kept regularly informed of progress.
Mr President, I should first like to thank Honourable Members, and especially the Commissioner, for having shown such detailed understanding of the fundamental aspects of this report.
We therefore look forward to hearing in due course what positive steps can be taken regarding the Co-ordinating Committee.
I will take advantage of the Commissioner's presence to say that all of us have indeed complimented the Commission on publishing such a useful and specific Green Paper.
I must be somewhat less complimentary, however, about the fact that, very often, there is a lack of co-ordination between Community institutions.
A specific example is the fact that the Maastricht Conference on this very subject opens tomorrow.
We are debating the report on mobility today and will be voting on it tomorrow, making it difficult for the Maastricht Conference really to take account of the European Parliament's work.
As the Commissioner well knows, the work done on the Green Paper by the Committee on Culture has been timeconsuming and technical. Had the Green Paper been referred to that Committee rather earlier, perhaps things would not be quite so last-minute.
Maybe we could have concluded our work and our discussions a little earlier, so that the Maastricht Conference - which, as I said, opens tomorrow - could have taken better account of Parliament's efforts.
At all events, we are arranging for the final document to be available tomorrow, before 2 p.m. if possible, in the hope that the European Parliament's efforts, intentions and proposals can be appropriately taken into consideration.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 10.28 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes for yesterday's sitting have been circulated.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were adopted)
Madam President, I should like to ask the Bureau finally to take steps to ensure that Parliament's staff - I am not referring to the Members - are actually able to set foot in the restaurants during their short lunch-break.
Yesterday at 12.30 p.m., all the restaurants were full of visitors groups, so that Parliament staff had to queue for half an hour and spend at least another ten minutes finding a seat.
That is just not acceptable.
From 12.30 p.m. onwards, the restaurants are chock-a-block with visitors, and that can no longer be tolerated.
I note your request.
I would simply point out that, as you know, we completed the voting rather quickly yesterday and everyone - visitors, staff and Members of Parliament - left at the same time.
Madam President, we agreed at yesterday's conference that we would ask the President to write a letter about the fire in Turin cathedral.
Could you confirm whether this has already been done or is at least in hand?
The request has been recorded, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, and the letter will be written, but we cannot go any faster than we are already going.
Madam President, I wonder if you could help me.
There has been some difficulty over the Israeli delegation which was meant to be going to Israel from the 1 to 5 June.
For some reason or other, at very short notice, this has been changed to the 3-6 June.
This is very disruptive to Members who had already made arrangements to go on that delegation.
I gather that the decision has been taken without consultation of the Bureau of the Israeli delegation or with any members of the delegation.
I would ask you, as President here today, to have an investigation into why this has happened because not only is it disruptive to Members here but it is also extremely discourteous to our Israeli hosts.
Mr Provan, we are obviously not going to get into a debate on that point.
You want us to make enquiries, and we will.
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
I must inform you that, under Rule 47, paragraph 2, second indent of the Rules of Procedure, I have received the following objections, tabled and justified in writing, to the list of subjects for the next debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
On item V - Discriminatory measures by China against certain EU Member States - I have an objection from the Group of the Party of European Socialists which seeks to replace this item by an item entitled 'Western Sahara' and to include the item on China under Human rIghts.
If that is clear to everyone, I shall put that request to the vote.
Madam President, I wonder whether we are actually allowed to add an eighth item under human rights?
I know that Mr de Vries and others always object if there are more than five items, and I just wonder whether it is allowed under the Rules of Procedure.
I do not understand, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
We are not adding an item.
Perhaps I did not explain myself very well.
The proposal is to replace the item on China with an item on Western Sahara and to add a sub-item on human rights, which is in fact the item on China.
Now, this is what we have just done on some other items.
I assure you that this is perfectly in order under the Rules of Procedure.
I checked that before putting the matter to the vote.
(The motion was rejected)
Madam President, perhaps I did not express myself very well, but what we have done today is to include seven items under human rights instead of five.
I thought we had an agreement here in the House that we would never have more than five.
We keep adding more and more items under human rights every time, which rules out any chance of a proper debate.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, we are not going to get into a debate on this.
Actually I think the Conference of Presidents could look at this matter for next time, so as to harmonize things.
Madam President, I wish to clear up a misapprehension.
Item No 5 which is listed under the heading China is in fact a call for political solidarity by European Member States with those states threatened by Chinese retaliation in trade or other terms as a result of the UN Human Rights Conference in Geneva.
It is a political question about European solidarity with Member States such as Denmark and Holland and not in fact, strictly speaking, about human rights in China at all.
You know very well that we do not hold debates about objections, we just vote.
You were actually giving an explanation after the vote and I had a lot of trouble following you.
I did think it might be a point of order, but it was not.
Decision on urgency
Madam President, this is a very important Commission proposal.
We have begun our work in committee, but we shall not be ready by the second May part-session.
Our earliest possible deadline is the first part-session in June, so we shall complete our work then.
I would therefore recommend that we reject this request for urgent procedure, but undertake to debate this proposal at the first part-session in June.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Common security policy
The next item is the report (A4-0162/97) by Mr Tindemans, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the formulation of perspectives for the common security policy of the European Union.
Before giving the floor to Mr Tindemans, I would simply like to express my regret that the Council did not consider it necessary to attend this extremely important debate.
I had to say that.
Thank you, Mr Tindemans.
I think your speech was much appreciated, but in future I would like the groups to inform the Members properly of the speaking time allocated to them.
Quite clearly Mr Tindemans did not know that he only had six minutes.
He went well over time and I did not stop him because I did not think he was aware of it.
Madam President, I think that this morning's debate is a very important one on a subject which should also be high on the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference: security and the role of the European Union.
My group feels it is important to stress that for us, security is more than just the efficient organization of the military aspects of our security policy.
We see it as a broad concept covering economic instruments, environmental instruments, conflict prevention, peacekeeping, and so on.
So for us, security is more than it was originally intended to mean, in other words it is more than just military security, which I think is a significant point in the position we have adopted as a group.
We welcome the fact that Mr Tindemans' report also focuses on security policy, rather than the defence aspect of the development of the Union's second pillar.
We feel this is extremely important.
We now wish to focus the debate on security policy in the broader sense, which for the Union means Petersberg missions.
We think that the European Union should give itself the possibility of taking independent action, such as occurred in Bosnia under NATO, and in order to do this it needs more instruments.
As we have said before, it is better to try to develop prevention measures as part of our security policy, but if prevention fails, then the Union must be in a position to carry out Petersberg missions, in other words peace enforcement and peacekeeping, on its own.
This is my group's position, and it is also where we feel the emphasis should be placed in the present debate.
We are rather more reluctant to discuss what the Union's defence policy or common defence should mean in future.
It is not that we wish to avoid the issue, but we think that we should be focusing now on the Petersberg missions, particularly since the European Union has not been able to pursue an effective policy in practice in recent years.
But if we give the Union the right instruments now, we hope that it will be able to use them and show people that genuine progress has been made on our security policy.
And once we have made progress, then we can start talking about what to do next.
But I think we first need to give our own people a more reliable impression of the Union's ability to carry out Petersberg missions.
Of the several amendments which my group has tabled, I should like to draw your attention to two which we feel are particularly important.
The Tindemans report leaves it open to the European Union to carry out Petersberg-type measures without a mandate from the UN or the OSCE.
We do not agree with this.
Secondly, the report contains a passage on decision-making which proposes that the Council should be able to take majority decisions on important questions like Petersberg missions, in other words issues with military implications.
We do not agree with this either.
But otherwise we would congratulate Mr Tindemans on the work he has done over the last few years in preparing this report for Parliament.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe is a community with a shared destiny.
That principle has guided our history for nearly half a century, and underlies the Maastricht Treaty which established the European Union and set the objective of defining Europe's international identity by implementing a common foreign and security policy, including a common defence policy.
Mr Tindemans, whose skill and wisdom are unequalled in this field, has primarily tried to develop our overall thinking on new perspectives for the CFSP.
He recognized that it was premature for such a text to gather the strong majority a subject of this importance deserves.
National reflexes, but above all the reticence of the new Member States attached to their traditional neutrality, have rather slowed down consideration of an eventual common security policy.
Arguing for that process to develop in the future, because he is a citizen of a country which has been invaded every time it declared itself neutral, the rapporteur does not despair of convincing the hesitant and has chosen to concentrate on the security aspect of the CFSP for the time being.
His remarkable report leads us to the recognition that the common security policy is still in its infancy.
Every international crisis demonstrates our inadequacy. We have only been able to take decisions on humanitarian missions and sometimes carry them out but the Union's foreign policy should not and cannot end there.
In 1992, the Lisbon European Council established a remit for the CFSP by which common action could and should be decided if the need was recognized. The balance sheet in this respect is disappointing.
Clearly the concept has remained too abstract and Mr Tindemans must be heartily congratulated for offering us a concept of security which distinguishes between internal and external security. That is a new approach which should allow Europeans and their governments to better appreciate the value of jointly agreed measures to fight drugs, terrorism, organized crime and traffic of all kinds more effectively as far as internal security is concerned.
While the pathetic progress of the CFSP is certainly deplorable, paradoxically we may not have wasted any time because the most important thing is to convince people that common measures are effective and necessary. Europe cannot be built without the consent of the peoples and to obtain that we need permanent education.
Security in our immediate environment will allow us to understand better that the inviolability of the frontiers of the Union is a problem common to all and one we can only deal with together, never alone.
If ever a Member State were threatened, common security would immediately become an obvious idea and recognizing that would lead to accepting its corollary, the idea of common defence which is essential to the existence of common foreign policy.
Mr Tindemans' report and his proposals offer us a dynamic conception of security. That is why I strongly applaud it and that is why my group will support it.
Madam President, well done Mr Tindemans! He has just realized, along with Mrs Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, that it is increasingly difficult to draw up perspectives on common security that are in any way credible, for lack of agreement on the objectives.
The fate of Leo Tindemans' report provides a perfect illustration of that deplorable state of affairs.
The first version of the report was decisive and straightforward, with constructive proposals and vision.
But after its passage through the committee what is left is a toned-down and rather timid text, certainly a fine reflection of the temptation to succumb to the lowest common denominator approach which our Parliament now seems to share with other institutions of the Union.
By proceeding in this way our Parliament has abandoned its role of providing political impetus, which still remains after all, and will for a long time, its chief mission in the context of the CFSP.
Rather than identifying and clearly stating the difficulties and political obstacles which stand in the way of the CFSP taking shape and substance, we prefer to skirt round them by subscribing to the illusion of a Europe at peace internally and externally, which can economize on the defence and security effort.
We are being lulled into a dangerous state of illusion and this is no way to succeed in liberating ourselves from the oppressive goodwill of our American allies who will continue to defend our security.
It is significant that the Americans themselves are beginning to get annoyed at the European hesitation waltz and our determined failure to emancipate ourselves, except in words.
In the circumstances, one of the innovative proposals of the Tindemans report, the integration of Petersberg missions into the treaty, may actually be twisting our rapporteur's intentions to some extent.
It is certainly desirable to confer on these missions the status of common action and thus extend the panoply of our means of intervention, but given our patent lack of resolution, it is a good bet that what could be an important breakthrough will only be window-dressing in the end, and consequently a pointer to our indecision.
Madam President, we debate the Tindemans report in circumstances especially significant for the security of our Union.
For one thing we have an Intergovernmental Conference advancing at a snail's pace on this chapter, but, most important of all, we are rapidly approaching a NATO summit which is going to widen that organization geographically and strengthen its functions.
The conclusion is clear: if Union security remains a runt policy after the IGC, the security of our continent and the geographic area of the European Union will end up being exclusively run by NATO.
I believe this goes against majority public opinion in our countries, and it is against our own interests of course.
We cannot entrust the post-Cold War security of our continent to an organization like NATO born of the Cold War, dominated by a power external to the region, the United States, and continuing to base all its activities on the outdated concept of nuclear deterrence.
NATO security and defence cannot possibly have a European identity.
That identity must exist inside the Union. A Union capable of understanding that security is not a military concept but an all-round concept based on trust and preventive diplomacy.
The European Union ought to be promoting a new model of pan-European security, developing the OSCE by reforming its decision-making processes and increasing its capacities and resources, and coordinating the armed forces of Member States to perform 'Petersburg' missions - but always at the request of the United Nations or the OSCE.
Without CFSP there is no political union and vice-versa.
The Council, which is not here of course, should understand that.
Your first draft of this report, Mr Tindemans, in which you called for the creation of a defence identity for the European Union, was met by massive criticism in committee.
Your actual task was to develop a concept of security for all the citizens of Europe.
Europe must remain a civil power.
What you are doing, however, is building another fortress Europe, and in your report, you have taken defence to mean the defence of the special interests of the EU Member States, in other words of resources, sea lanes and transport routes.
Is what you are constructing here intended to be a new front between North and South? Is Europe - a Europe of peace, law and freedom as it was founded, a civil Europe - supposed to become a military union?
That is what your report suggests.
You clearly state at a number of points that the goal is a defence identity.
The three-stage integration of the WEU - which will be dissolved as such next year - is designed to breathe new life into it, enabling it to carry out independent intervention tasks.
However, we - the young generation - do not wish to return to the traditional, outmoded system, where security means our own security alone.
We have long been aware that dictatorships can also be overcome by peaceful means.
There is now the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which has developed ways of breaching walls so that threats are no longer necessary.
A comprehensive joint model of security for the twentyfirst century will not entail a division between internal and external security, but an indivisible security order, a security order that tackles the causes of instability where they really lie, namely in the economic, social and development fields.
The range of civil instruments at our disposal must undoubtedly be extended.
The creation of a European civil peace corps is an important project in this context, and it will need us to exercise all our political, financial and material power.
Madam President, I too wish to associate myself with those who have spoken before me in congratulating the rapporteur.
I think this is a good report. Like Mr Goerens I just think it could have been less conditional.
I think that there was a majority in Parliament to eliminate the few remaining conditional statements.
Essentially I want to say two things.
The first is not a criticism, but perhaps an appeal to our socialist friends, to Mr Wiersma.
If we are going to talk about Petersberg missions I think we must equip ourselves to carry them out and, in my view, we cannot accept unanimous decision-making in the Council if we really want Europe to be in a position to accomplish these missions.
My second point is addressed to our friends the Greens.
It is clear to me that a peace-keeping operation is inconceivable with just a civilian force.
The Bosnian experience demonstrated that.
So did the Rwandan experience.
To carry out this kind of mission, there has to be a military force to back up the civilian force. A civilian force alone is certainly not up to the task.
Mr Commissioner, I would like to draw your attention to paragraph 6 which asks the Commission and the Council to carry out a feasibility study into setting up a corps responsible for keeping and restoring peace.
I hope we will receive a response from the Commission on this point.
I think this is one of the conditions for allowing Europe to intervene, so that what recently happened with Albania is not repeated, when we were not in a position to react as a European Union, but had to delegate the task of facing that crisis to the Member States.
There should be a European instrument for crisis management, alongside majority voting in the Council, of course.
If the Commission could respond to us on that point, I think it would be an excellent step forward.
I hope our socialist friends will understand that without institutional means and majority decision-making capacity, we will continue to find ourselves in the same situation as we are in today, with Europe incapable of doing anything at all.
Madam President, I am not sure that we should be happy to accept the decision to confine this report to common security aspects alone, without also considering the question of defence policy, especially since recent experience in Bosnia - and, indeed, the present Albanian problem - show the need for a common foreign policy and suggest that no more time should be wasted in agreeing a common defence policy.
As we know, the two issues are indissolubly linked.
However, the method adopted by the rapporteur does have one positive aspect in allowing a definition of what the Members of the Committee on Institutional Affairs have called 'the essence of the Union's security' , meaning the whole set of basic guarantees which enable the Union to exist and to adopt the form of a legal system which is able to live and develop freely and to assert its identity on the international scene.
We must, though, be aware of the fact that a common security policy cannot in itself safeguard the European Union against all threats.
The question of defence will therefore have to be dealt with as soon as possible, by convening a conference similar to that held in Messina in 1955 with a view to defining the gradual merging of the Western European Union into the European Union in the context of a common defence policy.
The possibility for the Union to decide to implement humanitarian and aid missions, to keep the peace and to administer the WEU will represent the first significant expression of the security and defence aspects of the Maastricht Treaty.
There is another question, too, among the many referred to in Mr Tindemans's report, which is not mentioned in the chapter on the internal security of the Union: I refer to secessionist movements, whether violent or otherwise, which are sources of instability and disintegration that are difficult to reconcile with the democratic development of society.
A Europe reduced to trying to contain a series of secessionist aspirations would certainly lack the credibility needed for the balancing role that should be entrusted to it.
National entities resulting from secessionist divisions would undermine internal security, based as they are on egotistical local interests or even on ethnic prejudices.
The European Union must therefore confront these dangers and work to ensure that, within the context of political union, we preserve those forms of autonomy and subsidiarity which recognize certain differences but, at the same time, that we guarantee the protection of internal security as an inalienable benefit for the development of the Union and its people, and for the integrity of States.
Madam President, this report is clearly better than the proposals which have been debated several times in committee.
But there are still proposals which are unacceptable.
Sweden has made its position on the Common Foreign and Security Policy clear through its proposal, in conjunction with Finland, to the current Intergovernmental Conference.
As a non-aligned State which aims to remain neutral during a war, Sweden cannot accept the development of a common European defence position within the framework of the EU or via organisational integration of the EU and the WEU.
There can be no doubt about this.
The proposal for a conference to discuss a common defence policy and a common defence position cannot be accepted.
The EU must not be allowed to develop a military organisation alongside the United Nations which competes with it.
The future role for EU security policy ought to be to work for peaceful solutions to conflicts, to develop institutions which will detect conflicts early and resolve them using political and economic methods, to take upon itself peace keeping operations and humanitarian initiatives and to manage crisis.
Petersberg missions should only be carried out with a direct mandate from the UN or OSCE.
It is unacceptable that the Union should act independently outside the framework of these organisations.
The proposal for a common European military and civil corps is neither well thought out nor capable of implementation in practice.
Future security policy must be expanded from its traditional focus on military state security to encompass security for people and security for the planet.
Common security and all embracing security is built on co-operation, the creation of trust, openness and on disarmament and requires completely different tools from military security.
In order to resolve conflict by peaceful means the EU ought to develop a broad spectrum of preventative measures which allow early warning, conflict resolution, mediation and political and economic aid instead of clinging to the military solutions of the cold war.
Madam President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Tindemans on his work, which is appearing at a very important time, precisely because it recommends a number of proposals for the formulation of a common security policy.
I too am sorry that the Council is absent from this debate.
Some representative of the Council should have been here out of respect both for the issue and for Parliament, especially since the Council in particular bears the burden of a series of serious failures in the area of security policy.
The report by Mr Tindemans contains several particularly important points.
The first is its methodological approach, in other words the distinction between general principles and particular headings, relating mainly to the consideration of areas that are the focus of crisis, because it is precisely these that pose some threat to European security.
Speaking of general principles, I would like to dwell on two of these.
The first is the concept of territorial integrity, a concept which is very important and certainly, in my view, the core of any common security policy.
However, here we need imagination and an eye on the future, because the tools, the weapons systems that present the prime threat to territorial integrity have developed and compel us to change views that until now have been traditional.
The second is the concept of preventive diplomacy, which I think is the most important proposal, because prevention means avoidance of the disagreeable facts which nowadays make up the picture of the international system.
However, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, prevention means procedures, it means information, contacts, specialization and analytical consideration of all the causes of a crisis, things which of course - and needless to say, the Council is not here - have not existed so far.
Another point is the proposal and introduction of measures to build trust as an established factor, which has already been tried in previous difficult times, but which can clearly contribute to creating the conditions required for the problems to be addressed.
And the last point, Madam President, concerns the 'Particular Headings' .
The Balkans: a failure of the European Union.
The Mediterranean and the Middle East: a second failure.
It is not enough to appoint mediators overnight and by means of untransparent procedures, we must have specific proposals.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Tindermans on the excellent report he has produced, even though I too have certain reservations, especially regarding the fact that this version has been watered down and incorporates numerous changes introduced by the Committee on Foreign Affairs. In particular, I am not happy that this version has become somewhat illusory in mingling a whole series of issues such as organized crime, prostitution, the economic crisis and racism.
I do have my doubts about this.
But, clearly, the day of reckoning is at hand.
The Intergovernmental Conference is not producing the results for which we hoped, and the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty are not really being appropriately taken into account in the context of a common security policy.
Clearly, without a security policy there can be no defence policy, and without a defence policy there can be no common foreign policy.
So Europe, which could be a giant - and is a giant in part - in economic terms is a political dwarf; or more precisely we have fifteen political dwarflets, the fifteen Member States, bickering in the interests of their own little egos and counting for absolutely nothing in international terms.
For this reason, I also appreciate the vehemence with which Mr Tindemans has stated this problem.
This is a point on which we must be clear, dispensing with ambiguity.
Preventing conflicts and finding peaceful solutions to them - peace keeping and peace making - cannot be just a rhetorical exercise.
How many times have voices been raised in this House - and I turn to the Members of the Socialist Group - who have been seriously perplexed, as evident again today from what they have said - about the question of resolving conflicts and restoring peace and democracy.
None of this can be just a rhetorical exercise.
There is a price to be paid for this policy, and anyone who has the courage to invest in operations like Petersberg or the other operations, like those of NATO which, whatever anyone may say, now represents the one great bastion of security for Europe, as it does elsewhere, anyone who has the courage to invest in the security policy and so in the capacity to intervene and to export peace, democracy and freedom, is working for the only possible future for a Europe which is an area of democracy and freedom.
I believe, then, that the WEU must be harnessed to the service of the CFSP, and that there must be not just cooperation between the WEU and the European Union but real, genuine integration with, maybe, the possibility of creating an opt-out - giving those countries which are unwilling to participate in military peace-keeping initiatives the right to withdraw.
It is essential here that Parliament should adopt a clear position and call upon the Council to face up to its responsibilities.
Mr President, I take this opportunity to express my great appreciation for Mr Tindemans before this packed and enthusiastic House, but at the same time to express my regret at the fact that his excellent initial effort has been mutilated in committee. Nor does it seem to me that the admittedly numerous and wordy amendments can restore its original force and substance.
We are missing an important opportunity today to show that Parliament is capable of venturing beyond the narrow confines of its own affairs.
What we are going to propose to the Intergovernmental Conference on the subject of the CFSP is little more than a plaintive murmur, before which not so much as a leaf will tremble.
On this subject, a Parliament which is still a slave to its political and ideological prejudices and to empty defences of national sovereignty is expressing an opinion that is destined to leave no trace in the historic record of European integration, endeavouring as it does to fill the void of its political proposals with a few feeble practical ones.
No, we have no need to strengthen co-operation with the WEU, but only to integrate it into the European Union.
This body, extraneous both to the Union and to NATO, revived like Lazarus after 40 years of slumber, is today incapable of taking control of the mission to Albania, totally consistent though it is with the Petersberg undertakings.
No, we have no need for any surveillance or analytical capacity if we then lack the will and the political and military machinery to react.
No, we have no need of a European humanitarian core, a futile addition to the proliferation of so-called strengths - which are really weaknesses - of European cores.
What we do need is a clear, authoritative common foreign and security policy, and the will to provide it with all the necessary instruments that will make the European Union not just a market, which it is, not just a gigantic central bank, which for better or worse it is going to be, but an international political entity of the first magnitude with greater and greater autonomy.
Theodore Roosevelt told the United States that his foreign policy would be 'talk soft and carry a big stick' .
Unfortunately, the foreign policy of the European Union seems to be: ' talk a lot provided you don't carry a big stick' .
Ladies and gentlemen, I know it is very difficult to keep to one's speaking time, but I would like to draw this problem to the attention of the groups.
I think there must be more vigilance in future.
It seems that an hour and twenty minutes of speaking time was not used yesterday because the speakers were not here.
By contrast the timetable is very tight today.
I think we must have another look at all this so that we can devote all the time they deserve to important debates.
For my part, I must do my best to ensure that speaking time is respected by all.
Madam President, Mr Tindemans has said that security is not only a military question.
Quite right, but this must then also be acknowledged in the EU's relationships with other countries.
The deepest gulf in standards of living on the EU's borders is on the border between Finland and Russia.
Russia is no longer the evil empire, but 90 % of its population is experiencing social insecurity.
The cost of living has risen six-thousandfold, life expectancy for men has dropped to 57 years and 60 % of the population earns less than ECU 500 a month.
This gap in living standards is a very serious threat and in Finland we have wished to meet that threat by peaceful cooperation and neutrality.
To us, military tension in the north would mean an increase in insecurity and for this reason we have wished to maintain our neutrality.
If NATO is enlarged to include Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia, it will still not reach Russia's borders.
If NATO is enlarged to include Finland, then it will.
In proposing the merger of the EU and WEU, Mr Tindemans is trying to get Finland and other neutral countries into NATO by the back door.
Mr Tindemans and Mr Titley, in their report, advocate a common defence and a common military complex.
These reports would turn a civilian union into a military union.
Some large countries seem to be pressuring the Finnish Prime Minister into approving the merger of the EU and the WEU, but the Prime Minister's position does not have wide support in our country.
We Nordic MEPs from several countries have agreed on a joint explanation of vote, in which we express our hope that this report will be rejected.
Madam President, I congratulate the rapporteur on his thought-provoking report on European external and internal security policy.
I shall concentrate on internal aspects.
The threats and dangers we face today from terrorism and the activities of organized criminals in drug-trafficking and other areas are extremely far-reaching.
Coming as I do from Northern Ireland, I am very conscious of the network of international terrorism and terrorists' ability to bypass and defeat cross-border controls, and to get round whatever security Member States and the European Union try to impose.
Their weapons of death and destruction are brought into our environment.
It is of little consequence if they bring material for making bombs or weapons for shooting and killing: the threat of terrorism creates fear and instability in our communities and gives rise to total insecurity in those communities.
It eats away at the very fabric of our society and creates suspicion, tension and distrust.
The European Union cannot ignore such a challenge to its position.
If there is to be trust and respect, it must come from all Member States.
They have to face up to the threat that international terrorism presents to us all in the European Union.
This is a problem that will not disappear.
It must be faced head on.
Some Member States have not covered themselves with glory in these matters in the past.
I now turn to the matter of drugs.
In my area this problem has not loomed large, but drugs have become a massive problem in society.
We need stringent controls and inspections.
We have to protect our people from this danger, from those on the outside who wish to destroy our societies and our young people.
In conclusion, I support this report as far as it goes, but there is a lot more that should be done.
There are many challenges ahead to combat the many and varied attacks on our society.
We must do all we can to bring about a society in which we can all live together.
Madam President, Mr Tindemans' report on the common security policy of the European Union is welcome.
I feel like saying 'at last!' Surely it is about time the peoples of Europe took hold of their destiny?
Or should we always continue to leave our security in the hands of Mr Bill Clinton? Contemporary history demonstrates every day that European and American interests are usually different.
So the role of world policeman cannot be reserved exclusively to the Americans.
I am glad Mr Tindemans, who was an enlightened Foreign Minister in my country, Belgium, insists on a strengthening of the operational structures of the WEU, on better cooperation between the European Union and the WEU, and on the creation of a European military and civilian peace-keeping force.
As my French grandmother, who was also Dutch-speaking, used to say, ' Wie geen put graaft oor een ander valt er zelf in' - which translates as 'if you do not dig a hole for the other fellow, you are liable to fall into one yourself' .
I also subscribe to the rapporteur's determination to make the Mediterranean countries respect the relevant UN resolutions, which the State of Israel obstinately ignores.
Finally, I share the opinion that control of migration from the southern shores of the Mediterranean depends on improving the standard of living of the inhabitants.
However, I deplore the excessively important role NATO is still expected to play in the security of our peoples.
I think it would be more appropriate to strengthen the WEU and enlarge it to include the countries of central and eastern Europe.
And to end, I would like to express regret that this report has overlooked an internal danger threatening several Union countries: the rise of separatist forces, which Belgium is experiencing, as everyone knows, but Spain, Italy, even France and the United Kingdom are not spared either.
Madam President, first I want to express my appreciation for Mr Tindemans' report and announce that the Spanish socialists are going to vote for it. Our main reason for doing so is that Europeans, who have made war on each other for centuries, can formulate and develop a joint security policy for the first time, based on responsibility and solidarity, instead of each seeking individual hegemony.
There is another important reason: the Intergovernmental Conference is about to conclude and we are seeking to apply a Treaty on European Union which establishes common citizenship, the single market and the single currency. With money and life in common, it is striking that we are so reticent about establishing common security when that is the only thing that can really guarantee this Union stability and a future.
I think we should remember that our citizens' main concerns are employment and security - domestic security, of course, but external security too.
And there is also another fundamental reason: now the Cold War is over, we Europeans cannot systematically delegate responsibility for our protection and security to a partner and protector, however strong and powerful.
We must shoulder our responsibilities.
And our first responsibility is to stabilize the continent of Europe.
We have a passion for self-flagellation and regularly recite the litany of our failures as a European Union.
What we never say is that we need to stabilize the Baltic, we need to stabilize the Mediterranean, we need to guarantee security in Central Europe, we need to show solidarity when there are problems on the borders, and recently there have been problems in Italy and Greece, and there is anxiety - which has been expressed here - in Finland.
There is only one way to do all that: as the old saying goes, unity is strength.
That is the specific justification for concern about security policy - and a security policy which is all-inclusive and pacifist, but credible too.
Just as health policy cannot be based on prayer or rain dances, but needs hospitals and doctors, security policy will only be credible if we all support it with all our strength. And this means integrating the WEU finally into the Union, as affirmed in the Maastricht Treaty, and developing our capacity for mediation and peaceful intervention, supported by the strength that comes from solidarity and union.
Madam President, Mr Tindeman's report makes a very constructive contribution to the debate on security policy and to its development.
Several months ago President Clinton met President Yeltsin in Helsinki to discuss European security policy.
This was not a bad thing in itself, but we must be mindful of the risk that European security policy will be decided over the heads of Europe.
Weakly developed co-operation in this area means that Europe's contribution is becoming more and more fragmented and the opportunity for influence is being reduced.
There are obvious large scale advantages within security policy which, through increased co-operation, could be better used to strengthen Europe's role and the opportunity to make our own contribution.
Point 7 of Tindeman's report states '.....the natural solidarity between Member States in itself constitutes an important factor of security in as much as it acts in synergy with the security guarantees provided under the WEU and NATO and from which states of the European Union which are not members of those organisations already directly benefit' .
This is true but in order to avoid misunderstandings it ought to be pointed out that those countries which are not full members of NATO or the WEU are nevertheless not trying to hitch a ride.
Sweden has maintained an extensive defence organisation which has had a stabilising effect in Northern Europe.
Swedish defence spending per capita has been higher than in many other countries.
If we look at the current situation there are further opportunities for these countries to contribute to security policy through active and perhaps even imaginative co-operation within the framework of the Petersberg agreement.
Expanded co-operation within the Third Pillar to combat organised crime and terrorism is to be welcomed.
Membership of the EU, participation in the PFF and association with the WEU will give those countries which have remained outside military alliances greater experience of participating in a co-operation with mutual obligations.
The report includes a separate section on the Baltic region.
The Baltic countries and the EU can make an important contribution in this sensitive area by creating various networks, some of which may even take the form of military co-operation, in order to increase regional security.
Several such initiatives are already underway.
The new security policy conditions which have ruled since the end of the cold war have given rise to new debate even in Sweden.
There have been considerable changes in Sweden's attitudes to co-operation, even military cooperation.
In his well balanced report Mr Tindeman is facilitating this gradual but obvious change and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate him on his report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I must join the chorus of compliments and congratulations addressed to our rapporteur, Mr Tindemans, for this very important own-initiative report, which comes at a key moment in our foreign policy.
If the Union really wants to preserve, sustain and strengthen stability and peace, we must take urgent and unambiguous action to define our common foreign and security policy - a policy which is really able to function, and one which addresses the question of defence, especially as regards disarmament, conflict prevention and the creation of trust.
The Union must contribute not only to the stability of the European continent and the neighbouring regions but also to that of the Baltic Sea region, the Mediterranean basin, the Middle East and the Black Sea region, with a view to guaranteeing the continuance of peace, basing its actions on the principles of the CFSP and also on the principles of the United Nations Charter.
In this connection, I would stress how important the Mediterranean is to the security of the Union, as was previously made apparent on the occasion of the Barcelona Conference.
We would do well to create security structures in the Mediterranean basin which supplement the existing Euro-Mediterranean agreements, improving the economic and social conditions and, in particular, controlling the immigration flows and the trade in armaments.
My fervent hope is that the Intergovernmental Conference will lead us to conclude an agreement designed specifically to endow the European Community with the necessary machinery for the implementation of a genuinely common foreign and security policy, an agreement concluded jointly between all the Member States and thus a credible and practicable one.
It is important, in any case, that our actions should be co-ordinated and complementary and consistent with other Community policies, since a single foreign policy measure or a single development co-operation policy measure or a single humanitarian aid measure may produce results quite different from what we would like and what we have agreed.
Madam President, I entirely accept the Tindemans report, especially the points which the rapporteur has made in his speech today, and I regret that we have had to remove the section on defence policy.
I really cannot understand this reluctance, since I believe it is a question of seizing an historic opportunity: the opportunity of being able to hope legitimately, for the first time, that by applying common European decision-making structures and capabilities we can make the use of force to achieve political goals impossible.
That is our historic opportunity.
All the Member States, including those which are neutral, should therefore participate in this common foreign and security policy, including the defence dimension, because that represents the great step forward.
The benefits of neutrality, which is important to us and which has a long tradition, pale into insignificance behind the great hope and the broad security dimension which the CFSP can provide.
We can ensure that Europe's power is used to pursue the peacemaking objectives of the United Nations, the OSCE and the European Union itself.
I am therefore in favour of the neutral Member States also participating in the common foreign and security policy, and of the merging of the EU and WEU.
I am in favour of cooperation between ourselves and NATO, but I also believe that security cooperation with Russia must take priority over expanding NATO.
Security in Europe is not possible in opposition to Russia, but only in collaboration with it.
Madam President, I would first like to stress the importance of the Council's essential absence in contrast to the parliamentary consistency of Commissioner Van den Broek, who continually reminds us of it.
This ultimately downgrades Parliament's debate to a coffee-house discussion, and the Bureau in particular should take some measures to demonstrate Parliament's power to the Council.
My second point is that on the Committee on Foreign Affairs I witnessed the effort made by the rapporteur, Mr Tindemans, to produce a report with broad support, to stress that there are points which merit our active support, such as the issue of political solidarity, and the defence of the frontiers and territorial integrity of the Member States.
Thirdly, along with the whole of my Group, I too would like to say that overall, I oppose this report and will not vote for it because in my opinion, despite its initial intentions, it ultimately downgrades the principle of political security, but rather, favours easy recourse to military security.
Other colleagues have raised the question whether we could deal with Yugoslavia or Zaire without military measures.
My answer is yes .
It would be yes if there were any appropriate, correct and level-headed political intervention by the European Union and the Member States, if it were not for the superficial and very rapid recognition of the former Yugoslavian republics or the support by Member States of the European Union for the degraded Mobutu regime in Zaire, when perhaps the political security we ought to support would have given us much better results.
Madam President, in the light of the Union's lamentable foreign policy performance, especially in the Balkans, the need for Europe's people and politicians to pull together in the security field, to install more rapid and effective decision-making mechanisms, and to speak with one voice on the international stage is greater than ever.
The report by Mr Tindemans provides an excellent basis for this.
Naturally, this issue poses a particular challenge to those Member States which are still officially neutral.
In Austria, the current security debate among the government parties somewhat resembles the confusion of tongues in Babel.
The pronouncements of those responsible change virtually every day.
It is dishonest, populist and improper to tell one's own citizens that it is possible to join NATO and still preserve a modicum of neutrality.
It is improper to look for a free ride in terms of security policy from the other Member States.
We cannot call on our EU partners for solidarity and support when we have a crisis, and then invoke our neutrality when another country needs our help.
Austria has to make up its mind!
The Freedom Party is the only Austrian party with a credible and honest policy in this respect.
We are a very reliable partner in any sensible projects which form part of European integration.
Madam President, Mr Tindemans is to be congratulated on the diligence and intellectual rigour with which he approached this contentious subject.
However, it is to be deeply regretted that so many of my group's amendments were rejected at the committee stage of this report.
There are a number of reasons why Labour Members of this House are unable to support the report as it stands before us today.
We all agree that the Common Foreign and Security Policy must be strengthened.
The nub of the problem is how this can be achieved while ensuring a broad consensus amongst EU Member States.
Mr Tindemans' report on a common security policy for the EU contains some unacceptable elements.
The reference to qualified majority voting to joint actions under the CFSP goes beyond the position of the Socialist Group and the new British Labour Government.
Nor is it appropriate, in my view, to refer to the EU undertaking peace-restoring missions as distinct from peacekeeping and peacemaking operations.
The emphasis on maintaining the EU's territorial integrity and an economic security clause designed to secure the EU's communications and supplies implies a defence capability for the European Union.
This is confirmed in the explicit reference to establishing a European core of civilian and military units responsible for 'keeping and restoring peace' .
With respect, this is not the message this House should be sending to the Amsterdam Summit in June.
It is unfortunate because there is much in the report to commend.
This includes references to disarmament and arms control, nuclear nonproliferation, inequality and protection of the environment.
But on balance it is impossible to agree with important sections of this report.
The Tindemans report has laid down the parameters for debate although I and my group - and especially the Labour Group of MEPs - still await a report on security policy more in tune with Europe's aspirations for peace and security in the next millennium.
Madam President, the Tindemans report comes at an opportune time, six weeks before the end of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Should this report be defeated in the House, the European Parliament would appear in a very poor light, since it would then have missed an opportunity to gain a hearing and to be taken seriously on a key aspect of European policy, namely foreign and security policy.
We should welcome any politically realistic positions adopted by Parliament which ensure that the common foreign and security policy does not remain a hollow phrase.
The Tindemans report considers in a balanced way the need for arms control and nuclear non-proliferation, as well as the Union's capacity to act.
Its central message that the protection of the Union's territorial integrity must form part of the CFSP, possibly leading to a common defence policy, represents a quantum leap for European security policy - from a non-binding 'may' to a binding 'shall' .
We also support the gradual integration of the Western European Union into the EU, and the dovetailing of the WEU and NATO that is required, as well as the incorporation of the Petersberg missions into the EU Treaty, since this would underpin the credibility of European security policy.
Austria does not wish to be a beneficiary of European security policy, but is keen to play a full part in that policy.
I therefore very much hope that the Tindemans report not only gains support in the European Parliament, but also helps to foster the debate in Austria itself on our country's security policy position as a future full member of the WEU and a member of a newly reformed NATO, so that it can play its proper role in Europe's security order.
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Tindemans on the fact that his report has at last made it to a plenary debate.
I consider that the division of the report into two parts is a successful solution. I am pleased that, in the discussion in committee, the report's security policy aspect broadened and became more diverse.
In spite of this, as a member from a neutral Nordic country, I am unable to approve all its details and I cannot give it my support.
The debate going on in the EU about security policy is made more difficult by the widely differing promises on which it is based.
With some people, the thought uppermost in their minds is federalist theory and its concomitant objective that the EU should become a great power with a single defence policy and defence.
I am one of those who criticize the EU's foreign security policy from a practical point of view and wonder what security threats we are actually faced with.
There is no sign of a military attack on the horizon.
On the other hand, our security may be endangered by the uncertainties arising from the development of Eastern Europe and particularly Russia.
These threats cannot be removed by transferring the EU into a military union and a military great power.
By these means we might even aggravate them.
We can overcome these threats only by tightening pan-European cooperation.
Finally, I hope that all members will support my amendments aimed at ensuring that the Barents Sea area is given the place in the report which it deserves.
Madam President, in the one minute I have at my disposal, I should like to say that anybody talking about security policy in Europe today should wonder, first, about the dangers involved for Europe's peoples by the rationale expressed by the report, according to which, if an external policy is to be reliable, it should not exclude a priori any solution concerning how it is to be implemented.
In other words, the European Union is openly threatening the use of arms to impose its will, and this indeed, by means of autonomous activity.
Secondly, nowadays who needs cold-war organizations such as NATO and the Western European Union and their enlargement?
From whom do they wish to protect the values - as they say - and fundamental interests of the Union? Madam President, Europe's peoples have no need of an international police force, but what they need is policies to address the very acute economic and social problems of our times in accordance with the interests of the peoples, and collective security institutions for the peaceful solution of differences without the threat or exercise of violence.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Tindemans' report attracts our severe disapproval.
Not to repeat my colleague Mr de Gaulle's excellent remarks on defence, the fundamental element of national sovereignty, I shall content myself with observing that what Mr Tindemans is advocating is the total integration of our nations into the Atlantic system of internationalist coercion.
And to drive us faster down this road they top it off by playing the good old refrain about the spirit of the treaties going beyond the letter of the treaties.
Although we are not yet bluntly told that the Member States must submit or resign, the fact is the spirit of what is being said is not far away from that.
But the most extraordinary thing is the introduction of the famous dogmatic incantation condemning so-called racism and xenophobia.
Mr Tindemans mentions popular discontent giving rise to reactions of racism and xenophobia.
Mr Tindemans is partly right: there is popular discontent, and it is increasingly strong.
But this discontent is in fact swelling against genuine, authentic, violent racism, which no-one here wants to recognize.
One very recent example of this took place at Montfermeil hospital near Paris, where groups of young people, to put it politely, formed themselves into a veritable commando; not a prayer commando like those who are fighting abortion, a commando of louts, come to terrorize the patients and care staff for two hours.
Every day, Mr Tindemans, police stations are set on fire, fire engines are attacked, there is extortion in the schools and knife attacks - which ought to cause as much outrage as the one by an immigrant against a Minister of Culture.
Poor children are knifed for not handing over their watches or jackets immediately, and it is never mentioned.
You see, Mr Tindemans, the man who is talking to you and the movement he is part of, are total strangers to racism.
Did you know that? Two black West Indians are on the central committee of the National Front.
One of them, my friend Stéphane Durbette, the youngest regional councillor in France, was beaten up, left for dead and sent to hospital, because a Socialist/Communist commando regarded him as genetically defective.
That is racism.
My three Indo-Chinese godchildren tell me about the racism they observe, not from the old French, but from communities which detest that quiet community of Vietnamese people who love France.
Many of the 3, 000 orphans or destitute children I was concerned with during fifteen years of civil war in the Lebanon, tell me of their fears.
They tell me, they write to me: ' the same thing will happen to you in France as happened in Beirut' .
You make timid mention of the tensions in the southern Mediterranean; are you blind to fact that the atrocious and inexpiable struggles of the Algerian civil war, with throats cut as prescribed by the Prophet in the Koran, may spread to the millions of Muslims with dual nationality who live in my country with no sense of being French first or wanting to be?
Every day, politicians are expelled from certain quarters, and not just from my movement.
'You do not belong here' they are told.
It all started like that in the Lebanon.
Shortly before the fall of Constantinople, Mehmed II addressed these words to Constantine XI: ' both shores of the Bosphorus belong to me, the Asian shore populated by our Ottomans, the European shore because you are incapable of defending it' .
Madam Chairman, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his thorough work and calm approach to the development aspects of a common security policy at EU level.
The great achievement of the report is that it approaches the idea of security in a broad sense.
It is also important to stress that the ordinary citizen does not measure the significance of security issues solely in military terms.
The threats which citizens feel to their security are now primarily non-military in nature and relate, among other things, to environmental threats and nuclear safety.
The Treaty on European Union sets out the objective of a common foreign and security policy which may in future lead to a common defence.
There is no natural common European consensus about the real significance, interpretation and implementation of this objective and this should be more widely acknowledged.
The theoretical difficulty in shaping the future of security policy is of course obvious, because those involved differ widely in their objectives and resources.
A good example of this difficulty is the varying status of the EU countries in their relations with the Western European Union.
For this reason, the unilateral adoption of the Maastricht Treaty does not create a fruitful basis for further discussions.
Finland and Sweden have proposed in the context of the IGC that the WEU's role in developing the common foreign and security policy should concentrate on crisis management tasks.
Mr Tindemans has also very tellingly stressed the tasks referred to in the 'Petersburg Declaration', which Finland and Sweden seized on in their proposal.
The theoretical approach to military security issues set out in the Tindemans report is either its strong point or its failing, depending on your point of view.
I hope that the very heterogeneity of the parties involved would lead to the terms being defined extremely carefully when talking, for example, of the Baltic region.
It would also be good to put some flesh on the bones of the strategic partnership between NATO, the EU and Russia, in place of the current terminological debate.
Mr Seppänen referred to the Nordic countries' point of view.
This point of view is not, however, uniformly shared.
In Finland the debates on security policy, membership of the WEU and of NATO, divide opinions not only along party lines but within parties.
I support Mr Tindemans' report, because I regard its basic assumptions as being to the advantage of Europe and Finland.
I hope that Finnish public opinion will also take notice of this debate.
Madam President, Mr Tindeman's report is totally unrealistic!
There is no real basis for a Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Member States do not share the same outlook or policy interests.
The differences have been made clear for example during the Vietnam War, over the South African boycott, concerning Turkey, the Balkans, nuclear weapon policy and so on.
To create a sham agreement in these circumstances can only mean that the voices of the smaller Member States will be hushed, they will be outvoted, and some countries will be turned into satellites of the super powers.
In fact, the creation of regional blocs destabilises global security.
It increases the risk of aggressive and expansionist policies, for what we are talking about are expansionist policies and a new colonialism if the EU were to adopt the right to intervene independently with military force in countries outside their own territory.
Global security means rallying around a global organisation.
The United Nations, alone, is the people's true forum in the work for peace and security.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, reading the Tindemans report has left me with some positive impressions.
I am thinking here of paragraphs 20 to 32, which describe the tasks relating to peace and stability.
I have also taken particular note of the reference to the Baltic.
The second point I welcome is the discussion of the joint analysis centre, and the third is the agreement on the so-called Petersberg missions.
I do not care greatly for paragraph 6 on the European corps and paragraphs 33 to 38 involving the defence policy.
The Western European Union and NATO should not be set up as two parallel, rival institutions.
I am extremely concerned that we must learn to walk before we can run, as the saying goes.
We must not develop the WEU in such a way that it becomes an integral part of the Union.
There is indeed reason to welcome the cooperation which has been established in the Baltic between Member States, non-aligned countries and NATO countries.
Through this cooperation - the partnership for peace - the Baltic battalion has also been created, which has therefore been possible without an actual Union army.
As regards the Balkans, I would like to say that there is still a greater need for peaceful economic efforts than for military ones.
This debate reminds me that we cannot even agree on a simple statement on human rights in China, so how are we going to be able to agree on a common foreign and security policy which has a military element?
Mr President, Mr Tindemans is a champion of a common foreign and security policy in Europe, and in this respect we can and must support his report and congratulate him on it.
Our group's support would have been even greater and more heartfelt if the following points had been taken into account. Firstly, the CFSP must be a common policy for all.
The neutral Member States, those bound by conventions and those abstaining in some areas must therefore also be given the opportunity to integrate into the CFSP.
Secondly, it must be quite clear that the civil components of the CFSP take precedence over the military components.
Military action has to be a last resort.
The civil components must be at the forefront.
And it must also be quite clear that pre-empting and preventing conflicts takes precedence over resolving them.
Thirdly, it must be quite clear that 'out-of-area' actions should be carried out with the greatest care and only under the aegis of the United Nations or the OSCE.
Since a rapid military intervention force has been mentioned, it must also be quite clear that while we do need such a force, at the same time we need a civil corps whose task is peace-making in the broadest sense of the word, and which is not tied to the military components from the outset.
And I would repeat here, on behalf of my group, that while we welcome the progress on this issue, we are hoping for more impetus in this direction in the future.
This will undoubtedly not be our last debate on the subject, and we shall be holding further talks with Mr Tindemans and other colleagues in this context.
Mr President, I should like to begin by adding my congratulations to those already addressed to Mr Tindemans on his report, which has appeared at a very timely moment just before the Amsterdam summit and the important decisions on security to be taken at the NATO summit in Madrid.
I should also like to thank you for inviting me to attend this debate, since I am aware that the impetus needed for the process of developing a security policy should really come from the Council rather than the Commission.
Having said that, however, I would point out once again that the Commission has clearly set out its views on the future of the European Union's common foreign and security policy in its report to the Intergovernmental Conference.
It goes without saying that, as the guardian of the Treaties, the Commission has no intention of dissociating itself from what the Maastricht Treaty says about the common foreign and security policy.
Mr Tindemans began his speech by referring to this, and all the Member States, both old and new, have given an undertaking to develop a common foreign and security policy and, in time, a common defence policy that could eventually lead, as the Treaty says, to a common defence.
I quite understand why Mr Tindemans felt obliged to refrain from discussing the defence aspects in this report, in view of what he rightly feels is their sensitive and controversial nature.
However, he also announced - and this is something I wholeheartedly support - that Parliament would be having further discussions on the subject of the defence policy at a later date, and I very much hope that I shall be able to attend that debate.
An integrated foreign and security policy naturally involves more than just the defence component.
The military aspects also affect the operation of our external economic and socio-economic policy and can therefore help to promote stability.
Everything the European Union has done in recent years in its external relations in the form of association agreements, partnership agreements and modernizing its cooperation agreements with the Mediterranean countries, everything it has done to strengthen relations in its immediate strategic environment, such as with Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the Russian Federation and Ukraine - all this directly concerns its security policy.
I entirely agree with all those who have talked today about the need to pursue a policy of peace by economic means as well and to remove the socio-economic causes of instability, and I think that this is a field where the European Union is already doing a great deal for the outside world.
But where the Union visibly and tangibly fails is in the area of crisis management. It uses its cooperation with other countries to do whatever is necessary to prevent crises, but if prevention fails, what then?
Is the European Union, a world economic power, then left powerless? Is it incapable of organizing a rapid armed defence force when even the Security Council agrees that it is a good idea to send such a force to provide humanitarian aid for Albania?
At such a time, the European Union clearly fails.
A great deal of attention, though never enough, is given to crisis prevention, but up to now we have never really wanted to give ourselves the instruments we need for crisis management and control.
The most glaring example of this happened recently with Albania.
Why did it have to be a practically anonymous force - and by that I mean a force put together on an ad hoc basis under the inspired and expert leadership of the Italians - why did it have to be this anonymous body that was sent in with the approval of the Security Council and the cooperation of the OSCE, rather than a force under the flag of the Western European Union? Because there was no political agreement, despite the fact that the practical possibilities were there: and just look at what is happening in Albania now.
This is the clearest possible illustration of the fact that the European Union does not need to turn itself into a world policeman or a military superpower to rival the United States.
The real question is whether the Union wishes to give itself scope in its common foreign and security policy to accept responsibility and take the initiative at international level when its own strategic environment is being destabilized.
I think it is extremely useful to examine this whole question and how best it can be resolved in future as an integral part of the comprehensive discussions on the future of an enlarged European Union.
I think that today's debate on this issue has been a very useful start, and I sincerely hope that there will be a followup, based perhaps on what I hope will be very positive results in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is absolutely clear that the Union can never have a credible common security policy, let alone a common defence policy, if it does not first have a credible common foreign policy.
There are already proposals on the table, as the Baron Crespo report that we are to discuss later today underlines.
All in all, I think we have a great deal to discuss on this whole issue, but I am delighted that Mr Tindemans has set the ball rolling with this report.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at noon.
Defence-related industries
The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Titley (A4-0076/97), on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission communication on the challenges facing the European defence-related industries, a contribution for action at European level (COM(96)0010 - C4-0093/96).
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the Commission on this initiative, because we believe it has really cooperated as an institution to identify and put on the table a highly important and sensitive issue for the economy, and not just the Union economy.
I also want to thank Mr Titley for his magnificent report and for having reflected the feelings of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, incorporating virtually 90 % of the suggestions and conclusions of our committee.
The diagnosis of the situation in the armaments industry made by the Commission and the rapporteur is quite right.
It is a very important sector - 3 % of industrial GDP - providing significant employment; there is major dependence on the United States and a distinct absence of intra-Community trade; dispersion and lack of concentration weaken the industry's position.
The reasons we are in this situation are partly attributable to the absence of a common defence policy, but not entirely so.
Of course, differences in procurement policies in the largest Member States and the absence of a common foreign policy or arms export policy are due to the lack of a common defence policy.
But there are other causes, like mergers requiring government authorization, differences between the States as regards ownership and the way this relates to the arms industries, and the absence of the transnational legal structures to permit such mergers, where there are still opportunities for action by the European Union.
We think the issue can be presented in this way and we agree with the rapporteur that the European Union should take steps with a view to putting the industry in a strong position to cooperate when a real defence policy comes into being.
Amongst the areas of action, many of which Mr Titley has already mentioned, I would like to stress two very specific points: the first is the use of the structural funds in the process of restructuring the defence industry under the Community industrial restructuring policy, and the second relates to research and development, where the European Union has a wide remit and which accounts for a large part of its budget, and coordinating all the programmes involving the defence industry or associated civil industry.
Mr President, the reduction of defence expenditure in the Union's Member States, and consequently, the corresponding reduction of expenditure on defence research and technology, combined with the fragmented nature of the Western European defence market, have left the European defence industry in a situation of stagnation.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy was asked to respond to the Commission's questioning of the extent to which the framework programme could help to revitalize the defence industry without putting its non-military aims at risk.
The answer concerns, first, the technological framework that influences defence research and, secondly, the framework within which the European Union's security policy is outlined.
The framework for security is created by the demographic pressure that favours small systems of military organization based on professionals and volunteers, the need for the Union to compete in research and development with the USA and the Far East, and international competition to secure energy resources.
In addition, to address the future of Europe's defence industry, we cannot ignore factors that will determine the mission of military systems, such as peace-keeping, the protection of energy resources, the suppression of blackmail and terrorism, surveillance, counter espionage and recognition at world-wide level.
Granted that in the future it will be difficult to define special weapons systems able to deal directly with the widespread dangers faced by the Union, covering the technological needs of the military sector is likely to demand a zero-reserve policy which will enable incorporation of the products of general research into new weapons systems, depending on the dangers emerging at the time.
In the technological context, where political technology is more advanced than military technology, defence capabilities depend on the reorganization of the technological dependence of the defence sector.
Based on the above, the question arises: to what degree should the fifth framework programme aspire to support collaboration between military and non-military activities.
The European Commission's positive response and its proposals, though well-intentioned, are in the opinion of the Committee on Research and Technology rather inappropriate.
And this, because they imply the restoration of the importance of an armament economy, even though the peak technologies are becoming more and more non-military, and at the same time overlook the limited resources of the framework programme which make it inappropriate to seek new research links between the military and non-military sectors.
In conclusion, Mr President, I want to stress that the fifth framework programme could on the one hand continue to devote resources to research and technologies of combined utility, and on the other hand, help to convert defence-related industrial research installations.
Under no circumstances must we consider redirecting the Community's research towards defence-related aims in particular.
Mr President, I should firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Titley.
His report essentially endorses the Commission communication, from which it can be concluded that the Commission and its communication can be supported.
European arms policy has two dimensions: a strategic and an operational dimension.
The Tindemans and Titley reports are therefore linked and complementary.
This is the strategy which I am glad to say has been deemed appropriate.
European arms policy has both a strategic and an operational dimension because it is an essential part of the common foreign and security policy and also the common defence policy called for in the Maastricht Treaty, and it is therefore an urgent necessity.
Much of what we are debating today was decided with the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty.
It is now a question of implementing it.
The industrial aspect is especially important, because as everyone agrees - some welcome the fact, the majority do not - the European arms industry is fragmented, depressed and subject to the constraints of ever tighter budgets.
For the European Union and those Member States which have an arms industry, a European arms industry appears to be the only possible way of withstanding American competition in this sector in the long term.
European external trade is faced with a crucial choice: to abandon the arms industry, or to pursue new opportunities.
Shall we relinquish it to the United States, or perhaps to other countries that are filling the gap, such as South Africa, Russia or the Czech Republic, or shall we take up the challenge? Far beyond the arms industry, this is a crucial question for the external trade of the European Union, as well as Germany - if I may be allowed a brief national remark - the United Kingdom, France and other Member States.
However, this report is also an opportunity for the European Parliament, which is the only effective, democratic body able to discuss this issue in European terms and put forward European recommendations.
And despite the many concerns which have been expressed, I am confident that it will seize that opportunity.
Parliament must safeguard the Member States' independence in the military and foreign policy areas.
It must call for conditions to be defined and measures to be taken that will enable the Member States to ensure the rationalization, organization and preservation of a competitive industrial and technological defence basis in Europe in relation to defence products.
This basis must be freely accessible to the participating Member States.
That, in short, is what should be said from the point of view of external trade.
We are well aware that the European arms industry is increasingly losing its competitiveness.
Anyone who wishes to reverse that trend must support the Titley and Tindemans reports today.
Mr President, first I want to congratulate the Commission on this communication and Mr Titley on the work he had to do to achieve maximum consensus and link in the various opinions from the committees involved.
I am speaking on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs and I shall refer exclusively to institutional issues, but before I do I would like to make one comment: can the concepts of common armaments policy and European defence identity be separated from each other?
I do not think so.
I believe it is a political decision, not a dogma, but we can hardly talk about a European defence identity without including a common armaments policy, because common armaments policy is an integral part of that European identity.
When we go back to our constituencies and our fellow-citizens ask us why Europe did not intervene in Yugolavia, why we have not intervened effectively in other parts of the world - I am thinking of the Gulf War, why we have to depend on others, one of the many reasons is that there is still no European identity and one of the fundamental ingredients is common armaments policy, so we must change our position on these issues.
Consequently, what needs to be done in the institutional area, Mr President?
Article 223 of the Treaty of Rome allows Member States to take such measures as they consider necessary for the protection of the essential interests of their security, including producing and trading in weapons, munitions and war materiel.
The way Member States have interpreted that article of the treaty consists of looking for some general principle whereby all areas relating to national security fall outwith the scope of the treaties.
So article 223 has been the great outstanding question of the treaty.
What needs to be done now? I think Parliament must act firmly and call for the deletion of article 223, but I do not think this issue is currently on the table for the Intergovernmental Conference.
Hence our amendments, Mr President: first we ask for common armaments policy and a common European defence identity to be treated as one issue.
And at some stage in the future, and this is one of the amendments tabled to the Titley report, article 223 will need to be revised in order to achieve integrated production, trading and monitoring of armaments.
Secondly, we ask the Commission to initiate consideration of article 223 and in particular, to amend the list attached thereto, which has not been changed since 1958.
And thirdly, Mr President, we also ask for the WEU to be incorporated by stages into the European Union, another fundamental factor for achieving what we all want, a Europe of tomorrow speaking with one strong voice and guaranteeing the freedom of all Europeans through its security policy.
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate Mr Titley on this report, on behalf of my group.
He himself knows how much effort it sometimes took to find common ground, but the central message of this report - that the European arms industry must resist the hegemony of the US arms industry - is the right one.
It is not that we wish to see the creation of monopolies, which then dictate prices to the Member States.
Europe must be very careful to ensure that a common arms industry does not turn into a set of monopolies with a dominant market position.
However - and after all, this report was dealt with by the Committee on Foreign Affairs - we cannot talk about the arms industry and arms cooperation without outlining the general context, which I see as follows.
Firstly, there is the question of disarmament.
It is not possible to talk about the arms industry and arms cooperation without declaring support for disarmament - as expressed by Mr Titley - throughout its various stages and especially, of course, in cooperation with Russia, since disarmament has to be a joint project.
Secondly, there is the very important question of controls on arms exports.
Efforts are being made in this area, but in view of the conflicts in a great many regions of the world, in view of the large number of dictatorships which unfortunately still exist and which sometimes use armaments against their own people, Europe, which has already laid down a number of appropriate criteria, must ensure that these criteria are strictly interpreted, binding and, of course, applied not only to Europe but to the entire world.
The legal and illegal export of armaments to crisis areas costs countless human lives, and often results in Europe subsequently being forced to combat its own weapons.
Consequently, there is a need for increased controls, and ultimately penalties for arms exports, especially to crisis areas, dictatorships, and so on.
Thirdly, and this is another important point, we are not going to see a process of rearmament that gives a general boost to the arms industry.
There is a need for sensible conversion programmes.
A UN conference on this subject was held recently.
Europe can serve as an example in this field, since part of its arms industry has already been sensibly converted in civil programmes.
I see that as a very important complement to the common armaments policy in Europe.
It must be made clear that the European Community is committed not to rearmament, but to disarmament, as I have already said.
We are strongly in favour of European arms cooperation, but we do not wish to see disarmament taking place at the expense of Europe and European workers alone.
In this sense, we are unequivocally in favour of sensible arms control and sensible arms cooperation on European territory.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is probably the first time that Parliament has discussed the arms industry, which is examined in Mr Titley's excellent report on which I congratulate him.
It is a response to a Commission document, and having heard what Commissioner van den Broek had to say, I should like to thank him for his excellent speech.
I think that his words and everything that has been said in this debate, and in the Titley report, show that we are gradually moving towards agreement on a common security and defence policy to support our common foreign policy.
Progress is slow, but I think we will succeed in the end thanks to this excellent document.
In his report, Mr Titley says that a common foreign and security policy is really divided into three sections: a political section, a military section and an industrial, scientific and technology section.
That covers everything.
However, I would stress that arms cannot be regarded just like any other products or commodities.
A country may depend for its very existence, freedom or independence - though let us hope that it never happens again - on having weapons to defend itself or whatever it holds dear if it is attacked.
We therefore need to consider what our requirements are here in the European Union.
This is extremely important.
If we have to depend on other countries outside the Union, we can have no credible defence, since we can only buy whatever they are selling rather than what we really need.
It is also true, as many people here know - though I entirely agree that we must work towards disarmament, and I think we can achieve more if we have a common policy rather than all acting individually - that the armaments industry in Europe cannot simply be closed down if we want to have products that meet our requirements, but it is in grave danger at the moment.
There is a great deal of competition at European level, and we in Europe can no longer compete with what other countries are producing - I will not say which ones, but you all know.
So it is a particularly delicate issue, not just for defence, but also from the socio-economic point of view, since jobs are involved, as well as in relation to the arms trade and so on.
It is all very sensitive, but I think it is handled very well in the report.
There is not enough time to quote from the report, but Mr Titley also refers to some other very interesting aspects, such as our defence profile and relations between the European Union and the Western European Union.
I do not wish to go into this in detail, but these considerations could be very useful in future when we come to discuss defence policy.
So we in my group think that the Titley report in response to the Commission communication is an extremely important document.
There are many concerns to be taken into account: economic interests and employment, defence, disarmament - which is a goal we all share - and peace, which we all wish to help to achieve.
We therefore intend to vote in favour of the report, provided that nothing goes wrong in the meantime.
We are delighted that Parliament has been able to discuss such a sensitive issue, and we hope that we shall achieve a successful outcome.
Mr President, I feel sure that high-profile debates like these on the Tindemans and Titley reports increase our awareness and sense of responsibility with regard to a common European foreign policy.
Until such time as that policy becomes a reality, though, the defence industry must progressively and pragmatically move away from the national approach and adopt European programmes and rules.
Among the new European-inspired rules which I feel I must support is the principle of standardizing the common rules governing the purchase and exporting of defence hardware.
I also have no doubt - a point which is made in the reports - that we need to achieve and accept a technological interdependence between European States in matters of defence, which is a political project as well as a technical argument.
I believe that the criterion of a fair return on industrial investment in common European programmes should not be completely abandoned but should be integrated and quantified over broader time frames and planning scales.
I believe in - and support - the idea of a European Armaments Agency with technical co-ordination functions, similar to the European Space Agency, which would arrange multi-speed - if I may use that term - optional development programmes from which all concerned can derive some benefit, in some cases as reference shareholders and in others as minor but fully involved participants.
Finally, I believe it is inappropriate - and this is a suggestion that can be considered during the further course of the debate - to separate the defence industry completely from the aerospace industry.
After all, the two sectors often involve the same participants, and it seems to me that a logical process of European consolidation - squaring the circle in this sector, if you like - will be easier to achieve if all the players are at the same table and all their cards are on it.
Mr President, there is one sector of industry in Europe, the defence industry, which is facing considerable difficulties.
The reason for this is something which has been the most joyous event which has happened to us in Europe and in the whole world, namely the fall of the Soviet Union and with it the end of the cold war.
The demand for weapons is thankfully no longer what is was before the Iron Curtain fell.
But security in Europe is still dependent on access to weapons, which we Liberals well understand.
If Europe is not to be totally dependent on imports our countries must co-ordinate their research, development and production of defence material.
This is the basis for the Commission's communication and the foreign committee's report, a report which has been drawn up well by Mr Tindeman.
It is worth noting that increased co-ordination of defence material in Europe will, inevitably, lead to increased mutual dependency.
This must be recognised and accepted by all concerned.
Co-ordination of the European defence industry will be facilitated by growing unity based on the content of a Common Foreign and Security Policy.
It is worth noting that co-operation within the defence industry will itself act as a driving force and increase the need for a Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Article 223 needs to be revised and conditions created for common rules on export restrictions for European weapons, the implementation of which can be controlled.
In this way, Mr President, the world should see the more united Europe as a force and a partner for freedom, peace, security and common security.
The report which we are discussing is a step towards this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's 1996 communication ignores the close link between defence/weapons and national sovereignty and seeks to apply the principle of free competition to weapons for the sake of competitiveness.
The report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and security goes further, with a common arms policy and the revision of the treaty article on the essential security interests of each Member State.
For its part, the French government is restructuring the weapons industries, planning to cut 50, 000 to 75, 000 jobs, and privatize key sectors, despite the strong opposition of the employees and inhabitants of the areas involved.
Active militants for peace and disarmament, the French Members of Parliament in the Confederal Group of the United European Left - Nordic Green Left defend a military doctrine guaranteeing freedom and security against external threats.
We oppose restructuring and privatization measures and demand the maintenance of national capacity, which meets only 5 % of military orders, and its diversification into civilian industry, notably in the aeronautics, space and electronics industries.
At Community level we oppose any European defence policy which is bound to make us vassals of the United States.
We favour development of cooperation between the arms industries and research, and we call for the establishment of genuine Community preference.
Thank you, Mr Querbes, and I must congratulate you because I think that was your maiden speech.
You bear a heavy responsibility replacing our colleague Mr Piquet, who was much appreciated by everyone here.
We wish you every success.
Mr President, the report by our colleague Mr Titley has the double merit of emphasizing the radically new character of the international context surrounding arms policy today and rehabilitating the notion of Community preference in this very sensitive domain.
It is a shame the draft resolution departs from the premises of the explanatory statement.
The new context is the fierce competition from American producers of defence equipment faced by European business.
This aggressive competition threatens to lead, in the future, to the disappearance of industries vital to our security and the independence of our national defence policies, if Europe allows the high-tech weapons sector to become the monopoly of a single power.
Although defence remains fundamentally a national prerogative and certainly not calling existing assets - which are considerable - into question, the massive cost of the new arms programmes should, however, lead us to identify the real common needs, determine what can be produced better together than by each alone, and what should be purchased jointly.
It is not a case of systematically Europeanizing all armaments production, as the resolution proposes.
On the contrary, the Member States should learn the lesson of the failure of many past attempts at cooperation - recalled by my colleague, Mr de Gaulle - and only engage in programmes corresponding exactly to needs, with a determination to complete them by making the necessary financial effort.
As well as producing together when it is necessary and possible, we should also purchase in common, buy European, practice European preference, in order to prevent certain Member States - as was again the case recently - purchasing American military equipment rather than European equipment of at least equivalent technological level and lower in cost.
The Titley report contains positive elements, but unfortunately it will not be possible to vote for it, because there are gaps in it, and because of its systematic approach and the federalist philosophy which underlies it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Titley's report is based on the economic pillars of increasing efficiency, reducing costs and improving coordination and international competitiveness.
It should therefore be greatly welcomed.
Mergers of arms companies within the EU improve their competitiveness, especially in relation to US companies, which have been putting massive pressure on the European arms industry since the end of the Cold War.
On moral grounds, it is completely unacceptable for us to increase the production and export of armaments, on the flimsy and cynical pretext of securing jobs.
However, we should as far as possible manufacture ourselves those armaments which we definitely need for the protection of the European Union and its citizens - for military and economic reasons, as well as in view of the extremely tense jobs situation in the EU.
From Austria's point of view, it could be asked whether the harmonization of arms export regulations called for in the report does not represent a further strategy - deliberately veiled from the Austrian people - for the progressive dismantling of its neutrality, and whether it would not be more honest to come clean with the citizens of the EU's neutral states and allow them to decide whether or not formally to give up their neutrality in a referendum.
Mr President, the Commission communication, and consequently Parliament's report on the arms industry and arms cooperation, have come at the wrong time and are guided by the wrong principles.
I should therefore like to express the misgivings of the German social democrats on this subject.
There must first be an agreement on the concepts of common security and defence before there can be any moves towards arms cooperation of a kind that can meet our demands, namely to encourage the disarmament that will produce the peace dividend which people have been expecting since the end of the Cold War.
The communication and the report are geared to arms production rather than conversion, to rearmament rather than disarmament.
At a time when the world is waiting for conversion projects for the arms industry and for clear signs of disarmament, these documents equate the competitive advantage of the arms industry with the competitiveness and viability of European industry as a whole.
In my view, that is not what is required.
What is needed is investment in conversion research and conversion projects.
In the end, no industry requires such a high level of capital investment for each job as the arms industry.
We should be supporting greater investment in environmental technologies, civil technologies and new materials, rather than in arms cooperation, because that will not generate the jobs that we are led to believe will be created.
Moreover, I believe that there is a tremendous danger that arms cooperation at European level will produce monopolies which will then be able to dictate fictitious prices for defence products to governments.
Also, undertakings which produce non-military goods will be exposed to cut-throat competition, because subsidizing the European arms industry for civil production as well will give it a competitive advantage over such undertakings.
I also believe that there is a great risk that arms cooperation of this kind will clear the way for an expansive export policy, and that competition between the European Union and the United States will jeopardize the adoption of a restrictive arms export policy in the EU.
In my view, therefore, this report fails to set out a forward-looking strategy for the European Union.
Mr President, Mr Titley has written an important report.
The European weapon's industry faces a huge challenge.
Many companies have problems of profitability and restructuring is necessary.
The weapons industry has a special role to play in the security policy of individual countries and of the Union as a whole.
Equally the industry must, in the long term, operate under the same conditions as every other industry.
Attempts to support the defence industry using State aid costs money and makes it harder to maintain the right quantitative level on defence.
Company aid also tends to reduce industrial efficiency and leads to demands for ever more extensive aid input.
Besides, this is not just a question of money but of expertise as well.
Modern military technology requires more and more expertise.
It requires an ever increasing level of advanced electronics and gigantic information handling systems.
The boundaries between civil and military research are becoming much less clear.
One of the difficulties which the European weapons industry has is the fact that there is not the same background of research at elite universities as there is for the weapons industry in the USA.
Without going into issues concerning universities, I would like to point out that much of the USA's advantage in this respect stems from the fact that the universities there are open to competition in a totally different way from the enormous state Universities in Europe.
This has led to greater efficiency in research and in the training of researchers.
The US advantage in the fields of electronics and information handling is clear to see and this has also given them precedence when it comes to new weapon systems.
US superiority has revolutionary significance for foreign and security policy, not just for their adversaries but also for their allies.
For defence material to be operational between defence powers there is a requirement that the material is made to the same level of quality.
We need to be bolder within the framework of European co-operation if Europe is not to become an even more of an inferior partner in the long term.
The Green group have put forward a number of proposed amendments to the Titley report.
If such negative views win approval, the USA's hegemony will be further strengthened.
We must be careful that we do not reach a state of specialisation which means that the USA supplies the machines, in other words the weapons and Europe supplies the people, by which we mean the soldiers.
Sweden has a large weapons industry producing such specialised weapons systems as military planes, submarines, robots and artillery.
This investment is based on the fact that Sweden's non-aligned policy requires that we are independent in this respect as well, or at least that we have sufficient capacity to be a suitably advanced co-operation partner to be able to buy the most modern equipment which we do not ourselves manufacture.
It has become even more difficult for Sweden, as well as for other European countries, to maintain such a broad weapons industry.
It is easy to express support for Mr Titley's proposal for an action programme to make the European weapons industry a more competitive force and to contribute to security in Europe in this way.
Mr President, first of all, Mr Titley should be thanked for addressing this far from pleasant but absolutely fundamental issue.
This is an industrial sector which is frequently beset by crises.
It is one in which - to be quite frank - there are very often scandals.
However - and I would address this comment to our colleagues in the Green Group - as long as we need a military defence capability, there will have to be an arms industry.
As long as we are sensibly working together here in Europe, it is also necessary to organize European arms cooperation.
All this has been said repeatedly.
However, there are three points which I should like to stress.
Firstly, disarmament is of course the paramount issue.
We have overcapacity.
The aim of a common European arms policy must therefore be to reduce this overcapacity in an orderly way.
Secondly, we must pursue the goal of easing the pressure on public budgets.
It has frequently been the case in the past, and is probably still the case, that defence contracts are awarded purely on economic or employment policy grounds, and not with the primary - and sensible - aim of improving defence structures.
My third point concerns arms export policy.
A common European arms policy is a prerequisite for an export policy guided by the following principles: no arms exports to regimes which violate human rights; and no arms exports to regimes which are totalitarian in nature or pursue aggressive policies.
Clearly, this is only possible if we conduct arms policy jointly...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, it seems that for the Commission a revolver is the same thing as a loaf of bread and a destroyer is the same thing as a hospital.
Because in the Commission's communication on European defence industry there is only a single idea : to remove the distinction between warlike military production and non-military production, and on the basis of that general idea, to give the green light to the Community budget, the research programme, the structural funds, export policy, and the review of the Treaty itself.
I think this is a dangerous step, which only generates surprise, puzzlement and sadness, and which I think has made the European Parliament look like a room in the Pentagon today, or a chamber of multi-national military industry.
This must stop.
It is sad that the Committee on Foreign Affairs has pursued this path, and I would like to tell Mr Titley that the Labour Party, with its tradition and values, brings some hopes.
Let us not extinguish them so soon.
You told us that your area is one with a defence industry.
We understand that, but just think about an Italian colleague from the South of Italy, in an area where the Mafia has businesses: what should he do? I think that at the Conference of Mr Coates next week, you will find proposals concerning employment for your area too, much more interesting than those contained in your report.
Mr President, I congratulate my colleague, Mr Titley, on a concise and well written report.
There are two things in the last ten years that have put immense pressure on defence-related industries.
The first one is the demise of the Cold War and the second is the advent of the CFSP.
Clearly the demise of the Cold War has created tremendous pressure because of reductions in demand from EU countries for weapons in particular.
There has been a phenomenal reduction in jobs in the defence industries as well as in research and development.
In addition, companies face fierce US competition which threatens their survival.
This means that there has to be some restructuring of these industries across Europe.
With regard to the CFSP, if we want a Common Foreign and Security Policy in Europe and we want that genuine choice, then we have to maintain a European defence infrastructure.
I take exception to some of the comments both on my own side and from the Greens with regard to this issue.
We do not need any lectures about this, because it is quite clear that unless we maintain our own defence industries and defence infrastructure then all we will end up doing is buying American weapons and being totally dependent on the Americans for our defence.
Secondly, it is important that we maintain this industry as well because it is an important technology driver which feeds into the civil markets and produces many valuable products, enabling us to enjoy a high standard of living in our Western European Union countries at the moment.
What we need is a genuine single market in defence.
We have to improve intra-Community trade in this area so that we do not become more and more dependent on the United States.
That means a common approach. It means a common armaments policy.
This is not necessarily synonymous with the Western European Union coming into the European Community's institutions, but it is synonymous with an approach of greater cooperation.
We need a legally binding code of conduct so that we can move forward in this very important area.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur most sincerely on his report. I appreciate that he has tried to present a sober and objective report, since this is unfortunately a subject which sometimes gives rise to heated debate.
I should like to make four comments. Firstly, I agree with the rapporteur that Europe has been lagging behind developments in a number of areas, with the effect that it can no longer keep up with its competitors in this hightech sector.
The gap between European and US defence technology has been steadily widening, and even Europe's leading defence companies are scarcely half or a third of the size of their American counterparts.
Secondly, with regard to NATO enlargement towards the east, it would appear that in several cases, Europe has already missed the boat.
Some of our future partners in the alliance are already upgrading their military technology with non-European help.
Thirdly, I wish to stress that the question of export controls remains extremely important, but that controls alone are not enough.
We need to combat the illegal trade in arms effectively, because we are implicated in that trade.
Let us just consider the conflict regions and crisis areas in the developing world, or in the former Yugoslavia, where illegally acquired anti-personnel mines made in Italy have been found, for example.
Fourthly, the European Union accepts its role in conflict settlement and crisis prevention, but this also means ensuring the personal protection of the troops in question with coordinated and high-quality weaponry, so that they can carry out their tasks effectively.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Titley for the excellent work he has done over the past year on this report.
I am grateful to him for supporting the approach set out in the Commission communication and our efforts to establish an EU arms policy.
I would stress once again, as Mr Tindemans also indicated, that the whole point of this discussion is not whether we need armaments, but how to obtain the armaments we need.
It is also clear that the Maastricht Treaty requires us to work towards a common foreign and security policy and, in time, a defence policy, and I would point out that for the Commission, this also includes an armaments industry policy and a policy to harmonize exports and imports.
I would add straight away that the reductions in the defence budget are a welcome development made possible by the ending of the Cold War. Who could possibly object to that?
But at the same time, these cutbacks mean that we are increasingly having to join forces at European level in order to maintain and afford the expensive technological innovations needed, which we have to do if we are to remain competitive on the international market.
However difficult it may be to think of the armaments industry in purely economic terms, we cannot accept that the Union should make itself too dependent on what other countries produce for this vital area of its activities, and in this context it has to be said that there is a severe imbalance in the transatlantic arms trade.
Establishing a European market in defence-related products will help to improve efficiency in the sector and thus bring costs down, which in turn will benefit the defence budget.
Europe needs to develop its operational capacity in the field of conflict prevention and management, unless we prefer to leave the whole issue of conflict management to non-Union countries.
Supply and demand on the arms market are rightly governed by special rules which give governments an exclusive role, and those governments are principally guided by stringent requirements in terms of security and foreign policy.
But the economic dimension, as I have already said, makes the provisions of the EC Treaty relevant here too.
The internal market rules already in force could therefore be used as a basis for devising rules for the armaments sector, or another possibility would be to apply the existing rules as they stand, but making allowance for the special nature of the sector.
The Commission communication describes the measures which the European Union can take in the short term.
It is vital that it should be possible to adapt these to take account of the special nature of the armaments sector by using procedures and instruments combining the first pillar on Community policy with the second on the CFSP.
There are already precedents here, such as the EU export rules on goods for dual use, which include a regulation based on the Treaty of Rome but also providing for Community action on the basis of the CFSP.
We support the Dutch presidency's proposal to the IGC specifically requiring the CFSP to be underpinned by an armaments policy.
This should form the basis for the Union's work on the various instruments based on the EC Treaty.
As we know, the WEU's Western European armaments group, to which 13 NATO members belong, is responsible for cooperation on armaments, and this cooperation needs to be further encouraged.
The Commission's communication also discusses this.
Finally, just a brief word about exports.
The rapporteur quite rightly stresses the complexity and importance of the arms exports issue.
The Member States have widely diverging interests and sensitivities in this field, and the national governments guard their sovereignty very jealously.
Community criteria have been laid down for arms exports, but responsibility for their implementation remains exclusively with the Member States.
No progress has been made on the alignment of policy and prices.
The motion for a resolution calls on the Commission to produce a white paper on this subject as the first step towards a legally binding code of conduct for arms exports, and we welcome this as a very constructive proposal.
I should like to thank the rapporteur and all the other speakers for giving me the chance to take part in this debate, and I hope that the IGC will produce a new constitutional basis for dealing with this issue on a more practical level.
It is time to take action, and up to now, as far as the Commission and the Council are concerned, very little progress has been made.
Let us hope that this can be rectified.
Mr President, I really think something needs to be done here. If we are debating a report and the Commissioner is speaking when people start to come into the Chamber for the next debate, you cannot even hear what he is saying.
Could we not show a little more respect for each other in the House, please?
Thank you very much, Mrs van Putten.
You were more successful than the President in doing that job because everyone has heard you now.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Votes
Mr Chairman, yet another translation error has appeared in the Finnish translation.
It uses the terms 'waste' and 'waste water' when referring to cattle dung and urine.
I should like the correction of the mistake in the Finnish language version to be noted in the minutes.
This error occurs in at least three different proposals.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Before we continue with the voting, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo wishes to speak.
Thank you very much, Mr President.
I would like to alert Parliament to the presence in the gallery of a group of Algerian women candidates in the forthcoming Algerian general election.
They represent two causes strongly espoused by the European Parliament: participation by women and democracy in Algeria.
(Prolonged applause)
Mr President, I should like to ask that when this text is translated into all the official languages, particular care should be taken to make it clear in each language that the term 'practitioner' covers a range of people who are entitled to act in this capacity, and not just doctors.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I should just like to say a few words before we vote on Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4.
Mr Väyrynen tabled these in order to have the Barents Sea included in the Baltic Sea region, and I have found that a number of Members do not agree with this.
They say that there is not a common border, while others reply that there is cooperation.
The issue has never been properly discussed.
On the basis of the contacts I have had, I should therefore like to propose that we adopt the new Amendment No 3, which puts the Baltic Sea region and the Barents Sea together, and that we reject Amendments Nos 2 and 4 in order to avoid putting too much emphasis on this.
So we adopt No 3, but not Nos 2 and 4 by the same author.
I should like to propose this, and I think we should have a good majority in favour.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
It is extremely welcome that the Conciliation Committee has now succeeded in reaching an agreement on the guidelines for telecommunications networks.
The disagreements between the institutions on procedure and the method of approach have been settled in a satisfactory way.
I particularly wish to emphasize how important it is that the area of satellite communications has been included in the guidelines, not least thanks to the efforts of Commissioner Bangemann.
I am quite sure that the new guidelines will provide a sound basis for the subsequent negotiations in this sector.
On 7 June 1995, on the basis of Article 129d of the Treaty, the Commission submitted the basic proposal for a series of guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks.
The aim is to establish the broad lines of the measures envisaged and to identify projects of common interest which will be eligible for financial assistance.
On 1 February 1996 the European Parliament adopted its opinion containing 35 amendments stressing the use of applications by the general public, social consequences of, for example, teleworking and the procedure to identify projects of common interest.
Neither the Commission nor the Council were ready to adopt the European Parliament's view.
The same happened in the second reading and the conciliation procedure was opened with the result laid down in the above-mentioned report.
The agreement reached concerns by example: 18 EP amendments accepted by the Council (wide use of applications, taking into account social consequences of new (tele)working conditions, language needs of regions); identification of projects of 'common interests' , which is now dealt with by Annex 1 to the guidelines (and no more exclusively by the committee which is to be installed to advise the Commission and is recruited by Member State representatives); certain projects of particular importance (distance training, telematics for transport, environment and health).
As Greens we had proposed to incorporate strong provisions regarding the conditionality for employment-creating and social-targeted projects.
Likewise we had argued for a strong role for the European Parliament, identifying projects of common interest, which is quite weak.
We are, however, prepared to accept the conciliation text, because it contains at least some references to these subjects (including provisions to peripheral regions and employment creation; see Article 3) and stipulates that the Commission has to present an evaluation report to the European Parliament every three years containing the social and societal consequences of the projects launched (Article 14).
I should like to stress again that the European Parliament will be unable to fulfil its role in the democratic control of the transition to the information society, if this continues to be unduly sectoralized.
What is necessary for this overdue democratic control will be a general transsectoral framework directive for the guiding regulating principles of this transition.
Barthet-Mayer Report (A4-0156/97)
We would like to emphasise that we have voted for the proposal that road transport of animals should not exceed eight hours under any circumstances.
The loading and unloading of animals should be carried out with care, and the use of allopathic tranquillising methods during the journey must be banned.
We consider this to be a very important issue which must be taken further when the matter is discussed in the European Union.
Any other way of managing the transport of animals, other than what has been proposed above, is unacceptable.
We are dealing with the report by our colleague Mrs Barthet-Mayer on a proposal for a Council Regulation supplementing Regulation No 2092/91.
At last, we might well say!
The Commission has not kept to the timetable, but it looks as if the BSE crisis has accelerated the process.
We can appreciate organic farming from a new angle, in the context of sustainable agriculture guaranteeing quality and safety for consumers.
So I support the rapporteur on the many positive points she has added to the Commission proposal.
Organic farming can take on the shape of innovative agriculture using renewable energy and materials, but all the same it must be surrounded by guarantees to assure its quality.
So a number of imperative rules must be established, in terms of both controls and methods of production.
Genetic manipulation must be entirely banned and healthy animal feed guaranteed, thus avoiding the notorious consequences of industrial scientists, closer to mad scientists than Nobel prizewinners.
Organic farming can represent a real alternative to intensive and industrial agriculture, which has sinned by excess.
It should be given support and a framework for development at European Union level.
The principal concern of agriculture as a whole today must be not the quantity but the quality of its products.
Organic farming should be upgraded to a significant production method within the EU's agricultural policy as a whole. A growing number of people want better quality food produced in a more ethically sustainable way than is the case with present-day high- efficiency farming.
In Finland, organic farming has been enabled, thanks to EU environmental support, to grow rapidly to the point where it now represents 5 % of arable area.
Our next objective should be the 10 % achieved by Austria, which is the result of a specially determined effort.
Unfortunately, the regulation on organic farming is too detailed for the widely differing conditions which occur in the Union.
The Greens tried to make it more flexible in many respects, but the enthusiasm for hair-splitting detail won.
In Finland, the transition period for the changeover from mainstream to organic farming is three years.
In the EU a much shorter transition period is going to be adopted, two years under the Commission proposal, which Parliament would like to shorten still further to one year.
The Greens consider that two years is the absolute minimum.
The most important achievement in Parliament's debate on the organic farming regulation was undoubtedly Commissioner Fischler's statement that he is prepared to approve Parliament's demand for the banning of the use of genetically altered organisms in organic production.
Member States, including Finland, as well as the organic farmers' organizations, have been very worried about the Commission's unclear position on this point until now.
The Greens are in favour of increasing the Parliament's decision-making powers in the Common Agricultural Policy.
The Group proposed that the organic farming regulation should be adopted on the basis of Article 100a (internal market) but a majority in Parliament rejected this proposal.
Unfortunately, the Commission's proposal has far too many shortcomings.
The work by the European Parliament's rapporteur and the committee responsible is, therefore, worthy of merit and I support it.
In view of all the media reports on how animals are transported and fattened up I welcome this proposal.
We must put a stop to the type of industrial handling of animals which currently prevails and which is totally unjustifiable.
This is one of the reasons why it is important to encourage farmers to change to more environmentally friendly animal husbandry methods.
But we must also be aware that the situation in the EU Member States in this respect varies enormously.
While Austria, for example, has made a lot of progress, other countries have not done so well.
I hope that this proposal will encourage these countries to finally take these issues seriously and to act accordingly.
This report is also important as a precedent.
It is the first time since I became a member of the European Parliament that I have seen such a concrete and ambitious programme to change this part of the EU's agricultural policy for the better.
It is inadequate but it is an important step in the right direction.
Finally, I hope that the majority in the European Parliament will approve the amendment proposal which involves a ban on the use of genetic modified organisms in organic farming.
It is up to us, in the wake of the extremely serious mad cow crisis and the absolutely scandalous failure to sanction the European officials responsible for it, to restore consumer confidence about food of animal origin.
The development of organic farming can contribute to that, provided the rigorous efforts made for many years by certain countries like France are not undermined by the adoption of lax standards at European level.
In fact, up to now organic farming has only been regulated for vegetable products at European level.
This text extends the provisions of the 1991 regulation to animal products.
In the absence of a Community regulation some Member States have brought in legislation and others have not.
A certain number of countries, including France, are ahead of the rest: it is essential that they do not have lower standards imposed on them now than those they have already established, which have succeeded in gaining consumer confidence.
France has been working for over five years on very strict specifications to guarantee the reliability of organic farming products to consumers.
But this confidence would evaporate rapidly if the very demanding French market were to become awash, because of European policy, with organic products which were not really organic and which would not really differ in practice from traditional products because of very lax rearing standards.
Certain countries with highly intensive agriculture are putting on pressure in favour of lax standards. We refused to vote for the amendments they have inspired because if they had been adopted they would have prevented farmers who respect strict standards remaining competitive.
We kept to Mrs Barthet-Mayer's text and the Agricultural Committee's amendments, which in our view constitute a minimum basis for guaranteeing that the efforts made so far by rigorous national producers should not be undermined.
It is also up to us to combat rural depopulation tirelessly and encourage any working methods likely to maintain a dense socio-economic fabric.
Organic farming can play a positive role in land management: it offers farmers, especially young farmers, an alternative which can maintain agricultural employment given the outlets demand for organic products could generate.
Organic products can be a significant development factor, notably in ecologically fragile zones, where the role of farmers in preserving ecosystems and biodiversity is particularly important.
They respond to a demand from consumers, and especially tourists, who are hostile to genetically modified organisms, eager for healthy, diversified, quality food products, and concerned about respect for the environment.
But it is essential for products originating from these sensitive regions to be backed by certification systems which are highly reliable in terms of quality and traceability, and which will facilitate the implementation of Community preference and constitute so many poles of resistance against the clean slate process represented by the GATT negotiations.
That is the path chosen by the Barthet-Mayer report and that is why our group supports it.
Amadeo Report (A4-0146/97)
Given the major advances in the scientific and technical fields which have led to the appearance of new methods of diagnosis and treatment, and given that we know the benefits and dangers of the use of ionizing radiation, it has become imperative that the European Community, within the scope of the powers attributed to it by the Treaty on European Union, namely Article 129, should legislate in order to update Directive 84/466/Euratom.
The changes must reflect the need:
to limit the use of ionizing radiation to where it is strictly necessary, in other words when there is no other alternative means of diagnosis of treatment either more innocuous or offering the same guarantees in terms of benefit for the patient; -to demand that the Member States carry out the necessary controls and take responsibility for them, not only of the quality of public or private installations but also the establishment of quality guarantee programmes, aimed at assessing doses received by patients; -to assume 'overall clinical responsibility' for individual radiological exposure (the number of and absolute need for examinations) by health professionals qualified to carry out these examinations or treatment in accordance with national legislation.These are the reasons why I voted for this proposal.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to seek the support of the European Parliament for European funding to carry out radon surveys and in particular to seek financial assistance for national authorities to carry out radon tests.
It is vital that the European Parliament and the Commission recognize that radon exposure is a European-wide problem that merits the provision of EU funding.
A recent national radon survey by the Radiological Protection Centre of Ireland revealed that parts of the country, including large areas of Wicklow and the Cooley Peninsula in Louth, have a greater than 10 % change of being exposed to an unacceptable level of radon gas.
This is a major source of concern to the householders affected.
However, the cost of remedying this problem is a major stumbling block for householders.
It is my view that free radon measurements should be made available to householders living in high radon areas.
It is my hope that the Commission, perhaps through some of its research programmes, can make funding available to make this objective a reality.
There are many schools located in the areas with elevated levels of radon.
However, there is no national programme of radon monitoring for our schools.
Since children are generally considered to be at greater risk, I believe a national survey of radon in our schools should be initiated.
Additionally, there is as yet no monitoring of radon levels in workplaces in the worst affected areas.
Here again EU funding would be extremely beneficial.
The Irish Government too has a crucial role to play and should carefully examine the localised grant scheme that exists in Britain to help people measure their households for radon.
K. Collins Report (A4-0109/97)
Although we are voting in favour of this report we do not share the views put forward in points 12 and 13 of the proposal for the report.
We do not consider that issues concerning environmental legislation should be placed under the co-decision procedure.
This would involve increased supranationality in the European Union which we are against in principle.
We do not think that the European Parliament should be given more power.
The work on progressive environmental legislation will almost certainly be improved if we give Member States better guarantees than is currently the case that they may forge ahead with environmental reforms.
The issue Mr Collins deals with in his report is of the first importance, because without verifiable monitoring of correct transposition and application of environmental legislation, and compliance with it, part of this Parliament's work would be sterile given the flood of complaints received every year about unsatisfactory application of, or non-compliance with, environmental law.
That is why this Parliament, and I personally, have repeatedly and for many years pressed the need to create a system of inspection at European level, precisely to ensure the application and implementation of that same environmental legislation, because there is massive incongruity and indeed frustration of democracy in legislating only for that legislation to be afterwards ignored or not complied with on so many occasions?
As the rapporteur makes very clear, in many respects the development of Community environmental policy has lent significant impetus to the democratization of the Community, as one of the Union's most popular policies.
This means our citizens participate actively in monitoring and shaping it. So in drafting such legislation it is essential for the Commission to open a wide range of consultations to guarantee that it is fulfilled, and such legislation should always be the subject of co-decision procedure as called for in this important report.
I end by congratulating Mr Collins and trusting that the Intergovernmental Conference will shoulder its responsibilities in this area.
It is encouraging that the cause of the environment is gaining ground in all the EU institutions, but we must take care not to misuse this good cause by introducing unnecessary or bureaucratic rules without appreciating the possible consequences.
The proposal that each Member State should set up an environmental inspectorate, to be subject to monitoring and oversight by the Commission, would not appear to have been thought out properly.
Most EU countries already have similar inspectorates at national level which work in harmony with the Commission and other bodies.
I would warn against such ineffectual gestures.
The European Environment Agency in Denmark already cooperates extensively with the national authorities in the Member States.
I see no evidence of the need for us to set up 15 new national environmental inspectorates alongside this, subject to monitoring and oversight by the Commission.
It is crucial for the environment that environmental legislation works, and that the environment is given priority.
Today, the environment generally loses out in competition with commercial interests, and the actual implementation of environmental law in the Member States is very unimpressive.
In the area of environmental legislation, as Mr Collins indicates, there is a need for codification of the law, openness and further checks on implementation, and both individuals and organizations should be able to bring legal actions in the national courts.
The report seeks above all to raise the profile of the environment.
I am therefore voting in favour of this extremely important report.
Todini Report (A4-0148/97)
The EU education programmes are amongst the best of the good news stories from Brussels.
When they started in 1984 six thousand students participated in ERASMUS and in 1996 this had increased to a massive one hundred and seventy thousand young people.
I welcome this healthy trend and hope the numbers participating continue to increase.
The biggest problems which have existed from the beginning, and still persist, are the additional costs of travel and subsistence which must be met from family budgets, as well as the differences between Member States on the level of amounts paid.
This means that the students whose families cannot afford to subsidise them continue to be excluded.
This is unacceptable and impedes their mobility and the fairness of the whole programme.
The Commission and national education authorities must assess this discrepancy and provide us with comparative information from the Member States so that we may be able to respond to the real needs of the students concerned and increase the uptake of ERASMUS grants amongst poorer students.
The rapporteur has made an excellent list of the real problems faced by students, researchers, academics and others when they wish to realise their dreams in other EU countries.
The Commission has drawn a comparison saying that it is easier to move to the USA than within the EU which is why action is needed.
But we do not think that this comparison is valid.
There are many other reasons why so many Swedes, for example, move to the USA.
The comparison also shows that the USA and some EU countries have resolved the administrative problems involved through straightforward inter state cooperation which is why we think that these problems can be also resolved between EU countries through inter state co-operation alone and not by moving the issue up to the level of some supranational administration office in Brussels.
We do share the view that there are problems which must somehow be resolved.
But we think it unnecessary for the solution to have to involve a list of legal guidelines, positions and so forth.
We consider some of the points in the report to be unjustifiable.
This includes point 23 where the requirement '.....to facilitate repatriation of students and academics to their original countries following their stay abroad' appears to be unfounded and totally unnecessary.
We also feel that there should be a section covering other countries in Europe which do not belong to the EU region.
We think it is extremely important to include these countries as well to make it easier for students and researchers from all countries in Europe to live in other European countries.
The Danish social democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the report by Mrs Todini on the Commission's Green Paper analysing the main obstacles to mobility within the EU in the field of education, training and research.
We attach great importance to freedom of movement for both students and teachers in the education sector.
We must emphasize, however, that we have some reservations concerning the report when it comes to harmonizing social security benefits, providing tax exemption for research grants and introducing a European status for trainees.
We believe that it is important to dismantle the obstacles to mobility within the EU, but that this should only take place on a voluntary basis between the Member States, and not through harmonization of the rules at EU level.
The Commission should be commended on an excellent piece of work in drawing up this Green Paper.
Employment market mobility depends on many things, but I am quite sure that the new lines of action which the Commission is proposing will be a positive move in the right direction.
It is good to see that several of the existing programmes have already been a great success.
For example, the number of students able to supplement their studies in another EU country through ERASMUS has increased many times over.
I therefore believe it is very important for the Commission to use the proposals contained in the Green Paper without delay to create a European area of qualifications, so that we can develop the mutual recognition of academic courses by such means as greater use of credit transfer systems.
Tindemans Report (A4-0162/97)
Sweden has made its position clear on the issue of a Common EU Foreign and Security Policy in the proposal which has been presented to the current Intergovernmental Conference in conjunction with Finland.
Sweden is not prepared to relinquish its non aligned policy.
This means that we are advocating:
1.that the EU does not develop the common defence position mentioned in Articles J 4 in the Treaty on the European Union, and2.that the organisational distinction between the Western European Union and the European Union is maintained but that the Union's role in the context of the Petersberg missions is strengthened.
All missions carried out under this heading must however be based on a mandate from the UN or OSCE.This position means that we cannot, for example, support statements such as that written in point 9, ' initially for Petersberg missions' , nor point 37 which calls for a conference to be convened to discuss the content of a common defence policy (point a) or the implications of future integration between the WEU and the EU (point b).
We consider Point 7, which alludes to the fact that those EU Member States which are not members of Nato or the WEU will benefit from the security clauses of these organisations, to be totally incorrect.
The report also includes several general statements which we cannot support.
Above all this concerns Point 6 (the establishment of a European corps consisting of both military and civil units), Point 8 (economic security) and Point 10 a (territorial integrity).
The Treaty on European Union has made some advances in common foreign and security policy possible, but they have tended to be theoretical and insufficiently practical.
The European Union should get past the stage of incantations and clearly define its foreign policy and its ideas on security and thus implement a real policy of prevention, or indeed intervention.
This perspective is indispensable to the ultimate establishment of a European diplomacy.
The Union must speak with one voice on the big issues and be capable of overcoming the traditions of the national diplomacies, with a view to guaranteeing and expressing the higher interest of Europeans as a whole.
So it is right to specify our imperatives for external security.
The obligatory counterpart of this external security policy is the strengthening of the third pillar, justice and home affairs, and it would be wrong to confuse the threats of various kinds with the interests of the Union in acting in all these fields.
It is also necessary to be able to anticipate crises outside the Union which might have consequences for the Union, and act accordingly with one voice, involving the Member States as appropriate.
This ambition is hard to achieve, but the Intergovernmental Conference must seize the opportunity it has available to provide the Union with a real common foreign and security policy.
The international credibility of the Union is at stake.
It is the only way the Union can present the world with an image of more than a single market without any other cement.
Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Lindqvist (ELDR), Bonde, Lis Jensen and Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) The undersigned have voted against the report for the following principal reasons:
1.The report represents a narrow 'Eurocentrist' point of view and lacks a view of current global reality.
It is strongly marked by old fashioned power politics.2.Realisation of the report's concepts of security policy would promote the division of the world into blocs and would develop a regional organisation in competition with the United Nations.3.The report's proposal on the Union's right to intervene in situations in other countries violates UN regulations and constitutes a danger to peace, stability and national independence.4.The report's statement on protecting the Union's 'interests and values' stands out as highly questionable.
This represents an almost colonial attitude which places the Union's values above those of others and means that other countries are at risk of pressure from the Union if they hold different values.
The word value is not even defined.5.The report demonstrates a serious lack of respect for the role and interests of the non aligned Member States.
The report's security model is an undisguised attempt to make the smaller countries subordinate to the larger ones.6.It is unrealistic for the Union to speak with one voice in an international context, for this would involve suppressing free debate on foreign and security policy issues.7.There are no grounds for unified security and foreign policy in the Union.
Each country has vastly different interests.
This is demonstrated by the differing views which emerged over the years on the Vietnam War, South Africa, Cyprus, Turkey, the bombing of Libya, Croatia and Iran for example, and by the different stances on nuclear weapons and nuclear free zones.8.There is no European 'identity' as such nor any European 'common destiny' .
These are obscure, metaphysical terms.The countries of Europe should work to strengthen the UN and to promote a global perspective on security and stability.
The Danish social democrats in the European Parliament have voted against Parliament's report on security and defence policy in the European Union.
We voted against the report because it contains a number of paragraphs concerning the extension of defence cooperation within the EU.
This is not in keeping with the Edinburgh agreement, whereby Denmark does not participate in the elaboration and implementation of actions of the Union which have defence implications.
Moreover, we take the view that there is no need for a strengthening of the defence policy dimension of the EU.
On the contrary, we believe that the EU Member States should continue to coordinate their defence cooperation through NATO.
It should be emphasized that while we are unable to support the report as a whole, we believe that it contains a number of positive features.
These are in particular the references to the advantages of establishing a European stability pact, and to the work of the OSCE and the Council of Europe.
I think it was a good solution to divide the Tindeman report into two sections.
The section that I voted in favour of today was concerned only with foreign and security policy.
I could support the bulk of the report but there were certain details which I, as a representative of a neutral Scandinavian country, could not approve.
For this reason I could not support the approval of the report as a whole either.
We consider that the division of the Tindemans report into two parts was a good solution.
The part on which we are voting today thus relates solely to foreign and security policy.
We may have supported the majority of the report, but there are individual points in it with which we as representatives of neutral Nordic countries cannot approve.
For this reason we were also unable to give our support to the report as a whole.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Regional cooperation with former Yugoslavia and contractual relations with south-east Europe
The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Cohn-Bendit (A4-0127/97), on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the report from the Commission to the Council 'Prospects for the development of regional cooperation for the countries of the former Yugoslavia and what the Community could do to foster such cooperation' (SEC(96)252 - C4-0274/96), and on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament 'Joint principles to govern contractual relations with certain countries in south-east Europe' (SEC(96)0252 - C4-0644/96).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I could actually greet you all by name, such is the impressive level of attendance.
But I am even more dismayed by the absence of the Commission.
The Commission is supposed to be represented at this kind of debate, although I realize that with the arrival of spring and some warm weather at last, politics inevitably takes a back seat.
Twelve years after the Second World War, the former warring parties put their signatures to the Treaties of Rome.
Those treaties were the first examples of regional cooperation in Europe, and they led on to the creation of the European Union as we know it today.
Of course, the United States had a role as guarantor of the process of peace and democratic reconstruction in post-war Europe.
But had it not been for that decisive step - had the politicians of the day not had the courage to develop regional cooperation in Europe - we would not be where we are today.
Therefore, in our present discussions on the need for regional cooperation following the bloody wars which have taken place in SouthEastern Europe, our conceptual model is that of the European Union.
Regional cooperation is needed in southern Europe, precisely because the conflicts there were so damaging.
But regional cooperation will only work when there is a functioning Bosnian state in Bosnia.
Only when the states and forces which were parties to the conflict are prepared to regard Bosnia as a state and to promote its statehood can regional cooperation begin the process of rapprochement among them.
I believe that there is still a great deal to be done in this context, and the Dayton peace agreement is not enough.
However, if we take the view that we need to reconstruct Bosnia, we cannot burden it with bureaucratic structures which basically fail to facilitate the process of reconstruction by the people who live there and those who are working on the ground.
That is why I propose the creation of an institution - a foundation for democracy.
Neither the criteria of the European Union nor its bureaucratic methods are applicable in a society like Bosnia.
Attempting to apply them is ultimately futile, and in 1996 only ECU 3 million, out of a total of ECU 35 m available for investment in Bosnia, was paid out.
That is simply disgraceful.
At the same time, this type of regional cooperation must not be regarded as reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia.
On the contrary, it is all about conceiving of South-Eastern Europe as South-Eastern Europe.
In other words, the process of regional cooperation clearly includes not only the countries of the former Yugoslavia, but also Greece, Bulgaria, Hungary and Turkey.
That is the thinking behind the proposal for a southern European conference to consider ways of achieving economic, political and environmental stability, as a means of giving the countries involved a sense of mutual responsibility for peacekeeping and developing the scope for peace.
If the region is to be seen as having any kind of political future, then - according to the Barcelona model - the process has to develop independently from within South-Eastern Europe. Let me welcome Mr van den Broek, from the Commission.
I am glad that he managed to find his way here on such a sunny afternoon. Better late than never!
In conclusion, I would say this: the people of southern Europe will not understand, and cannot be expected to understand, if we play politics here on behalf of one government or another.
Our task as elected representatives is not to act as ambassadors for Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia or Bosnia.
We are independent politicians whose job is to work to our own agenda.
That is why we must promote the European concept of cooperation.
Finally, I have a request concerning our amendment.
In the committee, we included military as well as civilian personnel in paragraph 24 of the motion for a resolution.
This does not make sense.
I have no objection to a military force, even in Europe.
But in this context, where we are referring to the ECMM, it is a nonsense.
I would therefore ask you to vote in favour of our amendment, not on ideological grounds, but simply because it would be counterproductive not to do so, since the text as it stands is basically contradictory.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, the idea of convening a conference on peace, democracy, sustainable development and stability in south-eastern Europe under the aegis of the European Union is certainly one that should be supported and pursued.
The European Union, which - unfortunately, but it must be said - has been a most notable absentee from the events that have convulsed the former Yugoslavia, must now adopt an active policy directed towards the reconstruction of that region, to encourage the return of stability, peace and development to a region so close to our own.
Quite apart from our ideals, our self-interest demands it.
Our view of Mr Cohn-Bendit's report is generally favourable, though we cannot agree with everything in it. For example, the suggestion that a pop music festival should be organized in Bosnia, while certainly intriguing and charming, comes more under the heading of folklore than that of politics.
There is one aspect, though, to which we feel we must call Parliament's attention: not one of the various initiatives contained in the Commission's report is currently accompanied by any plan for financing it, nor can any of them be financed between now and 1999 except at the expense of other projects.
I should say at this point that the Committee on Budgets has asked the Commission to put forward proposals, but no reply has ever been received. This seems to us to be the most serious aspect of the whole issue.
The European Union seems all too likely to continue to be the major absentee from the former Yugoslavia: because all these proposals we are talking about are doomed to lack the funds to translate them into reality.
But if that is how things are, it would surely be better to say so bluntly!
Mr President, I should like to tell Mr Cohn-Bendit that I agree with him, and that my group will be voting in favour of his report, which we regard as positive and, unlike on other occasions, full of ideas for positive action.
It is true that these ideas have yet to prove themselves, in terms of feasibility among other things, but it is very instructive for us to find that sometimes, debating things in committee and comparing opinions, we do have the possibility of putting forward practical proposals.
This happens when we have a clear idea in mind, and I maintain that at the heart of this report there is the idea, the very clear idea, that we need to look at SouthEastern Europe with a strategy slightly different from that we have pursued hitherto.
When I say 'slightly' I am, of course, indulging in a little irony, in that the one thing that emerges from this report is the need for a European Union policy as such rather than the sum of the policies of the individual Member States.
I should like to emphasize the link that exists between the two proposals that Mr Cohn-Bendit puts forward in paragraph 5 of his report, where he rightly talks about this idea of a conference and says that 'at the same time, the European Union would commit itself to an ambitious long-term programme of enhanced, concerted and multilateral economic assistance to the reconstruction of the region' .
I maintain that these two things are closely interrelated. Nothing is said here about who is immediately to start working on the preparation of this ambitious long-term programme.
I think the invitation is indirectly addressed to the Commission, or at any rate that it should be understood as being so, so that the conference on peace, democracy and sustainable development in two years' time will become a convincing objective if work goes ahead in the meantime on this ambitious long-term programme of reconstruction, which needs to have this regional slant as a political concept.
One reason why this is urgently necessary is that, as we all know, the Union's humanitarian presence is enormous - indeed, we are the major contributor - but at the same time there is a confused presence of international bodies in Bosnia, as in other countries as well, and this is certainly no help to us.
I am also in agreement with the proposed Foundation for Democracy.
The idea is a good one, as indeed are the other two ideas contained in paragraphs 25 and 26, which we will be supporting.
In conclusion, Mr President, let me say that we will also be supporting Amendment No 4, because it seems to me consistent with the whole approach of this report to delete this word, as Mr Cohn-Bendit proposes in his amendment.
Mr President, there are numerous aspects of both the Commission report and, unfortunately, Mr Cohn-Bendit's report that cause me some difficulty, because it seems to me that they have both taken the wrong approach, at least as regards timing and also in terms of geography.
However, I shall leave the geography to Mr Oostlander.
It is clear that despite the bloody collapse of one-party rule in Yugoslavia, too many Europeans still fail to realize that any pressure in the direction of cooperation at the present time will simply be rejected because people will fear that it is a dressed-up attempt to create a new Yugoslavia.
How is it that we have ended up applying double standards? Slovenia, which is also a successor state of the former Yugoslavia, has enjoyed and continues to enjoy all kinds of preference and assistance, without being subject to the conditions set out in the report.
I am sure that following the lifting of the Greek boycott and the sanctions against Serbia, Macedonia will now at last be able to develop freely and resolve its Albanian problem; and that Croatia too, after the end of the illegal occupation of a third of its territory, will now be able to attend more effectively to developing its democratic structures and economy and, of course, repatriating refugees.
However, just like Slovenia, it must receive the necessary help from the European Union to enable it to do this.
It is obvious that some form of regional economic cooperation will then emerge.
To that extent, I would endorse what Mr Cohn-Bendit has said in recital E: that a regionally based approach must be more broadly based and does not imply the re-creation of the former Yugoslavia, but should take into account the individual special features of each country, and the fact that one country might decline to cooperate must not be allowed to prevent any other country from effecting a rapprochement with the EU.
All very impressive!
Unfortunately, Mr Cohn-Bendit, your report fails to reflect that principle.
And if the European Union intends to reward what you yourself refer to as cumulation of product origin, then that will effectively mean a return to the former Yugoslavia under the cover of trade.
Such a proposal is totally insensitive!
We cannot put the cart before the horse. Nor, by the same token, is it possible to compare what now needs to be done in this area with what we were able to do in Europe long after the Second World War.
My point is that we must begin by ensuring that order is established in each country.
We must ensure that refugees are able to return to their homelands, so that the experience of coexistence once again becomes part of national life in these countries. Only then will it be time for cross-border cooperation.
On the question of Bosnia-Herzegovina, I entirely agree on the need for consolidation, but ultimately that also needs to be worked for!
And it is time for everyone who signed the Dayton peace agreement to start putting it into action.
I very much hope that we shall have the backing of the House for the inclusion of one minor point, namely support for the European schools.
I believe that these schools, through their multi-ethnicity, have a long-term impact which an event like the pop festival - which I also support - cannot hope to have.
The festival will encapsulate a moment in time, and that is worthwhile, but it will not lead young people in the direction that we have to lead them - along the road to multi-ethnic coexistence.
To do that, we need curricula in the schools and teachers to do the work, and this is where we should deploy our manpower and our expertise.
We should also learn the lesson of Albania: that money alone is ineffective, the only effective way is to put people on the ground in the country.
I share the belief that an institution such as the proposed foundation can achieve something positive.
But I do not believe that it can be effective in isolation.
We must also involve the ECMM and all the people on the ground, and work with them to rebuild the state.
The fact is that there is precious little will to live together in BosniaHerzegovina.
Very few people there genuinely wish to make coexistence a reality.
The bodies that were elected last September lack a common civic identity.
I very much regret that this should be so, and we must begin by helping them to develop such an identity before there can be any question of achieving cross-border cooperation.
Mr President, I must begin by thanking Mr Cohn-Bendit for the excellent work he has put into this report.
I too would like to place it on record that our starting point must be Europe's political and moral responsibility for what it has failed to do for Bosnia and for what has happened in Bosnia as a result: slaughter and savagery, and the complete lack of any European presence. Clearly, we now have an even greater responsibility to act so that, during this period of reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia, we are able effectively to export the benefits of peace, democracy and stability - and, above all, liberty.
I believe that the machinery for credible joint action is important, and this brings us back to the problem of the CFSP. On this point, clearly, there is a need for a general commitment, a need to reinforce and broaden the SFOR mandate.
For this reason, I believe it is essential that this Parliament should bring pressure to bear on the Commission and the Council.
Our central aim must be to make Bosnia independent of international aid, so that it can move ahead with its economic development by its own efforts. That is why I greatly appreciated certain passages in Mr Cohn-Bendit's report: we very much appreciated the report not only for its remarks on the regional approach but also with regard to the overall political initiative, meaning the re-establishment of the rule of law, and a more generalized pact of stability for peace and development, which implies strict compliance with the peace commitments entered into with the Dayton accords but also implies a free trade area, common airspace and favourable conditions for investment.
Peace and stability in Bosnia will come not from piecemeal interventions in the form of aid, which will merely result in corruption, but from creating conditions that favour the independent development of that region.
Mr President, Commissioner, I recently received a copy of the Commission's first end-of-year report - for 1996 - on how the resources made available by Parliament and the budgetary authority are being spent in the former Yugoslavia.
Of the ECU 125 million in the essential aid programme, the proportion committed in 1996 was 66 %, and this gives no indication of what was actually paid out.
Precisely ECU 2.1 m was committed from the ECU 27.6 m available in reconstruction aid.
In the area of aid for repatriation, which is so urgently needed to allow refugees to return home, ECU 8 m out of a total of ECU 25.7 m was committed, and of the ECU 35 m earmarked for 'Europe for Sarajevo' - to which the House attaches such importance - exactly ECU 3.2 m was committed in 1996: only committed, mind you, not paid out.
Is it any wonder that if you go to Sarajevo - as I did two and a half weeks ago - you meet people who ask what the Commission and the European Union have actually done. What visible proof is there that the reconstruction aid is in fact getting through?
In effect, the Commission report for 1996 exposes the bureaucratic and inefficient approach which has been adopted here. I should like to ask the Commission a question: why is it not possible to adopt a less bureaucratic approach?
We managed it in Mostar, so why not in other cities?
And why is the IMG unable to act on our behalf on the ground?
Why, instead of continuing to administer the resources centrally from Brussels, do we not cooperate with organizations such as the Bärbel Bohley programme for 1000 homes in Bosnia - a project with a minimum of red tape which has been able to put 3 million to good use? All these questions are of critical importance for the Commission, and I hope that we shall manage to do rather better in 1997.
Thank you, Mr President, but I thought I had two minutes, and that was the very least I needed to say that Mr Cohn-Bendit's report seems to me full of good intentions.
Personally I am all in favour of considering regional cooperation with the countries of former Yugoslavia and indeed beyond.
In fact I think we should have noticed sooner, instead of encouraging each European country to choose a protege in the Balkans, as Europe did, that independence was as premature as it was illusory.
We promised countries that we would guarantee their frontiers, which we did not do, and that we would allow them to join Europe right away, which they are still waiting for, and instead of doing that there was another way to achieve solidarity and balance in Yugoslav, through groupings which would no doubt have been reviewed: by explaining to the countries concerned that they would only come closer to Europe by finding new ways of living together.
We have seen the result: ethnic hatred, nationalism, religious tension, have all triumphed over the inclusive values the European Union should have promoted.
But we should not always expect the worst and cooperation is extremely necessary today.
We must promote it and in particular speed up the financing, as has been mentioned.
I just want to draw Parliament's attention to one point, Mr President.
The European Union has shown serious weakness, and I think it could make up for that if it decided to establish wholly European intervention forces in Bosnia for the period after the council elections, which would be responsible in particular for preventing war breaking out again in Brcko or Mostar, as it unfortunately...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, the independent Members of the House welcome Mr Cohn-Bendit's perceptive and courageous report which, by involving all the Balkan countries, lends a new dimension to the difficult task of securing peace in the former Yugoslavia.
Mr Cohn-Bendit, I agree with you that politicians certainly need vision in order to achieve ambitious goals.
But there have been repeated instances in the past of major long-term projects, with a high degree of commitment, which have failed because - in the absence of short-term successes of the kind that people in the former Yugoslavia would undoubtedly wish to see today - some of those involved lost faith in the project as a whole and did not see it through to its completion.
Therefore, we have to keep a sense of pragmatism alongside the vision, and be aware that what we are doing is like the work of a good football coach: it will not be judged on the basis of carefully thought-out and theoretically irreproachable game plans, but purely and simply on results.
Mr President, I am also very pleased with the Cohn-Bendit report, which strongly emphasizes the need to restore the rule of law in the area in question.
This is a particularly important issue to which I shall return shortly.
I am actually rather surprised that the Commission should focus on such a limited area when it talks about regional cooperation in the former Yugoslavia. There are several countries here which have just emerged from a terrible war with each other and still harbour various grievances.
We have a situation where Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example, includes a number of groups which are more than happy to cooperate with the neighbouring states of Croatia and Serbia, and this is threatening unity in Bosnia and peace in the entire region.
So when we talk about regional cooperation, we must be very, very careful that this is not interpreted as giving encouragement to those who would like nothing better than to destroy Bosnia-Herzegovina altogether.
I think it is absolutely vital that we should make it clear that this is not our intention.
I also wonder why the Commission is focusing on this small area, so that Serbia-Montenegro is the centre of attention once again.
Is that what we really want? I hardly think so.
I would prefer to see the regional cooperation extended to include the rest of the Balkans and some neighbouring countries, which may even include EU applicant countries or Member States.
We have the Barcelona process, and I would be much more in favour of allowing something similar in the Balkans, so that we can have a broader regional overview, rather than thinking that the emphasis is on the 'bad boys' once again.
I would prefer to give Romania a more prominent role, especially now that it has a more constructive government.
It would also help to give countries in the Balkans which have already taken various measures such as the Black Sea initiative greater self-respect and a better understanding of international responsibility.
I think it is very important for them to realize that their contribution to international security and the rule of law is extremely important to us, and we should continue to develop this idea.
I do not think we should bring pressure to bear by threatening to withhold financial aid if they do not cooperate in the way we want.
We should leave things up to them.
There should be more consultation between officials from the countries around Yugoslavia and yourself, Commissioner, and perhaps also members of the Council.
I also feel it is rather difficult to be calling for economic cooperation at a time when racist tendencies in Bosnia-Herzegovina are completely frustrating further economic development.
I am thinking here of the east-west and north-south railways through Bosnia-Herzegovina which both head towards Tuzla, but which the racist attitudes of the Republika Srpska are preventing from being extended.
What sort of economic aid and development are we trying to promote with our cooperation models?
I would therefore urge that we should vote for the section on this subject in the Cohn-Bendit report, as amended, since this is how we can genuinely promote the international rule of law.
Mr President, Parliament's attention needs to be drawn to a particularly positive aspect of the Cohn-Bendit report: the regional approach and the quality of the bilateral relations between the countries which made up former Yugoslavia.
In fact there is no suggestion that countries wishing to associate with or join the Union are all obsessed with Europe and refusing to work together or show each other a minimum of solidarity.
This necessary solidarity should be expressed economically and politically in a declaration containing specific commitments leading to a regional stability pact.
But reassuring words are not enough; there must be practical consequences, with membership of the Union subject to clear demands and penalty clauses suspending our commitments.
Mr President, reading the title here - which of course everybody has read, but I am simply repeating it - I see that the European Parliament is considering a single resolution on two Commission reports, one on 'Prospects for the development of regional cooperation for the countries of the former Yugoslavia' , and the other on 'Joint principles for future contractual relations with certain countries in south-east Europe' .
I think this way of dealing with two reports on different issues led to the confusion created with the reading of the report by Mr Cohn-Bendit, because the countries of former Yugoslavia are covered by a special situation, the Dayton agreement, they are involved in war, they have victims, they have the dead, and they have refugees, while the other countries of south-east Europe are ones with enormous economic problems, I would say with huge internal problems and problems of democracy, but they continue struggling and fighting by peaceful means to overcome those problems.
I say this because the report, as drawn up at present, does not make it possible to draw useful conclusions and can be no help either for the Commission, or for the Council.
I accept, of course, the proposal made by Mr CohnBendit in paragraph 5, where with reference to the well-known Royaumont initiative, he speaks of a Conference supported by the European Union.
This is an idea correct in principle.
We must support it, but as for the remainder of the contents, I think it is a text which does no harm, but offers nothing.
First of all, I should like to apologize to you and in particular to Mr Cohn-Bendit for my late arrival, which was not out of any disrespect to the House, but was the result of a misunderstanding.
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying how pleased I am that this subject has been put on the agenda and examined in this report by Mr Cohn-Bendit, even if there is limited time for dealing with such a complicated issue.
The Commission broadly agrees with the motion for a resolution, which clearly supports the European Union's strategy on the countries of South-Eastern Europe.
This strategy was developed by the Council on the basis of recommendations from the Commission, which had itself produced a report on conditionality and a regional approach.
Both concepts will enable us to make full use of the special relations which the European Union has with the countries of South-Eastern Europe, including in particular those with which we do not yet have association agreements.
On 29 April, the General Affairs Council also formulated conclusions on this subject which we believe mark an important step towards a coherent and transparent policy for the Union in its future bilateral relations with these non-associated countries in the areas of economic and financial aid and contractual relations.
I should like to put my written notes to one side for a moment, because I realized when I heard what Mr Sarlis said that the approach we have chosen is still apparently causing some misunderstanding.
There were also comments from Mr Oostlander and Mrs Pack about the geographical area and in particular the conditions for entering into contractual relations with the Union, such as those of good-neighbourliness or cross-border cooperation. What it really comes down to is 'do unto your neighbours as you would have the European Union do unto you' .
After everything people have been through in the Balkans in recent years and all the European Union has invested, however inadequately, in peace and reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia - and here I entirely disagree with the very negative picture painted by Mrs Müller, but I will not go into that just for the moment - is it really so surprising that the time should come when we ask Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia to normalize their own relations before they can hope to enter into contractual relations with the European Union?
Or that when it comes to asking for certain trade concessions or preferences from the Union, they should first be asked to agree to similar concessions for each other?
I can assure Mr Oostlander that time and time again in talks with these countries - and I know how we have been criticized for this approach, not least from the capitals of the countries themselves - the European Union has assured them that our policy must not be seen as an attempt to restore the old federal structure to Yugoslavia.
As well as the Balkans, Romania is included, which could well form the nucleus of regional cooperation in the Black Sea area.
Indeed, this is already the case, since Romania is already involved in the Black Sea cooperation project.
The Commission is currently preparing a document on cooperation between the countries around the Black Sea, just as we did for the Barents Sea, the Baltic States, the Central Europe initiative, the Royaumont initiative and the Balkans initiative, which is supported by Greece.
So let there be no misunderstanding: the regional approach is by no means a new concept for the European Union, and demanding good-neighbourliness and promoting regional cross-border cooperation using political and financial means are in fact part of the European Union's standard approach.
Let me move on now to the other conditions which apply as regards the former Yugoslavia.
The Serbs have been told not to count on contractual cooperation with the European Union if no solution is found to the Kosovo problem.
The Croats have been told that there are various problems with their internal human rights, and improvements must be made before they can count on PHARE aid, apart from PHARE-Democracy.
I have just come back from Bosnia with Klaus Kinkel. What did we find?
As we have heard, groups like the Croats who would like nothing better than to rejoin Croatia, and the Republika Srpska which is contravening the Dayton Agreements by concluding new agreements with Serbia.
What should we do? Should we now stand back and do nothing while a number of our Member States - you will know who I mean - are bringing enormous pressure to bear to make it easier for refugees to return to the former Bosnia?
What we have said is that as things stand at present, there is simply no point in having contractual cooperation or proper trade and cooperation agreements with Bosnia.
Bosnia first has to show greater cohesion, it must have a collective presidency which agrees on what it wants from the European Union and agrees to abide by the Dayton Agreements, and we might also require it to cooperate with the war tribunal in The Hague, since it would be madness to send Bosnian refugees from Germany back to the Republika Srpska, where Mr Karadzic is still active behind the scenes.
Mr President, I have gone well over my time, but it is such an exceptionally complicated situation in the Balkans.
I can only say that there are two quite different strands here.
The first is our attempt to pursue a policy to bring stability to the Balkans, which calls for a special approach after all the years of violent and bloody warfare that the region has gone through.
But in addition, regional cooperation is a concept which also applies to regions that are fortunately not in such a complicated situation, but also wish to have a special relationship with the Union.
Here too, the message is the same: that we would like them to play a constructive and positive role in their relations with their neighbours.
These are the broad outlines of our approach which we now have to translate into a detailed policy for Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia, and this is what we are working on at the moment.
On Mr Cohn-Bendit's proposal in his report to set up a foundation for democracy, I would say this.
As you are certainly aware, the Commission is already funding a large number of projects in this field in South-Eastern Europe, and particularly in the former Yugoslavia, with the aim of establishing and strengthening democratic structures by providing aid for the development of a civil society, a culture of openness towards and freedom for the media, and a more robust judicial system.
We would have to consider very carefully whether the proposed foundation would be a useful addition to the measures already being carried out by the Community.
I have no problem at all with the objectives that are set out.
The only question is whether there is really any added value, or whether we are already doing enough in this field, so that if anything extra is to be done it should focus on a different area.
This brings me to the end of what has been a rather fragmented speech, and I should simply like to congratulate Mr Cohn-Bendit once again for showing such commitment in working through this very complicated issue.
I agree with you entirely, Commissioner, because you have made it clear that the first step has not yet been taken.
We cannot demand regional cooperation if the people in these countries are still incapable of living together.
Nonetheless, we do have a duty and a responsibility to help them establish coexistence at national level: the next step will then follow by itself.
I think I have already made that point quite clearly.
Mrs Pack, surely you must see that regional cooperation is not an obligation in the sense that we have to take up arms to enforce it... for goodness sake, you have no trouble understanding plain German when it emanates from Zagreb!
Now try reading some plain German which does not come from Zagreb!
Cooperation is simply a political necessity, so that people learn to live together.
And if we in Europe do not treat that as a moral requirement, then we in Europe will have failed.
Surely, for once, the PPE Members of the House can grasp that!
Mr President, I do not wish to be the referee here, but I would simply repeat that it is still not our view that these people do not want to live together.
It is the politicians who are trying to impose and assert their own nationalistic beliefs, and this is why I am by no means reluctant to impose conditions, and why I am also not particularly troubled by comments that our conditions are simply designed to restore Yugoslavia to how it used to be.
Not at all.
Our goals are quite different and are designed to bring peace and stability, which is more than I can say for some of the leaders in the region.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at noon.
Improving the impact of joint actions
The next item is the debate on the report by Barón Crespo (A4-0133/97), on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on improving the impact of joint actions.
Mr President, I particularly want to express my satisfaction that this report has been able to reach the House barely a year and three-quarters after it was written.
If you look carefully at the date you will see that this recommendation was made on 20 September 1995 in application of article J.11 of the treaty and rule 46.3 of our Rules of Procedure.
And the recommendation has the added advantage of scarcely filling a page and a half, unlike most of the interminable litanies which constitute parliamentary reports.
Two battles have been joined here.
One is the external battle.
And I have to say that where we do not have problems with the Council, which is currently practising the empty chair policy, or the Commission, we put shackles on ourselves, we put spokes in the wheels, to the point that this recommendation has had to go to the Committee on the Rules and the Conference of Presidents before coming here today.
So as regards the external side, the law, what is basically being said is that the intelligent use of a weapon like the recommendation allows us, with the immediateness international political problems require, to formulate how foreign policy is debated, and whether there are criteria, opinions, judgements, or guidelines to the Commission.
This is something that we are very much lacking in and we will shortly have the opportunity to see an analysis of it in the report Mr Spencer is preparing on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, drawing up the full balance sheet of the unsatisfactory development of the common positions and joint actions which are the instruments of foreign policy we have available under the Treaty on European Union.
To come to the nub of the matter, the content of the recommendation, the position over eighteen months ago still has a terrible topicality, especially at a time when - hopefully - the Intergovernmental Conference is reaching a conclusion, because this is one of the most delicate issues as regards reform and improvement of the treaties.
And the substance of the proposal is four fundamental points based on our experience over the past few years.
It is not enough to complain about how incapable we are in Europe of developing foreign policy, we also have to do something to improve it and find the way forward.
So to put it very briefly, the proposal is that the necessary measures be adopted to formulate and develop joint action based on the qualified majority principle, which this Parliament has approved, moreover, and which should be the general principle which inspires our actions.
Secondly, another very important point for a Parliament which shares budgetary power with the Council is to state that costs generated by common actions under the treaty must be included in the non-compulsory section of the Community budget involving democratic control by Parliament and that specifically administrative expenditure should come under heading V and operational expenditure under heading IV.
The principle of budgetary clarity is a basic principle of parliamentary and democratic responsibility.
Thirdly, we need to consider how to implement joint actions effectively and rapidly, and here I would recall a proposal made by Parliament five years ago for a code of conduct and an interinstitutional framework agreement allowing us to develop and control our relations with the Commission and the Council correctly.
Finally, Mr President, we must insist, as of right, that the treaty is applied, and Parliament is consulted when decisions are taken and joint actions are planned.
To illustrate our situation, I need only mention what has happened in the case of Albania, where a problem arose with a neighbouring country in the Union and it was decided, quite disgracefully in my opinion, that this was not a priority issue for the Union. It was then left to Parliament, after a series of countries decided to act, to ask the Council for joint common action.
Therefore, Mr President, and with this I conclude, I think this recommendation - albeit late, but better late than never - has arrived at the right moment and I hope ministers will read it before the Amsterdam Summit.
Mr President, I should like to express our opinion on a number of points.
Firstly, let me thank the rapporteur for including the key demand of the Committee on Budgets: that expenditure in this area should be non-compulsory.
The current difficulty in getting this point across at the Intergovernmental Conference demonstrates how far-sighted we were when we drafted our opinion in January.
I very much hope that an agreement is reached - and one to which the Council representatives are also party - so that we do not experience a backlash which would be detrimental to this democratic institution.
Secondly, through the Committee on Budgetary Control, I requested an opinion from the Court of Auditors on the functioning of the foreign and security policy to date.
That opinion is now available.
It is probably too late for this to be included in the preparatory discussions for the Intergovernmental Conference, and it contains a great many technical comments.
However, I would ask for us to cooperate with the Committee on Foreign Affairs in considering this opinion and looking at how the Council, the Commission and Parliament can improve their performance in relation to joint actions in the future, for example in terms of rapidity, transparency and administrative obstacles.
Finally, I wish to issue a warning to the Council. I believe that any temptation to misuse joint actions must be firmly resisted.
An example of such misuse occurred when the Committee on Budgets received notice of a transfer of appropriations of ECU 5.5 million for participation in election preparations in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
We had literally no time to consider whether Parliament wished to lend its support or not.
This was a decision of the Council, a joint action at intergovernmental level.
The Member States dispatched their staff, then found that they could no longer manage to pay for them, so they came to the Committee on Budgets seeking finance from European coffers through the back door.
If that is the way that joint actions are going to work in future in terms of relations between the Council and Parliament, then I can assure the Council that the next time the going gets rough, there will be no more transfers of appropriations from the Committee on Budgets.
Mr President, my Group supports the Baron Crespo report, shares his delight that it has finally made it to plenary and I echo all his comments in detail.
The truth is that our joint actions are unimpressive.
They are too few and where they have been crafted, they do not deal with fundamental issues.
I find it literally amazing that the diplomats of our sophisticated, experienced and powerful nations, whose fathers and grandfathers ran the world, seem to have such trouble having any measurable impact on the rest of humanity.
We have seen in recent weeks that there is little mutual solidarity amongst the foreign ministers of the European Union and almost no principle that cannot be traded for commercial advantage at any particular moment.
The problem may lie in the details of decision-making and implementation of joint actions, but I rather doubt that is the complete answer.
I fear that the problem is more fundamental and it lies in the self-censoring reluctance to tackle big issues from a European perspective.
It is the problem of diplomats who perhaps spend too much time in beautiful chancellories contemplating great national traditions.
Too much concentration on Agincourt and not enough on Asia and, if Mr Baron Crespo will forgive me, too much concentration on Trafalgar rather than trade.
We should listen to the good sense of Dr Johnson, who said in relation to Scotsmen that much could be done if you caught them young.
The same applies to diplomats.
I believe that until we have a European Institute for foreign policy and defence studies modelled on the excellent European Institute for Public Administration in Maastricht, we will never have the critical mass of national diplomats trained to take a European as well as a national view.
There are European interests in the world but as yet there are few advocates for those interests active in the diplomacy of the Council.
It seems to me that success in the joint actions of the CFSP, as in the other aspects of the CFSP, depends first and foremost on an extended intellectual effort to understand those 'important interests in common' that are referred to in the Treaty.
My Group will support the Baron Crespo report.
We have no difficulty whatsoever with the recommendations of the report by Mr Barón Crespo.
He knows that, because in the many exchanges we have had, either in former days in his capacity as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, or on a more individual basis, we have agreed with him and many Members of this Parliament about the necessity of improving the instruments of our Common Foreign and Security Policy.
We agree that it is not only a matter of continuing to dwell on substance and on whether policies can be aligned, however important that is, but that if the European Union does not provide itself with the necessary procedures and instruments, then the implementation of that policy will fail and we will not stimulate the necessary convergence of policy.
It is against this background that the Commission, even at this early stage of the Intergovernmental Conference, has made its contribution to that conference, making points that are very much in line with the recommendations of this report and of other resolutions adopted by the European Parliament: the preparation of our common action through this joint planning analysis capacity; the question of the representation of the Union in foreign policy by the new model of troika, which is still under discussion; the question of how we can change the decision-making procedures and whether some qualified majority could be introduced into the foreign policies, which is also still under discussion in the IGC; the question of the defence component we discussed this morning in relation to the Tindemans report on the Common Security Policy; last, but not least, a matter which is attracting some attention today, and rightfully so, the whole question of how we finance of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
There again, you will find that the Commission supports Parliament in defending the thesis that expenses on these kinds of joint actions should be considered as non-obligatory expenditure.
Having said that - and I think the term 'interinstitutional agreement' came up - we do need something like an interinstitutional agreement.
For on the one hand, given its budgetary responsibilities, Parliament has certain prerogatives here which should be respected.
But on the other hand, the European Parliament must respect the fact that foreign policy is something that often requires swift action and cannot await very complex and lengthy procedures to ensure that the financing will be available.
Perhaps the solution would be to find a kind of interinstitutional agreement that would allow for swift procedures where required.
These are my brief remarks today.
They certainly will not be the last contribution that we make in the continuing debate about giving more substance to our Common Foreign and Security Policy.
I would like to conclude by availing myself of this opportunity to express great admiration for the book that Mr Barón Crespo has recently written, entitled 'Europe at the Dawn of the Millennium' , or something similar.
I find all that he says in that book about European aspirations, as he sees them, very worthwhile and inspiring.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at noon.
Common organization of the market in bananas
The next item is the debate on the statements by the Council and Commission on the position of the WTO panel concerning the COM in bananas.
Mr President, I should like to make a brief statement on the market in bananas, in the light of recent events.
The Council has not yet determined its position on this issue, and will first have to hear the views of the Commissioners responsible for the common commercial and agricultural policies.
As the House will be aware, the WTO panel on bananas concluded in its report that the European Community's import regulations do not comply with its WTO obligations.
The panel recommended that the WTO body responsible for the settlement of disputes should request the European Community to bring its import regulations for bananas into line with its obligations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and in particular the agreement on administrative procedures during import and export.
As the European Parliament can imagine, this report by the panel could have far-reaching political and economic implications for the import regime for bananas, which we are currently examining.
It is still too early to say what further action the Union will take, since the WTO procedure for approving the panel's report is still in progress, and we are not yet in a position to be able to give a formal response.
That is my official statement, Mr President.
Mr President, having heard the stance which the Council is adopting - and, viewed objectively, it is the only one it could have been expected to take - namely that the first priority in this difficult issue is to examine the WTO ruling, I have to say that I believe this ruling comes as a severe disappointment to the majority of Members of this House.
The panel is calling for the banana regime to be brought into line with obligations under the WTO licensing agreement and GATT.
To justify this requirement, the panel refers to Article 16(4) of the Marrakesh agreement under which the WTO was set up.
We are all quite clear that if the European Union and its Member States refuse to toe the line, this could constitute a breach of that agreement and possibly call into question important aspects of the WTO - an organization which we promoted and helped to create.
That is why it is very important for the European Union that a solution should be found in the context of the WTO.
I would urge the Commission to consider the possibility of reaching an agreement with the USA - as was done in relation to the Helms-Burton Act - before we find ourselves on the losing side for a second time in a dispute settlement case.
The European Commission would be ill-advised to make its relationship - and Parliament's relationship - with the WTO dependent on the success or failure of any particular dispute proceedings: the party with the weaker case must be prepared to be a good loser.
But whether our case is the weaker is still an open question.
The possibility must also be considered that the WTO ruling was one-sided, and legal steps should be taken to examine this.
I am afraid, Commissioner, that we may soon be discussing another similar ruling in the dispute over hormones in meat.
In the present case, the WTO panel maintains that regardless of whether they come from EU countries, ACP countries, framework agreement countries or other third countries, bananas are products of the same description under GATT and must therefore be treated in the same way.
We have to consider whether that view is correct.
As regards the preferential tariff for ACP bananas, this may well breach the basic principle of most-favoured nation status.
However, this breach should be covered by the derogation allowing the EU to grant special treatment to ACP countries until the year 2000.
This means that the EU is also entitled in principle to grant a preferential tariff for non-traditional ACP bananas.
There has already been public speculation that the Commission is considering seeking an alternative solution.
Our view is that the EU should not act in breach of the agreement.
But we shall support any move that is necessary to establish whether this WTO ruling has a clear legal basis, and we hope that it may yet prove possible to resolve these matters in a way that does not undermine all our expectations of the panel.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have a number of comments concerning the banana panel report which we have been discussing. Firstly, the final report of the WTO special working group was forwarded to the parties involved on 29 April this year.
It was an extremely long report, and we immediately set about analysing it in detail, not only in terms of its impact on the banana regime and the banana trade in the European Union, but especially with regard to the various aspects of the report which have implications above and beyond the specific issue of bananas, requiring a study of possible consequences for trade within the European Union in general.
Because this is a very complex subject, you will appreciate that it has not yet been possible to complete this analysis.
However, I can tell you now that the panel took exception to a great many aspects of the EU banana regime.
Secondly, the licensing arrangements in particular - including the allocation of licences to market operators - were deemed incompatible with the provisions of the GATT and WTO agreements on non-discrimination and national treatment.
Certain aspects of the preferential treatment that we accord to ACP bananas, and of our framework agreement with four Latin American countries, were also deemed to be incompatible with WTO rules.
Thirdly, as I have already indicated, quite apart from its impact on the banana regime, the report has wider implications for the interpretation of a number of important WTO provisions.
We are now studying those implications carefully, so as to assess the possible effects on other Community policies.
Fourthly, I would remind you that the report is to be forwarded to all the members of the WTO in a few weeks' time.
Then in June, it is likely to be presented for approval to the WTO's dispute settlement body.
At this stage, the European Community will have the opportunity of submitting an appeal to the WTO appeals committee.
On the basis of our analysis of the panel's arguments and conclusions, and in the light of what I said earlier, there would indeed appear to be good grounds for appealing against the report.
The Commission is particular concerned to see that the interests of the banana-producing regions of the European Union and the ACP group continue to be taken into account.
Mr President, several points come to mind following the Commission statement.
I know other members of the Socialist Group will raise aspects concerning production in the Caribbean, perhaps my friend Mr Wynn, and Mr Medina on production within the Community.
So I will leave those points to be made better by other people.
I will concentrate on what the Commissioner said.
Concerning an appeal, I understand his caution, but he said that we can make an appeal.
I would like to make it quite clear that the Socialist Group would like to insist that an appeal is made if the eventual judgment is adverse.
We want to turn 'can make an appeal' into 'insist that an appeal is made' .
Secondly, we have some disagreement with the line taken by Mr Kittelmann.
I do not think it would be helpful to link the question of concessions on bananas at the WTO with other disputes which the European Union has with the USA at the WTO.
We need to de-link issues.
It is important that this House supports the principle that each case should be discussed and judged on its merits alone.
We do not want to undermine the WTO by having out-of-court settlements between the great and the good.
It is important that transparent judgments are made which will then be universally applied.
Thirdly, the whole procedure of taking this case raises very important questions, not least the inability of small producer countries fully to present their case equitably and openly at the WTO itself.
The Socialist Group appreciates that eventually the Commission will use its good offices to ensure that representatives from the small islands are admitted to that appeals panel.
We would like, however, to insist that in future the small islands are allowed as of right to attend those appeals panels, represented by whosoever they wish, as is the norm in all other international arenas.
Mr President, as this Parliament's rapporteur on the reform of the common organization of the market in bananas, I must first express my total dissatisfaction with the way in which the Council has presented this serious problem before Parliament - simply informing us that the panel does not agree with our common organization of the market and that the terms of the GATT have been violated.
To be frank, I was hoping for some kind of explanation, some kind of justification, perhaps even some kind of argument that would help us to find the right way round this impasse.
On the other hand, I note with satisfaction the remarks made by Commissioner Fischler, who has expressed a desire, not to say a commitment, to strive to overcome this obstacle to the advantage of Community producers. Because, basically, this is where the entire problem lies!
I ask this House if we are in favour of the Community's safeguarding and protecting those who work in the fields, sometimes on remote islands - I am thinking of Guadeloupe, in particular - in pursuit of an activity which is not simply economic, commercial or agricultural but is, first and foremost, a social one: in those remote areas, bananas are often the only crop - the only form of employment to guarantee the survival of these people.
Bananas are not a source of wealth, not a surplus.
I question whether we should still hesitate or blush when we say to any panel that we will defend this situation, this form of economic activity behind which so many other issues are at stake.
In point of fact, the battle is always the same: a clash between Community production and the big global business organizations.
The three American giants that control 75-80 % of the world banana market, and 70 % even in Europe, despite Community production, are trying to get their hands on the rest.
They are trying to deprive Community producers of any possibility of staying in the game, least of all on equal terms.
We - Parliament and the European Union - have a duty to say that any commercial argument must take second place to a specific and irrevocable commitment to the producers, especially producers in a minority situation, as I have pointed out. First and foremost, we must stand by the Lomé Treaty, which lays down that no bananaproducing ACP country may be put in a less favourable situation than it was before the common organization of the market was created.
So we are not asking for anything more, or anything better.
We are asking for the maintenance of the status quo - a situation that already existed.
So I believe that when we talk about Community preference not only have we no reason to blush - more than that, we must demand that the Commission, Council and Parliament speak with a single voice and, especially, adopt common solutions that can be carried forward with conviction.
Mr President, as has already been said, the WTO panel's ruling is still provisional, and my group too feels that the European Union would be perfectly entitled to appeal against it.
However, we also feel that it is entirely in the Union's interests to have a trade system which operates smoothly, and we think that the existence of the panel as such should not be called into question.
It was set up specifically to resolve trade problems, and we must give it a chance to do so.
As far as we are concerned, the WTO's provisional ruling does not say that we cannot meet our obligations under the Lomé Convention, and we can also meet our obligations to banana producers in the European Union itself.
And that is how things should remain.
We must insist on fulfilling our obligations.
However, the main problem here is that the ACP countries cannot meet their obligation to fulfil the quota and redistribute any surplus.
That is where the real problem lies, and I would urge the Commission to consider possible ways to get round this in the meantime, since we feel that the current system works to the disadvantage of European importers.
My group believes that we need to give serious consideration to 'fair trade' bananas, produced using sustainable methods in countries which respect human rights and so on.
And customers must be able to identify which these are.
Mr President, what is involved in this debate, and in the procedures that we are discussing here concerning bananas, is a battle between multinationals for market share.
Through the organization of the market in bananas, we strengthened the hand of European multinationals against their US counterparts, who then retaliated by resorting to the law.
But as we have just heard, it is the ACP countries, the small producers and countries, who are being left out of the picture, unable to intervene.
As a general rule, where we have an organization of the market that falls within the scope of the WTO, they too must be given access to the latter.
For the ACP countries, this means that the Caribbean islands, the Windward Islands and others must have an opportunity of stating their position.
We must support them in this respect.
It is our duty under the Lomé Convention to do so, and that is why it is right - as previous speakers have pointed out - that we should reach an agreement which gives these small islands access to appeal.
I believe this is essential if we are to complete Lomé IV and have a post-Lomé period.
We must ensure that social conditions continue to apply, because in many cases people are totally dependent on this crop, and we must also safeguard organic production and ensure that these producers can lodge an appeal.
Mr President, the WTO panel's conclusions on the COM for bananas certainly present formidable trading problems for European producers and traditional ACP producers.
With the banana market already in very serious disequilibrium through the extravagant quota favours granted to the multinationals in the 'dollar' area, the system for marketing the various quotas would be modified to the detriment of those who market barely a quarter of the bananas consumed in Europe.
This does not seem acceptable to me.
But this new episode in an already lengthy trade war also bears witness to the existence of a conflict between two development concepts, one in the WTO and one in the European Union.
There are those who want to protect producers, farmers, those who live by working the land, in the name of a balanced development.
Then there are those who want to favour international business, trade and speculation, in the name of liberalism and the great integrated world market,
The Group of the European Radical Alliance is firmly in the first camp.
Mr President, this afternoon I think Commissioner Fischler has caught Parliament's frequently expressed spirit in defence of the common organization of the market for bananas.
We are talking about reasonable organization, giving imports from the large banana producers a 70 % share of the Community market, and keeping a small amount, 30 %, for Community producers and traditional ACP producers.
I think the Commissioner is right: the European Community must appeal this World Trade Organization decision and, of course, we hope the Council will uphold the guidelines the Commission and the majority of the political groups of this Parliament are currently establishing.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that this banana panel throws doubt on the possibility of maintaining an international economic order because, if this international economic order is going to consist in a whole sector as important as bananas being virtually in the hands of just one multinational - which is what will happen if things go on like this - we will find ourselves unable to control our own consumer market.
Moreover, account must be taken of the vast damage flagged up both by the small ACP countries which have no other means of survival apart from banana production, and by certain Community regions where the destruction of this common organization of the market will have a massive impact.
What we are trying to create, after all, Mr Commissioner and Mr President of the Council, is an international economic order, not an international economic disorder.
If social clauses in trade agreements are ignored and everything is left to the free market - with its exclusive principles of profit, of economic benefit, of gain - we will end up with very serious problems, both within the Community and in the world economic order.
So I hope this debate in Parliament will strengthen the Commissioner's hand.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, from time to time European countries and regions as well as banana-producing ACP countries experience particular difficulties in marketing this farm product as a result of interference from third countries defending interests differing from the European Union's.
Despite the fact that the European Community's Court of Justice recognized, recently even, the legal validity of the Community banana scheme, the Arbitration Committee of the World Trade Organisation, taking an extremely discretionary and, in our view, intolerable position declared, at the end of April, that this regime was contrary to the rules of international trade.
Given that we are fighting and investing so that economic and social cohesion in the European Union can be fully applied, this declaration by the World Trade Organisation - if it is maintained - could easily destroy once and for all the main farming production in economic terms of certain European Union regions, in particular its islands and ultra-peripheral regions, which are already highly penalized by their very status.
Nor can we forget that the aims of the Lomé Convention, in particular an explicit undertaking in Protocol 5, on bananas, aimed to guarantee ACP producers access to the European market and improve both the production and marketing conditions of bananas in ACP countries.
The Community banana import regime defined by Regulation 404/93 stipulates that the European Union must respect its undertakings to banana-producing ACP states.
The recent decisions taken by the WTO panel are unacceptable since they concentrate exclusively on free trade rules and ignore or dismiss the vital considerations of social, cultural, health and environmental orders.
Therefore, not only should we consider but in our opinion we absolutely must, Commissioner, ensure that the Commission appeals against these unfair conclusions of the Arbitration Committee of the World Trade Organisation.
We fail to understand the position of certain Member States which apparently have already declared their opposition to such an attitude by the Commission which would fundamentally try to restore justice and keep alive the due solidarity between the European Member States and various regions of those States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the banana market was in deep crisis even before the panel decision.
Over-supply of the Community banana market from the dollar area has caused the price to collapse and ACP bananas are bearing the brunt, under pressure from two main factors: higher production costs and weaker marketing.
Need I recall the many occasions we have spoken out in this hemicycle to express our disagreement with the Commission on a number of points which we considered contrary to European interests and those of our allies?
I myself pointed out to the Commission that figures since the second half of 1995 showed that the proposed increase in volume reserved for third countries was unrelated to the consumption needs of the European Union and therefore we were being asked to ratify the marketing of some 265, 000 tons of bananas surplus to the European Union's capacity to absorb them.
We also expressed concern about the new distribution of licences proposed to us a little while ago by the Commission, because in our view, if it were to be applied, it would contribute to an imbalance in trade in bananas, leading to massive unemployment, a fall in export receipts and the collapse of certain economies with unprecedented social and political consequences in European regions and ACP banana producing countries.
Some European Union bodies have been nurturing this ambiguity in analysis and action for too long, determined to impose controversial attitudes which do not respect two fundamental principles, Community preference and preferential access for our historical allies. This, with the blatant division established within the European Union by favouring commercial interests outside the Union to the detriment of our moral duty of solidarity, has contributed to helping our competitors and detractors profit from our weaknesses to attack us m ore effectively.
Ladies and gentlemen, our words on this dossier should be precise, and our speeches should express the ambition we set ourselves in constructing European Union and also its political weight internationally.
As we say in my country, there are not thirty-six truths, there is only one truth: the panel decision undermines a fundamental principle, the principle of European sovereignty.
That is unacceptable, both in form and in content.
The banana affair has overflowed its economic context and become a political issue, and the European authorities must now demonstrate their capacity to trade with the rest of the world while protecting their own interests and refusing to be dictated to about their relations with allies, relations prompted by a rich common history which cannot be denied.
Mr President, the situation created by the WTO's ruling against the Community banana regime must be appealed, as Commissioner Fischler has recognized.
And the three Community institutions must all be singing from the same hymn sheet.
There are plenty of reasons for this: the first is the Commission's duty to defend the principle of Community preference and, as a corollary, all the standards that guarantee it; the second is the obligation to ensure fair market conditions for Community producers with high production and transport costs, and for whom the loss of the European market would mean serious economic damage; the third is the duty to uphold the agreements with the ACP countries.
But also, and especially, there is the proof that the World Trade Organization is using an instrument to regulate markets for the benefit of the United States, as shown by the fact that its final decisions are entirely in harmony with the powerful interests of the agrifood industry of that country, not only in the report of the banana panel, but also in the other panel report which obliges the European Union to accept hormone-treated meat.
These two questions cannot be dissociated, and I share the view of the Member who made that statement.
Finally, I want to point out that competition policy is not an end in itself, nor can it be seen only in commercial terms.
Considerations of a social and economic order also need to be taken into account, and above all health and environmental considerations.
Mr President, the Green Group in the European Parliament has never regarded the organization of the market in bananas as an ideal solution, but it did at least provide an opportunity for supporting a type of agriculture based on small holdings.
In the ACP countries and the EU, bananas are cultivated mainly by small and medium-sized growers, not on vast plantations like those in Honduras and Guatemala.
Unfortunately, the organization of the market in bananas was used to trigger cut-throat competition between major fruit importers and corporate interests in Europe and elsewhere.
The quota system led to a situation in which quotas were being artificially inflated before deadlines and a flourishing trade in licences had sprung up.
The government of Ecuador was quite justified in complaining that the system of issuing licences cost banana growers in Ecuador millions of dollars, because entitlements to import licences were being transferred to privileged multinational corporations.
Licences should not be issued to importers, but should go instead to the producer countries.
We have often argued in favour of a 'fair-trade' quota for bananas.
As part of the European Community's organization of the market in bananas, a specific quota should be reserved for fruit that is grown under specific social and environmental conditions.
In its resolution of November 1996 on trade and the environment, Parliament took up this demand.
Now the WTO has rejected the Community regime.
This verdict from the panel is only the first in a series of WTO rulings that threaten environmental and consumer protection in the EU.
In its next ruling, published at the end of last week, the WTO rejected the import ban on hormone-treated meat from the USA.
In that case, the USA was the main plaintiff - as with the organization of the market in bananas, even though US banana production amounts to no more than 8000 tonnes.
The US corporate lobby drafted the complaint to the WTO in detail and followed its progress through the panel negotiations in Geneva.
The WTO must amend its rules so as to give a hearing to weaker parties, developing countries and the environmental lobby.
I have almost finished, Mr President.
If it fails to do so, it will become - as Sir Leon Brittan clearly admitted at yesterday's meeting of the Committee on External Economic Relations - nothing more than a tool of the USA and the economically powerful countries against the rest of the world.
And in fact, that is how it looks today.
Mr President, the result of the World Trade Organization's panel on bananas is unacceptable and, quite frankly, of dubious impartiality.
Not only did the panel fail to take into account the interests of the European Union but more particularly - and much more importantly - it completely failed to listen to the producers, especially the small producers, representing the ACP states.
Well, it really would be a serious matter if the World Trade Organization, in this matter and in other matters, too, were to continue to work and act not in the interests of a more balanced and freer world market, as laid down in the Marrakesh agreements, but exclusively for the benefit of certain powerful interests, whether those interests be national or representative of multinational enterprises.
The common organization of the market in bananas was difficult to achieve but, overall, the result was a balanced one, including the banana protocol to the Lomé convention, a fundamental contractual agreement which is, moreover, recognized by the Marrakesh agreements and covering eleven traditional banana-supplying States which, if this decision were to be confirmed - would either be further impoverished or forced to abandon an opportunity for trade in favour of further forms of assistance.
There was a slogan a few years ago, ' trade not aid' , but here we have a case where trade is being denied to those outside the sphere of the big multinationals.
That is why the Commission must use every possible means of recourse and appeal to the World Trade Organization in order to gain a just settlement. Frankly, we are somewhat surprised, and saddened, by the terms in which the Council has expressed itself in this chamber.
In fact, the two great questions that arise today are these: whether the agricultural and commercial policies of the European Union can have a future within the new world organization; and whether the actions of the European Union in dealings with its partners in the developing countries can bring a new structure and a new framework to the machinery of international regulation, rather than being swept aside by the interests of a few big international undertakings.
Mr President, after so much bad news for Community and ACP banana producers, there is a ray of hope with the initiative from the European Council and Commission that has given rise to this debate and the resolution we will probably vote on tomorrow.
As somebody said, the statement from the Council representative was rather perplexing, but hearing the position of the Commissioner, Mr Fischler, I am satisfied that he seems to have recognized the magnitude of the problem.
The common organization of the banana market has not had a moment's peace in its short life: it has been subject to all kinds of attacks, both in the legal arena and in the battle for public opinion.
No productive sector can thrive in such a climate.
I do wonder what powerful enemies European banana producers have, that can mobilize and pressurize so persistently.
Regulation 404/93 has been an effective instrument for organizing the European banana market up to now.
European producers have been satisfied, supplies to the markets have been guaranteed, prices have been maintained within the logical contingencies of the market and the European consumer has not suffered in any way since the Regulation came into force.
Certainly Latin American producers have not been negatively affected, as has already been said.
In view of all this, why do we have to succumb to the interests of one of the powerful banana multinationals?
The banana multinationals have a dark history of interference in Latin American politics.
Can they have such a decisive influence on Europe too? What will the Commission do to maintain the standard of living in certain European producing regions for which the banana is the principal and sometimes the only source of wealth?
If it were to agree to change the current system and make Community production non-viable, I would not be able to explain that to the inhabitants of the island where I was born, which has survived on bananas alone for two centuries.
Mr President, Commissioner, strange though it may seem - and knowing my mythology - I never thought that, in the European Parliament, the apple of discord would be replaced by a banana of discord.
In fact, this is an historic replacement and it will go down in the annals of the European Parliament, especially now that the trade Leviathan which exists worldwide succeeds in overcoming treaties, abolishing conventions, fighting against people unable to produce cheap bananas. Why?
Because they earn more, because they have a better standard of living, because they have come closer to the standards of living of Europe.
But the Leviathan does not want that to come about.
It wants to monopolise all banana trade at European and world levels.
We no longer have the excuse that, when the Soviet Union existed, it brought down Colonel Arbentz in Guatemala, when he was a nuisance for United Fruit.
We no longer have that excuse!
The only excuse we have now is that 'pax americana' wants to fight the whole world and conquer it.
Without referring to that almost archaeological entity which used to be known as 'Community preference' , I should like to draw the Commissioner's attention to the membership of the WTO panel. Who are they?
The Commission tell me that there are three people on that committee.
One representative from Hong Kong, one representative from Switzerland and one representative from Australia.
I do not want to judge them unfairly, but I have to say that these are three countries which do not exactly have very pro-European feelings, and they certainly would not be accepted without discussion by any court.
I do not contest the existence of courts but I should at least like to see impartial judges sitting on them.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that the statement by Commissioner Fischler is indeed to be welcomed - with the rider given by Mr Hindley.
I suggest that the message relayed by the Commissioner be sent forthwith to the traditional producers, simply to give them some encouragement and hope for the future.
During our visit to the Windward Islands last week, Mrs Kinnock, Mr Thomas and myself felt the enormous responsibility that the people of these islands were placing upon us.
They are desperate for help to combat the WTO ruling, an action that had the full might of the American Government behind it.
The GATT Round was not concluded until the banana regime was in place - for those who can remember, a lot of hard work and delicate negotiations went into securing that agreement - and now we see it blown apart by the USA, a country that does not export bananas and suffers no job losses because of it.
If the allegations in the American press are to be believed, then one multimillionaire can call in the chips to get the Clinton administration to put the boot into small countries in the name of free trade.
In our discussions last week, everyone from farmers to prime ministers gave us the same clear message: if the ruling from the WTO prevailed, good governance and democracy in those countries would be at risk; economic disaster would prevail, followed by social unrest; and, of course, tourism flourish only in countries that stay out of the news headlines.
Bananas are the only crop that guarantee a regular weekly income.
Take that away and poverty would follow.
But, above all, they said: we look to the European Union to confront the USA on Third World issues.
An appeal is essential, but this can only be a first step.
The countries of the eastern Caribbean accept globalization and liberalization of trade, they are modernizing and diversifying, but they need help and they need time!
The WTO ruling gives neither, and that is why we have to confront it, and we definitely have to appeal.
Mr President, of course what we recognize in this debate is that the long-running banana drama actually crystalizes the elements of the debates in Europe about the whole issue of preferential access.
The special trade allowances which we give, as wealthy countries, to poorer countries as a ladder out of poverty are now being challenged by those who prescribe blanket liberalization as the only option.
And as others have said, in the European Union we have our very special and unique relationship with the ACP countries.
That relationship is based upon an understanding that trade is the engine of growth for developing countries.
Of course the very word banana produces an easy snigger and a laugh and the fashionable Euro-sceptic banter we hear often relates to bananas.
But as Terry Wynn said, when we were in the Windward Islands last week, we actually faced the stark realities that people in those islands are facing themselves, as they try to meet the challenge from dollar bananas.
They are now depending upon the European Union to buy them time.
These people are not holding out a begging bowl - they are only asking for recognition that they have small landowning democracies in countries which have human rights and which protect workers' rights.
These standards of course are not to be found in the feudal conditions which exist in Latin American plantations.
It is not as if these countries have a big share of the market.
Two-thirds of the bananas that we import are now from Latin America.
As Terry Wynn said, we have to ask why America lodged this complaint.
Was it because Carl Linden who heads Chiquita brands began channelling $500 000 into the Democratic campaign during the presidential elections? Linden took coffee with President Clinton and actually slept in Lincoln's bedroom.
The payoff for those favours, it seems, was a WTO ruling which effectively threatens the entire social fabric of a region.
Finally, in his speech last Friday in Barbados, the President of St Lucia said: ' bananas are to the Caribbean what cars are to Detroit' .
I hope the European Union will help Bill Clinton to understand that fact.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the findings of the preliminary report of the Banana Panel of the World Trade Organisation are contrary to the interests of the European Community and in particular to those of Portugal and the autonomous region of Madeira, which is a part of my country, and even more to the traditional banana exporters of the ACP countries.
We all know what the findings of the WTO Banana Panel report are but they coincide with positions taken by the United States and certainly seem to defend the interests of the Chiquita multinational which markets LatinAmerican bananas throughout the world.
The Community has the right and obligation to defend Community banana producers according to the principle of Community preference and ensure that agreements which we have signed with ACP countries in the framework of the Lomé Convention are respected.
Mr President, Commissioner, if the European Union is forced to accept the findings of the WTO Banana Panel report, that would call into question the defence of the principle of Community preference and this would mean speeding up liberalization of the banana COM, calling into question also the already precarious economic and social stability of banana-producing countries, as well as the ecological and environmental balance as a consequence of abandonment of these crops.
Commissioner, I should like here and now to remind you of the final part of your letter, in reply to mine, dated 20 May 1997, which said that you were aware of the importance of banana growing on the island of Madeira from an economic, social and ecological point of view.
That being so, I call on you and the Commission to present a clear strategy on the banana market, bearing in mind the legitimate interests of Community and ACP banana country producers.
Mr President, as President-in-Office of the Council I have listened very carefully to what the honourable Members have said.
They have made clear their concern about the possible implications of the ruling, and they have spoken of their great concern for banana producers in the European Union and also in particular for producers in the ACP countries. We share their concern.
We shall take account of the interests of these producers in our search for a solution, and we shall have to examine in detail how best we can protect them in the short and longer term.
I would just add one point of a general political nature which has not yet been made in the debate.
This trade dispute is taking place within the World Trade Organization's legal system, and I use that term advisedly.
The European Union and its Member States have voluntarily agreed to abide by the WTO's rules, and we ourselves were involved in setting up the WTO panel procedure.
We voted in favour of making the panel's rulings legally binding, and even urged that they should be made so.
Some honourable Members have expressed severe criticism of these rulings, but I do not take this to mean that they feel we should disregard them altogether, since this would be tantamount to rejecting a very carefully constructed system of laws governing international trade.
The Council feels that this would not be in the interests of either the European Union or the producers we are trying to protect.
Finally, the Council will be examining the ruling in greater detail in close consultation with Commissioner Fischler and his services, and will draw its conclusions once it has considered all the various aspects.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Medina Ortega said earlier, today's debate has very clearly demonstrated the strength of feeling in the House concerning the banana issue.
I should like to thank the many Members who have spoken out in favour of lodging an appeal.
All I can say at this stage is that the Commission will exercise its full responsibility in that respect.
However, we must also realize that we shall need to consider in detail and carefully prepare the grounds on which we base an appeal, because as you are well aware, an appeal will throw the case open once again.
It would hardly be in your interest, I am sure, if the outcome of the appeal were to be a stiffening of the original ruling.
That is why it is vital to prepare an appeal very carefully.
Another factor also has to be borne in mind: there have as yet been relatively few rulings under the new procedure.
The fact is that with the establishment of the WTO, the procedure was reorganized, and it could now be said that each case represents a precedent.
These first cases will be the basis from which the WTO develops its case-law.
For that reason too, we must take particularly careful note of all the cases which are currently pending and being decided.
Therefore, I would also ask that we should keep quite clearly to our agreed procedures, taking one step at a time, and also debating one step at a time.
I would almost go so far as to say that it is counterproductive to engage in a debate now on how we should react to one final ruling or another.
The very last thing that it would be in our common interest to do would be to seek to influence the WTO's final ruling in any way.
Indeed, this is also a reason why we should refrain from stating our positions in public in the final stage of the proceedings.
Nonetheless, one thing is clear: banana producers in the European Union have the same rights as any other farmers in the European Union - they are entitled to look to the objectives set out in Article 39 of the Treaty with regard to Community preference and general solidarity with our agricultural producers.
It is equally clear that we have a responsibility towards the ACP countries, with whom we naturally also have a contractual agreement.
And, as I see it, we can in any event continue to stand by that agreement in the interests of those concerned.
Bearing all this in mind, the Commission will, as I said earlier, set about analysing the WTO ruling in detail and then decide on the right way in which to proceed.
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
I have received nine motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The debate will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Situation in Zaire
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Zaire.
Mr President, the Council remains extremely concerned at the developments in Zaire, both in political and humanitarian terms.
Despite the recent face-to-face meeting between President Mobutu and the ADFL leader Mr Kabila, there are still no real negotiations taking place between the parties to the conflict.
The refugees and displaced persons in eastern Zaire are in an agonizing situation, and repatriation is still not taking place without difficulties.
On 4 May, a meeting organized by the special representative of the United Nations and the South African Government took place between President Mobutu and Laurent Kabila on board a South African naval vessel which bears a rather difficult name.
This meeting - for which there had been pressure from many quarters, including the European Union - did not bring the breakthrough which had been hoped for.
No cease-fire was agreed between the parties, and nor was there any agreement on the transition process.
Shortly after this meeting, Mr Kabila announced that the capital, Kinshasa, would be taken by force if President Mobutu did not resign within a week.
The most recent reports indicate that Mr Kabila's ADFL is closing in on Kinshasa.
This has also led to an upturn in the fighting in the past few days, and the increased resistance from the Zairean army over this period has resulted in a very large number of casualties.
If the ADFL were to proceed with an attack on the capital, this could lead to further serious bloodshed, with heavy casualties among the civilian population.
In the meantime, on 10 May the transitional parliament in Kinshasa - which I would point out has not been democratically elected - chose as its president the Archbishop of Kisangani, Monsignor Monsengwo.
As president of the transitional parliament, Mr Monsengwo is also a possible successor to President Mobutu, in the event of his death or resignation.
In fact, both the political opposition led by the former prime minister Mr Tshisekedi and the ADFL have reacted negatively to his appointment.
It is also very doubtful whether Mr Monsengwo will accept the post.
The Council emphatically supports the recent mediation efforts by the President of South Africa, Mr Mandela, and his Vice-President.
The report that President Mobutu and the ADFL leader Mr Kabila are to meet again today on the South African warship is therefore to be welcomed.
The Council hopes that these talks will involve genuine negotiations which will prevent further acts of violence and represent a first move towards a peaceful transition process in Zaire.
The Council has already given detailed attention to the situation in Zaire on several occasions, and has made its position clear.
In February 1996, the Council appointed a special representative for the Great Lakes region, Mr Aldo Ajello, to assist the presidency in its efforts to mediate in the conflicts in the region.
The starting-point here has always been that the European Union primarily has a supporting role in the process of political dialogue and humanitarian assistance which is taking place under the auspices of the United Nations and the Organization of African Unity.
In this context, on 30 April this year, the Council once again expressed its concern at the situation in Zaire, called on the parties to avoid further bloodshed, and instructed its special envoy to take all possible measures.
The Council pointed to the need for a peaceful transition process and appealed to the parties to cooperate in free elections, to be held within twelve months.
The Council is deeply disturbed at the present lamentable situation of the refugees and displaced persons in eastern Zaire.
Access for international humanitarian organizations to the areas captured by the ADFL is still very limited.
The European Union has repeatedly protested at this to Mr Kabila.
Until recently, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees only had access to part of the area between Kisangani and Obundu where most of the refugees are hiding out in groups in woodland.
This means that the organization is being hampered in carrying out the repatriation of the Rwandan refugees to their native country.
The loading of refugees onto trains and goods wagons did not take place under the control or protection of the UNHCR and, as we know, these transports have had disastrous consequences.
Recent reports suggest that the UNHCR has been able to extend somewhat the area in which it is active, but thousands of refugees are being found in a seriously weakened condition there.
From 26 to 29 April, a mission to the region was carried out by the special representative, Mr Ajello, and a representative of the presidency.
During this mission, the ADFL leader, Mr Kabila, was strongly urged to allow UNHCR assistance, and he promised to give the UNHCR full access to the territory captured by the ADFL.
The Council is urging him - and will continue to do so - to stand by this promise and provide the humanitarian organizations with all the help they need in carrying out their tasks.
The Council also rejects any time-limit as regards the repatriation of refugees.
The Council is very concerned at the refusal of Mr Kabila to allow the United Nations Commission on Human Rights to investigate allegations of human rights violations in the territory captured by the ADFL.
On 12 May, the UN mission returned empty-handed from Kigali.
The Council is convinced of the need for a thorough, independent inquiry into the accusations, and calls on the ADFL to cooperate fully with the UN mission.
Recent reports on continuing human rights violations in the area controlled by the ADFL highlight the need for a rapid on-the-spot investigation.
In connection with the recent reports, the presidency issued the following statement this afternoon, and I quote: ' The presidency is continuing to receive reports of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed in the area controlled by the Alliance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire, the ADFL.
It expresses its serious concern, in particular at recent reports of massacres at Mandaka and attacks on staff of humanitarian organizations working in the region.
The presidency once again urges all the parties, including the ADFL, to show respect for human rights, and calls on all those who are in a position to do so to convey this demand to the leadership of the ADFL.'
To sum up, the process of political transition in Zaire has not so far been satisfactory.
Hitherto, the international efforts have had little success.
The parties directly involved in the conflict are primarily to blame in this respect.
Against this background, the Council nevertheless expresses the hope that the transition process in Zaire will take place peacefully.
It calls on the parties to engage in negotiations as quickly as possible, so as to arrive at a peaceful settlement and avoid further bloodshed.
The Council therefore continues to support the mediation efforts being made by the international community, in particular by South Africa, but also by the United Nations, the OAU's special envoy Mr Sahnoun, and the European representative, Mr Ajello.
The European Union can only play a supporting role here in the process taking place under the auspices of the UN and the OAU.
To this end, the Union has repeatedly expressed its support for the peace plan drawn up by Mr Sahnoun, which has also been endorsed by the United Nations Security Council.
The Council remains concerned at the humanitarian situation in eastern Zaire - and also that of the refugees and displaced persons elsewhere in the country - and calls on the parties involved to cooperate fully with the UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations, without restrictions or conditions being imposed.
Finally, Mr President, I would assure you that the Council is continuing to monitor developments very closely, and will do everything in its power to influence the situation positively, however difficult that has appeared so far.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the moment the progress of the negotiations and military action which will decide where power lies in Zaire in the future is partially obscuring the human drama which continues to be played out virtually all over the country.
I am thinking specifically and without exception of all those people in distress, whether displaced persons, or refugees from Rwanda or Burundi.
I deliberately use the term 'partially obscuring' because the scale of the tragedy and the rare but atrociously inhuman pictures will have disturbed even those most preoccupied with the strategic, economic and geopolitical stakes implied by this change of power.
It is now clear that Zaire is moving towards a new stage in its history.
I have no regrets about the stage which is coming to an end, but the power incarnate in this change causes me grave anxiety because up to now it has flouted every international humanitarian convention, as well as many human rights conventions.
As regards the humanitarian situation, I have very little news to give you, unfortunately, as we cannot get access to the regions involved.
You will have seen the television pictures when the crews accompany the humanitarian workers where they are allowed to go.
For security reasons we are making every effort to get there with witnesses, hence also with certain media.
But apart from that, I frankly do not have much to tell you about Kivu and so on, because we have not been able to get access to that region.
We have even been expelled from regions we had received authorization to go to.
As you know, for once the entire humanitarian community has spoken with one voice and sent a report to the Security Council on 6 May 1997, through the United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs.
Not only have the United Nations agencies, the Red Cross, the NGOs, unanimously produced and published this single report on the situation, they have also made identical recommendations.
I also want to comment on some of the background, and remind you that almost half of the 400, 000 Rwandan refugees in Zaire who did not return to their own country were located and helped a few weeks ago at Tingi Tingi.
It is also important to remember that in December, when the multinational force was disbanded even before it arrived on the premise that all the refugees had returned to Rwanda and that there were therefore no more refugees in Zaire, few dared claim that about 400, 000 people were missing from the roll call.
That was in December and by the end of January some 200, 000 of these 400, 000 refugees had been found in the Tingi Tingi area.
Hardly had assistance arrived than a new attack was launched against the camp and all these people were dispersed. 100, 000 of them were recently found in the Kisangani and Ubundu area.
You know what happened in the Kisangani region.
You are aware of the interminable discussions about how to repatriate the refugees, with the FDL and the HCR at loggerheads.
By the time these matters had been resolved 80, 000 to 100, 000 refugees in the camps were again being attacked.
The next morning the refugees has disappeared.!
Finally, thanks to the pressure from Mr Ajello of the HCR, we were able to reach the area.
The reports from the witnesses are pretty clear.
What they saw was utterly intolerable.
I must stress that although access to the 56th, 82nd and 94th km will probably be granted in the next few hours, so far we have not been able to get to the places we have been authorized to go to.
In addition, the humanitarian agencies and the HCR in particular have been accused of inefficiency, indeed worse - we were blamed for the massacres and accused of killing the refugees.
Mrs Ogata has already reacted advisedly to these accusations, but we think there is a strategy to distance the HCR and all the humanitarian organizations from the repatriation operations.
This strategy has been tried and will be tried again.
Kigali - and this is official - has proposed organizing repatriation operations jointly with the FDL, through direct financing by donors, thereby relegating the international community and the HCR to the rank of mere observers.
In the last few weeks, as the Council has just said, the European Union, the United States and the UN have been putting on intense pressure through their special envoys to persuade the FDL to put an end to the systematic violations of human rights and allow humanitarian agents and in particular the HCR free access to the refugees.
At last that pressure has made it possible to get the repatriation operations going in earnest.
So far 22, 000 refugees have been helped.
A period of sixty days had been granted to complete the operations, which constitutes a first at the international level.
In fact this is the first time that a deadline has been imposed for ensuring the repatriation of the refugees, because if any logistic operation is forbidden after a certain deadline, then everything gets more complicated.
Two more points.
First, through the humanitarian office, without discrimination or partiality, and respecting humanitarian principles, the Commission has financed and is financing humanitarian aid to the most vulnerable, whether they are refugees, Zairean displaced persons, or persons affected by the pillage and conflict that has been raging in this region for over seven months.
It is neither our policy nor our custom to ask everyone for their passports, but it has to be recognized that the humanitarian area is extremely restricted or no longer exists in this zone.
We are profoundly convinced that if this humanitarian situation is not dealt with at the highest political level without delay and if the consultations taking place with all the countries intervening either directly or indirectly in the region do not achieve their goal, the humanitarian disaster which is already taking shape could turn into total catastrophe.
There is an immediate need for two measures to be adopted and implemented without delay.
The military extremists apparently engaged in hunting the refugees should be replaced by a disciplined army which cooperates with the humanitarian agencies, and an unconditional agreement must be obtained for the UN Human Rights Committee to investigate the matter, as was originally planned.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, I myself have already been criticized in the context of this crisis for - I quote - taking a heterodox position, for Mobutophilia, and lately, for being a psychopath.
I am not going to waste my time responding to such accusations - it seems to me they fit the people who make them more than me, and damage their credibility.
With the Commission, I certainly intended to continue protesting and shouting if necessary, first because I am fulfilling the mandate that was entrusted to me, and secondly because I believe in it.
I am convinced that no compromise is possible on matters of principle and violations of international law, and the international Community has the right and duty to ensure that its members, and above all those who aspire to become members of it must respect those laws if they want to be credible.
Otherwise it will soon be back to the law of the jungle for everyone.
But as this human tragedy draws to a close, we must acknowledge that the entire international community missed an opportunity to prevent butchery at the time of the aborted deployment of the multinational force.
I cannot help noting, with bitterness, that more western soldiers are deployed in Brazzaville today evacuating their compatriots from Zaire than were to make up the multinational force it was envisaged sending in November, alongside the African forces.
(Applause) I also note that several Member States have now rushed twice as many soldiers to the Congo, ready to intervene, as they have nationals to be protected in Kinshasa.
I never want to hear it said in our capitals again that the lives of African refugees have the same value as the lives of our own citizens.
I no longer believe it.
And equally bitter considerations relate to Europe's role in that decisive phase.
Despite the very laudable efforts of our special envoy Mr Ajello, it was quite clear that none of the main protagonists in the process, which was as lacking in transparency at the negotiating level as at the military level, wanted the European Union fully involved.
You know what this makes me think about the effectiveness of the CFSP, but still it is worth remembering that when it comes to rebuilding the country and paying for its reconstruction, mineral rights contracts will probably have been concluded in the wings of this transition without Europe.
I think that there is a lesson to be drawn.
We were not able to prevent a human tragedy.
And right at the end, how many lives are we trying to save? 20, 000, 30, 000? I hope we will not forget that however many lives we manage to save at the end of the day, it will be negligible by comparison with the 400, 000 lives already lost.
(Applause)
Mr President, I should first like to express my deepest and most sincere admiration for Commissioner Bonino. Not only do I admire the way in which she, personally, is coming to grips with this tragedy, as she has with other tragedies that have left their mark on our world, but I would also thank her for an approach to this situation which is unorthodox - a term which others may well have levelled at her as an accusation but which I regard as more of a compliment in connection with the role of the international community and of the Union in the events in Zaire.
As has already been said, the situation has probably reached a critical turning point, now that Kabila's troops are preparing to enter Kinshasa.
There is no doubt that at this stage in the evolving situation - when we must continue to deploy all our negotiating powers to the very last moment in order to try to ensure that the political situation in Zaire develops as peacefully, politically and diplomatically as possible - we cannot refrain from stressing the great bitterness and sorrow that exist for the serious errors and oversights of the past. Perhaps, too, before long, someone will be able to add to those errors the crimes that have been committed, or at least tolerated - both old and historical crimes and more recent ones.
In our motion for a resolution we have emphasized three key requirements.
First, that the dictator Mobutu should leave the stage; secondly, that an interim government should be set up which is broadly accepted and which will accept international mediation to set the country on the road to democracy and free elections; and, thirdly, that Kabila and the faction he leads should immediately allow refugees and displaced persons free access to every region of the country.
Mr President, this is another situation in which we have not seen the European Union playing a positive, highprofile political part, and we can only hope that things will improve in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everything has really been said, now that we have heard the Council and the courageous speech by Mrs Bonino.
However, I believe that we must continue to protest at what is intolerable, in order to preserve the honour of Parliament in this immense tragedy.
We are in fact approaching the end of a particularly troubled and dramatic period in Zaire.
Nevertheless, we are still hearing fresh reports of massacres in Zaire every day, as indeed we have just now.
But this House has no reason to reproach itself.
We spoke out clearly in favour of finding solutions to explosive problems such as that of the refugees.
We were in favour of removing all military forces from eastern Zaire, of maintaining the territorial integrity of the countries involved, of deploying a multinational intervention force, of holding an international conference of the countries around the Great Lakes, of defending human rights, of preparing for serious elections in Zaire as a first practical move towards democratization, and of humanitarian aid.
None of this has happened, apart from the humanitarian aid.
And however extensive it may be, we know that humanitarian aid does not bring political solutions to conflicts.
We are now witnessing the implosion of the Zairean state.
We are once again seeing how weapons talk, or as Mao put it: power comes from the barrel of a gun.
What system will now take the place of the disappearing regime in Zaire?
Once again, the political groups in Parliament have put their opinions into words.
It is a good text.
But it is hard to find words to protest at what we find so very sad, to give expression to our sense of bitterness.
Firstly, there is the capitulation of the international community, which has done nothing to prevent a murderous disgrace.
Through murders, the fait accompli in international politics, the principle that might is right, is once more being asserted.
However, our protest is also directed - and it pains me to have to say this - at the passivity of the European Union.
We deplore the internal wrangling, the disagreements between Member States, the indecision of the Union.
So far, it has all just been words and communiqués.
Europe has been unable to find a practical solution and to put an end to this conflict.
A historian from Zaire said three days ago on Belgian television - and I thought of this automatically when I heard Mrs Bonino - that the life of a black African is now clearly worth much less than the life of a European from the former Yugoslavia.
Anyone who was listening to him knew what he meant.
Perhaps you have forgotten, ladies and gentlemen, but we declared that 1997 was to be the year of combating racism.
And what are we seeing now? During this year of combating racism, Europe is standing by while in Zaire, a kind of ethnic cleansing is being carried out on a massive scale.
It is not the first time, unfortunately, that we have seen this kind of ethnic cleansing taking place in Africa.
But we thought that Europe's sense of responsibility had since developed in such a way that it would never tolerate such a thing again.
It is therefore more than hypocritical that in 1997 of all years, the year of combating racism, nothing is being done to prevent or put an end to such massacres, a word which was also used by Mrs Bonino.
As you know, the expression 'having dirty hands' is often used in politics.
I shall make no comment on that.
But I would end by saying that you can also have dirty hands by doing nothing at critical moments.
While we are talking here, tens or possibly hundreds of people are being murdered, and we are drawing up communiqués.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, even as we hold this debate, another meeting is taking place in the Congolese port of Point Noir between President Mobutu and Laurent Kabila, the leader of the rebels of the alliance of democratic forces for the liberation of Congo-Zaire, under the aegis of South Africa, to try to reach a peaceful settlement.
It would have been helpful if Parliament and the Union could have agreed a position in time to redouble their efforts to achieve a lasting solution to the conflict - a very difficult matter - to be based on a peace process geared to preparing for free and democratic elections for the Zairean people.
Kinshasa is now a city under siege: the shops are closed, the streets are deserted, and, following yesterday evening's curfew imposed as a result of the arrival of Kabila's rebels at the gates of the city, the population is living in fear of a blood bath. Despite the calls for calm, the tension is mounting, partly as a result of the contradictory messages people are receiving, some asking them to stay indoors to avoid the worst and others calling upon them to resist by force of arms, while others again are accusing foreigners of planning to massacre the African population.
The slaughter of refugees and displaced persons is continuing in Zaire; the rebel forces are obstructing the distribution of aid and, despite the statements made for the benefit of the international community regarding a cessation of hostilities, the head of the rebel forces is still favouring the military opposition in the country.
The United Nations Security Council needs to adopt swift and energetic measures to put an end to these massacres and appalling violations of human rights, and especially to the inhuman treatment being meted out to the refugees from Rwanda and Burundi and people displaced from other areas.
It is important that the Union should agree upon a plan of action to help in the search for global political solutions in the Great Lakes region, combining with the UN and the OAU to organize a regional conference, something for which I have called in this House on several occasions.
And, as we have said more than once, there is also a need for a commission of inquiry to be set up to shed light on the appalling abuses perpetrated by the rebels; and, finally, as a matter of urgency, the humanitarian aid really must reach those who need it, to try to put an end to a tragedy that is truly unworthy of humanity.
Mr President, I hope I will have enough time to express my group's solidarity with Mrs Bonino against the attacks that have been made on her and to congratulate her on her courage and the sharpness of her analysis.
I also want to express regret that the Council perhaps dealt rather rapidly with the conclusions of the agreement between the African Heads of State and the Declaration of Libreville, which lays the foundations for a possible transition towards democracy, especially at a time when some of the forces are still operational and there could still be battles between the President of the Congo's Praetorian guard and Kabila's troops.
Finally, I wonder if we can expect anything good from Kabila, and I am afraid we may be facing a situation comparable to that of Iran.
Twenty years ago, Mr President, no-one supported the Shah any more but Khomeini has sometimes made us miss the previous regime.
Mr President, let us hope we do not find Kabila makes us miss Mobutu.
Mr President, I believe that, quite apart from the meetings now taking place, it can be assumed that Kinshasa will fall to Kabila's forces in the next few days.
This is one of the most important political events that have happened in Africa during the last twenty years, because it is destined to change the geopolitical balance of the entire African continent.
What is happening in that region, I believe, is a kind of Americanization of Africa - I believe we are seeing the disappearance of any European policy towards that continent.
Politically, the Council has been totally inert in the Great Lakes region, imprisoned by an ancient nation-state logic whose only result has been to deliver up large areas of Africa into the hands of the Americans - from southern Africa to the Great Lakes region and from the Horn of Africa to the Sudan and the whole of Muslim North Africa.
This, as I see it, is the result of a senseless policy pursued by the Council and by the Member States themselves, which have supported dictatorial and tyrannical regimes to the bitter end.
The Zairean saga of recent weeks and the end of Mobutu's regime are an object lesson in what not to do in terms of a European foreign policy.
Or, more accurately, it is another demonstration of the absence of any European foreign policy, and I hope that the Council will finally take advantage of the opportunity provided by the revision of the Treaty to arm itself with a common foreign and security policy which will avoid any future repetition of Europe's recent humiliation in the Great Lakes region of Africa.
Europe has been totally absent from the political scene, and, although I customarily tend to be rather hard on the Commission, I must give it credit for having tried to play a positive role in this matter. That, however, was not a matter for the Commission alone, and so the results have not been totally favourable.
In conclusion, I have one final request, because I believe that we must now ask Kabila, as the military victor, to take specific action in the field of human rights and the rule of law, and to organize a regional peace conference and free elections; I ask that the Council and the Commission should give a clear response and not hide behind the latest strong man, who on this occasion is no longer Mobutu but Kabila.
Mr President, not one organized body of the so-called international community has responded adequately to the crisis in the Great Lakes region.
The facts of recent months show that the standing-down of the UN intervention force has resulted in a humanitarian and political disaster.
And in that context, the responsibility of the United States is overwhelming.
I therefore found it simply disgraceful a few weeks ago to see the US envoy Mr Richardson stroking the head of a dying refugee child whose existence he had denied some months before.
This kind of moral and political hypocrisy will destroy the international community.
Ultimately, however, the Union and its Member States have also limited themselves to what the President-in-Office described in such fine words: giving attention, writing communiqués, sending whole teams of ordinary and special representatives - but where has been the coherent action? To my mind, the only person who has taken the lead with a view to implementing a European policy is Mrs Bonino.
She has said throughout the world what Europe should have done, but she did not have the means to do it.
And the result is that we have once again had to restrict ourselves to humanitarian aid, which in this case has not even reached the people because of the many obstacles we have experienced on the ground.
But what we are seeing in the meantime is that firms from those countries which made the UN intervention force impossible - and I repeat: the United States and Canada - are now reaping the fruits and picking up mining concessions at ridiculously low prices, which once again will do nothing for the Zairean population.
Today, therefore, the second round of negotiations between Mobutu and Kabila is taking place.
I hope that these will produce an agreement so as to avoid any bloodshed in Kinshasa, because with the 50 000 soldiers of the Zairean army from various factions, there really could be more casualties there than anywhere else.
However, the fundamental long-term question still remains: what happens afterwards as regards the distribution of power? When I read in the newspaper today that Mr Kabila is saying that the dictator Mobutu has to go, I say 'excellent' , but when he then adds that all the power is now going to the people from the alliance, my heart sinks when I see what this alliance has already allowed to happen in areas where it has assumed power.
That is why I would appeal strongly to both the Union and the Member States that no outside power should say who is to be given power in Zaire; it is the Zairean people who should have the chance to say who is to be given power and how that power should be distributed.
So no African power and no Western one either, and I also hope that we shall apply strict conditionality with regard to aid for and recognition of the new regime, and make them dependent on whether the Zairean people has a real say, yes or no.
That must be the decisive factor.
Madam Commissioner, we may have lost everything else, but you have possibly saved our honour, and for that you deserve our thanks.
And you are right, the situation in Zaire certainly warrants our interest.
Laurent-Désiré Kabila's troops have the capital within their grasp, and he is making demands in line with his military achievements; the major United Nations agencies are denied access to a vast territory because of massacres of civilians; a corrupt dictator was set up and supported by successive governments of Union States, bringing discredit on our whole Union and its action; the United States has built up influence in the region, the political situation on the ground is extremely complex, power is effectively in the hands of a warlord not particularly inclined to make concessions. Surely all this very much limits our opportunities for action on the ground?
What can we demand?
Nothing, of course.
What can we hope for?
That the massacres will stop, the weapons will be laid down, free elections will reflect the popular will, and the Union will regain its lost prestige, at least in part.
If I may say so, Mr President, we have our work cut out.
Mr President, as Commissioner Bonino has said, the situation is still deteriorating rapidly, and what concerns us most is that Europe, after so much talk and so many debates, has proved incapable - as the Commissioner has said - of even beginning to solve the problem.
True, we have read with interest, and indeed enthusiasm, the statements made by Super-Commissioner Bonino.
True, we must give her credit for her commitment, which has been unfailing if sometimes exasperated.
But the basic problem is that we are wondering what this Europe, with a free hand, thinks it is doing in being absent from the scene at such an important time, when human beings - women and children - are being slaughtered and murdered, and yet we are trying to unload the responsibility onto other people. At all events, we cannot find the key to the problem and, in the absence of a common foreign policy, we cannot find any way of intervening or even generating those synergistic effects with other international forces that would allow effective intervention.
This really is one of the reasons for discouragement, a reason which both leaves us perplexed and urges us to accept greater responsibility with a view to trying to find solutions for the future.
The issue is a humanitarian one, but not only humanitarian: it is also about the acceptance of responsibility, because if we have had four or five or six or even seven debates on Zaire, and on other situations too, in the last two or three or four months, and we read the denunciations printed in all the national and international newspapers, and yet we cannot find a solution, it is clear that something is going wrong.
So we now call upon the Intergovernmental Conference to do something - and this call should be a loud and clear one from all the political groups.
That is the message we want to give to the Commissioner: that she is doing her duty, but that we would like her to do even more.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, much as we regret that it has come about through force of arms, we welcome the ending of the dictatorship in Zaire. It was a dictatorship lasting over 30 years and it will remain an example of how terror can ruin an immensely rich country, subject its population to misery, encourage the brain drain, create a corrupt political class and destroy a society.
Looking to a democratic future, I think it is essential for Mobutu, the chief representative of that dictatorship, to abandon power, and do so as soon as possible to avoid further fighting.
And looking to a peaceful future, the new system needs to be capable of cementing the democratic forces around a consensus about the terms and timetable of transition until free elections can be held with their transparency guaranteed by the international community.
And here I believe the United Nations and above all the European Union need to play a fundamental role, taking responsibility for the political and social reconstruction of Zaire.
All too frequently our European Parliament regards its function of democratic control of the European Union's relations as fulfilled with the despatch of observers to some initial legislative elections.
I think the powers article 218 of the treaty confers on the European Parliament, as well as the provisions of legal instruments where we have control over application - I am thinking, Madam Commissioner, of article 5 of the Lomé Convention - should be used to their full extent.
I therefore propose the creation in this Parliament of a permanent service to monitor political conditions in states with which the EU intends to sign treaties requiring the consent of Parliament.
Reconstructing Zaire and bringing peace to the whole region also requires the solution of the problem of the refugees and displaced persons whom we cannot forget, as the Commissioner has quite rightly said.
I want to tell her that her action has been correct, although it has not been followed up as it should have been by the whole international Community.
The new government must guarantee humanitarian organizations free access to the victims of the conflict and, in turn, the European Union must grant aid through ECHO - and we hope this will be the last time, but it is needed now if this population is to be helped.
That will enable us, if not to undo the mistakes of the past, at least to contribute to shaping the peaceful and democratic future a country as rich as Zaire should have.
Mr President, there is ultimately no point in us discussing Zaire here today unless the European Union can finally bring itself to do what a number of speakers have called for and adopt a clear position on the subject.
Simply exchanging one head of state for another will do nothing to improve the situation, either in Zaire or in the neighbouring countries.
As other speakers have said, the only way forward is a complete espousal of democracy.
Without a fundamental change, there is a danger that the third largest country in Africa will fragment.
The fact is that present-day Zaire is an artificial creation of the nineteenth century, and the African countries - underrating in some respects their own history and culture - have agreed in the OAU Charter to respect the borders that were drawn by the colonial powers in the previous century.
Broadly speaking, that agreement has worked and succeeded in preventing wars between nations, despite numerous domestic conflicts.
However, looking at Zaire today, we have to say that it is one of those countries consisting of a number of ethnic groups where the only way to secure the future and prevent disintegration would seem to be through the adoption of a federal structure.
With such a structure, individual ethnic groups can enjoy a certain measure of independence and, in my view, this is a country which can only be governed securely as a federation.
At the moment, we cannot say whether Kabila will prove to be another dictator or a statesman.
He has not spelled out how, as the leader of an alliance of democratic forces, he envisages the transition to democracy, nor how he intends to set about holding the first democratic elections in a country beset by geographical and ethnic problems on such a scale.
Mr President, the departure of Mobutu, much as it was hoped for, is no cause for rejoicing.
On the contrary, we should cry shame on Laurent-Désiré Kabila, because alongside the 'liberation of the Zairean people' he organized genocide against completely innocent women and children.
I join my colleagues in recognizing Mrs Bonino's courage in denouncing that fact.
What is going to happen now?
The ball is also in the court of the European Union and its governments. How are they going to recognize the Kabila regime?
What conditions are they going to put on?
Will they dare to tell him all the Rwandan soldiers who committed massacres must leave Zaire and cannot claim the title of members of the army of a country worthy of the name? Are they going to demand the effective organization of a transitional government and the preparation of a more democratic order?
Are they going to dare to demand respect for human rights in Zaire?
I do not know, but we ask these questions, because perhaps this will be the role of the European Union.
Perhaps at last the Union will have a coherent policy towards Zaire and its people.
Because it is the Zairean people who matter here, those women, those children, those Zairean men who have suffered under an iniquitous and predatory regime, and who may have to fear another dictator now.
I want to end by saying this: Che Guevara spent six months in the Congo when Laurent-Désiré Kabila first opened a front in 1960.
He came away discouraged, discouraged by many things, the complexity of the situation, perhaps also by Kabila's attitude at the time, by the fact that Rwandan soldiers were already accompanying him in his struggle.
What would he say if he were still alive, in the name of the values I know he upheld? He would not be just discouraged, he would be disgusted, like all of us.
But we cannot let this disgust remove our sense of responsibility.
Well done, Mrs Bonino!
And Mr Patijn, we hope you will be able to shake up the European countries.
Mr President, I have been listening extremely carefully, not only to the statement by Mrs Bonino, but also and above all to the honourable Members.
I was struck by the sense of involvement which they all showed in this terrible political, humanitarian and indeed human tragedy.
It brings it home to us that after the settling of what we used to call the great strategic conflicts and the East-West conflict, it is not true that, as the American writer Fukayama put it, ' the end of ideology is the end of politics' , because there is still a world in which the Member States, the Union, the Commission and the international organizations have to do everything they possibly can to prevent large groups of people from being deprived of their rights.
In this conflict, the main political question has been whether the objective would have been achieved if Western countries, the African countries or the international community had intervened militarily.
Not only the European Union, but also the international community as a whole was faced with this question when the tragedy in eastern Zaire unfolded, but I would also draw attention to the tragedy which had already taken place two years earlier.
The issue was raised at a certain stage, and an international group was set up to organize matters, led by Canada, under the auspices of the United Nations. However, because of the lead time which this always involves, events on the ground developed in such a way that military intervention in the form envisaged was no longer a real option and would not have helped to solve the problems.
I have to say to you that I personally - as a politician, a Dutchman and a European - regret that the international community and the European Union, at a certain point, were in fact obliged to watch the tragedy that was unfolding, once the military option had become unfeasible in political, military and logistical terms.
We cannot turn back the clock, but given the intensity of the discussions we had in the Council, and with the Commission and the other players among the international community, I would warn against adopting an attitude of self-criticism too easily now and reproaching ourselves for not having intervened militarily.
I worked for many years in the Ministry of Defence.
For years, I worked with generals in the Dutch Defence Ministry, and I was constantly impressed by the sense of responsibility shown by military leaders, with generals always asking the right questions when the policy of using the military apparatus was being discussed.
Just think about this, and about the consequences.
Are you ready to accept them, and also the losses?
Can you justify this to your parliament?
And are you prepared to accept that military intervention as such has its own political dynamic?
That is the kind of question that was discussed. As the conflict developed, the international community, the United Nations and the permanent members of the Security Council judged that military intervention in this humanitarian tragedy was not the appropriate course of action, because these questions were asked.
It was because those advising on the matter took an unfavourable view of the relationship between the possibility of achieving the objective on the one hand, and the risks and resources on the other.
I can understand the frustration which is emerging from this debate - it is the frustration which we, as responsible politicians in the Council, have also felt over the past days, weeks and months because we could no longer stem the tide of events on the ground, where at a certain point reason was overtaken by the gun.
We must go further.
Naturally, at the next Council meeting, we must try to gear our objectives to the following priorities in order to bring this human tragedy to an end.
I believe that the Council intends firstly - and it will certainly use its special representative and its diplomacy to this effect - to aim for a cessation of hostilities and the opening of negotiations and, when these are under way, to help them succeed in bringing about a peaceful transfer of power in Zaire.
Secondly, this must be linked to the right of international organizations to do their work in the areas and for the people that are in need of it.
When there is a cease-fire, and when a political agreement exists in principle on a transition which is clearly imminent in Zaire, every effort must then be directed towards establishing a minimum of stability in this vast country, where so many people are having a hard time of it at present.
This must happen according to the rules of the game: the establishment of an interim regime which will prepare elections, the holding of elections which produce a credible result, and then the establishment of a government with a legitimate authority after the elections - a legitimate authority which is worthy of receiving every support from the West to bring about stability, freedom and peace in this long-suffering country.
The Council is ready to work along these lines in terms of the action that is required of us, without further discussion.
From this position, I would once again express my special appreciation of the efforts of the Commission, and in particular Mrs Bonino - against all the political odds - to make the best of things and, through her tenacity, which all of us admire in her, to do the little which could still be done.
Are we becoming any wiser as a result of this tragedy? We are aware of the political limits as regards the extent to which the Member States in the West can shape the order of things in Central Africa.
We recognize the domestic political constraints on influencing these kinds of events militarily; and we know the limitations of the common foreign and security policy, with its present inadequate range of instruments, when it comes to playing a preventive and remedial role in this kind of tragedy, but that is now being discussed within the Intergovernmental Conference.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
Would the people in the gallery please refrain from any public demonstration. Our Rules strictly prohibit that.
I would be very sorry to have people removed from the gallery, but if there are any more outbursts that is what I will have to do.
So please maintain the silence our Rules require.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
I suggest we move on without delay to Question Time to the Council.
You will appreciate, ladies and gentlemen, that discussion of the very important statement by the Council and the Commission on Zaire has affected the timetable for questions to the Council.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-0165/97).
Question No 1 by Juan Izquierdo Collado (H-0293/97)
Subject: Cohesion Fund
What is the Council's view of the continuity of the Cohesion Fund post-1999?
Mr President, before I answer the question by Mr Izquierdo Collado, I have a point of order.
Because we have overrun to some extent, I have a serious problem with the rest of my schedule.
My flight is due to leave at 9 p.m., and before then I also have an important discussion planned with a delegation from the European Parliament in connection with the Intergovernmental Conference.
I would ask you - though I put myself entirely in your hands - to limit Question Time to an hour and allow me to answer the remaining questions in writing.
Mr Patijn, you put me in a difficult position, because as I said just now this has been a day when the timetable has been changed - to meet everyone's needs.
As President, I have to respect the time we have available, but I cannot force the Council representative to do the impossible.
We will therefore begin Question Time and when you think you have run out of time, I will try to close Question TIme.
That is rather reversing the burden of proof, Mr President.
You determine the procedure here.
I have explained to you that I have a problem with my schedule.
I am asking for Question Time to be curtailed and you are saying: well, just see how long you can go on for, and leave when you are ready.
No, I should like to reach an agreement with you on the procedure.
My proposal is therefore that I answer questions until 7.20 p.m., and if you are in agreement with that, I should like you to give it your approval.
I will suspend Question Time to the Council at 7.20 p.m., and I wish the European Union every success in the meetings you are going to hold.
You have the floor to reply to Mr Izquierdo Collado.
In reply to the question by Mr Izquierdo Collado on the Cohesion Fund post-1999, I must point out that the provisions concerning the Cohesion Fund and its tasks are included in the Treaty, namely in Article 130d, second paragraph.
Moreover, Article 16 of the regulation establishing the Fund stipulates that the Council must review that regulation, on a proposal from the Commission, before the end of 1999.
Since the Commission has not yet submitted a proposal on the subject, the Council takes the view that, for the time being, it is unable to adopt a position on the future of the Cohesion Fund.
For the sake of completeness, I can also report that this matter has not yet been discussed at all within the Council.
I can tell honourable Members that the Commission organized a conference at the end of April on the economic and social cohesion of the European Union, called the forum on cohesion.
This gathering, which was of an informal kind, addressed the Union's structural policy in general, and we are naturally waiting to see what conclusions the Commission will draw from this.
Lastly, I would also remind the House that the European Council in Madrid requested the Commission to carry out a thorough analysis as soon as possible of the European Union's system of financing, with a view to presenting - immediately after the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference - a communication on the future financial framework of the European Union after 31 December 1999, taking account of the prospect of enlargement.
Since this communication from the Commission is of course not yet available, I think that as a representative of the Council, it is inappropriate for me to prejudge it.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, my question was not about whether the Council had taken any decision, but about your own opinion on a most important issues, the cohesion fund.
In view of the importance of this Fund for certain regions and countries of the Union, and without waiting for proposals from the Commission, does the Council think it should include the continuity of the cohesion fund in the financial perspectives as from 1999?
I think the honourable Member is right in referring to the political and economic importance of the Cohesion Fund.
But it is impossible to form a judgement on this in isolation from the other challenges facing the European Union in terms of economic policy and the financial support for it.
That involves the question of how the European Union copes with enlargement in the coming years, particularly in the next century, taking account of the fact that the candidates for future membership of the European Union are well below the EU average in terms of both their general level of prosperity and the development of their physical and technological infrastructure.
In this broader context, we also have to answer questions such as: what is the future of the common agricultural policy and what will be the costs of further restructuring, if we are to absorb the agricultural sector of Eastern Europe? That is why, in my view, the European Council in Madrid was right to ask the Commission to outline for us - quickly and before any decisions on enlargement - the problems and the options which are facing us in this broader context, so that when decisions come to be taken on enlargement, the Member States and their national parliaments can see how this broader context might develop in the first five or six years of the next century.
We are now waiting for this analysis from the Commission.
Before that, it is necessary for us to conclude the Intergovernmental Conference without delay.
If we succeed in doing this at the European Council meeting in Amsterdam in June, I would expect that the Commission will produce this analysis of the future financial framework very quickly, from which we shall then see the possibilities as regards the future of the Cohesion Fund.
Question No 2 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0298/97)
Subject: Ban in certain transit regions of the EU on movement of heavy vehicles by road on Sundays
What is the Council's view of decisions by certain national governments of the EU to ban goods vehicles from travelling through transit regions on Sundays?
This question by Mr Camisón Asensio concerns the banning of goods traffic on Sundays in certain transit areas.
It is important to establish from the outset here that the authority to impose any restrictions on goods traffic on Sundays within a Member State lies in principle with the Member State in question, provided such restrictions are in accordance with the general principles of Community law, especially those of proportionality and non-discrimination.
I would point out that, under the terms of Article 155 of the EC Treaty, it is the task of the Commission to ensure that the provisions of the Treaty and the measures taken pursuant thereto are applied and respected.
In this case, the Commission is monitoring the development of the situation on the ground on a daily basis, and it is responsible for identifying and correcting any possible distortions in this sector.
It would therefore seem advisable for the honourable Member to seek specific details from the Commission.
Furthermore, I would stress that the Member State at which his question is directed, namely France, is not the only country where restrictions of this kind are applied to goods traffic on Sundays.
There are similar restrictions in Austria, Germany, Italy and Portugal.
Also, one area of the honourable Member's own country - the Basque country - has recently adopted provisions aimed at limiting goods traffic on Sundays and public holidays.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am glad you broadly share our concern about this.
It certainly is a basic issue and we also wanted to know the Council's opinion, separately from the Commission's, to put on record that the proposals to ban movement of goods vehicles on Sundays, in certain countries of the Union and in certain regions, may have harmful effects.
This is true of France, amongst others, which may damage certain countries with this ban. In particular it will be prejudicial to the transit of Spanish goods.
In addition, a measure of this kind would restrict freedom of movement of goods and services through a region of the Union, irrespective of which, and that could constitute a violation of the Treaty of Rome.
Does the President-in-Office of the Council not think that the solution might be to create land corridors so that, in case of conflict in a country, it would be possible to travel by these emergency routes and vehicles would not be affected by conflicts in a country which was not their own?
In any case, something has to be done and the Council should express an opinion.
I believe that the honourable Member is right to ask for attention to be given to this kind of phenomenon, but I repeat - and this is an established part of the whole political and legal system of the Community - that Member States have the freedom - and I would add on behalf of the Council that they must have it - to adopt measures in certain sectors, including goods traffic, which they regard as being in the interest of public order and the safety of their citizens.
I have already pointed out that Community law does of course lay down strict accompanying conditions in respect of such measures.
For instance, there must be a clear proportionality between the effect of the measures in terms of public order and any adverse consequences they may have for freedom of movement or the economy as a whole.
Above all, it is important that these measures do not turn out to be a form of discrimination against the nationals or interests of other Member States.
This is precisely the balance that we must seek to achieve in order to establish a sound basis on which to proceed.
It is extremely important to safeguard the principles of the free movement of goods and persons, and also the freedom of transport within the Community, not least in terms of political acceptance.
I would repeat that the Commission, as guardian of the Treaty, must give particular attention to the principles of balance, proportionality and non-discrimination.
If these boundaries are properly observed, then I would say that under the political and constitutional system of the European Union, it is very difficult to intervene radically in the internal arrangements of the Member States.
Question No 3 by Mr Wibe (H-0305/97)
Subject: Secret consultants' report on the Volvo works at Umeå
The Swedish press has reported that the Commission intends to prohibit the Swedish transport subsidy to the Volvo works at Umeå.
This would threaten the existence of the factory and with it about 1000 jobs in the area.
The Commission's attitude is based on a consultants' report, the contents of which are, however, being kept secret, even from representatives of the Swedish Government.
Does the Comission not consider that it is unreasonable for a crucial consultants' report to be kept secret from the general public, and especially from the Swedish Government?
Can the Council, in its capacity as the Union's highest decision-making body, oblige the Commission to disclose the report, at least to the Swedish Government?
In reply to the question by Mr Wibe concerning an allegedly secret report on the Volvo works at Umeå, I must emphasize that the Council is not aware of and has never discussed the issue to which the honourable Member's question refers.
However, the Council wishes to draw Mr Wibe's attention to the fact that the competition rules in general and state aid in particular are among the specific areas for which the Treaty has granted competence to the Commission.
It may well be pointed out in this context that, under the terms of Article 93(2) of the EC Treaty, the Council may decide in exceptional circumstances, on application by a Member State, that aid granted by a state shall be considered to be compatible with the common market.
In the present situation - let us be quite clear - the Council is totally unable to adopt a position on this matter, and still less so to oblige the Commission to disclose the report in question, even if only to the Swedish Government.
Consequently, it would seem advisable to me for the honourable Member to approach the Commission with a view to possibly obtaining further information.
I would like to thank the Council representative for their answer.
Yesterday I asked the same question of the Commission which maintained its refusal to publish this report.
I consider this remarkable in view of the fact that it affects the jobs of so many people.
It is also remarkable that it is even being kept secret from the Swedish Government.
I would like to point out that my question is not concerned with whether this factory is entitled to aid or not.
My question is very tangible and consists of two parts.
Firstly: does the Council President consider it reasonable that a crucial report be kept secret in this way even from the Governments of the different countries involved, in this case the Swedish Government?
If the Council cannot force the Commission to publish this report, I would like to rephrase the second part of my question as follows: will you be urging the Commission, in the name of openness and transparency, to make this report available to the Swedish Government? This is the very least that can be expected in this case.
We are indeed dealing with something of a question of principle here, namely how a body of the European Community should handle information.
I have to tell you, Mr Wibe, that I do not know whether the Commission possesses this report, but then the main point we are discussing here is whether the Commission, if it holds confidential business information relating to a competition issue, should be forced to disclose that information because of other reasons - for political reasons, or reasons connected with an internal political debate within a Member State.
I think that if we make a practice of this, we shall reach a point where the Commission, in carrying out its duties as guardian of the rules on competition, finds itself in an extremely difficult position when it comes to obtaining accurate information from firms.
I think that in the case of confidential business information - and I gather that what is involved here is a report produced by a consultancy for Volvo, in other words entirely within the private sector - it is unwise to insist on publication of a report which the Commission has in its charge because of its responsibilities for competition law.
In my view, this would in fact cause problems in terms of managing and implementing competition law.
Like Mr Wibe I would also like to thank the Council representative for their answer.
I can tell you that yesterday the Commission confirmed that the report exists.
It was said at the time that the reason that the report cannot be made public is because it may contain confidential business information.
The company involved, Volvo, has since said in the Swedish press that they would like the report to be passed to the Swedish Government.
The company is urging the EU to pass on the report.
So the obstacle preventing the report being passed on, which the Commission cited, is no longer there.
I think it would be good if the Council urged the Commission into maximum openness on this issue.
It is important that openness is not just a theory but that it is applied in practice as well.
Many people in Northern Sweden view this, the fact that regional aid is banned without an explanation, as very arrogant.
So I appeal to you to urge the Commission to the greatest possible openness on this issue.
With this Council presidency, you will find no reservations when it comes to seeking openness.
But I would repeat that what is involved here is the application of the competition rules within the European Union, in which context the Commission has certain well-regulated powers to obtain business information from firms on a confidential basis, naturally with this information and the associated interests being protected.
I think that here the Commission is bound by its own rules, which have been established by the Council and the Commission itself.
Once again, I would regard it as unwise if we were to make any protected business information held by the Commission available for public discussion, other than on the basis of the rules for publishing this kind of protected information.
In my view, to do so would make it very difficult for the Commission to perform its role in this area of competition law.
Sweden is one of those countries in the EU which has some of the longest transport distances.
We usually reckon to have an export disadvantage of between 700 and 1000 kilometres.
This is why for many years there has been a system of transport aid in order to even out competition within the country, which is a point worth emphasising.
This was a form of transport aid which was in fact accepted by the EU when Sweden became a member but now it has been scrutinised once again by the Commission.
Now that the EU wants to change this system, reference is made to a report marked secret.
I am prepared to state quite clearly that this cloak of secrecy, where not even the Government in the country concerned has immediate access to a report, shows up one of the truly worst aspects of the EU.
So I appeal to the Council representative to take the necessary initiative to have this report made public and to help to reassure all those people who are already suffering extremely hard in a region which even now has very, very high unemployment.
I can really only repeat what I have said twice before.
The Council, at least this presidency of the Council, is a committed supporter of maximum openness.
At the Intergovernmental Conference, the whole question of providing a better basis for the principles of transparency and openness is a high priority for many Member States, and that has very much been promoted by the presidency.
But I would repeat once more that even with the maximum degree of openness, industries which make confidential business information available to European Union institutions, either voluntarily or because they are obliged to do so, enjoy a certain amount of protection in terms of whether or not such confidential information is published.
I do not know if these rules apply specifically in this case, but once again, I understand that you discussed this here yesterday with the Commission.
The Commission explained the reasons why it does not wish to release this report at present, and I do not think it is a matter for the Council, not least with the limited legal means at our disposal, to force the Commission to do something which it has good reasons for not doing.
Question No 4 by Mrs Izquierdo Rojo (H-0306/97)
Subject: Vocational training and Euromediterranean policy
Among the measures on the development of human resources included in the Barcelona declaration, as adopted at the first Euromediterranean Conference, was the holding of a regular dialogue on education policy, focusing initially on vocational training and involving, in particular, the European Training Foundation in Turin.
To date, the Council has issued guidelines concerning measures by the European Training Foundation for the countries of central and eastern Europe but not for the associated Mediterranean countries.
Given the needs of the Mediterranean region and the crucial importance of these training policies, when does the Council plan to issue guidelines concerning such measures for the MEDA countries and what form will they take?
In answer to these questions by Mrs Izquierdo Rojo on vocational training and Euromediterranean policy, I would point out that the Council was one of the parties which adopted the Barcelona declaration and the programme of work in November 1995, and that it therefore fully supports the aim of holding a regular dialogue on education policy, including vocational training, within the framework of the Euromediterranean partnership.
This is restated in the conclusions of the second Euromediterranean Conference which took place in Malta on 15 and 16 April.
In adopting the guidelines for the MEDA indicative programmes on 6 December 1996, the Council also agreed that assistance for the Union's Mediterranean partners should be particularly focused on developing human resources through improved supervision, targeting and quality of vocational and management training.
A number of activities are already under way in this area.
At multilateral level, an exchange of views was held at a tripartite conference in Catania on 24 and 25 May 1996 on a whole range of interrelated subjects in the social sector, including vocational training.
Also, financial assistance from MEDA resources is being used to support measures at both subregional and bilateral level to improve the quality of vocational training.
If the honourable Member wishes to have more detailed information on specific activities, I suggest that she approaches the Commission, which is responsible for the implementation of this programme.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the Council has answered this question like a bureaucrat, with meaningless words.
It did not answer my specific question, which is how and when the regulation is going to be approved. It did that for the central and eastern European countries.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, a young Czech, Rumanian or Hungarian can get skills training and benefit from the programmes. A young person from the Maghreb cannot.
We have an association policy with the southern Mediterranean countries based on equilibrium, based on free trade and based on working together.
How we are going to be able to work with them with the enormous imbalance that there is today as regards skills qualifications? How can Europeans do this, open markets and close doors to training people?
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have not answered my question.
This is a serious responsibility.
We are discriminating against the poorest countries, the countries of the southern Mediterranean.
Very briefly, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo is putting the question to the wrong institution, because these are not Council measures, but Commission rules for implementing a programme which it is responsible for executing.
I would leave it at that.
Mrs Izquierdo, you are only entitled to ask one supplementary question, and you have already done that.
Mr President, I just want to point out that up to now the Council has been governing the activities of the European Foundation for the Development of Skills Training as far as the CEECs are concerned, but it is also the responsibility of the Council to govern the activities of the same Foundation for the Mediterranean countries, as agreed in Barcelona.
As they deal with similar issues, Questions Nos 5, 6, 7 and 8 will be taken together.
Question No 5 by Mr Newens (H-0308/97)
Subject: Cuba and the Helms-Burton Act
Would the Council make a statement on the estimated effects of the Helms-Burton Act on trade between the European Union and Cuba to-date and what steps are envisaged to prevent further damage which could result if the Act were to be fully implemented?
Question No 6 by Mr Bontempi (H-0310/97)
Subject: Cuba and the Helms-Burton Act
Would the Council make a statement about progress in resolving the dispute between the European Union and the Government of the United States of America over the Helms-Burton Act which is currently being heard by a panel of the World Trade Organization?Question No 7 by Mr Morris (H-0315/97)
Subject: Cuba and the Helms-Burton Act
Would the Council make a statement about recent developments in Cuba, including a comment on the news that the CNN TV company has been allowed by the Cuban and US authorities to establish a Bureau there and how this action relates to the Helms-Burton Act which seeks to tighten the US trade embargo against Cuba?Question No 8 by Mr Medina Ortega (H-0345/97)
Subject: The US Helms-Burton Law
Does the Council believe that there is now adequate protection for European businessmen who have invested or who are intending to invest in Cuba following the Commission's recent decision to halt the proceedings it brought before the World Trade Organization against the United States regarding the Helms-Burton Law?
I should like to give a combined answer to the questions by Mr Newens, Mr Bontempi, Mr Morris and Mr Medina Ortega, because they all concern the Helms-Burton Act and Cuba.
Following intensive bilateral discussions between the Commission and the American authorities, an agreement on the Helms-Burton Act was reached on 11 April 1997, and consequently also to some extent on the D'Amato Act.
The agreement relates to a specific code of conduct for both sides.
To prevent any worsening of the conflict over the Helms-Burton Act, the Council held a discussion on the matter on 18 April and adopted the following conclusions, to which I now refer: in the light of the agreement reached between the Commission and the United States and the undertaking entered into by the latter, the Council has agreed that the WTO panel procedures under way in respect of the Helms-Burton Act will now be suspended; if action is taken against EU businesses or individuals on the basis of the Libertad Act or the sanctions legislation concerning Iran and Libya, or if the waivers described in the agreement are not granted but are withdrawn, the Commission will request the WTO to restart or reconstitute the panel, after which the panel will follow its normal procedures.
The Commission is also requested by the Council to keep it informed of any developments.
The Council points out that the European Union, like the United States, sets itself the goal of promoting democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms where these are under threat and, like the United States, has committed itself to combating terrorism.
However, the Council reiterates its strong resistance to the imposition of extra-territorial legislation as a means of pursuing these objectives.
It regards such legislation as unacceptable both in principle and in law.
In this context, the Council draws particular attention to the deep concern which it expressed in its conclusions of 15 July 1996 regarding the extra-territorial consequences of the Helms-Burton and D'Amato Acts, and nothing in the agreement with the United States should be interpreted as in any way prejudicing its continuing stance on this issue, as set out in those conclusions.
The Council believes that the negotiations in the context of the multilateral agreement on investment, the MAI, should continue in accordance with the procedures agreed for these talks and on the basis of the relevant mandate.
This mandate can be amended by the Council in accordance with its rules of procedure.
Those are the conclusions which the Council itself has drawn from the Commission's agreement with the United States administration.
As regards the question by Mr Newens, many businesses from the Member States of the European Union have suffered damage as a result of the Helms-Burton Act. However, no figures are available on the overall impact on the European Union's trade with Cuba.
The Council has nevertheless repeatedly emphasized that, in its view, this legislation is in breach of international law, has been damaging to the rights and interests of the European Union in the areas of trade and investment, and has had a discouraging effect on trade between the Union and Cuba.
Finally, on the question by Mr Morris, the Council takes the view that the fact that the television company CNN has been authorized by the Cuban and American authorities to open an office in Cuba is a matter between the United States and Cuba, and does not have any consequences for relations between the European Union and these countries.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I am glad that he recognizes that some European countries which trade in the United States have been intimidated by the very possibility of legal action being taken against them and that there are other American laws which have been used against law-abiding Europeans citizens.
In these circumstances, does he accept that any impression that the European Union is weakening its approach - and that impression to some extent has been given by withdrawing the complaint in the WTO - will in fact damage our trade? Will he therefore reaffirm our determination, not only to ask for the World Trade Organization panel to be reconstituted if required, but to take whatever other steps are necessary to prevent the extra-territorial provisions of the Helms/Burton Act being exercised in any way against our traders.
I can assure Mr Newens that the Council will do everything possible to counter third-country legislation with extra-territorial effect which is damaging to the interests of firms and individuals in the European Union.
In this particular case, we were facing a special political dilemma, namely that the United States would have been obliged, for internal political reasons, to invoke the national security exception because of the WTO panel procedure which was under way, so that the WTO would have automatically had to stop the procedure.
This would in fact have meant that, as regards the conflict over the Helms-Burton Act, not only would there have been no ruling, but the domestic political circumstances obliging the US administration to invoke the national security exception would have resulted in the WTO panel procedure set up under the Uruguay Round suffering an extraordinary loss of credibility with regard to settling this kind of trade dispute.
All in all, the Commission and the American administration have tried in this agreement to steer a course which prevents the conflict from being aggravated unnecessarily, with the effects on the WTO which I have described.
However, the US administration is undertaking to try to limit the adverse effects of the Helms-Burton and D'Amato Acts in terms of their impact on the interests of European Union nationals, and to eliminate them through changes in the law or waivers.
We are now waiting to see the results of this undertaking by the US administration, and if the Commission and the Council in any way have the impression that the American administration will not be able to fulfil the agreements, then we shall not hesitate to restart the WTO panel.
Mr President-in-Office, there is something I should like to ask you: don't you feel that the application of this agreement is very tricky, in view of the difficulties and even ambiguities that it contains? And most of all, doesn't it seem to you, as it does to me, that there is a risk that this agreement might, in part, produce precisely the same effects as the law did?
I recognize the difference, but we have heard about disincentives to companies and even to non-governmental organizations already working in co-operation with Cuba as a result of the application and interpretation of this agreement. I should like to ask what you think about this, and what information you have on it.
The aim of this agreement with the Commission, which has now been endorsed by the Council, although subject to the strict conditions which I have just described to you, is to lead the American administration to enter into discussions with its independent legislature, namely the Congress, with a view to interpreting and, where necessary, amending the law in such a way as to remove precisely those extra-territorial effects which are damaging to European economic interests, not least established economic interests.
If it should appear that, either in law or in practice, the American administration is being obliged to continue to take extra-territorial action against European interests with regard to economic contacts with Cuba, then the Commission and the Council will not hesitate to draw the conclusions I have just mentioned, in other words to restart the WTO panel.
It appears to me that the US is, in fact, lashing out against everyone and everybody.
Apart from the fact that this is adversely virtually affecting Cuba itself, it is also having an adverse effect on American business because they are losing out by billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Would not the Council agree that the Helms/Burton Act, which opposes Cuba's admission to the World Bank, the IMF and the OAS until there is a post-Castro government, is very much an infringement of Cuba's sovereignty?
Does the Council intend to take action to make certain that Cuba has access to these agencies so that it can build up its own economy to the advantage of its own people?
I would agree in principle with the honourable Member - and I think this reflects the views of the Council as a whole - when he says that if we wish to promote democracy and human development in Cuba, then isolating and boycotting it as the American administration has done since 1959 is no longer an appropriate means of doing so, especially now that Cuba is no longer a threat to the national security of the United States.
Only the American Government and the US Congress take a different view, and in this respect we have agreed to disagree.
When it comes to legislation containing a ban on Cuba's admission to the Bretton Woods institutions, for example, I can only say that it is for the rules of the Bretton Woods institutions themselves to determine how that is to be handled.
It cannot be that one member country is able to dictate such matters unilaterally to institutions which are respected on a multilateral basis.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the United States is a country I admire, a country I love, and a country I have had extensive relations with. It is one of the oldest democracies but one characteristic of its democracy, based on the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary, is the tremendous rigour with which the law and sanctions are applied.
At this very moment a Community citizen, Mr Ferreiro, is in prison in the United States for running a business supplying food and other basic necessities to Cuba.
My fear is that the European Union's surrender over the Helms-Burton Law will make the American government think it has a free hand to apply internal American legislation with maximum rigour, which may mean that not just European businessmen, but their children and relatives as well, are faced with this legislation, which they assume does not apply to them but which harms or can harm them very directly
I can only reaffirm to Mr Medina Ortega that the Council and the Member States, together with the Commission, quite simply reject such laws as the Helms-Burton Act on grounds of principle.
That is also why, when this Act was signed in 1996, the Council adopted relatively quickly, on a proposal from the Commission, a variety of counter-measures or retaliatory legislation, so as to be able to respond if European interests were unduly affected when the Act was implemented.
However, it must be said that such important trading partners as the United States and the European Union - if you will allow me to use the metaphor - are talking here like two elephants which have to walk very carefully through a china shop, where we hope that as little china as possible will be broken in the process.
What I really regret is in fact that both the United States and the European Union, whose views are clearly shared on the desirability of new political and economic developments in Cuba, have still not begun to reach agreement after so many years on the question of how this is to happen, and disagree fundamentally on the matter.
We regret that the United States is continuing to isolate the developments in Cuba, instead of encouraging them.
As a good Liberal, I believe that democracy is very much facilitated by overseas investment, and the blocking of such investment will not encourage the development of Cuba or its political development in this respect.
Question No 9 by Mr Papayannakis (H-0322/97)
Subject: Synthetic drugs
Following the European Council in Dublin, where it was decided to adopt a joint action for the approximation of legislation and the procedures followed by the police, customs authorities and courts in combating drug addiction and illegal trafficking in drugs and, given the popularity among young people of synthetic drugs produced in the EU Member States, Central and Eastern Europe and the Balkan countries, constituting a serious threat to public health and society, can the Council say what progress has been made to date concerning the harmonization of Member States' legislation in combating illegal drugs trafficking?
Have the dangers arising from the development of synthetic drugs been evaluated and do European mechanisms exist to deal with the unexpected appearance of such drugs on the market?
I should like to answer this question by Mr Papayannakis in the following way.
The policy which is being developed within the European Union to combat drugs is a wide-ranging one, including preventive measures on the one hand - and here we are talking in particular about devoting our attention to public health, information and education - and repressive aspects on the other, such as cooperation between the courts, police and customs services to combat drugs and drug trafficking.
The question by Mr Papayannakis relates in particular to this second aspect, namely international cooperation in terms of criminal law to combat the drugs trade and drug crime.
The question refers more specifically to the extent of the progress made during the Dutch presidency on implementing the joint action for the approximation of the legislation and procedures of the Member States of the European Union in combating drug addiction and to prevent and combat illegal trafficking in drugs.
This long title is often shortened to that of the joint action on drugs.
The action was confirmed by the European Council in Dublin in December 1996.
The Member States and institutions of the Union are currently engaged in implementing this joint action, part of which covers the harmonization of legislation.
A progress report on its implementation is to be produced for the European Council meeting in Luxembourg.
To enable as clear a report as possible to be presented in Luxembourg in December 1997, work is now being done on a reporting model, and it is planned to submit an interim report to the European Council in Amsterdam.
The question by Mr Papayannakis concerning synthetic drugs is also related to the joint action on drugs.
With regard to this aspect, the Member States and institutions of the European Union are working on the development of an early warning system.
This is a mechanism for exchanging information quickly and effectively on new substances entering the market for synthetic drugs.
The exact details of this mechanism are still under discussion, and a report on this too will be presented to the Amsterdam European Council.
In this context, I would also draw your attention to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the EMCDDA.
This institute is based in Lisbon and has at its disposal the Reitox system, for example, which is used to exchange information between the Member States on synthetic drugs, amongst other things.
Through this existing channel, new developments can already be exchanged between the relevant services and organizations.
Mr President-in-Office, thank you for the details in your answer, but I did not come here to indulge in polemics between us.
I want to help, and I think there is a problem: these new synthetic drugs have some new characteristics.
They cannot be dealt with by traditional methods.
They are manufactured quickly, they circulate quickly, they circulate very easily, and they are constantly becoming cheaper.
And they are becoming more and more attractive because it is difficult to distinguish between proscribed and dangerous substances and playthings.
In that sense, Mr President-in-Office, I am told that this warning system you mentioned takes a very long time.
It takes two years for a substance to be entered on the list of proscribed substances.
In two years, the manufacturer will have made millions, that pill will no longer exist, and a different one will have taken its place.
What I was asking you then, is what you intend to do about some much more rapid system better adapted to the situation.
And it is not a question of suppression.
Europol is intergovernmental.
It is up to you to tell us what can be done to create such a system.
I think that Mr Papayannakis is quite right to point to the special problems caused by synthetic drugs for our whole policy on criminal law and for all police action, because these are developments which move as quickly as those in the chemical industry in general.
Precisely because of this, it is extremely important that information which is available in Member States - for instance on new substances which in principle fall under drugs legislation - is analysed and exchanged as quickly as possible, so that these new substances can also be outlawed in the legislation of the various Member States and the judicial and police authorities then have a legal basis for responding to them quickly.
That is why so much emphasis is being placed on improving the systems for collecting and exchanging information.
This also applies especially to the so-called precursors, the raw materials which are used to make synthetic and illegal drugs, because the monitoring of flows of raw materials and the exchange of information between criminal investigation services can provide an important indication as to how crime in this area is developing.
In this respect, the collection and exchange of information is the first and absolutely crucial step in being able to take vigorous action.
As the author is not present, Question No 10 falls.
Question No 11 by Mr Sjöstedt (H-0330/97)
Subject: The interception of telecommunications
The EU has been working with the American FBI for a year on the development of a joint system for the interception of telecommunications, on which a resolution was adopted at a meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 17 January 1995.
A memorandum of understanding was subsequently concluded between the signatories of the agreement and other states.
In spite of this, the general public and media have been given very little information about this matter.
Will common rules and agreements in this area require harmonization of national legislation, e.g. as regards persons whose telecommunications may be intercepted, the offences of which they must be suspected before such action may be taken and the length of sentences involved.
Is there any link between the Union's activities in this field and ECHELON?
In answer to the question by Mr Sjöstedt on the interception of telecommunications, I would first of all point out that it is not the case that the European Union is working with the FBI on the development of a joint interception system.
Experts from the EU Member States have indeed been holding discussions for a number of years with other countries, such as the United States, on the requirements which need to be placed on the industry to ensure that in the design of telecommunications equipment, specific provision is made for interception via this equipment by law enforcement authorities.
These have led to a set of international user requirements, the importance of which was highlighted by the Council in its resolution of 17 January 1995, to which the questioner has referred.
Other countries from outside the European Union such as the United States, Canada, Australia and Norway have also endorsed these requirements.
The application of the requirements to telephone systems is a task imposed on operators and service providers by the relevant national telecommunications authorities, on the basis of national legislation.
The way in which the technical facilities can subsequently be used for interception is determined by national law, which in the case of the European countries must be in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights.
I would like to thank the Council President for the answer I received.
The new satellite telecommunication systems, which are becoming more prevalent, make it more difficult to use national boundaries as a basis for looking at this question.
We are also discussing an agreement at EU level on whether conversations between different countries may be monitored.
This creates a number of problems where national legislation in different countries is not the same. For example, what legislation should be used to decide if a person may be put under surveillance or not.
There are also strong integration aspects here.
Is it true to say that such extensive cooperation at EU level will require some form of harmonisation in the future when we decide who may be placed under surveillance for example, and establish the penalties for an alleged crime involving surveillance? Is this what EU co-operation really means?
We are dealing here with the area of activity of national intelligence and security services.
In this context, I would say that the European Union has powers under the third pillar to facilitate harmonization.
Of course, cooperation at intergovernmental level is possible, but at this stage I see little support within the European Union for using these powers to bring about harmonization through conventions, not least from a political point of view.
I must draw a distinction here, because your first question related to the agreements on telecommunications technology.
This involves making it impossible to use modern coding and scrambler technology in such a way that intelligence and security services are no longer able to do anything.
That is regarded by the guardians of our internal state security as a serious shortcoming.
I think it is very important for individual Member States - and certainly those which sign the international conventions on the protection of privacy and human rights - to continue to ensure through national legislation and national supervisory procedures that intelligence and security services adhere strictly to certain rules of conduct laid down in national law.
The fact that this may of course also involve international communications does little to affect the principle of national responsibilities.
It is a matter for our governments and our parliaments to produce legislation, and it is for our supervisory bodies in the Member States to ensure that intelligence and security services behave according to the law.
Mr President, I assume that what we are talking about here is not primarily intelligence services, but rather the need to combat large-scale, international organized crime.
I would therefore ask you to indicate what steps the Council intends to take next in tackling large-scale organized crime.
Are there any specific proposals, either in the area of telecommunications or as regards forthcoming measures to be taken?
On the question of what the Council is doing to combat internationally organized crime, more particularly in terms of intelligence operations by police or intelligence services, I would point out that the European Council in Dublin set up a group of senior representatives from the Member States to carry out a specific study of the phenomenon of organized crime, and to produce recommendations for taking firm action to combat this by means of cooperation.
Under the Dutch presidency, this group of senior representatives began work energetically in January, and in April delivered a report which has since also been considered by the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs at another meeting at the end of April.
This report contains a number of political recommendations and a long series of technical ones, and will no doubt provide - soon after it has been considered and released by the European Council in Amsterdam - an important stimulus for cooperation between the Member States under the third pillar to combat organized crime.
As the time available for Question Time to the Council has run out, Questions Nos 11 to 29 will be answered in writing.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I just wish to show my dissent about that decision.
My question was next.
I have sat here for almost an hour and a half and waited patiently for my question.
Given the importance of this issue for the United Kingdom, particularly the North-East of Scotland, which is Mr Macartney's constituency - he would have asked a supplementary question -, it is a pity that we did not get to it.
I would like an assurance that we shall not have a repetition of this in the future.
Mr Patijn, ladies and gentlemen, because of the timetable difficulties we have had today and the work commitments Mr Patijn informed us of at the beginning of the session, we are going to close Question Time to the Council here, but I want you to know that in future I shall make sure that any changes in timetable do not interfere with the time we devote to questions.
I think we have had an exceptional situation today, but at the same time, ladies and gentlemen, I make that undertaking.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.25 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
The sitting is resumed.
Mr Macartney wishes to raise a point of order.
Mr President, on the Souchet report: I want to have an assurance that the legal base amendments which I have tabled and which have been referred to the Legal Affairs Committee will be given ample time to be examined.
This is fundamental to the whole question of the CFP and therefore I require an assurance that the necessary time and resources will be given to the Legal Affairs Committee to examine these amendments before they come back for discussion.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights will verify that before the vote tomorrow at noon.
Straddling stocks - Fishing off Sao Tomé - International fisheries agreements - NAFO Regulatory area - fisheries and acquaculture
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is a clear common denominator in today's important joint debate on fisheries.
All the reports relate in one way or another to essential foreign waters and their different forms of access and regulation, either through traditional fisheries agreements with third countries - like Sao Tomé and Principe, in the Macartney report, regional multilateral agreements like NAFO, referred to in the Teverson report, or the New York Agreement on straddling stocks and highly migratory stocks, for which I am rapporteur.
All deal with different problems but all highlight a common complaint, which is now becoming habitual, about the still minor role conferred on the European Parliament in the face of the European Commission's competitive eagerness for excessive regulations with a dubious, or at the very least an inadequate, legal basis. This is taken up in the Souchet report and my own, with specific reference, in both cases, to Community action in the context of international organizations defining future changes in international maritime law.
Because of all this, Mr President, it was felt worthwhile for the European Parliament to prepare an own initiative report on the international fisheries agreements which are vital to the European Union. This is Mr Crampton's report, which is being debated today in this House, after important discussions and amendments in the Committee on Fisheries where he achieved unanimity.
In view of their importance I want to highlight the following points from his report: the international fisheries agreements and fishing in international waters account for 25 % of total Community production.
Imports from third countries are essential for the Community market, as catches in our waters are far exceeded by our consumption.
So these agreements are essential for the Community fleet, the market and Community consumers, for our industry and, consequently, for employment, which, as the report also shows, is concentrated in peripheral Objective 1 regions which are very dependent on fisheries, without other clear employment alternatives, but with a world-class competitive fishing sector, which needs to be supported against third fishing powers seeking access to the same fishing grounds, and not always applying such strict technical conservation measures as the European Union.
Finally, it needs to be highlighted that this policy, so beneficial to the European Union's interests, takes under 30 % of total Community resources allocated to fishing, a mere 0.31 % of the total Union budget.
So we need to pursue this international fisheries agreements policy in the future, allocating a larger budget to it, always balancing the respective mutual interests, negotiating agreements suitable to both parties, improving existing ones where necessary or adapting them to current circumstances and different legal typologies, applying traditional agreements where appropriate and creating mixed companies or temporary associations of companies where possible.
This is the context, Mr President, in which we are examining the New York Convention of 4 August 1995, on conservation and management of straddling stocks and highly migratory stocks. Its ratification is subject to consultation of this European Parliament and I am responsible for the report.
We are dealing with a profound and historic agreement which must be supported because it seeks to improve management and conservation in international waters through multilateral cooperation on a regional basis.
It comes down to cooperating on stocks conservation in international waters, by contrast to the position and aims of certain coastal countries which advocate a unilateral widening of their prerogatives, contravening international law, the Convention on the Law of the Sea in particular, and the rules governing the high seas and 200-mile exclusion zones.
Further, and exclusively for the straddling stocks and highly migratory stocks at least for the moment, if the present New York Convention succeeds in coming into force, it should be applied in the future, but it needs to be stressed that this does not provide grounds or refuge for national extraterritorial laws, like the disgraceful Canadian Fisheries Law of 25 May 1994, or the new draft law C-62 - and we take this opportunity to denounce it once again.
So in our report we call on the Commission to ensure, before final ratification of the agreement, that all the signatory states are interpreting it in the same way and if necessary to take the appropriate legal precautions in the form of reservations and interpretative statements, for the avoidance of doubt, such as authorizing the use of force in certain circumstances, which require clear and uniform interpretation, as there might otherwise be conflict.
Secondly, but very important, there is the question of responsibility, and several Member States have already objected in the Council to the European Commission's position. The agreement affects powers that are shared between the Member States and the Commission.
The Commission has responsibility for conservation and management of marine resources, but the Member States retain powers as flag states under international law.
These exclusive powers, which the Member States continue to maintain, authorize them, under international law, to adopt their own legal positions and their own jurisdictional defence within the scope of their own recognized powers. So it is logical if there is to be reasonable Commission-States cooperation, that there should be dual legal protection by the Member State and the Commission in accordance with the respective competence of each.
That is why article 3.2 of the Commission's proposal seems excessive and without legal basis, and was unanimously rejected by the Committee on Fisheries. It is extremely ambiguous and inappropriate in seeking to have the States virtually handing over their defence responsibilities to the Commission and, as the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament points out in its opinion included in our report, the Commission has not provided arguments to sustain that provision.
The European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs points out - and I shall end here, Mr President - in its conclusions 5 and 6 that the arrangements in article 3.2 are likely to pose problems, and that there is still no welldefined Community case law in the area of international agreements of a mixed nature.
So codes of conduct between the Community and the Member States would be better than legal rules.
For these reasons, while the Committee on Fisheries is in favour of ratification of the agreement, it is nevertheless unanimously opposed to point 3.2 of the proposal.
Mr President, on the face of it, the Sao Tomé and Principe accord seems something of little significance to this Parliament.
Yet in many ways it symbolizes some of the problems and the possibilities which arise from our fisheries agreements with third countries.
Sao Tomé and Principe is one of the poorest countries in the world and it is heavily dependent on the income which it receives from the fisheries agreement with the European Union to make ends meet.
It is in a rather unusual position in that the fishing possibilities for the Sao Tomé and Principe fishermen themselves are very limited because of the peculiarities of the waters around the islands.
They are of more use as a base for tuna fishermen coming from Europe than they are to the local people, and so they are a very special resource in the sense of forming an exclusive economic zone, an EEZ, but, are not rich fishing grounds like those in some other parts of Africa, for example off the Namibian coast.
This gives them a very special perspective.
I am happy to support this report.
There have been many occasions when I have been critical of fisheries policy but I think most of this particular report is commendable.
It proposes a reasonably generous settlement with the government of Sao Tomé and Principe.
If I were to nit-pick about some of the details, I would say that it is rather weak to use the phrase 'shall endeavour to do' in a legal document.
To any lawyer that means that it is not binding.
Therefore that sort of language should have been toughened-up.
There are two cases: one concerns bycatches, which is rather a sore point with both conservationists and the local fish-consuming community; the other concerns the desirability of hiring Sao Tomé and Principe crew on the fishing boats.
This is stated as something to be striven for rather than something which is a requirement.
When this comes up for review these points should be toughened-up.
This is a pretty weak compromise between saying nothing and saying something and it is not binding.
In other words, the agreement is not brilliant, but it is reasonably satisfactory.
We come back time and time again, in this Parliament, to two criticisms.
One is that these agreements are not specifically tools of development for the country concerned, but are seen as commercial fisheries agreements.
That is the nature of the beast.
Time and time again, in the Committee on Development and Cooperation and in the Committee on Fisheries, we have said that this is not the best way to achieve results, which are supposed to be based not just on the commercial interests of the European Union and its Member States, but on those of the people concerned.
I have visited some of these countries, as have many other Members.
We have talked to the local people.
They appreciate having some government revenue, but a lot more could be done to achieve sustainable fisheries and also to achieve sustainable development in the broader sense.
This issue of development tools will not go away until we have changed the basic approach and have a hybrid between the two considerations: the commercial fishing interests of the EU and the development aspect.
My final point concerns consultation.
This Parliament loves to be consulted, but we would much rather be consulted before something has taken effect than afterwards.
People criticise us for various things.
They do not usually criticise us for giving opinions when it is too late for them to have any effect.
That is what they should be criticizing.
It is high time that we changed the regime so that Parliament could give its opinion before an agreement comes into force, rather than the other way around.
We are always passing judgement on agreements that have been decided and hoping that the Commission or the Council will then take note of our points the next time round.
That is not the best way of doing things.
Having said that, the Commission proposals have my support and that of the Committee on Fisheries.
We commend the report and all the committee's amendments which have been put forward.
Mr President, my report concerns the NAFO area.
However, I will talk about it for only a short time because although it is an important report, it is not contentious and is primarily concerned with detail.
I welcome the changes put forward in the NAFO Agreement which have now been implemented.
These involve the greater use of observers.
These people are already on board fishing vessels and we should use them to maximum advantage to understand the characteristics of those fisheries and in particular the area of discards.
This concerns everybody involved in fisheries and will provide greater understanding of wastage and how that system can be improved, also in terms of the Hail system and declaring the target species to be caught.
In reality, there is a sub-plot, primarily in shrimp-fishing.
This is an area which is being opened up, in particular by Icelandic vessels and it needs greater control. That is what has stimulated the amendments which seek to ensure that shrimp-fishing remains sustainable over a longer period.
We are asking Parliament that it be looked at and further reports made.
However, important though NAFO is, the international fisheries agreements are far more important.
One thing that is clear - and which the Commissioner tells us as do the Council of Ministers very regularly - is that there is severe over-capitalization of fishing fleets, not only in Europe but worldwide.
In fact, something like two-thirds of worldwide fish stocks are estimated to be over-exploited.
It does not require a great understanding of economics to see that the cheaper you make it to enter a particular market, the more the capacity will be and the more that supply in terms of capital or vessels and equipment will outstrip the availability of resource.
What is happening is that the European Union, with its international fisheries agreements, is contributing to this global problem, namely the over-subsidization of the fishing fleet worldwide.
In fact, the FAO has estimated that there is a very large and unacceptable total subsidy to fishing fleets worldwide.
Because of this there is overfishing, further depletion of stocks and the need for nations to buy more fishing rights elsewhere.
Then we get into a competitive and spiralling problem leading to further depletion of stocks.
We have to stop this process somewhere.
I believe that the European Parliament should be a world leader in environmental protection and that we should be spearheading the cessation of subsidies to international fishing agreements.
The Liberal Group is suggesting that we take a very radical approach to conservation and in general to the future of fishing worldwide.
We should decide that this is an area where it is very easy to tie up private costs with actual costs so that the costs of fishing agreements should be borne by the boat owners and the fleet operators.
In that way we will start to bring capacity into line with global fish stocks.
That is only a start but it is an essential one.
We are not for a moment saying that should be a unilateral decision by the European Union.
We must negotiate with the other major fishing nations - Japan, Korea, and what used to be the Russian Federation, although they are not major players now.
We need to start to get some agreement internationally to stop this subsidy and this depletion of stocks in the world's oceans.
If those negotiations are unsuccessful then we should take the process to the World Trade Organization and have that body police this area and treat the subsidy of international fishing agreements as unfair methods of competition.
Only in this way can we begin to get the marine ecology in some sort of global balance.
The policy itself is not necessarily expensive in terms of the European Union as a whole but the Commission appears to want to expand this area.
Yet the cost to the Community in this area is approximately ECU 280m per annum and Peter Crampton's report suggests that only 1, 300 vessels benefit from this policy.
That is a subsidy per annum of around ECU 200, 000 per vessel.
Surely we can spend that money more effectively elsewhere in the European Union, for example in the peripheral regions, and I would suggest my own constituency.
There have to be better ways of spending that money and targeting it in terms of structural funding.
The Liberal Group says that we should stop this folly, strike a positive note for conservation globally and the Commission's message to us as Member States should also be taken globally.
We must stop this kind of subsidy.
Mr President, I am speaking for the first five minutes as rapporteur for the Fisheries Committee which passed my report a little while ago.
For the remaining time I will express some of my own personal views and question marks about fisheries agreements in general.
The European Union has 26 fisheries agreements with third countries, 15 with countries in Africa and the Indian Ocean and 10 in the North Atlantic countries with 1 in Latin America.
They fall into five main categories: reciprocal agreements, access to surplus stocks, access to stocks in exchange for financial compensation, access in exchange for compensation and market access and second generation agreements involving the constitution of joint enterprises.
Many of these agreements operate with few problems and the main concern with fisheries agreements is with the financial compensation type.
These are mainly signed with developing countries.
The Commissioner, and I quote her, recently said 'we arrive, fish, pay almost nothing and leave with zero control' .
It is for this reason that the report concentrates on the financial compensation type of agreements.
The European Union obviously has to balance its own immediate interests and the future survival of its fleet while at the same time acknowledging that the sustainability of global fishstocks is in everybody's long-term interest.
In the report, I refer to this as enlightened self-interest.
This entails a measure of forward planning which the present so-called policy does not have.
The Fisheries Committee welcomes the Commission communication 'Fisheries Agreements - current situation and agreements' as an initial first step.
A clear, coherent approach to fisheries agreements is essential to ensure the successful conclusion of future agreements.
The signs are already there that the waters are, if not yet stormy, turbulent.
The difficulties of signing a new agreement with Senegal and the indications from Morocco that it will not sign a further agreement when this one comes to an end in 1999 are significant.
A whole body of opinion is now saying that a fresh approach needs to be adopted, not just for reasons of fair fisheries agreements and development, but also to ensure the survival of these agreements for the future.
At a recent fisheries Council meeting, the Commission stated that global fisheries sources had become squeezed and that a new set of priorities was needed.
This report aims to assist in that process.
It sets out a series of principles.
These principles include the sustainable use of marine resources, prevention of depletion, that all parties must cooperate on things like stock assessment, monitoring, cohabitation of industrial and artisanal fisheries, and so on.
It also stresses the coherence that is necessary between fishing policy as represented by these agreements and development policy.
This is particularly important.
Moreover, we should ensure that we abide by the codes of conduct, e.g. the Food and Agricultural Organization's code of conduct for responsible fisheries, and many others that we have signed, and strive to ensure that all other nations do the same.
Mr Teverson just referred to the Food and Agriculture Organization.
They have also said, in addition to what he said, that 70 % of the world's fish are being harvested near or beyond what is sustainable.
Apart from these principles, we lay down in the report a set of guidelines for a uniform procedure which must be gone through when we are negotiating fisheries agreements: the acquisition of the fullest possible information on stock levels; consultation with the representatives of the local fishing industry; a cost- benefit analysis; a mechanism to report back on the results of research; and the education and training programmes which are funded as part of these agreements by the Community.
Then we mention in the report the role of the European Parliament.
We are not satisfied with the role of the European Parliament.
It is very much marginalized in the area of fisheries.
Parliament has repeatedly said that we should be much more fully involved in the process of agreements, including being consulted on the negotiating mandate that the Council gives to the Commission, and for the fisheries agreements to be concluded with Parliament's assent procedure.
For the remaining time, just a few personal points.
It was a long and complicated vote in the committee.
As a result, when we actually saw the printed report, I noticed that there were a number of contradictions, there were a few inaccuracies and the balance of the report had altered somewhat significantly.
The Party of European Socialists' amendments seek to remedy some of these defects.
I have to ask some questions.
Can we really say that the European Union's present main objective is the maintenance of existing structures in the fishing industry? That would seem strange.
Can we really say that the European Union should be responsible for shipowners' profitability? We do not say this about the steel industry or the car industry.
Why about the fishing industry? We should certainly be creating the conditions under which they can be profitable but we are not responsible.
Should these agreements be fully funded by the European Union? In the Directorate's newsletter Pesca the Commission writes that concerns about limiting cost may result in shipowners or even Member States taking a greater share.
We have to consider, I submit, what the Court of Auditors tells us and what the European taxpayer would tell us if he knew exactly what was happening.
Can we seriously consider, as is mentioned in this report, fish as a perishable resource? Fish swimming about the ocean are a perishable resource?
I ask you to think about that. Can we say that exporting the European Union's fleets' excess capacity to third country waters is a valid option for the future?
The Commission has already stated that these agreements are not a long-term solution. We have to tackle our problem in our waters ourselves.
This is a good report.
I hope people will support it.
I have personal difficulties with it but this is the Fisheries Committee's decision and I think it is an advance on what we have had before.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, under the consultation procedure, Parliament has been asked for its opinion on a Commission proposal for a partial amendment of Regulation No 3760/92 of December 1992 establishing a Community system for fisheries and aquaculture.
The proposal has three objectives.
The first is to authorize powers to be conferred on the Commission for incorporating, without consultation, in the Community legal order provisions concerning technical measures on fishing gear and its method of use adopted by international fisheries organizations to which the Community is a contracting party.
The second amendment is aimed at determining the fishing opportunities which the Council may allocate to third countries, within the limit of the annual total allowable catches, and technical conditions under which such catches may be made within Community waters.
Finally, the third amendment proposes to confer powers on the Council to determine technical resource conservation measures of a temporary nature relating to the conditions under which the quotas may be fished.
It seemed to our committee that the second and third amendments proposed by the Commission represent a technical improvement of Regulation 3760/92 aimed at incorporating into Community legislation a group of measures on resource exploitation which will improve the rational management of fishery stocks.
Given that the sole aim of these two proposals is to create a specific legal basis to enable the objectives I have just mentioned to be achieved, our committee has made no objection to these partial amendments to the regulation.
On the contrary, it welcomes this improvement to the Community fisheries and aquaculture system.
On the other hand, our committee had strong reservations about the possibility of delegating powers to the Commission to transpose directly into the Community legal system binding acts adopted by international organizations under the terms set out in the Commission proposal.
Article 4, paragraph 1 of Regulation 3760/92, provides that the Council acting, except where otherwise provided, in accordance with the procedure laid down in article 43 of the treaty, shall establish Community measures laying down the conditions of access to waters and resources and the pursuit of exploitation activities.
These measures shall be drawn up in the light of the available biological, socio-economic and technical analyses and in particular of the reports drawn up by the committee provided for in article 16: the Scientific, Technical and Economic Fisheries Committee.
The reference to the procedure under article 43 of the treaty means that, in order for decisions to be adopted in this field, the European Parliament must be consulted.
Under the current decision-making procedure on fisheries within the European Union, authorizing powers to be conferred on the Commission to incorporate binding legal acts adopted by international organizations to which the Community belongs, as proposed here, means Parliament, and moreover the Council, would be cut off from the decision-making process in respect of acts relating to a significant part of the common fisheries policy.
In fact, the role of regional and sub-regional fisheries management organizations would be considerably strengthened.
So we do not think it is good democracy for a technical body to have exclusive responsibility for the whole decisionmaking process, from negotiation to integration into the Community legal system, without any control of any kind at any stage.
The consultation procedure under article 43 of the treaty is practically the only means whereby the European Parliament can be given adequate knowledge of the decisions adopted in organizations such as the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission, the North-West Atlantic Fisheries Organization, the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources, which are all organizations with a major role in the fisheries sector.
Moreover, the implementation of the provisions arising from the recent United Nations agreement on straddling stocks and stocks of highly migratory species, adopted on 4 August 1995, makes it more than ever important that Parliament should be consulted on decisions adopted in international commissions and organizations, which are tending to become the main protagonists in the drafting of the law of the sea.
In view of these various considerations, Mr President, our committee proposes that the conferring of powers on the Commission for the adoption of technical measures, as provided for in the proposal before us, should be rejected, but that the other two proposals for amendment relating to the exploitation of resources should be accepted.
I would end by making it clear that the draft legislative resolution before you was unanimously adopted by the Committee on Fisheries and the two amendments tabled by our committee which accompany it, Nos 1 and 2, are merely amendments to improve the proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the debate on the future of international fisheries agreements must take into account certain basic ideas or principles.
First of all, the fact that the European Union is a world power in the fishing sector which is registering a growing trade deficit, a deficit which means more imports of fish which someone other that the European Union is continuing increasingly to fish - without it being less-developed countries.
Secondly, the fact that the sector directly or indirectly employs hundreds of thousands of people, including those in the processing and preserves industry, which therefore gives it a social weight which is far greater than its direct economic importance, further worsened by the fact that many local communities depend on fishing activities.
Thirdly, the fact that there is a growing need to combat techniques which ravage fishing stocks, calling for growing internal controls which are both efficient and transparent, which must also be extended, in equal ways, to highly competitive third country fleets without failing to respect those which rationally and responsibly develop their activity.
Fourthly, the fact that where it is applicable, we must try and find ways of developing the own capacities of lessdeveloped third countries, preserving the respective territorial waters and only gaining access to the respective excess resources situated in exclusive economic areas, principles which should also be applied to neighbouring countries of the European Union.
Fifthly, setting up as a principle the maintenance and extension of various types of existing fisheries agreements, without any attempt to privilege any one of them, therefore attending to the various financial and economic characteristics and capacities of European Union fleets.
In accordance with these five principles, we can state that the report considers these guidelines without detriment to the initial perspectives which were diverse and some of the contradictions which still exist.
We should also reassert the fact that certain attempts to focus any future negotiation on the exclusive basis of 'third generation' agreements, aimed only at the creation of mixed companies, cannot and must not be accepted exclusively, since they can result in the relocations of companies, not only of production but also preservation and processing, with direct effects on unemployment, making it worse, and the social and cultural devastation of many regions of the European Union, apart from the effects of increasing fish imports and the fact that these agreements will actually only be accessible to anyone who has large financial dimension and capacity, which could easily lead to the bankruptcy or disappearance of a huge number of SMEs in the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, the international fisheries agreements certainly have an economic and commercial value, there is no getting away from that, but they must also be compatible with cooperation and development policies.
Rightly, we are moving towards the second-generation agreements between states, and away from a somewhat exclusive and, if you like, eurocentric dimension to international agreements.
We are considering the problems of employment, processing and the maintenance of environmental balances, but especially we are thinking about the consistency that our fisheries agreements must exhibit with the international conventions, which are a very important reference base as far as we are concerned.
These agreements are also important because they are designed to eliminate the pirate vessels which, as you all know, are looting fish stocks from international waters. Above all, though, the agreements look towards a concept of co-operation and development, while at the same time helping to establish hygienic and sanitary practices in the countries concerned.
Of course we must pay due heed to the traditional cultures of these peoples, but the fact remains that in the ACP regions and in the SGP States these agreements fulfil an important function.
I should add that we must also take account of the fact that the fisheries agreements focus not only on the aspect of quotas - something which would not have existed previously - but also on the economic aspect.
There are still some third countries which are not always making the best use of these agreements, and in some cases they are serving to enrich the local ruling cliques, thus creating a problem of democracy originating from the administration of European resources, which are not all that extensive.
By contrast, other countries have begun to make dynamic moves into the international market, becoming nothing less than competitors of the European Union.
Take the case of Morocco, which despite having negotiated an extremely favourable agreement with the European Union is trying to reposition itself in the market, negotiating agreements with other countries. This creates a problem, partly because the agreements signed by us were not solely connected with fisheries but also extended to other important sectors such as agriculture and the opening of the market to certain specific Moroccan products.
From this point of view, then, we must be very vigilant, remembering that we cannot withdraw but that, on the other hand, an excessively liberal view, such as Mr Teverson would like to see, would not work.
We must remember that, even if we have a problem with the self-sufficiency of the food supply in the European Union, which is a very important point, and even if these agreements help to improve that self-sufficiency, liberalization would be likely to be harmful and would naturally result in the deterioration of those quality mechanisms and hygienic and sanitary standards that we have worked to bring about, while also creating conditions in which the workforce in third countries would be exploited, something which we do not like to see today.
For example, the second-generation international agreements also attach great importance to social guarantees, a not insignificant point, although we must be alert, since there are a lot of unscrupulous people who, once embarked on the high seas, make use of fishing licences under international agreements to indulge in smuggling.
For this reason, we must take steps to ensure meticulous controls.
I believe it is important to continue along this road, and to improve things further, but also that it is important to move forward to a further stage, going beyond the concept of bilateral international agreements.
I would hope that the European Union would negotiate more and more with other associations of States, or, to put it another way, that the ACP or SGP States, for example, were to set up their own delegations for fisheries with which the European Union could conduct specific negotiations.
With this in mind, we could try some experimental approaches in some areas, especially areas which are environmentally and geographically homogeneous and comprise groups of States; in areas like those it would be useful to talk to some of these associations on a more than just bilateral basis.
So I believe that a good job has been done.
I thank the rapporteur, and I also believe that the amendments that will be adopted will prove their value.
One final point, if I may, Mr President: I would like to thank the Commissioner for the co-operative way in which she has worked with Parliament on the international agreements.
Nevertheless, Commissioner, the time has now come for us to join battle: we need a new legal base for the parliamentary assent, which is a fundamental matter for us: your goodwill is important, but we now need to move on from this stage and obtain that legal basis.
Mr President, I should like to use today's debate on fisheries as an opportunity to highlight the importance of the legislative work we do in the Committee on Fisheries, and the value and status of that work within the policy of the European Union.
Fishing is a long-established and traditional occupation which also has a future.
It includes key aspects such as the area of international policy, based on international fisheries agreements - as described by Mr Crampton - and on the European Union's involvement in various international organizations, for example NAFO.
This means that, in a sense, fisheries are part of the European Union's common foreign and security policy, and its policy on development.
However, one of the failings of the Maastricht Treaty was that it did not take account of our efforts to ensure that future international fisheries agreements were subject to the assent procedure.
That would have had the effect of strengthening the rights of the European Parliament, both in this area and more generally.
To that extent, we believe that by bringing our action concerning the fisheries agreement with Mauritania before the Court of Justice pursuant to Article 228 of the EEC Treaty, the Committee on Fisheries is promoting the further institutional development of the EU.
Moreover, fisheries policy is also part of structural and employment policy.
An estimated 20 000 people are employed directly on fishing vessels operating under fisheries agreements.
To that number should be added between 25 000 and 50 000 shore-based jobs.
And that leaves aside downstream employment in the processing industry.
I cannot overemphasize the point that these jobs are being maintained in structurally weak areas which depend on fishing and offer no alternative employment.
Fisheries policy is also part of environment policy, because of the significant impact which it has on marine ecosystems.
And, last but not least, fishing is part of food policy.
As a rich source of protein, fish provides one of the basic nutritional building-blocks.
Our task over the next few years is to reformulate Europe's common fisheries policy to meet the needs of the period after 2002 - in other words, the very near future.
So what is to be done? The Commission must draw up guidelines for the evaluation of protocols which are about to expire, as well as future protocols.
Amongst other things, these must contain the most reliable information possible on the state of fish stocks, an element of coordination with other Community activities, and an informed cost-benefit assessment.
The working atmosphere in the Committee on Fisheries is good, and allowed us to reach a workable consensus on the Crampton report.
I hope the conclusions of the report will also be supported by the Commission and the Council, and I would therefore ask you to vote in favour of the Crampton report, and all the other reports.
Mr President, after 20 years, it is indeed high time that a detailed evaluation was made of the fisheries agreements, and this is what I should like to discuss in my few minutes' speaking time this evening.
Any such evaluation must take account of budgetary, social and environmental aspects.
The fisheries agreements are designed to ease the pressure on stocks in the Union's waters, but they have not done anything to help resolve our overcapacity problem.
Ad hoc solutions and short-term thinking cannot and must not be used to eliminate the problem of structural overfishing in our waters.
We must not simply try to shift this problem onto other countries, and we certainly must not make the mistake of exporting our system of poor fisheries management.
The Commission says that these agreements do not affect development policy because it is only surplus stocks that are fished, but I find this hard to believe.
It is difficult enough for the Union to estimate its own stocks, let alone for the developing countries who have to do this without the benefit of the West's advanced technology.
We need to solve our overfishing problems internally within the Union instead of exporting them to other countries.
The only solution that we in the Liberal Group can see is to reduce fleet capacity, because tighter controls do not provide sufficient guarantees.
Restructuring is what is needed, and the funding currently earmarked for the agreements could be used to finance this instead.
Finally, I entirely agree with Mr Teverson when he says that the escalating costs of the agreements are unjustified and European taxpayers' money should no longer be used to pay for them.
Such heavy subsidies simply encourage overcapacity, which in turn leads to further depletion of stocks.
I fear that we Liberals are still alone in supporting our amendments, but I am sure that in a few years' time the majority in Parliament will come to share our views.
Mr President, let me reassure Mr Eisma that as far as the Green Group is concerned, we have long been calling for us to stop exporting overfishing, because this is effectively what we are doing.
There is no point in saying that we want to prevent this from happening: it is already happening now, and it has frequently caused problems in the past in connection with the fisheries agreements with the ACP countries in particular.
We have seen it with Morocco, which is not an ACP country of course, and also with Mauritania, where ECU 52 million are on offer in return for permission to fish a certain quota, and when you think that this represents 6 % of their gross national product, you can well understand that there is a certain amount of pressure involved and that considerations such as the accurate monitoring of fish stocks and so on are easily pushed into the background.
We have had serious talks on the subject with Senegal and Namibia, which led to the setting-up of a fisheries working party under the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
This is still in operation, but the conflict between our interests and theirs is becoming increasingly obvious.
As far as today's problems are concerned, I would say, particularly in relation to Mr Crampton's report, that what we were originally told and what the explanatory statement says is much better than the actual text of the resolution, which has been greatly watered down, presumably by those who are determined to protect our interests.
I know that Mr Crampton is here, and that is why I should like to draw attention to two of our amendments, Nos 3 and 4, which are designed to ensure that fish stocks are managed at a regional level.
This goes a step further than what is said in one of the recitals, all of which we can accept.
But if the principle of a regional approach is to be applied in practice by saying that any agreements with various countries on one type of fish stock must be dealt with on a regional basis, the Committee on Fisheries cannot agree with that, and we hope that the plenary will now amend it accordingly.
Mr President, I have to clear up a confusion about the point of order I raised earlier.
You said that we would vote on this tomorrow.
If you check, you will find that is not the case.
What I was looking for was an assurance that we would not come back to this matter until the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights had a chance to debate it properly.
If you could confirm that when I have sat down it would be helpful.
The whole question of the Souchet reports is fraught with difficulties about the proper legal basis.
Mrs Souchet has gone half-way in rejecting what the Commission is trying to do.
But there is a very dangerous precedent being set here, if the Commission is allowed to get away with evading the provisions of the acquis commaunitaire and the provisions of the various fundamental treaties which set up the common fisheries policy.
That is why this issue of going to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is so important.
Let me make it quite plain that I am not against reviewing the common fisheries policy.
On the contrary.
I have - as the Commissioner well knows - been well to the forefront in urging a review of the CAP, but it has to be a review in the context of 2002.
We all have to work together to have a properly worked out amendment rather than one achieved by some circuitous back door route.
That is why this whole issue of the Souchet report is not important so much for the content as for the procedure.
So I am raising this as a fundamental question.
Once we can get the procedural legal point out of the way, then let us discuss the technical measures.
But this has to be done on a proper, sound, legal basis.
Mr Macartney, I already indicated at the start that the vote will only take place once we have the report from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on the legal basis. It is quite impossible to vote on this report without it.
Mr President, international fisheries agreements are extremely important for employment in the European fishing sector, so the Union must try to keep rich fishing grounds outside the Union open to European fishermen.
But this has its limits.
International fisheries face the same problem as do the Union's own waters: a catch capacity which is too large for fish stocks to be maintained.
In negotiating fisheries agreements, the Union must not only assert its rights under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, it must also fulfil its obligations, and this is why it cannot allow itself to export unlimited overcapacity to international fishing grounds.
According to the FAO, many commercial fish species are currently under threat.
There is certainly a large question mark against the figures they use, but the signs are clearly there, particularly since local fishermen in various developing countries are having to contend with dwindling catches.
Some of the statements in the Crampton report calling for access for Community fishermen not only to be maintained, but also expanded simply go too far.
Where there is overfishing and the local industry is developing, the Union must give precedence to the local fishermen.
The Union must also ensure that the fisheries agreements are consistent with development policy.
We need to move away from the first-generation agreements in which the governments of the coastal states concerned gave European fishermen fishing rights in return for a sizeable sum of money.
The local populations obtained very little benefit from this arrangement.
I therefore agree with the rapporteur that we must try to replace these agreements with second or third-generation agreements, under which the financial aid goes to benefit research, training, monitoring systems and other activities in the domestic fishing sector.
Where necessary, the exclusion zone for local fishermen must also be extended.
In short, what we need is a long-term fisheries policy which guarantees that fish stocks are maintained and supports development policy.
Thank you very much, Mr President.
Madam Commissioner, everyone who has followed fishing issues closely knows the argument which tends to surround the agreements policy, and as you see, this report's passage through committee has also aroused lively debate.
But although the outcome does not meet everyone's expectations of course, to be fair, the report is balanced and places the agreements in a more realistic context.
It recognizes, first of all, the importance of the agreements for the Community economy, and not just for the countries which benefit because their fleets are in third countries' waters, but also - this point is often forgotten - for other countries with important processing industries which can be supplied with Community raw materials as a result and not have to rely massively on imports which would be much more expensive without the fishing agreements.
The same argument applies to consumers, who continue to have access to a market for good quality products at reasonable prices.
But there is concern about other aspects which are still not functioning entirely satisfactorily and the document takes this up.
There is concern that Community fleets should set an example of respect for resources for other fleets operating in third countries' waters, that local fishermen should receive proper information about what the various agreements mean, and that there should be transparency and control over financial compensation paid by the European Union and its shipowners.
Finally, the report seeks to clarify another point of confusion: the fisheries agreements are fisheries policy, not development policy.
Yet it would be wrong to forget the important role they play in the development of local communities, thanks to the financing and experience provided by the Community fleets, to the point that - and this is another little-known aspect - in many cases it is third countries themselves which ask the European Union for fisheries agreements.
The most recent case - and here I am correcting some of my colleagues - is Senegal, where pressure to renew the agreement has come not just from Community interests, but also from the Senegalese sector itself because its processing depends on Community catches in its waters and some industries risked paralysis if the agreement was not renewed immediately.
As you know, some were already complaining before the agreement was renewed.
So taking all these factors into account, I must support Mr Crampton's report as it stands and I cannot agree with the amendments tabled by others.
Finally, I would like to congratulate all the rapporteurs, but I want to highlight the Souchet report, Madam Commissioner, regarding Parliament's loss of power in the consultation procedure, and we obviously have to oppose your proposed reform of article 4 of the basic regulation.
You will appreciate that it is our right and our duty to defend the powers of this Parliament, and article 43 is considerably diminished by your proposal, so we shall continue to whittle away at it.
Mr President, I am speaking mainly to the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights in relation to Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna's report on the proposal for a Council decision on ratification by the European Community of the agreement for the implementation of the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea relating to the conservation and management of fish stocks found both inside and outside exclusive economic zones and highly migratory fish stocks.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Fisheries share a common position, adopted unanimously in both committees moreover, to the effect that the proposal to introduce a new article 3.2 establishing mixed or joint procedure by the States and the Commission is not proper.
Personally I would favour the Community assuming full responsibility for this matter, but at the moment we know that the second title and the external powers of the Community are not recognized.
Given that the Community does not have full competence in matters of external policy, it seems to me very dangerous to introduce a dual procedure, and I think it is preferable to wait until jurisdiction develops in accordance with United Nations law rather than introduce this ambiguous situation.
On the other reports on fisheries agreements, I would like to mention that all of them - like Mr Varela SuanzesCarpegna's - were unanimously approved by the Committee on Fisheries, reflecting the magnificent atmosphere in the committee under the present chairman.
The opinions of the various committees were unanimously approved as well.
So we have a solid package. And I especially want to congratulate my good friend, Mr Crampton, for his work as rapporteur.
Listening to him last night, I was reminded of characters in English literature, characters he must know well, created by a great British writer, Mr Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. I am totally in agreement with Dr Jekyll, that is, Mr Crampton the rapporteur, and his magnificent report, unanimously approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and I do not agree with Mr Crampton as Mr Hyde, criticizing his own report as rapporteur in the Committee on Fisheries.
Account needs to be taken of the fact that the fisheries agreements represent only 0.003 % of the total Community budget.
And when Mr Teverson said that the percentage per ship was very high, he did not explain that the reason it is so high is that Community policy has been and is to reduce the number of ships.
And as we reduce the number of ships and the Community fishing effort, we have to apply the amounts needed to maintain fishing capacity.
I find the Commission's current budget proposals quite alarming and, frankly, I do not think the European Parliament should second those proposals, and I hope it does not.
When the resources allocated to fisheries are so limited and the intention is to reduce them further, that seems irresponsible to me because of the tremendous effects they are going to have on people and even on maintaining the quality and quantity of fish in the sea.
I think we must hold out strongly against it.
I would like to end with a comparison: the poorest regions of the Community are generally island regions - for example, the Azores and Corsica - and the only Community region called an island which is above the Community average is the Ile de France and I do not think there is much fishing in the Ile de France because it is some way from the sea.
Community fisheries policy has a lot to do with the island location of many regions dependent on fishing and that usually goes hand in hand with a level of poverty requiring an economic contribution from the Community, based on type of region and the maintenance of ecological balance.
Mr President, allow me to begin by congratulating Mr Crampton on his report.
For one thing, it sets out our fisheries policy priorities.
For another, it offers a brisk reminder as regards the proper application of the code of conduct of 12 December 1996.
And that is surely necessary, because the Council is continuing to circumvent us in our capacity as one arm of the budgetary authority - not least as happened in relation to the fisheries agreement with Mauritania.
I find myself wondering why we actually agreed a code of conduct at all.
Similarly, the Commission blithely disregards the fact that it is now obliged under the code of conduct to inform us fully and in good time of the current state of the negotiations on international fisheries agreements - in other words, actually during the negotiations.
This was confirmed only recently when Mrs Bjerregaard addressed the House during the debate on the fisheries agreements with Guinea and Angola.
The fisheries agreement with São Tomé and Principe which we are discussing here today provides yet another example of how important it is for the Commission and the Council to apply the code of conduct systematically.
In this case, the Council decided on the provisional application of the protocol on 25 October last year, so that the Commission could immediately proceed with the payments.
In the Council's eyes, that was more important than consulting Parliament in good time.
In fact, we were consulted for the first time on 20 September - four months after the protocol had been initialled and barely six weeks before the first payment was due to be made.
Surely that is no way for democratic institutions to deal with one another!
Let me remind the House that if in fact the code of conduct was rigorously applied, it would put an end to this disgraceful practice of provisionally implementing international fisheries agreements.
Moreover, we are already faced with another similar case - I refer to the agreement with Senegal which was initialled on 26 March.
This time, the first payment is due on 31 July.
This means that we face another instance of provisional application because, as usual, the Council has not bothered to consult us.
However, the guilty party this time is the Commission.
I should like to take this opportunity of emphasizing once again that the last Commission official in charge of negotiating fisheries agreements with third countries was, like his predecessors, made fully aware of the importance of observing the democratic procedure for ratifying an international fisheries agreement - even if negotiations on such an agreement go on until three in the morning - and was told that agreeing deadlines for payment three or four months after the initialling of an agreement would simply no longer be acceptable.
The Crampton report also backs our repeated demand for the question of the application of the assent procedure to be clarified as part of the continuing negotiations on the revision of the Maastricht Treaty.
Therefore, as the member of the Committee on Budgets with permanent responsibility for reporting on fisheries issues, I welcome the decision that was taken by the Committee on Legal Affairs on 17 April this year to finally make an example of the agreement with Mauritania and contest the Council's chosen legal basis for that agreement in the Court of Justice.
Mr President, one of the reports we are going to pass is the report on the international fisheries agreements.
First I want to congratulate Mr Crampton on this report, because many of us opposed the initial proposal and yet, by an exercise of flexibility, Mr Crampton has been able to achieve a compromise which is undoubtedly positive for the Community fishing sector.
Our fishing fleet has obvious socio-economic importance. It generates activity and employment in areas where there are usually few economic alternatives.
So when our fishing grounds in Community waters cannot supply the catches required by the capacity of the European fishing fleet, we must look for alternatives in waters of other third countries.
It is a social obligation.
But we must also bear in mind that the Community runs a deficit in fish, so the needs of our own trade balance impel us to look for and promote this type of alternative for our fleet.
That is clearly stated in this report, which is why it deserves our full support.
The report also states that these fisheries agreements are perfectly compatible with cooperation policies for developing countries and actually make a contribution to them by dynamizing those economies.
So the fisheries agreements themselves can actually be active instruments of the cooperation policies, in addition, of course, to serving the interests of the Community fishing sector.
And the report underlines another sad reality.
The resources intended for these fisheries agreements, which must be financed by the Community budget, are not sufficient.
Year after year, the budget of the European Union increases and yet the amounts devoted to fishing in general, and to the fisheries agreements in particular, are not growing to the same extent but are diminishing in relative and indeed absolute terms - from ECU 278 million to ECU 273 million last year.
I think this is very difficult to accept, especially when the total of Community resources earmarked for the fishing sector accounts for only 0.9 % of the budget and the part intended for financing fishing rights is only 0.31 % of the budget of the European Union.
How can we justify to our fishermen the fact that while agriculture, the other primary sector, has 45 % of the Community budget devoted to it - ensuring that it has an income support policy - fishing, on the other hand, only receives 0.9 %? This is also denounced in one way or another in this report.
And as the European Parliament is a budgetary authority, logically this should give us food for thought too.
The report gives a realistic description of the Community fleet's ever-increasing difficulties of direct access to the fishing grounds of other third countries.
Those are the facts. And they mean we have to try to find alternatives in second and third generation fisheries agreements.
And I want to close with one thought, Mr President: we increasingly need a genuine European foreign policy to back up all our policies, including our socio-economic policies, and including our fisheries policies. That is a thought the Commissioner has had many times.
For example, in agreements with Russia our cod fleet needs to be able to obtain compensation to access Arctic resources, and the enormous advantages Norway gains from our markets ought to mean greater opportunities for the Community fishing sector.
In the future a common foreign policy which also covers trade policy, economic policy and cooperation policy may facilitate the development of international fisheries agreements. The Crampton report underlines the need for coherence between the various Community policies.
Mr President, Commissioner, for the foreseeable future, the European Union's international fisheries agreements will have to balance two conflicting sets of interests: on the one hand, there is the need to secure access for the EU fleet to the marine resources of third-country waters; on the other, there is the vital interest of developing countries in improving the exploitation of their own marine resources in order to supply their growing populations.
The rapporteur, Mr Crampton, has tried to tackle problems and set out demands which are geared to the future, and he deserves particular thanks for doing so, because one thing must be understood quite clearly: a strategy which is based on 'more of the same' will be a non-starter.
Indeed, the problems are already too urgent for that.
The capacity of the world's fishing fleet has doubled over the last 20 years, and the pressure on fisheries resources is steadily increasing.
The competition for fish as a declining source of food has intensified, with the result that it is becoming more and more expensive to exploit marine resources.
Tackling these problems requires transparency, a coherent approach and, above all, honesty.
One of the requirements of a transparent approach to international fisheries agreements is to consider who benefits from such agreements and on the basis of what criteria access to third-country waters is granted.
If the benefits of fisheries agreements are to be assessed in a comprehensible way, we must insist on a cost-benefit analysis - which must also consider the possible consequences of not having such agreements.
In particular, we wish to see the Commission adopting an integrated approach in this area, instead of the present ad hoc way of dealing with things.
Under Article 130v of the EC Treaty, the Community is already legally required to adopt a coherent approach to its various policies and to take account of their impact on developing countries.
Clearly, however, it is also in the Union's own interest to seek to achieve a balance of interests with the developing countries, framing bilateral fisheries agreements in such a way that these also play a part in developing the local economy and improving supplies for the indigenous population.
We expect second-generation agreements to further consolidate the element of cooperation with those countries that wish to have it.
Finally, an honest approach to international fisheries agreements also means admitting - to our own fishermen as much as anyone - that the long-term solution to the problem of overcapacity in the Community fleet does not lie in ever more intensive fishing of third-country waters.
Other mechanisms must be brought into play here, because this is a regional, rather than a sectoral problem.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there has often been a lack of will within the European Union over international fisheries agreements despite the fact that they are part and parcel of the Common Fisheries Policy.
Old arguments are trotted out, old chestnuts, such as budgetary costs, balance in the use of resources or the supposed contradiction between these agreements and the European Union's cooperation policy with ACP countries.
Access by the European Union's fishery fleets to the waters of third countries only has a raison d'être if it is in the interest of both parties.
Therefore no country, including those in the ACP, will sign these agreements with us unless its own interests, be they material, economic or social, are looked after.
Therefore, I fail to understand certain paternalistic positions calling into question the sovereignty and legitimacy of those countries in reaching international agreements.
On the other hand, it is a known fact that the European Union has an approximate 55 % deficit in fish supplies for its market.
We also know that 25 % of Community fishery production is guaranteed by international fisheries agreements.
It is also a fact that these agreements maintain around 50, 000 jobs in the European Union.
In the face of these facts and circumstances, I think that we have every justification and can say that the current 270 million ECU spent annually on international fisheries agreements is money well spent.
If we demand, as some people wish, an analysis of costs and benefits, then the same will have to be true for all Community policies, beginning with the one which costs the most - the Common Agricultural Policy or CAP.
As far as agreements with developed countries in particular are concerned, it is regrettable that the European Union should not have considered it a priority to look at the fisheries sector in economic trade negotiations with those countries.
I am thinking in particular of North America, where millions of tonnes of fish in international waters have been exclusively handed over for exploitation by Norway, Iceland, Canada and Russia, something which is very revealing.
Then there is the agreement with Greenland, for which quotas were attributed to Member States of the European Union which do not use them, including countries such as Portugal, which until it joined the European Union historically used to fish in those waters.
I should like to begin by thanking Mr Crampton for the work which he has carried out on his report.
But I must say, with every respect, that his report often confuses economic and commercial questions bound up with the common fisheries policy with questions which are more related to cooperation policy and tends in general to overestimate the problems of others compared with our own problems which are very many, especially in this area.
I therefore hope that the amendments tabled by the Committee on Fisheries will be approved, to make this report a balanced, realistic one serving the interests of the European Union.
Mr President, there are a hundred million people in developing countries who depend for their very basic survival on fishing - not just for their livelihood but their survival.
There are another ten million people in developing countries who are employed in the fishing industry full-time; that is their source of employment.
Another ten million people are employed part-time in developing countries and fishing is one of their activities.
These are extraordinary statistics.
A hundred million people is more than twice the populations of Spain and Portugal put together.
It is almost twice the population of the United Kingdom.
And these people depend for their basic survival on fishing.
The Crampton report is a good report in that it points out certain parameters and certain principles which we should be basing our fishing and development policy on.
We need a new European fisheries development policy.
It must go beyond the framework of commercial agreements.
These are costing the Community budget about 30 % of the fisheries budget.
This cannot be right.
For next year's budget we are going to be reducing the PESCA projects by 50 %.
And here in our own Union, where there are tremendous problems of decommissioning and areas suffering from unemployment because of constraints and the need to conserve stocks, we are reducing expenditure while at the same time we are spending a third of our budget on commercial agreements.
The Community has its priorities wrong and we need a new fisheries policy.
There are problems with the Crampton report.
Some unhelpful amendments were tabled at the final meeting of the Committee on Fisheries.
There are some small difficulties, which result in the kind of mishmash which Mr Cunha mentioned.
But the report offers a way forward and we have to seize the opportunity for a new development in the fisheries area.
Concerning Mr Macartney's amendment to the Souchet report, if we are going to have reform of the CFP, it should look to the year 2002 as agreed and we should have discussions.
It should not be slipped in by the back door, as some people appear to be trying to do.
Then there is the matter of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, in the Suanzes-Carpegna report.
I cannot understand Amendment No 2.
I thought the whole emphasis of the European Union was to settle disputes with the Commission and the Member States.
But some people on the Committee on Fisheries seem to think otherwise.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I want to add my congratulations to those received by the rapporteurs for their reports in this joint debate and I want to concentrate particularly on the international agreements, especially thanking Mr Crampton, in his Dr Jekyll incarnation, for the valuable work he has done and also for the flexibility he has shown in achieving compromise solutions in the Committee on Fisheries, even if the result was not entirely to his liking.
This is also a good time to think about the future of the Community fisheries agreements, which have frequently been attacked from myopic political positions based on partial analysis of the relative participation of the Member States, sometimes on imaginary conflict with development policy, and occasionally on dubious reasoning associated with fairly unsound cost-benefit analysis.
These are all attempts to undermine a policy which is not only vital to maintaining the activity in an important sector of the Community fleet, but - as the chairman of the Committee on Fisheries has mentioned - also for regular supply of the Community fish products processing industry at reasonable prices and high quality.
Because there is no getting away from it, the European Union is faced with a clear dilemma: either to abandon its current policy of negotiation or to make it more effective.
If it abandons it, there are two possibilities: either the field would be left open to fleets of third countries filling the gap left by the European Union, or we would be witness to a partial renationalization of fisheries policy, because the Member States themselves or their economic agents would negotiate more useful agreements.
I think the actual interests of coastal third countries counsel continuing with this policy, because the European Union negotiates fishing opportunities based on a rigorous analysis of the state of the fishing grounds, establishes appropriate technical measures, and contributes to the promotion of fishing control activities with the states with which it negotiates, and to the development of the national fishing sectors in those countries.
What is the best option, negotiating fisheries agreements with a responsible political body like the European Union or the anarchy the free play of economic forces would lead to?
I think the answer is obvious.
As a Parliament committed to respect for the environment in all its facets, driving development policy forward, concerned about keeping our fishing fleets active and our processing industries regularly supplied, we must continue to support a Community policy of fisheries agreements which has proved its worth both to Member States and third countries. And we must do so without abandoning the necessary improvement in the institutional procedures which will sharpen Parliament's protagonism in the context of this policy.
It is very easy to criticize, but there are few alternatives.
So I encourage you, Madam Commissioner, coolly and rationally, to press ahead with this policy, which is difficult but has produced such good results so far.
Mr President, all the very valuable reports before us tonight deal with agreements and treaties on how best to regulate and control fishing in national and international waters at a time when there are very considerable concerns about over fishing and reduction of fish-stocks.
The report by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna contains a reference to the duty of the country under whose flag a vessel is flying to exercise jurisdiction and take action if that vessel infringes the regulations.
I should like to draw to the Commissioner's attention the difficulties being experienced in exercising that duty in relation to some socalled quota-hoppers.
I have been told of recent cases of non-British vessels sailing under the British flag, which were prosecuted in a British court, found guilty and fined, simply sailing away to another Member State leaving the fines unpaid.
Some system must be found to ensure that all vessels sailing under a particular national flag are made accountable to the courts of that state, and the Member State of which the captain and crew are nationals must cooperate in ensuring that this blatant flouting of conservation measures is stopped.
Very many fishermen, all over the EU, from communities like Grimsby in my own constituency, have become unemployed as a result of conservation measures.
Vessel owners have received EU compensation; but the people who worked on the decommissioned boats in the UK did not even receive statutory redundancy pay, let alone EU compensation, because they were designated casual workers even if they worked on the same ship for many years.
This is a serious injustice which continues to cause great resentment against the European Union in general as well as the common fisheries policy.
I would ask the Commissioner to ensure that future decommissioning is done in such a way as to ensure that not just the vessel owners, but also those who worked and risked their lives at sea, receive some sort of appropriate compensation for the loss of their livelihood.
A fishing set-aside to compensate for reduced days at sea is also a measure that possibly could be taken.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report reflects the duality and political tension raised by this subject.
On one hand, we point out the costs, and the benefits, with the Commission itself stating that the current budgetary situation is such that with the cost of current agreements we have very little room for manoeuvre when negotiating new agreements or renegotiating existing ones.
From the point of view of cooperation and development, we emphasize the option for local fleets of third countries, where the Community fleet is already fishing, such as the example of the fisheries development plan concerning the Kingdom of Morocco.
On the other hand, the Member States are systematically confronted with fleets and fishermen depending on international fisheries agreements.
I can detect a certain amount of anti-Europeanism here, with calls for progressive extensions and increases for fishery rights of third countries, emphasizing the virtues of a hypothetical bilateral negotiation of fishery rights to renationalize fisheries policies.
Our real challenge is defence of the Community fleet without taking anti-environmental or anti-European positions.
In my opinion, all of these budgetary discussions about costs and benefits are all part of the scheme to try to transfer available financial resources to other objectives and this in the end reflects an incomplete picture in the whole approach to the European project, in a sector of huge political relevance and with enormous impact on employment in certain coastal regions of the European Community.
Apart from that, the international fisheries agreements represent only 0.31 % of the whole Community budget and there is no doubt that a policy without agreements, at 1996 costs, would result in an increase in the sea-product trade deficit of at least 1, 400 million ECU a year, whereas extra direct unemployment in this sector would come to something like 450 million ECU per year in unemployment benefit.
On the other hand, any proposals bearing in mind a controversial and complex shareout of costs between shipowners and the Commission or a freeze on Community financial contributions would lead to a strengthening of the aforementioned trend towards 're-nationalizing' fisheries policies.
That was the appeal I wanted to make because the political cost of such an option would be incalculable as well as the economic impact on fishery areas.
Finally, it is in particular from the viewpoint of resources management that we must assess the future of international fisheries agreements.
Sea resource management is the keystone for sustainable fishing and initially it will be for coastal states to see to this management without discrimination between national and Community fleets.
There is now a new international legal framework in the fishery sector confirmed by the United Nations Convention on Maritime Law, and I should also like to point out the code of conduct for responsible fishing.
The resources we are talking about are finite and only sustainable fishing will allow the sector to continue, as well as international fisheries agreements.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the Commissioner on what she said, 90 % of which I agree with.
I share her frustrations with many of the Member States, especially, perhaps, in recent times, my own.
We recognize that the Commission has come a long way.
Indeed, in this report from the Committee on Fisheries we congratulate the Commission on one of their latest documents: ' Fisheries agreements: current situation and agreements' .
I think they are moving in the right direction.
My report is supposed to try and help.
Mr President, the Commissioner asked that the blame be placed where it belonged.
She is right to do so.
In particular she is right to blame the UK Government, although she did not single it out for its failure on decommissioning.
But equally, as the guardian of Community law, she has the responsibility for the legal competence of the subject of the Souchet report.
I hope that she will go back to look at the legal base which we are examining in this Parliament.
The two go together.
If we uphold the correct legal base and assign blame where it belongs, then let us be consistent there too.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I refer to page 11, item 7 of the Minutes - the debate on my report.
I wish to make a personal statement following the speech by Ms McKenna, in which she said: ' I know that Mr Titley is a lobbyist for what I would call the merchants of death.'
As a dramatic statement, that is in line with the best editions of Irish literature; as a statement of fact, it is entirely untrue.
It is not in the best interests of the House, particularly when debating the Ford report on lobbyists, for accusations of this nature to be made by a Member of this House.
I can assure this House I am not a lobbyist for anybody, and, as to merchants of death, we do not meet many of them in Bolton market, so I am not sure what she means.
She also said that I advocate in my report that the European taxpayer should contribute to the arms industry.
There is no such claim whatsoever in my report.
This only propagates a Green newsletter which is widely distributed, and which, if it were in the United Kingdom, would be libellous.
Therefore, I would like to make it clear that these statements are entirely untrue.
Mr President, I wish to make a statement because yesterday in southern France a certain number of goods, mostly Spanish ones, mostly fruit and vegetables, attacked and destroyed.
I wish to condemn this act of aggression and call on the Community authorities to remind the French authorities of the need to ensure the free transit and free circulation of goods.
Unfortunately, we witness similar attacks from time to time in various Community countries in recent years, and I think we all ought to echo your protest and condemn these attacks each time, because the national authorities should indeed protect the free movement of workers from other European countries who come into the European Union.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Nuclear industries
The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Soulier (A4-0131/97), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission on the nuclear industries in the European Union (Illustrative nuclear programme according to Article 40 of the EURATOM Treaty) (COM(96)0339 - C4-0532/96).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to remind you that this debate is a première.
The Commission was not bound, by the provisions of Article 40 of the Euratom Treaty, to consult the European Parliament.
It has, however, done so.
Apart from your natural elegance and the good manners that you have shown to the European Parliament I should like to tell you, Commissioner, that you were right to do this.
We all need the support of public opinion when it comes to energy problems.
It is quite remarkable to see that in Europe, over the last 40 years, nuclear policies have been worked out by small groups of men - scientists, politicians and industrialists - without any real public consultation before decisions were taken, in particular through the intermediary of their national representatives.
It is, therefore, a good thing that an institution like ours should have its word to say about energy policy, both in terms of Member States and at the level of the European Union as a whole.
The second comment I would like to make is that the geopolitical conditions have changed since the signing of the Euratom Treaty as well as the prosperity of 30 years which passed between 1950 and 1980.
The question of the European Union's energy independence has become a crucial one.
The world, contrary to what was thought in 1989, is still somewhat unsafe, and it is from rather unstable areas that most of the Member States' petrol and gas resources come.
Do we really think - and do the public really think - about the situation we would be in if Russia, the Middle East, North Africa, were for a time inaccessible to us? The Gulf War showed that the West was very quick to intervene because the threat was not a theoretical one.
That is the yardstick by which we must measure the interest of a nuclear industrial policy.
In my report I have asked questions about its efficiency and the risks, and I think that my report is both moderate and pragmatic.
It is moderate because we have to be modest. What do we know of technological inventions to come in the next few years?
How can we can really make any judgment about a given type of nuclear reactor without far-ranging scientific knowledge? Of course we must trust the experts, but we must also debate together the conclusions of their work and its findings.
On this subject, I should like to say that I oppose most of the amendments tabled by Mrs McNally for two reasons.
First of all Mrs McNally contradicted her own amendment when she recognised that the Member States have the sovereign right to opt for or against nuclear power and that their choice had to be respected.
In the amendments tabled for the plenary session, Mrs McNally wishes to extend to all Member States a ban on nuclear power in the long run.
This is not in keeping with the initial thought.
But, above all, I should like to tell her that it is not possible not to bear in mind scientific progress.
We are all bound by technical progress and technological advances, and from that point of view we have to trust in progress.
I should like to mention the following points.
Europe is more than 60 % dependent for its supplies.
If today or in the coming years nuclear energy was banned or suppressed we would be dependent at a rate of over 80 % and, therefore, I would say we would be in greater danger.
Secondly, of course, we are all in favour of renewable energies!
Are they sufficiently advanced at present to enable us to replace what we extract from nuclear sources? There is no doubt that at the moment the answer to that question is 'no' .
Third remark: this industry, at the present time, directly or indirectly employs some 400, 000 people in Europe.
And we want to get rid of those jobs with one amendment!
Finally, industrial nature hates vacuums!
By that I mean to say - although I would not put money on it - that if we put an end to European nuclear industries, the United States and Japan which, unlike you, Commissioner, would not ask us any questions, would be there to replace us, whether in Europe or another continent.
And then, to finish, before a very brief conclusion, we have also in this area a duty of solidarity, interested duty, without any cynicism, towards the countries of Eastern Europe: in particular Ukraine and Russia.
Their nuclear power stations deserve safety levels which are equivalent to ours.
If we just get up and go, we would also be replaced in that domain, and it is our very own safety which is at stake and I think that, therefore, we should maintain a level of technology which is high enough for us to be able to take action in that area.
I have not issued an unreserved approval of the nuclear policy.
But I have placed the necessary emphasis on the need to win over public opinion, and the fact that we must fight against the ageing of nuclear power stations.
It is almost a biological phenomenon of society and one that we must face up to.
We cannot leave nuclear power stations as they are, but we must also trust technical procedures which are currently available to us and which probably will continue making progress to eliminate waste.
But we should not, as Mrs McNally has asked in her amendments, put an end to research funding.
Everyone talks about great ambitions for Europe!
But what would Europe be without energy?
What would agriculture be without energy? What would be the use of an internal market if we had no energy and if industry slowed down?
What would be the use of a single currency if we had less to buy? Totally banning the nuclear market at this time is a fantasy for the rich and a theoretical pipe dream about man's future!
Mr Rapporteur, the Bureau is always rather lenient towards rapporteurs, we know how difficult it is for them to have their say in a short time, but I would prefer speeches to end without the statement 'I am finishing' .
That would save a bit of time.
Mr President, it is tempting for me to ask for as long an extension as the previous speaker, but I shall see if I can do without it.
I should like to begin by thanking Mrs McNally for her great efforts in trying to persuade the Energy Committee to include the Environment Committee's suggestions in its report, unfortunately without success.
However, I would also thank her for tabling some proposals here in plenary which are in keeping with the spirit of the Environment Committee's opinion, so that we can have the chance of voting on them.
It surprises me, in fact, that the Energy Committee was unable to accept a number of the Environment Committee's proposals.
Both committees agree with the Commission that the choice of energy sources is a sovereign matter for the individual countries, and for them alone.
The logical consequence of this is therefore that we cannot keep the Euratom Treaty in its present form.
The aim of the Euratom Treaty is to promote nuclear energy.
It should thus be revised in such a way that health and safety are the prime objectives.
The resources should be used for work on the environmental problems associated with the use of nuclear power, including the question of the storage of radioactive waste and safety issues arising from the decommissioning of nuclear power stations.
That would be in keeping with the Maastricht Treaty, unlike the promotion of nuclear power.
I am well aware that the rapporteur for the Energy Committee, Mr Soulier, is very impressed by nuclear power, but it is not the purpose of the Union to promote it.
On the other hand, it is our purpose to promote the environment.
It would be desirable to do this by tightening up the existing action plan for the improvement of safety at nuclear power plants in Central and Eastern Europe, something which directly affects safety in the EU and is also in accordance with the objectives of the Maastricht Treaty.
The conclusion is that every effort should be made to improve the environment and the safety of existing plants, and not to build new ones.
If individual countries wish to invest in nuclear power stations, that is their affair.
It can never be the task of the EU.
The EU's efforts should be concentrated on the environmental aspect of the energy issue, in other words energy savings, efficiency, renewable energy sources, and so on.
Mr President, thank you Mr Soulier for your introduction.
You have tried hard to be factual in your report and that is appreciated but you must admit that, on the whole, your report is rather optimistic about the future of nuclear power in Western Europe.
The EURATOM Treaty is 40 years old this year.
We have not had a party to celebrate it and like many of us it is beginning to show its age.
It was written and signed in 1957 and it bears all the hallmarks of the philosophy and expectations of that time which are no longer applicable.
It was a new technology which fired many hopes, some of which have been realized, most not.
The actual requirement on the European Commission was to bring forward a publication which would show production and investment figures in an indicative programme.
In the past that would have shown a constant increase in nuclear power.
If they had produced what they were asked to this time, it would be the smallest piece of paper with the least written on it of anything produced because the intentions for investment in Western Europe in nuclear power are practically nil.
This certainly applies to my country as well as France and I think to Germany and every other country.
There is no intention to build a lot more nuclear power stations. Why not?
Because in the years since the high hopes of the EURATOM Treaty were set down, the public have come to realize that there is a price to be paid for nuclear power.
That price is knowing how to dispose of the radioactive waste, how to ensure our safety - two or more dramatic accidents in those 40 years have shaken the public's faith - and how to cope with the costs of decommissioning.
The liberalization of electricity directive is one big reason why there will not be investment in nuclear power in Western Europe.
If Western European nuclear enterprises want to take their expertise around the world that is a matter for them, not for the European Union to support.
I deprecate the installation of nuclear power in some countries where the culture and the requirements for such potentially dangerous forms of energy are not available.
If Mr Soulier's paragraph 18 which says 'there is no alternative to nuclear power' is passed, we will vote against his report.
We had a prime minister once who said 'there is no alternative' .
She was wrong.
Mr Soulier is wrong.
There is considerable potential in rational use of energy; if research into renewable energy had been funded at the same rate as nuclear energy has been over the last 40 years, we would be in a very different position.
We do not have to decide for another 15 or 20 years about investment in a new form of power.
There will be many solutions in front of us at that time.
I regret, Commissioner, that you did not fulfil your task.
I understand why you were unable to do so and I hope your inability to show investment figures shows that in the future nuclear power should not be the main form of energy in this European Union.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Soulier, for this excellent report which provides a genuinely balanced view of the nuclear industry in the European Union.
The illustrative nuclear programme makes short-term projections which take account, harmoniously, of the new directive on the liberalization of the electricity market, and that is very important.
It is also formulated within the framework of the White Paper on the energy policy of the European Union and adopts the main themes of that White Paper: competitiveness, security of supply and protection of the environment, applying them to the field of nuclear policy.
So it is an extremely balanced report, too, as regards it terms of reference.
I believe it is fundamental, as is very clearly stated, that each Member State should be free to decide for or against the nuclear option. I myself, although I come from a country which has previously decided against the use of nuclear power, believe that we must not be too hasty in forming adverse conclusions regarding this very special energy resource, because the various activities of the nuclear industry do in any case concern, directly or indirectly, all the Member States.
It is therefore a matter of importance that the European Parliament should give its own opinion on this sector, which is covered by the EURATOM Treaty, partly because of the consequences which this debate may have on public opinion, doing something to remedy the existing democratic shortfall.
I am also in agreement with Mr Soulier when he says that we need to examine with more interest other types of reactors.
Technology moves quickly and the ageing process is insidious, so we need to take a look at new solutions in the fields of medicine and pharmaceuticals.
We really do regret the fact that this aspect has not been adequately considered by the Commission.
In conclusion, Mr President, the safety factor certainly imposes a responsibility on all Member States towards the citizens of Europe, but we agree with Mr Soulier's view that a great deal must be done to strengthen and improve this safety aspect, not least in connection with the States of Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner. First of all I should like on behalf of the Liberal Group to congratulate Mr Soulier on his report.
He seized the opportunity of drafting a realistic resolution on a controversial subject and I think that is rather clever for a Frenchman.
My group has no objection in principle to nuclear energy.
It is a clean technology which is constantly becoming more sophisticated and safer and once a nuclear power station is built it seems to provide cheap electricity.
But even the safest power station is manned by people.
Accidents usually happen not as a result of inadequate technology but of human error.
The transport of nuclear material through densely populated parts of Europe involves major, even unacceptable risks, not to mention the risks involved in air transport.
There has been another example of this just this week involving transport in England.
Nuclear waste is stored temporarily in all Member States and I would ask Commissioner Papoutsis when we are finally going to get a definitive solution. I would also like to know whether he supervises air transport in Europe.
For this is what Europe's citizens are worried about. They may not express it in words but they do in action such as blockading nuclear transport.
In economic terms I identify two other problems.
The Commission must safeguard conditions for competition now that the electricity market has been opened up.
This means that there can be no subsidising of new nuclear power stations, either by national governments or by Europe.
That would seriously distort the market for other forms of energy.
That is why our group will vote against paragraph 18.
Export of technology from the European Union to less developed countries must be preceded by information targeted at the population on the pros and cons of nuclear energy.
A sustainable environment, ladies and gentlemen, does not end at the external borders of the European Union.
Mr President, to date, three nuclear indicative programmes have been published at Community level to present long-term projections.
The 1997 Indicative Programme, which we are debating today, offers a picture of the nuclear industry in the European Union, analyzes the problems posed by technological development and puts forward some suggestions in reply.
The Committee on Energy's report, presented by Mr Soulier, on the Commission communication is a balanced one.
In my opinion, it succeeds in avoiding two pitfalls: blind trust in the nuclear power industry and highly unreasonable fears of that same industry and related fantasies.
It is based on technological development and European knowledge in nuclear matters.
These are definitely advantages to be enhanced.
The report rightly poses the question of the European Union's growing energy dependency.
It shows that nuclear energy, which on average supplies 35 % of electricity supplies in Europe and up to 75 % in France, makes a very large contribution to reducing this dependence.
At the same time, it does not ignore questions linked to the environment, safety or human health.
As for the very controversial issue of radioactive waste, it puts forward practical proposals linked to the rapid development of science and technology, in particular the elimination or diminution of radioactivity by means of particle accelerators, their transmutation, or generator-free reactors.
For this purpose, major investment will be needed in order to implement a programme guaranteeing the permanent storage of radioactive waste without any danger for future generations.
In tandem, the report recognises that Member States have the sovereign right to opt for or against nuclear power and forcefully asserts that their choice must be respected.
For my part, I hope that this balanced approach - which is respectful of each Member State's choice - will be approved by the European Parliament.
From this point of view, I welcome the rejection in committee of the dogmatic amendments tabled by the Greens, based on scientific guess-work and ideological prejudice.
The French members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left will maintain their opposition to these amendments in the plenary session.
The Commission document falls within the context of the Directive on the liberalization of electricity and the framework of a common energy policy.
This approach - about which Mr Soulier's report says too little, in my opinion - seems dangerous, in my view, since its main objective is to adapt the energy market to the principles of free trade and competition, speeding up the process of liberalization and deregulation, without any concern for the economic, social and regional consequences.
For these reasons, I am opposed to a common energy policy which would be a strait-jacket and a permanent threat to the Member States' energy choices.
I therefore propose that we encourage cooperation, and coordination of national policies in the development of research.
Energy is not a commodity like any other.
It cannot and must not obey the principle of free trade - that would run the risk of calling into question the quality of access and treatment for users, but also the energy choices of each country, and the necessary long-term view to guarantee supply safety and lessen energy dependence.
With these reservations, I therefore confirm that I shall be supporting the report drafted by the Committee on Energy.
Mr President, let me just say to the previous speaker: our amendments are not based on ideology but quite simply on facts that can be proven.
I can understand that this does not suit her, as a Frenchwoman, but nevertheless one should not mix up the facts.
As for the Commission's nuclear programme, it is marked by the thinking and environmental approach of the 1960s and in no way takes account either of current knowledge and needs or of the fact that half the Member States have no nuclear power at all.
On closer inspection it actually becomes clear that countries that do have nuclear power do not want to build new nuclear power stations because their people do not want it and also because it is too expensive.
It is in fact cheaper not to build nuclear power stations, for to build a new 1000 megawatt reactor costs between five and eight times as much as to build a modern conventional reactor.
Yet the Commission is calling for long-term regional and economic framework conditions that are nothing more than specific aid programmes - which we have already had in 1972, 1976, 1984 and 1990.
And we are now basically being presented with a fifth aid programme for the nuclear industry.
Your document is also littered with mistakes and half-truths.
You state that nuclear installations are designed and built to contain virtually all the byproducts of their operation, even under accidental conditions.
That is surely quite wrong, for I wonder how the radioactivity from Windscale-Sellafield can be measured off the coasts of Canada and I wonder how come the drinking water at The Hague is contaminated with tritium and I wonder why nuclides escape during the normal running of nuclear power stations?
This cannot be accepted as it stands.
Even to say the costs of dismantling a nuclear power station are 10 % to 15 % of the construction costs is a nonsense.
Firstly, we have only dismantled small nuclear power stations - two to date - and secondly they had extremely short running times, namely four to six weeks.
Now France, for instance, is postponing the dismantling for 50 years, England is doing so for a whole 100 years, so I do not know how these costs can be calculated.
Then you say that progress has been made in disposing of the waste from European nuclear installations.
That is a bit much!
Indeed fears are growing here.
Surely you are not calling it waste disposal when I put the rubbish bin in the hall.
That is not disposal.
It is not clear which geological barriers are the correct ones.
We do not even know into what matrix we are squeezing it, let alone how to evaluate and set the criteria for the long-term safety of nuclear storage sites.
Lastly let me say this: we have two thousand tonnes of weapon-grade plutonium and uranium in the world, and that is bad.
To this the Commission says: we want to process it into MOX fuel.
I say: that too is nonsense, for most light-water reactors are not suited to that.
The nuclear industry had 40 years to prove that it is clean, safe and cheap and that the waste can be disposed of safely.
It has not managed to do so in those 40 years.
So the only conclusion to be drawn is: out with this dinosaur technology!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am astonished by the counter-truths and gratuitous remarks contained in the report drafted by the Committee on Energy.
I shall mention just two.
In Recital F it says that: ' Whereas the issue of the environment cannot be dissociated from the development of the nuclear sector, first as regards the reduction in CO2 emissions to which it contributes...' .
This is simply untrue.
Several studies dating back to the early 1990s clearly show that CO2 emissions caused by electricity production and electro-nuclear energy approach 54 grams of CO2 per kilowatt/hour.
These emissions mostly come from enrichment but also from the extraction of uranium mineral.
Yet this enrichment is carried out using fossil energies in most of the countries where it occurs, contrary to what is stated in this report.
Nuclear power stations themselves do not produce carbon-dioxide but the nuclear cycle does.
What are the alternatives? For example, gas turbines or co-generation turbines which only emit 33 grams of carbon-dioxide per kilowatt/hour of electricity - and there are even more effective systems than that.
From the economic point of view, the nuclear sector, since the Chernobyl accident, has been unable to take out insurance policies because no insurer would agree to assure against this type of risk.
That is why I can only commend my colleagues to vote for the amendments tabled by Mrs von Blottnitz.
I am a Luxembourger and my country is surrounded by nuclear power stations, especially the one in Cattenom and that is why I can in no way bring myself to agree with Mr Soulier.
Mr President, we need a fundamental discussion of the use of nuclear technology for supplying energy.
Accidents and leaks from nuclear reactors have increased rather than decreased in recent years.
We are all aware of that.
If there is broad opposition to the transport of nuclear material, as there is in Germany, for example, this transport also has to be included in the estimate of costs.
That is another reason to look closely at the nuclear industry as such.
It is certainly a fairytale to say that we cannot do without it.
In fact nuclear energy poses a constant threat that will continue long after our generations have died.
I believe it is also a question of democratic policy.
In the foreseeable future Sweden will abandon nuclear energy.
Then the countries against it, including my own, Austria, will be in the majority.
It is also a matter of democratic decision-making to consider how to get out of it.
It is quite incorrect to declare that nuclear energy is an environmental technology, because in fact radiation survives for thousands of years. Who would be so presumptuous as to give guarantees of safety over such a long period of time?
And the statement, supposedly based on scientific evidence, that nuclear fuel can be used in a cycle is one that I do not think anyone in this Chamber believes.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Soulier.
He has succeeded in drafting a balanced report on this difficult subject, seething with passions but bereft of any objectivity.
I also wish to refer to the subject of the Commission communication on nuclear industry, as it is not only electricity companies that exploit nuclear power stations, but also that huge workforce which Europe needs so much: equipment, materials, services and engineering.
There are many projects currently being developed throughout the world for new power stations in Iran, Turkey, Brazil, Korea and China.
And we need work.
I refer to high technology.
It is the nuclear industry, ladies and gentlemen, which has enabled our industries greatly to improve technology.
China now has 2, 100 nuclear megawatts and by the year 2020 wishes to have 20, 000.
I think that countries like Portugal and Italy and others which have no nuclear power stations could export equipment and could also end up playing a very important role - this is something which we need, Commissioner.
I would, therefore, ask you to do all you can to enhance the export of equipment for nuclear power stations, services and engineering.
In the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy - and, even more so, in the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection - we are always talking about internalizing all costs.
Yet no-one admits that nuclear energy does this.
It is the only energy, the only energy in terms of kilowatts per hour in which we consumers not only pay for that kilowatt but also the current and future cost of the treatment of waste and the dismantling of nuclear power stations, which have to be closed once they are obsolete.
I would like to see other sectors such as the chemicals, food, coal, gas industries and power stations doing the same.
It is not a question of an ideological defence - as Mr Desama said so well - in favour or against nuclear energy - nuclear energy is a complementary energy.
All I want to say is that it is a whole technology and we should therefore ask individual countries and the Commissioner to do the most that they can to create jobs and export our goods.
Mr President, I must congratulate André Soulier on his excellent report.
Although some people are still trying to denigrate nuclear power, we should never forget that nuclear power supplies more than one-third of the energy of many European countries, it ensures supply security, it creates qualified jobs and, above all, the use of nuclear energy contributes to the reduction of carbon-dioxide emission.
We are not, however, blindly smug about nuclear power.
We must also take care to maintain the safety of nuclear installations and improve the management of waste.
The European Union today disposes of a nuclear industry which is reaching its maturity, which ensures the mastery of the whole cycle of nuclear fuel and which, therefore, guarantees optimum risk management, which is not yet the case in the East.
Nor should be forget that the problem linked to the ageing of existing nuclear power stations is dealt with in depth by the rapporteur in the light of recent technological progress which stems from research begun several years ago.
That will prevent us from being caught out when we have to modernize existing nuclear installations.
Research must indeed be pursued in order to reduce the radioactivity of waste and its elimination.
Projects such as sub-generator reactors developed in particular by Carlo Rubia deserve all of our attention and I know that the Commission is working on these.
We must do all we can to pursue the policy undertaken to reduce waste and the storage of residual waste in order to ensure and maintain our energy independence.
While safety and management at the end of the combustible cycle are reaching satisfactory levels in European Union countries, they must be improved in countries of central and eastern Europe and in the countries of the CIS.
This calls for us to pursue efforts which have already been made and we should also support the remarkable report drafted by Mr Soulier, our colleague.
Mr President, unfortunately I cannot congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Soulier.
I think the report glosses over the basic questions and that it is contradictory.
I consider it quite intolerable for the explanatory statement to contain the phrase: ' Nuclear power... has demonstrated its economic effectiveness.'
At the same time the report also admits that central questions such as cost, dismantling and storage have still not been resolved.
Secondly, the question of Eastern Europe has just been raised.
That will be a difficult issue during the accession negotiations.
How is this problem to be resolved in terms of costs?
Thirdly, paragraph 17 refers to balanced investment in research.
Exactly the opposite is needed.
We need an unbalanced research policy that favours research into renewable, alternative energy sources.
Fourthly, it is said that specific information should be provided on the advantages and disadvantages when exporting nuclear technology.
It is far more important to examine alternative energy sources in these countries.
On all these points I quite definitely reject the report and will support all the amendments relating to abandoning nuclear energy.
Mr President, it is no secret that my own party, the German Social-Democratic Party, is against nuclear energy.
Nor is it a secret to colleagues that I personally, although a convinced Social Democrat, take a different view.
So I want to offer the rapporteur warm congratulations.
I would have written a similar report.
Let me say the following to Mr Weber: if it really were true that nuclear energy does not save on CO2 , then can he explain why about 7 tonnes of CO2 a year is produced per capita of population in France and 11 tonnes per capita in Denmark, which has no nuclear energy.
These calculations can be refuted by the real figures.
Turning to the matter in hand: what is our role here?
We are not building nuclear power stations.
We are not deciding whether and where a nuclear power plant is to be built.
But we are responsible for keeping the crossborder damage as low as possible - in other areas too, not just the nuclear area.
So it is our duty to see to safety, which is why it makes sense, even for those who do not want to use nuclear energy, to make research funds available.
And available not just for us but for the whole world, to cooperate, to offer technology, with a view to reducing the risks.
And now to the technology itself. People very often have the impression that nuclear energy is becoming a dated technology, yesterday's technology, so to speak.
That is utter nonsense.
In any case there has never been a technology that simply stopped at some point.
Every technology goes on being developed.
Nuclear energy, nuclear research are also continuing to develop and in any case the research is free; this is even laid down in our German constitution.
It will go on developing and is doing so on a worldwide basis.
There are a number of examples of this.
The question facing us is: do we want to hold back our knowledge, to destroy it in a sense? Or do we want to offer our knowledge, so that other sovereign states that are willing to invest in this sector can at least do so safely?
Nuclear disarmament is another subject we should consider - with a view to destroying stocks rather than building up new ones.
Here too we have an enormous know-how in the European Union. No, I really think we should not close our eyes to reality here but make our contribution towards reducing the risks in nuclear as in other forms of technology.
Mr President, in 1985 Portugal said 'no' to nuclear power, when faced with an advanced project to build four nuclear power stations.
It said no for environmental reasons, but above all for economic reasons.
Two years later and a number of 'Chernobyls' , and history has shown that the Portuguese were right to say no.
We now see that seven European countries have decided against nuclear power.
Even in the others, no new nuclear power station is being built and one of them, Sweden, has the intention of beginning to dismantle its nuclear power stations by 2001. Spain has also decided to bring a halt to its programme.
Why? Because the costs are huge for the environment, for public health and also for national budgets.
The argument of the low cost of nuclear energy is fallacious, because no consideration is given in those estimates to the cost of research, civil liability in the case of accidents and, above all, the cost of storing solid waste and dismantling obsolete nuclear power stations which, at present, cannot extend beyond forty years.
No-one has dared actually to carry out that dismantling, not even in America.
I agree with Mr Soulier, the rapporteur, when he calls for a list to be drawn up of functioning nuclear power stations and existing waste as immediate measures.
But I must insist that the European Union's energy policy has to clearly to point to ending nuclear power in the medium term.
In principle, I agree with André Soulier that countries should be able to choose their own system, a principle which is, after all, the basis of the whole European Union project, given that the Union can decide only to support programmes based on renewable energy sources and energy efficiency. This is the central question, it is a political question.
I support the inclusion in the Treaty of a chapter on energy, but only in this perspective, and changing the legal base so as to depend on Article 189C which provides for co-decision with the European Parliament and majority voting in the Council of Ministers.
The sustainable energy policy supported in the Stockmann report, also supported in the Commission's Green Paper, is given backing by Portugal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I know that my point of view is not the majority one of my group, which I respect but do not share, but I must say that, in my opinion, my view is the only one which goes beyond short-term interests.
As politicians we are obliged to defend points of view which go beyond short-term interests.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what I have to say represents my personal view and not the view of my group.
I cannot congratulate the rapporteur Mr Soulier for what he has written in his report.
His report is an encouragement of the use of nuclear energy.
And while we can accept that in the countries of the European Union there are enough rules concerning safety and the protection of the environment, this report says nothing about third countries or countries associated with the European Union.
Commissioner, I will mention two examples which worry me a great deal.
In answer to a question of mine on the resumption of operations by unit 1 at Kozloduy, Commissioner Van den Broek said to me - I have his answer here - that 'the Commission has contacted the government of Bulgaria because unit 1 was brought into operation again without the necessary repairs having been carried out beforehand' .
A few days ago, you all read in the papers about the fault in unit 1, and while it may have been announced that there were no leaks, I do not know what might happen tomorrow.
The second example: again in reply to my question on the nuclear plant Turkey is building in the Akköy area, an area particularly prone to earthquakes, he answered that 'the project cannot go ahead because - he said - no study concerning the environment has yet been carried out by the relevant Ministry in Turkey' .
Despite which, the plant is being built, as I read in a Canadian paper - because a Canadian Company is building it - and indeed, with a type of reactor that will enable its nuclear waste to be processed into atomic weapons.
Commissioner, what are we going to do about all this?
Mr Soulier, why do you say nothing about those cases? Because nuclear energy is a time bomb which, when it explodes, does not confine its effects within the frontiers of the country concerned.
They spread .
So when Bulgaria and Turkey are in Europe, what will we do then, Mr Soulier?
Mr President, Austria decided against the use of nuclear energy in a referendum, and that is the strongest mandate a politician can have.
At present there exists no nuclear power station in which an MCA, a maximum credible nuclear accident, can be excluded.
So every nuclear power station in Europe concerns us all.
The question of nuclear waste, which will produce highly dangerous radiation for thousands of years, has not been resolved at all.
Yet we happily go on producing.
We really are a curious, inhumane, immoral generation.
Do not misunderstand me: nuclear energy may be a great opportunity for mankind.
But we still have to invest a lot of money and also time in research.
It would be irresponsible not to try to develop this young technology further, but it would be equally short-sighted not to put just as much money and brain-power into developing renewable energy sources.
Today we can only say a definite no to every new nuclear power station, every report in favour of it.
But we are also against quite simplistically no longer giving assistance in the areas set out in the Euratom Treaty, e.g. in relation to research and also to safety standards.
People are always looking boldly to the future, sometimes via the circuitous route of a very very terrible past.
Let us remember Chernobyl.
We have to assume responsibility here, today, in the present.
We have to vote today according to the best of our knowledge and to our own conscience.
Mr President, I would first like to thank the rapporteur Mr Soulier and the Members of Parliament's Committee on Energy who took the initiative to prepare this report.
With this report, Parliament is taking part in the dialogue developing at the Community level on the future of nuclear energy, a thing to which I attach particular significance.
And I must remind you that exactly this debate was part of the European Commission's commitment, but also part of my personal commitment during the hearings of Commissioners in Parliament before the Members of the Committee on Energy.
I must say, however, that the report by the Committee on Energy - the report by Mr Soulier - is a realistic and moderate report, and I must also say that the European Commission will take into account the constructive criticism you have applied to our proposal.
I am glad of your support for the idea that Member States should adopt certain common principles of application in the sector of nuclear energy for peaceful uses.
I also consider necessary the invitation extended to the Council to hold a debate on the issue.
As for the institutional framework, as you know, at the Intergovernmental Conference the Commission is supporting the inclusion in the revised Maastricht Treaty of certain special orders on the subject of energy.
We believe that those orders will make it possible to approach energy-related issues in a homogeneous way, but one which takes into account the particular features of each type of energy source.
In that way, the share of the various energy sources available for our future supply could be maintained, but at the same time the particular economic characteristics of the use of those sources could be taken into account, such as whether they are sustainable energy sources, as well as the impact of each energy source on the environment.
Nuclear energy covers a significant fraction of our energy needs.
Its role can be preserved only if the production of electricity from nuclear energy and the subsequent activities of the fuel cycle can take place under conditions acceptable to European citizens, so far as public health and safety are concerned.
And when I refer to European citizens, I include the citizens of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, and those of the new independent states.
The European Community's efforts to improve nuclear safety in Eastern Europe must continue and their effectiveness must be improved.
Most agreements concluded by the Community with third countries include orders that require cooperation and information exchange in the energy sector, and especially in the nuclear section.
The issue of the safety of the Kozloduy reactor, to which Mr Kaklamanis referred very specifically, is one we are aware of and of course concerned about: concerned about what has happened and concerned about developments.
The Commission is very willing to contribute towards improving the safety of that reactor, and I would like to hope that cooperation with the Bulgarian authorities will allow progress in that direction, so far as the future is concerned.
As for Turkey, there as in all the other countries, the European Union insists that a prerequisite for the operation and funding of those reactors must be to secure the highest possible safety standards.
However, the efforts to be made on our side relate mainly to the treatment and disposal of wastes.
Here, our efforts should tend towards certain effective measures.
I too agree with many among you who have spoken, that those efforts should be intensified, mainly in the direction of research and technological development programmes that aim to restrict the quantities of high-activity wastes.
The Joint Research Centre, and more specifically the plant at Karlsruhe has developed research activities which have looked deeply into the subject of transmuting radioelements with long half-lives into ones with short half-lives.
In that way, the radiotoxicity of wastes for final storage could be limited and the packaging of each radioelement could be finally decided, once it had been separated.
I should also recall that in recent years Europe's nuclear industry has achieved considerable progress in the area of reprocessing, packaging and disposal of all types of radioactive wastes.
And as you know, there is already a Community plan of action.
At the end of this year a special report should be available, which is currently being prepared, on the implementation of this action plan for radioactive wastes.
In that context, it is also worth devoting more and deeper study at European level to the possibility of closed nuclear fuel cycles, in other words the reprocessing of used fuel.
And this, because it would contribute towards a substantial reduction of the bulk of waste fuels.
In addition, in cases where mixed oxide fuels (MOX) are used, we believe that there may be prospects of replacing plutonium where this would be most appropriate, and mainly in the reactors themselves.
The experience gained by the Community's industry in the production of MOX fuels gives it a technological lead unsurpassed anywhere else in the world.
The application of this technical knowledge to produce fuels from fissionable raw materials of military origin in Russia and the United States of America is a significant contribution by the European industry to disarmament, and I would say, towards efforts for world peace.
There are many types of nuclear installations in Europe today and it will certainly be necessary to continue the efforts undertaken by industrial circles and the authorities responsible for safety to approximate the specifications and to define our joint demands.
In that context, the continuation of Community efforts towards research, technological development and innovation is important, particularly to address the problem of ageing present-day plants, a subject that we will in any case have to deal with after 2010, though beginning even now and perhaps as part of the debate on the fifth programme for research and technological development, we must adopt a policy of safe and effective decommissioning, and if we wish, take advantage of the new generation of reactors which are more competitive and more acceptable to the population.
It is along those lines that the debates between the Community's institutional bodies concerning the future of nuclear energy in Europe should proceed.
The European Parliament's report is an important indication of the direction in which that debate should develop.
Mr President, in conclusion I would once more like to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Soulier on his report, and to thank all the speakers for their comments, which I again wish to assure the House that we will take seriously into account.
And let me also say that the criticism levelled at the European Commission for attributing particular weight to nuclear energy is unjustified.
I would say that the European Commission puts before you a balanced strategy for the European Union's energy planning, the results - and I would say the proof - of which is that the very next subject of the debate in plenary is the report by Mrs Rothe on the basis of the Green Paper on renewable energy sources, a sector to which the Community and the European Commission also attach strategic importance.
Commissioner, let me just put one question to you: do you not agree with me that a Community action programme for waste disposal really does not represent progress in waste disposal? That has to be said, you must agree with me there!
I want to know how you can define that as progress.
Commissioner, you have forgotten to answer my question on the safety of air transport.
I would appreciate an answer to my question.
And secondly, if research into nuclear technology is being carried out and subsidised under the European fifth framework programme, is that not tantamount to subsidising nuclear energy and does that not distort the internal market?
Mr President, I referred mainly to the progress achieved by Europe's nuclear industry to bring about better methods of processing, packaging and disposal for all categories of radioactive waste.
And I must say that this has not happened by chance.
It happened as a result of political pressure, after the many debates that took place at European level, after expressions of concern by many citizens, and of course, as the result of the commitment undertaken by the governments and the European institutional bodies.
Along those lines, the Community plan of action has helped to enable such progress and I would say that we all ought to agree that since the nuclear industry is to continue its operations and since nobody can claim that it ought to cease its activities, it should promote those methods aiming to improve the processing, packaging and disposal, I would say, of radioactive wastes.
As for the safe transport of nuclear materials, here I should say that all the international organizations, including the services of the European Commission, make every possible effort to secure the best possible conditions for transport safety, and of course we must do all we can to eliminate the illegal movement of nuclear materials, regardless of their category and type.
The European Commission is active along those lines, and I would say, with a great deal of success, according to the specific evidence we have in recent months.
As for the directive on air transport, that is an issue being considered at present by other services of the European Commission, though not those for which I have political responsibility, and consequently, at this time I do not have the information with which to answer you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken today at 12 noon.
Renewable energy sources
The next item is the report (A4-0168/97) by Mrs Rothe, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Commission Green Paper: ' Energy for the future: renewable sources of energy - for a community strategy' (COM(96)0576 - C4-0623/96).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's Green Paper on renewable sources of energy is an ambitious project and forms a good basis for developing a strategy in this energy sector.
Let me congratulate the rapporteur warmly on her report.
Among the great variety of renewable energy sources available, let me lay particular emphasis on biomass, i.e., wood, rape, elephant grass and other renewable raw materials.
EU-wide, the use of biomass already makes up more than half the crude oil units.
I believe that energy from biomass offers a great future market, with all the ecological and employment aspects for rural areas that involves.
The cultivation of energy crops could create an additional turnover of ECU 11-19 billion for the rural areas.
It would also offer an incentive for cultivating set-aside areas.
This new source of income would also have positive effects on employment prospects in rural areas.
As an inexhaustible source of energy, biomass also ensures security of supplies, i.e., a certain independence from third countries.
Another advantage is that the energy is utilized near the place of origin.
The reduces logistics and transport costs and means regional energy policy can be optimized.
Biomass is one of the most environment-friendly energy sources and in the long term it can help reduce CO2 emissions.
If we are to make the best use of this energy in future, we not only need to make the necessary arable land available under the CAP and forestry policy in the Member States, but also to increase the contribution of biomass to the EU's primary energy mix to at least 10 % by the year 2010 and at least 20 % by the year 2025.
At the same time, of course, budget appropriations for research and the promotion of renewable energy sources must be increased at least to the level of those for research and the promotion of nuclear energy.
I need not stress that here we need a detailed and concrete catalogue of measures, such as EU-wide tax reliefs or exemptions and programmes to encourage investment.
I also believe that in future the Member States must coordinate their programmes more closely, especially in relation to district heating systems.
In regard to the central and eastern European countries, I believe there is a great opportunity here, provided there is a corresponding transfer of technology.
As representative for the rural areas, I also think we need a better policy in the EU as a whole following the new CAP reform.
I believe environment-friendly energy sources have a future.
It is simply up to us to intensify the awareness of that.
Commissioner, the analysis in the Green Paper is excellent.
It shows that without renewable forms of energy - wind, water, biomass - there can be no substantial reduction in CO2 .
The second point, the analysis of the employment market strategy for Europe, is also excellent.
It recognizes how important it is for the money to stay within Europe, circulate here and be used here.
I would supplement these two points with a third.
I believe there is no way we can safeguard peace in the 21st century without decentralizing our energy system.
There is probably if not certainly no question of a peaceful distribution of the remaining resources of this earth.
We need only look at Afghanistan, at Chechenya, at Kurdistan, at the Gulf: the wars being waged there are about energy.
If we seriously want a peace strategy, we will have to readjust the energy system.
The European Commission now has to decide whether its analysis is merely an alibi or whether it will draw the appropriate conclusions from it.
If it draws these conclusions, it should accept the course of action suggested by Mrs Rothe, which is an excellent one.
It offers a historic opportunity for Europe as a whole to change its energy policy.
I believe one thing is most important, and we must realise that: on the basis of the analysis you yourself made, the promotion of renewable energy sources is no longer just something to be achieved passively through the many energy initiatives but a political obligation to act on the part of the Commission, the Council and the individual Member States.
The truth will become apparent when we see the White Paper and the accompanying strategic plan.
If the European Parliament adopts Mrs Rothe's report today, that will prove it is prepared to give the strongest support to the environment, employment and a policy of peace.
Mr President, very hearty congratulations to Mrs Rothe for an excellent report.
She is following up the work of Members right across the political spectrum including, of course, Mr Mombaur and Mr Robles Piquer.
There is great potential here for an expression of will from Parliament.
I want to speak on one point only, and that is the necessity to work with all our might to obtain for the European Union a Treaty on renewable energy, an equivalent to the Treaty on Nuclear Power, the EURATOM Treaty, which we discussed earlier this morning.
This would give tremendous EU added value to our work in trying to promote renewable energy.
It would enhance the competitiveness of the EU.
It would create jobs across the EU.
It is a fundamentally important issue.
Nothing is more basic than food and energy; and it would capture the public imagination in every single one of our Member States.
There is tremendous enthusiasm for all types of renewable energy.
That is the future. European citizens know that.
There is the will to grasp the opportunity to have a treaty, to be called, I suppose, EURENEW.
It is noncontroversial.
It crosses all parties; it crosses all Member States.
Most important of all, it would give us a legal base.
This is what is missing from all the debates on renewable energy: there is no legal base on which we can rely to ensure that we can have the research programmes, the promotional actions which cost money.
I know, as the budget rapporteur for our committee, without a legal base it is very difficult.
Please let us, all together, put pressure on our Member States.
This is the sort of positive action which makes sense to European citizens.
Mr President, Commissioner, renewable energy sources are of great social and economic value, which is why I commend Mrs Rothe's report to this House.
Unfortunately, however, the future prospects for renewable energy sources are not particularly easy at the present time, partly because energy consumption in the European Union is not increasing, partly because the efficiency of gas-fired installations has been very greatly improved, partly because the costs of gas and oil are relatively low and reserves are plentiful, partly because the liberalization of electricity prices in the European Union is making it difficult to foot the political bill, and, finally, partly because of the unreliable nature of most renewable energy sources, based as they are on sun and wind, at least until such time as we manage to perfect efficient and less costly storage technologies.
A study on this is under way at STOA.
There are, however, fuels which can be classified among the renewable sources and which are competitive because they pay for themselves instead of needing to be paid for: I mean plant biomass, non-processable wood and non-recyclable solid urban wastes.
Unfortunately, I gather that most plastic, even if collected separately, then has to be incinerated or landfilled because it cannot be effectively recycled.
I would recall that, in the case of woodbased wastes, carbon dioxide is produced even if they are landfilled; but they do not produce any useful energy in this way.
It seems to me that waste incineration technologies are reaching a standard of quality which is satisfactory from the environmental and health standpoints, and I would ask the Commission and the rapporteur not to neglect this sector in any strategy for renewable energy sources. Here again there is a need to support technological development, provide information and educate public opinion.
That is why I subscribe to some of the amendments originally tabled by Mr Robles Piquer, which relate to this specific topic - the recycling of wood that cannot be industrially re-used and of solid urban wastes.
I hope that the House will accept this suggestion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner. I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent report with its many good recommendations on promoting the use of renewable energy.
The long-term objectives in the field of energy is the provision of energy totally based on renewable sources.
This objective unfortunately does not exert sufficient pressure to give priority to developing renewable sources of energy.
The application of renewable energy depends first and foremost on the political will of countries to promote a model of sustainable development.
If we are serious about acting on the climate problem then we need to have many more applications of renewable energy.
My group welcomes the Green Paper although this Commission initiative took a long time coming despite repeated requests from Parliament.
Mr President, the Liberal Group has tabled three amendments, two of which concern the promotion of energy from biomass.
In this way we coordinate energy and agricultural policy.
Good agricultural land no longer needs to lie fallow, it creates jobs in this sector and it benefits the environment as well.
It does not just kill two birds with the one stone, but three.
My group believes it is superfluous to create a separate working party on 'renewable energy' in the Commission for this coordination work.
A coordinating contact point is sufficient.
The Commission services just need to work more together and coordinate their work better.
The European Commission should also go in for trans-border cooperation.
My final point, Mr President, is that the European Union should promote renewable energy projects.
And here the structural funds should be better involved.
The Liberal Group cannot agree to projects receiving more than 50 % finance from the Union.
That would distort competition and would not guarantee a commitment from the Member States.
My group will vote against that proposal.
Mr President, Mr Papoutsis, you said to the press a few days ago that renewable energy sources are as valuable as sitting on a goldmine.
I agree with you!
That makes what you say in your Green Paper all the more surprising, for it seems to suggest: how can I scoop water with a sieve?
Your analysis in the Green Paper is quite correct.
But your conclusion on the operational approaches that should therefore be taken is nothing, it is not concrete, shows no ambition, nothing!
Quite apart from the fact that we should have formulated clear strategies and development programmes for renewables years ago.
Let us say no more about that.
Instead, we keep hearing ritual incantations about the obligations under Rio, under Berlin, etc.
Words and more words, but no deeds!
Of course this applies particularly to the Council, if I may remind you of the meagre funds allocated to the JOULE, THERMIE, ALTENER, etc. programmes.
The Commission regrets, I admit, that very little money is spent on renewable energy sources under PHARE and TACIS and most of the money is spent on other energy forms, and in a quite extravagant manner.
This is a kind of money-losing machine with which we try to patch up the eastern European scrap-heap reactors without making them any safer.
If we want to achieve what the Commission says in its analysis, if we finally want to be credible and secure our future markets on this earth - and we are talking about future markets, that is what those who just count the money in hand should remember - this is what our energy policy should look like: an ambitious and binding commitment in regard to the proportion of renewable energy sources for each Member State for the years 2000 to 2010.
The target should be set so high as to let us fulfil our greenhouse guarantees at last, i.e., drastically reduce the values.
Secondly, well-stocked EU funds for renewable energy sources and energy saving.
That is an important pillar.
Here we could achieve 35 %.
We need to reallocate the funds we still keep putting into research into fossil energy and in particular fusion - ECU 225 million.
We would see some results from that by the year 2050 at the earliest.
We must ensure, and this is most important, that the internal energy market does not act in a sense as an obstacle to renewable energy sources, as will now become apparent, and we must coordinate all the EU aids to ensure that no more money is spent on measures that increase rather than reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
All these points are important and I can only hope that we will move from the lyrical words of the Green Paper to facts in the White Paper.
Then you will have my full support!
Mr President, I should like to add my own congratulations to the rapporteur, and also to the Commissioner on the Green Paper.
On this occasion I cannot agree with Mr Robles Piquer.
I believe that the 15 % target is too modest, and that the European Union should set itself a much more ambitious objective.
We are aware of the risks, we talked about them during the previous debate on conventional and nuclear energy, and I therefore believe that the time has come to try to raise our sights very considerably as far as this target is concerned. I think we should be looking at 30/40 % by 2010.
That is my first point.
My second concerns the mechanisms for encouraging the use of renewable energy sources.
I believe we should focus on imposing very heavy tax penalties on energy sources with a high pollution capacity; that we should be aiming for a very simple mechanism, without squandering resources on all kinds of aid programmes but concentrating on the liberalization of the internal energy market.
Mr President, the Green Paper on renewable sources of energy deserves praise for its very detailed examination of the benefits which are obtained from using renewable energy: a cleaner environment, more employment and a better economy.
I note in particular that the EU is now at last treating the CO2 issue seriously, and is taking an active responsibility for avoiding the threat of climate change.
However, I wish to make it quite clear that the maximum use of renewable energy sources can only be ensured if Member States continue to be allowed to pursue an independent energy policy, based on their own circumstances and conditions.
In the light of the subsidiarity principle, it is important that international cooperation should only serve to eliminate the obstacles which exist, so that the Member States themselves can implement a national energy plan with ambitious energy goals.
Conversion to increased use of renewable energy sources requires the whole of society to participate in the project.
In the Commission's initiative, I do not see the general population being involved as players.
In Denmark, for example, private wind-power groupings have become widespread, and have been very important in terms of popular support for and awareness of renewable energy.
The Green Paper's section on strategy is unfortunately not up to the same standard as the excellent analytical section which precedes it.
The aims set out are just not far-reaching enough.
The target of 12 % for renewable energy by 2010 is better than nothing, but why not aim for the European Parliament's own recommendation of 15 %? Similarly, the Green Paper should be calling for a common target for energy efficiency.
A better level of energy utilization would provide the same environmental improvements as greater use of renewable energy sources, and should therefore be presented as just as important a part of the EU's renewable energy strategy.
Finally, I should like to express my satisfaction with the amendments which have been tabled, which clearly tighten up the Commission's proposal.
Mr President, first I want to congratulate Mrs Rothe on her report.
It is an extremely good and detailed report and it is a step forward.
Let me say at this point, to rescue the reputation of the European Union which has often been criticized during this debate, that in recent years we were able to finance a whole range of projects because we increased the appropriations for renewable energy sources, thanks mainly to the European Parliament's efforts during the budgetary procedure.
This has to be said quite plainly here.
Things are not all quite as bad as people outside sometimes describe them.
If the Member States fulfilled their obligations and made corresponding resources available, we could make considerable progress.
Nevertheless, further Europe-wide initiatives are necessary, and Mrs Rothe put this very well in her report.
I hope we will endorse it.
For instance, I hope that the funding for our major programmes, such as the Mediterranean programme, or the support for Eastern and Central Europe, for the former Soviet Union, for Asia, Africa and Latin America, will be concentrated more on renewable energy sources.
That is easy to say, but far more difficult to put into practice.
For instance, a large number of appropriations, accounting for many millions of ECU, were not fully utilized in the Regional Fund because the complementary resources were not available, which is because the Member States in question did not produce either the public or the private resources.
For the future I expect a simplification of the access and payment and clearing procedures, as also called for in paragraph 8 of Mrs Rothe's report.
It is unfortunately the case that many small and medium-sized undertakings and institutes derive little financial benefit from taking part in EU projects. The preparations alone, the filling in of forms, the preparation of the projects, are so cost-intensive that in the end the financial profits are very small.
That has to be changed.
Finally, let me say that there are still many surprises awaiting us with renewables, for instance in thin-film or photovoltaic technology, where research is needed and must also receive the necessary encouragement.
Know-how already exists and it must be used and, let me say in conclusion, perhaps it should be used in our own buildings too.
We are building a new Parliament in Brussels and in Strasbourg.
Where is the technology we are developing being applied there? Here too there is room for improvement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can hardly believe it: the House is almost, if not entirely unanimous.
My warm compliments to Mrs Rothe for an excellent report.
Renewable energies must be promoted by detailed measures in order to disseminate European technology throughout the world - we should stress this - and to restore the health of the climate.
Two billion people in the world can only be supplied with electricity decentrally, which is why it is so urgent for us to act here.
However, let us have no illusions, this is not up to us but to the Member States.
If the 15 Member States do not play along, nothing will come of all this.
I do not like to see people keep pretending here in Parliament that the European Union is responsible for the use of primary energy sources. It is not!
It is responsible neither for this nor for nuclear energy!
For the rest, we should not imagine either that these energy sources can be introduced without any dispute.
Unfortunately there are still protests on protests up and down the country.
There are protests about the use of tidal power, protests about the use of wind power.
Nobody should seriously imagine that we can introduce an energy source that needs to be promoted and disseminate it around the world without protest - that will not happen!
We have already adopted the action plan; this report describes it very comprehensively and well.
I also believe that the liberalization of the internal market through the obligatory licence and priority rules has brought progress in certain areas, which the Member States should avail themselves of.
Commissioner, let me say quite clearly that I expect the White Paper at last to give a clearly formulated reply in economic terms to the question whether startup financing with EC resources really can encourage the market introduction of renewable energies - yes or no.
I have not read a single sensible document by the Commission, by a government or by a scientific institution on this subject and I think it is simply not enough to promote 100 000 roofs programmes here.
I would wish to see a more detailed analysis of whether it makes any economic sense at all to spend money on this.
My group supports the report; we take a slightly different view on the last point.
Mr President, I wish to join with other Members in congratulating the rapporteur, and I would also like to acknowledge the valuable work undertaken by Mrs Agnes Schierhuber, our own rapporteur in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We need a clear strategy for the 21st century aimed at significantly increasing the share of renewable energy sources in our overall energy policy.
Agriculture, which has been going through a very difficult period, has the potential through biomass to contribute positively to rebalancing the renewable energy deficit within the European Union.
Despite considerable advantages in using renewable energy sources, consumption remains at below 6 % in the Union.
This must change, and I hope that our Member State governments are listening seriously to this debate.
Biomass offers farmers and rural areas a real possibility of generating new sources of income through the cultivation of crops such as sugar beet, cereals, oil seeds, short-rotation forestry and hemp.
Biomass also has the added advantage of giving farmers the chance to cultivate set-aside land.
At least ECU 225m are currently being spend in the EU on nuclear research.
It is high time to put real money into supporting renewable energy sources.
This is highlighted by the ongoing concern in relation to the safety of nuclear installations, including Sellafield, to which many people have referred during the earlier debate.
The time has come for the implementation of a positive renewable energy programme, rather than continuing debates, both within governments of Member States and here in this Parliament.
Mr President, like other speakers, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Rothe, for the excellent work she has done, but at the same time to express a certain amount of concern at the broad agreement which is prevailing here in Parliament on this subject.
I am afraid that the same thing will happen with renewable energy sources as with small and medium-sized enterprises.
Everyone talks about them, but no one makes a serious effort when it really counts.
We always end up with systems which support the established order of things. Here, that means coal, nuclear power, gas and so on.
Just think if we were to make the same effort with renewable energy sources as with fusion power.
Just think if we were to give research and development concerning renewable energy sources the same status that fusion power has had, a form of energy which lies far in the future, whereas the sun and wind, biomass and so on are either just around the corner or with us already.
The Commission's Green Paper is a starting-point, but now it needs to be followed up, and we must ensure that renewable energy sources do not once again come to grief in practice.
Renewable energy should now be given the same status as traditional energy, if necessary through some kind of treaty commitment.
Mr President, I know it is noon now and I will not speak for long, as that would waste time.
Since we should be able to finish within a few minutes let me ask you a very very urgent question: is it not possible for us to conclude our debate this morning, so that we can vote on it today?
We have tried very hard to proceed rapidly in the time available so as to be on time for the Council of energy ministers.
I really would ask this quite urgently!
Mr President, I wish to say the same as Mrs Rothe.
I think that there is only one more speaker, and if we could let that speaker have the floor we could vote now and not delay any longer.
We have very little time.
I have tried to move this debate along as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately, it is not true that we have only one speaker left - there are still four Members down to speak, then we have the Commissioner's reply, followed by a fairly complex set of votes.
I am sorry to do this, but we shall have to suspend the debate at this point and resume at 6 p.m.
VOTES
Mr President, this was a very long confused report with 178 amendments in committee.
The Socialist Group has felt it necessary to table additional amendments.
As rapporteur, I am dutybound to support the Fisheries Committee resolution, which I do.
However, were I not rapporteur, I wish to make it quite clear that I would be voting for all the Socialist Group's amendments including Mr Morris'.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I should like you to listen to the following announcement: I have received from the Green Group various requests for roll-call votes on every amendment and on every paragraph of this report.
This would mean over 100 roll-call votes and the vote would last about one hour.
After consultation with the President, I am therefore going to propose to you that pursuant to Rule 19(1), second sentence and Rule 115(5) to group the votes together as follows: One, a single roll-call vote on all parts of the text on which there are no amendments.
Second, a roll-call vote on paragraph 24 in line with another request from the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
Three, a single roll-call vote on all parts of the text on which there are only amendments by the Green Group.
Four, a roll-call vote on each paragraph which is the subject of incompatible amendments.
Five, a roll-call vote on all other parts of the text on which there are amendments by political groups and for the final vote.
Rule 115 allows the President to consult the House.
In order to save time I am going to allow one speaker for my proposal and one speaker against.
I will take no points of order and we shall move directly to the vote.
Mr President, I think your proposal is a very sensible one.
It arose from the fact that this report is of course very controversial and was not prepared jointly.
In the Committee on External Economic Relations we voted by 31 to 30 on whether we should vote at all.
Now, of course, this committee has no proposal on the individual blocks, which has led to a situation where we are confronted with this procedure in plenary.
You have described it in rather dramatic terms.
We also had 100 amendments to Mrs Barthet-Mayer's report yesterday.
I would now propose further that we consult again in committee and vote in July.
That would save time. So I move that we refer the report back to committee pursuant to Rule 129.
That would save us work here.
In other respects I support your proposal.
That was very clear.
I would suggest that if the proposal for referral back to committee is rejected, I shall assume that the House has endorsed my proposal for how we handle the vote.
Mr President, I rise to speak in favour of your proposal on the block voting.
This was a change to the Rules introduced some years ago specifically to deal with this sort of situation.
It caters for the fact that one political group, or indeed a group of Members, deliberately uses the Rules to try, in a sense, to filibuster or, possibly, to abuse the system of requesting roll call votes.
It is entirely justified in this case that the blocking tactics be avoided by use of this rule.
It is a fair rule, it is at the discretion of the President, and you are quite right to use it in that way.
(Applause)
Mr President, you say that the political groups know what is being voted upon here.
In my opinion the Members should also know what is being voted upon.
I do not know what is being voted upon here.
Throughout the debate on this report I have not known what was being voted on and you are reading out these points in a way which does not make it clear either.
I declare that I am withdrawing from any vote where I do not know what is being voted upon.
I shall therefore withdraw from any vote in connection with the debate on this report.
Mr President, on a point of order.
You know I normally agree with you in this Chamber, but you answered the speaker before me that this was the normal way we did our voting.
I have to advise that is not the normal way in which we do our voting.
I may have missed something.
We took a number of block votes and then we went to certain paragraphs - paragraph 36 - and then we reverted back to Recital b in one of the votes.
So it is not the normal way we do our voting.
Normally, the way we vote is paragraph by paragraph, recital by recital.
That did not happen on this occasion.
Perhaps you may wish to reconsider your reply to the speaker before me.
Mr Falconer, as a fellow Scot, I always try to agree with you but you obviously missed something.
I explained very clearly that we were going to vote in blocks and I read out the contents of each of the blocks.
If people wanted to put the amendments together within the block to have a look at them they were entitled to do so.
But the block vote is quite clearly provided for within our Rules and we follow the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, there are still different interpretations of the legal basis for this text.
Does this text relate to industrial policy or, as Mr Titley said in his statement, to the CFSP, i.e., to the new security policy? If it relates to that, then - and I asked to speak before the final vote - we in this House are not even competent, prior to the Amsterdam intergovernmental conference, to take the kind of decision we have taken.
Perhaps you could make a statement on this subject, to clear up this misunderstanding and contradiction?
This House is sovereign in all matters that come before it and the House decides what items it puts on its agenda and how to vote on these items.
And that is what we have done.
4-074
Mr President, I am sure that you have acted in accordance with Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
I should however like to point out that this is a very significant issue, a major issue of principle and a very important issue.
I myself am quite new here, and it is quite impossible for me to follow what was going on and longer.
You did state that a block vote was being held, but for myself, at least on issues of this nature, I should like to look at each point again separately and be sure that I am voting correctly.
I am not going to vote simply solely according to what is on the voting list.
Unfortunately this has been made impossible by what I can only call the recent farce.
It would be possible to use the Rules of Procedure in a different way, when a significant matter of principle is at issue and I hope that this will happen in future.
I understand the point you make.
I was trying to expedite the business of this House.
I am absolutely certain that I operated within the Rules.
If you read Rule 115(5) you will find that the President is entitled to block votes together.
In fact, there is no need to give notice of that but the services through this week have been informing the groups of how they intend to put the votes together.
It was up to the groups to keep their individual Members informed.
We have done our best to keep you advised.
Mr President, I am really sorry but we have made a serious mistake.
That really is true.
In one go we have named four regions in different countries together with one recognized country.
We cannot refer to Macedonia or, if you like, Fyrom, in the same breath as Kosovo and Vojvodina.
I would emphatically ask colleagues not to make this mistake.
It makes us look ridiculous.
It is a mistake, and Mr Cohn-Bendit agreed with me.
Unfortunately we voted first on the PSE motion, although the other went further.
I would ask you to definitely take that into consideration.
We really are making ourselves look ridiculous.
If we want to do so, we can.
But Mr Cohn-Bendit could help me here, as could the PSE.
Mr Johannes Swoboda agreed with me.
I am told that the reference to Macedonia was actually deleted in any case so your concerns are perhaps misplaced.
Mr President, unfortunately that was a misunderstanding.
Macedonia was simply swapped with Fyrom.
But Fyrom should not have been mentioned in this context at all.
I ask you to take that into consideration.
It was a very big, stupid mistake.
I am afraid that the House has voted and the House is always wise once it has voted.
Mr President, I just wanted to say to Mrs Pack that this happens during votes.
We also rejected the amendment by the Greens, which makes a nonsense out of this text.
We will have to live with the nonsense of this sovereign organization.
That is the way things go.
Mr President, there is a translation error in Amendment No 22.
It says 'repeal of the EURATOM Treaty' , but it should have read 'amendment' .
Of course we cannot simply repeal the EURATOM Treaty, we need it as a safeguard and for nuclear waste.
That is why confusion arose throughout this House and I think you can now agree with me, at least those who normally agree with me can do so.
The others over there are being a bit quiet for a change, which is a better thing!
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have too much respect for democracy not to acknowledge a decision by the European Parliament.
However, I would like to say that, as rapporteur, I have followed a certain number of indications.
Since the European Parliament has felt that it had to, in my opinion, alter this report excessively, I therefore recommended voting against it in order not to lose what I believe in.
That is why I voted in this way and I thank the European Parliament for having followed me, since this report has not been adopted.
(Loud applause) .
Mr President, in my opinion the vote on the Titley report was an offence against democracy.
I should therefore like it minuted that I am pleased that this is not a real parliament.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Following on from the last speaker, I think you will agree, Mr President, that the way we took the last five reports after the Titley report was the way we normally vote in this Chamber.
We could not support the report at the vote.
The adoption of this position is based on principle and should not be taken as any form of disapproval of the rapporteur's work.
We think that the European Union should call a halt to this type of expensive fishery agreement and instead give aid primarily to fishing operations in developing countries themselves.
Such a solution would better help to develop the importance of fish as a global food supply, to strengthen the economic development of these countries and also avoid the risks that fishery agreements can involve. This would also mean that the fishing industry in some Member States would be given indirect aid to continue their operations in a situation where the whole of the European fishing industry needs to be severely restricted.
We would also like to stress, in agreement with the rapporteur, the unfortunate fact that the European Parliament is being consulted long after an agreement has come into force.
Crampton report (A4-149/97)
The question of international fisheries agreements reached by the European Union is a controversial one.
Some people are in favour of a systematic calling into question of the agreements because of their cost, while failing to pose the question of the economic and social cost that their absence would have for the Community.
The Crampton report rightly reminds them that extending the fishery zones to 200 miles, effectively bringing 95 % of fish stocks within the coastal states' jurisdiction, made it inevitable for the Community to negotiate agreements with the countries concerned in order to ensure the survival of deep-sea fleets, maintain the European share of fishing in worldwide terms and, therefore, its contribution to our food security.
If the European Union had to give up these agreements tomorrow, the place left vacant by the Community fleet would very soon be taken by competing fleets, in particular those from Asia.
This agreement policy is backed by European shipowners which finance it to the tune of 50 %, a balance which ought to be maintained.
Others feel, in the framework of these agreements, that European fisheries compete with local fisheries.
This is not true.
Developing countries have resources if they wish to exploit them, but they do not have boats and knowledge to enable them to do so: this contract is desirable for both parties.
In the framework of the evolution of the system of agreements, we should make a careful distinction between agreements which could also play a real role in terms of helping development, in helping to increase food selfsufficiency thanks to the support given to local fisheries, and those concerning partners which have become competitors for Community fishermen and for which the Commission should ensure that no distortions take place, in particular in terms of prices.
In the first category, we should generalise the second generation agreements, and we should place more emphasis on agreements with ACP countries with abundant high-quality resources, countries which should remain our natural partners, especially those which agree to dedicate an important share of resources which they acquire through these agreements to the development of the local fishery sector - for example Senegal which has decided to retain a 50 % rate.
It is also important to add to the tuna fish agreement network, in order to give us greater access to tuna and similar stocks, which are strategic species for the Community's seafood sector and which, at the moment, are not particularly over-fished.
Since the Crampton report has set most of these objectives, our group voted in favour of it despite some of the lacks and difficulties inherent in the search for a consensus starting out from widely-divergent positions within the Committee on Fisheries.
Titley report (A4-76/97)
Every debate on the weapons trade and weapons industry policy must be based on the fact that the export of weapons must be reduced, and aid given to promote disarmament and weapons control.
Weapons can never be treated like other products and must be strictly controlled at international, European and national level.
We can only support this report on condition that the amendment proposals produced by the socialist group (Nos. 27-35) and amendment proposal no.
1 are passed.
We cannot support points 41 and 43.
Sweden is a non-aligned State and will remain so.
So we cannot support these statements which have a future European defence identity as their aim.
We also object to general statements such as the fact that restructuring the weapons industry would give tax payers better value for their money (point 24) and 'other security measures' (point K).
We agree totally and utterly with amendment no.
6.
There is no reason for the EU to develop a common defence policy or a common defence force.
This would turn the EU from a civil co-operation organisation into a defence union with common military and defence policy ambitions.
So there is no reason for the EU to develop a common defence industry as this report proposes.
To refer to some sort of 'European identity' for security and defence is not credible as the various Member States have different foundations for their security policies.
Non aligned countries such as Sweden neither can nor will subordinate themselves to common Union projects driven by a majority vote in which the views of the larger Member States on security are dominant.
To justify this, as it says in the report, by saying that it would give increased credibility within Nato is not relevant from a nonaligned perspective.
To provide, as the report proposes, the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) with a common market for weapons as an element of military capacity is wrong and could wreck the peaceful aims of European co-operation.
The Titley report with its proposal for a common weapons market is an element in such a policy.
So we have rejected the proposal and voted against the report.
Arms production, which now includes overwhelmingly electronics and new technologies, can potentially be a source of employment.
This is particularly so for small countries which are focusing on the development of these new technologies.
All neutral countries maintain armies and some of the neutral countries are also amongst the major arms producers and exporters in the world.
Serving members of the Irish army have recently highlighted the need for upgrading their equipment if they are to continue to perform their peace-keeping tasks under the various UN mandates.
We have a proud record in Ireland of providing soldiers to serve with the UN, and I wish to see the role continued.
I welcome the news that spending on arms has fallen.
I call once again for the total ban on the production and sale of land mines and, of cource, on all forms of nuclear weapons.
I have to say, with a certain amount of alarm and apprehension, that, in my view, the Titley report will be yet another stone in the building which will turn the EU into a European military super power.
This will be done by recommending a common European weapons market with an efficient, co-ordinated weapons industry (which will provide the CFSP with its military capacity).
For me this is totally unacceptable and cannot in any way form part of the process to promote peace in Europe and the world.
The very opposite is the case!
Although here and there in the Titley report there are some interesting suggestions, such as setting up a legal form of European armaments company, making sure, however, that they do not become a strait-jacket, the overall approach taken in the report and in the Commission's analysis, both federalist and ultra-liberal, opens no genuine prospects for the future in keeping with the real interests of the Member States of the European Union.
The report takes a strictly economistic approach to the question of armaments policies, as if they were economic goods whose profitability could be appreciated in the same way as all others.
Yet, whereas each Member State must, of course, look for the best value for money, it must first of all measure the value of armaments in terms of whether they are appropriate for the specific needs of its defence in order to preserve its national independence as well as it can.
European states cannot, therefore, define the specifications of their weapons on the basis of the desires of other states which would be their possible acquirers.
In the name of liberalism, the Titley report cultivates, in reality, the cult of asymmetry, which seems to be becoming the official doctrine of the Commission: Europeans should continuously give the example of the purest and most absolute liberalism, even to the detriment of their own interests.
The report does note that the United States' armament industry is protected in all sorts of ways which prevent full competition, but it in no way recommends a symmetrical attitude on the part of the Community which should, on the contrary, open up to the purchase of off-the-shelf military equipment in third countries and to the transfer of military technology.
We all agree that we need to develop common armaments programmes in order to extend series and reduce the cost of new arms.
But there is no way in which the implementation of that objective, which is a particularly difficult one to achieve, should come under an integrated approach as recommended by the Titley report.
Rather, we should apply the method of variable geometry if we want to make real progress.
Armaments are an area where we have lost count of abortive European projects because of the lack of specificity, huge overspending, the failure to pay the planned budgetary amounts, etc.
To try and impose in this sector a rigid Community framework corporation, without taking into account the desires or the real needs of different nations, would be completely artificial and would only lead to disastrous results.
It is neither procedural effervescence nor structuralist activism which is going to lead to effective cooperation but precise correspondence, progressively and pragmatically defined by certain partners, between each country's needs and equipment produced jointly, in an area which is ill-suited to laissez-faire compromises or approximative specifications.
As for the non-existent and yet very necessary European Armaments Agency, we have seen a whole series of projects mostly aimed at impressing the media, none of which have had time to have concrete results: barely had the Franco-German Armaments Agency been set up in 1995 than the idea was launched in 1996 to extend it to other partners and that its more widespread generalization was proposed in 1997.
Emphasis should instead have been placed on intra-European rationalization instead of concentrating so much on questions of export and cooperation with external partners.
In any case this rationalization can only be properly completed if the Commission finds a coherent approach to its competition policy and its recommended restructuring policy.
Yet, so far, the Commission has preferred, when it comes to the armaments industry, to favour a transatlantic union rather than a European merger (in this case an Anglo-French merger) in the field of aeronautics and electronics.
However, the objective of an armaments Europe should, of course, be one bringing together the Member States who so wish to pool their European interests in order to obtain the best possible use of the European resources.
The motion for a resolution tabled by Mr Titley did not place emphasis on these essential points and therefore I was unable to lend him my support.
A debate on the desirability of a European defence industry shows up the two-fold nature of this issue.
On the one hand we have limited competition as a result of the lack of a single European market.
On the other hand the issue has strong political implications because it is linked to working towards a common European foreign and security policy.
Involvement in the military industry and defence touches the essence of national sovereignty and should not be relinquished lightly.
The Commission communication and the Titley report place the aim of a European defence industry in the framework of a European security policy, which means that unfortunately little attention is paid to the opportunities of transatlantic cooperation with the US within NATO.
Europe should not be aiming at is own defence industry by way of contrast with the US.
The American market is already dominated by the American defence industry and leaves little space for European products.
In military terms European is very dependent on the US.
And so it is very important to keep strong transatlantic connections through NATO, including the field of defence industry.
The concept of the 'Combined Joint Task Forces' , set up last year at the North Atlantic Council in Berlin, clearly demonstrates that it is not necessary to set up a completely separate military industry outside NATO.
That is why we voted against the report.
That does not detract from the fact that we agree with the Commission and the rapporteur that there is ample justification for encouraging cooperation among European defence companies and strengthening competition in this sector.
We also support the Commission's proposals to combat the improper use of Article 223 along with standardising and supporting research and technological development.
There should have been more emphasis on the defence industry's own responsibility in restructuring production.
Finally it should be noted that it is unrealistic to aim for far-reaching liberalisation in the defence market because of the specific nature of this sector.
The European defence industry is dominated by a number of big countries.
In addition, defence projects can only be entrusted to a select number of firms because of the specific requirements involved.
A certain national emphasis is inevitable, so that there can be no question of abolishing Article 223 for the time being.
Cohn-Bendit report (A4-127/97)
The development of regional cooperation in the Balkans, and particularly with the countries of former Yugoslavia, is a prime means to consolidate peace and security, mutual respect, harmonious coexistence, cultural and economic development, and cooperation between the peoples and countries in the area.
Within that framework, there must be a radical change of the European Union's essentially negative attitude.
The positions adopted by the European Union so far, and its policies, contributed decisively to the dissolution of former Yugoslavia, the outbreak of war and the preservation of the present abnormal situation determined by the protection of foreign troops not only in Bosnia, but all over the Balkan area, either in the form of multi-national forces as in the case of Albania, or in the form of military bases and facilities.
The agreements between the European Union and the countries in the area, instead of supporting the creation of new zones of influence and the promotion of interests alien to those of the peoples in the area, should contribute towards creating an area of political stability in the Balkans, towards ensuring inviolability of the frontiers established, towards the development and prosperity of peoples in the area, towards securing respect for human rights and the rights of minorities, towards facilitating the resettlement of refugees, and towards re-establishing a healthy society.
The European Union must contribute actively to the recovery of the area by providing all possible political, economic (trade, technical or financial), and scientific contributions.
Besides, it must not forget its responsibilities and the contribution it made to the Yugoslavian tragedy by encouraging and accepting the trends towards autonomy.
We consider, however, that the European Union's strategy should cover not only the areas previously involved in war, but all the countries in south-east Europe, in other words Albania and FYROM as well, owing to the similarity of their problems and the particular importance for stability in the region of efforts towards regional cooperation.
We disagree radically with the proposal for discriminatory treatment, which aims at nothing else than the perpetuation of a policy of division and discrimination, the fomenting of confrontations, and the preservation of focuses of conflict.
All agreements must distribute any financial, economic or other aid with equality between the respective Republics and peoples, with respect for the now established status quo and the particularities of each country, and must not constitute a means of controlling political developments in those countries, so leaving the Balkan peoples free to make their own choices and decide their own fate.
From that standpoint, we think that the report's encouragement of new autonomies, such as that relating to Kossovo, are not only unacceptable but particularly dangerous.
Such options may prove disastrous not only for the countries of former Yugoslavia, but more generally for peace in the Balkans and beyond.
The European Union's contribution must not constitute an alibi for the imposition of measures that deprive the local governments of the possibility of choice and impose regimes of 'savage' capitalism under the pretext of establishing a new Marshall Plan, to the cost of people in the area.
Neither should conformity with the 'Principles' of the European Union be a criterion for the future upgrading of cooperation agreements.
The need to contribute to recovery in the area should also not be an excuse for the promotion of the European Union's military nature or its conversion to an international police force to punish those who do not obey the dictates of the new international order.
To avert new tensions and conflagrations, international conventions and law must be applied, and the principles of frontier inviolability and national sovereignty and independence must be respected.
Militarization options, such as those for the 'European Peace Force' , will encounter permanent objections from the populations and working people throughout the area and in other European countries, who are aware of what is hiding behind those deceptive names.
Baròn Crespo report (A4-133/97)
Sweden is a nonaligned State and intends to remain so.
This means that we cannot consider the development of a common European defence force within the framework of the EU or organisational rapprochement between the EU and the WEU.
The introduction of a general rule on the use of the qualified majority vote for the implementation of community measures without allowing the Member States to retain the right of veto on issues of vital security interests contravenes Swedish policy in this sphere.
Nor can we support the statements covering the financing of common measures via the community budget.
So we cannot vote for this report.
Resolution on bananas
It was with some reluctance that we voted for the motion for a resolution in question.
We decided to vote in favour because, at least, it proposed that the Commission and the Council should resort to the decision of the 'Arbitration Committee' of the WTO 'condemning' the current and very tricky system of European banana trade.
Approval of the motion for a resolution also blocks the strategy of certain countries - Germany in particular - which support the lobbies of the major European importers and which want the Commission and the Council to accept this 'arbitrary decision' at once.
However, a lot remains to be done.
For example, it has to be said that the same WTO, in another arbitrary decision, wants to impose on the European Union the free entry of hormone-produced American meat, in spite of the whole history of 'mad cows' and the negative opinions of European food safety committees.
Something else which remained unsaid was that the Commission had failed to complain to the same WTO against the United States for its clear violation of trade rules and international law as a result of the Helms-Burton Act to strengthen the embargo against Cuba, which has already led to the arrest of a Spanish businessman who committed the 'crime' of indulging in trade relations with that island republic.
It also remained unsaid that the decision on bananas would only benefit American transnationals linked to the banana dollar and would seriously harm European producers, especially those in Madeira.
All of this ought to be analyzed together because we are not just talking about bananas here.
It is also a question of the way in which the WTO is run, increasingly in keeping with American interests, and is a case of the Commission's growing subservience to those same interests, to the detriment of European interests.
Finally, we should give up these media-friendly references to the need to impose increasingly globalized trade rules and put the brakes on respective deepening.
From this point of view, a decisive word needs to be addressed to the governments, in particular the Portuguese government, although recent examples when it comes to textiles and trade agreements with Morocco and other countries do not seem to suggest that we have yet switched from rhetoric to action!
Resolution on Zaire
Once again, a European Parliament resolution is out of sync with the reality which it intends to change.
Once again, we are lagging behind developments in a political and a military situation which we were unable to predict, prevent or understand.
Just as the AFDLCZ is getting ready to enter Kinshasa to the ovations of a population liberated from dictatorship, we are beginning to ask for the setting up of a transitional authority which would only be the last manoeuvre by Marshal Mobutu.
Just as 30 years of violence, executions, persecutions and corruption are to be wiped out and replaced by another violence - definitely excessive but unfortunately legitimate because of the violence it is replacing - our priority seems to be to judge the latter violence when we never said anything against the former.
Just as a probable political and military stabilisation of Zaire should finally make it possible for us to assist Rwandan refugees and Zairean civilian populations in the east of the country, the European Union's priority seems to be to put Laurent Desiré Kabila on trial, whereas the sufferings of the refugees are the responsibility of people whose names are known to us: Habyarimana, for the Rwandan dictatorship in place until 1994, the FAR and Interamwé, for taking the refugee camps hostage, the French government (for the execution) and the Zairian government (for the rear bases) launched together in the famous Operation 'Turquoise' .
These are the people who are really responsible for the sufferings of refugees over the last two and a half years.
For two years the new authorities in Kigali repeated, to deaf ears, that the refugee camps in Eastern Zaire were a threat to the security of their state and a time-bomb for the whole of Central Africa.
No-one ever listened to these warnings which were full of common sense and realism.
We know what happened next.
Today the record of the European Union is quite clear.
Because we entrusted our common diplomacy to two Member States, France and Belgium, the Union was committed to the point of blindness to supporting Mobutu - who was held up as a guarantor of stability and territorial integrity in Zaire.
Despite the realism of the United States' external policy, European influence is being completely wiped out in a huge area stretching from the Southern Sudan to the Atlantic.
The case of Zaire reveals the complete and utter failure of European diplomacy which has been conspicuous by its absence in this crisis and its probable settlement.
Similarly, European development aid policy has revealed itself to be incapable of imposing as a condition the minimum degree of democracy which might have had some effect on the region's dictatorships; nowadays the European Union wants to impose maximalist democratic conditions on the new Zairean authority emerging from a civil war and having to take over a country devastated by dictatorship.
This painful affair calls for a far-reaching review of our diplomacy and our development policy.
I only hope that the crisis of the Great Lakes of Africa will enable us to be aware of this need.
Soulier report (A4-131/97)
For the first time, the Commission has submitted to the European Parliament this indicative programme on the nuclear industry and we can only welcome this consultation.
I am not about to discuss the rights or wrongs of the nuclear energy industry, which is a matter for the individual states.
Therefore, it is not a question of knowing whether the proportion of energy produced by nuclear reactors should increase or decrease.
My consideration here is the ageing of installations and its consequences, in particular for security.
The rapporteur is right to concentrate his thoughts on the management of nuclear energy.
Nowadays, the main challenges of the nuclear industry come from waste and the ageing of structures.
They call for the implementation of increased safety measures in the operation of power stations and, in particular, an agreement on the management of nuclear waste and the fight against their uncontrolled transport within the European Union.
This safety imperative should not be limited to the frontiers of the European Union since radioactive risks have willingly accepted the principle of 'free circulation' - of course, important work has to be done in relation to countries of central and eastern Europe.
Finally, and since inevitably the subject tackled does concern the rights or wrongs of nuclear energy, I wish to lend my support to the common principles in favour of nuclear power: national authorities should decide whether or not to use nuclear power, this choice should be respected by the Union as a whole, high levels of security should be guaranteed, Member States take co-responsibility with those running nuclear installations towards European citizens when it comes to nuclear safety.
Other reports will make it possible to look at the rights or wrongs of various different types of energy sources in Europe.
Here we have to accept that 30 % of European energy is produced by nuclear means - we must therefore take any measure necessary to guarantee the future of European citizens and their safety.
I wanted to explain to you why, as a Luxembourger, I shall be voting against the Soulier report.
I come from a country which, in the 1970s, made a choice: the choice not to build a single nuclear power station on the river Moselle.
This choice was broadly the decision of the Luxembourg socialists who were in power at the time.
A few years afterwards our great neighbour, France, whose nuclear options are well known to everyone, decided to build a huge nuclear power station at Cattenom, on the border with Luxembourg and Germany, without asking anyone for their opinion.
It took years and years, top-level state visits and countless diplomatic interventions for the French nuclear industry to agree to supply information, albeit hardly credible, on the emissions of the power station and to install an alarm system.
At present, another nuclear state, Belgium, is mentioning the possibility of storing its nuclear waste in the Belgian Ardennes, only six kilometres away from the Luxembourg border, in a nature reserve and tourism area.
During that time the railway accident at Apache in Lorraine, very close to the Luxembourg border, revealed that convoys of trains crisscross Europe in every direction transporting nuclear waste towards reprocessing plants without anyone's knowledge, without our knowing what safety measures have been taken and what conditions this transportation takes place in.
Whole communities could be contaminated overnight.
I am, therefore, against nuclear power practised in this way without any nuance.
But I also go along with the attitude of my group on the need for everything to be done, in face of the dangers of nuclear power, to introduce maximum safety and therefore profoundly amend the Euratom Treaty - the relic of a time when everyone was full of admiration for nuclear power - in order to guarantee safety and control every aspect of the nuclear power industry.
I think that this report is inadequate in many respects.
The Commission's communication is also inadequate, especially there is no proper security analysis.
This is strange since the aim of the Euratom Treaty is to address aspects of security.
The majority of EU Member States either do not have nuclear power or are in the process of dismantling nuclear power stations.
From this point of view it is remarkable that the European Commission should continue to try to foist more nuclear power on the EU and on the world around us.
Instead I think that Euratom should be abolished.
It has promoted nuclear power sufficiently and has during its lifetime given enormous sums in aid to the nuclear power industry. Instead, Euratom should be revised to form a treaty for the abolition of nuclear power and the promotion of renewable energy sources.
There is a whole list of amendment proposals from the Green group.
I support them all and hope that they will be adopted by the assembly.
In conclusion I would like to quote the words of the opinion from the environment committee which sums up the issue very well: ' In summary it must be said that the Commission has a problem: it really wants to promote nuclear power.
But there is no prospect of success.
The people do not want it' .
The report wishes to promote the use of nuclear power and co-ordinate the use of nuclear power through research, development and security between the EU Member States.
The Centre Party wishes to see nuclear power abolished and has campaigned for this in Sweden for 25 years.
In 1980, Sweden held a referendum on nuclear power and it was decided to phase it out of the energy system.
During the Spring of 1997 the Swedish Government and the Centre Party together with others agreed to commence the abolition of nuclear power by taking one reactor at Barsebäck out of commission before the election in 1998.
Nuclear power is not a sustainable source of energy.
Nor is it cheap as implied in the report.
There is no mention here of the cost of safety, decommissioning and the storage of waste.
Nuclear power is antiquated technology which must be replaced with bio-energy and other renewable sources of energy.
There is no reason for the EU to support this particular energy source.
So the Euratom Treaty should be abolished and replaced with a Treaty for renewable and sustainable energy sources.
The report does include positive proposals for increased nuclear safety.
This is of course good but can never justify nuclear power as an energy source.
I have, therefore, voted against this report.
Since I am convinced that producing energy through nuclear fission and storing the radioactive waste is dangerous on principle and involves disproportionate risks, and since the further promotion of nuclear energy with EURATOM resources will lead to further distortion in relation to research into what are called renewable energy sources and their market introduction, I have voted differently from the majority of my group on the following points: Amendments Nos 4, 7, 11, 16, 17, 21, 22 and 24 to the above report.
On one hand, I wish to congratulate Mr Soulier on his report on nuclear industries in the European Union.
On the other hand, I must welcome the decision to convey the European Commission's communication to the European Parliament on the fourth indicative programme on nuclear industries in the European Union, following those published in 1966, 1972 and 1984, pursuant to Article 40 of the Euratom Treaty.
After all, that Treaty only provides for the consultation of the Economic and Social Committee.
Conveying the proposal to the European Parliament is a welcome initiative, which I must emphasize.
I fully approve of our colleague's report as it is balanced, pragmatic and realistic.
It takes into account nuclear industries as a whole, and raises the problems linked to each stage in the cycle of nuclear fuel, from its extraction to its final storage or elimination.
The political impetus given to this resolution seems to me to be particularly important.
Calling on the Council of Ministers finally to issue its opinion on the principles founding this fourth programme, the European Parliament encourages it to discuss all of the challenges linked to the European nuclear industry.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The first item is the joint debate on the following eight motions for resolutions:
B4-0393/97 by Mr De Clercq and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the Helms-Burton Act; -B4-0398/97 by Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Hindley, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on suspension of the WTO dispute settlement procedure concerning the Helms-Burton and D'Amato-Kennedy Acts; -B4-0399/97 by Mr Azzolini and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the Helms-Burton Act; -B4-0401/97 by Mr Dell'Alba and Mrs Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on Helms-Burton (Cuba) and the EU-US agreement; -B4-0406/97 by Mrs Castellina and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the arrangement concerning the Helms-Burton Act; -B4-0410/97 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the arrest of a businessman in the US; -B4-0429/97 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the agreement concerning the Helms-Burton Act; -B4-0432/97 by Mr Kittelmann and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on suspension of the WTO dispute settlement procedure concerning the Helms-Burton and D'Amato-Kennedy Acts.
Mr President, today and the rest of this week the subject of the Helms-Burton Act has been discussed in various contexts, in particular in the framework of questions to the Council and the Commission.
Therefore, much of the debate has already taken place.
And I think that, at this moment, both the Council and the Commission know the opinion of the members of this Parliament in this respect.
However, today we are going to summarize this subject, to some extent, in a motion for a common resolution which has the support of all political groups and, without entering into the justice or injustice of the measures adopted against the Republic of Cuba, I think that, at this moment, what concerns us most of all is the Commission's attitude with respect to the exercise of its negotiating capacity.
In other words, we are facing a paradoxical situation in which the US administration can defend itself in the United States Congress in order to refuse the jurisdiction of the World Trade Organisation over a trade subject such as the Helms-Burton Act.
However, on the other hand, we cannot take similar steps, here in the European Parliament, to argue against the United States administration.
If the European Union was intelligent, if the institutions of the Council and the Commission were intelligent, then I would say that, for international negotiations, it would be very convenient for the Commission to be able to say that, on certain questions, it is the European Parliament which is able to have the last word.
At this moment, we believe that the Commission, by refusing to appeal, may have violated Community rules and we are referring here to the decision-taking procedure of Article 113, Article 228 (3)1 and 2, and Article 235 of the Treaty on European Union.
Fundamentally, what we in all of the political groups are asking, at the moment, is that the Commission should again set out its arguments against United States' policies for the extraterritorial application of US law affecting Europeans and demand that the Helms-Burton Act and the d'Amato-Kennedy Act should not stand in the way of Community decisions.
Only if the European Parliament receives a satisfactory response setting out in detail the reasons for which the Commission has not decided to take proceedings, will it be possible for the European Parliament to accept the way in which the system works.
What I believe is that the Commission's decision, in the case of the Helms-Burton Act, to desist - in violation of Community law, without consulting the Community's parliamentary institution - has been an act of defeatism and one which will weaken its negotiating capacity in the international field.
Sometimes short-term measures - and, for example, trying to reach a simple political compromise while doing nothing to fight the United States legal decisions - could lead to the defeat of the European Commission itself.
Mr President, Commissioner, on 14 April Parliament had to learn from the Agence Europe that the Union's procedure against the United States and the Helms-Burton Act was suspended, due to an agreement on an attempt by the United States to amend the unacceptable extra-territorial provisions in that act.
Mr President, my group of course welcomes the fact that the United States and the European Union have reached an agreement which could lead to a change in the Helms-Burton Act.
But this memorandum of understanding has no official legal status, which is also understandable because the United States administration cannot just go and change a law without consulting Congress.
I should like to point out to the Commissioner that the European Parliament ought to have been consulted on this matter, and that did not happen.
I would also like to warn against a situation in which all kinds of bilateral agreements are agreed between multilateral trade systems.
We would have preferred to wait for an opinion from the WTO.
Mr President, Commissioner, there are two points I should like to raise briefly on this subject. The first is that the United States has undoubtedly recognized the possibility, the risk, of losing the appeal brought by the European Union before the WTO panel.
This, at least, seems to me an encouraging fact, showing that every once in a while the European Union, too, can make its voice heard.
We shall have to wait and see what happens next.
As my second point, though, I should like to point out that, reading between the lines of this business, which has certainly been taken too far, we can see the fundamental problem of human rights policy, which must not be underestimated by, as it were, throwing out the baby with the bathwater, because it seems to me that determining the extent to which our co-operation policy is conditional on human rights is a problem which, partly thanks to this Helms-Burton act, has been deposited on our doorsteps.
Mr President, Mr Medina and Mrs Plooij have already spoken on the subject of methods.
I would now like to add something about content.
First of all, there is the flimsiness of the guarantees offered by the United States regarding the suspension of the effects of its legislation on European operators.
We had blatant confirmation of this just a few days ago over the Internet, and it really is strange that neither the Commission's nor the Council's representative told Parliament about this.
I refer to Amendment No 1486 to the so-called 'Libertad' law adopted by the US Congress's Committee on Foreign Affairs on 6 May, following the agreement reached between Clinton's representatives and Leon Brittan.
In the amendment to Section IV of that law, relating to visas, the Secretary of State undertakes to draw up within 30 days a detailed list of all those companies and individuals who would no longer be subject to sanctions, including, in each case, the reasons for which this exemption is to be granted.
Clearly, we are dealing here with the compilation of black lists, an extremely serious matter and one which sheds an alarming light on the actual so-called advantages of the agreement, in that the only purpose of such lists will be to enable direct pressure to be brought to bear on the companies involved to break off all relations with Havana under the threat of a boycott on the American market.
But the question of principle is even more serious.
The European Union's view, as has incidentally been reasserted in declarations by the Council and by its representative in this House, is that extraterritorial legislation is unacceptable in law and in principle.
This House has itself expressed the same condemnation.
And yet there is no trace in the agreement of these positions adopted by Europe, nor has any mention been made of one of the most serious violations that have occurred in this context: the detention in the United States, for the past six weeks, of a Spanish citizen for whom the prosecution has demanded a 100 year sentence because he has been guilty of trading with Cuba.
Remember that, Mr Dell'Alba, when you talk about human rights.
And this was on the basis of a law that preceded the Helms-Burton Act, the law on trading with the enemy.
Well, in this situation, what is the significance of suspending the application of the extraterritorial effects of the Helms-Burton Act on Europeans? A serious political significance, as I see it, because although the Europeans would no longer be affected everybody else would - the Canadians and Mexicans, for example, and all the weaker States of Central and South America; and all this will happen because we have used our political influence, somewhat shamefully, to save our own skins, abandoning other, more isolated nations to American retaliation.
Launching a debate on matters of principle was precisely the purpose of the proceedings brought before the World Trade Organization.
Now we have done what we have done, in other words, we have failed to assert those principles; well, I believe that Europe's assessment of its own interests cannot be so narrow-minded as to fail to understand that saving our political credibility is more important than a few trade deals!
Mr President, what Sir Leon Brittan said about the Helms-Burton compromise in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights really is breath-taking!
After praising the WTO year after year as the master of law and order, as a rules based system, he suddenly thinks we need not be too particular about the rules.
But surely rules are designed as a weapon for the weak to defend themselves against the unreasonable demands of the mighty!
After all that is why the WTO was necessary, because, as it kept being impressed on us, the USA and let us say Swaziland had to be subject to the same rules.
Now that is all old hat.
The EU has suspended the WTO proceedings because it was afraid of winning.
For even before the WTO was established the USA threatened that it would withdraw if decisions were taken against its interests three times.
Well, where do we actually stand now?
In the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights Sir Leon Brittan likened the WTO talks to a poker game.
Correct!
But it so happens the Americans are better poker players.
They hold the bank, they were good at bluffing and Sir Leon Brittan has dropped out of the game with a royal flush in his hand.
We in the Green Group in the European Parliament have always opposed this WTO round of poker.
We are for fair play in world trade, for fair chances, not for the right of the strongest, of those who can put most money down!
Europe should have given a sign here that the same rules of play apply to everybody, big or small.
Instead it has gambled away any remaining credibility.
We are in favour of a reform of the WTO.
We called for other rules from the start, such as more transparency, democratic control and social and ecological responsibility.
And as far as China joining the WTO is concerned, we keep hearing it repeated that we have to show the Chinese that membership means abiding by the rules.
Well, do you seriously believe that the Chinese cannot read the papers, or how do you think it looks?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to bring out quite so much heavy artillery here but concentrate my criticism on a technical question, namely Parliament's disappointment that it was not consulted on a major question.
I do not know how what position we would have taken had Sir Leon Brittan consulted us beforehand and explained the situation; we might even have agreed.
Anyway, it is too late now to find out.
But on a question such as the Helms-Burton Act, where the European Parliament established the main points while the Council and Commission were still hesitating about whether to take strong action, one cannot begin by embracing Parliament and working closely together but then take a decision that we only learn from the newspapers and say afterwards that it was the only way!
This is a matter of principle and I would cordially ask the Commission not to treat Parliament this way too often.
The responsible committee, the Committee on External Economic Relations, which was involved in all the work, was not told about this either.
We described all this in detail to that committee, Sir Leon, but not until the day before yesterday.
We did not have a chance to do so before.
Surely the main issue is as follows: Congress adopted legislation contrary to international law.
We all jointly decided that this had to be settled via the WTO, that it could not be allowed.
Congress made fun of Europe.
The individual representatives are saying: what weaklings they are over there in Europe!
We will do what we want and if we recognize something as right, then people simply have to do what we want.
After all, this situation requires a definite approach, so that Congress, which is now involved because Clinton is trying to implement the results, does not get the impression that it is the winner, because the main sections of the Act that we regard as contrary to international law remain in place.
Hence my request to the Commission: we want to continue working with you on a basis of trust.
But please ensure that this trust is justified in general and not just selectively, on the basis of: I will consult in this case but not in that one.
In that respect our criticism here is both technical and substantive.
Mr President, first of all we should ask ourselves whether the Helms-Burton problem is really the subject of this emergency debate.
In this respect, the presence of the Council would have been helpful.
Similarly, I regret the absence of Sir Leon Brittan.
He told the Rex Committee that he had been mandated by the Council to negotiate outside the WTO with the United States and that he had obtained not an agreement but an 'arrangement' .
Will this 'arrangement' - and this is a word which worries me somewhat - be able to have any impact on the cynical and selfish pragmatism of US policy? Do we not run the risk, once again, of putting economic interests in world trade before democracy and the defence of human rights?
Yet, in the European Parliament we have on many occasions reasserted these demands.
After all, ladies and gentlemen, we must be aware that, through the question of relations with the United States, of which the HelmsBurton problem is only one element, it is the credibility of the European Union itself which is at stake.
Let us therefore be firm and determined, because otherwise it will only be the Eurosceptics who will take advantage of the situation!
Mr President, I think that it is impossible to defend the undefendable.
The truth is that the Cuban regime is an anachronism in the Ibero-American group of nations and in the world.
Democracy, freedom and the respect of human rights are systematically ignored and violated in Cuba.
Of course, this does not mean that instruments such as that enacted by the Helms-Burton Act are admissible, nor will they help to bring about those values.
We do not like the Helms-Burton Act.
We do not like it for three fundamental reasons.
First of all, because it will only increase the suffering - already at unbearable levels - of the Cuban people.
Secondly, because it establishes a principle of extraterritoriality which violates the most lax conscience of any sovereign state - given that the Member States of the European Union are sovereign states.
This principle, Mr President, should be a part, an essential condition, of the agreements signed between the European Commission and the Clinton administration, because there is a problem of credibility here and it is a fact that the Clinton administration is one thing and the United States Congress is another.
The third reason why this agreement does not satisfy us is because, after 30 years of policies of this type, we have not made one jot of progress in the promotion of freedom, democracy and the respect of human rights, as the European Parliament demands in the case of Cuba.
Mr President, will you please accept apologies on behalf of Sir Leon who would have liked to be present here himself this afternoon to answer questions?
He spoke yesterday at length in the Committee on External Economic Relations, but he asked me to represent him here in the Chamber as he has been unavoidably detained elsewhere.
You also know that while awaiting the formal presentation of the text and the Council's accompanying conclusions the actual text of the agreement has already been sent to the European Parliament through the Committee on External Economic Relations.
In replying to the debate I think it opportune to remind the House that this agreement is not in fact a legally binding agreement, nor is it purporting to be a definitive solution to the dispute between the European Union and the United States on the Helms-Burton Act and the D'Amato-Kennedy Act, that the Union remains strongly opposed to unilateral secondary embargoes with extra-territorial implications and that only the withdrawal of such legislation or at least of the extra-territorial aspects of the same will be capable of solving our differences definitively.
What has been achieved to date is only an interim or transitional agreement, meaning that we agree to suspend the WTO panel and not, as has been alleged, to remove it in exchange for promises from the United States.
Nor is it the intention, but that was not suggested here this afternoon, that the panel would be dropped as such; we have specifically maintained the right to convene the panel at any time during the coming year or at the end of a year to begin a procedure for a new panel if the US takes any action which harms the interests of the EU, such action being described in the agreement itself and also in the Council's conclusions.
Nobody can claim that the Commission has in any way made concessions of policy to the United States.
Our policy implies that solutions to international problems such as issues relating to confiscated property must be sought on the basis of international law or in consultation between countries and that individual countries may not impose their policy on other countries, in other words the rejection of the concept of extra-territoriality.
In exchange for our promise to discuss the problem of confiscated property we received the commitment and assurance from the United States that Title 3 of the Helms-Burton Act would remain suspended and that Title 4 of the same act would be amended; you know that Title 3 deals with the right of former owners of confiscated property in Cuba to institute a case in the United States against firms or individuals who have invested in these properties or who have received such properties, and that Title 4 relates to the denial of access to the United States of foreigners who deal in confiscated property in Cuba.
I would like to point out that the subject of Title 4 does not contain any provisions on early suspension of the same and that the United States have always maintained that any amendment of that legislation would be impossible, so that the United States' promise under the agreement to try to make an amendment does make it possible to suspend the application of Title 4, which must be regarded as an important American concession.
In addition the agreement which has been reached, and I shall come back to this, has prevented a serious confrontation which could have profoundly undermined the WTO, the multilateral trade organisation and its significance.
The agreement was incidentally worked out at the request of the Member States.
I would just remind you at this juncture that the Council of General Affairs on 24 February expressed its dismay that inadequate progress had been made in our contacts with the United States to justify suspension of the WTO procedure and the Council took the opportunity to stress that the Union was willing to continue to seek a general bilateral solution and that in that case the panel would either be dismissed or suspended.
That was the basis on which the Commission finally reached agreement with the US.
A number of resolutions which have been tabled state that the European Parliament was neither informed nor consulted about the progress of negotiations.
That has been referred to again in speeches today.
But I must say that the Commission representatives at all levels, including the director-general and the Commissioner responsible, have taken every opportunity to inform the Members of this House and the relevant committees on the state of affairs.
In addition the European Parliament was properly involved in establishing the Community anti-boycott regulation which was an important instrument in exerting pressure on the United States.
I would also add that neither the American Congress nor the European Parliament is being required to ratify this agreement because it is a political document and not a formal international agreement.
The Commission has negotiated intensively and adopted a regulation which it considers favourable to the European Union.
The Commission and the Member States had to consider the US threat to boycott the panel by appealing to exemption for reasons of national security, a right enjoyed incidentally by all members of the World Trade Organisation.
And if the US had boycotted the panel it would have meant that the WTO procedure for settling disputes would have become involved in an extremely serious and controversial situation where the United States support for the whole multilateral system could have been seriously undermined.
We believe that the US threat of boycott is not justified, let there be no misunderstanding about that.
The Commission had nevertheless to consider carefully all possible consequences of its action.
We had to consider that although the European Community was convinced it was right in this issue and therefore also convinced that the panel was to be saved, one can never be certain beforehand of the outcome of a legal case.
The most important point, however, was that suspending the panel offered the opportunity to continue to exert pressure on the United States' policy.
If we had refused to budge we would not, irrespective of whether we had won or lost, have made any progress with those sections of the D'Amato Act which do not come within the jurisdiction of the WTO.
Continuing with the panel would probably have created a political atmosphere in which the US would probably have been more tempted actually to implement the D'Amato Act and reject suspension.
With that in mind I should now like to go through the main points with you and point out the results achieved to date.
The agreement provides us with greater reassurance about the continued suspension of Title 3, which it is assumed will remain in force during the whole term of office of President Clinton, which is spelled out in the agreement.
The United States have further agreed to recognise disciplines for future investments in wrongly confiscated property and to develop principles on litigious jurisdictions with extra-territorial consequences, in exchange for which the administration of the United States will consult Congress in order to be in a position to suspend Title 4 in practice.
The new disciplines on investments in confiscated property will not be limited to Cuba but will be restricted in the field of application and consequences.
They will only refer to property to be acquired in the future of states and transactions relating to properties actually to be acquired in the future.
That cannot represent any hindrance to the right to develop or sell existing investments, a right which we do not intend to include in the negotiations.
Although the risk of further measures is not excluded this agreement represents a strong incentive for the US not to take any action against firms or persons from the European Union.
We were also assured that Title 4 would be implemented with the greatest circumspection.
In actual fact the European Union has retained all its rights in the WTO in case measures are taken against firms or persons from the European Union.
And the US agreement to work together with us on a solution to matters of litigious jurisdiction is an important breakthrough which should make it possible to stymie any future US unilateral extra-territorial legislation.
Although the D'Amato Act as such does not come within the ambit of the WTO panel, the US undertook to work towards realising the aims to meet the provisions of the act to grant EU Member States multilateral exemption in relation to Iran and individual exemption to firms in relation to Libya.
That is an important commitment from the US.
We shall now use our best endeavours to secure the multilateral exemption in relation to Iran when the President submits his report to Congress on 5 August of this year or earlier.
What concessions did we make in exchange for all this?
We agreed to suspend the panel, and I repeat, suspend and not disband it.
Then we retained all our rights to convene the panel again at the point where it left off in the case that measure were to be taken against firms or persons from the EU under Title 3 or 4 of the Helms-Burton or if exemptions under d'Amato were not extended or were withdrawn.
Finally, Mr President, I would repeat that this agreement is not a complete settlement.
But the agreement does offer a certain security for protecting EU interests under both Helms-Burton and d'Amato.
In exchange we have only suspended the panel, thereby agreeing to develop rules for investments in confiscated property and we continue to use the WTO panel as a threat and therefore a means of pressure on the US.
This option of a negotiated settlement has the advantage of using the progress made in matters which do not come within the remit of the panel, as I said particularly d'Amato.
We shall keep Parliament regularly informed on progress in these negotiations; our approach also offers the opportunity of a more permanent solution to the general problem of US unilateral extra-territorial measures.
Thank you for that thorough answer, Commissioner, even if it has rather disrupted our timetable.
Two Members have asked to speak, and although we have no time, I will give them 20 seconds each if they so wish.
Mr President, I have followed very carefully the explanations given to us by Mr van den Broek, whom I must thank right away.
However, there is one question which I must put to him and that is why the Commission, which has lost the argument over the Banana Panel at the World Trade Organisation, has lost the argument with the Panel on Hormones, the only panel where it really had any chance of winning, has now sought a consensus-based solution when it is still negotiating questions as important as the principle of laws' extra-territoriality and the same World Trade Organisation body as an instrument to solve this type of conflict.
Does not Mr van den Broek think that this is a symptom of the Commission's weakness given that, on a question concerning the only panel where we had real possibilities of winning, the Commission has had to seek a consensus solution instead of actually solving the problem through the WTO bodies?
Mr President, Commissioner, you described the basis of the agreement.
Our main criticism is that the Act is contrary to international law.
If I understood you correctly, you accept that the Act should remain in force for the time being, provided the terms of the agreement are respected, and nothing will change during that time.
What means and chances do we the European Union have and what means do you intend to use to ensure that this unlawful Act is also repealed by Congress?
Mr President, as I already said, the most you could talk about is an agreement on a ceasefire; it is not a peace agreement.
In other words next year will have to be used to see if we can agree together on remaining free from the consequences of this extra-territorial legislation.
As soon as that appears impossible then of course we can resort to convening the panel again.
If you are now asking me why we did not give a promise if we had such a good chance, then I must say that it is simply a matter of weighing up the various interests.
Knowing that the United States was earnestly considering invoking exemption for reasons of security, which incidentally is the right of every member of the WTO, we nonetheless thought that we should use this period to see if this armed peace could be turned into a lasting unarmed peace.
So I would say to Mr Kittelmann that as soon as it appears that we will not get what we want, or not likely to get it within a year, the panel can be re-convened.
There is in any case the opportunity of beginning a new panel procedure after one year's time.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following six motions for resolutions:
B4-0358/97 by Mr Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on Iran; -B4-0374/97 by Mrs García Arias, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on Iran; -B4-0402/97 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in Iran; -B4-0408/97 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on relations between the EU and Iran; -B4-0430/97 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on Iran; -B4-0433/97 by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Iran.
Mr President, will they listen? A regime such as the one in Iran which does not allow any room for criticism in its own country, which suppresses any attempt at independent thought and action, which tortures, mutilates and kills those of its own citizens who do not rapidly change their way of thinking - they are not going to listen to what the European Parliament has to say!
A regime - and this is now official - which despatches hired murderers on missions abroad and which exhorts its supporters to murder other country's citizens - they do not care about what we say.
So is our resolution and our debate today meaningless? No, far from it!
Our message is a message to those who hope for, who fight for, who suffer and die for their conviction that the darkness can be dispelled.
It is a message that their hope and their efforts are meaningful, and that those who are killed do not die in vain.
So are all those who oppose the regime in Teheran good democrats? I doubt it!
No more than the Shah's police state, the ruins of which have been used by the Ayatollahs to establish their murderous state, was a democracy.
But democratic opposition lives and grows.
More and more Iranians are becoming involved and it is to them which we in the European Parliament give the full support of Europe.
We urge ' Democrats of the world, unite! against all intellectual persecution, against torture and execution, and against the regime in Iran.
Mr President, if I may make a brief remark on the previous debate, let me say that the Commission will probably also have to consider, if it is afraid of losing or actually does lose everything in the WTO, whether the balance of forces between America and Europe in the framework of the WTO is actually correct.
But that is just a remark on the previous debate.
When we discuss Iran, our sympathy and priority must go first and foremost to the victims of the terrible earthquake - whatever our relations with the state and regime of Iran.
Secondly, our sympathy and support must go not just to the victims of the earthquake but also to the victims of political terrorism and of persecution under the fatwa, and here I am thinking for instance of Salman Rushdie who is certainly the most prominent but not the only victim of that persecution.
In fact we are facing the ruins of a critical dialogue, which I would not totally condemn from the outset or even after the event, but which was either not critical enough or was not enough of a dialogue.
And what was wrong with the critical dialogue, at the beginning at least, was that it was not a joint debate on the part of the European Union, but an individual debate by a few states, which could not succeed because it achieved too little consensus even in the individual state concerned to really affect Iran's policy.
That is why I think it was right to call a halt to this socalled critical dialogue, because is had no basis, not only because of the Mykonos judgment but because it made no real difference.
That is one reason it was right to put a stop to it.
I am very glad, and Mr Marin said the same this week, that at least we now have solidarity between all the EU states, that we have not reverted to the system of individual ambassadors, for that is something the European Union cannot countenance.
The reason why we now have a common foreign policy in this respect may be a sad one, but at least we do now have it.
Yet I still think we need dialogue, in fact I think we need it even more, and a dialogue with all those forces, of whatever persuasion, that support democracy and are prepared to move Iran along the road towards democracy.
These may be marginal forces within the regime, but they certainly include a great many opposition figures.
However, I would also say, conversely, that not every member of the opposition is automatically also a supporter of democracy in Iran.
In that sense, Commissioner, I hope that the Commission and the Council will do all they can and all that is necessary to bring about change in Iran, in the sense of democracy and broadly based social and economic improvement.
The path pursued in previous years is no longer viable.
We must formulate a common policy of dialogue with the pro-democracy forces in Iran.
Mr President, I agree on the whole with what Mr Swoboda has just said.
Nevertheless, I think that there is a problem of long-term policy at stake.
The European Union reacted positively in recalling its ambassadors.
But I have a question, perhaps, for Mr van den Broek.
It is not absolutely certain that the Italian Ambassador has been recalled with his colleagues.
This is something which remains to be specified.
What new policy should be conducted towards Iran since, as has already been pointed out, we all agree that we have to give up critical dialogue.
What policy should the Union - and not the Member States - pursue in the medium and long-term?
What aid should be given to Iranian democratic opposition movements to strengthen them? Could we contemplate finally setting up a European radio-station, a 'voice of Europe' for the Iranians, so that they can be informed not only by the official radio station of the regime of the mullahs?
These are just a few questions and many more could be asked. Therefore, it would be interesting to know what the Commission really intends to do to develop this new policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe the judgment in the Mykonos case merely sets out in black and white what we already knew, and it should be emphasized here: the Iranian political, institutional and religious authorities are responsible for a policy of state-sponsored terrorism which manifests itself in the physical elimination of dissidents abroad and the repression of any form of political expression at home, not to mention the denial of human rights and the fundamental freedoms of the individual.
Mr Swoboda has already said that the critical dialogue between the European Union and the Iranian Government has not brought the hoped-for results, in the form of a legitimate attempt to support the so-called 'reformist forces' in Iran against the obscurantism of extremist opinion in that country.
Instead - let us not beat about the bush - this critical dialogue has really looked like an instrument for the international legitimization of this policy of statesponsored terrorism, and I therefore greatly welcome the Council's decision - very late though it is - to terminate the critical dialogue.
I would also call for something more: that an end should be put to economic and commercial co-operation with Iran until such time as that country has itself put an end to what appears to be one of the most obscurantist regimes ever known.
I would also like to express my personal support, and the support of my entire group, for the forces of democracy, which, in Iran and elsewhere, day in, day out, are fighting to build a democratic and secular Iran.
I believe that in order for us to have an even clearer picture of the situation in that country, the Council and the Commission should engage in a dialogue with those forces also.
Many of the representatives of this resistance abroad have been savagely murdered, even in our own capital cities, by Iranian agents sent by Tehran.
That was what happened to the representative of the Iranian resistance in Italy: he was murdered, and we know the murderer - his surname, his forename and the job he does at the Iranian Embassy.
If nothing else, the European Union owes it to these people to institute an immediate and fundamental political change in its dealings with Iran.
Mr President, first let me draw a distinction of principle in relation to our political decisionmaking: on the one hand we are talking about the conduct of the Iranian head of state in terms of international law and on the other about the measures we want to take to help the victims and sufferers of the earthquake in northeastern Iran.
I believe we must help these people; it is a humanitarian question, a question of emergency aid.
We want to extend our sympathy to these people and their families and express our solidarity and I hope the emergency aid will be provided as soon as possible under the ECHO programme.
But that must not prevent us from condemning the state terrorism in Iran in our political debates and on a daily basis and from taking the appropriate measures here too.
The Mykonos judgment of 10 April made it clear that top-level Iranian politicians gave the order to murder Iranian dissidents.
The same was clear in April 1989, when the Kurdish leader Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou was murdered in Vienna.
This cannot be tolerated.
As said earlier, the European Union must take firm action here.
If my information is correct, I wonder why the Italian ambassador is still in Iran.
Perhaps the President of the Commission can say something about this.
At the same time, we must pursue a policy of small steps.
We should grant asylum to the democratic opposition figures in the European Union and we cannot allow this granting of asylum to depend on the political decision of Iran, as happened in the Federal Republic of Germany.
I think that is a contradictory political attitude, which the European Union must put a stop to immediately!
Mr President, I think the debate shows that we agree about one point: we unreservedly condemn the policy of terrorism adopted by the government of Iran.
At the same time, however, I think we agree that the problem we call Iran today cannot be addressed simply by condemning the actions and omissions of the regime.
The second of these points is the more serious.
The policy adopted by the European Union until now, in other words the policy of critical dialogue, however correct as a theoretical concept, has brought no results but rather, the opposite.
Consequently, critical dialogue must cease and rightly so.
However, this does not mean that the Council in particular - because the Commission is both present and working on the matter, but the Council, which is absent from all these debates because they are supposedly unimportant - is not obliged to develop a new political concept concerning how the European Union should address Iran.
We will wait for the Council to deign to bring us a political concept, I hope sometime before the end of the year.
The other matter is that we should start thinking a little with our eyes turned to the future.
In Iran, there are forces which are both democratic and understand international relations.
And we ought to send a message to those forces to continue their fight for Iran's modernization and democratization.
Mr President, Iran is facing major problems in its financial and economic policy and in human rights, which is in fact a regional problem.
The people want prosperity and social security, but the massive military investment causes the region many problems.
A policy of confrontation has never brought economic success with it but only poverty and despair for the general public and pride for the very few.
Intellectually it is of course rather more difficult to seek consensus and to think in terms of alternatives.
Europe should serve as a model!
Let us begin by analysing the problems, at least until the election, and let us then offer solutions.
Let us give even stronger support than before to those circles that want cooperation.
Mr President, it took a ruling from a Berlin court to force the European ministers to suspend the so-called 'critical dialogue' which was started in 1992 with Iran.
In fact anyone could have seen much earlier than that that this procedure would hardly produce any results.
The ruling from the Berlin court presents a good opportunity to take another look at relations between Europe and Iran.
The question is what kind of relations the Union wants with a country which is now known to have its political and religious leaders maintaining a secret council which is instructed to liquidate political opponents elsewhere in the world and which is guilty of serious breach of human rights in its own country.
Iran also threatens political stability in the Middle East.
It is no secret that the country is busily building up an extensive arsenal of conventional and chemical and biological weapons.
There are even indications that Iran possesses nuclear weapons.
Furthermore we must remember Iran's hostile attitude to the peace process in the Middle East.
By supporting the militant shiite Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Hamas in the autonomous Palestinian areas Iran aims to thwart the progress of the peace talks between Israel and its Arab neighbours.
And all this is going on at a time when the Union and the United States are doing everything in their power to bring peace to the Middle East.
In view of that it is highly unsatisfactory that the Union and the United States are singing from different hymn sheets in matters of policy.
In the meantime Iran is gratefully exploiting the unclear or divided diplomatic action of European countries.
It is by no means certain that the Iranian authorities will change their policy under Western pressure, but they do want to entertain good relations with countries of the Union.
It must be clear that there can be no question of a dialogue with that country until such time as Iran is prepared to stop terrorist activities, change its attitude to the peace process and recognise Israel's right to existence.
The Union must follow a foreign policy together with the United States which gets this clear message across to Iran.
Mr President, first of all I think that all Member States must demonstrate solidarity in the case of the diplomatic crisis with Iran.
Secondly, as for the earthquake tragedy, we are asking - as all public opinion in Europe and internationally asks - for immediate action, but I want to know whether the Commission is absolutely certain that this aid is meant to be distributed directly.
On this score, we have heard that there is censorship, and that even expressions of distress and protest by the local populations are being repressed.
Therefore, I would ask the European Commission whether this aid is going to be directly distributed so that we can be sure that it really does reach those affected by the earthquake and is not exploited by the regime, which uses its powers in an absolute way.
I wish to thank Mr Van den Broek for his very detailed presentation as regards Iran, but in order that there should be no misunderstanding, I want to make myself clear.
My comment concerning the critical dialogue does not, and should not be construed as meaning that the critical dialogue applied up to now was a misguided policy.
No: it is a policy that did not bring about the desired results.
Secondly, now is the moment, instead of simply ending the critical dialogue, to take advantage of the situation and reconsider a comprehensive global policy as regards Iran.
I would like to ask you, Commissioner, to transmit this message as being the consensus of this House.
It is the moment to conceptualize and go a little further; not necessarily with sanctions, but a comprehensive global policy vis-à-vis Iran in view of what Iran is doing.
You have said most of what there is to say on the matter.
Mr President, Mr Van den Broek answered that the Italian ambassador was in Iran before the Council decision.
But he did not say whether he is willing to come back or whether the other Member States asked him to come back or whether he intends to come back.
My second question is this: are there any other European Union ambassadors over there?
Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Dimitrakoupolos for his point with which I fully agree.
We must certainly develop a more comprehensive policy towards Iran.
In reply to Mr Telkämper I would say that I understand that the Italian government has not yet taken any decisions on recalling its ambassador.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following five motions for resolutions:
B4-0396/97 by Mr Fassa and Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0404/97 by Mr Kouchner, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the Sudan; -B4-0409/97 by Mr Pettinari and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, and Mrs Kinnock, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0415/97 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the Sudan; -B4-0434/97 by Mr Fernández Martín and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in Sudan.
Mr President, the grave situation in Sudan provides us with an opportunity to emphasize one of the fundamental criteria by which the European Union's relations with all third countries must be governed - there must be an internal system that conforms to the principles of democracy, not in a merely formal sense but also, and more importantly, in substance.
From this we derive the three criteria emphasized in paragraph 1 of the present motion for a resolution: first, separation between Church and State; secondly, respect for the principle of self-determination of peoples; and thirdly, the democratization of Sudanese society.
It is no use objecting that we must take account of the specific national features and local idiosyncrasies of Sudan.
A situation such as now prevails in that country cannot possibly be regarded as the Sudanese path to democracy.
Can we tolerate all these things happening without anything ever being said or done? I believe that we must strongly support the amendment tabled by Mr Kouchner, which is designed to stress a specific diplomatic initiative by the European Union in Sudan.
Mr President, there is no certainty at all that politics and international relations are based on morality.
But there is no doubt, on the other hand, that the vocation of a parliament like ours is to make sure that a bit of morality is introduced into them on the basis of the values of humanism, which are the very justification of the European Union.
For far too long the Khartoum regime has been violating these values by eliminating basic liberties, introducing intolerable forms of religious discrimination, executing its opponents, terrorising its own people domestically and exporting terror.
This regime should be unanimously and roundly condemned.
I say 'should' because I know of one government, that of my country, which is able to deal with Sudan in order to obtain the delivery of an ageing former terrorist and to use this as an argument of domestic policy.
I think that we should not give in to this regime at all until it accepts the demands of the international community to respect human rights and the sovereignty of neighbouring states.
I hope that the European Parliament is going to vote unanimously for the resolution before it, and I wish to draw your attention towards an amendment tabled by our colleague, Bernard Kouchner, which is asking for a very useful diplomatic initiative between the European Union and the Organisation of African Unity in order to bring an end, by mediation, to the Sudanese civil war.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe there is serious cause for concern in the increase in the number of war zones in Sudan.
Today, fighting is no longer confined to the south of the country but has also spread to the north and - the most dangerous and alarming aspect - to the border zones with Ethiopia and Uganda.
We are witnessing a radical escalation of the Sudanese conflict, which threatens to engulf the entire Horn of Africa.
I therefore regard it as a matter of urgency for the European Union to intervene politically, because we cannot simply stand by to witness the likely explosion of Africa's largest country.
In my view, the Council must put pressure on the government in Khartoum to open an immediate dialogue with the combined opposition represented by the National Democratic Alliance, to accept the IGAD peace plan and to comply with international law by applying the United Nations Security Council's Resolution 1070.
The Sudanese Government must not be allowed to think that it can continue defying the entire international community, and for that reason I believe it should agree to a visit by a UN delegation with a view to clarifying the human rights situation in the country and verifying the activities of the international terrorist training camps of which we have heard so much, and which the Council and the Commission, too, would do well to investigate more closely.
The Council and the Commission should also demand that the Sudanese Government allows access to international humanitarian organizations, so that aid may really reach the civilian population.
I am thinking especially of the relaunching of the programmes that have been discontinued, at the initiative of the United Nations, so that they can reach those groups among the population who are most in need of assistance, having for years been the victims of planned extermination by the Sudanese Government.
Mr President, we are concerned about the 12-year civil war in Sudan, which has grave consequences for the civilian population, including starvation, malnutrition, migration, etc.
We are also concerned about the worsening human rights situation, reflected by arbitrary arrests of opponents of the regime and lamentable prison conditions.
We regret the fact that the Sudanese government is refusing to allow humanitarian organizations to enter the war zones and support the civilian population, which needs a regular supply of humanitarian aid.
We also regret the Sudanese government's decision to block Operation Lifeline Sudan again and thus prevent humanitarian organizations from assisting those in need in this area too.
Lastly, we are angered by the provocative stance of the Sudanese government vis à vis the repeated warnings by the international community, and in particular Security Council Resolution 1070 of 16 August 1996.
That is why we call on the government to end the civil war, to promote a peaceful settlement of the conflict, to release the political prisoners and to authorize Operation Lifeline Sudan and we call on the Commission of the European Community to respond to the Security Council's appeal and grant the requested emergency aid of $ 120 million.
MR President, although I too support this joint resolution at the same time I am not too optimistic that our demands can be implemented.
We note that opposition to the regime has flared up again.
But this is because the so-called opposition in the country has united, that it has managed to bring the disparate ethnic groups that are against the Khartoum regime under one hat, so to speak.
As before, however, the ethnic divisions remain visible.
There is little hope at present of a cease-fire, for a few days ago one of the leading military figures of the SPLA said in the Neue Züricher Zeitung that its objective is to overthrow the regime and that all its military actions are directed at achieving that aim.
At the same time Mr Garang reminded in this interview that conflicts of this kind create civilian victims but added that the SPLA are prepared to keep the numbers of such victims as low as possible.
In the light of that I feel it would be a little more hopeful to negotiate with these forces on access for humanitarian aid rather than with the current regime, which is facing difficulties on many fronts and in particular on very long fronts.
So I would expect a better response to our call for humanitarian aid to be authorized again if we managed to reach agreement with the current opposition, since it has managed to create a kind of political organization.
Madam President, over the last few years we have actually seen some very real beacons of hope in Africa.
We have seen relative peace in the whole of southern Africa.
We have seen the political miracle of Nelson Mandela and his new South Africa.
We have probably seen more democracies in West Africa than there have ever been.
We saw a situation recently in the Horn of Africa where Ethiopia - where we saw terrible scenes of starving children a few years ago - is actually exporting grain to Kenya.
Yet in the midst of all this hope, we have the situation in Sudan. It is a real problem.
This fundamentalist barbaric regime not only subjects its own citizens to terror, abuse and oppression but exports terrorism to North Africa and the Middle East.
It is a cancer eating away at the whole region and we desperately need to do something as a European Union and we need to punch our weight as part of an international community.
We need to condemn the appalling human rights record of this regime, in particular, in regard to the civilian population and the women and children in Sudan.
We need to express support for the democratic opposition which is working very hard both within and outside Sudan.
We need to continue to maintain sanctions but, at the same time as maintaining sanctions, we need to provide humanitarian aid.
As other people have said, we need to bring pressure to bear to try and bring the parties together to endeavour to reach a peaceful solution.
I was particularly pleased that the new British Labour Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, when he spoke for the very first time, talked about the abuse of human rights and the need to do something about that.
He also talked about working with others to deal with international terrorism.
There is a window of opportunity there and I very much hope the Council and Commission will use this opportunity to try and do something to alleviate the terrible suffering which is taking place in Sudan.
Madam President, Alleanza Nazionale supports the motion for a resolution condemning Sudan, but points out that one fundamental aspect of the civil war in that country has not been considered in this motion - the fact that the clash between north and south involves issues of religious and racial hatred.
Muslim fundamentalists and fanatics have in fact been massacring part of the Sudanese population simply because it adheres to the Christian religion.
The European Union must take immediate action to eliminate the virus of fundamentalism and prevent it from spreading.
Similar horrors are taking place in Algeria, while other countries in the Middle Eastern area, dominated by religious rather than secular concepts of politics, are financing terrorists and other destabilizing factions.
The crimes committed in Sudan must be stopped, and our Community must do everything it can to achieve that, if only to prevent these fundamentalist viruses from propagating in our own Western societies, giving rise to hatred and irreconcilable divisions.
Madam President, on Sudan the news is not very cheerful.
Away back in 1990 the Commission informed the government of Sudan that the situation was not acceptable for starting productive talks under Lomé IV on the programming of finance earmarked for Sudan.
That opinion has not changed and it also reflects the concern of the European Union at the situation there, the lack of democracy, human rights, the armed conflict particularly in the south and the fact that no real progress has been made towards peace.
The Union's development aid has also stopped as the government in Khartoum has not made any serious attempt to tackle any of the problems facing the country.
As against that, as various Members have pointed out, humanitarian aid remains important and is also being continued, especially to the people in the south of the country caught up in the civil war.
I can tell you that since 1994 some ECU 61 million in humanitarian aid has been given by our humanitarian office ECHO, in addition to which another 35 million has gone on direct food aid.
The human rights situation, as I said, remains highly unsatisfactory, really bad.
The United Nations Security Council passed a unanimous resolution in January of last year condemning Sudan for its aid to international terrorism and demanding the extradition of Islamic fundamentalists being sought in connection with the attempted murder of President Mubarak of Egypt.
That was in June 1995.
And since Sudan did not meet the conditions of the resolution sanctions were put into place on 10 May 1996, now one year ago, which the Security Council announced in Resolution 1054 and which called for a reduction of the staff in Sudanese embassies throughout the whole world.
Following that the Security Council adopted a resolution last August calling on Sudan Airways, after the expiry of a period of 90 days, to be grounded by means of an international embargo if Sudan had not implemented the earlier Security Council resolutions.
The Security Council however decided to await the report of the advisor from the United Nations humanitarian affairs department who was sent to Sudan before the resolution was presented for implementation; his mission was to investigate the consequences of such a sanction on Sudan Airways, particularly its effect on humanitarian aid.
Mr President, you realise that various attempts have been undertaken, in IGAT as elsewhere, to try to get the peace talks back on to the rails.
Tentative agreements were concluded in 1996, new agreements in 1997.
I regret to have to inform you that the Commission cannot detect to date any real progress in the process as such and so is really concentrating on trying to alleviate the most serious needs of the peoples concerned.
Despite this a number of Member States of the European Union regularly discuss, in IGAT as elsewhere, how possible new political incentives can be found for the peace process.
The next item is the joint debate on the following 15 motions for resolution:
B4-0388/97 by Mr André-Léonard, on behalf of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the elections in Indonesia; -B4-0428/97 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on human rights violations in Indonesia; -B4-0436/97 by Mr Moorhouse and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on José Ramos Horta in particular and human rights violations in Indonesia in general; -B4-0364/97 by Mr Apolinário, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the human rights situation in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; -B4-0395/97 by Mr André-Léonard, on behalf of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Group, on Vietnam; -B4-0397/97 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on human rights in Vietnam; -B4-0435/97 by Mr Bernard-Reymond and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on human rights in Vietnam; -B4-0371/97 by Mr Wiersma and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation of children in Central and Eastern Europe; -B4-0437/97 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Oomen-Ruijter, n behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation of vulnerable people in Central and Eastern Europe; -B4-0370/97 by Mr Karamanou and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the release of Isik Yurtçu; -B4-0418/97 by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the famine in North Korea; -B4-0363/97 by Mr Apolinário and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on workers' rights to human dignity and the NGOs' Clean Clothes campaign; -B4-0414/97 by Mrs Sornosa Martínez, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the rights of the children and the 'Clean Clothes' campaign of European NGOs; -B4-0421.97 by Mrs Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on practical measures to combat child labour; -B4-0366/97 on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on Kenya.
Indonesia:
Madam President, with its 200 million inhabitants, Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world and it plays a leading role in South-East Asia.
Controlled by a despot for more than thirty years now, the Indonesian regime claims to be a democracy but in reality we must doubt this.
Every five years elections are held but only three parties are allowed to take part in them.
Willing to do anything to retain power, the authorities entrusted 189, 000 soldiers and police officers with ensuring a peaceful campaign and vote.
Any assemblies or marches in public were banned and candidates' broadcasts on television were subjected to censorship.
Opponents were persecuted for subversive behaviour or incitement to violence, subjected to brutal evictions and condemned to heavy prison sentences throughout the so-called 'electoral campaign' .
The Indonesian government must understand that democratic elections and credible institutions are vital for guaranteeing the respect of human rights and if its international relations are to be improved.
Madam President, Indonesia is an area of the world that has been criticized many times in this Parliament, particularly because of East Timor.
I just wish to let the House know that an intergroup on East Timor has now been set up, and people who are concerned about the Indonesian occupation of East Timor should get involved in the intergroup.
Apart from that, it is not just the people of East Timor who are persecuted but the Indonesians themselves.
We would like to see the rights of the pro-democracy movement in Indonesia recognized.
The conditions in the prisons have to be addressed; also access of prisoners to basic human rights, access of NGOs to Indonesia, freedom of the press, freedom of movement of people, and the right of people to live in a society where they are not persecuted by their own government.
The Indonesians have forced the international community to turn a blind eye to what is going on there, and they hold the international community to ransom.
This Parliament also has to ensure that Member State governments stop supplying arms to Indonesia until democracy is established there.
We cannot criticise governments and, at the same time, sell weapons to them when they persecute their own people and territories that they have illegally occupied.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, with sad regularity the European Parliament is obliged to condemn the serious violations of human rights practised by the Indonesian authorities on its own territory and in the illegally occupied territory of East Timor.
This time, in a sham democracy, the Indonesian authorities have organised an electoral farce in which only three pro-government parties were authorized to take part.
However, students and other peaceful opponents to the Jakarta government continue to be held arbitrarily in prison for demonstrating against the holding of elections in such conditions, and violent repression has continued against the people of East Timor.
It is time for the European Union and its Member States to adopt coherent positions in its relationship with Indonesia.
In particular we must make sure that the Union's trade relations with ASEAN countries should be subjected to the respect of human rights and that Member States stop giving military assistance and selling weapons to Indonesia.
In recent public declarations, the impartial voice of the Bishop of Dili, Ximenes Belo, last year's Nobel Peace Prizewinner, confirmed the worsening of the violations of human rights in Timor, referring even to cases of torture.
Madam President, although the Indonesian General Election is not due to take place until 29 May, which is a week today, the result is not in doubt.
For the sixth time since President Suharto seized power in 1965 the government-backed Golkar party will win and next year Parliament with other nominees will almost certainly reappoint President Suharto for a seventh five-year term.
The fact that 75 of the 500 members of parliament are appointed by the army shows some of the limits on democracy.
The freedom of the opposition parties contending for the remaining seats was demonstrated last June when Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of former President Sukarno was replaced through government action by Mr Suryadi of whom the government approved.
Other leading opposition figures such as Budiman and Bintang Pamungkas and trade union leaders like Dita Sari and Muchtar Pakpahan are serving long jail sentences under the Draconian anti-subversion law.
Some government opponents, like M.P. Sukatnu who recently died, have spent nearly 30 years in prison.
Having seen off the opposition, the government is able to implement policies to crush all dissent, whether in East Timor where a third of the population have died since the unlawful invasion of 1975 or elsewhere.
All this underlines the importance of the Council and Commission expressing the deepest concern about the ruthless means employed to suppress opposition everywhere and seeking to end the export of arms to Indonesia.
As a British Member, I am delighted at the desire voiced by the new British Foreign Secretary to give greater importance to human rights in foreign affairs and I hope we shall now end all deliveries from Europe of arms and the means of repression.
This resolution signals the desire of this Parliament to step up the pressure on the Indonesian authorities and we hope very much that the Council and the Commission will respond to our appeal.
Madam President, Indonesia is a big country with many cultures and a large population of nearly 200 million people, a growing economy and freedom of religion despite the fact that it is a Muslim country.
That is the bright side of the story.
Indonesia is a sad country which is wide open to criticism for its record on democracy and human rights.
That is the other side of the coin.
Democracy, there are soldiers in the government, there are soldiers in the parliament; the miliary dominates and elections are manipulated.
Look at Mr Pakpahan and Mrs Soekarnoputri.
And as for Timor, Timor is Indonesia' scandal.
Indonesia should never have allowed the situation in Timor to get out of hand like that.
It is right for us here in this House to draw attention to it.
It is right that we keep Indonesia to its promises on human rights and that we criticise where criticism is due.
There are good sides to Indonesia but it also has its pathetic sides and it is up to us, especially when considering human rights and the lack of democracy, to put our finger on this very sore spot.
That is what we are doing with this resolution and our group will vote in favour of it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has already, on many occasions, condemned the violation of human rights in Indonesia and, in particular, the situation in East Timor, and yet Indonesia has failed to alter its conduct, in clear disregard for the resolutions passed by the United Nations or the feelings of the international community.
The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Bishop Ximenes Belo and Mr Ramos Horta sent out another alarm signal over violations of human rights in that territory.
Having the opportunity to look at photographic documents shown by Ramos Horta in the European Parliament during his official visit three weeks ago, I was able to see for myself that, apart from thousands of deaths, arbitrary imprisonment and the already recognised persecutions, vicious torture is also carried out, sometimes resulting in death, using medieval methods, on Timorese citizens who only want to defend their culture, identity and autonomy.
Therefore, we feel it is urgent that the European Union should become aware of this reality and put an end to its action, which at the very least is ambiguous.
How can we understand that when it comes to Vietnam, for example, European cooperation is linked to the respect of human rights and yet the same requisite is ignored when we deal with the bigger ASEAN countries? How can we understand that, in the case of small countries, such as Togo or Equatorial Guinea we have (rightly) suspended aid and cooperation because of alleged violations of human rights and yet we pass over the same sacred principle when dealing with major countries where larger trade and economic interests are at stake?
Where is the coherence in this?
In approving this motion for a resolution, the European Parliament can lend dignity to the values which are part and parcel of our cultural and political heritage.
Vietnam:
Madam President, the Republic of Vietnam is in the process of transition, as we all know.
This is a painful process and involves significant economic restructuring.
It is crucial that, in the process, human rights are respected.
We are very concerned about the reports we have received in relation to imprisonment of religious leaders of the United Buddhist Church, despite constitutional guarantees of religious freedom.
I also note with deep regret that just yesterday a Vietnamese court sentenced eight people to death for drug offences; eleven people have already been sentenced to death this year.
I call on the Vietnamese authorities to release all political and religious prisoners and I am asking the government to take the necessary steps to ensure that the elections which will take place in July are free and fair.
In Parliament, as you probably know, we are currently considering a protocol to extend the EU-ASEAN Agreement to Vietnam.
I am involved in that for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
Some people will say that Vietnam is being singled out on its human rights record and that the other ASEAN members are free from this kind of human rights conditionality.
However, we must be committed to an end to human rights abuses in the whole region and should not lessen our criticisms of one country because of our approach to others.
On the contrary, I believe that this differential treatment should be a spur to the Council to renegotiate our cooperation agreement with ASEAN.
This is the only way to ensure that the fulfilment of basic human rights becomes an indispensable aspect of our cooperation, not only with the Republic of Vietnam but with all the countries of the region.
I am very pleased that the Commission has raised the human rights question with the Vietnamese authorities and I should like an assurance today from Commissioner Van den Broek that, on behalf of the Commission, he will maintain this approach.
Madam President, eager for foreign investment Vietnam has signed a cooperation agreement with Europe and did so last year.
Since then we have noted that human rights and democratic principles underlying that agreement are being cheerfully violated.
Against a background of general corruption affecting every level of power, the Vietnamese government continues to restrict civil liberties and to violate human rights.
The press is totally controlled by the authorities, hundreds of journalists have been sacked, banned from writing or arrested and imprisoned in camps.
To crown this, a huge campaign has been launched to control information coming from abroad, on the pretext of fighting negative foreign influence.
This wave of harassment continued last month when it was directed against dissident writers and defenders of human rights.
There is a systematic policy of religious repression.
This is an intolerable situation.
Vietnam must honour the commitments it undertook and the Council and the Commission are called upon to remind it that the defence of human rights is a priority in our relations as well as in the context of the review of the agreements between the European Union and ASEAN.
Situation of children in central and eastern Europe:
Madam President, anyone looking at the situation in central and eastern Europe is struck by the particularly sad fate of the most vulnerable sections of the population.
Through the activities of our own people and their organisations we know the fate of abandoned children who are taken to orphanages and the like, often in appalling conditions and we can only be glad that church and NGO organisations in particular are doing so much to adopt that kind of refuge.
In the resolution we are tabling we want to stress that it is good for the Commission in its own policy to encourage appropriate organisations to do that work.
We have added the fate of the elderly to the resolution.
Children catch everyone's imagination, but the fate of the elderly, the old and infirm, the old and mentally ill, does not so easily catch public attention.
Yet that is precisely the kind of group we must care for, the elderly who are often locked away with the mentally ill with hardly a soul to take care of them.
In supporting this resolution I want to say that the European Community will do excellent work not merely in the economic and legal field but will also have a very encouraging social policy in that organisations which take pity on the defenceless people over there, children, the elderly, psychiatric patients, will also get the necessary back-up from the European Commission, particularly through a possible PHARE programme and services that we have over there.
I regret I shall be unable to hear the Commissioner's reply, for which I apologise; I shall be very interested to read it in the verbatim report.
Madam President, the present situation of children in central and eastern Europe demands our urgent attention.
I myself was recently in Rumania where I saw with my own eyes the appalling conditions in which the street children of Bucharest live, for example.
The recent UNICEF report also paints a serious picture.
The changes in central and eastern Europe have not brought any great improvement to the dreadful conditions in which some children had lived under the communist system.
The UNICEF report indicates that in many cases the situation has even got worse.
There are statistics in the report on a rise in crime, alcohol addiction and suicides among young people.
That is one of the results of the high social and economic costs paid for the transition, weak groups in society such as children are always the ones to suffer here.
On the other hand it is also the result of this problem admittedly being recognised by the governments on the spot but in practice being put low down on the agenda.
That must change and change quickly.
The European Union must together with the governments in central and eastern Europe give priority to improving the living conditions of these children.
To bring about such an improvement money must be made available in the short term.
Government attempts to tackle the situation must be supported by all sides, such as the measures taken recently by the Rumanian government to give better protection to children's rights in Rumania, for example.
This must be followed up in practice.
In a word, everything must be done to improve the fate of children in central and eastern Europe.
Let us never forget that they are the future of Europe, not only of their Europe but of our Europe.
Investing in them is also investing in the future of Europe.
I hope that the Commission and other responsible bodies in Europe will undertake something on the basis of this present resolution and that we in this House will continue to follow developments concerning children in central and eastern Europe.
Isik Yurtça:
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the issue of respect for human rights, respect for freedom of the Press and the free movement of ideas in Turkey, has now become pressing and dramatic.
According to information from the Union of European Journalists, and from the Turkish Union of Journalists, 78 of their colleagues are still held in Turkish prisons while new arrests take place every day, with confiscations of newspapers, closure of television and radio stations, assaults on journalists, and police raids and arson attacks against newspaper offices.
A very characteristic instance is the case of the journalist Isik Yurçu, who from his prison has made a dramatic appeal for his release: ' Why are you behaving' , he asks us, ' as if I did not exist? For 26 years I have exercised no profession other than journalism' .
Isik Yurçu is 52 years old, a Turkish citizen who was unlucky enough to be the Chief Editor of the pro-Kurdish paper Özgür Günden whose publication was banned in January 1994.
For his articles in that paper he was sentenced to imprisonment for 14 years and 10 months.
He has already spent 28 months in prison under very unpleasant conditions, with serious consequences for his physical and mental health.
His colleagues describe him as a journalist with integrity, who never exploited his profession for personal gain.
From time to time he has been awarded many professional prizes by the Turkish Press Council, by the Union of Turkish Journalists, by the Association of Journalists in Ankara, while Journalists Without Frontiers have begun a campaign for his immediate release.
In 1996, with three other colleagues, he was proclaimed 'Journalist of the Year' .
The Union of European Journalists declared 3 May 1997 as a day of action for his release.
Granted its sensitivity towards issues related to human rights and democratic liberties, the European Parliament must today call for the immediate release of Isik Yurçu and all imprisoned Turkish journalists.
It should also make it clear once more to the Turkish government that persecution against the Press and violations of human rights create very serious obstacles to its accession to the European Union.
Madam President, we have been discussing violations of human rights in Turkey nearly every month, although we had hoped the situation might improve.
In this context let me refer you in particular to the resolution of 13 December 1995 on the situation of human rights in Turkey that we adopted here, because at that time we had expected that the customs union might lead to improvements in the political situation.
This did not happen.
I think we have to draw the appropriate political conclusions.
I was in Turkey early last week.
A conference was being held there on organized crime and just as it was taking place a television transmitter was attacked by police or paramilitary forces.
This created a great stir in Turkey and was further evidence that there is no media freedom there.
The background to this story was a report on drugs and on a drugs deal involving the name of Mrs Ciller, which suggests close contacts here with organized crime in Turkey; so we have to ask what policy the European Union is pursuing here.
The reason for today's discussion is the award of the prize for journalism to Isik Yurtøu, who was condemned to 15 years in prison, and I think the way human rights are being violated there should really spur us on to fight for the release of this journalist, for he has committed no crime.
Famine in North Korea:
Madam President, it is simply intolerable for the whole world to stand by and watch the people of North Korea starve to death while UNICEF keeps appealing for aid.
It is a matter of hundreds of people a day!
Soon it will be thousands and tens of thousands.
We have just given money for the victims of the earthquake in Iran without further discussion even though it is a richer country.
Here we do nothing!
It is not the fault of the children, the old and the infirm that they are ruled by a communist regime, without much democracy.
Normally, under similar circumstances, we give money to other countries that are not ruled democratically.
We must remember that we, the EU, are in fact involved in a project in North Korea.
We are supporting the construction of 2000 megawatt nuclear reactors to the tune of ECU 75 million.
The money is going to a country where the people are eating grass, are starving, to a country that has refused to sign the ban on chemical weapons, which is ruled by a military dictatorship, which has no infrastructure, no industry at all.
And we spend ECU 75 million on that!
We have a reserve of ECU 10 million.
I would like us to use that money to give immediate help to the people there, especially the children.
It really is a scandal for any civilized country just to stand by and watch even though it knows the extent of the misery in that country.
The FAO says that we need another $ 14.5 million to establish programmes to help North Korea to grow seed crops that will produce some kind of harvest for them again.
So I ask you to endorse my group's motion, for we owe this to the people there, especially to the children!
Madam President, I must say that the famine in Korea referred to in the motion for a resolution is nothing new and that we have been hearing about the floods out there again and again.
I support the calls that we should mobilize more aid.
But on behalf of my group I would say that we should not confuse the issues here, for I believe that the question of industrial policy, of establishing industrial plant, including the construction of a nuclear power station, belongs under a different heading.
What I miss in this urgency is a reference to the responsibility of the North Korean government.
We believe that good government is always a factor of development, which we must take into account, given that we also call for democratization and suchlike in other contexts.
So we will endorse the motion for a resolution subject to the appropriate amendments.
Madam President, three very brief points.
Of course, we approve of humanitarian action and the urgent need for it.
But I think we should also insist on the visibility of the European Union in this humanitarian action.
This aid must not be used later on by the North Korean government for propaganda purposes as has been the case in the past.
At the same time, the European Union must ask the North Korean government what type of reforms it intends to enact and when.
Finally, we must turn towards a central actor in this part of the world.
I think that the Commission and the Council should put pressure on China, which is able to exert considerable influence on the North Korean regime, to unblock the situation so that finally this country, which is the most backward communist country in the world, should undertake reforms.
Action must be taken and urgently.
Madam President, the motion for a resolution on the famine in North Korea tabled by the Green Group of the European Parliament is a bizarre document.
Bizarre because the only accurate thing in it is the description of the famine which is hitting about half of the nearly 23 million people there.
I fear that this resolution has gone off in the totally wrong direction.
All in all the Green Group limits itself to criticising America -although America is prepared to send in dozens of tons of food aid.
Furthermore the motion for a resolution respectfully talks about the 'government of North Korea which reports about starving children' .
Not one single word in the motion on those who are really responsible for the famine, namely the stalinist regime of Kim Jong-il that apparently still curries favour with the Green Group.
Kim Jong-il himself is not suffering from starvation, still less his brother who is ambassador to Finland, or his sister the vice-director of the central committee of the CP, or his nieces and nephews and the whole family who all hold positions of power in the regime.
Not one single word either on the two hundred thousand political prisoners who are literally rotting at this very moment in North Korea.
Not a word on the fact that the devastating floods were not the real reason for the famine but the real reasons is solely the dominant suffering caused by 52 years of stalinist dictatorship.
Not a word on the fact that the financial involvement of the United States and perhaps of Europe in building two light water reactors - financial involvement that was strongly criticised by the Greens - was aimed at replacing two old unsafe nuclear power stations that were only used in practice to provide the regime with plutonium for military purposes.
In a word, I fear that the Green Group is proving somewhat late in the day that is an uncritical defender of a monstrous regime.
Madam President, I totally reject the suggestion that I defer to or in any other way sympathize with a communist system.
I think it is outrageous.
I and my family suffered serious persecution by the communist system.
I totally reject that!
It is quite impudent!
Just because I did not list all the crimes that were perpetrated there.
They would have filled a whole book.
In a moment I will be telling you about all the other Western-oriented countries where similar things happen.
If you would only read our motion for a resolution more carefully, you would not make such outrageous insinuations, if I may make myself quite clear!
Let it be quite clear to everybody here: I have nothing to do either with dictatorships or with communist systems!
You are insinuating this just because I am a member of the Greens.
Madam President, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz is apparently accusing me of being unable to read, but I can indeed read very well.
I am reading the text of the motion for a resolution which does not contain the slightest criticism of a government, she does not even call it a dictatorship, but the government of North Korea which does not attract the least censure in the Greens' resolution and which in my view is at the root of what is unfortunately happening in North Korea.
Madam President, the Commission keeps referring to its social and ecological responsibilities and giving top priority to respect for human rights in its international agreements.
But when it comes to practical support, sadly there is little evidence of this.
One example is the rugmark label, supposedly a model of social regulation in rug production.
Rugmark could be a real means of eliminating child labour, and in particular of offering the children concerned alternatives.
Germany supports this initiative yet the Commission is refusing to finance it, producing rather threadbare arguments.
Too many lobbyists from certain countries and certain undertakings probably visit the Commission offices rather too often.
What we want is quite simple: throw the lobbyists out of the Commission offices!
Initiatives such as the Rugmark and the Clean Clothes campaigns must be given adequate support!
The Commission should grant additional tariff preferences to countries which comply with the fundamental ILO conventions.
It should support existing efforts to eliminate child labour and set up its own aid programmes.
So we firmly support the motion for a resolution.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Time and time again the European Parliament has called for social clauses to be included in international trade agreements.
Not because we want to protect the economies of Europe at all costs, but because we are convinced that liberalising world trade needs some basic rules of decency, both in the social and ecological field as well as in the fiscal field.
But unfortunately once again we see that absolutely nothing happened at the Singapore summit about including social clauses in trade agreements.
The ILO was packed off home with a pat on the back and permission to deal with this issue.
We must continue to protect against this kind of attitude and I think that we should give our full support to the new initiative developed by the International Labour Organisation which called for a code of behaviour for all countries to stick to basic social rules on banning child labour, forced labour, the right to association, the right to organisation and a ban on discrimination.
I think that the European Union must also act to support consumer actions.
There are already various organisations in all our countries, third world organisations that are not sitting back waiting for social clauses to appear one fine day from the world trade organisation.
I believe that these organisation deserve all our support.
We could, for example, start drawing up our own European code of behaviour, giving a label to those firms that are prepared to stick to basic rules of decency and organise monitoring them.
We should be giving much more support to these campaigns to show that the public is quite convinced it is possible to consume and remain moral at the same time.
And some firms should be confronted with their responsibility for the trade they organise in our countries.
That is why I welcome this motion for a resolution and I hope that it will be taken on board by Europe.
Madam President, my group was happy to be involved in tabling this motion for a resolution.
In my capacity as rapporteur I myself was responsible for introducing the social clause into the preferential system and it was on that basis that we were able to tackle Burma about lifting the system.
You can indeed force changes.
Despite that we must admit that these social clauses are often ineffective and that is why the proposal from a number of NGOs to introduce fair trade labels is really very interesting.
It would appear that a fair number of consumers are also in favour, as are sales organisations.
It would seem to be a useful idea. It looks as if we will be seeing more of this kind of fair trade label and that is why I would call on the Commission not merely to aid the NGOs but perhaps even to take the initiative to introduce a European regulation for this kind of label.
Madam President, Mr Van den Broek, on lobby organisations, it might be a good idea to take the resolutions passed this week by this Parliament on regulating lobby organisations as an example which could be followed in the Commission, thereby helping and protecting the Commission services as we ourselves are currently doing.
Madam President, this subject - a subject on which, of course, our group supported and endorsed the urgent motion for a resolution - is an underestimated problem, a tragic problem to which the commercial aspect of clothing and footwear alone is closely linked.
The problem of the exploitation of children's and women's labour cannot, clearly, be exclusively associated with clothes, clothing textiles and footwear.
There are countless other sectors - mention has already been made of carpets and food - in which, sadly, there is massive exploitation of women's and, I again stress, children's labour.
This is why our group has supported this motion and attaches special importance to it.
We ask that this social labelling should be given real status to enable it to tackle a problem which is underestimated but whose present and future scale may, in the course of the social development of third countries, result in a disruption of the global equilibrium.
A child who, today, is allowed neither the time nor the circumstances to be a child - to play, study and grow up with other children and his own family - will sooner or later become a dissatisfied adult, perhaps a violent one, one who robs and kills...
We cannot allow this situation to exist: we must do everything in our power to prevent it.
So let us say yes to social labelling, but let us also encourage the development of fair and balanced trade, extending to all other economic and social sectors.
These are subjects on which are group will always be willing to offer maximum support.
Madam President, this motion for a resolution may not really be urgent in the technical sense.
Even so, it deserves energetic support, partly - and indeed especially - as a way of stressing certain guiding principles and criteria which should govern the actions of the European Union in every sphere, not just in humanitarian matters.
Today, political liberalism and economic liberalization are all the rage, but all too often there is a great deal of confusion about what free trade and the free market really mean.
The point is that the free market must not be understood as meaning an economic system in which there are no rules at all.
Quite the reverse: a genuinely free system must be based on a rule of law that allows the development of a strong economy - and a strong economy, necessarily, is not based on the exploitation of anyone, still less of women and children.
No need for economic progress, however urgent, can justify this kind of practice; on the contrary, the economy should be a vehicle for the expansion of individual freedom for all.
We therefore energetically support any effort to suppress the trade in products which are not strictly certified to involve no exploitation of women and, especially, children.
As has already been pointed out, this is a very widespread phenomenon, especially in the economies of certain emerging States.
For this reason - in other words, precisely in order to encourage the establishment of a genuine economy in the developing countries - we call on the Commission to issue an appropriate directive regarding certification of products coming from those countries, and we support the action of non-governmental organizations that are working towards this objective.
The concept of fair and equitable trade falls within this context and forms a necessary positive complement to this action of ours which, in contrast, must be primarily repressive.
Madam President, the world-wide fight against child labour is showing its first signs of success.
The work of the Rugmark Foundation in India and Nepal, which we in the SARC delegation of the European Parliament are following with particular interest, is a successful initiative.
But let me tell the European Commission that it and the Clean Clothes campaign need more than words of support, they need special aid.
As before, there is still a great need for action.
Measures to prevent the exploitation of women and children are in no way interference in the affairs of sovereign states and they certainly do not reflect what is called a Western perspective.
On the contrary, we need a worldwide internal policy to help establish human rights.
The world-wide ban on child labour needs to be supplemented by further practical measures to ensure that families are prepared to help support the fight against child labour.
Education and training for young people, the appointment of qualified teachers and adequate pay, village cooperation, the creation of trade and craft networks, active local awareness-raising measures and support for the NGOs' work.
That is how to help families to secure themselves and their children a life of dignity.
Kenya:
Madam President, this motion for a resolution calls on the government to take stronger action against gangs and other criminal elements.
This certainly needs stressing, but we must also consider the extent to which a government is capable of doing so.
Without wanting to qualify that information, however, we have also heard it said that the government definitely wants to make efforts in that direction.
And we should not forget that Kenya was the point of departure and logistical basis for many measures, including EU ones, in the Great Lakes area.
I would therefore ask the Commission perhaps not to freeze everything across the board, but to take a selective approach and to start up a few projects so that we then still have a chance to go further.
Nor should we forget that without Nairobi airport, we would have faced very very great difficulties in carrying out certain measures.
Madam President, I would like to thank Members of the House for their contribution to what always seems to be an indictment of the widespread infringement of human rights in the world.
Indictments in an area where this European Parliament also has a reputation and the Commission will certainly continue to encourage Parliament to follow closely the situation of human rights just as the Commission itself tries to do.
To begin with Indonesia, where there have been regular and repeated statements, demarches and protests that the human rights situation is far from satisfactory.
The case highlighted here this afternoon of the arrest of trades union leader Pakpahan and his state of health is yet another example which justifies our concern about human rights in Indonesia, and the condemnation of Mr Pakpahan and the fact that he was arrested as a member of the International Labour Organisation shows clearly the disrespect for trades union rights in Indonesia.
East Timor has long been on the European agenda where the European Union has on various occasions been, and still is, highly critical, even although we also have the duty to try to support attempts at a peaceful political solution.
The Commission closely followed recent political developments in Indonesia and will take further demarches with the Indonesian government with a view to the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The Commission can certainly agree with what has been said about the pending elections and the organisation of the same.
In our talks with the Indonesian authorities we also stressed the need for free and fair elections.
Much has been made about relations with Vietnam and undoubtedly the human rights situation there leaves much to be desired; many reports indicate that we still have the phenomenon of political prisoners in Vietnam.
The Commission agrees with this House that the conditions of detention for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience are severe and must be improved.
We also wonder whether such an improvement could not be stimulated for example by the human rights work group of the United Nations and the human rights working groups or delegations of the European Union visiting the prisoners there, although the Vietnamese authorities will have to be asked for their cooperation.
That could be a specific move to improve the situation.
With reference to Vietnam and other countries mentioned today, the question arises as to whether more effective, perhaps economic pressures could be used to improve the situation.
In general terms I want to say that I fully understand, as does the Commission, that such a request is often made to the Commission in cases such as Vietnam.
I remember signing myself the trade and cooperation agreement with Vietnam which in itself was a new beginning in our relations with Vietnam and which included human rights clauses; these clauses were indeed used to justify the human rights dialogue with the governments.
I myself believe, although you cannot automatically transplant one human rights situation to another country and each situation must reflect national differences, that even when improvements are very slow to come one must show a certain circumspection when considering breaking off economic relations which have been built up slowly and which are aimed first and foremost at improving the social and economic development of the people in a country such as Vietnam.
That aspect must also be borne in mind.
I now move on to children and vulnerable groups in central and eastern Europe, an equally important subject, and the Commission is very aware of the position of the most defenceless groups there.
Under PHARE we have the LEAN programme which since its instigation has financed about 107 projects with a budget of ECU 35 million for aid to invalids, the elderly, children, victims of Aids, minority groups and the unemployed, all groups to which Mr Oostlander drew specific attention.
And then there is the consensus programme which aids the reform of social protection systems, including social and family benefit.
Then there are other instruments more specifically aimed at the national situation, such as the child protection programme in Rumania which has been in operation since 1992, the programme for social emergency aid in Bulgaria which Parliament already debated and which offers income support to poor families and direct financial aid to some psychiatric institutions, and we are familiar with the situation in those institutions in that country.
At the same time we are making preparations for countries applying for membership of the European Union to have access to community programmes dealing with promoting family care, combatting cancer, drug addiction, programmes for equal opportunities for men and women.
The new PHARE guidelines, on which the Commission made a communication to the Parliament, offer us a framework to continue actions in these spheres, particularly reinforcing government services on this point and reinforcing the social security systems.
In this way the European Union naturally intends to create the conditions for a smoother integration of these countries into the European Union.
We are very familiar with the fate of the Turkish journalist Mr Yurtçu whom the Turkish courts have condemned several times since 1995 under the anti-terrorism law and the Penal Code.
We should take the time needed for an exchange of views on the human rights situation in Turkey and then together conclude, I believe, that despite our best endeavours, the pressure we have exerted and the signals we have sent out to Ankara, the situation gives cause for concern to both Parliament and the Commission and Council, and that in any event we must remain on the alert.
That is the critical side of the matter.
Perhaps the encouraging side is that the famous Article 8 of the anti-terrorism law has been applied, under pressure from this House among others, which led to the release of a very large number of journalists, writers and other people, more than 150 if I am not mistaken, who had been imprisoned for infringing the provisions of freedom of expression.
You know that we have very regular contact with Ankara on a number of matters, be they the customs union, Cyprus, bilateral relations with Greece or the Kurdish problem, and we always talk about the human rights situation; we continue to encourage new legislation, improvement of the situation especially in prisons, to put an end to torture in police stations and the like.
I would just like to reassure the House, Madam President, that as far as the Commission is concerned we shall continue to encourage improvements on the spot.
Madam President, over the last two years the European Commission has contributed ECU ten million to humanitarian aid to North Korea.
In March 1997, a few months ago, a well prepared assessment team made an inventory of essential needs of the people.
The results of that assessment team will enable the Commission to make the most of its strategy for humanitarian intervention in North Korea.
We are currently preparing a coordinated aid programme for both food aid and public health assistance.
We should like to take this opportunity of pointing out that not only is the UN willing to organise aid to North Korea but that a large number of European NGOs have also shown interest in contributing to that aid.
But there can be no doubt that the North Korean authorities must show greater flexibility so that the delivery of humanitarian aid can proceed more smoothly.
For as it now stands that aid is subject to a number of both practical and administrative restrictions.
At any rate the Commission will do everything in its power, despite the many problems, to provide the people of North Korea with humanitarian assistance.
I do not intend to take up what Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz said, but since I know that the nuclear power stations are often the subject of debate the European Parliament I must say that the Union's contribution is primarily aimed at making nuclear power stations safe, which would otherwise not happen, and also tackling the problem of proliferation.
I think that the combined efforts with Japan and the United States is justified.
The 'Clean Clothes' campaign which is currently under way in various European countries is not strange in itself.
Over the last few months more of this kind of initiative have been started to make consumers aware of the social conditions under which the clothes they are buying are made.
As you know the Commission totally and unequivocally supports the promotion of basic social rights.
In the Commission communication on the link between trade system and international labour standards, as it is called, the Commission underlines the need to promote basic labour standards, such as the ban on forced labour and the abolition of child labour.
This objective is included in the European Union's system of general preferences which stipulates that additional advantages may be granted to countries that actually apply the specific ILO agreements in the form of positive action to encourage respect of those rules.
The Commission will soon - and this also answers a question put this afternoon - be submitting a draft directive laying down the implementation modalities, especially procedures for monitoring and cooperating with government authorities of the favoured countries.
On the particular initiatives on social labelling the Commission acknowledges an increase in initiatives in the above-mentioned communication and stresses the importance of the rules of the World Trade Organisation which can, however, be misused for protectionist purposes.
Furthermore these initiatives, if they are to be credible, must also have built-in guarantees on monitoring to prevent fraud with this labelling.
We consider it essential for international trade that these regulations are respected and monitoring procedures are strict and effective, but the Commission does not yet have sufficient information on them.
I am incidentally aware of the discussion on labelling or the Rugmark label and the like.
I think that the situation is far less clear than today's debate in the House would suggest and I know that there are also reservations about the strictness, reliability and protection against fraud of the system.
And finally Kenya.
There too the European Commission is keeping a close eye on the political situation and the human rights situation under the framework of general cooperation with that country.
We are totally ad idem with Parliament that everything should be done to avoid the human rights situation deteriorating further.
The Commission is seizing every opportunity in close cooperation with the Member States of the Union to make the Kenyan government realise the importance the Commission attaches to the fact that development policy and cooperation are closely linked to respect for basic human rights.
Commissioner Pinheiro took this message to the Kenyan authorities during his visit to Kenya at the beginning of this year.
The Commission, like Parliament, regrets the recent brutal action from the police against members of the opposition and human right activists.
The Commission calls on all Kenyans to strive towards peace and conciliation in their country so that the 1997 elections can be prepared and held in freedom and fairness and we do not witness a re-run of the wave of violence during the 1992 elections.
I do not need to say that we shall closely follow both the preparations and the holding of the elections.
The Commission appreciates that in a closer investigation of one of the attacks on the clergy - to which Mrs Malone referred - where the Irish Franciscan Timmons was killed, a suspect has been brought to the Kenyan court and accused of murder.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the debate on the motion for a resolution (B4-0359/97) by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on discriminatory measures taken by China against Denmark and the Netherlands for tabling a resolution denouncing human rights violations in China during the 53rd session of the UN Human Rights Commission.
Madam President, democracy and respect for human rights are extremely important to the Liberal Group.
My group regrets the attitude of some EU Member States which prevented a motion for a resolution being tabled on behalf of the Union.
That detracts from the Union's credibility and plays right into China's hand.
The countries that did support a resolution against China, Denmark and the Netherlands, have been punished with economic sanctions.
The Netherlands acted as President of the Union.
Whoever speaks on behalf of the Union apparently is also punished on behalf of the Union.
The French President Chirac said last month that the unity of Europe can make Europe the strongest power in the world. Unity?
Did Chirac mean by that the opportunistic attitude of France in Geneva? I saw on this morning's television that Chirac was welcomed in China as a friend.
The Dutch minister was not welcome last week and China was laughing up its sleeve.
Madam President, trade and politics are two separate matters according to China.
In that light the economic sanctions meted out by China are unacceptable and obstruct China's prompt accession to the WTO.
I urge the Commission to make this clear in its relations with China.
Madam President, I welcome what the previous speaker, our colleague from the Netherlands, has just said.
I think that the motion for a resolution before us today needs no words of explanation.
Everyone believes it important to continue to raise the issue of infringements of human rights in China.
Everyone is in favour of European cooperation on that score.
But then when a country that has the Presidency and is supported by other countries tries to do something, the first problem is to get it through the Council, and if that does not happen then as in this case you find these two countries that stuck out their neck are punished by the country that ought to have been penalised by the European Union.
A truly ridiculous situation.
So quite apart from the fact that we must regret that the European Union has once again failed to speak with one voice on an important issue, it is even more ridiculous that two countries have to pay the price and that the European Union has to date given no indication of protesting strongly against that.
That is highly regrettable.
The whole Union must be asked to show solidarity with Denmark and the Netherlands who on this point at least have had the courage to stand up and be counted.
Madam President, I have no criticism to make of the Presidency or indeed the Commission in their attempt to try and get a resolution through the sub-committee in Geneva recently.
Clearly criticism can however be levelled at a number of Member States which did not stand by the concept of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
And there is a deeper problem: I have been given to understand that if the European Union did not press the United Nations sub-committee resolution in April, the Chinese would resume the human rights dialogue with the European Union which began on a bilateral basis in 1995.
Only one meeting took place in 1996.
Those meetings have now been suspended by the Chinese.
Therefore one can accuse the Chinese of bad faith.
I hope the Commission and the Council will put pressure on the Chinese - so far as they are able to do so - to resume the human rights dialogue, which will be a determinant of the EU's overall attitude towards the Chinese People's Republic.
Madam President, I must say that I was very surprised at the attitude of certain colleagues who mentioned a violation of human rights, over the policy pursued by the French, in particular by the French President.
These colleagues might have taken an interest in what was going on in France.
I must say, of course, that it is not possible to take an interest in everything, but President Chirac received at the Elysée Palace, before his departure for Beijing, a delegation of NGOs active in China, including Amnesty International and the International Human Rights Federation.
He stressed that he hoped to talk to his Chinese hosts about the question of human rights, and in particular asked for explanations about the case of prisoners of conscience and signing a political declaration including this vital aspect of France's relations with China.
I think that the attitude of the colleagues in question is verging on hypocrisy and bad faith, and our group is extremely astonished by that.
I should like simply to recall the political determination and action by the French President on behalf of human rights, faithful to France's tradition.
They are recognised by everyone and it is certainly not a few unfounded remarks - made by colleagues in order to help some of their French partners in difficulties in the election campaign - that will change the desire for an open and frank dialogue with China in France and several other European countries - or even countries elsewhere in the world.
Mr President, Commissioner, the EU has a common commercial policy.
We must therefore insist that China's discrimination against Denmark and the Netherlands is regarded as an attack on the EU as a whole, and is replied to as such.
It is after all the basic principle of the EU that both large and small nations should be able to speak freely here about tyranny and injustice, even when this involves a large and powerful country such as China.
If China succeeds in bullying and intimidating the European countries one by one so that they bow their heads in silence, then that will be a step backwards for human rights in the world.
When Denmark tabled the resolution in Geneva, our country only did what common decency dictates.
We expressed criticism, at the right time and in the right place, of the notorious injustices which are taking place, as the EU countries have done together year after year since 1990, and it was not our fault that there were some who did not wish to join in this time.
The greatest enemy of peace and freedom is the policy of intimidation, which buys short-term peace at the expense of truth and justice.
Thank you Mr President.
As long as trade policy still takes precedence over human rights, then you can say in general terms that this kind of conflict will keep on arising; in this case a few countries reacted firmly and the Netherlands tried on behalf of the whole Union to tackle China on human rights; some countries were very conspicuous by their absence thus ensuring that Europe was divided.
Now in all honesty we must admit that when the Netherlands did not yet have the Presidency of the European Union, Minister Van Mierlo once visited China to get landing rights for KLM at Peking airport and on that occasion Mr Van Mierlo said that the European Union must champion human rights and that we would take care of trade policy ourselves.
Now we do indeed have a common trade policy and I think it therefore logical that both human rights and trade should be taken together in the European Union and Member States not be allowed to be played off against each other.
But we surely cannot allow Mr Pompidou to gloss over the French government's behaviour and claim that they did consult the NGOs.
That does not service the purpose of human rights in China, we need more than that, we need to use our trade policy as well.
Mr President, nor do I believe, Mr Pompidou, that it is in receiving a handful of NGOs that France will wash itself of the double shame of Geneva.
What it did in Geneva was to comfort the policy defended by the Chinese government to prove that it is possible to develop without democracy.
The other shame was to undermine the beginning of a common policy on foreign affairs which the European Union has had such difficulty in trying to set up.
This is serious, and President Chirac's trip to China today does nothing to reverse that.
It is not referring to one or two dissidents that the situation is going to be changed.
He has put a spanner in the European works.
He has given comfort to the shameful Chinese government which imprisons hundreds of thousands of people every day.
Mr President, it would be a very serious matter if the European Union were to fail to demonstrate solidarity and support in the political and commercial dispute which has sprung up between the People's Republic of China on the one hand and certain Member States - Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands - on the other.
Indeed, if that were to happen it would be further proof that there is no such thing as a political Europe, and that Europe is incapable of co-ordinating its actions at international level. It is already serious enough that, at the United Nations, only those few Member States have voted in favour of a resolution condemning the human rights violations in China, while other Member States, such as France, Germany, Spain, Greece and leftist Italy, in a further demonstration that Europe is an economic and commercial entity rather than a political one, cynically decided that they could not support that motion.
Alleanza Nazionale believes that in the circumstances the European Union must reply with a single voice to the blackmail by the Leninist nomenklatura that governs China and that it must not only express total solidarity with those Member States threatened with trade reprisals but also reconsider the various arrangements for trade with China.
This would be an extremely important precedent, protecting Europe as a whole against threats and blackmail and enabling it to project itself as a unified international political entity.
Mr President, I can certainly support what most of my colleagues have said.
I am convinced that any President of the Council could have been proud to receive any NGO if the European Union had acted in unison here and that the NGOs would have been just as happy to visit any national president if they had known that the European Union had spoken with one voice.
We cannot repeat that often enough.
How else are we to show our citizens that a common foreign policy is something that really has to be fought for?
We as the European Parliament can only point to the weaknesses that have become apparent.
I said the other day that I would rather be a Member of Parliament than a diplomat, for last year in Geneva I saw how hard European diplomacy struggled to get precisely this human rights resolution on the agenda, which of course it has not managed this year because of its lack of unity.
So in future we really should think of the citizens and be united and then we will also achieve more in China.
Mr President, the resolution supporting Denmark and the Netherlands against China's blackmail actually tallies well with the stance of Parliament, which has constantly underlined that we cannot use two yardsticks in human rights questions.
So let me point out that during the last plenary partsession our Parliament condemned China for its serious human rights violations in East Turkestan and thus set an example of honesty and genuine representation of the people, which sadly neither the United Nations nor the EU as a whole, given that it is represented only by government representatives, has managed to do.
Denmark in particular deserves our strong solidarity, for we must never forget that by recognizing the Baltic states against all opposition that country made an enormous contribution to the decolonization of the former Soviet Union.
Today Jacques Chirac is going to China and in the run-up to that visit he spoke of a global partnership with China.
I can only hope that not just China but Denmark, the Netherlands and Ireland will also be given their due place in that partnership.
Mr President, the Commission agrees with much of what has been said this afternoon on the situation as a result of the failure of the resolution in the UN human rights commission in Geneva.
Let there be no misunderstanding on the need to make China understand that there is no question of discriminating against Member States of the European Community on human rights policy.
I hope that President Chirac will use his visit to China to convey this message in a manner which is in keeping with the respect of the Chinese people, as they like to say in Peking.
But, Mr President, the European Union and its Member States must at the same time understand that the best guarantee for preventing this kind of situation and for countering this discrimination is a unity of decision-making within the European Union itself.
The other countries will not be given the opportunity to look for 'victims' in this way.
It is also a lack of unity that prevents us from implementing an effective human rights policy.
Mr President, in conclusion I believe that we can certainly learn the lesson here that the time has come for the European Union to review its policy towards China in the area of human rights and to seek the most effective instrument for Europe.
But to keep on year in year out, for seven or eight years at a stretch, tabling the same motion for a resolution which in many cases is not even adopted, threatens to prove counterproductive.
Mr President, while the resolution is correct and proper, it has omitted to include Ireland.
Ireland was also a party to the resolution and I think we would need to put in an oral amendment, if this is agreeable, to include Ireland also.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTES
Ladies and gentlemen, the next item is the vote on the report (A4-0168/97) by Mrs Rothe, on behalf of the Committee on research, Technological development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission: Energy for the future: renewable sources of energy - Green paper for a Community strategy (COM(96)0576 - C4-0623/96)
You have the floor, Mr Papoutsis.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank and congratulate the rapporteur Mrs Rothe for the excellent report she has presented, and also to thank the rapporteurs Mr Schierhuber on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Mr Kronberger on behalf of the Committee on the Environment.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we all agree with the report by Mrs Rothe, that new impetus should be given to the sector of renewable energy sources.
With the report Parliament is to vote on today, we are providing a range of measures which - taken together - merit particular and careful consideration, and I must say that while I would really like to deal analytically with each of those proposals, unfortunately because of the very limited time and the special procedure we are following today - and I thank the Bureau for this -, I must limit myself only to very brief comments.
First of all, on behalf of the European Commission, I would like to make a commitment to you concerning the following aim: to face the great challenge of producing a White Paper on renewable energy sources and a programme of action for renewable forces, which I hope to be in a position to present to Parliament at the end of this year.
Within the scope of the White Paper on renewable sources, we will include all the proposals heard today during this morning's debate, as well as all those that emerged during the civil dialogue still in progress today at European level on the basis of the Green Paper on renewable energy sources.
Let me, however, make three very brief comments:
First, I am particularly glad that the rapporteur Mrs Rothe agrees with the idea of establishing a quantitative target, a target, however, which must be both ambitious and realistic.
Secondly, I am especially glad to note that the rapporteur and very many of the honourable Members who spoke today agree with the European Commission that so far as the operation of the internal market is concerned, renewable sources of energy should be fully respected.
The internal energy market is now a reality.
In that context, then, there are many and various ways and means that can be used to promote renewable energy sources without distorting competition.
Finally, I would like to draw attention to another important point in the report: the subject of the future legal basis for the promotion of renewable energy sources.
I want to repeat, then, that I fully agree with your view concerning the need for a legal basis covering energy policy.
The proposal for a related order should in my opinion clearly stress the importance of renewable energy sources.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would once more like to thank the rapporteur warmly, as well as all Members of the European Parliament who contributed to the preparation of the draft report.
I also want to assure you that I will do all I can to ensure that the coming stages of this important procedure will lead to a positive change, to significant progress where renewable energy sources are concerned.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I give the floor to Mr Falconer.
Mr President, I just wish to rise because I spoke twice to Mr Martin this morning on the way he conducted the vote.
I can fully understand the way he conducted the business this morning given that the Greens had called for a roll-call vote on every paragraph and on every single amendment that was tabled.
I can understand his method of expediting the business of the Chamber.
However that is not the normal way we carry out our business.
Thank you, Mr Falconer, but I must tell you that although I am not all that good at conducting the vote, the part that I do well I learned from Mr Martin.
Mr President, thanks to the very flexible stance of one or your fellow vice-presidents my contribution to the debate has now had to become an explanation of vote.
You could call it a renewable contribution.
I fully supported the Rothe report for we must have a coordinated approach in Europe to renewable energy, not to do the work of the Member States but to ensure that their work can be applied most effectively.
Fossil fuels and uranium have seen their day.
We must change over quickly to sustainable sources so that the generations to come will not be faced with a crisis.
The prices of fossil fuels do not adequately take dwindling supplies into consideration.
External effects are equally inadequately incorporated into the prices. That is scandalous.
After the Commission's Green Paper we should see a White Paper and an action plan to increase the share of sustainable sources in our energy supply.
Costs are an important aspect in the introduction of these sources.
Some form of subsidy will be needed.
That is why the existing community programmes for renewable energy should incorporate a financial statement.
Horizontal measures are also important.
The idea of tradeable green energy certificates is an attractive one.
This shows a commitment on the part of electricity producers voluntarily to generate a larger part of their production from renewable sources.
The Rothe report includes a large number of important ideas for the White Paper.
Renewable sources must form a substantial part of our energy supply.
They must become economically viable as quickly as possible in comparison with other sources.
That is why support measures for specific promising projects to be paid for by general funds must be temporary.
Renewable sources, more than fossil fuels, depend on regional circumstances.
This is valid not only for hydroelectric power stations but also tidal, solar and wind energy.
That must also be taken into consideration when dividing the costs of conversion.
De-centralised generation is perfectly possible in thinly populated localities such as the rural areas but incentives will have to be given.
My advice is to opt for a kind of burden sharing when Member States convert to renewable sources.
Countries with the best opportunities must be 'hit' with the highest percentages for the renewable part of energy supply.
Common sense is not necessarily the most commonplace quality in the world.
An obvious fact: our society needs a lot of energy to meet all of its needs.
Another fact: the sources of energy used are either potentially hazardous or perishable.
At the same time, our energy needs will not diminish and alternatives must be found to existing energy sources.
The prospect: research has enabled us to find certain renewable sources of energy.
These now meet 6 % of current energy requirements in Europe.
If we apply common sense, these energy sources which can be used at will and do not pollute should be strongly developed.
That is the ambition of the Rothe report, and I wish to congratulate the rapporteur.
The European Parliament should therefore support the spirit of this report as defended by our colleague.
We should encourage research on renewable energies and call on the Council to set a minimum of 15 % towards renewable energy in the total energy budget.
We should also encourage industry and public investors to develop their production using these methods.
Once again, as in all areas, let us put people and safety at the centre of our priorities.
Let us develop energies which will ensure our security and protect the environment.
The French delegation of the EPP Group voted in favour of the Rothe report on the Commission Green Paper on renewable energy sources.
It is vital for the European Union to guarantee its energy independence by continuing to develop clean and renewable energy sources.
It is, therefore, regrettable that the adopted resolution should include paragraph 3 and recital C. Building a development strategy is not tantamount to a crusade against nuclear energy which nowadays supplies 35 % of the European Union's energy needs while the Commission Green Paper considers on the basis of serious studies that the technical potential for developing renewable energies will not supply more than 15 % of our needs in the year 2020.
The European Parliament would be fighting the wrong fight if it continued to pursue an ideological crusade disconnected from the real needs of European citizens.
It is possible to be in favour of nuclear energy and renewable energy at the same time: the Soulier and Rothe reports were complementary.
It is regrettable that the European Parliament, consulted for the first time, could not have shown more maturity on these capital subjects.
I think it is of great importance for the EU (to the extent that it is able) to actively promote increased use of renewable energy sources.
Unfortunately I have to say that I am not impressed by the work of the EU so far.
Instead of investing in environmentally sound areas, they do the opposite, and it is research into the nuclear energy sector, for example, which receives the most aid.
We must demand that nuclear power pays its own way.
The environment should itself be given an economic value.
This would further show the amount of money wasted on nuclear power and, in this way, renewable energy sources would become more important.
The promotion of renewable energy sources is important not just from an environmental point of view but also because it will lead to the creation of numerous jobs particularly in small companies and in rural areas.
It would also mean that society would be less vulnerable to catastrophes and errors as we would no longer be dependent on one source of energy.
I personally think that the EU must set an ambitious goal.
At the very least, we must increase the use of renewable energy sources as a proportion of total energy use by at least 30-35 percent before the year 2010.
I think that the 15 percent level proposed in the report is too cautious.
If we are to live up to the goals of the Rio conference and create an ecologically sustainable society we must act decisively and vigorously.
A substantial investment in renewable energy sources is essential for a long term sustainable society.
This report is a first, but all too small, step towards this.
We also need a draft treaty in which non-sustainable energy sources such as nuclear power and fossil fuels are replaced with bio-energy and other renewable energy sources.
Research and development resources must be transferred from nuclear power and fossil fuels to bio energy and other renewable energy sources.
The EU can contribute to this development by abolishing the Euratom Treaty and introducing a new treaty on renewable energy resources.
The report hardly mentions the large renewable energy sources in the Scandinavian Countries, for example various forms of bio-energy, the forest, woodchips, pellets, peat and so on.
But the report is move in the right direction so I have voted in favour of it.
Having had to choose one of the reports on energy policy for my contribution, I opted for the Soulier report. But I have to mention, in passing, the importance that I attach to the Rothe report, too, given its global view and the pragmatism of the measures contained in it.
I should like to pick out: tax breaks for developing these energies, the use of the structural funds, the importance attached to the harmonization of statistics on consumption trends, the internationalization of secondary costs of non-renewable energy sources and the quantification of an objective defined for the year 2000.
In Finland renewable forms of energy now represent 32.5 % of total energy consumption.
However, the objective of the report to increase the proportion generally throughout the EU is justified.
This requires an enormous investment in research, which is something that should be taken account of in the EU's research programmes.
In the review of regional policy, too, support should be given to the production of renewable energy.
In spite of its achievements, the report has one shortcoming. It fails to refer to peat as a renewable source of energy.
In Finland, for example, the proportion of peat in energy consumption as a whole is already 5.4 %, though the proportion of peat bogs in production is only 0.5 %.
Peat bogs grow peat at the same rate annually as forests grow wood.
After the peat has been lifted the peat bog becomes green again and begins to produce new peat.
I hope that the Commission will include peat as a renewable natural resource in the White Paper it is to prepare.
Community energy objectives
The next item is the report (A4-0142/97) by Mr Stockmann, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the organization of cooperation around agreed Community energy objectives (COM(96)0431 - C4-0046/97-96/0218(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, cooperation around agreed Community energy objectives is a controversial subject in this House, in the Council and probably also in the Commission.
The Commission chose Article 130(3) as the legal basis, i.e., the 'industry' title of the Treaty.
Since there is not or not yet a chapter on energy in the Treaty, even though energy policy is in the common interest of us all, the legal basis must be the one that relates most closely to the subject concerned.
In Article 1 the Commission proposal lists as objectives of the decision: protecting the environment, promoting the rational and efficient use of energy resources and new and renewable energy and promoting international energy cooperation.
The first of these objectives come under the Community's environmental policy.
That is why the legal basis should be Article 130s.
It defines rational utilization of natural resources, protection of the environment and the promotion of international measures to protect the environment as the objective of European policy.
We have called for this amendment of the Treaty basis and had it checked by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
After hesitating, that committee agreed with us.
Of course energy policy has effects both on industry and on the environment.
But I think one thing is clear: in the matter of cooperation to achieve agreed energy objectives we also need a cooperation procedure between the legislative institutions.
In relation to the energy policy objectives we should formulate a policy that anticipates the future.
In future, however, we will make no progress without an energy chapter in the Treaty.
I hope the participants in the intergovernmental conference will agree and finally set out definite rules.
The Commission proposal we are debating today restricts the Commission's role to information and supervisory rights and to a coordinating function.
It gives it no powers for energy policy actions.
This makes me suspect that this is the first stage in the abandonment of a common energy policy.
It all fits together.
In recent budgetary procedures the Council sought considerable cuts in energy policy sectors.
THERMIE II has been frozen for years, SAVE II was reduced to one third.
But to revert to national energy policies is quite simply wrong.
On the one hand we create transeuropean networks for energy. We create an internal market for gas and electricity.
Yet we cannot agree on a basic energy policy!
Why, for instance, as Mrs McNally said earlier during the debate on Mrs Rothe's good report, can we not conclude a separate Treaty to promote renewable energy sources? What was possible 40 years ago to promote nuclear energy should also be possible today for renewable energy!
We need to make a leap, we need a leap forward.
Our words must finally be followed by deeds!
In this context let me also point out that I think it is important to take up a proposal made by Rolf Linkohr, calling for a world climate agency to monitor the results of the world climate summit.
To return to the Commission's proposal, the annex to it contains the agreed energy policy objectives.
As they stand they are contradictory.
First it calls for 'undistorted' energy prices and then proposes supportive measures for renewable energy resources.
Untrammelled competition and market deregulation are not, however, a universal panacea.
The Commission should show courage and acknowledge openly measures which affect competition between energy sources.
Only then will it be able to achieve the objective of sustainable development in the framework of integration of energy policy and environmental protection objectives.
Otherwise it will only be paying it lip service.
What we need is an integrated energy harmonization programme with a timescale and not least, as I keep pointing out, we must finally agree on an EC-wide energy consumption tax.
These are just a few of the aspects on which we must cooperate closely for the sake of the future.
I look forward to the debate, despite the poor attendance today.
Mr President, the European Parliament has already dealt quite often in the past, as it is doing today in particular, with the question of how the European Union can assume its responsibilities in energy policy in the long term and take the appropriate measures, which are of course urgently necessary to create the framework conditions in a liberalized internal market.
In that respect, there are no differences of view between the EPP Group and the other groups regarding the basic structure and the line to be followed.
At the same time we have to consider even at this point what we really want to achieve in terms of a common energy policy and a shopping list like the one the Commission has proposed and which Parliament will probably extend tomorrow does nobody any service.
Of course our objective is to reduce CO2 emissions in the EU.
We have all just been discussing that in relation to the Rothe report and also adopted it.
But the freedom to decide which energy sources will be used to achieve this objective remains with the Member States so long as we have no other legal basis.
That question also arose this morning and at noon when we voted on the Soulier report.
We come now to the crucial point.
It may indeed be possible to change the legal basis - I would not exclude it, but I am an engineer and not a lawyer - and that may also give Parliament more influence because there will be cooperation and we can work with the chosen legal basis.
But we would achieve nothing at the final count because this is more likely to lead the Council to withdraw the existing legal bases from us again when it notices that other things can be done via the back door instead of us obtaining the new legal bases we want and have just decided on.
The EPP Group will therefore reject any amendment of the legal basis and the report as a whole if this amendment is adopted by a majority.
Moreover, we must of course ask ourselves what the Union's priority tasks are in the field of energy.
We consider it crucial to harmonize the framework conditions, an aspect for which the Commission made no provision at all in its proposal but which the EPP Group proposed in committee and which was fortunately incorporated.
That is the crucial point.
Here the Commission already has competences and Parliament supports this because it can be done through the internal market legislation.
The last point I want to raise is that we really ought to have a basic debate on this whole question of taxes one day.
There is no point in Parliament starting to bring in fiscal law questions again.
In any case we would then be moving towards another legal basis again, Article 130 would not apply.
We should leave things where they belong.
I do not want to go into this further today.
But we should not put too much strain on the Council here if we really want to achieve anything.
That is the line the EPP takes; otherwise we will support most of the amendments.
Mr President, some things are repeated again and again.
For instance, it is said again here that nuclear energy is safe and that safe final storage sites do exists.
Whenever we hear such statements, we have to contradict them, and let me say in advance that there are no safe final storage sites.
I think the rapporteur has managed something very difficult.
An energy programme that is unsure of itself from the outset, that is very weak from the outset, that tries to ignore very concrete statistics and findings, is incredibly difficult to correct.
The rapporteur has tried in all honesty to do so.
We have long known that we will make much more headway in the medium term with CO2 -free renewable energy technology than with nuclear technology.
What are you saying?
(Interjection: nuclear energy is CO-free!)
That is disputable nor is it scientifically tenable as it stands, but we discussed that this morning.
In the proposal before us now it looks as though nobody had considered what we discussed here this morning and what we voted on a short while ago.
Of course the question of an energy tax concerns future technological development and it is also significant that the anthropogenic greenhouse effect was excluded.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that this Council decision is very timely because, if we go down the way that we are going down, I have serious doubts that there can be a common energy policy, perhaps it is very difficult because there are fifteen countries with very different energy systems - and the countries which are going to be incorporated into the Union have different ones again.
But it is possible to make considerable progress with common objectives and you have very well planned this brief communication which contains the decision.
Furthermore, I am pleased that the main priority is supply security.
In both the Green Paper and the White Paper on Energy you spoke first of all of competitiveness, of prices, but I think it is more important to concentrate on supply security, which is beginning to be not so clear, Commissioner.
Then, of course, we should look at competitiveness, environmental protection, coordination, the possibility of having a presence in other markets.
However, it seems to me that you tend to insist on having better statistics, that we have the statistics beforehand - Eurostat statistics arrive very late because of the means we have or because countries fail to give information.
Every year the Commission should carry out a far-reaching examination of the energy policy of three countries, so that in five years we will have an analysis of all fifteen.
That is what the OECD does and, without a treaty and without more complications, this is extremely efficient. I think that is what is missing in the European Union.
Reference is made to imposing taxes.
More than those on petrol.
Now there is a new communication on tariffs and duties on energy.
I am sure that they are going to be raised.
Even electricity is going to have new taxes.
These taxes are already before Parliament but have come out of the Commission (not from Commissioner Papoutsis or from Commissioner Monti) with an objective which seems to me to be laudable: we must create jobs, which is a major problem for the Union, and we must reduce the burdens on businessmen in terms of energy.
This is a considerable task and I congratulate you, Commissioner.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this important report.
We have heard already today how important it is to have a legal base in energy with reference to renewable energies.
But we have run into difficulties on the THERMIE project and indeed, on SYNERGIE as well because of the lack of a legal base; and because - as has been said here today - we really do not have a common energy policy or even a working energy policy that we are harmonizing.
I refer you particularly to the importance of the SAVE programme.
Saving energy is like motherhood: it is always admired but seldom supported.
If we cannot agree a common energy policy, a common legal base, then we will be doing the same.
We will be paying lip service to renewables and saving energy but we will not actually be doing anything concrete to support it.
I would also like to stress the importance of the EURATOM Treaty and a review or replacement of that Treaty as part of a common energy policy.
Mr President, the proposal we are considering is particularly important because it aims to improve cooperation between the Member States in matters related to energy policy.
First of all, however, let me thank and congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Stockmann, for his excellent work on the report we are debating today.
This proposal is based on the three fundamental aims defined by the White Paper on energy policy, in other words to increase competitiveness, secure reliability of supply, and of course protect the environment.
The continually increasing dependence on imported energy, climate change, but at the same time world-wide competition, are challenges that we will be called upon to address today and in the future, challenges which make it urgently necessary to adopt a more coordinated energy policy.
On this opportunity, let me turn your attention to the recent statement by the Commission concerning an overall review of energy policy: that statement points out the serious challenges faced by the European Union in the energy sector and we await the European Parliament's opinion with interest.
Now, let me comment one by one on the amendments proposed.
Amendment No 1 concerns the legal basis of the proposal.
Following the recommendations of the European Commission's Legal Service, the Commission proposes Article 130(3), while Parliament's Legal Committee recommends that Article 130(1) should be used.
Acceptance of this amendment would mean in practice that cooperation in matters related to energy policy would be subject to environmental policy and to the legal basis on which the latter is founded.
Of course, I agree completely with the aim of protecting the environment and believe that this aim and environmental protection should be an important aspiration in the energy sector.
In the Commission's view, however, it is an exaggerated approach to base energy policy entirely on the legal basis provided for environmental protection, because in that way appropriate importance is not attributed to other equally important aims of energy policy, such as the securing of reliable supplies, the increase of competitiveness, and international cooperation.
For those reasons, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 1.
I now come to Amendment No 2, which proposes to focus research and technological development on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.
It also proposes that research and technological development should be focused on the objective of nuclear energy with safe technologies for the final storage of nuclear waste.
I do not oppose that amendment, mainly because it does not restrict the provision of credits for research and technological development in those sectors.
However, exact priorities will be defined during the debates we have on the fifth framework programme.
Now, as for Amendment No 3, Article 1, I think its first part concerning the additional aim of avoiding surplus capacity is unnecessary.
I do not object to that amendment, but I do not think it really necessary.
The second part of Amendment 3 can be accepted in principle.
However, I would like to point out that there seems to be a small problem with that amendment because it refers in particular to initiatives taken at national level, while the beginning of the Article already covers that point with its reference to actions taken in the Member States.
However, I agree that it is important to include the promotion of sustainable energy technologies in this list of aims.
I also unreservedly accept the last part of Amendment 3 under Article 1.
The rapporteur Mr Stockmann proposes two amendments under Article 2.
The rapporteur correctly points out in Amendment No 4 the very serious issue of climate change.
This is a subject which very greatly influences our energy policy, and one to which I too attribute great importance.
Indeed, I would like to tell Parliament that just yesterday afternoon, the Commission adopted a related statement and the Council on Energy will debate the subject in detail at the end of May.
I think you will agree with me that decisions concerning this important subject must be taken within a framework broader than that of energy.
Moreover, the geographical coverage should be broader than the European Union.
The amendment proposed has far-reaching political and legal consequences since, in fact, it constitutes a decision to found an organization for climate change.
If that is our purpose, I do not think this is the right way to achieve it.
The foundation of such a body, which may not be a bad idea, in my opinion merits more careful study and consequently, I am not disposed to accept Amendment No 4, at least at the present stage.
I can accept Amendment No 12, which concerns the study and imposition of taxation or subsidy systems.
Indeed, the Commission recently submitted for discussion a new proposed directive for the taxation of all energy products, which is already a step in that direction.
I can also accept Amendment No 5 concerning the Commission's ability to propose actions or projects for the achievement of these aims.
Indeed, I think that amendment clarifies the existing text even more.
Mr President, I now come to Amendment No 6, which concerns Article 3.
In my opinion, its first part is too restrictive and does not permit the necessary flexibility.
I could indeed propose a new wording.
For example, I could certainly propose the compromise wording: ' The Commission will prepare a report whenever this is deemed appropriate, but at least every two years' .
The second part gives a picture of the content of that report, and I can of course accept it.
Those were my comments on the amendments proposed for the Articles.
I will now go on to the amendments proposed for the Annex.
With Amendment No 7, the rapporteur proposes a substantial change to the first paragraph of the Annex.
The Commission's proposal is based on the aim defined by the Green and White Papers, which were ratified both by the European Parliament and by the Council.
This amendment lists the three basic aims, and the energy-related ones are ranked first among them.
However, the basic aims constitute an organic whole.
For that reason, I cannot accept the specific amendment, though that of course does not mean that protection of the environment is not of fundamental importance and is not a basic aim of the organic whole we have all agreed about.
Amendments Nos 8 and 9 concern energy prices.
In Amendment No 8, the rapporteur proposes to delete the words 'and undistorted' and to add a reference to fair competition.
After this, the rapporteur introduces the internalization of external costs.
This amendment is acceptable.
The Commission holds firmly to its position favouring the principle of cost internalization, but I consider it premature to refer, as in Amendment No 9, to a standardized calculation method.
Granted that the principle of cost internalization is already mentioned in the text of the Commission's proposal, with regret I cannot accept Amendment No 9.
I agree absolutely with Amendment No 10.
Concerning Amendment No 11, which relates to the means proposed, I consider that the list provided is not complete, something which is in any case indicated by the wording itself and more specifically the word 'especially' used.
I am aware that not all the means available to us are listed and that others can be added.
I see the harmonization of a framework of prerequisites more as a secondary aim that affects competitive markets, but am willing to accept that addition.
I think the request to propose an energy consumption tax requires a great deal more thought, it needs more preparation, and of course, it will entail many and I am afraid to say difficult internal deliberations.
As you know, a short while ago the Commission tabled a related proposal.
However, I think that we should await the Council's reactions, and of course, we also await your reactions - the reactions of the European Parliament - before asking for yet another proposal on energy tax.
Consequently, this amendment is too specialized and certainly premature.
I have no problem at all with the third part of Amendment No 11, which concerns the addition of environmental means.
And I now come to the last part of Amendment No 11 concerning the incorporation into the Treaty of a chapter devoted to energy, in any case something which as you know I warmly support.
With a chapter on energy we will have at our disposal a clear, transparent and consistent legal basis for the implementation of energy policy.
A policy which in today's situation is more than necessary.
For that reason, I am particularly glad that Parliament continues to support the incorporation of a chapter on energy into the Treaty.
Now, as for Amendments Nos 13 to 17, the Commission cannot accept them, since they go beyond the present scope of the proposal and I am afraid that they disturb its balance.
Mr President, I think that I have answered in detail all the proposed amendments, and as you see, we can accept some of them, which I believe are the more important ones.
In the other cases, we have no intense objections about the amendments, but I believe that we should preserve the appropriate balance in our energy policy and aims, at least at the present stage and under the present conditions.
I thank you very much, and would like once more to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Stockmann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Europe-Asia co-operation strategy for energy
The next item is the report (A4-0134/97) by Mr Holm, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on a communication from the Commission: ' Europe-Asia co-operation strategy for energy' (COM(96)0308 - C4-0495/96).
Mr President, the background to the Commission's strategy document is that the Council of Ministers has on several occasions stated the EU's intention to strengthen co-operation with the countries and organisations in this region.
The Council has also urged the Commission to put forward concrete proposals in this sphere.
Together with my committee, I naturally support this document and see this as a very important initiative.
We also place great weight on the fact that this dialogue should benefit both EU Member States and Asian states.
This is why it is also important that the EU produce a basic analysis and strategy.
Unfortunately there appear to be a number of shortcomings in the Commission's communication which I have been forced to comment upon.
For example, the communication does not include many concrete initiatives despite the fact that this was what the Council asked for.
I assume that the Commission will come back to this issue a little later on.
Furthermore, the Commission must co-ordinate its policy between the various Directorates-General.
Responsibility is currently split across several which makes it difficult to gain a concise view of EU opportunities and resources.
The analysis which the Commission has made contains shortcomings in the section covering the current energy situation in the Asian States.
When drawing up a strategy we need to start from conditions as they are today otherwise it is very difficult to develop a strategy for tomorrow.
In order to include the Asian point of view the various existing conditions need to be studied.
Asia is very different from Europe in terms of climate, gross national product, democratic aspects, the level of industrialisation and particularly in terms of the current conditions in the energy sector.
It is also very difficult to establish a common strategy for the whole region.
Different solutions are required for different countries.
Whereas solar energy could be a solution in one region it is less viable in another, where perhaps water power or bio- energy would be more appropriate.
The Commission's communication instead is almost entirely written from a European point of view, i.e. from the opportunities which we might have on the Asian market.
Regional aspects in Asia are only touched upon.
But we must be conscious of the fact that if we are to succeed with a strategy in an area such as this it is important to gain the support of local and regional actors and to ensure that they are involved in the planning process from the start.
We have chosen to highlight two points in this report.
These are environmental issues with the emphasis on well known dam projects in Asia and the sphere of nuclear energy.
There are currently several large energy programmes underway in Asia which are having an acknowledged negative impact on the environment. These include the building of large dams which are causing significant environmental and social problems.
The European Parliament has, in several urgent resolutions, adopted a position that these large dams projects including those in India, China and Malaysia risk damaging valuable environments and contributing to the disappearance of the native people's culture and way of life.
It is therefore extremely important that we adopt a very cautious position on these issues.
The Commission also acknowledges in its strategy document that these large dam projects have not been very successful and proposes in the document that smaller dam projects should be given priority which is something which we in committee have also pointed out.
Let me add that there is an amendment proposal, No. 4, which takes up this point and where the Commission is urged among other things to advise firms against investing in the building of the Bakun dam in Malaysia.
I intend to add an oral amendment proposal during the vote tomorrow when I will remove this last phrase in Bakun, Malaysia, as I believe it is foolish to highlight a particular project in a resolution.
Instead it is important to point out that it is the large dam projects which we are criticising as there are unfortunately many large dam projects underway in Asia.
I hope that this assembly can support this even with such an amendment.
The other point concerned the fact that the EU has started to involve itself in nuclear energy in Asia.
This concerns the now infamous KEDO project in Korea.
KEDO, I have been told, should be viewed as a political project to gain an insight into nuclear energy issues in an area which was until recently closed.
But the Commission has not informed either the European Parliament or the committee responsible of these plans.
I do not think that I exaggerate when I say that everyone in the committee is critical of the Commission's handling of this matter since even the committee itself has not been informed.
I would take this opportunity to ask the Commission why there has been so much secrecy surrounding this plan and why Parliament was not informed.
Personally I am of the opinion that the EU should not participate in this project.
The project is based on the building of two new nuclear power stations which are to be financed by the EU to the tune of 75 million ECUs.
As KEDO is concerned with energy development work, it would have been better to have invested in the introduction of renewable energy sources.
Finally I would like to point out that I am in favour of all the amendment proposals, particularly no 7 which takes up an important section which is missing from this document.
It is about supporting the development of railways and goods traffic to prevent the use of more and more cars in the region which is also an energy problem in view of the increased carbon dioxide emissions.
For this reason I also hope that amendment No. 7 is passed.
Mr President, we are going to vote in favour of this report because, as it was drafted in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, it is perfectly in order.
We are tabling a good many amendments - fifteen - and most of them were approved in committee and incorporated into the report.
The result is a sensible document clearly focusing the priority on environmental protection, the security of energy supplies and participation in Asian energy industry markets.
It includes the peaceful use of nuclear energy in respect of maximum security standards.
On this score, I should like to take this opportunity to inform the Commission of the need to take management initiatives in order to gauge the level of that security in the southern part of the Asian continent.
We were also especially satisfied by the approval of our proposal to call on the Commission to bring out a Green Paper on Energy Cooperation in Asia, extending it to the Central Asian countries, namely Kazakhstan, Kyrghyzstan, Uzbekhistan, Tazhikhistan, Turkmenistan and Mongolia. We have just paid an official visit to some of those countries and had an opportunity to examine the importance of this Green Paper on the spot.
We should not forget that this is a geographical area with considerable energy resources, especially natural gas and petroleum, but that it also needs Western technology and business experience.
The United States, Japan and other world trading powers have already realised the mutual benefit, for the European Union and Central Asia, that could come from cooperation such as we are proposing.
We hope that the institutions of the European Union will also realise the need for such cooperation.
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate Mr Holm on his report.
The recommendations in Mr Holm's report are indeed very topical.
With your report and with what I hope will be the Council for Energy's positive attitude on 27 May concerning this statement, the Commission will be in a strong position to implement the first initiative of policy in the sector with countries in Asia.
To facilitate the implementation of this policy, I am due to meet the Ministers for Energy of the ASEAN states in Manila at the beginning of July, to whom I will explain our priorities.
On this visit to the ASEAN countries I will be accompanied by representatives of Europe's energy industry.
This will give us a special opportunity to examine new initiatives concerning professional training, research and the export of energy technologies to that area.
In the statement which the European Commission issued last year, it proposed the three main aims of this cooperation.
And I remind you of those aims: first, to improve security of supply in Asia and Europe, secondly, participation in Asian energy markets, and thirdly, protection of the environment on our planet.
And I am particularly glad that in his report Mr Holm applauds the dialogue on energy policy that the Commission intends to establish with the countries in Asia, a dialogue which we not only seek, but wish to make continual efforts to broaden.
The European energy market has essentially become saturated, since for the next 15 years its development is expected to fluctuate between approximately 1 % and 2 % per year.
For energy agencies and European industrial enterprises, greater penetration into Asian markets is very important.
However, we should not forget that the sector employs more than 2 million people and possesses appreciable surplus capacity in both personnel and production units.
The Commission will try to make things easier for the private sector in Europe, and at this time we are considering how we could contribute towards a closer approach to the private energy sector in Asia and Europe.
I cannot, however, agree with criticisms relating to inadequate analysis of the situation in the energy sector in Asian countries.
The statement you are aware of, does not in itself constitute a document for outlining policy.
Analyses have been prepared for countries or groups of states, which take account of all the economic and energy indexes.
The European Commission also uses analyses by international bodies.
And all these data build a healthy basis for the development of our strategy on cooperation between Europe and Asia.
I would also like to point out that this strategy mainly concerns both the European Union as a whole, and its Member States.
Yet, the overall approach takes into account countries that are likely to become members of the European Union in coming years.
It also takes account of other neighbouring countries, which will be affected environmentally and in terms of security of supply.
The report by Mr Holm also mentions that for energy cooperation with Asia to succeed, it must be developed in a mutually beneficial way.
From a strategic standpoint, both Asia and Europe are increasingly becoming energy importers.
The establishment of closer dialogue in the area of energy policy should therefore constitute a priority, and at the same time, it will have to be shown in practice to be mutually beneficial.
One of the main points raised by Mr Holm's report concerns the relation between the various aspects of the energy sector and the environment.
I believe we are in full agreement with the priority given to the support of rational environmental alternative energy possibilities.
It is commonly accepted that development of the energy sector in Asia has so far had negative effects on the environment, at national and regional level and for the planet as a whole.
For example, it is difficult to understand how a huge increase in the use of coal planned for the foreseeable future in those countries can be compatible with the positions adopted at Conferences and in international agreements concerning climate change.
Unless serious efforts are made, the increase of carbon dioxide, acid rain and pollution by suspended particles threatens to eliminate or put at serious risk efforts to restrict pollutant emissions on our planet.
In parallel, large-scale deforestation exacerbates pressures on the environment of certain countries.
That aspect often reflects to the cost of the poorer population levels, especially children and women who are forced to traverse large distances in order to cover their basic energy needs.
We also agree that increased use of new and renewable energy sources for the production of energy in agricultural regions must be a priority.
The Community will continue encouraging the development of small hydroelectric stations within the scope of rural development projects.
Besides, other priorities for cooperation in the energy sector are the modernization of electrical power supply, the promotion of natural gas, and of course, the improvement of energy efficiency.
We will also back international activity to ensure nuclear safety.
And as for nuclear energy, concerning the reservations and fears that exist about the way that technology is moving, I should like to say that the European Union gives it backing to all international efforts to ensure the greatest possible safety in the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
The Commission's position in this respect is firm, and our actions in the sector always strive towards the same objectives, in other words to ensure first the spread of peaceful uses for nuclear energy, and secondly substantial and great stringency in relation to restrictions and conditions for nuclear safety.
Now, as for the particular question raised by Mr Holm concerning the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO), I would like to remind you that the European Parliament has already adopted a positive position on participation by EURATOM in that, granted that the related budgetary items for 1996 and 1997 have been approved.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like once more to thank the rapporteur and the speakers who addressed us today and on the Committee on Energy, during the debate on the substance of the issue, for their comments, ones which we will take seriously into account when developing our policy.
I would also like to assure you that we will continue to cooperate with you and keep you informed, so that we may continue our joint action for the achievement of our aims.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Social legislation on road transport
The next item is the report (A4-0106/97) by Mr Schlechter, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the report from the Commission on the implementation in 1991-1992 of Regulation (EEC) No 3820/85 on the harmonization of certain social legislation relating to road transport (17th report by the Commission on the implementation of the social legislation relating to road transport) (COM(95)0713 - C4-0065/96).
Mr President, this report appears to be quite technical but, in essence, it can be summed up in three words: safety, safety and safety.
I need to stress the importance of resolving the issue of working time in excluded sectors like road transport.
In other transport sectors, agreements between the social partners at European level on working time have largely been reached.
Indeed, in the road transport sector, agreement has been reached for the inclusion of all non-mobile workers.
So far, however, the employers' organizations have consistently refused to discuss the inclusion of drivers.
This situation has now persisted for over five years and, despite Commission promises for action on the excluded sectors, we actually have nothing.
Regulations on driving time and rest periods are important, because of the number of serious coach and lorry accidents caused by driver fatigue.
If these regulations are properly implemented they could also prevent distortion of the rules of competition between the various modes of transport.
I hope that this report will not only be approved but that the Commission will act on its contents.
As I have tried to stress, the overriding issue is safety, and not only the safety of the drivers of the lorries and coaches but of the people carried in those coaches and of all other road users.
I urge the Commission to listen and to implement everything in this report.
Mr President, on behalf of the European People's Party I must first congratulate Mr Schlechter on his report and say that we will vote for it, even though we are not in full agreement with some of the resolution's orders.
I should say that there is a regulation dating from 1985, Regulation No 3820.
To show you how the Community has addressed the issue essentially of safety on Europe's roads, and as the last speaker also commented, the Commission is now, in 1997, submitting for the first time a report on the implementation of that regulation only for the years 1991-1992.
The subject of working and rest hours for drivers of lorries, buses, and coaches, which are nowadays inundating Europe, does not seem to have been taken seriously.
We are now talking of the loss of 50, 000 people per year in Europe.
As all of us here know, 50, 000 people are killed in road accidents, and a significant cause of those accidents is that the drivers of lorries and buses have to work exhaustingly long shifts, to bring down transport costs.
I say all this because in that respect as well there is unfair competition in road transport, to the cost of rail transport and transport by sea.
It is unacceptable that the Community has still not intervened and the Council of Ministers has done nothing about specifying working hours for drivers.
It is time to realise that there are countries like Germany and France, which are at the centre of Europe and are full of lorries.
The lorries have to serve large ports such as Rotterdam or Antwerp in small countries, but then have to cover hundreds of kilometers to get to the Community's large, central countries, and we have not yet reacted to that situation.
I say all this because both the time devoted to debating this report, and the time when we are to vote on it, namely tomorrow, Friday, when only 150 members will be here, indicate the level of interest we attribute to it.
We have not grasped the size of the problem.
But there must come a time when we think what to do with the dead, whose numbers far exceed the casualties of the battles we see on television every evening.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's report, although the reasons behind it are highly topical, as we are all aware comes before this House rather late in the day - when I say 'rather late' I am talking about five or six years - and is therefore at some risk of obsolescence, in its efficacy as well as in its reference data.
The premises are still valid, in that the safety of those working on the roads relies on the existence of and compliance with clear social legislation; it is to be regretted, however, that the problem is considered virtually exclusively in terms of one of its most obvious manifestations, such as observance of driving times, without taking account of a huge range of other risk factors which are ever-present in all the collateral forms of this activity.
The problem is widespread, most of all because of the size of the workforce - some 3 million people throughout Europe.
To arrive at a social as well as economic dimension, this workforce should be multiplied by three or four to give a global framework for the sector.
Hence the need to consider carefully the measures to be taken in the event of violations, in the hope that these can be harmonized as quickly as possible and, in particular, that this harmonization will bring a similar harmonization of penalties.
Furthermore, swift and realistic action needs to be taken to check the tendency to make the carriers bear the full weight of new social and political trends - apart from the sacrosanct safety regulations for the employees and for other road users, the carriers are now being expected to bear the environmental cost, together with the external costs that are being internalized.
The danger is overburdening the carriers with economic charges which would result in the destruction of smaller businesses - a phenomenon that already and clearly exists throughout Europe - with an immediate knock-on effect on employment levels, especially since the danger of social dumping by countries with lower labour costs, lower overheads and more relaxed safety standards, is becoming more and more real as the taxes for the adhesion of the CEECs are finalized.
Finally, there is the intermodal aspect: we are all agreed that there is an urgent need to switch from road to rail - but where are the rails? From the Brenner to Fréjus there are plenty of good intentions, but there is a serious financial crisis which means that such projects are still a long way from fruition.
Mr President, may I first of all congratulate the former minister of transport, Mr Schlechter, on his excellent report.
But, Mr President, I must say that in fact I am terribly disappointed in the Commission.
I think that what is happening here mars the Commission's image.
Here we are in 1997, as Mr Sarlis has already said, getting figures from 1991 and 1992.
We were originally promised that the 1993 and 1994 figures could be taken at the same time.
But halfway through 1997 they are still not available.
We were told that we would meet the Commissioner of Social Affairs on the maintenance of driving and rest times.
Then we were told that no, it was not necessary because Commissioner Kinnock is responsible for that.
And what do we have here? Here we have the commissioner responsible for the self-employed, Mr Papoutsis, and Mr Kinnock again is not present to defend himself against the criticism which, Mr President, is far from gentle.
Now what has the Commission done? New proposals have been tabled in the meantime on monitoring, whereas certain countries, including yours, Mr President, and Mr Santini's, have not implemented the present regulation.
They are not doing anything.
They are not producing any figures.
They are not producing anything. Everyone is just saying: oh well, let us just come up with new proposals and then we will move one step farther instead of implementing what we now have.
The Commission promised us new proposals on driving and rest times.
The Commission has done nothing.
The Commission would be well advised to go home.
Mr President, we are far from the harmonised implementation of the driving and rest times prescribed in regulation 3820/85.
That is the clear message from the Commission report on the period 199192.
If I correctly understand the figures in this report, one out of six vehicles checked did not satisfy the regulations.
This confirms the conclusions reached by the group of experts who reported in 1994 that failure to respect the regulations was one of the major problems facing road transport.
The report also indicates that there serious differences between Member States in the frequency and implementation of checks and in penalties imposed.
All this not merely distorts competition between Member States but is particularly dangerous to road safety.
It is quite scandalous that in May 1997 we must discuss the situation of five to six years ago, apparently because some Member States are negligent or incomplete in their reporting and refuse to take the problems of neglect seriously.
Mr President, I wish to ask the Commissioner if he can confirm Mr Wijsenbeek's question that the statistics on 1993 and 1994, which ought to have been available by 30 September 1995 under the regulation, are still not to hand.
Mr President, on behalf of everyone concerned about the unacceptably high level of coach and lorry accidents throughout Europe, I welcome the report by the Commission and, indeed, the work of the rapporteur.
However, all of this must be looked at in the context of a recent publication by the Commission into its action for road safety proposals.
Obviously there is some inconsistency here: the Commission quite rightly is planning to tackle the appalling toll of road accidents across our continent - 50, 000 lives are lost each year - and yet at the same time the powers we already have to prevent accidents involving coaches, lorries and buses are clearly not being enforced throughout the European Union.
We are also concerned about the fact that this is a rapidly expanding sector so we are likely to see the number of people killed and injured on our roads increase year upon year because the basic rules are being ignored and not being enforced.
We learn from the Commission document of poor compliance and in some cases the total lack of compliance by Member States, the widespread flouting of legislation which is the cause, as we all know, of all too many accidents.
There is no such thing as fair competition in the single market, while Member States refuse to comply properly with our rules and regulations.
The industry is a big one.
As mentioned earlier, three million people work in the industry.
It is vital to the competitiveness of Europe as a whole that this industry should be a success.
Therefore, we welcome the Commission proposals: doubling the checks, coordinating the calculations, improving driver training and modernizing the tachograph.
But we need to see more safeguards for drivers and working time.
I hope the Commissioner can today comment on how many prosecutions there have been so far of Member States which are refusing to comply with these rules and regulation and how many are planned.
Until we take Member States to court, they will continue to ignore our rules.
Mr President, I too believe that the social provisions in question relate first and foremost to driving times and rest periods, and if we remember the two figures that were just cited, three million drivers and about 50 000 lives lost, we realise that this is not a minor report that could perhaps be briefly discussed on a Friday morning but a report that needs to be considered by the Committee on Transport, the Committee on Social Affairs and by all the MEPS and people who really are seriously concerned about safety on the roads of Europe and elsewhere.
We also know that this regulation is more than necessary given the pressure of competition and also of the trend towards 'just-in-time' deliveries and that if it is not respected, competition will be pursued at the cost of safety and of elementary working conditions.
If Parliament is now evaluating the situation, I would simply summarize it under three headings which, in my view, are also the cornerstones of efficient implementation: uniform application, uniform checks, uniform fines.
If we deviate from these principles at all, then we will continue to have competition at the cost of safety, even at the cost of deaths in Europe.
In my view these are important points, which can also be supported by technological development.
I believe that we must call for the rapid introduction of inviolable electronic chronotachographs and Parliament would welcome initiatives of this kind.
Of course we also regret the late consideration of this report, although we know that the statistics it quotes have worsened rather than improved in the meantime.
We congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work and hope the Commission will pay it the attention it deserves.
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Schlechter on his report.
The report very rightly points out that the statistics provided by the Member States are still incomplete and have not been submitted in a form which enables comparison.
It is also a sad fact that the Commission's reports have been delayed because figures were submitted late and in some cases not at all.
The Commission therefore decided to go ahead and publish the report for 1993-1994 without waiting any longer.
I would also like to point out that in Mr Schlechter's report it was possible to draw conclusions on the various levels of checks carried out in the Member States concerning differences in the sanctions imposed, and also concerning their impact on competition.
The increased importance of the road transport branch within the Union, which was indeed enhanced by the internal market but also by changes in the general practice of labour relations, stresses - and I think this is clear - the need to achieve balance in freedom of movement.
It also underlines the need to increase competition by means of social safeguards.
Hence, the regulation on the restriction of driving times.
Mr Schlechter very rightly points out that the branch involves a large number of working people, whose working conditions depend on the rational implementation of the regulation's orders.
For that reason, we will examine the conclusion expressed in the report, in depth.
I refer more specifically to the need to increase the minimum level of checks to 2 %, granted that most Member States have already achieved the present level of 1 %.
The recommendation to create a framework allowing better coordination of the activity of the authority responsible for implementing this regulation, will also be examined.
The report also recommends that other aspects of drivers' work should be included in the field covered by the existing regulation.
However, as my colleague Mr Kinnock told the Committee on Transport in March, he has already asked the Commission's services to examine ways of extending Regulation 3820/85, to include in its field of application other activities that are also relevant to the safety of the public.
That possibility will be examined in even greater detail during the consultations on the forthcoming White Paper on working hours, which is being prepared by my colleague Mr Flynn.
It will also form part of the continuing dialogue between the Commission and the Member States to clarify the different interpretations placed by the Member States on the meaning of working time in that branch.
The report also recommends further review of Regulation 3820/85 with the aim of reducing upper limits for driving time, and supports the need to investigate alternative control and sanction measures.
The idea of replacing fines by introducing the practice of immobilizing the vehicle was in fact proposed by the European Commission's Committee on the Monitoring of Road Transport.
It was also given due attention within the scope of the procedure for reviewing the regulation.
But that review will relate to all aspects of the regulation.
I am particularly pleased that in its last paragraph, the report recommends the rapid introduction of fully electronic tachographs.
The Commission considers that this is a basic method to improve the uniform implementation of the regulation, and that it will also make it more easy for the responsible authorities in each Member State to carry out a larger number of checks.
Granted the restrictions that nowadays characterize the budgets of the Member States, we consider that this innovation is essential to maintain and improve the appropriate checks in coming years.
Finally, Mr President, I would once more like to thank Parliament for this report and assure you that my colleague Mr Kinnock and the Commission as a whole will take serious note of your views and comments.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I was almost sure that Mr Wijsenbeek had asked for the floor, but I am also almost sure that it was not for a point of order!
No, Mr President, I put a number of specific questions to the Commission and have not received any reply to them.
I asked the Commission: when are we going to get the 1993-1994 figures?
I asked: when are we going to get the proposals on the amendment to driving and rest times?
And what does the Commissioner say to us: words, words, words.
We are keeping a careful watch, we shall have to do something.
When oh when are we going...
(The speaker is interrupted by the President)
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.02 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on reviewing the Minutes I note that under Item 7 'Defence-related industries' it is stated under Amendment No 1 that Mr Provan, Mr Spencer and Mr Cassidy voted in favour of integrating the WEU into the European Union.
I would like confirmation that this was accurate or has Conservative policy on that changed?
I invited Members to comment on the Minutes, not to conduct a debate.
Mr President, yesterday we welcomed a number of unemployed people into the Parliament who were walking from Switzerland to Amsterdam.
Next week we have a very prestigious meeting in Brussels where we anticipate between 800 and 1, 000 unemployed people attending our Parliament in Brussels.
They will have at their disposal two interpreters in one room for 15 languages.
Can I appeal to the President that especially since...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr Morris, this problem has already been discussed by the Bureau, on the basis of an official request submitted by a number of Members, and there has already been an official reply from the Bureau.
Mr President, yesterday morning at the beginning of business - I was not here at the time - Mr Titley made reference to me and criticized me for my statement on the Titley report.
I would just like to point out that Mr Titley himself has a lot of questions to answer.
For example, last year he went to the Farnborough air show in the UK, paid for by British Aerospace.
British Aerospace is responsible for arming the Indonesians...
(The President cut the speaker off )
Mrs McKenna, I must ask Members to be calm and patient.
The debate on the Titley report has already taken place, and so has the vote.
Mr President, I have the feeling that I am the first with a genuine point to raise on yesterday's Minutes.
In connection with the topical and urgent debate on Turkey, yesterday's Minutes state that McMillan-Scott, Habsburg-Lothringen and Lenz withdrew their signatures from the amendments on behalf of the PPE Group.
I am anxious to point out that I never signed those amendments.
I had nothing to do with the motion.
I did not sign it.
I signed another motion, and my signature must somehow have found its way onto this motion.
I consider it important to have that recorded in the Minutes.
You are the first speaker to confine your remarks to the Minutes, and I am most grateful.
Mr President, we hear that Spanish lorry drivers, particularly those delivering vegetables, are still being attacked in the south of France.
We must again condemn these acts and ask the Presidency and the House to insist that the French authorities take appropriate measures to ensure freedom of movement...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Thank you, Mr Camisón Asensio, but once again that has nothing to do with the Minutes.
Mr President, I would just like to thank Mr Caudron for his clarification of the situation because it was difficult for members of the Israeli delegation to find out what was actually happening.
The dates have been confirmed since I raised the matter in the House this week.
I am delighted that the situation is now settled.
It is unfortunate, perhaps, that in certain circumstances the president of a delegation has to change the dates of the delegation to suit himself rather than the delegation as a whole, when there are vice-presidents and the Bureau who could have stood in for the 24 hours that was necessary.
(Parliament approved the Minutes.)
Votes
Mr President, I am sorry to interrupt the debate, but twice now the voting has been changed by just one vote.
My button is clearly not working.
Twice I voted in favour and twice it registered against.
Mr Castagnède, these were not roll-call votes but electronic votes.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
As I stated in the debate yesterday I would like to make an oral amendment proposal by removing the end of amendment proposal no.
4, that is the words Bakun, Malaysia, so that we do not pinpoint one particular project.
Instead this should apply to all large hydroelectric power projects.
The text now reads '... from investing in large hydroelectric power projects' .
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
The Danish social democrats have voted in favour of the report by Mr Stockmann.
We are sympathetic towards energy policy cooperation, and we are also very pleased with the environmental approach which Mr Stockmann takes in his report.
We wish to make it clear that nuclear power is not a sustainable energy source, and that nuclear energy does not form part of the Community's policy.
The Danish social democrats are in favour of the EU playing an active role with a view to reducing pollution.
The EU should also be actively involved in environment and energy policy issues.
However, it should not concern itself with fiscal policy.
That is and should remain a national matter.
The International Energy Agency and other international organizations are currently carrying out a number of valuable studies of their member countries' energy policy.
It is important that the Commission is not given or does not take on any tasks which are already being performed by others.
It is also important that the Commission - should it have to be given new areas of work - does not embark on extensive inquiries which create bureaucracy for national authorities.
Schlechter report (A4-106/97)
I welcome my colleague Schlechter's report calling for new legislation to reduce the maximum limits on driving time.
Despite legislation covering road transport used for both commercial and private use, Europe still has a frighteningly high rate of road mortality - resulting in horrendous suffering for the victims and families of those involved.
The disturbing number of serious coach and lorry accidents and the ensuing loss of life, are all too often caused by human error, which is frequently the consequence of extreme tiredness and unhealthy working conditions.
Data from across Europe have demonstrated the obvious link between road safety and compliance with legislation concerning driving times and rest periods for commercial drivers.
I would like to offer my full support for the conclusions of this report which call on the Commission to work towards:
reducing the maximum limits of driving time-creating uniform competitive standards for drivers across the Member Statesand, most importantly, making Europe's roads safer for us all.
Provision of information for technical standards and regulations
The next item is the report (A4-0147/97) by Mr Hendrick, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending for the third time Directive 83/189/EEC laying down the procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations (COM(96)0392 - C4-0466/96-96/0220(COD)).
Mr President, the development of the information society services promises profound changes socially, culturally and economically in Europe.
Distance ceases to be a factor.
A new economic sector comes into being and there is a powerful driving force to handle the development of information networks and technologies within the European Union.
The frontier-free area of the internal market is critical to the success of these services.
It is essential that this be safeguarded and developed with a mechanism which will coordinate future action by Member States in regulated information society services.
Society is now reaching the point where opportunities are available for consumers to obtain goods and services electronically.
These opportunities for cross-border trade must be realized to draw out the benefits of stronger productivity, growth and competitiveness which are the driving forces behind the creation of jobs in Europe.
At the same time we must ensure that new forms of social exclusion are not encouraged by the increased importance of new information and communication technologies.
The regulatory environment is an important factor in that sense and innovation and technological progress are priorities in this sector.
They must be allowed to develop under a flexible and consistent regulatory framework.
The introduction of contradictory or inconsistent regulations by Member States presents very real problems and a danger that competitors in Europe will possibly damage the internal market by restricting the free movement of goods and services.
Mr President, our opinion is favourable because extending the rules of the product society to cover the information society, as proposed by the directive, is indeed important. Of course, we cannot stop there.
That is why the Committee on Legal Affairs calls upon the Commission to consider the advisability of extending the rules, and hence also extending the procedure whereby the Member States inform and notify the European Union - the co-operation procedure - with a view to eliminating any obstacles to the freedom of the internal market, in a field as difficult as information technology and the advent of a whole new society, like the Internet, with the primary objective of safeguarding the central importance of the human individual.
That is why, in our view, there are a number of particularly significant recitals: precisely because of the pressure to extend not only the administrative rules but the technical rules, too, in other words all the standardization produced so far, to include bodies which, though in the private sector, have a strong impact on the market.
Another aspect which the Legal Affairs Committee wanted to bring out was the matter of access - freedom of access, and non-discrimination with regard to access by the consumer.
One of the features of this proposal is that it relates not only to services provided electronically and at a distance but also to consumer interactivity.
This is a service provided on demand, and the most innovative feature of this proposal is that, for the first time, it takes into account direct participation by the consumer - the subscriber, the citizen.
Hence, it is very important that there should be real freedom of access and, at the same time, the possibility of controls.
One final, brief comment: an important point was introduced as a new amendment and proposed once again in this House relating to the case law of the Court of Justice, an essential guide in this sector to the interpretation of certain rules relating to services.
We know that Community law is strongly rooted in precedent, and I therefore feel it is important for this amendment to be adopted.
Mr President, procedures for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations have an enormous impact on the competitiveness of European industry.
Now that we have decided to develop common strategies in the domains covered by the trans-European networks, namely energy, transport and telecommunications, the aim of which is to promote prosperity and job security in Europe, I believe that this regulatory mechanism will give us a distinct advantage in international competition.
The consequences are not only social and cultural; they also directly affect economic activity.
This technology itself can create entirely new jobs.
We need only consider the example of electronically controlled online shopping, which enables the customer to order goods and services personally at a distance.
In other words, the customer obtains direct access to a wide range of providers and can avail himself of their services.
That is why it is important that we in the countries of Europe should seek to make all our developments in this domain as transparent as possible, so that we can ensure that the advantages offered by one country will be of benefit to others.
It is also a matter of enumerating the precise areas in the domains of hardware, software and 'manware' in which we are making progress, in other words where training and technical harmonization have been improved.
These three domains are often intertwined.
Our success in making this field transparent will be of enormous importance to the European Community.
Broad freedom of access to these new opportunities is quite simply a fundamental right of our citizens and constitutes another step towards full implementation of the Treaty.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
After the vote on Amendments Nos 17 and 18:
Mr President, you must ask for votes against.
You are asking only for votes in favour and not against.
I am sorry... I am not doing the translation.
This is not a problem of interpretation!
The fact is that when I see such a large number of hands raised after asking for those in favour, since this is not a roll-call vote there is no point in wasting time on asking how many are against.
It is the case, Mr President, that even if we are in the minority sometimes, we still want to register the fact that we have voted against something.
So you must also ask the question, who is against, so that we who are against can register our opposition, even if there are only a few of us.
Otherwise we cannot do this.
Mr Cars, you are undoubtedly right.
I would do the same, even if - I say again - it is only apparent at the time a hand is raised.
Nothing appears in the Minutes!
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Regional policy in Austria, Finland and Sweden
The next item is the report (A4-0114/97) by Mr Rack, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the communication from the Commission on the implementation of European Union regional policies in Austria, Finland and Sweden (COM(96)0316 - C4-0533/96).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report on the implementation of EU regional policies in the three new member countries of Austria, Sweden and Finland is largely uncontroversial.
That, however, does not make it unimportant.
It is not unimportant to the countries concerned, it is not unimportant to the European Union as a whole, and to a certain extent it is also of interest and importance to future candidates for accession to the Union.
The report itself relates primarily to the first year and a half from the date of accession.
In several oral contributions in committee, the Commission kept providing us with updates and in that respect has ensured that the report actually reflects the current state of play.
The subject of the report is the Commission Communication, which deals with the implementation of programmes worth more than seven billion ECU, with 1.6bn for Austria, 1.7bn for Finland and 1.4bn for Sweden.
The report focuses on Objectives 1, 2, 5b and 6, but it also contains a number of cross-references with statements relating to the other objectives, which is something we pursued in some detail in committee.
In its communication the Commission certainly awards very high marks to the three new Member States, in terms of both the extent to which the programmes have been implemented and the extent to which the relevant funds have been used.
All three countries have made more or less equal progress.
They are spending their money as planned and are also achieving quite a lot with it.
From that point of view, the report shows that even economically advanced countries - all three are net contributors - can derive additional benefits from participation in the system of European regional policy.
Some aspects of this added value are referred to explicitly.
The main point, really, is that all three countries were quick to signal their willingness to become involved in regional policy and have proved astute in implementing it, having prepared the ground effectively before allocating the available funds on the basis of their planned programmes.
It is also quite possible to identify a learning curve, which is beginning to bear fruit at the present time.
The Commission has rightly called for an evaluation of the extent to which the allocated funds actually achieve their purposes.
Here we all have a lot to learn.
This also applies to the domain of transparency.
In this respect some countries, among them Sweden and Finland, have an exemplary track record on the basis of their own traditions.
The others can learn from these two countries.
Lessons for the Member States - the old just as much as the new ones -are also observable in relation to the concept of partnership and the 'bottom-up' principle.
This is an approach to regional policy which creates genuine popular involvement.
For this very reason we expressly included in our committee's discussions a factfinding session with regional representatives from the three new Member States, who certainly found it to be a useful exercise.
What continues to be important about the implementation of regional policy in the three new Member States is that it really has broken new ground, not only in form but in substance too.
Especially in the domains of environmental policy, the pursuit of equal treatment and programmes for the promotion of women, but also with regard to the use of new information technology, the three States, practising the values which underlie their own political systems, have undoubtedly lent welcome new momentum not only to their own regional policies but also to European regional policy as a whole.
Another important lesson referred to in this report, as well as in parallel reports, has been the fact that the three new Member States, particularly Austria and Finland in their external border position, have been demonstrating a great many good practices, especially in the field of interregional and cross-border cooperation, and this sort of development is also of interest to prospective members of the European Union.
Some useful work is being done here in terms of establishing a conceptual basis for a preaccession strategy.
Finally, explicit reference should be made to one more lesson, because it is also very important.
We can learn from mistakes as well as from good example.
Mistakes have been and are still being made.
The implementation of regional policy as a whole, both at European and national levels, is still plagued by too much bureaucracy and too little information.
We should endeavour to reverse that situation.
Let me conclude by thanking the Commission for the very cooperative manner in which they invariably agreed to provide us with the various updated figures, and may I finally thank everyone who helped with this report, including Members of this House.
I hope that we shall obtain the broadest possible consensus behind this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the rapporteur has said, this report is a document that we can all endorse.
I should also like to congratulate him on this inventory of structural policy in the three new Member States.
Our group will surely vote for this report.
This inventory will undoubtedly be of importance to the three new Member States, since they will shortly be sitting round the table for the first time at discussions on the reform of structural policy.
That is why it is also very important for the Union to allow precisely these fresh experiences, these unspent experiences, if you like, of the new Member States to play a significant part in its deliberations on the reform of structural policy.
At the same time, these three new Member States - and I am partly qualified to speak here on the basis of my experience of the internal political discussion in my own country of Austria - must also prepare very thoroughly for this debate.
There must be no more of the assertions we have occasionally heard in the debate on structural policy that two and two can make five.
We have the Freedom Party of Austria, for example, trying on the one hand to have our membership contributions reduced but on the other hand to obtain Objective 1 status for each of our federal states.
I therefore believe that such a report is a very important means of encouraging a realistic debate on the potential of the structural-policy regime and structural funds of the Union.
It will also be important to conduct the debate on the future of the structural funds in the light of the evidence which suggests that neither the older Member States nor the new Member States - net contributors, as the rapporteur indicated - are prepared to end up paying more into the European budget.
That means we shall have to begin with very detailed discussions in each Member State, including the new ones, on where the real priorities should lie.
I see them very clearly in the need to create more employment again in the European Union.
Mr President, the Commission's communication and Mr Rackin's excellent report on the implementation of the EU's regional policy in the new Member States brings out very clearly the good sides and critical points.
In the initial stages of implementation in the Member States there are time lags, problems with information and inefficiencies of management.
The reports, like the Member States and assessments, quite rightly points out the need for simplifying administration.
The structure of funding, which is fragmented and concentrated on central government, should be decentralized to local authorities.
The special problems of Finland partly also Sweden which distinguish them from the other EU countries are long distances, low population density and exceptionally cold climatic conditions.
The areas needing to be developed by the structural funds are situated in these countries thousands of kilometres from the Central European market areas, near the Russian border.
The main livelihood in these areas, agriculture, has undergone a rapid structural upheaval with EU membership, Open markets have led to a situation in which, because of the short growing season, it is impossible to compete without continual production costs subsidies.
I may say in this connection, ladies and gentlemen, that there is still about a metre of snow lying in Northern Finland.
Finland is Europe's most rural country, in which stresses the need for a rural policy which supports the wide variety of businesses.
Finland is currently suffering from the second highest unemployment rate in the Union.
The development of regional economies in the 1990s has been weak as a result of the record slump.
Now that economic growth is beginning the remote areas are losing out, because young people are moving out of them to the more densely populated centres of southern Finland.
In other words, irrespective of support and investment, the regional differences are growing, although the objective is quite rightly the independent and varied development of the regions.
In my opinion the experience obtained so far in the objective programmes shows very clearly that the responsibility for putting the programmes into practice should be transferred to the Member States and their local authorities, to the regions themselves.
We must move away from the single structure of a programme as a bundle of measures, it must be made continually more flexible.
The programmes are, however, absolutely essential for these areas.
They have clearly brought with them useful projects, new types of cooperation and targeted planning.
Thus in the review of the EU structural funds the continuing support for the EU's northern regions must be protected.
(FI ) Mr President, both the Commission communication and Mr Rack's report constitute a very interesting record of the experiences obtained with the implementation of regional policy in the three new Member States.
Thanks and congratulations to Mr Rack and the Commission.
These documents have highlighted many important points.
For example, they state that the implementation of EU regional policy has taken an unreasonably long time.
In Finland, and as far as I know, in Sweden too, the regional and local authorities have strongly criticized the fact that it has taken and is still taking far too much time to put the administrative procedures in place - time which should have been used implementing the policy itself and in the discussion of its objectives and means.
Reference is also quite rightly made to the problems which have arisen in view of the administrative bureaucracy and lack of internal coordination among the Commission's units.
In order to simplify and promote the activities of the structural funds it is absolutely essential to simplify the administrative procedure and develop the internal coordination of the Commission's units.
The Commission's relevant directorate general should interpret and apply the rules in the same way.
In applying regional policy stress has been placed on the participation of regional and local authorities and interest groups in the planning and realization of regional policy.
Experience so far shows, however, that the role of those involved at local level has not been anything like sufficient.
For example in Finland the EU funding is being channelled through the state budget.
This practice has increased the bureaucracy involved in distributing the resources and resulted in the central government's own objectives being given priority over regional objectives.
In Finland the regional and local authorities in fact hope that the decision-making power on EU funds will be transferred to local authorities.
In future the Commission should ensure that regional and local authorities are given full decision-making power in the adoption and implementation of programmes.
In spite of the problems it must be stressed that the activities of the structural funds have clearly brought new energy and enthusiasm into regional activities.
Accordingly, the international outlook and the level of awareness about the European Union have also increased.
Mr President, as a Swede I welcome both the Commission's communication and Mr Rack's report.
Both are largely in agreement with the conclusions which the Regional Committee came to at their meeting on 15 January 1997.
I would like to emphasise strongly the great paucity of information made available to those concerned, particularly to small and medium sized companies in Sweden.
The extensive administration and bureaucracy both in the EU and nationally and the lack of standardised rules have actively contributed to making implementation of regional policy difficult.
The criticism levelled against centralised government, particularly in Sweden, is also quite justified.
As all three countries are net contributors to the EU it is important psychologically that there is a proper and quantitative return to these countries in the form of regional aid and that this can be used simply, quickly and effectively.
So maintaining and developing the Objective 6-region is extremely important.
The Commission in its Report on Cohesion and Environment pointed especially to the fact that non governmental organisations must be more involved in regional politics.
The committee also agreed with this and adopted our amendment proposal.
To my great disappointment I now see that Mr Rack in amendment proposal no.
4 wants to go against both the Commission and the committee by removing the NGO's participation.
It ought to be generally accepted that non-governmental organisations, NGOs, are an asset.
They have the local knowledge and acceptance which public authorities unfortunately often lack.
What is more important is that they are not driven by profit or the need for power.
So I urge Parliament to vote against amendment proposal no 4 in favour of the original text.
In all other respects we will be voting for the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who is familiar, within his own country or elsewhere, with the administration of EU projects will no doubt recognize the criticisms made in this report.
These criticisms can be summed up under two headings - too much bureaucracy and not enough transparency in regional promotion measures.
As long as these defects are not remedied, many a citizen of our highly developed member countries will regard this as further grounds for Euroscepticism.
As an Austrian Member, however, I find it extremely important that EU assistance should henceforth be used primarily to fight unemployment and indeed that the creation of jobs be made our foremost priority.
Jobs, however, are not created by supporting a few multinational giants, which will often strike sail at the first signs of an economic headwind, leaving their massive redundant crews to take to the lifeboats; on the contrary, jobs are created by promoting small and medium-sized businesses, which, after all, are the largest overall employers of manpower, not only in Austria.
What I should like to see being avoided in future might best be defined by means of an example.
Burgenland has been granted Objective 1 status and is to receive a total of 160m ECU from 1995 to 1999.
This money is to lead to the creation of 7, 300 new jobs.
If we consider, however, the way in which this assistance has been administered, it emerges that only 70 out of 9, 000 businesses are receiving support.
The largest slice of the cake, ECU 10m, has gone to the Lenzing company; this represents 30 % of a year's promotion funds.
This company has used the money to create only 120 jobs, which are already under threat because the parent group is reporting nine-figure losses.
I believe it is essential to prevent any such effects in future.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Rack for his thorough and effective work in assessing regional policy in the three new Member States.
It is of course the central principle of the EU's regional policy to narrow the differences between the regions.
However, this has not as yet been successful.
Even in the new Member States it is noticeable that the differences between the regions are growing rather than shrinking.
The EU's newest Member states are different in many ways from the 'old Member States'.
Finland and Sweden, for example, have an entirely new objective area, the Objective 6 area, and we have no Objective 1 areas at all.
In the Objective 6 area account is taken of the distinctive features typical of the Nordic countries such as low population density and long distances.
In shaping the EU's regional policy in future these factors must be included either by continuing with the Objective 6 programme or by including these features typical of the Nordic countries in other programmes.
The problem with the present Objective 6 programme is however that the regional development funds include support for agriculture.
There are some areas in which two-thirds of the resources are directed towards farms and only one third remains for the structural development of the region.
However, the most important structural policy objective for Finland and for the EU as a whole, apart from the cohesion objective, is to focus on employment and on overcoming the unemployment problem.
Mr Rack has also described very well the problems relating to the situation in the new Member States.
We have a reasonably good administrative culture and the EU's structural programmes have involved increased bureaucracy.
This problem is described very well and it is to be hoped that we will get over this problem in the review of the regional policy programmes.
One positive aspect from Finland's point of view, as has been stated, is that many new things have been happening and there has been enthusiastic cooperation.
Mr President, I think that the report we are discussing is, for the most part, a good one and it describes the situation accurately.
There are also parts of the EU's regional aid which have worked quite well in practice.
This applies in particular to Objective 4 and Objective 3.
But there is a lot which, if we are to be honest about it, does not work particularly well.
One problem which crops up continually when you are out looking at real projects is the enormous amount of bureaucracy you come up against when you make an application for funds and when you submit a report on these projects; all this creates immense difficulties.
There are also several problems which are particularly connected with the Objective 6-Region in Sweden which deals with aid to sparsely populated areas.
One of the problems is that there is very little participation on the part of private businesses, which is almost certainly due to the bureaucracy involved.
Another problem is that only a small part of the aid has been paid; in Sweden less than 10 percent of funds have been paid out and actually used.
It is also true to say that many municipalities are currently in such a bad state financially that they do not have the means to use EU aid, they quite simply do not have the means to get hold of it.
What is currently happening is that municipalities and regional authorities are closing down perfectly healthy businesses in order to take on temporary EU projects, which is not a particularly positive development.
This is why Objective 6 aid must be changed in the future to make it more effective and work better as it is in the sparsely populated regions that the big regional political problems can be found.
Taking an overall view, I am prepared to say that it would have been considerably better to keep the money in Sweden and never allow it to go via the EU but to allow Sweden themselves to determine how the funds should be used.
This is the truth about this aid.
It is also important to view regional policy as a whole and to look at the effect EU membership has had.
The fact is that the key to the regional balance which has existed in Sweden, where there has been a very even regional standard, is a strong public sector and public transfer system.
As part of the EMU process there are currently large cutbacks in these which is having a considerable effect on the regional balance.
In addition, most of the funds returned to Sweden go into agriculture, particularly agriculture in Southern Sweden, and this has a significant negative impact from a regional political point of view.
The EU is also moving towards serious intervention in national regional policy, for example in our transport aid, which is a very effective form of regional political aid.
So, unfortunately, I must state that on the whole membership of the EU has had a negative effect on the regional balance in Sweden.
Mr President, to create equal conditions for all people, no matter where they live, is one of our most important tasks as elected representatives and to ensure that everyone has access to work, education, care and communication regardless of whether they live in a city, a small town or a rural area.
The regions in the North of Sweden and Finland are extremely sparsely populated with as few as two inhabitants per square kilometre.
An active regional policy which allows the whole of Sweden to prosper is therefore an important component of Swedish domestic policy, for which Objective 6 is absolutely crucial and must naturally be maintained.
That the whole of Europe should prosper ought to be the aim of the EU's regional policy.
It is a good heading for regional policy which we ought to introduce into the Union.
Sweden pays 20 billion kronor per year in Membership dues to the EU.
Out of this 5 billion goes back into agriculture, 4 billion to regional politics.
In order to use this 4 billion we must also contribute the same amount of money ourselves from the Swedish purse.
This may seem in order but my question is whether this merry-go-round of money which flies off to Brussels and then comes back round again is a good model.
The money which is returned is also loaded with a mass of rules and administration.
We cannot resolve this huge issue now but it must be included when we evaluate the Structural Funds after 1999.
This report also takes up the issue of existing bureaucracy and delays, particularly the length of time from a decision being made to when the money is finally paid out.
This must be made more efficient.
Mr President, fewer Objectives, fewer funds and community initiatives, better co-ordination between the EU's regional policy and that of the Member State's, increased regional and local influence in decision making, planning, implementation and supervision of EU projects, putting all our efforts into doing something about the high unemployment in Northern Sweden and in Northern Finland along with some proposals for a better environment and a border region co-operation are some of the proposals which could further improve regional policy both for the Member States and for the EU.
These are proposals which could make regional policy more effective.
Approve Mr Rack's report, Mr President.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission and in particular on behalf of Mrs Wulf-Mathies, the Commissioner responsible for one of the main sectors of regional policy, I should like to thank Mr Rack for his report and for the motion for a resolution.
The report arrives at - and I quote - a 'definitely positive verdict regarding the implementation to date of the Structural Fund programmes in the three Member States' .
This result is not solely, or even primarily, a credit to the Commission but is attributable to the professionalism with which the three Member States in question have approached their task.
We can certainly feel well satisfied at the progress made, but satisfaction must never be allowed to slide into complacency.
The report makes a number of constructive criticisms, many of which will appear on the agenda during the discussions on the reform of the Structural Funds launched by the recent forum on cohesion.
Before replying to these points, I should like to highlight a number of passages in the report which express certain principles of regional development policy which should always be taken as reference parameters for the debate on reform.
First, a relatively advanced level of national economic development does not exclude the existence of specific regional development problems and disparities which call for intervention by the Structural Funds.
I would also remind Honourable Members, in particular, that the per capita gross domestic product in Sweden and Finland is still below the Community mean.
Secondly, the principles of multi-annual planning, partnership, subsidiarity, additionality and concentration have proved to be essential components of the Union's regional policy.
Partnership between the Commission and the Member States, and within the Member States, is confronted by the challenge posed by excessive complexity.
But it is a principle that we mean to defend, trying at the same time to reduce bureaucracy so far as is compatible with the sound and efficient administration of the Funds.
Thirdly, the promotion of employment, technological modernization, equality of opportunity and the environment must remain priorities of the new Structural Funds.
Cross-border and inter-regional co-operation is another sector that enhances the value of the Union's structural interventions and must be promoted.
Local initiatives, especially those to promote employment, are another field that holds out encouraging prospects for the future.
On this point, I would refer you to the current programme of territorial pacts for employment - the Commission strongly supports this programme and agrees with its approach.
It takes the principle of partnership back to basics, involving the public, private and voluntary sectors in joint action to boost employment.
The Leader II programme has already achieved good results in this area.
Moving onto the criticisms, I believe that our administration and distribution mechanisms can, and therefore must, be improved.
As the report rightly emphasizes, excessive bureaucracy is particularly unpopular in the three new Member States.
Within the Commission there is a broad consensus on many of the proposed improvements: reducing the number of Community-initiative programmes and the administrative burden they involve, improving co-ordination and harmonization of rules between the various Funds and the Directorates-General, and so on.
The Commission is taking an active stance, as demonstrated by the SEM 2000 project.
Many of these improvements, though, will have to await the major reform of the Structural Funds for the new programming period.
Among the reforms, there will have to be better use made of modern financing mechanisms, including start-up and risk capital.
Regarding the recent reprogramming exercise for the Objective 2 regions in Finland, that was indeed a protracted and laborious procedure.
I would however call your attention to the secondary advantages, especially the possibility of simplifying and redefining the programme and bringing forward the intermediate assessment.
With regard to the other objectives, the intermediate assessment has not yet been completed and, despite our efforts, progress is slow.
The report reproaches us for having neglected the rural areas and Objective 5B.
That does not mean that the Commission underestimates the problems of rural areas: indeed, as emphasized in Mr Rack's report, a very significant proportion of the available resources has been used specifically for schemes to benefit the rural areas and to benefit farmers in the Nordic and Alpine regions.
Finally, Mr President, Mr Rack, ladies and gentlemen, I extend my congratulations and those of the Commission on this report, and thank you for the critical and constructive comments you have put forward.
I see this as another outstanding example of collaboration between our institutions.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I should just like to raise a point of order, for which I apologize.
There were two roll-call votes yesterday, namely on the Titley report and the WTO bananas, in which I wanted to abstain rather than voting in favour.
I asked for that to be minuted.
However, it was not mentioned in the Minutes of these roll-call votes.
I should just like you to establish the reason for that, if you please.
It is pointless for us to make corrections if they are not recorded.
Thank you Mrs Mann, but the discussion of the Minutes ended over an hour ago.
However, we shall take account of your request.
Cross-border and inter-regional co-operation
The next item is the report (A4-0161/97) by Mrs Myller, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on cross-border and inter-regional co-operation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to begin by congratulating my colleague Riitta Myller on a truly outstanding report.
It analyses the present situation very well, shows where reforms are needed and makes proposals for the future.
Cross-border and interregional cooperation in Europe, I believe, is one the kernels, one of the centrepieces and one of the flagship activities of this European Union, because it puts into practice our ideal of an increasingly integrated Europe, our belief that integration is far more than a mere catchword and that economic and social cohesion must be pursued in earnest.
Interregional and cross-border cooperation means looking beyond our own four walls, taking advantage of the spinoffs from such cooperation and, where frontiers previously created obstacles and made the joint use of facilities difficult, whether for infrastructural, social or simply interpersonal reasons, dismantling such frontiers.
This phenomenon can already be experienced in many parts of the European Union.
Anyone who, like me, comes from a region in which four European countries meet - Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Germany - can see that this is a highly desirable development.
But you can also see that its organizational implementation, especially in the administrative domain, still poses problems, even today.
Everyone knows that four different administrative structures come into contact there, with different levels of government having to act together.
That does not make it easy, but the people on the spot, the administrative bodies, are trying to find answers, some of them on the basis of structural assistance from the European Union.
I believe that is important.
However, I must also say that future interregional and cross-border cooperation should entail no moves to create, or to demand the creation of, any additional tiers of administration.
Political responsibility for this work, within the bounds we have set, must be entrusted to the bodies with the democratic mandate to shoulder that responsibility.
It is their task to carry it out.
But we in the European Union do not only have internal borders to dismantle; we also have external borders.
My colleague Riitta Myller stated that very clearly.
I refer you to her report, which I fully endorse.
As far as we in the European Union are concerned, our external borders currently touch on the regions where the greatest upheavals have been occurring.
It is at those borders that the widest prosperity gaps are to be found, and it is there that the bulk of our work will have to be done.
The third aspect, which we introduced in the past within the INTERREG framework and which I regard as very important, is that Europe should be seen from the perspective of regional planning in the wider sense.
It should no longer be considered as a collection of nation States or individual regions within those States; we must focus on entire geographical areas and their problems - by which I mean the Baltic region, the Mediterranean Basin, etc. and act accordingly.
Ladies and gentlemen, structural reform is on the agenda for the coming weeks and months.
Personally speaking, I believe that interregional cooperation and the structural funds of the European Union dedicated to that purpose, in other words INTERREG, are one of the main assets that must be preserved, even after a reform, because this is the most European of all the work we can undertake.
Cooperation is an important point.
When we talk about concentrating the structural funds and improving their efficiency, that means concentrating especially on the things that are very good and very important and reinforcing them.
My appeal is that due prominence be accorded to the INTERREG resource in the forthcoming structural reform.
Cross-border and interregional cooperation form one of the main pillars of the European edifice.
I sincerely congratulate my colleague Riitta Myller on her outstanding report, to which I pledge my support.
Mr President, on behalf of the PPE Group I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur for her report and to express my thanks for the constructive cooperation that marked the deliberations in committee, where we were able to add what we regard as essential points, which are now included in the report.
In our eyes too, cross-border and interregional cooperation is one of the pillars of the European integration process.
As the rapporteur said, there are two aspects involved: cooperation within Europe and cooperation with third countries, where this type of cooperation can pay important dividends both now and in the future.
At the same time, these efforts should not be entirely focused on social and economic cohesion but must also take account of the security dimension.
By comparison with other projects, I too would say that interregional and cross-border cooperation has a greater impact on people's daily lives, one reason being that the projects involved are often born of popular initiatives.
They merit greater attention, because these projects highlight the obstacles and difficulties that hinder cooperation, problems of which people become more keenly aware in this context.
Interregional cooperation must take more account of economic aspects, of social, environmental and planning policies, because people in border areas find it hard to understand why good health care is available on their side of the border but not on the other side, why the planners, for example, have designated their side of the border as an economic development area, whereas on the other side, perhaps little more than half a mile away, the land may be designated as a green belt with strict measures to protect the natural environment.
These are European integration problems, and that is why such projects deserve special attention.
This report must serve first and foremost as the basis for future projects, for the next programme.
Secondly, interregional and cross-border cooperation must be better coordinated with the other structural funds and the other forms of structural assistance.
Thirdly, procedures should be simplified.
If we want individual citizens or even citizens' initiatives to become involved in this domain, we cannot confront them with time-consuming and cumbersome administrative procedures that result in their having to wait up to a year and a half before receiving a definitive response to their applications.
Moreover, these programmes are a means of taking account of the specific nature of the individual regions of Europe.
As someone who lives in a border region, I can assure you that you will find convinced but critical Europeans in these regions.
We should not squander the opportunity to make greater use of the impetus for European integration that is generated in frontier areas.
I certainly hope that this highly significant report will also send the right signal to the Commission.
Madam President, while I fully endorse the praise Mrs Myller has received for this report, with its extensive coverage of Europe as a whole, I would like to take a closer look at one particular facet.
We are concerned with major borders, new borders, external borders, but the INTERREG 1 and INTERREG 2 programmes have hitherto financed borders which are now being defined as internal but which have become internal precisely because of the effect of those programmes.
I refer to the thirty or so Euroregions, as they are called in the Treaty, which are still operative and whose problems have not been fully covered simply because we are now dealing with other regions with a greater eastward exposure.
I agree with a number of points, especially in the motion for a resolution, which do to some extent refer to the root of this kind of attention cultivated by the European Union - especially where reference is made, in paragraph 2, to clear guidelines for co-operation policy. In this type of activity, there is such a range, such a free interpretation, that at times there seems to be a danger of wandering away from the point, diverging from the lines laid down in the Treaty and elsewhere.
Clear guidelines, then, spring from three fundamental activities. The first is the activity that favours the exchange of information: understanding each other in order to know each other.
The second is the activity that derives full value from affinities and smooths over any aspects that are not common to all sides. And the third is the activity that focuses on joint programmes directed towards what is the main objective of this type of intervention, which is to eliminate or at any rate reduce regional disparities.
Paragraph 6 of the motion mentions the role of the regions situated on the internal borders, and this is where my main interest lies, since other Members have concerned themselves with the new borders.
The main objective - as also stated in paragraph 11 of the motion for a resolution - is to enhance economic and social development.
Significantly, the two sides of industry are expressly called upon to participate.
So we are not talking about a European Union mandate to regional or national political organizations or institutions - the social partners are to participate.
Not only that, but paragraph 23 explicitly refers to the involvement and specific participation of the private sector: the public are to be the proposers of the activities, the interpreters of the regulations and hence, clearly, the beneficiaries of the activities.
I say all this because we are seeing the birth of other, foreign Euroregions, unfortunately supported by Community funds.
I refer specifically to them not just because they represent an internal policy problem but because we are talking about forms of Community financing - and this is the recommendation I would like to put to this House - which in my opinion should also be a matter of interest to the European Commission.
I refer to a Euroregion which goes by the name of the 'Tyrolese Euregio' , which is still progressing despite the widespread opposition that followed its creation, both within Italy and within Austria.
The two governments concerned, those of Italy and Austria, have clearly denied the logical justification for this Euroregion, which is outside those envisaged by the Treaty.
And yet this 'Euregio of Trentino and Tyrol' is still progressing, proposing programmes, using Community funds, with an objective very different from that proposed by the Euroregions as we understand them, which tend to weaken if not actually eliminate the internal borders.
This Euroregion is eliminating the previous borders, true, but with the objective of creating an unacceptable political institution, defining a new border, a thick red line chalked around what is now being defined as 'the Union of Tyrol' - North Tyrol, South Tyrol and a hypothetical and historically unjustifiable Trentino Tyrol.
I ask you, Commissioner, to be on your guard against allowing any such distortions to occur and, above all, to ensure that they are not financed from Community funds.
Madam President, in the context of eastward enlargement, this report has a very special significance.
It is an expression of the urgency of change in the funding of both cross-border and interregional cooperation in the Baltic and Mediterranean regions.
The situation in the Euroregions, the fact that money earmarked for cross-border cooperation can practically only be spent on assistance to immediate frontier zones on our side of the border, is intolerable.
Trust that has been painstakingly built up and successes that have been wrung from a vast number of joint talks on the development of projects are all in vain if the projects cannot be financed from one fund.
That is why the jewel in the crown of this report is that it provides for the possibility of financing from a common fund not only joint interregional cooperation projects but also those in the domain of cross-border cooperation.
We have agreed that the Greens will withdraw their amendment, because point 4 is an adequate means of presenting this request to the Commission.
Speed is now of the essence if the hopes of the regions are not to be dashed.
The Commission acts and implements these things.
It could already be promoting pilot schemes during the current programming period to test a joint financing and evaluation system.
The 1994 Schroedter report gives it scope to do that, and I hope the Commission will respond very rapidly.
Our perennial problem is that money flows indirectly into the coffers of the central authorities.
This call for a common fund offers a means of ensuring that the money can really be administered in the Euroregions from now on.
Clear steps are being taken here to foil and preclude attempts by central administrations to misappropriate funds for their own purposes.
The Commission is also called upon to ensure that this abuse is not continued in the current programmes.
It is truly a matter of creating cross-border links between villages and towns, overcoming divisive factors and restoring bridges destroyed during the wars.
Nowhere is the idea of a 'fortress Europe' so tangible as at the external borders.
The Schengen rules are a huge obstacle to cooperation in the Euroregions.
It is down to the courage of local authorities that projects are nevertheless possible.
The theatre island in Guben, on the River Neisse, had not been used for 50 years until a concrete bridge enabled the inhabitants of Guben and Gubin to hold a Festival of Europe there together.
These are opportunities for Europe.
Above all, an open Europe requires political will at all levels.
Mr President, there are some exciting new developments in the whole idea of cross-border and interregional cooperation, in particular for people like myself who live in a coastal community in Scotland.
We tend to think we are out on the periphery, that we do not have borders to the east.
But, in fact, we do because the North Sea provides a common border and historically Scotland was very closely linked to the Netherlands, to Flanders, to the Baltic countries, to Germany and so on.
These links are now being re-established and I very much welcome the extension of the concept explicitly to the North Sea and the idea that the coastal people also form part of an interregion.
As president of the North Sea Intergroup, I am involved in some very exciting developments which are being proposed for the whole of the North Sea region.
In some respects the North Sea region is fortunate in that it has many advantages, for example in education.
My own constituency of North-East Scotland has no less than four universities.
That is replicated across many parts of the North Sea region.
We have fishing grounds which are extremely important to Europe and very important to the fishing communities.
We have tremendously important historic and cultural aspects which are capable of development.
On the other hand, we suffer from peripherality and, in particular, from the perception from London that we are very far away from anywhere.
I am glad to see that Brussels is somewhat more sympathetic than London on occasion.
We also suffer from problems such as pollution and the need for coastal development and coastal preservation.
This is even more accentuated when you look at other parts of the North Sea such as the east coast of England and parts of the Dutch and Danish coasts.
In all this, there is a tremendous potential.
In the resolution Mrs Myller has put forward - and I commend her wholeheartedly on the whole of it - there is a very interesting point 5 about cultural identities and minorities and I can see, for example, that not only the Scots but the Friesians too could benefit from emphasis on their particular language and history.
There is potential for the development of the information society and for the protection of coastal communities.
I should like to join in the congratulations to the rapporteur for this report and to the Commission for being so innovative and thinking in terms of INTERREG IIc.
I am very happy to support it.
Madam President, it is good to see proposals for increased cooperation between regions both within and outside the EU.
It is important that the EU does not turn in on itself.
I also support the idea of survival strategies for peripheral regions.
However, I do not have the same favourable attitude towards the call for the creation of a formalized 'Europe of the regions and municipalities' .
As the proposal stands, it contains the seeds of a Europe without frontiers, divided into regions.
The nation states still have a monopoly in terms of taxes, but with greater funding of regional cooperation, it will increasingly be the EU which distributes Member States' tax revenues to the regions.
Increased funding and politicization of regional cooperation will strengthen the position of the EU and the regions, at the expense of the nation states and local autonomy.
Already, too many decisions are being taken in the EU and implemented at district and county level.
At present, a very intensive debate is taking place concerning one of these cross-border initiatives, namely the cooperation across the frontier between Germany and Denmark in what is known as the 'Euroregion Schleswig/Slesvig' .
In this border area, the 'Euroregion Slesvig' has been strongly criticized, because of fears of undue dominance of the area by both the Federal Republic and the EU.
Since the Euroregion is meant to operate as a single unit in the European context, many people in the border area see the Euroregion as an EU state created through the back-door - and there is absolutely no question of any kind of anti-German feeling here, as has been suggested.
I share this scepticism.
In Denmark, it is the parliament and government which decide on external policy, and not the individual counties.
The county of South Jutland, which forms the Danish part of the border area, is not an EU municipality, but a county of Denmark.
We ourselves have chosen that this should be so.
In historical terms, there has been a great deal of conflict over the Danish-German border.
Today, the border is accepted on both sides, and we have an excellent relationship between Danes and Germans in the border area, a relationship which has been a model for many other places.
We are good neighbours who have a low fence with many openings, but we take our own decisions for ourselves, and respect those taken by the other side.
And this is what people have been demonstrating for at the border, that things should continue in this way, and German opponents of the removal of the border have also taken part in the demonstrations against the Euroregion.
We believe that cross-border cooperation can only be successful if there is complete acceptance that such cooperation requires agreement between the two parties.
For two sides to agree, however, it is not necessary to build up complicated institutions.
It is sufficient for them to meet and work out their agreement.
I have nothing at all against cooperation, but I do object to cooperation having to be regulated through EU projects.
People call this decentralization, and say they want to bring EU cooperation closer to the people.
But if they wish to bring EU powers down to local level, it must be done through real decentralization, in other words by handing legislative powers back to the national parliaments.
Cross-border cooperation is, in my view, both important and necessary, and extremely exciting and challenging.
But I do not believe that we shall have a better or more democratic form of government by drawing down the curtain on the nation states.
I believe in a Europe with a variety of different countries, not a new European superpower.
It is important to preserve the nation states, above all because they are the best foundation for democracy and a sense of community and common purpose.
If borders go, they will not simply be removed - they will have to be torn away.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, cross-border cooperation now has two quite distinct aspects. That is reflected in Mrs Myller's report.
On the one hand there is cross-border cooperation between the countries of the European Union and on the other cross-border cooperation with countries outside the European Union.
The first type of cooperation, principally effected through Interreg-IIA, is showing very positive results.
For the period 1995/1999 ECU 2 400 million are being mobilized for Interreg A, ECU 500 million for Interreg B and ECU 415 million for Interreg C.
In our opinion it would be a good idea to set up an Interreg D instrument to finance linguistic cooperation in these cross-border regions.
Such linguistic cooperation is currently under-funded and I think greater emphasis should be placed on improving that type of cooperation.
The resolution does indeed, in points 5 and 20, stress the importance of multi-lingualism, but for the moment that remains essentially a vain hope.
We note moreover a shift of interest towards the outermost regions of the European Union - perhaps in slightly too exclusive a manner.
The project for developing the Mediterranean economic area is already mobilizing ECU 4 865 million, that is twice as much as Interreg-IIA, and ECU 8 million has been allocated for the Atlantis project.
Of course we welcome this financial contribution for the respective regions, but we fear that at this rate crossborder cooperation in the heart of Europe will become the poor relation and anyone elected to represent Alsace, as I am, can only feel concerned about such trends.
That is exacerbated, moreover, by the objective of social cohesion if that is interpreted as an obligation to keep the European Union's money for the less-developed regions only.
Other criteria need to be taken into consideration for cross-border cooperation.
That is why I want to say here that Franco-German cooperation as well as trilateral cooperation between Switzerland, Germany and France around Basel also need funding and must not be sacrificed on the altar of these new priorities.
I should also like to see credit amounts released more clearly in order to strengthen bilingualism in my region - Alsace - and to see that more inhabitants of Alsace are represented in the French media.
That is partly a financial question.
It is quite clear that bilingualism is of great economic interest - even above actual cultural attachment proper - and it makes it possible to reduce local unemployment by a not inconsiderable amount, as may currently be seen in the Rhine Basin.
Despite all these omissions which I am sorry to note in this report, which places great emphasis on the outermost regions but rather neglects inter-regional cooperation at the very heart of the continent, I shall of course be voting for the report, since we support the general principles and inter-regional cross-border cooperation is still an altogether positive principle.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Myller report is indeed an integrated and well documented proposal on the improvement of cross-border and interregional cooperation.
Yet, besides the economic dimension of the issue and the clear need to achieve the aim of economic and social cohesion and, above all increased employment, cross-border cooperation can serve in a very genuine and effective way another equally important aim, that of approach and cooperation between peoples, the elimination of prejudices and stereotypes, and the discouragement of mentalities that favour and foment isolation, xenophobia, nationalism, enmity and violence.
Consequently, if our policy to reinforce cross-border and interregional cooperation is to be effective, it must include a broad range of statutory measures and significant resources aiming both to improve the economic and social conditions of the weaker regions in the European Union, and to create a climate and conditions of equal democratic, peaceful and creative coexistence between peoples, without distinctions of sex, race, national origin or religion.
Such a policy must also go together with a range of programmes to ensure the accession and incorporation of weaker groups, immigrants and minorities, into social, political and economic life in the European Union, in a balanced and natural way.
The role of the media remains of course important, in that they contribute to the suppression of prejudice, by emphasizing the beauty of the variety, polychromism and multi-cultural character of modern society.
As for the south-eastern borders of Europe, there has indeed been some delay in the promotion of cross-border cooperation, as the Myller report points out.
That, however, is due to the well known peculiarities and serious problems of the area, problems to which the European Union should pay special attention in the context of regional policy, which call for the application of programmes appropriately adapted to the particular features of the region, and which above all require the provision of substantial resources and at the same time a trimming down of bureaucratic procedures.
Today, with the emerging settlement of crises and the stabilization of the situation, the prerequisites are being created for cooperation between the Balkan countries at many levels.
As you have seen, Greece now plays a positive part in solving the problems, in the effective implementation of a policy of interregional and cross-border cooperation, and in the peaceful settlement of any differences in that difficult area of south-eastern Europe, which is nevertheless very important for European integration.
Madam President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Myller.
I represent one of those townships, País Vasco, which through circumstances of history, was divided between two states either side of a frontier - a frontier which has long made communication difficult between two entities which share the same language and culture, in addition to forming a unit suited to cooperation in other fields such as the social and economic field.
Fortunately these frontiers, these scars of history, are beginning to fade and we are again finding ways of creating bonds with the other part of our town within a European context.
We must take the European area as a joint horizon for various peoples to live together without internal frontiers but with respect for our respective identities, our self determination and diversity.
In this context cross-border cooperation is fundamentally an instrument for the creation of this joint Europe and is, similarly, the way to take to remove frontiers, not only physical ones, which make it difficult to build the planned coexistence which the European Union represents.
Frontiers are in many cases artificial and have divided some peoples internally or have separated them from their neighbours.
Robert Schuman hailed from Lorraine, a frontier region, De Gasperi from the alpine region of Trentino, Adenauer was from the Rhineland.
It is not by chance that the founding fathers of this Europe should come from frontier regions.
We must bring Europe closer to the citizens and if there is one place where our citizens can see that Europe exists, it is in the border regions.
The effort which the Union is making in this matter will be the best catalyst for a process of political union, a union of citizens and peoples.
Nowadays Biarritz and San Sebastián are not regarded as separate items on offer for tourists within international tourism.
It would not seem logical if the Austrian Tyrol and the South Tyrol, Alto Adige, did not cooperate on the joint promotion of economic or tourist projects.
It is absurd that a worker in Irún, the Basque country, working in Hendaye on the other side of the border, should not have access to coordinated services within the fields of health and social security; we see shades of Kafka when he telephones from his home to his workplace and has to pay for an international call.
We must build Euro-regions where citizens find their natural community in a Europe without frontiers.
Finally, Madam President, I should like to underscore the importance of the report approved in this committee, which not only launches proposals, but also demands that the framework for cross-border cooperation should be binding on the Member States.
This Parliament asked as much of the Intergovernmental Conference.
In conclusion I hope that the Member States have the courage to resolutely pursue this cooperation.
If they do they will be demonstrating that they are not afraid of a United Europe as a pluralistic area.
If they do not do so or do not support this in realistic everyday terms, the citizens, the towns and the natural communities will continue building this Europe as a space for coexistence and diversity.
The geo-political upheavals which Europe has experienced have brought in their wake strong movements in favour of integration.
Mrs Myller's report is particularly interesting on this subject since it considers all the problems and questions raised by inter-regional and cross-border Union policy.
It would indeed be appropriate to classify and coordinate all the initiatives which are sometimes developed in too disorganized a manner often without control or expert guidance.
Thus when cross-border areas of activity are to be exploited a common financing and guidance fund should be set up, checks should be made to ensure that legal and tax rules are compatible, job creation should be encouraged and the environment should be effectively protected.
In this regard I should like to mention a region not considered by the rapporteur - the Alpine region - although European Union/Swiss negotiations are at a standstill, the associations of the Chamonix valley have for their part managed to cooperate with their Piémont and Le Valais counterparts as needed to fight pollution.
The building of Europe will also involve the citizens, the towns and the regions.
Madam President, my sincere congratulations to the rapporteur on an excellent report.
The aim of a united, socially and economically harmonized and permanently peaceful Europe is far less likely to be achieved by centralist strong-arm tactics than by sustained, far-reaching voluntary cross-border and interregional cooperation.
In this sense I should like to highlight a particular type of project which affects my immediate home area and which, I believe, merits respect on account of its uniqueness and its innovative and audacious character and should be supported by the European Union.
I refer to the joint bid by three States - Italy, Slovenia and Austria - to host the Winter Olympics.
These Olympics would be staged jointly by the federal state of Carinthia in Austria, the autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia in Italy and the Republic of Slovenia.
This would be the first time since the revival of the Olympic Games that any Olympics had been held in a region covering several States.
This region is trilingual, multicultural and multinational, but despite this - or perhaps precisely because of it - has decided to mount a joint bid to carry out this important cooperative project.
This mega-event, which would attract enormous media attention, could be a flagship pilot project in the realm of interregional cooperation, a project in the true European spirit with an inestimable symbolic value.
Madam President, there is no doubt that cross-border and interregional co-operation is a very important aspect of the European Union's policies, since it can contribute significantly to European integration and to a real approach between the populations and regions of Europe.
Such co-operation can contribute effectively to the abolition of political and economic, but mainly of national frontiers, and I would add, to that of ill-considered cultural and religious frontiers, and it can of course contribute to reducing the corresponding gulfs and making the populations of areas that take advantage of it, one could say somewhat more 'European' .
Our impartial moral and substantial support is therefore needed for the better organization, the more successful implementation and maximization of its positive results in the future, since it involves programmes with added European value.
I think the report by Mrs Myller is a step in the right direction.
For my part, however, I would like to say that special note should be taken of a number of points which are included in the report, but which in my view are particularly important.
The first, is that besides internal interregional and cross-border co-operation, particular emphasis should be placed on external co-operation, in other words co-operation with third countries, which in light of the Union's enlargement, can contribute significantly to the preparation of those countries.
In that connection, and I want to stress this, the legislative framework should be simplified.
In the INTERREG-2A Programme we have today the strange situation that on either side of the borders, that programme's projects are implemented as something separate, as if different programmes were involved.
This creates difficulties both for the coordination and the progress of the work, and I think that the issue will have to be solved in due course.
Secondly, interregional co-operation could prove particularly useful for the Union's coastal and island areas, especially for improved communications between the islands, but also to improve their contacts with national and Community centres.
Thirdly, it goes without saying that an initiative of this kind must involve increased participation by local and regional authorities, and by the social partners, both in the planning and in the implementation of the related programmes.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, cross-border interregional cooperation is undoubtedly of prime importance to the people of border regions.
It serves to guarantee peace, freedom and respect for human rights.
The key objectives of economic development, employment promotion, social and cultural cooperation, environmental protection and greater democracy are central elements of this cooperation.
In addition, mechanisms for the support of minorities must be established and developed.
I am afraid I can only agree with the rapporteur's criticism that there is no adequate strategy for interregional cooperation and that the funding instruments are too fragmentary.
What is certain is that the subsidiarity principle will have to be more rigorously applied in this domain too.
Greater responsibility for planning, administration, execution and funding must be devolved to the regional and local authorities than has hitherto been the case.
At the same time, however, decisions on cooperative measures must be a matter for democratically elected bodies.
An evaluation of the results is necessary, so that tax revenue is not squandered and wasted on irrelevant projects.
This presupposes a good control system.
Efficiency of performance must not be hampered by excessive bureaucracy and daunting administrative hurdles.
Considerable simplification is needed, along with timely advice and guidance from the Commission.
Support for less-developed regions, promotion of rural development and improvement of the necessary infrastructure must take priority if we are to avoid further migration from border areas.
The Member States in the frontier regions must press on with their cooperative ventures.
Emotional barriers must be dismantled.
The importance of this is demonstrated by the unfortunate occurrences in southern Denmark in connection with the creation of a Euroregion.
The Commission would do well to start with our colleague Mrs Sandbæk and try to dismantle her emotional barriers too.
It is my hope and wish that the development of cooperation in the border regions of Member States and third countries will be successfully expedited - irrespective of whether the countries in question want to become EU members one day - for the benefit of the people living in those regions.
That is an important precondition for the preservation of peace, freedom and democracy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Myller, on the quality of her motion for a resolution on cross-border and inter-regional co-operation.
The subjects covered will undoubtedly give us food for thought during the coming months as we endeavour, if possible by the end of the year, to produce a Commission communication on regional policy and cross-border and interregional co-operation - a communication which will summarize what has already been achieved in an endeavour to interpret the future.
The Commission attaches great importance to these two forms of co-operation.
I therefore fully share your hope that the European Union's future regional policy will attach the necessary importance to cross-border and interregional co-operation.
As far as cross-border co-operation is concerned, the Interreg programmes of the 95-99 period represent a substantial advance over those for the previous period, especially as regards borders where no co-operation existed before 1990.
However, there is still extensive room for improvement.
The Commission agrees with the Committee on Regional Policy in its belief that co-operation must not only allow regional and local authorities to assume greater responsibility for the preparation and implementation of programmes but also step up those measures which tend to promote co-operation among the operators on the ground.
The Commission will be working in two ways to eliminate the shortcomings that exist. First, through individual programmes requiring, both at the contracting stage and subsequently in the work of the steering committees, that co-operation is organized more effectively and that more emphasis is placed on measures calculated to promote genuine partnership.
Secondly, offering the regional and local authorities, within the framework of a scheme to be known as LACE TAP - ' link and assistance in co-operation for the European border regions - technical assistance and promotion' , conducted by the association of cross-border regions and financed by the European Regional Development Fund, the possibility of organizing exchanges of experience and skills between the border areas.
You are proposing the creation of a single European fund to implement more complex forms of co-operation on both the internal and the external borders.
The establishment of a single fund is not possible at present, not among the associate states of Central Europe, given the present status of the Treaty - Article 130c - and the differences arising in procedural matters and in the financing of programmes, depending on whether the State concerned is a Member State or a third country.
However, significant advances are possible even without a single fund.
With regard to the internal borders, the INTERREG programmes implemented on some borders demonstrate that the Structural Funds are capable of promoting in-depth co-operation, with a single programme on both sides of the border, a steering committee and working groups that mobilize a wide-ranging partnership, and a single common fund for the financing of the projects.
Unfortunately, the situation is not so advantageous on all the internal borders because, even if the Community resources originate from a single fund, it only needs the procedures for administering the appropriations to be different on the two sides of the border to make it difficult to finance common projects in both border regions.
The Commission shares your wish to see the administration and financing of INTERREG simplified.
The situation regarding the external borders is rather more complex, given that the cross-border co-operation procedures under PHARE and TACIS, programmes that are external to the Union, are different from those of the structural funds which are internal bodies.
Of course, the Commission's services responsible for INTERREG and PHARE CBC have already worked together to bring the PHARE CBC regulations and procedures as close as possible to those of the structural funds, and we are taking steps to encourage even greater harmonization and simplification of the procedures.
Finally, as regards inter-regional co-operation, the last two calls for proposals, addressed to the territorial entities in conjunction with other bodies operating at territorial level, place the emphasis on the development of partnership, on innovation and on the exchange of knowledge and skills.
Madam President, I realize that, although I have exceeded my time, I have not dealt with all the points raised in the motion for a resolution but have confined myself to a few of them.
The Commission will of course review all the ideas and proposals put forward, and will reach a decision on every one of them.
This of course will not be possible until around the end of the year, when the studies and decisions that I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks will be available.
In the meantime, I can assure you that the Commission will continue to favour a frank and constructive debate between Parliament and the Commission on cross-border and inter-regional co-operation.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
'We are not uniting any States; we are bringing people together.' These are the words of Jean Monnet, author of the Schuman Declaration of 1950.
Policies, ladies and gentlemen, are made by people, and only if people know and understand each other, implement joint projects and share responsibility for them can sound European policies materialize.
Europe is open, with a free single market and freedom of movement, and yet each of its national frontiers still makes its presence felt, even without customs checks and barriers.
Cross-border and interregional cooperation is an essential means of bringing people together and solving problems by consensus.
The motion for a resolution before us deals with cross-border cooperation in the Union.
All regions in Europe continue to need European Community initiatives.
Cooperation at internal borders must enable people to go about their everyday business without any problems.
The aim is a Europe without frontiers, where communal services are available at the most convenient places.
It is a matter of developing cross-border areas with homogeneous social and economic conditions.
Part of this involves the creation of legal and fiscal conditions for the operation of cross-border enterprise zones, the coordination of instruments designed to promote regions and their economies on both sides of borders and crossborder social cooperation.
This means that it should be possible to make the best possible cross-border use of facilities in order to avoid duplication of investments.
Why must I wait for the emergency services from another part of my own country when there are emergency vehicles free just across the border? Or if the hospital across the border has a consultant who specializes in my illness, why can I only be admitted to the county hospital on my own side of the border?
The Myller report deals with many detailed issues.
It highlights good points and problem areas.
In the quest for more common ground in Europe, these problem areas must be eliminated.
There are many positive features in this report, but also some areas where we should proceed with caution.
The call for 'the creation of legal and fiscal preconditions for the operation of cross-border business areas' is simply likely to clash with the national rules in this sector.
For example, we cannot introduce cross-border tax and legal rules in one part of southern Denmark, just because it is a border area.
For this reason, I shall abstain from voting.
I would also point out that regions consisting of parts of more than one country should be established taking full account of local circumstances.
There are different backgrounds - political, historical and cultural.
We therefore cannot lay down standard models for regional cooperation.
In Denmark, we have this problem close to home in the Danish-German border area, where even the title given to the cooperation has created difficulties.
It seems neither natural nor easy on the ear to call this the 'Euroregion Schleswig/Slesvig' .
Here too, the subsidiarity principle must be applied.
The way to succeed is to create a psychological and popular climate which encourages cross-border cooperation, and then to give this a name which suits local conditions.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Integration policy for island regions
The next item is the debate on the oral question (B4-0166/97-0-0053/97) to the Commission, tabled by Mr Arias Cañete on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on an integrated policy for the specific situation of the insular regions in the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, deputizing for the Chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Regional Policy, I have been asked on behalf of our Committee to deal with a question to which we attach particular importance.
It is the question of islands and the position they occupy, or rather ought to occupy, within the framework of the European Union's various policies.
Having myself been born and grown up on a Mediterranean island, Crete, I know very well and at first hand all the vital problems faced by an island, precisely because of its insular character.
I know very well the difficulties created by isolation, first and foremost among which is the dependence of the island and its dwellers for their economic development, social survival and medical care, on often uncertain and usually inadequate sea and air transport.
I know very well the problems of survival faced by island businesses, by far the majority of them SMEs or small companies, in their everyday efforts to compete successfully against similar businesses in mainland areas.
The cost of importing their raw materials and exporting their products and services is much higher, and the procedures involved generally much more time-consuming.
The necessary area for their development does not exist, and as a rule qualified personnel is lacking.
Technological equipment and infrastructure for communications and transport are usually deficient.
Finally, I well know the daily but important problems faced by the residents due to water shortage and the difficulty of supplying energy, inadequacies of infrastructure for health, education and culture, and the employment problems faced by young people in particular, which lead them to abandon the islands and seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Problems and difficulties which, as is natural, ultimately bring the islands to a state of economic and social stagnation, isolation, developmental backwardness and more general downgrading.
Besides, it is no matter of chance that islands, with very few exceptions, number among the European Union's most poor areas, as emerges clearly from a series of reports by the European Commission, from your own reports, Commissioner.
It is also worth noting that despite the particular features of each island, the basic problems they face have much in common in all the Union's island areas, whether in the North, or in the West, or in the South, and whether we are speaking of Crete and the Aegean islands, or of the Isle of Wight, or of Sicily, or of the Balearics and the Canary Islands.
Finally, this is no trivial issue, but one which involves a by no means insignificant number of European Union residents.
Taking as a base the classical definition that we accept in the European Union concerning what an island is: in other words, of course, an area of land surrounded by sea, with no continuous connection to the mainland and on which the capital of the corresponding country is not located, then the European Union today comprises a total of 22 island regions making up 4.5 % of its territory and being home to 4 % of its population.
Based on these facts, the following picture emerges: the Union's island regions constitute a significant part of its territory and are the home of a by no means negligible proportion of its population.
Notwithstanding their respective particular features, they face in common a range of very important problems that stem precisely from their insular character and which result in their economic and social downgrading.
In the view of our Committee, Parliament's Committee on Regional Policy, this constitutes good reason for the adoption of an integrated special policy for islands within the scope of the Union's regional and other policies, aiming precisely to help them overcome their inherent difficulties by giving them equal opportunities for development with those of the Union's mainland areas.
Besides, such a policy has been called for consistently for many years by all the European Union's island regions, and the need for it has been recognized from time to time and under various circumstances, by all the Union's institutional bodies.
It is also a policy which safeguards free competition in practice, since it aims precisely to help islands cope with the additional disadvantages they face following the creation of the single internal market, which we should admit, often works to the disadvantage of islands.
On that basis, then, could the Commission tell us how it views the idea of starting to give greater importance to the peculiar character of island regions?
Specifically, does it intend in the future to attach greater importance to improving infrastructures on islands, particularly sea and air transport? Does it intend to contribute to the promotion of the sectors of agriculture, forestry and fishing, and that of alternative cultural and ecological tourism for the islands?
Will it take all necessary steps to enable businesses on islands to compete with mainland businesses under equal conditions?
Mainly, however, Commissioner, how does the Commission react to the idea of including in the revised treaty that will emerge from the Intergovernmental Conference, an order recognizing the particular nature of island regions, and the problems they face in common, which could in the future constitute the legal base for the implementation of an integrated Community policy that is essential if islands are to escape isolation, overcome their structural difficulties and claim a better future within the framework of United Europe.
In the hope of a positive reply from the Commission to all these questions by our Committee, which are at the same time called for by Europe's island regions, I thank you for your attention.
Madam President, the Commission recalls that in 1994 it published a document on the island regions which made it possible, simultaneously, to uncover the wealth represented by the diversity of the islands within the Community and to gain a better understanding of their socio-economic situation.
That document sets out, for each Member State, a complete list of islands, with maps and statistics, a description of the level NAZ 2 and NAZ 3 island regions, and a brief analysis of the territory and of the economic situation of all the other islands.
With regard to the Community appropriations currently allocated to the islands within the Union, I must emphasize that the majority of the large islands within the Community are eligible for Structural Funds subsidies, mainly under Objective 1.
This applies to the seven outermost regions - the Canaries, the Azores, Madeira, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique and Reunion - and also to Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and all the Greek islands.
Under this heading, cofinancing is possible for investments in sea and air transport infrastructures.
The Cohesion Fund can also cofinance transport infrastructures in the islands of the eligible Member States.
The island regions can thus benefit from the investments in the trans-European networks.
For the new planning period, the Commission shortly expects to present the document 'Agenda 2000' , which will include the future financial perspectives (Santer package), the broad guidelines for the future reform of the Structural Funds and the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy, and the opinions on the CEECs which are candidates for accession.
For the island regions, as for the other regions of the Union, the aim is to guarantee the sustainable development of those regions in which sufficient convergence has not been achieved.
In order to stem the tide of depopulation and to prevent the desertification of the island regions, and of all rural areas, the Commission intends not only to sustain and promote agriculture, forestry, fishing and aquaculture but also, on the basis of an integrated approach, to promote economic diversification, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises and rural services, the management of natural resources, improved services relating to the environment, and the valorization of the cultural heritage, tourism and recreational activities.
The Commission agrees about the need to combat the excessive burden placed on natural resources by certain forms of tourism, in the island regions and elsewhere.
The proposal for a decision on a first multi-annual programme in favour of European tourism - PHILOXENIA - takes the promotion of sustainable tourism and of alternative forms of tourism as one of its primary themes.
The Commission hopes that the Council will be able to make rapid progress towards adopting the decision to which I have referred.
On the other hand, tourism is also referred to in the fifth programme for the environment, 1992-2000, as one of the five key sectors not only at the regulatory level but also in terms of self-regulation by the public, operators and public authorities, by means of instruments to encourage sustainable tourism.
Finally, several projects - LIFE, NATURE - encompass measures to promote ecological tourism.
The Commission understands the desire of the island regions to enjoy the benefits of a consistent approach; in the Commission's view, their specific nature should be pointed out to the Community legislator whenever necessary.
This, in any case, is the line which the Commission pursues in its proposals.
Finally, as regards the present Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission is supporting the possibility of adding a declaration on the island regions to the revised Treaty.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to express my satisfaction at the Commissioner's statement that he understands the particular nature of island regions and supports the inclusion in the new Treaty of a statement which will constitute the correct legal basis for the establishment and implementation of a special policy of support and development in island regions.
We are convinced that conditions have really matured and that everybody understands the need to adopt an integrated European policy and development strategy for the European Union's island regions.
A policy that will deal effectively with structural inequalities between the Union's island and mainland regions.
As one who comes from Greece, a country comprising 42 % of the total number of inhabited islands in the European Union - 167 inhabited islands among a total of 400 in the Union - I am in a position to know how urgent it is that measures should be adopted to curb the negative trends created by the isolation of island regions and their abandonment by the Union.
Of course, the problems differ from one island to another, and in many cases those differences are both great and critical.
Yet, for a large number of islands, mainly those of small and medium size, the economic and demographic base has been weakened, I would say, to desperate levels.
Important constituents of an integrated policy for island regions and of a strategy for sustainable development must include improved transport infrastructure, the development of advanced telecommunication networks, measures to support SMEs and to boost employment, combined developmental choices to encourage local production and the local economy with interventions on behalf of agriculture and tourism, the correct management of natural and in particular water resources, the promotion of special measures to increase investment and favourable taxation measures for permanent residents, modernization and in exceptional cases coverage of the needs of local administration with trained personnel, integrated interventions in social infrastructure, especially education and health, and the creation of networks of small islands, with action on the protection of the environment.
We also need a broad programme of legislative intervention and special projects to make the most of and to protect the natural beauty and cultural wealth of our islands, the refurbishment of traditional housing, the protection of the sea, the management of water, sewage and wastes, and the creation of conditions leading to democratic recovery and steady development.
Today, the European Parliament is called upon to transmit a message of solidarity by its practical recognition of the need for direct promotion of a policy for the survival of our islands.
Madam President, Commissioner, I am an elected representative of the two largest islands in the Union which are not home to a European capital city - Sicily and Sardinia - and I must therefore express my continuing regret at the lamentable absence of any integrated Community policy or specific instruments for the European island regions, confronted as they are by an extremely wide range of problems which continue to act as a permanent obstacle to their development.
I therefore repeat once again, in this House today, my hope that in future, and starting with the forthcoming Amsterdam summit, the Council will turn over a new leaf and consider the specific problems of the Union's islands from a new standpoint, a more considered and specific standpoint, as indeed I understand the Commission also wishes to do when considering the matter of the reform of the Structural Funds.
I am glad to take the opportunity offered by Commissioner Monti's presence to emphasize the fact that a new common policy for the benefit of the island regions should also be designed to give these disadvantaged territories a genuine opportunity to complete the internal market and the process of integration, beginning with full implementation of the fundamental principle of freedom of movement for individuals and goods; this is something that has not yet been given concrete form, so much so that, despite the fact that Article 129b of the Treaty stresses the need to link the island regions to the central regions of the Community, we have yet to see any concrete measures taken to ease the problems that island status creates with regard to transport.
The European Union cannot impose its own policies - transport, fiscal harmonization, the agricultural policy itself, fisheries - in a uniform manner that also includes the islands and island groups that experience extremely difficult economic development situations because of their limited agricultural and water resources and the limited availability of skilled labour.
Instead, it should implement ad hoc systems and measures tailored to the specific features typical of, and shared by, the island regions of the European Union.
What is needed, therefore, is a global Community policy for the islands, taking into account all the aspects of island status.
The objective of a European policy for the islands should be both to establish a general framework of compensation for the adverse effects that Community policy often has on the island regions, and secondly, more generally, to establish a new way of thinking that recognizes the right of islands and island groups to diversity.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the last plenary session in Brussels the European Parliament agreed that it was necessary to incorporate the status of outermost region with full legal backing in the future treaty.
The manifold and permanent handicaps of the outermost regions arise from their island status but are exacerbated by their remoteness from other regions of continental Europe and, similarly, other island regions.
Although we cannot and must not confuse this with the actual situation of the outermost island regions, there is in the European Union, and particularly in the Mediterranean, a different type of island reality which we are dealing with today, much less pronounced because inter alia it is significantly alleviated by much shorter distance and isolation - often a great deal less, frequently not very significant.
This is a matter of a different reality fundamentally resulting from being cut off and the scarcity of certain resources and that naturally presents a specific joint framework warranting an integrated and differentiated approach on the part of the European Union.
An integrated and differentiated approach is needed for the island problem as a whole, without detracting from the essential attention to the widely varying stages of development seen throughout the island territories, because the European Union must provide specific responses to the different situations which occur within its territory.
Therefore, in support of the principle of economic and social cohesion, we uphold and support the motion for a political resolution which this House will no doubt approve.
Madam President, I, like previous speakers, welcomed what Mr Monti said, pointing out that as long ago as 1994 the Commission presented a document on the islands. He mentioned, moreover, a whole series of programmes which dealt with the islands, above all the Agenda 2000 of the Filoxenia Programme to enable these regions to develop for the purposes of tourism.
Most interesting I find Mr Monti's statement that it would be appropriate to include, provided the Commission were in favour, a statement by the Intergovernmental Conference on the subject of the islands in general.
The Commissioner has heard what previous speakers have said, for example Mr Baggioni, Mr Viola and Mr Karamanou, and I should simply like to take this opportunity to point out to him that there are two possible approaches to the problems bound up with island status.
What I would call the 'incrementalist' approach which consists in the analysis of given programmes or activities, and then, as Mr Baggioni mentioned, an approach which places the accent upon a certain political imperative which is linked to the fundamental geographical reality of the islands.
The Commissioner will realise that some of the poorest regions in the Union, such as Corsica or the Azores are indeed island regions.
The only island region among the relatively rich regions is the Balearic Islands, Spain, which come close to the Community average with 98 % of the average income, but there are not in fact any island regions which are highly developed.
This is because, from the point of view of the economic structure, the whole concept of the European Union is based on a continental idea, that is the model for the building of Europe is the North American continental model like a kind of great rectangle over which there is uninterrupted territorial continuity.
This continental territory lends itself to the establishment of a series of lines of communication based for example on the train, great motorways and of course on the elimination of all barriers to trade.
But there is one barrier - one customs due - which must be paid if the sea needs to be crossed.
I am not of course referring to large islands such as the United Kingdom or Ireland, but in general to the rest of the island regions and Mr Commissioner Monti will actually agree with me that Sardinia and Sicily in his country are the poorest regions precisely because they are islands and without that continental continuity there is a whole range of structural elements standing in the way of definitive integration in the common market.
That is, the continental concept of the common market as a continuous territory which is a prerequisite for example for banning transport aid in order to put everyone on an equal footing, means that unless islands receive some kind of transport aid they are placed at a disadvantage from the point of view of competition.
Island regions have specific needs and the Commissioner, who is a cultivated man, will recall how in Greek literature there are two basic fundamental great works the Iliad telling of the conquest of Troy and the Odyssey describing Ulysses's efforts to get back home and in practical terms, the tasks facing Ulysses are greater than those required to conquer Troy.
That is, the island context presents certain specific difficulties which cannot be overcome.
I agree with Mr Monti that the appropriate sphere for launching an in-depth debate on the islands which is not merely an 'incrementalist' debate dealing with little bits of aid here and there, is precisely a statement by the Intergovernmental Conference.
I think that the Intergovernmental Conference should face the European Union and the Community institutions with a debate on the role of the islands.
I know that Mr Monti is concerned about one matter and I should like to quote it as an example, since I think it is the best example of what might happen - we are moving towards Economic and Monetary Union, internal frontiers are disappearing, from 1999 there will be no barriers to prevent a French citizen or a German citizen from putting his savings in a Luxembourg bank where there is no tax on savings.
That is relevant for anyone living on the continent of Europe who can simply get into a car or hitch hike to take his savings to a Luxembourg bank, but I do not think anyone will feel inclined - unless he has many millions - to take an aeroplane for example from a regions such as the Canary Islands, Guadeloupe or Martinique to place modest savings in a Luxembourg bank.
That is when all is said and done a great disincentive.
That brings me, Mr Commissioner, on to one last aspect; I think that within the context of treatment for the islands, although basically the islands have aspects in common, they are different one from another.
I mentioned earlier the example of the Balearic Islands, currently the richest region in Spain and an island region.
Both the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands have for centuries formed part of the same political entity - Spain.
Whereas the Balearic Islands have developed to a considerable extent, the Canary Islands have rather lagged behind, because there is one additional aspect: in the European Union there are, in addition to what might be termed the nearby islands which form part of the immediate environment, the unusual aspect of some very distant island regions - the French overseas departments and territories, the Portuguese archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, the Canary Islands and the Island of La Réunion, which are so remote from the Community umbrella that unless they are given quite different legal treatment there can be no possibility of economic development.
As regards these outermost regions, Madam President, Mr Commissioner, it is not enough for the IGC merely to make a statement as it did for the last Maastricht Conference.
I think a highly specialized regime is called for and it is currently being drawn up thanks on the one hand to the POSEI programmes, to Protocol No 2 annexed to the Treaty of Accession to the European Union of Spain and Portugal and to a whole series of Community legal standards which have considered this special situation of the outermost regions.
I think that the European Union should now consider for these island regions with additional difficulties a legal system which is not based on secondary legislation of simple regulations or directives which are then open to challenge before the Court of Justice, but on constitutional treatment in the Treaty establishing the Union.
It must be remembered that France already envisaged such constitutional treatment when the first European Union Treaties were signed - the Treaty of Rome 1957 - since there is a specific reference to the French overseas territories.
Although Spain and Portugal joined later and could not therefore include the point in the original Treaty, the Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal did envisage this specific point in a document which we might regard as constitutional from our point of view - and that is Protocol No 2 and other articles in the Act of Accession of spain and Portugal to the European Union.
I therefore hope, Madam President, Mr Commissioner, that today's debate will serve on the one hand to establish the need to consider the subject of the islands in its global perspective and on the other and in a very special way, to stress the effort needed in this final stage of the Intergovernmental Conference, so that the outermost regions of the European Union receive different legal treatment so that they may be regarded as a special case.
I stress for example the tax aspect.
The harmonization of Community taxation, which is important and essential, does not necessarily need to be extended to outermost regions of the Union.
(ES) Madam President, I fully concur with what Mr Medina Ortega said and I shall not go further into those matters for reasons of time.
But as regards what Mr Monti said in his speech, I should like to mention two matters:
On the one hand I am glad to hear that the Commission is supporting a statement in favour of the islands and, on the other hand, I should like to point out that, despite its statements about the Cohesion Fund as an instrument for helping the islands, the Cohesion Fund is not being implemented; there is practically zero implementation in the 22 island regions of the Union.
The islands are part of the European heritage.
European culture and history would not be the same without the contribution of its islands.
For continental Europe island is synonymous with holidays, but behind an attractive exterior, which is a shop window for a tourist attraction, islands have a series of problems common to them all, as has been mentioned here.
In this Parliament's Joint Group on the Islands which I have the honour to chair, Members from all nations and of all shades of political opinion have had no difficulty in establishing arrangements for diagnosing joint problems affecting us caused by the sea.
The sea is a bond for peoples only as far as poets are concerned.
We island dwellers know very well that the sea separates and causes a multitude of problems: transport, communications, energy delicacy of the region with specific environmental problems, added business expenses, delicate economy.
It is not by chance that almost all European island regions are Objective 1.
The only fundamental obsessions which I have heard in the Commission for a specific policy for the islands are budgetary and no doubt very important ones.
But the islands cannot benefit on an equal footing from the advantages of the great internal market nor take part in most of the projects in the great trans-European networks.
It would therefore be fitting if such comments as Mr Monti's were to give rise to a new Union vision of the problems facing island regions.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Madeira, Porto Santo and the Azores are island regions which particularly feel the lack of a special scheme and specific support mechanisms within the framework of the European Union.
But they are also for Community purposes outermost regions.
We want to obtain the best possible treatment for these islands in order to offset the disadvantages caused by their island status and to promote equality of opportunity for their inhabitants.
But we do not accept that the Community concept of outermost region should become diluted in the concept of island region.
The fact is that the outermost island regions, because of their remoteness from the continent of Europe, are faced with more disadvantages than islands in general.
We shall not therefore accept any compromising of the progress already made as regards the guaranteeing of special treatment for the outermost regions by the lumping together in the the IGC, in the future Treaty and in the resultant decision-making process, of all islands even if they are close to mainland Europe and more prosperous than many continental regions.
I should therefore like first to register the strongest protest against the Netherlands Presidency's proposal (made within the IGC) on the outermost regions, since it does not provide guarantees for the special situation of these exceptional European regions in its clear attempt to exclude the French overseas dominions and territories; secondly to insist that the IGC should follow the European Parliament's position on the IGC based on the Weggen report, in particular the twelfth paragraph of point 3 in which Parliament demands that the Treaty should expressly include a provision conceding special and specific treatment for outermost regions; thirdly to ask for the recognition and effective support for problems arising out of island status which are felt particularly in the autonomous regions of Madeira and the Azores which are outermost regions.
Thus, as already indicated, I have no alternative but to vote against this motion for a resolution in order to avoid supporting the attempt to dilute the outermost regions with island regions as a whole.
Madam President, the text of the resolution makes it clear that the insular regions of Europe, be they in north or south, are facing great environmental and economic challenges, and that is why the European Union must do more to ensure that these areas are not left alone to deal with their problems.
Above all, the island regions must be incorporated into the sort of physical planning strategy that is currently being developed within the EU.
The adoption of a European regional planning strategy in Noordwijk in June 1997 will constitute a major step in this direction.
We shall then see whether the responsible parties in the Commission, and above all in the national governments, are capable of incorporating the reality of island life into this European planning strategy.
Pie in the sky, many will say, and probably with some justification, for it would require more action in the domain of structural policy in particular than we have seen so far.
The European Union needs to do more in three core areas while strictly observing the principle of subsidiarity.
Maritime borders have hitherto played a minor role in the promotion of cross-border cooperation.
Only Sardinia and Corsica and the Danish island of Bornholm were part of Interreg I. That is why it is gratifying that the Commission has included considerably more programmes in Interreg II which affect maritime borders and islands.
Keep it up!
Interregional cooperation programmes such as Recite are also very important to the islands.
In addition to fostering normal neighbourly relations, they also serve as a means of sharing experiences that are relevant to other island communities.
The creation of networks enables island communities to discuss common problems and to come up with ways of solving them.
That must also be encouraged in the framework of other policies.
I am thinking particularly of the information society, from which the islands must not be excluded, since modern communication technology is the very thing that can help them to overcome their peripheral situation.
For that reason, I commend the idea that the House should compile a report on coastal and island regions on its own initiative and that the report - or both reports, if we treat each type of region separately - should be tabled for discussion by the House as quickly as possible.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too represent an island region - the Balearic Islands - which although Mr Medina has said on various occasions have a high average income, do have the disadvantage of being dependent solely on tourism, which is very dangerous for future sustainability; they are also in a critical geographical situation in a none-too-stable Mediterranean.
Nevertheless, despite the great diversity which exists between the 22 European island regions, they all have features in common because they are surrounded by the sea and they will be particularly affected by globalization and the process of European integration.
They therefore need special attention to enable them to become integrated not so much homogeneously as in a balanced way.
The extra effort which these island regions need to make is a millstone round their necks and round the necks of their businesses which, in an ever more competitive and global context see their survival and the opportunities for job creation under threat.
The limited amount of space requires great pains to protect the natural environment and makes these regions susceptible to phenomena such as variations in air and sea transport, an interruption in the supply of essential products, provision of drinking water, water treatment and the management and recycling of solid waste.
Recognition of island status in the new Treaty would be an advantage for a framework for cooperation between the European islands for the drawing up of an integrated policy, pilot projects and specific actions for the sustainable development of the islands.
A strengthening of the information systems and networks on the islands would break down barriers to education and training.
As regards tourism as an economic alternative for the islands, as rapporteur for the Filoxenia programme, I ask you, Mr Commissioner, to intimate to the Council the need to unblock this programme - an essential point for the drawing up of a strategy for tourism in the medium term.
The island regions also need the progress of the information society for their qualitative growth and progress with renewable energy sources to make them less dependent on traditional energy sources.
And although the natural and cultural heritage is important for the whole of Europe, for the islands it is the sole asset for their development, for recovering and maintaining their countryside.
It is an essential for survival.
Recognition of island status in the Treaty would be the basis for putting right the structural disadvantages of some regions which are different, of promoting their sustainable growth, of maintaining and encouraging local selfdevelopment and finally, without prejudice to the continental regions, of achieving an equilibrium between economic efficiency, social equality and environmental conservation.
Madam President, I just wanted to say how interesting I have found this debate on the island regions and the outermost regions of the Community.
I have noted what seemed to me to be positive reactions to my statement; and I have also appreciated the considerations linking this subject to the single market and to economic and monetary union, and the idea just advanced that the development of the information society, which we were discussing earlier this morning, can in turn do something to overcome the disadvantages of the island and outermost regions.
Finally, with reference to the comment that has been made on the fact that very little use is made of the Cohesion Funds to benefit the island regions, I must remind the House that this is one of those instances in which the attitude of the Member States is of crucial importance, so that, as regards many aspects of the problem, we are in their hands in this respect.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Joint motion for a resolution on an integrated policy adapted to the special situation of island regions in the European Union.
The reason for the resolution is to put pressure on the Intergovernmental Conference to introduce a special clause into the Treaty which will require special treatment and greater flexibility for islands compared with other regions so far as the introduction of EU policy is concerned.
The Committee for Regional Policy will very shortly be developing in earnest a report on the development problems of islands.
We agree that there is a need for a flexible approach and a regional application of EU policy; but that it should be enacted only when urgently needed and under specific conditions, for example in the island regions: but we also have mountainous regions, arctic regions and regions on the very periphery of the EU. Why should islands be considered more sensitive to the negative effects of EU policy and be given special legal status?
How are we going to decide on the size of island regions? Are we also to have a special legal status for Ireland, Aspö and Pantelleria?
We ought to concentrate on the real problem and realise that EU policy often prevents social and financial development.
To approve a special status to just a few regions is a bad way of keeping an unsuccessful EU policy alive.
The EU's vision of unrealistic social and financial development could cause an unjustified increase in expectation and rivalry between other regions.
We therefore cannot vote for this resolution which requests special legal status solely for islands.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
International Registration of Marks
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0090/97, tabled by Mr Medina Ortega on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0372 - C4-0651/96-96/0198(CNS)) amending Regulation (EC) No 40/94 of 20 December 1993 on the Community trade mark to give effect to the accession of the European Community to the Protocol relating to the Madrid Agreement concerning the International Registration of Marks, adopted at Madrid on 27 June 1989.-A4-0092/97, tabled by Mr Medina Ortega on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a Council Decision (COM(96)0367 - C4-0554/96-96/0190(CNS)) approving the accession of the European Community to the Protocol relating to the Madrid Agreement concerning the International Registration of Marks, adopted at Madrid on 27 June 1989.
Madam President, there is no difficulty as regard the content of this report.
But this Parliament has the obligation to keep public opinion and the citizens informed about what we are doing.
Specifically I think that both the proposal for a Council decision and the proposal for a Council regulation on the Community system for trademarks and, to be more specific, getting involved with the system for international marks, is of considerable legal interest.
Unlike other legal institutions which date back to Roman times or to the Code Napoléon, the system of intellectual and industrial property rights developed at a great rate at the end of the nineteenth century and then, following the Paris Convention for the protection of industrial property rights, one aspect of industrial property rights became the protection of trademarks, governed by the 1991 Madrid Agreement.
Account had perhaps not been taken when the Madrid Agreement was approved of the economic consequences which it would entail.
But at the moment the various aspects of intellectual property rights ranging from copyright to the plastic arts and the performing arts to industrial property rights proper - that is the system of patents - I would say that in economic terms, in this age of mass production and the information society, the system for protecting an intangible right such as a right to a trademark has is of paramount importance.
Let us think only of Coca Cola.
Whatever may be in the Coca Cola bottle, the mere mark Coca Cola has inestimable economic value.
That is to say that nowadays a mark alone may have earning potential and take on its on underlying importance, since the mark has developed and acquired its own strength, its own significance and constitutes a point of reference for legal aspects.
Trademark law has been developing very slowly, since marks were not regarded as a very worthy subject for detailed study, although with the development of industrial society it became more important as the mark itself gained importance.
At the moment, ever since the 1980s, there has been a kind of competition between the European Community and International Law in general.
To be specific, the European Community in its first Community directive on the approximation of trademark law - Directive No 89104 of 21 December 1988 - paved the way for the setting up of Community trademark law and was complemented by Regulation 4094 of 20 December 1993 setting up the Community mark.
That is, it presupposes Community intervention in an area of private law with the recognition of an actual legal title which is granted in return for inscription in a Community register; this Community register has already been in operation since 1 April 1996 - the Office for the Harmonization of the Internal Market - in the Spanish town of Alicante.
That means that the here the Community has not followed the path of a certain general harmonization, but has moved into substantive Community law.
At the same time there were developments taking place in the international system for marks with the setting up on the one hand of the Stockholm Agreement, which amended the Madrid Agreement above all by setting up the World Industrial Property Organization with its head office in Geneva with a number of registration offices allowing for a certain degree of international collaboration and a certain efficiency in international mechanisms which did not exist previously.
Along these very lines, again in Madrid in 1995, a protocol was adopted making it easier for international organizations of a regional nature and with their own system, such as is the case with the European Union, as opposed to signatory States, to accede to the Madrid Agreement.
This 1995 Madrid Protocol also enabled international organizations to take part in the international system for the protection of marks.
It must be pointed out that there is one fundamental difference - that is that the Community citizen who registers his mark in the European Union through the Office for Harmonization of the Internal Market obtains a substantive right, whereas the international agreement, the Madrid Agreement merely sets in motion a procedure under which, by means of registration with the World Intellectual Property Organization, the registration is automatically made in a series of national offices, so there is no need to go from place to place.
In any event it would be in the Community's interests to link the two systems.
That is to say that had the Madrid Agreement not been amended by the 1995 Madrid Protocol, anyone holding a Community mark would have had to go to the national system and then to the international system, but as a result of the Madrid Protocol, international coverage can be obtained for the mark by going through the Community office rather than on some peregrination.
At the present time all the Member States of the European Community are party to the Madrid Protocol and are of course governed by the Rule of Community Law and they are not the only ones; in addition many more countries who are hoping to join the European Union or who form part of the European economic area have also acceded to the Madrid Protocol.
This produces very positive results which will be exceptionally helpful to the development of the Community mark.
The approval mechanism might appear a little complicated since on the one hand we have the proposal for a Council regulation amending Regulation 4094 to make it possible to interlink the two systems - the Community system and the international system - and on the other hand the Council decision approving Community accession.
That is accession of the Council and of the European Community to the Madrid Protocol and subsequently, as a result of this accession to the Madrid Protocol, Community law in force will be amended by a regulation in order to resolve the whole matter.
There is one small problem from the point of view of languages, since more languages are used in the Office for Harmonization of the Internal Market in Alicante than in the Madrid Agreement.
To be precise the Madrid Agreement uses only English and French.
This raises a few minor problems of a technical nature which will not, however, make any difficulties for harmonization.
It is a subject which will probably require subsequent legal adjustment since experience tells us that all these legal matters, especially those with such important economic consequences, always prove to have different aspects and difficulties which have to be put right.
I therefore think that the rapporteur, having considered both the regulation and the proposal for a regulation and the proposal for a Council decision in detail, finds once again that the Community institutions are operating correctly.
May this prove to be to the advantage of the Community's citizens, and as a result of the harmonization may the Community mark be better protected on the international scene than hitherto.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, these proposals will mean that enterprises, by submitting a single application, will obtain protection for their trademark as a Community trademark, not only in the Community but in all States which are party to the Madrid Protocol.
The Madrid Protocol provides for the international registration of trademarks to be effected by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva.
So if the European Community accedes to the Madrid Protocol, which we should welcome, applicants for and holders of Community trademarks will be able to apply for international protection of their trademarks by submitting an international application in accordance with the provisions of the Madrid Protocol, and holders of trademarks which have been internationally registered on the basis of the Madrid Protocol will be able to apply for registration of their marks as Community trademarks.
Consequently, these two systems are mutually complementary and will result in simplification on the basis of two systems becoming one.
I should also like to subscribe to this idea of making two into one. We do not need two speeches on this subject.
I can associate myself entirely with what Mr Medina Ortega has already said, so I shall spare the House the other two minutes of speaking time, which will be my gift to the House as a contribution to the quality of life here and as a foretaste of the working of the Holy Spirit this coming Pentecost Sunday.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(In successive votes Parliament adopted the legislative resolutions.)
Madam President, perhaps this is outrageous cheek but I want to place on record that at the beginning of the week I raised the matter of a Belgian Government report which looked at religious sects.
I want to add two points which are not related to this Parliament but are related to my constituency.
One of the groups named in the report is an organization called Operation Mobilization, the headquarters of which are in Shropshire, which is part of my constituency.
I want to assure the House that, contrary to the Belgian Government report, it is a respectable missionary organization.
I would also like to say a word about a group called Youth with a Mission.
My wife was a missionary for this group before I came here.
That too is a respectable organization.
Both these organizations are deeply distressed that the Belgian Government report contains malicious lies about their operation.
Thank you, Mr Hallam.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting closed at 12.30 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 16 May 1997.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the previous part-session have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I regret that I have to protest again to the plenary - as I also had to do last time, in Strasbourg - at the burning, in Montpellier, yesterday, of a lorry from Murcia, bound for Russia, with a load of chewing gum.
What is occurring is very serious and I would like you to intervene to restore the freedom of circulation of goods.
Thank you, Mr Marset, we shall take note of this protest and, of course, it will be passed on at once.
Mr President, the first item on the order of business is a communication from the Commission on urgent political matters of major importance.
I wish to raise a matter which has been excluded from the agenda, namely the question of Norwegian salmon dumping and the salmon subsidy.
The Norwegians have been proved guilty and the penalty should be notified by the end of this week.
I want to the Commissioner to tell us what is happening.
We have heard nothing.
Apparently certain committees of this House are able to place certain topics on the agenda under this item which means that ordinary Members cannot raise others.
Mr Macartney, you know perfectly well what the rules are on the procedure for asking questions of this type.
Mr President, you will recall that since Christmas this House has taken a special interest in the case of Roisín McAliskey who was incarcerated in Holloway Prison in England.
She has now given birth to her baby and is out on temporary bail.
Following the visit by Mrs d'Ancona on a personal basis, I would ask you to intervene with the new British Home Secretary to give her bail so that she can return home with her child, as evidence of the compassion that Tony Blair and the Socialists promised in this particular case during the election.
Mr Andrews, this is not the time or way for expressing your opinions on the subject.
I repeat that I want to know if there are any comments about the minutes of the previous part-session.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Arising from what Mr Macartney raised concerning the Norwegian salmon deal and taking into account its serious implications right across the EU, could you explain to me how, as Members, we could raise that matter and sound the alarm in this House. What Rule do we use?
How is it done?
Mr Killilea, you are a veteran parliamentarian and you know the rules governing the way in which you should ask questions of this kind - and this is not a point of order at this moment in time.
However, it is not for me to have to tell you - you know the rules sufficiently well.
(The Minutes were approved)
Agenda
I have been informed that Council commitments prevent it from being present before 5 p.m..
I therefore propose that we begin with the joint debate on the Christodoulou and Randzio-Plath reports at 4 p.m., and adjourn it for the debate on the European Council of 23 May 1997, and then resume it once that debate is over, i.e. between 6 and 6.30 p.m.
Are there any objections?
(Parliament agreed to this proposal)
The Union for Europe Group and Group of the European People's Party have asked for the Tomlinson report, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the estimates of revenue and expenditure of the European Parliament and the estimates of revenue and expenditure of the Ombudsman for the 1998 financial year, to be postponed to the June II part-session pursuant to Rule 131.
Although they could have put their request when the debate began, I thought it more correct to consider it now, as there are more members present.
I give the floor to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, to move the request.
Mr President, I should like to propose on the basis of Rule 96 that you should take the Tomlinson report off today's agenda and reschedule it for the second June part-session.
The reason for this - and I understand that Mr Pasty has tabled a similar proposal - is that it deals with a number of highly sensitive issues that were voted through in the Committee on Budgets, but which we know only ever receive a very small majority in Parliament.
Our groups are not entirely happy with the outcome of the votes on these issues in the committee.
Let me give you a few examples.
Take the funding system for the political parties.
I had understood that the group chairmen had reached agreement on a number of points which are unfortunately not included in the Tomlinson report, and we would like the chairmen and indeed the groups themselves to have the chance to discuss these in detail.
Then there is also the proposal on the Strasbourg part-sessions, which is something we really should leave well alone, it is such a sensitive issue.
Thirdly, and this is something else we have to consider, there is the letter we have all received from the Staff Committee, which says that the Committee on Budgets' proposals on fringe benefits could have serious consequences for staff.
We should at least have the chance to discuss this in the groups.
I also note that the Bureau did not vote today.
For some reason, it was not able to.
The coordination with the group leaders on all the proposals has also not been as it should be.
This, together with the fact that so many of our French and Irish colleagues are not here today, is why we would urge you to postpone the report to the second part-session in June.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, the Group for a Europe of Nations, I should like to support this joint request.
In addition to the reasons just given by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, I should give this one: the budgetary texts are usually discussed during Strasbourg part-sessions.
We are being asked to discuss the budgetary guideline or provisional reports here in Brussels.
I think that we should also mention the fact that the Intergovernmental Conference is due to take a decision on the headquarters issue and we should not anticipate that decision but continue to discuss budgetary questions in Strasbourg.
That is why my group supports this motion.
Mr President, as you would quite rightly assume, I am going to speak against the suggestion from Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
The reasons she gave are quite spurious.
This has been on the agenda now for some time.
It went through the Committee on Budgets with quite a substantial majority.
There were no problems then.
We discovered there was a problem at 12.30 p.m. today.
This is not the way for the House to run its business.
(Applause from the PSE Group) As for the problems, the sensitive issues which Mrs Oomen-Ruijten talks about will still be there in June.
I would suggest that we leave it on our agenda.
If there are any points in that report which she disagrees with, her group can vote against them there and then and that will resolve the issue.
(Applause from the PSE Group)
I put this motion to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request)
Urgent political matters
The next item is the communication by the Commission on urgent political matters of major importance.
There are two subjects: the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Turkey-Iraq relations.
Situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo
With the change of power in Kinshasa, the moment has come to turn back to the broader picture of the Great Lakes region and Central Africa, since none of the many crises in the region has been durably settled.
There is a continued inter-dependence of political instability, caused by population movements, cross-border alliances and an ethnic pattern which transcends national borders.
A daunting potential for further violent conflict and humanitarian disasters still prevails in the new Democratic Republic Congo and its nine neighbours.
The fact that the alliance has been sucked into a political vacuum enabled the rebellion to undertake a breathtaking military campaign, but it left the alliance with a number of poorly trained and ill-disciplined new recruits and a few very loosely controlled contingents with specific ethnic characteristics, be it Banyamulenge or an independent historic origin, as the descendants of the so-called gendarmes Katangais .
The sharp contrasts of Kabila's humanitarian commitments on the one side, and the continuing persecution of Rwandan refugees and harassment of international aid workers on the other, show a clear lack of cohesion or a lack of communication within the alliance, notably between the top political leadership and local military commanders.
In the present crucial phase of political reorganization in the Democratic Republic Congo, this lack of control over the armed forces can cause serious difficulties.
Furthermore, the spill-over of the Zaire conflict into neighbouring countries could have long-term consequences, notably in Congo-Brazzaville and the Central African Republic, where the arrival of former Rwandan soldiers risks upsetting a precarious political and military balance.
In Congo-Brazzaville it could also jeopardize the forthcoming presidential elections if the 'armed refugees' from Rwanda and former Zaire spark off a violent campaign between the main candidates.
In Angola the possible return of 'mercenaries' of MPLA or UNITA origin may jeopardize the peace process which has already been aborted once before by an escalation of violence in the aftermath of the 1992 elections.
As regards Sudan, the dismantling of the rear bases of the anti-MUSEVENI opposition movements in the eastern part of former Zaire has given the Ugandan army and its Southern Sudanese allies a strategic advantage which is likely to lead to intensified fighting and increasing pressure on the regime in Khartoum.
Thus, this conflict which has been smouldering for several decades could enter into a decisive phase and produce unexpected geo-political changes.
In Rwanda infiltrations across the border or under the cover of refugee repatriation have led to widespread insecurity.
In some regions close to the Congolese frontier there are daily confrontations between government troops and heavily armed guerilla groups.
If the situation deteriorates further, it could approach low-key ethnic warfare as in the case of Burundi.
A new and preoccupying element is the reported alliance between militias Babembe and the armed Burundi opposition, the CNDD, in South Kivu.
It corresponds to the declared ideological aim of the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide and their Burundian sympathizers, that is to say the launching of a regional military campaign of 'Bantu' people of the Great Lakes against the presumed 'hamitic' invaders.
In view of the critical demographic pressure in the region, the combination of this genocidal ideology and the advanced militarization of society creates an explosive political mixture.
In the new Democratic Republic of Congo, Laurent Kabila announced the formation of a new government within a presidential framework.
We had hoped for a broad-based government, including all the main political forces, presumably excluding so-called Mobutees.
The fact that one of the main leaders of the opposition to Mobutu, Etienne Tshisekedi, has been left out, despite good arguments, has been perceived as somewhat self-defeating.
The fact that Mr Kabila promised to produce a new constitution and hold elections within two years is quite understandable, bearing in mind that his organization is a loose organization and time is required to stabilize the country, organize it, give it a government and finally have free and fair elections.
It is better to wait and have a good electoral process, rather than rush and have some kind of unfair and corrupt electoral process.
Let me conclude by saying that we are extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in the region, mainly because the lack of communication between the head of the alliance and some of the military commanders in the field has led to massacres of unarmed refugees.
That is absolutely unacceptable and the European Union has made that quite clear not only in its communique but in a recent meeting held between our envoys and the Laurent Kabila's foreign minister.
Thank you very much, Mr Pinheiro.
You have the floor, Mr Robles Piquer.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner if this explanation - which was very reasonable and balanced - has been adequately conveyed to the Council.
I also think it is scandalous that the Council should be absent today and I think that that scandal should make us think more about the other scandal, that of the absence of Europe in the development of the drama in Central Africa.
I should like to know whether those same arguments and description have been transmitted, with enough conviction and force, as this is a truly dramatic situation, so that, as the competent body for these matters, the Council might take appropriate measures in due time.
It seems to me that there has been a total European vacuum here and once again that vacuum has been occupied by the US initiative.
I should like to refer to the declaration made on 22 May 1997 by the Presidency on behalf of the European Union in which many of these elements were contained.
I should also like to emphasize the fact that a European troika yesterday met with the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the new Democratic Republic of Congo and that the message sent was exactly along the lines of the statement I have just made.
I should also like to add, for the information of the European Parliament, that this afternoon I had the opportunity to talk to President Julius Nyerere about the situation in the Great Lakes and that the Commission today held a two-hour meeting with President Nyerere to hear his wise counsel and hear the experience of someone who knows the region well.
What steps has the Commissioner taken to freeze the assets of Mr Mobutu which are held in Member States? Will the Commission take legal action in these Member States to try to recover the assets looted from that country so that they can be used for the reconstruction of the new Democratic Republic of Congo?
I would also ask that the Commission take note of the fact that the European people would welcome Mr Mobutu as much as they would the greatest criminal. He should not be given refuge in the European Union under any circumstances.
I am afraid the Commission has not the power to do so.
Personally, I fully agree with your sentiments.
I would like to ask the Commissioner two questions.
Is he not encouraged by the axis of African Governments which has been formed and is led by Uganda at this time, sharing similar political, economic and military approaches to the Great Lakes area and the problems he has described? Which way does the Commission think it should best work with this axis?
Secondly, is the Commissioner aware that President Mandela has urged the West not to demonize Mr Kabila in Kinshasa and impressed on us that it would be suicidal for us to suggest that political parties, for instance, should be formed in Zaire at this time? Does the Commissioner intend to take President Mandela's advice and agree that it is not wise for us in the West at this time to give too much advice to Mr Kabila as he tries to restore law and order in that country?
One must realize that in the former Zaire there were more than 100 parties and that did not contribute to democracy.
So, I tend to agree with President Mandela and President Nyerere when they say that the top priority is law and order and stabilization.
But, having said that, we must be sure that we are not running from a dictator into an autocratic system.
Therefore, it is very important that a clear calendar of commitment to the constitutional process and free and fair elections should be established as soon as possible.
We think that two years is the upper limit and we are prepared to work with the authorities there in order to make sure that all the conditions for free and fair elections are met in due time.
Commissioner, the United States was instrumental in bringing Laurent Kabila to power in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Is the Commission planning to coordinate its own action with that of the USA, or alternatively to protest if such action were to hamper the real - and not merely nominal - process of democratization in the Congo, which we are all hoping for and which, I understand you to be saying, still hangs in the balance?
The role which the United States played in all the phases of the situation until Kabila took power has not been fully appreciated.
My personal opinion is that our partners on the other side of the Atlantic helped to let the genie out of the bottle and afterwards tried somehow to put it back. But they did not manage.
It was not a campaign of conquer.
As I said in my statement, Laurent Kabila was sucked into the power vacuum which existed in former Zaire.
Having said that, I have been keeping in contact with the United States about how it sees the situation and how we can best cooperate in order to have law, order and a democratic country.
The European Union has already expressed its point of view and its willingness to help in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the new Democratic Republic Congo.
But let there be no misunderstandings.
There are some preconditions which have to be met.
I am not prepared to sign a blank cheque.
Commissioner, a few days ago your colleague Mrs Bonino stated that the humanitarian organizations were still unable to get to a number of places in Kivu where there were problems.
Have there been any developments on this?
Secondly, you quite rightly referred to the need to restore law and order, but it must also be borne in mind that if there are problems, such as have already occurred in Kivu, for example, where the Association for the Protection of Human Rights has already had to step in, there must always be the possibility of taking action if human rights are being violated.
What measures is the Commission planning to take here?
The only reason why I did not go into detail with regard to the humanitarian situation was because I had already gone three minutes over my time.
But Emma Bonino was absolutely right in pinpointing the humanitarian problem as a dramatic one.
We are not overstating it.
The numbers of refugees and displaced persons, be it in Tanzania, in South Zaire or in neighbouring countries is above 600, 000 at least.
We are talking about a number equivalent to the population of Brussels, so it is a dramatic situation.
We were very disappointed when the local military rulers did not allow the United Nations Centre for Human Rights and other agencies to send a fact-finding mission on humanitarian needs because the conditions imposed were such that it could not be accepted.
From the contacts we had with our special envoy who met the Foreign Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo yesterday, it would seem that the difficulties have been overcome and we hope that in the very near future a fact-finding mission on the humanitarian situation and of the needs to respond to quickly will be made inside the Democratic Republic Congo.
The financial support into the whole of the Great Lakes region over recent years has been very considerable.
In view of change, and since much of the money was going into the refugee camps over that period of time, I would like to ask the Commissioner how he sees development in the future and where the financial aid is going to be directed?
Some programmes have continued, for instance in humanitarian assistance or in health programmes.
They have continued despite the difficulties throughout the former Zaire.
Our intention now, as I explained to this House a few months ago, is that once some peace and stability is achieved, the Commission is prepared to implement a global plan of reconstruction and rehabilitation in the Great Lakes region.
We hope to provide a coherent plan which responds to the needs of that region.
In the meantime we have made known to our special envoy and to the Council and now to this House that we are ready to mobilize ECU 90m in order to help the immediate needs of the Democratic Republic of Congo, providing those conditions which I mentioned earlier are met.
I sincerely hope that before the summer this will be clarified.
The needs are urgent and we cannot wait for the normal procedures in order to commit and disburse this money.
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he will try to find out from the IMF or the World Bank about the scandalous loans granted to Mobutu, in full knowledge of the fact that they would not be properly used, because they had relevant files about the matter going back to 1988.
Nonetheless, not only did these international bodies continue to lend him money but they even increased their loans.
I think that we have the legal powers to carry out an inquiry because money belonging to European taxpayers also went into Mobutu's pockets.
I would like to emphasize that the Commission is not represented in the World Bank or the IMF but Member States are.
So I hope that our Member States will act according to your suggestion because past history should teach us some lessons for the future - I refer to lending.
And I do not mean only to dictators but also to heavily indebted countries which have no chance of paying back the debt in a normal way.
I gather, Commissioner - and could I please ask you to confirm - that your approach is based on one consideration and two conditions.
The consideration is the following: clearly, in a situation such as that in the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, where - as has been pointed out here - a major power is conspicuously present, Europe must avoid being sidelined and excluded from the relations which that country and its new government will establish in the future.
And the two conditions being laid down - with which I agree, but which I should like you to confirm - are as follows: firstly, regardless of the timing of the elections, the process of democratization must get off to a very clear start, so that there is no need to ban political activity and parties in order to maintain law and order; and, secondly, the problem of access to areas where refugees are located must be resolved immediately, and light must obviously be shed on the massacres.
That would appear to be the position, Commissioner.
Apart from the fact that you did not mention the idea of having a broad-based government, you put it much better than me.
Mr President, reference has already been made to the way in which President Mobutu's regime embezzled funds from development cooperation budgets and other sources.
Will the Commission investigate how much European development aid funding has disappeared in Zaire? Is it prepared to bring proceedings against President Mobutu if necessary in order to recover those funds from the huge assets apparently held in Switzerland, so that they can once again be made available to the people of Zaire?
Let me repeat - because it is important that this House knows - that the identified corruption cases, connected with Commission cooperation, are virtually nil.
The reason is simple.
The money is kept in such a way that it pays for services or work done or projects but is not fed into the beneficiaries' accounts.
Where it happens - for instance with STABEX - there is such close control that it is virtually impossible for significant cases of corruption to take place.
Nevertheless, we have asked our services to look at the situation closely to make sure that the money allocated to us was properly used and did not help to swell Mr Mobutu's bank accounts.
Turkey-Iraq relations
Mr President, the next subject is the situation in northern Iraq.
On 16 May this year, the European Union issued a statement about the activities of the Turkish army in northern Iraq which made it clear that, although we can understand Turkey's desire to take action against groups planning or carrying out terrorist activities, in the final analysis the only possible solution to the Kurdish problem is a political one.
It urgently called on Turkey to demonstrate the utmost restraint, to respect human rights and to withdraw its troops from northern Iraq as soon as possible.
The Turkish authorities indicated that it was not their intention to establish a permanent military presence in northern Iraq, and that everything had been done to spare the civilian population.
Of course it remains to be seen whether they actually keep to their word.
The current situation in northern Iraq is seriously hampering the humanitarian assistance that the Commission is providing for the area through the ECHO programme.
A total of some ECU 10 million has been allocated in 1997 for projects mostly run by non-governmental organizations, often under difficult circumstances.
This is why it is clearly essential for the Turkish army to withdraw as quickly as possible.
It is quite clear that the situation is deteriorating in Turkey and we must all deeply regret the action the military have taken.
Indeed, in September 1996 the European Court of Human Rights found the military guilty of a series of transgressions and only three days later Parliament tabled and adopted its famous resolution which declared that democracy and human rights activities need to be supported in Turkey.
Alongside Piet Dankert we have been working to try to make sure that takes place.
Given the deteriorating situation in Ankara and the possibility that the military are moving into a position towards a possible coup d'etat , what would be the position of the European Union in that event?
I do not know whether it is very sensible to talk here about a coup d'etat in Turkey, or to speculate on what our position would be towards it.
Let us be quite clear about this.
A country such as Turkey, which has tried its best in recent months to demonstrate that it qualifies, albeit in the long term, for membership of the European Union, is hardly likely to solve its internal political problems through a coup d'etat , and nor, I have to say, do I expect it to do so.
However, this does not mean that its internal political tensions are not clearly visible from outside.
But just as I called for a political solution to the Kurdish problem, so I would hope there is all the more reason to call for a political rather than a military solution to Turkey's internal political tensions.
Mr President, Commissioner, you know that many Members of the House made their approval of the customs union with Turkey contingent on compliance with the call for an immediate Turkish withdrawal from northern Iraq. The previous operation in 1995 involved 30 000 troops and around 50 tanks.
As you are well aware, the present operation is on a much bigger scale, with the deployment of 50 000 troops, 250 tanks, F14 and F16 bombers and Cobra helicopters.
There is no reason to expect a withdrawal in the foreseeable future.
I should like to ask, Commissioner, whether you consider such an intervention to be compatible with international law. What practical steps does the Commission intend to take to compel the Turkish armed forces to withdraw?
And could you please explain what you mean by saying that Turkey has been asked to exercise restraint?
What do you mean by restraint? And how, in your opinion, can the human rights of the civilian population be effectively guaranteed?
As we know, this invasion of northern Iraq is not Turkey's first military action against the north of that country, where there is currently a power vacuum in the absence of any sort of normal government, where different Kurdish groups are fighting for supremacy amongst themselves and one Kurdish group, so Turkey claims, has called on Turkey to come and help it to defend itself against the PKK.
We witnessed a similar situation a few years ago.
Then as now, the European Union made it clear that we categorically rejected any form of terrorist action by the PKK or other groups, and that we also recognized Turkey's right to protect its own people against terrorism.
However, in taking any such action it must abide by the rules and principles of the constitutional state and the fundamental principles of human rights and, especially where military action is involved, it must refrain from using excessive violence to achieve its objectives.
Finally, we insisted that work must start on finding a political solution to the problem that lies at the heart of this situation, the unresolved Kurdish problem, since we do not believe in military solutions.
I would point out to the honourable Member that there is little that we can actually force Turkey to do, but what we can do is to make it clear that the European Union and the international community are closely monitoring how this conflict is being handled, particularly as it concerns a country with which we have been holding talks on this very issue for such a long time, and which is hoping for closer relations and even further integration with the European Union.
I hope that Turkey's ambitions in this respect will make it heed our concern about its military intervention and bring it to an end as soon as possible.
A few weeks ago I led a delegation from my group to Ankara where we met with General Cevic Bir the deputy chief of staff of the Turkish armed forces.
At that meeting General Cevic Bir said to us that as far as he was concerned the military had done everything they could in the Kurdish lands.
What was needed now was a political initiative to deal with some of the problems the Kurdish people living in those areas had.
Now just a few weeks later we see 50, 000 Turkish troops invading Northern Iraq to deal with what they claim to be the PKK terrorism in those lands.
This reminds me of the promises we received from somebody called Tansu Ciller, then Prime Minister, now Foreign Minister of Turkey, that she was the bulwark against an Islamic Government in Turkey.
She is now in government with an Islamic Prime Minister in Turkey.
Would the Commissioner agree with me that this House and that the Commission and the Council have been manipulated by the Turkish military and civilian authorities and that it is incumbent on us to expose the duplicity of the Turkish Government and military for the Turkish people?
I think that there is little more that the European Union needs to spell out to the Turkish Government.
Our position could not be more clear: we categorically reject any acts of terrorism by the PKK, but at the same time we will not accept the excessive use of force or systematic human rights violations in combating terrorism.
Mrs Green mentioned the figure of 50 000 troops, but quite honestly I do not think the number is so important.
Other independent sources talk about 30 000, while the Turkish authorities have not given any figures.
The fact remains that this was a military incursion into neighbouring territory which is not under the control of the central authorities in Iraq.
All I can promise is that in our regular contacts and dialogue with Turkey, we will continue to urge it to accept Parliament's position, which is that the continuing threat of PKK terrorism should be proof of the need to start talks on a political solution.
This would also, ultimately, resolve the issue of Turkey's military intervention, which we utterly condemn.
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he thinks that Turkey's activity in Iraq is an isolated, if repeated, incident or whether it is part of a general aggressive strategy by Turkey outside its borders.
Is it just pure chance that every five or six months Turkey invades or attacks Iraq?
Is it pure chance that part of the Cypriot Republic has been occupied by Turkish troops for more than 20 years? Is it pure chance that Greece, Turkey's neighbour, has had its territorial integrity threatened by that country?
Given the more general aggressiveness shown by Turkey, what are the European Union's reactions, intentions or precautions? With particular reference to the Kurdish problem, the Commissioner has already referred to the terrorism carried out by the PKK but I should like to ask him whether the European Union is ready, as it did in Chechenya and Yugoslavia, to make proposals for a political solution to solve the Kurdish problem on both sides?
Turkey has never, either now or in the past, expressed any territorial ambitions with regard to Iraq.
There is also no reason to assume that it has such ambitions, since these would be totally indefensible under international law.
I prefer to assume that Turkey is simply doing what it feels it must, and using means which it feels are justified to defend itself against an undeniable PKK terrorist threat, or at least to tackle it at the root.
The fact that it is doing this on neighbouring territory is actually only possible because of the unusual situation in Iraq, where the lack of government and central control from Baghdad since the early 1980s when the Iran-Iraq conflict began has made the northern part of the country the only place where this could happen.
All we can really do for the Kurds and the Kurdish problem is to bring pressure to bear on the Turkish Government to start talks with the representatives of the various groups to see whether a political solution can be found.
You know that constant efforts are being made outside Turkey to bring the groups together to consider and discuss this question.
If I am not mistaken, another of these seminars involving various representatives is to be held in the Netherlands shortly.
I consider the Commissioner's response to be far too weak.
We have entered into a custom's union with Turkey.
As part of that agreement Turkey has committed itself to fulfilling certain democratic requirements which we have stipulated.
Since concluding the custom's union, the situation in Turkey has progressively worsened.
We have discussed the issue time and time again and have received unsatisfactory answers from the Commissioner.
I think it is time that we adopted a hard line towards a partner which attacks its own people in its own country and all we do is sit back and listen month after month.
My question is: is the Commission prepared to issue a final date by which time the Turks must end their aggressive war against the Kurds? If not, is the Commission prepared in such circumstances to break off the custom's union with Turkey?
If the honourable Member is asking us to give an ultimatum threatening to abolish the customs union, we have to ask whether this would represent any kind of real pressure, given that the European Union currently enjoys an enormous trade surplus with Turkey precisely because of the customs union.
But quite apart from that argument, I thought the House was aware of how carefully the Commission has been evaluating and monitoring relations with Turkey over the last few years, and how it has made a number of recommendations for a multi-faceted and carefully constructed policy.
Parliament has also expressed the wish in our discussions that all forms of financial aid or instruments should be provisionally frozen if they are not being used directly or indirectly to improve the human rights situation in Turkey.
I therefore think it would be fairly senseless and also less effective to start hitting out wildly and threatening Turkey with even stricter sanctions if it does not end its action against the PKK terrorists within a certain period.
However, this does not affect the political statements which the Union made earlier, or our promise to Parliament that we will continue our efforts to bring about an improvement in the situation.
The Commissioner has just repeated what the Council of Ministers said: that there has to be a political solution to the Kurdish problem.
However, this was flatly rejected by Mrs Ciller at the Association Council before the invasion of Iraq.
There is currently the threat of a government crisis in Turkey, and at the same time the Commission is telling us that there are various initiatives in progress that we would certainly support, which I quite agree with.
We are monitoring the situation very carefully.
But when I put the Kurdish problems together with the impending problems in Turkey's internal situation, I cannot help wondering, Commissioner, whether we need some rather more drastic measures, either from the EU or from NATO, than those which are currently being taken?
Mr President, with all due respect to the Commissioner, Mr van den Broek, I must confess that I cannot understand how such a serious violation of international law, a violation of borders, an invasion of another country, can be excused because the Iraqi government is unable to control that part of the country.
In the past my country has suffered from an influx of revolutionary elements from a foreign country, so to speak, but at no point was there any possibility that we could have upset the international order by ignoring frontiers.
But if this violation by Turkey, together with its threats towards other countries, is accepted just because the Kurds have been carrying out terrorist attacks, that is giving Turkey carte blanche and I think it is an insult to the European Parliament to suggest that violations of this kind can be acceptable.
I hope that Parliament still agrees that no matter how justified the political claims are, we cannot in any way support the PKK's separatism, although we could support some kind of recognition of cultural identity.
However, even where such claims are justified, we will continue to reject categorically and absolutely the use of terrorism in the pursuit of them, and it must be generally recognized now that the PKK is guilty of this.
People in Parliament ask me what else we can do to bring pressure to bear on Turkey. Both Mr Dankert and Mr Lambrias know that tremendous diplomatic and political pressure is being applied in talks with Turkey at present to try to find a breakthrough in the troubled relations between Greece and Turkey and to resolve the disputes in the Aegean Sea.
A huge political and diplomatic offensive is being carried out to try to persuade the two communities on Cyprus, or at least the Cyprus Government and the Turkish Cypriots, to come to the negotiating table by the middle of this year to start talks on a political solution for Cyprus.
Thirdly, in our discussions with Turkey, we are constantly trying to ensure that the new legislation on the promotion and protection of human rights which Turkey promised would be introduced is actually enacted and adopted by the Turkish parliament.
I hope, therefore, that the honourable Members will believe me when I say that we are already stepping up pressure on Turkey to bring about improvements in all these areas.
I would simply point out that when it comes to the Kurdish problem, which I freely admit to Mr Dankert is not really viewed as a problem by the Turks, who see the terrorism as the problem, but not the Kurdish issue which lies behind it, we are not at present in a position to force through a solution.
None of this changes what I said in my earlier replies about signalling to Turkey that this military action needs to be ended as quickly as possible.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Excessive deficits and economic policies
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0181/97 by Mr Christodoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on: I. the recommendation for second reading on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies (C4-0174/97-96/0247(SYN)) and II. the report on the proposal for a Council regulation on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure (6931/2/97 - C4-0577/96-96/0248(CNS)) and - A4-0184/97 by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the economic policy of the Member States of the Community (COM(97)0168 - C4-0190/97)
Mr President, on 28 November 1996, the European Parliament adopted, at second reading, resolutions on the Stability Pact concerning two proposals for regulations.
The first was on the strengthening of surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies on the basis of the cooperation procedure, and the second was on speeding up and clarifying implementation of the excessive deficit procedure on the basis of the negotiation procedures.
As you know, at the Dublin European Council, on 13-14 December 1994, a political agreement was reached on the general principles and main elements of the Stability Pact.
The European Council also called for the preparation of a draft resolution on the Stability Pact to be adopted, recording the commitments of the Member States, the Commission and the Council to a strict application of the Treaty and the legal provisions of the Stability Pact.
At the informal meeting of the ECOFIN Council, in Noordwijk, the texts of the two proposals for regulations and the draft resolution were agreed and the common position on the first of those proposals was forwarded to the European Parliament and was adopted in first reading, while it requested to be consulted again on the latter proposal.
In the preparation of the amendments, as part of the relevant examination, the following elements were taken into account:
First of all, the political will expressed at the Dublin Summit.
Secondly, the European Council's decision to opt for a strict application of the Stability Pact and, at the same time, the fact that the Council changed its name to the Stability and Growth Pact.
Unfortunately, this qualitative improvement, as expressed by the new title, is not reflected in the texts which have been sent to us from the ECOFIN Council.
The title has changed but the content has remained more or less the same.
The inclusion in the regulation of surveillance for the Member States not participating in stage three of EMU is an important new element.
Whereas the original proposal by the Commission foresaw only the submission of convergence programmes by those Member States participating in stage three of EMU, there is now a separate section on the submission of convergence programmes by Member States not participating in it.
We have tabled an amendment on this which I shall analyze for you later.
We think that the Stability Pact has to be effective.
That effectiveness will depend upon its ability to be implemented and the confidence in it.
Any changes made will have to be made in that direction.
The relative inflexibility of the provisions and the generally automatic and mechanistic character of those provisions fails to take into account the dynamic nature of economics and of monetary phenomena which restricts the implementation of these provisions and as a consequence will undermine the confidence in those provisions and the Pact itself.
Finally, the proposal for a regulation for the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure foresees the imposition of the penalty of a deposit which could be turned into a fine.
Here we have a very serious problem in that the original Commission proposal foresaw that the product of the fine and interest generated would constitute revenue for the Community budget but the new proposal, although not yet finalised, is that it should be distributed among the Member States which do not have an excessive budget and this seems to be the overriding opinion in the Council.
The result of this imposition is a paradoxical phenomenon and I shall not criticize it now, but I should just point out that, until now, no legal basis or clear procedure for implementing this idea put forward by the Council have been found.
However, although this has not yet been finalized by the Council, we must vote for the corresponding amendment that we have tabled, which has come out of the Committee on Budgets, because that would express the European Parliament's will to maintain the principle of budgetary unity, an elementary basic notion, and something which must be maintained come what may.
Given the difficulties which the Council is facing in finding a legal basis, it is very likely - and here I am hazarding a guess, of course - that these amounts will be inscribed in the budget and that they will be shared out subsequently according to political commitments and perhaps a subsequent amendment to the relevant budgetary provision.
However, that is no reason for us not to vote for this amendment, even though it refers to a text which has yet to take its definitive form.
Therefore, our amendments are aimed at improving the Pact in its main points.
In particular:
First of all, they lend the draft resolution of the European Council its rightful dimensions, on the basis of Article D of the common provisions of the Treaty.
This draft resolution will then be seen to be setting political guidelines for the subsequent and opportune implementation of the Stability Pact, but that it is not part of the articles and has no legal content.
It is simply a political guideline.
Secondly, these amendments define the public investment expenditure which are a decisive factor for economic growth and development.
We would, therefore, be giving substantial content to the meaning of 'development' added to the Pact by the Dublin Council.
I am pleased to tell you, Mr President, that this has been accepted by the Council and the Commission and will be included in the articles of the regulations.
Thirdly, the provisions for the convergence programmes are made more realistic and bring into the regulation on surveillance a sense of strengthening those Member States not participating in stage three of EMU, by protecting them from profit making in the framework of the new exchange rate mechanism, i.e. protection by the European Union's bodies from profit-making attacks.
Special circumstances are also planned for, such as not regarding as a budget deficit any expenditure connected with protecting the territorial integrity of Member States.
Fourthly, without easing up on the strictness of application by any means - and I must emphasize this, Mr President - the amendments allow a certain flexibility, which is necessary if the Stability Pact is to function properly and if it is to be both applicable and reliable.
In many cases, absolute inflexibility means a lack of feasibility and confidence suffers as a result.
Finally, they reinforce a basic principle of budgets, as I referred to earlier, by retaining within the Community budget the fines imposed and interest generated on them.
These are the basic principles underlying the amendments we have tabled and which we have brought before the European Parliament for its vote.
They are included in one text and all of them have been approved by the Committee on Budgets.
Taking into account developments so far, the need for a stable euro and the need for sustainable provisions, we have made an attempt to avoid an excessive number of amendments so that those elements which we believe to be absolutely necessary can be stressed.
Therefore, we are not bringing before the plenary for voting those amendments which were not approved by the Economics Committee, apart from amendments on a technical matter, which I have just mentioned and on which I shall give my opinion later on.
To conclude, I propose, as rapporteur, an amendment to the common position on the regulation on surveillance and an opinion on the regulation on deficits, in accordance with the amendments adopted by our Committee, thereby concluding the second reading.
To finish, I would like to emphasize the importance of this matter from both the political and economic points of view and to stress that, if we were to reject these proposals, we would be sending the wrong signal to the outside and the European Parliament would then be excluded from the taking of important decisions.
Therefore, I hope that the opinions expressed in this text will be given your resounding support.
However, we think that it is vital for the Commission and the Council, which unfortunately are not present at this moment in time, to pledge that at the next Councils, due to take place shortly, they will adopt the proposals which have been accepted, in other words relating to the draft regulation, on the issues of development and public investment, and the other elements which have been accepted during the three-day negotiations and subsequent communications which we had with the Council and the Commission.
In all good faith, we are proposing that both of these regulations be voted for.
I would like to hope, or rather I am sure, that the Commission and the Council will promise to honour their obligations due to us.
Madam President, with too little time but with great interest we have analyzed, in the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, the regulations which are the subject of today's debate.
We have done so in the light of our great concern, which could be none other than the effects on employment, on our social model, of the measures to be adopted in the framework of both of these regulations to supervise the economic policies of Member States and introduce surveillance over public deficits in the run-up to this exciting event for the European Union which is now nearly upon us.
On the other hand, these regulations reflect the need for the economic policies of the Member States of the European Union to advance in tandem in order to strengthen monetary union, since there can be no talk of a single currency with divergent economies as that could not guarantee stable prices or growth.
Therefore, it is obvious that only if we have a stable and controlled budgetary situation and if our economies are converging can we coordinate efficient, job-creating employment policies.
Therefore, I also think that - apart from the need for the Council to take into account the unemployment rate and the rate of job-creation when examining the stability and convergence programmes - in order to adjust its objectives, it must also analyze not only the size of deficits but also the type and, therefore, to pay particular attention to public expenditure, in particular, on education, training, investment and infrastructures, which have beneficial effects on Europe's regions, especially in times of crisis.
This by no means contradicts the fact that a healthy budgetary situation is fundamental if we are to respond rapidly to adverse economic situations and, at the same time, to control the public deficit. After all these are basic elements for economic growth and subsequent job growth.
It is for this reason that we have tabled amendments in the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment to these regulations.
We must also contemplate the overall situation of a country before imposing sanctions on it as heavy as those foreseen in the regulation on excessive deficits and, at the same time, it seems to me a good procedure to help to add to the credibility and confidence in the future European monetary union.
On the other hand, in relation to the economic guidelines for 1997, nobody doubts that the European Union is, at this moment in time, facing a challenge which can only be compared with its very birth.
Europeans, especially those governing their destinies, have committed themselves to the adventure of uniting their economic, human and social potential in order to confront an undeniable need: working and subsisting in an increasingly globalized market, an increasingly technical market, an increasingly interdependent market.
Monetary Union is just one more step towards joining forces.
Unemployment, the European Union's most serious problem, cannot only be measured in figures, because above all it is the young, women, elderly, disabled, citizens who will blame us if we do not achieve our main objective in this adventure of ours, that of creating jobs.
In front of the European Parliament, today, the workers of Europe have been calling for a special clause, in the future Treaty, referring to employment.
To turn a deaf ear to them would be doing the European Union a disservice.
We must show our sympathy and solidarity with them.
On the other hand, workers harming other workers, as has recently occurred in the case of attacks on Spanish lorry drivers, imbalances and injustices in the social security systems or an excessively rigid labour market in Europe are factors that seriously hinder progress towards our European project.
Therefore, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, while recognizing the Commission's efforts in the form of these major economic guidelines which we are debating, once again wishes to voice its concern at the high level of unemployment in the European Union.
In order to combat unemployment we must have growth, we must compete and we must invest, but we must also increase domestic demand and that will only happen if we generate confidence, and people have confidence when investment is productive, when employment and social security systems are effective and when workers, women or men, receive a fair and adequate wage.
Fortunately economic policy and employment policy do seem to be going hand in hand and the Commission document has set aside a special paragraph for using structural reforms to favour job growth.
That is not enough.
We must make better use of the European Union's instruments, such as the Committee on Employment and the labour market or the multiannual programmes in order to improve coordination of economic and employment policies, so that we can also make it easier for both sides of industry to discuss matters at European level.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Budgets focused its attention on the methods to be used for recording and applying the sanctions laid down for Member States violating the 3 % rule in future.
We agreed with Mr Christodoulou that the procedure itself should not be called into question.
We feel that the stability pact forms part of the overall concept of a single currency and we therefore wish to approach it constructively, which is why we held informal three-way talks at which we were able to put our views to the Council.
However, I have to say that we are still faced with a procedural problem that is difficult to accept in democratic terms: establishing whether the Council thinks there is a legal basis for the method it wishes to use for channelling the revenue to the participating members which are not in breach of the rules, in other words excluding the opting-out countries and the countries paying the deposits or fines.
We in the Committee on Budgets consider that this would be impossible to implement and would set an unacceptable precedent.
We would refer here to other existing sanctions such as in the agricultural sector or the Structural Funds, where the revenue from the sanctions is pooled in the Community budget.
This is not to be the case here, and we fear that this precedent will throw the budget into turmoil, especially if there is to be flexibility in various sectors in the future.
For this reason, we would urge the House to consider our amendment to Article 16, and we would also urge that a definitive answer should be obtained from the Council as soon as possible - preferably before tomorrow's vote - on the legal basis it intends to use, which is by no means clear at the moment.
I did not entirely understand the Commissioner, and I should like to know if he would be prepared to include Parliament's proposals in his draft for the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States and the Community.
Madam President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for the proposal he has made and for the announcement that he is accepting these amendments.
I should like to ask him to take another little look at Amendment No 4 to the first regulation, Recital 10, given that, in its own position, as it was presented to the Council, the Commission accepted that amendment.
The Commission refers to its own text, which happens to have fallen into my hands, Madam President, in which reference is made to the mechanism for protecting exchange rates, i.e. the ERM.
Whereas this mechanism will also assist them - the countries which are not members of economic and monetary union - to resist unwarranted pressures on their currencies in the foreign exchange markets.
We say exactly the same thing in the Explanatory Memorandum for this amendment and I must ask why the Commission cannot accept it.
Therefore, as for the rest, I repeat that I must thank the Commissioner but I would like him to take another look at this matter and see whether that amendment cannot also be accepted.
Mr Christodoulou and Mrs Randzio-Plath, the Commissioner will have the floor again at the end of the debate to answer your questions.
For the moment, we shall proceed with the debate.
Madam President, I should like to thank the two rapporteurs for their reports to which I shall make some brief references later.
First, however I should like to say to the Commissioner that the whole conduct of the procedure for the Pact for Stability and Growth has been a very sad series of incidents where attempts were made time and time again to exclude this Parliament from participation in this debate.
It is only due to this House's resilience that we are now at a stage where the Commission is recommending that it accepts some of our amendments.
I hope that in the future we will have a better relationship when we deal with these extremely important economic and monetary questions.
There is a paradox in the Commissioner's presentation today.
On the one hand he talked about the broad economic guidelines, the fact that the Commission has as its goal increased research and development, increased growth and better systems of education.
On the other hand, he presents to us a Pact for Stability which has the word 'growth' attached to it, although there is nothing in the Pact related to growth, only to stability, which potentially undermines any measures we can take to boost research and development, systems of education or growth.
As the Commissioner knows, wrongly used the Stability Pact could be highly deflationary, reduce growth and add to unemployment.
That is why I insist that the Commission exercises its responsibility under the Treaty of European Union so that this Stability Pact is not used by those forces in the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers that want to undermine the development of employment within the European Union.
If we want to have growth and stability in the European Union, we have to boost investment.
At the moment investment represents 19 % of GDP.
The Commissioner's own economists suggest that investment must rise to 25 % of GDP.
How do we square the circle of the Pact for Stability and Growth and bearing down on borrowing and budget deficits with the need to increase investment in the European Union. Even Mr Ciampi in his report on competitiveness said that public investment has a key role in stimulating private investment in Europe's economy.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of this Commission to make sure that we promote public investment, that we do not impede it, so that it leads to wider private investment and greater growth opportunities within the European economy.
I say to the Commissioner that we will be watching very carefully the role of the Commission and the role of organizations such as the Monetary Committee which has no transparency, no democratic legitimacy.
Will the Commissioner stand up to the Monetary Committee? Will he exercise his responsibilities under the Treaty of European Union?
I shall conclude with a comment on employment.
The Commissioner has stressed the need to boost employment in the European Union.
We will now put in place the Pact for Stability and Growth.
We are putting in place the final instruments for the management of monetary policy.
We must activate the European Investment Fund and the borrowing requirement at a European level to compensate for the borrowing that Member States themselves are not able to introduce.
That is why I would ask you, Commissioner, between now and next year's annual economic report and broad economic guidelines to fight to defend what the Commission and the Essen summit agreed, namely to support the Delors and Santer initiatives on borrowing at European level to help boost investment levels.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is vital, on such an important subject, first of all to recall some very simple principles.
The greatest challenge that we have to face in most of our countries is that of unemployment.
Yet the improvement of the labour market depends on more growth and that is something which cannot be decreed.
It results from healthy parameters.
Public deficits have never created jobs, otherwise we would have too many jobs now.
You only need to look at the situation in the United States and in Holland.
Similarly, growth must, in the medium term, be encouraged by demand and sustained by judicious investment coming mostly from competitive companies, at the rate of 85 %.
We see that, in Europe today, demand is recovering on a healthy basis, which ought to stimulate investment.
Finally, it is increased productivity which leads to growth and we should remain very attentive to developments in wages and deficits.
All of these reasons are such that the texts that we are discussing today are of capital importance for the future of Economic and Monetary Union.
By the same token, the informal Council meeting held in April, which was a success, only represented, if I may say so, the legal 'setting to music' of decisions already taken at the Dublin European Council in December.
We are also convinced that the adoption, as soon as possible, by the European Parliament of the text proposed to us concerning excessive deficits and strengthening the surveillance and coordination of budgetary policies is absolutely vital if we are to have the text finalized in time for the Amsterdam Summit.
With this in mind, all of the texts of interest to us, i.e. those concerning the EMS Mark II, the Stability Pact, and those concerning Articles 103(5) and 104.C, also naturally receive our approval, as does Mr Christodoulou's high quality report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I also note, with regard to the fight against excessive deficits, that the system proposed is meant essentially to be preventive and dissuasive.
It does not seem to be an approach which puts emphasis on sanctions.
Finally, today we wish to congratulate the Commission which has succeeded in making sure that budgetary surveillance is exercised in the future not only on a country-by-country basis but also in the European Union as a whole.
This is a major achievement if we are to have a budgetary overview of the European Union and will be particularly useful for us in the multilateral macro-economic dialogue to be conducted with the European Union's main partners.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of the Liberal Group on the Christodoulou reports.
In effect, I could give a very short speech because I agree entirely with what was said by Mr von Wogau.
On the question of cross-references between a Council political declaration and the regulations, the Liberal Group agrees that those references should be minimal.
On the question of the so-called golden rule on investment, we can support references to Article 104(c) in the relevant paragraphs within the multilateral surveillance proposition.
On the Stability Pact, the Liberal Group welcomes the emphasis placed by Parliament on the need for interest on deposits and on fines which arise under this pact to be, in principle, assigned to own resources.
Finally, I agree entirely with Mr von Wogau.
Under no circumstances, having secured additional commitments from the Council and recognizing the critical importance of the Stability and Growth Pact to EMU, will my group be prepared to postpone the vote tomorrow.
The debate is adjourned.
It will be resumed after the debate on the European Council meeting of 23 May 1997.
European Council of 23 May 1997
The next item is the Council report and Commission statement on the results of the European Council meeting of 23 May 1997.
Thank you very much, Mr Patijn.
You have the floor, Mr Oreja.
Thank you very much, Mr Oreja, for such an informative statement. I again thank Mr Patijn for his informative report.
I give the floor to Mrs Green.
Thank, Mr Brok.
I give the floor to Mr Azzolini.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we shall not conceal our doubts and concerns as regards the progress of the IGC's work, as revealed yet again at the recent Noordwijk summit.
Although we appreciate the tremendous efforts of the Dutch presidency and the cooperative spirit of many Member States, for which my group is sincerely grateful, it has to be said that at Noordwijk - where, just a few days prior to the Amsterdam European Council, agreement should have been reached on extending the application of the Maastricht Treaty - what prevailed once again was the nationalism of the past.
A good deal is at stake, of course: an increase in the European Union's powers implies a gradual abandonment of national sovereignty.
So it hardly comes as a surprise that ideals give way to partisan interests whenever national prerogatives are called into question.
We cannot believe that, as the eminent Spanish professor, Rafael Gómez Pérez, put it, the European ideal is now a spent force.
Once, the idea of Europe conveyed the notion - in a cultural sense - of a common home; yet that natural feeling of 'being European' has faded with time, because Europeans have lost their sense of togetherness, and have stopped thinking about and striving for true European unity.
But we believe that Europe has much to offer to itself, its own citizens, and the whole world.
To do this, however, it also needs, above all, to add a political dimension to its presence on the international stage by strengthening its policies and institutions, first and foremost the European Parliament, and by fully involving its citizens.
Such is the spirit with which, in our opinion, the IGC should be imbued, in order to rewrite a treaty which is no longer equal to the major challenges of the coming decades.
As everyone knows, the European Community has certainly taken huge strides forward since its inception, but that is not enough.
We want a Europe which does not betray the spirit of its founding fathers, who saw the political dimension as its true strength; we want a strong, free, democratic Europe, serving our citizens' needs and offering them prosperity.
As the European Union's powers increase, however, a solution must be found to the serious problem of its democratic deficit: powers - and, consequently, democratic control - cannot be removed from the national parliaments merely to increase the powers of unelected decision-making bodies.
These powers must be finely balanced.
An expanding Europe, which is seeking a high-profile political presence on the world stage and aiming to become dependable and strong, must enter into a clear pact with its citizens: either their full sovereignty is recognized, through democratically elected institutions with full powers, as in any democracy, or they will feel that they inhabit not a common home, but a mere geographical entity with centrally controlled and remote supranational institutions.
Mr President, the citizens of Europe must not be forgotten when we reform the European Union!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the issues at stake in this debate is the role that we, as the European Parliament, ascribe to ourselves. Are we to adopt an amicable stance towards the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam - a quiet and unassuming attitude?
Are we to play the part of supplicants, imploring the Council to grant us more rights?
Are we prepared to go to any lengths - short of rebellion - in order to win a little more or lose a little less as a reward for good behaviour? Are we an extension of the national governments, hastening to show obedience by refraining from making essential demands of the Intergovernmental Conference?
No indeed - that is certainly not our role!
I am convinced that the very specific task of the European Parliament, here and now, is to do some straight talking, because what is at stake is nothing less than the ability of the European Union to face the future.
What is at stake is the establishment of a real European democracy, a balance between political and economic integration in Europe, and the development of a common, non-military foreign policy.
What is at stake is a total European perspective that will enable the Union to be enlarged.
However, when I turn to consider the proposals which have been tabled so far, I really have to conclude - and I do so with a good deal of dismay and concern - that the governments of the Member States are in the process of reforming the European Union in a way that will further erode democracy, transparency and openness, replacing them with technocratic, intergovernmental procedures - supposedly in the interests of greater efficiency - and by doing so will jeopardize the original concept of developing European democracy.
The draft treaty that has been submitted is not an adequate response to the social, environmental and democratic crisis in which the Union finds itself; not only is it inadequate in terms of reform, but it is also steering us in the wrong direction.
Statements on human rights and non-discrimination are not worth the paper they are written on unless there are legally enforceable guarantees.
Freedom of movement of persons - one of the greatest benefits that the European Community has to offer - is to be postponed indefinitely.
The so-called communitization of elements of the third pillar is a pig in a poke, because the introduction of the qualified majority principle is not coupled with codecision powers for the European Parliament and competence for the European Court of Justice.
If you look at Chapter H, you will see that the opposite is true: the remit of the Court of Justice is being reduced.
It is planned to expand Europol and give it operational responsibilities without extending the mechanisms for democratic supervision.
This is an erosion of the principles of government by the rule of law!
A common foreign policy must be a policy for peace and security, with the aim of setting up a Europe-wide security system; integration into the WEU is exactly what we do not need, and would in fact represent a step towards the militarization of the European Union, which used to be a community dedicated to promoting peace.
Another revealing feature is the obvious purpose of the objective of full employment: the promised chapter on employment has become a piece of high-sounding political verbiage without any binding force - the height of irresponsibility, given the mass unemployment that we face.
So it will scarcely come as a surprise that the European Parliament may not get the additional rights that were spoken of by the third great European of the week, Elmar Brok, but may in fact end up with fewer rights, for example in the budget.
Instead of rejoicing, we ought to be on red alert, because this Maastricht Treaty Mark II will make the future of Europe less secure.
(Applause from the Green Group)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council - as well as the chairman of the representatives negotiating the new draft treaty - whether he has noticed the rare degree of unanimity which has so far echoed around this House in our comments on what is taking place, and on the draft text which he himself has referred to in optimistic terms, unless I am mistaken.
The reaction in the House seems to me to indicate the level of concern felt in Parliament, concern expressed likewise by the Commission, moreover.
I know that the work is to be completed this weekend; let us hope that the draft treaty will be available in time for us to respond in detail on the individual points at our earliest opportunity, in June, prior to the Amsterdam summit.
But let me issue a word of warning in a political vein, as other colleagues have done, Mr President-in-Office.
Please remember: 16 and 17 June represent an important stage, of course, the stage at which you had hoped to conclude these negotiations.
It seems to me, however, that you have reached it in the worst possible way, through a series of set-pieces, with only minimum agreement on the minimum content of a revised Maastricht Treaty.
Without going into detail, I would merely ask you whether you think that 16 and 17 June are the sole opportunity to finalize this text, as if agreement among 15 Heads of State and Government were in itself sufficient and there were no need - as we saw with Maastricht - for as much public endorsement as possible in our Member States. What, I wonder, will the people stand to gain, if the treaty reform is to take the shape that is now emerging in a piecemeal way?
Never before has European foreign and cooperation policy been as negative as in recent years, since the CFSP was codified, and never before has it led to such political inertia.
Your response to this situation is to strengthen intergovernmental mechanisms wherever possible, and even to propose that the whole affair should be managed by a middle-ranking official.
On all the other issues, your response is not a political one: it is a technical response, a weak one which we fear will not be supported by our citizens.
Please think this through and bear in mind that, if there is not yet sufficient substance, 17 June might perhaps not be the last opportunity to finalize the new draft treaty.
I hope that the President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner Oreja will forgive me for highlighting the discrepancy between the broad optimism of the former and the deep concerns - the realism, perhaps - of the latter.
Of the two positions, one is obviously forced, to put it mildly.
What kind of European Union is emerging, Mr Oreja? Certainly not a political union which faithfully reflects European ideals, and certainly not a social Europe which is more than a mere talking-shop, given that certain nations are still putting obstacles in the way of innovative solutions to the tragedy of growing unemployment.
The social clause alone is not enough, and nor is the social protocol; there is little cause to be optimistic concerning the outcome of the Amsterdam European Council next month.
There is a risk that the IGC, which it appears has to end by a certain date, come what may, might achieve very little and could fall flat after all; but why not postpone it, given the likelihood of a minimal outcome?
Reading between the lines of the Noordwijk summit, one realizes that the European Union might turn out to be nothing but a 'ministocracy' .
How else is one to interpret the fact that the people negotiating the institutional reforms - and not only those - are government representatives, unelected by the people and responsible for rampant bureaucracy? And how much attention is being paid to the fears and anxieties of the 370 million EU citizens in this process?
Fifteen Heads of Government, plus 15 Foreign Affairs Ministers, met for five hours without clearly tackling and resolving even one of the difficulties which have been holding up treaty reform for a year. What kind of Europe are we building?
Certainly not one which interests our citizens, whose concerns lie elsewhere: the unemployment, poverty, social exclusion and violence which are afflicting all the EU countries. So is it really necessary to enlarge the Union before deepening it?
Or rather, is there not a need to make it function better and equip it to meet the challenges, both internal and external, that are now confronting it? No new accession can be properly dealt with until the institutions have been thoroughly overhauled to allow for greater political integration.
The Union must be deepened economically and politically on the basis of a strong political blueprint, otherwise that much-vaunted economic and social cohesion will become nothing but a sad, pathetic mirage and Europe, perhaps, a dream to be postponed yet again.
Mr President, I am pleased that good progress appears to be being made.
That is no doubt down to the skill of the Dutch presidency but I would also suggest that it has something to do with fact that in the United Kingdom there is a new government.
This government is practising what it preached in opposition and has determinedly opened a new chapter in its relationship with the rest of the European Union.
To date, and particularly in the so-called non-paper, there is a clear evidence of progress being made: the incorporation of a social protocol into the Treaty proper, the creation of the employment chapter, sensible extension of qualified majority voting, tougher provisions against fraud, the commitment to extend co-decision powers with Parliament, more practical arrangements for CFSP and recognition of the anti-discrimination issue as the hallmark of a democratic, free society.
All these are positive measures and we should not underestimate their significance.
As has been said, there are still difficult issues which need to be resolved: free movement, the future of the WEU, the number of Commissioners and the vexed issue of flexibility.
But what is singularly impressive at this point is the genuine desire among all the Member State governments for a real agreement to be reached.
We should celebrate that fact.
If agreement can be reached at Amsterdam, it will give us a base to go forward and to tackle so many of the issues which the people of Europe are concerned about.
It will give us a base to reform the common agricultural policy, a base to complete the single market and generate jobs and growth.
It will give us a base to create a citizen's Europe and it will give a base to prepare for the process of enlargement which is the next big issue on Europe's agenda.
However, I have to say that is not enough.
I sincerely hope that careful note is taken of the comments from Members of this House today.
It is not simply enough to have a Treaty on which there can be a minimalist agreement.
We need a Treaty which inspires people, which pulls people behind it, a Treaty which can point us to a much better future and inspire hope and confidence.
A minimalist agreement will not achieve that.
That is why it is so very important that note is taken of the comments here.
Let us hope that this agreement will not only be one which this Parliament can meekly accept but one for which we can be positively enthusiastic.
Mr President, after the informal European Council meeting in Noordwijk, the Dutch presidency said that the discussions had been constructive, and that the Heads of Government were determined that there should be an Amsterdam Treaty.
The Dutch Prime Minister subsequently announced that a decision had already been taken to strengthen the position of the President of the European Commission.
This sounds all well and good, but there is one point I would make here, in line with the criticism voiced by Mr Brok.
To decide that the President of the Commission should be proposed by the Council, subject to the approval of the European Parliament, and to give him the possibility of recruiting his own Commissioners is certainly putting him in a much stronger position.
But to then immediately decide to appoint a secretary-general for foreign policy at the Council means that while the Commission President's position has been strengthened, the position of the Commission itself has been weakened.
The Commission President has been given proper attire, while the four Commissioners responsible for foreign policy have been stripped of their clothes.
I would remind you that Parliament has rejected the idea of having such a secretary-general at the Council on many occasions.
It is a bureaucratic and technocratic solution to a political problem.
We also wonder whether future Commission Presidents will be able to dismiss individual Commissioners?
Parliament has always proposed that it should have the right to dismiss Commissioners who fail in their duties - what is the position on this?
My second point concerns another subject of great interest to the House: making the Union more transparent and democratic.
Parliament currently has the final say on around two thirds of the legislation and two thirds of the budget.
I understand that a certain amount of progress is to be made in the area of democratic controls on legislation, but I have also heard that at least 35 to 40 subjects are to continue to require unanimity.
This appears far too great a number to me to be talking about a breakthrough, and the situation seems even worse when I hear that although some of the police and justice policy is to be communitized, Parliament's role is not to be strengthened accordingly.
I find this totally unacceptable, and I think we must warn the Dutch presidency that we will not tolerate another hole in the fabric of European democracy.
The reports about Parliament's budgetary powers are even worse, indicating that there is no chance that the House will be given the final say on the compulsory section of the budget.
This involves the agriculture budget and the EDF, a total of ECU 50 billion.
It is quite ridiculous that such a huge amount of money should remain outside Parliament's democratic control.
What is even more serious is the fact that the Dutch presidency also opposes the idea of Parliament having such powers, and made its views so plain that a motion was adopted in the Netherlands parliament calling the Dutch presidency to order on this point.
Moving on to the subject of vote weighting, the current arrangements are generally regarded as satisfactory, so any reasons for changing them need to be good ones.
We feel it would be best if we could maintain a fair balance between the large and small Member States after enlargement.
What we do not want is for the large states to shout down the small, as happened 40 years ago.
As the largest of the small countries, the Netherlands must stand up for them and for itself, otherwise there will be a domino effect.
One final comment about the lack of transparency.
I understand that documents on legislation are to be made available sooner for the general public, the national parliaments and the European Parliament.
We welcome this as an urgently needed measure.
However, there does not seem to be any similar good news about the openness of the Council's decision-making process.
Is it to carry on taking decisions on legislation behind closed doors, like some sort of Politburo? How can we ask the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to democratize if we do not do this ourselves?
To sum up, Parliament will be happy to support the Council on any progress it makes in the Amsterdam Treaty, but we can never accept its failure to reduce the democratic deficit in Europe, which is even being increased in certain areas.
I wish the Dutch presidency every success, but the question is not whether we will have an Amsterdam Treaty, but whether we will have a fair and acceptable treaty in which everyone is respected, not least by our own citizens.
Mr President, if we are realistic, we cannot have any particularly high expectations of this review of the Maastricht Treaty.
The Dutch presidency has never given the impression of wanting to make any over-ambitious changes, but instead seems happy to make more modest collective progress.
It has been hampered in this by the elections in the United Kingdom and France, and the only question now is whether even modest progress is still possible.
In my opinion, this review of the Maastricht Treaty has come too early, and has now been completely overshadowed by the significance of yesterday's NATO meeting in Paris.
Let there be no mistake about it, this was our guarantee of stability in Europe.
Nevertheless, we still have to ask ourselves what else the Union can do to make itself a fit place to live in for its new inhabitants, and the answer, I think, is to provide greater security.
Countries should be more prepared to cooperate, but the question is how.
Why are we always given technical answers to our requests, as Mr Dell'Alba said, rather than political, practical ones?
Why does no one ever say that we are going to clamp down on hashish coming from Morocco via Spain and France, heroine from Turkey via Germany, and cocaine from Surinam via the Netherlands?
The Dutch presidency recently received questions on this from Mr Donnay and Mr Pasty, but it has not responded.
Are you not brave enough to answer, or is the Dutch presidency hiding something?
The Council is largely to blame for the deepening democratic deficit, and I have unfortunately not detected any signs of improvement.
I also think, and here I totally agree with Mrs Maij-Weggen, that it is not a good sign that the Commission is to be made more efficient by giving its President greater powers.
This is approaching it from the wrong direction.
We are starting from the top, whereas in fact we should be cutting down on the number of Commissioners.
Parliament sees it as a bad omen that it is not to have wider powers when it comes to legislation and the budget.
However, I am at least confident that this presidency has firm plans to make the Union more governable in order to restore public confidence as we go into the 21st century.
And we should not be too pessimistic: there are still three weeks to go before the Amsterdam summit, and as Commissioner Oreja said, there is still everything to play for.
Keep up the spirit of Noordwijk, and try to ensure that the changes made are those we need for enlargement and a stronger role for Parliament.
I wish you courage.
Mr President, there has been quite a lot of talk about the citizens of Europe, but what we know already and what has been confirmed to us today about the evolution of the IGC negotiations leads to an inevitable conclusion: that the reservations, doubts and criticisms raised by the previous revision of the Treaties have not been taken into account.
Worse still, it seems that we are still heading in the same direction!
Above all, that is clear from the refusal, as we know, to reconsider seriously the most relevant and consequential problem which, as everyone knows, is EMU itself.
Again we hear of the possibility of including a social protocol in the Treaty and a chapter on 'employment' in the same text.
This is something that we have asked for consistently but I should like to stress the fact that we should harbour no illusions about the effective scope of that decision, if ever it does come about.
That is because solving social problems, especially the enormous problem of unemployment, calls, above all, for new macro-economic policies and fundamentally the abandonment of the current monetarist fixation which we are all aware of.
And that is not being done!
There are reasons for apprehension in other areas, too.
There are no prospects, for example, for filling in the democratic deficits that we are all aware of.
Once again national parliaments are being forgotten and they will have, as we know, to ratify the revision of the Treaty.
There are proposals on the negotiating table at other levels which also lead to serious objections.
For example, concerning the weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers, and concerning proposals as to the future membership of the Commission, that would, in the long run, lose its universal character, despite being and continuing to be the only institution with the ability to initiate legislation.
Another concerns strengthened cooperation through the definite type of exclusion which underlies it and which would reveal a trend towards setting up 'directoires' , plus the problem of integrating Schengen into the Treaty.
Of course, we shall wait for the outcome but, at this moment in time, we cannot hide our considerable nervousness about what is likely to emerge.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Dutch presidency is reluctant to appear before the House.
There have been numerous delays - and the situation has attracted comment again this afternoon.
Many Members of the House entirely fail to understand and are highly critical of the presidency.
But I understand very well - I too would be afraid to appear before the elected representatives of the people of Europe and present them with the likely results of the current Intergovernmental Conference.
I too would fear that Parliament might recall the promises which were made after Maastricht: promises of creating a political union, of overcoming the democratic deficit in Europe, of establishing a common foreign policy, of finding a balance between economic and political integration and creating the conditions for enlargement.
But I wonder whether the President of the Council might not be more afraid of Parliament than he needs to be.
Looking at the motions which have been tabled, it would seem that the majority in the House is afraid that Parliament might end up cast in the role of Don Quixote in a battle of the giants between Member States, Council and Commission.
In my opinion, there is a much greater danger of the House ending up like Sancho Panza - who was content simply to complain, to hang back eating his lunch, and to stretch himself out under the trees. And in the face of mass unemployment and the tremendous crisis of democracy and credibility in which the Union finds itself, the citizens of Europe would censure Parliament far more heavily for doing that than for taking sides in this historic argument and fighting to ensure that a historic opportunity is not gambled away - which is precisely what is happening now in the Intergovernmental Conference.
This House is not as powerless as it makes itself out to be.
Should the Commission fail to support us - and for eighteen months it has failed to support us on these issues - then we can send it packing if we summon up the will and the resources to do so.
We can boycott budgets, we can delay our consent for the negotiations on accession, and we can call on the national parliaments and, of course, the public to form an alliance with the European Parliament.
But we have to begin by summoning up the necessary courage and strength.
Whether we are prepared to do so will be the decisive question in the weeks ahead.
Mr President, I welcome the manner in which the representatives of the newly-elected UK Government have been received by the European Council.
It is surely clear as we enter a new millennium that Europe is not and cannot be a rigid unification but rather a rich diversification.
For millenniums bloody wars have been fought to make it a unification.
They have failed and are bound to fail.
Surely the way forward is the closest possible cooperation between the European nations, not the incorporation of those nations in a European superstate.
Europe is not a country, it is a continent and therefore no structures of any known country in the world can be imposed upon it.
The question of safeguarding external frontiers must be a matter for sovereign states and must be diverse as suits those states in their present circumstances and challenges.
The fact is that uniformity is not necessarily unification.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, this non-paper contains a chapter which claims to deal with an effective and coherent foreign policy.
It is quite obvious to everyone, I would think, that we are in no position to talk about coherent and effective foreign policy at the present time.
Whether we look at Albania or at the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, we see Europe - where it actually manages to do anything at all - trailing permanently behind.
The very mention of the Democratic Republic of Congo points up one aspect in particular: at a time when Europe was still in many respects allied with the former regime, a regime which people associated with corruption and personal gain, America was already negotiating with the incoming regime for mining rights and other economic advantages.
It is clear, therefore, just how important a common and coherent foreign policy is, and - unlike some other people - I believe that the activities of the Dutch presidency have been instrumental in achieving progress on a number of fronts.
However, various critical observations are in order here.
In the chapter which sets out to define foreign policy, I am sorry that not enough attention has been given to the question of prevention - how to avert crises, and the need to take appropriate measures - and that the focus is exclusively on the EU and WEU.
It must also be clear that unity in its broadest, long-term sense cannot be allowed to mean giving the armed forces a greater say within the EU; on the contrary, I believe that civilian elements which are geared to the tasks of peace must be given appropriate weight, in relation to the EU as elsewhere.
As for the proposals from the troika, in my view it is right to set out what are in some respects transitional measures here, and I do not think that the powers of the Commission are being reduced; on the contrary, I believe that it is also very important for the Commission to be in a position of strength.
What has been said about the decision-making process is important too.
However, I do have one criticism here, and I wonder how the presidency sees this point: on the one hand we have unanimity, with constructive abstention, and that is as it should be.
Then, when we come to implementation, we have decisions by qualified majority, and here there is another opportunity for countries to block the procedure temporarily at least - for national reasons, of course.
While I appreciate that this is a controversial area, I do not quite see how on the one hand we can have a common foreign policy, while on the other hand this same policy can be obstructed by national interest.
It is my firm belief that, once decision-making procedures exist, it should not then be possible for individual Member States to block those procedures on grounds of national interest.
The same is true in relation to the chapter on foreign and security policy, and in other areas too: Parliament's role is grossly undervalued.
This House has demonstrated - not least through some very recent decisions - that it is prepared to cooperate constructively on foreign policy.
I would therefore call on the Council to give Parliament a voice - in other words, to give the democratically elected representatives of the people a voice - on foreign policy, as on other issues.
Mr President, the proceedings of the Intergovernmental Conference are coming to an end. For the last two years, the negotiators have been looking at the revision of the Treaty on European Union.
From our point of view, that revision is not going to achieve the aims recommended by the Treaty itself.
This is a minimalist revision.
We very much regret this.
It already seems impossible to reconvert some of the institutions provided for in the Treaty, apart from the fact that no progress has been made on any of the others.
We must now confer democratic legitimacy on certain bodies with decisive powers and competencies within European Union - which do not have them now - making them more politically responsible vis-à-vis the different Member States.
In this case, the expectations and ambitions announced in the end will be frustrated.
The main question that we want to know is whether, since the Maastricht Treaty is complex, and has only been in existence for four years, for the most part against the voiced opinion of many citizens of the European Union's Member States, it will be reasonable to expect more of the IGC.
Probably not!
But all of the consequences of that fact must be borne.
The process of European construction, as I see it, must be coherent and consistent, in particular because it is aimed primarily at people.
Like the constitutions of each Member State, European constitutive acts must be realistic and balanced.
In a nutshell, they must enshrine all the values and principles which unite all European citizens.
In no circumstances must they be the reflection or desire of a few who, while opposing the others, show that they are unable to carry out that action in practice.
European construction must be built on the will of the peoples composing it and that same will must never be alienated.
I should like to conclude expressing the hope that, nevertheless, we will stop speaking about Maastricht in June and that a new era in European construction will begin.
Mr President, time is short and already a lot has been said about these matters.
The Intergovernmental Conference raises particular questions, in general.
Will Europe manage not to turn the allfamous convergence into a linchpin of diluting European unity and a foundation of Euroscepticism? Will it manage not to make millions of jobless the victims of the logic of numbers and international competition?
Will it manage to maintain its social face?
That is the first requisite. But many other challenges for the future are no less serious.
The European Union seems to have forgotten the dreams of its founding fathers.
On the pretext of the imminent enlargement, an enlargement which is morally and practically necessary, planning some institutional changes which substantially undermine the European foundation and increase our democratic deficit.
The lack of a common foreign policy and security policy will only accentuate domestic problems of insecurity and lead to questions about the famous Community solidarity, while in the international arena the European Union is often left weak and undependable.
The united Europe of citizens and social justice, the Europe which offers equal opportunities and possibilities to women and men, the one which makes the most of its multicultural and multilingual character, with its dedication to peace and democratic values, that was the original dream.
If all of these reforms really come about we have no right to sacrifice that Europe on the altar of a technocratic operation of doubtful effectiveness.
I have received eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2).
Mr President, while we are still in the final phase of the negotiations, I find it rather difficult to start discussing whether expectations are too high or too low. What will the results be?
Will they turn out well or badly? This is no good.
That is no good. That could be better.
I would actually prefer to put the whole issue of the results to one side and make one or two political comments instead.
First of all, Mrs Green compared me with Commissioner Oreja, and said that while I had given an optimistic version of events, Commissioner Oreja was more realistic.
I would point out that I was giving a report on the informal Council meeting in Noordwijk, and if I was optimistic I was simply reflecting the mood of the Heads of Government at the meeting.
If they make optimistic noises, then it is my duty as their humble servant to pass these on faithfully to the European Parliament.
Mrs Green also said that our agreements cannot be worth much because they have been reached too quickly.
I think it is a pity that Mrs Green should talk like this, because the fact is that one of the reasons we have been able to reach agreement is because of the new government which the United Kingdom has had since 1 May, and a number of issues that were matters of dispute for the previous government are now no longer so.
Let me just run through a few of these.
There is the agreement that human rights principles should be clearly taken into consideration in the Council's political actions and in the Court of Justice's judicial practice, and the acceptance of the anti-discrimination clause.
The employment chapter is no longer really in dispute.
Of course, one can always argue about the finer details, but it is mainly thanks to the agreement of the new British Government that it is no longer a controversial issue.
The incorporation of the social protocol in the Treaty and even the upgrading of its terms and scope are also no longer controversial, again partly thanks to the British Government.
It is also now cooperating on the inclusion of the principle of openness and transparency in the Treaty, consolidating the legislative role of the European Parliament by extending codecision, a successful agreement on the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice under the third pillar, and a successful agreement on stronger anti-fraud legislation, which may even be improved further still once we have discussed certain amendments from the British Government.
So when Mrs Green says that this does not amount to much and that it is all uncontroversial stuff, I have to tell her that it is thanks to her party and her Head of Government in London that so many of these issues are no longer in dispute.
Let me be quite frank about this.
In my opinion, there are really not many issues left on which the Amsterdam Treaty could come unstuck.
But the one subject that is likely to cause real problems is the free movement of persons, the communitization of asylum, visa and immigration policy and the application of Community rules and procedures in this context, including the role of the European Parliament, codecision and the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice.
If there is no agreement on this, it is because the British Government, whose cooperation we have welcomed on all the issues I just mentioned, simply cannot throw off the shadow of Mrs Thatcher and agree to regulate these matters in the treaty.
It has not given any indication that it finds the presidency's approach acceptable in principle, or that it would consider amendments to take account of the special circumstances of island states or even to recognize the fact that the United Kingdom has a different tradition from the continental states when it comes to identity checks in its own country and at its borders.
Yet we need the British Government's cooperation on the free movement of persons if a treaty is to be agreed at Amsterdam.
Without it, I fear the worst.
Next, job creation.
For the presidency and the IGC, this is not just a question of having an employment chapter.
Job creation requires 100 % joint effort from all the organs of the European Union in every area: the operation of the internal market, a liberal trade policy, effective flanking measures in the social field and on cohesion and the Structural Funds, an effective transport policy, and help in establishing trans-European infrastructure.
These are all elements that have a role to play.
If we wish to create the right conditions in Europe for the market and the private sector to act as the driving force in generating employment, it is absolutely vital that the impetus and drive should come from every single policy sector, and this is actually what the aim of the employment chapter is.
It is not simply a vertical process of creating jobs, it is all about creating a horizontal approach to the whole question of our competitive position, competitiveness, economic renewal, broader economic cooperation between Member States and creating the conditions for business to achieve its aims of economic growth and job creation.
If there is a second issue which concerns me at the IGC, and here I will take up what Mr Brok said, it is whether the Conference will be able to prepare the European Union for the 21st century, and in particular enlargement.
As an inside observer, I have to say that I am somewhat concerned about this point.
Institutional reform - in the Commission, in majority decision-making and in the simplification of procedures - will require greater efforts from the Conference.
We shall have to go the extra mile for it.
This means that the representatives at the negotiating table will always have to bear in mind, as Mr Brok said, that they are preparing for the 21st century and enlargement.
We could quite easily carry on discussing until well into the 21st century whether each Member State should have its own Commissioner, but at a certain point, the talking has to stop and the institutions and procedures involved will have to be changed, and we need some indication of how this is to happen at Amsterdam, or even earlier.
My third point is the issue that was raised by Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Wiebenga, fellow countrymen and soulmates.
They are concerned about the quality of the constitutional state, as indeed we are, and this is why the Member States and the presidency in particular have insisted that the Treaty should say that the Union is a Union of democratic states determined to maintain the rule of law at a high qualitative level.
This means that we will do our best to provide stronger legal protection for the weak, for people who suffer wrong, for people who are discriminated against on grounds of nationality, and so on.
But we must be sure we are not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
Mr Brinkhorst mentioned Article H, which is indeed something of a mess. It is a question of how many of the 200 000 asylum cases handled by the courts in Europe are likely to be referred to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, which currently handles 200 cases a year, each taking on average two years.
If we assume that a certain percentage of those 200 000 cases will come to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling, what this means is that the judicial process will be totally disrupted, because the cases will take far too long and the national asylum authorities will have to wait perhaps two, three or four years before they know the correct legal position for handing down their own judgments, which in turn will mean that asylum cases in the Member States will also grind to a halt.
We have to take account of what can realistically be achieved, and this is why I do not feel directly concerned by the criticism which has been voiced about these kinds of issues.
When it comes to the quality of the constitutional state and legal protection, I am convinced that the presidency and the IGC will make significant progress as regards the position of the Court of Justice on matters currently under the third pillar.
I would also point out that there is almost complete agreement in the IGC that the European Parliament should have full rights of consultation on intergovernmental matters under the third pillar, whereas at present it has none.
I occasionally had the impression during the debate that we were not talking about the same treaty, but I suppose this is understandable, since we are of course looking at things from different political perspectives.
I would assure the House that when the treaty is ready for signature by the Heads of Government, its substance, details and coherence will have been subject to the most rigorous scrutiny.
The presidency continues to support the proposals it has put forward, and we are delighted that most of them - and I have told you about one exception to this - have met with approval.
The presidency will be doing everything it can, with the support of the European Parliament and the cooperation of President Santer and Commissioner Oreja, to try to prevent the outcome from being adversely affected in the final weeks of negotiation.
Mr President, I shall stop there. I should like to thank you most sincerely for the time I have been able to spend with you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the speeches we have heard this afternoon, including the one we have just heard from the President-in-Office of the Council, I should like to tell you first of all that this debate has come at a very good moment.
We are now in the run-up to the final negotiations and the final ministerial meetings were held on 20 May, and the European Council on 23 May, and at this moment in time we are constantly in negotiations.
Consequently, this debate has been extremely enriching for me.
I have heard from the different political groups what their concerns are.
Resolutions have been presented and tomorrow will be put to the vote, and for us they will be a very important reference.
You can rest assured that the Commission is going to examine the resolutions approved by the European Parliament with all due care.
I should also like to say that, when I spoke, I did not intend to be either optimistic or pessimistic.
I just told you how I see the situation at the moment but, above all, I wanted to draw your attention towards the risks that also exist.
I think that the Presidency has played an important role throughout the recent months, but I should like to point out that, right now, we are on one of those levels from which it would be extremely dangerous to come down.
That is what I wanted to draw your attention to.
Not because the Presidency's document concerns me.
What would concern me is if the level of the document presented by the Presidency were to be lowered.
As for the speeches we have heard, I would like to begin with Mrs Green's, in which she referred to the Presidency of the Council and I would like to point out the importance of some of the chapters which Mrs Green mentioned, in particular the fight against discrimination.
It is one of those subjects which has been dealt with in depth in recent weeks and I think that it is one of those subjects on which a satisfactory solution could be reached.
Mr Brok referred to the fact that Europe must serve its citizens and he referred to an article which seems to me to be extremely important, namely Article 113.
I also refer to it and there is an intention to submit it to qualified majority, as well as services and intellectual property.
This question was not provided for in the Treaty because no problem of this type faced Europe in 1957.
In 1957, problems affected goods not services.
But today what is the main aim of trade? Mainly services and intellectual property.
As a consequence, it would make no sense to distinguish between goods and services and intellectual property.
Therefore, we must unite to improve the defence of the interests of companies, citizens, Europeans, and therefore I think that it is essential - yet we have not done this so far.
Mr Brok said that, perhaps, we should think about a protocol with exceptions and that is undoubtedly a very good approach: there should be a general rule with some exceptions, included in a protocol appended to the Treaty.
Mr Azzolini mentioned that Europe needs a political dimension, and that is a dimension which we really must find.
Mr Brinkhorst referred in particular to the subject of codecision and referred to one article, which shows that he is very knowledgeable about the subject which we are dealing with at the moment, namely Article H. It is precisely that which, in its current version, would prevent any presentation by the Court of Justice of appeals which would prejudice matters affecting the third pillar.
That really would be very dangerous, because it would mean cutting off a possibility which those courts have and, if at least that possibility were left to the Supreme Court, that would be a guarantee for citizens and would give the Court of Justice a more important function.
Mr Puerta referred to a code of confidence which is a central matter.
What we really need to do is gain confidence.
Someone else referred to the idea of a pact with the citizens, and that is a phrase that I like and I am particularly sensitive to it.
I think that is something we have to aim for and I think that that will also be the result of Amsterdam, in other words that we will achieve a pact with the citizens because it is the citizens who must be at the centre of the Treaty.
I would also like to tell Mrs Roth - who referred to the role of the European Parliament - that the Conference is aware of that and I hope that the number of decisions will be reduced and I also think that we will make progress towards codecision.
As a consequence, I understand very well - as Mrs Roth said - that you will obviously have to put forward your requirements and insist on them and I hope that they will be accepted in the resolutions and I think that they will be on the negotiating table of the Conference.
As Mr dell'Alba said, there has been a unanimous decision in this forum, and that is a very important fact.
This is a fact which the Conference cannot ignore, which the States cannot ignore.
There is unanimity and a very solid position in many areas and I think that this is something that we will take into account, in particular.
Other speakers insisted on strengthening the European Parliament's powers and also referred to the fight against crime, the rejection of its 'communitarization' - it is not being 'communitarized' but greater powers are being given - and Mr Miranda spoke of the role of national parliaments.
I should like to tell him that there is a formula, which is being accepted now, for the role to be played in the future by national parliaments.
I think it is very important - and this is something mentioned by another speaker - that the European Parliament should give an opinion on modifications to the Treaty.
This is a claim which the European Parliament has always made and which is now present before us and which I think is extremely important.
It is very difficult to explain to the public, to the ordinary people, that the European Parliament could not give an opinion on modifications to be introduced into the European Constitutional Charter.
You know that this is a claim which has the full support of the Commission.
I did detect a rather excessively pessimistic tone in some of the speeches.
I should like to say that we still have a lot of room for manoeuvre and the European Parliament must play an extremely important role as it represents national sovereignties and European sovereignty.
It is extremely important to know what its desires and aspirations are, and that will be recognised in the resolutions as I said, and your opinions will be taken into account at the negotiating table, both by the Commission and the Intergovernmental Conference.
I hope, finally, that these uncertainties mean that we really are bent on creating a fairer, freer and more supportive Europe.
Thank you very much, Mr Oreja.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow, Thursday, at 11 a.m.
Excessive deficits and economic policies (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the report (A4-0181/97) by Mr Christodoulou, on the recommendation for second reading (A4-0172/97 by Mr Christodoulou, and on the report (A4-0184/97) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Monetary and Economic Affairs and Industrial policy, on excessive deficits and economic policies.
Mr President, I only have one minute to speak but I should like to thank Mr Christodoulou and Mrs Randzio-Plath for their proposals concerning upgrading the role of public investment in a period in which untrammelled profit-making and obsession with the market characterise the European Union's economic and social policies.
Mr Christodoulou's amendments go in a positive direction compared with the Council's position and that is why we are supporting them.
The same can be said for some of the ideas outlined by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
However, the attempts by the rapporteurs to make the notorious Stability Pact acceptable are not enough and the same is true of the general directions taken by the economic policy of the European Union.
The very serious problems of development, the drop in productive investment, rocketing unemployment, widespread poverty and the complete paralysis of Europe's social protection system will go on growing.
The marginalization of countries and economies and worse labour relations will be the immediate effect of the policy now being pursued by the European Union.
It is clear, Mr President, that this social and economic model is completely contrary to workers' interests, and that is why we shall fight to overturn it.
We shall step up this fight however we can.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is right that we should deal jointly with the stability pact and the broad economic policy guidelines.
Already last year, the House was advocating a policy mix as a means of moving beyond the obsession with stability.
At this very moment, Lionel Jospin is in the process of winning an election in France on a platform which includes the demand that European stability policy should be integrated into an economic regime.
It is also high time, I believe, that the Commission abandoned its blind belief in neo-liberalism and, instead of accepting a downward spiral of competitive deflation and fiscal dumping, changed course to return to and build on the ideas of Brüning, to create a situation and a policy that would take us beyond Keynes.
Mr Christodoulou, with his banker's intuition, rightly saw the error of the view expressed by one Member who said - not today, but in relation to these decisions - that even symbolic texts merited recognition.
To recognize texts that were merely symbolic would be to destroy our credibility, and credibility cannot be earned through the kind of automatic, mechanistic approach that amounts to policy by numbers.
It cannot be earned by strangling investment in the name of saving.
I should also like to mention another aspect which is dear to Mr Christodoulou, and that is territorial integrity.
It should be dear to us too, in the light of the increasingly bitter social divisions in our countries.
Anyone attempting to build on a stability policy that is not rooted in consolidation of the economy, socioenvironmental development and genuine economic convergence, and which does not serve the ultimate goal of implementing Chapter 10 of the Delors White Paper, must be prepared to face opposition. They must be prepared to be sent packing: and, as we have heard today, there are people ready and willing to do just that.
Mr President, the stability pact needs to put the lid on any possibility of an over-flexible budgetary policy.
Why? Primarily because the no-bail-out clause in the Treaty is going to be a paper tiger in practice.
The European Union is clearly going to be taking a serious risk if it follows the timetable for EMU in the Treaty.
Various Member States are currently performing gymnastics with their accounts in order to meet the EMU criteria, but this has absolutely nothing to do with genuine convergence, as we shall see once EMU is a reality.
If there is an economic recession around 1999, many of the EMU states will go into the red, and they will do anything they can to avoid sanctions.
As it currently stands, the Council regulation allows for the possibility of manipulating reductions in gross domestic product, and Mrs Peijs and I have tabled two technical amendments on this point.
The Council must define in more detail the method to be used for calculating the reduction in GDP, so as to exclude deflationary creative accounting.
It is not a good sign that the Commission failed to do anything about this when it was pointed out by statisticians after Noordwijk.
Indeed, the way in which this regulation has been handled so far hardly inspires one with confidence.
Could I urge the Commissioner to pay more attention to building confidence in future?
Eurosceptics cannot be expected to believe sales patter for the euro and EMU, and I have yet to meet a Dutchman, German or Belgian who would be prepared to trade in his currency for a soft euro.
Mr President, the stability pact throws up a whole series of unresolved questions, ranging from the moral aspects of economic policy to institutional considerations.
Given the need for budgetary discipline, we should support the automatic and systematic imposition of penalties in the form of non-interest-bearing deposits, and their subsequent conversion into fines.
Too great a degree of flexibility here would open the way to all kinds of excuses, and that is not what we are seeking.
However, what we must reject entirely is the plan to distribute sums received from a Member State which is in breach of the budgetary rules amongst those which do not have excessive deficits and which participated in the decision to impose the fine.
Such a procedure would almost smack of sharing out the spoils.
Instead of aggravating a country's already difficult situation, we ought to seek ways of helping it to overcome its problems, and that should also be the thinking behind the imposition of a penalty deposit.
If monetary union is to become a reality, lasting stability is absolutely essential.
But sanctions imposed by the Council would have no bite without some means of enforcement - and that would mean at least the possibility of bringing an action before the Court of Justice.
On the other hand, if such measures were to go significantly beyond the coordination of economic policies which is provided for in Article 103, this would require an amendment to the Treaty, with all that such a step involves.
It is hard to envisage achieving a stable monetary union without, at the same time, institutionalizing cooperation and coordination.
Anyone who supports monetary union must also support the creation of the conditions for achieving and maintaining it.
But this will require a new, interventionist element in economic and budgetary policy, an element that will involve amending primary legislation and will therefore, under the terms of Article N, have to be dealt with by the national parliaments.
Mr President, as in the first round of discussions, I would criticize the calls from the Commission and now also the Council to promote regional differences in wages within the Union.
I have to say that I completely fail to understand why the Commission wants this, and what its purpose is in calling for it.
I can well imagine that Germany's problems after unification have left an impression, but I think it is going much too far to extrapolate these problems into a general European policy.
And I find it particularly unacceptable since there is no mention in the proposals of any framework for doing this.
Even in the discussion last time, the Commission failed to indicate which policy this was meant to be part of.
The matter is all the more serious given that we know that after EMU we can expect that competition between the Member States, which is often much greater than people realize, will be focused on social security and wages.
I can only assume that the Commission actually thinks that such competition should now also be encouraged between regions within Member States once EMU is in place.
I should be extremely grateful if the Commission could explain what the thinking is behind this, and what policy it is pursuing.
As you know, business relocations in the Union are becoming increasingly common, more so within the Union than to other countries, and many of these are associated with competition or dumping.
Hoover moved to England because that particular area had its back to the wall and accepted below-normal wages and much poorer social conditions than in the rest of the country.
It accepted this because it could see no other option, and it all formed part of the 'level playing field' policy.
Such a framework is completely absent from the Commission's present approach, and Parliament has no choice but to oppose it as it stands.
Mr President, our colleague Mr Christodoulou has drawn up a very interesting report on economic policy, most of which can readily be endorsed.
However, there is one detail which requires closer examination.
The report stresses strict adherence to the 3 % limit for budget deficits.
Firstly, the 3 % figure beyond which strict penalty interest becomes payable has been selected arbitrarily.
It could just as well be 4 %, 2 1/2 % or even zero.
A certain flexibility is therefore called for.
Secondly, after the third stage of EMU, national economic policy-makers will have their hands tied.
It will no longer be possible to use exchange rate adjustments between euro currencies.
The European Central Bank will dictate monetary policy.
The only remaining weapon will be budgetary policy, which it should be possible to use, especially in countries with low rates of public indebtedness, to fund investment which would generate employment.
For this reason I tabled an amendment in the Economic Affairs Committee, but it was rejected.
It read as follows: 'Urges the Council and Commission to monitor closely the development of the various Member States' budget deficits with the aim of making it possible, in order to tackle exceptional economic problems and serious mass unemployment, to waive the 3 % deficit limit provided that the deficit does not exceed this objective throughout an economic cycle.'
Since similar matters will be considered later in the Fourçans report, certain of my amendments to which have been adopted, I support Mr Christodoulou's ideas.
Although the unemployment rate is not among the convergence criteria, employment policy ought to be a central concern to us Members of Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our group agrees with the basic analysis presented by the Commission on the major thrust of the policies of the Member States and the Community as a whole, which is the subject to which I shall be referring implicitly.
We think that we have to deepen some aspects.
The completion of Economic and Monetary Union and the introduction of a single currency mean that we need an authentic European Union economic and monetary policy.
The Commission has shown itself to be over reluctant and in its next proposals it will have to offer us some guidelines for a genuine European economic and monetary policy to accompnay EMU and the single currency.
We also want to draw special attention to the need for creating favourable conditions for a more competitive productive system but we do not agree with the means proposed by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
We do not think that the right way to do this is stepping up public investment or intervention in the public sector - which would only lead to undesirably higher deficits which would make EMU impossible - or by discriminating in favour of public investment as if that would lead to an improved productive system that would be competitive internationally and create more jobs.
On the contrary, we believe that we should head for a more open and more competitive framework, with a system which promotes private initiative, private investment and entrepreneurial initiatives.
This is the way to create jobs and achieve greater economic progress.
Mr President, it is a shame that the general guidelines on the economy constitute a breach of duty.
It is the duty of the Council to admit the failure of a policy when that failure has occurred.
The European Union's employment policy, explained most extensively in the White Paper on competitiveness, productiveness and employment, has been an utter failure.
We were meant to have reduced unemployment to about half of the levels of 1995 by the year 2000.
The year 2000 is nearly upon us and unemployment has not come down nor is it likely to reduce.
The least we could have expected to be done as a result of the new guidelines would have been to sound an alarm signal and admit failure.
Instead of that, all that has happened is they have again trotted out an apology for an excessively restrictive policy, which this Stability Pact is most likely to perpetuate.
Obviously, we have reached a point when we have to get out of this dialogue of the deaf, Mr President.
But when officials lose their hearing, democracy loses its dignity.
Already one prime minister has fallen after losing his hearing and others will do so in turn, Commissioner, and then perhaps we shall reach understanding as simple citizens and not as officials.
Mr President, following what the Commissioner has said today, I really must make the point once again that we have more than 20 million people out of work in Europe, with one in five young people unemployed and unable to find work, and I have to say that the Commission's recommendation for the broad economic policy guidelines can only be described as toothless.
It offers no real prospects for working people in Europe.
It is for that reason, and in order to focus attention once again on the employment issue, that the trade unions in Europe have called today's day of action.
It is a protest and a warning which we, as parliamentarians, must take very seriously indeed if we wish to ensure social stability and social peace.
Not without reason, the trade unions are looking to Amsterdam to make good the shortcomings of Maastricht.
A virtually exclusive focus on monetary value, stability and consolidation is too narrow.
If we fail to persuade the Council to make an active employment policy part of the broad guidelines for economic policy, and if we fail to create a policy mix under Article 3 so that we achieve the type of growth that generates jobs, the consequences will be a setback for Europe and a risk of conflict.
I welcome the clear line taken by the rapporteur on this question and her call for the guidelines to be more binding - something that the Commission was obviously unable to insist upon.
Mr President, the Commissioner, Mr de Silguy ended his speech today saying that jobs would not be created by decree.
I should like to remind him, on the other hand, that unemployment can be created by decree and that is what we, in the Socialist Group, want to avoid.
The Stability Pact was not foreseen in the Maastricht Treaty nor was it necessary in our opinion.
What was written there already wisely decided how the economic situation of countries joining the single currency would have to evolve.
For this Pact, which has no legal base, to be politically more acceptable the Council has added to the title the word 'Growth' without actually changing the content of the document.
What we are now demanding is that the proposals put forward and which have been translated in the Christodoulou and Randzio-Plath reports, as well as greater emphasis on employment, should be accepted.
The Stability Pact proposes sanctions and automatic fines which we regard as unacceptable.
The institutionalization of a process of inter-institutional decision making, as proposed by Mrs Randzio-Plath, and integrating the Council, Commission and the European Parliament, will give the citizens of Europe the guarantee that rigour will be allied with growth and job-creation.
Mr President, I shall try to answer all of the questions put to me during this debate, in two parts.
I shall take the questions in order and I would ask members of the European Parliament to excuse me if, in the time allotted to me, I do not manage to answer with precision all of the questions put to me.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, - and here I am also answering Mr Ettl - the Commission has already taken up, in its proposal on the guidelines, much of your resolution on the annual economic report.
I remind you that we have, at your request, proceeded to informal consultations before even presenting our proposal.
Now the main guidelines have been defined and the recommendation is there on the table.
The debate now is in the Council, I would say.
And I think it is more operational and effective to go in the direction recommended by the Parliament and to support the advances made by the Commission in its recommendations in order not to run the risk, as we did last year, of seeing the Council adopt a more restrictive stance than you would want.
Mr Christodoulou, I am going to reply to the problem of Amendment 4(2) which you have raised.
I can tell you that, having looked at it again and thought further about it, during the suspension of the sitting, the Commission still cannot take on board this part of Amendment 4, as it is a subjective assessment which does not belong in a regulatory text.
Furthermore, I would say that the notion is already contained in the wording of Recital 10.
Finally, Mr Christodoulou, the expression 'inopportune pressure' seems to be unnecessarily provocative and I am astonished that a former eminent governor of a central bank should give in to such temptation.
Mr Donnelly, first of all I would like to tell you that it seems to me that the Commission has done all it could to involve the European Parliament in the preparation of the Stability and Growth Pact.
I have worked it out: this is the sixth time since the month of February that I have come before the European Parliament or one of your committees.
And I would add that, as far as the trilogue is concerned, the fact that it met at all is thanks to the Commission's action.
I would also add that the amendments accepted by the Commission, following the European Parliament's first reading, have been taken up by the Commission and accepted by the Council.
Therefore, I do not see why the same should not be true of the second reading.
Allow me, Mr Donnelly, to tell you that I do not share your feeling about the deflationary effect of the Stability and Growth Programme.
The budgetary consolidation, under way, favours what in economic jargon is called 'crowding in' of investment.
Investment in equipment will increase by 4.8 % in 1997 and 6.3 % in 1998.
I should remind you that a 6 to 7 % investment growth per annum should make it possible to sustain medium-term growth of 3 to 3.5 %, which should create jobs at a rate of 1 to 1.5 %.
The Stability and Growth Pact does make it possible to recover the room for manoeuvre which did not exist, and to avoid the monetary policy from becoming overburdened, which would lead to an obviously overly restrictive policy mix.
I would add that the Stability Pact does allow budgetary flexibility in that, when structural budgets are balanced, during slow-down periods, it will be possible to play with all automatic stabilisers.
I have just given an economics lesson but in simple terms it is a question of knowing how to finance investment, be it public or private, when today, with the level of deficits that we still have, more than half of household savings are absorbed by debt repayment.
Yes, we are in favour of financing investment but we are also in favour of reducing public deficits which would make it possible to use that money to finance investments rather than finance state debts.
I can assure you, Mr Donnelly, that the Commission is taking its responsibilities.
It took them when it presented the Green Paper.
It also took them when it presented regulations on the Pact on Stability and Growth.
It also took them when it presented its regulations on the legal status.
And it also took them in the interinstitutional dialogue in order to make sure that the European Parliament's view was heard as much as it could.
Mr von Wogau, the golden rule for public investment, which you mentioned earlier, will be achieved in 1998.
Judging by our predictions, public deficits, if the policy is unchanged, will be 2.5 % in 1998 and public investment growth will be between 2.5 and 2.8 %.
I think I replied to your other three points in my introductory speech.
Mr Giansily, I agree with your analysis on the stability and growth policy.
I would say to Mr Cox that I also share his analysis, which is more or less the same as Mr von Wogau's. Concerning the fines, I think that I replied to your question in my introductory remarks, and the same is true of Mr Lukas.
Mr Wolf, I think that the policy mix makes it possible to overcome what you call this 'stability fetichism' .
Once again a relaxed policy mix is favourable to growth and employment because it makes it possible to relax the monetary conditions.
In a relaxed policy mix, there is no conflict between the objective of stability and budgetary and wage development.
There is now a trend towards such a policy mix.
As for 'economic government' - I do not have 'word fetichism' - call it what you like! What does it matter whether a cat is grey or black as long as it catches mice? - I think that what is important for us today, Mr Wolf, is that we are able to implement what we have set up.
We have set up instruments for economic coordination.
It is now for the policies to add a practical content to this and to implement what we have put into place.
Mr Blokland, on the important point that you raised, concerning what you call accounting 'somersaults' , I would like to tell you that there are a certain number of rules.
We are not governed by the law of the jungle here.
Rules are the European system of national accounts, the SEC, SEC 79 to be exact, as well as a Directive on GDP.
These instruments properly define GDP and there is nothing to add to the Stability and Growth Pact on that score.
The Commission is currently backing all of the efforts by statisticians who are trying to improve GDP calculations.
This is a very important job.
But I do not think it is the place, in a debate on the Stability Pact, to refer to these findings.
You also say that the public are not going to believe in the euro.
I disagree and reassure you that the public do believe in the euro - at least, according to the opinion polls which we regularly hold.
Mr van Velzem, you referred to the very interesting problem of the regional differentiation of salaries.
I think that it is a normal economic mechanism which is contested by no economist.
The best proof is that if regional differentiation of salaries did not take place, there would be major regional unemployment.
I am thinking in particular of the Mezzogiorno.
It is probably no fluke that Italian trade unions recently acknowledged regional differentiation and accepted it.
Mr Ilaskivi, you wanted to know why the figure of 3 % was chosen.
There are several explanations for this.
One which comes to mind is that when there is nominal growth of 5 %, 3 % real growth, 2 % inflation, in order to maintain a 60 % GDP debt rate, the public deficit must be no greater than 3 %.
But the figure is unimportant.
I personally think that a 3 % public deficit is very high. In many of our Member States that means that the state spends 20 % more than it earns every year.
I would challenge any company, big or small, to survive if it spent 20 % more than it earned.
Mr Ilaskivi, you also refer to the problem of adjustment in the case of asymmetrical shocks.
You know that the asymmetrical shocks of the last 25 years have been greatly amplified by divergent policies.
That will no longer be possible if we have EMU.
At cruising speed, budgetary stabilizers, political stabilizers and wage adjustment will be enough.
Mr Gasoliba i Böhm, I cannot fully agree with your claim that growth should not be stimulated through public investment and I am not sure that that will please Mrs Randzio-Plath very much.
I think that public investment has to be maintained and I think that we have to have the major networks.
As I demonstrated earlier, in my introductory statement, the future of coming generations, the future of our countries, relies in certain cases on major public investment that only States could afford and to which in any case they would have to contribute.
That said, the Commission recognizes that public investment has suffered in recent years and that is why it can only deplore the fact that the Council has rejected its proposals concerning the major networks.
I think that I have answered nearly all of your questions.
Allow me, in conclusion - and there I will be answering some of the concerns which have been raised, in particular at the end by Mrs Torres Marques, Mr Ettl or Mr Katiforis - first of all to say that the Stability and Growth Pact is nothing more or less than the Maastricht Treaty.
The Commission has been particularly concerned, during the negotiations, to make sure that nothing is added to what was already foreseen in the Treaty.
The Stability and Growth Pact brings together two regulations, one based on Article 3.5 and the other on Article 104, which are aimed at making the Treaty provisions operational and quite simply establishing the rules of procedure for the euro.
I shall conclude by saying that the real problem today is that of unemployment.
We are perfectly aware of that.
But we cannot believe that it is possible to create jobs out of thin air.
We are not going to create jobs, including jobs for the young, unless we give European once again the conditions for healthy and sustainable economic growth.
For some years now, thanks to the strategy pursued we have gradually re-established that framework.
Now we must pursue that effort, and we must crown our success with the introduction of the euro. The single currency will definitely provide that framework for stability and growth - words which are not mutually exclusive - and we must also be very much aware of the fact that we have to shoulder our responsibilities vis-à-vis structural unemployment.
That calls for structural measures, namely research, education, training - and I think, in particular, that it is very important to lower the tax burdens imposed on labour-intensive industries.
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
Mr Christodoulou has asked for the floor to make a brief comment.
Mr President, I should like to tell the Commissioner that the Greek text referring to that amendment, which I had asked him to accept, uses the expression 'unjustifiable pressures' , on the exchange market.
I am sure that any governor of any central bank, whether eminent or not, would use such a phrase quite often.
The meaning of the phrase 'unjustifiable pressures' in the exchange market is extremely well-known and it is used quite frequently.
I should also like to tell the Commissioner that the reason why we ask for certain amendments was that we wanted to facilitate implementation of the Stability Pact.
The Stability Pact, as it stands, is so inflexible that its implementation, in my view and many others who have studied it - and they are practitioners in contact with the markets - we believe that it is not very easy to implement.
What we tried to do, therefore, was to table certain amendments which would make it easier to implement the Pact and which would make life easier for the Commission.
But they have not been accepted.
I hope therefore that, tomorrow, the European Parliament will vote for the Pact so that we can try and make progress, given that it really must be accepted, even in this form.
However, the Commissioner must remember, when we meet again some time in the future, that there is no way in which the Stability Pact as it stands at the moment can really be implemented.
It has no political base and, therefore, it seems very difficult for it to be implemented and, as we learned from the financial, monetary and other developments of the early 1990s, in particular 1990-1991, when we have no flexibility, the result is a catastrophe.
It seems that this lesson has not been learnt by most of those who have presented us with this text and, as a result, we have something which is inflexible and very difficult to implement.
I hope I am wrong.
But I am afraid that I am right.
Mr President, I should like to say to the Commissioner once again how much the House naturally appreciates the fact that informal dialogue has been possible with the Commission on issues including the broad economic policy guidelines.
It would be good to see the Commission supporting the concept of negotiations with Parliament.
Both the Monetary Committee and the ECOFIN Council have already indicated that they are prepared to give the idea their backing.
It would mean that it should be possible to include some form of negotiation with Parliament in the process of reporting on and drafting the guidelines, because there is no doubt that, even without specific provision in the Treaty for trialogue instruments, it is still possible for the three institutions to agree on essential policy guidelines, in the interests of tackling mass unemployment effectively.
It would be helpful if you too were prepared to support this idea, Commissioner.
In conclusion, I should be grateful to our President if he could ensure that the decisions which we take tomorrow, on matters including the broad economic policy guidelines, are conveyed as quickly as possible to both the Monetary Committee and the Dutch presidency, so that there is enough time for the issue to be referred to and discussed at a dialogue or trialogue meeting.
Mr President, very quickly I wish to thank Mr Christodoulou and Mrs Randzio-Plath for the excellent cooperation and the work carried out together on these two extremely important documents.
I hope, while warmly thanking Mr Christodoulou for his efforts, that he will also understand that we have taken on board and had accepted by the Council as many of the amendments as it was possible to have accepted.
I now think that the compromise on the table is a balanced one and that that should be recognised legally.
I also think, Mr Christodoulou, that it is sufficiently supple.
I recall that, nonetheless, at the basis of the Stability Pact lie the Commission's proposal and initiative and the entire capacity of the Council's decision-making.
There is also a framework. It is now for the politicians to bring it into life.
Thank you, Mrs Randzio-Plath, for your remarks.
I am still open to suggestion and to see in fact how it is possible to involve the European Parliament even more in work on the main guidelines of economic policy.
I think that we have made a breakthrough this year.
I think also, when debating the annual economic report, one of your colleagues, Mr Donnelly, made some proposals to improve the procedure. We are thinking about that.
I shall do so in a constructive spirit, because I think that strengthening dialogue, with greater transparency, is a vital condition now in Europe if we are to have our economic policies accepted by our fellow citizens.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
EU tax systems
The next item is the report (A4-0169/97) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission on taxation in the European Union: report on the development of tax systems (COM(96)0546 - C4-0054/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me to present this report on a topic which I regard as extremely important.
I should like to say first of all how glad I am that the European Parliament is debating EU tax policy and the development of national taxation systems just two weeks or so before the Amsterdam European Council, since this allows the people's representatives to express their authoritative opinion on a topic which should receive maximum attention on that occasion and, hopefully, be the subject of innovative decisions giving fresh impetus to a policy area which has been stagnating for far too long.
The Amsterdam European Council will in fact be addressing itself to the action plan for the single market, the purpose of which is to establish the timing and mechanisms for all the measures needed to complete a real single market sufficiently in advance of the transition to monetary union, and before the launch of negotiations on further EU enlargement.
Naturally, the House endorses this objective and hopes that the results achieved at Amsterdam will live up to the expectations of Europe's citizens and economic operators.
Fiscal matters are particularly important in this context, in that without better coordination and harmonization in all the areas that are crucial to the smooth functioning of the single market, not only will this market be quite incapable of operating satisfactorily, but the success of monetary union will be jeopardized at the same time.
This does not in any way mean denying the role of subsidiarity in fiscal matters: serious thought must be devoted to preventing the application of this principle from conflicting with the basic reasons for which it was quite rightly incorporated in the Treaties.
The Commission's studies and analyses, which were welcomed and examined carefully by Parliament, reveal on the one hand that the situation has gradually degenerated into one of damaging tax competition and, on the other, that a fresh approach is needed, without prejudice to the ultimate objective of abandoning the principle of unanimity for Council decisions in this area, as called for on many occasions by this House.
In particular, excessive fiscal competition has had - and is continuing to have - adverse effects on the smooth functioning of the internal market, because of the distortions affecting flows of goods, services, capital and business activity; on levels of employment, because of the increased tax burden on the labour factor, as against a substantial reduction of the burden on income from capital; and, finally, on the development of the Member States' tax bases, because of heightened fiscal competition, the net result of which - given the growing international mobility of economic flows and of certain other factors - is to aggravate the situation.
The analysis of existing taxation systems in the EU has thus revealed that, as a result of the gradual process of completing the single market, no individual Member State is capable nowadays of abolishing all by itself the remaining fiscal barriers hampering the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital, nor is it capable of combating fiscal erosion.
Moreover, in the context of monetary union, where monetary policy will be supranational, independent and targeted at price stability, it will be necessary, in terms of fiscal policy, to reconcile the prerequisites for the smooth functioning of Europe's system of production and its single market with the need for the Member States to maintain a degree of control over fiscal policy in order to preserve income redistribution policies and, more generally speaking, the role of the welfare state. The room for manoeuvre here, even following the Growth and Stability Pact, is very limited indeed.
Consequently, the only viable solution is to bring tax policies in the sensitive fiscal areas outlined earlier within the auspices of the Community, thereby rectifying the prevailing 'excess of subsidiarity' , which is harmful both to our common interests and those of the Member States.
However, given that the Member States appear unwilling to change the unanimity rule, one temporary solution to the problem could be, for example, a voluntary restraint agreement in certain specific, clearly defined fiscal areas.
This is the purpose of the code of conduct laying down a set of common rules guaranteeing forms of coordination between national taxation systems: the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is proposing to the House that certain specific elements for such a code should be drawn to the attention of the Commission and the Council.
To save time, I shall refrain from reading out these elements.
I hope, in conclusion, that the European Parliament will seize this opportunity to convey a clear and convincing opinion in what is a sensitive and complex field, but one which, unless further progress is made, will prevent us from achieving greater economic and social cohesion.
Mr President, let me say straight away that I am delighted to be here, today, to talk about tax policy: here, because I believe that the European Parliament can play an increasingly prominent and supportive role in this area, and Mr Secchi's report and comprehensive motion for a resolution inspire confidence that this House really can help us to move forward; and today, a day when the problem of unemployment in Europe is at the forefront of our minds, is a particularly appropriate time to discuss taxation.
Indeed, the link between uncoordinated fiscal policies in the European Union and its serious unemployment situation is becoming increasingly apparent.
And when we speak of economic management, tax policy - besides the monetary aspects - is undoubtedly a key element.
The highly divergent trends occurring in Europe as a result of asymmetrical fiscal competition are well known, and Mr Secchi has already referred to them: a fall in taxation on income from capital and a rise in tax on income from labour, the exact opposite of what would help to create employment.
Once the single currency comes into being, the lack of coordinated taxation on capital income will become even more noticeable.
The Commission has discussed these issues, over the past year in particular, with the Member States and with Parliament.
I would remind you of the establishment of the Fiscal Policy Group, which consists of the personal representatives of the Ministers of Finance.
In fact, leaving aside the difficulties concerning unanimity, the reason why limited progress on fiscal matters has been made in the past is partly, in the Commission's view, that the various proposals were always considered in isolation.
Therefore, in order to obtain their approval for decisions, it appears necessary to draw the attention of the Finance Ministers to the need for a more overall approach to taxation.
Alongside the Fiscal Policy Group, consisting of the Finance Ministers' personal representatives, the Commission has also been able to involve the European Parliament in its reflections - and I am very grateful to you for that.
Within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in particular, we have explored fiscal matters on several occasions.
I regard Mr Secchi's report in particular as a major contribution to our thinking and to the drawing-up of a fiscal action plan aimed at completing the single market and making it truly operational.
The deliberations which are taking place within both Parliament and the Council have enabled us to produce a blueprint which we hope will lead to tangible results.
Several ideas contained in the Secchi report have in fact been incorporated into the draft action plan for the single market, adopted by the Commission.
The elements currently under consideration in the single market action plan are: measures to guarantee proper taxation of cross-border capital flows; measures to abolish taxation in the form of deductions at source of interest payments and royalties between associated companies; a code of conduct designed to limit damaging fiscal competition which impinges on the Member States' tax-raising powers - the points for inclusion in the code, as listed in the Secchi report, will be a valuable contribution here; and measures to eliminate competitive distortions deriving from a lack of harmonization in indirect taxation systems.
We realize that it will not be easy to reach a consensus in the Council on all these proposals, but I am convinced that this approach should be pursued if we really do wish to make progress on tax policy.
A coordinated approach is essential, and we shall carry it forward.
The draft single market action plan also refers to the need to create a common VAT system and to review the Community rules on energy taxation.
Finally, another point on which I should like to comment, since it is covered in the resolution, is Community action to combat tax evasion and fraud.
As we all know, international fraud and its perpetrators recognize neither national borders nor tax jurisdictions.
It is therefore worth stressing the need to improve cooperation between the Member States and to step up our anti-fraud activities.
In order to give fresh impetus to these actions, the Commission has proposed an ambitious programme known as FISCALIS, which is intended to help the national administrations cooperate with one another by equipping them with the appropriate tools.
Cooperation, which is already vital now, will become increasingly so with the new VAT system proposed by the Commission.
FISCALIS will certainly improve the existing VAT systems right away; however, I fear that these improvements will not make up for the shortcomings in the present system.
These gaps will only be filled by means of the radical overhaul of the system which we have proposed.
Thank you for having given me an opportunity to give you a brief overview of the development of EU tax systems.
I assure you that I am very keen indeed to cooperate further with Parliament on this issue.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
Mr President, after Commissioner Monti's good words, approving the work by Mr Secchi on our task to make taxation an element for fostering the creation of jobs and wealth, I would like to emphasize and attach due importance to the fact that the Commission itself suggests that any proposal for Community intervention in taxation matters must be fully in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity.
It is obvious that taxation sovereignty is shared not only among the 15 Member States but that there are also States, such as Spain, with autonomous communities, such as Navarre, and others, which also have their own ability to decide on taxation policy without any interference with the internal market.
Furthermore, as the Commissioner knows, once we enter stage three of EMU, the requisite not to exceed 3 % deficits vis-à-vis GDP will oblige all States and all taxation administrations to match spending and revenue.
In other words, whereas administrations with the ability to spend are free to decide the level of expenditure, they must also have the freedom to decide what type of fiscal revenue they want and how to collect that revenue.
I fully support the creation of a code of conduct avoiding malpractice in terms of taxation sovereignty but it is not for the European Parliament nor is it the right time to discuss whether the principle of subsidiarity should govern Community action, and we must base ourselves on the current respect for taxation powers.
It is obvious that, in the future, we must think that only if intervention by the Community genuinely respects the subsidiarity principle can we achieve respectability and applicability of the measures emerging from the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, everyone knows that social employment and budgetary policies are inextricably linked to taxation.
Tax fraud and evasion, complex systems, no machinery for exchanging information, the increased tax burden on the labour market, the proliferation of 'offshore' areas and more favourable tax regimes and impediments to the circulation of capital as a consequence of different rules for determining taxable objects and tax rates, inter alia, royalties and savings, are all obviously factors which explain the phenomenon of taxation competition.
Effectively solving all of these problems is something demanded by all those, including myself, who think that the single market, which is both free and fair, also requires fiscal systems that are fair, balanced and neutral.
How it might be possible to overcome these difficulties was the response which we thought we would be able to find in this report.
However, we think that this is not quite the case.
Indeed, we note that, in this context, the Treaty on European Union has gone no further but it already contains solutions which, if put into practice, could solve some of the problems arising from tax erosion, which Community institutions so far seem not to have succeeded in overcoming.
We are referring to the Directive in Article 220 on the rule for reaching a bilateral agreement on taxation matters.
As you know, these treaties deal with all categories of income, aimed to eliminate dual taxation, bilaterally harmonizing effective taxation rates at source and in the place of residence and avoiding tax invasion.
It seems that this analysis has not been carried out and, in particular, assessment of the adoption and application of these treaties in the Community area.
I am surprised at this, and I am also surprised at the approach to mechanisms, such as those for changing the rule on unanimity over taxation matters, virtually without testing the political and practical consequences of the agreements referred to.
The Community has gone no further at this moment than a Directive on dividends, on acts of concentrating businesses and on the prices of transfers between associated undertakings.
Harmonization of taxation on interest has been held up for a long time now in the corridors of politics.
Therefore, I think that the proposals already tested, but without proven success, should now be renewed.
This is not, from my point of view, an appropriate response.
In these circumstances, the effective creation of a single market, the fight against unemployment, the improvement in social conditions and the elimination of impediments to free circulation will be achieved through a concerted policy and incentives to reaching bilateral agreements on taxation matters.
When, as in this case, fiscal sovereignty is at stake, consultation and consensus - from my point of view - should prevail.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group I should like firstly to say that we welcome the Secchi report and we congratulate the rapporteur.
That said, the report is extremely ambitious.
It is good to be ambitious but the Liberal Group, while not necessarily against everything that is in the report, has not yet arrived at a level of reflection which allows us to be for everything in the report.
Specifically, I will concentrate my remarks on two things.
The first is in paragraph 3, the reference to extending the powers of the Union in respect of fiscal harmonization, to include not only indirect but also direct fiscal harmonization for company tax, tax on capital and so.
We have a huge amount of unfinished business in that area of competence which is greatly developed but still not finished, namely the harmonization or the further approximation, to be more exact, of indirect taxation, like VAT and excise.
That requires more urgency before we move on to the direct tax agenda.
My second general point concerns the voting rules.
We have some concern about whether enough reflection has been given by Parliament - and certainly not enough in our own group - to say that we want to see majority voting in Council also for the area of direct taxation.
We have brought ourselves to the point of accepting that, although it may not come out of the IGC, for indirect tax, but not yet for direct tax.
So, we will stop short of fully engaging in all the ambitions of this report, while at the same time not necessarily objecting to the evolution of thinking in that general direction.
But not right now, not on the eve of the IGC.
We do not think it is on.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Secchi most warmly on a very fine report, and to thank Commissioner Monti for allowing members of the Economic Affairs Committee to participate in close consultations on taxation.
In my opinion taxation is precisely one of the issues which calls for action from the European Union.
The people expect this too.
Ultimately it could be said that the whole of the European welfare state model depends on how we succeed in adjusting taxation.
At the moment we are very worried about the level of public expenditure, but we ought to be equally concerned about declining revenues in various Member States.
I congratulate the Commission on its analysis of the dramatic changes which have occurred in taxation in recent years.
The central message is that the more mobile production factors move to lower-tax areas, with the result that human labour, which is less mobile, is crippled by an unreasonable tax burden.
Things cannot go on like this if we wish to eliminate unemployment.
The more mobile a production factor is, the greater the need for harmonization.
Capital, for example bank deposits, is one of the most mobile production factors, and taxation of it must be harmonized.
One of the Commission's touchstones is how successful it will be in securing the introduction of a common energy tax.
I believe that the European Parliament will do all it can to support the Commission's efforts.
Mr President, since tax is a pecuniary requirement, imposed by an authority, on individuals or corporations, mainly to meet public expenditure requirements, there is no doubt that taxes, be it in the choice of the type of revenue - direct taxes, indirect taxes, income tax or capital tax, or in that of expenditure, are one of the main instruments of economic intervention by the State.
On that score, and like monetary or social policy, a prerogative of this type belongs to national sovereignty. But what do we see?
Not content to impose the respect of arbitrary criteria which have become incoherent in a period of quasi-recession in the name of the convergence pact, which has effectively dictated a strict monetarist economic policy depriving us of the budgetary instrument, Brussels is now attacking the fiscal instrument.
The role of the economy is to serve society and not the other way around.
My group is opposed to the confiscation of the fiscal instrument under the cover of harmonization or coordination.
In this way, rather than an association of sovereign nations making up a single market favouring internal free trade, the Commission is asking the States to give up their prerogatives in order to submit them to the growing control of centralizing and authoritarian European institutions.
Besides, how can the aberrations in the Commission report be ignored?
Allow me to remind you of a few striking examples: How is it possible to coordinate tax systems as varied and different as these without calling into question the balance of each national tax system which is the result of a slow and progressive evolution? How is it possible to reconcile analytical taxes and synthetic taxes, distribution taxes and progressive taxes, declaratory taxes and pay-as-you-earn taxes, taxes on capital and taxes on labour?
Why and how is it possible to harmonize 15 national tax systems when specific bilateral tax agreements already pragmatically solve most of the questions? Why do we need to speak of such large disparities when they create unfair tax competition between Member States?
To my knowledge none of the 15 Member States of the European Union is a tax haven. The reason for expatriation is not so much to seek favourable tax legislation but to seek more interesting employment situations in terms of wages and living standards.
How can we fight tax fraud at European level without creating a mega-file, when all we need to do is gather together and centralize information gathered in national tax files?
What balance can be struck between the necessary decrease in compulsory deductions, in particular for small companies, in order to face up economically to the United States and developing countries, while maintaining budgetary receipts that can enable us to respect the criteria of convergence to which we are subjected? How can compulsory deduction systems be harmonized without calling into question certain social systems, because deductions are taxes but they are also social contributions, by employees and employers alike?
To conclude, I should say that, once again, I have a feeling that the idea is to reduce further the small number of national prerogatives remaining for the Member States of this economic union, i.e. the particularly sensitive field of taxation.
It is very easy to raise the spectre of limited tax pressure in order to get people to swallow tax harmonization.
But when will what remains of our national sovereignty stop shrinking away?
Mr President, quite frankly I have little to add to what the rapporteur and the Commissioner have said.
But I feel that it is my duty, and a great pleasure, to comment on what has been said by two such illustrious persons, both of whom lecture at Italy's most prestigious economic university.
I shall therefore attempt to make a brief comment, and am honoured to be able to do so.
Mr Secchi's report reaches one important conclusion which merits further consideration.
It says: ' As a result of the gradual process of completing the single market, no individual Member State is capable nowadays of abolishing all by itself the remaining fiscal barriers hampering the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital, nor is it capable of combating the effects of tax erosion.'
And the rapporteur adds that, if it exceeds certain limits, ' tax competition risks increasing the overall level of fiscal erosion owing to the free movement of capital and the opportunities for fraud and tax avoidance' .
The lack of harmonization in tax systems and the resulting fiscal competition are exacerbated by the processes of completing the single market and creating the single currency.
In taking these steps to complete the internal market, I believe that various requirements need to be reconciled: firstly, national taxation systems must allow economic activity to flourish within the different EU Member States. To this end, it is necessary to devise simple, straightforward and effective tax systems with tax bases and lower tax rates of a kind that do not rule out fiscal incentives for SMEs.
Secondly, a definitive VAT system, one which is simpler and more effective, must be introduced in an attempt to dispense with the complexity, fragmentation of the market and potential for fraud that are generated by the present transitional system; such distortions, moreover, are hitting SMEs particularly hard.
Thirdly, the fiscal disincentives which are having a negative impact on firms, especially as regards cross-border capital flows, must be eliminated.
Fourthly, greater flexibility of the labour market must be encouraged so as to avoid double taxation of workers, especially with regard to life assurance and pensions.
As Mr Monti has just said, the development of tax systems which penalize the labour factor was in fact referred to in the White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment, and I would draw this crucial aspect to the attention of both the rapporteur and the Commission.
Mr President, the European Commission was right to remind us in its strategy paper that fiscal policy in the European Union needs to be reorganized.
In my view, the single market and the free movement of capital, rather than monetary union, are the factors that require us to think harder about tax harmonization, and ultimately to adopt measures that will promote it.
I am very glad to see that the strategy paper deals with all the areas in which short- and medium-term solutions are required.
What is needed here is improved cooperation on tax-related matters, a new approach to harmonizing company taxation, and the harmonization of tax on capital income.
The important point in this context is that we should avoid unfair competition within the single European market between countries seeking to attract inward investment, and that we should help to ensure that tax systems in the European Union are genuinely fair.
On the other hand, however, we must put a stop to the zero-sum game which is made possible by the existence of tax havens, by the distortion of competition for inward investment on the basis of unfair tax incentives, and by other distortions which, I am sorry to say, are possible under the various systems of taxation.
In the field of company taxation, we need to agree on definitions and bases for calculating tax.
In my opinion, we should make an urgent start on the implementation of the Ruding committee recommendations.
Another requirement in this area is to make a distinction between the taxation of profits that are withdrawn and profits that are reinvested.
We need to take action on these matters urgently.
The taxation of capital income has already been discussed many times in the House, and we have proposed various solutions.
It is very important to recognize that state subsidies are not the only factor to be considered when it comes to measuring competitiveness.
The destructive tax competition which we are currently experiencing in the European Union can be just as damaging, and it is therefore high time that the European Parliament got to grips with the issues in the Commission's strategy paper and, with the help of the Secchi report, defined a clear position on these topics once again.
Mr President, the Secchi report displays expertise, as does the Commission's analysis.
An effective internal market requires effective structures.
Tax systems must become more equitable in the interests of employment and balance.
Under a single currency system, the public finances of all Member States will be subject to precise individual supervision.
Why should taxation not be subject to the same supervision?
The greatest problem is the increasing concentration of the burden of taxation on labour.
For some reason it is imagined that businesses which provide employment are wealthier, as they are taxed disproportionately in comparison, for example, with business which go in for automation.
In developing tax systems, the distorted way in which tax is levied should be corrected without delay.
The minimum requirement is that businesses which provide employment should be placed on an equal footing with businesses using automation.
Otherwise our society will wither away because of automation designed to avoid taxation.
Allow me in these few short moments to explain why the Swedish party group cannot vote for this report.
Our objections are primarily concerned with point 4 which states that decisions on taxation will no longer be taken unanimously in the Council, and point 9 which states that taxes in the Union may not be raised.
We think that the right to determine the level of State income and expenditure is a fundamental democratic right for each nation in the Union.
If the people in one particular country democratically decide to raise or lower their taxes we should not be able to prevent them from doing so.
Mr President, to uphold each country's democratic right to determine its own taxes we are voting against Mr Secchi's report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to come back very briefly, both to assure you that the Commission will take full account of all your comments and to provide some reassurance in the light of the concern you have expressed with regard to subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity is at the very heart of the Commission's approach, but as things stand the Member States, though believing that they still have complete fiscal sovereignty, have in fact lost it - and are losing it more and more as the market becomes integrated and opens up: by helping them to coordinate more closely, we are in effect helping the Member States to achieve their own national objectives.
Finally, it is true that more has been achieved as far as indirect taxation is concerned, but it is also vital to make progress on direct taxation too - and to make it soon in respect of capital movements in particular, as several Members have pointed out.
This is necessary already for the functioning of the single market, and will be all the more so with the advent of the single currency when, once all the other distorting factors have been eliminated - such as transfer costs and exchange risks - fiscal differences alone will determine capital movements.
And this is not an efficient way to allocate resources; that is why the single currency is a further incentive to introduce at least some coordination of taxation on capital.
A very difficult job lies ahead of us all, but if Parliament's attitude is to be as indicated in the Secchi report and motion for a resolution, our work will be greatly assisted by your support.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Impact and effectiveness of the Single Market
The next item is the report (A4-0160/97) by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission's communication to the European Parliament and the Council entitled 'The Impact and Effectiveness of the Single Market' (COM(96)0520 - C4-0655/96) and on the Commission Staff Working Paper: ' The 1996 Single Market Review' (SEC(96)2378 - C4-0007/97).
Madam President, today has been the ETUC Day of Action in favour of jobs and Europe is rightly crying out for jobs for its 30 million unemployed.
But the quickest way for the EU to secure those jobs is by the strict completion of Europe's biggest enterprise, the single European market of 370 million people and by implementing all those important auxiliary measures which substantiate and supplement that market, of which EMU and the single currency is the prime example.
Indeed, my report suggests that associating the completion of the market with one of EMU's significant dates could be the goal and ambition which could breathe new life into the European Union on the threshold of a new century.
This year's report on the single market is unusual and promising for a very important reason.
For the first time ever we have some real proof of the rewards that result from the bedding down of the single market.
Commissioner Monti's excellent series of essays and investigations tabulate well the effect of having a market on various sectors in Europe and of how Europe's competitiveness is being sharpened up to enable us to challenge and succeed on the world stage.
Just look at the figures revealed by Mr Monti's thirty-nine articles.
Some 900, 000 jobs have been created directly attributable to the market.
EU GDP income rose between 1987 and 1993 by 1 1/2 %.
Inflation rates across the EU have been lowered by some 1 1/2 %.
Economic convergence and cohesion between regions has been deepened whilst peripheral cohesion countries have strengthened so that now we describe Ireland as an Atlantic tiger economy.
The single market programme of more than 280 directives has cut reams of red tape.
100, 000 national standards and labelling laws, 60 million customs and tax formalities have been shredded and binned.
But if that is the good news, there is still much to be done and richer prizes to be garnered.
The 'black holes' , as Commissioner Monti describes them, of public procurement and state aid still have to be tackled.
The creation of single markets in energy, private pensions and the media industry has yet to be achieved.
Labour mobility, aided and abetted by fundamental education and training programmes remains unrealized.
SMEs are still the Cinderellas of the market which was made principally with big business in mind.
Indeed, only 56 % of the 1985 measures have been implemented by all Member States.
And here lies the source of the problem.
It is the Member States who have hypocritically supported the principle of the market but who have been most guilty of failing to implement, monitor and ensure compliance with single market rules.
Just look at the case of technical regulations.
Some 450 new national technical rules are introduced annually.
Sometimes Member States do not even bother to notify the Commission of these national variations, the effect of which is to undermine the market.
My plea, and that of Parliament, to Mr Monti is to name and blame those countries which blatantly transgress agreed rules and I am pleased that the Commission's draft action plan to complete the market recognizes these points.
However, observing market rules alone is not enough.
Active policies, like realizing the TENs for telecommunication, energy and transport are essential struts in the European infrastructure.
Member States must be supporters, not blockers, of these wise flanking measures.
But above all should be Member States' concern for the citizen in the street, including shoppers and consumers who have the right to expect effective protection.
Moreover 120 million consumers - in other words, Europe's children - have a right to demand the market to work in their favour.
Open borders favour not only business people but also child molesters.
Finally, I am pleased that Tony Blair, Britain's new Prime Minister, has declared that his presidency of the European Union in 1998 will see the completion of the market as a first target.
Truly a new market for a new Europe and a new hope for all our people.
Madam President, in its opinion on the communication from the Commission, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights also expressed its disappointment that the single market has not fulfilled all the expectations which it raised.
As we have already noted critically in other reports, the Member States are still very much dragging their feet over transposition of the directives that have been adopted since the 1985 White Paper; in many cases, our citizens and the economy are suffering from the fact that directives have not yet actually been applied.
The legal means that are currently available to the Commission are plainly inadequate to enable it to play its full role as guardian of the Treaties.
That is why we support any proposal which strengthens the hand of the Commission and the public in seeking legal remedies where the rules of the single market are being contravened.
In some areas, it is scarcely appropriate to talk of a single market at all.
We have spent a great deal of time today discussing taxes, and I should like to refer to one example which concerns differences between rates of VAT.
In the case of pesticides, it is no secret that it is still possible for one country to impose a VAT rate of 3 % while another imposes a rate of 20 %, all perfectly in accordance with the relevant EU directive.
It is easy to see that this kind of distortion destroys companies' faith in the single market and, in this case, has led to detrimental effects on the environment.
We are therefore calling for the completion of the single market programme, and in particular for harmonization in the areas of VAT and company taxation.
The point also has to be made that some other effects of the single market - about which the Commission has been quite frank - should actually give us pause for thought.
The impact on employment can so far only be described as extremely meagre.
It is clear from the figure of no more than 300 000 to 900 000 new jobs - which is a cumulative figure for a number of years - that the single market alone cannot solve the problem of unemployment.
And the increased volume of traffic may result in the EU being unable to meet its international obligations as regards the reduction of CO2 emissions.
For these reasons, we support the Commission in taking any steps that will help it to be more effective in this area, and we would call on the Member States not to deprive themselves and their citizens of the positive effects of the single market.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate Mr Harrison on his excellent report: it gives us ample food for thought, now that we have reached the stage of preparing a final version of the action plan for the single market.
In fact, Mr Harrison, we have already incorporated into the plan many of the points raised in your report.
I hope I can take this as a sign that the Commission will be strongly supported by Parliament in carrying out the plan itself.
The origin of the single market action plan, to be presented to the Amsterdam European Council in June, was the analysis contained in the communication on the impact and effectiveness of the single market, which is the subject of the report before the House today.
Our plan sets out the measures to be adopted as a matter of priority, so that the single market can underpin the transition to the single currency that will begin on 1 January 1999.
We all agree on the need for a new degree of political commitment to secure a single market that will meet our social requirements and achieve its full potential, which it has not yet done completely in terms of employment, growth and competitiveness.
In this major political initiative - the action plan - we are proposing that the European institutions and the Member States undertake a very serious task.
It is just 18 months from now until 1 January 1999: we realize that agreement will not be reached on everything in such a short space of time.
But we must focus on certain priorities and seek to achieve practical results, so as to launch a dynamic process in which a truly operational single market is the cornerstone of the Union's development.
I should like to take this opportunity to explain how the approach outlined by the rapporteur, Mr Harrison, fed into our action plan.
I shall do so by touching briefly on four points: the first concerns the need to improve the efficiency of the existing single market rules.
This is a crucial element if we wish to increase business confidence in the market, which requires better and prompter implementation of Community law in the Member States.
Our second priority objective is to combat the main distortions of the market, which result from fiscal barriers and anti-competitive behaviour.
Only more coherent and better coordinated fiscal conditions will ensure that European companies really do regard the single market as a large national market.
That is still a long way off.
One key element of a fiscal package should be a code of conduct whereby the Member States undertake to act in a more transparent and coordinated way, in order to avoid excessive fiscal competition.
A more rigorous approach to competition policy is also crucial for ensuring that the dynamic of the single market is not hampered by anticompetitive behaviour on the part of firms, or by state aids.
The third objective of the action plan is to dispense with the remaining sectoral obstacles to market integration.
We wish to limit the adoption of new legislative measures to a bare minimum, in a policy geared to simplifying existing legislation, rather than creating new laws.
In certain specific cases, however - such as financial services and teleshopping - a legislative framework could prove necessary. Similarly, decisions are needed on proposals which are still pending, such as those on biotechnology and company law - a sector where the Commission will consider how best to adapt the proposal on the Statute for the European Company in the light of the recommendations put forward by the Davignon group, at the initiative of Commissioner Flynn and myself.
Finally, there is the fourth but equally important point, which I am pleased to mention in the presence of Mr Flynn himself: the action plan will contain proposals designed to consolidate the social dimension of the single market in two major sectors: the protection of workers' rights and the development of mobility within the Union.
The Commission is convinced that industrial restructuring, which is also assisted by market integration, is necessary and beneficial for the Union, but we appreciate that it can have damaging social effects.
Full compliance with existing Community rules on the consultation of workers is absolutely vital to ensure unswerving political support for the single market.
In its action plan, the Commission calls on Parliament and the Council to examine the legislative proposals contained in it as a matter of priority, so that the best possible results can be achieved within the tight timeframe - 18 months, as I said - set out in the document.
I can assure you, on the other hand, that the Commission is thinking not so much of a formal interinstitutional agreement as of a political commitment to examine the legislative measures with the utmost urgency.
Priority treatment should therefore be given in this case both to the proposals which are already before Parliament - biotechnology, the liberalization of gas supplies and the transparency mechanism for the information society - and to those which the Commission will present shortly as part of the action plan.
I am most grateful for the attention which the House has given to the communication on the impact and effectiveness of the single market, and I would compliment Mr Harrison once again on the high quality of his report.
The Commission is looking forward to cooperating closely with you in implementing the action plan, and in this context I should be happy if the European Parliament could signal its agreement that the action plan, which I have outlined to you this evening, is indeed the instrument best suited to achieving our intended objectives - an indication that you agree with our chosen objectives and will support the process we have devised to put these into effect, as well as agreeing to attach the necessary priority to dealing with the legislative proposals which the plan contains. I am asking a good deal of the House, but I know how keen you are to see the single market fully completed.
Madam President, I should also like to congratulate Lyndon Harrison for a very comprehensive and searching report which seeks to complete the single market.
I would like to pick up three of the issues addressed which are vitally important.
The first concerns small and medium-sized enterprises which he rightly describes as the backbone of the European economy.
They still find themselves thwarted by excessive directives, red tape, and literally hundreds of pieces of legislation which make their burden intolerable.
This burden, as the Commissioner has just said, must be reduced and the procedures simplified.
Secondly, I should like to endorse the call in the Harrison report to complete the trans-European networks.
Energy, transport and telecommunications are crucial to create the platform for economic success in Europe.
Success equals jobs and on a day when thousands of workers demonstrated outside our Parliament their rightful demand for jobs, this is a positive way to redress the balance and the answer to their demands.
More than that, transEuropean networks provide a proper basis for universal service for public services for all our citizens of Europe, making their lives better and building a better future.
Finally, I am sure that Commissioner Monti will not be surprised that I support Lyndon Harrison's proposals for labour mobility and a common European employment policy.
As I speak, French ski instructors and authorities have prevented a single British ski instructor from working in the French Alps.
And that is despite the assurances given by the Commissioner six months ago that not only was it illegal but that he would instruct the French ski instructors to act accordingly.
This report goes a very long way to sharpening up legislative procedures in the EU and therefore I welcome it.
Madam President, my congratulations go to our rapporteur Mr Harrison, who has produced an excellent report on an extremely important issue.
The application of the single market has caused a revolution in the Member States of the European Union.
Even if the rather unrealistic expectations set out in the Cecchini reports have not always come to fruition, such as the millions of extra jobs, at least investment has increased, inflation has fallen, between 300 000 and 900 000 new jobs have been created, and the economies of the Member States have become closely interwoven.
But there is still much that needs to be done.
Look at public contracts, for example.
France and Germany are making a complete hash of the directives in this area, and this is something that needs to be looked into very carefully.
Then there are financial services and insurance, where we still do not have a single market within the Union and a great deal more needs to be done.
A considerable number of measures have still not been implemented by the Member States, and in order to give fresh impetus to the completion of the single market, the Commission is to put an action plan before the European Council in Amsterdam in June.
It is urgently needed.
Member States are either too late with their implementation, or else they introduce so much legislation that you cannot see the wood for the trees.
Even Parliament, to be honest, is sometimes guilty of this.
The target date for harmonization is long past, yet the barriers still remain.
Next, small and medium-sized businesses.
As the Commission also notes in its working document 'The 1996 Single Market Review' , small and medium-sized businesses have benefited less from the single market than large firms, and my group would like to join Mr Harrison in expressing our concern about this through his resolution.
The completion of the single market must be made more profitable for SMEs by increasing their exports, for example, which is where the euro and its associated payment systems will help.
The costs of complying with the new administrative, technical and fiscal single market legislation also present a major problem for small and medium-sized firms, and I would urge the Commissioner to listen very carefully to what these firms have to say about the problems they are facing.
Simpler and clearer legislation would help them more than all sorts of different subsidies that are difficult to obtain.
What do small and medium-sized firms actually want? They want better consultation procedures in all kinds of fields such as economic dialogue, trade dialogue, social dialogue, perhaps even fiscal dialogue.
They want improvements in the collective research and development programmes for SMEs, and they want them to be made more accessible.
Thirdly, there is the reduction in the financial burden for firms operating across borders and in the costs of international bank transactions.
The directive on this is to come into force at the same time as the euro.
I think we do not have any further problems with this, and I hope that the action plan will work.
The single market is one of the European Union's most important achievements, but without this fresh impetus, we can only expect its benefits to be diluted by enlargement.
Strict management and discipline are required from the Member States if the single market is to be preserved.
Madam President, I too should like to thank Mr Harrison for his report and in particular for including various amendments.
I would urge Mr Monti and possibly also Mr Flynn, who is here today, to give closer attention to two aspects of the single market: taxation and, as Mrs Peijs said, insurance.
If we look at what Mrs Berger's report has to say, for example, about how pension funds are not allowed to operate in certain Member States and cannot offer their services or invest there, it is clear that this is the other side of the single market.
The same applies to certain banking services.
I can give you examples of dealings between my country, the Netherlands, and Belgium, say, where a mortgage offered by a bank in the Netherlands for a house in Belgium cannot be exempted from tax.
I know that things have changed since the Bachman judgment, but it does not take us very much further forward.
I would therefore urgently call on both Commissioners to give particular attention to these aspects of the single market, which directly affect citizens wishing to use services provided in one country where they are working, for example, but which have to be processed fiscally or otherwise in a second country.
This issue is dealt with in the Berger report and is also covered in Amendment No 12.
I would finally also ask for attention to be given to the Statute for the European Company.
I hope that the Commission will succeed in getting this issue on the agenda for Amsterdam in June.
Madam President, I must congratulate the Commission, in particular Commissioner Monti, and Mr Harrison on the documents which have been presented, which are a timely assessment of the experience of the formation of the single European market.
There can be no doubt about the positive role of initiatives taken in the 1980s, beginning with the 1985 White Paper, followed by the setting of a date and simplification of the legislative process through the single European act.
That positive role cannot be called into doubt given the developments which have fallen below the predictions in the Cecchini report, which were excessively optimistic, but back then it was impossible to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall and the recession of the early 1990s.
It is somehow significant that, according to the figures already divulged and analyzed on the basis of various models, the single market which began in 1993 has led to 300 to 900, 000 extra jobs and a 1.1 to 1.5 increase in the European GDP, as well as a 1.1 to 1.5 reduction in the inflation rate.
However, we cannot limit ourselves to observation of these figures, and it is important to know whether, in face of difficulties which have arisen, we would have been better off if this initiative had not been taken, and the answer to that is a resounding 'no!' , since the current problems would probably have been even worse - e.g. unemployment, a result fundamentally of a technological evolutions which we could not have avoided unless we wanted to put our future irremediably in danger.
Since this has been a positive experience, it is not enough now just to top it up or make a few adjustments.
Together with the introduction of the euro, we must now take a global and ambitious initiative, through a coherent set of projects which, apart from immediate aims to be achieved, would mobilize enthusiasm and involvement by all Europeans.
That is the only way of meeting the challenges of creating stable jobs in competitive sectors worldwide.
That is the desire that I wanted to express in my short speech.
Madam President, I should like to thank Members for helping us, through this debate, to finalize the Commission's action plan.
Without commenting on all the contributions, I would single out the emphasis you have placed on SMEs - which are at the very heart of our action plan, especially in terms of legislative simplification; the attention which you have all drawn to proper compliance with the rules of the single market; and also the problem of enforcement, using the appropriate instruments to ensure more swiftly and effectively that the single market rules are indeed being complied with.
I shall not go into any other points, in spite of their importance - from the Statute for the European Company to financial services - and will end with the following remark: it seems to me that, at a time when so much attention is being devoted to the single currency and the timetable for it, we must not forget that economic and monetary union does indeed mean the single currency, but it means economic union as well. If we are to bring development and employment to the European economy, full economic union is just as crucial as the monetary union that will accompany it.
The single market is the central pillar of economic union, and therefore all our joint efforts to complete the single market should be seen in this framework: one of full support for growth and employment in Europe.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Non-conventional medicines
The next item is the report (A4-0075/97) by Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the status of non-conventional medicines.
Madam President, I think it could be said, without risk of error, that the harmonization of national legislation concerning the medical profession and medicines is a process which is now virtually completed in the European Union.
As far as non-conventional medicines are concerned, i.e. therapeutic approaches not recognized by the medical order, this is far from being so.
In fact, in the European Union, the diversity of legislative approaches is quite extraordinary.
We also live in a system of incoherence.
It is my opinion that we should put an end to this state of affairs as quickly as possible.
When I say difference of legislations I can give a few examples.
In Germany, for example, homeopathic medicines are included in the national pharmacopoeia.
In Great Britain, osteopaths and chiropractors are legally recognized professions, with normal surgeries, and the same goes for chiropractors in the Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Denmark, Finland.
Those are clear examples whereas in other European countries all of these professions are illegal and the practice of these therapeutic approaches if not banned at best are tolerated - but sometimes also prosecuted.
I think it is time, as I said, to bring an end to these incoherencies and meet increasing demand from patients.
The obvious cannot be denied: increasing numbers of European people want to be treated by means of these so-called non-conventional therapies.
Surveys carried out by the Commission itself have come up with striking figures, with as many as 50 % of those surveyed calling for access to these therapies.
What is the meaning behind the report which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is proposing? It is precisely to embark on a process of recognizing these non-conventional therapies, obviously on the basis of existing achievements, particularly what has already been achieved in countries where those therapies have already been recognized, on the basis of vital studies which show the effectiveness of therapies to be legalized, on the basis of the requirement of high-level training for practitioners - diplomas and recognition should not be given away - and last but not least on the basis of organized dialogue between allopathic medicine and non-conventional medicine, so that this dialogue can lead to a harmony, making it possible to apply these approaches in complementarity.
That is the main spirit and content of the report which the committee is proposing to us and which I hope the majority of this parliament will support tomorrow.
I would like to make the most of the time remaining to refute some claims which I think are prejudicial.
Contrary to some of these claims, we are not trying to open the door to charlatans, to recognize anything whatsoever, to lead to mayhem in health care.
On the contrary, I think that the only way of protecting serious practitioners against charlatans and protecting patients is to adopt appropriate legislation.
Burying our heads in the sand, despite the fact that a large number of people are already resorting to non-conventional medicines, would not be a responsible political attitude.
It is a conservative attitude which, in any case, sooner or later, will collapse in view of the facts.
I should like also to take this opportunity to quote the Indian Health Minister who recently addressed the 50th session of the WHO Assembly in Geneva, which he chaired. He said that it was also necessary to recognise the role played by traditional systems of which many countries were rightly proud.
He added that it was impossible to ignore these systems in a zealous attempt to subscribe exclusively to modern science and technology.
He mentioned his own country, India, which alone had contributed to the creation of three medical systems, offering a wealth of scientific knowledge and a very rich literature which had enabled an effective response to be made to certain illnesses.
The answer to all illnesses could not be found but certainly to some.
He continued by saying that, in order to meet the requirements of the modern world, these approaches had been given a legal framework in India and an organised structure.
Standardization had been carried out and welldevised training courses existed, leading to a practitioners' register.
It might be interesting to organize an international conference on the subject of traditional medicine systems, in order to find out what their potential was, to dispel misunderstandings and to decide on positive recommendations so that they could be adopted more widely.
Those were the words of the Indian Health Minister.
I propose that we draw inspiration from what he said, not only about traditional medicines, but also for the more modern approaches which also have their part to play and which I think should be officially recognized.
The European Parliament is certainly the most appropriate place to set that process in motion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it was the task of the Committee on Legal Affairs to determine whether the European Union has the power to regulate the field of non-conventional medicine in the first instance.
We concluded that it has.
It is a fact that a great many articles of the Treaty - Articles 3(o) and (s), 36, 56, 100a(3), 129 and so on - refer to health and health protection.
And it is also a fact that none of these articles provides for Community legislation.
However, it can be concluded from these repeated references to health that health protection has to be an important component of European policy.
The cross-border dimension of this question concerns in particular freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services, which also extends to non-conventional medical practitioners, as well as trade in goods - the relevant medicinal products - and services - such as the right of patients to choose their doctors across borders.
We felt that Articles 54, 63 and 100a in particular could be considered for the legal basis.
The fact is, however, that Article 57(3) seems to provide the most appropriate legal basis, because of the specific reference there to 'medical and allied professions' - a comprehensive term. This wording is so general that it can be applied to nonconventional as well as to conventional medicine.
Article 57(2) is concerned with powers of harmonization.
It could be argued, however, that no - or only some - Member States possess legislation in this field, and that it is impossible to harmonize something that does not yet exist.
Nevertheless, we believe that the Community does have competence in this field, since on the one hand there is a danger that the great variety of national rules could give rise to legal uncertainty and, on the other hand, national sovereignty - or the principle of subsidiarity as we now call it - does not rule it out.
As a second point, the Committee on Legal Affairs takes the view that different directives should not be enacted for each individual type of non-conventional medicine, since the very contentious issue then arises of what is nonconventional medicine? It can develop into conventional medicine, but it can also degenerate into magic or esotericism.
In any event, it is much more important to enact a basic directive, and we therefore do not wish to have either an abstract definition or seven different directives.
I should personally like to say, moreover, that this report does not even refer to the most important form of nonconventional medicine: red and white wine.
We believe that it is more important to enact a basic directive that encompasses general points and is applicable to all.
The most important principle is to ensure a very high level of patient protection.
Perhaps the clock is wrong, Madam President.
I have not spoken for three and a half minutes yet!
(Laughter, applause) The most important principle is the protection of patients, and the Committee on Legal Affairs is therefore proposing that very high standards for the training of non-conventional medical practitioners must be established.
The latter do not necessarily have to be doctors who can produce a corresponding diploma, but it must be ensured that they have a basic knowledge of general medical principles. Naturally, the individual professional organizations should then participate in deciding on appropriate training standards.
An example would be the German law on non-medical practitioners.
This is the level of regulation that should be introduced for non-conventional medicine.
There would also have to be the requirement to provide information and compulsory liability insurance.
This issue is too extensive to address in just two minutes, and since no one else will wish to make a long speech on this subject, I think that I should be allowed to overrun my speaking time.
In short, the Committee on Legal Affairs has come to the conclusion that Community competence to regulate these matters does exist, and that, in the interests of patients and people seeking to be treated, it should undertake that regulation.
I realize that people like to listen to you, Mr Alber, but I did say - which you will not have heard just now - that we have an extremely long agenda this evening, and if we are to complete our work by midnight, it will only be by keeping to time.
So I must insist that the following speakers keep to their speaking time.
Madam President, I shall try to stay within my speaking time, since I notice that, all of a sudden, the clock is right again, although it was unfortunately wrong during Mr Alber's speech - for which, I must admit, I am not ungrateful.
Indeed, part of what I wished to say has been pre-empted by Mr Alber's comments on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, and it is therefore superfluous to talk about the need for freedom of establishment or matters concerning the internal market.
Let me address a number of other points, therefore.
In the European Union, we are very tolerant in our dealings with one another, and I trust that we shall also manage to be so in the debate on this item of the agenda.
We are not discussing legislation here, but an own-initiative European Parliament report, which seeks to prompt the Commission to consider the need for legislation.
When I look at the ideological war which has been waged by the professional associations of doctors over the last few months, however, I am not entirely sure what this matter is about.
For us - as Mr Alber has already made clear, I am glad to say - it is a question of safeguarding and upholding the principles of the internal market, notably the freedom of establishment, and also of ensuring a high level of patient protection.
I do not know who has the right - or thinks they have the right - to deprive people of the freedom to choose their treatment.
I do not concede that doctors have that right.
I do not concede that the training of doctors gives them the right to decide what is best for patients.
There are different situations in the different Member States.
In some Member States, there are chiropractors, practitioners of different types of massage, non-medical practitioners, acupuncturists, and so on; and patients from other Member States must be provided with access to their services if they so wish.
My group sets great store by the freedom of adult citizens of the European Union to choose and make decisions, and I trust that colleagues in the other groups do so too.
I believe that, to a great extent, they are capable of deciding for themselves what they want.
So it is important for us to insist that the people treating these patients know what they doing - in other words, that they are properly trained.
This is what Mr Lannoye and the Committee on the Environment are calling for in the report.
They are demanding that anyone practising a form of medicine - any form of medicine - should be properly trained, so that they know their limits, and know when it is time to let a conventional medical practitioner, a surgeon, or an internal specialist take over.
This requires them to have a qualification, and the granting of this qualification has to be regulated Europe-wide, since the safety of patients must be guaranteed in equal measure in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Spain and so on.
If training courses and the granting of diplomas are regulated in this way, patients in the European Union will be protected, and will be able to decide for themselves whom they trust and who they wish to treat them.
This is what we are calling on the Commission to do.
We are calling on it to take action and bring forward appropriate legislation.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, during the debate over the last few weeks, we have become acquainted with a great many extreme positions, and it will undoubtedly be the case again this evening that these extreme positions clash with one another.
At the beginning of my speech, therefore, I should like to introduce a somewhat more conciliatory tone.
I am myself a so-called conventional medical practitioner.
I underwent medical training and - to the extent that my time allows - I still work in the field of conventional medicine.
I am sure that there will be general agreement, as a number of colleagues have pointed out, that conventional medicine has made tremendous advances over the last few decades and helps many people.
On the other hand, we have to recognize the fact - and I know this from practical experience - that many people do not find what they are looking for in conventional medicine.
Especially when they are suffering from chronic illnesses or long-term health disorders, many people turn to so-called non-conventional therapies.
There is, of course, a reason for this.
Like many other colleagues, I believe that the vast majority of these therapies have absolutely no effect, other than that of a placebo.
Nevertheless, people do turn to them.
I believe that the reason for this is, above all, that therapists and other practitioners of non-conventional medicine listen to people.
They perform a function that clearly no one else in society fulfils.
We cannot blame this on doctors alone, since because of the billing system, because of the costs, doctors are not always able to take as long with their patients as is perhaps necessary.
This is a reproach to society as a whole.
The decline of the family, perhaps in some ways also the increased detachment from the Church, are leading to the disappearance of traditional structures which once ensured that people always had someone to listen to them.
In some countries of the European Union there are non-medical and similar types of practitioners, and in others there are not.
Perhaps the fact that there are no non-medical practitioners as such in Italy has something to do with the fact that this need is catered for by other mechanisms in that country.
I do not know, and it is very difficult for us to judge the matter this evening.
I am merely offering food for thought.
We should not simply believe that everything about conventional medicine is perfect, but should give some thought to the reasons why people turn to non-conventional medicine.
Nevertheless, my group has serious problems with Mr Lannoye's report in its present form.
I have long endeavoured to reconcile the different positions that exist in Parliament in some way.
However, there is a key problem which we cannot get round, even with the best of compromise proposals.
On the one hand, Mr Lannoye's report seeks the greatest possible freedom of choice for patients and therapists.
On the other, it seeks the greatest possible safety - and therein lies the problem.
It transpires that certain therapies have proven effects which can be scientifically verified.
I am greatly in favour of promoting these therapies and their use by doctors.
However, there are other therapies which, by their very nature, are not susceptible to basic scientific verification.
The user believes that a therapy helps.
Indeed, he is convinced of the fact.
But a third party cannot verify this in accordance with scientific principles.
The question is: how, in such circumstances, does one establish the border between use and abuse? How, for example, does one pursue an action for damages, if objective verification is impossible?
I believe we must consider this very carefully, not least because some non-medical practitioners in Germany and other countries maintain that it could be dangerous for Europe to lay down strict criteria, since that could lead to them no longer being able to practise in their own country as before.
We also receive critical letters from users of non-conventional medicine telling us that it is better to leave well alone.
The question of subsidiarity must also be considered in this respect.
I believe that all these reasons should lead us not to adopt Mr Lannoye's report in its present form.
This is not a rejection of so-called gentle medicine.
It is a rejection of what has so far been an inadequate attempt to harmonize it at European level.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let us not be mistaken.
The rapporteur is repeating his old refrain with new words.
After having spoken to us in previous years of parallel medicine, complementary techniques, alternative therapies, now he is telling us of non-conventional medicines, in the hope that we will forget that behind this word are hidden esoteric notions - shiatsu, sikh, and others.
These are vague, woolly, unverifiable notions.
The rapporteur is quite simply asking for a Directive to recognize these so-called medicines and those who practice them. But on what guarantees?
The report is vague on that point. With a diploma?
A university diploma?
No.
A diploma awarded by the practitioners themselves 'as a result of a rigorous self-regulatory process within the profession itself' . That means that these practitioners would form a jury and therefore be both the judge and defendant.
Would you entrust your health to such practitioners? For example, would you travel in a plane with a non-conventional pilot in the cockpit?
The rapporteur wants to convince us by pointing out that some of these practices enjoy a form of legal recognition in certain Member States.
Does that mean he wants us to align ourselves on the most laissez-faire States in such a serious area? By the way, he has no scruples about attaching a false meaning to certain articles of the Treaty, in particular Article 57 (3).
Amendment No 10 calls for the assessment of these non-conventional practices.
But by whom? By a serious, officially recognized scientific committee?
Not at all. By a joint committee including practitioners from both schools of medicine, conventional and non-conventional.
What on earth is this?
You would think that we are at a religious synod or a trade union meeting.
But that amendment goes further.
In the following paragraph, to simplify, it quite simply recommends committees comprising only qualified practitioners in these non-conventional techniques.
Practitioners qualified by whom? Of course, in Amendment No 11, we should immediately stop pursuing these 'honourable practitioners' .
Here, we can begin to detect some of the interference by the lobbies behind this project.
While he is at it, the rapporteur also wants the pharmacopoeia to be reformed, changes to the list of authorized medicines and, as in Amendment No 15, to have medicines and practitioners reimbursed by the social security system.
This is an extraordinary paradox: just as Parliament is demanding a tightening up of security and safety for consumer protection, here we are talking of abandoning the health safety of those same consumers, our fellow citizens, our children, to individuals without qualifications - or with sham qualifications, using unproven medicines, at the taxpayers' expense.
That really is going too far!
I am certain, ladies and gentlemen, that you will reject a report of this kind which would discredit us in public opinion.
Mr Lannoye, stop showering us with these mass-produced letters, signed by the same hand, illegibly.
It is not worthy of you or of us.
And do you not think that this money would be better spent on a proper health project?
Madam President, non-conventional medicine in all its various forms and disciplines is a reality which we cannot ignore.
As the rapporteur said, some Member States have already recognized a number of these forms, but they are all practised, even in Member States which have recognized none or only some of them.
If we vote against this report today, it will not mean that non-conventional medicine will suddenly disappear overnight.
On the contrary, we would simply be giving carte blanche to non-qualified practitioners.
In our view, denying reality is the wrong approach and fails to solve the problem of illegal practice.
In the interests of patients, doctors and practitioners of non-conventional medicine, we are therefore calling on the Commission to carry out a detailed study to obtain information on the following questions: is the discipline in question safe and effective? How widely is it practised?
What can it be used to treat, and what not?
Is it a supplementary discipline to be practised alongside traditional medicine, or is it intended to replace it? And finally, in which Member States is the discipline already recognized?
What are the conditions in each Member State?
And what training in the discipline is available?
Until the Commission carries out such a study, we feel that there can be no question of coordinated legislation or legalization at European level.
Our group also feels that the problem of whether or not payments should be reimbursed by the social security systems is purely an issue of subsidiarity.
We oppose Amendment No 15 tabled by the rapporteur.
The Liberal Group hopes that the majority of Members will vote for this report, which is an acceptable compromise, and in particular will approve the first section of paragraph 2.
This is of the utmost importance for us.
If this does not happen, then we shall be forced to vote against the report as a whole, which we should very much regret.
Madam President, I rise to welcome this report which attempts to orchestrate some basic harmonies in a rather chaotic symphony.
The popular acceptance of non-conventional medicines is a fact of life.
But how this is to be regulated in the European Union is not so obvious.
The rapporteur has made a valiant effort to achieve a consensus out of a variety of cultural experience.
For the English-speaking world I would venture to put on record that the acceptance of non-conventional medicine is a core value in that culture and is woven out of three different strands.
One, that part of European traditional medicine which was excluded as Western allopathic medicine developed in the 19th century out of the disciplines of the apothecary and surgeon - and I speak of manipulative medicine and herbalism in particular and also of homeopathy.
Two, the traditional medicine of the non-European world which was overwhelmed by the power of the Western mindset, also in the 19th century.
Three, the de-skilling of women as primary health care providers as medicine became institutionalized in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
In these three strands we are talking of the inclusion of what was excluded which is a major focus of democracy in the European Union.
So, we are not simply talking about listening and caring, but about proper practices.
Many of these disciplines are extremely profound and have their own practical traditions which are very effective.
Let us be sensible and adopt this sound and sensible proposal or we will risk a great divergence and indeed, discordance, in the Union.
In any case, the UK and Ireland will persist as centres of excellence for nonconventional medicine.
We have this tradition of regulation by professional bodies, not with the kind of legal base that is common in other states of the Union.
Indeed, this is non-problematical in many areas of cultural life in these countries.
The financial sector is a case in point.
I would ask the Commissioner to consider the amendments I have tabled on behalf of the Greens which give priority to non-conventional medicine disciplines which enjoy some form of recognition and organization at European level already.
I hope we can take this excellent report on board.
Madam President, the non-conventional medical practitioners have obviously done their work well, since here Parliament is discussing yet another report on improving the status of non-conventional medicine.
What is it all about?
The recognition of non-conventional medicines clearly involves a conflict of interests.
Conventional medical science generally has a low opinion of non-conventional medicine, which it sees as competition and whose practitioners it even sometimes views as dangerous or unscientific.
Behind this conflict lies a fundamental difference of opinion about mankind and what illness really is.
This motion for a resolution tries, fairly successfully, to bridge the gap between the 'objective scientists' and the non-conventional practitioners.
The first two paragraphs rightly stress the need for detailed research into the safety and effectiveness of these medicines, which lifts the debate above the purely emotional level.
However, what I find less welcome is the fact that European law is now being expected to solve a conflict that is primarily being waged at national level between protecting the patient, quackery, and allowing the patient freedom of choice.
Including non-conventional medicine under 'medical and allied professions' under Article 57(3) of the Treaty is far too broad an interpretation.
This was not what this article was intended to cover, as both the Commission and the Council have stated.
Perhaps this could be confirmed again.
The article in question actually deals with the coordination of the conditions for practising certain medical and allied professions in the Member States.
I would therefore prefer this issue to be dealt with through subsidiarity at Member State level.
Freedom of establishment is the only truly European issue here, and economic considerations must not be allowed to outweigh the medical or ethical aspects.
Non-conventional practitioners have to pay the price for this: they must abide by the rules of the country in which they are established, rules which have been introduced through democratic processes.
However, this need not be too great a burden, since successful research into nonconventional medicines may mean that treatments which are proven to be safe and effective are included in conventional medicine.
In my view, using European rules to impose greater freedom is not acceptable.
Madam President, first of all I must congratulate the rapporteur on the effort he has put in in such a specialized field.
Mr Lannoye has always impressed me with his huge knowledge of ecological matters.
But medicine is quite another science and I am disappointed to have to say that, in drawing up these reports on nonconventional medicines, Paul Lannoye has been ill-advised, misguided and misinformed.
All practitioners in the art of curing, including me, recognize the uselessness, even the danger, of over-relying on technological methods for reaching a proper diagnosis.
Similarly, chemotherapy is part of the therapeutic arsenal to be used with discernment and moderation.
I have always been a partisan of learning about and the use, as a complement, of less aggressive medical techniques, provided they are correctly practised - e.g. homeopathy, manual medicine, acupuncture - as well as massotherapy, unfortunately left out of this report.
But it is commonsense that whatever the means of therapy chosen, medicine can only be practised by medical doctors who have had full training in a European university - European universities being, nobody will deny it, the best in the world.
The rare mistakes or excesses committed by a few doctors cannot justify leaving the art of curing in the hands of health 'officials' whose practices sometimes are more like witchcraft than medical science.
When a plane crashes following pilot error, nobody ever thinks of training non-conventional pilots.
I therefore insist that all of my colleagues who are not doctors should understand the overriding need to integrate the teaching of so-called 'soft' , ' alternative' or 'non-conventional' medicines in the main university training courses for all doctors.
The vital principle of primum non nocere cannot be reserved only to allopathic therapy but must apply to the art of curing in all forms.
I must express my very sincere regrets to the rapporteur, but I think that it is my duty not to vote for his report.
Madam President, very often Members of this Parliament are called on by our citizens to set out the benefits and disadvantages of the European Union.
Very often we explain them in terms of rights and responsibilities, the freedoms and rights of the single market and the social and legal responsibilities which are fundamental to its fair achievement.
The debate about non-conventional medicines, which is undoubtedly controversial, crystallizes that wider debate.
Our citizens are demanding rights.
Consumers are clearly demonstrating their demand for non-conventional medical products and treatments.
Studies, for example, by the UK Consumers' Association show that one in four people now visit non-conventional practitioners by choice.
In turn, those practitioners seek the rights of movement enshrined in the treaties.
Yet perfectly respectable osteopaths and chiropractors, for example, who are legally permitted to practise in some states, such as my own, face serious penalties in others - let alone receive any encouragement.
So, demand for change exists from both patients and potential healers.
But for potential legislators, there must be responsibility too.
The risk of exaggerated claims of miracle cures, of weakening of standards and of insufficient regulation is arguably real although international bodies which are strong in, for example, the field of homeopathy, have worked very hard to raise awareness and standards.
That is why Mr Lannoye's tenacity in bringing this initiative to Parliament tonight is to be applauded and should be supported by votes tomorrow, as my splendid colleague Mrs Roth-Behrendt has urged tonight.
It may be imperfect as Members both for and against are arguing tonight but it represents a step in the right direction towards better access and choice for patients, the removal of barriers for responsible and properly regulated practitioners, recognized standards of training and qualification and the possibility of sensible integration into future conventional health systems at an appropriate later stage.
That has been gradually welcomed by the British Medical Association since 1993 and while we must work with the Commission and other agencies to scrutinize future proposals carefully and also consider very carefully remaining genuine reservations, it would be the right and responsible decision of this Parliament tomorrow to lead the way forward for an open-minded approach to tackling some of the very real health needs of citizens throughout Europe.
(Applause from the left)
Ladies and gentlemen, I have to say something to the visitors in the galleries.
Our Rules of Procedure have been established, and these state that visitors in the galleries are to remain seated and keep silent.
Anyone expressing approval or disapproval will be immediately ejected by the ushers.
I would just point that out to you, because the rules are indeed administered in that way.
We like the general public to have the chance to listen to what takes place here.
But you are not allowed to participate in any way, whether you express approval or disapproval.
I would ask you to respect this, since otherwise I shall have to tell the ushers to remove you from the galleries.
Madam President, first of all I should like to emphasize the fact that medical science is a single science and there is no such thing as 'alternative' or 'non-conventional' medicine, just as there is no such thing as 'alternative' physics, chemistry or architecture.
Secondly, medical science has already shown what a considerable contribution it has made to protecting people's health and also to restoring it when it is endangered.
That is obvious from the large increase in life expectancy, well-known achievements in the field of vaccinations, and the amazing progress in diagnosis and surgical methods.
Heart surgery is now regarded as almost routine.
Thirdly, I should also stress the fact that medical studies are lengthy and difficult and usually last at least ten years in all.
Fourthly, in medical practice, apart from doctors themselves, there are also other scientists and professionals such as physicists, chemists, laboratory assistants, psychologists, physiotherapists and others all of whom work for the service of patients and always under the responsibility of doctors.
That could also be the case of some of the teams referred to in the rapporteur's report but he wants to make them independent and give a licence to nondoctors who wish to carry out medical practices.
I am totally opposed to that.
The fifth point I wish to emphasize is that in order to tackle a medical complaint a proper diagnosis must be carried out.
The danger here is great since therapy by non-doctors, without proper diagnosis of the illness, could be dangerous and it could possibly lead to a delay in treatment by proper means and that is a basic point in medical science, unfortunately not accounted for in this report.
My sixth point is that everyone knows that it is impossible for any new medicine to be used by doctors unless it has undergone lengthy and documented tests so that responsibility can be taken for its circulation, something which again is overlooked in the report.
Finally, I should like to say that the health of European citizens, one of the most precious assets, must be the responsibility of doctors with whom any paramedical branches who wish to help sick people must cooperate.
So far medicine has worthily assumed that responsibility with brilliant results.
I hope that the European Parliament will reject this report because, if it is adopted, I think that we will be taking several steps backwards in the protection of the health of European citizens.
Madam President, in the debate on the merits of non-conventional medicine as opposed to conventional medicine, the issues of a lack of humanity and the decline of the relationship of trust between doctor and patient are repeatedly brought up.
I wish to emphasize in the strongest possible terms here that humanity, trust and personal commitment depend not on the method of treatment, but entirely on the person carrying out the treatment - in other words, the doctor or therapist.
The clear and unequivocal demand set out in recital J of the report for clinical trials and comprehensive, scientific tests of effectiveness to be adopted as a prerequisite for the recognition of non-conventional medical disciplines is very much to be welcomed.
If the conclusions of a series of tests carried out in this way prove positive, then a method of treatment will have fulfilled the requirements of conventional medicine for verifiable and comprehensible operating mechanisms.
The rush to embrace new, alternative therapies whose effectiveness is so far only partly proven is misguided.
It would be more appropriate to test these new approaches and therapies fully and rigorously within the context of a tried and tested medical tradition, with a view to integrating those which prove successful into conventional medicine as soon as possible, so as to hold out to conventional medicine - which in the last few years has perhaps become too technical and equipment-oriented - the prospect of a more humane form of medicine, which views people as a whole and builds on their powers of self-healing.
Finally, I should like to refer to the financial aspect of this question.
The treatments that we are all paying for dearly with our contributions must have demonstrably positive effects.
We owe this fundamental quality assurance not only to patients, but also to taxpayers.
For example, the president of the German Association of Health Service Doctors said in this context yesterday that it is unacceptable for all and sundry to practise Tibetan drumming or meditative Ikebana at the expense of the insured community as a whole, simply because they once did one insured person some good!
That is not enough for them to be recognized as therapies and receive financial support.
Madam President, not all members of the PSE Group share the views expressed by Mrs Roth-Behrendt, because many of us think that a progressive attitude to so-called 'alternative' medicines does not mean putting it above any other value of freedom of choice.
That is an ultra-liberal attitude.
On the contrary, we want to see a development of alternative medicines - progress, legislation on them, while guaranteeing, or at least protecting at all times, the health, safety and legal rights of ordinary people.
We do not think that the Lannoye report goes in this direction, on the contrary, and that is why we have tabled some amendments and we shall vote against certain articles and we will vote against the whole report if paragraph 2, for example, is kept as it stands.
We go along with the defence of two basic principles: first of all, anyone wishing to exercise in the European Union one of the so-called alternative medicines should have a general medical training base and an official qualification guaranteeing that training.
That qualification could be in medicine, but it could also be in naturopathy or homeopathy etc.
But it must be a qualification issued by an academic authority rather than the current situation in which a so-called committee assesses the practitioner's qualification; secondly: the efficiency and, above all, the harmlessness of treatments must be assessed by scientific or academic institutions in the light of scientific, biological or statistical methods, etc., and by no means as a result of 'self-regulation' carried out by the profession itself, as the report would have it - this would be a step backwards.
These and other proposals are not compatible, in our view, with the scientific guarantees that European qualifications must offer nor with the safety of ordinary people, nor with the functioning of the European Parliament.
The history of medicine, like the history of mankind, is a fight between knowledge and beliefs: the more knowledge advances, the more withdrawn beliefs become.
Will there come a day when medicine is an exact science? Obviously not.
The final result will always be weak, because fighting death is the weak point of all of biological science.
However, that must never be a reason for abandoning scientific bases founded on reason and knowledge.
Madam President, all I would say, quite calmly and simply, is that this resolution would allow treatments typically performed by the medical profession to be carried out by persons who have not been trained on the basis of the European directives regulating medical school curricula, which have been established in order to permit the free movement of doctors throughout the Union.
Apparently, these therapists do not wish to practise medicine, but merely to be able to treat patients according to the principles of so-called alternative medicines, but there is no doubt that, by promoting direct access for European citizens to alternative therapists, these persons would also be entrusted with the very delicate diagnostic phase, without having the relevant training.
The fact is that only once an illness has been identified, in other words after diagnosis, can the appropriate treatment be determined.
Diagnosis is a basic task of doctors, and of doctors alone: an incorrect, over-hasty diagnosis of an illness that is curable by medical science - which, as is well known, has made tremendous advances in recent years - can often endanger the health and, sometimes, even the life of a patient.
An amendment tabled in committee, not approved by the rapporteur, calls for a study of the effectiveness and safety of alternative medicines to be carried out before any directive is issued. Naturally, many colleagues who are in favour of the resolution voted for this amendment because, despite everything, they are still not convinced of the effectiveness and safety of therapies which have not been scientifically verified.
Given the approval of this amendment calling for a thorough precautionary study of the safety and effectiveness of all non-conventional medicines, we are now faced with an absurd and contradictory resolution, Commissioner, because all the recitals and other paragraphs of the resolution itself are geared to obliging the Commission to allow so-called alternative medicine to be practised in all the Member States.
I shall therefore vote against this resolution, as will my entire group, in the interest of the citizens of Europe, but also because I believe that in any event this matter falls under the principle of subsidiarity, which allows the Member States to make arrangements in keeping with their own customs and practices.
Madam President, Mr Lannoye's report makes us aware that the financing aspect of health is also very much at issue here, and that there are also some departments which do everything possible to ensure that they remain unchanged.
I believe, however, that the systematic exclusion of therapies whose empirical effects can be recognized, but which cannot be explained or understood in traditional scientific terms, constitutes an unfortunate self-restriction on the part of conventional medicine.
I believe that recognizing complementary therapies would serve not only to protect patients from quacks and charlatans, but also to enrich conventional medicine with constructive new approaches and ideas.
I refer, for example, to holistic treatments, which regard people as more than simply the sum of their parts.
Traditional Western medical science would be in difficulties if it could not convince people through its high quality, but had to assert its position legally through a claim to be the sole legitimate representative.
All scientific claims to absolute right lead to totalitarianism, sooner or later.
I therefore believe that we must adopt Mr Lannoye's thought-provoking report.
Madam President, I too want to congratulate the rapporteur.
He has put in a lot of work since this own-initiative report was first referred to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection almost three years ago in October 1994.
As we know, complementary medicine is practised by thousands of people each year throughout Europe and it has been discussed at length at European level over recent years.
Mr Needle said one in four people had partaken of complementary medicine and seen the benefits of disciplines such as shiatsu or - as in the case of my own mother where conventional medicine failed - received great relief from acupuncture.
Many practitioners of conventional medicine realize that traditional medicine has a lot to offer and reasonable, independent-minded people must realize that our whole future health and well-being undoubtedly lies in a good mixture of the two.
I am asking the Commission to come forward now with a draft directive.
There is a clear need for complementary medicine to be regulated legally and the professional qualifications of practitioners must be legally recognized.
They must be allowed to circulate freely throughout the Union provided they meet basic standards.
The Commission is best placed to set out these rules.
I would therefore urge Commissioner Flynn here tonight to come forward with a draft directive and I would urge Members to support the report and the amendments to which I have appended my name.
Madam President, I am convinced that non-conventional medicine can be of great use to patients.
I take it as read that there is a need for action at European level in this field, but I would stress first and foremost that Community interference in the organization or contribution and reimbursement obligations of national health insurance schemes is unnecessary.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, dealing with these matters remains the responsibility of the Member States.
As a practising pharmacist, I feel it is important that the report gives valuable impetus to the debate on the question of self-medication.
There are calls for increased selfmedication in a great many countries, when health systems come under review.
Pharmacists must therefore come to grips with the question of self-medication and bring their knowledge to bear in consultations on the choice of treatment with so-called gentle medicines.
In any event, they need to able to judge confidently the nature of the illness and the extent of the threat.
Non-conventional therapies are based on the same natural laws as conventional therapies, but seek to stimulate the body's internal self-healing powers to a greater degree.
It is also important to stress that the different types of therapy are not mutually exclusive, but complement one another.
It is extremely important for patients to be guaranteed a very high level of safety, and it must be ensured that they are given detailed information on the quality and effectiveness - and also the possible risks - of non-conventional therapies.
It is therefore necessary to secure the highest possible level of qualification and a requirement to provide information.
The level of Europe-wide qualifications must be as least as high as that already required for non-medical practitioners in Germany and Sweden.
Furthermore, in the interests of patient protection, there is a need for compulsory liability insurance which is not of a lower standard than that required for conventional medical practitioners.
It has been my experience in the Committee on Petitions that we frequently discuss the recognition of diplomas at European level.
And there is no indication in the Treaty that non-conventional medical disciplines should be excluded from such recognition.
In the interests of securing cross-border mobility, the recognition of diplomas in this field must also be promoted.
In general terms, it must not happen that the practice of a non-conventional medical discipline is prevented in a Member State because the profession does not exist in that country.
I also believe that, in an age of Europe-wide telemedicine and teleshopping, the existing study courses in medicine and pharmacy should be reviewed rather than harmonized, and I would likewise propose that courses in nonconventional medicine should also be offered at universities.
I welcome Mr Lannoye's proposals for the Commission to draw up studies on non-conventional medicine, using them as a basis for any coordinating legislation, and for the Council and Parliament to encourage the development of research programmes in this field.
Madam President, in following this debate, one sometimes gets the impression that one has read the wrong document.
There is talk of witchcraft, and there are comparisons with the aviation sector.
Engaging in polemics and trying to conceal matters or present them in a totally different light does not help matters, in my opinion.
The point that different Member States have different regulations or problems is a reason for supporting Mr Lannoye's report, rather than an argument against it.
The ideological battle over this issue has rightly been condemned.
However, it is not enough to condemn this battle if a colleague who does so then falls into the same error and rides roughshod over doctors.
Our group has strong reservations and will vote against the report.
However, a number of Members in our group hope that the Commission will finally carry out a thorough study of the safety, effectiveness and scope of non-conventional medicine and take steps towards harmonization.
We hope that rules will be introduced in the interests of protecting public health, as well as in those of existing and perhaps future professions, not least in conventional medicine.
For example, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and I are of that opinion.
Although I am unable to endorse every paragraph and amendment, I broadly support Mr Lannoye's report, and I also fully agree with the substance of the comments made by Mrs Heinisch.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Lannoye for his good report and for highlighting the problems associated with alternative medicine.
Alongside conventional medicine, and in support of it, alternative medicine has developed.
It should be borne in mind that conventional and alternative medicine are not mutually exclusive but in many cases, indeed, support each other, to patients' advantage.
I have myself benefited from both of them.
However, the position and role of conventional medicine vary widely among the Member States.
Different views are taken of alternative medicine.
Trained chiropractors, for instance, have already acquired a legalized status in many Member States, such as Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Britain.
Because of the differences of approach, it would be difficult to integrate alternative medicine as a whole into European social security systems.
As Mr Lannoye observes, the position of consumers also differs greatly from one country to another.
In my view, treatments which do not form part of conventional medicine ought to be precisely defined, as should the levels of training required of their practitioners, so that, when choosing among treatments, patients know as accurately as possible what the various options are.
It is important to harmonize legislation in order to determine the standard of training institutes for practitioners, to help new graduates find work, to supervise work and further training, and particularly to guarantee the effectiveness and safety of the care offered to patients.
Madam President, on behalf of the Commission, I should like to compliment the rapporteur Mr Lannoye on the breadth and depth of his own-initiative report on non-conventional medicine.
However, it would be only fair to say at the very outset that at this juncture the Commission cannot share all the report's conclusions.
The sphere of non-conventional medicine is at present a highly topical and emotive one.
Discussions on this issue often give rise to strongly-held and conflicting opinions within and outside scientific circles.
In fact, the difference of opinions and the diversity of attitudes which exist on this subject are very obvious even in the House this evening.
This divergence of view is reflected, as the report itself points out, in the different approaches adopted by the legislation of the Member States.
It is for this reason that the Commission feels that the time is not yet ripe for it to undertake the comprehensive study of non-conventional medicines and therapies which Mr Lannoye advocates.
In compiling reports of this kind, the Commission must rely on national data and policies to evaluate the need for action at Community level.
But as we are so far from achieving consensus in this area, it is unlikely that such a study, if undertaken at this point in time, would be able to come to any decisive conclusions.
Furthermore, given the very limited level of budgetary provision for public health programmes, we have, as you know, had to establish priorities for Community action and the severe constraints on our resources do not allow us to undertake other new commitments for the time being.
The report also invites the Commission to harmonize the conditions for the exercise of non-conventional medicine in the different Member States.
In response to this specific request, I should first point out that the general system for recognition of diplomas, which has been in place for a number of years now, already guarantees free movement to practitioners between those Member States which recognize non-conventional medicine as a discipline distinct from conventional medicine.
As the recitals in the resolution point out, it is perfectly true that under Article 57 of the Treaty, the Commission could propose a directive which would provide for the creation in each Member State, subject to agreed rules on education and training, of one or more recognized professions in this field.
But, in accordance with the Treaty, such a directive would require the unanimous approval of the Member States.
I must be frank and say to the House that in view of the diversity of approach that I mentioned earlier, it is unlikely that any real progress on a proposal of this kind could be made in the foreseeable future.
On a more positive note, I should like to say that in relation to food supplements, the Commission in its Green Paper on Food Law adopted on 13 April 1997, announced its intention to initiate technical consultations as soon as possible on the need for and possible scope of Community legislation.
Concerning pharmaceutical legislation for non-conventional medicines, the Community legislation in the field of medical products is based on the three requirements of quality, safety and efficacy.
The main problem for non-conventional medical products is the proof of efficacy.
A special approach was taken with Directives 92/73 and 92/74 for certain homeopathic medicinal products, where a product was allowed to be marketed without fulfilling the requirement of efficacy.
The Commission is prepared to examine the potential that this approach offers for giving effect to the views expressed in the resolution.
With regard to the specific issue in point 5 of the motion for a resolution, concerning budget line B6-7142 of the Biomed programme, I have to inform you that it was not legally possible to carry out the research projects referred to because non-conventional medicines are not included in this specific programme's objectives.
On the other hand, in the case of budget line B6-8332, which is referred to in the preamble of the motion for a resolution, a report by a group of consultants dealing with research on homeopathy has been published in recent days.
I have brought a copy with me for the honourable Members' information; other copies will find their way to Parliament through the normal channels.
Furthermore, the Commission has published a call for tender for a study relating to herbal medicinal products.
A contract for this study will be granted shortly and it is expected that the results of the study will help the Commission in evaluating the situation and in developing possible proposals for specific legislation.
Although the Commission feels that it will be some time before it is possible to provide a comprehensive response to all the many issues raised in this resolution at Community level, I am confident that Mr Lannoye's report will provide an important contribution to the debate which is already under way within many of our Member States.
Do you intend to produce a green paper on this topic, Commissioner? The public very much needs information in this field.
What form will future training standards take, and will it be possible to focus on new issues in the area of research?
Madam President, it is not the intention at this time to propose publishing a Green Paper.
The other matters referred to were dealt with in my reply.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Social aspects of housing
The next item is the report (A4-0088/97) by Mr Crowley, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the social aspects of housing.
Madam President, at the outset I wish to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, Nik Lane, for all his work and also the officials from my own group, Mrs Emma Petroni and Mr Denis Smyth.
They have put a tremendous amount of work into what I consider to be a very important and vital report which deals with the social aspects of housing policy across the European Union.
I would like to convey to Members the ideology behind this report and also dispel any fears that some Members may have about it.
One of the major arguments which erupted in committee when this report first came up for discussion was the question of subsidiarity.
Through dialogue, negotiation and compromise with other groups in the committee and other interested parties, I have attempted to overcome their difficulties with certain areas.
You will therefore find that there is no call in the report for a fundamental right to housing to be included in the Treaties.
I had originally sought this, not least because of the imminence of the Amsterdam Summit.
However, the European Union already has some power with regard to housing.
Under the European Coal and Steel Community, there is a specific budget line and a specific reserve for the granting of low-cost loans for the re-housing of coalminers and steel workers, and also for the renovation and re-development of housing in coalmining or steel regions.
As Members know, the ECSC Treaty lapses in 2002.
There is no reason why the European Union should not take over the powers of that Treaty.
The Maastricht Treaty allows for us to do so and also to harness the reserves left in those budget lines and bring them back into use under a new European Union policy.
The human aspect of what we are dealing with is huge: 18 million people homeless in the European Union, supposedly the most wealthy economic bloc in the world.
13 million people live in inadequate or temporary accommodation.
We are talking about nearly 10 % of the population of the European Union suffering because of the lack of a coordinated and proper policy towards housing.
As well as that, one has to look at the unemployment figures.
And yet despite the huge unemployment figures from the most recent information from the Commission, the number of people going into skills-based training is reducing every year.
That means that possibly in five to ten years time there will not be sufficient skilled workers in carpentry, plumbing, building and so on to meet the demand.
We should look at this not in a negative but in a positive way, of Europe taking to its heart those who are most vulnerable in our society, living the true social model behind this European Union, to ensure that the wealth that is created in this Union will reach every citizen and that he or she will not be at an economic disadvantage because of barriers that are put in place by European decisions.
As well as that, we have an opportunity to create new employment and new training.
As part of my research and discussions for this report, I met with the construction industry's federations across the Member States and they are willing to contribute financially towards a house-building programme in cooperation with the local and national authorities.
I am asking that the European Union become involved as a expert facilitator to bring the best practices from every Member State to show how a sustainable housing development policy could work and also to instigate proper training and managements skills for the operation of those programmes.
Finally, on the matter of rural depopulation: this is a problem that can be overcome.
In the last ten years we have seen a decrease in the rural population of Europe of 48 %.
That has brought with it major problems for large urban areas where tenements have proliferated, where there are inadequate services, inadequate roads and schools and so on.
This has brought social problems such as drug abuse and crime.
By taking positive action, we can rehouse people in rural areas, re-vitalize rural communities and take some of the pressure off urban areas.
In conclusion, I would ask that all Members take to their hearts the ideology and the belief behind this.
It is a People's Charter for a better Europe.
It is showing that we can react to the real needs of every individual European citizen.
I ask every Member to support it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to speak about one part of this report, namely the issue of homelessness.
This is one of the causes and consequences of social exclusion.
It is one factor of deprivation which, along with unemployment, poverty, social isolation and inadequate education and training, blights the lives of millions of European citizens.
Homelessness particularly affects the young, the old and other vulnerable groups in society.
For example, in my own city, the largest single cause of homelessness is domestic violence, namely violence against women and children in their homes.
Because homelessness is part of a complex multi-dimensional pattern of disadvantage, it requires a coordinated approach from public authorities, an approach which is sensitive to the needs and aspirations of the homeless, which takes account of the fact that homeless people need jobs, schools and health services and an income as well as a home.
That is the reason that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is calling for a Commission taskforce of relevant directorate-generals to develop integrated strategies to combat social exclusion.
That is why we are saying that the homeless themselves and their organizations should be consulted about relevant European programmes.
The major responsibility for the provision of housing lies with the relevant authorities of the Member States.
If, however, the European Community is serious in its desire to build an inclusive society, Europe can add value to the work of Member States.
For example, we could be using the structural funds.
We could be unblocking the Council's veto on the poverty programme to explore new initiatives which address housing needs alongside the need for sustainable urban and rural development, skill training and employment.
We can create new pathways for the integration of those who are homeless and excluded.
I hope that Mr Crowley's report, on which I congratulate him, will contribute to this process and that the pace of progress to build a social Europe will gather momentum in Amsterdam next month.
Madam President, there is an expression in Dutch which says that the later it is in the evening, the more beautiful people become.
I think this is certainly the case here, but I have to say that there are really very few of us to be discussing such an important issue.
The Commission recently published statistics on poverty in Europe which show that a considerable number of people live in relative poverty, in other words in comparison with the people around them.
Of these one third are unemployed, one third are pensioners, and one third are in work.
This means that a large proportion of these people are still fairly young.
If we look at the figures for the homeless, we can see that more than half of them too are aged between 20 and 40.
Most of them have worked at some time, usually in temporary or insecure jobs.
So poverty and poor housing or homelessness tend to go hand in hand, and both can lead to social exclusion.
This is why the fundamental right to decent and affordable housing needs to be put into effect through specific measures, first and foremost by the local and national authorities.
Last year at the Habitat Conference in Istanbul, the first steps were taken at international level to provide housing for all, and action now needs to be taken at local, national and global levels.
The European Union's role could be to coordinate certain aspects of housing policy, and a European initiative such as a pilot project could be set up.
As regards the PPE Group's amendments to the Crowley report, I would stress that in the case of Amendment No 13 by Mr Mann, the German version is the original.
This means that only technical support projects are to be covered, such as technical assistance in obtaining loans.
It does not mean that housing projects themselves should be given European funding.
If the rapporteur is prepared to support our amendments, with this clarification, the PPE Group will vote for the report tomorrow.
I should like to congratulate him on his work, which I think provides us with extremely striking evidence of why action is needed on a housing policy.
The only question is who should take it, and how.
Madam President, Mr Crowley's report can be seen as an entirely satisfactory response to the problems connected with the social aspects of housing.
Where I come from, in Rome, it is said that unless the construction sector recovers, the economy as a whole will not recover; so why not promote this sector across Europe, wherever it can provide a significant number of jobs? But quite apart from employment, housing also represents comfort and a focal point for the principal nucleus of society - the family.
Every human being has a right to a decent, affordable home; indeed, certain families should be given one free of charge.
A home provides shelter from inclement weather.
It serves as a meeting-place and base for those excluded from society. Homes are needed for the elderly, and family homes for the handicapped: just think how important it is to incorporate into our town planning - both old and new - family homes where handicapped persons can continue to live after the death of their parents.
Parliament and the Commission must pay more attention to this sector, which is so important from the social point of view.
Obstacles exist, of course: there is inadequate funding.
I am very familiar with the construction sector - I used to build houses before becoming an MEP - and I know that it is a depressed sector, a poorly supported one: the EIB does not yet fund building projects, the rules are still too complicated, and firms both large and small have difficulty in moving around Europe.
This problem will not be solved unless and until we find a proper solution to its financial aspects, without even mentioning the lack of planning.
The report touches on all the social aspects of the matter, as well as addressing itself to town planning in respect of housing.
It is true that planning is essential to free people from the ghettos which would be created if housing were nothing more than bricks and mortar, for the use and abuse of speculators alone.
Finally, Madam President, larger houses ought to be built, so that this old Europe of ours can have many children.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our group sympathizes with the sentiments behind this report, which expresses concern for those groups in society that need us to care for them.
However, we in the Liberal Group feel that we cannot vote for it, because it expects far too much to be done at European level which we simply cannot achieve.
For example, we have to disagree with recital B, which says that there is a general trend in the Member States towards the abandonment of their responsibilities in terms of housing policy.
This and a number of other examples place far too much responsibility on Europe, and Europe simply cannot deliver the goods.
There is also no legal basis for it, which is why we have said that we will not vote for the report.
We would not oppose an action programme to encourage model projects, but this is the only thing we feel we can discuss.
Madam President, more than 18 million people without a home or poorly housed in the European Union is an intolerable situation and one that is likely to get still worse.
That is one of the most dramatic consequences of policies based on financial profitability which, at the same time, scandalously encourage real estate speculation and increase unemployment, precariousness and exclusion.
The implacable law of the markets applied to housing throws on to the streets millions of people - young people in particular - who are unable to find a stable job.
The right to housing is a fundamental human right.
The report mentions some interesting proposals, such as measures against urban speculation or European funding of projects presented by Member States.
But I think that an integrated European policy, as demanded by the report, is not a good solution - primarily because experience shows, alas, that most Community policies have lowered social standards because they are never based on the upper level.
I would also emphasize the fact that the Maastricht criteria and the criteria for the switch to a single currency have led to reductions in the financing of social housing construction and housing support.
The problem of housing, which depends on each State, can be solved, however; all that we need is the political will to grant social housing the place and the means it deserves.
I should like to refer to three types of solution which might be food for thought.
First of all, favouring the construction of housing at accessible prices, offering material support, lowering bank interest rates, taxing speculation.
As for the homeless, the construction of social hostels where homeless people could seek shelter, and setting up housing centres respecting human rights and including social services so that the various problems posed could be dealt with.
Above all, we must find ways of halting the increase in the number of homeless.
Therefore, the barbaric practice of evictions must cease, and must be banned when rent delays are have social reasons.
Being thrown out on to the street is, in most cases, an irreversible step towards marginalization.
Losing the roof over your head, especially for children, is terribly traumatic.
Specialized committees could help people with rent payment problems and make them more responsible for their lives.
Finally, considerable aid must be given to charity associations whose support is vital, as they are devoted to alleviating the suffering of the least well-off and I would like to repeat the need to re-establish European credits in favour of the fight against poverty.
Trying to find solutions to solve the basic problem of housing means putting an end to the logic of financial markets and putting human beings rather than money at the centre of society.
Madam President, in this House it is customary to congratulate rapporteurs on their excellent work.
On this occasion, when I offer my congratulations, I do so quite sincerely.
In this report, drawn up at the initiative of Parliament and the Committee on Social Affairs, Brian Crowley has very clearly demonstrated the central importance of housing policy as an element in social policy.
Other employment and social policy measures are in vain unless people have decent housing from which to go out to work, in which they can bring up their children and where they can relax in their free time.
It has now become clear to us that there are enormous differences in housing policy between Member States.
Some Member States spend as much as 3 % of their GDP on housing, others less than 1 %.
It can also be said that housing policy has been shamefully neglected at Community level.
It is not too late for us to seek the insertion in the Treaties at the Amsterdam summit of an article on social policy which would create the legal basis for common housing policy measures.
There is a challenge for us here in the weeks ahead.
Madam President, on behalf of the Commission I should like to thank Mr Crowley for his report and all the Members who have contributed to the debate.
While we are all rightly concerned with the problems caused by homelessness, there are strict limits on what the Commission can or seeks to do in this field.
Fundamentally, housing provision is a matter for the Member States and the Commission does not believe it has any significant role to play in the physical provision of housing.
Mr Crowley's resolution suggests that European low-cost housing loans could be modelled on the example of the ECSC.
Certainly this was a programme which brought great benefits in its day but these loans are less relevant now than they were.
Indeed, demand for them has fallen in several of the Member States, to the extent that part of the funds allocated remains unclaimed.
The scheme is, in fact, being wound up at the end of this year.
The structural funds have been cited as a potential source of housing finance.
This has not been the case in the past, although the Urban Community Initiative has, for example, focused on areas of housing deprivation.
Whilst I do not know what the Commission will propose in the context of the post-1999 reforms, I wonder whether lowcost housing loans can really be given priority over, for example, our employment needs.
However, on a more positive note, while the Commission is unable to finance housing as such, it tries to contribute to efforts combating homelessness and the social effects of poor housing.
We fully agree with the emphasis which the resolution places on the need to adopt an integrated approach to resolve the complex web of economic, social and cultural problems that are their root cause.
An excellent example of this integrated approach was the Poverty III programme which promoted multiagency approaches to tackling poverty.
This programme supported a wide range of housing-related projects which range from improving shanty towns in Greece to aiding the regeneration of run-down social housing areas in Edinburgh.
Indeed, housing action of some sort was involved in almost three-quarters of the projects that were supported.
Mr Crowley's resolution also mentions the IGLOO initiative.
The Commission has already provided support to help establish this European network and I would very much hope that we can continue to support this type of activity in the future.
I should like to thank Mr Crowley for his thoughtful report.
The Commission will consider his proposals with due care and the material from the Member States is worth studying.
Thank you, Mr Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
European Information System - Information technology for customs
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0062/97 by Mrs Terrón i Cusí, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council act (12029/94-9277/1/95 - C4-0249/95) drawing up the Convention on the establishment of the European Information System (EIS); -A4-0060/97 by Mr Schulz, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Council Act (C4-0248/95 + C4-0520/95) of 26 July 1995 drawing up the Convention on the use of information technology for customs purposes, the Convention drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union on the use of information technology for customs purposes and the Agreement on provisional application between certain Member States of the European Union of the Convention drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union on the use of information technology for customs purposes.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to follow on from what Mrs Terrón i Cusí has just said.
In doing so, I shall refer to another information system that is due to be set up in the European Union: the Customs Information System.
The purpose of this system is to assist in pursuing serious contraventions of national laws in the customs sector.
Its aim is to enable customs authorities to acquire and exchange as rapidly as possible the information necessary to combat serious crime, with a view to increasing the effectiveness of their cooperation and control procedures with regard to the transport of goods, the treatment of transport companies, the various means of transport, fraud and organized crime. It is also designed to enable them to improve their strategies for combating organized crime through the dissemination of this information.
Within the framework of this information system, the intention is to address the kind of cross-border organized crime now developing in the European Union, to draw up studies and make these available to the national authorities.
Naturally, this will only be possible if information is also gathered on the persons committing the crimes - in other words, this information system will also contain personal data.
So far, so good.
That is the right and sensible approach, and Parliament must support the Member States' authorities - not only the customs authorities, but all the other national authorities involved - in their efforts to step up the fight against crime in this area, which is constantly on the increase; and we support all efforts to set up the necessary information systems to this end.
What we cannot support, however, is that in the process of establishing this information system and putting it into operation, in the legislative process that is necessary to bring the Convention into force, Parliament should as usual be sidelined.
Article K.6 of the Treaty on European Union provides for the European Parliament to be consulted on measures such as the setting-up of a customs information system.
What did the Council do? It signed and adopted the Convention - and I would urge the House to note this carefully, since this is the Council's customary way of doing things - before its text was forwarded to Parliament in all the official languages.
In other words, the Members of this House - not many of whom are present here tonight, which I can well understand - had to deal with this project by first having to fight to obtain copies of the necessary document in their respective official languages.
Moreover, Parliament must also note the fact that the process of consulting it - which in theory should be taking place tonight - is completely worthless, that everything we say tonight is completely pointless and meaningless, since the Convention has already been forwarded to the national parliaments for ratification.
This issue concerns the establishment of an information system which could include data on every single citizen of the Union, since the Convention contains passages which provide, for example, for the operators of the future European Information System to cooperate with all national authorities which could be involved in the collection of the data for this information system, without it being defined which national authorities are meant by this, or how these national authorities are supposed to transmit the data concerned to the Customs Information System.
In any event, it seems that nothing less than a race to set up information systems has broken out in the European Union, with a continuing disregard for the right of the freely elected representatives of the people of Europe to be involved.
Mrs Terrón i Cusí has just told us about the European Information System; I am speaking about the Customs Information System; there is the Schengen Information System; and Europol has its own information system.
These different systems sometimes process data collections which duplicate each other and overlap.
In future, it will only be possible for a European citizen to avoid being included in an information system by residing outside the European Union - but not in one of the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe, since they are cooperating intensively in the establishment of the European Information System.
This is what distinguishes the applicant states from the European Parliament.
The Polish Minister of the Interior undoubtedly knows more about the Customs Information System than Parliament's rapporteur - I can assure you of that.
The same is true of the other information systems, moreover.
The idea has been floated of creating a single, vast information system combining the customs, European, Europol and Schengen information systems - a sort of information Big Brother, outside the control of national parliaments and the European Parliament.
The directors of such an information system would have a great job.
They could collect whatever data they liked, without having to account to anyone for what they did with it.
If a Member of this Parliament, as an individual citizen of the vast legal area that is the European Union, happened to come into contact with such an information system and objected to the data held on him there, he could not bring a complaint before the European Court of Justice, because - surprisingly - the information system would be outside the ECJ's jurisdiction.
Following that broad description of this highly undemocratic situation, let me make the following basic comment: anyone who wishes to enlist the support of the EU's citizens for the marvellous European project for the future which could help to alleviate the difficulties in the European Union, anyone who wishes to encourage the EU's citizens to take part in this project, must make them feel that they live in a democratic legal system.
It is unacceptable that in setting up information systems such as those I have been describing this evening, the aim of which - fighting organized crime effectively - is undoubtedly a good one, the fundamental requirements of democracy should go unobserved, and civil protection and the lawful establishment of the legal foundations should not be guaranteed.
And they will not be guaranteed, if Article K.6 of the Maastricht Treaty is constantly trampled underfoot!
If that is the case, we shall be unable to persuade the EU's citizens that it is a good thing to take part in the Union.
And I shall tell you why: it may well be that ordinary citizens - who, tonight, if they are German, are celebrating Borussia Dortmund's victory over Juventus - are not interested in the Customs Information System and do not care if the European Parliament, the German or any other national parliament deals with it - and I am sure that that is the case.
But when they see, in the long term, that the European Union's entire legislation in the field of internal security is no longer being debated by national parliaments or the European Parliament, when they see that systems are being set up which can intrude in their daily lives without our citizens being able to have a say in how they are established, then I am quite sure that mistrust of these bodies will grow, instead of the trust they need in order to be able to combat those who pose the greatest threat to the development of the European Union - apart from the Council of Ministers, which, if it continues in this way, will be in permanent danger of being criticized for being an undemocratic institution.
What really poses a threat to us is organized crime, which it must be the aim of all these bodies to combat.
However, they will only be able to do so efficiently and effectively if their action is placed on a genuinely democratic footing.
Unfortunately, however, that is not the case.
I regret to say, therefore, that we must make clear with this report that, once again, a project which is actually a very good one is being laid open to dispute, and will remain open to dispute in the process of ratification by the national parliaments - as is currently the case with Europol - because the Council, in its infinite wisdom - which, tonight, I shall for once describe as arrogance - failed to consult Parliament in good time.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to refer mainly to the opinions of the Committee on Budgetary Control on the Convention on the use of information technology for customs purposes and the Convention on the establishment of the European Information System - the reports on which have already been introduced.
Cooperation in the customs sector raises the question of demarcation between the first and third pillars, and thus concerns a variety of competences.
It involves administrative cooperation between the Member States' authorities, and their collaboration with the Commission in areas of Community competence.
The result is that merely the exchange of information in the customs sector has two different legal bases, which hardly serves the purpose of improving cooperation between customs administrations.
We are therefore faced with a somewhat misleading title and, above all, an objective which does little to encourage integration.
The Commission will simply be responsible for managing the system's technical infrastructure.
Moreover, the Convention establishes no links with other Community databases - some of which have already been mentioned, such as SCENT or IRENE - the database for the fight against fraud, or the IDA proposal to facilitate the smooth functioning of the single market.
The protection of the Community's financial interests is therefore not taken specifically into account.
The customs authorities are required to prevent and combat offences against both Community rules and national laws.
So in the most complicated way, the expenditure for this system will be included in the Community budget and borne by the Member States.
Under the terms of the TEU, the exchange of customs information must be set within the framework of the EC Treaty.
Unfortunately, however, the Council has given in to the wishes of certain Member States and placed the Convention within - or let it drift into - the intergovernmental sphere.
The artificially perpetuated hovering of this Convention between the intergovernmental and Community areas can, in my view, do nothing to promote the campaign against fraud and the protection of the Community's financial interests.
The paragraph in the motion for a resolution calling on the Commission to determine whether the system could be regulated under the EC Treaty by means of a directive or a regulation raises this problem only tentatively.
The Convention on the establishment of the European Information System is also designed to improve the effectiveness of controls - this time on the Union's external borders - especially through the dissemination of information on persons or objects being sought.
Its purpose - and this has already been pointed out - is to transpose the Convention implementing the Schengen Agreement, which was signed by certain Member States as long ago as 1990 outside the framework of the EC Treaty.
The European Information System will be funded solely from national contributions.
There is no provision for any kind of links with the Commission's services - such as the anti-fraud unit - or access by Commission officials to the data in the information system.
These information systems are necessary and important.
I too would recognize that.
However, I have to say with disappointment that this is certainly not the ideal way to draw up Community legislation or create Community facilities.
These systems will continue to be set up in parallel, and then isolated from one another.
That is not what we want or need!
Unfortunately, it cannot be said that the Intergovernmental Conference will produce any relief either, though that is a popular term there - at least, not yet, I am sorry to say!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights delivered its opinion on the convention on the establishment of the European Information System, it had at its disposal only a draft convention dated December 1995, which was still being examined by the Council of Ministers.
The Parliament's involvement in the framework of Article K.6 is an imperfect one and depends on the goodwill of the Presidency.
It is not accompanied by the jurisdictional guarantees that characterize the European Parliament's participation in the legislative process, pursuant to Article 138.B of the Treaty.
Article K.6 of the TEU provides for Parliament to be informed and/or consulted by the Council Presidency in the framework of Chapter 6.
The letter by which the French Presidency forwarded a draft EIS convention to the European Parliament was informative rather than consultative.
Nevertheless, the European Parliament decided to deliver an opinion.
The aim of this Convention is set up the means and even the conditions prior to the free movement of persons.
The EIS Convention is an instrument of the Convention on Crossing External Frontiers of the Member States of the European Union.
These two conventions are very closely interlinked.
Police and judicial cooperation set up by the EIS Convention between Member States with a view to rapidly disseminating information on persons being sought, under surveillance or to be arrested, with legal guarantees established by the convention, should make it possible to make progress towards the aim of the free movement of persons.
On the other hand, the Schengen Information System is the model on which the EIS is copied.
On this model, the EIS comprises two parts, a national part, and the separate technical support function.
This 'twin-arm' system inevitably has the disadvantage that each Member State will apply two separate laws: its own law and that of the Convention.
The problem will, in all likelihood, arise in respect of the reporting procedure laid down in Article A.4.
Whereas the welter of international instruments involved in the Convention is proof of the importance of the questions dealt with, our committee fears that this interlink creates a supplementary factor of complexity which could mean that implementation of the EIS Convention will infinitely be delayed.
Similarly, our Commission regrets that questions concerning the Court of Justice are dealt with separately.
If they had been integrated that would have strengthened the legal security of the Convention when it comes to be applied.
Finally, to conclude, I should like to say personally that I strongly regret the fact that the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs should not have thought it appropriate to consult the Legal Committee when its rapporteur considered changing the legal base.
If, as is quite probable, the questions of crossing borders and immigration etc. are dealt with and communitarized at the Amsterdam Summit, it will then be necessary to transform the Convention into a regulation, but not before conclusion of the IGC - that was a little bit premature.
Madam President, judging by all the empty seats in the House it would appear that our citizens are not all that 'worked up' about these technical issues.
So, looking at all the interpreters around me, I would like to say a special thank you to those of you who are struggling with us at this late hour when so many are absent.
But the subject does have important political implications.
Our people must be able to feel safe in Europe.
Criminals adapt to the new common order quicker than the legal system does.
A Europe which does not have an effective system of combating crime or which has a feeble legal system will not win the wide, popular support needed to develop it sufficiently to ensure that people's hopes and expectations, in securing freedom of movement for example, can be fulfilled.
Free movement through the abolition of internal borders requires compensatory measures in the form of the EIS, primarily at the external borders, to make border controls more effective.
It is essential for Member States to keep each other informed about items which have gone missing or fake items in circulation as well as about missing persons.
As for criminals, information about them could be registered where there is good reason for supposing that they are about to commit a crime or where they have committed very serious crimes.
The fight against crime within the Union is based on the dissemination of information between the national authorities.
There are currently four information networks.
Of course there are some differences between them, since they all have different objectives; after all nobody wants a 'Big Brother' attitude in Europe.
For this reason we need to be cautious about huge information networks.
There must be clear restrictions surrounding the collection of information, but vital information relevant to a particular case must be included, otherwise it can never be a key instrument in the fight against crime and it has no other function to fulfil.
At the same time any irrelevant information, and irrelevant information cannot be avoided, must be treated with great care and held at the lowest level possible.
We regret that the Council has taken so long to produce translations.
Obviously, Parliament cannot adopt a position on a draft law which is not available in every language, which is why the Council's action could be taken as an indication of how much the democratic process in Europe is being eroded.
Had the matter been raised under Article 235, the Council could have avoided the current unpleasantness.
So we have put forward several amendment proposals intended to follow up formally on this position.
Mr Bardong expounded the PPE group's view on these issues from a constitutional point of view so well that I will skip that section and simply point out that it would be of value if they are ultimately included within the framework of the Union.
In conclusion I would like to quote Mr von Wogau's words from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
He states the following: ' The Convention creates the information system necessary through the Convention on Controls on External Frontiers, gives concrete reasons for greater co-operation in the legal sector and for police and customs co-operation, facilitates an improvement in the safety of people (and objects) on the Union's territory and contributes to the removal of barriers to the proper performance of national economies: the fight against the criminal economy, illegal trade of all types (narcotics, weapons), terrorism, criminality, crime and the embezzlement of capital.'
Then we hope that this convention will be quickly ratified so that people can move freely.
The broad consensus shared by both committees ought to be converted into practical action as soon as possible and be viewed as an important step towards freedom of movement.
Madam President, I would address the reports first by referring to Mr Schulz's report and then to Ms Terrón i Cusí's.
On behalf of the Commission, I should like to thank Parliament for the significant work undertaken in various committees on the convention on the use of information technology for customs purposes.
As the House will know, the aim of the convention on the customs information system is to create a database containing operational information on sensitive matters such as illegal drugs, weapons, pornography and so on which are currently outside the Community's legal competence for use by the customs administrations of the Member States.
As the House will also know, in parallel with this convention, a new regulation on mutual assistance and administrative cooperation in customs and agricultural matters was adopted by the Council on 13 March last.
Clearly, therefore, the CIS under the convention is complementary to the CIS under the regulation.
Obviously the Commission has no right of initiative in the field of customs cooperation under the third pillar.
Having regard to the link with the CIS under the above-mentioned regulation, however, the Commission will also manage the technical infrastructure of the CIS under the convention, whilst having no access to the data contained in this system.
The House will also be aware of the Commission's active interest in the fight against fraud and the Commission believes that reinforcement of customs cooperation among the Member States, particularly through the use of computerized systems, significantly contributes to the effectiveness of those efforts.
Our practical experience is that the aspects of organized crime which the customs administration have to deal with cover, without any possible distinction, both first and third pillars.
That is why the Commission, while respecting the legal constraints deriving from the Treaty of Union, has pushed very hard for operational customs officers to make technical use of the single computerized system.
The CIS convention obviously falls within this framework.
To summarize, therefore, whilst the technical infrastructure used for the CIS under the regulation will also be used for the CIS under the convention, in legal terms there will be two different systems in accordance with the pillar structure of the European Union.
The Commission agrees with the guidelines of the report made by Mr Schulz.
However, whilst noting the various references made to the Commission in this report the House will know only too well that the Commission has no right of initiative in this area and has to take account of the pillar structure of the European Union.
Of course the issues raised in Mr Schulz' report could be resolved in the framework of the Intergovernmental Conference and I know that this Parliament and the Commission are in accord on that matter.
I would, therefore, invite Parliament to continue to support the transfer of the administrative aspects of customs cooperation which are currently under Title 6 of the Treaty from the third pillar to the Community's sphere.
Of course the penal and judicial aspects of customs cooperation should and would remain in the third pillar.
But, as Members of the House and the Commission have argued, there are common advantages in administrative customs cooperation and change would consequently provide general benefits, without compromising the distinctive interests of Member States.
I commend the report to the House and I thank Mr Schulz and his colleagues for their useful work.
I now turn to Mrs Terrón i Cusí's report on the European Information System.
I must say that the Commission shares the rapporteur's concern that the EIS Convention is deadlocked in the Council of Ministers and our disquiet is all the more marked because of the clear link between the EIS Convention and the Convention on Controls on External Frontiers.
The Commission also agrees with the rapporteur's suggestion that the European Court should also become involved in matters relating to the conventions under Article K3.
I will take the opportunity in this debate to clear up a few misunderstandings which have become evident.
Firstly, the European Information System (EIS) will replace the Schengen Information System (SIS).
We will therefore just have one system and not two.
Secondly, the Eurodac System is about the possibility of taking fingerprints in the case of asylum-seekers and has to do with the implementation of the Dublin Convention.
Thirdly, CIREA and CIREFI are not information systems, they are working parties in the Council of Ministers.
The Commission has pointed out on several occasions that the term 'Centre ' in both these titles could lead to misunderstanding so I emphasize that in this case Centre refers to groups and not to places.
I trust that is crystal clear.
I agree with the rapporteur that we have to be careful to avoid an overlap between different information systems in the future, for example with Europol systems.
At the same time the Commission is convinced that the introduction of the EIS system will lead to clearer and more rational information systems and, who knows, one day it may lead to clearer and more rational hours of debate for this Parliament.
In closing I would like to make a general comment on an institutional question which runs like a common thread through both the reports which are being debated tonight.
Ms Terrón i Cusí suggests that the EIS Convention might be converted into a regulation.
I have to say to her, however, that it is doubtful whether it would be possible to apply Article 235 of the Treaty in practice since, like Article K3 it requires unanimity in the Council.
The questions we have been discussing here tonight show that it would be much easier if we had a common legal framework.
That is why the Commission proposed to the Intergovernmental Conference that everything in Title 6 with the exception of police cooperation and judicial cooperation should be transferred to the first pillar.
Such a change in the Treaty would facilitate our work on both the EIS and the CIS and provide plain benefits for the Community and for its people.
I hope therefore that Parliament will continue to give support to the Commission's proposal in the IGC and I also hope that the results of the Intergovernmental Conference and the new Treaty will mean that our common desire for greater efficiency can become a reality.
I am grateful for the work done by Ms Terrón i Cusí and her colleagues in a report that gives further substance to the case for progressive change.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Air carrier liability in the event of accidents
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0172/97) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0092/97-95/0359(SYN)) with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on air carrier liability in the event of accidents (Rapporteur: Mr González Triviño).
Madam President, first of all I should like to thank all of those in the Committee on Transport and Tourism for their work, dedication and cooperation so that this duty could be performed.
I should also like to thank the Commission for the sensitivity that it has shown to the amendments tabled by the European Parliament and its willingness to accept the Parliament's opinion.
I should also like to thank Mr Sánchez, who was a Member of the European Parliament for two years and began this process.
In recent years, air transport has taken on considerable, unprecedented importance in the countries of the European Union, as a result mainly of the following factors:
First of all, higher incomes which have made this means of transport more accessible.
Secondly, liberalization and competition measures within the European Union, which have slashed air fares.
And finally, technological progress which has made it possible to use aircraft more intensively, increasing capacity over the last 20 to 40 years.
The result is that, in recent years, the number of air passengers in Europe has been going up by almost ten million a year.
The latest figures from the Association of European Airlines indicate that there are now more than 150 million air passengers a year.
This is a very high figure, which clearly shows that air transport has become a system regularly used by a large proportion of the European population.
However, in the field of insurance cover for air carrier liability, this is still covered by the provisions of the Warsaw Convention and the Hague Protocol which, now more than 40 years old, are very antiquated, for obvious reasons.
Logically, the same criteria for insurance protection in a system of transport initially regarded as very risky and used by a minority of the population can no longer apply.
We have reached the absurd situation in which passengers using air transport have poorer coverage and protection than road passengers, despite the fact that statistics show that air transport has become the safest of all existing forms of travel, with an average number of deaths of approximately 700 persons a year.
A study carried out by the European Commission shows, for example, that an incident of a 40-year old manager dying in a road accident could result in damages of 650, 000 ECU, whereas his or her death in an air crash would lead to compensation of 30 times less than that.
This is due to the fact that the maintenance of minimum guarantees stipulated in the Warsaw Convention is still the international norm, except in cases of airlines whose countries have approved separate national standards.
On the other hand, it is quite obviously unfair that no measures have been taken to uniformize the level of coverage received by all citizens of the European Union.
That is why the Commission's initiative is a laudable one, and that is the one which is being submitted for the European Parliament's consideration today.
The debates and exchange of opinion in the Committee on Transports and Tourism showed that there is unanimity among the various political groups in backing the Commission's initiative.
The main aspects of the regulation are the following:
First of all, to waive all financial limits of liability where the airline is at fault for damages suffered by passengers in the case of injury or death.
Secondly, even if carriers can show that they took all measures to avoid damage to passengers, liability is set at the equivalent of 100, 000 ECU for each passenger.
Furthermore, it lays down provisions for advanced hardship payments to victims to offset their most pressing economic needs or those of their beneficiaries.
It is important to point out that the adoption of these protection measures for air passengers does not necessarily mean any considerable increase in transport costs, since the cost of insurance premiums varies from one to three thousandths of air companies' costs.
It should also be mentioned that passengers in the European Union flying in planes belonging to carriers registered outside the European Community will have a lower degree of protection.
It should also be pointed out that the regulation obliges non-Community carriers to inform their passengers of their degree of insurance coverage, i.e. lower than that existing in the European Union, at the time of ticket purchase.
It is predictable that once this regulation is enforced higher levels of coverage will be extended to all air users, as many of these concepts have already been adopted by a number of world airlines in the inter-carrier agreements on passenger liability, voluntarily approved in Kuala Lumpur, in October 1995, covering already a total of 83 major airlines.
It should also be pointed out that the Legal Committee of the International Civil Aviation Organisation has just completed its proposal to revise the Warsaw Convention, to be put later this year or at the beginning of next year to the diplomatic conference of that Organisation.
If, as is foreseen, the Council has to consider the content of the text that we are debating here in order to meet international standards in this field, we hope and desire that the final text will be submitted again for consultation by the European Parliament.
Madam President, there have been a lot of changes between the first and second readings.
But one thing remains the same.
The debate seems to be taking place at about ten minutes to midnight.
Those of us who travel regularly by air have seen year-on-year the increased number of passengers at our airports.
Fortunately the risk to most of these air passengers from transport accidents is extremely low and I certainly took great comfort from the impressive statistics which the rapporteur produced to prove that.
But when disaster strikes, there needs to be an adequate system of insurance protection which entitles consumers to full and fair compensation and gives access to funds within a short time to meet urgent commitments.
This regulation helps considerably in this respect and represents a big step forward in consumer protection within the EU.
It is one on which there has been a very considerable amount of accord between the institutions and also between the Members of this Parliament.
Up to now the obligations of air carriers, as the rapporteur said, have been governed basically by the 1929 Warsaw Convention.
That is quite old - in fact, it is as old I am and that is quite old.
Obviously this needs updating and many of the voluntary agreements amongst the European and other airlines have recognized this.
The regulation brings these together and improves them considerably.
The original proposals which the Commission put forward have been greatly strengthened by the amendments carried in the European Parliament in the first reading, as, indeed, the common position of the Council indicates when it states that it takes on board most of these amendments, most of them supported by the Commission itself.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism and the two rapporteurs can be well pleased at a job well done.
I particularly welcome the fact that the regulation waives all financial limits of liability, where the airline is at fault.
This is necessary to keep pace with the vastly increased amounts being granted by the courts in these circumstances.
Even in the case where the carrier did everything to avoid an accident, there is now to be a strict level of liability and in fact, there are also proposals for advance payments in the case of death.
These are very much needed and have been a strengthening of the regulation.
Of course these provisions apply only to European Union airlines, but, I am pleased to say, that non-Community carriers are obliged to inform passengers of their conditions when they purchase their tickets.
Finally, as I said, this is an improvement.
But as European passengers are flying more and more outside Europe and new, and sometimes dodgy, airlines spring up, we must do everything we can in the way of striking new agreements with other parts of the world to see that this protection for air passengers is extended even wider.
Madam President, I regret that a matter of such sensitivity to air travellers is taking place at such a late hour.
But I would like to thank everybody for staying on this evening, especially the interpreters and, obviously, the Commissioner, as well as fellow speakers.
The Group of the European People's Party welcomes the Commission draft regulation and I would like to congratulate Mr Gonzalez Triviño, the rapporteur, on his work in this regard.
It is important to recognize that the common position reflects the main objectives of the proposal.
Its main points are extremely important: to update the levels of liability for the carriers, recognizing the lower risks involved in air travel today but the higher level of damages paid to victims in transport accidents.
It is important to waive the financial limits of liability where an airline is proved to be at fault but to impose a strict level of liability up to the equivalent of 100, 000 special drawing rights.
The most important thing is that non-EU carriers must inform passengers of their conditions of carriage at the time of purchase of the ticket.
The situation in Europe today is regrettably very fragmented and in this regulation and our comments on it we should emphasize the need for uniform interpretation of liability.
The proposed regulation is therefore extremely welcome in this regard.
My group will support the amendments with the exception of Amendment No 4 by Mr Wijsenbeek.
We believe that the original text is better and stronger.
We commend this proposal to the House and we are particularly grateful to our rapporteur Mr Gonzalez Triviño for the excellent work and for the Commissioner for his patience in being with us here this evening.
Madam President, Commissioner, since we are all in agreement, I should simply like to make two brief points.
I am somewhat disappointed that the Council did not agree to the Commission's proposal that the regulation should enter into force six months after publication, but has extended that period to one year.
I appreciate that airlines have to prepare themselves, but I preferred the Commission's proposal to the effect that six months are sufficient.
That would clearly have improved passenger protection and would have been better.
Commissioner, perhaps you should say something about one of Parliament's amendments which I regard as particularly important.
Amendment No 4 by Mr González Triviño calls on the Commission to ensure, in all future civil aviation negotiations with third countries, that those countries introduce liability rules in the interests of passengers that are similar to those laid down in the regulation.
You know that the Council frequently makes life difficult for the Commission in its negotiations with third countries.
We are therefore asking that legislation should be adopted to ensure that action is taken in the context of such negotiations.
Ensuring that European passengers have the same rights of protection when they fly with non-Community airlines is presumably a concern that reflects both our views.
If we decide this jointly, Commissioner, if the Commission supports this request, the Council will create fewer difficulties for us.
And, above all, it will create fewer difficulties for you.
I would therefore ask you to comment on this particular amendment by Mr González Triviño, and to accept Parliament's proposal that this issue should be incorporated into all negotiations with third countries.
Madam President, there is one advantage - and I think only one - in meeting and discussing important issues at this time of night.
It promotes a certain kind of team spirit which is all to the good, especially in the development of further solidarity between the Commission and this Parliament.
I am extremely grateful to those Members who have expressed satisfaction at the fact that the Commissioner is here to listen to this interesting debate tonight.
All of us are here, of course, at no extra cost to the European taxpayer.
As the House will know and as Members have said, this proposal offers the legal prospect of welcome change and improvement in the protection of the interests of air transport passengers.
Despite the fact that there is still a small point of difference with the Council, progress towards the adoption of this regulation is assured and the fact that the common position wholly or partly incorporates fifteen of the nineteen amendments adopted by this Parliament during its first reading, will mean that the House can feel some justifiable satisfaction.
The main objectives of the original proposal were, as the House will recall, the removal of the long outdated liability limits of the Warsaw Convention, the establishment of a principle of strict liability up to 100, 000 special drawing rights, about ECU 120, 000, and the specifying of a requirement for airlines to make an advance payment to persons entitled to such payments.
I am pleased to say that those objectives are all intact.
The only change of significance made by the Council was the deletion of the commitment to introduce application of the regulation in negotiations with third countries.
That proposal has now been re-submitted in the amendment offered by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, as we have heard in the course of the debate.
As the House will know, the Commission considered this amendment and the proposal contained within it to be a useful and legitimate proposal which, without violating the rules of the Warsaw Convention, aims to encourage third country carriers to apply the same levels of insurance cover as Community airlines, while those third country airlines are operating within the Community.
The Commission can therefore agree to Amendments Nos 1 and 4.
I can also inform the House that in our preliminary discussions with the Central and Eastern European countries on air transport, the Commission has already adopted this approach by requesting that their air carriers apply such levels of insurance cover when operating to, from or within the Community.
The Commission can also accept Amendments Nos 2 and 3 to replace Article 6.2 and 6.3 of the common position.
It is important that comprehensive information on the carrier's liability regime is accessible to passengers exactly as Mr Gonzalez Triviño has correctly argued.
The conditions of carriage also contain other information of interest to passengers and a reference to those conditions clearly has value.
The suggested system would mean that there was no need for several different notices to be attached to the ticket, thereby dealing with the problem highlighted in recent correspondence from IATA.
I would like to commend warmly Mr Gonzalez Triviño and the Committee on Transport and Tourism for the excellent work done on this issue, not just in the report we are considering tonight.
I am very grateful for the continued support which has been consistently offered by this House to the Commission on this proposal.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 12.05 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, concerning the Minutes, item 2: yesterday I brought up the subject of Norwegian salmon dumping.
I have to report to the House that the reports we heard yesterday seem to be true that Norway has done a deal with the European Union which will involve a voluntary code of export limitation.
There will be much anger within the EU that the country which voted No to membership of the club seems to have better access to the Commission than we in this Parliament when we tried to raise the matter yesterday.
Mr President, I come from a peripheral region where we depend very much on fish and fish farming as we have no alternative source of employment, so I fully support my colleague Allan Macartney from Scotland. We must ask, who do we represent?
Do we represent the citizens, the fishermen and the fish farms in the Union, or those outside the Union? The Commission must take a hard look at itself and think about who we represent.
Mr President, I am glad that Mr Macartney has raised this matter.
It is an important issue of the standing of this House and its relationship with the Commission.
The Committee on Fisheries and Parliament have always taken the view that we should stand together supporting the European Union in this dispute with Norway.
For the Commission to enter into any negotiations and do a backroom deal, not considering the full implications for the European Union, is not very clever.
And we should ask the Commission to make a statement at the next part-session so that we can understand fully what has been going on in the background.
Mr President, on the same issue, the Socialist Group supports the other groups in demanding a statement from Commissioner Brittan.
For the last few months I have been trying to find out exactly when he is going to divulge the contents of the study his department has been carrying out.
There have been leaks in the press to the effect that he was recommending a duty on Norwegian salmon imports but that he is now getting cold feet about going down that road.
He seems to prefer the old road of minimum import price which has not worked in the past as we have seen in this Parliament.
So, as Mr Provan has suggested, I hope Sir Leon Brittan will make a full and frank statement to the House on Monday or Tuesday of the next part-session in Strasbourg on the current state of play on this very serious issue, which affects thousands of jobs in Scotland, Ireland and other parts of the Community.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Social security: workers moving within the EU
The next item is the report (A4-0118/97) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(96)0452 - C4-0543/96-96/0227(CNS)) amending Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community and Regulation (EEC) No 574/72 laying down the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament finds the proposal which is before us today to be very positive, Commissioner.
The aim is to strengthen the existing telematic services in the Member States which are required for the coordination of social security systems.
We are quite happy with the proposal.
Another excellent proposal concerns sickness and maternity benefits for students and trainees.
Europe already has freedom of movement, and this is something we wish to promote.
We wish to ensure that increasing numbers of students have the opportunity to spend a year abroad either studying or following a training course, and it is therefore all the more reasonable that the system in their Member State should also entitle them to sickness and maternity insurance.
So this amending regulation can count on our support.
Unfortunately, I have to say that my own country, the Netherlands, has adopted provisions which will prevent Dutch students going abroad from taking advantage of this excellent legislation.
We in the Committee on Social Affairs feel that the opt-out that the Netherlands has requested on this point must be rejected.
One Member State must not be allowed to treat its students differently from other Member States.
I also have a number of supplementary questions.
We are all familiar with the problem of frontier workers, which affects not just the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, but also France-Spain, Spain-Portugal, and Italy.
The problem is growing, because Member States are under increasing pressure to make cuts in their social security budgets and are therefore changing their systems.
But the Commission is not always immediately notified of any changes made, so that it can examine whether they have any impact on people living in one country and working in another.
The notification procedures are simply not adequate, and I would ask the Commissioner what he intends to do about them.
We had an example of this yesterday, unfortunately again in the Netherlands, when something was decided in the Second Chamber in a general debate and all the political parties, not just the CDA group but also the VVD, PVDA and D66, then asked the Secretary of State to consult the Commission about whether what they had done was acceptable. And what had they done?
They had tabled a proposal which would drastically reduce the rights of people working in the Netherlands but living or intending to live in another country.
The effect is that if you are, say, a Belgian frontier worker working in the Netherlands and you become unfit for work, you can claim benefits for a limited period only.
It also means that there is no longer any guarantee that you can build up old-age pension or social insurance contributions. Has the Commissioner discussed this with the Netherlands?
These rules will affect not just the countries bordering on the Netherlands, they could also have implications for the whole of Europe. Have you had contact with the Netherlands?
Will you do so as soon as possible? If there has already been a general debate, then the matter will be dealt with by the Second Chamber very shortly.
Will you talk to them as soon as possible and report back to us?
Parliament has already expressed its views in an earlier report which I drew up on the changes that are constantly being made in social security.
Should we not discuss the effects on commuters and frontier workers once again with the Ministers for Social Affairs, so that we at least know what is happening in advance, rather than constantly having to take corrective measures after the event?
I should like to thank the Commission once again for its proposals and for the successful cooperation we have had, and I hope that my amendments will be adopted.
Mr President, this report regulates the social security system in the case of an employee or a self employed person and their family relocating within the Community.
It is an important report since mobility is increasing, and this, of course, is something to be welcomed.
The amendments which the Commission has proposed aim to incorporate amendments which for the most part have already been made in national legislation.
But it is still a good thing that this is continuing.
Currently a person who is residing in another Member State to further their studies is entitled only to 'minimal health care' if they are sick; this is a form of basic health care or emergency health care.
But under the Commission's amendments they will have access to care each time they need it, something which really ought to be a matter of course.
Naturally, this is something which must be supported, and something which we do in fact support.
The committee takes a positive view and welcomes improvements especially for students.
The Liberal group also supports the amendment which aims to guarantee citizens from third countries studying in the EU the right to emergency medical care as well.
This, Mr President, is an improvement on the current situation.
But I would like to point out that there is still a difference between students coming from countries within the EU and students coming from outside.
All the same it is a step in the right direction which improves conditions for students coming from countries outside the Union. It ought to be possible to remove the remaining differences during the next round of reforms.
The Liberal group will vote for this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have had the single market for quite some time.
We also have gradually increasing cross-border mobility, but the free movement of workers is still inadequately underpinned by social security provisions and access to health care.
The Commission proposal and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report therefore represent the very first steps towards creating the minimum that is necessary to ensure that basic social rights continue to be guaranteed in the context of the growing cross-border mobility of workers.
It is important that the provisions will also apply to students and workers on vocational training courses, since this an area in which mobility is particularly increasing, thereby contributing to the consolidation and development of the internal market in paid employment.
I would also stress the importance of ensuring that third-country nationals are no longer discriminated against, as at present.
We must continue to take steps in this direction.
There are other wishes that remain unfulfilled.
Since we are interested in ensuring the development of cross-border mobility within the European Union, we are also interested in making it possible for workers to take benefits from their own Member State with them when they go to reside temporarily in another Member State.
In its assessment of the possibilities here, the report falls short of what is required.
To sum up, it can be said that in those areas where Parliament has a say, it clearly has difficulties securing even small advances.
Only in areas in which it has no say can it formulate broad principles.
We must finally overcome this discrepancy.
We must introduce genuinely principled and radical policies in our legislative processes.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, the rapporteur, for the continuing support she gives to the amendments of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 and Regulation (EEC) No 574/72.
The Commission welcomes the very positive attitude of the European Parliament on this proposal and Parliament shares the Commission's opinion that Regulations (EEC) No 1408/71 and 574/72 on the coordination of national social security schemes need to be updated in the light of changes made in national legislation.
Parliament also shares the view that it is necessary to give a proper basis in the text of the regulation to telematic services for the coordination of social security schemes.
This is known as the TEST programme and Mrs OomenRuijten has made particular reference to the importance of this.
Parliament also endorses the proposal concerning the extension of the rights of health care benefits to students and to those on vocational training staying in a Member State other than that in which they are insured.
In her report, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten suggests three amendments.
The first and the third concern the derogation proposed for the Netherlands on the method of reimbursement between Member States of health care costs for students.
It seems that this derogation puts the Netherlands in a favourable position vis-à-vis the other Member States.
The Commission is therefore prepared to endorse these amendments.
The second amendment seeks to extend to third country nationals the right to health care when they are staying temporarily in a Member State other than that in which they are insured.
Mr Wolf made particular reference to this point.
The Commission had already forwarded this idea to the Council in 1995, unfortunately without success.
However, the Commission is again prepared to take over this amendment in its modified proposal.
Finally, there was another point raised by the rapporteur. It does not have anything in particular to do with today's report.
However, it concerns a decision of the Dutch Government and it is due to enter into force shortly.
It relates to disability pensions.
DG V is aware of the issue and has received representations from disabled people concerning this proposal.
DG V has asked the legal service for advice on this matter and the issue appears to be quite complicated.
It is also politically sensitive.
Even if the Commission is unhappy with the new decision, it cannot prevent it coming into force.
However, should it come into force, the Commission could be in a position to institute infringement proceedings, if it is contrary to European Union law.
I give an assurance to the honourable Member that the matter will be pursued with all diligence as she has indicated it should be.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
Passenger registration and training of seafarers
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0152/97 by Mr Watts, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(96)0574 - C4-0029/97-96/0281(SYN)) on the registration of persons sailing on board of passenger ships; -A4-0174/97 by Mr Parodi, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive (COM(96)0470 - C4-0550/96-96/0240(SYN)) amending Directive 94/58/EC on the minimum level of training of seafarers.
Mr President, the view of the Committee on Transport and Tourism is that this Commission proposal for a directive on the registration of persons on board passenger vessels in the European Union should be endorsed.
Indeed, the committee was unanimous in its support for this measure.
We believe it is overwhelmingly clear that this measure is necessary as a means of ensuring effective search and rescue.
To fully appreciate why this measure is so important, one must go back at least ten years, most notably to the loss of the Herald of Free Enterprise in 1987 just over ten years ago.
When that ship sank with the loss of over 190 lives, the official report at that time concluded that one of the factors leading to the loss of the ship was the lack of concern shown by the company, in that case P & O. One of the ways in which that lack of concern was demonstrated was the fact that the company did not know how many people were on the ship nor the names of the passengers.
One of the recommendations of the Sheen report was that passengers should be listed and each should have a boarding card.
Ten years on there has been little or no action to put that recommendation into practice.
Since then, tragically, we have seen further passenger vessels involved in accidents, some serious, some not so serious.
On the Scandinavian Star many people died in a fire.
Most notably, 900 lives were lost when the Estonia sank.
In all these cases the effective search-and-rescue operation was impeded because of the lack of passenger registration.
Some people say that this is a burden and a chore and that it will impose costs.
To some extent there will be additional responsibilities but surely as we approach the new millennium, the least we can expect from ferry companies is an acknowledgement that they ought to know how many people are on their ships and who they are.
If they can record details for the purpose of vendor control for duty-free - which I agree they should be doing - why can they not have a list for the purposes of search-and-rescue? Surely the lives of their passengers and crew is as important as ensuring the effective enforcement of duty-free regulations.
There are also a number of further points which are worth conveying to Parliament.
Firstly, concerning overcrowding.
Sadly there are still cases of ferries sailing in European Union waters with excessive numbers on board.
At a stroke this measure will prevent that.
Secondly, as I have already explained, this measure will allow more effective search-and-rescue.
HM Coastguard in my own Member State fully endorses this measure. It will greatly assist their operations.
In my own constituency, the Kent Fire Brigade tells me that this is exactly the sort of information it needs. It wants to know why we have waited ten years for this measure to come into force.
Thirdly, it will enable ships to ensure that their safety equipment is appropriate for the sort of passengers they are carrying.
Finally, and possibly most important, it will lead to a change in attitude on the part of ferry companies.
Passengers are no longer just numbers, no longer just a source of revenue, but real people with real names, real lives, real families and with real value.
The broad thrust of this proposal is welcome.
However, there is a need for the information to become available immediately upon the point of departure of the ship.
Waiting half an hour could, tragically, be half an hour too long.
The Herald of Free enterprise sank within twenty-two minutes of leaving Zeebrugge.
Secondly, we think there is a need to extend this measure to cover under-sea tunnels, in particular Eurotunnel.
It does not make a lot of sense that the cross-channel routes quite rightly are caught by this measure but the tunnel is not.
We simply do not know how many people will be in the Channel Tunnel at a given time.
The emergency services argue - as do the ferry companies - that for the sake of fairness and safety we need to see progress in this area.
I hope the Commissioner can comment on this suggestion of ours.
Finally, we are asking not only for journeys of 20 miles to be covered but also journeys in excess of two hours which we hope the Commissioner can look favourably on.
In conclusion, we believe that real progress has in the last two years finally been made on the issue of ferry safety.
It is true that it took the loss of the Estonia to give this issue the momentum it needed but I would also pay tribute to the way in which Commissioner Kinnock, since he became Commissioner, has ensured that the issue of safety in general has remained at the top of his agenda.
Safety at sea, in particular, has remained at the top of the agenda of this Parliament.
He ought to take credit for the way in which he has skilfully steered through a number of important legislative proposals which ensure that the lives of passengers at sea and crews are that much safer.
The work must continue and my report acknowledges the fact that there is more still to be done.
But we confidently believe that this measure which is simple but important will significantly contribute to safety at sea and we look forward to working with others who share our concern and in particular with Commissioner Kinnock.
We can assure him that we will always continue to support his efforts to put safety at the top of the agenda.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of the International Convention on standards of training, certification and watch keeping for seafarers - the STCW Convention, as revised in 1995 - is to bring the training of seafarers more into line with the real conditions of sea transport, in particular the new technological developments on board vessels and modern methods of vocational training.
Let us not forget that almost 80 % of accidents at sea are caused primarily by human error or negligence.
In order to remedy this situation, or at least to minimize the 'human factor' in accidents at sea, it was necessary to lay down minimum requirements for vocational training, certification and watch keeping for seafarers and to guarantee proper enforcement of the international provisions - avoiding what had happened in the past, when failure to comply with the provisions of the Convention led to a lack of confidence even in the certificates issued.
The new 1995 Convention, to which 14 Member States of the European Union are contracting parties, therefore marks a step forward towards greater safety at sea, in that it strengthens the powers of the IMO to monitor the signatory states' training and verification methods.
At the same time, the IMO will be able to respond to any shortcomings by withholding international recognition of certificates issued.
The proposal for a Council directive amending Directive 94/58/EC, which is the subject of my report, calls for all the requirements of the Convention to be properly and effectively implemented in the EU and incorporated into Community law.
Starting out from the need to improve safety at sea, which is the guiding principle behind my report, I have sought to introduce certain changes which, without altering the legal nature of the Convention, are designed firstly to improve and consolidate the proposal for a directive wherever possible, making it simpler to interpret and apply; and, secondly, to remove any legal uncertainty or conflict as regards Member States' obligations in terms of issuing and recognizing certificates and training seafarers.
On the basis of this approach, the main modifications to the original text include the need for a common working language to be established on board all vessels, in keeping with the new SOLAS regulation due to enter into force on 1 July, so that all crew members are able to communicate with one another; the need to better reconcile work on board with the necessary qualifications; a more rational system of recognizing qualifications issued by third countries, subject to a set of quality criteria to prevent the use of under-qualified crews; and finally the tightening-up of the directive on port state control.
I believe that the training of seafarers can help to improve the safety and competitiveness of the Community fleet and, in a broader context, to reduce the number of sub-standard vessels.
Although it is too soon to assess in any detail the impact of the revised Convention, it is certainly likely to be significant.
Indeed, most international commentators consider that the introduction of new standards will lead to a worldwide reduction in the number of seafarers who possess internationally recognized certificates.
If the effect is a general raising of levels of competence among seafarers, that will undoubtedly be beneficial for the international shipping industry.
The simultaneous adoption of measures to promote the training of qualified crew members in Europe, which is now declining steadily, would be equally beneficial, in my view.
International statistics point to a shortfall of 18 000 officers needed to operate the world fleet, or some 4.4 % of the workforce.
This aim could therefore be pursued by the Member States and regions through a policy of attracting young people to the maritime profession, by creating a European Maritime Institute - as called for on several occasions by this House - which would offer initial and further training courses for seafarers.
Under no circumstances should such a project be mounted by shipping companies alone, most of which are already overburdened with management costs out of all proportion to market conditions.
Instead, fiscal and economic incentives should be offered to make the recruitment and training of European seafarers affordable.
What is at stake here is safety at sea and of human life, as well as the protection of the marine environment, but above all the safeguarding of a profession and the urgent need to create new specialized jobs in Europe, the demand for which is growing steadily in this sector.
Once again, through this report, we are opening up new sources of employment for our young people.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is very welcome that it looks as if we shall be able to agree at this part-session in Brussels on two issues concerning safety at sea.
When we last met here in Brussels a month ago, we disagreed with the Commission on how to give fair treatment to the shipbuilding industry.
However, I should like to emphasize - as Mr Watts has also done - that we in Parliament's Committee on Transport are pleased at the cooperation which has taken place with the Commission, and in particular Mr Kinnock, on the question of safety at sea.
I naturally support these two proposals.
There are still many accidents at sea, and many people are still losing their lives.
One cannot imagine that such a large ship as the Estonia can be lost at sea, but that is the tragic truth.
We therefore need to work to improve maritime safety; in other words, safety has still not been assured.
Safety at sea is a continuing debate that will never be closed, because new challenges can always arise.
If the will exists, however, we can take positive steps and achieve more and more good results.
And I think that is what we are doing with these two directives.
The directive on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships will help to improve the rescue work in a crisis situation.
The rules will have a decisive effect in terms of saving the elderly and the handicapped in particular.
On the whole, the shipowners are sceptical about such proposals.
Perhaps this reflects the fact that improvements cost money.
The shipowners can take some comfort in the thought that we are cooperating well on safety in the Community, and there is scope for changes in the rules where special circumstances obtain.
But we have to start somewhere, and this provides a good basis.
I feel that the directive on the minimum level of training for seafarers should above all be seen in the light of the fact that 80 % of all accidents at sea are due to human error.
We need to ensure that seafarers' knowledge of first aid, language skills and other areas of knowledge are constantly improved.
The West is indeed losing jobs to other parts of the world, and that also applies to seafarers.
We must therefore be on our guard against social dumping.
That is why we need to take the offensive in the maritime sector, as we are doing elsewhere.
A high level of employment of European workers in any sector depends on the emphasis being placed on quality.
For seafarers, that means training and further training.
I should like to draw the Commissioner's attention to Amendment No 10 in Mr Parodi's report, which we in the Socialist Group support.
I realize that the PPE Group is not in favour of it, but I wonder if the Commissioner could tell us to what extent the Commission envisages supporting this proposal.
Mr President, both these reports deal with safety at sea, which is a vital issue, not just because disasters occur on a regular basis, as has always been the case and is sadly always likely to be so, but also in terms of minimizing the consequences of those disasters which are unavoidable.
That is why it is essential for the European Union to adapt itself to the standards laid down by the International Maritime Organization.
Unfortunately, we do not have our own European registration requirements, which is a most regrettable state of affairs.
There are two problems which are touched on in both reports.
The first, which Mr Parodi mentioned, is the problem of language.
Maybe the Commissioner would pay some attention.
Last year when we had the disaster with the Sea Empress , which went down just off his beautiful native coast of Wales - I see he is in fact listening - it turned out that the only way of communicating with the crew of the Sea Empress was via the local Chinese restaurant owner because the whole crew was Chinese.
In Mr Parodi's report we insist on a common language.
With due respect to other European languages, it has to be the English language, as it is in air transport.
That is one point.
Secondly, regarding Mr Watts' report, despite all the good intentions, how much will it be able to control and how many ships crews will live up to the standards requested?
Mr President, I should like sincerely to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Watts and the Commissioner, Mr Kinnock on this initiative, an initiative which has unjustifiably been delayed until today and which will perhaps make it possible for a safer and more humane functioning of passenger sea transport, with more respect for ordinary passengers.
I think that the various speakers have been repeating the same position and this shows just how unanimously we are supporting this proposal.
I also would like to emphasize, in turn, that in terms of Greek ports and sea journeys within Greece this was a necessary proposal, first of all in order to avoid the terrible evil of the uncontrolled overloading of passenger ships and, secondly, so that we can have controls on the ground of the correct means of working out the number of passengers on ships and, thirdly, so that we have all the necessary information whenever an accident happens. Fourthly, as Mr Watts himself very rightly emphasized, we should call on shipping companies, at long last, to change their stance towards the public who travel on their ships: i.e. rather than just looking upon them as a source of profit, also looking upon them as citizens to whom they really do have an obligation to provide some kind of quality, efficient service.
Finally, I should like to emphasize the fact that, in my opinion, with the development of information systems neither the cost nor operational difficulties are going to be very significant and, therefore, it is important that this should be brought into effect as quickly as possible.
Mr President, could I add my congratulations to Commissioner Kinnock on bringing forward this proposal for a directive.
Some credit is also due to the former Member for Merseyside, the late Ken Stewart, who as an ex-seaman worked tirelessly on the Committee on Transport and Tourism to try to improve maritime safety.
I was particularly concerned when the Estonia disaster occurred to discover that a very good friend of Parliament's, Lennart Pettersson, former chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Swedish Parliament, who had been actively involved with this Parliament during Sweden's accession talks, was one of the victims.
The scope of that disaster shows the need for a general tightening up by keeping passenger lists so that the number of passengers on board is known.
I am also concerned from a Scottish dimension.
Commissioner Kinnock will be familiar with Caledonian McBrayne and Western Ferries.
Indeed, I believe he even took the wheel when going to Dunoon on one occasion.
They are interested in this because they have several routes.
Fortunately their safety record is very good.
They use common sense so that when the winds are rather high in the Firth of Clyde or the Minch, they do not sail.
They do not put passengers' lives at risk.
Nevertheless, they are concerned about the provisions concerning the length of journey, in particular on the run to Barra, which will be encompassed by the directive.
But I think we can persuade them that it is in their interests.
The information which the Commissioner has asked for is not very great and with computer technology this should be manageable.
On the matter of the Channel Tunnel, it is regrettable that last week Eurotunnel cancelled a visit.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism could have discussed Mr Watts' report and its implications with them.
However, for some reason Eurotunnel decided that cowardice was the best form of valour and decided not to invite us along for a discussion, cancelling the meeting at very short notice.
This was a pity as we could have had a useful dialogue on the implications of the Watts report for Eurotunnel.
Generally speaking, the directive is a good one and Mr Watts' proposals strengthen it in many respects.
Mr President, I wish to refer to the Parodi report on the proposals for a directive on the minimum level of training for seafarers.
I have to say that there is a story behind this.
There is an international convention called the STCW on minimum levels of training for seafarers.
This is an agreement which was signed in the framework of the IMO.
In 1994, on the basis of an extremely just initiative, the Commission and, subsequently, the Council and the European Parliament produced Directive 94/94 on the basis of which the subject of the minimum level of training for seafarers was revised, in particular in the case of third countries , and that is something I wish to emphasize.
We are talking about the minimum level of training of seafarers in third countries serving on ships flying European flags.
Subsequently, the IMO, the International Maritime Organisation, amended the STCW Convention in 1995 and now the Commission is proposing the new directive, a new draft directive, taking into account much of what was agreed in 1995.
First of all, I must say that the EPP Group regards the Commission's proposal as a very good one, and this is something I should emphasize.
However, it does not agree with the way in which the Commission proposal has been amended by the European Parliament.
In particular, we voted against certain provisions of the report and unfortunately we are forced to vote against the report, in particular concerning Amendment No 10, Amendment No 32 and Amendment No 33.
What does Amendment No 10 say?
That Code A of the international STCW Convention will prevail as Community law and this international convention will be in force through the method of the Directive.
While the amendment states that the Directive will be in force, at the same time it will automatically implement the international STCW Convention.
This is an unacceptable amendment for us because it automatically binds the Member States, many of which have not yet ratified the STCW Convention.
We have already emphasized this, a clearly procedural point, and we said that it was impossible through the issuing of a directive for us to be in a situation whereby the STCW Convention should be binding on us, binding on the Member States, which have not yet ratified it.
However, in its wisdom, a majority of the Committee on Transport and Tourism decided the contrary.
Nor can we accept that the system set up under the 1994 directive will be abolished.
As I said to you, the Commission has done some very good work and its amendment, as tabled, is one we can agree with.
In other words, we want to change very little to the draft proposal which has been put to us by the Commission.
Another point I would like to refer to is that there is considerable confusion over the addition of a new annex and here we are referring to the Committee's Amendments Nos 32 and 33, which we are against.
The reason why we are against these amendments tabled by the European Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism is that they would lead to considerable confusion.
Therefore, I shall repeat what I said at the beginning - we shall be voting against this report.
Mr President, the subject of safety at sea has been on the agenda repeatedly over the last few years, following the various serious accidents that have occurred.
Partly thanks to the work of the European Parliament, a coherent European policy is now being developed in this area, and these two reports on passenger registration and training for seafarers are an important contribution in this respect.
Given the global nature of maritime transport, any measures taken in this field should be at international level.
Here too, one of the biggest problems is to enforce the existing regulations, including the 1978 STCW Convention.
Inadequate compliance has brought this Convention into disrepute, which is why we welcome the 1995 revised version and the Commission's proposal to transpose this into European law.
In addition to the substantive changes, the main improvement in the amended Convention lies in the provision for tighter supervision and control by the IMO.
However, we are not happy that the Commission's revision of the earlier directive only covers part of the STCW Convention, whereas what we need is a single directive which incorporates the entire text of the Convention.
We therefore support the amendments in the Parodi report calling for the whole of the new STCW Convention to be incorporated in a new directive, which will make this present directive clearer and easier to implement.
I shall also be supporting the amendments which, in line with the STCW Convention, eliminate the reciprocity requirement from the Commission proposal.
However, we shall not be supporting the amendments which introduce safety requirements above and beyond those in the STCW Convention.
Given the intense competition on the world market, we cannot allow ourselves to place the European fleet at a disadvantage.
Finally, a few words about the directive on passenger registration.
After the various ferry disasters, a series of measures were taken to introduce considerable safety improvements on these vessels.
The main aim of the Watts report is to make any rescue operations more efficient.
The introduction of passenger registration systems may appear to generate a great deal of red tape, but the new technologies ought to mean that it can all be done rapidly and efficiently.
We also feel that Mr Watts' proposals on the scope of the directive are well balanced.
We shall therefore be voting for the Watts report, with the exception of the amendment on tunnels.
Mr President, I too believe that a good job has been done here: these two reports tackle head-on the difficulties affecting sea transport.
However, I appreciate that this is not enough. We must continue to monitor the sector and do more, above all, in the field of safety and training.
I am of course speaking with reference to areas which I would describe as delicate or sensitive, where passenger numbers are very high, and where the competition enlivening the single market - or, if you like, the deregulation sweeping through the shipping sector - is creating very real problems, to the extent that very often, even the basic legal requirements are being flouted.
The situation is therefore extremely awkward: I am referring to certain sensitive areas, in particular one that I know well, the Adriatic.
Much does of course need to be done in terms of training, but I believe that other aspects must also be taken into account, namely legal ones.
A good deal more work is naturally required here. For example, even now there are still some Chinese boxes, as it were: companies registered in Community countries but which nevertheless do not meet all the requirements of reliability and trustworthiness when accidents occur.
This is an extremely tricky point: accidents have occurred in the past where it has been impossible to pinpoint the liability - or even the owners - of a shipping line.
That is why the Member States are being called to account, just as the Community institutions are being called on to be watchful and to nudge the Member States in the right direction.
All I would add is that I support Amendment No 10, tabled by Mr Parodi: a ship is a complex machine, so a single working language is necessary.
Recently, there has been a tendency to rely somewhat on qualifications, in other words having a large number of qualified crew members, whereas the lower grades remain completely unskilled.
This of course results from competition and the need for hands on deck, and it opens the way to a very real problem of social dumping in the case of seafarers.
That is another point to be borne in mind.
Mr President, my congratulations to Mr Watts and the Commissioner for bringing this forward.
All of us here are frequent travellers.
There are many anomalies in transport systems.
For example, if you travel by air from London to Brussels it takes only 40 minutes.
Yet you are checked onto the aircraft, you have to have a boarding pass with your name on it and the airline is responsible for checking that the name on the pass is yours.
They have a sheet with all the passengers' names.
If you come through the tunnel by Eurostar - with its well-documented problems and dangers during recent months - you have a boarding pass with your name on it but there is no check as to whether you are the person whose name is on the boarding pass.
There is no list of passengers on Eurostar.
Travelling on the cross-channel ferries between England and France or England and Belgium, there is no check on passengers whatsoever.
There is no list of passengers.
The authorities do not know how many people are on board.
And this is not because there have been no problems.
Mr Watts spoke of the problems of ten years ago on the Herald of Free Enterprise .
In his remarks he said that there has been very slow progress by the owners or the passenger ships in general on the Sheen recommendations which followed this disaster.
But this was the Herald of Free Enterprise , functioning under the flag of the Townsend Thorensen Company.
That company was very quick to change its name to P & O so that people did not realize they were going on the same ships.
They very quickly changed the name of the sister ship of the Herald of Free Enterprise , the Spirit of Free Enterprise , to the Pride of Bruges so that it could carry on sailing and people would not know.
That was all in the interests of free enterprise.
Never was a ship more vividly named and the dangers of free enterprise more apparent.
Some people who have spoken have looked for excuses.
Mr Stenmarck said that the shipping companies need to know the children and elderly passengers on board.
They need to know everyone on board!
Mrs Thors asked for exceptions on very short trips.
We do not ask for exceptions on very short air trips.
Mr van der Waal said that it could be too administrative and there might be problems for competitiveness.
I do not think the victims of the Estonia or the Herald of Free Enterprise would think it was too administrative.
We do not want to find ourselves in years to come with these same problems.
We need proper registration and we need it now.
Some companies do not object.
Sea Containers which operates SeaCat and Hovercraft do not object and I am absolutely convinced that the Commissioner with his track record will be 100 % diligent in putting the safety of passengers before that of profit and free enterprise.
Mr President, like Mr Evans, I am concerned with the safety of passengers, but I will be talking to the Parodi report.
Four out of five maritime accidents are due to human error or human incompetence.
As you know, safety at sea, far from reaching higher levels, is declining.
All the more reason, therefore, for the European Parliament to be concerned with the establishment of minimum standards for training, certification and watchkeeping for seafarers.
The STCW Convention of 1978, blessed by the International Maritime Organization, was updated in 1995 to take into account new technological developments on board vessels and also the more modern training methods currently used.
The big question for the European Commission was whether it should have absorbed the revised STCW Convention lock, stock and barrel, or whether it should pick, piecemeal, the best revised elements.
It chose the latter and has fallen foul of not giving a coherent or comprehensive new set of rules.
This is to be regretted, despite my sympathy for the Commission which is eager to update Directive 94/58. It was bent on not cluttering up that directive with the minutiae of detail extant in the STCW Convention.
Once this decision had been taken in principle, it was Parliament's purpose to make the best of what might be described, unfairly, as a dog's breakfast.
Given the importance of the shipping industry as an economic generator and its pivotal relevance for being well-administered to maintain the highest forms of safety at sea, the Socialist Group are concerned to batten down all the safety hatches.
My own amendments focus on safety aspects.
Regarding principles governing near coastal voyages, for example, it appeared that the Commission was allowing Member States to avoid internationally agreed training and qualification standards.
But passenger ferries, oil and chemical tankers have all been subject to terrible accidents associated with human error in Britain and the Continent's coastal waters in recent years.
Article 5(i) concerned with the fitness for duty of seafarers seems remiss on the question of new members, masters, officers or ratings joining a ship just after they had been travelling for some time before arrival on board.
Ambiguity is evident in the cobbled-together text as to whether masters, as well as ordinary seafarers, are included in watch-keeping regulations.
To take another example, port state control.
We should be exercised about the seaworthiness of seagoing vessels.
But - and I would ask Commissioner Kinnock to take this on board - should we not also exercise control over the competence and qualifications of the crews that sail those particular ships?
In conclusion, I accept our rapporteur's interesting proposal to create an EU-wide action programme, designed to attract young people to sea.
There is a worldwide shortage of qualified and able seafarers.
Why should young Europeans, properly trained and educated, not contribute to defeating unemployment in Europe as well as contributing to safer seas worldwide?
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Watts and Mr Parodi on their reports, which are excellent examples of our committee's determination to give priority to safety in transport.
My sincere thanks to them.
I think this is a very important point, particularly as we currently have a Commissioner who also gives priority to safety in transport, so if there was ever a time when we, the European institutions, were likely to make significant progress on this issue, it is now.
The problem that we still have, however, is what I would call the tension between Brussels theory on the one hand, and the reality of everyday life on the other.
Last week the ADAC organization in Germany published a report on the results of a safety study carried out in April on 14 ferries in the Mediterranean.
They were very revealing.
Five ferry links between France, Greece, Italy, Croatia, Spain and Morocco were judged to be totally inadequate, five of the 14.
Three were classified as reasonable, two as good and two as excellent.
The study focused on stability, watertightness, emergency safety equipment and fire prevention.
I would ask the Commissioner to instruct his department to look at this study and then to come back to us with his comments.
I think it is essential that we not only ensure that we have good legislation, but that we also ensure that it is applied to the letter in practice.
This is why I would specifically ask the Commissioner to look into the results of this ADAC study and give us his detailed comments on them.
, Member of the Commission . Mr President, not in terms of quality but in terms of temperament, what a great relief it is to be able to speak to this House quite early in the morning, instead of at midnight.
I am sure we all benefit from the different hours.
I would like to respond to both the Watts report and the Parodi report.
I would commend both honourable Members on the quality of the work they have undertaken.
On the Watts report I should like to thank the House for the thorough but speedy deliberation they have undertaken on this new proposal relating to the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships.
That speed and thoroughness makes it possible for ministers to adopt a common position at the next Transport Council which will take place in three weeks' time.
I am very grateful to the rapporteur Mr Watts and to the committee for the supportive view they have taken and I congratulate them on the common understanding they achieved on this proposal whose main and necessary objective, as we have heard this morning, is to ensure that search-andrescue and the wider implications of any accident to passenger ships can be tackled more effectively than in the past.
It is clear that the two main issues raised by the committee amendments relate to a need for more flexibility to cope with specific situations and a special interest in safety in the Channel Tunnel.
The objective of more flexibility is pursued in the first part of committee Amendment No 8 and in Amendments Nos 9 and 12.
I am glad to inform the House that the Commission is prepared to meet the point of those amendments by changing Article 9, in conjunction with some definitions.
That provides a possibility for explicit derogations to be granted by the Commission in well-defined circumstances after consultation with the committee set up to assist the Commission.
I am sure that Members of the House will understand that such flexibility should not affect the application of the registration of persons on board ships that operate in areas where dense traffic exists and where adverse weather and adverse sea conditions frequently prevail.
Indeed, I am very certain that committee members and Members of the House would not want the reasonable flexibility for which they argue to weaken the basic necessary provisions of this proposal in any way at all.
The suggestion for imposing a registration system for motor cars using railway shuttles which is made in Amendments Nos 5, 7 and 10 falls outside the scope of this maritime directive and the amendments cannot therefore be accepted.
However, the Commission is prepared to investigate the merits of such a proposal, taking into account assessments like that made by the Kent Fire Brigade, drawn to the House's attention by Mr Watts and, in due course, we will report to the House on the issue.
I recognize the purpose of Amendments Nos 1 to 4 and I strongly agree with the view that has been expressed this morning by several honourable Members that there is always room for improvement in maritime safety.
However, it is fair to say that the advances made through the International Maritime Organization and in the European Union for safety management and on safety rules and standards, taken together with last year's Stockholm Agreement on Design and Stability of Passenger Vessels, are evidence of continuing and significant progress.
Whilst I note and understand the references made by Mr Watts in his explanatory statement therefore, I have to say that some of those references are specific to a particular government and some fall outside the scope of this directive.
We shall definitely return to these matters but the Commission cannot accept the relevant amendments at this juncture.
Since it is not the intention of this proposal automatically to exclude passenger ships sailing in sheltered waters from its provisions, Amendment No 6 cannot be accepted.
The third part of Amendment No 8 which puts the entire burden of providing information on the master of a vessel rather than on the company is also unacceptable and it may be that this consequence of the amendment is inadvertent.
On the other hand, I can accept an improved wording for the second paragraph of Article 8, along the lines the Amendment No 11.
I also accept the reference to the precise age of a passenger in Article 6 as proposed by the second part of Amendment No 8.
However, the final part of Amendment No 8 which would require the use of a full first name rather than allowing initials is unnecessarily inflexible.
I would like to conclude by thanking all who contributed to this excellent report, in particular Mr Watts whose interest is deep and well-known and was evident again from his effective speech this morning.
There were questions raised by Mr Watts and other honourable Members.
I should like to take those at the end of what I have to say.
Meanwhile I am confident that the adoption of this report by Parliament will facilitate the achievement of a common position on this measure that will have a beneficial effect on safety management and also greatly help authorities and families in the awful event of tragedy at sea and to be able to do that without great bureaucracy, without significant delay to services and without any significant additions to operational costs.
I now turn to Mr Parodi's report on minimal training levels for seafarers.
The Commission is grateful to the House not only for the quality of the report but also for ensuring that this report is on this sitting's agenda, following the vote in the Committee on Transport and Tourism last week.
As the House will know, the new proposal provides for consistency between the training and certification provisions of Directive 94/58 and the new requirements of the International Maritime Organization Convention on standards of training certification and watch-keeping for seafarers.
It also defines the common criteria for recognition in the European Union of seafarers' certificates issued by third countries.
To fulfil these purposes the changes in the existing directive firstly reflect the entire revised STCW Convention, including both the mandatory section, part A, and the recommended guidance in part B of the code.
The changes secondly correct certain omissions which could lead to inconsistencies between the proposed directive and STCW 95 and the changes thirdly take into account recent amendments in the IMO Safety of Life at Sea Convention, in particular those regarding on-board communication for passenger ships.
I am glad to be able to tell the House that the Commission welcomes Amendments Nos 10, 14, 21 and 32 since they help to ensure that the STCW 95 Convention is reflected without ambiguity in the directive.
The Commission can also support Amendments Nos 3, 4, 8, 9, 12, 13, 17, 26, 27, 31, 34, 35 and the first part of Amendment No 7 because they improve a number of specific provisions of the directive.
We can also agree with Amendments Nos 23, 24 and 25 to reflect the recent revision of the IMO's Solas Convention concerning the introduction of a common working language on board passenger ships.
However, there are a number of amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
First there was what Mr Harrison just called the big question.
The Commission does not believe that it is necessary to replace the existing Directive 94/58 by a totally new directive.
The amending directive before the House can achieve the objective of having a consolidated text by proceeding to a codification after the adoption of the present draft directive by the Council.
I emphasize therefore that the purposes sought by Members of this House - and rightly so - can therefore be fulfilled without the legal complexities and the possible delay that might come with the alternative course of wholesale replacement.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 cannot therefore be accepted by the Commission.
Amendments Nos 5 and 6 are not consistent with the objective of the directive which is the establishment of minimum training standards and not the introduction of a harmonized system.
The suggestion in the second part of Amendment No 7 is well-intentioned but it is vital that priority is given to the improvement of the quality and the performance of the existing national maritime institutes and the creation of a symbolic European Union school is not necessary or particularly relevant to that major objective.
The Commission cannot support Amendment Nos 28 and 29 simply because they repeat provisions which are already contained in other articles of the proposed directive.
Amendments Nos 15, 16, 19, 20 and 30 cannot be accepted because they seek to change the wording of the STCW Convention provision or to refer both to articles of the directive and to the relevant STCW provisions which are transposed in the directive.
In some respects that would mean duplication and generate uncertainty and I am sure that on reflection the House would not want that.
Amendment No 11 regarding exemptions from certain training requirements in respect of near coastal voyages cannot be accepted since the wording proposed is not consistent with the relevant text of Regulation 1.3 of the STCW on the same topic.
Finally, Amendments Nos 18, 22 and 33 cannot be accepted simply because their content is outside the scope of the revised STCW Convention on which the present proposal before the House is based.
Although I have concentrated on explaining why the Commission cannot support certain amendments, I would emphasize that there are many that we would give our support to and I hope the House will appreciate that and accept it from me just as we welcome the constructive spirit in which the proposal has been considered by the committee and, indeed, by the House.
I conclude by thanking all those who contributed to this very good report, particularly Mr Parodi, and I will respond to some of the questions that have been raised in this debate.
I will not respond to all of them simply because of the constraints of time.
I will write to Mr Cornelissen about the points he made on the ADAC investigation.
As he would expect, the Commission took an active interest in those proceedings but I will give him details in a letter.
On the questions raised by Mr Watts, Mr Sindal, Mr Stockmann and Mr Harrison, so far as further developments on maritime safety are concerned, although this is not an exhaustive list, they will include a draft directive on the licensing of passenger ferries that we will be producing in October and after that I will be coming forward with a proposal for amendment to the port state control directive in order to give legal effect to the International Maritime Organization International Safety Management Code.
The purpose of making amendment is to try to ensure that vessels that do not have the ISM Certificate will not only be detained under the port state control directive until they are made seaworthy but can then be banned from all European Union ports until they have obtained the ISM Certificate.
Members of the House will want to examine this proposal in detail but they will already recognize that in broad principle the further development of the effective implementation of port state control will be a welcome addition to efforts to raise continually the standards of maritime safety and the protection of cruise passengers and the environment.
I am confident that Parliament by adopting both these reports will facilitate the early achievement of common positions on two important instruments which, both in terms of training and in terms of the management of passenger vessels, will further raise the standards of safety.
I am grateful to the House for its patience towards what has inevitably been a long response to the reports.
Mr President, I am grateful for Mr Watts' further inquiry.
I would reassure him that the numbers collected on shore will effectively be immediately available.
The transmission of names can take place very quickly but it is important not to have the kind of time limit he would build in, simply because of the possibility of an unnecessary inflexibility.
It is very clear that it is technologically possible now to ensure rapid transmission and certainly in practice this will probably occur, thus overcoming the kind of problem which, for obvious and sensible reasons, Mr Watts thinks could arise in other circumstances.
I hope, with that further explanation, that he will regard the position taken by the Commission as not in any sense being antagonistic to his but completely accepting the principle on which he argues and only having its reservations based on immediate practicalities.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.35 a.m. and resumed at 11 a.m.)
VOTES
Mr President, these two amendments, Nos 20 and 21, tabled by Mrs Peijs and Mr Blokland, concern a technical revision aimed at equalizing the way of working out States' GDP, so that prejudicial discrepancies in their calculation can be avoided.
I would ask Parliament to approve them.
Neither the Commission nor the Council accepts them but I think it is worthwhile approving them so that we can send a signal in that direction.
Amendment No 19
Mr President, I just wanted to say that I voted incorrectly.
I wanted to vote against.
Please correct my vote.
This is not a nominal vote, Mr Cunha, so the result is not registered.
Mr President, I would ask you to look again at the result of the vote just now.
If I have counted correctly, that last vote means that there was a tie, and the amendment was therefore rejected.
Mr von Wogau, I do not want to go into such an analysis.
You know perfectly well what the rules are and they shall be applied.
Mr President, I wish to second Mr von Wogau's request, since my own vote, which was against, has not been recorded.
Mr Azzolini, you know that mistakes are not acknowledged after votes.
Mr President, I should simply like to say that we always play by the same rules in this House, and you have restated those rules quite correctly.
I am sorry that our Conservative colleagues are succumbing to the temptation to try to change the rules when the result does not suit them!
The Chair interprets the rules, Mr Wolf.
Mr President, it is all very well for you to say that you are not going to take account of it, but when somebody genuinely makes a mistake with the electronic voting system and corrects it straightaway, surely that should be taken into account.
No, Mr Provan.
Mistakes can only be accepted if the Chair is informed before the result of the vote is announced.
(Parliament adopted the draft legislative resolution)
Mr President, allow me to congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Christodoulou, who has succeeded in ensuring that Parliament has finally delivered a clear opinion on this exceptionally difficult issue.
The line that we adopted in our negotiations with the Council, the current Council presidency and Mr Zalm, has been endorsed, and I am sure that the Council will be able to accede to at least two of Parliament's three key wishes for amendments.
I believe this is a joint success on the part of Parliament.
Mr President, I do not wish to make any further comments, but merely to draw attention to the following. There are two amendments to paragraph 17: Amendment No 9 by the PPE Group, and Amendment No 1 by the PSE Group.
Both these amendments, as well as paragraph 17 itself, are now redundant, since the matter to which they refer has now been settled.
There is now agreement that legal disputes will be referred to the European of Court of Justice.
I should therefore like to withdraw Amendment No 9, on behalf of Mr Chanterie for the PPE Group, as well as our own Amendment No 1. I would then ask the House to vote against paragraph 17, which is completely redundant.
That is the only way in which we can remove it from the text.
(Parliament adopted the proposal)
Mr President, a mistake has occurred in paragraph 6, because a phrase was omitted in the text produced by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The chairman of the committee and the rapporteur also agree that there has been a misunderstanding.
The phrase 'calls in particular for a minimum tax rate to be levied on all incomes in the EU' must be added to paragraph 6.
This was a completely uncontroversial point that was decided almost unanimously in committee.
(Parliament adopted the proposal)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Aparicio Sánchez has tabled an amendment that I cannot accept as it deletes the final part of the text.
If he agrees to see it as an addition, while maintaining the final part of the text stating that the methodology must be appropriate for each assessment of each discipline, then I could accept it as such.
Mr President, I appreciate Mr Lannoye's effort, but I cannot accept this as it would alter the meaning of my amendment.
Before the final vote
Mr President, I should like to speak before the vote.
In my analysis, the outcome of the vote on paragraph 2, following the vote on amendment No 6, totally destroys the report.
I cannot therefore leave my name on the report.
I would ask you to withdraw it and ask my colleagues to vote against it, because Parliament's position is limited to asking for what has already been achieved, i.e the studies.
Mr President, I regret Mr Lannoye's decision to withdraw his name from the report.
This report was before the Parliament before 1994.
It ran out of time then.
We have now spent four years dealing with it.
I understand that he has lost amendments that he would like to retain but four years' work should not be thrown away lightly like this.
It is customary when a rapporteur declines to have his name associated with the report, that the committee chairman should take it over.
I therefore propose to take it over and it should be put to the vote immediately.
(Parliament adopted the proposal)
Mr President, surely, since Amendment No 13 has been adopted, Amendment No 10 falls.
Mr Azzolini, there was that view, but the chairman of the relevant committee and the rapporteur did not agree.
I am therefore obliged to put both amendments to the vote.
Amendment No 12
Mr President, I wish to say something about Paragraph 12.
Can I do so now?
There is an error in Paragraph 12 of the Finnish-language version of the report.
The words 'in particular the implementation of the proper land use policy' which appear in the English version are missing from the Finnish version.
Accordingly it says in the amendment to this paragraph that the Finnish version is unaffected.
It is unaffected because the Finnish version is wrong, but the amendment to Paragraph 12 does indeed alter the substance, and I should like to draw attention to this.
Thank you, Mrs Ojala, for your comment and we shall look into the problem you have raised.
(Parliament adopted the proposal)
We have already stated that in our view the European Union should be based on co-operation between independent States.
This is why we cannot vote for a resolution which supports Council decisions by qualified majority, the abolition of the veto in the CFSP, that the European Parliament shall have co-decision power on all budget items and common statutes for all members of the European Parliament etc.
These are extremely important issues and it is inappropriate for Parliament to support such a resolution without further consideration.
This is why we are voting against the resolution.
This 28 May was chosen by the European Confederation of Trade Unions as a day of action for employment.
With the Amsterdam Summit approaching, which in mid-June will conclude the work of the Intergovernmental Conference, I felt I had to remind you that employment is a major preoccupation of ordinary people, as is the problem of democracy.
Europeans rightly consider that the European Union is a structure which evades any democratic controls.
What is European-level democracy in reality? The European Parliament has given its opinion on several occasions on the transparency of procedures, the responsibility of governments and the recognition of fundamental rights for all citizens.
The complexity of European procedures discourages any well-intentioned citizen from trying to find out exactly what it means.
According to the subject, the European Parliament, which is legitimately elected, is consulted for a simple opinion or in a codecision procedure by means of conciliation, following two or three possible 'readings' , in opinion procedures and budgetary procedures etc.
In each case, the majority requirements in the Council differ: simple majority, qualified majority, super-qualified majority or unanimity.
These majority requirements themselves vary according to whether or not the Commission approves of or rejects the European Parliament's opinions.
In matters of foreign policy, EMU, police and judicial cooperation, the procedures differ again.
Democracy is thwarted here because European citizens have the impression that the decision-making process is completely beyond their understanding.
But the complexity of procedures is not the only obstacle to transparency.
When it exercises its legislative powers, the Council is the only parliamentary institution to deliberate in secret in order to avoid explaining its decisions to the ordinary people, national parliaments or the European Parliament.
In order to fill in this gap, the European Parliament must take a firm stance towards the Council and remind governments that it is useless fighting for minimum social standards if it fails to give Europe the means to produce substantial and coherent social policies.
The thousands of people marching in the streets of Brussels this Wednesday want Europe to make employment the main priority.
Will they be heard?
Democracy is not limited to an election every five years.
It implies the daily control of the executive by popular representation.
We are again far from achieving that.
Legislative power is exercised by the Council of Ministers on the Commission's proposals.
The European Parliament does not have a law-making initiative and only intervenes to deliver an opinion in most cases.
As for the executive measures, they are a mixture of different types of committee, ' comitology' , to use a Community jargon expression, i.e. national civil servants who are not answerable to their national bureaucracy.
These weak controls are too much: that became apparent during the 'mad cow' issue.
I must confess that I find it increasingly difficult to explain to ordinary people that they must continue to fight for Europe, despite my commitment to it.
Democracy is inextricably linked to human rights and Europe is proud to be the birthplace of those human rights.
Once again reality and intentions are not the same.
The European Union has not always adhered to the European Convention on Human Rights.
It does not even apply the modest provisions adopted on that subject: the right of vote for citizens in municipal elections in France or Belgium, the shutdown of the Renault factory in Vilvoorde, and the sacking of 3, 000 Belgian workers in flagrant violation of the European Directive on Information and Consultation of Workers in Multinationals.
Unless we make real political and social progress when revising the Treaty, we run the risk of destroying Europe's future.
I have met some of these people marching for employment and they spoke to me about their fears - and also their hopes.
It would be suicidal to try to build Europe without its citizens and that would run the risk of helping the Mr Le Pens, Mr Goldsmiths, Mr Pasquas of this world - and Mr Heider in Austria.
Although John Major has lost power, his ideas would win the day in Europe if the heads of State and government do not make one last leap to build Europe with the citizens instead of building it against democracy.
The will expressed by both sides of industry during the employment march has set the tone. Now it is for the governments to take their responsibilities at the European Council in Amsterdam next month.
When we see the results, then we will be able to decide whether Europe really has recovered democracy.
The Danish social democrats in the European Parliament hope that the Intergovernmental Conference can be concluded at the forthcoming summit in Amsterdam.
We are very pleased that a proper chapter on employment is being included in the Treaty, so that the Union has a commitment in proportion to the disastrously high level of unemployment in the 15 EU Member States.
We also support all the calls to strengthen environment policy, consumer protection and the campaign against fraud.
Because of Denmark's reservations, we cannot support third-pillar matters being brought within the scope of Community cooperation, and we also have to dissociate ourselves from the Schengen Agreement being incorporated into the Treaty.
We are strongly in favour of vigorous cooperation to combat crime, and of a common policy on asylum; however, we believe these can be achieved through the type of decisions provided for under the third pillar.
Because of Denmark's reservations, we are unable to support the introduction of majority decision-making as regards the common foreign and security policy, but we feel it is a good thing that there is agreement on the setting-up of a joint analysis and planning centre.
We also feel it is a very good thing that forms of decision-making other than unanimity are being sought.
All too often, joint action has been blocked by a single country.
In our opinion, a method needs to be found whereby a single country cannot block joint action, while on the other hand it must be seen as important that nearly all the EU countries are involved.
I have voted for Parliament's resolution although I do not completely approve of the majority position.
The majority has approved a text far too general in scope on ending the difference between obligatory and non-obligatory tasks.
I do not think that the various political bodies or their organisation are mature enough for this yet.
It is important that the capacity of the Union to handle foreign policy functions jointly is strengthened.
One individual country should not be able to stop action and in so doing exert pressure on the rest of the Union.
But equally an individual country should not be forced to participate actively either.
the Christodoulou report (A4-0181/97)
Many of the amendments proposed in the resolution are good especially No. 8 where it is proposed that the size of the investment should also be considered when determining if the budget deficit exceeds the permitted level or not.
But we still cannot vote for the report as it includes acceptance of what we refer to as the stability pact, a pact which we consider to be damaging for the economy and which will mean that unemployment in the EU will remain permanently at a high level.
The undersigned have voted against the resolution for the following principal reasons:
1.The proposal restricts the right of countries and peoples to set their economic policy in line with the economic situation of their own nation and is therefore undemocratic.2.The proposal is designed to paralyse the ability of Government bodies to combat in an appropriate manner recession, unemployment and under-utilisation of capacity in the economy.3.The proposal is founded on out of date economic theories which are not valid in modern economies.
The two intergovernmental conferences which paved the way for the Maastricht Treaty each had a specific aim: one, EMU, and the other, political union.
Those two objectives went hand in hand but what is the state of affairs now?
Political union is making very slow progress.
The economic aspect of EMU has been put on the back-burner.
It is the single currency which is dominating the political and economic debates.
Is that the best means of guaranteeing social progress and strengthening the European idea? I do not think so.
Monetary union is vital but not enough.
I am therefore throwing all of my support behind Christa Randzio-Plath's report and I share her criticism of the European Commission's 'guidelines' .
We must urgently give priority to consultation and stepping up European activity in the following fields:
The future monetary policy of the European Union must be able to be controlled by a political authority which represents public opinion and general interests.
I am in favour of setting up a European economic government.
In a market which will soon be completely unified, it is now vital that we approximate social legislation in the Member States in order to avoid situations of social dumping and we must work together to increase the level of welfare in European societies in order to protect its most vulnerable categories.
In other words, we must have 'more social' .
Taxation must also become a priority area for work.
We must coordinate our legislation in this field in order to put a stop to relocations within the European Union.
Fiscal harmonization must be decided by a qualified majority for this purpose.
More important still is that we must achieve close coordination of budgetary policies.
It is only in the framework of a concerted approach to relaunching consumption and public investment that a pro-demand policy, so necessary at the moment, can be pursued.
Finally, employment is our main preoccupation and it must be integrated into all European policies.
Whether it be training, lowering working hours, protecting general interest services, for a long time I have been paying considerable attention to it and I think it should be given more credit in the definition of Community policy.
The single currency is not an aim in itself.
The real aim of the policy is social cohesion. That can only be achieved if we truly coordinate economic policies, for which Article 103 of the Treaty offers significant potential.
Manifestly, the Member States and the Commission have not wanted or known how to use them.
Do I need to repeat the fact that a recent study assessed the cost of the non-cooperative management of monetary policies over the last three years at an increase of 1.8 % in the budget deficit-GDP ratio? In 1995, an average 3.4 % deficit instead of 5.2 % would have made it possible to avoid the restrictive budgetary policies of the last two years and would also have made it possible to continue the recovery, the green shoots of which were first seen in 1994, and would have led to a far quicker convergence of our economies.
We share the overall criticism in the report of the minimalist position adopted by the Commission and their rigid adherence to convergence criteria.
We also agree with the report's proposal for more active policies to create jobs, particularly through active investment in environmental measures.
We are not against increased inter-state co-operation between EU Member States and between the EU and other relevant countries in order to reduce unemployment and promote integrated environmental stewardship through economic policies but we are opposed to any attempts to restrict the freedom of the Member States to act freely with regard to economic policy.
This is why we have abstained from voting.
the recommendation by Mr González Triviño (A4-0172/97)
During the vote at first reading, the European Parliament adopted 19 amendments to polish up the Commission's proposals.
The common position on which we had to give our opinion takes up 15 of those amendments.
It is, therefore, our right to welcome the excellent cooperation which has been achieved and to address our congratulations to our rapporteur.
This text, awaited by the users of airlines and the companies themselves with bated breath, updates existing rights in this field.
Until now, air carrier passengers insurance protection has depended on the 1929 Warsaw Convention and the Additional Protocols to it, dating back to 1961.
It was, therefore, high time to update this matter by imposing a certain level of liability with financial intervention thresholds.
The text which has been proposed to us meets that aim and therefore should be adopted.
the Watts report (A4-0152/97)
At the end of November 1994, the European Parliament, sensitized and outraged by the sinking of the 'Estonia' with 900 victims, demanded that the European Commission set up a programme aimed at boosting safety on board ships.
The text which we have to vote on now is a component of that programme.
It calls for the compulsory registration of all passengers on board passenger ferries.
This obligation will help to improve the effectiveness of searches and rescue operations.
However, we deplore the fact that this obligation has been introduced so late in the day.
It is my hope that the European Parliament will follow the guidelines of our rapporteur and support his amendments.
The European Union must comply with international rules - I am thinking in particular of the Solas Convention on the protection of human life at sea - and cannot tolerate any failings, with disastrous consequences.
I should like to conclude by lending my support to the Parodi report, which was the subject of joint debate this morning. In particular, the idea of setting up an institute for training seafarers, financed out of the European Union's budget.
This idea has been put forward on several occasions by the European Parliament but has never seen the light of day.
The Commission and the Council must urgently study this possibility in all seriousness.
Passenger safety and professional knowledge are at stake.
This is one of the major scandals facing the European Union: in a situation in which RoRo ferries are suffering ever greater and more dangerous accidents, and in which there have already been spectacular disasters in major under-sea tunnels, the Union is still 'gradually setting up a coherent framework for a European Union Safe Seas Policy' - see COM(93)0066 of 24 February 1993 and the Stewart report of 28 March 1994.
Given the urgency of the matter, this is too little too late.
Binding European legislation for maritime transport in EU waters, and especially for ferry transport and the use of under-sea tunnels, is long overdue.
It should have been implemented by port state authorities long ago, at least as far as passenger safety is concerned.
The EU can longer hide behind the IMO with regard to the fundamental issue of the safety of Ro-Ro vessels!
Nonetheless, this report represents a small step in the right direction.
We shall therefore be supporting it, although with anger in our hearts at the thought of the many victims that any further delay will probably cost.
the Parodi report (A4-0174)
I should firstly like to refer to the consequences of flagging-out and the secondary register for the training requirements for seafarers.
While it is important that the EU is abandoning its damaging stance of waiting for the IMO - damaging for the general safety at sea of passengers, seafarers and the environment - it is not enough to introduce rules that are essentially restricted to vessels flying the flag of a Member State.
All vessels using EU waters must be subject to appropriate minimum requirements.
To this end, application of the STCW code can be no more than a very first step.
It must be a question of laying down the European minimum requirements that alone will guarantee the adequate protection of passengers, seafarers and the environment.
We owe nothing less to our citizens.
We shall also be supporting this report, since it is moving - albeit slowly - in the right direction, so as to eliminate the present legal uncertainty and the actual lack of safety in all EU waters.
We shall vote against Amendment No 1, since we believe it is unwise to give the Member States the opportunity to object by creating a new directive, rather than enabling rapid progress to be made by amending one that exists already.
the Terrón i Cusí reportLindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Schörling (V), Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) We have voted against the report concerning the development of a convention for European information systems.
There are many reasons for this and here we give some examples of why we cannot accept this report.
The EIS Convention does not pay enough attention to safeguarding rights and personal privacy.-Parliament wishes to increase supranationality in this area which is something we oppose.-We oppose and strongly condemn the restrictive and brutal asylum policy which is reinforced through the Schengen Agreement and the EIS.-We think that effective police co-operation can and should be developed within the framework of Interpol.
The Danish social democrats voted against the Terrón i Cusí report on the draft Council act drawing up the Convention on the establishment of the European Information System.
In our view, the report is extremely problematic, since it proposes to turn the Council act into a Council regulation, and thus to bring the EIS under Community legislation based on Article 235 of the Treaty.
This would mean the Commission taking over the Member States' control powers in relation to the EIS.
The Danish social democrats believe that the EIS should remain a matter for intergovernmental cooperation under the third pillar, with the final authority resting with the individual Member States.
Information systems which allow the Member States to exchange data can be very useful instruments, especially as regards the investigation and prevention of serious breaches of the law.
Examples of these are the Schengen Information System, Europol and the Customs Information System.
However, when systems of this kind are introduced, regard for privacy is of crucial importance.
It is therefore right for the committee to take the view that the systems should be secured effectively against unauthorized access.
It is also to be welcomed that individual citizens should have an opportunity to bring actions before the courts to test the legality of the data held on them in these information systems.
the Schulz report (A4-0060/97)
'Knowledge is power' , the saying goes, and with some justification.
It also applies to the third pillar of the European Union.
Cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs is unthinkable without some minimum level of data collection and transmission.
Information and information systems form an essential part of measures on immigration and asylum, fraud and corruption, crime, drugs, terrorism and civil or penal judicial cooperation.
That is why the Member States of the European Union have set up a whole range of information systems, such as Europol and the EIS at intergovernmental level and SIS for Schengen on a multilateral basis.
The number of different systems involved means that there is a risk of duplication, but they all tend to serve different purposes, and overlapping between systems need not be a problem if there is also coordination and control.
We do not need competing or rival systems, but at the same time we do not need completely uniform and all-embracing ones either.
We need to give careful attention to democratic controls, judicial controls, respect for privacy, operationality and compatibility.
The PPE Group would therefore urge the Council and the Member States to make the European Parliament the political watchdog, to give the Court of Justice the power to deliver preliminary rulings, to ensure respect for the Council of Europe's rules on privacy, and to encourage cooperation between the various departments involved and between the bodies that are responsible.
These are not secondary issues: they are fundamental conditions for setting up and using the information systems in question.
Systems which do not comply with these requirements are not an aid, but a threat.
This report deals with the Customs Information System, or CIS.
Just as the SIS is half under the third pillar and half outside the European Union, so the CIS falls half under the third pillar and half under the first, given that the Treaty provides that customs matters are related to freedom of movement and are thus to be handled at Community level.
However, this is no reason to leave the European Parliament and the Court of Justice out, as happened with the signing of the Convention, which occurred before Parliament had the chance to deliver its opinion on the approved text.
The Convention was signed on 26 July 1995, and a Protocol was subsequently signed on 29 November 1996.
In addition to procedural matters, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs concentrates mainly on the issue of legal protection for citizens, with its demands for democratic controls and judicial powers for the Court.
Both the Convention and the Protocol go some way towards satisfying these demands, but in the end it is up to the Member States to decide whether or not to ratify the Convention and apply the Protocol.
It remains to be seen who ratifies and applies what, and when.
The PPE Group continues to be firmly in favour of ratification as soon as possible, so that the Agreement can come into force as quickly as possible.
We do not need reminding just how difficult decision-making and policy-making are under the third pillar, and how they even have to struggle to keep up with events.
It appears that even where non-controversial issues are concerned, conventions, protocols, agreements and declarations are used because they are unavoidable in an intergovernmental context, with endless negotiations between the governments beforehand and time-consuming ratification procedures in the Member States afterwards.
Think of Schengen, Europol, the campaign against fraud, and now the Customs Information System.
It has become pointless and irritating to refer to the Intergovernmental Conference, but it is still the case that, as this dossier shows, the gradual and partial communitization of the third pillar is now inevitable.
In today's world, and particularly in the developed countries where there is a great deal of specialization and complexity, informatics and computerization are a 'must' for both authorities and officials.
Individuals too, including criminals, have access to data carriers and networks, and it is partly because of the accessibility of databases, directories, files and other sources of public or private information that we increasingly need data banks and so on if we are to exercise power in the information society.
Europe needs to keep abreast of these transfrontier developments if it is to be able to continue to guarantee the security of its citizens, but at the same time it must also deal very carefully with their legal security, equality and protection.
The Council Act setting up the Customs Information System contravenes Community law.
The Council failed to consult the European Parliament properly, in accordance with Article K.6(2) of the EU Treaty.
This Act was therefore already seriously flawed by the way in which it came into being.
In addition, the scope of the Act is made unclear by the fact that the Convention on the Customs Information System is accompanied by an agreement on provisional implementation between certain Member States.
Is it possible to imagine a clearer symbol of the constantly increasing legal uncertainty prevailing under the third pillar?
The Green Group unreservedly endorses the criticisms made by the rapporteur as regards the shortcomings in the legal protection of data and the lack of provision for parliamentary or judicial control, as well as his call to the Commission to examine whether the Act should not be replaced by a directive capable of fulfilling the tasks to which the establishment of a customs information system will give rise.
the Secchi report (A4-0169/97)
We think that the Member States themselves, for democratic reasons, should have the right to set their own taxes and that the principles of unanimous voting should continue to be used for the consideration of issues by the Council.
We believe that it is the Member States themselves who can best determine taxation policies and we believe that these can be co-ordinated between the Member States by the EU Finance Ministers without relinquishing the principle of unanimity.
It is for precisely the same democratic reasons that we cannot support a recommendation (point 9 in the report) which states that 'total taxation must not be allowed to increase further' .
Although we agree with parts of the report, for example, on a code of conduct for tax matters or in other words, an agreement between the Member States on voluntary self regulation, we cannot support the basic concept of the report that the principle of unanimity on tax issues shall be abandoned in the Council.
This is why we cannot vote for this report.
We think that Member States should have the right, in principle, to set taxes and that the Council should continue to treat tax matters in accordance with the principles of unanimous decision making.
But we think that minimum standards should be developed for capital tax, company tax and environmental tax and that decisions in the Council concerning these issues should be adopted by means of a qualified majority vote.
We cannot support point 9 in the report since the recommendation that total taxation may not be increased is too far reaching.
We agree with the rapporteur's views on a code of conduct for tax matters, in other words agreements between the Member States on voluntary self regulation.
But this position does mean that we cannot support the basic concept of the report that the principle of unanimity in all taxation matters be abandoned.
The Danish social democrats in the European Parliament voted in favour of the Secchi report as a whole, but against paragraph 4 and Amendment No 7, because we are opposed to majority voting on tax issues in the Council.
A move towards the harmonisation of taxes in the Member States and towards a common fiscal and finance policy would have serious implications for EU co-operation.
It would lead to a federal EU in which the Member States' most important governing instruments for national economic policy are transferred to EU level.
Taxation policy, the areas of taxation and the level of taxation in the Member States are also very varied because of different attitudes to welfare policy and the size of the public sector.
Tax policy should continue to be a national matter in the future.
For this reason I have voted against the report.
the Harrison report (A4-0160/97)
Mr President, the motion for a resolution rightly emphasizes certain legitimate concerns, which nobody could possibly oppose.
Probably, the effectiveness of the single market means that measures must be contemplated in order to make the way in which committees operate more transparent in order to guarantee independence vis-à-vis lobbies, when working out legislative procedures, for improving the protection of health and environment.
The aim to help small businesses that take part in the single market and profit from it, and the desire to protect children against the negative effects of the single market, go without saying.
Nevertheless, a proper reading of the subsidiarity principle would call on us to look at a number of the problems raised by this report, in a more flexible way, in a more appropriate way, which would be more effective than a systematic and sometimes abusive communitarization of the issue.
It is, in particular, true of questions concerning legal systems and taxation matters, dealt with in another report before us today.
Furthermore, the proposals to adopt a Community regulation on media ownership confirm the desire of the Community institutions to take on powers for controlling the media.
We have already denounced this type of manoeuvring when, in the context of enlargement to the countries of central and eastern Europe, the European Parliament proposed that press organs should not be subsidized, as a counterpart to their integrationist orthodoxy.
It is strange, on the other hand, that the European Parliament and the Commission should be so eager - quite rightly - to emphasize the dangers of red tape which could arise from excessive regulation but, at the same time, are exclusively attacking national administrations without asking any questions about shortcomings in the Community institutions themselves.
Finally, while we go along with the preoccupation with fighting for jobs, we do not want the implementation of a common employment policy.
That would lack the necessary flexibility and pragmatism.
The negotiations at the Intergovernmental Conference will not offer a solution to the burning challenge of unemployment.
The contribution to this difficult battle at European level means, in fact, a desire to reintroduce the principle of Community preferences inscribed in the Treaty of Rome in 1957, but systematically sacrificed on the altar of free trade in the case of trade negotiations...
(The President cut off the speaker)
The rapporteur expresses enthusiasm for the internal market, for continued integration and for very extensive legislative harmonisation in many of his points.
But we very much doubt, for example, that the internal market has increased the Union's GNP by 130 billion dollars as stated in point 3 of the report.
All such figures are, and must remain, guesses and we could equally well say that the internal market has reduced the GNP by the same amount or that the internal market will increase the level of unemployment by 5 million people.
More serious than this enthusiasm however, is the fact that the rapporteur in several places recommends the replacement of national legislation with Union legislation.
Point 14, for example, recommends that environmental policy be based on 'EU standards and guidelines' , while it is Sweden's view that a country should always have the right to impose stricter environmental legislation.
In point 16, the rapporteur states that the internal market will provide the base for a 'tax system at EU level' .
In Point 25 he makes a plea for a 'monitoring system at Community level' and so on.
Consequently we have many objections to various sections of the report although we acknowledge that it does have many merits.
The Danish social democrats in the European Parliament voted in favour of the Harrison report as a whole, but against paragraph 11, because we believe that social security arrangements should remain a national area of responsibility, and also against Amendment No 3, since we do not believe that a taxation system at EU level should cover all sources of income.
Growth, job creation and welfare in Europe are dependent on the internal market functioning without any obstacles.
The information from the Commission that only half the measures in the 1985 White Paper on the internal market have been fully implemented in the Member States is therefore very disturbing.
The Member States' tendency to introduce new technical rules is unfortunately only further jeopardizing the operation of the internal market.
It is to be welcomed that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has put forward so many constructive proposals in its report as to how to remedy these shortcomings.
Particular attention should be drawn to the committee's proposal for simpler rules on legal redress for citizens when they experience faults or ineffectiveness in the functioning of the internal market.
the Lannoye report (A4-0075/97)
British Conservatives recognize the great interest felt by thousands of electors in our constituencies over the issues raised in the Lannoye report.
Whether as consumers of complementary medicines, as users of alternative therapies or as practitioners of so-called non-conventional medicine they want to see this report succeed.
At European level the most important issue is the freedom of establishment and freedom of choice.
We would like to see the adoption of the UK approach to complementary medicines made possible in other Member States, particularly those where severe constraints are placed upon the practice of nonconventional medicine at present.
It is vital that consumers interests are protected by establishing standards and qualifications which can be mutually recognized throughout Europe.
How this can be achieved without a torrent of legislation at both European and Member State level remains to be seen.
These aims are sufficiently ambitious without the desire expressed in the report to make charges recoverable through the social security system, i.e. to have the taxpayer foot the bill, at a time of great pressure on public funds.
We Conservatives support the broad aims of this report but feel greater emphasis should be placed on further studies into the means of achieving them and the need for research into the efficacy of the various therapies before calling for European level legislation.
We are against calls for immediate legislation on the ground that this would pre-empt the outcome of any studies and could impose an unacceptable and restrictive burden on the practitioners of non-conventional medicines.
The reform of the system of non-conventional medicine, despite the intolerant corporatism of some of our colleagues who are doctors, has aroused a fair amount of interest among many of our fellow citizens in the European Union and - among many other reasons - who has not resorted or sometime will resort to these different medicines?
Recent public opinion surveys show that between 20 and 50 % of European citizens use these so-called 'nonconventional' medicines.
As the rapporteur pointed out, the resolution we are debating today is intended to seek necessary answers to these factual situations, both for the professionals and medicines involved in these disciplines and for patients.
These situations call for an appropriate Community response if we are to avoid any deviances or abuses.
I think it is important to emphasize that we are not talking about or defending quack doctors but nor are we talking about the privileges of obsolete corporatism - quite the contrary.
What this report, brimming with initiative, sets out to do is to establish a Community status with the highest degree of health and legal safety for the exercise of these alternative medical disciplines to which all of us - or nearly all of us - resort, as I said a moment ago.
It is, therefore, urgent to regulate the training and qualifications of these professions in order to guarantee patients maximum safety and quality whenever they resort to their use.
For this very reason, and not because of issues which have nothing to do with this debate, as far as Lannoye report is concerned, I should like sincerely to congratulate him on his work. It was not simple, especially given the narrow-mindedness of certain opponents.
To conclude, I can declare that I shall be supporting this report.
The subject of the status of non-conventional medicine has been a subject of lengthy and sometimes intense discussions and controversies in political circles.
At the same time, and perhaps this is the most important aspect, a large section of the population in most Member States of the European Union make use of the services and methods offered by certain branches of so-called non-conventional medicine, something which calls for a new way of dealing with the problem which does not have 'experimental' but genuine, social dimensions.
The subject, concerning a large number of ordinary people and concerning a sector as important and sensitive as health, cannot be dealt with by means of excommunications or witch-hunts.
From this point of view, we think it is extremely important to open the way to responsible dialogue and to undertake serious and thorough research and studies into the content, possibilities, peculiarities and scope of non-conventional medicine.
It is vital that we obtain documentation on the knowledge of each branch of non-conventional medicine, the methods used and its capabilities of diagnosis and therapy, in such a way that ordinary citizens, in particular patients, can have at their disposal the largest possible amount of reliable and thorough information on the competence, quality, efficiency and possible dangers of so-called non-conventional medicine rather than abandoning the chronically sick to ignorance and misinformation.
All of this, however, requires open and productive dialogue, according to scientific criteria and guarantees for the levels of safety and for ordinary people's health.
From this point of view, we think that the Lannoye report gives a positive boost towards finding ways of seriously tackling such an important problem, concerning the health of millions of ordinary people, and lends support to a considerable number of people who are specialized in, working on or providing this type of medical service and who, nevertheless, are entitled to know what the status of their profession is.
And I think it is heading in the right direction as a whole, as far as some of the points of the report are concerned, although I do have some reservations or disagreements over certain points. We shall therefore be voting for this report, because overall we think that it is a step towards dealing with this subject properly and responsibly.
The spectrum of alternative and supplementary medicine requires common legislation in EU territory.
The recommendation by Paul Lannoye and the Committee on the Environment contained a clear message to the Commission, namely that it should improve and harmonize the position of alternative treatments in the Union by means of a proposal for a Directive.
A common framework for practitioners is needed, as are recognition of alternative treatments and a list of medicines which also includes alternative medicines.
The Commission ought no longer to have wasted its time carrying out comparative research. Enough is already available in the various Member States.
What is needed now is action.
Unfortunately, Parliament sabotaged the Environment Committee's demands by contenting itself with requesting further research.
The wide range of practices in the various Member States is not in the interests of patients.
Training requirements for alternative medical practitioners have not yet been harmonized.
There is no clear list of pharmaceuticals.
It would also be rational for the Member States to investigate the refund of costs of treatments and medicines under the health insurance system if and when there are guarantees that treatments are effective.
Good results have been achieved with these treatments, and it is no wonder that people favour them.
I voted for this resolution, as amended.
The area of non-conventional medicine, and the possible regulation, via EU legislation, of freedom of establishment for practitioners of such medicine is a subject where Europe needs to proceed with great care.
This is not only because national systems of regulation differ very widely, but also because, on past form, it is quite possible that the compromises necessary in a Europewide approach would create problems for the very groups and individuals calling for such a European approach.
For this reason, I strongly support those parts of the Lannoye report which call for the Commission to carry out a study of the issue, as expressed in the first part of paragraph 2, and a study on results of research already done under budget item B 7142 into the effectiveness of homeopathy and other non-conventional medicines.
I am glad that the Parliament has rejected that part of paragraph 2 which originally called for immediate legislation, without awaiting the result of any study.
Since the EU does have a real problem regarding the freedom of establishment of the practitioners of nonconventional medicine, I hope that we can now use this resolution as a means of urging the Commission to carry out the study needed, and, possibly to bring forward legislation.
The Danish social democrats seriously doubt the relevance of the European Parliament expressing any views at all on the status of non-conventional medicine, partly because we have not been asked for an opinion, and partly because the subtext here may be that many practitioners could benefit from public health insurance schemes with the help of recognition from the EU, and we do not think that the EU has or should have any powers at all to become involved.
However, we do not wish to give the impression that we are blind to the need for the different treatment systems not to shut themselves off, but in fact to become more sympathetic to one another.
In some countries, conventional and non-conventional medicine are simply being integrated.
In others, they are at each other's throats.
We believe in striking the golden mean in this case.
Everyone knows that many people feel that the help available to them from conventional medicine or conventional practitioners is not enough.
But on the other hand, we do not wish to contribute to the general hypochondria which the views of many alternative practitioners actually help to create - there seems to be a pill or a therapy for everything.
It is important that alternative medicine (non conventional medicine), for example anthroposophy, homeopathy and chiropractic is allocated the same amount of working and development time as conventional medicine.
First a study is needed which lists the regulations covering the setting up of a practice in Member States.
This study would indicate whether EU harmonisation is really required.
If this is the case it could, for example, concentrate on establishing minimum standards to safeguard patients' health and safety.
For these reasons and with these reservations I have voted for the report.
I voted against the Lannoye report on the status of non-conventional medicines because, among other reasons, I thought that most of the claims set out in the recitals to the motion for a resolution were imbued with a strong feeling of opportunism, a lack of impartiality and, fundamentally, conceal behind imprecisions and half-truths economic interests that are not compatible with the interests of ordinary people in terms of their health and quality of life.
We think that, in the recognition of methods for diagnosing and treating patients and their illnesses, we must invariably demand the vital scientific validation that has been established and that all the techniques used in medicine must be proven by scientific methods and experimental tests.
Other reasons are mainly those of a cultural nature, links to the tradition and sensitivity of ordinary people, enabling the coexistence in the Member States of the European Union of concepts of considerable diversity, as far as health care is concerned.
We think it undesirable that the European Union should produce legislation on this controversial matter, especially in respect of any intention to include so-called non-conventional medicine in the social security system, which would lead to incalculable costs.
In this area, and for the reasons already explained, we think that the principle of subsidiarity should prevail ad infinitum in this case.
I supported the Lannoye report and voted for it in the Committee on the Environment, together with the amendments which I tabled, despite the odd disagreement over certain paragraphs in the text.
The reasons why I supported the adoption of a positive attitude towards the recognition, legitimacy and the regulation of the so-called non-conventional medicine health care sector are various.
Maintaining the situation in which these forms of therapy were tolerated but not recognized is extremely serious for the professionals applying these methods, and prevents the setting up of a system of certification and mutual recognition of competencies, which would eliminate the wheat from the chaff, and would lead to a recognized code of conduct.
At the same time, patients are presently unable to assess the professional competence and experience of these practitioners.
With regard to the absence of co-funding of these treatments by the social security systems, the situation found in most cases, this should be changed, because it is inadmissible that there should still be discrimination in access to these treatments on the basis of the economic situation of patients, although we do need to control and contain excessive costs.
I am glad that Mr Lannoye's report has finally been put to the vote.
It is important to pave the way for common legislation on health professions which are not already covered by directives on training and professional activity.
In the Committee on the Environment, the debate has very much centred on the participants' fundamental attitudes to alternative medicine - especially in the case of those members opposed to any form of alternative medical treatment.
And that is a pity, because the report is about creating sensible conditions for the non-conventional health professions.
It should be obvious that a clear and transparent framework of legislation will serve both the various groups of practitioners and - not least - the interests of patients, since the alternative treatment sector can be like a jungle in which it is very hard to find one's bearings.
It is a fact that alternative forms of medicine are used by about a third of the population of the Member States.
It is therefore desirable for the EU to establish common legislation in the sector, so as to assure this large group of people of correct and uniform treatment by properly trained practitioners.
However, I would make the point that the EU should in no way intervene in the individual Member States' health insurance schemes for reimbursing the cost of treatment and medicines, as is proposed in Amendment No 15.
On the other hand, I personally can sympathize with the idea that health insurance schemes should refund the cost of alternative treatment, so that patients are given a free choice of therapy.
Even so, what is refunded in a health insurance scheme financed from taxation has to be a purely national matter.
Finally, I would entirely support the idea that the European Pharmacopoeia drawn up by the Council of Europe should be extended to cover non-conventional forms of medical treatment.
I am in favour of this report because I support the right to have a high quality medical service, with guarantees, that is fully recognized and legislated, which does not necessarily have to be conventional, ' academic' medicine.
At present, the personal dimension between patient and doctor has been lost.
Efficient but rapid treatment of symptoms has replaced patient care.
The history of medicine is a series of episodes of memorable intransigence followed by the later acceptance of techniques which, at the time, were seen as diabolical or miraculous.
Now, at the dawn of the 21st century, let us not repeat these past equivocations and open the door to dialogue between official and non-conventional medicines.
I do not believe in miracles, but I still have hope that corporate, medical or pharmaceutical interests will not stand in the way of the regularization and legislative recognition of practices which have been shown to be effective and which have been accepted, for some time now, in certain Member States and in other countries too.
In many countries, such as Spain, there is an absolute legal vacuum in respect of these, which only encourages charlatanism, putting the health of consumers at risk.
Patients' freedom to choose the way in which they wish to be treated and the safety of guarantees for the choice they have made is a right which must be respected, facilitated and sanctioned by the Member States and the European Union.
The controversy which the Lannoye report has generated is based on a false premise: that legalizing the exercise of non-conventional medical practices is tantamount to allowing the professional exercise of people without medical competence.
The aim of the report is exactly the opposite.
In urging the Commission to conduct thorough studies into the harmlessness and effectiveness of treatments, on one hand, and to approximate rules on delivering diplomas and the exercise of the profession, on the other, is precisely aimed at preventing charlatans from taking advantage of the lack of information given to ordinary people and existing legal vacuums.
Refusing to accept the powers of practices such as homeopathy, chiropractic, osteopathy, acupuncture or shiatsu is both surprising and useless.
It is surprising because it goes against all recent trends towards an overall understanding of the individual, and useless because the number of practitioners will only go on growing - but without any form of protection.
It is the European Union's responsibility to create conditions of equality between citizens and, in this case, the practitioner's right to exercise and establish and the right of choice for users and consumers.
This freedom, on both sides, must, however, be based on safety which only a thorough system of professional certification, harmonized throughout Europe, could guarantee.
This is a cornerstone, something which is not sufficiently highlighted in the relevant paragraphs of Mr Lannoye's motion for a resolution.
It is quite ridiculous to denigrate these practices just as psychoanalysis was when it made its appearance.
On what side of the argument does the obscurantism lie?
the Crowley report (A4-0088/97)
We cannot support Mr Crowley's report on the social aspects of housing, primarily on the grounds that housing policy is and continues to be a national responsibility.
We feel it is absurd to contemplate an EU housing policy, since the various considerations which lie behind a national housing policy cannot simply be transferred to the European Union, given that the diversity among the Member States is much greater than that which is found at national level.
On this basis, we therefore also think that the establishment of a European Housing Forum and the launching of an IGLOO pilot programme, aimed at funding integrated housing-related projects, are completely superfluous.
Nor are we able to support the inclusion of a provision in the new Treaty on the right to decent and affordable housing for all.
We can fully endorse the comments that some of the appropriations for the SAVE programme should be used to aid energy-efficient housing, and that all developments must be sustainable and take account of the protection of the environment, conservation of energy and best building practices; these are also in line with the views of the great majority of the Danish population.
in writing. (SV) We totally agree with the basic claim in Mr Crowley's report that everyone has the right to decent housing and that the 18 million or so people in the EU who are homeless or living in poor accommodation have the right to decent homes which are reasonably priced.
As proposed in the report we want to combat the trend which has allowed property speculation and a lack of financial resources offering reasonable terms for loans to turn the housing sector into a 'high cost sector' to which only the well off have access.
All Member States have ratified the UN Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which acknowledges the right to adequate housing for all and more attention should be paid to this.
We are also in favour of Member States, on their own initiative, or through the Union introducing pilot projects for housing, employment, health care, and social services etc. in accordance with the proposal in the report.
We also think that the building of housing must be based on recycling, sustainable use of natural resources, environmental and health considerations and energy efficiency.
On the other hand we think that the demand for a European housing policy which Mr Crowley makes in his report is too far reaching and is unacceptable.
Housing policy is and must remain a matter for Member States.
But there can of course be co-operation and exchange of expertise at an international level within different sectors to solve the problems involved in guaranteeing good housing at reasonable cost for all.
Pressure should be brought to bear on countries to make them fulfil the UN Convention which they have signed.
Despite the fact that the report contains many good proposals we cannot vote for it for the above mentioned reasons.
I support all the main proposals in the report which concern an improved housing policy.
But there is no need for a common housing policy at EU level offering EU housing loans or for integrated housing legislation.
The very serious problems raised in the report must be resolved at national level and through inter-state co-operation where this is considered necessary.
For these reasons, I have voted against the report.
That concludes the votes.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday 29 May 1997.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the part-session of Thursday 29 May 1997 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, the Minutes of 29 May show a considerably larger attendance than we get on the last day of a Strasbourg session.
I suggest that this is because the French authorities are unable to offer a decent service by air or any other means to get home after a meeting.
Mr Kellett-Bowman, I understand how every Monday in Strasbourg, we have the same question. I can only give the usual answer: that I refer this matter to the French authorities.
You know that the French authorities have responded with a proposal to the European Council on fixing the institutions' seats and timetables.
Thank you, Mr Macartney.
I shall forward your remark to the Commission.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr Ford, your complaint will be noted and referred to the security services, who must protect members' posters from acts of vandalism.
Mr President, I should like to appeal to you personally, as a gifted lawyer and long-time leading member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, to intervene in the situation in the Netherlands which has resulted in various technical provisions of European law becoming null and void.
The country is facing a legal disaster as a result of an absolutely incredible blunder on the part of the government in failing to notify Brussels of some 340 provisions, which are therefore now cancelled.
For example, the breathalyser test can no longer be used in the Netherlands because the relevant provision is now void.
It was the previous government rather than the present one that was responsible for this.
What I would ask you to do - and I shall be discussing this with Mr Wijsenbeek this evening, since we two are the only Dutch lawyers here, and in the Legal Affairs Committee - is to urge the Council of Ministers of Justice...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Janssen van Raay, this is not the time to raise that question.
It is a matter for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Mr President, I should like to urge the Commission, in particular the Transport section, to bring forward a report on the transport of nuclear material.
At the present time aircraft carrying plutonium are flying over Member States including the UK.
It is a matter of extreme urgency that this matter is resolved as quickly as possible.
I would therefore respectfully ask you to prevail upon the Commission to bring forward an up-to-date report on the transport of nuclear waste.
Mr Morris, if you have put this matter to the Commission, I shall ensure that they answer you.
Mr President, the British Sunday Times on 1 June this year carried an article in which it indicated that the new British Government was maintaining a computer database on the activities, questions and speeches of Members of this Parliament.
Mr Hugh Kerr specifically was mentioned.
I am not aware whether other Members are being monitored and surveyed in this way by the British Government. I wish to know whether this action constitutes a breach of the privileges of this House.
Mr Perry, I would rather interpret this information, if it is true, as a sign of the interest shown by a Member State Government in the European Parliament's activities.
We are forever asking Member States to take an interest in the European Parliament's work, and so it is a good sign that a new government should be concerned with these matters.
That is how I would prefer to interpret this.
Mr President, I raised orally the question of interpreting at interparliamentary delegations' meetings, with reference in particular to the delegation for relations with Kazakhstan and the other central Asian republics.
I am the vice-chairman of that delegation. The trip was arranged for early May.
The meeting went ahead as scheduled, but even though I wanted to take part and thought that I could make a useful contribution I was unable to do so because I had been informed that there would be no Greek interpretation.
In addition to my oral query I wrote to you about the matter, and after an awfully long wait I have received a letter form you in reply in which you say that you do not know who decided that interpreting should not be available for all of the languages of the participants in interparliamentary delegations and that in the case in question interpreting from Russian and English suffices.
I do not know on what criteria that decision to exclude all of the other languages was taken.
I am concerned about Greek, because as a member I must be able to participate.
Why do I raise the matter? Firstly because I had to wait so long for your reply.
But that could be excused, perhaps, bearing in mind your workload.
The real issue, though, is that we cannot do our job.
Somewhere - in the Rules - there ought to be a stipulation that Members who wish to participate in the various bodies and committees must, inter alia, be familiar with English and Russian or have knowledge of German, because that is the reality of the situation.
Effectively you are sidelining us.
Mr Ephremidis, I think that this matter has been considered by the Conference of delegation Chairmen and you will be informed as to why only two languages were on offer in this case and the possible solutions to the problem.
Mr President, Members have had circulated to them this evening notice of my written declaration on alcopops which lapses at 6.30 pm.
I wish to make two complaints about the procedure associated with written declarations.
Firstly, the word 'alcopops' is admittedly a fairly new word but I have cause to complain about the translations.
The French translation, in particular, did not convey what alcopops are: sweet drinks containing alcohol, designed for young people and very dangerous.
So the translation was redone but the time limit has not been extended.
Secondly, I wish to complain about the fact that written declarations are very, very difficult to sign in our Parliament.
This may be deliberate but I guarantee there are many Members in this Chamber who have absolutely no idea where in Brussels you go to sign written declarations.
The answer is: it is a long way away from the Hemicycle.
I ask you to consider having written declarations here in the Hemicycle, the obvious place for them to be signed.
I also ask for an extension of the time limit on my declaration so that those who want to combat this evil of alcopops can do so in a convenient way.
(Applause )
Mrs McNally, of course the time limit can be extended but, as for the signing of written declarations, may I remind you that the relevant procedure is laid down in the Rules and any change would require a change to those Rules.
In Brussels, the place where written declarations are signed is just beneath the hemicycle and here in Strasbourg, if I am not mistaken, it is just next door.
Order of business
The final draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents (at its meeting of Thursday 5 June 1997) pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
No amendments have been proposed.
I give the floor to Mrs Green.
Mr President, following the meeting of my group this evening there are a couple of changes which we would like to put to you.
Firstly, as you know, we in the Conference of Presidents supported the movement of the McIntosh report on aviation safety from Tuesday to Thursday. We did that on the understanding that the Commissioner would be available on Thursday to deal with this issue.
We understand now that this is not the case.
Whilst we understand the reasons why the report was moved and are in favour of being as helpful as we can, we would ask the rapporteur if she would consider moving the report to July so that it can be dealt with when the Commissioner is available.
It is a very serious issue and we want to make sure that it is properly debated and dealt with.
Thursday does not seem like a good idea.
The second proposal is that we currently have a deadline of 4 p.m. tomorrow for compromise motions and amendments on the IGC and the Amsterdam Summit.
The outcome of the vote which takes place tonight in the Committee on Institutional Affairs, where, as you know, there are 134 amendments to the text on the IGC, will not be available for consideration by the groups before the deadline for amendments expires.
I am therefore asking for an extension of that deadline for compromise texts and amendments until, perhaps, 10 a.m. on Wednesday.
That would allow all groups tomorrow evening to assess whether they want to make further amendments to the texts which will only emerge from the Institutional Affairs Committee tonight.
Mr President, I am rather surprised that we are still talking about the McIntosh report, which has now been moved to Thursday, since I assumed that if no written comments were received, the agenda would remain as it stands.
However, if as it now seems, the Commissioner is unable to attend, then I think we can agree to postpone the report to the July part-session, since the second June meeting is already full.
What we do have a problem with are the two resolutions on the IGC and the other items on the agenda for the Amsterdam summit.
I gather from Mrs Green's proposal that if the amendments are to be tabled by Wednesday morning, the vote would be held on Thursday.
I do not think this is a good idea for such an important issue - we have already discussed it in our group - and I think it would be much better to set the deadline for tabling amendments at 7 p.m. or even 7.30 p.m. for once, rather than 4 p.m., so that everyone has the chance of further discussion in their groups.
We would go along with the Socialist Group to that extent, but I do not think it is a good idea not to vote on Wednesday.
I would therefore ask how late it is technically possible to set the deadline so that we can still be sure of voting on Wednesday?
Mr President, I have a point about the sitting on Tuesday.
About ten minutes before the start of this sitting, I received a copy of a letter addressed to you, presumably because I am the rapporteur for the agriculture budget.
The President of the Council of Agriculture Ministers informs us that he cannot attend the prices debate tomorrow afternoon, but proposes to come tomorrow evening instead.
I would suggest that we should vote on this point at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, so that we can have time for discussion in the Committee on Agriculture and perhaps also with Commissioner Fischler.
I would therefore ask that we should decide at 9 a.m. tomorrow whether to postpone the debate on farm prices until 9 p.m. tomorrow evening.
Mr President, we also think it would be most unfortunate if we do not vote on Wednesday.
It would be sending out entirely the wrong political signal on such an important issue to hold the debate on Wednesday morning, but not to have the vote until the next day.
We therefore support the idea of being able to table amendments and compromises later, at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. instead of 4 p.m., depending on the technical constraints.
Let us take one part at a time.
Postponement of McIntosh report
The second point raised by Mrs Green concerns the deadline for tabling amendments on the Amsterdam European Council.
The deadline can be extended until 4 p.m. Tuesday, so that resolutions can be voted on on Wednesday.
Groups must display responsibility and not table too many amendments, so that the vote can be completed, given the importance of this subject.
Mr President, I am trying to be helpful.
I understand why we would want to vote on Wednesday. We could support that provided our Group and most of the other groups which meet in the evening on Tuesday have at least some opportunity to discuss the amendments and the text that comes out of the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
My Group meets at 7 o'clock, so it is quite impossible for us to have the amendments in by 6 o'clock.
We will try to keep them to an absolute minimum.
Even a deadline of 8 o'clock will only allow us an hour to discuss these issues with a group of 214.
You see the pressure we are under!
Obviously 9 o'clock would make it much easier for us.
If we can all agree with that, then we will do all we can to facilitate matters for the services.
We will even give drafts in advance, which we can then perhaps adjust in minor ways afterwards.
We will do everything we can to be helpful.
Mrs Green, that means that we would vote on Thursday?
Mr President, I would like to propose that if we can have a deadline of 9 o'clock - and we will facilitate matters as much as we can for the services - we should vote on Wednesday.
We will try to do it. But if it is technically impossible, because amendments are numerous and complicated, then we will have to hold the vote on Thursday.
We will know by Wednesday morning.
In any case, my services tell me that we can put 9 o'clock if we have amendments by that time.
Requests for split votes must be in by 6 o'clock, but we would accept amendments until 9 o'clock.
Mr President, I do not have much experience of procedural debates here, but Mrs OomenRuijten has been extremely helpful in explaining matters, drawing on her own wealth of experience.
However, I would also refer to the practice adopted by Mr Hänsch in the past, whereby votes had to be taken as soon as possible after the debates.
This seems a very good rule to me, and as Mrs Aelvoet said, it would be sending out the wrong political signal if we held the debate on Wednesday morning but did not vote until Thursday afternoon.
I therefore agree with your proposal, Mr President, that we should have our meetings by 9 p.m. tomorrow night - our group too does not meet until 7 p.m. and that we should have until 9 p.m. to table any amendments.
I would urge most strongly that we should vote on Wednesday afternoon after the debate.
I agree, that is what I said.
Mr President, I entirely agree with the proposal that we should keep the number of amendments to a minimum and that we should have them in by 9 p.m.
However, what I cannot understand is why we need to decide which split votes we want by 6 p.m.
I do not see why it has to be so early, since there is really not a problem with getting things translated - the President of the sitting just reads out the split vote that has been requested - but simply of preparing the votes.
I honestly cannot see why, if the amendments are to be in by 9 p.m., we cannot also have until then to consider which sections need a split vote.
I simply cannot see the reason for this.
This is an exceptional vote, and that is why we are exceptionally setting an 8 o'clock deadline.
The European Parliament's services will pull out all the stops so that we can vote on Wednesday.
Mr President, I am surprised at this result, because the groups are being very helpful to the plenary.
After all, we have to have the opportunity to consider what will only come out of committee tonight.
You are giving us one hour, which makes it extremely difficult not only to discuss the amendments we might wish to submit but to submit them in a form acceptable to the plenary.
That is very tough going!
I cannot see why, if we must vote Wednesday - and I accept it would be better to vote then - we cannot say that if there are too many amendments and it cannot be dealt with by lunchtime Wednesday, we will have a special voting session at 5 o'clock.
After all this House is sovereign.
We need to be able to discuss these issues.
It is not just the vote that is important.
The whole issue is important. The groups' response to the discussion on the IGC is crucial.
So I would still ask that it be 9 o'clock.
My Group has 214 members. It is not easy to discuss this issue and submit the amendments in one hour.
Mrs Green, the deadline will be at 9 p.m., but I take note of what you have said: if everything is not ready for the vote on Wednesday, late in the morning, then the vote will have to be at 5 p.m.
We cannot vote unless decent translations are ready and all the preparations have properly been completed.
Agricultural debate
The third point concerns the joint debate on agricultural prices.
I have just received a letter from the Dutch Agriculture Minister to the effect that he must attend a national parliament sitting in the afternoon.
I can suggest two scenarios: either the debate will be held from 9 p.m. to midnight on Tuesday - when he would be present - or we hold a debate with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I give the floor to Mr Colino, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr President, I am surprised by this announcement, for reasons you have explained, that the Dutch Minister, President-in-Office of the Council, will not be here, and I think it would be preferable for him to attend the debate.
I would not oppose postponing the debate until 9 p.m. to midnight on Tuesday, in accordance with this request, as long as the Minister will attend in that case.
The Minister's letter states quite clearly: ' I shall be able to attend the debate from 9 p.m. to midnight.
I would therefore be grateful if the debate on agricultural prices were postponed until the evening' .
It seems quite clear.
I put to the House the proposal to postpone the debate on agricultural prices to Tuesday evening.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
The order of business has been adopted thus amended .
Mr President, it was actually intended that there should be a joint debate.
So are we now going to have a debate just on agricultural prices, or on the whole complex that is on the agenda?
Thank you very much, for your question, which gives me the opportunity to make it clear that this is the joint debate that we are talking about.
Mr President, I must object.
We agreed on one point, and that was the discussion about agricultural prices.
It is simply not right that we should go on discussing this whole complex until midnight.
There will be no Members left in the House by then!
I understand your argument, as your Group voted against.
But the majority of the European Parliament has decided otherwise.
Mrs Lulling, you have the floor.
Mr President, my report also concerns agriculture, bee-keeping to be precise.
I do not see what it has to do with agricultural prices and we could quite easily examine it in the afternoon, like the Baldarelli report, as the agenda states.
Is that not possible?
Mrs Lulling, according to the agenda, you report was not part of the joint debate.
It is therefore unaffected by this decision.
The decision was to postpone the joint debate but not the other items. In other words, not your report.
Petitions 1996-1997
The next item is the report (A4-0190/97) by Mr Perry, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year 1996-1997.
Mr President, I present the annual report on the work of the Committee on Petitions.
I find that wherever people are in the world, they tend to perceive themselves as being at the centre of the universe.
I find that whichever committee in this Parliament colleagues are members of, they regard that committee as the most important, the most vital and central to the work of Parliament.
They can all make a good case, whether it is the Budgets Committee, Environment, Women's Rights, Regional Affairs or whatever.
They are all doing important work.
I know that the Committee on Petitions is not universally regarded as the most important.
In fact I describe it to my constituents as the complaints department of the Parliament.
We do not decide policy, we make no legislation, we control no budgets, which are the ways you normally decide power and influence.
But we do listen to the people of Europe; and in a democratic process can anybody tell me anything that is more important than to listen to the citizens' concerns and problems? Citizens take their right to petition seriously.
In the last ten years the number of petitions has doubled from 500 to over 1, 000 per annum.
There has been a slight decrease this year, which was to be expected with the advent of the European Ombudsman.
The committee has established good working methods with the Ombudsman and I pay tribute to the work and the good relations that exist.
The Committee on Petitions performs the role of listener on behalf of the Parliament.
Last year saw a petition with over 4 million signatures objecting to tests on live animals by the cosmetics industry.
But it is the opportunity for the individual to get redress of grievances that is important.
Colleague Mary Banotti works very hard on the issue of tug-of-love children, working as your representative to solve those very personal problems.
There was a young man in Luxembourg who got the tax authorities there to repay him tax.
Nobody can do a better job than getting the taxman to pay money back!
Even in my own constituency a petitioner complained that his pension had been miscalculated and he got several thousand pounds back pay.
The committee works in a harmonious way across our national and political divisions.
I certainly want to pay tribute to last year's chairman, Mr Newman, and my political colleague, Mr Fontana, who is the chairman this year.
I also wish to place on record the committee's appreciation of the work of its secretariat and the work of the Commission.
Their reports are invariably thorough, well-researched and presented in a helpful way.
Sadly my report is not all plaudits.
The Council of Ministers is often conspicuous by its absence.
I wonder whether they are in the debate this evening.
Yet a significant proportion of our petitions comes from citizens who believe that Member States are failing to honour their obligations to the European Treaties.
There might be issues of social security, respect for the environment - a whole myriad of problems arise because it is citizens who seek to put the Treaties into effect by living, working, studying where they wish in Europe.
It is not yet always as easy as we wish it to be, or indeed as we fondly might believe it to be.
Attendance by representatives of the Council frequently and regularly at meetings of the Committee on Petitions might obviate that sort of problem.
It is not just the Council I comment on.
Our own services - and even some of our committees - pay scant attention to the work of the Committee on Petitions.
To my mind, when a committee of the Parliament is asked by the Committee on Petitions for an opinion they should believe there can be no higher priority than heeding the pleas of the citizen who thinks Europe is not working.
In the report we have also asked the press and publicity offices to pay more attention.
These are human interest stories; they show what Europe means to the individual; they show that Parliament is the protector of the individual and we should be shouting our successes from the rooftops.
The report contains a proposed formula that sets out what European citizens are entitled to expect of bodies that administer regulations and directives, whether these bodies are national governments or the Commission.
They cover such obvious issues as transparency of rules, who is in charge of a service, the right to prompt attention to a case within a published timescale.
In Britain these administrative standards are contained within a Citizens' Charter and this is a model which the Commission could well study and emulate where appropriate across Europe.
I hope we shall find a mechanism for establishing that formula of good administrative practice as a European citizens' charter.
Finally, as a committee we urge that the 'Citizens First' information campaign should not neglect to remind citizens of their worthwhile right to petition the Parliament to help ensure that the rights of the European citizen are respected.
First of all I should like to congratulate Mr Perry on his excellent report.
This annual report, and the way in which it has been drawn up, are a sign and expression of the excellent cooperation, above all party-political considerations, that characterizes our work on this committee.
The Committee on Petitions has been in existence for ten years now, and during that time it has received about 10, 000 petitions with about 10 billion signatures.
We can quite rightly claim that the Committee on Petitions forms the link between the citizens of the EU and its institutions.
The people of the European Union come to the Committee on Petitions with their concerns, their negative experiences and their desires.
Often we are able to help them solve their problems, but often our hands are tied because, even when there is European involvement, the legal basis needed in order to take action is lacking.
In that case, the matter turns out to be a national problem after all.
Sometimes, however, the Committee on Petitions, as an institution, is completely misunderstood.
We are regarded, as it were, as the highest instance, along the following lines: I, the petitioner, have complained to my local authority, then to the regional authority, and then to the national petitions committee.
None of them upheld my claim, so I am now going to go to the European Parliament and complain there.
Of course, that is not what our competence is all about.
We are not the Supreme Court.
One problem that we still have to overcome is the problem of time.
Petitioners have to wait too long for a reply, or for the solution to their problem.
It takes some time, after a petition is first received by post, for it to be summarized, checked in advance to see whether it is admissible or not, and then translated into eleven languages.
Once the Committee has decided on a recommendation, then the real work begins.
The Commission, thank goodness, has finally complied with our request and is trying to process petitions very rapidly, but they are still being held up at the level of the Member States and the Council.
They operate very slowly, particularly when an infringement of Community law is involved.
Insufficient information is made available; in other words, in most cases it is incomplete, and it is also too slow.
We are asking for more precise and more rapid information and replies from Member States.
We need firmly agreed deadlines, and all those people who are involved in the expansion and coordination of the electronic data-processing system could help here.
Because, since 1992, the Committee on Petitions has been meeting in public, and because the petitioners are always asked whether they want their petitions to be handled in public or not, this should not cause any difficulties with data protection either.
The participation and hearing of petitioners by the Committee is often desirable as a matter of urgency, and we try to be fair in arranging for this to be done.
For example, on the petition about opencast lignite mining in Garzweiler, because we as a committee thought that the information provided by the petitioners was insufficient, we decided to send a fact-finding mission there.
The visit will be taking place next week.
Unfortunately too much of our work still goes on out of the public eye.
Many of the initiatives of the other committees, and legislative initiatives by the Commission, too, are closely linked to the petitions dealt with by the Committee, because people are constantly discovering defects and deficiencies in European Directives and statutory provisions.
So we are also requesting that the European Parliament's offices should be better informed about the right of petition.
The public should be informed about the petitions that are being examined, and above all about the petitions for which solutions have been found.
Only in this way can we, as elected representatives of EU citizens, establish a closer link with them and put into practice our oft-quoted desire to be 'close to the people' .
Mr President, this is an unexpected bonus for me.
I am replacing Mr Fontana and, as an active member of the Committee on Petitions, I wish to take this opportunity to inform Parliament that we have had some extremely good news in relation to children who have been abducted.
In the past year children who have been missing - in some cases for up to 18 months - have been recovered.
There was a very notable case where a German child had been abducted to Western Samoa and there were others abducted to France and North Africa.
With the considerable help of your office and of Parliament we have had some significant successes in returning these children to their parents.
This has resulted in some very good publicity for Parliament.
People recognize it as a human issue and, while we are not going about it strictly speaking as lawyers, through Parliament we have considerable influence in putting pressure on local authorities who might be ignoring these cases assuming them just to be domestic tiffs.
When we ring from Parliament I have noticed a considerable willingness on the part of many authorities, legal and social, to take these cases seriously and to give us wonderful help in the process.
Another matter on which the Committee on Petitions has been lobbied intensely is the difficulties many teachers experience working in other Member States.
Every Member State has its own sneaky little tricks for making sure that people do not find it too easy to go to other countries and practice their professions.
So, in the context of the directive on free movement and practice of the professions, we hope there will be improvements here.
I also had the honour of being the rapporteur for the report on disability.
A petition by over 3, 000 people with disabilities throughout the Community resulted in my report which I am proud to say was passed unanimously last December.
Another petition also raised very serious issues.
Two of my constituents petitioned Parliament when their parents died in a carbon monoxide poisoning incident in a holiday apartment in Spain.
As a direct result of this petition we have discovered some very alarming things about some gas heaters, including the fact that 61 people died in Belgium last year as a direct result of carbon monoxide poisoning from water heaters.
Thus, issues far beyond the actual content of the petition have been raised.
As Mr Perry has rightly said, the people of Europe are effectively probing the laws of Europe, the directives of Europe and the issues that concern them most closely.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Perry for the report, which I think is an excellent piece of work. It does seem true that, as Mr Perry says, people tend to think that the particular committee in which they are currently active is the most important one in Parliament.
But, that said, I think we can safely say that the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman together really focus on the most vital areas of the Union's work.
There are very few other agencies through which citizens have the same direct contact with the Union.
This is where the individual citizen can get a concern addressed in an entirely concrete way.
Unfortunately of course, it is often because there is something wrong in the relationship between Member States - after all that is what the Committee on Petitions deals with - but it is possible for the citizen to lodge a complaint or raise matters more or less at no cost.
Where else in the Union is it possible to get a case off the ground without spending huge amounts on legal assistance? It is possible when the matter is raised with the Committee on Petitions.
But, precisely because this is where the individual citizen comes into direct contact with the Union, it is important that the procedure should be as effective as possible.
And, as we have the President in the Chair, I would like to say - and I hope the President is listening even though this is in Danish - that, when it comes to the use of information technology in the conduct of business in Parliament, there is a great deal lacking.
Things get almost completely impossible when one ventures into this area, and I think that, particularly when fifteen countries have to cooperate, it is absolutely vital to make use of computer systems and information technology.
Mr President, I want to start by congratulating Mr Perry on the first class report he has presented to us and then ask the House to bear in mind that the right of petition is one of the fundamental rights of European citizens. The exercise of this right currently represents one of the few points of direct contact with the European institutions available to the European citizen.
So it is essential that we activate this right fully.
It has already been said, and I want to underline it, that in the last ten years some ten thousand petitions have been presented and millions of citizens have signed them.
That is why it is important for all the parliamentary committees to be involved in activating this right, and not just the Committee on Petitions. It is also vital to find a way of amending the Rules of Procedure so that a rapid response can be given to all the petitions we receive.
We have taken a considerable time to respond today, and we cannot maintain dialogue with the citizens of Europe and protect this right for them unless the response procedure is changed to make it faster and easier.
Here I must also mention that the Commission collaborates too slowly, but at least it does, whereas the Council hardly collaborates at all. A strong request needs to be made on this point too if the right of petition is to be fully realized.
Mr President, the annual report by the Committee on Petitions naturally contains little that is controversial.
There is no doubt that there must be mechanisms at every level of government to protect people against abuses of power or the indifference of officialdom.
For example, support and help needs to be given to frontier workers within the European Union facing problems with their tax or pension administrations.
However, it is most regrettable that when this ideal is put into practice using all our highly detailed Community law, it is invariably presented as a kind of victory for democracy.
I would point out that in many cases Community law is introduced in a way that could not remotely be described as democratic, either because decisions are taken behind closed doors where no one monitors what happens, or because they are taken at a level so far removed from the man in the street that there can be no question of controls, let alone involvement.
Let me give you an example.
The Maastricht Treaty provides that in all the Member States, even people who do not have the nationality of the country concerned must have the right to vote in European and local council elections.
This was a totally arbitrary idea, the brainchild of a purely pro-European ideology.
It was a decision taken over people's heads and was not even welcomed by the people concerned, as we can see from the fact that the most recent European elections were a major flop amongst the electorate in question.
For the last three years, I have been asking the Commission at regular intervals for the turn-out figures, and they have always claimed that they are unable to provide them, even now, three years after the event.
In my own country, this European decision is threatening to result in cultural genocide - there is no other word for it - for Flemings around Brussels and in Brussels itself.
Tens of thousands of new voters, almost by definition not Dutch-speaking, of course, are threatening to create a tidal wave of support for the French-speaking parties.
These French-speaking parties represent people who think that they belong to a sort of 'Herrenvolk ' that does not need to adapt itself to the language of the country in which it settles, but thinks instead that the native population, the Flemings, the Dutch speakers, should adapt themselves to the newcomers.
This modern form of cynical and brutal colonialism is now being supported by a European decision which the vast majority of my people did not want and which has to be seen as helping to promote cultural genocide.
The Flemish Parliament has actually adopted a motion linking the right to vote in European elections to a number of very strict conditions and restrictions, but it looks very much as if the decision taken by Europe over everyone's heads carries more weight than the democratic wishes of the Flemish Parliament.
It is examples like this which make me think that Europe is often actually harmful to the interests, survival and identity of the nations of the Union. That is why I have become a eurosceptic and why I cannot endorse this report, uncontroversial though it may be.
Madam President, I too wish to compliment Mr Perry on his report and to thank him.
We should recognize, of course, that the report is the product of the committee as a whole, as is reflected in the unanimous approval given to it and the constructive additions made via amendments throughout the period during which it was being drawn up.
The Perry report follows the lead set by the Gutiérrez Díaz report last year and the Kuhn report in 1995 in enhancing the standing of the Committee on Petitions.
Yes, it is true that the Committee on Petitions is not the most exalted of this Parliament's committees. However, as a committee, it is not the same as the others.
The right of the citizen to petition is a fundamental right recognized in the treaties and the European Parliament has a duty to promote that right. And it is the Committee on Petitions which is charged, in the name of this Parliament, with the task of supporting and making a reality of the right of the European citizen to petition.
This right of the citizen to approach the European Parliament directly provides us with a good tool for monitoring the European venture on the ground.
It is form of ongoing check, a form of public scrutiny of Community law through the eyes of ordinary people who very frequently find themselves up against adverse circumstances in their everyday lives.
I think that this message is good news to very large numbers of people.
The fact, I mean, that the European Parliament has this committee which is now able to protect and promote the rights of the citizen in concert with the institution of the European Ombudsman.
Madam President, I join colleagues in thanking the rapporteur for his report, which was quite excellent, as was his presentation.
But, of course, as the last speaker has said, the report is a reflection of the work of the Committee on Petitions as a whole.
I am an outsider, ie, I am not a member of the Petitions Committee, but I have, from time to time, constituents with knotty problems.
I must confess that we have had our share of failures. I am the first to acknowledge that the committee has been successful on many fronts.
We have heard in particular from Mrs Banotti how children have benefitted from the work of the Petitions Committee.
But the hard fact is that there are a number of knotty problems and some of them have come through my own hands.
I have not been able to satisfy the constituents concerned; not at least until now.
That may or may not be the fault of the Petitions Committee. It may or may not be the fault of the Commission.
But one gets the feeling that some people sometimes are not doing their stuff. I would put the Commission officials in that category.
Who do I have in mind?
I have in mind, for instance, my excellent constituent, Mr Peter Thomas. He won a case against the Greek railways several years ago and he is owed several thousand pounds by them.
Have they honoured that?
Certainly not!
They have not paid him for breach of contract. The thing drags on and on and my constituent is in serious trouble with his bank manager.
That is case one.
Case two: I have a constituent - Mr Hawthorne - who had a villa in Malaga, in Spain.
This was sold when he was not looking. He only owed them a very small loan.
He has been struggling now for six years with the Spanish courts and we have not had any help yet, effectively, from this Parliament. I feel slightly ashamed about that.
Madam President, I think this is a very useful report, as we are seeing from the debate, because it gives an account of the work of the Committee on Petitions - an account fully deserved by the Committee on Petitions and its secretariat.
But we must realise that we are far from making the effective and necessary response expected by Europe's citizens, who are turning to us in droves, submitting very important cases, cases affecting their fundamental interests - and we have not been able, as I said, to provide the desired effective response to these petitions, to these requests and to the defence of their rights and interests.
We have not been able to do that for two types of reasons: one might even be our fault because of the difficulty entailed in informing citizens that this facility does exist; that is bound up also with the lugubrious and complex nature, in spite of everything, of the actual process which also requires translation into all languages.
But, in the second place, this inability to respond quickly and positively to the requests and petitions submitted by our citizens is due to the fact that the complaints are often directed against the acts or omissions by the Member States.
And the problem is that the procedure we work to does not allow us to contact the Member States direct to compel them to respond to the wishes of the citizens.
We must therefore accept that, in order to respond effectively, the terms of the very procedures in the Treaty must be amended.
But I must not forget to point out the practical importance which petitions to the European Parliament have, for example in Portugal in the case of discrimination as regards salaries in the Banco Central Português and in the case of the customs agents, specific cases where many petitions were received - indicating that people expected an objective response to their problems from the European Parliament.
And that is why we have to improve the way we work.
I also appeal to the Council and to the Member States to cooperate in the process with the Committee on Petitions.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the honest report that the Committee on Petitions has presented to the House on the queries raised by European citizens gives us an excellent opportunity to think about the relationship between the citizens of Europe and the institutions of the European Union.
The Commission has placed great emphasis on this point, which is so important to the European Union, particularly during the Inter-Governmental Conference, where it was a central issue in the discussions about the future of the institutions, because the Commission believes that it is very important that citizens and institutions should be brought closer together.
It is also, at the end of the day, a question of the confidence in Europe that people are already feeling.
The right of petition is an important achievement for our citizens.
The rapid and efficient processing of petitions is therefore an excellent means of increasing people's confidence.
When a citizen hands in a petition to Parliament, he is not only highlighting what, in his opinion, is an unsatisfactory application of Community provisions, but also, at the same time, expressing his confidence in Parliament.
He is also linking that with the expectation that what he sees as a wrong will be righted accordingly.
The Commission therefore tried hard to ensure that the questions put to it by the Committee on Petitions are answered quickly and comprehensively.
As Mr Perry has shown in his extremely informative report, this cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission has once again this year, in many case, enabled solutions to be found and definite improvements to be made.
The thorough examination of the many different petitions is also interesting, as Mr Perry has quite rightly pointed out, for another reason, because the Committee on Petitions is the barometer of the specific issues that concern our citizens, the most important parliamentary citizens' forum.
Since 1987, more than 10 million European citizens have turned to Parliament, in around 10, 000 petitions.
The subjects that chiefly concern them are social issues, the environment, taxes, free movement and the recognition of diplomas.
The Commission regards it as one of its most important tasks, in the interests of the people, to ensure that the relevant Community law is applied without restrictions, and to discover and remedy any weak points in the provisions of that law.
Parliament provides the Commission with very valuable assistance in carrying out this task.
The Commission is therefore particularly pleased about the excellent cooperation with Parliament, and Parliament's recognition of that fact.
It will continue to give the Committee on Petitions all the information it needs in order to process petitions efficiently, and will be happy to comply with the desire expressed by the Committee on Petitions for close cooperation on the 'Citizens of Europe' initiative.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Television broadcasting
The next item is the report (A4-201/97) by Mr Galeote Quecedo and Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive (C4-0203/97-95/0074(COD)) amending Council Directive 89/552/EEC on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the pursuit of television broadcasting activities.
Madam President, throughout the debates and the course of work on the Directive on Television without Frontiers, we have held intense discussions, often lengthy and sometimes controversial, but I think that everyone who has taken part in those discussions will agree that our recollection of the debates will be a good one.
I think that we have put in a good deal of effort and imagination and have all fought for our convictions, but with enough flexibility and room for dialogue for the debates to be a success.
I also am convinced that all of us who have discussed this issue have had as the main aim of our positions the general interest, over party interests and economic interests.
As co-rapporteur along with Mr Hoppenstedt, I must also note the leading role played by the European Parliament in this debate.
In the recitals, we have pointed out the elements always regarded as essential by the European Parliament for promoting the European audiovisual industry: fostering production by means of a Community mechanism, that could be the guarantee fund, and boosting independent producers in particular.
I should like on this point to appeal to the Commission to insist on its proposals: it will always have the European Parliament on its side in the fight to go from declarations to practical actions that could change the situation.
The European Parliament has also contributed specific solutions, such as developing a novel television phenomenon, like tele-sales, or updating the regulation on advertising, which is always debatable, but I think that this subject has emerged from our debates with a 'healthier' regulation, if I may use that word.
Above all, the main satisfaction of the European Parliament in my view lies in its ability to be sensitive to social demands.
We have added to the Directive a reinforcement of the protection of minors' rights and I have every hope that we could even develop this matter in a year's time when the Commission presents the findings of its research, as reflected in the Directive.
We have also ensured the free access by ordinary people to events of great importance for society.
So that both provisions can be fully operative, we must ask the Commission to bring forward the creation of the contact committee provided for in Article 23bis of the Directive and to stick to its promise - as Commissioner Oreja has declared himself willing - to inform the European Parliament regularly of the deliberations of that contact committee.
I think that by means of tomorrow's vote we are really going to be able to respond to the expectations raised by the debate in our respective countries, thanks to two years of intensive work by the Culture Committee.
I would like to thank, in particular, Mrs Castellina and Mr Pex, who have chaired it over that time, the effort by the Dutch Presidency and Commissioner Oreja's involvement and skill, as well as that of his colleagues, who has so magnificently helped us throughout our discussions.
For media policy and media-policy development, what we have been doing for the last two years has made media history.
I believe that, in view of the meteoric development of electronic and digital communications, especially via satellite, we have done a good piece of work.
However, we are also aware of the fact that media developments are driving us as we move into the future.
You could say that this is a very exciting task.
In our search to find the right solutions, many people have given us their help.
This includes, of course, our fellow members, even though, in many cases, at the first or second reading we did not agree with them. It also includes the Commission, and also, as has already been pointed out, the Dutch Presidency of the Council.
However, I do not want to forget, either, the professionals who were involved, and to name the individual groups who have supported us or tried to point us in the right direction.
That would certainly be a subject that would take up the whole evening.
During the second reading, we made some important decisions, for example, about the definition of the concept of broadcasting, the differentiation of the so-called new services, and also the clear definition of advertising rules, which is naturally an important factor in setting the course for the dual system which we all wanted, without - Mrs Tongue - pressurizing public-law broadcasting in any particular way.
We have established that the quota system will be voluntary, and on this subject I have to say - and it was a very wide-ranging discussion - that everyone here in this House wants European programmes, and European films, to make up the largest contingent of our programmes.
We could do nothing by means of quotas.
It is our opinion - and mine - that quotas have never yet created programmes.
MEDIA I and II, Action Plan 16: 9 and the Guarantee Fund which has already been mentioned, and which we still see as an important contribution to the development of European programming policy, all these, on the other hand, are elements which we trust will take European programming policy forward.
As has already been mentioned, we have had very thorough discussions on the protection of young people and, in particular, on the technical devices for switching television sets off, as the last option for those who have parental authority.
I think it was a mistake for the Council not to accept this.
In the context of the conciliation process, from which we achieved excellent results, we have commissioned a study which should once again make it clear, where young people have been placed at risk, just how great that risk is.
In addition, of course, the study should also make it clear whether a switching-off device would be a suitable tool, and whether the assessment criteria, if they cannot be harmonized at European level, could be made effective at national level.
This study, by means of a questionnaire on the subject of whether television is harmful to children, may well be superfluous, however, since there are already 5, 000 of these studies throughout the world, so we could perhaps have made things easier for ourselves!
One important subject - and I believe this was also a satisfactory result of our conciliation procedure - is the question of how we can make sure that, even in future, consumers continue to have access to important national, cultural and sporting events.
On this question, in the course of the conciliation procedure, we proposed - and decided- that the drawing up of lists should be voluntary.
This voluntary basis will put Member States into a position - and Member States have already received the submission on this subject - to turn it into something sensible and thus decide on a suitable path into the future for their citizens and consumers, as far as participation in these events is concerned.
Owing to technical developments, we as a Parliament will in future be called on to give some thought to major developments in media policy.
This year, Parliament has taken up a key position on this issue, and I can only say, that if we continue to act - and develop as a parliament - in such a positive manner, especially where media policy is concerned, then we are moving in the right direction.
I only hope that we shall continue to work on this exciting subject.
In so doing, we shall be finding a sensible solution for our fellow-citizens of the European Union and beyond it in the worldwide network of the new media.
I should just like to thank, once again, my fellow campaigner, Mr Galeote Quecedo, and also all those colleagues who have supported us.
I should also like to thank the Commission, especially Mr Oreja, and Nicole Fontaine who, together with the Council, managed the conciliation procedure extremely successfully.
Madam President, I should like to thank our rapporteurs.
We have shown that the future of the audio-visual industry is a debate which crosses all political and national boundaries.
We have all shown a shared concern for the future of television, the most influential medium in our democracies and in conciliation we were united as a parliament which was most welcome and most important.
It is worth remembering what the directive is about. It is about building a strong and competitive audio-visual industry which should offer more than 1 million new European jobs by the year 2000.
We cannot tolerate a $6.3 billion deficit with the US.
America only accepts 3 % of audio-visual material from outside of non-US content.
Free trade must be about reciprocity.
The directive is about ensuring that we as Europeans benefit economically and culturally from this expanding industry.
We must create in order to compete.
We must make sure all our cultures have a space on our screens.
Canada, Australia, all countries across the globe ensure that there is space on their screens through quotas.
I say to Mr Hoppenstedt that European quotas are not protectionist.
The US enjoys a massive structural advantage. It can sell programmes to us at a tenth of the cost it takes to make them and this is in part due to their own regulatory regime that they have enjoyed in the past.
Moving on to sports rights, there are two possible futures for television.
The one is driven by commercial demand and the other shaped by the public interest.
Sports rights are key.
Thanks to our amendment on sports rights every country will be able to draw up a list of key events.
This will ensure the continued success of culturally diverse free TV.
The Olympic Games and the European Cup Final, for example, must be on free TV for every citizen.
TV is Europe's Hollywood.
The Television without Frontiers directive is our chance to show that we are really serious about jobs, investments, exports and cultural pluralism.
We must be able to create and see our own stories, be it Inspector Morse or Derrick.
We must benefit economically from this industry which will soon be the largest employer in Europe.
Finally, the major sporting and cultural events must be shown free for everyone's enjoyment.
Madam President, now that the dust has finally settled on this directive - possibly the most lobbied directive in my experience here in the last 13 years in Parliament - let us look at some of the issues that concerned not just us here in Parliament but specifically those who were quite bemused by the complexity of this directive in terms of public perception.
The reason why I have supported quotas is - as I am sure is the case for many other colleagues - because we cannot necessarily trust our own broadcasters not to take the easy option when it comes to cheap programming.
The independent producers were very concerned about this directive, and we must recognize and support our young, independent producers, who are already producing some of the best and most interesting programmes out of Europe.
Let us look in particular at those who produce in minority languages and who, inevitably, need to have subtitles for their programmes.
Yet if we already have subtitles, it should be possible for these programmes to be seen throughout all European countries and, I hope, throughout the world - if necessary with subtitles - for they do give us a very special insight into the less well-known languages and less well-known cultures within our communities.
We must protect our public service broadcasting.
Coming from a country that has mixed public service and commercial broadcasting, we have particular problems and we must also recognize that we are not selling our own programmes to our own colleagues and other countries in the European Union.
Of course we must try to break into the lucrative American market, but first of all let us make sure that we produce programmes that will sell across our own borders, that people will be interested in and will buy, and thus add more to the pot for independent producers.
This directive has been a great catalyst: it has pulled us up short to look at what we mean by our culture and to put a value on it that perhaps was lacking in many of our other deliberations.
Madam President, a conciliation meeting of 100 minutes was deemed to be sufficient, partly because the European Parliament, in its wisdom - though not everyone would agree with that - dropped its original demands for compulsory quotas for European productions and the inclusion of new services.
The Liberal Group is happy with the high level of protection which is provided for minors in the revised directive, and I sincerely hope, Commissioner Fischler, that you will look into the question of the V-chip very carefully, and that this or some similar technical device will eventually be introduced.
I see this as a Liberal principle: the government provides the means, and it is up to parents and teachers to decide whether or not to use them.
We are also happy that the general public is to have guaranteed access to major sports events at no extra cost.
I should like to congratulate both the rapporteurs on this.
On an entirely different subject, but in the same context, I am concerned at the Dutch proposals to include a protocol on public service broadcasting in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Will governments then be able to provide unlimited funding for public service broadcasting? And would this not then put public service broadcasting in an entirely anomalous position with regard to European competition rules?
Once the protocol has been adopted, could commercial radio and television complain to the Commission if they think that public service broadcasting is being given preferential treatment? Could government funding be used to give public service broadcasting an advantage in launching new services and breaking into new markets?
These are matters that have nothing to do with public service and would be unacceptable to the Liberals.
I know for certain that Commissioner Van Miert finds them difficult to accept too.
We support the idea of a dual system, with strong public service broadcasting providing information and maintaining its own cultural identity, while at the same time allowing plenty of scope for commercial broadcasting - choice instead of a concentration of power, no preferential treatment, and everything on a level playing field.
We should not forget that commercial broadcasters too have to make their living on the open market, yet they are just as bound by the provisions of the 'Television without frontiers' directive - which is as it should be, but then they should also be given equal treatment.
Madam President, Mr Hoppenstedt, Mr Galeote Quecedo, are you not astonished that there are so few people in the hemicycle - not forgetting Mrs Banotti - after two years, as you have pointed out, of such intense lobbying directed at us?
Today, you are holding your Oscar ceremony, congratulating each other, in an empty Chamber, but you are not astonished. The Council is represented, but no Culture Minister is here.
Mr Oreja could not be bothered to come.
Mr Bangemann, so furious over the quotas, is not here either.
Yes, nobody is here because they have won!
There is nobody here because those who want to fight and continue to fight the fight for quotas no longer believe in us.
It is also a failure for Europe and its institutions, when at the IGC we are not going to be able to call into question that false codecision, and we were 22 votes short of a qualified majority, whereas we had a simple majority, such that we opposed democracy.
Of course, we are heading in the direction of what the former White House aide, Mr Brejzinski, used to say: ' What we have not succeeded in doing by force of arms, we shall achieve by means of the information superhighways' .
Ah yes, we are opening up the information superhighways, we are opening up our screens.
For many countries, they have in any case been largely invaded.
Then we can say that we have won.
For sport, it is the least we can do, in every corner of France and Europe, perhaps to watch the Tour de France or Wimbledon.
But is that really a victory? Is this a victory - I was not really a partisan, for the furious campaigners for protection from violence and pornography, to know that the solution finally opted for means that, in a year's time, the Commission will conduct, together with the Member States' competent authorities, an inquiry into the advantages and disadvantages of measures aimed at facilitating parental controls.
But who are they poking fun at?!
Faced with a great challenge for civilisation - so great that the United States, since the Blum-Barnes accords, have understood that that was a priority and that that was where the future of employment lay, but also the future of culture, language, ideology - why not say so?
The quotas battle is vital.
I hope that we shall continue to fight that fight, with trade union organisations, with professional organisations.
I can tell you that at Cannes, during the fiftieth anniversary, people were convinced by and spoke a lot about quotas.
I hope that after the elections in Great Britain and France, we shall be able to fight this fight intelligently and responsibly.
Madam President, I want to put on record, briefly, that throughout the lengthy period of work in which discussion of the Television without Frontiers Directive has been going on, the Greens have made their position clear, declaring their agreement with the text as it stood after first reading.
In that text we recognized an important step forward in the evolution of this directive, and above all we recognized that a link between television, media in general, and democracy had been established.
There is a link between television and culture and the need was recognized, not for a European culture, but for the group of different cultures that exist today in Europe to be able to have a future and not be suffocated by the domination of transmission modes and fiction, are all imported from the United States of America or, in some cases, from the Far East.
We cannot accept that situation.
The first reading provided a remedy. Unfortunately, as has been mentioned, by a few votes the second reading has radically altered the meaning of the text that came out of the first reading.
And I am not just referring to the quota problem but also, it has to be said, to the failure to include all the possible developments in television, the television of the future, in the directive. All these factors have brought the Green group to a negative position.
Now, as other colleagues have already said, in the end the outcome of the conciliation was facile and anyone can support it on certain points which are important, true, - the problem of the protection of minors, the problem of clear guarantees of transmission of national and international events, particularly sporting ones - but the sum of these is not enough to change our negative assessment of the directive as a whole in the form it has taken after second reading and after the changes made by the Council.
That is why our position is a one of criticism.
Madam President, the interest of the conciliation focused on the European Parliament proposal to guarantee the open broadcasting of major sporting events.
The text agreed upon is satisfactory and balanced, but I have to regret and denounce the fact that the Spanish Government, led by the Partido Popular, has used this provision of the Directive as a pretext to persecute the media not at the Government's service.
The European Parliament proposal established that in all Member States it would be compulsory to broadcast openly certain sporting events of extraordinary importance, such as the Olympics, and World or European Football Championships.
For legal reasons, the Parliamentary delegation to the conciliation accepted that this rule should not be compulsory in all Member States but that it would be optional for each State.
The agreed text maintains the extraordinary character of events to be broadcast openly as an obligation, through national lists approved by the Commission.
Precautions are set to guarantee the transparency of the procedure, with respect for all principles of Community law.
In the Spanish case, however, the Government is proposing a law making football a more important general interest than education or health, banning the cable television broadcast of the regular club championship matches at weekends.
This excessive rule was particularly unnecessary since Spain is one of the countries where it is easiest to see matches broadcast live on free television channels every weekend.
This situation was guaranteed, at least until 2003, by agreements freely adopted by the various TV companies with broadcasting rights negotiated with the clubs.
The provision contained in the Directive defends a balance between the different legal assets to be preserved.
The right to receive information must be compatible with the rights of ownership and free competition between companies possessing broadcasting rights.
But in the Aznar Government's law on football, it is possible to withdraw those rights retroactively and without compensation.
It wants to force the various TV companies and clubs to break contracts reached freely so that a pro-Government company can take them over.
This is an abuse of authority by an authoritarian government which has declared war on the digital TV sector in order to dominate it, expelling the current operators and imposing its monopoly with communication companies close to Mr Aznar.
The Television without Frontiers Directive is being used in a wretched way in Spain in order to persecute opponents of the PP Government which are already being persecuted or threatened judicially by that government.
Nothing like this has been seen in twenty years of Spanish democracy.
Madam President, I shall be very brief because I do not want to enter into a national debate.
This is the European Parliament and not the place for that type of speech.
As far as I know, Madam President, lies are not accepted in any parliament.
Madam President, the interminable and heated discussion about this directive has not produced the desired result: obligatory quotas for broadcasting European programming as a condition for creating a genuine European audiovisual market, the result sought by the Commission, by the great majority of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media at first and second reading, by a large majority of this House, but not by the majority necessary at second reading, a proportion which is virtually impossible to reach on an issue involving so many contradictory interests.
The position of the Committee on Culture was also unanimously supported by the European audiovisual sector, which gave evidence to Parliament several times.
But it has not been a pointless battle, because a regulation to support the European cultural identity has been obtained.
Although respect for the quotas set in the directive has not been made legally binding, two gains have been made: the establishment of the contact committee to monitor the implementation of standards, and a change in the public attitude to the problem.
Today there is more awareness of the need for measures that can prevent the globalization of trade cancelling out cultural differences.
Thanks to all this it will now be more difficult for public and private broadcasters to ignore the rules contained in the directive.
So it is not the result we would have wanted, but it is a basis for further progress.
Madam President, it has been a long road for all of us, we have all learned a little, we have all suffered a little.
Perhaps it was necessary pain, even for the rapporteurs.
Parliament's view at the first reading was, in my opinion, principled and far-sighted.
Everything after that was a process of retrenchment and we have gained some things and we have been able to preserve some things.
Had there been changes electorally in France and Great Britain a few months earlier we would have been able to preserve more and gain more.
But at least we held out for some minimum things.
Like the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular campaign who said he could always retreat behind the lines of Torres Vedras we had our lines of Torres Vedras.
We have gained a principle and we can make a prediction in this debate today that our view at first reading of what constituted broadcasting and the need to regulate it, will come to be accepted, even by those who most despised and criticized us in the course of the parliamentary debate.
Because they too will come to see their product, their content, threatened by the pirates, by the people who in the future will be challenging them and the way they do things.
They too will come to bless this directive for the basic protection that it gives all who wish to avail themselves of it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is pleased with the text which the Conciliation Committee has agreed on and which you are to vote on today.
The Commission can only warmly recommend that you approve it.
On the one hand, this text is the result of excellent cooperation between the institutions, and on the other it provides a new legal framework for television in Europe, a legal framework that is modern, improved, complete and clear.
To those who work in this sector, it gives the conditions for legal certainty, which are necessary for the development of the sector.
For European citizens, it ensures that the public interest is taken into consideration, which is so important to their daily lives.
The Commission will supervise the complete application of the text, in all its parts, as it is required to do by the Treaty.
It will also set up the so-called Contact Committee immediately, and support the Committee in carrying out its work.
This Committee will be composed of representatives of the competent authorities in the Member States.
Therefore, as has already been said in the course of the proceedings of the Conciliation Committee, the Commission wishes to confirm, yet again, that it is determined to ensure that the competent commission of the European Parliament is kept informed about the results of meetings of the Contact Committee, at the appropriate time and in the appropriate form.
Finally, on behalf of the Commission I should like to express my special gratitude to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the rapporteurs, Mr Galeote Quecedo and Mr Hoppenstedt, and also successive Presidencies of the Council, for the excellent work that they have done, which has made it possible for us to achieve this result.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Health monitoring
The next item is the Report (A4-0202/97) by Mr Poggiolini, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision (C4-0204/97-95/0238(COD)) adopting a programme of Community action on health monitoring within the framework for action in the field of public health (1997-2001).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the legislative journey of the programme of Community action on health monitoring concludes with this third reading.
This is the fourth action programme in the field of public health to be launched by the European Union, a programme aimed at establishing a health monitoring system by collecting a wide range of data which the Member States will be able to use for setting up and evaluating national and Community health policies.
So it is an important instrument, especially at this delicate stage in history when, to respect the Maastricht criteria for the single currency, all the Member States are occupied with the very serious problem of health expenditure, which has now become unsustainable.
The optimal operation of such a health monitoring system will help define priorities, improve the viability of health systems by avoiding waste and consequently increase the effectiveness of health policies.
I believe the European Parliament can feel satisfied, because the amendments it proposed are now an integral part of the legislative text, considerably improving the quality of the initial proposal presented by the Commission, and widening its scope.
In the course of the two readings and the preparations for the Conciliation Committee, which included two trialogues, as fruitful as they were important, Parliament has succeeded in obtaining a good compromise agreement with the Council on almost all the technical amendments, relating in particular to three problems: the harmonization of data and indicators, the creation of a health observatory and the enlargement of the scope of the programme.
As regards the harmonization of data and indicators, in fact, on the basis of an obstinately restrictive interpretation of article 129 of the treaty which, as everyone knows, excludes any harmonization of legislative and regulatory provisions, the Council even opposed harmonization of scientific language.
But it did accept the word 'comparable' instead of the word 'harmonized' with reference to scientific data, and all legal quibbling aside, that was what we actually wanted to obtain.
Then it was also felt that the words used about creating a European health observatory were too binding.
Instead of 'observatory' , which may indeed evoke the idea of costly new agencies which Parliament does not want either, a feasibility study for a permanent structure for monitoring was obtained, which was precisely our purpose.
Finally, we obtained enlargement of the scope of the programme, providing the possibility of cooperation with nongovernmental organizations, the support of the Member States and a precise date for the programme verification reports.
But in the end the main bone of contention on the conciliation table turned out, as always, to be the funding.
In Parliament's view such a programme ought to have had funding of ECU 20 million rather than the ECU 13.8 million included in the Commission's proposal for a decision.
Well, the Council, demonstrating great parsimony, promptly cut the ECU 800, 000, arriving at a proposal of only ECU 13 million, a figure we considered inadequate.
Parliament's delegation suggested a range of possible solutions, from reducing the duration of the programme to building in an extra amount, outside the programme, to be used by Eurostat for data collection.
In the end Commissioner Flynn added to the Council's immovable position, by explicitly stating he was quite sure there was no need for the extra funding Parliament had been fighting for.
In the end agreement was reached confirming the ECU 13.8 million for five years, but including two joint declarations which will be published in the Official Journal: one from the Commission, making the commitment to introduce actions in the health sector into the next statistical programme, for 1998-2000, in order to strengthen this programme; and another from the European Parliament, committing itself to supporting such action during the budgetary procedure.
So some doubt remains as to the funding achieved, which may not be sufficient for the minimal threshold of effectiveness we consider necessary.
The Commission does not harbour these doubts, and promises, if necessary, to use the 1998-2000 statistical programme as well.
We shall watch and wait.
The European Parliament delegation which conducted the conciliation takes note of the position and of the commitments made and, all in all, believes the result obtained is positive.
It therefore recommends that the House approve the joint draft, recognizing the immense importance of this programme, which is fundamental to the success of all the current and future programmes in the area of public health.
Madam President, Mr Poggiolini has made an excellent summary of the gist of his report, our initial intentions, our frustrations and the solutions found so that we can celebrate an important approval and so that my group can side with the Poggiolini recommendation, coinciding with it in that the European Parliament must vote for a resolution that is positive and even I would say, historic.
This is the first time that, in health matters, there is to be a programme that consists in cooperation between the Member States, i.e. it is not just going to be the sum of the efforts by the 15 Member States but we are actually going to carry out Community-level monitoring, and there will be Community controls - I am not mincing my words - of all health parameters and health indices in the Member States.
This will lead to a comparison, a criticism and procedures for improving public health which is, after all, what is important.
I think that this programme is important and the result has been good thanks to the serenity and good work carried out by the rapporteur, Mr Poggiolini, and also thanks to Mrs Fontaine's skills, as she firmly but courteously and admirably chaired the Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee.
The free movement of persons, the physical disappearance of frontiers, the free circulation of services means that it is common sense for health to come within Community scope and, in that sense, many of us think that the Treaty on European Union should more explicitly turn health into a Community competence.
Until that happens, I think that there are countries for which the terms of the Treaty on European Union are a trench where they hide and prevent harmonization taking place.
How on earth can we manage when in some countries 'post-operative period' , for example, means three hours after the operation, in others one day, in others five hours, or when there are no common standards on 'neo-natal periods' , etc, etc!
At least unify the criteria - that is what we were after - on the basis of a few basic scientific data.
I think that common sense is on our side.
It is a fact that the term 'health observatory' has been avoided because the word has an overtone of supervision.
That is not important, as long as there is a permanent structure where statistics can be pooled and studies from all Member States can be compared, and that is something e welcome.
Good luck to everyone and let us formulate our proposal to the European Parliament so that it can vote for this report.
Mr President, the collection and analysis of all health data is obviously a necessary condition for the promotion and actualization of the Community's competence in the field of health, as required by Article 129 of the Treaty on European Union, and for ensuring that Community programmes and actions in the field are structured in the best possible way.
The European Parliament for its part has made clear its position that the protection of the health of Europe's citizens must be a main policy concern of the European Union.
Monitoring of the health of the peoples of the Member States and of health indicators should therefore be a priority for the Community, and the establishment of a permanent system for the monitoring, evaluation and development of those indicators in the European Union will be an essential element in that regard.
It is also obvious that precise knowledge concerning the development of health indicators in the Union will assist the determination of priorities and objectives in the public health field and the shaping of programmes.
These actions should have been taken immediately after the adoption of Article 129.
I recall also that the findings of the report of Parliament's committee on bovine spongiform encephalopathy revealed a glaring absence of effective monitoring of the development of very serious problems affecting public health when those problems were being created, and, of course, a lack of appropriate action.
A system for coordinating the various measures for protection of the health of Europe's citizens is essential, therefore, even though it is late in coming.
I find it hard to understand why the financial framework for this important programme is so meagre.
We should not forget that the programmes that are devised, regardless of how important and detailed they are, may end up as texts in the eleven Community languages and make no effective contribution to public health in the Member States.
The building of the Europe of the peoples quite clearly requires that particular attention be paid to issues of health, education, culture and the environment, and that spoken and written concern should be augmented by actions and bold funding initiatives to bring genuine change in the quality of life of Europe's citizens as a reflection of political will.
I wish to thank Mr Poggiolini for his excellent report. We do have reservations about the financial framework but I hope that the House as a whole will give its approval to the report.
Mr President, my colleague, Professor Cabrol, who followed the conciliation on the health programme, is unfortunately absent, and has asked me to speak on his behalf.
The file on health surveillance includes two points which we see as essential, namely the harmonization of data and definitions concerning health and the creation of a European centre or agency for health, responsible for collecting and centralizing that data.
The main aim of the health programme is to gauge the state of health and policy trends in this respect throughout the Community and to supply the Member States with appropriate health information that could enable them to make comparisons and support their national health policies.
In order to be of use this data must be harmonized.
The Council has accepted the idea of comparable data.
We hope that that will suffice for a coherent health protection policy.
The creation of a European observatory or agency responsible for collecting and centralizing data, monitoring the development of diseases and sounding the alarm in good time, has been repeatedly demanded by the European Parliament and Professor Cabrol in particular.
That observatory or permanent structure as the Council calls it must cover various European health programmes and enable our fellow citizens to enjoy greater safety and avoid the serious mistakes that we have recently seen.
Nonetheless the Council seems to be giving in little by little, since it has agreed in the conclusion text to consider setting up a permanent structure.
This is a small step forward, nothing more, and this body is not yet ready to see light of day.
We are voting for the joint project because the proposed programme is a real step forward for the health of our compatriots even though it is small, since we are starting from scratch.
However, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we shall continue to demand the setting up of this permanent structure, whether it is called a European observatory or centre, since Europe absolutely needs an instrument that is efficient in terms of information, alerts and protection.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group is quite happy with the outcome of the conciliation procedure, except for one point with which none of the Parliament delegation agreed, namely the size of the budget.
Fortunately, we have a written undertaking from Commissioner Flynn to ensure that the next Community statistical programme devotes appropriate attention to the development of statistics on health monitoring.
Parliament will be watching to ensure that the Commission carries out its promise.
In the short term, developing statistics may seem a laborious and expensive task, but in the long run, accurate statistics can bring considerable savings and can teach us a great deal about developing an effective preventative health policy.
Finally, I would urge that more work should be done with statistics broken down by sex, so that we can tailor policy more specifically.
Mr President, in joining others in welcoming this compromise which our rapporteur is recommending tonight, I just wish to make three brief points.
Firstly, on the outcome of the conciliation process itself: the deal which has been achieved is probably the best that Parliament could realistically hope to expect.
On the most contentious points, namely the question of competence of data harmonization, the concept of an observatory and, most of all, the budgetary implications, the detailed work of the rapporteur and the negotiations undertaken by Mr Collins, as the relevant committee chairman, and others have borne fruit.
The progress has perhaps not been as significant as some would have wished, but there are improvements to be celebrated nevertheless.
My second observation is rather more of a query directed at the Commission as to how far we can view this as a reasonable precedent in cooperation in the field of public health.
Having undertaken these negotiations over some broad principles of terminology and participation, it is reasonable to expect now a consistent approach to all aspects of health policy in the pipeline and to look for an effective approach across Commission directorates and portfolios when it comes to cooperation on research or economic, social and environmental policies, for example, which affect public health.
That just does not apply to BSE, or internally, of course.
We are all here aware of the importance of cooperation with the wider world, be it in liaison with the World Health Organization, UN agencies or third governments, particularly the United States.
That leads to my final point, which is to urge that all the institutions learn the lessons of these carefully negotiated proposals in the discussions next week in Amsterdam.
The Council seems to be poised to throttle the broad remit sought by the Commission in the field of public health and would doubtless follow that by a noose of budgetary restrictions.
Yet there are strong demands from the public for action and international cooperation on health priorities, as the BSE fiasco showed, and this process has shown that there are imaginative proposals and policies available if the political will exists.
As with so much in this field, these conclusions should be seen as just a start.
Parliament will be keenly awaiting the agreed studies and will equally keenly want a positive approach from the Council and the Commission to reforms of the Treaty, notably Article 129, to continue the progress that this represents.
Mr President, I too believe it is very positive that a common position has been reached on an important subject, which completes the group of health programmes.
In fact monitoring is a fundamental instrument for checking whether the programmes the Community implements are effective in contributing to raising the protection of human health to a high level, guiding efforts to prevent disease, encouraging cooperation between the States, supporting their actions in this field and promoting coordination of policies.
I would also like to dwell a few moments on the funding.
The rapporteur, Mr Poggiolini, has already mentioned that the European Parliament felt ECU 13.8 million was inadequate because it was less than ECU 5 million a year.
We think the Commission's proposal on this is rather inconsistent: inconsistent with the Commission's own stated position in its communication on legal bases and maximum sums, where it proposed that actions with amounts below ECU 5 million should not be given legal bases.
Having said that, however, I do agree that this common position is an important step forward in the direction of improving and monitoring the health of European citizens, and I think we should vote for it.
Mr President, health monitoring is of course an important field of activity within the framework of the Community objective of achieving a high level of health protection, as set out in Article 3 and Article 129.
The exchange of opinions, the considerations and discussions, which have accompanied the tedious process of getting this programme accepted, have been extremely fruitful, and have led to definite improvements in the instruments used for health monitoring in the Community.
The Commission takes the view that on the basis of this programme a valuable health information system for the Community can be built up, a system which will be very useful to the Member States and to the international organizations, in observing the state of our health and the ways in which it is changing.
On behalf of the Commission I should like to thank the European Parliament for the support that it has given to this programme, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Poggiolini, for all his effort and hard work.
I should also just like to say a few words about the conciliation process.
Once again, each institution has made full use of its opportunities in order to ensure that the programme takes their particular interests into account.
In this context, there are two particular points that the Commission would like to comment on.
Firstly, there are the funds that have been set aside for this programme.
I know that Parliament initially took the view that ECU 13.8 million would not be enough for such an important programme.
In view of the important work involved in such a programme, there is something to be said for this point of view.
However, I am convinced that it will be possible, even with the sum that has been proposed, to achieve the programme's objectives.
In order to emphasize this point, I would add that the Commission, as long as it can count on the full support of the Council, will ensure that when the next statistical programme is implemented, special attention is given to extending the statistics in order to include health monitoring.
Secondly, I should like to say something about the way in which the European Parliament will be kept informed about the implementation of this programme.
I should like to emphasize that the inter-institutional modus vivendi for the implementation of legal acts, under Article 189(b) of the Treaty, which applies to this programme too, provides us with the conditions for ensuring that Parliament receives the information it needs.
Moreover, as far as Article 5(4) of the Decision is concerned, which lays down that the Commission should keep the relevant committee regularly informed about decisions on individual projects, the Commission undertakes to make the same information available to the European Parliament too, on an annual basis.
I hope that you will regard the findings of the conciliation process acceptable, and that the work that has been done here and in the other institutions will lead to the start of a programme that will be of great benefit to the health service and to the citizens of the Community in general.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at noon tomorrow.
Noise policy
The next item on the agenda is the report, drawn up by Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Green Paper on future noise policy (A4-0183/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I begin by saying that the urban culture of our century could partly be described as a culture of noise.
Our fellow citizens' days and nights are becoming increasingly noisy.
People's concerns over noise pollution, as we approach the third millennium, as shown by the latest surveys published by the Euro-barometer, are on the increase.
Not only is noise people's fifth concern, but complaints in this environmental area are the only ones to have gone up in number since 1992.
Commissioner, the truth is that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, whose rapporteur it is my honour to be, is not insensitive to that concern.
Since 70 % of the European population lives with sound levels coming from a single source, namely road traffic, far higher than those recommended by the World Health Organization, one might think that people should be listened to more attentively.
Especially since the twelfth section of the Fifth Action Programme on the Environment states that people should not be exposed to noise levels which jeopardize their health and their quality of life and set a series of measures and actions about whose accomplishment we knew nothing or very little when it was revised.
If it is true, and it is in the view of our committee, that the European Union must become closer to the ordinary people, how can it be explained that the Commission omitted this from its 1996 work programme although it promised to present, in July of that year, a whole set of legislative measures on noise?
In other words: two framework directives and a communication. We are now debating a mere Green Paper which replaced, and it is important to stress this, the Commission's previous promise to introduce legislation for a programme which is obviously insufficient and, as we all know, is not binding at any stage.
Obviously I have nothing against opening a debate in the European Union on noise pollution, involving the Commission, State authorities, local and regional authorities, experts, lawyers and citizens' movements.
That would undoubtedly be extremely interesting and very positive; but given that seven in ten people are exposed to sound levels harming their health and quality of life, at levels far higher that those authorized by the WHO, the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council should try and make it a top priority to take urgent action and set in motion, as promised, a set of practical measures in the form of an appropriate legal response to the problem.
This debate and the programme are welcome, of course.
But, nonetheless, our parliamentary resolution - and I cannot repeat this too often - is asking the Commission to present, this year, the announced legislation on the reduction of noise levels.
That is what we want.
I think this matter should be referred to your colleague, Mrs Bjerregaard, conspicuous by her absence this afternoon.
I conclude, Mr President, by saying that we are only asking the Commission to do something as basic as honour its promise and for the Council to listen to this popular outcry against noise, never better expressed.
If I may - and I would like to thank Mrs Graenitz - I should like to add a personal experience.
Two months ago I had to have an operation for a serious complaint.
The hardest thing to put up with was not the pain, but the noisy traffic at night, dust-carts collecting rubbish, ambulance sirens.
It is impossible, Commissioner, to rest when you have to put up with an atrocious nightmare of noise.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy - (EL) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that the Community and Member States need the most accurate and detailed information available concerning the real costs and consequences of noise if they are to develop an integrated strategy for combating it.
For this reason the Community should, on the one hand, develop a uniform methodology for measuring and evaluating noise which can then be uniformly implemented by the Member States and, on the other, launch general guidance and technical aid initiatives in respect of the Member States to organize research, exchanges of information and public awareness campaigns, and also to monitor the implementation of the measures.
As you know, there exists no Community legislation at present fixing permissible noise emission levels from industrial installations, even though most Member States impose limits on noise levels in industrial regions.
Measures to combat noise at source mean an additional cost for industry which has to adapt to new specifications.
On the other hand, industry should bear in mind that noise is one of the five main sources of annoyance which erode the quality of life, behind environmental pollution, which are attributed to industry and damage its image among the public and consumers.
Consequently noise abatement is in the interests of industry.
No one should expect the adoption of strict measures to produce immediate results.
Society and industry need at least a decade of planning and adjustment until the positive results are measurable.
The costs will have to be shared out gradually so as not to impose a disproportionate burden on the state, industry or citizens.
It is self-evident that Community policies within the framework of the various action programmes and initiatives on environmental, transport, regional, industrial and social policy must be coordinated so that the problem of noise can be addressed in a multi-faceted and, consequently, more effective manner.
I must say that I am surprised that the Committee on Transport has not wished to submit an opinion on the Green Paper, even though the matter touches directly on air and land transport.
Lastly, Mr President, I believe that the Member States must address the problem of noise, in cooperation with industry, in a planned and responsible manner, given that the cost of such an exercise is not excessive, while an improvement in working conditions and in the quality of life of citizens will lead in the long term to a reduction of costs and benefit society as a whole.
Mr President, I have little to add, as Mrs Díez de Rivera's report is so excellent and so complete that it says it all, and I support everything in it.
It is good to begin with a Green Paper, and it is good that we are opening a debate, but if we know anything it is the cause of noise; most people, when inquiries are held into environmental problems, complain about noise.
However, we must now reduce noise, not only industrial noise but also the main problem: vehicles and road traffic.
As draftsman for the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I am going to refer to that subject.
Measures were taken in the Third and Fourth Programmes in the framework of research to reduce, within the telematics and materials programme, the noise produced by equipment, but that is not enough. Much more still has to be done.
In industry, the main areas have to be distinguished.
Heavy industry does not pose a problem because it is confined to large, enclosed areas, and the noise does not reach the outside; the noise problem in those industries is one of health and safety at work, the prevention of work-related risks and there is legislation on all of that; we are not therefore going to look at that subject.
Small industries in urban estates are quite another thing, small workshops, etc, which are an extraordinary nuisance for local inhabitants; another major nuisance is discotheques, ambulances, road traffic and the lack of education and consideration towards one's neighbours.
In the research programme, we are asking the Commission to call on the European Committee on Standardization to set new standards for the European Union on the noise produced by different groups or activities.
There are various programmes that could be included in the Fifth Programme, and that would be an interesting task.
We also think that, when measuring noise, we should not only set standards but actually take action to reduce the noise made by refrigerators, air-conditioners, building machinery - especially the latter.
Europe is an old continent where construction work is going on all the time and the sound of building sites is quite unbearable, as well as the traffic noise mentioned by the rapporteur; that noise should be limited.
Large and small industries should be legally required - not voluntarily, because then they would do nothing or take ineffectual action - to implement a noise limitation plan, just as they are obliged - although few do so - to limit waste production.
I think that this, whether or not included in the environmental management plan, would be a major step forward.
It would also be necessary to take noise into account far more when building new rail networks, new roads and new vehicles.
Congratulations to Mrs Díez de Rivera.
We all agree that this is a first step down a road where progress has to be made.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if we subjected our eyes to light in the same intensity as we subject our ears to noise, then we should all go blind immediately.
Yet in spite of this, the question of noise is one that is repeatedly and controversially debated, even though noise is one of the most severe forms of environmental pollution, and although, in many of the European Union's environmental programmes - most recently in the Fifth Environmental Action Programme - specific reference is made to the fact that reducing and combatting noise is an important measure in maintaining human health, and that health is very badly affected by noise.
Mrs Diez de Rivera Icaza, whom I should like to thank most warmly for her report, and to whom I should like to say that I am happy that able to discuss it with her, has set out many of these points, in very precise terms, in her report.
The most important thing is that the Commission's Green Paper should be followed by legislation, so that this framework legislation for noise protection, which was part of the Commission's programme for last year, can finally be put into place, because I believe it is necessary for you to do something about it.
No doubt much of what our citizens experience as noise does not fall within the competence of the Union.
But then, people are not asking who is responsible for the noise, or which legislative body is responsible for controlling noise. They are much more interested in getting noise brought under control.
Therefore we must do something.
By all means let us bring in subsidiarity, but we really must take some sort of action.
I believe that the issues that have been touched on here - aircraft noise, street noise, railway noise - can be tackled by a variety of methods, that it is essential to set noise limits for tools and machinery, and that we need to make more progress in research.
We have plenty of research programmes on the subject of noise, and it is time something was happening here.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza.
I am very grateful to have the opportunity to speak to her today and to see that she has recovered sufficiently to attend.
One of the oldest types of environmental nuisance is actually not noise but smell, though smell is a very subjective term, so I prefer to call it odour.
Even with perfumes, if you do not like them, they are not a pleasant smell, they are an odour.
And this is one of the oldest pieces of environmental legislation that we have in Europe.
The legislation on noise is different, although it exists in most Member States, and noise is something that can actually be harmful to health, which is why it is essential for us to do something about it.
The purpose of the Green Paper is to see first of all whether we can reach agreement amongst ourselves.
We need to determine the areas in which we feel that common agreements should be reached in Europe.
We all agree that noise pollution is something we need to clamp down on.
What is the Community interest in combating noise pollution? The Community element comes into play as regards distortion of competition in the Community.
Looking at the Green Paper, I note that it talks about low-noise aircraft, and it says that we need to change the sort of tyres we produce in Europe to help reduce tyre noise.
But there is no mention of Community zones or any kind of agreements on the subject, which means that it could happen - and there are precedents for this - that a regional airport is turned down in one Member State but allowed in another which has less strict requirements, and is then built six miles from the border, so that the first Member State still suffers from the noise pollution anyway.
So I think that in calling on the Commission to do something about noise pollution, we need to look first of all at equipment and machinery, and we also certainly need some sort of framework legislation to cover everything that distorts competition.
I am thinking here of airport zones, high-speed trains and major motorways.
For the rest, I think we must assume that things can be dealt with at national or regional level.
Mr President, noise pollution is a problem that needs attention at European level, I think we would all agree.
But we must be careful to take account of the principle of subsidiarity when it comes to deciding on measures to be taken.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten talked about airport zoning and aircraft engines, and these are indeed issues that have a cross-border impact and should be dealt with at European level.
But we must also ensure that the measures which should be taken at national and regional level in accordance with subsidiarity are indeed implemented.
Mrs Díez de Rivera's excellent report contains a number of extremely good proposals, such as the development of common measurement methods in Europe, for which the Environment Agency needs to collect information throughout the Union.
Public information is another good idea. We already have several directives on noise pollution from specific sources, such as aircraft, construction equipment and so on, and we have already debated noise pollution from engines.
So in other words there is already a good deal happening in this field, and we in the Liberal Group rather doubt whether we really need a framework directive as well.
We therefore reject paragraph 23 which calls for framework legislation in the Green Paper, and we would prefer to tackle whatever needs to be done at European level and leave everything else to local, regional and national level, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
That is the Liberal Group's position on Mrs Díez de Rivera's excellent report.
Mr President, it is not just urban culture which has become a culture of noise, as our excellent rapporteur says; these days tourism, chiefly mass tourism, particularly in coastal areas, is also a culture of noise.
The people of the European Union go on holiday in their millions and encounter one lot of noise after another.
During the day from various engine-propelled craft on the sea and at night from extremely noisy entertainment centres. Both sources are regarded as attractive to tourists and are thus a focus of competition for profit.
Of course, such competition is very damaging to tourists and their health, and in the end it always destroys the tourism itself.
That, Mr President, is why I think we should persist in demanding the formulation, in serious terms, of course, of a common policy which will take account of the interests of the millions of European citizens who go on holidays, establish permissible noise levels and curb competition based on noise. In the final analysis that will probably benefit the very people who generate all the noise at tourism undertakings.
Mr President, first of all I too would like to compliment Mrs Diez de Rivera Icaza on her excellent report, because it is a document which finally clarifies the impact of the noise problem on all European citizens.
A high proportion of the population of Europe is now forced to live with dangerous noise levels, and we cannot ignore that fact.
Faced with a lack of legislation either at Community level or, often, at Member State level, we certainly cannot be satisfied with a Green Paper without precise commitments to ensure that in the near future we will finally have standards adequate to deal with the problems of all the citizens who face this situation.
Now we all know that the effects of noise strike at several levels.
It has a direct effect at the physiological level, but it also acts directly on living conditions, psychological well-being, and the very bio-rhythms of individuals.
As the rapporteur said, the problem of noise at night is particularly dangerous, as it makes sleep impossible, and sleep is an important physiological function, vital to the life of each individual. Not being able to sleep properly actually changes a person's life radically.
That is why it is important to have regulations banning night flights at airports or only allow them if there are no homes in the neighbourhood and no-one can suffer serious damage.
The Committee on Petitions has received many petitions on this problem.
In general it can be said that much of the noise, though certainly not all, is linked to transport.
That is why the report lays great stress on this point, and I would also like to mention that it is particularly important for the new transeuropean network projects to take account of the possible increases in noise that could derive from them - I refer especially to the problem of high velocity trains.
So I hope that approval of this report can finally push the Commission into raising the standards to a satisfactory level and giving us appropriate provisions on the matter.
Mr President, the European Union has been very reluctant to introduce rules on noise pollution up to now, which I can quite understand, since noise problems are usually localized issues.
But there are certain European aspects.
Take the noise regulations for products such as cars and lawnmowers, for example, or the transfrontier noise pollution caused by having a motorway or airport right by a border.
It seems strange that people laugh about lawnmowers and ask if we have nothing better to do in Europe, but I think that these are exactly the kind of issues that should be regulated at European level.
The Commission remains very reticent in its Green Paper, and rightly so, in my view.
Most noise pollution problems are local issues and can best be resolved at local level, so the Commission is simply showing common sense in putting forward a limited number of specific measures.
What is the point of trying to regulate all sorts of issues in European directives if nothing changes in practice because the Council does not wish to tie its own hands?
I think that setting limit values to be applied throughout the Union simply will not work.
It is simply making environmental planners responsible for doing the impossible.
But there are still the proposals in the Commission's Green Paper: better harmonization of the methods for evaluating noise pollution, a directive laying down fiscal measures to combat noise pollution from road traffic, and an approach on train and aircraft noise and noise from equipment used outdoors.
The Díez de Rivera report adds a number of recommendations here which I am quite happy to support, since they are all excellent ideas on noise abatement.
The only thing with which I cannot agree is that all this should be covered by a framework directive, complete with limit values to be applied by the environmental planners.
The Union really would be biting off far more than it could chew there.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, noise is a significant environmental problem, and with the rapid development of technology it will soon be one of the most serious.
The Commission's Green Paper is an important advance.
I would, however, like to see it developed into a framework directive.
The report of our excellent and experienced rapporteur Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza covers the subject comprehensively and I agree with everything that it says.
Nevertheless, there are a few points that I think deserve special mention.
Noise pollution is a phenomenon of the modern age.
It is now quite common to hear people complaining about noise of one form or another.
It not just aircraft noise, which has very rightly been highlighted, and noise from factories that we are talking about.
There are also the incessant noises of everyday life which though less intense are a source of nuisance and damage human beings without being directly noticed.
There is a need for strict specifications to be imposed on major construction projects because we are seeing more and more instances of motorways being built near to residential areas.
Likewise areas of housing in the vicinity of airports seem to be expanding all the time.
I believe that we have a duty to examine this whole matter and to tackle it comprehensively.
In addition, I think it is very important that research be carried out on the quality of materials used for soundproofing so as to ensure that the products used are environmentally friendly.
Lastly, I think it essential that the specifications to be imposed for various forms of noise should take account of climatic factors in the Member States, given the differences between the north and the south.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel most strongly that we need a stricter European approach on noise pollution from aircraft and the upward harmonization of noise standards, as proposed by the rapporteur in paragraph 29.
At the moment, it is only the larger and more competitive airports that are able to impose stricter standards and refuse to handle noisy aircraft.
Smaller airports that have to fight to stay profitable impose as few requirements as possible, and thus become the Mecca for all the old and noisy aircraft which larger airports will no longer tolerate.
Take Ostend airport in my own country.
The quality of life in the area around Ostend is being seriously undermined by the fact that this airport does not impose strict standards, which apparently only apply at Zaventem.
Finally, I also think it is important, as the rapporteur says in paragraph 8, for noise prevention and repression to be included with other environmental standards as a prerequisite for approving the funding of projects by the Structural Funds.
Mr President, I am fully behind the Díez de Rivera report, a magnificent report on the rules to be applied as quickly as possible.
Noise pollution is, along with atmospheric pollution, the major problem facing cities and it is lowering the quality of life in our towns and cities.
I come from Valencia, one of Europe's noisiest cities, mainly due to traffic and socalled 'pleasure-related' noise.
If we produced a noise map of Europe, as I hope we do, then Valencia would definitely be one of its blackspots.
As the rapporteur said, road traffic, building work and industry can disturb and upset the normal functioning of city life.
We all have examples near us of how noise affects us every day.
Our cities are noisy, above recommended levels, and the need to draft a Community framework directive that will be binding, and to implement measures and actions at national and local level, is an urgent matter.
Not only must we deal with noise but with road traffic as a whole, encouraging public transport and a planning policy that favours functionality and not speculation.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur personally for illustrating her report with letters from our Noble Prizewinner for Literature, Juan Ramón Jiménez, who was one of this century's first famous people to complain about noise.
If only, seventy years on, we only had to complain at night of crickets and pianolas and did not have to tell the Commission that this is an urgent question and one of prime concern for all our citizens.
Mr President, firstly I should like to pay tribute to Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza for her passionate pursuit of the noise issue, despite her illness.
I welcome the overdue Green Paper on noise because nearly seven out of ten people in Europe are subjected to noise levels higher than those recommended for health.
The main culprits as we know are excessive road traffic and aircraft noise, amongst other things.
Despite often being seen as a local issue there are huge costs to European society and to business of stress-related illnesses to which noise is a big contributory factor.
In urban environments we usually find that it is the poorer citizens and the poorer districts where people have to live or work near big, noisy, polluting roads.
It is high time that this problems was tackled much more efficiently than we have been able to do so far.
My constituents in London also suffer the problems of sleep disturbance caused by early morning flights at Heathrow Airport and I hope Parliament's call for a ban on night flights will be acted upon before my citizens' lives are made even more miserable with the increase to air traffic which is likely to result from Terminal 5.
The issues called for in the Green Paper are all very fine: measurement, the information exchanges, the noise mapping.
Parliament agrees with all those things.
But we also must have a proper framework directive on noise reduction and we ask the Commission not to delay but to come forward with this as a matter of urgency for the sake of the health of all our citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before I say anything about the Green Paper and about Parliament's position, I should like to express my pleasure in the fact that the rapporteur, Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza, is with us once more.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur most warmly on her excellent report.
The Commission would like to thank the European Parliament for its comprehensive contribution to the debate on future noise protection policy, which of course I shall be analysing in depth.
Once thing that particularly impressed us was the large number of measures demanded in the resolution, which makes it clear how important it is to develop a coherent strategy for our future noise-protection policy.
In the Commission's opinion, the broad consultation that its Green Paper has stimulated will provide a solid basis for the drafting of measures to combat noise.
In the mean time, the Commission has received 175 written contributions, and has organized numerous conferences on the aspects touched on in the Green Paper, which may also supply the Commission with important information.
The comments reinforce the Commission's view that a comprehensive noise-protection strategy is necessary, and that it must include all levels of government, from local authorities to European institutions.
Many municipal authorities have given us their opinions on the Green Paper, and this is in line with the concept of shared responsibility, whereby all those involved must work together to achieve a common objective.
All the contributions are currently being collated and evaluated by our staff, and are accessible via EUROPA, the Commission's internet server.
The Commission is convinced that this report, and the resolution that we presume will result from it, can make a valuable contribution to the success of our policy and to the achieving of our common objective - to protect our citizens from noise that harms their health and interferes with their lives.
We are aware of the fact that our Green Paper has given rise to great expectations on the part of those of our citizens who are exposed to noise pollution, and we must not disappoint those expectations.
Mr President, I hold the Commissioner in great esteem, so I mean no disrespect when I ask why Mrs Bjerregaard is not here.
We have also not had a clear answer from the Commissioner on whether or not there is to be a framework directive. If there is, when is it likely to appear?
I should like to have a rather more detailed response to the excellent report by my colleague, and to hear it from the Commissioner who is responsible for this dossier.
Mr President, Mr Eisma, I am sorry, but unfortunately I am unable to say why Mrs Bjerregaard cannot be with us today, because I do not know.
I can promise you, however, that I will pass on to her, word for word, the point that you have raised, and I hope that she will then react accordingly.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the Commissioner for his good wishes and the fifteen or more speakers in this debate.
I too, you may recall, regretted the conspicuous absence of the Commissioner responsible for this matter.
I hope Mr Fischler will pass on to her, with the same passion as Mr Eisma just now, our demand and the fact that we are not satisfied with the good words and more than 170 responses from the whole Union.
Commissioner, recognizing your insistence, we ask you, please, to give us this year the legislation promised in 1996, and thank you for your good wishes.
Thank you very much, Mrs Díez de Rivera.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at noon tomorrow.
(The sitting was closed at 8.00 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
To clarify the Minutes, Mr President, my group would like you to invite Mr Sorgdrager, as President-in-Office of the Council of Ministers of Justice, to make a statement to Parliament concerning the 368 cancelled provisions.
This invitation is a point of order.
Was it just the previous Dutch Government that was so negligent, or has the same thing happened in other Member States?
Mr President, in yesterday's Minutes my name is not recorded as being here.
That is not a fault of the parliamentary secretariat; unfortunately it is my mistake.
I came down to sign in about 8.30 p.m. only to find that the session was over.
Would it be possible to record my presence here yesterday?
Subject to approval by the Quaestors, Yes.
It is not a point of order Mr President, it is on the Minutes.
It is on the first page of the Minutes, the point made by Mr Macartney on Norwegian salmon.
Mr Macartney and I, at the sitting of 29 May, raised the question of whether the Commission would be prepared to make a statement about the agreement which it was negotiating and which this House had not seen.
We raised it again yesterday.
The President said he would ask the Commission.
I want to know whether Sir Leon Brittan, who has been the invisible man in this case as far as Parliament is concerned, if his services or if the Commission have come back to the President and said when they are prepared to make a statement on this Norwegian salmon issue.
It is a very serious issue for Scotland and Ireland and many other states of the European Union.
It raises a very serious principle in that a non-member state such as Norway is getting better treatment than the Union itself.
To the best of my knowledge, the answer is No, the Commission has not yet come back.
Mr President, I should like to refer to the subject of item 6, paragraph 4, of the Minutes, on the membership of Parliament.
It says that the President announced that four of our colleagues had been appointed as members of the French Government and that pursuant to Article 12 of the Act concerning the election of representatives of the European Parliament by universal suffrage, Parliament established these vacancies.
This is incorrect given that the French Constitution lays down a 30-day period for (MPs and) MEPs invited to join the government to decide whether to remain MEPs or accept ministerial responsibility.
It is therefore not correct to establish these vacancies but we should wait, in accordance with the French Constitution, for them to decide, i.e. for thirty days.
As you know, European law is of a higher order than national law and European law on direct elections says that when you are elected to one of the other institutions, you cease to be a member of the previous institution of which you were a member.
So whatever French law says, the European law is clear and their resignations have to be accepted.
It concerns the Minutes, Mr President.
I have no point to make on the Minutes because I cannot get a copy - they have not produced enough.
Can you ask them in future to produce enough copies so that we can all look at them, rather than the first few people in the queue?
We will do that but one way of stopping points of order on the Minutes is not to distribute them.
Mr President, could I follow on the statement yesterday from Mr Macartney and today from Mr McMahon and ask if you, Sir, will personally ask Commissioner Leon Brittan to come here, given that he seems to have got his way against the wishes of the Commissioner for Fisheries, the Committee on Fisheries, and indeed the Commission. And in view of the fact that there is at stake a fragile industry in Scotland and Ireland, a whole industry in the most fragile areas.
The agenda is a matter for the Conference of Presidents.
Mr President, I wish to make a point concerning Question Time.
At the last plenary I put a question that was not reached and had therefore to be answered in writing.
My question concerned the then forthcoming Council meeting on 26 May.
I received an answer yesterday, dated 4 June, and I must protest about that.
I would ask that, in future, answers be sent out immediately.
You have protested but, in fact, we are on the Minutes.
Mr President, although I took part in yesterday's vote, I omitted to sign in, thus neglecting the second most important duty of a Member.
Could I ask you to add my name to the list of Members present?
Again, subject to the approval of the Quaestors.
Mr President, I am afraid to say that I did sign the voting list.
Really I was making a point of order on page 17 of the Minutes.
Yesterday we discussed whether my report should be dealt with at a later date.
I asked the President if I could speak on it.
I have pressed the button and it appears that it does now work but yesterday it failed to work.
We have an electronic system and I think we should use it; we should not need to stand up and flail our arms about like windmills.
I would very much have liked to have spoken on that particular position yesterday.
I am told that you should also press the button.
This is useful because as people no longer sit in allocated seats, we then know their names.
It is also useful to raise your hand.
Mr President, I am reluctant to take the floor but it is in response to something you said...
... in answer to an earlier question.
You said: ' the agenda is a matter for the Conference of Presidents.'
We should not allow that to become part of the mythology of this House.
The agenda is for the Conference of Presidents to recommend but always for this House to decide.
You are quite right but the Conference of Presidents makes the initial recommendation and the House approved the agenda on Monday at 5 o'clock.
It is now Tuesday in case people have not noticed.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
The week before last three Members of this Parliament - Angela Billingham, Edward McMillan-Scott and myself - wrote to the President's Office to ask for urgent action to be taken on behalf of a number of citizens whose properties in Spain have been wrongly seized by banks - one of those citizens being my own constituent, Mr Frank Clark.
We have had no reply as such from your office - no doubt due to an oversight.
I would ask that your office help us to urgently respond and to show how this institution can be a defender and fighter for our citizens' rights where wrongs have taken place, particularly in an area which is part of the single market and European citizenship.
We ask for your assistance on that case.
Mr President, I rise to confirm what has just been said by Mr Teverson.
I am sorry that Edward McMillan-Scott is not in the Hemicycle this morning because he has been dealing with this matter for over 15 years.
A bad situation is now a desperate situation, with properties actually being sold as we speak.
We have asked for intervention.
It would appear that the Spanish authorities are running rings around the European laws and this is a quite disgraceful state of affairs.
I seek the assistance of the President and of all our colleagues in this Hemicycle.
I will ask the President to draw this matter to the attention of the Spanish authorities.
Decision on urgency
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have received an urgent request to supply macrofinancial aid to Bulgaria and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
However, the Committee on External Economic Relations, which is responsible for this dossier, has not yet had the chance to consider it, and this has also meant, of course, that the Committee on Foreign Affairs has not been able to deliver its opinion either.
These are politically sensitive situations in which we would normally make macrofinancial aid dependent on a number of conditions, and I would therefore feel it a great pity if it were to be rushed through the Committee on External Economic Relations this week and then voted on without a debate.
I think it would be perfectly feasible to deal with it at the July part-session instead, so it should be put on hold until Parliament has the chance to say what it thinks, as indeed it should.
I give the floor to the Commission to defend the proposal if it so wishes.
Mr President, the Commission wishes to insist on the request for an emergency procedure.
As far as the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is concerned, the International Monetary Fund and the World Ban have now agreed to throw their full support behind that government's economic policy.
It is important for the European Union to take part in that movement, and I would add that there are pressing needs for external financing in that country and that if we want to be able to support it in the adaptation of its economic policy, given the instability of the region and the low level of reserves, we should respond alongside the Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
The same is true of Bulgaria: may I remind you that that country's situation is extremely fragile, especially concerning the level of its reserves.
It also has a very large foreign debt vis-à-vis the European Union.
At the European Parliament's own request in its resolution of 10 April last, on humanitarian aid for Bulgaria, the Commission - along with the Council - was urged to take the measures needed to help the Bulgarian Governments in its fight against the current serious economic crisis.
That is why it is important for the Commission that the European Parliament should be able to vote in favour of the emergency procedure on these two issues.
Mr President, I have listened to the Commissioner but allow me to say that the situation in Bulgaria, as anyone who has visited that country will have noted, is such that we cannot not permit something that is absolutely vital to enabling that country to return to the path of good economic policy to be held up for bureaucratic and procedural reasons.
Now we find that the Committee on External Relations has not discussed the matter.
It must convene a special meeting to discuss it because the problem besetting Bulgaria is actual, not bureaucratic.
If we delay for too long all of the work being done in conjunction with the IMF and, to some degree, with the World Bank will be destroyed.
If the committee cannot meet I do not think that we should sit on our hands and let those people wait for things that are crucially important to the survival of the Bulgarian state just because of that.
Mr President, I would just like to make it clear that the reason why the Committee on External Economic Relations has not dealt with this problem is the delay in consulting us. As a matter of fact we are not usually consulted at all.
This is a very serious matter, which affects everything in these agreements. That is the simple reason why this has not happened.
So we do find ourselves in a very embarrassing situation and we would really like a remedy to be found.
Lots of Members are asking to speak but the Rules are clear.
There should be one speaker for, one speaker against plus the Commission or the committee chair if appropriate.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Mr President, excuse my lateness.
I see, however, that my name is not on the list of members present.
I was here yesterday and signed in various committees. I hope that this mistake, for which I am to blame, will be corrected.
We shall check that out.
European Monetary Institute (EMI annual report - Monetary policy) - Budgetary and taxation policy - VAT
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0194/97 by Mr Mezzaroma, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the 1996 annual report of the European Monetary Institute (C4-0175/97); -A4-0185/97 by Mr Ettl, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the European Monetary Institute's report on Single Monetary Policy in Stage Three - specification of the operational framework (C4-0043/97); -A4-0192/97 by Mr Fourcans, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the coordination of budgetary and taxation policy in the Monetary Union; -A4-0164/97 by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a common system of VAT - a programme for the single market (COM(96)0328 - C4-0458/96)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish particularly to make the point that these reports on the introduction of the euro call both for employment policy and for the democratic rights of the European Parliament to participate and exercise supervision to be taken properly into account.
I am also grateful for the preparatory work that was done by the European Monetary Institute and its president, Mr Lamfalussy, as this will provide a sound basis on which to build further, However, recent developments illustrate just how critical the situation is.
The position of France has shed light on a number of things and is a warning to us to proceed with particular caution.
The fact is that every economic and monetary policy measure must be geared to citizens.
We need a socially responsible Europe and not a Europe founded on capital alone because capital alone undermines positive integration - and I mean capital alone, please do not misunderstand me.
Those then are the purely political considerations.
The European Monetary Institute's report on 'Single Monetary Policy in Stage Three - Specification of the operational framework' , concerning the introduction of the euro, has for the moment to be seen as a proposal: not until the European Central Bank has been set up can final decisions be taken.
At any rate - and this is fundamental - we are already staking out the course for the monetary policy strategy which the ECB will need to evolve and pursue.
Over and above that, particular sensitivity and transparency is needed in Stage Three particularly.
Not only has there to be a guarantee that it will operate seamlessly and smoothly, the internal barriers to the single currency that actually exist in all the Member States will have to be removed.
There has to be wide acceptance of all measures relating to the single currency policy of the ESCB.
In the final analysis, it has to seem credible to the public generally.
I wish, in passing, to make a very personal comment on the convergence criteria: the very fact that yet another stability pact has been devised demonstrates a failure to appreciate how integration is achieved in the process of European development.
But that has now happened.
The concept of a hierarchy with one person in charge, telling everyone else what to do is certainly not what is needed here.
Penalties that appear to be a slap on the wrist will not help the financially weak countries and will inevitably impede the integration process.
Introducing the single currency does not simply depend on whether the countries concerned are economically ready for it; it is, far more importantly, a question of our perception of democratic development.
If we are to be able to develop the framework conditions in a sensible manner, we need a combination of tried and tested monetary policy strategies able to be applied by all the Member States.
When it comes to converting monetary policy, it will be essential to apply different data and early indicators - of the kind we have for inflation targeting.
That means that there has to be an operational framework for monetary policy.
It makes sense to include inflation targeting as a strategy at the point of transition because we have to take account of uncertainties, particularly the unpredictable portfolio decisions of financial market operators.
As we move over to the euro our approach has therefore to be very pragmatic and be an amalgam of both complete transparency of the money supply objective and the variety of information provided by the inflation target.
I also believe that it is crucial to coordinate the exchange rate target, for which the ministers of finance are responsible, as far as possible through permanent consultation arrangements - possibly in the future Economic and Financial Committee or in some other way - with the European Central Bank.
I do not consider it appropriate in that context always to be talking in terms of black and white, of hard and soft currencies, particularly when, in the background, we are considering and fixing exchange rate mechanisms.
What is actually needed is to create a stable currency that meets our needs in the global currency context.
That is what we are aiming for.
Alongside monetary policy strategies, instruments for conversion and the effectiveness of those same instruments are a vital precondition if we are to convert smoothly to or introduce the system as a whole.
Monetary policy instruments have to be applied decentrally, and this means that monetary policy has to be implemented decentralized basis, relying solely on the experience of the issuing banks.
Wishing particularly to emphasize transparency in my report, I have to reiterate that the European Central Bank has to have a special duty of accountability in relation to the European institutions and the European Parliament.
The economic dialogue with the ECB has to be placed on an institutional footing.
This is not a matter of political intervention but primarily involves exchanging information at an early stage.
That is the only way in which we can guarantee a prompt response in monetary policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of the report that I am presenting to you today is very important for the proper functioning of Economic and Monetary Union, as of 1 January 1999.
It is a shame that there has been so little thought and decisions about this matter since the success or the failure of the single currency will depend on it.
It is from this viewpoint that this report poses a number of questions and proposes a number of answers to ensure that monetary union will work in favour of growth and employment.
The vital questions posed are: firstly, how will the role of budgetary and taxation policy change once the euro is in place? Secondly, in this unknown situation, this first in economic and political history, that of a centralized monetary policy with decentralized budgetary policies, how can we ensure that those policies jigsaw harmoniously and efficiently to ensure growth and employment for the whole of the European Union?
Thirdly, how can we conduct budgetary and taxation policies and, more generally, economic policy, in such a way as to obtain an optimal functioning of the single market?
Fourthly, how can we best respect the subsidiarity principle while ensuring the coherence of all budgetary and taxation policies and economic policy in general?
Fifthly, should we leave budgetary and taxation policies under the full responsibility of the Member States in the framework of the growth and stability pact - which of course there is no question of calling into question - or should we coordinate those budgetary and taxation policies, even increase the Community budget, if we want to guarantee a harmonious economic and social development?
Sixthly, how far should we harmonize taxation policy in order to avoid economic distortions that would be harmful to the allocation of resources, within the European area, and that might create very strong political tensions between the Member States? Seventh - and this is the final question - how can we find this economic and political grail, while guaranteeing democratic control over decisions, in particular giving the European Parliament the role it deserves?
Those, ladies and gentlemen, are some of the fundamental questions that I try to answer in my report.
They are ambitious, difficult questions, but they are crucial for the future of the Economic and Monetary Union and I think that everyone here will acknowledge that.
The report therefore proposes various avenues to go down in order best to answer these questions and I will mention four that I think are vital.
The first is that in order to deal with an asymmetrical economic clash, i.e. one affecting a single country or region, or even a symmetrical clash, common to the whole euro area, it will be necessary at least to coordinate the budgetary and taxation policies and, probably, in the long term, to increase the Community budget.
Even if that is a taboo subject today, I think that in the long term that is the direction in which we shall head.
Why? To avoid external factors and situations that which soon prove insufficient in these matters.
The second avenue, in terms of budgetary and taxation policy - again in terms of economic policy in general, in order to head in the direction just indicated - consists in proposing the means for implementing this coordination, via an adaptation of economic decision-taking in a political body to be determined, subjected to a solid democratic control.
In other words more or less the proposal made here by Mr Lamfalussy and even by Mr de Silguy.
I should like to emphasize the fact that it is not a question by any means of calling into question the independence of the European Central Bank, nor of calling into question the main aim, that of price stability.
It is, on the contrary, a case of ensuring that there is a good policy-mix, as we say, between the two main instruments of economic policy, monetary policy and budgetary-taxation policy.
The third avenue concerns taxation itself, Mr Monti, putting forward the desire for minimum common rules on savings, company taxes and transfrontier taxation.
Finally the fourth main avenue is that of strengthening the ability to analyse the economic situation in the European Parliament, in order for it to participate more satisfactorily in the definition of European economic policy and in order to make our budgetary and taxation choices more credible.
We therefore propose creating a committee of economic advisers at the European Parliament to include recognized experts and to report, let us say twice a year, to the European Parliament on the economic situation and on recommendations that it thinks ought to be implemented in terms of economic policy and, more specifically, budgetary and taxation policy.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is what we feel to be essential if we wish to guarantee the optimal functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union, i.e. strong growth and full employment, as that is the final aim, all of it within the framework of harmonious economic and social cohesion.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I would like to pay tribute to Alexandre Lamfalussy for the excellent work that he has done as the President of the European Monetary Institute and for the relationship that he has had with the European Parliament.
(Applause ) I certainly hope that even though he will be giving up that post he will still visit the European Parliament to give us the benefit of his extensive knowledge.
I would like to ask the President of the European Monetary Institute to respond to the points that I am going to make.
I used to work for a former Finance Minister in Britain called Dennis Healey, who you might know.
Mr Healey used to have a rule which was called the rule of holes.
The rule said that if you were in a hole, you should stop digging.
Do you not think it is time, given the state of the debate on economic and monetary union and the very clear shift of public opinion in Europe now, to rebalance economic and monetary union so that we can prove to the citizens of the European Union that we can have, on the one hand, a successful economic and monetary union and on the other hand, that we can tackle the problem of unemployment?
I recall when you came for your confirmation hearing as President of the EMI that you said in response to a question asked by one of the Members that you felt it would be very difficult to complete the EMU project with the levels of unemployment we had at that time.
Those levels of unemployment have increased since that confirmation hearing.
We have made no impact on the unemployment situation.
Surely we must now recognize the political signals from the people in Britain and France and the nervousness of people in countries that have been strong supporters of the monetary union. This must be an economic and monetary union that is not an end in itself but a means to an end, namely a balance that will allow jobs to be created.
In particular I should like to refer to the way in which we deal in future with the question of EMU.
We now have nine prime ministers out of the fifteen who come from the family of socialists, or social democrats.
This shows that there has been a switch in Europe in favour of a more balanced policy.
Is it not time, therefore, for the EMI and the Commission to recognize that they have to rebalance their own policy? Is it not time for us to look at a new model of development within the European Union?
In particular I want to refer to two areas of policy: the stability pact, where the French were right to call for a delay.
It is time for us to include something in that pact on growth so that it is not only in name a pact for stability and growth.
Is it not time for us to activate Article 103 of the Treaty so that we start getting proper economic coordination?
The most significant thing you could do today, Mr Lamfalussy, in your closing remarks to us as President of the EMI, is to send a very strong signal to the finance ministers and the heads of government in Amsterdam for them to recognize the pressure from the citizens for us to have an EMU, but an EMU in which there is public confidence and that will create jobs.
You could do that today for us.
Mr President, our group adds its voice to the chorus of thanks to President Lamfalussy for the commitment he has shown during this period, which has coincided naturally with a temporal and quantitative commitment without precedent in the history of the Community institutions.
Our thanks also go to the four rapporteurs who have done excellent work on their reports at a time - I repeat - when Europe, particularly where major responses in the economic field are expected, is expressing simultaneous hopes and fears which we have never had to deal with before.
But we must tell it like it is and not as we would like it to be.
In the coming months and years the Member States and the European Union must make definitive choices, choices which prioritize both economic and social needs, and it is very difficult to combine the two.
Europe was born of economic issues - the ECSC, coal and steel; it has since developed on the social side and today it is struggling to find the right relationship, the right balance, between the economic and the social.
The four reports now before us are responses to this grave dilemma, helping us find a final approach, although a priori this must obviously include work and commitment from all the individual Member States.
Regardless of their current position, we know there is very strong political, economic and social movement on our continent at this time and making definitive choices today is very difficult and would erect barriers against countries whose past and future commitment is the guarantee of the continuity and completeness of our continent.
In particular, in presenting his report on the European Monetary Institute, Mr Mezzaroma has hammered home the point that political union and monetary union are mutually indispensable.
A few days ago Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Dini, who has been President-in-Office of the Council and whom I have actually criticized in previous reports, said that a warning had gone out from Italy not to neglect political Europe, not to regard it as completely obscured by the race towards the single currency, which is obviously recognized as immensely significant.
These statements were confirmed directly to the President, the Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, and to the Committee on Institutional Affairs of the European Parliament.
That is important in restoring the confidence this institution needs to carry weight in the coming decisions.
Minister Dini went on to say that the transition to the single currency will not be a change in degree, but a genuine change in kind.
Understandably, it is a change which will mean new arrangements.
He concluded that we are facing a real revolution.
It has been announced in advance, but no-one is ever sufficiently prepared for a revolution.
That is why our commitment must be permanent in giving priority to the qualitative over the quantitative, in devoting special attention to those sectors which are of an operational size to make the change positively.
I refer in particular to small and medium-sized firms, in which all the reports presented have taken an interest.
We are talking about reductions in taxation, contributions and bureaucracy: deregulation to let small and medium-sized companies operate more efficiently.
Finally, on VAT, we favour the approach taken, we are especially grateful to Commissioner Monti for the intensive work of the group that bears his name, and we should unite behind harmonization of the system.
In conclusion, we want to work even harder to define the logic of the single market's development into a genuine internal market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today's joint debate, opened by the chairman of the European Monetary Institute, Mr Lamfalussy, for which I recognize the hard work and good relations that Dr Lamfalussy has maintained with the European Parliament in particular (last year it was my honour to draft the report on the first report by his institution), comes really at a key moment.
We are facing a new element of uncertainty created after the position expressed yesterday by France at the ECOFIN meeting and one week away from the Amsterdam summit, which should lead us to a new Treaty.
I think that an important conclusion of this debate would be for the European Parliament to consolidate, strengthen and very clearly insist on the need for EMU to come about and the euro to be introduced in the planned conditions and timescales.
I think that any element of uncertainty could lead to greater difficulties, in an economic situation in which gradual recovery is taking placer, as is shown by the development of the European economy in the last quarter and the Commission's own forecasts, which we debated here for this year and next, and that should offer an appropriate economic framework for fulfilling this project.
This project, as you know, also has a very important political dimension for the achievement of European Union.
I should like to insist that this moment in time is not the most appropriate for asking institutions such as the European Monetary Institute or the future European Central Bank to implement policies that do not fit them.
The Institute and, later, the Bank, must guarantee conditions of stability and solvency, with low levels of inflation and interest rates, offering a credible framework that is both secure and solvent internationally.
Then, if the governments and administrations implement economic policies in a framework of competence, we shall be able to solve the most serious problem facing European society: unemployment.
We cannot ask these institutions to solve what has to be done by the other administrations and the governments, when their electoral promises turn out to be more satisfactory, in the short term, from the electoral point of view.
On behalf of my group I second the congratulations made to Mr Lamfalussy in spite of the differences which we still have.
The current joint debate on these four reports evokes ideas which we would rather avoid, following the last Ecofin meeting, since we have already frequently had the uncomfortable feeling of having to think about something which we regarded as already decided and merely needing to be put into practice as quickly as possible.
There might even have been some change through the pressure of the social consequences and we should be glad that it is recognised, albeit timidly, that reflection is called for - even on something which has already been decided.
These reports fully follow the general direction taken, which we opposed, but which we think does contain some positive points, which might help in this new situation as regards the reflection which is so urgently needed.
The mention in the Mezzaroma report of the rigidity of the labour market, the cause of all the evils for the European Monetary Institute, hides the fact that there is too little investment and a lack of spending power and demand - which are due principally to the high level of unemployment and to many other determining structural causes; on reading that we have no cause to think and reflect and we can only voice our concern about the attack on the socalled rigidity of the labour market if it is inspired by the example of the United States; downward flexibility would be disastrous in some countries such as Portugal where the wages spread is already vast and social protection is scant and fragile.
When the Ettl report emphasizes the need for follow up measures which are more favourable to the real economy it really means unemployment, much talked about to little avail in practice, but there must be some levelling out of living standards as envisaged in Article 117 on economic and social cohesion.
Should not the mention in the Fourçans report - that it is necessary to anticipate situations in which the Member States might suffer asymmetric or symmetric crises - be reflected in some points in a resolution? I emphasize that it is acknowledged in point 13 that it is inappropriate to abandon the unanimity rule as regards fiscal harmonization, raising the vital question of the notion of fiscal sovereignty and more besides.
When in various points of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report we find concerns expressed about equity in taxation and the strengthening of the instrumental nature of fiscal policy in order to meet national situations which are so diverse, are we not aggravating certain wounds which we would prefer to ignore? But how can we then accept the fact that point 19 of the report calls for the introduction of the principle of majority decision-making on tax issues as a means of overcoming situations which the Member States might find fair in the long term, but which would not suit them in the short term.
It is a pity that these reports are short on points supporting our reflection on the consequences of what is afoot.
We do not think any the less of them as we are fully convinced of the need for this debate, which is not of our choosing, but which is forced upon us by social reality.
Mr President, Mr Lamfalussy, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Alan Donnelly has already rightly said, the voters have again given us a one-off opportunity to correct the neoliberal and monetaristic concept of the euro and the relevant strategy, moving not back to the fifties, Mr Herman, but forward to the 21st century.
We must and can now open the way to a Monetary Union within the framework of which it will at least be possible to resolve the major structural problems that were simply concealed by the previous policy of casino-style capitalism that was all show and no substance: the unemployment problem, the environmental crisis - when do we now hear anyone talk about the Rio principles and commitments and the Delors promises? - but also the problem of real and not just monetary convergence between our Member States.
We ought really to take the opportunity put behind us the destructive temptation to get 'Back to Brüning' ; we should be moving not back towards classical Keynesianism but beyond Keynes and into selective social and environmental restructuring of our national economies.
That will have to be underpinned by a common and coordinated employment policy because it will not be possible to build a stable euro on the back of increasing numbers of jobless.
Since 1994, this House has again and again drafted proposals that were then ignored by the governments.
These include the establishment of the Central Bank - French Socialists have again used the phrase 'economic government' but also the link to Community objectives and procedures.
They include changing the monster stability pact, making it into a pact that facilitates and drives forward a common approach on the part of the Member States geared to solidarity and employment.
It also includes a different interpretation of the convergence criteria, which have to be seen as a starting-point for a policy of genuine convergence and not in fact - and Mr Herman was quite right about this - some kind of mathematical obsession about the figure of 3.0 or indeed 3.00.
Last, and by no means least, it includes - and all credit to Commissioner Monti who has consistently pointed this out - an end to tax dumping.
We need to get out of this jam, that is to say we have to avoid getting further into debt and imposing taxes wherever possible.
The fact is that the taxation of assets and profits is increasingly being undermined by tax dumping, and a community that covers its infrastructure costs from the coffers of employees, channelling it back to the undertakings, may make competitive gains in the short-term but this will not last.
We now have an opportunity to change things.
We must take advantage of it, and, in Amsterdam, the Member States can make a real effort here or we shall indeed be moving towards interesting, that is to say critical times when a wealth of decisions will have to be taken.
Mr President, I would thank Mrs Randzio-Plath for her radical rethink on the VAT system which is a very cumbersome arrangement and does not seem to have been designed for the Single Market.
The move towards a definitive VAT system based on the principle of origin will be a long process so I would suggest that we should not forget that we can improve matters in the short term.
VAT is a standard rate of tax on consumption which is applied across the board regardless of levels of income and, as one speaker already mentioned social justice, I think it is vital that we manage that aspect in a socially just manner.
Mrs Randzio-Plath's explanatory statement says that tax exemptions currently permitted on social grounds should be replaced with a zero tax rate.
I see a warning light flashing here because such a move would change the legal tax basis for organizations that are exempt and possibly allow the imposition of the reduced rate or a standard rate in the future.
I would like to suggest that there is a total lack of logic with the VAT rate on newspapers, books and magazines varying from zero to 25 %.
We also have a situation where new education and information resources often attract the full rate.
Surely, as we move into the technological age, the electronic page should be treated in the same way as the printed page.
I have lodged amendments and would urge support for Amendments Nos 13 and 14 as well as Mr Miller's Amendment No 1, calling for zero rating of certain goods and services such as children's clothes, shoes, food, medical equipment, books, social services, etc.
Surely we want to combat illiteracy and promote freedom of information, cultural diversity and an educated citizenry as well as a fair society.
I would urge everyone to support the amendments.
Mr President, the four reports that we are debating now have struck me with their lack of sincerity about the essential matters.
The rapporteurs have made an effort to try and paint an objective picture of economic convergence in the European Union, the major differences existing in the Member States' fiscal and budgetary structures or the possible strategic axes of the future European Central Bank.
Mr Fourçans is even trying to do a little 'social' by proposing to ease the constraints of the stability pact, by assessing public deficits not annually but over the whole of an economic cycle, whereas Mr Mezzaroma is aware that the rigidness of the labour market is neither the main nor the only cause of unemployment.
The real reasons underpinning the forced march towards EMU are never targeted.
Admitting that the single currency is not a vital condition for the proper functioning of the single market, that it serves only one aim, a single cause: the creation of a federal super-State, the structures of which our governments are putting the final touches to at the IGC.
In truth, the single currencies creates more problems than it solves and everyone knows that full well.
It calls for a considerable increase in the European budget in order to deal with asymmetrical economic shocks; Mr Fourçans recalled that earlier.
It makes fiscal uniformization virtually inevitable, both in terms of rates and structures, in order to avoid fiscal dumping, and thereby considerably limits the different States' freedom for action.
It necessarily calls for the creation of a European economic government to counteract the powers handed by the treaties to a handful of civil servants to run the Central Bank.
In a nutshell, the single currency can only lead to the total transfer of economic, budgetary and fiscal sovereignty towards Brussels, or else the situation will be totally out of control.
By means of the budgetary policies that it imposes the single currency is already an economic disaster, yet another source of unemployment in Europe.
Tomorrow, when it exists, if it exists, it will be even worse as the right conditions will not be there.
In order not to put back the date of introduction, we are now contemplating violating the principles originally set in concrete, the sacrosanct Maastricht criteria.
Neither France nor Germany will respect them in 1997 or 1998, but neither France nor Germany wants to take responsibility for burying this economic aberration that is EMU.
When they want to get elected, government promise to work for the common good, everyone's interests, the country's prosperity.
Now, prosperity and interest call for the once and for all abandonment of the single currency.
Mr President, European Monetary Union is constantly being hampered by talk of postponement which, in turn, inevitably leave citizens feeling uncertain.
That is definitely not how to support the preparatory work that is being done by the European Monetary Institute, by the Commission, by this House and also by the Council and ECOFIN in particular.
I therefore think it very important that the political élite in the European Union should finally speak out clearly, give clear signals and above all, Mr Lamfalussy, highlight what you yourself have again said this morning.
We have made huge, previously unimaginable progress towards the convergence criteria - particularly those convergence criteria that are important for the operation of Monetary Union, the low inflation rate, the low long-term interest rates, exchange rate stability and also legal convergence in terms of the independence of the central banks.
We are all aware - and I should very much welcome it, Mr Lamfalussy, if you could say something further about this - that tax criteria are merely a supporting factor in achieving monetary stability and that the future European Central Bank should not be forced to apply a rigid monetary policy because of unsound budgetary policies; that is something we could do without in the Monetary Union if we are achieve growth that is based on investment and creates employment.
It is therefore important to emphasize and give prominence to the fact that those who are in favour of Monetary Union are also for job creation and must look to that.
For that reason, the European Parliament has constantly called, since 1993 and by way of preparation for Monetary Union, for investment programmes in infrastructure to modernize and at the same time provide an incentive for private investment in Europe.
In that context, I also welcome the fact that it is clear that the need to consolidate the domestic budgets of the Member States should in no event be at the expense of public investment, and that ought constantly to be emphasized, as this reflects the spirit of the Treaty also.
In conclusion, I should like once again to ask you, Mr Lamfalussy, to explain how you think the democratic accountability of monetary bodies can be improved.
We are grateful - and I want to say this very clearly on behalf of the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs - for your trust and constructive cooperation, for the forbearance you have shown in the face of what can only be described as impudent and disrespectful questions from Members of this House but we are also grateful because you have always been willing to listen and respond to us.
I believe that you have worked not only to prepare Monetary Union but for the future of Europe. In conclusion, therefore, an indication of the form future cooperation between the European Parliament and European Central Bank should take would be especially important for us.
Mr President, Mr Ettl has written a very good report on the EMI report on Single Monetary Policy in Stage Three.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on behalf of my party group.
The report was accepted without controversy by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and is a good summary of what is, in its turn, a good report by the EMI on the preparations which have been made before the ECB commences its work for the third stage.
Preparations for monetary policy procedures are still underway.
The EMI is drawing up various strategies for monetary policy.
In order to gain credibility for the new currency and to create an understanding of it, it will be necessary to communicate this strategy.
The EMI advocates that the ECB strategy is based on targets for the money supply and for direct inflation, which we warmly support.
To waver on chosen strategies or deviate from them may cause serious damage to a project as wide-ranging as EMU.
This is exactly why it is so important for the ECB to be independent and to take the long term view with its main task being to safeguard monetary stability.
The risk of wavering has become a reality now that socialist leaders want to delay EMU or even to change it totally or to alter the stability pact.
The stability pact is a central feature in gaining the necessary credibility for the new currency.
My party group wants to see Europe being further developed in the name of freedom and peace, with foundations in a Europe for the people, where trade and interaction create a sense of belonging and a dynamism.
We are prime advocates of the internal market which will strengthen our joint competitive strength and in so doing increase growth and produce new jobs in Europe.
This is why it is so important to remove barriers to cross border trade.
In this respect the report by Mrs Randzio-Plath on a common VAT system sets a very good example.
The internal market and the single currency are both institutions needed by the EU to promote competitiveness.
Other, different systems which have developed in our individual countries add a diversity which is enriching and which will not benefit from being standardised.
Our common institutions are the external framework which set the long term conditions.
The content must be created by the people and by entrepreneurs.
The easiest way to find the best model is through healthy competition between different national systems and solutions.
This is why I am concerned by those who wish to exclude competition and change as we will be the poorer for it.
A comprehensive political tax harmonisation will not solve the growth problem in Europe.
On the contrary we will set ourselves cost levels which remain permanently high and will continue to have high unemployment.
I am in favour of a diverse Europe which works together for common solutions where these are necessary.
I am also in favour of political leaders who keep their promises and are capable of taking a long term view and are not just out for gimmicks and popularity.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today's joint debate on the EMU, euro, VAT and coordination of budgetary policies hits at the heart of the matter, i.e. States' currency and public finances, in the perspective of EMU.
All of these reports mostly are agreed to by our group although, in the case of Mrs Randzio-Plath's, we are unable to share the philosophy of paragraph 19, which stigmatizes the principle of unanimity for deciding taxation matters.
As far as VAT is concerned, the switch to a final VAT system, due on 1 January 1997, has been put back sine die.
But it must be admitted that the current system opens the door to numerous major frauds and leakages.
We are aware of the imperfections of the transitional system and the European Union should set three objectives.
On one hand, to improve controls over the real situation of deliveries abroad, and to improve the sharing of information available to customs and tax offices; in other words improve the exchange of information between States.
One certitude is that the switch to the final system, which would make it possible to impose the tax in the country of origin, calls for the current system to be greatly improved.
I should now like to make a more political comment. If I am to believe today's press, the new French Minister for European Affairs is asking for six extra months for understanding the set of dossiers on this subject.
What did he do when he was a member of this Chamber, until last Friday? I do not like criticizing our colleagues, but even so.
A member of this Parliament who sat here for three years, who never spoke in plenary session, whom we never saw, either in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs or in the Sub-Committee on Monetary Affairs, and whose most notable written question dealt with the comparative merits of the Cormorant phallocrocorax carbo sinensis and the Cormorant phallocrocorax carbo carbo , now that he has become Minister, comes and asks, cap in hand, for a six months' delay, probably in order to have the time to examine a dossier he did not give a damn about when he was a member of the European Parliament...
Some of us have been working here for many years and we could give him a few lessons, if he needs some cramming before the Amsterdam Summit.
Mr Pierre Moscovici - I am talking about him - and his accomplice, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, are holding the single currency hostage and are taking on the huge responsibility of jeopardizing the patient and careful work done by the Commission, the Council, the European Parliament and the European Monetary Institute.
I am sure that history will hold them responsible.
Mr President, is it the cormorant or the emu that we are trying to get to fly?
(Laughter )
It seems to me that our colleague, Mr Giansily, was more interested in making personal attacks than a real political judgment of the commitments made by the French socialists in their electoral campaign which led them to victory.
Mr President, I should like to begin with the disturbing problem of the lack of consensus which has re-emerged on the question of fiscal policy at the heart of the EMU debate.
This needs to be resolved urgently.
If it is not, it has the capacity, politically and economically, to destabilize seriously the preparatory work to achieve a good EMU launch.
There is a huge unemployment crisis in Europe today, but we should not kid ourselves about how to respond to it.
It requires a realization that in a global economy we need more European labour market flexibility.
It requires an understanding that in that context and inside the EMU we need a wage-rate and incomes policy that takes account of growth in labour productivity and of competitive requirements.
It requires that we enhance labour mobility where possible within the Union through a variety of measures such as, for example, improving pensions' portability and other practical measures.
It requires an emphasis on more European research and development.
It requires a constant search for more competitiveness.
It requires looking at switching social expenditure from passive to more active models.
All of these and more are needed, but not the illusion that quick, short-term budget fixes are an answer.
We tried that. It failed.
If we try it again we create an illusion and that illusion will lead to a weak, inflation-prone, high interest rate Euro-zone.
We do not need that either.
So we have to sort this debate out now, abandon self-delusion and realize that a solid EMU requires a solid fiscal basis.
Anyone who does not understand that will pay the price through higher interest rates and an inflation-prone Euro-zone.
On the VAT question, I agree in substance with what the rapporteur has said.
The Liberal Group wants two things from the Commission: that it should, in the short- to medium-term, try to improve the problems and shortcomings of the current system; also, it should continue to deepen its work on moving the system to a new regime using the point of origin.
We cannot ask Member States to take a leap in the dark.
We need to know what are the revenue implications for states.
We need the macro-economic distribution key to be resolved sooner and not later.
Subject to that, the Liberal Group supports the timetable set out by the Commission.
Mr President, in my opinion this debate should have been more intensive and should have taken place a long time ago.
I am referring in particular to the debate on the far too independent status of the future European Central Bank, and on the vital need to tighten up economic political cooperation under the conditions created by EMU, particularly in the area of taxation, because under the conditions of EMU fiscal competition between the Member States will become ever stronger.
This distorts competition and also makes it harder for the Member States in their efforts to obtain sufficient tax income.
We are relatively satisfied with this report.
A number of views are put forward on how to create democratic supervision as a counterweight to the future European Central Bank.
One idea which has come up in my own party in Finland is that the European Central Bank should have a 'confidence body' made up of Members of the European Parliament.
The Bank of Finland, for example, naturally has a group of bank delegates made up of Members of Parliament.
This thought perhaps tends in rather the same direction as the idea which the French floated when they spoke of a Stability Council.
However, it would provide a parliamentary dimension to this problem of democratic supervision.
It is also clear that the European Parliament should be consulted when the directors of the Central Bank are chosen.
This consultation should involve the whole board, for never before has there been such an independent body of experts which can limit in such a decisive way the powers of democratically elected bodies to pursue economic policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, these four reports are an opportunity for us to express our support for all those who want Europe not only to be a market and a currency, but it is also an invitation for them to clarify what they really mean by a 'European economic government' , which in our view must be clearly distinguished from the currency question.
As for this currency question, we shall sum up by saying that it is imperative to apply all of the treaty, nothing but the treaty.
All the treaty means the independence of the future monetary institution and banning excessive deficits.
Nothing but the treaty means that we deplore the slide, noted at Dublin, between the aim of the treaty to ban excessive deficits and the now clear allusion to an aim of systematic balance, even budgetary deficits.
We see this as a kind of dogmatic slide on which rests a perfectly erroneous assertion according to which growth and employment cannot only come from monetary and budgetary stability.
The whole of this century's economic history shows the contrary.
The single currency does not need that economic justification.
While it is a necessary aim for completing European Union, it is a political aim and we know full well that it is because it cannot be built without budgetary stability that that stability is necessary.
Those are political aims.
As for the economic government, it must take into hand the question of growth and employment, but regardless of the currency objective.
We should not get the negotiation nor the timetable wrong.
What we need to achieve that balanced European economic construction is, for example, a strengthening of the means to take Community public action, by means of strengthening the budgetary means and strengthening fiscal means.
That would, for example, require the adoption of qualified majority voting, at least for part of the fiscal sector.
What is at stake is the IGC, not the stability pact.
Mr President, given the way it is currently looking and going, the fact is that Monetary Union is going to be an economic area which, though comparable with a nation-state in terms of its currency, has in many others areas structures that are clearly critical if Monetary Union is to be a success but which differ greatly from one Member State to another, and this is in itself a factor that involves a whole range of problems.
These are problems that have to be properly resolved before Monetary Union is set under way.
If the solutions adopted to tax harmonization and the issue of stability are only half-hearted, then this Monetary Union will rest on very shaky foundations.
The single currency should improve the operation of the internal market.
However, if, at the same time, it is to promote growth and employment, the Union is going to have to tackle the budgetary and fiscal policies of the individual Member States, as these inevitably have a considerable influence on the Union's general economic position.
Then there is the question of coordinating the national budgets or even significantly increasing the European Union budget.
But as the rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, himself puts it, it is extremely difficult, both economically and politically, and I am afraid that it will not actually be possible to resolve those questions in the medium term, because Europe is not yet ready for this.
As far as fiscal matters are concerned, the rapporteur points very clearly to the unfair tax competition that could arise in a variety of areas between Member States or regions.
But, politically speaking, these are extremely difficult matters because the structures, traditions and cultures differ very greatly in the individual Member States.
What the rapporteur is unable to say is how the distortions likely to result from differing taxes are to be prevented.
At present, as far as many Member States are concerned, the principle of unanimity on this issue is something of a sacred cow.
We can certainly expect that where wages and wage costs differ only marginally, we shall see both increased worker mobility and businesses exploiting these location-based advantages.
Commissioner de Silguy said he was prepared to talk about everything but not about the point in time at which Monetary Union would commence.
I take the view that he needs immediately to tackle the question of a new and realistic time-frame that makes it possible to achieve real convergence if he wants Monetary Union to be a blessing for Europe and not a lasting burden.
Those, like me, who want economic union, may also want it at a later point in time, and I think that those who do want it have also to be in favour of closer citizen participation in this issue.
Mr President, employment, competitiveness and growth are issues which deserve to be given priority attention, as has been pointed out more than once here this morning.
It is quite clear that they are all affected by the way in which we organize our indirect taxation, so the report by Mrs Randzio-Plath deals with a subject that we cannot afford to treat lightly, not least for the following four reasons.
VAT is naturally important for the national income of each Member State.
It is also a consumer tax which affects everyone, and is particularly significant when it comes to the administrative burden on firms.
VAT can also cause shifts in intra-Community trade flows and in the attractiveness of certain services that we offer to consumers outside the European Union.
VAT based on the country-of-origin principle has formed part of the single market project since the very beginning, and its purpose is still to make intra-Community trade as easy as trade within one Member State.
With the current system this is impossible, and it is therefore unacceptable simply to convert the transitional regime into a definitive system.
Some people claim that this transitional system that we have been laboured with for far too long is now well established, and that firms would prefer to follow the principle of 'better the devil you know' .
However, this is not the dominant view in business circles.
Anyone who takes a rather longer-term approach cannot but follow the Commission's logic and choose the short, sharp shock of conversion, rather than carrying on with the heavy administrative burden which, for a number of reasons, the current system represents.
We should also not forget that the introduction of the euro will make the market more transparent, and that differences in rates and in how the rules on VAT are interpreted and applied are more likely than ever to distort competition.
The completion of the single market now demands the introduction of the euro and decisive measures to eliminate the patchwork of VAT rates.
This means having a system based on the country-of-origin principle, so that the rates remain roughly in line, and anyone subject to VAT only needs to nominate a single place where he can pay his taxes and claim deductions, with a clearing system based on macroeconomic principles.
But this solution will clearly never be achieved as long as this whole issue is still subject to the unanimity rule.
I therefore hope, perhaps against hope, that the Amsterdam summit will bring some progress in this area.
Time is now short, and past delays mean that European firms could now face a number of upheavals all at once.
Allowing the euro and the new VAT system to coincide could be too much of a good thing, and that is why we, as the authorities, have to show that we are serious about easing the administrative burden.
Clearer legislation is what we need, and what we are waiting for.
Mr President, this important debate is taking place at a time of dramatic change in the political landscape of Europe, when the situation seems too unbalanced to guarantee a stable euro.
This is a particularly worrying state of affairs and comes despite the considerable progress that has been made, as Mr Lamfalussy has described.
Although these reports are of a technical nature, we do of course all know that this is a political issue, much more so than many other aspects of the Intergovernmental Conference, because it is the euro which can create unity in Europe.
Not just Europe's unity, but also its competitiveness is at stake here.
Mrs Randzio-Plath called in this morning's 'Financial Times' for the European Central Bank to have the same degree of openness as the federal committees in the United States.
I find it remarkable that one of our leading rapporteurs should recommend an American model, when it is more usual for Parliament to feel frustrated by the actions of the USA.
People in general have now become anti-European, and this is why all politicians from all parts of the political spectrum now have just one task before them.
We are facing a revolution, as Mr Garosci said, and politicians must now do everything they can to make it clear that European unity requires substantial reforms from all its citizens, because this is the way to create a dynamic financial, economic and social Europe.
Mr President, I would like to build on what Mr Cox said earlier, on behalf of my Group, about the debate on monetary union and the debate on fiscal union.
It seems to me a little strange that we have brought such diverse reports together into one debate - certainly Mrs Randzio-Plath's report on indirect taxation seems to fit with little ease into such a debate.
It is nonetheless important because, inevitably, the discussion on monetary union must be succeeded by an in-depth discussion on fiscal union, which must follow.
I would like to raise the problem of our relative lack of understanding of, and failure to study, some of the principles of indirect taxation.
There is a need for clear principles for indirect taxation to be established, and much of the very valuable work that is being carried out by the Commission in this area seems to ignore the wider context of the lack of consensus on the base of VAT; the danger here is that we will find the fiscal base actually being diluted.
Certainly, in my own country, the government is extending exemptions from VAT to services which were once in the public sector and are now in the private sector.
I am aware of similar problems in France and Italy.
The Commission has indeed put some of these questions to the Court of Justice for resolution.
I propose, and my Group proposes through amendments to the Fourçans and Randzio-Plath reports, the establishment of an independent organization which would bring together academics, industry practitioners, Commission officials and national government officials in a wider and informal context to discuss different VAT practices and to build a consensus on this.
I hope that the House will feel able to support these amendments so that we may have a wider discussion on the very principles of indirect taxation before we proceed further with the details.
Mr President, as opposed to the economic area of free trade initially set up, the rule of increasing Community regulation has prevailed once more, leading to the triumph of supra-national will.
Since the second half of the 1980s, the growing desire for general harmonization called for the setting up of a socalled transitional VAT system that everyone knew was not appropriate.
Transitional, but until when? The final system was due to be adopted by the Commission by 31 December 1994.
It is now June 1997 and the taxation question is still on the agenda for harmonization.
It is a delay but, above all, an admission of failure.
This failure is all the more damning because it affects the main Community institutions, the Council and the Commission.
This delay is now symbolized by two simple points.
The first is that this transitional system is inappropriate and must be replaced and the second is the difficulty in setting up the final system.
For that purpose, a certain number of ideas have been advanced, primarily that of replacing the destination country rule with the so-called country of origin rule.
We are in agreement with this rule in principle as it would simplify administrative steps for companies.
When you have fewer declaration obligations, you have fewer risks of error.
A single declaration in a single taxation location means less possible fraud and cost savings.
Where we disagree is when you recommend the pure and simple abolition of national exonerations and their replacement by zero rating.
This is a further abandonment of our national sovereignty since it would be the Community institutions which would decide.
Like all national taxes, direct or indirect, VAT is a priority instrument of budgetary policy.
The proof is that since its appearance in France this unique tax has been copied worldwide.
Yes, to the desire to change the current system but not at any price.
No, to a further abandonment of sovereignty.
We want to preserve our fiscal autonomy, which is not necessarily incompatible with a new VAT system in the European Communities.
Mr President, like many of the earlier speakers this morning, I should like to thank Mr Alexandre Lamfalussy for his work at the head of the European Monetary Institute and his relations with his institution, in the knowledge that we are not always easy to deal with.
We thank him for the relations he has maintained with us, in the hope that we shall develop similar ones with his successor.
He is leaving us at a moment when things are obviously moving.
The nearer we get to monetary union and the more we can gauge the main consequence: the urgency of economic union.
In this context the Fourçans report, as amended by our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, is a useful one.
Yes, we need to strengthen the coordination of the budgetary policies of the Member States, be it by indirect or indirect taxation, capital or company profit taxes, without forgetting the process of relocation.
We also need to set up a democratically controlled political body that would be responsible for the coordination of economic policies.
These are the concerns that we share although we have not been the main promoters.
But we must go further and be more ambitious.
The budgetary aspect of the report calls for several remarks, in my opinion.
The stability pact - as the outcome of yesterday's ECOFIN Council meeting showed - is only legitimate if it serves faster growth.
In terms of taxation, we should head towards minimum harmonization of corporation tax, savings taxes and transfrontier taxation.
But we should also introduce qualified majority voting for certain direct taxes, or else we shall be unable to fight fiscal dumping or strike a taxation balance between capital and labour, taxing capital speculation.
As for the political body mentioned in the Fourçans report, while not simply call it an 'economic government' and give it, as Article 103 of the Maastricht Treaty clearly calls us to do, clear powers to coordinate budgetary, fiscal and structural economic policies?
The Fourçans report heads in the right direction but seems a little timid when it comes to aims.
Recent changes of government in certain Member States should help us, without delay, to promote at European level alternatives to the solutions and mechanisms proposed in recent years.
We must all work for the introduction of the single currency within the set deadline.
But the States that want it must be free to pursue their main public investment policies so as not to sacrifice the recovery in growth to the absolute priority of the monetary objective.
To conclude, Mr President, we must avoid setting up a mechanism that would turn employment into the main variable of adjustment, thereby turning our back on our political priority: job creation.
To achieve that, we must do all we can to ensure that the switch to the single currency takes place on the planned date but with an economic union that is also committed to, serving growth and employment.
For that we must, in the beginning, as of today, complete the stability pact, which only has growth in its name and nothing else, so that thanks to a genuine coordination of economic policies, we can turn it into a genuine growth and employment pact.
The vital thing is not whether or not the stability pact is adopted in Amsterdam.
It is that the single currency will help to create jobs as of 1 January 1999.
Mr President, with regard to the Fourçans report, it is extremely important for us to determine how far we need to focus on economic cooperation during the third stage.
We can also no longer avoid the problem of harmonizing the taxation systems within the euro zone.
We have heard much more recently about economic cooperation, such as at yesterday evening's ECOFIN meeting in Luxembourg on giving greater priority to the fight against unemployment in Europe.
The socialists clearly see large government deficits as synonymous with social policy, so the proper organization of government finances has been pushed into the background, a move which I deeply regret on behalf of all of Europe's unemployed.
Not long ago, a Stability Council was set up at the request of the French.
Now the Fourçans report, once again by a Frenchman, proposes an economic government with far-reaching powers.
The intention is clearly to provide a counterbalance to the European Central Bank, particularly with regard to employment, and it seems that there is a wish to have a trade-off between inflation and employment as usual.
But I am firmly convinced that the answer to the unemployment problem does not lie in undermining the independence of the European Central Bank.
The policy advocated by the future ECB - price stability and low inflation - means low interest rates, which should stimulate investment and, in turn, growth and employment.
Next, tax harmonization.
We need to avoid fierce competition between the Member States here.
On the other hand, Member States whose government finances are in order and which therefore do not need to impose higher taxes on their citizens must not be punished for their success.
The VAT system too will come under pressure from the euro.
For businesses, and in particular for small and medium-sized firms, the current VAT system is the main distorting factor in the single market, and even the man in the street can see why there are still discrepancies.
Commissioner Monti bases his definitive VAT system on the country-of-origin principle, which in theory should remove most of the problems we have with the current system.
But it is the implementation of the system, particularly the clearing systems, that is causing great concern among the net exporting countries, especially those with a mainport on their territory.
Small and medium-sized firms also regard this as a problem.
As long as VAT is calculated on the basis of national statistics and the statistics within the European Union are not harmonized, there will still be a risk for the net exporting countries.
The SMEs are currently worried that they are going to have to supply the missing figures, which would in one fell swoop cancel out one of the main advantages of having the definitive system, which is to reduce the administrative burden on firms.
In principle, the clearing system ought to shift the administrative burden from SMEs to the government, where it belongs.
As far as I am concerned, the definitive system is only acceptable if it places the administrative burden where it belongs, with the government, and if a solution is found to the enormous risks presented by the clearing system.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the European Monetary Institute, today we are debating reports whose common theme is the preparation for the single currency in connection with which you, Mr Lamfalussy, have been a prime mover.
You have done it with exceptional skill and finesse and displayed a refinement of conduct which makes all of us regret that today marks your last appearance here as president.
Mr Donnelly has recalled your reference here to unemployment and to the obstacle that you believed it placed in the way of completion of the process. Your full view, if I remember rightly, was that high levels of unemployment would push some governments into relaxing budgetary discipline.
Looking at the developments in France one could say that your prophecy is beginning to come true, except that it is coming true, of course, with popular endorsement, and despite the sarcasm that has been expressed in this Chamber about the voice of the people I do not imagine that anyone will say that we should get discard the people of France and appoint another people in their place. I am assuming that in a parliament the voice of the people should carry some weight.
With all due respect to your views, I must point out the one-sidedness of your positions concerning fiscal discipline.
Unemployment may give an impetus to fiscal relaxation, and excessive budgetary stringency may, of course, create unnecessary and intolerable levels of unemployment.
One has difficulty understanding in what way the persistence with a policy which is expanding unemployment and slowing down economic growth can benefit us as regards global competition, which also comes into play here.
Is it or is it not correct that technological innovation takes off, that costs are reduced, that productivity rises and that, therefore, competitiveness increases when an economy is flourishing rather than when it is stagnating and when unemployment is perpetuated? We are not saying that unemployment should be combated via consumption excesses, but for the stability pact effectively to prohibit public investment when private investment is not forthcoming is, to say the least, rash, and any move by the French Government to change things in the direction which this Parliament has called for would indeed be laudable.
Furthermore, the imposition of fiscal stringency is wrong at this particular time. It is not a question of whether we can live with balanced budgets.
We can and we must live with balanced budgets.
What is at issue is the dynamic via which we achieve them and whether, as far as unemployment is concerned, now is the right time to be imposing a squeeze which is actually increasing unemployment.
We need to get on top of the unemployment problem first and to escape from this impasse into which we have been led instead of digging a deeper hole for ourselves. After that we shall be able to tackle the issue of monetary stability, as indeed we must, with much more ease.
Mr President, I want to speak mainly on issues linked to the Randzio-Plath and Fourçans reports, and then on fiscal issues.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, Mr Harman and I have presented two amendments to Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, which we strongly support. These amendments are intended primarily to emphasize our clear agreement on the final choice of the principle of country of origin.
In the light of many considerations, we are in fact convinced that this is the optimum mechanism for the definitive VAT system, because of its advantages in terms of greater simplicity for businesses, but also for consumers, who will be able to benefit from more transparent news and information about the relative advantages in different countries and on different markets. Finally, it will lead to better functioning of the internal market, which will also be stimulated by a more transparent VAT system.
In particular, a system of this kind would strengthen the fight against fraud - and we all know how important that is. We feel sure it is the right system to adopt, despite a certain confusion which emerges every now and then, on condition that it is based on the simplest possible mechanism, both as regards public administrations, hence the compensation mechanisms others have already mentioned, and in particular, obviously, as regards the obligations on firms.
So our two amendments - Nos 9 and 10 - which we hope will receive wide support from Members of Parliament, are intended to reinforce this concept, and are also intended to stimulate the Commission, in the current transitional stage, to do the groundwork, so to speak, for moving to the definitive system.
We are certainly facing all kinds of obstacles, in particular the famous unanimity problem.
In this connection I am delighted that the Fourçans report, at points 11 and 12, incorporates the concept of a code of conduct in fiscal matters.
We debated this at the last Brussels session with a report - I had the honour to be the rapporteur - which received a large majority and wide support from Parliament.
I would like to record this fact not only as a point shared with the Fourçans report, but also as a question on which Parliament has already made its position clear very strongly.
I shall restrict myself to these points and just reiterate my deep appreciation for the work of both colleagues, which I have had the pleasure of commenting on briefly here.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mr Lamfalussy and all our colleagues who draft reports, but due to shortage of time, I shall concentrate in this speech on the Fourçans report.
The coordination of the budgetary and fiscal policies for Monetary Union is based on an initiative report by the European Parliament, which realised at a very early stage that it is essential to study not only the effects which the third stage of EMU might bring, but above all the new role which these policies should come to play in monetary stability, economic growth and the jobs market.
It was even fundamental to make an in-depth analysis of the Maastricht Treaty in order to identify the mechanisms which would make it possible to define, follow up and control the policies to be pursued by the Council, the Commission and finally by the European and national Parliaments in this matter.
The principal objectives of the single currency are to bring optimum efficiency to the operation of the internal market and to make it possible to develop a sustainable economy, to have more and better jobs and to improve living standards in the community.
So what means should be adopted to keep within these principles?
From the budgetary point of view I think that the main ideas should be as follows: national budgetary policies will continue to be a fundamental instrument, but the deficits should not be assessed on an annual basis, but on the basis of a global cycle.
And consequently, the stability and growth pact - if it comes to be implemented - should in some way be applied automatically and independently of political judgment.
Budgetary policy should therefore tend towards the re-channelling of expenditure to help to create employment and improve the well-being and safety of the citizens, not to reduce that.
At Community level we must in the long term envisage budgetary growth in relation to GNP in order to move ahead of the 1.27 % envisaged for 1999 to higher figures which will make it possible to overcome situations in which we have asymmetrical crises.
As regards fiscal policy within the sphere of the single currency, harmonization measures are needed in order to avoid burdensome economic distortions, measures which must be applied above all in the field of taxation on savings, taxation of companies and the approximation of indirect taxation.
The broad lines are set out in this report by Mr Fourçans, whom I congratulate on accomplishing this difficult task.
It is now up to the national and European institutions to define the means and the time-scale for realising our hopes placed in the creation of the internal market and the single currency to reach the objectives of growth, wellbeing and economic and social cohesion which the citizens of Europe aspire to.
Mr President, it now seems clear that the third stage of EMU will take place in accordance with the timetable, although according to the assessment of the Commission and the Monetary Fund only two countries, Finland and Luxembourg, will fulfil the convergence criteria It may therefore be necessary to interpret and relax them, partly in order to revive the employment situation and economic growth in some countries in the next few years and to prevent 'asymmetrical crises'.
Mr Fourçans' report has excellently analysed the narrowing of the choice of economic policy instruments under the new current conditions.
In adopting my three amendments, the Committee on Economic Affairs accepted a rather softer line which also stresses employment and the prevention of difficult economic crises while at the same time acknowledging the broad lines of the report's analysis.
What would this line mean if put into practice? Greater national freedom of action for budgetary policy.
Its significance will be enhanced if the possibility of using exchange-rate policy disappears and the European Central Bank prevents the operation of national monetary policy.
How should it be implemented? The 3 % ceiling on budget deficit should not be interpreted short-sightedly but in the context of the whole trade cycle.
In this way a deficit can be used as a means of stimulating growth, and a surplus as a weapon of deflationary policy.
For this reason, punitive interest rates should also be defined on the basis of the average deficit over the whole trade cycle and not the deficit at one particular moment.
This last is important because no punitive consequences ensue in the case of divergence from any other of the criteria.
A Member State may happily have a debt representing as much as 100 % of its GDP and inflation on an interest rate exceeding the criteria, without these incurring any punitive measures.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe's economic policy has taken a healthy, though to many people dramatic turn.
The election victories of the Social Democrats have recently opened the door to the emergence of an economic policy which stresses the importance of employment.
We cannot build a common currency on mass unemployment and the voters have now clearly shown that.
We must not run headlong into a common VAT system on a wholly mechanical basis without taking account of employment factors.
Fortunately, Mrs Randzio-Plath takes account of the social aspects in considering taxation priorities.
However, we must go further.
We cannot assume that the Commission has the sole right to analyse and direct the structure of tax policy.
Here in the European Parliament we must bear our responsibility and define the new structures and priorities which will encourage employment.
The current VAT directive which had its origins in the 1970s requires reform.
Tax revenue has gone uncollected in all Member States since customs formalities were removed and because of the cheap depreciations carried out by big businesses.
Large industrial concerns are able to adapt to the jungle-like VAT system, but SMEs are still trying to cope with the differences in practice between the various countries.
Now the big firms do not want a new VAT system, but it is of vital importance to SMEs.
The common VAT system will have problems if we assume that public services come within the scope of VAT.
Will schools, kindergartens and medical care thus become a saleable good to be taxed and privatized? And how about public service or charitable organizations which collect money for example for developing countries or for those who are excluded in their own society?
Will we thus tax humanitarian work while closing our eyes to bigbusiness tax evasion? Setting tax rates at the same level is thus very problematic because it would distort competition.
Mr President, I should like to comment on the report by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
In paragraph 14, she quite rightly calls for particular attention to be given to tourism, which as we all know is an extremely important sector for employment, with some 10 million people in the European Union earning their living from it.
In a number of Member States, VAT is a major cost factor for tourists, for example in Denmark, where VAT accounts for 25 % of holiday spending.
We should not underestimate the effect of this.
Margins in this sector are usually small.
In Ireland, the VAT rate for hotels was increased from 10 % to 23 % at the beginning of the 1980s, with the result that over 10 % of Ireland's hotels were forced to close within four years.
The Council, the Commission and Parliament all regard the fight against unemployment as our number one priority, and rightly so.
Eighteen million people out of work is simply not acceptable.
Experts believe that the travel and tourism sector offers the best chances of creating new jobs over the next ten years, particularly for women and young people.
At the same time, they also conclude that of the tens of millions of new jobs that are expected to be created in tourism worldwide, less than 5 % will be created in the European Union.
This poses two specific questions: firstly, what are the Commission's views on these studies, and is it prepared to try to ensure that the reduced VAT rate is applied across the board to all tourism-related activities?
And, secondly, when can we expect the results of the study which the Commission promised six years ago into the impact on employment of the possible abolition of duty- and tax-free sales in intra-European transport in 1999? More and more studies are indicating that tens of thousands of people could lose their jobs, not least in the ferry sector.
Mr President, I very much agree with Mr Cornelissen's remarks about tourism.
They have application both in the area of VAT and also the single currency.
'Jobs R Us' might be the leitmotif of this debate.
For several years many of us have toiled to bring the single currency to fruition in the belief that EMU will help Europe in its search for jobs for its people.
No one has been more single-minded about the single currency than Mr Lamfalussy.
For Europe he has been the right man in the right place at the right time and we all wish him well in leaving the European Monetary Institute presidency.
I well remember our interviewing him for the job and his declaration that EMU would not succeed if it left millions of Europeans without decent jobs in its wake.
Indeed, in his annual EMI report, the President berates the EU and its agents for failing to create the conditions for jobs to be manufactured.
Now, as some sceptical voices brand EMU responsible for job losses, it is time to spit out some home truths from abroad about EMU.
Firstly, it should be no surprise to us that right-wing governments in Europe are being thrown out by the people for failing to respond to the jobs crisis.
Alain Juppé's myopic deflationary policies were mad in themselves but also a misapplication of the Maastricht Treaty.
Jacques Delors has recently reminded us that full implementation of all policies available in the Treaty would have created a people's Europe.
Economic criteria, like concern for levels of investment, jobs and productivity have been ignored but they were always as important as the five monetarist criteria.
Those criteria - especially the public debt and budget deficit litmus test - have themselves been subject to wilful misinterpretation.
When will some commentators get it into their heads that flexibility of interpretation, pejoratively termed 'fudge' , is already, and wisely, built into the existing criteria.
You cannot have your fudge cake and eat it by denying such inherent flexibility in the Treaty.
We cannot be responsible for the Theo Waigels of the world who would declare 3 % to be 3.000 % and get hoist by their own petard when their deficit is forecast to overshoot by 0.2 %.
Similarly, the stability pact must be given its full title.
It is a growth and stability pact, requiring a proper policy mix of fiscal and monetary instruments to enhance the job-generating powers of EMU.
Vigorous and purposeful implementation of the Delors White Paper would have provided the kind of growth and impetus which would have matched the drive towards debt prudence.
It is no surprise that the new kids on the EMU block are going along with the Delors vision.
The new French Government wants a growth and stability pact and a federal bank which fulfils political aims and objectives of high employment and increasing prosperity for Europe's people.
So does Gordon Brown, the new British Chancellor of the Exchequer, who would agree with us that 'Jobs R Us' is the cry for Europe.
Mr President, Mr Lamfalussy, in the long run you cannot spend more than you earn.
Families that go on spending more than they earn, lose spending power; in businesses jobs are put at risk and lost if, in the long term, they spend more than they make, and the same, of course, applies to States if, in the long term, they spend more than they take in.
Anyone can lose credibility in that way, and we have in the past seen crises which have shown that all citizens then lose their assets and enormous numbers of jobs are lost.
That is why the Stability Pact is so important.
We have to try to establish sound finances, as they are, when all is said and done, the best foundation for the internal market.
The roof is build out of the single currency.
Our finances are in the end critical to our ability to compete, including with States outside the European Union.
That is why we need to take a very close look at the harmonized taxes.
This House has already made a preliminary assessment of what the subsequent costs will be.
It is very important in relation to VAT harmonization also, to consider what the costs will be to the State, to citizens and to businesses.
My second point concerns lean management.
I think it absolutely vital that those concerned are involved in the harmonization process.
99.8 % of businesses in the European Union have less than 250 employees.
I think that we have to ensure that, for individuals, the taxation system is as simple and easy to understand as possible.
My third and final point concerns bench marks.
In the same way as the convergence criteria provide useful bench marks, we need to have that same system for taxation, and indeed to have an improved version that can be applied when decisions are taken in the future also.
Mr President, may I start by thanking the rapporteurs for the excellent work they have undertaken in this very important field.
In particular, I am encouraged to see how the role of the European Monetary Institute is shaping up and look forward to seeing the institute become the central bank.
One thing I would like to comment on are the obvious problems that we are finding with the economic and political developments in Germany and France.
Both of those electorates clearly are somewhat concerned at the budgetary measures and steps being taken by their respective governments in trying to meet the Maastricht criteria required for European monetary union.
In France that has manifested itself in a changing government, where the emphasis now will shift to jobs, prosperity and employment and away from the type of budget-cutting that we have seen in the past.
Similarly, in Germany there are problems with the ability of the German economy to move in a way which will help the country meet the 3 % deficit requirement.
Given the changing nature of the view of the electorates in both France and Germany - and indeed the UK since the election - and the emphasis that will be placed on jobs, growth and employment rather than on budget-cutting, the position has altered to the extent that there should be a review in the Maastricht timetable.
I say that with regret because I am a keen enthusiast of monetary union and would have liked to see it go ahead on time but the positions of the German and French governments will be such that if a Euro is created on 1 January 1999 it will be a soft Euro and very quickly come under attack from the currency markets.
I want to see an emphasis on growth and genuine stability and if we go ahead on 1 January 1999 we will not see stability and growth may be hindered.
I want to thank Mr Fourçans for his report and to refer to his report in particular as a good basis for a strategy on the whole question of the harmonization of tax in line, of course, with economic convergence in future years.
We should remember that the internal market has only just been completed.
We should recognize that a considerable degree of economic convergence has already been achieved between the richer and poorer parts of the European Union.
Yet we still have a wide degree of variation between the economic performance of the Member States, and indeed the traditions of government management of the economies.
We should not jump to any rash conclusions about the need for the harmonization of tax in order to create equality of competition.
We should also remember that whatever laws or whatever rules we make will apply to an enlarged Community where economic convergence will be much less than what it is today.
The report is therefore a good basis for consideration but we must not do anything rash until we see properly how the Single Market with freedom of movement for people and money interacts with taxation policy and fair competition.
In relation to some countries, I have heard it said that the manufacturing profits tax imposed by the Irish Government on manufacturing industry distorts competition.
Yet I would like to point out here that when you consider the high rates of personal taxation, when you consider the social welfare system, when you consider the high rates of taxation on transport, you will find that the government is wiping out with some policies concessions that it gives to others and, in fact, competition is not at all distorted.
It will take a number of years before we know what is actually happening.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to congratulate Mr Lamfalussy, the committee and the rapporteurs.
The reports before us indicate that we are making considerable progress towards achieving economic and monetary union.
A number of major political events have recently intervened in the final phase of preparations, and in a democracy it is logical and advisable to take account of such signals from the public.
If we fail to do so, we shall simply undermine Europe's credibility further still.
What is currently happening with the stability pact is supported not just by France, but by Parliament and Parliament's largest political group.
It is not true, Mrs Peijs, that those who want the stability pact to have a proactive growth component are trying to derail public finances.
For us there is no contradiction.
We want compliance with the stability pact and the budget criteria, but the name of the pact is actually the pact for stability and growth, and the growth aspect also needs to be given attention.
Proactive measures can take various forms.
Monetary policy in the stricter sense can be tailored towards employment as well as inflation.
The White Paper can be implemented in full, alongside the Member States' own labour market policies and in addition to a different, alternative form of taxation system to produce lower social taxes.
So we are in favour of the timing of the euro and we also wish to see compliance with the letter and spirit of the convergence criteria.
This does not mean 3.0 for a country such as France with a debt ratio of less than 60 %, and there needs to be room for some discussion on this point.
We support an independent European Central Bank, but with democratic supervision by Parliament and a kind of economic government by the Council.
So what we favour is a twin-track approach.
First, prove that we are right to be confident about the exact timing for the introduction of EMU and, secondly, introduce a procedure for expanding the stability pact.
Mr President, I will not bother congratulating Mr Lamfalussy and the Commission because I think they have had enough for one morning.
I should like to speak on the report on VAT.
Value added tax is probably the only true European tax.
It is also the tax which touches the lives of every European citizen.
This tax, though, does not come without its problems.
There are problems of differential rates in the various Member States; there are problems of implementation of the tax; there are problems on the collection of the tax.
All these problems and differences expose numerous loopholes.
It is the exploitation of these loopholes which is responsible for the massive fraud which is occurring within the European Union today.
It is therefore imperative that any system of VAT which we adopt must be able to tackle the problem of fraud.
That is why the Socialist Group calls for a common system of VAT which is simple, transparent and above all, easily monitored.
A VAT system based on taxation in the country of origin would seem to be the best method available to reduce the scope for fraud.
The goal of the single European market is one which this Parliament is striving to achieve, but that also brings forward problems in the harmonization of taxation.
In the field of value added tax this, on the face of it, would create innumerable problems.
Cultural differences have led to different rates on the same items in different Member States.
So, should we harmonize all levels of VAT? I believe that is not necessary.
As my colleague, Mrs Randzio-Plath, said, harmonization should only occur where it is necessary and can be effective.
As I said at the beginning of this speech, VAT touches the lives of every European citizen.
Therefore the system we adopt has to be simple, fair and effective.
If it is not then we run the risk of alienating the citizens of Europe.
Without the people's support we are no longer a Union.
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to speak in this very interesting debate to refer to various questions and in particular the uncertainty that prevails in the European Union and is reflected in public opinion and the front pages of today's newspapers.
First of all, uncertainty over the fulfilment of the convergence criteria in particular by the two central countries: Germany and France.
Secondly, uncertainty over the possible postponement of entry into effect of Monetary Union, due to the previous question.
Thirdly, uncertainty over approval and the functioning and effective application of the stability plan.
Fourthly, uncertainty over compatibility between the logic of Monetary Union and the strategy to boost growth and employment.
Uncertainty or argument that can be handled in different ways.
Given all these uncertainties, I think, Commissioner and Mr Lamfalussy, that we must urgently send European public opinion and society a clear political message.
First of all, that message must assert that Monetary Union will be achieved in accordance with the set timetable.
In order to meet that aim, we must assess fulfilment of the Maastricht criteria using the flexibility foreseen in the Treaty and that has to be done at once.
Secondly, we must affirm that Monetary Union will be accompanied by a coordination of economic policy between the Member States, with growth and job creation as the main objective.
This strategy in favour of employment not only is not in contradiction with the logic of Monetary Union but, on the contrary, is precisely in the framework of the single currency where we shall achieve the vital level of autonomy to develop a European policy to boost growth and create jobs.
Active growth policies that are currently coming up against serious limits in each Member State could be developed instead in the Union, by means of a common monetary policy.
We must approve the instrument of a stable single currency, with low interest rates and less conditioning in respect of the external sector than that encountered at present by each of the currencies due to join the euro, in order to set in motion a European growth initiative.
I would like finally to refer to the question of the flexibility of the labour market and our economies, a flexibility that often - this morning too - is considered to be the only requisite for growth.
Our economies - it must be said - under the imperatives of the single market and fiscal consolidation - have achieved a highly appreciable level of flexibility during this decade.
We are still far off the flexibility levels of Singapore, Thailand or the United States, but we enjoy a very high degree of flexibility by European standards, by the standards that are acceptable to our public opinions.
These public opinions, bearing the sacrifices imposed by that flexibility, must be sent an urgent and positive message of hope, of confidence that Monetary Union will also make faster economic growth and more jobs possible.
Mr President, I do not wish to hold up the sitting, so I would just like to ask the Commissioner if he will answer my two specific questions in writing?
Yes, I will.
Ladies and gentlemen, before I ask Mr President Lamfalussy to speak to conclude this debate, I think I am expressing the feelings of the majority of Members in this House, especially since this is the last time Mr Lamfalussy will be appearing here in this capacity in this Chamber, I should like in paying our sincerest, warmest tribute to him for the way he has collaborated with this Parliament and for giving us the benefit of his knowledge...
for his meticulousness and his personal qualities.
Mr President Lamfalussy, please accept the warmest wishes of the European Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot answer all of the questions that I have been asked but I shall try to answer the basic question underlying your debate.
How can monetary policy meet ordinary people's expectations? What can it not achieve and what should it not therefore promise?
The first aim that monetary policy has achieved is controlling inflation.
That is a laudable direct aim: it must not be forgotten that inflation has always been behind most unfairness and inequalities.
We are beginning to forget that now because we are fortunately coming out of a period of inflation.
It should not, however, be forgotten that in periods of inflation the powerful and the rich can protect themselves against the ravages of inflation.
It is the weak and the have-nots who cannot protect themselves from it.
That is, in other words, a social aim that ought to be clearly put on the table.
Once inflation has been brought under control, monetary policy can contribute to economic growth.
It can contribute to it by bringing down short term interest rates.
It has the means and the possibilities and has already done so.
I only need remind you of the figures: in countries where inflation has now been under control for several years, short term interest rates are now around 3 %; in countries where the control of inflation is more recent short term interest rates are still a little higher, but are on the way down.
In six months to two years that will undoubtedly have an effect on growth.
On the other hand, monetary policy cannot bring down long term interest rates.
That has to be made quite clear.
I am particularly concerned with this: whereas long term interest rates, even in countries where short term interest rates are already very low, are relatively low, historically speaking, i.e. around 5.75 % to 6 %, real long term interest rates are still high, around 4 %.
That poses a real problem.
I do not think that those levels can be influenced by monetary policy.
The reasons for this situation lie elsewhere, I think.
Some people may fear that the euro will not be properly run: but that is not the fundamental explanation.
I think that the fundamental explanation lies in two figures: between 1991 and 1996 public debt went up from 56 % to 73.5 % of GDP.
There is no doubt that this huge increase has an effect on real long term interest rates and puts a brake on growth.
In other words, monetary policy can influence growth but not without the help of budgetary policies.
What can it do to help employment? In that unemployment is due to anaemic growth, monetary policy can help within the limits that I have just indicated.
In that unemployment is due to structural factors, without a lot to do with growth, it can have no direct influence.
I rarely refer to particular countries, but allow me to mention my own: Belgium.
Belgium and the Netherlands have been pursuing virtually identical monetary policies for six or seven years and very similar policies for a very long time.
Yet the two countries' unemployment figures are quite different: 9.5 % in Belgium and 6 % in the Netherlands.
Monetary policy cannot be held responsible for that difference.
We have to realise that.
I think that the resorption of that part of unemployment - nothing to do with weak growth but the largest part - has to do with the implementation of other policies, namely structural policies, labour market flexibility and policies concerning indirect contributions that affect labour costs.
That policy can be pursued at European level.
I think that the coordination of policies, as precisely and correctly described by Commissioner de Silguy, can be pursued at European level - but do not raise expectations that monetary policy cannot meet!
(Loud applause)
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in the block voting time that will commence immediately.
VOTES
Mr President, I think that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten should speak and then I shall answer her, if you will allow.
Mr President, it was agreed in committee that something should be added to my original amendment, but unfortunately this has not been done.
It was simply forgotten.
The words 'stricter legislation concerning' should be added, otherwise the amendment does not make sense.
Mr President, yes, I would agree to this oral amendment, if the European Parliament agrees because this Group is always in favour of measures to look after people's health and well-being.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I should like to ask for clarification.
It has now been said at several points in the German interpretation in relation to confirming the vote that you will be holding a roll call vote.
I think that either that has to be corrected in the German or that you have on several occasions said that there will be a roll call instead of an electronic vote.
Could you please sort this out because we do not have roll call votes in these circumstances.
But if there really is to be a roll call vote, you should make that clear.
As I said I do not know whether this is just a problem with the German interpretation or whether that is what all of the interpreters have said.
Mr Friedrich, I hope that the problem occurred only with the German vote, because when I announce a vote I always make sure that I say exactly which vote it is.
Mr President, we have a further problem with the vote on Paragraph 15. It had been agreed with the rapporteur that it was not strictly necessary to create a new political body here and that this task could be taken over by the existing bodies.
That was what was agreed, and it was also the rapporteur's suggestion.
We therefore ought - and I apologize for only now realizing this - to have voted separately on the word 'new' in Paragraph 15.
As Mr Friedrich has pointed out, we did not even know that it was a roll call vote.
I have to say that I too have some problems with the interpretation from the Greek.
My own Greek is not so very fluent, Mr President, but I am doing my best.
This is a very important political issue.
I would vote against this report if we cannot reach agreement on it.
I would also call on my friends to vote against the Fourçans report, although this distresses me greatly when I think about my friend, Mr Fourçans. I would therefore suggest that the rapporteur be given the floor again.
Mr von Wagau, first of all let me say that after all of the discussions there is one corrigendum published to the Fourçans report, namely where the word 'new' occurs.
It has therefore been put to the vote with the word 'new' .
Secondly, the rapporteur has been at pains to frame all of the points on which discussion led to a conclusion and in each case I pointed out where the addition or other change occurred, for the vote, either roll call or electronic.
So I do not think there has been a problem at all, and I think that you know what you are voting on.
Mr President, to save the honour of the Sittings service, I shall explain matters.
As a result of yesterday's negotiations, there was a corrigendum in which the word 'new' was deleted.
But the majority voted against it.
I have no idea why.
A vote was then taken on the original text.
If you look at your papers you will see that Paragraph 15 contains the word 'new' .
If we could agree that the word 'new' should be deleted and the necessary correction made, then we would be happy with that.
Mr von Wogau, as you are aware, the word 'new' does not appear.
There is a corrigendum, which is not being voted on, of course, in which the word 'new' is absent.
You need not worry.
Before the final vote
Mr President, in the light of Mr von Wogau's remarks, I think that we should clear the matter up before the final vote.
Paragraph 15 of the report submitted to the committee, i.e. the one adopted on 22 May and the subject of the written report, contained the word 'new' .
In any case, it is included in the written report.
Did the text adopted by the committee include it or not?
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, it has already been made clear that the word 'new' does not appear.
That is how the report has been approved thus far and how it will be approved finally if you vote for it.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, this new directive on TV broadcasting activities contains some positive aspects, especially since, in the field of subsidiarity, it acknowledges the fundamental responsibility of the Member States and their legal competence.
On the other hand, on the question of the protection of minors, there is a clearly defined concern to work in conjunction with parents, through their representatives in associations and educators of all kinds, and to see how they can filter programmes that might be harmful to children, in particular thanks to technical mechanisms.
Another positive aspect concerns the condemnation of pornography.
On the other hand, this new directive sins by omission on some basic points.
It is not of much use to reaffirm the desire or the intention to encourage European productions unless the necessary measures are taken to ensure European producers the possibility of producing and broadcasting.
The fact that a freedom is proclaimed in abstract, without ensuring the means, and in particular the financial and economic means, is virtually tantamount to hypocrisy.
Nobody want quotas as an absolute but it is, as they say in mathematical logic, a necessary but insufficient condition.
It is not enough to have quotas to have good European productions but it is an absolutely necessary condition.
Unfortunately, this revision of the Television without frontiers Directive does not contain any provisions on quotas, and it is therefore the ideology of a materialistic concept of the market that wins the day.
That is not, however, the only concept of the market.
We are all in favour of the market as a necessary economic phenomenon for dynamism, without its being an absolute.
In this area, as in others, this has unfortunately not been taken into account.
Here we are faced with the joint draft text adopted by the Conciliation Committee on updating the Television without frontiers directive.
At previous votes, the European Parliament was the target of unjustified criticism by certain private operators, accusing it of being protectionist.
I wish to pay tribute to the European Parliament's work and that of its negotiators, who have managed to obtain a compromise acceptable to everyone at the Conciliation Committee.
On the three aspects that we classified as priorities (non-encrypted access to major events, anti-violence chips and independent producers), I think that the first one is of crucial importance.
Where the broadcasting of sporting events or other major events is concerned, what would have been the logic of granting exclusive broadcasting rights to given operators, preventing thousands of people from sharing their enjoyment? Let us take the examples of the Olympics or the World Cup, which have millions of spectators.
I think it would have been harmful to grant broadcasting monopolies, for the sake of commercial and financial interest.
Our Parliament took a wise decision.
It must now be taken up by the Governments.
I am delighted to support this conciliation agreement today.
As a keen sports fan myself, I am relieved that major national sporting events will still be available to the public on regular television channels.
Each of our countries has certain sports events which are more than just competitions between teams or athletes.
They are an important part of popular culture and should be enjoyed by the nation as a whole.
Although these negotiations with the Council of Ministers have dragged on for some time, the result is a victory for all sports fans.
My own country is making sure that our football cup final, cricket internationals and tennis from Wimbledon are available to the general public.
I am tempted to ask if the Council could guarantee my favourite teams and players a place in these finals, but for the moment I am satisfied with the minor miracle which this compromise represents.
Millions of sports fans can feel that they have won the cup today.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats welcome the fact that European citizens, through their complaints to the Committee on Petitions, have helped to put important issues on the EU agenda.
Amongst other things, we are very happy that animal transport and human rights have been taken up in the committee.
It is also a positive development that EU citizens have begun to make use of the Ombudsman, who has proved to be particularly effective in dealing with cases.
Díez de Rivera Icaza report (A4-0183/97)
Mr President, I am delighted that the Díez de Rivera Icaza report has been adopted, and particularly paragraphs 29-31 relating to the very serious problem of aircraft noise.
As the Member who represents one of the largest parts of London, near to Heathrow Airport and affected by the noise created by that airport, I am very pleased indeed.
I am, in fact, president of a consortium of local, municipal authorities who are concerned about the noise issue.
At the moment there is a public enquiry into the expansion of Heathrow Airport to almost twice its present size.
The issue of noise is a very important consideration in that respect.
The European Commission has done much over the years to create quieter aircraft but that is going to be undermined if we allow even more aircraft to fly, particularly outside daylight hours.
During the night, when other noises are minimal and people are trying to sleep, even the quietest aircraft produce a disturbing amount of noise.
There is new scientific evidence to suggest that public health is much affected by this.
So I am delighted that these paragraphs have been adopted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, initially the Commission planned to introduce a regulation against noise.
Aware of the harm done by noise to the health of millions of Europeans, it seemed to want to take specific, practical and robust measures.
It seems now that we must now be content with a Green Paper, which should make it possible to hold a major debate on noise: a lots of 'ifs' for little effectiveness.
That is to be regretted.
Public debate is all very well, but it should lead to the introduction of binding Community provisions.
It is no longer acceptable that Community policy should neglect anti-noise policy and I am sure the Commission is aware of that.
We live in a noisy society and it is for the authorities to limit noise sources, and the intensity of noise emitted.
It is a public health problem.
As the rapporteur stressed, the main sources of noise must be ascertained and aims and guidelines must be worked out. We must then apply common assessment methods and determine common indices for noise sources, before contemplating common legislation.
The European Union should no longer accept that 70 % of its population is subjected to unacceptable levels of noise pollution.
We are ready to discuss that!
But we must above all take efficient, swift measures, aimed solely at protecting public health.
I must congratulate Mrs Díez de Rivera on her serious, high quality piece of work.
- The overwhelming majority vote just obtained in this House in favour of anti-noise legislation confirms what my report says and what was said at the heated debated last Monday.
It distinctly emerges that the citizens demand a clear legislative policy to this effect which sets objectives and options for priority actions for reducing intolerable noise levels.
Annex III to my report includes two letters from Juan Ramón Jiménez against noise, which I think are a treat, expressing this same concern about noise back in 1919...
For all the above reasons I do not doubt that the Commission, buoyed up by this voting, will be able to provide a global and coordinated response to the request we are all making.
Finally, I should like to express my thanks for the cooperation I have received from everyone, especially from Mrs Graenitz, who stood in for me so well during my illness.
The concerns expressed about budgetary intervention are quite understandable when, with the single currency, countries will cease to be able to intervene in monetary and exchange procedures.
But such intervention is very limited, since national budgetary deficits are not allowed to exceed 3 % of GDP - we are hoping to keep to the Stability Pact - and since it is neither convenient nor easy to increase taxes.
The rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, rightly points out the need for greather harmonization in this matter, especially as regards the taxation of company savings and profits to avoid fiscal dumping, which above all exacerbates the already widespread tendency to tax work carried out for other persons.
But on the other hand curtailing participation in the national budget requires that, contrary to what some people are still maintaining, the Union Budget should exceed 1.2 % of GDP, so that in particular it is able to give greater support to countries which are lagging behind in structural terms.
We must always have budgetary stringency, but that is not to say that a shortsighted approach should pose a threat to a project which will be decisive for the success of our collective metarmorphosis.
The report contains many good addenda and specific points for the Commission's important Green Paper on combating noise.
This is why we are supporting the report in the final vote.
But we cannot support points E, 1, 11, 12, 15, 22, 23, and 30.
These points advocate European framework legislation for an area which we most definitely consider should be subject to the principle of subsidiarity.
Mezzaroma report (A4-0194/97)
As this report is based on the fact that economic and monetary union will come about and also supports this project, we have abstained in the final vote on the report.
Should EMU come into being, of course we would want democratic control of the European Central Bank to be as strong as possible.
But the most appropriate course of action is for national parliaments to have democratic control over monetary policy via their elected representatives.
While the economic convergence criteria are a major topic of discussion within the European Union, at the end of the day a political judgement must be made.
The gold revaluation dispute and the results of the election in France should not cause the next phase of EMU to be delayed.
A delay resulting from the French Government's insistence on renegotiating or reviewing the Stability Pact rules could change the political atmosphere and this would not be good for Europe.
I believe that this would result in instability.
This House must call on the heads of state to make a clear and unequivocal statement at the Amsterdam Summit and insist on proceeding as planned to the single currency on 1 January 1999.
Europe has too much to lose by not complying with the conditions and the approach as laid down by Maastricht.
The benefits of EMU are obvious.
Ettl report (A4-0185/97)
As this report is also based on the fact that economic and monetary union will come about and it supports this project, we have abstained in the final vote on the report.
Should EMU come into being, we would of course want the European Central Bank to be as open as possible in its activities.
But it is important to stress that subsidiarity must prevail by permitting national parliaments to exercise democratic control over their own respective National Banks so that monetary policy can be democratically controlled.
The report contains some positive features in its assessment of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the European Monetary Institute (EMI) and the activities of the European Central Bank, such as the view that it is necessary to develop democratic supervision for the Central Bank.
A shortcoming of the report is its almost complete failure to touch on the issue of boosting employment.
It is not possible to reduce the present high unemployment simply by monetary and economic mechanisms, and there is a need for an active finance policy, i.e. the more effective use of taxation and public forms of subsidy to promote employment.
The stability and growth pact described in connection with EMU should also be examined from the point of view of promoting employment.
In the debate on the EU's economic policy, Parliament in particular should prioritize employment and the elimination of social exclusion.
The reports under discussion here are notably on the issue of employment.
For these reasons, I voted against adoption of the report.
Fourçans report (A4-0192/97)
Mr President, I suppose we will have to pay Commissioners overtime so that they can stay.
As of 2002, the single currency will get rid of the budgetary shock-absorber, i.e. the monetary sluice-gates that enable different economies to rise to different levels.
The only adaptation variable will, of course, be the budgetary variable and taxation in particular.
Only, a single currency will make the differences of taxation pressures between States more sensitive and will favour relocations.
I offer the example of what has happened to national rights: in Spain, for example, when the Basque Country lowered company tax rates, companies left Madrid for Bilbao.
The same thing happened in France, over the Marne department car tax.
The only way of avoiding injustice between, for example, ' relocatable' capital income and other revenues would be to plan for a European fiscal constitution adding at least a fifth criterion, providing for a ceiling on compulsory levies for all fifteen counties, a ceiling that might be set at, for example, an average of 40 % of GDP.
That would then avoid having too many distortions.
As this report is also based on the fact that economic and monetary union will come about and it supports this project, we have abstained in the final vote on the report.
Above all, we take particular exception to point 15 in the report proposal.
It proposes that 'a political body with considerable economic powers' be established with a view to developing a 'real combination of different political and economic instruments and the establishment of a mechanism for achieving standardisation' .
We cannot support in any way whatsoever such political centralisation.
Point 16 of the report proposal also proposes that the European Parliament establish a 'committee of economic advisers' .
There are plenty of acknowledged experts whom Members of Parliament can consult for advice without establishing new committees and bodies. Unfortunately there are already too many of these within EU institutions.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for his work in producing a good report.
But we could not support points 7 and 15 at the vote.
Point 7 would involve the use of totally subjective criteria for the control of budgetary discipline.
The implementation of working in such a way would seriously threaten the stability of the single currency and in so doing also threaten opportunities for growth and employment.
We think that a single currency is very important for growth and employment but there is a requirement that those countries who participate in the currency union should also contribute to a strong and stable single currency.
As far as point 15 is concerned, we think that the rapporteur's basis for a new political body in relation to EMU is a legal one in view of the need for increased democratic control.
But we do not consider that the model proposed in point 15 will satisfy this need.
The Fourçans report on the coordination of budgetary and taxation policies in the future single currency system shows very well, albeit involuntarily, the impasse in which Europe finds itself.
Given economic uncertainties, countries will have their national abilities to make responses to given situations greatly reduced, and there will be nothing at European level to take over that responsibility.
Imbalances therefore are likely to grow more easily.
The European Union would then enter a zone of profound upheaval, if we judge correctly.
Let us explain ourselves.
In any economic area, a country can be hit by a particular economic accident, such as the bankruptcy of a major industry, very serious social unrest, etc. What economist call 'asymmetrical shocks' .
To remedy those situations, countries have several weapons at their disposal: monetary policy, exchange rate policy, budgetary policy, for example.
But under the future system of the single currency, these national instruments will disappear or see their effectiveness reduced; internal changes will no longer be flexible but fixed by definition; interest rate policy will be unified; budgetary room for manoeuvre will be confined within tight limits by the stability pact; taxes can no longer be raised sharply, as the single market will prevail; more generally, economic policies will be coordinated and subordinated to Community aims, in accordance with Articles 102A and 103 of the Treaty.
In such a hypothesis, theory teaches us that the country facing the imbalance should be able to find help from a central European budget.
But that barely exists at present and the Fourçans report acknowledges the fact that we should not dream in the immediate future of setting up budgetary and taxation federalism in Europe.
Not only are people opposed to it, but in any case even if nobody opposed it, such an upheaval, which would call for most taxation levers in our countries to be harmonized and very substantial European levies to be raised, would not be possible in the short term.
This impasse is all the more worrying since the 'asymmetrical shocks' are not exceptional phenomena or marginal ones as we have heard some people in this Chamber pretend.
In reality, when you have countries and societies with different economies, they never evolve in an exactly parallel fashion.
Their relations are marked by asymmetrical 'slides' , constantly moving, that so far have been readjusted gently by equal slides in monetary parities.
This brings us back to the fundamental question: the usefulness of several different currencies when there are several different peoples.
Finally, it appears that the countries of Europe, propelled by ideologues, had rushed headlong into the adventure of the single currency, without first of all checking to see whether all the conditions were met and whether they actually had the vital instruments needed to see it through.
We are now practically up against the wall.
Is there a way out, enabling us to go further down the same line to accelerated unification? I do not think so.
If we wanted to go down it, we would have to propose to our people, in no uncertain terms, radical constitutional changes that nobody wants, really.
The Fourçans report tries to evoke the possibility of setting up at European level a political body comprising representatives of all the Member States, subjected to solid democratic controls and that would play the role of coordinating national economic policies.
We can see hints here of the famous 'economic government of Europe' which, in the current disarray of minds, serves as a lifebuoy for right and left alike.
Unfortunately, this idea leads nowhere because if that 'government' wants to be anything other than a talking shop, it needs strong and specific powers; yet those powers could only be granted if we carried out radical constitutional reforms, which as we saw earlier are impossible.
We are in a Catch-22 situation.
The only solution is to abandon the single currency and take a more progressive approach, a more reasonable approach, tailored to the real situation. For example the single currency could be superimposed on the national currencies, which would enable the people to learn about it gradually.
This report deals, inter alia , with the consequences, at the level of fiscal policy, of the adoption of the single currency.
From that point of view the clarity and coherence of this document are to be congratulated.
As may be clearly seen, if there is to be a single European economy, it needs, in addition to a single monetary policy, single budgetary and fiscal policies.
The question, as this report rightly stresses, is to know who defines the objectives and implements the instruments of fiscal policy within the area of the European Union.
According to the author of this document that could only be the economic governor of Europe, whose president is independent of the Member States with a mandate outstripping the Presidency of the Union.
Such a governor would then naturally become the political governor of Europe.
Since I still have doubts about real convergence of the economies of each of the States, I cannot subscribe to the premises and proposals contained in this report.
Giving up fiscal sovereignty is tantamount to saying that the smaller, more peripheral States of the Union will no longer have available an important instrument for attracting investment, wealth, companies and job creation.
The lack or inadequacy of infrastructures, the inability - due to various factors - to attract investment and lagging technology, as seen in the smaller, poorer economies of some States, can be overcome only by retaining fiscal sovereignty.
A single fiscal policy would at the moment and in this context have the effect of preserving the lack of competitiveness both on the internal market and on the external market.
I do not think that is right in these circumstances, which is why I cannot vote for the content of this report.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats voted for the Fourçans report today.
The Danish Social Democrats agree with the rapporteur that there is a need for a certain coordination of budgetary and fiscal policy in the EU.
We also strongly agree that tax exemptions and social dumping in some Member States represent a very serious problem.
We hereby call upon Ireland and other Member States to which this may be relevant to drop tax schemes that are advantageous to firms but unfair to the other Member States.
The Danish Social Democrats favour very wide-ranging exchanges of information and coordination of initiatives between the Member States.
First and foremost, to promote employment.
However, we do not agree with the rapporteur that the proper functioning of Economic and Monetary Union at the third stage requires a new political body with considerable economic powers.
We think that ECOFIN is an excellent and adequate forum for the cooperation that is needed.
. (DA) The People's Movement against Membership of the European Union, which I represent, cannot support this report.
Since the preconditions for the introduction of EMU are not in place, it is clear that EMU is primarily a political project.
Approximation of budgetary and fiscal policy should have taken place in a natural way and prior to the introduction of EMU, if it were in any way to prove necessary or desirable.
Instead of this, attempts are being made to introduce harmonizations through the back door, thereby undermining the last vestiges of an independent economic policy in the Member States.
The reference in the report to asymmetrical crises should automatically trigger a reflection on the warnings which American economists have sounded.
Since the Member State labour markets are not wage-flexible, it will put disproportionately heavy pressure on general EMU policy if individual Member States run into difficulties.
This will undermine the credibility of EMU and may invalidate all the claimed advantages of a common currency and approximated budgetary and fiscal policy.
The report is contradictory on several points.
The introduction states that the single currency as such will not influence taxation policy.
Further on in the text it says the opposite, that tax competition and tax dumping will force a 'code of conduct' into being, in other words that countries will undertake not to introduce taxation policies which are in conflict with the 'interests of the Union' , or alternatively will lead to tax harmonisation.
There is mention of common taxation on capital, companies and border trade.
The Centre group thinks that tax policy should continue to be a national matter.
For this reason, I have voted against the report.
. (DA) The June Movement votes against the monetary dictatorship of the Maastricht Treaty and has therefore supported a number of amendments which offer scope for more economic remedies and for action on employment.
However, that does not mean we want to be a party to any transfer of economic policy instruments from the Member States to the EU.
For the participants in the single currency the commencement of the third stage of economic and monetary union will mean handing over sensitive sectors of economic policy to the European Union and the European System of Central Banks.
The stability pact, which will serve as the main policy instrument, will be used by the big financial interests which control the policy choices of Brussels as a vehicle for stepping up their demands.
The concept of national government as an institution vested with executive power will effectively vanish, and the national parliaments will, in essence, lose their competence in these matters.
The situation will not be all that different for the countries 'with a derogation' .
The strengthening of multilateral supervision and the intensity of the pressures to adjust to the convergence criteria and to avoid public deficits will render any notion of national competence on budgetary policy meaningless.
As the time nears for commencement of the third stage and as the technical preparations are stepped up, so the situation that is being prepared for us looms ever more abhorrent.
It is no coincidence that the clamour of indignation against Maastricht is increasing by the day and that in the face of growing working class anger political forces other than the communists are using slogans which distance them from the economic and monetary union provided for in the Maastricht Treaty: that they are trying to tinker with the provisions, talking about introducing a social element into convergence and maintaining that nominal objectives cannot by themselves achieve growth and that measures to support workers are also necessary.
Of course, they have not yet gone as far as to propose that the intergovernmental conference that is now completing its work should amend the provisions concerned. Nor do they dissent from the fundamental principles and logic of the Maastricht Treaty.
Our demand for the rejection of Maastricht is being shown to have been right.
It is manifestly obvious that chasing after nominal convergence criteria cannot provide solutions for the problems of working people and society.
It can only exacerbate them, as the facts of the situation are showing.
We do not think that any of the individual solutions proposed by the rapporteur, such as allowing Member States leeway to tackle significant exceptional circumstances or permitting a European derogation from the Maastricht and stability pact indicators, or establishing some form of coordination of taxation policies within those frameworks, can work at a time when the very concept of independent economic policy based on response to particular situations as they arise and on the choices of the peoples and governments of the Member States has to all intents and purposes been rendered meaningless.
We disagree totally with the rapporteur's proposals for a form of 'economic government' The institutional edifice of the EU has no need of new political bodies or of any strengthening of the Commission's information-gathering powers.
Such measures are aimed only at polishing up the image of the EU and at deflecting the anxieties of the people about the transfer of economic and political authority to certain opaque and remote bureaucratic mechanisms over which they will have no control.
In our opinion a better future can come only through total rejection of the institutional framework of economic and monetary union, of the brutal monetarist policy that it imposes, and adoption of another perception on economic growth that can combine recovery with improvement of the position of working people and widening of their rights.
The message from the people encapsulated in the recent French elections, the escalating anger of the citizens and the steadfast struggle of the workers and trades union movement can open the way to destruction of Maastricht and economic and monetary union and to growth based on concern for human beings and their needs.
Randzio Plath report (A4-0164/97)
Mr President, we tried to harmonize VAT and, as Mrs Randzio-Plath herself admits, the result is a disaster.
It is a disaster in terms of the rules, leading to complexity rather than the aim of simplicity, with over 130 derogations, 66 possible options, without counting the different rules for the localisation of operations.
It is also a budgetary disaster, as a result of fraud, in that, since there are no more border controls, fraud by taxi (i.e. false addresses in two countries doing trade) has obviously increased.
The only solution left, it seems, is to compound the mistake by levying VAT in the country of origin, which would call for compensation funds with macro-economic criteria based on GDP.
Excuse me, Mr President, but when you know what the Court of Audit says about GDP calculation in Greece or Portugal, then you can see what disputes there would be between the countries.
The only solution again is the same one as for budgetary policy: establishing another convergence criterion, taking advantage of the IGC.
We must bring about a global harmonization by means of a compulsory levy ceiling and perhaps, if I were proEuropean - which I am not - I would try and think about the free choice of the least taxed geographical avenue, as is already the case for the rich and for capital, since the holders of capital revenue can shop around in Europe in terms of rules and regulations and go wherever they are least heavily taxed, which is not the case for workers.
Now you understand, Mr President, why the rich are so much in favour of Europe.
We think that there is no real need for harmonisation of value added tax for the internal market to function since value added tax does not affect the comparative competitiveness of domestic or imported goods.
We also take strong exception to the two proposals in point 19 of the report proposal.
We think that the principle of unanimity should be applied in the Council of Ministers for all tax matters.
Nor can there be any question of majority decision making being applied to matters of indirect taxation which are raised in the Council of Ministers.
Value added tax is extremely important to the Swedish National Budget.
Sweden is a country which has one of the highest levels of value added tax in the EU.
We simply cannot agree to transfer decision making rights over an issue which is so important to us to the Council of Ministers.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a well prepared report.
We could not support point 19, which concerns majority decision making on tax matters, at the vote.
We think that the Council should, in the main, continue to handle tax matters in accordance with the principle of unanimity.
But we think that common minimum standards for capital tax, company tax and environmental taxes ought to be drawn up and that decisions in the Council concerning these areas ought to be adopted according to the principle of the qualified majority vote.
Mr President, the Randzio-Plath report on the common VAT system invented by the Commission gives hope to all those who think that the madness of certain projects can be halted after all.
The new VAT system being proposed to us is apparently founded on the taxation of goods and services in the country of origin (and not, as at present, in the country of destination), and would treat all European countries as a single domestic market where rates, packages and all other rules would have to be brought into line.
This system would take away national decision-taking autonomy (is it not its main aim?) over a resource as vital for the States as this - since VAT receipts accounts, for example, for half of all French tax revenue.
That loss of autonomy would lead to rates being harmonized regardless of national needs, other than suffering disastrous relocations, and the allocation of revenue no longer in State control.
In fact there would have to be a very rough European share-out mechanism, based not on the real flows of goods and services but on the basis of statistics relating to the countries' GDP.
We are pleased to note that, in a quantum leap of realism, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of the European Parliament considered as 'untimely' the introduction of this new system and urged the Commission to put all its energy into improving the existing system.
It is true that this realism has been stimulated by the negative positions taken by several Member States.
It is also true that it contains certain flaws.
For example, the resolution ends with an appeal for majority decisions at Council, rather than unanimity, in taxation matters.
That rule would have disastrous results as it would put an end to the only serious brake on the Commission's federalist activism.
Another example: the European Parliament's appeal for improving the existing system does not go as far as mentioning why the current system is flawed and riddled with fraud (everyone now recognizes that: it is because, to satisfy the dogma of abolishing internal borders, customs controls have been abolished and replaced by simple voluntary declarations).
We would like to think that between maintaining certain outdated formalities and totally abolishing controls it might have been possible, if we had looked hard enough, to find a compromise version, satisfying the need for a safe taxation system while meeting the legitimate demand for simplification coming from the corporate sector.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the Randzio-Plath report as a whole, but against its proposal that the collection of VAT on commercial transactions should be based on the country-of-origin principle, that VAT-rate differentiation should apply on an EU-wide basis and that majority voting should be introduced in the Council for decision-making on tax issues.
The Danish Social Democrats favour a certain coordination of policy on taxes and duties at EU level but wish to retain powers at national level to decide on VAT questions of key importance.
It should still not be possible to force Member States into taking decisions on tax issues against their will.
For example, it should be for each individual Member State to decide on the level of VAT and on any differentiation in VAT rates.
The Commission has proposed the introduction of a fully integrated VAT system by the year 1999, in which all transactions will be taxed in their country of origin and not, as is currently the case, in the country of consumption.
There are plans for five different draft laws from the Commission in order to implement this common VAT system.
The committee supports the proposal in principle but thinks that we are moving too fast.
The proposal would mean totally harmonised, or in other words common tax rates, which would mean considerable changes and would reduce income from taxation in Sweden.
Tax policy should really be a national issue. I have, therefore, voted against the report.
In explaining my vote against the report on a common system of VAT I wish to express the following points.
It is true that the present transitional system of VAT has functional shortcomings and that it facilitates fraud and non-payment.
It is on those things that efforts to modify the system should be concentrated.
No actions have been taken, however, to stamp out corruption, to make the taxation and scrutinizing authorities more efficient, to tackle tax evasion and to ensure that VAT that is due is paid.
There is never any mention of applying a zero or reduced rate on various items and services with wide public consumption as a means to strengthening the purchasing power of the working classes and of alleviating the impact of the austerity policy.
We dissent from the proposal that the country-of-destination principle should be replaced by the country-of-origin principle in regard to VAT collection.
For many countries such a change would result in revenue loss and have extremely negative repercussions.
Moreover, we think it is logical that as a tax on consumption VAT should be imposed and collected in the country where the consumption takes place.
Some people will say, certainly, that introduction of the country-of-origin principle would be accompanied by introduction of a system of compensation, of a clearing procedure.
We believe, however, that this would complicate the system even further. In addition, there is no guarantee that the principle of the neutrality of the tax would be safeguarded.
One of the main elements of the common system of VAT being examined by the Commission as a possible important simplification is the single-place-of-taxation principle for firms.
In our view that would constitute an interference in direct taxation matters and run counter to the agreements on the avoidance of double taxation of income which the Member States of the European Union have signed on the basis of the OECD's model double taxation agreement.
Specifically, it would run counter to Article 5 of that model which refers to application of the 'permanent establishment' concept.
We are against any attempt to increase VAT rates as a means either to increasing tax revenues or to offsetting revenue losses resulting from measures designed to reduce the insurance contributions of employers.
On the other hand we do believe that reduction of the rates in certain circumstances for the purpose of boosting economic activity and, thus, employment in specific labour intensive undertakings and small and medium-sized businesses is a necessity.
In our opinion a main portion of tax revenue should be provided by progressive direct tax.
Any action aimed at burdening consumption would constitute additional theft of the incomes of working people and violate the fundamental principle which should underpin a taxation system, namely that it should contribute to the redistribution of income.
That is the end of voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Telecommunications and ONP
The next item is the report (A4-0171/97) by Mrs Read, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on interconnection in telecommunications with regard to ensuring universal service and interoperability through application of the principles of open network provision (ONP) (C4-0185/97-95/0207(COD))
Madam President, I am delighted to invite this Chamber to approve the joint text.
Although it looks very short it was arrived at after many hours of patient discussion and negotiation.
I draw your attention particularly to the items where we reached agreement on the financing of universal service, the study concerning the setting-up of a European regulatory authority, an agreement about the settlement of cross-border disputes, the issue of number portability for subscribers, the question of transparency, the basis of costs of interconnection and assistance for new providers seeking to enter the market.
I know that the Commissioner will want to comment on the two statements concerning number portability and the endorsement of the position taken by this Parliament on the voice telephony directive in its first reading and also on the question of to whom the directive applies.
I hope the Commissioner will be able to deal with this in his response.
I must draw the attention of this House to the fact that there is no Council representative here; that should be included in the record.
However the following statement, which applies to number portability, was drawn up by the Council at the conciliation meeting: ' The Council states that it will consider carefully and take into consideration the Commissioner's opinion' .
I know that colleagues who have followed this issue on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy will be aware that many issues might be more logically attended to in different directives and we look forward to the Commission's proposals on an overhaul and review of telecommunications legislation in 1999.
Nevertheless, on interconnections, which are a pivotal part of the creation of the single market and the liberalization programme, it is to the credit of Parliament and its staff - and I would like to thank my colleagues who did so much to support me in this work - and thanks to the cooperation of the Council and the Commission that we have a well thought out, coherent and, I hope, effective piece of legislation.
I request Parliament to approve the joint text.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking all those who have contributed to the successful outcome of the conciliation process, particularly, Mr Imbeni, Vice-President of the European Parliament and co-chair of the Conciliation Committee, Mrs Jorritsma, cochair of the Conciliation Committee, Mr von Wogau, the chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and you, Mrs Read, the rapporteur.
This directive is an important part of the new competition-oriented environment in telecommunications.
New market operators will be able to reach existing end-users in a way that will promote increased investment and market growth in the telecommunications sector, within a predictable and stable regulatory framework.
Organizations that hold a dominant market position will have to offer new market operators access and connection under transparent, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions.
The directive will also guarantee the interconnection and interoperability of networks and services so that users throughout the Union continue to be guaranteed universal availability of telecommunications services.
The result achieved by the Conciliation Committee is very satisfactory and, at the insistence of the European Parliament, the common position has been substantially improved in key areas: firstly, in regard to consideration of the advantages of a European regulatory authority; secondly, the funding of the universal service; thirdly, a cross-border arbitration process; fourthly, a cost-breakdown and cost-based pricing; fifthly, reasonably priced number portability and, sixthly, recommendations from the Commission for the development of a genuinely European market.
As an integral part of the compromise finally reached by the Conciliation Committee and in the interests of clarity, the Commission is making two additional declarations to be included in the protocol to the interconnection directive as finally adopted. Firstly, we have a declaration on Article 7(1): the Commission confirms that Article 7(1) of the interconnection Directive is to be applied to organizations operating the public telecommunications networks and/or publicly available telecommunications services as set out in Parts 1 and 2 of Annex I, which have been notified by national regulatory authorities as having significant market power, and only to those organisations.
The Commission's second declaration refers to the revised directive on 'ONP voice-telephony' .
The Commission has undertaken, when it comes to state its position in the European Parliament's amendments at second reading, to accept the principle of Amendment No 25 to the interconnection directive, but it will carefully consider the implementation of the provisions identified and, in particular, the fact that the new number must be communicated free-of-charge to the user.
In conclusion, the Commission welcomes the achievement of the Conciliation Committee which has enhanced the common position and takes into account the important amendments by the European Parliament at second reading.
The final text boosts the Community aspect of the directive and improves consumer protection.
The Commission therefore urges the European Parliament to accept the compromise text arrived at by the Conciliation Committee so that this important directive can at last be adopted.
Madam President, can I thank the Commissioner but just query one small point in his presentation?
In the Commission statement on Article 7(1) which he read out, the English translation omitted the final phrase.
This is a very important phrase, over which we spent many hours of negotiation, in that it applies to organizations which have been notified by national regulatory authorities as having significant market power.
This is the part that did not come over in the English translation: ' and only to those organizations' .
This is a very crucial phrase.
Can I have an assurance from the Commissioner that it will be in the Minutes, as it is contained in the report that we agreed at the conciliation? It may just have been the translation tailing off.
Madam President, to make things easy, I shall read out the definitive English version of the Commission declaration to avoid problems of translation.
' The Commission confirms that Article 7 paragraph 1 of the Interconnection Directive is to be applied to all organisations operating the public telecommunication networks and/or publicly available telecommunication services as set out in Parts 1 and 2 of Annex I, which have been notified by national regulatory authorities as having significant market power, and only to those organisations.'
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Production and marketing of honey
The next item is the report (A4-0191/97) by Mrs Lulling, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation laying down general rules for the application of measures to improve the production and marketing of honey (COM(96)0596 - C4-0031/97-96/0282(CNS)).
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I was a little uncertain whether or not to speak today because Mrs Lulling has been so skilful, so efficient and so effective in defending this report that I did not want to ruin the work she has done. But as Italy is one of the major honey producers, with its 1, 350, 000 hives, I felt I had a duty to support the requests Mrs Lulling has put forward, especially the economic ones, because that is what is needed to make progress along lines that have long been clearly necessary.
On this point I just want to emphasize - in a Parliament where rural development and development compatible with environmental needs are so much discussed - what a contribution this sector can make in this direction, even if it looks like a marginal sector in quantitative terms.
Mrs Lulling has mentioned the structural features of the sector in her country.
I have to admit that in Italy the active population in this sector is ageing, but there are also new generations appearing, actually linking the sector to agritourism, that is, an agriculture with income from a range of activities, one of which is beekeeping.
These young people need help, especially when they operate in mountain areas.
We know where the aid needs to be directed and how to implement it: the fight against varroasis, the problem of pollination, the problem of technological innovation in the sector.
I invite Parliament to support Mrs Lulling's demands and I invite the Commission to respond positively to them.
Madam President, one minute is not much time, but we are backing Mrs Lulling's amendments.
In 1994, I was the rapporteur for a report on bee-keeping on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and I think, like her, that this sector is of importance for both the economy and the environment: there are around 500, 000 bee-keepers, 13, 000 of them professionals; Spain, Italy, Greece and Portugal are the countries with the most bee-keepers, and 90 % of all pollination is carried out by bees, working on over 80, 000 species of plants.
Without bees, over 20, 000 varieties of plants would disappear. Europe has to make the most of that sector.
We fully agree with Mrs Lulling in respect of the difficulties facing bee-keepers.
I live in a region of industrial and farming decline, and bee-keeping complements those declining activities and greatly helps producers.
We therefore support this pollination premium, support for training, support for bee-keepers' associations and promotion of honey consumption which, I think we all agree, is extremely healthy.
Madam President, if you will forgive the expression, Mrs Lulling's report is definitely 'the bee's knees' and we should be giving it all our support.
Members have already explained how important bee-keeping is in various parts of the EU.
Perhaps one aspect on which Mrs Lulling is especially helpful is the variations in conditions between different parts of the EU.
In northern climes, such as Scotland or Scandinavia, daylight hours and the amount of sunshine are very different from the south and, likewise, the warmth of the sun which means that climatic differences have to be built into the provision of sugar in some cases for the honey.
I have one or two points to make which I think are significant.
Firstly, I definitely support the idea of fifty/fifty funding from the EU which Mrs Lulling puts forward.
This should be matched by the Member State governments.
There is a particular worry about the growth of the varroa disease which can strike and have a catastrophic effect on the bee populations of various parts of Europe.
In Scotland we are immune from this disease at the moment, but we have seen the effects elsewhere.
It is very important that every measure be taken to prevent its spread.
In particular, I hope that the newly elected British Government will at last set up a bee inspectorate in Scotland which is one of the few parts of Europe which does not have inspectors for this purpose.
By and large, I welcome Mrs Lulling's amendments, although I have a word of advice for the Commissioner.
If he intends to reject any of these amendments, I would suggest that he put on his protective clothing.
Otherwise, he will be stung by this Parliament!
Madam President, it is now two years ago - I think it was January 1995 - that the European Parliament unanimously came out in favour of a pollination premium and the Commissioner came out in favour of a compensatory premium to offset loss of income due to the absence of Community preference.
But even when we were unanimous, our demands fell on deaf ears.
For mysterious reasons, the Commission does not like bees.
The European Commission does not like European honey, it prefers Chinese honey.
Perhaps there is a Maoist lobby at the Commission, I do not know.
That said, we produce only 123, 000 tonnes of honey.
Out of world production of 1-1.2 million tonnes. So it should be possible to protect our bee-keepers.
You are proposing a false solution, a tiny crumb, a paltry amount: 15 million ECU on a fifty-fifty basis, a kind of poisoned gift and you will say: ' you see, we have done something for marketing, we have done something for quality' .
For a country like mine, that means sharing 15 million francs or so between 3000 professional beekeepers and some part-time bee-keepers, in other words not very much.
We all know the problems and Astrid Lulling has stressed the sector's importance time and time again.
The problems of Varroa, that little insect or mite; the problems of fraud - that has not been mentioned - using rice or corn syrups in feeders so that bees manufacture false honey; the problems of controls on entry into the Community; the problem, in France, of so-called biological honeys, according to a 1996 decree, but by definition honey is biological, and now we go and get biological pseudo-honeys from Mongolia; the problems of imports from China, Mexico, Latin America, goodness knows why, at world prices of 12-13 francs per kilo, compared with French production prices of 14-15 francs.
The problem of labelling, too, Commissioner, because it should state on the label whether a honey comes from Mongolia, China or the Canaries, the Alps or my Languedoc-Roussillon.
There is a more general problem of the survival of plant varieties, the survival of life in a nutshell.
I shall not repeat Einstein's lesson about humanity's survival being dependant on that of bees.
I come from a country where bees were adopted on the imperial mantel, as a sign of authority.
That is why, Commissioner, you are a mystery for me.
I do not understand why you do not like bees.
Madam President, I wish to congratulate Mrs Lulling on her report, in line with what we said when we held a debate on the reflection document presented by the Commission and also in line with Mr Böge's first report on the honey sector.
When looking at this, I have the feeling - as other speakers have said - that the Commission report is rather remote from the expectations and desires of the European Parliament.
It is true that the document and proposals for the Regulation head in the right direction, but I think that they have fallen far short of our expectations.
This refers in particular to two subjects already mentioned - given the situation of the Community honey market, given the absolute deficit in the Community and given the lack of regulation - those of pollination premiums and compensatory premiums to offset loss of income.
These are such important subjects because of the tremendous cost differentials to be found in the Community and external costs.
I therefore support Mrs Lulling's proposal and believe that these aids should be given.
Secondly, I should like to stress the need for the national programmes presented by the Commission, referred to by the Commission proposal, to be implemented with sufficient flexibility so as to take account of the different factors and realities in the different producing countries in the European Union.
It seems to me that we should be sufficiently flexible to accept quite different situations in terms of bee feeding, hive maintenances, site maintenance, the different technical marketing management and support for transhumance; i.e. we should be sufficiently flexible in those national programmes so that these aids can be taken on board.
I also think that an effort should be made to market and promote 'honey products' (market studies, new market studies, design, specialized publications, animal nutrition, diet, etc), so as at least to take into account the reality in the different honey producing countries of the European Union.
Madam President, Commissioner, it is very unlikely that bees and honey are going to hit the headlines in Europe. Who cares that commercial and part-time beekeepers are having a hard time of it?
Who cares that the situation of apiculture is becoming disastrous in many regions?
Who cares that there are hardly any young beekeepers to take over? Who is even aware that there have to be enough bees to provide the pollination that is ecologically and economically so important?
Honey is produced at such low costs in third countries that the European producers are coming under increasing pressure.
The Commission wants to agree to only ECU 15 m by way of financial support, and the bulk of that, ECU 11.6 million, is earmarked for measures to combat varroasis.
Like the rapporteur, I urge the Commission to incorporate that measure into EU veterinary policy.
It should also be funded under that policy.
As far as the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is concerned, this is a half-hearted Commission proposal.
The Committee declared itself in favour of the pollination premium and the compensatory payments for loss of income, but also for apiculture to be included in the compensatory payment arrangements under the regulation on improving the efficiency of agricultural structures.
There are those who wrongly imagine honey to be an industrial product.
But honey is a natural food that reaches the consumer's table without being processed.
It is an unadulterated agricultural product.
We need to have in the EU a comprehensive general scheme to ensure that the profitability of the sector is also guaranteed.
The so-called mature European consumer, Commissioner Fischler, could steer the market by his purchasing policy once the uniform marketing rules for Community and imported honey have been introduced.
Consumers must know what they are buying.
I am therefore in favour of completely clear labelling.
Let me make one further point: I did not this afternoon dress as appropriately as Mrs Lulling, who looks the bee's knees.
But you will be aware that the bee is the emblem of the German association of women in agriculture, and women in agriculture in Germany share all the characteristics of the bee.
I do not think that we are very spectacular either.
But it may be that 'bees and honey' is the theme for the future.
You can join us, Mr Kindermann!
(Applause)
Commissioner, Madam President, I should like to begin by paying tribute to the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, whose determination extends to sporting a new dress that is the bee's knees to mark her birthday.
It seems to me that had she not been so persistent we should probably not have been holding this debate on bees today.
And it seems to me that we can only infer from what has already been said that we need to discuss bees, or apiculture will come to nothing.
If a matter is not discussed, then there can be no further progress.
Bees are valued in terms of the amount of honey and wax they produce but that undervalues them.
The contribution bees make to the natural environment, to birds, to crop pollination, to fruit, berry and oilseed production cannot be overestimated.
I myself grow rape and welcome every year the arrival of the beekeeper who comes and sets up his hives in my rape fields, because if he did not come or the bees did not fly, then the rape harvest would perhaps be only half of what it is now, as there would be only the wild insects to provide the pollination.
And so we should attach great importance to this incidental effect on the natural environment and, above all, we should attach greater political value to apiculture.
For that, clearly, we need not only older, experienced beekeepers, but young people who are enthusiastic about beekeeping.
It is terrible thing, but if you have vast experience and there is no-one to follow in your footsteps and take up beekeeping, then there will be no more beekeepers and no more apiculture either.
We have therefore to support the whole system - the bees, the honey, the wax and all involved with it - and the positive incidental effects of bees.
Bees provide great benefit and that benefit can be expressed in more than just financial terms.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank all who have made an appeal on behalf of the bee here, and particularly Mrs Lulling, the rapporteur, for her careful consideration of the Commission proposal and the suggestions she has made concerning a further review.
Back in 1994, the Commission put forward priority proposals for improving honey production and marketing in its discussion paper on the situation of apiculture in Europe.
Those measures include combating varroasis, rationalization of transhumance, technical assistance and promoting honey analysis.
I am glad to hear that the House supports the Commission in those areas.
I can, of course, understand that there are many here who would like to go further and would gladly do more, but the scope for that is, unfortunately, very limited.
We can, however, certainly identify adequate common bases for the introduction of suitable regulations to support this sector.
I have therefore read Parliament's position carefully and looked at all the recommendations in a constructive spirit.
Unfortunately, I have also to say that the majority of the recommendations cannot be fully implemented for the following and, in my view, compelling reasons.
Let me explain them to you briefly.
Amendment No 1, which concerns institutional issues, cannot be accepted as it stands because it does not constitute a legal basis and, consequently, cannot be cited in a reference.
Amendment No 1 could, however, be accepted as a recital, to take account of the joint declaration of 1 March 1995.
Amendment No 8 on aspects of the committee procedure must be rejected because a recital should be used to give the reason for the corresponding provision in a piece of legislation, and in this case there is no corresponding article in the regulation.
Amendments Nos 5, 11 and 12 call for greater flexibility as regards the individual State programmes and the priority measures.
The Commission could accept the reasons for those amendments and inform the Council of this.
However, they are not admissible in their current form because they go further than the priority measures proposed.
Amendment No 4 is calling for the measures to combat varroasis to be transferred to veterinary legislation.
That cannot be accepted because this is not an eradication measure.
The measure is actually intended to help beekeepers to cope with the increased production costs that result from dealing with varroasis.
Amendments Nos 6, 13 and 19 propose the introduction of further measures in future on the basis of regularly conducted structural studies on the sector and on price formation.
We cannot accept those amendments because the proposed co-financing of the individual State programmes has to be linked to the condition that the studies be carried out before the programmes are approved.
Amendment No 14 provides for the introduction of complicated rules for determining the co-financing ceilings for the individual Member States.
Amendment No 15 is designed to change the proposed text, even though it provides for a simple and frequently used budgetary procedure.
I am therefore unable to accept those amendments either.
I am, however, able to accept Amendment No 16.
In the final analysis, it makes the proposed text clearer.
Amendment No 17, which relates to structural policy aspects, cannot be accepted because it would make it more difficult to supervise the application of structural programmes and could result in subsidies being paid twice.
I should like to make the following points concerning those amendments which seek to introduce new articles.
Amendments 2, 9 and 10 provide for the introduction of a Community pollination premium and a compensatory payment for loss of income.
Those amendments cannot be accepted because it does not seem appropriate, in view of the general situation of the sector in the European Union, to introduce global arrangements for income subsidies or premiums.
The Commission will, however, continue to support thorough-going surveys of the economic position of the sector.
Amendments Nos 3 and 7 call for marketing standards for honey.
The appropriate framework for that is provided by the existing directive on honey which is currently being considered by the House, together with a range of other foodstuff directives, as part of the proposed simplification process. Amendments Nos 20 and 21, which provide for the rules on compensatory payments for mountain and hill-farming areas to be extended to cover other species, need to be looked at more closely in the context of the Council regulations on structural policy.
I am therefore unable to accept those elements in the existing proposal, but we shall consider them further.
Amendment No 18 emphasizes that implementing provisions are needed not only for the supervisory measures but also in respect of Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the Council Regulation.
I prefer the text as it stands because implementing measures are particularly important for the supervisory measures, not least because the Council regulation does not contain any special supervisory measures.
I can in any event accept Amendment No 22.
The Commission is persuaded that the adoption of the regulation does constitute substantial recognition of the sector and will contribute to positive developments in it.
Madam President, after all that the Commissioner has said to us, he accepts two amendments!
Those are amendments in which we say that the beekeepers, associations and cooperatives have, of course, also to be taken into account and that the famous report, which the Commission is supposed to submit, should be submitted not only to the Council but to Parliament also.
The Commissioner condemned everything else, using arguments which we shall of course look at once again in the Committee on Agriculture, but which are not real arguments, because there is no doubt that it is possible to take our demands on board.
We have, after all, made specific proposals.
That applies particularly to the inclusion of apiculture in the structural directive.
I could not explain all of that in my allotted five minutes, but the Commissioner should explain to me why Article 19 of the regulation cannot say that a beehive is as valuable as a sheep or a goat and that hives can therefore be included in the structural directive.
You have the text there after all.
This is not the first time that we in the European Community make changes to items in other regulations when working on a particular regulation; otherwise you should make a proposal if you think that would not be proper in legal or procedural terms.
But you cannot say that that cannot be done!
It definitely can be done, there is just a lack of willingness to do it!
A pollination premium can also be introduced.
You cannot expect me to believe that there is no legal basis for this!
Of course there is a cost involved, but it is feasible.
I cannot be satisfied to hear you say that you want to look at various amendments and consider the issue once again.
You will carry on considering until you are worn out considering and there is no beekeeper left in the Community.
We have been studying the issue since 1985, and I think we know enough.
It is, of course, possible to engage in even more detailed studies and improve the statistics, but everyone dealing with the problem knows that it is really the eleventh hour, the absolute last moment, if we are to rescue apiculture in the European Union, as all honourable Members here have proposed!
I do not agree with your so-called arguments, and I can also tell you that we do not accept that and that we shall therefore...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mrs Lulling, I cannot allow you to continue.
You have our every sympathy here in the European Parliament, and the Chair's too, but I do not decide on the debating time and I would ask you to understand that.
You have been here too long not to know that we are a special parliament and that speaking time is strictly limited.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Summer-time
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0180/97) by Mr Belleré, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of the eight European Parliament and Council Directive on summer-time arrangements (C4-0169/87-96/0082(COD)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Kinnock, when the Committee on Transport gave me the task of drawing up a report on the proposal for an eighth directive on the provisions relating to summer-time, I did not think it was an issue which would arouse such public interest across Europe.
Like hitting the headlines as 'Belleré versus Juppé' in a French newspaper!
Earlier, in my report at first reading, I stated that I agreed with the aim of the Commission's proposal: harmonization of the dates for the beginning and end of summer-time to promote better functioning of the internal market and assist important sectors like transport and telecommunications.
But we know very well that there are different positions on this issue, depending on the different experiences of each Member State, and on the basis of those considerations I considered that the decision whether or not to apply this time system should be the exclusive responsibility of each Member State.
I am quite sure the great majority of citizens are in favour of maintaining summer-time, because it provides an additional hour of daylight for all kinds of activities, from sporting and recreational to services and tourism, especially in southern European countries, where the days are very short.
But we have an obligation to consider cases where the application of summer-time, in particular in the countries of northern Europe, has different or less beneficial effects than in other Member States.
I have dwelt on the issue of energy saving, which has minor impact in some Member States, while in others, like Italy, which are not selfsufficient in energy, the application of summer-time last year produced an estimated saving on consumption of 900 million kilowatt-hours, over 0.4 per cent of national requirements.
I also touched on the health issue, the fact that the change in the circadian rhythm as a result of changing from summer-time to winter-time and vice-versa involves small quantifiable disturbances to sleep patterns, but these effects are certainly transitory and definitely negligible.
As regards road safety, common sense clearly tells us there is a correlation between more light and greater road safety, but objective data from the Member States are needed to study this properly.
I concluded in my first report by applauding the Commission's initiative in presenting its report, because it made an important contribution to evaluating the application of summer-time, but I stressed the responsibility of each Member State to make the decision.
In their common position the Commission and the Council demonstrated, for all response, that their minds were firmly closed to Parliament's position as set out in its three amendments, in particular those relating to the principle of subsidiarity, basing this approach on the fact that acceptance of such amendments would not have made the application of a system of summer-time compulsory as such, and on the fact that they were considered contrary to the aim of harmonization, which is the fundamental purpose of the directive.
At this point the Commission and the Council at least have a duty to make clear to Parliament how much store they set by the principle of subsidiarity or whether they are prepared to sacrifice it from time to time if they think fit, creating obligatory conditions with effects which fall, for good or ill, on European citizens.
I am going to dwell on this point, because Europe and the values we seek to propose to the citizens do not take the path of compulsion or imposition, but the path of dialogue, mediation and respect for diversity.
We need to bring the citizens closer to Europe, not put them in the position of suffering its effects, and we need to bring Europe - dare I say it - closer to the citizens.
So in supporting a favourable opinion on the application of summer-time and harmonization of the date, I once again invite the Commission and the Council to draw up a detailed report on the consequences of the application of summer-time, by consulting representatives of interested sectors and national experts in the Member States, to bear in mind the principle of subsidiarity and the responsibility of each Member State, and to take greater account of the opinion of Parliament as the opinion of a freely elected assembly and the expression of the will of the European people.
Madam President, to begin with, I would like, on behalf of the social democrat group, to express our support for the common position on summer time.
We have heard previously many good arguments in favour of summer time from the rapporteur, but this concerns harmonisation of the dates for the beginning and end of summer time.
We think this is a good idea because it will reduce hassle, particularly for the transport sector and will facilitate the free movement of the people of the EU and of goods and services.
The majority of people in the EU, more than 80 percent, are also in favour of maintaining summer time.
This further emphasises the wisdom of supporting and approving the common position now.
So, once again, I would like to express our support for it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, during the first reading of the draft eighth directive, I had the opportunity to express to the Committee on Transport and Tourism my feelings on this important subject: summer-time.
Today we can only welcome the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of this harmonization text and I call on all members to approve the draft recommendation presented by Mr Spalato Belleré.
It was a French initiative, in the early 80s, to ensure that clock changing dates were harmonized at Community level, once summer-time had been adopted by all Member States.
As a reminder, that approach was intended to eliminate any risk of impediment to the free movement of persons, goods and services.
Since last year, I am pleased to note that clock changing dates have been completely harmonized.
Throughout the European Union summer-time now stretches from the last Sunday in March to the end of October.
As the head of a French local authority located on a border, in the Nord department, I am fully behind the adoption of the eighth directive which is in line with fifteen years of regulations in favour of harmonization.
My department shares a 370 kilometre border with Belgium.
Think of the importance of a time difference for the daily lives of people living on either side of that border, especially employees and schoolchildren. The same is true of all border regions in France.
This local example shows just how any reorganization of the time system must be carried out on the basis of an agreement and coordination between all the Member States of the European Union.
If we adopt this directive, that is what will be done, at least until 2001.
Madam President, allow me, before further ado, to congratulate you on your stunning election, with such a big majority, in your constituency, which has a common border with Spain and which nearly ended up suffering a time difference with people across the border.
I subscribe to the idea of subsidiarity, provided that the time difference between two countries never exceeds one hour.
The time difference between Britain and Ireland, on one hand, and Greece and Finland, on the other, is two hours.
Nonetheless we survive and the sun still shines.
This time difference between countries is not so serious, as long as the Member States change at the same time.
We have reached that goal.
We can therefore only welcome Mr Belleré's excellent proposal and report and support him, while regretting somewhat that we had to wait so long for the Commission to set the hour change at the same dates.
Could we not possibly make a concession, in order not to upset the delicate rhythms of Frenchwomen and French children?
Madam President, may I begin by joining Mr Wijsenbeek in warmly congratulating you on your stunning election to the Assemblée Nationale.
The only problem is that every silver lining has a cloud, in this case the fact that this is your last day in the chair presiding over this Assembly.
I am certain my colleagues in the Commission will agree with me that the French Parliament's gain is the European Parliament's loss.
In neither place, however, would Europe be the loser, because we are certain that you will sustain your vigour and your progressive sense of purpose in all roles.
Personally and, on behalf of my colleagues, I wish you the very best of enjoyment and good fortune as your constituency's representative in the Assemblée Nationale.
Madam President, I am grateful to Mr Belleré and his colleagues for their thorough and speedy work.
Naturally I welcome their proposed approval of the common position on summer-time arrangements in the European Union.
The House will know that transport operators are awaiting the new directive in order to set timetables for transport services and many other sectors whose activities are related to the dates of the summer-time period are eager for conclusive arrangements.
In his recommendation Mr Belleré comments on the implications of summer-time arrangements in the present and future Member States of the Union, in many cases reinforcing points that have already been made by the Commission and by Members of this House.
In anticipation of the future enlargement of the Union most European countries, both within and outside the Union, already operate a summer-time régime that is consistent with the Community directive.
Our proposal was sent to all the countries concerned and the absence of negative reaction seems to indicate that harmonization of the summer-time period is widely accepted.
The Commission emphasizes the need for the Community to take the necessary action to harmonize the summertime period in order to remove obstacles to the free movement of goods and people.
We are, however, prepared to listen, as suggested in Mr Belleré's recommendation, to those who argue that the various aspects and various situations in the Member States need to be examined in depth.
Accordingly, the Commission will take into account the advice of national experts and representatives of the economic and social groups concerned and will be submitting a report to this Parliament and to the Council in 1999.
I believe that that is the wish of the House and I am very happy to give that undertaking today.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Combined goods transport
The next item is the report (A4-0130/97) by Mr Stockmann, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Regulation concerning the granting of Community financial assistance for actions to promote combined goods transport (COM(96)0335 - C4-0028/97-96/0207(SYN))
Mr President, Commissioner, the fact that combined transport is not, as anticipated, being discussed here shortly before midnight, is a good thing; it is, after all, one of things we are pinning our hopes on to make mobility permanently acceptable, and time is getting on.
Those of us involved in transport policy have always made sure that combined transport was writ large our speeches, larger than it was in reality.
We sing its praises because we expect it to combine the advantages of the individual means of transport with shifting the rapidly increasing movement of goods to environmentally-friendly transport methods.
The old PACT programme sought and the new PACT programme is designed to help bridge that gap between intention and reality, between statistically ascertainable and predictable traffic trends on the one hand and our knowledge of transport policy.
At any rate, the ECU 22.7 m under the old programme were well invested between 1992 and 1996 in projects involving 16 international transport axes - incentives which allowed demand to grow.
The current proposal for the granting of Community assistance for actions to promote combined goods transport will be based on a regulation and make available ECU 53 m over six years.
That, in my view, is still too little, but a step and declaration of intent in the right direction.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism welcomes the fact that the new PACT programme focuses on direct measures.
Innovative measures, be they investment in intermodal transport equipment, in transshipment facilities or for access to rail or inland waterway structures, are sensible and important.
They are, however, to be promoted degressively.
We do not want long-term subsidies.
The commercial application of new techniques, which have previously been tested in European research programmes, and the measures to improve logistics and staff development reflect the fact that the programme of support is forward-looking.
In its discussion of the proposed legislation, the Committee on Transport and Tourism placed particular importance on four aspects of the conditions attaching to the grant of resources.
First: the projects supported will have also to develop further the European network structure for combined transport.
It is clear from the guidelines for the Trans-European Networks that, while the networks of the individual carriers and of combined transport are designed sensibly viewed in isolation, they do not tie in with one another - a wasted opportunity for intermodal transport.
The Commission's consideration of the construction of freight freeways does not fully compensate for that omission.
Priority should therefore be given to PACT projects which help bridge the existing gaps in the networks.
Secondly, even in the old programme, projects on three axes, which extended to non-EU States, were supported.
The new programme too will be open to projects which promote combined transport with Eastern Europe.
Given the political will to see the European Union extended to bring in some Eastern European States, we think that it is now necessary to take measures to shift the very rapid growth in the movement of goods from Eastern Europe to combined transport.
We should earmark an additional ECU 4 m annually for the relevant projects or at least discuss the issue again thoroughly two years from now.
Taking the right measures at the right time helps save on future spending.
Thirdly: it makes sense to combine PACT projects with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe with transport projects to create the necessary infrastructure.
That kind of synergy could be achieved using the cohesion fund.
We are therefore expecting the Task Force on Intermodal Transport to engage in structured dialogue within the Commission so that synergy and complementarity can be achieved between all the funds and programmes in question.
It is certainly right to make a distinction between PACT pilot projects and research projects.
But we should like to there to be a specific sum to take special account of projects which put the results of research into practice, particularly in the area of telematics and logistics, as this is where we shall see the maximum impact.
Finally, I should like to make one more point: all who believe that combined transport to be one of the existing possibilities for resolving our current transport problems must want to see all political measures brought together to promote it.
That is why, in addition to this sound programme of support, we need a political effort to improve the policy framework, be this in relation to the monitoring of driving and rest periods or the implementation of external costs which we have just begun to discuss.
The way we deal with combined transport or, looking further ahead, intermodal transport, will show whether those of us involved in transport policy are and remain capable of political action in the face of current and future challenges.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is hard to follow a rapporteur who has already given a brilliant presentation of the issues involved, but I nevertheless take the opportunity to praise the report. I also praise the Commission for producing a good proposal, and I hope as well that I shall be able to praise the Council for taking the helping hand held out by Parliament and the Commission to make combined transport a standard feature of our transport system.
I agree with the rapporteur that the Commission communication is somewhat silent on the political feasibility of combined transport, but I am certain that, with Parliament's help, a way forward will be found.
That said, we do note with satisfaction that the 1992 experiment now looks as though it is developing into a proper programme.
The aims of the programme are, as has been said, to manage the EU's transport resources in an optimum manner, taking into account the demands of environmental protection, but transport habits will not be altered through the effect of market forces alone.
The aims of the programme are thus a key factor in our progress towards sustainable development.
It was so easy to use lorries when there was plenty of time and the roads were not congested.
Now that we have the Just In Time concept and a massive increase in transport volumes, we are confronted with a task: how do we ensure rational development? How do we transfer current traffic potential from the roads to more environmentally friendly modes of transport, such as the railways, inland waterways and the sea?
My answer is quite simple: the carrot and the stick.
We must change patterns of behaviour in transport. We must calculate all the costs of transport into a fair and effective pricing system.
We must impose rules for crossfrontier transport, driving and rest periods and, last but not least, we must remember Eastern Europe.
Again I agree with the rapporteur.
The proposal does not have any special focus on Eastern Europe, although the corridors into the Central and Eastern European countries are expressly eligible for assistance.
It is not the first time I have mentioned the Baltic, but here we have a good opportunity to tell the applicant states that they must not make the same mistakes as we have done.
We must tell them that transport today is a multimodal affair and that it is that we are seeking to achieve.
I am reminded that, when we mention the Via Baltica, we are not just talking about a motorway, we are talking about railways and sea crossings as well.
This concept can also be developed in the Mediterranean and the Adriatic.
It is essential not just to look at individual areas in Europe, but to combine the experience we gather in one area and use it elsewhere.
As I have said, I support both the report and the Commission's initiative, and I hope that in the end we shall also get the Council on board.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for the work his has done and for this really good report.
The European Union is in need of a reliable, Europe-wide transport system that effectively guarantees trade and mobility.
As an Austrian, I should like to highlight the importance of combined transport, that is to say the transport of goods using at least two carriers, with the goods being transferred between them.
Because of Austria's geographical position as an immediate neighbour of the States of Central and Eastern Europe, it is particularly important to draw attention to the transport situation.
Road traffic has already reached capacity, and, in view of eastward enlargement and the increase in traffic that will result, we face a total collapse of the system.
We have, of course, also to take into consideration the increase in road traffic pollution.
If we are to take pollution seriously, then it has to be combated and real ways of preventing pollution sought.
This transport system, which embraces a variety of carriers, can play a key role in the way transport in Europe is organized in the future.
The social and economic demands of the community as a whole must take proper account of environmental protection and the safety of users.
The situation can be relieved only if road traffic is combined with transport by rail and on water, that is to say if the different carriers cooperate and what is called an intermodal transport network is created.
That method of transport is, unfortunately, still undervalued, and its capacities and the possibilities it offers far too little used.
The European Union researched and promoted combined transport through its PACT programme, a pilot programme from 1992 to 1996, and made available ECU 22.7 m for that purpose.
That programme had positive results, and so the Group of the European People's Party welcomes the fact that the programme has been extended.
PACT II runs from 1997 to 2001.
Funding of ECU 35 m has been made available but, in my view, that is far too small a sum.
I am therefore hoping for more financial support for the PACT programme. I am therefore also arguing for PACT to be interlinked with other EU programmes, such as PHARE for instance, as eastward enlargement takes its course.
The Group of the European People's Party supports all of the amendments in the report.
The amendment tabled by the Group of the European People's Party on project selection and the granting of financial assistance was rejected in committee by one vote.
In selecting the projects, the Commission should take the regions and Member States into consideration in a balanced way and ensure that decisions do not cause any distortion of competition as between regions and Member States.
I hope this proposal will be approved in plenary for the benefit of Europe's citizens.
We know that we are all in favour of promoting combined transport.
We all agreed on this when we dealt with the forerunner to Mr Stockmann's report.
However, we have seen that combined transport is not really growing, either in percentage terms or in total volume.
Perhaps the Commissioner could tell us whether, in the freight freeways project that he has put forward, combined transport can be promoted in such a way that - since this seems to be one of the main reasons why combined transport has failed to meet expectations - the forwarding agent can remain responsible for the goods during both loading and unloading onto the intermediate form of transport, usually the train.
The problem is that whereas getting the goods on the train usually works well, because the train is waiting at a particular place and will not depart until a certain time, unloading can be a major problem, because the train stops only briefly and in any event goods trains never actually arrive on time where they are expected.
In short, two things are needed: the establishment of responsibility at the points of departure and arrival, and at the same time greater cooperation from the railways and greater efforts to keep to the timetables.
This is where the problem lies, in the fact that each national railway company has its own responsibility, rather than all of them sharing it jointly.
Mr President, I should like to begin by warmly congratulating the rapporteur on his excellent report.
Given the failure of the negotiations on transit with Switzerland, the report is all the more topical.
As a Member for one of the most sensitive transit regions of the EU, the Tiroler Inntal or Brenner region, I particularly welcome the new and committed initiative towards combined transport, as we have already heard too much said but seen too little done.
Further developing the substance of the PACT programme is an important step in the right direction.
I am thinking here of the investment in intermodal transport equipment, the enhanced monitoring facilities and the increased promotion of specific projects as opposed to mere feasibility studies.
The financial framework that has been established and the increase from ECU 22.7 m to ECU 35 m are best described as token. Moreover, in view of the enormity of the task that professionally combining European goods transport demands, technically and logistically speaking, and the advantages - consumer-oriented and speedier transport of goods as well lasting prevention of pollution - that avoiding unnecessary traffic could bring, it is, sad to say, extremely unsatisfactory!
I am very grateful to Mr Stockmann, not for the first time, and to this House for their work on this initiative to build on the successful experience of pilot actions for combined transport.
Secondly, I am grateful for the continuing commitment to combined transport that has been demonstrated this afternoon.
Thirdly, I am grateful for Parliament's broad agreement with the Commission proposal.
I am glad to say that I accept several of the amendments submitted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism but I will, naturally, have to give some detail, especially on those amendments that we cannot accept.
I hope you will bear with me, Mr President, and remember that I am coming to your constituency next month.
I will not trade on that but I trust that I will get the odd second if I overrun my time.
Firstly, the Commission is sympathetic to the idea expressed in the first part of Amendment No 4 which prioritizes projects located on the trans-European network or trans-European rail freight freeways.
A similar idea is already expressed in Article 2(2) of the Commission proposal.
It makes sense to mention these two important aspects of our common transport policy more prominently in Article 6.
However, I would stress that the notion of priority always presupposes that the project increases the competitiveness of combined transport through innovation.
Consequently, a project on a freeway which does not satisfy this criterion should not receive priority over a project of excellent quality which happens not to be on either of the two networks.
Where projects are equally excellent, however, priority should be given to trans-European networks or trans-European rail freight freeway-related proposals.
I can also agree to Amendment No 7.
In so far as it relates to synergies with the PHARE programme, it is fully in line with the Commission's efforts to have a simple and transparent programme which makes combined transport more competitive.
Naturally we should make sure that the PACT and PHARE programmes are managed in a coherent way.
There should be no discrimination between modes.
It is in that spirit that I accept Amendment No 3, which proposes to make access costs to inland waterway infrastructure eligible for assistance.
I am also happy to accept the improved phrasing proposed for Article 4, in the first part of Amendment No 2.
As I mentioned, there are some amendments that the Commission cannot accept.
Amendments Nos 1, 6 and 9 propose new selection criteria not related to the innovation and competitiveness that are the basis of this proposal.
I can understand the motivation behind the proposal for additional selection criteria relating to regional preferences, preferences and for a certain modal combination and for research and development exploitation.
But I have to say that they would introduce rather vague political notions into a stringent selection process based on verifiable economic and technical elements.
That would run counter to the Commission's efforts towards transparency in this proposal.
In view of PACT's limited resources and the continuing increase in applications for the use of the PACT facility, both applicants and taxpayers need to be sure of the highest degree of fairness and transparency.
The second part of Amendment No 2, which aims to increase the funding percentage for operations and decrease the funding percentage for feasibility studies, would risk distortions of competition in the market.
We should not forget that not only does the subsidy for operational measures benefit certain companies and not their competitors, but the higher the assistance level, the bigger the competitive advantage for the selected companies.
That is why a 50 % subsidy seems dangerous to the Commission.
While I understand very well the cautious approach to feasibility studies in the report, I still think we should give the chosen studies a subsidy of up to 50 %.
First of all, studies do not have a direct impact on the market so the subsidy does not, therefore, lead to distortions of competition.
Second, the selection procedure should ensure that the only studies selected are those in which we have a commitment from the applicants to take concrete action if the study results show feasibility.
The main concern that Members may have about feasibility studies is that they collect dust in cupboards.
I share that concern but on this occasion it is met by the PACT selection procedure.
Amendment No 5 would create legal uncertainty and is difficult to reconcile with the wording and spirit of Directive 95/18 on the licensing of railway undertakings.
That directive provides, in any case, that licences shall be awarded within three months after all relevant information has been submitted.
This provision ensures that proper account is taken of the interests of licence applicants, especially their interest in a swift handling of their demands.
PACT certainly does not need to be more generous in this respect.
I therefore cannot accept Amendment No 5.
The amendment concerning comitology, Amendment No 7, where an advisory committee is proposed, cannot be accepted.
The two-way committee proposed by the Commission gives the Member States the necessary guarantee of involvement in the process.
I therefore want to stick to the Commission's original idea on comitology.
I am certain that the guests in Parliament this afternoon will be very relieved to have my assurance on that.
Amendment No 8 conflicts with the financial perspectives of the Community for PACT and the Community obviously has, in PHARE and TACIS, specific instruments to assist East European countries.
PACT is primarily centred on the European Community.
We should not overburden its scope by making it an instrument to foster accession, much as we support that principle.
We should probably return to the issue at some later stage.
But meanwhile Amendment No 8 is not acceptable.
Mr Stockmann's report is yet another clear demonstration of his continued and authoritative commitment to improving combined transport.
I welcome that, as I welcome this House's continued support for actions to improve combined transport.
The pilot actions have already proved their worth.
This new regulation will ensure that combined transport continues to develop its potential which, as Mr Wijsenbeek wisely said, is certainly needed.
Combined transport currently takes a mere 4 % of the total share of the European Union's freight market.
Many Members have pointed out the huge advantages of more extensive use of developed, modern facilities.
We trust that the continued use of PACT will in future encourage the greater use of combined transport.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Tourism
The next item is the joint debate on five oral questions to the Commission:
by Mrs Bennasar Tous, Mr Provan and Mr Sarlis, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party (B40162/97 - O-0042/97) on tourism; -by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party (B4-0167/97 - O-0049/97) on tourism; -by Mr Azzolini, Mr Pasty, Mr Parodi, Mr Danesin, Mr Santini, Mr Tajani, Mr G. Collins, Mr Donnay, Mr Kaklamanis and Mr Girão Pereira, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group (B4-0171/97 - O-0077/97) on tourism; -by Mr Novo Belenguer, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance (B4-0172/97 - O-0078/97) on tourism; -by Mr Novo and Mr Theonas, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left (B4-0173/97 - O-0079/97) on Community measures in favour of tourism
Mr President, your speed on votes is well known, but at least when there is a change of Commissioner and a change of report we request your indulgence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are debating an oral question on tourism, an issue that is of concern to all of the political parties.
There are many aspects of tourism which, when we look at them, raise enormous questions.
The European Parliament forwarded a proposal to the intergovernmental conference and to the Commission advocating the insertion of a provision in the Treaty stating that tourism is to be considered as a sector of the economy and that it should be governed chiefly by Article 130 so that many of its various aspects, such as the Philoxenia programme and several other programmes that have preceded it, can be approached in a legislative framework.
To our great surprise - and all of the political groups here have been surprised given the importance of the matter - the Commission has not promoted the recommendation of the European Parliament that tourism be included as a separate chapter in the revised Treaty with its own separate legal basis and capital. And the Dutch Presidency, despite being fully aware of Parliament's recommendations on the subject, has itself done nothing to promote the inclusion of tourism, which makes an important contribution to the economies of the 15 Member States and provides employment for 10 million people, and has sat on its hands.
There has been silence.
Silence from the Commission. Silence not so much from Commissioner Papoutsis, but rather from the Commission as a whole, in that as a college it has made no real attempt to place tourism on the agenda of the intergovernmental conference.
Tourism it not the same as foreign policy, defence policy, the common foreign and security policy or other things like that. It is different.
It is closer to all of us, and just as there is a chapter for industry so, too, there should be a chapter for tourism.
I would like to know how the Commissioner himself feels about the matter. Other speakers will be making the same request.
What is the position of the Commission at least? What plans does it have to raise the issue of tourism again or to put it back on the negotiating table, albeit now, at this late stage?
Mr President, we have called for tourism to be included in the Treaty.
I am delighted to have this opportunity to talk to Mr Papoutsis as the Commissioner responsible for tourism rather than as the deputy Commissioner for transport, although the dossiers are closely linked, and this was why we felt that they should be separated a little further by giving tourism its own title in the Treaty.
However, the Heads of Government do not appear to be in favour of this, so perhaps Mr Papoutsis could tell us what the situation is at present.
It is absolutely vital for tourism to have a separate title, because otherwise it will be impossible in many cases for the Union to exercise its powers in this field, powers which people already wrongly dispute.
This is also why, without going into detail, Parliament has given its broad support to the Philoxenia programme, and we are also pleased to see that the Commission has now adopted a new approach to tourism and is setting about giving the Community tourism programme a little more body.
In previous years, we have seen tourism allocated ridiculously low levels of funding, but considerably more has now been set aside for the programme for the next five years.
From 1993 to 1995 it received ECU 20.5 million, whereas now it is to get ECU 70.3 m.
It is therefore essential for DG XXIII to come up with a decent programme.
However, I think the most important thing is for the Commissioner to ensure that tourism in Europe is presented to the outside world as a unified sector where the same rules and standards apply, which is why it needs to be included in the Treaty.
Mr President, when we talk about tourism - in fact we have done so very rarely in this Chamber - it always seems almost as if we are talking about a marginal, occasional or optional issue. It seems we can talk about it or just as easily forget it.
Instead, as others have already stressed, tourism is actually a highly valuable industry which indeed produces well-being and GDP, but above all produces employment.
The nine and a half million employees - a 1992 statistic which no doubt needs updating - constitute a formidable platform of employment, especially as it provides jobs for people in areas often less fortunate.
When we talk about tourism there is a serious risk of misunderstanding.
We think of Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, hence big city tourism, a type of tourism which needs neither promotion nor attention, far less subsidy.
It is an automatic, endemic tourism, which can have no need for extra investment.
What does need concrete commitment from the Commission and this Parliament is peripheral tourism in depressed areas.
Here there is another misunderstanding to be overcome: that famous subsidiarity.
What does it mean? Leaving the peripheral areas the task and the burden of organizing, and of course financing, their own tourism sector?
They will never do it! That is where there is a need to intervene with united action, with a serious programme which has good ideas, but also considerable funding, to provide incentives for the areas where tourism needs to be subsidized.
So here lies the logic of taking up virtual, merely oratorical, positions, so far expressed in the tourism actions launched five or six years ago and extended only last year, but always as an experiment, something which still has to happen.
And then at last tourism, too, found a programme with an eloquent name: PHILOXENIA. We were all a little under the illusion that this name would finally make it possible to pass ideas and financing that would give Europe's commitment to the tourism sector body and substance.
In November came the cold shower: the 'no' from the Council, a rather icy 'no' , especially as it was backed by reasons that were barely credible and came from only three countries, whereas all the others believed in the need to intervene in this sector.
This programme, with all its potential and its wealth of good intentions, is fortunately coming back in through the window now, and at last there also seems to be a reasonably concrete project beneath the financial aspect.
So I ask the Commissioner to take the old proposals up again, for a cultural tourism, a social tourism, a tourism of the weakest, and finally give it body and robustness with new ideas, especially at the financial level.
Mr President, Commissioner, I do not want to be repetitive but we are dealing with an important sector; a sector where, unfortunately, as we all know, we shall only make progress if we really make a considerable effort.
This is a sector representing over nine million direct jobs, an average of 5 % of GDP, and one third of the European Union's service exports.
It is a sector which - and I think this is an important feature - helps the more and less favoured regions achieve something the European Parliament and all other European institutions are seeking: social cohesion.
Reference has been made to the PHILOXENIA programme which was on the verge of being approved last year and in the end was not approved.
We are convinced of the importance of tourism for employment and on the economy and want to know why and how the Commission is going to try and put pressure on the Council so that the programme can be approved next year.
If not, we want to know the economic assistance that will be given to this vitally important sector for the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the PHILOXENIA Programme, which involves a series of measures for tourism and which, basically, we supported, has unfortunately not been put into practice in the most appropriate and desirable manner.
We therefore think that the European Parliament should take a political stance reaffirming the need to put into practice the actions which were envisaged for this field, which is a major source of jobs and which therefore plays a most significant role in the development of some less-favoured regions, thus promoting economic and social cohesion in the European Union.
Another reason for taking such a stance is that the promotion of tourism tends at the same time protect the environment and the cultural and architectural heritage and to encourage occupational training and sustainable and stable employment, so that financial resources need to be stepped up within the framework of the current and future policy.
We therefore consider it neither necessary nor appropriate to support the setting up of a common policy for tourism which might entail some centralization which is incompatible with national diversity and which offers little opportunity for transparency or participation.
We do not therefore support the motion for a joint resolution due to be adopted at the close of this debate.
It is important - and it seems to have been forgotten in this motion for a resolution - to reach the maximum level of consensus possible to press for the implementation in practice of measures approved long ago which the European Parliament already agreed to but which are still blocked.
Then we should not have the impression that proposals were being made which were of doubtful effectiveness based on dubious reasons; what is essential and necessary is simply to make specific measures out of what is already envisaged and so essential for tourism in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission shares the views of the Members of this Parliament concerning the economic and social importance of tourism, particularly as regards its potential for increasing employment in Europe.
The Commission's approach on the matter is expressed in the first objective of our proposal for the multiannual programme to assist tourism in Europe, the Philoxenia programme.
As the European Parliament has stated, tourism has substantial job-generating potential, and it does, of course, provide work, in particular, for vulnerable groups in society such as women and young people.
It contributes also, in a very significant way, I believe, to the strengthening of economic and social cohesion and to development in remote and island regions.
The Philoxenia programme has ambitious objectives, but it is also extremely important with regard to the creation of a legal basis which would facilitate the development at the European level of policies which can strengthen the national policies.
We had no wish to duplicate national powers or to infringe the subsidiarity principle in any way.
Indeed, when the programme was first presented to Parliament and whenever I spoke to the Council I made a point of emphasizing that the Commission had every intention of respecting the subsidiarity principle.
The main thrust of the programme is that Community measures must improve the quality and competitiveness of European tourism.
They must also focus on ensuring that tourists are provided with what they need and on promoting balanced and sustainable development of tourism through rational use of natural and cultural resources and of the tourism infrastructure.
The Commission believes that these basic objectives provide a balanced and precisely targeted framework.
As I told the House at the time of the debate and the Committee on Transport and Tourism when we discussed the Sarlis report, the programme had emerged after very difficult and protracted discussions between the Commission's directorates-general and in the college of the Commission.
That had been the case because there are differences of view as to how this crucial sector should be approached at the European level.
The problem now is how to get agreement on the existing programme in the Council.
The Commission believes that the submission of an amended programme, as some sides are suggesting, would not increase the possibility that the Council would approve the proposal.
On the contrary, it would, in our opinion, create additional difficulties and delay the taking of a decision even further.
I must inform you that some Member States also wish to cut back on the present objectives of the programme that I have just stated for you.
The real reason for the delay is that in one Member State there is considerable anxiety about the programme and a perception that it violates the subsidiarity principle.
The more one talks with the Member States which have expressed reservations, the more one realizes that the discussion process is bedevilled by a host of misunderstandings.
It appears that the programme has not been adequately examined and that insufficient time has been allocated for explaining its real orientations and objectives to those who are actually proficient for the taking of the requisite decisions.
Mr President, I would like to use this opportunity to appeal to Members to take the initiative, in their own spheres, in their own countries, in their own fields of responsibility, in explaining the objective and potential of this programme to local and regional authorities and in making clear to them that the programme really does not infringe the subsidiarity principle.
When I spoke last week with the President-in-Office of the Council, with the minister of the Dutch Presidency who is responsible for tourism, I had a very lengthy discussion about the details of the programme and possible alternative proposals that could be acceptable to the Council, and I realized that even at this late stage not all of the sides, all of the Member States, all of the COREPER representations, have understood certain substantive observations put forward by Parliament that the Commission has drawn attention to and which could find acceptance with all of the Member States.
For that reason I appeal again to Parliament to play a part in this, to step up the political discussion, to approach ministers at the political level and everyone in the Member States with the capacity to promote acceptance of this proposal, so that we can find way out of the problem fairly quickly.
We have tried, so far, to get the presidencies, that is to say each six-monthly presidency, to initiate action on the matter and to request and appoint COREPER to embark on a discussion process in connection with the programme.
Over the course of this year we have used every opportunity that has come our way to explain our position to the Member States and to all of the social and political bodies and to convey our message at the major gatherings organized by the industry itself and by regional and local authorities.
The Commission has put in a presence wherever that has been possible and has deployed every argument at its disposal, fortunately, with the support of many of you who are here today, and I take this further opportunity of thanking you for your help.
Unfortunately, even now, this programme is still with the Council and it has not been possible to get a decision.
We hope that during the Luxembourg Presidency there will be some development on the matter, given that the Presidency has already requested the Commission to help set up a large conference on tourism and job creation during the Luxembourg Presidency.
I believe that this is a very important development and that we shall have your support in that endeavour. I believe that the next few months will bring some progress.
Turning now to coordination of the Commission's activities, this Parliament, as you know, with many resolutions of its own, and, also, the Court of Auditors have urged the Commission to make Directorate-General XXIII responsible for coordinating its activities with a view to providing transparency and good use of the budget and to ensuring that the tourism sector is provided with a specific policy with priorities and objectives. That is what we have been striving for and achieving over the recent period.
The new director-general of Directorate-General XXIII has already started things moving.
In recent months six coordination meetings have been organized for directorsgeneral with responsibility for policies in other fields which have some connection with aspects of tourism. We are endeavouring to coordinate the other policies in areas in which they are relevant to tourism, in particular the structural fund initiatives and the more general actions on employment and training and in support of businesses and, also, of course, the single market policies.
This inter-service group on tourism now meets regularly, and priorities for 1997 are being discussed with representatives of the industry and of the Member States.
Like you I believe that efficient coordination of Community measures relating to tourism is vital.
It was with that necessity in mind that we made cohesion and complementarity between the measures of the Philoxenia programme and the other Community programmes which have a bearing on tourism a principal objective when we drew up that programme.
As regards institutional aspects, the clear support of the European Parliament for the insertion of specific provisions on tourism in the new treaty is very important.
Just as it stated in its report to the Council of 3 April 1996, the Commission wishes it to be understood now, also, that it is not seeking new powers in the tourism sector, or in any other sector for that matter, and that it believes that it is up to the intergovernmental conference to deliver an opinion on the matter.
I want to be very precise about this because Mr Sarlis has been kind enough to question me on it.
Under the first protocol, under the first annex to the Maastricht Treaty, the Commission had an obligation to present a report at the commencement of the intergovernmental conference on the extent to which, if at all, the three policies - tourism, energy and civil protection - which are excluded from the Maastricht Treaty should be discussed at the conference, and we did present that report.
At that time the Commission did not wish, any more than now, to seek new powers - and I think that it is being wise.
However, in the report it expressed the view that something had to be done to create a legal basis to cover tourism in view of the sector's status as the largest European industry and its very considerable jobgenerating potential.
In its report the Commission pointed out that the current absence of specific legal bases has not prevented the Community initiating and implementing certain measures to assist tourism, but that the measures that have been adopted have been based either on the provisions relating to other sectoral policies or on Article 235 of the Treaty.
At the same time, the Commission stated - in the report to which I have referred - that it was aware that resort to Article 235 may be much more difficult or even impossible in an enlarged Community in which the principle of unanimity in decision-making is retained.
How clearer could we have put the case when seeking at that time to progress to the adoption of a specific chapter in the Treaty to cover policy on tourism via that indirect method?
We have never sought a common tourism policy on the lines of the common agricultural policy.
From the very beginning we stuck to the view and made clear that the principle of subsidiarity had to be respected.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that certain joint actions to assist European tourism in general do need to be initiated at the European level.
In that same report the Commission also emphasized the importance of tourism and pointed out that the continuation and cohesion of Community action in the sector would be facilitated by the inclusion of specific provisions in the Treaty.
Provisions which, in our opinion, would have to ensure that measures to assist tourism are based on a cohesive and coordinated approach and are more effective and transparent.
What can we do now, at this late stage? We can continue to press for dialogue, on the assumption that the big problems that still remain can be resolved and while there is still some leeway for discussion concerning the new policies.
However, judging by the objections that have so far been raised, I fear that this will be very difficult because only one Member State has formally lodged a specific proposal with the Commission and the others have shown no inclination to initiate discussion in connection with the proposals that have been put forward.
Lastly, Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Wijsenbeek for his good words and to assure him that DirectorateGeneral XXIII is now very actively engaged in trying to make up for the time that has been lost and to achieve more rational use of the available Community resources, meagre as they are.
We are doing this with the help that Parliament has given via the entering of the specific sum of ECU 4 million in the 1997 budget.
Irrespective of whether the Philoxenia programme is approved, Directorate-General XXIII is preparing to use that appropriation for the general benefit of tourism in Europe through the promotion of actions to assist employment and in the fields of information-gathering, access to information, the information society and, contingently, statistics.
Mr President, I am very glad that Commissioner Kinnock is going as a tourist to the Lothians.
I am even more pleased that Commissioner Papoutsis, as the Tourism Commissioner, is coming to my constituency of Cheshire and Wirral and I can assure the Commissioner that I am taking up the matter of Philoxenia with the new Labour government minister for tourism, Mr Tom Clarke.
Whenever we mention tourism to the Council, or indeed to the Member States, it seems to be that they collectively all go on holiday.
Mention tourism and they leave their brains to broil on the beach.
Speak about Europe's biggest industry and our decision-makers become indecisive.
They sink back deeper in their deck chairs and tan themselves in complacency believing Europe's most successful industry needs neither help nor understanding.
Most hopeless amongst these sunseekers has been the Dutch Presidency.
They could not even be bothered to summon a tourism council.
They have been a grave disappointment.
But let me touch on four areas of concern, most of which are set out in today's resolution.
Firstly, the IGC in Amsterdam next week.
The failure to translate the unfinished business of the Maastricht Treaty into a title for tourism in the revised Treaty is madness.
It is, in particular, a snub to the tourism industry.
Many of them are small and medium-sized businesses.
Any other industry - shipbuilding, automobiles, the chemical industry - rightly receives the attention of Commission, Council, and Member States.
Tourism however has been abandoned.
It must be given a title and a proper legal base.
Secondly, Philoxenia.
It is quite absurd for certain Member States to stall the modest multiannual programme for tourism.
Tourism, of all industries, is one that functions and is dependent on the single market.
In other words there is a clear added value in placing tourism in an EU context.
This does not contradict the principle of subsidiarity and it is dumb to suppose it does.
Thirdly, tourism and the Euro.
If only the Council and Member States woke up - and indeed the Commission has been slow off the mark here - it should be realized that tourism is the best industry and activity to illustrate the benefit of the single currency to the man and women in the street.
It is the consumer as tourist who throws away 2 % of their holiday spending money each time to go on holiday inside the EU.
Rich Americans too have few bucks to spend in Europe because we retain national currencies.
Those working in the tourism industry know only too well the frustrations of moveable exchange rates.
Two-thirds of visitors to the United Kingdom come from the EU, but these tourists will be put off by the fact that the pound sterling has appreciated by 19 % against the franc and the mark in the past twelve months.
Finally, Mr President, let me state the obvious which seems all too obscure to the Council.
Tourism means jobs.
We spend hours in the European corridors of power talking about unemployment but why do we ignore tourism as an obvious job generator?
It is time we stopped treating tourism like a holiday; it is time to come home, to jobs.
Mr President, nobody needs to tell the Commissioner that we in this Parliament listen as closely to him as he listens to us.
It is important that we have this synergy, because the blockage is obviously in the Council of Ministers.
For a number of years now Parliament's position on tourism has been quite clear and we are becoming increasingly frustrated because, regrettably, many in the Council are not prepared to look at the opportunities which this Parliament has suggested to the Commissioner to mop up some of the unemployment Mr Harrison has just referred to.
We are right to recognize the opportunities and the Council's difficulties.
Subsidiarity in tourism is a very important aspect and nobody here would object to that.
We must keep trying to find a way through the maze.
It seems extraordinary that the Council refuses to endorse the Philoxenia programme, although we have agreed with the Council within the budget the amount necessary to promote the programme.
How can the Council take such decisions, either budgetarily or from a policy point of view? The two are not compatible.
The main issue which the Commissioner has correctly identified and which is in the main part of this question is what we should do to get tourism recognized within the Treaty.
We must have an independent and welldifferentiated common policy with a proper legal basis, in other words a chapter within the revised Treaty.
The Commissioner must push for that.
We recognize that perhaps he has difficulties within the Commission.
That is part of the problem too and we want to strengthen his arm.
Any advice on ways in which we can help him will be gratefully received, because the Commission is obviously very important in helping to push the Member States on the revision of the Treaty and to achieve what we have to achieve.
Coming back to the main issue to which the Commissioner has referred in his remarks, common action within the Commission: we all want greater coordination and we must have it, otherwise tourism will never get anywhere.
The Commissioner said that his new Director-General has already had six meetings, but let us see what action results from those meetings, as the saying goes, ' where is the beef, let us get on with it' .
We are looking to the Commissioner to deliver.
Mr President, I am convinced, along with some of my colleagues, that in terms of tourism the Commission and the European Parliament are heading in the same direction.
I think that, as a result, the problems that have bene denounced are the responsibility of the Council.
I have no doubt about that especially since Mr Papoutsis, the Commissioner responsible for tourism policy, has highlighted its importance, with energy and firmness, within the Commission.
I would like to know if my impressions are right. The current Presidency of the Council has attached too much to the problems over PHILOXENIA.
This hope that is always placed in the next Presidency - does it mean that the problems lie with the country currently presiding over the European Union?
At any event, I think that Mr Papoutsis' demand is a good one in that we should explain to our fellow-citizens, our private companies, our public administrations that we do not want to replace national policies but to complement them.
We should explain how good it would be to open up Community support schemes.
It would be wrong to claim that a Community policy, with actions and resources, would not increase the overall competitiveness of European tourism compared with others, given the effects of tourism on employment, cohesion, the environment, the generation of resources, etc.
This has already been said but it is worthwhile repeating it here - in terms of employment and the economy, tourism means more for the fifteen Member States than coal and steel did for the six founding members of the European Communities.
Mr Papoutsis' demand is a good one and we shall bear it in mind, but it is also pessimistic about the possibility of reforming the Treaty on European Union.
Let us wait until the second half of the year for the PHILOXENIA programme.
However, Mr Papoutsis, when it comes to our pessimism over finding a legal basis for the joint motion for a resolution, I wonder whether the Commission might be ready in the current situation, without any reform of the Treaty, to elaborate a legislative proposal on the basis of the current Treaty on European Union, tackling tourism from the consumer's viewpoint.
This is not a casual question, since the European Parliament is already making a request on those lines. Against that background, I should like to extend my warm thanks to Mr Papoutsis for his generous assistance.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are always debating tourism in the European Parliament.
There have been a series of good reports over the year and much energy and hard work has been put into the subject by you and my colleagues before me.
We have all insisted on demonstrating the importance of tourism as a social, economic and cultural phenomenon.
About 200 million European citizens leave their homes every year and become tourists.
It is an industry that generates 9 million jobs and could generate far more.
We must try and convince - you and us - the sector itself and the majority of the Member States that tourism is a horizontal activity and that the PHILOXENIA programme does not get in the way of subsidiarity.
We must convince them that if we identify the aspects that can be run at European level, that would add value to the sector and ease the management of the SMEs to coordinate the relationship between tourism and the environment, stimulate the modernization of installations, conservation of the artistic heritage, rural tourism, reassess training, assist the search for new products that keep the industry in momentum and create permanent jobs, setting quality products and services as the main priority.
You, Commissioner, and I know that this is the content of PHILOXENIA, rejected by the Council to everyone's great disappointment, especially mine as rapporteur.
I am aware of the considerable effort put in by yourself and your colleagues into properly running DG XXIII, but we should like you to put in more effort and enthusiasm in order to convince the rest of the Commission and the Council of the importance of tourism and make the latter give up its reservations and give the PHILOXENIA programme and all of its content the green light.
Transparent and open dialogue should then be continued over important matters such as VAT and the euro, prosaic but urgent matters, that if properly dealt with should help Europe become once again the leading tourist destination.
For this we need a legal base and an instrument for taking action, and that is the PHILOXENIA programme.
It is necessary so that you and your team can hold fluid and transparent dialogue with the sector, with enthusiasm, and along with the Council and the European Parliament, in order to establish a European tourism strategy, which we all need.
We shall back you, Commissioner.
Mr President, tourism is nothing more and nothing less than the sector capable of creating most jobs in the future in Europe - that is, the sector which could be the most helpful in solving our greatest problem.
On the other hand, tourism is a very diverse activity with a great knock-on effect which makes an important contribution to economic and social cohesion in Europe.
It therefore seems to us essential to give tourism a legal basis in the revision of the Treaty on European Union and, whilst the solution of including the tourism industry under Article 130 is not the ideal solution, it does have the advantage of being simple and possible and acceptable to the sector, especially Otreca.
I know, Mr Commissioner, that you agree with us on this objective.
I hope that it proves possible, for the sake of the economy and the citizens of Europe, to include tourism in the Treaty.
I should like finally to put a proposal to you: why not ask the Commission to carry out a study on the effects on tourism of liberalizing air transport? Perhaps the results of such a study would encourage those hesitant Member States to understand the enormous advantage which would spring from providing tourism with a legal basis in our Treaties.
Mr President, there is no doubt that tourism is a major economic factor as well as being critical to employment policy.
In Austria, for example, 17 % of GDP is earned from tourism.
That means that if we really want to take tourism seriously in those terms, then we have, in my view, to focus on at least three points.
Firstly, we should accord tourism the status of an autonomous Community policy, and that has been stressed by those who spoke before me also; secondly, we must do everything we can, that is to say, we must make available the resources to facilitate the PHILOXENIA programme, because that could in the end produce a Community policy that is to some extent a tourism policy for the Union; and, thirdly, we must create opportunities to improve staff quality through mobility and training programmes.
Mr President, a few days ago we in the European Parliament held a meeting with those responsible for tourism and established that tourism is set to increase by about 10 % as a result of the introduction of the euro.
I therefore believe that the euro can be one of the main incentives for what is qualitatively speaking high-value tourism in Europe, and if we also succeed in making progress towards tax harmonization, for example, in the area of value-added tax in particular, then we shall probably have the best possible start.
Since tourism is very labour intensive, we ought also to consider whether reduced rates of value-added tax ought not to apply here.
The most important area has already been mentioned by Mr Pirker, that is, in my view, training and further training, and the LEONARDO programme in particular.
I believe that the LEONARDO programme offers many opportunities for our tourist industry and would ask that an even bigger effort be made here.
Mr President, I apologize for being late, but I was involved in another meeting and I thought this debate was going to start a little later.
On behalf of the Greens, I just want to restate a position we have already expressed on previous occasions: we believe tourism ought to have its own place in the treaty, and that is in line with the intention already expressed by the European Parliament. But we do not think it is enough to include only the commercial and employment aspects of tourism, although these are important.
We think it should be valued for its cultural aspects and for relations between different people and cultures, as a means of getting to know them and their societies. So we believe it is very important to highlight not only the economic and commercial side but especially the cultural side and development of relations between the various cultures, to promote the construction of Europe.
This is a first important point, frequently debated in the Committee on Culture.
But as Greens we want to highlight the fact that tourism can also have great environmental and social impact, and that is why we have some doubts about the resolutions which have been tabled.
It cannot be dealt with in isolation from the serious effects certain forms of tourism have had on the environment in Europe.
Account must also be taken of the fact that certain types of mass tourism, with countryside and coastline being covered in concrete, have not only had an environmental impact, but have also reduced the potential for employment in the future and have blocked other activities more compatible with the environment.
So in social terms, we believe the consequences of certain types of tourism need careful evaluation.
There have been forms of tourism which have expropriated the inhabitants of certain areas, and tourism multinationals have imposed their logic and their personnel, totally changing the way of life in entire territories.
Without careful evaluation of the environmental impact and the social consequences, tourism cannot be regarded as exclusively positive from the commercial point of view.
So, yes to incorporation into the treaty, but with the proper precautions, including these environmental, social and cultural aspects.
Mr President, allow me to emphasize to the House that if provision is made in the Treaty we shall be freed from the sort of trouble that we have had with the Philoxenia programme.
Until it gets a proper mention in the Treaty, tourism will continue to be pushed about from pillar to post.
Mr President, the Commissioner has appealed to us most urgently to bring pressure to bear on the Council.
For our part, I would urge the Commissioner to attend the meeting of the tourism group at 3.30 p.m. this Thursday, where the President-in-Office of the Council is to make a policy statement.
Commissioner, if you are serious about this, be there at 3.30 p.m. on Thursday, then we can have a joint discussion with the President-in-Office.
If necessary, you can put your urgent request again.
Can we count on your attendance?
Mr President, I will look at that possibility and try to be at the meeting.
In the event of my not being able to be there, depending on my programme, a representative of the Commission will certainly attend.
Whatever the case, however, I can assure Mr Cornelissen that I am constantly in touch with the Dutch Presidency about the IGC and developments concerning a specific chapter for tourism and the possibility of achieving an agreement on the Philoxenia programme even at this late stage, in the final weeks, through the COREPER framework, without a Council meeting.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.25 and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Question Time (Commission)
The next item on the agenda is questions to the Commission (B4-0170/97).
Question No 32 by Mr Juan Izquierdo Collado (H-0347/97)
Subject: Suspension of the LEADER programme
Does the Commission acknowledge responsibility for the suspension of the LEADER programmes following a fax from Mr Legras, Director-General of DG VI, which has no real legal basis?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in a communication of 15 July 1996, the Commission informed the Spanish authorities that accumulating structural fund resources in support of one and the same project cannot be approved.
What was being asked for at the time was both a Community subsidy under the LEADER programme and, in addition, Community co-financing under a Community support programme.
After detailed discussion of this matter with the Spanish authorities, the Commission is now able to approve the accumulation of aid that is being asked for, provided that effective and reliable project management is guaranteed, so that it is possible to make a clear distinction between the types of aid accorded for the project in question.
Only in that way is the Commission able to guarantee that the Community resources are used in an efficient and transparent manner.
As a general point, I should add that accumulating aid is not in itself a condition for the implementation of the LEADER programme.
In the majority of the Member States the LEADER programmes progress absolutely normally with no accumulation of resources.
Commissioner, the fact is that a good many LEADER programmes in my country are being held up for a year.
The execution of those programmes has been paralysed and this has stopped jobs being created and innovations being fulfilled.
Why? Because the Council or the Commission have decided that LEADER II must be run in a different way to LEADER I and a Director General's fax has produced such a commotion that we have seen an perfect example of red-tape and its harmful effects on the dearest aims of the Union, i.e. efficiency and job creation.
Commissioner, I hope that your answer will send a clear message to many mayors and councillors who are setting much store by your words that the LEADER programme's continuity is guaranteed in all transparency and, otherwise, that the Spanish Government is asked to take immediate action.
I hope that your words will be quite clear.
Mr President, Mr Izquierdo Collado, let me first thank you for agreeing with me that LEADER II is in itself a sound Community initiative.
But when, in the case of a specific measure, it is not clear whether this is a single measure or two separate measures, as happened here, that is something that has to be cleared up.
But it is not a reason for simply shelving that procedure.
If, in future, you should encounter similar problems where, either for reasons similar to those you mentioned or for other reasons, the implementation of a LEADER programme has come to a halt, then I would simply ask you to let me know about it.
I should be glad to look into the matter.
Commissioner, how is it that abusive action by a Director General of the Commission can paralyse the LEADER II programme, just because of problems raised by LEADER I? There were problems of an accumulation of Community subsidies in the case of the LEADER I programme and a lack of controls over the programme by the Commission.
But the two things are not linked.
Unblock LEADER II and control LEADER I. I think that we are down that road, given that under LEADER II there is now a payment body in each Member State.
But I would still ask the Commissioner to make sure that the same things do not occur again. I hope that the Commission will control the excessive powers of some of its employees.
Mrs Redondo, let me say it again: we are talking about LEADER II and not a mixture of LEADER I and LEADER II.
One thing is absolutely clear: LEADER I has already expired and we now have the LEADER II Community initiative.
I can assure you that it is not my intention nor that of my services to create additional bureaucracy here.
What we actually need simply a proper system.
And we have to have that system because we could otherwise come up against problems later when it comes balancing the books.
I repeat: if there are problems here, for whatever reason, I am prepared to help solve them.
Please tell me about them.
Question No 33 by Mrs Mary Banotti (H-0409/97)
Subject: Abolition of duty-free sales
Has the Commission considered the implications of the possible loss of 140 000 jobs in the European Union on the abolition of duty-free sales?
Given the high level of unemployment in the EU at the moment, does the Commission not consider that the deadline for abolition of duty-free in June 1999 should be further extended to consider in particular its effect on regional development and employment?
Mr President, when the directives on the abolition of tax controls at borders were adopted, the Council decided to cease permitting duty-free sales as of 1 July 1999, although it made provision for a transitional period which has to be used for the taxation of intra-Community trade to allow the adoption of the measures necessary to cushion the social impact in the regions affected and at the same time regional difficulties - particularly in border regions.
The Commission regrets the fact that the sector in question has not used the transitional period provided for by the Council to develop a strategy to cushion the effect of removing the tax advantage of duty-free sales.
There was never any question of the Council decision, which actually dates back five years, being rescinded.
In fact, the dutyfree sector actually increased its turnover between 1991 and 1995 by some 50 % and in so doing naturally created an unacceptable means of exerting pressure.
That increase in turnover also shows the importance of the tax advantage to the sector, accounting for 35 % of turnover on average.
With financial support of that nature, it would be possible for any marketing sector to create at least the number of jobs mentioned in the question.
It is telling that the arguments - including the argument about jobs - cited here in support of extending the transitional period, are exactly the same as those which led to the 1991 Council decision.
It is not therefore the Commission's intention to propose an extension of the transitional period.
I am quite amazed at the Commissioner's answer.
Clearly, the Commission has been remiss in assessing the damage both to the shipping and airline business resulting from the abolition of duty-free: its effect on costs and fares and above all, in the regions, its effect on employment.
Already it is estimated that at least 1, 800 people could lose their jobs on the ferries in Ireland.
Why is it not possible to do a proper study based on the realities we face today? A huge number of jobs are involved and maintaining duty-free has particular relevance for regional development.
You can argue that, simply because they have a tax advantage, they should not be allowed to continue in this line of business and that anybody else would be able to continue with that sort of advantage.
I do not think that is good enough given the appalling vista we have before us of job losses in these areas.
Would you agree that the Commission has been remiss in the way it did not conduct adequate studies into the effect of the abolition of duty-free?
Mrs Banotti, I have to be quite candid with you and say that: firstly, it has long been known that this decision was coming, but instead of preparing for this new and necessary situation, the sector has done exactly the opposite and used the tax advantage to increase turnover.
And so it cannot be argued that jobs are now going to be lost because duty-free is no longer possible.
You could equally ask how many jobs have already been lost in normal trading which was at a clear competitive disadvantage as a result of this situation.
I would like to support what Mrs Banotti said.
The UK also has a problem.
As in Ireland, we will be facing many job losses in the ferry industries and in regional and local airports.The effect will be disastrous.
Although the Commissioner said that this has been known for some time, the studies which have outlined the sort of job losses we are talking about have in fact been relatively recent.
In the light of those studies, the Commissioner should give further thought to the number of jobs which will be lost and the effect on transport facilities both in the UK and Ireland and other countries affected.
It goes without saying that a restructuring measure of the kind needed here is bound to involve problems and difficulties.
We fully acknowledge that.
But I do not believe that it is compatible with the principle of the internal market permanently to allow structures which clearly disadvantage normal trade, while special provision is made for some, according them a clear competitive advantage.
The Commission is therefore in agreement with the Member States and the Council on this issue and does not intend to submit a proposal for amendment of the kind you are requesting.
Thank you for your kind treatment of us, Mr President.
I am very glad of it.
Mr Fischler, I think your answer was a bad one.
I think it was bad because there is unemployment. If there were no unemployment, it would be OK to abolish the system.
But regions are affected. In my region we have the highest rate of unemployment in Denmark, and we shall lose 2900 jobs.
People will really be devastated by this measure.
It cannot be the Commission's intention to create unemployment.
Create new jobs, before you start to close jobs down.
I think it was a bad answer, and I think you could have been better prepared in the way you are answering us.
Mr Blak, I thought you were going to be speaking on a point of order.
But it is Mr Cassidy's turn and so I am now giving him the floor. If the Commissioner then decides to answer your question, it is up to him.
Mr Cassidy, you have one minute.
I should like to congratulate the Commissioner on his robust answers to Mrs Banotti and to Mr Truscott.
The fact is that the very name duty-free is misleading.
A more correct appellation would be tax-free.
Secondly, it has been admitted by one of the operators in the United Kingdom that the ending of tax-free sales would mean an extra £15 on the average charter air fare.
In other words, nearly ECU 20.
The British exchequer loses several hundred million pounds a year on this trade.
It has no place in a single market.
It has an effect on other sectors of the retail trade as the Commissioner has pointed out.
It is also hotly opposed by the Consumers Association.
So will the Commission stick to its guns on this issue?
Ladies and gentlemen, first and foremost, it is not my personal responsibility to make proposals on this.
That is for my colleague, Commissioner Monti.
But in so far as I can judge or see from the Commission perspective, we continue to stand by what I already said, including as a Commission.
Secondly, should problems of transport costs arise here or transport difficulties, then I should like to make it absolutely clear that that would have to be met from airport fees which, in Europe, are not exactly the lowest, compared with the international picture.
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
Mr Andersson, on a point of order.
I would just like to state that it is a little unfortunate that the discussion on this important issue, which concerns so many regions in Europe, has concentrated on only one region.
May I just say that there are many regions which will have the same problems when tax free shopping disappears and we would like to act as the mouthpiece for what will happen in these regions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission position on the obligations of the Member States, under Articles 5 and 30 of the EC Treaty, to prevent individuals disrupting the smooth functioning of the internal market and the free movement of goods has already on several occasions been explained to the House.
In an effort to bring to an end attacks by French farmers on agricultural products from other Member States, the Commission, as the guardian of the Treaties, brought an action for infringement of the Treaty before the European Court of Justice.
The aim of that action is to get the French Government to meet its obligations under Articles 5 and 30 of the EC Treaty.
That case is pending before the Court of Justice under Registry number C-265/95.
The deadline for the oral procedure has been set at 10 June 1997.
Since the Commission has taken the court action available to it under the Treaty to enforce Community law, we must wait for the Court's judgment.
Following fresh attacks on 24 April last and then again recently, the Commission urged the French authorities, on 24 April - after the first incident - finally to use their powers and guarantee internal security.
In addition, Commissioner Monti wrote to the minister responsible for the internal market in France, drawing his attention, as a matter of urgency, to the fact that he had to secure the conditions necessary for the operation of the internal market.
We have also made it publicly clear that the Commission is not prepared simply to tolerate such attacks, and we shall be considering whether the Commission can take further legal or administrative measures to put a stop to this situation.
Commissioner, as you see this is indeed a very tricky problem and a very serious one, because these violent acts - taking place frequently, as you admit - against Spanish farm produce on French roads, have a terrible effect, destroy the single market and endanger people's personal safety.
The most serious aspect of all, Commissioner, is that this aggression is achieving the desired results.
According to news that has come to us over recent days, the overwhelming majority of exports of fruit and vegetables from my country to France has been diverted to other markets, which has obviously led to a sharp price drop.
The damage done is therefore far greater than merely a calculation of the quantity and face value of the destroyed goods.
My question is: do you think that the current measures and the action taken by the Court of Justice in Luxembourg will be enough to solve this problem or will you need new measures and new powers to take determined action and avoid these uncivilized attacks?
Mr Sanz Fernández, I should like to make it clear that the question of whether actions for damages are likely to be successful will depend, in the first instance, on the judgment reached by the Court of Justice.
Apart from that, damages are primarily a matter for the national courts.
Such claims have therefore to be brought before the national courts.
Commissioner, I must insist on the attacks against Spanish farmers when their fruit and vegetables are being transported through southern France.
These are repeated acts of violence.
You only have to look at the number of European Parliament resolutions to see that - the number of violations of Article 5 of the Treaty, which obliges all Member States to adopt all the appropriate general or specific measures to ensure compliance with the internal market, i.e. the suppression of any obstacles between the Member States to the free movement of goods.
In this case, however, there is an added dimension of unusual violence, of out and out vandalism.
It is not enough to condemn these acts. We must compensate for the damage done not only to vehicles but also to the goods, because the loss of those goods in particular must be compensated for.
I refer, Commissioner, in particular to the latest measures taken to deal with these acts, to which you and the previous speaker referred.
What does the Commission plan to do in the future to deal with these incidents?
Mr Camisón Asensio, when you say that this also constitutes violence and vandalism - and that may very well be the case - it remains clear that such attacks have to be proceeded against under criminal law.
But criminal law is in any event national law.
Criminal proceedings would have to be conducted in France.
What the Commission has criticized over and over again is that the French police authorities have been anything but active in intervening on-the-spot when such attacks are taking place.
We have also been able to document that irregular conduct.
We have just today - the oral procedure is today taking place before the Court of Justice - submitted videos and other documentation to prove this.
I hope then that something will finally be done and that the new French Government will take up this matter.
Commissioner, you know that the European Parliament has repeatedly protested, with the Presidency's blessing, in order to highlight the importance of farming and preserved food in the region of Murcia, against attacks on lorry drivers and products from Murcia in France.
I thought your last answer was evasive.
I would like to know whether the Commission is taking action or intends to take action to make sure that the loss of products is compensated for. But I see that this is a question that does not interest the Commission.
My second brief question is this: if these questions demonstrate that the fruit and vegetables COM and the CAP reforms of 1992 are not properly functioning, perhaps these events should actually lead to a proper reform of the fruit and vegetables COMs and the common agricultural policy?
Mr Marset Campos, if I may begin with your second question, I should like to make it clear to you that those attacks took place specifically before the new organization of the market in fruit and vegetables entered into force, after the old organization of the market then.
I cannot therefore see how the attacks are linked to the new organization of the market in vegetables.
Far from it, I am actually expecting the new organization of the market in vegetables to result in new developments, as we further encourage producer groups.
As regards your first question concerning the possibilities of the Commission intervening directly on site, I have, unfortunately, to say that the Commission does not have its own police or similar units, and I assume that the European Council in Amsterdam next week is unlikely to set up a Commission police unit of that kind.
So - unfortunately, I have to say - we are always dependent on the forces of law and order of the Member States.
Regrettably, all we can do is approach the Member State and ensure it meets its obligations.
If it does not, then our ultimate weapon, so to speak, is to bring the matter before the Court of Justice.
We have used that ultimate weapon and proceedings are now under way before the Court.
Nor are there any further possibilities under the Treaty either.
Question No 35 by Mr Roy Perry (H-0436/97)
Subject: Regional policy/islands
Is the Commission giving support to the proposal at the IGC from Greece and Spain to include a clause in the new treaty on islands?
Mr President, it was the Commission's understanding that suitable measures would be drawn up to resolve the special territorial issues that arise for certain regions, including the islands.
These measures should of course not interfere with the internal market or free trade or, for that matter, the rules of competition.
As one of the matters to be discussed at the Intergovernmental Conference, Greece presented a proposal over a year ago, when the negotiations started, to amend Article 92(3) and Articles 130a and 130f of the Treaty in order to take explicit account of the special circumstances arising in the island regions.
The Commission had favoured the insertion of a text in the final declaration of the Conference, in which the special concerns of the island regions would be noted.
In the Commission's view this political recognition is sufficient because, with it, the Treaty makes it possible in the future to take account of the situation on the islands.
Finally the situation of the islands is different to that of the regions on the periphery of the Union.
Here the three countries affected, France, Spain and Portugal, are seeking the inclusion of these areas under Article 227(2) and the addition of a protocol on how this Article should be implemented.
I appreciate the Commissioner's response.
I was somewhat relieved that it was not Commissioner Fischler, who comes from a landlocked country, who answered my question.
I certainly hope that the IGC will be able to recognize the needs of islands.
If that is included within the findings of the IGC and in the subsequent Treaty, can the Commissioner give me some idea of what sort of proposals the Commission might think it appropriate to come forward with to help islands and, in particular, the Isle of Wight, which I represent in this Parliament?
I think we all realize that we are now at a stage where the very last details of matters under discussion at the Intergovernmental Conference are about to fall into place.
These are the last days of meetings between the personal representatives, then comes the summit, which means that I cannot go any further than I did in my first answer, that is to say that the Commission supported the proposals that had been put forward and that we think it would be appropriate if the final declaration contained a text which made it possible to give special consideration to the islands.
I myself should guard against making any pronouncements on what should be done in specific cases and in relation to individual islands.
That is something I should not venture into, given the many Members who are familiar with islands, which I, as a Commissioner, could of course not know with the same degree of detail as Members of Parliament.
As we all know, Finland is the country with the highest number of archipelagos and waterways in the whole of Europe.
We sing in our national anthem that we are 'the land of the thousand seas' .
In fact, we have 76 000 islands which are larger than 1.5 hectares.
But still no attention is being paid, in the proposed Article or the proposal for the opinion from the Intergovernmental Conference currently underway, to the need which exists in Sweden and Finland, and perhaps even Denmark, for an archipelago policy.
The opinion mentions 'island regions' .
Instead, I would like to see this become 'archipelago regions' , in other words, areas where water divides the land and brings with it the need for a totally different social structure.
I also hope that when we specifically follow up on this report it may lead to a different view of transport aid in the regions.
I am totally convinced that Commissioner Liikanen could give a very good account of what it is like to live in a country where water really does split the land.
It is quite correct that, when we look around the European Union, we see many regions in which islands play a major role, and that is quite clearly the case, as the speaker pointed out, for the Finnish region.
What we are talking about, and what today's question hinged on, is, first and foremost, whether we would support the proposal to take special account of the islands' problems in the final declaration of the Intergovernmental Conference, and I gave an affirmative answer to that.
Clearly, as a Dane, I know some of the problems there have been in our region, and I think that people in any country where there are islands have a common view on many of these problems which, as the speaker indicates, can have to do with transport, but also education and all manner of things. I therefore consider it important that that possibility should be included in the new Treaty.
The reply on the particular predicament of islands which are remote from the centre of the Community was positive and very understanding.
However, I would like a clarification from the Commissioner on something that I am not sure about.
She has said that the Commission has a grasp of the situation and that there may be an announcement.
What the questioner asked, and what we are asking, too, is whether a clause on islands will be included in the Maastricht II text after the IGC. Whether, that is to say, as the final touches are added, as she puts it, there will an interesting announcement on the matter which would still, all the same, be non-binding and a pious aspiration.
I would like her to clarify that.
As I began by saying in answer to the first supplementary question, we are now at a stage in the Intergovernmental Conference at which it very much depends on what the Member States do and on what degree of priority they assign to particular questions.
It is not possible for me, as a Commissioner, to give any guarantees on what the final outcomes of the Intergovernmental Conference will be.
The information I can give is that the Commission has supported the concrete proposal put forward amongst others by Greece, Spain and Portugal, and we will continue to do so.
I cannot say whether it will be adopted or what form it may take if it is, but I can say that the Commission has supported it in the negotiations so far, and we will also do so in the final stages.
The time allowed for the firts part of Question Time has come to an end.
Question No 36 will receive a written anwser.
Question No 37 by Mr Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0425/97)
Subject: Exemption of EU employees from paying income tax
Staff employed by the EU in the Member States, e.g. in the Commission's and Parliament's offices, are exempt from paying income tax in the country in which they live, yet they and their families benefit from public services, such as health care, transport and education, which are financed by taxes.
Does the Commission intend to try to change this state of affairs so that EU employees, too, have to pay income tax in the country in which they work?
Mr President, the Commission's representations in the Member States employ both Commission officials and workers recruited from the Member States in question.
For example, on the staff of the Commission's representation in Sweden there are six officials and eleven employees recruited in Sweden.
Thus two-thirds of the staff are locally recruited.
They pay income tax in accordance with national taxation laws.
As regards the income tax position of the Commission officials, it should be noted that the Community has its own taxation system.
EU officials pay a progressive Community income tax.
The Union also has its own social security and health insurance system, to which the EU officials pay insurance contributions and by which they and their families are covered.
On the question of indirect taxation it may be noted that both EU officials and locally recruited staff pay indirect taxes.
Thus within the EU representations there are staff belonging to two different taxation systems.
It might of course be wondered whether in future the proportion of locally recruited officials on the representations' staff should be increased still further.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his response.
I would like to say that I think it reasonable that anyone who is working and located permanently in a Member State should pay income tax in that country.
They not only receive the benefit of health care in that country but also communications and education etc.
EU employees working in Sweden are also protected by the Swedish military and can enjoy the Swedish royal family and much more.
I think that it is reasonable to pay tax in the country in which you make use of the public sector, regardless of the capacity in which you are employed by the European Commission.
Furthermore, I think that tax exemption of this kind is provocative, as it also strengthens the view that there are huge benefits attached to employment within the EU system.
I do not think that there can be any good reason why some people do not pay tax in the country in which they live and work.
I wonder if you are going to take any steps to change this state of affairs so that everyone who is employed by the Commission is treated equally in this respect.
I am also from Sweden where we have debated EU staff conditions; we have also debated the employment conditions for Members of Parliament, and both are of course equally important.
I think that it is extremely important that the relationship between the general public and those of us working here as elected representatives, or at the Commission's office in Sweden or in other Member States should be as good as it can be.
My next question is: does Commissioner Liikanen not think that it would be possible to improve this relationship by actively removing those instruments, or those rules which make it difficult for many people to feel comfortable with what goes on in the EU? I would very much like an answer to this question.
Of course we must improve our relationship with the people in all the Member States.
Historically, employment legislation governing EU employees has been designed to treat all permanent staff in every EU country in exactly the same way.
This has led to a situation in which anyone working permanently for an EU institution has the same rights in all EEC countries.
I am well aware that this situation has been difficult to explain in Sweden.
In general the problem with salary privileges is not so great.
We have examined this quite carefully and compared the net salary level for foreign diplomats stationed in Brussels with the net salary level of an EEC member of staff also stationed there.
I have to say that in the majority of cases the differences are quite small.
This discussion has been more noticeable in those countries where people are working on their home territory.
Question No 38 by Mr Bryan Cassidy (H-0439/97)
Subject: Age limits in recruitment to the European Commission and its associate organizations
Is the Commission aware that the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions does not use any age limits in its job advertisements because it stopped this practice a few years ago?
Will the Commission follow the excellent lead given by the European Foundation and stop using age limits in the Commission's own recruitment advertisements?
Mr McMahon, on a point of order.
Mr President, I tabled a similar question but for some reason it was put way down on the list.
It should have been taken with Mr Cassidy's question as it is on the same issue.
This is the second month that this has happened.
Mr McMahon, it is not the European Parliament services that decide which Commissioner answers the questions, but the Commission itself.
Mr Liikanen wishes to answer you any way. You have the floor, Commissioner.
I am very conscious of the fact that the Commission has made an effort, in particular since Commissioner Liikanen took on responsibility for this dossier and we welcome the fact that for A Grades there is now a limit up to 50.
But the fact remains that one of the important institutions, the European Centre for Living and Working Conditions in Dublin, does not exercise limits in age.
The parliamentary groups in this Parliament, thanks to the efforts of the Intergroup on Ageing in Parliament, no longer exercise age limits.
It is a bit of an old-fashioned survival, I would respectfully suggest.
I hope the Commissioner will press on with the negotiations with what he called the organisations syndicales .
Am I correct in assuming they are the stumbling block in this affair?
Mr President, the trade union organizations think that independent public administration requires in principle that officials should start at an early age and pursue their career there.
We have had some discussions on higher age limits where they have been more hesitant, but that is a discussion we must take.
The second point that I want to make is that even with no growth in Commission staff in the future and despite extensive recruitment over the last ten years, it is plain that - even although I hope we will be more flexible in the future - we cannot stop recruiting young people because, otherwise, the Commission's entire staffing structure will become noticeably top-heavy.
Thirdly, I am ready to try and find with an open mind solutions in those areas where this is possible.
The only exception perhaps is that we should have a kind of basic grade for young people coming directly from university although we could try to find more practical solutions for those with professional experience.
I understand the intergroup in Parliament on this issue is holding a small seminar on Thursday.
My director-general will attend and contribute to the discussion with details of the problems concerned.
The final point I want to make is that our real problem is the huge number of applicants.
If we have tens of thousands of applicants and we can only recruit one or two hundred, we will encounter many practical problems in the running of such an operation in the future.
I am sure that it will be useful to discuss the details later this week.
I heard the Commissioner with some interest.
Does he not think there is some hypocrisy here in talking about a flexible labour market while politicians are going around the world saying no-one will have a job for life and that people will have to adapt and have several careers? In their own backyard the Commission are openly practising this job for life approach and, if you do not get on the bottom rung of the ladder then there really is a block on you.
Is not hypocrisy being preached within the Commission when they are saying one thing to the general public about unemployment and about the economy, and yet, in actual practice, they are doing the complete opposite. When are they going to match their rhetoric with their actions within the Commission itself?
Similarly, on the IGC, is there not something wrong with the Commissioner proposing a non-discrimination clause on ageism at the IGC while at the same time the Commission and the institutions are practising what they are trying to abolish?
I am sorry that Mr McMahon did not have the chance to listen to my reply because I explained that a large part of the Commission officials are above this age limit.
There are no age limits for temporary agents which is a type of recruitment which we are carrying out, for instance, for BSE.
Secondly, as regards the new countries, where we have recruited most officials during the last two years, half of the recruitment has been of young people for the A6, A7 and A8 posts, but another half with staff who are older, up to the age of 60 in fact.
I am certain that if we look at the recruitment practices of the public sector in general and how people are being recruited as new officials, the record of the Commission is not so bad.
I am still willing to give thought to whether we can have a more open system for all those jobs where we need professional experience.
For those young people who come directly to assistant jobs, whether we have age limits or not it is very clear that these jobs are for people without professional experience as a first step in the administration.
Commissioner, I have read your written reply and I heard what you have said.
I read between the lines a degree of personal sympathy for what we are trying to do.
I do not know if you know, but Parliament voted in February to delete the reference to age limits from the Annex to the Staff Regulations.
I hope you will do the same thing in the Commission.
I find it surprising that anybody should be justifying an age limit by the fact that there are too many people applying.
I cannot imagine that any business in this world would apply that criteria.
Do you agree?
One thing in Europe today is clear: unemployment is a major problem for people of about 45 to 50 years old.
Why? Because they tend not to be recruited in the labour market.
That is a fact.
That is a real problem of unemployment, because employers prefer to recruit young people.
Unfortunately, that is the case.
I hope we can change it but that is the case in countries with high unemployment.
As far as the Commission is concerned, we are ready to be more open in the future.
We want to have young people also.
We will recruit very few now because of budgetary constraints.
We cannot forget total generations.
We must recruit young people, but be open in areas where we need professional experience and also people who are not young and we will recruit without age limits.
I would like to join those who express some amazement that those of us who have to meet the public boast about the non-discrimination and the law on that subject within the Union.
And yet we have had really amazingly blatant and naked justification for a system which imposes effectively a ban on people who are very often experienced.
I noted some of the justifications: young people would be happy, loyal and have a good career.
Why does that not equally apply to someone over 50? Indeed, they may be happier and more loyal because they would probably appreciate it and bring experience to bear.
We are not asking the Commission to stop recruiting young people, we are asking it not to put a ban on recruiting older people.
I do not understand how the Commission can possibly go on with this policy.
Is there any timetable it has in mind when it is going to stop it?
Mr President, I am sorry I was not quoted correctly.
As much as I would like to talk about happiness in life I did not mention that in my reply.
As far as age limits are concerned, I said that I am presenting here an opening.
I still hope that I can go forward with the line I have presented here today.
The time allowed for questions to Mr Liikanen has come to an end.
Question No 39 will receive a written answer.
Question No 40 by Mr Josu Imaz San Miguel (H-0414/97)
Subject: Drift nets
The Presidency of the Fisheries Council suggested to the Commission at the last meeting (held on 14 and 15 April) that a new proposal be drawn up to tackle the problem of drift nets.
As the Presidency suggested, the new proposal should include the latest, most up-to-date information on this subject.
Italy's change of position, as publicly expressed by Minister Pinto in Venice on 29 November 1996, in favour of a total ban on drift nets, and the specific provision on using drift nets in the Baltic as opposed to other fishing grounds open the way for a majority within the Council in favour of a total ban on such nets in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
Has the Commission drawn up a proposal along these lines? Does the proposal include a total ban on these nets, with the exception of the Baltic Sea?
As the Honourable Member knows, the dossier referred to in the question is the one which has caused the Commission, and me personally, as Commissioner responsible for it, the most headaches.
One matter remains: after the decisions taken in the Council on the plan to restructure the Italian fleet and especially on the position taken by Germany on a request from the Spanish Minister, there is the decision that the Commission initiate a series of informal bilateral contacts with the Member States to consider the feasibility of a new amending proposal which may be varied in nature: for example, there might be a split between the Baltic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, or similar actions.
So the Commission is making the preparations and starting these bilateral contacts.
But I have to say to the Honourable Member that it is not the Commission's intention to superimpose the 'drift nets' dossier on the 'technical measures' dossier, which the Commission intends to conclude in the Fisheries Council on 30 October.
As the Honourable Member can readily understand, this is to avoid cross vetoes or more or less transparent attempts at bartering between the various dossiers.
The Commission therefore means to end this round of consultations and settle the position or present a new proposal by the end of the year.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your answer.
Although this is giving you and the Commission a headache, I am convinced that the Commission is doing serious work on this matter and working in the right direction, according to the timetable you have set.
I should like to ask two further questions.
Is the Commission going to make a practical proposal on this matter in the autumn, for October or just after?
Then it could plan on banning these nets by summer 1998.
Secondly, does the Commission envisage in its proposal any reconversion plan as i think that that would be very positive for the French, Irish and British fleets, funded through the IFOP or any other type of European fund so that these fleets could be paid for the additional net investment required and so that they could be given the necessary training to convert to more selective fishing methods.
I believe that the Commission will present a proposal by the end of the year.
As you know, everything depends on the procedures in which the Council and the European Parliament take part, and as the Commission is not the only matter of this procedure, it will have to wait and see.
As for your second remark, this is one of the subject of the bilateral consultation that we are holding with the Member States.
I should like to point out that, in respect of Ireland, there is only one boat left fishing with drift-nets; that means there is no need for a major reconversion plan there.
Once there is an agreement, the Member States using drift-nets in the Atlantic will have to send control vessels: you can imagine what the economic cost of that initiative would be.
As for Britain, last year it had only five or six drift-net boats in use under the British flag.
That too would not require a major reconversion plan.
The question does arise in the case of France.
It still has a fleet of 40 boats, an old fleet still using drift-nets.
This is something that could be considered in the bilateral talks, in similar terms to the procedures applied in the Italian plan.
I repeat, there are procedures and also financial aspects.
Question No 41 by Mr Robin Teverson (H-0420/97)
Subject: Task force on future of CFP
In the recent round table discussion on the future of the CFP, Commissioner Bonino said that a 'Task Force' is being put together in DG XIV to deal with this.
Has this been done, what is the timetable, who is on it and how will it work? In addition, can the Commissioner outline its terms of reference and the European Parliament's role?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, under the auspices of the Directorate General for Fisheries, a task force has already been set up charged with preparing the revision of the common fisheries policy, as provided for in the base regulation, through a report to be presented to the Commission by the end of 2002.
The first task of this group must be to define the methodology of the work, and in this context a seminar with the European Parliament will be organized by the end of the year, in which all interested Members of Parliament can participate, to establish the content and above all the methodology necessary to make a good discussion possible before the proposal is drawn up in 2001.
Personally, I think the whole process should be based on wide consultation of all the players and interested parties. So on the one hand, very close contact with your Committee on Fisheries throughout this whole process, which is a long term process, and on the other, obviously, consultation with the Member States and the sector.
The idea we are developing inside the Directorate General is a questionnaire to be distributed as widely as possible, in other words trying to have a bottom-up approach, at least in the first stage of the process, so that we can take stock of all the concerns, and indeed suggestions, which emerge from various quarters of the sector, although some subjects, obviously, may be less controversial, while other ideas may be usefully taken into consideration.
From the point of view of methodology, we feel the first important deadline for this task force is the organization of the seminar by the end of the year, with the participation of the European Parliament.
Thank you Commissioner, for a very useful reply there.
I certainly have been very pleased that such a working party is being set up and that it is going to be reasonably broad-based.
The question I would like to ask going on from that is how broad do you think the questions will be that they will be able to ask?
Will it just be a question of how a common fisheries policy should change for the future, or will they actually consider the broad spectrum of alternatives which might go from complete renationalization - not something that I would advocate - but through regionalization and into a completely unified European fleet. Is all that spectrum within the remit of the working party or is it really within a new common fisheries policy as a common fisheries policy?
The idea - at least for those putting the questions - is for very broad questions to be asked.
That does not mean that in the follow-up of the process we will be able to retain or accept all the suggestions.
If we just want to ask what people want to change about the existing common fisheries policy, there is really no point to the use of a methodology such as a questionnaire.
You can use other tools.
But if we accept this use of a questionnaire, it has to be as broad as possible and address the questions you are asking: such as regionalization.
Provided, of course, we understand quite specifically what we mean by regionalization because, as far as I can understand, throughout the fisheries sector the Member States have quite different views on what regionalization is supposed to mean.
So on this particular issue, one question is not enough.
The problem is to have broader questions with alternatives that can give us at least a broad idea of what everybody thinks.
So we want to start in 1997 to give ourselves enough time for a full revision.
Maybe at the end of the process we will remain with the same common fisheries policy or a slightly different one.
This I cannot predict.
But a revision is not a simple modification.
The name itself means that everything can be called into question.
Since we are trading and cooperating in a variety of ways with Third World countries and our fleets are operating in Third World country waters - will those countries be taken into the Commissioner's confidence when she is drawing up the new common fisheries policy? Will we be permitting the Third World countries to have some kind of meaningful representation so that we hear their voices as clearly as we hear the voices of our own fishing people?
My reply is that from a strictly procedural standpoint, this is not possible.
But what we are trying to do is to have informal consultations, mostly with countries with which we have development policies or fishery agreements.
But I cannot get information from the legal service.
We can only have informal consultations mostly related to international agreements.
Mr Morris, listen for one moment.
If it is a point of order, you have the floor.
But your question must be about the same subject. I shall have to stick to the Rules and you know that you cannot open a new debate.
But if it really is a point of order, you have the floor.
I wish to be helpful.
As you know, we now have an ongoing ACP fisheries working party.
I was wondering whether or not the Commissioner could work through that agency?
Thank you for your help - but it was not a point of order.
I think Mrs Bonino wants to reply.
The Commission is in favour of having input from this working group, not with binding documents but in an informal consultation.
The time allowed for questions to Mrs Bonino has come to an end.
Questions 42 to 45 will receive written answers.
Mr President, I can deal only with the factual issue concerning Directive 95/47/EEC and other directives that may be relevant here.
I cannot, of course, comment on the political disputes that have begun and are continuing in Spain on this matter.
The directive that regulates television standards, requires standardized transmission systems for digital television, and that is a clear technical requirement that is designed to guarantee that all broadcasters transmit in the same format.
This is intended to prevent a number of standards, such as the Pal and Secam variants, existing side-byside in the digital age.
The directive then regulates the way in which services are provided so that broadcasters are able to charge customers for programmes broadcast to subscribers.
Those are the conditional access services.
Customers are generally able to use those services by using a chip-card which they insert in their decoder.
Under the directive, those services must be available to all broadcasters under fair, appropriate and non-discriminatory conditions, that is to say that the directive does not provide for any technical resources, it does not contain any standards, nor does it speak out in favour of any particular system.
It is up to the market operator which system he chooses.
The directive does not therefore opt for either simulcrypt or multicrypt.
Both allow operators common use of conditional access systems.
The common or combined use of conditional access systems means that a viewer, who initially subscribes to the services of one broadcaster, is subsequently able to use those of another supplier without having to acquire another decoder.
That is the important point.
The directive itself does not deal specifically with agreements and contractual relations between market operators.
They have to regulate that among themselves.
But it is made clear that such agreements must result in fair, appropriate and non-discriminatory conditions, that means then that where such agreements have to be made, this is not a serious disadvantage but a method that can be applied to specific technical solutions, to which the directive also refers.
We are, of course, aware that this is very much a matter of dispute.
We tried, first of all in talks with the Spanish Government, to ensure that its legislation was compatible with the directive, and we also invited both parties to the dispute along with a technical expert who made it sufficiently clear that both the systems that each uses are open systems.
Both sides are currently in negotiation, though we remain under an obligation, should the negotiations prove unsuccessful - and we shall know the outcome next week - to consider the legal aspects and then decide whether the Spanish law is compatible with EU law.
What we are looking at here is not only whether the directive is being infringed but also whether Articles 30 and 59 of the Treaty and directives 83/189/EEC and 95/47/EC are being infringed, the implication being that the other provisions may also be pertinent.
Commissioner Monti is partly responsible for this, and we are working together.
I told Minister Arias Salgado personally about this review and pointed out that if the parties cannot agree, the Commission will take a decision.
That will have, of course, also to ensure that no decision is taken in favour of one party or the other.
If, contrary to what we decide, that does happen, we shall have to take legal action, and, if necessary, if the Spanish Government has not acted legally, it will have to compensate for the damage its actions have caused.
Commissioner, the Simulcrypt system needs pacts.
That is it main defect, because all the owner would have to do is make difficulties over the pact and the whole agreement would collapse in ruins.
That would create an owner-dominated market, a de facto monopoly, to the detriment of media pluralism and free competition.
The Member State cannot allow such an abuse as it would not be fulfilling its obligations, as you said, to create non-discriminatory conditions, as we are obliged by the Directive you have mentioned.
Until the pact between the first two operators is unblocked, the problem will continue for the others and other undesirable duopolies or oligopolies will emerge.
That would lead to the harmful situation of market collusion.
This pernicious situation in Spain has been solved by the recent law banking on the Multicrypt system.
That enables immediate compatibility if there is no agreement within two months.
The Commission does not share that view because what is currently provided for under Spanish legislation is in fact a monopoly, with only one system being accepted.
An alternative, which already exists on the market in Spain, by the way, is being excluded.
How anyone can consider that a prime example of free trade, I fail to see.
On the basis of our own directives, only a system that does not permit access to another broadcaster can be excluded.
We also brought in a technical expert, whom many describe as the king of decoders, if you do not find that description a little over-the-top, and that technical expert made it absolutely clear in the talks we had with both parties to the dispute that both systems are open, although they use different technologies and that the fact that it is necessary to negotiate in the case of the one system does not mean preclude a fair outcome.
The directive actually provides that the negotiations must be fair and non-discriminatory.
Let us just assume that the negotiations that have taken place this week were conducted by one side in an unfair and discriminatory manner.
That party would not then be acting in accordance with the directive.
But it is not possible to prescribe a single technical solution which, moreover, is not yet on the market.
That is not compatible with the directive.
The situation is, I venture to say, a little bizarre.
There is a system in Spain that already operates; thousands of viewers are working with that system and are completely satisfied.
The system is technically open, as the expert confirmed to us, but a different system, that is not even on the market, is to be made compulsory.
That is a situation in law or in fact that we do not find credible.
I understand that the Commissioner does not want to enter into Spanish domestic affairs, but the situation is such that you should know that the day after a representative of the affected company appeared before the court, it decided that he should not be able to leave Spain.
But I understand that you do not want to get involved.
Mr Bangemann, there has been no agreement.
Yet the Commission will have to take a decision on Spanish legislation because it is seriously harming this company which has run the risk of innovating, of launching its product on to the market.
I go along with your interpretation.
I do not go along with the interpretations of the Partido Popular and the interpretation of their Minister who on his return from Brussels said that you - or Brussels - were violating the Treaty of Rome in the case of digital TV.
Do you agree, Commissioner, and when will the Commission finally deliver its decision on this matter?
Mrs García Arias, I have made myself very clear here, and all we have done is to try to bring about agreement, including with the Spanish Government, by the way, because it makes no sense for us all to find ourselves before the Court of Justice again.
Someone would have to pay compensation, and the viewers would be no better off.
In Germany too, we brought the warring factions together, and they reached agreement.
That is why we tried to do the same in the case of Spain, but that does not, of course, mean that we want to shirk our duty to take a decision.
I have said that if agreement is not reached - and we shall know next week whether or not it has been - then we shall take a decision based on the directive I have quoted, but also based on Articles 30 and 59 of the Treaty of Rome.
I do not know whether it was the Spanish minister or someone else who said that we are not applying the Treaty of Rome.
I cannot understand that, since we are applying Articles 30 and 59, and so our decision will, naturally, be based on the directive and the Treaty of Rome.
Commissioner, I too understand that you do not want to enter into political differences in my country, but I must insist on this.
We have already spent quite a while on this and, knowing how the Commission works, this matter should be settled and concluded today.
My concern, Commissioner, is quite legitimate.
Whereas Simulcrypt meets the requirements and the Directive's provisions, if Spanish law prohibits it that would harm not only the company producing it but also large numbers of citizens - potential and actual consumers of that products - and if it is alright for other European countries it should also be for Spain.
Therefore, Commissioner, I again ask you to deal with this matter as quickly as possible and prevent legitimate interests from being harmed: those of the media company promoting the system and those of the consumers who have already chosen it.
We do not want a situation in my country where public opinion - as is already beginning to be the case - is unsure whether the two decoders are legal and is even beginning to think that Simulcrypt is illegal, fraudulent or something of that ilk.
This doubt can only be cleared up and the rights of the company and the consumers will only be restored once the Commission takes a decision.
This is an example of the attack I mentioned earlier.
Mr President, I have already said that we shall be taking a decision next week.
That is swift work for the Commission!
I think that we are looking at this askew.
What the Spanish law proposes is that an agreement be reached and it sets a timetable for that agreement; if an agreement has not been reached within that time, it proposes that a universal decoder be adopted.
But I think that this is neither the time nor the place to discuss this matter.
The place to discuss differences over the arbitrary adjudication of the previous government is not the European Parliament: it is the national parliament where those problems should be dealt with.
As he rightly said the Commissioner can only say that Community law must be complied with and we shall know whether or not the agreement has been reached.
The Commissioner will tell us next week.
Mr President, you are casting me into despair here, because when I get a question from a Member of the House - three of them - which the President allows, I have to answer.
You would not perhaps have put the questions, nor did you, but when members of the other groups put them, the Commission has to deal with them.
Factually you are incorrect because our directive contains specific provisions on what is and is not permitted in relation to decoders.
That is the only issue here and that is why I have confined myself to it.
The directive does not, for example, say that there should be only one decoder.
We deliberately avoided that.
We did reserve the right in the directive to set a standard for a single decoder.
Were we to do that all of the parties involved would be very dissatisfied and suffer severe economic disadvantage, as the standard would probably not be met by any of the decoders currently in existence.
We have reserved for ourselves this ultimate weapon, if I may so describe it.
We did not allow the national governments to have it. And so what we have here is a European problem and not just a Spanish problem.
I concede that the Spanish affair is livelier, but our problem is also a difficult one.
It can, however, be resolved.
Mr Bangemann, we shall remain with the same question but break up this Spanish momentum and open it up to a wider European area.
Mr Caudron has the floor for a supplementary.
Commissioner, I wanted to speak in this debate as I was the rapporteur for this directive, and I wish to confirm what you said.
I have no particular technical question to ask, as I was partly responsible for the choice of solutions made in order to avoid monopolies or oligopolies, to avoid hold-ups and to enable numerical TV to be launched in Europe, as has been done.
I therefore fully agree.
The only question I wanted to ask, Commissioner, is a real one: you have set a timetable, i.e. you and the Commission will take a decision within a week. Could you tell us what the rest of the timetable is?
Where will it lead us? What is the timescale available for unblocking this situation?
As far as the Commission is concerned, we shall be telling the Spanish Government next week what our legal opinion is and where, in our view, the Spanish law is incompatible with the directive and the articles I have cited.
The Spanish Government may accept our view but it may also discard it.
In that case, we shall have to go to the Court of Justice and that is bound to take rather longer.
The question that we have not fully considered is whether we should ourselves then take a temporary measure or seek an interim order from the Court of Justice, since the Spanish law provides for a deadline, namely 7 July, after which no other decoder is to be permissible.
To prevent economic disadvantage, it might be appropriate to apply to the Court of Justice for an interim order, so that the deadline does not mean that an existing decoder has suddenly to be withdrawn from the market.
We shall look into that, but I can make no other promises.
If the Court of Justice decides that we and not the Spanish Government are right, then that government will of course have to pay compensation to the company that it has disadvantaged as a result of its decision.
That is clear but it is not particularly productive.
That is why we have tried to reach an agreement and we are still trying to ensure that if agreement cannot be reached, then the Spanish Government will at least agree not to apply the law but wait until the Court of Justice has reached a decision.
Then both systems will be able to develop alongside one another in Spain.
But I cannot, of course, tell you what the Spanish Government will say.
We are doing our best to arrive at a balanced and sensible solution.
But I cannot guarantee that all involved have adopted the same approach to the dispute.
It is, as I have said, a lively one.
In the bullring, there are bulls that will simply not be pacified.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann. We return not to bulls but to the Spanish momentum with the last two supplementaries.
First of all, Mr Hernández Mollar.
Mr President, a Spanish momentum is a European momentum.
What is happening is that certain members from the Socialist Group want to destroy - yes, destroy - the general interests of European citizens and Spanish citizens in particular.
You at the Commission probably know that, in respect of digital TV services, the Governing Board of the DVB decided to postpone application of the Simulcrypt cable system as a European standard.
As a result there will probably be no European Simulcrypt standard until the end of 1997 or early 1998.
On the other hand, the common interface for digital receivers was approved in May 1996 by the DVB, after its ratification by the National Standards Organizations that year, and its formal adoption as the European standard in February 1997 by the Cenelec.
Faced with such a problem, i.e. the degree of standardization of the Simulcrypt system, I would like to ask the Commissioner what his opinion is of this disadvantageous situation and what negative effects it could lead to, in terms of the aim of offering all citizens as quickly as possible digital TV services by means of a universal system, while keeping the maximum amount of media pluralism.
When we lay down a universal solution - and the time will come - then both of the systems currently on offer in Spain will have to go.
That is a difficult technical issue.
I do not know whether you are clear about it.
There are two possibilities: either you have a uniform decoder, through which all services, including conditional access, pay-TV etc, are able to be supplied.
That, if you like, is the ideal solution.
For that, there has to be a technical standard.
We shall get there one day, as the industry is working towards it.
But we do not want to dictate it; were we to do so everyone now commissioning or offering decoders would suffer enormous economic disadvantage.
They would have in fact to take their decoders off the market.
And so we said we would stipulate only a minimum.
That minimum is: anyone using a decoder must use one that is accessible to others.
That is not a matter of laying down a special technical procedure, it is simply ensuring access.
The Spanish legislation is not doing that, it is prescribing a decoder - not even a uniform decoder, by the way, but a decoder with a common interface.
That is another technical system.
That is not the ideal solution, namely that there should be only one decoder in existence, but it is a decoder that can, using a technical device, be made open to others.
Other decoders that are also open are not allowed.
That is precisely what the directive does not permit.
Do you follow me?
If you read the directive through once again - Mr Caudron confirmed this and what Mr Caudron says is true - you will see that what I have described to you here is the legislation in force.
That is the problem with the Spanish law.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann, but just one last question, again in the Spanish momentum.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo has the floor for the last supplementary question.
My question is not the same, because I put it in a European key and with an extremely constructive intention.
Commissioner, this afternoon you have been very clear.
You know that on many occasions, when faced with a Solomon-like decisions, the introduction of a few keys can open the way to a solution.
You said that if there is no agreement next week, the Commission will adopt a decision and position.
With a constructive intention and in order to avoid such a Solomon-like decisions, could you not propose - if there is no agreement and the Commission had to take that decision - the terms of the Commission position? I am sure that if you could put forward those terms, an agreement might come about.
That is my question.
The difference between you and Solomon is that he was far wiser than you, if you will allow me to point that out here.
Were I now to tell you how our decision looks, then both the parties currently engaged in negotiation would probably withdraw from those negotiations.
One side would be so certain of being acknowledged to be in the right that it would say: ' I do not need to negotiate any further!'
Therefore, it is more in the tradition of Solomon, and so somewhat wiser, not to say what we shall be doing next week.
That concludes Question Time to the Commission.
Questions Nos 49 to 53 will receive written answers.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.20 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Agricultural prices 1997-1998 - Arable crops - Improving agricultural structures - 1998 set-aside
Mr President, first of all I should like to take this opportunity to welcome Mr Fischler and the President-in-Office of the Council of Ministers, Mr Van Aartsen, to our Chamber.
It is a pleasure to see you both here for this report. It shows how important it is.
I have great pleasure in presenting the price package proposals as amended by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I should like to take this opportunity to go through the amendments in order, put a little bit of meat on them and say why the Agriculture Committee has proposed them and then perhaps look at the costs and talk that through.
First of all, moisture content for cereals.
We have proposed that the 15 % moisture content for cereals should be extended; in other words, it should not just last this year but continue.
One of the major problems for northern Member States is the moisture content of cereals.
It is extremely costly and the misuse of a valuable resource to have to try and bring cereals below 15 % moisture.
Therefore I hope the Commission will stay on 15 %. That is budgetary-neutral.
On protein crops, there has been a great decline recently - in fact, in the last two years - in the amount of such crops.
I would like to see some sort of improvement in the support system to help protein crops.
It is particularly relevant at the moment because we have just had a great debate for almost 18 months over BSE and the problems of animal protein.
This is therefore a great opportunity for the European Union actually to produce more of its own protein and a vegetable protein at that.
I feel it is important that we seriously consider the opportunities opened up here.
The committee proposes to help the paddy rice industry.
This is by way of assisting some of our southern Member States.
One of the things that I have learnt since I came into this Parliament is that we are 15 Member States. I therefore have to look at all Members and all their regions and their problems.
The rice sector has had a particularly difficult time in recent years.
I am proposing a simplification of the present legislation. It provides the opportunity for quick support for the rice industry without great or long-term costs.
The cost of these proposals will be somewhere in the region of ECU 60m and that includes all its accompanying measures.
With regard to sugarbeet, we have recommended that the Commission review the fixed element of sugar storage refund.
It is more than 10 years since we made these changes.
This arrangement should now reflect the present changes in costs and probably should be reviewed, if possible, every three years.
I am also proposing help with production costs in Spain and Portugal.
This must, quite specifically, come from the national budget and not from the European budget.
With flax and hemp I propose to bring hemp back into line with flax.
Hemp is a useful alternative crop, it is environmentally friendly and it would cost only ECU 1m.
On wine, if the ban on distillation were brought in as early as has been proposed by the Commission, it would cause undue hardship for southern vineyards.
We are therefore proposing delaying application of the ban for one year.
The approximate cost is again ECU 1 million.
I am almost disappointed to say that, unfortunately, these measures and my report actually cost ECU 170m.
That money must be found somewhere.
We are in a situation of budgetary constraint.
We have to understand the fact that in the Committee on Agriculture we cannot continue adding to the budget.
There are a number of possibilities. Two have been proposed within the present price proposal package.
One is an amendment concerning monthly increments for cereals. This has been re-presented in the amendments.
The deletion of monthly increments would reduce the budget by ECU 160m.
Having spent ECU 170m in the budget, this was one way of making the package virtually budget-neutral.
For those who do not understand, monthly increments are an increased monthly payment paid to farmers for delaying sending their cereals into intervention.
It would be popular in some respects because I see intervention generally being used as little as possible and being an emergency proposal.
I also support another proposal which is to make the budget neutral overall.
It comes from Mr Böge who has put down a number of proposals.
It is a question of finding the money from the budget.
In my explanatory statement, I call upon the Commission to fix the rate of set-aside, I put a date of July and I suggest the rate be 5 %.
At this point, I would add that I believe that set-aside has been a brilliant option under the MacSharry reforms.
It has been a good balancing measure. It has stopped over-production.
It has stopped intervention and it has been good for the environment.
One of the things that was said against it initially was that it would be environmentally unfriendly.
This has not proved to be the case.
However, the Commission at the moment has placed an export tax on cereals from the European Union because, in theory, we are short of cereals.
This tax is something like ECU 10 per tonne.
Therefore I see little point in raising set-aside above 5 % for next year.
Whatever measures are agreed by the Council, agriculture can come to terms with them provided we have sufficient time.
That was why I suggested that the Commission and the Council fix the set-aside rate as early as possible and, if possible, by July, as stated in my report.
I was given a price proposal with a 0.45 % increase.
One of the problems as a rapporteur is that you try to find a little money for everyone but at the same time to stay within sound budget principles.
If we want more power for this Parliament and more respect and responsibility, we have to be responsible in our approach to the budget.
I hope that I have made some responsible proposals and I look forward to the Commissioner's reply.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, my report deals with the postponement of the advances for oilseeds and the reduction of the per hectare compensatory payments for arable crops.
There are a few points I should like to make.
The MacSharry agricultural reform was conceived as a U-turn in agricultural policy, involving a reduction in surpluses and an adjustment to bring us into line with the GATT agreement, with radical price cuts for cereals, oilseeds and protein crops.
At the same time, livestock premiums were introduced for dams and male bovines, and the intervention prices were reduced sharply.
It was on this basis that the per hectare compensatory payments came into existence.
So it was no coincidence that - in France, for example, and in some other parts of the European Union - the highest earning regions also received the highest compensatory payments, though I should make it very clear that, on this occasion, this had nothing to do with a European Parliament resolution.
This, however, was the carrot with which farmers and their organizations were persuaded to accept this agricultural reform.
Commissioner Fischler has also, on several occasions, promised to continue compensatory payments until 1999.
In your current proposal, you have envisaged linear cuts, justified first on the basis of the BSE crisis and then by the good cereal harvest.
Those arguments have now collapsed, as the 1997 agriculture budget is sufficient to meet the financial obligations in full and on schedule.
A linear reduction in aid is unimaginative and, in most cases, unfair - that much is apparent.
It makes no allowance for the natural conditions existing locally or the farmers' potential yields, and it also completely disregards the unfavourable trend of incomes affecting certain sizes of farm.
A young farmer who has invested in a mixed operation, combining stock and arable farming, has his back to the wall as things stand at present.
The only way forward available to young farmers is tenancy, and the tenancy agreements are generally based on this firm promise that the per hectare payments will be available until 1999.
Commissioner, I am sure that you have excellent specialist staff at the Commission.
If they had looked more closely at the different kinds of problems facing farmers in the various regions of Europe, I feel sure that this undifferentiated approach would never have occurred to them.
It is completely unbalanced and will inevitably result in a serious loss of trust among farmers.
I unhesitatingly reject the Commission's proposed radical reform of the financing of the cereal market.
I myself come from a German Land where farms - with an average of 20 cattle - are much smaller than in many other regions of the European Union.
In general, they cover between 20 and 50 hectares.
This is another point I wish to bring to the attention of the President-in-Office.
I have today obtained figures from my Land government.
It seems that 49, 143 of our farms receive compensatory payments averaging DM 8, 595 per year.
No Commission official would work for a single month for that kind of money.
Commissioner, these farming families have a hard struggle.
It will be a slap in the face for them if you were to regard them as 'over-compensated' .
Any reduction in compensation would be particularly damaging to the mixed farms.
Cutting back the per hectare payments for arable crops does not do anything at all for the forage growers, who are particularly hard hit.
This is the critical weakness in the Commission's proposal.
If there really is overcompensation, then it must be judged objectively by reference to the prices the farmer can command in his market and in his local currency.
Countries that have benefitted from continuous devaluations can command very high prices for products covered by market organization.
So we do need a revised proposal on the form to be taken by the compensatory payments.
The Committee on Budgets also supports our proposal that the payments for oilseeds for 1997 should not be postponed because the budgetary resources are available.
Our proposals fall within the agriculture guideline.
Mr President, I hope you will let me finish.
We were ordered to speak here this evening - normally I would have been called at 3 p.m. today.
The previous speaker was allowed eight minutes.
I am a rapporteur too.
I believe I am entitled to another three sentences.
Please be kind enough to let me finish, because it is necessary.
The President-in-Office has come here to listen to what I have to say - or at least, I hope he has!
To prevent any wrong turnings, it is absolutely essential that proposals for the period after 1999 should be submitted very soon, because the credibility of political decisions and confidence in a united Europe are at stake.
I ask the Commission, as a matter of urgency, to withdraw its proposal to postpone the advance payments for oilseeds and to guarantee payment in full of the per hectare compensation for the years 1998 and 1999, as envisaged in the agricultural reform.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I think this evening may result in a further contribution to ensuring that Parliament discusses the merits of certain important proposals from the Commission, but I also the debate will give you encouragement, Mr Commissioner, to pursue the policy of reforming the CAP.
I have been following your work carefully, including at the recent conference, but I think we need to do more. In a word, we should not wait for the market to be opened up to the new countries - Poland, Hungary - we should start accelerating reform immediately.
If these debates can help the process along, that will certainly be positive.
To some extent that is also the reason why, as rapporteur, I have dealt with the Commission's proposal in a waya which not only takes account of the legal side, but also looks at an overall restructuring of the system of organizing agriculture at Community level.
Agriculture and related activities, especially Mediterranean ones, are now increasingly suffering a kind of ostracism.
This related production is very important because it provides the opportunity to maintain income in difficult and marginal locations, especially in areas where economic and social cohesion is very important: Objective I areas.
Durum wheat is one of these forms of production, olive oil is another, tobacco is yet another.
Specifically looking at durum wheat, I think the proposals should be rationalized to provide for a maximum area for durum wheat set by the individual countries and then distributed at territorial level.
I believe that is an intelligent and serious proposal, which also seeks to counter a series of frauds possibly present in the management of durum wheat farming, but above all it is capable of providing marketing strategies for this product, because some producers very often grow it just for the premium.
So this method is important because it anchors the production to the territory.
I also think the proposals approved by the Committee on Agriculture are important. I should add, Mr President, Mr Commissioner, that those proposals were approved unanimously and have two basic aims: one relates primarily to the possibility of widening the 5 per cent limit, so it is substantially about lifting the national, and therefore the regional, quota ceiling for young farmers.
Quotas are a rigid instrument.
We believe young farmers should have an opportunity to enter the market and, above all, achieve a turnover which no longer exists in the agricultural sector. So making 5 per cent of the quotas available to young farmers is very important.
We consider it a choice the Commission and the Council must accept after the united support of Parliament and its Committee on Agriculture.
The other proposal relates to certified seed.
We agree with what is happening, but we are also convinced that biodiversity must be maintained as a fundamental factor.
Maintaining biodiversity and also some of the special characteristics of seed, especially durum wheat seed, is very important for small farmers.
We have added Germany and Austria to the list of traditional producers because we think there is a market need, and at the same time we have updated the quotas of durum wheat allocated to the traditional producer countries.
I think it is a pretty well-balanced proposal, which takes account of the united opinion of the committee, and will make a good basis for you, Mr Commissioner, for a discussion in the Council.
That is all I have to say, and I just hope this will be accepted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the oral question to the Commission on my initiative and supported by the Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Development, is fully justified because it is vital that the Commission take a decision on set aside in the framework of the 1997-1998 price package.
The set aside rate, when it differs from that provided for by the basic regulation, should be made known within a sufficiently short time so that European Union producers can proceed to their land planning and seeding in full knowledge of the facts.
Given the sowing periods, in certain Community regions, the Commission should make a proposal as quickly as possible.
Since the CAP reforms of 1 July 1993, the cereals market has recovered its balance as a result of the production cut and, above all, the recovery of the internal market, especially for animal food.
This situation has led to a major reduction in European Union cereal stocks.
Two of the reform's main aims have therefore been achieved.
However, these results need to be kept up by ensuring the maintenance if not an increase in intraCommunity consumption.
Later on, we noted the emergence of Asian demand which seems to be lasting.
The European Union must ensure that it regularly meets demand from its traditional non-Community customers.
During the 1995-96 farming year, we noted that the inadequacy of our cereal production hindered the fulfilment of some of our commitments, especially to the Middle East and North Africa.
The Commission even had to impose export taxes on cereals in December 1995 to protect internal supplies.
We also saw that the record harvest in 1996-97, some 202 million tonnes, was easily absorbed by the internal market and exports.
Before the 1996-97 harvest, Community stocks were assessed at 24 million tonnes; now they have risen to barely 28 million tonnes, not enough when you consider that 30-35 million tonnes would be needed to guarantee Europe's food safety over two months.
Today, the drop in world cereal stocks is threatening the planet's food safety.
These stocks are currently assessed at 55 consumption days.
In 1996, they had dropped to barely 51 days.
Experts reckon that, below 70 consumption days, world food safety comes under threat.
To conclude, I should ask the Commission to fix the set-aside rates by 30 June 1997 and take into consideration unexpected weather conditions, increasing market demand and relatively low stocks.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I have had the pleasure of following today's debate in the European Parliament on the prices package with great interest and particular attention.
It has been an opportunity for me to gauge the seriousness and devotion which you demonstrate as members of the European Parliament when considering the advice given to you by the Commission and the Council on the proposals made.
Before tackling the content of the proposals I should like to say this, with some emphasis.
Last week I was invited to attend an excellent symposium on the future of agricultural policy organized and directed by your colleague, Mr Sturdy, and today I have the pleasure of taking part in this debate on current policy issues.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank you for having agreed, at my special request, to delay your meeting to this late hour in the evening.
I was obliged to make this request because I absolutely had to attend the proceedings of the Dutch parliament this afternoon and I am particularly obliged to you for having agreed to hold this debate this evening.
That is my introduction. Now I should like to offer a brief outline of the way in which the prices package for next year is perceived by the Council.
Of course, it is possible that this is only a provisional reaction and, as yet, offers no guarantee for the direction to be taken by the decision-making process, given that this will only take place, at the earliest, at the June Council meetings.
Nevertheless, in my view, the debates which have been held so far have offered a correct and pertinent overview of the various positions taken.
First of all, we should look at the extent of the prices package. As you know, it is very modest.
The Commission is proposing a 'roll over' for high levels of prices and aid.
This means that the situation does not change and I think that also on this subject there is a lot to be said because farmers are benefitting from a certain degree of stability and certainty as to the management of their undertakings and, given that the evolution of incomes is also relatively stable, it is therefore probable that the Commission will continue to act 'as and when' , next year.
Of course, there are always Member States which would prefer a more rigorous prices package together with more daring reform proposals and, of course, all the Member States have expressed their wishes and made specific requests to the Commission.
However, generally speaking, I think that we can say that the delegations have understood this year that the extent of the prices packages was modest.
Also because the Commission has announced, for the autumn, reform proposals for cereals, beef and dairy products.
When speaking this year of a prices package we cannot, of course, overlook the budgetary situation because, as you know, agricultural spending for 1998 is provisionally set at an amount 0.5 % higher than the 1997 budget.
The reason for this is clear: many countries, as also pointed out in the Sturdy report, must pull out all the stops in order to put their national budgets in order and meet Maastricht criteria and, for that reason, it is perfectly understandable that the Commission should impose a strict budgetary discipline on itself.
In the Council, some comments have also been made on this subject and at the European Parliament, if I have understood right, there is agreement on an assessment of agricultural expenditure at around 41 billion ECU.
As far as the size of the total budget is concerned, there cannot be a lot of discussion. On the other hand, the same does not go for the share-out of resources - and that is the case everywhere.
In the Commission proposals we start out with a 7 % reduction in agricultural premia.
The least that can be said - and I shall use diplomatic language - is that the Agricultural Council was not very enthusiastic about this.
Of course, you were well of that.
Furthermore, your Parliament does not think that this proposal is an interesting one, at least that is what I have ascertained reading the opinion and what I have just learned from Mr Funk in his speech.
The question which arises is how we are going to make sure that expenditure remains within agreed limits, because that is the objective sought not only by the Commission but also by the Presidency.
Personally, I have some ideas on this subject but these are personal considerations which are not yet a reflection of the Council's opinion as a whole.
I think that we need to set a budget threshold.
I think that we must somewhat reduce all budgetary lines in general so that everything can continue to stick precisely to the budgetary amount as a whole.
By means of supple management of the market, the Commission must be invited to do all it can in order to remain within the limits, given the margin for manoeuvre acquired in previous years and I think that that ought to be possible.
Furthermore, we still have the possibility of paying advances for oil seeds the following year but, in all probability, we shall have absolutely no need for that instrument in budgetary year 1997 given the evolution of expenditure.
That means that we will still have this possibility for 1998 if unexpected expenditure arises.
Besides, I think that we now have enough possibilities to maintain 1998 expenditure within the agreed framework.
Of course, it is very difficult to predict the decision-making process in the Council but, at present, you now know the personal position of its President-in-Office.
Now please allow me to make another comment on the budgetary situation.
As I said, there are possibilities making it possible to remain within the limits thanks to flexible management of the market.
But, for that, it is necessary for us to take an extremely reserved look at the series of requests and demands of the various Member States.
I think that this is an absolute condition because, otherwise, it would be impossible to find the 1.4 billion ECU which a good many Member States would like to cut from the Commission proposals.
Your Parliament also has responsibilities in this respect and I should like to paraphrase Mr Sturdy in saying that your Parliament has also shouldered its responsibilities.
In a few days' time you are going to vote on this prices package and I have just received the draft opinion. I think that it would be a good idea to examine it in depth in the coming period.
It is important that supplementary costs stemming from your amendment should result in a final amount of around 170 million ECU and given the current budgetary situation I think that this is a very realistic way of tackling the agricultural budget.
In this respect, I should also like to refer to the arguments set out this evening by Mr Sturdy and in the beginning of his report, which contains a certain number of comments which are worthy of support.
I think that it is not worthwhile to go on for too long about this subject and that it is not necessary at this stage in the decision-making process, given that many Member States have yet to make their opinions known in the Council.
As President, I will do everything in my power and I hope that we are going to be able to cooperate with the Commission so that the decision-making process concerning the prices package is completed at the Council meetings to be held on 23, 24 and 25 June.
I think that this is necessary and I believe that farmers are also entitled to be informed in time about what is to await them in the coming years.
On this subject, you have carried out important and effective work and I should like to thank Mr Funk, Mr Baldarelli and Mr Sturdy for their excellent contributions.
The European Parliament has given its opinion and now it is up to the Council to give its.
I should also like to tell you that it is my intention to submit another issue to the Council in June, the so-called 'sanctions file' .
I recall that, in January last, when I was before the Agriculture Committee, we tackled this question and the Parliament's message was: the decision must be taken during your Presidency.
I hope that we are going to succeed.
This proposal dates back more than a year now and it contains one aspect which is designed to reduce sanctions in cases of natural disasters, which is important for our southern partners, and it also contains an element of equalization between the regions.
For this, sanctions must be applied less quickly.
If my memory serves me right, in September of last year, your Parliament issued an opinion on this proposal.
I hope that it is now time to be able to take a decision on this complicated system.
For that reason, this issue will also be on the agenda at June's meeting.
Something which is not on the agenda, and I would like to talk about this quite frankly, is the proposal on durum wheat.
Unfortunately, I am sorry to tell Mr Baldarelli, the decision-making process has not yet reached a stage where a decision can be taken in the Council.
All Member States concerned have made claims for an increase in guaranteed areas.
An overall estimate comes to - do not be afraid - some 600, 000 extra hectares which comes to hundreds of millions of extra ECU.
In the light of the problem facing us, I should like to ask for your understanding - of course this is impossible.
Even if you issue an opinion shortly, I do not think that enough progress has been made yet in the Council of Ministers for us to reach a decision.
Quite simply, we are coming up against this budgetary problem.
Furthermore, I think that, in any case, in June, there will be a 'tour de force' in order to conclude the prices package.
That is another reason to put yet more energy into it.
I should like to add one more remark on this subject and turn in particular to Commission Fischler.
Certain Member States and representatives of the European Parliament have insisted on a rapid decision-making process concerning the set-aside percentage for the next year.
Earlier on this request was again commented on by Mrs Poisson.
I think that she used the same argument as the one that I have just made.
Apart from the other arguments that she made concerning the developments in the world wheat market, I think that, in the short term, it might be worthwhile explaining the situation clearly to cereal growers.
The Sturdy report also referred to this issue and pointed out more or less the way in which such a decision ought to be taken.
And I thought that the Goepel resolution that you are going to debate on Thursday insisted on a rapid decision-making process.
That means that you would like to receive, as quickly as possible, a Commission proposal on this subject.
I support this position and hope that the Commission will also agree, because it is always in a position to do so, and I hope that, therefore, it is going to be willing to make a proposal in the short term because I think that that might also somewhat simplify the decision-making process in respect of the prices package.
Mr President, I should like to request a clarification.
I think the Commissioner was mistaken when he spoke about the proposals for sugar and said that he did not accept amendments No 12 to 15 since they would constitute a reintroduction of national aid.
That is mistaken, because for Portugal it is not a case of reintroduction - it is being introduced for the first time and we are only going to apply the quota now.
Mr President, this year's agricultural price setting is like a Chinese box. There is a packet inside a package.
The packet is minuscule. It is the most absolute status quo ever seen in this Chamber in terms prices and related measures, and is examined in the report by Mr Sturdy.
But the package weighs a ton, it is about cutting aid for arable land by ECU 1.4 billion for 1998, and is examined in the Funk report.
I shall begin with the packet.
Mr Sturdy has done solid, realistic, rigorous work, eschewing all demagoguery.
I have to say that we Socialists are going to go a bit further: we shall vote against any increases in expenditure, even those approved in the Committee on Agriculture.
The various outstanding problems in the agricultural sections are going to be dealt with by the reform under discussion, not in the price setting forum.
Here we are in agreement with you, Commissioner Fischler.
But let me make one exception - wine: because the proposal for reform you say is on the table, is no longer on the table in reality.
Since 1994 it has been shamefully left in the box, and Parliament can no longer close its eyes to that fact.
We now want to ask for the abolition, with no increase in costs, of obligatory distillation, as a sign that certain inadequate instruments which have been overtaken by circumstances will be cut by half once and for all, giving producers and the market an opportunity.
I now move on to the package.
Mr Funk has lost an opportunity by opposing every cut to arable land proposed by the Commission absolutely head on, pretending not to see the real problems and relying on his accountancy skills.
Payment in advance or in arrears for oil seeds is part of a vanishing act which lasts a morning.
But then, at the heart of the budgeting, he gets there despite himself.
Mr Funk, I think it is a little convenient to put your trust in the chronic generosity of the Commission's agricultural spending forecasts, which looks like turning up again in 1997 as well and in the end all the adjustments will be made painlessly in 1998.
As a Parliament, are we or are we not a budgetary authority?
Are we or are we not demanding a voice in the chapter on obligatory spending too? That is why, with a report this armour-plated and ultra-conservative, Mr Funk has lost an opportunity to make the European Parliament's voice heard more strongly on the objective problems which exist in our agricultural budget.
I envy the Minister-in-office of the Council, he already knows how the vote will go on Thursday.
My only regret is that if he had listened to the debate and not just the opinion of the rapporteur, he would have understood that not everyone shares the opinion of the rapporteurs on these delicate reports, especially not the opinion of Mr Funk.
Our group wants to support the farmers, but the best way to do this is not by burying one's head in the sand.
We know that the imbalances in the CAP are generating serious problems, including financial ones.
The cohesion report informs us about the redistributive problems of the CAP.
Nothing new was added in the estimates of overcompensation provided yesterday by the Commission.
The need for new rural development policies is there, staring us in the face, and the Commissioner's announcements are no longer satisfactory.
And we are not convinced that the fate of the farmers and their future should only be decided by the Fifteen at the ECOFIN Council.
Parliament needs to give a signal and the Socialist Group has put forward some proposals: for example, starting to bring certain distortions in aid into the discussion, reducing compensation for voluntary set-aside, which carries an increasing risk of undermining the overall operation on obligatory set-aside, and no further postponement of the issue of reshaping aid, starting immediately by at least bringing the amount of the set-aside premium in line with income support.
I do not agree with the 7 per cent cut in income support, not because cuts are involved, but because they are linear cuts, piling injustice on injustice.
The Socialist Group's amendments should save about ECU 500-600 million on the 1998 budget.
That is not everything, but it gives a first signal, takes a first step towards responsibility.
We shall see if the other groups follow us, but we shall put difficulties in the way of accepting the rigorous Sturdy report or the lax Funk report.
The right thing to do is come down hard on the little packet and send the package back to the sender.
As for the sender, Commissioner Fischler, I do not understand why you told the agriculture ministers there were no further budgetary reasons to cut arable land.
In my view that was not very wise.
We have here in front of us the preliminary draft of the 1998 budget adopted by your Commission.
The cut is there, if I am not mistaken, and it is there to ensure a balanced budget for 1998. And after listening to the Minister-in-Office of the Council, I feel moved to say this: Commissioner Fischler, if this is all a smokescreen, be good enough to say so honestly.
If, on the other hand, you want to do battle on serious issues, you know that, even where there are justified differences, the Socialist Group is ready to discuss those issues seriously.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Sturdy for his report which is full of good sense and highly responsible in the view of this Parliament.
I should also like to thank Mr Baldarelli for the hard work he put in on durum wheat and, particularly for the understanding he showed for the specific problem affecting Portugal - rather a delicate one which he and the Committee on Agriculture have understood.
I hope also that the Commission and the Council will come to understand it.
In the first place I should like to go into greater detail as regards the Funk report.
We must agree, for the sake of intellectual honesty, that there is in fact a delicate matter facing us and that the Commission is right in saying that the cereals sector is receiving too much compensation.
To deny that would be tantamount to calling day night!
And above all we would have to agree that as regards the set-aside payments that there is no reason why they should not be equal to aid.
But other factors which are also important must equally be taken into account.
First because this cut in aid would be justified at this time and at this stage only if there were no margin for manoeuvre within the CAP budget; and that is not the case.
The budgetary trends do not indicate that.
On the other hand, we know that as from 1992 the CAP has been approximately 5 % below the guideline and that money has been returned to the Member States.
I should now prefer to see that money remaining with the farmers, albeit badly distributed, rather than see it returned to the Member States for purposes other than farming.
In the second place we must say that the problems of Europe's farmers will not be solved by this simple cut now which is detached from rather than linked to aid for arable crops.
The CAP is highly unbalanced and it is essential for the Commission, the Council and all of us to face up to that.
We are working on the assumption that the GATT will have the same impact on all European agriculture - and that is not true!
There are less-favoured regions which will suffer greatly!
Nevertheless, the next reform of the CAP will have to consider very carefully in its aid system the question of equity in incomes support.
I agree with the Commissioner.
It must be a system of aid which is not linked to production, quantities or productivity.
That is the only way we can respond to the real problems of Europe's diverse agriculture, which is heterogenous and not homogenous.
Mr President, Mr Minister, Mr Commissioner, as we have already seen, the price package adopted by the Commission for the 1997/98 financial year makes no great innovations to the situation as it stood, and in that connection I would like to express appreciation for the effort made in the Sturdy report to try to revitalize a platform that has become so rigid and flat, with such crystallized positions.
And crystallized they remain, especially after the Commissioner's announcement. As usual he has been pretty heavy-handed in cutting our amendments.
In fact, apart from certain exceptions, the proposals again take up the provisions on prices and the organization of markets in line with the stability policy applied the day after the 1992 reform.
As a partial excuse for this dearth of proposals, there is also the ongoing revision of the common organization of some important markets, such as tobacco, olive oil, meat, and soon - we hope - milk.
Alongside this immutable base there are some minor adjustments which it is fair to record.
First, the reduction in the monthly increments in intervention prices for cereals and rice and storage refunds for sugar to take account of the fall in interest rates.
Secondly, the level of aid planned for flax promotion, which should have been set at zero given that funds exist representing larger sums than the promotional actions warrant; hence the total aid per hectare is reduced by the same amount.
Thirdly, aid per hectare for hemp is reduced by 7.5 per cent to prevent hemp becoming more advantageous than flax after the reduction in aid for that product.
The impact of the budget on all these proposals translates into a saving of ECU 82 million for 1998, according to the Commission's estimates.
It should also be recalled that this same Commission has already proposed reducing aid for arable crops, which should free up an amount of ECU 1.4 million, as others have mentioned.
This will naturally be used to relaunch beef.
The economic forecast for the 1997 financial year borrowing requirement, as established in February, amounts to ECU 41, 050 million, which exceeds the budget credits by ECU 245 million and leaves a margin of ECU 755 million as compared with the guidelines.
This is a decrease - announced in the budget - which is very important to the credit needs of the sheep and goat meat sector, essentially due to market prices being higher than the budget forecast.
There is also an important reduction in the milk and milk products sector, particularly in the supplementary withdrawal rate which remains to be declared for 1995/1996, and is estimated for the period 1996-1997.
The reduction in the requirements for arable crops is principally due to oilseeds.
A reduction in requirements is also planned for other sectors, particularly sugar, dry forage, fruit and vegetables, tobacco, eggs and poultry, and also food aid.
As we have seen, this debate is a concoction of the traditional report on the agricultural price package and two other reports, one by Mr Funk and the other by Mr Baldarelli, which can be said to complete it, revitalize it and project it into the future.
I think the Funk report should be supported, especially on the stabilization of beef, the proposal not to postpone payments for oilseeds but to pay, as from 16 October, only that part of the advance for which there is no possibility of coverage in the 1997 budget.
The Baldarelli report is right to stress the proposal to increase the national areas earmarked for durum wheat cultivation to help young farmers and readjust out of date valuations.
On areas, I have an appeal to make on behalf of Mr Rosado Fernandes who is sorry not to be here today - he is in Portugal receiving a decoration from the President of the Republic - but he has left me this message: ' Today Portugal has a guaranteed area of 35 thousand hectares, the reality is 90 thousand and the potential, as a historical average, is over 100 thousand.' That is an invitation to respect figures, proportions and truth a little, in the interests of all European farmers.
Mr President, the Sturdy, Funk and Baldarelli reports all share one feature - they are all limited by the same financial restraints.
It is worth noting that in recent years farming expenditure has fallen below the limits set by the budgetary guidelines.
If the aim is to achieve a financial margin for other political aims, then things should be made clear.
In the case of the Funk report, the situation is fairly complicated since, behind the problem, lies a very delicate circumstance, which has been the subject of a committee of inquiry and on whose funding recommendations have been issued.
I think that Mr Funk's report has a long history and has the virtue of having concentrated from the beginning on a balanced way of dealing with an extremely difficult problem.
My Group therefore supports the Funk report.
As for the report on the prices package, I must say that in its original form, as presented to committee, my Group had many reservations.
I think that the final result has not been improved all that much by the committee's debate.
I hope that the final outcome of the votes will enable my Group to consider that it has substantially improved certain aspects of the prices package: but I have considerable reservations right now.
Finally, I should like to congratulate Mr Baldarelli on his report which gains my Group's full support.
Commissioner, I believe that budgetary problems are not the main issue as far as you are concerned.
That was the case six months ago.
But the arguments have changed.
Even if budgetary problems were your main concern, though, there are other ways of achieving savings.
I have already pointed out to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development that a linear reduction is somewhat unimaginative.
It is also ecologically unsound.
And socially unsound.
You keep telling the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development that you want the premiums to be both ecologically and socially beneficial.
So why not start with this proposal, if it's cuts and savings you want? Incidentally, you displayed a very curious turn of logic today in saying that because we've cut back on flax we must also cut back on hemp, otherwise hemp will have an advantage and the oilseeds have an advantage because we cut back on cereals.
The fact of the matter is that you always regard price cuts as the automatic line to follow.
Mr Funk, I must inform you that we, as a group, naturally support your report.
But you don't make it easy for us.
After all, we tabled an amendment - it's still on the table, and I can hardly wait to see how your group will view it and vote on it - to try to shoot down this idea, but with the proviso that we arrive at a reform of the compensatory payments in a way that takes account of social and ecological criteria, with a gradual reduction, a staggered reduction, and more of a shift towards ecological methods of farming.
You always flatly refused this in the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development.
Similar amendments were tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
So you are making it difficult for us.
You as a group - not you personally, but you have to answer for the others - are just as contrary as the Commission: they say 'Cut it!' and you say 'No!' but there must be possibilities somewhere in between, at least for the future.
The same applies to set-aside.
There is one amendment, Commissioner, which you failed to discuss: the amendment that the set-aside areas that are under clover should be permitted to be used next year.
As you know, the European Parliament adopted that amendment by a majority last year, and although that doesn't necessarily mean that the Commission must act on it, I should be most grateful if you would take a look at this problem.
Here again, I can hardly wait to see how your group will vote on our present application.
Who knows, we in my group may even make our voting decision conditional on yours.
If the socialists vote differently, you need us to secure a majority on this point.
That might be one way of coming to an arrangement.
Overall, though, Commissioner, I believe we are on the eve of reform - as you made clear - and the estimates would then have to be clear.
I believe we must make it clear that we want to move away from a world market orientation towards a single market orientation.
We must make it clear that we are not going to grant compensatory payments for all farmland.
We must make it clear that we want no more export subsidies, and we must make it clear that what were formerly flanking measures are becoming the focal point of agricultural development, where of course we need money.
I understand all that, but of course we can't completely axe something somewhere else just so that we can finance it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have a strange feeling that in this debate we are swimming in a sea of incoherence.
Budgetary and economic considerations, the so-called operational needs of free trade, the so-called and inevitable globalization, all paralyse any deep thought on the definition of genuine political guidelines.
Since 1992 we have spoken about the reform of the CAP, the integration of requirements to protect the environment, rural development policy, the maintenance of communities and employment in country areas, etc.
But what is the use of these fine declarations of principle if they are followed up by no practical initiative to alter the machinery of the CAP? Commissioner, you have repeated to us your attachment to a more harmonious CAP, designed to become the real vehicle of rural development.
Yet, in reality, you only leave the choice between lowering prices or set-asides to guarantee the CAP's future.
I am sorry but I think you lack a little imagination if you limit yourself to accounting solutions whereas the countries of central and eastern Europe are looking for tangible signs about the next CAP and the forthcoming negotiations on the COMs are looming.
Increasing pressures are being exerted on the European Union to accelerate the liberalization of its farm markets.
To deal with that, the CAP needs new founding principles.
The prices package seems acceptable in the current context of strict budgetary rigour.
We must all take part in those efforts and it is in that spirit that my Group agrees to accept the Commission's proposals.
That said, the fact that this package contains no political guideline is unacceptable.
It is intended to be neutral, but its accounting neutrality reveals a lack of political thought to the basics of the matter.
Without spending more, it should have been possible to spend better, by redirecting Community aids at the political priorities that have so often been announced.
It is again this accounting spirit that leads the Commission to finance BSE related measures out of the producers of certain arable crops.
It is indeed urgent to strike a fresh balance between aids for different crops and it is true that the cereals sector has for a long time now been doing excessively well out of EAGGF.
But I must oppose the techniques used as they mix up types and risk the setting of a precedent that might be used to deal with budgetary emergencies.
Could not the same result be achieved by striking a better overall balance of general savings and in particular by resorting to unused credits?
As for the set-asides, determined accounting is again lord of the day.
My Group has always opposed this system.
Every year we decide the overall number of hectares to remain unproductive.
That is what shocks me.
We now only reason in terms of the global regulation of the market, the only priority being to produce less.
What about producing better? It is possible to regulate production by turning to quality products or supporting exports, as it is not only a matter of quality.
Real fallow land is not unproductive.
Fallow has a function of ecological restoration, whereas set-asides are just an unimaginative form of production management.
It seems absurd to separate the question of prices from that of set-asides.
How can producers plan their activities in such conditions?
To conclude, if we can go along with most of the Commission's proposals on prices and other measures, we must deplore the fact that they are not part of a determined approach to retarget aids so as to meet the aims of a lasting CAP, the only way to ensure the survival and profitability of small farms and maintain a social fabric in the countryside.
Commissioner, if we do not want a productivity-based CAP, one day we will have to stop using its revenues.
Mr President, I should like to take the opportunity, first of all, of congratulating both rapporteurs on the reports they presented here tonight.
I agree with everything Mr Funk has said.
He put forward his arguments very clearly and succinctly and we could all understand them.
This is a roll-over budget and brings in very little change.
In fact this price package has little or no effect as far as the farmer is concerned at all.
The rapporteur told us that it is going to cost ECU 170m.
After listening to the Commissioner tonight I wonder how much of their reports are actually left because he seemed to be casting aside all the proposals.
What has been left?
We can speak all we like in this Parliament but at the end of the day it is what is happening down on the farm that really counts.
I come from a region of Northern Ireland.
The Commissioner knows this only too well for he is tired of listening to me about it.
If you are a farmer there, especially a beef farmer or cereal farmer, you have very little hope or future left.
Beef prices, because of the BSE crisis, are at an all-time low.
That has nothing to do with Europe.
The European Commission has been very good in the support it has given through intervention.
But if you are a cereal farmer or a beef farmer involved in those areas, you have no chance at this moment in time of making a profit or surviving.
You have to take this on board and bear it in mind.
There is little hope at this stage, this year, of recovery.
I can see little hope for the future as far as our farmers in that area are concerned.
The farmers are now paying a terrible price for the BSE crisis.
It is now hurting, it is biting deep and hurting them in their pockets, where it hurts the most.
One of the other issues that is really affecting them at the moment is the strong pound against the ECU, against the green pound rates.
That is certainly the responsibility of the UK Government.
I hope my colleagues on the other side of the House will put pressure on the new Minister of Agriculture to make the request to get the support.
Mr President, we have the excellent report by Mr Baldarelli on durum wheat; we have the equally excellent report by Mr Funk; we are mostly in agreement with them.
As for Mr Sturdy, he poses a problem, because he is an Englishman, a nice Englishmen, which is not common, a warm, human Englishman.
Unfortunately, Mr Sturdy's anti-farming positions are those of Anglo-Saxon bleeders of the land.
Technically, of course, he is proposing, as always, the great mass, the sixteen regulations on wine, pork, flax, etc, with price freezes at the centre and a reduction in compensatory amounts for major crops, i.e. 7 % less for cereals, 4 % less for oil seeds, 26 % for set-asides, proposals all made to make cereal farmers bear the costs of mistakes made by British industrialists.
Mr Sturdy has tried to make up for the reduction in monthly premiums, but always playing this game of tight-fisted rigour. Then he came up against a better accountant than he is, Mr MacSharry, who rejected the whole package.
In reality, behind this technical arrangement, which is rather tight-fisted, hides the essence of the political choices and I would even say philosophical choices.
First of all, we are being subjected to Maastricht austerity, rationing - we cannot go above the maximum limit of 41 million ECU - and prices.
Mr Cunha explained to us last year that there were 5 % budgetary reserves.
Then we are preparing for enlargement eastward, to central Europe, which is why we must make savings.
We are sacrificing the agricultural budget, agricultural policy, to the structural funds.
For regional policy, we refer to November's European Conference on Rural Development.
We are also preparing for the Delors III or Santer I package, i..e in the persecutive of the 1999 multiannual budgetary programming we are cutting agricultural spending every year.
But, above all, the prices package is preparing for the package-deal for the year 2000, in the trade negotiations with the United States and in the Geneva framework.
Older members will remember that, in 1990-91, Mr MacSharry explained to us that stocks were too big, that that was expensive, that cereal farmers were getting rich and that the CAP would have to be overhauled.
Now, we are being told that the stocks are going to be big, that that is expensive, that cereal farmers are getting richer all the time and Mr Sturdy now says that we shall have to reform the reform.
That is tantamount to saying that all the measures taken from 1990 to 1992 only prepared the way for Blair House and that all current measures - Sturdy included, as it were - are for preparing the negotiations in the year 2000, when the six year peace will be over.
We are beginning to give in to the United States even before they ask us.
Mr Sturdy, who is very intelligent and very subtle, tries to mask this problem.
He says: ' Yes, but for farmer security, we need a five-year multiannual programming' .
Mr Sturdy forgets that Joseph told the pharaoh that there were climatic variations and that setting prices for five years is really very, very curious.
In reality, Mr Sturdy, and you know I like you a lot, we have a philosophical divergence over this.
There is the Anglo-saxon model with its well-known success: 160 000 cattle slaughtered.
This Anglo-Saxon model is a model of the invisible hand, but it is really the visible hand of capitalism.
Then there is the model of the family farm, the balanced farm, the human enterprise, which is not that of Adam Smith.
This is the divergence that separated Keynes from Adam Smith and Cambridge from Oxford.
That is the opposition that separates us, Mr Sturdy.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5).
Mr President, first of all, in this debate I go along with what Mr Fantuzzi said, as his words were fully in line with the Socialist Group's way of thinking.
Secondly, I should like to point out that there is some confusion in this debate, especially over the Funk report, initially because the proposals to cut aids to cereals were linked with the need for funds to solve the meat problem - the reasons behind these Commission proposals.
However, at this moment, it seems that the Commissioner is presenting them separately, as if in the framework of a possible reform of the farming policy.
I seem to have heard that, given that there is excessive compensation in the cereals sector, aids have to be reduced, completely regardless of the beef question.
On this matter - accepting that this is the plan - I think that there should be more clarity as to whether this is a reform or whether we are dealing with the BSE crisis.
I say that because if at this moment in time the Commissioner's ideas are separate from the beef problem, I think that we have to be far more realistic, as Mr Fantuzzi was saying.
I do not think that we can deal with the reform of the compensatory amounts for cereals by saying 'coffee all round' , because that over-compensation to which you referred, has not occurred throughout the Community at an equal rate.
It is possible that some regions have seen an over-compensation. But that is not the general case throughout the European Union.
Therefore, I think that we should begin to introduce some elements of discrimination.
On those lines, the proposals made by the Socialist Group head in that direction.
We go along with the idea that certain rectifications are needed, but not in the same way for everyone, because that is the defect that we faced when the Council rejected the original proposals made by Commissioner MacSharry.
We do agree that some rigour is called for, but the various positions need to be distinguished if this reform is to have a real meaning.
Not only that: we should also enhance certain social aspects, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf recalled earlier, not forgetting the ecological aspects.
It seems to me that it would be a good framework for beginning to discuss some of these ideas.
To sum up, as Mr Fantuzzi said, I think that we should end our discussions and fine words and start taking practical action.
We agree with your aims, Commissioner, but start work so that in the coming months we can have some elements that will enable us to know where we are heading with your ideas on the reform of the common agricultural policy.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I address the House on these three reports as the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets for the 1998 budget.
First, the Funk report.
In view of the large sums in the 1997 budget that were left unused in the agricultural sector, the Committee on Budgets, in its opinion, agreed with the proposal by the rapporteur, Mr Funk, on this, and Mr Funk very largely adopted the proposal contained in the Committee's opinion, but unfortunately not the parts relating to the amendment to the Regulation.
With regard to the deferment of the oilseed payments to 1998-99, or their suspension in 1997, the Commission has expressly stated that it is not prepared to contemplate this, at least at present.
I believe we shall have to discuss this further in the course of the ad hoc procedure.
I am more inclined to favour the Commission's proposal.
As regards Mr Sturdy's report, I would at least like to congratulate the rapporteur.
He has, I think, taken the right line, even if Mr Martinez sees it differently; his proposal really is budgetary-neutral.
With regard to the present motion for a resolution by the Committee on Agriculture, it should be noted that the Committee on Budgets gave its opinion on the Commission's proposal and not on the proposal by the Committee on Agriculture in the present report, envisaging an increase by ECU 170 million.
From the procedural standpoint, therefore, it would be appropriate for Mr Sturdy's report in its present form to be referred back to committee, so that the Committee on Budgets can give an opinion on the basis of the new situation.
The amendments proposing that this increase should be covered by savings elsewhere in the agriculture budget, as is proposed by the Committee on Agriculture, is a cosmetic solution, because it is not really budgetary-neutral and ultimately it still amounts to an increase.
There are two points I should like to single out from what the Council presidency said.
I hope that you will succeed in creating a flexible structure for the budget in the agricultural sector, and I wish you every success in your efforts to do so.
But something else you said did reawaken my feelings of pessimism, and that was when you referred indirectly to horizontal cuts.
Although such cuts would be effective, and would undoubtedly be the simplest solution, it would run counter to what Honourable Members have said: that we should look at the items and make cuts where over-compensation has already existed for many years.
I believe, though, that we can and must conduct lengthy further negotiations on this.
The simplest overall solution, both for us in this House and for the Council, would certainly have been to accept the Commission's proposal.
That would have been the most logical course from the standpoint of budgetary policy.
Commissioner, you too cannot escape totally unscathed here - I have some criticisms of you as well.
It is somewhat comic, of course, that we should receive from your services, two weeks after the proposal for the draft budget, an oral correction saying that you have miscalculated by 329 million.
That, of course, will be another matter to be discussed during the ad hoc procedure.
That procedure will have begun by late autumn, and then it will be up to all of us to commit ourselves to the kind of budgetary stringency that we resolved upon in paragraphs 9 and 10 of the Guidelines.
Mr President, first of all I should like to say that this debate shows, as the President of the Commission has said, that the powers of the Parliament on agricultural matters need to be strengthened and that we need co-decision.
As far as the agricultural prices are concerned, it is obvious that the budgetary discipline imposed on the Community expenditure must be upheld.
Nevertheless, we should recognize that the freeze at 1997 levels that the Commission is seeking is really pitched at 1992 levels, if account is not taken of average Community inflation and when there are no compensatory mechanisms for making up part of the income.
So the biggest income loss will be borne by the markets that have not been reformed since 1992 rather than by those, such as cereals market, that have been reformed.
Strangely enough these reformed markets for which compensatory mechanisms exist encompass only products of the north.
So one asks: should we perhaps not be attempting to freeze the prices for the main Mediterranean products? I can think, for example, of about 15 different fruits and vegetables for which the markets have been reformed but for which no compensatory mechanisms have been provided.
It is right that we should propose a small increase in the support prices for 1998 for these products, smaller, or at the most, equal to anticipated average Community inflation, because it is likewise not coincidental that agricultural in the south of the Community is coming to believe more and more that it is being persecuted.
Allow me to add, lastly, that when the support prices and the related measures are adopted consideration should given to devising a special policy to serve the Community's interests with regard to the products which are greatly in deficit.
Freezing the prices of products which are in surplus makes sense, but it does not make sense to impose a freeze on products which are in deficit and in respect of which the Union has to import more than 50 % of its needs.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I congratulate the authors of the report.
If implemented, the Commission's price package would cut the per hectare aid and set-aside support for cereals and oilseed plants.
The relative effects of these cuts, particularly on the viability of agricultural production, will be greater in the Union's remote areas than in the better production areas.
For this reason, I cannot approve these cuts.
A cut of almost a third in set-aside support would be contrary to the objective of reducing surpluses in the cereals sector.
Market deveopment assessments show that over-production in the cereal sector will be a growing problem in future. The cutting of set-aside compensation is a measure which will be poorly received given the current situation on the cereals market.
The CAP reform was implemented and it was relatively of most benefit to the farmers in the better production areas.
When the Commission proposes making cuts in support to bring about savings, these cuts should be targeted taking account of the relative effect of the cuts on the viability of production.
Within the European Union each country tries to produce as much as possible of its own food itself.
Consumers appreciate food produced near home, because over-long transport lowers the quality of food.
In the USA's industrial-scale agricultural production system, where specialization has been taken to extremes, food has to be transported thousands of kilometres to the customers' tables.
I warn against this type of development, particularly in the context of the forthcoming free trade negotiations.
Free trade does not necessarily suit us very well, because its risks are often greater than its benefits.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I have to be very frank. With its proposals for 1997-98 prices, the European Commission is not content with freezing price and aid levels, but is also preparing for new adaptations to the CAP with a view to the COM negotiations and enlargement of the European Union to the eastern European countries.
Pursuit of an alignment of Community with world prices is aimed at adapting the CAP to the American model, with further drops in income, an acceleration in the concentration of farms, and the implementation of over-intensive production methods.
This prices policy comes after the signature with non-Community countries of agreements doing harm to Community preference.
Farming plays the role of an exchange currency in relations with non-Community countries, as on the internal market, and priority is given to the principle of free competition.
Producers are made to compete which only profits major distribution companies and international business.
This is the case at present in the fruit and vegetable sector.
Apart from the acts of violence against goods and persons, which I wholeheartedly condemn, farmers' demonstrations are sounding the alarm signal on the deterioration of their situation.
Other sectors - milk and beef - have not been spared.
It is not enough, as the Committee on Agriculture proposes - and even if it is fair - to oppose the reduction in premiums for cereals.
We must urgently commit ourselves to a process of renovating and improving the CAP.
The change of government in France might contribute to that in the framework of the reorientation of European construction proposed by the joint declaration by the socialist and communist parties.
That CAP reform should learn the lessons of the mad cow crisis, which revealed how harmful the policy is to the interests of producers and consumers alike.
It is thanks to the joint action of producers, consumers and workers that we count on showing the French Government and the Community institutions that we could impose other guidelines that would respond to the food needs of the population and to the needs of producers themselves.
Mr President, farmers need a stable and predictable working framework if we want to put a stop to the loss of jobs in the sector, where a further 230 000 jobs were shed in 1996.
Our Group therefore regrets the fact that we still have no Commission proposal for set-asides for next year, even though farmers already have to prepare their land use plans.
I should point out that last year we had to impose an export tax for the first time in the Community's history.
This year, since 14 May, the Commission has again had to impose that tax in order to guarantee internal European Union supplies.
It is therefore vital not to go beyond the current compulsory rate of 5 % and to abolish the extraordinary set-aside imposed after any excess.
As for the agricultural budget, we know that the EAGGF-Guarantees budget will only be increased by 0.5 %.
In relation to the compromise guidelines agreed on at Edinburgh, that is translated into a total loss from next year's agricultural budget of some 2.4 billion ECU.
The real reason is the introduction of the single currency and its corollary, the respect of the Maastricht convergence criteria.
We all know that but the farmers do not.
Perhaps it is a good thing for a few of us here to speak out and say that.
As for durum wheat, I should like to draw your attention to Amendment No 5, which we tabled and adopted in committee, for durum wheat areas to be set at an inter-regional level.
The management of a production needed for supplying a specific agro-foodstuff sector must be flexible.
I should also emphasize the vital nature of the obligation agreed on by the committee to use certified seeds for durum wheat.
This is especially important for the seed sector and I had to stress it.
We have tabled another amendment that was also adopted in committee, making things as flexible as possible for farmers.
I hope that the Council will agree to our proposal on that point as well.
Mr President, the EU agricultural policy has in many respects outlived its usefulness.
We now have a farming industry that uses unheard-of amounts of poison in order to achieve maximum possible yields.
The results are unfortunately major environmental problems and food of which consumers are becoming increasingly critical.
We are now on the brink of an enlargement of the EU to include the Eastern and Central European countries, which also have a large agricultural sector.
For many reasons - not least economic reasons - we have to face the fact that the price package proposals must be reformed before these countries become members.
In addition, there are the demands from the World Trade Organization for us to fall into line with world market prices.
We must therefore view this proposal from the Commission as a challenge that has both economic and environmental advantages.
In the same way, it is an advantage that many Member States wish to apply strict budgetary discipline in the future.
I think that the Commission proposal shows a realistic attitude to the problems of world market prices.
It would be nice if we could now get right away from lines of production that do not belong in the EU.
An example is tobacco production.
I support the proposal of the Environment Committee to cut the premiums in that sector by 10 %; otherwise we have no consistency between agriculture, health and the environment.
Let us hope that in the future time and money will not be spent on price proposals in the EU.
Instead the support would be given a social focus by allocating money for landscape management and for environmentally friendly production.
Organic farming also urgently needs help.
All things considered, we must ensure sustainable agriculture with quality products in the EU.
That is the only way we can be sure of winning back consumer confidence in the common agricultural policy, and that is necessary if it is to survive at all.
Mr President, I shall say immediately that I am in agreement with the conclusions reached by the Committee on Agriculture, and I am therefore in favour of upholding the kind of solution we adopted there in this House.
But having said that I must immediately add - and I am speaking mostly to Members, but also to the Council and the Commission - that in my opinion we would be mistaken if, at the end of the debate this evening and in the voting tomorrow and the next day, we were to abandon the very important discussion that has been opened here this evening.
I refer to the dialogue difficulties existing between Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers, and to the speech by my friend and colleague Mr Fantuzzi, who seemed to be trying to open a dispute inside Parliament itself between reformers and conservatives on the issue of agriculture.
In my view we made an error when we gave the price package a significance and a role it should not have.
Here I agree with Mr Mulder when he brings us back to reality. I do not agree with Mr Sturdy's attempts to redistribute expenditure between sectors through the 'price' package, or with Mr Fantuzzi, who starts from a correct analytical assumption but then arrives at the wrong conclusion that, here, now, today, we can find the solution to a general approach to agriculture, although it must certainly come into being and we must try to make a contribution to it.
I do not know if the Commission has an idea in mind about general reform of agriculture, but I feel sure it is pursuing a design of its own through the COM, the price package and so on, and we in the European Parliament need a strategy, which has not been clearly defined yet.
I hope the lesson of sorts that we are learning in this debate will help Parliament find the right road in its relations with the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, from an agricultural perspective, farm prices are central to the viability of the industry.
Farming is about producing food but also about managing the rural environment of which farmers are the main custodians.
Unlike other professions, farmers do not have a guaranteed income and the industry has been bedevilled by fluctuations in both prices and production costs.
While it is true that the CAP and accompanying measures have made a significant contribution to market stability and to managing production to market requirements, direct payments have been of immense benefit in ensuring the economic survival of many farming families, in particular those with small and medium-sized farms.
Any review of farm prices or the CAP must take into account not only the economic viability of agriculture as a food producer but also the environmental and social significance of retaining the maximum number of farming families.
In his report Mr Sturdy understandably highlights the need for budget management, in particular in the context of EMU.
While acknowledging that the agricultural budget represents a significant proportion of the overall EU budget, it seems wrong that proposed restrictions are based more on what remains after we provide for the agreed 8 % annual increase in structural funds rather than the actual needs of European agriculture.
It should also be noted that the roll-over in farm prices represents in fact a reduction in farm prices when inflation is taken into account, not to mention the problems associated with currency revaluation.
Guarantee funds are a crucial element in the overall agricultural budget and the proposed restriction of 0.5 % increase will put considerable pressure on a sector already reeling from the impact of BSE.
European agriculture faces many challenges in the context of CAP reform and the world trade talks.
If the industry is to expand it can only do so in the context of competitiveness in the world market.
Serious decisions will have to be taken on the farming structures of the future.
Either we allow the pressures of the marketplace to push us in the direction of New Zealand-style ranches, with disastrous consequences for the human side of farming, or we introduce policies to build and develop Europe's farm family tradition.
I understand the rapporteur's view on farm price support at this time, in particular as we enter negotiations on a new world trade agreement, CAP reform and further enlargement to the east.
I repeat that the only way forward for European agriculture, and Irish agriculture which with other colleagues I represent in the broader European context, is through greater efficiency and competitiveness leading to an increased share of the world market.
In the context of planning for the future we must ensure that goals are achieved within the economic framework of the traditional family farm.
Mr President, first let me congratulate the rapporteurs on these reports.
I think they have conveyed the seriousness of the situation and recognized that the reform of the agricultural policy must continue.
I also think that the Commission proposal is correct as regards price stability.
But I have a few objections to the Commission's arguments for the reduction of support per hectare for cereal crops.
I cannot accept the argument that compensation has been excessive in this area.
I merely refer to what Mr Funk said about the figures from part of Germany, which presumably apply to all countries with a strong currency.
At all events they have not noticed any overcompensation on the cereal market there.
That is one of my points.
The other question is whether it is politically right to continue applying cuts in payments per hectare for cereals in the future.
If we are to contribute to satisfying cereal demand on the world market, it does not help to pull the rug from under the cereal growers' feet, so that it is no longer profitable to grow cereals.
So I do not think the Commission has got its sums right on this point.
Otherwise I think the Commission's policy is correct in moving from price support to hectare support.
If we are to have an agricultural policy in the future, it will be necessary to abolish price support completely and apply hectare support exclusively.
That is the future for agriculture in Europe.
Mr President, a deluge of words and a dearth of meaning - that is what one could say about the debating of this whole matter.
Council proposals, Commission proposals, long-winded speeches by the President-in-Office and the Commissioner, three reports and an oral question.
I interpret them them not as they are, not in terms of their words, but in terms of their meaning.
All of them, in their own way, reaffirm the antifarmer, anti-social, anti-economic and inhumane character of the Community's agricultural policy.
This is evidenced by the freeze in prices and the price cuts, the freeze or reductions in aid and other support measures and the freezing of production volumes even for the deficit products, in total disregard of inflation and of the fact that production costs are rising sharply every month and every year.
So one asks how this agricultural inflation in the Community is to be contained, in the south especially. No one seems to be addressing that.
Let the budgetary god and the tight monetary policy take care of it.
So instead of the budget providing farmers with a decent human standard of living, the farmers are being asked to suffer and make sacrifices for the budget.
Mr President, the point is that the whole situation needs to be taken apart from top to bottom.
If the Community does not do it, the farmers themselves and the workers will, and you can see the beginnings of that now.
Do not let things come to that.
You still have time to adjust this inhuman policy to some degree if want to.
Mr President, according to the preliminary draft 1998 budget agricultural expenditure can only increase by up to 0.5 %.
Furthermore the 1.3 billion extra ECU earmarked for the BSE crisis also have to be financed from this tight framework.
But is this fair?
This means that the bills for the EMU criteria and the BSE crisis have been sent to farmers.
I find it difficult to accept the controversial proposal to reduce income compensation for cereal growers.
It is not fair to reduce overall subsidies by targeting cereals because, in certain Member States, growers have been overcompensated.
We should not lose sight of the fact that is mainly due to a devaluation of the national currencies concerned.
In countries with a strong currency some growers have even been slightly under-compensated.
Like Mr Funk, the rapporteur, I think that as an alternative to reducing income subsidies the 1998 budget should be discharged using expenditure which was not used in 1997 for payments targeting oil-seed growers.
If that is not enough, then we should abandon the 0.9 % maximum.
I recall that promises were made during the 1992 reforms and I should point out that the agricultural directive allows for a supplementary increase of 2 billion ECU.
As far as the Sturdy report is concerned, I agree with the freeze on agricultural prices.
Given the inflation rate, that possibly means a decrease in real terms but market prices and farmers' incomes depend more on management of the European market than the rate of intervention prices.
I also support the amendments opposing the proposed decrease in the cereals and sugars scales.
Current allowances barely suffice to offset storage costs and interest.
To conclude, thanks to the withdrawal of aid to flax fibre, considerable amounts have been saved to promote the sales of that product.
But this cannot lead to a reduction in promotional activities.
I should like the Commissioner to tell us whether he wants to use the millions of ECU which have been saved to promote sales.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is one point that must be clearly established in this debate: the contributions made to it, today and previously, by members of the Group of the European People's Party on the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development are notable for what they fail to say and so, basically, for the way they twist what they do say.
Because it was not the Commission that, at the start of these discussions, deleted massive savings running into billions; it was the European Finance Ministers and the Council, using any arguments they could find to inflict deep wounds on the operators of small- and medium-sized farms.
That is a fact, and we need to acknowledge it.
And, Mr Funk, you ownr Finance Minister also supported this policy.
So you should have the courage and the resolution to write a letter to your own Finance Minister, even if he is a member of your own party, and tell him that his policy is basically unprincipled, posing an unacceptable burden on small farmers.
This has got to change.
Instead of that, you actually voted down any mention of this fact in the Committee on Agriculture and I think that shows that a policy is being put forward here that may well be acceptable in Germany, and perhaps in various other States too, but is basically a bad and un-European policy.
Yet again, you are trying to cast the Commission as the villain of the piece, a convenient all-purpose scapegoat to conceal your country's responsibility.
I think that the underlying cause of this whole attitude is partly attributable to the fact that some - and I emphasize, some - sections of the PPE are fundamentally opposed to a radical, sensible reform of the agricultural policy, a reform that is not only overdue but has actually been planned for the near future. Their stubborn attitude is intended to create the impression, not only here but at home - in domestic politics, in other words - with a big lobby, that everything is going to stay the way it was.
This policy is basically directed against owners of small- and medium-sized farms, and the social democrats cannot support it.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the issue today is not to do with documents, nor is it to do with disagreements about the structure that is to take us into the next millennium - the issue is the very important one of farm prices and compensation rules, though these things are not as controversial as they were in the past.
But this third subject of the 'special arrangement for durum wheat' is an important one for farmers in certain regions.
Sufficiently important, I think, to receive timely treatment.
Many thanks to the rapporteurs.
A little colour has now been brought into our debate.
I can only speak today about the durum wheat arrangement, and in this case the new proposal simplifies the changeover from individual premium entitlements to guaranteed maximum premium areas for each Member State.
This change is also welcome.
There was broad agreement on this among the Committee on Agriculture, as there also was on the particular proposals made by the rapporteur, Mr Baldarelli.
He has taken a great deal of trouble.
The 5 % reserve for young farmers and the increases in which it results receive our approval.
We do appreciate, however, that some countries - Austria and Germany, for example - do have justifiable claims for so-called non-traditional farming areas to be taken into consideration.
The cultivation of durum wheat has a long tradition in Germany.
Before the current premium rules came into force, Germany already had 25, 000 hectares of land under cultivation, and this would remain necessary.
Mr President, this debate on farm prices has been very much eclipsed by the financial effects of BSE in which the repercussions of a disaster in one sector being imposed on another is only part of the scourge.
In my view, Europe is facing a fresh financial debacle, namely that of swine fever, a disease which regularly crops up here and there and has currently hit my country where costs, in the Netherlands alone, have already reached 150 million ECU.
I think that this situation is horrific and I am making an appeal to the Presidency and Commissioner Fischler to look for new methods to combat this disease so that vaccinations provisionally combined with preventive culling can be tested.
It is my opinion that the Council and the Commission, with or without the agreement of the Standing Veterinary Committee, must rapidly work out an action plan aimed at avoiding any further animal suffering, any further harm to trade and any increase in Euro-scepticism.
Of course, I also appreciate the work carried out by Mr Funk and Mr Sturdy, but this evening I felt that I had to talk about this particular problem.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, my colleague Mr Salvador Jové Perez has already expressed the view of our group on the Funk and Balderelli reports.
The resolutions on agricultural prices proposed by the Commission for the 1997-1998 marketing year are still incomprehensible to farmers in general, above all to those in less-favoured regions.
Although it is true that in some cases such reductions even pose a threat to what was envisaged in the 1992 reform, it certain that for over 80 % of farmers - for instance those in Portugal - and it should be remembered that Portugal is the only one of the four cohesion countries facing a net loss in agricultural terms - such proposals will surely annoy Portuguese farmers whose income has already been reduced so much.
In some cases the European Parliament, through the Sturdy report, made no changes.
In other cases it made proposals aimed at keeping prices at the levels for the previous year - which was moreover the method we used for this current marketing year.
These changes do not however mean that there will be no real reduction in incomes affecting everyone equally, whether large-scale or small, rich or poor, but it is clearly the poor whose survival will be threatened.
If we support the parliamentary amendments which seek the lesser of the evils that does not mean that we are in any way supporting the overall line of the Commission's pricing policy; it indicates that we might be in agreement with continuing agricultural forecasting which does not pay attention to the differences and specific aspects, or to the less-favoured regions, or to the size of the holdings or to the scantness of incomes.
Mr President, today's debate gives us the opportunity to discuss farm prices for 1997/1998 and, at the same time, matters relating to the level and distribution of the agricultural expenditure appropriations.
The parameters of this joint debate extend far beyond the 1997/1998 prices package, the set-aside changes and the support system for certain arable products.
The new priorities of the Union, the stringent financial programmes and the proposed enlargement, for which the timetable remains unclear and the cost undetermined, are, essentially, at the heart of the problem.
This does not mean of course that there are no problems with the prices package itself.
I could describe the Commission proposal as a management exercise. It has no proper perspective and it will generate uncertainty among producers because they are being placed in an annual planning framework and forced to put up with an inadequate time horizon while waiting for the new arrangements.
The ECU 1.4 billion saving on arable crop support and the linear distribution of the support to all producers will have its worst effect on the small producers.
It is, of course, the solution that the Commission habitually opts for when looking for a way out of its problems.
Its proposal for generous funding to stabilize the beef sector is something that I, personally, oppose.
I am pleased that the President-in-Office is present because we can say, in all sincerity, that we do want to support the efforts to achieve budgetary discipline and, if you like, savings. Mr Fantuzzi expressed that very well.
But in order to win our support for this policy the Commission must abandon its prevailing reasoning about good products and bad products, with the bad products being generally those from the south.
To endow the cereals regime with generous funding while cutting all of the appropriations and getting the saving from products of the south is wrong.
Not all of us can support this policy.
Mr President, it seems important that we should also look to the future during the annual debate on agricultural prices.
The Sturdy report raises these issues.
He also suggests that we should simplify the system of intervention for cereal crops by setting one price and removing the monthly increments.
Apart from the fact that this proposal is required to balance the budget, it is also a small step towards adjusting to the conditions of the world market, an adjustment which I welcome.
It is a small step which corresponds to 0.5 % of the cereal sector's turnover.
This cannot be considered a threat to the Common Agricultural Policy.
If we take a more long term view, I am convinced that European agriculture, if it is to play a part on the world market, must adjust itself to that market.
In the forthcoming trade negotiations we should aim, along with other countries, to abolish export subsidies and quota systems which restrict production.
It is only by doing this that we can develop a dynamic agricultural sector.
I would, in fact, be more concerned about the future of European agriculture if we continue with an unchanged agricultural policy than if we take the bull by the horns and really take the CAP reforms to their logical conclusion.
I sometimes think that Commissioner Fischler is also arguing along these lines, but he is doing so extremely cautiously.
If he is doing this, he deserves Parliament's strong support.
A drop in prices ought, at least temporarily, to be compensated for through fixed subsidies but it ought to be possible to phase these out when price levels increase, which they will according to OECD estimates.
It will be dangerous for European agriculture to continue with an outdated regulation system.
European Agriculture deserves a better fate than this.
Mr President, the Funk reports are about actions to limit the production of beef and ways to pay for those actions.
Last September the Commission asked Parliament to give urgency to consideration of its proposals.
We gave urgency to the activities but we still have not agreed how to pay for them and that is what this report is about.
The activities include calf slaughter, more intervention etc., but we must agree how we pay for this.
Some people are saying the projected underspend this year will pay for it.
We have to act here with some sort of morality and say: OK, maybe the underspend will pay for it but we actually have to find a way.
Let us hope we can.
Whatever we decide this evening will not change the fact that the activities have not cut beef production, so we have to think for next year and the years beyond of more effective ways of cutting beef production.
The drop in consumption Europe-wide has been between 10 % and 15 %, so we have to cut production or we have to promote the eating of beef.
An important part of the budget we have to consider later in the year is putting money into the promotion of beef-eating, to take it out of intervention.
For every ECU 50m we invest in this way we will make a saving of ECU 100m.
I hope we will decide this week and that we will not have the third and fourth Funk reports next year.
We British would like to know the United Kingdom's real contribution to the common agricultural budget when considering the cost of BSE eradication in Britain and the cost of compensation to farmers because of the revaluation of the green pound in the light of the Thatcher-negotiated refund.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am very glad to see that the President-in-Office is with us today.
In basic terms, Austria is a traditional durum wheat growing area, although that was not accepted or demonstrated in the accession negotiations.
So there is a tradition of durum wheat production in Austria, that can be traced back to the early 1960s and proved by planting entitlement certificates.
Furthermore, extensive exports confirm that Austrian durum wheat is also in demand on the international market because of its high quality.
I therefore particularly welcome the fact that the Committee on Agriculture has reassessed the situation and voted in favour of granting the durum wheat growing subsidy for 9, 600 hectares of land in Austria.
The 1992 plan to reform the agricultural policy has already improved the Community's agricultural situation.
The attractiveness of farming and rural areas, with all their varied functions, must be preserved.
The care and maintenance of natural resources, greater attention to environmental issues and the adaptation and continuing development of agriculture are important aspects of an integrated policy, in my view.
We must therefore offer farmers the certainty that the next WTO round will not be anticipated and that Europe will pursue a policy of stability.
The confidence of the farmers can be gained only by a policy planned on a relatively long-term basis.
I should mention in this connection that it is important that farmers are able to earn an income from their own original production, and that compensatory payments are only compensation.
The Common Agricultural Policy cannot be dictated by budgetary stringency alone if we want traditional farming to survive throughout Europe!
Mr President, I am tempted, having sat here for two-and-a-half hours to do my monetary speech again, that is, money does not grow on trees.
But since I have done it once I will not repeat it.
Seven years ago I was in the Parliament in Papua New Guinea having a far better time than I am here.
During the debate which was being conducted in pidgin English, one of the speakers who was talking about a great mess that the Government of Papua New Guinea had got themselves in used a beautiful word.
He said: ' You have made one big bugger-up' .
That word 'bugger-up' encompassed so much.
I am reminded of that word when I look at Mr Sturdy's report which was actually going down the budgetary-neutral approach, doing everything OK and then the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development applied the principle of 'bugger-up' and made a right bugger-up of Mr Sturdy's report.
Commissioner, you, in effect, have said the same thing but in a more eloquent way.
What you have said, in fact, is that we really should ignore all the amendments and support the Sturdy report.
At least that way we would get a budgetary-neutral position.
One of our problems in this Parliament is that not many people will take notice of you, especially on that side of the House.
That is where the monetary speech comes in.
The one thing they have to learn is that you cannot defy the laws of mathematics.
The money has to be found somewhere.
We do not conjure it out of mid-air.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for being here.
I support him in saying that the ECU 170m should be removed and so do a lot of my colleagues, as Mr Fantuzzi said.
You also said that Parliament has a responsibility in supporting the reduction of ECU 1.4b.
I agree with you.
Mr Fantuzzi made that point.
On this side of the House we are as one.
We try to live in the real world.
That is what we are trying to do with the amendments that have been put forward from our side.
If Parliament does not act responsibly, it will not be taken seriously.
That is the point that we have to remember time and time again when it comes to agricultural matters.
Mr President, the question about set-aside prompts me to mention two or three things.
First, the debate regarding the set-aside rate for the end of 1998 is still merely speculative, although farmers are supposed to know where they stand as soon as possible.
For example, France is calling for a zero set-aside rate.
The Commissioner talks about a maximum of 17.5 %.
From the German standpoint, I am bound to say that we cannot share these views. Why?
We must expect the cereal harvest to reach a similar level to that of 1996, but there are already indications that the enormous increase in the use of cereal feeds last year is being reversed, while export projections are, as you know, anything but a reliable guide.
Whatever happens, then - and I particularly emphasize this for the benefit of members of the Socialist Group, though Mr Rehder has unfortunately left - we must adhere to the instrument of cyclical and, especially, voluntary set-aside.
Any reduction in voluntary set-aside, especially, would be impossible to explain to our farmers at home.
As you know, we can offset 85 % of any voluntary set-aside against overcultivation of the major crop.
That brings me to my second point.
In the autumn of 1995, Commissioner, you told the Council of Agriculture Ministers that a national offsetting option for the basic land area would be in existence by as early as the end of 1996. You then deferred your latest proposal on this problem until after the 1996 harvest, and it was the subject of proposed amendments by the Member States concerned, including Germany and France, which the Commission has not yet accepted.
I ask that you finally put into practice the political promises you made in autumn 1995, and that you do so in time for the 1997 balance.
And a final word on your over-compensation, which I have mentioned before.
Create the same situation as for the oilseed subsidy, and then take all the money left over for improvements in livestock production.
Then you'll find we're on your side!
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, Mr President of the Council, the current CAP is severely out of line with the different political, economic and social realities of the European Community and lacks integrity in its thinking.
It gives priority to financing all production which costs jobs, with one scandalous exception - the tiny tobacco-growing area.
It allocates 47 % of the whole Community budget to a highly privileged minority of 20 % of European farmers who receive approximately 80 % of all aid.
This encourages rampaging production which threatens the environment, the health and welfare of animals and public health.
The CAP is today a political aberration which needs to be radically changed.
All production aid should be stopped and transferred to holdings under specifically determined rules.
Such aid should be made conditional upon the use of production techniques which are compatible with environmental protection, the health and well-being of animals and public health.
It is essential in social terms to tailor production aid in inverse proportion to the size of the holding; for the sake of cohesion allocation should be on a regional basis with amounts increasing as a function of the underdevelopment of the region; there should also be an increase for each stable job existing within each holding and some practical application of the Community priority to combat unemployment.
A top quality rigorous campaign should be mounted and open to consumers to take part and take stock of matters financed by the EAGGF-Guarantee Section.
The implementation of this rigorous control should become a commercial emblem which is highly prized by the Community's internal and external markets.
The report by Mr Funk takes the opposite line from what is wanted.
Its sole objective is to increase the unfair aspects of the CAP and to channel further financial resources into production which is already swallowing up 45 % of all aid which is losing more jobs and leading to more desertification in the Community.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteurs for their work, in spite of the criticism.
The collapse of the market and the collapse of consumer confidence due to BSE has caused a huge income drop for farmers.
In Ireland this drop is somewhere around 19 % with livestock farmers suffering even greater reductions in income.
In spite of what Mr Wynn has just said, this is a very human problem and one which needs to be addressed.
I fully acknowledge the work of Commissioner Fischler in softening the market blow and I thank him for the help he has provided.
I hope his support will continue until the industry recovers.
Turning briefly to the reports, the proposal from the Commission to allocate an extra ECU 1.4 billion to the beef sector is very welcome but I cannot accept the method of funding proposed, namely to reduce aid to cereal farmers by the same amount.
I reject this method of paying for BSE, a crisis which cereal farmers had nothing to do with and for which they should not be asked to pay.
I believe the necessary funding can be found elsewhere, perhaps from savings and some delay in payments.
I note what the Commissioner told us earlier.
I support the proposal that set-aside be fixed at 5 % for the 1998 harvest but without reducing payments for land taken out of production.
As rapporteur on an earlier set-aside report I asked that the rates be set each year in July at the latest to enable farmers to plan properly.
There is general agreement on this.
I am now asking the Council and the Commission to make an immediate decision at 5 % set-aside with the current level of area aid maintained.
Finally, an important element of this debate should be the future of EU production.
We need to start work on the longer term position of agriculture, vis-à-vis the present CAP reform end in 1999 and also the next WTO round.
We must explore the possibility of additional farm production to manufacture products separately for the growing world market without export refund or other cost to the EU budget.
I think this is worthwhile.
Mr President, I thank Mr Sturdy for his report.
I disagree with his basic proposal which is that because the Member States have to exercise strenuous restraint in budgetary matters, we in the European Union must do the same.
The Maastricht criteria is the business of the Member States. It is not the business of the common agricultural policy.
The farmers of Europe and their incomes are our responsibility.
Over the years it was the Member States who over-borrowed.
It was they who over-spent and ignored their budgetary guidelines.
We did not.
We lived within our budgetary guidelines all through the years.
We not only did that, we stayed within the 75 % of growth that Mrs Thatcher insisted on.
We not only did that but we sent back money every year which we saved with good budgetary policy.
Mrs Thatcher would be proud of the way we have carried on and she would be particularly proud of Terry Wynn this evening if she recognized the way he is defending what she fought so long for in relation to the European Union budget.
This year, of the money which is available to us, we are sending back ECU 2.27 billion.
And this at a time when European farmers' incomes are dropping.
Never mind the 20 % spoken about by the previous speaker, we are sending back ECU 2.27 billion which we could apply to the needs of the 80 %, the 5 million European farmers, whose income is only half the average industrial wage.
I agree with Mr Kofoed.
I accept that we ought not to increase prices indefinitely and we should relate it to area aid or the number of people on the land who protect the environment and maintain the rural fabric.
Therefore, I believe we have set out in the wrong direction and I so not support the basic proposal that because there is stringency at national level, it should be applied here.
, President-in-Office of the Council.
(NL) Mr President, I should like to make a very brief comment because I have not been asked any more questions in this debate, but I should like to tell you that it has been a great pleasure for me to follow it.
I also think that, in July, the Council will be able to take advantage of this debate and I would like to tell Mr Fantuzzi that I have not only listened to what has been said by the rapporteurs and paid attention to their reports, but I have also followed tonight's debate in the European Parliament in full.
If possible I should like to ask you, Mr President, and the European Parliament through you, to issue an opinion on the prices package.
I think that it is obviously necessary for the decision-making process in the Council for it to receive an opinion from the European Parliament because, without it, the Council cannot do its work and I think that it would be in the interest of farmers and farms throughout Europe for a decision to be taken at the end of June on next year's prices package.
As for us, we shall do everything we can to conclude the prices package procedure, but without the opinion of your Parliament that will be impossible and therefore I am waiting for it with bated breath.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to begin by thanking the House for this debate.
I think the price package has been discussed in a very constructive spirit.
This is not the time or place to go into details, but there are a few general principles to which I should like to return.
The reason the price package actually exists is in order to define the appropriate production conditions for the next financial year, to the extent that those conditions are within the jurisdiction of the Council and Parliament.
So, by definition, it is asking too much of a price package that it should at the same time be a reform package.
But I have already promised you, and I stand by what I said, that the Commission will also be presenting appropriate reform packages and proposals to Parliament before the end of this year.
As you all know, the Commission's services published analyses a few weeks ago clearly showing where, and to what extent, reform is needed.
In addition, the question of the budget and the question of reducing the arable crop premiums have played an important part in this discussion.
I admit that our proposals, in the form presented, may have overemphasized the budgetary argument on the basis of the budget situation at that time.
But we did call attention from the start to the fact that cases of over-compensation exist, and these cases have also been quantified in the interim.
In any case, the Commission has no need to apologize for its economical conduct of the budget, which indeed has been very much in line with Parliament's wishes.
There is one thing I must say to you, Mr Funk: if, as you suggested, there is absolutely no willingness for something to happen, it cannot happen.
The body representing the farmers, the COPA, is now showing greater flexibility with regard to the future development of the compensatory payments.
Regarding the argument advanced by the hard-currency countries, our calculations have certainly shown that cases of over-compensation have occurred in hard-currency countries, too, not just in countries that have seen devaluations in recent years.
The proposals made in connection with modulation are, in some cases, very interesting and worthy of discussion, but in my opinion they should more properly be discussed in connection with plans for the reform of the sector.
Mr Fantuzzi, I freely acknowledge that your idea whereby the first step should be to equate the set-aside premiums with the standard cereal premiums does imply a degree of modulation.
On the other hand, though, I feel I should draw your attention to the fact - as has already been mentioned here - that we should take due account of the fact that any such measure should also be accompanied by precautions to safeguard, in particular, the future production of energy-generated crops.
As for Mr Goepel's proposal regarding the striking of a balance, that is certainly something that can be discussed.
The critical point for me, though, is that we should actually get round to what the Regulation intended from the beginning: the adjustment of the compensatory payments to the existing economic conditions.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon on Thursday.
Novel foods
Mr President, we are once again meeting here to discuss the regulation on novel foods.
As almost everyone now knows, the novel foods regulation has failed.
It has created a confusing situation.
There are at least four different labelling practices in use for genetically altered foodstuffs and more are being planned.
The authorities in the Member States do not know how to deal with this regulation which has just entered into force.
The consumers are worried, they are uninformed.
Retailers, too, are calling for clear guidelines to ensure that they will not need to be ashamed of their customers.
Has the Commission ascertained whether the WTO has anything against the EU creating a new stricter packaging labelling practice than had been planned? Has the Commission received any reply from the WTO?
I should also like to know whether the Commission's cardinals have met yet to decide who is to be elected Pope.
What I mean is that the many Commissioners, as is well known, have made their own proposals as to who should really coordinate labelling practice and who should be elected 'Pope' in the Commission on this matter. How many more days will the Commission still need to appoint this Pope and does it intend to create any uniform labelling practice for these genetically altered foodstuffs?
Mr President, it is of course a pleasure once again to be discussing novel foods with my fellow Members and with Commissioner Bangemann.
Mr Bangemann, we have had many opportunities to fence with each other in the past, and indeed we have assured each other, more or less indirectly, of our mutual esteem.
What I do find a little disappointing is that in the supplement on novel food and on novel food legislation I have the impression that you, all of a sudden, as the representative of the Commission, might be a bad loser.
One reason I find that disappointing is that I have made a mistake in my own judgement of human nature - I took you for a pragmatist, a stubborn one certainly but still a pragmatist.
The things I have heard the Commission say in the past, and my own experiences too, suggest to me just this: you, Mr Bangemann, know as well as I do, as a properly trained lawyer, that a Regulation must be implemented.
In the text of the Regulation adopted by the mediation committee - and nothing could be more democratic than that in the European Union nowadays - it says that it is possible for the Commission to issue implementing provisions.
It is also perfectly within its rights if it chooses not to.
But if it exercised that option, then its duty would be to ensure that this legislation is applied in the Union.
You can't have this both ways.
Either the Member States do it for themselves, in which case the Commission issues an instruction, and says what it wants to some extent, or the Commission does it, and that is why I hope to hear you say this evening that the Commission is indeed working on implementing provisions.
In that case, though, just to be difficult, I shall ask you why you didn't do that work back in early May, since the regulation came into force on 15 May, and I shall moan and groan a bit more and say you could have known, it's nothing new after all.
But I shall be satisfied if I hear you say that you feel certain that, in the light of the conclusions of the mediation committee, consumers now have the right to receive comprehensive information on genetically modified foods when they differ from conventional foods, and not just in the accumulation of all the things they will find in the regulation, when nutritional value, nutritive characteristics and many other things are taken together.
That is not cumulative, otherwise it is an alternative, and the text of the law says that quite clearly.
I am also perfectly willing to have it checked by the Court of Justice.
Even though I, as a politician and a lawyer, certainly do not take the view that the Court of Justice should be making policy.
I should like to hear you say today, Mr Bangemann, that you are working on implementing provisions.
If you can't tell me that, then I should like you to tell me how the Member States are supposed to label these foods clearly, and I should also like to hear - and I must admit that I still have a deep and unshaken confidence in your good intentions - that no labelling will be allowed that can mislead the consumer.
I am far from being the sort of person who declaims against genetic engineering - quite the reverse.
I believe that genetic engineering offers huge possibilities, but I also believe that if food is genetically modified it must not be labelled 'produced by modern biotechnological methods' .
I know that there are some Member States that want that.
But I hope that you will support the European Parliament in preventing anything of the kind, and I confess that even this late in the day I should be glad to hear something to that effect from you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the PPE Group I would like to give the reasons for the questions we put.
The Novel Food Regulation has created legal certainty for consumers, retailers and manufacturers regarding the licensing, in particular, but also the labelling of novel food products, including genetically modified products.
That was and is a major achievement by all the European institutions.
But an EU regulation becomes directly applicable law in every Member State on the day on which it enters into force - 15 May, in this case.
Every regulation which becomes applicable from a certain date in 15 Member States of the European Union inevitably causes problems of interpretation and implementation in the early stages, especially with such a difficult subject as this.
Even if the implementation and application of a regulation, in particular, were to be handled uniformly in every Member State, we do see difficulties with practical application in a matter as complex as this.
I think those problems relate to three points: how, and especially in what wording, products are to be labelled; which products are covered by the regulation; and, finally, what happens to those maize and soya products that were approved even before this regulation came into force.
There is evident uncertainty here, caused by differences in interpretation, and so we regard it as urgently necessary for agreement to be reached at Community level on a uniform interpretation.
As I see it, these problems are certainly solvable, but the issues must be addressed in an objective discussion with the experts at European level, as a matter of urgency.
I say urgency because foods produced from approved genetically modified soya and maize are already to be found on supermarket shelves, but now, according to the provisions of the regulation on novel foods, they have to be labelled.
This of course makes it especially clear that a review of Directive 220 on labelling is more than overdue.
However, these problems cannot be solved in the manner favoured by certain Members of this House, who create the impression that media impact and the prevention of genetic engineering are more important to them than effective consumer protection.
A good example of what I mean is the questions put by Mrs Breyer and the Greens, because that group is saying that the whole regulation has got to be amended or even replaced.
This view is not only nonsensical but contrary to the wishes of the majority in the European Parliament.
The issue here is not scaremongering but resolving perfectly ordinary difficulties, and we hope our questions will encourage the Commission to do so.
Mr President, I should like to insist that we must be particularly circumspect concerning subjects such as new food products in Europe.
After swine fever and BSE, consumers want more than ever to be informed about what they are eating.
Although a regulation came into force on 15 May of this year, we absolutely do not know how this regulation is to be interpreted by the Member States in certain areas.
I should like to ask Mr Bangemann why the Commission did not adopt a directive in good time to deal with this problem so that there can be a uniform and clear regulation concerning labelling? How, Mr Bangemann, is the labelling of genetically modified food products currently regulated?
Who takes responsibility for this labelling if the Commission has not issued a regulation on it?
Is it up to manufacturers?
In short, there is a great deal of uncertainty and we feel that the Commission has been very negligent over this and this has seriously affected consumer confidence and we now would like to know how the Commission intends to deal with this problem because it is becoming a very urgent one.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, we are naturally delighted at the entry into force, on 15 March last, of Regulation No 258/97 on novel foods and novel food ingredients introducing new provisions covering appropriate labelling.
This is an important step forward in a sector which is not yet familiar to the consumer and is a source of great confusion and bewilderment.
This is precisely why there is a need for guidelines that are clearer and more transparent than the text of the regulation.
In fact it is unclear whether the regulation has retroactive effect.
Indeed, what is its actual field of application?
For example, is labelling of genetically modified maize and soya, which were authorized entry to the Community market back in December, obligatory or not? And if it is, must the provisions of the regulation be respected or not?
And how should countries which already have national standards in this sector act?
How strictly should the rules be applied?
Is it too much to ask for clear and precise guidelines on the implementation of this regulation, on its scope and on labelling?
Have the different national standards, for example Italy's, been taken into account? And finally, has there been any consideration of the confusion experienced by the majority of consumers who, for the most part, are still too ill-informed to be able to interpret the words on the labels about genetically modified organisms correctly and therefore harbour understandable and fundamental misgivings.
In conclusion, it seems appropriate to stress that, even if we are looking at a regulation which is the fruit of a compromise between the conflicting interests of Member States, organizations and interest groups, and corrects the total lack of control in the sector, this does not mean we should be content with incomplete and unsatisfactory provisions, which lend themselves to various interpretations and may actually be generating bewilderment and confusion.
Mr President, before I deal with the individual comments that have been made I should first like to make a general observation that may clear up a few misapprehensions.
We have all accepted the result of the conciliation procedure, except for Mrs Breyer and a few others who pointed out at the time that it was not enough to provide the consumer with appropriate information.
So no one here - not Mrs Roth-Berendt nor Mrs Schleicher and especially not Mr Eisma, who as far as I know did not participate in the debate, in which the Liberal Group did not particularly distinguish itself - should now suddenly hold the Commission responsible for something which you brought about yourselves in the course of the conciliation procedure with the Council.
Mr Eisma, I object to the way you are now simply turning the tables and saying that the Commission failed to do such and such.
This legislation dates from May this year.
It is true that the discussion produced what is somewhat pompously referred to as a paradigm shift, and indeed I called attention to it at the time, a shift away from the traditional principles of labelling, for which I argued at the time.
If a change takes place which is significant to the consumer, then labelling is necessary.
If a change takes place which is not significant then labelling is not obligatory , and in my view that change should not be shown on the label, because if we label absolutely everything the consumer is in the position of the emperor with the new clothes, confronted by a whole mass of labels that amount to absolutely nothing.
And that, Mrs RothBerendt, is the basis of the achievement you were so proud of.
You were proud of it, Mrs Breyer was not.
Nor was I. You said at the time - I can still produce the Minutes - this resolution is a slap in the face for Mr Bangemann.
And now you're trying to make me responsible for it.
I am more inclined to agree with Mrs Breyer - if any breast-beating is called for, you do it!
No, I want to start by getting this clear, so that the dividing lines are not blurred and so that the wrong impression is not created that the Commission is responsible for something which you, at the time, celebrated as a great victory for Parliament.
I can still remember your appearance on German television!
(Heckling) My dear madam, if Mr Eisma and Mrs Roth-Berendt and other speakers behave as if the Commission were responsible for everything under the sun, then you are going to have to accept - it's called democracy - the fact that a Commissioner who has been involved in these discussions and suffered these discussions from the start is allowed to say what actually happened at the time.
Anyone here who wants to debate honestly and frankly must admit, ' I accepted the result of the debate at the time.'
It essentially corresponded to the principles, because it was in fact based on three substantive criteria. I never said, Mrs Roth-Berendt, that they all had to be present at the same time!
The Commission never said that. I don't know where you got that idea.
If the composition of a food changes, if the nutritional value changes or if its intended use changes - and if one of those things happens in an individual case, which we have never contested and never viewed differently - then it has to be labelled.
That is the first point, and that is crystal clear.
But these three criteria mean, Mrs Schleicher, that there is an objective basis: whenever a change is significant to the consumer then the product must be labelled.
Well, Mrs Roth-Berendt - and this is the background to this whole debate - a completely different debate on soya and maize has been launched, not just in Parliament but also within the Commission, on the question, irrespective of the three substantive criteria: Is labelling not generally necessary.
No, don't shake your head at me!
There are many people in this House - as is apparent from the questions - saying, for example, we want labelling for maize or for soya or for some other food that is not even covered by the Regulation; because, after all, the regulation applies only to foods which are sold to the end consumer, which maize and soya meal generally are not.
But if you now insist that these things have to be labelled, irrespective of whether one of the three criteria has been met, then it is absolutely clear to me that you are abandoning the principles which we all defended at the time by saying that, never mind what the effect is, we must say on the label if a particular technology has been used, even if the effects disappear completely somewhere along the chain.
Everyone knows that genetically produced soya beans or maize, when they are processed, do not have the effects described in the Novel Food Regulation, and need not have those effects, so from that point of view this is a paradigm shift.
Now, I am perfectly happy about this - I said so before, I am democratic here - and if Parliament and the Commission adopt that by a majority then of course it will be done.
I will be in a minority of one, and bow to the majority.
But I am going to take the liberty of saying again, this evening, that I regard it as fateful for the consumer.
Because virtually anything and everything is going to labelled, and ultimately that means that labelling will become totally meaningless to the consumer.
Again, I think Mrs Breyer is right - we can all pat each other on the back, but the consumer derives no benefit whatever.
So that is the situation.
The Commission is working on it.
We have set up a group of Commissioners to review this fundamental change.
I am against it.
I think the three criteria are absolutely essential - or, in more general terms, that the principle of a substantive change affecting the consumer is essential.
I am not acting as a spokesman for the industry, because the industry favours the same thing as you.
I do not!
I believe the consumer will derive more benefit if he is given relevant, clear information about things that are significant to him.
But if the majority wants it and if it helps us to ascertain the truth, then we'll do it, which in practical terms would mean that we would have to amend the Novel Food Regulation because it would no longer make any sense.
The idea of having stricter rules for the labelling of animal feeds - granted for the sake of argument that maize and soya beans are feeds - than for novel foods is something that would be beyond me to explain.
Because, for heaven's sake, in that case we will change novel food itself, drop the three substantive criteria, and whenever a genetically modified constituent turns up somewhere in the chain we put a label on!
That is the real problem.
Mrs Roth-Berendt was kind enough to say that I stand up for my views in issues like these, and that is what I am doing now.
If a majority of you want to change it, then, as I said, there is nothing I can do to stop you, nor would I want to.
I just want to make sure you understand what the result will be, and that result is not good for the consumer.
Now let me deal with the individual questions, and I shall be very brief.
The Regulation has been in force since May.
We defined the exceptions from the scope of this directive very clearly in Article 2, so that no guidelines are needed on that.
The same applies to Article 1, even though under Article 1(3) there are a good many questions that need to be cleared up in the committee procedure, but after all that was why we set up that procedure - we did not want to introduce guidelines to do something that should be done by the committees.
As far as Article 8 is concerned, we are going to have to review the situation as I said earlier, in other words reconsider the form this fundamental decision is to take.
But irrespective of that decision by the Commission, and later by Parliament, the absence of guidelines does not imply carte blanche for the Member States; they can't just interpret the provisions as they see fit.
In any decision on approval, the provisions of Article 8 are applied to the specific case and the labelling arrangements and forms are defined.
So there is no scope for unilateral action by Member States, or of course for the individual.
He does have a certain freedom of choice, but ultimately we shall make the appropriate decision.
We also want an ad hoc measure covering soya and maize products.
As I said before, this will have consequences of its own, because in principle it has nothing to do with the applicability of the Regulation on food and food additives.
So a certain amount of logic would have to be applied in that case.
Those, essentially, were the questions asked in this House.
We are quite willing to continue debating with Parliament on what we are doing.
But, Mr Eisma, there is one thing I would like to make completely clear: I am not going to take the kind of charges you made this evening lying down!
Like Mrs Roth-Berendt and many others involved in the conciliation, I was of the opinion that the result was an acceptable one.
It did not violate our principles.
It introduced changes in matters of detail.
Mrs Roth-Berendt was very pleased and proud of that.
Parliament celebrated it as a major victory over the Commission.
And now everything is being turned back to front and you are holding us responsible for that result, and even this late in the evening I must say that I am not particularly pleased about it!
Mr President, Mr Bangemann has explained to us at great length why things that should have happened long ago have still not happened.
Today, Mr Bangemann, we are discussing implementing provisions for the Novel Food Regulation and, if I may quote from the Green Paper for Food Law, Regulations are always to be used to increase the transparency of Community law and facilitate the application of its provisions within the single market so that implementing regulations by individual states are unnecessary.
What that means is that there must be implementing regulations at Community level, so that every Member State, when approving products, must do precisely what the other Member States are also required to do.
If we want a single market, then we need to construct that single market very carefully for products which are viewed by consumers with some mistrust as something new, something strange, we can't just say, ' We've had the legislation since 15 May and it's only 15 June now so there's still plenty of time.'
Mr Bangemann, you have had plenty of time for your services to prepare this, and I should think that the DG III administration would probably also be capable of it.
Mr Bangemann, basically, I cannot fully understand what you are saying.
There are things I do understand, but in April 1997 you wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that 'labelling contributes absolutely nothing' , and that of course rouses our curiosity.
We believe that labelling definitely does contribute something.
It contributes something to the consumer and it contributes something to the industry, and that is the opportunity we want to take.
After the grim experiences of BSE, we should take the opportunity offered by the Novel Food Regulation and put it to good use.
I think it has become clear here tonight that we are talking not about the content of the directive but about what we have made of that content.
You say that it only came into force in May, and in legal terms that is correct.
I am no lawyer, as you know, but you knew as long ago as January that this business was coming and what form it took.
We would have liked to see you making some effort to make it clear to the 15 Member States of this Union in which direction they were supposed to be heading.
All right, there can be no definitive documents for us to examine at that stage, even we understand that, but I think we really should consider it beneath us to grind out the kind of superficial campaign of accusation we have heard on this occasion from the Greens, who can be unimaginative themselves sometimes.
I believe in all seriousness, Mr Bangemann, that the Novel Food Regulation is a good first move in this new direction.
So buckle down to it, and then we can tell the Member States where things are heading!
Mr President, I believe Mr Bangemann has been honest with us this evening, and we should be honest too.
The Novel Food Regulation was indeed a joint creation of Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
I pointed out the absence of any implementing provisions, not only in January but also in the conciliation committee.
Among those Honourable Members here who are now complaining about it, everything was crystal clear at the time, the Novel Food Regulation was the best of all possible regulations and it covered everything.
Well, I want to look not backwards but forwards.
I am grateful to Mr Bangemann for the fact that, despite the wording of Article 8, where it does say that the Commission may issue rules for implementation - Parliament didn't want it to say that the Commission must issue rules for implementation - he has nevertheless declared his willingness to arrange implementing provisions on labelling.
I believe those are important, because there is criticism here not just from environmental groups and consumer associations but even from the industry itself.
What we need now, therefore, is a form of words to label those products which are covered by the regulation.
I would once again strongly urge the choice of the wording 'produced using gene technology' , because 'modern biotechnology optimized by food physiologists' would mislead consumers and offer them little in the way of clear information.
Also, we would lay ourselves open to the charge that the Novel Food Regulation is a labelling swindle.
If the industry uses the method, then the industry should also have the courage to say so on the label, so that eventually genetic engineering becomes a hallmark of quality in the food industry context.
Which brings me to the subject of the 'quality mark' .
The positive aspect of the Novel Food Regulation is that we make provision, in Recital 10, for positive labelling.
Mr Bangemann, particularly in view of the fact that the industry is planning to declare everything not covered by the Novel Food Regulation as being free of genetic engineering, I would have liked to hear from you whether you are prepared to do as we did with organic farming, and now with animal products too, and to work out criteria to enable us to have positive labelling.
Because one thing has to be clear: we must not shake consumer confidence.
What we should be doing, at last, is ensuring clarity.
Mr President, I want to put a scenario to Commissioner Bangemann.
If a consumer in a Member State suffers as a result of inadequate labelling, in normal circumstances when the law is clear, that consumer may well have a remedy under the Francovitch judgement against the Member State concerned for its failure to implement European law.
The Commissioner knows that and I know that.
This new law, as we have all regarded it, has received widespread publicity.
Most European Union citizens who take an interest in this matter will have assumed that there is a new law providing protection from 15 May.
Surely a Member State Government in circumstances such as now arise can say to any disgruntled consumer in a court case: ' But we do not know what the position is.
The Commission has failed to inform us' .
So there is a responsibility on the Commission.
The Commissioner dealt well with the argument this evening in terms of Parliament's responsibility and, as a member of the conciliation team, I take part of that burden of responsibility.
But I would point out to the Commissioner that there are three readings under co-decision.
The Commission is involved in the proposal when it first comes to us.
It is involved in the second reading. It is only when we are not able to agree with the Commission that we move on to conciliation.
Therefore, there is a responsibility on the Commission now, as there was at the beginning of this legislation, to ensure there is adequate protection for consumers. In my submission, and that of most of the people in this Chamber, that has still to be provided.
Mr White, this regulation came into force on 15 May.
Today is 10 June, so less than a month has passed.
We have not had a single case so far, and as far as labelling is concerned we laid down detailed labelling requirements in the regulation that apply immediately and mandatorily in the Member States.
Because that, Mr Florenz, is the purpose of a regulation.
You referred to a directive.
But this is a regulation, which applies immediately in the Member States, and if there are any disputes as to whether the labelling is correct the Food Committee can decide - that is stated in the regulation.
Apart from that, as I have already said, we are currently reconsidering matters in general - yourselves and the Commission, jointly.
Once we have arrived at a result the Commission will, obviously, present the new ideas to you, and perhaps you will then say: ' We are going to abandon the criteria of the Novel Food Regulation, because we want to say on the label whenever genetic engineering is involved, even if it does subsequently vanish somewhere along the food chain, because that is the existing situation with soya and maize.'
But that goes without saying!
The requirement is that anyone who uses those two substances in the processing chain should indicate that they have been genetically modified, irrespective of whether or not the three criteria apply.
Mrs Schleicher, the reason I have been so involved in this issue of the Novel Food Regulation is that I believe that we shall be doing the consumer a disservice if we abandon these labelling principles.
But if that is what you want, then we must at least be logical.
It is out of the question to apply stricter labelling rules for soya and maize than we do for a novel food which is going direct to the end consumer, and that is why we are going to have to reconsider this matter.
You know me. If I make a mistake, I accept it.
Anyone can make an occasional mistake, but when you come to me after three weeks have passed without a single case arising and say, as Mr Eisma says, that I have forgotten it all and I have failed to meet my obligations, I am not going to stand for that!
Especially not when I have had to listen to Mrs Roth-Berendt saying on a news broadcast, ' Well, Commissioner Bangemann has had his ears boxed.'
OK, if that was what happened, maybe you should be wondering whether you might not have boxed your own ears.
Because that is the real problem!
The joint debate is closed.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5).
The vote will take place at 12 noon on Thursday.
The sitting closed at 00.20 a.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, yesterday, in one of his rare speeches, Mr Tomlinson referred to the sovereignty of the House in coming to decisions.
Early this year, when voting on the transit inquiry report, the House decided that the follow-up should go to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In yesterday's Minutes, apparently, we approved a report on telematics in transport - which is all part of the transit system - going to the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
However in a document circulated by Distribution yesterday called 'Activities' , it says that the Commission's action plan for the new transit in Europe customs policy should go to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Is the House sovereign or not?
We will check it and take the necessary measures.
Mr President, I have asked for the floor on a point of personal explanation.
Last Monday, when the session opened, Mr Ford spoke on a very serious matter, the fact that, since the last session here in Strasbourg, someone had torn down a poster he had put up on his office door commemorating the resistance of the German people against Hitler.
But Mr Ford then made comments which I consider decidedly unfortunate and out of place: he said he was not surprised that such acts of political vandalism could occur in this Parliament since it includes people like Roberta Angelilli, that is myself, whom he blames for alleged neo-Nazi activities, organizations and initiatives in Italy.
Frankly I have no idea what inspired those accusations, insinuations and associations of ideas.
Perhaps Mr Ford, a leading light of this Parliament, is actually prepared to use the methods of the basest and most defamatory political demagoguery, born of the worst intolerance, to gain more applause from the House.
Well, I just want to say one thing: at least in Italy, making unfounded insinuations is in fact a criminal act, and it is called defamation.
I therefore invite Mr Ford to inform himself better before making unfounded insinuations, and in any case I invite the President, or whoever is responsible, to investigate the incident fully.
Personally I intend to take some kind of action, possibly even legal action, to shed light on this event.
Mrs Angelilli, I must point out a couple of things to you.
First of all, you must reply to any personal remarks or comments immediately following the remarks or on the same day.
Secondly, all Members are free to speak in plenary session and neither the President nor any other authority can stop them.
That, as you know, is what is meant by parliamentary immunity for words used within the Chamber.
Nobody can censure another Member nor can they take legal action either in Italy or any other country over something said in this Chamber.
That is why, if someone says something that is erroneous you must reply at once, in order to clear up a misunderstanding or put the facts right, as you are trying to do today.
Mr Ford, you have the floor. However, this is not the time to continue a debate on this.
But you referred to Mr Ford.
Please could I ask you to be brief as we have far more important issues on the agenda.
Mr President, Mrs Angelilli made comments on what I said on Monday.
It was on the basis of a press report in the United Kingdom.
I will provide her with a copy of the press report on what she was alleged to have done.
Obviously I expect her to take legal action and, if she does not, one can only draw the appropriate conclusions.
Mr President, I should also like to speak on a personal remark.
I was not there on Monday but I cannot allow Mr Ford to get away with what he said. He is always provocative and he once again confused issues and scandalously accused me of racism.
I should like to tell Mr Ford that I know France and the racism that my assistant has been victim of. Mr Stéphane Durbeck, my assistant, is a black West Indian and he has been beaten up and called a 'genetic freak' , just because he does me the honour of accompanying me in all my activities.
The Vietnamese godchildren whom I am bringing up have been attacked and hurt just because they are my godchildren, and I treat them like my other children.
I have also helped out some three thousand Lebanese orphans over the years and they too have been attacked and the victims of vendettas, just because they are Christians.
If there is any racism here, it is Mr Ford's, whose thought-masters have murdered 200 million people in the world, because they were peasants, middle class or Christians.
We are not impressed by Mr Ford's Stalinist accusations!
Mr Ford, you are a provocateur!
(Mixed reactions)
Mr Antony, please allow me to remind you of the rules on personal matters.
Speakers can only express their views on the basis of the debate.
They may only refute remarks made during the debate concerning them personally, e.g. opinions attributed to them and/or rectify their, own declarations.
You rectified the remarks concerning you, but it is not the time to open a debate that has nothing to do with them, or to start attacking someone else.
I can no longer accept speeches like that.
(The Minutes were adopted)
Mr President, I would like to change the subject.
I, as you know, argued very forcibly on Monday at the setting of the agenda for an extension of the deadline for the IGC amendments.
I understand a superhuman effort was made by your services and I think it is right that we acknowledge that here today; people worked all through the night to ensure that we could vote today.
Of course we realize that there may be some frustrations and irritations in the vote and we will look sympathetically on any errors, but we do, and we should, pay tribute to the services and thank them for their work.
(Applause )
Thank you Mrs Green, you are quite right because people have worked very hard all night and again from 8 o'clock this morning to make the vote possible.
I think everyone will be understanding about any possible errors and I ask for everyone's cooperation so that we can have a smooth vote on this crucial issue.
We understand that it is absolutely exceptional, we cannot do this every session.
This is just for one occasion and only one occasion.
Preparation for the European Council of 16/17 June 1997
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the preparatory work for the meeting of the European Council on 16/17 June 1997 in Amsterdam, including the Commission's action plan for the internal market.
You have the floor, Mr Mierlo, President-in-Office of the Council.
Thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr Santer, President of the European Commission, you have the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in less than a week's time, the Amsterdam European Council will have to overcome the final obstacles to the reform of the treaty. We shall then see whether the IGC has met its triple challenge: to narrow the gap between the European project and the citizens, find the resources to exist in the international arena and review the institutions in order to bring about enlargement in good conditions.
Four successive presidencies have worked on this project in turn.
The time has come to conclude.
Further waiting at best would change nothing and at worst would lead to a move backwards.
The current text drafted by the Dutch Presidency is a point of balance and, I hope, a meeting-point too.
I would have preferred more boldness here and there but I do gauge the difficulty of marrying ambition and realism and I think that the Dutch Presidency team has largely succeeded in meeting the challenge.
If I remain concerned today, it is because there are too many attempts to undo, at the last minute, such patiently completed work.
I would like to tell all of those who, concerned at the gap between politics and ordinary people, are tempted to take a thousand precautions: ' Be daring!
Because in Europe there are more people dissatisfied with our slowness than hostile to our progress towards integration' .
I also call on the heads of State and Government to resist the temptation to take advantage of the final home sprint to settle, through protocols and various amendments, problems that are ill-suited to constitutional improvisations.
I would rather expect them to take advantage of the final negotiations to constitute a coherent and ambitious institutional package.
It is on that score that the shape of a final solution is still vague, even though a good outcome is vital.
I repeat what I have often said: an ill-prepared enlargement would turn into a nightmare what I think in reality is a historic chance for Europe.
Mr President, a few remarks about the key points of the negotiation and the 'Union for citizens' .
The new treaty offers the chance to create a genuine area of freedom, security and justice.
In this area, the accomplished work is remarkable and the text of this Presidency ambitious.
The citizens expect no less, tired at seeing how the current system is deficient and that no convention - yes, no convention - has come into effect.
We can only welcome the broad communitarization envisaged for the third pillar.
After a three-year transitional period, we should now switch to qualified majority voting and the Commission's exclusive right of initiative.
But we should go to the conclusion of Community logic, i.e. introduce the codecision procedure.
(Applause) As for criminal and police cooperation, it is legitimate at this stage to stay at intergovernmental level, provided that the effectiveness and democratic nature of that cooperation is increased.
Integration into the treaty of the Schengen 'acquis' is a good thing.
The share-out between the pillars must be clear if the Union's action is to be as coherent as possible in areas linked to the free movement of persons.
Certain Member States have specific difficulties over this, I recognize.
Let us find specific solutions for them, but not at the cost of blocking real progress as a whole.
It is now a fact that the treaty will include a chapter on employment.
Of course, it cannot be expected that this measure would directly reduce unemployment - I shall come back to the broader problem of employment later - but this chapter is vital for at least two reasons.
Firstly, because it shows that the endemic nature of unemployment has brought some of the concerns to the heart of the European project, along with the hopes of Europeans.
Secondly, because the provisions included in that chapter are useful ones.
Once our States have set as an aim a broad convergence of their economic policies, they also need a coherent and coordinated employment strategy.
For that we must set up consultative arrangements and the possibility to take incentive measures.
That is what the Dutch Presidency's draft text proposes.
Integration of the social protocol into the treaty will make it possible to restore unity and coherence to social policy.
But we must seize the opportunity offered to us to improve it and strengthen its provisions, or we shall run the risk of replacing an already difficult action for fourteen countries with an impossible one for fifteen.
We must also strengthen consumer health production to allay people's concerns.
Unlike 1992, nobody now contests the Commission's proposals.
They will rightly make it possible to involve the European Parliament fully in the adoption of measures aimed at by Article 129, extended to the veterinary and plant health areas.
(Applause) We, i.e. the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission must then show that we can act in the interest of consumers, on the basis of the arrangements we have had made available.
Mr President, the second main aim of the IGC can be summed up in five words: existing in the international arena.
There is a time to regret our collective powerlessness, but there is also a time to react and I should like Amsterdam to be the opportunity for a quantum leap in political will.
First of all concerning CFSP proper.
The arrangements proposed by the Presidency are an important step forward.
They provide for qualified majority voting for implementing strategic decisions taken at European Council level.
The restrictive possibility of referring to national interest (in exceptional cases) - I prefer to speak of security interests, as it happens - is a price to pay for this advance.
The new troika, comprising the Presidency, the Commission and the Secretary General of CFSP, is a promising tool in that it brings together all aspects of external policy and combines periodic renewal with continuity.
In my view, it should play a coordinating rule and act as an agent of coherence throughout the process, by relying on the analysis cell.
I also welcome the agreement on the funding of CFSP.
But apart from the instruments, we must also have genuine political will and use it effectively to develop a common policy.
One final word on CFSP, ladies and gentlemen, I do not see how Europe can claim to become a major actor without a military role.
That means that it should set a deadline for integrating the WEU into the European Union, as six of the Member States have proposed in a joint position.
(Applause) In modern life, the economic, financial and monetary factors are playing a growing role in external relations.
It is clear that the arrival of the euro will change the situation and lead to a new balance of international financial and monetary relations.
Commercially speaking, the Commission is asking for the adaptation of the treaty to current realities.
It is a simple position of common sense, common sense that sometimes disappears in the diplomatic jousting and bureaucratic reactions.
I say this clearly: refusing to make progress on services and intellectual property, the defence of the Union's interests, the Member States and companies run an acute risk of going backwards.
(Applause) Everyone must take their responsibilities.
The text proposed by the Dutch Presidency is a progress, since it provides for an extension, albeit limited, of Article 113 to services.
But there are delegations which want to water it down or add to it, even in other articles, supplementary conditions, at the risk of emptying this progress of all substance, even ending up in a step backwards compared with the current situation.
I shall oppose that.
I now come to the institutional questions, which are vital as they condition not only the support of Europeans but also the future of the Union itself, just before its enlargement.
The Presidency's text provides, as the Commission has always demanded, for a strengthening of the European Parliament's role as co-legislator.
It is a sign of confidence that corresponds to the development of your institution.
Only the European Parliament can ensure the democratic controls that the European Union needs at the stage of development that it has reached.
We only need to recall the recommendations of the Karlsruhe Constitutional Court to realize that and the Presidency's approach is a real progress since it aims to cover most areas of a mostly legislative character.
Furthermore, simplification of the codecision procedure, and the abolition of third reading, will put the two legislative branches on an equal footing.
We should resist any last minute attempts to reverse that decision.
(Applause) In that context, I think that the time has also come to define an electoral system that brings representatives closer to the voters and a European parliamentarian status.
I think that this is a vital factor for strengthening the legitimacy of the Community institutional system.
(Applause) As for the functioning of the Council, the vital point is that of extending voting by qualified majority.
The Presidency has dealt with this question with the necessary openness, which means inroads into the second and current thirds pillars and a consolidation in Community areas.
A further effort could be made to foresee adoption of qualified majority voting on social provisions and some measures in taxation areas, but it has to be said that the Member States' attitudes leave little room for hope over that.
It is a shame, because unanimity in a European Union of more than fifteen Member States will only lead to hold-ups and even paralysis.
As for the reweighting of votes, the Commission is open to alternative proposals by the Presidency, provided that the final solution does not make decision-taking more difficult and that it opens the way to more qualified majority voting.
I finally come to the membership of the Commission.
The solution that will be found will probably be not that far removed from the one we proposed for preparing our institution for enlargement.
The appointed President will have to be approved by the European Parliament.
His or her role will be strengthened, I hope, especially over the appointment of the other Commissioners.
As for the number, that has not yet been decided, I think.
The Commission continues to believe that a maximum number of Commissioners should be set.
As far as we are concerned, we are going to do what we announced for internal reforms and that includes the regrouping of tasks.
Mr President, allow me to conclude on the IGC.
I told you at the outset that the draft treaty that we are debating today meets, on many points, the expectations set out by the Commission in its opinion of February 1996.
Everyone will judge the final outcome by his or her own yardstick.
It is the fruit of a lengthy labour.
If we can improve it, let us do so, but let us not call into question the level of the project by making last-minute demands that would change the balance already struck.
It is not easy to achieve a quality treaty with fifteen Member States.
It will be even harder after enlargement.
Mr President, if there is a question that concerns all European, it is that of employment.
The people of Europe expect the Union to offer answers to their main concern.
The inclusion of an 'employment chapter' in the new treaty will help.
But this is urgent.
Why not anticipate the implementation of this arrangement? It is not tomorrow that we should learn from each other or work out a coordinated strategy on jobs.
It is today.
It is today that we must translate the best practices into recommendations.
In less than a year, we shall be taking the decision on the entry into the third stage of EMU.
The setting up of a stable macro-economic framework has progressed a lot in recent times.
Inflation and interest rates are at very low levels, and public deficits have considerably shrunk.
At the Amsterdam summit, we shall have to complete the final preparations for the euro, the new exchange rate mechanism, the euro's legal status and the stability and growth pact.
The latter is important for guaranteeing sustainable growth.
That growth must still be rich in jobs.
I welcome the fact that the ECOFIN Council, the day before yesterday, recognized the need for EMU to walk on two legs, monetary and economic.
If the monetary aspect is clearly defined, we still need to make an effort to use all the potential of the procedures provided for in Article 103 of the Treaty and aimed at coordinating economic policies.
An ambitious monetary policy only makes sense if it goes hand in hand with a policy for higher employment that everyone can understand.
(Applause) I should once again like to emphasize that the stability pact, as its new name implies, is also a growth pact, therefore a job-creating pact.
All the Member States wanted that.
Without calling into question the stability pact's substance and arrangements, it is therefore perfectly possible to highlight employment still further and thereby overcome a concern expressed by one Member State at the latest ECOFIN Council.
That concern is and always has been ours.
I therefore very much hope that the contacts under way will make it possible to reach full success at Amsterdam, including an agreement on the stability and growth pact.
I also hope that the European Council will send a strong signal on the completion of the internal market by the end of the century.
The potential of the internal market for competitiveness, growth and employment, is huge.
The action plan proposed by the Commission defines four main areas for maximizing that potential: strengthening the effectiveness of the rules, ending distortions to competition or fiscal distortions, ending sectoral obstacles and putting the single market to the service of all citizens.
Practical commitments will have to be made and clear deadlines set.
Reforming and modernizing labour markets is the third axis of a coherent and integrated strategy for jobs.
The role of the social partners is especially important here.
I therefore welcome the agreement signed at the end of the last social dialogue summit, last Friday in The Hague, on part-time work.
This is an encouraging sign that shows that flexibility and the defence of workers' legitimate aspirations are far from being mutually exclusive.
The very positive reaction of the Member States, all the Member States, to the idea of territorial pacts for jobs is another reason for satisfaction.
A new form of partnership is being forged on the ground and will be turned into a practicality by the launch of some 90 pacts, which will be hotbeds for job creation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Amsterdam European Council will mark the future of the European Union.
It will, I hope, be a historic meeting and proof of the desire of the fifteen Member States to advance towards unification, while respecting their different identities.
A good agreement on the IGC will give Europe a new boost and enable it to meet the EMU deadlines and handle enlargement in good conditions.
Let us not miss the opportunity.
(Applause)
Thank you very much, Mr Santer.
You have the floor, Mrs Green.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the next Amsterdam Summit will be the first of a series of meetings that will fashion the architecture of 21st century Europe.
We hope that it will be followed by the setting up, on the scheduled date, of economic and monetary union, enlargements to the south and the east, that will draw the boundaries of a finally reunited Europe and assert the identity of our continent in the international arena, the only prospect enabling European citizens to face up to the challenges of globalization that, quite rightly, worries them.
It must therefore be seen as one step in a long journey and not as an end in itself.
It is in the light of these challenges that its outcome should be assessed.
Europe first of all needs effective institutions, i.e. able to take the decisions that have to be taken, at the right moment, and democratic and transparent procedures involving national parliaments and the European Parliament as the co-holders of democratic legitimacy.
Those who rightly refuse a bureaucratic and undemocratic Europe must give it the means to acquire its political legitimacy.
The acquis communautaire must be strengthened, be it the single market, external trade policy - as Mr Santer proposed - which must be more offensive, common agriculture and fisheries policies which must be made more efficient but also fairer.
Social cohesion must also be strongly reinforced, e.g. by inclusion in the treaty of an improved social protocol, as the French Government demanded in March 1996 in a memorandum on the European social model and by the inclusion of a chapter or a new title making employment of all one of the main aims of European construction, along with the guarantee of our internal and external security, without which there cannot be a genuine democracy.
Europe is often criticized, ladies and gentlemen, less for what it does, which is often little known, than for what it does not do, and should do.
It would be seriously incoherent to denounce the paralysis due to maintenance of the rule of unanimity that certain States legitimately want to retain when they think that superior national interests are at stake and at the same time to refuse to develop stronger cooperation between those States that want to go further ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, we should also beware of restricting the exercise of that flexibility or stronger cooperation with such tight rules that they would make it practically inoperative.
If we want European construction to continue to make progress, let us retain the pragmatism and flexibility that have enabled it, so far, to develop and which will be all the more necessary in a Europe extended across the continent.
We expect the heads of State and Government to show the political will to go full steam ahead so that the European Union can finally acquire the political identity that matches its economic weight and its cultural influence.
If Europe now arouses fears among a growing number of our fellow citizens, it is because its institutions have not sufficiently borne in mind their worries about a seemingly uncertain and menacing future.
Amsterdam, Mr President-in-Office, should not just be the title of a Brel song, but it should be a hit.
The outcome must give Europeans fresh hope as they are expecting practical responses to their worries, mainly about employment and security.
That is the signal we are waiting for and let us hope these expectations will not be disappointed.
To conclude, I should tell you, Mr President-in-Office, that I particularly appreciated your introductory speech, which was full of realism and pragmatism.
I think that you have tried to fill the plate - to take up your own culinary metaphor - and I hope that your colleagues in the Council will not prove to be fans of nouvelle cuisine.
Thank you for your results so far and good luck!
Mr President, rather than continuing with the fairly down-to-earth comparison of the garage and garage-mechanic, I should like to remind you of Robert Schuman's definition of Community rules back in 1950. He said that Europe would not be achieved in one go or in the construction of a whole, but by practical achievements creating de facto solidarity.
It is in that spirit that strong institutions and rules were created to enable the States to live together, to acquire a common spirit and guarantee effectiveness.
That is what is more prosaically known as the step by step approach.
Referring to those principles, which are still fundamental for the Union's progress, I should like to speak about the draft treaty in three areas.
As far as employment and social affairs are concerned, the draft text prepared by the Dutch Presidency takes into account the demand of European citizens by introducing into the treaty the fight against unemployment, the creation of new jobs, the maintenance of a system of social security that is in keeping with the European model.
Even if some think that these commitments are not enough, the door is now open to further developments: the step by step method.
The result on a common foreign and security policy is quite different - something else seen by citizens as a manifestation of Europe's existence.
On this there are neither tiny steps nor any real progress. The tools that have been created - I am sorry, Mr President-in-Office - are intergovernmental.
Unanimity, i.e. the right of veto is going to control all decisions.
The Council's authority is strengthened to the detriment of the Commission's.
Constructive abstention is made fragile by the right of veto, possible even bad tempered veto, of one of the Member States. And that is with only fifteen Member States!
As for strengthened cooperation, it is obvious that the conditions of its implementation will be vital for the overall assessment of the Conference's outcome, i.e. the future of European construction.
The condition of unanimity for CFSP is a real nonsense and cannot be justified by any argument.
Faced with these predictably modest results of the IGC, respect of the EMU deadline and the stability pact seem an absolute imperative.
Any delays or calling into question of the conditions and timetable would return us to the darkest hours of the Union's history.
We have reached times of considerable challenge and dangers.
We therefore welcome the courage of the Dutch Presidency.
Madam President, the IGC ought to win the citizens of Europe over by meeting three challenges: restoring meaning to European construction, democratizing the institutions, clearly sharing responsibilities.
Just before the Amsterdam Summit, we are far from achieving those aims.
I am pragmatic and am not asking for the moon, but I think that we could do better and that we should try to do so, before the single currency and enlargement both of which are necessary in my personal view.
It is not enough to have such a weak institutional framework.
If we do not make enough progress in another week, let us work another two or three months over the summer so that three or four vital questions can be resolved; a more serious treaty could then be signed.
With my Group, I ask that the conclusion be delayed until the autumn, unless a few vital improvements are made by the time of the Amsterdam summit.
What needs to be improved? First of all, we should clarify the mandate to be respected by the States and the Union on employment.
Too many doubts are blocking the implementation of clear-cut actions.
The French initiative for setting new conditions of growth and employment, without of course refusing the challenges of competitiveness and stability, is timely and courageous.
But how can it be put into practice? A protocol of further intentions added to the stability pact is not enough.
It is the Treaty that must include clear commitments and operational tools so that the coordination of economic policies really does take on board the requirement of cooperation over jobs.
To that end, the decision on certain fiscal, financial or industrial questions must no longer be blocked by unanimous voting; if each State can veto decisions, there will never be a common growth and employment policy.
Let us not be satisfied with a cosmetic agreement when things are actually being blocked.
Secondly, the democratization of the institutions calls for more efforts and on this point I approve of the European Parliament's proposals on codecision, controls over the executive authority and transparency in particular.
Thirdly, concerning the fair share-out of responsibilities and the strengthening of the Union prior to enlargement, the draft Treaty shows very serious deficiencies.
Each State is sticking to its prerogatives.
It is the intergovernmental Europe that is advancing and not the Community.
The legitimacy and efficiency of codecision will not be boosted.
The States have the necessary means but are balking at committing themselves and are rejecting democratic controls.
We cannot expect the IGC to remove all these obstacles and it would therefore be wise at least to see this Treaty as a precursor to the institutional reforms of the year 2000.
We then will need a constituent procedure.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to congratulate the Committee on Institutional Affairs on its work under the leadership of Mr Biagio de Giovanni.
But there is some hesitation over the political conclusion.
Let us overcome that and ask the governments to continue their efforts.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office - I congratulate you on your frankness - Mr President of the Commission, the variety of political changes in Europe and the short time between now and the Amsterdam Summit make the exercise especially difficult to achieve.
For our Group, it is clear that nothing should thwart the process of European integration and the need to take into account social demands and employment should not be a brake on that integration but on the contrary a further argument in favour of strengthening the Union.
As for the issues on the Summit agenda, apart from the reform of the institutions proper, our Group supports the compromise resolution to be voted on later, be it for economic and monetary union, social issues or employment, the single market, the action plan proposed by the Commission, or other issues.
A word on the stability pact, now the subject of discussion for several days.
We feel that this pact is the corollary of the creation of the single currency and that its adoption should not be delayed, otherwise we would run the risk of delaying the introduction of the euro, which would be a serious political error.
However, we understand the need to add to this pact economic and social provisions, with jobs as the target.
We hope that by the time of the Amsterdam summit, a compromise will be found so that nothing can hold up introduction of the euro.
For that, it is perhaps not vital for these economic and social provisions to be included in the pact.
They could be placed in another supplementary document.
As for the institutions themselves, we regret that a few days before the Summit there are still doubts on important points.
The President-in-Office confirmed that.
We are therefore forced to give an opinion on a proposals made by our Committee on Institutional Affairs.
The first version of that proposal, drafted by Mr De Giovanni, was demanding and rather strict.
The second version presented by the Commission itself is more optimistic and less demanding.
For our part, we regret this development since we want the Summit to go as far as possible in the reform of the institutions and on the road to integration, be it the voting arrangements in the Council, the membership, role and strengthening of the Commission, the European Parliament's prerogatives, such as generalization of codecision, the piloting of a genuine CFSP, or the elaboration and implementation of the Union's economic and social policy, what some call the Union's economic government, alongside the future Central Bank.
The European Parliament has been saying this for two years.
Unless our wishes are met, there will have to be another IGC, as the President-in-Office himself said.
Madam President, the preparation of the Amsterdam European Council is being dominated by an artificial polemic about the stability pact, which will end up masking the meeting's real challenges.
It is an artificial polemic because, as we know well, the employment aspect, demanded by the French socialists to re-balance the pact, is already found in the draft treaty prepared by the IGC and it will not be possible to do much better.
It is also an artificial polemic because the single currency, since there is no optimum monetary zone in Europe, can only work against employment and, alongside that great reality, all the rest is nothing but political hot-air or window-dressing.
And it is also artificial polemic because the first and real employment policy at European level was the common trade policy, which Europe buried when it launched itself into all-out free trading.
But this artificial polemic on the stability pact is distracting attention away from what is really at stake at Amsterdam.
First of all, the very strong progress towards federalism in the draft treaty, which is going to subordinate nations still further and worsen the democratic deficit.
Then there is the more immediate hijacking of the debate on the single currency, which concerns radical constitutional changes that would have to be decided for it to function properly, but that nobody dares to deal with frankly out of fear of raising problems that cannot be dealt with.
When we see these cares and cautions, which are rather ridiculous, it has to be said, about the draft treaty, in order to skirt around the basic question of the viability of the single currency, we cannot help thinking of JeanJacques Rousseau's words: ' It is the weapon that must be left in the wound, in case the victim expires when it is taken out' .
Mr President, unfortunately we will not be able to hail the definitive shape of the European Union at Amsterdam.
In fact, the work of the IGC has not yet led to the consolidation of political union, and it could hardly be otherwise, as the Union still lacks an institutional, democratic and operational base capable of supporting the destiny of an enlarged Europe.
How can we expect to have political union, a common foreign policy, a common defence policy to guarantee peace, a policy pursued inside the Union, and outside with the partner countries, or a policy of respect for and defence of human rights, in the absence of a solid and efficient institutional base? What authority will there be to receive a part of their sovereignty from the Member States, so that all these problems can be convincingly resolved?
The absence of political union means that economic and monetary union is causing our countries immense and innumerable difficulties because, just as a new house is built from its foundations, so economic union should be completed by monetary union as the direct result of political union, and not vice versa.
For these reasons the Alleanza Nazionale believes it is important that the work of the IGC does not end with Amsterdam, but continues until a consolidated and institutionally well-constructed political goal has been achieved.
The question of the enlargement also needs to be viewed from this perspective.
The gap between the candidate countries and the 15 Union countries is vast, and in some sectors it seems downright unbridgeable.
For this reason, as well as justifiable concern about the operational effectiveness of the future Union, it seems absolutely indispensable to have a transitional period for serious discussions within the scope of the negotiations.
From this point of view it seems clear that delaying the decisions of the IGC for several months would not constitute a grave danger for the future of the enlarged Europe, indeed it is the only way to achieve an enlargement which will have profitable results, and through which political Europe will finally be created.
Madam President, I welcome the progress in drawing up the new European Treaty and the agreement that has been reached, which is roughly along the lines suggested.
That will be a modest but significant step forward for the European Union.
But even at this relatively late stage I would urge the Dutch Presidency to do everything possible to strengthen the text, particularly with regard to the employment chapter and selective areas of qualified majority voting.
At the moment, the text is rather vague; we need greater precision and emphasis.
But the Amsterdam Summit will also consider other issues, particularly the moves towards economic and monetary union, the stability pact and the single market programme from the Commission.
The point I wish to make this morning is that job creation should be the central priority.
There are 18 million people unemployed in Europe today, 21 % youth unemployment.
That is a disgrace and we need coordinated action to tackle the problem.
We need a growth and stability pact.
When we talk about support for industry we should do everything we can to stimulate small and medium-sized enterprises.
We need to put the Essen proposals into effect, complete the single market and make Europe truly competitive.
All these are important issues which need to be considered at the Amsterdam Summit alongside the institutional changes.
I believe that if this is done, the Amsterdam Summit will be seen as an historic landmark in the development of Europe, not only because of the new European Treaty but also because it puts jobs at the top of Europe's agenda.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, thank you very much for your words.
I think that they augur well for the outcome of the Amsterdam European Council.
I think that at this time the European Parliament's work should be to make sure that you and the governments actually achieve those results.
I can concentrate on some practical aspects thanks to the brilliant speech by the leader of our Group, Mr Martens.
The first one, which we set out in the motion for the resolution that is going to be voted on by the European Parliament later this morning, refers to something quite vital: preservation of the Community approach.
What characterizes this rare and complex thing, as Mr Van Mierlo said, is that the Community or the European Union do things together through a supranational body which at all times decides what is in the Community's interest.
I therefore think it is extremely important that the Commission's work should be preserved because, without the Commission, we would have created an organisation of intergovernmental cooperation which would lack the necessary integration.
I also think it important to maintain the Court of Justice's jurisdictional powers, as it has done such important work and is an efficient democratic guarantee.
I think that we should also find an appropriate role for the European Parliament.
I think, Mr Van Mierlo, that if you look at the motion for a resolution that we are going to vote on, you will see that it changes the role of the European Parliament.
The European Parliament has for many years been an inciting agent because it has not had its own powers.
Since the Treaty on European Union the European Parliament has taken on deciding powers in certain fields.
I think that the motion we are to vote on today demonstrates this new role for the European Parliament: a parliament that decides, a parliament that looks, at all times, for the direction in which the Community should head.
This motion, which looks backwards, as you can see, differs from our motions passed in the last decade and has highlighted a positive aspect of the Dutch draft treaty which is considerable, and we wish to support you because it seems that, like the previous Presidencies, the Dutch Presidency seems to be going in the right direction.
We also wish to point out some areas where a last minute effort could be made.
I think that, if we make an effort, we can achieve a good result.
I think that this effort must focus on two points:
First of all, the third pillar.
There are some colleagues here, of course, who think we must go much further, and I think that the Dutch Presidency's proposal to integrate the third pillar in the first in relation to certain matters heads in the right direction, even in the longer term, and we can support you on that.
As for the social chapter, I think that we must act.
Undoubtedly, the best social policy, the best employment policy, is a good national economic policy - I am happy to say that and I think that my Government in Spain is in a splendid situation - but I think that we must also send a clear signal to our fellow citizens that the European Union does deal with those matters too.
That clear signal should be sent in the new Treaty.
I should also like to point out that in the final straight before the Amsterdam European Council, if we can achieve those aims, if we are daring - I think daring is necessary - if we stick to our ambitions, I think that we will create a good Treaty that will serve for enlargement.
It should not be forgotten that if we fail to produce a good treaty it will be impossible to implement.
Madam President, I wish to express my thanks to the President-in-Office and to the Commission President for their contributions to this debate here this morning.
The current negotiations on a revision of the European Treaties are taking place in parallel with the preparation of the creation of a single currency.
It is perhaps understandable that the preparations for the single currency have received considerably more public attention than the IGC in view of the direct and obvious impact which the Euro will have on our daily lives.
Nevertheless, the IGC and the new Treaty which will emerge from these negotiations could have an even more significant impact on the lives of our citizens, provided that the Member State governments keep those negotiations firmly focused on tackling issues which are of most concern to the general public.
The elections which have recently been held in a number of Member States should ensure this is the case.
The issue of most widespread concern is employment, both the provision of employment opportunities for those without work and the improvement of job security for those currently at work.
The unemployment rate in the European Union is twice the level of the United States and three times that of Japan.
This is unacceptably high, and governments must focus their attention on job-creation measures, particularly for our young people.
Security of employment in the future for those who are fortunate to have employment at present is an equally important issue.
The Union must ensure that European companies remain competitive in the international marketplace and that our countries remain attractive destinations for mobile investment and job-creation projects by overseas companies.
The best available method of ensuring job security for workers is by maintaining and, in many cases, improving the competitive advantages enjoyed by European-based industries.
We must guard against the tendency to introduce new legislation, particularly at European level, which increases the overall costs of production in our industry and threatens the job security of everybody ultimately employed in the industry.
The Union should aim to minimize the bureaucratic and administrative burden placed on our industry, particularly by Union directives and regulations.
It should assist in improving competitiveness through investment and in improving skills training for our workers and for the temporary unemployed.
Finally, we must aggressively defend our interests on the international marketplace by basing our trading policy on the premise that overseas companies will only have access to our markets provided that we have equally good access to their home markets.
There is little or no point in the European Union developing a trade policy based on liberal, free-market principles if our competitors continue to operate restrictive practices in their domestic markets.
The Intergovernmental Conference should address the job-creation and job-security issues by ensuring that the proposals for revising the Treaty include specific commitments to give increased priority to measures to improve the competitive position of EU industry in the international market.
Madam President, the Intergovernmental Conference which is now in its final stages is of particular interest to the new Member States.
It is now that we will be able to see whether membership of the EU is what it was made out to be and what it was promised to be by those who recommended it.
I would like to say that there are big differences between what is now being proposed and what was promised to the Swedish people, for example, before the referendum.
Before the referendum, one of the principle arguments concerned the extent to which we would be able to influence the Union.
We can now see that we will probably have fewer votes in the Council of Ministers and that the veto will be abolished in a number of areas.
Another argument was that Swedish border controls would remain in place.
In the new proposal for the Treaty this will be effectively forbidden.
In addition there will be a comprehensive harmonisation of legal matters and asylum policies.
A further argument was that the Swedish nonaligned status would remain in place.
But now a number of steps have been taken towards a common defence system.
In view of the extensive changes which are now being proposed, my party will be voting against the Treaty amendments and will also propose that a referendum on them take place in Sweden.
Madam President, after what we have heard from the Commission and the Council I am not exactly tempted to conjure up visions of the unity of Europe.
Their speeches, with their blind, small-minded pragmatism, their timidity and their technocratic thinking, are far removed indeed from the historic challenge of unifying Europe.
Even so, I believe that this Intergovernmental Conference will have to be measured in terms of that historic aspect.
And I believe that we, too, in this House will also have to be measured against it.
If we are agreed that we want to build Europe as a house founded on democracy and civil rights, then we must recognize that this Intergovernmental Conference has done nothing to strengthen the foundations of that house. The foundations become more fragile: starting with the rights of Europol and then with the lack of codecision, the lack of basic rights and the lack of any democratic structure for this technocratic assemblage.
If we are agreed that the engineering principles by which the house must be built are social cohesion in society and fair shares in prosperity for all, then this Intergovernmental Conference has done nothing to improve that engineering.
In the face of mass unemployment, rising poverty and a deepening divide between rich and poor, the instruments that this Intergovernmental Conference has offered us are incapable of strengthening this engineering.
If we are agreed that the central pillar of this European house should be peace throughout Europe, not a military pact, then the thinking that the President of the Commission has put forward here is misguided.
To hear the way you have spoken here, President Santer, I feel you may be unable to imagine that Europe can play a leading role in the world without a military presence.
But this Europe has already built on that very idea in the case of coal and steel, the idea of unity without military force and unity through peace.
And if we are agreed that this European house is being built not for a political elite but for Europe's own citizens, then I ask you this: where are the citizens to find any spark of enthusiasm for Europe when they consider the results of this Intergovernmental Conference?
If Parliament is to represent the citizens for whom this European house is being built, then it must act energetically today to counter the timidity and pragmatism of this conference.
Madam President, allow me to deal with a point that seems to me to be essential for the European model that we are building on the eve of the 21st century - the parliamentary and democratic control of the institutions.
I think I am right in saying that the Union's powers are to be strengthened by the IGC, concerning the fight against organized crime and terrorism, the ability to conduct trade negotiations with our partners, the fight against all forms of discrimination, public health and the defence of consumers.
It should be noted, however, that that evolution, positive in theory, is occurring to the detriment of the necessary democratic controls, by the European Parliament or the parliaments of the Member States.
Certain proposals contained in the 30 May draft treaty are very significant.
This is a dangerous drift which risks not only provoking a considerable imbalance in the Union to the benefit of the Council and the Commission, but also of putting ordinary people off, as they will see European construction as something vague, remote and intangible, even uncontrollable.
There are also threats of further limits on the prerogatives of the Court in the field of justice and internal matters, a limitation that risks affecting the individual rights of all European citizens.
Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, I call on your sense of responsibility, that we are aware of.
Because we believe in Europe, because we are convinced that our future depends on the future of the Union that we are building, please do not offer Europe's detractors a treaty on a silver platter that could be regarded as a step backwards in terms of democracy and judicial controls.
Madam President, I have listened this morning with great interest, in the hope that a realistic response to the concerns of the citizens of Europe would come forward.
Sadly I found none.
Both the Council and the Commission seem determined to drive forward in a belief that only they know best.
There are clearly many concerns sincerely held by millions of our citizens on the future of the EMU.
They are concerned with the pace and speed with which we are moving and they observe the manipulation and massaging of national reserves by national governments to meet the Maastricht criteria.
The citizens of Europe are paying the ultimate price in terms of high unemployment and very little hope of improvement in the near future.
If we were to put the same energy into creating new jobs, new security, then I believe our citizens would be more confident.
The area of national interest and majority voting must be resolved with clarity.
I fear we are on our way to creating a new fudge by having even further grey areas.
The role of the national parliaments must be increased, not decreased.
I do not believe we can move forward to any enlargement until we are clearer about what we want for ourselves.
If we do not have structures firmly established before enlargement, well-tested and tried, there will be no chance of enlargement succeeding.
You must be careful at Amsterdam that you do not destroy what we have achieved and what has been created to the present time.
Madam President, the draft of an amended Treaty must be assessed in the light of the European Parliament's positions.
First, priority for active employment schemes and social justice; secondly, a workable foreign and security policy; thirdly, joint measures in the fields of internal affairs and justice; fourthly, democratization of our structures with a new institutional equilibrium; and fifthly, doing everything possible to make the European Union really capable of expansion.
The proposals made by the Dutch presidency are, as a whole, important steps in the direction the European Parliament wants to follow.
But further progress in that direction is needed in Amsterdam, because we want and need this Intergovernmental Conference to be a success.
The European Parliament has a very special part to play here.
May I remind you that the Spinelli draft constitution was the essential precursor of the Single European Act of 1986, that the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 was itself influenced by important proposals made by this House, and that two Members of the European Parliament are now involved in the present discussions.
Even today, there is no denying the fact that many of the proposals on the negotiating table were born in the European Parliament.
We have been a driving force behind this conference, and the European Parliament must also be a full party to the negotiation and ratification of all the further stages of reform that will follow the turn of the millennium.
The responsibility now lies with the Heads of State and Government.
They are all deeply committed to the further development of the EU in their speeches; but now the time has come for them to make real decisions that will help to improve the reality of life for all our citizens!
Mr President, the Netherlands have adopted a logical position, a pragmatic, realistic and slightly idealistic one.
Mr Van Mierlo speaks of a more dynamic, more effective Europe closer to the ordinary people, as well as a kitchen in which it is possible to prepare better dishes.
But what is the interest of a well-equipped kitchen in which delicious dishes are prepared if the latter are served in a location which is in ruins.
The Council continues to hold secret meetings behind closed doors in this inadequate building.
No open doors, no democratic openness, Commissioners rushing about in confined spaces, while the President prepares his little dishes in the kitchen.
Ordinary people want facts, work and security.
According to the President, employment cannot be guaranteed by the Treaty.
We shall probably see more anti-European feelings unless the dream of employment which you are inserting into the Treaty becomes a reality.
As for security, the action taken in order to promote it is not clear.
The Netherlands are taking measures which actually hamper security. Let us take the example of Prosecutor Van Der Voort who had all the proof on cocaine traffic from Surinam passing through the Netherlands.
This is not a very encouraging case, Mr President.
We should also mention the cases of drunken drivers or drivers who have committed speeding offences and who have escaped criminal proceedings because they forgot to convey to Brussels the technical provisions relating to this matter.
Where is the security which the ordinary people have been promised?
The Dutch representatives in the European Union do not want bread and circuses or window-dressing but facts.
Nevertheless Amsterdam is not lost and I am banking on a good Treaty.
Madam President, I think that it is very clear that the separation of economic and monetary union from the intergovernmental conference cannot continue.
Economic and monetary union must go ahead of course.
But the IGC must restore the balances.
It must restore the role of economic union, and also the role of some form of economic government vis-à-vis economic and monetary union.
And therefore it must restore conditions of political democracy.
No one is going to cede major decision-making rights to organizations without being sure that social, employment and environmental policies can be implemented in the Union.
This will depend, of course, on the political complexion of our future leadership.
But in all circumstances the politicians and citizens must regain their role and their say in things.
We cannot surrender these things to an organization like the Central Bank and allow it to operate in a vacuum and carry out experiments free of responsibility.
Madam President, the grand speeches which were made before the text of the proposal was written, that the Treaty would include a programme of reform as the basis of a new Europe, of the future, and that this would help people overcome their scepticism of the EU, were, in my view, totally wrong.
It is clear from the proposal that the emphasis definitely has not been placed where it was said it would be placed, on democracy, openness, social security and sustainable development.
Furthermore - and this is the most important point - preparations for admitting the new members have been postponed to a later date I think that the proposal will serve rather to complicate enlargement and in so doing will create a permanent division in Europe, which is a great disappointment.
We have also heard Mr Van Mierlo commend the IGC for achieving democracy and openness and meeting the demands of the people through the chapter on employment but unfortunately this is just a cosmetic solution.
The people themselves will soon realise that the soup which they are being served from the EU soup kitchen is very, very thin.
Let me give some examples: The achievements with regard to the demands for openness, transparency and the principle of publication are unacceptable.
First, people are given the right of access to all documents but then this right is withdrawn because the Council of Ministers has the right to restrict such access.
Each institution is also able to determine their own rules on openness.
What does this mean? If you add to this the EU's Archive Regulation, it is easy to see that there will be nothing left of this openness.
It will be just fine words and faint hopes.
The same applies to the environmental guarantee which, having been defined in more detail, appears to have been improved.
But a Member State wishing to maintain or introduce tighter environmental requirements must notify their reasons to the Commission who can then reject these on the grounds that they form a barrier to trade.
We might just as well delete the issues of sustainable development and environmental improvements.
I am, above all, obliged to the President-in-Office of the Council for having succeeded in a very difficult period in finding the time to justify himself because I think that this is the only place where he could do so.
Several points.
Concerning the IGC, kitchens and a citizens' Europe.
Perhaps ordinary people are not interested in the building of the kitchen but nonetheless would like to know whether the new Europe is going to become closer to them.
It can also be asked how that kitchen functions and if there are head cooks to make it work, a particularly relevant question.
No doubt the process has been started but we still want to know the outcome.
Perhaps, therefore, we should not make immediate judgment.
Secondly.
I think we all agree that the IGC must make enlargement possible.
We must avoid Ioannina-type situations - which then was relatively simple - and we must make sure that enlargement will enable us to progress rather than retreat.
I think that we can still give our approval to the German Secretary of State, Mr Hoyer, who declared here, in the institutional committee, that the draft Treaty will not enable us to have enlargement, for the time being.
I am also of the opinion that we must not expect the situation to be simplified during the negotiations on enlargement.
There is, therefore, a major problem which might not be resolved in Amsterdam and that is why, despite the declarations made by Mr Van Mierlo, I am still wondering about the way in which to react to this situation.
Thirdly: democratization.
I admit that, in terms of the European Parliament, considerable progress has been made in the texts.
But there are still risks of regression.
However, I am particularly interested in the overall situation of parliamentary democracy in respect of the draft Treaty.
In my view, there are still considerable risks that national parliaments will lose ground and that this will not be compensated by any ground gained at European level.
Finally, I should like to talk about the IGC system.
I think that this long-term negotiation has shown that this system could not function within this great Community, which is increasingly resembling a sort of Von Münchhausen strategy aimed at getting the Community out of a tight squeeze.
Is it not possible to think up a new system?
Mr President, the draft treaty that we have before us has aroused in many of us mixed feelings of hope and fear.
Hope because the limited progress which has been made in the meantime will somewhat improve the former Treaty.
But also fear because some aspects are doomed to failure and we are probably going to end up with a failed Treaty, just before opening up negotiations with future Member States in central and eastern Europe.
As far as the limited progress is concerned I will be brief.
This progress is not negligible but nor is it really significant.
However, we welcome the fact that employment and the environment have been taken into consideration to a greater extent and that progress has also been made in the fight against international crime, that decision-making procedures have been simplified and that the European Parliament will have more clout in terms of legislation.
But we are especially concerned about what has not been achieved.
I am particularly referring to the openness of administration, the democratic nature of the European Union, foreign policy and the weighting of votes.
As far as opening up administration is concerned it would be positive if, in the future, documents on Union legislation were made available earlier.
That is important for the public, for national parliaments and for us.
What is regrettable is the absence of any prospects of opening up the Council of Ministers.
It also means that, when the Council acts as legislator, it continues to make laws in camera.
In fact, this behaviour is an attack on parliamentary democracy and I think it is inadmissible - the Council of Ministers should put an end to this practice.
We must also note that, in other areas too, some points of which Mr Dankert has just mentioned, this parliamentary democracy is ailing.
When I see, in the file on internal security and the file on foreign policy, that national parliaments are losing powers which are not being transferred to the European Parliament, I ask myself if we are not actually going backwards.
If we cannot manage the budget problem or the budget as a whole - it is not always the case for 50 billion ECU - we still cannot say that we have filled in the democratic vacuum.
This is one of my main concerns and I know that Mr Van Mierlo has good intentions on this.
What I would ask you is to fight in order to achieve this aim.
We really cannot undermine parliamentary democracy at European level!
I would just like a few more moments in order to look at the problem of the weighting of votes.
I have noted in the proposals that the sum total of the points for big countries is larger than that of small countries.
I think that it should be emphasized that the Netherlands do not do too badly.
However, I wonder whether this might not be a weak spot if referendums are held and when the new Treaty comes to be debated by the national parliaments.
I think that the compromise adopted in the days of Ioannina was an excellent one and I wonder whether it might not be wise to retain the same ratio in the framework of the new weighting of votes.
In other words, we have made progress on a certain number of points but not all of them.
I wish the Dutch Presidency a great deal of strength, wisdom and a dose of good luck.
Madam President, the new draft treaty, despite its imperfections, contains many novelties.
I think that the negotiations have taken new demands into account.
What can we therefore do at this stage of the debate? At most, we could give it a few little boosts in the closing days of the negotiations, because they would make it easier for the public to accept the new provisions.
I give three examples.
The first, is the chapter on employment.
That is the subject that concerns everyone.
People are ready to demonstrate in the street.
It is therefore a good thing for employment policy to be mentioned in the treaty.
However, if we do not specify the practical means, in terms of economic policy, that Europe is to give itself to contribute to an employment policy, the chapter will be more disappointing than rewarding.
We should therefore welcome the Commission's insistence, under President Santer, and that of the French and other Governments, to ensure that this aspect of the growth and stability pact goes through.
Second example: public service.
The new Article 7D is still fairly vague.
There too, the expectations not only of public service workers but also their users are great.
We should not go on dismantling the public service while spouting fine words about their social value.
It should be made more specific, as the European Parliament demands.
Third example: the serious crisis due to the mad cow disease still worries us.
I have just left a meeting - that is why I was not here before and I apologize - with Commissioner Oreja, on the institutional provisions concerning the veterinary field and public health.
This crisis could, unless the Commission and the Council take stiff action, lead to a major institutional crisis.
There too we want more precise and more practical proposals.
Madam President, Mr van Mierlo has given us the picture that is emerging as the IGC nears the end of its life, five days before the summit in Amsterdam, and he has mentioned the endeavours of the Dutch Presidency.
It would be amiss of us not to acknowledge them.
However, we are not engaged in a race, for which endeavour alone can suffice.
We are engaged in politics in which the thing that counts most is the outcome, and the best scenario of the Amsterdam outcome is a modest common denominator if some compromise can be reached in advance with the French Socialists who promised much before the election and are now having to face up to the reality of their pledges.
That is yet another reason why we ourselves should measure our words carefully.
As the citizens of Europe struggle for employment, security and peace the challenges are truly historic.
Unfortunately, Mr President-in-Office, there is a severe lack of political will to rise to those challenges, and as we hasten to prepare Europe for the twenty-first century we are just running on the spot with new and half-complete compromises.
There is a very good case now for the new title on employment.
It will certainly be useful.
However, we should not engender in our fellow citizens the false belief that provisions of that sort suffice for combating the scourge of unemployment.
Big policies are required for that, and we seem incapable of getting to grips with and implementing such policies.
We should be careful in particular about the question of institutional balance. It must not be thrown overboard at the last minute to the disadvantage of the smaller countries.
The European Union is made up of equal Member States.
If that equality is not retained at Amsterdam our peoples will be very disillusioned.
We look forward to economic and monetary union, which is a truly revolutionary development.
Its path must not be blocked at Amsterdam.
As Chairman Martens has said, we have already lost 10 years.
Let us make sure, Madam President, that we do not lose any more.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, surely there is still a rather serious void in the draft treaty of 30 May.
All the European balances which are being drawn up will be no use, and a new equilibrium between monetary union and economic and social union cannot be established, without that profound institutional transformation which is needed and which was, moreover, in the mandate of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I would like to underline two points.
The first has already been stressed by others: it is the enlargement, the core of the Intergovernmental Conference's mandate.
The President of the Santer Commission has said that if we do not prepare properly for the enlargement we may be heading for a rather negative situation.
Well, I ask the President-in-Office this: what has actually been done about it, and what hope is there that something can still be done?
I noticed that the subject of qualified majority was not even mentioned in the speech by the President-in-Office of the Council, except for the CFSP where it is substantially an illusory issue.
We all know that the decision about the Commission has been put off, but it is obviously essential to move forward on these matters with a view to the enlargement.
The other point is the issue of democracy, Mr Dankert has already spoken on this.
We appreciate more co-decision, but we also wonder whether this will be co-decision on the new policies.
The whole question of the third pillar and the move from the third to the first pillar simply must not take concrete form in a weakening of the Community pillar, because this would definitely be regression rather than progress.
If you will allow me, Mr President, I would like to make a final point about article 113.
It is true that article 113 has increased the powers of the Community, but at the same time it has reduced the powers of Parliament, and reducing the powers of Parliament in this respect strikes us as rather dangerous.
Madam President, three years ago almost to the day, on 12 June 1994, we held a referendum in Austria on our country's accession to the European Union.
Not all our citizens were satisfied with all the details at the time, and indeed not all our citizens were even told about all the details of that accession.
Even so, the citizens voted 'yes' in principle to the European project, and did so in the awareness that no ready-made, communal Europe exists as yet and that we would all have to continue working to advance the progress of deeper and wider European union.
Today, new and important decisions about the future are being made.
They are a challenge to us all.
For some time now, and indeed for some time to come, our whole political system, our citizens and politicians, have been and will be confronted with the challenge of taking another important step towards Europe by the introduction of the single European currency.
So let us ensure that our economic policy, too, is in line with this stability pact!
Today, it is up to the European Parliament to make its contribution to the Intergovernmental Conference.
After the weekend, the Heads of State and Government will be called upon to put the successful finishing touches to the work they have done so far.
The results achieved hitherto are far from valueless.
Some things have been achieved. Some things remain to be done.
Let us all rise to this challenge!
Let us bring greater depth and breadth to Europe, to enable us to meet our citizens' expectations.
The question which Elmar Brok wanted to put to the President-in-Office was as follows: if Amsterdam really is not sufficient to allow full expansion by another eleven States, will there at least be a new Article N as a result of this Intergovernmental Conference?
I presume that, at the moment, the President-in-Office of the Council is especially concerned with the compromise to be reached between Mr Kohl and Mr Jospin, and I think that this is justified because this is, in some ways, at the heart of the matter.
Not because the problem is primarily political but because, in my view, these two figures represent two major responsibilities of the European Union.
The one, Helmut Kohl, who above all defends the purity of the EMU, a strict stability pact which should make it possible to stimulate employment and growth and, on the other, Lionel Jospin, who says that all that is all very nice but 'nonetheless, I would like a practical policy to help the 18.3 million unemployed and 57 million poor people in the Union' .
I think that these points of view are not totally opposed but both of them lie at the heart of the Union's political responsibility and one of the main problems is the fact that, in recent years, we have excessively focused on one position, one aspect of the debate, which is represented by the policy pursued by Mr Kohl and Mr Waigel.
I would, therefore, urge the President to seek a substantial compromise which is not merely a symbolic gesture or an act of window-dressing but a real decision which can effectively correct this unilateral policy.
I think that this is a vital aim and the only means of recovering public confidence.
In my view that is the main objective of this IGC.
It is not preparing for enlargement, settling the final details of EMU but actually how to recover public confidence, considerably shaken in recent years.
For the first time, trade union movements have succeeded in bringing thousands of workers out into the streets: that is a sign that should be taken very seriously.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate the Netherlands Presidency on its constructive work.
I note, however, that Intergovernmental Conferences are taking ever longer to decide ever less, proving that a long time spent cooking does not guarantee a good meal.
That is perhaps one of the reasons why, in the course of this IGC three governments have already fallen, even though they were achieving good results in the economic field.
It might be symptomatic that this is the first time that Europe and the single currency have been the main issue in national elections.
Such facts demonstrate that the first responsibility of today's leaders is to find a way out for this new European question facing new historical challenges which cannot be solved with the methods of yesteryear.
In particular, making enlargement a viable proposition, setting the single currency on a legal and stable basis, negotiating about globalization on an equal footing with the major powers such as America.
The progress already made in the Intergovernmental Conference meets these objectives.
Perhaps we are moving in the right direction but it falls short of the historic feeling that there would be political and pan-European union on the eve of the turn of the century.
It is even feared that the draft treaty already presented by the Netherlands Presidency will make things even more complicated instead of strengthening fresh coherence.
Finally, we cannot have a Europe which is united monetarily and economically yet divided in all other spheres, in particular on internal and external security, on which economic confidence itself depends in the first place.
It is interesting to note that the greater the insistence on unanimity the greater the openness to flexibility either in fact or directly.
The more we refuse to democratize the institutions the greater the threat to social and political cohesion.
A lot of time spent cooking again, but a lousy meal.
It does not seem to be far from Maastricht to Amsterdam.
I hope, however, it will be understood that this road spans a century and a new chapter of history.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make two requests for the Council and the Commission to take with them as they leave for Amsterdam.
The present draft Treaty provides for a step backward in terms of freedom of movement. It no longer refers to freedom of movement but only to free movement of individuals, and that in turn is further differentiated into free movement of individuals for Union citizens and for third country nationals - in other words, people who are living among us permanently but do not have naturalized status.
If what we fear does come to pass, and a distinction is made between Union citizens who enjoy freedom of movement and third country nationals who are legally resident here but have restricted freedom of movement, then we shall be in danger of re-creating a two-class structure within the European Union in the area of civil rights, which is a dangerous business.
I therefore ask that the Conference should not lose sight of the approach adopted in the previous treaty and should ensure the implementation of that freedom of movement which was, in fact, guaranteed in the previous Treaty of 1 January 1993.
My second point is this: visa policy, customs policy, customs co-operation, asylum policy and immigration are to be communitized without full powers being given to the European Parliament, but if powers are withdrawn from the national parliaments the result is a democracy-free zone in central areas of civil rights within the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, please do prevent this, because it really would be a tragedy.
Madam President, I would never venture to criticize your handling of these proceedings, but I would like to make one comment.
This Parliament, too, has to undergo reform in connection with the revision of the Maastricht Treaty and the debate on revision.
If, as I hope, this Parliament is really to acquire additional powers, then this Parliament must change its way of working.
It cannot be right that men like Mr Brok, who represented this Parliament at the Intergovernmental Conference for more than two years, and Mr Dankert as a former president of Parliament are not allowed to finish what they have to say and are cut off on the pretext that we have to begin our midday voting orgy at 12 noon.
I simply cannot accept that.
We should be able to conduct a debate like this flexibly!
Thank you, Mr Schulz, for giving me the opportunity to explain myself.
I cannot do any colleague a favour on this.
There were 42 speakers on the list and if each speaker spoke only for an extra thirty seconds, the debate would not finish until 12.30.
Work it out for yourselves. The Chair could not take that responsibility.
You all know me and whenever we have the time I let you have as much time as you need to speak. In this case it was not possible and to make an exception even for Mr Brok would not have been justified, to be frank.
We would have liked to have more time for this debate - starting with myself.
I now give the floor to Mr Bourlanges.
I think you have understood that you have two minutes and no more.
That is how it is.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are worried.
I think that the exercise that is being prepared at Amsterdam is ridden with perils and makes us think of the famous Andersen tale about the emperor and his new clothes.
We have spoken of employment but, unable to pursue an employment policy, we decide to introduce an employment chapter in the treaty.
That is all very good, but it does not take the place of a policy.
It is preference for the nominal, as economists say.
We spoke about fundamental rights, but the sanctions planned for applying fundamental rights are nonexistent.
We have spoken about a foreign policy, but our Byzantine procedures are such that even the President-inOffice of the Council, this morning, felt that the procedures were too complicated to be intelligible even for a forum as specialized as our own.
We have spoken of a defence policy, but are exposed to the contradiction of affirming that we want to have a Community defence policy, that we have people who are in NATO and people who are not, but that it is in NATO that we shall pursue that Community policy.
Work that one out.
We have spoken of an economic government, but most of those in favour of it are not at all ready to transfer the matching powers.
We have also heard of enlargement, but the matching measures, the necessary institutional reforms have not been forthcoming with the necessary vigour and, in particular, n the Commission problem remains intact.
The Commission is the great source of coherence in the Union.
Nobody, except itself, albeit timidly, has defended it during preparation of the IGC.
I am afraid that the Commission, divided, broken up, weighed down, losing its second Commissioner for the big intergovernmentalized States will be the big loser in the system.
I cannot stand by and let that happen and am now sounding the alarm, ladies and gentlemen.
Madam President, I want to address the section on the CFSP.
The presidency will be surprised to hear me say that I recognize the difficulties it has in this most sensitive area of national sovereignty.
It is caught between those like me who believe we should learn to walk before we run and those who believe that we should be thrown in the deep end and either sink or swim.
I, therefore, wish to pay tribute to the efforts of the Dutch presidency to try to get agreement in this section.
Let me come straight to my most important point: my Group attaches great importance to the interinstitutional agreement on financing the CFSP.
We want to see that cemented in the Treaty at Amsterdam.
If it is not, I suspect that my Group will find it very difficult to support the conclusions of the Amsterdam Summit.
I hope the presidency can take that message to any Member States which have doubts about that area.
On the other aspects, there are many positive areas in the CFSP: the Petersberg tasks, the new arrangements for the Troika, the policy and planning unit - all provide us with an opportunity for greater coherence.
Positive abstention and the greatest scope for qualified majority voting will lead the way to the development of the CFSP, although, of course, the section on qualified majority voting is really no more than a slightly more ambitious version of what we already have in the Maastricht Treaty and, ultimately, will depend on political will to see it carried out.
Reservations are clearly that Parliament has almost no role in CFSP.
There is no provision for the Council to respond formally to our recommendations and, while the Commission can make recommendations to the policy and planning unit, Parliament cannot.
I would like to see Parliament be able to engage more fully.
On the WEU: clearly, we still have to work on that relationship.
I would ask the Council if Article 7(3), means that non-EU members can participate in EU activities and decision-making.
We do not have a single Treaty, we are cooking a pig's ear.
Let us hope that afterwards we can turn the pig's ear into a silk purse.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at this stage of European Union, I think the institutional question can be summarised as the mother of all questions.
Perhaps the more complex points and sophisticated details of this may escape the grasp of public opinion, but like the governments, which must guide the people towards ever higher and more ordered development, we too, who are elected to represent those people, understand it very well and we cannot pretend that we do not.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, certainly the product counts and there is no doubt that how the European Union functions does not matter so much to people as seeing their own lives improve with the progress of the European Union, in terms of own welfare, personal and collective security, the opportunity to work, social security, the extension of freedom, of expression, of movement, of initiative and so on.
Here I too find it positive that there is unanimous consensus about including the social protocol and new provisions on employment in the treaty.
Perhaps this will make it possible to relaunch, in a different institutional context and with a different perspective, the stability pact which President Santer proposed in Florence, but without finding the consensus he was hoping for.
But in a Europe where overall growth is slower than forecast and than was hoped, and which is not yet succeeding in fighting unemployment effectively, even at national level, this is an important turning point.
Yet we know that without real European democracy, without transparent and simplified decision-making processes, without an improvement in the procedures and methods of the Community institutions to put them in a position to neutralize what has been very effectively defined as the renationalization of minds, the Europe we want will not come into being.
Madam President, two matters that are of central importance and great sensitivity for Europe's citizens have been dealt with completely inadequately in the present draft Treaty.
One is the new so-called nondiscrimination article, and the other is the future legal procedure on asylum, foreigners and immigration.
The non-discrimination article is worded in such a way that it only takes effect if the Council unanimously takes the appropriate precautions.
The European Parliament has only a right to be consulted.
That means this article is virtually ineffective.
But the democratic process does appear to have been abandoned in other areas, too - those areas which are now being transposed from the third pillar to the first.
The national parliaments are being cut out, but they are not being replaced by the European Parliament.
This is a denial of democracy, and we will alert our colleagues in the national parliaments to that fact.
It is important, though, for minimum standards to be safeguarded not only in respect of democracy but also in respect of the rule of law, and that includes ensuring that the European Court of Justice has full jurisdiction in the areas in question.
However, there is one positive point I should make: the new provisions, especially in Article 119 on equality for women, are much better regulated in the present draft Treaty than they were in the Dutch presidency's first draft.
Madame Chairman, in the IGC document, employment is once again reduced to mere rhetoric, the social sector lacks method and democracy is hindered by bureaucracy. Under these conditions, the Union will not gain the confidence of the citizens.
Enlargement on this basis will not be possible. The euro will not become a stable currency if it is built on mass unemployment and inequality.
It is quite essential to obtain socio-economic supervision over the structurally inward-looking European Central Bank.
The European institutions are important when each nation of the Union feels that it is represented.
The Parliament, which unfortunately has little power, is for ordinary citizens the only representative body whose activities they can pubicly follow and identify with.
This should be the case in the Commission too.
If the small Member States are deprived of the opportunity to have their own Commissioner, the credibility of the EU will fall in the citizens' eyes.
The Euro-icon will be removed.
Tightening cooperation between the WEU and the EU is appropriate when seeking to improve the efficiency of the common foreign and security policy.
However, the rapid unification of the WEU and NATO is not to the liking of the Finnish social democrats. Military neutrality and credible defence have a longer and from Finland's viewpoint just as successful history as military alliances.
Now the attempt is being made to adapt the alliance to Nordic geopolitics, which under the current circumstances would create uncertainty in the latter.
Madam President, on principle and for the sake of sexual equality, I shall make no reference to kitchen equipment, cooking utensils or meals - I leave that to the men.
All thirty or so speakers so far have said much the same thing.
Since we have no ratification power, you could say that after all you will not take it into account.
I would say there are two reasons for taking it into account.
The first is that we are very often in touch with the citizens and I think that what has been said here reflects what they want.
They have had enough of a Europe that gives them the impression that their every day problems are not taken into account.
The second reason is that, while we have no ratification powers for the IGC, we have to deliver our opinion on enlargement.
Furthermore, national parliaments will also have to ratify the enlargements.
Quite frankly, if the enlargements are not prepared in the right conditions, I am not sure that our public opinions will adhere to them.
For these two reasons, I think that this final European Parliament should be very useful for you.
We are profoundly attached to democracy and the powers of the European Parliament.
If forty-two speakers are taking part in this debate, there is a good reason. I should like to say that we do not have enough legitimacy.
Quiet frankly if, when I stand for reelection, the voters had the impression that I had a real legislative power and genuine influence on European decisions, I would not have asked to speak here today.
I would be able to say that the European Parliament does represent something of importance for ordinary people.
Madam President, the proposal is insufficient and does not meet the slightest expectations.
We cannot keep on condemning to the hold-up of unanimity the fight against discrimination suffered by European women.
As for the treatment of asylum among the Member States, in Spain it was said that Aznar had already achieved everything: that kind of bragging is soon cut down to size when we see the proposals and the texts.
Now we can see the substance of the new French socialist government - good French cooking - which is a macho stew, yes it is macho, Mr President-in-Office.
What hypocrisy to say that European women are being defended! This is unacceptable: the texts condemn all these subjects to unanimity.
This is disappointing and we can only hope that next week this text will be improved because otherwise the citizens of Europe are going to be extremely disappointed.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of this debate I should like to make it clear, on behalf of the French socialists, that we are attached to European construction, we want to see Amsterdam give it a new lease of life, and we hope that all of our efforts will make it possible to stick to the original timetables.
It is absolutely vital to send a loud and clear signal to the people of Europe, indispensable to include a social chapter in the Treaty, indispensable to set an immediate priority for employment and against unemployment.
It is also indispensable to strike a balance between monetary stability and economic growth.
The Dutch Presidency - whom I thank - is making every effort and I hope that by the 16-17 June, we shall be able to overcome the final difficulties in order to be able to meet our people's expectations.
I know and can tell you that the French Government will do all it can.
One last word. I welcome inclusion of the public services in the Treaty while regretting nevertheless, at this stage, that they remain under the competition heading.
A change there would be most welcome.
I just hope that Amsterdam will succeed and replace in Europeans' hearts and minds the tarnished image of Maastricht.
Madam President, allow me to use an expression from history: ' a spectre is rising over Europe' - the spectre of changing economic policy.
In the new European era which began after the British and French elections what should the new economic policy be? We say that it should have the following characteristics: it must retain the positive achievements of the policy that has been pursued up until now - because there have been achievements -, such as control of inflation and restoration of business profitability.
Those gains must be held on to. At the same time, however, it must throw off the one-sidedness which has led us to the present levels of unemployment, poverty and social exclusion.
For that to happen we need to abandon our idolatry of market omnipotence and to restore a balance between the market and state intervention.
In the new era that is beginning state intervention cannot have as its objective the achievement of full employment via wasteful consumption or via the packing of the public sector with pointless jobs.
We do not wish to make civil servants of the whole population; that is not our thinking.
What we want to see is a new flowering of productivity, and that can only come through concern for the needs of working people and greater justice in the distribution of wealth.
Madam President, it is clear that there will be a need to negotiate another treaty in the next five years.
In fact, the text we have before us is just a pitiful cover for some of the inconsistencies and weaknesses in the Maastricht Treaty.
The major problems still remain unsolved.
There is not yet a political structure capable of controlling and directing the power of the future central bank: to say the European Council will take on that role is, in my opinion, the wrong answer. There is no real complementarity at Community level between economic policy and monetary policy, and one more declaration and one more protocol will not make the present construction any less lame.
Despite statements to the contrary, we still do not have a real common foreign policy.
The idea of entrusting power in this field to the Secretary General of the Council is not only an anti-democratic solution - at least the Secretary General of the United Nations answers to the General Assembly - but it is also unlikely to be effective.
There is no real intention of reviewing the Union's powers.
The protocol on subsidiarity looks like a fine catalogue of principles but, despite the commitments made, the Member States have not reviewed the rules on commitology, which means they will continue to be submerged every year by thousands of minute and detailed decisions.
Could a solution be found to these problems? Theoretically, yes, in reality the national diplomatic services, and even this Parliament, have never really believed it.
I would like to close on a note of optimism: good news seems to be coming from social Europe, to judge from the demonstrations in progress in the last few days.
Madam President, I would like to propose inviting the Managing Director of Renault to Amsterdam because, unlike this Parliament, he succeeded in getting the provisions of the social agreement into the treaty.
Madam President, it would be helpful if the President of the Commission could listen to what I have to say.
This is an extremely important time for the European Union.
In the last couple of years the citizens of the European Union...
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like everyone to listen to the last speaker, Mr Alan John Donnelly, in the dignity of our Assembly, followed by the Council and Commission's answers.
I would also suggest to the Conference of Presidents that they look into the possibility of allowing more time in future for debates of such importance.
I know how unpleasant it has been for you to be cut off and it has been no less unpleasant for the Chair to do so.
(Applause) Please return to your seats and listen to Mr Donnelly, the Council and the Commission without talking among yourselves.
Madam President, we all welcome that statement and hopefully the Conference of Presidents will address this matter.
The citizens of the European Union clearly feel that Europe has moved away from them in recent years.
Therefore the IGC in Amsterdam is absolutely crucial so that we can return to the sort of agenda that people understand.
That is why I say to the Council that the chapter in the Treaty that deals with employment policy must not be a cosmetic chapter.
It must deal in detail with the sort of instruments the Commission and the Council will use to tackle the unacceptable levels of unemployment in the European Union.
Linked to that we have to ensure that if there is to be a pact for growth and stability, like Mr Caudron said, it must be a balanced pact containing elements for stability but, more important, elements for growth.
Having passed through the Amsterdam summit meeting we then need to have the Council instruct the Commission to come forward with measures that activate the policies that would be available to bring down the levels of unemployment.
This House is desperately disappointed that nothing has happened since the Essen Summit meeting to tackle the problems of unemployment and while Mr Santer said we should do less better, the one thing we cannot renege upon are measures that will bring down the levels of unemployment.
I would urge the Council to instruct the Commission at Amsterdam, once we have the chapter on employment and once we have a pact that balances stability with growth, to come forward with a new model of development that ensures that we can tackle the unemployment problem and social exclusion and to try to help make this a Europe worthy of our citizens.
Thank you very much, Mr van Mierlo.
You have well interpreted our interest.
I give the floor to Mr Santer.
Mr President, I shall try to be very brief after what we have heard from the President-in-Office.
I should like to thank everyone who has spoken here and shown that, over the question of the IGC, the Commission and European Parliament are closely linked.
I also noted, in the European Parliament's resolutions and in what people have said here, that most of the factors of its position match the position taken by the Commission in its opinion back in February 1996.
On the other hand, I should like to pay tribute to you, Mr President, to your predecessor, Mr Hänsch, and to your delegates, Mr Brok and Mrs Guigou, who have considerably influenced the debate and, I hope, the conclusions of the IGC, at ministerial level but above all at the level of personal representatives.
If we now have a fairly balanced package, it is certainly thanks to the insistence and cooperation of MEPs, your delegates at various levels, that that work has been achieved.
Now, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to concentrate on two essential aspects, which also were the main topics of your speeches.
First of all questions concerning EMU and employment.
I said this morning in my introduction that EMU, Economic and Monetary Union, has two aspects as the term suggests: monetary and economic.
It is important for EMU to walk on both these legs.
As we know the monetary leg is very well developed and for obvious reasons.
It is centralized and the stability and growth pact usefully complements it, with the aim of ensuring lasting budgetary discipline.
Mr Wilfried Martens and, earlier, the President-in-Office rightly said: pacta sunt servanda .
The stability and growth pact was essentially adopted, substantially, at the last European Council in Dublin.
You know that the negotiations were not easy and led to compromises.
It was therefore the arrangements, not only aims, but the arrangements and the substance of the stability pact that were adopted.
There is therefore no question of changing that stability pact.
That would lead to a problem of credibility and confidence, and would have serious effects on confidence between Member States and, no doubt, on international financial markets. It would be counter-productive, since a thorough policy and budgetary discipline are the guarantees for sustainable growth.
On the other hand, the economic aspect must be decentralized.
Of course, the running of economic policies remains with the Member States, but they are committed to coordinating their economic policies in the Council, on the basis of Articles 102A and 103 of the Treaty and, no doubt, it can and should be regretted that that has not yet been implemented, just like the monetary aspect or the coordination of our economic policies.
The instrument that is Article 103 should be fully implemented, as the Commission demonstrated in its report on Europe as an economic entity after the Rasmussen initiative.
The potential of growth of the European economic and its huge internal market should be better exploited.
The Council will have to make full use of the possibility of addressing specific recommendations to the Member States.
It is not enough to have growth, although that growth is a job creator and bearer.
Economic policies should be focused on our main priority and you have all, without exception, stressed this morning that that is the aim of the whole policy.
Job creation is our first priority.
If we manage to add to the growth and stability pact a new dimension, without modifying its substance, but alongside what was done on the basis of Article 102A and 103 of the Treaty, then we will have a complete instrument and EMU will then be able to function properly.
Including the 'employment' chapter in the Treaty should not be under-estimated provided, of course, that it provides for the necessary instruments for defining and implementing a common strategy for jobs.
Of course, I have said this to you many times before: social policy is still the competence of the Member States.
But, on the other hand, nobody now can imagine that the Europe of 15 Member States, with 370 million inhabitants, can remain neutral vis-à-vis the main concern of our people, i.e. unemployment.
It is in that spirit that I launched, on the basis of and as a complement to, Jacques Delors' 1993 White Paper, the pact of confidence for employment, and I am now happy to note that all the Member States, without any exception at present, take the line I took.
A year ago, on, 31 January 1996, when I appeared in this Chamber, I had the very distinct impression that the fight had to be fought on two fronts: the EMU front, which is not an end in itself - the single currency is only an instrument for developing an economic and social policy - and on the other hand, the employment front, against unemployment.
Those are the two axes of our activity and I hope, Mr President-in-Office, that this strategy will be turned into practical measures at the Amsterdam European Council, with the signing of the pact in the spirit that I have outlined.
My second remark is that we must now prepare for enlargement.
Not enough has been said about the prospects for enlargement here today.
We have to realize that enlargement to the countries of central and eastern Europe is a unique opportunity and I said as much this morning - an historic chance, for reconciling, for the first time for over 500 years, the whole of our continent with itself, in peace and freedom.
This historic chance - we should not miss it.
That is why enlargement must be a success but it can only be a success if we prepare for it and carry out the reform of our institutions so that we can undertake enlargement.
That is why I think that after Amsterdam, we shall have the strong signal needed for the Commission to continue, in accordance with the strategy that we adopted at the last European Council, towards enlargement.
If that is the case, and if that assessment is approved by you, then the Commission will be ready.
I can tell you today, the Commission will be ready to present to you, on 15 or 16 July next, all of the necessary documentation, the opinions on the different Member States, the financial prospects after 1999, the necessary reform of policies: CAP, structural funds, Cohesion Fund, and their repercussions on the future enlargement.
We shall be ready as long as Amsterdam is a success.
That is the challenge of Amsterdam and I think that we must make sure that that challenge also responds to our expectations and aspirations.
Thank you very much, Mr Santer.
I have received nine motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTES
Amendment 47 is listed both in our voting list and in the Swedish translation as an amendment proposal to point 4 c and not to point 1 which we are now discussing.
I apologise, and I ask the President to repeat the vote on this point or to check where the PPE group thinks that the proposal is to be found.
Mrs Thors, there was indeed a mistake in the heading of the amendment, but the vote did take place in accordance with the corresponding text.
Once the vote has taken place, the result cannot be changed.
Mr President, please excuse me, but I do think it would be better if we followed the order of the amendments.
Amendment No 47 that you have just called a vote on refers not to Recital C but to Paragraph 4(c), if I have seen the texts properly.
Nobody seems to be following and it does not even seem to be of any importance to our colleagues.
Since the vote has taken place, but obviously not at the right time, perhaps you could have another vote?
Mr fabre-Aubrespy, I am sorry but it was very carefully checked that this amendment did not refer to the paragraph in the heading but another amendment.
That is why we voted on the text to which that amendment referred.
Mr President, as the author of this amendment, along with Mr Anastassopoulos and Mr Lucas Pires, I believe that there has been some confusion in the Chamber due to the fact that, in principle, our services had us vote on this amendment in respect of Paragraph 4(c).
Although the mistake was rectified, it seems that various Groups were not informed.
In my opinion we should therefore vote again on this subject.
I think that is pure common sense.
Mr President, there was confusion.
I accept that because I had it out of order in my voting list, but we did find it and we did vote according to the way certainly my group wanted to vote.
I do not think we need another vote.
We found it in time thanks to you just giving us a few seconds to do that.
As Mrs Green has just declared, this was no confusion.
The vote was held on the amendment in question without the authors expressing the slightest objection at the time. Once the vote has taken place, the result cannot be changed.
On amendment No 50
Mr President, we now come to paragraph 8.
It contains an important demand of the European Parliament, i.e. the demand to have a common electoral system in time for the European elections.
Amendment No 50 by the Socialist Group seeks to weaken our call for a common electoral system.
I would point out to the House that yesterday, in the House of Commons, the new British Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, had this to say: ' It is our wish and intention to introduce a new electoral system based on lists and proportional representation for the next European elections.' .
(Applause ) In view of this important change on the part of the British Government, will the Socialist Group agree to withdraw Amendment No 50 so that we can adopt paragraph 8 undiluted?
(Loud Applause )
Mr President, I think Mr de Vries ought to understand exactly why the Socialist Group has tabled this amendment.
Every member of the British Labour Party in this House is aware of the policy of the Labour Party.
That is not a problem for us.
It may be a problem for the British Conservatives but not for us.
We are very happy with that position.
I have to tell you that the reason we tabled this proposal is because the word 'essential' , in the view of the whole group, means that if these items are not covered in the Treaty, we should not be supporting the Treaty.
We wish to be a little more equivocal about that and it is the position Mr de Vries has always accepted, not to threaten.
Mr President, in the House of Commons the day before Mr Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, and therefore responsible for electoral rules, said that there was no manifesto commitment to introduce PR or the regional list system by the 1999 European elections.
So, with Labour you can take your pick.
Good.
Now you all know what goes on in the House of Commons.
But this is the European Parliament and we must now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I am concerned that the leader of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party in this House sought to misrepresent the position of the British Government during that debate.
The Foreign Secretary did not say that we will be having proportional representation in time for the 1999 elections, he said: ' It is our wish and intention to introduce a new electoral system, based on the list and proportional representation for the next European elections.'
However, he said: ' I said at the time that the timetable is very tight and we will be examining whether this is possible.
We have certainly not ruled it out.'
So you ought to be clear about what the Foreign Secretary said.
Mr Titley, that is not a point of order: it is a point of order inside your political group and not a point of order for the House.
The European Parliament must give its opinion, today, at second reading, on the common position on the eighth directive on summer-time.
It is an important act for our fellow citizens, proof of practical construction of a Europe of citizens.
For my part, two points must be tackled: application of the subsidiarity principle and the implication of changing the clocks.
The declared aim of this eighth directive is to harmonize the period of the application of summer-time. I subscribe to that.
But it is also to assess time differences between the Member States.
That is where the subsidiarity principle comes into its own. The Council and the Commission must abide by it and let the Member States decide whether they should change the clocks in their countries.
I come to the second point: the implication of changing the clocks.
As elected representatives of European Parliament citizens, we are sent petitions, remarks, comments and suggestions on whether it is wise to change the clocks.
To assess the wisdom of this measure, in particular in the perspective of enlargement of the European Union eastward, to be accompanied by an enlargement of time zones, it is urgent to draft a detailed report, in consultation with all the interested parties.
All aspects must be fully analysed in the light of experience.
I think that before we impose any obligation, we ought to listen, we ought to look into the pros and cons.
Until then, let us just harmonize the dates of the beginning and end of summer-time.
We are examining the Belleré report on summer-time at second reading.
I wish to recall some of essential elements: until now the Commission has always presented application of summer-time as the free choice of each Member State, a perfect application of the subsidiarity principle.
Yet the latest developments of the debate on summer-time, launched recently by the last French Government, seem to indicate that the Commission is no longer content with indicating the dates and times for the switch to summer-time, but also is judging whether or not it should be applied to the whole of the Union.
The Commission advances as an argument the difficulty of envisaging a single market where time would vary from State to State.
Yet Britain, Ireland and Portugal would not accept that argument.
Since today the Commission tell us that the European Union must have a single time and that numerous expert reports have shown that the advantages of the switch to summer-time are marginal and the disadvantages substantial, I call on the Commission and the Council to think about simply abolishing summer-time in the European Union completely.
Read report (A4-0171/97)
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of the Read report today.
Securing access for citizens to high-quality telecommunications services at reasonable prices is of crucial importance to us.
We are, however, concerned over how Article 7(2) of the Directive, the wording of which is not unambiguous, will be interpreted.
If established telecommunications providers can be said to have 'significant market power' , according to Article 7(2), they are subject to a number of restrictions and obligations which will create easier access to the market for potential operators.
In Denmark a number of established telecommunications companies can be said to have 'significant market power' , if we regard the fixed network and the mobile network as separate markets.
If, on the other hand, we regard the networks as a combined market, the companies cannot be said to have 'significant market power' and will therefore not be subject to these restrictions and obligations, which might have helped to break up monopoly positions on the telecommunications market.
It is thus important that Article 7(2) be interpreted in such a way that fixed networks and mobile networks are regarded as separate markets.
I am happy to support my British Labour colleague Mel Read's call to approve this conciliation agreement with the Council of Ministers.
Whilst we should all look forward to the personal and business benefits which a more liberal telecommunications market will bring, we must be careful to guarantee consumers' interests.
Ensuring that a universal service is available to all our citizens and giving them the chance to take their number with them to a new address are practical benefits to the public.
After all, the potentially great profits to be made by telecoms companies will be financed by consumers paying their bills.
Similarly, the idea that large telecoms firms should not be able to abuse a monopoly position is crucial.
In return for allowing firms to compete in the new market, it is right that they should meet their responsibilities to their paying customers.
It is nice to see the new British Labour Government's approach to markets and consumers gaining acceptance at EU level, another sign of the potential for constructive British involvement in the EU.
European Council
Point 4 c of the Amsterdam resolution was passed relatively quickly.
It was fortunate that it was passed, but we must gain a broader understanding of what is involved, both here in Parliament and elsewhere.
The most important thing that the Union can do to create a solid, durable policy for more new jobs is to introduce measures which will increase competitiveness.
We are talking about deregulation and increased flexibility on the labour market.
Measures which harm the investment climate in the Member States would be devastating.
Europe must prove itself strong at a global level and must do away with out of date and obsolete policies.
There has recently been an election in Great Britain based on this issue.
Flexible regulations for the labour market were discussed at the time.
Now it is up to us to fulfil them at a European level.
There is a need for strong, joint measures, increased competitiveness and deregulation along with national measures to increase flexibility on the labour market.
The Intergovernmental Conference has demonstrated that the EU majority is not interested in real every day issues - the EU ideologues are more interested in turning the EU into an instrument of power politics.
There may, of course, be some elegant words on equality, employment, sustainable development and openness.
But elegant words are all there is, nothing more.
There are to be no legally effective employment targets as a balance against EMU's financially restrictive requirements.
The text of the environmental guarantee is insufficiently clear to be of use to a Member State wishing to impose tighter environmental standards than those established at EU level.
The Commission will continue to be able to prevent those countries who wish to impose tougher standards from proceeding.
Europol is to become an 'operational co-operation between police forces ' - not just an administrative co-operation between police authorities .
Police from Europol will also be able to operate on 'another Member State's territory' (and in so doing enjoy diplomatic immunity).
So, a big step has been taken towards a federal EU police force, an 'EU-FBI' .
The Schengen Agreement will be foisted on the EU, and the whole of this area of legal co-operation will be moved from the inter-state level to the supranational level.
It will be the EU which will be making the decisions on everything connected with immigration, asylum, borders, passports and visas.
At the request of Spain, a protocol has been incorporated which dictates that asylum cannot be granted to a citizen from another EU State. But is it not possible for a democracy to oppress certain groups?
Is it reasonable, and in accordance with the 1951 Geneva Convention, that all EU States undertake never to grant asylum to Basque, Irish or Corsican freedom fighters? Is this regulation not the same as saying that the EU is a State?
The EU will 'strengthen and develop its mutual political solidarity' , in other words, it will speak with a common voice on matters of foreign policy.
The EU will have a Foreign Minister who will be called the General Secretary and a Foreign Office which will be known as 'the unit for political planning and for early warning' .
It will definitely be no longer possible for the small states to speak out loudly in world politics in defence of human rights above the noise of the super powers and their commercial politics.
The objective of the EU is now being fine tuned to a 'gradual development of a common defence policy with a view to the development of a common defence system' .
The Military alliance the 'WEU' shall 'gradually be integrated into the Union' , and EU States 'shall support the gradual development of a common defence policy through co-operation in the armament's sector' .
How is it possible for a country wishing to maintain a credible policy of neutrality to go along with this? For a Swede this is unacceptable!
It is claimed that openness will increase with the new Treaty as all citizens will have the right to view all documents.
But this right is then withdrawn because it will be up to each EU institution to determine which documents shall be available and to whom.
As a log is not kept on incoming post it will be impossible to request a document - no one knows which documents exist.
In respect of the above we wonder where the principle of subsidiarity and regard for the people of Europe have disappeared to.
So, we will vote against the resolution as a whole and will urge the Swedish people not to ratify the results of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The resolution contains a number of proposals which increase the power of the EU to the detriment of national parliaments.
There is EMU which will greatly centralise economic policy in the European Central Bank in Frankfurt under weak democratic control.
There is the strengthened Common Foreign and Security Policy with its majority decision making and the integration of the WEU into the EU Treaty.
There is the integration of the Schengen Agreement into the EU Treaty and the transfer of decisions concerning asylum, refugees and visa issues etc. from the Third to the First Pillar.
Instead, more emphasis should have been placed on enlargement and the democratic process towards an all European co-operation, towards employment, a better environment and long term sustainable development.
The relationship with our people would have been greatly eased if the changes had been directed more towards these areas.
In view of this, I have voted against the resolution.
Is this the last possible moment to persuade the European Council to be sensitive to the needs of Europe's citizens, or has that last possible moment already come and gone? At a period when there are 18.5 million people unemployed in the European Union, the Member States must accept a common European responsibility to create more employment.
We Christian Democrats, in particular, as supporters of the social market economy, cannot allow social progress to be impeded, any more than sustainable economic progress.
One of the most essential elements of the Maastricht II Treaty, then, will be the employment chapter.
It will only deserve that name if it consists neither of non-binding declarations nor of job creation programmes that would cost millions and are impossible to finance.
It must point the way out of the Community-wide employment crisis, without changing the principle that the Member States retain the primary responsibility for combating unemployment and changing structures in the regions.
The European Union provides a synergistic effect by co-ordinating measures by the Member States, allowing a regular and intensive exchange of experience and supporting the implementation of model projects.
An essential requirement for success is that the Member States should agree to secure a high level of employment and be willing to undertake regular evaluations of progress towards this common objective.
A progress report is to enable an annual public debate to be held - in the European Parliament and elsewhere - on what has been achieved and what has not.
The European Council itself has laid the foundations for the joint approach to combating unemployment.
At the Essen summit it adopted a comprehensive strategy for co-operation between the Member States on labour market policy.
The concentration of schemes on employment-intensive sectors - from investment in vocational training through the advancement of problem target groups to an increase in employment intensity - is to be continued.
This specific policy holds out hope for the citizens of the European Union. It comprises a political commitment by all Member States to a long-term investment in Europe's most important resource - its human resources.
This could and should be the turning point needed to bring the past of the European Union closer to the will of the people and to the real needs of today.
We think that the fight against unemployment should be adopted unequivocally as the foremost priority.
We need to fight against the most radical causes of unemployment, not merely to express some vague intentions, even if they are written in the Treaty.
It is therefore essential to finally turn away from the monetarist and neo-liberal lines currently being followed, in particular the nominal convergence criteria, and to replace them with guidelines centred on economic growth, job creation and social dialogue; on giving form to cohesion; on preventing speculative movements of capital; on preserving public services and environmental conservation.
We are aware however of the indisputable importance of enlargement and the commitments made in this field, in particular in terms of the opening of negotiations.
But that must not present any threat to the essential adjustments referred to above, which for their part need to be thought through thoroughly.
We roundly condemn the introduction into the Treaty of amendments in the institutional field which are harmful to the interests of the smaller countries under the pretext of giving specific form to that policy; similarly we demand that due account be taken of the economic indicators which that might produce in those very countries.
The elections held in some countries recently, particularly the recent elections in France, leave no room for doubt about the deep longing for change in the different peoples of Europe.
The time has come to respond to that longing.
Since the joint resolution does not take that line we cannot support it.
The Amsterdam summit will be a low point in the recent history of European integration.
None of the major tasks confronting the EU is even being addressed, much less solved: compliance with the Rio commitments, defeating mass unemployment, preparation for the promised eastward and southward expansion, democratization of the EU, the socio-ecological regulation of the internal market - nothing can be done about any of them at their current state of preparation.
In this situation, our Parliament is trying to whitewash the increasingly critical situation into which the EU has manoeuvred itself under its neo-liberal leaders - instead of taking the historic opportunity to change course that has been offered by the elections in the United Kingdom and France.
Once again, this House is undermining its own foundations!
Draft Treaty
Mr President, the Maastricht II Treaty, in the form to be adopted here on the 17th, at least if things go according to plan, is not a constitution for a new state, but it is close to that.
Maastricht II is not a supranational structure for independent countries, it is a structure in its own right.
An autonomous structure founded on democratic principles, which can punish countries that are not democratic.
There will be human rights and freedoms, there will be non-discrimination on the grounds of sex, age, sexuality; these are things normally found in a constitution.
There will be blanket authority for it to create new powers for itself.
The individual countries will be authorized to regulate certain matters for themselves: wage agreements, culture, education and hospitals - also things that are in ordinary federal state constitutions - media, public service enterprises and freedom of speech.
There is a subsidiarity protocol, in which the principle of precedence is established.
There is foreign policy with majority decision-making, a kind of incipient common foreign ministry; defence is added; legal policy and the police; the states lose control of their territory.
Means of coercion are acquired, coinage, military and police.
The only thing missing is democracy, and that is why I voted against it today.
Mr President, I have voted against because this text of the Dutch Presidency on which the Amsterdam Council will have the final say is a construct which leaves the people of Europe out in the cold.
They are not in the know.
According to Eurostat, only about 2 % of the people really know what is going on.
Furthermore, the text offers absolutely nothing.
It is just talk, talk, talk. It mentions unemployment but promises shackles and deprivation.
The representatives of the Council and the Commission have paid homage to employment a hundred times, but they have only just managed to insert some form of protocol, some form of provision, on unemployment in the Treaty.
As if the 20 million people who are out of a job are there because that word has not been in the Treaty. But the reasons lie elsewhere: in the socio-political system to which the Community is beholden.
Mr President, this text, this construct, proffers a rich menu for the multinational monopolies to gorge themselves on, and all the resolutions are like the waiters at the table, which is why I have voted against them as well.
Mr President, I voted against this text because it offers no prospect or contribution to a democratic Europe, favouring an authoritarian centralized state.
The text of the Maastricht Treaty constantly refers to an area of freedom, safety and justice.
But we are offered no prospect of transparency in public life.
Not only are no new mechanisms for democratic control being introduced, but existing ones are being weakened.
The language adopted is very interesting here: where the term 'freedom' always used to be used in European policy, we now have the term security - internal security and the foreign security policy.
But security is being created not through more democracy, not through an employment policy or social security, but in a form controlled internally by the national governments, via Schengen and Europol, and guaranteed externally by a new foreign and military policy.
Mr X is not under the control of Parliament but that of an inter-governmental machine, in which human beings - including Members of Parliament - are not involved.
The superpower dreams of this integration reach their climax in the integration of the WEU, and that too is not under democratic control.
Therefore, no democrat can vote in favour of such a text.
Faced with the draft Treaty presented at the Amsterdam European Council, the European Parliament is pretending to be sorry that the text is not sufficiently federalist.
In reality, the European Parliament is only resorting once again to its time-old tactic of asking for the maximum and then backing down, while protesting, at compromises which are nonetheless major federalist advances which secretly satisfy it.
On their side, the national governments habitually fall into the trap with such unbelievable facility that it can only conceal voluntary renunciations.
This is the exactly the case we are facing here.
Let us, for example, take the proposals in the draft treaty in the areas of security, justice and immigration.
The European Parliament's resolution declares that the draft treaty is not enough as it does not provide for the possibility of referral to the Court of Justice by individuals.
But that protest serves mainly to distract attention from the federalist reality of this text; if adopted, the questions of the movement of persons, asylum, immigration, would be removed from national competences and fall within the Community scope, with the Commission holding the monopoly of initiative, the Court of Justice the power of interpretation and majority decision-making with the Council (unless it acts unanimously with codecision by the European Parliament).
These proposals would represent an extraordinary federalist leap since, in future, for example, immigration issues would be decided in Brussels.
The French people could no longer decide for themselves their own policy in that area, and the parties could simply delete the 'immigration' chapter from their manifestos, with a view to national general elections.
And how would that fit in with the French Constitution.
In order to make this huge pill easier to swallow, the Dutch Presidency is using a perfectly hypocritical strategy, but it has often turned out to be expensive in the past: a principle is inscribed in the Treaty, by application is deferred for some years to give citizens the impression that they might, in the meantime, benefit from the right to repent, which in reality is absolutely no the case.
The current draft text provides that the Council, for matters of circulation, asylum and immigration which would be communitarized, would continue to decide unanimously, for three years after the Treaty comes into force; personal controls at borders will be maintained, but for a maximum of five years; Europol would receive operational powers on the territories of the Member States but only after five years have lapsed.
In other words, the lamentations of the European Parliament designed to distract attention from the vital points are accompanied by the Presidency's manipulations designed to have dangerous principles adopted, making us believe that their consequences would be far off or hypothetical.
The great federalist strategy is under way, to hoodwink the peoples!
. (DA) We have certain objections to the resolution.
Recital C and paragraphs 1(c) and 12 read as though some would like to postpone enlargement, but we favour the timetable adopted.
The real difficulties are the budget and agriculture, rather than institutional matters.
Subparagraph (a) of paragraph 1 is not entirely correct, (b) is tendentious and (c) is, as already indicated, a possible threat to enlargement.
We cannot vote for paragraph 3, as it is affected by a Danish reservation.
We vote against paragraph 5, because it is affected by a Danish reservation.
We cannot vote for paragraph 6 because of the references to the third pillar and the allusion to the composition of the Commission.
Despite this we vote for the resolution, because it supports the areas that are most important to us, namely openness, democracy, human rights, the environment, consumer protection and employment, and because we do not have a wholly negative attitude to a transformation of the EU that patently sets out to achieve transparency in so many areas.
I voted against because the unanimity rule should not be abolished and Parliament should not be involved in deciding where the seat should be, since things should stay as they are.
As the President of the session deviated from the voting list which I had, I and many others in the Chamber did not really know what we were voting on when amendment proposal 47 suddenly came up for discussion.
So it was not clear in the vote that I supported amendment proposal No. 47, which stresses the importance of maintaining the balance between large and small countries, although this was my intention.
I would also like to stress that the resolution which has now been approved should, in my opinion, mean that Parliament can view the forthcoming enlargement negotiations positively.
The Amsterdam Treaty does not mark a step towards a European democracy.
Quite the reverse: the revision of the Maastricht Treaty provides for a proliferation of procedures conducted between the Member States without adequate parliamentary or judicial control.
The principle of power sharing is being made a mockery of.
Without codecision, the otherwise desirable extension of majority voting in the Council becomes highly dangerous.
The Treaty does not introduce openness of legislation, nor is the EP being given rights of codetermination and control in key areas of integration, such as monetary union.
The new Treaty does not create equilibrium between the Union's political and economic integration.
Despite its protestations of being committed to sustainable development, the EU still cleaves to the logic of unrestricted competition.
Maastricht II offers no guarantee that Member States will retain or be able to introduce higher environmental standards.
No mention is made in the draft Treaty of the introduction of eco-taxes.
The employment chapter is verbose and empty.
No mention is made of the objective of full employment.
The Amsterdam Treaty provides no financial or institutional instruments for carrying out an active employment policy at EU level.
Instead, it talks about co-ordinating the employment policies of the Member States, but they have long since lost any budgetary room for manoeuvre for employment offensives because of the tight corset of the convergence criteria.
In its present form, the Treaty undermines democracy and civil rights, which are the true foundations of European Union.
Now it is up to the EP and the national parliaments to cement an alliance for European democracy and take action to have the Intergovernmental Conference deferred.
Because, as the Treaty stands at present, it is unacceptable.
Results should be more important than sticking to a timetable.
Europe is at a crossroads.
The closure of the intergovernmental conference is the first main deadline.
In order to pursue completion of the European Union and its preparation in view of the next century, treaties, the rules and the institutions must be adapted.
The outcome of the governmental conference will be judged according to three criteria:
1.The paralysing unanimity rule must be restricted as much as possible.
The European Union cannot act efficiently as long as one of the Member States can put its national interests before the general interest of the inhabitants of the Union as a whole.2.The social aspect must be reinforced.
The European Union must listen to its members and respond to the demand for employment dignity for all.
That is why the social chapter must be improved.
That is also why we are recommending integration of an effective chapter on employment into the Treaty.
The balance must be struck once again between monetary policy, on one hand, and social and economic policies, on the other.3.The European Parliament's democratic involvement in the second and third pillars must be strengthened.
The European Union must be able to intervene in order to maintain peace and security both inside and outside its borders.
The European Parliament must take a more active part in this procedure and must be able to resume the democratic prerogatives lost by national parliaments in a certain number of vital areas.As far as we know, the Dutch Presidency's proposals offer too few prospects in terms of these three criteria.
On behalf of the PS delegation, I would like to insist that efforts be made in Amsterdam in order to improve the texts and for measures to be taken in order to come closer to the positions frequently taken by the European Parliament, in particular in the resolution that we have just adopted.
If not, if significant progress proved impossible because of a lack of time or political restraints, a slight delay will be preferable to a negative outcome.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Progress in CFSP 1996
The next item is the report (A4-0193/97) by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on progress in implementing the common foreign and security policy (January to December 1996).
We are very glad that the President-in-Office is still with us, and we are glad to take this opportunity to hear Mr van Mierlo's views on this report by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Council.
Madam President, I am very much obliged to Mr Spencer for giving me the floor.
It would be logical for him to take the floor first, but as often in the final days before a summit of this type, logic is overridden by the events and I must travel quickly to Bonn in order to meet someone who is playing a key role in the problem concerning us just now. That is why I welcome this generous gesture and I am very grateful to it.
Since we are approaching the end of the intergovernmental conference, which is designed to prepare the European Union to meet future challenges, it is vital not to lose sight of our current position and the results that we have already obtained, not only in terms of European integration in general but also in respect of its common foreign security policy.
The reports which Mr Spencer drafted on 1996 and the draft resolution attached to it sketch a varied image on the ground.
It is also pointed out that we need to improve the effectiveness and coherence of the CFSP.
The Council shares this opinion and that is why we are aiming at a structural improvement of the functioning of the CFSP and that this on the agenda of the IGC.
But we must not forget that the Union still has a long way to go even if progress already made in recent years is not negligible.
It is in accordance with this situation that we must express our expectations and form our judgment.
As you know, the Maastricht Treaty threw down the bases of a common foreign and security policy for the European Union.
This matter also obviously confronts the traditional powers of national states with the reality of European integration.
The modelling of the CFSP expresses that reality very well.
A strong CFSP can be forged thanks to the feeling of proximity of the Member States of the European Union.
Fashioning a common policy on the ground means that reality is becoming aware of the need to express shared common interests.
In certain areas this awareness is stronger than in others but a process of gradual evolution is clearly emerging here.
This evolution is reflected in institutional terms in the growth of European political cooperation from 25 years ago until implementation of the CFSP following Maastricht.
The institutional reforms with regard to the CFSP, currently envisaged as part of the intergovernmental conference, are a further stage in this process and must be regarded as such.
Only ten years ago it was obvious that the economic giant that the European Community was had feet of clay when it came to foreign and security policy and that that ground was insignificant.
In reality this situation, inspired by geopolitical relationships, was an artificial one.
However, the fall of the Berlin wall and the wave of democratization in central and eastern Europe have placed the Community suddenly and unexpectedly up against new challenges.
Europe was, in any case, going to have to affirm its political identity and weight more markedly.
The way of making progress is gradually emerging although it is obvious that this process is going to need more time.
The IGC is examining, as it were, the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty vis-à-vis the CFSP in the light of the experiences that we have gained over recent years and the needs that we have pinpointed in looking towards the future.
It is true that the CFSP's tools have seldom been used and public opinion often had the impression that the Union still cannot react firmly.
Let us be realistic!
Is this situation due to the instruments or to the will of the Member States to use them? In fact an efficient and firm common policy in this area calls for a desire and will to collaborate, justified by an awareness of the fact that our common interests are at stake.
The Union is in full evolution and is preparing for its future, including that of the CFSP.
Our relations with associate countries in central and eastern Europe and around the Mediterranean are being strengthened.
Moreover, we are working on lasting relations with our neighbouring countries in eastern Europe and around the Mediterranean basin.
As far as problems on our continent are concerned, such as Belarus, former Yugoslavia and Albania, the Union is beginning to play the role allocated to it and which it is its duty to play with increasing success.
It is trying to fulfil this role in conjunction with organisations such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe and the organs of the European Convention on Human Rights, by implementing every available means.
That does not mean that the Union can advance or impose short-term solutions, but that it exercises an influence in terms of foreign policy in the respect of its own interests but also in the light of the importance of its economic relations with the countries in question.
It is obvious that the rehabilitation and promotion of political and economic stability go hand in hand with this and are of major importance for the Union and its Member States.
To this effect, tools such as the pre-adhesion strategy, PHARE and TACIS are very important.
Recently the European Union has also been very active in the field of relations with other neighbouring countries.
For example, let us mention the pursuit of dialogue with Mediterranean countries.
The process begun at the Barcelona Conference has led to a system of closer economic links and a more intense political dialogue of strategic interest for the Union, its Member States and our neighbours to the south.
Links with eastern European countries have also been strengthened.
On the basis of general action plans, the Union is endeavouring for example to transform its relationship with the Russian Federation and Ukraine into a lasting and significant partnership.
The Union is thereby contributing to the formation of a stable European security structure.
The Union has also made considerable efforts concerning developments in the Middle East and the region of the Great Lakes in Africa.
Representatives have been specially appointed for both of these regions, namely Mr Moratinos and Mr Ajello, in order to express the Union's commitment and to pursue the Union's policy more effectively.
You will nevertheless understand that the Union's role in these regions is limited to support.
Initially, conflict based problems have to be tackled by the parties themselves, but the Union can lend support.
Arbitrage and preventive diplomacy can also complement support in terms of humanitarian aid and any other kind of aid.
I myself was able to see the importance of appointing Mr Moratinos for the Middle East question.
In fact, at that moment, and following the very specific manoeuvres of the Presidency, it was recognized for the first time that Europe can play not only an economic role but also a political role in the peace process in the Middle East.
It is vital that we continue to try and complement efforts by the United States.
Too often and for too long we adopted a childish attitude aimed at sharing our powers - who could do what in the Middle East.
The Middle East is very special for Europe.
I think that American diplomacy would fail unless Europe were supporting it.
In my view, we have exploited this point carefully and harmoniously.
However, we could act even more coherently.
Relations between the Union and its trans-Atlantic partners have evolved.
Even though sometimes we have differences of opinion over the use of means - we often, for example, have different conceptions of the usefulness and efficiency of isolation or boycotts - we do share the same objectives, standards and values.
This understanding may be seen in the extent of cooperation in the framework of trans-Atlantic dialogue.
Only recently, at the Summit, relations between European Union and the United States led to good results.
As I have just said with respect to the Middle East, cooperation is called for.
That was also important in the framework of the unfortunate story of a common resolution in terms of human rights policy over China but, as far as Europe and the United States are concerned, there was excellent cooperation.
In this case cooperation within Europe was less evident.
Closer cooperation in the field of political dialogue has just complemented our economic relations with the countries of Latin America as well as our main Asian partners.
The European Union - ASEAN Summit is an example of the framework of cooperation which enables an exchange of open and constructive ideas to be held.
No-one would have thought, at that time, that we could discuss the Burma situation for two and a half hours in a very open way.
We have managed to make some progress but not that much.
I think that a well studied diplomatic manoeuvre might prove more profitable than we tended to believe.
In other words, the Union is no longer a simple trading partner but is also increasingly becoming a major partner in external political dialogue.
It is obvious that the policy to be pursued must reach a consensus within the Union.
We will only be listened to if we adopt a single position.
This unanimity, emerging from an awareness of shared common interests, cannot be obtained through institutional structures.
That is why it is all the more important that we exchange ideas and try to reach an agreement on the external political challenges to be met by the European Union and in the framework of the Council, but also dialogue with you, representatives of the peoples of the Union.
The structures can, of course, help us in this process.
So far we have chosen the least restrictive structures, intergovernmental decisions and consensus.
Everyone can, therefore, act as they wish and block the process at the last moment.
We have to make this option more difficult and that is what we have tried to do in the new Treaty.
I admit that the structures are not decisive but they can help us to avoid weak points.
That is exactly what we are examining just now and where all of our efforts are being placed.
I shall stop here. Thank you for allowing me to address the European Parliament.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for those remarks on the foreign and security policy.
Madam President, I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his comments.
I am always happy to oblige the presidency in the hope that we will see both the Dutch presidency and other presidencies perhaps a little more frequently in front of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
As you have indicated, this is the annual report on the implementation of the common foreign and security policy that is specified in the Treaty.
As this is the third such debate, I have this year provided comparative tables showing the trends - and in some cases the lack of trends - in the instruments of the policy.
I am grateful to our excellent secretariat for the accuracy of this complex data.
The third part of my report represents, for the first time, this data on a geographic basis, spiralling out from countries in the rest of Europe and nearby to every other region of the world.
I look forward to the time when we can lift our eyes from the institutional development of the CFSP to an undistracted debate on the substance of Europe's relations with the world; a state-of-the-world debate on a par with our successful state-of-the-Union debate.
I was very pleased and attracted by the President-in-Office's reference to kitchens and dishes in this morning's debate.
That is absolutely right.
On foreign policy we need to get to the food and stop worrying about the plumbing.
Sadly we are not yet in that happy position so the second part of my report lists, once again, our criticisms of how the CFSP has failed to develop as was anticipated at Maastricht.
It is a story of institutional timidity and occasional failure of European solidarity under commercial pressures.
I would not wish to concentrate solely on the shortcomings and failures of the policy because we are making progress.
Twenty years ago our inability to act together on foreign policy matters was not regarded as either surprising or culpable.
Ten years ago we felt guilty about our failure.
Five years ago we had developed aspirations and rhetoric but had neither institutions nor ground rules.
After Maastricht we had some mechanisms but we have not been good at using them.
We have played with them at the margins but we have not used them to guide our way forward on the great issues that confront the Union.
I am most worried by the impact of this failure on our public and in particular, the impact of that failure, both political and technical, in the wars of Yugoslav succession, where our public expected us to save lives and we failed.
The lesson of Bosnia, it seems to me, is that in the last resort, the Union must have the ability to intervene militarily.
If we shy away from that responsibility we are doomed to being merely the paymaster for the peace-making efforts of non-European powers.
It is in this context that we need to embark on a process of bringing the European Union and Western European Union closer together.
My report contains a section, again for the first time, on the role of this Parliament, its President, its committees and its delegations.
I am an unapologetic enthusiast for parliamentary involvement, both national and European in the CFSP.
I do not accept the doctrine that foreign affairs is the prerogative of the executive.
In my view, the executives of Europe are already far too strong and parliamentarians too weak.
This approach seems to be based on theories about the primacy of the Crown in foreign affairs, an argument which was rejected by the US Senate from the very early years of that great republic.
It seems to me proper to aspire to such influence, but it requires us to be self-critical of our own performance as an institution, not least in our tendency to shoot from the hip in urgency resolutions in this plenary.
I echo President Santer's concerns this morning about attempts to restrict the coherence of the Commission's role in negotiating on behalf of the Union under Articles 113 and 238.
There is important foreign policy in the first pillar and we should not dismiss its usefulness.
For me, foreign policy, as understood by the electorates of Europe, is not limited to the classic diplomacy of the kind which absorbs the attention of those involved day-to-day in the CFSP.
For any power, but especially for a predominantly civilian superpower such as this Union, foreign policy must be a mixture of trade and economics, of environment and development, of security and human rights.
It must grow and be rooted in the genuine fears and perceptions of our citizens.
It is not just the completion of the technical process of Treaty revision.
It is not just a game for diplomats.
It is about trade, jobs, drought and hurricanes.
It is at least as much about what goes on in Kyoto and Geneva as what goes on in Moscow and Washington.
We have hopes for progress in Amsterdam.
In the jargon we will not be holding our breath.
But we will stand ready to do our part in making a political reality that lives in the minds of the people of Europe of whatever the Member States bring forward as a reformed and improved CFSP after the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Madam President, I should like, on behalf of my Group, to thank the Rapporteur, Mr Spencer.
I think that he has emphasized all of the relevant points in this report and in the attached resolution.
My gratitude also goes to the Minister, Mr Van Mierlo, for his detailed apology of the CFSP in 1996.
I found it excellent.
I also noted that the debate which has been held here today was a debate after the event and without conviction whose conclusions unfortunately have already been drawn.
The CFSP is not going very well and the European Parliament should try to influence to a greater extent its development rather than holding this kind of post mortem debate.
This institution has no doubt about the interest of the common foreign policy.
But now all that we can do is assess it.
The members of my group would like to look at the various aspects of the policy.
It must be said that, in terms of foreign policy, the Union did not meet the expectations of 1996.
It is true that, in a certain number of areas, progress has been made - especially in areas belonging to the first pillar - I am thinking of humanitarian aid and stepping up relations with central and eastern European countries, including the former Soviet Union.
In various other situations, however, the European Union has not been able or has not succeeded in contributing decisively to solving conflicts and tense situations.
In many cases, a common human rights policy was out of the question especially since the larger Member States in a good many major situations have remained faithful to their own conduct and orientations.
Furthermore, as has already been said, the United States have interfered on several occasions in situations that we ought to have been able to solve alone.
It is a shame because the European Union is a major factor and it is also an important sponsor of very many international activities and we do not reap the fruit of that enough. These actions are not sufficiently well known to the public.
I am thinking in particular of the European Union's role within the United Nations.
As far as security is concerned, we must await the outcome of Amsterdam, but there too I find that the European Union's image is a pessimistic one. What we see is that it is really NATO which has been doing very well in recent years at the expense of the development of the European Union.
The Spencer report clearly tackles those aspects which need to be changed.
We support this approach.
We need to create better institutional conditions for the European Union's foreign policy, especially when it comes to conflict prevention.
But that will only have any meaning and will only function if the Member States also demonstrate more ambition when it comes to collaborating over foreign affairs.
Madam President-in-Office, I very much welcome the publication of this report.
It highlights the ineffectiveness of the European Union's policy in this particular area.
I find it somewhat ironic that we refer to the common foreign and security policy.
On many issues we have no policy and when we do it is rarely a common policy.
This report highlights a number of critical areas where we have failed.
It talks about the failure to respond to the continuing problems in Bosnia-Herzegovina or taking any initiative on Kosovo, the lack of effective response to the continuing problem of Cyprus and our relations with Turkey and the absence of a long-term policy for the Middle East or Africa.
It must also be admitted with some shame and embarrassment that our response to the recent Albanian crisis has been somewhat defective.
Various reasons are suggested for this.
We often hide behind structural deficiencies and I would certainly acknowledge that there are structural deficiencies, not least the requirement for unanimity.
However, that does not tell the whole tale.
Look, for example, at the failure of the European Union to act as one with regard to the continued breach of human rights in mainland China - an issue which will be debated later on.
There, economic interests have overtaken political principle and if we fail to act as one, particularly where principle is involved, then we will have no meaningful role in the geopolitical world.
So certainly let us address the problem of structural deficiencies but let us also recognize that there is a lack of principle involved in some of the ways we shape our policy.
I hope that this IGC deals with the structural deficiencies, that we end unanimity and replace it with QMV, that we strengthen the relationship with the Commission and the Parliament in this whole area and move away from intergovernmentalism and that we promise to start a real debate on the framing of a defence policy, hopefully incorporating the WEU and the EU pillar.
I once again pay tribute to the rapporteur.
The report shows where we are weak and let us hope that, especially in the rest of the week and in Amsterdam, we will make a start on rectifying that.
Madam President, as everyone is aware the CFSP is a bone of great contention in the European Union; not because of its existence, but rather because of its absence.
The Union's inability to implement a real common foreign and security policy, which has been lamented very often in this Chamber, means that while it is always willing do its share of the paying it cannot act effectively in the international arena.
The Spencer report, which is meticulous, honest and clear-sighted, underlines that reality in many of its points.
It also indicates what needs to be done in order for the Union to be able to assume its role in this field at some juncture.
It calls for the European Parliament to be given a bigger say with regard to the adoption of common actions and positions and for it to be afforded a participatory role in international negotiations.
It defines the concept of common security as having to do above all with economic and social stability, the defusing of ethnic tensions and the promotion of ongoing integration; a security, that is, which extends beyond military confrontation and conflict and must be the model for the twenty-first century.
In addition, the report insists on the need to maintain parliamentary control of the financing of the CFSP, and it is a well known fact that not all of the Member States agree with that.
Even so, it is an important general point which remains unresolved.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate Mr Spencer on his excellent work.
Unfortunately, the record of CFSP is rather disappointing and current events do nothing to belie that.
Mr Spencer draws lessons from European powerlessness, not to say Europe's absence from the international diplomatic arena.
The crisis in former Yugoslavia revealed the European Union's inability to act.
Now the same is true with the Albania situation.
For the lack of a genuine common foreign and security policy, Europe cannot play the role that should be its, including that of restoring peace.
How could it be otherwise if the CFSP remains the expression of the Member States at intergovernmental level? The IGC must put that right by strengthening the principle of political solidarity, while enabling the Member States not to take part actively in certain common actions.
The Council has so far resorted too seldom to common actions and positions and has demonstrated obvious sloth.
I regret the weakness of Community diplomatic action in Cyprus and Turkey, for example.
I deplore our paralysis vis-à-vis Algeria.
Our absence of a common policy in respect of Africa is dramatic. I am afraid of what is in store in central Africa.
Since the failure of the European Defence Community in 1954, for the first time, the basic conditions for the emergence of a European security policy now seem to be in place.
Let us not miss this opportunity.
Madam President, the record of the CFSP this year shows, as on previous occasions, that the European Union's international activities are marked by a lack of political will, the non-existence of common aims and an insufficiency of institutional mechanisms.
This was so in Bosnia and more recently in Albania. What happened there has led to dissatisfaction of public opinion despite some truly positive efforts, such as those of our special envoy to the Middle East, Mr Moratinos.
But the immediate future does not suggest that the situation there is getting any better.
We saw how NATO and Russia signed an agreement over which Europe simply applauded and waited.
We will see in early July in Madrid how NATO, an institution with its origins in the Cold War, is enlarging to the detriment - of whom? Of the European Union's own capacities in the security field.
Despite some positive aspects, what is proposed at the IGC is clearly insufficient.
We shall quickly have to change this situation.
We lack an autonomous external policy, a European entity for its own, independent security and defence, an ability to prevent conflicts and take decisive action to narrow the gap between north and south.
Otherwise, we shall be forced once again to mouth immodest and unreal phrases, that could even be qualified as gracious, as presented by Mr van Mierlo, over the fact that US diplomacy is sometimes wearied when Europe fails to act.
That is not true.
Madam President, the annual report on the progress of CFSP, as my group deplores, is unfortunately more of an occasion for a ritual celebration of integrationist fundamentalism than a far-reaching examination aimed at confronting aims and realities.
This report, despite its undeniable documentary quality and the wealth of its facts and figures, is no exception to that rule.
It takes the same ideological approach as last year's, developing a conception of the CFSP that would set out to absorb all of all our nations' external means of action, constantly conceived in opposition to national diplomacies, as if a successful initiative by one or more Member States could not, by its very nature, benefit Europe as a whole.
On the contrary, the competent and efficient national diplomatic services on which such actions rely are presented as an obstacle to the development of the CFSP and, during the debates, serious consideration has been given to their recycling, not to say their re-education.
The lack of consistency in today's CFSP is attributed to the continuation of an intergovernmental dynamism reflecting the fear of the Member States to relinquish the fantasy of national power.
After Mr Lamers' empty shell, now we have Mr Spencer's fantasy.
The national State now plays in the new dominant ideology the role that used to be attributed to the class enemy in the ideology immediately before it.
Setting the CFSP against national foreign policies, is condemning it to sterility.
The CFSP will only be effective if it plays a complementary role and not that of replacing national diplomacies.
When we have genuinely common interests, which are properly inventoried, acting together to make them work undeniably brings added value.
In other areas, our attitudes differ.
The CFSP process can then make it possible, by means of concertation, to reconcile to the maximum the diversity of our approaches.
But we also have to recognize the existence of divergent policies linked, in certain vital areas, to the protection of vital national interests that are perfectly legitimate and respond to citizens' wishes.
Wishing, for the sake of CFSP, to deny those realities can only do a disservice to the very aim being sought: affirming Europe's place on the new international arena.
I regret that the Spencer report has not taken the realistic approach to the CFSP which is a necessary condition for its success.
That is why our group will not be able to vote for its adoption.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, every year since the Maastricht Treaty entered into force on 1 November 1993, our Parliament has produced a report on the progress achieved in the elaboration of the common foreign and security policy, defined in Article J7 of the Treaty.
Every year, the European Parliament has deplored a disappointing progress report, the absence of a common policy in international crises.
The Spencer report is no exception to that rule.
According to its author, the beginnings of the CFSP are still unconvincing in the eyes of European citizens.
Reviewing the crises in 1996, the report regrets in particular the absence of common proposals and initiatives by the Union for former Yugoslavia, the enlargement of NATO, and relations with Russia, its ineffectiveness in Albania, its diplomatic weakness over Cyprus and Turkey and its divisions over China.
Curiously, the report offers a positive appraisal of the action by the Union's special envoy to the Middle East and thinks that there are still possibilities to be exploited in central Africa, Zaire, or the Great Lakes region.
No comment.
The measures proposed, as usual, to remedy these gaps are the following: integration of the WEU into the European Union, inclusion in the Community budget of CFSP operational non-compulsory expenditure, enabling the European Parliament to exert controls, and systematic consultation of the European Parliament by the Council before the adoption of common positions.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs is relying on the IGC to implement these reforms.
Whereas it increasingly dismantles Member States' sovereignty in terms of foreign policy, it unfortunately brings with it hardly any harmony or peace between nations, and that is why we shall not be voting for the report.
Madame Chairman, when three new Member States joined the EU at the beginning of 1995 the tradition of military neutrality in the Union was strongly reinforced.
What is at issue here is a tradition, not the invalidity of security policy, as surprisingly often seems to be thought.
In post-war Europe the history of military neutrality is at least as long as that of alliances.
This should be remembered.
I should like to stress that Finland, for example, does not wish to be politically neutral.
We wish to support and strengthen the European Union's common foreign and security policy.
In this area, Finland, together with Sweden among others, has been very active in recent times.
We do, however, wish to remain militarily neutral because this informed choice, in our opinion and according to our experience can best secure stability and peaceful development in northern Europe.
If Finland and Sweden now declared that they were going to give up their military neutrality, this would very probably result in the increase of military tension in our area and along the 1300 kilometre long border between the EU and Russia.
Why should we pursue a policy which increases tension? It would, amongst other things, make peaceful border cooperation considerably more difficult.
Against this background, we have followed with some concern the calls for the unification of the EU with the WEU.
This would mean that we would have to give up our military neutrality.
We understand that a majority of the EU Member States have wished to resolve their security problems by entering into military alliances.
We respect these solutions. We would wish, however, for our decisions too to be respected in the same way.
The way from the division of Europe towards more peaceful development has been be preserved precisely by good cooperation between militarily allied and neutral countries.
Madam President, I too would like to compliment Mr Spencer on an excellent report, but I also want to express my disappointment at the fact that, once again, this Parliament is just having a nice chat. And I want to say, once again, that a common foreign policy is needed, but the reality is we are not going to do anything concrete to achieve that objective.
I ask myself - and I ask you - whether anyone still cherishes the illusion that, as Mr Spencer rightly mentions in his report, the old nation states can play a leading role in a strongly and sharply evolving international scenario.
I ask myself whether Europe, which certainly has a role at the highest level on the world scene, prefers to continue in the role of fifteen political dwarves, fifteen political gnomes who continue to argue about every important foreign policy issue which arises at international level.
The events in former Yugoslavia are an obvious case, but we can cite many others, like the policies on Russia, China, which we shall be discussing later, and the Mediterranean too.
Actual common actions and positions can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
So I believe a specific and strong position should be taken after this debate through a specific intervention by Parliament.
Madam President, Mr Spencer deserves our thanks for his efforts, if only because his report makes it clear that any report on the implementation of the EU's common foreign and security policy must, nowadays, quite simply amount to a list of missed opportunities and failures.
And, since the Intergovernmental Conference is producing no genuine progress in this area, I fear that such reports are going to take the same form in the future.
In order to find practical examples of this failure, we need not look very far afield: even among the Member States of the European Union, present or prospective, threats are being openly backed by military force.
I regard it as an unforgivable failure of the European Union that it has not been able to resolve the crisis between Greece, Turkey and Cyprus.
Indeed, if we look around we can see economically weak countries investing economic resources in totally disproportionate armaments -resources that they urgently need elsewhere.
I believe this should be a clear priority of all the European institutions, so that what is nothing less than a European scandal can be brought under control.
Madam President, the Spencer report makes some accurate observations. However, I see things in a slightly harder light.
It is, of course, true that the development of a common foreign and security policy is being impeded by an institutional deficit. But there are other deficits as well, and there is an absence of solidarity.
We saw that in the essentially neutral stance taken by the European Union during the crisis over the Imia islands in 1996, even though one of its member countries was involved.
Secondly, the principle of equal treatment does not seem to count for much.
The European Union took one approach to the rights of the Chechens and is taking another, at the present time, to the rights of the Kurds, and it says nothing about incursions into the territory of other countries by the Turkish army.
Thirdly, there is a lack of self-confidence.
In foreign policy the Union displays an enduring inferiority complex, and it has become reconciled to following in the wake of the United States. Cyprus is a case in point.
The Union did whatever it could to downgrade the status of its special envoy vis-à-vis the United States and now the United States has just appointed Mr Holbrooke as its own special representative.
I think that the tragedy of the Union's foreign policy was illustrated also by the situation that developed in Albania in 1996.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome this report because we want to see the swift implementation of the CFSP with regard to Austria's accession to the WEU and to NATO.
Matters we regard as particularly important are improving the working conditions between the WEU and the EU and the development of a European security system that is not dependent on the USA.
The primary purpose and objective of a European security system must be the prevention of military conflicts; the resolution of conflicts, even by the use of military force if necessary, is a secondary priority.
In view of its history during the present century, Europe has a special responsibility to adopt an active security policy.
That policy must not be jeopardized by a naive form of pacifism, because there is one thing that none of us here should ever forget: adherence to the principles of unilateral pacifism, anti-militarism and military neutrality would have meant that Auschwitz was never liberated.
Madam President, I would like to say the same as everyone else here is saying that this is a very good report.
It contains a good, broad concept of security policy and is not restricted to narrow military areas and military issues.
I also welcome what Mr Spencer himself has said that there is a need for a long term strategy to tackle global problems including poverty, the environment and ethnic and social conflicts.
I think this is excellent.
Above all, in the background documents for the report I see a good description of how a common security policy could be developed; there is an analysis of shortcomings but there is also a description of what could be done.
They form a good reference book for anyone who is interested.
Even the sun sometimes has its spots.
And so has this report in some places.
I support instead what Mr Paasio said on the situation of the non-aligned neutral States.
These spots are still present in points 15 and 19.
I hope that they will disappear at the vote when we support amendment proposals Nos. 1 and 2.
Otherwise: Congratulations on a good report.
Madam President, congratulations are due to Mr Spencer for his report.
The great absentee, the great unknown, the great guilty party: the so-called but, in reality, non-existent common foreign policy has been described as all of those things at one time or another, and not without justification.
After the historic events of 1989 it should have become the dominant concern of our Union, but still, today, on the eve of the revision of the Treaty, it remains a distant dream - albeit an undesirable one for some people here.
Sad experience, starting with the Gulf crisis and followed by the break-up of Yugoslavia, the Bosnia-Herzegovina drama and the tragedies in Africa - leaving aside the confusion with regard to Turkey - should have taught us that the growing trend in European foreign policy is more towards renationalization than communautization.
The biggest trading power on earth, as our Union affects to call itself, seems to confirm the views of those who mockingly describe it as a voiceless diplomat, a blind general and a lame soldier.
Certainly, there is no lack of pious aspiration about the CFSP in the Maastricht Treaty, and nor will there be any lack of it soon in the Amsterdam Treaty.
What is really lacking though is the unanimous political will to forge an effective foreign policy.
Various technical solutions are being searched for.
There is, in fact, a desire, within the diffuse economic perception that grips us, to substitute money for our political and strategic absence.
As Mr Van den Broek said perceptively yesterday, in all of the trouble spots, from Sarajevo to Palestine, the Europeans are doing the paying and the others are doing the action.
If we want find the root cause of this inability we have to look back to the thing that in recent years we have been sedulously keeping quiet about: the abandonment of the federal idea.
Madam President, I too wish to congratulate Mr Spencer on his report.
I agree with him that progress on the common foreign and security policy has been disappointing.
It is true that the EU has been unable to implement human rights and democracy clauses in its agreements.
The Commission has, as Mr Spencer outlined, failed to make proposals as it could do under Article J.8.
I particularly welcome his reference to the analysis unit, which would assist the EU in drawing up a more effective common foreign and security policy and help with conflict prevention.
It is true that we need a closer relationship between the EU and the WEU.
However, like Mrs Theorin, I disagree with paragraphs 15 and 19, on the integration of the WEU in the EU and more majority voting in the common foreign and security policy.
As Mr Lambrias said, the common foreign and security policy has clearly failed in certain areas, such as former Yugoslavia, Albania and other areas of the world.
Finally, I would like to congratulate Mr Spencer for including a reference to antipersonnel mines, and to ensure that we all work together to see that they are eliminated from the face of the earth, because they cause so much damage and hurt to people across the world.
Madam President, whatever the result of the Intergovernmental Conference may be, one thing is certain: applause for that conference will be muted. However important it may be to give our citizens the feeling that they live in an area of freedom and internal security, which includes social security and the right to work, external security is a necessity too.
Particularly for countries like Austria, which are frontier states of the EU, it is important that the European Union should carry weight in its foreign and security policy and so become a stabilizing factor in Europe.
So far we have seen mainly the shortcomings of the CFSP, in Bosnia and also in Albania and the Middle East.
The Spencer report makes this painfully clear.
Let us not deceive ourselves: without the commitment of the USA in these crisis areas, nothing could be done.
They show up the shortcomings of the European Union.
This makes it all the more important to us that, with regard to the CFSP as elsewhere, majority decisions should make it easier for the European Union to act. The fact that the EU accepts the Petersberg undertakings, peace-keeping and peace-making missions in other words, is positive.
The fact that there is still no date for the integration of the WEU, so that the military backbone is lacking, is negative.
A clear CFSP line would also facilitate the national debate in neutral States such as Austria. While uncertainties remain regarding the CFSP, it is an easy way out to take refuge in neutrality, which has lost its meaning as a result of the changed political scenario in Europe and should be replaced by solidarity in favour of a common security policy.
Madam President, it is customary on these occasions to congratulate the rapporteur.
What may be less customary is that in congratulating Mr Spencer I actually mean it, because previous chairmen of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy have produced the annual report on a very absolutist basis: they have talked about the world they would like to see rather than the world that exists.
Mr Spencer's report, however, is practical and concrete, and that is precisely the basis on which we should address this subject.
After all we have a common foreign and security policy not because we want some sort of status symbol to prove to the rest of the world we have grown up as an organization, but because we believe that our economic and political strength can, through CFSP, produce benefits not only to EU citizens but to citizens of the broader Europe and, indeed, of the world, and it is on providing those positive benefits that we have to be judged.
At the moment the CFSP is very piecemeal: it owes more to the inspiration of Heath Robinson than to the modern, computer-driven technological age.
What we need is a clearer definition of what we want!
What is a common foreign policy and what is it trying to achieve? We have no judgement of what we define as a common difficulty, a common challenge, and we have no idea of a common approach.
How could anybody decide on a strategy for Albania when the Council of Ministers had 15 different briefing documents? You cannot even begin to attack the problem.
While national governments are still briefing their civil servants, we cannot have a common foreign security policy.
That is why we need an analysis unit, which I hope we will see in Amsterdam.
It is also why we need more coherence in funding the CFSP.
Passing the hat round and trying to move things from pillar to post is not the model way of doing things.
I hope that the interinstitutional agreement on the funding of the CFSP is cemented into the Amsterdam Treaty, and not before time!
We need a decision-making structure which respects the sensitivity of national sovereignty and the sensitivity of some of these issues to our Member States but still allows us to make progress.
The idea of constructive abstention and more majority voting within commonly agreed strategies is a new way of moving forward.
The IGC will address some of these issues.
What it cannot address is the lack of political will.
The biggest disgrace of the common foreign and security policy is what happened in Mostar, and what happened to Mr Koschnick, who was our administrator in Mostar.
The Council of Ministers betrayed him because of a lack of political will.
What we have to build is a political will.
We have to improve Parliament's role in a common foreign and security policy.
Having said that, I am delighted that Mr Spencer has been critical of Parliament.
How can the Council trust us and take us seriously if we are incapable of making coherent recommendations and produce urgencies which are inaccurate and contradictory? We have to look to ourselves if we are really to take a major role in the developing foreign and security policy.
Madam President, I hope that the compliments that I shall make to the Spencer report and which will be added to those of former speakers will also be seen positively following Mr Titley's introduction.
I think, in particular, that Mr Spencer has provided in his very serious report an almost perfect analysis of the lacunae in the European Union's foreign policy and he has analyzed the possible improvements to it.
In this sense and following this morning's debate on the intergovernmental conference, it might be said that there is a consensus emerging on possible improvements to the tools of the common foreign policy.
On this score, we are also very anxiously awaiting, along with this institution, the outcome of the Amsterdam Summit and we will then see to what extent the Treaty really has given us instruments and improvements to procedures and structures which might possibly enable us to reach a truly more effective and more dynamic common security and foreign policy, as has been demanded by so many speakers this afternoon.
Without wishing to undermine the just criticism of the common foreign policy, I should also like to issue a warning against the possible tendency to attribute, in some way or another, all of the international conflicts currently raging and all of the suffering still present in the world to the European Union's inaction or the lack of means enabling us to bring them to an end within a reasonable time.
Unfortunately, there are still many examples of big countries, world powers still with considerable diplomatic, military and economic capacities, but unable to find an immediate solution to any conflict, be it the Middle East conflict or the wars raging in Central Africa.
The European Union's foreign policy presents, happily I would say, a number of positive elements too: we are the world's number one donor, Europe supports countries and people who are suffering throughout the world and we are also ready to explain to our publics that it is necessary to pursue the huge international effort in order to reestablish and reconstruct former Yugoslavia, a situation which we did not sufficiently react to at the time, in terms of political and diplomatic activity; but, nevertheless, we are now genuinely trying to consolidate the Dayton Peace Agreement.
As for the global strategic environment, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, the Mediterranean and the Middle East, we have reviewed our individual relations with each of these countries and strengthened our links with them.
The same goes for a country which arouses so much controversy in the European Parliament, namely Turkey, with which we concluded a customs union, two years ago, and with which we are still trying to strengthen links; it needs to take clear and practical measures rather than condemning to 21 years in prison a political activist who did nothing more than lower a flag.
In brief, there are also positive comments to make about the European Union's foreign policy.
However, I should like to come back to the beginning and the nerve centre of the Spencer report - namely - as Mr Titley also just emphasized - that regardless of the structures of the procedures to be adopted shortly in Amsterdam, they can never replace the genuine political will to defend common interests at Community level.
On this score, we obviously are lagging behind.
Finally, Madam President, I should like to emit a cry of distress.
I think that it would be beneficial if all our Member States conscientiously re-read the existing Union Treaties in terms of a common foreign and security policy and that they echoed the words of the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, namely pacta sunt servanda . They should remember that, in 1991, in Maastricht, all of them declared that they should not only aspire to a common foreign policy but also to a security policy and, in the end, a common defence policy and all of the necessary tools for that purpose; their remarks made on this subject on strengthening WEU and the acquisition of tools which might also be used or exert pressure when diplomacy looks like failing - that all of subjects - also ought to retain our attention.
Madam President, I should like to conclude by expressing once again my considerable regard for Mr Spencer and my hope to see, in the coming years, numerous debates on the European Union's common security and foreign policy in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, as well as in the plenary session of the European Parliament.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
EP-national parliaments relations
The next item is the report (A4-0179/97) by Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on relations between the European Parliament and national parliaments.
Since the Maastricht Treaty, the European Union has made genuine progress in political terms.
The ratification procedures which followed then showed the strength of the call for a duty to justify.
This appeal has never been denied and the current changes to the Treaty will only enforce it.
Given their status as elected representatives of the Union's peoples, the national parliaments and the European Parliament play a key role in the exercise of democratic control over activities, in particular the legislative activities, of the European Union.
The quality of the relationship between the European Parliament and national parliaments is therefore of crucial interest for the democratic nature of the European Union.
If they oppose each other democracy will suffer.
If they recognize that they have a common mission, democracy will be strengthened.
That, ladies and gentlemen, was the thought that I have had throughout the year since I was appointed as Rapporteur on relations between our Parliament and the national parliaments.
Convincing you was not that difficult.
On the other hand, obtaining the approval of the national parliaments was and still is harder.
As the Finnish parliament said, our relationship is both one of competition and complementarity.
As for the latter aspect, the European Parliament monitors the action of the Commission and the Council while the national parliaments monitor their national governments, especially when they are acting at EU level.
That seems to be a matter of course but it is far from being the case since numerous EU legislative documents and nearly half the budget are passed without sufficient parliamentary controls, without mentioning the second and third pillars over which parliamentary - and, therefore, democratic - controls are virtually impossible, still today.
Consequently, my resolution contains fundamental demands, in the run up to the closure of the IGC - firstly: integration into the Treaty of openness and transparency as a general principle, valid for all of the European Union's institutions.
This simple fact, ladies and gentlemen, should lessen public mistrust and should even help to do away with it altogether.
Secondly: strengthening the European Parliament's powers and introducing codecision into all Council decisions taken by a qualified majority.
Thirdly: an obligation under the Treaty to indicate all pre-legislative and legislative texts in due time to the national parliaments so that they have at least four weeks to express their opinion before the Council takes its decision.
Fourthly: strengthening cooperation between the Union's parliaments by means of a better definition of the COSAC, by means of communicating in due time the Commission's legislative programme to the national parliaments, allocating reciprocal facilities and organizing multilateral electronic communications.
The IGC's current proposals respond partly to this demand.
I hope that, in the run up to the Summit, these proposals will not be watered down but they will actually be strengthened.
I am also aware of the fact, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that my report and resolution are only one cog in a relationship between our Parliament and the national parliaments, because they will still have some difficulties.
That is why I hope that they will not be neglected but special attention will be paid to them.
To conclude, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to use my remaining 30 seconds to thank everyone who has helped me in drafting this report because, of course, I did not act alone.
I am very happy to have been able to count on the support of staff working for the Institutional Committee, my own assistants and a large number of colleagues.
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I congratulate the rapporteur.
We have had excellent collaboration in committee, and the Socialist Group will be supporting her motion for a resolution when it comes to the vote.
The role of national parliaments and of the European Parliament are, and must be, complementary.
Attempts by Eurosceptics and assorted nationalists on the extreme right to set the national parliaments and the European Parliament against each other must be resisted.
The role is complementary because national parliaments have a role in their national capitals in controlling, scrutinizing and monitoring the activities of the ministers who represent their country at Council meetings in Brussels.
They all have different ways of doing it which they have developed in accordance with their own constitutional traditions.
I have no doubt that some of these ways could be improved.
That is up to them.
But however good it is - be it the Scandinavian model whereby the minister appears before the relevant parliamentary committee on his or her way to the airport when going to a Council meeting and on his or her way back from the airport when returning from a Council meeting, a very intense form of scrutiny - or one of the other methods which have been developed, the fact remains that, however good that national parliamentary scrutiny is, it remains separate scrutiny by fifteen different national parliaments, each over one member of the Council.
That is where the role of the European Parliament comes in.
Somebody has to deal with the Council as a collective body, as an institution that is taking decisions at European level as a European institution.
And that is the importance of the co-decision procedure - to have a parliamentary body directly elected at European level to interact with the Council.
The two roles are therefore complementary, and care should be taken in the Treaty to distinguish these two roles.
We can support the compromises that seem to be emerging in the IGC to take measures that would facilitate the national control that national parliaments must exercise through better time limits and better circulation of documents giving them the time to get stuck into issues.
More important than that in the IGC is a related matter, that of extending qualified majority voting.
If you have unanimity in an enlarged Union of 20 or so Member States, there will be no decisions for anybody to scrutinize and control.
There will be nothing for national parliaments nor for the European Parliament to deal with because there will be paralysis.
Unless we extend qualified majority voting in the new Treaty throughout the whole realm of Community legislation at the very least, then there will be no point in discussing the best ways to carry out national or European parliamentary scrutiny.
That issue must be tackled by this IGC.
Madam President, I think that the success of Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck's report, approved by a large majority in committee, lies in its appropriate focus. Why?
Because it sets out from the premise that the European Parliament and national parliaments both represent European citizens and, as Mr Corbett said, we must not fight in vain, we have to head in the same direction in exerting controls and conducting legislative activity.
This report, which mentions the support of national parliaments - as the COSAC also recognized at its Dublin meeting - for extending European Parliament codecision to legislative acts, heads in the right direction.
What can we do to head in that right direction? I think that this report contains practical proposals that improve the political control that national parliaments exercise over Community legislation in the scope of their own competence, that of the national parliaments, and the control that governments are subjected to, which as we know has its place in the Council of Ministers.
The rapporteur also makes practical proposals on how the controls exercised by the European Parliament could be improved and finally on cooperation between the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
The rapporteur recognizes in her report, Madam President, that the proposals are not spectacular.
They are not but they are governed by common sense, head in the right direction and are in keeping with what the national parliaments, with the representations of the European Parliament, agreed on in the COSAC - and here I wish to pay tribute to VicePresidents Fontaine and Imbeni.
They head in the right direction I referred to earlier, in other words.
I also wish to congratulate the rapporteur on her splendid work, her practical proposals in which the wishes of the national parliaments are reflected, as they were expressed at the hearing held in Brussels a few weeks ago.
With texts like this one, which are not spectacular, we make real progress, set by step, towards European construction.
Madam President, the proposal we are analyzing today is certainly not intended to transfer responsibilities or powers from the national parliaments to the European Parliament, far from it!
Its logic is to develop better links and synergy between the two assemblies, with one specific objective: improving representation of the citizens, so that as well as having a national identity, they feel more European.
Inevitably decisions will increasingly be taken in Strasbourg and Brussels, but complementary and parallel to decisions taken in the individual Member States.
We want to associate the two institutions, Community and national, in evaluation, analysis, objectives and especially urgent situations.
Within this framework the regions should take on basic responsibilities for their territories, and there should be better organization of their own institution, the Committee of the Regions.
The European Parliament is ready to work directly with the national parliaments.
We hope this is mutual.
For this to happen in real time, it would be very useful to have two-way electronic transmission between the European Parliament and the national parliaments - as the rapporteur proposes in her report, and we congratulate her - for each political group and each individual Member of Parliament, together with the respective committees.
We are working together to simplify legislative procedures, we are working together on common urgent intervention, we are working together, above all, to help the citizens understand why the two major institutions that represent them exist and how they function.
Madam President, I have just tabled an amendment taking up the main suggestion that I worded in a report dealing with the same issue and addressed to the Luxembourg Prime Minister, i.e. granting a right of appeal to national parliaments for the purpose of annulling Community acts for ultra vires or other serious reasons, according to the provisions of Article 173(2) of the Treaty.
It must be noted that the national parliaments are very much excluded from European legislative procedures, including in areas within their remits originating in constituent powers, which sometimes causes serious problems in an atmosphere of defiance against the cause of European integration prevailing in most Member States.
My intention is therefore to propose what in German is called 'ein Vorschlag zur Güte ' , an idea that can cut corners, to counter the feeling of frustration and powerlessness that national parliamentarians often feel towards European construction.
To the extent that we are in a system of delegation of powers, this is only a rightful reversal whereby those who delegate also have the means of checking whether or not those powers entrusted to Community bodies are effectively used properly and in the framework of the delegations accorded.
It is therefore essentially to avoid the undesirable inflation of a blank cheque that I am proposing that the national parliaments should become parties to the European Union's jurisdictional system, alongside national governments and the Union's institutions.
The main quality of the Neyts report is the interest that it takes in the main function of national parliaments in the European Union.
As parliamentarians we should acknowledge that the citizens are, above all, attached to their national parliaments because they are close to them and have a historic and traditional role to play in their countries.
That is why, if we want to strengthen democracy within the Union, we must as a priority seek to enhance the role of national parliaments in the European system.
Although strengthening national parliamentary controls over European legislation is up to the parliaments themselves, a certain number of measures could be taken at European level in order to increase their involvement.
For that purpose, the Neyts report contains a large number of precious ideas.
We welcome the fact that proposals such as improving the information of national parliaments in terms of European matters should be taken up in the protocol on the role of national parliaments presented by the Dutch Presidency, with a view to the Amsterdam Summit.
We also note that the report does not sufficiently take into account the lack of democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament.
Too much is expected of the strengthening of the EP's powers.
Although the European Parliament is elected directly by the citizens, increasing the role of the European Parliament does not narrow the gap separating the Union from the ordinary people.
Ordinary people are hard put to identify with a parliament in which national political pluralism has difficulties in breaking through and where linguistic barriers prevent a genuine political debate from taking place.
Consequently, an effective democratic representation of a genuine diversity of citizens, languages and cultures in the European Union in Brussels and Strasbourg will remain problematic by definition.
As a result, the European Union's political agenda should limit itself to tasks with obvious added value in terms of the national approach.
That will be the best way of helping to bring ordinary people closer to European policy and filling in the democratic deficit.
Madam President, the rapporteur, our honourable colleague Mrs Neyts, whom I warmly congratulate from the other side of the barrier on her report which I disagree with, is wrong according to me when she states that the democratic deficit can notably be combatted by granting this institution, the European Parliament, greater powers.
I think that the European diversity of peoples, languages, cultures and political systems is so great - and I think that this diversity is a wealth that should be defended - that increasing this institution's powers or that of any other federal institution would only contribute more to the grey areas.
I note, for example, in my country, Flanders, that all the political parties in the Flemish parliament are opposed to introducing the right of vote to all Europeans.
The protest of the whole people is not taken into account or even respected in the European Parliament.
That is a very good example of the democratic deficit in my view.
That is why I recommend in particular maintaining all Member States' right to veto in the hope that my country, Flanders, can as quickly as possible become a Member State of the European Union in its own right.
Madam President, there is, we know, a kind of ill-feeling between the national parliaments and the European Parliament.
The former complain that they have been relegated to the rank of chambers for rubber-stamping decisions taken elsewhere, including the European Parliament.
The latter wants to preserve and even increase its democratic powers, something often taken badly by the national parliaments, which are afraid of losing even more of their own powers.
Faced with that ill-feeling, I think that the Neyts report is an excellent clarification of this issue and shows that the European Parliament and the national parliaments have the same fight to fight: that of democratizing Europe.
This report shows above all that instead of rivalry, we should talk of complementarity. The national parliaments have an enormous wasteland to cultivate.
It includes all of the Council's legislative activity, that of the national governments and the whole area of intergovernmental cooperation.
Having sat in my national parliament before becoming an MEP, I can testify to the difficulty faced by national parliaments in committing themselves to European politics.
Apart from the small number of MPs very much committed to European politics, most national MPs are barely interested in it, not for lack of political will, but for a whole set of practical reasons.
Often, the national parliaments have neither the time nor the means to follow the development of European issues.
Many things are complicated, bureaucratic, in Europe, and the simplification of the Treaty, we can predict, is not going to be done straight away.
Transparency has never been the key word of European construction.
All that could facilitate the work of national parliaments should be done, but I should like to put people on their guard against a recent trend in certain countries, in certain national parliaments, which consists in wanting to create a new institution out of the national parliaments.
Adding to the number of assemblies has always been a democratic retreat rather than an advance, as each assembly tends to develop its own lease of life and wants to assert itself to the detriment of the others.
Let us find ways of understanding each other, cooperating, respecting each other's competences, facilitating our respective work.
Once again, Mrs Neyts' excellent report is a major contribution to that.
Mr President, I cannot help getting the impression, when I travel around, that there are two Europes.
There is a Europe of the institutions, i.e. the Commission, the Council of Ministers and Parliament, on the one hand; on the other hand, there is the Europe of the people.
I feel that here too, on the eve of the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference in the Netherlands.
Thus the problem of understanding the interests of the general public is still there.
Also, what is often called Eurospeak, now as ever, acts as a barrier to ordinary people.
The language of the EU hardly catches the imagination, and it is full of acronyms of all kinds.
One sometimes gets the impression that the institutions are in some spaceship far above the earth, communicating with one another in a special coded language.
We can pick it up here on earth, but cannot understand what it is about.
It is full of terms like subsidiarity, variable geometry, comitology and the like.
The result is that people find it uninteresting and sometimes downright annoying. That is the reaction in news offices wherever you go.
Precisely in such a context it is important to highlight the role of the national parliaments: quite simply, they need to discover Europe.
The national parliaments are after all closer to the people than the European Parliament, so the obvious thing is to use the national parliaments to make the whole system more relevant to the people.
As has been so forcefully pointed out here today, it is necessary.
And I say all of this in the recognition that what we regard as national home affairs policy has in crucial respects also become European home affairs policy. Precisely as an extension to this recognition, it is important to involve the national parliaments in the European context, so that they do not just hover out there like satellite stations.
Hence my support for this report, which is a good and practical contribution to strengthening the role of the national parliaments, also in relation to the European Parliament.
Mr President, of a report intended to be part of the grandiose work of European construction, we expected a hymn to joy.
Instead we have a pop song for school girls, with a fashionable refrain, repeated fifteen times over, about the democratic deficit!
The old parties have just discovered the summer hit for 1997, just as last year they did the same in Belgium, after digging up the bodies of four little girls - they discovered the summer hit for 1996, the breakdown of Justice and its institutions.
Dear liberal colleague, dear compatriot, you know that it is pathetic to speak about the democratic deficit these days.
When, for example, most European parliamentarians and federal parliamentarians in Belgium tolerate the fact that, in our country, the elections, both national and European, are systematically fixed by taxpayers' money which all parties receive, apart from mine, the Front national, by the media in Belgium where the press is free but subsidized, by the courts which ban the Front national list for the Senate for no good reason - and tomorrow, why not, the list for the European Parliament - and by the authorities which regularly throw my party's militants into prison just because they want to brush aside corrupt politicians and finally give people a say in things.
I might still vote for the Neyts report, however, because it is even more beautiful than it is useless.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my ceterum censio has nothing to do with the destruction of Carthage.
It is, rather, directed against the lack of transparency in the Union, its lack of closeness to the citizen and the existing democratic deficit.
I should therefore like to offer my sincere congratulations to the rapporteur.
Even though I cannot share her opinion on everything, I have admired her work on this report in committee - her circumspection, her sharp eye for essentials and, not least, her stamina.
In my opinion, acceptance of the European idea - and, of course, opinions may differ as to what form that idea should take - will be crucially dependent on overcoming the problems listed in the report.
Only an increase in democratic control, and especially a working involvement of the national parliaments, can ensure that the European idea is put across to the citizens of the various Member States.
But the absence of these proposed improvements will mean a further increase in the existing euroscepticism, even without any contribution from those right-wingers mentioned - perhaps by force of habit - by Mr Corbett.
Mr President, the European Commission believes, and has already stated on many occasions, that the national parliaments must play a major role in the process of democratization, in particular of the European Community.
That is why the Neyts report is of capital interest.
The role of national parliaments is important primarily because they have to ratify any changes made to the Treaty and they also have to approve the main decisions taken by the Council.
Secondly, the national parliaments can help to reduce the democratic deficit by exercising democratic controls over their own governments.
That is important in areas where the decision-making process is still essentially an intergovernmental matter, such as the common foreign and security policy, as well as justice and internal affairs where, like the European Commission, I feel that the European Parliament's role is still too limited.
Well-informed national parliaments can play a major and useful role in the current decisive debate on European integration.
We cannot over-emphasize the importance of involving national parliaments more closely and especially not excluding them, and thereby turning them into precious and highly thought-of allies in terms of this process.
That does not mean to say that we should further complicate the decision-making process nor slow it down by creating new institutions and structures.
For all of these reasons, I go along with the political message contained in the Neyts report which stems from discussions according to which a certain number of measures have to be taken at the intergovernmental conference and elsewhere in order to strengthen the role of the parliaments of Member States of the European Union and to optimize their collective influence, while respecting the single institutional framework, without creating new formal structures nor undermining the constitutional provisions or parliamentary traditions of each nation.
I fully approve this point of view.
By way of conclusion, please allow me to add a few words on the intergovernmental conference.
It seems that the role of the national parliaments is to be extended by means of a protocol on two major aspects.
First of all, national parliaments must be better informed of the Union's activities by granting - as Mrs Neyts has already emphasized - a four-week period for them to examine the Commission's White and Green Papers as well as legislative proposals.
The second aspect concerns the consultative role of COSAC which has already been mentioned.
This structure must be strengthened, in particular in terms of subsidiarity, justice and internal affairs.
We think that the measures aimed at strengthening the controls exercised by national parliaments should remain principally the responsibility of those parliaments and that they can help to fulfil their role within the European Union with greater effectiveness.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner Van den Broek.
The debate is closed.
Thte vote will take place at noon tomorrow.
Legal and judicial area to protect EU financial interests
The next item on the agenda is the debate on the oral questions tabled by Mrs Theato on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control and by Mr Bontempi on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs to the Council (B4-0168/97) and to the Commission (B4-0169/97) on the establishment of a European legal and judicial area to protect the European Union's financial interests against international crime.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, these two oral questions follow on from the knowledge obtained during the hearing in April on the legal protection of the EU budget and therefore of its tax revenue.
At the same time, they constitute an urgent appeal to the Intergovernmental Conference to adopt effective measures to combat the problem of fraud.
That hearing produced conflicting information.
First, there are already a number of instruments to deal with fraud, corruption and international organized crime.
Examples include the convention for the protection of the Community's financial interests, with its first protocol on the corruption of EU officials and second protocol on money laundering.
Other proposals are on the table, such as the high-level expert group on international organized crime and the planned joint action by the Commission against organized crime and corruption in general.
I would remind the House of the reports by the Member States on national legislation to combat fraud, and also of the notable study of a corpus juris on criminal law and criminal law procedures, which was produced at Parliament's initiative.
This makes it apparent that the ideal way of providing effective protection for the EU's financial resources would be a kind of European public prosecutor who could shift the obstacles to co-operation between the national legal institutions without violating the sovereignty of the States concerned.
All these legal texts, proposals and studies show how sensitive the public is to the abuse of Community funds and to international fraud.
But if we turn to reality, we find it both disappointing and contradictory.
Although we have achieved a degree of protection in administrative law, through the Regulation on Administrative Penalties and on-site Inspections, we are lagging far behind in terms of criminal law.
The convention I mentioned earlier, signed as long ago as 1995, and the two associated protocols have still not yet been ratified.
Indeed, I fear that it is becoming more and more improbable that they ever will be ratified by all Member States.
So these texts remain a dead letter.
But even if all the Member States were to ratify them, that would not automatically achieve balanced protection of the EU's financial interests.
The fact is that some Member States have let it be known that their legislation is already harmonized with the convention. That this is not the case is apparent from their own national reports.
But even assuming that the convention were to be properly implemented, harmonization would still turn out to have feet of clay, because a number of aspects are not covered - such as the conciliation procedure, the limitation period, and the flow of information from administration to jurisdiction.
Clearly, we cannot sit back and wait for the possible ratification of what is in any case weak legislation.
Action must be taken, over and above the present framework. We therefore make the following demands.
First, the Member States must accept their responsibility and ratify the convention and the two protocols by next year; secondly, if this ratification does not take place, the Commission should be called upon to propose more effective action.
Thirdly, the Intergovernmental Conference should, as previously agreed in Dublin, reinforce Article 209a of the EC Treaty to give Parliament the right of codecision.
Fourthly, the text of the corpus juris should enable the Commission to phase in proposals on criminal law and the law of criminal procedure, having due regard to aspects of constitutional law in the Member States.
In conclusion, I appeal to the Commission and to the Member States, as a matter of urgency, to do everything possible under the existing regulations to combat fraud, so that the public -and we in this House - are not constantly being horrified by subsidy scandals, real or imagined.
Madam Minister, Madam Commissioner, we tabled two questions to prompt this debate, which is really intended to raise another strong warning from the European Parliament about the fight against organized crime, which everyone proclaims to be a priority, yet in practice little is done and what is done is not very effective.
I think the reasons for this glaring contradiction between what is said and what is done are now clear.
To put it briefly, we are in the presence of an international criminal situation, and the legislative, administrative and institutional framework designed to contain it has become generally obsolete.
To counter this crime wave we find a static and alarming situation: fifteen national legal systems which are heterogeneous in substance and procedure, and between which there is no effective and rapid communication.
And all the vast array of treaties and administrative and legal cooperation conventions that have been signed is not worth much if these instruments frequently remain the dead letters denounced by Mrs Theato.
So on one side there is speed and incisiveness - unfortunately on the side of the criminals - and on the other there is delay, discontinuity and inefficiency.
So, especially after the hearing we have held, and after the strong warning that has reached us from the seven European judges who launched an appeal from Geneva just a year ago, it is clear that, given these difficulties and this powerlessness, we need to consider new instruments for a European legal area, new instruments for the European taxpayer where fraud is involved, but for the European citizen full stop in terms of the way this organized crime affects their safety.
We have received suggestions and pointers.
I think some of these absolutely must be kept in mind and we must seriously think about converting them into reality, into concrete provisions. I refer to lifting banking secrecy when international assistance is requested, introducing rules which would allow a European judge to talk directly to his colleagues, without going through tortuous, lengthy and wearisome procedures, and the importance of new common types of offence, especially where economic crime is concerned.
In truth we have adopted plenty of instruments in recent times.
I want to mention, over and above financial interests, that something interesting has happened: a convention on corruption has been approved, there is the Commission's communication on anti-corruption policy in general, the Council is making a major drive against organized crime, and, amongst other things, a convention on mutual legal assistance is also being discussed.
We do not undervalue either the content of the political importance of these acts, but - I want to stress this - without a revolution, cultural as well, which goes beyond traditional instruments of international law and also beyond the historical nationalistic inertia which characterizes the legal systems, it will be very difficult for the measures, however good, to produce satisfactory results.
The case of the conventions is a disturbing warning: we have so many, but there they are, they lie there, they await ratification, they are not operational.
So I think the moment has come, with these questions, with this debate, but above all faced with the appointments which await us - the ratification of the conventions, but most of all the Intergovernmental Conference and then the opportunity offered us by the corpus iuris - for a great qualitative leap. It is time to move from declarations, from statements, to action.
Legality and protection, both of the taxpayer and the citizen as such, themselves indicate the path we must follow.
There are four courses of action, which are clearly contained in the motion for a resolution.
The first is reform of the third pillar: it is not very democratic and it is not very effective either. We expect important results from Amsterdam on this, although the text we have seen is certainly far from satisfactory.
The second is an extraordinary initiative that this Parliament is ready to take to obtain ratification of the outstanding conventions.
The third is experimental, at least as regards the financial interests of the Community: drafting common legislation on law and criminal procedure contained in the corpus iuris . Here too it should be stressed that this must operate with every democratic guarantee, the guarantee of parity for the prosecution and the accused, but certainly something must be done in the direction of common legislation.
The fourth is giving the UCLAF the functions of coordination and technical support to the national legal authorities.
These are the four courses of action that the European Parliament is indicating.
We are not a Parliament which just complains, we are also a Parliament which believes it has practical proposals to make on these issues.
Madam Minister, Madam Commissioner, please give serious consideration to the results of this debate and vote.
Debates have been held in the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on setting up a legal area which would protect the financial interests of the European Union against international crime.
Members of the European Parliament, Mrs Theato and Mr Bontempi, have asked questions on this subject.
You are emphasizing - rightfully - to what extent we need to combat fraud within the Union.
I support your position.
This fraud costs millions of ECU every year and it is the Member States and Union citizens who pay.
The Council and European Parliament support each other in the fight against fraud and crime.
The Council therefore thinks it is important to ensure a permanent exchange of ideas between the Council and the European Parliament.
Such an approach would be stimulating for both institutions.
During the Dutch Presidency, this exchange of views has been fruitful.
I have had the privilege of discussing on several occasions with the responsible committees in the European Parliament the subject of progress made in negotiations within the third pillar, and also on the ground, in the fight against fraud.
On this score, I have fortunately noticed that the European Parliament also attaches considerable importance to this information and exchange of views.
I am, therefore, happy to be able to discuss this issue with you here today.
I shall also be willing to answer the questions put by Mrs Theato and Mr Bontempi.
In my reply, I shall deal with the decisions taken under the Dutch Presidency and the Council in the field of fighting organized crime in general.
Organized crime really is a growing threat to our societies.
It is becoming harder and harder to maintain the values that we all find so important.
That is being blocked by the fact that crime - as we all know - is increasingly transgressing the limits of the Member States' jurisdiction.
Criminals are helped by new technologies.
The free movement of persons, services and goods means that Member States need to work out better methods to combat growing transfrontier crimes.
However, we all have the impression, you and I, that we are going backwards.
If we want to turn Europe into an area of freedom, security and justice, we must all do our best to improve prevention and fighting organized crime.
The Council and the European Parliament must throw themselves behind that aim.
It is also with this in view that an action plan has been worked out at the request of the European Council under the Dutch Presidency to take a European approach to fighting organized crime.
This action plan will be subjected to the approval of the European Council in Amsterdam.
On 28 April last, the Justice and Internal Affairs Council gave its opinion on this plan at an extraordinary sitting.
This debate led to unanimous support for the content of this plan by the European Union Ministers responsible for justice and internal affairs.
At this Council meeting, I told my colleagues of the importance of proper parliamentary and judicial controls when measures aimed at combating organized crime are being worked out.
I have conveyed to you the text of the action plan and held a fruitful discussion with the Committee on Civic Liberties and Internal Affairs - as you recall - on the measures proposed in this action plan.
It is now for the Council to urge action on working out particular points in consultation with the European Parliament.
As you know, the action plan contains a large number of measures which should jointly help us to fight organized crime in Europe effectively.
It goes without saying that this European approach is necessary.
You have insisted here on a rapid implementation of Europol and I go along with that.
I am not going to go into detail of the content of the action plan.
You all know it sufficiently well, I think.
However, I should like once again to emphasize the importance of this plan.
It is a framework in which we should tackle fraud in terms of the European Union's financial resources and as such I should emphasize the foundations of the European legal area within which the Member States can cooperate in the best possible way, within the framework of their common approach to dealing with organized crime.
The Member States ought, of course, to be assisted in this matter by an effective Europol.
In my opinion, this is the framework and corresponding measures referred to by those two speakers.
I should also add that they obviously know their limits, given the current structure of the third pillar.
That also means that the Council and the European Parliament will quite frequently be discussing isolated measures worked out by the Council and I hope that there will be a constructive and lasting cooperation between the Council and the European Parliament.
I should like to add another word about the declarations made by Mrs Theato and Mr Bontempi on implementing these measures, something I have already said on several occasions: they are, of course, fine texts but what we really have to do now is implement them.
The Treaties must be ratified and the measures implemented.
The States must therefore use these instruments.
The questions put to the Council refer specifically to the fight against fraud in terms of Community funds.
For many years now the Council has been taking a great interest in the creation of effective tools.
This interest is reflected in particular in the multiannual work programme on cooperation in the field of justice and internal affairs.
In other words, the Council really is taking this seriously.
It also emerges from the fact that the most binding instrument in the framework of the current structure of the Treaty on the European Union is the conclusion of Treaties.
It is a great advantage for the judicial practice and relevant services of the Member States.
The precise definition of mutual obligations can only strengthen the effectiveness of that cooperation.
However, there is a major disadvantage which has been highlighted by the members who put these questions.
I repeat it here: entry into force depends on the state of completion of national ratification procedures.
Of course, it is a fact that these constitutional procedures are the very basis of our parliamentary democracies.
That is a fact, but let us make it quite clear, you really must act quickly.
On this score, the Member States are consequently urged to speed up the ratification of the Treaty on the protection of the Community's financial interests by means of the first protocol.
The Council has answered this expectation by going along in full with the recommendations which emerged from this action plan.
It is stipulated in practical terms that these instruments must come into force by mid-1998 at the latest.
The second protocol to the Treaty was examined at the meeting of the Justice and Internal Affairs Council of 26 and 27 May.
We reached a political agreement on all the questions which were still outstanding.
The second protocol I refer to contains regulations on the liability of corporations, criminal or administrative sanctions for corruption or fraud, sanctions applied to money laundering, the seizure and confiscation of advantages illegally obtained by means of fraud corruption and also encouraging cooperation between the Commission and the Council in this field of action.
I must emphasize the importance of the liability of corporations, a novelty in European Union regulations.
Consequently, this text is now ready for submission for signature and I hope that this signature will take place under the auspices of the Dutch Presidency.
The judicial area cannot be achieved by treaties alone.
Both speakers also emphasized that.
The Council shares this vision which emerges from the action plan.
I would not be fully performing my informative task unless I told you of the other achievements of the Netherlands Presidency.
Staff of the European Community and Member States of the European Union have signed an agreement to fight corruption. They did so at the meeting of the Justice and Internal Affairs Council.
This instrument is also a major weapon in the fight against fraud and corruption.
Activities on the draft agreement on mutual judicial assistance in criminal affairs - another important matter - have not yet been completed but we have made substantial progress on this.
Various detailed reports have also been drafted, for example on the Treaty on the protection of the Community's financial interests and the agreement on extradition, which should in any case make it possible to speed up ratification procedures.
All the instruments I have just referred to are, together with the framework offered by the action plan, the best means of achieving an efficient protection of the Union's financial interests.
In this respect, measures aimed at fighting fraud and corruption are being complemented by other measures to fight organized crime.
There is still a lot of work to be done but this does not seem to be close to changing. In my opinion, the European Parliament is going to play a lasting role in these developments.
Mr President, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, a great deal of work has been undertaken in recent years to improve the protection of European Union financial interests.
The fact that the fight against fraud in the EU is now considered a clear high priority task demonstrates that this work has yielded results.
There is no common legal framework in Europe which regulates all matters involving fraud.
This, in itself, is only natural, of course.
In many cases we are talking about areas where previously there has not been any particular form of co-operation at all.
I agree with those who say that a lot can be done to improve co-operation between the existing legal systems but I am also convinced that we must be open to change where this is required.
The agreements which have been concluded in recent years must be viewed as a big step forward in this area.
I refer particularly to the Convention on the Protection of Community Financial Interests.
A great deal of effort was required to reach agreement on this issue.
I am as concerned as Mrs Theato and Mr Bontempi about the fact that this Convention has still not been ratified.
After all, two years have passed since it was signed.
I can assure this Assembly that I will take every opportunity open to me to remind the Member States how important this is.
I will do this not only at Council meetings but as a general rule every time I give an interview, write an article or give an address during a visit to a Member State.
Of course it would help enormously if you, ladies and gentlemen, would also put pressure on as many people as you can in the course of your contacts with National Governments and Parliaments.
As you know the slow process of ratification is a problem in other areas as well.
So far only Great Britain and Denmark have ratified the Europol Convention and only Great Britain has ratified the Extradition Convention.
Everyone is aware that both of these instruments will have an important role to play in the future in the fight against internationally organised crime in Europe.
So it can be very difficult explaining to people why it is taking so long for these Conventions to come into force.
It is my conviction that the methods of working which we have at our disposal are not effective enough.
This is also the reasoning behind the Commission's proposal to transfer everything except police co-operation and criminal law from the Third Pillar to the First Pillar in the governmental negotiations which are currently underway.
Furthermore, co-operation on those areas which remain in the Third Pillar must be made considerably more effective.
I have also seen, just as Mrs Theato pointed out, that there is also a proposal to the Intergovernmental Conference to give Article 209a greater force.
I expect and hope, just as you do in this House, that the summit meeting in Amsterdam next week really will give us the tools we need.
I also welcome the fact that the top level group, in their action plan on internationally organised crime, have strongly and clearly reiterated how important it is that the ratification process is finalised as quickly as possible, and that a timetable for this has also been proposed.
This particularly applies to the three additional protocols to the Convention on Fraud on which there is now agreement and which concern corruption, notification and legal aid.
This latter protocol was agreed, as Minister Sorgdrager said, at the meeting of the Home and Justice Ministers on the 26-27 May.
It concerns issues such as money laundering, legal aid and the opportunity to demand accountability of legal persons.
This would mean that the Commission, for the first time, would have a role to play in criminal law proceedings.
Although this is only a limited role I still see this as a big step forward.
As far as the Commission is concerned, we will of course continue to develop those instruments required to protect the EU's financial interests in the best possible way.
We have already proposed regulations on the mutual recognition of evidence, direct co-operation between legal authorities, centralisation of the legal examination of fraud cases and the introduction of a register on fraud committed.
All of these proposals will be raised for discussion during the Autumn.
The 1996 report on fraud to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament clearly shows how difficult it is to legally examine cases of cross border fraud.
There is an obvious risk that the lack of proper co-ordination, both at a national level and between Member States will lead to such divisions that a legal trial would be impossible in practice or in any case would not give a result.
It is precisely for such cases of cross border fraud that the UCLAF should strengthen their competence in criminal law. By introducing a legal co-ordination unit, what we would call a judicial interface, consisting of a judge, a prosecutor and other legal experts, UCLAF would be able to exercise the current well managed co-ordination role and could also have a supportive and advisory function towards the Member States.
Mr President, the Commission will naturally examine the themes which are taken up in corpus juris, in other words in the study which has been carried out at Parliament's request and in which the Commission has been an active participant.
The introduction of a European public prosecution function which has the right to pursue criminal cases involving the protection of the Union's financial interests is an enticing thought.
It goes without saying that there is room for further initiatives to improve the conditions for legal aid and in the exchange of information in cases of criminal law.
Mr President, thank you for allowing me the floor again.
First, let me once again offer my sincere thanks to Commissioner Gradin - she knows how much we always value her support, and her resolute approach.
Rome was not built in a day.
But I do have one specific question for the President-in-Office, whom I also thank for her remarks.
Perhaps I did not fully understand what she said.
Mrs Sorgdrager, can you assure us that you expect the protocols, and the convention too, to be ratified by mid-1998, or were you referring to the protocols alone? That would be somewhat unbalanced, because, in principle, the convention itself is the basis and the protocols are supplementary to it.
Perhaps you can answer that question for me.
Mr President, it is a fact that we have jointly agreed in the action plan that we will make sure that treaties and protocols are ratified by mid-1998. Do you want a guarantee?
I will have to answer that it is impossible. Obviously, I have no control over the procedures in the other Member States but we have reached a common agreement and I therefore hope that everyone will stick to it.
Mr President, in terms of effective organization, the European Community's efforts to combat organized subsidy fraud is roughly equivalent to Michael Schumacher trying to win a Formula I race in a horse-drawn cart.
This is not the fault of the European Parliament.
There are knowledgeable Members of this House, notably Mrs Theato and Mr Bontempi, who have long been trying, with a wealth of knowledge and persistence, to make something happen.
So this charge has to be laid at the door of the Council.
After all, it is really endearing when Mrs Sorgdrager refers to the mutual exchange of ideas between Parliament and the Council, but I cannot help suspecting that this cosy chat will leave organized crime somewhat cold, and will certainly have no impact on its activities.
And it costs little to talk about Europol at every opportunity, especially when the convention which is supposed to provide the basis for Europol has not even been ratified yet.
The reason why our organization is so wretched and so detrimental to the reputation of the European Union is that we are talking here about system failure.
We have vested the European Community with powers of disposal over money.
But we have failed to give it the authority to defend that power of decision against abuse, by making use of the criminal law where necessary.
That situation does not exist in any Member State. There, whoever has the power of disposal over money can haul the perpetrators of fraud before the courts and have them sentenced.
The European Community cannot do that; it has to rely on the Council, on the individual Member States, to do it, and that is precisely where the system breaks down.
For the Community to take action under the criminal law supposedly violates national sovereignty.
Since the most important power of government, the power to distribute money, has already been transferred to the Community, it would only be logical if, in addition to that power, the Community were to be authorized to protect that money by recourse to the criminal law.
Because any other approach is ineffective. We know that from experience, and from the comic if appalling example that Mr Bösch has just quoted.
So unless we are prepared to ensure that the Community has criminal law jurisdiction to act in certain areas where it already has responsibilities, then we are always going to be impotent to deal with the criminals.
And that is a responsibility that no one can really take.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yet again we are dealing with the scourge of fraud.
We have set about this a hundred times over, but we have to admit that the results have been few compared with the size of the problem.
I would even say, without irony, that the problem is so great that we cannot even assess the size exactly.
What does fraud represent? 5-10 % of the European Union budget, according to estimates, or even more.
Billions of ECU, in any case, which stray every year from the European Union budget.
We know that fraud can be found everywhere, that it rots away at Community policies, especially the EAGGF but also the structural policies, the Union's internal policies, like tourism.
The European Parliament's ad hoc committee of inquiry into Community transit, which conducted a remarkable piece of work, revealed that as the European Union's single market works it has become the favourite playground for international crime.
So who is to blame, you ask? It is sometimes hard to establish responsibilities, which lie in many quarters, but one fact seems significant to me.
The European Convention on the protection of the Community's financial interests, signed in July 1995, has still to be ratified by the Member States' parliaments.
It is therefore not operational and even useless.
At best we might expect it to be ratified next year. Is that serious?
The ambitious plan for combating fraud, indefatigably demanded by the European Parliament and well defined by the Commission has broken down because the Council, by its attitude of profound inertia, opposes all progress.
When it comes to fraud, the Council and the Member States are more concerned with protecting themselves from Commission prerogatives than with the bold deeds of the fraudulent.
They have chosen the wrong adversary and that error will cost the European Union's finances dearly.
The real difficulty is the absence of political will in the Council.
It is the Member States which see to the execution on their territory of nearly 80 % of Community expenditure and they should recognize that the Union's institutions, the Commission in particular, have genuine, undeniable rights to control and intervene in the running of the Union's own resources, given that Community money is going missing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to hope today for once that the Council will make an explicit and courageous commitment.
Europe's credibility in the eyes of its ordinary citizens is at stake.
Do we really want the sieve to be the image of Europe?
Mr President, this debate is getting to be a wearisome business - after all, it is nothing new.
I find it depressing to hear time after time 'we hope...' , ' we believe perhaps...' , ' we expect...' .
Our answer from the President-in-Office today is that we will perhaps get the Convention on the protection of the Community's financial interests ratified in mid-1998, i.e. three years after it was agreed.
I am sorry, Madam President-in-Office, but to me, it sounds like yet another in a series of poor excuses from all Council Members, including those representing both your country and mine, for having done nothing to ratify the conventions.
The fact is that the governments are dragging their feet on the ratifications. It shows a lack of respect for what they themselves joined together in deciding.
It is all very well to sit round a table and agree on something and then not bother to transpose the text into their own legislation.
I think what we are witnessing is a show of contempt for the problems we are grappling with.
This conduct is in my view disappointing, and, as things look now, when the Intergovernmental Conference is still in progress, we do not even see any signs that the governments seriously plan to do something in this area.
We need to get a change in procedures.
It may well be - as you pointed out, Madam President-in-Office - that Parliament has an important role to play, but our problem is that we have no decision-making power.
If we had that, we would ensure that serious efforts were made to control fraud.
But this situation is embarrassing.
In conclusion, Mr President, I appeal to our colleagues in the national parliaments to take a closer interest in this subject and to put pressure on their own governments.
My colleagues have already asked the vital questions.
So I would just like to take up one additional detail.
The basic problem is serious fraud.
What is the reason for it? I think that one important reason is that there is no sympathy for the EU and its money.
If you go out and talk to people in EU countries you get the impression that the most important thing is to 'milk' the EU of its money and to get hold of any EU subsidies available.
This creates an atmosphere in which any method of getting hold of EU subsidies is permissible.
Soon the loopholes also become obvious.
Of course this cannot be allowed to continue.
But is the cure for this to give the EU so much more power in this area, when credibility for the EU, for Europol, for Conventions etc. is already so low? I think instead that we should have a 'clear out' of some of the subsidy rubbish which exists, establish clear rules on how EU subsidies are to be granted and ensure that they are not granted so freely.
I think that drastic action is required in this respect.
I wish Anita Gradin good luck - her work in the EU is now concerned with managing this problem and it will be no easy task.
Mr President, the proposals under discussion today prefigure the inclusion in the treaty of a legal base for anti-fraud regulations, to give shape and effectiveness to the political will to fight against fraud, which is damaging the Community budget in a truly impressive way.
But in harmonizing the existing rules and Community cooperation, we want to keep our feet on the ground and ask the Commission if it really believes, itself, in the ratification of the 1995 convention, given that the difficulty of coordinating the political will of the fifteen Member States is compounded by the fact that the ratification is linked to two additional protocols, which do not relate to the responsibilities of civil servants alone, but also commit governments, Members of Parliament and institutions.
Mr President, in expressing approval for the initiative by Mrs Theato and Mr Bontempi, I would like to emphasize the merit of certain essential points. First of all, the fact that our internal frontiers are now completely obsolete in the face of the phenomenon of Community fraud and the phenomenon of large and small-scale crime which has considerable technical and financial resources available to make crossing them easy.
That is what makes this initiative so very important.
Secondly, legal cooperation and even communitarization have now been superceded as regards the current problem areas, and as regards the substantial differences that exist in the legal and juridical systems of the Member States. So a European corpus iuris , a European legal area, is needed.
But what I want to know is whether it is possible to set clearly defined criteria and responsibilities for taking criminal proceedings and whether there will still be the principle of parity between prosecution and defence.
As long as there is, we will be creating an effective Magna Carta of rights and freedoms, as well as, obviously, security for the citizens.
Mr President, Mrs Kjer Hansen has said that we have been holding the same type of debate for some time now which is becoming quite depressing.
I am somewhat tempted to go along with this point of view because I think that the way in which the European Parliament deals with the fight against crime is quite different from that adopted by the European Council. It is not my intention to say that these two attitudes are wrong or that both of them are quite correct.
You must therefore try to find a way of developing appropriate instruments in order to fight organized crime.
'Appropriate' does not necessarily mean that everything must be put at European level but that we should at least put into practice what we have already agreed - and that is far from being the case as I said.
From that point of view, I think and can confirm to everyone who has been looking into this problem: let us try to keep our feet firmly on the ground.
In my view the most important - and here my reasoning is part of the current structure of the third pillar - is that we should implement our agreements and common interventions, that everyone should ratify them and when people say here that it is too slow I would say to them: I agree entirely.
I am using all of my powers to make sure that this situation can be settled as quickly as possible in my country.
I also know that we are not the first to deal with this situation, but I am looking into it and I hope therefore that the other Member States will do the same.
Of course, we only have a text.
Then we have a convention.
We have a Treaty but it should not stop there.
It must be implemented by means of practical measures which must be taken - this is the work of the police - in particular, on the basis of the legal possibilities created for that purpose.
It is the system which is currently being exposed.
Nonetheless, I hope that that will work but we are going to have to be realistic.
The third pillar activity is quite recent.
Since the beginning of this pillar's implementation, in other words barely three or four years ago, we have made some progress.
Not enough, I grant you, but we must realize that some progress has been made.
What makes me angry is to see that a majority of the over 200 decisions that we have taken have not yet come into force.
I would like to be able to have a control system in order to monitor, quite independently, whether or not the Member States are really honouring their commitments.
For me this is a vital point at this time.
Fighting fraud is a very delicate matter.
It is relatively easy to syphon off European Union funds but there is also the matter of the quality of the regulations.
I am not only referring to true fraud but also misdirected subsidies, European taxpayers' money which is prevented from being spent as intended.
These are also aspects that we will have to monitor to make sure that everything happens as agreed.
Mr Bösch was obviously right when he said that fighting fraud presents difficulties. You only have to think of how to recognize everyone's proof.
Of course, this is a problem that cannot go on in Europe.
I agree.
There are obstacles that we have to eliminate.
The same goes - I am not going to repeat to this here but I did refer to it in my introduction - for mutual judicial assistance in criminal cases.
It is, however, inconceivable in Europe that we should come up against so many procedural problems which prevent mutual assistance in criminal cases.
I have spent a lot of time on this question.
Unfortunately, I hoped that we were going to reach a final conclusion, but it is not the case, although we have made some progress and I would like to be able to predict an agreement on this subject around the middle of next year.
Mr Giansily asked what the extent of fraud is.
We ourselves do not know.
That is one of the special features of illegal acts.
We can never know the whole situation but we do observe what goes on and in what conditions fraud takes place.
Mr President, I am putting a supplementary question to the Minister because I understand the concern for realism - I am a realist - but not when it becomes an excuse for maintaining the status quo .
I would remind him that scandals causing great popular outcry in other sectors, for example the Dutroux case in Belgium, have produced intense acceleration of the process of agreement and understanding at European level in the fight against paedophilia or the trade in human beings.
We should not have to wait for another scandal to break: the scandal of fraud is already there.
I really wonder whether the time has not come to make a qualitative leap.
Everyone has said so.
In a system which seeks to protect our resources, I ask the Minister whether or not it is realistic to face up to the problem as it is, and not as we would like it to be, in other words using methods which do not have any effect.
I do not think that I recommended maintaining the status quo.
All I said was that we have reached a good many agreements and established treaties and adopted decisions which have not yet been implemented.
I expressed my dissatisfaction with this.
This is what I wanted to say.
There is an agreement on paedophilia, agreements on fraud.
Now we just have to put them into practice.
Thank you very much, Minister.
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled in accordance with the terms of Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure .
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at noon tomorrow.
Question time (Council)
Here is my answer to these two questions.
At the meeting of the United Nations Committee on Human Rights in Geneva, the European Union will submit to a far-reaching examination its current information sources concerning the human rights situation in China in order to adopt a coherent approach in the framework of future policy, thereby taking on board the various points of view of the Member States.
This process of evaluation of policy will take place over the coming weeks and months in the appropriate fora of the European Union's Council of Ministers, such as the Council regional working group, the Council working group of human rights, the Political Committee and so forth.
The questions put by the honourable members of the European Parliament will be attentively examined during those debates.
The European Parliament will be informed in due time of the outcome of the debates held in the Council of Ministers on the assessment and drafting of a coherent European policy on the human rights situation in China.
Mrs Van Dok-Van Weele, welcome to the European Parliament. We sincerely thank you for giving us this official answer.
I would like to put a supplementary question: what genuine instruments does the Council wish to implement in order to respond more satisfactorily to Chinese economic pressure, which is genuine pressure? Can you think of any other solutions apart from setting up various committees and working groups or study groups?
I think that the Chinese situation has already been studied enough.
I would tell Mr Bertens that when we refer to assessing a policy it has to be examined as a whole.
In the current circumstances I would not like to pre-empt the outcome of the assessment that I have just referred to.
This was really not much of a reply from the Council.
First of all it ought to be possible to give a proper answer to this question, which is what do we intend to do about the fact that several EU countries, including the President's own, have been the subject of reprisals from China.
What else is solidarity for if we cannot get an answer to this question?
Secondly, I would like an answer to my original question on what will happen if we move further towards a common foreign policy.
What opportunity will the smaller countries have to do as Denmark and the Netherlands have done with regard to China and in connection with the UN Commission for Human Rights? The larger countries will be able to vote down the smaller countries.
Is there a policy to cover this?
You must, after all, have considered this point! Judging by the extremely weak and empty response which we received here, I must say that it would appear that the Council representative has not thought these matters through.
I think that that emphasis was already laid in the first part of my answer.
I specified the idea of taking on board the various points of view of the Member States.
It is, therefore, a priority to respond within Europe, in the manner described, to the various points of view which currently exist.
It would obviously be wrong to envisage at this moment in time such a consensus on a range of actions and possible political positions when no agreement has yet been reached.
I have a question I should like to put to the representative of the Council: is the plan you have put forward, for a serious study of the human rights situation, an area where you will introduce general principles that apply equally to all? Because I too often have the impression that there are some states, China for instance, which are unpopular here, so that things are applied to them that are not applied to others.
What we need is a common European policy.
Are you prepared to devise a European policy of that kind, which would then apply to all countries, not just one in particular?
In order to reach a policy and a common position we must have all of the ingredients and the basic arguments of the consensus and it is precisely for that reason that I gave you this answer.
It is absolutely useless to anticipate the outcome of this type of study and debate since that would offer absolutely no solution to what you call a common policy.
Madam President-in-Office, European Union relations with the People's Republic of China are complex.
The burning issue at present is that of the forthcoming handover of Hong Kong to the People's Republic.
This is highly paradoxical since the Chinese authorities are honouring the Sino-British agreements of 1984, whereas the British authorities have not as they have developed democracy which did not exist before 1984.
However, the new decisions by the Chinese authorities may mean that a democratic handover of Hong Kong in respect of human rights on 1 July 1997 will be possible, if the letter of pre-existing agreements is respected.
Does the Council intend to adopt an approach to this situation? Has it undertaken any initiative in face of the decisions taken by the Chinese National Assembly on the legislation in Hong Kong?
I would like to, Mr President, but my answer is not yet ready.
It is an interesting question.
I would like to answer it later on, either during question time if that is possible or later on, in writing.
Question No 3 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0384/97)
Subject: Job protection under the proposal for a regulation on the COM in raw tobacco
Will the Council give priority to job protection in the new regulation on the COM in raw tobacco? What specific improvements has it in mind for the benefit of producers in Granada, Extremadura and other highly disadvantaged Objective 1 regions?
Notwithstanding the clear concern with tobacco-growing in Austria, on which the attention of certain EU institutions is so intensely focused, will the Mediterranean countries be treated fairly?
In response to the question on the raw tobacco COM, I would like to recall that the Council discussed the Commission report on the matter at the beginning of the year.
That report includes an analysis of the social and economic situation of the market in question and the outcome of the reform of this regulation which took place in 1992.
It also contains a certain number of possible scenarios for a new Community policy in this sector.
In the light of the debate held in the Council of Ministers, I would principally point out the following points: first of all, all delegations expressed considerable respect for the Commission report and the analysis of the situation on the tobacco market contained in it.
As far as the approach to be taken, the objectives and main elements of a reform of the raw tobacco COM, it was virtually unanimous even if some different points of view did emerge, concerning the extent of the reform and the nature of specific measures to be taken.
Finally, Mr President, the Commission has shown considerable consideration for the comment on the basis by the delegation.
It declared that it would study these remarks with all the necessary attention in the framework of preparations for its formal proposal.
To conclude, the Council urged the Commission to introduce these proposals as quickly as possible, as soon as it had all of the necessary information and data, including the European Parliament's point of view on the report.
Once these proposals have been made, the Council would obviously then have to take due account of the European Parliament's opinion on this matter.
Madam President-in-Office, your answer was most improper.
It is improper for the Council to answer in this bureaucratic, descriptive way to a question not referring to the report presented by the Commission but a question about jobs .
I want to ask the Council: What are we going to do with the southern farmers, if they can grow neither tobacco nor oliveoil? My question is about jobs: what you in your speeches call 'the first priority of our policies' : jobs.
Yet, when you are asked about a huge reform of tobacco-growing, your answer is just 'bla, bla, bla...' .
Do you not think that preserving jobs has to be the condition, the basic premise of any actions provided for by the Regulation to be approved by the Council? Please answer that question.
What impact is it going to have? Do you have studies?
Have you conducted them? What will the social and economic consequences be?
I can tell you that in Granada over 2000 families live off this crop.
They do not live in luxury but this is their mainstay.
How can you just answer by saying that the Commission report is 'bla, bla, bla' ? You are in charge of the European Union and you are stopping the European Parliament from having any further powers.
I appreciate the member's heartfelt arguments in favour of this cause, which does indeed deserve all of the European Union's attention and I hope that the European Union will recognize this later on, when the IGC discusses the matter.
But I will only answer the subject contained in the question.
It is obvious that employment is on the agenda of everything that we undertake.
I think that an employment policy does not always have to be approached as an item in itself but should also be dealt with as a whole - otherwise, arguments are always put forward when we are dealing with the agricultural policy, to examine the available resources but also the corresponding market and labour possibilities, in the limited framework of the local and current causes of a strong competitive position and the difficult position of competitors on the market in terms of prices.
I go along with your insistence that the Union take measures in favour of employment, but I do not agree when you say that all we do is speak and do nothing.
That is unfair to the way in which this subject has been dealt with, and at the same time you are not doing justice to the information that I gave you in my answer.
Madam President-in-Office, the subject of the importance of jobs in relation with the future of tobacco-growing in the Mediterranean countries of the European Union is a recurring theme in the European Parliament - I myself have already asked questions about it to the Commission and the Council. Today I wish to raise this matter again, since we now have the opportunity to discuss the COM on raw tobacco.
This is a worrying matter for many modest families, for example in the Spanish provinces of Granada and Cáceres, we are waiting for the decisions to be taken by the European institutions.
We think that the solution is to reject measures to abandon tobacco-growing, for the simple reason that it would not lead to a drop in tobacco consumption but an increase in tobacco imports, with perverse consequences and increased joblessness in European tobacco producing areas.
We think it unwise to change the premium or take similar measures.
However, it would be more proper to increase the percentage for research funds from 1 to 2 %.
You mentioned measures to be taken by the Council. What can you tell us, Mrs Van Dok, about those measures?
It is not my intention to hold up the procedure that I described.
I have already said that the Council has urged the Commission to put forward proposals as quickly as possible in order to take note of the necessary information, and once those proposals have been introduced to take into account the European Parliament's opinion on this subject.
I do not think it is a good idea therefore to describe in detail what I have already mentioned in my reply, in accordance with the usual and precise procedure.
Madam President-in-Office, in my Autonomous Community of Extremadura, tobacco has been of considerable economic and social importance for more than half a century.
It is an Objective 1 region, with a GDP per capita of 7322 ECU, and tobacco offers the population high levels of employment, generating intensive labour for most of the year, during both the growing and processing stages.
1, 600, 000 direct daily jobs are generated by the growing process alone, to give some idea; that is without counting indirect jobs generated by related activities.
My question to the Council - although you have already given an answer and I am afraid that you will give the same answer again, but I shall still ask it any way - is: do you not think that reducing premiums, as the Commission document proposes, would wipe out many small farms in the southern part of the European Union and only lead to bigger imports of tobacco, with negative consequences for farmers, who have no other means of earning a living?
This is a committee entrusted with regulating the market and therefore it examines the place of a product, the location of the production of that product vis-à-vis the market as a whole and the way in which premia function in case of differences.
In this respect, as I have already emphasized, we are also looking into the question of employment.
I would like to insist on the fact that we should not conduct a superficial debate here when in fact what we need is a proper analysis and proper proposals.
I have clearly described to you the current situation and although I can well imagine that you are concerned with precise aspects of the possible outcomes, nonetheless I wanted to ask you to stick for the time being to the elements of my answer concerning the procedure.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 4 by Mr Hans Lindqvist (H-0386/97)
Subject: Closure of the Ericsson plant in Norrköping
In Sweden, as in Belgium, the social responsibilities of major undertakings are under discussion.
Ericsson, whose products include mobile telephones, is planning to run down its manufacturing operation in Norrköping and shift the production of printed circuits to two multinational companies, SCI System and Solectron, in Scotland.
About 1400 jobs are affected, 700 of which are directly threatened by the move.
Newspaper reports, in 'TT' in Sweden among others, claim that the Scottish undertakings were set up with the assistance of regional aid from the EU.
Have these undertakings in Scotland received economic or other aid from the EU? If so, why, in what form and to what amount?
Question No 5 by Jan Andersson (H-0400/97)
Subject: Regional policy aid and the relocation of industry
The workers at the Ericsson factory are justifiably uneasy about their jobs since the undertaking has planned to shift the manufacture of printed circuits to Scotland.
Trade union representatives have approached us on the Swedish social democratic delegation for help in clarifying whether regional aid from the EU has facilitated the shift of production from Norrköping to Scotland.
Can regional policy aid, or any other form of Community aid, have helped Ericsson to set up in Scotland, and if so, what lessons does the Council believe should be learnt for the future distribution of aid?
The questions put by Mr Andersson and Mr Lindqvist concern the possible consequences of Community support in terms of regional policy on the shutdown of undertakings in general and the Ericsson factory in particular, with a view to relocating production plants.
As the honourable member of the European Parliament knows, the structural funds are governed by special regulations adopted in June 1993 by the Council.
According to those documents, the management of the structural fund is entrusted to the Commission by the Council.
That is why the Commission seems better placed to answer those questions.
More generally speaking I would like to tell you that the Danish delegation has sent a memorandum to the Council asking it to take a closer interest in the effects of the structural policy and regional public support, in order to monitor competition within the European Community.
We could also define the best way of helping the less-developed regions of the Community by means of a structural policy, without that having negative effects on other parts of the European Union.
For example, forcing factories to shut down.
This question was therefore on the agenda of the Industry Council of 24 April 1997.
At that meeting the Council invited the Commission to report as quickly as possible on the matter.
I think that a debate has therefore been started and can be continued in the second half of this year. In other words, your question is on the agenda.
Thank you very much for the answer even if I am none the wiser. I can understand that there are divisions of labour between the Commission and the Council but I cannot understand why the Council has not tried to find out what conclusions the Commission have arrived at during the long months since the question was asked.
I would like to know why we cannot get a proper answer on whether companies in Scotland have received regional political aid or other aid from the EU.
This is extremely important for the Swedish economy and for the thousands of people employed at Ericsson.
If it is the case that regional political aid has been paid to a company in Europe which has then attracted workers to it but which at the same time has led to unemployment elsewhere then I would like a general answer to a general question: does the Council think this is wrong and how will the Council attempt to prevent something similar from happening in the future?
I would also like a proper answer to the first question since it is crucial for us.
I am answering these questions as President-in-Office of the Council and I would simply say that his subject was on the agenda of the Industry Council meeting and - according to the normal procedure - the committee has been invited to analyze the situation and report back to the Council so that a solution can be found.
The Council cannot act independently on this subject since, according to the normal procedure, we must submit a request of this type to the Commission which the Council may consider to be of extreme urgency.
I think that it can now be made a priority thanks to Denmark, as the question asked by Denmark has been well received and again been placed on the agenda by the usual means.
I would also to say thank you for the answer.
It is a good thing that the question is now on the agenda but this hardly helps the employees in Norrköping - a town which has experienced major structural change and has a high level of unemployment - if they cannot get an answer to the question which they have asked us and which we have tried to get an answer to, namely whether regional political aid has been paid out in this case.
I happen to know that companies in Scotland have previously received regional political aid of 10 million during 1994 from RSA, Regional Selective Assistance.
My question is: has aid been paid out recently as well and if it has, has it contributed to relocation? If this is the case it will be extremely serious.
Both I and the employees in Norrköping want an answer to this.
A considerable misunderstanding is likely to come about not only about the procedure and powers but also the analyses.
Europe has indeed foreseen a support, a structural policy for the weaker regions, which does not mean to say that you should necessarily establish a direct link between the reason why an undertaking relocates and the fact that subsidies have been granted because these subsidies are designed to offset other weak factors in a given region.
That is certainly why it is not possible to say every time something happens: prevent the undertakings from relocating by granting them subsidies, but instead you should look into the extent to which excessive competition results from subsidies, regardless of the fact that the region is receiving those subsidies because it is relatively undeveloped.
It is not therefore possible automatically to establish a cause and effect relationship between a subsidy and the disappearance of an undertaking.
I know that this is not convenient.
We also have the situation in the Netherlands, and so I shall not answer the question as to whether subsidies have recently been granted.
We know where the powers lie.
It is far more interesting to know to what extent analyses enable us to conclude that competition really has been upset in this sector and in what specific location.
I heard that reply from the Council with considerable interest.
Mr Smith and I have an interest in this, particularly Mr Smith's constituency.
It is nothing new for this to happen.
What I am concerned about is, while Commissioners Flynn and Wulf-Mathies are fiddling with the rules, the dole queues in Sweden and elsewhere are getting longer and longer.
It is small comfort to the unemployed workers in Sweden to know that the Commissioners are studying the problem.
I do not think this is good enough.
Would the Dutch presidency look at the change in the structural funds policy when they come to redraft the rules, or would they assist Luxembourg and the United Kingdom, by writing in some kind of guarantee in structural funds to obviate much of this development and try and make sure that there is proper worker consultation and work involvement? There must be basic minimum standards of wages and conditions.
One of the firms, ICI, has a very bad record in this respect.
First of all, I would like to repeat that the shutdown of an undertaking providing jobs in a given region is always painful.
In fact there is generally a tendency to examine the obvious reasons for the relocation of investment in another region.
I already emphasized in my first reply that it was too early to condemn the structural policy.
I find the Industry Council's approach far more balanced, in other words carrying out a serious inquiry on the basis of a signal that you have given and on the possible presence of elements which can distort competition and their origin, including subsidies.
Legally speaking, when we have a good report and examine distorted competition then we can adapt the situation.
You are asking me to anticipate a debate which has not yet taken place whereas discussions have now been completed concerning the activity of the Commission and the Industry Council.
Following on from what the Minister has already said, I would like to put two propositions to her.
First of all, the main reason why businesses relocate within the European Union is not simply because of structural funds or other incentives but maybe because people in those areas have the capacity to work harder and more efficiently and perhaps there is less tax to be paid in those Member States.
Secondly, with regard to the question of utilizing structural funds in the way that has been suggested, yesterday we had the Commission reporting on the abolition of duty-free, saying that it would allow for state subsidy for certain regional transport sectors to ensure that they were not at a disadvantage.
But we all know in this Parliament that any kind of subsidy, whether it is structural funds or state subsidy funds, cannot last indefinitely in the near future.
Maybe the Council should now look again at some of its own decisions, particularly with regard to areas like duty-free and other decisions to exempt those areas from attacks of this kind.
I think that the honourable member of the European Parliament has raised a very interesting point which also supports my answer and points out that we should adopt a more analytical approach to the matter.
I go along with the idea that support granted to less well off regions should be seen as a catalyst which can help us achieve a Europe in which there is no more major structural lagging.
From that point of view, he is right in saying that we should not believe that this policy is going to go on forever.
I hope not.
I hope that we are going to reach a situation in which we will have competition 'on a level playing field' .
I thank the President-in-Office for her reply.
There is a little confusion here.
Regional selective assistance - perhaps the Council can confirm this - is not drawn from any European Union fund.
It is primarily United Kingdom Government money.
That does not deal with the issue.
Is it not true that you cannot prevent this sort of issue from happening? The reason we cannot prevent it is because of the economic system we live under.
We know why it happens.
We know, for example, my area is supposedly the beneficiary of Ericsson's decision.
But we are pretty confident that Ericsson is not coming to Scotland because it thinks that it can do us the world of good.
It is because Erikson's profits motives demand that.
In general, how does it profit any of us in the European Community if we deal with unemployment in one area by creating unemployment somewhere else? That is surely not the answer.
The question was the following: how to avoid doing away with jobs in trying to get rid of unemployment.
The questioner was quite right in saying that this is not just a question of European subsidies. Excuse me if I gave that impression but this is a question of support from States themselves within the limits granted by the Brussels system.
If we went further we could even talk about illegitimate government support.
We are speaking here of legitimate support which may be granted in a certain number of regions.
In certain cases, an assessment is carried out in order to determine whether there is still sufficient reason to maintain that support for those regions.
This approach has been carried out quite regularly on the basis of strict criteria, in particular in the field of employment and the general situation's explaining the relative delay.
I think that even in the absence of the aid system, jobs will continue to be relocated.
That is what we have seen in Europe but also even more clearly in the rest of the world.
Some people examine the immediate results of a relocation: it is, of course, distressful for a whole region.
On the other hand, we note in the Netherlands that the globalization of our undertakings has led to a considerable strengthening of general prosperity and employment.
Briefly, let us not directly link the relocation of jobs to the aid policy.
Perhaps we should not consider the effects of these relocations solely in a European framework but also in the light of globalization.
I agree with the Council representative that there is continuous relocation; companies move and rapid changes take place.
Of course there is not an automatic link, the setting up of new companies depends on the economic climate as a whole.
I wonder how to find out the facts on whether aid has been paid out to the companies involved.
One of the most important tasks of the EU is to defend competition on equal terms.
If it is proven in the study which will be carried out that the current EU structural policy distorts competition, and it is proven that competition in this case has been distorted, are we prepared to make reductions in structural policy so that it covers fewer areas and there is less money to dispense in order to restrict the harmful distortion and avoid setting old structural problems in Europe in tablets of stone?
I go along fully with Mrs Carlsson when she says that we need to follow the situation very closely in order to determine the effects of aid granted to regions which are less developed to such an extent that they are unable to take part in what I call 'competition on a level playing field' .
What needs to be defined is exactly when aid is justified, appropriate and admitted and when everything is balanced. That is when we must say: now aid will have a distorting effect.
That is precisely the reason and I am also referring to the Commission's policy for which the choice of regions is so often submitted to a very strict evaluation based on certain criteria, including unemployment and a weak economic structure.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 6 by Mr Tony Cunningham (H-0388/97)
Subject: Joint action of 1 October 1996 adopted by the Council on the basis of Article J.3 of the Treaty on European Union on anti-personnel landmines
What is the Council doing to enforce the Joint Action of 1 October 1996?
What action would the Council take if there were an infraction of the Joint Action?
Question No 7 by Mr Wilfried Telkämper (H-0399/97)
Subject: Mines
What is the Council position vis-à-vis the Brussels negotiating session of the Ottawa Process?
Is it prepared to endorse the Brussels declaration?Question No 8 by Mr Joan Colom i Naval (H-0432/97)
Subject: EU ban on anti-personnel mines
Fifty countries are taking part in the 'Ottawa process', with the aim of signing a treaty banning anti-personnel mines.
Has the Council taken any steps to join in this process? Has the Council taken, or does it plan to take, any measures at Union level to bring about a ban on the manufacture, export, import or transfer of anti-personnel mines?Question No 9 by Mr John Iversen (H-0433/97)
Subject: Landmines
Now that the UK government has decided to ban landmines, what is the Council doing to bring about a comprehensive ban in Europe?
What efforts is it making in addition to reach a common position on a worldwide ban, in preparation for the Ottawa conference in December?
As all of you possibly know, a common position on antipersonnel mines was adopted by the Council on 1 October 1996.
It is in three parts, as follows.
The first part concerns the total banning of all antipersonnel mines and the implementation of all means possible to reach as quickly as possible an international agreement stipulating a formal ban.
The strategy then contains the idea of extending a European Union moratorium on the export of antipersonnel mines to exports towards all destinations.
The final part, and the most complex, considers the elimination of all existing antipersonnel mines.
We wish to act internationally and 7 million ECU have been earmarked for this and should be paid by the end of 1997.
Since this common position was adopted, the European Union has pursued its implementation dynamically and following this position all of the Member States adopted an agreement in Ottawa along with over 50 other countries, which consists in general cooperation in order to reach as quickly as possible a binding international agreement banning antipersonnel mines.
Since then other conferences have been held by Austria and Germany, in keeping with the Ottawa process.
The Brussels Conference scheduled for the end of June is the main follow-up meeting to the Ottawa Conference.
The European Union feels that it is important to take part in the Brussels Conference, which is an initiative that will mark the turning point in the developing of activities following the Ottawa Conference Declaration, something which the European Union heartily applauds.
Alongside these efforts, the European Union is also trying to have the conference on disarmament adopt a mandate aimed at negotiating as quickly as possible a binding international agreement within the conference with the objective of banning the use, planting, production and transport of antipersonnel mines throughout the world. That would give us an appropriate set of measures.
Just a few more words on the European contribution to the elimination of mines in an international context.
To this end the European Union recently took a decision to earmark 3.9 million ECU to the benevolent fund for the elimination of mines, at the United Nations.
This amount will be spent on projects in Angola, Mozambique, Bosnia, Croatia, Somalia and Tazhikistan. and a further 3.5 million ECU have been earmarked for Community action in order to meet demands from regional organisations or the authorities of other countries.
It has been agreed to earmark 2.07 million out of this to a regional initiative on mines launched by the Southern Africa Development Community.
Ways of spending the rest, some 1.3 million ECU, are currently being studied.
As far as the Member States' obligations to fulfilling common action are concerned, members of European Parliament will know that Article J.3 of the Treaty of the European Union, in particular, stipulates that Community action is binding on Member States which must adopt positions and pursue the action undertaken.
That article also stipulates that, in cases of serious difficulties in the fulfilment of a common action, a Member State must submit them to the Council which will debate them and look for appropriate solutions.
Question Time has been going on for about an hour now and, in that time, four people have already been killed or maimed by a landmine somewhere in the world.
That is how desperately serious it is.
We talk about mine clearance which is vastly important, and I appreciate all the work that has been going on as far as the European Union is concerned.
However, 100, 000 mines were cleared last year and 2 million new ones laid.
You do not have to be good at mathematics to work out that, unless we have a global ban, the problem will never be solved.
The most important conferences in Brussels and then in Ottawa are coming up.
This is a tremendous window of opportunity to do something about this horrendous problem.
What will the Council do to ensure that all 15 European Union countries will sign up to a global ban in Ottawa, and what will it do to promote the idea not only in Europe but throughout the rest of the world?
I am pleased that you have again emphasized the urgency of this problem and its consequences.
That is why I gave a very detailed reply concerning the various aspects of European Union strategy.
Let us add this: alongside efforts made in the framework of the Ottawa process, the European Union will continue to try and have adopted by the conference on disarmament a negotiation mandate in order to introduce a total ban on antipersonnel mines. The European Union will continue to defend wholeheartedly the rapid creation of an ad hoc committee with a negotiating mandate compatible with the Union's actions.
The European Union believes that international efforts made in the light of the Ottawa declaration within the conference on disarmament must be complementary.
The European Union will continue to look for every means possible to come even closer to working out a truly effective agreement as quickly as possible.
I have a supplementary question on the budget, with a number of different aspects. We know from information received from the UN that it will take 4000 years to clear the land mines in Afghanistan alone.
So the financial resources available to us are a drop in the ocean here.
Is the Council going to increase those resources? You have come out in favour of a specific prohibition, a total, universal prohibition.
When is the EU going to set an example, and are there funds for companies which are still producing now to enable them to stop producing immediately?
Also, I have recently read that Dasa Dornier, a subsidiary of the armaments giant Daimler Benz, which produces mines, is currently benefiting, together with the French arms company Thomson CSF, receiving from the Commission of the European Union a contract worth DM 100 million for research into new military direction-finding and radar systems.
The argument being that the systems can be used to pinpoint mines.
We decided here that anyone producing mines, which includes Daimler Benz, should not receive any additional money for mine clearance.
How can the Council explain this? Will it take action here to ensure that this money is not wasted for that purpose?
I find that it is always very difficult to respond to questions that are so emotional by treaties.
However, it is the only way of defining limits.
Why is the European Union's strategy so good as a whole? Because a various number of possibilities are allowed for.
In the beginning you could say: you have to ban antipersonnel mines.
But you must also ensure that they are no longer planted or used.
A quite supplementary measure and one that can be controlled is to attack the trade in these mines, in other words the import and also export of this type of product.
Banning mines will indeed call for a great deal of energy.
On that score, I think money but also technology and good organisation are extremely important.
I am aware of the situation referred to by the Member.
I do know, however, that it is crucial for us to take advantage of all the experience that we have gained on the ground in Europe and elsewhere in order to get rid of mines as quickly as possible and not waste any time on procedures.
I think we really have to get down to work on this.
Madam President-in-Office, it would be a good thing if the Council were to turn to China in respect of the production of mines and their international trade.
You said rather smugly that the European Union has decided to spend 3 million ECU on this campaign.
I do not need to remind you of the Council's attitude over this matter for the 1997 budget and who it was who put in those 3 million ECU - the European Union and its budgetary authority.
I hope that the Council will be more sensitive this year for the 1998 budget, at least your colleague in the Finance Ministry.
I should like to ask whether, given that we are cutting back European armies, the Council could not take the decision to send mine defusing experts into many of those countries.
This is a constant demand, for example, in Angola, where there is a lack of qualified staff to instruct mine deactivation brigades.
Could the Council not take a decision to send that type of instructor to trouble spots?
I must confess that I am not really au fait with the details of the systematic procedure for eliminating antipersonnel mines.
In my reply I concentrated on our administrative activities - in other words, support for organisations which can act thanks to our financial support and other supplementary measures.
Please excuse me but I cannot give you a more detailed reply.
As for your question about China. Of course, it is important that the largest possible number of countries should subscribe to this agreement as was the case for chemical weapons and others.
I will begin by thanking the President-in-Office for her answer.
I am glad that there is agreement in the Council too that it is immensely important that these matters be discussed at the Ottawa meeting. In relation to what has been said, I would like to ask: what progress has been made in the Council in getting these things in place?
As I understood it, you are agreed that we should have them in place, so what progress has been made in the negotiations on coordinating views so that it will be possible to arrive at a common position for the Ottawa meeting? Is it your view, Madam President-in-Office, that a situation will be achieved in which there actually is a common position in favour of a ban at the very important meeting in Ottawa?
Briefly, with my approval and to my great pleasure, I can tell you that all the Member States of the European Union will be taking part in the forthcoming Brussels Conference. Two of them, Greece and Finland, will probably be present as observers.
All partners have approved the European Union's coordination vis-à-vis the Ottawa process.
I should sincerely like to thank the Minister for her enthusiastic reply.
Mr Cunningham and myself are rapporteurs not for but against antipersonnel mines - or rather I would prefer to call them anti-people mines.
You rightly refer to the Ottawa initiative which will be continued next week in Brussels and perhaps by the end of the year will lead to the signature of a 'wholehearted' convention, as it were.
Would the Council like to comment on the fact that the true forum which should have been chosen, the United Nations Anti-nuclear Conference, is still beset with differences of opinion between the United States and India over nuclear weapons? I hope that this is not going to be a bottleneck causing the Ottawa Convention to fail at the end of this year.
I shall be brief for the interpreters.
I go along entirely with your point of view and I too hope that this situation will not arise.
Question No 10 by Mr Arthur Newens (H-0392/97)
Subject: The EU banana regime
Would the Council make a statement about the future of the Banana Regime in the light of the latest developments?
As Mr Newens knows, the WTO panel recently made a negative declaration against the Community in the framework of the dispute over the European banana import policy or the regulation of the markets.
In accordance with existing procedures, the Community has 60 days as of the date of the announcement of the panel report to all members of the WTO to adopt a point of view.
As you know, it is primarily for the Commission to decide on the follow-up to be given to the panel report and in particular to decide whether it should be appealed against.
The Commission has already announced that it does intend to appeal against the WTO panel's findings.
As soon as the WTO takes its final decision - because in fact it has not yet happened - the Council will definitely hold - according to the applicable procedures - a debate on the consequences to be drawn from this final decision.
Of course, this is a matter of the main elements of the banana import policy, set out in the market regulation, while bearing in mind the European Union's specific obligations towards the countries which signed the Lomé Convention and, of course, the Member States of the WTO.
In this respect, we should remember that the Commission has already put two proposals to the Council.
First of all, the proposal of 8 March 1996 aimed at amending the common regulations governing the banana market.
Secondly, the proposal of 6 April 1995 which enables the ACP banana producing countries to make provisional transfers of traditional category bananas and others between ACP states within the same geographical region.
This means - and here I am addressing in particular those who are not familiar with this jargon - that quotas can be modified.
These proposals are still being studied by the Council bodies, pending the outcome of the WTO procedure.
While thanking the President-in-Office for her reply and expressing the strongest support for the decision to appeal against the WTO ruling on bananas, in view of the devastating effect this decision could have on the fragile economies of Caribbean and other countries, some of which rely in some cases for more than 50 % of their foreign exchange earnings on bananas, will the President-in-Office do everything possible to ensure that we fight to the last ditch on this issue? Is it not a fact that the real beneficiaries of the World Trade Organization decision, if it were implemented, would be American-based multinational companies which already control over 90 % of the world trade in bananas, and have we not therefore a duty, if we want to fight poverty in the world, to stand very firm on the agreement we made with the banana-producing countries?
First of all, Europe will do all it has to to defend its policy if there is complaint, a divergence of opinion or tensions vis-à-vis the WTO panel.
When you say 'pursue to the end' , I would nonetheless like to make a comment concerning the hierarchy of interests within the WTO panel.
We quite rightly set up the WTO panel to deal with differences of interest, and I am not only referring to the interests of big countries but also to those of small countries such as Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico or Ecuador, in this case - so that they can have a reference in order to be able to react to any disturbance to their markets, in particular in order to face up to the bigger countries.
In these matters, I attach considerable value to the fact that we now have a WTO panel.
That does not mean to say that because we are satisfied with the existence of that panel, we should not use it to defend our own personal interests.
That is really the thrust of my proposal.
Madam President-in-Office, I listened to what you said, and your words about the ACP countries, but neither you nor Mr Newens mentioned Community banana production, which now amounts to 720, 000 tonnes, produced in the Canaries, Madeira and Crete, etc.
For these regions, which have the scantiest means of defence, the disappearance of the banana would be like the disappearance of dairy cows in Holland.
I do not think that the Dutch would like to see that happen any more than those regions would like to see the banana disappear.
This matter is of important economic and social value.
Secondly, you know that the peaceful solution of conflicts at the WTO is not carried out by a court of justice in the strict sense but the procedure seems linked to certain trade negotiations and I hope that the Council bears that aspect in mind, i.e. the need for negotiations or compensations in order to solve this matter.
I am sorry that I forgot European taxpayers even though I have just visited Spain in order to discuss in detail this subject with my colleague there.
I think that we are talking about two different issues, i.e. the status of the WTO panel and taking into account WTO declarations concerning market disturbances and the European Union's position. The EU must still take a final decision in order to be able to defend its own interests through the WTO panel.
I think it is rather foolish to say: let us call into question the value of that panel.
That is my opinion.
I think by using a fairly good instrument our interests can be defended to the best possible extent.
That will play a role in the case of bananas but also, increasingly, in the case of all products which are still protected throughout the world in the light of the agreements reached in Marrakesh on the ending of subsidies, quotas and other limits and forthcoming negotiations on new tariff reductions in a whole series of areas.
We must therefore be aware that international trade organisation is going to lead to changes in commercial relationships and new opportunities will arise on the same market.
By referring to this specific situation I would like to repeat to you that we still have a possibility to appeal and we are still studying that. We do defend our interests on the WTO panel, but the WTO panel is a precious instrument in this area, not only for those who are accusing us today but also for the European Union.
I am somewhat bemused by the reply about the complaints and the appeal from the Commission legal services because I have just done a BBC World Service interview which says that the appeal has been lodged today.
Either the BBC is wrong or the Council's sources of information are somewhat limited in this instance.
I am very interested in what you say.
I would like to know whether you consider that it would be a majority view in the Council, including the view of your own country - the Netherlands - that we should continue with a banana regime and continue to support the banana regime.
I would also ask whether you think that it is appropriate that a country that has no direct involvement with the banana industry should be able to lodge a complaint in this way and to obtain a ruling of the kind obtained by the United States after they lodged their complaints.
Finally, I would also like to ask you whether you think it would be appropriate, now that apparently the appeal has gone in, for the ACP also to put in a parallel appeal and for the European Union to provide funding, resources and support for them in order that they can make their appeal as effective as possible.
I emphasized in my reply that the Commission has already announced its intention to appeal.
I might imagine that you have concluded that this is therefore a decision.
I have no other news.
I do not see any major difference between Mrs Kinnock's conclusions in respect of the decision and my analysis of the situation.
Let us turn to the decision.
At the moment - as I have already stressed - the complaints procedure is part of the Commission's remit, which does not mean that the Council should not take any decision nor that it should discuss any proposal.
You would like to know the Netherlands' point of view as a Member State of the European Union.
I am afraid I cannot satisfy your demand, because I am not here to represent my country.
I am trying to defend the interests of Europe with a certain neutrality.
The procedures for making a complaint or for appealing are carefully determined within the WTO. They will, therefore, play a role in the new declarations to be made.
You also mentioned the matter of funds, compensation, etc.
This is a problem which calls for specific attention in the European Union.
It is not currently being dealt with by the WTO panel's review procedure.
Question No 11 by Mr Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0393/97)
Subject: 'Open skies' air transport agreement between the EU and the USA
Can the Council provide information, in view of the recent work carried out by Transport Ministers in this area, on the possibilities of reaching an 'open skies' agreement between the EU and the US on commercial air transport in the near future?
Mr Camisón Asensio's question concerns negotiations for an open skies agreement between the European Union and the United States. My response is the following.
On 17 June 1996, the Council adopted the negotiation mandate enabling the Commission to open, on the European Community's behalf, negotiations with the United States on air traffic. One of the basic principles of these negotiations is the idea of a common air traffic area between the European Community and the United States, and this agreement should ultimately replace the current system of bilateral relations between isolated European Union members and the United States.
Since 1995, the United States has contacted several Member States of the European Union in order to reach so-called 'open skies agreements' , and some of those Member States have reached agreements with the United States while others are still being negotiated.
The European Community's new approach, however, implies the organisation of structured negotiations with the United States which should in due time lead to an agreement aimed at setting up a common air traffic area.
I should like to emphasize the fact that these negotiations will take place over a number of stages.
Initially the European Community would examine with the United States the possibility of introducing a set of directives which would be applied to air companies based in the European Union and the United States in order for them to be submitted to similar competition rules, the so-called 'soft rights' .
If this led to substantial results, the negotiations could then move on to a second stage, that of regulating common air traffic as a whole, i.e. the so-called circulation or 'hard rights' .
In this framework, the Community, represented by the Commission, and the United States held talks on 30 and 31 October in Washington and 3 April in Brussels.
At the Transport Council meeting on 17 June, the Commission reported on the results of the discussions which had been held so far.
Madam President-in-Office, having listened to you, we are afraid that the negotiations are being stalled.
Secondary aspects are being dealt with and the real crux of the matter is being neglected, namely that of establishing traffic rights beginning, once and for all, with access to third markets, to benefit ordinary people.
Once again we see the overriding need for union in our European Community - which you have begun and which I urge you to continue.
It is obvious that if the 15 Member States united their forces, the agreement would be a better one and strike a perfect balance between the United States and the European Union, with neither winners nor losers.
This is another great opportunity for the European institutions - especially the Council - to show how agile and efficient they are.
This agreement is urgent, especially with the possible - perhaps imminent - integration of American Airlines with British Airways, a group that Iberia seems to be joining forces with, which is perfectly reasonable and understandable given the facts.
Could you tell us about this urgent matter?
First of all, we need a certain dynamism in order to reach a good result on the basis of a 100 % win situation.
I told you that the interest of these two stages is first of all to ensure that there are equal competition opportunities, the so-called 'soft rights' , before turning to a more extensive regulation which should enable us to reach an 'open skies agreement' .
But quite a lot of factors have to be taken into account - as you very rightly stressed - including the question of the merger of airlines.
That is one of the issues which comes into the first stage, i.e. the process of establishing equal competition opportunities.
This is, therefore, one aspect which will definitely be on the agenda during the first stage.
In order to give the whole process a boost, on 17 June 1996, we adopted the negotiating mandate and I have just pointed out that the Transport Council meeting of 17 June has already reported on the initial findings of the process.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 12, 13 and 14 lapse.
Question No 15 by Mr Sören Wibe (H-0406/97)
Subject: Follow-up to future elections in Albania
In the recent parliamentary elections in Albania held in May 1996 there was organized electoral fraud which clearly favoured the ruling Democratic Party.
International observers at the elections protested but there has been no diplomatic follow-up by any other European country against the Albanian Government.
The result has been an authoritarian regime which did not draw the line at machinating its way back into power and has also systematically been involved in corruption and out and out fraud throughout the country.
Armed insurrection has been the result.
Talks are now taking place between the political parties together with the rebels.
There is disagreement over the electoral system and the timetable for the rebels to disarm has been ignored.
Strong feelings have also been aroused over the question whether President Berisha should continue in office.
Will this situation be repeated?
Will the EU Member States react and demand new elections if there are irregularities in the forthcoming parliamentary elections in June? What is our threshold of tolerance of future electoral fraud in Albania?
This is my answer to Mr Wibe's question.
The Council has often expressed a wish for free and honest elections held in Albania.
Recently, the General Affairs Council, meeting in June, expressed its satisfaction on receiving the declaration by the Albanian authorities on the holding of elections on 29 June, calling all parties to take part in those elections with the promise of respecting the outcome of the ballot.
The Council has also stressed that this country's future depended, above all, on the Albanian people.
Nevertheless, it is our duty to assist the national reconciliation government in preparing free and honest elections in which all the parties will take place, if possible on the scheduled date.
The European Union fully supports the efforts of the Council of Europe on this score, in particular the framework of the common position adopted by the Council on 2 June on the basis of Article J2 of the Treaty on European Union.
In it, the Council urged the international community to support the electoral process in Albania by supplying the necessary number of observers.
The European Union also emphasized its support for the multilateral protection force which during its mandate will ensure that the elections take place in full security.
If the electoral process were to be threatened by a policy of internal pressure in Albania, the European Union and the international community should review their position in respect of that country without any question.
I would like to emphasise to the Council the importance of maintaining a high profile on this issue.
Exactly one year ago, just after the Albanian election had taken place, I asked the same question of the Italian Presidency as it then was.
As there were clear signs of vote-rigging, I asked whether we should introduce some form of sanctions.
I received the response then that 'this was not necessary, Albania was already on the way to a democratic government' etc.
Now we have the results to hand.
There was almost a civil war in the country.
We have already seen some indications of fraud here and there.
For example, I think that the so called 'car accident' which President Berisha is supposed to have had is the work of his own staff to draw public attention to him.
I would just like to ask the Council: can you give a guarantee that we will introduce immediate sanctions against the government, if we notice the slightest indication of vote- rigging this time?
I think that Mr Wibe is warning us against being excessively or glibly optimistic about this process.
On the other hand, it is obviously very positive that elections are being held and that a balance might be restored, so that something can be rebuilt in the country.
That is why I gave a positive response, but I was also careful in pointing out in my first sentence - I might even say that it was the safety net of my pessimism - what you have just commented on.
However, for the time being, I stand by the answers that I gave in respect of the support that might be given to the country.
Mr President, the written question is, in my view, not a question at all but a horror story.
But I do have a clear question to put to the Council. First, is the Council not also of the opinion that stabilization in Albania includes striking a balance between the re-elected President Berisha and the former opposition, which, I am happy to say, now forms part of the coalition government?
Secondly, how are elections to be held unless these armed bands in the south of the country are disarmed? And thirdly, how can democratic local authorities be re-established there?
There is a danger that massive economic interests which support those armed bands will simply seize power from the streets. That makes it very important to re-establish democratic local authorities.
You might interpret that as a question, but what you are describing is our concern and yours that the electoral process should be carried out correctly and everything that is related to that.
I share that concern, but I simply wanted to demonstrate how the position of the European Union and other bodies might actually lead to conditions and circumstances which might allow these operations to take place properly. I also said that the Albanian people have considerable responsibility.
Once again I agree with you, but I just wanted to try to follow up my previous thoughts.
That concludes Question Time to the Council.
Questions Nos 16 to 31 with be answered in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
China-Europe relations
The next item is the report (A4-0198/97) by Mr McMillan-Scott on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on the communication from the Commission on a long-term policy on relations between China and Europe (COM(95)0279 - C4-0288/95).
Mr President, this evening we are discussing a document produced by the Commission - a communication on EU relations with China in the long term.
The European Parliament has taken a close interest in China and over a number of years has adopted many resolutions, almost all of them highly critical of China in many respects.
During the time we have been preparing this report we have tried to establish a new way of working with China, and in particular with the National People's Congress, against a background of hugely expanding trade with the People's Republic, where all our Member States are closely involved in the economic development that has taken place in China since 1978.
But we are also conscious that China remains a one-party state - in some ways a tyrannous regime - and has been justly criticised, both here and elsewhere, for its human rights problems.
However, the theme we have chosen for this report is not just 'business as usual' but also 'politics as usual' , seeking to underline that while we welcome the development of trade, at the same time we are seeking to establish some form of political dialogue with the Chinese political elite.
So it was, for the first time, we gave the delegation from the National People's Congress, which visited Brussels in April, the opportunity to discuss in detail the draft report.
I was pleased they were able to do so - we sent them an advance copy and they looked through it in detail and, of course, were highly critical of certain aspects.
It is important to try to engage the Chinese in some form of dialogue, and so we based the report on the Maastricht criteria, which are democracy and the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms, and we hope that over time all these four conditions will find their place in Chinese life.
The Commission is involved in the promotion of democracy in China, through the village democracy programme.
The Commission is involved, as are Member States, in the promotion of the rule of law, without which human rights cannot operate in any territory.
As to fundamental freedoms - the most basic aspect of political life - these are still not available in territories such as Tibet, and we deal in some detail with that question in the report.
We seek also a more cooperative approach with China. For example, an EU-China summit, raising relations to a new level and not just through the ASEM process.
We would like to see a new trade and cooperation treaty replacing that of 1985 and including the standard human rights clause.
We would like to expand the European Union's programmes in China.
At the moment they are not significant in monetary or, indeed, in real terms, and they should be much more addressed to the size of China and its potential in the world economy and, indeed, in world politics.
We would like to see an office opened in China for the European business groups which wish to take advantage of the trade.
But, above all, I have tried to indicate in my report that there is a great deficit in China: the so-called internal market does not function - indeed never has.
The Commission has a great deal to offer the Chinese in the experience we have had in creating the single market in Europe and in converting the economies of the former Soviet Union to market economies.
We look at the experience we have had in operating the CFSP: the failure, for example, of the European Union in Geneva this April.
We look to the resumption of the Troika discussions on human rights with China.
We would like to see added to that a six-monthly report, not just on human rights, but also on the economic aspects of our relations, to look in particular at the approach of China towards WTO and OECD membership.
These are all aspects which are covered in the report.
Of course, we deal with the transition back to Chinese sovereignty of Hong Kong.
We say quite specifically that we repudiate the legitimacy of the Provisional Legislative Council and we look forward to the Chinese honouring the promises they have given both to us and the international community in respect of Hong Kong's civil and political rights.
I am grateful for all the help I have had from academics, business people, colleagues in the European Parliament, the Commission and Parliament's staff in the production of this report.
Mr President, as we debate in this Parliament, the American Congress is debating too.
I want to highlight the symbolism of this coincidence: perhaps the Conference of Presidents of our Parliament has not really understood the importance of this strategic definition of relations between the European Union and China, probably the most important political and economic issue affecting development and stability in the world at this time.
It has not understood, because we are being forced to have a debate under these conditions, to put it politely, while in the American Congress it seems this is a subject which actually draws crowds.
This means we still have a long way to go before our parties, this Parliament and indeed the European Union, achieve full awareness of the importance of defining a long term relationship with China which is effective and useful for peace, stability, cooperation and development.
Today, with this report, Parliament has the opportunity to start pointing the way forward for a comprehensive organic policy which is long term and does not consist merely of occasional though often justified denunciations but which fail to take account of the whole range of issues involved in relations with such a large country.
China is necessary to peace, stability and economic growth.
The right line is not to isolate China, a position which would anyway be virtually unachievable, given the size and, now, the international relations of that country.
The right line is one of dialogue and cooperation applied with sincerity and clarity, gradually leading that country to weigh up the advantages of cooperation to its development, growth and welfare and also the advantage, to obtain all this, of respecting international rules on agreements and treaties, human rights, and the solution of certain major problems still outstanding, like Hong Kong, Tibet and Taiwan.
Engagement with China is the only possible way.
I see that in the American Congress Mrs Albright has upheld this view, which is also our own, and has mentioned four areas - I do not have time to cover them all - where China is, to a degree, entering positively and constructively into international policy issues. A very important one is its contribution to the approval of the nuclear test ban treaty, a second is helping control the instability on the Korean peninsula, supporting peacekeeping operations in Cambodia and elsewhere, the beginnings of effective control over exports of important and dangerous technology, and positive discussions, according to the Americans, about China's entry into the World Trade Organization.
I could go on.
Of course, there is still the human rights chapter.
I believe it is right to create a clear, open and fair policy on China, in which a will to cooperate is announced and sustained.
Action must follow this and not accusations about differences, because I actually think intensification of relations and development of economic cooperation will contribute to shifting opinion even amongst the Chinese leadership and lead to political changes which are already partly in progress.
So I believe this is an important report. It does not exhaust our drive to define the right policy, which, as a Parliament, we have only just begun, but it is a good start.
Mr President, adapting something that Heine once said about Germany, ' To think of China in the night puts all my hope of sleep to flight.'
That is doubly valid here.
All our plans for the evening have been put to flight by this important subject, but the important subject itself causes us deep concern.
And the topics of foreign policy and foreign trade policy, which create so much debate in the European Parliament, also include topics connected with China, with China's role in the world, and especially matters relating to those regions that are politically and/or culturally connected with China.
Mr McMillan-Scott has presented us with a comprehensive report, covering many different aspects.
I should like to confine myself to one: human rights, which after all is the most critical for us.
The attitude of the European Union is becoming a test case here, not just as regards a common policy towards China but also as regards its attitude in future negotiations with other countries.
Many countries produce a hostile reaction if tackled on the issue of human rights.
They will see our attitude to China as a yardstick.
The McMillan-Scott report imposes requirements in the human rights areas that make our principles clear.
In this sensitive area, especially, we should not become entangled in contradictions and so weaken the demands we make on other countries.
Economic relations are also political relations.
Anyone who sets his hopes on contributing to the democratization of a country is supporting that precise argument, but human rights are part of democracy.
Good relations with China are something for which we all hope, including in particular greater openness towards people in China.
China, for its part, has expectations to live up to.
The handover of Hong Kong will show how far it stands by its obligations under the handover treaty, which will provide a pointer for international co-operation.
No one would dispute that the restructuring of a gigantic empire into a modern state involves many problems, especially in the case of a state which is home to many nations.
But China's government should have the courage, too, to proceed towards the rule of law, human rights and democracy.
Thousands of years of Chinese culture can give it the strength to do so.
The same applies to its attitude towards Tibet and respect for an equally ancient culture.
And it applies, too, to a peaceful settlement of relations with Taiwan, which is an area where trade relations really should lead to changed relations.
Mr President, I greatly appreciated the report by Mr McMillan-Scott, but I share Mr Colajanni's view that this Parliament is not demonstrating a serious attitude in holding the debate on such an important issue before a half-empty Chamber, in competition with football matches and so much else.
I agree with Mr McMillan-Scott that a framework agreement, for example, should be reached on economic and trade cooperation, because I also feel sure that human rights tend to be better understood and protected in societies open to free trade and free movement of investment, persons and ideas.
But I think the importance of the human rights issue cannot be understated given what is happening daily: illegal practices, systematic violation of human rights, growing recourse on a vast scale to the death penalty, even for minor crimes. Many people are detained just for peacefully expressing their own political or religious ideas.
Well, we cannot keep quiet about it, or we would be false to ourselves, just as we cannot keep quiet about the fact that Hong Kong will provide concrete proof of whether the intentions of the Chinese government are good.
We cannot relax our vigilance over the maintenance of the provisions in force on freedom of expression, of the press, of association and of the right to hold demonstrations.
Whether a framework agreement with China is seriously possible soon will depend on this.
Mr President, the Liberal Group is satisfied in general terms with Mr MacMillan-Scott's report.
We congratulate him on it.
The report accords considerable importance to relations between the EU and China and they are looked at from many angles.
We are pleased that human rights issues have a central place in the report.
In this connection I should like to stress that we must also be consistent in these matters.
What we demand from China we must also insist on from others.
On behalf of the Liberal Group I have tabled two amendments to this report which concern environmental questions.
In the committee after the vote, a recital was adopted on a proposal from the Greens stating that the West, including Europe, should reduce the use and pollution of natural resources.
In my opinion it is important for environmental issues to be included in the operative paragraphs of the report too.
My first amendment aims to do this.
The substance of the paragraph is the same as that of the recital already adopted.
In addition, I am proposing a new wording for paragraph 9.
The form of words I am proposing places the EU and China on an equal footing with respect to each other and is more diplomatic than the original version.
I hope that I will have wide support from Members of this House for my amendments.
Mr President, the first paragraph of the resolution on long term relations with China rightly points out that they should be based on cooperation rather than confrontation.
Unfortunately, the rest of the resolution heads in the opposite direction, with heavy interference in China's internal and external policies.
The starting point for any cooperation consists in considering the partner country as a sovereign state.
This resolution does not do that, and demands that China make social choices that are not its natural ones, especially concerning its territorial integrity.
Without giving ground on the concept of human rights, which the European Parliament upholds, it would have been possible - and, I think, far more useful - to deal with this matter in such a way as to contribute to a positive evolution in China in this field, rather than make demands of it which are not even always respected by the European Union's Member States or allies.
An historic step has just been taken in the case of the handover of Hong Kong, in the conditions of a positive negotiated settlement of a difficult dispute. There is not a single word in this resolution to salute that smooth handover, alas so rare in the modern world.
The pressure demanded of the Commission in favour of Taiwan's accession to international organisations and the plan to open an information bureau in Taipei would be provocative and irresponsible rather than favouring normal and balanced relations with China.
None of this is reasonable and has nothing to do with the desire for relations based on cooperation and mutual respect, which would only be beneficial in terms of economic and social matters as well as human rights, peace and security.
A lot has changed in China since 1995, even though many problems remain, and it is quite regrettable that the update of the Commission's communication dating back to 1995 should be done in such a negative way.
I hope that Sino-European relations, a major challenge for the 21st century, will soon be looked at from a completely different angle.
Mr President, I must congratulate Mr McMillan-Scott on an excellent report which is in no way vitiated by the fact that practically all of the amendments from the Green Group were accepted by the external affairs committee.
As President of the China Delegation I often have to listen to the complaint, when I am in contact with representatives of the Peking Government, that we pursue a unilateral and unjustified campaign against China.
I think that this report makes it clear that we are laying the foundation for constructive co-operation, that we have noticed the small but nevertheless real improvements which have taken place in China while at the same time we openly and without reservation level the necessary criticism, which is absolutely justified, against the very serious shortcomings in the Chinese system when it comes to democracy and human rights.
We must continue in this vein.
This is why it is all the more regrettable that it has been impossible to co-ordinate a collective criticism at government level in our respective countries.
It is particularly regrettable that some of the larger states, with France at the head, have put free trade before human rights.
This must be severely criticised by Parliament.
Mr President, there are not many of us here but we have the pleasure of having the Commissioner with us, which I think is particularly important.
I do not say this for Mrs Moreau, but I think that when we speak of human rights we also speak of democracy and our aim is also to ensure that the world does not become one big Singapore, with development but no democracy.
Our work as parliament is therefore to define a policy that helps to bring about democracy in China as quickly as possible.
This report is, I think, a first important step in that direction.
It will also enable us to harass Commissioner Brittan, but that is only a tiny part of the problem.
I think that we all remember the serious events that have occurred in terms of defining a common European police for external matters, and the respect of human rights in China.
We all recall Geneva and the disaster that befell the Union's policy.
Then there was President Chirac's trip to China, where promises that we are still awaiting were made, and last week the Italian Prime Minister, Mr Prodi, also visited the country and repeatedly told us that he would be very firm and would demand specific commitments by China over human rights.
We are still waiting for a practical outcome to that trip.
What I mean to say is that what we are doing here is very important but we have to be very hard on the Council in the coming months - the Council announced earlier that it is redefining its policy on China.
If that policy is based on the McMillan-Scott report, I think that that would be a first step in the right direction.
On the other hand, if that new policy is a confirmation of Mr Chirac or Mr Prodi's approaches, then I think we are heading straight for disaster.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Mr McMillan-Scott on his report, which has kept to a realistic line and avoided the usual mistake in dealing with China of taking an ideological approach rather than a political one.
In general there are two kinds of excess: the mercantilist culture and the radical culture.
Instead a more pragmatic approach is needed, the one our rapporteur has adopted, which takes account of the different history and the different objective conditions of a country with one billion two hundred million inhabitants, the weight of its tradition and of its enormous contradictions.
So we need to make an effort to understand and support a possible transition, trusting to the culture of development and freedom: this is a more difficult path, but a safer one, and anyway it is the obligatory path.
In the next twenty years we will have to reckon with China, which will be the greatest factor for change but also for uncertainty, so there will either be strongly absolutist and nationalist growth which will constitute a danger for the surrounding area and for the entire world, or progressive movement towards the market and freedom.
A great deal depends on us.
Head-on confrontation is a mistake, because in the Chinese tradition it leads to them cutting off relations. It is also wrong to try to export the worst of our culture, like consumption, corruption, and the law of the strongest.
We must focus on economic, technical, scientific and cultural cooperation to help China's development effort, and export the culture of freedom, of diversity understood as richness, of tolerance, pluralism, human rights, peaceful co-existence, and respect for minorities.
If we gamble on cooperation and on the attraction of our values, then in time we shall certainly obtain political fallout.
The policy of the Chinese government - one country, two systems - will demonstrate the superiority of the market, but at the same time the cultural influence of the values of western civilization will convince the Chinese people to take the road of freedom.
Mr President, there are some positive things in Mr McMillan-Scott's report.
There is the explanatory statement, and in the resolution there are between 30 and 40 points which are positive and underline China's enormous economic importance and its importance to the stability of the region in the more general sense.
At the same time, however, there are about 20 points which negate all of the helpful things that are said. The rapporteur deems them necessary as a means to promoting constructive cooperation between the European Union, in particular, and China.
It is if China were a defeated country to which Mr McMillan-Scott is dictating terms.
At Point 18 he gives full details of the type of constitution that today's China should devise. The Chines people are to have constitutional democracy.
I do not know where he gets his authority from.
From the Dalai Lama?
From God? I have no idea.
Secondly, he speaks about Tibet and the Dalai Lama.
But Tibet has been an integral part of China since time immemorial.
What happens in Tibet is China's own internal affair, just as what happened and is happening in the eastern part of Germany that united with western part was, and is, an internal affair.
Thirdly, he speaks about Hong Kong.
Hong Kong has changed sovereignty.
Has Mr McMillan-Scott not got wind of that yet? Two sovereign states came to an agreement and Hong Kong is now part of China...
(The President cut off the speaker)
I would like to congratulate Mr McMillan-Scott on an extremely useful and balanced report on relations with China.
I very much agree with Mr De Luca that it is important when developing our policy on China to be realistic and to be pragmatic.
As it happens, I do not think there is a conflict of objectives, as some have suggested.
Mr Gahrton seemed to think that we were preferring free trade to human rights.
I do not see that conflict because we are talking about an extremely large and important country, as many speakers in the debate have said.
We have to ask ourselves a practical question: what is our interest as far as China is concerned?
It is, of course, an economic one, but it is also that China should be a peaceful participant in the world and a major economic player, developing a free society and expanding the rule of law and human rights in China.
That is our objective.
Now how do we achieve it? People talk about consistency.
I do not think one can be entirely consistent because the way of achieving results in China will be very different from achieving results in other countries, which are smaller and perhaps at different stages of development.
I have no doubt at all that the best way of achieving these common objectives is to develop the closest links with China economically and politically, to assist its development, particularly in the areas of special interest, but also to be forthright in our views on human rights.
I do not think there is any contradiction in those objectives.
In the long run the most likely prospect of improving the human rights situation is for China to develop economically and for us to encourage China in that development, not only internally, but towards the outside world through, for example, participation in the World Trade Organization; not a meaningless participation as if it were a club which we just wanted to give them the prize of entry to, but participation on the basis of acceptance of the rules of the WTO which, on the one hand require China to open up and become a more liberal economy, recognizing its difficulties and its stage of development, while on the other hand, giving China access to the rest of the world.
If that happens you will automatically open up economic freedom in China.
In the long term economic and political freedom cannot be divided.
The growth of economic freedom in China is the most certain, long-term way to achieving political freedom as well.
But it does not follow from that that you say: let us trade with China, let us negotiate China's participation in the WTO and hope that will lead in time to a freer society in China.
That is not enough either.
We have to work actively for that.
We have to give the appropriate signs and signals.
But we also have to give the appropriate help.
I was glad to hear Mr McMillan-Scott say that the cooperation programme should be expanded.
Parliament has an important role in enabling that to happen an it should be targeted in a way that helps the development of a civil society and encourages democracy.
We have a programme which encourages, as has been said, support at village level for reform in the right direction.
Reference was made by Mr Väyrynen to environmental issues. There too we have much to offer China and China is interested in taking what we have to offer in terms of environmental programmes, training key environmental planners, supporting pilot projects involving technology transfer and assisting environmental planning and management in China.
In addition to trade and cooperation there is the question of human rights.
That has been central also in the most direct sense, and not just in the indirect way that I have described, to our policy toward China which is comprehensive and coherent.
The Commission has never hesitated to express our criticisms, both publicly and privately, of China's lapses on human rights.
I have done so myself at the highest level, mentioning particular cases.
I agree with those who have said, or implied, that the inability of the European Union to reach a common view to put that view forward in Geneva at the Commission on Human Rights, is a great failing and a great weakness.
I very much hope that the Intergovernmental Conference, in reinforcing our capacity to create a foreign policy, will enable us in future on this issue, as in others, to present a rather more impressive picture to the outside world and advance our interests in a more effective way.
We should not hesitate to do that.
Hong Kong is important.
We are witnessing a unique experiment, an experiment to create one country with the two systems of Hong Kong and China proper.
The commitment of the Chinese Government to do that is unique and we should observe and watch it with care, with interest, and with concern that it meets the commitments that have been made.
There is a common European interest, not only because of our economic interests in Hong Kong, but also because Hong Kong itself can set an example, not as a base for subversion, but as an example which can lead people elsewhere in China and in the whole region to believe the route of economic freedom and political freedom is the right route forward, not just in Western Europe or in countries with a common tradition, but also in other parts of the world which have different backgrounds but where human values ultimately must prevail.
I commend the report and believe that the policy that we are pursuing towards China is comprehensive and pragmatic, recognizing the importance of trade and economic development both for its own sake and as a point of entry towards the creation of a more liberal society in China, but bolstering that up with cooperation programmes pointing in the same direction and a robust expression of our views when human rights are violated in China as elsewhere in the world.
Thank you, Sir Leon.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Baltic initiative
The next item is the report (A4-0196/97) by Mr Burenstam Linder on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on the Commission communication on the Baltic Sea Initiative (SEC(96)0608 - C40362/96).
Mr President, the Baltic Sea region had the fastest economic growth in Europe before the communist revolution.
Now that the planned economy has been scrapped, the former communist countries, together with the other countries in the Baltic Sea region, can once again develop this region into an economically flourishing democracy.
This will also help to strengthen political stability.
This stability can be improved through the fine web of co-operation at all levels which has developed and which continues to develop, in the public and private sectors for example, in business, administration, organisations and between private individuals.
At an inter-state level this co-operation also includes non-binding support on defence issues and common efforts in international peace keeping missions.
The work which is handled in the Council of Baltic Sea States , in which the EU participates as a full member, is of particular importance for co-operation in all these areas.
In this respect, the European Union has an important task.
Further far reaching reforms are needed in the former communist countries which, in the short term, can prove difficult because change is often seen as arduous.
The incentive to overcome short term thinking in politics has increased in those countries which have applied for membership of the EU.
They know that further change is required for membership.
The requirement for change gains increased acceptance in this way.
It is therefore especially important that, before membership negotiations begin, the Commission adopts the principle that new members will be accepted by order of merit , in other words, that objective qualifications will be the deciding factor.
If a particular group of countries consider themselves chosen from the start, the enthusiasm for reform felt by them is reduced.
If other countries feel that, even if they put more effort in than others and are really successful, they will still be left out, the desire to introduce reforms will be weakened, even if they should continue with the changes for their own sakes.
The political leaders who have been particularly involved in pursuing these changes will be compromised if successful reforms do not meet with an appropriate response during the membership negotiations.
It is particularly worth reminding ourselves of this view with regard to the three Baltic countries, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
They have applied for membership of both the EU and NATO.
I do not think that they should be made members of the EU just because they may not be able to become members of NATO.
They must fulfil the requirements laid down for membership of the EU, both with regard to the Union and to themselves.
But a particular country, or countries which are successful must also find themselves among the first new members of the EU and not left out in favour of another preselected group.
It is in the EU's own wider interests to promote stability in this region which is sometimes the subject of threatening speeches arising from Russian domestic policy.
This is one reason why the Commission should make greater efforts to get the four EU states which have not ratified the European Agreement with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to do so now; after all it is two years since this agreement was signed.
Furthermore, the Commission ought to actively assist in concluding and approving border agreements with Russia in all cases and in so doing eliminate this area of uncertainty.
It must not appear appropriate for Russia to create uncertainty because of a lack of clarity on border issues.
One particular problem concerns the position of the Russian minority in Estonia and Latvia and of the many Russians who emigrated there during the Soviet era.
I think that we can take these criticisms which sometimes come from the Russian side very lightly.
This can be a difficult area but, in fact, the Baltic countries have managed to establish a relationship between citizen and immigrant which, in many respects, is better than that in many EU countries, even despite the fact that the minority is so much bigger here than in any other country.
Of course it is possible to make further improvements.
Establishing domestic harmony is in the interest of the Latvians and the Estonians as well.
Co-operation in the Baltic Sea region as a whole can yield important results in a number of particular areas.
The environment in the Baltic region was badly damaged during the Soviet era.
There is now a huge repair job to be carried out with our joint forces.
The joint fight against organised crime can also be mentioned as an area where combined efforts have been made and there is a strong chance that these will be successful within the framework of international co-operation.
Russia is included as an active and interested party in the regional co-operation in the Baltic Sea region and in the Council of the Baltic Sea States .
This gives the region and the co-operation there special significance and weight.
Successful co-operation between equal partners, with the EU as the driving force will in all probability yield significant benefits.
The introduction of democracy in Russia and economic reforms there would make the whole of the Baltic Sea region a new peaceful source of strength in Europe, and this is what we have set our sights on.
Mr President, the accession of Finland and Sweden and the association of Poland and the Baltic States have meant that the Baltic has become almost a European Union lake.
The European Union therefore has a direct responsibility to gear its policies more closely to the Baltic region as a whole, rather than to the individual states of the Baltic seaboard.
In doing so, we should make every effort to encourage the developing regional structures such as the Council of Baltic Sea States - as Mr Burenstam Linder just said - HELCOM, in the sector of environment policy, and other initiatives of a regional character.
The aid framework envisaged by the Commission should provide for 'help for self-help' , which is now a major issue in the Baltic region, and should also make an effective contribution to the development of the private sector - small- and medium-sized enterprises, in other words.
The Committee on External Economic Affairs therefore emphatically supports the conclusions reached by Mr Burenstam Linder's excellent report, which adopts this approach.
We are particularly glad that our suggestions have been incorporated in full.
There are three points of special interest to us here.
First, there is the cross-border expansion of the infrastructures - roads, railways and ports.
Secondly, however, we do urge that this should be done in an environment-friendly and environmentally compatible manner.
In case of doubt, the redevelopment of existing facilities and stretches of road or rail should take precedence over new building and new lines of communication.
Thirdly, co-operation between governments in the Baltic region needs to be supplemented by a continuous parliamentary dialogue between the European Union and the parliaments of the Baltic States.
We feel that the President of the European Parliament and the Presidents of the Baltic seaboard states should take the necessary steps to ensure this.
Mr President, the initiative for the Baltic Sea region which was taken by the Commission before the Baltic Sea Council's summit meeting in Visby was an important one.
We must work towards creating closer ties between the EU and the Central and Eastern European States in the Baltic Sea Region.
The Region is currently a unique platform for political dialogue and for the co-ordination of measures to promote democracy in Europe.
The region is also important from the point of view of political stability.
The Baltic States, for historical and geographical reasons, because of the occupation by the Soviet Union and the border with Russia, form a region subject to potential conflict, which in its turn could have consequences for the rest of Europe.
This risk must be eliminated.
This is best achieved by placing the countries firmly within the sphere of international co-operation.
The role of Russia is also important.
Russia must be integrated closely in the co-operation on the Baltic Sea region.
Currently existing co-operation instruments must be used to the optimum to strengthen democracy, political stability and economic development in this region.
The EU is an important organisation in this co-operation.
The forthcoming enlargement is of great importance to the whole of the Baltic Sea region, indeed for the whole of Europe.
This unique opportunity to unite Europe socially, culturally and economically must not be ignored.
All the applicant countries must have the same chance to qualify for membership.
No one shall be excluded from the discussions at the start. Everyone must start on one and the same starting line.
In this respect it is important to view the Baltic States as three separate States and to treat them as such.
Finally: the enlargement of the EU into a peaceful, united Europe must be kept separate from the enlargement of NATO's military defence alliance.
International co-operation must be built on a peaceful note and must not remain in the shadow of the cold war.
Mr President, just as membership of the European Union has meant increased security for Sweden and Finland, it will also mean increased security for our neighbours along the Baltic Sea, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland the day they become members of the European Union.
Not only will their security be enhanced but also the security of Europe which makes it extremely important for us all that these countries become members as quickly as possible.
This is why it is also important that we do not place further conditions on those who are applying for membership other than that they must fulfil the requirements, the conditions of membership.
This alone must be the deciding factor.
It is in the interests of the security of Europe that we open our arms to these countries.
The European Agreement is an important part of this and an important step towards membership.
This is why it is incomprehensible that a number of countries - out of pure laziness as far as I can understand - have still not ratified the European Agreement which exists with the Baltic States.
Let me also point out that it must be an absolute requirement that those countries seeking membership - and that includes the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea which are currently applying - fulfil the requirements that we have stipulated on human rights.
We will help them in this, but it is really important that we do lay down requirements which must, for example, include everything stipulated by the Commission and also the requirement that they abolish the death sentence.
Finally, I would like to say thank you to Mr Burenstam Linder for an excellent report.
It is a truly high quality report well in line with that which his predecessor from the Moderate Coalition Party, Margaretha af Ugglas gave to Parliament on the same subject.
Mr President, it is important that the Union gives its full support to regional cooperation in the Baltic region, because it will create prosperity and stability for the whole continent.
For example, trade between the EU countries and the 'transitional economies' is expected to quadruple in the next few years in the Baltic region.
The Commission's role in Baltic cooperation is currently too modest.
It must move from observation and coordination to fully-fledged participation.
The Agenda 21 programme for sustainable development is currently under preparation in the Baltic region, as the report mentions.
The Commission is also involved in the creation of programmes, but with a very small input.
In my opinion, Parliament should insist that the Commission increase its input into the Agenda 21 programme.
The traditional concept of military security has lost its meaning in the Baltic region as elsewhere.
On the other hand, environmental questions, stable, democratic and socially just development in the 'transitional economy' countries, minority issues and the prevention of crime and terrorism are even more important.
The development of cooperation in the Baltic region calls for cooperation to be built up with Russia, too.
Mr President, Parliament should promote the conclusion of a border agreement between Russia and Estonia, because it is a precondition for the development of cooperation among the states of the Baltic region.
Let us put the clocks back to December 1995.
The European Council meets in Madrid and decides that an approach be adopted to the preparations for EU enlargement guaranteeing that the applicant countries will be treated on an equal footing.
I strongly supported that line, and still do.
It is very important from the point of view of stability in the applicant countries that we do not start making pronouncements on which ones are more eligible than others and are more deserving of EU membership.
In his original draft for the report, the rapporteur did advocate a strategy on those lines, which is neither reasonable nor well thought out.
Fortunately my Swedish colleague, Mrs Theorin, made sure that the report in its final form would make it clear that only when all the applicant countries were lined up at the same starting point and the negotiations had got underway would consideration be given to which countries best met the conditions for accession.
Cooperation in the Baltic Sea region could be strengthened by a specific Baltic Sea Programme.
The Council of the Baltic Sea States could be the focal point for such cooperation and could participate in the political process as a responsible partner.
The many good initiatives for which budget lines already exist could be brought together in a proper Baltic Sea Programme.
The common economic objectives awaiting political implementation are obvious.
They relate to energy, transport and the environment.
The development of a pattern of trade is something else, but equally important.
Finally, I must stress how important I think it is that, if after the start of negotiations the conditions for accession are found to be met by one or more of the Baltic countries and they therefore qualify for membership, existing EU members must not put obstacles based on historical considerations or strategic self-interest in the way of their accession.
Mr President, I too would like to offer my congratulations to Mr Burenstam Linder.
He has succeeded in producing a synthesis of penetrating analyses and far-sighted visions. And those visions can become reality if opportunities are consistently taken and risks are minimized.
Nor has the rapporteur disregarded the necessary next steps, and it is one of those necessary next steps on which I should like to focus.
In paragraph 1, the rapporteur calls upon the institutions to promote the full ratification of the Europe Agreements with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
When we vote on this report tomorrow, those agreements will be precisely two years old - they were signed back on 12 June 1995.
So the rapporteur is more than justified in calling for ratification, and it is also in the interests of the European Parliament.
Because, after ratification by all Member States and the Council, the existing delegations can be reconstituted as joint parliamentary committees, which is not just a formality but secures binding participation in a structured dialogue.
It secures the participation of the European Parliament and of the respective national parliaments in the structuring of the treaties, in the defining of political focuses and priorities, and in control.
We thus secure the right to influence the complex processes of adjustment that are going to be necessary both in those states that wish to join the Union and in the Union itself.
Especially in the Baltic region, there is a need both for closer co-operation and for the rapid acceptance of new Member States.
Because it is precisely here that we have the opportunity, in the future, to involve Russia, too, more closely in regional co-operation and so make an essential contribution to stability.
Mr President, I join the many Members of Parliament who have congratulated Mr Burenstam Linder on his admirable report. I am extremely grateful to him for it, it is apt and comprehensive.
I wish to begin by warmly endorsing what Mr Burenstam Linder and Mr Gomolka, amongst others, have also said about the importance of the ratification of the Europe agreements with the three Baltic countries.
I hope that can take place as soon as possible, and I can assure you that the Commission will continue to press for that to happen.
Meanwhile we, of course, proceed on the basis of the free trade agreements, but it would be very much better to proceed on the fuller basis of the Europe agreements which have been awaiting ratification for so long.
Secondly, a number of speakers have talked about the importance of close relations with Russia for the coherent development of the Baltic Sea region.
I agree with that.
The encouragement of the reform process in the Russian Federation and the development of close relations with Russia is an imperative.
I myself will be going to Moscow on Sunday in order to discuss with the Russian authorities progress in the negotiations for Russia's participation in the World Trade Organization.
That participation will itself engender further important reforms in Russia, which are necessary for Russia's participation and enjoyment of the benefits of the world economy in the fuller sense, and that will bring benefits in the Baltic region and elsewhere.
Thirdly, I have great sympathy for many of the things that have been said about the criteria that need to be applied in considering the applications of the Baltic States, as of other countries, for membership of the European Union.
We must be quite clear, as a number of speakers have said, that each country should be considered on its merits, that no country should be included in or excluded from the process of negotiation of membership because it is in any particular part of Europe.
We owe that to all the applicant countries.
Also, Mr Burenstam Linder was very right in what he said about the importance of not discouraging countries that have applied.
It has to be made clear that those countries that have applied will be admitted as members of the European Union when they are eligible for membership, and that is as true of any who may not be eligible at the very outset of the process of negotiation as of those who are.
So I hope that it will be possible to give reassurance in that way.
But, of course, the bulk of the report and the debate ought to be about Baltic Sea regional cooperation.
There I beg to differ from Mrs Ojala, who has somewhat understated the extent of the involvement of the European Union in general and the Commission in particular in that process.
Mr Burenstam Linder is right to point out that the key to what the Commission and the European Union can do to stimulate cooperation in the Baltic Sea is its membership as a full member of the Council of Baltic Sea States.
As such, the European Union is able to play an important role in promoting stability and prosperity in the Baltic region through political and economic cooperation and is doing so.
Of course the determination of the countries concerned to act together is decisive for success, but nonetheless the Commission, through its participation in the various meetings that have taken place, has stimulated that cooperation and has shown a readiness to assist it in a practical way by using the PHARE and TACIS programmes, as well as other Community programmes, associating it with loans from the European Investment Bank and in that way encouraging a large number of programmes and projects in the areas identified in the initiative; democracy and civil security, economic cooperation, environmental and regional cooperation.
That involves administrations, institutions and people, takes the form of technical assistance, supply of equipment or investment co-financing.
The role of local authorities from all the countries bordering the Baltic Sea is also very important in the multilateral Baltic cross-border cooperation programme and we in the Commission seek to stimulate their active participation, along with their national colleagues, to promote region-to-region and people-to-people contacts.
In these various ways the Commission and the European Union play a full, active and worthy part in the comprehensive process of encouraging Baltic Sea region cooperation, both economically and politically in the various ways I have described.
Thank you, Sir Leon.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Equal pay for women and men
The next item is the report (A4-0143/97) by Mr González Álvarez on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Commission communication - a code of practice on the implementation of equal pay for work of equal value for women and men (COM(96)0336 - C4-0460/96) Rapporteur for an opinion(): Colombo Svevo for the Committee on Womens' Rights ( Hughes procedure).
Mr President, I think that we should begin by thanking Mrs Colombo for her work, which complemented that done by us in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and expressing our thanks also to members of that committee - Waddington, Wolf and Schörling - who tabled amendments.
These amendments definitely enriched this report and simply seemed very important to me.
One of them referred to the effect of public spending cuts on aspects such as health and education, where female employment rates are very high, and the fact that those cuts can harm women's job chances.
Certain amendments provided for Code measures to be taken not only in favour of a group but all workers, i.e. all female workers, who often have so-called 'rubbish' contracts or work part-time.
Susan Waddington's amendment is also important - it analyses the effect of the Code and looks at whether it might not be more effective to turn it into a legal instrument within three years.
To sum up, the Code is addressed to the social partners, governments and associations.
It also sets down guidelines for analysing pay structures and assessing jobs and, as a prior step, the compilation of adequate information on pay systems - which differ from country to country - and the study of collective bargaining procedures, to determine where action must be taken to avoid wage discrimination.
Twenty years after the 1975 Directive was adopted, it can be noted - as Mrs Colombo does and the European Union's own statistics bear out - that there is still a 20-30 % wage differential between women and men doing work of the same value.
According to other statistics, only 20 % of contracts deal with the problem of inequality between women and men.
We still have a long way to go.
I must say that I am slightly sceptical about voluntary agreements, because if we cannot apply compulsory legislation I do not see how we can be expected to comply with voluntary agreements, such as the Code of Conduct between employers and the various social partners.
However, given that there are still salary differences and that legislation has been unable to reduce them, it seems that any measure that we can take might be of use.
One formula that might be useful would be first of all to encourage training and information for women so that they can accede to collective bargaining.
Secondly, to foster the presence of women in company committees.
At present it is men who discuss women's problems and defend their rights but it is really up to women to defend their own rights.
The current precariousness of employment - as is stated in one of the amendments - and public spending cuts do nothing to help the situation.
We believe that the public sector would probably give a good example to private initiative if it adopted measures to continue to reduce pay differentials.
We think that transparency is needed not only for assessing jobs but also for collective bargaining.
We must raise awareness of social partners and inform them, and disseminate the Code, not only in large companies, not only among the social partners, not only among governments, but also among the SMEs which create more than 85 % of jobs in the European Union.
I should also add that women's associations should be informed.
We rapporteurs shall do our best to make sure that women's associations hear about the Code so that they can use it as an instrument to defend their rights.
We should also consider extending Article 119 now that the IGC is coming to a close.
If that article were to be extended, equal pay for work of equal value would then be enshrined in the new Treaty.
Mr President, the Committee on Women's Rights has obviously taken an interest in this report and thanks the rapporteur for having accepted a large number of its proposed amendments.
Our interest is clear because, as you know, this form of equality is to some extent the mother of all other forms of equality and it is on this form of equality that we have built all the others.
So it is paradoxical that while it has served as the basis for greater equality in other fields and other rights, both social and political, equal pay for equal work is still not properly applied in our countries.
Just recently, at a trade union conference, it was confirmed that women are earning 20 per cent less on average in Europe, and averages, as we know, very modestly conceal disparities which are even more serious in reality.
Worse still, because of casual work, wage differentials are now increasing in countries where they were previously less significant.
As these unequal conditions are persisting despite the existence of laws on formal equality, while the Committee on Women's Rights recognizes that the code is certainly a weak instrument, it nevertheless feels it may prove strong enough to reveal the mechanisms which conceal the disparities and thus help identify systems which could become more binding in the future.
These hidden mechanisms are now going to be revealed: how a job is evaluated, how the evaluation systems come into being and how they are applied, how the payment system is constructed, and why this disparity even lurks in collective agreements.
A second point is that the code will be part of the memorandum.
It is one part of it, not the whole and it does not replace it, but although we think it can be improved, this code is not superficial, it is incisive because it leads to an analysis of the payment system ranging from collection of the relevant data to evaluation of that data. After analysis there is also corrective action against discrimination on pay, and, finally, it also provides an evaluation of the application of such action.
The third point highlighted by the committee is that the code has its own internal logic and therefore operates in that logic. The committee believes this mechanism can only be effective and productive with one essential prerequisite: transparency.
Without transparency nothing can be achieved. There must also be widespread diffusion of information through an awareness campaign, training of experts, and above all an exchange of good practice including following an evaluation to completion, which will also reassure those of us who are a little sceptical that this is a useful initiative even if it does not solve the problem - as long as no-one cheats, of course!
Can I first of all also thank the rapporteur and the rapporteur from the Women's Rights Committee, and indeed the Commission, for the work that they have done on this important issue.
There certainly is a great deal more work to be done because despite the fact that equal opportunity legislation on men and women in employment has been in force in the European Union for over twenty years, women still earn less than men.
For example in 1996 in the United Kingdom, women who worked full-time earned only 72 % of men's average weekly wage.
The pay gap between men and women full-time workers has narrowed in the last twenty years, but only very slowly.
Since 1992 it has closed by only 1 percentage point.
For part-time workers the pay gap is enormous and has remained unchanged since the mid-1970s, with women earning only 58 % of men's average hourly pay.
Why is this? The main reason is that men and women tend to be employed in different occupations and men's jobs tend to be higher paid.
Men are also likely to receive bonuses and are less likely to work part-time where the wages are the lowest.
Can the code of practice help this situation? Essentially the code is proposing two main things: firstly that employers and trade unions should carry out an analysis of the remuneration systems operating in the workplace and evaluate the results to detect sexual discrimination in pay structures so that remedies can be found.
Secondly, that a plan of action should be drawn up to eliminate any discrimination in pay structures.
The Commission's view is that when a women does a job which is as demanding as a man's she ought to receive the same pay and benefits, even if it is a different job.
This is very fair and indeed this code has been welcomed by the social partners and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
But that committee has considered further amendments and we are asking for further action in the resolution.
I will just mention a few of the proposals that we would like the Commission to consider.
Firstly we are calling on the Commission to undertake research on a gender-free job evaluation scheme and to prepare model job evaluation guidelines for use as a bench mark by the social partners.
Secondly, we want the implementation or non-implementation of the code by employers to be seen as part of the burden of proof in cases of discrimination based on sex: we want the implementation of this code to be taken account of in tribunals.
Thirdly, we want the Commission and Member States to improve the collection and availability of statistics on wage levels so that progress - or the lack of it -is made more transparent.
Finally, since this code is a voluntary one, we want the Commission to monitor its implementation.
If in three years it has not resulted in a narrowing of the pay differentials between men and women, consideration must be given to making the code legally binding.
Remember the examples I have given you. The pay gap for full-time workers in the UK has narrowed by only 1 % in the last five years and for part-time workers it has not narrowed since the 1970s.
This is a pattern which is common across the EU and one that we must be determined to change.
Mr President, the policy of equality must be pursued at every political level in national parliaments and at a European level.
One of the most important issues of equality is equal pay for equal work.
This ought to be taken as read now that we are approaching the year 2000, but it isn't.
The code of practice proposed by the Commission and the report drawn up by Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez are important steps towards realising the objective of equal pay.
Unemployment affects women more than men.
We must improve the opportunities for women to get and keep jobs.
The labour market must be broadened for women.
Here are a number of suggestions which I think would facilitate such a development: longer parental leave and equal opportunities for paid employment and parenting for both men and women. The same social security conditions for part-time work as for full-time work are very important as is access to good childcare and care for the elderly which would improve equality, and active information centres at work and at school are a must.
In Sweden and in other countries the public sector is very important in providing work, equality and equal pay for both women and men, but particularly for women.
Cutbacks in this sector can have a negative impact on development which must not be allowed to happen.
Mr President, support this excellent report!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with the González report and I must congratulate her but the Commission proposal on the Code seems insufficient to me.
According to the Commission's annual report on equal opportunities, dating back to 1966, only countries that systematically and strictly applied systems to correct inequalities manage to eliminate those differences.
That is the case of Sweden.
However, the Code deals with equality in terms of women's and men's wages, but it is only voluntarily applied by governments, employers and workers' representatives.
More radical action is needed in order to achieve wage equality and to eliminate labour segregation.
Let me give one example: information supplied by the Staff DG and its equal opportunities unit, covering all European institutions.
In its 1996 report, it says that in Group A, there are 18.91 % women and 81.09 % men. In group C the figures are 71.16 % women and 20.84 % men.
I would ask you to pledge that, in accordance with paragraph 16 of the motion for a resolution, if in three years' time the Code has still failed to achieve the desired results, it will be transformed into a genuinely binding legal instrument.
Mr President, I should also like to thank and congratulate Mrs González Alvarez and Mrs Colombo on this magnificent report.
I must say that I am not very optimistic that it will have the effect that most if not all of the European Parliament would like it to have.
I am not optimistic because, if a Directive of over 20 months ago, which must be enforced, has not had the necessary effect, and would have ruled out the need for this report, a voluntary proposal is bound to have even less effect.
This is a good report, even so; we must make the Council, which represents the governments, more aware of the need for this initiative as well as other authorities, at regional and local level, and through public and private companies, to put this instrument into practice, as its application is fully justified in my view.
We should also raise the awareness of the social partners: trade unions, businessmen, women's associations and others, which are already very aware and fighting for equal rights on a day to day basis.
I hope that the Commission will give this proposal support and follow it up.
I would even go as far as to say that, if in three years' time the Code is ineffectual, we should introduce binding regulations.
I have a little less confidence in the Council, as I said earlier.
There are few things that affect the dignity of individuals and offend people as much as these. It is not right for women doing exactly the same work as men to be receiving 20, 25 or even 40 % less.
It is for the European Parliament to demand equal opportunities and I think that this is an interesting subject for us to follow up.
Mr President, at a time when the phenomenon of the new poverty, especially amongst women, is being discussed with growing concern, I can only agree on the need to inject a code of practice into the application of equal pay between the two sexes.
I particularly agree if that code is not limited to general statements of principle, but succeeds in guaranteeing concrete application of national legislation on pay, and hence also provides real and appropriate processes and sanctions.
I also believe it is important not to restrict the information and awareness campaign on this code to the social partners and large firms, but there should be maximum effort to publicize it amongst those women - and they represent the majority - who are employed in small and very small work places, women who are not in unions and are often forced into really casual work and precarious contractual conditions, which barely fall short of exploitation.
The governments of the member countries of the union have the main responsibility for guaranteeing the success of this code, but too often they pretend not to know of the existence of such discrimination, or anyway fail to intervene positively to remove it.
Those who govern cannot have a clear conscience just because they have changed laws, codes or regulations, if they then do not have the political will to monitor their effective application constantly.
As Mrs Colombo Svevo has already said, and I compliment her, this code, like any other instrument or procedure, makes sense and can work only on condition that no-one cheats.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the two rapporteurs, Mrs González and Mrs Colombo Svevo.
I am also pleased that there are male colleagues speaking this evening on this issue.
But allow me to convey to them a certain sense of bitterness which I cannot help but feel.
Certainly, we can agree on the fact that there exists a considerable legal corpus in the European Union on the issue of equal opportunities and equal pay: article 119 of the treaty, which we all hope will be improved in the next treaty, article 6 of the social protocol, numerous directives and judgements of the Court of Justice.
We also hope that the Council will quickly approve, on the basis of Parliament's recommendations, the directive on the burden of proof, which provides a precise definition of indirect discrimination for the first time.
Finally, we have a series of relevant programmes financed from the Union budget, which the member countries as a whole have promoted and contributed to, making the application of the right to equal pay and equal opportunities a general given.
But I have this sense of bitterness because, despite all this, the code of practice we are discussing tonight is important because the fact is, women's pay is still lower than men's in Europe by an average of about 30 per cent. In some sectors women receive a lower salary not just for work of equal value, but for the same work; there is occupational segregation, both horizontal and vertical, and discrimination, as others have mentioned, is on the increase because casual work with few guarantees is increasing, and this discrimination also exists in the pension schemes.
So, if all this is true, this code of practice is welcome provided that it contains the features the two rapporteurs recommend in their reports and provided that, after three years, if the results are not good enough, it really becomes binding on everyone.
Mr President, Commissioner, the principle of equal pay for work of equal value, as between men and women, exists only on paper.
Reality is something very different.
Even today, women earn on average 30 % less than men - even now, more than 20 years after a directive on equal remuneration was passed.
Women are over-represented in the low-pay sector, and the recent recession widened the gap between women's and men's earnings.
The fact that women are disadvantaged is also apparent in the training sector, in the fact that they are diverted into so-called typical women's jobs - often part-time jobs offering no social security - and the prevention of career advancement and access to management positions.
But complaining in itself achieves nothing.
If change and effective action are to be achieved, specific analyses are needed.
The Commission has adopted the suggestions made by the European Parliament in producing a code of practice as a basis for eliminating sex discrimination from the working world.
The intention is to examine what kinds of professional inequality exist, whether discrimination is being disguised by paying men additional bonuses, or whether job evaluations are quite simply one-sided.
The progress achieved is to be documented, as are successful model projects.
The action plan is to be produced by stages, in co-operation with the social partners.
They are to receive training and information and their awareness is to be improved so as to ensure precise compliance with the principle of nondiscrimination in future pay agreements.
Finally, women are to be much better represented than previously in collective bargaining, with full involvement to protect their own interests.
The European Commission's initiative, Commissioner Flynn, if you take due account of the suggestions made by the Committee on Women's Rights and the Employment Committee, and this valuable report, is an important step towards a more just working world.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are happy to have this occasion to discuss this excellent report just before what we hope is going to be the conclusion of the final text of the new European Amsterdam Treaty.
The code of conduct on equal pay for equal work will certainly gain importance thanks to the rewording of Article 119 which finally takes into account the Court of Justice's case-law and recognizes the right to equal pay for equal work.
I fully agree with the rapporteur when he declares that women should be involved in working out employment evaluation systems and collective bargaining negotiations.
As long as wage negotiations are conducted by men, wage discrimination will continue to exist.
As my colleagues have just emphasized, we should consider adopting a legally binding instrument if the voluntary code of conduct does not lead to the hoped for results.
In my country, the minister intends to impose employment assessment on labour regulations.
I think it would be a good thing if all the other Member States followed suit.
Mr President, I would like to thank both rapporteurs for a really first-class report and at the same time also thank the Commission for an excellent communication on a code of practice.
Those of us who have spoken here can testify that the legislation in place has been inadequate.
Legislation is important but, on its own, it is not sufficient.
Much more is needed alongside it.
Even in my homeland, Sweden, which often congratulates itself on having made more progress than other countries in improving the participation of women in working life and reducing wage differentials, even here there are differences between the situation for men and women.
These differences have tended to increase during the recession which we have experienced in recent years.
Many changes are needed.
The labour market needs to change.
Currently it is women who have the low paid jobs, who work within the public sector, who have part time jobs and atypical work patterns.
We must ensure that this type of work also brings with it social security as other jobs do.
We must ensure that those women who work part-time have the opportunity to change to full-time and we must allow positive discrimination so that men can take on women's jobs but also so that women can enter the male-dominated professions.
Furthermore we must have gender-neutral job evaluation.
I do not share Mrs Glase's opinion on this point.
It is possible to evaluate work in different sectors.
It must be possible to compare the work undertaken by a woman caring for the elderly with that of a builder.
They are both equally hard and demanding jobs.
Although legislation is important, this is really a matter for the partners in the labour market.
We must get them to take these matters seriously.
Only when we get the partners in the labour market to do this will we have any chance of success in this work.
Mr President, the communication is good because it draws attention to the fact that women have qualifications to bring to the labour market.
But efforts over the years to define the concrete value of these more invisible or informal qualifications have come to nothing.
If it is now made absolutely clear that these qualifications are indispensable and worth paying for, perhaps we can move a step further and release women from rigid pay structures.
The communication rightly stresses the role of the social partners.
It is important that the trade unions should play a central role in the achievement of equal pay and it is therefore crucial, as the communication points out, that women should be involved in the negotiation of agreements.
The worst enemy of equal pay is a decentralized, fragmented and individualized labour market.
Experience in Denmark shows that, when there is a move from central to decentralized pay negotiations, the pay gap widens.
In Denmark the pay differential is DKR 60 000 per year.
Only a committed male chauvinist or a bad employer can accept that.
The trade unions are in a unique position to lead the way in laying the foundations for a more modern way of assessing men's and women's work.
We hope that the Commission communication may help to promote development in the right direction.
In this matter we men must show solidarity with women.
Anything else would be disreputable.
Do you not think so, Commissioner Flynn?
I am very pleased at the very strong support that has been expressed in the House this evening in support of the code of conduct.
I want to take the opportunity to thank the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and especially the rapporteur, Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez, for the very important work undertaken in the preparation of the report on the code of practice in the field of equal pay between women and men.
I also want to thank the Committee on Women's Rights for their opinion, presented by Mrs Colombo Svevo.
The present report clearly demonstrates the interest which the Members of the House attach to the issue of equal pay for women and men, a principle which has been enshrined in Community legislation right from the beginning.
However, as you are all aware, despite the fact that all Member States have transposed the principle into national legislation, statistics still show that women in manual jobs earn between 69 and 90 % of men's average pay.
For non-manual workers the difference in earnings between women and men is even greater.
Thomas Mann summed it up: we have the legislation but in many cases it only exists on paper.
I am well aware of the problem and to help to lessen the difference the Commission has decided to adopt the present code of practice, which follows on from the Memorandum of Equal Pay for Work of Equal Value published in 1994.
Let me remind you that this code responds to your own request which was formulated by Mrs Colombo Svevo's report on the Memorandum.
It is of the utmost importance that we give a very clear and simple answer to the one central question: what does the concept of equal pay for work of equal value actually mean? The answer to this question was stated quite clearly by Mrs Waddington.
It could not be simpler.
When a woman does a job which is as demanding as a man's, she ought to be able to claim the same pay and benefits, even if it is a different type of job, unless the difference in pay can be accounted for on non-discriminatory grounds.
As we all know, however, this is not the everyday reality.
It is for this reason that we have adopted the code aiming at providing practical guidance on how to secure the implementation of the principle of equal pay in all aspects of the pay package.
The code is not legally binding, but it takes into account what any employer really needs to be looking at to ensure that the pay structure in the organization is not in any way discriminatory on the grounds of sex.
The reason for pursuing such an aim is not based solely on fairness. It also takes into account the need to ensure that the contribution of everybody's skills to the economy in the throes of change is duly acknowledged.
That is Mr Blak's point.
This is why the code also provides guidance for the elimination of all kinds of indirect discrimination where grading, classification and job evaluation schemes are used on the basis of pay structures.
The code proposes a two-pronged approach when dealing with the issue of equal pay for work of equal value.
The first step is to collect all of the relevant information.
This information can be obtained from collective agreements, employee handbooks and copies of the organization's rules. It will include elements such as hours of work, basis of calculating overtime, pay structures and so on.
But having collected the information in relation to pay and conditions of employment, the second step is to evaluate all that information.
The evaluation is done firstly by means of a general table indicating the relationship between sex and salary level and secondly by analysing those pay-related elements identified as potentially discriminatory.
I should like, at this point, to stress the important roles played by both the employers and employees alike in negotiating equal pay.
This led us to consult very thoroughly the social partners which have been mentioned centrally here on the whole draft code, before its final adoption, since our objection was to ensure that its application and practice met all the needs of the users.
The code is ambitious. Its ambition is to serve as a practical instrument.
Since equal pay is a cornerstone of equal opportunities for women and men, the proper implementation of the code will be the test case for the European Community's strong commitment to women's full and fair integration into the labour market.
A few points were raised which are worth mentioning here.
To Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez I say that we need now these practical tools which will help us to support the implementation of equal pay.
That is why we should not forget that these aims are already enshrined in Article 119, which constituted the legal base for action on equality issues in the labour market.
Hopefully it is going to be expanded upon in the revision of the Treaty.
In response to Mrs Colombo Svevo, there are projects by the Commission with the aim of detecting the problems which exist in the field of equal pay in the Member States and identify the best practice that exists in the Member States so that we can have that applied right across the Union's territory.
One or two Member States have already done this by having Equality Officers appointed.
I am hoping to get that expanded upon right across the Union in the not too distant future.
I say in response to Mrs Waddington's remarks that we have some research already under way through special projects that are being funded.
The Directive on Burden of Proof, which you particularly mentioned, if adopted, covers the Directive of 1975 on Equal Pay which is the basis for having adopted this particular code.
We should not forget that the Court of Justice has rulings on equal pay as well, which Mrs Ghilardotti referred to.
I say to Mrs Martinez that mainstreaming is the basic principle underlying the Fourth Equal Opportunities Programme.
There is, as you know, the Commissioners' Group set up on all equality issues and an interservice group is operating now to deal with the whole equality dimension in all of the activities of the Union.
What we are really talking about here is, very importantly, to raise awareness of the rights that European citizens already have.
We are going to take the opportunity of distributing the code of practice as widely as possible.
Arrangements have been made to have it distributed in every Member State, in all the outlets available to us.
Finally, in response to Mr Andersson, the problem of part-time work should be dealt with within the framework of the Community legislation and Act which will endorse the social partners' agreement on atypical work.
I am extremely pleased that that collective agreement has been agreed now and will be converted into a legal text in the very near future.
I thank everyone who has contributed so generously to this debate.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I can inform the House that eight women and six men took part in the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
New information and communications technologies (ICT)
The next item is the report (A4-0153/97) by Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy on the development of new information and communications technologies (ICT) in the next decade.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, my report and the resolution before us this evening are the result of an own initiative of the Committee on Research and Technological Development.
This committee attaches considerable importance to the development of the information and communication technology sector in Europe.
Despite the large number of documents already conveyed by the European Commission to the European Parliament on the information society, my committee had no clear analysis of the information and communications technology sector.
Given the importance of the ICTs for creating jobs in Europe, my report contains recommendations aimed at stimulating a climate likely to help new ICT products and services develop and, does so in keeping with the fifth framework programme due to run in this sector from 1999 to 2004.
The economic sectors opening the most promising prospects for the coming years lie in the electronics industry, information technology and the services linked to these sectors.
As far as job prospects are concerned, it is very important that growth in these sectors be monitored.
Europe is rapidly losing ground in the world ICT market.
In 1990, Europe's share was 35 % but this had gone down to 28 % by 1996.
Europe is stuck in the middle , that is the conclusion of an assessment carried out under the Dutch Presidency on the European ICT industries' competitive capacities.
The fall in the market share is remarkable because Europe could have an excellent scientific infrastructure.
Numerous new technologies have been developed in Europe in recent years, but they have not been applied.
We only have to think, for example, of high definition television.
We could, for example, learn the following lesson: development does not only have to have a technical aspect.
A great deal of technology fails to be introduced successfully onto the market.
Marketing remains the key to market success.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot leave everything to the market.
This may not sound very liberal but, to begin with, the authorities must become good users of electronic services and products.
Both national and European authorities must act as catalysts and set good examples.
In other words they must show the way.
How can we convince European citizens to use ICT products unless the authorities do the same.
By setting themselves up as leading consumers or launching consumers of numerical services and products, the authorities can have considerable influence on certain local, regional, national and European segments of the market such as health care, the policy on the elderly, transport, education and encouraging the application of the ICTs.
What important role can Europe and the Member States play? First of all we need a stronger legislative framework.
At European and national levels. We must strengthen Europe's position on the world information and communications technology market.
This means that we must find legal solutions to solve problems linked to the unlawful use of software.
Standardization, legislation on patents and registered trade marks must also be better regulated.
We must also inscribe into European legislation the fact that telecommunication technologies and information technologies are coming closer together.
This development cannot be halted by legislative lacunae.
In short, Member States must improve the harmonization of their ICT policy.
Only once this condition has been met can a European market come into being.
R&D programmes currently being implemented under the fourth framework programme are not enough to strengthen the European position in the ICT sector.
In the perspective of the fifth framework programme, we must analyze the contribution of these programmes to the Europe's economic well-being.
These analyses should make it possible to work out the best practices likely to contribute to the strengthening of the effectiveness of future programmes.
Finally, I should like to come back to the importance of the ICT sector for the job market. The ICT policy should not only be aimed at large undertakings but also small and medium-sized firms.
Greater attention should also be paid to the innovative capacity of SMEs.
I therefore hope, and I shall take a personal interest in this, that SMEs will not be left out when programmes for the fifth framework programme are being selected.
Mr President, congratulations to Mrs Plooij, who is a good speaker, but more importantly, a very good listener.
She obviously listened during the debates in the committee on her report and has incorporated many of the ideas which came up.
We have own-initiative reports because we wish to highlight issues often to do with forthcoming legislation.
That is the case here, this is part of our committee's thinking process for the fifth framework programme.
Should we continue the emphasis on information and communication technologies which has been present in the fourth framework programme? Look at the title of the own-initiative report, it is both the development and the application of information and communication technologies in the next decade and it is important that we look not just at the technology itself, but at the application.
This is a well-focused report with concrete suggestions.
First of all competitiveness of the European Union.
We are heartily sick of this syndrome invented in the EU, made in Japan, and we have to change that mentality.
Mrs Plooij warns us very starkly that our competitiveness is falling.
I have recently been warned by research scientists in my own constituency who have visited South-East Asia that we are kidding ourselves if we imagine that they are not about to overtake us.
They send students to learn from what we are doing, go back and improve it.
We are complacent and do not visit those countries to see what is happening.
The United States, as a free market capitalist society, is very keen on intervention to help its industries.
We should copy that too.
Some of the factors involved in competitiveness include - as Mrs Plooij has identified - the single market and coordination and compatibility between Member States.
But the single market on its own is not enough.
We have to have regulation, to look at things like public service obligations, important in this field, our cohesion policies, support for smalland medium-sized enterprises.
I am constantly visiting little workshops where people who used to work for big IT firms like Alcatel have gone off on their own and have decided to use their ideas - a huge growth area.
We have to look at the societal implications of ICT, the environmental benefits that can come from it with things like less travelling to work.
And the societal implications include misuse, pornography, etc., applications, health, education.
What a big advantage we have with our linguistic variety, including two world languages, English and Spanish - and I must say French of course, with Mrs Cresson here.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel is right to say it is not just quantitative, it is qualitative much more than growth.
This is the lives of our citizens.
Well done, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel.
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating the rapporteur on her report.
The whole field of information and communications technology is vital to our lifestyle and economy.
I realized that in a very practical way this week: the television monitor in my office was not working when I arrived.
Indeed, it did not work at the last Strasbourg part-session either, despite the efforts of the services here.
Finally, yesterday evening, the picture and sound were restored.
At last I could see where the meetings were that I was supposed to attend, and I could even see the news on BBC World, giving details of that most important election - the Conservative Party leadership.
But while the equipment did not work, I felt severely handicapped.
I reflected that the equipment was supplied by a nationalized company in a country which still has to address the imbalance of an economy where too much is in the public sector and protected from the pressures of competition.
It is common ground that this sector - ICT - is one of the most dynamic growth industries in the world.
Opening up the telecoms market to competition has contributed a great impetus to growth and innovation in the UK and will do the same for Europe as a whole from next year.
In this report there are calls for Member States to coordinate their policies better, as well as calls for the Commission to develop a new ICT policy.
Why? I say: go with the forces of competition and innovation, do not try to second-guess the market or pick winners, because it does not work.
It is better perhaps to focus public resources on identifiable challenges, such as planning for the enormous change and cost of introducing the single currency, or, even more important, finding a solution to the so-called millennium time-bomb of computers that will not recognize the year 2000 and then crash.
On second thoughts, the markets could find solutions to the single currency issue, as we found in September 1992.
I hear of enterprises in the UK already offering solutions to the date challenge.
We live in interesting times.
That is my speech.
I now embark upon an exercise in Dutch-English cooperation.
My colleague Mr van Velzen apologizes for not being here and I speak to his notes, so please make allowances for my Dutch-English.
The EPP Group supports the main line of this report.
We in the European Union can draw lessons from the United States.
That does not mean that Mrs Cresson must write a book about ICT, but that the European Union should play an active role in developing ICT.
The question is: what should this role be?
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel gives some answers: better internal market rules, priority for ICT in the fifth framework, priority for ICT in the cohesion policy and better conditions, better priority, for investment in ICT.
Yet, Mr van Velzen misses one thing in the Plooij-van Gorsel report: coordination.
There is a risk of incoherent policies in Member States and the EU.
This report covers nearly every aspect of policy.
Mr van Velzen wants to make one suggestion, and that is on the division of competences within the Commission.
Why not appoint one Commissioner responsible for ICT policy in general but, above all, for general coordination between the different directorates-general? If we can organize our ICT policies well, this could give us an important competitive advantage because we will have integrated European information and communication technologies.
Mr van Velzen awaits the Commissioner's response with interest.
That concludes my second speech.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the report by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel returns to the theme of the information society, its applications and the development of the market.
It is a balanced document, rich in ideas, which takes up virtually all the suggestions we made in the Committee on Research.
I will dwell on just two points.
My view, and I would also say my experience of the growth and spread of the information society, is that the most important limiting factors which need to be dealt with are essentially the cost of access to on-line information and the cultural factors.
I will try to explain that better.
On the cost side, I think the costs of equipment and services may come down thanks to the liberalization of telecommunications, but while it is true that computers are costing less all the time, I have yet to see significant effects on telephone bills.
The gap to be made up by comparison with the United States in terms of the cost of services is really huge.
As regards the cultural barrier, applications for direct purchasing of software, electronic commerce, are now appearing on the Internet, but these applications are essentially American.
The gap is increasing because of the language problem, and it now seems difficult to surf the Internet without knowing English.
Too little is still done in Europe about teaching so-called foreign languages in school, and not enough is being done to overcome the language barrier by using the technology of the information society.
Too little is also done on use of and familiarization with the computer in schools.
My son started school in the United States and when we returned to Europe he received letters from his 9 year-old American schoolfriends, all written on computers.
Those little boys found it easier to use a keyboard than a pen.
European schools are not giving our young people the best opportunities in this emerging world of telecommunications, and I fear this will prove an important strategic disadvantage.
European governments must respond decisively and urgently.
Mr President, as far as this excellent report by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel is concerned I would just like to stress seven points very quickly in my short minute.
First, IT must be used more in the peripheral regions of the EU.
It is extremely important and it is also those living in these regions who will benefit most from it.
Second, IT must also be used to support the elderly population.
Young people have already mastered IT and communication technology very well.
But it is elderly people who can also draw great benefit from the technology for example when they are unable to go out and shop and can instead order food via their computer at home.
Third, we must concentrate on small companies.
Large companies already have enough computers.
Fourth, IT must be user-friendly so that the majority of the population can use it.
Fifth, we must, as Mr Chichester has mentioned, find out what is going to happen in the year 2000?
What will happen then?
Sixth, bureaucracy in the EU programme must be reduced.
Seventh and last, the European Parliament must set a good example.
It is a disgrace that we do not make better use of IT communications in this House.
Things cannot get any worse than they are currently, only better.
I hope that things will be much better in the future.
Mr President, this report deals with a deeply interesting and fascinating subject.
It clearly shows how far the European ICT sector has fallen behind its non-European competitors, especially those in the USA.
I hope this report will rouse the Commission to action, because it will be an important function of the EU to take specific steps in this precise area and make selective use of resources to ensure that Europe remains competitive.
To single out a few important points: concentration on new products and vertical market segments, such as telemedicine, voice processing or distance learning, special consideration for SMEs, especially those in the tourist sector, for which additional market conditions and booking facilities are being opened up and in which jobs can be created with the aid of modern communications technology.
The necessary positive motivation and favourable attitude can best be achieved by making greater use of information technology in the education and training sectors.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this European Parliament owninitiative report comes at a particularly timely moment for recalling the acceleration of the information and communication technologies, in particular concerning the economic and social dimension of their impact.
The Commission is fully aware of that and I should like to quote some examples.
First of all, recent communications on the information society and the action plan, now in its second version.
Secondly, the activities that I have initiated in the field of education and which have been discussed by several Councils of education ministers, in particular the programme on learning in the information society, aimed at making available to schoolchildren the necessary multimedia resources, based on examples already existing in certain countries, especially in Scandinavia, initiatives that are now becoming more widespread.
We insist very much on this point. Most of the Member States have now worked out school equipment programmes but the question of educational software is also posed.
I have set up a task force on educational software programmes, bringing together producers, users, authorities and specialists.
We have made a lot of progress on this over the last two years.
The tools provided by the information and communication technologies, such as Multimedia and the Internet, are to play a vital role in daily life.
In all our programmes, especially the local development ones, we are giving enormous help to local authorities using these arrangements in order, for example, to facilitate access to employment, and disseminating information needed by our fellow citizens.
The fifth framework programme of research and technological development was transmitted at the end of April 1997.
I am waiting for the European Parliament to issue its opinion very shortly, at first reading. A swift reply would show the Council on Research the importance that it attaches to research.
For that, we must stick to the codecision timetable for the fifth framework programme and the 'Research Council' must reach its common position by its November meeting at the latest.
Research plays a vital role in advanced technology and industrial competitiveness.
This is especially true of information and communication industries.
One of the three themes of the fifth programme is related to information and communication technologies, while the other two substantially refer to them.
I should just like to mention the key actions that we have taken such as products, processes and organisations and key actions such as 'New prospects for aeronautics' or 'Tomorrow's cities' .
In all these sectors, we call on advanced communications technologies.
Piloting programmes and actions, in accordance with their economic and social impact, are inscribed in the very structure of the proposal relating to the fifth framework programme.
The European Parliament's message in its report is a clear one.
The approach to ICTs must be comprehensive and it must be adequately effective.
The Commission shares this view point.
The development of an information society, far from creating a two-speed society, can provide the means for narrowing the gap between different social groups or between developed and less favoured regions.
The first experiments under way have shown that the gap can easily be narrowed between urban and rural areas, in terms of education and even health, and that these are instruments that can enable less favoured categories and regions to gain access to certain services.
The Commission goes along in particular with the final recommendation in the report, i.e. the need to see to sustainable, environment-friendly development and social well-being, alongside economic growth.
Those are exactly our aims and you have taken the words out of our mouths.
I should like to conclude by saying that the Commission welcomes all your recommendations, in particular those addressed to it, and will pay special attention to your report when carrying out those actions in this field for which it is responsible.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Research and sustainable development
The next item is the second report (A4-0170/97) by Mr Marset Campos on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy on the Community policy for research and sustainable development.
Mr President, there are three starting-points to my report:
First, the decisive will expressed in the Treaty on European Union and the current proposals on revising the Treaty, in favour of sustainable development.
In other words, the European Union is proclaiming its unequivocal support for the sustainable development model, including respect for the environment, and expressing inter-generational solidarity.
Secondly, the fact that, despite all the declarations of good intentions, development in Europe and the world is that of growing consumption of energy resources and prime materials and growing pollution and a subsequent exhaustion of natural resources.
Thirdly, the fact that market forces, left to free competition between supply and demand, do not guarantee by themselves the introduction of a model of sustainable development but require a conscious action by society which is decided voluntarily and democratically.
It cannot be claimed that a miraculous technical discovery or a fiscal measure will solve the problem.
The people's awareness needs to demand the set of values required by the sustainable development model.
For those reasons, the report analyses the Commission's concerns at the consequences of the current model of economic growth and makes 13 practical proposals in three main blocs.
First of all, in relation to the need to conceive the transition to the model of sustainable development from the current social and economic model of unsustainable growth, it is felt that that transition will only be possible thanks to a broad social consensus, which in its time brought about the creation of the welfare state.
In that sense, research can contribute by analysing the interconnections between social and economic processes and new forms of using resources, energy sources, etc.
Secondly, in relation to the revision of the Treaty on Union, incorporating the aims of sustainable development decisively into all significant areas: convergence criteria, functioning of European institutions, the relevant chapters and articles (VI, XV and XVI).
Thirdly, in the research and development policy - the fifth framework programme - through the following points:
First, proposals to promote research teams in the areas of production, distribution and eco-sufficient consumption, in various countries.
Secondly, carrying out research into scientific and social areas of sustainable development such as lasting or biodegradable materials, climate change, sea and ocean deterioration, deforestation, social and economic analysis, ecotaxes, financial flows, etc.
Thirdly, research into the function of the citizens, municipalities and local authorities in a proactive participation in the sustainable development model, energy saving, the efficient extraction of prime materials, use of renewable sources, optimal use of distribution systems, non-intensive farming, etc.
Fourthly, research into the possibilities of global models for the use of energy.
That is why it is necessary to pay more attention to energy sources distributed extensively and uniformly, permitting rational and responsible use by citizens in each location, together with democratic levies and new values.
These are the main lines of the report which the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy is presenting to the Chamber so that, if it wishes to approve it, it can be converted into a more precise proposal for the Commission, the Council and ourselves to bring about a fairer society with greater solidarity, a society that is economically eco-sustainable and above all better for future generations of Europeans - our own children and grandchildren - who are the ultimate targets of all our concerns and intentions.
Mr President, Commissioner, the rapporteur, Mr Marset Campos, has done us a service with his own-initiative report by prompting a discussion on the concept of sustainable development.
This discussion, of course, is in its very early stages and will take up a great deal of time yet.
That, of course, is inherent in the philosophy contained within the concept of sustainable development, a philosophy which calls on us to view all our actions and political decisions in the particular context of their future complex effects and side effects.
An unending process of consideration and reconsideration!
The rapporteur provides some of this service by rightly identifying the present economic model as detrimental to sustainable development.
But from that point on our interpretations begin to drift apart, for example when we come to assess advanced technologies in the light of their consequential effects.
Our debate will and must continue.
One positive point, at least, is that sustainable development has emerged as a guiding principle of one of the thematic programmes in the fifth Research Framework Programme.
We in this House will be alert and vigilant to see whether genuinely clean and intelligent products and processes are going to be promoted under this heading, whether intermodal transport and renewable energy sources really are given the opportunities they deserve, and whether the inner cities with their obvious problems become a focus of intense attention, together with the tragic deterioration of the state of marine resources and the much quoted greenhouse effect.
At virtually every sitting in this House we have an opportunity to demonstrate, in the specific decisions we take, that this subject really is in the forefront of our thoughts.
Furthermore, we politicians are responsible for the public debate on what we are supposed to want politically.
I thank the rapporteur for facing up to this responsibility.
Mr President, Commissioner, a development intended to provide sustainable security for social and ecological needs is to be welcomed.
This report, of course, goes far beyond matters of R & D, representing an unworldly attempt to replace the Western social market economy with a green planned economy in which the European Parliament would have the necessary powers of implementation and control.
But the kind of sustainable development we imagine should not be based on Utopian models but must take account of global reality.
It can only be achieved, then, if the present situation is reformed.
A revolutionary change in the economic model, which is what the report calls for, involves incalculable risks and is therefore irresponsible.
The report postulates a dichotomy between technological progress and sustainable development.
Yet one is impossible without the other.
Sustainable development, then, is not synonymous with 'back to nature' ; that would simply be a romantic whimsy, divorced from reality.
Moreover, the rapporteur must acknowledge that the change of model for which the report calls is already taking place, though through a process of reform rather than radical action.
The report also fails to take account of the fact that environmental protection measures can only be financed by a functioning economy.
Environmental protection demands great economic efforts.
Another point that seems important to me: for the countries of the EU and other industrialized States, the concept of sustainable development encompasses economic and social aspects as well as ecological ones.
The most urgent problem of the present time - high unemployment - therefore requires particularly careful attention.
But jobs can be created only where a policy of sustainability can be pursued without sacrificing economy.
The report underestimates the benefits research and development can bring to the employment market and the welfare state.
Similarly, it is not realistic to hold science and technology responsible for wrong turnings in industry and society.
This standpoint has long been recognized as outmoded and misguided.
In actual fact, the position is that science and technology offer opportunities that can only be realized through political, social and economic decisions.
There are many other points I could make.
Overall, the report contains a wealth of errors and inaccuracies.
Also, lengthy passages of it are couched in very general terms and confined to Utopian demands remote from political and social reality.
Insufficient account is taken of the global character of science, technology, economics and environmental protection, and many of the proposals, if implemented, could actually be significantly disadvantageous to the EU without achieving that sustainable development at which we are all aiming.
Consequently, our group cannot vote for the report in its present form.
Mr President, Mr Marset Campos' report is a response to a real need, the need to include considerations of sustainable development in our basic thinking on research and on energy policy.
This approach finds wide support amongst public opinion and in the European Parliament.
Some passages in the report are balanced and we support them, but we oppose a certain number of passages, and only if these fall will we be able to vote for the report.
I agree with the report on the interconnection between social factors and the environment, where it is difficult to act on one point without influencing another.
If I may digress for a moment, that view from space of the earth as a ship always remains with me, a Noah's Ark on a voyage through the cosmos where all the onboard systems must remain in equilibrium, including those which produce oxygen and those which produce carbon dioxide.
But, turning to the report, I think our role should not be to regard technology with suspicion, but if necessary to establish rules guaranteeing universal access to new opportunities, rejecting public monopolies and exclusive positions.
So I do not support some of the rapporteur's ideological statements which sometimes tend to demonize science and technology as consumers of resources and producers of social dislocation and risk to the very survival of humankind, all the more so because, instead, technology continues to be the driving force in communication, development, and the production of material and non-material goods which improve the duration and quality of life.
Mr President, the rapporteur rightly emphasizes the importance of a European sustainable research and development policy.
Europe's R&D policy must not only be based on economic growth but must also be based on ecologically and socially desirable principles.
The Liberal Group therefore applauds this own initiative report on this subject.
However, the wording of the resolution presented to us is unacceptable for my group.
It gives off an atmosphere of the traditional struggle between labour and capital and old class wars.
The market economy is referred to as a model for smug individualism and Keynesian theories are rejected as incorrect.
But, ladies and gentlemen, let us be clear, we owe our well-being in the European Union above all to the market economy.
My Group therefore cannot support recitals A, D and F. If the amendments tabled by the Liberal Group on these paragraphs are not approved, we shall then be forced to vote against the whole report.
Given the current relationship, if the Liberal Group votes against the report, it will not be adopted.
My Group attaches considerable importance to the conclusion of this report.
I took a constructive attitude to the committee of inquiry, and I hope therefore that we are going to be able to vote for it.
Mr President, the Marset Campos report examines an extremely important subject.
Now that we want sustainable development to be given a leading place in the new Treaty, there will be a legal base for the purpose of this report: research serving sustainability.
It is therefore useful to anticipate it.
I am positively against the intentions of this report. We support the practical recommendations.
It is necessary to increase research in fields such as recycling, climatic change and ocean pollution.
However, the report still presents me with a problem.
The concept of 'sustainable development' means something different for everyone.
The rapporteur offers a reasonable representation and it is quite clear.
He wants to create a new model of society.
But this is only one vision among many others. And it is a radical one.
But the rapporteur is not very practical, at least it does not seem so in the Spanish footnotes which have not been translated in our version.
There are still considerable divergencies of opinion on a number of major questions. Mine concern, in particular, the three following points.
First of all, at what rate should changes be made? Secondly, who will be in charge of that?
Thirdly, how can we make them compulsory?
I leave it up to the rapporteur to take responsibility for his own personal ideas expressed in the explanatory memorandum.
But in my view, he is basing himself on an excessively positive image of mankind and society and expects too much of the authorities.
I fear that the necessary changes to consumption patterns will come up against people's irresistible propensity to increase their possessions and pleasures.
As far as the draft resolution is concerned, I would criticize in particular some of the considerations made and paragraphs 8 to 10 inclusive in particular.
As far as I am concerned, the term 'social plan' and the European Parliament's role have been greatly exaggerated in these paragraphs.
That is why I shall be voting against the report.
I will be supporting the amendments tabled by Mrs Plooij.
As far as I am concerned, I fully agree with some of the practical recommendations made in the report, but I do not share its optimistic views.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by deciding last year to dedicate an own-initiative report to the issue of research and sustainable development, the Committee on Research sent an important message to the European institutions and the scientific community.
The expression 'sustainable development' refers to one of the major challenges facing the European Union and the rest of the world at this moment in time.
Mr Marset Campos has prepared a report and I would like to make three remarks on it.
The first will be to emphasize the Commission's full support for the idea of the need to take the demands of sustainable development very much into consideration when defining the European Union's research policy.
Research and technological development can and must play a decisive role.
It gives us the means to devise and implement economic development that does not harm the quality of the environment or life, today and in the future.
My second remark puts the first slightly into perspective.
Placing the European Union's research policy under the same sign as sustainable development, as Mr Marset Campos is not far from doing in his report, and proposing that the idea should dominate our research programme as massively as he suggests, would be a mistake.
The European Union must face many other challenges.
It must meet the expectations of its citizens, especially in terms of employment, and we also have other objectives.
In particular, we must resolutely put research to the service of the economy and business and help European industry to strengthen its competitiveness, a key factor of growth and employment.
Far from being opposed, these two aims mutually strengthen each other.
On tomorrow's markets, the most competitive products will not only be the cheapest and most efficient; they will also be the 'cleanest' and those whose use requires the least energy expenditure, with fewer negative effects on the environment, and those that can most easily be recycled.
Europe must show that it is capable of producing and marketing such products.
It must also carve itself a niche in the rapidly expanding market of environmental technologies.
Thirdly and finally, Mr Marset Campos' report only takes very little account of the nonetheless decisive role played by the idea of sustainable development in the proposal for a fifth framework programme of research and technological development presented by the Commission.
Yet that text quite clearly mentions it - in fact it is full of such references.
Two of the proposal's themes, No 1 on discovering living resources and the ecosystem and the third theme on favouring competitive and sustainable growth are good examples.
In the latter case, the requirements of sustainable growth are quite explicitly combined with the imperatives of growth and competitiveness.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you have been given a very clear opportunity to promote sustainable development in Europe.
It consists in supporting the approach developed in the proposal for a fifth framework programme and to ensure that it can be quickly adopted during the first quarter of 1998 and implemented on time, i.e. by the end of 1998.
Thank you in advance and I also thank Mr Marset Campos for his help. Thanks to his report we can bear in mind the fact that the research and technological development policy must first and foremost be of service to ordinary Europeans, those of today and tomorrow alike.
Thank you too, Commissioner.
Thank you for your excellent answer, and please excuse the lateness of the hour.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
International agreement on humane trapping standards
The next item is the report (A4-0187/97) by Mr Pimenta on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the signing and conclusion of an International Agreement between the European Community, Canada and the Russian Federation on humane trapping standards.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are dealing with yet another chapter in the long saga of leghold traps.
I should like to concentrate on three aspects: the question of animal welfare, the institutional question of the decision within the European Community and relations with the World Trade Organization - WTO.
Finally I shall refer to the question of the indigenous people and the line taken by Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan.
As regards the cruelty to animals dossier, there is no doubt that these leghold traps are cruel and do cause inhuman suffering.
That is why Parliament has repeatedly called for their abolition and that is why the European Union has had, since 1991, a regulation in force banning them.
As long ago as last century Charles Darwin stated that the use of this type of trap and this type of killing were incompatible with civilized societies.
That was a hundred and thirty years ago!
We now have to decide whether an agreement on humane trapping standards might be a good way of reducing cruelty to animals in the world.
The answer would be yes provided we had a good agreement.
Unfortunately, this text is a poor one and does not go far enough.
That is certainly not the fault of the officials who negotiated it; they were rather, as we say in Portuguese 'bound hand and foot' because of what their boss, Sir Leon Brittan, wanted and they had to reach an agreement at any price.
There is no shortage of examples in the text.
In the point on fatal traps the European experts proposed on behalf of the Commission a time of 30 seconds to kill the animal.
The agreement sets a time of 5 minutes.
That is a long time - a very long time to die in agony - and it is a concession which increases the Commission's figure by a factor of 10.
But the great problem with this agreement is that it is not selective enough in the classification of traps in relation to the standards laid down.
I do not want now to go into the type of standards, which in some cases I regard as fairly low.
To define a criterion for the approval of each type of trap - as this report does, as a function of the results, not for 80 % of all animals trapped, but merely for 80 % of the animals of the species targeted by the said trap - is an insult to the intelligence.
These traps are by definition non-selective.
They catch all types of animals which suffer equally, even though not targeted, but simply because they have been unfortunate enough to roam where they were not supposed to roam or to drink water where they were not supposed to.
But the most glaring example of the Commission's bad faith is in the subtle amendment it made to Article 4 (2) in Annex I, where in the version agreed in January for the present agreement there is a marked difference.
I shall in fact read the January version in the original English which said: conventional steel jaw leghold retaining traps to be prohibited within four years of the entering into force of this agreement.
That, ladies and gentlemen, has disappeared from the version currently under discussion and has been replaced with unilateral statements by the countries wishing to accede to this agreement.
That is a clear concession to the United States of America!
What powers has the European Union to control the unilateral statements of the countries who wish to accede to this agreement? There is a lot more which could be said about the rest of the text, for example, Russia, in its unilateral statement, asks for money.
The talk in the corridors is of ECU 30 million.
We are going to buy the Russians for ECU 30 million.
There is more that could be said, but instead I shall put a question.
What about the United States?
If the United States had not signed this agreement and took Europe to the WTO, what would we do? We should be in the same position as we are today.
I should like now to mention the institutional pact.
The Commission, at the instigation of Sir Leon Brittan, blocked the adoption in 1995 of the regulations implementing Regulation No 91.
In January 1996, by means of a letter from two officials, it advised the Member States not to apply the legislation in force.
So can one simple letter prevent the application of legislation approved by the Commissions and by the Council? Where is the Rule of Law, Sir Leon Brittan?
In 1996 a new version was submitted which Parliament rejected on first reading.
The Council never re-submitted it.
In January 1997 an attempt was made at a Council meeting to pass a list of countries, including Canada and Russia, when there was no international agreement and these countries had not banned jaw leghold retaining traps, in clear violation of the European legislation.
The Council quite rightly rejected this kind of approach.
It is now time to mention the WTO.
I should like to say, however, that the Commissioner stated during the ratification process, that no further European legislation was at stake with accession to the WTO, other than the legislation mentioned at the time - and I supported that.
Now it is the jaw leghold retaining traps which are at stake, the hormones in beef and who knows, Mr Commissioner, what it might be tomorrow?
I should like now to mention the indigenous people.
From the outset I did try to obtain a regime for the indigenous people; they are assured that this Parliament will endeavour to find a solution which reconciles our legitimate right to demand less cruelty in the world with satisfying the legitimate need of those communities to make a living.
Unfortunately, I did not find any parties to instigate social dialogue either in Europe or in Canada.
But I remain available for such talks.
Thank you, Mr President, for bearing with me; I ask my colleagues to express their views by rejecting this bad agreement.
Mr President, the saga of the leghold trap is a sad and sorry one.
Quite honestly, Parliament feels outraged at the pathetic stage we have reached after all these years.
Let me say first of all that I do not accept the validity of this so-called agreement which is being put before us because it has been negotiated by the Commission without a mandate.
I draw the Commission's attention to the debate in this House on 21 February this year when a great deal of passion was expended on the issue.
I suggest that Sir Leon Brittan reads that debate since everything we said on that night still holds true.
My group fully supports the Mr Pimenta's excellent report once again which also won the support of the vast majority of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
This inadequate and inoperable stitch-up of an agreement is so full of holes that a pack of polar bears could rampage through it.
It does not achieve an end to animal cruelty through the use of leghold traps, in fact it allows their use for at least another four years.
It does not even reflect the position of the European Union's own scientific experts.
We now have traps with some padding around them which are supposed to be humane.
I suppose it does not hurt so much to chew off your own leg if you are caught in one of those. We have approval of traps which take five minutes to kill and of course these traps still catch at least 20 % of non-target species; but that is just too bad for these animals since they are not supposed to be caught in the first place.
We have leghold traps which can be used under water and presumably these are no longer cruel.
A lot has been said about the rights of indigenous people, especially by the Canadian Government, but this agreement is actually in itself pretty flimsy on including those people in negotiations.
The deal with Russia is not even worth the paper it is written on.
It will only be implemented if we dole out lots of money.
The deadline seems to have fallen into a black hole and there are no enforcement measures and no sanctions for non-compliance.
There is no agreement with the United States, as the rapporteur has said, because they have admitted they cannot deliver anything through their federal system so their hunters can keep right on using leghold traps.
We could go on with detailed criticism of the agreement but it really is just too dispiriting.
The only sensible thing to do is to reject it and go back to the legislation that we have already agreed in this Parliament which is perfectly defendable if Canada were to take us to a dispute in the WTO.
For instance, no unfair domestic trade advantage to the European Union can be shown and, because the driving force behind the legislation is animal welfare, it can be perfectly well defended as protecting public morals.
This agreement is hopelessly bad and we cannot accept it.
I call upon the Commission to negotiate a tougher agreement and to ban the sale within the European Union of fur from animals caught in traps which do not meet standards of a new, far tougher international agreement.
Mr President, Commissioner, yet again the European Parliament is being called upon to comment on the problems of leghold traps.
We have before us the draft of an agreement which is supposed to prescribe humane trapping standards at international level.
However, the draft has its shortcomings, even though we might be tempted to welcome the fact that after years of negotiation and deadlock a draft does actually exist.
It is difficult, though, to vote in favour of this draft.
If it proves necessary to reject the agreement and introduce a European ban on imports of skins, that will damage the European fur industry and, especially, the indigenous peoples in Canada who earn their living as traders in skins.
Anyone who knows me will know that I have always taken these arguments particularly seriously.
Animal welfare, in my view, is not incompatible with sustaining the way of life and livelihood of many indigenous peoples - indeed, I believe they are mutually complementary.
Our common aim must be to strike a balance between the needs of animal welfare and the justified interests of indigenous peoples.
In the past, I believe, there were two ways by which this objective might be achieved. One was the conclusion of an agreement on humane trapping methods worthy of their name - which the present version certainly is not; an agreement which lays down high animal welfare standards and at the same time takes due account of the justified concerns of indigenous peoples.
Alternatively, if that is unworkable, an independent marketing system could be set up for the skins of animals trapped by indigenous trappers. I believe that a result could have been rapidly achieved here if the representatives of the indigenous peoples had been involved in the negotiations.
Should the draft of the agreement be rejected, these points must be borne in mind during further negotiations. Following my contacts with representatives of indigenous peoples in Canada - and I did have such contacts, Mr Pimenta - I know that leghold traps must be abandoned; indeed, they are being abandoned in Canada.
In addition, the right conditions exist for independent marketing channels. But, in the long term, indigenous trappers and animal welfare organizations must work closely together and be jointly involved in the search for new, humane trapping methods.
Finding a substitute for leghold traps is the main task that will confront us in the coming years, even without a framework agreement. One way of solving the problem is to improve the selectivity of traps, in other words to develop traps that can only catch particular animals.
This, of course, means providing trappers with better training. Here again, and once again, I can only urge the advisability of taking advantage of the experience of the indigenous trappers.
Finally, there is one more question I would like to put to the Commissioner: what is the status of the ban on leghold traps in the European Union?
According to my information such traps are being laid only a few miles from where we sit - I don't know why.
Did this fact influence the basis for the Commission's negotiations with the countries concerned?
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, first of all I want to explain that I am speaking on behalf of Mrs Baldi, who could not be here this evening and has given me her notes, because she has followed this dossier.
Personally I just want to express my sympathy with Mr Pimenta, who is so enthusiastically committed to this cause.
After a long series of obstacles and uncertainties, an international agreement on humane trapping standards was reached last December between the European Community, Canada and the Russian Federation.
The agreement was the result of major efforts by Canada and Russia, but it did not satisfy the Council, which asked for a series of improvements.
The Commission has therefore restarted the negotiations and has drawn up a new proposal for an agreement which will be presented to the Council of Environment Ministers of the European Union on 19 and 20 June.
As Mr Pimenta did not consider the text satisfactory, we find ourselves faced with a report which is ahead of its time, which contests an agreement the Council has not really approved yet.
It is true that the United States has not initialled the agreement, so it is a partial agreement, a compromise, but it is a compromise which, according to Mrs Baldi, signals progress.
Our group therefore believes the agreement reached should not be rejected.
Mr President, it seems as if the debate on leghold traps will never finish.
I could easily repeat what I said a year ago and two years ago.
But one thing is certain: commercial interests are more important as far as the Commission is concerned than the well-being of animals and democratic principles.
Along with a large majority of the ELDR Group, I think that it is quite deplorable that the Commission should not have kept to its word and is now imposing an optional agreement on trapping methods.
That is tantamount to emptying European democracy of all meaning since there was a Council regulation dating to 1991 and we wanted to stick to it.
The Commission has decided to delay by one year the ban on imports of fur from countries using leghold traps and this is the second time that a one year delay has been decided upon. It is very annoying for Commissioner Bjerregaard that Commissioner Brittan should be here.
You have won.
Your commercial interests have won the day over Mrs Bjerregaard's animal welfare.
I must congratulate you, but I profoundly regret it.
I find unacceptable any agreement which does not ban leghold traps in the short-term, and I fully agree with Mr Pimenta who said that that disagreement is quite inadequate and ineffective and that is why it should be rejected and I think that we should ban imports at once.
Mr President, I find this whole business quite incredible, for two reasons.
First, because we have a regulation dating from 1991, which was supposed to apply from 1 January 1995.
That date was put back by a year to 1 January 1996, and then again to 1 January 1997, and now, suddenly, we have nothing at all.
This so-called agreement you have the nerve to present to us is just an insult.
For a start, there is no such thing as a humane trap.
Try catching your finger in a car door - whether it has a rubber lining or not, it will still hurt just as much.
And if an animal has to endure its death in agony and die a dreadful death in a trap that we describe as humane, that makes no difference to the animal.
In any case, an animal will be unable to read where it says that a trap is suitable for this or that particular animal, and if it is a protected species, it won't be able to read that either.
But what I find most incredible of all is this sentence, which I quote verbatim from the Official Journal: ' The welfare of animals will temporarily be reduced to a very low level in killing traps.'
Do you believe in resurrection? Who would have thought a killing trap might, temporarily, reduce welfare to a very low level!
Are you trying to make fools of us by publishing stuff like this in the Official Journal? This is a total mockery of animal welfare as a whole.
We are going to support Mr Pimenta's report, and we are not going to tolerate cynical performances of this kind.
I regard it as an insult.
First you overrule regulations and the wishes of Parliament, making a mockery of democracy, and then you have the effrontery to publish material like this.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group and as president of Parliament's Inter-Group for Animal Welfare and Conservation, I want to say that I strongly support Mr Pimenta's report and hope it will be adopted by Parliament.
I can remember sitting here six, seven and eight years ago, talking about these issues.
We thought we had got somewhere when we got the Council Regulation of 1991, disappointed though we were that it was going to be five years before it was implemented.
Now, two years after that date, we are still waiting for something to happen.
Today, in June 1997, the Commission is asking the Council to endorse a very inadequate and unsatisfactory agreement with Canada and Russia and nothing at all with the United States.
The substantial derogations that have been accepted, the lack of convincing enforcement measures, the lack of sanctions for non-compliance all cast doubt on whether the small commitments made by Russia and Canada will in reality achieve anything.
This means measures fail totally to tackle the whole question of animal suffering.
We must reject them as they stand.
It seems that the Commission fears a challenge on the GATT to freedom of trade and that there would be an adverse decision by the WTO on this issue.
That need not be the case.
After all, we were promised when the GATT agreement was supported by Parliament that there would be proper provision for the protection of the environment and animal welfare.
Personally, I never put much faith in those promises, which is why I did not vote for the GATT Agreement.
I did not think they were adequate, but we were told they were.
If they are, let us challenge the WTO if they give an adverse decision.
Let us challenge them strongly.
If we cannot win that then we must look at reform of GATT to ensure that trade, important though it is, does not take precedence over every other consideration such as animal welfare, protection of the environment and the wellbeing of our peoples.
Mr President, the debate on the prohibition of leghold traps is the unending story of animal suffering, animal misery, human cruelty and political incompetence.
Once again, we have an EU regulation which has been in force since 1 January 1996 and it is simply not being implemented!
Now we are served up with an agreement which is no such thing.
Leghold traps are to continue to be permitted for several years.
Death need only occur within 300 seconds - 5 long minutes of mortal fear, death agony, appalling pain!
Nor does the agreement make any provision as to how trapped animals may or may not be killed.
Many animals, Commissioner, are killed by being crushed, the trapper simply standing on the animal and treading on it until it dies.
We Europeans want nothing to do with leghold traps, well and good.
But apart from leghold traps all other traps are permitted in Europe, irrespective of what injuries they inflict or how slowly they kill.
We have a great deal to do, not just in Canada but in Europe too.
I hope that, tomorrow, Parliament will support Carlos Pimenta and reject the Commission's proposal.
If the Council of Environment Ministers does the same on 19 and 20 June, then we shall have won.
If it doesn't, that will not be the failure of this House, but the failure of the Environment Ministers.
Mr President, we all understand the depth of feeling on this issue that has existed for many years.
However, what we have to ask ourselves is whether the latest agreement represents an unprecedented advance in international trapping standards which, if adopted, will improve the welfare of animals and alleviate the threat to our relations with our Canadian and Russian partners.
I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever in saying that the welfare of animals will be significantly advanced if this agreement is implemented and if it is not and if a ban is imposed of a kind that the Members who have spoken in favour of it want, then nothing will be done to advance the welfare of animals, because it would be a great mistake to believe that if that were to happen the countries concerned, faced with that prospect, would simply adapt their laws and change things in the way that the Members of Parliament want.
That is wholly and totally unrealistic.
It is for that reason that I agree with Mr Malerba that this agreement represents significant progress.
I am pleased to hear that yesterday the Committee on External Economic Relations adopted an opinion which clearly recommends the approval of this agreement.
Things have been said about the mandate and the objectives and the purposes.
Let us be quite clear that the regulation on leghold traps provided for two distinct options for countries wanting to avoid restrictions on the import of fur: either they could forbid the use of leghold traps or they could use trapping methods which comply with internationally agreed humane trapping standards.
It was never the intention that both alternatives should be applied.
In the absence of any agreement on trapping standards, obviously, the implementation of the fur embargo was provided.
However, the regulation itself made it quite clear that an option - and, I would suggest, a preferable option - was for there to be an agreement on trapping standards.
The reason why that option was put in was because such an agreement would secure an improvement in animal welfare, whereas a ban would totally fail to do so.
That is why we make no apology for the fact that we have negotiated with Canada, the Russian Federation and the United States.
Reference has been made to the United States. We do not have an agreement with the United States and, therefore, what we are talking about now is the agreement with Canada and Russia.
Negotiating directives were issued and the agreement obtained was consistent with those negotiating directives.
Although that is not in any way reflected in the Pimenta report, which does not in any way give any credit to the fact that after the Council of Ministers asked us to do so we continued negotiating and obtained significant improvements in the agreement with Canada and the Russian Federation.
The Commission reported the revised agreement to the General Affairs Council of 2 June, which welcomed the improvements achieved.
The revised agreement has now been formally transmitted to the Council for its approval, along with a list of third countries eligible to export furs into the European Community, which includes Canada and the Russian Federation, but does not include the United States.
The European Parliament will of course, as procedures provide, be formally consulted on this revised agreement before its final ratification.
The improvements achieved in the last round of negotiations are significant and I am sorry that they have not been fully considered in the resolution proposed by Mr Pimenta.
Parliament's report does not take into account or give credit to the substantive improvements which are being negotiated.
The agreement will now apply to all mechanical restraining or killing traps used for the trapping of 19 species for any purpose.
Traps that do not meet the standards contained will have to be phased out by the parties within a clearly defined timeframe.
Thus it is far more comprehensive than the regulation which deals with only one type of trap and covers for its external aspects only 13 species.
It will relieve animal suffering, both in the Union and in third countries to a much larger extent than would be the case if a ban was imposed.
The standards have been set at a high level for the protection of animals, taking into account the scientific and empirical evidence that is currently available.
To go beyond that could lead to a situation where most trapping methods, including those currently used in the European Union, would not meet the standards.
Reference has been made to the killing time limit of 300 seconds.
Of course, it would have been better if we could have achieved more than that.
But nonetheless that represents a significant step to improve killing trapping methods, including those currently used in the Community.
Moreover, the agreement foresees that this 300 second limit shall be reviewed within 3 years in order to be lowered to 180 seconds.
Technical and safety considerations have to be taken into account.
To kill an animal quickly a trap needs to be powerful and that can become dangerous for the trappers themselves or for any other person or pet that could set off the trap by mistake.
The agreement envisages a phased implementation which progressively tightens its provisions.
A first revision of the standards is scheduled three years after the entry into force of the agreement, which will take into account research carried out by the parties.
It therefore represents a first and ambitious step to establish internationally scientifically-based performance standards which currently do not exist.
The International Standardization Organization worked for almost ten years to define such standards without success.
If it had achieved standards, they would have been voluntary.
This agreement is binding under international law.
The binding nature of the agreement has been reinforced in the revised text since it is now specified that the rulings of the Arbitration Tribunal are binding on the parties.
Derogations for indigenous populations have also been clarified and their scope further limited.
Last, but not least, one of the main achievements of the new round of negotiations was to reinforce substantially the commitments of Canada and Russia concerning an accelerated calendar for the phasing out of certain types of leghold traps.
It is all very well to pour scorn on the fact that they are not being phased out instantly, but I have to tell you, in the absence of this agreement, even if there were a ban, there would be no phasing out at all.
For Canada there would be a ban on the use of all jaw type, leghold restraining traps for 7 of the 12 relevant Canadian species as soon as the agreement enters into force.
For the remaining 5 Canadian species, the use of conventional steel-jaw leghold restraining traps will be forbidden at the end of the third trapping season after conclusion of the agreement by the Community, in other words, by 31 March 2000, if the Council approves the agreement before 1 October 1997.
Of course the other types of leghold traps, and indeed every other mechanical trap, will also be banned according to the schedule set out in the agreement if they are shown not to be in conformity with the standards.
Whereas I understand the focus upon leghold traps, let us not forget that there are other traps and what this agreement provides is a method of testing those traps and banning them if they fall foul of the agreement.
For the Russian Federation, conventional steel-jaw leghold restraining traps, which are the only type of leghold trap that is used in Russia, will be forbidden for Russian species by 31 December 1999 if adequate financial assistance is provided to replace existing traps.
I hope that Parliament, concerned as it is about these matters, will use its influence to help us obtain the finance to do that.
It is simply not true, as has been said during the debate, that if no financial assistance is provided the traps will not be replaced because there is a commitment in the agreement that if there is no financial assistance provided the traps will in any event be phased out, at the latest four years after the entry into force of the agreement.
The key question when assessing this agreement should be: what is really the best option for improving the welfare of trapped animals in Canada and Russia? For us there is no doubt that the approval of the agreement is the option that will substantially improve the welfare of animals and preserve the wider interests of the European Union.
There is no conflict between trade and animal welfare.
This agreement is one which advances animal welfare while, at the same time, protecting legitimate trade.
For the first time ever an international agreement will establish binding rules to control trade on the grounds of animal welfare.
I would appeal to anyone who is fair-minded and prepared to listen to the arguments that that is a remarkable step forward.
The importance of such a precedent should not be underestimated.
This is literally the first time that an international agreement will establish such binding rules on the grounds of animal welfare. An embargo on furs would achieve nothing, and certainly have negative economic, social and political consequences both within the third countries and in the European Union affecting indigenous communities, but not only indigenous communities.
As I have said the situation with the United States is different.
We do not yet have an agreement with them.
There is no alternative to envisaging the full implementation of Regulation 3254/91 on furs from the United States.
But I hope that a more satisfactory solution with the United States can still be found.
I have no doubt that the best way of securing that, and therefore the welfare of animals in the United States, would be to obtain the approval of this agreement with Canada and Russia.
It is reasonable to place this issue in the wider context of our policy on international trade, the environment and animal welfare.
I do not believe that the multilateral trade system runs roughshod over the interests of the environment.
That is quite mistaken and it overlooks the enormous efforts that the European Union has made, and indeed has taken a lead, in developing work on the environment within the WTO.
I would have liked the WTO Committee on trade and the environment to have been able to go further but it was not because of the reluctance of the European Union, still less because of the reluctance of the Commission, to urge and to press in the direction of the environment that we failed to make that progress.
It was because of the failure of the rest of the world to follow our lead.
We have nothing to be ashamed of.
In this light any attempt to use this issue to create controversy within the WTO overlooks our honourable efforts and jeopardizes the steady progress on international trade and the environment which we all hope for and which would almost certainly lead to self-inflicted defeat and loss of credibility of the EU within the multilateral disputes settlement procedures, if we follow another route.
Those are the reasons why I strongly commend, as the Commission does - and efforts to divide the Commission will not succeed - that a positive attitude should be taken towards the agreement with Canada and the Russian Federation.
I urge the European Parliament to take the latest text into account when expressing its view on this delicate and important issue.
Mr President, I wish to address Sir Leon Brittan directly because it is the first time he has come to a debate on this subject in this House in at least the last two years.
You read out your written speech.
Unfortunately you did not answer me, Mrs Pollack, Mr Eisma, Mr Flemming, Mr Schnellhardt.
We raised substantial issues on selectivity, on lack of sanctions, on what would happen if the US took us to WTO etc.
It is too late to go into detailed articles.
But when President Santer came to the House to ask for approval for his team and programme, he undertook as President of the Commission to give serious consideration, even outside the legalist codecision procedure, to the opinion expressed democratically by this House.
When the House voted on this issue in February this year, the vote was 85 to 3.
If we adopt this tomorrow by more than 75 % of those present, will you accept that we have the legitimate democratic right to disagree with your opinion? And even if you believe every word you said, would you, if we - the representatives of 15 countries of Europe, from all political parties - reject your opinion by a huge majority, have the humility to accept that you are not the only soul on this earth and that you could be wrong?
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 00.25 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, concerning the voting list and the contentious paragraph 4c of the IGC debate, in our group I argued vigorously that we should be voting for this.
However, when it came to the vote, it was one of those embarrassing moments when Mr Harrison, Mr Donnelly and myself voted against when should have voted for.
To correct that we gave a statement in writing to the secretariat asking that it be corrected to show that we had voted for 4c.
In the record it still shows that we voted against and I am asking if it could be corrected.
I would refer you to page 14 of the English Minutes where it says Mr Wynn, Mr Donnelly, Mr Harrison and Mr Elchlepp had intended to vote in favour.
Mr President, I refer to a mistake in the Spanish version of the joint motion on the free movement of goods in the European Union.
My name and that of Mr Alonso Puerta and Mr Jové should have been included as signatories to the motion on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, as in the other versions.
We will have it checked out and get it corrected.
On Tuesday I raised the matter of Norwegian salmon and the need for the Commission to make a statement to this House.
As a delegation from the Norwegian Parliament is here today...
Mr McMahon, we are discussing Wednesday's Minutes.
Tuesday's Minutes were approved, as is usual, the following day.
Mr President, I would like a mistake in today's agenda to be corrected.
In the joint motion on the disruption of the internal market (B4-0488/97), my name is missing.
By some error, the list of signatories to that joint motion omits my name. Please could it be added.
We will make sure that is corrected.
Mr President, you have drawn our attention to page 14 of the Minutes.
I notice that 40 Members had to correct their votes yesterday.
Is this a failure of the Members or the system we use for voting? It seems absurd to have 40 corrections of vote from one voting session.
I would suggest to you that it is both a failure on the part of Members and a slight hiccup in the voting system.
I seem to recall that particular vote was out of the normal sequence and that was why some Members were thrown.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, on Tuesday when I raised the matter of the need for a statement on Norwegian salmon from the Commission - the European Parliament being the only body Sir Leon Brittan has not consulted - the President said he would pass the matter on to the Commission.
I would like to know if Sir Leon Brittan is prepared to come out of his cloister in the Commission and communicate with Parliament the terms of the agreement he has signed with the Norwegian Government.
Under the rules of the Treaty the Commission is duty bound to consult with Parliament on the aspects of this Treaty.
Today a parliamentary delegation from Norway is visiting Parliament and wishes to discuss the matter with us.
Mr McMahon, you have made your point and it is one that has been made every morning this week.
I understand the seriousness of the issue but, as I said on Tuesday when I was in the Chair, the Conference of Presidents has the right to request the Commission to come to this House and make a statement on any matter.
If you so wish you should raise this matter with your group leader and other Members with theirs so that it can be raised in the Conference of Presidents.
Mr President, during the last part-session here in Strasbourg, I asked a question at the beginning of the Monday sitting about a call for tenders for the supply of canteen furniture for the new Parliament building and the rules to be applied.
I put the question orally, but the President, Mr Gil-Robles, said I should put it in writing, which I did the very same day.
So far, however, I have not received an answer to my question.
I should therefore like to ask if and when I can expect a reply.
I do not know when you will get a reply but I will pass your remarks on to the services and ask them to respond to your question.
I call Mr Macartney but if it is on salmon I warn you I shall cut you off right away.
We have dealt with the issue.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Under Rules 37 and 95, the European Commission can propose at any time that it wishes to come and make a statement to this House.
The President in the Chair can propose a change to the agenda at any time.
I am now going to mention the word 'salmon' and if you want to cut me off, do so, but the point is that this House has Rules and the Commission has Rules.
I totally support what Mr McMahon said.
We are entitled to hear from the Commissioner.
Sir Leon Brittan was here last night.
He is avoiding the issue and it is high time he came and spoke to us.
I am well aware of the sensitivities of the issue and the strength of feeling in the House but the Commission has not requested permission to make a statement.
That is the position we find ourselves in.
European voluntary service action programme
The next item is the report (A4-0182/97) by Mrs Fontaine, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the Community action programme 'European voluntary service for young people' (COM(96)0610 - C4-0681/96-96/0318(COD))
Mr President, allow me first of all to pay tribute to the Vice-President of the European parliament, Mrs Nicole Fontaine, for her splendid work on the subject of voluntary work.
I should also like to commend the Commission as well.
Its proposal is important because it endeavours to bring order and system to the voluntary work sector which plays a substantial role within the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is natural that in the Committee on Development we should have looked not so much, or rather not only, at voluntary work within the European Union itself, although we support that wholeheartedly, of course.
We have endeavoured to look at voluntary work in the light of the Commission's proposal and with due regard to Mrs Fontaine's observations concerning the Union's relations with third countries, relations which are presented as coordinates in the wake of the new policies.
Hence the proposals that the Committee on Development has discussed and is presenting refer to all of the area encompassed by the Lomé Treaty and to the area encompassed by the new Mediterranean policy, to mention just two examples.
We are hopeful that these proposals can provide a perspective for voluntary work in the future, regardless of the fact that at this early stage, as a new policy on voluntary work is being commenced, they may encounter certain practical difficulties that will require study.
And we think that the provision of a specific framework within which voluntary work will operate in the future is of great significance, both for the young people who will be the first to volunteer, and who always are the first, and for those who will be the recipients of the voluntary work.
Of course, as we have said many times, voluntary work cannot be a replacement or a substitute.
It is complementary, and for that reason - and, Mr President, this is our very firm view - the Commission's proposal establishes an important beginning in that it presents the way in which this complementary endeavour is to be framed.
Lastly, given that we focused, as I have said, on the external aspect of voluntary work, I consider it very important that the delegations of the European Union in other countries should also take account of this very good proposal that we have before us.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her excellent report. I am also grateful to the Commission, and in particular Mrs Cresson and her staff, for their communication and for presenting this programme.
I would point out that the idea of a European voluntary service originated partly from a European Parliament initiative which, by introducing a line into the 1996 budget, enabled the pilot phase to be launched with a sum of ECU 15 million earmarked for 1996 and ECU 10 m for 1997.
The basic aim of the EVS, as Mrs Fontaine has reminded us, is to give young people some experience of voluntary work by setting up projects in various sectors which are at the very heart of the EU's priorities: environmental protection, the social services, cultural activities, heritage conservation and combating drugs.
I believe, however, that above all else the EVS is a significant means of enabling young Europeans to develop a European identity, a sense of belonging and an awareness of their European citizenship, of which there is now so much discussion.
In 18 months, the current pilot phase, which involves 2500 young people, has shown the merits of the decision taken by Parliament and the Commission: it has proved that this project is a viable one and really can help to foster a sense of European identity in young people, as well as equipping them better educationally for their future life.
The Committee on Budgets says as much in its opinion and considers that, in order to improve the implementation of the programme, it should be managed with maximum transparency and be as broadly based as possible within the Member States. We call on the Commission to ensure that this is the case.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are all painfully aware that Euroscepticism is very prevalent among our population at the present time, and we must take effective action to combat it.
Young people can be our allies in this mission, because they have a great capacity for learning, they are enthusiastic and are hungry for the new experiences that can be theirs when they spend some time in other countries.
Young people are the future of our society, which is why I firmly believe that we should involve them as much as possible in the construction of a united Europe.
The European voluntary service can be a means to that end.
I therefore welcome the idea, but I agree with Mrs Fontaine that the Commission proposal has several defects.
The most important issue, to my mind, is that of the legal framework.
The mobility of young people is impaired by major legal obstacles, which must be eliminated by all Member States cooperating to define a common status for voluntary workers.
Every Member State must take the necessary measures to enable young people to take part in the programme without let or hindrance.
The main measures are the granting of a right of sojourn for the duration of the voluntary service, maintenance of social security entitlements and the exemption from taxation of expenditure allowances.
Clear rules will have to be formulated on these points; those in the proposal are far too generalized.
Moreover, the Member States must be called upon to coordinate the activities of the European voluntary service with those of the civilian service organizations that exist in individual countries.
The decision as to whether these national organizations can be incorporated into the structure of the European voluntary service on the basis of agreements between the two will remain a matter for the national legislatures.
Despite these defects, I am delighted that the voluntary service initiative is finally taking shape.
I believe that this service can make a substantial contribution to increasing the mobility of young Europeans, which is still rather too restricted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to begin by complimenting the rapporteur, one of Parliament's Vice-Presidents, on her excellent work.
The Florence European Council of 21 and 22 June 1996 put forward the idea of European voluntary service with a view to involving students and young people, in particular graduates and the unemployed, in practical projects which could bring these youngsters closer to the building of Europe, through social initiatives to help people in need, combat drug dependence and enhance our cultural, artistic and sporting heritage.
This plan to integrate young people within Europe, on the basis of humanist values, requires them to be mobile, and that is why the initiative needs economic support in the form - so I hope - of increased funding.
The EVS cannot take the place of either compulsory military service or national forms of civil service, and the Member States have to bear that in mind.
However, it is important to allow these young European volunteers access to national infrastructures, and to help integrate and combine transnational activities with national voluntary work by examining the possibility of establishing a permanent Community instrument, endowed with legal and financial resources.
The Member States have already expressed interest in the EVS, and several of them are beginning to devise national initiatives.
The Commission therefore needs to show how this programme can make an additional contribution in terms of citizenship, through a balanced set of costs and benefits to the Community budget.
The Union's aim is to support high-quality, transnational projects in the long term - six months or a year - or the short term - three weeks to three months - thereby enabling young people under 29 who are resident in a Member State to participate in a variety of social, cultural and environmental activities, some of them in third countries.
Such work is of tremendous value, since it will broaden the youngsters' horizons and, very importantly, bring them into contact with other young people both in Europe and in third countries.
Mr President, I am delighted to be able to speak on behalf of the Liberal Group in support of Mrs Cresson's initiative and Mrs Fontaine's well- prepared and lucid report.
The Community action programme 'European Voluntary Service for Young People' has excellent objectives.
It should give young people mainly, aged between 18 and 25, the opportunity to obtain valuable work experience in various areas of public service in another Member State.
The aim is to help particularly disadvantaged young people to obtain international experience and language skills as well as to learn civic responsibility through work.
When one thinks how difficult it is for millions of young Europeans to find work on leaving school and to find their place in the world, it is clear that there is a need for activities of the kind covered by the term 'voluntary service'.
Of course, it may be wondered whether the objective of this programme is too ambitious in relation to its resources, since many people will have to be disappointed.
The relationship of this new voluntary service programme to the important Youth for Europe programme, and its influence on that programme, is as yet unclear.
The Commission should give an overall account of the Union's youth policy and should consider the need to create a comprehensive youth framework programme.
Within this framework it would be possible to coordinate efficiently the allocation of funds from the different programmes in such a way that they complement each other and take a variety of different groups into account.
At the same time it is possible to simplify administration, reduce bureaucracy and ensure that the resources earmarked are really used to benefit the participation of young people.
One thing which also hinders participation is the lack of a definition of the legal position of young volunteers.
Matters relating to social security, the employer-employee relationship, taxation and accommodation should be dealt with in a uniform way so that the conditions for freedom of movement can really be secured.
The recipient organizations also have a heavy responsibility to create an effective framework for voluntary work.
The tasks to be done must be meaningful and challenging, and a European certificate must be awarded immediately after participation, describing the skills obtained by the participant through voluntary work.
I would hope that the age limits could also be flexible.
The Commission should pay particular attention to evacuations, which must contain quantitative indicators as well as those for content and quality.
Mr President, I agree with the Fontaine report and think that a few good ideas should be picked out from it.
This proposal could help young people to take part in European construction, so that they can feel that they are the subjects and protagonists of that construction.
Today most young people do not take part in European construction.
It could also help them to have a vision of tolerance and cooperation by taking part in voluntary work in the European Union, through linguistic and cultural preparation that most young people do not have.
The rapporteur points out in her report that this should not be directed at a few elite youngsters who already have all that information and all those possibilities, but at a wide group.
There must be a sufficient number of young people taking part in a project with these features, working on public utility actions but not charity work or amounting to social dumping.
These are the most interesting ideas set out in the Fontaine report.
The conscientious objection services in Member States must complement these European services.
Both the report and the Cresson proposal make it quite clear that this proposal should not replace compulsory military service or conscientious objection.
However why could it not be possible at a given moment for countries like mine, where there are hundreds of young conscientious objectors without any prospects, for them to do this European voluntary service and thereby fulfil their national service requirements?
That is a possible suggestion. In my country there are some young people - whether or not you agree with them - who are in prison for avoiding their military service because they refuse to be labelled conscientious objectors.
I am quite convinced that their choice should at least be respected.
It is far easier to be a conscientious objector than spend 28 months in prison.
In the future - not yet - a public cooperation service outside one's home country, working for peace, might replace military service so that young people could opt for that instead of going to prison.
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Group I must, like the other speakers, commend Mrs Fontaine for this excellent work.
The report is good because it is about young people; there are not that many issues in this Parliament which concern young people and voluntary service.
So it is good that the emphasis is being placed on projects both within the EU and outside, for example in Eastern Europe and the third world.
Voluntary service creates the kind of understanding and knowledge which cannot be gained at a school desk.
The report is particularly interesting because it is about the environment and social areas which we know are areas close to young peoples' hearts and which are very interesting to work with.
But I do have one problem here which could be the result of translation.
Amendment No. 12 says that young people with the greatest problems should be given the opportunity to participate in the programme.
At the same time in amendment proposal No. 25 it says that it is necessary to have good or adequate knowledge of languages to be able to participate.
I think that these amendment proposals are somewhat contradictory, but I will check with the English language version to see if there is a mistake in the Swedish.
Then I would say to the Commission that as it is to give a lot of money to space research and buildings for the Commission, it can surely afford 20 million ECUs for the young people of the EU to fund this excellent project.
Mr President, first of all, we must welcome the creation of this European voluntary service programme and thank Mrs Cresson for taking this initiative. We must thank the Commissioner and Mrs Fontaine for the quality of their work.
This transnational programme will enable young people aged 18-25 years to go on training courses in another Member State or in non-Community countries, in a spirit of solidarity.
This should help us to find new creative forms of work.
If this project is to succeed, it seems nevertheless worthwhile recalling the need to insert into the Treaty on Union a new article on youth, integrating this service, while maintaining the voluntary nature of the service based on a specific legal and financial status.
This voluntary service cannot replace the compulsory or other military services, while the various activities would have to be made compatible and complementary.
That also means close cooperation between the various organisations concerned in the European Union.
It is vital to earmark an individualized, specific budget.
This collective activity, by means of the diversity of learning courses and social or even vocational insertion that it might propose, should be likely to develop a better awareness of European citizenship among the young people concerned.
At present, the programme consists of a pilot action affecting barely 2500 young people but there is already the problem of the financial envelope and the validation of the courses involved.
It would be interesting to deliver a certificate that could become a sort of European label certifying the trainee's knowledge, including linguistic skills.
It is obvious that at a later stage the legal framework should be specified and we shall need a proactive and concerted strategy for a European youth policy.
Finally, I should like to remind you of something that is perhaps quite obvious but which I think should always be borne in mind by the young people who are flocking to us, showing their interest in this project - something that they do not always bear in mind.
All young people should be concerned, including the less favoured young.
On the other hand, this programme targets young boys and girls.
That goes without saying but I have noticed that there are far more boys asking us for information than girls.
These young trainees need quality training.
This should lead to a real openness.
The voluntary service meets genuine expectations and it would be a shame to disappoint all these young people who are now applying to take part.
Mr President, much as I admire the rapporteur as a person and as a Vice-President of Parliament, I am unable to endorse this report.
I do not believe that we need voluntary service organized at European level, unless it is meant to be yet another small step, using the famous technique known in French as la tactique du voleur chinois , towards a more centralized and federalist Europe.
For example, the fact that the report claims that the Union is entitled to deal with youth policy because Article 126 makes some very low-key references to education is a typical example of this.
I think that we, as Members, must bear in mind that the money we allocate for all these pro-European propaganda activities - in this particular case ECU 80 million, the equivalent of about BFR 3200 million - is not simply conjured out of thin air, but has to be paid for by the taxpayer, who is already the victim of fiscal terrorism.
To be quite blunt, if we had to find the money for these things from our own pockets, we might be slightly less inclined to play Santa Claus.
I am only sorry that I do not have more time to describe the 20 or so other objections I have to this initiative.
As the French say, et c'est pourquoi votre fille est muette .
Mr President, firstly, may I refer to the remarks that Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez has just made about military service.
Whilst I accept her comments and would fully support opposition to military service in any country, the right to be a conscientious objector and, of course, the aims of peace, it is terribly dangerous to link the voluntary service with military service and we have opposed this all the way through the negotiations.
It is a diversion and not what the programme is about.
This is an exciting programme - and I congratulate everyone involved - but it has a much broader dimension: Europe is about more than the movement of money, capital and goods or a single currency or the Economic Union, it is about people.
It is about giving young people opportunities to experience life and work in other countries, to study and to travel.
That is why we must make absolutely certain that there is no link to compulsory military service and using this as an alternative, laudable though it might be.
Europe must be for the people; it must be about the real issues that concern people.
That is why my Group has been pushing the questions and arguments about fighting unemployment across Europe.
These have been highlighted in the recent elections, not just in the United Kingdom but in France.
Young people across Europe are open-minded and are looking for opportunities that this programme provides.
We can use this programme properly to help counter the very powerful forces that are there underneath the surface but will, if unchecked, lead to racism, fascism and nationalism.
By travelling to other countries in this project, young people can learn about the partner countries and different ways of life.
That is why I fully support it and I hope that it gets a good vote later on today.
Mr President, for my generation the outstanding politician in the post-war years has to be the American President Kennedy.
He is still a household name across the world.
The European founding fathers, whilst rightly revered in this House and whose achievements are undoubtedly as great if not greater than Kennedy's, are less well known.
What is Kennedy remembered for? His support for Berlin during the Cold War, his inaugural address: ' ask not what your country can do for you' , but also for the Kennedy Peace Corps.
In that idea he lent his name to a scheme that has channelled the idealism, the energy and the desire to be of use that thousands of young Americans have shown across the world for 30 years.
Young Europeans today have that same idealism, energy, enthusiasm and desire to help.
It is only a minority who are vandals and hooligans, although they seem to capture most of the headlines.
That is why I strongly support the European voluntary service.
It would help young Europeans channel their efforts on a broader level than just national.
Mrs Fontaine's excellent report makes a number of important points - apart from the obvious that good projects always require more money.
There must be follow-up after the experience gained: the programmes must be properly evaluated.
We must exempt volunteers from taxes on their expenses.
There is no idea that is so good that it is not capable of being wrecked by the taxman, so we must order them to get their hands off it right away.
To return to the Kennedy Peace Corps, we need to give the European voluntary service a popular name and, as a British Conservative, I propose that given the connections of Mrs Cresson and Mrs Fontaine we link this support to one of the greatest Europeans of this age, François Mitterrand.
Give it a name and give it a guiding spirit!
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen I must congratulate Mrs Nicole Fontaine on the excellent work that she has done in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, in preparing the report on the European voluntary civilian service programme.
The main interest of this service is now accepted.
The need to undertake new actions to foster the social and professional integration of young people was reiterated at the last European Councils.
I myself saw that on the ground when taking an active part in France in the meetings of national dialogue for Europe launched by Michel Barnier.
Young people are highly motivated to undertake European actions that are likely to open up the way to new knowledge, new contacts, new employment and fulfilment prospects.
This active opening into Europe slightly reminds me of the famous 'grand tour' reserved for the wealthiest pupils in 18th century Europe.
Nowadays, we should allow all our young people to have that opportunity, without distinction.
We know that the demands of budgetary tightness will oblige us to review the normal increase in existing Community programmes but we should not disappoint those young people whose energy could contribute to the development of the European construction that represents their future.
Finally I would like the Commission to tell us what it intends to do for liaison between the various Community programmes aimed at young people and how it wants to finance this new voluntary service programme over time.
I would also like us to be able to define a genuine comprehensive youth policy in Europe.
This is a very good report by Nicole Fontaine, as we have come to expect.
We are another step closer to a people's Europe, a Europe of young people, young European volunteers working together for other people instead of just for themselves.
The Liberal Group would prefer to apply a number of conditions, however.
Firstly, voluntary work must not be seen as a substitute for regular paid work, in other words there must be no European equivalent of 'Melkert jobs' , as we call them in Dutch.
Secondly, there must be an even spread of participants, not just an élite and not just those who have few opportunities.
Thirdly, there should be equal numbers of male and female participants.
Fourthly, the ECU 60 million earmarked under the Interinstitutional Agreement is quite sufficient, as far as the Liberal Group is concerned.
Fifth, there should be cooperation with other programmes and, sixth, there should be follow-up and annual evaluations.
I visited the pilot project in the Molenbeek district of Brussels, and found that to be an excellent example.
Young people there were able to see further than the ends of their national noses, as it were, and were working together to meet one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century: that of living in harmony and understanding with each other and with the many cultures from outside the European Union.
It is a good programme: let us set the ball rolling.
Mr President, I too commend both the Commissioner, Mrs Cresson, and our rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, on their excellent work.
I believe that the Commission's text, combined with the work of the Committee on Culture, the Committee on Development and Cooperation and the Committee on Women's Rights, brings together all the elements needed for this major proposal to take shape and be carried through.
I also think it is vital for the right link to be established between European civil service and national forms of civil service, especially in order to solve the problems regarding the service performed by conscientious objectors.
It has not been possible to tackle these problems until now because of the situation in Greece, where no civil alternative to military service existed; as from this week, however, that problem too has been resolved - albeit in a somewhat questionable way - with the adoption of a new law.
I believe that it is important to update the information which is available in the various countries and from NGOs, and to remove all obstacles to the participation of young people of either sex.
This will help to foster among young people and the European citizens of the future that sense of European citizenship which we are so eager to cultivate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not against the rapporteur personally but I am going to be very critical.
This report is overflowing with good intentions but demagoguery too; we could well ask whether there is not a hidden political agenda behind this since it has been clearly said that these young people must be the 'allies' of a certain type of European construction.
It is a gimmick, in terms of resources, which is not very serious because, if we were really to apply the principle of subsidiarity, we would hardly see the use of this European initiative.
The budget is very small, of course, and will only benefit a minority of privileged young people; the mass of young people will obviously be excluded.
I am afraid that the real aim of this project is to make us forget mass unemployment provoked by a European deflationary policy and the unbridled opening up of our borders.
We are offering voluntary work, financed from taxation, whereas the demand for company jobs is insufficient.
The money to go into this luxury project will be taken out of the genuine fight against unemployment.
That is an insult to unemployed people and those on low incomes and they will realize that.
Mr President, the European voluntary service for young people is an important step towards a Europe for the people.
There are many decisions taken in this House but few are important for the individual citizen of the Union.
But when we talk about voluntary service, I am anxious to underline its importance.
It gives personal development, experience and new skills to the most important resource society has, our young people.
So I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine for her excellent work.
She has openly listened to and accepted various proposals from those of us in the committee for culture.
I would also like to thank my party colleague Mr Vecchi.
We all know how important he has been as an instigator of voluntary service.
There are many positive points in this programme.
But I would personally like to underline the mutual exchange with third countries.
The development of the EU is not only governed by those of us who live in the Union, but is also influenced by those who live outside.
So it is important that young people from third countries have the opportunity to come to us and experience the culture in different parts of Europe.
This will be particularly important if we do expand Eastwards.
Young people are the future of Europe.
They must be given the opportunity to meet because when people meet diplomacy is created.
This is one way of combating the 'fortress Europe' mentality.
Mr President, I do not wish to repeat what the other speakers have said, but I would agree with many of them that the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, is to be congratulated on the substance of her report and on the speed with which she has produced it.
I should also like to congratulate the Commissioner, Mrs Cresson, on showing such dynamism in putting forward this proposal, although she is probably going to face tremendous problems in obtaining funding for it.
As many speakers have said, this programme is clearly of vital importance for our young people, who in turn are clearly of vital importance for the further construction of Europe.
This means that what we are dealing with here is an absolutely crucial element in Europe's overall policy of integration.
It also means that we have no right to talk about this programme as if it were some kind of hobby-horse of Mrs Fontaine or Mrs Cresson, or of the Committee on Culture.
This is a vital component in Europe's policy of integration. Why do I say this?
Because I very much fear that we are going to have to fight for a budget for it, and that many of our colleagues, wearing their budgetary authority hats, will say that there are so many programmes already and that the Committee on Culture has to show a little restraint, or else the Council will say that Parliament needs to show restraint.
We have recently had some very bad experiences with the Council over important cultural programmes, and this is why I would urge that we should not launch this programme until we have an adequate budget, so as to ensure that all the young people for whom it is intended are given the chance to take part, rather than just the small group who know how to gain access to it.
We cannot dangle a carrot in front of young people's noses and then snatch it away as soon as they try to bite.
It would do nothing but harm to European integration, and we would simply be spreading disappointment instead of hope.
Mr President, we can only welcome the proposal for a Community action programme 'European voluntary service for young people' , which originated in an idea from the European Parliament, I would point out, and was launched during Italy's last presidency.
This initiative is in fact a means of enabling the leaders of tomorrow to grow up in a context which is no longer national but, at long last, European.
We agree with the substance of the programme and with the proposals from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and are grateful to the rapporteur, who is proposing an increase in the funding and an extension of the age range for participants from 18 to 29, rather than 25.
The internationalization of the market will in fact bring both risks and opportunities to those currently going through school or university and who will be entering the world of work in the near future: they must therefore be in a position to understand the new working environment and the opportunities it presents.
We should simply like to ask the Commission to draw up a strategy document which keeps the other programme, ' Youth for Europe' , on the front burner and carries forward these two complementary initiatives in step with one another.
Finally, we would emphasize that the most appropriate sectors for this new voluntary work scheme are environmental, sporting and cultural activities: these social values above all will help young people get to know each other and grow together.
Mr President, I wish to compliment Mrs Cresson and the author of this important report.
It must be possible to achieve the goal of citizenship in a responsible way, and this proposal to establish a European voluntary service will, in our view, involve young Europeans in community life, providing them with an opportunity to gain useful work experience.
Funding is of course an important issue, and we feel that an effort should be made to increase the resources that are available. Likewise, it is important to provide the young volunteers with full information as regards their rights and duties, and to ensure that the EVS is compatible with national service and fits in with governments' plans to combat the crisis of unemployment.
We should also like there to be guarantees of the young volunteers' rights in terms of social security cover, and to see them exempted from paying tax on their earnings throughout their period of service.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Fontaine for her excellent work on questions relating to the action programme 'European Voluntary Service for Young People'.
This is a substantial and important youth policy programme which, if it succeeds, will have a significant multiplier effect on the mobility and employability of young people all over Europe.
However, the implementation of the programme is being held up in a number of Member States.
Particularly serious problems have arisen in connection with social security and taxation.
The case of my own country, Finland, illustrates the seriousness of the problems with the implementation of the programme.
The concept of voluntary work is foreign to Finnish employment legislation.
In practice, this means that a young volunteer pays in Finland more tax in respect of voluntary work than he or she receives in allowance.
This problem, which relates to national decision-making, makes it impossible to apply the principle of reciprocity between Member States.
We Finnish MEPs, at least regardless of party allegiance, should actively work in national forums to eliminate these problems.
Intervention is needed immediately because before these undesirable situations will lead to arbitrary discrimination in the treatment of voluntary workers in different Member States, thus endangering the future of the project.
Finally, I should like once again to express my support for the committee's view that the Commission should submit before the end of next year to Parliament and the Council a report commenting on the main priorities of the Union's youth policy in the next millennium.
The Commission should include without fail in its report its opinion on the future of the Youth for Europe and 'European Voluntary Service for Young People' programmes, and on the possibility of a Children's Europe programme in future, as proposed by organizations for the under-15s.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to congratulate Mrs Fontaine and the Commissioner.
Ladies and gentlemen, voluntary action has now been turned into one of the basic instruments of action in social areas in civilian society.
A European voluntary service could undoubtedly help to overcome the cultural and social divisions that exist, especially fostering the promotion of tolerance, peace and international solidarity.
Our main aim is to switch from isolated experiments, without any coordination, to a broader programme, that would enable a larger number of young people to exercise an activity of general interest in a multinational framework.
That is why I firmly support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur to the Commission proposal on a budgetary increase for the programme and the need to recognise a legal status for European voluntary service.
It is right that this service should offer social protection, recognition and remuneration.
Given the complex rules in the Member States, very often many young people who carry out voluntary services receive no payment at all when they get back home.
If this service is to make any progress, as has been said, the volunteers need to have their condition recognized, so that all the young citizens of the Member States can enjoy the same payments.
I am especially concerned that the voluntary service should not be used incorrectly or exploited in order to solve unemployment problems.
The framework of a European programme must consider the desired guarantees in terms of free movement, residence rights and social security.
Acquired experience should also be consolidated and that can only be achieved if we have a clear and practical legal framework and status.
In Europe we must put a stake in our future and our young people, especially when they are willing to take part generously in our society.
I think that it is our obligation to help and support them whenever it is possible for us to do so.
Mr President, Commissioner Cresson has just made a most interesting statement.
She promised Parliament a new publication from the Commission to accompany the Community action programme for European voluntary service and intended in principle for all young people in the European Union.
She said that it was to be published in three languages: French, English and German.
Are we therefore to conclude that the Commission has no respect for the demand expressed by the House and enshrined in the Treaties that all the official languages of the Union deserve and must be given equal treatment? I should be grateful for an answer on this point.
These documents are not addressed to all young people; they are, as I said, targeted at members of parliament and national bodies.
If I understood you right, Mr Vanhecke, you want us to save public funds.
We are therefore trying to do things quickly.
I think I understood that you, like your colleagues in the same Group here in the European Parliament, are opposed to this idea and the development of a European voluntary service.
We do not have all that much money to begin with.
We have to be attentive.
Of course, everything that is found on the Internet tends to be in a very few languages.
This brochure is being distributed to the Member States and national bodies which can, of course, make local translations and distribute them locally.
We shall do all we can to help them.
You cannot say, on one hand, that it is too expensive and then tell us off for trying to save as much money as possible.
This is just the beginning.
Perhaps one day we shall be able to publish this handbook in all languages.
For the time being we have decided to make a start and this is something that is not secondary - and I do not say that it is not important for everyone to have the handbook in their own language - but this is just the beginning and we do not have much money as you yourself said.
We shall do our best to ensure that the handbook is available locally in as many languages as possible.
Mrs Cresson, how quickly do you believe it will be possible for the domestic legislation on tax exemption for expenses and the necessary insurance provisions to be put in place? This, of course, will also have a bearing on any prediction as to when applications relating to this programme can realistically be submitted.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon today.
SOCRATES' action programme
The next item is the report (A4-0188/97) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision 819/95/EC establishing the Community action programme 'SOCRATES' .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking today about the Socrates programme.
We are not undertaking an evaluation of the programme today; it was simply agreed during the conciliation process back in 1995 that we should meet at this time to establish whether or not the funds we assigned to the programme for a five-year period in 1995 would prove sufficient.
Nevertheless, let me say a few words on the programme and its extraordinary importance.
This programme was not created to hamper the work of Member States but to demonstrate everywhere the added value that European education can bring and to promote the European dimension within education, thereby bringing the European Union closer to its citizens.
The achievements of the programme in boosting European cooperation have come to encompass quite new sectors of education.
As you will be aware, in the part of the programme known as Comenius we have been dealing with school twinning, and for the first time we have also addressed adult education, a subject that was especially prominent last year, the European Year of Lifelong Learning, and have begun to consider open and distance learning. You will also be aware that another part of the Socrates programme, namely Erasmus - another of the fruits of this Parliament - has been one of the European Union's great success stories, enabling students to undertake courses of study abroad that will be recognized in their own countries.
Lingua, which promotes the acquisition of foreign-language skills, is also part of the programme.
So I believe it is a programme that appeals to infinite numbers of people, from six-year-old children to pensioners attending adult-education centres in order to find out more about Europe and to see Europe in a new light.
In this programme we have also created the opportunity in the 15 Member States to add an extra European dimension to the curriculum, especially within initial and in-service teacher training.
After all, how can we expect our children to develop into European citizens if their teachers are Euro-ostriches? Teachers too must be moulded into real Europeans in their initial and in-service training, so that they can pass this on to children, adolescents and students.
This is an extremely good programme, and it accurately reflects the spirit of Article 126 of the Treaty.
It helps to ensure a high quality of education throughout the entire Community.
To all those who object to it I have to say that it is not a matter of our undermining subsidiarity.
We are only doing what the Member States are not willing and sometimes not able to do.
Let us get on at last with what we can do well!
This programme has one serious problem, namely a shortage of money.
I do not wish to go into any further detail on its content.
All I want to say is that the programme was set up in 1995 for twelve States.
Then along came three more Member States and all the EEA countries.
And now we have taken a political decision, which Parliament supported, that the associated countries are to take part.
We want young Poles, young Hungarians, young Czechs, young Slovaks, young Romanians, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians.
We want to include them all in the programme, because this is a way in which we can spread the European ideal more widely in those countries.
But now we are left with no money.
We only have the funds that were allocated to us in 1995.
That, of course, is insufficient to meet even the target we originally set ourselves.
At that time we told the Council that our consent to the result of the conciliation process was wholly dependent on our coming together again after two and a half years to consider whether the money would suffice.
It will not suffice!
We should need at least ECU 165 million for two years to come anywhere near meeting our own target.
However, we are moderate in our demands and are only seeking ECU 100m, since we can more or less get by on that.
But if we go along with the Commission and the 50m I proposed - the Commission could not ask for more than that, because of the other constraints upon it - we shall actually have less in real terms than we had planned on the basis of twelve Member States.
That is why I believe we shall be doing ourselves no favours by economizing on this programme.
We shall be doing ourselves no favours, and we shall be denying our own principles.
If we listen to politicians, they are always saying that Europe is a people's Europe.
And it is those people of Europe, in all walks of life and at all ages, who benefit from this very programme.
We, however, shall have to turn round and tell them we have no money to give.
Please back the European Parliament in its struggle with the Council, so that a better result can be obtained in the conciliation committee.
To that end I need a convincing vote from this Parliament.
Mr President, this is of course, as everyone is aware, a very important programme and I remember vividly the lengthy negotiations we had in 1995 over the conciliation process which is obviously part and parcel of where we are today, looking at the funding.
Mrs Pack has already spoken eloquently about the value and importance of this programme and Mrs Cresson also spoke earlier.
This programme is important because Europe must be, and is, more than just big business and capital, moving money about Europe and people getting richer and richer.
It is about people, it is about young people.
It is about involving schools and educational establishments across Europe, and giving them the opportunities to interlink with one another.
Socrates has been a great success.
People are talking about the programme and they often write to me to find out more about it.
It is already four times over-subscribed.
We could find plenty of students for every place.
Students who have been on those programmes or schools that have been involved in exchanges have tremendous experiences that they will remember for the rest of their lives and they build the foundations for the Europe that we want to see.
This is only a small budget increase we are looking for.
I wish it were much more than that because this is a really useful investment.
The European Parliament and European Union provide subsidies for tobacco farming, breeding bulls for bull-fighting and, if we are to believe the press reports this week, breeding beetles in Italy for alcoholic drinks colouring, and yet we seem to be balking at or objecting to a small increase in the project.
I wish it were a larger increase but we have to argue for this for the young people of today and tomorrow.
Mr President, the young people of Europe can be proud that they are represented by individuals such as Mrs Pack, who has moved heaven and earth to promote this programme and to obtain the extra budget for it.
It is quite scandalous that such tremendous efforts should be necessary, because as Mrs Pack said, it was agreed that we would eventually review the budget, and the programme has been so successful - indeed, it risks becoming the victim of its own success - that there is every reason to extend it to many more countries.
As chairman of the Committee on Culture, I have been bombarded with requests from various countries claiming that we promised that they could participate in the programmes and that they have projects ready, but are never given a chance.
Here again, as I said about the other programme, we are spreading disappointment instead of promoting the idea that young people are the future, and that Europe needs young people for its future too.
This is a very dangerous thing to do.
If we look at the Union's information policy - and it is something we need to talk about, it is such a disaster - there is little point in allocating more money for improving information in general if, in disseminating information about this programme, we just end up bringing disappointment to so many young people.
It would be counter-productive, and it simply means that both we in the House and the Council have no choice but to accept that this programme is successful, that it serves to promote European integration and that it should be extended to all the countries involved in European integration.
So if the programme is to be made accessible to all, the budget for it also needs to be increased.
This is what I would call compulsory expenditure, although I know that the term is given a different meaning, because we simply must not cheat people.
If we give rights to people - young people - then they must also be allowed to exercise them.
So there should really be no question of debating whether we need to increase the budget.
We have offered people something, and neither we nor the Council of Ministers can now afford to tell them that it is only available for the few, and the rest get nothing.
I would end by urgently calling on the Commission to join Parliament in campaigning for a decent budget increase for this programme, now and in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by adding my own congratulations to Mrs Pack to those offered by other speakers.
I wish to remind everyone of the great success which the SOCRATES programme is enjoying within the Union, especially in promoting higher education through ERASMUS and language learning through LINGUA.
SOCRATES has given a tremendous boost to the mobility and exchanges of students, teachers and assistants, as well as the creation of cooperation networks.
The number of inter-university cooperation programmes has so far reached 2673.
The success of SOCRATES has led to a rise in applications to participate in the various actions covered by the programme, in particular since 1995, from students and teachers alike.
Across the European Union there are in fact some 60 million school pupils and 11 million students.
The Commission has proposed increasing by ECU 50 million the funding already set at ECU 850 m by the Council for the period 1995-99.
This sum, which is much less than the ECU 1005 m initially proposed for 12 Member States, is now woefully inadequate for the present 15 Member States, plus the EFTA countries, the CCEEs and Cyprus, which have been included in the programme.
The fact is that in 1998-99, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Cyprus will be participating fully in the programme; with the help of the PHARE programme, the CCEEs will be contributing some ECU 70 m, but if this participation is to be meaningful, that effort will have to be reciprocated by the Member States to the tune of some ECU 70 m.
The demand is therefore far outstripping the financial scope of the programme.
So it is clear that if we really wish to give a boost to European education through information and communication campaigns for our citizens, carried out by the EU, the necessary funding must be found.
Otherwise, we shall lose credibility in the eyes of the citizens who wish to build the Europe of tomorrow - those young people who are expecting not just words or promises, but practical action from the Union - especially in times like the present, when ideals are under threat and culture has to play its rightful role.
Mr President, my warmest congratulations to Mrs Pack on her fine report and her energetic work in defence of the Socrates Programme.
The Socrates Programme is really a European success story which is coming to a sad and untimely end just as it was gaining speed, at least as regards its objectives.
This will at any rate be true if the programme does not immediately obtain the ECU 100 m it needs in additional funding to meet the increased needs.
And even this increase will not be enough to meet the growing needs and expectations of the present Member States, since this amount of additional funding will be needed just to launch this programme properly in the CEECs.
The ECU 50 m which the Commission has proposed is therefore not enough and the Committee on Culture has been quite unanimous in stating that at least ECU 100 m are needed.
It is not necessary to increase the whole budget by this amount: the resources could be taken from somewhere else, for example the EU's appropriations for information.
Activities of the type of the Socrates Programme amount to much better and more positive information work than hastily completed information campaigns.
The varied educational cooperation to be carried out in the framework of the Socrates Programme is also the best preparation for closer EU cooperation and membership.
For this reason, the gates of Socrates should really be opened to the associated countries.
In the same way it would be irresponsible to state coolly to the young people of the current Member States that Socrates is an elite programme for a chosen few, in which the number and level of grants does not even begin to meet requirements.
However, a great deal of positive and promising developments have been achieved under the Socrates Programme in terms of in terms of improving the quality of education in the whole of Europe.
In my opinion, it is particularly important to continue work on the further education of teachers and on developing and broadening language teaching, for these are the real prerequisites if we are to achieve that vital 'European added value'.
In the EU, there is justified concern that citizens do not feel the EU's activity relates to or is meaningful for them.
With that in mind, we cannot afford to weaken the credibility of this programme which is so important to our citizens and works so well.
Mr President, we Greens believe that in order not to compromise SOCRATES, which was originally designed to meet the needs of only 12 Member States, it is now essential to increase the funds allocated for its implementation.
The growing number of applications under the programme and, above all, the involvement of 11 new countries as from 1998, require an increase in the budget in order to ensure reciprocal mobility between the European Union and the associated countries.
The Commission's proposed budget increase of 5.9 % is utterly inadequate and takes no account either of real demand or of the extension of the programme to cover the associated countries.
We would not wish the success of SOCRATES to be jeopardized; nor would we wish it to benefit only those who can afford to foot the bill for their stay in the host country.
For this reason, the Greens strongly support the request by Mrs Pack: we are calling for a substantial increase in funding, so as to send a positive signal to the educational community and to public opinion.
Mr President, really, the resources that the European Union puts into its youth policy are at the heart of this morning's debates.
That is the problem of the Socrates programme: everyone recognizes its positive qualities and the need to enhance its activities.
But that desire will be useless unless the budget is considerably increased.
That is why we must support the aim of 100 million ECU as proposed by our rapporteur, Mrs Pack, whose work I must congratulate.
Let us not forget that, during conciliation, the European Parliament only accepted the 850 million ECU, far below the initial proposal, on the condition that those aims should be revised after two years.
The association of certain central and eastern European countries in these programmes, to take place very shortly, even if cofunded by the Phare programme, will make certain adjustments necessary.
This is just one example, but it shows that if we want the Socrates programmes to meet its legitimate expectations, it will have to be given a larger budget.
Mr President, although the EU was originally founded as an economic union, it is increasingly developing into an educational union.
In view of the fraught situation in the labour market and competition from cheap but poorly trained workforces, Europe's best chance lies in a high level of education and training.
That is why we regard the development of Community action programmes in the educational domain as a wisely chosen and effective means, albeit in the medium term, of combating unemployment in Europe and why we consider the Socrates programme to be an important investment in the future of our continent.
Although the replenishment of the programme budget certainly merits our support in principle, the extra funds must be found by means of internal reallocations so as to avoid additional strains on the Community purse and to prevent any increases in national membership contributions.
In addition, we consider it indispensable that strict controls and complete transparency be required of the executive bodies for each of the supported projects to prevent the disbursement of any unwarranted aid.
With regard to the inclusion in the Socrates programme of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which we also very much welcome, we would insist that substantiated needs assessments be drawn up with a view to identifying the actual financial requirements.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is high time that the question of replenishing Socrates was put into a far broader political context.
It is, as we know, an excellent means of promoting the construction of Europe, because it creates, through encounter and exchange, an enduring basis for international understanding and helps to promote both the mobility and the qualification of young people in the education process and in their working lives.
But since an ever smaller number of applications for assistance can be approved and since the grants are sometimes embarrassingly paltry, which tends to make the programme socially exclusive, the case for replenishment is actually irrefutable.
I congratulate Mrs Pack on her report and her comments, including those on the funding target, and I should like to say that it is highly desirable that the States of Central and Eastern Europe should be fully involved in this programme at last.
If, however, the funding is not replenished, the exchange programmes in the countries of Western Europe will inevitably be curtailed.
Another reason why we need more resources - and I must emphasize this - is to alleviate the social shortcomings of the programme.
For example, more young people from small and medium-sized businesses ought to be given exchange opportunities.
To that end we shall have to devise a new structure for the awarding of grants.
Scarcely any of these young people will take part in exchange programmes on their own initiative and at their own expense.
The youngsters undergoing vocational training also need to encounter the cultures of their European neighbours as a practical exercise in tolerance and openness.
That is important if we really want to strike at the roots of the intolerance and xenophobia that are once more rearing their heads in Europe.
We must have scope, for example, to organize a greater number of exchange programmes within the framework of town-twinning arrangements.
Foreign languages are important in an increasingly internationalized world.
At the same time, the fact that just below one per cent of all students on vocational courses have taken part in such exchanges is unsatisfactory.
An increasingly global economy demands the globalization, in other words the internationalization, of the education process.
Our training standards are in competition today with those of other parts of the world.
This is where we Europeans shall have to win our spurs.
Education, mobility and job prospects are becoming ever more closely linked in a chain of cause and effect.
In that respect Socrates is also a contribution to employment policy in Europe.
Mr President, let me begin by expressing my sincere congratulations and thanks to Doris Pack for her sterling effort.
We all know from our own countries how well the Socrates programme is working and how popular it is.
I am sure that each one of us knows at least one student who has studied in another European country on an Erasmus scholarship or a school class that has organized an exchange through Comenius.
And despite this positive feedback we want to cut the funding of Socrates.
No, that is unthinkable!
Socrates is one of the bestknown Community programmes; its activities are right in line with the needs of our people and directly touch their lives.
The programme has numerous achievements to its name, including an increase in mobility within the European Union and progress towards mutual recognition of degrees.
We cannot keep on talking about closeness to citizens and then fail to guarantee the future of such a successful programme.
Moreover, I believe that greater importance should attach to the aspect of adult education within the Socrates programme.
Only by topping up the programme with at least another ECU 100m can we make sure that the loudly proclaimed motto of lifelong learning is effectively put into practice.
Socrates can and must make a contribution to this and other innovation processes if the European Union wants to remain true to its educational aims and to demonstrate that it is at one with its citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the first few years of its application, the SOCRATES programme, which is aimed at promoting the European dimension in education and in particular at bringing the Union closer to its citizens, succeeded beyond all expectations.
It has enabled young people and adults to learn far more than they could in the past about the reality of Europe, its languages and its culture, and this, we believe, is crucial to greater and more effective unity on our continent.
Once in a while, we are unanimous in expressing our approval of an initiative and a wish for it to be supported and continued in the future.
There is, however, a problem of funding.
Initially, as we know, the Commission proposed an overall sum of ECU 1005 million for 12 Member States.
The final decision, adopted two years ago, allocated only ECU 850 m to the programme for a total of 39 countries - in the meantime, the Member States had grown to 15, and then there are the 13 EFTA countries, the ten CCEEs, and Cyprus.
So, while entirely understanding the Commission's financial reasons for proposing an increase of only ECU 50 m for this programme, I share the view of the rapporteur - whom I would compliment - that this project must receive additional funding of at least ECU 100 m.
I am also a member of the Committee on Budgets, and I know that it would not be impossible to transfer these resources from other headings.
To give just one example, I think that a Parliament and other EU institutions which are faced every day with the excessive costs of the premises in which they operate must be able to find a way of funding this major cultural initiative.
Mr President, I would like to commend Mrs Pack on this report.
When Parliament drew up its original report on the Socrates programme, of which I was co-author along with Mrs Pack and Mr Verde i Aldea, we had very high hopes of this programme.
Many of those hopes had been fulfilled but they are endangered by an inadequacy of funding.
As has been pointed out, even if Parliament agrees to what is proposed in this report - an additional ECU 100m over the next two-and-a-half years - that will still be less than the Commission originally considered was necessary for this five-year programme for the twelve countries who were then Member States.
The programme is successful and popular; it is popular within the European Union and with countries who are applicants or associated with us.
But we are in danger of dashing expectations.
I wish, when politicians, whether they be in this Parliament, the Council of Ministers or the Commission, decide they would promote programmes of this kind and raise people's expectations - particularly young people across the European Union - that they would be prepared to back their protestations and provide money for such programmes. That, unfortunately, is not the case.
As others have said, it is a question, sometimes, of how you spend the money.
The cost of this programme over five years is only what we give as subsidies to tobacco growers in one year.
The cost of this programme year on year is probably considerably less than is lost to the Community by fraud and incompetence.
An article on education was incorporated at Maastricht.
It was wonderful to get that article into the Treaties but when we commit ourselves to a programme of this kind, we must provide the necessary funding so that young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, minorities and other groups are not put to the bottom of the list, which may well otherwise be the case.
I hope Parliament will fully endorse what is proposed here.
Mr President, the second most important decision in a person's life is the decision to pursue a particular career.
The most important decision is the choice of a marriage partner.
I believe that both of these decisions have to be well thought out and carefully examined, and it is important that more information about future career opportunities should be provided in school, so that pupils' education can be structured accordingly.
The Socrates programme addresses this very point with its research activities and its initial and in-service teacher training measures.
I believe that Socrates assures us that future educational requirements can be met, that the education system will not disregard market needs and that parents, teachers and pupils will be well aware of the educational qualifications which will be demanded in the future.
We have politicians who believe that an additional article or law can create jobs.
I believe that jobs can only be created if people are taught how to produce the goods or provide the services that consumers want.
This means that in vocational training and in businesses we must teach people how to manufacture products, how to supply products and services that consumers will buy.
The Socrates programme, with its very sharp focus on in-service training, has a huge amount to offer here, as does the Leonardo programme.
They can quite simply teach people what they need in order to be able to meet the demands of the future.
Forthcoming projects such as the introduction of the euro and our eastward enlargement are also important steps for which we must educate our teachers, our pupils and our adult citizens.
That is why lifelong learning, and hence Leonardo, is of vital importance to our future and must therefore be given absolute priority.
Mr President, with new socialist governments coming in across Europe, the emphasis on a people's Europe is very important.
No programme demonstrates a people's Europe more than SOCRATES - except perhaps the voluntary service which we have just been discussing.
Thousands of students and pupils across the European Union have the possibility of participating in exchange programmes and getting to know their fellow citizens.
That is why, two and half years ago, we were not happy with the amount of money proposed by the Council and, during the conciliation process, we negotiated a return at this point to look again at the finances.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media feels very strongly that in order to do justice to the programme, a substantial increase in funding is necesssary.
Since 1994, not only have we seen an increase in the number of EU Member States and their right to apply for funding, but only now will the full impact of the information campaigns conducted in 1995 and 1996 be felt.
Only now will certain areas within the programme become fully available for the first time.
In addition, there is increased demand under the various projects because of partnerships developed as a result of the European Year of Lifelong Learning, which was very successful across the European Union.
Nor should we forget the recommendations of the final report of the taskforce on educational software and multimedia.
All that money has to be found now out of the SOCRATES programme.
What happens if we do not find the funding? Theoretically, there is available a maximum grant of ECU 5, 000 per year per student, but if all the eligible students received the money they applied for, this would in reality amount to no more than ECU 75 per student per month.
That is unacceptable.
There will certainly be no problem spending the money.
The programme is oversubscribed four times and is constrained in the budget guidelines where it is a priority.
It will certainly remain at the top of our agenda.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Europe will not have any future unless it treats its younger generation very carefully.
The single currency, freedom of movement and common security will be as nought without people who want to and who know how to build upon that foundation a world of peace and a better life.
SOCRATES is a programme which, supported by the indisputable success of the ERASMUS university exchange visits, is enabling an increasing number of students and lecturers to exchange experience and to compare knowledge, thus creating a European Community of the spirit and of the heart.
We know that it is neither healthy nor sustainable to have a single world superpower.
Europe must accept the challenge and take its proper role for the benefit of the equilibrium of this new globalized society.
The Union cannot continue another day as an economic giant and a social, political and cultural dwarf.
We therefore need not only to retain but to step up exponentially, year by year, the SOCRATES programme and the new European voluntary service which is its natural counterpart.
Those are the only means by which we can change people's mentality and attitude.
Those are the only ways to reverse the dangerous trend towards isolationism, individualism and consumerism, which are destroying us and discrediting us.
SOCRATES, Mr President, is a success story.
What blindness has led to a proposal for a zero growth rate in the budget for 1998 which had to be forcibly extracted by our courageous rapporteur, Mrs Doris Pack?
I feel tempted, Mr President, to make a proposal for a special SOCRATES programme for political decision makers.
Perhaps thereafter we would see more clearly the priorities of this Europe which we say we love, but which we do not know how to build.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to thank the European Parliament for dealing with this proposal so quickly - it was only adopted less than three months ago.
That shows just how committed you are to this programme.
When it was adopted, just over two years ago, the programme benefitted from the European Parliament's firm support.
I should like to thank Mrs Pack, in particular, for her excellent report, and Mrs Dührkop Dührkop for supporting the issue at the Committee on Budgets.
The Socrates programme is essential for the construction of the so-called 'union of knowledge' that we fully support.
Of course, it would be better to speak in a quieter chamber, where everyone is seated.
Please be quiet, ladies and gentlemen, so that we can hear Mrs Cresson's explanations.
As you yourselves have recalled, Socrates enables us to approach the Union of all citizens, and I am thinking in particular of the 70 million or so young people in the Community, 4 million teachers, 11 million students and all adults in training at present.
On the eve of the Amsterdam European Council, which we are trying to involve all European citizens in, Socrates will be an exemplary demonstration of European construction at the service of individuals.
It also plays a decisive role for developing human resources, a key to the recovery of lost jobs, economic competitiveness and growth.
It is also a major element for the process of enlarging the Community, since it opens up to Cyprus and the countries of central and eastern Europe associated in the programmes, preparing their citizens and their institutions for accession.
It should also be emphasized that these results are obtained at extremely low cost.
Even with the increase in the budgetary amount earmarked by the Commission, Socrates accounts for only 0.2 % of the Community's 1998 budget.
That is why, given its importance, the Commission and the European Parliament, as it happens, can only regret the financial amount voted on two years ago and, as you recall, it was a 150 million ECU reduction over our initial proposal.
The experience of two years demonstrates that the Commission's initial proposal was not only realistic but was the bare minimum.
The programme has received a particularly enthusiastic reception in educational circles throughout the Member States.
It is one of the most popular programmes and there is not a Member State where the teachers, young people, students and schools have not heard of the European Union's education programmes.
In proposing an increase in the budget, after these two years of developing the programme, the Community intends to meet the high expectations shown by ordinary people.
Examining the amendments tabled by the European Parliament...
Excuse, but I have the feeling that you are being greatly disturbed by the background noise.
Please, ladies and gentlemen, be quiet.
It is very unpleasant to speak when there is noise.
You all know that as you have all experienced it.
Thank you.
Our applause demonstrates how attentively we all listened to you, Commissioner.
Thank you.
The debate is closed.
We now proceed to the vote.
VOTES
Ladies and gentlemen, we now proceed to the votes.
As you can see, the situation is quite difficult.
We have a lot of votes to get through.
The votes contain thirty or so pages of text.
Either we vote until 1.30 p.m. or postpone the Fontaine report until this evening, an idea not opposed by the rapporteur even though it contains a legislative proposal.
Report (A4-0173/97) by Mr Sturdy, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural development, on the proposals for 16 Council regulations on the prices for agricultural products and related measures 1997-1998 (COM(97)0089 - C4-0114/97 to C4-0129/97-97-0087(CNS) to 97/0089(CNS), 97/0091(CNS) to 97/0094(CNS) - 97/0096(CNS) to 97/0102(CNS), 97/0905(CNS) and 07/0906(CNS))
Madam President, perhaps I can ease the pressure somewhat with the PPE Group's motion on the Sturdy report.
On behalf of my group I should like to move a postponement of the vote on this report.
Let me explain the motion in three sentences.
In its vote on the Sturdy report the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development adopted a balanced package on agricultural prices.
The package, however, entails additional costs of around ECU 170m in total.
This, of course, is a problem, not least because of the present budgetary constraints upon the entire Union, ourselves included.
Parallel to these votes we have the ad hoc procedure for the 1998 financial year, and there are signs that this procedure could yield a compensatory amount which would far outweigh the ECU 170m.
To spell out the fiscal neutrality of this measure, we had tabled amendments 31 to 46 - one for each legislative resolution - but these were declared inadmissible for formal reasons.
In view of these circumstances, we should like to propose that the vote on the Sturdy report take place with the report on the ad hoc procedure. This would also ensure that the budgetary integrity of the House is upheld.
I request your consent.
Mr Böge, if I understand you right, you want Rule 131 to be applied.
Does anyone oppose that?
Madam President, the Socialist Group is not taken in by this feigned rigour from the PPE Group.
The fact is that if there is a problem of budget neutrality with regard to agricultural prices, it is because of the blatant contradictions between the Sturdy and Funk reports.
I would remind the House that the bulk of the farm prices for 1998 will be determined not by the Sturdy report, but by the Funk report, and the two are therefore closely linked.
I would urge colleagues to vote in favour of the Socialist Group's Amendments Nos 24 and 26 to the Funk report: although these two amendments are no major cause for concern to farmers, they trim ECU 500 million off the 1998 budget.
This is ample to cover any lack of budget neutrality on farm prices in the Sturdy report.
So I do not believe that there are any arguments in favour of this postponement.
It would make sense, if anything, to defer both reports, so as to take a fresh look at matters, but since this is not being done, that would not appear to be possible.
If there is one area where resources can be saved in agriculture, it is that of arable crops, which accounts for 40 % of farm spending.
In the Funk report, we have missed the opportunity to comment on this substantial sector.
So in my view, rather than budget neutrality, what the PPE Group's position reveals is serious political bias.
(Parliament rejected the request)
(In successive votes, Parliament adopted sixteen legislative resolutions)
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your massive vote in favour of my report.
The day before yesterday, Madam President, Commissioner Fischler declared that he was refusing to take into account 20 of our 22 amendments to his very watered-down proposal.
The two amendments he accepted are purely formal ones.
My initial reaction to this attitude, royally ignoring the proposals we adopted here two and a half years ago in favour of direct aids to save European bee-keeping, was to ask for referral back to the Commission.
But as you have just massively adopted my report, and in order not to waste more time with pointless discussions with the Commission, in the light of its attitude, I turn to the Council of Ministers and hope that it will not ignore our proposals, proposals that the European Parliament has thought long and hard about for 12 years, and will follow them up.
Madam President, it is in this spirit that I ask you to adopt the legislative proposal.
(Applause)
Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to meet Mr Fischler this morning to find out whether he has done any thinking over night, but if I have any new information, I shall inform you.
No doubt you will pass on to him the displeasure of the European Parliament.
I also, of course, regret the Council's absence.
I now put the legislative resolution to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I have no amendments on this motion but I do have a request for a correction, moved by Mr Jarzembowski, and an oral amendment to paragraph 4, to be moved by Mr Cornelissen.
Madam President, we have agreed to do these two things jointly in order to save time.
The correction I request is the deletion in recital D of the reference to the meeting of the Tourism Council, since it never took place.
So that is a technical matter.
If nobody in the House objects, we ask that in point 4 the words 'to take into account' be replaced by 'to adopt without further delay' .
That is our oral amendment.
Are there any objections to Mr Jarzembowski's proposals? No.
Then I put the motion for a resolution thus corrected to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I am just taking the floor briefly to point out that the Green Group and many other Members tabled amendments once again this year to mark the fact that, through its farm price support for the beef sector, the European Union is continuing to fund bullfighting.
Since we feel that this is totally at odds with the spirit of the Treaty, and with the sensibilities of most members of European society, we feel that we cannot go on subsidizing such a cruel form of spectacle, which has a coarsening effect on those who go to watch it and is cruel to the animals involved.
For these reasons, the House spoke out against this activity last year, at least in the form of a recital, leaving it to the Commission and the Council to take appropriate action.
Nothing was done.
That is why similar amendments have once again been tabled, and on behalf of the Green Group, I express my support for these, even though the House has unfortunately not seen fit to follow our approach.
We are abstaining from voting on this report because we think that the Common Agricultural Policy must undergo fundamental reforms.
The current tightly regulated agricultural policy is bureaucratic, ineffective and unjustifiably politically divisive.
We hope that agricultural policy will be drastically reformed in 1999 and will do all that we can to see that this happens.
With regard to amendment proposal No. 9 concerning fully grown cattle, it was with great disappointment that I noticed that the European Parliament did not approve the amendment proposal on bull fighting.
I cannot understand how the European Parliament can approve the use of EU agricultural aid for animals which are used in bull fighting.
This mad, barbaric manner of treating animals should not, in my opinion, be given any economic support.
I personally supported the amendment proposals on this without hesitation.
The European Parliament has to consider sixteen regulations setting 1998 agricultural prices.
The background for this annual - but today especially gloomy - agricultural mass can be summed up in three dates:
1999 the single currency and the 'year III package' on five-year budgetary programming; 2000 the opening of negotiations at the WTO; 2002 the beginning of enlargement to the East.
These three dates, three violent upheavals, give the Commission grist to its mill in its accountant's view of a policy of austerity and rationing.
That explains why 1998 farm prices have been frozen, with a reduction in compensatory aids and a lowering of cereal and oil-seed prices, together with a reduction in set-aside premiums - the 1998 setaside rate was already around 10 %, with a threat of a basic rate of 17.65 %.
This rationing is justified given the levels of overproduction and excessive stocks.
Brussels is showing one of those early 1990s disaster movies, threatening us with stocks of 58 million tonnes of cereals in 2005, on the pretext of a good harvest of 202 million tonnes in 1996-1997, 60 million in France alone.
Yet the Commission obviously omits to state that world stocks are at all time lows, only 40 consumption days of stocks.
So much so that, in order to maintain stocks on the European market, a 15 ECU per tonne surcharge is being levied on exports.
It seems that we have gone back to the Ancien Régime, when cereal shortages were arranged to benefit a few people.
In other words the real solution would be to abolish both ordinary and extraordinary set-asides.
The 'prices package' stems from the draft EAGGF-Guarantee budget.
Whereas the guidelines provided for an expenditure ceiling of 43, 267 million ECU, the provisional budget for the next year is only 41, 009 million ECU, a 0.5 % increase over the current agriculture budget.
Most of the Member States are imposing very strict spending limits in order to meet the convergence criteria provided for by the Treaty on European Union and conditioning participation in economic and monetary union.
Farmers are therefore contributing 2.258 million ECU to the achievement of EMU, taking into account only the EAGGF-Guarantee Budget.
The Commission is therefore proposing a prices package that could be summed up by a prices freeze and a reduction in aids (reduction in monthly premia for intervention prices in cereals, rice and sugar stock recovery).
In its proposal the European Commission specifies that the measure proposed in the prices package are to be taken along with its previous proposal to change the payment of aids for arable crops, providing for a 7 % reduction, and a reduction in set-aside payments in terms of land that is not set aside.
The aim is to save 1400 million ECU out of the 1998 agriculture budget.
Instead of this tight financial approach to farming, the European Commission should take a social approach to the countryside for which farming is the backbone.
In terms of social issues, 1996 was disastrous for the farming world: 600 000 farms disappeared, 230 000 full-time jobs were slashed.
In addition to these alarming figures is the fact that farming-related rural jobs were also lost, in the trade, crafts and public services sectors.
Our Group supports the amendments tables and voted in committee.
Mr Tillich, the budget rapporteur general, has said that he intends to reject amendments that would 'cost' 140 million ECU out of a total budget of 41, 009 million ECU, the EAGGF-Guarantee budget, for the sake of budgetary rigour and for introducing the single currency.
We hope that the Council will take on board the Commission proposals in order to enable a maximum number of farmers and farm workers to preserve their working tools and their jobs in a Europe where unemployment is increasing at an alarming rate (now more than 12 million unemployed).
Funk report (A4-0176/97)
We have chosen to vote in accordance with the European Social Democratic Group line and go along with the Commission's proposal to reduce compensation payments for agricultural crops.
We think that this is the most that can be achieved at the moment.
But our basic opinion is that agricultural subsidies must be reduced much more than is implied in the Commission proposal.
We shall vote for the Funk report since it rejects the bases of the Commission proposal on a system of production aids for certain arable crops.
In fact the Commission was planning to release funds intended to finance the BSE emergency plans by postponing advances for oilseeds and reducing aid for cereals and set-aside - measures which will become permanent and irreversible into the bargain.
The BSE hearing concluded that the financing of the various consequences should be covered by the budget and/or charged to the Member State principally responsible for the spread of the disease.
The Commission hoped to obtain this financing from the savings made from cuts in agricultural aid.
The Funk report earned our vote by rejecting that Commission proposal.
It is right to stress, however, that neither this present Commission proposal nor this report form a suitable backdrop for analysing any possible changes for the future re-shaping of the Common Agricultural Policy, such as the (welcome as far as we are concerned) changes to aid for these crops intended, by means of increasing aid to small-scale producers, to boost the lowest incomes, or incomes where there is no alternative to farming or where farmers are working in less-favoured regions.
The BSE crisis led to a drop in beef consumption and a huge drop in beef prices.
Given the responsibility of the European Commission, as highlighted by the report of the ad hoc committee of inquiry, it is normal that the European Union should compensate farmers.
Out of solidarity with farmers, the Commission made an initial proposal and contemplated 3 proposals.
The first presented measures to help the beef sector. The second funded aids by means of markedly reducing aids to large farms and the third measure was structural.
Against the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, the European Parliament has decided only to adopt the measures to help the beef sector and to reject the other proposals.
The Funk report on which we have to give our opinion has therefore had two proposals for regulations cut from it as they were rejected on 17 September 1996.
Our Group is in favour of the amendments presented and voted on in the Committee on Agriculture, because they deleted or modified certain recitals and articles contrary to French and European farmers' interests.
The budgetary savings proposed mean it would no longer be possible to compensate aids to beef farmers, but would make it possible to save 2.4 billion ECU from the farming budget (cf.
Sturdy report on prices package).
The I-EDN Group rejects this exclusively budgetary approach which is aimed solely at enabling certain Member States to meet the constraints linked to the introduction of the single currency.
We deplore the fact that the debates have been organized in such a way that the Sturdy and Funk reports were debated together and thereby linked by budgetary considerations.
Aids to farmers have been financed thanks to an under-estimate of prices and aids, of over 1 billion ECU, and we cannot accept the 12.2 % reduction in the level of beef aids as provided for in the preliminary draft budget for 1998.
Many farms are now in a difficult situation and we need an agricultural policy that can help the countryside recover rather than a budgetary restriction budget.
Farmers are expected not to benefit from the introduction of the single currency if ever it happens. That would be especially unfair since they are funding its introduction.
Baldarelli report (A4-0189/97)
We are abstaining in the vote on this report because we think that the Common Agricultural Policy must undergo fundamental reforms.
The current tightly regulated agricultural policy is bureaucratic, ineffective and unjustifiably politically divisive.
We hope that agricultural policy will be drastically reformed in 1999 and will do all that we can to see that this happens.
The Commission was hoping, by means of a proposed amendment to Regulation 1765/92, to introduce maximum guaranteed areas (MGAs) for the production of durum wheat which, in the case of Portugal, was only 35 000 ha.
The Baldarelli report proposes that the MGA should be increased in Portugal to 90 000 ha, which is more than the traditional production area of approximately 70 000 ha, whilst still below the potential production area (100 000 ha).
The amendment is much more positive than the Commission's proposal.
In addition the Baldarelli report allows for a 5 % margin for excess in relation to the MGAs intended as an incentive to bring young people into farming.
That is why we support it.
Before outlining the I-EDN Group's position, it should be recalled that the production of durum wheat was badly handled by the 1992 CAP.
European durum wheat production areas dropped by 12 % between 1991 and 1992 (two year average) and in 1995-96 because of set-aside and the lack of support in non-traditional durum wheat areas.
Production plummeted by 35 % over the same period because yield drops were added to surface area reductions.
Climatic conditions, lower production in non-traditional areas with higher yields and 'extensification' linked to a high level of direct aid in the product/ha of traditional areas are the main reasons for the drop in European cropping.
The European Union went from being a net exporter of 2 million tonnes of semolina and pasta to having a net deficit.
Our amendments adopted in committee should make it easier to make the machinery for managing individual references in traditional areas more flexible, which should increase the area effectively in production and should also increase ceilings of areas benefiting from reduced aid in non-traditional areas. That should ensure supply safety for the European processing industries, especially in northern France.
The inter-regional approach that we have proposed should satisfy French producers in traditional areas and non-traditional areas, while limiting European imports of durum wheat from non-Community countries.
In order for aids to be put to good use in the traditional areas of southern Europe and to bring about a good qualitative adaptation of durum wheat to the needs of user companies, it is vital to demand quality seed.
On that specific point, we have also proposed an amendment that was also adopted in committee and which would make it possible to ensure the direct production of certified seed by producer associations.
Old traditional varieties must be preserved - they have always been used regionally - in particular to preserve biodiversity.
Generally speaking, the use of quality seed should favour the development of the durum wheat seed industry.
Resolution on set-asides
For obvious reasons, so that farmers can decide how to prepare their soil for sowing, they must know by 30 June each year the set-aside rate for the following year.
They have to organize their soil plans and order the various products - seed, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.
That is why our Group supports the oral question put by the Committee on Agriculture, and has co-signed the joint motion for a resolution.
Our Group has also tabled two major amendments aimed at limiting the compulsory set-aside rate to 5 % and to abolish the extraordinary set-aside rate in the case of excess area use during a given year.
I am very happy to see that the European Parliament has followed our Group's initiative and adopted by a clear majority the limit on setasides to 5 % as we proposed.
Worldwide, a rapid analysis of the year to be decided by 30 June shows that forecasts of production and prices are weakened by the facts.
On 25 July 1996, the International Cereals Council forecast a world harvest of 560 million tonnes and it turned out to be 580 million tonnes.
The European Union had to revise its forecast upwards by 7 million tonnes.
All the experts had predicted a steady drop in world cereal production from this Spring onwards.
In fact, world prices have increased considerably and the Commission was obliged to set an export tax, to guarantee internal supplies in the European Union as of 14 May.
This export tax, set by the Commission, is 15 ECU per tonne on wheat, durum wheat flour and semolina, 20 ECU per tonne on wheat flour and semolina and 10 ECU per tonne on durum wheat.
It is highly regrettable that the Commission should not only impose this export tax but also add further obstacles to cereal exports.
Like exporters we regret the fact that every time we approach zero repayment and head towards the tax, Brussels blocks exports and submits exporters to special certificates, which is not dissuasive.
In this specific case, exporters do not know in advance whether Brussels will make a repayment or impose a tax.
It is certain that when repayments apply they will not receive any money whereas when taxes are imposed they are definitely levied.
In early May the ICC - International Cereals Council - reduced from 583 to 578 million tonnes its forecast for the world wheat harvest in 1997.
The drought is going to limit European Union production while the frosts in Kansas cut winter wheat production there by 3 million tonnes and floods in Dakota delayed spring sowings.
It is therefore likely that world stocks will be further reduced and prices will go up again.
Against this general background of higher world demand for cereals and the prospects of a poorer harvest in the northern hemisphere in 1997, we must have the lowest possible set-aside rate and limit the ceiling to 5 % and no more this coming year.
It is vital for farmers, whose prime function is to produce farm products, not to have to bear a higher rate than 5 % against a world context of greater demand and smaller stocks.
Pack report (A4-0188/97)
. (DA) One of the aims of the SOCRATES Programme is to promote the 'European dimension' in education, while at the same time it represents a 'clear contribution to achieving the objective set out in Article 126 of the Treaty' , as the report puts it.
The so-called European dimension is an attempt to 'EU-ify' training courses, heedless of the fact that there is a world outside the EU to which pupils or students might have a particular interest in devoting their efforts.
The concern is to introduce education in EU history and EU culture, instead of education in European history and European culture or, for that matter, world history and cultures in other parts of the world.
We feel that this narrowing of the perspective is dangerous and mistaken. We have therefore chosen to vote against the Pack report on the SOCRATES Programme.
Stockmann report (A4-0130/97)
For several years, the European Community has been looking into the promotion of the combined transport of goods, the only alternative to jammed roads and the only environmentfriendly solution.
In 1992, the PACT programme on pilot actions for combined transport, came into effect for 5 years.
It had a fairly modest budget and funded feasibility studies and direct measures.
This programme has now been promoted to regulation rank and I welcome that.
A more operational approach has now been taken on project eligibility.
The Member States will play a filtering role for presenting financial competitions.
That means that a given region will have its own logic for major projects.
On the same lines, it would have been desirable to introduce complementarity into the financial contribution, which might also have drawn funds from other sources, such as the ERDF or the R&D framework programme.
Recognizing the work of my colleague, the rapporteur, I should like to go along with his thoughts on the budgetary amount earmarked for this future regulation - 35 million ECU over 6 years - and wonder about the real political motivation behind the promotion of this type of transport.
The development of intermodal transport must be one of the priorities of a European transport policy.
Intermodality offers an interesting solution based on replacing the road-only approach, enhancing the use of other types of transport whose infrastructures and capacities are sometimes underused.
It is now urgent to revitalize railways in Europe and all forms of navigation, especially short sea routes or rivers.
The expansion of combined transport lies at the heart of the redeployment process and the new development of transport.
In order to strike this new balance, the Member States need a strong incentive from the European Union since equal competition conditions are needed for each type of transport.
For that, the Member States need aid to improve the economic competitiveness of sea, river and rail transport.
That is why I came out in favour of the Stockmann report on the granting of Community financial support to actions on combined goods transport.
The development of the PACT programme heads in that direction and I welcome, in particular, in the proposal for a Council regulation, the implementation of arrangements for:
improving the competitiveness of combined transport in terms of prices and service quality vis-à-vis road transport; -promoting high technology in the combined transport sector; -improving access for combined transport companies, regardless of their size.These arrangements prefer innovative and practical measures to the launch of prior studies.
Another very important element are the PACT pilot actions launched since 1992. They are being extended and expanded as part of a genuine five-year programme as of 1997.
This programming is accompanied by an increase in the resources in the PACT budget to 35 million ECU over six years.
In the coming years, these resources must be further increased.
I shall pay particular attention to this myself in the course of the work of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Lulling report (A4-0191/97)
Apiculture is an important business.
It takes place on a decentralised basis throughout Europe.
It is of particular importance to the local economy.
The EU's agricultural policy must be reformed.
The many types of aid must be reduced together with the regulations and subsidies associated with them.
From this perspective it is wrong to introduce new subsidy and regulatory systems for another type of agriculture.
Instead, we should increase co-operation in research, on the environment, on technical aid and on pests.
This should take place primarily via existing branch organisations.
The crumbs left over from the budget proposed by the Council regulation for honey marketing and technical aid to health action of quality improvement bring the matter before a European Parliament which, on 20 January 1995, already drew attention to the difficult situation facing the European bee-keeping industry.
European bee-keepers are disappearing - there are only 3000 full time bee-keepers left in France - yet 126 000 tonnes are imported at around 7 francw per kilo when it costs our bee-keepers 14 francs just to produce it.
That is unfair and I am not even speaking of the fraud of producing honey by feeding bees with maize or rice syrups.
Failure to respect Community preference, profiting Chinese honey that now accounts for 30 % of world production or Mexican or Argentine honeys, requires compensation in the form of a premium to make up for that situation.
Bill Clinton's United States have not thought twice: they have imposed a 151 % tax to protect their honey.
We are the world's leading importer of honey.
The European Parliament also asked for a pollination premium justified by the work done by bees, especially in pollinating fruit-trees. One bee can work on 2700 hectares, a radius of 5 km.
Instead of these two premia, which are justified in a fifteen member European Union where 50 % of the honey marketed in the world is imported, 80 000 tonnes imported into Germany and 10 000 tonnes imported into France, the European Commission is only granting a budgetary credit of 15 million ECU, 11.6 million for combating varroa.
For a country like France, that means 14 million francs in aid, 10 francs per hive (there are 1 434 000).
That is not enough to balance the books of the 100 000 part-time and full-time bee-keepers in the country who produce 30 000 tonnes, 25 % of all Community production, 3 % of worldwide production.
No!
The European Commission really does not like bees, or at least European bees.
The European Parliament approved unanimously, in its resolution of 20 January 1995 on the Commission's communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the situation of European bee-keeping, the setting up of certain direct support measures for honey production (pollination premium, the payment of a compensatory premium for loss of income due to the lack of Community preference).
Despite these important, necessary proposals for the survival of European and French bee-keeping, the Commission is now only proposing a few one-off measures, to pacify its conscience.
It plans to offer technical assistance to bee-keepers to improve the quality of honey production, to fight to Varroa and linked diseases, to improve transhumance and to set up honey analysis laboratories.
None of the measures proposed by the Commission meets the economic difficulties facing bee-keepers.
Production costs are regularly rising, the number of hive constantly dropping and imports from non-Community countries rocketing.
Our Group is in favour of the 22 amendments adopted in committee and we very much regret the statements by Commissioner Fischler refusing nearly all those amendments, apart form too harmless ones.
For example, in order to mobilize all financial provisions in favour of positive actions for the bee-keeping industry, we demand that the investment needed to fight zoonoses, such as varroa, should be made part of the European Union's veterinary policy.
The Commission must propose a promotion policy, but above all a policy for introducing common marketing standards for Community and imported honey.
Give the systematically obstructive attitude show by the Commission, our Group turns to the Council for its wisdom and asks it quite firmly to take the initiative and introduce effective measures to help a trade that is now threatened by ageing and a product that plays a vital ecological role.
If there were no more bees, most plants would no longer be pollinated.
That would lead to a real ecological disaster, which would cost far more than the Lulling report and its proposals.
Joint resolution on tourism (B4-0458/97)
Those of us who have for years, since the beginning of this legislature, been insisting against hell and high water on the need to include tourism in a chapter of its own in the revised Treaty are once again asking for that to be done, as Mr Papoutsis also did when he fist appeared before the European Parliament, before his investiture.
A joint amendment tabled by myself and Méndez de Vigo introduced that request to the Bourlanges-Martin report on the IGC, whereas many of those who have expressed astonishment today at the absence of tourism from the revised Treaty then voted against it...
Fortunately, only wise men correct their mistakes and we hope that the new Treaty will now do justice to one of Europe's major industries, namely tourism.
I am of the firm opinion that there is no need for EU regulation of the tourist sector in the EU Treaty.
In line with the principle of subsidiarity, it is up to each country to make decisions for this sector.
Of course, tourism is of great significance for employment but I think that it is important that these issues are determined at a local or regional level.
So I have voted against this resolution.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the joint motion for a resolution on tourism or the motion for a resolution on tourism by Mr Simpson on behalf of the PSE Group.
The motions contain a number of positive elements.
There is a need for a policy on tourism in the EU.
A tourism policy geared to quality and competitiveness can contribute to growth and employment in the EU.
Tourism policy calls for a high degree of coordination in the Commission, and the focus should be on a decision-making process with maximum transparency, but tourism policy should not have its own legal basis in the Treaty.
Tourism policy is such a broad area that giving it its own legal basis would open up the possibility of bringing in much too wide a range of concerns under this legal basis.
Tourism covers such a diversity of fields that an individual legal basis would not be practicable.
Spencer report (A4-0193/97)
For the most part this is a good report.
But we do not think that the EU and the WEU should be integrated.
Nor do we think that majority voting should be used generally for issues of common security and foreign policy.
Allowances must always be made for a Member State to veto an issue which is considered a vital security matter for the State concerned.
So we have voted against the text in points 15 and 19.
Federalist thought in terms of European external policy can be summed by a few simple phrases, repeated ad nauseam for years now, in every tone and every form: ' If Europe had not been powerless, Yugoslavia could have been avoided.
Therefore, in the future, Europe must be able to speak with one voice abroad, determining its positions by majority voting' .
Yet we have never been told what more Europe could have done, in practical terms, in the case of Yugoslavia, if it had been united.
For good reasons: the policy conducted by the Member States was in the end a fairly wise one.
I am not even sure, as it happens, whether the European Union, by wishing to determine a single European position at all costs, might not have transported the conflict within its midst, which would of course have delayed our rescue operation as we would first of all had to resolve the differences between us!
Let us hope that they would not have worsened too much because then we would have had two conflicts to deal with instead of one, not that far fetched when you consider the history of our continent this century.
So, in the end, it is just as well - felix culpa - that we avoided that because of our powerlessness!
It is all the more curious that nobody calls into question the federalist dogma that we have before us, every day, the results of that system in a particular area, that of our external economic relations.
The European Union speaks with one voice, the Commission's, and the Council decides, by majority voting, i.e. the exact arrangement sought by the federalists.
Yet that system does not work.
Worse still, by reducing our policies to the lowest common denominator, weakening the Council vis-à-vis the free trade initiatives of the Commission, it is the main culprit behind our successive back-offs in international trade negotiations and contributes to the devastating unemployment now destroying Europe.
Given the results of that system, should that system really be extended to the rest of our external relations?
I conclude, for my part, by saying that it is quite necessary, for the very good of Europe, that States maintain their national foreign policies.
If our interest and aims coincide on a given point - and I hope that that will often happen - then of course we can work together. Nothing is more legitimate than that.
I would only recall the example of the French-speaking countries: how can you believe for one moment that if we had a single European foreign policy that the interests of the French-speaking community in the world would be defended?
How can you believe for one moment that, with a foreign policy determined by majority voting, that the special relationship between France and Quebec would have any weight compared with so-called 'global' European interests? Anyone with any doubts about that should refer to the Euro-Canadian declaration signed last year.
As a consequence, we demand with insistence that the Heads of State and Government firmly stick to a European foreign policy that expresses an alliance of sovereign states.
That means in particular that: 1. we must maintain decisions by unanimity on all questions of principle, with the possibility of specifying, if we want, that abstentions cannot prevent decisions from being taken; 2. if we agree to take decisions by majority on secondary points, we must reassert, at the same time, the Luxembourg compromise as clearly and simply as possible, without any procedural complexity; 3. we must refuse inclusion in the Community budget of any operational spending on a common foreign policy, or we shall be committing ourselves to federalism.
The cost of these actions must be shared by those States taking part, according to a yet to be determined coefficient, such as GDP; 4. we should refuse to grant the European Union legal personality as that would be used to support the idea that there can be a European foreign policy different to that of the States.
It would also be used by the Commission to propel itself on to the international arena, and it would explain that it should represent the European Union for the purpose of reaching legal agreements; 5. we must reform the procedure of international trade negotiations by restoring the Council's authority over the Commission's; in particular we must not accept the inclusion of negotiations on services and intellectual property in Community processes as that would mean that national parliaments would no longer have anything to say, anything to ratify, especially when it comes to international trade.
That prospect seems quite repellant to us and we wonder how it can even be included in the preparatory documents for the Amsterdam European Council.
.
(DA) We cannot support this report for several reasons.
We do not share the rapporteur's burning desire to create a common foreign and security policy and hence also his criticism of its lack of effectiveness.
The implementation of a common foreign and security policy will require an EU capable of acting, with a common foreign minister, common defence and a common attitude to third countries.
We do not want this.
The consensus in the Nordic countries specifically is not in favour of the creation of a new military superpower in Europe, on the contrary.
And the lack of action compared with Council declarations, which the rapporteur deplores, is another sign that neither the Member State representatives on the Council nor the populations of those countries are prepared to endorse a common political profile on foreign policy and security matters.
This is yet another example of the eagerness of this Parliament to move more rapidly towards a United States of Europe than the populations of the EU Member States wish.
We voted against the Spencer report because, instead of being the expected clarification exercise, it merely took the same old ideological approach as its predecessors.
It would, however, have been vital to state that the European Union's external action is now, first and foremost, the projection and defence of its own policies: a common trade policy; a common agricultural policy; a common fisheries policy, etc.
It is, therefore, both dangerous and artificial to separate the external economic action from a CFSP that would have a 'purely' foreign policy scope.
On the contrary, we should bring these two inseparable aspects together under the Council's authority, which should very strictly determine all trade negotiations to which the Union is party.
External economic defence is a prerequisite for any CFSP.
If the European Union is incapable of defending its members' common trading interests energetically vis-à-vis their external partners, it is useless going any further and speaking of a common external policy.
It would also have been vital to specify, secondly, that a foreign policy is appreciated in terms of its effective influence on the ground.
A common policy whose only object is to seek identical positions systematically on all subjects, without any concern for their operational character, would not deserve the name of CFSP.
It would lead to minimalist consensuses making the European positions thus expressed quite insignificant.
We can see the derisory and pernicious nature of all the resolutions blithely adopted by the European Parliament on every subject of foreign policy under the sun where the absence of professionalism vies with the lack of political sense.
We should head in the opposite direction, relying on the great diplomatic traditions of the Member States which offers a precious capital for the Union as a whole.
We should not try and build a CFSP that demobilizes, demotivates or amputates national diplomacy: they are now the special channel of expression for European interests in the international arena.
We must also remain strictly attached to the principle of unanimity in terms of foreign and defence policy.
The aim sought by the Member States is that of a common external policy, not a majority external policy.
It is unthinkable that a State can be forced into a minority in areas as sensitive as foreign and defence policies.
We really must include the spirit of the Luxembourg compromise in the treaties.
To apply the classic communitarization approach to the vital area of foreign and defence policies would shut Europe into a particularly dangerous cul-de-sac.
Neyts-Uyttebroeck report (A4-0179/97)
The report gives a good analysis of the problem of democratic control over EU institutions.
For the most part the report is good but there are two points which I cannot agree with.
First, it can be said that political debate in the EU Member States is concerned with the activities of the respective national governments.
It is the respective National Parliaments which have the greatest legitimacy dependent, in some respects, on the turn out in elections.
There are no specific 'European issues' which may be separated from the National debate and raised up to a 'European level' .
The growth of political debate at a European level is further complicated by the fact that there is no common media and because language, tradition, culture and political concepts differ so much between the Member States.
An enlargement Eastwards will also bring with it serious problems with regard to the democratic representation of the European Parliament.
How is it possible for a European Parliament with 700 Members to properly represent approximately 500 million citizens, with all the different political groupings, different social groups and linguistic minorities. How, for example, can they achieve a reasonable age-spread which corresponds with the citizens of the EU.
It is our conclusion that it is the opinions and controls of national parliaments which must be strengthened within EU co-operation, not the European Parliament.
The second point concerns points 10 and 11 in the report proposal where it is proposed that the European Parliament's co-decision procedures in the budget sector should be broadened by removing the difference between obligatory and non-obligatory tasks.
It is our view that the EU budget for agriculture and regional policies for example, should be determined by means of negotiation between the EU Member States, represented by their respective governments.
EU co-operation must be built on co-operation between independent states not through supranational government by a federal Parliament.
We are abstaining in the final vote on this report for the above mentioned reasons despite the fact that the report does contain a number of good proposals.
The role of the national parliaments is a fundamental criterion of the type of Europe that we want.
In a Europe of nations, the national parliament is the higher assembly which may delegate certain precise powers to the European Parliament, each time that it ratifies a modification of the Treaty.
In a federal Europe, on the contrary the European Parliament would be the higher assembly, and national parliaments would only retain local and subordinate powers.
Today, we are still in theory in the former system, but the quantity of powers delegated to the European level has become so great that we would only need a slight push to topple over into the second.
That shows the extent of the tactical skills, subtlety and even seduction that the European federalists are obliged to deploy if they are to succeed in making national parliaments give up critical powers of their own accord.
The Neyts-Uyttebroeck report that we are examining today will not disappoint them since it manoeuvres with finesse, in an endeavour to disarm preventive actions by stating, for example, that the national parliaments and European Parliament should no longer quarrel or compete with each other, but on the contrary should complement each other in the greatest harmony.
It is a little more up front, however, when it says what that complementarity should actually consist of: the European Parliament should control the Community institutions, and the national parliaments should only control their respective governments.
The main defect of this presentation is obviously deliberate and it leaves out the essential point: the two orders are not just complementary but there is also a hierarchy.
The national parliaments do control the national level, but their duty, in ratifying the Treaty, is also to determine the rules of the European game and general relations between the two levels.
The European Parliament, albeit elected by universal suffrage, never enjoys any powers other than those delegated to it by the different nations and their parliaments.
These questions are not theoretical.
If Europe is now a victim of disillusionment and is suffering from the so-called democratic deficit, it is because too much ground has been given to the federalist conception of it, depriving the ordinary people of their natural framework of expression, their national institutions without that being replaced by a living participation in a European democracy.
That leads to the total opposition between our proposals and those of the federalists; they want to subordinate the national parliaments and we want to revitalize them; they want Brussels to control the nations; we want the nations to control Brussels.
It is not surprising in those conditions that the IGC, where there is a majority of governments in favour of the federalist approach, has only been willing to throw some crumbs to the national parliaments; the 'right' to be informed in good time of the Commission's legislative proposals; the 'right' to the six-monthly conference bringing together their representatives (COSAC), to submit to the attention of the Union institutions suggestions, modestly entitled 'contributions' , in particular in the areas of the third pillar or subsidiarity.
And that is all.
The NeytsUyttebroeck report, for its part, says hardly any more.
These microscopic proposals reflect very well the federalist spirit according to which the national parliaments should possess barely more than the right to information or make the odd suggestion when it comes to European matters.
That is not our opinion.
The Europe of Nations Group wishes to restore the national parliaments' prime role, in a framework of a Europe founded on national democracies.
In such an association of nations, Brussels would have no intrinsic superiority.
On the contrary, the national parliaments, when voting every year for their Community contribution, would verify whether the Brussels instrument is rendering them a good service and would reform it if not.
Furthermore, the national parliaments, representing the peoples, should be the ultimate judges of the proper employment of the delegated powers; they should retain a right of veto over questions of subsidiarity and a right to ratify the judgments of the European Court of Justice, according to a procedure to be determined when these decisions lead to an extension of the delegated powers.
In those areas where European cooperation should be strengthened, without communitarization being desirable, however, the national parliaments should be able to organize a network to take faster decisions than according to the classic intergovernmental procedures. For example, it might be possible to imagine 'European days' for national parliaments, when those assemblies, meeting in their respective capitals, would debate the same subjects at the same time.
This type of revitalization of national parliamentary controls appears to us, at this stage, to be vital for the survival of a genuinely democratic Europe.
There are parts of the report which we agree with.
We particularly refer to the analysis section where it states, for example, that the transfer of decision making competence to the EU has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the powers of national parliaments.
We also refer to the emphasis on openness in the legislative work of the Council, public access to documents, better minimum time limits for EU legislative documents and so on.
The report is partially an acknowledgement of the importance of national parliaments.
Despite difficulties and shortcomings in the national parliamentary system it is here that democratic legitimacy develops.
It is only at a national level that citizens with the help of the ballot paper can demand accountability from their elected representatives and can elect new members who, in their turn, can institute new laws.
The European Parliament will continue to be lacking in such legitimacy for the foreseeable future.
In Sweden, for example, only half the number of citizens participated in the election to the European Parliament compared to the national election.
The lack of a common language and common media in the Union restricts the opportunities for political and democratic dialogue before a decision is taken.
The gulf between elector and elected will increase further as the EU expands.
Broad swathes of the population will be completely unrepresented but still subject to the legislative powers of the Union.
This can lead to high levels of tension.
But, faced with these problems, the report does not come up with an answer.
Instead it repeats the traditional proposals from the Parliamentary majority of increased power for their own institutions, despite the obvious lack of popular and democratic legitimacy.
But there are alternative solutions.
Such a contribution containing 23 points was presented by critics of the Scandinavian Union in the David Group when the report by Martin-Bourlange was accepted on 23 May 1995.
It was based on giving national parliaments real power, for example, and the right to take the initiative in drawing up laws, and on increasing the influence of groups and popular movements rather than bureaucrats and lobbyists.
Despite the serious criticism above, we think that there are sections in the report which could start the thought process required to find a solution to the Union's fundamental democratic dilemma.
So we have decided to abstain in the final vote.
The report contains a good analysis of the 'democratic deficiency' in the EU.
It also contains a number of good concrete proposals for strengthening the role of the National Parliaments.
But the fundamental problem concerning the lack of legitimacy for the EU and the European Parliament ought to have been developed further.
The report should have been formally sent to national parliaments with a request for comments within a defined period of time before being discussed by the European Parliament.
The report is a move in the right direction, so I have voted for it.
McMillan-Scott report (A4-0198/97)
China, the world's biggest demographic power, for a long time totally inwardlooking, is now being called upon to play a leading role in the international arena.
Relations between the European Union and China cover areas as varied as cultural exchanges, the development of trade relations and the questions of security and political stability in south-east Asia.
The Europe of Nations Group welcomes, in particular, the fact that China has now signed up to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
The McMillan-Scott report rightly emphasizes the need to deepen interparliamentary relations between Europe and China in order to achieve greater mutual understanding.
Our Group can only welcome the desire to pursue and extend European human resource development programmes in China, including one action in the field of legal cooperation.
This desire for cooperation could also be expressed in areas where European standards are a universal reference: the respect of environmental standards, information technology, law, insurance and banking.
Quite rightly, the report notes that economic relations should go hand-in-hand with a desire to remedy environmental deterioration, the result of booming industry in the country.
Trading issues are closely linked to the question of the respect of human dignity.
That respect must be guaranteed even if it is not for us to import into China our model of political and social organisation.
The return of Hong Kong and Macau to China must take place in the respect of the political, social and economic freedoms that characterize the status of those territories and the political traditions to be found there.
Despite the demand for an inquiry made by the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs to the Commission, the report says nothing about the unfair competition imposed on European companies by Chinese companies using millions of badly paid or even unpaid workers to produce at very low costs.
The question of dumping practices is extremely important here: the existence of these practices can be deduced from a comparison between the normal value of products and their export prices towards the European Union, which are far lower; that is prejudicial for European producers, as shown by an increase in imports from China, the increase in the country's European market share and their low prices which have seriously affected the financial situation facing Community industry.
The dumping margin reached 110 % on persulphates for the textile and chemical industries in 1995 which, at the time, obliged the Commission to set a provisional anti-dumping levy of 83.3 %.
The same problem arose with shoes with textile uppers, video tapes, handbags, bicycles, ring-binders, etc.
These measures have still not put a stop to dumping.
European efforts should also be directed towards improving the way in which the Chinese services market is opening up, in particular concerning financial and banking services, insurance, press and information agencies, etc.
In this area China should be made to apply the same transparency and constraints as those imposed on WTO member states.
Proper thought can only be given to China's joining the WTO once these urgent problems have been settled.
This is a good report.
We would just like to clarify Amendment No. 5.
We think it is obvious that the European Union should be open to every European country, and that includes Russia as well.
But we do not think this report is the place for such comment and have, therefore, voted against the proposal, although we essentially agree with this view.
Another issue which we do not think belongs in this report is the question of the Baltic States' potential membership of NATO.
This report concerns the relationship between the European Union and the Baltic Sea region and not the position that this region has with regard to the expansion of the NATO military alliance.
. (DA) The Commission's Baltic Sea Initiative, put forward at the Baltic Sea States Summit in Visby, does not contain sufficient new initiatives for the Baltic Sea Region, which possesses considerable potential for political and economic development.
We therefore welcome the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on the Commission communication, in which the committee insists on the need for the implementation of policies on reforms, growth, integration and stability in the region.
The three Baltic States have finally recovered their sovereignty and freedoms after fifty years of Soviet occupation.
Today, nobody denies these three countries' natural vocation to enter the European Union.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations can only approve the initiative described by Mr Burenstam Linder, to step up cooperation links with the Baltic States and the rest of the Baltic world.
The challenges of this cooperation are many since they concern cultural exchanges, research, the economic development of countries weakened by fifty years of imposed communism, the fight against organised crime and the consolidation of the political stability of this region of Europe.
We are particularly sensitive to the Commission's concern and those of this report to repair the damage to the environment by fighting mass pollution and managing the difficult problem of nuclear power stations.
We go along with the demand for an inventory of nuclear waste and other sources of radiation in the region.
We wish to highlight the need for practical and effective cooperation respecting freedom - so dearly bought - in those countries.
This cooperation, freed of the pressures of supra-nationality, must conserve its effectiveness throughout the process of accession about to be embarked upon.
Encouraging the Baltic States to carry out the reforms needed for their integration into the European Union is laudable but nevertheless insufficient.
It is vital for the European Union to respond to the high hopes of the peoples of eastern Europe with a language that is far more encouraging than convergence criteria and simple incitations.
This is the vital challenge facing the IGC and history will judge us by our success or failure.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following six motions for resolutions:
(B4-0472/97) by Mr Gasóliba i Böhm and Mr Vallvé, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the threats to the free movement of agricultural products in the Union; -(B4-0488/97) by Mr Galeote Quecedo and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the restriction of the internal market caused by acts of vandalism in France against food products from Spain; -(B4-0500/97) by Mr Novo Belenguer and Mr González Triviño, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the restriction by French farmers of the free movement of Spanish goods in the European Union; -(B4-0507/97) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the V Group, on attacks on Spanish fruit lorries in France; -(B4-0544/97) by Mr Jové Peres and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the free movement of goods in the European Union; -(B4-0558/97) by Mr Colino Salamanca and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the free movement of fruit and vegetable products in the European Union.
Madam President, the repeated attacks by groups of French farmers persistently blocking the free movement of goods, a basic principle of the Union, has reached a situation calling for energetic action, as it has not only threatened lorry drivers physically but has actually threatened their lives.
Neither the persistence of these attacks nor the laisser-faire attitude of the French authorities is comprehensible.
Nor can we understand how, after years of transgressions, the Commission and the Council have failed to find an appropriate means of dealing with this situation.
Images of the attacks are the best school for converting those who believe in the European Union into sceptics.
While we are working to deepen the Union, others are savagely boycotting it.
That is why I am demanding firm and energetic action by the French authorities - and let us see if there is a change - to prevent any further attacks.
Both the Commission and the Council must act promptly, urgently and efficiently to have the principle of the free movement of goods respected and avoid any further transgression, which is intolerable in any civilized society, and we think that the European Union is and should be a civilized society.
Madam President, this week Commissioner Monti has had the opportunity to discuss on repeated occasions the internal market action plan that he plans to present at the European Council in Amsterdam, but the day before yesterday there was a hearing at the Court of Justice on a case presented by the Commission against France, on actions that took place in 1995 and that country's failure to take appropriate measures to avoid violent acts on its territory against fruit and vegetables from other Member States, thereby infringing the provisions regulating farming COMs and Article 30 of the Treaty.
This is a continuous infraction that has been going on for more than 10 years.
The incidents concerned are the subject of this request, but similar events have taken place in 1996 and this year, since the violent protestors want to break up the single market.
It is clear that we cannot speak of completing or achieving the single market if one of its main planks, the free movement of goods, is not being carried out.
It is vital to introduce into the reformed Treaty the possibility for the Commission to impose immediate financial penalties on Member States, institutions or sector representatives who break the rule on the freedom of circulation.
We cannot make progress if we have the feeling that these people are getting away with it and our public opinion will not accept that.
Madam President, what use is it for each of the members concerned to speak out for one or two minutes on the subject of these attacks on the free movement of goods? What use is it for the European Parliament to manifest its revulsion, as does the Committee of the Regions, as do the regional parliaments, as do the national parliaments of the Member States, and even town halls across the continent?
I think that we must make an effort to overcome the testimonial value of that revulsion and send a message in two directions.
On one hand, to the Governments, letting them know that this cannot be tolerated or be repeated and, on the other, to the ordinary people, so that they can see how seriously the European authorities and institutions are taking this as they are unwilling to allow these attacks to go on, as they have done now for fifteen years, against farmers, transporters, property and people in general.
It is a problem that needs to be dealt with very seriously because there are now threats to block other borders and take revenge elsewhere.
I am still sincerely confident that the European Parliament's opinions are not just paying lip-service to our revulsion and that the Commission and the Council as a result will act fairly, energetically and rapidly, to put an end to these attacks which are repeated, year after year, in spite of the lamentable passivity of the Commission, the Council and above all every French Government.
Madam President, if free trade and the internal market mean that anyone can dump his surpluses, his overproduction, the fruits of his rationalization, cheap labour and chemical fertilizers, on other countries, this selfsame problem will keep coming back to haunt us.
Overturning lorries will not help. Nor will sanctions achieve very much.
We must rather embark upon a development in which local produce is marketed regionally, with producers catering for their own population, on the basis of the slogans we created: ' Our internal market is our local weekly market' or, if you prefer, ' A region needs many internal markets' .
If we can achieve a stable relationship here between producers and consumers, we can then produce class instead of mass; we can then supply strawberries that people will enjoy.
I, at any rate, need have no fear that the strawberries we grow at home will be supplanted by any Spanish or French strawberries, because these strawberries are bought by my consumers and are bought at a fair and reasonable price, and I can tell you, Madam President, that they taste good - I shall bring you one sometime.
Madam President, one of the regions suffering most from these unjustifiable attacks on Spanish lorries carrying fruit and vegetables is Murcia, for three reasons: the number of its lorries and drivers, the size of its fruit and vegetables production and because exports and marketing are a major activity in the region.
This is therefore having negative effects on our region.
That is why we must defend at all costs the wealth of a large part of Spain, all of Spain, all of Europe, so that they can produce, and therefore two issues seem vital to us:
The first is to guarantee, in the European Parliament and the Commission, that appropriate compensation is paid for the direct and indirect consequences - loss of goods - for what has happened in France and should never happen again.
The second question - and I think this is dealing with the problem in depth rather than tickling the surface - is to tackle the cause of all these events.
We have to acknowledge that something is wrong with the CAP when this type of event takes place and we should get to the heart of the matter, as I said earlier, and try to reform the CAP properly and also overhaul the fruit and vegetable COM so that all Europeans - French, Spanish and Italians - see Europe as our common homeland, something in which we are all involved, including the GUE/NGL Group, and so that the European Union serves all Europeans, workers and farmers alike, so that Europe is a place of solidarity and not the opposite.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is like a vicious circle. Just one year on and the European Parliament is again denouncing attacks on Spanish lorries and goods in France, attacks on people, because those lorries do not drive themselves but are driven by Community citizens, attacked directly by other Community citizens, just as we are about to share the same currency, no less.
One more year and we are attacking this serious attack on a basic principle of European construction, the free movement of people and goods.
Someone just said that the basic problem has to be discussed here and it is simply a matter of whether or not we accept the free movement of people and goods in the European Union.
Something as simple as to accept or reject the fact that there is a single market.
Who is going to pay for the damage and the loss of markets, and how is it, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, representative of the Commission, that once again we are witnessing manifest passivity by those who should be stopping these criminal acts - since they are criminal acts, they are not purely administrative acts.
A year ago, more or less to the day, I said that I wanted to know one name of someone who had been found guilty in France and condemned for these crimes.
A year later and, perhaps I have not found out about it, but to my knowledge, nobody has been condemned for attacking people and goods from other European countries that have to go through France.
If ordinary people, European parliamentarians or civil servants, attacked a lorry outside here in the street, what would happen? I think they would at least be taken into detention.
They would be tried and would be sentenced to some kind of punishment.
How come then that those who attack goods, lorries and people in France escape any kind of punishment? It is important that at last we stop condemning these acts with words alone.
I know that the Commission's powers over this are limited but I have the impression that people think that the Community authorities are not doing enough.
Local markets must be defended - as another member said - but we cannot deny the need to win over local markets by the exports of products produced in any Member State.
Let us hope that next year there will be no need for an emergency resolution on attacks against lorries, goods or people from one European state in another European country.
Madam President, I am convinced that all members of the European Parliament will agree, once again, on repeating our condemnation of the attacks by uncontrolled groups of French farmers, on lorries transporting farm produce from Spain and the people transporting those products.
I am equally convinced that we shall agree to demand, as we are asking in the resolution, the payment of compensation promised by the French Government and that that payment, as we demand, covers all types of damage caused.
But the European Parliament, faced with a flagrant attack on the free movement of goods and one of the pillars of European construction, must demand that the Council and Commission, once and for all, take measures to stop these regrettable events taking place year after year.
Although the Commission admittedly lacks powers on this, these violent acts cannot go on unpunished and a way has to be found so that European citizens - and our farmers, in particular - no longer have to go on facing a problem affecting and seriously harming them and which, above all, increasingly separates them from the project of European construction.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this afternoon we are debating recent acts of vandalism by French producers against Spanish fruit and vegetables.
Of course, we can only denounce these acts of violence and vandalism.
I shall therefore refer to the form rather than the basis.
For example, in respect of tomatoes - the subject of the most recent clashes - on St Charles market, in Perpignan, in April supplies of Spanish tomatoes hovered around 800 tonnes per day, compared with 100 tonnes for French produce.
Suddenly, on 9-12 May, Spanish imports doubled and reached 1700 tonnes per day, which led to a price collapse - from 600 to 114 francs per tonne, just about covering transport costs.
This type of dumping is inadmissible.
These figures show that we can understand the anger of French producers but certainly not their acts of violence.
Similarly the calls to boycott our products from Spanish farmers across the Pyrenees to respond to the attacks by French farmers are no more excusable.
This conflict is not just a Franco-Spanish one.
There are far more deep seated reasons.
This shows that certain fruit and vegetable COMs are just not working.
The Commission should re-open this thorny issue.
It must ensure the regulation of production and prices and avoid any unfair competition between Member States, preventing products from being put on the market at prices lower than their production costs and more seriously controlling mass imports from non-Community countries.
Our duty in the Commission, European Parliament and Council is to reconcile all of our productions so that European producers can live in harmony.
I am convinced that we shall succeed.
Madam President, we can only condemn the acts of violence perpetrated against Spanish lorry drivers.
But it would be dangerously reductive to discuss the matter only in terms of the free movement of goods.
It is an agricultural problem and it has to be recognized that, in a way, this violence reveals the depth of the discontent among fruit and vegetable producers faced with a loss of markets, a disastrous drop in prices and dumping practices.
We must avoid at any cost being sucked into a spiral of clashes between producers.
The interests of French and Spanish producers are not opposed: they are the victims of the same ultra-liberal policy, making a priority of competition at the greatest profit for major distribution companies and international commerce.
That is why we propose the immediate opening of consultations between the French and Spanish Governments and between producers' organisations, to avoid confrontations, lessen tensions, open dialogue and find solutions to allow producers on either side of the Pyrenees to do their work properly.
Given the deterioration of the fruit and vegetables sector, we must improve the market machinery and bear in mind agreements with non-Community Mediterranean countries, especially when it comes to productions and improved revenue.
In order to avoid this excessive competition, which may be made still worse by enlargement of the European Union to the east, we must accelerate the harmonization process in an upwards direction in terms of the wages and social protection of farmers and farm employees.
Madam President, once again we are dealing with a problem that we face every year at around this time of year.
I think that this is an important subject for all Union citizens as, although today it is Spanish products that are affected, on another occasion it could be others.
It is not just a problem of the CAP or one of the fruit and vegetables COM, as we have just been told, nor is it one of lower or higher prices, or dumping.
It is a problem related to Article 35 of the Treaty on Union which guarantees the free movement of goods and all Member States are obliged to guarantee that right.
We are now in the thick of the IGC and I should like to ask the Commission to make sure not only that something comes of these denunciations but also to urge the Government concerned to make sure that these acts do not go unpunished. The Commission must ensure that sanctions are imposed and that those responsible are brought to justice as quickly as possible because, as we know, delayed justice is no justice at all.
Madam President, this piece of fruit lacks, in practice, the right to free movement of goods as enshrined theoretically in the Treaty on European Union.
The Commission, as guardian of the treaties, should also ensure that this piece of fruit can move freely within the European Union.
This occurs every year because certain producers want to dominate certain markets and oppose the free movement of fruit and vegetables.
Since the Commission has machinery within its powers to sanction economically, the next European Council in Amsterdam should amend the Treaty so that it can apply those sanctions to anyone who impedes the free movement of goods and consolidation of the single market.
Only in that way, next week in Amsterdam, can the Council make sure that this piece of fruit has the same right as persons, capital and other goods to move freely within the single market of the European Union.
Madam President, this week Case No 265/95, the Commission versus the French Republic, came before the Court of Justice of the European Union, for failure to adopt measures to avoid violent acts against Spanish fruit and vegetables.
The Commission agent asserted that this case related to continuous action over more than 10 years and that the incidents referred to had continued into 1996 and 1997.
Commissioner, this is a deliberate policy to apply violence on a continuous basis, tolerated by a government, on the grounds of particular changes to the strawberry market and directed against the whole Spanish fruit and vegetable sector.
The succession of systematic acts of vandalism shows that this is a perfectly planned act aimed at keeping Spanish produce out of the Community market.
The rule of law is not working in France with respect to fruit and vegetables.
The Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, is not offering sufficient compensation and it must intervene robustly or else the perpetrators will continue to get off scot-free.
Rural Coordination, the National Federation of Farm Businesses and the Movement for the Defence of Family Farms, the armed wings of the economic organisation, AFCOFEL, even before the campaign, issued demands for self-regulation of Spanish production accompanied by veiled threats.
The Commission can and must freeze aids to the French fruit and vegetable sector to put an end to this violence.
It would be absurd to contribute out of the Community budget to support a national productive sector that uses violence and violates the Treaty to prevent the free movement of goods, leading to market losses of over 25000 million pesetas a year.
Commissioner, you must also offer urgent specific Community aids to those affected and restore, by means of Community action in this sector, the conditions of free competition.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of a certain inability on the part of the French authorities to control the unrest caused by a group of farmers against agricultural products from other Member States, especially Spain, the Commission would point out that, within its jurisdiction as guardian of the treaties, it was able to use the infringement procedure in order to oblige France to fulfil its obligations pursuant to Articles 5 and 30 of the Treaty.
That case is before the Court of Justice; the hearing was held on 10 June and the Advocate-General is to present his opinion on 8 July, so it is appropriate to await the Judgment of the Court of Justice.
This is, however, no passive waiting, since the Commission, as soon as it heard of the first incident on 24 April, immediately contacted the French authorities to persuade them to use their powers in the field of public order by adopting the measures needed to prevent and suppress violence, thus preserving the right to freedom of movement for goods, which is guaranteed by the Treaty.
On the other hand, the Commission, by means of a letter from Mr Commissioner Franz Fischler dated 4 June 1997, again urged France to take with the utmost urgency the measures needed to guarantee freedom of movement of goods in France.
In view of the above, the Commission is thinking of taking all possible measures to ensure that the French authorities comply fully with their obligations.
As regards the Common Organization of the Market, the Commission would point out that, within the scope of the reform of the COM for fruit and vegetables adopted by the Council on 21 November of last year, provision was made for the setting up of operational funds intended for producer organizations which would make it possible to have a panoply of measures in order to improve conditions for the production and marketing of these products.
The decentralized operation of these funds makes it possible, therefore, for the producer organizations to target their actions more appropriately on those sectors in greatest need.
On the other hand, both in the reform of the mechanisms for withdrawing products from the market and in measures for finding an outlet for the products withdrawn there is even provision also for free distribution.
It is also necessary to point out that, at the end of the transitional period of the reform, it is planned to draw up a report on the operation of the COM in fruit and vegetables which will cover all products, including the strawberry sector.
Finally, the Commission is at the moment making a global analysis of the situation with regard to the Mediterranean Agreements concerning the sector in question.
I should in conclusion like to add, Mr President, that it is obviously an area of great concern to the Commission, which will under no circumstances shirk its responsibilities.
The next item is the joint debate on the following seven motions for resolutions:
(B4-0470/97) by Mr Fassa and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the coup d'état in Sierra Leone; -(B4-0508/97) by Mr Telkämper and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the V Group, on Sierra Leone; -(B4-0529/97) by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the coup d'état in Sierra Leone; -(B4-0534/97) by Mr Hory and Mr Pradier, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the coup in Sierra Leone; -(B4-0546/97) by Mr Pettinari and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -(B4-0554/97) by Mr Robles-Piquer and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the coup in Sierra Leone; -(B4-0561/97) by Mr Swoboda and Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone.
Madam President, we are naturally shocked at the coup d'état in Sierra Leone, a country which is one of the poorest in Africa and which has undergone one civil war and three other coups d'état in the last six years.
We at long last saw modest progress last year with the peace agreement in November and the introduction of democracy in March, but now it is back to square one.
The military has seized power and all the early progress has been reversed.
I support any diplomatic initiatives that might be taken to restore democracy and isolate the junta, and the Council must also encourage the Organization of African Unity to undertake its own initiatives.
We must prevent individual countries from abusing the work of the ECOMOG, and any military intervention must be properly orchestrated to ensure that the Union's credibility is not undermined.
The Liberals call on the Council and the Commission to use every means available to restore Sierra Leone's fledgeling democracy.
Breaking off cooperation under Lomé should also be an option here.
We must ensure that this small and poverty-stricken country can resume its progress towards reconstruction and development as quickly as possible.
Madam President, my feelings are akin to those of Mr Bertens.
In terms of mineral resources, Sierra Leone is one of the richest countries in the world, but it is one of the poorest in terms of the living standards of its population, and we must take action here to reinstate the democratic Government.
I do not believe we can tolerate the continuation in power of the military junta.
At the same time I wish to condemn the intervention by Nigeria.
General Abacha also came to power there by means of a military coup.
His most likely reason for intervening was to extend his sphere of influence and not to establish democracy.
It would be a fine thing if we had democratic structures in Nigeria, but we are talking now about Sierra Leone.
I take the view that our cooperation in the Lomé framework, coupled with diplomacy, can help to ensure not only that the coup is condemned but also that we are able to take practical measures for the restoration of democracy.
May I ask Commissioner Pinheiro to take the necessary steps in this direction, and I hope that Nigeria will then keep out of the conflict.
Madam President, Commissioner, back in March we friends of Africa were jubilant when a general, then governing as the result of a military coup, handed over power in Sierra Leone - a former British colony with less than five million inhabitants - to a 64-year old lawyer, a Muslim, like most of his fellowcitizens, with international experience but dressed in traditional robes.
This civilian president has now been deposed by other military chiefs who snatched power along with the gold and diamonds that are the country's principal riches.
Thousands have died. The GDP per head is only 200 dollars, there is 70 % illiteracy, the average life expectancy is only fifty years and a fierce dictatorship, that of Nigeria, is now trying to imposed democracy, paradoxically, in Sierra Leone.
What has Europe done? What we always do: we have given some humanitarian aid - which is good - and cooperated in the country's development, and the British sent a plane to rescue their compatriots, and that is all.
Humanitarian aid and cooperation in development are extremely necessary but they do not solve the real problems.
Nor would a military intervention work and it would be difficult to send our own troops as they would risk death.
But this once again shows that Europe, not just Britain or France, has no policy to deal with Africa's problems.
Let us hope that the Council and the Commission, with the help of the European Parliament, might one day propose such a policy.
Madam President, the process of democratisation begun in 1996 by the holding of presidential and legislative elections collapsed on 25 May when the coup took place.
The military junta would like to give power to the leader of the United Revolutionary Front, Mr Foday Sankoh, with all the risks of destabilization of the region that that implies.
After all, hundreds of defenceless civilians were killed by the rebels, tortured, hacked with machetes and executed in atrocious conditions.
This civil war lasted five years and led to more than 10 000 deaths.
Vigorously condemning this coup, we call on the OAU to take the necessary initiatives to restore the democratically elected regime, that came to power in March 1996.
Until those conditions are met, we call on the Commission and the Council to suspend implementation of the Lomé Convention and all aid to the Sierra Leone Government.
It goes without saying that humanitarian aid should continue to be given as long as it is targeted at the most vulnerable.
Madam President, obviously the Commission condemns the coup d'état in Sierra Leone by Major Koroma.
The Commission finds it totally unacceptable that the legitimate, democratically elected government of President Kabbah which came to power just over one year ago has been overthrown so abruptly by a small group of soldiers supported by the RUF rebels.
A statement by the presidency on behalf of the European Union issued on 28 May deplored the overthrow of the elected government and urged the restoration of the democratic civilian government.
Concern was also expressed at the level of violence against locals and expatriates.
This statement reflects similar sentiments expressed by organizations and countries throughout the world: the United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, the Commonwealth, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and the countries of the region.
The crisis in Sierra Leone has resulted in de facto suspension of all aid programmes in the country.
All project personnel and Commission staff have been evacuated.
As regards the formalization of the suspension, discussions with Member States will be held in the appropriate fora of the Council in the light of the evolution of the situation.
However, the Commission believes it is important to send a strong message to the perpetrators of the coup that such action is unacceptable and will not result in any financial or other aid being provided from the donor community.
The European Union supports all efforts currently being undertaken to achieve a negotiated peaceful settlement to the conflict which would enable the return of the democratically elected civilian government of President Kabbah.
We are fully aware of the paradoxes and difficulties that may come from the intervention of ECOMOG and of the important role being played by Nigeria, as Mr Hory mentioned.
Having said that, I must say that the contacts I had personally with the Prime Minister of Guinea Conakry in this regard leaves no doubt that the countries of the region are fully engaged - not just Nigeria - in trying to prevent this coup d'état from being a success.
Regarding humanitarian aid, for the moment all ECHO-funded humanitarian aid operations have been put on hold due to the insecurity in the country and the evacuation of most humanitarian aid agency personnel.
Security permitting, needs assessment missions will be undertaken by humanitarian aid agencies as soon as possible.
If necessary ECHO is ready to intervene in providing assistance to populations which are being displaced as a result of the present crisis.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that it is important that the OAU takes the leading role in defining a strategy to counteract the coup perpetrators and the rebel forces of RUF which are supporting them in Sierra Leone.
Madam President, there is wide agreement on the inhumanity of the death penalty here in Europe's Parliament.
The matter is high on our agenda and we have firmly maintained that no country which retains the death penalty is welcome in our Union.
We can also rejoice that more and more States on our continent and in other parts of the world now refrain from executing their citizens.
Our Union, in co-operation with the European Council, has a central responsibility to speak on behalf of humanity in its contacts with the world outside.
So, Madam President, Parliament now issues a real challenge to the Council and the Commission and to our fifteen Member States.
Demand a moratorium on all executions at the UN General Assembly in the Autumn as a step towards the complete abolition of the death penalty throughout the world from the first day of the next millennium.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the fight for the abolition of the death penalty is in keeping with progress towards a humanity that is responsible for itself.
As a lawyer I have observed not only the horror but also the shame that comes over anyone who is forced to take part in what is a human tragedy.
But today Europe faces a different type of responsibility.
Along with a few colleagues I attended a few weeks ago the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva and for the first time a resolution was voted by majority voting.
Of course, both the United States and China voted against abolition but the vote was supported by many countries, including the Member States of the European Union.
It is for Europe not only to be a commercial power but also to bear universal values and spread them around the world.
The debate is the same be it about the death penalty, the social clause or proper conduct in business.
It is an attitude towards human beings, towards mankind as a whole.
Europe should therefore set an example and send a strong signal for the rest of the world to follow sooner or later.
Madam President, I should first of all like to thank the chairman of the Sub-Committee on Human Rights for his decisive support for this motion and I should like to emphasize its possible importance for the development of the European Union.
Contrary to what it did in Geneva, not over the death penalty on which, as Mr Soulier has reminded us, it took a very decisive position, a major stance, and obtained a successful outcome, but over the question of human rights in China, over which it took a far more unfortunate position, if the Union had promoted, in the General Assembly of the United Nations, the proposal for a moratorium on executions, I am sure that it would have found a majority of Member States so that, a hundred years after the universal abolition of slavery, we could have brought about abolition of the death penalty and at least take a decisive step in that direction.
I should like to take advantage of the presence of Commissioner Pinheiro to remind him that the last two joint assemblies of the ACP-EU approved resolutions in favour of abolishing the death penalty and that it is therefore very important to reiterate, on every occasion, whenever meetings are held or contracts signed, and in discussions with the ACP countries, which are many, the importance that the European Union attaches to abolition of the death penalty.
There are other occasions, such as Amsterdam, for speaking about the issue of the death penalty.
Italy has demanded the introduction into the Treaty of an article on abolition of the death penalty.
It may seem marginal to many people but it is important as it would enable us to begin to introduce the chapter on fundamental rights.
I think that that would be a third element on which to focus the action of the European Union.
There is a lot to be done but first of all I should like to ask Commissioner Pinheiro to ask his colleagues to make sure that the Commission, which also has an office in New York, has this important question put on the agenda of the next General Assembly of the United Nations.
Madam President, of the countries of Eastern Europe, it is the new members of the Council of Europe - Russia and Ukraine - which, in spite of their promises, have taken the fewest initial steps towards creating a humane system of criminal law.
This not only stems from technical difficulties in introducing democratic legislation, in establishing courts or in providing judges with the training they require if they are to become an independent judiciary but also and above all reflects a lack of political will.
Ukraine, after all, has not complied with the moratorium and has continued to carry out death sentences.
So what about the promises given by the Commission to the European Parliament when we were discussing ratification of the partnership and cooperation agreement and when the Commission was pressing so hard for Russia and Ukraine to become members of the Council of Europe at an excessively early date? Where, on the one hand, is there real financial support, and to what extent, on the other hand, are we resorting to the preamble of the PCA in order to ensure that measures are taken in those two countries to abolish the death penalty in law and in practice?
Madam President, the death penalty was always held up as the ultimate instrument for eradicating crime but it has been clearly demonstrated in countries where it has been applied that it has never led to the eradication of crime and that, on the contrary, it has had perverse effects and led to the development of crime without witnesses.
Big criminal organisations have never been intimidated by the death penalty and all that has happened is that they have made sure that no witnesses survive any crimes they commit.
The death penalty also raises another problem: that of judicial error.
How can judicial errors be rectified once the death penalty has been carried out? Questions like this one, the fact that errors cannot be put right and the fact that crime can actually be made worse, should make us think about the need to eradicate the death penalty in every country in the world.
I think that Europe has a culture of defending life and has therefore seen the biggest movement in favour of abolition of the death penalty.
We should set an example and bear this in mind when negotiating association agreements and ask for a moratorium on executions to be included.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, point 6 of the joint resolution proposes that countries wishing to accede to the Council of Europe should undertake to sign and ratify the second optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as a condition of membership.
I consider that to be one of the central messages of this resolution, for - as Mr Soulier has already pointed out - we did achieve progress at the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
But it cannot be regarded as progress when, for all the debates we have held here in Parliament, some of the seats in this chamber, where the Council of Europe also meets, are taken by representatives of countries who proclaim in fine words all the rights their governments intend to grant and then, when they return home from here, do not raise a finger to turn these declarations into reality.
That is one of the scandals we have to denounce here, and I must say - though it may sound somewhat provocative - that, while I have always considered the Council of Europe to be one of Europe's great political assets, when it comes to the death penalty and the honouring of binding obligations by the new member countries of the Council of Europe, I believe that the offhand way in which this precious asset is being treated may well undermine the ideal of human rights in the European Union.
What is being put at risk is the precept that the community of States must honour the solemn, binding commitments it makes.
If these commitments amount to no more than declarations of intent, the rights to which they relate will be eroded.
In the struggle against the death penalty, that is a very dangerous development.
Let me nevertheless conclude by expressing my pride in the fact that, as the joint resolution shows, in this assembly, in this European Parliament, apart from a very few personally and politically insignificant exceptions, the overwhelming majority have continued to take a resolute stance against the death penalty.
For all that may divide us, I believe that we should make a point of emphasizing something on which we are united.
Madam President, ' let the murderers begin' .
I think that this phrase is attributed to Alphonse Karr, from the last century, in the debate on the death penalty.
Those were times when you could be humorous on the subject.
Abolition of the death penalty has become one of the central elements of what might be called European humanism and the joint resolution expresses that very well.
It is, in any case, the philosophy underlying this resolution.
In order to be integrated into the Europe that we are building, abolition of the death penalty is not a sufficient condition for respect of human rights but it is a necessary one.
We know that in criminal terms, there are other penalties, including life imprisonment, which would be nothing were it not for forced labour - as a character in a famous film says: ' There are many, many other forms of punishment' .
I am pleased that there is a consensus in this Assembly and that nobody has tried to alter the resolution that we are going to adopt later on.
Colombia
Madam President, on the morning of 19 May, armed men entered a block of flats in the centre of Bogotá and wiped out an entire family.
A baby survived, but only because it had been hidden in a cupboard just as the men entered the flat.
The men had told the caretaker - and this is a significant point - that they were from the office of the public prosecutor.
They were typical paramilitary operators.
They escaped unrecognized, as always happens in Colombia.
The murdered couple were employees of the renowned Jesuit institute CINEP.
Mario Calderón dealt with ecology there, while his wife Elsa worked on human-rights projects.
The utter brutality of this act of violence has horrified not only the people of Colombia but the international public too.
Once more people have been killed in Colombia because they had devoted themselves to the cause of human rights, and once more, sadly, we must expect these murders to go unpunished.
For years in the reports by the Commission on Human Rights the Colombian Government has regularly been urged to protect and respect human rights and the people who promote them.
For years the Colombian Government's stock response has been an apologetic shrug of the shoulders.
Allow me to close with a few words in Portuguese to our Commissioner:
I should like to tell the Commissioner that, unless we work together for human rights in Colombia, unless we fight together against the injustice which exists in Colombia, we shall resolve nothing.
I know also, as does the Commissioner, that the Colombian government must work for human rights.
We are also well aware that the Colombian government is not worthy of all the confidence which we, together with the Spanish PSOE and PP are placing in it.
The Colombian people deserve our aid, not the government.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we wish to express our solidarity with the victims' relatives and our condemnation and concern.
This is not the first time that the European Parliament has expressed itself on this subject.
In February we included Columbia among the ten countries in the world with the most serious human rights and violence problems.
We trusted in the Columbian Government when the European Union and that government signed preferential trade agreements.
That confidence should also be linked with unquestionable signs of defending human rights and democracy given by the Columbian Government.
We must find those responsible and even if they are paramilitaries, this is the responsibility of the Columbian Government. If it does not try to track them down, it loses its credibility.
In the defence of democracy and its values it can count the European Union among its collaborators but if it does not defend those values it will be deceiving us and the consequences for the Government and, above all, for the country will be extremely harmful.
Madam President, a number of disquieting reports have been reaching our ears about serious human rights violations in Colombia, particularly in recent months.
It has been difficult to verify some of these allegations, partly, perhaps, because they are said to have occurred in very remote parts of Colombia.
However, as we have heard from the previous two speakers, there can be no doubt about the tragic situation which has arisen in regard to the family named in the resolution, and not only that family.
We look to the Colombian Government in the first place to make a thorough investigation and, in the absence of any other authority, we have to look again to the European Commission to ask what action it feels it can take.
We are concerned, for instance, about another person, Neftali Vanegas, whose life is said to have been in danger in recent weeks and whose organization is at least partly financed by the European Commission.
Maybe the Commissioner would be kind enough to comment with regard to that particular case.
Madam President, for nearly half a century Colombia has been afflicted by violence and vicious killings on an horrific scale.
The recent murder of three members of the Calderón family and the serious wounding of another exemplify the uncivilized savagery which has become a familiar feature of life in Colombia today.
Mario Calderón and Elsa Constanza Alvarado were killed as members of the human rights organization CINEP, which is committed to defending human beings against violence and terror and working for peace.
Their deaths and the violence inflicted on their close relatives by a squad of heavily-armed killers demonstrate the ruthless inhumanity of those responsible for organizing terrorism in Colombia today.
In the last six months it is estimated that 650 people have been the victims of violence in Colombia, including poor peasants and many others.
In fact, it is estimated that nearly one million people have fled from their homes to escape the violence which is having such a devastating effect on all aspects of life in the country.
We must deplore these killings, and call on the Colombian Government to hunt these murderers down and see that they are punished.
We welcome the setting-up of the Permanent UN High Commission for Human Rights and the contribution of ECHO in assisting displaced people.
Further than this, however, we should reflect on the fact that the European Union played a key role in helping to restore peace in Central America and is cooperating with Latin America as a whole in a bid to achieve both closer relations and development.
In denouncing the violence perpetrated in Colombia, we should be making a careful examination of the situation to see if there is any way, difficult though it is, in which we could contribute to the ending of the violence and the restoration of full peace.
That is the only way in the long run that we can really feel satisfied we are making a real contribution to end this appalling horror.
Madam President, the murder of Mr and Mrs Calderón is typical of the kind of spiralling violence which goes unpunished in Colombia.
The Colombian Government recently confirmed that the NGOs have a legitimate role to play, but it has done little to put this policy into practice.
It must at least take steps to do so.
The opening of the office of the UN High Commission for Human Rights is a positive development, and we welcome the aid provided under the ECHO programme for those in Colombia who have fled the violence and are now homeless.
What is even more important, of course, is that the violence should be stopped, and this is why we need to bring pressure to bear on the government to crack down on the paramilitary groups, to protect human rights and to strengthen the power of the judiciary.
That is where the solution lies.
But this is not the first time we have spoken about Colombia here in the House, and I fear that it will by no means be the last.
Mr President, yesterday in his address the President of the Council referred to the fact that the ASEAN conference had discussed Burma for two and a half hours, which he interpreted as an encouraging sign.
If, on the other hand, so little is heard in public of the opposition leader Aung San Sun Kyi, despite her Nobel Prize and her Sakharov Prize, it may well be that even a two-and-a-half-hour debate, which is only right and proper, has to be regarded as something of a success.
But little though the voice of the opposition spokeswoman is heard, even less is heard of the thousands of children who die as a result of forced labour and other measures.
That, in fact, is quite rarely mentioned.
So what are we to expect of the heads of government of the ASEAN countries when only one of them has voiced opposition to Burmese accession?
On the other hand, the Malaysian Head of State even welcomed the fact that the accession of Burma meant the addition of another centrally, albeit not entirely democratically, governed State.
I should like to ask the Commission whether they see any means of enforcing the measures referred to in point 4 of the resolution and whether they are hopeful of success in such an endeavour.
Mr President, we have spoken very frequently about Burma over the past two years, and all we can really do each time is to repeat our expressions of regret and the charges against the Burmese Government.
It is still the case that elementary rights are not respected, that hundreds of supporters of the democratic opposition, the National League for Democracy (NLD), are in prison.
Only recently a prominent member of the NLD, 67-year-old Tin Shwe, died in prison. He had been held in custody for seven years.
He had a heart condition, and it was in this way, as a prisoner, that he had to end his days.
The official reason given for his imprisonment was subversive propaganda.
In this case subversive propaganda means communicating information from within the country about the dreadful conditions that prevail there.
Hundreds of people are still in prison, and I believe that economic measures, the pressure that would be exerted if no money from the European Union were invested there, if Europe did not support the regime in any way, could secure these people's release from prison.
We also demand, as we have been demanding for quite some time, that Mrs Aung San Sun Kyi, the holder of the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament, be allowed to move about freely.
It is always difficult to pass judgement on other States, but we can scarcely welcome the fact that the countries of ASEAN have admitted Burma into their organization under these circumstances.
I believe we should roundly condemn that and we should ensure that it remains on the agenda for our diplomatic and political discussions and economic negotiations with the ASEAN States.
This makes it all the more incomprehensible to me when I see attempts being made in the European Union to develop relations with Burma - I have to endorse Mrs Günther's views on that subject.
The Munich Messegesellschaft - the Trade Fair Society - would like to hold a meeting at the next fair in Rangoon.
Mrs Günther, I take your appeal very seriously.
Bavaria is governed by the Christian Social Union.
I hope that its Trade Fair Company will not go to Burma.
Mayor Monatzeder, a fellow Green, has protested against the trip and has called for its cancellation, and I hope we are united behind this protest and that we can persuade the Messegesellschaft in Munich not to support the Burmese regime in this way.
Mr President, notwithstanding worldwide protests, ASEAN has finally decided to allow Burma to become a member, despite its continuing human rights violations and despite the continuing imprisonment of the elected prime minister, Aung San Suu Kyi, by the military dictatorship.
I may be being cynical, but I have to say that ASEAN seems determined to establish a reputation as a group of countries with lofty economic ambitions but little interest in democracy or human rights.
Money and goods are evidently more important than fundamental values and standards, whilst in Burma, democracy continues to be undermined and human rights violated.
In May, Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi's house arrest was tightened so that her party, which six years ago won 80 % of the votes in the elections, was unable to hold its annual congress, and it is even being made increasingly difficult for foreign journalists to visit her.
On the human rights front, the SLORC is carrying on with slave labour, child labour, intimidation, disappearances, murders and the permanent persecution of minorities.
The European Union has ended the system of preferences for Burma, which is a positive move.
But is it not time to follow the United States' lead and ban investment? There is a risk that the gap left by the reduction in investment from the US will be filled by European companies, which would be extremely regrettable.
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether he will put this proposal to the European Council.
I know that there is to be a meeting on this subject shortly, so I very much hope that you will do as we request.
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament have been hammering on the door of the generals in Rangoon for more than two years now, and European businesses have mostly moved out of the country, so I cannot agree with Mrs Maij-Weggen: the new investors are from another region which has much less social conscience than we do.
But it seems that the stand we have made has not achieved results.
On the contrary, the Asiatic region is closing ranks and has welcomed Burma into ASEAN.
Is this not a sign that we should review what is obviously a counter-productive approach?
There is no point in sounding off here in the House every month for the benefit of our own supporters: the Asian tigers simply laugh at the roars they hear from our cage.
In my opinion, it is no longer feasible for the European Parliament to keep up this unilateral protest.
Can we not appoint a special envoy as we did for the Middle East and the Great Lakes, to act as a mediator for us in ASEAN and the surrounding region? I should like to hear what the Commissioner thinks about this.
I am afraid that a special envoy would be laughed down just as much as the European tigers.
In any event, two months ago the NLD attempted to celebrate its overwhelming victory in the elections seven years before, and the military junta reacted with its usual restraint by immediately putting 300 activists behind bars.
ASEAN's decision to allow Burma membership is a slap in the face for the international community and for the so-called universality of human rights.
Just when President Clinton announces sanctions against Burma, ASEAN does the complete opposite.
And I have to agree with Mrs van Bladel that the new investors are mostly not European firms but Asian tigers.
The Union is already taking action, and I must admit that it is quite good as far as it goes.
But we need to persuade ASEAN to change its policy towards Burma.
How we can most effectively bring pressure to bear on the SLORC regime remains to be seen, but I hope that what we say here, whether we are laughed at or not, sometimes gets through at least to Aung San Suu Kyi, so that she knows that we are still determined to show solidarity with her.
Mr President, much as I respect Mrs van Bladel, I really doubt whether we should change our approach radically.
There are such things as honour and a deep concern about human rights situations. It goes beyond tactics and on to strategy.
I therefore welcome very much the action of the American President who has imposed economic sanctions on Burma, thereby prohibiting US persons from making new investment in Burma.
That is certainly having an effect.
I myself am not against taking economic sanctions, though I realize that this is a policy which is very difficult to sell within the European Union.
I am in favour of bringing pressure to bear on European firms to disinvest or not to invest.
That is very important.
There are a number of companies which have taken the appropriate action: Heineken , in the Netherlands, is one case; Carlsberg is another.
I would very much like to see Club Méditerrané , among others, follow suit.
Implementation of Dayton Accords in Croatia
Mr President, none of the States of the former Yugoslavia seem to have understood the necessity of keeping to agreements, including the Dayton Agreement, and respecting human rights.
Croatia is no worse then the other States of the former Yugoslavia, but makes greater claims for being accepted as a cooperation partner of the European Union.
This they cannot be, and will never be as long as the Croatian government protects suspected war criminals and continues to allow ethnic Serbs to be persecuted and harmed and refused the right to return to their homes.
Mr President, this behaviour must stop along with similar excesses in Serbia and Bosnia.
The European Union has a duty to demand respect for human rights and for agreements concluded.
Insist on these demands, and do so with all your might!
Mr President, it is clear to everyone, I think, that the Dayton Agreement will not be implemented unless all the countries concerned comply with its provisions.
We are only too aware of the limitations of this agreement, but if the terms to which all the signatories put their names are not respected, it is quite clear that the situation could become inflamed once again.
For this reason we must draw attention, for example, to the fact that in Krajina, where 200 000 Serbs once lived, almost all these people have since been displaced, and that a temporary law adopted by the Croatian Government and Parliament has allowed Croats from other parts of the country to occupy Serbian property if the legitimate owner is absent.
According to the OSCE, at least 90 % of the Serbs returning to the region in recent months have been unable to reoccupy their homes.
The return of refugees and displaced persons is a prerequisite for peace, according to the Dayton Agreement.
We must ensure that the actions of the European Union, and hence the Commission, are geared to urging the governments of both Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to abide by this principle, perhaps even resorting to economic means of persuasion if necessary.
Mr President, I should like to say that today's debate is a strange and frankly paradoxical one.
The initial idea of the political groups was to condemn the Croatian Government, firmly, over its violations of human rights in Krajina and Slavonia.
Curiously, because of the way in which the European Parliament is influenced - several of whose members have been leading a real crusade against Yugoslavia and its political authorities - the common resolution has led to a priority condemnation of the Serbian Government, which is not at all concerned by the question of returning refugees to the republics previously struck by the war.
I should just like to remind you of the truth: the confiscation of Serbian property by the Croatian authorities is a crime and likely to heighten tensions once again in the region. The risks incurred by the citizens of Slavonia call for the maintenance of the S-FOR and United Nations temporary administration.
Since this debate is leaving the Croatian framework, I wish to denounce the irresponsibility of those, led by the United States, who are running the risk of massively arming the Muslim authorities in Sarajevo and setting fire again to the powder-kegs of Herzegovina and northern Bosnia.
Mr President, it has been said in this Chamber on many occasions that the European Union showed itself incapable of playing a role of any great importance in the crisis in the former Yugoslavia.
The first attempt at a peaceful approach to a conflict which has left so many open wounds came after the American intervention and with the Dayton Agreement.
The European Parliament has passed a whole series of resolutions and made its positions clear.
That is what we are endeavouring to do on this occasion on the basis of Mr Hory's forceful observations, without any certainty that this present resolution, which has been drawn up more or less unanimously, will achieve anything either.
In a region which has experienced the first full-scale conflict in Europe since the Second World War, and in which the dead are still being counted and the tensions still exist, nothing has really changed.
The European Union will be able to intervene with credibility only when it acknowledges that it bears a major portion of the blame, firstly because of its great haste in promoting and extolling the break-up of the former Yugoslavia and, secondly, because of its delay in acting after the conflagration had started.
We are now asking for something which is self-evidently right and in accord with our understanding of justice.
The return of the Krajina Serb refugees, whose sufferings are well known and have already been described, to their homes.
The freedom of movement of people etc., etc., and the removal of ethnic divisions.
We are realists.
At Point B we state that insufficient progress has been made until now with the implementation of the Dayton Agreement, and elsewhere we insist, quite rightly, on its strict implementation.
Mr President, despite all of the observations that are made and the historical reservations that have been expressed, our group supports the joint resolution and will vote for it.
We believe that it is the right of everyone to return to their home and that all war criminals must be punished; all of them, however, without exceptions.
The gulf between saying these things and any sense of optimism that the conflicts and divisions that were underscored very, very starkly in the Bosnian election results will actually be overcome and removed is very great indeed; so great that we must redouble our efforts now and in the future.
Because, as I have said, we ourselves are by no means innocent with regard to the things that have happened in the former Yugoslavia.
Mr President, of everything that has been said on this subject, the words of Mr Oostlander have been the clearest, most sensible and most balanced so far.
This is simply due to the fact that he has been in the country, that he has concerned himself with that country time and again from the very outset and therefore knows how things are.
He refrains from the sort of ideological utterances, based on Serbophilia or other motives, that totally distort the picture.
There is one thing we must not forget, namely that Serbia was the initial aggressor.
Not a single house in Serbia has been destroyed, whereas in Croatia - and the Krajina belongs to Croatia - many houses have been destroyed.
I am naturally in favour of everyone, including the Serbs, being able to return home, and I am in favour of our welcoming the Serbs to our Community one day, but first of all we must get things clear here, which certainly involves emphasizing that there is no place for that country as long as it is governed by extremists and mass murderers.
Before all else, that has to change!
Mr President, yet again the House is addressing itself to human rights violations in Croatia: last time following blatant curbs on the freedom of the press and information; this time because of the failure to comply with the Dayton Agreement, which - it is worth reminding the Croatian authorities - is an essential precondition not only for the maintenance of peace throughout the former Yugoslavia, but also for the continuation of the cooperation and aid agreements with the European Union.
And yet the right of free movement is being violated, as is the right of the displaced persons and refugees to return to their homes.
The Croatian Government is impeding their return by authorizing the confiscation of Serbian property through a temporary housing law and by embarking on a programme to settle Bosnian Croats in seized homes.
This is a clear case of ethnic cleansing, which harks back to the worst traditions of these peoples.
Indeed, I would recall the persecution, the looting and the enforced exodus, after the end of the Second World War, of hundreds of thousands of Italians who had been living in that region for centuries.
Street children in Moscow
Mr President, this resolution concerns the plight of abandoned children, most of them homeless, in the city of Moscow.
The problem is assuming truly alarming proportions, to the extent that we could soon be faced, in Moscow as elsewhere, with the phenomenon of street children.
Because of the serious budgetary constraints of which we are aware, and for fear that children from other Russian cities could be encouraged to migrate to Moscow, the municipal authorities are in fact withholding any support on the grounds that these children do not have formal documents, even though their Russian nationality is beyond question.
Given the seriousness of this phenomenon, several initiatives have been taken by private individuals, purely on humanitarian grounds.
The most significant, efficient and best organized of these initiatives on the part of civil society is the one called 'Island of Hope' , which - for reasons it is impossible to understand - is being subjected almost daily to intolerable harassment. On 15 May 1997, it even suffered physical attacks by elements from within the police force, undoubtedly with the aim of intimidation as well as repression.
Despite having some understanding for the financial difficulties confronting the municipal authorities in Moscow, the European Parliament is bound to censure any act of violence directed at people who are acting purely out of generosity, and must likewise censure the total abandonment of this small population of street children in Moscow.
I therefore hope that this resolution will be adopted.
Mr President, Moscow is becoming an increasingly attractive city in terms of its outward appearance, and every time I go there I see that the façades of some more buildings have been renovated.
But that is the only new development.
What has remained is the old Soviet system of the propiska .
Only those who possess such a document are entitled to obtain housing in Moscow.
This means that many families who were simply not among the beneficiaries of the transformation process - single mothers were among the main losers - are being driven to destitution.
These mothers and their children have to resort to begging in the streets of Moscow.
But the Mayor of Moscow is very thorough when it comes to cleaning up façades, for the Island of Hope will also fall victim to the cleanup campaign.
The Island of Hope is the largest autonomous initiative for street children in Moscow.
It gives them a warm place to stay, feeds them and even tries to provide them with schooling.
Amidst the chaos accompanying the breakdown of law and order, this island would give the children the opportunity to join the mainstream of society and enjoy normal lives.
The closure of this facility, however, will mean the return of these children to the street gangs, the makeshift tents and the sewers.
This will create a breeding ground for crime.
The city of Moscow has no alternative to the Island of Hope.
That is why we ask that this organization be left alone to continue its work.
Mr President, the topical and urgent debate on the street children of Moscow really highlights two different problems that have accompanied the massive political and economic upheavals in Russia.
The first is the dreadful social situation of many children in Russia.
The 25 % of the population who live below the poverty line inevitably include a great many children, and the problems that occur under these circumstances have long been familiar to us here in the European Parliament from other parts of the world.
They are not typically Russian problems.
What is typically Russian, however, and further complicates the situation is that there are rules governing the transfer of a person's residence to Moscow.
It is a relic of the old Soviet Union, a rule that is basically inconsistent with a liberalized system, but its effect is that many children have no legal right at all to reside in Moscow.
The second point is that the NGOs are still far less able to work in Russia than in other European countries or in other parts of the world.
Non-governmental organizations in Russia are still subject to high-handed acts of officialdom, while the public presence and public acceptance of such organizations is limited.
That is why I welcome our discussing this as a topical and urgent issue, but I would also urge that, in future motions of this kind, Parliament should examine whether there is really only one organization affected or whether there are others.
I should not like decisions of the European Parliament to cause difficulties for other, unnamed organizations, thereby necessitating another topical and urgent debate on the same subject.
Indonesia and East Timor
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, once again this Parliament is dealing with East Timor since there is still military occupation, since there is no let up in oppression and human rights are daily trodden underfoot in that territory which is still not decolonized.
That is not all.
It takes less effort merely to go through the motions of a routine or ritual, but it must now, at this sitting, be pointed out that the so-called elections in Indonesia were not a step on the road to democratization of the regime, but rather confirmation of its dictatorial nature.
There is also a new factor which has arisen since our previous sittings - the emergence of internal resistance, although it was denied and it was claimed that the armed conflict in the interior would end and that only the diplomatic and political front could rightly claim to represent the desire for self-determination and independence, which was born of that very resistance and which would triumph over occupation, repression and genocide.
Thus, as the recent awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize has proved, it is possible to buy arms is one country of the European Union to perpetuate the military occupation of a territory and to subjugate a people.
We welcome the fact that it was possible to reach a joint compromise motion for a resolution which is to be put to the vote.
Therefore in supporting, underwriting and voting for this motion for a resolution, fruit of our initiative, we wish to stress that in our view it fails to point out the fact that resistance has not ended in East Timor and that, although there is less repression nowadays than there was, it is meted out with great violence against those suspected by the occupying force of perpetrating this resistance.
There is no statement in the motion for a resolution setting out the views of this Parliament as regards the immediate suspension of any aid, military assistance and the sale of arms to Indonesia, and we think it was essential to have one.
Mr President, in connection with these unfortunate elections it has become clear that violence is again on the increase in East Timor.
We are very worried to hear that civilians have been killed there and civilians are, as we know, in particularly great danger of being tortured.
When Mr Ramos Horta, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, was visiting this parliament in April, he showed us East Timor activists a documentary film which showed how the police and the army crucifying people in prison.
We must do everything we can to put an end to this.
The European Parliament has repeatedly called for a parliamentary delegation to be sent to East Timor.
The East Timor intergroup has recently been refounded, and this group has now set itself the main objective of ensuring that Parliament really does send a delegation.
The situation is really becoming more intolerable day by day.
Unfortunately, the elections too have increased the general repression.
Amnesty International, for example, is still alarmed at this situation, even after the elections.
Ladies and gentlemen, a month ago, when we voted for a resolution on the elections or the elections planned for the end of May in Indonesia, we had the opportunity to express our critical view on the conditions under which those elections were to be held, reaffirming our solidarity with the pro-democracy movement and condemning the fact that the Indonesian government had refused to have an independent monitoring committee and had detained a large number of students who had dared to protest against a highly controlled electoral campaign.
The events of that electoral farce unfortunately proved us right.
Despite the repression and torture, the international media were able to some extent to lift the veil on that electoral fraud.
With a resolution passed a month ago the European Parliament became the forerunner in a great series of statements by the international community horrified at the manipulation of the elections in Indonesia and condemning the repeated violations of human rights, in particular in the occupied territory of East Timor, the last of them passed by the United States House of Representatives roundly condemning violations of human rights against the people of East Timor.
The current resolution therefore forms part of a coherent framework of the European Parliament's political views, so there is no need to make circuitous and unwarranted interpretations.
As regards the sale of arms to Indonesia, the position of this Parliament is clear, well known and was reiterated only a month ago. The European Parliament repeated that it was necessary for the Member States of the European Union to refrain from giving any military assistance or selling arms to Indonesia.
That is this Parliament's view and the authors of the motion for a resolution under discussion did not deem it necessary to repeat that and have not asked for it to be included again in this joint motion for a resolution on which we are to vote.
Finally, I urge the President - and I should like to take this opportunity to urge our own President of the European Parliament - to try once more to send a parliamentary delegation to East Timor and to ask the Commission to pay special attention to the point requesting it to submit a report on the situation in East Timor and on violations of human rights in Indonesia.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the resolution under consideration on the elections in Indonesia and the consequences in East Timor bears witness to the fact once again that the Indonesian authorities are systematically denying freedom, failing to respect human rights and perpetrating moral and physical violence.
When the Maubere people of Timor, assisted by the Secretariat-General of the UN, presented proposals for a peaceful solution to the conflict, the military dictatorship in Indonesia, ignoring the United Nations resolutions and showing flagrant disrespect for human rights, responded with violence and killing.
For these objective reasons, we ask the Parliament to approve the preambles and motions for resolutions tabled.
Mr President, Indonesia is actually an archipelago of 13 000 islands, a beautiful but very complex country with 280 languages and peoples, covering an area the equivalent of that from Ireland to the Russian-Siberian border.
It is a country which is enjoying economic success and is regarded with some jealousy in the region, a country with a growing middle class and a growing financial élite which, in contrast to Latin America and Africa, invests its money in its own country.
Do not think, however, that I am blind to everything that is wrong about Indonesia.
A year ago, I visited a number of journalists in prison and the trade union leader Mr Pakpahan, and I have protested to the authorities about their captivity on a number of occasions.
But what is the point of adopting resolutions here every month when the Western European Union is still the biggest investor in Indonesia? We have a choice: either we should allow no further investment and pull out completely, or else we should improve our communication with Indonesia through parliamentary delegations and the human rights organization there.
We should also send a delegation to Timor, with whom our relations are rather different. We might then be able to do something about the East Timor problem, provided that all our Portuguese colleagues from across the political spectrum are 100 per cent committed to achieving this.
Mr President, the elections in Indonesia attracted a great deal of attention, not just because of the hundreds of people killed during the run-up to them, but also because of the highly organized way in which the government disabled the opposition, prevented the media from doing their job and manipulated the international media.
But Mrs van Bladel is right, of course: none of this comes as any surprise in Indonesia.
I also have to admit that the European Union has no room to talk when it says that this must not happen again in the future, since it is European investors who are making the biggest profit out of Indonesia, which was moulded by 350 years of Dutch colonial administration.
Nevertheless, one thing the Council can do is to insist on an agreement for ASEAN to have a democracy clause, as we discussed in relation to Burma.
Europe must adopt a united stance against undemocratic practices, but I really think - and here Mrs van Bladel is right again - that we need to go and talk to the Indonesians, because one thing they have learnt from the Dutch is to listen and to talk.
However, whether they will actually do what we want is another matter altogether.
Belarus
Mr President, first of all I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mrs Schroedter for her commitment to Belarus and to human rights in general.
She grew up under a Communist regime and knows exactly what she is talking about when she refers to basic values and fundamental liberties.
That is why I wish to express my very sincere thanks to her.
In Belarus today we have a regime on European soil, led by President Lukashenko, which on the one hand is a Russian puppet and on the other hand is certainly not based on a free democratic order or anything of the sort.
Government policy in Belarus is laid down by presidential decree.
And since the politicians there govern by force alone, we must not mince our words to them.
Straight talking is all they will understand!
That is why I support the demands made in the motion before us.
It is simply high time our European Union drew up a clear catalogue of fundamental freedoms and human rights, spelling out the consequences for any of our partner countries that violate them.
The same conditions must apply to all countries we deal with, be they in Europe, Africa, Asia or anywhere else.
Our future credibility depends on it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall try to be as brief as possible in my speech.
As regards the motions for resolutions on the abolition of the death penalty, I must confirm that the Commission, having been greatly impressed by the questions presented, regards it as essential to respect the guarantees embodied in the International Charter on Civil and Political Rights and on Optional Protocol No 2 seeking to abolish the death penalty and Protocol No 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Commission still thinks that the question of the abolition of the death penalty is implicitly covered by the clause which has systematically been included since 1995 in the agreements with third countries and which enshrines respect for democratic principles and human rights as an essential element.
But we must bear in mind - as, moreover, has been mentioned by some Members - that hypocrisy does exist on the international scene and that some of our main commercial and political partners in the world do still retain the death penalty.
As regards Colombia, I shall simply say, bearing in mind the worsening situation regarding human rights in that country, that this question is regarded as the priority for the allocation of resources under the budgetary heading of 'Democracy and Human Rights in Latin America' .
The Commission was deeply distressed to learn of the recent killings of various human rights activists and, of course, we roundly condemn these acts and urge the Colombian government to make every effort to identify those responsible for these crimes.
It is in that spirit also that the Commission continues to support the local non-government organizations, which have as their objective the defence of human rights and democracy, and the Commission is currently paying for five observers to be present under the auspices of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights in order to gain first hand detailed knowledge of the situation and to obtain specific proposals going beyond the scope of Colombia and applicable at international level.
I should also like to point out, in the same spirit, that we are still continuing to support a strengthening of the Colombian judicial institutions.
Finally, Mr President, I should like to mention that in the field of the homeless, which is a highly worrying field, Commission, through the ECO, has managed to allocate approximately ECU 5 million to make a start on tackling this problem with our collaboration.
Evidently the Commission also shares the European Parliament's concern about the constant and generalized violations of human rights and repeated threats to the democratic movement by the Myanmar government.
We are continuing to follow the internal situation of that country closely and we would say, unfortunately, that with the exception of the freeing of Aung San Suu Kyi last July, no significant improvements have been noted to date.
The Commission fully endorses the European Union's call for a State Law and Order Council in order to establish a productive dialogue with the other political forces with a view to reconciliation and the introduction of multi-party democracy.
I should also like to stress that, over the past decade, in Myanmar, with the exception of humanitarian actions, the Commission has had practically no financial resources for aid projects for the development of that country which could involve the government.
The Commission hopes, finally, that the accession of Myanmar as a full member of the ASEAN will help to make human rights and democratic principles more constant and more continuous.
I should also like to mention that, as regards the sanctions imposed by the United States, we cannot have a dual standard.
We cannot condemn the Helms-Burton law because it is unilateral and extra-territorial whilst at the same time supporting the same measures implemented in Myanmar.
Having said that, I should like however to stress that the Commission will not omit in its proposals for collaboration between the European Union and ASEAN to stress this as an essential point.
That is not, however, sufficient, since items for meetings have to be approved by both parties before they are entered on the agenda.
Experience has shown for example that the question of human rights in Indonesia or the question of East Timor have never been placed on the agenda for the talks between the European Union and the countries of ASEAN, since they were opposed by Indonesia.
So, ladies and gentlemen, there is no guarantee that this question of human rights and the situation of democracy in Myanmar will be included in the talks between the European Union and ASEAN.
Ladies and gentlemen, as regards the peace process in the former Yugoslavia, at the Coordination Council meeting within the scope of the Peace Implementation Council held in Sintra on 30 May, it was stated that no parts of former Yugoslavia were fully respecting their obligations as regards the possibility for refugees, particularly those from minority groups, to return to their place of origin - with Bosnia-Herzegovina presenting special difficulties.
There is also a serious lack of cooperation with the International Court.
The Commission therefore fully supports the application of a stricter conditionality clause to all parts.
As regards Croatia, it is particularly important for Serb refugees from Croatia wanting to return no longer to be exposed to serious situations where there is insecurity and persecution on legal or other grounds.
The future relations of the European Union with Croatia will depend to a large extent on the way Croatia respects the return of these minorities.
Considerable progress has been noted as regards the peaceful integration of Eastern Slovenia into Croatia.
The municipal elections on 13 April were a success and the Croatian government's manifesto was a suitable basis for a constructive relationship with the Croatian Serbs.
Mention should also be made of an agreement concluded recently between the Croatian government, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and the United Nations Transitional Committee for Eastern Slovenia which lays down the rules for the return of Croatian Serbs now in Slovenia and Crajina.
Unfortunately these positive intentions, expressed at the highest levels, sometimes do not get through to the local authorities, so there are still incidents at local level.
We hope that with time and perseverance these too will be eliminated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is aware of the extremely disturbing and difficult situation of children in Russia, as well as of the difficulties currently facing the various centres taking in children.
Various examples of very constructive initiatives taken by the Russian authorities could be mentioned; however those centres are faced with an extremely difficult budgetary situation.
Consequently, the Commission has allocated part of the funds available under the TACIS LIEN instrument to help these children.
The Commission is of course still following the situation through its delegation in Moscow and is naturally at Parliament's disposal for any more detailed work in this matter in conjunction with a visit due to be made by a parliamentary delegation to Russia very shortly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is almost a recurring theme to discuss the lack of democracy in Indonesia and the question of East Timor and we all fear that familiarity might breed contempt.
However, the recent events in the elections in Indonesia and the violations of human rights in Timor remind us once again that this is perhaps one of the key elements in the coherency of the European institutions.
I shall not go again into the views of the Council and the Commission, which are known, but shall merely stress once again the impact, the decisive importance and the courage of this Parliament in defending the people of Timor.
Well done!
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as regards cooperation with Belorus I shall simply mention that the Commission suspended last November the normal cooperation framework, that is the TACIS programme for Belorus.
However the Commission supports the Council proposal to grant aid to Belorus limited to those areas where there is constitutional reform, protection of human rights and freedom of the press.
Consequently the Commission is prepared to draw up within 1997 a considerably reduced ad hoc TACIS programme in favour of Belorus for an amount of ECU 5 million in order to help with the rehabilitation of the civilian population in accordance with the conclusions of the Council and with the views of this European Parliament.
Some speakers were not here so we have not been pressed for time.
However, I would request the political groups to put a little more thought into these matters. I very much dislike having to cut speakers off when there is not enough time for them to say what they want to say, when other Members who have been listed as speakers do not turn up.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following two motions for resolutions:
(B4-0504/97) by Mr Bertens and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Congo/Brazzaville; -(B4-0536/97) by Mr Hory and Mr Pradier, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the critical situation in Congo/Brazzaville.
Mr President, just a few weeks ago, before Mr Kabila was sworn in, Brazzaville was a haven of peace.
The arrival of ragged refugees and all kinds of traffickers and former soldiers on the run led to instability.
In the last few days the city has seen horrors.
Heavy arms have been used in conflicts that have already claimed thousands of victims.
The situation facing Europeans there is especially alarming and it is very difficult to repatriate them.
European women have been raped and aid workers' houses set on fire.
On the eve of the presidential elections, everything must be done to stop these clashes turning into ethnic cleansing.
Only the regular holding of elections can guarantee the legitimacy needed by the next head of State and enable the country to recover stbility.
The spectre of 1993 is hovering.
Remember what happened.
Similar violence led to some 2000 deaths.
Let us hope that the international mediation offered by President Bongo of Gabon will succeed in bringing an end to the hostilities.
A boomerang effect towards Kinshasa cannot be ruled out.
We must stop a Balkanization into mini-regions and mini-tribes from igniting the whole country and even spreading across the whole of central Africa.
Mr President, I obviously support the compromise motion put before the European Parliament by the radicals and liberals on the Congo crisis.
I should, however, like to draw your attention to an amendment that I have tabled, asking European countries to abstain from any military intervention in Brazzaville until they receive a mandate to do so from the European Union or the United Nations, except strictly for the purpose of ensuring the safety of their nationals.
Once again, France is to blame today in Congo, as it was in the case of Rwanda, Zaire, Central Africa, Niger and, unfortunately, as it probably will be in other African countries in the future.
The discredit in which France has placed itself by its imperial neo-colonial policy is such that even its best intentions are now suspect.
In this case, it seems that a French oil company armed the Congolese militia during the first clashes in Brazzaville just after the parliamentary elections.
The same company would appear to be playing a role now among the various heads of factions.
France has nothing better to offer the Congolese authorities than to apply the so-called 'limited sovereignty' doctrine.
According to French expatriates, the French embassy is more concerned with political influences in this crisis than the safety of its own nationals living in Brazzaville.
This must stop.
It is time for France to work out a new policy instead of this disastrous one, which has been disastrous even for its own interests.
I think that the wisest thing for my country to do would be to give up most of its bilateral cooperation and put its human, technical and financial development aid resources at the disposal of the European Union.
As for military intervention in Africa, it should only take place as part of mandates delivered by the United Nations to the European Union with the agreement of the OAU.
That is the meaning of my amendment.
Mr President, a very brief statement to stress that the Socialist group supports this motion for a resolution and the wording of the joint resolution and would draw attention to the point asking the parties to respect the implementation of the cease-fire, stressing the efforts by the President of Gabon and his proposal; on the other hand we for our part shall not be voting for the proposal just put to us by the previous speaker, because we believe that any military intervention in this framework should be in conjunction with a United Nations mandate and we shall therefore not be voting for this amendment.
But as spokesman in this case for the Socialist group, I should like to express our overall support for the joint motion for a resolution.
Mr President, once again we have tens of thousands of deaths to lament in Congo/Brazzaville, and here we are discussing the conflict.
What I wonder is whether we could not conduct the sort of active policy that would prevent these hostilities and these deaths. During the past six days all hell has been let loose in a country we once regarded as exemplary because its President, who himself initiated the democratization process in 1989, was peacefully voted out of office in 1992.
And now, ahead of the presidential elections scheduled for 27 July, new conflicts are erupting.
Would it not have made sense, given that a conflict had been brewing since 1992 and that we were aware of the existence of private armies, to have used our trade relations to exert political pressure during the intervening period so that such horrific occurrences could not have taken place? Once hostilities have broken out, the dispatching of troops to bring out French people and other Europeans may be important to those people but it does nothing to resolve the conflict and always happens too late.
Let us pursue peace by means of preventive nonmilitary action and provide adequate funding for that purpose instead of constantly cutting our development budget.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are some lessons to be learned from the dramatic situation in Congo at this moment.
If we refer to the work of a world-renowned expert, Professor Bernard Lugan, we can see just how wrong we were to neglect a vital reality, i.e. that our political regime, parliamentary democracy, may have considerable merits but it is a very serious error to try and impose it artificially on African situations and, generally speaking, on to peoples who are different in terms of culture or civilisation.
These African realities are essentially ethnic in Congo.
There are 54 main tribes, divided into three groups: the Mbochis in the north, 13 % of the population, whose current leader is the former President, Denis Sassou N'Guesso; the Tekés in the centre, the Kongos and Bakongos in the south, 52 % of the population, represented in their sub-groups by President Pascal Lissouba.
The latter are divided among three States: Congo, Zaire and Angola.
Each group or sub-group has a stake in the capital and their representatives will only risk going there if they are accompanied and protected by their own militia.
That is what led to the current situation.
In passing we should remember - and this is the third lesson - that the racism that we are always hearing about in the European Parliament is a reality found throughout the world.
My proof is the number of rapes, mostly affecting people involved in mixed marriages: Europeans who married Africans and Africans who married European women.
The fourth point is that independence in the framework of colonial era borders - borders seen as inviolable - the major legal and political principle that presided over decolonization - is directly in contradiction with the right of people's self-determination.
Western countries have never accepted that contradiction and we are now seeing its dramatic effects.
How can we not mention the strange influence of the United States in this part of the world - aimed without doubt at getting rid of French influence?
We have seen the effects in Zaire where a genuine genocide has taken place while the United Nations stood idly by - applying what is now called good universal conscience.
We also note the influence of multinationals that finance the militia.
There will be no solution or lasting peace unless we separate the fighters, which is possible in Congo.
I also hope that the arbitration of Gabon's President Omar Bongo, one of Africa's wise men, will bring an end to the conflict between Mr Pascal Lissouba and his adversaries.
Mr President, the tragic situation in Congo-Brazzaville is reminiscent of that in the neighbouring Congo, formerly Zaire, where the hopes for peace that were vested in Laurent Kabila by the European Community now seem to be evaporating, in view of the atrocities being perpetrated against defenceless, innocent people.
The same events will probably unfold in Brazzaville: there too, huge economic interests are at stake, which the local population is unable to exploit and which will no doubt be bought up by foreign countries.
Clearly, Africa is falling apart, because its artificial division into states and statelets, the legacy of the colonial and post-colonial period, has become untenable.
Ancient tribal identities are resurfacing, and in particular the African ruling classes are taking power to satisfy their personal ambitions, rather than for the good of the populations they are supposedly governing.
Therefore, if Europe wishes to be credible, it must seriously rethink its entire policy towards the African continent.
Mr President, the Commission shares the serious concerns expressed in the motion on the tragic events in Brazzaville and their consequences on political stability and the economic and social situation of Congo and the whole region.
It considers that only a negotiated settlement can gradually restore civil peace and enable the presidential elections to be held, so that the institutions can function normally again.
That is why we are fully supporting the mediation undertaken by the Gabonese Presdient, and the talks under the aegis of the mayor of Brazzaville, Mr Kolelas.
The head of the delegation is still in the city.
He is in permanent contact with the Union's ambassadors in the country and I think that we are helping to ease the mediation referred to in the motion for a resolution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B4-0473/97) by Mr Eisma and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the conservation of the tiger and the role of the parties to CITES; -(B4-0478/97) by Mrs van Putten, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the resolution on CITES - implementation in the European Union; -(B4-0479/97)by Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the conservation of the tiger and the role of the parties to CITES; -(B4-0506/97) by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, on behalf of the V Group, on international trade in endangered species; -(B4-0516/97) by Mr Weber, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the international trade in wild species of flora and fauna; -(B4-0532/97) by Mrs van Bladel and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the trade in ivory; -(B4-0545/97) by Mrs González Alvarez and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the international trade in wild species of fauna and flora; -(B4-0557/97) by Mr Pimenta and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the conservation of the tiger and the role of the parties to CITES.
Mr President, the absence of some Members shows how extremely difficult it is for Parliament to function in Strasbourg.
The Conference of the Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has already begun its deliberations, and so it is rather late in the day for us to seek to lay down some of Parliament's views, but I trust that the services will ensure that our views are forwarded very speedily to the negotiating team in Harare, since they are actually working on it at the moment.
Some speakers will no doubt raise many important issues, some of which are referred to in the compromise text.
Many, such as the position of elephants and the trade in ivory, are extremely complex, and there are divided points of view amongst not only affected countries but also the NGOs and other expert groups.
Because of widespread corruption and the continuation of the illegal ivory trade, we feel it is still best to maintain the status quo for the elephant.
I wish to concentrate on tigers, because these magnificent animals are on the brink of extinction and a good number of those which remain are in India, a country with which I am connected as chairperson of the Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia.
I know that NGOs, such as WWF, work closely with the Indian Government to help with tiger conservation work.
But, clearly, the most dramatic short-term threat to the survival of the species is the illegal hunting of tigers for trade in body parts, largely for the Asian medicine market, and the low level of grassroots support for wildlife conservation in India, despite very laudable efforts by the government in its project 'Tiger' .
It is the responsibility of all the Parties to CITES to work together to stop the illegal trade in tigers and their parts and, for that matter, parts of other endangered species as well.
First, we need the CITES parties (and I wonder why Ireland is not a party to this) to adopt legislation to protect parts, products, derivatives and subspecies of tigers.
Second, we need very importantly to support public information campaigns in each and every one of the CITES partner countries.
Third, we need to ensure effective implementation of legislation - and this is really the crunch about CITES.
There are some very laudable things to be done there but if we do not have implementation - much as with the rest of European Union legislation - and if there is no effective legislation, nothing happens and species and habitats continue to decline worldwide.
This is really the most crucial, basic issue in attempting to stamp out the illegal trade in parts and products of endangered species and therefore in discouraging the poaching which is so valuable to very many impoverished people in some of the countries involved.
Training of customs agents and exchanges of information so as to help them recognize illegal products is essential, and the European Union countries can all help with the technical assistance needed in less-developed countries.
Time is short, endangered species are exactly that - endangered species - and time is running out for them.
Time is running out for habitats and for the biodiversity of this planet.
Everyone must pull together in CITES, and I hope Parliament will support the compromise text.
Mr President, ever since its entry into force in 1975, the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has proved to be a valuable instrument, indeed the only one based on ecological rather than commercial criteria to have had a positive effect.
Nevertheless, it has to be said that there are limits to the implementation of CITES: illegal trade is still very widespread and is valued at USD 3 to 5 billion annually; not even Europe, unfortunately, has always been beyond reproach in its implementation of the Convention.
The danger now is that the measures protecting certain endangered species will be relaxed: at the current tenth Conference of the Parties in Harare, various proposals are under discussion with a view to downlisting certain populations of disputed species. Such a move could lead to a revival of international trade and an increase in the poaching of these species.
I would draw particular attention to the problem of the elephant population in Africa and the risk of a return to the illegal trade in ivory, as well as the problem of the white rhino and the type of trade connected with it, above all for the production of medicines in Asia. This issue ties in partly with that of tiger hunting, to which the previous speaker referred.
Other species are at risk too: the vicuña in Peru, Argentina and Bolivia; the whale, following a proposal from Norway and Japan; and the Caretta turtle, in view of a request from Cuba.
In general terms, therefore, there is a very real danger that the situation of some endangered species will be called into question.
It is true that in some cases, thanks to CITES, there has been an increase in the population of certain species, but it is also true that if downlisting under the Convention were to be accepted, this would inevitably give a boost to illegal trade and the situation could become untenable.
That is why the approach being proposed by France - to use confiscated specimens to safeguard the artistic or cultural heritage - must be rejected, as must Namibia's call for a relaxation of the criteria.
All the European countries and the Union must speak with one voice at this tenth Conference.
Mr President, I think we all agree that the CITES is an important convention but I should like to remind those who spoke before me that it is possible to go too far - in another area of concern to us, that of drugs, we have perhaps gone too far in banning them which can actually have adverse effects and the same may be true of this area too.
This tendency to ban everything has had negative effects such as a black market and the paradox of seeing people suffering from a regulation in favour of animals; this is the case of Botswana where too many elephants are spoiling the crops and preventing the local people from eking out a living.
I think that to save this very important convention we should overhaul it and give an international organisation, possibly within the UN, the means to take decisions on culling programmes, quite independently.
Then we could put on to the market products that could compete with those now circulating on the black market.
Then we could regulate animal populations and breathe life into this vital convention.
Mr President, the subject we are discussing is so completely self-evident that there is really no need for me to speak at length about it.
Human progress is a threat to the glory of creation, and despite all the agreements on saving what is under threat, magnificent animals such as elephants and tigers are still in terrible jeopardy.
That is why I welcome the fact that, just as the Zimbabwe conference on protecting these endangered species is taking place, the European Parliament should also make it clear that we, the representatives of the nations of Europe, are determined to save the world's fauna for our children.
My group therefore warmly supports this resolution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the PPE Group supports the joint resolution.
I believe it is balanced and addresses the important issues.
I only have two comments to make.
Point 4 refers to the situation of the African elephant and proposes that acceptable action be taken to avoid an excessive degree of conflict between the interests of man and those of elephants.
I believe this certainly merits consideration, because the African States, as we know, are calling for downlisting of the African elephant, which they regard as a threat to themselves.
But we must also ensure that animals are properly protected.
That is perhaps a task for the European Union in the context of the development cooperation in which it engages with a view to providing a basis for human subsistence.
I should just like to mention very briefly that the European Parliament is saying once again that products from endangered species must not be used under any circumstances in dubious medicines of whatever description.
We also did that in the Lannoye report, and it is a message we should reaffirm.
I would request Members to get here in time so that they do not lose their place, because I cannot always be sure that I will be able to give them the floor out of turn.
I realize that Members have many things to do, but the programme of the House cannot be changed to accommodate Members' personal timetables.
Mr President, the tiger is threatened with extinction.
Three of the eight species have been eradicated over the last 50 years, while those remaining have declined alarmingly over the last five years, especially in India, where two thirds of the tigers in existence are to be found.
This very dramatic development has resulted not just from the destruction of the natural environment, but also from the illegal trade in tiger products, which is actually increasing at an alarming rate.
China in particular is the largest producer and consumer of the traditional medicines in which tiger products are used.
Almost every day, one more tiger is lost, processed into supposedly curative powders and pills.
However, this is also a highly lucrative trade and one which we need to combat.
As Mrs Pollack said, the CITES conference is being held this week in Harare, which is why this is the perfect time to raise the issue of the survival of the tiger.
I should like to take this opportunity to urge the European delegation most strongly to fight for the tiger's survival, and I would also call on the other CITES countries to ban all trade in tiger products and to take extra measures to save the tiger from extinction in this unparalleled way.
Mr President, the entry into force on 1 June of Council Regulation No 338/97, which goes beyond the scope of CITES, is a clear illustration of the Community's efforts to that effect.
The Conference of Parties to CITES, currently being held in Harare, is attended by all Member States that are party to the Convention and the Commission is actively involved in the establishment of common positions in the spirit of the new regulation, on both precautionary and sustainable use principles.
These will be reflected in the positions on proposals with regard to the African elephant, the white rhino, tigers and whales, and many other important issues before the Conference of the Parties.
However, since the discussions in Harare have just started, the Commission is not yet in a position to provide definitive answers on the final outcome of the proposals under discussion.
We support the resolution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, on a point of order.
As a lover of music like myself you would have been very pleased with the entertainment which was provided this afternoon in the foyer of the Palais.
Further entertainment in the Festival of Music will be held in Orangerie Concert Hall tonight starting at 8.30 p.m.
I hope and trust that all Members and all members of staff will make every effort to attend.
Mr President, I just wanted to point out that this morning my voting card was not in my place and my neighbour's was there instead.
I asked for a replacement card but I am not sure whether I voted with my card or my neighbour's.
I wanted to make that public but of course the necessary checks should be made when the voting lists are available.
You were right to make it clear publicly.
These errors can happen.
We will make sure that the services check that the votes are being recorded properly.
VOTES (continuation)
. (DA) There is a long and sound tradition in Denmark of voluntary work among people of all age groups, not just young people, although the level of activity is significantly higher in this section of the population.
Denmark is often called the 'land of organizations' . Indeed, in a cross-section of the Danish population, every single individual is a member of one or other organization, be it a political party, a youth organization, the scouting movement or a residents' association.
All these people work to improve the conditions of their members and others sympathetic to their cause.
But only a minority seek to promote an awareness of 'European identity' or real 'European citizenship' , which are referred to repeatedly in the Fontaine report.
We question whether there is such a thing as a 'European identity' or 'European citizenship' .
We take exception to this form of EU propaganda among young people or the population as a whole.
We also do not think that there is a need for a certificate with a 'European quality seal' or a 'European statute' for young volunteers.
The area of youth policy is not mentioned in the Maastricht Treaty, and that is how it should remain.
We do not think it would serve any purpose to try to create a 'European youth policy' such as is advocated in the report.
We also think that it would be irresponsible to send young people to third countries, as is being proposed.
There are often very difficult circumstances in third countries, and we do not think young people are really up to handling such assignments.
The above considerations are the reasons why we vote against the Fontaine report on a European voluntary service for young people.
The idea of sending thousands of young Europeans into a Member State, for a sufficiently long period for it to be effective, in order to carry out a given task, to be there and be useful, turns this programme, far more than traditional youth exchanges, into a genuine tool of citizenship.
It opens up new prospects for our youth and is the proof that European construction is all the result of youth mobility, young people's desire to be citizens, their attachment to knowledge of other people.
I pay tribute to edith Cresson who has defended this project with resolve, as she rightly thinks that it is vital for the Union and for European citizenship!
I also wish to thank Nicole Fontaine, who has become our spokesperson on this subject and has always been a leading defender of European youth, banking on young people to speed up the construction process.
No vote should be missing when we come to vote on a European voluntary service!
We are banking on youth.
Such great hopes have arisen or will arise from our young people.
Let us not disappoint them!
Let us be bold for those who will live in and improve the Europe that we are building for them today!
Finally, I wish to take this opportunity to lend my support to all requests to increase spending on the Socrates programme.
Before telling you how highly I think of Mrs Fontaine's excellent report, I should like to remind you of the role that the European Parliament has always played in promoting all that concerns youth policies.
It has always done all it could to involve young people in Union life and increase their opportunities on offer at European level.
It is therefore quite logical that it should have supported the Cresson initiative to relaunch the idea of a European voluntary service of young people by creating, in 1996, a new budgetary line B3-1011 designed to fund this action.
That being so, I wish to congratulate Mrs Fontaine who has produced work of high quality.
This report establishes the bases of a new participation by young people in European citizenship.
Thanks to the voluntary service, all young people aged 18-25 years - and sometimes as old as 29 - will be able to take part in public utility actions across the Union.
It is a major programme, 1998-2002, and has aroused great enthusiasm among our young people - they should not be disappointed.
It is also a new type of programme in that it enables young people not only to be received in host countries but also to be active there and be of use.
The presence of 'personalized tutors' in the host countries will ensure that the young person feels useful and responsible for his or her actions.
There are still many problems to be worked out (taxation, social welfare, etc) but the Commission and the Member States are trying to find solutions.
The structure of the programme is highly decentralized, rightly so if we are to encourage the necessary flexibility on the ground.
That is why I am asking you, like me, to vote for this report with the amendments tabled by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, especially the amendment on the credits granted for the programme.
We are asking for 80 million ECU for the period 1998-99.
This is in keeping with the financial perspectives and it is very low in terms of the benefit for young people involved.
Let us not be stingy over an action that mobilizes young people and gives them a strong feeling of European citizenship.
The European Voluntary Service may be a valuable instrument for consolidating a more human and more competitive Europe - two dimensions which, provided they go together, will define a new Europe.
More human because of the bonds it creates between young people of different cultures and more competitive because it brings more training which means that we more active, better informed, involved and active citizens.
But it will constitute such an instrument only if it is not deflected from its objectives.
Such deflection might arise because of a poor selection process, mismatching of young people and projects, failure to follow up the voluntary experience in order to channel that experience plus the benefit it has brought to the young people and - last but not least - because of a misunderstanding on the part of national governments of the role of Voluntary Service.
I think that the Voluntary Service should be targeted on long-term projects so that the experience is sufficiently impressive and lasting.
I hope that the Member States will accept the commitment to increase this programme exponentially by a minimum of 10 % per annum in order to guarantee that in a few years' time all young people between 18 and 25 shall have access to the Voluntary Service which will naturally turn them into European citizens.
I must congratulate Mrs Nicole Fontaine on her report on the Commission's proposal for a European voluntary service for young people, a Community action programme.
Of course, it should be noted that this Community initiative has already enabled several hundred young Europeans to enjoy this experience, a practical act of European citizenship.
In this context, the Commission's proposal aimed at making the programme more ambitious is an interesting one.
It was nevertheless vital, as our rapporteur rightly emphasized, to strengthen and broaden participation in the programme.
That is why I fully approve of the proposals aimed at increasing spending on the first two years of implementation of the programme and lifting obstacles to the widest possible participation by young people.
The Member States should take the necessary measures to make their national civilian service programmes compatible with this voluntary scheme.
This programme should make it possible for as many young people as possible to have an experience of general interest in another Member State or outside the European Union, undoubtedly contributing to making Europe more practical for the younger generations.
Plooij-Van Gorsel report (A4-0153/97)
The European ICT industry offers great potential for employment and for the improvement of democracy.
We therefore welcome the initiative report produced by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, in which both the European Union and the Member States are called upon to take the necessary legislative measures to strengthen free market forces as soon as possible.
The development of information and communications technology must not be held back by a lack of legal security.
Marset Campos report (A4-0170/97)
. (DA) It is important to bring about a sustainable development model in the European Union - both in order to increase employment and to create attractive job opportunities.
So it is all the more regrettable that we could not get a report which realistically balances the need for a solution to the Union's internal social and environmental problems, on the one hand, with the increased demands of competition in the light of industrial globalization on the other hand.
In his report the rapporteur focuses on an excessively one-sided model and, in view of that, I am obliged to vote against the report.
Pimenta report (A4-0187/97)
. (DA) We have voted to call on the Commission and the Council to reject the proposed agreement and implement the import ban.
The leghold trap is a cruel method of trapping and should be abolished.
However, we are not as sceptical as the rapporteur with regard to the exemptions included in the agreement to safeguard the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples.
We have been worried throughout that a very general ban would hit imports of pelts from animals not caught with leghold traps, and that such a ban would deprive indigenous populations of their livelihood and leave them dependent on social security.
It is important to warn against hypocrisy in this affair, and unfortunately the report does not give any weight to this.
The EU is itself the area of the world in which most leghold traps are used.
Here we only trap rats and water voles, rather than wild animals with attractive pelts.
It is as though we are only against this method of trapping for animals whose furs we would like to wrap ourselves in, whereas we are indifferent to the suffering of animals if they are classed as vermin.
. (DA) Mr Carlos Pimenta is asking us to reject the international agreement on standards for humane trapping.
However, the analysis in Mr Pimenta's report contains several factual errors which are misleading.
How can we draft regulations in Parliament based on reports that contain errors?
I will detail some of the factual errors and general problems arising in the Pimenta report.
A quite fundamental aspect is that the rapporteur's analysis lacks an understanding of animal protection.
1) The first problem is that the report does not refer to existing trapping standards in the EU or other countries.
A comparison with the international agreement would otherwise show that existing standards are considerably less restrictive than those in the proposed agreement.
2) A second problem is that the report neither undertakes an analysis of current trapping standards nor considers how many animals are trapped in the EU or in some of the other countries which are considering signing the agreement.
Such an analysis would show that few animals are caught in leghold traps and that most are caught in killing traps.
It would also show that, here in the Union, we trap between four and five million animals in traps for which there are no EU standards at all.
It would indeed be an improvement if standards were introduced for these traps.
3) And now the factual errors.
Mr Carlos Pimenta completely overlooks the introduction of the following rules in the international agreement: Training and authorization of trappers. Requirements for daily trap inspections. The question of including selectivity.
These measures already go further than the existing EU measures.
The international agreement does not give greater consideration to trade than to animal welfare.
On the contrary, it seeks to make trade subject to standards for animal welfare.
Finally, we are asked to reject the international agreement because it is 'totally inadequate and ineffective' .
The rapporteur asks us in these terms to accept the current EU rules, even though they are much weaker than those in the international agreement.
Similarly, he asks us to reject an agreement that will not be renegotiated!
We call that 'totally inadequate and ineffective' .
A European Parliament resolution to reject the international agreement will certainly not bring about any improvement in animal welfare.
I have supported the rapporteur's call to reject this agreement between the EU, Canada and Russia on animal traps.
Like many of my constituents, I am opposed to the cruel use of leghold traps.
The fact that this agreement as it stands would allow for their use for at least another four years is therefore unacceptable.
Equally, it would be wrong in my view to classify some types of leghold trap as 'humane' .
There is no requirement to inspect traps regularly, when opposition to their use centres around the cruelty of leaving animals trapped and in pain for long periods.
Crucially, the USA has not agreed to endorse any such agreement, so any minimal standards would not even apply to the many animals trapped there.
Finally, I support the report's call for an import ban to be imposed on pelts from 13 species caught in countries which do not use internationally agreed standards of trapping.
Civilized countries should be judged by how they treat weaker species as well as by how they treat their human populations.
EU role in sport
The next item is the report (A4-0197/97) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the role of the European Union in the field of sport
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although sport plays an important part in the lives of European citizens, the EU has paid it scant attention in the past.
That makes the present discussion by the European Parliament on the role of the EU in sport all the more important, and I congratulate my honourable colleague Doris Pack on her excellent report.
Since the Bosman ruling by the European Court of Justice in December 1995, sport has been a major topic of public debate.
In today's report, which I fully endorse and to which I have also tabled a few amendments as the shadow rapporteur, the place of sport as a responsibility of society in its entirety receives particular emphasis, for sport is a significant social phenomenon.
With its educational, democratic, cultural, social, integrative and health-promoting aspects, it has an enormous beneficial impact on our daily lives.
Sporting events and the men and women who take part in them captivate millions in stadia and on television screens and motivate people to copy their idols and engage in sport.
In my small country alone, for example, two million people - one-quarter of the entire population - are members of sports clubs, which number 14, 000.
It is therefore insufficient to consider the economic aspect alone without looking at sport in its totality; such a restricted view also creates undesirable side-effects, such as a lack of incentive to nurture young players because of the abolition of transfer fees, which was an unfortunate consequence of the Bosman ruling.
I fully support Doris Pack's three main demands: firstly, the call to the current Intergovernmental Conference to include an explicit reference to sport in Article 128 of the EU Treaty; secondly, the appeal to the Commission to set up a task force on sport, so that the responsibilities for sport, which are currently divided among 18 directorsgeneral, I believe, can be concentrated in one body; and thirdly, the request for the production of a Green Paper, after consultation with all the main sports organizations, with a view to the formulation of an EU action plan on sport.
I also attach importance to the universal right of citizens to receive information, which means that major sporting events must not be restricted to pay TV but should be receivable in unencrypted form by all viewers; it is also important that the sports governing bodies should help to draw up the list of such events.
Another important feature of the report is its special emphasis on school sport, youth sport and women's sport, reflecting the fact that everyone, and particularly those from poorer and disadvantaged sections of the population, should have the right to engage actively in sport.
One of the conditions for this is a good training system for PE teachers and sports coaches.
Finally, the organization of a European Year of Sport would underline the importance of sport to the people of Europe.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Pack for her important report.
It is hard to carry out pioneering work which patently seeks to remedy omissions in a particular area of EU legislation.
Mrs Pack has in my opinion drawn up a balanced report which I have been able to be actively involved in preparing.
The lack of an official status for sport in Union legislation is an intolerable omission.
Is it feared that sport will take away EU resources, for example from other cultural activities? I am disappointed that the Intergovernmental Conference which is now drawing to a close will not be making any changes to the status of sport in Union legislation.
I am surprised at the civil servants' and ministers' attitude.
Sport has a really significant multiplier effect - an effect on health as well as social, cultural and the economic effect.
A great deal of anti-drug work is also carried on through sport.
The economic significance of sport, for example on the single market or indeed in health care, is impossible even to estimate.
Community standards influence sporting activities in innumerable ways, but the sports world is not able to influence decisions.
This is an absurd situation, because sport's legislative status contrasts crassly with its position in society.
All the Union's decision-making and legislation affects sports.
It over-arches sports legislation.
However, sports organizations and sports clubs are not consulted in the preparatory stages about legislation which affects them.
Sport has to adapt to laws and guidelines drawn up by people who do not understand sport.
I do not understand this way of going about things.
Young people who practise sports are also unable to take part in any EU programme, because sport has no status.
Sport is like a dirty word for the Union.
Of course young people who practice sports are just as valuable as those who draw or play music, for example, or do they have to pretend to be students or recorder players in order to get on to national programmes promoting freedom of movement?
Amateur sports clubs do a lot of good voluntary youth work which has a wide range of positive effects on society.
It is, however, impossible to get any significant Union support for this youth work.
Conversely, other youth organizations, which are not sports organizations but do exactly the same type of work, do receive support.
The annual budget of ECU 3 m for Eurathlon is ridiculously small.
Without the active promotion of Parliament it would have been even smaller, for which we have to thank the Budget Committee and the Culture Committee.
Sport must be given the status it deserves in the Union, in a limited way, but so that sporting organizations and clubs are involved at the preparatory stage of legislation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on behalf of my colleague, Giampiero Boniperti, who is unable to be present in the House today.
As we all know, sport plays a key role in the lives of our citizens.
Sport should be thought of not merely as an opportunity for healthy competition; it also contributes towards social integration and personal development in young people, preventing them from being at a social disadvantage.
Those who have practised sport have developed a fighting spirit and a capacity for sacrifice, as well as self-respect and respect for others: all qualities which build a person's character and help him to progress through life.
When I say that it is a good thing for a youngster to learn to kick a ball, so as then to be able to kick drugs, what I mean is this: school and sport should go hand in hand, since both are essential to a young person's growth.
Responsible adults, administrators and politicians are duty-bound to find ways of pursuing this social aim, which is essential to our way of life.
There is also a need to train specialist educators who can help young people from primary school onwards to realize their potential and ambitions.
Employment, jobs, the single currency, racism, community life and other difficult issues are doubtless of the greatest importance.
Sport, however, must not be placed last on the school curriculum.
Countries like the United States, the United Kingdom and others have taught us what a formative effect sport can have on young people.
A youngster's identity can be forged in national sports federations, based on the common denominator of a European treaty on sport.
Football is now taught as a school subject in the UK.
An amendment was tabled and adopted a short while ago calling for sport to be incorporated into the Maastricht Treaty, with particular reference to general education, vocational training and employment.
The national federations must therefore draw up a blueprint for a sports movement at EU level, since only by overcoming national boundaries will it be possible to achieve a single, unifying agreement.
There are various national languages in Europe, but as Mr Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee, puts it, only one language is truly international: that of sport.
I read in an Italian newspaper the statement made by Mrs Bouffet, the new Minister for Youth and Sport in the Jospin government.
As the mother of two children, she has taken an interest for many years in the problems of young people, especially those in troubled inner-city areas.
She recently said: ' If our young people are sick, perhaps sport, as a source of healthy competition, can help bring them out of the labyrinth of despair' .
We each have our own political views, but as far as sport is concerned, all those views have a single common denominator.
Mr Florio, excuse me if I sound pedantic but, according to the Rules, you are not allowed to deliver anyone else's speech in the House.
So, the opening of your speech will say that your colleague would have said something along these lines.
The record cannot show that this is a speech he would have made.
Mr President, as Parliament's longest-standing rapporteur on sport, I am very pleased with the Pack report.
On three occasions in the past, I have drafted resolutions on behalf of the Committee on Culture in which Parliament has called for a structural approach in the form of a European action programme on sport, and Mrs Pack has now repeated this urgent call in her excellent report.
Commissioner Pinheiro, what on earth is the Commission doing?
Has it gone to sleep? I know that the sport section of DG X has a few very good officials who have been working on documents for a long time now.
So is there some kind of political problem? Why is it that Parliament's calls over many years for a structural approach appear to have gone unanswered?
Mrs Pack, you have put sport back on the agenda, which is important.
And who knows, there may yet be a lastminute Kohl-Kok alliance at the IGC to have sport included in the Amsterdam Treaty, which is what Parliament has long wished to see.
Mrs Pack says 'I hope so' , and so do I. I sincerely hope that we are given a text that will serve as a legal basis for setting up European programmes, rather than as an escape clause so that top-class sport can avoid European rules.
The Liberal Group agrees with the rapporteur's proposals, but there is one thing to which I would urge you to give special attention, since I feel that it tends to be overlooked.
We need a structural approach to a chronic problem that causes great distress: the extremely poor relations between the world of sport and the Commission.
Sport does not recognize the European Union, and the European Union does not recognize sport.
That is the nub of the problem, and we cannot hope to make any progress with the sporting world until it is resolved.
We can declare a European year of sport, we can set up a youth fund, we can organize an annual European sports forum - all very laudable gestures, but far too superficial to bridge the gap between sport and the European Union.
Incomprehension and suspicion still prevail, and there are clashes between sports regulations and European legislation on a daily basis.
That is why we need to give constructive dialogue top priority, and Bosman must surely have taught us all a lesson.
This is where we see the effect of having no structural sports policy or approach, and the Commission's ad hoc tinkering will certainly not solve the problem.
It is essential for the sporting world to be consulted about the impact of single market legislation on sports regulations.
It must be made crystal clear how to deal with selection procedures, sponsorship agreements, championship competitions, drugs testing procedures, sanctions and so on.
Sport and the EU must not be allowed to drift any further apart, and good agreements will always make both sides the winners.
So, Commissioner, use this Green Paper as an opportunity to consult the sporting world in detail, and let us develop a structural approach and closer cooperation in this field.
Mr President, first of all, I should like to thank Mrs Pack for her tireless and valuable contributions to our parliamentary work on this and many other urgent and difficult subjects.
Sport has always exercised a strong cohesive influence over young people and encouraged the development of positive values such as determination, courage, tolerance, loyalty and friendship.
Until now, the European Union has taken an interest in sport solely as an economic activity, often overlooking its cultural and social dimension.
However, it is essential to acknowledge the special and independent nature of the sports movement, and a start could be made by including an explicit reference to sport in Article 128 of the EU Treaty.
A second very important point is the rapporteur's request that the Commission should set up a task force to look into the different aspects of sport, and draw up a green paper launching a comprehensive action plan.
We fully endorse this request.
We Greens also seek the support of Parliament for our amendment calling for the national and international federations to agree to comply with Directive 337/85 and its subsequent amendments concerning environmental impact assessments for major sporting events.
Mr President, in the European Union sport has more than 100 million practitioners in thousands of clubs, and yet the European institutions still neglect it.
It was therefore useful that the European Parliament should take the initiative to make proposals aimed at including sport in the new Treaty and I should like to thank Mrs Pack for her excellent report, rich in proposals which, I hope, will be taken on board by the Commission.
Sport, by means of the fulfilment and balance that it can offer individuals, is an extremely important element.
It accounts for 1.5 % of the GDP of the European Union and is a large source of jobs.
The moral values that it vehicles are a very effective means of fighting violence, racism, delinquency; it is a school of tolerance, courage and civic awareness, and can help to integrate less favoured young people or those who have lost their way.
But we cannot mention sport without a word on the Bosman judgment, especially on the broadcasting of sports events on the TV.
We know that the 'Television without frontiers' directive made it possible to make considerable progress in terms of universal access to major sporting events.
Through these questions, it is the often fragile border-line between professional and amateur sport that is at stake. We should therefore help the small clubs and less media-oriented sports.
In that respect, it would be desirable to safeguard equal opportunities - which in sports competitions is called uncertainty of results - and to safeguard the financial independence of clubs - company sponsorship also has its limits.
In these conditions, sport will no longer be the big unknown quantity in the European institutions.
If we do not include a specific article in the Treaty, we might consider a clear mention of Article 128 on culture. That would give this field a minimal legal base, a specific budget, enough to coordinate and rationalise the various one-off initiatives that we have at present.
Until then, the drafting of a Green Paper or even the setting up of a task force would also be welcome.
Mr President, over 100 million Europeans currently take part in sporting activities, organized by tens of thousands of sports clubs belonging to associations and federations.
The sports movement is one of the main forces bringing people together in the EU.
We cannot ignore the fact that sport has become such a significant recreational activity that its implications transcend the social and cultural sectors and have a truly substantial impact on the economy.
In our view, sport and culture, which have close links with each other, are two sides of the same coin and will be more highly valued if, as a result of pressure from us, an explicit and realistic reference to sport can be included in the text of the new EU Treaty.
We feel that the appropriate place would be Article 128, relating to culture.
The sporting world in general, and more specifically that of football, suffered a severe shock over the Bosman ruling, which caused such an uproar and upheaval that there are now serious difficulties affecting relations between clubs and above all the training of young players, as well as the very survival of thousands of amateur sports clubs.
Sport, and in particular participatory sport, can be made accessible to our citizens and enabled to contribute to their well-being through an overall initiative covering all the measures to be carried out, with a single body being identified which groups together all the organizations currently devoted to sport: this would overcome the present fragmentation at European level.
We are in favour of Mrs Pack's proposals and compliment her on her excellent work. We fully support her report.
Mr President, Mrs Pack has produced a very good report, but as you know I always like to cause trouble here in the House, and I would draw your attention to two amendments I have tabled, one of which, I am at least honest enough to admit, does not have the support of my group.
I have tabled these amendments because they are on a very topical issue. Everyone is calling for an article on sport to be included in the Treaty, which is of course an excellent idea.
But I find it difficult to accept the reasons given by some people, who say that the Bosman ruling is making it impossible for sports clubs in Europe to promote youth sport.
Let us be quite clear about this.
Representatives of the Commission have produced research which shows that of the handsome profits made from transfer fees, from this noble form of human trade, not even 5 % goes to youth sport - not even 5 %!
Now, the logical consequence of the Bosman ruling should be to declare that state aid to professional clubs must be seen as a violation of Article 92 of the Treaty, particularly state aid to economic entities, because it cannot be justified and is simply a distortion of competition.
I have tabled two other amendments which are supported by my group and a number of other people, calling for greater attention to be given to the way in which the Bosman ruling seems to be getting out of hand, and in particular the role of clubs which are taken over by private dealers and players.
The Bosman ruling is generally bandied about and contracts are broken mid-season supposedly on the basis of it.
It used to be the major sports clubs that bought and sold people, now it is the agents.
Let us get together with the sports associations to work out rules to govern this which do not contravene Community law.
I would urge you to think again about these amendments.
I know that you are not in favour of them, Mrs Pack, but they are the logical consequence of Articles 2, 48 and 92 of the Treaty.
Mr President, Mrs Pack not only organized an excellent hearing on the subject of sport, but she has also produced an excellent report for us to discuss today.
If the Council of Ministers and the Members of the Commission are really serious about creating the people's Europe that they are always talking about, then they should act on the recommendations contained in Mrs Pack's report as soon as possible.
The fact is that sport affects every aspect of people's lives: culture, health, recreation, nutrition, integration, minorities and education.
In education, however, sport has generally fallen victim to the need for cutbacks in recent times and has disappeared from the curriculum.
What do we want?
We actually want two things. Firstly, legitimacy, in other words a legal basis produced by including sport in the Treaty.
And, secondly, an adequate budget for funding the most important aspects of Europe's approach to sport.
Finally, we need to show that Parliament too takes sport seriously.
I was glad to hear that all my colleagues are in favour of Mrs Pack's proposal, and I therefore hope that the Bureau will accede to the request it is shortly to receive for the name of the committee of which I am chairman to be changed to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
Mr President, let me first of all offer my sincere congratulations to Mrs Pack on a truly excellent report.
Allow me, as a scholar of sport and a former Austrian national coach, to make my observations on European sport from a quite specific perspective.
The importance of sport has hitherto been totally underestimated in the EU; on the rare occasions it is ever mentioned, it is considered as a purely economic factor.
Sport has no legal basis at all in the EU; there are no explicit references to sport in any article of the Treaties.
And yet sport has many very important functions to perform in today's society.
There is scarcely any other domain of activity that is so capable of motivating young people to make good use of their leisure time and of reintegrating marginalized groups into society through meaningful activity.
It encourages elderly people to keep themselves physically fit.
So the importance of sport lies both in its enormous impact as an instrument of preventive medicine and above all in its great sociocultural potential.
We in the Freedom Party of Austria are therefore entirely in agreement with the rapporteur that sport should be incorporated into Article 128 without delay as tangible evidence of its significance.
Lastly, sport is also extremely important as a means of international understanding when it takes the form of fair and sporting contests with other countries, when people take pride in representing and supporting their own nations without letting that pride spill over into senseless and excessive nationalism.
Sport is an international language.
Sport binds people together!
Sport is a celebration of what we have in common, not of our differences.
Sport can therefore do more to foster mutual understanding than many an artificially conceived European project.
We should not therefore regard sport as a primarily economic activity but as an essential social and cultural contribution to international understanding, and we should do all we can to promote it within the strict bounds of the subsidiarity principle.
Mr President, I have always regarded it as one of the privileges of being a Member of this Parliament to work alongside Mrs Pack. In English we would say she is a human dynamo.
To make an awful English pun, I would say that this report is 'packed' full with her energy and commitment.
I totally back the call to include a reference to sport in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Maastricht recognizes the significance of culture in clause 128 but for millions of Europeans sport is more important.
Next month in Portsmouth, my constituency, I am attending the opening of the Special Olympics organized for young people from across Europe with severe learning difficulties.
They will never get to university and be able to use Socrates.
They will not be able to join the European voluntary service.
But they can participate in sport.
I am delighted they are going to get a grant but I am rather ashamed that it is so small.
As Budget Rapporteur for Culture, I know that the money allocated for sport - ECU 3m - is derisory.
But even that sum faces the annual battle that there is no legal base and the Council regularly attempts to cut it out altogether.
As a Parliament in Europe we believe in promoting good health, helping social integration and recognizing the needs of the disabled.
Is there any better way of doing that than in sport?
This morning I asked for the youth volunteer service to be called the Mitterand Volunteers.
I will be, perhaps, slightly less francophile this afternoon when I remind Members that in England we have a saying: the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton.
Let us build Europe on the playing fields of Europe.
Mr President, I must begin by congratulating Mrs Pack on her work - she is a very active member of the European Parliament.
Mrs Pack, like Mrs Larive and other members of the European Parliament, has always worked for the development of a European Union sports policy.
But you yourself mentioned the difficulties that we have encountered in the past and that we still encounter in this business.
That said, since in Amsterdam we are going to be debating important questions for the future of the European Union, I hope that this report can be considered by our Heads of State and Government as a useful contribution to a major debate on the European Union's competences.
The question of sport broadly departs from the framework of sport proper.
We should take a further look at three aspects for an overall approach to sports policy in the European Union.
First of all, the sport model.
Do we think of sport as a public service? What do we think of the relationship between professional and amateur sport?
What is the role of the public institutions compared with NGOs?
How are we to conceive the organisation of European sport?
Secondly, the relationship between TV and sport.
Their mutual independence is now enormous, virtually a question of survival in many cases. Thirdly, as has been mentioned, the social role of sport.
Sport is an excellent instrument for creating jobs; sport as an instrument for combating social exclusion, poverty in less favoured communities; sport as a vehicle of integration par excellence; sport as a means of forging links between people from different parts of the world or different walks of life.
Those are just some aspects which, in my opinion, the Commission should take seriously when looking at sport in the future.
I think that the idea of a Green Paper is an excellent one and even that of a task-force.
It should be strengthened by improved cooperation between the Commission services: education, culture, research and even external relations and DG X. I must thank you, Mrs Pack, for your report and I hope that it will be followed up.
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he can assure me of the truth of what Mr Papas, the Director-General, more or less hinted at to the sports bodies, namely that the Commission is ready to set up this task force and that they will not wait until the next term but will take this action - as I urge them to do - before the end of the present term.
We are all waiting for this, and, as Mrs Larive said, we have been waiting for a long time; at some stage we shall become impatient.
I am also speaking on behalf of Mrs Larive now when I ask whether we may expect anything more than fine words on this task force and whether specific action has been initiated.
Inasfar as I can speak on behalf of some of my colleagues, I have to say that it is the Commission's intention to present a communication after Amsterdam.
Of course, for that we need to create the necessary conditions for presenting that communication.
The task force will have an extremely difficult role to play.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Excise duty on certain mineral oils
The next item is the report (A4-0206/97) by Mr Cox, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision authorizing Member States to continue to apply to certain mineral oils, when used for specific purposes, existing reduced rates of excise duty or exemptions from excise duty, in accordance with the procedure provided in Article 8(4) of Directive 92/81/EEC (COM(96)0549 - C4-0071/97-96/0263(CNS))
Mr President, the unusual length of my speech tonight - and I may not use all the time - reflects the hour of the evening and the length of the actual piece of work we are dealing with, that you have just read out, which would probably require seven minutes to explain it.
The report deals with exemptions from excise duty applied to certain mineral oils.
The reason why we are dealing with it now is that it arises from a review of those exemptions which needed to be undertaken and that review was provided for in the basic legislation on excise duty agreed in 1992.
This directive, along with the directive on VAT, was one of the principal foundations of the tax side of completing the single market.
About 80 exemptions are treated, covering all 15 Member States, and they are the ones dealt with in this report.
While the 1992 excise Directive set out a procedure for granting exemptions, in effect three procedures can be identified over the years.
A large number of exemptions were agreed back in 1992 at precisely the same time that the excise Directive was adopted.
As such, although they may conform with the exemption requirements provided for in the law, the list was agreed without direct reference to the legislation since the list of exemptions and the Directive were adopted on the same day.
A kind of political package deal was done to get the excise duty Directive over the line, as it were.
So the Council feels that on that list, agreed on that day, it got a once and for all exemption.
This is something that in principle Parliament does not accept.
There is a second package in the list of exemptions, which has been adopted over time and which more or less follows the rules set out in Article 84 of the 1992 Directive which deals with these very exemptions.
Finally, there are some more exemptions, making about 80 in total, that have got through the system by tacit agreement: a Member State indicated that it wanted an exemption, no one cried 'stop' so the exemption came to pass.
So that is the way the exemptions have ended up for review at this stage.
In reviewing this long and complex list, Parliament has set out in Amendment No 4 to recital 8 of the Commission's proposal its essential view in principle of what should happen, which is that no review procedure should be adopted by the Council which has as its object or effect the indefinite open-ended extension of exemptions.
This principle, of course, does not rule out extending exemptions, it simply says that we must keep them under regular and constant review and that they cannot exist indefinitely.
Furthermore, we in Parliament insist on the desirability of regular and periodical review with the possibility of renewal, subject to three conditions: that the exemptions be renewed respecting fair competition, the proper functioning of the internal market and Community policy on environmental protection.
By placing these principles in a recital, we are signalling a strong intent on Parliament's part but nonetheless it should not create any operational difficulty for the Council in the next few weeks to sort out this exemptions question.
However, in Amendment No 5 we draw attention to the fact that all exemptions shall and must be subject to fundamental review as part of the proposal for a Council directive on a Community framework for the taxation of energy products.
This is a major review that looks at the ill-fated CO2 tax, all the exemptions, all the excise duties on mineral oils, and the energy and environmental policies.
We want that review as a matter of fundamental principle to be open-ended to such a degree that no exemption we are treating today can be presumed to be inviolate or free from review as part of this framework proposal that we shall consider in due course.
In agreeing to place these principles in the recitals and not in the articles of the proposal for decision, we are stopping just short of a showdown with Council right now.
We are stopping just short, provided the Commissioner tonight can confirm that the Commission accepts the principles we have laid down and that they will back those principles and represent those those principles at Council, specifically in relation to the framework directive on energy taxation which, as I said, we will come back to.
On the question of timing, we have a number of amendments.
This has been a slow procedure and the result is that some of the timing dates mentioned in the proposal are now out of date.
So a lot of the amendments are simply updating the document as required because of the passage of time.
The Green Group has recommended two elements on timing.
They say that the review procedure on exemptions in the future should be tied into the framework document.
I agree with that in principle.
But I have one fear and therefore as rapporteur I am not recommending the acceptance of the Green Group amendments.
We know just how difficult it is under Article 99 to get the Council of Ministers to agree anything on taxation and my fear is that if we adopt the Green Group amendments, we may not get to review the exemptions for years because - I hope it will not happen, but it could - the Council will delay the adoption of the framework document for a prolonged period of time.
I want to see dates left in and, if it is replaced by the framework document, what the Greens want to see - which I agree with in principle - will then come to pass.
But for that practical reason, I am suggesting that we stick with my original amendments and not with those of the Green Group.
Finally, I repeat that I want to hear on the record of this House tonight an engagement from the Commission to support Parliament's principles in this exercise fully.
They are: no to indefinite open-ended excise exemptions; yes to regular review with the possibility of renewal; yes to fundamentally reviewing all existing mineral oil exemptions as an integral part of the proposed framework for taxation of energy problems.
Mr President, after Mr Cox there is not much else to say.
But can I start off by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Cox, in piloting this report through the committee, and hopefully through the Parliament, in a largely uncontroversial way.
There are a number of alterations to the original documents but the vast majority of them, as Mr Cox pointed out, are to do with deadlines.
The extensions which have been tabled are sensible on the whole and therefore acceptable to the Socialist Group.
The two he highlighted, the two amendments from the Greens, Nos 1 and 3, the Socialist Group will be backing because we do believe they give a greater flexibility and we do think that maybe the Council of Ministers will come forward with a decision on them and we will be able to review the exemptions in the future.
We will also be supporting the amendment to the effect that in any future review procedure will not be on the basis of an indefinite open-ended extension of the exemptions.
The whole question of excise duty, whether it be on mineral oil, tobacco or alcohol is one which this Parliament must face up to.
For too long we have shut ourselves off from reality, we have not faced up to the problems.
The completion of the Single European Market is a goal of this Parliament, but too often protection of sacred cows, which many groups in this Parliament defend, have put obstacles in the road towards the completion of the single market.
I would be the last person to defend or to abdicate complete harmonization of indirect taxes, but where the differentials are so great that it is leading to distortions in the market and fraudulent trading then it is high time this Parliament acted.
For not to do so would be for us to condone the worst practices currently existing within the single market.
That is true for mineral oils, it is true for tobacco and it is also true for alcohol.
For the Parliament to overcome this, we must break out of our parochial views from our regional or national areas and consider the wider implications.
The reports on tobacco and alcohol will be discussed later this year.
Unfortunately I do not see the same progress being made in these areas as has been made in the area of mineral oil but one can always hope. Looking about, this is the year of change.
For the first time in eighteen years we now have a Labour government in Britain.
I was thinking as I was listening to the previous debate that for the first time in 68 years Kilmarnock has won the Scottish Cup, so I really have to think this is the year for change.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Cox has put his finger on the salient point.
It concerns the relationship of this report to Commissioner Monti's initiative, which was designed to create a legal framework for the taxation of energy products.
Just as he, for the reasons he explained, does not wish to accept our amendments, we cannot approve his report without our amendments, for we consider it crucially important to make Mr Cox clearly aware that the Monti initiative must succeed, and then I would extend it again.
We have still more changes of government ahead of us, and once we have changed governments in Germany there will be no governments left that want to sabotage systematically the harmonization and coordination of taxes.
Then at least nobody will be able to make the excuse that some governments are seeking unfair advantages for historical or purely national reasons.
And then the Monti proposal and the Commission initiative will surely butter our parsnips.
Since that will happen in the foreseeable future, Mr Cox, our proposal on the coordination of time limits is certainly not about postponement until never-never day but an attempt to take political action in this situation, to maintain the pressure and to tackle the necessary restructuring of the entire system of indirect taxes, so that the unfair, ecologically harmful and antisocial distortions that are rooted in today's markets for historical or national reasons can finally be weeded out.
That is an urgent task.
It is part and parcel of the completion of the single market, and we must not ease the pressure.
For these reasons we shall take the line I have described.
Mr President, we support the Commission's proposal to abolish a considerable number of the exemptions from excise duty on fuels.
The use of mineral oils is accompanied by external effects which are often not passed on in the market price, and levying excise duty can do something to offset this.
Naturally, it must be applied as consistently as possible.
There is one incomprehensible exception which clearly flouts this rule, and that is the kerosene exemption for commercial aviation.
The Commission rightly feels that this exemption cannot form part of a sustainable policy and intends to urge the International Civil Aviation Organization to carry out a feasibility study.
However, I do not think that its approach is firm enough, and things could drag on for some years yet.
The proposed decision which is before the House abolishes all the exemptions for internal leisure aviation, and rightly so.
The next logical step is to impose a kerosene levy on all commercial aviation within the European Union, particularly where there is good alternative transport for short-distance flights.
A second step would be for the Member States of the Union, if possible with the United States and Japan, to revoke the international agreement on this matter and jointly to introduce a levy on kerosene.
How far is the Commission prepared to go along with these proposals, and what timescale would it follow?
I think everyone agrees that we need to work towards a transport policy which is as sustainable as possible.
Exemptions for inland waterway transport are compatible with such a policy, since this mode produces far fewer external effects than road transport.
The expected increase in transport should therefore be absorbed by inland waterway transport as far as possible, not least because of the overcapacity which exists in this sector.
We need to ensure that this form of transport is made as safe as possible, and we need to combat surface water pollution.
An exemption for local public transport is a good move for improving the environment in Europe's cities, and if it can be limited to the lighter fuels such as LPG in future, things will be all the cleaner.
I agree with the Commission that it must be possible for Member States to introduce different rules in future.
The main objective must always be to protect the environment, and exemptions must not be granted indefinitely.
The Commission welcomes the Cox report containing the opinion of Parliament as it reflects and supports the Commission's view that there should be no open-ended derogations.
All the proposed amendments which alter the effective dates in the draft Council decision can be accepted without reservation.
The amendment to Recital 8 can also be accepted in principle, subject to detailed examination of the drafting.
On the other hand, whilst the new Recital 8a precisely describes the Commission's intention to introduce a new procedure in its proposal for the restructuring of the system for the taxation of energy products, we cannot accept it as a new recital as it does not refer to any provisions in the body of the text and is not, therefore, legally justifiable.
In this context I should like to point out to Parliament that during discussions in the Council on the Commission proposals for the restructuring of the system for the taxation of energy products, the Commission will take the opportunity to come back again on the whole issue of the treatment of derogations and seek, through the introduction of a new procedure, a situation whereby no derogations exist for an indefinite period.
Mr President, in the principle of the matter there is no disagreement between Parliament and the Commission.
With regard to Amendment 5, that is, Recital 8a (new), which the Commissioner says cannot be accepted because it does not find a legal basis in the decision, the amendment refers to exemptions in the Council decision.
In my opinion and that of the committee it is firmly rooted in the current proposal for a decision and builds exclusively on that, but adds in the important political reference that all these exemptions should be subject to fundamental review in the framework document.
I do not dispute in any way that we are in full agreement as regards the substance of the issue.
Others will have to look at the legal aspects because I am not an expert on that.
But on the substance, we are in full agreement.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.05 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, looking at the record of voting for yesterday, for some unknown reason - and I am usually pretty diligent about these matters - there are three votes where I am not recorded as having voted.
I did vote on every vote yesterday.
We have made a note of that and we shall check it.
Madam President, I refer to page 8 of the Minutes for yesterday where it says: ' The President closed the debate' .
What it does not say is that Members were summoned to vote at noon but that the debate was still continuing.
Indeed, Commissioner Cresson was obliged to reply to the debate while Members were still coming into vote.
The President had to call upon Members to stop talking and take their seats to allow the Commissioner to finish her response.
It seems to me that we are not ordering our affairs as efficiently as we should.
Members come to Parliament to talk and if they arrive in the Chamber expecting to vote and find that a debate is still in progress, it is not unnatural that they should speak to each other.
I submit that we should organize our affairs better and either allow a certain amount of time in the morning session for those colleagues who will run over - as I am doing - or start the voting later.
That was not about the minutes, but we have made a note of it.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Madam President, on Tuesday morning, despite grave reservations, we agreed on the urgency of sending financial assistance to Macedonia and Bulgaria, even though we had not had any opportunity to discuss the matter in committee.
Because of the urgency of the situation there, however, we agreed, and in committee we were told that on Friday we would have the opportunity to hold a brief discussion on this subject.
Now I see that no such debate is planned, and I wish to protest about that, because it has never been discussed, and because it is not in line with our procedure to date.
Mr Posselt, I can only say that the committee decided on a procedure without report, and so there was no reason to hold a discussion at the part-session.
Madam President, what Mr Posselt says is correct.
We raised this point ourselves, and we asked that the issue should not be dealt with in this way since we knew that it would not be discussed in committee or in the plenary.
That was perfectly clear.
So you are right to say that not having a debate is not the proper way to go about things, but that was part of the package you voted for, and that is where the problem lies.
Thank you Mrs Aelvoet .
Votes
The recommendation is deemed adopted, since no written objections have been submitted by one tenth of the Members of Parliament.
I wish to protest most strongly against the way in which the Council has pressurized us over the financial assistance for Bulgaria and Macedonia.
There is no urgent need for this financial assistance, since it is not emergency aid for a starving population.
These are not countries where a disaster happened the day before yesterday, and where it is absolutely essential for blankets to be sent today.
In spite of this, the Council has approached Parliament at a time when it is unable, either in the appropriate committees or in the plenary session, to verify the circumstances, to discuss the issue, to draw up a report and to vote on it in full knowledge of the facts.
The Council's disregard for Parliament once again shows up the European institutions in a very bad light, and makes it urgently necessary to have a fundamental revision.
I have a further criticism about the financial assistance itself.
In the present case, it consists in issuing non-transparent loans in order to balance the budgets of the countries concerned.
Basically, these credits are just being used to secure other credits issued by private banks in Europe.
In other words, once again public resources are being used to ensure that the banks' private profits do not shrink Public money is being used to oil the wheels of private banks.
That is not a responsible way to use tax-payers' money.
In addition, it keeps these 'assisted' countries in debt.
What we have here, in fact, is nothing more or less than a lightning attack designed to perpetuate the system of dependency on the banks.
These credits are part of an overall strategy which is coordinated by the IMF.
In this way it is able, quite shamelessly, to interfere in the domestic policy of the countries concerned.
In Bulgaria, this issue has even caused a government to fall from power.
This carrot-and-stick policy is extremely problematical.
The EU can always turn off the money supply if the governments in question do not toe the line and follow precisely the sort of financial and economic policy that Washington and Brussels approve of.
In no way, however, is our group fundamentally opposed to financial assistance for Bulgaria and Macedonia.
This assistance, however, should not be used to secure bank profits. It should go to the countries and the people affected, and should be used, transparently, to help those branches of the economy that are in difficulties to get back on their feet again.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats voted for the Cox report today.
The proposal for a decision relates to authorizations for Member States to apply a number excise duty reductions and exemptions until 31 December 1998 and to the abolition of a number of other excise duty reductions and exemptions with effect from 31 December 1996.
The Danish Social Democrats would welcome an amendment of Directive 92/81/EEC, which is the legal basis for this proposal, as soon as possible so that the Member States may be authorized to impose excise duties on mineral oils supplied for use as a motor fuel in especially polluting commercial vessels sailing in EU waters.
The provision in Article 8(1c) of Council Directive 92/81/EEC should be deleted, so that Member States are free to impose duties on fuel for use, for example, on catamaran ferries.
Catamaran ferries are the cause of serious environmental pollution, noise nuisance and disturbance to wildlife; they endanger other sea-going vessels and are a nuisance to beach visitors.
The Danish Social Democrats would also like to see the transport of goods and passengers switched from catamaran ferries and other fast-moving craft to more environmentally friendly vessels.
The PPE Group agrees with the rapporteur that we should not approve any kind of review procedure which leads to exemptions being extended indefinitely.
All exemptions must be reviewed at regular intervals, and the PPE Group feels that it is vital to make this clear when all the current excise duty reductions or exemptions expire.
If Member States wish to extend exemptions or reductions in the rate of duty, they must be able to provide good reasons for doing so, and these must not conflict with the principles of the single market, fair competition and a sustainable policy on the environment.
If too many exceptions are made which do not meet these three conditions, it will be impossible for the single market to operate.
This is why my group feels it is clear that the fixing of rates cannot be left entirely to the Member States' discretion.
The Commission's report discusses a number of relatively minor points in detail, but says nothing about the main issues, such as the special position regarding excise duty on fuel for commercial aviation and for shipping.
I understand that the Commission is to put forward a new proposal on the excise duty on mineral oils, so I wonder whether this document before us now really counts for anything.
Perhaps the Commissioner could clarify this point.
There is another point I should like to mention.
Given that at least 70 exemptions or exceptions have been granted over the years for various policy objectives, and not always the most convincing ones at that, I am amazed that the Commission is causing so many problems about granting a low VAT rate for labourintensive services, which could promote employment in sensitive sectors.
In view of the many exemptions granted on excise duty, perhaps the Commission could finally give this proposal serious consideration.
Coming back to the excise exemptions, the forthcoming ECOFIN Council is going to have to reach a unanimous decision on a new package of derogation applications, and it appears that they have all been approved apart from the two from the Netherlands.
The Netherlands wishes to increase the excise duty on fuel from 1 July 1997, except for heavy goods vehicles, i.e. diesel.
What is more, the rate for petrol in the border regions is to be increased less than in the rest of the country, the so-called 'Zalm zone' , and I can well imagine that there is still disagreement on this.
This Zalm zone will mean that there is not simply a difference in rates within the single market, but several at the same time within one country.
If the government is unable to put forward a more convincing argument for this application, which is what Parliament is calling for in its resolution, then I hope that the application relating to the Zalm zone will not be approved.
It would simply create yet another trade barrier, and we have enough of those already.
Pack report (A4-197/97)
We share the opinion that sport plays an important role in the development of young people and also in public health.
But that does not mean that we share the opinion that the EU should concern itself with a specific sports policy, for top class sport or for sport for young people.
The sporting activities of our citizens need very little regulation within the political sphere.
The sporting movement should bear the primary responsibility for sport, both now and in the future.
It, alone, has built up an extensive international co-operation with global and regional co-operation organisations based on local and national structures.
The sporting movement has shown itself capable, without supranational political interference, of arranging impressive international events such as the European championships, the World championships and the Olympic Games.
Such a force should be left in peace.
It is also important to underline that sport for young people is primarily a matter for parents and families, who are at the very bottom of the subsidiarity chain.
European sporting projects fall outside the framework of matters to which the Union should be devoting its energies.
Sport is one of the most widely practised of human activities.
Be it for money or pleasure, regularly or occasionally, millions of people take part in the various sporting activities on offer in the Union.
Yet, despite the Commission's enthusiasm for sport, the humble MEP that I am fears that it is just a smokescreen to hide the lack of legal and financial resources, the scattering that confirms the lack of an overview and the weakness of the Treaties where sport is not mentioned.
It is therefore with fervour and recognition that I welcome the excellent report by our colleague Mrs Pack.
This is a very timely moment since we can hope to put pressure on our governments and on the Commission for the IGC to agree to acknowledge sport as such and not only through the budgetary chapter on 'information and communication' .
Sport, as the 1995 Bosman judgment involuntarily revealed, is not just an economic activity to be dealt with in accordance with competition rules.
It is also and above all a field enabling the rapprochement of cultures and nationalities, helping towards the social integration of the disabled and in which spectators and players alike are equal.
Sport brings together many people in organisations and clubs, where they are committed to cultural networks and practise democratic responsibility.
It is therefore time to provide our ambitions with the necessary means.
That is why I support and applaud the Pack report.
I hope that our Assembly will do the same.
There can be no doubt about the importance of sport and the interest which the majority of the people of the EU have in it.
But I do not agree with the rapporteur that an Article in the EU Treaty is needed to cover sport.
This is an area which, I think, should be covered at national level.
I cannot support Amendment No. 3 from the Socialist group, because the amendment proposal means that giving public aid to professional sporting associations would be forbidden.
We do not distinguish between professional and non-professional sporting associations in Sweden, in fact they are often linked.
If this became an EU regulation this would remove the foundation stone of Swedish sporting activity.
On the contrary, I think it is a good thing for the public sector to give support as this gives the associations independent status.
Sport is so very important, particularly for young people, that its activities should not be dependent on whether a sponsor can be found.
Unfortunately sport has so far been forgotten in our treaties.
This formidable tool of social cohesion, education, crime prevention and job creation must now mobilize all our energy.
In the Union, sport is practised by more than 100 million Europeans, through tens of thousands of sports clubs, and there has been no overview for action to be taken at Community level.
Mrs Pack's excellent report has the merit of making a remarkable summary of a subject covering many, many areas.
Sport is too often regarded as a playful activity and not a vital social, medical, cultural or economic factor.
A good sports policy, with an integrating, educational component, can limit social spending.
Sport is a means of individual and collective education, that also makes it possible to develop the opening up of Europe.
Sport is the first way in which a young person can find out about himself and respect his body, and will enable him later on to respect adversaries and the rules of life in society, develop his energy in a team, regardless of origin, education or language, and to forge links within the European Union.
Without going back on the principle of subsidiarity, we must support the initiatives proposed by Mrs Pack, complementing the pilot activities already under way.
Each European Member State has its special features, and often the British model is referred too.
France as a sporting nation has its advantages but also its weaknesses and, according to our friends in the Union, France is often bad at sport because so many schoolchildren do not attend sport at school, as many as 15 %, even though it is compulsory.
I hope that changes take place in the Community not only for observing experiences but also for inspiring - but not imposing - certain measures.
To conclude, i should like to see special attention paid to sporting practice in the countryside, where sports are of harder access.
In many parts of the countryside, facilities are often too remote for young people and focus on a single sport.
In villages, entertainment is rare and sport can be an excellent means of forging friendly links between people, and help them to find a job and stop them from abandoning our important rural fabric.
In increasingly deserted regions, sport is still a way of keeping people and expressing a community's identity.
Yes, from our village to the whole of Europe, sport is a powerful vehicle of union and cohesion that we must resolutely encourage.
Madam President, I have just one question.
Is it actually permitted for explanations of votes to be given by people who have not even taken part in the vote? At least two thirds of the people you have mentioned did not take part in the vote.
I mean, it does not really matter to me, but I think it is improper, all the same.
Thank you very much.
We shall look into it.
In the light of Mrs Pack's statement, I agree that it is strange to give explanations of voting if you are not even here.
But as explanations of voting must be submitted before the report is fully discussed in the House, it is often the case that a written explanation of voting is submitted, if it is known, for example, that the vote is to take place at Thursday lunchtime.
This means that if the vote is then postponed for several sessions, explanations of voting from colleagues who, for some reason, are no longer here may remain.
This is not due to the Members who are no longer here but to the rules which are a little strange.
Thank you very much.
We shall look into it.
Madam President, on a point of order.
You are going to look into it but I am not sure how if you do not actually know who is here so that you can compare them with who has made an explanation of vote.
May I suggest that you have a roll-call vote and then you have a record so you can make a check.
Madam President, everyone here in the Chamber has seen people leaving who were here for the vote, so it is too late to do as you suggest.
I am sorry, but it really would not give a fair picture.
Madam President, I am somewhat astonished at this proposal.
I would like to know what Rule you are applying to carrying out this 'policing' vote, to check on members present.
Nominal votes are intended to ensure that members vote for or against.
I did not know that the chair's role was to carry unnecessary policing, as if we were at school.
We have had a request for a roll-call vote, to check who is present.
I am now asking you: do you want this roll-call vote? Of course, the roll-call will only tell us who is present at the moment.
(Parliament agreed, and the President held the roll-call vote.) The number of those present will be recorded in the Minutes.
However, we cannot necessarily draw any conclusions from this regarding the number of people who were present ten minutes ago.
Madam President, I just want to make it clear that although I was present I did not take part in the vote, because it seems to me that this is the first time we have voted on nothing in this Parliament! It does not seem right to me to vote on nothing.
What were we voting on? It is impossible to take a vote on nothing.
Thank you very much.
I have already explained this before.
We were just checking to see who was present in the Chamber at a specific time.
That was what Members wanted.
Madam President, I should like to suggest, to be on the safe side, that none of those who have submitted an explanation of vote is entitled to do so, because it has been proved that none of them was present here in the Chamber, and this was not checked at the time.
Explanations of vote cannot, therefore, be given, because under Rule 122 of our Rules of Procedure - as Mrs Pack has quite correctly pointed out - this point is crucial, and it was not checked at the time, and of course it has not been established by the so-called roll-call vote.
This vote must therefore be accepted without any personal explanations.
Thank you, Mr Nassauer.
I should just like to confirm once more that the vote that we have just held in no way affects what has gone before.
Madam President, I cannot see that there is any infringement of the Rules of Procedure.
Rule 118 says: ' The result of the vote shall be recorded' , but it does not say how.
So if you ask for an electronic vote, as is your right, you can record the vote as you wish, with or without names.
We cannot debate this point for hours on end.
I shall invite four more Members to speak, and then we shall start voting on Mrs Alvoet's report.
Madam President, I support Mr Tomlinson's suggestion.
Somehow there must have been some mistake in the PPE whipping arrangements this morning.
We do not seem to have had our roll-call vote yet.
Some of us are waiting patiently for it.
(Laughter )
Madam President, we have provided sufficient entertainment for the electorate in the gallery.
I suggest that we now move on with our business and bring this House back to some kind of sanity again.
(Applause )
Madam President, this session has demonstrated that we can never take Friday morning sessions seriously.
Consequently, I am leaving the Chamber.
(Mixed reactions) )
I should like to contradict what Mr Cars has said.
It is our bounden duty to be here on a Friday, just like any other day of the week.
That is what we are employed for, to work here and not to be absent.
Mr Cars, I wish you bon voyage, but you are not a Member of Parliament any more.
(Applause)
Article 366a of Lomé IV
The next item is the Interim Report (A4-0175/97) by Mrs Magda Aelvoet, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Decision on a framework procedure for implementing Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention (COM(96)0069 - C4-0045/97-96/0050(AVC)).
Madam President, the Council has asked us to approve a proposal for a decision on a procedure for implementing Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention.
On 15 April this year, the Committee on Development and Cooperation approved my proposal to submit an interim report pursuant to Rule 80(3) of the Rules of Procedure.
The first time that a human rights clause was included in the actual body of the Lomé Convention was under Lomé IV in 1989, and it now fits in very well with the new geopolitical order, in that since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the inclusion and implementation of human rights clauses in international treaties has become systematic.
Two years later, in 1991, the Council adopted a detailed resolution on a human rights clause, democratic principles and development.
A further year later, during the negotiations on and adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, the political will to include a human rights clause was confirmed in Article 130u.
At that time, the clause was seen as part of the general development cooperation objectives and the common foreign and security policy.
Since 1992, respect for human rights and democratic principles has been regarded as an essential element of foreign policy, and we can see how it has progressed from initial recognition, through inclusion in the Treaty, to finally being seen as an essential policy component.
In 1995, the Commission published a communication - COM(95)216 - which for the first time made it possible for the EU to immediately suspend an international agreement without even opening the procedures for settling disputes, where the issues involved are particularly important or urgent.
On the actual substance of the decision before us today, the Committee on Development and Cooperation has put forward a number of amendments, in other words a number of Parliament recommendations, which differ from the Council's own proposals.
First of all, we refer in the recitals to a series of international agreements, so that the whole concept can be applied in the widest possible sense.
Secondly, when it comes to triggering the procedure, Parliament would like to see not just the Commission or a Member State able to take the initiative, but also Parliament itself.
A further important amendment here is that the Committee on Development and Cooperation feels that the Council should decide by a qualified majority rather than unanimously, and that Parliament should also have to give its assent.
So we are calling for Parliament's assent and a qualified majority decision.
Finally, we think that the resumption of cooperation should be discussed following an assessment report by the Commission, with the Council again deciding by a qualified majority after the European Parliament has given its assent.
These are the main points of the position of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Madam President, as the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I am very pleased with the substance of this report, as Mrs Aelvoet herself, modest though she is, has already said.
It is a report of far-reaching significance for the future, in that it finally makes human rights and democracy a precondition for certain forms of cooperation.
The various committees involved have worked together to produce a report which is the first step towards a negotiating process with the Council.
By choosing the procedure under Rule 80(3), Parliament is now able to propose amendments to a request for its assent, whereas normally it would only be able to say yes or no, and there would be no scope for amendments.
And amendments are certainly needed, although the Commission's proposal does represent a step forward in principle.
What we are dealing with here is a proposed procedure for determining what to do if an ACP country fails to observe the essential elements of the Lomé Convention, namely democracy, human rights and the state based on the rule of law.
Any decision to suspend cooperation must be firmly based on clear criteria, and the procedures must be transparent and agreed fairly with the ACP countries.
In principle, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy welcomes the Commission's proposal to have a fixed procedure for applying the democracy clause.
Clarity and transparency are essential elements in any successful human rights and external policy.
Our partners - in this context, as I have already said, the ACP countries - are entitled to know what the situation is.
Consultation prior to taking any sanctions is one of the principles of partnership, as well as often being a more effective instrument.
Transparency means that the criteria for suspending cooperation also need to be clear, but the Commission proposal says nothing about this, so it is up to Parliament to fill the gap.
The need to respect human rights, democratic principles and the state based on the rule of law is something that deserves our full support, and I wonder whether, in the negotiations with the Council, I should not also add respect for the territorial inviolability of third countries as a criterion.
On the decision-making procedure itself, the Committee on Foreign Affairs welcomes the Commission's proposal to use a qualified majority vote in the Council.
We already have far too much experience in the Union of one country or a small number of countries forcing the rest to give economic interests priority over political considerations of human rights.
The need for unanimity ties Europe's hands, as we have seen all too often.
However, majority voting alone is not enough.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs is calling for Parliament to have a right of assent as regards the suspension of cooperation under Lomé.
We find it completely unacceptable that a cooperation agreement that was entered into with Parliament's assent should be able to be suspended without it.
The committee demands assent for the suspension of cooperation under Lomé, alongside that for its initiation.
Another gap in the Commission's proposal is in the procedure for ending suspension, which is not dealt with at all.
Rules for this procedure are urgently needed, since we shall not wish to make every temporary suspension permanent.
The temporary suspension should lead to corrective measures being taken, and following the same logic which I described earlier regarding the right of assent, the Committee on Foreign Affairs considers that a decision to end the suspension should be taken by a qualified majority in the Council, on a proposal from the Commission and with Parliament's assent.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs hopes that the House will support the amendments it has tabled, which are designed to flesh out the Commission's proposal and provide greater clarity for those concerned.
We need to abandon the current practice of allowing the Council to take ad hoc decisions without consulting the parties involved.
With a few exceptions, the Union has a good reputation when it comes to human rights, and it at least sets out with the intention of pursuing a sound policy.
It is constantly trying to find ways - not least through the many initiatives proposed by Parliament - to make its policy more efficient and transparent.
The human rights clause was a step forward, but one of the main problems with this was that it was never applied consistently, either in terms of procedure or substance.
The current proposal is the first step towards achieving the necessary clarity, and I hope that the Council will support our proposals.
Finally, I think it is very important to point out here, which is why I have kept it till last, that we feel that this suspension procedure should not just apply to the ACP countries, but should serve as a model for all agreements with all other third countries.
Every agreement should have a suspension procedure of this kind, and the longer we wait, the more we are guilty of discrimination, which is precisely what we must avoid in the application of universal human rights.
Madam President, the rapporteur described very adequately the background to this interim report, and I do not propose to go into that sort of detail - she has done an excellent job there.
I would like to speak about the ideas that were at the forefront of our minds and the recommendations we decided upon when we discussed this in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
First of all, we want the Commission to insert into the proposed procedure the various steps which should apply when considering withdrawal of Lomé trade preferences, in line with withdrawal of the trade benefits under, for example, the Scheme for Generalized Preferences.
That is very much in line with what Mr Bertens called for: that we need some degree of continuity and a measure of adherence to some general rules in order not to be accused of discriminatory treatment.
We also called specifically for the inclusion of articles dealing, in the case of withdrawal of Lomé trade preferences, with the circumstances under which Lomé trade provisions can be withdrawn: the consultation process involved, the duration and scope of the investigation by the Commission, the modalities for the final proposal by the Commission to the Council and Parliament on the suspension of Lomé trade provision for the country concerned.
We also fully support the Commission's proposal that Council decisions on suspension under Article 366a should be decided by qualified majority, and we insist that if Council fails to agree on the principle of qualified majority under the proposed procedure, then Parliament should be reconsulted as a matter of urgency.
We also ask the Council and the Commission to ensure that the necessary transparency and consistency apply in suspension measures vis-à-vis individual ACP countries and that there is equal treatment of the ACP in comparison with the European Union's other cooperation partners.
We call on the Commission and the Council to ensure an early involvement of the European Parliament in all cases of suspension under Article 366a.
We consider that the presence of the European Parliament during the consultation period has been crucial.
I would just like to reiterate two important points that emerged from our discussion: one was that these decisions should be taken only by qualified majority voting in the Council and, if that is not agreed, then Parliament should be reconsulted immediately; secondly, Parliament should be involved in all cases of suspension at the earliest possible opportunity.
I would be grateful for confirmation from the Commission that would be the case.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen.
The group of the European People's Party supports this report.
We believe that the human rights clause is a very important clause in the minds of the people in the countries concerned, because it is a question of punishing not people, but governments who violate the human rights of their citizens.
Nor is it an act against the countries concerned, but rather against the governments which abuse human rights, if we suspend the Lomé Convention in this area.
It is true that the European Union is still using double standards here, and is not being quite consistent.
However, I do not share the views of those who say that the ACP countries are fundamentally worse in this respect than the others, but it is true that, unfortunately, geopolitical and economic considerations frequently play a part.
It is not a question of whether a country is an ACP country or not, but of whether a Member States has specific interests.
We really must overcome this problem.
We must pursue a consistent policy on human rights, and we must not have double standards.
Madam President, as far as I can see, Mrs Aelvoet's report aims to promote two things: human rights in the ACP countries, and Parliament's control and authority in that field.
Following the events of the last two years in Africa, everyone knows that suspending development aid is in many cases an extremely necessary, often unavoidable and sadly not always effective measure.
Generally speaking, however, it is true that countries which take respect for human rights seriously also tend to respect the right to development in the broader sense.
To be fair, it has to be said that the human rights clause has formed an important part of the Lomé Convention for some time now, and just because it did not find its way into agreements with other third countries until later should not mean that the ACP countries are judged more strictly.
The procedural amendments proposed by Mrs Aelvoet must be based on clear criteria, since this is what the countries concerned are entitled to expect.
It has to be better for decisions to be taken by a qualified majority in the Council, with Parliament's assent.
This interim report by Mrs Aelvoet, a respected colleague and a determined defender of human rights, fits in very well with the current tone of the negotiations at the IGC.
Finally, I entirely agree with Mr Bertens that the approach proposed by Mrs Aelvoet should also apply to all other agreements with third countries.
My group wholeheartedly supports her proposals.
This report, Mrs Aelvoet's, comes at just the right time for us to match our actions with our words.
Since the beginning, cooperation between the European Union and the ACP countries has in theory been based on the respect of human rights and freedoms.
But that foundation, as every day reality shows, is unfortunately only theoretical.
Many years after that cooperation began, we are being proposed measures to set conditions on aid or rather, when we already have a tradition of giving aid, to suspend our help if human rights and individual freedoms are being violated seriously in aid beneficiary countries.
I would add that what is being proposed is not excessively binding because a consultation procedure is provided for so that we can dialogue with the countries against which sanctions are being planned.
I only see advantages in the proposed arrangements, especially since they have been further improved by Mrs Aelvoet's work and that of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
We are fully behind the spirit of the amendments which Mrs Aelvoet has proposed for this proposal.
I am thinking in particular of the amendments aimed at sharing the suspension procedure initiative with the European Parliament and applying qualified majority voting for Council decisions since, if unanimity were required, I know of cases where a single country, sometimes mine as it happens, would block the whole arrangement that we want to set up.
We did not go along with Mrs Aelvoet, however, when she proposed an exhaustive list of the human rights whose violation would lead to aid suspension, since we think that the different situations of the beneficiary countries should be taken into account.
I should also like to draw your attention to an amendment tabled by our former colleague, Bernard Kouchner, who asked us to show circumspection when resorting to embargoes or blockades, since it is the ordinary people who suffer in those cases instead of the authorities we want to sanction.
I think that the Council should listen hard to the proposals for amendments to the text, and I think that if we had applied it in the past, we might have avoided many tragedies in Africa.
I think that our examination will be complete once we have proposed applying this conditionality arrangement to bilateral cooperation by Member States of the European Union.
Madam President, I should like at this late stage to draw attention to two points.
We can see in practice that the Union's position with regard to ACP and non-ACP countries does indeed suggest discrimination.
We are much easier on the ACP countries than non-ACP countries, with one exception: Burma.
Secondly, we tend to treat wealthy ACP countries very differently from the others, so that we are quick to take action against the Gambia and Niger, but we wait a very long time before taking action against Nigeria.
Finally, and this is my last comment, I have withdrawn those of my amendments that were not approved by the committee - although they now seem to have appeared again - so my only proposal now is the one that was agreed in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
The fact is that even among human rights experts, the possibility of having different sanctions for violations of political and civil rights and social and economic rights is still a controversial issue.
I think it is much better to leave any political statements on this until the situation has become clearer.
I therefore withdrew my amendments before the part-session, although this has apparently not actually been carried out.
Member of the Commission. (SV) Madam President, the Commission has studied with great interest the interim report by Mrs Aelvoet on Article 366a of the Lomé Convention along with the opinion of the REX committee and the committee for external affairs.
The Commission shares the view that we need continuity and co-ordination in our approach to human rights, democratic principles and law and order.
So we will shortly be submitting a communication to the Council and to Parliament in which we clarify the concepts which will apply and propose a more structured suspension procedure.
The Commission's proposal is concerned only with the decision making procedure in European institutions.
It is important to underline that this does not alter, nor can it alter the procedure which is enshrined in Article 366a of the Lomé Convention.
A number of the amendments proposed by the committee on external affairs would make the wording of Article 366a meaningless.
This applies to the proposal on the need for consent from each country as part of the procedure, particularly before the State involved has been asked for consultation and before action is taken or suspended.
The Article proposes that appropriate action is taken immediately in urgent situations, or in the case where a country refuses consultation.
It also says that such action shall, and I quote, ' be suspended as soon as the reason for its introduction no longer exists' .
It would be impossible to apply such regulations using such a long and complicated procedure such as that proposed by the committee.
It would also be in breach of the normal procedures envisaged by the Treaty.
On the other hand, it is of course appropriate to review more closely the potential for an increased role for Parliament in the implementation of the sanction clause, otherwise referred to in the text as the non-executive clause .
The Commission is quite prepared to investigate how this could be accomplished.
Thank you very much, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution.)
Madam President, a few seconds to say that of course I voted for the position proposed by Mrs Aelvoet, but I would like to tell everyone that it is impossible to distinguish between a human rights policy vis-à-vis the ACP and the European Union's foreign and security policy.
I think that the human rights issue is linked to our very political conception of these countries.
I would suggest to colleagues who voted for the Aelvoet proposal that qualified majority should be applied in the Council, and not unanimity, for foreign and security policy.
There have often been contradictory votes.
Yesterday, some colleagues refused to accept our position on qualified majority voting for foreign and security policy.
Yet it is necessary if we are to be coherent when defending human rights!
Marine biotoxins
The next item is the report (A4-0177/97) by Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Decision amending Council Decision 93/383/EEC of 14 June 1993 on reference laboratories for the monitoring of marine biotoxins (COM(96)0464 - C-0547/96-96/0234(CNS))
Madam President, I would like to pay tribute to the work which was done by a very fine reference laboratory in Torry in Aberdeen in Scotland.
Ironically and strangely, this was the responsibility not of the Scottish arm of the British Government but of the English ministry.
The record of that laboratory was a very fine one, it was recognized right across Europe.
In fact within that ministry the reference laboratory in Torry had the best record in attracting joint funding from the European Commission.
It was a laboratory of European significance.
The reward for this was to be closed down.
The reason was purely on cost grounds because the ministry under the previous government decided to concentrate activity south of the border and to close the Torry food research institute.
Naturally those involved were appalled.
There was concern expressed also by the European Commission and I am grateful for its support.
This laboratory was in the forefront of research on, for instance, salmonella, E-coli 0157 and botulism and with the concern about public health which is very real at the moment this is exactly the sort of laboratory that should have been encouraged instead of being closed down.
Those of us in the area - and I represent that constituency in Scotland - were appalled at the treatment which was meted out to it.
At the time when I tried to raise this I was told it had nothing to do with the European Parliament and I was criticized for doing so.
What is quite fascinating for connoisseurs of parliamentary procedure is that suddenly the legal base has been changed and a year later, when the laboratory has already been closed and it is too late to affect the result, we are told 'Oh yes, the Parliament should have been involved' .
Last month I was told that there would be a change in the legal base and so it came to the Fisheries Committee on Monday of this week.
At the very last minute we were told 'Oh yes, you were quite entitled to be consulted, it is a joint responsibility for the Parliament' .
That makes the whole issue of more relevance than perhaps the fate of one single laboratory in one part of Europe.
The laboratory has been scattered to the four winds.
Some of the researchers there have been moved down to York and some to Norwich.
They have either been exiled to England or, in some cases, lost their jobs completely.
I am glad to say that some of the work has been retained in the area after a very sustained campaign and there are five different units in the Aberdeen area which have taken over some of the laboratory's work.
I would like to think that the spirit of Torry lives on although this is an example of how subsidiarity can be abused by Member States which simply say 'It is our decision, keep your nose out of this one' .
I do think that this is the sort of decision which in the future Parliament should have an involvement in.
However that is now past history and I would like to finish by paying tribute to all the laboratory's work.
The need for such work will continue in the future, not only in Scotland but right across Europe on a cooperative basis.
Madam President, this is a very technical but important report since we are dealing with the question of food safety and hygiene.
Only within the last couple of months scientists in Germany have discovered a strange strain in salmon.
There was an article in a Netherlands newspaper last month that said: not the mad cow, now the mad salmon.
They have allegedly found a strain in the brain of the salmon that is similar to that which caused the tragedy with BSE.
It is important, therefore, that we keep institutes such as the Torry Institute and that we ensure that food hygiene in fish is of the highest possible standard.
The Torry Institute is a very good one.
As Mr Macartney said, it was a victim of savage Tory cuts.
It was also a victim of privatization.
They formed a private company which looked after the fishing research aspects.
There was a tremendous hullabaloo in Scotland about this closure among parliamentarians of all political groups.
The community in the northeast of Scotland was incensed by it.
I am very glad that the Commission is now changing the legal base so that in future, the Committee on Fisheries will be involved in discussions of this nature.
Particularly when we are dealing with Member States, the Fisheries Committee will be asked for its views and opinion.
There is a problem of transparency as well.
We can only achieve more transparency by being involved.
The Socialist Group is very grateful that the legal base has been changed.
We hope to have a profitable future collaboration with the Fisheries Commissioner on issues like this.
I support this report on behalf of the Socialist Group.
Mr President, so the shadow of the BSE crisis has now fallen on the fisheries industry, albeit in a positive sense.
In February this year, Jacques Santer, the President of the Commission, assured the European Parliament, in a reaction to the BSE crisis, which had just been mentioned, that in future all veterinary-law decisions would be taken within the framework of the codecision procedure.
The Commission thus gave an undertaking to Parliament that any proposals that affect public health will be dealt with using the co-decision procedure set out in Article 101a of the Maastricht Treaty.
This procedure is now being applied, actually for the first time, in the case of the directive that covers hygiene and health provisions in the fisheries sector, and in this case, in particular, the control of marine biotoxins in the production and marketing of live mussels and fishery products.
Perhaps we are dealing with a precedent here, as a result of which the co-decision procedure will become the main decisionmaking process in the fisheries sector.
That, in any case, is our request to the Inter-Governmental Conference on the further development of the Maastricht Treaty.
In Amsterdam the 15 EU governments will certainly not be able to ignore it any longer.
As for the content of this report, the proposal contains two decisions.
In the first place, there is the implementation of the hygiene provisions for the production and marketing of the above-mentioned live mussels and fishery products.
For this purpose, every Member State has to designate a national reference laboratory which is responsible, in particular, for the control of marine biotoxins.
Great Britain has now, finally, complied with this requirement.
Secondly, the Commission is proposing to simplify the procedure for dealing with such matters.
In future, it will only inform Parliament when a Member State wants to change the address of the national reference laboratory.
I think that goes without saying.
The Committee on Fisheries has also agreed to it unanimously, provided that the basic principle is not put at risk, i.e. that laboratories of this kind in a Member States should, basically, be given prominence.
I must also add, that the action that Great Britain has opted for here is basically contrary to the procedure.
I can understand my colleagues' disappointment, but all the same I am pleased that, after some difficult negotiations, we have found what I hope will be a good solution.
Mr President, I am glad we are debating Mr Macartney's report today. It raises a very important issue.
Why did the Commission not think originally of allowing Member State Governments the opportunity to change the different scientific stations that would be recognized? It seems extraordinary to me that, when it drew up its original proposal, there was no provision for making this kind of very minor change affecting one Member State without the need for a full consultation process.
Having said that, I recognize what Mr Macartney and Mr McMahon said about it causing a very great deal of dislocation and upset to those involved in Scotland.
I declare an interest, being chairman of part of an organization that had to take on some of the staff involved in what was the Torry Research Station.
My chief concern - and I wonder if at some stage we will get an answer from the Commission - is how the new arrangements which the President of the Commission has announced for food safety and the monitoring of food safety will relate to other parts and other agencies within the European Community? How will this new food agency relate to what may well be a new food standards agency in the United Kingdom?
What control will it have over organizations such as the Torry Research Station which is now split between three or four different agencies? The linkage between the European Community and the Member States is going to be vital for the future and we do not yet know how this relationship is going to take place.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mandate of Advisers on Biotechnology
The next item is the oral question (B4-0348/97) by Mr de Clercq, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on extending the mandate of the Group of Advisers on the Ethical Implications of Biotechnology.
I have received two motions pursuant to Rule 40(5).
The vote will take place after the debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Gradin, we all know that biotechnology is potentially of great benefit to mankind.
However, we have now been overtaken by news which shows that this potential is linked to great risks, and brings up important ethical questions, whether it is the cloning of sheep, or the news that a British doctor in Saudi Arabia is proposing to offer couples babies that will definitely be of the male sex.
These few cases show what kind of ethical questions this technology can give rise to.
They are proof enough that it is absolutely essential for us to have an advisory group on ethical issues.
On 31 July 1997 the mandate of the group of advisers on biotechnology ethics (GABE) comes to an end. For the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, this fact provided us with an opportunity to think about how we wish to proceed further.
Therefore we are asking the following questions.
Does the Commission intend to extend the term of office of this group of advisers? If so, will the group continue to operate with its present membership, functions and structure, or does the Commission intend to change its mandate?
I have to say that that would be desirable. In what form and with what aim will the consideration of ethical questions be organized in future, if the Commission is planning to change the mandate?
I would add to this another question.
How quickly will this happen? In what form does the Commission intend to involve the European Parliament in developing a structure for considering ethical questions at European Union level?
I eagerly await the Commissioner's answers, and perhaps during the course of the debate I may react accordingly.
Given the importance of this subject, I do not think it is really necessary to repeat the fact that I shall fully exhaust my five minutes, in order to talk about this important issue.
Mr President, Commissioner, this morning we are examining the issue of extending the mandate of the Advisers on Biotechnology.
As we know, the field of biotechnology is a difficult one as it has an ethical, moral and religious dimension.
In addition there are very technical problems, often difficult of access for non-specialists.
We are also dealing with considerable social and industrial challenges.
I should like, on behalf of my group, to pay tribute to the work carried out by Mrs Lenoir and her colleagues in the group of advisers.
Their opinions have been precious on the subjects referred to them by the Commission.
By means of their opinions they have acquired an undeniable authority, technical and moral.
We do not always agree with their opinions, of course; and that is normal with such a difficult subject.
The practice of individual opinions - and I am thinking of Professor Mieth's in the case of the patentability of biotechnological inventions - has offered vital answers to this problem, as it is a matter of clarifying political decisions and not standing in for the political decision-makers.
Extending the mandate of this group is certainly welcome.
It still has work to do and I am sure that Mrs Gradin will confirm that.
But, at the same time, we should make the most of the further reflections offered by that extension to work out how it should be replaced by another body.
We want the institutional authority of this body to be recognised and reinforced.
It is difficult, we are told, to strengthen the nature of this body since biotechnology, as such, does not come within Community powers.
That is true and the Court of Justice has recognized that, but it is only partly true - and that is why the group was set up in the first place - as biotechnology affects various matters which are part of Community scope and action.
I would therefore ask Mrs Gradin and her colleague to think again about ways of giving this body, responsible for clarifying biotechnological choices, a stronger statute.
We want the European Parliament to be involved in the appointment of the members of any future body.
It is not at all in our minds to politicize this body but, on the contrary, to guarantee its independence and that of its members and, by doing so, to strengthen its authority, just as we do by appointing the members of the Court of Audit which in the past has enabled us to avoid certain over-politicized appointments.
The mandate of this body must remain strictly consultative.
It would be a mistake to transfer decisionmaking power to an independent body, regardless of its authority, given the diversity of conceptions and ethical cultures in the European Union.
There is no unified European bioethics area.
We probably need directives and references, and political responsibility must be taken in the democratic institutional framework that is ours, in a spirit of clear non-religious intervention, i.e. marked by an attachment to our values, our common values, and the rejection of intolerance and irrational behaviour which are all too frequent in this field.
Mr President, the Commission has proposed that the mandate for the advisory group on ethical aspects of biotechnology be extended to the end of this year.
The intention is that the group, working under the chairmanship of Madam Leonard, should be able to complete the work which they have started at the request of the Commission.
It is primarily a matter now of looking at the draft of the fifth framework programme for research and development.
A growing number of ethical questions are being raised as a result of progress in the field of biotechnology.
So, the Commission would quickly like to give a fresh stimulus to the group.
The new questions arising in this field affect people's everyday lives and ought therefore to be very carefully investigated.
The Commission has therefore urged the group to put together a plan for their forthcoming work.
Based on this plan we can give the group a new mandate, which we will do at the end of the year. This will also enable us to strengthen the role of the group, its structure and its position as an advisory and independent ethical group in the European debate.
The Commission is satisfied with the work carried out by the group so far.
At the same time, we consider that the group needs to be strengthened for the future to be able to meet the expectations held by our people which find expression in the questions asked of us here in Parliament.
Meanwhile, the Commission will also have discussions on these issues within the group of Commission Members who work on consumer health matters.
Mr President, Commissioner Gradin, the right time to answer would, of course, have been before Mr Cot gave us his opinion, rather than later, but I can make allowances for you, Mrs Gradin, if you do not listen attentively to what the other groups in this Parliament also have to say on this subject.
I should also like my remark to be noted in the minutes.
I would just like to say once again, Madam Commissioner, that the correct time was, of course, after Mrs Gebhardt's question, but we can afford to be tolerant, provided that you will listen very attentively when the other groups are giving their opinion on this subject.
There is no dispute about the opportunities that biotechnology offers, and we must take advantage of them, and we must also be aware of our responsibilities as legislators in this field.
However, these opportunities can only be made use of if people have confidence in the technology, if they know that there are limits, based on clear, ethical grounds, beyond which no one must go, and if abuses, whatever form they take, are punished.
In this connection, it is certainly a good idea to set up an advisory group, drawing its members from various sources, both multi-disciplinary and multi-national.
The way in which this group operates, however, is unsatisfactory in the opinion of my group.
First of all, it is not transparent enough.
There is no clear structure, which lays down who says what within this working group, and as a result it depends very much on the people concerned, and in our confidence in them, and I have to say that our confidence in the persons involved, and in the chairman too, is not exactly strengthened when they give to the opinion of the European Parliament as little consideration as they have been doing in the last few weeks.
In March, we issued an unambiguous position on clones, and now we have the opinion of the group of advisers, and the difference between the two is very striking.
The European Parliament was overwhelmingly against any cloning, including at the embryo stage, and we believe that the use of the Dolly process on human beings should be made a criminal offence everywhere in the world, and at least in our Member States.
The group of advisers, however, has done some intricate manoeuvring here, and is proposing only implantation in the womb, and I believe that this is not at all what the European Parliament had in mind.
So our confidence in the group of advisers has to some extent been weakened.
This can have disastrous results, as we found, for example, in the case of gene manipulation.
The directive on the patenting of biotechnological discoveries was also a disaster because in the Conciliation Committee we agreed, by way of a compromise, to a form of words proposed by the group of advisers, which was clearly contrary to the opinion of Parliament, which has said that is against this type of manipulation, and not just for a specified time, but against it altogether.
In other words, no one took this opinion seriously.
We must be aware of the fact that the legislator has a certain amount of responsibility here, and we can only have confidence in the group of advisers if we know that they take our opinion seriously.
I wonder how the Commission can justify implementing the positions of the group of advisers in a ratio of 1: 1?
Naturally these are highly qualified people, but then we have such people here in Parliament too.
In my group, for instance, we have Professor Casini, who is a lawyer who has been involved with these issues for a long time. Then there are the scientists Professor Trakatellis or Mrs Heinisch.
We also have plenty of theologians in this Parliament as well, and not only in our group.
What higher authority does Mrs Lannoye have, as a lawyer, which the lawyers here in this Parliament - who are involved with this type of work and who also derive authority from the fact that have been elected by the people - do not have? Therefore I would ask the Commission to take our opinions more seriously than those of the group of advisers.
The group of advisers can give advice, and it can even give advice about problems, but the decision has to be made by the legislator, and if the Commission does not base its proposals on that fact, then there will be friction.
One last point: it is always argued that in the USA things are much more liberal, and that therefore we cannot be any more stringent.
In fact, on the question of embryo protection, the USA are more stringent than the group of advisers of the European Commission, because in the USA at least there is no public money for expensive embryo research.
And that does not exclude advisory groups.
So that argument does not cut any ice here either.
Thank you, Mrs Liese, but allow me to explain and absolve Mrs Gradin of all responsibility.
In debates on oral questions the author of the question - in this case Mrs Gebhardt, deputizing for Mr de Clercq - moves the question and is followed by the Commission representative.
An administrative mistake occurred today for which I take the blame, putting Mrs Gradin at the bottom of the list.
When Mrs Gradin was unable to respond immediately to the author of the question, we did our best to put the matter right.
She did not speak out of turn but we were rectifying a mistake for which I take the blame. I apologize to Mrs Gradin.
I now give the floor to Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Green group in the European Parliament.
Mr President, Mrs Gradin, we in the Green Group do not, in any way, feel able to join in with the congratulations given to the group of advisers on ethics.
On the contrary, The group of advisers on ethics has proved itself to be a group of hired applauders of the European Commission, and its job is simply to create acceptance for gene technology and biomedicine.
In its reports and opinions to date, it merely covers the Commission's back as far as ethical issues are concerned, and in its most recent opinion on cloning, even the embryo research that has been prohibited in Germany is declared to be ethically acceptable.
The cloning of animals is also given an ethical certificate of harmlessness.
With its opinion on cloning, the group of advisers on ethics has once again proved that as far as they are concerned, it is not a question of the ethical assessment of new technologies, but a question of gaining acceptance.
It makes no proposals at all about what steps should be taken at international level to stop the cloning of human beings.
In view of the unsatisfactory reports from the group of advisers, and its obvious role as an acceptance creator, it is completely unthinkable that the ethics advisory group should be congratulated on its work to date in the joint resolution proposed by the Christian Democrats and the Socialists.
This is a sign of political inadequacy in the European Parliament.
Mr Liese has already referred to the example of gene manipulation.
I would also remind the House that the group of advisers on ethics also declared that the Commission's secrecy regulation concerning the novel foods regulation was ethically acceptable, etc. etc.
The ethics group also meets behind closed doors, and the opinions of Parliament, as Mr Liese has already pointed out, have not been taken into account at all in the group's work so far.
In its work, the ethics advisory group has very much taken into account the interests of research, and has completely ignored the effects of the new technologies on society.
The ethics advisory group operates as a sedative pill for the public.
The discussion about social issues will be avoided altogether, if the public debate is delegated solely to so-called experts chosen by the Commission.
The ethics advisory group does not inform the public; on the contrary, it tries to mollify public opinion.
It is therefore completely incomprehensible that these two major political groups should be turning themselves into the lackeys of the EU Commission and the Group of Advisers on Biotechnology Ethics.
Owing to the one-sided orientation of the group of advisers, and its role as the creator of acceptance for the EU Commission, in our opinion the mandate should not be renewed under any circumstances.
Mrs Gradin, I can understand that the EU Commission is interested in having someone who will always keep their backs covered where ethical issues are concerned, but when it comes to public debate, this ethics advisory group has made no contribution at all.
On the contrary!
We need to promote public discussion, for example, by holding consensus conferences like they do in Denmark.
Instead of having an ethics advisory group that meets behind closed doors, we need democratic participation in our dealings with the ethical issues arising form gene technology.
The human issues should not be left to experts appointed by the Commission, who meet behind closed doors; they must be discussed by society at large.
My final point is this: the question of what is ethically permissible can only be decided on by society itself, not by competent experts acting as the guardians of that society.
Mr President, it is true that I was representing the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Mrs Gradin, thank you for your reply.
I also believe that it is right to extend the group's mandate until the end of the year, so that work that has been started can be completed properly and in peace.
That is very important, so that we do not have to rush to have everything completed by the end of July.
It is also right that the group should be strengthened.
However, I must say that your answer did not completely satisfy me, and I would just like to say to my colleagues that this is not the time to be going into the question of the composition of this advisory group.
The debate that we have to proceed with today is a completely different one.
I myself have not always been completely happy with the replies that the group of advisers has given.
That is quite clear, but the problem is that the group has to take decisions, and that actually helps to obscure the decisions.
I should like to ask you, Commissioner, and the rest of the Commission, to think about whether the mandate of this group of advisers could not perhaps be changed in such a way as to ensure that the group identifies and sets out for the rest of us the main ethical arguments.
Because it ought to be an advisory group that gives us the tools to take the right decisions, and it should not be compelled, at the end of the day, to take a unified decision.
This would help to create transparency and would make it clear that we, the European Parliament, the European Commission, and of course the European Council, are the decision makers, rather than the advisory group.
The advisory group is there to advise, and nothing else.
And that really needs to be made quite clear.
Mr Cot has already hit the nail on the head.
It is also very important that this group should be pluralistic in its composition, and it is also very important that the European Parliament, since we want it to advise us, should be involved in the composition and mandate of this group and should also be able to talk to it.
This is very important in order to create transparency, which is something that we are demanding, and something that is so important, particularly on issues such as these, that we should be able to show the people, the citizens that we represent, exactly how we work and how we reach our decisions, particularly on such ethically difficult issues such as biotechnology in all its aspects - and you know how many of those aspects there are.
Just one final point: it is absolutely necessary that the group should be able to work completely independently.
This must be guaranteed, and it must be one of the conditions that we should examine very carefully, independently from the client, i.e. the European Parliament and the European Commission.
I have often had the impression that a certain amount of pressure was being put on the group, pushing it in a certain direction.
It may be that this impression was wrong, but it is an impression that quite simply and naturally occurred to me, as to other Members, and therefore I think we should do everything to ensure that such impressions do not arise.
Mr Commissioner, I think our debate should concentrate on the role to be played by the group of advisers on biotechnology ethics at European Union level.
The Union has a duty to regulate sectors of the economy, like biotechnology, which have a determinant influence on the fundamental rights of the human being, like the right to life, physical integrity, identity, and individuality.
By human being I also mean the human embryo immediately on conception, which is threatened by the interests of much efficiency-minded research.
Biotechnology also relates to agriculture: in fact we are constantly witnessing the production of transgenic animals and plants.
We all know that biotechnology in itself is neither good nor bad: it can offer great benefits but it can also create great risks.
From the economic point of view the Delors report demonstrated what a frontline sector biotechnology really is.
On the one hand, those who have invested money in research need to get a return through the patents system.
On the other hand it is true - as I have said - that there are risks: risks of disturbance to the human species and to biological balances.
That is why I think it is necessary to establish an authority, not at a political level, but at a professional and technical level, without the immediate preoccupation of representing people, without the immediate preoccupation of consensus, where opinions can be expressed in a strictly professional way, but only in terms of consultancy. They cannot replace the final decision by the political authority, far less become blanket opinions, as someone else has already said.
The Commission provided for this by creating a group of advisers who have given their opinions. It is not appropriate to take positions on the content of those opinions now, although I obviously have personal reservations about some of them.
As I say, the role this group assumes is important.
Now, in my opinion, it has gone beyond the function of adviser to the Commission, becoming, consciously or not, I do not know, a sort of ethics committee for the Union.
But then, if there is to be an ethics committee of the Union, it must have democratic legitimacy, and its members should not be nominated without consulting Parliament and the Council.
I think there is a duty to remove this ambiguity: do we want to create an ethics committee or extend the role and responsibilities of the group of advisers?
In any case it must be clear that there has to be something different and new as compared with what has happened up to now.
This committee must not become a mere opportunity for certain people to be visible.
Relations between the European Parliament and the group of advisers or the ethics committee must be clearly regulated.
Parliament must become a partner of the committee on a par with the Commission, able to ask for opinions about legislation in progress.
The issues involved are so important, because the European Union is not founded on the market alone, but also on human rights, and human rights are profoundly bound up with ethics.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are seeing the typical Friday effect, as Parliament starts to break up and we are reduced to fewer and fewer Members.
Therefore I shall be very brief, especially since I have the feeling that Mr Liese or Mr Casini have already expressed, very clearly, what the opinion of our committee is.
We are in favour, in principle, of extending the mandate, but we are also quite clearly in favour of strengthening Parliament's influence on this advisory committee, and of strengthening cooperation accordingly, because we as a Parliament also have to act as a sort of conscience within the European Union.
The results produced by the group of advisers so far do not show that the group is fulfilling this function.
We therefore have a very important task in front of us.
I just wanted to add that point.
Mr President, a couple of years ago we as a Parliament rejected the first proposal put forward by the Commission on genetic patenting, and rightly so in my view, because that proposal did not contain an ethical dimension.
I recall being in the Chamber when that vote was taken and I assumed, perhaps rather naively, that when the Commission reconsidered the whole issue of genetic patenting it would come back with a new proposal which would contain a proper ethical dimension.
Sadly, so far at least - although next week there is a vote in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - we have yet to see a Commission proposal which includes an ethical dimension.
Dolly the sheep, however, changes everything.
Dolly has nothing to do with genetic patenting, I concede that, but it has concentrated our mind wonderfully on the ethical issues of biotechnology.
If it is possible to clone a sheep, it will obviously be possible eventually, whether it is this year or in ten years' time, to clone a human being. When we start going down that road, do we play games?
Do we allow a human being to be created in the way that Dolly was created and decide then that we have made a mistake? And do we then kill that human being?
That is the ethical dilemma.
Although I can understand why people say that there is no common ethics across the European Union because we all come from different backgrounds, there are some areas where I am confident that we can reach a common cause.
That should be the function of an ethical committee when established, because I recognize - and it is important that this be said - that biotechnology is the way forward for medicine in the future.
If it is possible now - and I am told it is - to identify the gene which gives women a propensity to breast cancer, and within five years we will see an elimination of the gene which gives men a propensity to prostate cancer, then, clearly, we must take that kind of advance forward.
We have to face it.
I have heard and seen on many radio and television programmes what I regard as naive scientists say: ' why should anyone wish to clone human beings?' I can only recall what happened in the dark days between 1933 and 1945 when the eugenic principle was adopted and put into cruel effect in Germany.
So we have to be very careful before we accept that there is not going to be any ethical dimension whatsoever.
I have tabled Amendment No 177 to the Rothley report.
A compromise has been put forward, which is not yet acceptable.
What I want to see is the establishment of an ethical committee which would not just meet annually and report but be in a position to spot trends.
It is important to do that to keep abreast of scientific development.
Mr President, I would also like to say thank you for this interesting and valuable debate.
As I have said, the Commission is quite prepared to extend the group's mandate until the end of the year.
Parallel with this we intend to discuss, within the Commission group responsible for ethical matters, how we will continue this work and what the composition and nature of the mandate will be.
We ask that we may come back to you on this.
The debate is closed.
We now proceed to the vote.
Motion for a resolution (B4-0484/97) by Mrs Gebhardt and Mr de Clercq, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on extending the mandate of the Group of Advisers on the Ethical Implications of Biotechnology: approved.
Mr President, I voted in favour of the motion by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, because it was considerably improved by the amendment proposed by Mr Liese.
I would also like to point out to Mrs Breyer, however, that this is not a motion from the Socialists and the European People's Party, but a motion from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and I would like to say that I very much agree with her assessment of the notorious recommendation No 9, and I regret the fact that what she said, some of which was justified, was not submitted in the form of an amendment to the Legal Committee's motion - because then we could have voted in favour of it - but was moved as a separate motion.
I would therefore ask that next time you make it possible for us to support your views by proposing an amendment.
Europe Agreement with Bulgaria
The next item is the report (A4-0199/97) by Mrs Erika Mann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the draft Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and Bulgaria, of the other part, signed on 8 March 1993, with regard to the adoption of the necessary rules for the implementation of Article 64(1) (I), (II) and (2) of the Europe Agreement (COM(95)528-4390/96 - C4-0089/97-95/0295(CNS))
Mr President, you have read out the title of the report quite correctly, and I should like to draw the attention of LL Members to the fact that a journalist, very amused, said to me, ' If you people in Europe always invent titles like that, then you should not be surprised if no one understands the content of these things, because they are much too complicated, and nobody can understand what you are talking about!' .
However, I can reassure all Members who are present that it is not really so complicated at all.
It is, in fact, nothing more than an adjustment to the competition rules between the European Union and the Republic of Bulgaria.
I think we should really give some thought to the question of why we invent such complicated titles.
They also have their attractions, and in any case it is a matter of setting out the framework of the implementation provisions that are necessary in order to make this adjustment.
The European Union and the Republic of Bulgaria have concluded a European Association Agreement, which came into force on 1 February 1995.
The purpose of the agreement is to establish an association between the two partners to prepare Bulgaria for membership of the European Union.
Incidentally, Bulgaria applied for EU membership on 16 December 1995, requesting that formal accession negotiations begin at the end of 1997.
I should like to remind you that in July the Commission will be submitting a proposal to the European Parliament, with regard to how these accession negotiations should proceed and which countries should be involved.
To that extent, it is also essential that we should reach agreement on this question today.
I should therefore like to ask all Members of Parliament present to vote in favour of this report.
In addition - and this is also important - not until seven years after the fall of Communism did the turning point come in Bulgaria.
Only after the victory by the United Democratic Forces did Bulgaria turn openly to the West and say that it wanted to be a member of the European Union.
Even more difficult is the question of how membership of NATO might look in future.
We known that there is still intense debate on this issue, including in Bulgaria itself.
The so-called free-trade agreements also make it possible to create a free-trade zone on an asymmetrical basis.
This means that we will open up our market earlier than, and to a different extent from, what we expect from the Bulgarian side.
In order to ensure that the free-trade zone functions successfully, and to make it easier for Bulgaria to adjust to the European Union, thus making EU membership possible, the European (and interim) agreements, for which the European Union alone is responsible, and which have been concluded with all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, contain detailed basic rules on competition, which are virtually identical to those contained in the EC Treaty.
The purpose of the Association Agreement is to adjust national competition law of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, to bring it into line with the Community law of the European Union.
This is the subject of the report that we shall be voting on today.
For this to be possible, a package of implementing provisions under Article 64 of the Europe Agreement will have to come into force.
This also has to be done - and I think that this is quite right - before the Association Council takes its decision, and this means that a joint position must be adopted by the European Union.
The European Parliament has to be consulted - and I should just like to mention this here - on the basis of Article 87 in conjunction with Article 228(2) and (3).
This consultation is, moreover, compulsory.
The implementing provisions must be completed within three years of the date on which the Europe Agreement comes into force.
These implementing provisions - and this is really something very exciting - contain all the rules, as I have already mentioned, all the competition provisions that are set out in the EC Treaty.
It is a question of adjusting Bulgarian national competition law to bring it into line with competition law in the European Union.
It is a matter of recommending, observing and developing an effective competition policy.
This is also the key that will ensure that all the CCEEs are able to create an effective market economy.
This is necessary so that they can allow effective access to their markets and, of course, so that they can gain access to our markets.
Part of this effective competition policy will consist of a legal framework, and then the implementation of competition policy, and then of course control.
The authority responsible on our side is Directorate General IV, and on the Bulgarian side it is the Competition Protection Commission.
Allow me to make a comment here. I believe that we cannot keep on loading more and more responsibilities onto Directorate General IV, without at the same time asking ourselves whether Directorate General IV should have more staff.
As we know, it already has a wide range of tasks to carry out, and it is no longer in a position to carry out these tasks in detail, and as thoroughly as it needs to.
We, as the European Parliament, will soon have to ask ourselves what recommendations we might make in order to change this situation as quickly as possible.
One of the basic principles of competition policy is notification, in other words, an indication must be given of everything that is compulsorily notifiable, in the context of competition policy, both on the Bulgarian side and also on the side of the European Union.
Another of these basic principles is the responsibility - as I have already mentioned - of a competition authority, to ensure that it is possible for information to be sought by both sides, as well as the exchange of secret and confidential information, and the range of group exemptions that are available.
Then again, there is the principle of ensuring that arrangements are made concerning the way in which less important procedures are handled, and of ensuring that the Association Council is always concerned to find acceptable solutions when there are problems.
Finally, there is also the principle whereby, in a case that does not involve both competition authorities - in other words when only one competition authority is competent, that authority keeps the other competition authority informed about the details of the case in question.
As you can see, that is the normal framework and the normal range of options that we are used to working with in the European Union.
We also know how important these have become now: we only have to look at the rows and disputes that have arisen, in the case of Boeing, for example, and in many other cases as well.
We know that we need a basis for trust, and we need a common basis for all the countries that are linked to the European Union within the framework of the Association Agreements, so as to ensure that there is a common competition policy within this framework.
On the other hand, however, we also need a satisfactory, secure package, in order to be able to protect our interests in an international context.
This is going to become even more important in future.
Naturally this includes fairness, in other words, it means that we tolerate and respect the fact that the CCEEs are in a process of political, economic and social transformation, and it means that we accept that they have other historically-determined prerequisites.
We also tolerate the difference between France, Germany and England etc.
All these things are involved in this package.
This is why the procedure for the negotiations that will be taking place in the Association Council and between the individual competition authorities is so important.
The European Parliament has an important role to play, and I am always pleased about the fact that in the Committee on External Economic Relations we are competent to fulfil that function.
Once again, may I ask you to vote in favour of its proposal, and to consult it often in future about this common competition policy.
Mr President, Mrs Gradin, ladies and gentlemen.
It is better to be with one another than against one another.
The friendly adjustment of Bulgaria's competition rules to bring them into line with the European Union is better than the possible use of trade-policy instruments against Bulgaria.
That could be the leitmotiv of Mrs Mann's excellent report, which she has just presented to us and which we now have to come to a decision on.
The Group of the European People's Party also emphatically supports the proposal for a joint position by the Council.
We agree that trade between the European Union and Bulgaria can be put on a fair footing by applying the proposed provisions, so that it can rapidly expand and improve.
This adjustment to existing Community law is an important step along Bulgaria's not so easy path towards membership of the European Union.
I therefore thoroughly support Mrs Mann's report.
However, perhaps I could just say something about the financial aid that we had do decide on this morning, without a debate, using the urgency procedure.
We believe that ECU 250 million over a running time of 10 years is an excellent starting aid for the new Bulgarian government, which is making a determined effort to reform the public budgets and to create the legal framework conditions for a social market economy.
The Prime Minister, Mr Kostov, and his Foreign Minister, in their talks with the Group of the European People's Party in Brussels last week, convinced us that the reforming powers that have come together in the new Democratic Union will quickly set about the task of modernizing the state and the economy.
We have asked the Commission to provide the necessary assistance in a rapid and nonbureaucratic manner, and thus help the Bulgarian people to emerge quickly from a serious economic crisis and come closer to joining the European Union.
However, today, on 13 June, we really cannot see why the Commission did not consult the Committee on External Economic Relations immediately after the adoption of its submission on 22 May.
The Committee on External Economic Relations would not have had any difficulty, at its meeting in May, in drawing up a report, and submitting it today.
Such negligence on the part of the Commission will not be tolerated by Parliament in future.
May I also ask Mrs Gradin, very nicely - she is, after all, not responsible for this - to ask Mr Van den Broek and Sir Leon Brittan to consult us quickly, in future, on similar cases, and to ensure that this farce of a procedure is not repeated.
Mr President, adoption of this report, of this very precise and lucid report by Mrs Mann, presents no particular difficulty.
It covers the implementation of competition rules to prevent distortions in trade with Bulgaria.
What is important, however, Mr President, is the message which goes out to the Bulgarian authorities along with adoption of the report.
Mr Schwaiger has referred to the package that has been put together to cover the financial needs of the restructuring of the Bulgarian economy.
We should remember that the European Union is not the only body which is contributing to the restructuring of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and thus of Bulgaria, and that the concessions that the European Union has already made in the agreements that have been concluded, even though they accelerate access for those countries to the European Union, to the Community market, in the industrial products sector, constitute only a relative advantage because the overall framework of relations is shaped out in a much more general form by the GATT agreements.
Thus we ourselves are dealing with individual aspects.
What I think is of much greater importance, Mr President, is the message that must be sent to Bulgaria, and to the Bulgarian people directly, concerning the question of membership of the European Union.
As you know, eventual membership of the Union is a main policy aim of the Bulgarian Government, and it is only on the basis of such a policy and institutional resolution of the problems that these agreements can have real content.
Because if we simply conclude one separate agreement after another, to be implemented as per the case and in the absence of an overall political framework through which their proper implementation can be secured, we shall be simply be approaching matters in an ad hoc fashion rather than on an overall basis.
Since membership of the European Union is a main policy aim of nearly all of the Bulgarian democratic parties, I think that agreements of this type are definitely likely to culminate in membership negotiations and eventual membership and that that in itself serves as a guarantee of their implementation.
Mr President, we support Mrs Mann's report, which makes it abundantly clear that the same conditions must be created for all the associated candidate countries.
I believe that this is absolutely essential, because our expansion policy and our policy towards Eastern Europe are at risk of coming up against a dead-end, as a result of our selecting, in a most extreme fashion, certain preferred candidates, thereby creating a larger group of wallflowers.
I am against this, because things are never clearly black and white, but rather various shades of grey.
We have only to look at what happened yesterday, in the Mixed Committee consisting of the Czech Parliament and the European Parliament, where they had such difficulty, in connection with the new levies that have to be paid, in getting the Czech Republic to undertake to give securities on the basis of European law and the Association Agreements currently in force, to see that even those who are first in the queue can still have problems.
On the other hand, we have hardly talked about Bulgaria at all, and I am of the opinion that we should really bring about equality of competition, and we should, above all, make it clear that the European Union, as we understand it, is not a community of laws, and that Community law, including within the framework of the Association Agreements, only has to be observed after accession, and it is simply not acceptable that Community law can be broken in the pre-accession phase.
This is why it is so important to take into consideration competition law.
This is why it is so important to create fair conditions for Bulgaria and not to give her the Cinderella treatment!
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating Mrs Mann on her report on the rules of competition under Article 64 in the European Agreement with Bulgaria.
The final decision, as has already been said, will be taken by the Association Council EU-Bulgaria.
When it is adopted, in the form of a resolution, it will mean another important step towards the European Agreement and Bulgaria's preparations for future membership of the European Union.
The decision defines the grounds for a healthy competition policy.
It also provides a framework for cooperation between the competition authorities in Bulgaria and the Commission.
It even includes regulations for resolving potential conflicts.
The Commission shares the Honourable Member's view that agreements are needed on how the State subsidy regulations are to be implemented.
Strictly speaking, this is not covered in this proposal as it forms part of separate legislation.
The Association countries and the Member States are currently negotiating this legislation in the Council.
Negotiations on state subsidies have proved far more complicated than the proposal which we are discussing here today.
The Commission and the Council working party have thankfully reached an agreement on the implementation of a first round of state subsidy regulations for Czechoslovakia.
So we will be able to use the Czech regulations as an illustration in the continuing negotiations.
Mr President, the rapporteur maintains that the Council and Commission's proposal, particularly point 7, does not include regulations on the control of company mergers, i.e. merger control .
Let me clarify the position: The first proposal did not raise this issue.
But it is present in the current document.
In October 1996, the Commission took the decision to introduce a separate point No. 7 specifically to cover the merger of companies.
Let me conclude by once again thanking Mrs Mann for her constructive and positive report.
Mr President, I should just like to come back on the point raised by Mrs Gradin.
You are quite right: merger control is also included.
I forgot to mention it.
It is not yet included in my report.
Please excuse me.
However, I must also say that the procedure by which we all receive documents, is very difficult. What I mean is, that we ought to have obtained information about the subsequent negotiations that you conducted whilst the old report was still being discussed.
Usually, we Members of Parliament arrange things so that we go to the Commission and ask what negotiations are currently in progress.
However, as you can see, in some cases it happens like this.
I hope you will forgive us.
We had actually already corrected it in this form in the debate in committee.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution)
Norwegian salmon dumping
The next item is the debate on the statement by the Commission on the dumping of Norwegian salmon.
Mr President, on 1 June the Commission approved a package of measures, including a price floor, the prospect of standby dumping duties, an indicative export volume ceiling, an increased Norwegian export tax and tight enforcement procedures that will counteract the dumping and subsidization of Norwegian salmon on the European market and eliminate the damage caused to European salmon producers in the process.
Under the measures negotiated and agreed with Norway, Norwegian salmon exporters will respect a minimum price per kilo which, if broken, would automatically lead to the imposition of duties when selling to the European Union.
There would also be an indicative ceiling on the rate at which Norway could increase exports over the next five years as well as an increase in Norway's own tax on salmon exports and a tight monitoring and enforcement regime to ensure that the terms of the agreement are upheld.
The negotiations followed an investigation which showed that Norwegian salmon was being dumped and subsidized between 1995 and 1996, harming the interests of the European, mainly Scottish, salmon farmers.
The complainant industries in the Community have been fully informed of the context of this package and have given indications that they find it broadly satisfactory.
The Commission is holding regular meetings with the Community industry in order to discuss all the practical aspects of implementation and monitoring of these measures.
The Commission has regularly informed the salmon subcommittee of the Committee on Fisheries of the details of this case, most recently at a meeting in Brussels last week.
Throughout these investigations and subsequent negotiations with the Norwegian side, the Commission's main preoccupation has always been to protect the Scottish and Irish salmon farmers from unfair trading practices.
The Commission is aware of the difficult situation in which salmon farmers in the Community located in rural and often depressed regions find themselves.
Having given serious consideration to the situation, the Commission considers that the package of measures on offer, which has been the object of extensive negotiations with Norway, constitutes an effective defence of the interests of the Community industry.
A five-year period of price stability and increased opportunities to compete under free and fair conditions can now be looked forward to.
Briefly, the package consists of the following measures: minimum price undertakings.
Norwegian salmon exporters will undertake to sell into the European Union market above an agreed minimum price per kilo.
This minimum price will operate for five years.
Norwegian exporters will have to show that their weighted average price over the three-month period does not fall below this price floor.
Furthermore, it cannot fall below 85 % of the minimum price on any single transaction.
There will be a review clause to take account of market changes.
As in all anti-dumping cases, each party including the Commission and the complainants retain the right to request or initiate a review.
If a Norwegian exporter does not respect the minimum price, he will be liable to pay anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties that will be on standby.
The Commission will shortly propose the standby duties to the Council.
They will apply to all those Norwegian salmon exporters who do not sign the agreement.
Those who do not sign will get an exemption, but this will become null and void if they fail to comply with the price floor.
The Commission has already received statements from a number of Norwegian salmon exporting associations, saying they will urge their members to adhere to the minimum price.
There will be an indicative ceiling on the increase of Norwegian salmon sales over the next five years.
1997 sales may not exceed 1996 sales by more than 11 % or by 10 % for every year thereafter up until 2002.
The salmon market has, in fact, expanded by an average of 18 % a year for the last four years.
The Norwegian authorities will increase their own export tax on Norwegian salmon from 0.75 % to 3 %.
This will rise to 6 % if the export ceiling is breached.
Monitoring and enforcement of the agreement will be tight, especially regarding the minimum price.
The Commission will have the right to examine the accounts of any Norwegian salmon exporter to make sure that prices quoted are not artificially high in relation to the real ceiling price.
Furthermore, the Commission will be empowered to check this against the accounts of related importers.
Statistics on export volumes and prices will be provided on a weekly basis and there will be regular consultation between the Commission and the Norwegian Government to examine general and specific questions arising from the salmon market and to ensure that the terms of the agreement are respected.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for that very full explanation of the problem.
The only difficulty is that it is a bit late.
What she read out to the House was contained in the press release which the Commission issued after the negotiations.
Time and time again some of us in this House, particularly in the Committee on Fisheries, are told after the event.
Under Article 90 of the Rules of Procedure of this House, the Commission is duty bound to consult with us on international agreements.
This House has the right of dissent from these agreements.
Is the Commission going to bring forward something in writing?
Yesterday, for example, we had in Parliament a Norwegian delegation discussing this.
Those on the European side were somewhat handicapped in that they did not have before them the evidence which the Commissioner has just read before this House.
The Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan, has behaved abominably over this issue.
He has not taken this House into his confidence, which he should have done.
We have been ignored and slighted; we have read about what has been happening in the newspapers.
It is not good enough for the European Parliament, which was responsible for significant agreements.
Neither the Rex Committee nor the Committee on Fisheries have had a major exposition on this matter by Sir Leon Brittan whereas some other committees have had some discussion.
The Commission has to learn some lessons from this issue.
I am leaving the question of the dangers and problems created for the Scottish and Irish industries to others in this House.
I want to concentrate on the comitology aspect.
We are not happy about what has happened in this event.
I would like to make this point most forcibly, but Sir Leon Brittan is globetrotting somewhere else today and is not here to give us an explanation.
Thank you, Mr President, and thank you, Commissioner, for your statement.
I would like to congratulate Alan Macartney for his dexterity in keeping this matter before you as a Commission and making sure that we got a statement today.
Alan Macartney deserves our thanks too.
Madam Commissioner, you have just said to us that the producers in the European Union seem to be relatively happy with the outcome of the decisions that have been taken by the Commission and Norway.
Well they would be would not they? Anything would be better than what they have been facing in the recent past.
They were faced with bankruptcy and anything was going to be a relief to them.
I do not know that the statement that we hear from you is really going to be best for the future of salmon producers within the European Community.
A minimum price will certainly help, but it will also help the Norwegians.
They are going to know that they are going to get a satisfactory price for what they send into the Community yet they are still going to get their subsidies in Norway.
There is nothing to stop the Norwegian Government still assisting their producers and making an even more unlevel playing field.
You then say that there are going to be tight enforcement procedures.
I hope that is true.
I hope that is going to be followed through properly because what has happened in the past is that Norway has sent salmon into countries such as Denmark at the minimum price, and it was then processed and came out of those factories at a very much lower price than it originally went in.
That is where all the problems have actually arisen.
I hope that you will follow through on the tight enforcement procedures and make sure that does not happen in future.
My great concern is that Norway has had the advantage of expanding its salmon farming quite considerably in recent years.
We now recognize, as your report has done, that there was some undermining of the European market and the Norwegians were able to gain market share when our own producers did not have that opportunity.
I am now concerned for the future that those salmon producers in Norway have reached such a size and economic value that they are in a very strong position to start buying up some of the companies in the peripheral areas of the European Community.
If that were to happen it would be a travesty and the European Commission would be indicted for allowing that to happen.
Mr President, it is good to have the Commission statement, and I thank Mrs Gradin for coming and making it.
What many Members who have no direct interest in the salmon industry have asked me at the last couple of part-sessions is: how can it be that a non-member of the EU can have such a good deal at the expense of producers within the European Union? If you are in any doubt, ask any Norwegian who is involved in the industry for their reaction to the deal.
In the words of one correspondent who telephoned Norway immediately afterwards, they are 'cock-a-hoop' that they have escaped punitive duties.
I hear from other sources, including the Norwegian Ambassador to the EU, that he is very happy with the agreement.
The Norwegians' happiness must be at the expense of what should have happened, namely the automatic imposition of duties on 1 June by the Commission.
That was the alternative.
Everything that is said in this immensely complicated package has to be measured against the dissatisfaction at finding out that the Norwegians, who have been found guilty of subsidy and dumping, are getting out of gaol, so to speak, or certainly escaping a fine.
There are still one or two questions to be answered, and I am not sure whether Mrs Gradin can answer them today.
They certainly have to be answered as soon as possible.
One is the point about still having to go to the Council and then to the Commission before any action can be taken.
If any Norwegian producer is in transgression of the rules, there still has to be a decision by the Council authorizing the Commission; there then has to be a subsequent decision by the Commission authorizing, as I understand it, Sir Leon Brittan's Directorate-General to impose the duties.
So instead of 1 June, I presume it will be the end of September before one can realistically expect anything, and then only provided there are no hiccups.
This is the package and the delay is the price paid by the industry.
To emphasise yet again, as Mrs Gradin and others have pointed out, it is the vulnerable peripheral communities who will pay that price and the Norwegians will be laughing all the way to the bank.
The debate is closed.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to thank the Presidency's services for their cooperation.
I must also add that there was an inexplicable gap in our hemicycle at the last two part-sessions: Mr von Habsburg was not here.
All became clear when we learned that he had had an accident.
Fortunately, he has recovered quickly and we are thankful for that.
I am particularly happy to have him here every Friday, dignifying our sittings.
Thank you all for your cooperation. Today it was particularly welcome as I have succumbed to a spring bout of pharyngitis, but at least it has reminded me how sensitive I am to the Spring, and that is no bad thing.
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 11.38 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 13 June 1997.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of 13 June 1997 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, Friday's Minutes correctly record my protest that the plenary did not discuss financial aid for Bulgaria and Macedonia.
The President also told me that according to her information that was the decision of the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Let me make it quite clear that the Committee on External Economic Relations unanimously decided the contrary!
After all, this was an urgency, which we approved on Tuesday morning.
The committee met on Tuesday evening in Strasbourg and decided unanimously that its chairman or a representative would present an oral report; and then suddenly, on Friday morning, we heard that there would not be a debate.
I am absolutely in favour of accelerated procedures, but to find that an important political question, involving a lot of money, is not discussed either in committee or in plenary is quite contrary to parliamentary procedure and our Rules of Procedure!
Mr Posselt, I shall find out exactly what happened and let you know.
Mr President, I want to speak on a point of procedure.
In February I put a question to the Office of the Presidency on the building work in Strasbourg. Well, four months have gone by and I have received no reply whatsoever.
This is no way for Parliament to operate!
I demand an urgent reply to my question, and to questions from other Members who are having to wait too long in contempt of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Florio, the draft reply to your question was put before the Bureau this morning.
The Bureau considered that a fuller answer was required, so the question is still pending and due for approval on 10 July in order to give you a fuller reply.
Mr President, following on from what Mr Posselt said, let me point out that the Commission decided on financial aid for Bulgaria as early as mid-May, that the documents were available and that the Commission could have consulted us in the usual way via the Council.
That did not happen either.
As I pointed out in Strasbourg on Friday: in future different procedures should be introduced, not just at Parliament level but also in relation to the consultation procedure applied by the Commission and the Council vis à vis the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Otherwise we will not be able to carry out our important duties.
Thank you very much, Mr Schwaiger.
As I said to Mr Posselt, I shall find out what has happened and give you an answer.
(The Minutes were approved)
Welcome
I should like to inform Honourable Members that a parliamentary delegation from Central America is present in the House and I should like to extend the European Parliament's greetings and welcome to them.
I call upon Mrs Seillier.
Urgent political matters
The next item on the agenda is a communication by the Commission on the economic agenda of the Amsterdam European Council and the Denver Summit.
I call upon Mr Commissioner de Silguy.
For my part, I see no incompatibility between demographic revitalization, an intellectual reform and a straightforward recognition of economic realities.
Like it or not, Mrs Seillier, we are currently in a situation where the 'baby boom' generation still forms part of the active population, but from 2010 onwards we shall have an extremely serious demographic shortfall in Europe.
The question that faces governments today is whether they may not already be able to address the problem, in political terms, to prevent today's working generations from facing retirement with pensions that are not sufficient to enable them to live.
The issue today, Mrs Seillier, is to pursue our endeavours in the field of economic policy that are specifically designed to bring back to our national economies sufficient budgetary room to manoeuvre to enable them to bear the increasingly heavy burden of social spending in future years.
Of course, that is no obstacle at all to efforts to develop and strengthen the role of the family, in the context of child-rearing and family policy, though as far as that is concerned, I believe that personal considerations are often more important than purely economic ones.
Mr President, I was appointed on behalf of this House as rapporteur on the demographic situation in Europe.
It is not so long ago that this report was adopted by Parliament, on which occasion much attention was rightly paid to the ability to pay pensions.
If I may, I should like to differ from the Commissioner in regard to the fact of it being impossible to fund pensions in the future.
It is much more a question of making a start at the appropriate time and of applying the correct system.
In the past I asked for this question of pensions, including supplementary pensions, private pensions and government pensions, to be placed on the agenda of the European Commission.
Subsidiarity had previously applied in this area.
My specific question to the Commission is therefore: With a view to the employment summit can this become a matter for both the Commission and the national governments?
I entirely agree with Mrs Boogerd-Quaak: we need to act before it is too late and take precautions to deal with this matter, though I must add that the problem is made worse by the fact that an ageing population means increasing expenditure on health.
After all, it is clear that more and more elderly people are often in need of care which is proving more and more costly.
In financial terms, then, the problem is complicated by the existence of a link between an ageing population and increasing expenditure on pensions and health care.
The Commission is of course taking a close interest in this matter, which is why, in my oral presentation, I made a point of stressing this problem of ageing.
At the discussions that took place in Denver, the Commission's contribution on this subject was particularly extensive and much appreciated.
I can also tell Mrs Boogerd-Quaak that this question is primarily of concern to the Member States because, in view of the principle of subsidiarity and as the Treaty stands, we cannot act for the Member States. But this problem does indisputably have a Community dimension - a European dimension.
For this reason, and especially as we prepare for the extraordinary meeting of the European Council in Luxembourg before the end of this year, the proposals and recommendations that the Commission will make will take careful account of your suggestion.
The Commission will take steps to ensure that these questions are perceived by the Member States in a co-ordinated way, and in particular that they exchange information on the measures implemented by each of them. I would add that very special attention will be paid to the problem of pension funds.
Mr President, I have two short questions for the Commissioner:
The first is: at the Summit Conference in Luxembourg will the Commission contribute to discussions concerning certain additional financial items to support employment policy? Because from Essen we know that employment policy cannot be made effective, or at least, jobs cannot be created, by words alone.
The second question is: I heard a Minister for Economics - one of those who took part in Amsterdam - saying at a public meeting that it is conceivable that the Euro's beginning might be postponed for a year.
I know you will deny this, but I would like to hear you repeat it emphatically.
I can answer your second question immediately. I was there, from start to finish: I was at the Council of Finance Ministers in Luxembourg early this month, I was at the European Council and I was at the Denver summit, and I never heard anyone mention the possibility of postponing the euro.
Indeed, on each occasion I found that all the participants -European and non-European, including the Americans - were firmly committed to complying with the timetable. And that determination was reflected in the communiqués, decisions and official comments that were issued.
Secondly, and dealing more specifically with that European Council, I should perhaps add to what I said earlier: among the initiatives adopted in Amsterdam there is one that relates specifically to extending the role of the EIB, in three ways. Firstly, by establishing a special facility to finance projects by high-technology SMEs; secondly by broadening the scope of the bank's interventions to education, health, the urban environment and environmental protection; and lastly by easing the repayment period for loans to the trans-European networks.
I also said just now that funds would be released from the ECSC reserves, especially with a view to creating a research fund for research in sectors linked to the coal and steel industry.
I can also tell you that the Council will study initiatives to look into the possibilities of creating jobs for SMEs on the basis of a new report by the Advisory Committee on Competitiveness.
Finally, the Council will also study good practice in each Member State in employment policy.
On all these matters, I believe that the mandate is sufficiently detailed and sufficiently substantial to enable to Commission to present specific proposals to the European Council - proposals capable of bringing at least a partial answer to the present problems of unemployment.
Mr President, thank you for taking up the question of small and medium-sized enterprises.
We have seen over recent decades that most jobs have come from small firms, that new enterprises can create a great many jobs and that the SLIM initiatives in particular are designed to relieve the burden on these firms and can therefore also produce greater competitiveness.
What do you think the chances are in Luxembourg of making use of the training programmes, by increasing the appropriations for this area? For I believe that training is the only means of really efficient job-creation.
There are two different answers to your question.
First, training is a critical requirement of SMEs. That is undeniable, it is clear, and we are working on it.
But training is also one of the essential aspects to be implemented in the context of the ambitious Europe-wide structural policies which we must pursue in order to remedy the structural causes of unemployment.
Secondly, bearing in mind the importance of the contribution made by the SMEs in terms of employment, the emphasis placed on these enterprises goes well beyond the aspect of training alone.
In particular, the new approach being asked of the EIB - that it should release resources to enable SMEs, especially those working in leading-edge sectors which, by definition, are the ones that create jobs - should enable more resources to be made available to the SMEs.
I would add, on this point, that the Commission has already tabled a number of proposals and made a number of recommendations which are, or have been, under consideration by Parliament. They are now in the hands of the Council, but some of them have been blocked at that level, and I deplore that.
Even so, it will not prevent us, as we prepare for the special European Council in Luxembourg, from attaching particular importance to the SMEs and to their role in the campaign against the structural causes of unemployment; and, of course, within that framework, very special attention will be paid to questions of training.
Mr Commissioner, today you have mentioned that the economic environment is favourable to improving the economic position of the Member States.
The Italian papers have certainly emphasized the points you made about Italy from the statements you made yesterday.
And we all remember the snapshot of Italy you gave us in this Chamber a couple of months ago.
I now want to ask you two questions. Taking advantage of your presence here today, I would like to hear from your own lips your view of the situation in Italy and your opinion of Italy's chances of meeting the criteria.
And secondly, what is the main reason for this change in the Italian position?
In reply to your second question, Mr Arroni, I would say that the political intent is certainly that of the Italian Government. What I said about Italy yesterday was the result of an analysis, a finding that shows that Italy is currently achieving highly impressive advances when it comes to economic convergence.
And if Italy achieves the ambitions that its government has adopted, it will this year have achieved the greatest reduction in public indebtedness achieved by any European country in the last 15 years.
Otherwise, as the government has not yet officially disclosed its convergence programme, I could not offer any precise assessment of it in public.
Having said that, and bearing in mind the facts known to me, I did say that the objectives put forward, especially in the Italian 'Economic and financial planning document' , are sound.
Moreover, the areas singled out by the government for budgetary reform are appropriate: pensions, social security, the civil service and the broadening of the tax base.
I also added, and this may have received less coverage in the press, that the moment of truth would come in September when the government presents specific measures designed to give concrete form to these objectives, measures which, I believe, will be included in the 1998 budget.
So it is out of the question at this stage to launch a premature examination, to make the Member States undergo a qualification test.
The examination will take place in March 1998, based on the real results for 1997.
What I can say today is that there is no doubt that the situation in Italy is developing along the right lines. That is encouraging, and it suggests to me that, if countries have the necessary political will comply with the timetables and conditions set out in the Maastricht Treaty for joining the single currency, they will succeed in doing so.
Mr President, measures to get Europe back to work, that was the Commissioner's message to us today from Amsterdam.
And we listened to it and certainly see it as a positive step.
But I would like the Commission to tell me what action it is now taking to define the basic economic policy measures the Community and the Member States should take.
If you, the Commission, and if the European Council took the recommendations by this House seriously and incorporated them in your own proposals, we might have different economic and employment policy results from those we have seen in the past following from your recommendations.
Please tell us how this can be changed, for what the EU ministers of finance proposed in the past was not enough to really get Europe back to work.
My second question, Commissioner, is as follows: I fully appreciate that you are also concerned with the international role of the euro.
But I would like to know one thing: are you also thinking of the consumer, of consumer protection?
When will we finally have a regulation to ensure that EU consumers do not bear the costs of conversion? When will we finally have a regulation that also ensures that no dual pricing system will be introduced?
First, Mrs Randzio-Plath, if you carefully study the conclusions of the European Council in Amsterdam - something I am not going to do here, though I am willing to go through them with you in person - you will find that the concerns of the European Parliament, especially those expressed in its resolutions on the Pact for Stability and Growth, have been extensively taken into consideration.
Not only that, but I personally have taken the trouble, during recent discussions, to try to persuade the Council to adopt as many as possible of the ideas put forward by Parliament.
Secondly, you ask what initiative we are going to take. In my speech just now I spoke in general terms about the approaches that have been selected, both in terms of co-ordination of economic policy and in terms of employment policy, and what we were going to do to follow them through.
Confining myself to essentials, I think the first thing to do is to ensure that the content of Articles 102a and 103 is more oriented towards employment.
That is why the broad guidelines of economic policy are going to be widened - as you will see when we present them next year - to take more account of competitiveness, the employment market, technological innovation, education, training and taxation.
That may not be the end of it, because we shall, if appropriate, pursuant to Article 103(4) of the Treaty, propose to the Council that it makes recommendations on these matters to the Member States.
In other words, there is a parallel between the powers of recommendation we have exercised so far in budgetary matters and those that we can extend into the economic field.
Secondly, as far as employment is concerned, I think I answered your question earlier when I said that we were going to take maximum advantage of the fact that the 'employment' chapter of the Amsterdam Treaty will be implemented even before that Treaty has been ratified, thus providing a legal basis for more specific action. All these points are currently the subject of in-depth examination and analysis.
I look forward to reporting back to you very soon, once the Commission's services have made progress with this work, and I can assure you that I shall keep you closely informed of the way our ideas are developing on this matter.
Regarding the consumer aspect, we organized a round table discussion on 15 May which enabled us to identify a number of specific, practical problems including dual pricing or labelling, the date of issue of the banknotes, how long dual circulation should continue, etc.
Following that round table, we organized and are now holding a number of workshops with consumers, banks and businesses, subject by subject.
My objective would be to arrange two general meetings on these issues - one in autumn and the other in March - to see what solutions we can find to these problems, bearing in mind that it would be preferable to avoid resorting to regulation if possible.
Our European Union already suffers from paralysis brought about by excessive regulation, and I would prefer it to err on the side of dynamism and consensus.
At this stage, then, our work is geared to a quest for consensus, the objective being of course to enable us, when we make public the decision on the list of countries joining the euro in late April or early May 1998, at the same time to give specific answers to consumers on the specific questions they ask.
What I can promise you now is that these practical matters are one of the essential areas on which the Commission is currently working.
Mr President, the European Parliament has called for the whole economic cycle of a Member State's economy to be considered when determining whether it has an excessive deficit.
This is wise, so as to ensure that a Member State which finds itself in difficulties is not driven ever deeper into the economic mire.
However, the conclusions of the Amsterdam summit concerning the Agreement on Stability and Growth contain a direct reference to the Council declaration, which in turn stresses adherence to very strict, automatic procedures for assessing excessive deficits.
They are to lead quite directly to fines.
Is this not extremely unwise?
How is this to be reconciled with your efforts to promote employment, or was the declaration on employment needed purely to enable the French to return home in safety?
My first answer to that is that the Stability Pact is absolutely and completely consistent with the Maastricht Treaty.
I would refer you to Article 104c of the Treaty, which states that the Council may resolve upon sanctions if certain conditions are present.
In the present case, the Pact for Stability and Growth preserves the autonomy of the Commission intact in terms of its power of initiative, and preserves the autonomy of the Council intact in terms of its normal powers of decision granted to it by the Treaty.
The Pact for Stability and Growth is a code of conduct, a guide to behaviour, which is intended to specify the conditions and timetable for the necessary action to restore budgetary equilibrium.
I can tell you, Mrs Hautala, that as far as I know public deficits do not create jobs. I see this equally in the United States and the European Union - I am not talking about France, have no fear - and in the other European countries.
In recent years, those countries which have done most to reduce their public deficits have also seen the strongest growth and created the most jobs.
I am looking here especially at the Dutch presidency.
This is no obstacle to undertaking structural reforms, but, both in Denver and in Amsterdam, the Heads of State and Government of every country did indeed stress the fact that there is a link of compatibility, I would even call it a synergistic effect, between the pursuit of a sound economic policy, the reduction of the public deficit, the stimulation of growth and the creation of jobs.
I wonder if you would care to comment on the use of the Euro by international companies in the European Union.
In those countries which have the right to opt out, or which may not be eligible at the start of monetary union, do you foresee large international companies using the Euro in practice and for accountancy needs, thus allowing the Euro to evolve in those countries as a recognized currency? Will the Commission be making sure there is a legal base for that to happen?
Let me reassure Mr Provan.
Of course international companies, even if they are not based in a euro country, will be able to use the euro.
At present, the regulations adopted on the legal status of the euro are specifically designed to provide sufficient legal guarantees to ensure that the euro can be used by every enterprise in the world that wishes to use it.
Secondly, I can pass on the news that the Commission has been working with, among others, those responsible for the finance markets on extremely technical matters of financial conventions and denominations, with a view to trying to lay down rules, at the request of the financial operators themselves, to ensure that the euro can be used on a harmonious basis.
My third comment is this: clearly, if the euro is a good currency, in other words a stable currency, it will be an alternative to the dollar and it will be in demand among investors wanting to diversify their portfolios.
So the euro is bound to grow and its use is bound to become more widespread as a trading currency and a payment currency and, also, a reserve currency.
Commissioner, I should like to take another brief look at the specific proposals to boost employment which the Commission believes it can implement as a direct outcome of the European Council resolution in Amsterdam.
Does the Commission believe that that resolution, the new chapter on employment and the integration of the social protocol amount to a sufficiently ambitious and explicit political commitment to enable the Union, between now and the implementation of the single currency, effectively to address the crucial and dominant problem of unemployment in Europe, and to respond to the urgent need and sometimes desperate anxiety of the social groups affected by it?
Or is the Commission perhaps inclined to consider, with sadness, that the conclusions of the European Council as summarized in the resolution on growth and employment merely encompass a few generalities suitable for firstyear students of political economy, bearing witness to the timid and often inconsistent vision of a minimalist Europe capitulating in the face of some of the serious difficulties that confront it - the social problem in this case?
To summarize, Commissioner, I doubt whether your apparent optimism is shared by our eighteen million unemployed.
First, let me say that I quite agree that jobs cannot be created with documents and treaties. Nor can we give Europe back the confidence it needs to rediscover its drive and create new jobs if we are constantly going to throw in the towel and adopt the pessimistic view.
Today, when Europe has the necessary know-how and is rediscovering the secret of growth, the best way of providing the necessary stimulus and will to succeed is by encouraging the people, not discouraging them.
Secondly, the introduction of the euro will form an integral part of the solution to the problem of unemployment, because the euro will bring Europe greater growth.
It will also enable Europe to eliminate the monetary fluctuations - ' competitive devaluations' as they were once known in certain quarters in France - which cost Europe a million and a half additional people unemployed in a two year period, 1995 to 1996.
I believe, then, that the contribution made by the euro to growth in Europe will also be a valuable contribution to the struggle against unemployment.
But the majority of unemployment is structural, and so structural reforms must be our primary aim, now more than ever.
That means reducing the burden on the low paid, it means giving flexibility to the employment market, it means education, it means learning, training, all those fields of endeavour where perseverance and determination are required.
Once again, on returning from the United States after seeing the Americans and talking to them, I realized that Europe was certainly no weaker than the United States but that we had one flaw - we don't believe in ourselves.
And I believe that the role of politicians, of whatever party, today is to give back Europe's citizens that confidence in themselves.
Mr President, there is a rather unusual, not to say original, question I should like to put to the European Commissioner.
At the G8 meeting in Denver, which was notable for the lack of any positive decisions as far as Europe was concerned, a notable event was a cowboy evening paying homage to the American world order.
The President of the European Commission, Mr Santer, like most of the leading figures present with the exception of Mr Blair, who refused, received a present in the form of a gold watch of very considerable value.
Commissioner, might not this gift be an opportunity for the Commission and Parliament to set up a museum to store and exhibit all the gifts received in the course of their official duties by European Union dignitaries - Parliament, Council and Commission alike?
I feel that this would be the best way to demonstrate to European public opinion, to the citizens of Europe, the keen interest which we all share in the preservation of integrity and transparency.
Do you wish to reply, Mr Commissioner?
I have taken careful note of the Honourable Member's suggestion.
Personally, I have not received any such gifts.
As for museums, let's have museums by all means, but do we want to bury Europe in museums?
To get back to employment policy, Commissioner, among the means available you mentioned recourse to broad economic guidelines, the extension of those guidelines and the Council's recommendations on employment.
In particular, you also talked about extending the role of the European Investment Bank and making use of ECSC funds.
I wonder if you could tell us what effects these two eminently practical ideas can be expected to have on employment. After all, as the Vice-President of the European Investment Bank, Mr Roth, has said, the Bank already takes account of employment problems in the investment projects it finances.
On the other hand, the ECSC funds are not disposable funds - they are funds that come from industry and they cannot simply be appropriated and put to work for a Keynesian project.
I should like to ask the Commissioner what the European Council had in mind when it settled on these two very practical ideas.
Thank you for that question, Mr Fayot.
I could spend two hours answering it, because it is technically complex.
To keep things as simple as I can, what we are asking of the EIB is first that it should give easier, quicker access to credit, and secondly that it should reduce the cost of that credit to small- and mediumsized enterprises operating in high technology areas.
So what we are talking about are specific, targeted schemes that will enable the EIB out of its own resources - out of its reserves, if I can put it that way - to provide easier access to borrowing for enterprises which need loans in order to expand, and this idea holds out promise for the future because the sectors concerned are the developing sectors of so-called high technology.
As for the ECSC, as you know, it holds substantial reserves which it is obliged to retain because it has to cover the loans it has made to industry.
The ECSC will cease to exist on 23 July 2002.
A number of loans will still remain active, will still have a few years to run.
So, as long as those loans need to be covered, the reserves will remain.
The interesting point is that the European Council said that since those reserves were set up on the basis of a levy on the coal and steel industries, then when those reserves can be released they must be given to a fund which will enable research to be promoted in the industries connected with that sector.
So, instead of ending up with this money being handed over to some unspecified recipient, we can feel certain that it will be appropriated and used to best effect to facilitate research, because research stimulates employment and because not enough research is being done in Europe.
Mr President, now that it is becoming increasingly likely or almost certain that we will have the euro, I should like to ask the Commissioner what will happen to Europe's green currency system?
Will there soon be a green euro or when does the Commission envisage making concrete proposals in this area so that Europe will also have a single euro in the field of agriculture?
That is a very good question.
We are already giving thought to that.
What I can say is that the euro will simplify the situation, at least for the countries in the euro zone.
Consequently, in agri-monetary matters, the difficulties that have arisen as a result of changes in exchange rates, and which have had agri-monetary repercussions, will disappear.
So that will simplify the situation.
Secondly, there will still be a problem to be sorted out with the non-euro States that are members of the European Union.
The technical aspects of these matters are currently under consideration, and I can assure you that all the arrangements will be made to ensure that, as soon as the euro comes into existence, any difficulties that may still persist will be eliminated.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Takeover bids
The next item on the agenda is the report, drawn up by Mrs Fontaine on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a thirteenth European Parliament and Council Directive on company law concerning takeover bids (COM(95)0655 - C4-0107/96-95/0341(COD)) (A4-0204/97).
I have received a request from the UPE group pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure for the report to be referred back to committee.
I call upon Mr Florio to move this request.
Mr President, we have made this request because we believe the issue needs to be examined more deeply. We would point out that this proposal from the Commission began life as a proposal for a recommendation and then made enormous strides, turning into a proposal for a directive.
The consultations were geared to the proposal for a recommendation and not to the proposal for a directive it has transformed itself into on its travels. Now in the light of these considerations, the determination and the conviction has grown in my group that it is right to go further into the matter in committee and also, perhaps, to deal in parallel with the imminent - or almost imminent - discussion of the directive on the European limited company.
So, on behalf of my group, I support the request for reference back to committee.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European Socialists I should like to tell the House that the matter was debated at length in the Committee for Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, taking account of all considerations and all aspects.
It seems to me that there is no point in referring it back to committee now.
I therefore suggest that we keep it on the agenda.
I put the request to refer the report back to committee to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request) I call upon the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine.
Mr President, the report on takeover bids which I have the honour of presenting to this House on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights cannot be considered outside its historical context, and I hope you will allow me to say a few words on that subjects.
It was in 1989 that the Commission, noting the proliferation of takeover bids, both friendly and hostile, in the European private sector, took the initiative of proposing the adoption at Community level of a number of joint provisions governing these practices.
In actual fact, the Commission's proposal was nothing less than a harmonization directive. This House added a few amendments, but approved the proposal as a whole, in a report adopted back in January 1990.
Since then, however, the truth is that the matter has been continuously blocked by the Council.
Today, therefore, the Commission is suggesting a new approach.
That approach takes the form of a framework directive establishing general principles applicable to takeover bids, without making any attempt to achieve detailed harmonization of the rules in force in the various Member States.
It should be noted, incidentally, that since 1989 the Member States, one after the other, have made certain arrangements to regulate this matter.
The new approach by the Commission is consistent with the undertaking given at Edinburgh in 1992 to respect the principle of subsidiarity and leave the Member States free to implement the principles set out in the directive, making due allowance for their national traditions and practices.
Also, in the present case, this new approach is designed as an escape from the dead end created by the Council.
It is common knowledge that the fiercest opposition has come from those Member States which felt that the harmonization initially suggested went beyond what was desirable or desired.
In this context, you rapporteur felt strongly - and I hope Mr Florio is listening - that the Legal Affairs Committee should first give very careful consideration to the appropriateness of this new line proposed to us by the Commission.
That was, as it were, a preliminary question which I put to the Legal Affairs Committee before any consideration of the merits of the instrument. Was legislation necessary or not?
And if so, was a directive the right way to go about it? Should it be approached in the limited way proposed by the Commission?
The Legal Affairs Committee once again, after very careful study, answered both these questions in the affirmative.
It instructed your rapporteur to continue her work along those lines - the lines of a directive of minimal harmonization, as the Legal Affairs Committee considers that the extreme diversity of national legislation means that takeover operations cannot be effected with the necessary degree of legal certainty to protect both minority shareholders and the employees of the companies targeted.
It considers that an attempt at harmonization - even with limited objectives, even, let us be frank, a somewhat timid attempt - would nevertheless make it possible to establish a degree of fairness between the various stock market players, acting as a deterrent to purely speculative raids by the strongest of those players.
I should add, ladies and gentlemen, that the argument along the lines of 'hold on, don't let's do anything until the fifth directive on worker participation, the tenth directive on cross-border mergers and the draft plan for the European company have been unfrozen' is too reminiscent of the 'web of Penelope' , which of course was never finished at all.
These various projects -unfortunately blocked by the Council for years - have no sufficiently direct links with the subject before us today to justify a universal freeze.
Indeed, the signal we are going to send could mark the start of a long-awaited thaw in this area of Community company law.
With regard to the substance, therefore, our guiding principle was not to try to make the text more restrictive, knowing that the same causes would once again produce the same effects and the text would again be rejected by the Council. Adopting a pragmatic and efficient approach, we tried to make it clearer, more precise, but also more dynamic in view of its intended subsequent application by the Member States.
That was the thinking that prompted our amendments defining the offeror, protecting minority shareholders and specifying the functions of the supervisory authority.
Finally, and as we did earlier in 1990, we stressed the need for clear information for the employees.
Some of our amendments, adopted from the excellent report by Mr Hughes on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, are particularly designed to enable employee information to be improved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following on from the Amsterdam summit, which recorded a few timid steps forward towards giving the European Union that social dimension which it so grievously lacks, I hope this House will show that in such areas we will not accept paralysis or prevarication.
I hope with all my heart that this House will approve the views expressed by its Legal Affairs Committee and its Social Affairs Committee in favour of this directive and the amendments we propose to give concrete form to our desire for transparency, equity and social equilibrium in the European single market.
Mr President, first of all and not merely out of politeness or custom - I must congratulate Mrs Fontaine on the work she has done on a text which has an extraordinarily light touch.
Mrs Fontaine is to be congratulated because she has attempted to make the content of that text a little clearer although within the limitations which she has pointed out.
In fact, as she herself has said here and indicated in her report, Mrs Fontaine did doubt whether it was worth continuing to consider this directive and spending much time on it.
She decided that it was and I congratulate her on the work she has done.
Moreover, an attempt was made to put some flesh on the bones of this directive by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and by means of some amendments.
In fact the present proposal for a directive is an exercise which seems to me to have fairly limited results.
That is because the principle of subsidiarity is applied to overcome the hurdle of opposition within the Council in giving its agreement to previous proposals.
This is one of the cases in which the principle of subsidiarity has been used in a rather forced manner, because if this matter falls within the jurisdiction of the Member States, then all company law, or the greater part of company law, will fall within the jurisdiction of the States.
And company law is not the same in Britain for example as on the continent.
The British have very much put the brakes on this draft directive - I would mention that it was the government of the day - and it might in fact be said that there are many aspects of company law which are specific to AngloSaxon law and do not necessarily contain a Community dimension.
However, the rapporteur points out - and I think this is important - that when we are aiming for a global approach, as we are now - it is clear that the European Union is not responding in this field of company law as might be expected when, strange to say, all aspects of trade are taking on a more international and global character and becoming ever more alike.
I remember that when, many years ago, I was studying comparative law it was pointed out to me that it was not possible to harmonize everything and the example of family law and divorce law was quoted.
This appears however to be practically harmonized throughout almost all the Union and, in contrast, we have company law which is not.
I hope at least this text will be approved.
We shall vote in favour with some amendments because something is better than nothing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission proposal takes account of the principle of subsidiarity, on the basis of the experience gained with the aforementioned 1989 proposal, which failed.
So the proposal simply sets out an objective, a framework, and by and large leaves its practical implementation to the Member States.
However, this only minimally attains the objective of ensuring that the shareholders of listed companies will enjoy equal protection in the single market in the event of a takeover.
In view of the very divergent rules on takeover bids in the various Member States, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and my group rightly asked whether a recommendation might not have been more appropriate than a directive.
I personally would have preferred a recommendation, although there were good reasons for the decision to opt for a framework directive. If we are to avoid distortions of competition and make the stock markets more transparent and give minority shareholders at least minimum protection, we need a minimum of legal certainty.
Given the wide differences between national provisions on takeover bids, this legal certainty can only be achieved by fixing a legal framework of action, however minimal.
The main way to ensure that the individual participants in the stock market act along the same lines is through harmonization and not through voluntary codes of conduct.
In terms of content, the Legal Affairs Committee has made it even clearer that the Commission proposal is a framework directive by nature.
Thus the report contains some amendments that give the Member States even more margin for reverting to their national systems.
The directive goes into some basic points either too briefly or not at all.
They include, for instance, the definition of minority shareholders, the inclusion of concerted action in the scope of the directive and the definition of cases in which the Member States can authorize their supervisory authorities to grant exceptions to the provisions of the directive.
Taking account of the difficulties I have mentioned, I believe the Commission proposal nevertheless deserves our full approval, in the version proposed by the rapporteur.
Mr President, first of all I would like to dispel any possible doubts.
I have the greatest respect and esteem for the outstanding work the rapporteur has done and my request, on behalf of my group, to refer the report back to committee was not intended and is not intended in any way to sound like a criticism of the work carried out by Mrs Fontaine.
As has already been said, the proposal for a framework directive on takeover bids is the result of an earlier initiative.
In 1989 the European Commission had already proposed a classic harmonization directive, but it was not agreed by the Council. Then, when the single market came into force, the Commission at first proposed a recommendation, which I mentioned just now, and then a framework directive containing certain general principles, with the purpose of creating similar conditions in all the Member States, leaving them a wide margin of manoeuvre.
So the Commission feels the current extreme diversity of national legislation does not permit takeover bid operations to be carried out in a context where rights are satisfactorily protected, and a mild harmonization - even if the Commission would have initially preferred a genuine directive which would be more binding - would at least allow some fairness to be introduced between the various players in the stock markets.
The directive contains a number of points like this, which I shall not go through, but the Member States are left very wide opportunities to legislate in different ways.
In a field like this, linked to the free movement of capital, we think it would have been more appropriate to identify a larger number of precise common rules.
This has not been done.
So with some regret, we find that when serious and important decisions have to be taken, the European Union does not succeed in taking them in common.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal group I would like to say that we have serious doubts about this phase of the work.
We are of the opinion that currently there are more important matters of company law requiring our efforts.
By this, I mean the enormous problems which companies experience with genuine cross border operations.
Vigorous action is needed, based on the report by the Davignon group; standardised taxation for companies operating in more than one Member State and we need to look into how we can handle the deficit.
This is where we should be concentrating our efforts now and I hope that the Commission will commence work seriously on this.
It is well known that the situation regarding take-overs varies in different Member States. The previous speaker has already mentioned this.
Some countries have precise legal systems while others have voluntary systems in place.
I hope that these will still be secure under the Directive even after the Commission's scrutiny of it.
Even if we are talking about a framework Directive, there are issues in a framework Directive which ought to be specified.
The proposal on applicable law, for example.
I do not think the Commission's proposal or the proposal which resulted from the discussion in committee are satisfactory; Article 3.2 in particular.
This is why we have made an amendment proposal for this particular point.
I also think that it is important that we give real protection to minority share holders when we adopt such a Directive.
This is not the case in Article 10.
This is why we have made our amendment proposal.
Ladies and gentlemen, I also think that the legal committee has made several proposals which are out of place in the modern world.
For example, the proposed obligation that a report be published annually for five years after the take-over showing how employment has progressed.
This gives employment but not real competitive jobs.
Mr President, I should also like to join in the congratulations to Mrs Fontaine.
She must feel as if she is receiving a bouquet of flowers.
She dealt with this matter in committee very well.
She united the committee at the end of the final vote, with the exception of two abstentions and Mr Cassidy voting against the overall committee decision.
I think it would need a miracle by the Archangel Gabriel to persuade Mr Cassidy to come round to our position.
The 1989 original directive has already been very well explained in this House.
This directive is very much reduced.
It is very temperate in its tone because it has taken into consideration what happened in the Council in 1989 and 1990.
The United Kingdom has the highest rate of takeovers and takeover battles throughout the European Union.
There were something like 1, 500 in the years 1995/96.
It also has the excellent reputation because of the takeover panel of having knowledge of these particular matters.
We accept that and the proposal goes a long way to accepting that.
In Article 6 it says that the supervisory authority can be a non-regulatory body.
The takeover panel in Britain has been catered for with that amendment.
Hostile takeovers are now being seen across Europe.
Krupp/Thyssen will be seen as just an interlude when we see the massive hostile takeovers of the future.
Therefore, the Socialist Group takes the view that it is in the interest of competition policy in this field that we have some form of regulatory law in these matters.
Concerning the Commission's hostility to Amendment No 11, in 1995-96 in my country alone 12, 500 job losses were due to takeovers and mergers.
Amendment No 12 calls for those people who have funds or shares in the companies involved through their occupational pension funds - a growing number of people throughout Europe - to be involved in any final decision on these matters.
I understand the Commission is concerned about this.
If it wants to come back with different legislation, for example the pensions directive which is before the Council now, we could take this into consideration.
In conclusion, the challenge to this House is Anglo-American law and whether Anglo-American law will supersede the European model.
I hope and trust this House will reject that proposition.
Anglo-American law has caused us grievous problems in the United Kingdom and I do not want to see it here.
I am sure when it comes to the conciliation procedure with the Council, Mrs Fontaine will fight strongly on behalf of Parliament for our amendments.
Mr President, I shall retain only one point from the speech I had prepared and that is to congratulate the rapporteur on her competent work.
She did indeed manage to steer the ship of the European Parliament report with a masterly hand and I am sure she will manage to bring it safe to harbour.
Having said that, I wish to make a broader analysis centred upon the debate between those wanting to regulate company law by means of a recommendation - which is why a request has been made for this report to be referred back to committee - and those who advocate that it should be regulated by means of a directive or at least a framework directive.
After Amsterdam, Mr President, our next challenge is the third phase of Monetary Union and if that is to have any chance of success - and Europe needs this third phase of Monetary Union to be a success - we need to complete the internal market.
When we arrive at that point we realise that there is one sector where there has been no progress as regards the internal market for the past twenty years and that is the companies sector.
But that is paradoxical because the companies sector was the pioneer in European integration - the sector which gave the first spur to the internal market.
This sector has made no progress for twenty years and now we are told that we should not issue a directive - which has had a most complicated ten-year history - but rather a recommendation.
That is strange because I have also heard from the lips of the very people advocating the recommendation, that this directive does not go far enough and needs to aim at greater integration; they also argue, on a matter which is unconnected with this point, that we should be in a better position to lay down suitable rules if we waited until the Davignon report was finished and then issued a directive on the European limited liability company.
I wonder, Mr President, what this constitutes. In Spain this is known as institutional filibustering and is tantamount to hoping to arrest the progress of the vessel of the European Union and there are two words behind this - one is subsidiarity and, paradoxically, the other is globalization.
And between Scylla and Charybdis a realistic policy must be put into practice as my colleague from the Socialist group, Mr Verdi i Aldea, so rightly said.
This directive is, in my opinion, insufficient but it is a first and absolutely essential step which we hope will be followed by other steps which are also absolutely essential in the field of company law.
Mr President, naturally I join in the chorus of praise for the efforts of the rapporteur.
However, I would warn her with the Latin phrase 'Timeo Danaos et dona ferentis' which means: Fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts.
May I suggest to the rapporteur that she should look very carefully at compliments coming from the direction of Mr Falconer because they come from a suspect source.
I have no criticisms at all of the work of the rapporteur.
Within limits she has done a competent and workmanlike job.
My criticism is aimed at the Commission.
This proposal is the wrong proposal.
The comment has already been made by Mrs Palacio and Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn that they would have preferred a recommendation rather than a directive.
That is a perfectly legitimate point and I know the rapporteur raised it in committee.
But this draft directive does not deal with the fundamental problem, namely that cross-border takeovers in Europe are extremely difficult to bring about and every country, or most countries, have barriers to takeovers.
The great argument is that we must look after jobs and so on.
But jobs will be much more in peril unless we succeed through cross-border takeovers in creating world size companies which will enable us to compete with the Americans, Japanese and others.
The proposal in Amendment No 23 by Mr Falconer and others that investment fund managers who manage portfolio fund investments should be excluded from the takeover proceedings is simply out of touch with reality since most of those institutions represent pension funds which represent the savings of workers all over Europe.
This proposal is the wrong proposal.
I voted against it in committee and I shall vote against it tomorrow in plenary.
I urge many others who have doubts about it to do the same.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission, I congratulate Vice-President Fontaine, on her fine report on this important measure in the area of company law.
I think we can all agree on one point: the situation in the Community as regards takeover bids and the protection of minority shareholders where control of a company quoted on the stock exchange changes hands, is currently characterized by a mass of different rules which are fragmenting the market.
In the light of the progressive integration of European financial markets, the Commission regards this as a real obstacle to the operation of the single market.
As you know - and this has been mentioned - the previous attempt to remedy this situation was not very successful. The proposal for a directive drafted at the end of the '80s, and amended in 1990 to take account of the opinion of Parliament, met with strong resistance from some Member States.
The discussions made it clear that it would be difficult to reconcile certain fundamental differences through a directive geared to detailed harmonization of takeover bids, all the more so as the detailed harmonization approach has to some extent had its day, not just in this specific case but in general.
That is why this proposal is inspired by the spirit of subsidiarity, as Mrs Fontaine has mentioned.
So some people seemed to want a recommendation, and others seemed to want a more meaningful, more detailed directive.
We have opted for a framework directive, which sets some minimum principles and conditions while leaving it to Member States to apply it in the way that corresponds best to their own traditions and structures, and that includes self-regulation codes.
The Commission's basic objectives are to ensure that, throughout the single market, shareholders of a company quoted on the stock exchange enjoy the same guarantees if control changes hands, and that there are minimum rules governing the progress and transparency of takeover operations.
It is crucial to ensure that when a takeover bid is launched, it takes place in a context of legal security where all the interested parties are aware of the conditions they need to operate under.
The Commission can accept the majority of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, with slight changes to the wording of Amendments Nos. 1, 4 and 6.
But at this stage it cannot accept Amendment No 17, on the acceptance period for the offer because, in the light of the general economy of the text and its purposes, the reasons for it do not seem sufficiently clear.
The Commission reserves the right to reconsider its position on this point at a later stage of the parliamentary process.
Mr President, as regards the social aspects - and here I also want to thank the Committee on Social Affairs, Employment and Working Conditions and Mr Hughes - the Commission is in favour of the inclusion of the general principle of protection of jobs, contained in Amendment No 11.
However it cannot accept two related amendments - Amendment No 13, information on employed personnel and Amendment No 21, consultation of employees by the management of the company affected by the takeover bid.
We find it difficult to reconcile these two amendments with the concept of a framework directive and with the principle of subsidiarity.
We accept Amendment No 14, but with a less rigid wording, and Amendment No 16 only partially.
We cannot accept Amendment No 12 because it is not clear to us how people who are shareholders as a result of choices made by the managers of institutional investment funds can be involved in the procedure for carrying out a takeover bid.
We tend to think this matter, which relates to the management of pension funds, should instead be regulated at the national level.
Amendments Nos 23, 25, 26, 28 and, in part, No 27, presented during today's sitting, cannot be accepted by the Commission.
However we can accept Amendment No 24, and the part of Amendment No 27 which provides for information of employees within a reasonable time after publication of the offer.
I hope the European Parliament will continue to support our initiative and I agree with what has been said about the fact that there are other important initiatives on the ground: cross-border operations, the European company statute, the need for coordination of taxation systems. But, like the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, I do not see how sending back this proposal can help solve the other problems.
Prompt and positive consideration of this proposal can make an important contribution to breaking the deadlock on all these matters.
Finally, Mr President, we have in drafting the proposal taken particular account of the concerns expressed by British MEPs and in Britain generally.
The directive, as drafted, is intended to keep the UK take-over system as intact as possible.
Litigation in the form of judicial review in the UK is already a possibility, although it is not a common tactic due to the reluctance of the English courts to intervene during a bid, as is the right of an injured party to sue for damages.
The directive itself explicity encourages voluntary control to be exercised by the supervisory authority in order to avoid recourse to administrative or judicial action.
I want to reassure those Members of Parliament concerned that we are as concerned as they are about these aspects and we tried to devise a mechanism that, while providing a framework directive, causes the least disturbance possible to a wellestablished and well-functioning system like the British one.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at noon tomorrow.
Dangerous preparations
The next item on the agenda is the report, drawn up by Mrs Baldi on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations (COM(96)0347 - C4-0426/96-96/0200(COD)) (A4-0186/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, dangerous preparations are currently governed by Directive No 88/379, which regulates their classification, packaging and labelling.
The Commission's proposal, which we are now examining at first reading, is designed to update the directive in question, bringing together Community legislation on dangerous preparations in a single act.
This proposed directive introduces changes to the 1988 directive geared to extending the scope of the directive on dangerous preparations to five new sectors, viz: 1) environmental classification and labelling; the original directive only covered the criterion of classification and labelling, with the wording 'dangerous to health' ; 2) pesticides and biocides, as the directive on classification, packaging and labelling of the parasiticides will be repealed; 3) safety data sheets, which the manufacturers must provide for preparations not classified as dangerous; 4) explosives, for which professional users must provide a safety data sheet; 5) labelling of certain sensitisers, by which products containing sensitisers, even below the normal limit for classification, must be labelled.
The great majority of changes introduced are important because they are linked to the assessment of preparations as a function of the dangers they represent for the environment, harmonizing with the seventh updating, in line with technical progress, of Directive No 67/548 on dangerous substances which is closely linked to the directive we are now discussing in this Chamber.
The aim has been to follow a process of harmonization of existing legislation on chemical substances and, while the proposal may not be easy for those not involved in the work to understand, it is also necessary to remember that the role of Parliament is to give political direction.
Nevertheless I would remind you that assessment of the dangers of a preparation is based on determination of the following indicators of the danger of a substance: physical and chemical properties, properties with effects on health, environmental properties.
What needs to be underlined once again is the importance of harmonizing the existing legislation, because different legislation currently in force in the various Member States on classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations, constitutes, as the Commission has rightly shown, an obstacle to intra-Community trade, sustaining unequal competitive conditions and having a negative effect on the functioning of the internal market.
So a directive geared to regulate this sector is welcome, as long as consumer protection is always given priority.
It is precisely to protect the health and safety of European citizens that we want the directive to introduce high safety standards in all the Member States: hence the requirement for safety data sheets, labelling of certain sensitisers and so on.
Citizens have the right to see their health protected and this can be done through clear and transparent information, and legible and easily recognizable labelling.
We have acted to ensure this by including, amongst other provisions, warnings recognizable by touch to protect blind people.
However, in cases of non-dangerous preparations containing a substance with a health risk, where information on certain properties is not relevant to the protection of consumer health, simplified safety data sheets need to be introduced for preparations not classified as dangerous, because drawing up and updating full data sheets involve major cost, time and difficulty for small and medium-sized firms which often do not have the necessary human and technical resources.
Finally, I would like to stress the fact that this European directive embraces and respects the wishes of the great majority of the Member States, as has emerged from the contacts I was at pains to make with the European national authorities, because the aim was to generate balanced legislation which takes account of Member States' different legislation, by improving it and trying to harmonize it.
The amendments I have tabled in committee and in this House recognize the need to harmonize the legislation on chemical preparations.
This proposal is intended to be a real step forward in this direction and it is the result of mediation across the various existing national legislations.
Now the directive must be made feasible and operational.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mrs Baldi for the amount of work she has put into this very complicated and important issue.
The handling of chemicals is one of the most important issues which comes under the scope of the environmental sector.
Every day we see the number of allergies increasing along with other negative effects on people and the environment.
This is why I welcome the Commission's proposal which means we will be making a real effort at European level to deal with these problems.
The Directive itself is difficult and technical, but adopting a political stance will be simpler when we see the effects.
What we are doing now is deciding on legislation which will determine how hazardous goods should be classified, packaged and labelled.
This is particularly important for the thousands of European workers who come into daily contact with these chemical products.
They depend on detailed and correct information on how these preparations should be handled to avoid putting their own health at risk.
It is Article 16 of the Directive which concentrates primarily on the working environment.
One of the proposals in this Article is to make obligatory safety data sheets, which will have to contain information on handling.
So it seems absurd that Parliament should intervene and try and reduce the standard for this type of safety data sheet.
This would also mean that the three newest Member States, at least, would be forced to reduce the level of their current legislation in this area.
We are talking about safety at work here.
This is not bedtime reading which has to be made simple to make it easier for certain Members of Parliament to read; we are talking about important issues concerning people's health.
But it is not just the working environment which will be affected by this Directive but the environment generally and our daily lives as consumers.
Many of the products we buy in the shops have labels warning us of particular health risks or potential allergies.
Against this background it seems somewhat unrealistic to say that it is consumer interest groups who want the impact of this Directive lessened.
It is other interested parties who wish to see the standards in the Directive reduced and I sincerely hope that this House will reject such Directives and proposals which would mean that the type of safety data sheet which we already have in Sweden, Finland and Austria, for example, can no longer continue to be used in the future.
This issue forms part of the agreements which were concluded during our membership negotiations.
So I do hope that this House can see the benefit in starting at a high level when it comes to safety, for us as employees, as consumers and as members of society in Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me say on behalf of the EPP Group that this proposal for a directive concerning the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations is another good example of sensible European legislation.
The question of dangerous preparations has been regulated on a Community-wide basis since 1988.
But that regulation has been supplemented and amended on several occasions.
The present Commission proposal not only revises and brings together various legislative measures but also closes a legislative loophole by covering the environmental effects of dangerous preparations.
The reason this question is so complex is that it does not only involve a great many - several thousand - substances, but also an even greater number of preparations containing these substances.
It is a matter of several hundreds of thousands of them.
Things become even more complicated because preparations are not just sold to the end user but many of them are only used within the industry.
Many small and medium-sized enterprises produce these preparations.
They are also expected to produce all the necessary data.
That means they must of course ensure that man and the environment are protected.
In the case of any further data, however, we must achieve a reasonable balance between cost and added benefit.
In this respect, I believe that the Commission proposal formed a very good basis.
Even in the case of most preparations not regarded as dangerous, the producer must provide a safety data sheet if the users so wish.
Labelling, of course, presents particular problems.
On the one hand it has to be comprehensible to the end user, on the other hand it must include a lot of information that may be important to the processor but is of no interest whatsoever to the general public.
I think it is important for the labelling to indicate really serious risks.
There may be three, five or seven of them.
But it cannot list another 20 potential or conceivable risks.
That would involve too much labelling and would confuse rather than inform the consumer.
The same applies to listing the chemical formulas, which the normal consumer cannot understand and where giving the more general name - for instance formaldehyde - would be more sensible.
That is precisely why some of the amendments give rise to problems.
Nor would such an abundance of information offer more protection; in fact it is more likely to do the opposite because it is confusing.
Even if people might think that lists can clarify a generic term, in practice they do the opposite, for lists are limiting and disregard other possible aspects implicit in the generic term.
These are the main reasons why my group will reject some of the committee's amendments.
To finish let me draw your attention to one more point, Commissioner, namely the poor translation.
The German version at least contains a number of mistakes.
For there is a difference between 'patentierung ' (patenting) and 'potenzierung ' (potentiation).
There are several things like this in the text.
I mentioned this in committee too, but unfortunately the mistakes were not corrected.
I cordially request the Commission to look into this again.
I am in any case informed, Mrs Schleicher, that the relevant department have put that right.
Mr President, we are very pleased with the proposal for a directive which somewhat widens the field of application of the original directives, as this is a directive which incorporates in a single document the existing legislation which has long existed in the field of dangerous preparations.
In particular, we believe the European Commission has submitted a good proposal because dangers to the environment are included in addition to dangers to health as mentioned in the existing text.
This is progress.
We also find it a useful improvement that preparations which can cause an allergic reaction are now also to be labelled.
We, the Group of European Liberals, are strong defenders of a high level of protection for the environment and clear labelling for the consumer.
I repeat, the Commission proposal seems to be a very reasonable proposal, although I would have liked to see further improvements on a number of points.
In our view, the report by Mrs Baldi scarcely constitutes an improvement on the original Commission proposal and, unfortunately, some of her amendments in fact serve to weaken the original.
This is why my group is unable to support the amendments which Mrs Baldi has once again submitted after they failed to be adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We do, however, very much support the amendments approved by the Committee on the Environment which we believe usefully improve on the Commission text.
These amendments concern matters such as the labelling of dangerous preparations which attain a dangerous concentration, if not individually, then when combined.
If we accept these amendments, then together with the Commission proposal we believe it will make a good directive.
I hope that Mr Bangemann is of the same opinion.
Mr President, in its current form the Balti report is a good one.
My group will be voting in favour of it.
The report was not quite as good before the vote in the environment committee because, in its original form, some of the proposals it contained would have reduced the standard of regulations governing data sheets.
Consequently, we will also be voting against all those proposals which have been raised again here aimed at reducing the standard of data sheets.
On the whole, the report in its current form and the Commission's proposal are very good and they will lead to significant tightening up in many areas.
Many more types of substances hazardous to health are now included which will be of benefit particularly to those with allergies.
Pesticides are included as well.
It is very important that the new Members are not forced to reduce the standard of their legislation by adopting regulations which are too weak.
We will be voting for the report in its current format, and we will be voting against the UPE's amendment proposals.
Mr President, I would like to welcome the Commission proposal.
It is a much-needed and longoverdue review of this area of legislation.
It is important not just for the safety of the environment but in particular for human health and safety.
There are three things in the Commission proposal which I welcome.
There is the general extension of information to preparations and substances dangerous to the environment, a new recognition of their importance; the extension of this proposal to biocides and pesticides, something which is much-needed and long-overdue; and an extension of the need to provide information on substances which are not necessarily dangerous by chemical characterization but when in use might pose some risks.
The Commission proposal, like everything else in this world, is not perfect.
Therefore I would commend to the Commission the majority of my colleagues' amendments which extend, clarify and develop the proposals of the Commission in a direction which is worthwhile and, in particular, the amendments which extend the provision of information through safety data sheets.
This is a positive proposal which is in operation in some Member States already, including the United Kingdom and Sweden.
It is important for suppliers to be obliged positively to provide safety data sheets to users.
This really is essential.
In addition, I would stress the need for good design of these sheets to ensure they are comprehensible to all users throughout the Union, which is not easy when dealing with technical material like this in many different languages.
I hope that the Commission will examine this area carefully.
I have some reservations with regard to proposals to allow the use of common or generic names without, in addition, the full names or details of the substance.
I would hope that in these circumstances we would accept the safeguards proposed by the Commission as it is an effort worth taking and will pay off in time.
Finally, I should like to thank the rapporteur.
The gracious and enthusiastic way she has produced this report has made it very interesting.
Her personal endeavour and commitment has made it a very enjoyable report to work on.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive we are debating today aims to concentrate all the European Union's legislative acts that determine the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations that circulate or are used in the market.
This replaces and extends the scope of the existing Directive 88/379.
The directive we are to vote on, by extending the field of implementation of the initial directive, will cover the following:
a. the classification and labelling of preparations that pose a threat to the environment, with specification of the wording 'hazard to the environment' ;
b. the classification, packaging and labelling of phytochemicals and biocides;
c. the requirement for a safety data sheet from the manufacturers of most unclassified preparations;
d. the requirement by professional users of explosive preparations, for these too to supply safety data sheets, and finally,
e. the classification and labelling of preparations containing certain sensitizing substances that induce allergies, even if their quantity is below the usual classification limit.
The European Parliament's Committee on the Environment would also want the data obtained from centres of information on poisoning to be used effectively.
As for the issue of labelling, the Committee stresses that this should be done in a clear way, because only then will the consumer be protected.
Finally, Mr President, it is important to make effective use not only of the experience gained by implementing the directive, but also the experience that will emerge from labelling, advertising and education.
For that reason, it is appropriate for the Commission to put a report before the European Parliament in two years, based on information gathered from the Member States and from professional users, so that any necessary technical amendments or indicated proposals can be set in hand.
In concluding, Mr President, I would like to applaud the Commission's initiative in proposing this review of the directive, to thank Mrs Baldi, who really worked hard on a difficult and complex subject, and to say that the Directive, as amended by the Environment Committee, has been greatly improved from what it was initially and I think we should vote for it.
Mr President, the directive on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations is certainly an important step towards genuinely completing the single market, because it is particularly necessary, in the field of chemicals, for us to have uniform labelling, uniform indications of risks and uniform methods of handling these dangerous materials.
Certainly it is also important to approximate the Member States' different legislative systems.
But, Mr Bangemann, it would have been a good idea also to incorporate the legislation on this matter that already exists in the three new Member States, Finland, Sweden and Austria, and not to wait for Parliament to point out, in the relevant amendments, that some Member States already have more stringent legislation, which is of course very sensible.
My colleagues have pointed out on several occasions that in the case of dangerous preparations it is not just a question of the risks of individual substances but that it is often the combination of the various substances that presents a considerably greater danger.
This needs to be pointed out, both to the processing firms and to those who buy the end products.
I hope this amendment by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection will obtain the necessary majority here and that the Commission and the Council will approve it, because this is a most important point.
I would like to add to another point my colleagues have already mentioned: for the sake of the consumer, we must ensure that these dangerous preparations are not advertised as ecologically safe and environment-friendly, or can be sold with these attributes, for that leads the consumer astray.
Finally, let me turn briefly to the safety data sheets, which I believe are particularly necessary for small and medium-sized enterprises, even if they add extra costs, because the owners themselves are far more involved in working with their people than in large firms and they do not have the same chance to obtain information as large firms, which may have whole departments dealing only with chemicals.
Mr President, this Directive is important to all Member States of the European Union, but clearly, since agreement was reached on certain matters with the three new Member States during the accession negotiations, it is to be hoped that sufficient account will be taken of these points.
Otherwise there is a danger that these countries will be left empty-handed at the beginning of 1999.
The Directive, which was originally presented as an amending proposal by the Commission, has gradually acquired genuine substance of its own.
The new Directive will unquestionably improve the existing situation, inter alia by collating and unifying EU legislation on dangerous preparations.
It is also an improvement on the earlier Directive that the new proposal takes into account environmentally hazardous compounds and requires them to be classified and labelled.
However, the job has been left unfinished.
In the Directive it is proposed that, in the case of preparations which are not classified as hazardous substances but large batches of which contain small active quantities of hazardous substances, safety information for users should be provided to professional users only where required.
However, this information would concern only substances hazardous to health, and not those hazardous to the environment.
Yet decisions as to which compounds are to be used in practice are mostly taken at the work-place.
It is there that it is decided how to use and store substances and how to dispose of waste.
Many workers, as well as the trade unions, are aware of issues relating to health, safety at work and the environment.
It would therefore make more sense to label these compounds in all cases with information about constituents hazardous to health or the environment.
This is the purpose of Amendment 40.
Certain sensitizing and possibly allergenic substances should be marked even if they can only provoke a reaction in sensitized people.
Mr President, the directive we are discussing today does not just deal with labels on cans and drums and requirements to provide safety data sheets.
It is a directive that will determine whether Danish painters are protected in the future against organic solvents.
Many people in Denmark have a view on this.
Unfortunately they remember it as one of the areas in which the EU is scrapping high Danish standards.
In Denmark we consider that, while it cannot be demonstrated with certainty that painters suffer brain damage through being exposed to organic solvents, the mere suspicion constitutes sufficient grounds for taking action.
Clearly therefore, painters need to know exactly what it is they are using.
We now have some new friends in this circle: the three new Member States, who also support better labelling.
In all three countries there has been concern that EU membership will lead to a lowering of standards on the environment and the working environment.
The revision of the old directive, which also covers unwholesome things like pesticides, biocides and medicines, is viewed in these countries as a decisive test of whether membership can be reconciled with high Danish environmental standards.
The European Parliament thus has a vital role to play here.
It is up to us to put maximum pressure on the Commission and the Council of Ministers to ensure that we do not end up with inferior standards for consumers and workers.
We are the only EU institution elected by direct suffrage in the fifteen Member States; we therefore have a duty to argue the case of the common man.
Mr President, I do not want to discuss all the objectives we are aiming at in our proposal, because I believe it has become quite clear during the debate that the Commission, like Parliament, is endeavouring to improve the existing provisions.
By and large all the Members who spoke in the debate have confirmed that.
But in particular I want to thank the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, because we find most of the amendments they have tabled acceptable and think they improve the proposal which, I believe, was fairly good in the first place, taken as a whole - as Mrs Schleicher rightly pointed out.
I want to concentrate mainly on the amendments now.
We can accept 29 of the 39 amendments supported by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection either unreservedly or in principle: Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 25, 27, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38 and 39 unreservedly and Nos 6, 17, 24, 29 and 30 in principle.
Since Amendment No 35 was adopted, Article 12 of the proposal has to be deleted, which of course means that the amendments tabled to that article lapse.
Let me turn now to the amendments we do not want to accept.
In our view Amendment No 4 would lead to unnecessary tests on animals because it would suspend the use of the conventional method.
That is why we do not want to accept that amendment.
Amendments Nos 8, 9, 11 and 12, to which Members from Sweden, Finland and Austria mainly referred, seek to introduce into the report a specific situation that exists particularly in Austria.
It is not true that, as some of the ladies who spoke to these amendments believe, when we drew up the proposal we paid no regard whatsoever to the treaties we have concluded with the new Member States.
For instance we also introduced classification and labelling provisions for pesticides, i.e. we incorporated legislative provisions that exist in, for instance, Austria.
The same applies to substances that may pose a risk to the environment; we included this feature of Austrian law too.
It is absolutely not the case, i.e. it is incorrect to say that we paid no regard at all to that.
What we did not do is to incorporate a provision requiring that the chemical name of all dangerous substances contained in a preparation must be mentioned on the label.
We rejected that idea because we believe - and this is not an affront to Austria, Sweden or Finland - that this would in fact be of no benefit at all to the consumer.
On the contrary, if we listed all the substances that may be contained, even below the threshold level, we would have a mile-long list which no longer had any real meaning.
I think it was Mrs Schleicher who rightly pointed that out.
We did not do this just by the by; I want to tell you this because of the criticism that we just made a few phone calls.
Of course we prepare our proposals carefully and we do so by discussing them with experts from all the Member States who can then put their own points of view in working parties.
During these preparations we and the experts from the other Member States asked Austria to produce material or arguments to justify the special situation in Austria.
It did not do so, which is why all the other Member States accepted the Commission's position.
So you really cannot say that we proceeded in an arbitrary fashion without regard for these interests.
I regard that almost as a personal attack, because I love Austria, and of course Finland and Sweden too!
All love affairs are dangerous, Mrs Flemming, that is why they are so wonderful!
So we did this for carefully considered reasons and I hope we will obtain Parliament's assent.
On the question of translation, let me say I regret what happened.
There are indeed a number of mistakes in the German version.
We cannot correct that now, Mrs Schleicher.
The document is in the Council's hands and the Council already has a proposal before it from the German delegation on how these mistakes can be corrected.
So I assume all this can be sorted out.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at noon tomorrow.
1998 estimate for EP and Ombudsman
The next item on the agenda is the report, drawn up by Mr Tomlinson on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the estimates of revenue and expenditure of the European Parliament and the estimates of revenue and expenditure of the Ombudsman for the 1998 financial year (A4-0178/97).
I call upon the rapporteur, Mr Tomlinson.
Mr President, I should like to commend to the House the report that stands in my name on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
First, I want to say to the House that the one thing it should understand is that today's debate is the beginning of our budget procedure and not the end.
I say that in the light of comments I shall subsequently make in relation to some of the amendments.
This is not the conclusion but merely the start and, as you rightly pointed out, Mr President, when you read the subject for debate today, it is a report on the estimates of revenue and expenditure for the European Parliament and the Ombudsman.
That is what we are establishing today.
Therefore, at the outset, I want to emphasize, over and above the report itself, Amendment No 17 tabled by Mr Wynn which I urged him and my group to submit.
Obviously I could not table it myself because it had not been dealt with in committee.
The importance of Amendment No 17 is that in establishing the draft estimates we have gone over the 20 % ceiling of Category 5 appropriations which would normally be the maximum that Parliament spent in accordance with our normal practice.
Therefore, Amendment No 17 contains a firm commitment to remain below the 20 % ceiling of administrative appropriations.
I had a long discussion yesterday evening with the President of Parliament and with the Vice-President responsible for budgets.
We are clearly agreed about the mechanisms which need to take place.
There will be a rectifying letter sent by the Bureau of Parliament to the Committee on Budgets.
That will need to be sent by the middle of September in order to effect the necessary changes.
It means that over and above the suggestions that already exist in the draft report on the estimates, the Bureau has to face up to the need to find a further ECU 4m of cuts in the draft estimates and submit that proposal for ECU 4m of cuts to the Committee on Budgets.
However, the letter of rectification will have to deal with other things beside that.
It will need to see if there are any consequences, for example, of the outcome of the IGC in relation to places of work.
That is going to be somewhat more complicated than people imagined at first sight.
I do not want to produce a rather pejorative note into our discussion today but there will clearly be implications from the outcome of the IGC for the budget of Parliament and these will also need to be covered in the rectifying letter from the Bureau to the Committee on Budgets.
The third area that such a rectifying letter will clearly need to cover - and I say this very clearly to the House - is the question about the outcome of the Bureau working group in relation to the transparency and control that was called for by Parliament in its resolution of December last year concerning Members' allowances.
I and the Committee on Budgets will be resisting in the vote this week a number of amendments in relation to those allowances.
That is not a value judgment on those amendments.
It is intended as a proper respect for the competence of the Bureau to fulfil the mandate it has been given.
It was asked to produce a report to Parliament by April.
It has not been able to do so.
Parliament and the Committee on Budgets are being extremely tolerant in accepting that it might take until September.
But it cannot take beyond September.
If we do not have the proposals from the Bureau for the transparency and control of Members' allowances in that rectifying letter in September, then it will be right and proper for the House to make its own decisions on the recommendation of the Committee on Budgets in the vote at first reading.
I say that with as much clarity as I can because I do not want anybody to misinterpret votes that are made against some of the amendments.
They are made not as a value judgment but out of respect for the Bureau competence, and include a promise that we will return to these questions at the reading of the budget in October if we do not consider that they have been adequately covered by that time.
I now turn to the report itself.
We work on the basis of the estimates that have been established by the Bureau on the basis of a report from the Secretary-General.
The Committee on Budgets has mainly formulated proposals in six areas to work on the basis of the report that had been given to us and, we believe, to improve it somewhat.
The first of those six areas is changing the updating of remarks and nomenclature, in particular in the statement of revenue.
That is rather technical but, nevertheless, important to the clarity and transparency of our budget.
The second area, which I have already partly referred to, is in relation to Members' travelling allowances.
Concerning travel expenses, we have now reached an agreement with the Bureau that there will be no increase in the travel allowance, not even the increase for inflation for the year 1998.
We have clearly incorporated that.
It does not depend on future votes.
It is in this draft report.
The third area where we have concentrated our endeavours relates to the freezing of the establishment plan of the secretariat but, at the same time, within that overall context of freezing the establishment plan, there has been the granting of a certain number of upgradings on the basis of parameters set for career developments.
There are a number of other areas that we will be looking at in some detail on the basis of reports we ask for in the course of the budgetary procedure.
For example, there are a number of requests that we ask for further information concerning mission expenses and canteen expenses.
I have to say that I do not feel any sense of grievance at the somewhat perjorative way I have been represented by the Staff Committee who advertise what they claim to be the price of Tomlinson.
I had suggested that we put the appropriations for subsidies to the canteens into reserve until we could examine more fully how they were currently used and how they could be justified in future, if at all.
I suspect, however, on reflection that the staff did not agree with its Staff Committee either because at the Staff Committee elections where this figured as one of the most prominent aspects of their election campaign, the Staff Committee found that it was 350 votes short of a quorum.
That indicates the need for it to get its act together and fight on the real issues of concern and not on phoney issues such as whether they deserve a subvention to their canteens.
The next major item on which we will be focusing relates to the whole question of building policy.
One of the problems we have had in the 1998 budget is that although we move out of the Belliard building in order to occupy the new building, our lease on the Belliard building continues well into the next millennium.
So there had been no provision made for the rent of the Belliard building.
That might have satisfied everybody in theory, but it did not satisfy the landlord.
The landlord needed to be paid.
Therefore, we have had to enter over ECU 7m into the budget for the rent for the Belliard building until we have managed to dispose of that lease.
An extremely important part of our building policy, therefore, is not just concentrating on moving into new buildings but making sure that we dispose properly of leases on existing buildings such as Van Maerlant and the Belliard building.
Finally, there was the assessment and updating of strategy in the data-processing sector where the Committee on Budgets are collaborating very well with Vice-President Haarder who has responsibility in this area.
A substantial amount of money is being put into the reserve until the data-processing strategy is somewhat clearer.
There are many other things in the Committee on Budgets' deliberations which I could focus on.
For example, we have looked at the whole question of telecoms in a liberalized telecommunications market.
We find it somewhat surprising that as the telecommunications market has liberalized we have not gone to competitive tender for the provision of telecom services.
So, the Committee on Budgets has called on the administration to produce an appropriate report with appropriate savings.
Therefore, on the basis of what I have said, I will be opposing all amendments to the Committee on Budgets' report and urge people who have amendments to realize that frequently the best place for their amendment is not in the estimates but when we come to the reading of the budget in October.
I can deal with the other part of the report in the remaining 20 seconds.
It is in relation to the estimates of the Ombudsman.
It shows the general state of satisfaction with the modesty of his requests and demands that it has received no amendment at all.
I commend the report to the House.
Mr President, first I should like to thank Mr Tomlinson for his report on the 1998 estimates for the European Parliament and the Ombudsman.
This report clearly shows the need to continue the budgetary austerity line begun last year, so that the 2.7 increase in Section I as compared with last year is the correct and the most suitable figure which could be applied.
But austerity should be backed up by sound financial management which would necessarily require greater interinstitutional cooperation and better use of technological resources, since data processing, as Mr Tomlinson has just mentioned, would make the work more efficient.
I fully agree that we could obtain much more for the money which is to be spent.
However, it must be noted that there is still a lack of transparency as regards the implementation of various parts of Section I, so information is rather scant: Epicentre, security, cleaning and maintenance.
I also regret that the situation on the future of the Belliard I and II Buildings has not been clarified nor the transfer of the Maerlantd Building.
Is the Maerlantd Building to be occupied by the Economic and Social Committee or the Committee of the Regions? I am aware that none of these decisions is without its difficulties since, although we have buildings enough an to spare now, we might be short of them following enlargement.
It is still essential to make sure that the removal from the Maerlantd building is coordinated in order to avoid leaving the building unoccupied which would entail further expense.
I am confident that the competent administration will do everything possible to clarify the future situation on the accommodation front.
As regards the last point which Mr Tomlinson mentioned on budgetary heading 1840 - the restaurant subsidy - I think that subsidy constitutes compensation to a firm which is providing a continuous and correct service to people who are not present for the whole week and many of whom are for one week in every month in Strasbourg.
I therefore think that the subsidy provides some compensation for diminished use.
If it is discontinued that will be reflected in an increase in prices and, finally, like the whiting biting its own tail, in even less use so that it will then be necessary to go out to eat, which would increase the time spent away from the offices.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Tomlinson for the spirit of thrift that ran through his speech to Parliament, and I want to thank the Committee on Budgets and the Bureau, on which I myself sit, for unanimously deciding to keep Members' expenses for travel and the like at the same level as last year or, more accurately, to keep expenditure for next year at the same level as this year.
I should like to thank Mr Tomlinson for his clear insistence that the release of money to refund travel expenses in the future should of course be subject to the production of documentation showing that a journey has actually been made.
That is the least that can be expected.
The Liberal Group has a very clear position on this matter.
No firm would cover travel expenses for its employees without proof that they have actually travelled.
Our Parliament should not give politicians terms any different to those governing the conduct of our citizens.
It is not a question of mistrust, it is about order, propriety and openness, so that everyone can see that things are being done correctly.
We in the Liberal Group take an equally clear stance on Parliament's sittings in Strasbourg.
We accept - albeit under protest - the ordinance that Parliament should meet every month in Strasbourg.
But every month means 11 and not 12 part-sessions.
We think that the Council of Ministers shows contempt for Parliament by not taking account of this, because it causes expenditure to increase quite unreasonably.
It is important that Parliament get used to saving in all areas and that we do our work more efficiently.
If we get used to saving, we shall also have money to spend on necessary projects, for example in the field of information technology.
We must transform Parliament from the bogey it is in some Member States into a model, an example of a unique, effective and modern international Parliament working in close cooperation with the national parliaments and with ordinary citizens.
That must be the goal of our activity.
Mr President, there is increasing public concern that parliamentarians receive extra tax free income because of their high allowances.
Such privileges are damaging to democracy and create a gulf between us and our people.
In the interests of democracy such privileges should be abolished.
Those responsible ought to take note of this before September.
The Tomlinson report also proposes that funds be set aside for political parties at European level.
This is a very strange proposal.
Parties are created by the people.
Their legitimacy arises from this popular base.
To create 'super parties' by allocating money from above is democratically unnatural.
It is contrary to national constitutions that foreign based parties should be able to intervene and be active in national politics, in competition with national independent parties.
The creation of such 'super parties' which stand above society and above the people is alien to all democratic tradition.
Democracy is not constructed from above.
Nor is Parliament - and nor can they be bought with money.
The whole of this absurd idea should be rejected.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that building policy is a very heavy burden on Parliament, which is why I also presume that retaining the 20 % limit is the most delicate question we will have to resolve at the first reading.
Regardless of that, I believe we can no longer escape the necessary pressure for reform and the call for transparency in this House.
In this context I would like to openly praise the rapporteur and thank him for including in his report a demand which my group has been making in this House for a long time.
Let me refer you to paragraph 36.
We too would like to see an ecological audit of Parliament's buildings.
We cannot call on EU enterprises to observe the eco-audit directive while we ourselves sidestep it in the case of our own buildings and our own approach to paper and the environment.
The second remark I would like to make concerns the public procurement system in this House.
We have tabled a supplementary amendment on this and I would be very grateful if it could still be considered.
In my view, this House is far too sloppy in its approach to public procurement.
The Committee on Budgetary Control is currently examining the cases that have arisen in the course of last year and the year before and I believe a warning about the need to observe these public rules would be a good idea for us and especially of course for the administration and the Bureau.
My third remark concerns the urgent need for transparency in relation to allowances for us, the Members of this House.
We have now found that the working party set up to this end has not yet reached any conclusion and perhaps we should not just call for the appropriate reform proposals with a warning that we will come to our own decision at first reading in September but should say openly that in future Parliament itself will decide on Members' allowances, and not the Bureau.
In this context, I certainly support the rapporteur.
All the requests we, and in particular my group, have put forward on transparency in relation to travel allowances, checks on attendance by means of roll-call votes, auditing secretariat costs and the transferral of the general estimate of these allowances directly to the pension fund, all these requests which I and my group regard as minimum standards for transparency in relation to allowances, will be put before this House for a roll-call vote in September.
Then we will see how serious the House is about transparency!
Mr President, with just two minutes in which to speak I must of course limit myself to a couple of fundamental comments.
First of all, I once again regret that no serious attempt is being made to set an example as Members of Parliament.
It is a fact that in all Member States - and partly as a result of the Maastricht criteria - our electors are being asked to make huge material sacrifices, with the imposition of new taxes and levies.
But we ourselves are not touching our princely - even by parliamentary standards - expenditure allowances of various kinds.
I know that I can now be accused of being a hypocrite.
I understand such comments. I must certainly acknowledge that the leading proposer of amendments on this subject is a member of the Flemish Socialist Party, the party which is notorious for the bribes and other scandals of which not one penny has yet been returned to the taxpayer.
But nevertheless, if tomorrow we support all the amendments which correct the anomalies of our allowances, nobody needs be a hypocrite any longer.
Secondly, as a Fleming I want to categorically state that under no circumstances must savings be made on the back of translation costs.
I note that members of the European Commission among others are increasingly trampling on the right to information in your own language.
I experienced this once again in Strasbourg this month, for example, during a speech by Commissioner Cresson.
Anybody who takes even a cursory glance at this Parliament's budget can immediately find tens of millions of ecus in possible savings.
It is no exaggeration to say that in 'Europe' money is being thrown out of the window.
In these circumstances, in my opinion anyone who wants to save on translation costs is motivated by other than budgetary considerations.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating our rapporteur.
It is the typical style we have come to expect from him - combative and taking no hostages when he is fighting particular causes.
However, I should like to echo the point that we are dealing with estimates of revenue and expenditure.
We will come to our first reading later this year and that will be the time when substantive decisions will be taken.
On behalf of my group, in contributing to this debate and in setting Parliament's budget for the 1998 financial year, I want to underline the following points.
Firstly, we would like to make sure that the overall approach we take is one which respects a general rigour in monitoring the expenditure of the budget.
So we find ourselves, as in 1997, in sympathy with Member States who are having to cut back on expenditure to meet the Maastricht criteria for the single currency.
In doing so, we wish to retain the 20 % limit and quite clearly a decision will have to be taken as to how to do that.
Secondly, looking at particular items, the Group of the European People's Party will be putting forward amendments, in particular on information policy, to make sure that we are going to get the right economies in both the Commission and Parliament budgets.
We have done that in the past and will continue to do so.
For example, we will aim at the objective of having common European houses in our Member States by the year 2000.
Equally, we back the position of the rapporteur in the treatment of the Epicentre.
We have to be extremely cautious about setting up a new system of information without coordinating it effectively with other means of distributing information to parliamentarians.
In terms of building policy, now that the Council has decided that Parliament should have its seat in Strasbourg, we will be voting for the cheapest way in which we can purchase our buildings. The ten-year solution, however inconvenient, is the one we must stick by.
Lastly, when it comes to the first reading we will be looking for the report which Parliament asked of the Bureau on the question of a statute for Members' allowances.
That is the point in time when we must take a decision and not now, as one or two Members seem to think, in order to gain some short-term political capital.
In the Amsterdam Treaty under Article 138(4) Parliament is asked to come up with proposals on how a common statute will operate.
We will be looking to bring all these elements together and take some sensible decisions as to how our finances should be expended.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too want to express my congratulations to the rapporteur on the work he has done and, obviously, given the limited time available, I will restrict myself to certain general points on the European Parliament's budget.
When we talk about the European Parliament's budget, it is impossible not to highlight the fact that the most glaring example of lack of transparency and excessive cost inside this Parliament is represented by the buildings policy in both Brussels and Strasbourg, and it is one of the subjects - this needs to be stressed - on which the Presidency maintains an attitude of extreme reticence every time it is asked.
In practice we are now largely forced to restrict certain functions that are important for Parliament - I am thinking, for example, of the whole interpretation service - to pay for the excessive cost of misconceived operations, operations full of irregularities, operations which are largely superfluous.
That needs to be said very clearly!
I am not clear whether the 1998 budget includes the amount arising from the penalties CERS will have to pay for the delay in delivering the new building in Strasbourg in Parliament's income.
I would like some clarification on that point.
If we want to save money, I think there are some suggestions to be made.
I think we ought to begin by abolishing the right of political groups to meet outside the institutional buildings, which wastes a great deal of money. We could save on the buildings in the individual Member States, which cost such a lot and produce very little return, and we could certainly save on the costs of the canteens, as the rapporteur has suggested.
Finally, we must be careful not to create a new bureaucratic structure just to check Members' expenses receipts.
Transparency is essential, but we must take care that we do not end up spending just as much and at the same time increasing the bureaucracy to do the checking.
Mr President, the estimate of the European Parliament's next year's expenditure has been drawn up most professionally.
My thanks to Mr Tomlinson.
Parliament's budget ought not to exceed 20 % of Category 5 appropriations.
This document exceeds that ceiling by ECU 4 million.
This is a blemish which ought to be expunged.
I therefore support Amendment 17.
Among the other main points, I should like to stress point 6(f) of Part B, concerning data processing.
The European Parliament's systems are years behind those at the Member States' parliaments - at any rate Finland's. The rapporteur's stress on this point is accordingly justified.
In my view it is also right that the rapporteur has cut expenditure on canteens.
Originally, running costs amounted to two and a half million ECU, or approximately 100 Belgian francs per customer per day, assuming that every employee and every Member eats every working day.
I do not see any need for subsidies.
If the employer wishes to subsidize employees' meals, this should be done in a different way - openly, for example by issuing luncheon vouchers.
Canteens and a possible Parliament shop ought to be organized by means of open competitions - the approach which has in fact already been adopted in many Member States. 3-079
Mr President, I welcome Mr Tomlinson's decisiveness with regard to Members' privileges and expenses allowances.
He has decided to put these matters in order if the working party set up by the Bureau does not achieve anything.
But as a member of the Bureau's working party, I have to say that Mr Tomlinson is far too polite.
I would advise you not to expect too much of the working party.
Its chairman, who is leaving Parliament to take up other duties, has just postponed the final meeting, at which proposals were supposed to have been made.
It has been quite impossible for us to obtain definite information as to how the various amendments tabled affect Parliament's budget.
But Parliament undoubtedly needs to reach a quick decision about this, as we know that the Court of Auditors is also taking an interest in the curious problem that expenses are paid here for journeys which have not been made.
It is also known that citizens have complained to the Ombudsman about this administrative defect.
Proposals therefore need to be made without delay.
As Edith Müller has said, the Green Group believes that travelling expenses should be paid only if documentary evidence is produced.
This is the only way of overcoming the existing problems, which undermine the very legitimacy of Parliament.
Roll-calls should also be held at plenary sittings to ensure that Members do not draw their daily allowances unless they participate in the electronic voting.
I should also like to draw attention to the secretarial assistance allowance.
This totals around 7 % of Parliament's entire budget.
I believe there is a good deal of negligence here.
A proper audit is called for.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at noon tomorrow, Thursday.
The information society
The next item on the agenda is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0163/97 by Mr Hendrick, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual Community programme to stimulate the establishment of the information society in Europe (COM(96)0596 - C4-0030/97-96/0283(CNS)); -A4-0208/97 by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communications from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on: -' The Information Society: from Corfu to Dublin, The New Priorities' , and 'The Implications of the Information Society for European Union Policies' (COM(96)0395) - (C4 0521/96) and-' Europe at the Forefront of the Global Information Society: Rolling Action Plan' (COM(96)0607 - C40648/96); -A4-0209/97 by Mr Rübig, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on 'Standardization and the global information society: the European approach' (COM(96)0359 - C4-0523/96); -A4-0200/97 by Mrs Ahlqvist, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, European Parliament, Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions: ' Learning in the Information Society: Action Plan for a European Education Initiative' (COM(96)0471 - C4-0528/96).
Mr President, my report is concerned with the awareness, raising and dissemination of information about the information society.
As we all know, information in itself is power.
And our job, as elected representatives of the people, is to disseminate that power to the people.
We do that by creating an information society where information is plentiful and widely distributed and through reliable infrastructure.
Information empowers people and we as Socialists cannot accept an information society of haves and have-nots.
That is why the Commission with the support of this Parliament continues to support the multiannual programme to stimulate the establishment of the information society in Europe.
The setting up of the information society project office is a tremendous step forward.
The worldwide web and the Internet has developed into a phenomenal medium.
The use of this medium will revolutionize society as we know it.
The nineteenth century was the age of agriculture and the twentieth century the age of manufacturing industry.
With computers and mechanization, most of our food, consumer goods and services will be provided by automated systems.
Early into the next century, only approximately 8 % of our population will be employed in agriculture or manufacturing goods and services.
The vast majority of human activity will revolve around the use of information and the twenty-first century will be the age of information.
Information will be the raw material.
Economic performance and prosperity will be determined by the ability to process raw information into knowledge, by the ability to transport that knowledge throughout information infrastructures, through fibre-optic cables and via satellite to destinations where it can be utilized to create wealth for our citizens.
Teleworking, teleshopping, teleconferences are all activities which will utilize the new technologies and the new infrastructure.
What we also need are people with the skills to do that.
The multiannual programme will contribute significantly to making people aware of these new technologies and encouraging them to take up the new technologies and learn the skills required in order to utilize them so that they may find fortune in the future with work and prosperity which will keep Europe ahead of the game in terms of economic performance.
In addition, we should not just set up a programme to stimulate such use without monitoring the effectiveness of that programme.
Therefore, in my report I suggest that we monitor the performance of the programme using specific parameters which will say how effective that programme has been and ensure that the Community funds are being well-spent and used effectively.
It is also important that we involve other players apart from the Commission, Parliament and national regulatory authorities in this process.
I have therefore suggested that we set up a committee made up of industrialists and academics, experts in their own particular field, who could provide an input to the Commission, Parliament and the regulatory authorities so that this multiannual programme can take into account the views of people in the Community as a whole.
It is for this reason that we hope to see an information society that will benefit all our citizens in the future and one which will give them the jobs and the prosperity they so desperately need at this moment in time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the White Paper 'Growth, Competitiveness and Employment' already contains a notable overall view of what needs to be done to allow Europe to enter the 21st century as a major player in the information society.
After the White Paper came the Corfu, Esssen and Dublin Summits.
On each occasion the Council and Commission took the necessary measures.
They were then either not implemented at all or implemented too slowly.
Now the Amsterdam Summit has once again called for more employment and has decided to hold a special employment summit in Luxembourg.
On paper everything is in place.
The Commission proposals which we have before us today, studies by the high level group, the Club of Brussels, the information society forum, ... and just too many to name.
What we must now do is make a final choice and then promptly act upon it.
This is why I call upon the Council and the Commission to place all the proposed measures concerning the employment aspects of the information society high on the agenda at the employment summit.
The ministerial conference in Bonn can provide the necessary first steps in doing this.
The information and communication technologies are an example of a new activity by means of which new jobs can be created without too many extra European resources, provided the right conditions are created.
In the telecommunications sector alone 150, 000 jobs have been created.
The indirect effect of ICT on the European economy as a whole could lead to the creation of between 0.5 and almost 1.5 billion new jobs.
Secondly, Europe must create a competitive environment for industry.
An internal market which, unfortunately, remains inadequate, is resulting in an inadequate European competitiveness.
This is why it is important to strictly respect the deadlines linked to the action plans.
There is a need for improvement in areas such as combating government assistance to national companies and ensuring fair competition.
In this connection, I support Commissioner Monti's proposals for the completion of the internal market.
It is the Member States which are the biggest problem in this area. They are often too lax in implementing European regulations.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the information society it is new small businesses which play an innovative role by developing new products and which are therefore important to boosting Europe's competitiveness.
At the present time just 4 % of Europe's small and medium-sized enterprises have Internet access.
It must be the EU's task to stimulate the activities of these small firms.
The European Investment Bank can grant loans to new and fast-growing businesses, as was decided at last week's European summit.
I also believe that a substantial part of the resources under the Fifth Framework Programme must be allocated to activities relating to the information society.
At present just 2 % of the regional funds are used for this.
The same applies to the European Social Fund.
It is possible to do more and better things with the same money.
The information society is not only a question of technology, it is also a question of the impact on society.
I am pleased to see that the focus of the Rolling Action Plan is shifting to the social aspects of the information society.
Hopefully this aspect will not be neglected at the ministerial conference in Bonn.
Special attention must be paid to lifelong learning and adult education.
Attention must also be paid - and this is probably the most difficult part of the European Commission's work - to creating a more flexible market and reformulating the rights and obligations of employees and employers.
The Member States must always remember that a European population given the constant possibility to undertake further training under working conditions which take into account the new forms of work is a formidable weapon in the war of competition with the United States and Japan.
The four policy lines on which I comment in my report are good policy lines.
I am pleased with the documents as presented but, as I have said, at the end of the day ICT must be for people and not the other way round.
My greatest concern is therefore the implementation of the correct regulations. This is why I call upon the Commission, upon us as a Parliament and upon the Council to produce fewer memos and take more action.
Mr President, I want to congratulate the negotiators in Amsterdam on not downgrading employment to a question purely of convergence but on deciding that this issue will be discussed in depth at a summit in Luxembourg.
I believe that a competitive European economy is the main point of departure for creating new jobs.
That means we must work even harder to complete the internal market, which is where the information society has a central role to play.
Mr Hendrick has highlighted this very well.
This is where we must start.
This is where we must make more progress.
Of course standards form part of it and standardization can do much to make the European economy more competitive.
For standards are not just a technical or legal matter; they are the precondition for creating competitiveness.
In the field of information and communications technology, the development of standards is - and in my view must be - market driven.
I believe that is crucial to the drawing up of standards.
Four basic questions arise here.
Firstly: official standards and the concept of publicly available specifications.
I think we have to consider the technical and legal aspects of this.
The second major question is the changing role of standards and of the European standardization organizations.
I believe in future we will have to work more closely together both with the national and with the international standardization organizations, avoid duplication and twin-track situations and in particular speed up this process.
The third question is the legal status of publicly available specifications, also known as PAS, in Community law.
I believe that in relation to this legal status we must also consider to what extent this involves the software, hardware and manware areas.
Mrs Ahlqvist will be going into that later.
In the information society, learning is of fundamental importance and we need learning standards too so that we can see whether certain standards have been achieved and what standards are needed.
The fourth question is the importance of strategic proposals for developing competitiveness through the standards policy.
That brings me to standardization itself.
It offers substantial benefits, namely legal and technical certainty for the users, for the firms, for the consumers and for the suppliers, and I believe that this is a most important basis and a fundamental consideration.
But in the end we are also talking about a legal basis for the world-wide extension of these standards and taking direct account of essential requirements such as security - for security is always a central issue - network interconnection, application interoperability and data protection.
Standards also offer the advantage of being published, which means they are easily accessible worldwide, without time loss.
That means we can easily obtain carefully checked, written documents and opinions, on the basis of which we can then also improve our standards.
At present these processes take too long: a period of 6 to 8 years is no longer compatible with the life cycle of products of these technologies.
We also find, for example, that certain standards have never even been developed.
A simple example is the electric plug; there are many different, incompatible systems in the European Community.
We also have standards that were not developed quickly enough, where the European industry did not decide quickly enough, for example Video 2000, which never established itself.
On the other hand we have standards that have achieved international recognition, such as GSM.
GSM is becoming established worldwide and it is quite easy to telephone Slovakia or Russia today thanks to GSM.
Now, with the introduction of the euro, for instance, new opportunities have opened up for standardization, and especially for the PAS.
With the prospect of the introduction of banking codes we can already consider how Europe is to meet this challenge internationally and thereby become more competitive.
I believe the report makes it very clear that both de facto and de jure standards should be applied and that new systems must also be developed.
As in the case of proprietary rights - patents, trade marks, copyright, protection of patterns and designs - a complete system should be developed for standards, in which small and medium-sized enterprises and consumer organizations should be very closely involved.
Mr President, this discussion today of the first report that I have had the pleasure of writing on behalf of the culture committee evokes special feelings for me.
I am pleased to have been given this task, particularly because my homeland, Sweden, can in many ways be held up as an illustration of information technology and its use.
The Commission has given the Swedish Department of Education the task of developing a school computer network which will be used throughout Europe.
We have started work and I hope to be able to present the results to the culture committee at the end of the year.
At the same time, I cannot refrain from mentioning the slightly bizarre fact that the position adopted by Parliament concerns a plan of action which was launched in December last year.
I am not one of those who wish to increase the power of the European Parliament to interfere in everything but I really do think that when we do something we should do it seriously.
It is true that I have had regular contact with the Commission and I assume that some of my opinions will be evident in the future handling of the action plan.
But I really would like to emphasise that positions adopted by Parliament which are not legally binding must also be treated seriously.
How will our people have faith in the slogan 'Citizens first' if the opinions of elected members are treated as pure formalities?
As far as the actual action plan is concerned I support the Commission's proposals for the most part.
The initiative has three goals: to hasten the entry of schools into the information society, to promote increased use of multimedia technology in teaching and to strengthen the European dimension in education with the help of the tools of the information society, and to put emphasis on cultural and linguistic diversity.
In order to achieve these three goals the initiative will concentrate on four courses of action which will support local and national initiatives.
T his will be based on promoting the interlinking of school networks to each other and encouraging the development and spread of the programme.
In addition, teachers will receive training and support and all those involved will be given information on the pedagogical opportunities offered by multi-media technology.
Both research and pilot projects demonstrate that information technology makes the acquisition of new knowledge easier and stimulates personal development provided that it is adapted according to need and that the educational content is sufficient.
Based on my experience as head teacher at Hertsön's high school in Luleå I think that teacher training and information for parents are prerequisites for the success of the project.
It is important that teachers have time to familiarise themselves with new methods of teaching and that they fully understand the possibilities.
At the same time I know that parents have an important role to play in reinforcing school work at home.
Both of these points are also underlined by the Commission.
But the original action plan does not address an issue which I consider to be extremely important in this respect and that is the situation of the disabled.
As a result of information technology, opportunities for disabled people are greatly increased both in education and at work.
There is a need to develop software and information and to undergo training in order to take advantage of this.
The wonderful thing about most software packages is that there is practically no extra cost involved in adapting them for the disabled provided this is done at an early stage in the development process.
I think that this must be a political priority.
The Commission have shown themselves to be in favour of my proposal which I hope will now be developed in more detail.
The same applies to the aspect of equality.
It is also extremely important that we redress the unfavourable balance between the sexes which even now can still be seen on the computer front.
This is why I have proposed that a pilot project be created within the action plan aimed particularly at young girls.
Regardless of the risks associated with the information society we must acknowledge that there really is no alternative.
This is why it is important that we politicians enter the debate at an early stage and that we are aware of the opportunities available through new information technology.
It is in primary schools and secondary schools that the new technology must be taught.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights let me warmly congratulate Mrs Boogerd-Quaak on her report and thank her for fully incorporating in her report the unanimously adopted conclusions of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
All the reports we are jointly debating today show that the European Parliament is fully committed to the Commission's policy on the information society.
But they also show that we have to point to the dangers of unilateral development.
Unilateral developments are becoming increasingly evident and the Commission must do more to counter them in its policy.
While applications in the commercial and entertainment fields, for instance, are becoming increasingly varied and numerous, the field of public administrations is lagging behind at both national and EU level.
We do not see comparable progress in improved citizens' access to public information, access to the law, or accelerated legal and administrative procedures.
The same applies to non-commercial applications in the field of schools, education and culture.
These useful applications would also make it more attractive to a larger number of women to use the techniques of the information society.
Another possible field of application is rarely if at all mentioned in the action plan, namely the potential of the information society to strengthen the citizens' democratic rights.
We could do with a more imaginative approach here at all policy levels.
If we want to bring the project of Europe closer to the citizen, and after Amsterdam that will be more necessary than ever, we will have to embark on large-scale experiments in tele-democracy.
Mr President, you are just ten years old and already surfing the Internet.
You can put information on Voicemail and exchange data and news through your E-mail.
You use CD-Rom not just for games and also make discoveries in virtual reality.
Europe's young people are using the new information and communication technologies, which are still a mystery to many adults.
Yet while a number of schoolchildren are teaching themselves, but also their parents, how to use these new technologies, others have no access to them: disabled pupils, pupils with learning difficulties and those who do not have the money to buy the basic equipment.
The gap between those who know and those who do not know must be narrowed.
They must be given equal access to these technologies at an early stage.
They should be taught and learn how to use them responsibly.
One aim of the European Commission's action plan, which we support in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, is to promote their use in primary and secondary schools.
Regardless of the type of school, regardless of the level of qualification, minimum knowledge must be transmitted in order to equip young people for their future working and social life.
These technologies are bringing Europe closer together.
Children at school can contact each other across frontiers, learn to know other cultures and languages and develop common interests which can be built on through visits to the host families.
At present the costs of equipping schools with data banks are still far too high and the multimedia applications are totally inadequate.
Mrs Ahlqvist, the rapporteur, showed that very clearly.
So we need to implement more pilot projects, such as our German 'schools on the network' initiative.
That could link up ten thousand schools to national and international networks and multimedia services in the space of three years.
At European level, the further training of teachers in the use of these future technologies is being supported through the Socrates programme.
Let me draw your attention in particular to the need to support women teachers, for we must not allow them to continue to be disadvantaged in a technical world often dominated by men.
There is also a shortage of pedagogical material at schools.
To this end high-grade databases must be developed and used.
To ensure that many people do not rely solely on computers, teaching must also aim to motivate pupils to develop a team spirit and work creatively in groups.
It should also help ensure that information is not just swallowed but also interpreted and that pupils checks its veracity.
In this way the new information and communication technologies can help pupils make judgments and decisions, which are essential elements of true democracy.
Mr President, I am the rapporteur of the opinion of the Committee for Research, Technical Development and Energy on Mrs Ahlqvist's report on Learning in the Information Society.
The committee unanimously accepted my proposal for the opinion.
Mrs Ahlqvist has included most of the points raised by the energy committee.
So I will just briefly describe three areas which I would particularly like to highlight.
The first is that there is a big difference in terms of IT and Internet capability in the various schools in the European Union.
Fewer than 5 percent of European schools had access to electronic networks in the middle of last year.
This figure varies enormously between Member States.
In Sweden and Finland for example two thirds of schools have access to the Internet while the figure is fewer than 2 percent of schools in Germany.
This is something which we must bear in mind when we are discussing these issues.
The other point on which we have spent much time is the attitude of teachers to the technology.
Personally, I do not think that it is the young people and students who have the most difficulty in adapting to new IT information.
The difficulties have more to do with the teacher's attitude and expertise.
In many places it is now teachers who have the most difficulty in adapting to this type of information while young people view it more naturally.
We must also be cautious in placing too much faith in multi-media technology.
It is by no means certain that the use of multi-media technology will mean better teaching in schools.
Multi-media technology should complement normal teaching methods.
Schools also need funds for non-material resources, in other words, for teachers.
This is linked with my third point which is that we must look seriously at EMU in this respect as EMU requires the fulfilment of certain convergence criteria which, for example in Sweden, has meant that the public sector, which includes schools, has had to make savings.
I do not think it is right to make savings in such an important area as schools.
Young people are the future of the EU.
We should not therefore be making savings in schools as we are doing at the moment.
Mr President, if we develop the immense potential inherent in information technology, we can improve the economy, we can make life easier, not least for the disadvantaged in society, and we can increase public information and democracy.
There is no end to the possibilities; applications are emerging all over the place.
But, if the EU is to take full advantage of and have its full share in this new market and in these new possibilities, we urgently need to bring about a single, homogeneous internal European market.
There is a lack of legal security and legal predictability.
That is weakening European enterprises with respect to their American counterparts.
A large number of directives are in hand and awaiting implementation.
The present rules of competition are inadequate.
There is plenty to do.
There is one bright spot - and we should be grateful to the Commission for it - namely that agreement was reached at the Amsterdam Conference to call upon the European Investment Bank to set up a new loan facility for advanced technology projects in small and medium-sized enterprises.
That is a very important step.
The Commission must be asked to step up its efforts to secure and improve the operation of the internal market in the field of information and technology.
The Member State governments must take steps to ensure that the liberalization of the telecommunications sector is implemented in good time and on a fully unified basis by 1998.
And we must not forget the part we ourselves have to play.
The European institutions must also think of their own information technology policy.
The Commission must do that, and so must we in Parliament.
And indeed so must the European Schools, which are regrettably lagging somewhat behind with regard to these possibilities.
There are problems in large parts of the education sector as regards the use of the new possibilities.
As a former education minister, I would gladly speak at greater length on this, but I will instead merely echo the points very eloquently made just now by Mr Thomas Mann.
Mr President, I have been asked, on behalf of Mr Ripa di Meana, to outline the views of the Committee on Culture concerning the Commission's two documents on the information society.
It is clear that the Commission has a duty to take cultural aspects into account in this field, as Article 128(4) of the EU Treaty stipulates.
However, the Committee on Culture is concerned that the Commission's plans for the information society do not take this duty seriously enough.
The Committee on Culture has particularly drawn attention to the fact that practical ways of promoting cultural diversity are now needed.
There is no shortage of fine-sounding words on the subject, but the specific proposals are not particularly impressive.
One significant element in cultural diversity is multilingualism.
There is a serious risk that the information society may become a monolingual society.
This is not a development to be welcomed. The Commission ought therefore constantly to be making practical proposals concerning ways of promoting a multilingual information society.
It is also important to point out that what is at issue is not merely equipment and technology.
To a very large extent, we are also concerned with the type of social and broader societal impact information technology will have, and one cannot stress too much that these social and societal effects have not by any means been investigated as fully as their seriousness warrants.
We are witnesses to a development which is nothing short of revolutionary: national tax systems will already be seriously threatened as people start to do their shopping through the Internet.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to concentrate on three parts of Mrs Boogerd-Quaak's report.
I believe that the move to an information society signifies a radical change in our society.
In my view, the information society is based on two pillars, technological development on the one hand and social and societal development on the other.
Until now technological development has stood in the forefront, and it does indeed remain crucial to European industry.
This area is marked by rapid technological change.
Buzzwords such as broad-band networks, ISDN, Internet, Intranet, telematics in communications, etc., are commonplace now.
The Commission's many efforts in this field are laudable.
The rapporteur, Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, is supported in her call for the various activities to be integrated.
We need more transparency in this area.
The Commission must try harder to integrate the many individual information systems and regulations in a coherent and transparent whole.
The second pillar of the information society is society and its societal aspects.
Initially, not enough attention was paid to these aspects, but they are increasingly being given their due place.
So I warmly welcome the fact that the Commission has made this clear in its green paper on 'Living and Working in the Information Society: People First' .
Here the key words are: lifelong learning, knowledge as the central qualification, etc., but also fear of technology, the disintegration of society into those who can handle the new media and technologies and another those who have no technical or psychological access to it.
The rapporteur is right to recognize a deficit in relation to social and societal aspects.
I can only share her view.
We do not want an information society that is concerned only with how the few can boost their profits.
The European concept of an information society must carry the citizens with it along the road to the future.
Social change must also open up opportunities for the individual on a broad front.
By that I mean giving the individual a greater say, more access to information, more chances of education and more opportunities for low-cost communication.
And looking to the future, the EU must prepare itself for the next round of enlargement even at this stage.
It is most important to involve the applicants for accession in the regulatory process if we want to have a homogeneous market in Europe.
Once again we must also stress the importance of a European regulatory authority in the telecommunications field.
I think that is the only way to ensure competition in this area and to reduce disputes between European operators and governments.
Seven amendments have been tabled to the report as such, which our group supports except for Nos 3 and 4.
They make it clear that the development of an information society must not call workers' rights in question.
We reject any idea of a protection-free zone.
We could accept Amendment No 2 if the words 'public service' were replaced by 'universal service' .
But this is probably just a question of terminology.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, during the last session we debated an own initiative report from the Committee on Research on the information society. Last week at the Le Bourget Salon we had the opportunity to hear about the commitment of the space agencies and European industry in the field of satellite transmission.
In May, in Cairo, in the presence of Commissioner Bangemann, we sought to put on the agenda the initial elements of a plan for application of the information society via satellite with a view to a cooperation which goes beyond the confines of today's Union. The initiatives are really multiplying and we must give the Commission credit for that.
It seems to me that the work on the rules of the open market is reaching completion, so a major obstacle for citizens in the information society is slowly being removed.
I am pleased the Commission's plan of action that we are discussing today finally prioritizes the effort on education, perhaps the highest barrier for citizens and firms to scale.
Linking schools to the Internet, introducing a wide band multimedia network for teaching and for the new applications, expanding the 'Citizens of Europe' initiative with additional programmes - these are all excellent ideas which the United States has already implemented, in its own way.
What still concerns me and what I am still not clear about, is how the Commission intends to proceed on cooperation with the Member States and local government, on forms of incentive and financing, on the respective levels of economic commitment, on how to introduce the new techniques of keyboard and mouse into a system - basic education - which tends to have rigid programmes and rules, pretty limited resources and strong resistance to change.
And I believe it is in these issues of flexibility in our society that the information society may encounter its greatest difficulties.
Mr President, discussion of the information society has been dominated by technical aspects, at the expense of content.
It is high time to consider the development of the information society from the point of view of people's needs and as a broad social trend.
A time will come when an ability to use information and communications technology is an absolute precondition for full participation both in working life and in other areas of the life of society.
The necessary skills must therefore be imparted to all, in order to try to prevent a fresh class division and a new kind of marginalization.
Only an information society based on equality can strengthen competitiveness and employment.
Mrs Ahlqvist's excellent report stresses that familiarization with information technology should begin at kindergarten and primary school to ensure that as many children as possible start out on an even playing field.
Equally important is to give aging people an opportunity to learn how to use new technologies and information flows.
This is one of the main challenges of lifelong learning, and appropriate materials and methods are needed to meet it.
The availability of and access to information and communications technology are of particular importance from the point of view of regional equality.
Distance learning must be developed, and peripheral areas must not be left behind in economic and social development.
The extent to which schools are equipped with network connections varies very widely from country to country, as has been observed here.
In Finland, more than two thirds of schools are networked, whereas the corresponding figure for the Union as a whole is less than 5 %.
In this connection it is important to stress the significance not only of educational establishments but also of libraries, and their considerable potential to operate as regional learning centres open to all.
Professional staff with up-to-date training in the library and information field can also help to find knowledge and afford access to experiences which exist in new forms.
The position of information and communications technology in teacher training and in-service training should be enhanced.
I believe that quality educational software and teaching materials urgently need to be developed.
The Commission should also continue its efforts to develop a European multimedia industry so that it genuinely promotes Europe's linguistic and cultural diversity.
(without microphone) ... emphasizes the dangers of exacerbating social inequalities in the course of realization of the information society, thus recognizing that the new technologies represent an opportunity for society, a step forward, provided they are made accessible to all through teaching and through the universal service, whose responsibilities include that of supplying the necessary equipment to the various public establishments.
Well, although the Commission acknowledges the evolutionary and dynamic nature of the universal service, it is still refusing to extend it to include the supply of advanced telecommunication services to educational establishments.
We agree with the Ahlqvist report when it deplores the total absence of any new resources to achieve these objectives.
We agree with the analysis that attributes this total lack of resources to the budgetary austerity connected with the convergence criteria for the single currency, resulting in public spending cuts that have a particular impact on education, closing classes, abolishing jobs and providing no real training for the teachers in the new technologies.
We regret that none of these reports offers any criticism of the dominant conception of education that emerges from the Commission's various communications.
We cannot accept that, in the name of progress, the very foundation of education is being called into question by the theory that apprenticeship should be given priority over education and training as a way of meeting the needs of industry.
Let us think back to paragraph 62 of the Herman report which cautions us against the illusion of regarding information technology as the solution to all teaching problems.
We are still opposed to, and very concerned about, everything to do with excessively tight private or public partnerships, and especially everything to do with privately financed education.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission, far from concerning itself with a global, co-ordinated Union policy on the new technologies, prefers to dole out its thoughts and communications and papers of various colours little by little, depending on the highly objective criterion of the subjects handled by each parliamentary committee. And the parliamentary committees, basically, have had no option but to attend to their own individual helpings.
Ladies and gentlemen, this procedural farce must end. If it is true, as they say, that the brave new world is coming, the world of the information society replacing the industrial society, should it not be our priority to hold, at long last, a sensible and rational debate in this House about the future of the new technologies and their far-reaching consequences for the 21st century?
So I can only welcome today's joint debate.
The four reports before us do in fact touch on several areas of the information society: finance, standardization, education and training, the change in the value of 'work' , and the quest for dominance by the information technology multinationals.
At the end of the day, ladies and gentlemen, is not the essential question this: information highways to where?
For the creation of infrastructures alone, Jacques Delors's White Paper puts the total finance needed to link up the entire European Union at 150 billion euros. Well, the Community's five-year programme has a budget of 45 million euros.
That is devisory, it is not enough, and it will achieve nothing.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, if we want to go out and play with the big boys we have to start by making sure we have the resources.
Confronted with economic issues like these, I acknowledge with Mr Bangemann that prudence is the mother of safety.
But, pace Mr Bangemann, there is every prospect that the European model of the information society will bear an uncanny resemblance to Microsoftland.
And don't be surprised, ladies and gentlemen, if the European consumer continues to prefer the American original to the pale European imitation. And yet it is still not too late to take action to bring about a genuinely European model of the information society.
Four months ago, the European Parliament adopted Mrs Morgan's discerning report on the information society, culture and education, advocating a European model guided by democratic, social, cultural and educational concerns.
Taking due account of the human dimension is a priority for all of us. Because the supertechnological information society will be capable of manufacturing greater and greater wealth with a smaller and smaller workforce.
And so we shall see - more than we see it today, more than we may believe - the generalization of parttime working and the partial wages it brings.
That is why politicians have a duty to rethink the status of 'work' as the only vector of social cohesion in today's society. And that is why, too, things are going to change in schools.
Children are going to have to learn by using the new technologies, not just learn to use them.
And as for the politicians, where will they be, confronted by the IT multinationals?
Driven by the profit motive alone, the giants of information technology, telecommunications, optical fibres and the media are embarking on what they see as a great adventure - world domination.
Well, if a nation no longer has control over the production of its own images or the power to supervise new technologies, is it still a sovereign nation?
That is the real issue behind this unstoppable revolution. In our Western democracies, Mr President, we refer to the media, or at any rate the press, as 'the fourth estate' .
Isn't it going to become, quite simply, the first estate - the only estate? That is the question we have to ask ourselves in the course of our future work.
Mr President, the reports we are debating should be endorsed.
Yet I have a sneaking suspicion that once again a lot of money is to be spent mainly on producing paper.
I have nothing against detailed research and studies, but we have to consider whether it would not be more sensible to use the ECU 45 million available for the multiannual information programme to stimulate the establishment of the information society in order to implement projects of practical use.
Let me give you a concrete example: if the European tourist industry is to remain competitive in the next millennium we will have to create comprehensive electronic information and reservation systems.
The technical requirements for these kind of tourism marketing systems already exist; but because of its small-scale structures and fragmentation, the industry currently has neither the organizational ability nor the motivation to produce comprehensive, reliable and up-to-date information and reservation systems.
For the many small and medium-sized firms that, after all, represent the backbone of European tourism, the key to the success of tourism will be not just the supply of information but accurate and rapid information.
The tourists, i.e. the consumers of tourist products, book their holidays increasingly late and are becoming increasingly fussy. The consumers naturally expect detailed information at the press of a button and last-minute booking facilities from their suppliers.
So we must encourage the development of networking between suppliers among themselves and in particular between suppliers and markets, especially travel agencies, but also directly with the consumer, for instance via the Internet, on a Europe-wide basis.
The European tourist industry must set up information and booking systems that can be accessed world-wide even in the most remote regions, which will also help protect and create jobs.
In the framework of the action plan, considerable progress could be made in this respect in the area of school education, motivation and the transfer of know-how, which would help make an industry that is constantly losing world-market shares become more competitive.
Mr President, colleagues, one of the claims most frequently made on behalf of the information society is that it eliminates distances and thus makes it possible to use countries' land areas more effectively.
Services can be used, businesses managed and jobs created without it being necessary to move to major population centres.
However, this optimistic appraisal does not take account of two significant problems.
They must be resolved to ensure that developments do not proceed in quite the opposite direction.
Even if it were to be assumed that information technology and data communications improve employment, the added value they bring does not by any means in its entirety accrue to the benefit of society through traditional work: to a large extent, job opportunities and purchasing power pass to well educated town-dwellers, while in peripheral regions purchasing power does not grow.
Another essential aspect of the information society is that of democracy.
Democratic control and democratic opportunities should guarantee that even so-called marginalized groups have a chance to take part in electronic dialogue.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak's report is praiseworthy.
I secured an amendment to it warning against the accumulation and globalization of information networks, the marginalization of the less educated and abuse of power.
I also asked the Commission to investigate the information society's impact on employment and to stress that, despite information technology, there is still no substitute for a skilled teacher.
The opportunities for both users and producers to use services in the information society depend on the existence of state-of-the-art hardware and public infrastructure.
The required expensive, and in virtually every case private, investments are readily made in densely populated areas, and become concentrated there.
This adds to the marginalization of areas where communications facilities are already inadequate.
It seems rather alarming if 'general telecommunications services' are taken to mean providing basic services for certain groups of poor customers who are lagging behind, rather than adopting ambitious development objectives for society as a whole.
The fact is that, in less developed areas, modern information technology equipment, and particularly access to the Internet, cannot be based on privately purchased machines.
Accessible work stations are needed in public places, for example at schools, libraries and hospitals.
Finally I should like to draw the Commission's attention to the fact that satellite communications and state-of-theart data communications ought to be possible throughout the territory of the Union, particularly in areas where the conventional telecommunications infrastructure is inadequate or outdated.
A broad-band European intelligent network is a project of urgency.
Mr President, I could not agree more with the previous speaker, Mr Herman.
There are many occasions when I do not agree with him, but today I fully agree with him.
Naturally, I should first like to congratulate Mrs Boogerd-Quaak on her report.
I think that the problem, Mr Herman, does not only lie here with fellow Members of this House, but also with the European Commission.
Because what does the Commission do? It sends us a constant stream of documents about the information society.
Each one bigger than the one before.
There is a great deal of overlap between all these communications.
Today we again have four documents with a great deal of duplication.
We do not expect this.
The Commission itself must better coordinate its different services in order to eliminate this duplication.
A good example is that my report on the ICT industry was adopted at the last part-session. The Commission now comes out with its own communication on the subject.
Thus we are rehashing the whole thing again.
None of this brings Europe's citizens one step closer to the information society.
So I also call on the Commission to better coordinate its activities in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, basically what is known as the information society is the result of an objective process in the technology revolution which is unfolding, chiefly at the level of information and communication techniques.
It is the result of the introduction of new technologies, services and innovations at an almost mind-blowing rate.
It is undoubtedly the result of human achievement.
Nevertheless, these achievements, having been pushed on by selfish interests and by the engine of commerce, have been appropriated by those doing the pushing and their use is very far from intended to benefit all humanity.
Quite the reverse!
We are very concerned at the role which this process might play in accentuating - even exacerbating - yawning social chasms which are already so marked and so serious.
In fact, it seems clear to us, that with the way it is being built, the information society is exacerbating and accentuating these chasms by creating a divide between those with access and those who are far from having access or who are excluded.
The amendments we support to the Boogerd-Quaak report are designed to reflect that concern and, if they are adopted, we shall vote in favour of the report as we shall for the Hendrick, Rübig and Ahlqvist reports and we congratulate all the rapporteurs on the work they have done.
Finally, I cannot, nor do I wish to remain silent about the threat that we shall have to contend with different types of illiteracy under the umbrella of the information society as it is being built:
the illiteracy of those who do not learn to either read, write or count and who are thus forced to live as though in the last century or even several centuries ago and who will constitute a significant part within the large and growing number of social strata cut off from the new technologies; -the illiteracy of those who rapidly forget how to read, write and count because all they can do is click an electronic mouse, brilliantly of course, and who will live in a world of the future which I want, although I fight against it in that form, since it will create an ever-broader social spread with infra-humans on the one extreme and information supermen on the other who have no idea about Rimbaud and who are indifferent to the horrors of economics.
Mr President, I would like to thank the three rapporteurs for their reports which are all excellent in my view.
I have just a few simple comments to make in particular with regard to Mrs Boogerd-Quaak's report.
In contrast to the views put forward by many of the speakers here, I do not think that we should be concerned about the USA's technological leadership in this area.
This is in fact the same argument, namely that European technology is trailing helplessly behind the USA, which was used by Mr Servan-Schreiber thirty five years ago when he wrote about the American challenge.
The fact is that the growth per capita during those thirty five years has not been any greater in the USA than in Europe and I am quite convinced that this will continue to be the case in the future as well.
The reason that we do not need to be concerned is that trade is based on relative advantages.
Europe has trade advantages in other areas instead, so it will not be a disaster if Europe does not become a world leader in every sector of Information Technology.
I also think that if we really want Europe to take the lead in specialist technologies, we must base our thinking on the simple fact that eight out of ten Nobel prize winners for science come from the USA.
So we must concentrate our efforts on basic research if we wish to lead the field in the technology of the future.
But it is the question of equality in the information society which concerns me most of all.
It is currently young, well educated and highly paid men who clearly predominate in the field of information technology.
The problem, as I see it, is how can we spread this knowledge to the general public.
I think that Mrs Boogerd-Quaak is absolutely right when she points to the role of schools.
We have a clear responsibility here and we must ensure that information technology does not create a class-based society for future generations.
Even now, we see well-off families, who are able to afford it, linking their home PCs to the Internet and in so doing giving their children knowledge of this technology right from infancy.
Unfortunately, not all children have parents who are interested in computers or who can afford to buy a computer.
We must tackle this problem in some way, I think, to ensure that we do not create different levels within the information society.
Finally, Mr President, I would also like to point out the great opportunities which the information society gives us to decentralise employment.
The fact that people located right up in the North can work together with people in the South on the same project gives us an opportunity to develop rural areas and to reduce the population concentration in the cities.
Mr President, first I want to congratulate Mrs Ahlqvist, whose report I shall be discussing, on her work.
The Commission Communication on which her excellent report is based is entitled 'Learning in the Information Society' and is intended as a European education initiative.
Let me say as a matter of principle that perhaps we are not entirely doing justice to our education systems in suggesting that they are only just entering the EDP age.
Information technology is already being taught and computer rooms already exist in schools all over Europe.
Yet this initiative aims to emphasize that the use of EDP and the media represents a constant challenge which everyone involved in education has to face up to on a continuous basis.
But we must not forget that education and training are a field where the primary responsibility lies with the Member States.
So I am glad that paragraph 3 specifically refers to the Member States' jurisdiction over cultural and educational matters and that in other passages too the report resists the temptation to prescribe rules to the Member States, offering them suggestions instead.
I must admit that I still have some reservations about paragraphs 13, 14 and 15.
I am getting fed up with girls and women still being presented as technical dunces!
If you just look at the offices round here you will see that women are perfectly capable of using the new technologies.
To say that there is a shortfall here would also mean that 40 years of coeducation was just a waste of time!
Nor should we be too didactic.
The reference to encouraging play with these technologies as an educational tip may be harmless but it is superfluous!
I quite agree with the rapporteur that the changes proposed in the Communication must be accompanied by a reform of teaching.
I think that is overdue.
But teacher training is not really a Community task and I have reservations about supporting this from the structural funds.
That is why my group will call for a separate vote on paragraph 27 and only vote for the first part.
There are two other aspects I welcome.
The first is the reference to the disabled, which I consider mot important, and the second is the proposal to examine whether the research and education programmes can be used for the networking of schools.
But here we must decide clearly where the priorities lie and where we can then cut back.
Despite these reservations, I wish the report success.
Mr President, there have been many obvious points raised today but one sector which neither the Commission nor the majority of members have paid serious enough attention to is the need for Europe to create standards and an infrastructure for digital geographic information.
By this we mean information bound to a certain place.
There is one point in the action plan which mentions G12000, but there has been no action, although the French, German, Spanish and Dutch Ministers asked for action in this area in a letter to the Commission in 1994.
We can make substantial savings in follow up work.
Something must be done in the fifth framework programme for research.
There is nothing in the 1998 budget for geographic information.
If it is not included, the EU will be unable to do what is required of us, or what we promised at the G7 information conference a few years ago.
We also need better co-ordination of the data bases created by the Commission itself.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are discussing four reports on telecommunications and we are discussing them jointly.
That is indeed sensible.
For there are so many aspects to the information society that we can only consider them together.
But what is the real situation in the European Union? At present we as producers are losing market shares, and on an annual basis.
We only have two large firms, accounting for just 10 % of the market, that are European.
We are fuelling a broad social debate on the potential hazards of the information society, on those who might lose out.
We do not have harmonized markets.
We are cutting back on resources for research and development in the field of information technologies too.
So we find the Americans asking us - as they actually did at a meeting last week in Bonn - why are you actually so against E-mail and the Internet? Incidentally, when we discuss the Internet we spend more time on the risks and on child pornography than on communication between remote parts of the world.
So what do we need? First we need more R&D resources.
And we need broad consensus on that.
We cannot just finance things we want to keep.
We must also finance things that will secure our future.
This research has to be coordinated and to be applied research.
That in turn also means we have to agree to pay far more attention to applications, going so far as really to offer assistance to the industry where that is necessary.
We also need broadly based research on standards.
Only if we can develop our own standards will we be able to conquer the markets of the future.
And it is precisely in this context of the information society that we need a far greater and far better transfer of technology than we did in the past.
Why is it beneath us to finance applications, why do we only stick to the basics? There is nothing wrong with satellites that bring in money, with satellite applications.
We do not have to confine ourselves to sending out research satellites.
But above all, we will only create an information society and create networks if the people accept them, if there is a demand for them.
In other words - and even if I do not think much of this in other contexts - in this case we need a broadly based information campaign, but also a positive information campaign that begins by listing the potential and opportunities of the information society rather than its possible risks.
For the rest, we need a largescale offensive to promote teleworking.
If we have a lot of teleworking that will also contribute to rural development and will encourage women to work by making it easier for them to combine family and a job.
If we create a large number of teleworking jobs, we will have to introduce accompanying social measures.
But if we reject this from the start and take a negative attitude from the start we will never make headway here.
I sometimes fear that we will miss out on an opportunity for the future.
In the field of the information society it is particularly important that we act centrally, and we must do so now.
That is why these four reports and the four Commission proposals are so welcome at this particular point in time.
Mr Bangemann, I would like to repeat something you did not understand correctly.
So I will now say it in German.
You were very defensive today.
You need not be, for I did not say that all you send us is papers.
I merely said that the various departments within the Commission keep sending us information and communications at different times.
That is the reason for our reaction.
We would like them to be integrated.
I asked whether you could not coordinate the Commission's activities better.
I never said that you do no work!
Perhaps you are aware that I too sometimes visit projects and give talks at conferences about telecities and suchlike.
I am quite aware of all you do in this area and I am glad you do it.
You then said that we are not losing any market shares.
Perhaps you should have another look at my last week's report on the matter.
In 1990 we had a 35 % market share and now we only have 29 %, which is a 6 % decline.
But I will be glad to see you at the ELDR Group again...
(The President cut off the speaker)
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at noon.
Imports of hormone-treated meat
The next item is the debate on the statement by the Commission on imports into the European Union of hormone-treated meat (WTO).
Mr President, first let me apologize for the absence of Mr Fischler, who would have liked to make this statement in person but cannot do so and has therefore asked me to read out the statement on behalf of himself and the Commission.
The WTO hormones panel forwarded the parties concerned two virtually identical preliminary reports, one for the USA and one for Canada, on 8 March 1997.
The panel of expert's preliminary conclusion, and I stress preliminary, was that the EC ban on imports of hormone-treated meat was incompatible with a range of the WTO agreement's rules on health and plant health measures.
Of course the Commission is disappointed.
At the request of the European Union, an interim meeting was held with the panel of experts on 4 June 1997, at which the Commission made a number of comments on the panel's use of scientific data.
The final report is expected at the end of the month, which is why the Commission does not want to adopt a position before the panel has completed its work. For even if there does not seem much prospect of a different conclusion being reached, that would certainly be a procedural error.
The Commission will, however, do its utmost within the WTO context to ensure full recognition of the fact that European Community legislation can decide what level of protection it considers appropriate for its citizens.
Mr President, Mr Bangemann, the Commission is not always able to adopt such welcome positions as this one.
I gather from what you said and from a letter from Mr Fischler, which he sent to the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection a few weeks ago, that the Commission, like the European Parliament, is adhering to its many decisions and resolutions to continue banning the use of natural or artificial growth-promoters, i.e., hormones, in the European Union.
Their use is prohibited in the European Union for good reason.
No long-term studies exist on the effects on humans.
Scientists have produced very different assessments of the uses and risks of hormones in animal feed.
Nobody knows the effects of the hormone cocktails that are so often used, not just on the animals but in particular on humans.
When we consider all that, it becomes quite clear to myself and my group - and, I am sure, to the majority in the European Parliament - that we must adhere to our ban.
Let me say a few words on the situation in the European Union and what we expect the consumer to accept.
The loss of confidence we have suffered recently in the European Union in relation to food production, but also as a result of the BSE scandal, is quite incalculable.
It can probably be calculated for farmers and can also be calculated for some distributing and marketing organizations, but we cannot calculate what it means for the people.
If the WTO now forced us to authorize hormones, imported from the United States or wherever, labelled or not, we would face a further enormous loss of public confidence, and quite rightly so.
That is why I am convinced that our strategy in reorganizing the market in beef and veal and milk must ensure that we continue to prohibit any use whatsoever of hormones.
Moreover, we must evolve a strategy on how to deal with our partners in the framework of the WTO.
Mr Bangemann, I ask you to take the appropriate measures in the Commission to enable us in the European Union not just to present the scientific evidence offered by the WTO but also to look into it.
For once again, the supposed evidence of harmlessness that was produced has not been checked at all and we all know the old saying about ten scientists and ten different opinions.
The same applies to lawyers.
Looking at the evidence the WTO has submitted, I think we are just as capable of finding different evidence.
If we want to be sure of ever building up any kind of consumer confidence again in the European Union, any kind of certainty or conviction that we are ensuring that our meat and food is harmless, we will have to adhere to our ban on hormones.
Mr President, I agree entirely with Mrs Roth-Behrendt's final remarks.
We are talking about consumer confidence and that is the most important thing.
Our objective tonight as a Parliament is to reinforce the position we have adopted over several years and to make sure that the Commission keeps its resolve to maintain the current position of the European Community.
I was intrigued to hear the Commissioner say that it would wrong for it to pre-empt any decision that might be taken following the final result that comes from the WTO panel.
We must be careful because we are in a very strong position.
A decision was taken by the Commission, by Parliament and all the way along the decision-making process in the Community.
And just because there are certain influential companies in the United States which have great influence on the Hill, the decision-making process in the United States, it does not mean to say that we should weaken our resolve on this issue.
It is not a question that what is good for the United States is good for the rest of us.
Surely we in the Community must be allowed to take our own decisions on these sort of issues.
We are going to run into many decisions and many difficulties in the World Trade Organization unless we have some mutual respect and mutual recognition of what others in the world believe.
The WTO panel is going to come to a decision.
I hope that the Commissioner is aware of the strength of feeling in this Parliament on the issue and that if the decision is maintained which is not satisfactory as far as we are concerned, the Commission will stand up for what we believe in, what the Union believes in and make certain that we do not allow meat to come into the Community that is not acceptable under our own legislation.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I take great heart from the words of my colleague, Mr Provan; I am always heartened to see a representative of the United Kingdom supporting a measure against the United States and against the tyranny which they now represent.
The United Kingdom is Portugal's oldest ally and I therefore for the first time feel that there is in fact an old Luso-British alliance in operation.
As regards the question of hormones, we all know that they are used also in Europe and the Americans know that too.
They know that there has not been sufficient control in Europe.
In Portugal, unfortunately, hormones are used and they are at the moment fetching more than cocaine - and that is the truth! That is because they are banned!
I am, moreover, concerned about the philosophy of using hormones.
Why should we use hormones?
Why should we want animals to grow more quickly when we have meat surpluses?
To be competitive? It was the principle of competitiveness in the milk sector which led us to BSE...
It is true that, from the scientific point of view, it will not be long before research results show that hormones cause cancer.
However, from the philosophical point of view, I always told the Americans that I did not agree with the fact that they had used a false concept of progress to produce more of what they were producing too much of.
As regards health, we are all aware that the question of hormones as a cause of cancer raises major doubts.
As regards control, we are all aware too that it is not sufficient in Europe.
In any case I am even more shocked to see what the World Trade Organization panel is doing. How are the judges chosen?
We already had the case of the bananas in which the three judges were from Hong Kong, Australia and Switzerland. No-one knew anything about bananas.
It appeared too that the panel judging the hormone question was made up of lawyers who knew nothing about hormones!
The intention is clearly to instal judges who are slightly impartial who naturally take a completely wrong view of the concept of justice.
I hope that the Commission has the courage to tackle this problem and to rout the illegal designs of the United States.
Mr President, once again this House is discussing the hormone question in connection with the United States.
I can inform the Commission that the Liberal Group supports the Commission's resolve.
We oppose the use of artificial hormones in meat production.
The main reason for this - as other groups have already said - is that there still remains too many doubts among scientists about the effects of their use and as long as there is the slightest doubt we must not permit them.
I therefore believe that we must support the European Commission in continuing to argue our case for as long as is procedurally possible.
However, and this is also the view of the Liberal Group, I would not go as far as to say that we should condemn the WTO panel as such.
It will be difficult to dismiss the arbiter in the event of a wrong judgement.
We must therefore simply follow the procedures which are designed for such cases.
But on one point I believe the Commission must prepare itself. In Europe we have another view of food than in the United States for example or other continents.
We have another view of animal foods and the conditions under which animals are kept and transported.
In this case I believe we must respect the consumers' wishes as much as possible.
We are seeing this already in a number of Member States.
We are seeing a multiplicity of quality marks, the one more environment-conscious than the next.
I believe it is up to the European Commission to give leadership in developing something in this direction so that it is easier for the European consumer to recognize what is safe to eat and what is not.
The customer is still king.
He must be able to choose, he must have the choice and we must give European leadership on this.
I am totally in agreement with what Mr Provan says: we must state what we want and we must promote mutual respect within the WTO.
Mr President, Commissioner, you are waiting for the panel to complete its work, and I realize that, but you must admit that the World Trade Organization is producing one verdict after another, and all the verdicts are similar.
Following the decision on banana imports, the WTO panel concluded that the European Union's ban on imports of hormone-containing meat was contrary to the rules of international trade.
The refusal of Europeans to eat hormone-treated meat was considered no more admissible than the argument in favour of supporting the economies of the French overseas departments and the ACP States in the case of bananas.
Once again, the WTO is giving precedence to commercial interests and the free trade principle over any other human consideration - health, social, cultural or environmental.
Let us recall that when the European Union decided to ban imports of hormone-containing meat from 1 January 1988, the reason was not an artificial, protectionist attempt to prevent trade but an attempt to protect consumers against the harmful effects of hormones, whether natural or artificial - effects acknowledged by many scientific experts and by the European Veterinary Committee.
In actual fact the United States Government, making light of the situation facing European farmers and even the health of their own consumers (several thousand people die of food poisoning every year in the United States, 4000 in 1996), have only one objective: commercial.
Having been an importer, the United States has now become a net exporter of more than two million tonnes. They want to continue this trend.
This commercial aspect is all the more important for them in that the question of growth hormones for meat conceals another: the question of the dairy production hormone BST, the authorization of which in Europe would open up an enormous market for American companies.
This verdict by the WTO panel is unacceptable, as is the use of the Codex Alimentarius as a reference criterion on health and quality issues.
We must refuse, therefore, to compromise on human health and food safety, which must take precedence over any other consideration.
That is why our group calls upon the Commission and the Council not to give way to the WTO's orders, and calls upon this House to adopt the resolution.
Mr President, my group is totally against the use of hormones and against imports of meat from the USA that has been treated with hormones.
We do not want the stuff!
We do not need it!
We are supported in this by the majority of European farmers and the majority of European consumers.
We have nothing against commercial interests in principle, but we are against commercial interests being defended to the detriment of the financial and commercial interests of the farmers of Europe!
And we are also against this being done to the detriment of consumer health.
I believe the Commission must take a hard line.
It may be unable to say anything more at this stage for procedural and strategic reasons; here we in Parliament are in a better position.
We can and we will table a strongly worded resolution tomorrow and I am convinced that Parliament will adopt it with hardly any votes against.
The Americans, or perhaps I should say the American chemical and agricultural multinationals, are adopting an arrogant, nationalistic and insolent stance.
They are trying to impose their ideas about agricultural production and food on us.
We have to resist that.
There is no culture without agriculture!
If there is some other culture in America, then let them live with it, we do not want it!
We assert our right to develop and continue developing our own food culture, and it does not include hormones.
Mr Bangemann, I am calling on the Commission to evolve a strategy directed not just at the panel but also at the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
These considerations must be given their due place in the new agreements; for consumer and health reasons we must be able to reject certain things.
The various states and organizations must also have the right to take their own decisions and should not be forced by others to follow a line they do not agree with.
I do not think it necessary that our children should reach puberty earlier than they used to because of the use of sex hormones.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt rightly pointed out that no long-term studies exist on the subject.
That is why we must strongly resist this and not allow it in the long term either!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome Mr Bangemann's reply. He says that every possible means will be employed to continue the battle and to justify our position before the World Trade Organisation.
I welcome this and I hope that the Commission will continue to argue its case.
The report by the panel of experts remains a provisional report.
It simply fails to take any account of the opinions of the nine scientists appointed by the European Union.
Our scientists came from Germany, Norway, Hungary, Puerto Rico and also the United States.
I myself invited three of them to a conference in Brussels last month.
They were Professor Metzler from Karlsruhe, Professor Liehr from Texas and Professor Epstein from Illinois.
They stated outright that the so-called American hormones are never administered separately, but always in combination. And that it is precisely this combined formula which can have such harmful long-term effects on the human DNA.
These can apparently take the form of gene toxic and carcinogenic effects.
The scientific conference convened by the European Commission itself stated in its conclusions that more research was needed into the use of hormones in combined form and this is essential.
Research into long-term damage is particularly important.
Our nine experts also told the World Trade Organisation panel that the scientific data on which the United States based and is continuing to base its findings are hopelessly out of date.
Everything is based on the so-called JEFCA report which dates from 1987.
And more than a half of the 80 references were out of date in 1987.
The United States is thus continuing to base itself on scientific data which are now more than 20 years old.
We all know that scientific research is, fortunately, constantly progressing.
What was considered harmless 20 years ago can today indeed be shown to be harmful.
The whole history surrounding the DES hormone - which was originally seen as totally harmless - speaks volumes.
It was only 20 years later that DES was shown to be carcinogenic.
Clearly the argument that hormone treatment could be harmful should in itself be sufficient for the World Trade Organisation to accept a hormone ban.
The principle of being safe rather than sorry correctly applies in the area of international decision-making.
This is why we fully support the European Commission which in Geneva had already submitted objections or replies to that provisional report and we also support the Commission in what I hope will be its further efforts if things go against us and it appeals. An appeal if the World Trade Organisation maintains its original position.
We also want the European Commission to already make preparations for a new scientific forum, a forum of independent scientists and not scientists who are in the service of industry.
Scientists who are not only competent in veterinary science, but above all scientists from the field of human medicine and also scientists who are known and renowned for cancer research.
Finally, scientists who first and foremost investigate the risks linked to the combined use of hormones.
In this way we can further reinforce our risk analysis and at the end of the day we must certainly be found to be in the right.
The principle of prevention must take precedence over all other considerations.
Of course the general hormone ban must be upheld along with the ban on imports of hormonetreated meat.
I naturally want to support the Commission in the position which it is now adopting and I hope that our resolution will receive unanimous support.
Mr President, Commissioner, the use within the Community of anabolic substances in animal production has been the source of major controversy ever since the 1970s, involving politicians, consumers, scientific experts and the entire international community in a virtually continuous debate.
So there is nothing new about the matter, and I will spare you the historical details.
However, on 7 May this year the joint special group delivered its interim report to the parties - a report which, incidentally, should have been kept confidential as required by the memorandum on the settlement of disputes.
The conclusions of that report are clear and unambiguous.
The panel is quite clearly giving precedence to strictly commercial considerations over any legitimate concern for public health, and rejecting the principle of caution which consumers are entitled to expect.
In its motion for a resolution, our group has called upon the Commission to organize as soon as possible a conference to determine consumer reactions regarding the health aspects of hormone-treated meat.
In this connection, we must state our opposition to the panel's recommendation that voluntary labelling, stating that the beef or veal in question contains no hormones, might be one possible way of responding to consumer concerns about information.
Quite the reverse: as in the case of genetically modified organisms, what is needed is obligatory labelling specifying that the meat has been treated with hormones.
Be that as it may, the measures prohibiting the use of hormones in meat production are fundamental and cannot be called into question.
Consumers would not understand it if those measures were to be lifted when the safety of these hormones has not been proved, or even tested.
Furthermore, the production constraints imposed on European farmers must not be swept aside by imported products that are not covered by the same health and quality guarantees.
What we ask, therefore, is that the dispute procedure should be carried forward to its conclusion, to the appeal stage in other words, and the whole of our group is ready to support the Commission.
On that issue I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Mr President, Commission, there is no reason, is there, why meat should escape the new religion, the worship of the golden calf, which seems to be the one guiding principle of the public and of leaders in our so-called rich and civilized societies? Why hormones, when - as was said earlier - we already have too much meat and too much milk?
Why?
The answer is simple: profit. If the Americans want to make us eat meat with hormones in it, their motive is not just the pleasure of selling us meat - the main motive is to make us accept the hormone principle, because of course the real profit comes from the production and marketing of the hormones.
I understood that more than ten years ago, when I wrote the first report on somatotropin.
The intention of selling bad meat, selling poor quality products, means that the consumer is being robbed twice over: first his trust is stolen, then his food values are undermined.
Corticoids and other hormones, used singly or in combination, cause meat to swell. That means incorporating more liquid, which means the consumer is buying water at the price of meat.
The interests of human beings, of the citizen, are non-existent, because the citizen is just an uneducated consumer and therefore submissive.
Hormones are dangerous.
No one, at least, is going to claim that they are vitamins.
We fought against DES. We must fight against the others as well.
Human health is at risk, clearly, but so too is animal health.
It is already a proven fact, today, that the use of hormones causes bone deficiency in the mothers and, in the medium term, sterility in the offspring.
It will obviously be necessary, even more necessary than it was with BSE, to insist on labelling, traceability and transparency.
We in Europe are entitled to be culturally different in our diet.
That is a right which you, Commissioner, can defend on behalf of the citizen and on behalf of human society.
If Mr Bill Clinton sees fit to adopt a moralizing tone towards Europeans and accuse them of mismanagement or failure to understand modern society, as he did at the G8 summit, that's his problem.
What I, personally, will not accept is that anyone should tell Europe's citizens that they have to eat poisoned meat because the Americans need the money.
And that, Commissioner, is why I call upon you urgently to continue the struggle to ban this meat, and hormones in general, in Europe.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his statement.
The hormone issue was decided by the European Union some years ago not on the basis of science but rather on emotion.
I would remind the House that all food contains hormones.
I give the examples of wheatgerm and green vegetables, etc. which contain many times the levels one would find in meat.
But they are naturally occurring substances and not dangerous, synthetic cocktails.
The US and the WTO will continue to insist that science, not sentiment, and scientific measurement, in particular, be the yardstick which determines food quality and food safety.
Having put the ban in place, I see no option but to hold the line and to continue even if we have to buy our way out.
A huge amount of damage has already been done to consumer trust and consumer confidence in the recent past.
We cannot afford further risk to the industry.
I would reiterate the appeal by a previous speaker for the setting up of a competent, independent, scientific body to act as a watchdog and to communicate with the public at an early stage, especially through consumer associations.
It should be given the specific tasks of ensuring that the public is adequately protected on the one hand and, on the other, that new developments in food production be carefully explained at an early stage.
Only in this way can fact rather than fiction govern our decisions on food law and food safety in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I believe we are in a difficult situation, and we are very well aware of it.
We know more or less what the panel's decision will be.
It will not look good for us.
We can more or less anticipate that, meaning that we should prepare ourselves for a strategy, as many colleagues have pointed out.
The second difficulty we see is that we are dealing not just with the USA and Canada but with other meatproducing countries too, such as Argentina, South Africa and Australia; there are others too.
That means that in future we will have to consider a much further-reaching strategy, which will have to encompass an entirely new agricultural policy, an entirely new trade policy and an entirely new consumer protection policy.
In fact we missed the opportunity to start a debate on this subject at the last WTO round.
Let me remind Members that we opened up a new area by introducing trade and environmental questions into the conference in Singapore; similarly we should of course have tried to open a debate on trade and health and on trade and consumer protection at the last WTO round.
It is essential that we do so if there is a next round.
We do not know whether there will be one, but we will have to act promptly to introduce these ideas into the WTO discussions.
We will have to go even further than this.
We will have to consider crucial questions.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt rightly pointed out that we need to hold discussions with our partners and that we will have to discuss how on the one hand we can ensure free trade, which of course we do not want to disturb and which also protects our own producers, while on the other hand we can maintain very divergent cultural perceptions of different levels of protection.
How can that be reconciled in future, and when will we have these kinds of rules? I know these are fairly difficult questions, but I believe we must tackle them promptly.
I am assuming that in any case the Commission will go to the court of appeal.
Then we will definitely have a chance to underpin this strategy by the findings of new scientific research.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.10 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Cohesion Fund - Structural Funds
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0167/97 by Mr Novo, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission's annual report on the Cohesion Fund 1995 (COM(96)0388 - C4-0509/96); -A4-0210/97 by Mr Belenguer, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission's Seventh Annual report on the Structural Funds - 1995 (COM(96)0502 - C4-0020/97).
Madam President, the report which we are presenting and debating today studies the seventh annual report presented by the Commission on the Structural Funds for the year 1995, a report incorporating amendments approved in the Committee on Regional Policy, which will certainly help to define and give form to the ideas which we are presenting in the current report.
The year 1995 is of vital importance bearing in mind that it is the first full financial year of the 1994-1999 period of funding for which Austria, Finland and Sweden were finally included.
It must be pointed out that there were over 400 Community initiative programmes presented by the Member States which led the Commission to acknowledge that certain problems were arising because of the complexity that entailed.
The present report is therefore divided into five major sections dealing with implementation, complementarity, additionality, evaluation and follow up and, finally, the principle of coordination.
As regards implementation, it is appropriate to say that there is an alarming degree of under-implementation of the budget varying according to the various funds, objectives and States.
However, the improvement noted in the Objective 1 regions of the four Cohesion States - Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain - must be stressed.
In my report I therefore request the Commission to analyse in the next report the causes of the delays in this implementation, the situation in the various Member States and the consequences for the global package for the 1994-1999 period.
Similarly, we ask the Commission to provide us with information on the evolution of outstanding appropriations.
Secondly, as regards complementarity with other Community policies, we welcome the Funds' concern to improve the environment.
We also underline the Commission's concern to make it compatible with and complementary to other Community policies, since it must be borne in mind that the Structural Funds are the most important financial amount available to the European Union and that the Treaty itself makes cohesion a horizontal policy, which must be complementary to other Community policies.
We therefore place special emphasis on the fact that the basic objective of the Structural Funds is to pursue economic and social cohesion in order to overcome the local and social disparities apparent in intra-Community solidarity, whilst pointing out that there are still regional disparities.
Thirdly, as regards additionality, we are concerned to note that even the Commission itself cannot guarantee the principle of additionality, which worries us because one of the characteristic features of the Structural Funds is the additional nature as a back-up to state and regional efforts thus making sure that it is promoting cohesion.
The Commission is still powerless to test this principle in seven Member States.
I shall not mention which those States are, but for four of them the Commission says that it has no data and only incomplete data for the other three.
In order to avoid this problem, we ask the Commission to look into the possibility of including clauses for the suspension of aid where the principle of additionality is not respected, including the requirement for each Member State to submit figures.
Fourthly, as regards assessment and monitoring, we unfortunately have to point out that no complete and detailed study has yet been carried out on the first Structural Funds Programme.
In that connection we welcome the Commission proposal to involve independent experts, still not appointed, as well as the attempts made in the field of montoring, we welcome the drawing up of the monitoring guide.
However, the criteria and procedures bound up with the Structural Funds are still very complex, which is why I advocate simplifying the rules which would be helpful to these monitoring measures.
Fifthly, as regards coordination, we note that coordination with the regional authorities has improved substantially, although it is still inadequate as regards the local authorities.
However, the latter has improved as regards information.
We underscore the good working relationship with the Committee of the Regions and the need to strengthen the principle of coordination so that both the local and regional bodies carry out the real policy of moving closer to the citizen.
Finally, we reaffirm our confidence in decentralization as a method of managing the Funds, although it is appropriate to point out that the current system has an inherent contradiction, since, whilst the management of the Funds falls in almost all the States upon the State, the responsibility for that management falls almost exclusively upon the Commission.
Finally, Madam President, my thanks to all the members of the Committee on Regional Policy for all the series of amendments presented and debated in committee to be debated a tomorrow's sitting and also to the secretariat and, of course, to all those who have cooperated in the drafting of the report.
Mr President, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has been looking at the annual report on the Cohesion Fund by Novo Belenguer.
We noted that the Cohesion Fund often understands the environment in too wide a sense.
We can well imagine that water supply and waste disposal are genuine environmental projects.
But when it comes to a dam which is clearly damaging to the environment - and this can also be read in the report - then the Committee on the Environment believes that it is very difficult to understand why such a dam should be seen as an environmental project.
This is why it is a good thing that the Committee on the Environment is also involved with regional policy, which we call the integration of the environment and other sectors.
This is why I am so pleased that a large number of our amendments have been adopted by the rapporteur and his committee.
Our interpretation of the word environment is too wide.
I would therefore argue for more purely environmental projects in the future: the combating of soil erosion, reforestation, nature conservation, the protection of habitats.
These are matters to which cohesion policy must also pay much more attention.
We submitted an amendment, Amendment No 4, on this subject, and I hope that the Commission also finds this amendment by our group acceptable.
I support Mrs Shroedter in submitting a number of amendments in which she says that too much attention is paid to roads and too little to environment-friendly infrastructures such as railways.
Finally, I should like to stress - and this opinion is also on behalf of our committee and is included in your report - that environmental impact reports should be drawn up by researchers who are not involved in the planning or implementation of projects.
This must be the practice, it must be objective.
This principle must not only apply to the Cohesion Fund but to regional policy as a whole.
I am very curious as to how the Commissioner will react to this in order to achieve a more objective environmental impact reporting.
I repeat, Mr President, I am very pleased that we have found the rapporteur and his committee so ready to accept our amendments out of this concern to integrate the environment into regional policy.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I should like to begin my speech by mentioning that there are very few people present in the House when we are in fact discussing 34 % of the Community budget, which is intended for the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund and in this case we are dealing with the 1995 financial year.
I think this debate should serve to point the way to what the Structural Funds should be, both as regards what they should be for 1999, when the current period of funding from the Structural Funds ends, and as regards the way the regulations need to be amended in order to make the implementation of those funds more effective to promote greater economic and social cohesion and greater local cohesion between the various localities which go to make up the European Union of today.
Neither must we forget the new planned enlargement - taking us perhaps to 2004 - of the European Union.
None of these points must be forgotten in the analysis of what the Structural Funds have represented.
On this matter I should like to congratulate Mr Novo Belenguer on his report and to draw attention to some points which give cause for concern, such as the under-implementation of the Funds.
That means that budgetary surpluses remain for allocation - and these might be very considerable - and we shall therefore have to decide how to use these amounts for the benefit at least of those States which have been the most assiduous in implementing the Structural Funds.
The matter of additionality is highly disturbing, as Mr Novo Belenguer pointed out too, because there is insufficient information available to the Commission on the application by the Member States of the additionality criterion required for implementation of the Funds. The subject of coordination seems especially important to me, above all with the regional and local authorities, especially on those aspects on which the regional authorities have significant jurisdiction as regards the Funds.
As regards the rural areas, the Structural Funds are a very important support for farming and rural incomes and in that connection it should be pointed out, as was agreed at the Cork Conference, that the decentralization of the administration of the Structural Funds should serve to avoid the danger which any future re-nationalization of the Common Agricultural Policy would entail.
To this end, more information needs to be given on the possibilities for harnessing and disseminating the Structural Funds throughout the rural world.
I think the European Observatory for Innovation and Rural Development which has been set up also deserves a mention and needs to be given the necessary powers.
I therefore, for all the above reasons consider that this report is a positive one, but we must keep a watchful eye on the implementation of the Structural Funds in the future.
Madam President, this Seventh Annual Report has 341 pages.
It is very difficult for the ordinary Member of the European Parliament or the member of a national or regional parliament to read and digest this major volume.
I would like to see a brief summary such as the Court of Auditors includes with its reports, so that the average Member of Parliament could quickly get some idea of what is contained in the report.
The rapporteur for the Committee on Regional Policy, Mr Novo, expressed concern at the bureaucratic workload both at Member State and Commission level involved in the programming exercise.
He blames this for the low level of utilization of the funds.
We should note this point seriously and should also note that the four different funds, the seven objectives and the thirteen initiatives make for far too much administrative work.
They also make an evaluation of what has been done more difficult.
The Committee on Budgets is concerned about the low level of utilization which Mr Novo Berlenguer drew our attention to and recognizes that some states have had difficulty with the complexity of the regulations involved.
The overall outturn for 1995 was 82 % of available funds.
If we had had a simpler regulation we could have done much more and done it at a lower administrative cost.
However, we welcome the fact that it was the poorer Member States which achieved the highest utilization and at least that gives us the satisfaction that the objective of social and economic cohesion is being achieved.
In my opinion I recommended that whatever monies - and it appears definite that money will be pushed forward - are not utilized in the last year should be redistributed for the purpose for which they were intended amongst those states that succeeded in utilizing the funds available to them.
Rapporteur of the Opinion of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
(SV) Madam President, the Structural Funds must undergo basic reforms. Almost 100 of the 250 billion kronor which were allocated for the funds during 1995 have not been used.
These are going completely to waste because administration and bureaucracy cannot keep up with processing the applications and allocating the money.
It really is an utter scandal, this is a large sum of money which is not being used effectively.
It is a matter of poor housekeeping with tax payers' money.
There are also serious shortcomings in programme planning, supervision and evaluation.
The most radical solution would be to allow each country to be responsible for their own regional policy, with certain objectives laid down by the EU regarding how the funds are to be used.
We will not achieve this today, and must instead reform the funds one step at a time.
I have several proposals from our committee which I would like to highlight: Bureaucracy, both in the EU and in the Member States, must be greatly reduced with fewer funds, fewer objectives and fewer Community initiatives.
Programme planning, decision making and supervision must also be improved.
More decisions must be taken at a local or regional level.
It is our opinion that all regional political initiatives must be directed primarily at resolving the EU's serious problems; unemployment first of all, followed by improvements to the environment and better border region co-operation.
The Novo Belenguer proposal also takes this view, and the view, we think, of the employment committee's proposal on greater decentralisation of decision making, more local decisions and better co-ordination between the Member States' regional policies and the EU's labour market policies.
But, I am extremely dubious about the value of penalising Member States through the actions suggested in the report if they do not fulfil the principle of additionality, i.e. the addition of their own funds.
I think that this is the wrong way to change and improve the function of the Structural Funds.
But, on the whole I agree with the Novo Belenguer report.
Madam President, the situation of the structural funds in the fisheries sector is as follows.
Firstly: for the period 1994-1999 the budget allocation for the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance, i.e. the FIFG, is ECU 2600 m.
Secondly, over the same period the allocation for the PESCA Community initiative is ECU 250 m.
In the case of the FIFG, a number of innovative elements were added to structural policy in the sector in 1994/95.
Following pressure from the Committee on Fisheries, new measures were introduced to provide, firstly, for early retirement for fishermen and secondly, for individual grants for younger fishermen forced to leave the industry following the withdrawal of fishing vessels from service.
By and large, the FIFG commitment and payment rates in Objective 5(a) regions are average compared to those for all structural assistance objectives in the EU.
The rate of implementation of FIFG assistance in Objective 1 areas is also satisfactory.
This is not the case with the new PESCA Community initiative, although the general trend is positive.
The 98 % programme authorization rate is still above average in relation to all EU Community initiatives.
But the payment rate is substantially below average, which gives us cause for concern.
The reason for this is that administrative procedures are too expensive, too complex and too slow.
There is not enough coordination within the Commission either.
Moreover, the Member States must also work more effectively, according to the European Court of Auditors.
According to my information, things did not improve significantly here in 1996 either.
The picture for 1997 looks different.
Tomorrow the Commission will be holding a PESCA conference in Brussels.
We hope it will confirm this.
However, let me appeal to all concerned: keep the PESCA initiative alive during the forthcoming structural reform discussions, for every start-up phase is difficult and the fishermen need this initiative.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I fully share the concern of the European Parliament in stressing that in the resolution under discussion on the Cohesion Fund ought, since greater regional internal disparities have been noted within the beneficiary Member States, to include an analysis of the possible impact of implementation of the Cohesion Fund on the said disparities within the field of the Commission's assessment of the socio-economic impact.
The Cohesion Fund, like other funds, is essentially intended to promote economic and social cohesion.
This is assessed both by the relative levels of development of the Member States between one another and by the degree of social and local disparities which exist within each Member State.
In this context it is not irrelevant to mention the option which exists as regards the investment targeting option made within each of the four beneficiary Member States of the Cohesion Fund submitting projects.
If there were no criteria for the options, the implementation of the Cohesion Fund itself might actually serve to increase the social and local disparities in the beneficiary Member States.
For that to happen there need simply be a financing of projects exclusively or predominantly in areas with a higher level of development.
There is still time to put right these points which seem to need to be put right.
It is illogical and therefore untenable that the cohesion Fund should pay so little attention to the most peripheral regions.
I am therefore very pleased to see the Commission, with the express agreement of the European Parliament, assuming a more flexible position on allowing projects with a value of less than ECU 10 million, since this approach will make it possible to invest more in projects aimed at less-developed regions, which helps to offset the over-concentration on aid to the more prosperous regions.
But although it is essential to ensure that there is a contribution from the Cohesion Fund to realise the principle of economic and social cohesion, it is also essential, since this Fund is exclusively intended for the financing of investment in the transport and environment sectors, that it should follow the policies of the European Union in these fields.
We therefore fully support the strategy announced by the Commission, to step up, by means of the Cohesion Fund, the implementation of Community directives, for example in areas such as water, supply, management and treatment.
As regards the Cohesion Fund it seems clear to me that there are many points on which the European Parliament and the Commission agree.
That is the result of course of a great deal of work together which we have all put in to this end and I should like to take this opportunity - and I think this is fully justified - to congratulate Mr Honório Novo on his excellent report.
We now only have to await the results.
Madam President, first I wish to compliment the rapporteur Mr Novo for his excellent report.
This is the first time the Commission has submitted an annual report based on a complete year of operation of the Cohesion Fund and it is the first time this Parliament has had the opportunity of examining how the Cohesion Fund has been implemented in the beneficiary Member States.
Without a doubt the Novo report is exceptionally important.
From the Commission report I am pleased to note that, globally, the results are positive.
The budgetary implementation of the reference year was almost 100 % for both commitments and appropriations which is a unique and commendable result.
However, I find it extraordinary that in at least one Member State, Cohesion Fund investment in one region has caused major problems in another.
This has to be of great concern as it flies in the face of the purpose of the fund.
I would invite the Commission, in conjunction with the Member State concerned, to find speedy and appropriate solutions to this problem.
It is also heartening to note that no fraud was found in connection with the projects which were financed and this is an example to follow in other areas.
Following on from a previous report in 1996 by Mr Hatzidakis on cohesion policy and the environment, it is fitting that the environmental aspects relating to the fund have been given particular emphasis by Mr Novo.
It is clear that some improvements have been made in this sector, in particular in a better balance of projects between transport and the environment. I agree that more needs to be done here.
Even though they do not apply to all the beneficiary Member States in the same way and to the same degree, I subscribe to the rapporteur's concerns about other environmental aspects relating to the fund.
Mr Novo says that other environmental projects such as combating coastal erosion might be envisaged.
On this point, I give my total support to the rapporteur.
For a considerable time now, I have been on record that coastal erosion is no longer to be regarded as a local problem.
It is not even a national problem.
It must be regarded as a European Union problem.
For European Union problems there must be European Union solutions and here I would emphasize that coastal erosion is a particularly important problem in Ireland.
I can support paragraph 9 of the resolution on the assumption that the rapporteur is referring to regions such as the Azores and Madeira.
In conclusion, the very existence of the Cohesion Fund has been of the utmost importance for Ireland.
Through the Cohesion Fund good progress has been made in my country towards the objective of economic and social cohesion and it should continue to do so.
Mr Novo's call on the Commission and the Council to guarantee that the Cohesion Fund will continue as of 1999 receives my full and unambiguous support.
Madam President, the Commission's report is a kind of incomplete account, with many deliberate omissions, of the implementation of Community policy on economic and social cohesion, and of the action and effectiveness of the Structural Funds.
On these issues we have two parallel reports which go together in one way or another, the Novo and the Novo Belenguer reports.
They take a positive view of the Commission's report, but put forward a number of noteworthy critical views.
In expressing my view of this two-sided picture, the reports by the Commission and those by our colleagues, I should like to say that while on the one hand they highlight the problem, on the other hand they are incomplete.
The main problem concerns what the European Union is trying to achieve today with this policy of the Structural Funds, the policy of economic cohesion.
It is striving for regional development, approximation, convergence, and the cohesion of countries and regions at some particular level.
The account given shows that this policy has so far been negative, and has consequently failed.
It has failed:
first, because the resources available are insufficient and ought to be increased and made more available,
secondly, because the programmes and Community initiatives are numerous and many-sided, but they have no priority or criterion of what they are trying to develop, and
thirdly, Madam President, even after the Amsterdam Conference there is no impulse in that direction.
We fear that there will be a series of such deficiencies, that countries and regions will remain in a state of underdevelopment, that expenditure will continue to be squandered for bureaucratic and pointless or inappropriately prioritized, supposedly developmental purposes, and that the desired result will not be achieved.
I can quote Greece as an example. It is very much a country with marked peculiarities, but these are not taken into account.
It is as if a bulldozer were trundling across all the regions, all the countries, in the same way.
But there are particular features, hyper-regionality, underdevelopment, concentration of the population in some centres and desertion of some other areas, and the various funds, programmes and Community initiatives take no account of these particularities so that the respective needs may be dealt with appropriately.
And Greece is said to be always on the scrounge, as we are now hearing here, whereas this is not true.
Greece only asks for what it is entitled to.
What the Structural Funds provide for the four countries of the Cohesion Fund, in relation to Greece, is distributed unequally and the resources do not match the needs, if proper account is taken of the country's particular features and of those needs.
Unless the problem is dealt with in that way, by a radical approach to Community policy on the issues of economic and social cohesion and the development of countries and regions, we will no doubt come back and debate more reports, but with no result.
Madam President, making money available for infrastructure certainly does not automatically imply progress with cohesion.
This is apparent simply from the fact that the development gap between poor and rich regions has still not been closed despite the large sums of money spent.
So it is not a question of the amount of money made available but mainly of the quality of the projects.
In the past, large road-building schemes in the cohesion countries have destroyed more than they have really achieved.
We can only give a real impetus to sustainable development if we strengthen small-scale infrastructure.
That applies even more to environmental infrastructure.
Excessively large-scale environmental infrastructure places a burden on the citizens and communities of disadvantaged regions and makes them even poorer. that is why I call on the Commission to give preference to small-scale projects and to support those which will leave the next generation an environment worth living in.
Parliament was putting on the emergency brake when it set upper and lower percentage criteria for the proportion of combined transport - road and rail - in its decisions on the trans-European Networks.
There seems to be no other way of really implementing models of sustainable development, as called for in Chapter 10 of the White Paper.
These decisions were parliamentary decisions and it really would be terrible if we bypassed them.
Looking to the future, I doubt whether linking the resources for structural intervention to these convergence criteria really has produced any benefit.
That is why I call for this link to be dissolved in the next Financial Perspective and for us to aim at making the needs and neediness of regions the main criterion for structural intervention.
For it is a question of genuinely doing something for the people of Europe.
Mr President, the Commission's reports on the cohesion fund and the other structural funds for the 1995 financial year have arrived punctually.
The Commission's judgement is that the budget for the cohesion fund has been implemented satisfactorily and it is cheered by the fact that it has not been notified of any cases of fraud affecting the projects that have been financed.
The Commission should pay equal attention to the goal of publicizing the availability of the structural funds and facilitating their use.
The working document drawn up in 1996 by DG XIX expressly mentions an alarming underspend of structural funds appropriations, in addition to a great deal of disturbing data and analysis.
The 1997 budget procedure envisages a reduction of the payment appropriations for the structural funds just because of the underspend.
If we want targeted and effective projects which have a concrete and substantial impact in needy areas, we should first of all strengthen the initiatives designed to extend the means of disseminating information through modern communications technology.
We must also change the complex rules, make them more transparent and easier to apply so as to discourage fraud at its inception, and encourage decentralization of the management of funded projects.
Experience shows that in regions with decentralized management greater advantage has been taken of the opportunities offered by Community structural interventions, because the regional authorities are better equipped to assess them directly.
For example, Italy, a centralized country, has the disturbingly modest rate of implementation of 28 per cent, whereas Germany, a federal country, has 66 per cent.
If these statistics were published in Italy there would be an immediate upsurge in the struggle for independence in Lombardy.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 1995 was the first year in which the three new Member States, Austria, Sweden and Finland, played a part in European structural policy.
A while ago this House debated and adopted an excellent report by Mr Rack.
I believe that these countries have managed to implement the structural policy rather well, partly thanks to the experience they had already gained with their existing national regional policy.
But let me also say in the rather carefree manner of a Member from a new Member State that we found it hard to get to grips with the red tape in the administration of these structural policies.
Even though we have managed to implement them fairly well and properly in our countries, I must say - and this is something one has to bring up again and again as a Member - that we sometimes become a little discouraged when we apply to the European Commission or to the regional bodies.
My second point, to which other Members have also referred, is that the amount of appropriations not utilized increased from ECU 15 000 m to ECU 23 400 m between 1993 and 1995, as the report notes.
This in itself raises the question of the success of the structural policies.
How successful can a structural policy be if it does not prove possible to make the money we budget for in Parliament available for the appropriate measures? I think it is a rather unique situation in the world for money made available not to be used.
To think that a few days ago saw the end of a summit that apparently placed special emphasis on employment, that once again found that we have some 18 million unemployed in the Union while at the same time we do not utilize these kinds of structural funds, I must say that speaks for itself and we Members simply cannot accept it.
I would certainly support it and consider it most important for the Commissioner present here today to make headway in this matter.
I believe we need one regional policy in the European Union.
We cannot make distinctions on the basis of there being few rural areas here and more urban areas there, etc.
I remember certain discussions in which it became clear that everybody in fact agrees on the need to concentrate resources, not just in other countries but in their own too.
I think here we must support the proposals of the Commissioner responsible on the future reform of the structural policies.
However they need to assume a different form, and Mr McCartin has already indicated on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control that we must be in a position to redistribute unutilized resources from one Member State to another, otherwise I think the future of the common structural policy will look rather gloomy, given the moves towards renationalizing the various structural policies.
Madam President, earlier, Mr Costa Neves spoke on our behalf, for the European People's Party, about the report on the Cohesion Fund.
I myself will therefore refer to the report by Mr Novo Belenguer on the Structural Funds, which I must say, is a very good report which was adopted unanimously by the Committee and for that reason I think Mr Novo Belenguer deserves to be congratulated.
I would like to mention a number of points, mainly in order to draw various conclusions about the future, because the past, what happened in 1994 or 1995 or 1996, is something we should bear in mind when considering the review of Structural Fund regulations.
The first point I want to dwell on concerns the issue of underperformance, i.e. the non-absorption of the resources of the Structural Funds. Here, I should like to point out that this is observed mainly among the wealthier Member States, not so much in the Objective 1 areas, and it applies mainly to the European Social Fund, which is not within the Commissioner's purview, but since the problem has arisen we should address it here in our debate.
I want to say that it is an issue we should certainly all take seriously, both the Commission and the Member States, and besides all the other efforts we will have to make, I think we ought to see what can be done to simplify the regulations without preventing transparency, a thing that as I know, the Commission is already thinking about.
The second point I want to mention is the monitoring and implementation of supplementarity.
It seems that the Commission is naturally unable to guarantee its application completely, and there are serious implications that it is not applied sufficiently well, even during the present planning period.
This is a very important issue, and the Commission must cooperate closely with the Member States to achieve the requisite improvements, perhaps with the threat contained in the report itself, in other words that funding should be cut if the principle of supplementarity is not ensured.
A further matter that arises is the new assessment system proposed by the Commission, based on the intervention of independent experts.
This is certainly a positive step, which will contribute towards the prevention or correction of certain mistakes, but mainly towards the qualitative improvement of the new programmes for the future.
In each case, however, it must be ensured that those experts will be chosen on merit and with objective criteria, and provision must also be made to subject them to some form of control.
In my view, the monitors will have to be monitored.
Another point is the question of the environment.
I know the Commission attributes great importance to that, and as Parliament, that satisfies us.
However, I think further steps could be taken as well, especially where studies of environmental consequences are concerned, and those will have to be more substantial and more binding.
Madam President, I conclude with a final comment concerning the participation of local and regional authorities, which contributes to the transparency of the programmes.
I know that steps have been taken, but I think there could be many more, and more substantial ones, so that the participation of regional and local authorities can be truly substantial.
Mr President, any member of this House who commits himself to the spending of Cohesion and Structural Funds is immediately popular with the citizen because the citizen sees an improvement in his own environment which is a good thing and which improves support for Europe.
But there is a bomb beneath the support of the Structural Funds.
A bomb of money which is not being spent.
If this under-spending is not drastically but responsibly corrected than the support of the European citizen may well be lost.
In the long term it is not possible to justify to the European citizen that there is a lot of money which is not being spent while the individual Member States are being required to contribute more to Europe.
On the eve of enlargement that is a particularly inconvenient and difficult consideration.
The shared burdens which we bear have grown into a shared sense of solidarity within Europe.
This must remain both before and after enlargement.
But before we come to that it must be made very clear what exactly the additional character is which warrants projects being funded out of European funds, as otherwise we are simply moving the money from one pocket to another and in this case also just sitting on it.
So this is an appeal to all governments to submit good proposals to spend this money.
On the eve of enlargement an unspent bomb of money sends out the wrong signal for the cohesion of European solidarity and certainly to Central and Eastern Europe.
Madam President, Commissioner, I just want to comment briefly on two points.
The first is additionality, where I am speaking more from the point of view of those who are making increasing attempts to obtain structural fund resources at local level.
The problem is that we have several principles in the EU.
One of the most recent and no doubt most rational principles is the need to reduce further public indebtedness.
Since Amsterdam, it has been decided to adhere to this principle on a fairly lasting and strict basis.
One effect of this, which is already becoming apparent at local budgetary level, is that small local authorities find it increasingly difficult to raise the complementary resources for EU projects, even if national and regional resources are of course contributed as a matter of course.
We must ensure that this does not turn into a disastrous trend for certain regions.
I believe we must try to prevent that in time.
Secondly, I would like to make a comment on the principle of partnership.
We still have major reservations in many respects about extending this principle.
Let me at this point specifically thank the Commission for making serious efforts and also taking serious initiatives in this area.
What obstacles still remain relate mainly to partnership between the national governments, the regional administrations and often between the latter and the local authorities.
If I may say so, we in Thuringia, for instance, have a large number of regional development plans drawn up in a democratic manner which were not really taken into consideration when the programme planning documents were drawn up.
Let me conclude by making one point in this connection: anyone who wants to deal with the crucial tasks in this area in coming years will have to attach considerably more attention to the principle of partnership, because the main task is in fact to use fewer resources more efficiently.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report on the Seventh Annual Report on the Structural Funds for 1995 is the first one to also cover the new Member States of Austria, Sweden and Finland.
We recently had an opportunity to say something more specific about some of their experiences, in a separate report on the implementaton of regional policy in those three Member States, and I am taking the opportunity today to draw certain comparisons.
They are very interesting at times.
In many respects our report was very similar.
We criticized the fact, which is indeed a problem, that in many cases there was and still is far too much bureaucracy both at Community level and in the Member States, too many programmes and, comparatively, too little money in the end.
In many ways the picture in the three new Member States was more positive than on average in Europe, and certainly so in relation to some real black spots.
In regard to the utilization of resources in particular, despite the fact that we have only been Members for a very short time, the three new Member States certainly managed to utilize a very large proportion of these resources in the start-up phase.
I am pointing this out here because it is important to ensure that resources which were not utilized at the time can and must be used up by the end of this year.
On the whole, utilization of resources was very good.
This is exceptionally true in the case of SMEs, women's programmes, the information society and in particular LEADER and INTERREG.
There were some not so good examples.
In particular, the new Member States did not or not entirely manage to make it clear that EU resources were also contributed to the projects in question.
We must draw the necessary consequences.
We must provide more information and also learn from best practices; we must take the assessment seriously and must continue with careful planning in future too.
We are glad to note that the Commission is itself planning to radically simplify and clarify the programmes for the next phase.
We in the European Parliament will be happy to take part in this work, even though we will not yet have the new co-decision powers under the Amsterdam Treaty.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this Seventh Annual Report is a special one, not just because for the first time it covers three new Member States but far more in fact because the report refers to the beginning of the second planning period, a time when the discussion on reforming the structural funds was already in full swing.
There is really no point in looking back to the past, in this case to the year 1995, unless one draws lessons from it for the future.
So I will not evaluate the many positive aspects noted in the Commission's report, in relation also to previous reports, but lay the finger on a few sore points.
As with the previous annual reports, once again we note that in practice the beneficiaries face the problem of excessive bureaucracy and more or less inflexible disbursement procedures.
That is why talk about the need to simplify the legal provisions and administrative procedures is not just a matter of empty words that keep sounding in our ears but an important factor of the reform, if we are to achieve greater efficiency and transparency.
In my view the Seventh Annual Report also makes it clear that in regions where the administration has been decentralized, more use has been made of the possibilities offered by the structural fund interventions.
Decentralized administration can also help resolve an acute problem in some Member States where the regions face long delays before receiving payments from Brussels.
A further finding relates to planning.
Here more account must be taken of the direct political responsibility of the regional players in setting the structural objectives and determining the assistance priorities. And if we want to create wider possibilities for structural fund measures in the year 2000 and later, regardless of statistical values, we will have to make provision for a relative number of changes, so that we can react to any unforeseeable structural fluctuations.
In short, it must be possible to adjust programmes after they have started and in a flexible manner; that is a requirement we should set out in relation to the reform.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank the two rapporteurs, Mr Novo and Mr Novo Belenguer, for their clear and balanced reports and to thank all those who took part in this debate for their valuable contributions, which are indeed most important because we are concerned not just with the year 1995 but, I hope, also with ensuring that together we manage to improve matters as from the year 2000.
Let me begin by briefly addressing a few questions in connection with the report on the 1995 Cohesion Fund.
I was pleased to see that real note was taken of the progress we have made towards a more balanced financing of environmental and transport projects.
As you know, the Member States concerned are not overly enthusiastic about the Commission's endeavour to split the resources between environmental and transport infrastructure investments for the entire planning period, and I may say that the positive trend you noted in 1995 has stabilized.
In 1996 we managed for the first time to split the resources almost exactly by allocating ECU 1200 m for environmental and transport projects respectively.
I believe the suggestion that we link environmental and transport projects more closely is an interesting one, and we will look at it carefully in the context of what is feasible here.
For the rest, Member States are also putting more emphasis on the need to build up rail, sea, combined transport and urban transport systems and to give precedence to environment-friendly projects over huge road-building projects.
I do think we are making slow and gradual headway here, although I would not say that I am satisfied with this progress as a whole.
We hope that the new directive on environmental impact reports, which the Council adopted in March, will also lead to an improvement in procedures; the Commission will ensure that these procedures are applied correctly and strictly.
However, that is all we can do, for we probably all agree that we could imagine even better environmental impact assessments, that responded more closely to your concerns and ours.
In connection with our agreements with Parliament on the greening of the budget, we have trained our own officials in the relevant areas in this particular sector, to enable them to see more clearly and become more aware of the problems involved.
In the context of the greening of the budget, the Cohesion Fund will also commission independent experts to evaluate the Cohesion Fund's contribution to environmental protection and sustainable development in general.
I am not sure this will earn us nothing but praise, but I do believe it is important and that it will teach us lessons for the future.
As for small projects, especially in the field of environmental protection, let me simply point out that the Commission already takes an extremely flexible approach here, thanks to which it managed to achieve this 50: 50 distribution in the first place, and that we are also being somewhat flexible in relation to the distribution of funds normally intended primarily for large-scale projects.
But I do agree with you that a great many local environmental projects need our support.
That is why we have often combined a number of small projects, in order to place more emphasis on environmental protection in the cohesion countries.
In your report you again asked for information on the application of the conditionality clause.
Let me just point out that the procedure is explained in detail in the Cohesion Fund report for 1996, which responds to your request at the time when we first applied this procedure.
In the report on the Structural Funds - 1995, for which I also offer warm thanks, you rightly criticize the low take-up of budgetary appropriations in the start-up phase 1994/1995, the complex procedures and the high - I think we can say excessive -level of bureaucracy both in the Member States and in the Commission.
But let me point out that the budgetary implementation has been improved considerably in the meantime.
In 1996 almost 100 % of budget appropriations were committed.
Overall, the three-year rate is also satisfactory; but that does not mean that there are not exceptions in certain areas.
In response to the Italian speaker I must say that it is not just the national programmes that are largely to blame for Italy's low rate of implementation, but simply that it is still the case that almost nothing has been done in some regions.
Nor is there any universal remedy for this; basically, it means that all three levels, European, national and regional, must act in concert.
But let me state in any case, by way of clarification, that the structural fund programmes are multiannual programmes.
Clearly, if you plan an investment over several years, the expenses only tend to increase in later years, which does not necessarily imply poor management.
Rather it means that it sometimes takes a while for projects to be clearly defined, funds to be allocated and payments to be made.
Nevertheless, I believe that there certainly is a large grey area between the normal running of multiannual programmes and the occasional poor take-up of funds that we are criticizing here.
I would be glad if we could make a concerted effort over the next structural fund period to define some kind of criteria for success, in relation not just to the take-up of funds but also to the quality of the programmes and projects, for it is pointless to spend money badly.
We must try to combine spending money according to the rules and using it for good and successful projects, which will certainly not be an easy exercize.
For the rest, let me also point out once again that in most of the cases where the slow disbursement of funds in the regions was criticized, the resources were blocked in the Member States' capitals, which means that there is a need for substantial simplifications and for improved procedures in the Member States too.
Mr Belenguer, I am very pleased that in your report you emphasized the importance of the principles of European structural policy, such as economic and social cohesion, additionality and broader and deeper partnership.
You also rightly underline the need for coordination with other Community policies and horizontal priorities, such as employment, the environment, equal opportunities and support for SMEs, which we also proposed in recent years as guidelines for the new Objective 2 programmes, but also as means of adjustment of the Objective 1 programmes in the mid-term evaluation, with a view to job-creation and economic revival.
I think it is important to make real use of the mid-term evaluation now.
There has been some delay because some things simply took a little longer, in relation also to the monitoring committees, i.e., the level to which we in fact want to assign more responsibility and which we think should have a greater say, until the experts are appointed.
Yet I am certain we will have a chance to take a flexible approach to changes in the world and in economic circumstances and to pay more attention to means of actually creating long-term jobs, which is a major aim of the structural funds.
We will also be undertaking evaluations on the subjects of employment, the environment, equal opportunities and support for SMEs in response to your wishes and I hope that the evaluation methods will gradually improve both in the Member States and in the Community.
Basically, we finally made progress here for the first time about six months ago, in terms also of convincing the Member States to regard this not just as a bureaucratic exercize but as a chance to improve the implementation of structural policy; I hope that will bring us some way forward.
In your report and during the debate, your proposals regarding the basic principles of the structural fund reform in the Santer package, which relate to the reduction in the number of funds, budgetary structure, decentralization and linking credits and loans more closely, also reflect central concerns of the Commission.
The Commission will be adopting this package in Strasbourg on 15 July and submit it to Parliament on 16 July.
That is why there are no concrete or official proposals yet at this point.
I discussed some ideas discussed in the Cohesion Forum, in which many MEPs also took part, with members of the Committee on Regional Policy yesterday, so I will simply summarize them in a few words now.
For instance, we discussed the need, which I think we all appreciate, for simpler implementing and financing procedures, for more transparency, for a reduction in the number of objectives, for a drastic reduction in the number of Community initiatives, for concentration on cross-frontier cooperation and integrating most of the Community initiatives in the mainstream programmes, and for decentralization, which of course also means a clearer assignment of responsibilities.
We cannot have the Member States implementing the programmes while the Commission continues to bear the responsibility.
During the reform of the structural funds regulation we will, therefore, also have to establish more definite rules, which will make things easier for all concerned and clarify the areas of responsibility, but also provide for monitoring and evaluation in future too which, I think, is an important aspect and one of interest to Parliament.
I think we also agree on the need for more concrete and binding rules on the partnership principle.
As you know, the problem here, in the past too, has been not so much a matter of the Commission's proposals as of the Member States' unwillingness to accept these proposals.
Nevertheless I believe our past experience has shown the need to pursue this road and I am sure that the debate on Agenda 2000 and the reform of the structural funds regulations will offer us many opportunities for extensive consultation in the coming months.
Thank you for your suggestions and for today's debate!
Thank you, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Agreement with the Kyrgyz Republic
The next item is the report (A4-0032/97) by Mr Chesa, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision (COM(95)49-11156/95 - C4-0685/96-95/0063(ACC) on the conclusion by the European Union, the European Coal and Steel Committee and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the Kyrgyz Republic, of the other part, on trade and trade-related matters.
Madam President, the reasons that led the REX Committee to approve the interim agreement on Kyrgyzstan are the same reasons that induced it to approve the economic and commercial aspects of the partnership agreement.
That agreement is based on the difficulties and prospects of the Kyrgyz economy: difficulties resulting from the break-up of the USSR, difficulties linked to relations with the other Asian republics, and difficulties linked to the privatization and modernization of the economy, reflected initially by a drop in agricultural and industrial production, and also in food production.
The partnership agreement of 1994, similar to those previously concluded with other States of the former Eastern Bloc, relates particularly to three main points.
The first is the trade in goods, based on most-favoured nation treatment as far as customs formalities are concerned, textile products being the subject of a separate agreement.
The second point relates to the provisions affecting business and investment, and especially includes conditions affecting employment, the setting up of companies, day-to-day payments, liberalization of transactions and the protection of intellectual property.
The third point covers economic co-operation, with a view to assisting the process of reform, economic recovery and sustainable development in the Kyrgyz Republic.
With this in mind, economic co-operation is focused particularly on economic and social development, the development of human resources, support for business, agriculture and food, non-military nuclear energy, transport, tourism, environmental protection, co-operation in general and many other fields.
The width of this coverage provided by the partnership and co-operation treaty means that the future of economic and trade relations between the Kyrgyz Republic and the European Union is very promising.
For all these reasons, I ask Honourable Members to vote in favour of the interim agreement between the European Union and Kyrgyzstan, particularly as the Committee on Budgets has given a favourable opinion.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the EPP Group I want to support our rapporteur, Mr Chesa, in his positive evaluation of the interim agreement and also propose that we approve the conclusion of the interim agreement.
This will make it possible rapidly to apply the trade-related provisions of the partnership and cooperation agreement.
Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, this Central Asian republic is still struggling not just with enormous political but also with very serious economic difficulties.
The entire trade system has broken down and to provide normal supplies of food and energy proved well-nigh impossible for a long time.
This resulted in an economic isolation that is still apparent today and blocked its further economic development.
Paradoxically, Kyrgyzstan's difficult situation is exacerbated by the recently implemented customs union with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan because these two partner states have provided for and are also imposing trade restrictions on third states.
At the same time, it is clear that there is much potential for developing economic and trade relations between Kyrgyzstan and the EU.
The TACIS programmes were radically reformed for Kyrgyzstan, which may result in greater local interest and more investment partners.
Kyrgyzstan's ambitious privatization programme is the main element of the economic reform that has been initiated.
But at present the people do not seem to be very interested in becoming involved in the private economy and setting up small businesses, although there are signs of a gradual fall in inflation.
That is why the following areas seem especially appropriate for closer cooperation between the EU and Kyrgyzstan: first, the development and implementation of a new national energy plan; secondly, the transfer of technical and administrative knowhow; thirdly, the establishment of joint ventures in the field of services, tourism and infrastructure.
But what about providing the young people of Kyrgyzstan with business training? How is the Commission organizing this help for self-help so that privatization will finally get under way?
Should we not make more use than before of the TACIS programme resources?
At any rate I think it is clear that the interim agreement offers a favourable environment for the development of trade and trade policy between the European Union and Kyrgyzstan and we should support this agreement.
Madam President, let me begin with a few basic comments on the strategy pursued by the Council and the Commission of pushing for purely trade-related cooperation instead of a comprehensive partnership and cooperation agreement.
The Greens cannot endorse this strategy and consider it far more important to implement the partnership and cooperation agreement fairly quickly, not to put the EU's interests in the forefront but to pursue an overall strategy to support the process of transformation in these countries.
Otherwise this would have disastrous consequences for Kyrgyzstan.
In practice only 20-39 % of the economy is privatized and there is scarcely any real legislation on privatization, only on leasing.
Democratization is faltering and far greater support is needed in this area.
On the other hand, it is very much in the EU's interest to exploit Kyrgyzstan's valuable resources, such as the gold and uranium mines, which has a destructive effect on this mountain republic's valuable nature reserves.
What little still remains will then certainly be destroyed.
The agreements are already in existence.
Joint ventures are possible even at this stage.
That does not primarily require an interim agreement.
It would be preferable to follow the overall strategy of the partnership and cooperation agreement.
Madam President, first I want to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
The Commission agrees with him that this as an important step in our relations with Kyrgyzstan.
The purpose of the interim agreement is to implement the provisions on trade and trade-related questions without waiting for them to be ratified by all the Member States' parliaments, and I believe this first step is also a positive one in regard to economic and democratic developments there.
The interim agreement also contains provisions on observing the principles of democracy and respect for human rights.
Its implementation allows for and promotes the expansion of trade relations, which are scarcely developed at this stage.
It has been pointed out by several speakers that the weakest bilateral trade between the EU and any of the republics that have emerged from the former USSR is that with Kyrgyzstan.
I also think that certainly means TACIS funds should be used for training programmes, with a view to restructuring the economy and also using own resources on the basis of own activities.
That is why about one third of the TACIS funds is to be used for training programmes of that kind.
With the entry into force of the interim agreement it will also be possible to put pressure on the Kyrgyz government to observe the provisions on respect for human rights in the event that this proves necessary and that human rights are violated in the very young and unstable democracy of Kyrgyzstan.
So we hope that overall this represents a first positive step towards improving relations and improving Kyrgyzstan's potential.
Madam President, I know that Mrs Wulf-Mathies is no expert in this field, but the fact is that we also keep being served up this promise to underpin democracy through the democracy clause by Mr van den Broek too.
Yet when it actually comes to applying it, there is always a loud silence.
I ask you to call on Mr van den Broek finally to apply a procedure that has been on file since 1995 so as to ensure that these promises really are kept.
What we keep being promised should finally be done, i.e., where difficulties arise, the democracy clause must be applied.
Hitherto we have had nothing but empty promises!
Mrs Schroedter, that was not a question, it was a continuation of the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
PHARE programme
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0165/97) by Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the Commission's PHARE 1994 and 1995 Annual Reports (COM(95)0366 - C4-0022/96 and COM(96)0360 - C4-0176/97).
Madam President, I am afraid that this is a debate being conducted for the Minutes.
My apologies to all my colleagues who are still here this evening.
This is a great pity because the PHARE programme is the European Union's most important instrument in granting aid to Central and Eastern Europe and hopefully it will also be the most important instrument in permitting the European Union's enlargement to include these countries.
I fear that the way this item has been placed on the agenda will have dissuaded many people from participating in the debate, but it is clearly the aim to use this occasion to speak about the future of the PHARE programme.
In six months' time a number of Central and Eastern European countries will be meeting on a Mediterranean island to begin discussions on enlargement.
This is of course a very major investment in the future of a more integrated and secure Europe.
It also makes it particularly urgent to undertake a thorough examination of the functioning of the PHARE programme as the most important instrument in this enlargement process.
As I said, we have taken the opportunity of the annual reports to undertake a more fundamental appraisal of the PHARE programme, a forward-looking appraisal.
The constructive position of Parliament in writing this report and the debate which has since taken place with the Commission on many aspects of it is unfortunately ill-rewarded this evening, with all due respect to the Commissioner present, due to the absence of Commissioner Van den Broek.
I very much regret this, perhaps next time we should be somewhat more negative.
I will nevertheless make a number of points, although as I have already said this is more of a debate for the Minutes. These are points which I believe warrant the greatest attention by the Commission in the short term in further developing the reorientation of the PHARE programme.
For example, the assessment of the situation of the PHARE programme in Romania revealed an important defect in the programme which I believe applies more generally, namely the poor evaluations, or the lack of evaluations, which have an effect on project implementation.
How can this be improved? As a Parliament we have too little understanding of the actual effects of the billions which the European Union is at present investing in Eastern Europe.
There is a serious lack of clarity about the objectives of the various PHARE projects in the Central and Eastern European countries.
There is also a lack of clarity about how projects contribute to the reform process and will soon be contributing to the enlargement process.
Only when we have effective evaluation instruments will we as a Parliament, and also the European Union, be in a position to see how our attempts to provide support also make an active contribution to a successful enlargement process.
Secondly, and this is an important point, there is major under-spending in the PHARE programme.
A large part of the funds allocated are either spent too late or not at all.
I believe this is a very regrettable situation.
It is a subject which has been much debated in this House, but I believe that in future we must focus primarily on ways in which this situation can be ended. It detracts from the value of the PHARE programme, but it is of course primarily damaging to those countries for which this money is intended.
I therefore want to see more money going to major projects, especially to promote investments, to improve infrastructures in the candidate Member States and, first and foremost, for improvements in what I describe as the administrative culture in these countries, an administrative culture which still fails to comply with the standards in the European Union.
In particular, it is important for governments and administrations in these candidate Member States to be able to apply the regulations and undertakings which apply within the European Union.
Another important point I should like to highlight is the question of priorities.
I am afraid that all attention over the next few years will be paid to the successful candidate Member States, if I may describe them in this way. Countries such as Hungary and Poland which everybody says will be included in the first round of new Member States.
I can foresee this development and understand that there is a certain logic in it, but that is specifically why I want extra investments and extra attention to be paid to those countries which may well be joining in the second round.
I believe that this must be a very important starting point for the Parliament.
I should also like to say something about the management of the PHARE programme.
There has been much discussion in this House on subcontracting, or the subcontracting of subcontracted projects, if I may put it like that.
The Parliament and the Committee on External Economic Relations find that the Commission itself must assume more responsibility and in particular more political responsibility for matters which fall to policy-making officials who are subject to the authority of the European Union.
In concrete terms this includes, for example, more staff for the PHARE programme.
I should also like to draw attention to another important point in connection with the accession strategy.
This is the matter of democracy and democratization.
I believe more money must be allocated to developing and reinforcing democracy in countries which have applied for European Union membership.
Finally - and I believe this is the last important point - when we look at the future and the investment of European Union resources in the candidate Member States, which is very important in enabling these countries to earn more, much greater attention must be paid to cofinancing, also within the PHARE programme, so that the countries themselves are also encouraged to commit resources to joint projects.
These were just a number of points which I have been able to make in my allocated speaking time.
I hope that the Commission will consider these recommendations, but above all that in future the Commission, and also Parliament, as we must also put our own house in order, will take the discussion on enlargement and the resources to be allocated to it somewhat more seriously.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, like Mr Wiersma I am sorry that his report, which I think is a very good and important one, was put before such a small number of Members of this House.
Since the main points of principle have already been made, let me perhaps make a few comments on our recent experience with PHARE.
Firstly: a pan-European transport conference recently took place in Helsinki.
I attended it and noted that one government representative after another from the Eastern European states emphasized the importance of the PHARE programmes for the development of the infrastructure programmes in their countries.
If Europe is to grow closer together, which is the objective, it is crucial to expand the infrastructure, especially in public transport but elsewhere too, and that is where PHARE makes its contribution.
The general maps in the two annual reports clearly show how much is being done for transport.
I do believe, and this is a point Mrs Wulf-Mathies also addressed, that it will be important in connection with developments over the next few years to coordinate the PHARE programmes in Eastern Europe more closely with the regional and infrastructure programmes in the West so that we can achieve an even greater objective.
Given that corridors were recently decided in Helsinki and that a tenth corridor has now been added, it is most important for this coordination to be achieved in practice.
Secondly, I was in Zagreb in Croatia last week with a parliamentary delegation.
We noticed how much importance is attached there to PHARE as a means of support and assistance for economic factors but also for integration and democratization.
I think we initially had some reservations here.
But we should consider entering into further talks, in the context of precisely this objective, as Mr Wiersma also said, namely promoting democratization, promoting the integration of the various ethnic groups, etc. so that we can make even more targeted and efficient use of PHARE in this area.
Albania certainly serves as an example of money being spent and not being used very efficiently.
I do not want to criticize anyone specifically, but I do want to point this out and ask the Commission to take greater care when it disburses these funds that they are used efficiently.
I know it is difficult to convince a country: you will get money but you must change your administrative structures, change your approach, change your political structure.
Yet that is most important, for otherwise the people of Europe will ask why they are handing out money when so much of it is spent badly or simply wasted. So it is important for the countries concerned, but also for the Western European countries, to take more care to ensure that these monies are put to the best use.
On that basis we are happy to approve Mr Wiersma's report.
We consider the PHARE programme an important one that will become even more so with the enlargement of the European Union.
However, we also believe that the Commission must devote greater attention to ensuring that the resources are used efficiently.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the PHARE programme is, in my view, a legitimate child of the European Parliament.
A few courageous colleagues put the available budgetary resources together at the end of the 1980s to promote the economic modernization of Hungary and Poland, countries which at that time were just trying to extricate themselves from the domination of the Soviet Union.
Of course modernizing the economy means restructuring the economy with a view to a social market economy.
We are very keen for the PHARE programme to be successful and to be integrated in the next few years in a longterm pre-accession strategy, which will also be reflected in differentiated form in Agenda 2000.
But, and here I agree with the rapporteur Mr Wiersma, we cannot yet tell whether the PHARE resources are now being used more efficiently than they were in the beginning, whether they are being oversubscribed or are inadequate, whether the misdirection of funds mainly towards EU consultants that occurred in the initial phase has now been corrected.
When you look at the well-presented reports you would think they were drawn up by an industrial association, although with the difference that they do not summarize the statistics of success but give statistics on expenditure that shows no prospects of success and no background of success.
Of course that makes it difficult for the European Parliament, which attaches very great value to the favourable development of the PHARE programme, to monitor them.
So we also think that there is no point in the long run in drafting reports of this kind but that we must change the monitoring systems, as the Hungarian president proposed a few days ago in the joint parliamentary committee.
Mr Horn thought we should provide for a global pre-accession programme that would make the INTERREG funding, the PHARE funding and the European Investment Bank funding transparent while at the same time giving the European Union and the country concerned a chance to use the funds in a manner likely to promise success.
The question is whether that is the right road to follow.
We all have our own experiences.
Perhaps it would be an idea for the Commission to check what happened with the human resources funding in Romania, as part of the PHARE programme.
If you look at the composition of the Romanian parliament and government now, you will find a large number of young politicians who were initially given assistance in their capacity of members of unions or associations and now hold important political offices and also form part of the Romanian political elite.
That is an example we can only look at on the basis of own experience.
But we believe there must be other means of making the successes, which PHARE has certainly had, more visible in the long term, both for the Commission, which has to build on them, and for the European Parliament, which must monitor this expenditure more efficiently.
Mr President, I share the opinion of Mr Wiersma and Mr Swoboda regarding holding a debate on such an important subject at such an hour.
It is indeed a pity.
The European leaders at the Amsterdam Summit did not succeed in reconstructing the European house so that it can accommodate more people without us falling through the floor.
This makes the PHARE programme all the more important in protecting Europe's stability.
Unfortunately, we must now draw the same conclusions as earlier in the evening in connection with the Structural Funds.
The money is there, but not enough is being spent.
In this case there is the possible excuse that the programme was originally technical in nature and had to quickly deal with a wide range of matters at various levels in society without the criteria being really clear.
It is too wide ranging and insufficiently targeted.
The rapporteur, Mr Wiersma, has submitted a good analysis of the situation, together with particularly pertinent recommendations.
He first speaks of the need to arrive at a new strategy.
To that I can give my support. There are certain priorities, such as promoting democracy, the observance of human rights, nuclear safety and environmental management.
Also positive is the encouragement of cross-border cooperation which can promote stability in the region and the status quo.
Regarding project implementation I would, however, like to see a greater increase in staff levels among the people who must implement them here as opposed to increasing the members of NGOs, and preferably more cofinancing with the governments in the respective countries.
This would be a genuine bottom-up approach.
In order to allow these countries to switch to our market system, PHARE should promote legislation providing for supervision of the banks and financial system because, Mr President, we all know that money laundering has also become very widespread in Central and Eastern Europe.
Finally, our own house is not ready for the new members.
But let us in any event lend the new inhabitants the right assistance to set their house in order, assistance which is better targeted than before.
Mr Wiersma's report provides an accurate picture of the present situation and an excellent basis on which to conduct policy.
I congratulate him on this and hope that the follow-up to this report can be discussed in Parliament on another occasion when more of Europe's representatives are present.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too must congratulate Mr Wiersma on his excellent report.
This report could not be more clear.
I therefore hope that the Commission - although Mr Van den Broek is not here to represent it - will take note of all the criticisms it contains.
For how can we judge whether or not European funds are being efficiently spent if there are no criteria by which they can be tested?
I was recently with a delegation in the Czech Republic where I was asked whether the PHARE programme was primarily an employment scheme for Western consultants.
The PHARE programme has slowly changed and grown from a programme for technical assistance into a programme to support the accession of Central and Eastern European countries.
What does this mean for PHARE and future priorities? First of all, it must mean improved infrastructure in these countries in the fields of transport, telecommunications, energy, know-how, and also - as Mrs Van Bladel has already said - in the banking sector, which is very important.
In fact, investment is not possible without it.
A second point is to reinforce the legal and institutional framework and assistance in areas where the Union is placing greater emphasis, such as free competition, the environment, nuclear safety and a favourable climate for small and medium-sized enterprises.
This brings other demands for project support, both from the Commission and from the local authorities in Central and Eastern Europe.
The Commission must make its procedures simpler and more transparent.
But the Eastern European authorities must also be quicker to reform their institutions and reduce bureaucracy so that there is no more under-spending.
However, Western governments cannot meet Eastern Europe's major financial needs on their own.
There is a also a need for much private financing.
The banks are ready for this.
There is a proposal for a new Marshall Plan and that must primarily come from the private banking sector.
These private investors must be attracted and this requires a stimulating regulatory framework in these countries, combined with stability.
The European Union can actively contribute to this through the PHARE programme.
Conditions can be imposed on these countries which can also serve to increase financing from the private sector.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too must thank the rapporteur for drawing up such a good report.
I am especially glad that he has included many suggestions by colleagues and has had lengthy consultations with the various committees, which makes this an exceptional report, the like of which we have not seen before in this Parliament in connection with the PHARE programme.
The efforts involved in the process of transformation in these countries need special support in areas where the problems are greatest, and we fully endorse that article.
However, the situation is that PHARE alone is not enough to support the integration process of the Central and Eastern European countries prior to accession to the European Union.
That is why it is so important to consider new ideas for a support programme worthy of the accession strategy, directed far more to the structural funds than to PHARE, because PHARE does not match up to an accession strategy in terms of funding available, range of support measures or procedures, which is why it cannot fund the aims in question.
It is worth considering whether we should not even at this early stage use one or other of the structural funds for the Central and Eastern European countries that want to join the EU.
Madam President, Mr Wiersma has written a clear analysis of the shortcomings in implementing the PHARE programme, namely under-spending, the major role of expensive consultants and external experts, and an insufficient evaluation of the results achieved through PHARE.
In the meantime, the Commission has already taken on board a large part of these criticisms in the new PHARE guidelines which were drawn up in March.
Future projects must be more in keeping with the pre-accession strategy.
This means that the Commission will have a louder voice in determining the fund's objectives.
More attention will be paid to the development of infrastructure and industry and to bringing the internal legislation of Central and Eastern European countries into line with that of the European Union.
In the framework of the pre-accession strategy, priority must also be awarded to the creation of civil society.
A society with efficient and democratic institutions which can count on sufficient popular support.
Commissioner Van den Broek is aware of our concerns for the position of religious minorities in various Central and Eastern European countries.
Through support for democratization PHARE will also promote the integration of these religious minorities.
Finally, during a recent visit to East Germany by a delegation of the Committee on External Economic Relations, of which I was a member, it became clear just how important it is for the PHARE programme to be also applied to cross-border cooperation.
For example, by combining PHARE with the INTERREG programme it is possible to prevent projects stopping at the border and thus being less effective.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Interparliamentary Relations between the European Parliament and the Slovak Parliament met last week.
At that meeting we and the Slovak parliament noted that the Commission had done very good work there.
The Amsterdam summit drew to an end at about the same time and finally decided that Slovakia would probably not be included in the first round of candidates for accession.
We felt that excellent concessions were in fact made during our talks with the Slovak parliament, in relation to electoral law and consideration of minority groups, i.e., linguistic minority groups, all of which was to be achieved by the end of November, that means very quickly indeed.
I believe that the PHARE programme created the necessary basis for this and that the moves towards accession have been very successful.
The decentralized implementing system has proven itself and the delegations have also done good work, given that they include many experts who have worked together very well with the people in the Member States.
But I also think it is important to involve the SMEs in this process, simply because contacts between people and personal experiences are very important.
Let me also ask the Commission to introduce more educational measures in this field, to monitor expenditure and perhaps also to make the award of contracts and the evaluation more transparent.
I also believe that the interparliamentary delegations can support all this very successfully, perhaps also the monitoring, an area where we could perhaps have closer cooperation in future.
Madam President, the PHARE programme really is the most important European Union programme for bringing the Central and Eastern European countries closer to the European Union, which it has done with a great deal of real success so far, although there are still some serious shortfalls.
Every year we in the Committee on Budgets discuss the difference between the commitment and payment appropriations in the programme and about its causes and results.
Indeed we are in the process of doing so now.
Of course there is a wide variety of causes.
For one thing it is of course difficult to reach any judgment because of the lack of evaluation criteria; but even if we had them, we could not remove the causes of these shortfalls but only evaluate them better.
In my personal experience, the PHARE programme is still too dependent on the national governments and on their at times very underdeveloped administrations, which means that we keep seeing regional partners drawing up and setting up wonderful projects and programmes, only for the central state then either not to approve them or to drag its feet.
The participant Eastern European states also take very different approaches to the European Union's aid priorities.
For instance, it is not very difficult to get an infrastructure project approved and running in Poland.
But there is no desire at all there to develop a civil society, which means that hardly any money goes to this sector in Poland.
The question is, of course, whether to leave it to the countries concerned to set the priorities or whether to decentralize the decision-taking more and involve the regions more closely in deciding the programmes. The Committee on Budgets has never wanted to cut the PHARE programme appropriations.
But that is no reason for us to go on pushing the ECU 3 000 m along in front of us like a mountain.
One point I would make in the light of the forthcoming negotiations on enlargement is that I believe we should consider how to make the PHARE programme more efficient.
Mr Wiersma's report offers a number of suggestions.
Some of them are feasible, such as the cross-border cooperation programme.
Only, after all these years of talk, we should finally implement it!
Madam President, basically this is a welcome report because it clearly and plainly shows up the superficial and insubstantial nature of the Commission's reports, or rather of the two reports. In the rapporteur's view, these Commission reports do little more than sum up the projects that have been executed in those two years.
I can only agree with him entirely.
No concrete targets are set out.
General objectives, such as transfers of technology, are of no use to effective evaluations of efficiency.
So we have no results that can be monitored and accordingly no way of evaluating the programmes.
Merely to describe the money flows in no way justifies the actual utilization of resources.
The Court of Auditors has also noted the poor monitoring and execution of the programmes for some years now.
It has referred to the need to rationalize their execution.
It has referred to the lack of clarity in the utilization of the resources.
It has referred to problems of coordination in applying the system.
It has also referred to conflicts of interest between the players involved and, lastly, to the restricted invitations to tender.
These inconsistencies criticized by the Court of Auditors must be remedied at once and in full, before we can discuss a possible increase in resources.
Since we all know that only about half of the ECU 6 600 m made available in 1996 was used, there is in any case some doubt about the need to increase the capital injection yet again.
What we need immediately is a clear definition of objectives, efficiency, transparency and a new, diversified support strategy.
What we also need is more co-financing projects so that the Central and Eastern European countries can identify more closely with the projects concerned.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to give Mr Wiersma very warm thanks for his comprehensive report.
Mr Hans van den Broek is presently at a Council meeting in Luxembourg, so I must apologize for his absence and ask you to accept making do with me instead.
However, I can assure you that I will report back to Hans van den Broek on the debate and that I will also try to respond to the suggestions about linking INTERREG and PHARE projects within the framework of my responsibilities.
PHARE is indeed the European Union's main instrument of cooperation with the Central and Eastern European countries while at the same time representing the most comprehensive international support project for these countries.
We all agree that the PHARE programme must now be directed at and concentrated on preparing the partner states for accession to the EU.
The Commission is aware of the weak points.
On 19 March it therefore decided on new PHARE programme pre-accession guidelines.
These general guidelines were forwarded to Parliament and the Council and we are pleased that the reactions were on the whole positive.
The Commission agrees with many of the points Mr Wiersma made in his report.
Two new priorities are provided for in the new guidelines: assistance for the administrative improvements needed prior to adopting the acquis communautaire , a point which was made by many speakers, and financing the necessary investment.
In this sense we are responding to two of the rapporteur's main recommendations.
More importance will be attached to investment and we will seek closer coordination and cooperation with the international financial institutions.
In improving the cooperation with public authorities in the partner countries we also want to try to reduce the reliance on consultants.
Apart from these priorities, we are also concerned with developing the civil society and strengthening democracy.
We will continue to pay great attention to promoting and establishing democracy.
The new guidelines also provide for a reform of programme management, including simplified planning and execution reports, together with greater decentralization and the transfer of monitoring tasks to the EU delegations.
The list of measures includes a considerable reduction in the number of programme management bodies, integrating the programme more closely in the activities of the partner country's authorities, a thorough examination of the on-going programmes with a view to speeding up their implementation, reducing the financial backlog and a thorough revision of the handbook on the decentralized execution of the PHARE programme.
Mr Wiersma, in your report you ask whether in future PHARE should concentrate more money on the countries that are lagging behind in the economic reform process.
The Commission will look into this question in the context of the Santer package it will be putting to Parliament on 16 July.
On the question of evaluation, to which Parliament rightly attaches very great importance, in 1995 the Commission introduced a new monitoring and evaluation system.
Moreover, in line with the SEM 2000 principles on economic and efficient budgeting, the Commission has set up an independent evaluation body.
This body will go beyond the existing ad hoc evaluations and be able to measure the global effects of the programmes more accurately.
We will shortly complete a detailed interim evaluation of the PHARE programme, which we will forward to Parliament before the end of this month, and I hope that will give you a better basis for assessment because it is based on more than 80 evaluations carried out so far.
We hope to see a critical and constructive dialogue with Parliament on the findings of the interim evaluation and will keep Members regularly informed of progress in this area.
Lastly, let me turn to the PHARE programme on cross-border cooperation.
As the rapporteur pointed out, priority should be given to supporting projects that aim at reinforcing democracy, respect for human rights and stability, together with social and economic integration.
I welcome Mr Wiersma's suggestions here.
When we implement the new guidelines for the PHARE programme we will pay serious attention to the aspect of cross-border cooperation.
At the same time I would point out that cross-border cooperation is already being strengthened by the closer links between INTERREG 2a and 2c with PHARE in terms of both content and finance.
Let me make it quite plain that this is a question of infrastructural and regional development.
Let me also make it clear yet again that the review of PHARE does in fact involve increasing investment funds from 25 % to 70 % and increasing the TEN budget, which means we will be making some headway in this area too, even if it does not mean we can finance all the dream projects or all the necessary projects.
Thank you for the debate and for your ideas.
You may take it that we will seriously consider their practical implementation because we are just as keen as you to ensure that the PHARE programme is successful and makes a real contribution to simplifying the pre-accession strategy.
Did I understand you correctly, Mrs Wulf-Mathies? Did you say this document would be available by the end of the month, that is to say by Monday?
(Mrs Wulf-Mathies confirmed this.) The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.15 p.m.)
Mr President, I have a point of order.
At the sitting of 12 May, I asked you about the procedure for a call for tenders, and you told me that it was not a question for the plenary and that I should submit it in writing, which I did the same day.
More than six weeks have now elapsed, almost seven, in fact, so we are well past the deadline.
I raised the question again in Strasbourg and you have still not replied, so I should be grateful to have an answer from you today.
Thank you, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel.
The answer to your question is being prepared.
As you know, answers must be approved by the Bureau.
The answer to your question will be put before the Bureau at the earliest possible opportunity.
I hope that will be on 10 July and that you will have the answer before the next Strasbourg part-session.
Welcome
European Council of 16/17 June - Dutch Presidency
The next item on the agenda is the joint debate on:
a report by the Council and a statement by the Commission on the European Council of 16/17 June in Amsterdam; -the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the activities of the Dutch Presidency.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be here today to report on the outcome of the Amsterdam European Council and on the action we have taken during our presidency to develop the main items on the agenda which we discussed with you six months ago.
And there is more for me to talk about than just the Amsterdam summit, however important a milestone that was.
Our task during this presidency was to tackle the two main challenges facing Europe as it enters the next millennium: the introduction on schedule of a strong economic and monetary union and the enlargement of the European Union.
There was also another reason why the Maastricht Treaty needed to be adapted.
The European Union is a union of and for its citizens, and their expectations and concerns also lay at the heart of the discussions concluded at Amsterdam.
I would sum up the results of the Amsterdam European Council as follows: we took a positive step towards attaining a Europe which looks after its people, its market, its currency and its environment, and an irreversible step towards the undivided Europe for which new and unparalleled opportunities were created in 1989.
In addition to the preparations for Amsterdam, there were many other internal and external issues which needed to be dealt with and which we were glad to take in hand.
We could not have been an effective presidency without the excellent teamwork which we enjoyed with all of our partners in the European integration process, including, first and foremost, the European Parliament.
The considerable and very active contribution which you made to the preparations for the Amsterdam Treaty helped to establish it on firm foundations.
We also enjoyed excellent cooperation with the European Commission, and the constructive and intensive support we received from the Council Secretariat also deserves a special mention.
And of course, all presidencies depend to a large extent on what their predecessors have bequeathed them.
In our case the Irish, carrying on from Italy, gave us an extremely solid basis in the form of the Dublin II draft treaty on which we were able to build.
With your permission, I shall look in a little more detail at the results of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Certain aspects of the text to be signed in October are not exactly as the Dutch presidency would have wished, but I think that all in all there is no reason to be dissatisfied with what we have achieved, and I am delighted that, in many respects, this Treaty represents progress towards a better, more democratic, decisive and, in particular, more human Europe.
There are a number of points I wish to emphasize here.
Broadly speaking, the quality of European administration has been improved both institutionally and materially in the form of new, policy-reinforcing articles in the Treaty.
The key words here are democracy and transparency.
I would point out that the legislative role of the European Parliament has been substantially strengthened in three ways.
Firstly, the cooperation procedure which was so unsatisfactory from the democracy point of view has been almost entirely abandoned and - except in EMU - replaced by codecision.
From now on, the European Parliament and the Council will be genuine co-legislators on EC legislation, on an entirely equal footing.
Secondly, the codecision procedure has been considerably simplified, mainly by abolishing the third reading which Parliament so abhorred.
And thirdly, the codecision procedure applies for most of the new 'Amsterdam' provisions in the Treaty.
Parliament's role in the area previously covered by the third pillar has also been stepped up.
We are now moving towards the communitization of the free movement of persons, an area in which Parliament has not played a very significant role up to now.
In the new Treaty, however, things are set to change, in that Parliament is given formal consultation rights and the right to adequate information.
It also retains its existing budgetary rights.
The idea of 'transparent government' is also finally taking shape at European level, first of all by streamlining the decision-making procedures, as I have already mentioned, and secondly by making the Treaties rather more accessible to the layman.
A number of obsolete provisions are to be abolished, and a readable, consolidated text of the Treaty is to be issued as soon as possible after the IGC.
In particular, transparency is to be achieved by providing information for the general public and access to the institutions' documents.
This principle is set out in the Treaty and is to be developed in detail by the institutions in codecision.
These are issues that directly affect the man in the street as a worker, consumer and someone who benefits from a better environment.
The EC is to play a stronger role in a number of important areas of policy.
First and foremost here is the decision to incorporate the Agreement on Social Policy into the Treaty, which rectifies an anomaly from the past and creates a firm basis for socio-economic development in Europe.
But there is more to it than just that: the Treaty has actually been strengthened in a number of areas.
There is the new basis for Union action in the fields of non-discrimination and equal treatment for men and women, and there are the provisions on combating social exclusion and the reference to fundamental socio-economic rights.
Leading on from this, I would draw your attention in particular to the prominence given to policy on employment.
The Union's soaring levels of unemployment are the most difficult social and economic problem facing Europe.
The Treaty now contains a new Title which provides a basis for the Union to take action to boost and supplement the Member States' own policies, and together the Member States and the Union are sure to be able to pursue a more effective and, above all, a coordinated policy.
There are recommendations on how individual Member States can be more effective in this field, and there is also provision for measures to stimulate employment while still meeting budgetary requirements.
I shall return to this in a moment.
I have already mentioned the communitization of the free movement of persons.
The presidency had hoped for a quicker and more unconditional approach, but here again we have to count our blessings.
This time at least - unlike at Maastricht - we were able to effect the transfer to the EC pillar, bringing a number of immediate advantages such as the use of EC instruments, the publication of proposals, a stronger role for the Court of Justice, Parliament and the Commission, and the reinstatement of the four freedoms on an equal footing.
There are also some indirect advantages, however, in that there is scope for further development in future.
The Schengen acquis has also been incorporated, establishing a basis for this highly successful form of intra-Union cooperation to continue.
The Treaty now makes a number of provisions for progress in the field of foreign and security policy.
It avoids radical communitization, offering instead improvements in three areas: firstly, better policy preparation; secondly, decision-making; and thirdly, clear implementation.
Policy preparation is to be improved and given greater depth through the setting-up of a planning and analysis unit.
Decision-making on CFSP matters is to be streamlined by introducing the possibility of constructive abstention and of majority decisions under certain conditions.
And the appointment of a High Representative for the CFSP should help to strengthen implementation.
On the CFSP budget, I should finally like to say how pleased I am with the interinstitutional agreement concluded with Parliament, and I am most grateful to you, Mr President, and to the Members most involved.
The agreement forms an excellent basis for fruitful cooperation between Council and Parliament.
On the important subject of institutional reform, I would draw your attention to the reforms decided for the Commission.
The Commission President is to be given a stronger position and his appointment is to be subject to Parliament's approval.
He will be able to appoint his Commissioners in agreement with the Member States, and to set out guidelines for them during their term of office.
I regret the fact that the IGC was not able to reach a clear decision on the future weighting of votes in the Council vis-à-vis the composition of the Commission, on which a number of questions of principle have already been decided.
A number of important decisions on vote weighting in the Council are now going to have to be taken before the next enlargement.
On the subject of institutional matters, the Court of Auditors has been given greater powers to combat fraud, and to enable the institutions and the Member States to manage the Community's finances better.
The Court of Justice too is given greater powers, including the possibility of examining whether the actions taken by the institutions are consistent with basic rights.
One final word on increased cooperation and flexibility.
I think we have struck the right balance here.
On the one hand, establishing the principle of using the qualified majority means that we can have efficient decision-making, whilst on the other there are sufficient guarantees built into the procedure to prevent its excessive use.
The EC pillar gives the Commission a central deciding role in terms of flexibility, and that is as it should be: the Commission is the guardian of the Treaties, and this principle is the cornerstone of the Community's legal system.
All in all, I have the impression that Amsterdam has given us a review of the Treaty on European Union which, despite the concessions made on the original aims, has been worthwhile in every sense.
The main preparations for economic and monetary union have now been concluded.
We now have the Pact on Stability and Growth, together with agreement on the EMS II exchange rate system which is to apply from the third stage and on the legal framework for the euro - genuinely vital steps towards the introduction of EMU on 1 January 1999.
There are many practicalities which are still to be settled, and it is important that clear information should be provided, but on the basis of the decisions taken and in view of the major efforts being made to achieve genuine convergence, I have every confidence that we are well on the way to introducing a stable euro on schedule.
The single currency is extremely important, but it is not, of course, an end in itself.
EMU is all about the links between people, currency and market, and we were able to reach some important decisions on this point in Amsterdam by adopting a resolution on growth and employment alongside the Pact on Stability and Growth.
An efficiently functioning internal market and a healthy macroeconomic climate are essential conditions for generating employment, and the single currency and the single market are both crucial here.
However, this also has to be seen in the context of finding an even balance between a monetary Europe, an economic Europe and a social Europe.
The need to find this balance lay at the heart of the decisions that we took at Amsterdam.
The Member States are to continue to bear the main responsibility for employment policy, but they could learn much more from each other and also work better with one another.
Europe too, through a healthy monetary and macroeconomic policy, could give a more effective push towards creating employment, not by simply providing more money, but by encouraging Member States to make better use of some of the existing instruments and, as I have said, to listen to each other, learn from each other and work together.
Altogether, the new employment chapter in the Treaty, the resolution on employment and growth, and the establishment of a genuine social policy at European level ought to form a useful complement to EMU.
Besides the Intergovernmental Conference and EMU, preparations for the enlargement of the Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean formed a major part of our agenda.
This enlargement needs to be well prepared, not just by the countries concerned but also by ourselves.
We need to build bridges between the countries and people who are to help shape our undivided Europe, and we have tried to do this by ensuring that our structured dialogue with the applicant countries covers as many substantive issues as possible.
In order to focus attention, each meeting dealt with only one or two subjects selected in close consultation with the Commission and after discussion with the applicant countries, and in this way we have been able to secure a genuine exchange of views on a wide range of topics, from preparations for the single market to the constitutional state.
We have also been able to discuss things more freely and in greater depth.
We feel that holding substantive talks with the applicant countries is important not just for the technical aspects of accession, but also, in certain cases, for strengthening popular support in the countries concerned, and we have the impression that our association partners appreciate this approach.
At our meeting with the applicant countries tomorrow, we shall be informing them about the outcome of the Amsterdam summit and at the same time boosting their confidence in our future together in an undivided Europe.
The efficient operation of the single market is still crucial for our competitiveness, economic growth and employment, and therefore for European integration in the broader sense, which was why we put this issue high on the agenda.
Following discussions in the Single Market Council and ECOFIN, the Commission has drawn up an action plan with four strategic objectives: more effective rules, dealing with market distortions, abolishing sectoral barriers and ensuring that the single market offers more advantages for the man in the street.
The European Council has given this action plan its full backing, and we hope that the legislative proposals relating to it will be adopted without difficulty.
The concern to establish a better balance between the market and the environment continues to demand great efforts from us all, and this is why we are delighted that, as well as placing environment policy in general on a much firmer footing at European level, as in the Amsterdam Treaty, we have also been able to make significant progress in the policy we are currently pursuing.
The presidency gave top priority to the problems of climate change, and the European Union has agreed a joint negotiating position for the global climate treaty to be concluded in Kyoto in December.
We are to call for a 15 % reduction in the main greenhouse gases by the year 2010, and the Union has already started preparing measures to achieve this.
Other important environmental measures taken over the last six months include the promotion of an integrated, sustainable water management system and the reduction of air-polluting emissions from road traffic.
Major progress has also been made on the Union's internal security.
The Dublin European Council had called for a comprehensive action plan against organized crime, with specific recommendations and a timetable, and a highlevel group set to work on this with great determination.
The Amsterdam European Council was able to approve the group's report and has now given instructions for it to be put into practice.
A wide range of measures to combat organized crime are now available: prevention measures, judicial instruments, improvements in practical cooperation, the extension of the remit of Europol, fiscal and financial aspects, and international cooperation.
Progress has also been made on fighting the drugs trade, with the approval of an early warning system for synthetic drugs, and various forms of practical cooperation have been launched within the European Union and elsewhere.
In this year against racism, we have succeeded in obtaining approval for the European Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia, which is to be based in Vienna.
I am very hopeful that the Centre will play an effective role in combating racist actions and mentality, and in fighting discrimination and exclusion and the human suffering that they cause.
The Union's external policy was the focus of much of our attention, since the Union now maintains a wide range of increasingly varied and intensive relations on the international stage.
It is also a fact that the links between politics and economics in international relations have become much more complicated.
The presidency has done its best to promote the countless dialogues that the Union is pursuing with its various partners.
I shall turn briefly now to a few of the important areas of external policy.
The presidency sought to give a major new boost to transatlantic cooperation by producing practical short-term results to demonstrate the benefits of stepping up cooperation under the New Transatlantic Agenda, and by bringing about structural improvements to pave the way for further results in the longer term.
The Union's summit with Russia strengthened and intensified cooperation.
Political dialogue has been expanded and trade has shown a further increase recently, but the level of European investment in Russia is still too low because of the uncertain legal and economic climate.
The European Council welcomed the new cooperation agreement between NATO and Russia as a vital contribution to a new European security structure.
Yesterday there was an extremely useful and constructive meeting between the European Union and Japan, at which important agreements were reached on continuing dialogue in the areas of deregulation and distribution, amongst others.
The presidency made great efforts to promote the Barcelona process, since it firmly believes that EuroMediterranean stability concerns everyone in the Union.
A political Euro-Mediterranean conference was held on Malta on 15 and 16 April 1997 and demonstrated the importance which everyone attaches to the EuroMediterranean process.
The political and security dialogue is to continue to be gradually developed.
The options for setting up the Euro-Mediterranean free trade area scheduled for 2010 are to be studied in closer detail, and in the meantime work is to be done on making reciprocal trade easier and encouraging investment.
Greater attention is to be given to the social, cultural and human aspects of cooperation, including human rights and the role of civil society.
The Union has an important part to play in supporting the peace process in the Middle East.
It has already played an active political role in cooperation with the US and in conjunction with its substantial economic assistance to the region, and this is to continue.
I should like to express my appreciation for the excellent work done by Mr Moratinos, our special representative there.
Relations between the Union and Turkey have been given fresh impetus following a number of developments during our presidency.
At the informal General Affairs Council in Apeldoorn in March, particular attention was given to the development of our long-term relations with Turkey.
The Association Council met on 29 April for the first time since October 1995.
The setting-up of a committee of wise men to look into outstanding territorial differences between Ankara and Athens will, we hope, be able to make a constructive contribution to relations between Greece and Turkey and thus also to relations between Turkey and the Union, as well as towards finding a solution to the Cyprus problem.
There have been further developments in relations between the Union and Cyprus in the form of agreements reached as part of a structured dialogue.
The presidency's work on the Cyprus question focused on support for the UN, which is the body primarily responsible for finding a solution to the problem.
Alongside the European Council's political assessment of events in the various countries of former Yugoslavia, as set out in the conclusions, I would draw attention to the coherent strategy that has been developed for the region.
The presidency worked on developing a strategy for relations with all the countries of former Yugoslavia, except for Slovenia, which has a Europe Agreement. The result was a document setting out in detail the conditions under which the Union is prepared to strengthen its links with Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania.
The Commission is to report regularly on whether the countries in question are complying with these conditions.
We monitored the worrying developments in Albania very closely from the outset.
When the crisis became widespread, the presidency helped the OSCE to set up a 'Coordinating Framework' led by former Chancellor Vranitzky.
It is, of course, extremely important that the forthcoming elections - for which the Union is providing funding and observers - should clear the way to greater stability, with at least basic levels of democracy, plurality and readiness to reform.
Mr President, I shall finish there. The European agenda, which is so often accused of being technocratic and cold, is actually directly determined by its immediate political environment, which is in turn heavily influenced by the political climate in the 15 Member States and the expectations and concerns of their citizens.
There is increasing interaction between the 15 national political agendas and the Brussels agenda, and this very fact - that 'Europe' is clearly more prominent and is playing an increasingly important role in national elections, for example - presents a tremendous political challenge, not least for the presidency.
And it was a challenge that we were happy to deal with on the way to Amsterdam.
If we look at the slightly broader political context of the last six months, we feel that there is no reason to be dissatisfied, either with the results we have achieved or with the political will that has been shown to take Europe forward, step by step.
And it has indeed been step by step, but they have at least been steps in the right direction.
We hope that the results we have achieved have established a useful basis for the incoming Luxembourg presidency, and we wish Luxembourg every success. It can certainly count on our support.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
I should like to pay public tribute now to the spirit of collaboration and the facilities which the Dutch Presidency has provided for this Parliament to work constructively within the framework of the Intergovernmental Conference.
A special thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr Santer.
I call upon Mrs Green.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Kok and his colleagues most warmly on the excellent work they have done.
The Amsterdam summit was certainly a great success for the euro, and we hope that the last obstacles have now been removed.
I think that forces could now be generated by the euro that will give Europe fresh impetus.
Amsterdam was able to achieve what we could not do at Maastricht, firstly with the social protocol - and here I hope the UK will apply the European legislation that has since been adopted - and also in making employment one of the European Union's main objectives.
Ten years ago when we held the presidency, we tried to achieve a social dimension through consultations between the European social partners, European collective agreements and giving the Community a social focus.
We wasted a great deal of time.
But Europe needs to have a social and a human face, and we must be able to provide answers to the problems which exist in society, including above all unemployment.
We hope that the Luxembourg summit will indeed produce some useful results here.
The European Union has obviously learnt its lesson from mad cow disease, and Community policy on the environment, public health and consumer protection has been greatly tightened.
There has been a real breakthrough in the protection of human rights, with the establishment of equal treatment for men and women, the fight against social exclusion and a ban on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, for example.
The protocols and declarations on the abolition of the death penalty and on voluntary work as an expression of social solidarity are extremely important.
The establishment of the Union as an area of freedom, security and justice is an extremely high priority for the people of Europe.
The Heads of Government evidently thought that intergovernmental cooperation was unlikely to produce efficient solutions here, since they have communitized the free movement of persons, asylum and immigration.
However, this decision will not be applied automatically, and unanimity will be required for five more years before the Council can take majority decisions and the European Parliament is given the power of codecision.
We are delighted that Europol is to start operating on schedule and that the Schengen acquis is to be incorporated into the Treaty.
The regulations are extremely complex, however, especially the protocols with the UK, Denmark and Ireland allowing these countries to remain on the sidelines when it comes to freedom of movement.
Progress on the common foreign and security policy was much more limited, and we hope that constructive abstention will make decision-making easier.
The Petersberg missions and the policy planning and early warning unit which can be set up under the Treaty have been ratified, and the high representatives are a good idea.
However, it has again proved impossible to integrate the WEU into the European Union or to expand our trade policy further.
Before Amsterdam, people said that the European Parliament would be the big loser, but the opposite seems to be true.
Our observer, Mr Brok, calculates that Parliament's codecision has been extended from 15 to 38 fields, an increase of 23, and the assent procedure from 8 to 11.
Can the President-in-Office confirm this, particularly for those areas where the Council is to continue to decide unanimously and where Parliament is to keep its powers of codecision, as indicated in the official document we have been given?
The codecision procedure has also been drastically simplified in a series of very welcome reforms.
I should like to pay tribute to the President of the European Parliament and our two observers for the decisive role which they have played here.
However, the European Parliament must also face up to its responsibilities.
Against all expectations, Parliament is now able to decide on the statute of its Members for itself.
This is a major challenge for the House, and one which I hope we can bring to a successful conclusion within the lifetime of this parliament, by which time we must stamp out all abuses.
The Council will be required to approve the statute unanimously, so we shall see then whether it intends to give Parliament the means to do its job in a credible way.
The reforms at the Commission, with the new political role for the President, are a very positive development.
The conclusion reached by the PPE Group is that Amsterdam has been a continuation of the major reforms that we have seen over the last 15 years since the Stuttgart Declaration in 1983, on the single market, economic and monetary union, the single currency and political union.
Substantial progress has again been made, and we therefore support the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, we also note that there is one crucial problem that has again been postponed.
Over the next few years, the European Union must accept its historic responsibility by bringing democratic countries on the European continent into the Union.
It cannot do this without institutional reform, and in particular without qualified majority decisions in the Council.
This is why we have pointed out in our resolution that issues which need to be settled before new members are admitted to the Union have been totally ignored.
Without these reforms, the Union will lose momentum, and if it is deprived of strength and coherence, I fear it will collapse under the weight of its historic mission to enlarge.
Despite the very laudable results which this presidency has achieved, we cannot ignore the fact that there is one crucial question that remains to be answered.
It is a question I have often asked myself when I have read the statements made by various prime ministers after the European Council, all claiming to have protected their national interests. Mrs Thatcher used to do this.
Whenever she went back to the Commons, she would always say she had protected the national interest.
But the great question is, who is defending the common interest?
Who is defending Europe's interests? Helmut Kohl has been doing that, and for many years.
(Applause) Belgium's prime minister has been doing so, as have you, Mr Kok.
This is the new spirit we need to generate, otherwise I fear that our historic mission to unite all the democratic countries of Europe within the Union will be too onerous, if we do not have sound, coherent structures and the political will to create a genuine Union rather than just a free trade zone, a genuine Union that has a role to play in the world.
(Applause)
Mr President, the Dutch presidency has managed under very difficult circumstances to conclude the IGC negotiations at the Amsterdam summit, for which it is to be congratulated.
However, I am rather less enthusiastic about the actual substance of the Treaty.
I shall not comment on the individual provisions - though if I did so, the number of minuses would far outweigh the number of pluses - but I would say that I like the way in which the principle of subsidiarity and the role of the national parliaments have been developed in two separate protocols to the Treaty.
I see this as an acknowledgement of the importance of the national governments for the successful operation of the Union, and of keeping decision-making as close as possible to the general public.
Whether those who drafted the Treaty share the same thoughts I very much doubt, because - and this is where the root of my objections lies - the Amsterdam Treaty continues to build on the old idea of a united Europe.
It is yet another step - no matter how small such steps may be - towards further centralization, and totally overlooks the fact that the map of Europe has undergone a fundamental change since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
It would seem logical to strengthen the European institutions to prevent the Union from losing effectiveness as a result of enlargement.
But if we are to have a Union of perhaps 24 states in future, we cannot continue to build on a model originally designed for six.
The addition of another two or three Member States would be possible on the basis of the Amsterdam Treaty, but the European Union needs a rather different structure if there is to be effective cooperation between 24 countries.
That is why we need to have fundamental talks on the current form and substance of the Union and on the role of the European Parliament.
The IGC was an ideal opportunity for the Dutch presidency to launch such talks, but it failed to take advantage of it.
On the contrary, the thinking behind the Treaty was to increase democracy and governability by concentrating more powers at European level.
A section on employment has been added, the social protocol has been incorporated, policy on asylum, visas and immigration is eventually to be communitized, and majority decision-making has been expanded, along with the powers of the European Parliament.
In my view, this centralization will, in the longer term, produce the exact opposite of what was intended, by hampering enlargement and restricting governability and democracy.
Even with the present Union of 15 Member States, there are serious failings when it comes to cooperation and compliance with European legislation, so how will things be with an enlarged Union and an even wider diversity of cultures, legal systems, political traditions and standards of living? And will countries which have only just won their own sovereignty be prepared to hand most of it over to Brussels?
Integration already appeared to be reaching its limits at Amsterdam.
Another important question is whether people can identify with a European Union in which decisions are taken at such a distance.
Can they feel democratically represented by a Parliament which could grow to have 700 Members with 24 nationalities and a large number of languages, and where national political diversity will scarcely be reflected? We seem to assume all too readily that a vastly expanded institutional structure will enable us to conquer evil in the world and build a better society.
To sum up, the enlargement of the Union should be given top priority as a political necessity and a moral duty.
In my opinion, the Amsterdam Treaty ought to have paved the way by reforming the Union into a more decentralized cooperative structure, with a limited number of tasks and more modest ambitions.
President de Gaulle once said that it is difficult to make an omelette out of six boiled eggs, let alone 15 or 24.
The stability of an expanded Union depends not on strong central government, but on the existence of efficient parliamentary democracies within independent Member States.
I therefore hope that fundamental talks will take place on the future structure of Europe before the Union is enlarged any further.
I have received, pursuant to Rule 37 of the Rules of Procedure, eight motions for resolutions to bring the current debate to a close.
The vote will take place at noon.
I call upon Mr Hänsch.
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty is no peak achievement and there is no cause for rejoicing.
But nor does the Treaty deserve the disapproval, scorn and contempt many speakers are heaping on it.
It will prove itself better than its present reputation.
Certainly, compared with the gigantic problems facing Europe, the heads of state and government have all turned out to be dwarfs.
Mr President of the European Council, for obvious reasons that really does not apply to you!
The new Treaty has remained the same mishmash as the old one.
Not a trace of simplification and clarity!
But above all, the Treaty still does not make the European Union capable of enlargement.
We need further institutional reform before the next accession.
Here it is more important to broaden the margin for majority decisions in the Council than to reduce the number of Commissioners.
The Treaty does not measure up to all that needs to be done in the Union.
But measured against the existing Maastricht Treaty, the new Treaty represents notable progress.
Parliament has been strengthened considerably.
We are co-legislators, with equal rights.
Certainly, there are some gaps, but they can be filled.
If anyone had prophesied two years ago that it would prove possible to replace the entire cooperation procedure with the co-decision procedure he would have been regarded as a nutcase!
Our strategy of concentrating on co-decision was successful.
Our two representatives, Elmar Brok and Elisabeth Guigou, were successful, after spending a year involved in drafting the Treaty under difficult conditions.
I would like to give special thanks to Elisabeth Guigou and Elmar Brok for the outstanding job they have done!
(Applause) I now hear that attempts are being made to tinker with the Treaty retrospectively because in some cases the codecision right was not established systematically, that attempts are being made to withdraw the co-decision right again in cases where the Council has to decide unanimously.
I must warn against that!
The European Parliament cannot accept any retrospective amendments to the Amsterdam Treaty now that it is adopted!
(Applause) There has been some progress.
Yes, I too would have wished for a better Treaty, but a better Treaty is no use failing the will to implement and apply it in full.
The Treaty is a step backwards in terms of establishing freedom of movement because it requires unanimous decisions for the next five years.
But although it was possible to take majority decisions for a whole ten years, the governments never did so!
We criticize the common foreign and security policy provisions as totally unsatisfactory.
Yet they do allow for some action if the political will is there.
For instance, if you want SFOR in Yugoslavia to have a new task and its mandate extended, you can decide on that, regardless of the provisions of the new foreign and security policy.
But a chapter on employment is not an employment policy by a long way.
So long as the governments do not do what they themselves decided, namely translate the Delors White Paper and the Santer employment package into political action, they can introduce as many employment chapters as they want in the Treaty.
Incidentally, the point about fully applying the provisions of the Treaty applies to the European Parliament too.
We must change our method of working if we really want to make effective use of our new rights.
(Applause) So we need this Amsterdam Treaty and we will not stand still; but, Mr President of the Council, the method used so far for amending the Treaty is finished.
If you continue in this manner you will achieve less and less in future, until you are faced with nothing.
The Union will be forced into further reforms sooner than you might think.
We in the European Parliament will ensure that in so doing it does not lose sight of the vision of a just, democratic, united Europe with the ability to act, to create jobs and to secure peace.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to begin by welcoming Mr Kok here to the European Parliament in Brussels.
You may have seen that an enormous complex is under construction to secure our seat here in Brussels, even after enlargement, so it is with mixed feelings that we view the Council's decision that we should meet twelve times a year in Strasbourg.
Why does the Council feel it necessary to take a decision on this for us? Would it not be something better left to Parliament itself?
Mixed feelings seem to have been the order of the day in this debate on the results of the Amsterdam summit: we are positive about what has been achieved, but we also feel that we have to criticize what has been left halfdone or not done at all.
We are positive about the way in which the position of ordinary citizens has been strengthened in the Treaties.
The non-discrimination article has been taken almost word for word from Parliament's resolution of March 1996, and it should provide an effective barrier against racism and other negative forces in society.
We are also positive about the improvements to the provisions on equal treatment for men and women, though we regret that they are not to have direct effect.
We shall be urging the Commission to come up with some directives very quickly, so that the new provisions can be made a real force for change in society.
We are also positive about the steps taken regarding openness and democracy in the Union, though here again we need implementing directives to flesh out the new articles on openness.
But a European law on open government could be very salutary for Brussels bureaucracy, and some of the army of lobbyists here in Brussels could work to much better effect if they did not have to charge a great deal of money to obtain information for people which they should now obtain for themselves.
We are also positive about the partial consolidation of the Union's democratic standards.
If I have calculated correctly from Elmar Brok's list, the European Parliament will soon have the final say on around 80 % of all European legislation, and I agree with our group chairman when he says that Parliament has certainly emerged the winner in this Treaty.
However, we are rather less positive about the failure to achieve an outcome on budgetary powers.
It cannot be good for more than ECU 50 billion to be spent on agriculture in particular without any parliamentary control.
Unfortunately, there are also a number of negative points, especially in the policy area.
Europe's employment policy has been given fresh impetus, which is something that we welcome.
We support Jean-Claude Juncker's employment conference and hope that it too will produce results.
A certain amount of progress has even been made on environment policy.
The main problem lies with internal security, foreign policy and immigration and refugee policy, where little progress has been made, and yet they are all extremely important to our citizens.
The fact that our approach to organized crime and cross-border cooperation on police and judicial affairs is still not really off the ground is a serious matter, and actually defies belief when you think how the Mafia is gaining ground in Central and Eastern Europe.
It now presents a major threat to enlargement and the role of the European Union.
Even on foreign policy, we seem to be drowning in indecision, which is simply unacceptable.
I do not blame the Dutch presidency here, which has put forward a number of constructive proposals, firmly supported by a motion from the Second Chamber in the Netherlands.
No, I blame some of the Heads of Government, who simply did not wish to make progress on this issue.
We have also let people down when it comes to policy on asylum and refugees, where the public wants to see improvements, better coordination and more fine-tuning, none of which has really been achieved.
I do not have much more to say now.
Enlargement is far too important to be allowed to stagnate because of the lack of motivation shown at the IGC.
However, I would recommend that the areas of internal security, foreign policy, asylum and refugee policy, vote weighting and decision-making should all be reviewed over the next three to four years, to ensure that all the groundwork is done before accession.
Perhaps, with enlargement looming, it can be done: the Union often works best under pressure.
Finally, a few words about the presidency as a whole.
The unfortunate start made by some members of the Dutch Government such as Mrs Sorgdrager and Mr Zalm has been offset by the good work done by other ministers, for example Mr van Mierlo on human rights, Mrs de Boer on CO2 policy, Mr Melkert on employment policy and Mr Pronk on support for Africa.
There can be no doubt of the regard in which the Dutch prime minister is held here.
There are not too many genuine Europeans among the present Heads of Government, and our group chairman is right that general European interests often come second to small-minded national interests.
You are one of the few genuine Europeans, and I hope that you will be with us for a long time to come to help promote progress in European cooperation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the draft Amsterdam Treaty is the result of a fifteen month-long conference, during which proposals from all the institutional and other players engaged in the revision of the treaty were evaluated, and the negotiations, which were not always easy, produced the compromise of this draft treaty, agreed and initialled the Member States.
There were great expectations of this reform, and there has been great progress, but there is also great disappointment.
It has been said that the Single Act forged the single market, that the Maastricht Treaty was the framework for economic and monetary union, and that the Amsterdam Treaty will bring the social chapter back into the centre of Europe's priorities, with all its corollaries of balance between the macro-economic and political factors of concern to the Member States.
We certainly applaud this positive thrust and we will back it, but that is not all. We also take a favourable view of the progress achieved in the area of more genuine and effective integration, for example the compromise which has led to agreement on the budget stability pact, the inclusion of the social protocol in the treaty, the new chapter on employment, the strengthening of certain common policies like the environment, health, consumer protection, inclusion in the treaty of the Schengen acquis , the advancs made for EUROPOL, the establishment of a forward planning and early warning unit under the CFSP, and the extension and simplification of the co-decision procedure.
That list is obviously not exhaustive and I could continue, but unfortunately I must move on to painful points.
The fact is we do not think there has been sufficient progress yet on the institutional profile.
In our opinion, certain priority issues needed to be settled before the planned enlargement, in order to ease the adhesion procedure and avoid adding an appendix of unresolved institutional problems to the important negotiations.
Obviously I am referring to the procrastination over the decision on the new weighting of votes in the Council and the linked political problem of the composition and functioning of the European Commission. Furthermore the slow progress in extending majority voting in the Council undermines the core of the process of integration of the Union, and represents a serious threat to the actual decision-making capacity of the European Union.
The current system of treaty revision also needs to be reviewed as soon as possible, escaping the narrow intergovernmental focus and thus reducing the democratic deficit and involving the citizens more directly, through their elected representatives, in the process of European unification.
Clearly we still have a long way to go, but we are optimistic and the first test will be in a few months' time when, after the necessary harmonization of texts and finalization of legal details, the treaty will be signed and the European Parliament will then give its final opinion on its content.
So, for the sake of the European Union, its Member States present and future and their peoples, we trust that this period of polishing and desirable reflection, may lead to the approval of a treaty more adequate to the 21st Century, until a future and more profitable intergovernmental conference can be held.
Madam President, the link between a bold reform of the institutions and the opening of accession negotiations has never been challenged either by the Member States or by the European Parliament, for the very good reason that that link was obvious.
Such a reform, a necessity for fifteen Member States, became imperative in the interests of the candidates for accession, in order that the negotiations could be conducted on a sound institutional basis.
The failure to achieve this institutional objective is a disappointment.
That, Prime Minister, is why it would have been more realistic to acknowledge that the hoped-for result had not been achieved, that this could be remedied by setting a new and clear timetable, and that the accession negotiations could go ahead within its constraints.
The responsibility of Members of the European Parliament is to evaluate the content of the Treaty, to give their opinion and to justify their position to the electors.
We have a duty to be demanding.
How are we to approve a draft that contains little or nothing of what was considered essential in resolutions tabled by certain Members of the European Parliament and adopted by a large majority?
The European Commission, for its part, is responsible for defending the overriding interest of the Union.
In this context, Commissioner Oreja made a courageous and uncompromising statement before the institutional committee.
Does President Santer believe that it should be up to Members of this Parliament to defend the authority of the Commission, especially as regards the visibility of the common foreign and security policy? This responsibility borne by the Commission implies a rigorous attitude, independence of judgement and a duty of rigorous evaluation.
We hope the Commission will be able to show its worth in its mid-July report.
My final and perhaps most important point is this: the failure of this conference is also a failure of the intergovernmental method.
What we have to do now is restart the machinery.
Europeans have never lacked imagination and determination.
Such is the political will that must inspire us now, and I have no doubt, Prime Minister, that you will be among the best tomorrow.
Madam President, the European Council's agenda in Amsterdam was overwhelmed by the introduction of the employment question, at the request of the French Government, and under the pressure of the social movement.
Admittedly, the acceptance of the pact seems to me to be a serious act, but the fact remains that the debate on employment has begun.
That is a worthwhile result, springing from the widespread recent mobilization of opinion in Europe - at Vilvoerde, for example - or the political debate that has been initiated in France and elsewhere.
The French members of my group reassert their total opposition to the stability pact, which imposes a restrictive framework on budgetary policy and demands austerity criteria, backed by penalties, to satisfy the demands of the financial markets.
This pact, which makes a mockery of the sovereignty of the peoples of Europe, is an obstacle to any effective, sustainable solution to the unemployment problem.
The resolution on employment and growth adopted at Amsterdam opens up various avenues of exploration which might lead to the creation of jobs, but it still bears the heavy imprint of the European Council in Essen, with its emphasis on competitiveness, flexibility and reducing the cost of labour.
The extraordinary European council on employment, this autumn, will provide an opportunity for the peoples of Europe to obtain a hearing for their demands, expressed by the Europe-wide social movement.
We are going to set to work to play our full part in the pursuit and intensification of the mobilization of the citizens' social movement, to achieve a re-orientation of European unity and to make social progress and employment the driving forces of a new economic development in Europe.
Madam President, here we are on the threshold of the 21st century, yet democracy in Europe still seems to be languishing in the 19th.
Those of us who have read the various non-papers and treaty texts produced over the last six months have watched the IGC teetering on the brink of yawning democratic abysses, and if we have not fallen in, then ironically enough it is not because the Heads of Government realize that European integration needs to be more democratic, but because of their belief in the fiction of national sovereignty.
Of course, some progress has been made in the Amsterdam Treaty, but what is really significant - and I shall not list every point, since everyone else has already done that - is the vexed question of the environment guarantee.
Those Member States which care for the environment have had to fight to be allowed to do in their own countries what Europe will not do for them.
On employment, the real issue is whether Europe should be given the instruments to shift taxes from labour to energy consumption and capital, and to improve the distribution of work.
We are no closer to any measures on this, and all the Treaty does is to create false expectations, not real jobs.
The strict adherence to the timetable for EMU stands in stark contrast to the way in which the enlargement of the Union was casually pushed onto the back burner at Amsterdam.
The forthcoming negotiations will be all about breaking the bad news and passing on the message that Western Europe is too busy with its own affairs.
A larger Union requires a longer yardstick and, measured by that yardstick, this Treaty falls some way short.
It is worrying that the communitization of immigration and asylum policy is not to be accompanied by the introduction of normal democratic checks and balances.
The national parliaments are no longer to deal with these issues, and the European Parliament merely has the power to make recommendations.
What is even more telling, of course, is that the Heads of Government have decided that we have seats in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, and that we are to meet twelve times a year in Strasbourg.
If Parliament accepts this lying down, it really is not worth a button.
Madam President, my provisional, personal view following Amsterdam is that the de facto barriers to integration have become operational.
We see that the common European denominator is even smaller than we thought in Maastricht.
I believe account should have been taken of the fact that the process of integration is bound to be a gradual one, that common action cannot be imposed by decree but can in fact only be achieved step by step on the basis of a common European will.
We also find that certain areas are not at all or not yet suitable in this regard.
Only if we realise all this and leave the Member States a national margin for decision will further development be possible.
The hope expressed by the Committee on Institutional Affairs, namely that the Treaty could be improved after the event by the way it is interpreted seems an extremely deceptive one.
I do not think one can replace a lack of political agreement by oversubtle interpretations without causing precisely that unease among the people that it was one of the main aims of the Treaty revision to remove.
Madam President, if we look back at the problems we faced before and during the Amsterdam summit, we can see straight away that the Dutch presidency has done a very good job, particularly in getting 15 signatures at the bottom of the Treaty.
Our congratulations go to the presidency on its skilful handling of the matter.
However, the few minutes available to me here today cannot all be devoted to singing the presidency's praises.
It is an MEP's role to make a down-to-earth assessment of whether the outcome of the IGC corresponds to our own ideas and objectives.
On a number of issues this is indeed the case, and we feel that progress is gradually being made, but unfortunately it does not apply to those specific areas that will make enlargement possible, where you would need a magnifying glass to see any sign of progress at all.
The same is true of the very necessary changes in cooperation on justice and home affairs, where important decisions have been postponed.
What are we to make, for example, of the new title covering freedom of movement, asylum and immigration?
What are we to make of freedom of movement that now has so many conditions attached that it no longer deserves the name of freedom? We are also going to have to wait and see if there is eventually to be majority decision-making and whether Parliament will have the power of codecision.
And of course we already know that our original demands for the Court of Justice to have normal jurisdiction have not been met.
We cannot broaden without deepening, as we have said in the resolution.
We need to get back to the negotiating table.
Those who have only just finished all the hard work this time will undoubtedly be horrified at the idea, but the process of reform will simply have to be resumed very shortly.
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to thank the President of the Council, Foreign Minister van Mierlo and Mr Patijn and their team for the real spirit of cooperation they showed Elisabeth Guigou and myself in the past months.
I am also convinced that we will see similar cooperation on a number of practical matters in the coming days and weeks.
I think that when we evaluate this document we can often proceed on the basis that the better is the enemy of the good.
For we find that measured against our expectations of the future European constitution this is not exactly a grandiose example of progress.
On the other hand - and I became a Member of the European Parliament in 1980 - we have experienced dramatic and positive change in the European Union with the three intergovernmental conferences of 1985, 1991 and 1997 and there were more developments in the European Union between 1985 and 1997 than between 1958 and 1985.
I think we should remember these developments too and remember the situation as it was at the outset.
So we should be a little fair in our judgment.
This Treaty has brought a social balance.
The Single Act was a treaty on the internal market.
The Maastricht Treaty was a treaty on economic union. Now a social title has been added, the Social Protocol of 1961 and 1989 has been incorporated, an employment title has been included, the European Court of Justice has been strengthened and the Treaty includes a number of additional civil rights.
This increased balance in the Treaty may not be sufficient, but it deserves to be noted.
I believe that it is better to communitarize fields of justice and home affairs in the first pillar and to adhere to unanimity for a while longer than to leave them in a third pillar and decide by majority voting even at this stage. Why?
Because in incorporating them in the Community structure the heads of state and government have recognized that the intergovernmental approach is not the right one and that the classical approach to integration established by Monnet is preferable; eventually we will still manage to establish majority decision-making.
That is the strategic decision we should be looking at and that we discussed in the past.
In the field of foreign and security policy, we have managed thanks in particular to Parliament's activities to ensure that the Commission is involved in planning and analysis and in other areas too and that it is no longer just the governments and the Council alone that decide.
The situation still looked quite different a few months ago!
Surely that is an important step towards gradually incorporating this aspect into the acquis communautaire too.
The fact that Petersberg tasks have been integrated, that the European Union can now issue guidelines for the WEU, that the Union can conclude agreements with third countries in the second and third pillar too, surely these are remarkable steps forward which, I believe, need to be recognized.
In regard to flexibility, Schengen and so forth, this means that the areas that are in the first pillar under the normal Treaty are also decided according to the methods of the first pillar; no Pillar 3a or 3b or whatever has been introduced.
That too is worth noting.
But we also note that this Treaty has one crucial weakness.
That weakness is that we have too little majority decision-making to give us the ability to act.
The heads of state and government admitted this, pointing out that there will be another intergovernmental conference before the accession of the sixteenth Member State.
I think that admission may have further consequences.
I could imagine, for instance, that the decision, which is to be taken in the Council, to include justice and home affairs in the majority and codecision procedure in five years' time could be modified and that the timeframe could be reduced, for instance to a date before the first round of enlargement.
Then we would not need another intergovernmental conference but could make considerable progress in this area.
Perhaps the Council could include this in its deliberations.
At present, the European Parliament normally has codecision rights on legislation.
The President of the Commission can only take up office with the approval of the European Parliament.
The Commission as a whole has to be approved by the European Parliament.
The budget cannot be adopted against the will of the European Parliament.
Treaties on enlargement, association agreements and many other agreements with third countries require the assent of the European Parliament.
There are criticisms to be made, there are many more things we have to achieve and we have to make it clear that these intergovernmental conferences are perhaps no longer the right method to use.
We must make it clear that in the long run we need a constituent assembly that includes the national governments, the European Parliament and the national parliaments, in order to overcome some of the bureaucratic resistance.
But we should no longer say that this European Parliament has no influence!
We will be holding elections in 1999, when we should honestly tell the citizens that this European Parliament is a factor of European policy and that few matters in Europe are still decided against the will of the European Parliament!
Only then can we obtain a high level of electoral participation and only then can we draw the necessary strength to wrest even more from the Council in the next round.
So I would ask you not to play down the results achieved for Parliament; instead we should show more self-assurance and make use of the instruments we have to move ahead!
Madam President, after two years of discussions, Parliament produced an ambitious list of desiderata which have by no means been satisfied.
Does this mean the end for Europe?
Not in the least. At the very last moment it was decided to go ahead with economic and monetary union, an ostensibly technical economic measure which could actually generate a feeling of political solidarity in the longer term.
What is worrying is that the road to enlargement is still blocked by the problem of the structure of the institutions, and I find it particularly regrettable that even the Benelux countries could not find it in themselves to propose a rotating Commissioner for the Benelux.
The Council's continuing secrecy is also sending the wrong signals to the young democracies of Eastern Europe, and is still evidence of the democratic deficit.
It is unfortunate, not to say completely unworkable, that the number of Members of this House is to increase to 700.
Why can we not be realistic enough to impose our own restrictions and say that 400 to 500 Members is enough?
And do the people of Europe feel any safer now? The President-in-Office announced a package of measures, but unfortunately what he himself does in practice is exactly the opposite.
The arrest warrant for the international drug-dealer Bouterse has still not been issued, while the public prosecutor has been suspended for some reason.
And Brussels has yet to give the green light to the new legislation, so for now drink-drivers are let off scot-free, which is hardly likely to make people safer.
I understand that the chairman of Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee, Mr de Clercq, has asked the Justice Minister to come here and give us an explanation.
Measured against what we hoped it would achieve, Amsterdam was not a success, but the Heads of Government who directly reflect the voters' wishes in the 15 Member States chose to decide otherwise.
This is our snapshot of how Europe looks at the end of the 20th century.
The Dutch presidency did what it could and deserves congratulations, if only for managing to hold together 15 Member States with different problems.
Amsterdam was not a failure, but a small step forward.
Strasbourg, more than Brussels with all its bureaucracy, is still the symbol of peace in Europe.
Madam President, with all due respect for the positive aspects, we must nevertheless concentrate on the objectives the Amsterdam conference did not achieve.
First, given the total failure to carry out institutional reforms we are surely faced with the following dilemma: either the already very poor decision-making structures in the European Union will worsen with the accession of new Members or we will have to postpone enlargement.
Neither option is acceptable, which is why we must emphatically call for the institutional reforms to be undertaken sooner and for the deadlines set in Amsterdam to be brought forward substantially.
Secondly, the results in relation to a common foreign and security policy are nothing if not modest; the Denver summit showed what great challenges Europe is facing in this regard, for the United States wants to establish its predatory system as a model for the rest of the world!
I believe we have to adjust to this situation and I seriously doubt whether the Amsterdam intergovernmental conference has taken the necessary institutional steps for doing so!
Mr President-in-Office, in Amsterdam important steps were taken, but they were fragmentary and uncoordinated.
One thing is certain, namely that you saved the progress towards the since currency.
That is no small matter, but it does not seem to me enough for the time being.
Besides monetary union, economic union too remains outstanding, economic government as some people call it.
Besides the very positive declarations, a serious policy against unemployment and a truly common social policy remain outstanding.
All these things remain unclear and depend on other decisions, which were not taken at Amsterdam. What will you decide in the autumn?
What proposals will you bring us for the budget in the future? Or might you set up all those policies with no budget - or with the budget as it is today?
That would be strange and unbelievable! And of course, another thing that remains outstanding is a clear perspective for political union.
No country will give up resources and sovereignty for another country, but only for a political whole.
It will therefore be necessary for you to try a new Intergovernmental Conference or to postpone enlargement.
Until then, do at least try to boost the Union's political credibility.
There will be no action by the Common Foreign Policy unless we seriously condemn all the atrocities committed in Somalia by 'peace-keepers' from countries belonging to the European Union.
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating the President-in-Office of the Council for the tremendous effort he has made in a matter which appeared difficult to achieve.
No-one thought two or three weeks ago that it would be possible to conclude the draft Treaty in Amsterdam.
However, I think that many aspects have been covered - there have been many great developments and great progress - but I should like to point to one important gap from the legal point of view.
We are working to build a Community legal order in which decisions are taken in the general interest and not for the good of one State or specific group of persons and in real terms for me that means that my greatest concern lies in the articles on flexibility.
Flexibility presupposes the introduction into the Community legal order of principles applicable to relations between States under International Law.
There is the danger that in Amsterdam the States have rediscovered International Law.
I would point out that International Law was invented 500 years ago by another Dutchman - not the President-in-Office of the Council - but Hugo Grocio.
So I do not know whether we now need to return to this International Law discovered 500 years ago by that illustrious Dutchman.
This is a different matter; we are creating a supra-national entity and, in that aspect, I think we are running into inadequacies in the European judicial area.
This is something pointed out previously by the chairman of the Socialist group and I think that we must have moved further forward in the field of creating a European legal area because, when the acquis communautaire of the Schengen Agreement is incorporated in the European Union, we might find ourselves in a situation where, since there were no national frontiers, a person might commit a crime in one country with no border checks then enter another country.
That means, in specific terms in this Community, that there is no sense in talking about political asylum when the States are already governed by Community Law rather than International Law.
The articles on the right of political asylum might even presuppose a retroactive element, since I do not think it is possible for a Member State of the European Union to be able to grant asylum to a person who has committed a crime in another country and I do not see any sense in invoking political asylum when we are in a Community governed by democratic States.
In a Community governed by democratic States political asylum is absolutely meaningless.
If one State is failing to fulfil the conditions for democracy then it cannot be a Member of the Community.
There are certainly some exemptions under which expulsion is possible, but I do not see how it is possible for the authority of a State, a judicial authority or an administrative authority, to deny entry to a person who has committed a crime in another member country of the Community - having regard to human rights, which are based on the constitutional guarantees in the Community Treaties - by invoking the provisions of the right of asylum.
Here international agreements on asylum are not applicable; they are applicable only under International Law.
If we want to be sure of having a free European judicial area, in accordance with constitutional principles, asylum must now be regarded as the major omission from the Treaty of Amsterdam, since it was not possible to set up a European judicial area proffering simultaneously guarantees of freedom and security.
Thank you, Mr Medina Ortega.
Your speech proved interesting enough to stop the clock.
On this occasion, fortunately, we have more time available for this important debate than we did last time.
Madam President, at this first part-session following the Amsterdam European Council, I welcome the results, above all concerning the European Parliament, whose role has no doubt been strengthened.
I am convinced that increasing the powers of our institution is the best way of keeping alive the idea of Europe sown in the Treaty of Rome.
Nevertheless, directly linked to the results of this summit, one event did give us great cause for concern, since in some way it contradicts the bases of this united egalitarian Europe to which I already referred.
During the conference, the United Kingdom tried to have the right of Community countries to register ships in any Member State -dubbed by them quota-hopping - limited in the final text.
The initiative of introducing amendments into the Treaty was not a success due to the fact that it was impossible to include such limitations, contrary to the existing acquis communautaire , although an it was a matter of forcing through a Commission statement smoothing the way for the British demands, which was finally blocked by the Council.
Faced with the possibility that the IGC might be incapable of producing any text, President Santer, on his own initiative and in an amazing unprecedented decision, sent a personal letter to the British Prime Minister in which he unilaterally put at his disposition the services of DG XVI to assist one country - Great Britain - to get their own way over the other Member States even going so far as to make suggestions in that letter which clearly contradicted even three judgments of the European Court of Justice.
Such unilateral action - with the President of the Commission deciding personally to go to the defence of a given country in the face of Community interests behind the backs of the rest of the Member States and the Community institutions and the Parliament itself - calls into question the supposed impartiality and essential transparency which affects the whole Commission, despite what Madam Commissioner Bonino said in an attempt to mitigate the terms of the letter and does not, Madam President, as you will understand, exactly enhance the prestige of the European Union.
I think that the most fundamental duty of the Commission is transparency before the Member States and if the institution over which Mr Santer presides thought that the Community laws - including the judgments of the European Court in Luxembourg - could be interpreted as by Mr Santer, that opinion should have been put before all the Member States and not merely before one - and within the framework in which the problem had arisen.
Mr Santer, you have set a most serious anti-democratic precedent, which neither the Member States nor the Parliament should tolerate, which is why we at the minimum demand the relevant and public explanations.
Madam President, one minute is too short a time for a proper fundamental analysis of the Amsterdam Treaty, so I shall concentrate on one issue.
The Protocol on asylum policy includes an Article which means essentially that an EU citizen is prevented from receiving asylum in another EU State.
In practice this curtails the right of asylum and is in breach of the Geneva Convention.
This is not the only reason why this is a wrong decision, it also sets a very dangerous precedent if other parts of the world should start to apply the same practice, i.e. that regions will not accept asylum seekers from each other.
So this decision taken in Amsterdam is a very unfortunate one.
After the decision was taken attempts were made to tone down its effect.
But it is obvious that it breaches the Geneva Convention and the UN refugee commissary has confirmed this.
It does Belgium credit that it has indirectly renounced this decision in a special declaration.
It is a pity that more Member States did not do the same.
Madam President, I did not expect more from Amsterdam, and as has very rightly been assessed, Amsterdam turned out to be neither a mountain nor a molehill.
Of course, like any treaty, it must be judged in relation to the potential it can promote and the perspectives it outlines.
From that standpoint, I think the results of the meeting were not bad.
Looking, first, at the issue of employment, it is worth stressing the balanced line pursued by this Treaty, despite the fact that the new provisions on employment could have been more ambitious.
However, much will depend on the way those provisions are implemented.
Equally important is the fact that the Social Protocol was incorporated in the Treaty.
This eliminates one of Maastricht's important weaknesses, which we had repeatedly criticized severely.
The Amsterdam Agreement did not solve the institutional issue, which it refers to new negotiations at the beginning of the new millennium, and I hope that those amendments will be based on the ideas upon which the ideal of the building of Europe was based, and that counterproductive and artificial discriminations between the Members will be avoided.
We should not underestimate some of the new Treaty's provisions which represent progress in the right direction.
I refer particularly to the joint decision procedure and the abolition of the third reading, which has allowed a balance to be established between the roles of Parliament and the Council.
The results of the Amsterdam Agreement in the area of the Union's foreign policy activities are limited and not up to what we had hoped for.
Traditional refractoriness prevailed once more in Amsterdam, and no provisions were adopted that would allow the Union to develop its own role.
As I have already said, much depends on the way the Treaty will be implemented.
The inadequacies we have all noted can be compensated, within the limits of what is fair, by dynamically making the most of the new prospects that are opening up.
Madam President, who would claim today that the Intergovernmental Conference has fulfilled its mandate? The positive results of two years of negotiations are confined to a few points.
First, the broadly based introduction of employment into the Treaty, as a commitment for which positive signals are to be given at the extraordinary Council in Luxembourg; next, the integration of the Social Protocol into the Treaty, primarily the result of the victory of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom; progress with the services of general public interest, which are recognized as forming part of the common values of the Union with a part to play in the promotion of social and territorial cohesion; and an almost unexpected extension of the scope of the codecision procedure, essentially into areas associated with the completion of the internal market and legislative tasks that have been virtually completed.
Outside the mandate of the Intergovernmental Conference, and a product of the electoral victory of the socialists in France, Amsterdam finally brings us the good news of the resolution on growth and employment, an essential counterpart to the resolution on the stability pact, though that is not to say that a genuine economic government has been set up.
But, as for the rest, we have been short-changed.
Amsterdam was supposed to bring democracy, efficiency and transparency to our institutions.
Instead of the extension of qualified majority voting and the abolition of the right of veto, the sine qua non of any further deepening of the Community, we are offered co-operation, cumbersome to put into practice and ideally designed to hinder the Community dynamic, even though such co-operation will exist anyway because of the euro.
After the three pillars of Maastricht, the worm in the bud of European integration, we now find ourselves in charge of four pillars.
From the institutional standpoint, the Amsterdam Treaty is a step towards non-democratic government.
Amsterdam was supposed to enable the European Union to function better and expand.
In Madrid, the Heads of State and Government had undertaken to begin enlargement negotiations six months after the conclusions of the IGC on the basis of its results.
Clearly, they have not reached that point.
The Heads of State and Government must learn lessons from this, as they failed to do in Amsterdam.
The Amsterdam Treaty is not a satisfactory conclusion to the Intergovernmental Conference.
If Europe is to be a power tomorrow, it needs to progress in both political and social affairs.
On the social side we have achieved something, but on the political side we have hardly started.
We need to break free of our national self-interests, to produce a collective burst of energy.
With the Spinelli project, this House gave Europe a new impetus. We need to rediscover it.
Madam President, I also think that we have reason to welcome the Treaty and congratulate the Dutch Presidency.
Right from the very moment when Sweden joined the Union two years ago we have been fighting to make unemployment a matter of common concern in the Union.
There were many who thought that we would not succeed but obviously the 18 million unemployed in Europe are a reality which has forced even the most unwilling governments to agree to this in the Treaty.
Now we must fulfil the Article in the Treaty through practical action.
We have a great responsibility to ensure that this happens, at the additional summit meeting on unemployment, for example.
Another proposal which has received attention is increased openness in the European Union, something which we Members from Sweden greatly welcome.
This is not a controversial issue in Sweden where we have high degree of openness and transparency.
But there are great differences between the Member States in this respect.
It is important now that this Article on increased openness in the Treaty is also given a clear and substantial content and that the Union's institutions really do live up to it.
I think that the results of this Treaty, from the Swedish point of view, show that, contrary to what is sometimes said, the small countries do have the opportunity to influence the primary direction of policy within the Union.
Mr Santer complained earlier that there were too many national interests involved in this process.
I would like to point out that, even if I have spoken a great deal about Swedish issues, I think that these are now European interests.
Employment is a European problem, openness is a European interest, equality is a European right and the environment is a European responsibility.
Madam President, against many odds it proved possible to broaden the agenda for Intergovernmental Conference to include the subjects that concern people most.
Everywhere in Europe people single out unemployment as the problem the political systems should get to grips with first.
At the start of the Intergovernmental Conference, not many people thought that the EU would get its employment chapter, but it happened.
Of course balmier winds were blowing that way, with the election results just achieved in Britain and France.
Now the EU has an obligation to tackle unemployment.
In Denmark a new economic policy has made good progress in creating jobs.
But the effect of this policy would be far greater if it were a common EU policy.
And great expectations are pinned on the jobs summit in Luxembourg this autumn.
What is more important than anything else, however, is that the achievement of a result in Amsterdam means that negotiations can be started with the Baltic and Central and Eastern European countries.
These countries have a right to claim EU membership, and the civilian cooperation between countries which were previously on a war footing with one another or were divided by a concrete wall is the EU's contribution to peace and stability in Europe.
The affirmation in the preamble to the Treaty on European Union of the principles on which cooperation in the EU is based, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and non-discrimination, was a pious hope at the start of the negotiations, but in the end it became a reality.
The Amsterdam Treaty is truly an improvement of the EU in the direction of cooperation which prioritizes and tackles the problems that people consider important.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place immediately.
Votes
: rejected
Joint motion for a resolution on the meeting of the European Council on 16/17 June in Amsterdam
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
As I am sure you are aware, the Amsterdam Treaty has as yet to be ratified.
It therefore has no effect on the work of this House.
Mr President, you are absolutely right.
That was clearly one of Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's less ingenuous interventions in this House.
As a man who is greatly concerned with these matters, perhaps if he had attended yesterday he would have understood that today we are only establishing the estimates.
The budget votes will be in October and will be in Strasbourg.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement.
Mr Tomlinson, who unfortunately seems not to be in the Chamber at present, made a comment about me just now, in which he not only said that I had got my facts wrong - forgetting that, even before the Amsterdam Treaty, we had the Edinburgh Decision, whose existence I noted -and also stressing my absence from the Chamber yesterday afternoon.
I could derive some satisfaction from the fact that he noted my absence, but I should simply like to remind him that I was present at the meeting of the Committee on Budgets when his report was examined, and that I participated in the discussion. The reason I was unable to attend this House yesterday was, quite simply, that I had a municipal council meeting and that the speaking time allocated to my group made it impossible for me to be present on that occasion.
Mr President, we have heard it said on numerous occasions during this debate that the draft Amsterdam Treaty fails to prepare the Union's institutions for enlargement.
My group agrees with that statement, though I am sure our reasons are not the same as the federalists'.
As far as they are concerned, adapting the institutions to deal with enlargement means, quite simply, speeding up the application of their unending programme, first by generalizing majority voting on the Council.
They hope to compensate for the risk of dispersion which they believe the prospects of enlargement pose by a tightening up of centralized procedures.
For us, however, this strengthening of a monolithic Europe within a single institutional framework would be an error, imposing greater rigidity where what is needed is greater flexibility and greater capacity to adapt to the requirements of different peoples.
Under these conditions, enlargement does not require any acceleration of the federalist programme.
What is does require is a rethink on the subject of Europe, and the emergence of more differentiated institutions.
At the Amsterdam Council, it was as if the Heads of State and Government, presented by the Dutch presidency with a preparatory text largely inspired by the old arguments, had second thoughts and ultimately preferred to wait to obtain a clearer view of the enlargements before decreeing certain reforms. Which is why we feel as we do.
Granted, we are on the wrong course, but in fact the vessel is drifting, engines stopped.
An intellectual conversion like the one awaiting Europe does not take place overnight, and it is not insignificant that the idea of reinforced co-operation has become established, pending the arrival of differentiated co-operation at some future date.
Let us allow time for ideas to germinate.
Mr President, unlike the majority of my group, stifled by ponderous Dutch arguments, and despite the vote on Amendment No 7, I did not vote for the resolution, which seemed to me to be too weak.
We must call a spade a spade, and call a failure a failure.
The mission is unaccomplished.
The Union is not institutionally ready for enlargement. And that poses the problem of ratification.
At previous key moments - the Single European Act, Maastricht - disappointment has been tempered by the feeling that, however slowly, Europe was moving forward and that its progress should be encouraged.
Today, is ratification the short cut to genuine reform, to the essential strengthening of the institutions? Frankly, I have my doubts.
Mr President, the Treaty of Amsterdam includes a number of improvements to the existing Treaties.
On the other hand, it singularly fails to make the necessary changes to make a union of more than 30 Member States capable of functioning.
The improvements are numerous.
They concern the employment chapter, the social chapter, better language on environment, public health and consumer protection, the extension of the co-decision procedure and the procedural changes to that procedure that this Parliament wanted and asked for.
It includes many other things as well.
Therefore, the Treaty should be ratified because it is a step forward.
But it is an insufficient step forward, especially as regards the capacity of the Union to function with over 20 Member States.
On that issue the European Council itself recognized that it has to return to the issue at least as regards the weighting of the votes and the size of the Commission.
We must ensure that it also returns to that issue as regards the extension of the field of qualified majority voting because anything that requires unanimity in a Union of more than 20 Member States will be subject to paralysis.
That is the challenge facing this Parliament.
We must make sure that enlargement incorporates the necessary institutional changes.
We are very pleased that employment has got its own chapter in the Treaty.
Many of the governments of EU Member States are not prepared to invest public funds to get people back to work.
As long as there is a lack of political will, particularly among the Christian Democrat/Conservative and Liberal parties, we will not see any marked improvement in employment in Europe.
The areas which we oppose in the new Treaty include the fact that more political areas are to be centralised at EU level.
The European Parliament will also gain co-decision rights in a significant proportion of EU legislation and will be able to influence the financing of foreign policy.
Giving greater power to the European Parliament is a step towards increased federalism in Europe and there is reason to doubt whether the European Parliament is mature enough for this task.
In contrast, the role of national Parliaments, the bodies which after all have the greatest democratic legitimacy in each of the European countries, has fallen into oblivion.
The only thing which has been offered to national Parliaments is that they will have access to the Commission's Green and White Papers in good time.
It has now been confirmed, once again, that the sessions of the European Parliament will mainly be held in Strasbourg, committee work will take place in Brussels and administration will remain in Luxembourg.
Such duplication of buildings, unnecessary travel and transport is an unacceptable waste of resources.
There is also a risk that enlargement of the EU to include those States in Central and Eastern Europe who now wish to join will be delayed if a new Intergovernmental Conference has to be held when five new countries have joined, as there are eleven countries interested in joining.
The final position adopted on the common foreign and security policy was essentially based on the joint initiative taken by Sweden and Finland prior to the Intergovernmental Conference.
This we support.
We cannot support the text of point 10 in the joint resolution proposal which expresses disappointment over the fact that there has been no integration of the WEU and the EU.
We think that these organisations should be kept separate.
Nor can we support points 8 and 12.
The common resolution proposal supports the continued implementation of EMU and the stability pact.
We do not think that these two political actions will help to increase employment, growth or peace in Europe.
Unfortunately they could have the opposite effect.
It is our fundamental view that the EU should be a co-operation between independent States.
We want to see a Europe in which democracies cooperage, not the creation of a 'superstate' .
It is a myth that a European Federation is the only way to achieve maximum growth and employment.
I voted against the final resolution because of the adoption of Amendment No 12 tabled by the Greens, which rejects the protocol on the seat of the institutions.
. (DA) The Amsterdam Treaty consists of a series of small steps and some great leaps in the direction of MORE UNION.
There is not a single decision that is referred back from Brussels to the Member States and regions.
On the other hand, there are new transfers of power and the introduction of majority voting in new areas.
The two things will ensure more centralization of decision-making in the EU.
In form the Amsterdam Treaty is an international agreement, but in content it is the constitution for a new state with common rights and freedoms and Union citizenship.
Important decisions still require unanimity among the governments - but as voters, we no longer need to be asked.
We lose our sovereignty as electorates.
The democratically elected national parliaments lose legislative power.
The European Parliament is to get more power to put forward amendments and veto new laws.
But the right of veto is not democratic government and, even if the European Parliament took over the legislative power, it would be a poor replacement for the local democracy that is possible in the Member States and regions.
There is as yet no European people that is prepared to have a common European government.
And government without the people is government without democracy.
That is the democratic poverty of the Union and the reason why every democrat must vote 'no' to the Treaty that has come out of Amsterdam.
We, who prefer a Europe of Nations to a United States of Europe, also have other reasons for voting 'no' .
We do not want a common foreign policy with majority decisions, a common foreign ministry and a common foreign minister.
We do not want armed forces mixed up in the civilian EU.
We do not want a common legal affairs policy and a federal police force.
We want gentle and friendly borders around free and democratically ruled nations and binding cooperation on all cross-frontier questions.
In one area, the Amsterdam Treaty is better than its predecessors.
There are kind words on employment.
But it is difficult to discern the new jobs that are to replace those which are being swept away by the conditions for the single currency.
Openness can now be blocked by three countries, such as Spain, France and Germany.
The environmental guarantee is being cut back in terms of content and coverage and geographic scope.
Enlargement in Eastern and Central Europe is being put off.
We want to make Europe whole, not to divide it, and we call on everyone to demand a referendum.
The conclusions of the Amsterdam summit leave a sour taste and a feeling of incompleteness, even of a missed opportunity.
I admit, let's make no mistake about this, it is much better than Maastricht!
At every level, genuine progress has been made, and we should tell the negotiators as much, and congratulate the Dutch presidency.
We agree that, when it comes to employment, the fight against unemployment and the idea of a social Europe, there has been real progress, thanks to the political changes in the United Kingdom and especially in France, with clear perspectives and a specific timetable.
The framework is now in place; a framework within which we can act. It confirms much of the Commission and it confronts the European Parliament with its responsibilities.
The Luxembourg employment summit lies ahead.
The national governments, the Commission and Parliament no longer have any 'right to fail' , nor any right to be vague in their proposals or unclear about their commitments.
Europe's citizens expect specific measures and a specific timetable... at least as specific as the monetary, financial and banking timetable.
On the institutional front, the balance sheet is much more negative.
Parliament's powers have been strengthened by the broadening of the codecision procedure, but the inability of the summit to decide on the necessary action simply to make the Council and Commission 'manageable' in the event of enlargement is a serious failure.
We cannot reasonably open negotiations on this basis, because we would be condemning the European Union to total inefficiency and inertia.
The European Union, then, must very quickly go into greater detail with its proposals to favour growth and social change and to counter unemployment, while at the same time reopening the debate on the European institutions, which must be very swiftly adapted and reformed if a crisis is to be avoided.
This view was reflected in spirit in the joint motion for a resolution, and I was prepared to vote in favour.
However, the rejection of the protocol confirming Strasbourg as the seat of the European Parliament prompted me, together with my French colleagues, to vote against.
Like many of my colleagues in the European Parliament I wished to see a large step forward in European integration taken at Amsterdam.
This has not happened.
What we have is a number of small cautious steps improving and deepening integration.
These small but significant steps are welcome nonetheless.
The power and influence of the European Parliament has been strengthened in a number of areas, our ability as a small Member State to nominate a Commissioner has been preserved and a new chapter on employment has been inserted into the Treaty.
Most importantly EUROPOL, the coordinating police agency, will be given an operational role and the 15 Member States have promised to strengthen the fight against drug trafficking and related crime.
Little progress was made in improving the operation of EU foreign policy.
We will remain impotent on the world political stage until we have the courage to develop a strong EU foreign policy.
I have always favoured a properly negotiated enlargement of the Union to the East.
The failure of the Amsterdam Summit to agree on institutional reform will make these negotiations complicated beyond belief as all the decisions not taken at Amsterdam will now have to be negotiated with the acceding countries.
My remarks today are made in full awareness of the responsibilities facing us - facing me.
As a new Member of this Parliament, may I first thank Honourable Members for the way I have been welcomed here - the advantage of being a novice.
I shall be as brief, simple and straightforward as possible.
Amsterdam has brought both results and disappointments.
But the bottom line, it must be said, is that Amsterdam is a failure for Europe, and unless we can remedy that failure today we shall face more serious failures tomorrow.
I shall not dwell on the positive achievements of Amsterdam - others have already done so, excessively in some cases.
So what are the shortcomings and the failures? I would list the principal ones as follows: 1. social issues lack a proper legal basis and the necessary financial resources; 2. the Union has not been endowed with the legal personality it needs; 3. hopes of a common defence policy have become more remote; 4. there are insufficient resources for common foreign policies; 5. reinforced co-operation has been virtually stalemated in advance by the conditions for its implementation: those states which want to go farthest will be unable to do so; 6. the citizen, once again, has been forgotten: the texts are becoming more and more incomprehensible, debates more and more obscure, and citizens' rights are still not clearly safeguarded.
How can we really expect the public, in their day-to-day lives, to accept that this Europe, with its much-vaunted merits, is indeed beneficial? And, last but not least, 7. the reform of the institutions has, in essence, been deferred until the third millennium.
Let me dwell for a moment on this fundamental point.
I have attended the meetings of the Committee on Institutional Affairs since 18 June. The issue here is not legalistic quibbling but the future of the enlarged Union.
The Union cannot move forward on a single monetary leg. It cannot move forward on two legs - one monetary, the other social.
Because the legs cannot move, cannot act, without a brain to give them orders. And that brain is policy, and, therefore, the institutional structure that allows it.
It means taking decisions by a majority vote, not unanimously. To be even more specific, it means the taking of genuinely European decisions, that is by a majority vote, rather than paralysis or the accumulation of nationalistic micro-decisions.
If we can agree on this diagnosis, we need to seek the means to cure the patient, and especially to prevent his disease becoming chronic.
The medication is already known: the reform of the institutions and, primarily, the extension of majority voting.
All we need is for the patient to agree to take the medication.
Today, he is refusing to do so. We must explain that he needs it, and strongly urge him to swallow it.
With this in mind, let us not be too diplomatic today. That is not our job.
Let us say, clearly and concisely, that it won't do.
And, before any enlargement takes place, let us demand a further review of the Treaties, which in essence means a review of the European constitution.
Let us ensure that this review takes place more democratically and transparently, so that the peoples of Europe can begin to understand it and, consequently, to support it.
Many voices have been raised in this House to say the same thing. An amendment tabled by members of various groups, in paragraph 1 of the compromise motion, asserts it forcibly.
The PSE, at the urging of the French socialist delegation, has taken its cue from that motion and supports the essential demand: reform of the institutions, now. We welcome that.
If we are firm in our criticisms and our proposals, we may cause a little alarm today but we shall serve a purpose tomorrow.
I hope I have not alarmed you too much, and that I can serve a purpose tomorrow.
I shall vote in favour of the joint motion for a resolution accepting as a whole the result of the European Council held in Amsterdam, especially the new Treaty to be known as the Treaty of Amsterdam.
However I am not fully happy about it.
In any case the best of the Amsterdam agreement is that agreement was reached as regards the stability and growth pact, thus strengthening the agreement to realise Economic and Monetary Union and the Euro within the time-limit and under the conditions envisaged and, formally, we have a new Treaty, although this new Treaty cannot hide the major gaps and worrying delays decided on key questions.
The European Union has for years lacked leadership and ambition.
It is not responding to the challenges of the present world situation, nor is it taking advantage of the extraordinary possibilities available to the EU following the situation created when the Soviet Union broke up and Central and Eastern European companies gained access and freedom which the European Union should welcome with generous solidarity.
I repeat my concern at the excessive weight and veto of the Member States in the decision-making process, the modest progress in the role attributed to the Committee of the Regions and the limitations now in existence for the development of European policies in the field of external relations, justice and domestic policy, even within the scope of economic and monetary policy which is absolutely necessary and essential since we are to have an internal European market and the prospect of Economic and Monetary Union and a single European currency.
I again condemn the serious uncertainty created because no agreement was reached on the necessary institutional strengthening for the political leadership which the European Union requires for the twenty-first century.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have one or two objections to the resolution.
Paragraph 10 on the integration of the WEU into the EU cannot be supported because of a Danish reservation.
In addition, it is not possible to support the incorporation of the Schengen Agreement into the Treaty, and we do not consider that enlargement has become more difficult following the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference.
We are not therefore voting for paragraph 5.
Despite these objections, we vote for the resolution because it affirms that the areas that are most important to us, such as openness, democracy, human rights, the environment, consumer protection and employment have been given a higher priority in the new Treaty.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen, Sjöstedt and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) Perhaps the Amsterdam Treaty does not go as far as many would have liked or as many feared.
But even so the power of the EU will greatly increase and it will be the supranational bodies, the European Parliament, the Commission and the Court which gain increased power.
The European Parliament will gain co-decision rights in approximately 75 % of real EU legislation and influence over the financing of foreign policy.
The Commission and the Court will, for example, have more say in issues which previously fell into the area of inter state co-operation, that is in issues concerning foreign and security policy and domestic and justice matters.
In a separate protocol, because of the planned enlargement of the EU, there is a promise of more votes to those countries with two Commissioners, in other words the larger countries.
The only thing of any substance offered to the National Parliaments is access to the Commission's Green and White Papers in good time.
The development of the Union should be placed in the wider context as well.
The fundamental laws of the EU have changed completely three times during the last eleven years.
The European Union Act in 1980 introduced majority decision making on a large scale, particularly in order to promote free movement of goods, labour and capital, which radically restricted the sovereignty of Member States.
The Maastricht Treaty in 1991 introduced new regulations for foreign policy and for domestic and justice affairs.
But above all Maastricht was a breakthrough for EMU.
Currency union in itself will lead to closer integration and a real reduction in self-determination for the Member States.
The Amsterdam Treaty is confirmation that the Union is moving constantly towards ever closer union, a federation, although the speed and intensity of progress in this direction may vary.
The Amsterdam EU Treaty is an assault on democracy.
I believe that the resolution tabled by the major political groups does not adequately reflect the gravity of its consequences.
For that reason I have voted against that resolution.
Democracy was ruled out of bounds by EU leaders for some of the most important developments made by the Treaty, especially in the area of justice and home affairs.
The European Parliament was given a mere consultative role in most justice developments but now has no say whatsoever on Europol, the federal police force.
The role of the European Court of Justice in most developments remains unclear.
On environment policy, the Treaty has become a charter for stagnation.
Member States will be barred from implementing ambitious strategies for environmental protection that went beyond the EU norm.
Effective waste management measures, such as Denmark's ban on aluminium drink cans, would be among those placed in jeopardy.
The goal of boosting employment stated in the Treaty is incompatible with efforts to achieve economic and monetary union (EMU).
It is vital that the Treaty is put to referendums in all the Member States which have the referendum instrument.
Otherwise citizens will be denied any real voice in the EU's future development.
The democratic deficit will be greatly widened.
I reject suggestions that fears over Irish neutrality were allayed at Amsterdam.
Although a proposed merger between the EU and the nuclear-armed Western European Union (WEU) was postponed, the Treaty still provides for 'the progressive framing of a common defence policy [which] will be supported, as Member States consider appropriate, by cooperation between them in the field of armaments' .
There is no doubt that Ireland is being sucked into a military union, which wants the support of its own arms industry.
The Amsterdam Summit was very disappointing and even a serious failure.
Hopes were not high, but the results were even more disastrous than expected.
In the first place and as regards the institutional questions, one basic conclusion needs to be borne in mind: the planned amendments to the Treaty are fully within the spirit of Maastricht and do not take the slightest account of the marked reservations and mounting opposition which has grown up and is still growing up on all fronts.
It is true that some of the negative proposals which were on the table were not, at least specifically, considered.
There is an insistence on a federal framework, although it has not been adopted: decision-making powers are concentrated at Community level, the citizens are ever more remote from the decision-making and consequently democratic deficits are increased.
At the same time, at the economic and social levels there are one or two aspects which need to be mentioned.
First unemployment and its inevitable link with a forced march towards a single currency and the stability pact - fundamental questions at the present moment - were finally included on the agenda for the Summit, as we had always advocated.
In spite of that, the Council decisions in this field are disappointing.
There are too many intentions and too few measures and means for putting them into practice.
The present restrictive policy is continued for the most part with the inevitable negative effects on the field of employment and at the same time there is a total lack of effective measures and means for fighting unemployment; that runs completely counter to the intentions stated in the social field.
A majority in the European Parliament is still far removed from reality and the anxieties and concerns of the citizens and is again showing an inclination to blindly follow the relevant Council decisions.
That seems clear from the motion for a resolution under discussion.
We shall therefore not support it or vote for it.
Following the accusations against European public opinion - with great headlines in the media, citing nationalist prejudices and visions in the building of Europe, it is a good thing for the European Parliament to be the forum for the expression of the views of the institutions - the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament.
Over and above any detailed analysis, the message which should get through to public opinion is that the Treaty of Amsterdam is a new, positive step towards the political building of Europe.
Having said that, one negative point is that there is a lack of political willpower to move forward in fields which were perfectly defined in the preparatory stages.
We must condemn the basically nationalistic type of view adopted by quite a number of Heads of State and Government, forgetting that the best defence for national interests is within the EC.
The existence of 14 protocols and other such statements in itself constitutes a failure by the European Council which did not have the political stature historically required to move forward in unity whilst preserving diversity.
Myopia ruled the day.
Nor was the long wording of the preamble a good sign, but it was rather a further indication of the denaturing of the Treaty, which is peppered with articles laying down petty rules.
One further cause for concern is the steps taken by some governments which have recently come to power and have not followed the principle of institutional loyalty which should oblige governments to adhere to agreements already signed.
The citizens should demand that European policy be made a state matter quite apart from the whims of the previous government.
I have always maintained that it is perfectly possible to evaluate progress.
All aspects of communitization of the second and third pillars of the second and third pillars would be a clear sign of real willpower to pursue European integration.
If reasonable progress has been made with the third pillar and within the scope of foreign and security policy, all will depend upon the political willpower shown by the Heads of Government.
But the citizens should not blame Europe for any possible failure in this field; it is non-Europe which is responsible.
The extension of voting by qualified majority and of policies governed by the co-decision process is another key political barometer.
Certain significant aspects of progress must be noted: Parliament and the Council are in certain fields still redressing the balance of their power for the benefit of European Unity.
Institutional reform is still pending, but it is better that it should be.
Some of the proposals debated entail a denaturing of the spirit of the Treaties.
The Council is clinging on to the right of veto, unanimity and blocking majorities.
They give it the illusion that it has decision-making power.
However, it is well known that solitary voting never achieved anything other than political isolation.
The famous blocking minority, as its name indicates, serves only to delay the building of Europe.
It would be impossible to understand the scope of the Treaty of Amsterdam without mentioning that its birth was preceded by the ratification of the irreversible launching of the single currency.
The Euro will dictate all the most nationalistic and individualistic trends.
We should be glad: Europe is continuing its inexorable political construction.
Fontaine report (A4-0204/97)
We consider the report presented by the rapporteur contains a significantly better proposed Directive than the proposal from the Commission.
Above all we would like to emphasise the proposals on employee rights put forward in the report.
It is important to promote the protection of the employee and the small shareholder in this respect.
But the adopted position in question only applies if a Directive is to be established at Community level.
We consider it doubtful that there is a real need for a Directive at Community level.
Tomlinson report (A4-0178/97)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group does not give its approval to the Tomlinson report.
It is, in fact, unacceptable for five reasons.
This report is unacceptable, first, because - as I said earlier - it is presented during a supplementary part-session in Brussels whereas the budgetary session is held, and will continue to be held, in Strasbourg.
This report is unacceptable in that it envisages eleven five-day part-sessions in Strasbourg and seven additional part-sessions in Brussels, which is contrary to the Treaties, whether we refer to the Edinburgh compromise or to what will shortly become Community law in the wake of the Amsterdam European Council meeting.
The report is also unacceptable in what it has to say about the reimbursements, charges and expenses of Members of the European Parliament.
How can we overlook the hypocrisy demonstrated by our colleagues in adopting the proposed amendment when we know - and I am particularly well placed to know, because I am a member of the working group - that the working group set up by the Bureau is going to lead to nothing.
Nothing has changed regarding this very important point.
The report is also unacceptable with regard to Parliament's buildings.
The rapporteur, Mr Tomlinson, worries about excessive reliance on monies obtained from the European taxpayer.
It's true, we need only look around, inside and outside this Chamber, and we will see that we could hardly build or buy much more than we already have built and bought here in Brussels.
Finally, the report is unacceptable in that it deals with the financing of the European political groups.
The budgetary will is further increased to respond to the aim fixed by Article 138a of the Treaty, by adapting the nomenclature of Chapter 37, even though there is no necessity to justify this creation.
All this presages nothing good for the 1998 budget.
We await that budget and we shall participate in its discussion, but the decisions that have been taken - because decisions they are - have not directed that budget along the right lines.
Mr President, I voted for Mr Tomlinson's report, but I should like to record an explanation of vote concerning Amendment 15 by Mr De Coene and others. I abstained on it because I do not feel that it makes sense for Parliament already at this stage to issue a binding instruction to its working party whose task is to consider Members' travelling expenses and other similiar allowances.
Although in principle I support the proposal to base the payment of travelling expenses on actual costs, I believe that we should await the working party's findings before we take any decisions.
The final part, calling for quick decisions from the working party, is appropriate in my opinion.
We must make some comment on this budget even if we are voting for the report.
1.The most ridiculous thing from a cost point of view is that Parliament is located in three different working areas.
This gives rise to excessive and unnecessary administrative costs but is not something which Parliament itself can control.2.It is unreasonable that travel expenses are paid according to a fixed rate per kilometre.
Travel expenses can be easily administered by giving Parliamentarians travel cards.
Our voters rightly wonder what we are doing with their money, and they have taken exception, amongst other things, to our generous expenses.
Almost BFR 2 billion in travel and subsistence allowances for 626 Members really is a very considerable sum indeed.
At the end of last year, after yet more critical coverage in the press, the President of Parliament promised that improvements would be made, but since then all that has happened is that a Bureau working party has been set up.
The rapporteur, Mr Tomlinson, has taken a step in the right direction, for which I congratulate him, but I still think that the voters are waiting for a clearer signal from us.
That is why I and a number of colleagues have tabled an amendment to the effect that travel and subsistence allowances can only be refunded on the basis of the actual costs incurred, for which documentary evidence must be provided.
Approving this amendment would show public opinion that we mean business.
Openness and transparency also mean that every citizen of the Union should be able to read about the activities of the EP in his or her own language.
We should like to see this principle of 'equality' set in stone, as the Amsterdam summit set it in the Treaty.
We agree generally with the proposals put forward by the rapporteur with respect to the budget.
It is a good thing, for example, that there is finally to be an environmental review of the European Parliament buildings and methods of working which hopefully will lead to better use of information technology in Parliament.
With regard to amendment proposal 3, which concerns the Members' pension fund, we have of course decided to vote in favour of this.
This is a moral and ethical matter which has great symbolic value.
It is important that the Members who belong to the pension fund are allowed to pay from their own accounts, which means that Members must actively participate instead of having the amount deducted directly from their allowances.
We are voting against the proposal to establish a staff shop in the European Parliament's new building in Brussels.
It is unacceptable to have separate shops selling tax free goods to the 'EU elite' who are already taxed at a low level on their salaries.
We are hesitant about the allocation of money for European Political parties as in some cases they could be seen as a fanciful excuse for increased subsidies and not a requirement of the people.
On the other hand we support the motion that all official languages should be treated equally in the European Parliament, and that all documents used must be translated into each of these languages.
Finally, we support amendment proposal No. 15 which states that travel expenses for members should only be paid for actual costs incurred and not, as they currently are, in the form of a generally high allowance which does not require receipts showing actual costs.
.
(DA) I have voted for Amendment No 15 to paragraph 10 from Mr De Coene, despite the fact that I sit on the working group in Parliament whose task is to draft proposals on changes to the conditions under which Members work.
I agree that the rules on travel should be amended so that Members are refunded for actual travel expenses duly documented.
On the other hand, it would surely be too bureaucratic if expenses for entertainment and eating out etc were to be covered by refunds of expenditure actually incurred.
In that area both public bodies and private firms apply a form of per diem expenses.
We must make some comment on this budget even if we are voting for the report.
1.The most ridiculous thing from a cost point of view is the fact that Parliament is located in three different places.
This gives rise to excessive and unnecessary administrative costs but is not something which Parliament itself can control.2.It is unreasonable that travel expenses are paid according to a fixed rate per kilometre.
Travel expenses can be easily administered by giving Parliamentarians travel cards.3.Furthermore, we think that the EU parliamentarians' pension fund should be self sufficient and not subsidised by public EU funds.
Previous subsidies ought, therefore. to be reclaimed.
The system of travel expenses and allowances must be changed to bring it into line with what is acceptable to the general public.
The expenses system must be more open, easier to follow and easier to control.
Travel expenses should be refunded on submission of a receipt.
The EU budget should not be used to finance European parties.
There must be a complete cost review of all buildings which have been or are being built in Parliament's three working locations to examine whether resources are being used effectively.
Parliament must do its utmost to ensure that the buildings which have been built, the administrative buildings in Brussels for example, are not under-utilised or used in such a way which gives rise to unnecessary costs for the people.
STOA is the European Parliament's office for Scientific and Technical Options Assessment.
Although administratively it forms part of Parliament's Directorate of Studies (DG IV), it is nevertheless an independent assessment body working for our institution. It is steered by a group of Members of Parliament representing each of the specialized committees: the STOA panel.
STOA assists these committees in areas where science and technology play a dominant role.
The STOA's work programme is drawn up at the end of each year for the coming year, in response to proposals from the Members of the various committees and taking due account of Parliament's timetable.
It is adopted by the STOA panel and by the Bureau of Parliament.
The reports prepared by external contractors, selected by invitation to tender, result in working documents that are presented to the STOA panel before being considered as definitive STOA documents.
As a result of this reorientation, STOA is an assessment office that assists the activities of Parliament and is better co-ordinated with the work of the committees, while retaining its independent expert status.
It is therefore clear that the merging of the two budget items 260 and 261 is incompatible with the constant efforts of STOA to guarantee management based on greater budgetary transparency: the appropriations included in item 261 are specifically intended to finance STOA, whose mandate was confirmed by the Bureau at its meeting of 17 February 1997.
The Committee on Budgetary Control also receives a quarterly report on the implementation of the budget.
Thus, the adoption of paragraph 37, and in particular the one-third reduction in the pre-allocated amounts, would result in the circumventing of the political responsibility exercisedby the Bureau of Parliament and the STOA panel, in favour of a purely administrative form of management involving at least three authorizing officers.
Apart from casting doubt on democratic control, such an arrangement would lengthen the reporting period and jeopardize the recently restored co-ordination of the work of STOA with that of the committees.
For all these reasons, and in agreement with the members of the STOA panel, I ask you to vote against paragraph 37 of the motion for a resolution contained in the Tomlinson report, in order to enable STOA to continue assisting the committees in their legislative activities involving science and technology, upon which, among other things, the future of the European Union's economy depends.
The completion of the new buildings in Strasbourg and Brussels presents huge budgetary problems for the European Parliament, and cuts will have to be made in other items to finance them.
The Tomlinson report makes a start on this by proposing, amongst other measures, that the establishment plan should be stabilized.
However, further cutbacks will also be needed before Parliament's budget can be definitively adopted.
With the current Tomlinson package, we are still more than ECU 4 million above the group chairmen's recommendation of 1988 that Parliament's budget should not exceed 20 % of total administrative expenditure.
An additional factor is that, in drawing up its estimates, the Bureau has assumed a very favourable ECU/BFR rate, but if the current positive trend were to change in 1998, the Bureau would have serious problems.
Something will have to be done, amongst other things, about the voluntary pension scheme for Members.
The expenditure here may be 28 % less than in 1997, but this figure gives a misleading impression, because there was an extremely large deficit in previous years, two thirds of which was made up by Parliament anyway.
Parliament will also have to make some very necessary savings on travel and subsistence allowances.
It is extremely important that the working party should deal with these problems and bring forward some proposals as soon as possible, so that they can be included in the budgetary procedure for 1998.
I support the rapporteur's proposal to freeze travel and subsistence allowances at 1997 levels pending the working party's conclusions.
I also support the idea that the budget heading for the European political parties should be dropped, but I am opposed to the inclusion of a reference to Article 138a of the Treaty in the remarks on items 3705, 3706 and 3707, which would open the way for funding for international political structures which are quite separate from the European Parliament.
I also object to the creation of a new A7 post for the European Ombudsman.
This institution seems to be expanding endlessly, and particularly at a time when the budget margins are small, the block on recruitment recommended by the Bureau should surely also apply to the Ombudsman.
To sum up, I broadly support the Tomlinson report, but extra cuts will have to be made in a number of areas before the first reading if we are to prevent Parliament from claiming more than 20 % of category 5 for itself in 1998.
Hendrick report (A4-0163/97)
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual Community programme to stimulate the establishment of the information society in Europe.
The development of the information society in Europe is having a dramatic influence on the way people live, learn and work.
Marginalization and exclusion are very real risks in the context of the development of new information and communications technologies.
The Danish Social Democrats want to avoid new class divisions in society due to the development of the information society and therefore take a very positive view of initiatives in which the legislator plays an active role in influencing developments.
For that reason the Danish Social Democrats voted 'yes' .
But the Danish Social Democrats are opposed to the proposed legal basis for this measure.
It is a fundamental principle of law that the legal basis used for legislation should be as specific as possible.
We think that other legal bases could be used, such as provisions authorizing initiatives in the field of the internal market, TENs, education, the environment and transport.
To disseminate 'information' on the information society - who could gainsay that? Workers, employees, those working in the educational and social fields will all need far more information than is circulated today if they are to master the changes summarized under the heading 'information society' .
But that is not enough - and even 'information' cannot just be absorbed passively!
We finally need a broad social debate, a democratic discussion on the forms of the 'information society' .
The question cannot simply be: ' how do we adjust to the new situation' , but 'what kind of information society' do we want, what form should we give it?
Let me dare to make a prediction: unless the EU itself makes political provision for a democratic debate on the information society in Europe, the people will take over this task and fight for it themselves.
If the Commission and the Council continue to fail to tackle this task, the political forces in this Union will simply have to begin here and now to get a social debate under way.
Boogerd-Quaak (A4-0208/97)
Let me simply point out that Commissioner Bangemann, who has been plaguing us for years with his policy of small steps (which he describes as inevitable for technical reasons), has already promised to present this House with a framework directive on preparing for the information society.
We are waiting for it!
However, the aim must not be to establish deregulation and privatization as the main principle of our technically imparted social and cultural communication processes, as Commissioner Bangemann still wants (cf. the 'convergence' debate).
On the contrary, we must in fact try to determine more clearly what the limits and conditions are of private acquisition, to allow people to organize and structure media communications democratically themselves again and take this out of the hands of the billionaire monopolies that are trying to acquire private ownership of the 'collective idea' of the 'global village' as a new source of wealth.
Ahlqvist report (A4-0200/97)
I have voted for this report today as I share the rapporteur's welcome for the Commission Communication on Learning in the Information Society.
As a former teacher myself, I am struck by both the opportunities and the challenges which information technology presents to our education services.
The Commission's proposals to encourage the use of multimedia teaching are therefore to be supported.
One of the best ways for children to learn is by doing things and this is made much easier if the child or student is able to use a multimedia computer.
Such technology is often more familiar to children than adults, so the Commission is right to encourage teachers to learn how to us I.T. to improve their teaching.
However, I share the rapporteur's concern that a further objective needs to be put into the Commission's Action Plan.
There is a danger of simply using technology for its own sake without thinking through its impact on all aspects of our life.
Children should be encouraged to see information technology as not just something they use at school to learn or at home to play games on.
It will affect their whole lives in future.
The more familiar our young people are with such technology at an early age, the more likely they are to make the systems work for them - rather than the other way around.
In the information society in its globalized state anyone not moving forwards is moving backwards.
Urgent, on-going and coordinated action is therefore needed by the Member States to create a European industry which is sound in content and new generations who are in general able to use the information and communication technologies to advantage, that is to improve the quality of life.
For such education to be provided effectively and swiftly we must promote the translation into other European languages of the best educational software and multi-media products made in Europe, in particularly those which encourage education for citizenship.
Finally, there should be a survey of the existing non-government cultural bodies in each Member State which could actively support schools in the development of projects at grass-roots level as the only way of avoiding social fragmentation. The greatest danger to be avoided.
Chesa report (A4-0032/97)
We have voted in favour of the report by Mr Raymond Chesa on co-operation with Kirgizistan.
We have done so because we naturally support the establishment of economic and trade relations with all the new States which have grown up following the break-up of the Soviet Union.
But we are critical of the structure of the report which concentrates so greatly on economic liberalisation and privatisation.
In a country where, according to the report, 70 percent of the population live in poverty, greater attention should have been paid to the question of how there can be real development linked with a fair distribution of resources.
Hormone treated meat
Mr President, the European Parliament is rightly in revolt against the preliminary report by the World Trade Organization which, responding to a complaint by the United States and Canada, condemns the European ban on imports of hormone-treated meat.
The unfortunate thing about this business is that the report's argument is based, in particular, on a provision contained in the agreements of the Uruguay Round, approved by this House in 1994.
Article 2 of the agreement on health and plant health measures provides for the possibility of restrictions on international trade in order to protect human health only if those restrictions are based on scientific proof.
Now, in the case of growth hormones although we have very serious indications that they are harmful, we do not have absolute proof.
Of course, logic dictates that the principle of caution should be enough to justify our ban.
Unfortunately, however, Article 2 of the agreement to which I have referred makes no mention of the principle of caution. Nor does it make any reference to the fundamental right of peoples to choose their form of agriculture, food, way of life and society.
During the mad cow crisis, many Honourable Members accused the European Commission of having made the free movement of goods a higher priority than consumer health.
Now here we are again with precisely the same problem, this time with the aggravating circumstance that this disastrous policy has been inscribed on a tablet of stone - an international treaty.
Brussels today is being hounded by the consequences of its past actions.
We therefore call upon the institutions of the European Union not just to refuse to yield in this matter of hormonetreated meat but to lodge an official request for the renegotiation of the GATT.
The case of the hormone-treated meat shows, yet again, just how many defects and injustices that treaty contains.
To challenge them is not a matter of protectionism but the just defence of our peoples' rights.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats consider that the WTO panel which dealt with the complaint of the USA over the EU ban on the import of beef treated with hormones did not look at the right context for this affair.
The panel's approach is that it is a question whether the EU has a consistent policy in the field of concern over hormone residues in beef.
Three issues are mentioned: the EU has no limits for the content of natural hormones in meat, the EU has no maximum values for residual concentrations of hormones for the veterinary treatment of animals and, finally, the EU allows Carbadox to be used as a growth promoter in pig production.
We do not think that matters can be presented in a manner such that, if one thing can be accepted, then the other must also be accepted.
Health measures must of course be based on scientific principles, but complete scientific certainty and unanimity are rare.
If there is scientific uncertainty as to the harmfulness of a substance, the government must be free to give consumers the benefit of the precautionary principle.
We think that the EU's consumer policy in particular should be based on this thinking and that this is where the great difference arises between the WTO and the EU.
International trade must be built on the rights of consumers and concern for public health, not on the interests of the market.
The recent arbitrary decision by the World Trade Organization on the banana market has revealed a growing and perceptible tendency for this Organization to bend to the interests and wishes of the American economy.
This time the WTO decision that the measures banning the importation of meat treated with hormones are not justified goes beyond the bounds of what is acceptable, since it disregards scientific and veterinary opinion, shows contempt for public health, forgets the minimum rules for the health and welfare of animals and tries to undermine the confidence of consumers as a whole in the quality of meat sold in the European Union.
An appeal must be made against that arbitrary WTO decision, but also the current ban on importation from the USA and Canada of meat from animals treated with growth hormones must be firmly upheld by means of stepping up external and internal controls to make that decision effective.
We must also insist on a total ban on hormones at world level.
Continuing that line, public health and animal health must be protected and we must stop or prevent the spread of new diseases such as BSE.
For all the above reasons we shall vote in favour of the political resolution approved today by Parliament.
Novo Belenguer report (A4-0210/97)
One year after the reform of the Structural Funds for the period 1994-1999, the Commission has presented its report on their implementation.
Unfortunately, the verdict still has to be extremely unfavourable.
Unfavourable as regards the slowness of the administrative procedures; unfavourable as regards the under-implementation of the appropriations by the Member States; and unfavourable as regards respect for the principle of additionality.
I congratulate the rapporteur for the Committee on Regional Policy on his work, and on his presentation of all these criticisms.
In my capacity as the elected representative of an Objective 2 canton, I, like all the other local actors (the relevant authorities and the social partners), am confronted with these problems with the setting-up of projects to create jobs.
We have a duty to set up a flexible system, involving the simplification of the decision-making procedures and greater additionality with other Community policies (employment SMEs, the campaign against exclusion).
I think Mr Novo's report will provide a sound basis for discussion in the run-up to the official Commission proposal on the forthcoming reform of the Structural Funds.
The Structural Funds, as you all know, are one of the essential elements of the European Union's economic and social cohesion policy.
It is therefore extremely important that we should be vigilant regarding their implementation, to ensure that they are as effective as they possibly can be.
Mr Novo Belenguer's report has the virtue of singling out the continuing problems with the management and implementation of the Structural Funds, and of proposing lines of action to remedy these defects.
That was why I voted for it.
I would simply like to stress two points made in that report which seem to me very important.
The first is the underimplementation of the Structural Funds.
The problem is a substantial one, even though today's figures are less alarming than they were in 1995, the first year of the programming period.
I also speak as the representative of a French department.
This under-consumption is closely linked to the cumbersome procedures that have to be confronted by those involved in local development.
It seems necessary for the implementation procedures to be simplified, at both Commission and Member State level.
One way of achieving this simplification, undoubtedly, is by reducing the number of Community initiative programmes so as to avoid the piecemeal scattering of funds and provide the local actors with a clearer framework.
Let me also briefly mention the importance of partnership, emphasized by Mr Novo Belenguer in his report.
Great advances have already been achieved, but it is essential to continue along the same lines. By doing so, we shall achieve a better match between local needs and the utilization of the Structural Funds.
Finally, I cannot conclude without expressing my disappointment regarding the recent decisions made at the Amsterdam summit.
Mr Novo Belenguer's report makes clear the need for the European Parliament to be a joint legislator on issues associated with the Structural Funds.
I share that opinion. However, contrary to what was proposed by the Dutch presidency, the codecision procedure has not been adopted for the provisions of Article 130d concerning the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
The assent procedure remains in place.
I regret that very much, and I hope that between now and the signing of the Treaty in October 1997 the European Parliament will be able to indicate its disagreement on this point.
I am happy to support this report today.
I think that people across the European Union will share the rapporteur's wish to see a more effective system for spending European funding in our regions.
Those who bid for EU funding know that money is limited.
They appreciate that they have to come up with high quality projects in order to be considered.
So it is unacceptable that so much money allocated for regional and social projects goes unspent.
It is simply unjust that some projects receive no money, that others only receive a minimum amount, whilst elsewhere in the budget precious funds sit in the bank unused.
I am frankly amazed that Germany, which contributes so much to the EU budget, is so slow to take its fair share out - two-thirds of the Social Fund money allocated to Germany could not be assigned to projects.
I agree with the rapporteur that we should decentralize decision-making on funds, involve local authorities more in the whole process and see the Commission as a kind of regulator to see that funds are spent properly.
If there are countries unwilling or unable to spend their allotted share of EU funds, I can assure them that many deserving groups and individuals in my own constituency would be happy to put those funds to good use.
This waste of scarce resources has to stop.
I hope this report will act as a spur to the Commission and the Council to act quickly on this problem.
That concludes Voting Time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 1.20 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 26 June 1997.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, all honest men and women in the Basque Country and throughout Spain were, barely 48 hours ago, devastated by the brutal assassination of Miguel Angel Blanco, an Ermua town councillor.
In recent days, millions of such men and women have taken to the streets in an impressive display of solidarity, shouting 'End all violence' and declaring 'Yes to freedom, peace and tolerance' .
Consistent with its evolution and the line it has always taken in the past, the European Parliament most emphatically condemns not only this odious attack on fellowship but also the attempt made to impose the will of a minority on the democratically elected majority.
Nor can we tolerate the mere fact of representing one's fellow citizens being grounds for losing one's life.
We in Europe have too often experienced the dark side of dictatorship and intransigence not to be able to recognize it once again in those who murdered one of our fellow citizens last Saturday.
We would like to offer our most sincere condolences to the family of Miguel Angel Blanco and our support at this difficult time.
We must offer our express support, also, to the democratic political forces which have unanimously called for ETA and Herri Batasuna to be ostracized both inside and outside Spain.
I would call upon all of you, as representatives of the citizens of Europe, to join with me in a minute's silence in tribute to this cry of sorrow, but also of hope, which has poured forth spontaneously from the people.
We, ladies and gentlemen, are Miguel Angel, too.
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of 26 June 1997 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, there is a mistake in the verbatim report of the sitting of 25 June.
In the evening, we discussed the allocation of funding under the PHARE programme, and I said that it would be better to increase the number of staff working on this at the Commission to ensure that the funding was allocated more effectively.
I used the term 'bestaffing ' , but this has unfortunately come out in the verbatim report as 'bestraffing ' , which is completely wrong.
It is also entirely wrong that PHARE funding should be used in Slovakia to buy history books containing xenophobic comments, and it is regrettable that the Council will not give me an answer to my questions.
Thank you, Mrs van Bladel, although I would point out that this does not relate to the Minutes of the sitting but to the verbatim report, which includes all speeches in their entirety.
However, we will take note of your point.
We shall now hear from Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
Mr President, could you please find out how it could possibly happen that the representative of the Dutch presidency-in-office of the Council in Zimbabwe, in reply to a question by the local NGO and government representatives, stated the European Parliament's position on CITES.
Just eight days earlier, the European Parliament had adopted a resolution in the topical and urgent debate which runs to about three pages in length.
And yet the presidency's representative said in as many words that the European Parliament had no position on this!
I find that scandalous.
We are not playing at parliaments here, we are a parliament.
It really is about time that the representatives of the Council took note of that fact!
The Council representative cannot say that Parliament has no opinion on something just a week after Parliament has adopted a three-page resolution in its topical and urgent debate.
Thank you, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, I can assure you that we will indeed verify precisely what happened and what the Dutch presidency said and, if necessary, I shall approach it to draw its attention to the matter.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, on 12 May I asked you a question about a call for tenders for the supply of furniture to Parliament.
You told me to put the question in writing, which I did on 14 May.
Nine weeks have now passed and I have still not received an answer.
On 26 June, I asked you at the Brussels part-session when I could expect a reply, and you said it would be before the next Strasbourg part-session. The first day of that has now arrived, and I have still not received a reply.
I do not understand how you can treat firms in the Union as you are doing, and this was what I wanted to ask you about.
What kind of an example of transparency is this on the part of Parliament? I should be grateful for an answer from your office by tomorrow at the latest.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, you are right that I said you would have your reply before the beginning of this week, but there are a great many questions to answer and the services prepare replies as and when they can.
What is more, these replies have to be submitted via the Bureau - I do not draft them personally.
In any case, as the Bureau will be meeting this afternoon and on Thursday of this week, I hope that you will receive your answer this week.
We shall now hear from Mr Gallagher.
Mr President, I wish to refer to a very serious incident which occurred over the week-end in my constituency in County Mayo.
In the villages of Glencullen, Glenamoy and Bangor Erris, many families were left homeless when flash floods swept through their homes, rivers burst their banks, floods caused landslides, left roads impassable and destroyed farm buildings and houses.
Sheep and cattle were lost, crops destroyed, and it was nothing short of a miracle that human lives were not lost.
This will have serious economic and social consequences for that entire region.
I would ask Parliament to support a call to the Commission to make funding available to assist these people who have suffered as a result of this natural disaster.
I realize that it is not the only region in Europe that has suffered - there have been disasters in other areas - and I hope that Parliament will support a call to the Commission to make the necessary funding available to this region of Mayo.
Thank you, Mr Gallagher, this is not, however, an item on the agenda.
The normal channel for such items is the topical and urgent debate.
Mr Titley would like to speak.
Mr President, one week ago today a bus carrying pupils from St James's School, Bolton, which is part of my constituency, was involved in a serious accident in the French Alps.
As a result of that accident, three young people lost their lives.
I know this House will share my sense of sorrow and grief at such a tragic loss of life, and I would be grateful, Mr President, if you could pass on to the school the condolences of all in this Parliament.
This accident has once again highlighted the issue of seat-belts in buses, especially those carrying children.
It is particularly tragic that St James's School has a policy of always using buses fitted with seat-belts.
Unfortunately their bus broke down and they were forced to hire a local French bus which did not have seat-belts.
This tragedy perfectly illustrates the need to have effective European-wide legislation to protect our citizens travelling between Member States.
I would request, therefore, Mr President, that you write to both the President of the Commission and the President-in-Office of the Council to highlight this tragic loss of life and to urge them to consider how EU legislation on seat-belts in buses can be further improved.
Finally, I wish to place on record my gratitude to the Commissioner for transport, Mr Kinnock, for the prompt and sympathetic way in which he has responded to me on this matter.
Mr President, I am sorry, but I cannot accept the answer you have just given me.
You have told me twice before that you would ensure that I received a reply as quickly as possible.
The fact is that the head of your tenders service is perfectly capable of answering my question.
If it is so difficult to find out whether firms in the various Member States have equal opportunities in calls for tenders, I really wonder just how transparent Parliament is.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, you have already reiterated your point on two occasions, but it is not an item on the agenda.
There are channels for asking questions and channels through which you will receive your answer.
I shall accept no more interventions on this point.
Membership of Parliament
Ladies and gentlemen, I have to inform you that Mrs Péry has written to advise me of her resignation as Vice-President with effect from Tuesday 15 July 1997 and as a Member of the European Parliament with effect from Wednesday 16 July 1997.
Pursuant to Article 12 of the Act concerning the election of representatives to the European Parliament, by direct universal suffrage, Parliament establishes this vacancy and will inform the Member State concerned.
On a personal note, although I believe I would be expressing the feelings of the entire House, I think we should show our gratitude to Mrs Péry for her long years of service as Vice-President of this House. She has always been most conscientious and I am sure that her work has met with the approval of all Honourable Members.
The French authorities have informed me that Mr Eric Pinel has been appointed to replace Mr Philippe de Villiers with effect from 17 June 1997.
I would like to welcome our new colleague and refer to the fact that, pursuant to Rule 7, subparagraph 4 of the Rules of Procedure, every Member of the European Parliament occupies his or her seat in the House and on its various bodies with full enjoyment of rights, despite the fact that his or her credentials have not been verified or that there has been no decision regarding any possible opposition.
Order of business
We shall now move on to establish the order of business.
A final draft agenda has been distributed, pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure, by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting on Thursday 10 July 1997, and the following changes have been proposed or incorporated:
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday: (no change).
Mrs Baldi would like to speak.
Mr President, I have a request concerning Wednesday and, more particularly, the Commission statement on the 'Planet Earth Summit' , that is the New York Summit.
This important statement may end up being given too late, at midnight, because we have a very busy agenda, and so I would like to ask whether it could be brought forward to Tuesday or postponed to Thursday.
Otherwise, it may not be properly appreciated, and Europe clearly needs to leave plenty of time for that statement.
Mrs Baldi, I would remind you that proposals for changes may be submitted up to one hour prior to the sitting.
This proposal you have now made was not submitted an hour in advance and therefore, most regrettably, it cannot be taken into consideration.
Mr Blot, you may now speak.
Mr President, I have a question that I should like to put to you concerning the agenda.
Today, as you know, is the 14th of July, a national holiday and a day celebrated by all French citizens.
Does the Chair intend to pass on a simple courtesy message to parliamentarians, to officials working for the political groups, officials of Parliament and everyone else who works there and who is a French national - on behalf of everyone here of course.
I am sure our friends, as indeed we ourselves, would be deeply touched by such a gesture, especially as I believe courtesy is one of those essential parliamentary customs that help to ensure that an institution such as ours always runs smoothly.
Mr President, I shall be grateful for whatever you may be able to do or say in this respect.
Mr President, may I just ask you to confirm here in plenary that voting on the Rothley report will be on Wednesday.
It is printed in the agenda as such but there seems to be a deal of confusion and, given the sensitivity of this issue, it is important that everybody hears from your lips when the vote will be taken.
The vote will be taken on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Thursday:
The Confederal Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left is requesting the inclusion of a Commission statement on the issue of fraudulent exports of beef originating in the United Kingdom.
Mr Novo will now speak in support of the request.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you, know a few days ago Commissioner Emma Bonino, at a press conference, stated that there had been cases of fraudulent exports of beef from the United Kingdom.
I think that there are various reasons why we should discuss this matter in plenary session.
First of all, the information given by the Commissioner was imprecise and incomplete, which only added to media speculation and raised concerns among the public at large.
The European Association for Consumer Protection reported on this.
Secondly, the Commission's information came late in the day. Two months before this press conference the Standing Veterinary Committee informed the Commission of these facts.
Thirdly, as the Commissioner informed the press, albeit without enough detail and without giving all the necessary information, she should now at least inform this Chamber - if possible, with complete information this time.
Fourthly, it was situations of this type that turned the mad cows crisis into such a serious matter.
We must not repeat past mistakes and therefore should discuss this situation at once.
Fifthly, I think that this subject, brought to light by the Commissioner, Bonino, lies outside the competences of the BSE monitoring committee.
There is no link between the two.
For all these reasons I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to agree to our request for a Commission statement on Thursday on the fraudulent export of beef from the United Kingdom.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt will now speak to put the case against the request.
Mr President, forgive me for requesting that we return to Wednesday's agenda but you yourself have stated that the agenda for Wednesday remains unchanged.
Am I to understand that, as is customary, question time to the Council will still be held between 5.30 and 7 p.m.?
That is correct.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clear this matter up.
The Conference of Presidents has cut question time to the Council by thirty minutes in order to incorporate an extra Council statement.
What has happened is that the Spanish version contained an erratum and mentions the period as being from 5.30 to 7 p.m. instead of 6 to 7 p.m., which is, in fact, correct.
Mr President, with all due respect not only to yourself but to the Conference of Presidents, I would like to point out that the usual custom is for the Council to reply to questions from Members for an hour and a half every Wednesday.
In the case in point, according to my information, there are 37 questions tabled by Honourable Members, who are expecting to receive a reply from the Council.
In my view, reducing or postponing question time merely detracts from the importance of this dialogue between Members and Council representatives.
Therefore, with all due respect, I would like to place on record my disagreement with this timetable change and with this reduction in the question-time period.
Thank you, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz.
The agenda is an extremely heavy one this week and the Groups understood that three Council statements - statements which also constitute a form of parliamentary dialogue - had to be made and, therefore, it has been decided exceptionally to introduce this change to the agenda.
Mr Posselt would like to speak.
Mr President, I should like to support what Mr Gutiérrez Díaz has just said.
This has become a very frequent occurrence, simply because question time, which for years took place from 9 pm to 10.30 pm, has been moved to the afternoon.
At some stage, somebody discovered that the Council is too tired in the evenings and so moved question time to the afternoons.
Since then, it has been cut short or rescheduled on about every second or third occasion.
I believe it should be moved back to 9 pm, and then the problem would be solved.
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
I have already explained why the agenda has been changed.
You would have to bring the matter of your disagreement up with your parliamentary Group, given that the Groups have agreed to the change concerned.
Annual report of the European Ombudsman for 1996
The next item is the debate on the annual report from the European Ombudsman for 1996.
Thank you, Mr Söderman.
Annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1996
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0211/97) by Mr Papakyriazis, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1996.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Söderman, ladies and gentlemen, this evening I have the great honour to put before Parliament the report by the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions concerning the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1996.
This is in fact the first report covering the activities of the European Ombudsman for an entire calendar year, and I believe it therefore gives us a chance to take a more mature and detailed look at this new institution.
Because the European Ombudsman is indeed a new institution, but one with a long history in this chamber.
It was in this chamber that the European Ombudsman took its final shape, and in here of course that the first European Ombudsman was elected in 1995.
A Europe close to its citizens would not be tangible, could not become a reality if its mechanisms were unknown, if it was itself hostile and inaccessible to European citizens, for whose benefit indeed the European Union was created.
The Ombudsman is one of those who are called upon to work patiently, persistently and vigorously, and if necessary to fight in order to neutralize circumstances which corrupt or violate the concept of fair administration by the European Bodies in the exercise of their function.
Today, speaking on behalf of the collectively responsible committee of the European Parliament, I am presenting a report which was fortunate enough to be approved unanimously, with no opposing vote and no abstentions.
On behalf of the committee, then, I would like to congratulate the European Ombudsman first on his detailed, extensive and informative report.
But we also congratulate him on its substance, on his work during 1996 and its results. the institution of Ombudsman is a historic European tradition, though the European Union's Ombudsman is a recent body with new potential and new demands.
We also want to congratulate the Ombudsman for the specific results brought by his investigation and settlement of the complaints in a number of particular cases.
The cooperation so far between the European Union bodies involved allows us, I believe, to be optimistic about the future.
There were of course cases when the Ombudsman encountered some resistance, just as there are cases still to be resolved.
We believe the European Parliament is the institutional body that can and must show its solidarity and bring to bear the particular political weight that goes with the exercise of parliamentary control, when the Ombudsman confirms that the European Community's institutional bodies have failed to respond.
That does not in any circumstances mean that the European Parliament is trying to influence or discuss the autonomy and independence of the body known as the European Ombudsman.
It is, however, necessary continually to deepen the cooperation between us, a concept which the European Parliament brings us by definition with its European Ombudsman, working in parallel every day towards a common goal.
The report contains specific proposals in twelve articles of the final resolution.
I will not dwell on these by mentioning specific practical indications for fuller cooperation and coordination of our activities.
I only want to say that there must be an increase in depth, a greater effort to inform citizens, because our citizens in all Europe's countries have a somewhat confused picture of what are the respective responsibilities and powers of the European Parliament and of the European Ombudsman.
I will not revert to the issues mentioned earlier by Mr Söderman.
We agree completely that a pragmatic approach to bad management is the most helpful way.
However, the need to define more accurately the content of what fair administration means, is I believe common ground between us.
We completely agree about the need and perspective for own-initiative investigations.
In conclusion, I say that we are all dealing with a new institution, and this after Maastricht, where the Ombudsman was officially established. Today, after Amsterdam, the European Ombudsman has a new dimension and a new scope.
I believe we stand together in observing and reinforcing his role, always to the benefit of the citizens whom we, the European Parliament, represent.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists I want to congratulate the European Ombudsman, Mr Södermann, on his excellent annual report for 1996.
I commend it to all the Members of Parliament.
I know it is available in all the languages this week.
Those of us who have had a chance to study the report before now know the very thorough way in which it is set out; in it Mr Södermann explains his first full year of work and the cases of alleged maladministration that he has investigated.
It is important that Mr Södermann emphasized in his speech the own-initiative enquiries that he is undertaking, because those own-initiative enquiries emanate from important issues; they do not come out of his head but arise from complaints he has considered and complaints which have drawn to his attention general problems that require his intervention.
As we have heard, complaints concerning environmental assessments on the Newbury Bypass and the M40, both in my own country, the United Kingdom, led the Ombudsman to believe that the Commission was failing in certain ways and that it was more appropriate for a general examination of the procedural position of individual complainants in the Article 169 procedure to be looked at, and also, his owninitiative enquiry arising from complaints to promote public access to documents held by Community institutions.
These are all things we thoroughly welcome.
It is important that the rights of the citizen to complain to the Ombudsman about alleged maladministration should be more widely publicized, as should the right of the citizen and resident to submit petitions to the European Parliament on other matters that concern the sphere of responsibility of the European Communities and the respective responsibilities and duties of the Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions.
In conclusion, I would like to congratulate our rapporteur from the Committee on Petitions, Mr Papakyriazis, who has produced a balanced report that looks very closely at the work of the Ombudsman, Mr Södermann, rightly congratulates him on his work and puts forward support and positive proposals for the future.
Mr President, following after Mr Perry's report on the activity of the Committee on Petitions, which we had at the June part-session, and Mr Papakyriazis' report on the activity of the Ombudsman, I too wish to endorse Mr Newman's invitation to all honourable Members to read Mr Söndermann's excellent report.
Through those two reports, the European Parliament is seeking to tackle in a specific and not just an abstract way the crucial and fundamental issue of European citizenship: citizenship founded on the awareness of all European citizens that they belong to a community in which sovereignty resides not with the modern despots - that is the bureaucrats - but with the law, a legislative process in which citizens themselves participate with their own representatives in the national parliaments and the European Parliament.
Regrettably, the European Parliament does not have full powers to initiate legislation, it has only powers of codecision, though these were extended at the recent Amsterdam summit.
This, however, is a very serious gap, a structural gap for a parliament: the basic responsibility of Parliament should be to legislate, but that is not possible.
The absence of legislative power has a twofold consequence: firstly, since citizens do not feel involved in the legislative process, a serious democratic deficit exists in the relations between citizens and this House.
Secondly, European integration is not being based on a process of induction, moving from fact to law, from the particular to the universal, but on an abstract and deductive process: moving from the law to the directive and individual reality and from the general to the particular. And those who are familiar with the history of our continent know that it is special because of its varied history, culture and language.
That gives rises to crises of rejection, failure to act, the problems national communities experience in assimilating Community directives: in other words, the Union may fail because citizens do not perceive themselves as subjects but as the objects of decisions of the Community Institutions or even, in some respects, the victims of what is decided at a Community level.
On the other hand, the Commission has to monitor the application of the law, it has therefore to act as the guardian of European construction. But the ancients said: Quis custodiet custodes ?
Who will keep an eye on the guardians?
Where there is a failure to comply with the law, it is citizens themselves, Europe's citizens, who have only two practical possibilities open to them under the Maastricht Treaty. There are two main channels: one involves referring the matter to the European Parliament via the Committee on Petitions - the famous right of petition - and the other involves appealing to the European Ombudsman in the event of maladministration by the Community Institutions, and Mr Papakyriazis has described the work of the Ombudsman in his report.
The separate - the one is political and the other administrative - but complementary and collaborative activity of these two bodies is designed both to create a system for the protection of Europe's citizens which does not rely on the courts but is simple, effective and free, and to identify and bridge all the many gaps which prevent general abstract and - frequently - remote legislation from actually being applied, so that we achieve the full European citizenship to which we aspire.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Söderman, I am a Northerner so I usually say what I mean.
I say that this is an excellent report from the Ombudsman and I hope it will set the precedent for future reports.
It concentrates on the main central issues and does not get lost in the details.
I think that this report will assist us in gaining a clear idea of what good administration is; we have a right to longer, more reasonable time limits for dealing with issues, fuller explanations for decisions and greater equality which the Ombudsman himself also mentioned.
In future, we also hope to see greater openness as a result of his own-initiative enquiries.
I also think that this one and a half year period has demonstrated that the Ombudsman is needed as the guardian of the guardians, as he said about Article 169.
We support the contents of the report but there are areas in the commentary from the petitions committee with which we cannot really agree, but which my colleagues in the Group will raise later.
Mr President, in point one of Mr Papakyriazis's report, he congratulates the European Ombudsman on his comprehensive and well-structured annual report for 1996.
Such congratulations are not a mere formality - they are well-merited but I think we should also express our congratulations retrospectively regarding the felicitous idea of creating such an institution within the scope of the European Parliament in the Maastricht agreements and also congratulate ourselves on the high standard of collaboration between the European Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions.
At this juncture, it would be appropriate to point out that such collaboration has been promoted by the personality of not only Mr Söderman but also those of the two chairmen who have headed our Committee on Petitions during this period, Mr Newman and Mr Fontana.
In his intervention, we were told that the way is now being opened for a concept of European citizenship which involves the knowledge that, in the face of maladministration, it is possible to have recourse to the Ombudsman, an Ombudsman who has demonstrated initiative and who should be congratulated on having taken the initiative to monitor this fundamental function of the Commission, by which I mean ensuring compliance with the Treaties.
He should also be congratulated on having responded - on his own initiative but with wide general support - to this concern about the transparency of our institutions.
I therefore feel Mr Söderman is to be commended on his report and on his work and that Mr Papakyriazis is to be commended for his interpretation of it which has enabled us to give the report our unanimous approval in the Committee on Petitions, and I believe that the report will also be unanimously approved in this part-session.
Mr President, Mr Ombudsman, colleagues, it is a pleasure for me, on behalf of the Green Group, to congratulate the Ombudsman on a very successful year's work.
During the year he has also managed to adopt a high profile, as the European Parliament asked him to last year.
I should particularly like to congratulate the Ombudsman on his own initiatives, especially that concerning complaints about Community legislation.
It is extremely important to improve complainants' position, so that they can follow exactly the consideration of their complaints.
They should have the right to receive information about the dialogue between the Member State and the Commission.
They may, after all, also have reason to supplement their complaints on the basis of the information they receive.
On another point, the initiative to increase openness at the institutions is far-reaching and a genuine foundation stone of democracy in the European Union.
We look forward with interest to the Ombudsman's first special report on the subject.
The Amsterdam Treaty already places greater emphasis on openness, but I am sure the Ombudsman has spurred on efforts to increase openness by his very existence.
Mr President, last week the Bureau of the European Parliament approved Parliament's rules on openness.
Unfortunately it did so behind closed doors.
It was not possible even for Members of this house to participate in the drawing up of the rules.
In many respects, regrettably, they are weaker than the Council's rules on openness.
In my opinion this represents a serious failure, because the European Parliament wanted to present itself politically as the champion of openness.
But this time what is at issue is particularly access to administrative documents, and Parliament ought to act in an exemplary manner in this respect too.
Mr President, I too would like to compliment not only the rapporteur on his excellent report, but also - indeed especially - the Ombudsman on his excellent work and for this function - so essential to the European Union - which he has succeeded in vesting with a measure of importance.
Essential in the sense - and this is perhaps not always sufficiently strongly emphasized - that his job is to deprive those national governments that are forever seeking to pass every kind of worst evil off onto the Community institutions, thus transferring problems they were unable to resolve at national level to a European level, of a certain number of excuses.
We know, of course, that it will take more than an Ombudsman to resolve a far more fundamental problem, the problem of democracy in the European Union, a democracy so little respected that if the European Union were to seek accession on the basis of the same criteria as countries applying to join the European Union, it would certainly be turned down.
Obviously we are not expecting the Ombudsman to be involved with matters at that kind of level but, in any event, he can stamp out a number of evasions and make it less easy for the national governments to use the Community Institutions as a scapegoat.
A few words on matters on which my Group would like the Ombudsman to work more energetically: although he has already expanded the use of the Internet, he needs to find ways to encourage it to be used still more widely, to enable the citizens of Europe to send in their complaints via the Internet, to find ways of making people more aware of the existence of the Ombudsman, in particular by using more traditional communication media, such as national and regional newspapers, for example.
Perhaps one could also suggest to him that he should try to see whether, together with the Regional Committee, it might not be possible to find a way of spreading knowledge about the existence of the Internet, its role and its essential function, even in the most backward regions of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Ombudsman is completely independent in the performance of his duties.
That is laid down by Article 138e of the Treaty, which also stipulates that the Ombudsman must submit an annual report to the European Parliament on the outcome of his inquiries.
I should like to make four points about the report by Mr Papakyriazis, which I very much welcome and on which I congratulate him.
The Ombudsman said in his speech just now that there is no strict definition of maladministration, and I think it would be a very good idea if he looked into this more closely before the next annual report, so that a more accurate definition can be established.
Secondly, the concept of own initiative.
If repeated complaints are made, the Ombudsman must respond to them by carrying out own-initiative inquiries which will - and do, of course - involve contacts with the other institutions.
He has congratulated them all on this, but in my view we should not be too naive here.
The Commission will naturally provide whatever information is required, but that does not mean that the problem has been resolved.
Take BSE - mad cow disease - for example.
If that had been the subject of a complaint to the Ombudsman, I wonder what would have happened.
I think that where there is maladministration, there should be more thorough checks, and Parliament should have a role to play here.
Mr Ombudsman, you said in your report that some 65 % of the complaints submitted were outside your remit.
It would be very useful for us and for the general public to know what happened to those 65 %.
Did the people concerned simply receive a letter telling them that their complaint would not be dealt with? I think we should investigate how many of these kinds of complaints could be forwarded to the Committee on Petitions, so that people could be given suggested solutions, rather than just a negative reply.
So in addition to the 32 cases covered in the annual report, we would also be very interested to know what happened to the rest and why they were rejected.
Finally, a subject which various speakers have already mentioned: information for the citizens of Europe. A new right has been established for the people of Europe, but they do not know anything about it, and through no fault of their own.
However, there are information centres.
The European Parliament has information centres in all the capital cities, as does the Commission.
What are they doing to let people know about their fundamental right to submit complaints? I think this is something we need to look into.
Mr President, we have now had our first annual report from the Ombudsman.
His activities have been rather modest, but I welcomed his recent attack on the lack of openness in the Council.
I think the role of the Ombudsman must gradually be developed, and Parliament must allow scope for this.
Our legal and regulatory relationship with him is a difficult one, in that he is independent, while at the same time being required to report to Parliament.
If this instrument of our people's Europe is to be fully effective, we must not be too severe and we must not regard him as a rival.
This report by Mr Papakyriazis is full of unnecessary criticism of the Ombudsman, and seems to expect him to do many things that are not actually his job.
He is not responsible for maintaining the institutional balance, and it is also too much to expect him to detail every single complaint in his report.
The Liberal Group has therefore tabled a number of amendments, and will also try to have a number of paragraphs rejected in order to give the Ombudsman the scope he needs and deserves, not as some poor relation of the Committee on Petitions, but as someone who can investigate people's complaints against the institutions independently.
Finally, I entirely agree with what my colleague Mr Chanterie said.
Following on from what Mr Bertens said, I think it is important for the European Parliament to send out the right political signal with this first report from the Ombudsman.
It is sending out entirely the wrong signal for us to warn him to be careful not to disturb the balance between the institutions, so paragraph 4, which in my view is the worst thing in this entire report, simply has to be dropped.
The Ombudsman's role must be allowed to develop and must be judged by his achievements, and this is why I also think it is madness to try to define what we mean by maladministration, mismanagement and the like.
These things will gradually emerge with experience, so let us not put the cart before the horse.
My first point, therefore, is that we should ensure that Parliament sends out a positive signal that it supports the Ombudsman, not that it is trying to undermine him.
And secondly, we must make it clear that the extension of the Union's responsibilities, including those under the third pillar which concern people's basic rights, should mean an extension of the powers of the Ombudsman as well.
We have tabled amendments to this effect, which I hope will secure a majority in the House.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate the Ombudsman on his first annual report covering a whole year.
The fact that four members of the Liberal Group have asked to speak today demonstrates the importance we attach to the Ombudsman institution.
The Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions together constitute a very important, one might almost say - with all due respect for the European Parliament - the most important democratic instrument, in the entire Union.
It is a direct route whereby ordinary citizens can alter incorrect decisions.
A precondition for that of course is the ability to find out what is happening. That is why I am particularly glad that one of the initiatives the Ombudsman has taken is to investigate how easy it is for the public to gain access to documents.
The Ombudsman had to conclude - I was going to say unfortunately - that the situation is not satisfactory, but that outcome is in fact a fortunate one in the sense that the Ombudsman is now recommending that the institutions establish rules for document access. Without that, as I said, the public cannot find out what is going on.
I think that this first report shows that the Ombudsman institution is on the right track and that good results have been achieved in relation to the resources made available.
I therefore congratulate Jacob Söderman on this report.
Mr President, following on from what was said by my colleague Mr Bertens, I should like to say very clearly at the outset that the Ombudsman is an ally of Parliament in its struggle to dispel the sense of helplessness many Europeans feel towards the European institutions.
That is very important.
Secondly, it is also very important that, apart from the assistance that can be provided to the individual citizen, all European officials and institutions should have the impression that a strong Ombudsman is watching what they do and will single out their errors as general failings.
That is the preventive effect of the Ombudsman.
Thirdly, the effect of this office is linked to its effectiveness among the public.
So I would ask you to use all the possible resources of public relations to ensure that particularly glaring errors are made known throughout Europe.
That last point is a very important one to me.
In my own country - Austria, which has only recently joined the European Union - virtually no one has heard of the Ombudsman.
That has to change, which is why I would ask you to travel round the various countries of the Union, make yourself accessible to the public and do what you can to publicize your own existence.
That is the way to attract more attention to a very important office, and increase its effectiveness in the interests of European democracy.
Mr President, it was as a result of strong Danish advocacy in conjunction with the Maastricht Treaty and an initiative of the European Parliament that the European Ombudsman institution became a reality.
It is thus with great anticipation that we awaited the first whole-year annual report from the Ombudsman, which is covered by the Papakyriazis report.
As has been pointed out on several occasions, it is very important that the public in the EU become more aware of the European Ombudsman's functions and powers.
So far not enough information has been provided on the possibilities open to both individuals and enterprises to complain to the Ombudsman.
It is thus important that the Ombudsman act as a guarantor of the openness of EU institutions to the public.
It is also important that the Ombudsman be given access to documents and information in the various EU institutions when he deals with complaints.
Many of the complaints the Ombudsman has received up to now are concerned with document access.
This is a sign that all is not well with the process of translating the Maastricht Treaty aims on openness into practice.
The European Ombudsman quite clearly represents an improvement of democracy in the EU, and he can contribute to making the EU system more transparent by giving European citizens a chance to complain when they feel badly treated.
It is therefore important to foster an awareness among the EU public of the existence of the Ombudsman and of ways in which they can complain.
It is the only way we can secure the development of an EU that does not work against its citizens, but acts for them and upholds their rights.
I think it is splendid report, and I would like to congratulate the Ombudsman on the good results achieved in his first period of activity.
Mr President, may I begin by congratulating both the Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, for his annual report and Mr Papakyriazis for his report.
I read them both with great interest.
The function of European Ombudsman was introduced in 1995, so 1996 was its first full year of operation.
This makes both the report and this debate of particular importance.
The job of the Ombudsman is to check that our European Institutions are managed correctly and, on behalf of the people of Europe, to put the spotlight on administrative errors.
More than 80 percent of all complaints involve the European Commission.
This is to be expected when you consider that it is the Commission above all which makes decisions which directly affect the people.
Let me emphasise that we set great store by the work carried out by the Ombudsman.
It is of help to us in the Commission in improving our own procedures and routines.
Every administrative function improves in the knowledge that it is under scrutiny.
Ultimately, it is the people's right to know that their institutions manage themselves properly and that money raised through taxes is being used in a correct and sensible manner; these are the core issues here.
I am the person within the Commission who is responsible for our relationship with the Ombudsman, Mr Söderman and I would like to thank him for his co-operation.
We in the Commission are continually striving for a good working relationship with the Ombudsman.
We do what we can to keep to our deadlines and make our answers to him as comprehensive as possible.
So we are, of course, pleased to see that the Ombudsman himself, in his report, has made note of the Commission's positive attitude to his work.
During the last year our work involved finding appropriate ways of working closely together.
Naturally, there were a few initial teething problems during this first year and some considerable discussion took place on the interpretation of the role of the Ombudsman according to the Treaty and the Statutes.
But, generally, I think that we have managed to resolve any problems very well.
Mr President, Mr Papakyriazis' report raises two issues, in the resolution and the motivation, which I would like to comment on: Point 4 in the resolution proposal and points 13-16 in the motivation section raise the issue of investigations into the discretionary powers of the institutes.
By this, I mean particularly the Commission's power to open or conclude cases of infringement under Article 169.
Here the resolution text underlines that, and I quote 'The role of the Ombudsman should be to support the institutional balance which is established in the Treaty and in particular the proper exercise/..../of the European Commission's/.../discretionary powers' .
The resolution goes on to say that it is necessary to identify clearly any anomalies in the operation.
This suggests that this balance would in some way be threatened.
During 1996 there were a number of cases which did involve Article 169 and there was a certain amount of confusion.
We had a thorough discussion about this in the Commission and reached a clear position on it.
I cannot now see any problems in our relationship with the Ombudsman in this respect.
It is my view that both the Commission and the Ombudsman have handled these matters in a balanced and responsible manner.
I also welcome the investigation which the Ombudsman is carrying out, on his own initiative concerning how these matters are handled, particularly with regard to information to and consultation with the complainant.
We intend to provide the Ombudsman with our opinions and proposals before the end of the month.
The Ombudsman has also taken the initiative for another investigation.
This concerns openness and access to documents.
I welcome this initiative as well.
It encourages the institutes to be as open as possible.
The Amsterdam Meeting which recently came to a close also demonstrates that this is an area where progress has been rapid and where we expect great things from all of the Institutes within the European Union.
Finally, Mr President, I also agree with the view in point 8 and 10 of the resolution, that people must be made aware of their right to submit petitions both to the European Parliament and to the European Ombudsman.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Fishing off the coast of Senegal and in the waters of Mauritius
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A4-0220/97) by Mrs Péry, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of an Agreement in the form of an exchange of letters concerning the interim extension of the Protocol to the Agreement between the European Community and the Government of the Republic of Senegal on fishing off the coast of Senegal for the period from 2 October 1996 to 1 November 1996 (COM(96)0611 - C40032/97-96/0287(CNS); -(A4-0224/97) by Mrs Péry, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing, for the period from 1 May 1997 to 30 April 2001, the fishing rights and financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the European Community and the Government of the Republic of Senegal on fishing off the coast of Senegal (COM(97)0324 - C4-0322/97-97/0179(CNS)); -(A4-0229/97) by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation relating to the conclusion of the Protocol defining, for the period 1 December 1996 to 30 November 1999, the fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for by the Agreement between the European Community and the Government of Mauritius on fishing in the waters of Mauritius (COM(97)0043 - C4-0136/97-97/0035(CNS)).
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to be able to present a fisheries agreement that is imbued with a new spirit, in that it takes account of the interests not only of the European Union but also of the indigenous Senegalese fishermen and of fish stocks.
Let me briefly give you the facts.
The previous protocol, concluded for a two-year period, expired on 1 October 1996, even though negotiations on an extension had not been completed.
This protocol was renewed for a period of two months to avoid a break in fishing activities.
Subsequently, negotiations were broken off and our boats were obliged to stop fishing.
I would remind you that a debate was held here during the November 1996 plenary and that our Assembly passed a resolution taking note of the breakdown of these negotiations and setting out the terms for a resumption of the dialogue.
We felt that greater account needed to be taken of the depletion of fish stocks in Senegalese waters, the relational difficulties between industrial and non-industrial fishing, and the growth in indigenous fishing activities.
In December 1996, I myself went to Dakar on behalf of the European Parliament, not to resume negotiations, because we did not have the necessary authority for that, but to resume the political dialogue.
The message must have got through because, in the meantime, a new agreement, which I see as a positive one, has been concluded.
It is for a period of four years instead of two and extends from 1 May 1997 until 30 April 2001, and therefore offers increased stability to both parties.
It is a mixed-type protocol covering three types of fisheries: trawling, pelagic fishing and tuna fishing, which you will recall feeds the local fish processing industries.
Fishing zones have been changed to take account of the local concerns of non-industrial fishermen.
Because of this, EU vessels of more than 150 GRT - accounting for most of our vessels fishing off Senegal - now have to fish beyond the twelve, rather than six, nautical mile zone.
This protocol offers more flexibility for European shipowners, as licences may have a duration of three or six months, though dates have to be strictly adhered to.
However, the fees paid to Senegal by the shipowners increased by 10 % per annum for four years.
Technical inspections of European fishing vessels will be subject to more stringent conditions.
A biological rest period is, for the first time, required by the Senegalese authorities.
It is of a two-month duration and applies, without discrimination, to demersal inshore and deep-water trawling, and applies to all vessels: Senegalese, European and other.
This requirement has been accepted by the European Union.
Mesh sizes have been increased, especially for cephalopods, from 65 mm to 70 mm.
The cost of the agreement is 18 million ECU a year, 48 million for the agreement as a whole.
So it is the overall picture that I see as positive.
I wish to highlight a declaration by the Government of the Republic of Senegal, which is annexed to the protocol and stipulates that: ' a significant percentage of the overall financing compensation will be used in the fisheries sector, in accordance with the aims of sustainable development of fishing, including non-industrial fishing' .
This commitment by the Senegalese authorities was set out in concrete form in a letter from the Minister for Fisheries to Commissioner Bonino confirming a decision by the Senegalese authorities to allocate 50 % of the total compensation to the Treasury and use the remaining 50 % in the fisheries sector on the basis of the aims of sustainable development referred to under the headings of the protocol.
It is precisely in that area that we can talk of a new spirit and of progress in achieving a balance of interests between both parties.
Let me conclude by saying that some of my colleagues, from the Committee on Budgets in particular, would like to see a mid-term review of this agreement.
I consider that such a request is not only acceptable but would also encourage both parties to observe the spirit of this new agreement.
Mr President, a fisheries agreement between the Community and Mauritius was concluded in 1989.
The first protocol to this agreement was in force from 1990 to 1993 and the second protocol between 1993 and 30 November 1996.
Therefore a new protocol for the period December 1996 to November 1999 has been initialled and Parliament has been consulted on it.
Pending Parliament's decision this week, the delivery of its opinion, and the Council's as well as Mauritius' signature, the agreement is applied on a provisional basis, pursuant to an agreement on this in the form of an exchange of letters.
The first payment of financial compensation to Mauritius was made at the end of May 1997.
It is a quite typical access to resources/financial compensation protocol.
The protocol provides opportunities for 43 vessels.
The figure has been more than doubled and, of course, this is to make it possible for Spanish shipowners to benefit from the agreement.
The limit of the capacity is 100 gross registered tonnes.
The financial contribution is, in total, ECU 1, 746, 750, which is an average of ECU 582, 250 per annum.
That is an increase over the previous protocol, which was ECU 1, 455, 000, equalling ECU 485, 000 per annum.
This considerable increase in the fishing opportunities obtained explains the rise in price.
Included in this, fractions of the financial contribution are earmarked for scientific and technical programmes and for promoting skills and knowhow of Mauritian nationals engaged in sea-fishing.
In spring 1996, the Commission reported the following rates of utilization of the fishing opportunities obtained from Mauritius: tuna seiners: 85 %, and vessels fishing by line: 10 %.
The Committee on Fisheries drafted a set of guidelines to be applied to fisheries agreements and protocols.
These guidelines make possible a check-list as a test of each agreement's and each protocol's conformity with the aims of the common fisheries policy, its coherence with relevant aims of the Community's regional policy and development cooperation policy and its conformity with the Community's obligations and undertakings under Treaties, codes of conduct and declarations adopted at international level.
No proper framework for the fisheries agreements exists yet and their evaluation is rendered more difficult by the lack of fixed routines for the collection and communication to Parliament of all relevant information involved.
Recent improvements in the Commission's reporting on utilization of fishing opportunities and on the execution of the budget lines concerned, as well as the speeded-up transmission of new protocols, deserve credit, but these improvements are far from sufficient.
They cannot make up for the continued absence of a comprehensive evaluation system which is needed to improve the basis for the Commission's actions, Parliament's opinions and the Council's decisions.
Local fishing communities do not appear to be adversely affected by the activities of the Community fleet.
These communities are reported not to engage in tuna fisheries.
The Community vessels may not fish within the Mauritian 12-mile zone.
The effects of the protocol on the Mauritian economy can be expected to be positive.
In this context it is notable that Mauritius' GDP per head is in fact higher than that of Portugal and just slightly lower than that of Spain.
The new protocol with Mauritius should be approved.
The Commission must, however, endeavour to improve its collection of relevant information and make this information available to Parliament.
To that end, it should adopt a uniform procedure of the type outlined in the Committee of Fisheries' own-initiative report on the fisheries agreement 1997.
In conclusion, Parliament should not be asked retrospectively to approve any protocol.
If the information was available on time, then the Committee on Fisheries and Parliament would expedite the report and make this available, together with approval, if necessary, prior to any payment being made.
I wish to refer to one amendment which suggests that, because of the importance of tuna-fishing in this area and the fact that a number of states border the Indian Ocean, it should be looked at on a regional basis.
Mr President, the EU buys up fishing rights in third countries because fish stocks are declining in its own waters and there is overcapacity in its fishing fleets.
One is tempted to ask whether the EU is in reality merely exporting overfishing by its boats to the waters of poor countries, at whatever cost.
It is necessary to ensure sustainable fisheries in the EU, but the same applies with even greater urgency to the developing countries, fish being one of the few resources available to the poorest of them.
In Senegal the fishing industry employs some 250 000 people, and it is the non-industrialized inshore fisheries that are most vulnerable.
Senegalese fishermen are worried by EU fishing operations in their waters.
It is their fish, survival and livelihood that are at stake, as was explained by representatives of the Senegalese fishermen during the deliberations on this matter in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
It is a concern that is impossible to ignore; the Senegalese fishermen actually asked the committee to vote against the agreement.
It is therefore difficult to share the unbounded enthusiasm shown by Mrs Pery for the new agreement with Senegal.
I have to concede that improvements have been made to the fishing agreement with Senegal, but not enough, and I can only regret that the opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation was not taken more into account.
The reason why we chose not to reject the agreement with Senegal but instead to demand a mid-term review is that, amongst other things, the agreement has already come into force.
What is particularly disturbing is that, although the fishing zone has been extended in principle from six to twelve nautical miles, a smaller number of vessels still have access to coastal waters to the detriment of the Senegalese fishermen.
Even though EU access to species living close to the shore has been reduced, it is still significant and represents a problem for local fishermen.
The local oceanographic research centre has reported a drop in both stocks and in the average size of species that are fished commercially.
It is therefore unacceptable in terms of both the development of the non-industrialized fishery and the fight against poverty that EU vessels should be allowed at all to catch demersal species close to the shore.
In addition, the protocol for the first time provides access to coastal pelagic species.
Pelagic species, notably sardines, are an important source of cheap protein, for the poor population in particular.
The fishing operations by EU vessels thus give grounds for concern.
The fishing agreement will certainly not help the poor local fishermen in Senegal.
On the contrary.
Although a large part of the financial compensation from the EU will be deployed in the development of local fisheries, this is not much of a consolation if there are no more fish to catch.
I strongly urge you to vote for Amendments Nos 6 and 7 and, especially, 5, which calls for a mid-term review.
That is a condition of my voting for the resolution.
Mr President, I should like to focus on three vital points of the Pery report on the fishery agreement with Senegal.
First of all, to emphasize that for the first time this agreement covers a four-year period, which gives boat owners some stability, as well as fishermen and businessmen linked to the sector, since it allows them all to plan in the medium term.
Secondly, I should like to say that this agreement has a considerable dimension, enabling some 150 trawlers, pelagic fishing boats and tuna boats to fish, involving 48 million ECU of compensation.
Despite the fact that this is a medium-sized agreement, it is of some importance for the European Union fleet.
Thirdly, I should like to mention what I think is the most important point - although fishery agreements are essentially commercial texts, this one is proof that, when well negotiated, they can also be an important instrument for supporting the development of these countries and their fisheries sector in particular.
In this particular case, around half of the Community payments will go into developing the sector, from research to taxation, into non-industrial fisheries, into restructuring the sector as a whole, into the biological protection of resources.
I think that this is interestingly innovative and might be an idea for negotiating future fisheries agreements with a similar dimension and equilibrium.
I should finally like to congratulate Mrs Pery on her excellent work. It is a shame that the European Parliament is losing a colleague of such calibre but I wish her all the best for the future!
Mr President, I always seem to follow Mr Cunha in these debates.
Our opinions are the same on many things but when it comes to international fisheries agreements we often differ just a little.
The Liberal Group has put down two amendments to the Senegal agreement and one on Mauritius.
The Mauritius amendment is similar to ones we have tabled before on international agreements and it is to accuse them of not being commercial agreements at all.
In fact they are highly subsidized agreements which we feel it is very difficult to justify, except by saying that if we do not pay money as taxpayers towards these agreements, we will be undercut by major fishing nations, whether it be Korea, Japan or previously the Russian Federation.
But that is a false argument and a difficult one.
These fishing agreements should be primarily negotiated by the industry itself.
There is no real reason for the state to be involved.
More than that, by subsidizing them we are encouraging a worldwide problem of overproduction and overcapacity in international fisheries which, of its own right and economically necessarily so, causes excess depletion of stocks on a global basis.
How are we to tackle that? One of ways put forward in FAO and WWF discussions has been that this matter should be taken up by the World Trade Organization.
It has the powers and over the next year should try to exclude state subsidies in this fishing area as much as it is trying in other areas of economic activity.
It is no different from that.
That is why we have tabled these amendments.
In addition, my colleague Mr Eisma who is very involved in environmental issues has tabled an amendment asking for a mid-term review of the Senegal agreement to check whether or not it is working correctly in terms of impact on local fisheries and the state of stocks.
We as a group would strongly support that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs pery, our Group has insisted on the need and the advantages for both sides in setting clear rules and principles to enable European Union fishing fleets continuous access to non-Community waters.
As a basic guideline, we have supported the notion that a twelve mile zone has to be reserved exclusively for local coastal and non-industrial fisheries, as they are the economic and social base of many regions in all nearby countries and in the case of Senegal the essential base for people's food requirements and their very survival.
Let us not forget - indeed let us highlight - some of the positive aspects of this agreement, such as accessory fishing or increased financial compensation for developing the local fishing sector.
While emphasizing and recalling the effects of certain aspects of multilateral controls on fishing fleets, we have to say that we have some doubts about the proposal, albeit with limits on quantity, on access by trawlers to Senegalese fishing stocks located within the twelve mile zone.
We hope that this will be duly corrected so that we are in keeping with the whole spirit of the agreement.
I now wish to congratulate Mrs Perry who is sadly leaving us. That means she will not be producing any more European Parliament reports and we are losing a colleague who is known for bringing high quality texts before the European Parliament.
Personally and on behalf of my Group, I wish her all the best for the future.
Mr President, I am sure everyone here is aware that the Greens have fundamental problems with the European Union's approach to fisheries agreements.
We are not opposed to fisheries agreement in principle.
But we strongly object to the way they are negotiated and the basis on which they are negotiated.
When I was doing the Madagascar report, we did a detailed study on the Madagascar fishing agreement and we found it severely wanting.
Since then we have voted against agreements.
The Mauritius agreement is very similar to the one with Madagascar, Mauritius being a neighbouring island.
Senegal presents another problem.
It is a renewal for four years and for the first time it gives access to EU vessels to the pelagic stocks.
These stocks are a major target of the large important artisanal fisheries sector and the fishermen are very worried about the impact this will have on their livelihood and the food supplies of the coastal villages.
That is why we, in conjunction with the EDN Group and Mr Macartney, have proposed an amendment calling for a mid-term review of the agreement.
We would like this mid-term review to consider the impact of EU fishing on both the fish stocks and the artisanal fishing community.
This is a proposal which is strongly supported by the artisanal fishermen in Senegal.
The review should be by an independent body and not by those who have vested interests in the continuation of fishing by the EU.
If the impact is found to be negative, we want a renegotiation of the agreement to eliminate those fishing activities which cause the problems.
I have a very simple question for the Commission and I should like to have a reply tonight.
I should like to know: if Parliament approves our amendment for an independent mid-term review, would the Commission accept such a review?
Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating Mrs Pery on her report.
She and I had the good fortune of going to Senegal and talking to the fishermen.
Perhaps that is one reason why the agreement with Senegal is an improvement on some of the previous agreements.
One of the defects in the system is not only that we often get presented with a fait accompli but that we do not get a chance to go to the country concerned.
It is certainly not provided for by the committee's budget. This puts the rapporteurs at a great disadvantage.
Also, in the case of Senegal, we had people appear before the committee.
That has helped to redress the balance somewhat.
We still have problems about the timing of agreements in general, but again, I see some progress in the Senegal case as opposed to some of the others.
There are still debates about costs and benefits.
I will come back to that in a minute and would perhaps want a comment from the Commissioner.
Other grounds for satisfaction are that we have moved to a longer distance from the shore before the EU fleets can come into operation.
The big worry in all these countries is that their indigenous, traditional, in-shore fleet will never have the chance to develop or will find their catches have been scooped up by the big, powerful European fleets.
On the question of the cost of these agreements, I take issue with my colleague Mr Teverson from the Committee on Fisheries. I would see this agreement as being an opportunity for European fishing fleets to benefit.
The criticism that comes from many parts of the Union is: why is it that only certain countries take advantage of these agreements?
Why is it Spain, France, Portugal and Greece in particular? The question I would like to ask the Commissioner is: is there any problem about fishermen from other countries getting involved?
What is the procedure?
This is a question that is now being asked.
I would be glad to get a reply to that question.
Generally speaking, international fisheries agreements need to satisfy a twofold objective.
On the one hand, as far as the European Union is concerned, they need to allow its fleets to pursue their fishing activities on the high seas and thereby safeguard jobs in fishing and related industries.
On the other hand, as far as the partner States are concerned, international fisheries agreements need to contribute to the sustainable development of their economies.
These two objectives are by no means mutually exclusive and should be pursued at one and the same time.
Overall, this has been the case with the agreement that is being proposed to us.
As regards Senegal, it is worth recalling that this country has 700 km of coastline and that 500 000 people are engaged either directly or indirectly in the fisheries sector, which alone accounts for 11 % of the country's primary GDP and 2.5 % of its total GDP.
Senegal was the first country to sign a fisheries agreement with the European Union.
We are now about to enter what might be called a third generation agreement.
Our Group notes with satisfaction that this agreement places greater emphasis on traditional fishing which, in line with commitments made by the Senegalese government, should benefit until 2001 from a significant share of the financial compensation paid by the European Union.
The substantial outlay proposed in the area of training, and more specifically in training for fishermen's wives, who handle the commercial management of fishing-related businesses, seems to us to be entirely appropriate.
Non-industrial fishing is to be developed from top to bottom, in its entirety, everywhere.
With this in mind, our Group deplores the compartmentalization which separates structural fisheries policy from development policy.
What I am trying to say is: would it not be better, rather than regularly breaking up large parts of our European fishing fleet - a spectacle that those of us who have witnessed it find it difficult to justify - to sell these boats to the non-industrial fishermen of the European Union's partner States, at special prices naturally? Such a course of action would enable the non-industrial fishing fleets of our partner States to modernize, especially from the point of view of safety at sea and certain fishing techniques.
This proposal seems to us fully to meet the needs of many ACP countries, including of course Senegal.
This is something we would be in favour of, as indeed we would be in favour of the demand for a mid-term review of the agreement, one of the merits of which is that it extends over a longer period than its forerunners.
Mr President, we have to make up our minds; or, more precisely, we are being asked to give an opinion on two agreements: the agreement with Senegal and the agreement with Mauritius.
I hope you will forgive me if I concentrate my attention on the island of Mauritius, once called the Île-de-France - indeed it was French from 1715 to 1810.
And while on the subject, let me say on this important date in the French calendar, the 14th of July, that the fact that these agreements are being concluded at all is because both Senegal and Mauritius are independent States.
We have witnessed in these agreements the part played by the principle of self-determination, the right of people to be masters of their own destiny, the principle of nationhood. These principles have, as I say, played their part, and it is France that gave them birth on 14 July 1789.
In other words, today is not simply a national holiday but a day of celebration whose dimension is universal.
I am truly sorry that Mr Fauré is not with us today, champion of human rights that he is.
It is not just the Bill of Rights of 1689 or the 10 amendments of 1787 to Jefferson's Constitution, but no less so the 1989 Declaration that has given them a universal dimension.
We working people, we have to work even on a universal holiday!
This agreement, then, is but one in a whole series of agreements: there has been the unfortunate agreement with Morocco, which in order to help Spanish fishermen from Andalusia and elsewhere and some Portuguese fishermen had us paying out very large sums just at a time - as my colleague Mr Souchet was telling us earlier - when our fishermen, European fishermen that is, were being forced into smashing up their own boats!
There was in any case a need for these rules to be harmonized, as the Committee on Fisheries made a point of telling us in April in an own-initiative report, because the same old problems are coming back to haunt us and the same solutions are needed!
Coming back to the specific case of Mauritius, the agreement here constitutes a kind of toll allowing entry into an economic zone over which Mauritius has exercised exclusive rights since the Montego Bay Convention on the Law of the Sea, in which, incidentally, neither Mauritius nor Senegal figured very much, as it concerned principally the countries of Latin America and East Africa.
So, we have in effect a toll of the order of 20 ECU per tonne, which I believe can rise to 50 ECU if the quantities are exceeded, plus of course a financial compensation package of 1.7 million ECU. That actually poses a problem as regards the cost/benefit analysis, the problem of a fair balance between the two contracting parties: given that the per-capita GNP in Mauritius is higher than that of the Portuguese and almost equal to that of the Spaniards, just how far should one go in continuing to give presents to people who are at least as rich as those giving the presents?
The most interesting aspect, however, is that of cooperation with developing countries, which Michel Rocard deals with in his report. I do of course see that that is one way of preventing immigration by recruiting crews locally, by landing fish locally, or by setting up joint-venture businesses.
I am particularly glad that in this agreement with Mauritius 110 000 ECU are being set aside for promoting skills and know-how among local fishermen.
That being the case, we cannot but subscribe to this kind of agreement which, over 3 or 4 years, the period covered by the agreements with both Senegal and Mauritius, should open up interesting new prospects.
On this point I go along with Mr Souchet.
These agreements belong to the third generation, or the third wave, of such agreements and they have our wholehearted support.
Mr President, this is the first fisheries debate since Amsterdam.
Parliament hoped that Amsterdam would bring progress in the joint fisheries policy towards the debureaucratization of legislative processes and another attempt at democratization, by increasing the responsibility of Parliament.
This is a perfectly normal political right of a democratic assembly in a democratic society.
However, our contributions to Amsterdam were ignored.
We are now approaching the year 2002, and it is incomprehensible that Parliament is not to make any more extensive contributions to the codecision process.
The entire internal market is involved in the codecision process.
And that makes it all the more puzzling that fisheries are to be excluded, now that the period of temporary exemptions has come to an end.
We must compensate for the lack of attention paid to us by the European Council by ensuring that our work in this House is even more tightly organized and strictly supervised, and by practising greater openness.
The challenge begins here.
Parliament must grant the necessary powers to the Committee on Fisheries.
We should therefore also make the fullest possible use of the powers granted to us in the codecision process.
We must not allow the issues of veterinary law to be removed from the jurisdiction of the Committee on Fisheries, together with similar issues such as the establishment of specific laboratories for fisheries products, and so on.
Because I venture to assert that this specialized committee can rightly claim that it has the greater knowledge!
We are also dealing today with the international fisheries agreements with Senegal and Mauritius, as we have heard.
I congratulate the rapporteurs on the quality of their informative reports.
Here again, though, I must say this: in the future we are going to demand, and take action to get, greater punctuality from the Commission and the Council, greater transparency and, especially, greater powers.
The Committee welcomes dialogue and accepts constructive contributions.
But I can say with complete confidence that it will not allow itself to be used as a tool and will not get involved in any differences of opinion, including differences with other parliamentary committees, which may be harmful to those who depend on fishing for their living.
And, in conclusion, I too would like to wish Mrs Pery every success in her future position.
Mr President, I wish to endorse all the praiseworthy remarks that have been made about Nicole Pery and to add one more: her experience was very valuable for the Committee on Fisheries because she is also on the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and the two aspects are linked in a report, of which I was the rapporteur, adopted in this Parliament in May.
We have to look very carefully at the links between development and international fisheries agreements.
I am very pleased to know that the Commission really seems to be starting to do this, probably under the influence of Mrs Pery, with the Senegal agreement.
This is clearly a better agreement than agreements we have had in the past.
The three principles enunciated in that report on international fisheries agreements last May seem to have been partially heeded, but not completely.
Sustainability: yes, we have taken notice of it, but we are allowing trawlers in.
I hope it works and that we have a mid-term review.
Cooperation: clearly there was much more cooperation and, clearly, the artisanal fishermen were consulted in this case - a process which ought to continue and perhaps be made stronger in the future.
Coherence: I like the idea that a large proportion of the money in the Senegal agreement will be spent on development.
I hope the monitoring of the spending of that money will be very stringent and that we will see results over the four years.
In conclusion, I welcome the improvements in the agreements.
I endorse Mrs Langenhagen's remarks about Parliament in relation to these agreements.
That was in the report I referred to before.
We ought to stress that this Parliament wants more say in what happens in these agreements.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, naturally I would like to express my thanks for the important work done by the two rapporteurs - both Mrs Péry and Mr Gallagher - however, I would like to thank Mrs Péry in particular for her work - not only for this report, but also for her past work on our Committee on Fisheries.
We will greatly miss her reliable and dependable work, her knowledge and her dedication to the fishing sector since her appointment to our committee.
I wish you the very best of luck, Mrs Péry, in your new post.
She will be greatly missed by all of us, but we will always have at our disposal her magnificent work, her magnificent reports, which have sometimes addressed complex issues, as you will be aware.
However, I would also now like to thank the Commission and draw attention to the new phase of collaboration we have initiated between the Commission and this House, which is marked by the agreement with Senegal.
The text of the agreement with Senegal was sent to our committee the day after it had been signed, which enabled Parliament to give its opinion in this part-session before the first financial compensation payment was made.
The agreement with Mauritius has also benefited from this arrangement between the Commission and Parliament. I also have to draw attention to the fact that, obviously, in recent months, the forwarding of information has been speeded up in such a manner that I clearly have to praise the efforts of the Commissioner.
These are two good agreements and we should congratulate ourselves on having obtained greater fishing opportunities for the Community fleet - I refer to the agreement with Mauritius - and for having been able to extend the agreement with Senegal from two to four years, which will allow greater stability.
Therefore I do not understand why there has been a request for revisions mid-way through, when even Senegal has not requested this.
I say again, the extension from two to four years will bring greater stability for the fleet fishing there.
However, allow me to continue - the most significant aspect of this debate, to my mind, is the increase in collaboration between institutions and, Madam Commissioner, I, as Chair of the Committee on Fisheries, wish publicly to acknowledge that this is the mode of action which will enable us to continue with such work. My hope is that the situation will even improve in the future.
Forgive me, but I have heard certain things here about which I would like to ask a number of specific questions, so that the Commissioner might reply to them. I am referring to questions as to whether the agreements are to be used only by Spain and Portugal.
Given that we are speaking about Senegal, I would like the Commissioner firstly to tell me which Member-State fleets are going to make use of this agreement.
Secondly, I would also like her to clarify the issue regarding pelagic species, as this is a matter which has greatly increased the cost of this agreement. I would also like clarification regarding which Member States requested access to pelagic species.
Mr President, in my opinion the new agreements and renewed agreements with ACP countries require new attitudes.
Not least, there must be maximum cohesion between trade and development policy.
Also, in my opinion, there must be overwhelming concern and action to preserve fishing stocks so that we have a sustainable fishing policy.
Article 130u of Title XVII obliges the EU to ensure coherence between development policies pursued and the fishing agreements.
However, the agreement arrived at with Senegal obviously undermines to some extent the development objective of poverty alleviation, because the agreement gives the EU fleet and others, I presume, access to demersal species and to pelagic species, which are the principal source of protein not only for Senegalese people but also for those peoples of Africa who live in landlocked countries.
Furthermore, there is, it seems to me, within the agreement some considerable disregard for the expanding needs of the artisanal fishing fleet and warnings about the decline in fishing stocks.
Senegal provides us with an example of the dangers, of what can happen when we take a narrow view of fishing agreements.
The EU, in my opinion, as part of EU agreements must assist ACP countries in terms of scientific monitoring, facilities for training and providing inspectors, and with the boats themselves to allow them to inspect the catches taken by ACP and EU countries, and, of course, the objective must be a sustainable fishing policy.
I wish to commend to you and to the House the Pery report and to call upon the House to give it its wholehearted support and consent.
And, as the co-chairperson of the ACP working party, I extend to Mrs Pery my hopes for every success in the future not only on behalf of this House, but also on behalf of a whole host of members from the ACP countries.
We will miss you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to look at another aspect of these agreements.
Both of them, for the first time, are agreements on which we are consulted under the code of conduct.
The code of conduct was approved in December, together with the budget.
In that joint declaration, signed by the Council, Parliament and the Commission, the Commission undertakes to provide this House with better, and above all prompter, information on the international fisheries agreements.
Furthermore, all three institutions undertake to expedite the legislative process as far as possible so as to prevent the Commission making - yet again - payments to third states without Parliament, as the budgetary authority, having been able to give its opinion.
The unfortunate facts, however, are as follows: although this agreement exists, we were not consulted on the agreement with Senegal until three and a half months after it had been initialled, while in the case of Mauritius we were not consulted until four and a half months later.
In other words, the first payment date for Mauritius has already been overrun by six weeks, while theoretically we have just a fortnight in which to give our opinion on the agreement with Senegal before the first instalment falls due in July.
This was certainly not what we pictured when the code of conduct was signed!
And I would say this to the Council: if we are able to discuss Senegal today, we owe that entirely to the fact that the Commission has at least passed us the text of the agreement and, eventually, the finance sheet as well, though not until a month ago.
I really do think that, here again, the Commission should work faster.
But my main criticism is directed at the Council.
Incidentally, the Commission's advance information on the renegotiation of the agreement with Senegal was totally inadequate, especially as far as the financial aspects were concerned.
The Committee on Budgets has now accepted three amendments to the agreement, which I would ask you to support.
As always, they relate to classification.
The funds for international fisheries agreements are, of course, non-compulsory expenditure.
As far as information is concerned, two amendments are designed to ensure that the failings that have been mentioned do not recur in future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall not reiterate the main points of the fisheries agreement, which your rapporteur, Mrs Pery, has in any case explained to you quite admirably.
I shall confine myself instead to making one or two observations of a more general nature on the various questions that have been raised.
Firstly, to remove any risk of ambiguity, unless I did not quite understand the translation, the agreement does in fact involve a total of 48 million ECU, or in other words 12 million ECU per annum.
Having said that, I should like to seize this opportunity to lay to rest, once and for all, some of the prejudices and commonplaces I have heard here today concerning the fisheries agreements and which, quite frankly, are beginning to drive me to despair, because I do not know what more I can do to separate fact from myth.
First of all, Mr Gallagher, I am sorry, but this agreement has nothing whatever to do with the Spanish fleet.
It is an agreement that concerns mainly the French.
It has to do with a request for access on the part of the northern States, in particular Germany and Holland.
So, before people say anything they should check their facts.
Secondly, I wish to raise the subject of poverty.
I am indeed sorry not to see Mr Morris here, because I keep being asked the same questions over and over again.
I try to answer them, but then we are back where we started from.
Mr Crampton, we had a debate here on non-industrial fishing back in May, which stirred the same feelings of frustration, what with Members asking me questions and then departing before I have had a chance to reply to them.
I know everyone is terribly busy, but that is the reason for my having to repeat myself.
Non-industrial fishing in Senegal is all about a fish called the djaboï and the agreement in question allows for catches totalling 25 000 tonnes.
Let me remind you that Senegalese non-industrial fishermen, without any control or resource-management measures, are landing 400 000 tonnes of this fish.
Let us stop pretending therefore that the additional 25 000 tonnes of djaboï are going to destroy this particular resource or reduce to starvation the Senegalese non-industrial fishermen who themselves, without any controls or management, are catching 400 000 tonnes of them.
Personally, I wish the local fishermen would observe the principles of control and good management that are being imposed on European vessels.
Moving on to another matter, I do deplore, and I have myself written a letter on the subject, the very long and heavily slanted RTBF report, which I found insulting if for no other reason than that it ignored the truth.
In my experience it is normal, when doing a report in which an institution stands accused, for the institution in question to have the right of reply.
The representative of the non-industrial fishermen does of course have every right to go to Brussels to state his case, but I do feel that the other negotiating partner - in this instance the Commission - should have been allowed to give its own version.
I come back again to the question of poverty.
In view of my track record so far, I find it disgusting that I should be accused of exploiting the developing countries.
Let us remind ourselves of what is in the agreement.
It provides for 33 % of crews to be Senegalese.
The agreement states that at least 10 000 tonnes of tuna must be landed to supply local fish processing industries, which otherwise would have no work to do as, apparently, the non-industrial fishing boats do not fish for tuna. Instead they fish for djaboï, which does not need processing.
The agreement also provides for a scientific observer to be on board.
This agreement provides for 50 % of the total compensation to be used in the fisheries sector by the Senegalese government.
But, Mrs Jöns, we are negotiating agreements with sovereign States.
Well, we can negotiate and discuss with them what is best for their country's development, but obviously we are not going to tell them what to do, about aquaculture or anything else.
Talks are in progress and, as I say, these negotiations are with sovereign States.
My second point is that it is up to every State to carry out its own evaluation of fish stocks in its own waters.
We can do that together if the State wants it, but ultimately it is for them to decide.
We cannot go demanding that they leave the evaluation of stocks to us.
If they do not want that because the waters in question are theirs, they are within their rights to deny us access to them.
Thirdly, if the fleets, the Member State or the Partner State want it, it is possible with FIFG to sell boats from our fleet to non-industrial fishermen at absolutely special prices.
All these things are possible; all it needs is for the fleets and shipbuilders to want it too.
Mrs McKenna, as regards the mid-term review, an annual assessment of the agreement, of the kind we have already undertaken to perform is one thing, a mid-term review is quite another.
This was never part of our negotiating mandate and it is not in the agreement that we have made with the Senegalese authorities who, moreover, never even required it.
So when you ask me to review the agreement in two years time in order, if necessary, to renegotiate it, my answer is no, precisely because the agreement has already been negotiated and because it is an important guarantee of stability for the two partners.
Frankly I find it quite astonishing that anyone should insist on a mid-term review, which does not form part of the agreement, when no-one else, not even the Senegalese, has asked for it.
And another thing. I have heard it said here that the Senegalese authorities were opposed to this agreement.
I am absolutely amazed, because in all my contacts with the Senegalese authorities, from Prime Minister to Fisheries Minister and on downwards through all the other ministries - and Mrs Pery knows this very well - I found the exact opposite to be the case.
As for those who have expressed concerns, they all seemed to have non-industrial fishing on their minds. Let me repeat: our catch will be 25 000 tonnes of djaboï, while non-industrial fishing accounts for 400 000 tonnes.
If this sector were to apply certain measures aimed at the proper management of non-industrial fishing, that would help.
We shall only be landing 25 000 tonnes of djaboï as a by-catch, so as not to discard it.
It is djaboï that feeds the Senegalese - the only fish they eat - and it is fished by fishermen in their dugout canoes, at the rate of 400 000 tonnes, with no management of stocks.
I am telling you this to make things very clear.
I believe I have been able to give some kind of an answer to everyone, having to explain myself once more.
I am not proposing to go over the Mauritius agreement again, because everything that there was to say has been said.
I am pleased to see the beginnings of improved cooperation with Parliament.
There are always bound to be difficult moments in relations with other institutions, and even sometimes between different committees of Parliament, but I believe that the positive progress we have made together until now hopefully means that we can move on and look back on the positive, rather than the negative, side of what we have done.
The fact that this is a new agreement, which has been concluded in accordance with Article 130 of the Treaty, is proof that even between Commission departments, between DG XIV and DG VIII, close collaboration and close cooperation has been established in our pursuit of an objective that is common to us all, namely to conclude, jointly, evenly-balanced agreements, rather than agreements that are to the detriment of either of the parties.
Mrs Bonino misunderstood something I said.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation received a visit from a delegation representing the fishermen themselves, and it was they who asked us to vote against the trade agreement, because they are concerned at the fact that access has been given to their fishery within the twelve-mile zone.
That is also why we are asking for a mid-term review, if it should turn out that their concern has a basis in reality.
Mr President, it is very important that the Commissioner should confirm to this House the implication that the information in my report, which I spent many weeks preparing, was not factual.
I challenge the Commissioner in her criticism of me when she said that it had nothing to do with Spain and when she suggested that I should not have referred to it.
I would suggest to her that she should acquaint herself with the reports on both Mauritius and Senegal.
I want to put the record straight in this House.
I was not being contentious.
I was merely stating a fact.
I was not giving my own personal views but those of the Committee on Fisheries.
The report states that the increase in the number of tuna seiners has made it possible for Spanish vessels to benefit.
So I challenge the Commissioner to put the record straight here and now and not to besmirch my integrity in this House.
Mr President, that ties in with Mr Gallagher's point.
I asked the Commissioner a direct question.
I thank her for her reply but she omitted to mention this rather critical point about how people get access to these agreements.
Is there a procedure that she could outline?
I did not want to create a discussion about integrity.
There has been a misunderstanding.
I was just referring to the Senegal agreement.
I know very well that the Mauritius agreement is about tuna etc.
I did not want to call into question the integrity of anyone.
When I took the floor I said that the particular sentence referred to the Senegal agreement and underlines that the Senegal agreement is mostly for the French and the opening to the pelagic was at the request of Germany, the Netherlands and the French.
Regarding your request, Mr Macartney, these are open agreements.
New Member States can come in.
The procedure is as follows: normally Member States are informed of the new possibilities and then they inform their own sector.
So it is the Member States, or the COREPER, or the ambassadors, who inform their own governments which are supposed to inform their own sector.
This is the normal procedure.
Of course we could also provide information through the European Parliamentarians.
But the procedure operates in this way.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Green Paper on commercial communications
The next item is the report (A4-0219/97) by Mrs Larive, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission Green Paper on commercial communications in the internal market (COM(96)0192 - C4-0365/96) Draftsmen() Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection Mr Arroni, on behalf of the Committee on Culture; Youth, Education and the Media Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, on behalf of the Committee eon Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights (' Hughes' procedure)
The removal of unnecessary barriers to cross-border advertising, direct marketing, sponsorship and much commercial communication is a national issue, and as such is subject only to national legislation.
Europe's wealth lies in its cultural diversity, and this is why we are right not to concern ourselves with discrepancies between national rules and regulations - provided, Mr Blokland, that they are proportionate and that cross-border commercial communication is not obstructed or discriminated against.
Under the Hughes procedure, our resolution has taken account of the opinions from the Legal Affairs Committee, the Committee on Culture and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Together we have sought to rectify a serious shortcoming in the Green Paper in that greater protection is needed for consumers, and a quarter of the text of the resolution by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is now devoted to this.
A vital element here is our proposal regarding the constitution of the complaints committee, which should not just be a group of officials arranging things behind closed doors, as the Commission proposes, but instead a tripartite committee in which representatives of government, industry and consumer organizations deal with complaints together on an equal footing.
The resolution forms a triptych.
First, the indents give details of all the European legislation on consumer protection and the protection of minors with which commercial communication must comply, including the Internet, because what is illegal off-line is just as illegal on-line.
Secondly, the recitals set out the basic principles of the internal market.
Finally, the main body of the text contains specific proposals to reinforce and supplement the Green Paper, a document which we nevertheless regard as a sound basis for action.
In addition to the tripartite committee, we also want the proposed mechanism for assessing proportionality to be safeguarded.
We want there to be a data bank, a European contact point and a SLIM analysis of the sector, and as the guardian of the Treaties, the Commission should apply Article 169 much more firmly and consistently.
Our resolution is systematic and well-balanced, trying to secure the internal market on the one hand, while making allowance for cultural differences on the other.
Industry too should be made to accept its own responsibilities and ensure that there are effective national self-regulatory codes in all the Member States, leading eventually to a single European code if possible.
It must also do more to improve cross-border complaints procedures for consumers.
You can therefore imagine my astonishment when a whole pile of amendments appeared last Thursday which to my mind completely undermine the internal market.
I was also very surprised to see that the Greens, the Europe of Nations Group and the Socialists all submitted amendments with precisely the same wording, and I wonder whether it is just a coincidence that it is also the exact wording proposed by the BEUC, the European Consumers Organization, in its letter of 8 July.
We reject any such attempt by the multinationals to influence us, particularly remembering how this has angered the House before.
I reject any such attempt to influence us by any interest groups whatsoever.
Finally, there is the controversy over country of origin and country of destination, which comes up several times in the amendments.
Article 59 of the Treaty says that restrictions on freedom to provide services within the Community are to be progressively abolished.
If a service complies with the rules of the country of origin and is still subject to other rules in the country of destination, then that constitutes a restriction to freedom of movement.
Article 59 aims to remove barriers so that controls by the country of origin become the norm.
Does this mean that controls by the country of destination are always contrary to the Treaty? No, because a restriction can be consistent with the Treaty if it is proportionate, which means that the particular measure must be proportionate with the intended objective and the objective cannot be achieved using less restrictive measures.
Under these circumstances, controls by the country of destination are permitted, and harmonization is the only way to achieve freedom of movement.
If people refuse to accept this, then there is no internal market for that particular service.
However, if the measure is found to be disproportionate, because it is designed to protect only the local industry, say, then it is incompatible with the Treaty and the country-of-origin controls must apply.
If necessary, Article 169 must be invoked.
The Court of Justice confirmed the country-of-origin principle just last week in the Agostino case.
The European Parliament did the same with the 'Television without frontiers' directive.
It is the axis around which the internal market revolves.
And let us not forget that the country-of-origin principle gives consumers greater access to efficient complaints procedures, because it is only then that the legal system of the country of establishment of media and advertisers accused of infringements can be directly applied.
In conclusion, we hope to achieve a balanced approach which takes account both of the completion of the internal market and also of cultural differences.
Mr President, deputizing for my colleague, Mr Añoveros, and on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, I would firstly like to point out the timeliness of this Green Paper and the necessity, indeed, urgency, for the Commission to address the matter of the intervention of Community law in this particular area.
Generally speaking, the Committee on Legal Affairs supports the criteria on which the Green Paper is based and, also in general terms, subscribes to the line taken by the report by the Committee on Economic Affairs.
There is one aspect which Mrs Larive emphasized but which I would also like to stress, albeit a repetition.
Mrs Larive rightly states that the control measures - i.e. restrictive measures - adopted by the host country are, in principle, contrary to free movement.
They are therefore contrary to the principle of mutual trust established by the very nature of the internal market and are consequently contrary to the Treaty.
These measures, therefore, are only exceptionally in accordance with the Treaty.
Since the landmark 1986 Legia ruling, case law has actually been consistent on this subject and establishes two requirements: firstly, proportionality, as already stated, and, secondly, that it should not be possible to achieve this same end via other measures which restrict free movement to a lesser extent - i.e. which are more in keeping with the internal market. We have to stress both aspects.
Again, as Mrs Larive has quite rightly stated, we should not be told that such measures are justified on grounds of consumer protection, since, let us be clear on this, Mr President, if we truly believe in consumer protection, if we truly wish to build a genuinely integrated Europe, if a specific measure in a Member State is justified on the grounds of consumer protection, what is logical? Leaving it to the discretion of a Member State?
No!
The national regulations of the other fourteen Member States should be harmonized so that such consumer protection extends right across the internal market. We cannot have exemptions relating to individual Member States.
We should therefore understand that such control measures - established by the host country - are exceptional measures and are temporary until such time as harmonization is achieved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me start with an aspect that struck me from the outset, the first time I set eyes on this Commission Green Paper.
The title 'Commercial communications' seems to me misleading, because in fact no one reading or hearing that phrase would correctly guess what it actually means - and certainly not the consumer.
I would propose, then, that for comparable Green Papers in future the terminology chosen might be more to the point.
Because what the term 'commercial communication' really refers to, in principle, is that the European Commission has tackled the issue of advertising law in the European single market.
Quite specifically, it deals with this question: in what circumstances, where, in what country and for what product am I allowed to indulge in advertising - sales promotion, in other words.
This is actually an area which is dealt with very differently by different Member States.
In Germany, for example, and admittedly in many other States too - very thoroughly listed by the Commission in the Green Paper - there are a whole range of highly exotic regulations.
In German law, for example, we have the Discount Act and the Bonus Regulations, and it is certainly fair to say that nothing of the kind exists anywhere else.
One effect of this is that there are constant obstacles to the free movement of services where advertising is concerned.
So the consumer, if he receives different advertising messages, cannot always judge accurately how those messages are to be interpreted, because there are widely differing legal regulations, some of which are allowed and some of which are not.
I therefore especially support the efforts the Commission is making, at last, to bring a holistic approach to this subject, and perhaps to use the Green Paper as a basis for developing additional proposals on the harmonization of advertising law.
The patchwork mechanism adopted in the past, picking out individual aspects such as comparative advertising, is an unsatisfactory one.
I think it is far better, as this Green Paper considers, to adopt a holistic approach to the subject, to approach the issue of advertising law as a whole.
I wish the Commission every success in the further course of its work.
It can rely upon the support of Parliament in this matter - that much is apparent from the opinions of the Committee on Economic Affairs and the other committees.
Mr President, opinions can of course differ regarding the degree of balance achieved by Mrs Larive's motion for a resolution.
It all depends how you look at it.
However, I would not go so far as to imply that, if we undertake something here from the standpoint of consumer protection, it can be the subject of negative lobbying somewhere or other.
You approach things from a particular point of awareness, just as I do - I, too, was once a representative of consumer protection.
There are of course various things that could be said about terminology. The term 'commercial communication' encompasses all forms of advertising, direct marketing, sponsorship, public relations and sales promotion, and it embraces the use of commercial communication services by the consumer goods industry and service sectors of all kinds.
That is exactly why commercial communication has become such an exceptionally important social factor today.
In principle, I am receptive to all liberalization movements that allow new forms of economic activity but - the crucial point - consumer protection cannot be disregarded at this particular time.
Indeed, the author of the report herself refers to the need to involve the consumer at every stage of the process.
That is a demand that I naturally support in principle, particularly because consumer protection, in the liberalistic system of the defence of interests based on individual responsibility, is not just a question of fair competition and equality of opportunity in the single market, as industry demands every time something is done to boost liberalization.
In reality, of course, consumer protection is something more.
The amendments tabled by my group relate to a question of principle. They relate to the involvement of and respect for the consumer, and especially to the right of our children not to be subjected to total brainwashing by advertisers.
That is the issue of consumer protection!
Even within our system of values, this is a question of democratic minimum standards, despite, and indeed because of, the great economic potential involved.
The citizen of the European Union must not have the feeling that, within the liberalized European Union, he has been delivered up helplessly into the hands of various lobbies and their interests, because otherwise he might eventually transfer that very feeling onto the European Union, which is something we do not want.
Consumer protection is a question of confidence and the creation of confidence.
It is clear to me, on the one hand, that every enterprise and every industry wants to see its own house rules transferred to the marketplace.
But we must not lose sight of the fact that the consumer, the purchaser, the user has a right to have the standards or provisions of the law applied in his home country.
The amendments tabled by the Socialist Group are designed to ensure better communication, better access to the law and a closer watch on commercial communication for the consumer, and to build his confidence.
The issue is the protection of the weak, not some new form of protectionism.
So it is important, when we come to vote, that due account is also taken of this entitlement.
Mr President, I would point out to Mr Ettl that that is what protectionists through the ages have always said.
In today's society, commercial communication is practically what makes or breaks a product, and the considerable differences which exist in national legislation need to be eliminated if we wish to make the largest market with the greatest spending power in the world - our own European internal market - accessible to firms.
That is why this Green Paper, which finally spells things out clearly, has been welcomed with such enthusiasm.
The plethora of existing national rules and regulations urgently need reviewing in the light of European legislation and the broader aims of the Treaty.
Besides cultural differences, differences in national legislation are the greatest obstacles to the smooth operation of the internal market.
Cultural differences may well also represent a major obstacle, but if so, it is one which we hope will always remain.
If consumers cannot identify with a product because the way in which it is marketed does not take account of their specific cultural background, the product is bound to fail on that market.
In my view, it is the consumer who determines whether a manufacturer has taken sufficient account of his cultural background, and we do not need special legislation for that.
As Christian Democrats, we feel that the new spirit shown in the Amsterdam Treaty concerning the European Union's respect for religious beliefs and the principle of non-discrimination should also be fully reflected in future directives in this field, and we will support any amendments to that effect.
My group feels that regulations in this area simply have to be based on the country-of-origin principle, as this is the only way to eliminate or prevent the barriers to trade created by discrepancies in national legislation.
As soon as you combine the country of origin and the country of destination, the situation becomes unworkable, in that businesses have to seek authorization from all 15 Member States.
Having said that, I would point out that although the internal market is important, the interests of consumers and particularly children also need to be protected against excessively aggressive advertising.
We are therefore 100 % in favour of the rapporteur's proposal for a tripartite committee to deal with complaints to the Commission.
Parliament cannot be involved in this committee: we shall be calling the Commission to account, but our job is purely to monitor.
To sum up, my group supports all the basic principles set out by the rapporteur in her excellent report: the countryof-origin principle, the proportionality principle, and the tripartite committee without the EP but with representatives of industry, and chaired by the Commission.
We shall therefore be voting against any amendments which undermine these principles.
Mr President, if by definition 'commercial communication' includes every form used to promote products, services and company, group or organization images, among distributors and/or consumers, it could be said that it covers everything, from serious and scientific information to the deceptive advertising and brain washing mentioned by Mr Ettl.
The Larive report does deal with the defence of consumer rights and that is welcome.
But we should like to use the very short time we have been given to emphasize a more relevant point: we must regulate commercial communications so that they cannot be used perversely so that, by using means only available to large groups, they distort or eliminate competition, by smashing opponents unable to resort to the same means.
The question is to know whether, when we hear so much about competitiveness, fair competition and protecting the weakest, there are or can be real objectives that can be put into practice, in the face of the polarization of means, even or especially those of commercial communications.
Mr President, cross-border commercial communication is a difficult phenomenon, and the rapporteur has mentioned the obstacles which service providers in this sector face in trying to cover the whole of the internal market.
Every Member State has its own rules and regulations on admissibility for commercial communication.
Are these national laws the culprits?
Research would indicate otherwise: it is actually the differences in culture and market structure that lie behind the legislative diversity which are to blame, but this is something which Mrs Larive's report does not take up adequately.
Moreover, the rigorous application of the country-of-origin principle tends to mean a particularly low level of protection for consumers and children.
The right to freedom of expression is something else to be considered.
This freedom involves duties and responsibilities, as specified in Article 10(2) of the European Convention on Human Rights: it has to be protected, but it must also not cause harm to others.
In my Amendments Nos 19 and 26, I have given a far from exhaustive list of the limits which commercial communication service providers should observe.
I sincerely hope that the rapporteur will support these proposals.
Mr President, the report which we are discussing forms a constructive and well balanced contribution to the evaluation of the Green Paper.
Mrs Larive has raised the important role played by advertisements, marketing, sponsorship, sales support and public relations in the internal market in a manner which deserves our praise.
This applies both to the internal market and to activities in markets outside Europe.
The rapid development of electronic trading makes commercial communication all the more important.
Effective commercial communication enables the private purchaser to make purchases abroad more easily but, of course, this should only be on condition that illegal marketing is actively discouraged.
This is also underlined in the report.
T he report comes with a number of addenda to the Commission's proposal.
This reflects the valuable work carried out by the rapporteur and the four committees involved.
We welcome the proposals put forward by Parliament and will, of course, take heed of them in the communication that the Commission has planned for the Autumn.
The regulations governing this area differ in the various Member States.
At this stage, complete harmonisation is scarcely an appropriate method of resolving all the different problems which can arise.
This is made clear in the Green Paper as well.
Instead, we prefer a gradual approach, where solutions are sought case by case.
This will take place as part of a structured dialogue with the interested parties and with the Member Countries.
This is dependent, in its turn, on close contact between all the parties involved and a common view of the methods to be used in tackling individual problems.
I am pleased that Mrs Larive's report agrees with this approach.
The report supports and reinforces the key proposal in the Green Paper concerning how to assess proportionality in national actions which appear to be obstacles to the internal market.
This also applies to the proposal on targeted community harmonisation which we will be studying more closely.
The Commission also welcomes Parliament's support and their proposals for the proposed committee on commercial communication, which will consist of a member from each Member Country with the Commission taking the presidency.
We will be studying closely those proposals relating not only to giving interested parties access to this forum but also allowing them to participate in it.
Parliament's proposal that the committee should operate using open procedures and with clear deadlines is both logical and constructive.
Let me conclude by assuring the House that the Commission will study carefully what has been approved by the four committees involved.
We will not hesitate to table a proposal on targeted harmonisation where this proves to be necessary.
Thank you very much, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.05 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
Yesterday's Minutes have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I just wish to mention that my name does not appear in the attendance register in yesterday's Minutes.
This is probably my fault because I cannot remember whether I signed or not, but I was indeed present.
Mr President, this is just to inform the House that I was here yesterday but was not recorded in the Minutes.
I would be grateful if that could be changed.
Very well.
The necessary corrections will be made.
Mr President, yesterday we placed on Wednesday's agenda the vote without debate on an interinstitutional agreement on the financing of the common foreign and security policy. Our aim in doing this was to apply Rule 143 of the Rules of Procedure, which requires the Committee on Budgets to have first adopted the report that it is putting before this House.
Well, the Committee on Budgets met yesterday evening and was unable, for lack of time, to examine the text in question.
And even had it been able to do so, if Rule 104 of the Rules of Procedure is applied this can only lead to it being put down for the next part-session.
I should like to add that what we are dealing with here is an interinstitutional agreement, one that is going to apply to all the institutions, that has not been the subject of any debate in any national parliament, that has not been discussed at all by the Foreign Affairs Committee, and which we are being asked to adopt here without debate!
Moreover, at a time when people are quite rightly accusing the European Union of being insufficiently democratic, this procedure shows a flagrant disregard for the citizens of the European Union as a whole.
I am therefore asking you not to approve the part of the Minutes that deals with adopting this item and including it in the agenda; otherwise we shall be forced to resort to one of the other options available to us under Rule 143 to ensure that the opportunity to hold this debate is not spirited away from us.
And in any case, we need to wait for the Amsterdam Treaty to be adopted by the various Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr FabreAubrespry's intervention comes as no surprise, since he informed the Committee on Budgets yesterday evening that he would be making it.
The text in question is an interinstitutional agreement concluded with the Council and the Commission in connection with the second pillar of the Maastricht Treaty and concerning the funding of foreign-policy measures.
The document in its present wording has been on the table since the conclusion of the negotiations in Amsterdam.
The fact that 4 July is the date given on the cover page is simply due to the document having become a report.
The document, however, has been on the table since Amsterdam; in other words, the countdown to the amendment deadline has been running since 30 June.
We in the Committee on Budgets have arranged another extraordinary meeting of our own for this afternoon to discuss the details of this report, because a motion has been tabled for a decision to be taken without debate tomorrow on the basis of Rule 143.
I assume, Mr President, that this fulfils the formal requirements and would therefore ask you to reject Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's request.
Thank you very much, Mr Samland.
Since the Committee on Budgets is meeting this afternoon or tonight, I think that this debate can be kept on tomorrow's agenda, as scheduled.
Are there any other comments?
Mr President, the Minutes do not record my presence yesterday.
I would like that corrected.
Thank you very much, Mrs Ahern.
That has been noted.
(The Minutes were approved)
Decision on urgency
I call on Mr Colino Salamanca, the representative of the Committee on Agriculture, to speak on the basis of the item.
Mr President, yesterday the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development decided to approve the urgent nature of the Commission's proposal and to submit it to the part-session for consideration as part of Friday's agenda, without a report.
I would, however, request that Mr Funck, whom our committee has appointed to present a report, be allowed to give the House an informal oral report, under paragraph 5 of Rule 97 of the Rules of Procedure.
(The request was approved)
Legal protection of biotechnological inventions
The next item is the report (A4-0222/97) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions (COM(95)0661 - C4-0063/96-95/0350(COD)).
Mr President, a journalist from the Wall Street Journal recently asked me if I was a patent attorney.
I told her I was not and that I had no particular interest in patents.
But people with genetic diseases becoming curable does interest me, and people finding work interests me too!
And that Europe should not fall any further behind in biotechnology and genetic engineering, that interests me!
(Applause) By adopting this Directive we are not opening any floodgates.
We are meeting our obligations under the international convention, in which all Member States of the European Union and the Union itself have pledged themselves to grant patent protection for products and processes in all areas of technology.
This patent legislation has been created in the United States and it has been created in Japan.
It is only a matter of the European Union upgrading its patent law to this international standard.
That is all.
The European Patent Office does issue patents in this area.
These patents, however, can be challenged by national courts, and there is therefore a real danger of legal fragmentation in Europe, a fragmentation that would be poison for investment in Europe.
That is why we need this Directive.
By the way, I said that this patent protection already exists in the United States and in Japan.
I do not believe that the Americans or Japanese are morally corrupt.
How absurdly presumptuous of us to think we are morally superior to the others!
It will no doubt be asserted in the course of this debate that this Directive will obstruct research.
That, of course, is untrue.
Patent protection is a prerequisite of research.
How can any research be conducted at all if inventions are not made public? We know from experience that effective patent protection and research go hand in hand.
Or has research in the United States perhaps hit rock-bottom, or has research in Japan hit rock-bottom? Nothing could be further from the truth!
If we do not create this patent protection, research will, of course, continue.
But it will continue behind close doors.
We shall not have the opportunity to follow and discuss the development of biotechnology and genetic engineering.
We shall also, incidentally, destroy the small university research establishments and the small and medium-sized businesses that live from selling their patents to pharmaceutical companies.
Those who want to do that should vote against the Directive!
But they should not subscribe to any more resolutions against unemployment.
(Applause) It is asserted that discoveries would be patented under the Directive.
That, of course, is untrue.
Nobody in the world who knows anything of patent law would make that claim, with the exception of Greenpeace's legal experts.
It is asserted that treatments will be patented in the future.
That, of course, is untrue.
Diagnostic and therapeutic processes will be no more eligible for patenting than they have been in the past.
That is expressly stated in the recitals of this Directive. It is asserted that parts of the human body would be patented.
That, of course, is untrue. We have made that crystal-clear in the text of this Directive.
Parts of the human body will not be patented. What will be patented are products made by human hand and nothing else!
We have made that crystal-clear in Article 3.
Paragraph 1 describes what discoveries are, and paragraph 2 describes what inventions are.
There are some forms of dyslexia for which I cannot be held responsible!
(Laughter) The European Parliament has been under considerable pressure over the last few days, not only here in the House.
The Protestant Church in Germany, my own church, allowed Greenpeace to stage a children's crusade against this Directive at its General Assembly.
(Heckling) I assume that, for the youngsters who took part in it, this was the first time they had heard the word 'patent' .
Enough of this nonsense!
(Applause) Let us have done with this nonsense and come back to the subject of patent law.
This law will not be able to solve the ethical questions that arise in connection with biotechnology and genetic engineering.
That is beyond the power of patent law; it is a constant task of society and its legislatures.
It cannot be done by patent law alone.
Patent law seeks only to prohibit the unauthorized use of someone else's invention for commercial purposes.
That is all.
It is, if you like, part of the law governing competition.
And for that reason we need this Directive to strengthen competition within the European Union.
We need it urgently.
That is why I ask for your support.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a serious matter.
This is the first time in the history of humanity that patents are to be issued in respect of living material.
And when Mr Rothley says it is a matter of protecting products made by human hand, we cannot fail to observe that what is to be made patentable today has indeed been produced by human hand.
Generations of human hands, Mr Rothley, have contributed to a colossal cultivation effort to create what we live on today, the basis of our subsistence.
And along come interested parties now and look at this creation, at the way in which the farming community has been able, as a matter of course, to develop and sow seed, to breed and rear animals and to feed us with the fruits of its labour, and these interested parties decide they would like a slice of the cake.
They certainly do provide a genetic boost to the process of livestock development and land cultivation, but the purpose of this genetic boost, which they subsequently patent, is to give them rights over the entire stock of seed and animals.
It is a question, Mr Rothley, of coining in on something that has always been a matter of course.
That is what the Agriculture Committee wanted to prevent at all costs.
We have emphasized the so-called farmer's privilege.
This is nothing more than the right of farmers to raise their livestock and to sow their seed.
We were unable to have this view adopted in its entirety, but we did manage to enshrine something of this right.
And, Mr Rothley, the Committee on Agriculture also called for removal from the draft Directive of the clause on reversal of the burden of proof.
I ask the House to accept the proposal of the Agriculture Committee on this point too, so that those who wish to claim rights under a patent must prove that they are indeed the legitimate holders of the patent.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy voted by a large majority in favour of the proposal for a directive that we are today debating, asking the Legal Affairs Committee to refine it further.
I cannot but be in complete agreement with what Mr Rothley has said and want only to highlight a couple of points. There is substantial demand for the products of biotechnology: demand from citizens, particularly those whose circumstances are rather special - and this mainly involves the pharmaceuticals sector; and demand from sectors, such as agriculture, in which products of this kind could bring substantial benefits from many points of view.
What we therefore need to determine is whether Europe, whether the European Union, wants merely to be a consumer and, therefore, importer of the results of research into biotechnology, via the products in which biotechnology has been used, or whether it wants also to be a producer and, consequently, a potential exporter.
The protection of biotechnological inventions, which we also need to enable the single market to function better, is vital in order to provide a favourable framework for the development of European industry in the sector, with obvious advantages: for employment, as Mr Rothley has already said and I can only emphasize further; for the development of research in a rapid growth sector; to generate value added, income, well-being; to - and I venture to stress this - make it possible to retain greater control of the sector, particularly given the ethical and other concerns that many people have. But we shall be in no position whatsoever to express those concerns if we continue to be dependent on, and therefore marginal to, the industrial research and development work being done elsewhere in the world and primarily - as we have already been reminded - in the United States and Japan by European industries also.
Mr President, about 40 % of today's world economy is based on genetic resources from developing countries.
These so-called developing countries also contain 86 % of the world's plants.
Every fourth medicinal drug is manufactured from the genetic resources of tropical plants.
Eighty-three per cent of known genetic diversity and in situ knowledge is held in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation writes that, according to estimates by the International Ethnobotanical Society, the indigenous peoples in those three parts of the world possess 99 % of the entire body of knowledge on useful biological diversity.
In other words, this means that the bulk of the resources we are now discussing, resources for biotechnological inventions and for patents awarded or potentially awardable in respect of such inventions, come from the Third World.
These biological resources are too often used without the consent, or indeed against the wishes, of the indigenous peoples or local communities in whose country they are found; we might even say they are being stolen.
The use of these resources for biotechnological inventions depends on traditional wisdom, such as knowledge of their medicinal properties or cultivation methods.
This means that the multinationals make huge profits from the biodiversity of developing countries and from the traditional knowledge of their inhabitants without a decision-making process, without consent, without legal protection and participatory rights for the populations concerned and that they even patent human or biological material.
The best-known examples are perhaps the Guayami Indians in Panama and the Hagahai in Papua-New Guinea or on the Solomon Islands.
That is why it is especially important to strengthen intellectual and cultural property rights in the countries of the Third World and particularly among indigenous peoples.
When Mr Rothley says jobs are at stake, that is nothing but polemics.
Multinational corporations are acquiring the property rights of the world's population.
So what we actually need is a convention on traditional rights.
That is why our committee has rejected this report.
We have agreed with Mr Rothley on the inclusion of the principles enshrined in Article 8j of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
The committee will have a free vote.
If the recital based on this Article is accepted, the position will have changed.
As someone involved in Third World policy, I can say from personal experience that no jobs are created by these activities; they only serve to swell the coffers of the multinationals.
The current system under the European Patent Convention is better.
The harmonization envisaged in the new Directive will bring us no nearer to a common convention for the people of this world.
Mr President, the opinion of the Environment Committee seeks to restrain Mr Rothley's report.
When ordinary people hear that we are debating patents on genes, the immediate reaction is everywhere the same: you cannot take out a patent on that kind of thing, regardless of the fact that a substance can be patented if it is possible to characterize it by its structure.
This instinctive repugnance is something we should take seriously. We should at least make the patentability of genes as restrictive as possible, so that the patent only covers the industrial application for which it has been sought.
We should also do that for the sake of the patients.
Patients suffering from rare diseases or cancer, for which knowledge on a great variety of genes is needed, are gravely concerned that it may not otherwise be possible to pay for the research.
However, it should not be possible to patent methods of diagnosis.
Official circles in Denmark have been particularly concerned to ensure that it is not possible to patent procedures for the modification of the genetic identity of human body cells.
This would, for example, make it impossible to take out patents on cosmetic interventions in human beings.
I therefore urge you to vote for my amendment to paragraph 2a of Article 9 - not paragraph 2b, as has been incorrectly indicated.
The amendment excludes the possibility of such a patent.
Finally measures should be taken to ensure that, in accordance with the Convention on Biological Diversity, agreement has been reached on the equitable sharing of economic benefits before a patent is issued in those cases in which biological material is obtained from a developing country.
In my Amendment No 65 I am asking, for reasons I do not have time to explain here because unfortunately so very little speaking time has been allowed, that the sentence on publication be dropped.
Mr President, after eight years we can at last be hopeful of a successful outcome for this important text - Mr Rothley has reminded us of all the issues involved - and for this we have to thank the combined efforts of our rapporteur, to whose work I pay sincere tribute, and the successive chairmen of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, currently Mr De Clercq, and Mr Casini before him.
I have just three observations, since I have three minutes.
The first thing I want to say is that the draft directive that has been put before us answers the main objections that had led to the first draft being rejected, as you will recall, in March 1995: the ban on germ-line therapy, the protection of animal rights, the setting up of an ethics committee and, most importantly, the clear commitment to a ban on patenting the human body; and on this point I believe that the wording our committee has come up with, which eliminates the ambiguities in the Commission's initial draft, could not be clearer.
My second observation concerns the slogan 'No patents on life' , a slogan with which we have been bombarded at enormous expenditure of resources, which I cannot help wondering about, in a flood of letters, cards and press releases, of which we have all been a target. As if the directive's opponents had a monopoly on protecting life and its supporters were messengers of death!
Let me say quite emphatically that, for me, protecting life means not standing in the way of progress in medical research.
Protecting life means giving hope to children suffering from cystic fibrosis.
Protecting life means opening up new prospects in the fight against malaria.
Protecting life, when all is said and done, means stamping out hunger in the world by increasing the available food resources.
Protecting life means finding new types of crops that are more economical with our soils and require fewer fertilizers and pesticides.
The so-called cautious approach that some people advocate is a luxury that only well-off westerners can afford!
My third and final observation.
I should like to say a word on exceptions to patentability, which has to do with methods of intervention on embryos.
Let us be clear on this point: there was never any question of patenting the embryo, any more than the human body or its parts.
Certainly not.
However, this measure does cause problems, let it be said, between the PPE and ourselves.
It is a measure that springs from an initiative of one of our PPE colleagues and which, because it involves public order and moral standards, does affect, let's face it, not just patentability, but also research.
As we know, research on embryos is banned in Germany, and I respect this decision, I respect the conviction behind it, but this very same research is authorized, and strictly controlled by legislative provisions and codes of practice, in the United Kingdom, Spain, Belgium and France.
It is necessary not only to make progress - it has been done in fields such as in vitro fertilization - but also to open up new prospects in the fight against nervous disorders, or against Alzheimer's disease.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will understand that my group cannot accept the ban imposed by this paragraph.
We respect your convictions, which derive from your history, your culture and your religion.
I am asking you to respect ours too. I have to tell you that we shall be voting against this paragraph.
But we shall of course be voting in favour of the Rothley report.
Mr President, I believe that the anguish that has surrounded this directive is justified. It is justified because what this directive is doing is statutorily regulating the activity of man who having first observed and laid hands on innermost matter, the atom, is now observing and laying hands on the most intimate aspects of living matter.
There are problems, and they are by no means trivial.
The task is made all the more difficult because this is a field that is difficult to understand, in both legal and biological terms.
Patent law is a difficult area, this is a new field and biology is hard to explain to those unfamiliar with the subject.
Finally, there is a great deal of pressure from European pharmaceutical industries that want to be able to compete with the United States and Japan: they hold out the prospect of more jobs, but they need to make huge investments because, these days, inventions are not the product of a stroke of genius but the result of an effort over a long period by many people.
Moreover, cultural circles and environmentalists are bring pressure of another kind to bear: they fear that the environment will be polluted and that huge resources will be seized by the few to the detriment of the many. How are we to take a view on this?
I happen to have today read an interview with New York's former mayor, Mario Cuomo, which, I think, provides the right steer and which I should like you to hear. Former mayor Cuomo said that, in the field of biotechnology, the sole focus should be life which is the most precious thing that man has to protect.
If we place life, which is the most sacred thing we have, at the centre of our political, philosophical and scientific considerations, then progress will be painless.
I am therefore in favour of establishing the directive in full because I am thinking of life, of the life of the many sick people who are waiting for it and have written to us.
Some may perhaps have had some relationship with the industry's lobby which wants the directive at any cost; but it is a fact that there are sick people; it is a fact that pharmaceuticals have already been discovered using the new techniques of genetic manipulation and that other, more important ones may be found.
But for the very same reason that I am favour of the basic fabric of the directive, I also believe that guidelines and categorical limits have to be established.
Those limits are the ones established by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights in the amendment to Article 9.
However much I wish to defend the directive, I believe that its long passage, that it not over today, would be prejudiced if all of the limits provided for in Article 9 were to be changed and abolished.
I have to say that Mr Rothley is right here when he says that what we want to protect through patenting are the inventions and not genes or genetic sequences.
But in that case we need to take to follow through principle that it is the invention that is to be protected and not the gene, so that the invention is linked to a specific statement of industrial authorization.
We have already said this in the Legal Affairs Committee and are repeating it here, and we hope that this is the direction the final text will take.
Moving in that same direction, I ask you to consider, specifically because of the importance of the directive, the need to retain as it stands the committee's amendment to Article 9.
Mr Rothley, it is not an old ideology that is at issue; there is no reference to abortion or generally experimenting with embryos.
It says only that human embryos should not be used for economic gain and that in an article which, rightly, provides that no suffering should be caused to animals.
That is all it says!
It seems to me that the European Parliament, which sees the value of human beings as the basis for seeking investment for the benefit of man, should have the courage to engage in a simple process of reconciliation by accepting this limit along with the others.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the text of Mr Rothley's report has been long and difficult in the making.
In 1995, as you will all recall, the House rejected the text produced by the Conciliation Committee, taking the view that it did not make plain enough the parameters and limits required in an area as sensitive as the patentability of biotechnological inventions.
Thanks to the detailed and new work done by Mr Rothley - whom I congratulate on behalf of my group - we now have a substantially clearer text that is able to meet the demands both of those who wish to guarantee European firms a favourable legal framework that does not perpetuate the disadvantage they suffer compared with their US and Japanese competitors and of those who are rightly determined not to abandon the protection of human beings and other living beings.
The new proposal for a directive, based on Article 100a of the Treaty, contains a number of important points of reference. In particular, it makes a distinction between a discovery and an invention; it refers to the principles of existing legislation regarding the conditions of patentability; it rules out patentability for germinal genetic therapies applied to human beings; it establishes that the human body and parts thereof in their natural state cannot be deemed to be patentable inventions; it is designed - and this is a requirement that was stipulated and needs to be borne in mind - to protect the interests of farmers in the livestock sector.
The amendments adopted by the Legal Affairs Committee are designed to rule out patentability of, among other things, plant varieties and animal species, biological procedures for the production of plants and animals, parts of the human body at its various stages of development; the simple discovery of the sequences contained in genes; the procedures for human cloning or measures to modify the germinal line of human beings; methods which make use of human embryos; and inventions the use and publication of which are incompatible with ordre public and morality.
The latter, in particular, is an element that will certainly be the source of a great deal of work for the courts and lawyers because we know just how different the concept of ordre public and morality can be, depending on the time and the place.
Nonetheless, this is part of a general solution arrived at within the Legal Affairs Committee and one which, we believe, should be endorsed in all its aspects because, if it is not, it could again undermine the credibility of this House.
We believe that at a time when all eyes in Europe - and not just in Europe - are focusing on the work this House is doing, the worst thing would be were we to prove yet again to be incapable of taking a decision.
Mr President, as others have said before me, this directive is particularly important because it harmonizes patent law in the Member States in the area of biotechnological inventions, in order to clear up the legal uncertainties and to avoid the risk of it all falling apart.
I should remind you, as does the excellent rapporteur Mr Rothley, whom I do congratulate, the purpose of patents.
It is to reward inventors for their creative activity, to provide an incentive to invention and to promote technological innovation as an essential factor of economic growth.
It is through the protection granted to patents that the heavy, even massive, investments - not to mention the return on them - in research and the industrial exploitation of the results can be secured.
The market in biotechnological products is a fast expanding one. It is estimated that this market will be worth 80 billion ecus in the year 2000, a quarter of which will be spent on new drugs.
At present, unfortunately, Europe is nowhere: in biotechnology, in immunology, we are being beaten on our own continent by American firms.
The first question then is this: is the European pharmaceuticals industry going to be allowed to catch up and make us less dependent on the United States for new drugs as well as agrochemicals?
Are we somehow going to develop the means to take charge of our own health? That is the aim of the directive.
But, of course, since it involves research and patents on living tissues, the ethical aspects naturally absorbed our attention for many long hours.
As has already been said, the directive states plainly that the human body is not patentable, that human cloning is banned and as is altering the human gene line.
All possible precautions to prevent possible abuses have been taken and, consequently, the objections concerning the risks of gene manipulation are unfounded, especially as the directive provides for the setting up of a European ethics committee.
I would say in conclusion, therefore, that for us the directive as it stands, with the amendments voted through in committee, constitutes the middle ground between the need to pursue scientific progress in biotechnology and the desire to protect human dignity and integrity.
To those who once again seek to impede - as they tried to do some time ago by calling for a moratorium on research - all advancement of human knowledge, ban all research and inventions to do with biological material, to them I would simply say that they would be bearing a very heavy responsibility if they were to crush all hope of a cure in those for whom gene technology offers the only chance of escaping a life of disability, even of escaping death itself.
In all human progress it is always possible to discern a dark side, where inventions are put to a perverted use.
It is for us, for our democratic countries and institutions, to avoid this risk, not through a Luddite approach to scientific discovery, but by ensuring, by means of proper controls, that the ever deeper understanding of the human body is devoted exclusively to combatting physical and mental afflictions.
That is what the directive, as amended, sets out to do, which is why the ELDR Group will of course be voting for Mr Rothley's report.
Mr President, presumably, the aim of such a directive and, consequently, of the Rothley report is to attempt to protect the public interest by extending patentability to biological material.
However, such a claim must be considered cautiously since patents on genes and cells will give private concerns virtually unlimited control over the basic elements of life. Not only is no in-depth thought given to this risk but also the report avoids the issue, maintaining instead that ethical matters are unconnected with patent law.
Moral issues are, in fact, not discussed - a debatable point if one takes account of the fact that all law, including patent law, is concerned with responsibility, duty and obligation.
Everything relating to the basic elements of life gives rise to moral considerations. Yet, however questionable this exclusion of moral issues may be, it appears more questionable still to claim that - from the standpoint of consistency - the public interest is being defended when, in reality, legal instruments are being created which enable the industry to claim that it has invented natural processes and the circumstances are such that industry might gain a total monopoly of control.
What guarantees do we have that such control will be exercised to the benefit of the public interest? None, except the good will of whoever is exercising that control.
It is financial considerations - not public ones - which will shape the decision as to how and when an invention is to be exploited and who is to benefit from it, given that control over whether a patented invention is exploited or not is granted to the proprietor of the patent who will naturally make decisions regarding it on the basis of his or her own interests.
This is a worrying scenario and, moreover, in Mr Rothley's report, emphasis is given to the need to eliminate legal uncertainties and to ensure that the law on patents is interpreted uniformly in the Member States of the Union.
However, in practice, this uncertainty continues, given that this directive is in conflict with the principles of the Convention on the granting of European patents, expanding the scope of patents beyond currently established limits.
I believe that reflection is in order.
The granting of patents should not depend on exclusively technical considerations - applications should be closely examined in terms of their wider social implications.
The Commission's new proposal has not attempted to examine such wider social implications or explore alternative forms of intellectual property rights which reward genuine innovation without guaranteeing the monopolistic powers of control conferred by patents.
All this should mean that we consider the issues calmly and arrive at a political decision which goes beyond the desire to satisfy the demand for biotechnological products.
Such a political decision should also pay heed to the ethical question.
My Group calls upon this House to base its deliberations on moral principles.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, whatever is possible is permissible here. Is it right, Mr Rothley, to allow things just because they are possible?
We are debating principles today in a debate which transcends boundaries but for which quite new boundaries need to be set.
At the heart of this debate is nothing less than responsibility. It is about morals and ethics.
It is about the value of life.
It is about the inviolability of nature.
It is about human rights.
Do this call for growth and progress and the illusory promise of more jobs not represent a threat to social welfare and the rule of law?
Do they not undermine the principle of respect for nature? The patenting of living organisms and rejection of the inviolability of the individual are the result of an overweening arrogance that no longer knows any bounds.
Who do we think we are, regarding evolution as private property and claiming ownership rights in respect of a life that has evolved over millions of years into millions of living organisms, our common heritage with its indescribable wealth of biological diversity? Who do we think we are, believing we are entitled to set ourselves above the flora and fauna of this world in order finally to enslave humankind and turn people into exploitable commodities, into mere biological material?
Responsibility towards ourselves and our children's children can only mean strict and consistent rejection.
No patents for genes, plants, animals, people or their constituent parts!
We are committed to freedom of research and development.
But we are opposed to any situation in which this freedom is liable to be restricted by excessive patenting, by the inaccessibility of scientific knowledge, due to its having become the preserve of individual groups of companies and hence of economic interests, and in which the right to acquire and share knowledge is a question of money.
And we are committed to morality in politics.
Above all else, morality means independence.
We are not the caretakers of an unbridled competitive ideology in which policies are subordinated and attuned to these interests.
I appeal to our social responsibility, which is something other than subjugation to the policies of BASF, Boehringer or whatever they are all called.
I should have liked to see some of this independence from the rapporteur, because the separation of politics and morality can only result in immoral policies.
Mr President, colleagues, two years ago the European Parliament rejected at the third reading the initial draft directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
A unique event in the annals of the codecision procedure, this negative vote let it be known that our Assembly was not prepared to adopt illdefined legislation that has such a bearing on what human beings are most sensitive, namely their genetic heritage - gene pool - the opening of the book of life.
One year ago, at the time of the public hearing organized by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, we witnessed some fascinating and contrasting debates between the experts invited here to express their views on the legitimacy of patenting scientific research and development.
That, I hear you say, was yesterday.
Yes, but unfortunately between yesterday and today the debate has progressed very little and the blurred areas are still with us.
Commercial interests have been increasingly insistent, the same pressure groups have been vocally advancing the same arguments, and throughout these two years the Commission, confusing speed with haste, has drafted a new fresh text which, while noticeably different, has still not altered the original concept, not one iota.
What the Commission is actually doing is laying down a basic premise according to which patent law is relegated to a piece of technical legislation which, therefore, would more or less be confined to dealing with ethical questions, even when this law applies to living human material.
In other words, it is setting the limits on patentability solely on the distinction between invention and discovery, thereby cleverly stifling all philosophical and political debate on the future of mankind.
One or two questions come to mind.
How is it that the Commission has never wondered about the pertinence of applying the principles of patent law to living tissue and, in particular, to human living tissue, nor about the pertinence of adapting these principles? It is really quite a fundamental point.
What are we to make of the report passed by the Legal Affairs Committee?
It is in fact an imperfect clone of the Commission's draft. A clone, in the sense that the Legal Affairs Committee manifestly takes the same strict legal view as to the manner in which patent law should apply to living human tissue.
Imperfect, because it is necessary nevertheless to emphasize the considerable improvements introduced by Members to Articles 3 and 9 of the text, which spell out the relevant ethical principles.
The fact remains that the affirmation of ethical principles is always unsatisfactory.
No higher principles, such as the preservation of the human body from exploitation or respect for human dignity underpin measures of a legal nature.
Amendment No 81, tabled by the ARE Group, seeks to re-establish the supremacy of Man and the idea that science should be a tool at the service of the individual, and not the other way round.
Even when these ethical principles are explicitly written down - I am referring here to Amendment No 11 of the Legal Affairs Committee which establishes the principle of excluding patentability of the human body, its parts and its products - the principle of excluding products of the human body, such as blood, tears, sweat, sperm, is not to be found in Article 3, Amendment No 49, which deals with the non-patentability of the human body.
This lack of rigour on the part of jurists who are so insistent on the strict application of patent law, I find surprising.
Another inconsistency is the affirmation, in Article 4, of the principle of excluding from patentability plant species and the animal species, when what is meant by the animal species is not even defined.
I also find it regrettable that ethical principles are diluted in a heterogeneous whole.
What is the point of including, in Article 9, a reference to the basic legal principles of high moral standards and public order, in drawing up an exhaustive list of the types of genetic manipulations that are to be strictly prohibited, and therefore non-patentable, and in including a reference to the quantification of pain in laboratory animals? Does not legal rigour justify having a statute dealing specifically with the human body?
It is inept and misleading to try to present an ethical principle as being common to animals, plants and human beings.
The Commission and the Legal Affairs Committee have not done that. They are therefore going to be condemned by our Group if our proposals continue to be ignored.
Mr President, the subject tackled by the Rothley report is a difficult one which, as others have said on occasions, is of direct concern to every delegate in this Parliament and touches upon the deeply-held convictions of each one of us.
I also cast my mind back to the questions that arose on that difficult day, 1 March 1995, when the time came for us to cast our votes.
It strikes me that this is a subject on which it is not possible to have a Group vote, as I have heard suggested now and again.
It is up to each one of us to search his or her own soul and conscience, and in what I have to say I shall be speaking for myself.
To begin with, let me say that I have some sympathy with the argument that the European Union needs a directive in this area.
It is true that we do have patent law at international level; this fact is mentioned in the draft that we have before us.
There are also the various national laws: in France, for example, there is the Law of 29 July 1994.
But there is probably a need for something more, something to introduce at least a measure of harmonization and will make for greater efficiency at European level.
Clearly, whatever we fail to do ourselves will be done elsewhere.
I must admit that I also have some sympathy with the argument that we do need to have treatments for a whole host of diseases.
Serious diseases, often of genetic origin, affect millions of people.
But I, like many of my colleagues, am wondering about our very real ethical concerns.
Have they been taken sufficiently into account?
There is of course a need for a directive that will allow biotechnological inventions to be patented when - and only when - such inventions are of real use to society; a directive that offers a meaningful response to suffering.
The human body is not patentable; only products created by Man can be patentable. The work of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has been useful.
Have we gone far enough? I am wondering in particular about the patentability of animals.
The results of the votes on the amendments will give us the answers to these and other questions.
Even though, a priori , I am for the time being inclined to vote in favour, I shall wait to see the results of the voting before finally making up my mind.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is absolutely no good reason why the European Parliament should cut off its own nose.
And that is the danger today.
On 1 March 1995, after difficult and intensive negotiations, we rejected by a clear majority a directive on the patenting of biotechnological inventions.
Today we are dealing with this matter again.
The wording is new, the content old.
I could take the easy option and suggest that we vote 'no' as we did last time.
That would be wrong.
Biotechnological inventions help people, not only in medicine but in other areas too.
So these inventions must be protected, not for the sake of interested companies' bank balances but for the benefit of the women and men of our countries.
The discovered parts of the human body must not be redefined as inventions, which would make them patentable.
It is unacceptable that individual organizations should have a sole right of disposal over these.
Genes and gene sequences must remain the common property of humanity and be freely accessible to researchers for the benefit of all people.
That is the political decision before us.
The existing law on patents has nothing to do with this.
It is capital-centred and does not focus on people.
Our duty as Members of the European Parliament is to serve 370 million children, women and men.
This obligation underlies amendments 71 to 76.
That is why we tabled them.
Let me repeat that I am not against the patenting of biotechnological inventions.
I am against any attempt to patent human parts, animals and plants, to declare such discoveries to be inventions, thereby making them patentable.
Mr President, this is now the tenth year of discussion and consultation concerning the Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
Part of the reason for this interminable process is the fact that the legal categorization of this Directive as a singlemarket directive designed to harmonize patents law in Europe has repeatedly been lost from view.
Time and again there have been attempts to limit or even to reduce the scope of patent rights by overloading the Directive with rules which have no basis in patent law.
Three aspects of the Directive are under discussion: the legal, the economic and the ethical aspects.
Harmonization of the Member States' legal provisions in this domain has become necessary as a means of countering the divergence between the development of legislation and that of jurisprudence in the Member States.
The danger of further legal fragmentation must be confronted.
We need legal consistency.
In the economic domain, it is a matter of encouraging inventions and innovations, not of promoting imitation.
The competitiveness of European industry must be fostered, and European researchers must be motivated to remain in Europe, to conduct research in Europe and not to emigrate overseas.
To that extent the Directive is also a key instrument of European employment policy.
How and to what extent ethical aspects are to be integrated into the Directive has always been the real powder keg of this Directive.
This has been demonstrated again by a number of today's speeches.
Patent law governs the legal relationship between the inventor and third parties.
It does not govern the actual right of utilization.
Although patent law lays down that inventions cannot be patented if their publication or exploitation would be contrary to public policy, the fact remains that both research and the use of research findings are governed by other laws, such as the Genetic Engineering Act or the Embryo Protection Act.
Public policy, or ordre public , is defined by the central provisions of the various national constitutions and the statutes derived from them.
In other words, patent offices are not responsible for controlling technological development.
In the form in which it was adopted by the Legal Affairs Committee, the Directive merits our full support.
The vital thing now is that those who are aware of the importance, and hence also of the limitations, of patent law should prevail and that this Directive can soon be adopted.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when in March 1995 we voted on the first directive on the patentability of biotechnologies, I voted in favour.
Today, there are at least two reason why I am pleased that that directive has been revived: firstly, because I am convinced that the present directive is better, because the definitions it contains are more precise, as has been stressed by others who have spoken before me. Secondly, because we have had the remarkable scientific achievement of the cloned sheep and, more recently, the announcement that it is possible to manufacture blood plasma using biotechnology.
These innovations have made it possible to extend the public debate and actually to compare the imaginary with the possible and perceptions with knowledge.
We may wonder whether during this 18 month delay, research into biotechnology and the biotechnology industry in Europe have suffered a competitive setback compared with their American and Japanese counterparts and whether capital and jobs have been lost.
I fear the industry will confirm that this has indeed happened.
The importance of this issue and the new area of life we are penetrating, public suspicion of the progress of science and technology, which is sometimes confused with certain doubtful exploits in the area of human procreation, mean that we have to exercise great caution and be considerate of sensitivities.
It therefore seems to me to be very important that, moving beyond the directive we are approving, all of those involved in this frontier sector should undertake to enhance the information available in such a way as make it easier to understand and dispel the fear that comes with ignorance.
I have great confidence in the ethics committee that has been set up and in the debate that we in the Committee on Research and Technology shall be pursuing further in the context of the Fifth Framework Programme.
Mr President, the European institutions have been discussing the subject of patent protection for biotechnological inventions for over ten years now, and since I have had the honour of being the chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee, we have had no less than 15 meetings on the new Commission proposal between January and June this year, resulting in 250 amendments and 47 compromise amendments.
So you can see that the institutions in general and Parliament in particular have been treading extremely carefully in dealing with this delicate subject, on which it goes without saying that all views should be heard.
Have we now reached the limits of what is humanly possible in biotechnological research?
Some people would say yes, while scientists think that we have only just begun, so it is up to us as politicians to provide a clear and correct legal framework.
Looking objectively at the text which is now before us, I think it tries to strike a fair balance between those who wish to go further and those who oppose any research whatsoever, between the technical and the ethical.
I would call on everyone here to have the courage to face up to this new challenge, and to ensure that we introduce appropriate, clear and fair legislation to control our own inventiveness and our constant urge to push back the limits of our ability.
Mr President, as everyone here is aware, biotechnology has developed rapidly in many areas.
The economic and commercial interests involved are enormous and serve to stimulate financial appetites.
It is undeniably true that in this area Europe has definitely failed to keep up with international competition.
One of the ways of meeting this scientific, industrial and commercial challenge is to make up the lost ground and to harmonize national legislations. This would make it possible to open up research activities and to put an end to market segmentation.
At the conclusion of the codecision procedure, this directive was rejected by the European Parliament in March 1995 because the ethical dimension had not been taken sufficient account of.
Since then, the Commission has submitted a new draft directive on the protection of biotechnological inventions by patents, at the same time setting out the conditions and the exceptions to patentability.
It is true that some of Parliament's proposals have been taken on board, but once again the ethical requirements that the patenting of human tissue makes indispensable have not been adequately taken into account.
I would draw attention to the fact that my country prohibits the patenting not only of the human body, its parts and its products, but also of the knowledge of the total or partial structure of the human gene.
These ethical principles should, in my view, be embodied in the draft directive.
This is vital if serious violations are to be prevented and human dignity is to be safeguarded.
The argument advanced here is that such restrictions would hinder research.
I really cannot go along with that, as researchers would be the first to alert us.
I therefore believe that the directive as it stands would leave the door open to every possible abuse and is still geared to satisfy strictly commercial interests.
Mr President, colleagues, a debate that presents itself in a purely legal guise may conceal more important questions, and we are seeing today, first of all, just how much is at stake economically, as Mr Monfils recalled a short time ago, and as the barrage of lobbying to which we have all been subjected rather crudely reveals.
We are also seeing what can only be described as an ideological clash between humanism and liberalism, and on top of that we have some interesting cross-currents muddying the more usual political divisions which have been revealed for example by the speech of our colleague Mr Casini, or the thoughtful speech of Mr FabreAubrespy.
So, is what we are debating here today really a legal problem? If it is, then we have our various national legislations, we have a European convention, some intimations from the European Observatory, and we have a worldwide agreement reached within the framework of the World Trade Organization.
Well, I do not believe that this is a purely legal problem but rather - and we need to be on our guard here - it is an extension of the scope of patentability to include living tissue.
If it is technical or economic problem, the draft directive and the report are based on a prior assumption: it is patents that open the way to technological progress. Is that actually true?
For my part I believe quite the opposite, that patents, as Mr Telkämper said a moment ago, often simply allow the weak to be robbed by the strong.
One could be cynical and choose, for economic reasons, to side with the strong, but that would not be my personal choice in this matter.
An another thing: who says that the system of patents necessarily helps progress? I know of a thousand examples which show that patents, because of the possibility of their being bought out, can actually stifle scientific and technical progress.
I myself believe that we do most certainly have an ethical problem. Everyone in their own way, the Commission and the rapporteur, are saying to us: ' listen, let us not talk about morality, let us not talk about ethics, let us not talk about humanism, that is not where the question lies; it is all to do with law, with trade, with business' .
Personally I do not go along with that at all and I do not believe that one can accuse of obscurantism people like Mr Monfils and other speakers who feel a kind of medieval terror in the face of technological progress.
I have listened to the remarks by Mrs Roth, Mrs Ainardi and Mr Scarbonchi: many of us believe that this text should have had a moral and ethical preamble explaining the technical choices we would have to make in retrospect.
We know that man has acquired the means of total self-destruction and the means of infinite self-replication.
This progress cannot therefore be limited to its technical and commercial aspects.
It was not I who said: ' Science without conscience ruins the soul' .
Now it is true that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has improved this text.
We have been listening attentively to this morning's debate and we shall hear what the Commission has to say in response, any overtures they might make, and we shall see what happens to the tabled amendments before we come to any final decision, but as the directive stands at present our Group is not in favour of its adoption.
Mr President, the debate on this directive has focused over the last year on technical legal aspects, rather than ethical considerations.
I have nothing against this as such, since the legal content of the text has been much improved.
However, I do still have considerable misgivings.
The Commission and the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, have both chosen to give a broad interpretation to the TRIPS Agreement, to the effect that human genes, once identified and isolated, can be patented.
They claim that this interpretation is the only proper technical solution, and that all other suggestions are based not on technical considerations, but on sentiment.
I have two reactions to this. The first is ethical, based not on cheap sentiment, but on the conviction that man is God's unique creation and thus cannot, either in whole or in part, be called a human invention.
Isolating a gene is, in itself, a technical tour de force , but calling genetic material taken from the body an invention is somewhat presumptuous.
Furthermore, such a patent would inevitably have a very broad scope when it comes to new applications using the gene in question.
Secondly, I think that adopting a technical legal approach to a problem does not imply that there can only be one correct solution, as Mr Rothley claims.
There still remains a freedom of choice which politicians have to exercise responsibly.
In my opinion, the Commission document and the Rothley report both do their best to twist the terms invention, innovation and technical application so that the human gene can be made to fit into the strait-jacket of patent law.
The interpretation given in the Gebhardt amendment seems much more natural to me.
I therefore feel that there is a much more valid case for patenting products or production methods based on the discovery of a gene.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the thrust of the Rothley report on the proposal for a directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions has, in my view, been brought well into focus by those who have spoken, including Mr Casini.
The passage of the report in its final form has been a difficult one, but it seems to me that we have achieved our goal with the confirmation that: life has to be protected, the embryo must not be exploited for financial gain and the industry has to be protected from US and Japanese competition.
I shall not discuss the merits of the amendments which we shall be debating tomorrow at the vote.
We in the Alleanza Nazionale shall be voting in favour of the report as a whole and those amendments that are designed to protect life, the embryo and morality - and on this occasion morality and politics will have to work together - but not those which will have the effect, from a legal and biological point of view, of distorting the physiological in the strict sense of the word.
I should like now to say a few words about patents.
I agree with the Committee on Development and Cooperation that patentability of living entities has a negative impact, at both an ethical and a practical level, for the human race, the animal kingdom and the environment.
To conclude, therefore, we need to avoid patents on the following: the human body, parts of the human body, human tissue and all genetic material derived from human sources; animals, parts of animals, animal tissue, genetic modification processes, plants, seeds, vegetable tissue and other reproductive material.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have to safeguard life, protect morality and avoid distorting what the Eternal Father has given us.
Only in that way will we be able to meet the challenge of the times while at the same time making progress in research.
Est modus in rebus , as Horace put it!
Mr President, I do not feel that the importance of these discussions has to be emphasized any further.
It suffices to take note of the amount of information - sometimes disinformation - which we Members have received concerning this directive.
In principle I would like to point out that we should resist all attempts to manipulate this directive - ' manipulation' means saying things that the directive does not say or asserting things which are allegedly necessary and which are already contained in the directive.
I have been listening to much talk of morals and rights, morals and politics, and I totally support these views, but this has nothing to do with the directive.
The directive itself upholds moral principles, confirms the need to observe good practices and to maintain public order and a number of assertions are made concerning matters which are intolerable.
Moreover, the directive is being asked to give more than it is able to.
In Spain, there is a song which goes 'I went to sea for oranges, something the sea does not have' , quite obviously, and here, too, we are sometimes asking for the impossible.
What we are dealing with here is a law on patents.
There are other ethical standards.
The Commission has a Working Group on ethics, and at these very Council of Europe headquarters, approval has been given to a convention on the protection of human rights vis-à-vis manipulation of a medical nature.
All this already exists and already forms part of the background against which this directive is being formulated.
Nor do we have to succumb to slogans.
I believe that the previous directive collapsed mainly because of the existence of a slogan which ran 'No patents on life' .
Fortunately, in these discussions, there has been a different slogan - ' Patents to promote life' .
There are also those who desire patents in order that life should continue.
In conclusion, I feel that I must recommend that everyone should read the directive before voting.
On a closing note, I would like to congratulate Mr Rothley because not only has he largely captured the feeling behind the amendments but has altered practically the entire directive, has made it more systematic from the outset, and it is my belief that the majority of those of us who are members of the Committee on Legal Affairs feels that we are properly represented by the work he has done.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to begin by thanking the rapporteur.
The draft directive before us is undoubtedly of huge economic importance to Europe.
Nine million jobs depend directly or indirectly on the type of basic conditions we create for biotechnology.
Patent law, however, is but one of these conditions, and I believe that many other things are also important; for example, we also have to remove all bureaucratic obstructions.
As a doctor, I most strongly warn against making patients into pawns in this primarily economic debate.
That applies to both sides, so the applause was perhaps premature.
If some here are suggesting that the adoption of the directive cannot fail to bring about enormous advances in the treatment of genetic diseases, the least I can say is that there are divergent views among medical scientists.
Those who see potential problems in the absolute protection of DNA material also have sound arguments on their side.
Let me say this quite clearly to both sides: we do not know!
Politicians always want straightforward answers, but science cannot provide straightforward answers to this question at the present time.
And I must also reiterate that the development of diagnostic resources, better diagnosis, will not necessarily benefit patients if treatments are still twenty or thirty years away.
To put it simply, caution and prudence are of the essence here.
It is of decisive importance to our group that certain ethical boundaries are drawn in this directive.
One of these concerns intervention in the human germ line, while others relate to the patenting of methods that involve the use of human embryos and to animal welfare.
And it is also especially crucial that the cloning of human embryos is totally banned.
Cloning violates human dignity.
All of the political forces in this House agreed with that view when the appearance of Dolly the sheep brought human cloning into the realms of possibility.
The time has come for us to stop talking and to start taking action.
In this directive we must therefore unequivocally prohibit the cloning of human embryos.
It is not enough only to exclude implantation in the womb, in other words reproductive cloning, which is what the Commission's group of advisers would like.
Firstly, even experimentation with embryos is despicable and offends against public policy and morality.
But secondly, and I would ask you to listen carefully just before I finish, what exactly is a new invention?
Implantation in the womb is already known.
Birth, fortunately, is still a natural process. So surely nobody can seek to patent these things.
The only step on the way to a cloned human being on which we have any power left to impose limits is the cloning of embryos.
And the road to Dolly was paved with numerous sheep embryos.
We do not want a host of human embryos to pave the way to a cloned human being.
That is why I ask you to support Amendment 55 and especially the last two subparagraphs.
Mr President, we had a great battle with Mr Langer in 1995 to defeat this directive.
At the time, Mr Langer was staunch in his defence of plants and animals while I was for the embryo and therefore human beings.
Combining those two elements, human beings and plants and animals caused a great deal of confusion in people's minds and caused much time to be lost.
Had they been kept separate, we should long since have entered into competition with the United States and Japan, and we need that for development in Europe and to create jobs.
The Rothley report is today being submitted to us once again.
I think that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has done a great job.
I personally approve of what they have done.
I call for Article 9 in particular to be kept as it is and invite the House to adopt it as it stands, without changing anything.
Mr President, not surprisingly this debate has generated huge public interest and I think that it poses a challenge to this Parliament as a legislature to face maturely our responsibilities.
The Rothley report, in my opinion, as the product of a prolonged debate, is an effective, balanced and reasonable proposal and I congratulate the rapporteur.
Mrs Roth, speaking earlier for the Greens, spoke of her belief in the need for morality in politics.
I share that belief strongly which is why on this occasion I feel at ease in supporting this report and do so in good conscience.
A clear distinction is drawn between discovery and invention.
Patents on human bodies, on human cloning, on embryos and on altering the human germ line are all banned in the draft from the Legal Affairs Committee.
Farmers' privilege is explicitly protected for reseeding and breeding animals on their own land, as is the case today.
Emphasis is placed by Parliament on the need to respect the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and to protect against fears of bio-piracy in respect of the underdeveloped world and the environment, and these two are important obligations which cannot be set aside.
Again today my mailbox is full of letters, not least from groups in my own country representing those who suffer from genetic and other medical disorders currently without a cure, requesting support for this measure because it offers them some hope.
In conscience I will not vote against offering that hope. We have also suggested an ethics committee.
For all of these reasons I believe that this is effective but also balanced, and this time round, unlike before, I am happy to give it my support.
Mr President, may I begin by thanking Sierra Gonzalez for her contribution, which I fully support. I also think that current legislation must be made to satisfy society's new demands, particularly with regard to the ethical and social impact.
There ought to be, as indeed there are, big differences between technological industrial inventions and those issues under discussion here today.
Here, the patent holder is being given even greater licence to exercise power and control as a result of the monopoly position in which he may find himself, and I see this as a potential obstacle to development, particularly of small and medium sized companies.
I think that the discovery of the function of a gene, for example, should be just that, a fantastic discovery which should be available for the service of the global community and not primarily for the interests of private, economic profit.
I very much regret that politically we have not progressed towards real, practical proposals which promote global co-operation instead of commercial competition, especially as there is such a serious issue at stake here, the health and biological diversity of mankind, not just in the European Union but in the whole world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after eight years of indecision it does seem high time now to change the European legislation on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
The text put forward by the Commission this time does largely take account of the vitally important ethical standards of natural law on the matter, in particular excluding the human body from that which can be patented.
Even though in this area we should have liked the text to have been a little more precise and, to that extent we would have been in favour of adding to the text as it presently stands Mrs Sandbaek's Amendment No 84, which would impose a total ban on all manipulations involving not just the human body, but embryos as well.
We do of course need to take into account those patients who are hoping for advances that would enable them to be treated more effectively thanks to these new technologies.
Lastly, it is worth reminding ourselves of what the purpose of patents is: it is to reward inventors for their creative activities by giving them the exclusive right to do as they wish with their invention for a period of twenty years.
They are an encouragement to innovation, investment and job creation.
Well, we know that our legislation as it stands today leaves us powerless in the face of American and Japanese competition.
According to the rapporteur himself, as he says in his explanatory memorandum, only 24 % of patents accepted by the European Patent Office are of European origin.
Well, it is my belief that behind the outpourings of moral indignation that we have heard and which, in some cases, I am sure are genuine, I think that quite often there are powerful transatlantic economic interests are behind these attitudes.
And it would not be for the first time either.
For these reasons, therefore, I shall be voting for the text, which represents a good compromise between the various constraints under which our legislators have to work, but I would once again stress the need for Mrs Sandbaek's Amendment No 84 to be added to the rapporteur's text.
Madam President, in recent weeks Members of this Parliament have been subjected to a barrage of misinformation on this subject, which has been orchestrated by the Green movement.
On BBC Prime Time, at 7 a.m. this morning, the item on this debate was largely inaccurate in relation to the content of the draft directive.
The key phrase of the Green propaganda machine has been: ' no patents on life' .
As Mr Verde i Aldea mentioned a few moments ago, it was the same two years ago.
One of the very sad things about the current discussion is that the campaign against the directive has ignored fact and ignored the very substantial changes that have been negotiated to allay legitimate concerns and fears that genetic research will involve the reproductive system.
It is a great pity that the changes that have taken place have not been recognized by the opponents of the directive.
We have to recognize - it is a very unpalatable thought - that most of the medicine we take does not actually effect a cure: it only relieves the symptoms.
Vaccination and antibiotics have dealt with many of the life-threatening illnesses of the past.
As we live longer we are subjected to a different type of disease: cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's.
These are all diseases which have a genetic element in them and the developments in biotechnology and genetic engineering bring some hope that there might be a cure.
I am supporting the directive not just on medical grounds but also because biotechnology brings a cleaner world; , it brings a world which is more energy-efficient; and, I believe, it offers us the hope not only of a longer life but of a healthier life in the future.
The opponents of the directive should ponder what they are trying to prevent.
Madam President, if we were able to distil the maximum benefit from the DNA technologies and at the same time control the associated dangers, we would have found the best way to support investment in that sector.
Today, an important tool for the encouragement of biotechnological investment is the patents system, which by rewarding inventors for the time, money and experience they devote, acts as an incentive for investments of that kind.
In practice, however, legal protection is complicated by social, ethical, scientific and legal factors.
Since this Parliament's failure to establish an appropriate legislative framework two and a half years ago, the legal protection of biotechnological applications remains an exceptionally sensitive, public and open issue.
In part, this reflects the fact that by definition biotechnology includes the application of technology to living organisms, including man.
As is natural, patents related to matters involving life itself generate strong feelings.
The purpose of today's debate is to clarify some of the doubtful aspects so that legislation can go ahead.
In the case of DNA technology the debate creates conflicts because it is difficult to define when and which of the elements of a specific technological application constitute inventions and which discoveries - given that patents should in my opinion only be granted for inventions and innovations and not for discoveries - and ones which must also result in a biotechnological application.
In the case of DNA technology, precisely because the gene or the cell or the human body and its respective parts pre-exist when they are discovered, there is no 'invention' and there can consequently be no protection by patent.
However, if inventors succeed in perfecting a method for isolating a gene which can be used ex vivo to produce the human protein which it codifies, then that method can be patented.
It is precisely in this respect that we ask the Commission and the rapporteur to clarify Article 3(2), which does not make it clear whether patents can be granted for genes, which in my opinion are the subject of discovery and not invention.
Here, it should be stressed that regardless of what can be done with a gene, its structure and the information it contains existed already before its use and consequently the gene, as such, cannot constitute an invention.
In contrast, its use, which could lead via new techniques to the production of a new substance with biomechanical applications, certainly is an object for legal protection.
Even a possible modification of the gene, leading to a new structure, is eligible for protection by patent provided that it is associated with a specific biological application.
We therefore express our serious reservations because, with the present version of the text, patents will also be sought for natural genes that already exist and whose description, I repeat, constitutes a discovery.
If we accept that patents should be granted for natural genes, this would result in what I would call an oligopolistic exploitation both of the genes themselves and the proteins that they codify.
Overall, and subject to the reservations expressed by what I have said, which I hope will be taken into account because there are amendments related to it, I am in favour of the motion for a directive, because the legal protection conferred by this directive will contribute to protection for biotechnology, which will encourage its continual expansion into areas with an important impact on health and disease, nutrition, environmental protection, agriculture and other important areas of human life and activity.
Madam President, it is not my wish today to go back over the technical aspects of patentability, but rather to focus on those aspects that have to do with the patentability of living beings.
Thanks to the excellent work of the rapporteur and the European Parliament, the new directive now takes account of ethical and social aspects in being based on a coherent approach.
There is a difference between discovery and invention: a gene is not life - one has to make a distinction between the whole and its parts.
Genetic engineering is not about the manipulation of embryos: it is important to distinguish between the cellular machinery and the passing on of hereditary traits.
The compromise amendments ensure respect for the living being from its conception until its ultimate death, the non-commercialization of the human body and of its parts, the banning of any manipulations involving embryos or germ-line cells, the outlawing of cloning for purposes of reproducing the human species.
For my part, it seems to me ethical to ensure recognition of the added value associated with the intelligence and creativity of human beings, without which there can be no lasting progress.
The new directive is not only based on the harmonization of patent law, but also takes account of the characteristics that are peculiar to human beings and to the living world; it protects inventors, it safeguards preferential treatment for farmers, allows the development of products resulting from biotechnology to satisfy the need of sick people and their families for treatments for leukaemia and cancer thanks to cell growth factors, treatments for haemophilia, for diabetes, thanks to purified, non-contaminating products - I stress the fact that they are non-contaminating - all of these more effective than the products used at present.
It makes it possible to treat not only those major genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and myopathy, but also certain rare diseases, the so-called orphan diseases.
Finally, let us not forget that a patent is not an exploitation licence.
Let us not confuse the protection of inventions with the marketing of products derived from biotechnologies, which really owe more to subsidiarity.
In the preparation of such a directive our Parliament has exercised its responsibility of democratic control with a view to securing recognition for research and researchers and for the economic competitiveness of the European Union in the respect for life, respect for human beings and respect for the rights of the individual.
Madam President, all that can be said on this issue has really already been said.
Unfortunately, it has become something of a dialogue of the deaf and there are also a number of inaccuracies involved, which Mr Adam also pointed out earlier.
The deciding factor for me, when my group and I adopted our position on this, was something which Mr Pompidou has already mentioned, and that is the fact that it is patent legislation which is under consideration. Everything which can be patented does not automatically gain a licence for use, at national level for example.
All too frequently during the debate we have forgotten that we are in Europe.
We have a European patent tradition which has meant that traditionally we have set strict standards for patents and required a high level of detail in all applications.
We have a European Convention to protect human dignity in the application of medicine and biology; this also applies to patents.
I hope that biotechnological research will help us to make progress in all those medical challenges which the experts have spoken about here in this Assembly.
The real inequality affects those who would survive only if they were able to afford 200 000 marks for a drug, but do not have the means to do so.
Ladies and gentlemen, looking at the other side of the coin, we should also be sufficiently humble to say that this is a new form of patent and that, today, we do not know what the consequences of research in this area will be.
So, if the unacceptable occurs, we must be prepared to review the legislation.
This is why it is important that the Commission and the ethical committee report back to this Parliament.
Madam President, speaker after speaker has brilliantly succeeded in showing us what is unacceptable in the report by Mr Rothley.
For my part I shall concentrate my attention on just one aspect of this report.
Artcle 52(4) of the European Convention on patents, which serves as the basis for all national legislations, excludes methods of treating human or animal bodies involving surgery or therapy, as well as diagnostic methods.
This provision does not figure either in the Commission's draft directive or in the report by Mr Rothley and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, although it had been included in the previous draft.
Two amendments tabled by the Greens seek to reintroduce this provision.
Why? Because we for our part believe that there are dangers in patenting such methods - dangers to the rights of patients, dangers to medical progress and dangers to advances in knowledge in general.
Let me give an example to illustrate this: the American company 'Biocyte' has been granted a patent in respect of the blood cells from the umbilical cord. This patent covers not only the cells in question, but also any therapeutic use to which they may be put.
Numerous clinicians and researchers working in the field of bone marrow transplants are against, both on the ethical grounds that I just mentioned, and also because they say that what we are talking about here is not an invention so much as a technical development - simply isolate the cells and freeze them - which really adds nothing new to the sum total of human knowledge.
I believe that the current debate about this patent, which is being challenged by numerous researchers and doctors, risks tipping the balance in favour of 'Biocyte' .
The Rothley report undoubtedly gives pre-eminence to the economic and technical aspects of the debate. It confuses the interests of sick people suffering from genetic diseases with those of the pharmaceutical industry which holds them hostage.
To that extent we find the report quite unacceptable.
Ladies and gentlemen, in view of the present importance of this draft directive, as well as its far greater future importance, I do not intend to deal with the opportunities it offers.
These have in any case been sufficiently discussed already.
My purpose is rather to draw attention to the dangers that might lie ahead if we approve this draft, dangers which we should bear in mind when we come to cast our vote.
What I mean is that the prospect of short-term gains should not induce us to put our future in hock to this extent.
On the contrary, the reservations expressed by numerous experts should be taken seriously and examined carefully.
Let me give you an example to illustrate the importance of our decisions. The draft before us lays down that the human genome and the gene sequences it contains are to be patentable.
That must be firmly rejected, for the human genome in any form is common property to which anyone should have unhindered access.
Reserving that right for individuals would enable them to monopolize knowledge of the uses and applications of the genome.
Another argument against the patentability of human DNA sequences is that it would prevent the use of specific sequence variations by anyone other than the patent-holder and would thereby hinder research.
For these reasons we shall reject the directive, and we know that our position has the support of the 1.2 million fellow Austrians who signed the national petition on this subject.
Madam President, in the short contribution I am about to make I do not want to enter into the details of many of the passages of this very important directive, nor into the technical and scientific details which this is not the place to describe or explain.
We in the Italian delegation of the Socialist Group consider that the result achieved by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, particularly through the efforts of the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, is balanced overall and the product of careful and keen study.
We consider that it should be supported, even though there may, clearly, be amendments designed to improve or clarify it.
We should remember that we are basically deal here with a very precise element, namely patent law and the fact that this directive makes a clear distinction between discovery and invention.
A discovery is not and cannot be the subject-matter of a patent.
Only an invention can be patented: the product then of an intellectual process of research which needs this guarantee if it is to provide a fundamental point of reference for industrial development also.
We think that the ethics committee that is to be set up has an important role to perform, even though it should not have direct legal function.
This is not an ideological or teleological debate on life but a lay instrument designed to guarantee, regulate and harmonize a European area for biotechnology - an area that is now more than ever necessary if we think about what is happening at an international level.
If Europe follows the example of the American system and we work together, by 2005 - according to expert forecasts - biotechnology will really take off and become competitive, providing work for between 1.5 and 3 million people in Europe, while at the same time guaranteeing the right to health and the development of research and industry.
If this is not done, if the industry, politics, research and the mass media do not work together, then Europe's budding biotechnology industry will never flourish, and, as has already happened with information technology, Europe will become a biotechnological dependency.
Madam President, any speech made at this stage of the debate enables one to state, quite simply, ' I reject this' and 'I support this' .
Well, then, I reject the empty rhetoric we have had to listen to today in this House, I reject the value judgements and totally gratuitous attempts which have been made simply to bring discredit - I would almost describe this as personal discredit - and I support the significant contributions we have also heard.
The first of the latter came from you, Mr Rothley. You have both my recognition and my admiration.
I also support the important statements we have heard from my illustrious and admired colleague, Mr Casini, and Mr Cot's clear observations, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's sharp commentary and the well-informed contribution from Mr Pompidou.
I could, quite simply, end here, yet I will go one step further.
I will be voting for the Rothley report and I will be voting in favour despite the fact that, in my opinion, it contains a number of significant technical shortcomings, such as amendments 42 and 43 to recitals 39 and 40, which are incorrect as I see it, or amendment 45 to paragraph 2 of Article 1.
I shall also be voting in favour, irrespective of the result, of subparagraph 2d) of Article 9, i.e. the issue of the use or the patentability of inventions in which embryos are used.
Why am I doing this? I am doing so because the darkest, deepest and most atavistic convictions come together in this Aleph which is current biotechnological research, an industry which, in 2000, will have a turnover estimated at ecu 83, 000 million.
In addition, this situation affects every single one of us, but still Europe looks to the past. The law, once again, is not only three paces behind social reality - as the German classicist used to say - but way behind social reality.
Because, let's not forget - by way of illustration - between 1981 and 1995, 1175 DNA patents were granted worldwide. We are not legislating for the future, we have to keep in step with a reality which is pressing in on us from all sides, a reality we have to guide towards legal standards.
I shall also be voting in favour because of the economic reasons which have been set forth, but, above all, Madam President, I shall be voting in favour for a fundamental reason which, in my opinion, constitutes the very basis of the discussions we are currently involved in.
This directive is not, in effect, a draft measure to regulate biotechnology - its objective is much more restricted and, as stated, an attempt is being made to protect biotechnological inventions, nothing more, nothing less.
This directive does not aspire, nor can it, to be the law on biotechnology: it only wishes to be - and only should be - a law on patents and, naturally, this obliges us to remember, Mr Casini - I will be at your side in this struggle - that we do not have a general, systematic legal framework of substantive law in which to frame the directive and that the palliatives it offers are few and insufficient. We should also remember that we have to face up to the criticism that the edifice did not actually begin at the level of the foundations.
In spite of all this - I shall soon be finished - I shall be voting in favour of this directive, in the conviction that it is a step that has to be taken and that we still have a great deal of time left in which to improve it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two industrial sectors that will be providing a great many jobs throughout the world over the next few years: information technology and biotechnology. In both fields, the European Parliament has the power to determine where those jobs will be created, in Europe or elsewhere in the world.
So far, Parliament has failed to recognize the growth in the biotechnology industry by providing it with the proper patent legislation it needs for economic support, and after nine years we have still not achieved harmonization at European level.
This House suffers from a peculiar syndrome known as the patent-for-life syndrome.
More than 95 % of all Europe's biotechnology firms are SMEs, the very sector where Europe's potential for innovation and job-creation lies.
However, their innovation is being stymied by the fact that protection for biotechnological inventions is fragmented and, in comparison with the United States and Japan, very expensive.
It costs on average ECU 19 000 to submit to the European Patent Office a patent application covering eight countries, a market volume similar to that of the United States.
In the United States, it costs ECU 1500.
Europe is at the forefront scientifically, but we do not capitalize on our knowledge, and this is costing us jobs.
Biotechnology has many very promising applications, such as in the prevention and cure of hereditary diseases in particular.
Ladies and gentlemen, we do not have the right to choose whether other people should go through life healthy or handicapped.
That is why my group intends to vote for this excellent report by Mr Rothley and the patents directive.
Madam President, one of the principles of the Christian faith is that all living beings should be regarded as God's creatures.
If that is to be more than just a pious saying, it must mean that the physical, genetic and creative integrity of our fellow creatures is a legal right that has to be protected, and protected in every area of the law, including patent law, Mr Rothley.
The directive in front of us only does that to a limited and unsatisfactory extent, and at certain points it even abolishes such protection, as in Amendment 74.
It does that because, as the rapporteur himself says on page 32 of his report, the directive concurs with those who demand the industrial exploitation of life.
That is what we reject!
Not freedom of research, not the development of therapies, not the progress of the biotechnological industry, but the fact that the whole thing is being subordinated to very specific economic interests, as has just been very clearly reemphasized.
Whoever does that must not be surprised if he has to rescind the new cloning ban within a short time for the very same reasons that have been advanced in support of the directive.
Life does not exist so that it can be industrially exploited; on the contrary, industrial exploitation exists to support life.
That is why the law is there and for no other reason!
Madam President, sometimes in politics, as in life in general, you have to hold your hands up and say: I got it wrong.
I have to say that the European Parliament got it wrong in 1995 when we rejected the original biotechnology directive and I got it wrong by voting along with the majority in Parliament at that time.
The test, though, is not whether, from time to time you get things wrong but whether or not you learn from your mistakes.
I am pleased to say that the European Parliament has learned from its mistake and that Mr Rothley has expertly guided this new proposal through the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I join with the many other Members who have paid tribute to his work over the last year or so.
We now have a proposal which, on the one hand, balances the genuine need to protect inventions and the scientists and researchers who work towards creating those inventions and, yes, the companies who put resources into financing the research.
They deserve a return on their investments.
The present proposal is also fair to the patients groups.
The most effective of the hundreds if not thousands of letters I have received on this subject have come from the patients groups.
It is fair to the patients groups.
It gives them hope that this relatively new branch of science will help in the treatment of genetic disorders and in cures for diseases such as cancer and AIDS.
On the other hand and just as importantly, the new proposal provides safeguards for the environment; it provides safeguards for animal welfare; it respects existing international agreements; it ensures that human cloning is outlawed.
Two years ago we were seduced and panicked by the horror stories of those opposed to biotechnological research.
I bear in mind the point Mr Liese made earlier that there is only hope but this time we should consider the aspirations of the thousands of Europeans who suffer from currently incurable diseases and illnesses and give them some hope by promoting this directive and bringing some order to the field of biotechnology.
Madam President, in many respects what Mr Martin has just said echoes my own thoughts on the matter, though, unlike him, I am happy to confess that I actually supported the proposal when we last voted on it two years ago and I do not intend to change my intention this time.
As Mr Adam pointed out earlier, most Members of the European Parliament have been subjected to a barrage of misinformation on this topic.
I have here a file of misinformation.
As many colleagues know, I yield to no-one in regarding the activities of lobbyists as important in helping us to do our job properly; but in the end it is up to us as parliamentarians to make judgments as between one side of the argument and the other.
I am quite clear on which side of the argument I would come down: the interests of the patients and the interests of the single market.
Very few speakers today have made the point that this is a single market measure.
It was first brought to this House by the Commission in 1988.
It will not be long before we reach 1998.
In a fast-moving industry the European Community has been lagging behind the very rapid progress made in the United States.
Indeed, reference has been made to the fact that the chief beneficiaries of biotechnological patents will be large multinationals.
That is absolute nonsense.
In my own country we have 165 important small and medium-sized companies which are involved in biotechnology.
The United States has 1, 300.
Surely we in Europe ought to be able at least to equal, if not to surpass, what the Americans are doing.
Another part of the mythology is that currently there is no legislation about the protection of biotechnological patents here in Europe.
There is!
There are 15 different sets of biotechnological patent law which cause confusion and chaos and add enormously to the expense of registering a patent.
The intention of this proposal is to replace fifteen sets of national regulations with one set of European regulations.
As for ethics - although I consider that the ethical consideration is not really appropriate in this directive - the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and its rapporteur have included in Amendment No 56 a new Article 9a setting up an ethics committee.
As has been pointed out, we have also taken care of the interests of animals and, indeed, the interests of humans, though there seem to be some Members of this Parliament who think that animal rights are more important than human rights.
In conclusion, I shall be supporting this directive and I hope that the Commission will be able to accept most, if not all, of the amendments of the Legal Affairs Committee.
Madam President, it seems to me that the only clear argument from the rapporteur is that Europe should approve a provision on patenting in the field of biotechnology because the US and Japan already have similar legislation.
That, Mr Rothley, is absurd because it means that we are subordinate to decisions already made in other countries.
There is, however, nothing absurd about questioning the consequences of a decision of this nature, but the rapporteur was careful not to go into this.
What does it mean to patent a living, albeit genetically modified, organism? It means retaining an organism that is the product of human invention, but, scientifically and logically, this is wrong, in fact it looks suspiciously like the crazed desire for omnipotence of a sorcerer's apprentice.
In reality, the sole objective is financially to exploit discoveries in the field of biotechnology: and these are discoveries because genes can only be discovered or modified, they cannot be invented.
No-one benefits from the kind of sophistry proposed by some of the amendments: it is nothing but hypocrisy to exclude the human body or parts of it from being patented because, in biological terms, man is an animal species.
We ought therefore to conclude that what is not acceptable for human beings should not be acceptable for other animal organisms either.
In fact, in the name of the economic interests of a few multinationals, we are attempting to establish a criterion that involves new experiments and fresh suffering for animals.
We are then told that it is necessary to patent genes and gene therapies to meet the needs of the sick.
I wish to point out that treatments of that kind are also available without being patented; in fact, agreeing that they should be patented means encouraging research only into treatment that makes money for the multinationals.
Consequently, those treatments will be available only to rich citizens and nations, but not to the world's poor and, particularly, not to those who have very unusual illnesses which will not provide the multinationals with an adequate return.
This is not about defending the sick!
I should also add that, as has already happened in the US, these genes are stolen from their genuine owners, for although they have them in their bodies, once they are patented they are no longer able to dispose freely of them.
These are grave implications for the future of humanity, and they cannot be shrugged aside, as our rapporteur seeks to do.
And so we are opposed to this.
Madam President, I should like to use my speaking time to refer to some of the misunderstandings that have cropped up time and again in this debate, as on previous occasions.
Contrary to the perceptions of many Members, the Rothley report certainly does provide for the patentability of human genes and of flora and fauna.
I ask anyone who believes otherwise to read Articles 3(2) and 1b carefully.
Article 3(2) refers to a gene isolated from the human body, but it must be said that even an isolated human gene is still a gene.
Amendments 71 to 75, which Mrs Gebhardt and I have tabled, do not seek to prohibit patents; their purpose is only to exclude those patents that go too far, because medical patients and the treatment of serious diseases, as well as the job situation in Europe, are equally pressing concerns of ours.
Based on the principle of responsible research, our amendments certainly permit the patenting of processes and applications as well as of proteins, medicinal drugs, vaccines and many other products.
That should provide the European biotechnological industry with enough incentive and reward, and many of its representatives echo that assessment.
What we want to exclude is the applicability of product protection to primary genetic matter, both for ethical reasons and for research-policy considerations.
Knowledge of the ways in which the human body works should remain freely accessible to society.
It should not be the subject of exclusive property and exploitation rights.
Product protection of primary genetic matter will provide a few European companies, but chiefly American and Japanese corporations - simply because they will be quicker to react - with a European monopoly for many years to come.
They will then be able to prevent other enterprises from using the patented genetic material or charge them high licence fees.
My third point is that the proposed rules will also prove very costly for European farmers, for animal-breeders and plant-growers and consequently for consumers too.
Costly by European standards, but prohibitively expensive by Third World standards.
If animals and plants become patentable, and if such patents apply not only to the first generation but to all subsequent generations resulting from natural reproduction, even the envisaged farmer's privilege will be of little help.
I shall close by asking all Members of the House who are seeking to reconcile the various legitimate interests involved here to support our Amendments 71 to 75.
Madam President, during this debate on the Patent Directive I have been particularly upset by the fact that certain organisations representing patients, including the Danish Cystic Fibrosis Association, maintain that there is a 'Green Lobby' which does not care a jot for the needs of seriously ill people.
This is, of course, wrong!
The most sensational claim is that, without the Patent Directive, large companies would keep their research results secret.
But it goes without saying that, in a democratic society where there is freedom of research, the results of that research should be freely available to all researchers without the need to pay a licence fee.
What the Patent Directive means, as the Scandinavian Association against Painful Animal Tests has pointed out, is that a company can gain a monopoly over important genes which could create difficulties for the discovery of new drugs.
The Rothley report also opens the way for the patenting of methods of treatment, as the term known as the doctor's exemption is missing in the report.
According to Sweden's Christian Council this would mean that research would be blocked and that groups with few resources would be excluded from receiving the best possible treatment.
Mr Adam said previously that there is a 'Green Propaganda Machine' which has mounted a pressure campaign before this debate.
This is absolutely ridiculous when you consider the enormous propaganda campaign carried out by the biotechnological industry to try to get a few Members of this Parliament to change their position from that which we adopted two years ago.
So I must say that if this directive is adopted it will not only be a defeat for democracy but also a disgrace for the European Parliament.
Madam President, I have no doubt at all that biotechnology is going to represent the very future of science.
Having said that, I think it presents ultimate ethical dilemmas, and the ethical dilemma which I face can be summarized as: What do I say to the parents and family of a child suffering from cystic fibrosis if no hope is held out for serious scientific research in that area. On the other hand, what happens when we hear talk - and it can be serious talk - of people who want to design their offspring?
Who want to say 'My child shall have yellow hair and a smaller nose'? How do we face that dilemma?
It is an ethical dilemma, Mr Cassidy, and ethics do come into this.
When in March 1995 I was one of those who proudly voted against the last directive, it was because I did not feel that it contained sufficient ethical safeguards. That was the clear reasoning behind it.
And I must say I was surprised, when we received the draft directive in the Environment Committee, to see that there was no reference to the ethical dimension; it was an Environment Committee amendment which Mr Rothley as rapporteur took on board in the Legal Affairs Committee and which has subsequently been added to by Mr Cot and myself.
When it comes to the ethical committee, we have not said in that second amendment what it shall comprise, merely that the Commission shall come forward with a proposal.
When it comes forward with that proposal we can consider what the ethical committee's terms of reference shall be and who shall be on it.
Let us make it a precondition for this directive coming into effect that an ethical committee shall be established and shall be a central part of our decision-making process.
Madam President, whenever biotechnology is debated, industry repeats the mantra of competitiveness in a manner reminiscent of the medieval church.
In my view, we political decision-makers ought to be far more critical of the promises which are made regarding the millions of jobs which will be created in this field.
The plain fact is that there is no clear evidence that improving the parameters within which enterprises operate by means of this Directive would increase the number of jobs.
In today's newspaper an Austrian agronomist says that small plant-breeding businesses could actually shed jobs because larger enterprises will compete them out of existence.
A patent entails a kind of monopoly.
The Commission could also have adopted different approaches to the issue of legal protection.
It could have considered separately, for example, microbiological processes and transgenic animals, but now provisions concerning all these very disparate life forms have been incorporated into the same proposal for a Directive although they really deserve far more differentiated treatment.
For example, a plant-breeder's right is a traditional form of legal protection for plants which have been improved, and it would have been possible to introduce legal protection for animals on the same basis.
Madam President, after this long debate, I should like to dot some 'i's' and cross some 't's' , and in particular two of them.
The first relates to the concept of patents.
Patents, in case it needs saying again, are a vital element which offer both legal and economic security, without which there would not be any inventions.
Every time we raise these problems here we always make a point of emphasizing Europe's weakness in the area of innovation.
Now, the process of innovation is directly linked with the process of invention and, therefore, with protection.
Six months ago now, we voted through a report of which I was the author and in which we drew attention to this European paradox of a Europe putting itself forward as a champion of discovery but a Europe poor in inventions.
This report was passed unanimously.
Well, I have to say that while some people here may be suffering, as Mr Rothley was saying earlier, from 'Legasthenia' , they are also, curiously, suffering from amnesia; and I am very much afraid that genetic engineering is not going to be of much help to them.
The second thing I should like to highlight is the fact that a great deal has been said about humanism and morality.
Humanism is clearly that which ensures that Man is the measure of everything, and especially those men and women who suffer in their bodies and in their minds those diseases for which no-one has yet come up with a cure and for whom genetic engineering offers considerable hope.
This form of humanism has nothing whatever to do with the naturalism that we hear people talk about today, which regards idolized nature as a yardstick of I know not what judgement.
I would say to Mrs Roth that if, indeed, morality invigorates politics, then just as surely moralism kills it.
I fear that had we been called upon today to discuss Pasteur and his inventions, a part of this House would have condemned him, just as others condemned Galileo a few centuries ago!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur and I reached a fair compromise on Amendments 16 and 49 after lengthy discussions.
They concern recitals 16a and 16e and Article 3.
One of their chief aims is to prevent abuses.
Such abuses, which have in fact been tried already, could consist in patenting gene sequences without having any specific scientifically demonstrable application in mind.
The formulation 'an industrial application must be disclosed' draws a clear line. DNA sequences are not patentable just because they have been discovered.
They can become patentable on the basis of explicitly described applications, such as the production of active substances.
Anyone who has ever looked into the enormous expenditure that the development of such active substances entails will surely understand and recognize the moral justification, and indeed the necessity, of stimulating research and development by holding out the prospect of a patent.
These are not, as the demagogues have claimed, patents on life but rather patents for life.
Genetically engineered human hormones, for example, will be a monumental step forward for haemophiliacs, for anaemia sufferers and for patients with genetic metabolic disorders.
In 1995, when this Parliament rejected the proposal for a so-called biopatent directive, many Members saw it as a moment of glory for the European Parliament.
But it caused consternation among Europe's biotechnologists, because outright rejection naturally deprived them of the upsurge in motivation which the draft directive was meant to provide.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is why we are contributing now to a genuine red-letter day in the life of this Parliament.
After nine long years, let us finally adopt this legislation.
Madam President, Mr Rothley, you have argued very, very eloquently today in favour of employment, and you have undoubtedly imparted a sense of vision with regard to this entire issue.
But there are still some small discrepancies between your oral presentation and your written report.
Allow me to highlight a few.
The issue at stake here, of course, remains the monopoly of the pharmaceutical companies, which arises partly from the long lifespan of patents.
We are precluding research by small undertakings.
Holders of licences and patents will focus their research first and foremost on areas where, for example, there are large patient groups.
That has always been a reality which no-one, ourselves included, can ignore.
Discoverers of genes, according to your report, should still equate to patent-holders.
The patent-holder is given virtually exclusive rights to exploit and market the new research findings; given the near-oligopoly that exists in this domain, there is a particular danger that the SMEs and small research units will be trampled underfoot.
The reverse of your line of argument is true, which is why I see the Gebhardt and Berger amendments as an opportunity to redress the balance in some respects and to make the report approvable.
Madam President, I do not think there is any doubt at all that this debate has been shrouded in misinformation and quite deliberate sensationalist claims about patenting body-parts and the like.
We have to set that aside and look at the reality of it.
Biotechnology is an important industry in the European Union; it is a tremendously important sector, and we have to be very careful in the way we deal with it.
If we were to reject this, of course, patenting would still continue.
It would not continue in the European Union but it would continue somewhere else and we would have less control over it.
Patents are effectively an award for taking a risk and investing in the development of new medicines, and we should reward our companies for taking such risks.
However, it does not stop there.
If we are to patent biotech inventions, then we must take into account ethical considerations.
It is not enough simply to adopt what I would describe as the 'gee whiz school of technology' .
One has to recognize that ethical questions have to be asked and solutions must be found.
That is why Ian White's amendment introducing an ethical committee will give us the kind of directive that we want and need.
We need this because there is a question, not just about the right of companies, but also about the right of patients to have their suffering from genetic diseases alleviated.
That is tremendously important, and we must recognize that there are these ethical questions.
It is not possible to have an ethical assessment of every patent application, because I understand that there are some 10, 000 applications every year in the European Union, and there are not that number of philosophers to go round.
However, we need to have a framework within which such decisions can be made.
This is the first reading, and it is important that we show the Commission, the Council and the wider public that we are quite serious about this and that we recognize the need for a directive, but one with an ethical dimension.
That is a sine qua non of progress.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament is about to conclude this first reading of the new proposal for a directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions: this was no easy task!
We all remember - and some of you actually mentioned - the vote of 1 March 1995.
On that occasion and, generally, throughout the whole process of considering the earlier proposal, the European Parliament had voiced its own concern about the consequences that adopting the proposal might have had and raised important issues.
Through that vote of 1 March 1995 and despite the efforts made on all sides during the conciliation procedure, the European Parliament said one thing clearly: that it remained unpersuaded by the reasons and explanations provided.
Straightforward ethical and political questions had not, plainly, received equally straightforward and clear answers.
In this new proposal for a directive, the Commission, basically, set itself one principal objective: to respond to the concerns that had been expressed and to mark out those areas which had previously been insufficiently clear. That had, naturally, to be done within the scope of a sectoral directive on patents.
What then is the central question? To provide an absolute guarantee that the reasons behind the research, the industry and competitiveness were set within clear limits that prevent any form of appropriation of the human body, including the smallest elements thereof.
The Amsterdam European Council also clearly affirmed in its conclusions the absolute principle of respect for the integrity of human beings.
It is a question of establishing whether biological material can be patented.
We need therefore to establish clearly the distinction between the discovery of something that exists in nature and an invention that is the product of human activity with a well-defined objective.
The ethical aspect of biotechnological inventions, and particularly those concerning isolated elements of the human body, was therefore the Commission's starting-point for a thorough review to identify the most appropriate solution in this extremely sensitive area.
The Commission talked to the group of consultants on the ethics of biotechnology about the ethical aspects of patenting inventions involving elements of human origin.
Its opinion was given on 25 September 1996.
That positive opinion confirmed the Commission in its approach and provided further pointers.
I note, moreover, that Amendment No 1 specifically refers to this.
During the preparatory work for this plenary sitting, no less than six committees of the European Parliament worked on the proposal for a directive and held many lengthy meetings.
The debate was frank, open and far-reaching, and the arguments were entered into fully.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was therefore in full possession of the facts when it adopted its report on 18 June last, and I should like to extend my special thanks here to the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, for his exceptional work which is much to be admired.
I should also like to thank everyone, including those whose opinions have been less positive because this has been an important and civilized debate.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights adopted 64 amendments.
The Commission is prepared to accept all of those amendments because they provide suitable clarification...
... of the sensitive matters currently under discussion.
The main points are as follows: a formula that very clearly defines the difference between discovery and invention as regards isolated elements of the human body; nonpatentability of animal or plant species; an explicit ban on patenting human reproductive cloning procedures and procedures for modifying the germinal genetic identity of human beings; the need never to forget the ethical dimension and the possibility of that being the subject of appropriate preventive assessment; the achievement of a balance between the suffering that some inventions could cause to animals and the considerable usefulness of such inventions in medicine; and improved presentation of breeders' privileges.
On all of those points - as well, of course, as many others - the Commission believes that the contribution of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has been crucial to achieving the main aim, namely striking a balance between economic requirements and the absolute need to respect ethics.
The Commission is therefore, I repeat, prepared to accept all of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and to incorporate them into its amended proposal.
Some redrafting will be needed: this will not in any way change the substance of the amendments but simply improve the form to meet legal and institutional requirements.
The Commission considers that Amendment No 1, for instance, which I have already quoted, would be better inserted into a recital.
And as regards Amendment No 56 which calls for an ethics committee to be set up, the Commission will be referring to the group of consultants on the ethics of biotechnology which has already been set up.
Moreover, the House recently adopted a resolution renewing the mandate of that group of consultants.
As part of the effort to achieve a balance, the Commission is also prepared to consider a number of amendments that were tabled subsequently: Amendments Nos 67, 69, 77, 79 and 99, for example.
The proposal, as amended, will be submitted to the Council so that it can establish its common position.
The proposal for a directive is of crucial importance to the Council because it is one of the four initiatives under the action plan for the single market that the Member States have been called upon by the European Council to adopt as rapidly as possible and, at any event, by 1 January 1999.
We may therefore hope that the Luxembourg presidency, which is extremely sensitive to the problem, will be able to arrive at the common position at the meeting of the 'Internal Market' Council on 27 November next.
The European Parliament can count on the Commission to see that its contribution is respected and retained on that occasion.
Let me thank the House on behalf of the Commission for its contribution, and add my own personal thanks.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I believe we have witnessed an example today - just as we would wish to see, in fact - of excellent cooperation between the Commission and Parliament.
It really does work!
I should like to express my special thanks for your contribution, Commissioner.
Madam President, I have a question for Mr Monti on Amendment 49.
We have already gone well beyond the scheduled finishing time for this debate.
Perhaps you can have a private word with Mr Monti.
Mr Monti should declare whether he accepts that amendment, because it is basically about the patentability of life.
I shall not allow any more questions, because this has been a very comprehensive discussion.
Perhaps you can sit down again with Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Biotechnology and the White Paper
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0239/97) by Mr Bowe, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission report (COM(96)0630 - C4-0008/97) on the review of Directive 90/220/EEC in the context of the Commission's communication on biotechnology and the White Paper.
Madam President, we have already heard considerable debate this morning on a biotechnologically related issue of considerable importance.
We now have in front of us a report on another biotechnological issue of equal importance.
In this case, before the Commission presents a legislative text to Parliament, we have been given the opportunity to comment on the Commission's ideas in the form of a report on the review of Directive 92/20, which regulates the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms.
Parliament welcomes this possibility and looks forward to the early publication of a revised proposal by the Commission.
As I have already said, Directive 92/20 is intended to secure human and environmental safety for releases and marketing of genetically modified products (GMOs) and introduces a single entry point to the Community market for GMO products.
Parliament would unquestionably agree with the Commission that, in the light of recent problems with the operation of the Directive, a review is needed, and we would offer the following comments on the Commission's proposals, together with a number of additional suggestions for change.
It seems clear that we must continue to establish and use the precautionary principle as the basis on which the Directive is constructed.
It is, after all, better to be safe than sorry.
Nevertheless, there is a clear role within the Directive for a risk assessment of the proposed products, with a centralized definition of the objectives and methodology of the risk assessment that would ensure that all potential risks to human health and the total environment are considered.
We recognize and accept that in the light of experience it is possible to establish a classification commensurate with the identified risks involved for each release of GMOs.
However, we cannot yet find any convincing arguments from the Commission in support of proposals for multi-state releases and we consider that more experience should be gained with the simplified procedure provided for in the Directive before we can consider any reductions in the requirements.
We firmly believe that the Directive would be further improved if there were more consistent and thorough information and data collection during the course of experimental releases.
This would allow proper evaluation of the risks of full commercial releases and would provide a useful addition to a database that the Commission must establish in order to facilitate the exchange of information between Member States and better cooperation on the basis of that information.
We consider also that the Directive would function much better if decision-making procedures inside the Commission were made speedier, more transparent and more democratically accountable.
We therefore think it is important to ensure that the Scientific Technical Committee and the Technical Committee procedures are in line with the agreement known as the modus vivendi , and that these committees should meet in public and publish their minutes.
Citizens should have proper access to this information on the proposed releases, and be consulted.
Further, we are increasingly recognizing that some releases will raise ethical questions.
We ask the Commission to recognize this also and to seek a means by which social and ethical questions can be considered in the decisionmaking procedure.
We must recognize the right of the public to be informed and of consumers to be aware of the origin of products they are offered.
So we welcome the recent reinforcement of the labelling provisions of the Directive by the Commission.
We consider that the producers of GMO products must be ultimately responsible for their products.
We therefore ask the Commission to introduce a special liability provision into the Directive to guarantee that those producers are made responsible and suffer penalties when accidents or problems arise.
In conclusion, whilst there are many serious and important concerns associated with the use of biotechnology, particularly in the areas of food production and pharmaceuticals, the European Parliament believes that policy makers should take a very serious and thoughtful approach to the use of biotechnology in these areas, basing their decisions on sound science and not simply dismissing out of hand this technology which has many obvious benefits if used in a safe and sensible manner.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, First of all, we should like to thank Mr Bowe for having incorporated into his report practically all the amendments adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
That sort of cooperation between farmers and environmentalists does not occur too often, which is why I find it particularly encouraging.
I believe we have to recognize that the agricultural use of genetically altered plants and livestock is an area in which, naturally enough, advantages and risks are especially closely bound together.
Mr Bowe has made it clear that the consumer of the end product is entitled to an unbroken information chain and a fully transparent production process.
The thin line between favourable and unfavourable assessments by both farmers and consumers is illustrated by the example of maize.
When we think about it, very few of us would really object to maize plants being made more resistant by means of genetic engineering if that were to deter insects which might otherwise ruin the plants.
There would then be no need to spray insecticides - good news for the environment!
If, however, the same genetic engineering process also bred herbicide tolerance which maize could transfer to related wild plants, making them resistant to a particularly powerful weedkiller, I should then have reservations.
This also leads us to urge industry to strive for general acceptance of its products and processes, so that people can distinguish between what is useful and what is less useful.
Up to the present time, the exact opposite has been achieved, namely minimal consumer acceptance or even consumer resistance.
The issues addressed by Mr Bowe, such as the liability question, must be resolved.
We cannot take refuge in the argument that general liability law will automatically cover any occurrences in this domain.
This area is too new for that and must be minutely examined for potential liability problems.
I believe our work would ultimately have been easier if the preparation of this paper had included a clearer choice of alternative options.
During the next stages of this process we should make a point of ensuring that the proposals are expressed in legally precise terms and that their substance can be grasped by those who have to deal with them.
Madam President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his difficult work, in which he has sought at least partially to take into account the views of the Committee on Research.
Directive 220 must be amended in such a way as to simplify unnecessarily complicated procedures.
Provision should also be made for a more effective and open exchange of information between national authorities and the Commission.
One cannot overemphasize the importance of openness at all stages of the regulation of genetically modified organisms.
Consumers ought themselves to be able to choose what products they wish to consume.
Therefore if genetically modified organisms constitute part of a product or if they are used to produce it, this information absolutely must be included in product labelling, and clear, comprehensible and uniform labelling must be introduced.
A method of labelling must be worked out.
I call upon the Commission to respect this view of Parliament's.
The Commission should also take into account the environmental impact assessment and the findings of social and behavioural research concerning perceptions of risk.
Knowledge is constantly advancing, and further information being acquired.
It is important that assessments should be based on scientific information and that these findings should be used to clarify and broaden the basis for assessing the risks of the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms and their environmental impact.
New characteristics which are considered desirable can be imparted to foodstuffs more rapidly and more precisely by means of genetic engineering than by means of traditional breeding.
For example, the quality and yield of crops can be improved by developing varieties resistant to bacterial, viral and fungal diseases.
The use of pesticides and at the same time residues of them in foodstuffs and the environment can be reduced by combating plant diseases by means of genetic engineering.
On the other hand, genetic engineering may result in more pesticide use.
The first commercial applications of genetic engineering involved imparting above-average pesticide resistance to soya and maize varieties.
Besides giving a plant a characteristic which is considered desirable, transferring a gene may also produce an undesirable characteristic.
Modified plants may contain higher levels of natural toxins.
Products of genetically modified organisms absolutely must comply with the precautionary principle.
As experience and scientific knowledge advance, it must of course be possible to amend the provisions of the Directive.
Madam President, I am going to treat this almost as a continuation of the previous debate, because in his explanatory statement Mr Bowe states: ' As more advances take place in this sector it seems certain further questions of ethical acceptability will be raised.
Therefore, the Commission must examine how an ethical dimension can be introduced into the decision-making process related to the Directive.'
That is quite right and yet, in response to the debate a few minutes ago, Commissioner Monti seemed to be saying that the Commission would refer Parliament's demand for an ethical committee to the advisory group.
That, frankly, is not, and will not be, good enough.
If you look at the amendment to the Rothley report tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights you will see that we have asked the Commission to come forward with proposals.
Referring it to an advisory group, which is a body outside Parliament, is not sufficient.
Let me make that clear.
I would very much like a response from the Commissioner present, because I know she was also present when Commissioner Monti was giving what I regard as an inadequate reply.
The release of GMOs into the wider world is certainly a question which raises wider ethical issues.
This is exactly the kind of question that ought to be put to such an ethical committee.
Again, when we talk about this in terms of the Bowe report, there is no specific reference to such an ethical committee, because it has yet to be established.
We should be thinking now , in advance of the second reading of the Rothley report and of further developments in biotechnology, how we are to treat this whole question.
It is not going to be enough simply to refer it to an advisory committee which already exists.
That is a sensible first step, but it does not take us any further forward in terms of the structure of a proper ethics committee which will sooner or later have to treat the matter on a wider world stage on behalf of the European Union.
Madam President, the report we are debating on the review of Directive 90/220 on the deliberate release of genetically modified organisms falls within the scope of the updating of Community law in the field of biotechnology.
This will make it possible to take advantage of the experience and knowledge gained both from the development and progress of science, and from the application of the directive during the past seven years.
One of the main aspects of this review is risk assessment, of course with the related classification, so that parallelism can be achieved with the corresponding administrative procedures for granting permits for the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment.
Of course, simplification and flexibility of the directive's procedures must pose no threat to safety, and that is why mainly cases of demonstrated low risk should be involved.
Consequently, when the Commission produces the amended version of Directive 90/220, it must be sure to include clear indications on risk assessment.
In fulfilling the aims of building public confidence, enhancing the competitiveness of European industry and protecting public health and the environment, aims which, be it noted, the Commission itself has stressed in the context of the White Paper, it must take into account a number of factors such as: firstly, the type of genetic modification and in particular whether this relates to a simple property of the colour or texture of a fruit or, in contrast, the acquisition by a plant of resistance to an insecticide.
That, because in the latter case the balance of the ecosystem could be affected, as also could competitiveness, granted that farmers depend on certain companies which hold patents on the genetically modified plant but also on the insecticide to which it is resistant.
Secondly, whether along with the transfer of one or more genes, resistance to one or more antibiotics is also transferred.
Here, it is certainly necessary to take account of the possible transfer of resistance to micro-organisms.
Thirdly, if the genetically modified organism is a plant being cultivated experimentally and commercially, similar but unmodified plants should be protected.
This, because transfers of pollen may take place, when as is quite natural, new varieties of the same plant will emerge which, however, may have different and perhaps undesirable properties.
Here, I would like to stress that the existing Annexes 2, 3 and 4 of the Directive were commendably complete in respect of various important factors, and of course the fault was that those factors were not translated into a specific assessment of risk. I will now advance a few more ideas and would like an answer from the Commission.
First, upon what does it base its risk assessment and how does it classify it?
Secondly, how does it relate the classification of risk with administrative procedures? Where the question of insurance is concerned I am in general agreement with the rapporteur.
Concerning the labelling of foods, I think that all foods should be labelled so that consumers can always know what they are buying.
Besides, almost all consumers want full information about the foods they buy.
Only in that way can their confidence be gained.
Consumer information should also be improved, to help them choose between products.
I want to stress that this whole area needs monitoring, both by the Member States and by the Commission.
Madam President, this is a subject which - as other speakers have pointed out - follows on directly from that we were discussing earlier in the day.
One might say that they are preconditions for eachother.
I will start by thanking the rapporteur for his work and say that I agree with the main lines of the report.
What I would like to focus on therefore are one or two more specific points, the first one being to ask the Commission whether it is still logical for this subject to be covered by a single directive.
We are talking about, on the one hand, an experimental release and, on the other hand, the marketing of something which has already been subjected to trials.
But, when we get down to it, we cannot say that the same rules apply and I think that, in view of the fact that other directives have been put into effect, one might wonder whether it is still logical to have only one directive, or might it not be easier to deal with if there were two different directives?
I will also say that, along with others, of course I agree with the Commission's wish to simplify matters and hence possibly also to introduce a classification of risks. GMOs are not all equally risky and, as that is what we have also done, for example in connection with the contained use of GMOs, it would be logical to do that.
I also think the Commission is right to propose that we try to establish some procedures so that direct comparisons can be made.
I think that is the way we can get the individual countries to accept other countries' results, rather than saying in blanket fashion that, if a product has been thoroughly tested in one country, the results must also apply in other countries.
It is at least necessary at the present stage to secure some harmonization.
When I put it that way, it is because, regardless of what we may think about the matter, this is still a very sensitive subject in public opinion. That is why it is important to take public concerns in this area into account when we discuss simplification procedures.
Madam President, the Commission has been very good about keeping its promise in the White Paper to produce a report reviewing Directive 90/220/EEC.
It is a pity that in looking at the directive, nothing has been done about the limited use made of it, which would have been helpful.
The subject is too complex and too important to be rushed through quickly.
It seems likely that quite a number of new plants will be coming onto the market in Europe over the next few years.
More than 3600 have been introduced in the United States in recent years, and Europe can expect roughly the same.
However, this should not make us feel any more relaxed about the introduction of new products.
We must still adopt a cautious approach, which means being as careful as possible in both the field trial and marketing phases.
As far as the review is concerned, I think that the Commission has produced a good report.
But it forgot one thing: to include itself.
While the Member States are required to meet specific deadlines, the Commission itself does not have any fixed time limit for reaching a final decision on authorization.
The detailed internal consultation procedure sometimes means that files can spend months circulating around the Commission's offices.
I entirely agree with the Commission's proposal that the new directive should also require the benefits and risks of introducing new products to be spelt out.
The public has a right to this information, since they are the ones who are going to have to eat the new foodstuffs.
I do not think the motion for a resolution is entirely clear on all points.
The first few paragraphs, for example, do not make it clear that they apply only to field trials, and other paragraphs too are rather obscurely worded.
Paragraph 12 also does not take account of the recently adopted amendment to Annex III.
I am anxious to see the new proposal from the Commission, but this review has at least made me feel more confident about it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the 20th century has seen the emergence and development of two types of high-risk technology.
The first was nuclear power, and the second is genetic manipulation.
Nobody can say today which of the two will ultimately prove the more dangerous.
Mr Bowe's report shows quite clearly that those selfsame mistakes which a previous generation of politicians made are about to be repeated.
There was no risk assessment on the use of nuclear power.
The decision to develop nuclear energy was taken on the basis of misinformation about its potential effects.
We only know a tiny fraction today of all there is to learn about the actual consequences of genetic manipulation.
Nevertheless, it is to be pushed through with totally unnecessary haste.
What we must ask ourselves here is this: who needs such technology?
Who needs it immediately, and for what purpose? There are a few industrial groups seeking to maximize their profits without incurring any of the attendant risks.
The Commission report is an attempt to lend them a helping hand.
In my opinion, Mr Bowe has made a very valiant effort to engage in damage limitation here.
One thing is perfectly clear: there is good reason for the haste with which genetically manipulated organisms are being released, because the more information people have about the possible consequences and risks, the harder it will be to legalize this technology.
Our duty as representatives of the people can only be to ensure that any type of danger to human beings is kept to an absolute minimum.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this Directive must guarantee human and environmental safety whenever genetically modified organisms are released, otherwise products containing them cannot be admitted into the Community market.
But if Community research is to be equipped to play its part in making biotechnological products more competitive, uniformly applicable rules and comprehensive, Communitywide data collections and information regarding the results of experimental releases, especially in terms of their environmental impact, must be guaranteed and acted upon.
In so far as the Commission's intentions reflect these aims, its report is to be emphatically welcomed.
But it is unacceptable, Mrs Bjerregaard, that the Commission should intend to alter the scope of the Directive, in other words its annex, without consulting Parliament, as is implied in the Commission's report.
I can only warn the Commission against that; it is not only democracy that would suffer.
In biotechnological research, experimental releases are indispensable as final tests of the harmlessness of GMOs to people and the biosphere.
However, the revised Directive is expected to define clear risk categories for released GMOs and equally unambiguous administrative requirements for releases in each category.
That should reveal whether a so-called simplified procedure is needed at all.
Such a procedure does not seem logical to me, for the lowest risk category should logically have the simplest procedure assigned to it, making any further simplification unnecessary.
So I shall finish with this appeal to the Commission: abolish the simplified procedure, make the Directive clearer and ensure that it is rigorously implemented.
Madam President, I will start by thanking the rapporteurs, Mr David Bowe, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström and Mr Willi Görlach, for Parliament's response to the report from the Commission on the review of Directive 90/220 covering the release of genetically modified organisms into the environment.
This is a procedural directive aimed at maintaining a high level of safeguards for health and the environment, so as to ensure the orderly development of GMO technology.
The directive is of great practical significance and, in the report we are debating today, the Commission undertakes an analysis of how the directive has worked since it came into force.
Let me go through some of the problem areas which have been mentioned here today and which we draw attention to in the report.
There is, for example, insufficient guidance on risk assessment, to which the rapporteur also drew attention in his speech.
We lack a system for the classification of releases, we lack a system for the adjustment of administrative procedures to the release category and we do not have access to the deliberations of a scientific committee on matters relating to health and the environment.
There is also the problem of administratively cumbersome procedures and approval systems for the marketing of products.
There is a need for greater transparency and - as we all know, since it is a matter we have had occasion to discuss before now - there is a pressing need for labelling.
As Parliament knows, the Commission at my instigation adopted a provisional technical amendment of Annex 3 to Directive 90/220/EEC, according to which labelling would be required for all products released.
This amendment has now been finally adopted so that, from 1 August this year, labelling will be compulsory for all products covered by this Directive.
The Commission considers this to be a very important step in the right direction, and we think that in this way we have given the guidance to consumers that Parliament, in particular, has called for on several occasions.
I am very pleased to see that the report has been the subject of very thorough discussion in the European Parliament.
The debate in Parliament has come up just in time for me to incorporate Parliament's wishes into the proposal for a review which is underway in the Commission.
I just have a few comments to make on Parliament's motion for a resolution.
The first concerns the special liability provision that Parliament wants to include in this Directive.
This is an important matter, and Parliament knows that I agree that we need liability provisions in a wide range of areas, including biotechnology.
In order to achieve that, the Commission is currently drafting a White Paper on this subject, and I hope that the White Paper will give us the necessary basis on which to establish common rules and hence make it possible to impose requirements on the matter in specific environmental legislation.
The second point I wish to address - which many speakers have also raised - is the question of ethics.
Again, I agree with Parliament's comments, but, as was also noted in the debate, the Commission has chosen to deal with the ethical dimension in a broader context, not just in conjunction with the release of GMOs into the environment.
Hence that more general discussion must be taken into account before the matter is covered in specific legislation.
As regards the proposals in the report, which were also singled out in the course of today's debate, for better exchanges of information between Member States and the establishment of a database, it is a special pleasure for me to announce that DG XI has already made all the necessary arrangements.
That means that, later this year, information on GMO releases will be available as regards both scientific and commercial aspects on the Internet.
Thus I fully support the rapporteur's desire for better information and greater transparency in this field.
Once again therefore, I would like to thank Parliament for its report.
The motion for a resolution has been a significant aid to DG XI in drafting the proposal for an amendment of Directive 90/220/EEC, and I hope to get it adopted by the Commission straight after the summer holidays.
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Madam President, as most poeple in this House know, this will be the last occasion on which you sit in the Chair of this plenary before your retirement to take up your full-time career in the National Assembly.
On behalf of my group and I am sure, on behalf of all the Members of this House, I should like to wish you the very best for your career and, in particular, to say that your integrity and the respect in which you are held in this House, for the manner in which you have chaired this plenary over many years are without question.
We wish you good luck and would like to offer you these flowers on behalf of my group and, indeed, of the whole House.
(Loud applause)
VOTES
Madam President, this is a rather unusual vote.
The House voted on the report in the spring of 1995, and then, because the Commission was not willing to accept amendments proposed by Parliament, it was referred back to committee.
In the two years since then, we have negotiated with the Commission and have arrived at a mutually acceptable result.
That result is on the table today.
We have come to an arrangement with the administration that another vote will be taken today on the amendments which were adopted back in 1995.
We shall then vote on the amendments that have been drafted jointly with the Commission, which means that the whole report will be put to the vote today.
The Commission will then - or so I assume - accept the amendments, and we shall thus be able to take the final vote.
This example shows that, even if we only have a consultative role under Article 43, codecision is still a legal possibility for us if we can negotiate a waiver with the Commission.
If the Commission and Parliament now adopt a common position, the Council may only reject it unanimously, and this gives Parliament considerable clout, even on substantive issues.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not wish to prolong the discussion here, so I shall continue from where Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf left off.
I essentially intend to refer only to those amendments that affect genetically modified organisms, not just because they are probably the most important but also because of the need for a number of minor editorial adjustments.
Firstly, the wording of Amendment 22 on environmental risk assessments should be slightly amended in the interests of legal certainty.
Paragraph 4(b) should now read, ' The procedures designed to ensure that the environmental risk assessment is similar to that laid down in Directive 90/220/EEC shall be introduced on a proposal from the Commission in a Council Regulation based on the appropriate provisions of the Treaty.'
Secondly, I should like to turn to Amendment 23, which relates to catalogues of seed varieties and labelling and which expresses the wish of the Commission and Parliament to ensure that the user knows whether his seed is a genetically modified variety.
The labelling provisions, however, must be enshrined in those parts of the legal instruments that refer to the product in question, in this case seed.
For that reason, the labelling clause should not be in the Directive on the common catalogue of varieties but in the Directive on the marketing of seed.
This restructuring does not affect the principle underlying the agreement and can be taken into account in due course in the Commission's revision of the proposal.
Allow me finally to deal briefly with Amendment 8, which sets out the proposal for the introduction of mutually recognized inspections, i.e. European inspections.
It was the understanding of the Commission that this amendment would not be pursued any further.
Should that not be the case, however, the proposal would be unacceptable, because satisfactory arrangements are already laid down in the relevant Directives.
Lastly, I too am pleased to be able to inform you that the Commission can accept all the amendments, subject to these editorial alterations, and I should like to express my thanks once again to the rapporteur, Mr Graefe von Baringdorf, for the cooperative way in which this matter has been settled.
On the subject of Amendment No 21
Madam President, there are two points to consider in connection with Amendment 21.
In the French translation it is apparently difficult to understand the substance of the second paragraph.
The paragraph elaborates on the meaning of 'marketing' and contains a double negative, i.e. trade in seed not aimed at commercial exploitation of the variety shall not be regarded as marketing.
That seems to have been rather difficult in French, because the words for marketing and commercial exploitation and for trade resemble each other very closely.
However, I would ask my French colleagues to rely on the original text and to adapt the French version accordingly.
My second point is that a separate vote has been requested, essentially on the third indent, which states that the local exchange of seed between farmers for exclusive use on their own farms does not constitute marketing.
This was negotiated with the Commission.
Since then, however, considerable pressure has been exerted by the seed industry for the omission from the Directive of any reference to this practice of neighbourly exchange, which is widespread among farmers in every country, because the seed producers suspect it might lose them some business.
I ask the House to resist this pressure and approve the third indent.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, on a point of order.
I refer to Rule 53(5).
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has let Parliament down by not properly dealing with the legal base amendments I have tabled.
By so failing, this Parliament is in danger of finding itself adopting something which is legally incompetent.
This would not make us look very clever if the matter were subsequently to be taken to court.
I want to register this point of order, and urge Members that the only way out of this is to support Amendments Nos 3 and 4 which, quite clearly, safeguard the common fisheries policy against any tampering with its legal base.
Madame President, after hearing what Mr Macartney said, I think it would perhaps be a good idea, in the interests of informing the judgement of our colleagues, to have the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights explain the Committee's position.
Madame President, the committee does not necessarily have to take account of the amendments tabled.
That is the committee's position and I have nothing to add.
Madam President, on a point of order.
What Mr Macartney said is correct.
It really begs the question about how the Committee on Legal Affairs deals with issues.
Madam President, the point at issue is that the Legal Affairs Committee did not put the documents before the committee members.
The documents which were needed for the Legal Affairs Committee to come to a legal opinion were lodged.
They were not put before the committee.
That is the essence of this matter.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, I should like to say again how gratified I am that we were able to vote on the report in this manner and that Parliament was able to secure the approval of the Commission for some of its substantive positions.
Among these substantive points are the principle of labelling genetically modified seed - a labelling provision which goes well beyond the requirements of the Regulation concerning novel foods and which, I hope, will set an example - and the fact that we are undertaking a revision here and that a similar labelling regime will soon be established for consumer goods.
Another very important point in this report is that local varieties have been authorized and can be marketed again and that this will help to safeguard genetic diversity.
What I rather regret - and here I fail to understand the PPE Group in particular, who are normally staunch advocates of farming interests - is that the PPE Group rejected the third indent regarding local exchanges of seed between neighbouring farmers for use on their own farms.
This meant that the amendment failed by a few votes.
I do hope that the Commission will now incorporate this text - which, after all, we negotiated with it - into its implementing provisions, so that the present neighbourly practice can still be legalized by virtue of those provisions.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats abstained from the vote today on the report indicated.
The seed package is based on Article 43 of the EC Treaty, which the Danish Social Democrats can accept as long as it only concerns the amalgamation of trade directives in the field of agriculture.
But in this case it is also a question of inserting part of the Directive on the release of GMOs into the Seeds Directive.
As the Release Directive is normally dealt with under Article 100a, which amongst other things gives individual Member States freedom to apply the environment clause, the Danish Social Democrats cannot accept the loss of this facility.
The remainder of the report is satisfactory.
Our Group has voted in favour of all the amendments proposed by the Committee on Agriculture concerning changes to the directives relating to the marketing of seed, apart from the third indent of Amendment No 21.
Our Group is more than satisfied with the compromise resulting from the vote in plenary session.
Indeed, undertakings marketing seed need to abide by a number of legitimate requirements, such as those dealing with labelling and user information. These types of controls should enable bona fide businesses to develop and eliminate less scrupulous operators.
As for the farmers, the amendments tabled and adopted in plenary session essentially safeguards the principle of preferential treatment for farmers.
As regards the third indent of Amendment No 21, our Group opposed this and notes with satisfaction that it failed to win approval.
Indeed, although the principle of seed exchanges between neighbours may appear quite legitimate, measures are necessary to prevent the establishment of a parallel market and especially the risk of losing all traceability of seed produced from genetically-modified organisms.
On the Souchet report (A4-0144/92)
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats voted for the Souchet report today.
The Danish Social Democrats want the common fisheries policy to be built on principles of rationality and sustainability.
Aquaculture is a major source of pollution in the fishery sector.
The Danish Social Democrats do not therefore want aquaculture to form part of either an employment strategy or an environmental strategy.
The same applies to similar sources of pollution in the fishery sector.
The amendments to my report that Mr Macartney had tabled posed a legal problem that went outside the scope of the report, and its is the consideration of this problem that led to the vote being deferred by two months.
Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has just presented its conclusions: it is of the opinion, by a very large majority, that the legal basis adopted by the Commission is correct.
At the time of the vote Mr Macartney had said that the Legal Affairs Committee did not appear to him to have examined the question he had raised closely enough.
In response to my intervention, the Chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee indicated that its conclusions were, on the contrary, sufficiently precise.
On this basis, our Group accordingly decided not to accept Mr Macartney's amendments and, quite naturally, to vote in favour of the final resolution.
As regards the substance of the report, I can only regret the fact that during the debate in plenary session Commissioner Bonino failed to accept the validity of the two amendments that I put forward in my report and which have been adopted virtually unanimously by the Members of this House.
It is indeed wrong for the Commission to seek to claim rights that it does not actually possess in order to avoid all controls on the manner in which it negotiates.
If, within the framework of international conferences, the Commission accepts new technical restrictions to be imposed on European Union fishermen, it seems to us vital for the Council and Parliament to be able to have their say on the validity of such restrictions.
Since the Council must be in a position to oversee the Commission's actions at any given time, it does not seem to us to be appropriate to modify the existing decision-making procedure, which does provide for the exercise of such supervision.
I note with satisfaction that Parliament gave its approval to this approach by an almost unanimous vote in favour.
On the Pery report (A4-0220/97)
We would like to thank the rapporteur for her very thorough work on this report.
But we want to state our own fundamental attitude to fishery agreements of this type.
We think that the European Union should cease this type of expensive fishery agreement and instead support domestic fishing operations in developing countries.
Such a solution would better serve the development of fish as a significant source of food globally, would strengthen economic development in these countries and would also remove the risk which can accompany fishing agreements, whereby fishing operations in certain Member countries receive indirect support to continue their operation in a situation where the whole of the European fishing industry needs to be severely restricted.
. (DA) We are voting on the extension of a protocol to an agreement which has already expired, let alone already taken effect.
It is a grotesque situation.
I abstain from voting because I do not entirely approve of the content of these fishing agreements with Senegal, which at the same time we know are not wanted by the local fishermen.
On the Gallagher report (A4-0229/97)
In view of the European Parliament's discussion of the above report we wish to state our own fundamental attitude to fishery agreements of this type.
We think that the European Union should cease this type of expensive fishery agreement and instead support local fishing operations in developing countries.
Such a solution would better serve the development of fish as a significant source of food globally, would strengthen economic development in these countries and also remove the risk that often accompanies fishing agreements, whereby fishing operations in certain Member countries receive indirect support to continue their operations in a situation where the whole of the European fishing industry needs to be severely restricted.
We also think that, when the opportunity arises, the European Parliament should consider contributing to the introduction of a fundamental change in attitude in this area.
On the Papakyriazis report (A4-0211/97)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Ombudsman's annual report is an opportunity to remind ourselves of the scale of its task.
As a member of the Committee on Petitions, I cannot but pay tribute to the work of the Ombudsman's office and its contribution to a process that seeks to bring the citizens of our nations closer to European institutions that seem all too remote from them.
Yet, there is one thing that worries me: Mr Papakyriazis' report speaks of, and I quote: ' supporting the institutional balance laid down by the Treaties and, in particular, the correct exercise of the discretionary powers of the Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of Justice' .
However, since by definition these discretionary powers need to be exercised acting with complete independence, in other words without any a posteriori control, it is clear that the European institutions and other bodies can never deviate from the rules of fairness and legality that the Member States themselves have put in place, and it is no less evident that Community administration, like any other, has to be flexible.
Without this flexibility it will continue to be - or even become so, if it is not already - labyrinthine and doctrinaire.
Along with the rapporteur, we too therefore stress the need to define the Ombudsman's terms of reference clearly and, what is more important, the concept of maladministration, to protect him against any interventionist tendencies.
At the end of the day reforms will have to be put through, if that is what it takes, rather than having to make do with the conscience-salving post-facto corrective measures brought by the Ombudsman's action.
And let us not forget that, as elected representatives of our respective peoples, it is we who are their best ombudsmen in the context of the Union.
Finally, I should like to draw attention to the fact that, in accordance with Article 13 of this Assembly's decision dated 9 March 1994 defining the Ombudsman's legal status, the Ombudsman's headquarters are in the European Parliament.
Now, as the final communiqué of the recent IGC reminded us, that is in Strasbourg.
I would therefore not wish for the setting up - to quote from the Ombudsman's report - ' of a small outpost in Brussels' , to be anything more than a practical expedient with no implication of any additional centralizing relocation which could, ultimately, lead to Strasbourg becoming a small outpost of Brussels.
The Scandinavian view is that establishing an Ombudsman to serve the public interest is a good idea.
It is particularly important in view of the democratic shortcomings of the EU and the love of bureaucratic, detailed regulations which permeates the Union's authorities.
We have voted for the proposal which aims to improve the prospects for the general public to submit a petition.
But we have voted against point 4 in the report which states 'that the Ombudsman's role should be to support the institutional balance which is established in the Treaty...'
This conflicts with the very aim of the function of Ombudsman to serve the public interest and to forward their complaints.
Furthermore, this is not covered in the relevant sections of the Treaty i.e. in Articles 8d, 138d, and 138e.
On the Larive report (A4-0219/97)
Unfortunately, the plain truth is that many big companies invest enormous amounts of money in showering consumers with gaudy advertisements for products which I did not even know existed.
The fact that they were lacking in my life was even less obvious to me.
The fact that advertisements, also known as commercial communication, are to be regulated at EU level is bad for consumers.
It would be better if the National States themselves establish regulations on what is acceptable, taking into account any cultural aspects.
I cannot find any mention of the significance of this matter for consumers in the Commission's Green Paper.
The aim is clear enough, i.e. rules which will apply for companies, but I think it is important to put the emphasis on the situation of the consumer.
It is important that there are strong consumer organisations or public authorities which are responsible for dealing with complaints and ensuring that the established rules are observed.
This is particularly important for 'cross border advertising' which affects consumers.
This service is best provided free of charge to the consumer.
Of course it is important for the market to be self regulating but companies do not manage this task themselves, as has been demonstrated by the current situation (otherwise the issue would not have been raised).
There must be especially strong standards governing advertisements aimed at young people and children as they are particularly vulnerable.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the Larive report, but we are opposed to two points regarding the question of applying the country of origin or destination principle.
In the interests of consumers, the Danish Social Democrats favour a compromise between the two principles, so that a consumer who buys a product in one country on the basis of advertising originating in another should not have to be familiar with the other country's law and trade practices in order to be able to complain about any defects in the product.
We thus support two of the four amendments which have been tabled on the two points referred to.
At the present time, the problem of commercial communication in the European internal market is regrettably very striking evidence of the EU operating as a 'deregulating community' as well as being a vivid illustration of how and under what conditions this is being done. The EU is applying powerful leverage to prise away existing regulatory mechanisms in the Member States but is not replacing them with equivalent mechanisms at the European level.
The report before us blindly succumbs to this deregulatory trend, thereby exposing a key area of human culture and personal development to unbridled commercialization.
As Greens we cannot and will not respond to this trend by advocating renationalization, but we certainly can take every opportunity, even before the appearance of the longoverdue European codes of conduct, to insist that steps, however small, be taken to curb this destructive tendency; this can be done by appropriate use of the Commission's right of initiative as well as by prudent application of the subsidiarity principle.
It cannot replace European framework directives, but it can help to tide us over the period required for their adoption.
The common internal market of the European Union can coexist with the cultural diversity of its Member States and regions; there is no reason to use it as a steamroller to enforce uniformity.
On the contrary, a segmented market with human needs at its core actually requires such diversity and the protection it affords.
Only if market development is distorted into an end in itself, if human needs are reduced to nothing more than a market force, does the sort of non-regulation proposed here start to appear rational...
On the Bowe report (A4-0239/97)
With regard to the Commission's communication on biotechnology, our Group believes that a measure of development in this industry of tomorrow should be allowed to go ahead, while keeping a very careful watch to prevent any possible abuses.
Having said that, we believe it is absolutely vital to draw up a rigorous procedure that will allow geneticallyengineered products to be kept under strict scrutiny.
At the time we were having the various debates on genetically-modified organisms, industrialists were repeatedly assuring us that they were quite capable of keeping tight control over their spread.
It is for this reason that our Group has supported the insistent demands addressed to the Commission aimed at putting in place very clear rules relating to the responsibility of the various operators.
The BSE affair has shown the dangers to which we can be exposed when research is allowed to have high productivity as its sole focus in agriculture and pointed up the need to provide for a monitoring system that is genuinely independent of the economic and political powers.
With this in mind we have supported the proposal for the setting up of a central scientific committee.
But care will need to be taken to draw up adequate procedures to avoid a repetition of the problems that occurred in the mad cow disease affair.
In conclusion, our Group stresses the need to preserve the precautionary principle in the interests of protecting consumers and protecting the environment.
Biotechnology will never be truly accepted by the citizens of Europe until real guarantees of safety are introduced.
That brings the voting to a close
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Telecommunications and competition
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A4-0215/97) by Mr W.G. van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission Green Paper on a numbering policy for telecommunications services in Europe (COM(96)0590 - C4-0658/96), -(A4-0213/97) by Mr Argyros, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the draft communication from the Commission on the application of the competition rules to access agreements in the telecommunications sector (COM(96)0649 - C4-0010/97), -(A4-0240/97) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directives 90/387/EEC and 92/44/EEC for the purpose of adaptation to a competitive environment in telecommunications (C4-0306/97-95/0280(COD)).
Mr President, I am speaking both to present my own report on the Green Paper on numbering, and also on the report by Mr Argyros.
Having dealt with legislation on the operation of the telecommunications market, interconnection and licensing, we have now moved on to directives and green papers concerned primarily with the interests of consumers - namely the content and operation of the universal service - such as this Green Paper on a numbering policy in the European Union.
Clearly, consumers are also bound to reap the benefits of the liberalization of the telecommunications market, in terms of an improved price/quality ratio and a better and more comprehensive service.
There is still a long way to go here, as we can see from the fact that new providers are already offering lower prices and better service deals.
What instruments can the consumer use to obtain better quality or prices? Number portability and carrier preselection are important here, since they allow consumers to decide for themselves which operator they wish to use for long-distance calls, which are expensive and therefore where they can make the greatest savings.
Number portability - being able to take your number with you if you move to another operator - is at the top of the list.
It is an extremely effective means of obliging operators to do their best to treat their customers well, knowing that it is relatively easy for them to switch to another operator.
Let us not forget that in the long run-up to the interconnection directive, Parliament always urged that number portability should be introduced as soon as possible.
I am pleased that at its last meeting, the Council came round to Parliament's point of view and itself recommended that number portability should be introduced without delay.
In my report, I propose that countries which have not introduced number portability by 1 January 2000 should be regarded as countries where full competition on the telecommunications market has not yet been achieved, so that the public are regularly made aware that their country is not yet geared up and that consumers are therefore paying too much.
Number portability will also eventually have to be introduced for the mobile sector, but I know that there are still some difficulties to be resolved there.
Another important point is carrier selection and carrier preselection.
Liberalization is of little benefit to European consumers unless they can choose their long-distance operator.
Because we wish to have fair competition throughout the Union, I think that each country should be obliged to provide carrier selection and carrier preselection.
I would strongly urge my colleague Mrs Read to withdraw Amendment No 1.
It is not in the interest of consumers, and it protects major operators who charge high costs for long-distance calls while at the same time benefiting from their competitive advantages in continental Europe.
That is not really what you could call reciprocity.
I also propose establishing a legal basis for number portability and for carrier selection and carrier preselection in a review of the interconnection directive.
I hope that Commissioner Bangemann will agree to this.
Another point covered in my report is the development of 'pan-European service numbers' .
There is expected to be a boom in services based on these numbers over the next few years, and I have stressed that the development of European numbers also needs to take account of the development of global numbers.
I have heard contradictory statements about how much scope there is for special European numbers, and I would like to hear what the Commissioner has to say about developments on a global scale, and what role the European Union ought to play.
I certainly believe that Europe should take the lead if global developments take too long, as many fear.
Anyone who looks at Eurosport's special offers page - and I know that both the Commissioners are great sports fans, so they must spend hours doing this - knows that the huge variety of numbers does nothing to promote the development of pan-European services.
I also think that consumers should be quite clear about whether they are using freephone numbers or numbers for which they will be charged.
In some Member States, the difference is not always clear and consumers are kept on hold for several minutes without knowing whether it is costing them a fortune.
You cannot keep making changes to number plans.
They alarm people, and anyway they cost both individuals and firms too much money.
That is why it would be better to aim for one successful operation in five years' time, rather than making changes every year.
I also think it would be going too far to introduce a European country code with the number 3.
This needs further study.
My group agrees with the main thrust of the proposals in the Green Paper, and we would like to know what the Commissioners think about our proposals and amendments.
I have one final comment on the report by Mr Argyros.
I think that the main point is to clarify the idea of special network access and how it should be interpreted.
I should like to hear what the Commissioner thinks about this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of the Commission's communication is to secure equal competition conditions in the numerous access agreements that will be concluded between existing telecommunications network and services agencies and their new competitors, in light of the forthcoming liberalization of the telecommunications sector from 1 January 1998.
As rapporteur of the report on this Commission communication, I tried with my comments to the Commission and the Council to examine and clarify the essential prerequisites for fair competition which would potentially foster development and technological modernization in the telecommunications sector.
The issues I deal with in my report are as follows:
Firstly, the timetable for liberalization and the essential characteristics of the regulatory framework for telecommunications, in other words clarity, flexibility, and compatibility with the international regulatory framework.
Secondly, technological development and modernization in the sector.
Thirdly, the principles for effective and equal application of the competition rules to facilitate the transition of the sector to a competitive environment, i.e. harmonized rules and a harmonized approach by the national regulatory authorities, and objective criteria when assessing whether there has been a distortion of the competition rules.
Finally, I attempt to examine the world-wide dimension of telecommunications.
More specifically, concerning the timetable and the regulatory framework: liberalization is to take place on 1 January 1998.
It is evident that not all the Member States of the European Union will be ready for that deadline.
This is already a problem for the application of the competition rules.
For that reason, the Commission must consider the ways in which, during this transitional period, it intends to deal with the cross-border issues of distorted competition between liberalized and non-liberalized telecommunications markets.
I think it would be beneficial for all the Member States to speed up their efforts to comply with the prerequisites required for liberalization.
The regulatory framework of the telecommunications sector comprises numerous directives, each covering its respective aspects.
This fragmented regulatory system makes it harder for those involved, who have no clear picture of the legislation in force, and creates an off-putting climate for investment in the sector.
Recalling, then, the need for a clear and flexible legislative framework, I ask for compatibility and consistency between the frameworks regulating interconnections and access agreements.
I also think the Commission should establish an overall text defining the legislative framework for telecommunications in a clear and easily perceptible way.
The report's second important issue concerns the significant effect of the rapidity of technological developments.
To be competitive in this sector at international level, Europe must adopt up-to-date legislation compatible with recent technological developments, which will allow for the use of new technologies and offer legal protection to interested parties.
Wishing to avoid marginalization of the sector by reason of outdated technology, and granted the convergence shown by the sectors of telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology, I consider it necessary to apply the competition rules to the area of digital broadcasting as well.
Telecommunications are a field of economic activity which is traditionally monopolistic, so as to secure the basic services for all citizens.
The change from a monopolistic to a competitive environment is a sensitive issue, requiring particular care so far as the application of Community rules of competition is concerned.
The transition can only be completed effectively provided the competition rules are established clearly and applied strictly in an equal and harmonized way.
That harmonization can be contributed to by the national regulatory authorities, exercising their responsibilities in the context of the rules governing open network provision, in other words the special legislation for the telecommunications sector.
Those authorities must be quite independent from the public provision agencies, and must follow a harmonized European approach which fully respects the rules of competition.
The Committee was exercised by the fact that to begin with, the existing official agencies will have competitive advantages until new alternatives become established.
To achieve equal conditions in those circumstances, it must be set as a prime obligation for all agencies to provide equal access, and to establish an authoritative position, the Commission must make clear the factors it will be taking into account, follow a more elastic and global approach, and adopt objective criteria.
The last point, but a very important one for Europe's position in the world system, granted the international character of telecommunications and the efforts in progress to open up the markets, is that the Community's framework must be compatible with existing regulations in third countries.
Consistency between the two and utilization of Europe's competitive advantages will make it possible for European companies to compete dynamically against their nonCommunity competitors, with positive results for the economy and for Europe's citizens.
Finally, let me thank my colleagues for their cooperation and support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the task that I have to perform is indeed a very pleasant one, namely to report to the House on the highly favourable progress in a procedure that has been relatively closely monitored by all the partners.
I would like here to pay tribute to the Dutch Presidency which has displayed considerable forcefulness, since it has succeeded in persuading the Council to accept solutions that were closer to those advanced by Parliament and the Commission.
I should also like to express my thanks to the Commission, which realized fairly quickly that some of Parliament's amendments were after all excellent, and that also went for its overall policy.
Lastly I wish to thank my colleagues, who gave me the confidence to see the negotiations with the Council Presidency through to completion.
Let me tell you briefly what was involved. It was necessary to arrive at a precise definition of leased lines.
The point was accepted. It was also necessary to ensure - and that is dealt with in the report that Mr van Velzen spoke about earlier - the portability of numbers because, where competition in the telecommunications industry is concerned, portability of numbers is a vital element.
No matter how carefully worded a text, if switching from one telecommunications provider to another were to involve some complex procedure or dialling a long string of numbers, this would clearly discourage competition.
That point too was accepted.
Two or three problems continue to preoccupy Parliament, and their solution does not depend entirely on the Commission but also on the Council.
What problems am I talking about? First there is the independence of the national regulatory authorities.
We know that in some countries authorities like that do exist: they enjoy real independence and real power.
That is not the case everywhere.
In other countries such authorities are still in their embryonic stages and seem to be like a fig leaf, which is designed to hide what we are not supposed to see: their total impotence in their dealings with the main telecommunications network provider.
This point has not yet been resolved.
We know that this is not the Commission's fault and that the problem lies with the Council, which has not quite got there yet.
Another problem that concerns us and one that we are becoming increasingly aware of is the question of the fair enforcement of directives.
We now have directives that are beginning to form a consistent and coherent whole, but they are far from being enforced uniformly throughout the Community.
It would be good therefore to have someone who could cut through the disputes that are bound to arise - indeed, some are beginning to arise already.
We have a written undertaking from the Commission which says, and I quote: ' the Commission has undertaken to check that arrangements in the various Member States for the setting up of the universal service do not entail any distortion of competition' .
That is a major problem.
The universal service, as we have seen here in Parliament, is an interesting concept, but it does have a certain obvious ideological aroma about it: universal service, public service - there is indeed a danger that it may end up as neither fish, flesh nor fowl.
One must therefore beware of distortion of competition taking place under the very clever and somewhat popularity-seeking pretext of spreading the idea of the universal service, disguising the true objective which is better protection for the national territory or the national market.
This has happened in some countries, including mine I have to say.
We are hopeful that, now that the Commission has given its undertaking, we shall be able to straighten matters out.
I should like to draw your attention to one point over which the Commission has been a little coy: the need to have a European authority.
I can understand that the Commission is none to eager at the moment to claim authority for itself because, politically, this would not be an opportune time to do so.
This does not alter the fact that one day we will need the intervention of a European authority. One thing that is needed above all else - and that is my one major reproach to the heads of state who met in Amsterdam - is for the powers of the Commission to be strengthened when it comes to negotiations with the outside.
The service industries, and that includes telecommunications therefore, are not provided for.
The Treaty of Rome, as we know, stipulated that the Commission should be the main body to handle negotiations with the outside.
One might have wished that that were so, not only in the case of goods and capital but also with services.
Now, in Amsterdam, we had two or three countries that, for quite illogical and incomprehensible reasons that go against the interests of their own citizens, have refused.
They followed France and one or two others that have been dissatisfied with the way the Commission has been defending their interests in certain negotiations.
This is a problem that is going to crop up on a regular basis.
That said, the result is there for all to see: we have still not had satisfaction on this point.
Finally there is the problem of commitology.
This is another question that has not been properly addressed in Amsterdam, but since we have been promised an intergovernmental conference before enlargement, we shall have an opportunity to put that right.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the introduction of number portability is essential for the successful operation of a liberalized telecommunications market, and it should take place simultaneously in all the Member States in order to provide fair competition for businesses on the internal market.
Legislation needs to be introduced with care, and markets should be established on a reciprocal basis.
The telecommunications sector is a major employer and therefore has much to lose, so the Commission must ensure that the Member States do not delay the simultaneous introduction of number portability for protectionist reasons.
One of the basic objectives of a numbering policy is to promote innovation.
Innovation in the telecommunications sector can lead to a better service, greater use of telecommunications services and therefore more jobs.
Research and technological development can make a significant contribution here, and investment in research by those involved in the market could help to promote the development of software and hardware which would quickly make a user-friendly numbering plan available for consumers.
The introduction of number portability should take account of new technological developments which are leading to the convergence of telecommunications and informatics, and the continuing integration of these various technologies must not be hindered by too much or too little legislation.
My final point concerns legislation on naming on the Internet.
The Committee on Research and Technological Development considers that a solution needs to be found to the shortage of naming capacity on the Internet, preferably by the Internet community itself.
The imposition of rules from above should be avoided if we are not to hamper the development of this important element of the information society, and our committee wishes the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, every success.
Mr President, I would like to speak on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights to express our opinion on Mr van Velzen's report on the Green Paper dealing with numbering policy in the field of telecommunications services in Europe.
And, firstly, I would like to thank Mr van Velzen for the way in which he has accepted the conclusions of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - conclusions which were approved by a vote of 10 to 1 in favour - because, for reasons of procedure, he has made them his own by submitting them to this part-session as amendments.
On behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, therefore, I strongly recommend a vote in favour of the amendments presented by Mr van Velzen.
With regard to the Green Paper and from the legal standpoint - which was the view adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - this is undoubtedly a necessary and timely initiative.
Necessary and timely because the internal telecommunications market still has to be set up on a proper basis and is an issue we should address without delay.
The report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights highlights, from the general standpoint, the simultaneity of legitimate interests to be protected - the interests of the industries involved - but, above all, the interests of consumers and also aspects which are not purely economic: for example, aspects relating to the rapid development of technology, or sociological aspects, such as the degree to which each of us identifies with a particular telephone number, the disruption involved for all users - individuals or companies - when a telephone number has to be changed, since this involves an enormous cost which we have to avoid, hence the need for a measure such as the portability or transportability of numbers to be effective.
Apart from these matters, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights concentrated on more methodological issues.
Firstly, from the legal standpoint, any discrimination in favour of mobile operators or fixed operators is pointless.
Secondly, we have to emphasize the fact that a general, systematic approach has to be adopted.
I, as draftswoman of the opinion, have had to summarize nearly a kilo of photocopies of directly relevant texts in order to study this Green Paper - my apologies for quantifying the legal paperwork in this way.
In accordance with the Amsterdam conclusions, we must progress towards clarity and simplification.
In this area, therefore, it is an absolute necessity to have a coordinated text and to impart some order to the morass of rules and regulations which apply in this field.
And, secondly, a systematic approach to this matter does not require the creation of new regulatory instruments in order to take account of the three aspects of selection, pre-selection and portability. What is needed is for us to make full use of the legal instruments which already exist, namely the voice telephony directive and the interconnection directive.
Mr President, I wish to start with my customary, but nonetheless heartfelt, thanks to the three rapporteurs, Mr Herman, Mr Argyros and Mr van Velzen.
Mrs Palacio is quite right about the volume of legislation and documentation surrounding this area.
Indeed, I sometimes think the only qualification you need to be a rapporteur in this area is to be a fast reader.
Nevertheless, I appreciate how much hard work has gone into these legislative and other texts.
It is very good to see both the Commissioners responsible here and I hope they will both have an opportunity to reply in this debate.
I wish to talk particularly about Mr van Velzen's report and his ideas on carrier pre-selection.
I have put down an amendment with the support of many colleagues and I hope that, in turn, I can persuade Mr van Velzen to withdraw his plea to me to withdraw and also to support my amendment.
I am not asking the Commission to withdraw its proposals about carrier pre-selection.
Far from it, although I would ask them why this is inevitably linked with numbering.
There might be a good case for having a separate directive on these two issues but I would ask the Commission to carry out a further study on the possible consequences of carrier pre-selection.
It is far from clear what these consequences will be.
If it makes it less attractive to invest in competitive networks at local level, if it strengthens the position of existing incumbents, if it detracts from the opportunities for the local consumer who make primarily local calls and favours those who customarily make more long-distance or international calls, it really will not have served our purpose well.
All my amendment does is ask the Commission - and it is a logical time to ask when it is thinking about a directive - to look again at what the consequences will be.
If my fears and those of its supporters are ill-founded there is no problem.
But if there is a case to answer, this is the time to look at it much more carefully and I hope colleagues will support me.
Mr Argyros' report and Mr Herman's comments on regulation raised a question we come back to over and over again, namely whether existing regulatory arrangements are going to be adequate in the newly liberalized telecommunications market.
It is difficult because the speed of liberalization has progressed at very different rates in the different Member States.
Parliament has consistently asked the Commission - and I know the Commissioner has done some work on this, for which we are grateful - and the Council to come up with proposals for a European regulation.
Mr Argyros and I have submitted a joint compromise text which I very much hope will meet with the support of this House.
I have a very minor criticism - although I hesitate even to call it that - of Mr Argyros' report: some of the wording is perhaps over-enthusiastic about liberalization but that is not enough to change the vote.
I would just say that some of the old public monopolies had their advantages and it would be disastrous if we ended up with new private monopolies with all the faults of the old public ones and none of the advantages.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to begin by congratulating the three rapporteurs for the excellent and enormous job they have done, and particularly Mr Herman, whose work on this subject is being concluded after a truly brilliant conciliation process.
I wish to dwell for an instant on the issue of portable phone numbers which is a crucial factor in the policy of competition in the telecommunications sector.
Technology can do amazing things: it makes it possible to link a mobile message in real time to a user on the move, using the cellular technology which is to be expanded through satellite technology, but anti-competitive and bureaucratic barriers can be created that are extremely resistant to the idea of transfer from one carrier to another.
I endorse the principles set down in the Commission communication as well as the recommendations of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and I therefore urge the Commission to move rapidly along the course it has set, bearing in mind also the growth in the electronics trade and new services like the Internet.
I wish to draw the attention of honourable Members and the Commissioners to one aspect of portability and harmonization that seems to me to have been forgotten: calling cards and prepaid cards.
Based on a comparison with experience in the United States, it seems to me that this call system forms part, in the broad sense, of the issue of portability and the single market, as it is a means that enables the user to make calls any public or private phone, using simple procedures.
In Europe, however, we have a plethora of different phone cards, prepaid and credit cards and cards containing a chip, with a scale of charges that can hardly be described as transparent; consequently, we are tempted to use cellular phones, that are much more expensive a technology, even though phoning from a public call box would be much cheaper.
I wonder, and I ask the Commission, whether we ought not to be doing something in this sector, by calling for portability of individual numbers and accounts.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I should like to thank the Commission and the three rapporteurs for their work, which is the subject of our debate today.
The European Union plays an important role in terms of competitiveness by removing obstructive legislation and developing incentives, and today's proposals and reports are a step in the right direction here.
I am delighted to see that efforts are being made to harmonize various essential conditions in the telecommunications sector.
This is a vital move, because differences between the Member States in terms of legislation on number portability, carrier preselection and carrier selection, for example, and in other areas too, have given Europe a very fragmented ICT policy.
Number transferability is essential for the smooth operation of the internal market and will in fact promote competition in the telecommunications sector.
We all know examples of areas where liberalization is still not working, even in countries where it was introduced ten years ago, and this is why it is so important for all the institutions of the Union to make sure that the fullest possible legislation is ready by 1 January 1998.
I would ask the Commission to check that the Member States are also making an effort to bring their telecommunications legislation into line in the short term.
Lengthy transitional periods for certain Member States must be avoided if at all possible.
I should like to thank Mr van Velzen for agreeing to Amendment No 8, which contains the proposal I put forward in the Committee on Economic Affairs for number portability to be introduced Europe-wide as soon as possible.
It is certainly technically possible, but it all depends on whether the political will is there.
Much lip-service was paid to these proposals at the successful conference in Bonn, and I only hope that these words will now be turned into deeds.
Mr President, today we are debating some of the most important aspects of the complete liberalization of telecommunications from 1 January 1998, and also various dramatic side effects of that liberalization, such as its effect on the numbering system.
Technological developments in the telecommunications sector and the multitude of factors that influence it make the new problems continually more complex and involved.
That tendency is reinforced by the fact that liberalization of the telecommunications sector has been mainly approached on the basis of political and economic criteria, with little attention to scientific, technical, organizational and social aspects and consequences.
What has prevailed, is a concept of the complete reversal of the sector's public character; the expansionist penetration of major multinational capital aiming to convert to its own ends the vast profits that are interwoven with the sector's revolutionary development and its definitive role in the context of the world-wide internationalized market.
So definitive decisions about the sector were taken mainly at a political level, while dangerous disregard was shown for the role and contribution of relevant international bodies such as the International Telecommunications Association and the European Conference of Post Offices and Telecommunications, in the development of telecommunications and the necessary international cooperation.
The problems arising in the area of numbering in light of the pan-European and world-wide structuring of classical telephony, mobile telephony, personal communications and value-added services, in combination with full liberalization of the market and the existence of a multitude of service provision agencies, are likely to assume explosive proportions in the near future.
There is also a risk that chaos may be created, or that the market may be completely monopolized by the private giants being created in the sector by mergers and concentrations of large multinational enterprises.
All of this, to demonstrate yet again that despite any measures proposed by the rapporteurs or promoted by the Commission in the name of free competition, liberalization of the telecommunications market has nothing to offer the great majority of citizens but will only operate to the detriment of the public service, monopolize the market by major private monopolies, and ultimately raise prices and make thousands of working people redundant.
It is the Commission's duty to coordinate its intervention in international bodies so that, to whatever extent may still be possible today, critical problems of coordination and international cooperation can be dealt with after this degree of market liberalization.
Mr President, we are discussing four reports on telecommunications policy and I wish to congratulate all the rapporteurs.
I should however like to pick out the Herman report on the new directive to adapt the sector to a new competition environment, whose final version in codecision will be voted on this week and whose conciliation committee I served on.
I should like to congratulate Mr Herman not only on his report but also on the efficiency with which he conducted the conciliation process on the European Parliament's behalf, enabling the report to be approved in a very short time indeed and showing once again that the codecision approach is a very good method - not only is it democratic but it is also efficient if both parties show good will.
The fact that the new Amsterdam Treaty substantially increased the areas where the European Parliament will be able to take part in codecision is a good guarantee that its interests will be defended with tenacity, but also with efficiency and without loss of valuable time, by the members of the European Parliament.
These report are part of a set of legislation with an eye to the future liberalization of telecommunications services planned for 1 January 1998, although Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Luxembourg have been allowed derogations for periods that ought to be reduced.
I think that the Commission should pay particular attention to five vital aspects: the advantage of setting out in a single text the legal framework for telecommunications, bearing in mind that the sector's commercial activity should be facilitated, especially that of SMEs; secondly, access in equal conditions to networks and services as one of the main obligations of telecommunications exploiters; thirdly, the need to ensure a universal service so that the liberalization of telecommunications infrastructures and services does not act against consumers; fourthly, to guarantee transparency in the system of prices and the establishment of a fair billing method; fifthly, to guarantee throughout the European Union a competitive environment enabling Community telecommunications companies to compete worldwide, as provided for in the recent WTO agreement on the mutual opening of telecommunications.
In these circumstances, I feel that European citizens and companies should be able to benefit in the future from a telecommunications service with access conditions...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, it is important that any changes to telecommunications systems are based on the needs of users and that the system is made simple, cheap and reliable.
New numbers and systems must be thoroughly evaluated before they are implemented otherwise they could involve substantial practical difficulties for the user and increased costs for society.
I have a question for the Commission.
I cannot quite see from the report, - and I am referring primarily to the report by Mr. W.G. van Velzen, - that a common prefix within the EU will automatically result in lower costs and better service.
I would be pleased to hear the Commission's comments on this.
There is a risk, that the use of a lot of digits in a telephone number, 9-10 digits for example, will cause difficulty for the user, at least this is the case according to information which I have received from the Swedish Telecommunications authority.
It is important that numbers which are used often are kept and that we do not change a system which otherwise perhaps functions well.
It is also important to pay sufficient heed to the National Telecommunications authorities and to view the changes taking place at EU level from a global, international perspective as well.
In all other respects we favour the amendment proposals tabled by the Liberal Group.
We are simply highlighting the fact that any changes made to the system must be based on the needs of users.
Mr President, competition, or rather competitiveness, or better still, the huge business potential in telecommunications lie at the bottom of what has been agreed in the sector.
Now we have this package, made up of apparently technical reports and one on competition rules, which head in the same direction that concerns us and that we have denounced.
Two remarks on the lines of others that we have made and that we wish to make as expressions of a position that goes against the current of privatizing liberalization.
First of all: prices should not be re-balanced in accordance with costs, as is being done, at the cost of higher local rates and connections, clearly to the detriment of small companies, local social services and less well off individuals.
Secondly: universal service obligations, seen as a burden, should not be transformed into a means of financing private companies benefiting, already, from the liberalization of the sector.
Mr President, colleagues, at present the most central and open question in the information society is democracy.
Knowledge-intensive enterprises are important and productive, and often operate worldwide.
But what of the other aspect - democracy - which we are building here? There cannot be a new society without democracy.
The administration of computer networks is also administration of people.
We need a comprehensive programme from the Commission to establish democracy in the information society.
This is an important issue, and not merely an economic one.
Democracy means control, but it also means spontaneous participation by all members of the public, for example in electronic dialogue.
Mr van Velzen also says in his report that the establishment of a European forum to discuss Internet issues should be supported.
He says that E-mail addresses must be allocated in a fair and nondiscriminatory way to all - that is correct.
But the fair allocation of E-mail addresses will not eliminate the problem of democracy in relation to computer networks. The scope for both the user and the producer to use services in the information society depend on the availability of modern hardware and general infrastructure, the level of education and financial resources.
The costly investment involved, which is almost entirely to be borne privately, readily becomes concentrated in densely populated areas and, even there, among the affluent.
This adds to the marginalization of population groups and regions that are already suffering from a lack of communications resources.
Now is the right time to develop telecommunications from the democratic angle.
As a result, we shall develop society as a whole, and not only networks.
As far as the technology is concerned, opting for broadband information networks should also be seen as leading to broad social participation without economic or cultural obstacles.
In Finland the number issue has been resolved.
Changing operators does not present any problems, and is part of the everyday routine.
Competition is completely open.
We lead the world as Internet users.
Our country is remote, but we still are not making any progress towards attaining democracy in the new networks, and we need it.
I am glad to see that those in the front row understand what we are talking about here.
Thank you, I am expecting a lot of you.
Mr President, I should like to comment on the reports by Mr van Velzen and by my friend Mr Herman.
Mr Argyros' report will be dealt with by my colleague Karel van Miert. I wish to thank Mr van Velzen for what was truly, as always, a very informed report.
The line of argument he set out, as well as the amendments, point in the same direction as the responses we have been receiving to the Green Paper, and this is also the direction in which the Commission wishes to proceed.
One thing is perfectly clear: in both of the areas covered here today, in other words number portability and more especially carrier preselection, we are intervening directly in the competitive system for the benefit of the subscriber.
Let me emphasize once more, partly in answer to the statements made by Mr Theonas, who evoked that old Marxist spectre of a Jurassic Park in which private monopolies trample everything underfoot, leaving not the tiniest plant for the subscriber, that we really ought to face the facts.
Political arguments are a fine thing, to be sure, but a close look at the facts will reveal that in the Member States where competition has been introduced, a few grand old companies have naturally survived, although their survival is due to their having been public monopolies for many years.
The situation of the consumer, however, has improved considerably.
That perhaps explains the enthusiasm which overcomes Mr Argyros whenever he thinks about liberalization and that certain lack of enthusiasm we see in Mrs Read, because anyone still entangled in the thicket of public monopolies will yearn for things to change.
If Mr Theonas does not believe that, he need only look at the countries where deregulation has taken place; in those countries, besides the quality and universal-service guarantee offered by an efficient telephone network, subscribers have telephone charges which are sometimes only half or one-third as high as in the countries where public monopolies still operate.
Let us take Greece as an example.
Greece is the country with the highest telephone charges.
The Commission fails to see any advantage to the consumer in that state of affairs.
That is why we are in favour of carrier preselection.
Which brings me to what Mrs Read said.
I have always agreed with her views on telecommunications in the past, because she normally approaches these matters with a very open mind and takes the right position from the consumer's point of view.
But when it comes to carrier preselection, I believe she is too strongly influenced by the situation in her own country.
Fair enough; everyone is used to the system he or she knows from home, and sometimes we consider it better than any other.
In this case, however, 14 Member States agree with us that carrier preselection is very important for competition and for the consumer, especially, of course, because it reduces telephone charges.
There is no carrier preselection in the United Kingdom.
Although it is possible to select a local operator freely, that operator has fixed contracts with long-distance operators, so that anyone choosing a local carrier is practically surrendering all further freedom of choice to the local carrier.
Our first point is that this is not good for the consumer, and our second point, which would be conceded by anyone who studies these systems and was also mentioned by Mr van Velzen, is that authorizing one country to operate a different system to the other 14 countries would distort competition in a way that we ought not to condone.
That is why we cannot support Mrs Read's amendment.
Of course we can always prepare a study, and we are naturally engaged in constant reflection on these matters, but I consider it wrong to make the timetable dependent on the completion of such processes.
We want to make rapid progress, which is why we have reconsidered the timescale and have opted for 1 January 2000.
That ties in with what Mr van Velzen has been saying.
The legal basis, at least for call-by-call carrier selection, already exists in the Directive on interconnection in telecommunications, and we shall naturally create a legal basis for carrier preselection, presumably in an addition to the Directive on interconnection, which would be a tidy solution.
Similar remarks may be made about portability of numbers, for it is perfectly clear that the right of subscribers to keep an existing telephone number removes a major obstacle to the exercise of their freedom to change telephone companies for whatever reasons.
Here too, we should like to proceed more swiftly, and I hope that the European Parliament can support this approach.
Such support, indeed, is expressed in Amendment 8, so we are certainly very willing to endorse that amendment.
At the same time, I can perhaps refer to the amendments to Article 6 that we do not wish to endorse.
We do not consider it necessary to create a legal basis for call-by-call selection.
I have already said something about Amendment 1, while Amendment 10, concerning Gibraltar, was not mentioned during the discussion.
Nevertheless, I should like to say that it was better to refer to Gibraltar.
Had there been no reference to Gibraltar, that could have given rise to political speculation.
It was a purely technical consideration.
Our reference to Gibraltar has no political undertones whatsoever.
And so to my remarks on European telephone numbering.
We have jointly received a shortlist for Europe from the ITU.
That is now being tried out, and I hope these experiments will produce some useful findings.
We shall take it from there.
Before I finish, let me deal quickly with the Herman report.
May I congratulate the rapporteur both in my official capacity and on a personal level; the fact that the President of the Council has appeared at this very moment naturally underlines the significance of my congratulations.
The parliamentary delegation, comprising Vice-President Verde I Aldea, Mr von Wogau and, as I said, Mr Herman as the rapporteur, undoubtedly performed quite outstanding work.
After all, we have managed to formulate clear provisions here for the Member States, going beyond what the Council of Ministers wanted.
Therein lies the importance of the parliamentary delegation and its efforts, which have ensured that independent regulatory authorities will monitor the technical basis as it develops within the market and will ensure that a minimum range of services is available everywhere and, above all, that fair competition can prevail.
Needless to say, I willingly admit to Mr Herman that we had hoped to achieve more, and I can tell you that we will achieve more.
Before that can happen, however, we need the goodwill of the Member States.
They are starting out on a learning process, and we shall probably have to await the completion of that process before they shift their ground and develop greater European solidarity and coordination.
That is the only reason.
Otherwise we should already have proposed an independent European regulatory authority.
Let me say to the President of the Council who is with us in this Chamber that if he promises to deliver such an authority, the Commission will immediately submit a proposal to that effect.
We shall not be the dog in the manger.
Finally - and I apologize for not having said this yet - let me mention the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Of course, Mrs Palacio, you are absolutely right; we do have a motley jumble of provisions.
We can only change that when we come up with European provisions.
At the moment we are operating with directives.
But we are reflecting on how we can make this jumble of rules more transparent.
We have to do that in any case, since convergence compels us to prepare a completely new set of provisions.
There is one problem I should mention in connection with telephone services, namely that if it becomes possible in future to make the same quality of telephone call via the Internet at 5 % to 10 % of today's costs, we can forget all of this, because nobody will then use the lines and infrastructure of the old telephone companies; all operators will be using new infrastructures and new services.
If that day comes, we must be properly prepared to cope with it.
By that time it is to be hoped that there will only be European rules, and the jumble to which you and Mrs Read have referred will be a thing of the past.
In the meantime we continue to march through this jungle.
As I said, we have left Jurassic Park behind, although some stragglers are still there, and we are now moving, so to speak, into the savanna and can see a light on the horizon.
I hope that light represents a good system which will benefit telephone subscribers.
Mr President, as some of you will have noticed, over the recent years Martin Bangemann and I have appeared together here before Parliament, appeared together before the Council of Ministers, and we have tried to speed up the introduction of a coherent and carefully constructed policy by pursuing the aims that Martin Bangemann has just outlined for you, which are designed not only to enable the European Union to make up some of the ground it has lost in this area, but also to formulate a policy that would favour the users - whether corporate or private - and to try by these means to strengthen our competitive position.
Now we are close to achieving our goal, I mean from the legislation point of view.
But it is only the beginning, or the end of the beginning, if I may put it that way, and the early stages of the implementation of a competition policy and a competition regime across the entire European Union, even if in some of the Member States there will be some slight delay.
For my part I should like to concentrate my reflections on the report by Mr Argyros - whom I warmly congratulate on the quality of his work - by analysing a communication from the Commission which clarifies, which seeks to show how we intend to apply the rules on competition in this area.
There are two parts to this: the directives based on Article 90, on the one hand, and the second part, which is being handled by Martin Bangemann, based on Article 100A, on the other.
At this point I need to explain first of all how we are proposing to go about implementing the rules on competition, on the ground so to speak.
The reason why we drafted this communication is threefold.
Firstly, we wanted to offer greater security to operators in the market and to tell them, in advance, how we were proposing to apply the rules of the game and, by doing this, guarantee the necessary transparency.
In other words, this was an exercise in transparency on the part of the Commission.
Next, - and some of you have quite rightly raised this problem - we are trying to draw a clear dividing line between the work done by Martin Bangemann and his departments, based on Article 100 A, and whatever is covered, in particular the ONP, by other directives based on Article 90.
That is where we need to be as clear-cut as possible because - and I fully agree with some of the comments that have been made - that is where we have a whole series of texts that have been drafted, developed, argued over and decided in recent years, and I have a feeling that some people are beginning to lose sight of the overall picture.
So it is also an attempt on our part to bring matters into focus.
Lastly, we are witnessing a period of extraordinary growth, not just in the telecommunications sector but also in the multimedia sector.
We are seeing a convergence of activities and of sectors and, there too, there is a need for us to explain how we intend to implement the rules of competition.
I should now like to say a few words about the report itself.
First of all, I am delighted with the overall positive tone of the report as regards the Commission's initiative.
The rapporteur and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Relations have of course posed a number of questions - and quite rightly so - and they deserve my putting a few minutes aside to answer them.
But may I say first of all - in relation to the new recital A inserted in Parliament's text and referring to digital broadcasting - that this document, by that I mean our communication, is not the most appropriate text in which to tackle this question.
I agree with the substance, I understand your concern, and as you well know, when it comes to dealing with concrete cases, it is very much a problem that concerns us too.
There have in fact been a few decisions - the case of MSG some years ago in Germany, for example - where as a matter of fact that has played a crucial role.
So, the reason why we disagree on the substance has nothing to do with my arguing against keeping this addition to the text.
You have also made reference - and again quite rightly so - to the rather difficult period we are currently going through.
As of now, we still do not have full competition: this will happen from next year and, meanwhile, most of the Member States still have monopolies in the area of voice telephony, in particular.
It is true, and you have rightly put your finger on a difficulty that occasionally obliges us to intervene in certain Member States, even though there are those who feel that it would be far better for these difficulties to be resolved at national level.
Let me take the case of the tariffs in Germany.
Under normal circumstances this type of problem should be capable of being resolved internally by the Member State in question, but right now that is still not the case.
Consequently, following a whole series of complaints, we were forced to intervene - and indeed we are still doing so - because in our view the tariffs proposed by 'Deutsche Telekom' in Germany, especially their interconnection tariffs, are too high. They are going to have to be reduced.
There is therefore a conflict and we are continuing to deal with this problem while waiting for tomorrow when, hopefully, this kind of problem can be resolved at national level.
I could of course quote you numerous other examples, but the one I have given you will suffice to explain to you how, for the time being, we are coping with these problems.
I take note of your concern but at the same time I think I can say that we are in fact trying to deal with it in the appropriate manner.
Moreover, as you know, some weeks ago now Martin Bangemann and I published a status report, for want of a better term, on how the implementation of a whole series of directives was coming along in the various Member States, and we found that in the great majority of them everything was going forward as agreed - some, like the Netherlands, for example, were even ahead of target.
Others will need to do some catching up. That is the case with Italy, but Italy it seems to me is in the process of doing just that.
Also, a few days ago I received copies of Belgian Royal Decrees implementing the legislation.
So, as you can see, things are moving along and that is exactly what we are trying to achieve.
And I can tell you moreover that we have - Martin Bangemann's departments and mine - set up a joint group to monitor, from morning till night, so to speak, what is happening and, if we find that something is going wrong or veering off track, we can step in immediately and as quickly as possible.
Other questions raised in your report, Mr Argyros, fall more directly within the responsibility of my colleague Mr Bangemann, especially where the consolidation of different sets of rules is concerned; he has already replied on those.
Things are changing so fast that very soon we are going to have to readjust some aspects of the policy, which should not prevent us I feel from making an effort in the coming months.
But, for the time being, our priority must clearly be to implement on the ground whatever legislation has already been agreed together with Parliament and with the Council of Ministers.
I am just finishing.
There are of course other questions, but I am sure these can be discussed between us directly and bilaterally, if you so wish.
Winding up, I should like to say that having received your observations and having received dozens of observations from others on the subject of this communication, on behalf of operators, on behalf of the authorities, etc., we shall be in a position this autumn to publish the final version of it.
You can see that we are in any event anxious to complete this business before the end of the year, thereby providing for better security and better transparency.
Anyway, let me thank you once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for your report and for the support in it for the Commission's policy.
Mr President, I want to say something about Amendment No 10.
Mr Bangemann, I did not use my speaking time to talk about this amendment precisely because I find that bilateral disputes between Member States should not take up the time of a rapporteur speaking on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Having said that, you say that you have included Gibraltar in this list because you thought that it was technically better to do so.
Well, this seems to me to display a very curious understanding of technical measures, for what we are talking about here is a non-exhaustive list of codes of the Member States.
There is something wrong with technical measures, at least from a legal standpoint, when one takes, among five examples, the example of Gibraltar and when one accords it the status of a country.
Mr Bangemann, I do not agree at all with your referring to this business as a technical measure.
The intention is political, purely and simply political.
Mr President, even speaking for ten minutes, as I did, I admit, instead of the five minutes allocated to me, there was not enough time to answer all the questions!
That is the difficulty.
Three reports were examined together and generated a great many questions.
I believe that these questions do deserve an answer, but for that you need time.
Madam, I made it clear what our intention was.
I repeated it and that is how things are.
If you consider that that is not how they are, I cannot understand why you are protesting against our intention.
My statement is clear.
Now, with your protest, you have created a situation that is unclear, but that is your responsibility.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his explanation.
I would like to dwell on the subject of digital broadcasting.
The only reason I included it in my repot is that when the report was presented to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I specifically asked the representatives of the Directorate-General, of which Mr Van Miert is in charge, whether they intended to give separate consideration to the subject of digital broadcasting, and they answered me clearly that they did not.
I therefore considered myself obliged to include it in my report today.
However, I am pleased that the Commissioner has assured us that it will in fact be given special attention.
Mr President, I thank Commissioner Bangemann for doing me the honour of referring to what I said.
However, I should like to note the following.
Everyone is entitled to use both ideological and political arguments to establish his position.
However, those positions should be related to the facts.
I would like to point out to the Commissioner that I am in a position to know that Greece does not have the highest telecommunications charges in Europe.
If he thinks that is so, I ask him to put before us a table comparing the prices in the European Union's Member States, from which he would see that Greece's charges are among the lowest in Europe.
Mr President, I shall give the honourable Member that list, and he will see that the real situation does not accord with the assumptions on which his speech was based.
Commissioner, please send it to us too.
The subject is of great interest to us.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the three reports will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Maximum speed of tractors
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A4-0218/97) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directives 74/150/EEC, 74/151/EEC, 74/152/EEC, 74/346/EEC, 74/347/EEC, 75/321/EEC, 75/322/EEC, 76/432/EEC, 76/763/EEC, 77/311/EEC, 77/537/EEC, 78/764/EEC, 78/933/EEC, 79/532/EEC, 79/533/EEC, 80/720/EEC, 86/297/EEC, 86/415/EEC and 89/173/EEC relating to the maximum design speed of wheeled agricultural or forestry tractors (C4-0150/97-96/0129(COD)).
Mr President, in my youth I studied agriculture at university, and had the option of taking a tractor driver's licence.
But unfortunately I did not seize the opportunity to do so.
If I had known that one day I would be reporting to the European Parliament on regulations concerning the maximum speed of tractors, I should certainly not have let the chance slip.
In the EU, type approval currently exists for tractors with a maximum speed of 30 kilometres per hour.
We are talking about their design speed here: the speed they are capable of doing rather than permitted driving speeds or speed limits.
But as technology has progressed, manufacturers have also placed on the market more powerful tractors, which can travel at 40 km/hr.
It is now intended that new type approval provisions should be adopted, to enable tractors with a design speed of 40 km/hr to obtain EU-wide type approval.
This is very important to manufacturers, as it will allow their tractors to circulate freely on the internal market.
This does not in itself have anything to do with increasing the length of the procession of tractors when farmers hold demonstrations: it really is mainly a matter of a reform required by tractor manufacturers.
At first reading, Parliament was of course very much in favour of this idea, although it insisted that at the same time various aspects of driving safety should be investigated.
It takes no more than common sense to realize that if bigger tractors come onto the roads, more will need to be done to ensure road safety.
We raised such questions as the possibility of seat-belts. Attention also needs to be devoted to driving lights.
Parliament also asked for attention to be directed to the exhaust emissions of these new faster machines.
The third point which Parliament wanted clarified was the possibility of regular inspections.
In my view, the response of the Commission and Council to Parliament's demands was very correct.
Now, in this common position, it has been noted that we wish to draw attention to the exhaust emissions of more powerful tractors.
It has also been noted that attention should be devoted to driving safety.
It was not possible to concede Parliament's third demand, that an amendment be introduced concerning inspections. The reason was that there is no legal basis.
As rapporteur, I can perfectly accept that we should not concern ourselves with inspections here, and I strongly recommend that Parliament approve this common position at second reading.
When Parliament debated this matter the first time, it become clear that provision also needed to be made for type approval for tractors with maximum design speeds in excess of 40 km/hr, as these are already beginning to appear on the market.
The Council has resolved the issue very skilfully by stating that it will tackle the question as soon as the 40 km/hr proposal has been adopted, so that in my opinion Parliament's wishes and demands have also been taken into account in this respect.
I can only advocate that this recommendation be approved and that the measure enter into force as soon as possible.
In some Member States, there was clearly a certain fear that, yet again, Brussels was about to issue inconvenient technical regulations to farmers, who are in quite enough difficulty already.
But I can reassure all farmers that the matter in hand here concerns the specifications of new, future tractors, and that we are not sitting here in Brussels dreaming up yet more new proposals just to try their patience.
Everyone can breathe a sigh of relief and I hope we can then bring this proposal into force at the earliest possible date.
Mr President, it was well worth the effort, if only to come and agree with Mr Bangemann - which is a rare occurrence for myself in this Parliament, but I do so very happily on this occasion - and to congratulate the rapporteur.
This is an example of how the European Union does need to take a considered look at the advances in equipment.
A good case already exists for claiming that some of the machinery involved could well cope with higher speeds than are proposed in this directive.
But before we approve those higher speeds, we need to understand what the full implications are: it would be inappropriate for us simply to assume that everything will be fine.
I think that the rapporteur has very successfully acknowledged this point by saying: ' Let us make the decision now that we are confident we have thought it through in terms of safety, in terms of increasing efficiency and everything else; but let us leave it to separate and thorough studies; let us flag up that a case exists for going for higher speeds; but let us do so in a considered way before we actually make the final decision, as that would be irreversible' .
I cannot but say that I wish this thorough approach had been used on all previous issues.
Mr President, may I begin by expressing my very sincere thanks to the rapporteur.
She said everything that had to be said on the substantive issue.
We have reached a rapid solution which partly covers the present situation by extending the framework to tractors with a maximum design speed of up to 40 kph.
On the outstanding technical questions we shall prepare and table a proposal.
I was quite relieved to begin with when I saw that my friend Mr Barton was not here.
When he arrived I was alarmed, because I thought he would demand the same as he demanded for motorcycles, namely no speed limits, no power limits and no exhaust and noise restrictions.
But I see he has learned from experience.
And once we have tabled the full proposals for tractors, we can deal with motorcycles again.
That might well be an interesting development, for I see that Mr Barton's thought processes have also been developing.
I confess, I never learned to do such calculations, which are related to bargaining in an area close to me.
I did not know that my friend Mr Bangemann too, who has great experience and has learned much from many, has also learned how to do such calculations.
I will note it for the future, since it shows some originality.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the recommendation for second reading by Mrs Hautala will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Supplementary and amending budget No 1/97
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports:
(A4-0232/97) by Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Fabra Valles, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on draft supplementary and amending budget No 1/97 (SEC(97)750-9210/97 - C4-0299/97), -(A4-0247/97) by Mr Tillich, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the ad-hoc procedure for agricultural expenditure.
Mr President, on the question of the draft supplementary and amending budget for 1997, we have made considerable progress.
The Commission at first was somewhat reluctant to accept that part of the staff would be found by redeployment in the course of 1998.
However, we have now found a reasonable compromise.
There is the positive fact that the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into BSE can start work quite rapidly, because this is a high priority for the Community.
Thirty-five staff to begin with is quite useful.
I hope we shall see the first results of this by the end of this year, and in 1998 there should be redeployment.
My question to the Commission is: when can you really start work on this? When we see the staff going to Dublin it would be partly as a temporary placing before the final Veterinary Agency is created.
I hope that the Commission will soon withdraw, as promised, the proposal for Grange and adapt it to all the other agencies.
The main point of our debate today is on the report by Mr Tillich on the ad hoc procedure.
Firstly, I wish to compliment the rapporteur for 1998, Mr Tillich, because that is a very important new development.
We started with the issue of agriculture some time ago, and gradually we are getting value for money.
Last year when, for the very first time, we reviewed estimates by the Commission, this was only true in a very minor way.
However, this year the cooperation between the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Budgets has been very positive.
Moreover, this year the Commission has itself readjusted the estimates so that we will have ECU 329m for the first time put in a special reserve.
It is important that Parliament put it in reserve, because this will mean that the Member States do not have to start paying the money right away.
That is an important element in the criteria for Maastricht and the arrival in 1999 of the Euro.
As a result of the decision by the Agricultural Council towards the end of June, the budget, as put forward by the Commission, will be exceeded by ECU 1.4bn and we often talk about less money than that in this House.
There is an overshoot of ECU 1.4bn because the proposal by the Commission to readjust cereal prices was not accepted by the Council.
From the point of view of the Committee on Budgets, we should return to the preliminary draft budget.
Mr Tillich's proposal to readjust the budget by a proportionate redistribution of the last three years so that we actually return to the original preliminary draft by the Commission is very welcome.
Perhaps this is a better solution than a linear cut, and here we are quite happy to follow the lead of the Committee on Agriculture, although we cannot accept under any circumstances its solution which involves creative accounting by carrying over the payments for oilseeds to 1998.
Unfortunately, I have to disagree with the rapporteur on the agricultural budget, who said that this was the solution for last year.
In fact, it was not the solution for last year: perhaps it was the intention, but it was not realized.
Creative accounting, as the President-in-Office of the Council said during our trialogue, is the last thing we want.
This means that the budget for 1998 has to be readjusted in the field of agriculture, and it must finally be to the detriment of those products which have been underspending most over the last period.
All this shows that the ad hoc procedure - although in a formal sense still under the category of compulsory expenditure - is finally working.
It has a real impact now and it also has a real impact both on the behaviour of the Committee on Budgets and on the Committee on Agriculture.
Both of us are now working much more closely together.
I look forward to the rectifying letter from the Commission.
I see also, apart from the Commissioner, a holder of the Legion of Honour, and I would like to congratulate him most heartily - even on 15 July.
That situation will be beneficial perhaps also for the speed with which the rectifying letter is coming.
Mr President, I believe we all still recall perfectly that the most significant point regarding 1997 budgets, vis-à-vis the other institutions, was the matter of zero growth in staff levels.
In actual fact, the only institution fully to comply with this objective was the Court of Auditors.
Therefore, it is logical that it should have been the Court of Auditors which experienced the greatest problems when carrying out the work entrusted to it.
So, although budgetary austerity is indeed an important point, no less important is the fact that we should also take good financial management into account and, above all, cost-effectiveness. What use to us are institutions which cost little, which we do not allow to grow, if, ultimately, they are not as effective as we anticipated?
The Court of Auditors, therefore, was asked to conduct an overall study of what its needs were - according to that study, which it submitted to us, it needed 107 new posts.
Admittedly, such a figure is difficult for those responsible for the budget to accept. It is, however, obvious that the Court of Auditors is, in fact, experiencing a shortfall in numbers of auditors.
This is in addition to the increase in the radius of action of controls on the part of the Court of Auditors and the increase in the volume of work.
Let us take into account the extra work they have with regard to agencies and the increase in statements of assurance.
At this point, I would also like to include some further information for those present: purely as regards multilingualism, an institution such as the Court of Auditors requires a 25 % increase in staff.
We therefore concluded that, between what the Court of Auditors was asking for and what we felt it was possible to grant it, the increase amounted to 48 people.
After contact with Mr Tomlinson - responsible for the 1998 budget - we came to the conclusion that, on the basis of the supplementary and amending budget which we are presenting at the moment, we could, in 1997, award 23 posts; the other 25 could be included in Mr Tomlinson's preliminary draft.
Thanks to the actions of council, which has already granted 5 posts, the 23 I was speaking of for 1997 will, in fact, be 18.
The reason for bringing forward the allocation of posts to 1997, by means of this SAB, is justified, firstly, by the training period such staff needs before being 100 % operational and, secondly, by the margin we had available on account of the favourable exchange rate which has applied to date since the budget was drawn up.
I am referring to the exchange rate between the ecu and the Belgian franc.
Furthermore, these 18 new posts which would be granted at this time (I repeat: 18 plus 5 granted by council equals 23) would break down as follows: as regards auditing: there would be one A3, twelve A7s and three C5s; in terms of administrative staff, there would be two posts: one A7 and one C5.
We should be grateful that this increase in staff numbers will not give rise to a need for more office space, or, at least, we shan't have to discuss buildings, something this House does not really enjoy discussing.
And so that is all - I am convinced that this increase in numbers of Court of Auditors staff will only enhance the rigour we are accustomed to seeing on the part of that institution and improve, if that were possible, its long-standing cooperative attitude towards Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ad hoc procedure was used for the first time in the 1995 budget procedure.
The tabled report, along with this Thursday's vote, is intended to provide the delegation of the European Parliament with a negotiating mandate.
The ad hoc procedure and the negotiations on compulsory expenditure conducted between Parliament and the Council with a view to reaching an agreement on amendments to the Commission's preliminary draft budget mark the start of the budget procedure every year.
The spectators in the gallery, as well as many a Member of the House, may well regard this as something of a technical and intellectual exercise, but it is a highly political transaction, a process of negotiation with the Council and the Commission.
The procedure lays down that the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, at the request of Parliament and the Council or of the Council alone, will agree to initiate the budget procedure.
That was done formally on 26 June in the trialogue framework.
In derogation of the agreed procedure, the Council and the European Parliament jointly decided not to complete the ad hoc procedure before the first reading of the Council's draft budget so as to give the Commission the opportunity to obtain more knowledge of the state of the market, on the basis of which it may submit a more realistic draft budget for 1998 this autumn by means of a Letter of Amendment.
Both the Council and the European Parliament must then approve the proposal.
For the first time this offers us a genuine prospect of having an annual budget that is more closely in tune with the real situation; this accords with our earlier decisions on budgetary discipline and better implementation of the budget.
In the tabled report your rapporteur addresses the hitherto unresolved problem of expenditure classification.
The Commission has taken the first step in this direction, albeit half-heartedly.
It has drawn up a list of all the expenditure regarded by the European Parliament as falling into the non-compulsory category.
It has not, however, taken the decisive step of actually classifying the listed items as non-compulsory expenditure.
In the report your rapporteur also proposes the creation of a special reserve for market uncertainties to which the Member States would only have to contribute if and when the money was required.
The reserve would not affect the overall volume of the agricultural budget.
At the present time we have similar practices in the domains of humanitarian aid and currency reserves.
In addition, your rapporteur proposes negotiations with the Council and the Commission on the following key issues: first of all, adherence to the Commission's preliminary budget and hence compliance with the principle of 0.45 % growth in the agricultural budget; secondly, no linear cuts in the agricultural budget headings but rather a specific cut on the basis of unused allocations in years 1994 and 1995, as Mr Brinkhorst has already mentioned, with a view to returning to the Commission's original preliminary draft.
Unfortunately, the Council of Agriculture Ministers failed to reach a decision at its mid-April meeting.
Accordingly, the Council now has until the second reading to find a solution to an actual overshoot of ECU 1.4bn.
We naturally agree with the Presidency's proposal that this should be done without recourse to creative accounting.
The parliamentary proposal before us guarantees budgetary neutrality and thereby strengthens the negotiating position of Parliament.
I should like to express my special thanks to the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their close cooperation in this ad hoc procedure and particularly for the pragmatic approach of your draftsman, Mr Mulder.
To the Commission, and particularly to the senior representatives of Directorate-General XX, let me say that you will shortly have to decide who your partners are - the Council or the European Parliament.
We have discussed joint solutions with you too, but when you quite suddenly discover mistakes in specific cuts, please remember that they relate to your calculations for the preliminary draft budget too.
What two grade-A officials can do here, 600 grade-A officials in the Commission are unable to manage!
One more word on the arrangements concerning international fisheries agreements.
At the trialogue it was the Commissioner himself who confirmed the principle that no payments due under these agreements can be made until Parliament has delivered its opinion.
That was agreed at the trialogue, so it is now inappropriate to criticize this practice, as some representatives of your institution have been doing.
I ask the House to approve the report as tabled, thereby giving the delegation of the European Parliament a mandate to negotiate a fair and balanced budget for 1998.
Mr President, the Committee on Agriculture began discussing this preliminary draft budget as soon as it was published.
We were very pleased with the successful cooperation which we experienced with the Committee on Budgets, and particularly with the rapporteurs.
What were the main conclusions that we reached? Firstly, that we support the Commission's proposal to increase the budget by 0.45 %.
We also reaffirmed our support for the view expressed on many occasions in the House that there should be no cuts in agricultural premiums, which was therefore not merely a decision by the Council of Ministers, but also the decision of the House itself.
How is this ECU 1.4 billion to be found? Certainly not through creative accounting.
We have simply taken over last year's proposal - never in fact put into practice - to defer the payment of premiums for oil seed.
The Committee on Budgets accepted the first two points, but not the last, which we very much regret.
We cannot see why something that was regarded as possible last year, though never applied, is now not possible this year, and particularly not in special cases.
The Committee on Agriculture rejects the idea of reserves, and we are in good company here, if I understood Mr Brinkhorst correctly, because it seems that the Council shares our view.
He referred to the Council several times, and I think he said that the Council too was against the idea.
The committee as a whole put forward a number of amendments which all had a neutral effect on the budget.
A total increase of one million on a budget of ECU 41 billion is hardly excessive, I believe, and we therefore feel that the Committee on Budgets does not have the right to change many of the Committee on Agriculture's technical priorities.
We shall be looking at this again in the plenary, and we also look forward to examining the amending letter from the Commission later in the year.
Mr President, at the European Parliament's request, budget heading B7-800 was subdivided into two: the new heading B7-8000 'International fisheries agreements' and the new heading B7-8001 'Contributions to international organizations' .
This new accounting approach makes for a clearer reading of the expenditure relating to the fisheries sector.
Within the framework of the ad hoc procedure, an initial report on the implementation of the Joint Declaration on improving feedback from the budget authority on the fisheries agreements of 12 December 1996 was forwarded to the Committee on Budgets. It can only be confirmed in the same terms at this stage of the procedure.
As regards showing the appropriations in the 1998 draft budget, the Commission has followed the distribution proposed in point 1A of the Joint Declaration to the letter.
The Commission had in fact proposed entering the amounts relating to the international agreements coming into force at the start of the 1998 financial year under heading B7-8000 and to put into reserves the amount necessary to cover agreements due for renewal and any new agreements that may be signed.
The Committee on Fisheries is of the opinion that the sums relating to agreements already concluded and that Parliament has yet to approve could also be placed in the reserves.
The recent agreements concluded with Senegal and Guinea Bissau do therefore need to be taken into account.
The sums set aside in reserve will need to be continually adjusted throughout the budget procedure depending on the outcome of other negotiations and Parliament's reports on them.
In conclusion, there are clearly no differences between the Committee on Fisheries and the Committee on Budgets in the context of the ad hoc procedure.
I would simply like to stress the importance of international agreements, both for the European fishing fleet and for the third countries which are, most of them at any rate, bound to the European Union by ACP agreements.
A good international fisheries agreement is an arrangement that helps at one and the same time save jobs both afloat and in coastal regions and also helps promote effective management of fish stocks in third countries.
For example, under the fisheries agreement with Senegal, which we looked at this morning, we have emphasized the benefits of devoting - as the government of Senegal has decided to do - a part of the European Union's financial contribution to the non-industrial inshore fishing sector, especially in the area of training.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by commenting on the draft supplementary and amending budget No 1 which Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Fabra Vallés have explained to us.
I wish to emphasize quite clearly at this point that the decision which the Committee on Budgets has proposed to the House represents a new departure in staffing policy.
And it assumes even greater importance because it is intended as a benchmark for the development of Community staffing policy in the coming weeks and months.
The Commission had initially requested almost 160 posts in order to deal with the BSE problem, a new Community priority.
We now have 35 new posts and have also linked this allocation to an internal restructuring, for the equal numbers of C and A posts suggest that something is rotten in the state of the Community.
If, as we have now proposed, expenditure on grade-C posts is reduced by the amount required for an increase in the number of grade-A posts, that will effectively demonstrate that the lid has been firmly screwed down, and it will remain screwed down in 1999 too.
It will be necessary to undertake the new tasks that will be put before us here tomorrow, when the major report on Agenda 2000 is presented, by reallocating tasks and reordering priorities, and hence also by redistributing personnel, and not simply by popping into the great European supermarket to pick up some new posts.
The second point I should like to deal with is the question of the ad hoc procedure.
Allow me to make a few comments on that.
The ad hoc procedure was conceived in an Interinstitutional Agreement and was the result of a lengthy discussion process and a dispute about the dividing-line between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
It had always been clear to our side, to the European Parliament, that it is fundamentally impossible for a figure, a specific budgetary amount, to be compulsory.
Market regulations can be compulsory, but their precise financial implications in terms of a budgetary allocation cannot be compulsory, for we cannot legislate in advance for weather and for world market prices.
That is why the dispute or discussion of recent years has invariably focused on the amount of funds assigned to each item of compulsory expenditure - especially since our experience of the last fifteen years has shown that the amounts allocated are always higher than the payments the Community actually makes.
That is an invitation to engage in creative accounting.
You have just heard Mr Mulder say again - and Mr Sonneveld also said it in committee yesterday evening - that you intend to postpone payments to the oil-seed sector from one year to the next, which is what we are now describing as creative accounting. But all those who advocate such postponement must answer the following question: what is to happen in 1999?
That, you see, is when the Financial Perspective ends, so postponement will no longer be an option. We shall then be confronted with the problem of funding the oil-seed sector twice over in 1999 - once for the year from which payment was postponed and once for the current financial year, i.e. 1999.
The budget, however, will not yield an allocation of that size.
For that reason we have explicitly welcomed what the Council presidency said at the trialogue: not creative accounting but a real solution.
What we are proposing here in the Tillich report is an invitation to the Council of Finance Ministers to comply with its own stipulations.
It is not obliged to accept the invitation; this is an offer of negotiations to the Council, and after all we did reach an agreement at the trialogue that we should receive amended figures this autumn, so today's discussion will not mark the end of the ad hoc procedure.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Brinkhorst, Mr Fabra Vallés and Mr Tillich on behalf of my group, and say that I support their reports.
I should like to thank Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Fabra Vallés personally for their efforts to resolve the problem relating to the Veterinary Institute in Grange and to express my satisfaction with the outcome.
I agree with the Tillich report, and particularly with the author's strategy of improving budgetary procedures and working towards the preparation of correct projections so that the budget as we see it projected is actually the budget that is necessary to fulfil its objective.
On the other hand, I would like to draw attention to a point made by Mr Mulder in his report on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development: he points out that, with an eye to Project 2000, we cannot expect to finance the enlargement of the European Union out of shavings off agricultural spending.
Agriculture is the single rural affairs policy for which the Community has total responsibility.
We cannot undermine this policy in order to create or finance another objective.
Whatever savings can be made from agriculture will be necessary to prevent the environmental, and indeed the economic, deterioration of rural Europe as it is.
We should remember that at the moment, within the limits of the money available to us in the financial perspectives, we could raise a further ECU 10b for next year's budget.
That amount of money would finance the needs of a common agricultural policy for the first enlargement.
But we have to remember that we cannot finance a meaningful regional policy for the new Europe out of the present budgetary resources.
I would imagine that it will take at least a doubling of the present structural funds to finance a new regional policy for the new and wider Europe if we are not to create immense dissatisfaction in the countries which join and if we are not to alienate many of the citizens already in the Community.
While I agree with the general procedures that are being laid down in the Tillich report, I disagree with some of the concepts that are creeping in.
Through a rearrangement and a paring down of our present policies we can find the resources that are necessary to finance the enlargement of 100 million people.
If those people come in and if we are to realise the benefits of the enlarged membership through trade and economic growth, then we have to have something resembling a little Marshall Plan to help them to get off the ground so that all of us can reap the benefits of the wider Union.
Mr President, in presenting his proposals within the framework of the ad hoc procedure for agricultural expenditure in the 1998 budget Mr Tillich embarked on a difficult, not to say perilous, exercise.
Whilst the rapporteur's approach, which follows the European Parliament's traditional steadfast determination to reduce overall EAGGF expenditure, has the merit of being rational, it nevertheless relies, in my view, on an erroneous perception of agricultural expenditure.
The fact is that there is something unique about agricultural expenditure which makes it different from other expenditure in the budget.
Agricultural expenditure is an economic tool for regulating the markets, whose expression, if not their actual nature, is budgetary.
I have now been saying this for a long time without, unfortunately, ever being truly understood.
And yet, despite the high regard I have for him, I have to say to Stanislas Tillich that his approach, based as it is on a perceived underspend of appropriations for agriculture in previous budgets, on an inference of deliberate overbudgeting by the Commission in its estimates, and which also makes cuts in appropriations under most of the budget headings, is the product of an exclusively arithmetic view of agricultural policy.
The consequences of such an approach could prove disastrous for certain economic sectors of production in farming.
I have in mind, in particular, the financing of ancillary measures, which has suffered major cuts, for example in the case of beef and veal.
Given the uncertain situation as regards the attempts to eradicate BSE and in the light of recent events revealed by the Commission, who today can say that the appropriations allocated to Community beef and veal producers have been overestimated?
I was also surprised to find that the rapporteur has included in an annex to his resolution a list of EAGGF budget heading classifications, in which expenditure that the Treaties, in their wisdom, had classified as compulsory expenditure was now classified as non-compulsory.
We regard this kind of approach unacceptable, which is why the UPE Group will not be voting for Mr Tillich's report, which would have the effect of putting agricultural policy at considerable risk.
As regards the draft supplementary and amending budget No 1 for 1997, may I be permitted, while saluting the excellent job done by the rapporteur, Mr Laurens Brinkhorst, who has succeeded in putting the emphasis on such priorities as creating new posts at the Commission, to express my Group's concern over the grant to the Trademark Office in Alicante, the entire allocation of 12.5 million ECU of which has been put into reserve.
A fairer decision would have been to put no more than half this sum into reserve, as indeed the Board of the Trademark Office had requested, to enable this energetic and go-ahead body to develop its programme of activities.
I believe, in fact, that the drastic measure of withdrawing the allocation results from a misunderstanding and a confusion between liquid assets and financial commitments, and that this error should be put right in plenary.
This is why our Group will be tabling an amendment insisting that allocations placed in reserve are not allowed to exceed 6.5 million ECU.
Mr President, the estimate of agricultural expenditure is the largest expenditure item in the Union's budget.
The purpose of the ad hoc procedure for agricultural expenditure is to arrive at a budget which is realistic in the light of the latest forecasts.
There are many reasons why it is difficult to estimate expenditure accurately.
Because of variations in harvests and in world market prices, it is not easy to estimate the need for export support from the budget, for example.
In addition, the budget has been affected by the BSE crisis and swine fever, which could not readily have been predicted.
These cuts are not easy for farmers, either: the annual cuts in EU support are generating constant uncertainty with regard to farm incomes.
The reform of the EU's agricultural policy also stresses the EU's competitiveness on world markets more than previously, while US producers - for example - are competing on those markets on the basis of seven-year agricultural and budget frameworks.
There is a need to invest in the longer term in the EU, for example by adopting agricultural policies and budgetary frameworks valid for between seven and ten years ahead.
The current cuts are hard to reconcile with the development of agriculture and efforts to improve competitiveness.
Jan Mulder, the draftsman for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, has proposed as a possible means a reserve system whereby resources saved from the budget would be placed in a reserve for future use as need arose.
I should like to conclude by asking Commissioner Liikanen's opinion of the reserve system proposed by Mr Mulder.
Mr President, just a few words about the ad hoc process since the other two reports posed us few problems.
We have reached a good understanding over those two ad hoc processes.
For us they are the only way of ensuring that the European Parliament takes part in the proper definition of compulsory spending, especially on farming.
This should be the precise meaning of these processes, i.e. ensuring that the European Parliament can make a major contribution for an appropriate and rational provision of expenditure in an area where it does not yet have recognized competences.
This does not however seem to be the meaning behind the proposals approved yesterday by the Committee on Budgets.
The concern to make savings in agricultural spending prevails, i.e. imposing grater rationality.
We all know why.
Of course, we cannot agree with this approach.
That is because we know that these spending cuts in agriculture - and now in the fisheries agreements - have been adopted in full or in part by the Council and would inevitably go together with other cuts in other budgetary sectors.
The experience of last year showed that.
We reject outright the idea of the European Parliament abandoning any possibility of influencing a correct distribution of compulsory expenditure or setting itself up as the champion of a restrictive policy.
But there is another reason, one of principle, for us to disagree with the report approved yesterday by the Committee on Budgets.
In admitting and even recommending that the Member States will only hand over to the budget the amounts placed in reserve in that the reserve is unblocked would create an unprecedented and extremely serious situation. it is obvious that the main aim is to make savings but it essentially calls into question the very nature of the Community budgetary process.
Sooner or later we shall end up with an à la carte budget, and we cannot agree to that.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Commissioner Liikanen who associated with his own distinguished presence in the House that of the Directorate General for which he has responsibility.
We consider it important that he should be here because he will be able to pass on the message that we are today seeking to send, particularly through this supplementary and amending budget, a message which I at least interpret in this way and which concerns the well-known question of the additional posts for DG XXIV.
It seems to me evident that events of recent weeks make it plain just how far behind we are. Without wishing to attribute blame for this delay, which was in fact a matter of circumstance, we have to stress the urgent need to reinforce that Directorate and give it the resources that will enable it to improve controls, as far as possible, to prevent further disasters, such as mad cow disease.
In the vote that we shall be holding on Thursday, it is our intention to unblock 35 posts but, above all, to request, seeking a specific result, that the Commission do all in its powers - and I think it has plenty of scope for that - to allocate the posts requested by DG XXIV, by deploying internally the other human resources needed, as of 1 January 1998.
That is the intention of this House, and it is in that spirit that my group, which to begin with had reservations about the procedure adopted, now considers the procedure adopted by Mr Brinkhorst - very wisely in my view, including in an effort to secure the appropriate interinstitutional dialogue - to be the right one. It involves allocating those posts immediately and requesting that, in 1998, the internal deployment of resources should focus on the requests of DG XXIV.
Mr President, although the proposals of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development make good sense on the whole, are realistic and at any rate sympathetic to farmers, the ultimate objective seems to be - does it not? - to finance policies other than European agriculture, to prove to all that the policy that works the least badly since the signing of the Treaty of Rome is no longer working, and in that way to take its financing away from it.
There has been no shortage of pretexts for it: diversity of our territories and our productions, disparities between Europe and the rest of the world, compliance with criteria.
Neither has there been any shortage of fake excuses: the cost of the BSE crisis, the sums overestimated and not used, the giveaway to beekeeping - 3 million ECU -, measures to combat fraud.
What does all this mean? It means 310 million added to be added to reserves.
Knowing the problems of the countryside, and more specifically the problems of farming, I can only deplore this token 0.45 % increase allowed for in the 1998 budget and seeing this budget shorn of some 2.4 billion with respect to the guidelines laid down in the Edinburgh compromise.
In his report our colleague Mr Tillich confirms the hidden conversion of compulsory expenditure into non-compulsory expenditure by the ingenious trick of setting up a reserve.
Last year our colleague Mr Brinkhorst told us that the solution of the reserve was an effective one because it enabled agricultural expenditure to be adjusted according to financial needs and linked to fluctuations in world prices, production and consumption.
Our Group had opposed this.
We were able to establish that the reserve of 1 billion ECU, which was the figure set for 1997, has been completely scrapped.
Today, even though we do not know the scale of the swine fever problem, do not know what the quality of bread wheat is going to be, do not know how good harvests are going to be overall, the Committee on Budgets for its part is proposing cuts in certain budget headings in order to create this reserve.
In conclusion, may I say on behalf of our Group that the Council has the final say on so-called compulsory expenditure.
We do not want to accept any kind of devious machination which, through a fictitious increase in the European Parliament's powers, seeks merely to reduce the agricultural budget.
Within the framework of Agenda 2000 we would wish to see proposals for a fair and realistic farming policy, and one that would help to halt the desertion of the countryside.
Mr President, the Brinkhorst/Fabra Vallés report deals with a very sensitive aspect of the European Union.
It is a fact that fraud, wastage and mismanagement in particular are bringing the European ideal into disrepute.
Every possible step must therefore be taken to arrest this development.
It is primarily the Member States, of course, which must clamp down on irregularities.
At the same time, however, it is essential that the Commission should provide its controlling bodies with the staff and equipment they require to perform their tasks efficiently.
It goes without saying that this also applies to the Court of Auditors, whose duty it is to discover irregularities in the course of its audits and whose proposals for improvements can reduce wastage levels.
In this respect the additional posts for the Commission and the Court of Auditors are to be welcomed.
At the same time, however, we must proceed on the assumption that at least some of the necessary posts can be obtained by efficiency savings within the Commission's own administrative apparatus.
Another point I wish to emphasize is the need to grasp every available opportunity to make more funds available for specific measures in the domain of research and development.
The rapporteur's proposal that the sum of ECU 100m from the reserve be redistributed among operational lines where it can be put to good use is therefore to be most warmly welcomed.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Brinkhorst for the work we have done together on the SAB.
I would like to address my remarks to two particular dimensions of the SAB, firstly on the consumer health policy unit, and secondly on the transfer of funds for the trademarks agency in Alicante.
If we can deal first with the consumer health policy unit as covered in the SAB, I think that following the conclusions of the first committee inquiry it was quite clear that there was a need for real action to be taken on food safety at EU level.
However, it is equally clear that the Commission's original and rather limited proposal to set up a vets agency at Grange was overtaken by events.
There is no question about that.
More importantly, it was ill-thought out and did not give even the proper legal basis for setting up such an important organization.
I would like to stress that the opposition to the initial scheme for a health policy unit was not an opposition in principle to an agency established in Ireland or to the improvement of consumer safety. It was opposition to knee-jerk politics and to the writing of blank cheques for the future.
What does concern me in the proposal from the Commission for the office in Ireland was the discovery that the Commission had already leased a working area in Dublin, outside the normal places of work of the European Union, for workers whose recruitment had not yet been approved - a fact made even more reprehensible by the existing agreement to freeze staff numbers within the Commission.
This lack of regard by the Commission for the wishes of Parliament does not bode well for the future of the second committee of inquiry.
But I am happy to say that some agreement has now been reached with Mr Brinkhorst, the Commission staff and Mr Tillich in the meetings we have had on the future of the health and safety unit, and that is now evidenced in the SAB.
The Commission has agreed to withdraw the existing proposal for a vets agency and to come back with the full and detailed proposals for a new food and veterinary unit which will cover the work programme, the staff envisaged, the buildings, policy, locations and so on.
Parliament will then have the opportunity to discuss this proposal in full.
Parliament too, in the Budgets Committee, will approve the decision to grant the Commission 35 additional posts to assist with the reorganization of DG XXIV and to improve coordination with scientific committees and in the meantime, thirdly, to ensure sounder and more efficient management.
We can agree on 70 new posts to be created in Dublin as a temporary measure and 35 posts are to remain in Brussels until the vets and phytosanitary agency are properly set up.
Finally and most importantly it has been agreed that the consumer health policy unit will remain in Brussels.
As regards Alicante, as far as the transfer is concerned, I feel it is of the greatest importance that the agency is able to call on the budgetary authority for a contribution if necessary.
It has that written into its regulations.
The EU set up this agency as part of the work essential for the completion of the internal market.
The staggering success of this agency has far outstripped every expectation.
We must not now allow it to be punished for its own efficiency.
For that reason I am suggesting that the Commission's proposal to put the whole 12.5 million into a negative reserve be rejected and I propose that the whole amount remain in reserve subject to a detailed application from the trademarks agency justifying transfer of all or part of that money for their use.
To Mr Giansily I would say that if we do not do that, then we as a Parliament, as a Budgets Committee, will lose control over the funding of that agency.
That must not be forgotten.
Can I say of Mr Brinkhorst that, as Margaret Thatcher said of Mikhail Gorbachev, he was a man it was a pleasure to work with.
On this issue of the SAB, particularly with regard to the new consumer health policy, it has been a pleasure to work with you.
Mr President, the ad hoc procedure for compulsory expenditure in the budget is gaining in importance both in Parliament and in the Council.
The rapporteur, Mr Tillich, and the draftsman of the Committee on Agriculture's opinion, Mr Mulder, have worked hard to try to achieve a balanced approach to the budget, taking account of a general political wish for budgetary restraint and at the same time consolidating what had already been decided in terms of policy.
Agricultural expenditure is to increase by no more than 0.45 %, although under the Interinstitutional Agreement, the figure should have been 2.1 %.
Severe cuts are therefore going to have to be made under certain headings so that others can be increased, such as export refunds for beef.
Three possible instruments are being discussed.
A linear reduction for all headings was rightly rejected by the Committee on Agriculture and Mr Tillich, who instead prefer a reduction based on the possible level of underspending, calculated on the basis of the last three budget years.
The Tillich report also proposes a new kind of reserve containing more than ECU 300 million, so that surpluses under certain agricultural headings are kept available for other headings which have been cut.
It would be good if this approach were to secure general approval, since this would oblige the Council to be a little more flexible and creative.
Finally, there was the possibility of deferring one typical budget item: the oil seed advance totalling ECU 1.4 billion.
These advances are paid around October, and there is nothing unusual about financing them under the current year's budget or the next.
It is an option which we have already been able to put to good use on a number of occasions, but the Council and, apparently, the Committee on Budgets both classify this as 'creative accounting' .
This is unfair.
To deny ourselves this possibility would be budgetary masochism.
Let us not tie our own hands here in Parliament, but keep enough options open to be able to settle the difficult problem of compulsory expenditure within a well-ordered and disciplined budget.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteurs on their reports.
However, I have to make it very clear that it is the responsibility of the Commission, the Council and Parliament to ensure that the levels of income of Europe's farmers are maintained, especially at a time when many sectors face extreme financial problems on the income side.
It is clear to me that farmers can expect their income to be marginalized and now face a number of years of stagnation and difficult times financially.
It is regrettable that the Committee on Budgets did not carry through the recommendations of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, especially when it put forward such clear proposals.
I would like to pay tribute to Jan Mulder for the way in which he tackled these problems.
I am certainly against anything that would reduce farmers' incomes and the proposals put forward by the Committee on Agriculture were very constructive and positive.
I am totally opposed to favouring of one sector of agriculture at the expense of another.
We must commit more resources to stamping out fraud in the European Union.
This is the one area where we should be able to agree.
No one supports fraud, but it exists and it must be stamped out in all Member States.
BSE has been a very expensive lesson to us all which cannot be quantified.
We now have swine fever as well and we do not know the ultimate cost of that.
These will continue to be a considerable burden for some time.
It must also be remembered that even with the support they have had in the United Kingdom, beef farmers have suffered a serious loss of income and now some face very difficult problems.
Finally, we must be pro-active in the promotion of agriculture and its products.
We must meet the challenge.
We must win back the consumers' confidence. To achieve this we will need extra resources.
This, in the long term, will have a pay-back value through increased consumption of European produce.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group and the Committee on Budgets, I rise to speak on Mr Tillich's report.
The debate we are holding today on Mr Tillich's report represents the second stage after the guidelines to the resolution in March of Parliament's preparatory work on the 1998 draft budget for the Commission's appropriations.
This will receive its first reading in the Council on 24 July and in Parliament on 23 October.
On behalf of the Socialist Group, I should like to congratulate Mr Tillich for his report and for all the work he puts into guiding us through the jungle of regulations, institutional agreements, trialogues and conciliations which represent the annual budgetary negotiating fare.
Furthermore, I should like to congratulate and thank Mr Tillich for his willingness to show flexibility in order to arrive at the broadest possible consensus.
We are discussing the ad hoc procedure on compulsory expenditure in plenary today in order to give a strong mandate to our delegation to the trialogue with the Council and Commission and in order to increase transparency and maximize the involvement of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Fisheries in the determination of this mandate.
This ad hoc procedure has served us well this year and is a procedure which has acquired added significance given the fact that there was no reform of the budgetary decisionmaking process in the Intergovernmental Conference concluded in Amsterdam.
I would, therefore, like to dwell briefly on the results so far.
The key result has been the adoption of a joint declaration on agricultural expenditure, allowing the Commission to submit a letter of amendment to its preliminary draft budget even outside the procedural provisions of the financial regulation.
This will allow preparation of an agricultural budget based, one hopes, upon the most up-to-date forecasts and hypotheses, and should go some way towards countering the constant problems we face with forecasting the budgetary requirements for agriculture.
Such an extension of the ad hoc procedure was a request of the Agriculture Committee, and I would like to emphasize here the close and excellent cooperation that has been established this year between the Committee on Budgets and the Agriculture Committee with respect to the preparation of the 1998 budget.
Nevertheless, we have been unable to accommodate all the Agriculture Committee's requests.
Given that the Commission has updated its requirements for 1998 for compulsory expenditure with a reduction of ECU 329m, we believe that these appropriations should be placed in reserve, and secondly, that we should not have to resort to any form of creative accounting in order to remain within the 0.45 % increase foreseen for the agriculture budget compared with 1997.
We are glad to be in agreement with the Agriculture Committee's thinking that the review of arable income support is ultimately desirable, but we would take a more positive view with respect to the Commission's proposal of cutting income supports by approximately ECU 1.4 billion.
We are certainly prepared to discuss the specific aspects of implementation of such a cut.
The principles of good budgeting would suggest that the most up-to-date forecasts and hypotheses should be used as well as the most reliable procedures and methodologies.
If we are finding that current procedures are unreliable and therefore resulting in misallocation of resources, we should not hesitate to amend those procedures.
We must also be careful that we do not endanger the balance of spending between budgetary lines too much, because many are near the minimum possible level of appropriations.
Where it is reasonable to find savings due to over-estimation, then we should do so, but we should not excessively burden particular sectors in a search for savings in order to achieve the particular fiscal discipline being sought in the Community budget this year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament on agricultural expenditure in the budget is what we describe as the ad hoc procedure.
What is incontestable is that we are increasing this expenditure by 0.45 %, I repeat 0.45.
What is absolutely contestable, and what I cannot support at the present time, is the proposal for both a linear cut - although I learned today that this part of the proposal has now been dropped - and above all for a specific cut.
We farmers cannot accept that.
What is the reason for the missing 1.4 billion? It is quite simply the collateral for the financing we obtained because of the BSE crisis.
In October 1996 the Council made provision for a possible postponement of payments to the oilseed sector from 1996 to 1997.
We did not need to take up the option, and to that extent it would not perhaps be very fair to speak of creative accounting in this instance.
Mr Samland, you asked what would happen in 1999 or 2000 if there were a postponement from 1998 to 1999. I simply assume that we may well have a situation like this year's and shall not need to defer any payments.
That, in purely theoretical terms, is also the essence of Mr Mulder's proposal, whereby in the event of the whole amount not being used up, even in situations outside the domain of compulsory expenditure, a balance can be struck.
We shall perhaps be discussing this again in a year's time, but I do believe that this is certainly possible.
On the price package, the Council of Ministers of Agriculture gave a pledge to the Commission to keep the EAGGF Guarantee within the budgetary limits laid down for 1998.
Unfortunately, the Council did not comment on the possibility of a further postponement of the oilseed advance.
That would have saved us a great deal of bother.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteurs for their work.
The cooperation between the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Agriculture was open and really quite constructive.
Long experience has shown that rapidly changing market conditions and constant over-budgeting have affected appropriations for agricultural expenditure from year to year.
The budget should be based on information which is as up-to-date as possible, as this information can be obtained with relatively little difficulty provided that the will to obtain it exists.
Cereals, in particular, are a sector where it is well known that various persistent uncertainties exist.
The problems with meat production - for example, the BSE crisis and swine fever - serious though they have been, have been one-off incidents and ought, we hope, never to be repeated.
When tailoring agricultural expenditure to budgetary frameworks, greater attention than at present ought to be devoted to the Community's peripheral regions, such as Finland and Sweden.
Agriculture there is significantly less productive and viable than elsewhere.
Although it seems likely that a time will come when cuts in income support for arable farmers have to be placed on the agenda, I wish to stress that a radical shake-up of the system is likely to be fatal, especially to farmers in the northern Member States.
Even under the present system, agriculture is struggling in the north, and its position would become even more difficult if what we have heard about future changes is correct.
Experience of the ad hoc procedure has been reasonably good to date.
In order to secure further improvements, it is to be hoped that the Commission will continue to appreciate the importance of constructive cooperation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if I may refer to my own report, on which we voted only a few weeks ago, on 12 June 1997, Parliament voted by a large majority against cutting compensatory payments for certain crop plants and for set-aside.
At the same time, Parliament backed the Committee on Budgets in opposing deferment of the oilseed advance.
In a further amendment contained in my report it was also decided that the payments per hectare envisaged in the CAP reform package should be guaranteed in full for 1998 and 1999.
I do find it quite astonishing that there should now be moves to deviate from this line without a reasonable alternative being presented.
Yesterday the farming press was already telling us that land and animal premiums were to remain the basis of future EU agricultural policy.
Commissioner Liikanen, as a Member of the Commission you no doubt played a part in that decision.
Regrettably, we have learned about it from the newspapers before it could be announced here.
On enquiring, we are told that the newspaper reports are accurate.
I am very interested in what you are going to say to us, how you intend to secure the acceptance of the farming community for a future agriculture policy if it is merely a continuation of present policy.
The fact is that we rather believed you stood for a new agricultural policy, for a policy that we could sustain, instead of which we are to have more payments per hectare and livestock premiums.
And you believe, do you, that farmers would approve of our continued support for this system? I am very eager to hear what you have to say.
My special thanks go to our colleague Mr Mulder, who presented a very cogent argument; we fully endorse the points he made.
We do not want to run our heads against the wall.
We should far rather continue to work in harmony with the Committee on Budgets.
Tomorrow morning the President of the Commission, Mr Jacques Santer, will present the Commission's Communication on Agenda 2000.
The first presentation will happen here, in the European Parliament.
The huge speculation in the European press is no more than we have come to expect, but the first presentation of the documents will be made tomorrow in Parliament, so that the honourable Members of the European Parliament are in the privileged position of starting the debate before the other European institutions.
The ad hoc procedure with regard to compulsory expenditure was created by the interinstitutional agreement of 1993.
The thorough discussions within and between institutions show that this procedure is living up to expectations.
It permits the Council, Parliament and the Commission to review in detail the amounts to be entered for compulsory expenditure in the 1998 Community budget.
As far as the agricultural budget for 1998 is concerned, the key factor is that the Council has not accepted the Commission proposal to reduce direct payments in the cereals sector.
The Council has also refused to adopt any equivalent real savings .
The Council has not received much encouragement from the European Parliament either.
This is disappointing.
Balanced budgetary rigour also requires real budgetary savings in this sector, which absorbs 48 % of the Community budget.
In this situation, with unchanged underlying regulations, the main responsibility of the budgetary authority is to predict spending needs as accurately as possible.
It was therefore an important achievement of the trialogue of 26 June to agree on a letter of amendment in the autumn to take account of the latest information.
Furthermore, the discussions between the Commission and Parliament have already achieved improvements in the forecasts in some sectors which amount to a reduction of needs by some ECU 300m.
It should be one of the subjects for the conciliation next week to agree when and how this should be budgeted.
I note Parliament's suggestion to put ECU 310m in a reserve for market uncertainty.
In principle, the idea of such a reserve in Category 1 seems worth exploring but the regulatory requirements appear too stringent for this to be achieved in the short term.
For the 1998 budget an alternative would be a straightforward adjustment of the budget lines concerned which would go some way towards providing the sum of ECU 400m needed to get back to the PDB.
Both Council and Parliament seem to agree that the lack of real savings should be offset by a general cut in forecasts across all budget lines.
The methods used, however, are different.
The Council is oriented towards a linear cut; Parliament is advocating a more complicated approach based on the under-execution of the recent past.
An agreement on the method should be possible, given that in both cases budget execution will have to rely on transfers to bring the budget into line with actual needs.
With regard to the international fisheries treaties, the joint declaration of 1996 on a code of conduct is a very useful framework for the information to be provided and the budgetary consequences.
I have noted Parliament's hesitation with regard to agreements which have been initialled but not yet ratified.
I will reflect together with Commissioner Bonino on how we can reassure Parliament about those treaties which will be enforced from the beginning of next year and for which the funds should therefore be on the budget line.
Regarding supplementary and amending budgets, I would like to make only three remarks.
Firstly, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst, and the European Parliament for the constructive discussion of the need for reorganization of the Community's consumer health services.
The solution which is now proposed for adoption by Parliament allows the most urgent needs to be met in 1997.
The Commission recognizes that.
Obviously that is not the end of the story.
We shall need some more reinforcements later.
Secondly, the discussions have also clarified other aspects of the future organization of the services concerned.
In particular - I would like to stress this again - the Commission has always taken the view that only the food and veterinary office would go to Ireland, and not other services of DG XXIV.
I would like to underline the desirability of a rapid adoption of the supplementary and amending budget.
I hope that the productive discussions between the Council and Parliament in the context of the trialogue of 26 June 1997 will permit an adoption in one reading.
I thank all the rapporteurs, Mr Tillich, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Fabra Vallés, as well as the chairman of the Budgets Committee, Mr Samland, for their efforts in this procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday, at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B4-0349/97).
We shall consider a number of questions to the Commission.
Mr President, Mr Truscott has asked a question concerning restrictions on travel within the European Union for people from third countries.
The Visa Regulation adopted by the Council of Ministers in 1995 only provides a list of countries, citizens of which require a visa in order to enter any of the countries of the European Union.
Visas themselves are actually issued in the individual Member States.
This means that not all citizens of third countries are guaranteed a visa.
The Commission has tried to improve the procedure for granting visas to people from third countries.
In the original proposal for the Visa Directive, for example, there was a section covering the recognition of each others' visas by the EU Member States.
But this proposal was removed during discussions in the Council of Ministers.
The European Parliament was not even consulted about this.
Because Parliament was not consulted, the EEC Court rejected the decision of the Council of Ministers.
But the current Statute must remain in place until a new Regulation has been adopted.
The concept of mutual recognition of visas was also present in the proposal for the Convention on the Control of External Borders which the Commission presented in 1994.
Unfortunately, as you know, it has not yet been possible to reach agreement on this Convention.
The problem raised by Mr Truscott would not have arisen if the Visa Regulation in its original format or the Convention on the Control of External Borders had been in place.
The right to introduce visa requirements for citizens of third countries who are members of the family of an EU citizen is regulated under Community Law.
It is quite obvious that Member States should provide visas for these people free of charge.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for her detailed reply but I wonder if she is herself aware that third-country nationals applying for visas in London to visit Belgium have to wait at least three weeks, and all such applications are processed by the Foreign Ministry in Brussels, which leads to quite extensive delay.
Therefore I would like to ask the Commissioner whether she regards such overblown bureaucracy as a hindrance to the free movement of people in the European Union.
It is up to the countries themselves, as I said in my answer, to make the practical arrangements for the visa and if it is delayed it is up to the countries themselves to reorganize their work.
Is the Commissioner aware that 1997 is the European Year against Racism, a relevant issue given that the majority of the 12 to 14 million third-country nationals living in the European Union are actually black, and does she not think that the Belgian authorities may be taking that into account as they move at a snail's pace to deal with this issue?
In the Treaty of Rome it says we should have free movement of goods, services, capital and people. We clearly have free movement of the first three, but the free movement of people, particularly legal residents of the European Union who are third-country nationals, who comprise a population twice that of Belgium, is actually being impeded by the Belgian authorities in a way that I consider to be completely unacceptable.
Does the Commissioner agree?
I would like to remind the honourable Member that the Commission tried to implement an external border control convention but a certain country prevented us from allowing freedom of movement, which I would also have liked for third-country members.
This was not possible, which I very much regret because, if it was up to me, I would like people legally residing in the Union also to have the right of freedom of movement.
Question No 39 by Daniel Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (H-0525/97):
Subject: Commission position on joint Spanish-British fisheries undertakings
Following the recent Amsterdam summit, the British Prime Minister announced to the press and the British Parliament that he had received written support from the President of the European Commission for plans to amend the current legal status of joint Spanish-British fisheries undertakings operating in Community waters off the United Kingdom.
Given that the planned measures have already been rejected on several occasions by the Court of Justice on the grounds that they infringe Community law:
How can the Commission justify its intervention in support of the government of a Member State in connection with this matter, given that the Court of Justice has on several occasions in the past rejected the various proposals put forward by the UK, on the grounds of systematic violation of Community law, and found in favour of the undertakings concerned, recognizing their right to compensation by virtue of the fact that they had acted fully in keeping with the fundamental principles and freedoms enshrined in the Treaty on European Union?
The basic regulation establishing the Community regime for fisheries and aquaculture provides that the Member States are to inform the Commission, every year, of the criteria they have set for the allocation of the fishing quotas they have been assigned.
It is therefore for the Member States to allocate their quotas and for the Commission to check that, when quotas are allocated, the principles of the Treaty, the provisions governing the common fisheries policy and case-law are all respected.
That is the spirit in which there has for more than 20 years now been a dialogue between the Member States and the Commission concerning the national conditions for the allocation of the quotas themselves.
In that connection, the United Kingdom, like all of the Member States, asked the Commission for its opinion on a system of allocating the fishing quotas, based on proof of the existence of a real economic link between vessel and flag, in line with the practice established in other Member States.
On 17 June, President Santer replied, on behalf of the Commission, to the requests for clarification from Mr Blair.
President Santer pointed out that the Court of Justice has recognized that the system of quotas may justify the adoption of conditions able to guarantee that there is a real economic link between the fishing vessel and the Member State in question, if those conditions are designed to ensure that population groups dependent on fishing and industries in the sector benefit from the quotas.
In his letter, the President of the Commission also stressed that the proposed measures should be compatible with Community law and should therefore not be discriminatory, be proportionate to the objective to be achieved and provide alternatives by offering fishermen the possibility of complying with one or more measures, or possibly other factors designed to prove that there is an economic link with a flag State.
To conclude: the Commission will later be giving its view on the measures the British authorities intend to take; when it conducts that review, the Commission will check on the compatibility with Community law of all of the measures adopted to establish, specifically, that they are not discriminatory, that they are proportionate to the objective sought, they offer alternatives and are fully compatible with the decisions of the Court of Justice, taking into account, as it must, the legitimate interests of all of the Member States.
Madam Commissioner, I am most grateful for your having clarified this issue, since, being of a delicate nature, it is one which requires a meticulous approach.
I would firstly like to ask whether the statements by the President of the Commission, Mr Santer - to which you referred - officially represent the position of the Commission, that is to say of the College of Commissioners; whether there has been a pronouncement regarding these statements and, therefore, whether you are able to advise me of the date of this, including whether they were made with the mandatory legal reports.
If such reports exist, I would like to know whether I could obtain a copy, because I am extremely interested in examining this interpretation, since the interpretation contained in this letter complies, as you say, with the judgements of the Court, although not in every respect since there are a number of paragraphs or subparagraphs in these recitals which always go further, alluding to unspecified legal concepts such as, for example, ' which do not affect the general principles of the Treaty or Community law' , ' which should not impede the normal operation of the undertakings' , etc.
And, therefore, when it is stated that the measures cannot be discriminatory and have to be proportionate, we have to examine the issue carefully and know when they are proportionate and when they are not discriminatory.
All this naturally gives rise to a great many problems and I would be grateful for the Commissioner's opinion regarding my specific questions.
In my opinion, there was absolutely no need for any discussion within the College of Commissioners because there was no new interpretation, nor did anything new arise.
President Santer's letter - you may check for yourself - refers to only two things:
Firstly that the Commission will have to verify all initiatives on the part of the British Government regarding the Treaty.
There are therefore no measures which the British Government could apply without prior consultation with the Commission, just as is the case in other Member States.
Secondly, that this deals expressly with the economic link referred to in the Court's Jaderow Case.
It is not, therefore, a new position on the part of the Commission.
The President did no more than confirm the existence of these options, which exist amongst others; however, the United Kingdom, before deciding upon any measure, has to approach the Commission which will at that time give its own opinion as to whether the measures could be discriminatory, proportionate or alternative, or not, as may be the case.
Madam Commissioner, as Mr Varela has said, this is an important and highly delicate matter.
The Single Market offers advantages to all countries and each one uses it as it sees fit.
There are weaker countries and stronger countries and Spain could complain about the imperfections which, on occasion, the Single Market generates in its economy.
Specifically, the question I would like to put to the Commissioner - sticking to the matter in hand - is as follows: can the Commissioner confirm that it is an infringement of the right to freedom of establishment - of the fundamental principle of freedom of establishment - to require crew members of a specific vessel - a British-flag vessel in this case - to be resident in Great Britain? Can she confirm whether, in her opinion, it is or is not an infringement of the right to freedom of establishment to require that such a vessel's catch be totally or partially landed in British ports?
Because the opinion of the Court of Justice was precisely the opposite: that this - requiring such measures - is an infringement of the principle of freedom of establishment.
No Member State can, in fact, require that catches be landed in its ports nor that crew members be nationals nor that undertakings be established on its territory.
Bearing in mind that, according to the Court of Justice, one of the purposes of the quota system is to benefit coastal populations, what a Member State - for example, the United Kingdom - can do is to ask all undertakings without discrimination (and not only those involved in 'quota hopping ' ) what type of economic link they intend to establish with the coastal regions.
Criteria may be set up with a view to assessing the economic link which certain vessels have with a country, but discriminatory measures may not be imposed.
I am pleased that Commissioner Bonino has clarified the situation, because there was a perception as a result of the statement after Amsterdam that the UK Government and the UK Prime Minister were given preferential treatment.
The response today indicates that they were not, and I commend the Commissioner for giving us this statement today.
I should like to point out to the Commissioner that within the rules of the common fisheries policy what is good for the UK is good for Ireland or indeed any country. I know that as the custodian of the industry and of fishermen's interests, she will recognize that.
But could the Commissioner indicate what is an economic link? Who will decide?
Who will arbitrate? Who will judge and who will take the decision in relation to that?
I would ask the Commissioner to ensure that an economic link does not just consist of using a port in Ireland, the UK or wherever to land the fish and then have them transported immediately to Spain or any other country.
That is not enough of an economic link, it must be greater than that.
In fact, there is no preferential treatment.
This is contrary to the law of the European Community under which all Member States are equal.
This is something I could not endorse.
Quite the contrary.
In the past year we have been making proposals and suggestions to the UK authorities on how to implement the economic link the Court of Justice talked about.
The Commission will examine the implementation of the economic link in a non-discriminatory and proportionate way once it has received a proposal on criteria from the UK Government.
But that cannot be imposed.
The UK Government can say to each vessel: in order to get a quota you have to prove that you have an economic link.
This economic link can be one of the criteria that the Commission has accepted.
But it is not in a position to impose any of these criteria on anyone.
Let me remind Members that, for instance, Denmark has a national law requiring 50 % landings in Danish ports.
That is one of the possibilities of having an economic link with the flag state.
Mr Varela would like to speak on a point of order.
Which rule of the Rules of Procedure are you invoking for a point of order, Mr Varela?
Mr President, I do not have the Rules of Procedure to hand and am unable to cite any article, but I had no intention of addressing the heart of the matter.
The Commissioner mentions 'quota hopping ' vessels and I would just like to ask her, if I may, not to use Englishlanguage terminology. Could she please translate it into Italian or, as appropriate, into Spanish, because such terminology has negative connotations.
We are discussing direct investment by one Member State in another Member State.
I, therefore, refer to joint ventures.
Mr Varela, I am not sure to what extent this is a point of order and not purely a point of semantics, however, at any rate, I have been lax enough to allow you to speak and I thank you for your information, as I have noted Mrs Bonino has thanked you, with her customary grace.
Since its author is absent, Question No 40 lapses.
Question No 41 by Sirkka-Liisa Anttila (H-0575/97):
Subject: Possible exports of beef from the United Kingdom in contravention of the embargo
According to news reports, the United Kingdom may have disregarded the embargo and exported beef to a number of countries, including Holland.
If these reports are accurate, the United Kingdom acted in contravention of the embargo imposed following the BSE crisis.
For that reason, it is particularly important to establish whether the information is correct and, if the breach occurred, what quantities of beef were shipped to which countries.
It is also extremely important to clarify this matter from the point of view of the credibility of the European Union as a whole.
It should not be forgotten that the European Union has endeavoured in a variety of ways to restore consumer confidence in beef, not least by means of a campaign to encourage consumption funded to the tune of ECU 32 m and a system for the certification of the origin of beef.
The failure to comply with the aforementioned provisions will nullify those efforts.
The protection of the rights of consumers requires that they should be informed of the countries to which BSE-contaminated meat may have been exported.
If the health of consumers is to be safeguarded, this is an extremely urgent and serious matter.
What measures does the Commission plan to take to establish whether the news reports are correct, i.e. whether the United Kingdom has exported beef in contravention of the ban, and if so, what quantities of beef have been shipped to which countries?
Yesterday I made a full and detailed report to the temporary committee established for the follow-up of the recommendations on BSE.
But in the plenary perhaps I can just recall some basic elements.
The detailed report is available to all parliamentarians.
On 29 April the Dutch authorities suspected that 1, 650 tonnes of meat sold by a Belgian company, named TragexGel, stored in Vlissingen, constituted illegal exports of beef from the UK.
More than 100 tonnes were sold to European export companies and subsequently exported by these companies to third countries with refunds.
The remaining quantity of 700 tonnes were seized by the Dutch prosecutor.
Thereafter, in early May the Dutch veterinary services informed the Belgian authorities and the British Minister of Agriculture about their findings.
On 7 May the Dutch Ministry of Health informed UCLAF but requested strict confidentiality with regard to the investigation undertaken at the same time by the Dutch prosecutor.
On 26 June the Commission services were informed and on 26 and 27 June an inspection mission was undertaken by the Food and Veterinary Office.
The British authorities confirmed that the meat seized by the Dutch authorities was of UK origin, so confirming a breach of the embargo.
The mission team was of the opinion that the controls on meat are insufficient so to this effect a pre-Article 169 letter was sent to the UK authorities by the Commission on 8 July.
The UK authorities answered today and the Commission is examining the letter.
By the way, you may know that the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Cunningham, is at the moment attending a meeting of the BSE temporary committee.
On 2 July the Commission informed all Member States, the European Parliament and the public of the illegal meat exports and the third countries identified as possible destinations at this stage have also been informed.
These are Russia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Bosnia Herzegovina and Poland.
An inspection visit to two Belgian plants took place on 3 July.
The situation was considered unsatisfactory in terms of control and there was certain evidence concerning the link between Tragex-Gel and the British plant concerned.
On the basis of these findings, on 4 July the Commission asked the Belgian authorities to withdraw the approval of the two companies immediately and on the same day the Belgian Minister of health informed the companies Tragex-Gel and Lefevbre of the envisaged withdrawal of their approval and decided that no meat could leave these establishments.
The Commission is also examining whether the Belgian authorities have correctly applied Community legislation.
On 4 July the German authorities informed the Commission that they had discovered that a consignment of 172 tonnes was stored in Hamburg, originating from the two Belgian establishments.
Therefore, on 8 July a mission took place in Germany and the 172 tonnes of suspect meat were seized by the German authorities.
A specific mission to British companies started on 8 July in cooperation with the UK services and based on evidence provided by the Commission services the competent UK magistrate issued search warrants for different British establishments, possibly involved in the illegal traffic.
Evidence was found that British meat is likely to have been given a Community origin other than the UK.
On the basis of evidence found in Safex Cold Store and Heine Foods on 14 July we asked the UK authorities to withdraw these companies' approvals.
Mr Cunningham confirmed to me yesterday by phone that he will withdraw approval from the two companies concerned.
So, at the end we have now found 1, 650 tonnes.
In one week we have been able to trace all of it.
We know where it is.
What I cannot guarantee is that this is the full story or, because the inquiry is going on, if we will discover other quantities somewhere else.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Bonino for her excellent answer.
Such flouting of EU rules and the export ban further undermines consumer confidence in beef, which is extremely regrettable given that the EU's beef sector is already facing a serious crisis.
What does the Commission intend to do to improve monitoring and inspections in the future and prevent any recurrence of such fraud which jeopardizes human health?
There ought to be harsher penalties for gaining financial advantage by means of deception which even runs the risk of endangering people's health.
Let me ask therefore, whether the Commission has considered recommending that the Member States introduce heavier penalties?
Firstly, I would remind you that inspection is the responsibility of Member States.
What the Commission is entitled to do is to coordinate the control.
I would remind you that the Commission has 27 veterinary inspectors for 15 Member States, to deal with all the legislation, third countries' imports and so on. This is the reason why the Commission has been asking for a total of at least 200 veterinary inspectors and I am pleased to hear that apparently Parliament will permit the Commission 35 more inspectors by the end of the year.
Nevertheless, the Commission has only two possibilities.
If we get more human resources we can intensify the spot checks and in so doing intensify also, if necessary, the infringement procedures.
However, I must confess to this House that we are late with inspections in other fields which are of enormous importance.
But with only 27 veterinary inspectors - and I cannot clone them, because that is forbidden - we cannot do much more.
I am pleased that we were able to trace all this beef in only one week.
Mrs Bonino, I will not refer at present to the Commission's lack of caution or its haste - we discussed that issue sufficiently yesterday within the follow-up committee - and I am not concerned with potential breaches because the perpetrators will be prosecuted and will feel the full force of the law.
What does concern me is that the inspection and supervision systems are not working, and that some Member States continue to breach the regulations.
Is the Commission, therefore, not of the opinion that, with the current inspection system - irrespective of the number of inspectors, which is a solvable matter - such controls are not working? Should not consideration again be given to the previous system of using waybills which accompanied a product, both live animals and carcasses, from its origin to its destination, since such waybills - as they are called in our country - were fully sanctioned by the competent veterinary inspector?
From their origin to their destination, therefore, goods were fully identified and monitored. Should such a system not be reconsidered, given that it is cheap and would not involve additional expenditure for the Commission?
Indeed, the previous method may have been better, but this did not prevent a serious crisis and the Commission's being criticized on the grounds of insufficient inspection measures.
In any case, there is a rule to be applied and I believe that things can always be altered.
However, before changing the rule, we have to allocate ourselves the human resources which are essential for changing the position.
You should also be aware that, in the next few months, we will be drafting a report on inspection systems.
This could give this House and the Commission the chance to discuss the issue, comparing the two methods and the two experiments, and to decide which is the better method.
This could be a combination of the two, for example.
I am giving the matter some thought, but I think it would be better if we were to gain a little more experience with this method so that later we can draft a report for discussion by Parliament and the Commission, enabling us to work out how we can improve it.
I am very pleased with the positive response which Mrs Bonino has been able to give.
But unfortunately it is always the bad news which gets the big headlines while the good news, that we have actually managed to trace so much of it, receives no publicity at all.
So I wonder, firstly: can the Commission, via their information offices in the cities, give us an update on what progress has been made, in other words have you succeeded?
Secondly: is this not a reason to press on with the introduction of a regulation on the labelling of beef products? I am afraid that many more similar situations could arise, if the regulation does not come into force more quickly.
Thirdly I am pleased with the humility which Mrs Bonino shows when she asks whether everything really has been disclosed.
Are there perhaps signs of further fraud in Great Britain, for example?
To avoid any misunderstanding, I just said that we have been able to trace the full quantity related to the 1, 650, but I cannot say if this is the total fraud or if there are other amounts, because the inquiry is continuing.
We are just at the beginning.
New checks and inquiries are being carried out in the UK, for instance.
The two enterprises have been closed for the moment and we are scrutinizing all the papers, dossiers and so on.
As far as the 1, 650 we know what happened, but I cannot say that this is the whole story.
It may be that there are other quantities around.
I hope not.
On the second issue: you are aware of the position of the Commission on labelling.
The decision and the reaction of all Member States was to make compulsory labelling begin from the year 2000, and to have voluntary labelling for the moment, provided that it is possible to trace this meat.
I hope that not only this crisis but also the greater awareness among consumers will push Member States to at least speed up voluntary labelling as far as possible.
Given that its author is absent, Question No 42 lapses.
The Commission agrees with the Honourable Member that the establishment of programme contracts can help overcome the administrative demands of project-by-project financing.
The Commission is therefore planning to introduce the possibility of programme contracts into its revised general conditions for cofinancing with NGOs.
Revision of the general conditions is currently underway.
Such programme agreements will be started up on a pilot basis with those NGOs which can demonstrate an appropriate development approach in partnership with local NGOs and with whom the Commissioners have a long and satisfactory co-financing relationship, and will be built up progressively.
Programme contracts will account for only a certain percentage of co-financing funds each year since the Commission will continue to finance individual projects for those European NGOs who continue to operate on a project-by-project basis or are too small to engage in programme contracts.
The Commission has already made use of this instrument, notably in the field of humanitarian aid, through the framework partnership contracts.
The framework partnership contracts were instituted in 1993 and provide an overall legal framework for relations with humanitarian agents, that is to say NGOs and international organizations, thus helping to streamline and expedite procedures for managing humanitarian operations.
I would like to thank you for your very positive response which pleases me a great deal.
This framework agreement ought to reduce administrative costs both for the Commission and the individual organisations.
In so doing we will have more funds available for the subsidies themselves.
The framework agreement is not necessarily only of use in big projects.
Many of the larger non-governmental organisations also have local organisations which may want to set up smaller projects.
I think that the larger organisations, if they have the framework agreement, should also be able to take responsibility for smaller projects which their local organisations wish to set up.
As the Commission has rightly pointed out, this has been tested with great success within ECHO.
Such success ought to form the inspiration for continuing in other areas as well.
Mrs Lööw, I fully agree with you that, if one takes into account the fact that support for NGOs in the twenty years has moved from 2.5 million ECU to 175 million ECU, that is a huge increase and the number of projects which have to be handled surely require as much simplification as possible in their management.
We have worked with the liaison committee of the NGOs in order to create this so-called co-financing support programme.
The objective is to help NGOs to prepare properly for the demands for financing, reporting and so on and so forth.
We hope that through these co-financing support programmes, the quality and the accuracy of reporting will improve, and therefore the idea is to extend progressively these pluriannual schemes to as many NGOs as possible.
I can assure you that so far the work we have been doing with the liaison committee has been extremely encouraging and I am confident that it is just the beginning of a new type of relationship with NGOs.
Mr President, I have a brief specific supplementary question.
Is there a complete catalogue or list of all governmental and non-governmental organizations working on our behalf and with our funds, not only in the domain of development cooperation but in third countries in general, and, if so, where can the list be obtained?
All the projects could be in DG VIII for development as far as ACP countries are concerned.
I am sure that in each of the geographical DGs there is a full list of NGOs.
As you know this has been handled mainly on a geographical basis.
If you are interested and made a request, I am sure the reply would be very quick.
Question No 44 by Graham Watson (H-0431/97):
Subject: The Kenyan elections
During the course of this year Kenya will hold Presidential, Parliamentary and Civic elections.
Will the European Commission comment on the continuing restrictions on the freedom of assembly and association of political parties and will it extend an offer to send election observers to Kenya and, in addition, call on the government to accord the Electoral Commission of Kenya the independence to which it is entitled under the Kenyan constitution, so that the voters of Kenya may enjoy free and fair elections devoid of suspicion and fear?
The European Commission has participated in the framework of the socalled Donors' Democratic Development Group in Kenya in the drafting of a joint declaration on free and fair elections later this year in Kenya.
This declaration emphasizes the importance of the following four prerequisites for a more level playing field for Kenya's second multi-party elections, namely: access to the ballot; access to the electorate; access to information; and freedom of assembly.
The Commission considers these four points as an irreducible set of conditions to arrive at free and fair elections in Kenya.
On 6 May the declaration was handed over to President Daniel arap Moi.
During that meeting it was agreed that the Donors' Democratic Development Group would meet regularly with the highest Kenyan authorities to have a dialogue on basic questions concerning the forthcoming elections in Kenya.
As a result, another meeting with the President took place on 1 July.
The European Commission agrees that the role and independence of the Electoral Commission is crucial for administering the elections.
The European Commission, together with the Member States of the European Union will carefully scrutinize the undertakings of the Electoral Commission in order to increase the transparency of the election administration process in Kenya.
Currently, the Donors' Democratic Development Group is elaborating a recommendation concerning election monitoring, including the possibility of sending observers and setting up an election monitoring secretariat.
An ECfinanced expert is part of the technical team which is assisting the Donors' Democratic Development Group.
The events which took place last week in Kenya, during which 14 people died in violent confrontations sparked off by police efforts to break up rallies called to press for constitutional reforms, proved that the situation is deteriorating and that the need for dialogue between the government, the opposition and the donor community is all the more necessary and urgent.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his answer.
As he will be aware, the economy and the security situation in Kenya are worsening.
Not only are roads falling apart and hospitals and schools lacking basic supplies, but robbery is rampant; the ruling party is using its force against rallies for constitutional change.
Indeed the recent storming of All Saints Cathedral and the beating of the Reverend Timothy Njoya are just one example of this.
I am grateful that the Commission is proposing to look at the sending of observers to the elections, but I wonder if the Commission will also look at the other things that are needed: the appointment of an independent electoral commission to run the elections; the repeal of the public assembly legislation which gives the government control over opposition rallies; and the question of independence of broadcasting with access to all parties.
In particular I would ask the Commissioner if, since Kenya has clearly violated Article 5 of the Fourth Lomé Convention, the Commission will consider suspending the aid that it grants to Kenya under the Lomé Convention?
It is obvious that the importance of creating a level playing field as a precondition for free and fair elections is reflected in the statement that I just made, and I think the four conditions I have enunciated, namely access to the ballot, access to the electorate, access to information and freedom of assembly, incorporate, if I may say so, some of the aspects you mentioned like access to the radio, which is not the case nowadays in Kenya.
We all know that press freedom exists in Kenya but we are also aware that radio is the only means of communication with many remote areas.
Hence the importance that not just the European Union, but all the group I referred to, attach to the monitoring of how the electoral committee is working.
I must say that we are also extremely concerned with the so-called bad governance which has been noted by some of our embassies and delegations in Kenya.
During the visit I made to Kenya I myself made it clear to President arap Moi and his team that we would be willing to cooperate and even intensify our cooperation, but that our conditions are clear and have been clearly restated in the revision of the Lomé Convention, particularly in Article 5 on civil rights and political rights, but also with regard to good governance.
You referred to the bad situation of the economy at the present moment.
That is true, and has led the IMF to consider that Kenya is no longer 'on track' .
This means that the second tranche of the structural adjustment facility which the IMF was about to grant has been suspended and as a consequence we ourselves have also decided to suspend our structural adjustment facility support to Kenya, this despite the fact that we recognize that the Finance Minister is someone who is worth supporting on a personal basis and whose action is extremely positive.
I have also noticed that we have made the reference that we would be prepared to use Article 5 if we were convinced that these conditions of free and fair elections were not met.
Question No 45 by Clive Needle (H-0511/97):
Subject: Commission steps to eradicate polio in Africa
Will the Commission set out the steps it is taking to assist the eradication of poliomyelitis by programmes of vaccination in developing countries, with particular reference to Africa?
Mr President, in Africa in particular, the Commission is already engaged in a major effort to support vaccination programmes.
The main aims are to guarantee a lasting supply of priority vaccines - against diphtheria, tetanus, measles, whooping-cough, TB and poliomyelitis - and to develop and improve the so-called routine vaccination activities.
This is done mainly by supporting the basic health services.
The aim of these activities in the near future is to reinforce national capacities in terms of epidemiological vigilance and to improve the ability to react to epidemics.
If national authorities make a specific request, the Commission can help to fund any additional expenditure linked to the programme to eradicate polio, including, if specifically requested, support for holding and running national days for polio immunization.
I repeat that our main aim is to ensure that vaccination supplies are maintained and that countries can carry out routine vaccination measures to combat all of the diseases I have just mentioned.
Thank you, Commissioner, for that general response.
During the course of it you said that if there were requests from national authorities for extensions, then you would be amenable to considering those requests.
I would be grateful to know what response you made to the letter you received from President Mandela of South Africa in March on behalf of a number of organizations broadly representing a coalition whose aim is to kick polio out of Africa.
You have had correspondence, I know, from the World Health Organization and others who have made it absolutely clear that one of their major priorities is to have major programmes on the days of vaccination that you have referred to.
Yet they are saying to me that the EU is lagging significantly behind the US and the UK and national authorities.
I would like you to tell me what specifically is being spent in that field, how, specifically, you are responding to President Mandela and the African countries who are asking for the EU's help, and whether you will make this a real priority so that the EU is a proper contributing partner in kicking polio out of Africa by the WHO target date of the year 2000.
The reason why I underlined the request of national authorities in my response is because we have been turning down demands from the World Health Organization for the support for the so-called 'days of vaccination' .
Why? It is because we think that the resources have a much greater multiplier effect if they go through the normal routine procedures and through the basic health care which has been developed in a few countries.
We accept that in some instances this service cannot provide the vaccination routine which is well established in many African countries and for all the diseases I referred to.
So in those cases in which specific countries' national authorities ask us to support this kind of ad hoc initiative, we are ready to do so because we feel that the national health authorities are better placed than us to judge how best to invest resources.
This has been our policy in the fight against some diseases as I explained to the Director of the World Health Organization and to some NGOs from the other side of the Atlantic and elsewhere who visited me for that purpose.
It is a flexible approach and so far the countries have been happy with it, either opting for the reinforcement of their normal programmes or, in other cases, having a campaign to raise awareness in the population.
So, I imagine that the answer to President Mandela was Yes.
It is very difficult to say No to Nelson Mandela.
Question No 46 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0556/97):
Subject: Conflict prevention and development
Does the Commission support the general principle that security assistance should be integrated into development programmes in conflict prone regions (the 'security first approach')? If so, how does it intend to ensure that National and Regional Indicative Programmes are organized in such a way as to allow for such assistance at short notice?
The Commission continues to attach great importance to the issue of conflict prevention.
The Commission has taken the lead within the European Union on the dialogue with the Organization of African Unity, in particular with regard to assistance to the OAU conflict mechanism.
The Commission has taken the necessary steps to give shape to the so-called conflict prevention network and the Commission has played a very prominent role in the elaboration of the SAC guidelines on conflict, peace and development cooperation.
The Commission was also the driving force behind the adoption of the common position and Council conclusions on conflict prevention and resolution in Africa, adopted by the General Affairs Council on 2 June 1997.
These documents reflect the main ideas and recommendations of the Commission's communication on peace building and conflict prevention in Africa of 6 March 1996.
The Commission was also instrumental in bringing about the resolution on coherence adopted by the Development Council on 5 June last in which peace building and conflict prevention feature as a specific theme.
The latter two documents are fully complementary and they give a very firm basis for a number of concrete activities in various fields.
Those documents confirm that development assistance has a prominent role to play in peace building and conflict prevention.
However, if we want to employ our assistance effectively, with the goal of peace building, it must be clear that we need to rethink the objectives of our aid.
I firmly believe that it is time to stop focusing on economic development alone and that we must believe, and act in accordance with, the principle that economic growth alone does not prevent or resolve conflicts.
Sometimes economic growth may even trigger or intensify tensions in society.
I believe that politics - functioning political systems - is the key for Africa's wellbeing.
State failure, ineffective and illegitimate governance, corruption, imbalance of power and opportunities, the theft of national wealth by a small elite, and the repression of democracy, rights and freedoms: these are the key problems that need to be addressed.
They are root causes of violent conflict and our assistance must target them.
Our communication on conflicts in Africa in early 1996 has spelled these problems out in very clear terms.
Assistance to developing countries, including the programmes within the framework of the Lomé Convention, must be designed and implemented in a way that helps to address the root causes of violent conflicts.
In this sense I fully support the idea that, in principle, security assistance should be integrated into development programmes in conflictprone regions.
To that end the Commission took a more strategic approach during the programming of the Lomé IV second financial protocol.
Strategy papers place great emphasis on analysing individual countries' and regions' constraints to take account of past, current and likely future crises.
I just wish to add that these strategic papers were for the first time drawn up after prior consultation of the Member States, the World Bank, UNDP and, in some instances, the United States.
I firmly believe that it was a very encouraging result, but one which still falls short of what I consider to be a strategic paper oriented towards full and comprehensive development.
I thank the Commissioner for his response.
He will be aware that I and others were somewhat concerned that in the Green Paper there was very little, if any, reference to the issue of conflict prevention.
I naturally welcome the reference he just made in his reply to including security within the framework of the Lomé Convention.
May I ask the Commissioner in what practical, tangible ways he will ensure that it is actually incorporated into Lomé?
May I also ask him a question about the importance of maintaining peace.
Demobilization is an important part of this.
I have written to the Commission about the demobilization of over half the UNITA forces in Angola.
It seems to me that we lack the mechanism for the speedy release of funds in these post-conflict situations.
I know that we have cumbersome procedures but that cannot be the only reason.
The Commissioner needs to address that.
Is it not the case that the partnership principle in Lomé actually might lie at the heart of the problem? Will the Commissioner be considering instituting a financial instrument that will overcome the problem he clearly sees as needing to be addressed?
I thank Mrs Kinnock for emphasizing the importance of conflict prevention and the fact that it is not present in the Green Paper as it should be.
Nor are other aspects such as human and social development or the gender issues that the Commission dealt with very recently.
We thought that they were so recent that they would be taken along with the Green Paper as very important current issues.
But I have no doubt whatsoever that we have to have a more mature political dialogue with our ACP partners and discuss the questions I have just referred to on a mature basis.
Otherwise we will be going round in circles without tackling the real problem.
So, I think that will have a pre-eminent role in the next Lomé Convention.
With regard to the second aspect of the problem Mrs Kinnock mentioned, I have been very much involved in discussing the Angolan problem with the Angolan authorities.
It is true that in the Convention we have constraints which render it extremely difficult.
I will just mention a few.
Firstly, since we cannot pay for or give assistance with any military aspects, should demobilization with the assistance of the army be seen as a military or non-military matter? I think it is non-military but there are some doubts about the soundness of this judgment.
Secondly, there is the question of mobilizing funds for this.
Each case of demobiliziation is unique.
For instance, in Liberia we had 'guns for jobs' and it is working.
In Angola it would have to be quite different because villages and towns have been wiped off the map.
It is a matter of rebuilding towns and villages from scratch.
This is something which is totally new.
Some have suggested that we could route it through NGOs but our financial lines for NGOs are insufficient, if you take the 60, 000 people or so who need immediate demobilization and resettlement somewhere outside the towns.
So, it is one of the issues which DG VIII is looking at, mainly because I am going to Angola at the beginning of October and at the top of my agenda for discussion with the Angolan authorities and UNITA is exactly how we are going to address on a short-term basis the problem of the demobilization of between 60, 000 and 90, 000 men who have been fighting for thirty years.
I will be very happy to invite you to come along with me because I think it will be worthwhile having this trip and discussions.
As its author is absent, Question No 47 lapses.
Question No 48 by Mr Barros Moura has been withdrawn.
Question No 49 by Ian White (H-0494/97):
Subject: Restrictions on regional development funds
Written Question E-1395/97 was tabled on 7 April asking whether any specific restrictions were put on European Union Funds being spent on civilian facilities rather than military ones, in terms of the development of airport facilities at Benbecula in the Western Isles of Scotland.
The Commission replied that it had asked the Member State concerned for information regarding the facts.
Has such information been received?
Two grants were awarded from the European Regional Development Fund for Benbecula Airport under the Highlands and Islands National Programme of Community Interest during the period from 1988 to 1991.
The first grant was for the construction of a new terminal, while the second was for a project to develop the runway and apron.
The following information emerges from the details provided by the responsible implementing authority: firstly, the airport terminal cofinanced by the Regional Fund is not used by military personnel unless they travel as fare-paying passengers on commercial flights; secondly, there are no restrictions on the tarmac.
The armed forces may use the airport for transit operations, but civilian aircraft have priority.
The airport may be used for very occasional military exercises but remains open to the public throughout the entire exercise.
There are no permanent military installations at the airport.
Military flights are subject to standard commercial tariffs, which helps to ensure the viability of the airport.
Military flights, however, represent a very small percentage of all air traffic at Benbecula Airport; the EU grant was awarded on the basis of the airport's impact on the regional economy.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for that very useful reply.
I suspect that the information supplied by the 'responsible authority' , as she put it, is not altogether accurate.
I speak as somebody who was at Benbecula Airport, and the reason for my question was simply that I was there as a civilian passenger and witnessed the arrival of a number of military aircraft.
I also witnessed the fact that immediately adjacent to the airfield is a large RAF military base and that just down the road from that the Royal Artillery have a massive base.
I seriously wonder whether in fact the European Union has, unwittingly it seems, partly subsidized what amounts to a major military base in the Outer Hebrides.
I should like to put the Commissioner on notice that I am interested in the answer but I think we should go further.
Mr President, I appreciate that my answer might be considered inadequate.
The decision, in fact, was taken back in 1988.
The funds have been accounted for in the meantime, and to my knowledge they were used exclusively for the grant-aided project.
As its author is absent, Question No 50 lapses.
Question No 51 by Gary Titley (H-0507/97):
Subject: Future of the KONVER programme after 1999
In the light of the restructuring going on in the European defence industry, does the Commission envisage giving greater importance to the KONVER programme post-1999?
Mr Titley, today is not the best time for such a question, because - as you know - the President of the Commission will be presenting Agenda 2000 and the various changes that will influence the Structural Funds programme.
I hope you will understand my reluctance to steal the President's thunder; at the present time, therefore, I should just like to make a few general remarks.
You will be aware that the current Community initiatives come in for heavy criticism because they are too numerous and because there are too many single programmes relating to Community initiatives.
Of our overall total of 800 programmes, 400 relate to Community initiatives.
However, this only applies to about 9 % of all Structural Fund resources.
That reveals a disproportionately large amount of administrative expenditure and an overlap with the content of programmes under Objectives 1 to 6.
Since I do not wish to anticipate the President's address, let me just say that any Community initiatives which are to be discontinued will be integrated as far as possible into the mainstream programmes.
Given that the answer was basically 'wait until tomorrow' , it is difficult to ask a supplementary.
My concern, however, is that if some of the stories about Community instruments are true, the KONVER programme is likely to be lost.
The KONVER programme covers areas which are not currently covered by Objective 1 or Objective 2; nor, indeed, are they easily fitted into any of the other objectives of the Commission.
Nonetheless, they have been important in developing the conversion of defence industries, which is a key factor we have to play.
Could the Commissioner tell me whether she accepts that the KONVER programme has a legitimate aim, and that she would like to see those aims fulfilled in whatever programme takes place after 1999?
Mr Titley, I understand your arguments in favour of KONVER, and I am also aware that there was a very specific reason why KONVER has been important to certain regions.
Nevertheless, we must develop an overall strategy that takes account of everyone's reservations.
We shall have to find the best way to continue meeting needs in this area too.
However, I would ask you to bear in mind that it will be very difficult to maintain all our activities at the present standard as well as doing even more in other areas.
For that reason we shall ultimately have to find a fair compromise which serves the interests of all concerned and, above all, gives help to the regions where the need is greatest.
As the Commissioner knows, the west of England is the most heavily dependent region in the entire European Union on defence-related industry.
This is why KONVER is so important to us.
I should like to ask her, on behalf of the trade unions in the west of England, whether the Commission has a plan to assess the way in which KONVER has been effective during the first few years of its existence as a Community programme.
Has the Commission carried out an assessment, and would it maybe even be possible to consider a conference or some kind of meeting to which the trade unions are invited to give their views on it? I can tell the Commissioner that there is widespread dissatisfaction amongst trade unions at the way in which this programme has operated in the past, because it is felt that those in the workplace have had insufficient input into it.
Mr White, we shall naturally assess the results, just as we do with all our programmes.
But please remember that, since some parts of KONVER were extremely late in starting, an evaluation will not be possible until we can determine some results.
I do not have your figures to hand at the moment, but if I remember rightly we have completed about 6 % of the whole initiative.
I will gladly look up the UK figures for you afterwards.
So what this all means is that we have scarcely spent any KONVER funds yet, so it stands to reason that we have registered few successes so far.
We shall begin by considering the impact of the KONVER programme as a whole and then we shall provide opportunities, as has already been done, for exchanges of information relating to the various areas of the programme.
A few conferences of KONVER regions have already taken place.
Madam Commissioner, I would like to ask a question about the future of the RECHAR initiative which, it would appear, will no longer be included.
I am aware that Agenda 2000 is to be presented tomorrow, but I wanted your opinion on whether such restructuring operations are going to continue, moreover, owing to Community prerequisites, owing to the powers the European Union has under the ECSC Treaty, something which will continue to affect countries such as Germany, Spain and even France.
I also wanted to ask you if you are aware of the fact that when the ECSC Treaty - and therefore all the reindustrialization aid which used to be received - lapses - and in view of the decision of the Amsterdam Council to channel these remaining funds - the ECSC reserves - to other purposes, there would, in actual fact, be no need to devise a transition programme for such regions.
Mrs Wulf-Mathies, as you will have ascertained, Mrs García Arias's supplementary question is outside the scope of the question initially put to you.
However, you may answer if you wish.
I believe I ought to be fair here.
If I have not told you today what is to become of KONVER, I must not say anything about the future of RECHAR either.
I hope you will understand.
But you know that we are trying to solve the problems associated with RECHAR, that we are very familiar with these problems and that we shall continue to try and offer whatever type of help we can to solve such problems.
But I would also ask you to appreciate that we must naturally respect Council decisions with regard to the ECSC.
Question No 52 by Miguel Arias Cañete (H-0515/97):
Subject: Capital Region network
Is the Commission aware of the special nature of the problems affecting the European regions within which their country's national capital is located?
Does the Commission know of the activities of the Capitals Network, of which the Madrid, Brussels, île de France, Athens, Lisbon, Rome, Stockholm and Helsinki regions are members and in which Berlin, Dublin and Vienna are involved as observers?
Mr President, I need hardly say that it gives me particular pleasure to reply to the chairman of my committee, whom I am pleased to tell that the Commission held an exchange of views with representatives of the Network of Capital Regions in 1996.
The discussion served as an opportunity to examine, among other things, the special problems of the European regions in which the national capitals are situated.
In this context, the Commission asked the Capitals Network to make representations in connection with the regional development strategy currently being devised in the framework of the European regional planning blueprint; as you know, this blueprint deals with the urban system in the European Union and the different functions performed by individual towns and cities.
The Commission noted with interest the Charter of the EU Capital Regions, which highlights the main problems facing capital regions.
In its communication of May 1997 on European urban development, the Commission invited interested institutions to join it in a dialogue.
At their informal meeting in Noordwijk in June 1997, the Ministers responsible for urban policy and regional planning in the EU Member States emphasized their great interest in the idea of the relevant organizations exchanging views and sharing experiences in a European framework.
The opinions of the European institutions, of the European Parliament, but also of the Committee of the Regions, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, as well as the proposals of urban organizations such as the Network, can provide important ideas for the urban policy forum that the Commission has planned for 1998, and I therefore expect to receive an opinion from this institution too, which can help us to build up an accurate picture of conditions in a wide range of towns and cities with a variety of problems.
Madam Commissioner, many thanks for your reply. Allow me to inform you that capital cities, insofar as they are cultural, financial and political decision-making centres, have the highest concentration of services in the country in question, but that this concentration also makes them a centre of attraction for local immigration and immigration from third countries, resulting in a most appreciable increase in the marginal population, the unemployed, and the consequent depopulation and impoverishment of the surrounding region.
Moreover, the relatively high income levels of that sector of the population which is genuinely in work diverts Structural Fund aid towards other regions.
Hence my question, Madam Commissioner, is whether, in new Objective 2, referred to in Agenda 2000, the Commission intends to examine, amongst the eligibility criteria, the situation of such regions which include the capital city - they have a highly specific problem, are often the focal point for a great many citizens, even for a Member State, yet to date have not received structural aid.
Mr President, I must ask the honourable Member not to expect me to refer to the subject of Agenda 2000, because the President of the Commission will deal comprehensively with it tomorrow.
Let me mention, however, that it would in fact be important to examine what distinguishes capitals from other cities with similar problems, cities which have to deal with immigration and environmental pollution and which also perform particular central functions for their respective regions.
I would therefore ask such cities, as we have already asked the capital regions, to describe their problems to us, because I feel it will be more fruitful to deal with the various problems in the framework of municipal and urban-policy initiatives, irrespective of whether these problems occur in capitals or in other cities.
A serious problem is a serious problem, wherever it arises, and the same problem will affect people in capital cities just as much or as little as it affects people in other cities.
The time allotted for questions to Mrs Wulf-Mathies has run out so Questions No 53 to No 58 will receive written answers.
Given that its author is absent, Question No 59 lapses.
Question No 60 by Anne McIntosh (H-0440/97):
Subject: Recognition of ski instructor qualifications in France
What action will the Commission be taking to guarantee the proper implementation of the applicable legislation to recognize ski instructor qualifications in France, avoiding the practice of aptitude tests being used to discriminate against non-French instructors?
As far as establishment is concerned, what remedial action will the Commission be taking against the French authorities if there is a failure to amend the rules on granting authorization to holders of diplomas issued by other Member States, in particular in line with Directive 92/51/EEC ?
Mr President, the Commission is well aware of the problems encountered by ski instructors with British diplomas in having their qualifications recognized in France.
Indeed, the Commission has already done a great deal of work in an effort to resolve this problem.
I would point out that, following intervention on the part of the Commission, France has now properly transposed Community law.
As far as freedom of establishment is concerned, infringement proceedings have been set under way.
The matter ought soon to be resolved, given that the French authorities have recently issued a decree incorporating into French law Directive 92/51/EEC on the recognition of diplomas.
The proper application of the new provisions of French law will have now to be established in practice, and the Commission intends to continue working towards this.
The Commission has also sought to set up a dialogue between the British Association of Ski Instructors (BASI) and the French authorities.
The aim of that initiative is to encourage bilateral discussions of the conditions governing recognition of the BASI first grade diploma.
There have already been meetings between French officials and representatives of the British Association of Ski Instructors.
The Commission has also asked the French authorities to provide an initial assessment of the decree on providers of services, and this should arrive during the next few weeks.
Should it emerge that aptitude tests are being automatically required, the Commission will ask the French authorities to change that practice.
Mr President, while I welcome the Commission action to date, I am afraid it is simply not good enough.
As a founder member of the European Union, the French Government ought to know better, and it ought to know that, as the Commissioner has said, it is in flagrant breach of both the Treaty provisions on the freedom of establishment and, in particular, the implementing directive which, I may remind him, was adopted in 1992.
On behalf of the British skiers, many of whom have written to both myself and other British MEPs, could he please tell us at what point a British national holding a British diploma will be able to take a position on equal terms under Article 7 of the Treaty with a French national? It is simply not a level playing field and I repeat that France is in breach of the Treaty and of the implementing directive.
Mr President, perhaps I may provide the latest details concerning this dossier, to which the Commission is as attached as you are, Miss McIntosh.
First of all, last year great efforts were made, through meetings, informal contacts or official letters, to solve the problems encountered by foreign ski instructors wishing to pursue their activities in France, and real progress was made.
We cannot forget the two French decrees.
Secondly, the Commission has asked France to examine all the pending individual cases known to the Commission.
Thirdly, a new complaint by Mr Holmes, a BASI lawyer, has just been received by the Commission.
It has now been officially registered as a complaint.
Mr Holmes' concern is that aptitude tests could be systematically required for providers of services.
If this is the case, the Commission may decide to take action.
Fourthly, on 17 June 1997 I received a delegation of basic ski instructors headed by Mrs Billingham.
Finally, a letter dated 3 April 1997 signed by Director-General Mogg was sent to the French authorities, asking them to provide the Commission with a first evaluation of the decree on service providers.
The Commission has just received the elements, in June this year.
So I think these facts may convince you, Miss McIntosh, of the very close attention with which the Commission is following this important dossier.
I thank you, Commissioner Monti.
It is no surprise to you, I am sure, to see me rising on this issue even though my question is further on.
I thank you for the acknowledgement that you have made already of the very important meeting that we had with the chairman and the chief executive of the British Association of Ski Instructors.
You will note from Mrs McIntosh that exasperation is rife, I have to say, on this particular issue.
I am delighted to hear that there is progress being made but there is some scepticism.
We are looking for action rather than words in this issue.
I do not need to tell you that this is a microcosm of your whole action plan for the single market.
If we cannot get this issue right, what chance and likelihood is there of getting all the other, very many more complex issues put to right? As far as the ski instructors are concerned, their row with the French is only part of the argument.
I am sure this is going to have a resonance over the rest of Europe.
I wish to thank Mrs Billingham for the interest she takes in the Commission's activities in this area.
Allow me to say that the words I spoke are indeed only words, but words about facts.
These facts may not have been sufficient yet.
We will take all the necessary action.
We speak about actions by using words, but action is the key in this area.
I share your view that this free movement of people, in a broad sense, is essential to the single market.
That is why we are so keenly pursuing this.
Since its author is absent, Question No 61 lapses.
As they deal with similar subjects, Questions Nos 62 and 63 will be answered together.
Question No 62 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0482/97):
Subject: The IGC and new proposals to guarantee the free movement of goods, especially through France
What does the Commissioner think would be the most effective way of ensuring that in future, repeated violations of the right to free movement of goods do not go unpunished? What proposals would he make in the context of the IGC in terms of specific policies and measures?
Question No 63 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0492/97):
Subject: Measures against acts of vandalism impeding the free movement of goods
In the context of the action plan for the completion of the single market, one of whose objectives is the elimination of sectoral obstacles in the general public interest, what action is proposed against the acts of vandalism practised on certain occasions which impede the free movement of agricultural goods?
As far as the two problems raised by honourable Members and currently under discussion are concerned, the Commission has already on a number of occasions expressed its view on the problem of acts of vandalism repeatedly committed by some groups of French producers and their associations targeted at agricultural food products from Spain.
A few days ago, I myself sent a letter to the French minister for European affairs to stress the Commission's concern over this.
Moreover, similar incidents in past years led the Commission to bring proceedings for infringement under Article 169 of the Treaty, and that case is currently pending before the Court of Justice.
Advocate General Lenz recently submitted his opinion to the Court and endorsed the view taken by the Commission.
There is no doubt that if the Court of Justice finds that France has failed to fulfil obligations under the Treaty and if the measures adopted by the French authorities do not remedy that situation, the Commission would be able to bring an action under Article 171 of the EEC Treaty and, in this case, ask the Court to order France to pay a lump sum or a fine.
Moving on to the general steps which could be taken in the near future - the subject-matter of the other question - the Commission is aware that the conditions for applying the procedures set under way under Articles 169 and 171 do not allow problems that arise in the kind of circumstances described by the honourable Members to be rapidly resolved.
The Commission drew the attention of the Member States to that point in the opinion published in February 1996 on the occasion of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Thereafter in the action plan for the single market, the Commission made it clear that where there are serious breaches of Community law with grave implications for the operation of the single market, the Commission ought to be able to adopt urgent measures against the States in question, by imposing penalties, if necessary.
The reinforcement of the Commission's executive powers will help cut delays in resolving the problems.
However, the Intergovernmental Conference came to an end without any amendment to that effect being inserted into the text of the new treaty.
But the Amsterdam European Council did itself ask the Commission to consider how to guarantee the free movement of goods effectively, including the possibility of imposing penalties on Member States, and asked it to submit proposals on this before the next meeting of the European Council in December 1997.
It is too early to say how the Commission intends responding on this.
But it has certainly begun to consider all the opportunities the Treaty affords to respond in full to the request from the Heads of State and Government at their last meeting.
Mr Commissioner, the Intergovernmental Conference was disappointing in this respect, and remains so.
I am most grateful to the Commission for its attitude prior to the Intergovernmental Conference and, I note from your words, Mr Commissioner, after the Conference as well.
Given this attitude of mutual support, therefore - because the problem remains - I would be most grateful if you would give a copy to Parliament and to this Member in particular - so that Parliament and European public opinion in general might be informed - of the letter you sent to the French minister.
I would like to thank you for your attention to this matter and, in future, I would also be grateful if all such Commission actions aimed at solving the problem were as transparent and as widely publicized.
I believe the European Commission is doing much more than people are aware of.
I should like to inform Mrs Izquierdo Rojo that on 8 July, when I sent the letter I mentioned to the French minister for European affairs, the Commission issued a press statement on the content of that letter.
Mr Commissioner, you will be aware that, despite your letters of rebuke to the French Minister for European Affairs - both in the previous and in the present government - acts of vandalism continue to be committed against Spanish lorries and the French Gendarmerie turns a blind eye.
Witness, for example, the outrage committed in Cintegabelle on the 2nd of this month.
I assume that the Commissioner will experience a great deal of frustration upon hearing that his good intentions of settling the matter during the recent Amsterdam Intergovernmental Conference, when he proposed that sanctions should be automatic, have come to nought.
I understand his frustration, since we Europeans are well aware of his strength of mind and, I might say, obstinacy in defending, come hell or high water, the free movement of goods in the Union with a view to achieving completion of the Single Market, an objective we simply cannot give up.
I understand your frustration, Mr Commissioner, but you have to understand that ours is greater because, as the previous speaker mentioned, we are still faced with an unsolvable problem.
There is, of course, frustration, but there is also a growing awareness in the Institutions and among the public and a desire to have these problems properly resolved.
The Commission and I myself were encouraged to hear of the opinion Advocate General Lenz delivered to the Court on the earlier cases that took place in 1995.
I agree that it has taken a long time, these things proceed slowly, but if the Court of Justice goes along with the opinion of Advocate General Lenz this will be a real case of substantial progress being achieved in enforcing the free movement of goods.
As the time allotted for Question Time to the Commission has run out, Questions Nos 64 to 114 will receive written answers.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.20 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Road passenger transport
The next item is the joint debate on:
the recommendation for second reading (A4-0234/97), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation laying down the conditions under which non-resident carriers may operate national road passenger transport services within a Member State (C4-0172/97-96/0002(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Killilea)-the recommendation for second reading (A4-0233/97), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 684/92 on common rules for the international carriage of passengers by coach and bus (C4-0173/97-96/0125(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Killilea)
Madam President, Parliament cannot be entirely satisfied with the way in which the Council has chosen to act in the field of international carriage of passengers by coach and bus.
The Commission accepted only 9 of the Parliament's 26 amendments and the Council has accepted even fewer.
However it must also be recognized that the decision to introduce a Community licence is of course a major step forward in itself.
The Council's common position has made further changes to the Commission's text.
Among other things it provides for the establishment of a consultative committee to assist the Commission in adopting and implementing measures relating to transport documents.
Although many of the amendments adopted at first reading by the European Parliament have not been incorporated into the common position, the Committee on Transport and Tourism has chosen to concentrate action on only a few objectives which it sees as being the most important.
These are contained principally in amendments Nos 15 and 16 from the first reading, now amendments Nos 1 and 2 of this recommendation, which concern the need to meet the legal requirements concerning social benefits as well as road safety in respect of access to the market for drivers and vehicles.
I also chose to retable amendment 24 for the first reading, that is now amendment 3 of this recommendation, calling on the Commission to submit before December 1999 a new draft regulation to further extend the scope of the present proposal.
Given the amount of time needed to carry through and implement this regulation, it could be a good idea to begin work immediately on a new proposal in order not to postpone indefinitely the process of further liberalization.
By way of introduction to my second report on cabotage, I think it may be useful to give a brief historical account of this proposal which has had a curious fate and, I must say, a very tortured route.
On 23 July 1992, the Council adopted Regulation No 2454/92 laying down the conditions under which non-resident carriers may operate national road transport services within a Member State, so-called cabotage transport operations.
The regulation has since been annulled by the Court of Justice in a judgment handed down on 1 June 1994 after proceedings had been instituted by Parliament itself.
At the same time, the Court ruled that the new operative part of the regulation should remain in force until new legislation had been issued.
The Court decided to annul the regulation because the Council substantially altered the Commission's proposal on which Parliament had delivered its opinion in adopting the final version of the text; and everybody knows - the Council above all - that to make such a significant change it ought to have consulted Parliament again.
In the final text some of the procedures and formalities laid down could have made it more difficult to exercise the freedom to provide passenger transport services.
A year and seven months after the judgment of 1 June 1994 the Commission submitted the proposal now under consideration, which is largely modelled on the annulled regulation itself, but of course widens the extent to which cabotage transport operations will be liberalized.
Following Parliament's first reading, the Commission accepted 9 of Parliament's 16 amendments but the Council regrettably only accepted 3 of these.
However, there have been a number of positive developments.
The Council's common position introduced a greater degree of liberalization than the old Regulation No 2254/92 in so far as all specialized regular vehicles such as workers' and students' transport have been liberalized, provided they are governed by a contract between the organization and the carriers.
Moreover, the admission to a national market of passenger services provided in the context of international transport constitutes a first step in recognition by the Council of the principle of cabotage within the Community territory.
For these reasons I am not submitting many of the amendments adopted at first reading that were not accepted by the Council, because I realize that the common position does represent an improvement on the previous legislation.
However, Parliament should not ignore its responsibility to encourage further progress in this field.
Amendment No 1 of the draft recommendation therefore seeks to encourage the Commission in its future efforts to liberalize the sector, taking account of Parliament's previous position.
This amendment refers to the final declaration which the Commission has annexed to the Council's common position, stating its commitment to preparing new legislative initiatives in this sector on the basis of reactions to the Green Paper on the citizens' network.
The Transport Committee wants to encourage the Commission by adding a recital providing for further liberalization in the future which makes the amendments that the Council has made to the initial proposal temporarily acceptable.
The adoption of this recital is therefore of greater significance than might appear since it expresses Parliament's keenness to seek further progress in the matter of passenger transport legislation.
Amendment No 2 emphasizes the European Parliament's incontrovertible role of scrutiny, specifying that the Commission will undertake to inform Parliament of the operation both of the regulation in question and of the regulation annulled by the Court of Justice.
The Commission should in particular submit before June 1998 a report on the operation of the old regulation, and before December 1999 a report on the operation of the present regulation, on the basis of data collected periodically by the Member States.
The amendment also takes up the content of the recital by referring to future legislative developments in this sector.
In conclusion only 2 amendments are being retabled at second reading.
However these are amendments which summarize Parliament's determination to remain vigilant with regard to cabotage and passenger transport services within the Community, in the name of the principle of free movement of people and freedom of establishment in the internal market and more generally in the interests of the European citizens.
These were amendments tabled by political groups.
One amendment only was tabled by Mr Grosch from the EPP Group.
It concerns the addition of the word 'regional' .
After having contacted Mr Grosch it seems that the transport organizations in Belgium, as in Germany, organize bus transport in urban areas, but that these are on a regional basis.
Taking account of his explicit explanation and the diversity of the bus transport organizations within the EU itself, I propose to support this amendment.
I thank the Committee on Transport for bringing this report to this stage, and the Commissioner personally and his staff for their assistance and help in trying to make this as good a piece of legislation as we possibly can.
Madam President, on behalf of the European Socialist Group I would like to speak briefly, first of all, on the proposal by the Commission for the amendment of the Council regulation governing the rules for international carriage of passengers.
Our group, as we stated at first reading, welcome the Commission proposals which we believe will bring about further liberalization in this sector, in particular simplifying the rules applying to international passenger coach and bus services.
Whilst I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank the rapporteur for his efforts, I share with him his disappointment at our failure to make much progress on our amendments.
It is important, this evening, that we dwell on the very positive aspects of this particular proposal.
In particular, we ought to draw everyone's attention to the fact that, for example, the improved wording of the definition of occasional services will greatly simplify the application of the regulation and contribute to the development of a more efficient sector.
Secondly, the abolition of the definition of international shuttle services, which never existed in national legislation, will, again, greatly clarify matters.
Last, but not least, as noted by the rapporteur himself, the creation of a uniform, simplified control document, a Community coach licence, will avoid the present confusing situation whereby old documents are amended by hand.
Taken together, I believe these particular proposals are worthy of the support of this Parliament at second reading.
I now turn briefly to the proposals for non-resident carriers operating national road passenger transport.
The objective of this proposal, as the rapporteur has stated, is to lay down harmonized conditions under which nonresident carriers may operate national coach and bus services within a Member State.
My group shares and applauds the objective to establish the freedom to provide transport services and eliminate all discrimination against carriers on the grounds of nationality.
The objective is to ensure compliance with the Treaty and, in particular, the single market.
Taken together with the other measures that I have mentioned the abolition of frontier controls means that we will now see cabotage systems extended to all transport services by bus or coach operators, including regular services.
I welcome these measures.
In particular, taken together, they will, in my view, offer new opportunities for bus and coach service operators which will in turn generate much needed new jobs in the transport industry.
New standards will be introduced and greater flexibility will open up new markets.
The abolition of the current restrictions will enable transport companies to optimize the management of their activities and the profitability of their vehicle fleets.
In conclusion, the Socialist Group is pleased to support these measures because they will create a new fast-track system, where bus and coach services can be operated for the good of the bus companies themselves, the passengers, the economy and the environment.
Madam President, I also would like to congratulate the Commission on reaching the stage of the common position and the rapporteur for all his hard work on these two proposals.
In accepting the common position, I welcome this as a first step along the path to recognizing the principle of cabotage within the European Union territory.
However, I wish to express my concern, and the regret and disappointment of myself and the Group of the European People's Party that progress towards liberalization in this field is painfully slow.
Regrettably, the possibility of non-resident carriers being able to operate national road passenger services within another Member State is still severely limited.
I dream of the day when a coach can travel through France from Britain to Bordeaux, picking up and dropping off passengers in Paris en route.
Such a move would make a reality of the single market in road transport for buses and coaches, encourage more people to use such transport and ensure a real value to a people's Europe of which we all talk.
The benefits of the proposals before us this evening for coach operators are both tangible and positive.
Transport operators will be able to take advantage of their entitlement to undertake services in another Member State, and, obviously, would only do so when it was in their commercial interest to engage in these operations.
International coach operators would be able to benefit, at no additional cost, by filling the empty seats on existing services.
The further liberalization set out in the common position and in Mr Killilea's reports would help to reduce costs and save time for operators.
This streamlining of procedures will only be slightly offset by the need to review the Community licence every five years, which, of course, is part of the proposal.
I would like to take this opportunity to support the common position and Mr Killilea's reports and commend them to the House.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to the two reports by Mark Killilea, we are now reaching the end of a very important legislative procedure for the passenger road transport sector.
I am convinced that the adoption of these texts and that of the application regulations are going to give a fresh boost to the transport of persons, offering a greater choice of services at more attractive prices.
There is a considerable coverage of the car or bus market. Thanks to the authorization of cabotage, the free provision of services is introduced, eliminating any discrimination with respect to the service provider by dint of nationality or the fact that he is established in another Member State.
We should also stress the simplification to international passenger transport by the introduction of a Community licence, to become in the end the only document needed to transport passengers across the European Union.
That is why I call on you to vote for both motions for recommendations tabled by Mr Killilea, whom I thank very warmly!
This remarkable progress should not, however, make us lose sight of a major imperative: safety.
In addition to common rules on the free provision of services, we must also bring into line the conditions required for access to the transporter profession.
That is what lies behind another report, that by Mrs Berger, which we shall vote on after the Killilea report.
I regret very much that the Committee on Transport and Tourism did not examine in depth the points that seem vital to me, i.e. training for drivers, individual reliability or the content of aptitude tests.
These obviously go hand in hand with a greater opening of the passenger and goods transport markets.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, like the rapporteur, the Group of the European People's Party sees the Council's position as an important step - although not the final one - in the process of liberalizing international transport.
The provisional exclusion of local bus services from the scope of the legislation was something that Parliament had requested.
We therefore find it surprising that regionally based local bus services are not treated in the same way; however, it may be possible to correct this when we vote tomorrow.
In the meantime, I should like to thank the rapporteur for encouraging the House to support this additional amendment.
It makes sense, in our view, to proceed along the lines that the rapporteur has suggested - proposing changes which are geared to specific objectives, rather than simply deluding ourselves by retabling all the amendments that were proposed at first reading.
Legal requirements concerning social benefits and road safety are certainly among the major criteria that should determine access to the market.
We all know - and the Council, we hope, will take the same view - that liberalization and the competitive conditions which go with it cannot be allowed to produce a situation where social and safety legislation goes by the board.
In our opinion, the rapporteur's last amendment is also logical if, as I said to begin with, we do not regard this as the final step.
As far as we are concerned, the dates which he has set out are the latest possible deadlines for initiating a new legislative procedure.
We would also expect - and hope - that before then, Parliament will have an opportunity of expressing its opinion on transport issues more forcefully.
As to whether the Council is yet prepared to take our opinion into account, that may be more of a pious wish than a hope.
Nonetheless, it is a wish that I felt should not go unstated.
Madam President, I wish to begin by responding to the generosity of Mr Killilea's remarks in thanking my services - the people who work with me - and myself, but also to apologise for being three minutes late and having therefore missed some of the pearls that he cast before the Commission swine.
I apologise very much for that.
I can only explain that I was engaged in intense discussion with my Member of the European Parliament in my office on the vexed subject of the painting of our kitchen and, consequently, was detained longer than either of us intended.
I hope he will forgive me. I am sure he does.
The two common positions before the House obviously command widespread support, as evidenced by the debate this evening.
No doubt that is a tribute to Mr Killilea's widely recognized quality of promoting consensus, not only in his native country but here in the European Parliament.
With regard to international bus transport, the common position takes up most of the refinements recommended by the Commission and Parliament at an earlier stage, and it also incorporates the proposed introduction of a Community licence for coaches.
Although Parliament, as honourable Members will recall, agreed with the Commission's wish to delete the so-called 'rail protection clause' , there was insufficient support in the Council to achieve that, despite the fact that the provisions of the clause have never ever been used by any Member State.
Instead the Council reached a compromise so that the protection clause will be maintained until the end of 1999 and then replaced by a safeguard clause.
The Commission will naturally keep a close eye on the use which Member States make of these clauses so as to avoid a distortion of competition between different transport modes.
Colleagues will recall that Amendments Nos 1 and 2, before the House today, were rejected at the first reading by both the Commission and the Council.
As I understand it the Committee on Transport and Tourism is anxious to ensure that legislation on driving and rest periods is respected, and naturally I concur strongly with that aim.
I can assure the House, however, that this is already provided for in the existing text, and I therefore ask honourable Members to reflect on that, especially since on this rare occasion the wording proposed by the Transport Committee would not bring any greater clarity to the existing provision.
I have to tell honourable Members that Amendment No 3 cannot be accepted, not for reasons of principle but mainly for reasons of practicality.
While the Commission will, of course, draft a report on the application of this regulation, it is simply not realistic to do so before the end of 1998.
The regulation will be adopted in or around October of this year and will enter into force about 12 months later. This would quite obviously leave too short a time to draw any practical conclusion about its application, and when the House takes these calendar considerations into account, I hope that honourable Members will reach a similar judgment.
The situation of bus cabotage is satisfactory, although the position of the Council is not as ambitious as that proposed by the Commission.
It is, nevertheless, an acceptable first step in implementing the freedom to provide services in regular bus services.
I may also add that the Commission will review the situation of regular bus services that are excluded from the scope of the present regulation when we consider the revision of the regulations concerning public services, as we stated in the citizens' network Green Paper last year.
I am also pleased to advise the House that the Commission will accept a redrafted version of Amendment No 1, as well as part of Amendment No 2 - that part which dealt with the report on the application of Regulation 2454/92.
This will, as requested in the amendment put before the House, be presented in the course of next year.
I cannot, however, accept Mr Grosch's amendment which seeks to exclude regional bus services from the scope of the amended regulation - that would be a backward step from the progress already achieved.
I am very grateful to Mr Killilea and his colleagues for their work and, indeed, for their continuing interest which is, of course, of great help in achieving sustained progress with the operation of common rules for bus and coach transport in the Community.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
I see that Mr Killilea has something more to say. You have the floor.
Madam President, I just wanted to make a point of information to the Commissioner.
With regard to Amendment No 1, you say that it does not add any greater clarity.
Its inclusion therefore does not take away any greater clarity either, so I do not see what the logic of it is.
But it is the question of Mr Grosch's amendment that I want to refer to for a moment, because I think, Commissioner, you should call Mr Grosch to your office tomorrow to have a word of discussion with him, as I myself had to, so that he can explain the technical meaning of his amendment.
It is quite different to the interpretation you have given of it, and I would appreciate a little arbitration on this particular matter so that it can be clarified once and for all.
I expect you will do this, because I know you are a man who respects a small desire, and I think that when Mr Grosch has finished with you, you will have had explained to you the detail of what he is talking about.
After his explanation to me, I do not think he seriously means any wrong by what he is trying to do.
Madam President, I should have advised myself better before offering commendation to Mr Killilea on his gift for consensus.
After his last words I feel bathed in a sort of warm oil, and I am drifting off into paradise at the way in which he offers sweet blandishments that make it absolutely essential for me to see Mr Grosch; If we can get an understanding of the technicalities that assists with joint progress, I will certainly do that; but clearly I cannot promise the outcome that Mr Killilea so clearly wants before I give further consideration to the matter.
As far as Amendment No 1 is concerned, I think he will acknowledge that the constant pursuit of the Commission is to add value, clarification, simplification and transparency.
And even when a form of words does not subtract from any of that, it always remains inferior to something that adds to it.
So the consequence is, I must insist on the point that I made earlier to the House.
I will certainly pursue the issue raised by Mr Killilea in the hope of getting a satisfactory solution, but with no guarantee.
Thank you Mr Kinnock. I think that Mr Grosch appreciates that opening.
Mr Watts also has a request for you, I think.
Madam President, very briefly, on a much sadder subject.
As the Commissioner will be aware, my colleague, Mr Titley, only on Monday raised the issue of the tragic loss of life involved in the coach crash in the French Alps in which three young people from his constituency were killed on a coach hired locally in France, without seatbelts.
I know Mr Titley has already paid tribute to the endeavours of Commissioner Kinnock to ensure coaches are as safe as they possibly can be.
Clearly, I do not wish to put the Commissioner on the spot this evening but I am sure we would all welcome this opportunity, sad though it is, to review whether or not there is anything more we can do to ensure safer coaches throughout the European Union and learn from this tragedy to ensure that it does not happen again.
As Mr Watts says, this is a matter of the gravest concern.
I have been in touch with his colleague, Mr Titley, who quite properly raised the issue with me in the immediate wake of this awful tragedy which occurred to pupils of St. James' School in Mr Titley's constituency.
What I was able to tell Mr Titley is that we have already achieved the legislation necessary to ensure the universal installation of seatbelts in new coaches and, indeed, in all coaches manufactured towards the end of this decade, throughout the European Union.
We are also proceeding with legislation that will provide much greater security against injury caused in the course of roll-over of coaches.
It is a particular tragedy in this case that a school that fastidiously had only used coaches fitted with seatbelts, because of the break-down of a bus, had to resort to a different vehicle.
Those young people are dead, possibly because of that unavoidable change.
We will constantly review the whole issue in the hope of gaining faster and more widespread implementation of changes to improve the security of coaches and buses that any civilized person in Parliament, the Commission or indeed, anywhere else would want.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Charging of HGV
The next item is the report (A4-0243/97), by Mr Jarzembowski, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures (COM(96)0331 - C4-0027/97-96/0182(SYN))
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Transport and Tourism has given very close consideration to the Commission proposal for a new directive on vehicle taxes for heavy goods vehicles and the imposition of toll and user charges, and I am very pleased to say that it has reached a consensus as regards the report and adopted an agreed position by a substantial majority.
In our view, the system which the Commission is proposing for motor vehicle tax rates is far too complicated and needs to be simplified.
This should involve abandoning maximum rates and introducing only minimum rates.
However, the minimum rates should be graduated in such a way as to reflect the road damage and pollution ratings of the vehicles, and thus also to encourage the purchase of more environmentally friendly vehicles.
In our view, the rates of tax for Euro I and Euro II vehicles should be set at 80 % of the rates for the more heavily polluting non-Euro vehicles.
In any event, we believe that minimum rates of tax cannot be reduced below these levels, even where a Member State is levying user charges.
The fact is that the substantial differences in the rates of tax currently levied in the Member States are already distorting competition between businesses in the Community, and this is detrimental to the concept of the internal market and to fair competition.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism is also proposing that the system of minimum tax rates should be reviewed, with the first review to take place on 1 January 2002.
I would add that, in my personal opinion, vehicle taxes should be dropped completely, because they are not really environmentally relevant taxes.
Even more importantly, however, the committee has also reached an agreed position on toll and user charges.
As we see it, the Commission's next step should be to produce its White Paper on the internalization of external costs, and also the study that was specifically requested in the Schmidbauer report, giving evidence of the external costs of all modes of transport.
We maintain that it is unacceptable to introduce a cost component into toll charges now to cover external costs, payable only by heavy goods vehicles.
We also take the view that higher charges for the use of so-called sensitive routes should not be permitted at this stage.
Specific arrangements for defining heavily polluted corridors would first have to be worked out and incorporated into Community law.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism is calling on the Commission to submit appropriate proposals to that effect, as well as evidence of external costs, within the next twelve months.
However, in view of the serious pollution of the Alpine region by heavy goods traffic, the committee is very much in favour of special arrangements in respect of the Brenner motorway.
However, these arrangements will have to be fleshed out by the Commission - taking account of the transport negotiations with Switzerland which we hope to see concluded shortly - and then carefully considered by Parliament and the Council.
The user charges system proposed by the Commission should also be simplified so as to make it easier to apply.
The system should be structured to reflect more accurately the emission and road damage ratings of the vehicles.
Another important consideration here is that the Member States are free to set rates at between 50 % and 100 % of the maximum figure.
We should also bear in mind that five years will have elapsed between the fixing of the present maximum rates and the introduction of the new maximum rates on 1 January 1999.
The committee is therefore proposing a substantial increase in the maximum annual charges, to between ECU 1500 for environmentally friendly vehicles and ECU 2500 for polluting vehicles.
We are very keen to hear how Mr Kinnock will respond to our proposals.
In committee, the Commission representatives described our draft report as very realistic.
I hope that you will take the same view today, Commissioner.
For the sake of good cooperation, I hope that the Commission will accept all Parliament's proposals, because it is very rare for a parliament to agree by such a large majority on a report on such a difficult issue.
However, I also believe that it is incumbent on the Council to lose no time in adopting a common position on the basis of our opinion and the accompanying opinion from the Commission, because the directive will still have to be transposed, and the hauliers who are affected by it will have to be informed in good time of what they will have to deal with on 1 January 1999.
Finally, I should like to express my sincere thanks to my colleagues in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, the committee secretariat and also the representatives of the Commission.
I think that together, as Commission and Parliament, we conducted our deliberations in the Committee on Transport and Tourism in a positive atmosphere and I hope that we shall be able to maintain our good understanding on this important issue.
Madam President, after hearing Mr Jarzembowski speak, I wish to begin by pointing out that, although some of the amendments contained in the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection were accepted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism - the reference to the Alpine Convention, for example - the approach taken in Mr Jarzembowski's report is very different from that adopted in the opinion that I have drafted and that has been approved by the Environment Committee.
I wish in particular to say that as far as the assessment of the proposal that has been submitted by the Commission is concerned, we welcomed the introduction of the possibility of an external cost element in the tolls and user charges, and in fact we considered it necessary to improve and clarify those aspects further on the basis of proposals and amendments.
Moreover, we thought it right and necessary to extend the concept of sensitive itineraries, presented in the Commission proposal, to cover sensitive areas so as to avoid shifting traffic from those roads defined as sensitive to more vulnerable and less safe roads in the area concerned - viewing the whole of the Alpine zone as a sensitive area, for example.
I wish to make it clear here that, since the Committee on Transport and Tourism has also inserted the reference to the Alpine Convention as an amendment in the recitals, I think it is right to say that the whole of the Alpine zone, and not just the Brenner, should be taken into account in the directive.
For that reason, although I appreciate that the question of the Brenner has been looked at, we have to remember that the whole of the Alpine region is affected by the problems we are discussing.
We have only to bear in mind that, between 1970 and 1995, transport through the Alps increased from 28 m to 112 m tonnes and that the bulk of that increase was accounted for by road traffic.
I therefore thought it appropriate to table a number of amendments which are designed to restore the approach contained in the report approved by the Environment Committee. I hope the Commissioner and the House will take account of this.
Madam President, as a former Member of the Dutch Parliament, I well remember the day we heard that the German Government was planning to introduce a user charge, and the growing tide of heavy goods vehicles heading east would slowly but surely have to pay for the privilege.
There was a great deal of fuss, especially behind the scenes, and the Court of Justice found in favour of those who opposed the idea and ruled that it could not go ahead.
But the cat was already out of the bag, and after long and difficult discussions, the charges were introduced.
Because the European Parliament had not been sufficiently involved in this process, the Court ruled that the directive was null and void, though its effect was not suspended, and the Commission set about drafting this new proposal, now about one year old, on which Mr Jarzembowski has produced this report.
In the intervening period, it has to be said that this issue seems to have been under a curse.
Despite all the various discussions that have taken place in the Council, no decision has yet been reached and, if my information is correct, it is quite possible that the final outcome - the talks are to continue on 4 October - will still be different from what the Commission proposed.
We cannot afford to be blind to reality.
There is something else that needs to be said.
However much we appreciate the work done by Mr Jarzembowski - and we most certainly do - we are by no means entirely happy with the outcome, as he well knows.
The talks we held did not produce any result at all at first, and the main thing we agreed on was that we disagreed.
My group continues to believe that both external costs and the sensitivity of certain areas must be seen as key elements of a balanced transport policy.
We continue to believe that, following the adoption of the Schmidbauer report, we must devote all our energies to developing an intelligent approach to the problems which remain to be tackled, and that the Council owes it to itself and the people of Europe to play an active part in developing a policy which offers genuine prospects for the future.
Several years ago, one of Commissioner Kinnock's predecessors, his present colleague Mr Van Miert, asked a committee of experts to produce a report on the impact of the heavy increases in transport.
Since then, there have been a great many studies, discussions and reports on every conceivable solution, but too little has actually been done in practice.
I am not saying that nothing has been done, just not enough.
Instead of having cleaner transport, we simply have more.
Solemn declarations are made about environmental objectives, which are then pushed onto the back burner.
Not enough viable alternatives are being developed for passenger and goods transport.
It would have been a bad sign if Parliament's two largest parties had opposed each other on this issue: good for political transparency, perhaps, but bad for any prospect of continuing the line taken in Mrs Schmidbauer's report.
If we are honest, we have to admit that Parliament does not have the final say on what is decided as regards this directive, so it is all the more important to make it clear that, for all the differences of opinion there have been, the vast majority in Parliament will again, we hope, support the philosophy described in the Green Paper on pricing.
This may be cold comfort for many colleagues, perhaps, and not exactly what I would have hoped for myself, but it may, in the long run, prove more important than we now imagine.
So we wholeheartedly support both the Commission and those in the Transport Council who do not just say what is going to have to happen, but actually make every effort to ensure that it does, both in their own countries and throughout the Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his report and thanking him for his efforts in seeking out - and finding - compromise proposals.
As a Belgian, I know the value of compromise, Mr Jarzembowski, but I know too that, on the whole, the only advantage of compromises is that they are a way of reaching a solution where there is a lack of agreement between most of those involved.
Bearing that in mind - and I am not the first to make the point - I am sure we would all recommend that certain elements of the report should be seen as effective compromise solutions, but compromises nonetheless.
In terms of the efforts to promote an environmentally friendly and safe transport policy, no one would claim that road transport provides the best example.
However, it has been by far the most successful form of transport in adapting to modern market requirements.
In my opinion, and that of many of my colleagues, imposing charges on road transport will not help to revive other forms of transport, such as rail or water.
Nor should we forget that the imposition of charges, in a sector which still has many small operators, for example, may threaten the livelihood of those operators.
That is only too clear, because demand is rising and the number of companies is declining, while the large operators are expanding.
If charges for road use are unavoidable, then they must take greater account of road damage and emissions.
As I see it, the classification system which is proposed in the report seeks to do precisely that.
We are also agreed on the need to protect sensitive areas.
However, just like the question of calculating external costs, this is another case where we need more detailed investigation by the Commission to enable us to make practical and logical proposals.
In my opinion, however, the fact that the Brenner motorway is specifically mentioned at this stage requires no special analysis or further argument.
As we see it, retaining minimum rates is part of the idea that there is a need for minimum criteria in the field of taxation too, if tax is not to become a factor which distorts the market.
However, the proposal before us does not yet offer any guarantee that the suggested charges will have the same impact in all the Member States.
Finally, I should like to welcome the rapporteur's proposal for reviewing the minimum rates by the year 2001.
Technological development and, I would hope, developments in other areas of transport will provide a sufficient argument for doing so.
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his report and also the Commissioner, because with New Labour he is going to have a new colour in his kitchen, which I am sure will be a very pale shade of pink!
Madam President, the subject we are dealing with today has kept us occupied for years, and now, at the very worst possible moment, it has come before us in plenary.
The problem is that we are currently negotiating with Switzerland and we are now showing our hand quite openly, while the Swiss are happy to pass the buck.
So we could hardly have timed things worse.
The second unfortunate fact is that the directive concerns a tax and it will therefore be the Finance Ministers who decide on it.
This means a unanimous vote, but there is no unanimity.
The rapporteur must be aware of this, which is why his report is really just carrying coals to Newcastle.
The third problem which the rapporteur unfortunately does not deal with, or at least does not adequately acknowledge, is the growth of reciprocal trade within the Union, which means that there is more transport in general.
As things stand at present, with road transport accounting for 75 % of the modal split, despite Parliament's repeated calls for greater use of rail and inland waterways, road transport looks set to remain the main mode.
This means that we must do everything we can to ensure that the damage that road transport causes, which I fully acknowledge, is kept to a minimum.
We should therefore have taken the opportunity in this report to offer a real incentive for using the least environmentally harmful option.
But the proposals put forward by both the Commission and the rapporteur make far too little distinction between the most environmentally harmful and the better classes - from Euro, Euro 0, Euro I to Euro II - providing absolutely no incentive to change to an improved version.
And this means that we are missing out on other opportunities too.
Let me give you just one example. Last year in my country, there was a 3.5 % reduction in nitrogen dioxide - NOx - emissions as a result of using Euro II.
Between 1990 and 1996, the number of vehicle kilometres increased by 13 % while emissions fell by 11 %, or 16 % for SO2 .
We therefore need to promote the use of Euro II and Euro III.
Madam President, the question of how to finance an expensive road infrastructure makes the debate on the imposition of charges on heavy goods vehicles a very topical one throughout Europe, and especially in Austria.
Situated in the centre of Europe in geopolitical terms, Austria is also a sensitive Alpine region which is difficult to cross.
This puts an increased strain on its sensitive environment and means that road-building and maintenance costs are correspondingly higher.
The proposals in the report to place greater emphasis on use when calculating charges and to differentiate more clearly between types of goods vehicles, on the basis of emissions and road damage, deserve to be warmly welcomed.
We also support the thrust of the constructive amendments that have been tabled by the Green Group, particularly Amendments Nos 31, 34 and 41, which to a large extent reflect our own list of demands as independent Members.
The internalization of external costs remains an inescapable requirement, despite the committee's failure to support it, and despite differences over the precise definition of the concept.
However, it would be an important signal to give now in terms of environmental policy.
Identifying sensitive areas in the EU and specifically defining the whole Alpine region as a sensitive zone would seem to be far-sighted measures which point the way ahead.
As someone who lives in what is, in all probability, the most sensitive European transport region - the valley of the Inn where it flows through the Tyrol, and the Brenner Pass - I am directly affected, and I know how it important it is to increase, or to have the ability to increase, toll charges in that region by including a cost element, thereby creating the basis for the development of environmentally friendly mobility.
Madam President, the directive on toll and user charges is long overdue, and has been since the annulment of the first version by the Court of Justice in 1995. The directive that we are discussing today goes significantly further than the first proposal, and I have to welcome that in principle.
As rapporteur on the Commission's Green Paper on internalizing the external costs of transport, I see the Commission proposal as a first step towards the practical implementation of a fair pricing system, based on the principle that the polluter pays.
The proposal would allow the Member States to impose differentiated user charges where this was justified beyond doubt in terms of traffic congestion, pollution and accident rates, and it would also allow for the designation of sensitive routes.
In his first draft, the rapporteur took the radical step of deleting the words 'external costs' and 'sensitive routes' .
My group agreed to a compromise - although personally it pained me to do so - on condition that it would remain free to decide at second reading.
Amendment No 1 calls on the Commission to draw up a report within a year, giving precise details of external costs and how to charge them to the various modes of transport, and to submit a proposal accordingly.
Until then, the only differentiation is to be on the basis of road damage and pollution from emissions, with reference being made only to the Alpine region, rather than to sensitive routes.
It is also planned to allow differentiation in the form of additional charges at peak times or at night.
Although the compromise means that external costs are not to be taken into account immediately, I am fundamentally optimistic, since what it does is to open up the possibility of legislation that will go significantly further, once the Commission has submitted detailed proposals on external costs.
But if the rapporteur intends to use the Transport Committee's compromise decision and the airing of the issue in the press this week as a way of finally burying discussion on the internalization of external costs - and it is the press coverage which has given me that impression - then I have to say that my group will not go along with that; because while there may be problems with some elements of the Commission proposal, particularly as regards the charging structure, the overall intention means an improvement in the whole approach to transport - and, most importantly, a fairer system is to be introduced that will spread the burden of costs according to the principle that the polluter pays.
Madam President, Community institutions have long been concerned about charging and external costs regarding transport.
This issue has been ongoing since the early 1960s and has been the subject of formal proposals.
The first of these was to charge infrastructure costs to road vehicles, the central issue in the harmonization of costs and taxes.
In 1986, the Commission submitted a document on the abolition of distortions in fiscal jurisdiction where the carriage of goods by road was concerned, that document envisaging taxes on vehicles, taxes on fuel and tolls.
In early 1988, the Commission presented its draft directive to the Council on the introduction of charging road infrastructure costs to HGVs.
This included a call for the Council to give legislative force to the measures necessary to abolish the jurisdictional distortions which had been observed and which were due to the different ways of charging infrastructure costs.
However, the Commission's initiative received no response.
The proposal was, in fact, modified twice - in 1990 and in 1992 - in an ongoing attempt to find positive solutions.
The reason is none other than the accumulation of interests surrounding road haulage and the various methods used for charging and not charging existing costs in the Member States.
And, to cap it all, when the Council finally managed to secure an agreement and presented Directive 93/89/EEC of 29 October 1993 on the application by Members States of taxes on certain vehicles used for the carriage of goods by road, such as tolls and fees for using certain infrastructures, it was annulled by the Court of Justice of the European Communities on the grounds that the European Parliament had not been sufficiently involved.
Add to all this the contents of the Commission's Green Paper on the internalization of external transport costs in the European Union, in which the proposed procedures raise serious doubts as to the capacity to deal with so complex a problem, since the information it offers is scant and unreliable, and let us also take into account the fact that the Commission itself confesses to doubts regarding the calculation of external costs.
We are therefore able, ladies and gentlemen, to conclude that this is a highly complex issue requiring global formulae which take account of the various modes of transport in existence, if we are finally to solve the problem; on the basis of the information available to me, it will be difficult to reach an agreement in the Council of Ministers, despite the excellent work done by the rapporteur, Mr Jarzembowski, whom I congratulate and who, with his amendments, has improved the content of the proposal for a directive that we are currently debating.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have to extend my congratulations, not only and not so much because of what the report actually says but because of the skill with which our rapporteur, Mr Jarzembowski, has successfully completed a veritable institutional obstacle race and managed to bring this report here to the House for a debate which appears fairly calm despite the fact that views, inevitably, differ.
And yet the subject itself was engaging and calm: fair and effective pricing of transport, indicating the long term guidelines for a now mature policy of charging the costs of infrastructure and congestion in road transport.
A fundamental principle - and one that has been repeated this evening - involves recovering in full the costs of equipment and administration which should be charged to the different users, on the basis of harmonized criteria.
The Brenner has been mentioned, and of the many elements of Alpine transit, it certainly has the most serious problems.
Questions, opinions and amendments have led the Brenner Pass to be identified as more or less the pilot case to study how transit could and should be managed in a so-called 'sensitive' zone.
But there is some inconsistency here - Members from Germany, as well as from Italy have made the point clearly - because it is perhaps too unique a case.
Currently, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg and, starting this year, Sweden also, are applying a common system called 'eurovignetta ' . Austria has its own system and this seems destined to continue.
In point of fact the Austrian Government has been making strong representations to have transit through the Brenner, currently subject to quota under the ecopoint system, indirectly limited, even after the deadline provided for in Protocol 9 of the agreement on accession, that is to say after 2004.
To do this and following the example of Swiss initiatives, Austria has proposed that the tolls for passing through the Brenner should be higher than is necessary to recover infrastructure costs in order to discourage transit traffic through this very sensitive pass.
That is certainly a principle we can support - provided it can be extended to other Alpine zones also, in particular the valley bordering on the Brenner.
It is in fact incomprehensible why different rules should be applied in so vastly different a way to identical valleys, divided only by a border, between the North Tyrol and the South Tyrol.
I therefore agree with the differences between Euro 0, Euro I and Euro II, but subject to compliance with the rules.
Income should not exceed construction, management and development costs but, above all, we should take into account certain criteria that no-one has really stated clearly yet.
Who, for instance, has established the parameters for deciding whether an area is environmentally sensitive? It is not clear to me where they are, and so we may find arbitrary decisions being taken.
Everyone will consider to be sensitive, and indeed more sensitive than any other, the area around their own territory: I am thinking about the toll for the Europa Bridge which I shall be crossing by car in two days' time and for which I, like everyone else, will be paying an exorbitant amount.
There is also a problem of employment: many road haulage companies have already closed, and we certainly do not wish to be responsible for further closures.
Madam President, I should like to take up the point which has just been made by the previous speaker.
I was very pleased to hear him emphasizing that the solution to this environmental problem must involve the entire Alpine region.
I am firmly convinced that the Committee on Transport and Tourism has made a mistake in not following the line taken by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which wished to see the concept of particularly sensitive routes replaced by that of particularly sensitive areas.
The whole question of the Alpine region and the traffic pollution there is a European problem.
This is not a matter of local interests, although of course it is also very important to the people who live there; the point is that we have to find a European solution, because the Alps are a European problem and not just an Austrian, Swiss or Italian one.
That is why I would urge the Commissioner to focus all the political efforts on finding a broadly European and environmentally sound solution for the sensitive Alpine region.
It is the only type of solution that will work.
We must avoid shifting the problem of pollution from one route to another, because that is not a political solution.
Madam President, my group has asked me to speak on this issue, which is not within the sphere of my particular competence.
In principle we agree with the report by Mr. Jarzembowski.
However I would like to make the following points:
The first point we consider important is that it advocates a system simpler than the complexities embodied in the Commission's proposal.
The second point is that its approach is realistic in relation to the upper tax limit, and this will contribute towards reaching agreement with the Council.
A third and very important point is that the lower tax limits are worked out so that they take into account the wear on roads and emissions of pollutants by vehicles, and encourage the use of more environment-friendly vehicles and systems.
And the fourth and last point I want to stress is that looking ahead to the review in 2001, it offers the prospect of advancing towards more flexible systems.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate Mr Jarzembowski on his report, for which he managed to gain the support of almost everyone in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I feel it is also important to win the support of the Commission and the Member States, as well as backing from the general public.
There are only two points that I should like to make.
Firstly, if we are to gain the support of businesses, it is important that they should not feel that they are being 'squeezed' , in other words that this is a fair charge and that the principle of 'sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander' will apply for all forms of transport.
My second point concerns Annex III.
I am grateful to the rapporteur for going some way towards meeting my wishes in his Amendment No 26 by making a greater distinction in the user charges between 'Non-Euro' and 'Euro II or better' .
I should like to go somewhat further, and now that Mr Wijsenbeek has been kind enough to incorporate the proposal which I made during our discussions in the Committee on Transport and Tourism in Amendment No 28, I should like to ask the Commissioner to give his reaction to this.
My point is whether a greater differentiation between the various categories would promote the development and use of cleaner vehicles, which is what we all wish to see.
I should therefore be very grateful to hear what the Commissioner thinks about this.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once again the European Parliament is addressing the question of a European road tax for heavy goods vehicles, and once again we have sparked off a radical debate about the whole issue of road haulage.
But that is precisely what we do not need at the present moment.
All that we need to consider is the contribution which heavy goods vehicles should make to road maintenance and infrastructure costs.
As the rapporteur has said, we agreed that as regards external costs, we would begin by carrying out a study of the problems we are actually facing.
So this question has no place in the directive which is before us today.
The same applies to the sensitive corridors that were referred to in the Commission's original proposal.
The present directive cannot address that issue either.
Is it really our intention - and I am framing the question somewhat differently here - to increase the price of goods and services in particular regions? The people who live in those regions would curse us for doing so, because the arrangement would affect not only through traffic but also, of course, traffic to and from the region, so suddenly we see the whole question of tax revenue from heavy goods vehicles in a different light.
This applies particularly in the case of the Brenner route.
I fail to understand - and this is the only point on which I disagree with the rapporteur and the Committee on Transport and Tourism - why we should wish to allow special arrangements for the Brenner route.
What I would like to see - as would many of my colleagues - is a single solution for the entire Alpine region, in other words all the countries that are signatories to the Alpine Convention.
However, such a solution cannot emerge from the latest proposals which are being made at Swiss national level.
Nor can it form the basis for a common policy.
What we need here is a uniform set of rules for the whole Alpine region.
In my opinion - and I would like to be very clear on this point - special arrangements for one particular route are a nonsense!
I should like to conclude by thanking the rapporteur for his excellent report and for his commitment to achieving a broad degree of consensus in the House.
I should be pleased if you too, Commissioner, would accept all the proposed amendments, with the exception of that concerning the Brenner Pass.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Jarzembowski for actually taking the trouble to seek a balance between the various interests that are at work in the European Union, particularly in the transport sector, and indeed for finding such a balance the first time round, as it were.
I wish to support the compromise amendments which the rapporteur has tabled in this report concerning user charges for heavy goods vehicles.
I believe that placing the burden of external costs solely on heavy goods vehicles would produce a distortion of competition.
However, taking account of the Brenner route has to be a matter of urgent concern for the Union.
It really is of paramount importance that we should recognize how traffic is polluting this sensitive Alpine region.
In its proposal, the Commission merely allows for the Member States to include a component in their charges to cover external costs, but the maximum amount would be ECU 0.03 per kilometre.
By contrast, the proposal from the Committee on Transport and Tourism refers specifically to the Brenner motorway.
It would enable the Council to give the Member States in question the power to add a cost element to toll charges, so as to achieve a sustainable distribution of traffic in the Alpine region as a whole.
I also welcome the call from the Committee on Transport and Tourism for the Commission to adopt a special procedure for studying and defining not just sensitive routes, but also sensitive areas.
I believe it is important that this procedure should not only involve representatives of the Member States, but also give a voice to representatives of the regions concerned.
And it is important for Austria that a reference to the Alpine Convention should be included in the recitals of this Council directive.
As I said at the outset, I reject the notion of charging external costs solely to heavy goods vehicles, but I would emphasize once again that I am prepared to support the compromise amendments as a whole, because I hope that a start is at last being made towards recognizing the interests of Austria and the sensitive Alpine region.
The citizens of our common Europe will be more ready to accept and appreciate that Europe if we take more account of their legitimate interests.
Madam President, Mr Jarzembowski's report is typically thorough and inventive, and I commend him on both of those qualities.
However, the gradual changes to the current heavy goods vehicles taxation and charging rules in the Community proposed in the directive strike the right balance between what is needed and what is feasible.
Because the Commission wishes to make progress rather than stand still, I cannot accept many of the amendments advanced by Mr Jarzembowski.
As the House will know, the Commission attaches great importance to the central issue of external costs, as we made clear in our fair and efficient pricing Green Paper, published in December 1995.
Whilst I welcome the emphasis the House places on external costs - and I also understand the desire for tabling a comprehensive proposal for all modes in the near future - we have to be pragmatic, make progress and we have to do so when it is possible in a practical manner.
I therefore cannot accept the proposal in this report that even the limited provisions relating to external costs should be deleted pending an all-encompassing measure.
Indeed, despite the decent motivations of the people who have advanced such amendments, that really would be the case of the best being the enemy of the good; the ideal being the enemy of the possible.
What we have proposed in the directive is the possibility, not the obligation, for Member States to add a modest external-cost element to toll rates if they so desire.
That is an important signal and I consequently reject Amendments Nos 9 and 17.
Linked to the issue of external costs is, of course, the concept of sensitive routes and the possibilities which it could offer for introducing a differentiated charging system.
The new provisions in the proposed directive relating to sensitive routes are important during the period - and I emphasize that - when the more sophisticated technical charging means are being developed.
The Commission cannot, therefore, accept Amendments Nos 14, 18, 19, 20, 21 and 22.
There is never any danger of Mr Jarzembowski sleeping on the job, but I knew that reference would be sure to bring him to very active life.
Mr Jarzembowski's gift for innovation is shown by Amendment No 7, which proposes the establishment of sensitive areas - a matter on which several honourable Members have spoken during the course of this debate.
But, of course, it is the concept of sensitive areas which go significantly beyond what the Commission proposed.
The fact that the idea appears in a report which is otherwise dedicated to completely obliterating sensitive routes, is testimony to the inventiveness of honourable Members.
However, I cannot accept Amendment No 7, since the notion of sensitive areas is impractical.
The whole world after all is a sensitive area.
I can, however, accept Amendment No 3, which calls for a reference to the Alpine Convention.
On vehicle taxes, I would like to remind the House that the objective in setting maximum levels for vehicle taxes, whilst allowing Member States to apply vehicle taxes that are lower than the minimum levels if they operate a usercharge system, is to ensure that existing differences in transport-related levies across the Community will not increase any further.
However, I acknowledge that they are not the most fundamental elements of the proposal, so I can accept Amendments Nos 3, 5, 11 and 12.
I can also accept Amendment No 13, which calls for a regular review of the vehicle taxes.
I cannot, however, accept Amendment No 6, which would introduce an open-ended derogation from the minimum taxes, rather than a derogation which is time-limited.
On Amendment No 1, which has been referred to by several speakers, I appreciate the efforts Parliament is making to be consistent with itself.
In Mrs Schmidbauer's report, as she herself pointed out, the importance of external costs was acknowledged and the Commission was invited to come forward with proposals for all modes of transport.
Amendment No 1 echoes that position, and that, as Mrs Schmidbauer herself pointed out, is entirely consistent and commendable.
Unfortunately, however, that amendment limits the extent to which the principles should be applied for the time being in road transport.
So that makes it an unacceptable amendment.
Apart from that consideration, I cannot in any case accept Amendment No 1 when it suggests that substantial differentiation of charges according to infrastructure damage and exhaust pollution may be undertaken initially only through user charges.
The amendment tabled by Mr Jarzembowski contradicts Amendment No 25, which was also tabled by Mr Jarzembowski.
It is obvious that Mr Jarzembowski is a devotee of Oscar Wilde, who said, wisely, that 'consistency in argument is the corset of small minds' .
However, the main point is that differentiation of vehicle taxes, according to infrastructure damage, expressed by reference to total vehicle weight and to air pollution propensity, as expressed in the form of the Euro classification, is not only possible, it is relatively simple and also widely accepted by Member States.
Next, I believe there is no need for simplification of the structure of the minimum vehicle taxes, as proposed in Amendment No 24, since that structure is the same as in the existing directive and no complaints have been made by Member States on this point.
Turning now to the amendments on user charges, I can accept Amendment No 9 calling for differentiated usercharge rates during rush hours and night-time provided, of course, that they fall within the maximum levels allowed.
That is in line with a desire for differentiation in charges across time.
I can also, subject to some redrafting, accept Amendment No 15, which proposes a 50 % reduction of user-charge rates for vehicles from peripheral regions.
This again, however, must obviously be limited in time.
With regard to levels of user charges and their structure, I wish to stress that the maximum annual user-charge levels proposed in Amendment No 26, ranging between ECU 1, 000 and 2, 500, are simply too high.
They would lead to an excessive increase of almost 100 % on current road-charge levels and would not meet the requirement of implementing gradual changes to the system.
That is clearly not acceptable and I do not think the drafters of the amendment will be at all surprised by my view.
The classification of vehicles into three categories according to the damage they cause to the infrastructure, would lead to an alignment of rates with real cost that is better than that which is possible from the current user-charge systems and also better than an alignment which would result from a rate differentiation based on the number of vehicle axles, as proposed in the amendment before the House.
Amendments Nos 16-25 are, therefore, unacceptable.
On the remaining amendments tabled by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which do not fall as part of a precise theme, I have to say that Amendment No 4 does not lead to any specific legal provision in this directive and must therefore be rejected; whilst Amendments Nos 8, 10 and 23 can be accepted.
A series of new amendments has been submitted in addition to those of the Transport Committee.
All of those amendments - Amendments Nos 27-42 - were previously considered by the Transport Committee and rejected.
I have to inform the House that I, too, reject all those amendments.
Having gone through all the proposed amendments in detail - with the exception of Amendments Nos 27-42, which I addressed in detail on a previous occasion - I wish to reiterate that the Commission's objective in tabling this proposal is gradually to evolve an improved differentiated road-charging system in the Community by ensuring the charges are closer to real costs and fair to users and non-users alike.
I hope that, on reflection, all Members of the House will be able to share this pragmatic and progressive report.
My regret is that I have taken up so much time of the House but, clearly, the amendments were not only extremely interesting but also numerous.
Mr Kinnock, our rapporteur must have had some idea of the answers that you were going to give because he asked me for the floor even before you expressed yourself.
As you know, however, it is late and we still have another two reports to discuss this evening.
Mr Jarzembowski, you have the opportunity to react to what the Commissioner said but I cannot let everyone speak again or else we shall have to open a second debate and that would not be right for the McIntosh and Berger reports.
You have the floor, Mr Jarzembowski, but please be as brief as you can.
Madam President, I asked for the floor because I wished to respond first of all to Mr Wijsenbeek, whose speech was extremely clever, even though wide of the mark.
We have to discuss this today and vote on it tomorrow, because the fact is that the Council is trying to avoid taking a decision on a European road tax, and one of its excuses is that Parliament has taken no decision.
That is why we must decide what our position is to be, then the Council will no longer be able to avoid the issue.
I should like to make two points to the Commissioner, however. We normally have a very open relationship, Commissioner, but what you have presented us with today was not a genuine debate.
On the one hand, you say - indeed, you complain - that we do not yet wish to apply external costs.
And on the other, when we say that we shall have to include exhaust pollution and road damage when calculating user charges, and that we shall have to raise those charges, you also complain and protest that this was not the kind of European road tax which you envisaged.
That is a dishonest approach!
Secondly, Commissioner, you are here to defend your original proposal, but in the light of what we have heard from the negotiations in the Council, I have to say that your position is a long way behind the position which the House is seeking to adopt today.
Madam President, I should like to make a suggestion that would save a great deal of time in debates of this kind.
I do find it rather beneath Commissioners to have to come here and read out a list of the amendments they can accept and those they cannot.
The debate becomes a sham, it is a pointless exercise and it undermines Parliament's standing, so I would like to propose that in future, discussions of this kind should take place in writing.
We could have done this with the Commissioner this evening, and I very much regret the fact that we did not.
Madam President, I am very grateful, especially since it gives me an opportunity to make an offer that if honourable Members will turn up for their amendments and put them without notice to the Commission, then they will be able to dispense with any form whatsoever of intelligible, cogent answer that addresses their questions.
This will save the time of the House and it means that I can stay away.
It will not be very good for accountability to the citizens of the European Community, but I am sure it will enable Members to make their point in dramatic fashion.
So, if you do not want to give us notice and you do not want me to appear with a list of responses, just say so and I will accommodate Parliament at a moment's notice.
Can I also say that when Mr Jarzembowski uses the term 'a slightly phoney debate' , I say to him as a politician of mature experience, what does he really expect? If he cannot make a choice between what is desirable - and I would agree with him about what is desirable - and what is achievable, then we are going to have a phoney debate.
And if Mr Jarzembowski cannot distinguish between gradual progress and stagnant purity, then we are also going to have a rather unreal debate.
And the consequence is that, faced with the dilemmas that the honourable Members here face (and I sympathize with Mr Castricum and Mr Jarzembowski and all the other Members, I share their dilemma) the choice has to be made: do we make some headway, do we advance even at a millimetre at a time, or do we celebrate our own consciences, stand still and make no progress? These are the alternatives: I ask the honourable Members to chose progress.
Madam President, I am very surprised by the tone adopted by the Commissioner this evening, whereas during the preparatory work there was an excellent atmosphere in our relations, between the Commission and its services and ours.
Both Mr Jarzembowski and Mr Castricum made remarks, of a political and technical nature respectively.
I think that everyone here was taken aback by this enumeration of the amendments that have been refused, often without very detailed explanations.
I go along with my colleagues and think that in future we should take a quite different approach.
I also found the closing remarks made by the Commissioner a little out of order.
Madam President, if I respond in a tone which is candid and forceful, it is because I respect this House and do not treat it like some kind of toy parliament.
So that when directly elected Members of the European Parliament say to me, 'do not turn up with a list of responses, ' I am bound to ask them what they want in terms of accountability from the European Commission.
Now I do not mind being criticized, I do not mind the substance of what I am saying being attacked, but I am not going to be criticized because I have been trying to respond to the detailed arguments and the considerations put by Members of this House, especially when my services spend endless days continually trying to cooperate with and meet the concerns of Members of the Parliament, as do my cabinet, as indeed I do myself.
And when a political point is made, I, as a politician to my bone marrow, respond politically.
After that rather lively debate, which shows the interest that members and the Commissioner all take in this matter, I declare the debate closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Aviation safety improvement
The next item is the report (A4-0091/97), by Miss McIntosh, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission's communication on defining a Community aviation safety improvement strategy (SEC(96)1083 - C4-0423/96).
Madam President, I welcome this opportunity to present our views on the Commission communication for a European aviation safety improvement strategy.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Commissioner and his services on the work so far undertaken, which I know is continuing as we speak.
On 10 December last year the Commission proposed a mandate to negotiate the establishment of a European organization responsible for civil aviation safety.
Indeed the Transport Council of Ministers confirmed the creation of such an authority on 20 June this year.
COREPER, I understand, is now drawing up and defining its terms of reference, the institutional aspects and the form and extent of such European Union participation.
The conclusions are to be reached on those terms of reference by the end of this year.
Our intervention this evening is therefore very timely.
It is the strong desire of this House that such a European aviation authority will have real teeth and should not be over-bureaucratic in nature.
The one conclusion of our hearing was that the present structure of the joint aviation authorities and the present Regulation 3922 of 1991 is simply not working properly.
We believe that such an authority, to be created, should be democratically accountable.
We therefore propose that the European Parliament should be represented in the advisory committee which assists the executive body of the organization and that the executive body produce an annual report of its activities and presents this to the European Parliament.
We wish to express our concern at the ever-increasing demand for air transport, expected to double by the year 2010, obviously placing an unprecedented pressure on our safety.
The figures in the UK alone are that in 1986, 86 million passengers used British airports.
Ten years later this figure was 135 million passengers.
Equally, we are concerned at the wide differences in interpretation and implementation of the ICAO safety standards both at European and world level.
Without a liberalized market of aeronautical products, increased costs and additional constraints on the European industry are incurred, reducing its competitiveness.
We cannot afford to be complacent.
We currently enjoy in Europe an extremely high level of safety.
However, this week we have had an air disaster in Cuba and last year, one in the Dominican Republic and another in India.
We need to ensure the maintenance of the highest level of safety, bearing in mind the increased air travel in Europe and worldwide, and the increased competition from third countries, especially the developing countries.
We must aim to prevent accidents from happening instead of just responding to those which have occurred.
In the context of the separate proposed directive for a safety assessment of third country aircraft using European Union airports, we must aim to achieve a system of safety checks similar to port state control in the maritime transport sector.
In this regard, one possible way forward at Europe's most heavily congested airports would be for carriers to prove their achievement of world-class safety standards plus evidence of home country compliance.
I personally have reservations.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism recommends that the European Union should draw up a blacklist.
Third country carriers used by our passengers anywhere in the world and those third country carriers using a European Union airport which do not have adequate reporting systems and do not meet European Union safety standards would appear on that blacklist with the aim of refusing them permission to land or take off in the European Union.
Any blacklist of carriers bears an inherent risk of retaliatory measures.
In my view, a more conciliatory approach would be to give third country carriers a helping hand, particularly in the use by them of satellite navigation and other modern technology.
Also, guidance on regulation and training in the developing world could be helpful.
The proposed European aviation safety organization should establish binding rules with regard to safety aspects of civil aviation, especially with regard to operation and maintenance of aircraft.
A mandatory incident reporting system and a European confidential system of voluntary incident reporting should be established as well as measures to reduce injuries in the event of accidents.
Perhaps most controversially, we ask the Member States to coordinate all measures required to increase security at airports, including the screening of luggage and the proviso that no unaccompanied luggage be permitted to travel.
While normally considered the preserve of national governments, the Lockerbie disaster has necessarily left a number of security questions unanswered.
We ask the Commission to monitor the US system of disclosure to the public of detailed information on safety and related issues and, if relevant, to introduce similar provisions.
Tour operators should be required to indicate which airlines are providing the flights.
The measures we propose, taken together with an improved air traffic control system should, we believe, improve air safety throughout the European Union.
I have one reservation on the amendment tabled by the European Socialist Group on the admission of personal luggage admitted into aircraft cabins.
In my experience this is an international standard which we women already obey.
It is the gentlemen business travellers who tend to disregard this.
Perhaps we should implement the rules which are currently in existence.
I commend our proposals to the House and look forward to the Commissioner's reply.
Madam President, I hope you will not think me ungracious in that I cannot commend the rapporteur on her report, because the one she presented to the Committee on Transport and Tourism was indeed very threadbare.
However, I compliment the Transport Committee on the amendments it has tabled which have now made this report one of substance.
Only one amendment was not adopted - that concerned cabin baggage - and it will be resubmitted to Parliament.
We all accept that air safety is of increasing importance: more and more people are flying, not just for business but also for holidays.
By 2010, flight numbers will have doubled.
This week Boeing has estimated that with this increase in numbers, there will be one major accident per week in 2010.
So action must be taken to maintain and improve safety standards.
The rapporteur, in her address, and the Commission seem obsessed with liberalization.
Liberalization must not mean a reduction in safety standards.
We must have controlled liberalization.
There is going to be another report on this - I will not go into details.
In my own country British Airways is a prime example of what can happen with uncontrolled liberalization.
It is reducing the costs on cabin staff rather than increasing them.
It is taking no account of the social costs of its action.
It needs more staff who need higher morale, better training and better pay.
However, BA is determined to save £1bn in costs irrespective, it seems to us, of the effect of that on safety.
It must affect safety!
British Airways, for instance, reduced the number of emergency doors on its aircraft to put more seats in, and it is now forcing the subsidiaries it has taken over in France to reduce the number of staff.
How can that be done without affecting safety levels?
I would draw the attention of British Airways, particularly the Chief Executive, and of other airlines, to paragraph 16 of this report, which states that: ' social, occupational health and training aspects are essential for the maintenance of a high level of safety in air transport' ; not threats, intimidation of staff and bullying, which seems to be the new management approach of British Airways.
We have to spend more money on safety, not less.
I also call on the airlines to adopt the recommendations of paragraph 13(c) as soon as possible, particularly regarding smoke hoods, water mist systems and externally mounted cameras.
This could be done at once.
When the rapporteur came to the Transport Committee she stated that at £40 per seat the cost of smoke hoods would be too high.
When it costs £100m for a new aircraft, this is nonsense.
We must also note that paragraph 15 states that all luggage must be screened and security tightened.
The latest information on the Lockerbie disaster suggests that the bomb was in fact planted at Heathrow, where security is very good.
There must be no more Lockerbies.
I am also worried that the obsession with reducing costs is forcing pilots to work longer and longer hours.
It is now possible, say on a return flight from Manchester to Luxor, for a pilot to work non-stop for 17 hours.
That is unacceptable. We need common rules for working hours for aircrew and cabin staff, based not on costs but on safety.
Finally, I agree with the rapporteur that we must eliminate the possibility of air transport following sea transport and using flags of convenience for ships and crews.
No aircraft must be allowed into the European Union unless it meets all the safety requirements, and this must also apply to crew.
We must support this blacklist of unsafe airlines.
With the increase in air travel, now is the time to set standards on safety.
We in this Parliament will not accept Boeing's prediction of one major accident per week.
Madam President, let me begin by thanking Mrs McIntosh for the excellent work which she has put into this report.
We members of the European Parliament travel a great deal.
More and more people are doing the same.
Modern society demands that we move around a great deal in the course of our work.
As a consequence of this the number of flights is visibly increasing in a dramatic way.
It has been said previously that the number of flights could double by the year 2010.
In many ways this is a positive development which creates new opportunities for a large number of people.
But we must also be clear in our minds that it creates new risks as well; risks which we must attempt to minimise.
For many years the number of air crashes fell considerably, not least as a result of technical improvements.
In 1996 this trend was reversed, due primarily to several very large accidents.
The most important thing now is to ensure that an annual increase does not become the new trend.
If Mr Seal's comments, that, based on current developments, there will be a major air crash every week, do become reality many people will obviously be frightened by this.
Preventing such a trend is a great challenge for the aircraft manufacturers.
It is a challenge which these manufacturers take very seriously, but it is also something which we can influence, in the first instance perhaps by increasing our efforts into work on preventative safety.
There are two things which I would particularly like to emphasise as part of this work.
The first concerns the ever increasing shortage of capacity.
The situation is already serious, and if the number of flights doubles within 12-13 years it will become even worse.
This may be partially relieved by further technical developments but airport capacity must be increased as well if access to slots is to keep pace with demand.
The second point I would like to make is that of including safety as a feature of the competition between airlines.
Current competition is based on price, take-off times and service on board.
In future we must make safety a competitive feature as well.
I have the support of the transport committee for a proposal to make a comparison of safety improvements between the different airlines.
This will include information on pilot training and education, the average age of the airline and on accidents and incidents of different types.
Such comparisons already occur in the USA but so far not in Europe and I think there are good reasons for improving the situation here as well.
Madam President, I go along with the aims set out in the McIntosh report aimed at maintaining a higher level of safety by employing qualified staff and using safe equipment.
I also share the rapporteur's worries about the continuing increase in demand for air transport which will put extra pressure on safety.
We cannot accept the forecast risk of one serious accident a week in twenty years' time - if we stick to current safety levels.
We must pinpoint the profound causes for the threats to safety.
Obeying international regulations is not enough, nor can we hold non-European companies responsible - we cannot overlook the choices that have been made for many years in terms of transport policy!
How can we speak of safety without learning the lessons of the liberalization policy? By means of restructuring and deregulation the carriers have indulged in an economic war with disastrous effects on jobs.
Increased competition has increased the number of flights and the number of companies, saturating airport capacity and threatening passenger safety and that of people living nearby, in proportions that have nothing to do with the increased number of passengers.
This has also led to worsening labour conditions, increased precariousness and lower training levels.
I share the concerns of staff and users, I understand the battles fought by employees, especially those working for British Airways, where the first major strikes are taking place to protest against a plan to reduce wages costs by 30 %!
European air transport needs more than ever genuine cooperation between airlines, governed by the criteria of public service that alone are compatible with high safety standards.
Air safety also needs transparency and democracy.
Staff and their representatives, users, elected officials, need new rights to intervene in commercial decisions.
From that point of view, we need to set up a European organisation for air safety that should take these requirements into consideration, without replacing the national structures responsible for safety in our skies.
Madam President, air transport has become considerably more democratic.
It has entered the era of mass consumption and is now subjected to the law of mass risk, technical incidents, sometimes insufficient services, a hostile environment, pot luck - the consequences of which are awful as they can be measured in loss of human life.
We, therefore, have a moral obligation to work to achieve maximum safety and put the necessary pressure to bring about harmonization upwards.
These pressures should concern technical improvements and technological transfers, since the more backward countries have an alarming rate of incidents and accidents.
Human life has the same value throughout the globe.
This pressure should also concern constant training for crews and other staff members, and working conditions compatible with the best performances.
Relocation - stipulated in certain contracts - especially for qualified jobs, leads to social dumping.
This Community strategy is therefore welcome because a strategy is not just about banging fists on tables or a cry of distress that would be lost in the sands of our daily contingencies.
It is a commitment to well thought out and continuous action setting aims, specifying the means and proceeding to evaluations.
Miss McIntosh's report heads in the right direction, with pertinent arguments. The proposal for a Directive on foreign aircraft safety, for which my colleague Mr González Triviño is rapporteur, is a useful companion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on 7 February last year, 189 people lost their lives when their Birgen Air flight crashed off the coast of the Dominican Republic.
This is not the first time that the European Parliament has debated questions of aviation safety.
We used the occasion of that crash last year to raise the issue, and just a week later my colleague Brian Simpson and I tabled a motion for a resolution in the House, which was discussed the following week by Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I intend to confine my remarks today to considering what has become of that initiative.
I can report that, 18 months on from the initial parliamentary activity, we have made considerable progress, thanks to good cooperation between the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council.
The Council has in fact accepted the most important elements involved, as it made clear at its meeting in Luxembourg on 17 and 18 June this year.
In our motion for a resolution, we called for a black list, and this has already been referred to briefly.
In my view, however, it does not matter what we call the document which cites the wrongdoers and their wrongdoings.
The Council has agreed to seek Parliament's approval on this issue.
And we shall be able to vote in the autumn on the common position approving such an arrangement.
A list is to be compiled setting out defects which have been identified during ground inspections of suspect aircraft.
I see this as an important step.
And the publication of a black list would certainly have a deterrent effect.
One thing that is clearly missing from the proposal as it stands is the possibility of also inspecting aircraft from Member States of the European Union.
However, the Commission has provided some clarification on this point, referring to the option of further amending Regulation No 3922/91.
I would ask you to tell us, Commissioner, whether any action has yet been taken in this respect, in order to provide for real control over all aircraft - be they from third countries or, in particular, from the European Union - which are identified as being in any way suspect during ground inspections.
We have also added a further point, namely that tour operators should be required to indicate in their brochures which airlines are providing their flights.
I speak both for my colleagues and myself, Commissioner, in saying that we wish to see further progress on this issue too.
In fact, many tour operators are already providing the information voluntarily.
Checks should also be carried out with regard to third countries, and bilateral agreements with third countries should be reviewed, to identify shortcomings in safety.
I know that the Commission is currently responsible for reviewing certain agreements, but this should be extended to cover all bilateral agreements.
Madam President, air travel is known to be a particularly safe form of transport, and European airlines in particular have an excellent record in this respect.
But there is still cause for concern, and therefore good reason to introduce measures.
1996 was the worst year ever for civil aviation, with 1600 fatalities.
Air travel is widely expected to double over the next ten years, and the European aviation industry has said that if we maintain current safety levels, there will be one major accident a week in 20 years' time.
That is completely unacceptable.
If we are to meet this challenge, we need to have a joint approach from all those involved, and technological developments such as satellite systems must be fully exploited.
The Commission communication gives an excellent start on this, as does the report by Miss McIntosh, and I should like to congratulate them both.
There are three points I should like to focus on in particular.
Firstly, the setting-up of a European organization for air safety.
This seems a good idea, provided that it operates decisively and efficiently in practice, and is not too bureaucratic.
Can the Commissioner tell me whether it will also deal with the safety of military aviation?
I am thinking here of the tragic accident involving a military aircraft at Eindhoven airport last year, where an investigation indicated that many of those who died could probably have been saved if the emergency services had known how many people were on board.
Secondly, safety near airports.
Airport capacity will have to be increased in order to cope with the expected growth in air transport, and the support of the local residents will be required for this.
Does the Commissioner see this as a job for the Commission?
In this context, I should also like to know whether he thinks that the extension of existing airports and the selection of new sites should be left entirely to the Member States, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
I ask this because such decisions can have a major impact on neighbouring countries, and it is a topical issue in view of the discussions on the future of Amsterdam airport - Schiphol - for example.
I should like to hear the Commissioner's views on this, either now or at some later point.
Finally, safety in the airspace of the former Soviet Union, which reports from aviation sources indicate is a matter of serious concern.
I would ask the Commissioner to give this question his closest attention, and can he tell us whether the many discussions he had at the pan-European transport conference in Helsinki indicate any likelihood of improvement in the short term?
I think that is urgently needed.
Madam President, many sensible things have been said by my colleagues this evening, so I will get straight to the point.
As the August holidays are almost upon us, Commissioner, perhaps I might consider whether I should go to Guatemala, Austria, Russia or China, because the list of airlines with the worst record tells me that they are based in these countries.
Clearly, studies can be subjective, but the fact is that we have a list of bad airlines.
That is one point.
The other is that - and we have heard this from Mr Cornelissen - it was emphasized in the debate in the Committee on Transport and Tourism that there are problems.
So we cannot just let things take their course and say that we just need a certain degree of liberalization etc.
We are discussing near misses and problems with air traffic control at almost every sitting.
But what we have is liberalization that is putting pressure on crews.
In reality - and this is not just some story - pilots have worse working conditions than long-distance drivers on Europe's roads.
In some cases, as we heard earlier, they work for 17 hours.
A long-distance driver may not do that.
Let me say to Mrs McIntosh that I think liberalization is a good thing, and I welcome it.
But we must take account of a situation such that, whereas in the past, we had one flight from A to B that was perhaps full, we now have three flights on the same route that are half empty.
That represents a cost to both crews and the environment.
We are also seeing more and more old and run-down aircraft taking to the skies.
That is particularly worrying.
The third point I want to raise is perhaps new to some.
It is pollution at airports.
One Danish company spends ECU 25 million a year because of the muck that is sucked up into aircraft engines.
Emergency landings happen because of it, and I would mention airports such as Newark, Heathrow and Milan.
They are below average where cleanliness is concerned.
It costs the airlines between ECU 25 000 and 80 000 per day when aircraft are out of service.
So liberalization means many things.
The rating guide to the world's airlines that was published recently was perhaps not intended to be a blacklist, or whatever it might be called in the various languages.
Perhaps it was just intended to shock and warn people to be on their guard.
On the other hand, when reputable airlines like Air France and British Midland only get an average rating, we have reason here in Europe too to sound the alarm.
Many good ideas have been put forward today.
I will not repeat them.
I will merely welcome the Commission's initiative and stress that I support the Commission in this project and, of course, the rapporteur too.
Madam President, I thank the Commission for coming forward with this report.
We should remember that it is one of a whole host of reports that have come forward with regard to aviation safety.
The point needs to be made that we have to look at the whole aviation package and the reports that have come from the Commission when discussing the issue of aviation safety as a whole.
In the short time allocated to me this evening I would like to highlight what is becoming an increasingly severe problem affecting aviation safety, namely, the amount of baggage that is being carried into aircraft cabins.
I congratulate the rapporteur and the Committee on Transport and Tourism on addressing certain issues relating to aviation safety, but I am afraid they have failed to address the problem of cabin baggage, a problem that both airlines and cabin crew admit not only exists, but is now causing concern.
The rapporteur is right: regulations regarding cabin baggage are already in existence.
These regulations stipulate the maximum weight and size allowed and that each passenger is allowed just one piece of cabin baggage in addition to handbags or a camera bag, for example.
The reason for these regulations is that baggage within the aircraft cabin should not obstruct or restrict passengers in the event of an emergency evacuation.
The question that now needs to be asked is: why do airlines and national civil aviation authorities fail time and time again to enforce their own regulations? The failure compromises safety and could put lives at risk.
Therefore my amendment does not call for new regulations.
It merely makes a plea for the enforcement of existing ones.
At the moment, you can quite legally take onboard an aircraft everything, including the kitchen sink, and get away with it.
If you are in business class you might even get away with two kitchen sinks, a lap-top computer, a suit bag, dutyfree, a briefcase and a sports bag and succeed in having a whole overhead bin to yourself because you were first on the plane, having barged everybody else out of the way to have that privilege.
Excessive cabin baggage, particularly of business people, men and women, is reaching epidemic proportions, is compromising safety and cannot be tolerated.
The regulations are clear and should be enforced.
The airlines have a duty to ensure that this happens and MEPs, as legislators, have a responsibility to ensure that they themselves do not stand accused of literally taking everything, including the kitchen sink, into aircraft cabins which, sadly, is what many of our own colleagues do.
My amendment merely reminds the airlines and the national civil aviation authorities of their responsibilities.
Madam President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I quite understand that he could not respond to all our questions, but can I take it that he will provide written answers for those he has not dealt with here?
I should be most grateful if he could.
Yes, Madam President, as is my custom.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Freedom of establishment in the transport sector
The next item is the report (A4-0238/97) by Mrs Berger, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 96/26/EC on admission to the occupation of road haulage operator and road passenger transport operator and mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications intended to facilitate for these operators the right of freedom of establishment in national and international transport operations (COM(97)0025 - C4-0087/97-97/0029(SYN))
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen - those of you who have decided to stay with us - there is no doubt that the transport business today is a truly European business in a way that few others are.
With the end of the restrictions on cabotage on 1 July 1998, the conditions for the internal market will be complete in this sector, and there will be unrestricted access to the market throughout the Union.
That is the direct reason for this draft directive and the further harmonization which it seeks to bring about.
However, there have been other key changes in the basic conditions for road haulage in recent years, and the proposal for a directive responds to these as well.
Changes in operational and manufacturing processes in industry and the retail trade have led to the introduction of 'just in time' strategies and thus to increased demand for rapid, flexible and efficient transport services linked to elaborate and sophisticated logistical systems, in which loads have become steadily smaller, but deliveries more frequent.
This has led to a shift away from factory transport towards commercial road haulage and to the continued expansion of those suppliers providing transport and logistical services.
On the other hand, because of their flexibility and cost efficiency, growing numbers of small subsidiaries are emerging and now also undertaking cross-frontier haulage, using smaller goods vehicles.
Meanwhile, public expectations of the transport sector have risen in terms of protection of the environment, technical safety and compliance with industrial relations law.
We also have to recognize the steadily increasing competition faced by EU operators within the European Union from third-country operators, particularly those from Central and Eastern Europe.
For that reason, I would suggest that, beyond this specific directive, we should also consider to what extent steps can be taken, through the existing Europe agreements, to include these countries gradually within the EU provisions governing the sector, even before their accession to the Union.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has explicitly welcomed all the harmonization measures which the Commission has proposed - increased requirements as to financial standing, personal reliability and professional competence - and the extension of the scope of the directives.
In my capacity as rapporteur, I tabled various amendments which were also supported by the Legal Affairs Committee.
The main point here is the inclusion of the rules on transport of live animals among the criteria for assessing a transport operator's personal reliability.
Although familiarity with the rules on the transport of live animals is listed as a subject in the test of professional competence, infringement of those rules is not mentioned as one of the grounds leading to refusal or withdrawal of recognition of a licence as a transport operator.
This implies that the rules on animal transport are less important than others and, in my opinion, there is no justification for that.
Our committee and the European Parliament Committee of Inquiry also tackled another issue which I regard as very important.
In its report, the Committee of Inquiry made no bones about the fact that hauliers and transport operators are often, wittingly or unwittingly, central figures in fraudulent practices in the Community transit procedure.
Therefore, this directive should ensure that, as part of their competence, transport operators have the best possible information and awareness concerning the relevant legal provisions, and in the event of repeated failures to observe the precautions in the Community transit procedure, their licences should be withdrawn.
I have also submitted some proposals designed to improve the definition of the concepts of 'capital' and 'reserves' , as well as a number of other amendments of a technical and legal nature.
As rapporteur, I support Amendments Nos 1 to 14, tabled by the Legal Affairs Committee, but cannot support Amendments Nos 15 to 17.
In conclusion, I should like to extend my warmest thanks to the Commission staff and to our secretariat.
This is the first report that I have presented to the European Parliament, and the support which I received was therefore particularly valuable.
Thank you, Mrs Berger. May I congratulate you on your maiden report.
Madam President, this proposal is a consequence of the progress that has been made in the creation of a common market in road transport.
Parliament's Transport Committee is very preoccupied with these matters.
Equal conditions for the establishment of a road haulage business is of crucial importance to the completion of the internal market and to thousands of lorry drivers in their everyday lives.
Competition is only competition if one competes on an equal footing.
It is fair to say that it is time we had uniform rules.
The proposal brings both good and bad news.
The bad news is that the proposal refers amongst other things to the public authorities and their checks on transport firms.
That is one aspect of the proposal I am not enthusiastic about.
The Commission wants such checks to take place at regular, fixed intervals.
I think there should be a flexible and continuous system of checks.
I think the proposal is superfluous and places restrictions on the authorities in their supervisory functions.
I also think it is wrong to vary the capital requirement in such a way that different levels apply depending on how much the vehicle weighs.
I am also opposed to that.
The good aspects are that we are now getting action on a Community basis, which is vital for distortion of competition, or to turn it round, vital in preventing distortion of competition.
The proposal we are debating today paves the way for increased demands on the economic capacity and professional competence of road haulage operators.
It will thus benefit the environment and traffic safety.
The Commission proposal also places more stringent demands on drivers.
For example, they must be honest.
The honesty requirement is not met if they have committed a serious offence or have been convicted of a serious criminal offence covered by other legal provisions in force or of repeated minor offences, as it is worded.
The fact that offences in the field of environmental protection and professional liability are now to be regarded as transport-related is something new.
I applaud that.
It is time we widened the law to include, not just traditional criminal offences, but also infringements of rules on environmental protection and driving and resting times.
Honesty and high-quality transport go together.
Sections of the road haulage industry have come to appreciate that this year.
The common transit procedure does not work as well as it should.
Another requirement to be met by operators of a road haulage business is that must they be professionally competent.
They must pass a written test.
Under the present proposal the subjects with which an applicant must be familiar are clearly defined and internationalized.
I welcome this section.
So I agree that there is a need for common rules on transport, the environment and working time in the EU.
At the same time the good news in this proposal clearly outweigh the bad.
I can therefore support the report, which I think is good, and I congratulate the rapporteur on this first report.
Madam President, I am very grateful to the House for the work that has been done by Mrs Berger and her colleagues on this initiative to further tighten the standards of access to the road haulage profession to harmonize the application of the three main criteria and to extend the scope of the directive.
I also congratulate Mrs Berger on a very proficient first report, especially since she has only been a Member of this House for nine months.
God knows what she will be capable of in 18 months!
We look forward to further developments.
I am glad, therefore, to be able to accept several of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Firstly, I am happy to accept those amendments which clarify the text and make the proposal more consistent in all its linguistic versions.
Thus Amendments Nos 4, 8, 9, 10 and 11 will be accepted, subject to minor redrafting where appropriate.
Secondly, I am sympathetic to some of the elements contained in Amendments Nos 1 and 3, given the Commission's stated intention to introduce blacklists in areas other than agriculture, but not in civil aviation, I have to say.
I am prepared to accept the additional reference to combating fraud in the Community and common transit procedure.
It is important to re-emphasize the Commission's determination to counter fraud in this sector and its desire through this legislation to remove the cowboys.
I am also prepared to accept the final part of Amendment No 1 and the corresponding part of Amendment No 3, calling for the number of journeys carried out by the undertaking concerned to be taken into consideration when assessing evidence of repeated minor offences.
However, I cannot accept the reference within Amendments Nos 1-3 to the transport of live animals.
Community rules on the protection of animals during transport already exist and Member States can already take action when implementing the provisions of the relevant directive.
Nor can the Commission agree to adding a reference to administrative courts.
Given the differing judicial systems throughout the Member States where criminal sanctions already vary widely, the inclusion of administrative courts would only accentuate the discrepancies between Member States to the detriment of operators.
The Commission can accept Amendment No 7, in order to allow flexibility to an undertaking in temporary financial difficulties when assessing the financial standing criterion, although redrafting may be necessary to eliminate doubt on this issue.
There are a few amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
Amendments Nos, 2, 5 and 14 modify the transitional arrangement period for Austria, Finland and Sweden to take account of their European Economic Area membership.
However, I consider that the transitional period should be consistent with that applied to previous new Member States and should therefore be calculated with reference to their date of accession to the European Union.
Amendment No 6 - which presumes that candidates who have already fulfilled their professional competence requirement, should not be requested to so a second time - arises from a misunderstanding of the Commission proposal.
Our proposal simply requires Member States to check that undertakings are employing a person at managerial level who fulfils the professional competence criterion.
The concern which prompted this amendment can therefore be laid at rest and I hope, as a consequence, that the amendment will be withdrawn.
Amendments Nos 12 and 13 seek to set out in detail one aspect of the knowledge to be acquired during training for the professional competence examinations.
I have to say that these amendments add too much detail and would require candidates to have an unreasonably detailed knowledge of a particular area of specialized customs legislation.
Therefore, for practical reasons and for reasons of fairness, I cannot accept these amendments.
Amendments Nos 15, 16 and 17 all propose the deletion of references to minor offences so that they should not be taken into account when considering the good repute of an operator.
Quite clearly, this goes against the thrust of this proposal, which aims to tighten the rules on admission and to exclude those operators who systematically breach or abuse the law.
I understand the permissive motives of those who have tabled these amendments but any provision which allowed minor offences to be repeatedly committed obviously weaken this proposal and lead to inconsistencies and injustices across Member States' jurisdictions.
Therefore, I must reject these amendments.
Mrs Berger's report is detailed and thorough in its examination of the issues involved in this subject.
It makes a positive constructive contribution to the Commission's initiative and, indeed, provides refreshing insights into this subject from a parliamentary committee that is not normally involved with transport issues.
We all share the desire to improve the standards of road transport operators within the Union, to reduce the existing disparities between Member States and to develop a consistent set of criteria to ensure that only reputable operators remain in the market to provide high-quality services in the interests of their clients and society at large.
I, therefore, welcome the support of this House in those efforts and I trust that the support will continue.
I should like to thank the House for its attention and the interpreters for their services.
Welcome
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I wish to raise a point of order - which you know is not something I do very often - about lobbying in the House.
Colleagues from a number of other groups have been kind enough to point out to me that a fax which I myself only discovered this morning had been going around for several days from a group called 'Patents for Life' , relating to an amendment which I and several others tabled and which has now been taken over by my group.
The fax claims that if the amendment is adopted, all data on patients throughout the world which have anything to do with patents and biotechnology will be published and sent to the insurance companies and could cause untold harm.
I would urge you most strongly not to listen to this kind of lunatic lobbying: read the amendment carefully, and you will see that it says just the opposite.
What it says is that before taking a gene from you, your neighbour or whoever, the industry must first seek permission from the legal person concerned or, in the case of a child, for instance, from that person's representative.
If a patent is subsequently issued, the data will remain completely secret.
This also means that insurance companies and industries will not be able to misuse the information, since they would then face prosecution.
Mrs van Putten, I would be grateful if you would refrain from using the point-of-order procedure for reopening debates on reports.
Mr President, I sympathise with you that sometimes people try to raise points which are not on the Minutes.
But this is a correction to the Minutes. Item 12 about the Community system on fisheries and aquaculture.
I am recorded as saying: ' Mr Macartney protested at the way the Legal Affairs Committee had dealt with the modification of the legal base proposed by the Committee on Fisheries' .
I contend that this is a mistake.
It should read: ' The examination of the legal base proposed by the European Commission' .
There is a big institutional difference between the European Commission in front of us and the Fisheries Committee.
I would not like this House to confuse the two so I move that correction.
Your point is noted and the Minutes will be amended.
Mr. President, may I ask you to note that in the last vote on acts of God, I voted in favour and not against.
I made a mistake with my voting machine.
Your remarks are noted.
(The Minutes were approved)
Agenda
I have received a request from the Committee on Budgets to include on the agenda under the procedure with debate Mr Samland's report on the interinstitutional agreement on provisions regarding financing of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (doc. A4-0249/97).
In view of the importance of the subject on the one hand and the very full agenda on the other, I would like to make the following proposal to change the agenda pursuant to Rule 96 of the Rules of Procedure:
the Samland report will be incorporated with debate into this sitting's agenda; -the debate will take place at 11.45 a.m.; -the rapporteur will introduce his report and then each political group and the non-attached Members will have two minutes speaking time; -the vote will take place at voting time this sitting.Is there any objection?
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you may now speak.
Mr President, I should like to refer to the Rules in relation to what you have just said and the proposal to amend the agenda.
It is impossible in fifteen minutes to let each political group speak, and the draftsman for the Committee on Budgets, when the voting starts at noon.
That just shows how much all of this is improvised.
I should like a legal reply to my reference to the Rules, based on Rule 129, instead of being told that the 'majority decides' .
We are in Europe, in democratic countries, but there is no reason to reject legal objections in a political majority - especially since we are at the first stage of the ratification of the Amsterdam decisions.
I have seven referrals to the Rules of Procedure in respect of what you have just said: I wish to explain each of the seven referrals to different Rules of Procedure: they are 96(2), 143(2), 99, 96(1), 97(2), 51(1) and 124(2).
I should like to begin with the first referral to the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you have spoken for well over a minute, which is the time you are allowed under the rules.
I will give you one more minute to conclude.
(Mixed reactions)
Mr President, I have one minute for my first point of order.
According to Rule 96(2), ' if a procedural motion' ...
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you are a lawyer.
This is contrary to the rules.
You have one minute in all and not for each point of order.
But of course not - I obviously have one minute for each point of order, Mr President.
That will do, or I shall not let you have the floor.
You have one minute to set out your argument and then we shall vote.
Mr President, we talk a lot about democracy, so at least let me present one point of order or referral to the Rules of Procedure.
I shall present the others later, it does not bother me.
According to Rule 96(2): ' If a procedural motion to amend the agenda is rejected, it may not be tabled again during the same part-session' .
I proposed a change to the agenda yesterday, referring to the importance of the subject.
I wanted a debate and not a vote without a debate.
I set out arguments that are given in the Minutes, page 5.
You gave the floor to Mr Samland, chairman of the Committee on Budgets, who asked the Chair not to accept my request and the Chair decided that the item in question could therefore be kept on the agenda for today's sitting.
It therefore appears as a vote without debate.
You now want a new change to be made to the agenda.
That is against Rule 96(2) - regardless of whether the request is made by the Committee on Budgets, yourself or twenty-nine members.
That is my first point of order.
I have six others referring to procedural irregularities.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, under Rule 96(2), that you referred to, a proposal has to have been rejected in order not to be tabled again.
Your motion was not voted on as it was tabled after the relevant deadline.
It was not voted on and therefore not rejected.
We are applying the same Rule 96(2), first paragraph, authorizing the President to propose changes to the agenda.
That settles the matter.
I put to the vote the President's proposal to change the agenda.
(Parliament approved the change to the agenda proposed by the President)
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
The next item is the vote on objections to the debate on topical and urgent matters of major importance (Rule 47).
During the vote on point III 'Human rights' .
Mr President, I should like to refer to the rules.
We were only entitled to five human rights items but the subject now includes six.
If you add yet another item you will be bending the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Giansily, this is not governed by the Rules of Procedure but is a convention among the Groups.
It is not a rule.
The Groups can choose not to observe this convention if they see fit in exceptional cases.
(Mixed reactions) It is not a Rule.
There is no Rule preventing us from voting on this item.
I put the objection to the vote.
(Parliament approved the objection)
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you are an experienced member of this Parliament and you know that it is customary practice to allow several items within the human rights subject, which are counted as sub-items.
It is the total number of subjects that is limited to five by the Rules of Procedure.
I recognize that the Rules do stipulate that the number of subjects must be limited to five, but these are sub-items in the human rights subject that we are talking about.
So you are both right and wrong.
(Mixed reactions)
Agenda 2000
The next item is the Commission's presentation of its communication on Agenda 2000 (development of Union policies, enlargement, future financial framework), followed by a debate.
The President of the Commission, Mr Santer, will now speak.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, on 17 January 1995 I appeared before you to tell you how I conceived the terms of reference of this Commission, whose terms of office will come to an end in the first days of the next century.
I pointed out the prospect of enlargement, referring to the internal reforms that would have to be undertaken in order to prepare for a bigger and stronger Europe.
The considerations that we have made over the last two and a half years have, at bottom, never lost sight of these aims: strengthening the European Union and preparing for enlargement.
I am not one of those who think that the European Union can increase the number of its Member States without any risk for its political project.
We know from experience that the mere fact of numbers complicates and slows down our decision-making process but we are also numerous in thinking that the historic gamble of opening up to new democracies undoubtedly wins the day over any other considerations.
The unified Europe whose foundations we laid down in 1952 and that we have been building for more than forty years, this Europe which, I say proudly, has accomplished great things, now sees artificial divisions coming to an end.
It is an historic opportunity which can bring about far-reaching changes.
Today, as the European Council instructed us to do at its meeting in Madrid in December 1995, the Commission is presenting a coherent project to deal with a set of complex questions and, above all, interdependent ones - may I insist on the latter point.
We cannot conceive the pursuit of agricultural reforms or the reform of structural policies without taking into consideration, at the same time, enlargement or financial constraints.
It is this system of equation that the Commission has been determined to resolve in elaborating its communication 'Agenda 2000' .
Deepening and enlargement are sometimes presented as contradictory aims since a broader Union will necessarily be more diverse and more complex, because new solidarities are being added to those which now unite the Member States, since it will take longer and be more difficult to take decisions in an enlarged Union and those constraints, ladies and gentlemen, are real.
They cannot be hushed up, since enlargement for the Commission cannot in any case be allowed to get out of control.
They call for a two-fold response: deepening the Union, by introducing the euro, as planned, on 1 January 1999, and developing internal policies while reforming our institutions.
As far as institutional reform is concerned, let me be clear: if we want the European Union to remain an unprecedented model of success, if we want, despite the handicap of numbers, to retain the means to act, if we want every citizen of Europe to recognise the Union's decisions as legitimate ones if, in a nutshell, politicians are still determined to construct Europe, then we must agree to go further in the reform of the institutions and decisionmaking procedures.
The Intergovernmental Conference that has just come to an end in Amsterdam brings the first response.
We already know that it is not enough.
It is the meaning of the protocol on the future of the institutions appended to the Amsterdam Treaty.
To mark out the route, it seems necessary to set the right deadlines right away.
Before any enlargement - and I mean, before any enlargement - we must define the weighting of votes in the Council, to go with the reduction in the number of Commissioners to one per Member State.
It is essential, from the Commission's view point, to find a political agreement on this reform before the end of the century.
A last-minute atmosphere - as we saw in Ioannina - is not good for the right decisions.
As the institutional protocol foresees, the European Union cannot expand by more than another five Member States without a more far-reaching reform of the provisions of the Treaty on the membership and operations of the institutions.
The Commission feels that a new Intergovernmental Conference should be convened as soon after the year 2000 as possible.
(Applause) Mr President, the Agenda 2000 communication comprises three main sections: strengthening the Union's policies, tackling enlargement properly and setting up a financial framework.
I shall begin by referring to the Union's policies and the reforms that need to be undertaken.
These reforms need to be devised, as a priority, for the citizens of the Union.
They need to be defined with reference to the challenges facing us.
I shall refer to demographic constraints, the advent of new technologies, the information society, restructuring, increased economic interdependence and the need to give Europe a more marked international stature.
I should add that we also need to have an overview of the situation in order to tackle the future of Community actions.
Each major policy cannot be treated as a one-off, our programmes cannot be dealt with as independent instruments, in other words we must let the right hand know what the left hand does - especially since the ordered mobilization of all our resources is more than ever necessary.
We must, finally, decide what is essential and what is less so.
The confidence pact for jobs that I unveiled before the European Parliament a little over a year ago was inspired by the same overall approach.
The decisions taken in Amsterdam on the stability and growth pact back us up on that.
The Commission has selected four main aims for internal Community policies: creating the conditions for sustainable growth, basing growth on knowledge, undertaking a far-reaching modernization of employment systems and promoting a safe society based on solidarity, concerned for the general interest and respectful of the environment.
In order to apply those guidelines, the Commission proposes increasing the relative share of the internal policies in the Community budget, while concentrating on priorities, such as research and development, training and, of course, the major networks.
The Commission should rethink its own role, focusing its action on these main tasks and, as announced at the Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission will proceed to a regrouping and redefinition of its tasks and a matching reorganization of its services and departments.
Mr President, over time, economic and social cohesion has become one of the pillars of European construction.
The public priority of this aim must be very clearly maintained.
The prospect of enlargement to include new countries, with a lower level of development, means that this is all the more necessary.
Reducing regional disparities, supporting the regions in economic mutation and developing human resources throughout the Union, those are three clear priorities that the Commission has picked out and which should be translated into three corresponding objectives.
By reducing its aims from seven to three, the Union will be more efficient and more visible in terms of its structural action.
Alongside this thematic concentration, we also recommend a greater geographical concentration.
At present, more than half the European Union's population benefits from structural aids, which is too much.
That coverage rate must be lowered to 40 % In this context, the eligibility criteria for Objective 1, dedicated to the less developed regions, i.e. below 75 % of the Community mean GDP, will be applied strictly with a gradual phasing out and, therefore, transitional periods for those regions losing their eligibility.
This approach combined with the maintenance in GDP terms of the overall cohesion effort achieved by 1999, will make it possible to meet the real needs for structural aid in the Union while taking into consideration new needs for solidarity arising from enlargement.
In practical terms, that will be translated into 230 billion ECU for the period 2000-2006 for the current fifteen Member States and an additional 45 billion, for the new Member States.
For the Fifteen, that is a 15 % increase over that period, concentrated in the least favoured regions of the current Union.
The Cohesion Fund will remain the instrument par excellence for helping the less prosperous countries to continue their process of economic catch-up and convergence.
The Commission therefore proposes continuing to feed that fund since it encourages projects related to the environment and transport.
This tool will be of great interest for future Member States whose investment needs are particularly great in these fields.
Since it is above all a cohesion instrument, the Commission proposes maintaining the benefit for countries in the euro zone and whose GDP per inhabitant is less than 90 % the Community mean.
The Commission feels that there needs to be a half-term revision of eligibility for the Cohesion Fund.
The Commission will see to the introduction, in a strengthened partnership, of simplified and decentralized management of the structural funds and the creation of appropriate evaluation and control structures.
Mr President, since European integration, the common agricultural policy has been one of the founding policies.
I firmly believe that it will remain central for European construction as it has been, with success, over the last forty years.
In order to be affirmed and to develop, the common agricultural policy has had to be reformed continually.
The long term prospects of markets show that the time has come to consider a fresh reform.
We want to preserve the competitiveness and exporting vocation of our farming while developing rural areas.
This reform must be in keeping with the 1992 version, so much criticized at the time but which has led to the using up of surpluses and significant increases in farming revenues.
The further movement towards world prices proposed by the Commission will make it possible not only to increase the future competitiveness of farming in major sectors like cereals and beef, but will also place the Union in a strong position for future negotiations to take place at the World Trade Organisation.
This adjustment will make the progressive integration of new Member States easier thanks to a two-fold trend towards lower prices in the European Union and higher prices in central and eastern Europe.
This approach will also reduce the risk of uncontrolled increases in the production of future Member States.
I should add that the alarmist forecasts that I have read here and there about the cost of enlargement to the common agricultural policy are totally contradicted by our analyses.
The Commission forecasts a drop in institutional prices and I insist on the term institutional.
Substantial for cereals and beef, lower for milk, subjected to a quota system that common sense tells us should be maintained for the time being, these drops in prices will of course be offset by an increase in income premia.
The consumer will benefit from this new approach whereas public support for farming will slightly increase.
But I should like to emphasize that we cannot allow ourselves to overcompensate the losses of income engendered by price losses.
That is why the Commission is contemplating lower compensation that 100 %, a proposal justified by the fact that, according to our forecasts, market prices will remain higher than the institutional support prices.
That explains our suggestion to set a special ceiling per farm on all direct aids to income financed by the Community.
I spoke earlier of competitiveness but I should also like to refer to rural development, the necessary changes towards a type of farming that is closer to man, closer to the environment and also more concerned with quality production.
It should therefore devise its agricultural structure policy as an element of the social and economic equilibrium of the countryside.
We should also emphasize the environmental dimension of farming.
To those ends, the Commission proposes adapting the rural policy instruments, for example by putting the emphasis very clearly on supervisory structural measures financed by EAGGF-Guarantee.
At the same time, the n wishes increased budgetary amounts to be earmarked for agri-environmental measures.
The Commission will propose that the Council authorize the Member States to introduce conditionality between direct payments and the respect of environmental provisions.
Mr President, the second part of Agenda 2000 is dedicated to the challenge of enlargement. it draws conclusions from the far-reaching analysis of the situation of the different applicant countries in terms of the Copenhagen political and economic criteria.
It is on the basis of these conclusions that the Commission is putting precise recommendation on each act of candidature and the launching of the negotiation process.
I am sure that if you carefully read the documents presented today by the Commission will convince you of the seriousness and objectivity of our work.
I have always said that the Commission would take its responsibilities very seriously indeed, whether it is a question of the democratic prerequisite, economic prospects or the ability to adopt the acquis communautaire.
Democracy, human rights and the respect of human rights and the rule of law are all prerequisites over which we must be intransigent.
The new Amsterdam treaty confirms that approach.
Only democratic States, respecting human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law can belong to the European Union.
In this area, no risks can be taken.
We can extend a statistical curve or evaluate economic statistics but there can be no benefit of the doubt in terms of democracy.
That is why the Commission is obliged to ascertain that Slovakia does not meet the political criterion of Copenhagen, which rules out any opening up of negotiations with that country.
Mr President, the situation is different when it comes to the economy - the fact that a country does not yet have a fully developed market economy able to face up to competitive pressure in the Union is not a decisive factor in itself.
None of the candidates currently meets all the economic criteria but some of them have progressed sufficiently for us to be able reasonable to predict that they will be ready when the time comes.
The assessment of these criteria is therefor prospective.
The same remark goes, even more so, for the ability to apply the acquis.
In this context, I should emphasize that it is not enough to adopt the legislative acts.
Countries must also have the administrative capacity to implement them.
As at previous enlargements, the candidates must, following the negotiations, be in a position to apply the acquis, without needing excessively lengthy transitional periods nor, of course permanent, derogations - or else we shall have a patchwork Europe or an à la carte Europe.
For some countries we have decided that this is not the case at present.
Assessment of the criteria leads us to the conclusion that it is possible to contemplate beginning negotiations for accession with five countries, in addition to Cyprus.
They are, in order of the presentation of their applications to join the European Union, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia.
I should emphasize that for all these countries major further efforts are needed for their accession to be possible in the mid-term, as emerges from the individual opinions.
I think it is worth pointing out that the closure of each negotiation will depend on the progress to be made by the countries concerned and nothing that the Commission proposes today signifies the rejection of certain candidatures.
On the contrary, they are all invited to become fully-fledged Member States of the European Union.
Our proposals mean that the least prepared countries must be placed decisively in the perspective of future negotiations.
That is the meaning behind the partnerships for accession that the Commission proposes to establish with each of the candidate countries.
This strategy is based on caching up deficiencies observed when working out the opinions.
I shall leave it to my colleague, Hans van den Broek, to go into more detail but I should like to stress that the partnerships for accession have a three-fold aspect for the candidate countries: the progressive adoption of the acquis, familiarization with the programmes and working methods of the Community and, as of 2000, pre-accession financial aids.
To that end, the Commission proposes important financial sums for all the candidate countries of central and eastern Europe: 1.5 billion ECU for the PHARE programme, 0.5 billion ECU for farming aid and 1 billion ECU for structural aid.
These are yearly figures, of course, representing 21 billion ECU in all for the whole period of financial perspectives.
The Commission will report every year to the European Council on progress made.
For the countries with which negotiations have not yet been opened, this objective assessment will enable the Commission to recommend, at the right time, the opening of the accession process.
The Commission has adopted the idea to convene a conference of all the European States which want to join and which are linked to the Union through an association agreement.
It seems vital that all these countries should come closer together and confer over questions as important for the future of the Union as a common foreign policy or matters of justice and internal safety.
Mr President, the new financial framework, which will apply as of the year 2000, should cover a sufficiently long period to finance the deepening of our policies and enlargement and ensure a healthy management of public finances.
For the years 2000-2006, the Commission's proposals respond to those aims, while retaining margins below the ceiling of resources which it proposes keeping at 1.27 % of GDP.
The Commission feels that it is possible, beneath that ceiling, to pursue the reform of the common agricultural policy, to maintain the effort for cohesion and to develop internal and external policies.
At the same time, the costs of the first enlargement and the creation of a major financial programme to prepare the candidates for accession could be financed.
How can that be, you ask? The Commission has taken into consideration a certain number of factors and in particular the margins that can be found in the agricultural guideline and the effect of an increased concentration of structural spending.
Mention should also be made of the fruits of economic growth and the benefits of the budgetary rigour applied in the current period of financial perspectives.
It should be recalled that for 1997 payment credits stood at around 1.17 % compared with the authorized ceiling of 1.23 % of GDP.
Allow me to quota some figures on the financial implications of Agenda 2000: the subsequent reform of the common agricultural policy will be translated, at the end of the period, into an additional net cost of around 4 billion ECU per annum.
Despite these additional costs, there will remain a margin of 4.7 billion ECU under the agricultural guideline.
This margin is vital to deal with the ups and downs of the agricultural market, to ensure the proper integration of the new Member States and to prepare for future enlargements.
As far as economic and social cohesion is concerned, the total sum available for the period 2000-2006 will come to 275 billion ECU of which we are reserving, as I said, 45 billion ECU for the new Member States.
Out of these 45 billion ECU, 7 billion will however be taken out to financial a pre-accession structural aid for all the candidate countries.
The combined effort of the various pre-accession and integration aids of the new Member States in Community policies will account for a considerable amount, 75 billion ECU over the period.
That is a genuine Marshall plan for the countries of central and eastern Europe.
Those are the figures.
I should add that this is all possible without revising the ceiling on own resources or the financing system.
On the latter point, the Agenda 2000 communication advances a certain number of medium and long-term considerations as to the fairness of the system, the possibility of intruding new resources and budgetary corrections.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, from all the documents that I have just presented, I should like to point out two things in particular: coherence and objectivity.
May I reiterate my opening remarks: Agenda 2000 intends to tackle all the questions likely to face the European Union at the beginning of the 21st century.
The deepening of the Union's policies to meet the needs of a Europe that goes on growing; enlargement, because this historic duty called for an ambitious response; and the initial planning of a financial framework compatible with Economic and Monetary Union, the priority project of them all.
We have now laid the stepping-stones.
The European Commission is tackling these deadlines with a desire to succeed.
I do not doubt the will of the Member States nor that of all the candidate countries.
I do not doubt that of the European Parliament since you have spoken out on many occasions in favour of a strong Europe, full of solidarity and open to the new democracies, faithful to the ambitious aspirations attributed by the Treaties.
Our success, ladies and gentlemen, will be Europe's success!
(Sustained applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a good thing that President Santer is presenting Agenda 2000 to the European Parliament first, and I expressly welcome that.
However, I would have welcomed it even more if a spokesman for the Commission had not already presented important elements of Agenda 2000 to the press yesterday evening!
Agenda 2000 shows that the European Union has responsibility for the whole of Europe, but it is more than just a plan for expansion.
It is a self-contained plan for the future of the European Union at the outset of the next millennium.
It is a cohesive, self-contained plan that you have put before us.
The Commissioners have done what it is possible for them to do at this point.
But that will not be enough to meet the challenges of the future.
There are many things that must be and will be the subject of deep discussions during the coming months, in this House, among the public, by the national governments and between the national governments.
That is very right and proper.
But because the President-in-Office is here this morning - which I am glad to see -I should like to appeal through him to the governments of the Member States: please don't start talking this plan to death or pulling it apart or breaking it down!
The European Union needs a cohesive, integral plan summarizing its objectives and policies.
We must put an end to the politics of the chicken run, where each of the 15 governments pecks up a grain here and a grain there and then calls the result a joint policy!
(Applause) We desire and look forward to the accession of the eastern European states and Cyprus to the European Union.
We regard it as inevitable and necessary.
It represents our political and moral commitment to those peoples who have won back their freedom.
We, who have already been Members of the Union for many years, for decades in some cases, we believe we might react with some hostility to what constitutes European policy and European union.
The peoples of eastern Europe regard the European Union, European unification, as the great hope of their future, and we must and will make that hope a reality!
I am not talking here just about the distribution of subsidies or the transfer of funds, but about our recognition that this Europe of ours is a self-contained, cultural, moral unit of value in the world, not just a shunting yard for subsidies!
(Applause) This Parliament and my group will not be found wanting in the determination to meet this great challenge.
Enlargement is not merely a moral obligation.
It is also in our interests - in the very objective interests of the Member states of the European Union and of that Union as a whole.
Of course there will be a cost, there will be political problems, and not just for us but for the eastern European states, too.
The issue there, too, is for them to accept the social, economic and ecological rules that we have arrived at within this European Union.
Most of all, they face the task of creating or supporting political stability.
That is why I say that, for all European Union rules, for the adoption of the acquis communautaire , we can lay down transition periods and deadlines.
But enlargement cannot include any transition period for democracy.
We must, of course, ask ourselves the question: what does accession cost? President Santer has made a proposal regarding the financing.
But when we ask what accession costs, we must also go further and ask what the nonaccession of the eastern European states will cost.
Because the issue is clear-cut: either the European Union, through enlargement, exports economic, political, social and ecological stability to the East, or the day will come when we have no option but to import instability from the East.
If you put it like that, the decision we have to take is a very easy one!
(Applause) As well as asking how many, and which, eastern European states are capable of joining the Union, we must also ask how many, and which, accessions we can afford in future years.
Part of the challenge confronting us is to make eastward enlargement acceptable to the citizens of our Union.
Acceptance of enlargement is greater among politicians in the Member States than among the general public.
We need to be aware of that in what we do.
We want to export stability.
But we ourselves must also be stable, which means that the Union must finally solve its own problems!
It must make its contribution to creating employment in the European Union.
The 18 million unemployed will not accept a situation where the European Union takes on new problems before it has solved the problem of employment.
(Applause) In this context, the summit in Luxembourg in November must send out a signal: a signal which says that the Union is at last concentrating its policy on employment, on the creation of employment.
A success in Luxembourg would also be a contribution to making enlargement acceptable.
What will the cost of enlargement be? It is not for me to go through the accounts here and now, President Santer - the European Parliament and my own group will be doing that in the coming months.
I would prefer not to evaluate the Commission's proposed reforms now, except to say that they seem plausible at first glance.
Be that as it may, one thing is clear - and was made clear by what President Santer said - there can be no zerorated enlargement, financially, politically or institutionally.
Regarding the financial cost, there are still things to be discussed, but there is one principle that I can state today, Mr President.
The new Financial Forecast must include a revision clause specifying that the Financial Forecast, too, must be revised on the accession of new Member States.
And this is not just a matter of broadening the financial framework beyond 1.27 % of the gross national product - it is a matter of using it up completely and redistributing expenditure within the framework.
It is also a matter of correcting the inpayment mechanism.
This correction should not benefit the so-called wealthier 'net payers' at the expense of the poorer 'net recipients' but will be designed to ensure greater fairness in future between the wealthier Member States, the net payers.
(Applause) If enlargement cannot be zero-rated financially, the same is true politically.
President Santer has announced the continuing reform of the agricultural policy.
Here again, I do not wish to go into details.
We can all see the need for this.
Of course the burden of enlargement cannot be borne by the farmers alone.
But anyone who simply wants to enforce the present system on eastern Europe will make enlargement impossible to pay for.
We are prepared to reform the Structural Funds.
I welcome the basic outline and the plans President Santer has put forward.
It is nonsense - politically, economically and socially - if every second EU citizen lives in an EU development area.
We shall not be able to sustain that in the future, nor should we want to, because it is not a sensible development policy for the European Union.
Regarding the institutional costs, the Amsterdam summit has not made the European Union capable of enlargement.
As it stands, the European Union is incapable of meeting the challenges it will encounter in the new millennium.
As far as institutional reforms are concerned, it will not be enough to tack on a few bits and pieces here - weighting the votes in the Council of Ministers, for example - or do a little pruning there - in the number of Commissioners, for example.
Nor will it be enough to refer to the very obscure additional protocol to the Amsterdam Treaty, the interpretation of which will provide employment for lawyers for generations to come.
Never mind that.
In all seriousness, enlargement - which means the fate of Europe - is not going to depend on whether there are fifteen or sixteen or twenty or twenty-two Commissioners, or on whether country X or country Y has ten or twelve votes in the Council!
That is just absurd, that cannot be the purpose of the European Union.
(Applause) The capability for enlargement depends on our finally making all this Union's decisions majority decisions in the Council.
And it depends on whether we can succeed in striking a new balance between the necessary flexibility in a larger Union and the necessary greater solidity in an expanded European Union.
This balance must be found.
We must not become bogged down in trivial arguments about the number of Commissioners or the weighting of votes.
We want and need a fundamental reform.
A fundamental reform, not just an adjustment to this or that institution!
I am really very grateful to President Santer for making this clear.
We need this fundamental reform before the first new Member State joins us, not after one has already joined.
(Applause) And another point: this cannot be achieved by an Intergovernmental Conference, burning the midnight oil to cobble together a wild, incoherent treaty of bits and pieces.
(Applause) A treaty of bits and pieces in which no one can actually tell which are the bits and which are the pieces.
(Laughter) Not all governments have grasped the fact that the coming enlargement - never mind whether there are five or six or eleven new Member States - is going to happen.
Not all governments have grasped the fact that this enlargement that confronts us now is not comparable with any past enlargement - not that of 1973, not that of 1985-86, not that of 1995.
This enlargement, one way or another, will fundamentally change the Union.
It will be a different Union after it has absorbed eastern European states.
And not all the governments in the present Union have grasped the connection between enlargement and reform.
To enlarge the Union and carry on as before is not an option.
Without reform, an enlarged Union will very rapidly degenerate into nothing more than a free trade area.
That is not our objective.
Let us be absolutely clear about this: if the price of enlargement is the degeneration of the Union into a mere free trade area, then that price must not be paid.
(Applause) That price would be too high, not just for the Member States that belong to the European Union already but also for the states of eastern and central Europe.
Because they want to join a Union that works, a Union that is capable of doing the job it has to do, a Union that is capable of granting them aid and solidarity - not a Union that is in the process of disintegration.
There are some governments that are saying yes, a massive yes, to enlargement but no to the reform of the Union.
They want nothing more than for this Union to break down into a free trade area.
And there are other governments that are saying no to reform as a way of preventing enlargement - they exist too.
Let us beware of this trap.
Anyone who rejects enlargement in order to extort reform will prevent enlargement and then get no reform either.
That is the problem that will face us during the next few years.
The Commission proposes that negotiations should begin with 6 states, 5 + 1.
I would like to emphasize what Commissioner van den Broek said about Cyprus - that this can or must be used as a catalyst to find a solution to the Cyprus problem.
We must be careful, too, that Cyprus does not become the hostage of a reluctant negotiator.
(Applause) For the remaining four states, and others, special arrangements are to be made by this European conference.
Well and good.
We shall see what it can do.
There is another plan, too: that we begin the negotiations with all the candidates jointly, but of course do not end with all of them jointly.
Be that as it may, we must always be careful to differentiate without marginalizing.
We will need to examine in future months whether the concept of the European conference is a suitable way of guaranteeing this.
This conference must not be a mere discussion forum - it must be able to conclude agreements, at least within the second and third pillars.
(Applause) Incidentally, perhaps I may be permitted a personal comment: I proposed a similar plan in a strategy report presented to this House as far back as early 1993.
I said the same thing again at the European summit in Essen.
There was not response at the time.
I am glad that the Commission has now taken it up.
Whether there are six new Member States or more, one thing is clear: for us - and I speak here for the Socialist Group - there is no connection with the enlargement of NATO.
We are not confining ourselves to the NATO three.
No state must be excluded from the negotiations because it is not present in Madrid, nor will any state have to attend our round of negotiations just because it has first been refused NATO membership in Madrid.
Membership of the European Union is not a consolation prize for rejection by NATO - it is a prize in itself, and must be treated as such.
(Applause) So we start with the six - all right, as I said, we will see whether that is the sensible thing to do.
But if anyone wants something different from what the Council proposes, he must tell us how we can handle it and how we are going to pay for it.
Incidentally, that also applies - anticipating the objection - to the Heads of State and Government in December if they want something different.
They too will have to tell us how we are to handle it and how we are to pay for it.
Whatever happens, it will be a hard road for us all: a hard road for the peoples and states of eastern Europe, because they are now going to have to make massive efforts to achieve what we ask of them, but a hard road for us too.
Because we too, the European Union, have to become capable of enlargement.
You, the Commission, have already made your contribution today.
I congratulate you.
The Member States have not yet made their contribution.
We, the European Parliament, will be making our contribution in the months ahead, between now and the Luxembourg summit, and afterwards.
The issue is nothing less than the future of Europe!
(Loud applause)
Mr Alavanos would like to speak on a point of order.
Mr. President, I ask that the debate on Agenda 2000 should be interrupted pursuant to Rules 102 and 103 of the Rules of Procedure.
A short while ago, like many other Members, I went to collect the documents from the distribution point and found that they were only available in French, English and German.
Rule 103 of the Rules of Procedure on the distribution of documents states that the documents on which Parliament's debates and decisions are based must be printed and distributed to the Members, and Rule 102(1) states that the European Parliament's documents must be prepared in the official languages.
I think it is a great mistake that the Commission, when talking about the Union's future, has published them in only three languages.
It would be a great mistake for Parliament to accept that.
I believe that you too, coming from Portugal as you do, will wish to respect the Rules and your own language, and that we should continue the debate only when the documents are available in all the European Union's languages.
It is not right that Members should only be able to take part in this debate if they have passed their Proficiency or if they know French or German.
Thank you very much.
Mr Alavanos, please read Parliament's Rules of Procedure - Rule 103 states that all documents have to be distributed to Members and Rule 102 states that all Parliament documents have to be available in all the official languages.
This document is not a Parliament document and therefore there is no reason to adjourn the debate.
Mr President, President Santer, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin with a word of acknowledgement and congratulation to the Commission, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, for preparing and presenting to us today its Agenda 2000 for a stronger and larger Union.
This is an encouraging signal - encouraging, too, for co-operation between the European Commission and the European Parliament.
But, President Santer, we expect you to ensure that important debates in the future are not released in advance by press spokesmen; important political issues should always first be presented in the European Parliament, representing as it does 370 million citizens.
If anyone, ten years ago, had been bold enough to predict that the European Commission, in the person of its president Jacques Santer, would propose to the European Parliament on 16 July 1997 that negotiations on European Union membership should begin with Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Cyprus, he would have been dismissed as a fantasist.
But our generation has witnessed a dramatic transformation of this continent in the years 1989-90 and since, a transformation probably unmatched in any previous period of history.
Let us never forget that it was the people of the central and eastern European states who made that transformation possible.
(Applause) It was the people of central and eastern Europe upon whom communist dictatorship was enforced after 1945.
It was the people of central and eastern Europe who always held fast to the idea of freedom and human rights, and to the desire to shape their own lives and their own social order.
For that, we in the west of Europe owe great respect, profound recognition and sincere thanks to the people of central and eastern Europe.
Those people now have the right to safeguard the free and democratic way of life they have won by their peaceful revolution.
They do not want to be deceived and abused as they were before.
We in the European Union have a duty now to help the people of central and eastern Europe to safeguard their own freedom.
The European Union is linked by European agreements to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania.
Although these states are not yet Members of the European Union, they are all members of the European family.
We have a political and moral obligation to enable these countries to join the European Union, offering them a structured procedure and a predictable time frame; and an obligation to offer them a European Union with democratic institutions, a European Union which will be the sheet anchor of the European continent in the 21st century, a European Union which can regulate its internal and external affairs on a unified, effective, resolute and convincing basis.
In the preparations for access to the European Union - as President Santer and Commissioner van den Broek have both said - no country must be discriminated against.
When the Commission proposes that accession negotiations should begin with the six states - five plus one, in other words - it must be made clear that the other five states that are willing to join are not being excluded.
There must be no clear-cut dividing line between ins and outs.
That was what the Commission said, and we were glad to hear it.
But we need to make it clear that, within the framework of the accession strategy and on the basis of the annual reports to be drawn up by the Commission, any country with which the European Union has concluded a European agreement can, by a flexible process, move forward to become a country with which accession negotiations can take place.
Only if we express that view clearly and repeatedly will we encourage the populations of all the central and eastern European states with which we have concluded agreements to continue their resolute efforts to complete the laborious but necessary process of reform.
As yet, we do not have answers to all the questions arising from the enlargement of the European Union.
But there are a few answers we can give.
In regional policy - I say this for the benefit of Mrs Wulf-Mathies - we must concentrate the financial resources on the areas that need them most.
Commissioner Fischler has repeatedly stressed that the agricultural policy is in need of further reform.
The President of the Commission has referred to enormous sums: DM 275 billion.
If we are to use that money, which we in the Group of the European People's Party support, then we must also make sure that it is spent sensibly and that the expenditure is subject to sensible monitoring.
Frequent reference has been made to the Marshall Plan.
The success of the Marshall Plan was based on the fact that it was a low-interest loan that stimulated the initiative of those receiving it.
It is true that the European Union's programmes are being opened up to the accession candidates, to enable them to prepare for accession.
Would it not also be sensible to link those candidates to the European Union before their accession by involving them in the work of the European Union - for example, as observers in the European Parliament?
The Commission proposes that most of the issues relating to accession should be discussed bilaterally with the applicant countries.
On the other hand, a European conference is planned for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and for policy on internal affairs and justice, involving a meeting of heads of State and Government once a year.
We cannot help wondering whether it might not be more sensible for this European conference to be extended to include other matters, at ministerial level.
I emphatically support what Mr Hänsch said about this: that those countries with which accession negotiations are not yet taking place should also have a seat at the table within a multilateral framework, because we know that this is of great political and psychological importance for the states of central and eastern Europe.
What part will Turkey be playing? We do need answers here!
Above all, we must move forward to European monetary union punctually on 1 January 1999, because this will bring the European Union new prospects, hope and strength for the future.
As we approach the year 2000, Europe is faced by important challenges.
We, the Group of the European People's Party, have always been on the side of those who want to reform the European Union.
So we welcome the Commission's undertaking to the Member States to convene an Intergovernmental Conference immediately after the year 2000, whose primary purpose will be to contribute to the establishment of majority voting as the basic decision tool in the Council of the European Union.
We, the Group of the European People's Party, stand for a united, peaceful and democratic Europe in the 21st century.
We shall achieve that aim if we work with courage and resolution, but also with patience and commitment, for the future of this ancient but constantly self-renewing continent of Europe.
(Applause)
Mr President, Agenda 2000 is being presented just a few weeks after the disappointing outcome of the Amsterdam European Council, which was extremely timid in its reform of the Maastricht Treaty and was reluctant to debate the employment issue.
This is not the best introduction to tackling issues of such significance for the Union's future, such as its enlargement towards Eastern Europe and Cyprus or the forthcoming financial developments.
It would appear that we are addressing such issues in somewhat of a vacuum.
What is important is not the fact that, in Amsterdam, there was no final decision on the composition of one institution or another; if relevant, this is the least of our concerns.
What is really a cause for anxiety is that the virtual absence of progress in terms of political union in Amsterdam might actually lead to enlargement transforming the Community into nothing more than a free-trade zone although - let's not forget - one with a brand-new single currency and 20 million unemployed.
Perhaps this is what some governments would like, but not the majority in this House nor the majority of citizens.
It would quite simply be unacceptable.
It is, therefore, precisely in order to prevent this happening that we continue to stress the strengthening of relations in step with enlargement. Consequently, we are calling for the convening of another Intergovernmental Conference, prior to the accession of new members, with a view to substantial progress in terms of political union; an Intergovernmental Conference which is new and different both in form and in substance.
We are also calling for active employment policies to prevent enlargement and unemployment becoming convergent and explosive phenomena in the course of time and in our 'enlarged space' .
We accept enlargement in political terms, via a process based on negotiation and one which makes steady progress, which guarantees the maintenance and development of policies and instruments such as the CAP and the Structural and Cohesion Funds; a process which does not give rise to unacceptable social and productive costs for current and future members, with whom individual negotiations should be held, promoting the development of democratic and social-solidarity systems and without the order in which discussions begin automatically signifying preferential treatment in terms of the early accession of either individual countries or groups of countries.
Any response to the historic challenge of enlargement of the European Union towards Eastern Europe and Cyprus requires the Union to look closely at and to increase its own capacity to respond to citizens' everyday problems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after Amsterdam the most common criticism was that the Union had failed to carry out the reforms that were needed in order to be able to handle enlargement responsibly.
The full implications of this fundamental flaw are now obvious, and can no longer be brushed under the carpet.
The real question now, politically speaking, is of course whether the countries of Eastern Europe and Cyprus are the ones who are going to have to pay for the inability of the Fifteen to reform in time.
I think the answer is no.
As work continues on enlargement, the political momentum exists to carry out the necessary institutional reforms, but these will not happen automatically, they are something else that will have to be worked on.
I should have liked to hear more from the Commission on this than simply a declaration of faith: I wish to know what specific political steps are being taken to ensure that the institutions will be able to handle the challenge that is facing us.
We in the Green Group wish to give ourselves time to study in detail the impressive document that we have been given, and there are already a number of vital questions we would like to ask.
First of all, there is the fact that only a few countries have been selected to start negotiations.
We know that the Commission for a long time considered the option of involving them all at the start, and I would like to know what the reasons were for deciding against this, since it is clear that there are political disadvantages involved here, such as the fact that the new borders already being established within the existing Europe will have a NATO border, an EU border, and perhaps even a Schengen border superimposed on them.
The effect of this is hardly likely to be positive.
Secondly, there is the feeling of some countries that they are second-class citizens and will not be allowed to take part, in Turkey's case because it is an Islamic country.
All this indicates, in our opinion, that the Commission has not been careful enough in what it has been saying about enlargement and about the terms that are being applied.
Are there not certain questions we should ask ourselves here?
I am pleased to hear that there will be serious reforms to the agricultural policy, but everything will depend on whether they are applied consistently, because simply imposing our present agricultural policy in the new Member States would mean the destruction of their agricultural structures, mass unemployment, and so on.
The same applies to our environmental policy, which has some positive aspects, but the Eastern European countries have certain ideas that we too could exploit, so the reforms could become an opportunity to make basic changes which will benefit us as well.
So it is not a one-way process in which they have to adapt to us: we must also take advantage of their strong points in order to make progress together.
Finally, there is the question of financing.
In considering enlargement, we must also be prepared to provide adequate funding to pay for it.
In my view, the figure announced is too low, and we must certainly not allow ourselves to create a situation where we simply redistribute poverty by taking money from the south and giving it to the east.
We must ensure that our main aims at least are achieved, because it has happened all too often that we have set ourselves major objectives, only to come unstuck on fairly minor issues.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, today's debate refers to various questions.
I shall concentrate on that of enlargement which is our outlook and also for us a political obligation.
I should like to react at once to two points.
The first concerns the list of eligible countries.
Applying the criteria already defined in Copenhagen in 1993, the Commission has selected five candidates, plus Cyprus, out of eleven countries that had applied.
At first sight, the Commission has done the technical work asked of it but in doing so, its analyses, its choices and its presentation of them run the risk of making a serious, political error.
We have reneged on a vital promise, to put all the candidates at the same starting line.
Today a selection has been made, between the good countries and the others.
How many countries are likely to be frustrated and bewildered, without mentioning the risks of destabilization coming after the disappointments linked to the enlargement of NATO!
This is not only regrettable but this approach also risks being dangerous unless the marshall Plan for the countries of central and eastern Europe, as you called it, Mr Santer, for all candidates without distinction, does not soothe the differences resulting from the unwise choice to select only six countries.
We do not have to be meek and mild with these countries and conceal the difficulties that they need to overcome and that we also need to overcome.
But there is a difference between being clear and giving the impression of unfairness.
I am happy to agree over the second point.
Supporting the idea of another IGC to carry out the reforms needed for any enlargement, in particular with regard to majority voting on the Council means that the Commission is taking up an idea that we mooted in the wake of the Amsterdam Summit.
I hope that that idea will soon be confirmed.
I shall leave it to my colleagues in my Group to develop our comments on the conditions and budgetary consequences of enlargement.
There is a lot to be said about that.
Mr President, the accession of the countries of central and eastern Europe to the European Union is not the benefit that Brussels circles claim, in the name of their ideology, without taking into consideration the true interest of the peoples concerned.
Integration, for the countries of central Europe, should be assessed from the geopolitical and economic viewpoints alike. Does this integration offer the chance of greater security or does it open the way to disappearance in a whole controlled by others and over which these countries would exert very little influence?
Why is there such a hurry to open negotiations with these countries? Is not the hidden aim to cover up the failure of the Amsterdam Conference and to hold another IGC, under the cover of enlargement?
After all, everyone knows about the traditional directions of German expansionism.
Everyone knows how stubbornly determined Chancellor Kohl, the statesman, is to prepare the future.
Integration into the European Union would mean that those States could no longer stand in the way of the buy-up of local firms by companies operating from other European Union States.
Can the fragile, fledgling economies of the countries of central Europe withstand the shock of opened borders, when their competitive edge would be eroded? It is a pipedream to think that a few structural funds could keep down unemployment or immigration.
What are the figures mentioned earlier compared with the huge needs, when we know the huge amounts spent by Germany to help former east Germany?
Integration into the Maastricht Europe really means that the countries of central Europe are marching towards social regression and protectorate.
All of the political forces present in this House seem to be agreed that Europe should not just develop into a purely commercial entity. However, not all of the political forces agree that the European Union ought not to be turned into a vast free trade zone by enlarging to bring in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
We are among those who fear this happening: if it does, then even the acquis communautaire will gradually be eroded, and the Union would then lose all real political significance.
That is why we have for some years been calling for enlargement to be preceded by the proper definition of political Union.
We are therefore calling for there to be negotiations with the applicant countries only after we have established how the enlarged Union will operate at an institutional level.
Indeed, we want at last to be informed of how the Europe of the Fifteen is operating, since it has yet to establish both the second and the third pillar and is not therefore really a political Union.
We want to know when we are going to get serious discussions about the institutional base, and whether the idea of a federal European State has been finally shelved, leaving Europe is destined to be merely a colony of the wealthier nations.
The Alleanza Nazionale wants to know how there can be any question, after the loss of Malta, following hard negotiations, of now enlarging in a very short time to bring in, for example, Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary, while the statements of the French president are casting doubts on actually achieving Monetary Union within the pre-set deadlines. That same Monetary Union that - let us be clear - has to coincide with the achievement of political union.
We want to know what is going to be done for the 20 million unemployed and the more than 20 million poor people currently living in the Union, before we start worrying about the unemployment and poverty in new countries which ought to share our common European destiny.
We absolutely reject the practice that has become established in this House whereby bulky documents are debated that are not available in our national languages; we are elected Members whose prime responsibility is to the citizens of the European Union rather than the European interests of some State or multinational.
Enlargement would increase the population of the EU by more than a third, bringing it to 500 m as compared with the current 370 m.
GDP, in contrast, would rise by only some 5 %, so that we would see a worsening of the gap between the rich and the poor countries, the big and the small countries, the countries of the North and the countries of the South.
Nor should we forget the Mediterranean aspect of the Union, the investment in the fruit and vegetable sector which will have to compete with the substantial need for economic aid of large countries dependent on agriculture.
Spending on the common agricultural policy, which accounts for more than half of the EU budget, would therefore increase dramatically as the applicant countries would become net beneficiaries.
We reject enlargement before political Union has been established among the Fifteen. We are suggesting association agreements which would, within a reasonable time-frame, bring us all together to the kind of enlargement that we can live with and create a Europe that does not lack credibility.
Mr President, I absolutely agree with what my co-chairman, Mr Pasty, said a few moments ago, and I want to be just as firm in what I have to say about the future reform of the Structural Funds and the proposals today put forward by the Commission.
Given the future challenges the Union will have to meet, there is no doubt that the Structural Funds will have to be reformed after 1999; the challenges we have set ourselves will be many and demanding in political, economic and social terms.
Against a background of continuing change, of the kind Europe is experiencing as it prepares for future enlargement, the principle of economic and social cohesion becomes still more important and a matter of moment.
Having established that the principle of cohesion remains one of the fundamental principles underlying the construction of Europe, I certainly welcome the proposals from the Commission designed to simplify administrative, financial and supervisory procedures, because they will certainly facilitate access to funding, speed up the procedural element and, I hope, provide a further incentive to those countries that are still lagging behind.
I am similarly receptive to the proposals on geographical concentration and limiting subject-areas.
But, as a member of the Committee on Regional Policy and a Member of Parliament for an Objective 1 region, I have to reiterate my concerns and warn both the Commission and honourable Members of the risks involved in projects that are at once very ambitious and costly for the Union.
Because of the financial restrictions, the percentage of funding allocated to the Funds cannot be increased and will therefore remain equal to 0.46 % of the Union's GNP, in line with the decisions taken at Edinburgh.
Given future enlargement, that funding will in fact be lower in percentage terms for every Member State, while the principle of concentration, although it does have procedural benefits, leaves me rather confused in relation to the geographical aspect and the limiting of subject-areas. Indeed, cutting the number of objectives from six to three, with only two of those being regional, and completely reducing the number of zones currently eligible, seems to me to be difficult in practice, as it is not clear to me how this is to be done.
I actually believe this will inevitably result in excessive simplification where there are real territorial, developmental, economic and social differences that require specific measures.
Let me end by asking the Commission to put to the House more specific proposals for reform, broken down as necessary.
I meantime undertake to study during the holidays all the material that has been provided and reserve the right to return to this issue with a wealth of detail.
Mr President, it is problematical to classify countries in advance depending on whether they are in or soon will be in.
It is a bad pedagogical approach and it is bad politics, if it means that we must now apply more resources to certain countries and fewer resources to others, which perhaps have the greatest need and perhaps mean a great deal to peace and security in the Europe of the future.
It is immensely important that Estonia has been included, but in a few years Latvia could also be in the same favourable situation.
Thus is Latvia relegated in advance to the next round, or will it be possible under certain conditions for Latvia to be included in the first round?
I would very much like to have an answer to that from the Commissioner. And I would ask him to confirm to Parliament and the applicant countries that this grouping is only a forecast which does not exclude changes, if some countries develop rapidly, and that the final aim is that all the countries should be helped on their way in and that we should avoid new divisions.
Mr President, you only need to take a cursory glance at the budgetary developments in recent years, the restrictive tendencies resulting therefrom and certain rules that have been imposed, to be able to predict what has now been formally announced by the Member States in terms of finances.
The central question for us is that the ceiling on own-resources decided in Edinburgh will be maintained beyond 1999 and will have to meet the aims set not only for the fifteen present Member States but also for the preaccession and first years of an enlarged Union, and it is certain that those costs will be high.
We have no special objections in principle to enlargement.
Obviously, we cannot accept it in these conditions.
Inevitably it would mean substantial cuts in objectives and priorities and put at risk current imperatives.
One example is that of Cohesion, inscribed in the Treaty as a fundamental pillar of the Union but now put on the back burner, along with proposals now made for the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
As for the latter, the current beneficiaries will see their access considerably reduced.
It is certain that the average annual budgetary amounts for the new period, for the fifteen Member States, will be cut back.
That is the reality.
It seems that the current 'cohesion countries' will not only cease to be beneficiaries, but they will even be condemned to pay for the accession as a result of their virtual success.
Who can seriously agree with that?! My parting question is: ' What has happened to the means for our ambitions?' .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while the candidates for accession are being given more and more homework to do, the European Union has not yet succeeded in finishing its own.
The urgent need for ecologically and socially sustainable development has been disregarded.
The reforms, especially the reforms of the agricultural and economic policies, do not go far enough.
Confrontation in Europe has been eliminated, because we have conducted a tireless struggle in the east to ensure that democracy and codetermination become a reality throughout Europe.
It is a historic challenge, too, that now calls upon us to develop a democratic Europe, a Europe with no dividing lines. Which is why I once again ask the Commission why it has shelved the option of involving all candidates in the accession talks.
Is this not a form of reclassification, separating those that are in from those that are out? Are these the reasons why Parliament's call for the abolition of compulsory visas between Bulgaria and Romania has still not been heeded?
Especially where co-operation between the Baltic States is concerned, the singling out of one country would have disastrous consequences, because that co-operation combines very close economic ties with a zone of freedom of movement.
Possibly, any such strategy may even create new problems for these young governments when they attempt to justify to their peoples the heavy burden imposed on social equilibrium by the process of harmonization.
So what we need for enlargement is an efficient, institutional and unified framework structure for all candidates, and not just for foreign, internal and legal policy.
None of the associated states must have the impression of being excluded.
The economic co-operation between the EU and the accession candidates is still lacking in economic integration based on equal rights.
The EU still denies access to a good many products.
A crucial aspect of balanced development is participation in the wide range of measures to support the structural policy.
Integration in the EU must not be restricted to a political elite - great importance must be attached to the full involvement of every citizen.
From this angle, we are gravely concerned by the new statement of priorities in the PHARE programme.
Now we have the new, undemocratic model of immigration policy, which violates human rights, and the Schengen protocol being incorporated into the Treaty and then imposed on the candidates for accession.
They will thus serve as a buffer for the European heartland.
The Greens regard it as irresponsible for the EU to export its present internal and legal policies to the countries of central and eastern Europe, too.
The democratic rights of control held by Parliament and the Court of Justice should be the first basis of the Treaty.
For these young democracies, their experience of independent justice and a democratically accountable police force has been relatively short, yet they attach great importance to it.
Mr President of the Commission, you mentioned this morning the speech you made on 17 January, on the occasion of your investiture, and I too venture to recall that day because we told you that we expected from you the vision of a better Europe, a Europe for the millennium.
It seems to me that that vision was somewhat lacking in Agenda 2000.
Admittedly, the Commission has a difficult task: it is being asked to undertake enlargement and reform and to move towards the year 2000 maintaining the same level of resources as fixed at Edinburgh, which may not exceed 1.27 % of gross national product.
It is certainly no easy matter and very questionable to bring in countries such as Slovenia which, in my view, did not deserve to be included, while leaving out others.
The Agenda we shall be discussing has just one merit: that of proposing the Intergovernmental Conference by 2000.
The House will support you on that because it is the only serious request we can now put to the Council.
Mr President, I listened this morning with great interest to President Santer and to Mr Van Den Broek when they talked about giving ourselves a road map for the future.
I have to say to you that the road you outlined to us this morning is very badly constructed, has too many sharp bends and shows no ultimate destination.
We must have a long period of negotiation so we can extend the reforms required within the present fifteen Member States to meet the challenge of enlargement.
The proposals for the reform of the common agricultural policy and structural funds are far-reaching and will be extremely painful to many regions of the present European Union.
We must be careful during the enlargement process not to isolate regions presently in the Union.
I would caution careful negotiation, always being mindful of the delicate balance which presently exists and which we must maintain.
I understand why we must move towards enlargement.
I also understand very well indeed why these countries want to join the European Union.
But I also understand the disappointment this morning in those other countries which have not been named.
I urge the President of the Commission and the other negotiators to take on board this tremendous challenge and I wish them well.
I caution them to move forward in a sure and careful way.
Mr President, Agenda 2000 once again shows exactly where the political power lies in the European Union: with the Commission.
However, I would point out that the Commission is essentially nothing more than a group of politically appointed senior civil servants.
We naturally cannot hold it against them that they should use their right of initiative, but I still find it an unhealthy and even fundamentally undemocratic way of working, and one which completely contradicts the Karlsruhe Court's ruling that the European Union is a federation of states, not a federal superstate with the Commission as a supergovernment in the making.
I shall now confine myself to commenting on two points of detail, partly because of the lack of time available, and partly also because I do not wish to comment on a document of over 1100 pages that we received only a few minutes ago and which is not even available in my own language.
Firstly, the Commission has confirmed the position it adopted in 1989 that Turkey is 'not yet' ready to join the European Union.
When will someone finally admit that membership of the European Union is not just about meeting economic and political requirements, but that there are also geographical and cultural restrictions which mean that a non-European country like Turkey, albeit a good neighbour with whom we have excellent relations, simply cannot become a member of the European Union?
Secondly, it is clear that many former Eastern bloc countries still have a long way to go towards economic recovery, and it is therefore high time that Europe reviewed all its development aid programmes and gave top priority to funding a kind of Marshall plan for these countries.
I have the impression that the policy programme before us does not go far enough towards this.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, fellow Members, we have just heard the Commmission's presentation of the so-called Agenda 2000 which, it is claimed, together with the assessment of each application for membership of the Union, is a response to the petitions formulated by the Madrid European Council.
This package cannot be assessed in a simplistic manner - the diverse elements it comprises must be analysed separately.
We can unreservedly support the proposals which refer to guaranteeing the effectiveness of reasonable enlargement of the Union, organized over the briefest possible of time periods.
I, as a Spaniard - and one with a good memory who represents a country which for many years was knocking at the door of the Community - can perfectly understand the legitimate aspirations of each and every one of the candidate countries.
However, Mr President, we are concerned at the fact that, when such a politically ambitious and justified enlargement package is presented, sufficient and balanced financial provisions for funding it are not established.
When earlier Commissions presented the so-called 'Delors I and II packages' , in parallel with the ambitious objectives which were outlined, the Community was given the necessary resources to realize its legitimate ambitions.
As the Commission acknowledges in its communication, we are now facing the most significant enlargement process in the Community's history - from any viewpoint, be this geostrategic, political, economic or social.
What we have here are more than 105 million inhabitants, over 1 million square kilometres in area, countries which do not achieve even a third of the average income in terms of Community per capita GDP and countries whose dependence on agriculture for employment is 26 % as compared with an average 5 % in the Union.
And an attempt will be made to take up this important challenge, at the same time as continuing the economic and social cohesion policy and launching the new employment policy outlined in Amsterdam and guaranteeing continuity of the remaining Community policies without any increase in the Community budget and without modifying its income structure.
They would have us believe that all this can be financed without increasing the Community budget ceiling above 1.27 % - which applies currently - and, in addition, by establishing payment appropriations which are reduced, even for 1999, down from the 1.25 % provided for in the table we have been given to the 1.22 % provided for in 2006.
Enlargement is going ahead and payment appropriations are being reduced.
If this approach is adopted, Mr President, some Community policies, within the Europe of the Fifteen, will undoubtedly have to be cut back in relative terms.
So what is this policy? None other than the cohesion policy.
In actual fact, according to the proposal presented, the pre-accession strategy will be financed with ecu 500 million under heading 1 and ecu 1000 million under heading 2, amounts which will be raised to ecu 45, 000 million under heading 2 when the initial wave of accessions takes place from 2002 up to 2006.
Incidentally, nowhere in the communication are we told how this magic figure of ecu 45, 000 million to cover enlargement has been calculated. Why 45, 000 and not 90, 000 or 35, 000?
Particularly given that enlargement will take place in stages and not all countries will become members at the same time.
In addition, a ceiling of 0.46 % of the Community GDP continues to be set on the total amount channelled towards regional policy, which, in relative terms, means a freeze on growth under this heading at 1999 levels.
This will have retrogressive consequences because a ceiling is being set on the growth of resources available for that policy which has the closest connection with the objective of economic and social cohesion - given that the number of applicant countries and regions competing for total funds whose growth has been frozen is on the increase - and because the greater part of aid under the pre-accession financing strategy is covered by heading 2 of the financial forecasts.
And this retrogressive step is being concealed under a cloak of progressiveness -indeed, we are told that Objective No 1 is setting aside approximately two thirds of total resources and also that geographical concentration will be greater.
However, it should be remembered that, even under current forecasts, Objective 1 even now accounts for two thirds of total funds and the meaning of the word 'approximately' would have to be clarified because in no way should the percentage of Objective 1 be less than it is now.
We should also consider the fact that the most prosperous regions will not be making a greater contribution to the enlargement effort owing to the freezing of the Community budget, in terms of income, and owing to the provision for reducing payment appropriations from 1.25 % to 1.22 % throughout the new financial forecasts.
It is my feeling that the Commission's position is in conflict with Article 3 F of the Treaty on European Union, which confirms the principle of sufficiency of means and, in addition, with the political positions which this House upheld at the time of the Oostlander, Bourlanges-Martin and Christodoulou reports of 30 November 1994, 17 May 1995 and 12 December 1996, respectively, all of which stated that enlargement should not compromise the solidarity of the Fifteen and that, as appropriate, the Community resources available to finance it should be increased.
It will be difficult to explain to many national parliaments, particularly in the cohesion countries, how this enlargement process is going to be financed.
However, despite these general criticisms, the Commission's proposals affecting economic and social cohesion policy do contain some very positive elements and the Commission is therefore to be congratulated, particularly the responsible Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, who has always been at the disposal of Parliament's Committee on Regional Policy throughout this reform process. I would like to offer her my very special thanks for this.
These positive elements are the maintenance, in its current form, of the Cohesion Fund, which, we feel, enables the less privileged Member States to implement a development policy throughout their national territory; the intelligent way in which the objectives of the Structural Funds have been simplified - although transparent, simple and absolutely objective criteria governing eligibility of the zones will be required - and the simplification of management procedures which was widely requested by both social agents and by regional authorities.
I would like to end by thanking the Commission for its endeavours and for the work which the drafting of this proposal has undoubtedly required, and I trust that this House will, in the months to come, be capable of improving those aspects of this proposal to which we cannot give our full support, because the challenge we are facing is of unprecedented political significance and will require the best efforts of everyone here.
Mr President, the burden of funding the enlargement of the Union to the east should be shared by the existing Member States in a just and equitable manner.
The proposal to effectively freeze the size of the European Union budget to 1.27 % of the European GDP means that there will have to be a cut in real terms in the size of the structural funds package available to encourage economic growth in the less developed regions of the present 15 Member States.
This would be a retrograde step which risks undermining the positive results now being achieved by the present programme of structural fund aid in some parts of the Union, such as Ireland, for example.
The structural funds should be maintained at their present size for the 15 Member States until the objective of creating a level playing field throughout the Union has been achieved.
However, there is a need to review the criteria for qualifying for this aid.
At present, the arbitrary cut-off point of 75 % of GDP does not take account of important factors such as unemployment and peripherality.
Unemployment levels should be used to determine eligibility for structural fund aid.
Equally important, transport and communications costs can play a huge part in determining whether or not an industry is competitive.
Some account needs to be taken of peripherality in order to ensure that industry will continue to create jobs in peripheral regions once the single currency zone has been created.
The Union must continue to take structural measures to encourage balanced development around the Union and to avoid a drift to the centre by mobile investment.
Before proposing any changes in the regions which qualify for the different rates of structural assistance, the Commission should also undertake an assessment of levels of economic growth within the region.
It would surely be wrong if an area which still meets the 75 % threshold failed to qualify for aid just because it is grouped together by the Commission with the most prosperous neighbouring area.
For example, the strong economic growth in the east coast region of my country is not necessarily reflected throughout all parts of the country, and the existence of uneven growth rates within a country and a region should be taken into account by the Commission.
Agriculture is a vitally important sector of the Irish economy and the protection of income levels of Ireland's family farmers is central to our rural development aspirations.
While the agricultural sector needs to be competitive and must change to take account of varying circumstances such as EU enlargement and world trading conditions, it is important to adequately compensate farmers for the price reductions this will entail.
The Commission's proposals regarding direct payments to farmers are an essential element of the overall package.
Farmers must have guarantees of direct income supports at adequate levels over the medium to long term if they are to be in a position to plan for the future.
Increased production should only be contemplated in those sectors where a ready market can be found for the produce, and in this regard agriculture must prepare itself to meet the challenges of the world marketplace.
The best method of preparing the sector is to put in place a stable, long-term support system for our family farms.
Finally, I strongly support the call by Mr Pasty for a decent and fair amount of time to discuss these extremely important proposals that have been put forward by President Santer on behalf of the Commission.
To run through this as if all hell will fall on us unless we finish by 12 noon does not do justice to the statement that has been made by President Santer.
It is crazy, and he deserves far better.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal concerning enlargement of the Union is, in my opinion, a success.
It can be implemented without altering the institutions.
Estonia and Poland are included, whose membership would strengthen the Union's northern dimension.
A number of adjustments need to be made to the reform of agricultural and regional policy.
Objective 6, which is vital to the northernmost regions of the Union, should be retained and the level of support provided under it should be the same as that under Objective 1.
Agricultural producers' prices can be reduced only on condition that equitable compensation is provided and that producer prices always exceed variable production costs.
In this CAP reform, the special national agricultural support which the Union adopted because of Finland's special northern conditions, but which Finland currently has to pay for by itself contrary to the general principles of the CAP system, must be incorporated in Community funding.
Mr. President, this debate is worrying me.
First, I am worried about the language issue, as I said earlier.
In the context of such a major opening of the European Union, such an initiative by the Commission, there was not even enough interest shown to ensure that all Members and citizens should be equally well informed.
There are some who are more equal than others: Germans, English and French.
Secondly, I am also worried by the fact that just a few weeks after Amsterdam, the Commission and its President have come here to tell us that we must proceed with a new review of the Treaties, in order to solve institutional issues.
And I ask: what faith can Europe's citizens have, when they see their government calling for a review of the constitution even before the review just completed has been formally ratified?
If that had been done by the government of a Member State, think what a political upheaval it would have caused!
Thirdly, it worries me that there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the Cohesion Fund and the structural expenditure.
Fourthly, I would wish for a more open approach with broader perspectives for Bulgaria and Romania as far as enlargement is concerned.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, today sees us beginning to mark out and trace the path we will be following in the early years of the next millennium.
A significant change for the future of the Union.
This is the first discussion of a topic which all of us, without exception, were anticipating and I trust that, as stated here, we will have many more opportunities to debate the conditions, pacts and modifications of enlargement and of the financial package, although we should keep in mind a premise backed by the Commission itself at the most recent meeting of the Committee on Regional Policy: that the South should not and cannot fund the East.
We cannot lose sight of certain facts which have been proved by analysing and studying the most recent period of enlargement of the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
The ten richest regions continue to differ from the ten poorest in much the same way.
And, as far as unemployment is concerned - an issue crucial to the future of the Union - the Funds have not brought about any reduction in Europe.
The 25 poorest regions, therefore, have experienced greater unemployment than the 25 richest.
Finally, Mr President, we believe that it is risky to rely on agriculture to finance this enlargement because, as you and all of us will be aware, agriculture is an extremely risky business.
In conclusion, I would support what has been said about the need to convene another Intergovernmental Conference to examine the necessary reform of European institutions.
Mr President, Agenda 2000 is an impressive global vision, requiring all the political forces of Europe to be involved in the work that lies ahead - including those forces whose concept of a healthy, peaceful future for Europe differs, indeed differs very strongly, from the Commission's notion.
The key to success will indeed be the courage to set priorities in every sector and to abandon the 'equal shares for all' principle.
I welcome the emphasis on the environmental aspects of rural development and agricultural policy.
In dealing with all these issues it will be necessary to break down taboos and stop burying our heads in the sand.
President Santer has said that the euro must be introduced as planned on 1 January 1999.
The question may be whether the euro can be introduced on 1 January 1999, against the will of many citizens, if the high aims of Agenda 2000, especially enlargement, are to be achieved.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to say that your services should have had the time to write a shorter paper.
It is difficult to write little and well.
In any case, your speech gave no indication as to whether we shall continue to maintain Community preference, a unified market, financial solidarity.
Forty years ago that made sense and it still does today!
On the other hand, in respect of the Common Agricultural Policy, it seems to me that its reforms should be linked to the natural handicaps of the different countries, to unemployment, to the land.
I think that that would make sense and I do not know, since I have not yet had the time to read this enormous document, whether that is going to be possible.
I should like to ask you about the Community's resources, the budget that so many people say will not suffice for enlargement, and how it was possible for you not to say a word about institutional approaches to combating fraud throughout the Community, fraud that amounts to billions of ECU and which would help to finance enlargement and our own internal economic policy instead? How is it possible for our economic ayatollahs to try and cut fair spending in fair activities and yet continue to overlook the billions of ECU robbed from the Community in VAT - something that not only cheats the Community and the interests of its Member States, but also harms real competitiveness and fair competition, and firms' ability to survive?
I should like you to give that some thought, Mr President of the Commission.
Mr. President, all the questions asked by previous speakers have a single explanation: the Commission, and whatever is around and behind it, wants to hide the fact that what is involved is essentially an opening of vital territory for the robber-baron, profiteering activities of major Community speculative and other capital.
This enlargement will cost, and the Commission wants to hide that, namely the fact that the cost will be borne by the smallest and weakest countries and by working people.
That is why there is never a mention of resources for unemployment, but on the contrary, there are clear references to restriction, reduction of CAP and Structural Fund expenditure, and again the burden of cost will fall on countries that derived some relief from those provisions.
Furthermore, Mr. President, the Commission is illegitimately introducing certain issues, such as support for Turkey and an assertion and confirmation of the hostage status of Cyprus, by saying that accession will supposedly be achieved by negotiations but will always depend on the will of Denktash, Turkey and the Americans.
That is what you are doing, Mr Santer, and this Agenda does not strive towards a great and powerful Europe, but a Europe that is wretched for its peoples and a Europe profiteering on behalf of major capital.
Mr. President, a great deal has already been said.
I would like to add that the Press has hastened to describe Agenda 2000 as a document which will be for the coming 50 years what the Yalta agreement was for the years past.
Since we have not read the document, let us hope that is how things will be, and that it will have positive effects and not open wounds as Yalta did.
Because the exclusion of many European countries from the first stage of enlargement will generate bitterness and doubts and objections, and that is not at all consonant with some of the extravagant promises we heard early on.
The President of the Commission spoke of a new Marshall Plan.
The differentiation taking place is only acceptable on the assumption that programmes on behalf of the countries excluded, especially Romania and Bulgaria which have serious problems, will be strengthened.
Historically, the first country scheduled for accession is Cyprus.
It was Cyprus that was discussed first, and Cyprus towards which the European Union made express commitments, which the President of the Commission himself mentioned.
Besides, Cyprus - and this should be stressed - is the only candidate for accession that satisfies all the requisite economic criteria.
On that point, we should stress the good faith and attitude with which the Cyprus Government came to the recent talks on the Cyprus problem despite the continuing intransigence of the Turkish side, and that is a reason why Cyprus cannot remain hostage to those attitudes and why a solution cannot be a prerequisite for its accession.
Mr. President, questions arise about the Union's institutional reform in the future, which may prove necessary but cannot be such as to weaken its cohesion and threaten the equality of its partners.
Just as it is impossible not to take account of the criterion of unemployment in the Union's progress towards 2000, nor for the Structural Funds to bear the cost of enlargement.
Finally Mr President, so far as the CAP is concerned, I would like to stress that as we all know, for a very long time efforts have been made to annihilate the agricultural economy of the South.
Mr President, it is a common phenomenon that unsuccessful projects are concealed by constantly starting new ones.
The European Union has failed in practically everything: unemployment, economic policy, agricultural policy, environmental policy and control of fraud.
Would it not then be better if the Union sorted out its own problems first before dragging other countries into them?
This project has been ill prepared.
There are no reliable calculations on the costs or the social impact.
Ultimately, there must be some reaction to the way the Union is dictating the applicant countries' domestic policy and that they must subject themselves to the Union's destructive economic dogmatism, just as if these other countries have no values of their own to bring with them but must be treated instead like colonies, whose assets are to be bought and whose people dominated.
Going back to the Europe of the 1930s in this way is not, Mr President, a good starting point for a project.
Mr President, it has not often happened in the course of this century that we have been able to shape the destiny of Europe from a situation of peace.
It is indeed a historic opportunity.
The Commission has put forward a coherent proposal involving a great deal of money, but we must not allow it to become like a game of Monopoly with subsidies being pushed here and there, upsetting still further the already tenuous balance between north and south in the Union.
Much will depend on whether people can be persuaded to reform the common agricultural policy, and here we cannot sidestep the agreements that exist with the Mediterranean countries, which also involve agricultural issues.
Mrs Aelvoet has already mentioned an example of where things are not working.
Spain is causing problems in the association agreement with Jordan over a few tons of tomatoes.
This is a bad sign, not least for the Eastern European countries.
We are all working together in an expanding market, and we are gradually going to have to convince people that Schengen, NATO and the Union are all linked in some way and will eventually lead to a new political association that will rise above the market.
One thing still concerns me, and that is the lack of funding for PHARE and the Structural Funds.
This is something we cannot explain to the public, and we must move swiftly to put it right, otherwise we shall lose their support.
Agenda 2000 finally puts the Second World War behind us.
Germany has been integrated once and for all, and that is something for which we all jointly bear the responsibility and the burden.
Agenda 2000 is a challenge, but it also demonstrates Europe's internal strength.
It is an initiative that we MEPs should endorse to our voters, and one which, when we have studied it, deserves more than this brief hour on a Wednesday morning.
Mr President, the Commission's conditions for the enlargement of the European Union are based, mostly, on competition between economies and peoples.
That is particularly the case in the farming sector, where the Commission hardly shows any imagination since its proposals are largely based on the American model: i.e. lowering production prices, partially offset by direct income aids.
These proposals are in keeping with the WTO rules, which is now becoming the United States' own private tool, as we saw in the verdicts on bananas and hormone meat.
Established in the name of sacrosanct competitiveness, these guidelines accentuate the drop in farm prices and will lead to further reductions in the number of farmers.
They run the risk of leading to lower farm spending which would be harmful.
The possibility of modulating income aids might be an interesting approach, provided it means rebalancing aids to benefit small and medium-sized farmers and less well-off farms.
The mad cow crisis should break this current trend towards an ultra-liberal and production-oriented trend, which is against the interests of farmers and consumers alike.
The CAP must be made fairer by ensuring that farm work is properly paid, that resources are redistributed to help the less well-off regions, introducing a renewed Community preference, modulating and capping farming aid, in order to fight over-intensive farming and desertification, both of which harm the environment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to speak again, very briefly, in the knowledge that you have a packed agenda today, to thank everyone who has spoken in this debate.
I know that the Commission has placed you in an awkward situation by distributing a 1350 page package on the morning of the debate - a document that lays the very foundations of Europe's architecture for the 21st century.
It has been presented very quickly but I should also like to pay tribute to all those who wanted to respond to the Commission's paper so quickly.
I am quite certain that, under the Luxembourg Presidency, it will be one of the central planks of the various Councils of Ministers.
You will have an opportunity, I am sure, to discuss it at length with the competent Commissioners, i.e. Mrs Wulf-Mathies, for the structural funds - raised on several occasions and sometimes erroneously in a context that is not always that which we have set - and Commissioner Fischler, for the CAP.
Both will clarify the aims that the Commission has set in the framework of its Agenda 2000.
Agenda 2000 is designed to created the necessary conditions in a changing world where Europe must, of course, also change.
Of course, enlargement must be integrated into it but we must also adapt to the international environment and play our rightful role in the international arena.
You now tell me that we have tried to square the circle.
Yes, to some extent, because we have taken into account the fact of enlargement, and the implications of enlargement for certain policies, especially the structural funds and the CAP, but others too.
We have worked out a new financial framework for all internal policies that we have refocussed in order to meet the concerns of our citizens and to meet the challenges of 21st century Europe.
This Commission document covers a whole range of issues.
We have borne our responsibilities, in any case, and the Commission has shown that it is a political body, a Community political institution.
I would tell Mr Vanhecke that the Commission is not 'an Areopagus of apathetic technocrats' , as has been said, nor is it comprised solely of senior officials.
On the contrary.
I was elected in June 1994 to the European Parliament.
I was elected as Prime Minister in my country.
I and others have stood for both national and European sovereignty.
We play our role, in the Commission, as a political institution, in this European political Union and we have accepted our own responsibilities as such.
I should like to refute two general remarks that have been repeatedly made.
As for the costs, I would like to point out that those costs are not going to be borne by the CAP.
Nor will they be borne by the structural funds.
It is thanks to the reforms undertaken in the financial framework that we have centred, regrouped, reorganized the structural funds to make them more efficient.
If you analyse the figures, you will see that through the structural funds the Member States will be receiving 15 % more in grants than at present.
So to tell me that enlargement is going to be financed by a reduction in the structural funds is quite simply wrong.
It is not the reality and does not tally with the figures contained in the documents that I would invite you to examine.
I should also like to put right those who have it in for the Commission, some of whom spoke of Yalta and setting up a new dividing line across Europe.
That is wrong!
The Commission has said so and Mr Van den Broek and I have been well understood - a whole negotiating process has been started and all the applicant States, without exception, are called on to become full members of the European Union.
That is why we have also set up certain structures to establish a genuine partnership for accession.
That is how we have presented things.
That is why we have called for a European conference to which all countries wishing to join the European Union are invited.
It is only in that spirit, on the basis of objective criteria and analyses carried out by our services, in conjunction with international experts, as Mr Van den Broek has said - we did not take part for political reasons - that we have announced which applicant countries can begin negotiations to be completed in the medium term.
That is the perspective that has been established.
As far as human rights are concerned, a distinction cannot be made between Member States, as they are indivisible, and we have taken a very firm stance over this aspect, in keeping with the concerns of the European Parliament.
As far as the economy is concerned, however, and the fulfilment of certain criteria, while counting on the evolution of the various applicant countries in the future, in accordance with the findings of our own analyses, we have come to the conclusion that it is already possible, although none of the applicant countries fulfils the economic criteria at present, to open negotiations with some of them.
Of course, it is the European Council that has the last word, but we have taken our own responsibilities in the framework of the evolution of the international environment which concerns us.
I agree that enlargement is a unique opportunity.
For the first time for more than five hundred years we have the historic opportunity to reconcile our continent with itself, in peace and freedom.
This opportunity has to be seized.
Enlargement must then succeed.
It is my only ambition, the ambition of the Commission that it is my honour to Preside.
Let us leave aside the political aspects, strategies and stratagems, which are sometimes hypocritical, it has to be said, in certain political settings, because the important thing is to make enlargement a success.
That is the feeling and duty of the Commission.
It is in this spirit that we are presenting you with our Agenda 2000.
Mr President, I put a very simple question.
I asked whether Latvia can still be included in the first round, if it meets all the criteria in two years.
Mr President, I think that Mr Van den Broek answered that question very clearly.
If you had listened to him, you would have heard him state very clearly that this process is under way in that the European Council, to which we report every year, considers that a country meets a certain number of criteria.
Then we can recommend to the European Parliament Council to undertake negotiations with the country concerned, provided that it meets the criteria on the basis of our own analyses too.
I think that answers your question, in the affirmative.
Financing of the CFSP
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0249/97) by Mr Samland, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the Interinstitutional Agreement between the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on provisions regarding financing of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this document that we are debating today has already been hailed as a success by this House.
At the second June session, Parliament, during its second plenary session when the results of Amsterdam were discussed, adopted by a huge majority a resolution to the effect that the agreement reached by the European Council on the budgetary aspects of the CFSP was to be welcomed as a success and a step forward.
In adopting that resolution, we made it clear which direction we were taking.
As the rapporteur, I do not want to discuss the details of those provisions at this stage, but there are two points I would like to make.
First, the Interinstitutional Agreement was drawn up in order to take away the second pillar from those who, at the Intergovernmental Conference, wanted to make it compulsory expenditure and leave it where it was, among the non-compulsory expenditure.
This represents a negotiating success by all those - and I expressly include the President of the European Parliament, and also the then Dutch presidency - who thus safeguarded and protected the rights of the European Parliament.
A second aim was achieved, and Mr Spencer, the Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, has expressly authorized me to say so on his behalf also.
What was achieved, in fact, was an institutionalized communication on the second pillar, an institutionalized communication between the makers of our foreign policy and the activities of the Council in that second pillar, which had not previously been agreed or laid down.
To this extent, I believe, the agreement before us today represents a step forward, and I would therefore ask the House to adopt it when we come to vote on it shortly.
Mr President, I think we should finally sign this agreement.
But we should not be under any illusion that it is a victory for the Parliament, because we were put under tremendous pressure. If Parliament had not agreed, the Council would have made this an item of compulsory, rather than non-compulsory, expenditure.
We have avoided the worst, and I think that we can congratulate ourselves on that.
At the same time it is very true that everything now depends on the way that the two institutions - the Council and the Commission - implement this: the Council by implementing this agreement in good faith and giving the necessary information, the Commission by really cooperating with Parliament to ensure transparency and democratic control.
In the circumstances there is no other alternative, but we should definitely work in the future to avoid such incidents whereby the Council cynically attempts to take away powers which Parliament has usefully used in the past.
Mr President, my group has expressly committed itself to ensuring that expenditure on the Foreign and Security Policy should not be treated as compulsory and the rights of Parliament with regard to the budget should not be restricted.
So we have no alternative but to vote in favour of the compromise which is now on the table, because by doing so we shall prevent the worst from happening.
I do see a problem, though, and I shall be grateful if the Commission would give me an answer on this, even if not today.
With regard to the foreign and security policy, we have always found that the critical weakness is not any budgetary problem but always the question of who we should make responsible and how we are to control the expenditure side.
We have always said that there is a procedural loophole in Article J.11.
In my view, this interinstitutional agreement has not closed that loophole.
I should be grateful if the Commission would once again let the Committee on Budgets have its opinion on this.
Mr President, my group will be voting for this interinstitutional agreement because it has a sense of responsibility but it will do so with little enthusiasm.
We do not in fact believe that just those two little pages of the whole of the Amsterdam Treaty should be voted on so rapidly while the remainder of the treaty is so confused that the members of the European Council have themselves still to subscribe to it and will be doing so in October.
But we realize that this may be the lesser evil for Parliament, given that it has managed, broadly at least, to keep CFSP classified as non-compulsory expenditure.
But the adoption of this agreement should not let us forget that we have lost in relation to the major challenge facing the Council, namely that of establishing a new form of classification for all expenditure under the budget, and that remains for us a central point in the discussion of the Amsterdam Treaty that we shall be holding in November.
Mr President, before this debate, pursuant to Rule 128, I asked to move the inadmissibility of the matter.
You did not give me the floor.
I have every respect for you, but you did not apply the rules: I am entitled to move the inadmissibility of a matter and you should have given me the floor.
Our Group is opposed to the inter-institutional agreement.
We shall vote against it.
It is a compromise adopted by the Member States in Amsterdam, whereas some of them were rightly opposed to CFSP expenditure being noncompulsory.
By adopting it, the European Parliament is dropping its trousers.
Everywhere in the world, foreign policy is dictated by executives, not by assemblies.
The European Parliament cannot be involved in foreign policy as it is a branch of the budgetary authority.
Please, Mr President, could you chair this debate and ask the members to be quiet? As I was trying to say, this is part of the Amsterdam agreements and those agreements have yet to be ratified!
What contempt for democracy!
We adopt a text, in this uproar, a text that adds to Community law and was adopted in under 48 hours, by the skin of its teeth, by refusing virtually any discussion.
The two main groups in the European Parliament refused to express their opinion on this text even though they had two minutes each to do so.
That goes to show that since Maastricht, nothing has changed.
The famous democratic deficit that was rightly denounced in every European country has not even been dented.
You refuse any protests and any real debate - you refuse to give the floor to the Member States' parliaments and to the citizens of the countries of Europe!
(Applause from the I-EDN Group)
Mr President, the UPE Group will vote for Mr Samland's proposal.
We did have some debates in committee but we should not make this report into something more important than it is.
It enables the European Parliament to give its opinion in the coming weeks on anything to do with common security policy and Mr Samland, the rapporteur, has just brought our rules into line with the text, which is an important one.
I think that we should not lend more importance to these matters than they really deserve.
At bottom, this report is a fair one and that is why we shall vote for it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place immediately.
VOTES
Following Mrs Pery's election to the French parliament and her resignation from the European Parliament, we shall now elect a Vice-President.
I have received one nomination, that of Mr Jean-Pierre Cot.
Mr Cot, you are going to be applauded again since I must now turn to the European Parliament to consult it formally and find out whether it agrees to elect you by acclamation, since I have received no other nominations.
(Parliament elected Mr Cot by acclamation) I congratulate you, Mr Cot.
Thank you, Madam President, for giving me the floor, pursuant to Rule 129, to move that the report be referred back to committee.
I take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Cot on his election as Vice-President.
I am moving referral on three counts: first of all, because the debate in the Committee on Budgets was guillotined and amendments were not tabled to the motion for a resolution even though it is quite separate from the interinstitutional agreement.
Secondly, the Committee on Foreign Affairs has not been consulted.
Yet it obviously has competence, in application of Annex VI, I-1, of the Rules, for questions relating to the European Union's CFSP.
Thirdly - and the most serious reason, Madam President - the institutional committee was not consulted.
It should have issued its opinion at its meeting of 1 and 2 July, but the item was not even on the agenda.
No text was distributed at that meeting and no vote was held.
I have witnesses who are members of that committee.
Those are the reasons for my request.
Madam President, I should like to speak against this request by Mr FabreAubrespy.
All three of his arguments are inaccurate!
First, the Committee on Budgets spent two hours discussing the content of the motion at a special meeting yesterday evening.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy attended that meeting, so it is quite outrageous for him to create the impression here that no debate has taken place.
Secondly, the charge that the Committee on Foreign Affairs is the co-ordinating committee is incorrect.
The Committee on Budgets was delegated to comment on this report, and that was notified to the House by an unopposed decision of the President.
Thirdly, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the Committee on Institutional Affairs informed the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, in a letter dated 4 July 1997 and signed by its Chairman, that the Committee on Institutional Affairs approved this agreement.
In other words all three of your arguments are wrong, and I would therefore ask that the vote be taken now.
Madam President, I should like to second Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion for the interinstitutional agreement to be referred back to committee.
I should like to add a further reason to the one he gave: as vice-chairman of the institutional committee, I should like to insist on this fourth reason. I do not remember whether there was a vote on the opinion relating to this agreement nor have I ever seen the letter from the chairman.
I should like to know when the document on which we are supposed to have voted was distributed to the committee since if the Amsterdam Treaty was mentioned, I should like to stress the fact that the inter-institutional agreement contained in the draft Treaty is not the same as the one on which we are called to vote today.
The second line of each refers to different articles, for example: Article J17 and Article J18.
To refresh your memory, perhaps you would like to read Mr de Giovanni's letter of 3 July last, after the sitting.
(Parliament rejected the request)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, the inter-institutional agreement on financing the CFSP, just precipitately approved by the European Parliament, seems totally irregular to us in terms of parliamentary procedure and in essence.
From the procedural point of view, we have decided in one morning to inscribe the item on the agenda, hold a guillotined debate and vote on it, without being able to table amendments, even on the motion for a legislative resolution.
That alone should have sufficed to reject this text if the European Parliament had a little dignity.
In essence, this agreement is designed to shift operational expenditure on the CFSP, without exception, towards non-compulsory Community spending, i.e. that part of the budget on which the European Parliament has the final word.
It is totally incoherent since the CFSP is an inter-governmental policy, as confirmed at the Amsterdam European Council, which left it third-pillar status in the Treaty on European Union.
In any case, the proposed change, in that it anticipates a ratification that has not yet been completed, is tantamount to revision of the Treaty, which is obviously not possible in terms of an inter-institutional agreement.
All of this has been so improvised that the agreement voted for refers to Article J18 of the Treaty, which does not exist as it has not yet been ratified.
The provisional text is still under discussion among the permanent representatives.
It is so much the case that Article J18, that I have just mentioned, was called Article J17 in the only text of the Treaty in our possession, the one that emerged from the Amsterdam Council.
All of these irregularities mean that the Member States are being forced to agree to the provisional Amsterdam text which is incoherent because it was finalised in confusion, if at all!
Madam President, if only for the Minutes' sake, i should like to have certain irregularities recorded.
I shall not speak of the essence, which my colleague Georges Berthu dealt with brilliantly just now.
The procedure adopted was a simplified one.
Proper time limits were not kept to.
We changed and decided to hold a debate, but nobody said really why we did.
It was rightly feared that twenty-nine members of the European Parliament, led by us, perhaps, would oppose the guillotine vote without a debate.
Then we decided to have a vote with debate.
Fifteen minutes were allowed and two minutes per Group, without realizing that that would not be enough.
The main Groups refused to speak.
I therefore move inadmissibility and ask a question, both of which reach the Bureau five minutes before the debate.
I am prevented from speaking.
Madam President, it should have been possible to table an amendment.
It was wrong of the Chair to decide otherwise.
Look at the draft report - it even allows for amendments to be tabled.
Those are the irregularities.
This is all proof that we are not doing things seriously, especially concerning important matters.
I wanted that to be emphasized.
Our institutions which so much like teaching lessons, Urbi et Orbi, about respecting laws, would do well to set a good example and being as strict with themselves as they demand of others.
The conditions in which the debate on the financing of the CFSP has just been held show, once again, how little respect most members of the European Parliament have for legal rules.
When they are mentioned, as my colleagues Mr Fabre-Aubrespy and Mr Berthu in particular have just done, the invariable reply from the Chair is: ' You cannot be legally right as you are in a political minority...' .
What were the fears of those who staged this hurried and improvised method of having a text that had not even been submitted to the Committee on Foreign Affairs submitted to the full assembly? We were surprised to note the committee's silence even though it should have been consulted on the essence of the text, since the interinstitutional agreement refers not only to financial aspects but to the whole of the implementation of the CFSP.
We also noticed that the Samland report won a favourable opinion in the Institutional Committee even though that item never figured on its agenda.
We also noticed the precipitate guillotine debate, organized very hurriedly by the Committee on Budgets, yesterday afternoon.
We also noticed the astonishing refusal by the two main parties in the European Parliament to express their views, this morning, on the Samland report.
Why so much haste?
Why so many anomalies? Out of fear that some of the negotiators might have repented at the last minute, once they became more aware of the challenges at stake, just as they were negotiating some vital articles (including that on which the inter-institutional agreement submitted for our approval relies) of a Treaty adopted at the Amsterdam Summit, despite the reputation of that text?
This inter-institutional agreement presents, may I remind you, like its predecessors, all the features of a 'legal monster' .
Not only the conditions in which these agreements must be concluded are not made explicit, but also these agreements, which are not ratified by national parliaments, interpret nonetheless those treaties submitted for ratification.
Strange legal objects, then, these inter-institutional agreements, by means of which the European institutions grant themselves the right to interpret the treaties!
Moreover, the European Parliament has just issued its opinion on an agreement which is utterly groundless in legal terms since it mentions an Article J18 which is not even completed - and which obviously has yet to be ratified!
In terms of the essence, there is a lot to be said about the process of emasculating an inter-governmental policy whose inter-governmentality has just been officially confirmed at the Amsterdam Summit by means of the Communitarization of its financing.
This is a genuine transfer of powers, de facto, since classifying financing of the CFSP as non-compulsory expenditure gives the European Parliament the last word and therefore in practice withdraws from the executives the genuine control over the European Union's CFSP.
This procedure is neither democratic, nor transparent, no realistic, since it is unheard of for parliamentary assemblies to decide foreign policies.
The European Parliament has been able to keep its right of amendment on foreign policy expenditure only by promising to be good and obedient from now on.
That is what this Interinstitutional Agreement says in effect, and it just goes to show that democracy in Europe is still languishing in the 19th century.
The President of the European Parliament was forced, with a knife at his throat, to go cap in hand to the governments of the Member States.
A number of them thought that Parliament was causing too many problems over the CFSP budget, and wanted the Amsterdam Treaty to eliminate the only possibility we have to exercise democratic control over the CFSP.
The humiliation that Parliament is having to face in order to keep its right of amendment could at least have been spelt out in the explanatory statement of the Samland report which has been rushed through the Committee on Budgets and the plenary this week.
But no, this extremely brief statement on the Interinstitutional Agreement glosses over how badly the European Parliament has fared in this: we can now only reduce foreign policy expenditure with the Council's agreement, and we cannot put anything in the reserve.
What budget rights do we have left?
In his attempts to salvage at least some degree of democratic control, the President of Parliament forgot that we still need to show some self-respect.
The Council is obviously not going to volunteer respect for normal democratic procedures, we shall have to fight for it.
Instead of just expressing our outrage later when we came face to face with the Amsterdam Treaty, we should simply not have put up with this blackmail from the Treaty negotiators in the first place.
Finally, it remains to be seen whether the Council fulfils its obligation to provide information, as it is required to do under this Interinstitutional Agreement.
If not, then I hope that Parliament will show more courage than it has today, and will denounce the Agreement and start exercising its budgetary rights to the full once again.
Rothley report (A4-0222/97)
Madam President, because the points in the Rothley report that were important for agriculture all failed to secure a majority, I should like the Minutes to show that I intended to abstain in the final vote, including the modified vote on the report.
Unfortunately I pressed the plus key by mistake.
Madam President, I would simply like to say that I voted against this Commission document today, and I tried to amend it as much as I possibly could to ensure that it was acceptable to me.
I am disappointed with the outcome.
I believe that Parliament has allowed itself to be browbeaten by the big pharmaceutical companies and by the Commission, and that we have taken a massive step backwards.
Today we have effectively given the big companies a licence to print money.
Even as amended - remember that Parliament had to reject up to one-third of the original text in order to get it through - I believe that we have taken a massive step backwards, and I suspect that at later stages in the legislative process we are going to come unstuck, and we are going to rue the day when we voted for this Commission document.
Madam President, despite grave misgivings which I share with Mrs Schierhuber and Mrs Seillier, I voted in favour of the Rothley report because it contains important amendments regarding the protection of human life and, especially, human embryos.
I refer in particular to Amendments Nos 55 ba and 55 bb.
I would however like to give a very clear warning to the Council not to remove these key elements of the compromise, because many of us would then no longer feel able to vote in favour of this Directive, because these matters are really important.
Incidentally, we can congratulate ourselves on having rejected the wretched first draft, more than a year ago, and on having refused to be intimidated by the threat 'if you reject it your rights will be reduced' .
We have more rights today than we have ever had.
At that time, an attempt was made to put pressure on us with the argument 'if you reject it, there won't be a new draft in a hurry' .
Well, today we have already had the new draft.
So perhaps we can be spared this phoney pressure in the future!
I call upon the Council not to remove the human life amendments from this compromise.
After serious consideration we have decided to vote against the directive while certain proposals of fundamental importance do not have the support of the majority.
We think that there is a need for a clearer written text which emphasises the fact that patents on human genes are not acceptable under any circumstances.
We also oppose all methods which involve the use of human embryos.
The Alleanza Nazionale is in favour of the directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
We in fact believe that it is now necessary to publish patents on biotechnological inventions without delay so that the public is able to monitor and control the continuing development of biotechnology.
We believe that not only does the protection of inventions by patenting act as a check on research, it also makes it possible to make plain the results of research and avoid scientific monopolies.
We would stress that the proposal for a directive is designed to eliminate the current legal uncertainty and prevent the risk of fragmentation resulting from the possibility of the national courts taking different decisions on issues of fundamental importance, on the basis of differing national legislation.
The 1973 European Patent Convention is not in fact able to dispel the legal uncertainty in the national legislation on patents and contains no clause that legally compels the Member States to harmonize the provisions of national law on patents.
This directive will bring into line the Convention and patent law in the biotechnology sector for 15 of the 18 signatory States.
We also agree with the Commission's ethics committee when it says that the human body and elements thereof, as variously constituted and developed, do not constitute an invention able to be patented, as well as its further statement that, where inventions derived from the knowledge of a human gene are concerned, a patent may be issued only where the identification of the function of that gene offers new opportunities and the proposed use of the patent is sufficiently specific and clear.
We also consider it vital that an ethical committee should be set up to assess all aspects relating to biotechnology and its use, and that it is at the same time necessary that, every five years as of the entry into force of the directive, scheduled for 1 January 1999, the Commission should publish a report illustrating all of the problems encountered in the implementation of the directive in relation to the international agreements on the protection of human rights to which the Member States have acceded.
I will vote for the biotechnology patent directive.
This is an extremely complex and important issue.
Patent law is very technical and difficult, and issues such as this have far-reaching ramifications.
I am satisfied that the benefits for people, jobs and research are enormous.
For Ireland, which has targeted biotechnology as an industry with enormous potential, it is particularly important.
In Ireland we have a very high incidence of inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis and spina bifida.
We also have a high incidence of other conditions such as diabetes where advances in insulin production, as a direct result of biotechnological research, have been of enormous benefit.
What we are voting on here today is a set of rules to give the industry a chance to develop.
Similar rules already exist in the US and Japan and no one is suggesting that these countries have sunk into a moral decline or are ethically blind as a result of their existence.
There are fears and we must respond to them, but there are also great hopes riding on new developments.
I have been contacted by many groups of patients supporting this directive.
For many, their only hope both for themselves and for future generations lies in research and development of these new technologies.
On the previous occasion when this Parliament rejected the original proposals before us, we had ethical concerns as regards patenting parts of the human body and the practical concern that farmers might be prevented from using seed produced on their own farms.
Our concerns have, I believe, been fully met in the draft legislation now before us.
These rules are not written in stone, they are always open to amendments and should there be any evidence of misuse or danger, we will of course respond, and respond quickly, to address any problems arising.
Today we are discussing a vital subject which has come before our Assembly on several occasions without reaching a conclusion: should we, at European level, harmonize legal protection for biotechnological inventions, i.e. inventions acting on genes of a vegetable, animal or human being?
Having studied - very carefully - the European Parliament's Rothley report and the Mattei report of the French Parliament on this subject, I must confess that I have a deep impression of discomfort, stemming from the confused nature of the proposed directive: there is an attempt to resolve technical problems - i.e. whether certain inventions should be patented - without having first of all clearly established the fundamental ethical principles.
There is also an attempt to regulate in a single directive totally different questions, some linked to medicine and the others to agriculture.
The first point: the proposal for a directive, in its arrangements, contains nothing on the fundamental principles we wish to respect: the obligation to protect the human being in its dignity and identity; guarantees for the respect of human beings' genetic integrity; the refusal to grant any patrimonial right liable to refer to the human body, its elements or its products; the free donation of elements of human bodies and its voluntary nature.
If these principles are not included in the directive, it is because it is limited to economic reforms linked to completion of the single market; in this framework, it is aimed at harmonizing the legal aspects of patent law but not to establish moral principles for which the European Union's institutions have no powers.
On this score, we have referred to national legislation such as the French Act of 29 July 1994 establishing proper principles, including that of the 'nonpatrimoniality' of the human body.
But not all European countries adopt exactly the same approach.
Here we are attaining the limits of a purely technical harmonization.
The second point is even more serious in my view: the text which we have been presented with cheerfully mixes medical and agricultural issues, so that many members of the European Parliament have the feeling that they are being forced into things.
The questions under consideration are quite different: on one hand, in the medical area, it is a question of finding treatments to fight serious diseases, which at present are incurable, by acting on patients' genes but excluding the 'germinal genome therapy' , i.e. action that can alter the genetic heritage of descendance; on the other hand, in the agricultural field, there is a question of modifying the genes of fauna or flora in order to adapt them to imperatives of profitability in the manufacture of foodstuffs.
In the first case, the target population seems to be strictly limited; their needs are enormous; any negative consequences will be limited to the subject being treated.
In the second case, the population being targeted is very large - all consumers - so that the dissemination of any negative consequences runs the risk of not being dominated.
Authorizing the patentability of biotechnological inventions in one case or the other will not, therefore, by any means have the same effects; on one hand, we are trying to cure the sick and, on the other, on the contrary, we are opening the door to a dissemination on the market of genetically altered organisms, the final impact of which on the population as a whole is very poorly evaluated.
In the former case, that of medicine, I think that it might be useful to head cautiously towards the patentability of biotechnological inventions, provided that fundamental ethical principles are respected.
The Commission proposal does head in the right direction in this respect, specifying that the human body and its elements, in their natural state, cannot be patented.
The European Parliament has rightly achieved slightly more progress on this, by specifying that elements of the human body include the total or partial sequence of a gene.
I regret that we have not gone even further, as the Europe of Nations Group proposes, by also declaring other interventions on the genome non-patentable.
In the second case, that of agriculture, the most serious problems are not so much of an ethical order as that of public health.
We do not see how we could today authorize the patentability of genetically altered maize, for example, whereas the European Parliament itself recently demanded that this product be banned from growing, import or marketing.
We are told that the two acts are legally distinct and that in theory it is quite possible to contemplate patenting a product whose manufacture is banned.
But those are sophisms.
Politically the two are linked even if they are not legally linked.
By refusing foodstuffs manufactured by means of genetically altered plants or animals we are also refusing patents to protect those productions.
Consequently, we reject this proposal for a directive which seeks to win our votes out of confusion.
We want two different texts to be put before the European Parliament with separate votes on the biotechnological inventions, one concerning the medical field and the other concerning agriculture.
I recognize that the vote on the directive for the legal protection of biotechnological inventions has been one of the most important that this Parliament has taken in many years.
The reason I voted in favour of the Rothley report was that after nearly a decade of drift on this important issue, I believed, along with the majority in this Parliament, that a stable legal framework for the patenting of biotechnological inventions is now necessary.
In economic terms a legal base for dealing with the process of patenting will improve investment and incentive in research.
It will assist patients and small research companies as well as the larger enterprises and will be beneficial to jobs in the sector.
In ethical terms, which is the overriding issue in our deliberations, I have strongly backed the amendment by Ian White which establishes an ethics committee before the establishment of the legal base.
I have also backed amendments calling for stronger animal welfare protection.
We have voted against Mr Rothley's report as it represents a fundamental position which we do not share.
For us human health and biological diversity is the central issue.
This issue is not one of technological or industrial invention.
The discovery of the function of a gene should be just that, a fantastic discovery which should be available to serve the interests of the global public and not private economic interests.
I voted for the Rothley report because I think that biotechnology is a science of the future with enormous potential for medicine, food and the environment and Europe must give this science a legal framework in terms of invention patents.
The issue of patents currently operates nationally.
Especially in the USA, where biotechnology is developing at break-neck speed.
Give this fact, the Rothley report is a pioneering initiative, making amendments to the directive that cover most of the moral and legal concerns of ordinary people.
We should not underestimate the problems of biotechnology for the future of mankind.
We should not underestimate the fears and emotions of those committed to defending our societies and our values against profit at any price and science without conscience.
We therefore had to strike a balance between rules to protect the economic exploitation of biotechnological inventions and ethical concerns that have rightly arisen.
This balance has been struck by this committee report, even if there could have been more precision over certain points.
But that could be the subject of the follow-up given by the European Parliament and the Commission.
Given the process of European integration and, particularly, within the context of the increasingly technology-based global society in which we move, the need for a Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions is obvious.
It is needed, firstly, to prevent legal fragmentation in a sphere as complex as this and in which Member States' patent law does not offer a precise response.
Secondly, it is needed because the legal security offered by a Directive will genuinely promote research, thereby guaranteeing that the European Union does not lose current impetus in this field of science and will ensure that we play a full part in the field in the XXI century.
Yet, however important it might be to make progress in the field of biotechnological inventions, it is more important still to ensure that such inventions at no time and in no way seriously affect the dignity and integrity of human beings at any stage of their constitution or development.
It should therefore not be possible to patent any human body-part. Most particularly, the cloning of humans, modification of their germinal genetic identity and the use of human embryos should not be patentable.
In addition to offering the necessary legal security for the European Union to take up its position in the field of biotechnology, one which corresponds to it on account of its political and policy decisions, the Rothley report on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions guarantees that such research will be done with full respect for the supreme dignity of human beings, which constitutes more than sufficient grounds for voting in its favour.
I will be voting for the amended Rothley report on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
It has not been an easy decision.
I have received more lobbying over this report than over any other in my thirteen years in the European Parliament: from industry and trade unions, patient groups, church groups and environmental organizations.
It is a matter that has profound employment and ethical implications, subjects not easy to balance.
When we discussed this matter two years ago I did not support the proposals - the balance was wrong.
Now we have seen a number of significant amendments with support for an oversight ethics committee, and modifications to prevent the patenting of life.
I did support Amendment No 72 by Mrs Gebhardt and others, stating that 'This directive is without prejudice to the exclusion of plant and animal varieties from patentability.'
I was disappointed it failed to get a majority.
I intend to continue to monitor progress on this issue.
My support, when it returns to Parliament next year, will be dependent on these positive amendments being adopted by Council and a balance maintained.
The result of the vote on the Gene Patent Directive is a defeat for democracy, a disgrace to the European Parliament and a huge victory for the lobbyists from the biotechnological industry.
The Patent Directive is not only a threat to human dignity, the protection of animals, biological diversity and farming economies in developing countries but also to freedom of research and, as a result, to the chances of very sick people being helped by new drugs and methods of treatment.
It is certainly not their concern for the sick that has made the industrial giants invest huge amounts of money to persuade undecided Members of Parliament to change their mind but, as is openly acknowledged in a letter from the European Biotechnological industry's professional body EuropaBio, the concern to 'produce a supportive environment for a competitive biotechnological industry in Europe.'
Or, as it says in a letter from MSF, another lobby organisation in favour of patenting: The aim of the Patent Directive is to promote 'the continued growth of the biotechnological industry' .
There is no mention of the care of seriously ill patients!
The European Alliance of Genetic Support Groups maintains that unless human cells, animals and plants can be patented, big companies will keep their research results secret which would block the development of new drugs.
This reveals that this so called patients' organisation has completely swallowed the industrial giants' view of the development of knowledge which is wholly commercial and hostile to research.
Since time immemorial, it has been accepted within the scientific community that research results have been freely available for all researchers through publication at conferences and in scientific journals.
The Patent Directive will allow certain companies to gain a monopoly not only on a saleable biotechnological invention, but also on the discovery and knowledge of genetic cells and the relationships between them, including human cells, animals and plants.
It is both alarming and revealing that Parliament did not even approve the amendment proposal which intended to introduce the exemption known as the doctor's exemption, which is already present in Article 52.4 of the European Patent Convention and which establishes that 'methods of treatment for human or animal bodies via surgery or therapy and diagnostic methods' are exempt from patenting.
The aim of the directive is not to improve existing patent regulations, but to introduce totally new principles for patenting which, deep down, have only one aim which is to serve the profit interests of the EU based biotechnological industry.
Everyone else will be the losers - not least very sick people who will see their hopes of a cure crushed when the free development of new experience and methods are suffocated by the monopoly on knowledge and the demand for licence fees which will come in the wake of the patent directive.
On 1 March 1995, after difficult and serious negotiations, we rejected a Directive on the patenting of biotechnological inventions.
By a clear majority!
Today, the European Parliament has adopted a resolution which is precisely what we were trying to prevent at that time: a resolution whereby discovered parts of the human body can be redefined as inventions.
In other words, that parts of the human body can be patented.
The results of this may be that research is obstructed, that monopoly situations in the pharmaceutical industry become more acute and that costs within the health service are increased by the obstruction of competition.
I cannot share in this political decision, and therefore I had to vote against it.
I welcome the almost unanimous support in this Parliament for the Directive on the patenting of biotechnological inventions.
Our ethical and other considerations have been met in full by the Commission proposals and strengthened by amendments, acceptable to the vast majority of Members, tabled by my Group - the EPP Group.
I particularly welcome the provisions made in respect of 'farmers' privilege' which will clearly allow farmers to freely use seed produced on their own farms.
On the previous occasion when this Parliament rejected the original proposals before us we had ethical concerns as regards patenting parts of the human body and the practical concern that farmers might be prevented from using seed produced on their own farms.
Our concerns have, I believe, been fully met in the draft legislation now before us.
Now is the time to legislate in this important area vital to European, including Irish, research and economic development.
We owe it to patients suffering from inherited diseases to try to find solutions to their problems and the problems of their descendants.
I know there are lobby groups and others who are genuinely concerned that the application of this Directive will not be able to control and monitor research and industry in this area.
I believe these fears unfounded, especially as a special committee is to be set up to assess all ethical questions.
Finally, we can return to this question and change the rules if, for any reason, this proves necessary.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats decided to vote for the proposal on first reading.
We think it important that clear rules be drawn up on a EU-wide basis governing what can and what cannot be patented and that definitions be given of what constitutes an invention and what constitutes a discovery that cannot be patented.
Currently patents are awarded for biotechnology against entirely traditional criteria, or they are also awarded in the USA, but biotechnology raises ethical questions that we want included in the EU rules.
An EU without a special basis for the patenting of biotechnological inventions is not an EU without biotechnology or without patents!
We therefore support the amendment calling for the setting up of an ethical committee on an EU basis.
That may strengthen the ethical basis for the proposed directive which has a better starting point than that we rejected two years ago, since the original proposal was a more traditional patent proposal without reference to sensitive aspects.
Patenting means that inventions are published, and the inherent protection of the inventor's economic interests may increase the probability that biotechnology is used for research that can help to conquer serious diseases.
The directive allows farmers to sow their own crops without having to pay a licence fee to the patent-holder.
The so-called 'farmers' privilege' is of crucial importance to farmers in developing countries.
It is also important that the directive refer to biodiversity, since this will help to prevent the innovations, knowledge and practice of indigenous peoples from being expropriated.
We would have liked the Directive to make it absolutely clear that it is not possible to take out a patent on human body cells and that it is not possible to patent animals.
We have therefore supported the amendments that seek to reword the Directive on those lines but otherwise note that, with the wording of the Directive as it stands, it is not possible to take out a patent on life.
. (DA) The Danish People's Movement against Membership of the European Union cannot vote for the report, since it is a blatant attempt by the EU to edge its way in between national legislation and international agreements and conventions.
That will not solve the problems of Europe as a whole with the patenting of biotechnology, because it merely introduces another actor into the process, which cannot be in anyone's interest.
Harmonization should also not be an option, since experience clearly shows that it will not be possible to take account of national differences, traditions and attitudes.
Instead of creating EU legislation, the process of patent legislation should be strengthened through existing institutions, as laid down for example in the European patent convention.
I have voted for the Rothley report on patents for biological inventions.
It has, however, been necessary to consider the various options open to Parliament, and I have supported several amendments on the basis that, during first reading, we should include safeguards which could then be included in the second reading.
I have voted for the report because it is necessary to put in place a clear legal framework for the protection of intellectual property rights in the biotechnology field at European level.
However, I have also supported a number of important amendments which address the concerns raised by the medical profession, animal welfare groups, environmentalists and developing countries.
So, the European Parliament has demonstrated once and for all that it is lobby groups which determine the outcome of important decisions.
Industry and the patients' lobby have triumphed!
For the benefit of short term gain we have agreed to take both evolution and future research out of the equation.
A Parliament which does industry's bidding will soon lose credibility and the trust of the people.
When that same Parliament says no to a ban on the patenting of 'all use of genetic knowledge leading to the production of weapons intended for use on the anatomical, physiological or psychological system of individuals or specific population groups' (amendment proposal 93, the Green Group), then one becomes really afraid for the world and the future which the peoples of the EU will face - if the European Parliament is allowed to have their way.
I have voted against the report for the following reasons.
The report proposes that patents may be granted for human genes which have been isolated and for which there is potential industrial use.
As far as animal or plant genes are concerned there is not even this vague connection with possible use.
This means that it will be possible to protect genes, or to put in another way, life itself, with a patent without even knowing if there is potential industrial use.
This may block or monopolise the development of new brands and products and increase the strength of the large multi-national companies at the expense of small companies, the environment and consumers.
Nor is there any motivation for introducing a patent on life and its components.
The existing patent laws are adequate.
Drugs are already covered by a satisfactory system through the product patent and agricultural products are covered by the plant breeding laws.
Patents on human cells, genes, organs and body parts as well as on plant types and breeds of animal must be banned.
The items which it is proposed will be protected by patent in the report are not even inventions but discoveries concerning human life which has existed for thousands of years. This is not something which should be patentable.
The fact that patents and monopolies are a prerequisite for continued research in the field of drugs, etc. does not hold as an argument either.
The current protection regulations are perfectly adequate.
I wish to put on record my decision to vote in favour of the Rothley report on the legal protection of biotechnology inventions.
It has taken nine years for the EU to bring forward this directive and it would be foolish, at this stage, to reject it.
The biotechnology industry is generating substantial added value in economic terms and is providing innovative breakthrough therapies for diseases that were untreatable up to now.
In the UK, we have developed a clear lead in industrial biotechnology with biotechnology SMEs employing more than 10, 000 people.
But the EU is lagging behind and harmonization of patenting laws will help Europe build a cutting edge.
Parliament has never been lobbied so remorselessly as it has been over months and years on this directive, and from all interested parties: the medical profession and societies, patient groups, environmental organizations, and animal welfare organizations.
Patenting of life is not a black-and-white issue.
There are many grey areas.
There is also, in my view, a very grave concern which has been expressed to me by the National Hereditary Breast Cancer Helpline, which is based in my constituency.
The patenting of the breast cancer gene BRAC1 has attracted controversy.
The US company which patented it said that it would charge only for tests for the gene, and not for research.
It is my view that the need for an EU patenting framework should not result in high treatment costs, nor in channelling research away from unprofitable areas which have a public benefit.
For that reason, I have voted for amendments in the first reading for safeguards which can be further considered in the second reading.
These concerns related to affordable medical research and treatment, animal welfare and the concerns for developing countries.
I am in favour of the setting-up of a bio-ethics committee to look at some of the grey areas while, at the same time, establishing through my positive vote for the directive, a clear framework for intellectual property rights in the biotechnology field.
I will continue to monitor the progress on some of the more controversial areas.
Our GUE/NGL Group is not satisfied with the contents of the Rothley report because the modifications made to the original report were very minor, and therefore the most worrying aspects which led a majority of Members in this House to reject it are still there.
The reasons for our concern derive firstly from ethical considerations regarding the significance given to human dignity.
Despite the ambiguous wording, we feel that there is still potential for an impact on the embryo line and also a possibility of the cloning of human beings and the patenting of aspects or elements of human life, these being passed off as belonging to the category of gene therapy or the like.
There are other reasons, also, connected with economic - specifically commercial - areas, together with ethical aspects.
The possibility of patenting the constituent natural elements of cooking practice, stock breeding, agriculture, therapy or the like seems to us a risky business, since, in addition to depriving peoples, societies or cultures of a customary right, it subjects them to subsequent unfair and intolerable - I might say immoral - economic demands.
Lastly, mention should be made of global biological considerations, given that there is a potential risk to the genetic biodiversity which is so essential for life on earth.
Other considerations relate to the actual activity of research into and discovery of the way in which biological processes operate and the fact that these might be patentable.
Biotechnology patenting raises a number of questions.
The central question is whether it is ethical.
Unlike many other issues with an ethical dimension where the questions are either black or white, the issue of biotechnology has a large grey area.
It is not easy to say to sufferers of genetic diseases, many of whom perceive benefit to be derived from the proposed patenting, that their hope is based in bad ethics.
It is far easier to say such things to multinationals.
However, it must be recognized that many small and medium-sized businesses as well as charitable institutions have invested heavily in scientific research with the aim of assisting in the battle against genetic diseases.
It is therefore regrettable that the controversy over patenting has narrowed the argument to the point where it is suggested that rejection of the patenting proposals will undermine such research in the future.
A laudable effort has clearly been made to improve on the original proposals.
Nevertheless, I believe biotechnology patenting to be unethical, particularly where there might be the potential for an undesirable impact on human life itself.
Genes exist, they belong to no-one, except perhaps all of us.
Political, economic and environmental questions should be addressed in that context.
When we discuss the principle of patenting biotechnologies, we are given plenty of examples to show us the interest of doing so.
These examples are mostly drawn from the human health sector (insulin production, gene therapy, etc).
In economic terms, it is important to recall that forecasts for the biotechnological industry show that most biotechnologies will involve the agricultural and agri-food sectors.
Two years ago, our Group, along with a slim majority of members of the European Parliament, opposed the Commission's first proposal for a directive on patenting biotechnological inventions.
We know the consequences for this promising sector.
We have now analyzed the improvements in the new Commission proposal with satisfaction.
The Rothley report, as voted for in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, means that the veil can be lifted from some of our questions.
Concerning agriculture in particular, we must not only protect but also develop the principle of the 'farmer's privilege' .
I should point out that it is not a real privilege but a legitimate and ancestral right enabling farmers to use some of their crops for seeding purposes.
This right must be extended to the whole animal production sector and not only cattle, as the Commission proposed.
Why should this be applied only to beef producers and not to poultry farmers? Our group will therefore support the amendments tabled by the Legal Affairs Committee and other colleagues to strengthen that right.
Our Group on the whole can only support scientific progress enabling human health to be improved.
But certain conditions are necessary so as not to privatize the world heritage that is genetic wealth.
Science must be helped to develop for everyone's good. we shall therefore refuse to vote for nay principle of patenting a given human gene and, of course any part of the human body.
Our group can only support the creation of an ethics committee, a genuine committee of wise men, to be independent of any economic or political pressures.
In the recent past, with the mad cow crisis, we have seen how difficult but necessary it is to demand that the principle of independence be applied.
We were unable to support Amendment No 74 because it is worded in such a way as to exclude patent protection for, among other things, human proteins.
Sadly, Mr Rothley's report, today approved by the House, on the patentability of biotechnological products, including plants, animals and human genes, corresponds to what the House rejected a little more than two years ago.
The truth about this vote is that Europe is approving a provision on patenting in the field of biotechnology because the United States and Japan have similar legislation.
Today's decision is not only demeaning, forcing us into decisions already taken in other countries, it also involves huge risks for biodiversity, for environmental balances, for the freedom of medical research and the protection of the sick, and it heralds events unacceptable to human integrity such as, for example, exchanges of genes, the formation of cellular hybrids made up of man and animals and the creation of genetic weapons.
This is a black day for Europe's environmentalists and for all of those sections of contemporary society that are concerned about the integrity and sanctity of nature.
. (DA) For far too long Europe has been powerless to act as regards legislation to regulate the production of medicines based on biotechnological inventions.
There is a pressing need for provisions in an EU context that will increase motivation to do research on genetically determined diseases.
The report of the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee covers the necessary powers. It represents significant progress for the European pharmaceutical industry.
Intensive research and the associated production of biotechnological preparations has for too long been concentrated on the United States and Japan, to the detriment of European patients and the European industry, which has had difficulty in developing a commercial sector in this field.
It has also damaged employment in Europe in this knowledge-intensive area.
It is not of course possible to take out a patent on life or on parts of the human body, but it is possible by way of patent legislation to offer the pharmaceutical industry protection which makes it economically acceptable to tackle research challenges whose outcome cannot be predicted.
There are a number of very rare diseases of which an unfortunate common feature is that they are often fatal.
Because of inadequate legislation, the EU has for too long been prevented from establishing the necessary protection of biotechnological inventions.
The necessary ethical factors have now been taken into account; the important thing now is for the EU to show vigour and resolution and do whatever it can to catch up on lost opportunities.
The many patients suffering from diseases attributable to genetic defects have waited for long enough.
Once again the 'all-round men' of the European Parliament are facing a very important problem for the future of the European Community and the well-being of its people and animals.
I am not a scientist but am obliged to vote for or against a directive that, as the debate has shown, is highly controversial.
Is it over the legality or the ethics, that there is disagreement? The protection of biotechnological inventions is primarily a technical issue, with legal implications, even if yesterday's passionate debate mostly focused on the ethical and moral side.
Like many of us, I think that we should prevent any wrongful uses or deviations that might call into question the ethnical and social foundations of our society but we cannot stop the progress of research.
So what is the conclusion? That the major differences in terms of regulation are leading many European research companies to relocate some of their R&D activities in the USA, Japan and other countries, mainly to enjoy a more favourable scientific, economic and regulatory environment.
We must acknowledge that research developments in biotechnology are taking place faster and faster aborad without our being able to take direct action, in a field where biotechnological progress should be used to the benefit of present and future generations.
We also know that for Europeans, the respect of humans as individuals is a priority, that we must guarantee human dignity and, why not, animal dignity too, by avoiding however possible any attacks on the dignity of living beings by means of a failure to control biotechnological inventions.
We must therefore regulate and that is why I shall be voting in favour of the Rothley report.
It is a compromise report and has been discussed for many years. That should satisfy most people.
I followed Mr Rothley's efforts in the Committee on legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and I would like to congratulate him on the work he has submitted to us.
It is honourable work for a parliamentarian to have produced.
Two years ago, the European Parliament rejected a Commission proposal on patenting biotechnological inventions.
The new proposal before us now show that we were right to reject the previous one, because a certain number of improvements have been made.
However, as the large number of tabled amendments shows, a good deal of uncertainty remained.
In terms of vegetal matter, we favour the use of biotechnology to genetically improve seeds but we oppose removal or reduction of the 'farmer's privilege' .
World farming should not be dependent on a few multinational seed producers.
As far as application of biotechnology in the human health field is concerned, we are in favour in principle, but of course we can only oppose, for ethnical reasons, issuing patents for a given human gene.
The genetic wealth of mankind's heritage cannot be privatized by any means.
We perfectly understand the usefulness of the principle of patenting, enabling companies to expect a return on their investment in terms of research.
But while we can accept that principle, we must also have sufficient guarantees.
In no case can patenting enable companies to market systematically genetically modified products.
The main amendments designed to define serious guarantees were not adopted and the text emerging from all the votes in plenary session is an incoherent one. That is why we were unable to vote for it.
I voted against the Rothley report with some reluctance as I accept the need for a European legal framework for patents - all patents - and respect the extremely hard work put into the report by Mr Rothley and others.
However, I believe that it was important, on this first reading, for Parliament to signal more clearly its ethical and political concerns about the potential consequences of a large-scale expansion of biotechnology.
In particular, I am concerned that in agriculture and expansion of biotechnology will simply result in a new stage of the sort of industrial farming that has already proved so harmful to our environment and our food.
We need to take more care to preserve the planet's biological diversity and thus its food security.
The 'enclosure of knowledge' by corporations in the developing world will increase global inequality and may result in the privatisation of the developing world's genetic resources.
If and when the directive is finally passed, Parliament must closely scrutinize the behaviour of the EU's representation in the WTO and ensure that the developing world is not exploited and that the Convention on Biological Diversity is respected.
The future lies in biological farming, not biotechnology.
To explain our vote against the Rothley report and the related Commission proposal for a directive, I would like to say the following:
The potential of modern biotechnology surpasses every scientific precedent and promises numerous possibilities for the prevention and treatment of disease, and for the solution of agricultural, environmental and other problems.
It is true that to suppress what the human mind has thought of, is dangerous.
Our aim is to support science, new discoveries and new technologies.
However, there can be no compromise with our demand that any developments must not go against nature and life, but be compatible with, respect, and protect them.
The whitewashing of dangers does not mean that they are non-existent, much less that they have been averted.
We fear that unthinking and uncontrolled intervention in complex systems that nature took hundreds of millions of year to perfect, and interference with the genetic codes potentially of all living organisms, including man, in the name of scientific progress and the fight against disease, may create huge risks of disturbing, degrading or upsetting the ecosystem, with unforeseeable consequences for life on our planet.
The transformation of mankind from a single and undivided entity into partially disparate sub-species created by multinational companies, which reproduce and can be transmuted for any use, and which are indeed covered by patents, is an abuse and degradation of the human race and an essential negation of science itself and of human ingenuity.
There is a risk that genetically mutated organisms will constitute the pollution of the future, a pollution that is irreversible, with the power to reproduce, mutate, multiply, and compete with natural species which will not have the time or ability to develop defence mechanisms.
Nobody can foresee and provide guarantees about the numbers and types of diseases that might arise from genetic interventions and from the unforeseen results of laboratory teratogenesis.
The consequences cannot be estimated and will not be immediately apparent, but will emerge only from their outcomes which, when they become perceptible, may prove to be destructive and irreversible.
It worries us in particular that these procedures for safeguarding and developing biotechnological discoveries are being carried out in the name of competition and to ensure the free operation of the internal market.
For us, it is unthinkable and unacceptable to interfere with the chain of life for the sake of increasing the economic activity of major multinational enterprises and to create a market and competitive investment, while allowing dangerous and in this context criminal margins of divergence from control mechanisms, safety procedures and guarantees of respect for ethical imperatives, with the aim of creating a new and superior neogenetic order.
We are facing an enormous challenge to the future of life itself and the dangers inherent in that leave no room for omissions, negligence and compromise.
All the more, it is unacceptable to leave the process in the hands of multinationals, because the interests they represent are not the best guarantee of respect for the integrity of human life.
Of that, we have had numerous and sombre examples already.
We therefore call for a radical review of the directive, with the cooperation of pan-European interdisciplinary scientific bodies which, after careful, well informed and thorough study, will estimate the limits and appropriateness of biotechnological applications, once they have been able to obtain and provide clear information about the risks and benefits of such endeavours and to define clear and strict regulations, fields of application and the most stringent possible safety conditions.
Under present conditions, biotechnological inventions and their application resemble the dropping of a new and perhaps incalculably more dangerous atomic bomb, and it will then be immaterial who holds the 'patent' for the responsibility and consequences of that.
First and foremost, it must be confirmed that this proposal concerning the legal protection of biotechnological inventions signifies Europe's clear-cut commitment to scientific progress and that it preserves the legal security and dignity of human beings.
It is now almost 10 years since the publication of the Commission's first proposal.
At that time, Parliament vigorously protested, regarding the ethical dimension as having been ignored in the text.
Technical aspects were clearly favoured over ethical aspects in that initial proposal, and that was why Parliament decided, at the time, to reject the Commission's proposal.
Today we have a new Commission text which, in general terms, draws together our earlier concerns.
These ethical aspects have been given greater weight and further examination in the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Indeed, the report by that Committee assures us that the ethical dimension is now an integral part of the text.
The text therefore includes a ban on the cloning of human beings and calls upon the Executive Committee to set up a Committee on Ethics to address biotechnological matters.
No one will be able to say that this Directive has not been sufficiently discussed in the European Parliament.
We have to pay tribute to Professor Monti who, as responsible Commissioner, has done excellent work and has understood the reasoning and concerns of this House, accepting over fifty amendments.
This is an example of fruitful work between the Commission and Parliament.
However, for certain political groups, the question is clearly not one of arriving at a consensus and producing a reasonable text, but one of systematically boycotting the Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
Their strategy is clear: facile, emotive arguments which the general public accepts without any information as to the correct legal basis.
Patent law is not a new concept either in Europe or worldwide.
It forms part of the law of competence and has been implemented for many years.
We should not be misled: what we are dealing with here is harmonization of the laws of the different Member States.
Emphasis should be given to the importance of this sector to the future of medicinal products.
Medicinal products which originate from biotechnology are now a reality.
Of the 50 new medicinal products which come onto the market annually, between 10 and 15 are the fruits of biotechnological research.
Diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's, diabetes and cystic fibrosis, amongst others, are already being treated with such products.
And we should not forget the hepatitis B and C vaccines which, thanks to biotechnology, have eliminated former potential risks of viral contamination.
I could go on. We should all acknowledge that there are products which have been used in treatment and which, although they have not actually cured certain diseases, have indeed improved the quality of life of patients.
The European biotechnology industry is a long way behind the sector in the US and Japan.
We, as European parliamentarians, should help Europe develop stable and consensus-based legislation and it is my belief that, after all these years of discussing the topic, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has produced a balanced text which takes into account not only the future development of the biotechnology industry in Europe but also the ethical dimension deriving from it.
A directive which does not offer a certain legislative framework in line with current international agreements will lead the European biotechnology industry to a dead end in development terms.
What is worse, we will become mere consumers of American and Japanese products.
Europe cannot fall behind in a sector which is in the full throes of development and which the Commission has acknowledged, in various texts, as being the major sector of the future.
I shall not be voting for the Rothley report, because it does not examine in sufficient detail and fails to take adequately into account the fundamental principles which apply to the human body.
My premise is that the human body is not patentable at any stage of its formation or development, and nor are any elements or products of it, or the knowledge of its genetic structure.
Absolute priority is being given to the opportunities for scientific research, whereas the social consequences are not adequately assessed.
This is not a true reflection of society's own priorities.
Patent law will also allow pharmaceutical concerns to obtain monopolies, yet human life must never be subject to any kind of monopoly.
The fact is that patent law gives absolute privileges to the firm which makes the highest bid, without taking proper account of the social consequences of this.
I voted against the Rothley report, but not because I am against a statutory regulation on the patenting of biotechnological inventions.
I voted against because this report, like the Commission communication, has simply disregarded Parliament's very serious ethical misgivings which resulted in its rejection on 1 March 1995.
In order to comply with the interests of the gene industry, the Directive turns basic principles of patent law upside down.
The discovery of individual genes is to be reinterpreted as a patentable invention, so that licences can be granted for their economic exploitation and economic monopolies can be set up to cash in on them.
The supporters of this patent law are, with this Directive, dismantling fundamental ethical limitations to the human profit motive and are granting individual economic interests virtually totalitarian claim on the fundamental elements of all life.
Contrary to the assertions of the industry, this Directive will also impose massive limitations on freedom of research.
According to this legislation, all that would remain free from the licence requirement would be the testing of the invention, but not scientific experiments based on the patented results.
This restriction on scientific freedom has been rejected by the German Medical Association and by the Committee of Inquiry of the Austrian and German parliaments.
Ultimately, therefore, this creation of a monopoly will also result in a massive increase in the cost of medical treatment and drugs.
Contrary to the international Convention on Biodiversity, the intention here is also to allow access to the genetic resources of the Third World without any form of material compensation.
As a result, the northern industrialized countries will acquire monopolies over genetic potential which will greatly exacerbate the North-South conflict.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.50 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Programme of the Luxembourg presidency
The next item is the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the Luxembourg presidency programme.
Mr President, it is my pleasure to welcome the Luxembourg Presidency on behalf of the Socialist Group.
The programme was presented to an ever so attentive audience - after all, Mr President, Luxemburgers are used to replacing quantity with quality.
Mr President, your Presidency begins in the wake of the Amsterdam Summit.
One of the decisions taken at that summit was to hold a new summit, on employment.
Given the rate of unemployment that refuses to budge, the Council has finally given a strong signal.
Perhaps just now it is only a signal, but the Socialist Group welcomes it and intends to use the coming weeks and months to contribute to a new employment dynamic in Europe.
We wish to use in the most effective, most aggressive and most constructive way possible the opportunity of the next four months to act in favour of jobs.
The European Parliament's Committee on Employment, as you know, is busy drafting a report on, this issue.
The Socialist group has set up a task-force to tackle its own consultations.
Our leader, Mrs Pauline Green, has just sent the heads of State and Governments a letter indicating six avenues down which our efforts and proposals should head: improving the coordination of national economic policies; reducing labour costs; ending youth and long-term unemployment; looking for new approaches to working hours; developing social and environmental jobs; encouraging public and private investment.
Beyond those avenues, if we want this joint effort to succeed, we must reach a definite agreement - and I am pleased that you made a specific reference to this point, Mr President - to set up at European Union level a social and economic model to refer to.
For us socialists we think that the social model should be modernized along with labour legislation but that that should be done without systematically making jobs more precarious or dismantling the public service.
In more practical terms, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the Luxembourg Council must tell us what it intends to do for the decisions taken at the Luxembourg Summit on 20-22 November to be taken into account in the 1998 budget, whose first reading before the European Parliament is due on 21 November.
Mr President, the Luxembourg Presidency claims that it wants to prepare carefully and circumspectly the December European Council on enlargement.
I seized on the fact that you feel that the strategy should be a process of inclusion rather than exclusion vis-à-vis the candidate countries.
The Socialist Group thinks that we should keep two conditions in mind throughout the process.
We want the European Union to remain a coherent political whole.
We do not want the European Union diluted into a mere free trade area at the end of the process.
Secondly, and following on from the first condition, before any enlargement, we must reach an agreement on qualified majority voting if the European Union is to continue to take decisions in all fields.
Mr President, these high ambitions should not prevent us form putting our own house into order.
The mad cow crisis is still creating scandals.
The Council has a major role to play if the healthy Europe that Mr Santer promised us is to become a reality.
The Council should, for example, grant the necessary funding for research into BSE.
The Member States should also take their monitoring role seriously when it comes to a properly run meat market.
What is the use of extending the internal market and removing national regulations and bring down borders if the market is riddled with fraud? The European Union is in risk of having an institutional crisis in the Autumn unless the Council and Commission take consumer health protection seriously.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the Socialist Group wants to be a critical and constructive partner of the Luxembourg Presidency.
We hope above all - and the last fortnight has given us some encouraging signs - that the Presidency will make plenty of contacts with the European Parliament and take our proposals seriously.
We wish you good luck in this difficult but exciting task.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, your first great challenge is the special summit on employment in November.
I think we must all be afraid of the risk that our citizens will be disillusioned once again.
We shall also be assuming our responsibilities, and we are holding a PPE congress in Toulouse at the start of November.
I hope that I can bring together government leaders from our political family there.
In any event, preparations will be made for this summit by a special working party, in which our group will also be involved.
I think we must not give the impression that a gathering of the most senior political leaders of the Union will be enough to solve a problem which has been dogging us for years.
In contrast to other continents, unemployment is a continuing scourge in Europe, which may ultimately come to jeopardize the legitimacy of our societies and the process of European integration.
In my view, the success of the fight against unemployment depends on the combined efforts of the economies of the Member States.
Stabilizing public finances is a prime condition for restoring sound and lasting growth, and an absolute necessity for creating new jobs.
At the same time, each Member State must introduce greater flexibility to the labour market by lowering the cost of unskilled work and by reducing the social security burden and contributions.
However, the PPE Group wishes to emphasize once again its attachment to the European model of society, based on the social market economy.
This social market economy means that the campaign against rigidity must not degenerate into wild deregulation which has the effect of increasing inequality and of putting at risk the least fortunate among our fellow citizens.
We therefore say yes to greater competitiveness and yes to solutions that provide renewal, with initiative and the spirit of enterprise being allowed to flourish, but without the rigidity and bureaucratic obstacles that are a feature of planned economies.
We also wish to see these reforms of our economic policy decided in an open social dialogue and by seeking the broadest possible consensus.
How can we convince our fellow citizens that the European Union offers added value? After Amsterdam, we need to complete and deepen the internal market more than ever.
EMU is meant to eliminate high transaction costs, currency risks and competitive devaluations.
That is why achieving the objectives of the monetary union and respecting the timetable for it are so closely bound up with an active employment policy in the Member States.
We therefore wish to see a reopening of the debate on the trans-European networks in transport, energy and telecommunications.
These will promote intra-Community trade and improve the economic structure of Europe.
The other great challenge for your presidency, Mr President-in-Office, is the enlargement of the Union.
And I would warn your presidency of the disastrous consequences for the unity of our continent of any sense of frustration on the part of those peoples which are not included in the first wave of enlargement.
We must never forget that the opening of the Union to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Baltic States and Cyprus is, above all, a political process.
If we confine ourselves to economic criteria, the European project will decline into nothing more than a free trade zone.
What we wish to see, however, is a political Union inspired by a democratic ideal and backed by a project of civilization, for essential geopolitical reasons.
We should not under any circumstances engage in a procedure which would create a feeling of exclusion on the part of tens of millions of Europeans.
We have to keep the prospect of accession open for all candidates, set up a permanent conference and reinforce the pre-accession strategy - in other words, adopt an approach which was referred to by the Commission this morning as 'ins' and 'pre-ins' .
Agenda 2000, the Santer package - some call it 'Jacques III' - means a real reworking of the Union's structural policy, and indeed of such crucial areas of common policy as agriculture and regional policy.
This is essential for enlargement, and to remain within 1.27 % of GNP.
However, these restrictions also entail a risk of horse-trading which could lead to acquired rights and selfish national concerns taking centre stage.
It is your responsibility and that of the Commission to avoid a serious crisis in the coming discussions which would have a damaging effect on the population.
Let us try instead to move things more in a Community direction, so that the common interest takes precedence over the mere totting-up of national interests.
You must harness the driving force which Luxembourg has always been, Mr President-in-Office and Mr President of the Commission, and it must do all it can to ensure that the Union emerges strengthened from the difficult negotiations which lie ahead.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, in the programme that you have set for your Presidency, you pick out three main events: the extraordinary Summit on Jobs, the enlargement process and pursuit of monetary preparations.
On behalf of my Group I shall focus on the first two.
If you want a more efficient and tightly-knit Europe and to act primarily for the citizens of Europe, then you will have to tackle the unemployment problem firmly in order to satisfy their expectations.
We cannot hide from you the fact that we continue to hope for a genuine evolution of behaviour that will facilitate the creation jobs, especially in SMEs.
This is directly linked to the work on transposing and implementing Community law and reducing administrative costs which weigh upon SMEs at present.
The extraordinary meeting of the European Council will probably be a test for your Presidency.
Either it will just produce a text of conclusions to be filed away in the catalogue of good intentions or it will make truly practical proposals and there will be a perceptible will among the Member States to adopt them.
We approve of your suggestion to the Member States to make known their national measures with an impact on jobs.
There is no shame involved in using effective recipes, even if we have not invented them ourselves.
As for enlargement, if the Commission has presented us this morning with a statistical proposal on the applications, the Council would honour itself if it offered a political vision of enlargement.
Countries like Romania which, according to the Commission, now has democratic institutions whose stability for now seems to be guaranteed, but also Slovakia, which is at least as democratic as the others, need the political recognition of an examination of their applications.
I do not really think that limiting the candidates to 'five plus one' is a courageous approach to the problem of reforming the institutions, which was evaded at the Amsterdam Summit.
Mr President, enlargement of the European Union to take in the countries of central and eastern Europe is an historic prospect which will give us the opportunity to eliminate the final sequels of Yalta.
The historic nature of this task calls on us, I think, to refrain from taking a grocer-shop approach to the cost of that enlargement.
The budgetary resources needed, the reshaping of the institutional system which is now inevitable, the set of efforts that have to be made in order to bring about that enlargement, are of an exceptional scope, it is true.
Nevertheless, it seems judicious to me to qualify our contribution to the price of responsibility.
In 1947, the price of responsibility was the price paid by the United States and its Marshall Plan, aimed to bring about the recovery of western Europe, not unsuccessfully, from the ruins of the second World War.
In 1997, the price of responsibility is the one demanded of us, if we want to offer the countries of central and eastern Europe the legitimate right to take part in the construction of a new political and economic order, one of peace, justice and security in Europe.
Mr President, there are hardly any alternatives to the price of responsibility, apart from the price of indifference - should be ever - and this is most unlikely, I hope - decide instead to shirk our responsibilities towards those who not so long ago were unable even to dialogue properly with the European Union.
It is the responsibility of the Luxembourg Presidency to conduct the Council's affairs in the coming six months.
In doing so, the Presidency can bank on the European Parliament's support, and the Liberal Group's in particular, which is well aware of the fact that the quality of a Presidency has nothing to do with the size of the Member State called upon to exercise it.
Mr President-in-Office, you are exercising the Presidency on behalf of a Member State which, in the last century, understood that it was too small to meet alone every economic, political and security challenge.
The obligation to succeed has become a recurring theme in your country's history, Mr Poos, and so all it remains for me to do is to wish you the imagination, courage and clairvoyance that you will need to perform your historic task.
Mr President, I would like to convey to Mr Poos, President-in-Office of the Council, a wish and two causes for concern.
The wish is that preparation for enlargement be successful at the December Council meeting.
We had a long debate about this subject this morning, the Commission's criteria have been presented to us, and all this is a good basis for the Council, with the Luxembourg presidency, to be able to make significant progress regarding this essential enlargement.
However, in addition, I would like to present the following two concerns: the first of them, as all my colleagues have been mentioning, is the European Council on employment on 21 and 22 November in Luxembourg.
The Luxembourg presidency has taken on a huge responsibility.
And there are early signs of a certain level of unease on the part of European public opinion and political parties, because much is expected of it. It cannot be allowed to become merely a propaganda operation to cover over the shortcomings of the Amsterdam European Council or of the mechanisms available to the European Union to arrive at an employment policy.
My Group has a special vocation to support an employment policy - we are called the European United Left, which just about says it all.
We believe that, with this subordination to the criteria of the Stability Pact, it is very difficult to create jobs if there is no change in macro-economic policies.
At any rate, we are urging the Luxembourg presidency to set clear objectives and to establish mechanisms in this respect. It will also receive a visit from our Group in Luxembourg so that we can submit our own proposals.
The second concern - which will take just a few moments - is the Community budget.
The Commission's initial proposal is very restrictive and we are also very concerned that governments are tending towards a zero budget.
We trust that the Luxembourg presidency will not allow this.
We wish you, Mr Poos, and European society as a whole every success in these difficult but hopeful times.
Mr President, as an imaginative, radical and, for that very reason, responsible opposition, we too should like to state our agreement with the Luxembourg presidency.
We shall examine very carefully what the Luxembourg presidency undertakes, and we shall support every step, however small, which is a genuine step away from the present misguided policy and sets a new course towards a different, more democratic, ecological and social Europe.
A Europe, a European Union, which is not so much in the service of the banks and multinationals as in the service of the common man, and plays a constructive role worldwide to strike a balance in the name of solidarity and to prevent and resolve conflict.
That includes serious consideration of the call for genuine equality in the treatment of the accession candidates, including those which are not proposed as members of the first round.
But it also includes more detailed attention to employment policy.
I can also tell the House that we are to hold a Green employment summit in Luxembourg 14 days before the Council meeting.
Together with other elements of the European Assembly for Full Employment, we shall be present at the summit in Luxembourg in order to present our demands.
Among those will be the abandonment of the neoliberal, monetarist orientation of employment policy which amounts to seeing a solution in low wages and precarious employment.
We have no need of the spectre of Keynesian spending programmes, under which billions of ECU are buried and then dug up again for no discernible purpose.
We must launch a European employment policy, which will of course cost money, but which is first and foremost based on a policy transition to a different model of development: ecological programmes of investment in the future, public support for shorter working hours, direct strengthening of internal demands by means of downward redistribution and financial action in the third sector.
If we embark together on that course, we shall not have to see Agenda 2000 leaping into life as a roaring lion and then finishing up as a bedside rug for those who determine European policy at present.
Mr President, this is a very special afternoon for us Luxembourgers.
I am quite proud, as a representative of a country with 400, 000 inhabitants, to welcome the Luxembourgish presidency team on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance in the European Parliament.
On your agenda you have several challenges, mainly in the field of environment policy.
You have to prepare for the conference on climate change in Kyoto.
This is an issue which is connected especially to the conservation of forests worldwide.
Mr Poos just referred to the action programme we have with Canada, which will be discussed this evening in Parliament.
Certainly, you have a serious commitment.
I should like to ask you, in this field especially, to take account of the NGOs' complaints and wishes.
As there are virtually only Luxembourgers in the Chamber, I shall conclude in Luxembourgish.
Här Präsident, well mir de metteg ennert eis sin, ass ett mir eng besonnesch Éier an e Pleséira, Iech enorm vill Erfoleg ze wënschen an Ärer schwieriger Missioun am Dengscht vun Europa.
Vun eiser Fractioun huet Dir all die bescht Wënsch!
Merci!
Mr President, it has been said that the Intergovernmental Conference was called to prepare the EU for enlargement.
That task has not been accomplished.
The Commission is now asking for a new Intergovernmental Conference in the year 2000 prior to a possible enlargement.
But the Amsterdam Treaty makes it more difficult to unite Europe.
New Member States must meet even more stringent demands with regard to economic policy and public finances. They must take part in monetary cooperation.
That will make sustainable economic development more difficult in the economies that are lagging behind. A condition for inclusion is that the new Member States must abolish the borders between themselves and between them and the present EU.
Is the EU prepared to open up the labour market to new immigration, when we have 18 million unemployed?
Can that be achieved without social conflicts? With its raised demands on the new Member States, Amsterdam in reality means a postponement of enlargement.
Contrary to the task incumbent on us, we are dividing Europe instead of uniting it.
There are fine words in the Amsterdam Treaty on openness, sustainable development and employment.
But, with monetary union, the fine words on employment will translate to higher unemployment.
The declarations on the environment are accompanied by abolition of the environmental guarantee contained in Article 100a(4) of the Treaty in favour of a dispensation procedure administered by the Commission.
Today openness can be instituted by eight out of fifteen countries.
Tomorrow it can be blocked by three countries, such as Spain, France and Germany.
As the provisions I would feel able to applaud are not there, I must refrain from applauding. But I will congratulate Luxembourg on taking over the EU Presidency.
We tend to have good Presidencies when the small countries are in charge.
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to draw the attention of the Luxembourg presidency to a current problem in my country as regards the transposition into Belgian law of the Community directive of 19 December 1994 on voting rights for European citizens.
I would say first of all that this directive is an example - to my mind, at any rate - of undemocratic decision-making in Europe.
In order to introduce these European voting rights, an amendment of the Belgian constitution is in fact necessary, with a two-thirds majority in Parliament.
However, both the Maastricht Treaty and this binding directive itself were approved by a simple majority in my country.
This effective precedence of a European directive over the Belgian constitution therefore means in fact that any minister with a simple majority or any European Council of Ministers is able to change my country's constitution, which strikes me as unacceptable and undemocratic.
In practical terms, we Flemings are now faced with the massive problem that the right to vote for EU citizens in Brussels and the Flemish communes around the city amounts in effect to a kind of ethnic cleansing which disadvantages speakers of Dutch, in other words the Flemings.
I think this is a situation not unknown to the Luxembourgers, who also have their own specific language culture.
I therefore have to make the essential point today that the much-used slogan of 'richness through diversity in Europe' must not remain a dead letter.
And this diversity means that a people has its own protected territory where its own culture is dominant, in which newcomers are welcome, but are expected to adapt.
The Flemings have to say that the speakers of other languages, the newcomers to their territory in Brussels and the vicinity, not only do not adapt, but also try to impose their culture, their languages and their laws.
At present, the European directive to which I have referred has not yet been transposed into Belgian law.
If the Luxembourg presidency or the Commission, as has been announced, nevertheless takes steps to force it down the throat of my country, Flanders, they must be fully aware that a whole people, the Flemings, will then turn against this Europe, and that would be a pity.
Mr President, it might be stating the obvious, but it is worth emphasizing the fact that the Luxembourg presidency occurs at a critical time in Europe's development.
We have the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference and we have the Agenda 2000 document in front of us today.
Both in their different ways point us in the direction of the enlargement of the European Union.
That enlargement is of tremendous significance, not just in a symbolic sense but in a very real sense as well.
Enlargement is important for these countries wanting to join the European Union, but important for us too, as existing Member States.
There is no doubt that it is going to be enlargement which, in many ways and quite rightly, will be the headline-grabbing issue during the Luxembourg presidency.
But my special plea today is: please do not forget about employment.
In fact, let us place a new emphasis on job creation.
I am absolutely delighted that there is going to be a special job summit in November.
That will be of extreme important to everyone, not least the 18 million people who are unemployed in Europe today.
But I do not want that conference to be just a polite conference; I want it to be a dynamic event.
A dynamic event which does not simply talk about best practice but an event which actually has before it well worked out concrete proposals and agrees to implement these proposals.
What I would like to see is, for example, recommendations on employability, on a more effective use of the Structural Funds, on enhancing competitiveness in the European Union, on promoting training and education, on coming forward about ways to promote moves from welfare into work, without in any way undermining the welfare state.
We need to be taking forward the single market action programme.
But also, I believe that we need to find extra resources to create jobs.
Perhaps one of the best ways to do that is to have low-interest Europe-wide loans directed at trans-European networks but also the development of small and medium-sized enterprises - one of the key ways to effectively create new jobs in Europe today.
If we are not going to do this, then we all run a very grave risk of fuelling the disillusionment which exists in Europe today about the whole concept of European cooperation and integration.
But today I am optimistic.
I am confident that we can build on what we have achieved in Amsterdam, take that forward, enhance the enlargement discussion and also create those badly needed jobs.
I think the indications that we have had this afternoon from the Luxembourg presidency are very encouraging and very sound.
I am also impressed by the very genuine determination to have cooperation with the European Parliament and I am sure that if the Luxembourg presidency reflects many of the priorities in this House, it will indeed be a successful presidency.
I wish you well.
Mr President, the Luxembourg Presidency promises to be lively but exciting.
The next six months will see contradictions arise calling for decisive choices for the future of European construction.
The strongest of those contradictions is that pitting, more than ever, the requirements of social policy and employment against the financial straightjacket put in place by the current economic and monetary union.
Increasingly, everywhere the debate is sharpening on the forced frogmarch towards the single currency, on the yoke of criteria and the stability pact, on the lack of a realistic timetable, even on the very logic underpinning the whole project.
Officially, this issue has been settled for five years but it is only now that our fellow citizens can practically verify the fact that these neo-liberal choices are quite simply incompatible with a social Europe.
That is why the 'euro crisis' is bursting out all over.
Sweden, albeit a signatory, without any reservation, of the Maastricht Treaty, yesterday, now feels that the single currency project is uncertain and wavering and has decided not to join the Monetary Union in 1999.
In doing so it has shown to those who doubted it that it is well and truly possible to change one's option on the base of experience.
Great Britain, on the other hand, is waiting to see how things turn out before it decides.
In France, the Prime Minister himself announced that he would put to public opinion, when the time comes, the terms of the contradiction between social requirements and the march towards the euro, so that he can be helped in taking his decision.
The idea of postponing the single currency project is now under way.
Better still, it is no longer sacrilegious to ask the question: should the whole project not be put on the back burner? For example, it was believed that reducing public expenditure in social areas would reduce deficits.
But that is not working out which explains why all kinds of tricks are necessary in order to respect the criteria.
Why not instead choose a well-used relaunch of social public expenditure or in other words expenditure which should contribute to greater growth and more genuine jobs and therefore higher public and social revenues which would reduce deficits? The instrument of monetary cooperation for such a policy should in our belief be one not of a single currency or in other words an alignment on the strongest currency with all of the economic and political consequences of such a decision, but on a European common currency, a genuine union of national currencies for cooperation.
In any case, the time has come to agree to an open, taboo-free debate on the question which is in all the heads not of Europe's adversaries but on the contrary of those who want to make it a success.
This question is the following one: what can be done to change European construction in depth so that our fellow citizens can recognise themselves in it and can once again commit themselves to it? That, in our view, is the great challenge facing us in the next six months.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you are taking over the Presidency of the European Union at a difficult stage when you will have to help to solve vital problems for the future of the single currency which your predecessors failed to deal with and which they have only postponed and handed over to the following Presidency.
I would mention, on this score, the exact geometry of the countries taking part in the euro, the direction to be taken by the exchange policy, the possibility of an economic government for the euro and its position vis-à-vis the European Central Bank.
You are going to need a great deal of skill in order to manage these fundamental problems because obviously it is going to be difficult to preserve the relevant consensus that we have now when it will no longer be possible to remain ambiguous and when decisions will actually have to be taken.
In order to put an end to discussions and speculation we have been told that you intend to propose the direct and definitive fixation before the end of the year of parities between a certain number of currencies.
This method, although technically skilful in appearance, is not, however, foreseen by the Treaty and in any case would leave unsolved the problems which I mentioned earlier, giving the Member States the feeling of being trapped just when finally those problems should be dealt with.
It is my personal view - but it is not the intention that you have manifested - that it would be wiser in accordance with Article 109 (4) of the Treaty that you ask the Council, by 1 January 1998, to set for the single currency another date of entry into effect than 1 January 1999.
That would then free the debate and focus it on questions of great importance for our future, in particular working out the monetary organization, the institutions and enlargement.
There is a very great temptation now to try to wriggle out of the situation.
Mr Poos has given in to this, perhaps, in part, by suggesting that, to use his words, we should use the most expedite method of ratifying the draft Amsterdam Treaty.
In fact, we were not really that surprised to hear, straight after the European Council itself, a head of State actually welcoming the fact that the slightness of the reform would, in his view, make it possible to avoid a referendum in his country!
What a strange democratic Europe it is when the failure to consult a people is regarded as a positive point!
It is out of this web of misunderstandings between the European Union and its peoples that we want to escape and we hope, Mr President, that the Luxembourg Presidency will help us to do just that.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the Luxembourg presidency is going to be an extremely difficult one for two reasons: firstly, because it is inheriting an unfinished Intergovernmental Conference and, secondly, because the problem of unemployment, which is now Europe's number one problem, has so far been the subject of nothing but waffle.
Anyway, I am going to make a point that has an international implication, taking my cue from what happened at the recent NATO summit in Madrid, during which it was decided to extend that military organization to bring in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, to demonstrate that Europe is still lacking a common European security policy.
At that summit in fact, only France and, very hesitantly, Italy voiced opposition to eastward enlargement that excluded Slovenia and Romania.
Only the French President dug in his heels, challenging the decision of the United States and giving a spirited defence of his own views, magnificently but, unfortunately, alone and in vain.
And so, at an important and historical event, Europe appeared still divided and still without influence.
US diplomacy first decided that enlargement should take place and then decided it should apply to three countries only, taking advantage of the divisions within Europe and the lack of a single voice from the countries of Europe.
In our view, it would have been better not to enlarge NATO eastward because of the risk of awakening fresh fear of encirclement in Russia and stimulating a renewal of pan-Slav militarism.
It would have been much better to bring those three countries, plus Slovenia and Romania, into the Western European Union, perhaps alongside their future accession to the European Union.
But what we object to is the absence of a single Community strategy, and that, unfortunately, will not change until the decision-taking process is reformed and the principle of unanimity abandoned and we decide to accord the common foreign and security policy a priority role in the process of European construction.
Mr President, the last speaker began by saying that Luxembourg is going to have serious problems, at any rate the presidency.
I would take a different attitude.
In my view, the Luxembourg presidency has a tremendous opportunity.
I believe that everyone in Europe is so tired of hearing all these completely empty declarations and so fed up with them that some real action must now be worked out at last, some real goals established, and I believe that the chances of success at this employment summit are much greater than people think.
And I can say this so confidently because I have great faith in the Luxembourg presidency - not because it is a small country, I do not think that is very important, but because I know that they have a positive approach and because they have the qualities to deal with matters clearly, calmly and also very practically.
I am pleased that yesterday, in the Committee on Employment, Mr Juncker specifically asked us to provide a contribution by mid-October.
We shall gladly do that, and I should like to say something now about the effort we should make and our criteria.
Firstly, it must be very practical.
A timetable must be drawn up, clear objectives must be laid down, methods need to be worked out, and you must be specific in terms of percentages, figures and so on.
The decisions must also take effect immediately, which means that decisions will have to be taken at the summit which mean something the next day, not least in terms of national budgets.
Because it is all very well to say that employment is primarily a national issue, but responsibility must then be taken for it in the national budgets.
I hope that before the summit, people will not have battened down their national budgets.
That applies equally to the ECOFIN Council.
There too, enough scope must be allowed to put into effect at second reading what is decided at the summit.
I would also like to focus on the commitments of the social partners, and I hope the same goes for Parliament, because they too play an important role.
As far as I am concerned, there should be no taboo regarding flexibility or modernization.
However, they can never be a one-sided sacrifice, made by employees.
Flexibility and modernization can only come about as the result of a contract where there is flexibility on the one side and more jobs, for example, or adequate security and social security on the other.
We should like to see one specific decision taken in any event, namely that the active labour market policy should be focused in the first instance on the 18 to 30 million people who are out of work.
There should be no more freestanding training in Europe, but a commitment that training is always followed by at least one year of work.
This is an old Delors proposal which should at long last be brought into effect.
And for that, we particularly need the social partners.
I have already said that employment policy is a national issue.
That is partly true, and partly nonsense.
One of the most important instruments is fiscal policy.
Fiscal policy is one of the areas which is primarily handled at European level, and if we wish to provide scope for incentive measures, then Europe will have to play an extremely important role in that respect.
Mr President-in-Office, I want to comment on just one aspect: the harmonization of taxation.
The extreme differences in tax legislation within Europe result in substantial distortions of competition and, in due course, the destruction of jobs.
The location of company headquarters and of many other business decisions today are determined not by economic aspects but, in practice, by fiscal aspects - by reasons unrelated to operational issues.
This is an area in which - and I appeal to you today before the European Parliament - you must make proposals, as you have suggested you will.
If no harmonization can be achieved during the first stage, at least realistic steps towards it can be attempted.
I know that my own government has said in the past that unanimity is so important in tax legislation.
I will make you an offer today: let us do away with the unanimity principle for tax bands and for the tax assessment base.
We should, in other words, be willing to take majority decisions on these aspects, without unanimity, because otherwise we will come no closer to solving this problem of tax harmonization.
That is why I am so grateful to you for mentioning this matter in your speech.
We look forward to seeing you taking genuine steps towards harmonization in the field of taxation, for the sake of our citizens and in the interests of competition in the global world market with the Americans and the Asians, and you will do so with the support of the European Parliament.
I would also ask that the Minutes should show that I have not used up all my allotted time.
Mr President, I would firstly like to wish the President-in-Office good luck and then to ask a series of specific questions to which I would, as far as possible, like to receive specific answers.
Beginning with the most immediate issue, the presidency-in-Office has the task of finalizing the text of the agreements of the Amsterdam Treaty and it has come to my notice that some Member States are contesting some of the agreements, specifically those relating to an extension of Parliament's codecision powers and also certain aspects relating to the freedom of movement of people.
I believe that it would be desirable, Mr President, for the presidency-in-Office, as guarantor of the general interest, to create and mobilize every resource in order for it to be possible to guarantee that these agreements, arrived at during the Amsterdam European Council, are complied with.
As regards the operation of the internal market, the truth is, Mr President, that there continue to be violations of the concept of a Single Market, specifically in the area of the free movement of goods.
This corrupt, repeated and ongoing behaviour jeopardizes the very essence of the internal market and also the credibility of the European enterprise, since we cannot ask our citizens to believe in a reality which does not function correctly.
The question is quite simple, Mr President, and it is this: Would the presidency- in-Office agree to the idea, within the action plan approved by the Commission for the internal market, of imposing sanctions on or introducing penalties for those Member States which do not guarantee the freedoms they are bound to uphold under the Treaty?
I welcome the reference made to the stepping-up of relations with countries in Latin America and I would be interested to know whether, Mr President-in-Office, in connection with the summit between the European Union and Latin American countries - which, in principle, looks as if it will take place under the German presidency - the Luxembourg presidency would be able to make any progress as regards specifying the place, conditions, format and date for the Summit.
I shall end as I began, Mr President, by offering my best wishes to the new presidency and I am sure that, on the basis of your experience and proven desire to defend the general interest, we will be able to achieve the results we all hope for.
Mr President, when summing up his presentation of Agenda 2000 this morning, Mr Santer said that our success will also be Europe's.
Earlier, Mr Poos, when presenting his programme, pointed out a virtually obvious truth: in other words, that Luxembourg is taking over the Presidency of the European Union at a crucial moment for its development.
The success of the Luxembourg Presidency will therefore be Europe's success and I wholeheartedly hope that it will succeed.
I do not want to insist on the main challenges of the Presidency which my colleagues have already amply commented on, but as a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs I would like to express our satisfaction at the Luxembourg Presidency's intentions on tax harmonization.
In the European Parliament, we have often heavily criticized my country over this matter.
I hope that the Luxembourg Presidency will be able to convince the European Parliament that, in order to bring an end to any unhealthy fiscal competition, its global approach is the right one.
I can, therefore, reassure my colleague Mr Friedrich.
My colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture have asked me to say that, given the state of affairs in respect of Agenda 2000, we expect the Luxembourg Presidency and, in particular, our friend, Fernand Boden, Minister for Agriculture, to pay a far more attentive respect to our position than the sorry fate reserved, for example, for 20 out of the 22 amendments in our report to save bee-keeping in Europe.
I know that the Luxembourg Presidency is aware of the new challenges which must be met in the future development of the common agricultural policy and that it intends to tackle them prudently, but also with vital determination for progress to be made.
But I would insist that the Luxembourg Presidency should not take the wrong turning and make European farmers and wine producers permanent victims of assistance.
Nor should farmers and wine producers be the main victims of enlargement: they are asking for no more subsidies but the right conditions in which to be able to produce responsibly, in terms of quality as well as quantity.
To justify price cuts pretending that consumers would benefit is proof of a certain cynicism in that our consumers are spending an increasing share of their income on superfluous things, often at jumped-up prices, and are spending less and less on vital goods, i.e. a healthy and balanced diet.
Thank you for your answer, Mr Poos.
The debate is closed.
Situation in Turkey and Northern Iraq
The next item is the statement from the Council on the situation in Turkey and Northern Iraq.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say as an introduction that years come and go but certain elements of conflict remain.
Six years ago during the last Luxembourg Presidency I had the opportunity of holding talks with the European Parliament on the same subject of interest to us today and unfortunately it has to be admitted that the same problems remain.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that said, I should like to remind members of the European Parliament that the respect of human rights democracy in Turkey continues to be at the centre of the preoccupations of the Council of Ministers.
Since the Turkish invasion of northern Iraq the Council of Ministers - I must remind you - has expressed its serious concern.
While understanding Turkey's desire to put an end to acts of terrorism, the Presidency of the European Union has emphasized that the Kurdish problem cannot be resolved by military means and can only be resolved politically.
It has urged Turkey to show the greatest restraint in particular not endangering the life of innocent civilians.
It has also urged Turkish leaders to withdrawn military forces from Iraqi territories as soon as possible.
Mr President, I must also recall that at the meeting of the Association Council with Turkey held in Luxembourg on 29 April of this year, the European Union reasserted the principle of Turkey's eligibility to accession to the European Union, as stated by the Association Agreement dating back to 1963.
This principle also features in the Commission's Opinion which dates back to 1989 and which the Council has adopted.
Therefore, Turkey will be judged on the basis of the same standards and objective criteria as other candidates to accession.
At the same time the European Union has emphasized that pursuit of the strengthening of relations between the European Union and Turkey will rely on a certain number of objective factors, including a solution to the Kurdish question.
Fully aware of the extent of the problem facing Turkey in the south-east of the country, the European Union has nevertheless stressed that fighting terrorism must respect human rights and the rule of law.
It has therefore launched an appeal for a political - I repeat political - solution to be found.
It has also emphasized the rightful need for Turkey to honour its commitments as a member of the Council of Europe and the OSCE.
It appears that most of Turkey's military forces have now been withdrawn from Iraqi territory.
Against this background the European Union notes with interest that the new government, led by Mr Yilmaz, will be launching economic and social programmes in order to improve living conditions in the south-east of Turkey.
At the meeting of the Association Council, the European Union recalled Turkey's pledge to make fresh efforts to respect human rights.
Mr President, I think that it would be premature to comment on the Commission's communication to the European Parliament and the Council on the subject of deepening the Customs Union, but I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that the Luxembourg Presidency will deal with this communication in the coming weeks and I am fully willing to come back to this question at your next part-session.
Mr President, here we are again discussing Turkey.
It is the same old story about Turkey.
It is the same old responses from Turkey, the same old denials from Turkey and the same old promises from Turkey.
What is more, from an increasingly discredited political elite in Turkey.
Political alliances wax and wane and Turkish governments come, promise, and go.
Remember the promise we received from the former Prime Minister of Turkey before we voted for the Customs Union in this House, to end arrests for freedom of speech - that awful crime, freedom of speech and freedom of thought in Turkey!
Well here today we have another press release from the new Prime Minister of Turkey, to end arrests for freedom of speech by the end of this month and to give guarantees for all press freedoms.
When I was in Turkey in March this year, we had a promise from the then Turkish Government to ensure that by the end of this year all human rights abuses in Turkey would be ended.
Human rights do not improve however, President, political democracy and the rule of law are mere buzzwords, repeated almost as a mantra by the political elite in Turkey.
The emergency rule in the south-east of the country was first implemented on 19 July 1987, almost ten years ago to the day, in which time nearly 26 500 people have died.
That is the official number.
Goodness knows how many it really is.
And as the resolution states, more than 1 800 people have died in the latest incursion by Turkey into northern Iraq.
20 July is approaching, 23 years since the invasion and occupation of the northern part of Cyprus.
This morning we heard the Commission say that it had adopted a communication on relations with Turkey.
I have it here, I have only just received it and have not had time to study it yet, but what is clear is that it is asking us in this Parliament to support economic development in Turkey.
This morning Mr Santer and Mr van den Broek asked very reasonably for Turkey to help find a solution to the long-standing problem of Cyprus, using membership of the European Union for Cyprus as a catalyst.
What is the response from Turkey? The Turkish Foreign Minister yesterday said that were the European Union to open negotiations with Cyprus, then Turkey could not support the attendance of Rauf Denktash in the second round of meetings designed to solve the Cyprus problem.
What absolute hypocrisy!
And yet there are some chinks of light, and it is on these chinks of light that our hopes rest: the real desire for a proper development of Turkish civil society as reflected in the initiatives of TÜSIAD; the business world in Turkey putting its muscle behind democratic development; the trade unions and small business federations in Turkey coming together for the first time ever in an effort to force democratic change in their own country.
This is the hope of the Turkish people themselves for peace and stability in the future.
Finally, my group really welcomes and congratulates President Demirel and Prime Minister Simitis of Greece for their ground-breaking meeting and agreement in Madrid.
That is the hope we have for the future.
Mr President, unlike Mrs Green I believe that the new Turkish Government does give us cause for hope: hope that relations with Europe will return to normal, hope of further progress with democratization and human rights.
I actually welcome the fact that Prime Minister Yilmaz was able to achieve, just four days ago, a relatively large majority in the Turkish Parliament, with the support of two social democratic parties.
I hope that this caretaker government will be able, between now and the next elections, to get things moving and to improve matters in areas where the predecessor governments under Erbakan and Çiller failed to make any progress.
I have formed the impression that today's debate is to some extent geared to defending the former government, which is no longer in office at all.
We in the European Union must look to the future.
I am expressly grateful to the Commission for taking an aggressive approach to this subject.
As far as our group is concerned, it is actually still too early to reach a final judgement today on what has happened in past years and months.
The new government needs time to lay its plans.
It needs time to make its presence felt, to stabilize its parliamentary majority, based on social democratic and conservative support, to introduce a new electoral law, to guarantee freedom of opinion and to implement all those articles that have rightly been referred to in this House.
So it would be better not to hold this debate now but to postpone it until immediately after the summer recess.
The brief speech by the President-inOffice suggested to me that he basically shares this opinion.
I should like to urge the House to give a moderate opinion, one in which we have no need to disown the position we take, Mrs Roth, but one in which we recognize the opportunities the new government has and jointly endeavour to ensure that Parliament's influence is made to count here.
This also applies, obviously, to the withdrawal of Turkey from northern Iraq.
No doubt we all agree on that.
On this basis we should be able to adopt a sensible resolution and give the new government a chance.
Mr President, I too believe that this debate on Turkey is taking place at a very sensitive and special time, at a moment of transition when it is very difficult to assess the intentions of the new government. Let us not forget that this government came into being in the wake of major diplomatic efforts and in response to pressures from parliamentary forces, and so it is a government that should let us hope that this is going to be a new chapter in Turkish politics.
What has happened in recent months cannot be passed over without comment because the risk, the danger we fear is that the parliamentary agreement that enabled confidence to be placed in the Ylmaz government could have involved deals with the armed forces - we hope this is not the case - giving them a free hand to operate, clearly violating human rights in the south-east of the country, in Kurdistan and Northern Iraq.
I therefore believe that it is imperative to maintain an open channel of dialogue with the new Turkish government.
We have, of course, to call for compliance with the International Convention on Human Rights, as signed by Turkey - that is absolutely clear; and we must call for an improvement in the conditions in which detainees are currently held in Turkish jails simply because for expressing their views - the most despicable reason for imprisoning a citizen - that too is absolutely clear. But we must careful not to close the door to this new experiment in government.
That could be a serious mistake on Europe's part!
Mr President, Parliament is in fact very late in the day in discussing the situation in Turkey and northern Iraq.
Turkey has been occupying part of this neighbouring sovereign country for several months now, without very much criticism being heard.
Although I reject the terrorism of the PKK, this response from Turkey is no basis for a peaceful solution.
An immediate withdrawal is of course required, to be combined with a recognition of the minority rights of the Kurds.
Turkey has been going through difficult times for some years now.
I am pleased to say that the political instability seems to have been reduced with the arrival of the new government.
It is to be hoped that the military, although they support a secular Turkey, will now once again withdraw from politics.
The new Turkish Government is aware of the Union's attitude and the five criteria, but the many expectations which were raised when the Customs Union was concluded have still not been fulfilled.
I can understand that the political instability has complicated the process of reform, but the everyday practices in Turkish prisons, the Turkish attitude towards the Kurds, the slow pace of constitutional reform and the immovable stance on Cyprus give my group no reason to review our policy.
The main point must still be that Turkey could be a candidate for membership of the Union.
The door is open if the criteria are met, and a great deal can be expected from candidate members.
In asking such things of Turkey, we are not discriminating against it, but simply applying objective criteria in an extremely difficult situation.
The withdrawal of troops from northern Iraq is only the beginning of a long process which Turkey must go through before it can accede to the Union.
And finally, it gives me no pleasure to read, in the Dutch media at least, that Vice-President Bülent Ecevit - responsible at the time for the invasion of Cyprus, it should be noted - has said in connection with the decision which we are hearing about this morning from Commissioner van den Broek and others that a start should be made on integrating the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, if the Union does not change its attitude - in other words, if we continue to negotiate on membership with Cyprus.
And the integration of Northern Cyprus clearly implies a second invasion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we were talking earlier today about Agenda 2000 - about the future of Europe.
Now that we have moved on to debating Turkey, the issue is once again Europe - the issue is our joint future.
We want to share a joint future with Turkey.
We want open doors, not more walls.
We do not want a Europe that defines itself as the stronghold of the Christian West, but one based on laicism, where there is a place for everyone - Christian, Muslim, Jew or atheist.
But that future is based on one inalienable principle which the new Turkish Government really must take seriously, and that principle is: democracy and human rights.
Democracy and human rights has to mean more than the routine cosmetic protestations churned out by Mrs Çiller's prayer wheel before customs union.
Democratization means providing a solid foundation for basic rights, such as guaranteed freedom of opinion and freedom of the press, as a precondition for any further open consideration of the future in Turkey.
Democracy means finally trying to find a political solution to the Kurdish problem; it means an end to the military option and to any invasion of northern Iraq.
The Kurdish question is inseparably linked to this democratization: it cannot be delegated to the military even though certain people both here and in Turkey would have us believe that the military is the guarantor of democracy and the rule of law.
Was it not specifically the last military coup in Turkey, in 1980, that left the present legacy of antidemocratic structures?
But when I say no more walls, I also mean, indeed I particularly mean, that existing walls must be torn down.
Cyprus needs, at last, to look forward to some prospect of a solution.
The latest threats uttered by Mr Ecevit have not been exactly helpful here.
Mr President, I am not one of those who like Mrs Green likes nothing better than taking potshots at Turkey.
I disagree with the Council, and I think that the European Union's policy towards Turkey is different to that conducted vis-à-vis other countries.
Turkey is not on the list of candidate countries for the European Union and the Turkish people have fully understood what that means.
I think that we are reproducing with Turkey what was scientifically constructed over ten years in Yugoslavia's case and which led to the disaster that we know only too well.
However the European Union should clearly propose and clearly tell Turkey that it can enter the European Union and also tell it the conditions under which it can enter or join the European Union or, on the contrary, all of this is bla-bla-bla which is just an alibi for Turkey, enabling it not to respect human rights and enabling the European Union to continue to believe that it can conduct a half-hearted policy which is not a policy at all as we know very well and which will lead to disaster, disasters such as the ones in former Yugoslavia or Algeria.
We can do something different, but for that we need the will and it needs to be done quickly.
Mr President, it appears to me that the Commission's Agenda 2000 document, which has been received so favourably here this morning, has landed as a kind of bombshell in Turkey.
In the discussions yesterday evening with our Turkish colleagues in the Joint Parliamentary Committee, I have never seen them so bitter, and Mr Ecevit's statement about the annexing of Northern Cyprus points in the same direction.
However, I think this is somewhat mistaken of the Turks, because it was to be expected what Europe's position on Turkey would be at the present time.
The option of membership remains open and relations can be developed further, but in political terms at any rate, a number of serious obstacles stand in the way of accession.
And as Mrs Green has already pointed out, these are obstacles of which the Turks themselves are increasingly aware.
When I look at what social forces such as the trade union movement and employers' organizations are saying as regards democratization, their demands and wishes correspond reasonably well with what we are saying, and that is a step forward.
I think it is also important in terms of these future prospects, which I gladly hold out for the Turks.
I welcome the fact that the positions of the Council, the Commission and Parliament with regard to Turkey have clearly moved towards each other in recent years.
We in Parliament are frequently portrayed as an irresponsible body, and are certainly described as such in the Turkish press.
When I now look at the texts on Cyprus, the Kurdish issue, democracy and human rights, and then at the declarations from the Association Council or the section in the Commission's Agenda 2000, it strikes me that our positions are gradually moving into line.
There are texts such as this Commission statement, for example:
' Persistent cases of torture, disappearances and the Turkish record in combating terrorism in the south-east.
Turkey needs to exercise restraint, to make greater efforts to uphold the rule of law and human rights and to find a civil, and not a military, solution.
Persistent cases of torture, disappearances and extra-judicial executions, notwithstanding repeated official statements of the government's commitment to ending such practices, call into question the extent to which the authorities are able to monitor and control the activities of the security forces.'
This kind of statement clearly shows why resolutions on northern Iraq are still necessary from time to time.
Mr. President, first of all, while congratulating the President-in-Office of the Council for the clear way in which he presented the Luxembourg Presidency's programme, I would like to remind him that it was Mr Poos himself who, in the same capacity six years ago, advocated with equal clarity the need for a solution to the Cyprus problem.
We are now approaching the end not just of six, but of twenty-three years since the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the tragedy of that dismembered island still continues in defiance of the principles of international law.
Unfortunately, there is another Turkish invasion.
Other flagrant violations of law are continuing, because the gulf between proper declarations and the political will to implement them encourages the perpetrators, who in the face of international outcry, invent excuses, give vague promises, and slander their victims.
The Kurdish tragedy is one of the most striking and prolonged examples.
For decades war has raged in the depths of the East with carnage and unrestrained bloodshed.
But for Ankara, as its President declared a few days ago in Brussels, there is no war, there is no nation of 14 to 15 million without rudimentary human rights, without the possibility of being educated and communicating in its own language.
According to Mr Güner Oztek there is only a band of terrorists which, by its criminal actions and its skilful propaganda, is leading international public opinion astray.
So Turkey is entitled to execute, to imprison, to torture, to persecute anyone who supports the rights of the Kurds, even members of parliament, authors and journalists, and finally, to invade a foreign country.
This monstrous hypocrisy must finally be brought to an end.
The political solution to the Kurdish problem and respect for human rights are conditions laid down most clearly for any kind of cooperation between Turkey and the European Union.
Let us hope that after the fall of the unnatural Erbakan-Ciller pairing, the new Yilmaz government will provide some guarantees along European lines, but for that to happen, the conditions specified by the European Union will have to be final and direct.
Mr. President, I too would like to congratulate both the President-in-Office of the Council, and Mr Van den Broek on what he told the journalists about Cyprus.
He expressed himself far more clearly to them than to us here, in Parliament.
A short while ago the diplomatic representatives of Turkey to the European countries went to Ankara to discuss ways that Turkey might use to improve its public image in the European Union.
For it is a bad image, related to the findings of numerous international bodies concerning persistent violations of human rights, the oppression of 15 million Kurds who live in Turkey, lack of respect for the principles of international law, the continuing occupation of part of the Republic of Cyprus, and lack of the rule of law.
However, improving Turkey's image is not an issue of public relations.
It is a substantive issue, and I think that ought to be understood by the political leadership in Turkey.
A great opportunity now exists for Turkey to prove that it means what it says, namely that it respects the international agreements and treaties, that it respects human rights, that it agrees to withdraw occupying forces from Cyprus, that it wants good relations with Greece.
Any agreements will only count for something if Turkey keeps its word.
But recent statements give cause for concern, some mentioned by Mrs Green and others made by the Vice-President of the Turkish government, Bulent Ecevit, who recently stated that unless the European Union changes its attitude, his country would have no choice but to annex to Turkey the occupied part of the Republic of Cyprus.
We need a new start with Turkey, and let us adopt that as a working hypothesis and accept it.
That new start, however, must be characterized by sincerity and a conscientious effort to improve the unacceptable situations in Turkey.
Words must be turned into deeds, into substantive action.
We are no longer prepared to accept lies, deceptive promises, misleading words and threats like those by Mr Ecevit.
Turkey is a part of European history.
Unfortunately, its behaviour now obliges it to offer proof of that.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, although it is to you that I speak, I am thinking of the presidency that held office at the time when this violation of international law took place and Turkey sent its troops into northern Iraq.
I find it shameful that the Council could not find more forceful language to condemn that breach of international law, to call a spade a spade, instead of contenting itself with pointing out the acts of terrorism that had brought Turkey to act as it did.
I believe that we should be honest as between friends, but above all that we should not be cowardly.
We are, of course, conducting a debate that we should have conducted two months ago.
This was not our fault, but the fault of the Council in its refusal to accept our request for a statement at that time.
As Mr Langen has said, the new Government is now having to listen to charges that should have been laid against the former government.
There is continuity, there must be continuity within a state.
The government bears the responsibility for what the state does.
If the government in Turkey is to change every six months, we cannot always put out of our minds what the previous government said, and look only to the future.
We need confidence-building measures, too.
And this Parliament needs to know that it has a partner with which it can negotiate, a partner on which it can rely.
That is very important.
I too - like Parliament as a whole - have high hopes of this new government, Mr Langen.
But this new government must understand that it has to take these steps to create confidence, that it has to show us that it means to keep its promises.
I very much hope that that will happen, and that Turkey will play, or continue to play, its part in Europe.
I am in favour of Turkey's retaining the option of accession.
But it must keep to everything that other candidates keep to - no more and no less!
That option it must have.
We want to have Turkey with us in Europe.
Sadly, the Turkish Government has constantly moved away from Europe with its human rights violations, its lack of democracy, the Cyprus situation and the unsolved problem of the Kurds.
We expect a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem.
We expect an end to the occupation of Cyprus, and we expect the human rights situation and democratization to improve.
Then Turkey will have its place with us!
Mr President, I should like briefly to reply to the speakers who have taken a position and thank them for their contribution, even though sometimes they have been very critical of the Presidency.
As far as clear language is concerned, I can be quite frank in respect of the last speaker, given that six years ago I had the privilege, in the wake of the Gulf War, of visiting Kurdish refugee camps.
During that visit I also held talks with officials at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and I clearly explained to them the position not only of the European Union but also of the European Parliament.
Let us make no mistake.
There is no ambiguity on this.
At the time and still today as you know there are some Turkish politicians who deny that there is a Kurdish problem and to say that there is not a minority: when I was visiting them they spoke of the Kurds as 'upland Turks' .
That was the expression that they used.
They are quite frankly denying the problem.
In my view that was and still is unacceptable.
Apart from that I should like to say, Mr President, that despite some disappointments and certain frustrations I think it is the duty of the Council of Ministers of the European Union and the Commission to remain in a dialogue which I would qualify as critical, firm and constructive, with a new Turkish Government, while being very firm and refusing any ambiguity on the question of human rights and the respect of the rights of the Kurdish minority.
I should like to add, Mr President, that even though we should be careful and prudent we should also at the same time encourage by all the means at our disposal all Turkish democratic forces who want to promote democracy and the respect of human rights, but that in a practical way and not only in terms of words, words which have remained a dead letter for far too long.
Thank you very much, Mr Wohlfahrt.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Situation in Albania after the elections
The next item is the presentation of statements from the Council and the Commission on the situation in Albania after the elections.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction on the situation in Albania, I should like to sum up the facts.
I should emphasize that, following the collapse of civil order in Albania at the beginning of this year, the European Union played an active role to help Albania to restore political and economic stability, to restore internal security and promote democracy by proceeding to free and regular elections in the respect of international standards.
The Council also took the initiative in March to send an exploratory mission to Tirana which became the kernel of the consultative mission for Albania in the framework of the OSCE's coordination.
This mission was responsible for giving opinions on the development of the situation in terms of the humanitarian situation, the economic and financial situations and security in the country.
The Council coordinated its action with that of other international organizations and fully supported the coordination efforts of the personal representative of the President-in-Office of the OSCE, Mr Vranitzky.
At that stage in the crisis, the Union's particular contribution consisted on one hand of offering humanitarian aid, in particular food and medicine and, on the other, in contributing to the reestablishment of the Albanian police force and supporting the electoral process, a key point in the international effort.
As you know, legislative elections were held on 29 June and 6 July and the Council committed the political parties and all Albanian citizens to taking part in the elections in a spirit of peace, discipline and conciliation.
I should like to recall that in the framework of the surveillance arrangements set up under the aegis of the OSCE, the Member States send observers to the spot to oversee the proper functioning of those elections.
The Council has also emphasized its future relations with the European Union and Albania and on the full restoration of democratic principles, respect of human rights and the rights of minorities and the application of healthy economic practices as well as the existence of cooperation links between Albania and its neighbours.
The Council accepts with satisfaction the general assessment according to which the legislative elections took place acceptably.
It has also pointed out the need for Albania to respect the results of the elections and the authority of the new government now being formed.
The Council emphasizes the important role played by the multinational protection force which helped to create a safe environment for the elections and the various missions by the international community in Albania.
The Council has also committed all political and trade union formations in Albania to pursue with determination a process of national reconciliation in order to overcome divisions within society and to increase confidence in the authorities.
The conditions of international aid will also depend on the pursuit of this process.
Against that background the Union is determined to pursue aid for Albania on the basis of its common position of 2 June and bearing in mind the principal of conditionality.
The European Union will act under its own responsibility but will cooperate closely with other international organizations in the framework of the OSCE's coordination.
In order to support this approach the Council will encourage the working out in conjunction with the Albanian authorities of a common and comprehensive international action plan.
For that purpose the Union welcomes Mr Vranitzky's initiative to create a group responsible inter alia for defining the elements of such an action plan.
The European Union intends to contribute to its establishment and is prepared to work out a series of practical measures with a view to demobilizing the armed groups and establishing a climate favourable for security.
The Union also appreciates Italy's proposal to organize on 31 July a conference of senior officials with the participation of Albanian officials.
This conference should lead to a ministerial meeting in Rome in September next.
In this context the Council expects the newly elected Albanian authorities and all sectors of Albanian society to work together with the international community for the stabilization, democratization and economic restoration of their country and abstaining from any activity running counter to those aims.
These joint efforts should lead to political and economic reforms which are needed and head in the direction of the respect of human rights and internationally accepted democratic standards.
The organization by the World Bank and the Commission of an international conference of donors will depend on the establishment by the Albanian Government of a programme of economic reform benefiting from IMF support.
An economic restoration strategy worked out by the World Bank will act as a framework for the country's economic and institutional reform.
Commitments made by the Albanian authorities must be monitored.
On this basis the Council can envisage resuming the political dialogue begun with Albania back in 1992.
The cooperation agreements dating back to the same year will continue to serve as a framework for deepening the country's relations with the European Union.
Thank you, Mr Wohlfart.
Commissioner van den Broek will now speak on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, I would just add one thing to what the Presidentin-Office has said and which I am happy to endorse.
I should like to take the opportunity to address a special word of appreciation to Mrs Lalumière, who was able to carry out her task as OSCE coordinator of the international monitoring activities so successfully, in what were often difficult conditions.
We were glad that the Commission was also able to provide the necessary support.
We hope that a new government will be formed in Albania before the end of the month, which can then cooperate with the international community on what is called the common international agenda for Albania, the purpose of this being to set out what needs to be achieved in the short, medium and long term.
The priorities which we have set ourselves here are of course democratic reforms, including the framing and adoption of constitutional law, improvement of the internal security situation - I am thinking here of the widespread possession of arms amongst the population - the necessary reorganization of the police, institutional reforms and improvement of the administrative machinery, and of course economic rehabilitation.
The international organizations which work closely with the Commission will each have an important role to play in this process, within their individual areas of responsibility, and as the President-in-Office has just explained, Mr Vranitzky, the OSCE coordinator, has already convened an initial meeting tomorrow, so as to dovetail the various activities in the framework of the common agenda.
We shall also be present in Rome at the end of this month to discuss the political and economic conditions which might be attached to the provision of aid.
And then in September, decisions will be taken at ministerial level on the implementation of the common agenda.
Once this implementation is under way and agreements have been reached with the new government, the meeting of international donors can be arranged.
We assume that this will take place in the autumn, and it should give further impetus to the programme of economic recovery.
A condition for this is that agreements are concluded with the IMF.
The Commission has provided assistance in this respect where possible in recent months.
Humanitarian aid has been made available through ECHO, and food supplies have also been held ready in case the situation should deteriorate.
A start has already been made under the PHARE programme with the refurbishing of partially destroyed prisons, and we have been able to provide assistance for the customs authorities.
The latter are very important for securing at least one definite source of income for the government once again.
The Commission is now assessing to what extent the whole PHARE programme for Albania needs to be reviewed, so that it can provide an adequate response to the new situation.
On the basis of the existing programmes, priority is being given to speeding up the programme aimed at local development, including job creation, assistance with the reorganization of the police, an audit of how the pyramid schemes were organized, infrastructure projects to improve the links between various towns, and improvement of the tax collecting system.
We are also working with the IMF, the World Bank and the EBRD on a document which will contain the policy strategy for economic recovery.
This document sets out the general approach and the short- and medium-term conditions for the resumption of international financial support.
We understand that this document will be finalized in the near future, and its annex will indicate what sectoral strategies have to be pursued in the areas of social provision, transport and government administration, and what the needs are for technical and financial assistance.
The new government of Albania will have to express its views on this document, and then agreements can be reached on the subsequent follow-up.
In short, we are monitoring the situation closely with the Council.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, thank you for those reports.
At long last, the situation in Albania seems to have taken a turn for the better.
I believe that the OECD has been completely successful, as mentioned earlier, and as an Austrian I am of course proud of the leading part played in that success by Franz Vranitzky.
The whole thing, of course, would have been impossible without the energetic support and assistance of the European Union.
I would like to make it completely clear that although it is true to say that the elections, by and large, were fair and equitable, they were certainly not completely peaceful - there were a few problems.
I would also mention, Commissioner, and I would ask you to look into it, that the observation of the elections by Members of this House did not take place under optimum conditions, because the 'visibility' , to which reference has so often been made, was very minimal if indeed it existed at all.
You have praised Mrs Lalumière, and we all fully endorse that.
Actually, this House would have been fully entitled to be officially represented in the Troika, too, in the name of the European Union.
The European Union is hiding its light under a bushel to some extent.
I would, for example, also look into this: a great many radio sets were purchased for the observers, which were then to be handed over to the EU.
We - Mr Roubatis and I - were completely unable to find any walkie-talkies, and many other Honourable Members had the same problem.
Perhaps they went direct to the EU, I don't know.
But I do think it should be looked into.
The essential thing, though, I agree, is to provide help now, in this difficult situation, where Albania urgently needs it.
We wholeheartedly support the conditional approach that was mentioned here, providing a clear guarantee that democratization can now be directly followed by economic development.
That is the right approach.
You will certainly have the solid support of the House on that.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, the elections in Albania were necessary to allow that country a fresh start.
The OECD worked with the Albanian authorities to prepare those elections, mainly using European money, and the multinational peace-keeping force, originally given a very different mandate, did in fact guarantee that things went ahead relatively smoothly on election day.
The fact is, though, that these elections were neither free nor fair - during the electoral campaign, for example, many candidates had no opportunity to present themselves to the voters in their constituencies.
For safety reasons, we ourselves, the observers, were not even allowed to visit the rural areas on election day.
And yet all Members who were there to observe the elections agreed that those elections must be accepted under the conditions that existed.
Because, after all, they were to be a starting point for the continuing development of democratic structures.
The new government has a difficult job ahead of it.
First and foremost, it has to restore order in the country - it has to collect the innumerable weapons at large, and above all it must finally dissolve the rebel committees with which what is now the governing party concluded a pact at the end of March.
We expect the government to arrange for independent experts to determine with relentless clarity just who was behind the pyramid schemes and so brought disaster upon the population with their criminal activities.
Of course the European Union must continue to help Albania.
Most of all, it must help to establish democratic structures, and I would thank the two gentlemen who have addressed us today for their reference to conditionality.
The fact that there have been eleven civilian deaths in the last three days alone shows that gathering in the weapons is an essential condition for further development.
The multinational peace-keeping force should be given a new mandate until the new government has restored order.
We of the PPE Group wish the Albanian Government every success in establishing majority within their party for the forces of democracy and leaving their communist heritage far behind them.
Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, the elections in Albania were certainly an important step that needed to be taken - no-one is disputing that - a step in the slow and laborious process of reconstructing the country.
But let us consider what happened during those elections.
First of all, Europe yet again emerged badly from events in Albania: it emerged as a political dwarf, divided by its usual internal squabbles, by the different positions assumed by the various Member States; and, as usual, we had to adopt a minimalist position.
We have then to thank the OSCE and Vranitzky for putting Albania together again.
We hope that when, in the near future, it comes to the process of reconstruction, Europe will not continue with this low profile political suicide.
As far as the elections are concerned, I agree with Mrs Pack: let us be honest about it, the elections were neither free nor fair.
Obviously, we welcome the fact that they took place - and, moreover, had they not been held the situation might have been worse - but it is quite clear that there are parts of the country in which it is hard to talk of democracy.
We welcome the fact that all of the political forces accepted the outcome, but it is also true that, had the election result been different, had it been the democratic party and not the socialist party that had won, then the attitude of the defeated party might well have been different. We shall need to look out for that in the future, Mr President-in-Office and Commissioner, because we want the future to be genuinely democratic and not settled in the old Albanian fashion, the old socialist fashion that we are familiar with, 40 years of obscurantism and communism of the grimmest, most loathsome and cruellest variety.
I hope that, first and foremost, it will be possible to disarm the armed gangs, so that they cannot threaten the lives of civilians, and that Albania will return to the path of economic development based on a liberal democracy.
Mr President, anyone who loses power to a dictator - or loses the fight against a person with aspirations to be a dictator - generally loses everything: assets, freedom, life itself.
On the other hand, a sign of a real democracy is when the victor gives the loser both personal security and the opportunity to criticise his way of ruling.
In addition, the loser must be given the means to make his criticism known to the voters.
We are really talking about enlightened self interest here.
The victor knows very well that the roles may be reversed at the very next election.
Recently there has been an election in Albania.
No one tried to make sure that the election campaign was conducted properly.
On the contrary, both principal candidates appear to have tried to prevent the other from speaking out and spreading their message.
But the election itself led Mrs Lalumiere as chairman for the international election observatory to say that it was possible to award it the grade 'approved with some hesitation' .
I think that this, in spite of everything, is a success for Albania.
The election has not transformed Albania into a democracy.
If we want to be kind - and we do want to be kind here in Parliament - we could say that this is a springboard to democracy.
All eyes will now be upon Albania - both the government and the opposition.
We in the European Parliament hope to be able to see continued democratic successes.
We also want to emphasise, in particular, that the multifaceted help which we now want the EU to give Albania is in harmony with Albania's development as a democratic constitutional state.
When the chief of the clan's time is up, Albania will be welcome to join democratic Europe.
Mr. President, I think everyone who had the opportunity to be present as observers during the Albanian elections will have ascertained - if they judge objectively - firstly that apart from a few minor episodes, a few weaknesses that were evident, the Albanian people demonstrated both responsibility and levelheadedness towards the conditions that have arisen in that country.
I think we should regard that as a very important factor in the development of the situation in Albania. Secondly, the Albanian people's demonstration called for three things: for Mr Berisha to go, for the return of its money, and for a change of the regime which existed and which bled the country dry.
The first was achieved by the vote, which threw Berisha out.
It is now time both for the process of changing the President of the Republic to be democratic, and for the international community and the European Union to contribute economic support so that the money lost by the people can be returned and the country can recover economically.
That is what the European Union should be looking at, and not supporting military rule in Albania.
Mr President, I believe that, as was apparent to all of the international observers, despite the earlier doubts and concerns that were justified by the particular conditions and difficulties that existed in Albania, the elections have to be considered to have been acceptable, thanks also to the presence of the multinational protection force and large numbers of international observers.
But the fact that the elections took place and were recognized to be acceptable not only by the international observers but also by the political forces of Albania is only the first stage towards rebuilding democracy in Albania.
For that reason, we need to set a range of objectives regarding a number of problems.
The first of those problems arises because the multinational protection force is to begin demobilizing in mid-July and withdraw completely by the end of August, by which time it is highly likely that Albania will still not have its own adequate system of internal controls. We need therefore to request the United Nations to extend the mandate of the multinational force, giving it a new format and extending it to include other countries.
But the European Union needs also to cooperate with the new parliament and the new government; and resources need to be used not just to produce consumer goods for export but also to produce consumer goods for use within Albania itself, to secure lasting and sustainable development.
Mr President, I must thank the President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner Van den Broek for the information they have just given us on Albania.
Having been entrusted by the OSCE with the mission for coordinating observers for the mandate for assessing the elections which have just taken place in that country, I can confirm much of what has already been said.
Today following the elections which took place in conditions which were regarded as acceptable even though there were numerous incidents, I should like to insist on the following points.
Nothing has stabilized in Albania.
Every day incidents take place often leading to death.
The new authority is not yet in place.
The structures of a normal state do not exist.
The army is practically non-existent.
Justice and the policy must be fully reformed.
The population is still over-armed.
Everyone or nearly everyone has his or her kalashnikov and uses it.
In such a situation our responsibilities are still great.
I should express two wishes.
On the one hand, it seems vital that the European Union should resume rapidly its economic and financial aid to Albania without forgetting aid for democratization.
Time is not on our side and the population lacks everything.
This urgency does not, however, mean that we should send money without discretion.
From this point of view I earnestly want the Commission to show more vigilance in the use of the funds which it is mobilizing.
The financial pyramid affair shows that strengthening controls would not be amiss.
We must improve our methods.
On the other hand, concerning the presence of the multinational protection force in Albania, I should like this force which has carried out remarkable work not to be withdrawn brutally, as foreseen by the Security Council mandate.
This force is due to leave Albania in mid-August.
It would be highly desirable for the departure to be carried out progressively, as Albanian security forces are gradually put into place.
It would also be highly desirable for the tasks entrusted to this new force not only to be tasks of maintaining order but also to be those of training, in order to give Albania the army it needs.
Albania is a small country but it is a European country, geographically close to us all, and also situated in an extremely sensitive region.
It is in our interests to be generous, active and efficient.
For this purpose, I hope that the European Union will support the very practical and timely proposal just made by the former Chancellor of Austria, Mr Vranitzky, rapidly to set up a working group entrusted with coordinating the action of the various international organizations in Albania in order to avoid a dissipation of action and contradictions.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, I am happy that you have just approved this idea put forward by former Chancellor Vranitzky.
Thank you Mrs Lalumière.
Pursuant to Rule 37 of this House, I have received seven motions for resolutions to close the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Mr Parigi will now speak.
Mr President, yet again in the case of Albania, Europe looked like an economic giant with political feet of clay.
Crisis broke out in Albania and the people were in revolt, weapons stores were pillaged and refugees were fleeing, but it was not until weeks later, as a result or a more or less isolated Italian initiative and after the UN had given prior authorization, that it was finally possible to send in a multinational force and restore a minimum of stability to the country.
Albania has now changed - and not only in appearance, we hope - its own leadership, which will, we hope, want to help resolve, with international support, the many problems afflicting the people of Albania.
However, we in the Alleanza Nazionale condemn the fact that the elections were not all together regular and suspect that the international community proved so indulgent only because it was the left that won.
I wonder if that same understanding would have been forthcoming had it been the opposite party that had emerged victorious!
We hope, at any rate, that Albania will be able to emerge from the tunnel in which it finds itself and that events in Albania will give Europe the impetus to establish as rapidly as possible a common foreign and security policy, so that we do not once again find ourselves unprepared and tragically lagging behind in the face of various crisis points simmering on our doorstep.
Mr. President, I see that some Members are almost disappointed that things have not turned out in Albania as they had expected.
Though they were in deep crisis, the Albanian people managed to conduct elections, which were indeed deemed satisfactory.
If some people have been disappointed, I am sorry.
The leader of the Socialist Party, Fatos Nano, managed to evade certain snares that had been set for him and certain provocations, and won the elections.
And not only did he win them, but he formed a government which does not comprise only one party, but many.
Many people are part of the government and the President of Parliament and some of the Ministers are not members of his party.
This is perhaps disappointing to some, but I am encouraged by it and I hope others are as well.
What we have heard from the President-in-Office of the Council and from Mr Van den Broek leads me to conclude that they agree with me.
Today we face a challenge, one which will lead us to the decision, I hope, that joint action is needed in Albania so that political, social and economic conditions in that country can be substantially improved.
We must help Albania to deepen its democracy, this democracy in its infancy, to control and disarm the armed criminal groups, and to plan an economic programme which will help it advance in a new direction.
I therefore make an appeal that we should not continue to act as in the past.
Let us not be timid about helping Albania, as we were timid when it needed our help but only a few European Union countries went there to do what they could.
I think the European Union as a whole should show a presence in Albania and act in a coordinated way to help that country.
I want to remind you that Albania is part of Europe, it is our neighbour, and we should aid those citizens, who deserve something better.
And I think Europe too will be better off if Albania prospers and if its economic situation improves substantially.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, the sequence of events shows that the decisions taken were the right ones.
Action was taken before the crisis could degenerate into a situation that would certainly have resulted in social disintegration as well as the collapse of the State.
To spend time now assessing what happened would be a sterile exercise.
The elections took place - we were not disappointed - and they did provide a turning-point from which to start afresh.
It is, however, necessary that Europe and the parties that function within Parliament, as in other countries, should take care to avoid trying to establish spheres of influence, because one of the positive factors that produced this outcome was the impartial approach adopted.
I think that the intervention of the multinational force was crucial here.
I have to say to the President-in-Office that Europe proved ineffective here.
Parliament called for joint measures, but only some countries agreed to act and so make an important contribution to resolving the crisis in Albania.
It is to be hoped that, in future, we shall see Europe united - in a programme of the kind described here and that has my support - and acting much more effectively and sensitively.
I would point out that, in the meantime, the parties that formed the governing coalition have met in Rome and reached positive agreements: those who have won must not claim to have won by a landslide and those who have lost must accept the democratic result.
The President-in-Office and the Commissioner ought perhaps to take note of that agreement - reached at Sant'Egidio - which provides an important guideline for the future.
The guidelines that have been set are certainly positive; I welcome the Commissioner's programme which may be positive for all.
Mr President, I wish first to point out that Europe's initiative fell short of expectations but was, at any rate, decisive. The presence of the multinational force and the contribution made to the OSCE initiative were two crucial factors that ought not to be forgotten.
As far as the future is concerned, I believe that what matters most is to stop giving the impression we are currently giving: that most of what is necessary has now been done and that the page has been turned once and for all.
The elections were an important event and, since the alternative would have been chaos, Vranitzky was right to insist that they should take place at the end of June.
But we should delude neither ourselves nor others.
The situation in Albania remains delicate in all respects.
We must remember above all that Albania is not a poor country: the economic and social situation is bad only because the country has been impoverished by bad decisions, taken in both the distant and the more recent past.
The Council and Commission have now to be clear about the deadlines and programmes for the future, and Albania needs to be certain that these are programmes that will be followed through and deadlines that will be respected.
Commissioner van den Broek, I want now to make a crucial point that we talked about before the elections: the monitoring of international intervention and aid.
We do not want to see a repetition of what happened in the past!
We gave Albania more than any other country and the result was disastrous because of the lack of controls.
Let us have no more of that!
Mr Cars would like to speak on a point of order.
You are extremely keen for speakers to keep within their time limits.
This is something we must all respect.
As I am one of the few whom you have not had reason to interrupt, I would like to make you aware that you have often brought down the hammer a few seconds before the time limit for speaking was up.
I would ask you, therefore, to reflect upon whether this is the right procedure.
Mr Cars, time is one of this House's major problems.
The Presidency cannot silence Members of Parliament, but advises them when they have used up their allotted time.
The responsibility or otherwise of continuing is that of each individual member. In any case, I do what I can to ensure that we keep to the timetable.
The debate is closed.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B4-0349/97).
We shall consider questions to the Council.
Question No 1 by Jaime Valdivielso de Cué (H-0477/97):
Subject: Inclusion in the revised Treaty of an article setting out a legal basis for voluntary work
Voluntary work and NGOs represent a growing phenomenon in society.
In Spain, 30 % of the public are involved in voluntary activity of some kind.
Hundreds of EU citizens take part in humanitarian and peace-keeping activities in regions suffering from hunger, poverty, epidemics or war.
The Treaty contains no specific legal definition of voluntary work. However, this kind of work is sufficiently specific and important for it to merit a Treaty article on its own.
Does the Council intend to propose inclusion of a regulatory article in support of voluntary work and NGOs?
What concrete measures are planned to encourage cooperation between humanitarian organizations from different countries with a view to deriving maximum benefit from their efforts and helping bring about a European dimension?
Does there exist any register of NGOs and humanitarian organizations which would make it possible to distribute the goods confiscated for reasons of fraud against the Communities, which as things stand are simply destroyed, among those most in need?
I would like first of all to say that the Mr President-in-Office of the Council, during the June part-session, already had the opportunity to answer an identical question put by the Member of the European Parliament.
I shall therefore echo that answer.
First of all, this question calls for the following points to be made clear - as an institution the Council of Ministers is not party to the Intergovernmental Conference.
You are also no doubt aware that, in the meantime, the proceedings of the Intergovernmental Conference have come to an end and the findings are now in the public domain.
I should like to emphasize that I do, however, share your opinion about the contribution made by NGOs and charitable activities to a wide variety of sectors because they represent decisive contributions to relieving many sufferings, while enabling in certain cases whole swathes of societies in development to take their destiny into their own hands.
Concerning practical measures taken in order to optimize the efforts of humanitarian organizations, the humanitarian aid regulation adopted in 1996 foresees, inter alia, the possibility of financing actions to strengthen the Community's coordination with international humanitarian organizations and institutions, as well as nongovernmental organizations and organizations representing them.
As far as the creation of a register of NGOs and humanitarian organizations is concerned able to distribute to the neediest products seized because of fraud, I can only point out to the European Parliament that the Council has not been referred to in respect of proposals along those lines made by the Commission.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, your answer is an interesting one.
I would like to stress the fantastic and magnificent, although not unlimited, potential of European society, which could be taken better advantage of.
I do not believe that we are doing so at the moment - it is a lacuna we should all be aware of.
Secondly, to deal with a much more tangible aspect, the case often arises within the European Union that, for reasons of fraud, industrial forgery, etc., we destroy illegally produced goods.
We often burn clothing, destroy blankets and footwear, because a trademark has been infringed, or for some other similar reason.
I understand perfectly why this is done: trade registers or the like have criteria which must be complied with, but it is a shame that we cannot take advantage of such goods to help those most in need.
I am happy to note that both you and I agree on the quite sensational role played by our NGOs in the area which has just been described, in particular concerning the neediest and the least-favoured.
I can appreciate the work carried out by NGOs given that I, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, am responsible for the cooperation and development section.
As for the last part of his speech and his desire, I can perfectly understand that perhaps it would be better for him to put his question to the Commission to find out whether it might take the initiative along the lines of what he wants.
Given that its author is absent, Question No 2 lapses.
Question No 3 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0481/97):
Subject: Situation in Algeria
How does the Council assess the current situation in Algeria? What are the prospects for our relations in the short term, and what action is planned?
In reply I would like to set out the following factors.
As you know, the Council is very closely following developments in the domestic situation in Algeria.
The Council is satisfied with the holding of legislative elections on 5 June last.
The Algerian people expressed its opinion in order and good security conditions following a request made by the Algerian authorities, a significant number of Member States of the European Union replied positively by sending observers on a national basis coordinated by the United Nations.
The Union has taken note of the report by the joint observation mission which confirms that, despite certain noteworthy imperfections, the ballot took place in conditions which might be qualified as 'generally satisfactory' .
The relatively high turnout shows in our opinion the determination of the Algerian people to take its future in hand.
The Council feels that these elections are a step forward in the process of political reforms in the country.
It also hopes that the new multipartite assembly and the coalition government, with a large majority, will now be key actors in the process of reform towards building a democratic and violence-free society in Algeria.
The Council will very attentively follow the holding of the next round of votes, this time for municipal elections, due to be held in early autumn.
As far as bilateral relations are concerned, the Council hopes that the situation will enable a new EuroMediterranean agreement quickly to be concluded with Algeria.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your reply.
However, since reference was made more to the immediate past and to the elections, I would like to ask you about the current situation: How do you view the conditional freeing of Abasi Mandani, leader of the FIS? Do you see it as an effective contribution to efforts at finding a solution to the violence?
I think that it is in our interest to hold open dialogue with all the parties concerned in Algeria.
I think that yesterday's release of Mr Abassi Madani might possible calm the situation currently prevailing in Algeria which concerns all of us.
This release might represent a step forward in the difficult negotiations and along the difficult road towards a solution to the conflict which has already claimed far too many victims.
Mr President-in-Office, would you really call it democratic if elections are held for privileged parties only, and if the party that won an absolute majority last time but was then overthrown by the military is excluded? Still, it is a step in the right direction, thank God.
Are you willing to bring further pressure to bear on the Algerian Government to allow genuine democracy, in which the Algerian people is represented, and not just represented by the kind of people acceptable to those in power? Quite apart from that, Mr President-in-Office, you know very well just how much support has been given to the party that gained the majority - financially, administratively and with all means available to the government.
I think I already emphasized in my first reply to the question that these elections represented a first step.
I can understand that you were not at all satisfied by the conditions in which these elections took place.
I think however that we should do all we can now to make sure that future elections are held in more democratic conditions.
I should like to say nevertheless that the current climate is hardly favourable for that.
Nonetheless that should not dissuade us from doing all we can on our side to open a positive and constructive dialogue which might finally lead to such democratic actions, without forgetting the very important fact that in any case parties which resort to violence and terrorism should not normally have a say in the matter.
All other democratic forces which accept the principles of democracy should be able to take part in the next elections in the country.
Question No 4 by John Iversen (H-0488/97):
Subject: Burma
Following the recent elections in the UK and France, has the Council changed its position on a joint boycott of trade with Burma?
As far as the situation in Burma is concerned, I should like to say that, on 29 April last, the Council decided to extend for a further six month period the administrative sanctions provided for in the European Union's common position on Burma adopted on 29 October 1996.
This decision was taken following the failure to make any progress domestically in the country, particularly concerning the human rights situation and the process of democratization in the country.
At this stage further suggestions in the economic field were not adhered to.
Nonetheless these might be the subject of a later debate should the situation in Burma deteriorate further.
I can also confirm that the European Union is constantly vigilant vis-à-vis the situation in Burma and that it is looking at the question of the need for significant and rapid reforms with all of its international partners, the ASEAN states in particular, which it is asking to use all of its means of pressure at its disposal to influence the stance taken by the SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council).
Thank you for the answer.
Mr President-in-Office, I would like to ask you - for we all know that the situation is serious in the region and in Burma itself - when the question is to be put on the Council's agenda. Will it be in a month, two months, or has it already been decided when the Council will discuss further sanctions against Burma?
I should like to add something in reply to the supplementary question just put. Sanctions has not yet bene taken, as I said, but I do not rule out the possibility of the Council of Ministers looking at this issue at the General Affairs Council in September.
Question No 5 by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0490/97):
Subject: Non-discrimination paragraph and Maastricht II Treaty
There is an established church in Denmark to which the state gives financial support for e.g. the maintenance of buildings and salaries for priests.
Could the effect of inclusion of the non-discrimination paragraph in the new Maastricht II Treaty in countries such as Denmark with an established church be that other religious communities could demand equal status with the established church and thus obtain financial support, and could they appeal to the courts if that does not happen?
Mr President, in reply to this question I should like to say that only the Court of Justice is able to interpret provisions which in the future might be included in a Treaty on the European Union following the Intergovernmental Conference which has just concluded in Amsterdam.
I do not think it is for the Council to assess a text which has not yet even been signed let alone come into effect.
I might perhaps ask the President-in-Office precisely what the idea was of including the church in this non-discrimination paragraph.
What form of discrimination does the Council imagine a church could be subject to?
Mr President, for the reason that I have just mentioned, all I can do is try to answer in a totally personal capacity the supplementary question put by Mrs Sandbæk.
In my opinion, at first reading, the future Article 6a of the Treaty will have no direct effect in other words individuals will be able to base their arguments on its provisions before a national court or before the Court of Justice of the European Community.
It will offer the Council, deciding unanimously on a proposal put by the Commission and following consultation of the European parliaments, the possibility but not the obligation to take measures in order to combat and not to ban a certain number of discriminations against individuals within the limits of the powers recognized for the European Community by the Treaty.
In this respect it should be noted that relations between the church or churches and the state within each Member State do not come within the powers of the European Community and cannot be the subject of Community measures.
Mention can be made in this regard of the final act of the Intergovernmental Conference on the status of churches according to national law.
Mr President, I am grateful to the President-in-Office for mentioning the Final Act which, unlike the Treaty, has already been signed and contains a clause on the relationship between State and Church.
Christianity is equally dominant in all Member States, and without Christianity there would be no Europe, but the relationship between State and Church has developed along very different lines in the various states.
So it makes excellent sense to allow subsidiarity to prevail here.
I should like to know whether you consider the mention in the Final Act to be adequate, and why it was impossible to grant the wish of the European churches and enshrine this relationship in the Treaty itself as well.
Luxembourg, in particular, must have had misgivings here.
I think you have answered your own question.
You have mentioned subsidiarity and I myself refer to that principle in reply to the first question which was put.
That is exactly the reason why, and there is no other.
I can assure you that Luxembourg has no reservation in this respect.
Question No 6 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0491/97):
Subject: Road safety measures
The Council has recently been paying increasing attention to road safety, and this interest has been manifested in a number of resolutions.
In this connection, is the Council in favour of the proposals for all basic infrastructure projects to be subject to a safety impact assessment and for motor vehicles to be equipped with speed-limiting devices?
Mr President, in order to answer this question I would like to say first of all the Council did adopt during the meeting of 17 and 18 June 1997 conclusions on the subject of the Commission communication on promoting road safety in the European Union a programme for the period 1997 to 2001.
Having taken official note of this action programme presented by the Commission, the Council welcomed the fact that it provides for new common initiatives to define an integrated approach to road safety in the Community.
The Council did not explicitly express an opinion on the two measures for accident prevention mentioned by the Member of the European Parliament concerning speed limiting devices and the impact study on infrastructures concerning road safety.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the European Transport Safety Council has presented to the Commission - and, I assume, also to the Council - its celebrated plan which includes the ambitious objective of reducing the number of road accident victims in the European Union from 45, 000 to 25, 000 a year by 2010.
An attempt is also being made to reduce the socioeconomic costs - which run into millions - which are currently the norm in the Union.
Amongst the binding legislation, it is proposed to make it compulsory to submit any infrastructure project for a safety impact study, something similar to what already happens vis-à-vis the environment.
We regard this measure as perfectly reasonable and would like to ask the Council for its opinion in this respect although, as the Council has stated, it has still not had a chance to study it. We would, however, be grateful for Council's opinion.
We feel the other matter is more debatable, but not avoidable, and we view it as a proposal to draw up pilot projects such as the possibility of equipping motor vehicles with speed-limiting devices with a view to reducing the number of accidents and victims.
It should not be forgotten that some lorries are already fitted with such devices and that, according to this measure, a reduction of just 5 km/hour in the average speed on European Union roads would result in no fewer than 11, 000 lives being saved each year.
What is the Council's opinion on this, although it has not yet examined the subject in any depth?
Mr President, in his supplementary question Mr Camisón Asensio has already given us the tragic record of road accidents in the European Community: not only loss of human life but also a huge number of injured - 1, 600, 000.
As a doctor I can assure you that often the fate of the injured, who are soon forgotten after the accident, is very difficult to bear, not only for the injured themselves but also for their families, without speaking of the exorbitant social and economic costs.
All of that should be brought into consideration.
I can tell you that the Council of Ministers fully agrees with you over the tragedy of this massive loss of life and it also agrees with the Commission's proposal.
In our view we should neglect no possible way of preventing these accidents.
Question No 7 by Patricia McKenna (H-0499/07) will not be called as the subject covered is already on the current agenda.
Question No 8 by Sören Wibe (H-0501/97), for whom Mrs Ahlqvist is deputizing:
Subject: Ecofin recommendations to Sweden
On 12 May 1997, according to reports in the Swedish press, EU finance ministers recommended Sweden to reduce its budget deficit by cutting taxes on individuals and businesses and by making cuts in the public sector and/or the system of social transfers.
The Maastricht Treaty, to which Sweden acceded, sets an upper limit on Member States' budget deficits but does not state how Member States should achieve that objective.
By making its recommendations, Ecofin has set clear political priorities.
Sweden is to make cuts in its welfare system despite the fact that surveys show the system to enjoy the support of the Swedish people.
Does the Council consider it appropriate for Ecofin to set political priorities in this way?
Would it not have been better simply to recommend that Sweden meet the budgetary objective either by making cuts or by increasing taxes and other charges? Has the Council considered how many jobs would be lost in Sweden if the country were to lower taxes and make cuts as recommended?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Article 104C of the Treaty setting up the European Community stipulates that when the Council decides that there is an excessive deficit, it makes recommendations to the Member State concerned so that it can bring an end to that situation within a given period.
On one hand, in order to be effective, such a recommendation cannot be limited to a simple reminder of the budgetary aim.
On the other hand, the Council always gives its opinion in sufficiently general terms in order to leave a certain amount of leeway for the Member States concerning their domestic priorities.
The text concerning Sweden, to which the two Members of the European Parliament refer, have not yet been the subject of a publication in accordance with Article 104C of the Treaty and in our view it respects that balance.
Furthermore, the Amsterdam European Council confirmed that healthy public finances are a necessary condition for strong and lasting growth which in itself generates jobs.
It is also interesting to note in this context that the conversions programme presented by the Swedish Government in September 1995 for the period up to the end of 1998 goes along with the same approach.
Thank you, President-in-Office, I will pass on this answer to my party colleague, Sören Wibe.
But I also have a question: When will the text which concerned Sweden but has so far not been made public, be made public?
I hope so, Madam, as soon as possible.
That is the only answer I can give you.
Otherwise, I would be dishonest towards you.
I would like to ask two related questions of the Council of Ministers.
If you reduce taxes, State income falls and the deficit increases.
So I cannot really understand the Presidency's logic.
Should not Sweden be raising taxes to reduce the deficit in the public sector? That was the first question.
The second question is: if the Council of Ministers were to give Sweden advice on where to make savings, where would this be, in defence, child care or in social services? Where should Sweden make these cutbacks?
As I see it this is a politically motivated recommendation whose real purpose is to try to make countries adopt a form of right wing politics.
I have no magic recipe and I have just explained the procedures that should lead to the reduction in budgetary deficit.
Assessment of the proposal is up to the Swedish Government and it is also up to that government to take the necessary measures in order to comply with these requirements.
Neither the Council nor the President-in-Office of the Council can give the Swedish Government lessons on this.
In this case it is the principle of subsidiarity which comes into play.
Is the President-in-Office aware that Sweden currently does not have a budget deficit in its public finances for current affairs.
Is he also aware of the fact that the apparently high tax level in Sweden is fictitious because it is the result of the fact that in Sweden there is a public social security system.
There will also be fictitiously lower tax levels in countries where the social security system and its charges are not part of the public sector but are private instead.
If I understood right, you were just clarifying your questions.
You have just told met that there was no budgetary deficit because of very high taxes.
I can tell you that in Luxembourg we have no deficit at all and we have fairly low taxes.
Question No 9 by Arthur Newens (H-0503/97):
Subject: Trade cooperation with Mexico
Will the Council make a statement on the progress of trade and cooperation negotiations with Mexico?
I would like to apologize in advance because my reply might seem a little long, but I want to give you the necessary information which is available to us at this moment in time.
Negotiations for new agreements with Mexico are almost completed.
The only point which must still be cleared up concerns the arrangements and the starting points for negotiations on the liberalization of goods and services.
But I have high hopes that a solution can be found in the coming days so that the texts can be signed.
I have been told that this might be the case tomorrow.
I should like therefore to emphasize some of the especially important aspects of the new agreements.
First of all, concerning the substance.
Both parties have agreed to establish a framework favourable to the development of the exchange of goods, services and investment, including by means of reciprocal and progressive liberalization, taking into account the sensitivity of certain products and in accordance with the relevant rules of the World Trade Organization.
Furthermore both parties are committed to set up, inter alia, cooperation in economic, scientific, industrial, educational, social, audiovisual, cultural and regional areas, and to create political dialogue, including certain institutional provisions.
Furthermore both agreements include, like all agreements concluded by the Community, clauses concerning the respect of democratic principles and human rights, regarded as a vital element of the agreements.
In terms of form and procedure, the parties have negotiated a comprehensive mixed agreement, so that until it is ratified, an interim agreement of Community competence will come into effect.
This agreement also acts as an instrument for the negotiations, held by the joint council establishing it, for the liberalization of trade.
By means of a separate joint declaration both parties have committed themselves to negotiating at the same time the liberalization of services, capital movements and measures concerning intellectual property, etc., which coming within the powers of the Member States, could not be dealt with in the framework of the interim agreement.
In doing so both parties have ensured that the various sectors which are the subject of liberalization have been treated in a comprehensive way.
It should be emphasized that the liberalization of goods will only take place once the Council has given its opinion on the outcome of the overall negotiations and once the comprehensive agreement has been signed.
While thanking the Minister for a very full statement and welcoming the progress made towards an agreement which we hope will foster better relations between Mexico and the European Union, will he comment further on discussions on human rights, which prove to be rather a delicate issue, and will he make it clear that we shall continue to pay close attention to this matter on which some of us receive regular reports or complaints on behalf of Mexican citizens? We believe that real progress on this will be of benefit to both our peoples.
There is no special problem for the areas which you have just mentioned.
I think that we are also trying to take account, in that the new generation agreements with Mexico, our horizontal human rights policy.
Question No 10 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0506/97):
Subject: Demise of democracy in Belarus
President Lukashenka has dissolved the democratically elected parliament and installed a puppet parliament.
The right of opposition newspapers to operate in Belarus has been severely restricted, as has the opposition's freedom of expression, and many opposition leaders have been temporarily imprisoned.
Belarus can probably now be described as Europe's least democratic country.
Is such a state of affairs to be tolerated in Europe in 1997?
Unfortunately, most of Europe's democracies are watching in silence as this situation unfolds.
I have raised this issue with the Commission, but its reply was that it would 'wait and see'. Has the Foreign Affairs Council discussed this matter?
Has it discussed joint actions to bring pressure to bear on the President of Belarus to restore democracy? Has it discussed the future of trade relations between the EU and Belarus?
I should like to say that the Council is following with considerable concern the development of the situation in Belarus and has urged a joint effort in order to try to exercise its influence on the Belorussian authorities so that they restore full respect and practice the democratic principles accepted internationally.
A European Union fact-finding visit led by a former Dutch minister of justice was sent to Belarus in January 1997 to find out whether the referendum was legal, to assess the new relationship between the different branches of the government - executive, legislative and judiciary - and determine whether that relationship complied with the principles of the separation of powers and also to check whether the opposition media were indeed the subject of harassment.
It detected a number of serious constitution and political irregularities in the country.
On the basis of these findings the Council agreed in February 1997 that relations between the European Union and Belarus would be taken in a global approach, emphasising that the European Union did not wish to isolate the country and was still determined to continue the process enabling the country when the time comes to play a significant role within European structures.
Nevertheless, it is now Belarus which holds the key to that process.
The Council is also studying the consequences of this attitude for the European Union and the country in question.
It agreed that in the absence of positive measures by the Belarus authorities: a) the Member States of the European Union would not support Belarus' application to join the Council of Europe; b) the European Union would not proceed to the conclusion on the interim agreement nor a partnership agreement or cooperation agreement; c) bilateral contacts with Belarus at ministerial level would be the subject of a case by case assessment; d) technical assistance programmes instigated by the Community and its Member States would be reexamined, and assessed on the basis of the principle that they should serve the reform process.
Following the events surrounding the demonstrations in March 1997 and the wave of arrests of demonstrators and opposition members, in April 1997 the Council of Ministers adopted a declaration criticising the Belarus authorities and restated that cooperation between the European Union and Belarus could not continue unless convincing efforts were made to set up in Belarus a political system respecting internationally accepted standards in terms of human rights and political freedom.
It invited the Belarus authorities to translate into action their commitment to open consultations with the Thirteenth elected Supreme Soviet in order to achieve a fair equilibrium between the powers in the country.
The Council welcomes the setting up of a bipartite working party made up of representatives of the Belarus Government, the Thirteenth Supreme Soviet and European Union experts which will try to achieve that aim.
I should also like to point out, ladies and gentlemen, that the group held its first meeting in June this year and has not yet completed its work.
The Council will continue to follow the findings of this working group with particular attention as well as the development of the overall situation in the country.
The European Union's efforts complement and strengthen those made by the OSCE and the Council of Europe.
I am pleased that the Council, at least, has more concrete actions at its disposal for tackling the situation in Byelorussia than the Commission.
I asked the Commission this question earlier and received a very, very guarded and cautious response.
The past year in Byelorussia could just as well have been an exciting thriller, but it is in fact reality.
We must do something concrete.
At least now I can see that the Council's aspirations have more substance to them.
It is not enough to express concern, to assess and to investigate.
This has already been done.
We know what it is like for the people.
We also know that the media is being censored, we know that unions have been banned and that there is a ban on demonstrations.
I will follow up this question later but for now I am pleased with the response I have received from the Council.
I do not think that was really a question.
If I understood right, you were just thanking me for my reply and informing us that you would remain attentive to the situation in Belarus.
As they deal with similar subjects, Questions Nos 11 and 12 will be answered together.
Question No 11 by Anne McIntosh (H-0508/97):
Subject: Abolition of duty-free
Will the Council agree to review urgently the proposed abolition of duty-and tax-free sales from 1 July 1999, so as to protect the interests of those employed in the tourism and maritime sectors, as well as the travelling public?
Does the Council agree that to end duty-free sales would result in higher fares and travel costs for passengers, with ferry ticket prices expected to rise by an average 30 % and a consequent loss in consumer choice?
In the event of the abolition of duty-free, what support measures does the Council intend to propose to offset the undoubted negative impact on the tourism sector and to protect the interests of the traveller?
Question No 12 by Brian Crowley (H-0545/97):
Subject: Compensation arising from the proposed abolition of duty-free in 1999
Recent indications from the Commission suggest that some of the regional social and economic consequences arising from the abolition of intra-EU duty-free sales could be compensated by state subsidies.
Does Council take the view that state subsidies may have to be considered to compensate for the consequences of the abolition of duty-free on intra-EU routes, particularly those linking peripheral maritime countries and regions, such as Ireland, with the rest of the European Union?
I should like to give a joint answer to the questions put by Mrs McIntosh and Mr Crowley, both of which refer to the consequences of the abolition of duty free taxes in ports and airports, for journeys taking place within the European Union.
First of all I should like to point out the maintenance of duty free sales in intra-Community passenger traffic is contradiction with the existence of an internal market without borders.
If the Council, when adopting the directives establishing the abolition of tax frontiers in 1993 decided temporarily to prolong duty free taxes for intra-Community travel until 30 June 1999, it was precisely in order to avoid the social and regional problems which might have arisen from a sudden abolition of those sales.
In other words the idea was to give enough time to the sectors concerned, in particular airport authorities, airlines, ferry companies, the producers of goods usually sold in duty free shops, those running those shops and others to prepare for the abolition of intra-Community duty free sales provided for by the 1993 directives.
This is a very disappointing reply from the Council.
Fiscal frontiers remain in place.
Also, border controls are now worse between the United Kingdom and other countries because you have both Schengen and other non-Schengen countries.
I would repeat my question to the President-in-Office: How does he intend to protect the interests of those currently employed, in particular in the ferry, airline and tourism sector, as well as the travelling public?
I accept that, being an island, the United Kingdom is going to be particularly disadvantaged by the removal of dutyfree.
It will be more expensive to travel.
Being an island, it is more inaccessible.
The contribution of duty-free to the United Kingdom economy, to our tourism sector and to our employment sector is higher in terms of maintaining tariffs, maintaining the service, choice of service and employment.
Would he please answer the question?
Mr President, although I know that I am going to disappoint Mr Crowley, I have to point out that it is the Commission and not the Council which has the right of initiative in this area.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office, first of all whether he has any evidence to suggest that tourism will be adversely affected by the end of duty-free within the European Union?
Secondly, if duty-free were to continue, can he give any logical reason why travellers by air and by sea should be the beneficiaries, but travellers by train or by car crossing national borders should have no opportunity of duty-free?
What is the logic of that?
Mr President, although my life is not being made easy I shall nonetheless try to offer some answers.
I think that we are in the internal market logic.
I am very well aware of this: when we were discussing all of these directives and not only this one, setting up the internal market, perhaps some people were not really aware of the possible consequences.
I do not know whether everyone then asked the question, when adopting these directives, which I recall were adopted by the Council of Ministers in order to set up the necessary legislative framework for a proper functioning of the internal market.
Today, after three years of functioning, we have drawn the first conclusions from this and we can see that some provisions can still be improved so that the internal market can work properly.
Both this morning and this afternoon I think that we have spoken about many things also concerning the internal market, as well as the provisions which will be necessary for that internal market to work one hundred percent.
I think that we are here talking about something to do with the functioning of the internal market.
That is the whole problem.
There are consequences which I admit sometimes are unfortunate but this is a fact that we have to get used to: if we have an internal market that means that we want to eliminate certain forms of competition which in terms of an internal market could, let us not forget, be unfair.
Mr Wohlfart, I do not think that members of this House wish to make things difficult, but sometimes things are difficult and perhaps this is a difficult issue.
Let us see if we can try to make things a little easier now that Mr Lindqvist has the floor for one minute.
I am not sure that it will do so.
This question has been raised several times previously.
The answer has been more or less the same each time. We have the facts.
I would like to ask the Council if, following a number of questions from many Member States, it would consider asking the Commission to carry out an impact analysis of the effect on employment and tourism in those countries affected by the abolition of duty-free shopping so that we can gain a proper insight into the consequences of such abolition.
This is really about the loss of many jobs in the EU region, which is perhaps the biggest problem in Europe at the moment.
Mr President, employment is one of our main concerns and you can be quite sure that I am the last person not to be concerned about people losing their jobs: I think that is one thing which unites us in a question which may divide us.
I know very well that decisions have been taken, I would like to remind you, unanimously by the ECOFIN Council at that time to set up these arrangements as I describe them with a transitional period.
If there are difficulties I can assure you that this is something which also concerns us.
If you have any questions about the effects on tourism and other branches of our economic activities I think - and believe me it is not because I want to ask you a question - but I think that in this context the Commission is better prepared than I am to give you more satisfactory answers.
Question No 13 by Clive Needle (H-0510/97):
Subject: Changes in EU policy welfare requirements of animals as 'sentient beings'
What changes in EU policy does the Council envisage following the introduction into the Treaty of the European Community of a new requirement to pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals as 'sentient beings'?
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office for that welcome statement of the new priority, which I am sure will resonate around the Community and be very much welcomed by a lot of people.
I have to say this question was tabled in the first flush of joy after learning in the press about this rather unexpected inclusion of the protocol which many people in this House have been arguing for for such a long time but, I suspect, could hardly believe would actually happen.
I would like the Council to be aware that since then we Members have received an enormous outpouring of confidence that things will progress.
For example, there will be progress on battery hens, there will be progress on conditions in zoos.
Now that raises all sorts of expectations and people will be looking for concrete progress in the coming months.
I understand what you are saying about the need to first ratify the protocol, but can you tell me if work is beginning on certain specific areas where we can look for progress in the short term, so we can make people even more confident that these are not just words in a Treaty, but will actually result in specific action?
I would like to thank Mr Needle for his positive reaction to the Council's reply.
In respect of his concerns about putting into practice various measures aimed at improving the fate of animals in various areas such as farming, transport, the internal market and research, I should like to say that any changes to existing legislation on this matter must, before being submitted to the Council, be the subject of a Commission proposal.
I hope that we shall soon be receiving Commission initiatives and proposals heading in the direction which he desires.
Question No 14 by Christine Oddy (H-0512/97):
Subject: Sri Lanka massacre
Is the Council aware of the current inquiry into the murder of 24 Tamil civilians in the village of Kumarapuram in Trincomalee, Sri Lanka in February 1996 by military personnel?
What moves will the Council take to ensure that the results of the independent inquiry are made public when its investigation is completed and will it support moves to ensure that the families of the 24 civilians receive compensation from the state. Payment would indicate the commitment of the state in establishing proper accountability and preventing future infringements by security personnel?
The European Union has persistently expressed its concern at the violent violations of human rights in the civil conflict in Sri Lanka.
The European Union has already made comments in the framework of political dialogue with Sri Lanka and is undertaking steps in the appropriate international bodies, in particular by means of declarations.
As far as the specific case mentioned by Mrs Oddy is concerned, it has not been made directly known to the Council.
It is however ready to ask for further information from the relevant Sri Lankan authorities, thanks to the means offered by the institutionalized dialogue.
The Council recalls its declarations of 17 April 1997 welcoming the exchange of letters between the President of Sri Lanka and the head of the opposition, concerning a joint approach by both parties to the ethnic conflict in the country.
The European Union hopes that this agreement will help to restore confidence and bring an end to the policy of confrontation.
I welcome the comments of the President-in-Office.
I would like to draw the presidency's attention to the fact that the massacre is particularly serious because it included women and children.
It cannot, therefore, be attributed to the army trying to purge the Tamil Tigers and terrorist combatants.
The organization which informed me is very well respected in Sri Lanka.
I would urge the Council to take very serious note of this.
I would be very willing to help by passing on the information I have received.
As the time allotted for Question Time to the Council has run out, Questions Nos 15 to 37 will receive written answers.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Agenda
I want to announce that the Leader of the PPE Group has informed the Bureau that Mr Graziani is absent, he is unwell and has requested that the agenda should be changed and the debate on the Graziani report (A4-0140/97) should be postponed.
Rule 96(2) of the Rules of Procedure states that once the agenda has been approved, it may only be changed pursuant to Rules 97 and 128 to 132, or following a proposal by the President.
Since today we do not have a quorum so that a proper vote can be taken, the Bureau accepts the proposal by Mr Martens that the report by Mr Graziani should not be debated.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would just like to support your proposal - although it has no statutory value - and to wish our colleague, Mr Graziani, all the best for a swift recovery so that he might present his report at the September part-session.
Situation in Albania after the elections (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Albania after the elections.
Mr President, today, more than ever, Albania needs Europe.
This is the real message of our debates this afternoon.
More than 1, 500 people were murdered in the run-up to the elections of 29 June and 6 July, and about one million automatic firearms are still in private hands.
For this reason, the outcome of the recent elections, which many Members regard as satisfactory, must not lead the Council and the European Union in general to lower their guard.
The Council must, in particular, do everything necessary, appropriate and expedient to stabilize and democratize Albania, not least by means of economic aid conditional upon respect for human rights and the application of democratic principles in that unfortunate country.
Only an approach of this kind can justify the policy of expansion to the countries of former Eastern Europe which the European Union is conducting.
We can no longer resign ourselves to the principle that 'something is better than nothing' .
Mr. President, I hope that despite the absence of the Commission and the Council, we can point out the following:
The elections were indeed difficult, but in the end they were accepted by everyone.
I recall, for example, that Mr Berisha, who controlled the television in Albania, forbade the transmission of anything about the pre-election campaign.
Now, however, the difficulties to be faced by the new government are beginning.
Mr President, since all that needed to be said has already been said, I want to stress the following:
First, we hope - and I would very much have liked to have the views of those who are absent - that there will no longer be any support at all for Mr Berisha's regime, since his perfidy needs no further proof either within Albania or in relation to his adventuring abroad, because there are already signs of that.
I hope that both the Community bodies and the Member States that are in any way involved will have nothing to do with him.
Secondly, so far as aid is concerned, Mr President, we have granted Albania the largest ever amount of aid percapita.
What has happened to the money?
Thirdly, as a priority, future aid must go towards compensating the victims of the pyramid swindle, for which the previous regime was entirely responsible.
Otherwise, there will be no political stability in the country.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Ariane
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0237/97) by Mrs Mouskouri, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a programme of support, including translation, in the field of books and reading (Ariane) (C4-0294/97-94/0189/COD)).
Mr President, the Ariane saga has come to an end.
The communication between European cultures through books and reading is being contemplated with a derisory amount of 7 million ECU for the years 1997-98.
Despite the efforts by the European Parliament - in particular the rapporteur, Nana Mouskouri, and the committee - to increase the budget following the conciliation process, the Council's surprising lack of dynamism or rather that of one or two Member States, means that not one more jot has been added to the budget of this programme which undoubtedly is a very special instrument for asserting the cultural diversity that the Council is so attached to.
The specific reference to cultural diversity that the Council introduced at Amsterdam in Article 128 confirms that.
It is a shame that the Council did not make the changes to that article that everyone wanted and that would have made things work by means of majority voting instead of the current unanimity that desperately holds everything up.
The same inadequacy of financial resources occurred in the case of another European flagship programme, Socrates, promoting exchanges of students and teachers and language teaching.
That occurred despite the fact that it is one of the European Union's biggest success stories.
What can justify the inexplicable contradiction in the European Union between the priority that it claims to give to a programme and the insufficient means that it makes available for it? There is also a contradiction between the hopes raised among the public and the frustration that is then brought about...
This contradiction cannot be found in other areas of European Union policy.
When a decision is taken to implement agricultural or transport measures, the means to make them possible are not then denied.
Even research, another poor relation in the past, has now had its resources increased for the next budget, perhaps because it is more closely linked to industry, perhaps too much for the interests of my country.
Who would dare deny the vital importance of culture to express the European spirit, single yet diverse, to cement local and universal citizenship, to fight exclusion, to strengthen cohesion, to instigate new urban policies and last but not least to create new jobs?
I am certain that the next treaty, not the Amsterdam Treaty, but the next one, which this IGC helped to prepare negatively, will give cultural policy the central place that it must now occupy in the project for a Europe of citizens.
Mr President, Mrs Vaz da Silva is quite right to tick off the Council and the Commission about the derisory budget for the Ariane Programme.
But I would like to quote that 'it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness' .
Mrs Mouskouri has certainly lit the candle here and kept it lit through very dark days.
We would like to congratulate her on that.
There are great hopes riding on the Ariane Programme, particularly in countries where minority languages are increasingly being used by our young writers and among the small publishers who have the courage to publish these books, knowing that they will probably make no money on them and, even worse, might possibly lose money on them.
We have to recognize this as a cultural service that we must protect and support.
As more and more of our young writers begin to know other, similar people in other countries, we are finding, as they discover common, imaginative trends between themselves, that a whole new type of literature is being produced.
We should celebrate and sing for this.
It is a pity Mrs Mouskouri could not have sung her report today.
But the fact of the matter is that in addition to the dangers for small publishers, we are facing the onslaught of a massive, blockbuster culture where huge amounts of money are made on sometimes quite appallingly bad books.
I would like, in supporting Mrs Mouskouri's report and congratulating her on it, to say: let us say it for the small books; let us say it for the little, special minority language books; let us say it for those who still enjoy the pure and absolute pleasures of a good book.
Let us at least show the next generation that there is more to life than some of the books that are being produced and sold in all our airports.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if I may say so I should like very much to respond to this debate in the very positive spirit which Mrs Banotti has just expressed, and most particularly to join her in paying tribute to the sterling and lengthy work which Mrs Mouskouri has undertaken in advancing this project and seeing it to a successful conclusion.
I would say not only that we should rejoice at what the project and the scheme can now do to help small publishers and minority cultures, but also that we should very much regard this as paving the way to something more substantial in the future, as that is certainly the intention of the Commission.
Therefore, I hope that Mrs Mouskouri will be un successful in one thing she said she was trying to do; and that is to dampen her enthusiasm.
We do not want her to succeed in that, because we need her enthusiasm in order to make a reality of the project and also to begin the work of going on to greater things.
I understand the disappointment that has been expressed about the sums involved, although I suspect that if Parliament got the same percentage of its original request for all the things that it wants to spend money on, it would be doing above average here.
Nonetheless, I understand the feeling that, faced with a challenge, the sums involved are small.
However, the Ariane Programme represents real progress in the development of our support in the field of culture and one that we should be gratified at bringing to the point of formal adoption today.
It is of short duration precisely because it is envisaged as being a transitional programme.
It provides the basis upon which the Community can go further in its support in the fields of books and reading, and provides the opportunity for the Community to reflect on the long-term priorities and instruments in our cultural policy.
That is not just a vague general expression of hope.
It is much more specific than that because the Commission has already committed itself to presenting a proposal for a global programme in this area, and that will happen in the near future.
But I make no apologies for the fact that before coming forward with a global programme, we want to hear the Community institutions and interested cultural organizations contribute their ideas and say what their priorities should be.
The conference is planned for November to enable people to do just that.
Perhaps I should just say a few words as regards the management of the Ariane Programme for this year.
The tendering procedure has already been launched to establish the necessary implementation measures and around 480 applications have been received: 340 for the translation of literary works, 20 for the translation of theatrical works and 30 for the translation of reference works, quite apart from 20 further training projects and around 80 cooperation projects.
That is a significant increase on last year's pilot scheme where only 320 applications were received in all.
The results will be presented in September to the committee created in accordance with Article 5 of the Decision establishing the programme, and the outcome will be formally announced in early October of this year.
So, although there has been a long period of gestation, I hope those who have worked so hard in favour of this project will feel that now it has been launched, it has been well and truly launched and that real and positive results are very much within our sights shortly after the summer break.
I can assure you on behalf of the Commission that we will try to ensure that the management of the programme is as effective and efficient as possible because with a financially limited programme it is all the more important that it should be properly run.
We hope that once again we can rely on the support of the European Parliament - and we know we can - in carrying out this task and laying the foundations for a more substantial, global programme in what I hope will be the not-too-distant future.
The Bureau congratulates Mrs Mouskouri.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Free movement of doctors and mutual recognition of qualifications
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0246/97) by Mrs Fontaine, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 93/16/EEC to facilitate the free movement of doctors and the mutual recognition of their diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications (C40307/97-94/0305(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are debating concerns the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, relating to the free movement of doctors and the recognition of their qualifications.
I would remind the House that the Directive submitted to us by the Commission forms part of the long sequence of measures adopted since 1975 by the European institutions in an endeavour, step by step, to make this freedom of movement a reality.
In particular, this Directive introduced a new article containing commitology rules.
At second reading, Mr President, three important points formed the subject of amendments by Parliament.
Those amendments were rejected by the Council, so that conciliation became inevitable.
The three points in question related to nationals of Member States who hold qualifications awarded by third countries, the role of the Advisory Committee on Medical Training, and the commitology procedures.
As far as the commitology was concerned, we wanted to reintroduce the Management Committee in place of the Regulatory Committee.
Well, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on those three points we can now see that the overall result was positive.
Incidentally, I am grateful to the Dutch presidency for its personal commitment to ensuring this favourable outcome.
I must also thank the Commission which, it has to be said, gave us the kind of support we are increasingly coming to expect.
I am thinking especially of the declaration which the Commission agreed to annex to the joint conciliation text, which specifically relates to the equivalence of medical qualifications obtained outside the European Union.
Mr President, this is a problem we are going to have to resolve, within the more general framework of the system of mutual recognition of diplomas.
The same applies, incidentally, to the difficult issue of the numerus clausus , which threatens to arise more and more frequently as professionals become more and more mobile within the Community - something which, of course, we can only welcome.
I would also take this opportunity to remind the Commission that it promised me a study of future trends in this respect, in connection with the report I presented to this House some months ago on the progress made with implementation of the general Directive.
On the subject of the commitology, we have managed to find a very acceptable solution.
Finally, as regards the last point, it has now been specified that the Advisory Committee on Medical Training will send opinions and recommendations to the Commission and the Member States, which will allow that body, as we wished, to help to provide a comparatively high level of training for general practitioners and specialists in the Community.
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome the progress made with the conciliation procedure in general, which has enabled us, in quite a short time, to arrive at the results I have the honour to present this evening.
Mr President, Commissioner, the freedom of movement of individuals - as Mrs Fontaine pointed out - within the European Union is constantly being obstructed by the fact that diplomas, examination certificates and other credentials are not recognized in all Member States, or are subject to conditions.
This is incomprehensible to many citizens, and dilutes their enthusiasm for Europe.
When I hear that, according to Mrs Fontaine, we have been working on making adjustments here since as long ago as 1975, that seems to me a very, very long time.
We see the same thing in the many petitions that are constantly being presented to the Committee on Petitions, because European citizens have extreme problems as a result of their diplomas not being recognized within the Union.
Today, we are debating this amendment to the Directive to facilitate the free movement of doctors.
That really is a very long title.
My group welcomes the result so far achieved by the Conciliation Committee, and we shall accept it in that spirit.
We do regret, however, that this conciliation procedure has been unnecessarily protracted by the behaviour of the Commission.
Mrs Fontaine previously touched on a number of points, and I agree with what she said.
I should therefore like to thank Mrs Fontaine for the work she has done and the rapid progress she has made with it to enable us to accept this proposal today.
Parliament was able to get what it wanted in the so-called management committee procedure.
This is important because, by this procedure, the new developments in the medical field can be properly taken into account.
The amendments proposed by Parliament were also accepted by the Council; they were drafted and presented by Mrs Fontaine in the course of the conciliation procedure.
My group, however, had great difficulty in accepting the Directive, principally because acceptance took the form of a statement by the Commission without prior notification of Parliament.
That statement merely emphasized that equal treatment of diplomas gained outside the European Union is one of the outstanding problems.
We trust that further rapid progress will be made with this, so that people who have acquired their credentials outside the Union will be able to practise their professions inside the Union, too, where they have made their homes.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, pursuant to Article 8 of the EC Treaty, Union citizenship confers upon every national of a Member State the right of freedom of movement and residence within the sovereign territory of the Member States.
However, this fundamental right of the individual is being obstructed by numerous obstacles which restrict the mobility of those who would like to live and work beyond the borders of their country of origin.
In particular, the recognition, certification and validation of educational courses and qualifications is often a stumbling block to their progress.
As a member of the Committee on Culture and the Committee on Petitions, I often find myself dealing with these obstacles to mobility.
I therefore welcome the Directive on freedom of movement for doctors and the mutual recognition of their diplomas within Community territory, in the version contained in the joint draft that is now before us.
It will bring us a step closer to our objective of free movement of individuals within Europe.
I note with satisfaction that the conciliation committee, originally in the face of resistance from the Commission, persisted in its view that the Advisory Committee on Medical Training should have the right to make recommendations to the governments of the Member States and the Commission regarding the recognition of diplomas.
For Germany, in particular, it was especially important that the association of specialists should be included.
This guarantees a comparably high standard of medical training within the Community.
The recognition of diplomas acquired by EU citizens in third countries was also discussed in the conciliation committee.
The problems associated with that are being dealt with within the framework of the general rules on the recognition of university diplomas.
It is, therefore, exclusively EU citizens that benefit from the Directive.
As we steer the European ship today, our objective is to establish the genuinely free movement of persons within Europe.
Let us set our course for that objective.
I believe that this Directive will make an important contribution to this, and I thank Mrs Fontaine for her great and successful efforts.
Mr President, Mrs Fontaine, Commissioner, Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee unanimously adopted the draft decision - and it was right to do so - under the benevolent leadership of Mrs Fontaine, who had the idea that the purpose of the medical profession is not solely to provide a good standard of living for doctors but, more to the point, to safeguard the interests of those who are ill, or who believe they are ill, which means that they are not far from being so.
This safeguard is based on three pillars: the rigorous nature of university and hospital training, a high standard of technical and scientific knowledge and, not least, the ability to deal with those who are sick or injured, and their families, in a spirit of ethical correctness and respect for the individual.
The mobility of health service personnel, an innovation some 25 years ago, is now going to increase exponentially.
The adoption of the Directive, in accordance with the joint text, will enable the delicate balance to be struck between health requirements and the necessary consistency of medical practice within the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I start by joining all the other speakers in expressing our thanks and congratulations to Mrs Fontaine for the work she has done with regard to this important issue.
I would add that quite apart from the work she has done during the progress of this directive, she has presented it with such clarity this evening that it is completely unnecessary for me to say in any detail what the directive does and the advances that it has made.
I am very glad also that Mrs Fontaine was able to say - and was joined by other speakers such as Mrs Zimmermann - that the conciliation procedure worked well and achieved a satisfactory outcome.
Rather than hark back to the difficulties which were involved, we should concentrate on the outcome which has been very positive.
I am very glad indeed that has been the case.
We are pleased at the prospect that our proposal will soon be adopted.
This will enable the lists of those diplomas in specialist medicine qualifying for automatic recognition to be updated through a much simplified legislative procedure and that in turn will greatly facilitate the free movement of doctors in the European Union, which is an important objective for us all.
When you think of the numerous changes that have occurred recently in the sphere of specialist medicine, the absolute necessity to update the lists on a regular basis becomes very clear.
So the directive really answers to the needs of the medical profession and those who are responsible for dealing with applications made by doctors from all over the European Union for the recognition of their qualifications.
In the debate, both Mrs Fontaine and others referred to the difficulty caused by diplomas obtained outside the European Union.
I am not going to pretend that this directive solves that problem but I am glad that it was possible to achieve agreement in the course of the conciliation committee that a Commission statement would be added to the minutes of the committee concerning the ninth recital, saying that the Commission stresses that the need to establish the equivalence of diplomas awarded to doctors outside the European Union is one of the relevant problems to be tackled.
That does not amount to a solution to the problem but it amounts to a serious and formal recognition of the problem which at least is the first step towards working towards its solution.
I should like to thank the European Parliament and the Council for the great effort they have put into overcoming the difficulties which have presented themselves in this area and welcome this small but important step forward in achieving the much wider objective of the free movement of people, including professionals, to enable them, when properly qualified, to carry out their professions throughout the European Union.
The Bureau congratulates Mrs Fontaine and I personally, as a doctor, thank her for the respect she has shown for the medical profession.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Towards sustainability
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A4-0235/97) by Mrs Dybkjaer, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision on the review of the European Community programme of policy and action in relation to the environment and sustainable development 'Towards Sustainability' (C4-0170/97-96/0027(COD)).
, rapporteur. (DA) Mr President, sustainable development is defined in the Brundtland Report of 1987 as a process of change with the aim of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to satisfy their needs.
A simple aim which, however, has proved difficult to achieve.
The matter we are now debating concerns - at least, according to the title - the EU's policy and action in relation to the environment and sustainable development.
It is worth repeating it: policy and action .
For, without a policy concept, we act blindly but, without action, policy ideas are no more than empty words.
On ceremonial or official occasions it always seems so easy to reach agreement on the general political intention of doing more for the environment.
So at that level it has never been difficult to agree that we should be more environmentally friendly.
The difficult part is and has always been to translate the fine words into action.
Yet action, i.e. the concrete implementation of the declarations of intent, is absolutely crucial, precisely in the field of the environment, otherwise things go wrong.
But in the review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme the Commission placed most emphasis on the preeminent general policy considerations and much less on concrete action.
And that despite the fact that the reports serving as background documentation clearly showed that, without measures to tighten up the action programme, the EU could not meet the objectives laid down.
And, without extensive adjustments, we shall not be able to achieve sustainable development.
In its first reading of the review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme therefore, the European Parliament decided to rectify the situation and adopted a number of amendments, all with the overriding aim of concretizing and tightening up the Commission's draft.
It was also our view that, in a review of an environmental action programme, we have a duty to secure a sensible adjustment in those areas in which it is clear that it will not otherwise be possible to achieve the objectives laid down in the programme.
Otherwise what is the point of having a review? After all it should not be forgotten that the objectives we are talking about were adopted jointly by the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament in 1992.
Unfortunately the Commission was only willing to accept one or two of Parliament's amendments, not the most important ones, and things do not look much better for the moment with respect to the Council's position.
But the European Parliament has not lost all hope and confidence in the Council of Environment Ministers.
The Council did not really address Parliament's amendments from first reading, but in a protocol indicated its will and desire to cooperate with the European Parliament.
That is fine.
Now we just hope that the Council will honour this declaration.
At present the Council's common position is sadly far apart from that of Parliament.
In some areas the Council has indeed improved on the Commission draft, but in others regrettably it has moved in the opposite direction.
So now we hope that the Council will take inspiration from the European Parliament's proposals, not least because the environment has a very high priority with us and a large majority of the population in all the Member States.
And the environment really is an area in which the EU can deliver the goods and show positive results to the Union's citizens.
I hope that the Council will not miss that opportunity.
Happily we have seen examples in the past to show that the Council can be quite environmentally friendly and progressive when it feels like it.
I myself experienced that when I took part in the Rio II summit in New York last month.
It was clear there that the Council is a driving force in global environmental policy.
We are therefore very interested in having good cooperation with the Council, just as the Council has indicated that it wants good cooperation with us.
So, to give the Council a helping hand, the political groups have joined together in cutting back the number of amendments to just a few more important ones, all of which are aimed at taking us further down the road to sustainable development.
The amendments of course vary in content, since they deal with quite different areas within environmental development.
But they have one thing in common.
They set out to transform environmental policy into concrete action.
Sustainable development is absolutely essential to our society and, ultimately, to the survival of mankind.
The difficulty we nevertheless have in achieving sustainable social and economic development has to do with the fact that, in the rich countries, we have built up a lifestyle that goes in exactly the opposite direction.
It puts great pressure on natural resources.
Lifestyles cannot be changed overnight.
We who try at regular intervals to bring about such changes are aware of that.
But, as we know, every journey starts with the first step, and the first step is called concrete action.
I will not go so far as to say that Parliament is the 'last action hero' , but we do see it as our task to put things in concrete terms and shift the focus to action.
As though we were making a film, we raise the clapper-board and shout 'action' .
Finally I would like to thank the shadow rapporteurs, the committee chairman and the secretariat for the good cooperation we have had.
I think I would not go far wrong in calling it sustainable.
Mr President, I should first like to thank the rapporteur warmly for her detailed and devoted work in this field, and I trust that her efforts will be crowned with success.
I hope that the Council of Environment Ministers, which after all is made up of individual Environment Ministers who find a great deal to say at home about preventive environmental protection and about how important it is for us to protect the climate and how important it is to pursue environmentally compatible agriculture and about how important sustainable, environmentally compatible development is for industry will, when Parliament has taken its decision tomorrow in favour of the environment, also recognize Parliament's viewpoint when it comes to a conciliation procedure, or perhaps even earlier, because we still have a great deal to do.
President Santer was saying this morning that the primary functions of the Union were to create sustainable growth and new jobs.
I would say that sustainable growth, properly used, does create new jobs.
Because we all know that we not only can create new, lasting jobs through environmental repairs - something that still has to be done in many places, because things are a long way from being as they should -but, in particular, we can do so by undertaking preventive environmental protection in all areas; in other words, our aim must be the rational use of energy; our aim must be to guarantee a water supply that is environmentally compatible and provides people with enough water; our aim must be to organize waste management in such a way that we are not choked to death by our own waste mountains.
That is the only way to achieve the sustainability that we talk so much about.
The rapporteur has introduced very sound and important amendments in all areas, which my group would like to support.
I would particularly stress the preventive environmental protection in all areas: in agriculture, in industry, in motor vehicle manufacture most of all, and in the chemicals sector, because it is particularly important there for us to proceed with very great care and very great deliberation.
The energy sector, too, is very important.
There is one other point, too, that I should like to mention where I think further progress must be made, and that is the involvement of the public; this applies particularly to the many local schemes in connection with Agenda 21.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, there is an Italian proverb that says that saying and doing are often half the width of the sea apart.
Let us not see half the width of the sea between saying and doing in the environmental sector!
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Dybkjær and commiserate with her because her group did not give her an actual draft directive to get her teeth into.
This programme is extremely difficult to address but she has done it with great energy.
Even when I disagree with her, I admire her.
The report adds some very useful aspects to the review of the fifth action programme, and it is going to be interesting to see whether the Commission will take these on board.
There are a number of points which the EPP would like to highlight about the Dybkjær report and that it hopes the Commission will accept.
Amendments Nos 20 to 22 are three amendments which spell out ways in which we can get better observance of European Union law.
Mrs Dybkjær here goes further than what the Commission has proposed so far, amongst other things, calling for a common European environment inspectorate.
I do not know whether we are ever going to move towards that.
Many people might dislike the idea as being too interfering, but I think I speak for many Members in this House in saying that the European Environment Agency, to some extent, has been a disappointment to Members of the European Parliament.
It seems to have got tangled up in its own methodology.
No doubt it is doing interesting and useful work, but it is not terribly useful to us.
We would also like to see more prompt action by the Commission under Article 171.
Regarding Amendment No 25, we hope that the Commissioner will take on board this amendment because it contains ideas for drawing up environment plans for the applicant countries.
The Commission report which we received this morning is extremely gloomy on this.
It says: ' The Union will not be in a position to cover the financing gap by the time of enlargement that emerges as the applicant Member States face up to the consequences of trying to comply with European environment law' .
Mrs Dybkjær gives us some ideas as to how we are going to address that.
My group very much prefers Mr Virgin's Amendment No 40 to Mrs Dybkjær's Amendment No 31 on climate change, which we think sets unrealistic targets.
Finally, on the vexed question of Amendment No 34, where Mrs Dybkjær introduces a new waste hierarchy - new because it is not actually the waste hierarchy as set out in the packaging directive: we would all like to see more recycling, more re-use - a lot more.
But the Commission's own studies have shown that there is no waste treatment option that is best for all materials in all Member States.
Not 'one size fits all' , here.
A varied Community, in my view at least, needs various solutions.
I therefore hope that the Commission will not agree to Amendment No 34.
I cannot quite see whether there are any Labour MEPs from the United Kingdom here tonight.
I suspect that one of the reasons why they are not here is that they are probably trying to persuade Mr Tony Blair not to change the election system in the United Kingdom for the European elections.
It fits very well with the waste hierarchy, if I may say so.
The question is: will the present Labour MEPs be re-used, recycled or, as I suspect, treated as inert waste for landfill?
Mr President, the rapporteur - who is to be thanked for her report - ends the text by saying that 'we are tired of fine words which are not translated into action' , and what she does in the report, which was unanimously approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, is precisely that: she makes concrete proposals in a number of very familiar areas - water quality, waste processing, the stabilization of CO2 emissions, an attempt at setting up a corps of inspectors to monitor compliance with Community Law, the proposal that sanctions be implemented where necessary and, with reference to waste processing, perhaps working in two directions, one of these being attempting to deal with disasters caused by those who pollute and do not pay - which is the case in many countries - and the other being prevention.
Last weekend I was in Baracaldo, a town in the Basque country, where there had been a million-square-metre lindane spill which is now costing the local authorities a great deal of money to clear up.
I therefore believe that we firstly need to pay attention to prevention and bring about the situation in which those who are actually causing the pollution and using natural resources pay for their actions, which has not been the case hitherto.
Mr President, we are talking about something which ought to be very simple but which appears to be very difficult, which is that the European Union should fulfil its own promises as far as environmental policy is concerned, in other words the Union should meet its own targets.
I would very much like to congratulate Mrs Dybkjær, even nominate her as an 'honorary green' for her persistent attempts to persuade this Union to secure the necessary means to fulfil the environmental promises which it has itself included in the fifth action programme for the environment.
It is a radical programme which we support and which we have actively worked to bring to fruition.
I would like to make particular mention of amendment proposal 37, point f which means that the newer EU Member States will not have to lower their environmental standards.
On the contrary, the EU ought to?? is to learn from its new Members and adapt itself to them, which is of particular significance at the moment as it also affects how we behave in relation to other new members.
Mr President, last time we discussed this issue I was forced, on behalf of the Green Group, to ask the Commissioner responsible for environmental issues, Mrs Bjerregaard, to reconsider her position as Commissioner for the Environment because of the rare display of arrogance shown in her treatment of Parliament's demands.
I very much hope that I will not have to do the same this time as well.
I hope that the Commissioner for the Environment has realised that her prospects of working in a trusting relationship with Parliament's environment committee are at stake.
If, with the same arrogant attitude, she once again rejects those decisions which Parliament will most probably adopt with a large majority, it would be a disaster for the EU's environment policy.
I also think that it would be something of a personal disaster for the Commissioner for the Environment.
So, I hope for the sake of the EU and Mrs Bjerregaard that those environmental decisions which will, in all probability, be adopted here in Parliament will be met with a different response this time.
Mr President, since 1967 more than 200 measures have been adopted for the benefit of the environment.
In 1992, with the Rio summit, we saw some very encouraging targets set.
Admittedly, the results from New York are somewhat discouraging.
Nevertheless, the European Union has performed well.
The results from Amsterdam also give a clear signal of our determination to move forward.
Furthermore, on Saturday 12 July, a dispatch from the European Agency fuelled our optimism by listing a whole package of measures adopted by the Commission to take account of environmental concerns in all Community policies.
You will have to excuse our taking the Commission's professed aims so seriously.
Those aims reflect our concerns, our very legitimate concerns, regarding our responsibilities on this planet, which is not our personal inheritance but something we hold in trust for our children.
Sadly, we are a little sceptical because there are many precedents - such as the consideration of these environmental concerns in the Common Agricultural Policy or in transport policy - which suggest that there may be a lot of ground to cover yet.
We shall only be completely convinced when we see the announcement of clear financial commitments and a firm timetable.
Mr President, I would like to join with the rest of my colleagues in congratulating the rapporteur for the work she has done.
However, we are not over-delighted, because she has not been sufficiently selective when presenting amendments and accepting others - something we mentioned during the work of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection - and sometimes fundamentalism is the worst enemy of progress when it comes to environmental policy.
When arbitrary proposals are made, with no basis in reality and technical knowledge, reasonable proposals are discredited and, in this report, there are a great number of reasonable proposals which we want to support, but we could have avoided certain things which genuinely do not stand up.
How are we going to achieve the objective of groundwater being nitrate- and pesticide-free when we are all well aware of the fact that, between 1950 and 1996, European agricultural production, fortunately, went up from 20 quintales of wheat production to over 65 on average last year? This was achieved by means of improvements in seeds and also by means of the farm machinery used, which is absolutely necessary.
The proposal is unrealistic.
Later, in another paragraph, we say that we want to control ozone-depleting substances, and I am all in favour of this objective.
But then we say that such substances must be abolished as and when potential alternatives become available.
In the very next paragraph, it is stated that there must be a 50 % reduction in the use of methyl bromide, leading to a complete ban by 2000.
I would like to ask the Commission and the rapporteur what technical alternatives there are to replace this product.
This is just one of the examples which do not stand up.
We are seeking, it would appear, to change our priorities in terms of waste disposal every two or three years.
This, also, is an unrealistic aspiration - society cannot deliver this.
Later, we state that we are going to make a 50 % reduction in the number of vertebrates used for experimental purposes by 2000.
Yet another totally arbitrary proposal.
And so on. Some very significant proposals in this report thus appear less important and it would have been preferable to have deleted those other proposals which lead nowhere.
Mr President, the report currently under discussion is excellent.
It is fundamentally concerned with the EU's credibility in environmental policy, its capacity to progress from fine words to action.
What makes the report even more interesting is that it also tries to correct some of the system errors within EU policy, where currently the EU sometimes actually makes environmental problems even worse.
Amendment proposal No. 7 which is about adapting agriculture to meet the needs of the environment and amendment proposals 18 and 19 on standardisation work and on public procurement are important sections of the proposal.
Amendment proposal No. 26, which concerns the World Trade Organisation, WTO, and the environment is also extremely important and will probably become even more important in the future.
There are a couple of other amendment proposal which I think are of great importance as well and these are amendment proposals 2 and 37, point f which concern the new Member States and state that they do not have to lower their environmental standards.
Or at least the Commissioner responsible, Mrs Bjerregaard has promised that they need not do so.
So I hope that we can support these texts.
We will be supporting all the proposals tabled in this report.
Mr President, the European Parliament's discussion of the review of the fifth action programme for the environment is very important.
The rapporteur has brought vital aspects to this review which are worthy of our wholehearted support.
There are good grounds for continuing the debate on many of the points to obtain a deeper analysis.
On the climate issue, the report proposes that greenhouse gases be reduced by 20 % by the year 2005, 30 % by the year 2010 and 50 % by the year 2030.
It would certainly be desirable to attain these levels, but it is not realistic.
Prior to the Kyoto meeting on the climate, the Council of Ministers agreed a position of a 15 % reduction by the year 2010.
The PPE group's proposal is 20 % and this concentrates on carbon dioxide emissions.
This is a level which it is possible to reach.
But it will not be possible to reach this important environmental goal if, at the same time, nuclear power is abolished.
This is demonstrated by the fact that Sweden, within the framework of the commitment prior to the Kyoto meeting, has been given permission to increase its carbon dioxide emissions by 5 % by the year 2010.
This is because of the decision to close two nuclear reactors, a decision, which I think is totally wrong.
This gives a snapshot of what will happen if several other countries follow Sweden's example.
The EU's plans for the climate would fall like a house of cards.
An aggressive environmental policy would include the replacement of a number of fossil fuel based power stations with nuclear power.
In the long term this would save people's lives.
From a study of the material in the Commission's external report it is possible to calculate that nuclear power has saved approximately 20 000 lives in the EU over a ten year period if a comparison is made with a situation where the same amount of energy had been produced using coal powered power stations.
The demonstration of electric cars in front of the Parliament building points to the environmentally friendly vehicles of the future.
I am convinced that competitiveness will have greatly increased within 5-10 years and that we will have vehicles with no emissions.
This would be the case for carbon dioxide as well if nuclear power were to be used for battery charging.
This would be a decisive environmental victory.
I also share Mrs Jackson's views on the hierarchy of wastes.
In Amendment No 10, something of the utmost importance to all opponents of atomic energy is being put to the vote.
Let the Euratom Treaty be abrogated in its present form but its safety aspects incorporated into the Treaty on European Union.
If that amendment should actually be adopted tomorrow - as I hope - then it would probably be the first time in the history of this Parliament that an anti-atomic amendment reaches the conciliation procedure.
That would mean that, for the first time, the Council would have to come to terms with criticism and rejection of its atomic policy.
There was a similar amendment once before, but that one started from the extremely naive assumption that all Europe's atomic power stations would be shut down by the year 2002.
Anyone who realizes that 34 % of all the electrical power consumed in the EU comes from atomic power stations - in France, the figure is 70 % - will appreciate that this is not an option.
Also, the safety and health provisions must be retained at all costs -if only, of course, because eastward enlargement will bring certain States into the Union whose safety standards are absolutely different from our own.
In that case, of course, they would have to observe those safety provisions.
If all environmentally aware Members, across party boundaries and across national boundaries, too, can find it in their hearts to vote together in tomorrow's vote, then we have a chance to get to the conciliation procedure.
I would really look forward very much to such a procedure, and I believe that, here again, I must most sincerely thank our rapporteur, Lone Dybkjaer.
She has done all this really, really excellently, and if we succeed then that success will be hers, too.
Mr President, the Fifth Environmental Action Programme forms the basis of the European Union's present environment policy.
So this review of the programme is tremendously important.
However, the key question is therefore how this basis should be amended in order to arrive at a better environment policy in the Union.
The essential problem with the Fifth Action Programme is that many of the promises set out there have not been translated into action or legislation, mainly because of a lack of political will.
The only way of resolving this situation is not the one chosen by the Commission - continuing on the present course with a few minor adjustments to take account of new thinking - no, my group stands completely behind Mrs Dybkjær, who has preferred to define the objectives of the revised action programme much more clearly, linking them to established data on which action must be taken.
Since it is the Council in particular which has been responsible for the lack of action during recent years, it is very disappointing that it has not taken the trouble to consider Parliament's amendments from first reading.
Because of this institutional failing on the part of the Council, Parliament has no option but to retable most of the amendments from the first reading.
I hope that in the conciliation procedure which lies ahead of us, the Council will now listen better and take more action.
Mr President, I would first like to thank the Environment Committee and, in particular, the rapporteur, Lone Dybkjær, for the thorough work that has gone into this recommendation.
As the Commission has made clear in its communication on the Council's common position, we join with Parliament in expressing regret, as Mr Eisma also did a moment ago, that the Council has drawn up a common position without first having made a thorough examination of the amendments adopted by Parliament on first reading or, for that matter, the Commission's amended proposal.
After our debate today, the Council will have a fresh opportunity to examine Parliament's amendments, and I hope that the two institutions can conclude the decision-making procedure on this proposal before the end of 1997.
In some areas, as Lone Dybkjær also pointed out, the Council has weakened the Commission proposal.
I think in particular of Article 2 on agriculture, on which both Mrs Graenitz and Mr Valverde López had some strong points to make.
Here the common position is very weak, and it does not address the question of integration at all.
So we can all take comfort from the fact that Agenda 2000, which Commission President, Mr Santer, presented today, adopts a quite different and progressive approach to the question of integrating environmental issues into agricultural policy.
The weakening of the proposal by the Council unfortunately is also in evidence in the context of environmental accountability, which is covered in Article 3.
Here the Council in its common position seeks to limit the possibilities of action at EU level, so that they amount to no more than promoting measures at national level.
Here I believe that the Commission and Parliament have a joint interest in giving environmental accountability a higher profile.
At all events, that is what I understood from the debate yesterday morning on proposal 90/220, in which Mr Bowe stressed very clearly Parliament's interest in this matter.
Sadly the same remarks apply to Article 4, in which the Council has weakened the provision on an improvement of access to the legal system in the field of the environment and has deleted the provision under which it is proposed that consideration be given to introducing sanctions for failure to observe new legislation.
These were some of the points to which Mrs Jackson devoted special attention in her speech and, as Mrs Jackson is of course aware, we have been very active on the question of failure to observe environmental legislation.
The environment is the only area in which we have hitherto resorted to the expedient of fines. We have done so against six countries and - it would seem to me - with very good results.
I note with regret that Parliament, out of a desire to limit the number of amendments, has accepted the Council's moves to weaken the proposal.
There seems still to be a misunderstanding or, perhaps more accurately, some differences of opinion on the review we are now debating, since our view is that it should not replace the Fifth Environmental Action Programme.
The aim of the proposal is to secure the more effective implementation of the Fifth Programme up to the year 2000.
The proposal therefore singles out the measures which should be given top priority for adoption at EU level in order to solve some of the outstanding problems.
The priorities indicated must of course be transposed into concrete proposals, and the Commission has that well in hand.
At this stage in the implementation of the programme, it is important in the Commission's view to focus on some of the key issues, which merit special attention and special support.
Several speakers have referred to them in the debate today.
Parliament has indicated that it wishes to add certain subjects, and that is understandable since there are many important issues in the field of the environment.
What we must not forget of course is that, the more priorities we assign, the less attention we shall be able to devote to each individual issue.
As regards the amendments relating to the consequences of enlargement to include Austria, Finland and Sweden, which Mr Gahrton and Mr Sjöstedt mentioned in particular, I should like once again to stress my determination that no Member State - old or new - will be obliged to lower its environmental standards.
We have been at pains to ensure that that need not happen, and Parliament will be aware that a whole series of proposals exists here, relating among other things to the motor oil programme and recently the acidification programme with the associated proposal on a reduction of sulphur emissions.
Whether we can give effect to our wishes and keep our promises to the new Member States, of course, also depends on our sticking to a procedure under which we can be sure of being able to deal with the proposals within the timeframe available.
Mr President, Parliament's recommendation contains 38 amendments to the Council's common position.
A further two amendments have been added.
The Commission can accept 16 of these amendments wholly, in part or in principle.
Of these amendments the Commission had already accepted five in conjunction with the first reading and incorporated them into the amended proposal of December 1996.
Unfortunately the Commission cannot accept the 24 other amendments, first and foremost for institutional reasons.
The ones it cannot accept are Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 36, 37, 38, 39 and 40.
Mrs Jackson will have noted that we can accept Amendment No 34, which is entirely consistent with the Commission's original text.
Mr President, in presenting the proposal we are now debating on second reading, the Commission's starting point was that the Community must set a good example and point the way forward both internally and at international level.
We shall have an opportunity later this evening to discuss the UNGASS meeting in New York.
There is a need for increased political commitment and action at all levels, if we are to give effect to the overarching strategy and objectives of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme, geared to sustainable development.
As we can observe around us in Europe, in Denver and in New York, this is seen as an immensely important challenge, in which the EU has a major role to play.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Shipments of waste to non-OECD countries
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0241/97) by Mr Virgin, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing common rules and procedures to apply to shipments to certain non-OECD countries of certain types of waste (COM(94)0678 - C4-0048/97-95/0029(SYN)).
Mr President, this report concerns the regulations governing the export of waste for recovery to countries outside the OECD.
There is, in fact, a strong link between this report and that on environmentally hazardous waste which we discussed recently.
Parliament won a significant victory then, when it managed to get several more groups of environmentally hazardous wastes included in the decision, including a number of substances on the 'Green List' , which for the most part includes environmentally harmless substances.
It is this list primarily which this report addresses.
This is also the background to a number of amendment proposals.
The Commission's proposal is based on allowing an export to take place if the country of destination has accepted it.
There is a conflict here as far as the substances which we consider should be treated as environmentally hazardous are concerned.
This is corrected through amendment proposals 8-10, where it is established that the new Annex, Annex No. 5, which is currently being drawn up and which will cover environmentally hazardous waste, should be included into this Regulation as well.
The question of the legal basis to be used has also been a problem.
The Commission wants to use Article 113, as the issue is considered to be trade related.
The Council is of the opinion that the issue is partially environmentally related and that Article 130s applies.
Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights supported this line with some convincing arguments.
I am also sure that Parliament views this as the most obvious line.
Otherwise, the proposal in the report is based on changing the decision making procedure for countries which have said no to the import of waste for recovery which is on the green list, or those which have not responded at all.
The Commission proposes a complicated consideration procedure to change the importing countries' position.
It says in the proposal that 'it is possible that those countries which have responded by saying that they do not wish to accept certain or all types of waste/...../are perhaps not totally aware of the significance that their response will have on their own industry.'
I think that this quote reflects an authoritative attitude which is quite shocking.
My amendment proposal is based on the fact that no means no .
This must be respected and exports must not be allowed.
But a country may change its position if it wishes.
It must be relatively simple to make such a change of position.
This is covered in amendment 4 and also in the methods given in Article 4.
Where countries have not responded we should treat this response as a no, but with the possibility that this may become yes in the future.
In view of the fact that this proposal will take a long time to conclude there is time to open up export channels which are important both for the exporting and importing country.
Examples of this can certainly be seen within the textile sector.
We have been subjected to a considerable barrage of letters recently.
These are particularly concerned with charity organisations which work within the textile sector.
This sector traditionally includes exports from the EU to countries outside the OECD, exports which do not really pose any environmental problems.
It is important, particularly for the many aid organisations, that such export is not prevented, and that simple channels are opened and simple decision making procedures put in place to promote such opportunities.
It is important to maintain this trade after all and to have the tools in place to give consent quickly for such exports.
This should be perfectly possible within the framework of the additional proposals which this report contains.
Mr President, waste is not just something that we want to get rid of at all costs.
Waste is also an extremely profitable business, and on that business the Commission has its beady eye in this proposal on waste shipments.
According to the proposal, as much waste as possible should be shipped as fast as possible beyond the borders of Europe, and never mind the consequences, never mind the environmental damage suffered by those who have received the shipments, and never mind the current EU legislation.
As the draftsman of the REX Committee, I have taken a look at the draft regulation and, like Mr Virgin, I could only shake my head at some of the points proposed there.
The Commission bases its proposal on an obsolete list of wastes.
The Basle Convention, and indeed the EU itself, has long since classified many of them as hazardous.
Tin residues are to be shipped to Albania, cobalt scrap to Colombia and nickel wastes to Brazil.
Then the Commission assumes that countries which have failed to reply to its proposal have simply forgotten to do so.
As for the countries that have explicitly rejected these proposals, the Commission intends to go round knocking on every door to get individual authorizations.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, if we are unwilling to inflict something on ourselves, we can hardly inflict it on someone else.
And we certainly cannot maintain that those countries which are reluctant to accept the gift of waste that Europe wants to lavish on them may possibly be totally unaware of the economic consequences of their refusal.
What unparalleled arrogance!
As if people outside Europe were unaware that cadmium and aluminium residues can destroy the environment.
We in the REX Committee sifted through this whole complex business and came to the conclusion that a 'green list' really must be a list that is totally above suspicion - all green, without the occasional spots of yellow or even red.
We unanimously decided to give our full support to Mr Virgin's amendments to the Commission's proposal.
In any case, a new Directive on waste disposal is coming into force on 1 January 1998.
Why should we be in such a rush at this stage to become involved in a directive which is going to be obsolete anyway in six or nine months?
Mr President, this Parliament has for years been campaigning for a new waste policy, for waste avoidance and waste recycling within the European Union.
We have achieved one success.
In Article 39 of the Lomé Convention we laid down that no toxic or hazardous wastes must be exported to the ACP countries.
Unfortunately, there was no comparable agreement with other Third World countries.
But our view is that the time really has come to put a stop to waste exports to the Third World.
In this context, incidentally, South Africa has decided that it will not import any wastes and will not export hazardous wastes.
And we have achieved a worldwide breakthrough with the Basle Convention.
The revised version of the Basle Convention says that from 1 January 1998 any export of hazardous wastes outside the OECD countries is to be prohibited.
That resolution was adopted six months ago, and in fact it is already applicable.
So why, in this situation, does the Commission have to present us with another document which basically revokes that resolution, which has been a rule for six months? The Commission has the audacity - after that resolution has been adopted and the world-wide breakthrough has been achieved - still to propose to export hazardous wastes.
And it has the additional audacity - as Mr Virgin pointed out earlier - to include the following statement in Recital 5 of its text: ' it is possible that countries which have replied that they do not wish to receive some or all types of waste listed in Annex II of the Regulation may not be fully aware of the significance of their response for their industrial sector.'
Meaning what, precisely? That sentence is neo-colonialist - as if those countries did not know what they were doing, did not know what their potential was!
I believe that that sentence alone is sufficient for us to reject the entire document.
We discussed that in committee.
We tried to create an objective basis.
We shall give our complete and full support to the amendments Mr Virgin has tabled, as an attempt to arrive at a conclusion by objective argument.
Personally, though, I believe this document deserves to be thrown out; we should not even vote on it!
Mr. President, it is now certain that some of man's activities pose a grave threat both to the environment and to public health.
It is on the basis of that general thesis that we must examine the Commission's proposal for a review of Regulation 259/93.
The issue of exporting waste is certainly not a purely commercial one.
It is directly related to the environment and the health of all our planet's citizens, not just that of the Union's citizens.
We must take particular account of the destruction we are 'preparing' today for future generations.
Consequently, it must be regarded as established that if a country has not responded to the Commission's invitation to accept wastes for storage or processing, that does not mean that the country in question agrees to receive them.
And this, precisely, is the aim of Mr Virgin's amendment, which I believe will be approved because it is unacceptable for the Commission to grant itself the right to interpret a country's non-response in its own interests.
The environment's resistance has been greatly reduced by industrial activity both in the developed world and in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The outcry made as he departed this life by the great explorer and environmentologist Cousteau, to whom mankind owes so much, is very recent.
His outcry about the destruction that threatens our planet and will very soon be upon us, was very strident.
Let us take it to heart.
It is a political duty of the first magnitude, a direct priority on the world's political stage, for the European Union to adopt a decision finally to put an end to this rationale of exporting wastes, which is no real export but a transfer of the problem to some other part of the planet.
As for the point in the Directive which refers to the type of waste, the green list which according to the commission contains harmless substances, many of which, however, are harmful to the environment and to public health, I consider it very important to take account of the list included in the Basel Convention and incorporate it in the proposed regulation.
Let me also mention another important issue, that of monitoring the implementation of this regulation.
The European Union will have to apply strict sanctions to Member States which infringe the regulation, and will certainly have to provide procedures to prevent the illegal transport known to be taking place.
I congratulate Mr Virgin on his report and I fully share his thoughts and views.
Mr President, the moral of this debate is: for heaven's sake read your post carefully and reply to questionnaires carefully.
It seems to me that there are a number of misapprehensions around on this issue and when the Commissioner replies I hope he will bring a breath of fresh air into all this.
Like many British Members, I have received a large number of representations on this issue very suddenly and quite late in the day from the Red Cross and the Salvation Army, from Help the Aged - not Help the MEP - and so on.
They are all saying and I quote from one letter: The European Commission's proposal here with the Virgin report will ban the trade in used textiles.
That is not true and it would be extremely helpful if the Commissioner when he replies could confirm that the trade in used clothing between these Member States and third countries can go on where those countries have definitely indicated that they want to import them.
That would help.
Secondly, the Commission's main problem is the very large number of countries which have simply not replied to the note verbale .
Perhaps they thought it was just another letter about the European Parliament's procedures.
Whatever it was, it went straight into the wastepaper basket and no reply was sent back to Brussels.
Could the Commissioner say how many third countries never replied to that note verbale ? And could he say how many countries replied that they did not want these wastes?
I can understand the Commission when it says that perhaps countries said they did not want these wastes but they did not realize what they were saying.
However, I have some sympathy with Mr Virgin.
If a country says that it did not want to import these wastes, then it did not want to import these wastes.
For us it would be rather like an unsuccessful mail order company to go back to them and say you did not really mean to refuse that, did you? You ticked the wrong box, didn't you?
Go on, you really want it.
That cannot be right and I hope the Commission can put matters straight tonight.
I have great sympathy with Mr Virgin but could the Commission say whether there is a simple mechanism for those countries which have so far indicated that they do not want to import these wastes, or have not given an answer, simply to change their minds if the full facts are brought to their attention?
Mr President, I must say that I am also interested in an answer to the question put by Mrs Jackson, and I will add to Mrs Jackson's remarks that I do not think the Commission has adopted the right approach with this proposal. If there was some dissatisfaction over the replies received and if not enough replies were received, an initiative could have been taken to seek a clarification of the replies instead of presenting this proposal.
But the proposal has been presented. I support all the rapporteur's amendments in the report and I agree that the Commission has taken a completely paternalistic attitude, which Mrs Jackson illustrated splendidly.
It is therefore important that we in the European Parliament adopt amendments that do away with this paternalistic attitude and at the same time of course institute a procedure that is simple enough for us to alter facilities for the export and import of waste when countries really make it clear that that is what they want.
Mr President, I would like to welcome Mr Virgin's report on the Commission's proposal to regulate the trade in certain types of waste to the non-OECD countries.
It fills a gap in the current regulations controlling the export of waste in the European Union.
But many of these materials have significant economic importance to the countries to which they are exported and we would wish to see the trade continued, but in an organized and controlled way.
However, in recent days, like my colleague Mrs Jackson, many of my colleagues on this side have been lobbied heavily by charitable organizations alleging that by voting for the Virgin report, we are about to ban the export of secondhand clothes and other textiles to non-OECD countries.
In response to these approaches, I should like to make the following points.
Firstly, I believe that the industrial waste exporters have mistakenly given an unnecessarily exaggerated and frightening picture of the present situation to the charitable organizations.
There is no immediate or real danger of a ban being put into effect.
The Virgin report itself involves a cooperation procedure which will take months, or perhaps years if the Council does not get a move on.
Having read the legislation we all know that the non-OECD countries have been written to at least three times asking if they wish to accept waste textiles on the green list of waste of the Basle Convention. It should be noted that we cannot change the Basle Convention.
It is an international convention which is not alterable by the Commission or Parliament.
The European Parliament has taken a very reasonable approach to this matter.
Mr Virgin's report asks the Commission to respect the wishes of countries who reply to the Commission saying they would not accept wastes, or only certain types of wastes.
We have decided to suggest that those countries who have not replied so far should not be sent wastes until they do.
Finally, we recognized possible problems and suggested that the Commission should set up a committee procedure to enable countries to change their minds quickly and easily if they feel they have made a mistake or not understood what has been sent to them.
Even after that we will be working out a compromise at second reading with the Commission.
I think the rapporteur's proposals are perfectly reasonable and they have the support, amazingly, even of Greenpeace.
They respect the right of countries to make their own decision.
Nevertheless, it is worth saying that we have considerable respect for the work of the charities which approached us and for the work they do throughout the world to alleviate poverty and encourage economic development.
We can assure them that we will ensure that no European legislation hampers their activities.
There have genuinely been some misunderstandings as to what this proposal involves.
I therefore greatly welcome the opportunity to clarify the situation.
I should say at the outset that in spite of the vehemence with which some have spoken, I am going to indicate support for seven amendments out of the ten that have been put forward.
I should start by thanking Mr Virgin for his report on the draft proposal.
The proposed text should be considered against the background of Council Regulation 259/93.
It is that regulation that sets out a comprehensive system of supervision and control on shipments of waste within, into and out of the Community.
The proposal which we are discussing today provides for specific rules on the export of non-hazardous or 'green list' wastes to countries that are not members of the OECD.
It is true that there are eight items which are hazardous which are still covered, but the intention is - and that is provided for by Annex V of Regulation 259/93 - that those will be introduced into that category in due course.
So the overwhelming bulk of this proposal is about non-hazardous waste.
Article 17 of Council Regulation 259/93 has a provision whereby the Commission notifies non-OECD countries what the contents of the non-hazardous waste list are and then asks them whether they would accept the shipments of those wastes without recourse to a controlled procedure, or whether they would prefer a more stringent approach.
The Commission has sent letters to each one of the countries concerned and the current proposal takes full account of these replies.
There has been a real misunderstanding here.
There is absolutely no question of the Commission adopting a paternalistic attitude in any way.
When a country replies and says it does not want the waste, that reply is fully respected.
There is no question of waste being sent to that country.
There have now been about 30 countries that have not replied.
That is the answer to Mrs Jackson's question.
What do you do if a country simply never replies? The initial Commission proposal provided for the shipment of nonhazardous wastes being allowed in those circumstances.
For the first and third group - that is to say, the countries that had informed the Commission about their refusal to let the waste in and the countries that did not reply to the questionnaire - that export would now only be possible on the basis of explicit approval by the country concerned for each individual shipment on the basis of prior, informed consent.
That means that if a country has not replied, we do not just assume that the answer is 'no' .
In my view that would be just as paternalistic a view as to assume that the answer is 'yes' .
The answer is that we do not know what they think.
Therefore, the procedure that is now proposed is that in each case of a consignment that is sent, the country concerned has the absolute right to say 'yes' or 'no' and has to give its explicit approval if the answer is 'yes' .
So the assumption is 'no' unless explicit approval is given.
That seems to me not in any way paternalistic, but fully to respect the rights of the country to have a particular consignment in or not and assure that the wishes of the country concerned are respected where it has not given a general reply.
I was asked what happens if a country changes its mind.
The answer is that it only has to write a letter saying it changes its mind - there is no elaborate procedure whatsoever - and the change of mind will be respected.
There is no question of forcing waste on anybody who does not want it.
Indeed the procedure is quite complex for a country which has not replied.
In each case, for each shipment, there has to be a prior approval by the country concerned of that shipment.
Let me now tell the House the view the Commission takes on the ten amendments.
The purpose of the first amendment is to add Article 13(s) as a legal base.
That is an amendment that the Commission cannot favour because the European Court of Justice has long established and repeated that the legal basis for a Community measure must be based on the objective and contents of the act.
The objective of this proposal relates to trade relations with third countries.
It is a classic instrument dealing with shipment authorizations to regulate external trade.
The shipment authorization referred to in Article 15(7) is the equivalent of an export licence.
The surveillance system referred to in Article 17(2) is equally a classic instrument of that kind so that the proposal clearly falls within the remit of Article 113.
The fact that the trade relates to waste does not affect its legal base and is an ancillary aspect to the objective of the proposal, which is to regulate trade.
The Commission has, however, decided to accept the second and the fifth amendments.
They concern the countries that replied explicitly to the Commission that they do not want to receive imports of waste.
The Commission felt it inappropriate to ignore those express written wishes and therefore what Parliament wants will indeed prevail.
All Community exports of non-hazardous waste will be stopped to those countries once the regulation is in force.
So the amendments that are accepted are very important ones - the second and the fifth ones - and ensure that if a country says 'no' , it will not be possible to export non-hazardous waste to that country.
If the country says 'yes' it will be possible.
If a country does not reply, each individual shipment will have to be approved.
Amendment No 4 on the review mechanism for countries who change their position, can also be accepted.
The Commission decided not to accept Amendments Nos 3 and 6, which relate to the countries that did not reply to the questionnaire.
We have instead proposed that Community exporters will strictly use a prior, informed consent procedure in that case.
We stick to our original position because a non-response from a country cannot be considered as an indication that a prohibition is sought any more than it could be considered that a consent is given.
The general principle of the green list of non-hazardous waste is that products included in it are subject to normal commercial transactions.
The current proposal includes the prior informed consent procedure whereby only when a positive response is received from the competent authority of the country concerned would any shipment be allowed to leave a Community port.
Any more restrictive prohibition would penalize legitimate and laudable transactions, for example, used clothing from Oxfam, about which we too have received a report.
I welcome the opportunity to clarify the points raised by both Mrs Jackson and Mr Bowe about such things as the export of second-hand clothes, which count as waste.
This is in no sense designed to stop that.
It will not stop that except in the case of countries that have expressly refused to receive such consignments, and that they are entitled to do.
The Commission will also accept Amendment No 7.
The date of review should indeed be changed to 1998 to take account of the time that has lapsed since the text was drafted.
I refer also to the fact that reference has been made in the debate by Mr Telkämper to a proposal for 1998.
That relates to hazardous waste and therefore should not be confused with this proposal which relates essentially to non-hazardous waste.
The Commission does not have any objection to Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10.
They all relate to the classification of wastes as hazardous or non-hazardous.
Annex II of the draft regulation can only contain non-hazardous wastes.
I am aware of the fact that the international classification of waste is changing regularly.
The Commission is fully prepared to adapt the list whenever that is necessary.
As I have said, seven out of the ten amendments are accepted.
These are not minor textual ones.
Sometimes the Commission stands up and gives an impressive tally of the number of amendments that have been accepted and they all amount to minor wording changes.
That is not the case here.
A number of substantial ones have been accepted.
I believe that the main cause of controversy will now be dealt with in a way that should be acceptable to Parliament which allows the trade in such goods as second-hand goods to proceed unimpeded, which does not impose the view of the European Union on third countries, which allows them unequivocally to say 'no' , if that is what they want to say, and where they have not replied, allows them to give a view on each shipment before it is sent and ensures that view prevails.
I think that this is a reasonable proposal.
I welcome the fact that Parliament has given us the opportunity to improve it by putting forward some important amendments, the bulk of which we are ready to accept.
I hope, as it goes forward, Parliament will feel that its wishes have been substantially listened to and where not, that there have been reasonable grounds for not doing so, and that the proposal that is now put forward is sensible and orderly, fair both to the exporters and to the countries concerned, not imposing our will on anybody else but enabling legitimate trade to continue.
Mr President, I have a question to ask Mr Virgin.
It seems to me that we are on the verge of agreeing on all this, and what the Commissioner has said has been extremely helpful.
Mr Virgin has achieved an enormous amount by getting the Commission to agree to two key amendments which he has tabled.
In the light of what the Commission has said in relation to Amendment No 3, where I think there was a genuine misapprehension, would Mr Virgin consider withdrawing it?
Mr President, I would first like to comment on this dispute over regulations.
I think that amendment proposals 8-10, which the Commission has finally accepted, demonstrate that this issue includes an environmental aspect which was not predicted.
It is perhaps not as strange as it seems, as the Commission started out with a different view of what is known as the green list when this proposal was originally tabled.
In view of the fact that Parliament, and eventually the Council as well has decided that certain substances on the green list should be treated as environmentally hazardous, the natural response is to say that this proposal includes environmental aspects which must be acknowledged.
Perhaps we still have a discrepancy in meaning on this point.
On the other hand I am pleased that the Commission has otherwise accepted so many of our amendment proposals.
Mr President, we may have different views about what constitutes paternalism.
But are the countries concerned really under any obligation to reply if they don't want to? Can we not simply leave things as they are?
After all, we are all glad that some of Mr Virgin's amendments, and our own, have been adopted. As for paternalism, I should be very cautious about what it actually is.
Mr President, I would like to reply to that.
We accept the principle that Mr Kreissl-Dörfler puts forward, that countries should not be compelled to have what they do not want.
The amendments we now accept would have the following effect.
If a country says No, that No is final and the goods cannot be exported to that country.
If the country says Yes, then they can be.
If a country does not answer, they can only be exported if, in the case of each individual shipment, the country at the receiving end says Yes.
Therefore the country at the receiving end either says nothing, in which case it cannot be exported, or it says Yes, in which case it can, or it says No, in which case it cannot.
In all cases the wishes of the country concerned prevail.
I hope, therefore, that on reflection Mr Kreissl-Dörfler will feel that we have reflected the principle he wants.
There is nothing paternalistic about it.
We are not forcing anything on anyone but we are setting out a clear basis on how to proceed fairly.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Environmental agreements
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0224/97) by Mrs Graenitz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on environmental agreements (COM(96)0561 - C4-0013/97).
I should like to introduce my report on the Commission's communication with a personal note.
In the city where I live more than 90 % of pollutant emissions by the local heavy industry have been eliminated in recent years by a voluntary agreement, without that industry being forced to shut down or substantially restrict its production.
Even so, I believe that voluntary environmental agreements can only be developed and concluded as a supplement to environmental legislation, but not as a substitute for it.
I shall now say why I believe that.
Half an hour ago we were talking about the fifth environmental action programme, and one point that became very clear was that there is a need for new instruments to enable sustainable growth to be effectively achieved, in addition to environmental legislation.
I believe that is right, and that we need these new instruments.
That is why I also called upon the Commission in my report - and I hope that Honourable Members will be able to support me here - to define those new instruments more precisely than is the case in the present communication.
I believe it is very important to know what the advantages and disadvantages of an instrument are, so that a political decision can then be made on where it is to be applied in such a way as to promote sustainable development, advance the protection of the environment and not result in any backsliding or delays.
When we talk about voluntary agreements, that can mean many different things, which is precisely why this kind of definition, this kind of greater accuracy, is so necessary.
The advantages can be listed quickly enough: Measures can be tailored to specific situations.
That is more dynamic, faster and in any case more cost-effective because capital expenditures in industry can be better geared to legislation.
Legislation for individual cases can be avoided.
It is possible, and seems particularly important to me, to anticipate statutory regulations.
Regional problems can be solved.
But the voluntary agreements do involve one very great disadvantage, which in my opinion cannot be remedied and must therefore be taken into consideration.
A voluntary agreement is a private law contract between two parties.
That private law contract contains no legally effective protection of third parties, not for the individual citizen, each citizen affected by the scope of the voluntary agreement, and not for any other industrial concerns, undertakings active in that field.
I believe that the ECJ is therefore quite right to point out that this is a very important point and must always be borne in mind if instruments are to be introduced.
We shall certainly hear of many other advantages and disadvantages during the debate.
I should just like to refer to one other point which seems to me especially important. I am not really sure how this disadvantage of a voluntary agreement can be remedied, or at least converted into an advantage.
What I am talking about is public involvement, transparency.
Something more must be done here to improve the situation.
The question of 'free-riders' is one that absolutely must be resolved, because it may well happen that 'free-riders' , as we have seen with past agreements, especially in the wastes sector, can bring the whole edifice down because only a few people will be left to bear the costs, and those costs will then be too high.
In conclusion, let me make one final point: we not only need to deploy the right instruments to progress in environmental policy, but we also need to deploy the right instruments at the right location.
I believe that a great many Member States, a great many regions, have achieved notable successes with these environmental agreements.
I have held talks in various Member States, and I must say that - in the Netherlands, especially - these voluntary agreements have advanced to a stage where they do a great deal of good for the environment.
But I do believe that the necessary powers are lacking, lacking both to the Commission and to the associations; so we have not really made much progress yet, as the Commission itself comments in the Green Paper on food law.
Finally, may I thank the Commission's services and Parliament's services for the assistance they have given me with the production of this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in days of cash shortages and strict budgets, environmental policy has a particularly hard time.
Effective environmental legislation does not come cheap.
Even if it pays off in the long run, over a period of years, it is unrewarding at the time.
Anyway, we are all very well aware that legislation is necessary, even if it is sometimes less than ideal.
And we know, too, that it is not enough.
For years, the European Parliament and its Environment Committee have been trying to find and apply new instruments to advance the aims of environmental protection.
From this standpoint, the environmental protection agreement is an extremely interesting instrument.
Many of our Member States already have experience of it.
Mrs Oomen would certainly have been able to give you some examples from the Netherlands if she had been able to speak tonight, but unfortunately she cannot be here.
It is important, too, to realize that although the agreements are entered into voluntarily they can also provide positive incentives.
They stimulate the imagination, suggesting completely new ways of protecting the environment and solving, or at least tackling, problems which legislation cannot deal with effectively, if at all.
For example, there are environmental hazards which arise only in particular Member States, and perhaps only for a handful of producers in those States.
The cost of solving such problems by EU-wide legislation would be totally disproportionate to the cost of an agreement that could be handled very quickly within the small circle involved.
Environmental agreements are no substitute for legislation - I agree with you there -but they can be an outstanding complement to it, and increase willingness to do more to protect the environment without introducing compulsion.
I regard environmental agreements as arrangements between industrial sectors or companies and the authorities, designed to reduce or prevent damage to the environment.
In some cases they are even a key to success, doing a great deal of good to the image of a whole sector of production.
In any criticism of that, we should help to point out existing shortcomings and weaknesses and, in some cases, even use them as a springboard for later legislation, if possible.
Where I come from, we have the so-called Environment Pact for Bavaria, which helps to reduce the quantity of waste produced, promotes the development of efficient energy use and boosts environmental management in industrial concerns and elsewhere.
The eco-audit is one such approach, and that eco-audit has done a great deal to bring about a situation where thousands of enterprises have now declared their willingness to play an active part here.
We do still need a contribution for the sector-, material- and product-related systems, and environmental agreements would be a way of achieving that.
I have no doubt that prohibitions and provisions of environmental policy are inadequate to solve the present problems.
But I do believe that the Commission communication is a start, and we should try to take full advantage of all possibilities within the European Union.
Environmental agreements need to be approached very carefully, and the rapporteur, Mrs Graenitz, has indeed done that in her excellent report.
She has highlighted the drawbacks of the agreements and also set out very clear and strict criteria which they have to meet.
In the process, however, the advantages have been lost sight of to some extent.
My group has therefore tabled a number of amendments, both in committee and now in plenary.
The fact is that agreements can be a very useful instrument, that is quite clear.
Mrs Graenitz refers to this herself, and in the Netherlands we have had very good experience of them.
Other Member States have also had positive experience of these instruments.
However, they must be used in the right circumstances, then they really can play a useful role in environment policy.
This fits in extremely well with the Commission's efforts to extend the number of instruments.
The scope should be created for Member States to implement EU legislation by using environmental agreements.
Our amendments need no further explanation, and I hope the rapporteur will accept them.
This morning, we heard the Commission presenting Agenda 2000.
The European Union's environmental legislation will be an enormous stumbling-block when it comes to the future Member States taking on board the acquis communautaire .
Agreements can play a role here.
This has now been included in paragraph 18 of the resolution: an agreement could ensure that industries investing in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe already respect the European Union's environmental legislation.
I should like to know what the Commissioner's reaction is to this idea.
Mr President, the Commission's communication on environmental agreements is a good piece of work.
From the list of practical experience of these agreements at the end of the communication, it is clear that this instrument is being used throughout Europe, but that there are major differences in its legal status.
In my view, therefore, this legal status needs to be clarified.
I can fully endorse the requirements laid down by the Commission for these agreements.
Only if strict criteria are established for the contents of an agreement and it has a binding legal nature can the instrument be of use.
If that is ensured, an agreement is a match for detailed legislation.
Indeed, it can be a much more effective means of achieving environmental objectives.
I therefore feel that the motion for a resolution contains some paragraphs which are too negative in tone.
It is even said that agreements may trigger a crisis of confidence on the part of the public.
To my mind, that is going somewhat too far.
I would say that much more damage will be done to public confidence if environmental protection objectives are not achieved than if selective use is made of these agreements.
The objection that third parties might not be adequately protected does not hold water if the agreement is given proper legal form.
I therefore cannot agree with the paragraph which says that agreements can never be a substitute for legislation.
It only needs to be made clear which articles of a directive can be implemented by an agreement, and which cannot.
Mr President, Commissioner, environmental agreements in the European Community are one thing and environmental agreements at national level are another.
In the Netherlands there have been more than one hundred legally binding national agreements, dating back over many years.
They operate well in a small, compact country.
In my own country, with its 80 agreements, things are rather more difficult because it is a very different story in terms of size.
I believe such agreements need to be underpinned by statutory provisions which must come from a European level.
The Commission has now tackled this subject.
I am very glad that the Commission has been so bold and believes that it could, according to Brussels, help to co-ordinate these voluntary agreements.
All I know is that there are over 100 directives that my own country has not even implemented.
So how do you expect to be able to control voluntary agreements from Brussels? That was one question I was very anxious to ask you.
Commissioner, I would also be interested to know how you can argue in favour of contractual agreements rather than voluntary commitments although you know full well that you cannot be a party to this pact at all.
As far as I know, the Commission has no right to conclude voluntary agreements.
I believe the initiative for this kind of procedure lies elsewhere.
The Commission generally has the utmost difficulty in getting European directives moving.
Very few of them have been set on their way in the last two years, and now you think that by means of large-scale deregulation back to the national governments you can advance the cause of environmental policy through voluntary agreements.
I don't think so!
A voluntary instrument is all very well so long as it is not required to replace framework directives that have not been passed.
That must not happen.
I think it is important that the European Commission should produce much more and much clearer framework legislation for voluntary agreements.
That must be made clearer in this report.
Then I can imagine that voluntary agreements at European level might make sense.
National ones, of course, are very welcome!
Mr President, I should like to thank the Environment Committee and the rapporteur, Mrs Graenitz, for their thorough work and for the well balanced speech that Mrs Graenitz gave here in the House a moment ago.
The question of environmental agreements with industry is a difficult one.
The Commission has therefore based its communication on a very broad consultation with industry, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the field of the environment and experts from the Member States, and we have taken part in conferences on the subject.
As Mrs Graenitz also mentioned, environmental agreements are an important element in the Fifth Environmental Action Programme and are one of the policy instruments that can be used.
I think it is good that the motion for a resolution recognizes this point.
Environmental agreements must be transparent and must be reliable.
That is not a feature common to all the agreements signed in the past or hitherto.
Parliament's motion for a resolution rightly stresses the need for both transparency and reliability.
The Commission recommendation is designed to ensure that future agreements meet these requirements.
There is agreement that general provisions in environmental directives can be implemented in certain cases through binding environmental agreements, whereas provisions conferring rights on individuals must be implemented through national law.
Most of these points are also mentioned in the Resolution adopted by the Council on 19 June.
A number of questions are more controversial.
We must clearly work further on these points on the basis of the decisions and resolutions of Parliament and the Council.
Let me just mention three of them: the relation between legal provisions and agreements, the enforceability of agreements and the use of the agreements in the Community.
A major danger, or perhaps just a danger where environmental agreements are concerned, is that they can lead to what might be called privatization of environmental policy.
In my view there may be a danger of such privatization occurring when there is a disparity of information between the private and public sectors, or when the public authorities are unable to give effect to their views as regards what is feasible or, for that matter, what is economically viable.
In both cases, the danger of such privatization can be averted by involving the legislator in setting the objective, for example as an element in an EC Directive.
The enforceability of agreements is closely bound up with their legal status.
Where the implementation of directives is concerned, there is an obligatory requirement that they take a legally binding form.
The most difficult question is probably whether and to what extent agreements should be used on a Community-wide basis, which is what Mr Florenz, in particular, was concerned with.
In its communication of 1996, the Commission clearly recognized the difficulties that arise when this instrument is applied on a Europe-wide basis.
On the other hand, we have already devised arrangements with industry which are giving results.
As far back as 1989, for example, the Commission agreed with industry that the content of chemical substances should be indicated on the packaging of washing and cleaning products.
This arrangement works effectively and satisfactorily.
It is quite clear that we must agree on how to carry on with this work in the future.
Rather than indulging in a highly theoretical debate on a modus vivendi , I think we should apply a practical procedure.
This would require that the Commission report on the results achieved and the experience gained, and that the reports in question be presented to Parliament.
Let me therefore end by saying that environmental agreements, in my view, offer a means of furthering environmental policy, but that this means should be used selectively and with great care.
Commissioner, you are recommending contractual, voluntary agreements.
My question is this: who at European level can conclude a contract with industry - even if there are only five sectors?
Mr President, I too would like to put a legal question to the Commissioner. During the debate in committee, and here as well, it has become increasingly clear that the legal systems in the various States seem to be too diverse, that public law and private law are not the same everywhere, although all our legal systems are based on Roman law and so would have to make that very distinction.
I should like to make the following request: when we have a new communication, new information to Parliament, more attention should be paid to the legal aspect than has been done in the communication we are considering today, because to my mind that precise point is one of the particularly critical and important ones - the question of what the legal basis is.
There was one question to which I should like to have an answer, which is the following: could we now use environmental agreements for industries which invest in Eastern Europe so as to ensure that the present environmental legislation which is familiar to us is applied there too?
Does the Commissioner think this is a good example of how to use these agreements at European level? That was my question.
Mr President, first Mr Florenz asked me the question, who was actually able to conclude agreements at European level.
As Mr Florenz is aware, that will depend on the area concerned.
There will be areas in which there is some form of representation and in which the industries in question will feel adequately represented by European organizations.
In other areas, however, this will not apply, so it will not be possible to conclude such an agreement.
That will need to be considered on a case-by-case basis.
That is precisely why we said in the communication, and I said in my answer today, that we need to gain some experience.
I gave a good example of something that has been successful.
Parliament is aware that there are countries which have had good experience of concluding environmental agreements, but the difficulty is precisely, as Mr Florenz indicated, that of knowing who in the world fits the bill at European level within the individual areas, and that is something we need to find out in concrete terms.
I also agree entirely with Mrs Graenitz that we venture into wide range of questions when we apply this instrument, and that is why we chose to present the communication.
We know there are countries which have had very good results; Mr Eisma pointed that out.
We have heard the same thing in Council meetings.
Other countries, for example the one I hail from, do not apply this facility.
That means that, in the areas where we consider it appropriate, we must try it out and see what possibilities exist.
In each individual case, we must consider the legal position and we must consider the question of representation before we can take the matter further.
I will say to Mr Eisma that we have not actually considered the problem in relation to Eastern and Central Europe in the present communication.
I am reluctant for the moment to say anything specific on whether we can use the facility or not.
The difficulty here will no doubt consist to an even greater extent in the question who can actually enter into such an agreement on behalf of others.
On the other hand, I would not venture to reject the possibility of using such an instrument here too, so I would rather leave the question open in this particular debate.
We have simply not examined the matter.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
UNGASS Planet Earth summit
The next item is the debate on the statement by the Commission on the UNGASS Planet Earth summit in New York.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, three weeks ago heads of state and government from across the world gathered in New York for a Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly to assess progress towards sustainable development.
That meant of course progress achieved since the Rio Conference on Environment and Development in 1992.
Commission President, Jacques Santer, represented the European Community, and it was also a great pleasure to see two Members of the European Parliament as observers on the Community delegation.
Generally, great expectations were placed in the Special Session.
Expectations were particularly high in the EU, and the European Parliament played an important role in the drafting of the EU's ambitious agenda, particularly through its Resolution of 14 March.
To what extent were the EU's ambitions fulfilled? The press gave a distinctly negative response to the general outcome, although the leading role of the EU was recognized.
I am convinced that the EU can take much of the credit for the positive results achieved in spite of everything. I will therefore present a slightly more differentiated picture of the situation.
To begin with, good results were achieved in the discussion of new subjects.
As pointed out by the European Parliament in its Resolution of last March, the Special Session offered a much needed opportunity to discuss new subjects.
Parliament urged that the EU should take the lead in New York.
And the EU did so by proposing two new initiatives.
One aimed at getting to grips with the persistent grave problems arising from the scarcity of fresh water.
The other was concerned with promoting the move to a more sustainable use of energy.
Both initiatives were concretized in the final results of the Session, which lay down principles and a timetable for the concrete progress that must be made through the Commission for Sustainable Development (CSD).
A second area in which we did not achieve our aims, but which some would nevertheless class as a partial success, is that of forests.
The EU pressed hard for the Special Session to prepare the way for negotiations on a forest convention.
This was not possible as a result of strong opposition from the USA, Brazil and certain influential NGOs in particular.
The Special Session set up an intergovernmental forum which was to investigate the possibilities for a convention and report on the results to the CSD in 1999.
On this basis, the CSD will take a decision in the year 2000 on whether a convention should be drafted and, if so, what form it should take.
There is also a consensus on implementing the recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests and on promoting the conservation and sustainable management of forests in other fora, for example in the context of the Biodiversity Convention.
We have made it clear that the EU will work hard to implement the panel's proposals and to bring about agreement on a forestry convention.
I will now cover those areas in which the UN Special Session did not meet our expectations.
Parliament's Resolution of 14 March states that both climate change and the financing of sustainable development are priority tasks.
With regard to climate change, the result was not encouraging, despite the efforts of the Union.
But the text does refer to the need for 'significant' reductions in emissions and is thus somewhat better than the Denver text.
President Clinton's speech also contained some encouraging elements.
He expressed admiration of the EU's stance and moved a little closer to the more progressive attitude of the EU when he conceded that the United States had not hitherto taken climate changes sufficiently seriously.
The President also pledged to take the initiative in convincing Congress and the American people of the need for a significant reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases.
But the EU must now continue to put pressure on the USA and other parties, including Japan, which bears a heavy responsibility as host of the forthcoming Conference of Parties in Kyoto.
We must do what we can to ensure that the countries concerned make their attitude clear.
That will enable us to initiate serious negotiations on reduction targets at the preparatory meetings prior to the Kyoto Conference.
Finally, as regards the financing questions, the EU took a leading role in securing confirmation of the Rio targets.
The EU also sought to mediate between the hard line of the United States and Japan, on the one hand, and that of the G77 countries on the other.
The EU proposed that the participants should make a commitment to a reversal of the trend in official development aid and that a procedure should be introduced at intergovernmental level to discuss innovative financing ideas.
These proposals were too ambitious for some and not ambitious enough for others.
The final text on aid does not in the end go any further than Agenda 21 and repeats the unfulfilled promise of the industrialized countries to set aside as soon as possible 0.7 % of their Gross National Product for development aid.
What possibilities does all this offer us for the future? To begin with, we have drawn up a good programme of work for the CSD for the next five years and have secured a decision on a new Rio+10 summit in the year 2002.
Until then, the EU must concentrate on making concrete progress in the CSD on those areas - fresh water and energy - in which the EU has taken the initiative, as well as on the new intergovernmental forum on forests.
Secondly, the EU must develop a strategy to implement those things on which agreement was reached in New York.
And thirdly, the EU must decide what steps it can take independently of the UN processes to promote sustainable development on a global basis.
Let me say one thing about the Resolution presented by Parliament, which also considers the continued work.
I agree in broad outline with the content of the Resolution.
If I mention it at all this evening, it is because we were a little concerned over the - one might almost say - vehement condemnation of China in paragraph 10.
I think it inappropriate to refer to China as destructive, even though we share Parliament's view that it will be necessary to continue pressing actively for the greater integration of China into environmental progress.
The Commission intends at the beginning of 1998 to present a communication to the Council and Parliament on the implementation by the Community of the results of the Special Session on progress with regard to sustainable development in the world as a whole.
We look forward to Parliament's active participation in the development of the EU's strategy for the future.
Mr President, the five years that have passed since the well-meaning resolutions of the Rio Summit in 1992 have been characterized by a lack of commitment in the West to meet the challenges of climate change and environment and development.
Changes in the industrialized countries' consumption and behaviour patterns have not taken place and this, by default, has encouraged inaction in the South.
The Party of European Socialists is concerned that poverty and under-development continue to be a cause of environmental degradation.
Wealthy countries have not kept their promise to devote 0.7 % of their GDP to development aid and cooperation.
The crucial link between sustainable development and environmental protection is therefore still missing.
It is good that we are not here tonight to criticize the Commission.
It always make a change when we are such a small bunch in this Chamber and we are all together on this.
But the pitiful results of UNGASS, despite strong leadership from the European Union and, in particular, the new UK Government, highlighted the fact that on climate change, financing, water and forests, the gulf between the undertakings given in Rio and the steps to honour them is enormous.
But all the blame cannot be heaped on the shoulders of our own governments either.
So, where does it leave us? We can pat ourselves on the back in Europe and say that our position at UNGASS was comparatively progressive in pushing for global protection and sustainable development, for a global tax on aviation fuel and our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15 % by the year 2010.
In comparison to other players, this was excellent but we are still left with a mighty big agenda for Kyoto in December.
In reality we need to pick up the pieces and work towards the next opportunity.
The most pressing issues remain: targets for greenhouse gas emissions to be agreed in particular by the USA and Japan, protection of forests, fresh water resources, development of renewable energy, the fight against desertification and protection of biodiversity.
It is all still there on the agenda.
And none of these issues will be advanced without speeding up the implementation of Agenda 21 and tackling the twin issues of public development aid and the negative role played by perverse subsidies.
Investment in improving the global environment is investment in jobs and prosperity and it is high time this was given more credibility by finance ministers.
In attempting to build agreement on these issues, we have to put our own house in order in Europe and secure the involvement of the different actors in civil society in implementing sustainable development and environmental education both at home and in the South.
One of the ways we can do this is to increase the support to local Agenda 21 processes which are emerging very patchily across the European Union.
At a time when we are cutting our budgets for development, for work on protection of international forests and for urban environment networking and pilot projects, it is sometimes unclear whether our deeds match our rhetoric.
Our aspirations are fine but our efforts are insufficient.
The time to start work on these problems is now and we need a more committed political will from all our governments, our industries and our finance ministers than we have at the present time.
Mr President, Commissioner, I attended the conference in New York, together with Mrs Dybkjæer, as a representative of the European Parliament, and I am bound to say that even during the conference I felt a sense of depression creeping over me.
Sadly, there were many areas in which not much happened, although the problems - the greenhouse effect, for example - are so pressing.
In that particular area, we are heading straight for disaster.
Even so, there were a few encouraging signs.
For one thing, the European Union really was a driving force in the negotiations, and although opinions may differ among the Member States the fact remains that we must acknowledge that the Commission and the Council presidency together steered the European Union in the right direction.
All the Heads of State and Government made constructive comments.
Secondly, I do not take such a critical view of the role of the USA as was sometimes expressed in the media.
In Denver the USA was the bad guy, as it were.
In New York, Clinton himself admitted that the Americans contribute only 4 % of the world's population but 20 % of its emissions of greenhouse gases, and that that must change.
I regard that in itself as a step forward.
We all know how difficult negotiations are within the USA, but now, for the first time, the President has made a positive move.
I believe there is no alternative to negotiations, including multilateral negotiations -no alternative but resignation, and we can hardly tell our children that that was the reason why we did nothing.
We must take the opportunity that now exists, before Kyoto.
We must step up the pressure on Japan, and I believe that we should also look at the specific situation of the G 77.
One could argue about the exact wording, but the fact of the matter is that the AOSIS countries and a few ACP States, which are making an effort, played no part in the G 77 in New York, while large countries like China, and Saudi-Arabia too, pressurized the G 77 in the wrong direction.
So, in our negotiations with the ACP States too, we should try to draw attention to our common interests and make it clear that something has to be done here.
That, of course, can happen only if we Europeans can convincingly show that we are standing by our obligations in the area of development aid. All of us must work together - Commission, Council and Parliament - during the discussions of the European Union budget and at other times, too, to ensure that development aid is increased and not further reduced.
We also need to put our own house in order when it comes to protecting the environment and, especially, the climate.
I think the idea of introducing international taxes on aviation fuel is a good one, but we in Europe should also be wondering whether - at least at the European level, for intra-European flights - we may not be subsidizing air travel unnecessarily, if we impose a tax on diesel railroad locomotives but not on aircraft.
Anyone who says that environmental protection, and climate protection in particular, involve reducing the quality of life and economic success, should consider this example: an acquaintance of mine worked in New York for a while, and he told me that in New York people wear sweaters in summer, because the air conditioning is too cold, and turn the fans on in winter because the heating is too hot.
That has nothing to do with quality of life - it's just a waste of energy!
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for her speech.
Broadly speaking, I agree with her and Mr Liese in their somewhat pessimistic assessments, but also on the positive aspects.
At the same time I recall that, when we had the Rio Conference back then, we were not particularly enthusiastic over the outcome either.
We also said then that there were too many words and too little action.
But we eventually realized that the Rio Conference was good, compared with other summits.
Amongst other things, we got a Convention on Biological Diversity, and a process was set in motion with Agenda 21.
With the aid of Agenda 21 we got a common agenda for local and regional work to promote a better environment.
Suddenly it is not really so far from Strasbourg to Johannesburg.
Then, most important of all, we got Rio+5.
But, before everything starts to look too rosy of course, we have to add that, disappointingly, we did not achieve the aims we set ourselves.
In a wide range of areas, things went the wrong way, and the most disastrous outcome of all was that the developing countries did not get the help we had promised them.
On the contrary, development aid has progressively diminished in recent years.
As the Commissioner said, we did not secure a reversal of this trend at UNGASS in New York.
But let us not lose heart.
We must take a positive view of the situation.
We have to admit that it could all have been much worse.
It would have been much worse, for example, if President Clinton had not come on Thursday and made a certain commitment for Kyoto.
Now it is our task to ensure that the commitments made are brought to fruition and become a reality.
Here the EU should help him and we parliamentarians, not least, should join in putting pressure on the American Congress.
I also think it positive that we obtained a decision to make sustainable energy part of the CSD's programme of work, and I call on the EU to play a leading role here.
Apart from that, it was a good thing that the role of the NGOs was strengthened.
Looking back on Rio, we realize that it was not possible on the whole to manage both the NGOs and the official programme, but in New York NGOs, parliamentarians and heads of government were circulating round the UN building together.
There were even rumours that the UN, as part of a reform to come, will formalize the role of the NGOs in the system.
This brings me to my last point.
I have also tabled an amendment on the matter, because it was forgotten the first time round.
It concerns a strengthening of the role of parliamentarians in the UN system as a whole and, in particular, a strengthening of cooperation between the various parliamentarians.
We actually had good experience with the initiative taken by the Dutch Presidency in New York, as a result of which it proved quite useful to have a dialogue.
I think we can make use of that, and I ask the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Spencer, to take the matter up.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, in Spain there is a saying which goes 'in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king' .
I say this because, in fact, the European Union, as seen earlier in Mrs Dybkjær's report on the fifth environmental action programme, did not comply with the 1992 objectives.
However, it proposed, at the New York Summit, that CO2 emissions would, at any rate, be reduced by 15 % by 2010, in contrast to the United States which not only proposes this but says that it is going to ask its citizens, that country being, as we all know, the most polluting country in the world: it has 4 % of the world's population and accounts for 24 % of CO2 emissions.
Also, in connection with another undertaking made under the terms of the Rio Agenda - 0.7 % for Third World countries - the US is currently channelling only 0.1 % of its GDP towards development cooperation.
Nor is the European Union achieving 0.7 %. However, the average is 0.30 % - down from 0.35 %, admittedly - which means that the European Union, although not the perfect champion of environmental issues, can still offer an example to other countries.
What Mrs Bjerregaard said about fresh water and forms of renewable energy is very good, if one takes into account that 20 % of the population does not have access to fresh water and that one in every two Africans has no access to it.
But we were not told whether financing has been proposed for this Agenda and for this timetable.
Mr President, I don't think it matters all that much whether the New York summit was better or worse than the Rio summit, or whether the action taken may have been better or worse.
What does matter, perhaps, is what the situation is now compared with what it was five years ago.
In this case, the various parameters are clear enough.
If we look at the problem of biodiversity, the situation is not getting any better.
Five years after Rio, it seems that seventy species are disappearing every day.
It seems that food production per head of the human race is diminishing; that drinking water resources per head of population are diminishing; that the north-south divide is widening; that the global temperature is still climbing and that, in general terms, the world we live in is even more unsustainable now than it was five years ago.
That is what matters.
So did we, at Rio, take decisions and institute mechanisms that offered us some hope of improvement? Personally, I think not.
But I do pay tribute to the efforts of the European Commission and the European Union: it is true that, in relative terms, they have tried harder than other countries have.
Having said that, I must add that there is a considerable difference between adopting objectives - which is what the European Union has done - and appropriating the resources to achieve those objectives.
Consider the problem of reducing greenhouse gases.
It is hard to see how we are going to be able to achieve that objective in the European Union, since the unanimity rule will still apply in Amsterdam regarding the tax on CO2 . How are we to proceed?
As far as forests are concerned, what is to prevent the European Union from taking steps within the European Union? Calling for a convention is all well and good, but we could perfectly well take collective action within the European Union to promote sustainable forestry operations.
Finally, a global tax on air traffic and aviation fuel is a good idea.
Why not apply it to flights within the European Union? I think it would greatly enhance the credibility of the European Union if it were to take specific action.
Then we could propose that action to others from a position of strength.
Mr President, it seems to me that when we look back on conferences we do so from different angles. It's just like the celebrated half-full or half-empty glass of water - we see different things, depending on our standpoint.
This conference commits the European Union, which is the world's largest association of industrialized nations, with great wealth and a population that can already do a lot and has the ability to do more, to work in the sector of climate protection and sustainable development, both within this Union and in the countries of the Third and Fourth Worlds, and in those planning to join our Community soon, to improve the environmental situation.
We also need credibility, we need to set a good example.
Then we shall be able to tell others why it is right to work to improve the environment, and what the rewards are.
If we want a future that offers sustainable development, employment and quality of life, we must work on our environment.
I believe a great deal still has to be done, including the preparations for Kyoto.
The road to Kyoto should be paved not just with good intentions but with a lot of hard work.
If we now work together - Parliament, Commission and Council - to develop proposals for Kyoto, and if those proposals can then be accepted and implemented, we shall have made our contribution to ensuring that, at last, the glass is neither half full nor half empty but full to the brim with quality of life and a healthy future for all mankind.
Mr President, I think that I agree with Mr Liese that there is cause for great disappointment.
I understand the position of the Commissioner, who of course still sees some rays of hope, but in the end I think we have to conclude that progress has been incredibly slow, and that the UN has once again shown that it has become a bureaucratic machine, where countries fly in, make fine statements, depart, and then repeat that little or nothing has been done.
When it comes to the environment, we may well ask ourselves: do things have to go on like this, not least with Rio?
I do not ask myself that as a matter of course.
Just look at what has happened.
On climate, as has already been said, while we have a statement of the need for a binding, meaningful and realistic effort to achieve something, we have no really practical measures, these will only come in Kyoto.
And if we succeed there, then yet another journey will have begun.
The chapter on forests, with its fourth paragraph requesting a follow-up by the intergovernmental panel on forests, has just been left aside.
Let us be thankful, then, that calls are being made for national forestry programmes.
And, as I now read in English, ' problems remained, including unnegotiated paragraphs dealing with legal instruments and difficulties, mostly in the field, means of implementation, official development assistance, finance, mobilization of resources, etc.'
Whereas production and consumption in the West have remained the same in this period, deforestation is continuing and support through development aid, as you yourself have said, is actually being reduced.
The figure of 0.7 % is not being achieved and, even worse, the level of aid is declining.
The total capital which public authorities across the world are currently investing in developing countries is declining, whereas the amount of investment in the private sector has increased sixfold in five years.
Six times more than state development aid - and put together, these factors are also likely to have implications.
There have been no successes.
I think we must eventually recognize - and this was in fact recognized in the text - that in the area of transfers of finance and technology, and in terms of capacity building, there is an enormous amount of ground to make up.
The decline in development investment and the debt crisis are the main obstacles.
In the end, I think that if no solutions are found to them, then the circus should simply be wound up.
Perhaps I am being a little gloomy at this late hour, Mr President, and I hope that the Commissioner still has some glimmers of hope to offer us.
Mr President, I will not prolong the debate unduly at this late hour.
There are just a few things I want to mention in connection with what I said earlier.
The first point is closely bound up with the forthcoming international conferences, the most important of which will be that scheduled to take place in Kyoto, about which most speakers had something to say.
My comment is that it is patently obvious that we in the rich part of the world must improve our relationship with the G77 group of countries.
It is not the first time we have seen that there is a gulf between our views.
It is also not the first time we have experienced difficulty in putting across arguments on environmental matters, and it is quite clear that, precisely in the context of climate issues, we shall end up with the traditional clash of cultures unless we make a special contribution, and of course we are prepared to try to do that on behalf of the EU.
My second comment is that, basically, I agree with Mrs Graenitz in that it is possible to describe such a conference either as a half-full glass of water or as a half-empty glass of water. That was a very apt image.
Mrs Van Putten's speech developed ideas on the same lines.
It is indeed tempting to focus on all that was not achieved.
On the other hand, I think it would be wrong for us to do so.
I think we should focus on the progress that has been made.
I think we should also be aware that there seems to be a will to reform the UN system.
I know all the arguments that it has been tried before without results.
Nevertheless I think that we must support moves afoot in that direction.
It was also gratifying to me, as it has also been to you here in Parliament this evening, that we were successful as a cooperation organization and as a Union in coming forward with a progressive environmental policy: we have presented a profile to the outside world that others have taken note of.
That places a responsibility on all our shoulders.
It is not easy; we have to sustain our effort in preparation for Kyoto. But I hope to encounter the same interest and good will, when we continue the work on this matter.
On that matter, I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure .
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12 midnight)
Approval of the minutes
The minutes of yesterday's session have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I should just like to point out that yesterday, regarding the Rothley report, I gave two written explanations of vote on Amendment No 74, which unfortunately I am unable to find in the minutes, and also an oral explanation of vote on the amended Commission proposal.
I should like to ask you to ensure that this is noted in the minutes.
Mr President, this is a personal statement.
Members may recall that on the Monday of the last partsession I made allegations about Mrs Angelilli, which on the Wednesday she denied.
I provided her with a copy of the document on which I had based my allegations.
I have received a letter from her this morning indicating, amongst the usual torrent of abuse, that she does not intend to sue the magazine, as I suggested.
I hope Members will draw the appropriate conclusions.
I will make a copy of her letter available to you, Mr President.
Mr President, it is not often that we pay Parliament's services compliments but we always find the daily news briefing extremely helpful.
The summary of yesterday's great statement by the Commission has been avidly sought by everybody who takes the English version, so much so that there are none available, and there are a number of Members who, I know, would like the succinct encapsulation of the Commission's proposals that Parliament normally provides.
I wonder whether you could ensure that the services, on such great occasions as yesterday, make sure that there are ample copies available in English?
Mr President, as it is my profession to act as counsel ex officio , I wish, in order to respect the ethical principles which we have always adhered to in this Parliament, to condemn Mr Ford's attack, for the simple reason that Mrs Angelilli is not present, so she cannot explain her own position.
I would have said this irrespective of which Member or political grouping was under attack.
(The minutes were approved)
Waiver of parliamentary immunity
Mr President, ladies and Gentlemen, I am astonished. The matter involves the election of a professor at the University of Thessaloniki, which was invalidated in 1993 by the supreme court in Greece.
I dealt with the matter as Dean together with the University's Legal Committee.
The Minister for Education reappointed the candidate, the candidate submitted a complaint against me in 1993, together with the President of the Legal Committee we submitted detailed memoranda and the matter was consigned to the archives.
I am surprised, because after 4 years the matter has arisen again.
I would not wish to believe that the issue involves only political motivations, but with its sudden resurgence after four years the facts speak for themselves.
I ask the relevant Parliamentary committee to state its conclusions about the matter as soon as possible.
Thank you, Mr Trakatellis, but, under Rule 6, we only have to announce this here: this is not the forum in which to consider the matter.
MED programmes
The next item is the report by Mr Fabra Vallés, (A4-0236/97), on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on Court of Auditors Special Report No 1/96 on the MED programmes (MED), submitted pursuant to Article 188c(4), 2nd subparagraph, of the EC Treaty, together with the Commission's replies (REP CC 1/96S - C4-0512/96).
Mr President, as you rightly stated and as is shown in the agenda, we are now going to address, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Court of Auditors' report No 1/96.
This report is drafted in extremely clear terms and presents, in the context of decentralized cooperation, the problems there have been regarding conflicts of interests, defects in the Regulation relating to tenders and the lack of a legal basis in the case of some decisions.
I believe, Mr President, that this case must be treated as an example, not only because of the importance of decentralized cooperation, but also in terms of the procedure to be followed in the future should another, similar case arise.
Specifically, the description of this case as an 'example' justifies the fact that the amendments have been addressed with the utmost caution.
I refer both to the 72 amendments which were examined in committee and to the 17 to be examined here today in this part-session.
By accepting the greatest number possible of such amendments, I am thereby seeking the greatest consistency possible in terms of what we are voting today, since we will thereby avoid Parliament's occupying a weak position, which would not help this matter in any way.
Moreover, I am obliged to reject amendments since it is sometimes forgotten what our obligation as Parliament is and what our capabilities are.
Neither the European Parliament nor the UCLAF are investigating authorities; neither the European Parliament nor the UCLAF are public prosecution services.
We cannot prosecute anyone.
We are restricted to presenting, here today, the Court of Auditors' report No 1/96 and to giving our political opinion on it.
We cannot, therefore, deal with any potential legal effects, let alone make specific pronouncements about them.
Mr President, I would like to draw attention to what I feel has been the Commission's correct reaction.
It has instigated an administrative investigation and has sought to discover how far the companies cited in the report might have been involved in other programmes, in other DGs and even in other divisions.
This has not been an easy task and is the reason for the delay.
It should be noted that the same persons were often, under different names, involved with other companies, and we have had to cross-reference addresses, company names and peoples' names.
I say again, this has not been an easy task.
I would also, at this time, Mr President, like to issue a warning which, in medical jargon, might amount to the setting-up of a screening process, or, as those of us on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy say, an early warning system.
We have to find a formula whereby we can find out about similar situations at a very early stage.
I am aware that this cannot be done through the Court of Auditors, since that body has its own programmes and always examines matters a posteriori , but I believe that the Commission should have the means - which do, moreover, already exist - to be able to implement such an early warning system.
Furthermore, one of the points I would like to stress in my speech on the report we are presenting is to examine whether the UCLAF should continue in its present form, being totally and absolutely dependent on the Commission, or if it should act independently of the Commission.
I have nothing but praise for the UCLAF, since I have been a member of the Committee investigating fraud in Community transport and I have been able to witness how effective it is and what fine work it does.
However, I am concerned about whether it is able to act with the same degree of freedom within the Commission.
At any rate, we commend the Commission's efforts at finding out who is accountable, and demanding repayment of the improperly appropriated sums and the drawing-up of a black list.
I conclude, Mr President, by mentioning that I have the following request to put to the Commission: we would ask it to adopt the measures set forth in this report, since this will be a prerequisite for approval of the 1996 negotiations.
Mr Commissioner, you have six months.
Mr President, the Committee on External Economic Relations was very disturbed to hear the serious criticisms made by the Court of Auditors concerning the management of the MED programmes and is anxiously asking for the Commission to take rapid action in following up and answering all the Court's criticisms, for all the investigations to be carried out, for all the abuses to be punished and for the Commission to report back promptly to Parliament on a regular basis.
The Committee on External Economic Relations is also, and, I would say, above all, in view of its competence in the matter, concerned that the Mediterranean policy, which is an essential dimension of the Union's identity in the outside world, should not be jeopardized by the unlawful conduct of certain officials outside, or even inside, the institutions.
We are neither comforted nor satisfied by the suspension of the programmes, which also hits deserving projects, condemns businesses and jobs and threatens the newly established decentralized cooperation.
We would rather the Commission equipped itself, as soon as possible, with the necessary resources and rules to manage the MED and MEDA programmes rigorously and effectively.
I would like to mention four of the guidelines for the new course recommended by the Committee on External Economic Relations: first: a drive for public promotion and all-round visibility of invitations to tender, project selection procedures and work progress reports.
Second: the assumption by the Commission, rather than delegation to outside firms, of direct control of invitations to tender and project implementation, with its own staff, using efficient, modern monitoring systems, as the Commission is indeed capable of doing.
Third: the shifting of the centre of gravity of expenditure towards projects with a more substantial infrastructure content, as the representatives of Mediterranean non-member countries request whenever we have the occasion to meet them.
I mean projects in areas such as water supply, telecommunications and transport, rather than consultancy and conferences.
Fourth: the resumption and strengthening of decentralized cooperation, not least through civil social networks.
In this connection I would heartily recommend the creation, as is occurring with the Central and Eastern European countries, of a network of Fellow Members' Innovation Relay Centres to strengthen the links between universities, hospitals and research centres on both shores of the Mediterranean.
In conclusion, Mr President, Commissioner, I take the view that fraud should be prosecuted with the utmost severity, though this should not be allowed to overshadow the political objective of Mediterranean cooperation.
Mr President, I can only agree with what Mr Malerba has said, not least because the Committee on Regional Policy objected to the Court of Auditors becoming involved in what is a strictly political matter.
The Court of Auditors rightly noted breaches and irregularities in procedures, but, as I have already stated before the Committee on Regional Policy, it would have done better to draw the matter to the Commission's attention in the appropriate way before reaching the point of sanctioning breaches of procedures and other irregularities - this being in the spirit of the European Union and hence according to a kind of theory of communicating vessels.
The Court of Auditors certainly has the duty to proceed along those lines, but it is completely outside its powers to intervene in a purely political matter.
The indications emerging from the other Committees as well, as Mr Malerba has just confirmed, prompt a further thought: the system of control also needs to be revised and reorganized, and care must be taken to ensure that the role of UCLAF is made independent, in order to improve its efficiency, remove some of the conditions imposed on it and render it less subject to the imposition of conditions; something that Mr Malerba rightly mentioned in that connection, namely that UCLAF's activities have always been well targeted and finely tuned, needs to be stressed here.
What we have difficulty with is seeing a commitment postponed, and therefore broadened in content, which the Union should, on the contrary, be accentuating and refining within the context of Euro-Mediterranean policy.
We therefore take the view that all the necessary measures should be adopted, but also that the MED programmes should be reinforced and implemented quickly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two minutes' speaking time is not a lot, and therefore I should just like to examine two points with regard to this important report by Mr Fabra Vallés, whom I should like, moreover, to congratulate most warmly on his hard work.
I should also, however, like to thank Mrs Wemheuer for the discussion that took place in our committee on this whole series of problems, a discussion that will have to be continued.
I support here views on the subject.
Now for the points I wish to raise: firstly, does this report, based on the special report by the Court of Auditors, mean that the Commission is now in a position to examine carefully the serious irregularities that have emerged in the decentralized administration of the MED programmes, and in particular to put a stop to the conflicts of interest that have been shown to exist?
Community resources that have been wrongly paid out must be put back into the EU coffers.
However, we also believe, at the same time, that the current suspension of these programmes, ordered by the Commission, subject to certain conditions in line with budget organization and the relevant provisions, can now be lifted.
It is therefore important that we should approve this report by Mr Fabra, because in six months' time the Commission is due to report to us again on the measures it has introduced - and that includes disciplinary measures as well.
The second aspect that I should like to emphasize is what Mr Fabra Vallés says in Point 10 of his motion for a resolution, in which the Committee on Budgetary Control demands that the EU should have its own independent anti-fraud unit.
The emphasis is on the word 'independent' , because we already have an anti-fraud unit.
This antifraud unit, UCLAF, does some good and successful work.
I would just remind you of the exposure of the recent deceptions that were practised with regard to BSE meat.
However, it is almost inevitable that it will be accused of being biased, because it is part of the Commission.
It is also exposed to the risk that it will be accused either of playing down the whole affair in order to damage the Commission's reputation as little as possible, or, above all, of arguing against and introducing measures to the detriment of the external advisers.
Therefore we need independence here, as well as the possibility of introducing measures under criminal law, which can then be implemented by the national courts, in order to put an end, finally to the misuse of, and fraudulent practices involving, the EU's financial resources.
Once again I should like to thank the rapporteur for his hard work within the committee, and I should also like to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Mr President, here we are once again talking about fraud, while we await the important debate planned for next September on the Commission's annual report and working programme for the campaign against fraud.
This time, assisted by Mr Fabra Vallés's report, we are looking at the management, or rather the nonmanagement, of the MED programmes. One of the peculiarities of this situation is that its excesses border on the absurd.
I freely admit that the complexity of Community legislation and the scattering of responsibilities for spending over the numerous public and private bodies responsible for implementing the programmes make fraud very much easier.
Well, unfortunately, that is what is happening with a programme in which our group has a keen interest, a programme which really should never have made the headlines for this kind of reason.
Because there are things that are acceptable and things that are not.
Something that is not acceptable, ladies and gentlemen, is that after it had become aware of a devastating report by the Court of Auditors on the management of the MED programmes, highlighting numerous irregularities and serious deficiencies, the Commission failed to decide on the immediate institution of an administrative inquiry, and that the judicial authorities in the Member States have hitherto not taken any steps at all.
And yet, out of sixteen technical assistance contracts that have been awarded, ten were not the subject of an invitation to tender, which has resulted in an excess cost of ECU 170, 000.
And yet the Commission delegated powers to the agency for the trans-Mediterranean networks in the absence of any clear legal basis, and in the absence of any decision of principle.
That was tantamount to giving a blank cheque to external advisors who were sitting in judgement on their own case.
It is not my intention to deliver an indictment against the Commission, which is often unjustly - and, let's face it, very conveniently - made the scapegoat for distortions within the Community for which others must also bear some of the responsibility.
It is true that the Commission did not, and still does not, have the resources for the correct management of the financing of the MED operations initiated in July 1992.
But the Commission, at the time the MED programmes were adopted, was entitled to ask, if not demand, that the Council should provide the necessary human and financial resources to implement those programmes satisfactorily; and, if the Council refused that demand, the Commission had the option of refusing the heavy responsibility of a management that was inevitably doomed to failure.
Why did the Commission not demonstrate the courage and lucidity that the public had a right to expect from it since, I would remind you, we are talking about public funds? And what can be done now?
Of course we must adopt Mr Fabra Valles's report which, as he says himself, is a textbook case. But it seems to me that we need to do more than talk - we need to demand action and penalties.
It is a matter for the Commission, and a matter of urgency, to draw up proposals for reform to get the MED programmes back on the right road, and it will be a matter for us to judge the Commission by its acts.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, who I believe has done an excellent job.
This is another of those typical cases where Parliament can take a good deal of credit, because it is indeed up to the European Parliament to get to the bottom of this kind of issue.
On behalf of the Liberal Group, I should like to make it clear that this sort of incident must not cast a shadow over any kind of aid programmes.
These aid programmes are needed in the Mediterranean and elsewhere in the world.
When we talk about decentralization - which is not a bad thing in itself, and it needs to happen - it is also always important for there to be a separation of powers.
Those responsible for implementation must not monitor themselves: it must be done by an independent bureau.
I would also support the idea of a black list of consultants with the many changes of name that take place, often meaning that bureaux which carry out the study prior to the invitation to tender for a project are also able to submit a tender.
To my mind, all such lack of transparency must be avoided in the future.
I therefore look forward with great interest to the report which the Commission is to present within six months, so that we can finally approve the Commission's policy.
Commissioner Marín, I believe that we are discussing here not only an exemplary case but also a tragic one.
It is tragic because the projects have usually been well run.
For example, in Cologne there is a filmmaker who is working on a television and film station in Palestine, in other words, a super project.
Yet that project has been placed at risk, and I must say, quite clearly, that it is you and the Commission as a whole who are responsible for that.
In Committee, I asked you several times how it could happen that the Commission could allow a bourse-bypassing transaction to run for three years, without there being any possibility of exposing it.
The answer that you gave to me was, ' I can do nothing about it if an employee who makes an administrative mistake does not come to me voluntarily and reveal the mistake to me himself' .
I think that you are technically right, but it does make me wonder to think that you at the Commission have absolutely no idea of how a control system can be built into your own administration, so that such methods of procedure can be discovered.
How is it possible, then, to carry out checks on how resources are used, if you do not have any mechanisms within the Commission for uncovering such horrendous mistakes? As far as I am concerned, that is still the crucial question, regardless of who has what responsibility in detail.
You are responsible for that, and it must be put right!
Mr President, Commissioner Marín, ladies and gentlemen, this undoubtedly important report marks the conclusion of a long investigation which has at last brought the shortcomings in the implementation of the MEDA programmes to light.
I should not, however, want it to be forgotten in the excitement that the same rigorous approach and the same acute analysis are needed in order to establish whether it is the system as a whole which is not working.
I have always insisted that the Commission should not take on a single official more than necessary, that it should be rigorous, that even the engagement of category C officials should be monitored.
But all these programmes, PHARE, TACIS, and so on, on the other hand, which the Commission is always asked to take on, are, in actual fact, delegated to external consultants.
The particular case with which we are concerned today is not, therefore, an isolated one.
So I wonder whether the time has not come to say 'enough' !
Let us see this example as a manifestation of a practice which has been spreading, with the Commission now increasingly having to farm out, subcontract and assign to outside firms not only the implementation, but even the drafting of a given White Paper or Green Paper, or the like.
Disciplinary action should indeed be taken against officials who have committed irregularities, and any irregularities downstream should be sanctioned, but if, according to a basic principle enshrined in internal rules and customary standards even at the level of the Financial Regulation, the official or officials in charge of implementation of these programmes believed they were acting correctly when they placed managers from large consultancy firms or external fund managers in the body which then had to take decisions on projects, regarding this practice as absolutely normal in the case of projects with non-member countries, it is then clear that the problem lies further upstream and it is right to tackle it.
I think, however, that these just criticisms of individuals should in some way prompt us to examine our consciences.
In so doing, we will be able to determine whether the course we have followed in this or other projects is right, not least because, in my view, we do not give the Commission sufficient in-house staff to tackle this kind of programme themselves.
Mr President, the report before us today is an important one, important because the facts it sets out, linked to the use made by the Commission of the budgetary appropriations for the MED programmes, are particularly serious.
I fear that the rapporteur, Mr Fabra Vallés, in his efforts to find excuses for the Commission at any cost, may ultimately be suggesting that we should in part abandon the fundamental role of Parliament - a role which I would prefer to see strengthened - by which I mean monitoring the proper use of Community funds.
The facts are relatively straightforward.
The Court of Auditors reported them.
The Commission elected to subcontract the management of the MED programmes to the Agency for Trans-Mediterranean Networks, the ARTM, an association set up by the Commission itself.
Two of the four directors of that association were also directors of two technical assistance bureaux responsible for the monitoring of the MED programmes.
As such, therefore, they were able to obtain more than 60 % of the technical assistance appropriations.
As a result of their dual status, those directors were also able to participate in the negotiating of contracts concluded with themselves, and in the preparation of projects which they were then instructed to implement by the Commission, and to have access to documents which they should never have been able to obtain.
Out of sixteen technical assistance contracts, ten were awarded without any prior invitation to tender, while in the case of the other six the awarding procedures were highly irregular in the advantage they gave the two technical assistance bureaux in question.
So what we have here is nothing less than the de facto delegation of the Commission's powers to an external body, and not just services contracts; a delegation of powers that took place quite openly, and this is what is particularly worrying, without anyone finding any fault with an outrageous sequence of irregularities.
The Commission, which was aware of the situation from 6 October 1995, did not even undertake a systematic review of all the contracts concluded with the two technical assistance bureaux on which doubt was being cast.
Indeed, it has not begun to do so until today, more than 18 months after these deplorable facts became public knowledge, although no disciplinary action has been taken by the Commission, nor have these matters been referred to the competent criminal courts.
So, Mr Fabra Vallés, we must on this occasion denounce the Commission's management methods in the matter of decentralized co-operation.
We must mention the personal enrichment of Commission officials, which may have taken place either directly or indirectly.
We must declare that it is not only the credibility of the Commission that is at stake but the whole of its working methods with regard to the delegation of powers, to the awarding of contracts and the placing of public works contracts.
What is at stake today is the role of Parliament.
Are we once again going to refuse to do our duty, as we did with the 1992 discharge of the Commission and as we did in the BSE affair, or are we going to set up a commission of inquiry to shed some definitive light on this business?
Mr President, the report by Mr Fabra Vallés reveals, penetratingly and unambiguously, how European tax-payers' money has been used irresponsibly in connection with the MED programmes.
We must be grateful to the rapporteur for his plain speaking and his clear demonstration of the irregularities that have occurred at all levels.
It is particularly regrettable that in this case the crucial error happened in Brussels, and the fact that the competent Commission department was under a great deal of pressure, as regards both time and expectations, is absolutely unacceptable as an excuse.
If such an excuse was acceptable, then irregularities in practically all private and public management activities would remain completely hidden, because pressures of time and expectations are an everyday feature of the global market.
It is simply incomprehensible that such a complex programme, which was intended to set in motion intensive cooperation throughout the Mediterranean, and which accounts for financial resources totalling ECU 78 million, could be introduced in such a dilettantish and non-serious way.
A system was set up which had built into it a conflict of interests which has led to what we now know to be extremely serious results.
As a result of blatant irregularities, this programme, in itself a sensible one, has now been devalued in the eyes of the public.
For many small European tax-payers, however, whose lives are being made intolerable by economy measures, the question is bound to arise as to whether they are even a step in the right direction.
In my opinion, the resumption of the decentralized programmes cannot be approved until all the irregularities from the first phase have been cleared up, without leaving any loose ends, and until the public prosecutor's offices and courts have done their work.
Mr President, I should like to begin by pointing out that I really must disagree strongly with the comment made by Mr Azzolini, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, when he said that the Court of Auditors should not deal publicly with this kind of matter, and that it should be settled internally with the Commission.
If we go down that road, there will of course never be any end to such problems.
They can only be resolved through openness and the pressure that results from it, and I would also not underestimate the preventive effect of this kind of report by the Court of Auditors.
I shall not dwell on the facts of the matter, which have been set out in the Fabra Vallés report.
I think that this is an excellent report which demands a follow-up, as Mrs Wemheuer has already indicated, quite simply because our troubles are still far from over in this respect.
However, I should like to take up one point which has already been raised by other speakers, especially Mr Dell'Alba, and that is whether the Commission is capable of executing its own budget? How should the Commission do this?
With what intermediaries is the Commission allowed to work? Can we be assured that this is happening in a proper way?
In short, this is the whole problem, from PHARE through TACIS to the Structural Funds, since when I look at Agenda 2000 once again, I can see that the Commission is putting more and more emphasis on decentralized implementation.
I can understand why, but at the same time the question is becoming more and more obvious: can the Commission still take responsibility for its own areas of competence?
And I do have some very serious doubts in that respect.
It would appear, as Mrs Müller has just said, that Commissioners no longer have any overview - as they should do - of their own officials within the structure of the Directorates-General.
So communications have broken down there - let alone those between the Directorates-General in Brussels and the field, whether inside or outside the European Union.
I think the problem is comparable to those which many Member States have with the implementation of development cooperation, which can also generally be described as poor, simply because the Member States do not have their own people or their own mechanisms in the countries where development cooperation is applied, but are dependent on cooperation with others.
And if you then also pass on this cooperation with others to third parties and no longer take part in it yourself, things just become more complicated.
I believe that this whole problem - which has never really been resolved in the European Union, but is becoming more and more significant because of the take-up of external aid and the scale of the Structural Funds - is one which deserves greater attention.
The Commission was set up in the past as a machine for enacting legislation, not as one for managing.
And this management problem is becoming an increasingly large and serious issue in the European Union.
In my view, we in Parliament also need to investigate it seriously and in greater depth.
Mr President, this debate could have descended into criticizing the very existence of the MED policy.
It is good to see that it has not.
What did happen was that the Court of Auditors brought to VicePresident Marín very serious allegations and he saw there was a case to answer and stopped policies right away.
If some of the contractors feel he acted too precipitately, then they have their civil court rights.
This all goes back, to my mind, to what Mr Santer said on taking office.
He said that the Commission should do less but do it better.
I am fully aware that the MED programme began before he took office. But what happened?
The money was voted for an extensive programme and it looked on the face of it as if the Commission was doing a good thing by dividing it into many contracts.
It could say: ' This is highly transparent, you can see where the money is going' .
But there was not sufficient management skill and management numbers in the Commission to carry these contracts through.
There were too many Directorate-Generals involved, too many contracts themselves, and it was delegated control gone mad.
In fact, the MED programme became the 'MAD' programme.
I would suggest that the way forward for the Commission is for Vice-President Marín, to show a little humility and to accept the recommendations contained in Mr Fabra Vallés' excellent report.
There are answers to the problems which have come forward, and I believe he can find them in this report.
The problem is that it is an interim report to allow programmes to go forward from now on; but there are still further investigations which must be carried out.
I am pleased to see that there is a gap in the agenda in the autumn for a further report from Mr Fabra Vallés.
I look forward to further good work from him.
Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, first I should like to compliment Mr Fabra on his excellent report, and, I must add, the Court of Auditors on its excellent auditing work, which I hope will be carried out in the same way, just as rigorously, in the other sectors as well, particularly as regards work contracted out: frankly, I find it difficult to believe that it is only in the MED programmes that intrigues and irregularities occur.
Having said that, I am anxious to stress that the comments and criticisms absolutely must not mean the scrapping of decentralized cooperation, which is the basis of the new Euro-Mediterranean policy.
Indeed, this idea of setting up networks putting civil societies and individual operators in contact horizontally, without passing through the red tape of vertical cooperation, has represented a fundamental change, and as such it should be safeguarded.
I should also like to say that I hope that this debate will provide an opportunity to confirm decisively the need to reach a turning-point in Euro-Mediterranean policy, which, what with the disappointing outcome of the Malta Conference, the start-up difficulties with the MEDA programmes, and the freezing of the MED programmes for almost two years, has, in practice, been in a state of gentle hibernation.
Commissioner Marín was right to freeze the programmes, but I hope that, after this long period of time, he has resolved the organizational problems, so as to ensure transparent and efficient management.
It is now time to get started again, because the public is beginning to suspect that this Euro-Mediterranean policy exists in word rather than in deed.
Mr President, owing to the importance of this debate and because the Commission believes it has collaborated in an exemplary manner with the European Parliament and with the Committee on Budgetary Control, I will require a certain amount of time because I would also like to announce a number of new ideas at this part-session.
Firstly, to refer to the most recent intervention by Mr Viola, I would like to make the following correction.
I have done so a number of times but it seems that there is still some misunderstanding.
There appears to be some confusion - whether deliberate or not - between the decentralized MED cooperation programmes and the MEDA programme approved at the Barcelona Conference.
We are discussing a matter connected with a regulation, approved by the Council of Ministers on 29 June 1992, whilst the MEDA Regulation was approved in July 1996.
Consequently, Parliament cannot continue to confuse events connected with a policy, the MEDA programmes of the earlier protocols, and the result of the Barcelona Conference and the MEDA programme.
The MEDA programme has absolutely nothing to do with this type of cooperation.
Secondly, Mr Fabra Vallés, I feel that your report is indeed exemplary for a number of reasons.
In the first place, because it highlights dysfunctions in the management of the various companies to whom we entrusted application of the decentralized cooperation programmes in the Mediterranean and of the European Commission's own services.
Secondly, because it reveals shortcomings in Community legal mechanisms relating to legal protection of the European Community's financial interests.
Thirdly, because it shows how much internal effort the European Commission still has to put in to devising and perfecting an early warning system and the mechanisms which would enable it to prevent the dysfunctions observed in one expenditure sector - in this case, the MED programmes - being able to arise elsewhere in other expenditure sectors, as has been the case.
Lastly, because it demonstrates that cooperation between and the combined efforts of the institutions - Court of Auditors, Parliament, Commission and Council - indeed permit progress and considerably help towards the solving of such programmes, because I feel that what we are all seeking is a solution to these problems.
With regard to the first point - the dysfunctions observed by the Court of Auditors - you will be aware - because I have had the opportunity to explain this on many occasions and I regret the fact that the speakers have not mentioned it -that, within two weeks of the Court of Auditors advising me, through their auditors on 6 October 1995, that they had detected irregularities, I decided to suspend and cancel all contracts as a precautionary measure.
My first decision, as soon as I saw that something was wrong, was to suspend the contracts, with all that that entailed in terms of political consequences, as I will explain in a moment.
Throughout this operation, the innocent have often paid for the guilty, because, on the one hand, there have been technical assistance bureaux which have abused the system but, on the other hand, technical assistance bureaux - NGOs, institutions which are doing excellent work, the example you mention is one of them - which have acted in a completely proper manner, and I was indeed aware of that fact.
However, two years ago - and I regret that some of those involved have left the chamber without hearing this discussion - I decided to suspend the contracts.
I had nothing to hide.
I would go further: it is totally incorrect, Mr Kellett-Bowman, to say that the Court of Auditors took the decision to cancel the programmes.
The Court of Auditors adopted its decision in May 1996 and almost a year earlier we had decided to suspend the programmes and cancel all the current contracts with the companies involved.
At the same time, I asked the UCLAF and the Commission's Financial Control - as you know - to launch an investigation into the entire network, in order to ascertain, once and for all, precisely what was going on.
I would like to reply to Mr Dankert, who made some basic observations.
It is correct to say that, with current administrative resources, the Commission, or we, the Commissioners, are not in a position to implement specific control of decentralized cooperation - that is no secret.
I have already said that, at this precise moment, I am not in a position to tell you what is going on concerning the petits projets which may currently be being implemented in Peru, Guatemala, Tunisia, Egypt, Cambodia, the Philippines, India or Pakistan.
Perhaps one of you would be able to do so.
By definition, whether or not this is my responsibility is not at issue.
If we wish to collaborate, we will have to find the correct solution.
There is another point I should like to mention again in this Chamber.
In view of what had happened, on 17 July 1996, i.e. precisely one year ago today, I presented, at the Commission, four new types of contract which have protected the MEDA contracts.
We did this one year ago, so, Mr Müller, Mrs Wemheuer, we are coming towards the end. I have a leading interest in the matter.
I have nothing to apologise for, since I have come to this partsession fully able to demonstrate to Parliament that a large percentage of the matters Mr Fabra Vallés quite rightly refers to have now been resolved.
Others still remain, but I am in a position to inform you that, with regard to Mr Fabra Vallés's report as a whole, 80 % are decisions which have already been made.
We have yet to finish the administrative inquiry.
And if you were to ask me 'what problem does the Commissioner have, having decided two years ago to suspend the programmes, in getting to the end?' , I would reply that I have no problem, that we are indeed getting to the end of the matter, with all the consequences that that entails and in all areas.
What has the Commission done?
Firstly, not one single ecu will be lost.
On my initiative, the Commission decided to suspend and cancel all the programmes - the 14 we discovered - and I am grateful to Mr Fabra Vallés for his having mentioned how great a task it was for the Commission to uncover the entire network, sometimes with names inserted; how much work was involved in finally tracking down all the DGs which had contracts - unknowingly - because some of the technical assistance bureaux were adept at changing their names.
However, we tracked them down and they have all now been suspended, frozen.
Absolutely every one of them.
We are coming to the end and, at this point, Mrs Theato, I am somewhat perplexed.
You know me well; I was asked by a number of you privately to be strict, to act with total discipline, to suspend the contracts and to demand repayment.
Those requirements have been complied with, and now we are approaching the end.
I therefore find it difficult to understand at this point - hence my confusion - how the Commission can be accused of having acted precipitately, when we made our decisions.
At the same time, we demanded repayment of all the sums owed.
I will give you a list of all we discovered, company by company.
I want to accept my responsibilities because, in that way, I will undoubtedly have grounds in the future for requiring certain approaches to be explained to me.
The following technical assistance bureaux have been ordered to pay back sums of money:
' Cité Unie Développement' . 'Cité Unie Développement' has now paid back the amount owed.
Case closed.
' Córdoba City Hold' was awarded two projects.
This organization has queried the figures and is prepared to pay 70 %.
The Commission is currently investigating whether its figures or our figures are correct, but Córdoba has also been asked to repay the money in connection with this project.
As regards the 'Conseil des Communes et des Régions de l'Europe' , we have also asked for the money to be returned.
The deadline for a reply runs out this week.
Finally, ARTM, ISMERI and FERE have either failed to reply before the deadline or are rejecting the Commission's claims.
I can in fact confirm that last week, in accordance with the General Secretariat of the Commission, following up Mr Fabra Vallés's recommendations, we have issued a formal demand for payment in connection with these companies' contracts.
If they do not pay, the Commission will automatically pay compensation regarding the other fourteen current contracts, which, according to our Legal Service, is permitted under current legislation.
Secondly, you spoke of criminal accountability.
The Commission - I said this privately and I am now saying it in public, to avoid confusion in the future - took the decision in the past to take a company to court in its own country so that that country's legal system could examine whether there were grounds for a criminal prosecution.
Lastly - once again I am addressing Mrs Müller - the Commission decided to open an administrative inquiry once the UCLAF report had been completed.
That report - as I stated privately and now repeat in public - establishes that there was no personal enrichment on the part of any Community employee.
You may feel that this is right or that this is wrong, but I have to work with objective information. In the same way that, on the basis of objective information, I decided to take certain companies to court, as a Commissioner, I cannot allow myself to accuse anyone of embezzlement without reliable data.
I have explained this on a number of occasions and am hiding nothing.
The administrative inquiry is ongoing.
The Community mechanism is not in doubt.
There were internal lacunae; what has been our reaction to these, Mr Fabra Vallés?
Firstly, the Secretary-General instructed all DGs to adopt horizontal standards and precautions throughout the Commission with a view to preventing a recurrence of this type of incident.
In practical terms, what we are going to do is to extend the shielded type of contract of the Barcelona MEDA programme - note - to the rest of the DGs, so that, if an abuse should arise on the part of a technical assistance bureau, payments will immediately be stopped, the company will be sanctioned and the money recovered.
At least, here, we are guaranteed that the former MED projects will not result in the loss of a single ecu.
Secondly, the Commission's General Inspectorate of Services is offering replies - and these will be presented to you before October - regarding the general mechanisms your report calls for.
This is one of the matters outstanding - I accept that - in this 20 % of things which are still pending.
Next, the Commission has already taken on board the establishment of an early warning system so that, from now on, when any anomaly is detected in any external-network programme, all the DGs will suspend programming as a precautionary measure.
This is a radical step to take, but it is our response to what Mr Dankert so rightly said.
We cannot act in any other way: when information reaches the politician responsible, the decision must be taken to suspend, as a precaution.
It will then be time for verification.
This system is a hard one, undoubtedly, perhaps a very hard one, but an inevitable one.
Lastly, I would like to inform you of the following.
The Commission, admittedly, has blocked all payments in connection with current contracts established with other DGs in the case of all those companies which are refusing to repay the money owed.
I therefore repeat that not one single ecu will be lost.
Orders have been issued for all contracts to be suspended.
Mr President, I would like it to be placed clearly on record that the Commission will get to the bottom of the matter.
I can also confirm to you that the Commission has cancelled the direct contracts which had been concluded with FERE and ISMERI.
Together with these two contracts, we discovered three more, in association with other technical assistance bureaux and under another name.
Under this name, there were technical assistance bureaux working completely properly and we could not harm them and, consequently, what we did in such cases also, was to suspend the contracts, with all that that entailed.
Lastly, I would like to offer the following assessment.
You may rest assured, Mr Fabra Vallés, Mrs Theato, that we are going to get to the bottom of this matter.
Even before Parliament itself requested action, the Commission had already acted.
Even before the Court of Auditors issued its final decision, the Commission had acted.
Because the Commission, more than anyone else, has an interest in this matter being resolved.
I am aware of one thing: I am not concerned about being able to defend the decisions we have taken.
What does concern me is that there has been no defence of the NGOs, institutions and technical assistance bureaux which acted honestly and which have been placed in a difficult situation on account of my decision.
I was expecting interventions along the lines of: ' But, Mr Marín, you have been very hard on us' , ' Mr Marín, your decision was very hasty and very inflexible, because this NGO, institution, technical assistance bureau, which was conducting its affairs properly, has been placed in a difficult position' .
I have received letters from a good many NGOs and institutions, saying: ' Mr Marín, you have acted unfairly towards us, because we were operating properly, honestly, and were complying with the rules, and you have punished us' .
And my reply has been: ' I am aware of that fact, but I needed to know what was going on' .
I would have preferred that concern should have been expressed on behalf of the innocent parties who have suffered on account of a very harsh decision.
At any rate, let there be no doubt, before October, Mr Fabra Vallés, you will have a full answer to all your questions.
Mr President, I regret that the Vice-President of the Commission misquoted me.
He suggested that I said that the Court of Auditors stopped these contracts.
The record will show that I said that the Vice-President of the Commission, Manuel Marín, suspended the contracts and that I went on to say that if he acted too precipitately, the contractors and others would have an opportunity to assert their rights in the civil courts.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Vice-President Marín most sincerely.
I am afraid, however, that some misunderstandings may have crept in, perhaps as a result of the interpreting.
It is not true that we demanded the suspension of the contracts.
It is the Commission's business to implement that.
On the contrary, we found - and this is clearly stated in the report - that the Commission acted correctly and that it must now be in our joint interest to reveal the mistakes, so that we can learn from them and put a stop to the irregularities.
The programmes, however, should start running again.
I have already made that quite clear in my earlier contribution to the debate, but perhaps there has been some misunderstanding here.
In any case, we should like to say than you.
The debate was necessary, but it was not the final debate.
I think that is something that both sides can agree on.
Mr President, my apologies, there must have been a misunderstanding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Common organization of the raw tobacco market
The next item is the report (A4-0214/97) by Mr Rosado Fernandes, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the report from the Commission to the Council on the common organization of the market in raw tobacco (COM(96)0554 - C4-0057/97).
Mr President, first of all I should like to say that I am not going to take up all of my five minutes, because the smoke made by Commissioner Marín has definitely prejudiced this debate.
I should also like to remind you - the Chair, that is - that at the meeting of Presidents in Luxembourg, it was agreed - and this is not a question of transparency but of honesty, as transparency is a term applied to glass whereas honesty is the term to be applied to humans - we must maintain that honesty and vote on this report after 12 noon.
When I took it on, I knew that this would be a report not only making smoke, like some of the speeches made here, but also made of fire, fire that could burn us.
That is why I agree to draft it, in the knowledge that I was defending the interest of 170 000 tobacco farmers - because there are 170 000 not 135 000 tobacco farmers throughout Europe, working farms of 1.5 to 2 hectares, between 1000 and 2000 hours a year.
How many other people in Europe work between 1000 and 2000 hours a year? They are a moral example.
It is true, according to information provided by some of the Commissioner's emissaries and ayatollahs to the Committee on Budgets, that it costs 1000 million ECU to support the tobacco growers.
It is true!
There is no need to conceal it or be ashamed!
I am fed up with all the shame felt in Europe over spending money on people and the money not spent on fighting corruption.
I do not see the same concern with fighting fraud or the billions of ECU of unpaid VAT, or the harmonization of tax systems wallowing in a criminal system in which violators are punished but where violations are paid for at bargain basement prices in today's Europe.
That is what is happening in Europe - there is a lack of any morals and there is only collaboration and complicity between the Commission and the Member States, many of which have not even adhered to an agreement on the harmonization of criminal legislation.
I am indignant when I see a billion of ECU for tobacco being questioned.
There are no alternatives for the 170 000 farmers and the 30 000 in primary manufacture, 84 000 in processing, and all the other workers and small businessmen protecting the environment in extremely poor areas.
If they had an alternative, they would only disturb the economies of the sectors they were converted into.
It is shameful to use the pretext used here: that of health!
May I remind my colleagues that I look after my own health and I do not ask them to 'look after my health' - especially as in Portuguese the expression also means 'have me buried' !
There is a growing McCarthyism, imported from America, in persecuting smokers.
It is McCarthy, the witches of Salem, the Inquisition!
When the first Spanish soldier, Rodrigo de Jerez, set foot in Spain on his return from Mexico, and rolled up an aromatic herb into a musket-shape, a priest who saw him breathe the smoke out through his nostrils said: ' You have a pact with the devil!'
He complained to the Inquisition.
Now we have here various descendants of that way of thinking.
Smokers have a pact with the devil.
Whoever spends too much to protect work also has a pact with the devil, rather than paying the unemployed.
This is my opinion, it is a moral opinion, that used to be valid in Europe but no more.
We are dropping our trousers to the Americans.
It is now worthwhile being a non-smoker and accusing smokers and companies for the harm they have done.
It is good business right now.
What is written is written and I take full responsibility and should like to say that I am very honoured to be defending those who work in the fields and grow crops, defending the environment and helping to discover varieties of tobacco that are less harmful to the health, and improving quality.
That is why the COM must be remodelled.
Mr President, I am speaking for my colleague Terry Wynn on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, and as well as on my own behalf in support of my amendments.
Unfortunately this debate started late and Terry Wynn had to leave.
Unlike the majority of members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I want to welcome the Commission's proposals as a useful step in the right direction in reform of the tobacco COM.
However, it does not go far enough.
I disagree profoundly with its statement that tobacco farming is no different from any other agricultural activity.
Tobacco is the only agricultural product subsidized by the EU which kills its consumers when used as it is intended to be used.
In the US cigarette manufacturers are being forced by the courts to accept financial responsibility for destroying the health and causing the deaths of consumers of their products.
The EU must surely be cautious in making no commitment to phase out subsidies for tobacco in the knowledge that all research points to its harmful effects on the health of its users, passive recipients of smoke fumes from others and children whose mothers smoke during pregnancy.
The first health advice doctors give to their patients coming in with breathing or heart problems is to stop smoking.
Of course, it is unacceptable to destroy the livelihoods of thousands of tobacco farmers without assistance with restructuring.
The amendments I have tabled propose ongoing support for farmers in Objective 1 and 5b areas, switching to types of tobacco which will eventually be able to compete on the market without subsidy, and assistance for new types of agriculture or other jobs on a scale never enjoyed by the hundreds of thousands of miners, steel workers, shipbuilders, fishermen and others who have lost their jobs through restructuring over the last two decades.
This is a depth of solidarity which was not there for those other workers whose governments were and are forbidden to subsidize these jobs under EU rules.
I now move to the points being made by the Committee on Budgets.
It considers that the ECU 1 billion which is needed to support the workers in the tobacco-growing areas can be found under a number of headings, including, for example, the structural funds, EAGGF Guidance, budget lines B1 5010 to B1 5012 and a number of budget lines in Chapter B5 32 designed to stimulate small and medium-sized enterprises.
It also points out that the continuance of subsidies to the tobacco sector will put a heavier burden on the EU budget after enlargement, and that something should be done to do away with the total mismatch between health and agricultural policies within the EU.
It is very important that the EU clearly expresses at this point its intention to phase out subsidies completely for this damaging product as the long-term aim of the reform of the tobacco market.
How can our children be convinced of the real dangers of smoking when the EU devotes ECU 1 billion each year to assist the growing of its raw material? I ask you to support the appropriate amendments.
Mr President, when I say that Members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection did not dwell too long on their opinion on this report, it demonstrates not a lack of interest nor an absence of strongly held, informed, scientifically backed views, but rather the commendable virtue of consistency.
So without apology I therefore express, yet again today, a predictable, regularly stated and staunch opposition to EU support for tobacco production, shared by Members from virtually all groups and states.
It is regrettable that the Commission does not share that virtue when it comes to tobacco.
For while DG V strives to uphold Article 129 of the Treaty on health protection and its cancer action programme is severely over-stretched, DG VI has rejected options to remove resources from a product that kills people and whose advertisements will hopefully be banned by the Council next year.
That is such a glaring, obvious contradiction when half a million EU citizens die prematurely each year from smoking-related diseases.
That means over 1, 000 today and over 50 while we are debating this very report.
It is a death toll which is entirely avoidable.
A major government-sponsored campaign - almost a crusade - was launched in London this very week to make smoking a thing of the past.
The EU should back it, not undermine it.
There will doubtless be numerous statistics extracted to justify the contradictory approaches.
Those massive numbers of deaths alone - equivalent to wiping out the population of Luxembourg annually - should be enough to ensure that Members vote for Amendments Nos 1 to 10, submitted by Environment Committee Members.
But tucked away in the report is a chilling reference to annual tobacco production of 10, 000 tonnes per year in Poland.
That could well be the sinister cigar-shape of things to come.
That is why we should act now in favour of support for farmers by rapid diversification and conversion as proposed by the Court of Auditors in 1994.
The tobacco research and information fund should be financially strengthened and its remit extended to make environmental protection a greater priority.
At least the measures to encourage voluntary withdrawal from the sector are welcome, but there is little else in this report which will address the needs of the many rather than the few.
It is time for the EU to put its own house in order, the better to tackle the pervasive ills of tobacco consumption.
Mr President, it is not easy, in this Chamber, to argue in favour of tobacco production, but I, Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, which appointed me draftsman, have to recall certain facts and highlight others.
To begin with, I should state that we support the Executive Committee's document and Mr Rosado Fernandes's report.
I should recall that it is no accident that tobacco-producing regions in Europe are, in the main, Objective 1 regions.
They are regions with an income much below the Union's average: Thrace and Macedonia in Greece; Apulia and Campania in Italy; Andalusia, Extremadura and the Canary Islands in Spain; and the Azores in Portugal.
All these are amongst the poorest regions in Europe and, in many of them, tobacco is not only the main source of wealth but the only source of wealth - there is no alternative.
Such is the case, for example, of Thrace and Macedonia.
More than 80 % of European tobacco production is concentrated in these regions and it provides employment for 180, 000 people in terms of direct agricultural work and for a further 125, 000 in the conversion industry.
All Europe's tobacco-producing regions suffer high levels of unemployment.
It is impossible to argue in favour of economic and social cohesion - fine words in favour of Europe's poorest regions - whilst, at the same time, the same people, on occasion, plan sectoral policies which selectively punish these same regions.
For these and other regions, we support Mr Rosado Fernandes's report and the position of the Executive Committee.
Mr President, our group supports the main thrust of Mr Rosado Fernandes's report, but above all agrees with the Commission's document.
Opinions differ within the Socialist Group, but we do agree on the fact that the Commission is giving good advice in this communication.
Great advances have been made since the 1992 reform, and it must be acknowledged that tobacco growers have managed to adapt to the new context and rise to the challenge confronting them.
It would be wrong not to recognise this.
And to say that, as we have heard in the last few days, as far as tobacco is concerned, the debates in this Chamber have not changed in the past ten years.
The problems facing producers are not over.
Heaven forbid that our message today should be: ' Do not worry, tobacco producers, you can relax now. No one is going to bother you any more!'
I do not think that would be very responsible.
There are problems relating to quality and restructuring of the sector.
The point is whether the impetus towards a more secure future should come from the harmful nature of smoke, a problem on which we should not lower our guard, or structural reasons which concern the Common Agricultural Policy as a whole, particularly the policy for the least favoured areas, which is precisely where tobacco production is concentrated.
I do not think that attacking tobacco production is the way to resolve the scourge of nicotinism.
This would be a move in the wrong direction, targeting the weakest, perhaps only to place a huge gift in the hands of the strongest, the four tobacco multinationals which dominate the consumer market in Europe.
Producers must, however, be aware that they will only have a future if they are strongly market-orientated and have a sounder organizational capacity, and they must also appreciate that Community aid will be less and less available in the coming years because, like it or not, this is the natural trend throughout the Common Agricultural Policy.
They need to be helped to understand this and act accordingly.
But, Commissioner, I think that soon, if we have a new rural policy in the Community, the situation for tobacco, for employment and for our quality of life will improve.
Certainly, if we had a solid rural policy in the Community today, we would already have gone a long way, not least for tobacco growers.
We know, Commissioner, how much you believe in the future of the rural policy.
Let us hope that its inclusion in the EAGGF Guarantee Section, as you told us yesterday, is not a sign that rural policy is being subordinated too much to the old CAP which we want to change.
Otherwise, in spite of us, there really will be hard times ahead for our tobacco growers.
Mr President, I would like to make some very obvious observations which, precisely because they are obvious, must be taken into account by Members of this House at voting time.
We are discussing tobacco production figures which represent 5 % of world production, and the sector currently provides direct employment for 170, 000 people and jobs for 135, 000 in the conversion industry.
We are therefore talking about over 300, 000 jobs which, as explained here, involves ecu 1000 million.
This is one of the Community's cost-effective policies; because we are not going to take away 300, 000 jobs which already exist in order to see whether we are capable of creating them by abolishing cultivation of this crop, thereby letting in, as Mr Fantuzzi has just stressed most capably, those who are in charge of conversion.
Nor do we have other significant alternatives to offer our growers, particularly those from the poorest regions, as other Members have just pointed out.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, although I do not intend to use up my allotted time in order to enable the debate to move on, I believe we have here an acceptable Commission proposal.
We have to improve it and correct it somewhat in terms of control and modulation.
We would also like the Commission to explain to us how the research money is spent, since, although we are not against increasing that budget, we would like to know how it is spent, so that we can decide whether the extra 2 % is still needed, as may be the case.
We do not, therefore, want this proposal to punish us into creating 300, 000 jobs which already exist and which cost the Community a respectable amount of money, an amount which I regard as sufficiently justified, in order to help - as has so rightly been stated - the four multinationals which run the business.
Mr President, I will forego more than half of my time to help ensure that the vote takes place this morning.
As I said earlier, if we do not vote today, the entire reform will slip to after 1998, causing serious harm to the producers; moreover, the report is very clear and Mr Fernandes, the rapporteur, has explained it well.
I should just like to add that abandoning tobacco production in Europe would really be committing economic and social harakiri , in that it would not reduce the number of smokers by as much as one, and they would consequently buy cigarettes from non-member countries, to the great joy, as has already been pointed out, of the foreign, particularly American, multinationals.
Let us consider the problem of employment: employees number not just 300, 000, but 1, 420, 000 if both direct employment and ancillary jobs are taken into account: 11 per cent in Greece, 9 per cent in Italy; 80 per cent are women; and all, let us remember, in areas which are regarded as less favoured.
And what about the idea of banning tobacco in order to outlaw smoking and combat cancer: it would be like banning grape growing to combat alcoholism; abandoning pig farming because pork contains cholesterol which causes heart attacks, and, if you will permit an even more forceful analogy in conclusion, ceasing to have children in order to combat paedophilia!
Mr President, many things have already been said which I too would have liked to say.
The Liberal Group takes the view that tobacco growing is a very important agricultural activity in several countries of the European Union.
At present, there are very few alternatives to this activity.
It also creates a huge amount of employment.
So in the short term, there is no point in ending this production of tobacco - we should simply import it from other countries, which is of no benefit at all to Europe.
Broadly speaking, the Liberal Group can support the Commission's proposals.
In particular, we feel that more emphasis should be placed on the quality of production, and of course it must be geared more to the market.
That applies to all other farming sectors, and it must apply to tobacco growing as well.
We need high-quality tobacco, with as little subsidy as possible.
There is of course also a good deal of concern within the Liberal Group as regards the effects of smoking on health.
There is no doubt that smoking is dangerous to human health.
Once again, the Commission must consider this in implementing its policy, and tobacco must be produced with emphasis on the varieties which contain less nicotine, so that from this standpoint too, farmers are producing what the market demands and doing so in the interest of public health.
Mr President, once again it seems that the chaos of persecution levelled at tobacco cultivation is continuing.
That is the spirit and mentality which govern the Commission's proposal on the reform of the COM for raw tobacco.
Unfortunately, the report by Mr Fernandes makes only a few minor improvements and does not go as far as it should.
Mr. President, since the first measures against tobacco production in 1992, production has fallen by 31 % and the number of growers by 7 %.
Those are job losses, jobs which cannot be replaced, because a producer who makes his workers redundant does not subsequently care what happens to them, whether they remain unemployed, hungry and socially excluded.
Besides this, Mr. President, I must tell you that every kilo by which tobacco production in Europe is reduced, is replaced by several kilos imported from third countries by multinational groups involved in the manufacture of tobacco products, so there is in fact no discouragement of smoking.
This so-called anti-smoking campaign, if not naive, is stupid.
But it is in fact neither; it is deliberate, and aims to serve the interests of major tobacco-trading multinational monopolies which want to import cheap tobacco of appalling quality from third countries, to glut the markets and inflate their profits.
It is therefore a nonsense, a crime that is taking place for the sake of this profiteering.
There are some positive points in the report by Mr Fernandes and I accept those - besides, there are also the related amendments following the debate by the committee -, such as the creation of an agency from within the profession to monitor tobacco quality, etc.
I think it would be better for that to be run by the state, it would be more reliable, with experience and scientific expertise, as was proved by a body of the same sort in Greece.
Finally, instead of restricting the budget, it should be increased to provide resources for research on tobacco, to improve both its quality...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, the EU policy on tobacco is full of double standards and, to put it plainly, hypocrisy.
While we are all aware of how many cases of cancer are caused by tobacco - the Commission itself has stated that around half a million people die annually because of tobacco - we continue to discuss the amount of subsidy to pay to the tobacco growing sector.
At the same time the EU has programmes to combat tobacco induced cancer.
This is something of a double standard!
We are talking about large amounts of aid as well, 1 000 million ECU's per year, while the programme to prevent cancer caused by tobacco receives 10 millions ECU's.
Is it possible that this situation has arisen because the cost of health care in the EU Member States is paid by the Member States themselves, while EU agricultural policy and the aid to tobacco growers is paid for by the EU? No one has a comprehensive view of the situation: aid is paid out to tobacco growers while, at the same time, hospitals are having to deal with the damage caused by tobacco and building up substantial hospital bills as a result.
Now is the time to do something about this.
The most realistic way is not to stop all subsidies immediately, but to phase them out and introduce programmes of change so that people can do other things instead.
This is not a matter of impoverishing rural areas.
We want and will continue to have a living rural economy.
Instead, we need to have a policy which is both logical and consistent.
Aid to tobacco growers does not form part of such a policy.
The Agriculture Committee, in my view, has only considered the tobacco growers and the agricultural sector, while the health aspects, as has already been pointed out by the Environment Committee, are conspicuous by their absence.
So it is our duty to vote for those proposals which will lead to a programme of change, the amendment proposal from Mrs Hardstaff, Mr Wynn and Mr Wibe is one such example.
Mr President, not wanting to get involved in the curious hybrid logic that pervades this subject, I should like a distinction to be made between those arguments that relate to public health and those that relate to production, which provides a livelihood for 150, 000 producers in Europe.
The tobacco industry purchases its supplies from the world market, and if Europe fails to deliver the right quantity or quality, the industry will buy from outside the European Union.
I am in agreement with the idea of a planned reduction in excess consumption of tobacco, but it seems to me hypocritical, and inappropriate, to believe that stopping production in the European Union would put a stop to smoking, whereas it is ourselves as the free consumers who need to be influenced.
The growing of tobacco is a specialized activity, like market gardening, and over-hasty conversion to other products would be disastrous for the sector.
If, eventually, alternative crops were to replace tobacco, it would unquestionably be necessary to provide compensation to bring incomes, and especially employment, up to equivalent levels.
But is that conceivable with an agricultural budget that is continuously dwindling in relative terms? The most logical solution today is to reorganize the CMO with a view to maintaining employment and incomes, and even modulating the premiums, while always arguing on the basis of quality.
I am not a smoker, but I can appreciate that a good tobacco can be savoured like a good wine.
For all those reasons, we support Mr Rosado Fernandes's report - and, in passing, I pay tribute to his European spirit because he, as a man of the South, has thought of the producers in the North and the need to restore their premiums to the pre-1993 level.
Mr President, I must congratulate Mr Rosado Fernandes on the quality of his report, which very clearly sets out the issues involved in tobacco growing in Europe and rightly denounces, and I quote, ' the erroneous premises' of the Commission's report.
We shall vote in favour of the motion for a resolution as presented by the rapporteur and adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I personally will not vote in favour of any of the amendments to that motion because, on the pretext of protecting consumer health, the majority of them have the sole real objective of weakening European tobacco production in favour of tobacco and cigarettes imported from the United States.
Our group has requested a split vote on Recital A. According to the initial text, tobacco is grown, and I quote, ' in extremely disadvantaged Objective 1 regions' .
We would like the words 'extremely' and 'Objective 1' to be deleted from that recital, since there are tobacco-producing regions which are disadvantaged regions of Objective 5B.
I therefore call upon the rapporteur to support this proposal.
The Commission's document is based on two guiding themes that are lacking in relevant foundation.
First, the Commission suggests that reducing European tobacco production might be beneficial to public health.
I must remind the House that the European Union is a net importer of tobacco and that any reduction in European production will immediately be offset by an increase in imports from third countries.
The Commission's second line of thought suggests a change in the way the 'tobacco' CMO supports producers, justified, according to the Commission, by the excessively poor quality of the tobacco produced by European farmers.
In this context, I would remind the Commission that, for example, the aromatic tobaccos grown in Greece are much in demand on the international markets.
In France, tobacco of excellent quality is being produced today, thanks to the development of a dynamic joint-trade organization bringing together producers, processors and distributors, all anxious to promote low-nicotine varieties and introduce tobacco grades in line with market trends.
In order for the 'tobacco' CMO to function properly, after all, it is important to develop a strong joint-trade structure to provide a counterbalance to the excessive power of certain major multinationals, both as regards defining the specifications that set out quality criteria and as regards price fixing, to prevent the adverse effects of hyperconcentration.
Mr President, we must preserve employment in a loss-making agricultural sector, and we could not accept any reduction in support for European tobacco production unless we had achieved a level of self-sufficiency.
Mr President, for reasons of time I will confine myself to a brief reflection on the hypocrisy of US multinationals, which claim to want to protect consumers' health.
Rather than conducting this hypocritical campaign, the United States ought to be thinking about doing away with all those electric chairs spread around US territory!
I agree with Mr Rosado Fernandes's report.
Mr President, very briefly, we agree with the Commission's findings on the importance of tobacco production for certain areas, but we disagree with its proposals, which conflict with those findings.
The Commission's proposal to buy up the quotas will result in economic hardship for large regions, increased unemployment and desertion of rural areas.
As for the Research and Information Fund, we will agree the finance involved provided that the Research Fund is extended to cover other products with undesirable and harmful effects, such as alcoholic drinks, fats, hormones and beef, especially now that encephalopathy is a direct danger for consumers.
And of course, we propose that the major tobacco industries should be included.
To those here who believe that abolishing tobacco cultivation in the Union will put a stop to smoking, we want to say that this will not happen. It would only happen if tobacco imports from cheap countries were also banned and if the manufacture of cigarettes were banned as well.
That is the only way to stop people smoking.
Mr President, I should like to go along in general with the objectives of the proposal made by the Commission to improve quality and make the management of quotas more flexible.
I should like to say three things to you, who criticize tobacco: first of all, I should like them to understand the importance of the 300 000 jobs in the sector, in a Europe with no greater tragedy than unemployment.
Secondly, I should like them to understand that tobacco consumption does not depend on the agricultural policy for the sector; if we reduced European production, currently accounting for barely a third of consumption, that would lead to imports, possibly from the United States.
Thirdly, restructuring a farming sector like tobacco cannot be done overnight, it is very painful, very difficult and it is therefore unrealistic to think that reducing aids would speed up restructuring.
Finally, I should like to thank Mr Rosado Fernandes for his excellent work.
Mr President, three points, in much less than one minute.
The Rosado Fernandes report is along the right lines, because it covers the entire scope of the tobacco industry and does not forget the growers.
The Commission's report - this has been said thousands of times - simply on the argument of protecting public health -, shields and protects the international tobacco trusts.
And a third point: all those even in here who talk about alternative crops everywhere, firstly do not have the problem in their own country, and secondly have never seen a tobacco plantation in their lives.
Alternative crops are not an option in every case.
Go to the north of Greece and see the hillsides and rocks on which tobacco grows.
Mr President, I, too, would like to congratulate Mr Rosado Fernandes on his report and would like to add, in connection with the tobacco crop produced in Objective 1 regions - the European Union's poorest regions - that we should not speak demagogically of crop substitution.
What is at issue is not the substitution of tobacco crops by other crops but the provision to the workforce in an area where tobacco is grown of an alternative economic activity capable of providing it with an income precisely where it is, not on the edge of urban areas.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Rosado Fernandes on his report.
It is a report that attempts to deal with the problem sincerely, from the standpoint of European citizens and European cultivators.
Unfortunately, the Commission and the Council are trying to present the issue in a different way, claiming that there is supposedly a contradiction since on the one hand we spend money on an anti-smoking campaign, while on the other hand we subsidize tobacco growers, of whom there are approximately 150 000 within the European Union.
That contradiction, however, is a false contradiction and is part of the effort, despite all that Mr Santer told us yesterday, to cut resources from the European Union and the budget for agriculture, to make that money available for enlargement.
Because if we really wanted to restrict smoking in the European Union, we ought first to close the cigarette factories.
But cigarette factories will continue to operate and tobacco bought from third countries will continue coming into the European Union.
Consequently, their concern is not to protect European citizens but to save money, money intended to serve the cause of enlargement.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am one of those who wish to see an end to the contrast between our policies on health and agriculture.
How long must we go on vainly trying to explain to our citizens how, each day, an average of 1400 Europeans die as a result of smoking and ECU 30 000 is spent campaigning against tobacco, while at the same time some ECU 2.5 million per day is pumped into European tobacco growing?
We must now take the bull by the horns.
In the long term, aid for tobacco growing has to be eliminated.
We need to make this objective known to the growers now and, in the short term, encourage them to look for alternative crops by means of direct income support.
I do not share the pessimism of the Commission as regards the scope for reconversion.
Furthermore, I am afraid that we shall be having the same debate in ten years' time if tobacco aid is to be used from now on to improve the quality of tobacco.
While we may have precious little say in this matter, it still remains our duty as politicians to argue for a proper use of public funds.
Mr President, the Commission has tabled a proposal concerning certain changes to tobacco growing.
In my opinion, these proposals still do not address long term policy in this sector.
In its communication to the Agricultural Committee, the Environment Committee has pointed out the long term expediency of phasing out aid for agricultural cultivation.
I share this view.
I think it is wrong to give strong support to this type of cultivation within the framework of agricultural policy.
After all, the roots of the agricultural policy lie in supplying food to the European Union; the tobacco sector definitely does not fall within this objective.
The areas where tobacco is grown are located within regions receiving Regional Political Aid so it would be better to encourage a change to other forms of cultivation through this type of aid.
A gradual phasing out would almost certainly be of long term benefit for the economic structure in the areas where cultivation takes place as well.
I also think that the Budget Committee's opinion deserves our total support.
Mr President, the Commission agrees that gradual disengagement would be very serious for regions experiencing major economic problems, and would not have an effect on tobacco consumption.
That is why the aim of the reform is to increase the market value of the tobacco produced in the Union.
To achieve this goal there are the three issues of modulation of the premia, flexibility on the quota and withdrawal from the sector.
On modulation: the market price is the key.
Of course, it does not always accurately reflect the quality but there is no better alternative means of achieving that objective.
On the issue of flexibility on quota transfers and withdrawal from the sector, every possibility should be given to promote transfers of quota from lowquality to high-quality varieties, and individual farmers should be given the opportunity to transfer their quotas to other farmers.
On top of that, a national reserve could be adopted to facilitate adjustment and access to production quotas.
The aim of these measures is to increase the quality of the tobacco produced.
However, we acknowledge that some farmers may not be able to achieve that, and it is for this target population that we propose a safety-net in the form of quota buy-backs or local rural development plans.
I will examine ways to prevent these measures from reducing the production of high-quality varieties - which is certainly not our objective - and to ensure that this is a last-resort solution for those farmers who cannot join in the objective of improving the quality.
Those are the main points in the thinking of the Commission behind its proposals, which I commend to the House.
VOTES
Mr President, as you have only just taken the chair, may I remind you that at the end of the debate on Mr Raul Rosado Fernandes's report I asked that the vote on that report, because of its importance, should be scheduled to follow the vote on Mr Argyros's report, in other words after all the legislative reports and before the own-initiative reports.
It is another legislative report, after all.
I ask that my proposal be put to the vote.
If there are no objections, I can accept your proposal.
Are there any objections?
(The President established that there were no objections to this proposal)
Mr President, on a point of order under Rule 9(1) relating to Annex 1, Article 4, where it says: ' Members shall be subject to the obligations imposed on them by the legislation of the Member State in which they are elected, as regards the declaration of interest' .
As we are about to vote on the Tillich report, should not those Members who are in receipt of EAGGF monies ensure they are declared and refrain from voting. If there is any confusion on that could we at least have some clarification for the future.
The question is rather difficult.
My first impression is that you are right, and I intend to look into the matter further.
(Parliament adopted the motion for a resolution)
Mr President, I should like to ask whether the rapporteur would accept a verbal amendment to this amendment.
The last sentence would then read: ' Calls on the Commission to include reference to territories as well as countries in Annex V.'
If the rapporteur can accept that amendment, then my Group will be able to vote for it.
Mr President, I am afraid I cannot accept that, because it does not actually remove the real problem.
So I would propose - and I hope the House will follow me - that we vote in favour of my amendment.
(Parliament adopted the motion for a resolution)
Mr President, as regards paragraph 8 of Amendment No 6, I should like to ask whether the rapporteur agrees to take it as an addition to rather than a substitution for paragraph 8.
Mr Fantuzzi, it is Mr Collins who should ask for that.
I would be nearly happy if it was taken as an addition.
It would be very gracious of the rapporteur if he would accept that.
It is a bit difficult, because we have voted already so it is too late.
I do not agree with that, but I will leave it to my colleagues to decide.
(Parliament adopted the motion for a resolution)
The ad hoc procedure occupies an important place in the budgetary process as regards agricultural spending.
It is consequently of great importance that the wishes of the Committee on Agriculture should be incorporated as far as possible into the mandate of the EP delegation for the conciliation with the Council.
It is therefore a good thing that the two amendments by Mr Mulder have been adopted.
In the end, I voted against the Tillich report, however, for the following reasons.
Firstly, I regret that the proposal from the Committee on Agriculture to reduce the burden on the 1998 budget by shifting the payments for oil seeds has not been accepted.
I anticipate great problems with the rapporteur's proposed financing of the Council's decision on agricultural prices.
The underspending in individual budget lines over the past three years seems to me an extremely weak basis for reducing next year's appropriations.
I also reject the proposal to create a reserve of ECU 329 million.
It must surely be quite clear that there is no scope for an agricultural reserve within the present tight budgetary margins.
Furthermore, the continuing criticism from the EP of the Commission's estimates of agricultural expenditure strikes me as rather curious.
It appears from the Brinkhorst and Fabra Vallés report on supplementary and amending budget No 1 for 1997 that in 1996, the rate of utilization in the agriculture category was considerably higher than in the categories on which the EP has the final say, such as internal and external policy.
Would it not therefore be more sensible to look critically for once at the scale of the appropriations in these latter categories?
Secondly, I am against the rapporteur's proposal to reopen the debate on the distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
It is often maintained that agricultural spending is immune from any form of democratic control.
That is very much open to question.
I would merely point to the scope which the European Parliament has to submit proposed modifications to the agriculture budget.
Where these do not entail an increase in the budget, the Council needs a qualified majority in order to reject them.
The Council is also under pressure from the national parliaments, which categorically reject any increase in the ceiling on own resources.
This means that the days of unchecked growth in agricultural spending really are now in the past.
on the Brinkhorst and Fabra Vallés report (A4-0232/97)
The undersigned have abstained from voting.
This is not because we are indifferent to the efforts made within the area covered by the report.
But we think that greater efforts should have been made to examine whether more personnel could have been made available through redeployment of the Commission's existing workforce.
The three areas for which new appointments are proposed are precisely those areas where the EU system itself has contributed to the occurrence of the problem.
The need for the 35 posts in GD XXIV, for the co-ordination of the Scientific Committee's work resulting from the BSE crisis, has arisen as a result of a fundamentally misguided agricultural policy which has meant that animals have been treated the same as basic commodities.
As for the posts intended to combat fraud, these are linked to the programmes created by the EU own hands, Phare, Tacis, Meda and Echo.
The Audit Court's proposed new posts are due partially to the same problem.
The European Union's inherent inconsistencies will continue to cause problems which will require action in the future to put right the Union's own mistakes.
By simply creating new posts there is a risk that EU bureaucracy will continue to proliferate.
on the Mouskouri report (A4-0237/97)
We are all very strong supporters of the campaign to promote books and reading, which is why we welcome the Ariane programme.
Our discussions with the Commission and the Council have been numerous and sometimes difficult, but they have always been constructive, and my thanks for that go to our representatives, the rapporteur and the whole of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
We are coming to the end of the conciliation procedure and we are going to adopt the joint text.
However, like many other Honourable Members, I regret the paltry size of the appropriation eventually made to the programme.
It's a start, one could say, but it could have been and should have been a more resounding start.
Let us hope that Europe's citizens will be able to put it to good use and to convince the Council that, undoubtedly, ECU 7 million is too little!
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats voted for the Mouskouris report on the ARIANE programme today.
The principal aim of the ARIANE programme is to support the translation of works written in lesser known languages in the EU, for example Danish.
The Danish Social Democrats are happy that the Conciliation Committee has finally reached agreement after a long period of negotiations.
The ARIANE programme is of great importance to the dissemination of literature written in lesser known languages.
There are many literary works which seldom reach a wider audience because they are written in a language mastered by few.
The ARIANE programme opens up the possibility for Danish authors to get assistance in having their books translated into other EU languages.
The same applies to other minority languages in the EU.
The ARIANE programme can thus contribute to intercultural understanding between the peoples of the EU countries.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance voted without enthusiasm in favour of Mrs Mouskouri's report on the Ariane programme, which is designed to sustain and promote reading, especially through translation.
We were unenthusiastic because the results of the conciliation procedure are disappointing by comparison with the objectives pursued, and we regret that the unanimous voting procedure which, pursuant to Article 128, is standard in cultural matters once again enabled certain Member States to block the Union's cultural policy.
We had hoped that the Amsterdam Treaty would bring greater flexibility and introduce qualified majority voting.
Those hopes were vain: the Ariane programme has been cut to two years, with its budget slashed by four-fifths.
Admittedly, the Commission is promising us a framework law which should allow cultural matters to be better programmed.
In the meantime, reading is one thing that will suffer from all this procrastination....
The conciliation decision on Ariane is welcome, following the lengthy negotiations, with all the stages which were involved. It is welcome even though Parliament has had to give way as regards the budget it was calling for, and although only ECU 7 million is to be allocated to the two-year programme.
The programme will now finally acquire a legal basis and actually get under way.
Ariane is mainly a programme of subsidies for translation.
Its purpose is to increase the knowledge and dissemination of works representative of the Member States' culture.
At the same time European people's awareness of culture and history can be directly enhanced and cultural diversity strengthened.
Projects under the programme are intended to support and supplement national and regional measures by developing cooperation through networks and partnerships.
It is intended that cooperation should be extended to third countries, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.
Important participants in the work will be international cultural organizations, especially the Council of Europe.
Existing research and education in the field should be put to effective use.
Further vocational training for translators is, quite rightly, one of the priorities of the programme, and is essential in the interests of promoting a high standard of translation.
The professional status of translators should be clarified, and up-to-date guides and databases should be established to assist their work.
From the point of view of the future of European culture, I believe it is very important to target aid at small language areas and translation involving the rarer languages.
I am glad that these opinions expressed by the Committee on Culture and by Parliament as a whole have been taken into account in the conciliation decision.
The individual quality and richness of European culture lies precisely in its living diversity, which must be consciously cherished in the face of the pressures of an increasingly unified information society.
Promoting the whole field of books and reading requires far more in the way of measures and resources than those provided for by this programme.
I hope that the Ariane programme will be a successful first step in efforts to develop and renew the whole European book sector.
on the Fontaine report (A4-0246/97)
Nicole Fontaine's report on the free movement of doctors is nearing its concluding stage.
The conciliation procedure made it possible for most of Parliament's proposals to be adopted, and I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on that.
It means that we should soon see better harmonization of the training given to our doctors, together with an improvement in their freedom of movement within the Union.
We cannot fail to welcome this result.
Even so, I would remind the House that although the sky is brightening for the medical profession that is far from true of many other professions and many other categories of diploma.
We must reassert here that the genuine recognition of diplomas and genuine freedom of movement for professionals, are vital elements in European integration and in the development of European citizenship.
So let us rejoice with the doctors, by all means, but let us also put pressure on our governments to speed up the recognition of diplomas and so provide the kind of response for which today's young people are waiting, with growing impatience.
The recognition of doctors' qualifications throughout the European Union is a significant step towards the creation of a single market and with greater possibilities of success for our professionals.
These are, however, objectives requiring the safeguard of personal interests, with compliance with rules and a harmonization of criteria.
In the case of medical practice, it is vital to have a throughout knowledge of the patients' language - or else they, especially the poorest or least well-off - would be unable to make their situation understood.
The free exercise of professional practice implies the harmonization of rules of access to education, otherwise there will be a feeling that a given country, in isolation, is determined to set a system of numerus clausus to meet the demand of its own qualified doctors, when the market is open to people from countries without the same protection.
It would make no sense, for example, to have a numerus clausus at Lisbon University and not at the other universities in the country, as qualified doctors from other universities could then have access to jobs in the Lisbon region.
For the same reason, there has to be a harmonization of the numerus clausus between the various countries in a single area which, by means of this Directive, would offer the working conditions of a national area.
on the Dybkjaer recommendation (A4-0235/97)
I welcome the Dybkjær report on the review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme.
Along with my colleagues, I would like to thank Mrs Dybkjær for all the work she has done in producing a report which significantly improves the Commission's original framework document.
Due to the fact that the report deals with many important issues, there have been many representations from interested parties and particularly from industry bodies.
The amendment that has caused the greatest amount of interest is Amendment No 34 to Article 11.4, which proposes to elaborate the waste hierarchy.
The waste hierarchy has been in existence since 1989, when the Commission first proposed it in their Waste Management Strategy Paper of that year.
I myself recommended it to Parliament in the 1990 report on that strategy.
Mrs Dybkjær has naturally added methods, such as composting and biomethanization, whose use has increased with new technology.
I think this is the right approach for the present time and I urge Parliament to support it.
Industry has tried to focus our attention on various independent reports commissioned by the Commission, which suggest that the hierarchy that Mrs Dybkjær has proposed is too rigid and therefore denies them the flexibility they feel that they require.
Without wishing to dismiss these reports out of hand, I do believe that there are question marks over some of the assumptions which form the basis of the report.
We should also remember that we are at second reading stage and that conciliation will begin soon.
This is not the right time to start changing a long-standing policy because of heavy lobbying.
There is a hearing on waste this autumn, organized by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
This and other issues will be debated vigorously then.
That will be a much better forum in which to think about fine-tuning the waste hierarchy.
Once again, I would urge colleagues to give their full support to this report.
The vote in the House today shows once again that when the time comes for the European Parliament to turn the fine words spoken in this House on the environment into real decisions, it is not able to.
The decision by the European Parliament simply means that the road to sustainable development is no longer straight and it will now take longer to complete the journey.
All those amendment proposals which really should have galvanised the Commission and the Council to make them react and take environmental issues really seriously, did not gain enough votes.
I am referring particularly to those amendment proposals which concern the need for a reduction in energy usage, for serious investment in renewable energy resources and a reduction in the average fuel consumption of petrol driven private cars to 0.5 ltrs per mile by the year 2005 at the latest and 0.3 ltrs per mile by the year 2010.
There is a serious contradiction between the world leadership that the European Union claims to want to have in terms of environmental policy and the vagueness of the wording of the Commission proposal and the common position of the Council on the programme 'Towards sustainable development' .
In the presentation of Agenda 2000 - defining the political guidelines for the beginning of the 21st century - the Commission stated yesterday its commitment to integrate the environment into its global strategy.
Yet political declarations and international conferences are not enough to determine lasting changes.
The Rio Agenda, the Convention on Climate and various others have yet to match up to what was promised.
The Commission's Agenda 2000 runs a similar risk, if the will to integrate the environment into other policies is not translated into measures, with timetables and penalties for transgressors.
That is the merit of the Dybkjaer report: giving concrete shape to the vague environmental 'considerations' hammered out in the Commission text.
Although I cannot agree with all the proposals it contains, the report makes references to risk-reduction policies, the protection of diversity, energy, taxation, public health, waste management and it refutes the Council's refusal to agree to proposals that would guarantee citizens' rights.
I therefore refrained from voting against certain measures even when I did not agree with them, opting instead for abstention.
Commitments without deadlines, figures or penalties do not fool anyone.
on the Jarzembowski report (A4-0243/97)
My group is obliged to vote against this report.
We have voted in favour of the amendments by the Committee on the Environment, but to no avail.
The report has in fact postponed indefinitely the internalization of the external costs of goods transport.
However, there has been enough discussion and research for this internalization now finally to be applied.
The level of the European user charge is so ridiculously low that not one tonne less will be carried by road.
The shift to rail transport consequently remains a pipe-dream, even though virtually everyone in Parliament says they think it is essential.
Lastly, the EU has a great responsibility when it comes to finding a solution for the Alpine region.
But it is behaving more like an obstacle here, with Parliament's support.
In the negotiations with Switzerland, all that counts is our own short-sighted interest in clearing the way for 40-tonne trucks, and Austria is now being given a special arrangement for the Brenner pass.
That will not provide a lasting solution to the problems of the Alps, however, and the issue will undoubtedly reappear on our agenda until a proper solution has been found.
The report presented by Mr Jarzembowski introduces significant changes to the proposal for a Council Directive on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures.
This proposal for a Directive is intended to replace Directive 93/89/EEC, the 'Eurovignette Directive' , which was annulled in 1995 by the Court of Justice.
The European Parliament thus has the opportunity to review the scope of a very important text, with a view to more efficient and fine-tuned charging of heavy goods vehicles within the European Union.
This is also an opportunity to provide some kind of response, keenly awaited, to the problems created by ever-increasing heavy goods traffic: traffic congestion, environmental harm, damage to infrastructures.
The Commission's proposal should introduce some aspects of harmonization mentioned in the Green Paper 'Towards fair and efficient pricing in transport' , which sets out the long-term guidelines for a policy of charging on infrastructural costs and the costs of congestion in road transport.
A fundamental principle is involved here: the principle of total recovery of the costs of equipment and operation, which should be charged on to the various users in accordance with harmonized criteria.
The present system is based on all-in levies.
The proposal is that differentiation should be introduced, as a function of the degree of infrastructural damage attributable to the vehicles, and the pollution they create.
So this is an additional differentiation, based on environmental criteria, by virtue of a selective classification.
The European Parliament's report introduces two important amendments to this text.
First, Parliament calls upon the Commission to take due account, in its proposal for a Directive on the charging of heavy goods vehicles, of the thoughts set out in the Green Paper on 'the internalization of the external costs of transport' and the conclusions of the corresponding parliamentary resolution of 30 January 1997.
Secondly, toll charges must be set at a level such that the revenue generated does not exceed the costs of construction, operation and development of the infrastructures on which the tolls are levied, plus a rate of return equivalent to the possible return on similar investment projects.
Consequently, I voted in favour of Mr Jarzembowski's report, hoping that all the points to which I have referred will indeed be taken into account in the future proposal for a Directive.
The environment in the Alps is extremely sensitive.
There are narrow passes which are under considerable pressure from environmentally damaging emissions.
As much traffic as possible should go by rail.
It should be possible to transfer trailer and container loads to the railways for transport across the Alps.
The steps taken for heavy goods vehicles to pay tolls to use roads should be given our full support as it is the right way to take part in their funding and an incentive to use means of transport that are less polluting and lead to less congestion - such as rail, sea and rivers.
However, we cannot understand, therefore, the concern over not extending this to light vehicles in relation to which, in terms of their use of roads, the same reasoning is valid.
It is a financial logic - contrary to what has happened in Portugal - to be applied especially in metropolitan areas, where the infra-structure costs are highest, and it is unacceptable for them to be paid for in full by all the citizens of the country, including the poorest in the least well-off regions, whereas instead we should try to get people to use public transport which is less pollutant and leads to less congestion.
I cannot support the proposed increase in the minimum financial requirement that a road haulage operator must possess in order to remain in business.
The Commission proposes increasing the present minimum financial requirement, in terms of capital and reserves, of ECU 3, 000 per vehicle to ECU 9, 000 for the first vehicle, with a further increase of ECU 5, 000 for each goods vehicle over 6 tonnes or for passenger vehicles seating more than 20 people.
I will oppose these proposals because it would inevitably make it more difficult for individuals to start up new businesses in the transport sector.
This would have the following consequences: reduce the opportunities for small and medium enterprises with limited resources to establish themselves in the transport sector; favour larger, wellestablished operators with greater capital reserves, thereby reducing competition in this area; discourage increased enterprise and initiative in the transport sector.
on the Virgin report (A4-0241/97)
. (DA) In connection with the export of non-hazardous waste to non-OECD countries for recycling, the Commission is required to ask each individual non-OECD country whether it wants to receive waste for recycling, what type of waste it may want to accept and, finally, what control procedures are to be applied.
In 1993-94, the Commission wrote to several non-OECD countries.
The authorities of several countries replied that they did not want to receive any or only certain forms of non-hazardous waste, while other non-OECD countries chose not to respond to the Commission's inquiry.
Both types of response must be fully accepted, and the European Union must prohibit the export of non-hazardous waste to the countries approached.
According to the Commission proposal it should continue to be possible to export non-hazardous waste to the countries approached (both to those countries which replied that they did not want to receive any or only certain forms of non-hazardous waste for recycling and to those countries which did not reply), using a cumbersome authorization procedure.
The Commission's justification that the countries in question may not be fully aware of the significance of their response for their industrial sector is unacceptable.
I therefore support the rapporteur's move to incorporate the 'precautionary principle' into the Commission proposal for a Council Regulation.
The countries approached must of course be free to change their minds, so that the export of non-hazardous waste to the country may be permitted, in which case the comitology procedure would apply in respect of the Annex to the Regulation.
. (DA) I would have liked the Commission proposal to have been rejected in its entirety, because it is quite simply unacceptable to disregard the judgments and decisions of independent countries.
But, as Mr Virgin corrects the Commission's errors in his report, I gladly vote for his report and the excellent amendments from the Environment Committee.
The EU may be the world's biggest trading bloc, but that does not give it the right - rather the contrary - to act in the way the Commission proposes here.
It is disgraceful and embarrassing for the Commission to take such an arrogant and patronizing attitude.
How can the Commission bring itself to say that countries which have replied that they do not want to receive 'green' list waste may not be fully aware of the significance of their response for those of their industries that may be able to use waste from the 'green' list for recovery or further processing?
It is quite unacceptable for the Commission to try to force countries, which have expressly or tacitly indicated that they do not want to receive certain types of waste, to accept it anyway.
If a country has indicated that it is not willing to receive any or only certain forms of 'green' list waste, its wishes must be respected.
The shipment of waste must be prohibited and not merely regarded as 'red' list waste, subject to stricter authorization procedures.
The shipment should not take place under any circumstances!
The shipment of waste to countries which did not reply to the Commission's letter should also be prohibited, because this can only be taken as a signal that they are not interested in receiving such waste.
The shipment must be prohibited and not just reassigned to the stricter procedure for 'red' list waste!
A further reason why these shipments should not take place is that there are doubts about the 'green' list.
Although most of the waste included on the 'green' list is not hazardous, there are some types of waste on this list which have been found to have hazardous properties.
Is it the intention just to force through the shipment of this waste to non-OECD countries even when they do not want it?
The EU cannot, like the mammoth it has turned into, simply trample over other independent countries.
That is the kind of behaviour the Commission is seeking to legitimize through its proposal, which is disrespectful and deeply offensive.
on the W.G. van Velzen report (A4-0215/97)
We have several times had occasion to mention the importance of the concept of universal service in the context of the opening-up of the telecommunications markets to competition.
Parliament has several times restated its interest in this concept of universal service as a guarantee of equality and freedom of access to the telecommunications services for Europe's citizens.
I can only regret, once again, the fact that the Commission refuses to regard the universal service as sufficiently important to be the subject of a Directive.
Today, too, I must also express my surprise at the fact that a mere communication should be thought sufficient to cover this difficult subject of evaluating the costing and financing of this universal service.
The impact of communications, as we well know, is constantly being reduced, and this communication - which is highly dirigistic in some respects - is singularly lacking in legal weight, as the members of the competent committee have very rightly pointed out.
I therefore deplore the piecemeal approach adopted by the Commission to the universal service and call upon it, at long last, to prepare a strong, all-embracing Directive on a subject that is essential for the future.
The European Union, and all its Member States, need strong signals to demonstrate the commitment of the Community's institutions to the concept of universal service which, if we really want it to, can destroy the ultraliberal image that has done so much damage to Europe.
The undersigned have voted against the report for the following main reasons:
1.The report is a clear example of the technical and bureaucratic problems which arise when an important public infrastructure is handed over to commercial interests.2.There will be complications which will affect consumers when a fragmented system, such as the one currently proposed for telecommunications, comes into operation.3.Infrastructures such as this should be maintained as national entities.
National systems should be publicly owned and subject to transparency and control.
It is easier to establish connections between national systems.4.The use of private operators will deprive the people of their constitutional protection for telephone privacy which is a central civil and democratic right.- on the Argyros report (A4-0213/97)
We are trying to find something here which in such a thematically limited form is going to be difficult to achieve, an 'effective framework of regulations for the European telecommunications framework' .
This will not be achieved by an increasing number of detailed regulations dealing with the technical - or in this case legal - aspects.
Mr Argyros' report, particularly now that it has been supplemented, by consensus, by the rapporteur and Mrs Read, retrieves from this situation as much practical detail as it is possible to retrieve from it.
We therefore agree with it.
What is needed, however, and very much overdue, is a thorough reorientation in the philosophy that lies behind this scheme, for example with regard to the scope of the solutions that we are seeking. It is high time that we learned to make a distinction between making it more flexible, opening it up to new user needs, liberalizing it, individualizing it and privatizing it, and we in this Parliament must ensure that the EU institutions finally tackle the problem of an industrial policy for the internal market, a democratic planning task which is made necessary by the challenge of the transition towards the information society.
on the W.G. van Velzen (A4-0215/97), Argyros (A4-0213/97) and Herman (A4-0240/97) reports
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the three reports indicated.
The legislation on Open Network Provisions is at present spread over various directives.
As an argument for collecting them into a single directive, the Argyros report states that the legislation, as it is now, is fragmented and difficult to find one's way around.
The Danish Social Democrats do not believe that collecting the legislation into one directive would ease access to the relevant law.
A combined, consolidated text would create an inflexible situation.
The directive would need frequent revision and there would be a risk of often ending up in a situation where the complex of laws is obsolete before it has even come into force.
The Danish Social Democrats think that the establishment of a European regulatory authority for telecommunications, as referred to in the Herman and Van Velzen reports, is a good idea.
It is inconsistent to harmonize an area of law and at the same time maintain fifteen separate national systems.
But the tasks of the authority would have to be clearly defined.
The Danish Social Democrats favour the idea that any such authority should contribute to effective standardization and harmonization and that it should address the need for coordination between the EU countries with respect to third countries.
On the other hand, the Danish Social Democrats oppose the idea that the authority should function as an appeal body for cross-frontier tendering procedures and that it should be given powers to issue harmonized codes.
on the Rosado Fernandes report (A4-0214/97)
Mr President, I am giving this explanation of vote not on behalf of the group, but for myself personally.
As seems to be the case in other groups too, in relation to tobacco there are different views in our group, though not fundamentally different, but people vote differently according to the way they feel.
One view was that if we are in favour of restricting the cultivation of tobacco, then we must offer those regions and businesses who depend on tobacco growing some alternatives, by means of compensatory payments and subsidies, so that jobs are maintained in these rural areas and so that businesses are not destroyed.
A simple policy of cutting resources, which is then made out to be a health policy, must not lead to the destruction of these existences.
From that point of view, we should not make such a direct and hasty combination of health policy and tobacco support.
If we want to live a healthy life, we can do so, even if tobacco goes on being grown, and if we want to live an unhealthy life, then we can do that too, even if tobacco is no longer grown.
It is a question of regulating the market for tobacco, and deciding how it should be organized, and the EU's health policy is a different issue altogether.
in writing. (SV) We think it is fundamentally wrong for the European Union to give aid for the cultivation of a substance which has such a damaging effect on human health.
It is absurd to subsidise a product by up to 80 percent or more in order to give the producers a minimum income.
The commodity has an insignificant market value as well.
To pay out 1 billion ECUs per annum for a crop which, in total, gives employment to only 135 000 tobacco growers is a high price if you calculate the amount per capita.
We are talking about approximately 75 0-100 000 Swedish Crowns per person in direct income support.
A future enlargement of the EU will make this organisation even more expensive if, for example, Poland becomes a Member of the EU and is given the right to receive aid on the same conditions.
We think that direct income support for the cultivation of tobacco should be phased out as soon as possible.
Strategic local development plans should be drawn up which allow for a change to other crops, the planting of forests, opportunities for voluntarily giving up tobacco cultivation and income guarantees restricted by time limits.
We think that we must set a specific date as a target by which time aid will have been completely abolished.
It is perfectly sensible to make a decision that all EU aid for tobacco growing should be phased out during the next programme period and will cease completely by the year 2005.
It is important to set a final date otherwise there will be no compelling reason to change.
Although tobacco production is the target of strong opposition from the anti-smoking public, it has proved positive in preventing the desertification of some European regions.
The Commission's analysis is positive as it recognizes the social importance of tobacco production in the Union and the fact that it is a non-surplus-producing activity.
We would emphasize most strongly and denounce the fact that this analysis does not make reference to the price stability of Community products. This contrasts with the price fluctuations which occur on the uncontrolled free market, which profit the multinationals.
We must stress that a ban on growing tobacco, advocated in the name of public health issues through the buying back of farmers' quotas, would lead to the permanent disappearance of tobacco growing in Europe, with two serious consequences: loss of a whole range of knowledge and know-how built up over the centuries in all the Mediterranean countries of the Union, and the relocation of first-processing factory units, with financial and political costs deriving from the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.
The link between a drop in European production and beneficial effects on public health is not a true one: the drop in production benefits only the cigarette multinationals which would dominate the world market.
The Commission bears responsibility for never having laid down quality criteria: it has been left to the large processing companies to define these.
Today the Committee on Agriculture is proposing the adoption of the following quality promotion measures:
1.modulation of premia should be 20-25 per cent at the outside; 2. the rebate of approximately 2 per cent from premia should fund research into improving the quality of known varieties; 3. specific measures need to be taken towards defining the concept of quality through the setting up of an independent body.Any attempt to persuade tobacco farmers to leave the business should, therefore, be rejected, as there are no surpluses, and the transfer of individual quotas to young farmers, while keeping them linked with the least favoured zones, should be facilitated.
I abstained from voting as I oppose all continued EU aid for tobacco growing.
Tobacco - particularly for many young people - leads to damage to health which is far too serious to be able to justify any form of state aid for its cultivation.
There may be serious consequences for those farmers who currently earn their living by growing tobacco which is why it is important that these farmers are given aid to change to other types of crops.
But we will not bring about the necessary restructuring through continued subsidies.
This well balanced report offers a degree of comfort to tobacco producers whose farms, let me remind the House, are generally located in the poorest southern regions of Europe.
It is unrealistic to believe that smoking in Europe can be stopped by stopping tobacco production in Europe.
Too many multinationals have interests in tobacco consumption: they would simply take their custom elsewhere, and only the American groups would benefit from our complacent other-worldliness if we were to follow the opinion of the Greens in this House.
I also support the use of research funds to try to find a better quality product, and particularly research geared to reducing the nicotine content, a harmful product of tobacco.
I am glad this House is supporting this report, the economic repercussions of which are so important.
The principal problem for Europeans is unemployment and it was not in vain that the Amsterdam European Council decided to concentrate on the unemployment/employment issue, placing it, as it put it, at the top of the list.
Should it, therefore, not be demanded that maintenance of employment be the basic premise and the unambiguous condition for any actions and measures included in the new regulations?
However, Mr Commissioner, some of the measures contained in its proposals actually destroy jobs.
In Granada, Extremadura and other Objective 1 zones, thousands of families depend on tobacco-growing for their livelihood.
If the Commission's statement that it wishes to promote employment for women and farmers is true, it cannot later cynically pad out its proposals with all-purpose words, such as quality , which it does not define, which conceal hypocritical policies which destroy jobs.
Disengagement from the sector would be one more disaster leading to an increase in the drift towards the towns and cities.
How is it possible to speak rhetorically of rural development and in this manner dismantle a sector, involving a product such as tobacco, which has a market?
The Commission has not responded to my request for facts and figures about the social impact of its proposals on employment, but it should be aware that we will be quantifying all the aspects of this reform which might have a retrogressive effect.
We will not be voting for amendment 6, not even as an addition, because its effect will be harmful.
Last-minute deals between anti-smoking lobbyists cannot conceal the fact that abandonment of the sector in favour of extraCommunity interests and markets is not an option for the future which improves the present situation. A new COM in raw tobacco is justified only if it is capable of improving the current situation for European citizens.
I would also draw attention to modulation of the premium as a function of quality because, in certain Member States, this could give rise to detrimental effects which would even go against the desired objective of quality.
EU agricultural policy should be environment, health and consumer friendly and should include a gradual reduction of aid for agriculture.
EU aid for tobacco growing cannot be justified while the EU is also supporting projects to reduce the use of tobacco for health reasons.
An immediate, overnight abolition of subsidies would lead to high unemployment among growers and breeders and would have a serious negative impact on rural areas.
It is our view that we should gradually abolish giving aid and cease completely by the year 2005.
We must concentrate our efforts vigorously on research and support for the development of alternative crops, via the Structural Funds for example.
The EU's model of using approximately 9 billion Swedish Crowns to support the production of a product such as tobacco, which is damaging to health, while using 0.1 billion Swedish Crowns for the fight against cancer is both wrong and awash with contradictions.
The reform of the raw tobacco sector has led to a number of movements to protect public health, often with good intentions, but unclear in most cases.
If certain aspects of the Commission's proposal and many of the amendments in this report were put into practice, tobacco production in the European Union would vanish and be replaced by cheaper imports from non-Community countries.
Contrary to what some people think, consumption would not go down, public health would not be protected, only the profits of the multinational processing companies would go up.
We are certain that that is not the aim of the many authors or supporters of the amendments rejected by the European Parliament.
On the other hand, we should not forget that tobacco production is concentrated in the South, in Objective 1 regions, that this is a labour-intensive sector, that there are no viable alternative crops and that, being on the agenda of the future of the CAP, it makes huge contributions to environmental protection and maintaining the population of certain regions, some of them mountainous.
Nor should we forget that, without jobs (supposedly a priority, according to a good deal of rhetoric), without incomes, without alternatives and without prospects for a dignified way of life, the mental and physical health of far more than 150 000 people employed in this sector would be far worse than the harm done by the smoke of a cigarette that would undoubtedly continue to be produced any way.
Investment obviously has to be increased into ways of avoiding tobacco consumption and boosting research into the treatment of related diseases.
However, it is obvious that tobacco consumption will not be cut or avoided by means of measures taken against tobacco farming, in poor regions, as that would only increase unemployment; reducing tobacco consumption can only be achieved by educating people, by prevention and by limiting the enormous power and profits of the transnational processing companies, which would only have their powers increased by some of the amendments that were tabled.
As they were rejected, the report is now a basis for alternatives to be found to the Commission's proposal on reforming the tobacco COM, which merits our overall agreement and has even included amendments that we tabled during the debate in the Committee on Agriculture.
I welcome the massive vote just cast by this House in favour of the Rosado Fernandes report.
I was surprised to note, however, that the wildest opponents of our tobacco producers were in many cases the very people who endlessly and enthusiastically argue in favour of liberalizing the selling of drugs in Europe.
Quite apart from theological quibbles, which have no part to play in this debate, what we wanted to do was to support the economic and social part played by the 150, 000 tobacco producers in the Member States of the Union, and also to support the joint-trade organizations, hoping to encourage their efforts to produce quality European products.
In a sector of production that makes a loss for the Union it is our duty, and it is in our interests, to encourage initiatives by our own producers.
That was the strategy that underlay the creation of the Common Agricultural Policy, and we should stand by it.
We must at all costs avoid a situation where European policy enables the big multinationals to flood our countries with the surplus tobacco production from Florida or Virginia or any other third country, otherwise the Community would be working against the very interests which it is supposed to defend and protect.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.50 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is topical and urgent debate.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
(B4-0632/97) by Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -(B4-0635/97) by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -(B4-0637/97) by Mr Goerens and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -(B4-0641/97) by Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the political situation in Cambodia; -(B4-0666/97) by Mr Schwaiger and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -(B4-0675/97) by Mrs Junker and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -(B4-0676/97) by Mr Titley and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -(B4-0693/97) by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the V Group, on Cambodia.
Mr President, four or five years ago the European States made enormous efforts to enable the entire Cambodian population to register on electoral rolls and vote to determine their own future.
We believed at the time that we had finally reached the end of a chapter: a chapter of genocide, assassination, ambush, arbitrary arrest and summary execution.
We were wrong.
Today, people are being shot on sight in the streets of Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.
People are being arrested, members of the Funcinpec or the PDLB are being executed, and anyone failing to declare explicit allegiance to Hun Sen is being persecuted.
So what are we to do? First, we must exert pressure for a return to the spirit and letter of the Paris agreements.
Next, we must unreservedly support the action of the United Nations and the ICRC.
Finally, we must freeze the 450 million dollars that were promised by the World Bank and postpone the adoption of the report on the cooperation agreements.
Mr President, it is not surprising that a country in which genocide has occurred, such as Cambodia, should take a long time to reach a balance.
The military coup which has now taken place is threatening to plunge the country into chaos once again.
It seems as if the moral and material support which we have given from outside in the past has been for nothing.
Democracy is being violated, opposition leaders murdered, and journalists and lawyers are having to go into hiding.
Has the prospect of stability in Cambodia now disappeared for good?
I do not think so.
There are one or two positive signs.
Firstly, ASEAN has spoken in very critical terms about Cambodia's proposed accession.
So the region itself is taking stock of its position.
And then there is the promise of elections.
We need to seize on that: we must insist on being able to send observers who can ensure basic human rights.
This message is set out very clearly in the resolution, which is strongly supported by my group.
Mr President, recent events in Cambodia once again cast doubt on the ability of that country to pursue the process of democratization and reconstruction.
What is more, Cambodia has lost all credibility with the international community as regards respecting its commitments, especially those entered into in the Paris agreements.
We are not alone in being so harsh in our judgement of Cambodia. ASEAN, too, seems to have come to the end of its tether, so much so that it has postponed Cambodia's accession to that organization, which is unusual to say the least.
It is sad indeed that things should have reached this stage, because unless Cambodia once again begins to behave in a way that is compatible with the international agreements, and especially the Paris agreements, it will be cutting itself off from all support - support which, however, it desperately needs.
Mr President, I think that we ought now to be reflecting on the appointment, only yesterday evening, of a new Prime Minister in Cambodia.
Ung Huot has been appointed to replace Norodom Ranariddh.
This also demonstrates the complexity of the situation in Cambodia and shows that Cambodia has not yet completed its process of political stabilization.
I think that it is the European Union's task to support every effort to prevent the country from plunging into civil war.
One must obviously deplore the constitutional upheaval brought about by the forces of Hun Sen and above all condemn the fact that human lives were lost.
And I do not believe that a government including the Khmer Rouge, who were responsible for the tragic genocide, is something to be desired.
For this reason I consider that the Council should bring every necessary pressure to bear on the Cambodian authorities to revive the 1991 Paris Accords, and I am also convinced that the Commission must take on the task of ensuring that the election date of May 1998 is respected, which, we all hope, should bring this tragic situation to an end.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. In principle, negotiation is always the right way to seek to resolve a conflict.
However, one cannot just sit down at a table with a murderer and aggressor who has just seized power by force.
It is not enough for the Council of Ministers, in the case of Cambodia, to make a lukewarm demand for a cease-fire and for the United Nations Security Council to urge us to sit down at the negotiating table in order to resolve the crisis.
The international community of states has been called upon to condemn, roundly and unambiguously, the bloody attacks in Cambodia, and to put Hun Sen in his place.
It must be made clear that a regime that has come to power by means of a military coup cannot support the power that has been seized illegally, by force of arms, by means of aid payments from the international donor community.
Therefore the Cooperation Agreement which the European Union has already signed sith Cambodia must be suspended until democratic conditions have been restored.
The international community of states must insist that, in May 1998, the planned free and democratic elections are able to take place and that we are able to see them take place with our own eyes.
Mr President, two years ago I participated in the EP delegation to Cambodia.
We were optimistic that, following the 1993 elections, a political accommodation had been reached between Funcinpec and Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party.
We hoped these elections would bestow some political stability on a poverty-stricken country whose recent history had been so tragic.
But that optimism was ill-founded and chaos has come again.
Prime Minister Hun Sen's outrageous and cynical seizure of power spits in the face of the 1991 Paris Accord, as well as undermining the efforts of the international community which supported the 1993 elections to the tune of billions of US dollars.
The deaths of some 58 people with a further 200 wounded is a sorry postscript to the coup and presages future upheaval and mayhem.
And, of course, democracy is the loser.
Only yesterday I learned of Hun Sen's proposals to reduce Funcinpec's supporters by eliminating parliamentary candidates who hold dual nationality - in other words, genuine Funcinpec supporters.
Understandably, ASEAN decided on 10 July to postpone Cambodia's accession to the family of ASEAN nations in view of its internal strife.
What should happen next? What should be the European Parliament's approach?
First we must do all in our power to insist on an end to violence. Second, we must cut off financial aid, which goes directly into the government's coffers and is then used to fund war chests.
Third, we must continue with humanitarian aid: the rainy season will soon be upon Cambodia and the poor and the destitute must not be victims.
Fourth, we must find political solutions.
We must revive the Paris Accord, using co-presidents France and Indonesia to put pressure on Hun Sen to respect the Paris Agreement, and finally, of course, we must defer ratification of the EU-Cambodia development agreement until political stability is restored in Cambodia.
That is the view of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
Mr President, following the military coup in Cambodia on 4 July, we were all very shocked.
We had hoped that after the blood-bath in Cambodia, which had been going on for such a long time, peace had finally been achieved with the Paris Agreement in 1991.
We know that since the elections in 1993 corruption has been increasing in Cambodia.
We have also discussed, many times, the fact that during the period immediately after a war there is still a certain amount of potential for violence among the population, or aggression between certain groups within the population, various social groups, and we have also discussed the question of how this could perhaps be reduced by means of a decent foreign policy.
We should also use this as an opportunity to develop new concepts and measures for countries which have experienced violence.
We should not, however, in any way accept this military coup.
The question is, what can we do? More news keeps on coming in, for example the news that members of FUNCINPEC are still being oppressed.
We have hundreds of victims to mourn, and I believe that it would be the right thing to do, first of all, to freeze the EU's Cooperation Agreement, and to support those ASEAN States who have asked for accession to be postponed.
I believe that this military government must be made to see that it will not make any progress in Cambodia if it continues to use force.
Mr President, the Commission wholeheartedly endorses honourable Members' condemnation of the breach of constitutional law and the ousting of the senior prime minister, Prince Ranariddh.
It would draw attention to the terms of the statement issued by the presidency of the European Union in response to the fighting on 5 and 6 July, calling for what a number of Members who have spoken have done, namely an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, a return to normal government and the holding of the promised elections on schedule in May 1998.
The UN Security Council issued a statement on 11 July again calling for dialogue between the parties and an end to confrontation.
As some speakers such as Mrs van Bladel and Mr Harrison have indicated, it is of considerable significance that ASEAN has registered its displeasure by suspending Cambodia's membership application and has also made diplomatic representations through King Sihanouk, calling on those concerned to seek a peaceful solution, uphold the law and refrain from persecution of political opponents.
The Commission has sent a note verbale to the authorities expressing concern for the safety of its aid workers but has not ordered their evacuation.
Any plans for long-term aid measures will be closely coordinated with Member States' representatives on the spot and here in Europe.
NGO facilities for channelling emergency and humanitarian aid are intact and ready to operate as required.
This is a shifting situation which can change from day to day and we will certainly watch it very carefully and be ready to respond to further developments.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the debate on the motion for a resolution (B4-0638/97) by Mr De Vries and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the arrest of war criminals in former Yugoslavia.
Mr President, the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague has not been able to fulfil its duty, which is to prosecute suspected war criminals.
But this failure is not the fault of the Tribunal.
The reason is that it has only been possible to bring a few of the 75 people who have been indicted for war crimes in connection with the war in the former Yugoslavia to trial.
What makes this even worse is that some of the most evil of the suspected perpetrators are still at large and are thus still able to exercise political influence in their countries.
As long as this situation continues the war will not be over.
Tensions still remain which could jeopardise security in several places in the former Yugoslavia.
Security in the former Yugoslavia requires that the criminals are punished.
This is also the only chance that the survivors have of acknowledging those who were exposed to the war's most manifestly gruesome atrocities.
Every day that passes with the suspected perpetrators still at large undermines the credibility of the War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague.
The World at large must now ensure that these suspected criminals are bought to trial.
We must demonstrate that war crimes will not be tolerated and that they will never be acceptable in law.
If the governments in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina continue to ignore their commitments under Dayton, the SFOR forces must be given the task and the necessary power to arrest the suspects, using force if necessary, and bring them to trial.
Only then can the wounds begin to heal and the future brighten for the people of the former Yugoslavia.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the application on the table now is an application that we are fully able to support.
It is a positive step, and yet at the same time a sad one too.
The sad aspect is that there are very many war criminals still at large.
Also sad, perhaps, is the fact that that a death has occurred in connection with an arrest.
However sad that may be, I believe that it is clearly necessary for the international community, including via its military representatives in former Yugoslavia, to make it clear that it cannot and must not happen that war criminals are allowed to run around at liberty, whatever side they may have fought on in the war.
There are no grounds that can justify the crimes that now have to be judged by the tribunal in The Hague.
If there has been a war, if there have been quarrels, especially between different ethnic groups, then we need reconciliation, we need cooperation, but we also need justice.
On all sides we are fully agreed on the need for such justice.
This does not mean that at the same time we do not need to build up new structures, or provide help and support, or create a feeling of trust.
In places where minor mistakes have been made, there must also be forgiveness.
There must be cooperation between the various groups, as we saw just recently on our trip to Croatia.
There, steps are being taken, incomplete, hesitant steps, but nevertheless steps towards reconciliation, and this is also happening in Bosnia.
I hope that it will soon be a matter of course in the Serbian Republic too.
It is right that the international community should act, albeit rather late in the day, and we must give this action our full support, because there are only two things that can help: the pursuit of the war criminals, and assistance and support for the community concerned.
Mr President, I should like, above all, to thank the Liberal Group for proposing this resolution.
I used to take a rather critical attitude towards the idea of such a court, but now that we have that court, we must use it if we are to retain any credibility.
In the past, I have to say, it was not so much the fault of the various governments of former Yugoslavia - with the exception of the Serbs - that the war criminals were not delivered up to justice, but it was due rather to a weakness on the part of the West.
We could have arrested certain war criminals perfectly easily, but we did not do so.
I shall not go into details, because time is short, but it is a fact well-known to everyone on the spot that men such as Karadzic and Mladic, for example, were not arrested because of orders issued by higher authority.
I should like to thank Mr Swoboda very much for proposing this resolution, and also for emphasizing at the same time that there are various responsibilities involved there, and that in general we make the mistake of repeatedly attributing responsibility evenly.
Anyone who has been to Croatia and Serbia knows who the aggressor was, because in Croatia the houses and churches have been destroyed, but in Serbia not a single shot was fired.
There are major differences here, and if we throw everything together in the same pot, we shall not be creating the justice that is so absolutely necessary.
Mr President, I wonder why we are not beginning with the prime culprit of this sorry affair, which is none other than the European Union itself, which imposed the dismembering of Yugoslavia.
It is the European Union, which after the dismembering of Yugoslavia could see that war was coming and did nothing to prevent it.
It is the European Union, all of us in other words, who watched the war take its course while we just sat in the European Parliament debating and passing resolutions, while we waited for America to come along and provide some sort of solution, which is in essence not a solution for peace, but simply a cessation of armed conflict.
And when we were signing and backing the Dayton solution, we all knew as much.
Apart from that of course the culprits are any who are guilty of war crimes.
And I would be the last person to say that those guilty of such crimes should not be brought to justice.
But we must not search out the guilty on one side only. there may be more of them on one side and less on another, but there are guilty on both side and it strikes me as strange that we look for them only on one side and not on the other. And I call attention to this: actions such as those of last week, when one person was being sought, an attempt was made to arrest another, and a third was finally murdered - because it was in fact murder - not only do nothing to help consolidate peace in the area, which we all want, but I very much fear, rekindle the fuse of the flames of war.
We must be very careful indeed.
Mr President, SFOR has finally moved into action and started picking up war criminals.
But only just afterwards, it appears once again that a country such as France is at odds with this, and we really do have to ask ourselves: does France not want the 'bad guys' to be dealt with, or is it just concerned with polishing up its own importance and showing the world that it will not allow itself to be pushed around by the United States?
If we want peace to exist in Bosnia after the withdrawal of the SFOR troops, then a great deal more needs to be done.
There are still far too many people going about freely who ought to be appearing before the tribunal in The Hague.
There is no need for me to mention names here - we all know who they are.
The donors are meeting again next week, and it seems a good idea to me for us to call on them now to follow the example of the European Union and stop aid to the Republika Srpska, because I honestly do not think that it is possible to continue with this aid.
Mr President, I too should like to thank our friends the liberals for this initiative.
I think that it is very important to keep up the pressure on the international community to allow this tribunal to function.
It is important to allow the peace process to progress; it is important for the credibility of the ad hoc tribunal itself, but it is also important in relation to another major project: the constitution of a permanent international Court.
This is undoubtedly another small signal that we can give.
I should like to say to Mrs Van Dijk that, until the European Union has the instruments it needs to go on peace missions, and therefore also - as in this case - to arrest war criminals, we will always be trying to find fault with one State or another: today it has been France, tomorrow it could be Italy or the United Kingdom.
So it is important for the European Union to equip itself with a European peace-keeping and peace-making body immediately.
Mr President, I am among those who are particularly pleased at what has been done by SFOR troops in arresting criminals in Bosnia.
It was of course becoming high time that we ourselves took Dayton seriously.
Up to now, this important aspect - arresting war criminals, trying them before the International Tribunal and cooperating with the Tribunal - has not really been properly observed by SFOR or ourselves.
Finally it is happening, and I am also especially pleased that we can always rely on the Commission, because it too has a policy which really comes across as robust, to the extent that this lies within its powers.
I also sincerely welcome the fact that the Commission is taking a very tough stance towards the Republika Srpska, where things are going so extremely badly at the moment, not just because a rabble is in power there, but because you can see the results of that all around you.
The situation of the people there is much worse than in the Federation territory, let alone Serbia or Croatia.
Particularly with a view to the welfare of the population, we must continue to cultivate the rule of law, because without the rule of law, the refugees cannot return in dignity and safety, industries cannot start up properly, and railways which run through non-Serbian territory - such as through Tuzla - cannot be used by the Serbs.
There are all kinds of particularly serious constraints which they are imposing on themselves.
I therefore think it is quite right that the Commission has drawn the proper conclusions from this.
In fact, I should also like the Commission to help us gain a rather better insight into the scale of obstruction which is being practised in various quarters, and of the extent of cooperation.
I am always hearing that the Bosnian Government is cooperating with the Tribunal, the Croats distinctly less so, and the Republika Srpska and Serbia very little indeed.
We need to be assured of this cooperation, however, so that we can refute with facts the nonsense which has just been talked by the Austrian SDP.
It is nothing less than a scandal that people there are content to have criminals walking about calmly and simply pointing the finger at others.
In general terms, we should be helping the Tribunal in Serbia, the Republika Srpska and Croatia.
The greatest possible cooperation is called for, so that the rule of law is finally restored in the area.
Mr President, I do not want to spend too much time on this point, but one of Mr Oostlander's comments, when translated into German, came out to the effect that the lowest type of scum is involved in government there.
With all due respect to Mr Oostlander, we should not, here in this Parliament, be using words like that to describe other people, assuming, of course, that the translation was correct.
I do not know whether it was or not.
Mr President, the interpretation was not entirely correct, but I did meet some mayors there whom we would both have to place in the category of what in Dutch is called 'rabble' ; the meeting was an extremely surprising one, something I have hardly ever experienced before, but in that territory I am afraid it was the case.
The Commission welcomes the recent arrest by S-FOR of a suspected war criminal.
It underlines the importance of a verdict pronounced by the International Criminal Tribunal in the case against Mr Tadic.
We have taken from the outset the position that there cannot be peace without justice and every action which is aimed at bringing about the enforcement of justice should be strongly supported.
No justice would imply a continuous threat to long-lasting peace and stability, thereby undermining the political and economic recovery of Bosnia-Herzegovina and hampering the return of refugees.
The Commission considers that the arrest of war criminals in former Yugoslavia is an essential element of the conditionality attached to the development of relations between the European Community and the signatory parties to the Dayton Peace Agreement.
Last week the Commission decided to suspend its non-humanitarian assistance to Republika Srbska as long as indicted war criminals like Mr Karadzic are not brought before the ICT in The Hague.
Products with a nonhumanitarian character, with a total of ECU 35m, have been suspended.
The failure to arrest Mr Karadzic is a clear violation of the Dayton Peace Agreement, the implementation of which is a condition for assistance for reconstruction.
In addition it is clear that Mr Karadzic is still heavily influencing political developments in Republika Srbska thereby hampering the peace process which is also a violation of the peace agreements.
Furthermore, his well-publicized so-called economic activities are such that it cannot be excluded that he would directly or indirectly benefit from reconstruction assistance to Republika Srbska.
Under these conditions the continuation of reconstruction assistance cannot be justified.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, I think that this resolution is important because it censures the numerous executions of hundreds and hundreds of people every year.
I do not think that this is to the credit of a country which many, including myself, regard as an example of democracy.
I am convinced that these are manifestations of revenge by the State which, as in the case of Joseph O'Dell, involve the repetition of judicial errors which are fatal to so many people.
Our Parliament is rightly telling the United States that this is unacceptable.
Mr President, this House claims to a beacon of reason and compassion in today's brutish world, but it seems to have a blind spot when it comes to violations of human rights in the United States of America.
Conversely, Americans select leaders who believe the honourable Members of the House to be too dumb to see the truth, too morally deaf to hear it, too cowardly to raise their voices in dissent.
The case of Joseph O'Dell, a presumably innocent man condemned to the gallows in the sovereign State of Virginia, offers us the chance to prove they are wrong, the hope that our voice will be heard to save his life, the dream that our common resolution may begin to reverse the savage trend towards the judicial assassination of thousands.
What we are looking at is an extraordinary phase of routine horror, a pervasive lethargy about the rights of men.
Never before in a western democracy have we known such a silence, such an emptiness.
The debate on capital punishment - whenever they have one in the USA - is about what form is more humane: gas, hanging, injection or electrocution.
Enough is enough.
We should try to bring back our American friends into the family of men through some practical means, maybe inviting millions of European tourists to visit only those few States without the death penalty: the snows of Vermont instead of the rolling hills of Virginia, the beaches of New England instead of the palm trees of Florida.
We should try anything to remind Americans of the immortal words of the poet: ' Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls.
It tolls for thee.'
Madam President, one of these days, one of these hours, in Richmond, in the Governor's Office in Virginia, one man, by a gesture of the hand, by a stroke of the pen, is going to determine whether another man is to live or die.
This is one of the dramatic and barbarous aspects of the dramatic, barbarous ritual of the death penalty.
This ritual is reminiscent of the dramatic, barbarous ritual of circuses in ancient times, when, in the Colosseum, one man, by a gesture of the hand, pointing his thumb upwards or downwards, determined whether another man was to live or die.
Then it was the applause of the circus audience that decided; today it is opinion polls, forecasts of electoral consensus.
I still believe and still ask that these barbarous games should stop once and for all, and that the death penalty should be abolished, because it is inhuman and completely ineffective as a deterrent against crime.
Life is sacred and no-one, not even a State, may kill.
Not even Cain deserved to be slain, and this is true of all those condemned to death.
To express this belief, on the recommendation of Amnesty International, people condemned to death are granted honorary citizenship of my city, Palermo, which for too long has been a city of death, affirming a culture of life.
In the case of Joseph O'Dell, an honorary citizen of Palermo, the situation is even more barbarous.
Even though there are doubts regarding his guilt, Governor Allen is refusing to order DNA tests.
Until such time as these games with the life or death of a human being cease, and the death penalty is abolished, we ask that tests should be carried out so that, at least, definite guilt, and not the dumb roar of the opinion polls, determines whether or not Joseph O'Dell will live.
If this appeal is not accepted, Joseph O'Dell will be killed on 23 July on death row in a Virginia jail, taking with him the doubts about his guilt and leaving not only Virginia but all of us with the shame of a murder on our hands.
I think that we must draw a very strong conclusion from these facts: the time has come for abolition of the death penalty to be included in the human rights clauses of European Union financial agreements.
Madam President, I should like to thank you for giving me the opportunity, anticipating your presidency, to speak on an issue which has stirred up a great deal of emotion in my country and throughout the European Union.
It is not, to be sure, the first time; we hope that, if not the last, then at least it will be one of the last times in which, in extremis , the actual legal situation of a person condemned to death is prevented from being verified.
Here we have a person declaring his innocence and asking to undergo DNA testing.
I think that, if only because of the appeals from such eminent quarters which have been lodged in this case, the Governor of the State of Virginia and the other authorities concerned cannot fail to be at least shaken in their certainty; within less than a week, a person, albeit innocent, could be killed.
In the European Union we regard it as a crime even for a guilty person to be killed by a State; when an innocent person is killed the crime is undoubtedly even more serious.
Let us hope that the Governor of the State of Virginia will at least take into account the appeal from the Pope, if not the appeals which have been made by individuals and Parliaments, Governments and moral authorities.
Why not make a very simple gesture to avert the risk of discovering later, in ten days' time, that an innocent man has been killed? We are not asking to take the place of the judges of the United States of America: we are simply asking for a gesture of wisdom, clemency and respect for human life.
Madam President, honourable colleagues, on 23 July - as we have been reminded - in the State of Virginia, an innocent man may be put to death.
What it is difficult to understand is that the condemned man has been denied the chance to have a DNA test carried out, a test he has been requesting for 12 years, in order to prove his innocence and allow the case to be clarified - the case, it would appear from the evidence, is a highly confused one.
We should bear in mind that one of the principal witnesses admitted having made up a statement and that the Supreme Court confirmed Joseph O'Dell's sentencing to death by a single vote.
By means of this resolution, we are not attempting solely to have the death penalty rejected and to have this House, in accordance with its repeated declarations, make a pronouncement, requesting that Joseph O'Dell's death sentence and that of four other citizens sentenced to death be commuted, but, first and foremost, we should like Joseph O'Dell to be given the opportunity to prove his innocence.
Our notion of the value of human life, all human life, moves us to join with all those who have stood up to ask for clemency for Joseph O'Dell and to formulate this solemn call to the Governor of the State of Virginia and the government of the United States not to commit yet another irreparable act.
Madam President, the case of Joseph O'Dell can be seen in two ways: first, as my colleagues have said, Joseph O'Dell may die an innocent man because American justice is making a point of not allowing a reassessment of the DNA evidence which would probably exculpate him; second, we see the O'Dell case as a symbol of what the death penalty in the United States and elsewhere in the world stands for today: the death penalty as revenge of the State, a State crime, an outrage, as exercise of authority and arrogance with regard to a human life.
We believe that this is a disgrace for the model of democracy and freedom which the United States represents today throughout the world, but above all we regard the O'Dell case - and this is why we must save him - as a symbol for all the death sentences which are pronounced every day, with no word from public opinion, in countries such as China, Iran, Sudan and many others.
That is why we must stop this State crime: it is a question of civilization!
Madam President, the USA is a model of democracy for the world and has long been seen as such.
But a repulsive form of punishment is still applied in the world's greatest democracy.
The death penalty is irrevocable.
Even so, discovering that the executed person was not guilty after the event is not such a rare occurrence.
The death penalty does not reduce the incidence of crime.
But it does lead to a brutalising of society.
The death penalty follows an old fashioned principle: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
But we do not punish a rapist with rape!
We here in Parliament are disturbed by the increasing number of executions in the USA.
We think that executions cast a shadow over President Clinton.
The O'Dell case is one that we find particularly disturbing.
The American judicial system has failed to inform him of the rights which he in fact has.
Parliament wants the USA to refrain from executing O'Dell - and all the others.
Madam President, colleagues, if there is one thing the European Parliament can be proud of, it is its resolute, unshakable conviction that the death penalty must be abolished worldwide, and that it must fight to ensure that the death penalty is not carried out where it exists under the legislation.
This is the case of the United States, the case of Joseph O'Dell, who at this time is of particular concern to us: a case in which, in addition to the feelings common in relation to all other executions which we seek to prevent, we have a well-founded certainty that the evidence of guilt is far from having been verified and that another DNA test is necessary and could exonerate the accused.
For all these reasons the will of Parliament which we are going to express is very important.
If this message, in addition to the Pope's, in addition to those of many men and women of good will, can reach the Governor of Virginia, I hope that there will be a chance of saving the life, on 23 July, of Joseph O'Dell, and with him of so many other prisoners under sentence of death on death row in American jails.
Madam President, the subject of the death penalty for those who commit serious crimes in the United States comes up in these topical and urgent debates with clockwork regularity, and today is no exception.
I have to admit that I cannot speak with any knowledge of the facts of this particular case - and I wonder who in this Chamber can actually do so.
I do not know of what horrific crime or crimes Mr O'Dell has been found guilty.
I do not even wish to express an opinion about the gratuitous statements in the resolution, which make it seem that the condemned man has not been given a fair trial, though I have to say that these statements about the lack of a fair trial appear in all the resolutions on the death penalty in the United States, which leads me to question their foundation.
I am not a blind admirer of the political or judicial system in the USA, but I refuse to accept that the courts there - the appeal courts and even the Supreme Court - would deal so lightly with death sentences and human lives.
Nor do I wish to express an opinion about the equally gratuitous statement in the resolution that the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent, a means of preventing crime.
I know that criminologists are debating this.
But one could certainly just as well argue that the death penalty has saved the lives of a great many innocent people - the victims of multiple repeat offenders, many of whom are walking around freely.
Basically, I simply wish to say that I come from a country where, to our horror, we learnt last year that convicted paedophile sadists, pathological child rapists and child murderers, were being released again after just a few months - at most a few years - and let loose upon society, even though any psychiatrist knows that these monsters cannot be cured and will create new victims.
Furthermore, I come from a country where the convicted child rapist and multiple repeat offender Dutroux was not only released after a few years, but was also given social benefits of 80 000 francs a month, benefits which he used - as was to be expected - to build dungeons in which fresh victims were tortured and murdered.
When I consider all this, I cannot honestly and in conscience approve this resolution, even though I personally am not a supporter of the death penalty.
However, I shall only be willing to hand out moral lessons to America when I am persuaded that in our country and on our own continent, the weak and the victims are properly protected against criminals, and at present that is not the case.
Madam President, we are voting for this resolution not only to confirm - as we always have - our opposition to the death penalty, a choice in favour of civilization which Parliament has made so many times, and out of the deep moral conviction we hold - the Pope recently, referring to this case, said that God alone is the master of Man's life and death - but because, in this case, we feel it our duty as Members of the European Parliament to add our own initiative to avert the risk of a miscarriage of justice.
We are indeed faced with the definite risk of judicial error, which has prompted so many reactions worldwide.
We know that, at this very time, an American judge, Judge Spencer, is about to take a final decision.
Only yesterday he said that much of the evidence against O'Dell was debatable and its authenticity unverified.
So, faced with these risks, we feel the duty, as Members of the European Parliament, to add our own initiative to ask the Governor of Virginia not to proceed with this execution before allowing further verification of the evidence, in particular the DNA evidence.
Everything that can be done to save the life of a single person must be done.
This is the spirit in which we are voting in favour of this resolution today.
Madam President, the macabre liturgy of State revenge is to be repeated for the nth time on 23 July.
On that date O'Dell will have ceased to be a problem for the justice of his country, but the problem for the human conscience of the 'legal' possibility of killing one's own kind will be aggravated.
I do not want to know whether O'Dell is innocent or guilty, just as I am not interested in establishing the innocence or guilt of all those who openly, semi-clandestinely or clandestinely have been put to death in the last twenty-four hours - with no intervention from the Pope, no intervention from the European Parliament, and no outcry from public opinion.
O'Dell must constitute a precedent, the nth precedent for modifying the still violent culture of a great country such as the United States.
The United States had the first democratic Constitution and, in many people's eyes, this country is an example to be followed in many fields.
Precisely because many, too many, of its states apply the death penalty, the US provides yet another excuse for those far less democratic communist countries which justify the existence of the death penalty in their more or less legal systems.
Kenya
Madam President, a few days ago a number of citizens who were peacefully demanding minimal institutional reforms for Kenya, necessary for the proper conduct of the forthcoming elections, were subjected to police brutality, resulting in the death of as many as seventeen people.
The destabilization of Kenya would constitute a most serious blow to human rights and could destabilize the whole region.
At least two things are therefore necessary.
Firstly, for everyone, and particularly the European Parliament, to condemn firmly the savage conduct of the Kenyan police, and, secondly, for us to give Kenya every possible assistance to enable free and fair elections to be held in that country.
Madam President, like Mr Fassa, I too believe that the inadmissible police repression of opposition demonstrations in Nairobi shows that the Kenyan regime is based on violence and the denial of human rights and civil and political rights.
I think that it is also right to ask for thorough constitutional reforms to be implemented in Kenya before the forthcoming presidential and administrative elections.
Without these reforms the elections will be a farce, and yet another enforced legitimization of the personal power of Arap Moi.
I ask the Council and the Commission to remind the Kenyan Government of Article 5 of the Lomé Convention, and at the same time to notify it of Europe's intention to suspend economic cooperation with Kenya if the regime continues to put down every request for political democratization with bloodshed.
It is quite clear that Kenya is suffering from a lack of democracy and that, through this week's demonstrations, the Kenyan people are asking for radical reforms.
I think that it is the European Union's responsibility to support this process; otherwise, our cooperation with that country may be useless.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the reports that reach us from Kenya are really far from satisfactory.
However, I should just like to make three points, and to put three questions to the opposition. Firstly, I have the impression that to some extent we are now achieving changes in the third world which did not occur in Central European states until the beginning of the 'nineties, in other words a shift in the blocks and regimes which were firmly established there and whose democratic legitimacy no one dared to shake or call into question.
These are now being examined.
Secondly, an opposition is not necessarily a protector of democracy.
Let us hope that the situation in Kenya is not similar to the one in Zaire.
Thirdly, we must take care to ensure that street fighting and demonstrations do not take on a momentum of their own, so that later, when what they are demanding has been introduced, they can no longer be halted.
Now I come to my three questions.
Firstly, the government accuses the opposition of not giving notice of rallies which were possible under the old law, which originated from the British colonial period, in order to give the impression, abroad, that they continue to be obstructed in their freedom of assembly.
Is that true, or has the Commission any information on this point?
Secondly, what is the opposition's position regarding their willingness to refrain from using force when the constitutional changes that have been announced come into force? Thirdly, what does the Commission intend to do in order to ensure that President Moi really does introduce the constitutional changes that he has announced?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard so many reports from Africa about violence, wars, or violent quarrels erupting during demonstrations, and now these reports are coming from Kenya too.
After a long period of colonial rule, and the transitional period that followed the period of colonial rule, it now seems necessary that we should offer these countries plans or support, whether financial in nature, or in the educational field, so that they really can find their way to democracy.
At the moment, the Lomé Convention is being renegotiated.
It should be our objective to lay down, in the new Lomé Convention, the precepts of democracy, and we should also make instruments available for that purpose.
For example, in these countries, people could be trained, and perhaps they could even come here and receive training in matters concerning administrative reforms or constitutional matters.
As far as Kenya is concerned, of course, it is not acceptable that demonstrations should be put down by force, regardless of whether the correct notification has been given or not.
I believe that what we have here are human rights that should be safeguarded.
We should be making it clear to Kenya, via the ACP Agreement and via existing cooperation with the EU, that in this area it must proceed by peaceful means.
Madam President, Article 5 of the Lomé Convention provides the essential framework for the characteristics required of every country for full accession to the Convention.
In signing it, all the ACP countries undertook to respect human rights and to set out on the road to democratization and good government.
The events of the last few days in Kenya show that this country and its regime are still a long way away from the minimum standards needed to qualify any country as democratic.
The popular drive for democracy and freedom of the individual is now being manifested forcefully throughout the African continent.
This has been the most important and positive new aspect of the situation in Africa for many years now, and could allow the whole continent to base its civil, social and economic development on a solid, agreed basis.
That is what was trying to emerge in Kenya, where opponents of the Arap Moi regime, in large demonstrations, called for legislative and constitutional reforms to allow the coming elections to be truly free and fair.
The brutal suppression of the demonstrations, which claimed many victims and was followed by a repressive wave of arrests, showed once more that the Kenyan regime appears to have no intention of accepting either freedom of expression or true democratization of the country.
Our Parliament must, therefore, strongly condemn the action by the Kenyan police, and all means of bringing pressure to bear must be implemented so that Kenya can turn a new page in its history.
For once we can express our support for the initiative of the international community, which, through the ambassadors of 19 countries in Nairobi, strongly condemned the tragic events and demanded that a process of democratic reforms be launched.
Developments in the Kenyan situation will, moreover, be of fundamental importance for the whole region, the region of East Africa and the Great Lakes, where more than ever there is a need to establish conditions of stability, democracy and development.
Peru
Madam President, Peru was previously in the news because of the hostages, but now there are other disturbing reports.
Freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial are being trampled underfoot.
I am referring to the existence of secret courts, the amnesty law which allows those who commit human rights abuses to go unpunished, threats to journalists and measures against any media which criticize the government, and the removal of three judges from the Constitutional Court by the Peruvian Congress - with the support of the government party - because of their opposition to a law which allows for the re-election of the great hero of the hostage-taking, Mr Fujimori.
All this conflicts with the principles on which a constitutional state must be based in 1997.
It must therefore be made clear to the Peruvian Government that, unless there is a change in the situation and a return to normal life, it will be difficult for the European Union to have normal relations with Peru.
Madam President, it is the twentieth anniversary of Peru's last national strike, and today strikers are taking part across the country in mass marches for the economic, social and legal rights which are denied to them.
Following this Parliament's delegation to Peru last September and the very serious reports given to us by Congressman Canseco in Brussels earlier this month, it is right that the European Parliament should today join with the protesters in expressing our concern about continuing and systematic human rights abuses in Peru.
Mr Conseco's testimony was made more poignant by the reports on Peruvian television last Sunday morning of an elaborate system of telephone-tapping by Peruvian security forces against opposition leaders and senior civil servants, including the government's own foreign minister, who I understand has now resigned.
It is in this context that we call for the reinstatement of the three judges removed from Peru's constitutional tribunal.
The failure to do so will be a clear signal that repeated international calls for judicial independence and respect for democratic norms in Peru have once again been ignored.
It is in this context, too, that we must today condemn the pattern of threats and attacks against the media in Peru, which seek only to report freely and fairly on the abuses that have taken place.
The bomb attack on the Global Television station in Puno last October, the physical assaults against three journalists from the En Persona television programme at Naña on 25 June, the ferocious attack against the political editor of the newspaper Ojo at San Miguel on 1 July, and this week's removal of Peruvian nationality from Baruch Ivcher, owner of Peru's TV Channel Two, represent an attack on independent journalism which should be prevented by constitutional safeguards.
Today, Europe adds its condemnation of the systematic use of brutal, physical torture by Peruvian security forces.
Whilst welcoming the extension of the work of the ad hoc commission advising on pardons for prisoners unjustly convicted of terrorism offences, we call for full judicial review of these cases, and for full compensation to be paid in accordance with international human rights laws.
Today we express our deep concern at Peru's long-standing failure to heed international protests against so-called faceless courts, which remain totally unacceptable to the international community.
Europe has its role to play in working with Peru to heal the divisions created by the mass poverty suffered in that country, not least with the aid for resettlement of internally displaced persons with which I am personally associated, but we can do so only on the basis of human rights guarantees from the government, which our debate today exposes as fundamentally lacking.
Madam President, at the time, we came out clearly against the kidnapping of a very important group of people in the Japanese Embassy.
However, we also condemned - we proposed a resolution, but this did not go forward - the way in which President Fujimori entered the Japanese Embassy and murdered - we should not mince words, here - those persons who were inside, giving them no opportunity for legal remedy.
This was, I believe, quickly forgotten and was not discussed further. However, unfortunately, those of an antidemocratic tendency, such as President Fujimori, demonstrate how the acts they committed at that time have their correlation in the threats made against journalists - as comrade Howitt has told us - against the Diario de la República , and against television and radio stations.
What is more, there have been unambiguous threats made against opposition leaders, such as Mr Díez Canseco, who was actually in Brussels for discussions with all political groups.
The reason behind the kidnapping has also been forgotten.
The reason was, in fact, the inhuman situation in Peru's prisons of more than five thousand political prisoners.
The European Union should look again at its relations both with Peru in this case and also with other countries in Latin America and examine how it should apply pressure to prevent a recurrence.
Mr Commissioner, I always look forward to your answers, but today I have to attend another meeting and must be on my way.
I look forward to reading your answer in the Minutes of the sitting.
Madam President, Peru has always been one of our problem children in Latin America.
First it was the economy, but that is doing rather better now.
It has always been terrorism, and this has now clearly reared its ugly head again.
Yet not everyone who attacks the government should be suspected of terrorist intrigues.
And now we are actually concerned about democracy in Peru.
In May, at the inter-parliamentary conference in Caracas, we had plenty of opportunity to talk to our colleagues from Peru.
Freedom of opinion is under threat, the independence of the judiciary is threatened by the current government, and we should like to call upon that government, as a matter of urgency, at least to respect the rules that are enshrined in the Peruvian constitution.
Only then can a balance be restored in that country between economic stability, the fight against terrorism, freedom of opinion and a renaissance of political life.
There is no doubt that the current president does not want to know about political parties, and the parties themselves are also very weak.
I believe, however, precisely because all our parties have links with Peru, that we should help and give warnings here.
With this in mind, my group will support the resolution.
Madam President, a few days ago, Baruch Ivcher was stripped of his Peruvian citizenship.
His crime? On his television channel, ' frecuencia latina' , he had reported on the tapping of telephones belonging to human rights activists and intellectuals.
In Peru at the present time there is neither freedom of the press nor freedom of opinion.
Anyone who expresses criticism of President Fujimori is putting his life in danger.
A female secret service agent was quartered because she denounced government attacks on the press.
Her lawyers were afraid for their own lives.
Justice in Peru is muzzled.
Three judges who considered a third re-election of President Fujimori to be unconstitutional were promptly prohibited from practising their profession.
The Supreme Constitutional Court is about to be dissolved.
The Peruvian system is increasingly coming to resemble a military dictatorship.
A presidential advisor called Montesinos, but known internationally as Narco-General, is firmly in control.
Courageous members of parliament, such as Xavier Diez Canseco, who visited us here in Parliament two weeks ago, have been and still are the victims of assassination attempts planned by people like Montesinos, and this has been proven.
Thousands of political prisoners are vegetating, without trial, in prisons that are an affront to human dignity.
Not even the Red Cross is allowed to visit them.
At the same time, an amnesty law protects the military personnel by giving them immunity from prosecution for their acts of violence and atrocities.
We had an opportunity last year, when we were there, of holding discussions with President Fujimori.
I can only say one thing: I have never experienced such an ice-cold, inflexible politician as him.
Even if he can point to economic successes, a system that is so undemocratic that it forces the population to be quiet in order not to be murdered can in no way be tolerated by us.
I expect the European Union to make any further cooperation with Peru conditional upon substantial improvements in the human rights situation and in democratization. Otherwise, we cannot continue to maintain our high expectations here.
Madam President, very unwillingly I cannot share the opinion of my friends Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and Mr Bertens. I have a rather different opinion on this subject.
When we talk about Peru today, we should never lose sight of what Peru looked like even as little as 10 years ago, and in what condition the country stood, when the acts of violence committed by criminal, terrorist organizations cost over 20, 000 innocent people their lives, and did incalculable damage both to society and to the economy.
If we look at Peru today, we see a country that is very probably making great efforts to institutionalize a system, which is putting a stop to terrorism, and which is trying to give back to its citizens a broad measure of confidence in their own country.
We should not forget that the government of Peru has, for example, set up a commission to examine all the judgments that have been given in connection with terrorism. In recent months, this commission has revised over 500 judgments.
We should also not forget that a military court has just convicted four officers for abusing their powers.
Peru is making enormous efforts to shake off the bad reputation that originated in its terroristovershadowed past, and I believe that at the present time we would be well advised not only to criticise - sometimes that is necessary - but also to encourage and to support.
Sexual mutilations in Egypt
Mr President, I am pleased that, finally, after a number of fruitless attempts to bring this subject before this House, we finally have a common resolution on female sexual mutilation.
Firstly, I wish vigorously to deplore and condemn the practice of sexual mutilation of women, both in Egypt and anywhere else that this execrable practice takes place.
Secondly, I would like to place on record that this practice, originating in Africa and connected with old and archaic traditions, is not objectively embraced by any religious doctrine or belief and therefore the clumsy manipulations which attempt to justify a totally unacceptable practice are to be condemned.
And, thirdly, I would vigorously ask the European Parliament and the European Union, via the relevant channels, to force those countries which carry on this practice to scrupulously respect human rights in general and the undeniable rights of women, on the basis of absolute equality.
Respect for the rights and dignity of women must be a firm and urgent requirement.
By fulfilling this resolution, we will be helping to improve the quality of life of many women and will be helping society in general and those people who carry on this practice to become more aware of what it genuinely represents.
I would therefore insist that it be fully upheld.
Madam President, after many struggles all that has been achieved so far must count as aquis , if we take into account the 1989 United National Convention on the Rights of Children, the 1995 Peking Conference on Womens' Rights, Article 4 of the Declaration on the Abolition of Violence against Women, the results of the International Conference in Cairo, and others.
And now, the Administrative court in Cairo proposes to allow public hospitals to carry out excisions in women, so reversing a decision of the Minister for Health which banned that operation.
What, then, was the point of all the conferences, declarations, conventions and decisions, when there is not even a rudimentary intervention to prevent extreme violations of human rights? We consider it unacceptable to use religion and custom as excuses for acts of violence against women, and much more so, against under-age girls who do not have the right of choice. what right does an Administrative Court have to go against human nature and human dignity?
The European Union has a duty to oppose such retrogression, which is being attempted mainly by Islamic fundamentalists once more against women, and should raise its voice to defend womens' rights which are after all human rights too.
The imposition of sexual excision in women supposedly for religious reasons is an act of barbarism, a violation against the laws of nature, it is the deprivation of a right with which nature has endowed women.
Besides, who can foresee the bodily and psychological consequences of so violent and unnatural an operation on the woman's organism? The European Union must undertake information campaigns in countries with which it is associated in any way, and has a duty of care to ensure that Member States ban the operation of excision within their domain.
Madam President, it is sad that we in Parliament have to speak out once again - and that there is reason for us to do so - against the genital mutilation which is still taking place across the world, and not just in Africa, as it is convenient for us to think.
This kind of practice is also taking place in Europe.
It is in fact a violation of women's rights and their control over their own bodies, and it simply cannot be tolerated.
We were therefore shocked when the Cairo Administrative Court set aside the ban which the Egyptian Government had imposed on genital mutilation.
I think it is right that Parliament should speak out against this, while saying at the same time that we must do everything to banish and take legal action against this genital mutilation, not least in our own Member States.
Madam President, I support many of the things that the previous speakers have said.
For women, this is one of the most serious violations imaginable, and it is not justified on either religious or medical grounds.
Unfortunately, in many areas of the world - not only in Europe, but also, to some extent, in Asia - it is regarded as a tradition, which we can deal with only by enlightenment.
It is one of the most delicate problems, when one is speaking to African women or women from these countries, because, basically, resistance must come from among the women themselves, with our help, so as to break with these traditions.
Therefore we really should do everything in order to contribute to this enlightenment.
We can only appeal to the Egyptian Government.
Egypt wants to be seen to be a modern country, a major, leading country in the region.
It is helpful to bring enlightenment and to challenge this tradition, which unfortunately the women in these countries also want to maintain.
Here too, we should see to it that, via our own channels, we do more to fight it than is already being done by the United Nations and UNICEF.
I condemn genital mutilation, Madam President, and as rapporteur on the association agreement with Egypt, I am disturbed by this court judgment.
However, the fact that the government is appealing against it is a good sign.
In my view, this illustrates the difficult campaign which President Mubarak is waging to keep his country out of the clutches of a fanatical orthodox religious group.
Confusing information - for example that chewing gum from Israel contained a sexually stimulating adrenalin substance - forms part of the continuing pattern of attempts by fanatics to gain control of the government.
It was reported recently in the 'Financial Times' that one militant Islamic organization was announcing a cease-fire after five years.
Egypt suffers from overpopulation and all the development problems which go with it.
It is part of the Middle East and an important country in terms of the peace process.
I would therefore draw a political conclusion: it is important for the EU to adopt and conclude the association agreement as quickly as possible, so that we can include Egypt permanently in our Mediterranean policy activities.
Madam President, female circumcision in Egypt poses an interesting legal problem for Parliament.
In countries with a western legal tradition, the administrative courts and Councils of State, where they exist, have the fundamental function of protecting citizens from abuses by the public authorities and Governments.
In Egypt precisely the opposite has occurred.
For that very reason it is absolutely essential for the European Parliament firmly to oppose this appalling practice, which is merely derived from case law, to protect both civilized legal culture not only in the West, but also worldwide, and all those resident in the European Union, bearing in mind - as some of our colleagues have been saying - that female circumcision is, I am sorry to say, also practised within some Member States of the Union.
We strenuously condemn the decisions by the Administrative Court of Cairo and the Egyptian Council of State, which bear witness once again to the further advance of fundamentalism in many countries - in the present case, through female circumcision, and elsewhere through the family code or acts of terrorism.
In condemning female circumcision, which is sometimes fatal and always causes lifelong disablement in terms of fully developed sexuality, a sexuality that allows and gives full value to pleasure and enjoyment - why not raise it to the status of a human right? - we shall be aiding the Egyptian Government and all Muslims who oppose the fundamentalists.
We must clearly show that these physical tortures entail a symbolic violence, as the anthropologist Maurice Godelier put it, alienating women and inducing them to re-enact these barbarous practices, as a way of justifying what some people refer to as 'cultural practices' since, they say, they are accepted and practised by women themselves.
Let us finally denounce the hypocrisy and cowardice, or at best the ignorance and thoughtlessness, of those who - even here - sometimes on a pretext of pseudo-tolerance take refuge behind respect for cultures and cultural practices and so cast doubt on the universality of human rights and respect for the physical integrity of any human being.
The judgement of the Administrative Court of Cairo, annulling the decision by the Egyptian Minister of Health to forbid the practice of female circumcision in Egypt's public hospitals, marks a step backwards in the struggle to prevent the sexual mutilation practised upon women in Egypt and elsewhere.
The Egyptian Government had reached a just decision, in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the proceedings of the international conferences on women held - in case we had forgotten - in Cairo and Peking.
We should, therefore, encourage the Egyptian Government to continue its efforts by lodging an appeal from a judgement that is at odds with the most fundamental human dignity.
But, quite apart from the problem now confronting the Egyptians, we must bear in mind that circumcision practised on women is far from having been eradicated from the world.
In the 1980s UNICEF launched a campaign against it, but the struggle is, sadly, still continuing.
Even within our own Member States, this practice, although prohibited, has many followers who are very often shown culpable leniency.
Because, I say again, respect for bodily integrity is a fundamental right of a human being and, ladies and gentlemen, no tradition and no religion can justify a violation of that right.
Tunisia
Madam President, Tunisia is officially a democracy, but it certainly is not yet one in reality.
The economic modernization of this country has indeed improved living conditions for Tunisians, but not their opportunities for actually exercising their political and civil rights.
A peculiar form of persecution has grown up in this country: any person not identifying him or herself with the dominant party is actually prevented by the authorities and even by individuals from exercising such fundamental rights as freedom of movement and freedom of expression, although in theory these rights are recognized.
This is demonstrated by the case of Mr Chamari, who certainly cannot be prevented from returning to his country just because he took part in a meeting with representatives of the European Parliament.
So not only the exercise of democracy in Tunisia, but also, and above all, the dignity of this Parliament and of the European Union as a whole are at stake.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, though we are dealing with the resolution on Tunisia today, that is not because the situation in Tunisia is particularly bad.
There are many countries in which human rights abuses are altogether worse and more extensive.
But we regard Tunisia as our neighbour, our friend, and we are particularly critical towards our neighbours in North Africa who find themselves in a difficult and precarious position.
We are convinced that the economic and social development of every country, including Tunisia, is crucially dependent on the parallel development of human rights.
And on this point I should like to say quite clearly that in the past there have been very positive developments in this area.
I should also, however, like to say equally clearly that in recent times we have experienced certain events which we are not exactly overjoyed about.
Amongst other things, a member of a political organization who took part in a colloquium in Brussels was treated very roughly, to put it mildly, on his return home, and in this as in other cases, differing accounts are given as to what happened.
We believe that Tunisia should in fact be a symbol, a test case for free, democratic development in North Africa.
If there is one means of opposing extremism, one means of opposing radical fundamentalism, one means of opposing tendencies towards isolation and dictatorship, then that means is the safeguarding of human rights, and the positive development of human rights, and this seems to us, particularly in Tunisia, to be possible, achievable and very necessary.
Madam President, I believe that Parliament is finally living up to the declarations of friendship it has made towards Tunisia.
For the first time, it is telling things the way they are, and I believe that is important, and that it should be emphasized.
There is in fact a paradox in Tunisia.
On the one hand we have genuine economic and social progress, and the very specific declarations made by President Ben Ali, but on the other hand we have a deteriorating situation with regard to human rights and lack of progress towards democracy.
So I believe it is important that, as a sign of genuine friendship, Parliament should say these things to the Tunisian Government and authorities, so that our dialogue can be based on reality and not on imaginary situations or pious hopes.
I think that if we take that as our starting point, we can develop more constructive relations with Tunisia.
A lot of hard work will be needed.
We are going to have to be very firm with our Tunisian friends, with the authorities, and we should not hesitate to take every opportunity to remind them that what happened to Mr Chamari and what happened to Mr Moada are certainly not encouraging signs for the purposes of closer relations with the European Union.
Madam President, I too subscribe to what my colleagues have said and I am astonished that, in a country like Tunisia, where there has been economic progress and an improvement in the living conditions of the population, proper democratization of the country has not developed at the same time.
On the contrary, in addition to the acts of intimidation and aggression that have already been mentioned, there have been other acts of intimidation, such as persistent recourse to the death penalty, indiscriminate restriction of the possibility of leaving the country, and even the threat of being banned from return to one's own country, as in the case of Mr Chamari.
For all these reasons, and also because we want Tunisia to be a reference point in an area like the Mediterranean, which is particularly at risk, we think that it should constantly be borne in mind that the cooperation which the Union has entered into with the countries of the area is subject to respect for human rights, and is impossible without a proper process of democratization.
Madam President, as a member of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to point out that use of this urgent parliamentary procedure in connection with a partner country such as Tunisia is inappropriate and counter-productive - a parliamentary dialogue should have taken place first.
If we proceed in this manner, we could easily give rise to a lack of understanding and we are well aware that mutual lack of understanding is the worst enemy of partnership. There is a risk of provoking a confrontation between institutions, between parliaments, and this is contrary to and harms the spirit of mutual agreement of the Euro/Mediterranean partnership.
The European Union Tunisia Association Agreement must develop over a specific period of time.
It has not yet been ratified.
Is it not, then, premature for us to be expecting results? The period of time set is twelve years.
We cannot prematurely demand all the results before the agreement has seen the light of day and entered into force.
So, when taking stock, we also have to take stock of the progress that has been achieved.
It is worth mentioning that, just a few days ago, approval was given to a law reinforcing popular sovereignty and, also, progress is being made in the area of representation of women and young people.
This is also significant and I would therefore stress that, if we are seeking a fruitful dialogue, we have to use the appropriate procedure through parliamentary channels.
Early parliamentary dialogue, before any of the institutions - the European Parliament or the Tunisian Assembly - is able to make a unilateral pronouncement.
This is the normal way for partners to behave.
Madam President, Tunisia was one of the first countries with which an association agreement was concluded and for years has set an example of moderate policy.
The country lies sandwiched between the dictatorship of Libya and Algeria, a country where there is terrorism.
I too am concerned at the growing number of events which have no place in a state based on the rule of law.
However, like Mrs Izquierdo Rojo and Mr Soulier, I believe that precisely because of our good relations with Tunisia, we should have discussed this with all the authorities there at a different level, a parliamentary one.
My group is therefore completely unable to support the resolution as it stands at present.
The country is now being stigmatized and thereby also gaining an undeserved image which plays into the hands of the fanatical orthodox Islamic groups, and that is exactly what we do not want.
Unfortunately, Madam President, my group cannot support this resolution.
Madam President, I should like to respond immediately to Mr Soulier and Mrs van Bladel.
I am quite dumbfounded.
The aim of this resolution is to send some positive ideas to the Tunisian Government, and not just to express condemnation.
However, when Mr Soulier - as chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and representative of a large group of Christian Democrats which has just argued against us finally discussing Algeria once again here in the House - dares to say that we should not be talking about Tunisia but Algeria, then I am quite staggered.
I can imagine that some of my French colleagues here are rather cautious as regards their former colony.
Madam President, by adopting a resolution on 22 May 1996 on human rights violations in Tunisia, this House helped to bring about certain positive results.
The two MDS MPs, Mr Moada and Mr Chamari, have been freed, as have various opposition members and trade unionists.
Unfortunately, those concessions have been limited and specific, and the violations of human rights have continued.
Deprived of passports - this is what actually happened, Mr Soulier - or under pressure, the persons invited by those who set up the meeting of 11 June at the European Parliament were unable to attend.
They were also targeted by a violent media campaign, which actually went so far as to demand that some of our guests should be stripped of their Tunisian nationality.
Mr Moada, the former MDS MP, who has been under house arrest since his release - and this is what actually happened - was recently molested by the police officers responsible for his surveillance.
He is currently in hospital, and I for my part do not recognize any hierarchy when it comes to respect for human rights.
The information and communication media are still under high-level surveillance, prompting the World Press Association to vote to exclude the Tunisian Press Association for its failure to defend the freedom of the press.
This House has no intention of becoming a court of law, nor of adopting a didactic stance, but we would call the attention of the Tunisian Government to its failure to comply with the commitments it entered into in the association agreement with the European Union, which are based on respect for democratic principles and human rights.
That is the essential subject of this debate and of the compromise motion for a resolution of which I am a joint signatory, in the hope that the Tunisian Government will put an end to its policy of harassment and restriction of liberty against defenders of human rights and will respect freedom of opinion, expression and association.
Dealing first of all with the question of the death penalty on Joseph O'Dell in the United States, anybody who heard the debate will have great respect for the strength of feeling expressed by so many Members of the House and the force of the arguments put forward.
The text of the resolution does not actually ask the Commission any questions and so the Commission should not take a position on the precise terms of the resolution.
It is normally its practice not to comment on specific cases of this kind.
But the Commission would like to stress that it is very sensitive to the issue of the death penalty and takes the view that the guarantees laid down in the international pact of civil and political rights and other international instruments should be properly respected.
That international pact forbids the arbitrary application of the death penalty.
With regard to Kenya, the European Commission participated in the framework of the Donors' Democratic Development Group in Kenya in the drafting of a joint declaration on free and fair elections later this year in Kenya.
This declaration emphasizes the importance of access to the ballot, access to the electorate, access to information and freedom of assembly.
It is those four points which amount to an irreducible set of conditions to arrive at free and fair elections in Kenya.
We were asked what have we done about it.
The declaration was handed over to President Moi on 6 May.
It was agreed that the Donors' Democratic Development Group would meet regularly with the highest Kenyan authorities to have a dialogue on basic questions relating to the forthcoming elections in Kenya.
That resulted in another meeting with the President on 1 July.
Currently the group is working out recommendations with regard to election monitoring and an expert financed by the European Commission as part of the technical team assisting the Donors Democratic Development Group.
The events which took place last week in Kenya, which reference has been made to in the debate, prove that the situation is deteriorating and that the need for dialogue between the government, the opposition and the donor community is all the more important.
It is in that context that the statement of the European Union Member States and the Commission, made public on 9 July in Nairobi must be seen.
The European Union underlined its concern about the escalation of political violence and reiterated its earlier statements that Kenyans must be able to exercise their democratic rights in a peaceful environment.
The European Union renewed its call to all parties concerned - government and those advocating reform - to refrain from violence and to resort to peaceful means to settle political issues.
Turning to the question of Peru, the Commission shares the concerns relating to the resignation of the three judges of the constitutional court and takes note of the points made with regard to human rights and press freedom in Peru.
The situation in Peru is monitored closely by the Commission which, in accordance with the positive approach adopted by the European Union, is doing everything in its power to support efforts to promote and safeguard human rights in the country.
It is only fair to take account of what Mr Habsburg-Lothringen said, namely that whatever the problems may be, the situation in Peru is very different from what it was some years ago.
Nonetheless the Commission hopes that the current state of affairs will not pose a threat to the independence of the judiciary and shares Parliament's concern for freedom of expression and the hopes that the Peruvian Government will take steps to ensure freedom of expression and of the press.
It is important to continue to support action, to consolidate institutional independence and to ensure genuine democracy.
With regard to the situation in Egypt, the Commission fully agrees with the outright condemnation of the practice of female genital mutilation in Egypt and, for that matter, in any other country.
In order to help eradicate this practice the Commission is considering a number of ways to exercise a positive influence such as information and publicity campaigns, seminars, training of councillors and medical personnel and education campaigns, especially in rural areas.
This issue should be tackled by means of an extensive long-term campaign for which the support of political and religious leaders and health authorities is necessary in order to make it effective.
The Commission will encourage actions with that goal in mind including the very important work of UNICEF against this practice.
The debate on Tunisia was somewhat different from some of the earlier debates in this section of the afternoon's proceedings in this sense: as far as Tunisia was concerned, the House was not united in its view.
Three speakers spoke against the criticism of the Tunisian Government.
The Commission is closely monitoring the statements concerning measures taken against opposition members of parliament or members of civil society in Tunisia.
It is of the opinion that all means, including diplomacy, should be used to ensure that there is nothing done to prejudice the observance of human rights and democratic principles.
The Commission welcomes the assent given by Parliament to the European Union Tunisia Association Agreement which the Commission negotiated with Tunisia, which was signed in July 1995 and which will enter into force after the forthcoming ratification by the remaining three Member States of the European Union.
This agreement contains two major innovations: on the one hand, respect for human rights and democratic principles becomes a central element of the accord; on the other, a political dialogue on subjects of common interest is instituted.
This agreement should be seen in the light of the political and security components of the Barcelona Conference which launched the Euro/Mediterranean partnership in November 1995.
It is relevant also to point out that we are not just a passive spectator of the scene.
In 1996 the Commission funded sixty-two projects to promote democracy and human rights benefitting all the partners in the southern and eastern Mediterranean, including Tunisia.
I know there have been no speakers with regard to the Philippines, but there is a resolution.
I would say in response that the Commission welcomes the negotiations between the National Democratic Front and the Philippines Government to settle their long-standing dispute.
The talks are currently stalled.
Personally, and on behalf of the Commission I would suggest the inclusion of a paragraph in the present resolution encouraging both parties to resume the talks as soon as possible.
We have been providing assistance in some of the areas where the NDF has been active.
All our rural development projects in the Philippines are in the poorest parts of the country, seeking specifically to help those who are worst off.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on motions for resolutions by the following Members:
Bertens, André-Léonard, Fassa and Frischenschlager, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on anti-personnel mines (B4-0596/97); - Dupuis, Dell'Alba and Macartney, on behalf of the ARE Group, on anti-personnel mines (B4-0625/97); - Moreau, Alavanos, Manisco and Puerta, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on anti-personnel mines (B40648/97); - Günther, Fabra Vallés and Cushnahan, on behalf of the PPE Group, on a convention completely banning anti-personnel mines (B4-0660/97); - Swoboda and Vecchi, on behalf of the PSE Group, on anti-personnel mines (B4-0677/97); - Telkämper, Hautala and McKenna, on behalf of the V Group, on anti-personnel mines (B4-0691/97).
Madam President, I would first like to raise a point of order.
You said that there were no speakers on the Philippines, but I have checked and I was in fact down to speak for one minute to say what has indeed now been said by Sir Leon Brittan.
So matters are in hand in that respect.
During this debate on anti-personnel mines, 25 people are likely to be killed by such a weapon.
Meanwhile, the demand from us as a society for the banning of anti-personnel mines and the trade in them has grown into a debate.
I too am pleased that the Canadian Government has taken the Ottawa initiative, which has been followed up by the Brussels Declaration.
In Oslo, the final touches are now being put to a fully fledged convention, which is likely to be signed by more than 100 countries in December.
I am also delighted that the Council and the Commission have shown that, as far as they are concerned, their heart is in the right place.
In the short time which I have as an author to speak about the banning of anti-personnel mines, I should like to take the opportunity to say that my group will vote in large numbers for the amendment to the resolution saying that we regret that Finland and Greece, two European Union countries, have not signed the Brussels Declaration for their various reasons.
We think that is wrong, and so we are supporting this amendment.
Mr President, we are all aware of the importance of this convention, which could be signed in Oslo at the end of this year.
There is one fly in the ointment, as Mr Bertens has just said - there may be some confusion in the minds of our Finnish friends, who seem to be confusing anti-tank and anti-personnel mines.
It might be as well for the Commission to send a few experts to explain to them that, on their Russian border, the problem of Russian tanks cannot be solved with anti-personnel land mines.
Similarly, someone could explain to our Greek friends that there is a difference between anti-personnel land mines and naval mines, and again it might be appropriate to send a few experts to explain the details.
Having said that, I believe it is important to be unanimous, in other words that Finland and Greece should join with the other thirteen States of the Union, so that it will be the Union as such that unanimously defends this position on a convention which is really of the greatest importance.
Madam President, the Brussels conference on landmines, which has already been mentioned, impressed all those who were able to attend it.
We were also able, at that conference, to record a small success, inasmuch as the disarmament conference on conventional weapons, which was happening in Geneva at the same time, finally agreed to appoint a coordinator for landmine clearance, something that had been on the agenda for a long time.
On the question that has been raised regarding Greece/Finland, I should just like to say one thing. What we say should be true, but we do not always have to say everything that is true.
With this in mind, I should like to argue that we should not agree to this amendment.
Instead, we should seek to persuade these two countries to overcome their reservations and join the other 13 countries - and this is something that I would welcome very much - in signing the Brussels declaration.
I do not think, however, that on this account they should now be given special mention in the resolution.
Mr Bertens, at the press conference in Brussels, gave a clear indication that this would be the case.
A second point, which is very dear to my heart, is the clearance of mines, because one thing is connected with another.
Here we are looking, above all, at the possibilities offered by mechanical landmine clearance.
However, I would ask the Commission to ensure that the funds earmarked from the Community budget for mine clearance should again be set at the same level as in the 1997 budget, so that we can continue our work.
It is not only a matter of mines in Africa and Asia, but in the meantime we have also seen this scourge on the EU's own doorstep, in Eastern Slavonia, and we cannot send refugees back to an area where mines have been laid.
Therefore I would earnestly entreat the Commission to take action on this issue.
Madam President, not least thanks to the constant, courageous initiative of the European Parliament, the campaign for a total ban on anti-personnel landmines is gaining ground and could lead to significant results.
Anti-personnel landmines are, we would like to stress, probably the most dangerous and deadly weapons in existence today, because they no longer have any real military purpose, but they strike civilian populations indiscriminately, leaving thousands dead and disabled every year, and rendering whole regions unusable for decades.
In many countries of the world, even if the political conditions can be achieved to bring conflicts to a close, the presence of thousands of landmines prevents the return to conditions of security and development for millions of people.
Despite the opposition of certain large countries outside the European Union, the negotiating process to conclude an international treaty for a total ban on landmines is already under way, and the European Union and all its Member States must support it effectively and take a very active role in it.
The Council Decision of 1 October 1996 provided an initial political basis for a European initiative in this matter, but today this needs both to be given concrete form internally, through the assumption of binding commitments to abolish anti-personnel landmines in all European States, and to be updated in international terms, through the adoption of a strong political initiative.
Ninety-seven countries have already signed the Brussels Declaration, and in September in Oslo a major milestone in the negotiation process will be reached within the framework of the Ottawa process.
Now all Member States, without exception, must join and support this process, by signing the Brussels Declaration, and the Council must adopt a joint initiative along those lines.
It is necessary to foster the broad participation in Oslo of governmental and non-governmental representatives and to support the draft treaty for a total ban on antipersonnel mines, and strengthen its scope as regards assistance to victims of these devices.
We ask the Commission and the Council to intensify their action to ensure that the blocking of the trade in landmines is scrupulously adhered to and that mine-clearing operations and action in support of populations affected by the consequences of landmines are strengthened.
Madam President, it has already been mentioned here that Finland and Greece have not signed the Brussels agreement or declaration on a complete ban on landmines.
In my opinion it will be a very good thing if the European Parliament deplores this.
As you know, my Group supports the idea of mentioning Finland and Greece explicitly in this resolution, and has in fact proposed this.
Unfortunately, Mrs Günther, even in this house there are undoubtedly Finns who think that whatever is left unsaid is simply not true; you have said yourself that not everything which is so needs to be said.
Many Finns believe that Finland's eastern border cannot be defended without landmines.
Commissioner, may I ask you whether you think there is any aspect of the use of landmines to defend Finland's eastern border which concerns the European Union?
It is, after all, an external border of the European Union.
I know that this is a very sensitive issue, but nonetheless I should like to ask you about it.
The Commission has used its influence and resources on a very considerable scale to help overcome the anti-personnel landmine tragedy.
The forthcoming Oslo conference is the opportunity for states to negotiate a convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel landmines.
It is the opportunity to transform the political support expressed by 97 states at the Brussels conference into an international legally-binding treaty to be signed in Ottawa in December.
The European Union is fully committed to the goal of the total elimination of anti-personnel landmines and all Member States will be represented, either as full participants or as observers, at Oslo.
Of course it is a matter of regret that two members of the Union do not currently feel able to subscribe to the total ban.
But this should not obscure the enormous contribution that the European Union has made on this issue.
We are the largest single contributors to the UN voluntary trust fund - over ECU 10m in the last three years.
Apart from the UN's effort we are the world's largest sponsor of mine actions in all the most afflicted countries - ECU 75m in the last three years.
We have programmes for the development of new technologies for mine detection and we have responded to the call for more assistance to the victims of mines with a pledge of ECU 1.4m to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
We will continue our major contribution to the financing of actions relating to anti-personnel mines, taking account of the overall limitations on the Community budget.
The conclusion of the banning treaty in Ottawa will be a great achievement.
I hope that all the mine-afflicted countries will be signatories.
But that will not be the end of the process.
Our work will not be completed until there is an effective global ban implemented by all states; until all mines are cleared from areas of habitation and economic use; until all victims of mines are properly cared for.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on motions for resolutions by the following Members:
Papakyriazis and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on forest fires and the disaster in the forest of Thessaloniki (B4-0611/97); - Papkyriazis, Theonas and Alavanos, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the fires in Greece (B40647/97); - Trakatellis and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on disasters and fires in Greece (B4-0663/97); - Daskalaki and Kaklamanis, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the fires in Greece (B4-0695/97); - Ewing and Macartney, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the floods in Scotland (B4-0623/97); - Habsburg-Lothringen and Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the recent environmental disaster in Austria (B4-0658/97); - Robles Piquer and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the damage caused by the violent storms in Chile (B4-0659/97); - Kristoffersen, Habsburg-Lothringen and Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the disastrous floods in Poland and the Czech Republic (B4-0665/97).
Madam President, the motion we have tabled says it all and I do not have anything to add.
We support it.
I would just like to ask the Commissioner three questions:
First, does he not think it is time to get on with something we have been talking about for a long time, namely Community coordination of efforts to prevent and fight forest fires? Possibly by means of the much-discussed Centre for Fire Protection, which we have talked about for so long and which we would very much like to see established in Greece.
Secondly, can the Commission guarantee that it will finance any supposed or actual development plans based directly or indirectly on areas previously occupied by forests that have been burned?
Thirdly, our motion makes frequent mention of Regulation 308/97. Commissioner, has the Greek Government submitted plans for the prevention of fires up to next November, as it should, so that it can be helped by the Community to implement them?
Madam President, every year, in Greece and other Mediterranean countries in the Community as well, vast areas of forest are destroyed by fire.
The fires in the last few days in Greece were particularly devastating, especially the one near Thessaloniki, Europe's cultural capital, which destroyed more than half of the beautiful cedar-covered hill which was the city's only lung.
For that reason we ask the Commission:
Firstly, to provide immediate economic aid to help those affected and restore the damage.
Secondly, to make full use of every option available within the scope of the relevant programmes, such as INTEREG II C and Regulation 308/97, for preventive action and more effective fire-fighting measures in the Community's high-risk areas.
Thirdly, to provide in future the possibility of funding from the Cohesion Fund for activities and programmes of reforestation in previously forested areas that have been burned.
Fourthly, to realise that protection of the environment and of our forests is exceedingly important, and that the Community ought at last to strive for an overall forest protection and reforestation policy, granted that forest fires are disasters which cost a great deal in both economic and ecological terms.
Fifthly and lastly, to go ahead with the creation of a European Centre for Fire Protection for the systematic study and application of new technical methods of forest protection and fire-fighting, which could have its headquarters in Greece.
Madam President, as has already been said, in recent years the South of Europe burns every summer and is flooded every winter.
And we come back here and say the same things every time.
In Greece, as we heard at the beginning of July, the forest around Thessaloniki was burned, and very many cultivated areas in the Peloponnese and elsewhere were also burned.
So what is to be done? First of all, there must be assistance and economic aid for those who sustained great damage, but that is not enough.
The Member States should of course adopt the necessary measures, but what has happened so far about all that the European Parliament has proposed and the Commission has supposedly approved? What happened to our resolutions of September 1994 and September 1995, in which we called for joint action, a European Centre for Forestry Policy, and means for the training of those responsible at local level for fire-fighting?
A campaign is needed to inform citizens, but the Commission should also monitor the efficacy of the measures adopted.
Some things were said by Mr Papayannakis, and I will not repeat them.
In the context of its effort to protect Europe's environment, the Commission should do whatever is needed to prevent and ban building on burned-out forest areas and to prevent the related profiteering and criminal activities.
The Mediterranean is a high-risk area, especially in the summer, and in the resolution we call for integrated fire protection plans for forests.
We also call on the Commission, at last, to develop a global prevention strategy, working along with the Member States but also supervising them in some way.
We also ask it to develop mechanisms to make that strategy effective.
Madam President, Commissioner, as you know, in the last few days there has been a great wave of bad weather sweeping over Europe, which has left flooding and devastation in its wake, and in some cases, as we have learned from the news, is still doing so, for example along the German-Polish border.
One of the countries most seriously affected by this disaster is Austria.
In Lower Austria and Styria, whole rows of valleys and regions were cut off from their surroundings for days on end, huge areas of crops have been destroyed, thousands of homes have been flooded, and the infrastructure, such the telephone service etc., is in some cases still not working.
The damage in Lower Austria alone is currently estimated at over one billion Austrian schillings.
I am convinced that now is the time to show European solidarity with those affected.
I very much hope that the Commission in particular is now exploring every possibility of providing, where possible, rapid and nonbureaucratic assistance.
Madam President, natural disasters do not only happen in the Old World.
We should spare a thought for other people.
After a long period of drought in Chile - a country which one of its writers described as a geographical aberration - there has been terrible flooding, high winds and snowfalls.
Seven regions in the centre of the country, almost two thirds of the country's area, have been affected: 60, 000 people have been made homeless; about thirty people have been killed and many hundreds of people cut off.
Logically, a state of emergency has been declared.
I believe that we, given that we have a specific cooperation agreement with Chile - a country which has always set a good example in terms of political and economic life in recent years - should demonstrate our sympathy for that country's tragic circumstances and that the Commission should - it has certainly already done so or will be doing so - attempt to coordinate aid from the various European governments, contribute its own aid and thereby improve a situation which, if we were to look beyond our own borders, cannot fail to move us.
Madam President, the various disasters in Austria, which have just been mentioned, also affected the Czech Republic and Poland, particularly at the beginning, and these two countries are still suffering as a result.
We often adopt solidarity resolutions, but we should remember that we have an obligation, in the first place, to European countries, which share our culture and history, particularly when those countries have suffered so much in recent decades.
For it is, in particular, those nations that lay under Soviet occupation who have paid the real price of the Second World War.
In such cases we should express our solidarity clearly, and in as non-bureaucratic a manner as possible.
Bureaucratic assistance is never as good as spontaneous, active assistance.
Madam President, with regard to the tight economic situation in Poland and the Czech Republic, it is a very heavy burden, in terms of social equilibrium, that these two countries should now have to cope, in addition, with the consequences of this environmental disaster.
It is particularly hard on people who have lost what they toiled so hard for.
Environmental disasters do not have purely natural causes.
It is not enough to bewail such disasters; it is also up to us in the West to take preventive measures on behalf of the East and the South.
I am referring here to Rio + 5, and the unfortunate fact that it was still not possible to agree on CO2 consumption, which of course needed to be reduced, by a definite figure, in order to prevent environmental disasters from happening in future.
I should also like to ask the Commissioner why the Commission has still not taken any steps, within INTERREG, which is used, for example for cooperation on the 'renaturing' of rivers, in order to seek to obtain a joint fund.
There is still the difficulty of financing joint projects in a manner which really is uncomplicated.
I should like to ask you to give us an answer on that point.
All I can say is, hands off the concreting of river banks!
It should not happen, because that is what leads to such disasters, and therefore the Commission should not pay out a penny for concreting river banks, for example the R. Havel in Brandenburg, in the context of the trans-European river network scheme.
Madam President, firstly on behalf of the Commission, I should like to extend our sympathy to the victims of the storms which have hit regions of the United Kingdom, of Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic and the forest fires in Greece, and also extend our sympathy to those affected by the recent floods in Chile.
Turning first to the European Union Member States concerned, the 1997 budget does not carry any appropriations for emergency aid for disaster victims in the Community as the item B 43400 was given only a token entry for the second year running.
As regards the damage caused to agricultural production potential and to economic and productive structures, we are able, under the existing procedures, to examine any proposal that may be made by the authorities of the Member State concerned for a structural fund assistance within the financial allocations set and by redeployment of these allocations.
But it is not the purpose of the structural funds to provide compensation for damage caused by natural disasters.
Their support can be no more than indirect.
That means that it is up to the competent authorities in the Member States to take an imaginative view of things and to put proposals forward that priority should be given to the disaster areas in the allocation of general aid for economic development.
That really is what I can offer for countries such as Austria.
They have to take the initiative in that way.
With regard more specifically to protection of forests against fires, the Council earlier this year extended the Community fire prevention action for five years.
Its purpose is to help Member States improve their fire protection system by financing studies into the causes of fires and prevention, monitoring and personnel training measures, provided that these measures are part of a comprehensive plan to protect forests against fires.
Under this Community action ECU 12.8m was granted to 54 projects presented by the Greek authorities for the period 1992 to 1996 and in addition on 9 July last the Commission approved the assistance of ECU 2.35m for five Greek projects, all of which came under the Greek national forest fire protection plan.
The entire Greek territory was classified as a high fire risk area by the Commission in 1993.
The Commission is responsible for the coordination of this action in close collaboration with the Standing Forestry Commission.
That involves the application of the Community information system which is becoming an excellent instrument for evaluation protection arrangements and exchanging information.
It should also be added that the regional development and operational programmes adopted for Greece for 1994-1999 also provide for forestry protection measures and reafforestation measures.
It is up to the national authorities to re-order their priorities if necessary in the light of the needs that have been expressed.
With regard to the torrential rainfalls in the Moray region of Scotland, the structural funds do not contain a reserve allowing for an additional financial allocation to the area affected.
But the area is eligible for structural funds assistance.
Neither of the programmes covering the Moray area mention any such assistance for the construction of suitable flood prevention infrastructures.
But both of these programmes contain a priority targeted on the enhancement and protection of the natural environment which is one of the area's major assets.
Should the Scottish authorities consider assistance to the area to be a top priority, the Commission along with the local partners is ready to take into consideration any type of environmental management scheme which would minimize the adverse impact of these rainfalls and ensure long-term sustainability while supporting economic development.
I very warmly welcome the interest shown by Parliament and share its concern with regard to the grave consequences of the floods affecting mainly Poland and the Czech Republic.
For my part I fully share the sentiment that has been expressed as to what we should do and why we should do it.
It therefore gives me particular pleasure to tell the European Parliament that we have reacted to this crisis by adopting on 14 July, three days ago, a decision to provide humanitarian assistance worth ECU 500, 000 to the groups worst affected by the floods in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
The aid, managed by the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO) is being made available in response to an appeal from the International Federation of Red Cross Societies and it will enable them to organize emergency aid operations immediately and without bureaucracy.
The Commission grant will provide funding for food aid, drinking water and essential relief supplies such as bedding and hygiene items.
This decision covers funding for a relief operation to take place over the next three months.
So I hope it will be immediate and practical.
In close coordination with the authorities of the countries concerned, we are prepared to consider requests for providing further assistance from other Community resources, notably through the PHARE programme and some high-level contacts are currently taking place in that context.
With regard to Chile, which Mr Robles Piquer mentioned, we have been following the situation closely and were prepared to provide funding for an emergency operation but, in the absence of appeals from either the Chilean authorities, the international organizations or the European non-governmental organizations and having received assurances from the Chilean authorities that they were in control of the situation, we have not intervened.
But we have released funds available under an ongoing project in Chile co-financed by the government of Chile.
A total of 60 million Chilean pesos was thus made available to meet the immediate needs of the flood victims and that was done at the request of the Chilean authorities and after consultation with the embassies of the Member States in Santiago.
Thank you, Sir Leon Brittan.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, the Commissioner has not given us any answer on the subject of INTERREG 2c.
The question was, whether the Commission would be willing to use INTERREG 2c as one fund in future, and not to let it carry on as two separate funds, INTERREG and PHARE, so as to make it easier for joint projects to be funded.
Madam President, that would involve a change in policy.
I am not in a position to announce that today but I will draw your suggestion to the attention of my colleagues who are specifically responsible for these projects.
The topical and urgent debate is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.23 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
We now come to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Votes (continuation)
Mr President, concerning this split vote on paragraph 13, I know Parliament was very pleased that this report was deferred from the last session so the rapporteur could be here and not in the British House of Commons.
If she is here at this point, could she clarify that she is in favour of all parts of this split vote.
We are not actually voting on paragraph 13.
Because of the adoption of Amendment No 1 there is no vote on paragraph 13: it falls.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I should like to inform those Members who have not, perhaps, examined the motions carefully, but have merely followed the voting lists, that we have adopted one motion in which the Commission is asked to bring civil law into line with criminal law.
That would look very strange to any lawyer, and I feel that it is regrettable that Parliament is not more accurate when it comes to legal matters.
Mr President, when a rapporteur tells us something, it has to correspond to what is in the amendment, and those two words are not used here.
I would therefore like to point that out.
Well, let us not have a theological debate.
Mr President, having consulted the majority of members of the Commission and the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the response of those members having been positive, I would like to present an oral amendment to recital FF in which the three words 'the ISMERI company' should be replaced by the words 'one of the companies' .
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I am always very grateful to the interpreters.
The European Union must be able to defend itself against the airlines of third countries that refuse to observe the safety standards laid down by the Union.
We need to be able to penalize them in one way or another.
All of us can remember a number of air crashes in which inadequate safety precautions caused the deaths of several hundred people.
The Union must do everything possible to minimize these risks.
I should therefore like to pay tribute to the rapporteur for his safety proposals, regarding both the aircraft themselves and the level of training of cabin and ground crew.
We must aim at common training rules to guarantee equivalent safety levels for all Europe's citizens.
All steps in that direction are to be encouraged.
The report presented by Mrs McIntosh is of great importance, because it deals in depth with factors capable of improving security and safety in air transport.
I voted in favour of this text.
The recent tragedies that have taken place both in the United States and in Europe do indeed call upon us to do everything possible to enhance the safety of this form of transport, all the more so since demand for air transport is increasing constantly.
Most accidents and incidents that occur in air transport occur because of human error.
This report therefore stresses the need to improve the training of air crew.
Furthermore, the report stresses the need for improved harmonization of European aviation products, not only in the interests of safety but also to help reduce various costs and constraints that are burdening the European industry.
There is one essential point that must be stressed: the European Commission has initiated negotiations with a view to setting up a European organization responsible for civil aviation safety.
We should welcome the creation of this kind of body, which would lay down mandatory technical rules to be applied throughout Europe.
In particular, I hope that one of my proposals that is included in the report will swiftly be implemented by the Commission.
I should like to see the European Union actively involved in programmes intended to detect any shortcomings in the way in which the authorities in certain third countries apply the standards of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and in programmes enabling us to work together with those authorities, where such shortcomings are detected, to enable them to reinstate compliance with international safety standards.
Mr President, I should like to explain why I voted in favour of the resolution on the Fabra Vallés report, despite the rejection of a number of amendments.
I am indeed sorry that Members failed to take this opportunity to play their full part as representatives of the various peoples of Europe - the citizens of the various Member States who are also taxpayers.
I am sorry that Honourable Members declined to face up to their responsibilities.
As in the case of the 1992 Commission discharge, and more recently in the BSE affair, we failed to follow the argument through to its logical conclusion.
The condemnation contained in the report, following the extremely detailed report by the Court of Auditors, is a radical one.
Yet we failed to draw all the logical conclusions.
We should have ensured the setting-up of a commission of inquiry.
This morning, Commissioner Marins told us that the Commission was doing a great deal.
That's all very well: the only problem is that it is doing a great deal now that it should have done three years ago.
So I voted in favour of the report, while still regretting that it did not go far enough.
The practices of the Commission, as highlighted by the Court of Auditors and then by Mr Fabra Vallés, do not so much call into question the activities of one particular commissioner as demonstrate a totally unacceptable general style of operation by the Commission, which it is important to stop.
It is, after all, completely grotesque for this Parliament to adopt an endless series of resolutions denouncing corruption throughout the world, and in particular in those States which benefit from the MED programmes, while at the same time fraudulent practice is the rule within the Commission itself.
The Commission should, instead, be setting an example by combating corruption within its own services.
However, experience shows that self-monitoring by administrative bodies is of very limited effectiveness, and it is therefore essential that Parliament should not settle for promises from the Commissioners (' don't worry, we'll do the necessary) but should play to the full its part as a serious and stringent observer of the Commission's financial practices.
With its professional, authoritative and rigorous scrutiny of the BSE affair, and then the matter of the VAT fraud, thanks to the notable efforts of two Committees of Inquiry, the European Parliament has moved in the right direction.
If, instead of fastening on every conceivable subject and dealing with it superficially, often without the necessary information, our Parliament were primarily to gear its efforts to monitoring the ways in which the Commission operates, this House could certainly be doing a very useful service.
That is why our group firmly supports the proposal made by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, during the debate, to set up a Committee of Inquiry into the use of the funds allocated to the MED programmes.
Social dialogue
The next item is the report (A4-0226/97) by Mr Peter, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission communication concerning the development of the social dialogue at Community level (COM(96)0448 - C4-0526/96)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the creation of a structured social dialogue at European level is a consequence of the Community's decision to complete the internal market.
In the economies of Member States, the social partners play a role which varies in its importance but which is, everywhere, a formative role.
It was merely a sensible move, when responsibility for regulating the internal market was transferred to the Community, to include the social partners as well.
In the first place, this forms part of the model of a social market economy, and in the second place, the fact that the social partners should be close to the real situation is an advantage if the regulations to be introduced are to be appropriate to their purpose, and if they are to be acceptable.
If the social dialogue is to do justice to the objectives that have been set, it must have an adequate influence on the development process of the internal market and the related social consequences.
Task-setting and organization should be oriented in this direction.
The main requirements, and the most current ones, are to review the forms of dialogue that have been developed so far, to develop a new approach, in both substance and form, and to make the criteria for the participation of organizations in the collective dialogue both helpful and likely to achieve consensus.
The Commission Communication concerning the Development of the Social Dialogue at Community Level is an invitation to discuss reforms.
By giving examples of situations, bringing up problems and inviting answers to questions, the Commission Communication is something in the nature of a Green Paper.
The European Parliament can only respond accordingly.
The Commission has made known its intention, in the second half of 1997, of presenting its proposals for improving the social dialogue.
The European Parliament will then have to adopt a definite position.
If we examine the problems as a whole, we can see that a large number of organizational, financial and personnel measures are necessary, the significance of which, in terms of the practical functioning of the social dialogue and the increasing of its effectiveness at almost all levels, must certainly not be underestimated.
However, there are also political viewpoints, and I should just like to examine, briefly, the significance of these.
The representativeness of the organizations who participate in the social dialogue is a vital requirement.
Only organizations which meet the representativeness criteria can be involved in the social dialogue.
The criteria themselves must be clear enough to prevent any doubt arising, and they must be able to withstand scrutiny by the courts.
Drafting these criteria and monitoring their observance is a task for the Community bodies.
Meeting the criteria is a task for the organizations and associations who wish to take part in the social dialogue.
The organizations involved must also be mutually acceptable to one another, particularly in cases where, over and above the level of mere hearings, it is a question of negotiations and results that are binding on third parties, where a constructive climate has to take precedence over all the different interests involved.
This is something that arises from the autonomy of the associations, and it cannot be forced upon people in a free, pluralistic society.
The social dialogue is certainly no panacea that will provide a socially just solution to all the problems that need to be dealt with, but it is an effective, formative tool, which the Community should make increasing use of.
The recognition of the principle of social dialogue must therefore not be reduced to the traditional field of socio-political problems, but should be extended to cover all regulatory intentions which are clearly of social relevance.
For the Commission, for example, this means that all Commissioners must develop a corresponding willingness to cooperate and to pass it on to their staff.
The unemployment that currently exists in the Community makes it absolutely essential that the capacities available within the social dialogue should be directly concerned in the development of aids to finding solutions.
The Commission must, above all, put some concrete proposals on the table without delay.
As a result of the inclusion of the Social Agreement in the Amsterdam Treaty, and the accession of the United Kingdom to the Social Agreement will, on the one hand, strengthen the efficacy of any future rules arising from the social dialogue. On the other hand, however, the parliamentary-democratic deficit will become further established.
If, in the future too, the Parliament is to remain entirely excluded from an EU-wide legislative process, while the Council continues to have the last word in this area, then that is and will remain a cardinal error, which cannot be compensated for by the extending of opportunities for co-decision elsewhere.
I therefore invite the Council and the Commission to enter into negotiations with Parliament regarding the conclusion of an inter-institutional agreement, so that the damage can be swiftly undone.
Mr President, subject to certain prerequisites this statement by the Commission could constitute an important opportunity to develop some serious thinking concerning the aims, content and results of the social dialogue at Community level.
All the more so, since present-day reality confirms those who claim that there is a movement to use the social dialogue, at both Community and Member State level, to act as a social throttle to damp down the agitation and reactions produced among working people by the more general economic and social policies exercised by the Union and the Member States.
One could hope that the most substantive form of social dialogue, collective negotiations and the signing of collective work agreements between the representatives of working people and employers, would be an object of support in the context of this debate, while representativeness too ought to be improved by the participation of representatives from SMEs at every level of the social dialogue.
Yet, the related amendments on the need to strengthen collective negotiations and facilitate the signing of collective labour conventions at Union level, at the level of multinational companies, and at branch or regional level, were not supported by the rapporteur and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
The same fate befell the amendments relating to participation by SMEs in the Val Duchesse social dialogue and the other levels of social dialogue.
The argument that SMEs express their views via UNICE is at the very least comical, and does not persuade anyone since it entrusts major European industry to represent small and medium-sized enterprises.
I would like to invite the Members to vote for those amendments.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report, and indeed to thank the Commission for the fact that this communication invites us to engage in a broad debate on the social dialogue.
Because in spite of the Treaty of Amsterdam - and even in spite of this communication, I would say - the place of this social dialogue at European level, both interprofessional and sectoral, remains anything but clear.
Clarification is still urgently required.
I shall mention three important examples. Firstly, the Luxembourg presidency is organizing an extra summit on employment in November, which may finally mark the start of a European strategy on employment.
It is clear to me that it must be decided that increases in productivity will be used primarily in favour of jobs in future, to extract guarantees of work if there is wage restraint.
However, this also means that the European social partners must be involved.
I am convinced that wage and labour agreements will also have to be reached at European level in future, as part of economic and monetary union.
And the same applies to reorganization of work and the reduction of working time.
It is still particularly unclear how the social partners can now play a part in the European strategy on employment.
It is significant that the Luxembourg presidency has not put any formal questions to the social partners, for example on drawing up a European framework agreement in which they too would offer binding commitments.
Secondly, the Amsterdam Treaty does in fact leave many questions open as regards the validity or the scope of the agreements that are reached in the social dialogue. But there is every reason to clarify the relationship with the Council.
For example, what happens if the Council does not think that an agreement which has been reached by the social partners is appropriate?
Is it logical that the Council can then simply reject such an agreement, without any procedure being laid down for what is to happen afterwards? I support the rapporteur in his questions, and in his concern at the fact that the European Parliament is not involved.
I should have liked to say more, ladies and gentlemen, about the shortcomings in the sectoral dialogue, but I see that I have no more time.
However, it has become painfully clear to me, as a result of the Renault affair, that in the sectoral dialogue too, many binding agreements need to be reached, and I very much hope that the Commission will take advantage of this communication and bring forward some binding and specific proposals in the coming months.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Peter has produced an excellent and comprehensive report on the Commission Communication on the social dialogue.
I congratulate him warmly.
The discussion of both documents shows that the Maastricht Treaty has opened up a new chapter in European social policy.
The United Kingdom's accession, in Amsterdam, to the agreement on social policy, has strengthened this development.
The most important aspects of European social policy were initially the coordinating rules for social security for migrant workers and the minimum standards for employment protection.
Both policy fields, employment protection and social insurance, also form the beginnings of national social policy.
Then came the idea that employees should be able to cooperate as partners and to help shape social policy.
It is in this phase of development that the social policy of the European Union currently finds itself.
I am referring to the Directive on European Works Councils, which, without the social dialogue, between the European Trade Union Confederation and UNICE, and the hearing in accordance with the agreement on social policy, would have come to nothing.
Moreover, under this agreement, it is possible for agreements to be made between social partners who, in some circumstances, may become partners under Community law by means of a Council Decision, as was the case, for example, with parental leave.
It is therefore, of course, extremely important to know who can take part in the social dialogue.
In 1993, the Commission developed a catalogue of representativeness for organizations involved in the legislative process.
If European employment law is to be created in the manner described, then this will affect not least the small and medium-sized undertakings who employ the majority of employees in Europe.
With the SMUs in mind, it is essential that there should be a rapid updating of the catalogue of representative organizations.
We await a corresponding new Commission Communication, as soon as possible.
That is the background to our demand for a separate vote on Point 16 of the Peter report, and that is why we want the section that suggests that there will be a delay to be deleted.
In principle, we are in favour of the criterion of voluntary membership in the associations that are allowed to participate in the social dialogue, but we are also in favour of a special rule in favour of the model country when it comes to social partnership, in other words Austria.
This means full participation by the Chamber of Business of the Austrian Republic, an organization under public law.
But my colleague Hubert Pirker will be saying something about that.
In order to explain our positions, we propose that in Amendment No 3, Parliament should expressly refer to the Reding Report of May 1994.
In that report, not only is the concept of representativeness clearly defined: it is also expressly demanded that the Commission should create binding structures between all representative bodies of the social partners.
The social dialogue is an expression of the principle of subsidiarity.
Therefore I would warn against trying to give the actors who are represented by it too much official advice as to what they ought to do.
In most cases they know better.
This tendency arises in some of the other amendments, which we shall be rejecting.
Subsidiarity means, in cases of doubt, giving the smaller entity preference, but also, in cases of doubt, giving preference to the arrangements of the social partners as opposed to government solutions.
It is important that the social partners should be able to use the opportunities that the Treaty on European Union offers them.
They can make use of the fact that they are closer to the reality of the situation, as compared with government and Community institutions, in order to overcome socio-political problems.
It is equally important that the Commission should be active, in issuing a new communication on the social dialogue.
With this in mind, we wish to vote in favour of the Peter Report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe can only be a citizen's Europe if the Europeans themselves really are in a position to shape their own future.
So the Commission is absolutely right to attach the greatest importance to the development of the social dialogue.
Even so, the agreements that are reached will have to be recognized by all, and that is the essence of the problem.
In particular, ladies and gentlemen, I must remind you that in French law representivity is the only criterion which confers upon a professional organization the right to negotiate joint agreements.
However, the mutual recognition defended by Mr Peter is indicative of a Germanic concept of the social partners, and so organizes the exclusions.
So I believe that the questions raised by the Commission as to the representivity of its opposite numbers in the dialogue on the Union's social policy are justified questions.
However, I should also say that some of those same opposite numbers dispute the influence their opinions can have on the decisions made by the Community institutions.
What about the role of small- and medium-sized enterprises or farmers' representatives in the agreement on social policy? Although the representative bodies involved in the sectoral dialogue are numerous, only three organizations participate in the agreement on social policy.
Bearing that in mind, we should like the Commission to move as soon as possible to present specific proposals for improving the efficacy and objectives of the social dialogue.
The results of Amsterdam, slender though they may be, did allow the incorporation of the social protocol into the Treaty and the application of the codecision procedure to social issues.
It now remains to hope that Parliament, too, can find a place in the social dialogue.
The idea of including the social partners in those States that are candidates for accession is an interesting one, and I must thank Mr Peter for having drawn attention to it.
I also congratulate him on the quality of his report.
Mr President, the social dialogue involves a number of parties - in this instance, the European authorities and the social partners.
I believe that we should leave to the social partners those matters which they can deal with themselves.
Clearly, therefore, we in the Liberal Group cannot support a number of amendments which are based on the view that we should lay down what the social partners are able to deal with themselves through collective agreements, and as far as the Liberals are concerned, that is certainly not always necessary at European level.
This does not mean that we have no confidence in a social dialogue - we do indeed, not least in the context of the forthcoming summit on employment.
I then come to the difficulty which has already been raised here by a number of Members, namely that there are still three partners in the social dialogue and that small and medium-sized undertakings are still absent.
I had always thought that if we pressed hard enough for this as Members of the European Parliament, then it would be put right.
I have been an MEP for three years now; for three years I have championed the cause of SMUs, but they are still not recognized as partners in the social dialogue.
This cannot continue any longer. It is excluding both the employers and the employees working in this sector.
And it must be noted that UNICE represents a smaller and smaller group of employees, since more and more workers are now accounted for by small and medium-sized undertakings.
So let us give some thought to them for once in this dialogue, and not just to big businesses.
Mr President, in the wake of Amsterdam and on the initiative of the French Government, the debate on social and employment-related issues has been opened, and we take a particularly keen interest in it.
But the single currency and the stability pact, to which our group remains firmly opposed, are at odds with the social protocol and the chapter on employment in the Treaty.
Social dialogue is an important element of the social Europe of solidarity that we would like to build in the interests of the citizens of Europe's States.
We are of course in favour of strengthening and enlarging it, because it has already brought positive results in many areas.
However, it must not include discrimination against certain trade union organizations.
Now, the reference to the criterion of representivity at European Union level, as the rapporteur, Mr Peter, has recalled, makes it possible de facto to exclude certain organizations, to exclude them from the negotiations and consultations provided for by the social protocol and to exclude them from the advisory bodies, because they are not members of European structures, as is the case with certain trade unions in France.
The justified desire to have a European social law must find expression through a democratic process, which is respectful of diversity and fundamental rights, and of the relevant conventions of the International Labour Organization.
Those conventions stipulate that negotiation with employers is a right of employees as far as conditions of employment and social guarantees are concerned.
They also explicitly state that the employees have absolute discretion to entrust the exercise of that right to whom they wish.
After all, how can agreements concluded within the European Union be legitimate, and accepted by the citizens whom they affect, if the representative national trade union organizations to whom the citizens have entrusted the defence of their interests are not involved as of right in the negotiations?
That is our democratic conception of the social dialogue, which must be conducted with no discrimination and no exclusions.
At the same time, in order to defeat the attack being launched by employers and by certain governments on acquired social benefits and workers' rights, it is necessary that all Community Directives on social affairs should guarantee respect for the International Labour Organization conventions, should explicitly provide for the retention of the most favourable provisions for the workforce currently applicable in the Member States, and should contribute to the advancement of social rights in all the Member States.
Mr President, much has changed since the social dialogue was introduced in 1985.
Conditions now are completely different from what they were then.
On the labour market there are now approximately 20 million unemployed and in the social sector, according to the Commission, there are 50 million on the poverty line in EU countries.
It is possible to say that the EU has totally failed in its economic strategy which has been narrowly directed and focused on the fight against inflation and on price stability.
In fact this policy has probably hindered stable development in the areas of employment, wages, social security and environmental initiatives.
These areas are equally important aspects of economic and social stability.
So now it is important that we use the social dialogue and that it should concentrate on employment policy.
Deregulation and demands for flexibility and adjustment must not be allowed to lead to deregulation of employee rights and of agreements arrived at as a result of mutual understanding and collective wage agreements.
There are some good ideas in circulation such as shortened working hours, which has been implemented by the car industry in Germany, at Volkswagen, for example, and in the public sector and in companies in my homeland, Sweden.
Mutual agreements have led to a reduction in working hours without loss of wages or with only a small reduction.
Estimates from organisations such as Alternative European Economists show that shorter working hours create new jobs.
It is possible that 5-10 million new jobs could be created in EU countries, depending on the number of hours cut from the working week.
Unlike the rapporteur, I think it is necessary to broaden the social dialogue in order to rally the troops.
It should include not just small and medium sized companies, as proposed, but also other organisations such as the European Network for the Unemployed which we in the Green Group proposed in amendment 5.
I am therefore asking for my colleagues support on this.
Mr President, the social dialogue at Community level does not always take unambiguous form.
Often, in parallel with the elementary principles and the principal elements which give it its special nature, the interprofessional and sectoral dialogues consist of committees and working groups.
Now, in the context of the Protocol on Social Policy, we find other recently established structures and procedures which have become an integral part of the process of laying down European legislation.
The report which we are debating today rightly emphasizes employment and the creation of new jobs, and the need to prevent relocation.
We feel that the social dialogue must be brought to the knowledge of organizations of social partners, with more systematic use being made of the information services of the Commission, the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, and above all the European Centre for Industrial Relations, based in Florence.
Opening up the social and community dialogue to the most representative associations at European level and increasing the sectoral dialogue in the public sector are priorities which the Commission has clearly emphasized.
We take a favourable view of incorporation of the Protocol on Social Policy in the new treaty and extension of the co-decision procedures to social matters, depending on cooperation, but we also hope that it will be possible for the social dialogue in a broader sense to reappear in the co-decision procedures for which the Treaty provides.
Mr President, there is a long way still to go on the road to establishing genuine collective negotiation at European level.
There is still much to be done regarding the organization and even the actual definition of what is meant by social dialogue at European level, in order that its influence be seen in the development of the internal market and in its social repercussions and, generally speaking, so that implementation of all the common policies is a matter of record.
The process of transferring shared competences to the European Union has not been accompanied by developments in the leading role of the social partners.
This is a topic which raises a number of issues, some of which we have already listened to.
It poses problems: the representativeness of the partners in dialogue, the scope of sectoral dialogue, distinguishing between consultation and negotiation, the link between agreements, compatibility of dialogue and negotiation with actual legislative activity, etc.
In 1985 we saw the start of an experiment in social dialogue which should be developed further because it has not yet gone far enough.
The Treaty on European Union and its most recent review at Amsterdam pick up on the need to support such social dialogue.
What is needed - perhaps urgently - is to organize procedures in such a way that the results are the best we can possibly achieve.
Social dialogue can solve problems in certain directives under study or being debated; social dialogue can and must solve problems regarding the regulation of different economic sectors; social dialogue is the best instrument for regulating labour relations and for regulating working conditions.
Social dialogue is an active employment policy.
Therefore, employers and employees, through their representative organizations, have to transfer the leading role they have at national level to the European level and, from that European level be much more active in applying common actions and measures to promote employment.
I congratulate the rapporteur on a rigorous and confident report and ask you to support it. I also ask for your support regarding the position he maintains on the amendments.
Mr President, I believe that all of us taking part in the discussions here agree that the social dialogue will only work if there is representativeness, in other words, if everyone who is involved in the social dialogue at national level also has a place at European level.
This is particularly important when the European Union wants to implement Community measures at national level as well.
In order to do this, it needs a partner who is capable of implementing them, and such a partner will exist only if there is representativeness.
I should like to show you, taking Austria as an example, that this representativeness does not exist everywhere.
Mr Menrad indicated as much when he spoke, for which I should like to thank him.
In Austria, the position is this: the Chamber of Business, which in Austria represents the small and medium-sized undertakings, trade and commerce, does not have a place at European level.
At that level, the industrialists' association, within UNICE, is the corresponding partner, in other words, the partner that determines wages in Austria is not involved at European level.
That is a dilemma, because it means that many business people do not have a place at European level and, conversely, the European Union has no opportunity of asserting its interests in Austria.
However, this can be changed.
I have tabled Amendment No 2, with reference to Point 17, and I would ask you to support it, because it says that we can decide here that the partner that determines pay levels, the Austrian Chamber of Business, can be involved, by way of an exception, in the social dialogue.
Mr President, the EU has spent far too much time on the economy, EMU, convergence conditions and the fulfilment of a mass of regulations instead of coming to grips with the biggest issue which must be resolved in Europe, unemployment.
So it is important that more pressure is brought to bear to prioritise this issue at all levels.
This report is a step in the right direction.
The dialogue must, first of all, be held with the labour market partners, at a national level and, of course, at European level as well.
But the greatest successes may be achieved on a small scale at local level between social partners and without the involvement of either the EU or the national governments.
This is the route we should chose.
This report also takes up the need for co-operation between the existing committees at EU level and the newly created Council committees.
This is excellent.
The creation of an ideas bank by the countries and the labour market partners before the conference in Luxembourg could prove to be a way of producing a number of good proposals to resolve our biggest problem.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I share the concerns of the rapporteur - and those of the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy - when he expresses his anxiety that social dialogue should not act as a buffer or shock absorber for Community institutions and governments against the earthquakes sometimes generated by the implementation of certain economic policies.
I also share the concern - both theirs and that of other colleagues - that small and medium-sized enterprises should be sufficiently represented in negotiations, since they create 85 % or more of jobs in the Community.
And also that negotiations should concentrate not only on job creation but also on not losing jobs.
We all remember the lack of dialogue surrounding the Renault-Vilvoorde company's decision and the loss of three thousand jobs.
Today, even, the US multinational, Electrolux, is threatening to cut twenty thousand jobs in Europe - some of these are in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, a country with 20 % unemployment.
Focus, therefore, on negotiation for jobs and on negotiation for not losing jobs.
Perhaps this dialogue would be made easier by a satisfactory code of conduct for multinationals, preventing them from depriving Europe of twenty thousand jobs without any consequences for themselves.
It would also be necessary - and, naturally, the European Parliament's arbitrary nature is not the only influence - to include women in any social dialogue.
Because, as we saw in the code of conduct regarding equality of salary opportunities which was approved, the lack of a female presence means that women are unable to achieve a certain level of salary - the difference, in many European Union countries, still stands at 20 to 30 %.
Account should also be taken of the proposal made by the Committee of Wise Men, chaired by Mrs Pintassilgo, to the effect that Community institutions and representatives of social players should cooperate with a view to giving practical effect to fundamental social rights.
I believe that we are currently witnessing a period of European construction.
For some, the Amsterdam Summit was a time of frustration and of failure, because it did not focus enough on social cohesion and job creation.
We know that there is going to be a summit in Luxembourg, but are very much afraid that, as Mr Juncker told us the other day in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, if there is no finance for such job creation, the summit will not be sufficiently forceful in creating the employment we all need.
Mr President, I thank Mr Peter for his hard work on this report which we in the committee know has not been without its problems.
Nonetheless, he has handled it very well and we are making a lot of progress.
Never before has the social dialogue been quite so important, at least in terms of its maintenance, and we can see that in many ways it is under threat from people who would, I think, prefer industrial anarchy.
If you look at the Renault problem, it seems as though it has been testing the idea of a social dialogue, a social dialogue which possibly has not been quite so sorely tested before.
But it seems as if, over the decades, the only true industrial, economic and social progress that has been made has been based upon the fact that there has been a relationship, a sustained - and real - relationship based upon the relationships which exist in the workplace.
Not the imaginary ones, not the ones that just seem to appear because trade units get together, but the ones that exist because trade unionists and real companies that do the bargaining in the workplace have had the relationship and can bring that experience to the table.
It is absolutely right that these economic units should still maintain their relationship at this European level; in terms of representativeness, at least, the key organizations involved within the workplace have been involved in a long-term role and in consolidating the social dialogue that exists.
Only those organizations which meet the criteria originally laid down by the Commission can expect to be involved.
Small business organizations do have a role, and clearly they must have greater access and greater involvement, but not merely because small businesses wish to reject social legislation.
They must be true partners around the table.
With central and eastern Europe gaining enormous ground, it is also very true and quite proper that we should look for observer status for them and involvement around the table, to allow an effective process of change and adaptation.
It is also fair to say that we have had very little involvement in the UK in the social dialogue.
This too has changed.
Mr Macartney has now been made a minister for the social dialogue.
It is only right and proper for me to mention that here.
Mr Peter is also right to seek reforms in the Standing Committee on Employment, and an increased role for the Parliament.
But, Commissioner, a question to you perhaps.
Since we have the social dialogue, what knowledge do we have of industrial relations throughout the European Union and what particular safeguards and institutional devices do we need to acquire to ensure the progress of industrial relations throughout the European Community.
Mr President, I welcome the fact that SMUs are given explicit and specific attention in this report, although neither the report nor the Commission's communication goes far enough.
I do not need to repeat here how important SMUs are in socio-economic terms in Europe.
I would take it that you are now all convinced that the difference in scale between SMUs and large businesses also requires a differentiation of policy in some areas.
The needs of SMUs do not always coincide with those of large businesses, and that is why many SMUs choose to join forces amongst themselves.
That is also why we must insist on having specific representation for SMUs in the social dialogue, at least if we wish to give this dialogue the maximum degree of legitimacy.
It is not just the fact of representation which is important here, but also the extent of the input from those taking part in the dialogue.
The SMUs must be able to participate as such, and not only in consultation, but also in the negotiations leading to social agreements which can subsequently be declared binding.
Unfortunately, this need for SMUs to be involved in the negotiation of collective agreements is not mentioned in the report.
That is a pity, but it can be put right if Amendment No 4 is adopted.
My group hopes that this will happen and, above all, it hopes that we shall also see an initiative from you on this question, Commissioner.
Mr President, the Commission wishes to review the social dialogue.
Good!
This is necessary for several reasons, including the fact that we have a rapidly changing labour market, the boundaries between employee and employer are being erased and more and more people are becoming self employed.
Many, particularly the young, do not share the same sense of participation in labour market organisations which are often collectivist and hierarchical.
In order to resolve the problem of unemployment the labour market must be reformed.
A structure is required which accepts the forces of change and which allows for individual and local solutions.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in continuing our discussion of the review of the social dialogue our initial values must be effectiveness, restraint, transparency and openness and also representativeness and legitimacy.
It is important that the labour market partners do not gain a unique position in the EU's democratic decision making process.
Furthermore, it is extremely important that elected politicians, including those at national level, do not shirk from this difficult task of recreating the right conditions for a healthy labour market.
Mr President, the social dialogue, which embraces all branches of industry and is present in various sectors of the economy, in advisory committees and at sectoral level, makes an important contribution to the finding of effective solutions in employment policy, to the creation of new jobs and to the participation of women.
Social consensus is an important advantage for Europe in terms of business location and of the investment that is so desperately needed.
With regard to the globalization of the economy, in the face of which many people seem to be paralysed, like a rabbit facing a snake, employment rules will have to be adjusted, but not thrown overboard, social reconstruction will have to be jointly agreed, and social breakdown will have to be jointly prevented.
Cooperation is the only real answer to the currently rampant conflict strategies.
The social dialogue, therefore, must be strengthened, and Helwin Peter has given us a timely reminder of this fact.
However, Commissioner, the Commission must see to it that there are effective advisory committees.
Therefore we need some early, systematic hearings and thematic coordination measures.
The social partners must open up.
This means that the circle consisting of the three major umbrella organizations must be broadened to include the representatives of small and medium-sized undertakings, whether by consultation or negotiation.
It also means that the structures in the future Member States of the European Union will have to be included.
The social dialogue must be oriented towards the future.
One important point with regard to its content is of course employment policy, but areas where there is Community responsibility will also have to be negotiated, particularly after the integration, in all fifteen Member States, of the employment chapter, the social protocol and the charter of fundamental rights for employees contained in the Treaty on European Union.
Anyone who wants to have a social market economy will set up alliances, employment alliances in the regions and in the various branches of industry, as well as a permanent dialogue with the social actors.
Madam President, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to the debate.
The social dialogue, of course, has flourished in recent years and has now reached quite a key stage in its development.
The social partners are playing an increasingly important role in developing European social policy, and the dialogue will certainly become even more important as the social partners have a key role to play in taking forward the political conclusions agreed at Amsterdam.
But the communication on the development of the social dialogue at European level, which was adopted by the Commission in September of last year, demanded a frank reappraisal of all aspects of the social dialogue from all the involved parties.
On the basis of the debate and the comments it has generated, of which your report constitutes a major element, a second communication will be drafted and will I hope be adopted by the Commission before the end of this year; this document will define the role and ways of the future social dialogue.
Let me make two preliminary statements.
First, I want to thank you for having made the effort to present your views at this point in time so that they can be taken fully into account when work starts on drafting the second communication.
Secondly, I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Peter, and the whole Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as well as the other committees involved, for the in-depth analysis they have made of the complex subject and to thank them for the support they have given to the Commission's views on the matter.
The Intergovernmental Conference has, of course, marked further developments with regard to the social dialogue and even though I consider it a little too early just yet to discuss the outcome in depth, I would like to make a few brief observations at this time.
Firstly, the social dialogue will be incorporated into the Treaty, something that we all wanted and we now warmly welcome.
And the United Kingdom has put an end to its opt-out.
Secondly, there is an extension of co-decision in a number of important areas.
And thirdly, there is a new focus on employment, with a whole new title devoted to this area and an explicit role for the social partners.
I very much support what Mrs Van Lancker said here.
There certainly is a need to increase the productivity of the European Union, but I would say to Mrs van Lancker that that productivity should be brought about by flexibility coupled with security for the workers, and I would think that the employment strategy which was discussed at the Amsterdam summit, and which will be the subject of a summit later on in the year, will not be just another declaration, but will clearly set out the commitment to positive action to be taken at national level and at Union level in so far as creating more jobs is concerned.
I would just like to say in passing to Mrs Van Lancker as well that I expect the part-time work collective agreement proposed by the social partners to go through the college before the summer recess.
However, I would like to say as well that I realize that the European Parliament is disappointed that it has not obtained a direct say under the new Treaty on adoption of legislation based on collective agreements.
I share your disappointment as the Commission worked for the inclusion of a right for the Parliament in this respect during the summit.
However, even though we will have to apply the Treaty as it was concluded by the Member States, I am ready to discuss practical modalities for information and exchange of views on this issue with you in the future.
I think this is the key point made by Mr Peter in his submission.
I have already asked my services to start reflecting on this and I will see to it that the points made by you, Mr Peter, in introducing your report are taken into account in that process.
To turn now to the report itself, I find that it strikes a fair balance between the different interests involved by calling on the social partners to consider a broadening of the social dialogue, while expressly respecting their autonomy.
Very many members here this evening highlighted the whole question of representativeness, and the representation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the social dialogue in particular.
The Commission has always made the distinction between consultation and negotiation, and emphasized that it strives for as broad a consultation as possible whilst never deviating from the principle that negotiations have to be based on mutual recognition of the negotiating parties.
I fully support the demands expressed in the report for a more effective dialogue at all levels.
I find the following calls for action to reach that end especially interesting.
The call for promotion of the importance of the social dialogue more strongly throughout the whole Commission whilst keeping the coordination in the hands of DG V. The need for more importance to be attached to the sectoral dialogue.
I fully agree with you that here there are many problems facing Europe that could be solved.
Also the need to reform the Standing Committee on Employment - I give this very high priority.
It has become even more important in my mind in the light of the elevated status given to the fight for employment in the new Treaty and the new Title.
Finally, I want to thank you once again for your report, which will allow us to identify the best ways to strengthen the social dialogue and to associate it more closely with the efforts to reach European Union objectives, particularly employment and economic growth.
Mr Skinner asked a particular question and I would like to respond to it.
He asked about our level of knowledge and information about the social dialogue in all of the Member States right across the Union.
I have to say to you that we have very considerable of information on all aspects of the social dialogue, which is gathered and updated for us by the Industrial Relations Observatory, which is located in Dublin.
It is operated by the Foundation for Living and Working Conditions.
If there is any specific information that you would like that can be got from that Industrial Relations Observatory that would be of particular interest to you, I would be very happy to make it available to you.
Sir, I have one question.
Is there a definite date? When will the social dialogue next be on the agenda, for example in DG V?
Before I give you an opportunity to answer, I shall let Mrs Boogerd-Quaak take the floor once again.
Perhaps we can then deal with both points together.
Madam President, the Commissioner has announced that there will be a second communication, but if that is just as vague as both the first one and that answer from the Commissioner on the involvement of small and medium-sized undertakings, we shall not be making any progress.
I shall be going into the recess in an extremely disappointed frame of mind if the authorities do not resolve a stalemate which the social partners are clearly unable to break by themselves.
Madam President, in answer to Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, I wish to point out that our first communication was a consultation document, so we got all the opinions and could then evaluate the best way to proceed.
The second communication will move in the direction you would expect: concrete action as to how we should progress the social dialogue to take on board all that is necessary for the future.
That will be catered for in the second communication.
I asked whether there is a definite date yet, a date when the social dialogue will next be on the agenda, for example in DG V.
Madam President, the social dialogue is a matter of constant - virtually weekly - concern in DG V, which is involved in all the preparations for all discussions and evaluations that deal with the social dialogue.
If there is a particular point in the social dialogue that Mr Rübig would like to raise with me, I would be happy to deal with him privately.
But I have to say that DG V gives an enormous amount of its time to promoting the dialogue.
Amendment to the Financial Regulation
The next item is the report (A4-0217/97 by Mr Sarlis, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (Euratom, ECSC, EC) (COM(96)0352 - C4-0497/96-96/0189(CNS)), amending the Financial Regulation of 21 December 1977 applicable to the general budget of the European Communities.
Madam President, the report to be considered by the European Parliament concerns a Commission proposal to establish a Council Regulation amending certain orders in the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities.
The amendments proposed by the Commission with the above motion constitute the so-termed seventh set of amendments which seek to ensure the transparent and efficient financial management of Community resources by the Community bodies, and to define the responsibilities of those bodies in a clear way allowing no room for dispute.
I must say that the Commission's amendments are a step in the right direction and do in fact start from and operate within the framework set by the commission's programme to improve financial management, known as SEM 2000, which as we know the European Parliament has already considered and approved.
I must say that the starting point of the Commission's initiative, but mainly too of the amendments to the Commission's proposals tabled by the European Parliament, were the problems created in the management of Community funds, specifically in the area of tourism, and the fact that the survey carried out revealed that there are many loopholes in the orders of the Financial Regulation, vagueness of those orders, and unclear distinctions between what a body may or may not do.
I must also say that for the first time the European Parliament is with this report proposing amendments to orders concerning which the Commission itself has made no proposals.
I think this is the first time that Parliament has gone beyond the Commission's proposals and is proposing, on its own accord I would say, amendments to certain specific orders of the Financial Regulation, as well as a number of new orders.
Finally, before I go on to enumerate certain innovations introduced by Parliament's proposals, I must thank my colleagues on the Committee on Budgetary Control, who also worked regardless of their political persuasion to improve Parliament's proposals and views, as well as the secretariat of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Commission too, because your rapporteur enjoyed very good and harmonious cooperation and, in particular, noted a spirit on the part of the Commission's services which showed real interest in improving the orders of the Financial Regulation.
As for the specific provisions, I must refer to the amendment concerning Article 22(4) on arrangements governing delegation.
The arrangements proposed leave no room for disputes concerning delegation - because this effort as a whole is mainly an effort to establish a legal text - and subdelegation.
In that connection the vagueness of the orders still in force today was what made it possible for all that happened in tourism to take place.
Another amendment relates to Article 22, where provisions are made for contracting and subcontracting agreements.
Other amendments relate to the famous right to 'passer outre' .
That right is well known, in other words it is open to the institutional bodies to overrule a view or refusal of approval by the financial controller, except in one situation, namely the non-availability of resources.
We are adding a second instance to that procedure, which is the correctness of the charge.
If the financial controller finds that an item has not been correctly charged to a specific budget item, then the financial controller's refusal of approval cannot be overruled by the superior institutional body.
Finally, another amendment is a new order which establishes the general principle in the Financial Regulation that whatever powers and authority to conclude contracts are invested in the institutions by the Treaties and the 'acquis communautaire', may not be ceded or transferred to third parties outside the European Community institutions.
What does this mean? That we will no longer see the phenomenon of European Community institutional bodies and services, whether in Parliament or the Commission or even the Council's services, by transferring power, ceding authority to third parties external to the Community bodies to determine the conditions of an agreement.
That is all I wanted to say, and I close by thanking once more all those whom I have already mentioned for their contribution towards making this proposal as good as possible.
Madam President, this amendment of the Financial Regulation, as the rapporteur pointed out, derives from the conclusions of the second phase of the SEM 2000 programme for improving financial management of the Commission.
Parliament had already issued a global pronouncement on that second phase in November 1996 and, to a certain extent, we had sketched out the major guidelines for it.
However, in this report, of which I was rapporteur, I had the chance to examine the problem and, therefore, this gives me further insight into the enormous amount of work done by our rapporteur.
I believe that, if we were honest, no one would envy the rapporteur the work he has had to put in on this issue.
This is a carefully worked-out report and, I should say, perhaps a little dry and unrewarding, but it is an extremely important report on the generally good positive basis of the Commission's proposals.
However, in reality, it is a piece of continuity work, of amendments to amendments, of amendments correcting an amended text, etc., which, in truth, require in-depth legal knowledge.
I believe that the overall result is balanced and that it picks up the majority of the Socialists' amendments, about which we are very happy. We would also commend the rapporteur's spirit of openness.
Therefore, I would like to state that there are no basic problems with his position, although, perhaps, in the vote, we will be upholding some minor difference.
Sometimes, the search for perfectionism has led us to draft slightly different texts, but, I say again, we have no problems in basic terms.
Amongst our contributions which have been accepted by the rapporteur, I would like to highlight the texts which aim to prevent problems of confusion of interests, a recurrent issue in the management of some programmes, and, in voting on the Fabra Vallés report, less than an hour ago we encountered the problems deriving from insufficient regulation.
We therefore believe that the texts we have finally been able to draft are very opportune.
Another aspect to be stressed would be, in terms of what we have contributed, the correct implementation of a system for sampling, when giving visas.
At this point, we have to say that, in our opinion, the Commission has given itself undue licence.
We understand the needs of sampling, to make management more flexible, but we cannot grant carte blanche.
I would now like to go back to what the rapporteur said a moment ago.
On this proposal, Parliament goes further than even the Commission, although this is because the Commission's proposal is limited in scope.
And I should mention to the Commissioner that we always receive proposals for amending the Financial Regulation in instalments, and we would like to know whether, within an internal work schedule, the Commission has a detailed programme of the various stages and packages it intends to send us.
We are well aware that we cannot draw up a new code but, as we understand that improvement requires the sending of packages, we would like to know whether the Commission has this programme for its future work already mapped out.
And, if not, perhaps it could draw up an overall blueprint and advise us of what the successive volumes we are to receive will be.
Madam President, firstly, if I might just answer what Mr Colom i Naval has just said, I do not have an overall blueprint for the future but will draw his suggestion to the attention of my colleagues who are dealing with this matter.
I would like to welcome the thorough analysis of our proposal and congratulate Mr Sarlis but also Mr Dell'Alba, the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets.
The current proposed amendment to the Financial Regulation is intended to provide a legal framework for some of the main reforms in financial management that we are introducing in the context of the SEM 2000 initiative.
Key topics dealt with in this proposal are: the improved management of existing financial commitments and a closer control of work on the implementation of Community activities that is delegated to outside agencies.
Those have been stressed by the Court of Auditors in the last two years in the context of its statement of assurance on the Community's annual accounts.
Close agreement has been reached between the Commission and Parliament on the greater part of this extensive proposal so I do not want to give a misleading impression by concentrating on the points of difference which inevitably I have to do.
I would like to stress that for the most part, there is a very wide degree of agreement.
But it is my duty to say just one or two things about where we do not agree.
On Amendment No 7, Article 22(4), Indent 4, the first essential point relates to each institution's right to delegate powers for implementing the budget - and that has been referred to by the speakers - in accordance with its internal rules to delegate those powers to Directors-General and in appropriate cases to other officials.
I should emphasize that this particular clause relates exclusively to the delegation of powers within the Institutions and not to external bodies or agencies.
I would also mention that sub-delegations to staff are not something that is done informally but formal documents signed by the Directors-General concerned who themselves assume full responsibility for each sub-delegation of the powers that are delegated to them by the institution.
To add to the formality which is right and proper in such a case, a copy of each sub-delegation is sent to the Court of Auditors.
For operational reasons, in order to be able to do the job, the Commission, which executes 98 % of the budget, needs to be able to delegate powers to 500 or more officials, some of whom inevitably will be exercising some degree of discretion on behalf of their institution.
And it really would not be practical or cost-effective to retain all the detailed decisions on budget implementation at the very highest level in the institutions.
So we would have difficulty accepting the part of the sentence in the proposed amendment to Article 22 which reads: ' The delegation of powers to implement the budget can never be used for exercising discretionary power concerning a Community policy' .
The use of discretionary power sounds as if you are giving enormous power to the official. In fact some of the things on which they have to exercise a decision is indeed covered by the word discretionary but is really quite technical and detailed.
We understand that such a provision is desirable in relation to delegations of powers to an outside agency and that case is covered by Amendment No 20 to Article 55(a) which the Commission accepts.
I would now like to turn to Amendment No 17, Article 39, Indents 2 and 3 relating to each institution's power to overrule its financial controller, following a refusal of the approval or visa on the budgetary transaction.
At present the only limit on the institution's power is in the case of non-availability of appropriations to implement the transaction.
Parliament has proposed adding two more limits: firstly, when in the financial controller's view the item is booked to the wrong budgetary line; and, secondly, failure to comply with directives in the field of public procurement.
The Commission fully recognizes the importance of proper financial discipline on these additional points.
Nonetheless, the Commission's view would be that in such matters the financial controller must be able to express his or her judgement objectively through the refusal of visa.
In the light of the financial controller's decision, the institution must then assume its responsibilities in order to rectify the situation that has arisen, including the settlement of any legitimate claims by third parties.
These are institutional decisions which must nevertheless be taken within the limits of available appropriations and, of course, they must be reported to the Court of Auditors.
So we think the text of this revision should be left as it is.
The few remaining points are of a more technical nature.
Amendment No 6 relates to a previous proposal for amending the Financial Regulation in the EAGGF Guarantee Sector, which is now due to be adopted by the Council shortly as an A point.
Amendment No 12 contains a phrase relating to the re-use of VAT recovered from Member States, which appears inconsistent with the new and, as I understand it, agreed approach for the treatment of VAT defined in Amendment No 11 to Article 27.
Amendment No 21 relates to procurements and would require tenders to include directly all the requirements laid down in the invitation to tender on pain of elimination.
If rigidly applied, this provision would exclude potentially favourable tenders for perhaps minor technical reasons.
Amendments Nos 13, 15 and 19: the Commission can accept the principle of amendments consolidating the financial controller's right to give a visa on commitments and payments by sampling methods in appropriate cases.
We consider, however, that the existing regulation is already compatible with the use of sampling methods, and the amendments would only confirm existing practice.
We would also like to propose some adjustments to the drafting of this amendment, including possible amendments to the detailed provisions for approving commitments in Article 38(1).
It is a lengthy and complex proposal, incorporating numerous amendments, and it is important not to get it out of proportion.
We have reached agreement on all but two significant points, three technical points and one point of clarification.
I wish again to express the Commission's appreciation of the close and prompt cooperation of Parliament's committees on this proposal.
Our aim is to present a revised proposal after the summer holiday.
Madam President, I simply want to thank the Commissioner for his kind words, and Mr Colom i Naval and all our colleagues on the committee too, for the cooperation we enjoyed.
However, I must say - and I repeat this again - that the problem we had both in the MED case and in that of tourism, was mainly due to the vagueness of the orders.
There were orders which if correctly interpreted, would not have led to the results that they did.
Consequently, when one is responsible for drawing up an order, a rule concerning financial matters, one must be very clear in the wording and not allow room for sidestepping.
That was the spirit in which the amendment on subdelegation was drawn up, the amendment about which the Commission has doubts.
I should say that with that amendment in particular, Commissioner, it becomes possible for the Commission on the basis of Article 139 to clarify the issue of discretionary power, as you said. However, in the Financial Regulation it must be established as a general principle that mainly in case of subdelegation the person who accepts the subdelegation cannot exercise it at his own discretion, whatever that may be.
That matter, however, can be clarified, as is said in what Parliament proposes, so that practical problems can be solved.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Financial control of structural funds
The next item is the report (A4-0230/97) by Mr Colom I Naval, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission document (C4-0246/97) on financial control of Structural Funds operations - net financial corrections.
Ladies and gentlemen, I fear that my report will, if I might be allowed to say so, go unnoticed - my fears are all the greater when I look around me at this magnificent chamber - which is curious, because this report, when it comes up next month as a new European Commission regulation, will undoubtedly be the subject of newspaper banner headlines on the first day it enters into force.
The day on which a Member State has to return properly utilized funds, from the structural funds, I have no doubt that at least the press in that country, and possibly other Community countries as well, will make it front-page news, at least in the economic section of the press.
This is therefore one of those 'contradictory' reports which, to all intents and purposes are technical in nature but whose contents have a tangible effect on the implementation of a major part of our budget.
The report I have the honour of presenting today on behalf of the Commission on Budgetary Control is also an example of the relations which should exist between Parliament and the Commission.
I say this because - and I stress this - there is no legal obligation on the part of the Commission to consult us on this issue.
It is a political thank-you for Parliament's activity and responsible approach. At the same time, I must say that a code of conduct governing relations between Parliament and the Commission had been signed, implying that this would be automatic and there were good and bad points.
You might say that we have to get started, finally, with this agreement.
There has therefore been a small degree of confusion, in terms of our bilateral relations, given its positive appearance in the eyes of the Committee on Budgetary Control and its negative appearance in the eyes of the Committee on Regional Policy.
So I would like to explain why we, the Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy and I, as rapporteur, were moved to sign a joint amendment, bearing in mind that this was included in the code of conduct.
I would anticipate your comments, Madam President, that obviously the rapporteur will be in favour of this amendment although it was not addressed at the time in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Basically, ladies and gentlemen, the issue is one of transferring the principle of the financial corrections of the accounts of the EAGGF Guarantee Section, which has been in force for many years now, to other sectors of the Community budget.
Parliament has made this request a number of times, most recently and with greatest emphasis on the occasion of my own report on the SEM 2000 initiative, voted last November.
We asked for this principle to be extended and we were told, ladies and gentlemen, that this was very difficult, if not impossible.
However, later, during this fruitful dialogue we have been having with the Commission and which we have had the opportunity to develop in what is known as the Group of Personal Representatives of Finance Ministers, chaired by two Commissioners, and in which Parliament has been represented by your rapporteur, it was concluded that this was an issue which could be developed and perfected and that there was nothing to stop this.
The Commission therefore decided that this should be approved before the end of July.
Hence the urgency requiring us to vote on this report tomorrow without fail, so that Parliament will have defined its position before the Commission finally settles the issue.
We have been aware for many years, now, of how the financial corrections in the EAGGF Guarantee sector operate, designation of a body in each Member State which is accountable to the Commission, accreditation of paying agencies, etc., etc.
However, these mechanisms were, quite frankly, unclear in the structural policies.
What bases could we have? Evidently, Articles 23 and 24 of the Funds Coordinating Regulation.
However, hitherto, these two articles have never provided the foundation for a systematic procedure for clearing accounts or even financial corrections which are occasional, but are linked to specific circumstances. Why was that?
Well, because there were reasons which were undoubtedly political, and also technical reasons.
I would be so bold as to say - and I know that the Member States will complain - that there was not the least political will on the part of the Council, despite the Council being the first to shout from the rooftops that it wants effective, fair, strict and rigorous administration.
Yet when it came to the structural fund money, it preferred to look elsewhere.
Given the Council's attitude, it is understandable that the Commission was disinclined to address the issue.
The SEM 2000 programme has been the catalyst and therefore we have managed to achieve a turnaround in political will.
Moreover, Articles 23 and 24 were, perhaps, unclear and this led to difficulties with applying them.
The Commission now maintains that, with Articles 23 and 24, it is genuinely possible to make the financial correction, something we had always asserted.
What is more, it proves that EAGGF Guarantee case-law - because cases have been taken to the Court of Justice - does give it a sufficient base and that, therefore, it can thus carry forward a pragmatic procedure for correction of the structural fund accounts without it being necessary to modify the legal base.
What we are stating in our proposal, ladies and gentlemen, is that we can accept this pragmatic base tentatively and experimentally, but that we believe that the legal structure of the proposal is somewhat weak and that, in the medium term, based on experience, we should improve it and supplement it.
We do not feel that we should draft a totally exhaustive regulation, but something which is more complete than what we currently have.
We should give the Commission the means of control in those countries which are implementing the structural funds.
Structural funds are implemented basically by national or sub-central, local or regional authorities, the länder , etc., and the Commission's powers in this area need to be strengthened.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not wish to take unfair advantage of the time available, but I would like to tell you that we regard the Commission's proposal that the corrections could be retroactive as wrong.
We are not talking about sanctions.
If sanctions are to be applied, there may be mitigating circumstances or there could be negotiations to examine the fine imposed in precise detail.
Here, we are not dealing with fines - we are establishing an accounting procedure which 'photographs' the situation and therefore we believe that it should not be made retroactive.
Madam President, I should like to do two things, and also make some comments on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy.
In 1995, total payments from the Structural Funds amounted to about ECU 21 billion.
As is shown in the 7th Annual Report on the Structural Funds, the competent Directorates General, Regional Policy and Budgetary Control, carried out a total of 220 inspections, 134 being carried out by Regional Policy and 80 by Budgetary Control.
As you might imagine, this was not enough.
However, not every project that is supported by EU funds can be inspected by the Commission staff.
The main task, i.e. that of preventing or identifying irregularities, lies with the Member States, as part of the partnership system.
In view of the fact that hundreds of millions of ECUs go missing every year as a result of fraud, however, weak points need to be recognized and remedied.
As things stand at present, I can see three such weak points.
The first weak point is organizational problems at the Commission.
Between the two Directorates General that I have just mentioned, there is the problem that the results of financial controls are not notified to the competent bodies, or else notified too late.
The second weak point is the Member States themselves.
As long as money from Brussels is not used with the same degree of care as national tax-payers' money, any form of control will be inefficient.
The misuse of money from the Structural Funds must be punished with the same degree of severity as the fraudulent obtaining of subsidies from national funds.
The third weak point is that there is no adequate legal control over the financial corrections.
We do, admittedly, have Articles 23 and 24 of the Coordination Regulation, but these have never yet been used as the basis for financial controls.
I agree with the rapporteur, who is asking for a solid legal framework.
The European Parliament has already, in its approval decision for the 1995 budgetary year, asked for a clear legal basis, under the heading 'Approval of the Structural Funds' .
As a member of the Committee on Regional Policy, I am aware that we bear a heavy responsibility for the correct use of one third of the budgetary resources of the EU.
The funds are intended to be used for economic and social cohesion purposes, and should not be allowed to trickle away, senselessly and uselessly, as a result of inefficient administration or fraudulent dealings.
I am able to support Document SEM 2000, Commission Document 3 and also the rapporteur's conclusions.
Madam President, the Structural Funds are an increasingly important field of EU expenditure.
They are already the second largest expenditure item in the EU budget, representing nearly 40 % of it.
The proportion of the budget accounted for by the Structural Funds will increase further in future, as we saw when the Agenda 2000 assessment was published yesterday, because some 2 billion marks are to be transferred from them to the Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, mainly for similar use, while in addition structural funding is to be held constant in the budget at its present figure of 0.46 % of GDP.
It is up to the Member States to use these funds.
Mr Colom I Naval has done excellent work in drafting his report and, in it, explaining the difficulties associated with the use of resources from the Structural Funds.
The majority of structural funding is used through programmes to promote particular objectives, which are administered by various Directorates-General in Brussels.
This lack of centralized administration already makes it more difficult to take proper care of the funds.
Moreover, in the Member States the use of the money is again divided among various administrators, and is also regionally decentralized.
It is accordingly difficult to monitor the use of the funding.
All this helps to make it unclear how it is being used.
At the same time, structural funding is used in small, scattered amounts in various areas of society, which further impedes auditing of its use.
Yet the Structural Funds are in a sense a question of confidence between the EU and its Member States.
They seek to promote cohesion and regional equality.
This means that precise net adjustments, as proposed by the Commission, are difficult.
They therefore require an appropriate legal basis, as called for by the rapporteur, and they should be highly predictable.
Only in this way can legal certainty be ensured for the Member States, citizens and the EU.
Madam President, I support the adoption of the report.
Madam President, of course it is important that financial checks are made on the operation of the Structural Funds.
This is why it is good that we have received this document from the Commission.
I am also very pleased with the report written by Mrs Colom I Naval.
It is the Member States which are responsible for making checks to ensure that there is no fraud.
It is also important that we remind the Member States of this procedure of proceeding, so that we do not have to read about various fraudulent dealings in the newspapers.
But perhaps it is not just financial control which the Structural Funds need.
All too often we hear, or read in the newspapers that a project which has received aid from the Structural Funds has had a totally different impact from that envisaged when aid was given.
How, for example, will the Structural Funds affect the environmental objectives which we, ourselves, have set up in the EU and confirmed in the European Parliament?
And even the opposite of this is true.
There are Member States which do not use their right to Structural Fund aid and there are funds which are frozen because of difficulties in obtaining information. Many do not understand this or the fact that everything must be applied for through Brussels.
The bureaucracy frightens people away and should be amended in the not too distant future.
In conclusion: thank you Mrs Colom I Naval for this report!
I would also like to thank Mr Colom i Naval for the work that he has done relating to this matter.
On financial control, the action that the Commission has taken and which has received support from the report takes two forms.
The first is a proposal from the Commission for a regulation under Article 23 of the structural fund regulation, to clarify the minimum requirements for controls by Member States in the structural funds.
The second is a set of guidelines to Commission services on the criteria for making net financial corrections under Article 24 of the structural fund regulation.
The draft regulation is a clarification, therefore, of the arrangements for management and control already provided for under the structural fund regulation.
It is not a question of laying down new rules or demanding the creation of new structures, but of specifying the nature and volume of controls which are necessary to enable to designated authorities of the Member States to certify that the actions have been managed and checked and that the expenditure is justified.
In particular, the draft regulation clarifies the nature of the certification to be provided by the Member State.
The guidelines for net financial corrections flow, in the Commission's view, from the existing provision of the main structural fund regulation and do not require any additional legal base.
But the Commission will review the operation of the guidelines in a year's time and consider whether any changes might be required in the main structural fund regulation for the period from the year 2000 onwards.
Meanwhile we will keep Parliament fully informed about the application of the Article 24 provisions in specific cases, which are applied in full consultation with the Member State concerned.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.55 p.m.)
VOTES
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the report on the Commission communication concerning the development of the social dialogue at Community level.
The social dialogue is an effective tool which should be built upon with a view to creating and further developing economic and social cohesion in the EU.
The Danish Social Democrats consider that the sectoral dialogue in this context is especially important, since the specific expertise of the participants is particularly suited to ensuring that the benefit of direct practical experience is brought to the social dialogue.
In addition, we are very favourably disposed to the view taken in the report that representatives from the future Member States in Eastern and Central Europe be involved as observers in the social dialogue.
The Danish Social Democrats welcome the Commission's support in its communication for the principle of the autonomy of parties by emphasizing that only the social partners themselves can develop their own dialogue and negotiating structure.
For the same reason, the Danish Social Democrats are opposed to the call in the report for the European Parliament to be granted a power of co-decision.
Along with the trade unions and employers' organizations in Denmark, the Danish Social Democrats consider that the EU institutions should not have powers to amend agreements concluded by the social partners themselves.
. (DA) There are many reasons why I cannot vote for this report.
It is one more example of how social and labour market policy is being used as a means of furthering integration, with the aim of securing a uniform policy in these fields, partly in the interests of freedom of movement and partly in order to promote competitiveness in the EU.
It also seeks to gain more power for the European Parliament, placing it on an equal footing with the Council.
I absolutely reject this and once more insist that social and labour market policy must remain a national matter.
However, I agree that it may be expedient for the social partners to conclude agreements on an international basis, but this should not only happen within EU borders, and I am directly opposed to EU agreements as such.
Support system for producers of arable crops
The next item is the report by Mr Funk, on behalf of the Commitee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the proposal for a Regulation derogating from certain provisions of Regulation (EEC) No 1765/92 establishing a support system for producers of certain crops (COM(97)0360 - C4-0343/97-96/0167(CNS))
Mr President, I am in broad agreement with Mr Funk. I too believe it would be better to approve this Regulation without any extensive amendments, as a service to farmers.
We all know that doing a service to farmers means doing a service to the community as a whole.
Nevertheless, Mr President, I should like to say once again that I believe that setaside was and is an aberration.
I think it would have been more intelligent, in terms of general policy, to propose the extensive cultivation of cereal crops, with a view to improving quality and protecting the environment, in particular by reducing the amount of nitrogen or crop protection products used in this type of production as a whole.
That, as I see it, would have been an intelligent and inexpensive way of protecting the environment; those of us who are involved with farming know that the highest cost factors in agricultural production are what we now call the inputs.
I believe it would be easier to increase farm incomes by reducing the burden of inputs, rather than by resorting to premiums or devices of that type.
I have another question - this time a moral or perhaps even philosophical question: do we have any right to set aside arable land in our regions at a time when a billion human beings are going hungry every day on this planet, and the very simple reason why they are going hungry is that they are poor? Should we, for heaven's sake, be allowing human beings to die simply because they are poor and because the only logic that seems to drive mankind today is the logic of profit?
Mr President, I think that the production of food products and the capacity for that production should be regarded as a natural asset on the global scale, an asset that should be placed at the disposal of every citizen.
These natural assets should be managed by a body less ossified, as I see it, than the World Trade Organization, whose sole purpose is to run our planet for the benefit of the rich and to the detriment of the poor.
I believe, Mr President, because nature has its ups and downs and because the ways in which these cereals are consumed on our planet give us a little breathing space, that we should make it our concern to rethink the general organization of farm production, to plan it for the benefit of human beings wherever in the world they may happen to be, rather than bending it to the service of some kind of commercial logic.
Mr President, it is clear that we are holding this Friday morning debate in the interest of Europe's farmers.
I think it is in their interest for it to be made clear as soon as possible what the set-aside rate will be for the coming year.
It is absolutely not clear to me why the Commission had to wait so long in making this announcement, when the Council was quite able to take a decision on the matter.
Be that as it may, however.
We have seen considerable changes taking place since set-aside was introduced.
It was originally 15 %.
We now have 5 %, and if we look carefully at the proposals contained in Agenda 2000, it is meant to return to zero.
Before we embark on this debate, it is worth taking stock of what has happened up to now.
What interests me in particular is what has been the case so far with voluntary set-aside.
Because when we talk about a 5 % or 10 % set-aside rate, there has also always been a certain percentage of voluntary set-aside. What was the voluntary set-aside when the rate was 10 %, and when it was 5 %?
If we lower the rate, does the percentage for voluntary set-aside accordingly become higher, yes or no? I should be interested to know these figures.
I should also like to know what crops are being grown on set-aside land. Is this happening in the interest of our environment policy, for example?
Are these crops being used for farm purposes?
Can we produce more biodiesel or other crops which are helpful in terms of protecting the environment, and so forth? I think that all these aspects will have to be considered during the year when Agenda 2000 is discussed.
For the time being, the farmers know clearly where they stand, and that is ultimately the important thing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Funk said that if the Council takes decisions in this way, the process is quicker.
Matters would no doubt be dealt with much more quickly, Mr Funk, if democracy were abolished, but the big question is whether that would be any better!
The Council has ridden roughshod over Parliament's rights, and attempted to push through an arrangement without a proposal being presented by the Commission.
What disgraceful conduct!
We should not tolerate this, especially since we only recently asked the Commission when it was intending to submit a proposal.
It was not then in a position to do so.
Now that the Council has stolen its thunder, the Commission is having to go along with it, and we give the whole business our blessing after the event.
We should not accept this kind of treatment!
Turning to the substance of the matter, the figure is 5 %, but there is also voluntary set-aside, which is still possible up to a rate of 33 %.
What is needed here is an arrangement geared not to land set-aside, but to land use or land regeneration.
That is why we have tabled an amendment whereby legumes - grass-clover and lucerne - can be grown on such land.
Grazing should also be allowed on set-aside land, and regulated organic farms should be allowed to use legumes grown there as forage.
The point is that the EU produces surpluses not across the board, but only in certain sectors. Where we do have surpluses, these are the result of imports of feed from overseas.
It would make a good deal of sense to plant protein crops on this land, because we cover only 20 % of our own protein needs within the EU: it would be an excellent idea to make up for our protein deficit by starting to produce protein crops.
I realize that, pursuant to Article 43, this amendment will not be successful unless it is taken up by the Commission.
I contacted the Commission yesterday evening, and learned that there are legal difficulties which prevent forage being produced under the compulsory set-aside scheme, but that it can be done on land set aside voluntarily.
So what we agreed was this: we shall suggest an addition - which I shall put forward as an amendment later on - referring to voluntary set-aside. The Commission will not take up this amendment now, but will do so under the agricultural reform in Agenda 2000.
Mr Van Miert is to make a statement to this effect. So if compulsory set-aside is reduced to zero under Agenda 2000, we shall be able to use voluntary set-aside to make up for our protein deficit, thereby introducing a programme of regeneration which will put crop rotation in general on an ecologically sounder footing.
Mr President, I should like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Funk, and Parliament as a whole for having effectively given priority to the Commission's proposal setting the rate of compulsory setaside at 5 % for the 1998-9 season and introducing certain related measures concerning the sanctions provided by the support system for producers of arable crops if the basic area is exceeded.
The extension of the 5 % setaside rate is justified in a market situation that is notable for the absence of substantial cereal stocks, both in the Community and on the world scale.
The proposal for the 1998 setaside rate is supplemented by a further exceptional suspension of the setaside system in the event that the basic area is exceeded, and by a temporary adjustment of the sanctions system in the event that an irrigated ceiling is exceeded.
As last year, the Commission's proposal also provides for a reduced increase in compulsory setaside, in the event that one producer transfers his setaside obligation to another.
Some Member States and the European Parliament had asked for a proposal for the month of June.
I have duly noted the comments made by speakers on this subject.
But the Commission wanted to wait in order to obtain a more reliable estimate of this year's harvest.
However, in order to arrive at a compromise on the price package - and God knows that, as the days and hours pass, the Commission is sometimes persuaded to support a compromise within the Council of Ministers - the Commission agreed to propose, sooner than intended, it is true, an exemption from the basic rate of compulsory setaside, fixed at 17.5 % by the 1992 Regulation.
The impact of climatic fluctuations on arable crop production, however, is now forcing us to adopt a policy of caution.
Regarding the possibility of using setaside land for the production of legumes, this would be contradictory to the setaside obligation contained in the present Regulation - and I do emphasize that, the present Regulation - applicable to the production of protein seeds.
The idea, in itself, has advantages and disadvantages.
However, the Commission considers that the proposal under consideration is not the appropriate framework for this discussion, which should take place within the context of Agenda 2000.
I hope this adequately covers the concerns expressed by the last speaker, in particular.
I am convinced, therefore, that the Commission's proposal will conform to the wishes of all interested parties, and the Commission is glad that, even if there has had to be a little improvisation, we have once again succeeded in reaching an agreement.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
On Amendment No. 1
In order to comply with the formalities, I should like to make an oral addition to Amendment No 1, reading as follows: ' This arrangement shall apply exclusively to voluntary set-aside' .
This forms the third paragraph of the amendment.
I repeat: ' This arrangement shall apply exclusively to voluntary set-aside' .
That is what was agreed.
Mr President, I have no objection to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's proposal.
We shall abstain, however, because in our view it should be discussed in detail in the Committee on Agriculture before we start bringing forward such issues from Agenda 2000.
I would prefer us to discuss first what should form part of Agenda 2000.
I would ask my group to abstain today, so that we can talk that over first.
Mr President, our group welcomes the fact that the Commission has endorsed the proposal made by the Council during the negotiation of the price package: a setaside rate limited to 5 % and the abolition of the extraordinary setaside, the retention of which would have been particularly absurd when cereal stocks are as unusually low as they are at present.
Farmers will, of course, retain the option of setting aside some of their land on a voluntary basis.
During the last plenary session, our group tabled an amendment, adopted by the House, calling for precisely this 5 % ceiling on the setaside rate, because the European Union, despite the GATT agreements, has to both preserve its export vocation and reconquer its internal market.
I would remind the House of the importance of European imports of cereal substitute products.
Our group has always opposed the structural institutionalization of setaside, and we are bound to say that the facts confirm that our analysis was correct.
Our group voted in favour of the amendment tabled by the Greens, following the speech just made by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, calling for the development of legumes on setaside pastureland, because this is the part of the setaside land chosen on a voluntary basis by our farmers.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Common organization of the market in hops
The next item is the report by Mr Mayer (A4-0228/97), on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1696/71 on the common organization of the market in hops (COM(97)0098 - C4-0184/97-97/0066(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like briefly to present the report by my colleague, Xaver Mayer, to those of you who have stayed the course until today, Friday.
It deals with the reform of the common organization of the market in hops.
I would begin by thanking you for agreeing to the urgent procedure, and by pointing out that the early green light from the Commission and the Council means that the hop producers affected by these far-reaching changes can be informed of them speedily and, above all, can obtain the aid they need as a matter of urgency.
Hops are an indispensable raw material in beer production throughout the world.
Beer even forms a basic source of nutrition in certain countries.
It is the substances contained in hop cones that determine the mellow bitterness, the head, the ease of preservation and the typical aroma of a beer.
Besides their principal use, hops are also used in naturopathy owing to the calmative effect of their constituents.
I would recommend this as a natural sedative.
Some 28 000 hectares in the EU and some 24 000 ha in other European countries were under hops in 1996.
By way of comparison, 18 000 ha were under hops in the USA, 1000 in Australia, 350 in New Zealand and 9300 in the Czech Republic.
Hops are traded freely throughout the world, according to the principle of supply and demand.
This trade is conducted by just a handful of firms.
In order to combat excessive price fluctuations, the bulk of the hop crop in the EU is sold by means of multiannual supply contracts.
Technological progress and changes in tastes have in recent years seen demand for varieties with a high alpha acid content predominate; other varieties are no longer marketable.
At the same time, the hop market is currently beset by global structural surpluses. It is estimated that world alpha acid production in 1996 was about 9000 tonnes, compared with the brewing industry's annual requirements of some 8000 tonnes.
Hop-growing is very capital-intensive: the cost of the trellises alone, up which the attractive hop plants grow, is ECU 20 000/ha.
Support for the necessary conversion to new varieties is therefore urgently needed, both to reduce the area under hops and to eliminate structural surpluses.
Secondly, old varieties need to be grubbed up and replaced with new ones that are more marketable.
The Commission is proposing the granting of flat-rate annual aid at ECU 450/ha, as well as the possibility of withholding up to 20 % of the aid to producers to implement special measures, which would be managed by producer groups.
Thirdly, the Commission is proposing a means of accelerating varietal conversion.
Mr Mayer's amendments focus on temporary set-aside, a system which would not burden the EAGGF with extra costs.
The following conditions would have to be met: reusable hop-growing facilities must be maintained in good condition; the areas must be given permanent grass cover to improve soil fertility; and the areas under hops must not be extended to include other farmland.
The proportion of aid to be used for common objectives should be increased from 20 % to 40 %.
It should also be possible to cumulate this proportion over a period not exceeding five years.
The obligation on producer groups in future to withhold 5 % per year of the aid to producers for varietal conversion is not practicable, and should therefore be deleted from the proposal.
It should be possible to use the aid for measures to cultivate and stabilize the markets and to determine quality, for targeted research, and for the authorization of environmentally sound plant protection products. The level of aid to producers should be based on the historical average not for the last ten years, but the last three, to take account of the fact that hop-growing has become more costly, the necessary varietal conversion is expensive, no further separate funding is to be made available for varietal conversion, and at the same time there has been a persistent fall in market prices for hops.
If only one aid is to be granted, Commissioner, that aid should amount to ECU 500/ha.
This is a comparatively modest sum - I referred earlier to an area of 28 000 ha.
The Commission is of course urged to accept Parliament's amendments.
The tradition of hop-growing dates back a long time in a number of Member States; that is why we should help to secure its future, so that every now and again, when our work is done, we can toast each other with a glass of good beer.
Mr President, when we talk about the health of European citizens, we have to be concerned about alcoholism, which claims far more victims than tobacco addiction.
We know that the death rate from alcoholism is the highest in Europe and that alcohol is the most dangerous drug for European citizens, particularly when people drink and drive, endangering their own and other people's lives.
Of all alcoholic beverages, beer is the most dangerous, because people who drink it do not fully realize that they are consuming an alcoholic product.
We need to think about the health of citizens not only when talking about the production of certain products, but also when individual States and the European Union undertake other actions which are right and proper, such as information and awareness campaigns.
I think that it is absolutely right that today there should be no large line-up of Members here concerned about health, rather than producers.
It is right, I repeat, but I must say I am a little surprised, because I would have thought that there would be greater cohesion and ongoing, rather than occasional, concern - maybe if the product were from the south rather than the north - but I am pleased anyway.
I am pleased that honourable Members fully realize that we are talking about production and not health, that they are reserving their attention for these matters for occasions when health, education and training are being discussed.
There are, however, quite a few contradictions, ladies and gentlemen: for instance, while States are adopting measures to control drinking and driving, and undertaking costly awareness campaigns, Amendment No 5 to Article 1 of this proposal for a regulation provides, on the contrary, for investment in the promotion of production and publicity.
This seems a little excessive to me!
I would accept the idea of including some contrary measures in a regulation of this kind, but one should, in my view, avoid broaching this.
Since, however, in this proposal there is, most appropriately, a reference to measures intended to protect the environment and reduce the use of plant protection products, improving quality and safeguarding European production, I fully agree with the report, even though some will undoubtedly be against it.
Mr President, the 1971 Regulation on hops, geared to providing aid on a per-hectare basis and envisaging a varietal conversion programme, was the subject of a four-point Commission proposal last year.
We, for our part, are in favour of flat-rate annual aid, without distinction between varieties, and the continuance of varietal conversion with no limit in area or time, provided the quality is not affected.
We also agree with the possibility of withholding up to 20 % of the aid to producers to allow the study and implementation of special measures in this field.
On this point we do not agree with Mr Mayer that this withholding should be exceeded, unless there is clearly a surplus situation, evidenced by stocks or unsold products.
In addition, of course, we also believe that it is essential for producers who are members of approved groups to be able to market their own products without any price reduction.
Overall, the proposal is an interesting one, tending towards greater procedural flexibility and reducing the budgetary impact.
Finally, the rapporteur's proposal that total aid should be increased to ECU 500 per hectare seems a good compromise between the Commission's proposal and the demands made by certain Member States who would like to see the premiums virtually doubled.
Mr President, for a Member of the Commission, the advantage of being able to listen to a number of reports here on Friday on behalf of one's colleagues and to express the Commission's views is that one always learns a great many things.
And today, therefore, I have learned a good deal more about the medical qualities of hops.
I suspect that I shall have to extend my knowledge of the subject a little further, not least after what has been said by other colleagues here in the House - and I gladly accept your proposal of sampling a good beer afterwards.
I should like to thank the rapporteur - and particularly Mr Funk, who has been deputizing for Mr Mayer - for this excellent report, as well as the Committee on Agriculture for its constructive approach.
I am pleased to note that our proposal amending the organization of the market in hops - the aim of which is to help the sector adapt to market requirements - has on the whole been favourably received.
We have taken the opportunity to simplify the legislation and to give the producer groups broader scope and more flexibility, as the last speaker rightly pointed out.
Solutions have been found to various problems on which there were at first differences of view, but I have to say that there are still some of Parliament's amendments which the Commission is unable to accept.
These include the request for a temporary set-aside to be introduced, contained in Amendments Nos 2 and 13; allowing for 40 % of the aid to be withheld, through Amendments Nos 3, 10 and 12; and increasing the aid to ECU 500 per hectare, provided for by Amendments Nos 1 and 11.
I understand very well that some Members would like to increase the amounts, but the Commission continues to feel that ECU 450 per hectare is an appropriate sum - not a lavish one, but nonetheless a reasonable amount.
The amendments which I can accept on behalf of my colleague Mr Fischler are Nos 4 to 8 on the special measures to be applied in the event of part of the aid being withheld, and also Nos 3 and 12 removing the compulsory withholding of 5 % of the aid for varietal conversion.
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that in this way I have been able to show a reasonably accommodating attitude on behalf of the Commission as regards the concerns which have been expressed here, while I would ask you to understand that some other amendments could not be accepted by the Commission.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Aid to hop producers is necessary.
The point is that the big American dealers exert a considerable influence on the world market situation.
Since the market is not naturally balanced, producers do have to be granted aid.
Regrettably, that aid is much less than it needs to be in order to put up an adequate resistance to American pressure.
The Commission is proposing four changes: 1) differentiated aid for each variety is boosted by flat-rate annual aid; 2) members of recognized producer groups can market all or some of their own produce without being penalized by any reduction in aid; 3) producers will have the possibility of varietal conversion on a permanent basis; 4) 20 % of the aid can be allocated to special measures.
The aid is fixed at ECU 450 per hectare.
We are in favour of these proposals, although the total amount of aid does not itself seem sufficient.
We will therefore vote in favour of this report, even though we do not find it entirely satisfactory.
I am voting against this report as I think that the Common Agricultural Policy needs to be fundamentally reformed.
The current tightly regulated agricultural policy is bureaucratic, ineffective and unjustifiably politically divisive.
I hope that agricultural policy will be drastically reformed in 1999 and I will do all I can to see that this happens.
The report proposal before us proposes that 12.5 million ECUs be allocated for expenditure within the bee sector in 1997.
I consider this unacceptable.
I will vigorously pursue a course here in Parliament to bring the general opinion around to accepting the abolition of the current unhealthy agricultural subsidy system.
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
I am sure that Mrs Marinucci did not intend to pick an argument with you or your colleagues who like drinking beer.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Green paper on competition policy
The next item is the report by Mrs Thyssen (A4-0242/97), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission Green Paper on vertical restraints in EC competition policy (COM(96)0721 - C4-0053/97).
Mr President, the European Community stands for a market economy with free competition.
Following the action programme to complete the internal market and the introduction of the euro, national measures and borders will disappear once and for all as a means of preventing, limiting or distorting competition.
With the policy on cartels, the aim has always been to deny legitimacy to other ways of distorting competition, in particular certain agreements between undertakings.
While virtually everyone appreciates the policy which has hitherto been applied with regard to various aspects of vertical agreements, it is also generally being welcomed that we now have the Green Paper and that this robust analysis will encourage those concerned to indicate where they stand.
For a variety of reasons, the time is ripe for this.
We too set great store by this approach, Commissioner, and that is also why we have done everything possible to produce our opinion on the Green Paper within the timescale you have laid down.
Our position has not just been drawn up within a theoretical framework, but is also based on many contacts in the field and on an excellent relationship with the services of Directorate-General IV, for which I would thank you once again.
I should also like to make a point of thanking my colleagues in Parliament, because the contacts with them too were always constructive.
The fact that no amendments have been tabled against the basic options which are set out in the Commission's paper indicates that this report enjoys the broad support of the House.
I therefore hope, Commissioner, that you will take on board both the explanatory statement and the resolution on which we shall shortly be voting.
The keynotes of this report are the following: in the first place, we are arguing in favour of remaining within Article 85 of the Treaty.
One reason for this - though not the only one - is that this is the only way of updating policy within a relatively short period.
Secondly, we are asking the Commission to take particularly seriously the call which has been heard from all sides for the greatest possible legal certainty.
This is not just a legitimate expectation on the part of the business world; it is also a precondition for a positive climate for investment.
Those who are aware of the reality on the ground know better than anyone that vertical agreements go together with substantial material and relational investments.
The concern over legal certainty leads on to my third point.
The market share approach adopted in the paper is regarded with great suspicion by the business world.
In our view, there is good reason for this.
That is why our position is that the market share approach is only justifiable where it is strictly necessary for the effectiveness of the policy, and also provided that the Commission publishes clear guidelines, after consultation with the sectors involved.
But even then, it is in every sense a daunting prospect for those undertakings for which no reliable statistics are available or for which it is extremely difficult to lay down a clear definition of the market.
Fourthly, we wish to see an integrated policy, particularly with regard to SMUs.
It is not enough, as we have said here more than once, to continually note the incalculable socio-economic value of SMUs.
We also need to ensure that an SMU approach runs through all the relevant policy areas, and this is certainly the case in respect of the policy on competition.
In this context, the Commission has our full support for rapid implementation of the new 'de minimis' notice published in January.
We would also call on the Commission to be alive to three specific points and to draw the consequences from them in terms of policy.
Firstly, it must be realized that horizontal agreements between SMUs often serve to strengthen their dominant vertical position and to enable them to survive the increasing struggle of competition.
Secondly, it is desirable for the special economic advantages in service-station agreements and beer supply agreements to be commensurate with the purchasing obligations.
And thirdly, the call for greater flexibility should not simply meet with a positive response if this means that, where the dominant positions are not equivalent, greater flexibility for the one party has a detrimental effect on the scope for the other party to negotiate successfully.
This could well be the case if the purchasing obligations in beer supply contracts are defined by generic name, rather than by brand name.
It was not our intention to go into the specific options which have been proposed, but we must draw certain conclusions in this respect.
Besides the 'de minimis' rules, with which we are completely in agreement, Parliament is in favour of continuing the system of block exemptions, with a responsible increase in flexibility and the broadest possible area of application.
And by the latter, I mean that we wish to see the technique of block exemptions applied in principle to all undertakings in the sectors involved, regardless of market share.
In other words, no grey area for undertakings between 10 % and 20 %, and no exclusion of undertakings above 40 %.
However, to the extent that increased flexibility effectively presumes more supervision, market share can be used, but then only as a procedural criterion for making distinctions.
We would not go further than allowing for the rebuttal of a presumption of conformity.
Finally, there is the call for swifter administrative procedures, and of course I should like to hear the Commissioner's response to the contents of this report.
Thank you, Commissioner and thank you also, Mr President, for giving me the extra minute in which to speak.
Mr President, the EU's policy in respect of vertical restraints on competition, i.e. exclusive agreements between producers and distributors, and especially in exclusive distribution, exclusive purchasing, franchising and selective distribution, is of course the ultimate example of a pragmatic or, on the contrary, a somewhat academic - and I do mean academic - attitude to a liberalized competition policy.
In the latter case, and we - or at least I - can only regret this liberal approach, the desirability of market freedom is upheld on the one hand, while on the other a veil is deliberately drawn over the economic realities of the marketplace, sometimes to the detriment of employees and consumers, since the majority of these individuals do not belong to any networks and have no real means of competing economically with far more powerful forces, not to say monopolies.
That is why, with regard to vertical restraints on competition, in addition to the market share criterion, we are also calling for general clauses, so that distribution networks can be seen in a more global economic perspective.
I would draw your attention in particular to the high degree of concentration in the food trade, which creates new barriers to access for suppliers.
It is also regrettable that the market share approach, as proposed by the Commission in Options III and IV, is unattractive not only to those directly involved, but also to consumers' representatives.
They and we are equally afraid that, particularly when it comes to vertical restraints on competition, it really is extremely difficult to define market share in this context, because of the problem of networks, which eliminate competition between brands and create barriers to market access.
An extension of the regulation on block exemptions, for example to include selective distribution and partial exclusive purchasing, should give undertakings greater flexibility in drawing up contracts.
Finally, I would just say how necessary it has been since the outset - and still is - to have a social dialogue in this sector, involving both sides of industry along with consumers' representatives and associations.
Mr President, a common competition policy and the extremely important monitoring work carried out by the Commission are essential conditions for a healthy internal market.
It is also important that the Member States make a better attempt to integrate EEC law when drafting national competition legislation.
But it is also the Commission's task to ensure that we have the best tools for the policy on competition.
Now that we are to begin a review, I would like to emphasise the importance of making EEC law suitably flexible, to allow a reasonable amount of national adjustment but still achieve the most durable common basis.
This is one of the reasons I am sceptical about exact market share boundaries, as these can have different competitive effects in the various larger countries.
During the period of Conservative government 1991-1994, an almost identical copy of the EEC's competition legislation was introduced in Sweden, with the addition of a group exemption for large chains.
The Commission's Green Paper gives us an excellent opportunity to review group exemptions and perhaps redefine them or change their scope.
Voluntary co-operation between small and medium sized companies must be possible.
In monitoring this co-operation, the focus should be on the effect that it has on the market and will, naturally, continue to include blacklisting of restrictive pricing agreements and of the division of markets between partners.
Vertical agreements often take on the character of long term co-operation for management, finance and training so they can be a good, almost necessary support for many new entrepreneurs who otherwise would not have been able to start their own companies.
It is often this type of company which can facilitate increased competition and diversity in the marketplace.
The Commission's Green Paper is a welcome document now that we need to create modern legislation which reflects the real world.
Distribution networks change with the adoption of new lifestyles and this is particularly true as a result of information technology which not only brings with it new information routes but also new patterns of trade.
The modernised legislation - because we are not talking about anything new here, just a review of something which has, for the most part, been very successful for a long time - must be transparent and aim to bring about neutrality in competition, legal security and also provide for continued development and greater effectiveness in distribution.
Mrs Thyssen has done an excellent job - there is really not much to add.
I would just like to take this opportunity to bring to the Commission's attention the many other constraints on competition in trade, for example, the new wave of bans on supermarkets, and also the fact that many countries use their quota monopoly to reduce and hinder the growth of increased competition in the distribution chain.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, clearly there is such a thing in parliamentary life as close encounters of the third kind, namely when both the Greens and the Socialists come out in favour of real market freedom, and the Liberals, on liberal grounds, say: ' Oh well, let us leave things be. If there really are oligopolistic market structures, then so be it.
We can do nothing about it, so it is better to do nothing at all.'
That is precisely the point.
By introducing flexible rules - and mechanical algorithms are of little help here, since they are easily disproved - we must firstly strengthen the market position of consumers and, secondly, deal with the diverse networks of vertical concentration and integration in such a way that fair competition is still possible.
Flexible EU rules are needed to this end.
We therefore support the amendment outlined by Mr Ettl a moment ago.
Mr President, the Green Paper on vertical restraints in competition policy reflects a struggle for supremacy between the principles of legal certainty, effectiveness and flexibility.
In the distribution sector, small and medium-sized businesses have their own particular character.
Small retailers can quickly fall victim to excessive liberalization.
Nor is too much scope for vertical agreements a good thing, since retailers can then become pawns in the game of chess played out between major distributors and producers.
The principle of legal certainty is particularly important for small and medium-sized businesses.
The Commission's Directorate-General IV needs to prove itself a reliable authority.
Then the competition policy will help to stimulate investment and create jobs, without prejudice to consumers.
An approach based purely on market share is less effective in this respect.
The size of the market which has to be considered varies from case to case, and clear criteria must be used here.
The rapporteur's solution of applying a threshold value would create a certain amount of clarity for SMUs and at the same time ensure the maintenance of competition.
It would make it easier to set up horizontal networks which oil the wheels of a properly functioning and competitive distribution sector.
I have a question for Commissioner Van Miert about his views on legislation concerning zoning and opening hours.
According to the Green Paper, these are admission thresholds.
In my opinion, national, regional or local rules must continue to be possible.
Social and religious traditions which represent an integral part of community life would justify a policy of keeping shops closed on Sunday, for example.
People's basic needs include rest, and an opportunity to reflect and relax.
It would be undesirable to have legislative frameworks which allow these to be classified as admission thresholds.
I should very much like to know if Mr Van Miert will take these views into account.
In conclusion, I would express my support for the corrective amendments tabled by the rapporteur.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Thyssen's report follows up the Commission's Green Paper on Community competition policy and vertical restraints.
As stated in paragraph 13 of the report, this subject particularly concerns beer supply agreements and servicestation agreements, which have hitherto benefited from a system of exemptions.
Regulation 1984-83 provided particular arrangements for these two sectors in the exemptions for each category for exclusive purchasing agreements.
In both cases, we know that the supplier grants the retailer a number of economic and financial advantages, and the rapporteur is asking that there should be a balance, as it were, between the advantages granted and the interests of the other partners.
That being said, it would seem that these agreements are necessary for these economic sectors to function properly, and also that the certainty of the legal framework is obviously an essential condition to ensure that the operators can carry on their business under the right conditions.
The Regulation does not define the advantages proposed, and the rapporteur contents herself with calling for balance, but there is no hostility in this text towards sectoral exemptions from the rules on market shares.
In any case, there is no doubt that the crude application of a market share criterion would fail to correspond to the genuine nature of the market, from the point of view of its structure.
That is why Amendment No 2, in particular, proposed by Mrs Thyssen, seems to me a very welcome way of strengthening this aspect of the report, as do Amendment No 4, as far as options 1 and 2 are concerned, and Amendment No 7.
In general, then, we approve of the broad lines adopted by this report, and we shall be voting in favour.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is little to add to this very clear report.
However, I should like to take up an issue which Mr Blokland has already touched on.
The rapporteur is justifiably critical of the fact that opening hours and zoning laws are classified in the Green Paper as admission thresholds.
This is an extremely sensitive area, and the scope for regional policy measures must definitely be retained here.
The comparison in the McKinsey Global Institute report with developments in the USA is not relevant in this context: the circumstances in America cannot be compared with the structures which have evolved over centuries in a good many European countries.
Experiments with liberal opening hours have sometimes shown that neither businesses, employees, nor consumers are willing to depart from tradition, and that there has been no increase at all in turnover, let alone the creation of any new jobs.
The right to refuse planning permission on environmental grounds is a major aspect of the local authorities' powers, and should help to maintain a harmonious pattern of urban development.
The building of new supermarkets on the outskirts of small towns has often meant that the creation of new jobs on the edge of town has been matched by a loss of jobs in the centre.
It therefore makes sense for retailers' associations to have a say, for example through the elected local council in the case of planning permission for supermarkets, and this cannot be described as an admission threshold.
Mr President, I should firstly like to express my thanks to Mrs Thyssen and congratulate her on this report, along with all those who have worked on it, because it shows the exceptional thoroughness with which this matter has been approached and studied.
Leaving the relations between the Commission and Parliament to one side, it is also an intellectual pleasure to be able to deal with one another in this way and to discuss what are indeed rather complex but very important matters for a large area of our economic life.
I therefore particularly wished to thank Mrs Thyssen, not least for the praise she has given to our services.
When that happens for once, it is naturally a pleasure for me to take note of it.
I should basically like to say the following, but perhaps first I would just say something about a brief sentence in the Green Paper which has in fact been taken slightly out of context, namely opening hours and everything associated with them.
It is not the Commission's aim to concern itself with this area.
These are national matters.
What we have noted is a trend in some Member States, which we welcomed, but at the same time - and this is also in the Green Paper - we have said that this kind of trend must not of course take place at the expense of other things, for example social concerns.
So that sentence has been formulated in a balanced way, and I would ask for it to be read likewise, without one aspect being seized on and taken out of context.
Turning now to the substance of the matter, this is indeed a very important subject, because we are talking here about many hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of jobs in the European Union.
Everyone has something to do with the distribution sector, and what is actually at issue here is the rules on how people deal with each other in this sector: what is allowed, and what is not; when people are misusing dominant positions to the detriment of what tend to be small businesses, and when they are not.
That is really what this is all about.
And while I shall not go further into the substance of the problems, vertical agreements can be both pro-competition and anticompetition - it all depends on the context in which they are made.
I should like to deal in more detail with a number of the comments made in the report, but I would firstly welcome the fact - and the speeches have just highlighted this once again - that virtually all those who have given this subject their attention are on the same wavelength as the analysis contained in the Green Paper; they are also pleased that the Commission is willing to look critically at this issue and has therefore asked everyone involved for their opinion, and that after a somewhat long but thorough discussion, we can then arrive at conclusions together.
Of course, some of these conclusions will be controversial, there is no avoiding that, but what we want is for the adjusted rules, on the basis of Article 85 - and Mrs Thyssen has just emphasized that once again, because we must act within the framework of the Treaty - to match the reality on the market.
Because one of the criticisms which has rightly been levelled at the present policy - and it has now been in place for more than 30 years - is that it is somewhat too legalistic, that matters are judged too much on the basis of texts, without looking at what is actually happening on the market.
So now we want to handle this in a much better way.
In this context, I would indeed welcome what you say in paragraph 2 of the motion for a resolution, namely that policy must remain based on Article 85.
But what disturbs me a little, Mrs Thyssen, is that in paragraph 15, I think, it seems to be suggested that all vertical agreements should be treated as outside the scope of Article 85.
Perhaps I could ask you to look at this text again, because when I read it, I do see something of a contradiction there.
That is simply a comment which has struck me.
However, a new policy can be worked out and put in place as regards the application of Article 85(1) to these vertical agreements, for instance by moving from a rather legalistic approach, as I have already said, towards a more economic one.
In view of the limited time available, I should like to deal with what is in fact probably one of the most critical points discussed in this whole area.
Everyone is in favour of more flexibility, of trying to eliminate bureaucracy.
We also wish to see this, and we are trying to focus on the most important cases, while at the same time creating legal certainty.
Maintaining the block exemptions is, I believe, a good means of helping to achieve this, and I understand that Parliament also wishes to see that done.
We too will seek to retain this instrument as far as possible.
However, the question then arises of the point at which a vertical agreement actually threatens to disrupt the situation on the market and to work against normal competitive relations.
I know that it is a rather artificial exercise to establish such a dividing line, but I have to draw it somewhere.
However, one cannot proceed on the basis - and our opinions differ on this point - that everything should be covered by these block exemptions.
That is what we feel, for instance, when it comes to a market share of 40 % - which is a very great deal, and who has a market share of 40 %? There are not many undertakings to which that applies, and then the matter needs to be looked at individually and as quickly as possible, there we are agreed, but we must be able to examine this kind of situation in a more critical way.
That is what we intend to do.
Then we have the problem that if this principle is accepted - and I realize that there are differences of opinion on the matter - then how do we create adequate legal certainty at the same time?
I know that there is an element of contradiction here.
But we shall have to decide on an efficient policy which also enables us to intervene effectively in situations where smaller undertakings in particular are at risk, and not through an over-complicated procedure which removes the advantages of the block exemptions.
So for the time being, I am inclined to say that for the major cases where a genuinely substantial market position is involved - and once again, we have given a figure of 40 % by way of indication - there really is a need to look at the matter in a better way.
But where I agree with you, Mrs Thyssen, is in hoping that we can do this quickly and efficiently, and I would emphasize the point - as you also have in your report - that we need more people to be able to do that.
We cannot envisage a competition policy which develops tremendously in all kinds of sectors and then just do the work with the same number of people.
That is naturally impossible.
However, I am very grateful to you for including this point in your report, and I hope that Parliament's Committee on Budgets will take serious note of this and draw the necessary conclusions.
I think I have gone over my time.
I am sorry, because Mrs Thyssen has quite rightly dealt with a good many other aspects in her report, and I suggest that we continue this dialogue with yourself and the other members of the committee who are particularly interested.
And you have of course included the point in your report about discussing the matter further, to inform you of what the conclusions will be and about the responses we have obtained, nearly all of which have now been received.
I gladly put myself at your disposal to come and discuss these matters in further detail after the summer break, as and when the committee wishes.
Once again, my thanks and congratulations.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
. (DA) The Danish Social Democrats voted for the Thyssen report today, but against certain parts of the report.
The EU's competition policy is aimed at promoting competition and market integration.
Vertical restraints can affect both parts positively and negatively.
The Danish Social Democrats are opposed to a block exemption from the application of the rules of competition for selective distribution.
We therefore vote against paragraph 12 of the report.
The Danish Social Democrats will not praise the Commission for Option I in the Green Paper.
We do not think that this solution adequately takes account of the criticism which has been voiced over current vertical restraint arrangements.
Paragraph 14 of the report praises the Commission for Option I. We therefore vote against paragraph 14.
The Danish Social Democrats are opposed to introducing a criterion based on market shares in order to establish whether exemption from the rules of competition is in order.
The use of market shares in the calculation is an unreliable method, because the result will vary depending on how the method is used.
The Commission's Green Paper is a discussion document which outlines several alternatives.
The final proposal must include regulations which make it possible for food chains such as ICA to continue their operations in conditions which are no worse than those which currently prevail.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Participation by Romania, the Czech Republic and Hungary in training, youth and education programmes
Mr President, today's debate is linked almost seamlessly with Agenda 2000, and virtually obliges us to pre-empt some of its content.
The participation of the CEECs - Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic - in EU education and training programmes is a major structural step towards the consolidation of relations in preparation for their accession to the EU.
If enlargement to the east is to be conducted in a socially responsible way, priority must be given from the outset to education and training programmes.
This cannot be stressed often enough.
Nor can there be any doubt about the need for adequate and credible funding of the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes.
To this end, all the proper mechanisms must be put in place by the EU - or rather, by the Council - and that has yet to be done.
The design of the programmes is also crucial.
Activities to promote foreign language knowledge under the programmes must be supported and stepped up: this is what the Commission describes in its proposals on the implementation of the education and training programmes as the east-west dialogue using the present EU official languages.
More vision needs to be shown here, and considerably more resources could be made available in the CEECs and the EU if, as well as the official languages, those of the future Member States were also included in this dialogue, especially since some of these already have the status of regional languages in parts of the EU and are being kept alive by minority groups.
This, moreover, is what the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is calling for.
An overall concept of integration, for example with regard to lesser-used languages, also means taking into account those such as Romany, the language of the Roma and Sinti, which is spoken in many EU countries.
Ultimately, this would help to raise the profile of lesser-used languages and also to preserve Europe's cultural diversity, a basic prerequisite for long-term intellectual competitiveness in Europe.
Enlargement towards the east should not just be regarded from an economic point of view: the inclusion of the CEECs in EU education and training programmes is a key aspect of our strategy of eastward enlargement.
Languages and cultural aspects in general are a vital component of democratic and social integration, and are at least as important as any financial aspects.
Mr President, exchanges are the very best means of building Europe and bringing together its various parts. My group therefore welcomes the intention to allow Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania to participate on an equal footing in Community education programmes.
We very much hope that Poland and others will also have the opportunity to join in very soon.
I am delighted that the education sector is taking on a pioneering role, as it were, in the strategy of gradually bringing the countries of Central and Eastern Europe closer to the Union.
I should like to stress once again the psychological and political importance of such exchanges among young people for long-term neighbourly relations between the states of Eastern and Western Europe.
Europe is still full of fears and prejudices which must be overcome.
However, these programmes should also make a huge contribution to the economic and qualitative integration of these countries into the European Union through school and business partnerships.
A real transfer of knowledge can take place here, and it should not be underestimated.
I must nevertheless add two points of criticism: Socrates has been a failure from the social policy point of view.
We should discuss this soon, when the programmes are reviewed.
We must keep a critical eye on this programme and, when new states come on board, ask probing questions as to whether all social groups really are included, so that it is not only the new upper echelons in these countries, for whom mobility is easily affordable, who benefit from this programme.
Finally, I would repeat the criticism which has already been expressed here that Socrates is hopelessly underfunded.
Socrates, the flagship of Europe's education programme, is currently sailing on half power.
I would issue a word of warning: unless adequate funding is forthcoming, exchanges between Western European countries will decline, without there really being any fresh impetus for exchanges with Central and Eastern Europe.
I would call on the Council to consider urgently a transfer of resources - and not to make an exception of the Structural Funds - so as to boost substantially the funding of Socrates and the other programmes for educational exchanges.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can take up exactly where Mr Elchlepp left off.
Whether or not the committee would approve this report was in fact in dispute until the very last moment or, to put it another way, we were on the point of rejecting it.
Not because it had been badly drafted by the rapporteur; on the contrary, the report is a good one.
Not because we wish to refuse Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania access to the European educational programmes; certainly not.
Not because we disapprove of the conclusions reached by the association councils; far from it.
We welcome this first stage in the process of enlargement, based on the education programmes.
We do indeed wish to send a political signal of invitation to the countries concerned, and in particular to Romania, since that country was not referred to explicitly on Wednesday in Agenda 2000.
We are well aware of the value of these countries participating in Community programmes - if they really do catch on, if they lead to genuine mobility, and if language training and educational cooperation really are intensified.
But the danger is that this could amount to nothing more than fine speeches and empty words - nothing but hot air, a political gesture ultimately resulting in disappointment and frustration.
It is of course possible to extend the scope of a greatly underendowed fund, but this will rebound on the present 15 Member States.
Even now, many young people in our Member States are being bitterly disappointed.
As MEPs, we receive complaints every week that properly submitted applications have been rejected because of a lack of resources.
An extension would lead not only to frustration in the new countries too, but would also significantly worsen the situation in the existing 15 EU Member States.
All in all, the result would understandably be more frustration and less satisfaction on both sides.
The House has repeatedly drawn attention to such a likelihood and called for a corresponding increase in funding, not least through the initiative of Mrs Pack, our spokesman in the Group of the European People's Party.
The outcome is well known.
If we now refuse this extension, the blame will mistakenly be laid at Parliament's door.
That must not happen!
What we could do - but are not doing - is to hold these three countries as hostages to fortune, so as to put the Commission and Council under pressure.
These programmes must be open to the CEECs, but they must also be placed on a sound financial footing.
Goodness knows, the last-minute compromise is no cause for celebration, but it does enable us to vote in favour, provided that the funding is increased as promised.
Let us not be misunderstood: this is not a request, and certainly not a plea, to the Council; it is a condition which must be met before the House will endorse the participation of these three countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when I was rapporteur three years ago on Leonardo, I had great pleasure in opening up that programme to a number of associated countries in Eastern Europe, together with Malta and Cyprus.
And it was already being said then that the budgets for Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe were on the low side.
Parliament has continually tried to secure more resources for these three programmes, and the Council has continually been opposed.
The point has also already been made by many colleagues here this morning that these programmes can play an extremely important role, not least in terms of Agenda 2000.
However, I would also point out - and this has been underlined correctly and extremely well by the rapporteur - that we cannot just go on adding things to programmes and letting countries take part in them when they are already ten times oversubscribed.
It is extremely frustrating now for our citizens in Europe when people do a great deal of work to take part in a programme, only to be told that although they have an excellent project, they cannot take part for budgetary reasons.
I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, that if the same thing happens with the acceding countries and the countries who are now going to be cooperating with us for the first time, then they will understand absolutely nothing of the Europe that we envisage.
If people are going to do a tremendous amount of work in these countries too so that they can take part in a programme, and then in the end they cannot take part for budgetary reasons, we shall be sending out entirely the wrong signal.
I know that a huge amount of work has been done in respect of Socrates in particular to secure a further increase in the budget.
The same should be done with Leonardo, and if we cannot take the necessary steps now, then it must happen in connection with the budget, and then the Commission too will have to stand up to the Council.
That is what I am calling for here today.
Mr President, my colleagues have already explained what is at stake today.
We are dutybound to carry through what we, the European Parliament, called for when these programmes were launched, namely to open them up to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as is only natural.
We MEPs introduced this, not the Council or the Commission!
We have kept our word.
The Council has discussed the matter but has not kept its word.
If it had, it would have given us the funds for this venture.
It has not done so.
We launched this programme for 12 countries; now we are supposed to open it up, perhaps to as many as 25.
We are not in a position to do so, that is the problem.
The problem now is that at the same time we are negotiating with the Council about an increase in funding.
The Council informed us two weeks ago that it would grant only ECU 25 million more for the next two years.
We had asked for an extra ECU 100 m for the next two years.
In fact, we would need ECU 163 m for the next two years just to carry out the Erasmus part.
There are many other sectors too, such as school partnerships and further training, none of which will be covered at all by these meagre resources.
And now we are meant to go along with the Council's fine words and extend the programme, without having the money in our pockets.
I do not know how we can be expected to do so.
We are simply being fobbed off.
Anyone who knows the story of the emperor's new clothes is bound to say that the emperor is quite naked!
That is why we really do need more resources.
Let me make one point: the Council is so impertinent as to choose now, of all times, to call upon us urgently to extend this programme to Cyprus.
We are expected to whisk Cyprus on board in September.
I refuse to do so, and I hope - Mr Samland - that the Committee on Budgets will stand with us in rejecting this request for urgency.
All I can say to the Council is this: what really is urgent is for you finally to give us the money to carry out this task.
The wool is being pulled over our eyes!
What the Council is doing here is making a gesture, but a gesture not backed by anything of substance.
It is costing the Council nothing but fine words!
This is shameful, and I refuse to go along with it!
I am all in favour of opening up these programmes, but I am not in favour of creating even more frustration elsewhere than already exists in our own countries.
I hope, Mr President, that in the weeks and months ahead we shall continue...
... it is directed at the Council, which is holding us hostage and expects us to take the CEECs hostage.
We will not do so!
We shall put the ball back in the Council's court.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the position taken by the rapporteur, Mrs Leperre-verrier, and by other colleagues, in particular Mrs Doris Pack, who led this whole process, to make the European Parliament's agreement depend on a reinforcement of the SOCRATES budget is fully justified.
We have to take into account the ultimate impact on the success of enlargement of a poor start to cooperation in the fields of training and education, essential for paving the way for other areas of enlargement, that all proEuropeans want to see succeed.
Unless SOCRATES is given at least 100 million ECU more, the extension to the countries of central and eastern Europe will have negative rather than positive consequences.
I said the day before yesterday in this Chamber that the Council cannot give us this programme with one hand and take way resources with another.
I shall not go on and shall instead take this opportunity to stress that, among the SOCRATES objectives, there are language-learning actions, vital in order to create understanding between the fifteen and the candidates for accession.
Language-learning, and in general a genuine European policy on languages, demands urgent attenuation by the institutions.
A question of this importance, for the preservation of identities and for normalizing transnational communication and the efficiency of the European institutions, cannot be left to the will of certain Member States that might just be tempted to transform their interests into acquired rights given the void in terms of Community policy.
On the other hand, it is vital to achieve coordination between the various bodies where there is a discussion of the European language policy, both inside and outside the institutions.
I hope that the Culture Committee will take its place in the inter-institutional working group on languages, chaired by one of our Vice-Presidents.
I also hope that the conference on a 'Constellation of languages in Europe' , to be held shortly in Luxembourg, will receive a committed contribution by all Community DGs linked to this issue. In that way, Mr President, we should in the near future establish a European language policy based on a broad consensus and solid academic, political and functional criteria.
Mr President, after that wonderful tirade from Mrs Pack, I would just begin by saying that I am totally behind her.
She has put her finger on it: the greatest demagogues in the European Union are the ladies and gentlemen of the Council.
They are primarily responsible for the present situation, not only because of the structure, which after all has put us in an impossible position on foreign policy on many occasions, but also because the Council never thinks through what it does, handing us tasks which we cannot fulfil.
I should like to make two points concerning this programme.
Firstly, once we have extracted the funds from the Council, we must take account of the major differences between these countries.
I often have the impression - I come across this all the time - that all these states are being put in the same pigeon-hole.
They should not be.
The history, the past of each country and its education system all form part of the full picture.
Secondly, I would take up what the Portuguese speaker before me said: far more emphasis must be placed on language teaching.
I have seen the same thing throughout Hungary and Romania: the only languages taught there are English and sometimes French.
In the future, there will be a flood of English-speaking people; the economy needs them.
We must not forget that Communism robbed these young people of language opportunities.
We must see to it that they learn languages which will give them a future.
And I would put Spanish and Portuguese top of the list, because these are our partners.
I would just add that while we can agree to this proposal, we are hardly overjoyed by it!
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Mrs Leperre-Verrier for her report, and for the positive attitude which it reflects.
I would also say straight away that I not only understand all the speeches which expressed dissatisfaction with the modest financial resources attached to these programmes, but also fully share that sentiment.
I believe that such indignation is justified, and that as we now move to a pre-accession situation, this kind of issue must gradually be given more importance; more pressure will be brought to bear to extend these types of action and therefore to provide the necessary financial resources for them.
I should also like to say that the Council's attitude is not accepted by the Commission.
My colleague Mrs Cresson has made it clear that the Commission does not agree with the stance which the Council has adopted on the matter.
The amount which you have mentioned can probably not be achieved this time, but let us hope that the Commission can try - with Parliament - to have more resources made available.
As you know, the Commission, after all these years - because we have in fact been occupied with this for four years now, and Parliament too has long been pressing for it - has now reached the point where we can go ahead with three countries.
You are aware that there is some urgency here, because unless we do it now, the matter will be postponed again, and that would certainly also be a very bad political signal at this time, which it would be difficult to explain to people in the countries that are seeking membership.
So on behalf of the Commission and my colleagues, I am grateful that Parliament - despite its serious criticism of the scale of the resources and of certain other elements - is nevertheless prepared to join with us.
With regard to various comments which were rightly made by the rapporteur, Mrs Leperre-Verrier, I would say that I understand the proposal she has made to set up a kind of steering committee, but that we feel that perhaps it may not be necessary to do this.
There are already so many committees, and as you know, we are trying to limit the proliferation of all kinds of committees to some extent.
However, we do take very seriously the idea which the rapporteur has put forward that these programmes must be monitored in an appropriate way.
I believe - though I can also give you more details personally if you wish - that the Commission has provided for a number of measures to that effect.
So I think that we can basically meet your concern, without necessarily setting up a steering committee.
Languages have also been mentioned, and you probably know how much importance I personally attach to the fact that the languages which we work in are the official languages, and that these are always properly respected.
So I can well understand if some of you point to that and say: look, let us not forget the importance of languages which people are used to working in and speaking, and in which they practise their culture.
However, I think that for the time being, while the candidates in question are not yet members of the European Union, we have to keep to the rule that we work in the eleven current official languages.
I shall leave it at that, ladies and gentlemen, and apologize for the fact that I have not dealt with some other aspects which have rightly been touched on, in view of the limited time we have available.
Once again, I am grateful for your positive attitude in still taking this matter forward now, despite the well-founded criticism which I have heard here in Parliament, and which I can assure you is largely shared by the Commission.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
The Commission has just announced that accession negotiations are to begin with Hungary and the Czech Republic; the third country to which the decision under consideration relates, Romania, will likewise undoubtedly join later.
When preparing for accession, many kinds of cooperation and support measures are needed.
Support for education and the possibility of participating in Community education and youth programmes are certainly among the most effective ways of assisting preparations and promoting development in the applicant countries.
The Council decision to open up the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes to those countries is therefore certainly welcome and should be supported.
However, there is still a problem, at least at this stage: funding, especially in the case of Socrates.
Parliament has adopted by a large majority an increase of ECU 100 million in the funding of Socrates precisely bearing in mind the programme's great importance to the applicant countries.
The widening of the programme should be approved on condition that this additional funding is provided.
The Central and Eastern European countries can use their own share of the funding to fund Phare, so that matters will be in order as far as this is concerned.
The Council must now adopt the right order of priorities.
From the point of view of the budget as a whole, the required increase in funding for Socrates represents a small amount, but to young people both in the existing Member States and in future Member States, it is important.
We cannot afford to disappoint them by destroying a successful programme and, in advance, depriving subsidy-providers of the opportunity for instructive interaction.
In my opinion it is important that Central and Eastern European countries should enjoy a relationship of equal partnership with the existing Member States under this programme, and should not therefore be seen as aid recipients.
I hope that these programmes can be used to assist the development of education systems by meeting the challenges of information technology and more generally improving the life of children and young people.
Each country could really do with its own programme, which could be used to make progress towards the objectives.
The work of the European Training Foundation in Turin should be stepped up.
I support the rapporteur's call for the programme committee to carry out a precise analysis of the measures initiated and their impact on the development both of education systems and, above all, of the situation of the young.
The challenge is a major one, so measures need to be correctly targeted and effective.
(In successive votes, Parliament adopted the three legislative resolutions)
Development problems and structural operations in France under Objectives 1 and 2
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0203/97) by Mr CASTAGNEDE, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on development problems and structural operations in France under Objectives 1 and 2 (C4-0038/96 - C4-0039/96 - C4-0040/96 - C4-0041/96 - C4-0042/96 - C4-0043/96 - C4-0044/96 - C40045/96 - C4-0046/96 - C4-0023/97).
The floor is yours, Mr Castagnède.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report on structural operations in France is another opportunity to emphasize the major part played by Community action in favour of economic and social cohesion.
In general terms, France can be regarded as one of the richer countries in the Union.
However, the twenty-six regions that make up the country differ greatly in their level of development.
In the Paris region we have a GDP per inhabitant equal to 165 % of the Community average, yet it is a French region - Guadeloupe - that is classified by the Commission as the poorest region in the Union.
France is also seriously affected by the decline of certain sectors of industry, while a large part of her territory is made up of rural areas where the economy is fragile.
In general terms, the unemployment rate is still a cause for serious concern.
In recent years, Community activities have made an important contribution to mitigating or adjusting these imbalances.
France benefits substantially from the structural funds, receiving about 10 % of all appropriations over the period 1994-9.
Six regions - the four overseas regions, French Hainaut and Corsica - receive contributions under Objective 1; twenty of the twenty-two metropolitan regions receive Objective 2 appropriations; and nineteen regions benefit from appropriations to underdeveloped rural areas.
To these forms of aid must be added appropriations under the horizontal objectives and Community initiative programmes.
Without going into detail it is clear that this aid has played a critical part in, for example, opening up the overseas departments, compensating for the effects of industrial decline in northern and eastern France and reviving many rural areas.
Although the balance sheet is broadly positive, it is not of course immune to certain imperfections associated with Community aid, while the experience gained does suggest certain guidelines for future programmes.
Under the heading of imperfections of the existing arrangement, particular attention should be paid to delays in the implementation of Community credits, the complexity and rigidity of procedures, various ambiguities concerning the implementation of the principle of additionality, and inadequacies in the evaluation of schemes, especially with regard to net job creation.
With regard to the desirable guidelines, some are essentially of concern to the national authorities.
I am thinking particularly of the need for more in-depth partnership which, in the case of France, will have to comprise broader involvement of all the local actors - not only the regions but also other local authorities and economic and social actors - in defining and implementing regional policy.
Other orientations are of more direct concern to the Community authorities and should be discussed in connection with the open debate on 'Agenda 2000' .
In this context, we can welcome the proposal for greater geographical concentration of some forms of Community aid to benefit the least favoured regions.
I am thinking here, for example, of the outermost regions of France.
We are also keenly interested in the idea of strengthening aid to disadvantaged urban areas, on condition of course that such aid is not made subject to a criterion of GDP per inhabitant.
The ravages of unemployment and exclusion are not confined to the poorest regions.
The cohesion effort cannot be exclusively regional - it must be a social objective, too.
The Community action can and must set an example, and that example is needed in our inner cities, too.
On the other hand, it is a matter for regret that the Commission has apparently not adopted, at present, the idea of extensive territorialization of resources to promote employment, which, it seems, are to remain linked to a horizontal objective.
It does seem to us, however, that action in favour of employment would be more effective closer to the root of the problem, allowing broad scope for the initiative and responsibility of the local actors.
In conclusion, we would stress the essential value of maintaining, at Community level, a strong programme of action in favour of economic and social cohesion.
It is through the structural funds that Europe shows that it is not just a free trade area but an area of solidarity, too.
Consequently, we are pleased to note that Agenda 2000 aims to deepen the cohesion policy to promote enlargement.
Of course, steps must still be taken to ensure that the legitimate support given to the new Member States does not adversely affect the necessary continuation of the efforts made to ensure the cohesion of the Union in its present form.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Bernard Castagnède for the receptive attitude he has demonstrated while preparing his report.
After discussion in committee, he has in fact accepted all the amendments I tabled on behalf of my group.
Those amendments were adopted in committee, and as a result we are completely satisfied with the report in the form presented to the House today.
In this debate, therefore, I should like to confine myself to recalling the main points we felt it important to emphasize.
Everyone is well aware that we have reached a key point in regional policy.
Consequently, reports on structural operations in the Member States are of particular importance.
In this House, aware as we are of the great importance of social cohesion, we are driven by the desire to see it working better, and working with greater transparency and efficiency.
We therefore tend to highlight the failings, the problems, so as to do our best to remedy them.
That is, of course, the main objective of this type of report, but we should also strongly emphasize the positive aspects of regional policy, which Mr Castagnède has just mentioned in his speech.
Positive aspects in terms of impact on economic and social cohesion, on growth, on training, on employment, but also the formulation of a global, consistent vision to ensure the balanced development of territories within groups of regions sharing common problems.
The structural policies provide an overall consistency with a concern for jointly defined priorities - employment, respect for the environment - and they act as a step-down lever in their effect on local initiatives.
We need to stress this point, and I am glad that this report does so, because otherwise we should be giving free reign to the arguments advanced by those - and there are more and more of them in France - who call for the renationalization of aid.
Taking their cue from the record of under-utilization of funds, they suggest that this financial cycle, Paris - Brussels - regions, is too complicated and that it would be so much simpler for every State to finance this regional aid directly.
And that would be the end of one of the policies which offers the best specific familiarization of the public with the European idea.
We must fight against this tendency, stressing the positive aspects and trying, as this report tries, to suggest ways of making things work better.
The under-utilization of funds is admittedly a genuine problem, but rather than jumping to the conclusion that the financial volume is too great for requirements it would be better to wonder about the specks of grit that are jamming the mechanism.
Enough emphasis has been laid on the complexity of the procedures, and I shall not dwell on that. But rather than indulging ourselves in regular denunciations of the technocrats in Brussels, would it not be better to start in our own backyard?
Does not the main blame lie with the excessive French-style centralization, and the highly dirigistic supervision of the SGAR and the regional prefects, which all too often result in the marginalization of the local authorities and other local actors? Inadequate information, a lack of transparency in decisions and case selection, a failure of democracy at all levels of decision-making, problems with arranging joint financing - these are the obstacles to the judicious use of the European appropriations.
And what about the excessive cumbersomeness and slowness of the financial cycles, when we know that the French government budget serves as an administrative staging post and generally seems to be in no hurry to channel the funds towards the ultimate recipient, who is often left in a precarious situation as a result? Some undertakings, especially those in the third sector, cannot handle such situations because they do not have sufficient funds of their own.
For this reason, and because of the difficulty in finding joint financing, this sector of the social economy is virtually excluded from access to the structural funds, and it really is regrettable that we should deprive ourselves of its acknowledged know-how in matters of training and employment.
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome this balanced report which, although it emphasizes the responsibilities incumbent upon the Commission, is also incisive in dealing with the responsibilities of the French Government and its administration, which, in my view, are considerably more influential with regard to the difficulties to which I have referred.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
The report stresses the increase in appropriations in many sectors.
We welcome that, though we must deplore the fact that France is receiving, both proportionately and in absolute terms, far less aid per inhabitant than most of the other Member States of the European Union.
It seems to us that priority should be given to aid for reviving the rural areas.
For the population to be concentrated in cities is certainly undesirable as regards quality of life.
In any case, modern communications techniques mean that it is much easier than it was in the last century to sustain and develop economic activities in rural areas.
I must criticize the rapporteur not only for neglecting these aspects but also for wanting to allocate an increasing proportion of future appropriations to urban areas.
Urban areas in crisis do deserve help, but, I say again, we must avoid concentrating the population in those areas.
For this reason, I shall be abstaining, though I do approve this increase in the appropriations.
As the Member for a region classified as Objective II, I can only endorse the basic thinking in Mr Castagnède's report on development problems and structural operations in France under Objectives I and II.
I have therefore voted in favour of this motion.
I have often had first-hand experience of the specific problems associated with the implementation of the structural funds in my region: lack of information, lack of transparency, complex and cumbersome procedures, etc.
In the light of my local experience, I am glad to note that this motion emphasizes the primary role that Community regional policy can play in familiarizing the public with the European idea.
In this connection, it seems essential to me that we should ensure appropriate publicity to indicate the part played by the Community's contribution in implementing each project.
I also support the idea of providing more support for regions afflicted with severe industrial change, which has tragic consequences for employment.
You will excuse me if I particularly stress the case of the armaments industry, on which my own region is still heavily dependent.
I also hope that, in the future, aid granted under the structural funds will no longer result in intra-community or inter-regional relocations of industry, which are entirely contrary to the objectives pursued by Community regional policy.
Finally, I am totally in favour of the amendments tabled by Francis Decourrière on behalf of the PPE Group, particularly where they relate to associating Members elected to the European Parliament by the eligible regions in the various phases of the decision process: monitoring, evaluation and harmonization.
The European Union's regional policy represents an essential tool and support, which is in need of improvement.
I have no doubt that this resolution by the European Parliament will contribute to that.
Without questioning the rapporteur's objectivity in any way, I think it is in principle wrong that Parliament's rapporteur comes from the same country where aid is under review.
For reasons of principle, Parliament should always endeavour to select a rapporteur who cannot be seen, in any way, to have an interest in the issue under scrutiny.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Aid to Armenia, Georgia and, if appropriate, Tajikistan
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0212/97) by Mr Kittelmann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council decision providing exceptional financial assistance to Armenia, Georgia and, if appropriate, Tajikistan (COM(97)0024 - C4-0099/97-97/0028(CNS)).
Please go ahead, Mr Kittelmann.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our readiness to provide all possible forms of financial assistance to the states of Central and Eastern Europe is beyond doubt.
The Association Agreements with Georgia and Armenia must be put on a firm financial footing, and that is the purpose of the special financial aid being proposed by the Commission.
We are aware that, in spite of the economic disintegration which followed the collapse of the Eastern bloc - although it is often forgotten that all was not well before - the countries concerned have worked economic wonders.
Economic programmes aside, however, internal political problems have repeatedly had a damaging effect on infrastructure, and Georgia and Armenia are no exceptions.
It is encouraging, although only relatively so, that Armenia and Georgia have been able to overcome many of these difficulties.
In order to receive financial assistance, the recipient states must for their part meet certain conditions.
Firstly, they must negotiate an agreement with the international financial authorities, in particular the IMF, to make loans available.
It is then important for the remaining financial requirements to be covered by EU financial aid.
Armenia introduced stabilization measures and structural reforms in 1994.
By pursuing an austere and consistent budgetary policy, inflation and the budgetary deficit have been reduced.
Georgia has achieved relative stability in its economy and a steady and consistent price policy.
Here too, clear progress has been made.
That is why the Committee on External Economic Relations can support the Commission's proposals.
The European Union is duty-bound, we believe, to make further contributions.
Developments on the lines of those in Georgia and Armenia are unfortunately not yet visible in Tajikistan, which only recently began to introduce economic stabilization measures.
Moreover, the negotiations with international funding institutions have not yet been concluded.
That is why, in our view, it would be preferable to separate the financial assistance for Armenia and Georgia from that for Tajikistan.
There is no doubt, however, that EU assistance can and must in principle be provided, as soon as the necessary conditions have been fulfilled.
Georgia and Armenia could use the resources made available - which must be authorized by the Council and the European Parliament - not only to ease the burden of interest on the special financial aid, but also to pay off debts.
We therefore call for the report and the amendments to be adopted.
However, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets has asked me whether, pursuant to Rule 131, we could discuss the report today but refrain from voting, for reasons which the Committee on Budgets will explain briefly - I am not sure whether its chairman is here in the Chamber.
In such cases, one should only overrule the Committee on Budgets when there are very good reasons for doing so.
I can see none here.
I endorse the request by the Committee on Budgets, and would ask colleagues to vote in favour of the report when the time comes.
Mr President, I am the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, but as the Chairman wishes to speak I shall of course allow him to take the floor ahead of me.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I shall allow Mr Samland to speak at the appropriate time, according to the Rules of Procedure.
I would now ask you, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, to speak to the House.
Mr President, there are times when the Rules of Procedure should take second place to politeness or courtesy.
That was the thinking behind my proposal.
Of course, if the debate must take place, then it must take place, and the vote will come later.
The Committee on Budgets gave a favourable opinion, unanimous but for one abstention, on Mr Kittelmann's report.
Mr Kittelmann has just given an excellent account of the reasons for the exceptional assistance to be provided to Armenia, Georgia and, if appropriate, Tajikistan.
The Committee on Budgets, in its written opinion that appears in the report, proposed two amendments. One proposed that, in accordance with standard practice, the financial provisions should be incorporated into legislative acts; the other stressed the exceptional nature of the combination of the 'loans/borrowing' aspect and the 'grants' aspect.
That in fact is the point on which I should like to speak.
This procedure must be recognized as an exception and must not constitute a precedent.
The Committee on Budgets, virtually unanimously as I said, endorsed the idea of this combination while wishing to stress its exceptional nature, having regard to the fact that it attaches particular importance to its relations with the countries concerned.
The rapporteur in fact made that point just a little while ago.
Regarding the questions to the Commission proposed in the opinion, the Committee on Budgets has, in essence, received favourable replies, particularly regarding the proposed ECU 95 million financing.
Mr President, that concludes my remarks on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
Mr President, perhaps I will be allowed my speaking time after all!
Ladies and gentlemen - those who have stayed the course - we are behaving as if stand-by aid were real aid.
In practice, these countries are being given support to enable them to repay the IMF, but stand-by loans will not solve their debt problems.
With the aid of EU loans, money is being lent at favourable rates by private banks; the European taxpayers are acting as guarantors.
However, the recipient states must repay that money to the banks, which means that EU assistance is causing these countries to run up debts with private banks.
And we call this support for economic reform in these countries!
This is a fundamental issue which I believe we must address.
On balance, I am pleased that the report is being held over, since it might then be possible to include Tajikistan - not 'if appropriate' , but for certain, because we need to show willing.
Tajikistan has made tremendous progress towards peace, surpassing all expectations. I think that we should therefore show willing, and not exclude Tajikistan.
Thank you, Mr van der Waal.
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, you now have two minutes in which to speak.
Mr President, I am one of the newest Members of this House, having been here only since last November.
So it is a tremendous honour for me now to be able to follow on from Mr van der Waal, as I have noticed even in such a short period of time what a pillar of support he has always been to the House, especially on matters relating to personal values or the family.
Christian values lie very close to my heart, and in this area he has always been a mainstay of Parliament.
I wish to thank him most sincerely for that!
As far as the report is concerned, I naturally have mixed feelings about the fact that the vote on financial assistance to Armenia, Georgia and Tajikistan is not to take place today, if I have understood correctly.
I think that it is extremely important for us to support these countries, for the economic reasons already explained by Mr Kittelmann, but for political reasons too.
I believe that these three countries are Europe's natural political partners, but that all three are in a very difficult, exposed position.
All three of them are more susceptible to Russian influence than we would like.
We should not forget that Russia has on the one hand proved itself to be an expansionist state and, on the other, fallen short of our democratic standards.
Georgia in particular has regrettably proved on many occasions to be a puppet of Moscow.
Nor should it be forgotten that President Shevardnadze is only in power at the moment because he deposed the democratically elected president, Mr Gamsakhurdia, with Russia's assistance.
Nevertheless, Georgia has done much to assert its independence.
I therefore very much hope that support will be forthcoming for these three countries, because we Europeans ought to show them that we mean well.
Mr President, the rapporteur will not take it amiss if I too begin by saying something to Mr van der Waal - and I am not sure if I should congratulate him now that he is leaving Parliament or hope that he can now take things a little easier.
What I would say in any event is how much I and other colleagues have appreciated working with him for all these years.
He is an exceptionally good Member of Parliament with a deep knowledge of the subjects that he deals with, and also a very pleasant way of collaborating with others.
And just as he still has good memories of the days when we worked together mostly in the transport sector - and I am grateful to him for saying so - I should also like to say that I shall never forget how closely and constructively we were able to work together on a wide range of transport issues.
I am thinking in particular here of the problems of inland waterways, which he always tackled with an immense knowledge of the subject.
I thank him most sincerely, and I am sure that I am also speaking on behalf of a good many other colleagues in the Commission who have been able to work with him over the years.
Turning now to the report itself, I too would of course like to join in thanking Mr Kittelmann for this report, but I have to say that I am a little surprised at the fact that it is not going to be put to the vote today.
We naturally wanted and expected that to happen.
So it does come as something of an unfortunate surprise to us, since we had hoped to be able to send out another positive signal today, not only by debating the report, but also by putting it to the vote.
I am bound to say this, although I can understand some of the comments which have been made in this respect.
Because the fact is that this support for the efforts being made by these countries to achieve stabilization and reform as part of an ambitious IMF programme also requires us to state our views on the matter clearly and distinctly now.
Our financial assistance will in fact help to alleviate these countries' lack of external financial resources, thereby supporting the continuation of the policy of stabilization and reform.
It will also make it easier for the countries in question to fully meet their outstanding financial obligations towards the European Union.
Our aid should also encourage support from other potential donors who are in fact waiting for the European Union to clarify its policy on the matter.
That is why we should have liked Parliament to vote on this before the recess.
Moreover, firm conditions are attached to the aid which is to be provided.
It is only being granted to countries which have met or can meet all their outstanding financial obligations towards the Community, and which are also implementing their programmes of adaptation and reform satisfactorily, under agreements with the IMF and the World Bank.
This is therefore exceptional assistance which cannot be seen as a precedent for similar aid to other newly independent states.
The Commission welcomes the fact that, generally speaking, its proposal is nevertheless clearly supported by the parliamentary committees which have given it their attention.
In this context, the Commission can accept the most important amendment tabled by the Committee on External Economic Relations, concerning the removal of Tajikistan from the proposal for the time being, given that your committee has made very clear its support for similar aid for Tajikistan as soon as the conditions have been met, in other words when the agreement has been concluded with the IMF.
The Commission is unable to accept the amendment aimed at countering further combinations of loans and grants in assistance operations.
Such combinations of loans and grants have in fact proved very helpful in the past and may also be of service in the future, where the economic situation in the beneficiary countries is appropriate.
The Commission would therefore like to keep this option open.
Once again, I think we are basically very much in agreement, and I hope that in any event this matter can be settled as quickly as possible.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Mr Samland, Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, is asking to speak.
Mr President, there is no disagreement on the substance of the matter.
What we have had in fact, and still have - so I am surprised by the Commissioner's surprise - is a difference of opinion between the two arms of the budgetary authority, which we had actually hoped to settle in July.
But then one arm of the budgetary authority, namely the Council, postponed the date for reaching a decision, through a trialogue or conciliation procedure, until September.
And now we are in some difficulty.
This was not what we wanted: we had hoped to settle things this month.
The problem is that the date for conciliation is not until early September.
So it is because of this postponement that we are asking, pursuant to Rule 131, for no vote to be held today.
There is no conflict as regards the substance of the matter.
I am sure - and I am grateful to the rapporteur for having said as much - that we shall be able to adopt this report by a large majority in the House at the September part-session.
The only difference of opinion is with the Council.
Under the Rules of Procedure, I have to allow one speaker to speak in favour and another to speak against Mr Samland's request for the vote to be postponed.
You may go ahead, Mr Kittelmann.
Mr President, I have already said that I support this request.
I should be grateful if, in discussions of this kind where an explanation is required, the chairman of the committee could be given an opportunity to provide this at the outset, because then everyone could take account of it during the debate.
But I do urge all colleagues to support this request by the Committee on Budgets.
We shall now vote on Mr Samland's request.
(Parliament approved postponement of the vote)
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, please firstly allow me to thank all our many collaborators, our interpreters - they may now rest their voices - our ushers - they may now take a well-earned rest - and all our Bureaux colleagues, who can now stand down. They have all helped Parliament to function properly.
However, ladies and gentlemen, we began our week here with an expression of grief.
The President of this House, with his customary forthrightness and serenity, condemned the assassination of a 29-year-old man whose 'crime' was nothing more than to believe in democracy and to have electors believe in him.
My closing words for this sitting must be words of remembrance, but I should also like to inform you that, this week, I was able to hear a statement from Miguel Ángel Blanco's mother, in which she overcame her grief - I have no idea how she managed that - to say that the death of her son will not have been in vain if, by means of that sacrifice, we can all move closer to a peaceful society.
All of us bear the responsibility for making this a reality.
We must continue to use the democratic process to achieve democratic peace.
The session is adjourned.
(The sitting closed at 12.15 p.m.)
Resumption of the Session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 18 July 1997.
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, on 5 September Mother Teresa passed away in Calcutta. She was an exceptional woman.
In this Parliament we do not often pay tribute to the memory of a figure unconnected with the world of politics.
I do so today in the knowledge that we all recognized in Mother Teresa's tiny, fragile form a rare human being, and a true example of love and dedication to others.
The deep sadness felt by the people of India at the death of Mother Teresa is a testament to the way a life dedicated to helping the poorest of the poor can break down the barriers which sometimes divide different religions, beliefs or attitudes.
I believe it is absolutely right that we should remember her here today, with a small tribute from our Parliament.
I also wish to inform you that following the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales, I ordered the European Union and United Kingdom flags to be flown at half-mast on the Parliament buildings, in mourning for the death of someone who was much loved by millions of people in Britain and throughout the world.
On the same day I sent a telegram to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which I shall read to you now: Your Majesty, may I offer you my most sincere condolences, and those of my colleagues in the European Parliament, at this time of immense grief for your family and for the British people.
The tragic loss of Diana, Princess of Wales, has deeply saddened both those who knew her and those who recognized her generosity of spirit.
The thoughts of the whole of Europe are with your family, and especially with the Princess's two sons, Prince William and Prince Harry.
It is our heartfelt wish that the legacy of grace and kindness bequeathed by the Princess of Wales may live on.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is also my sad duty to remind you that our colleague Sir James Goldsmith died on 19 July, following a long illness most bravely borne.
Sir James Goldsmith was elected a Member of the European Parliament in June 1994 from the L'autre Europe list.
He led the Europe of Nations Group from July 1994 until it was dissolved in November 1996, and then the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations until May 1997.
Before joining the European Parliament, Sir James Goldsmith led a busy professional life in industry and business. He gave up these activities in 1990 in order to set up a foundation dedicated to environmental protection.
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Friday 18 July have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
I shall do so with great pleasure, Mrs McCarthy.
This Parliament has always steadfastly and consistently supported the peace process in Northern Ireland, so what you have just said describes the policy this House has always followed .
Mr President, since our last meeting a statement has been made by Mr Gerhard Schroeder, a German socialist leader, that the Poles are heavily involved in car crime, prostitution is dominated by the Russian mafia, and most drug traffickers come from south east Europe and black Africa.
I would like to know what our socialist colleagues on the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs think of that statement, in particular, Mr Ford, Mr Schulz, Mrs Lindeperg, Mrs d'Ancona and indeed Mr Oostlander.
I would mention that the comments I referred to were made to a leading German newspaper by Mr Gerhard Schroeder, a candidate in next year's elections for German Chancellor.
Mr Le Gallou, your remarks will doubtless be taken up by your colleagues if they see fit.
At all events, they will do so according to the Rules of Procedure, but certainly not in this part-session, and not now.
Welcome
Order of Business
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents (at its meeting of Thursday 11 September 1997) pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
Sittings of 15 to 19 September in Strasbourg
Monday:
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has asked for Mr Azzolini's report on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission communication on cohesion policy and culture: a contribution to employment, to be moved up the agenda and included after Mr Sanz Fernández' report.
Mrs Green has the floor to move the request.
Mr President, the first draft of the Azzolini report was further up the agenda, but it has slipped down.
I understand that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report is on first.
At this stage to ask for the Azzolini report to come first would be difficult.
But we would like to have it further up the agenda.
The Committee on Regional Affairs is meeting tonight and that makes it particularly difficult if we move the Azzolini report to the end of the agenda.
So, we would ask that it comes forward.
Since nobody has opposed the request, I shall put it to a vote.
(Parliament agreed to the request)
Tuesday:
The Group of the European Radical Alliance has tabled an oral question to the Commission (O107/97) on illegal imports of CFCs.
This question will be included in a joint debate with the question by the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party on the same subject.
The Group of the European People's Party has asked for the oral question to the Commission from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on respecting prominent personalities' right to privacy (O-104/97), to be taken after the presentation of the 1998 budget.
Mr Pex has the floor to move the request.
Mrs Green has the floor to oppose the request.
I shall now put the request to a vote.
(Parliament rejected the request)
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has asked for the Commission statement on the World Trade Organization panel's decision on bananas to be brought forward and taken immediately after the presentation of the budget.
Mrs Green has the floor to move the request.
Mr President, I apologize about all these changes at this late stage.
But you will appreciate that the agenda this week required a lot of changes.
This is a very important issue.
The whole economy of many Caribbean states is actually in turmoil as a result of this decision.
We believe that it is not appropriate to discuss that very late in the evening.
Of course we accept that we need to consider the availability of the Commission, but we would ask that this item be brought forward because of its huge importance.
Mr President, everything we do here in this House is important and the evening sittings are important too.
We now have a second request by the Socialist Group to bring forward an item on the agenda and it makes me wonder what we all actually did at the Conference of Presidents on Thursday afternoon.
Mr President, I just want to say here that we should not have to keep bringing items forward just because one person in one group so desires.
We should maintain the agenda as far as possible.
We all agreed to it so we should stick to it.
Mr President, I would like to add my support to Pauline Green. The seriousness of the issue demands that we give it a prominent position on the agenda.
We are keen to learn what the Commission is going to do and what the Commission's reaction is going to be.
More importantly, the enormous insecurity which the Caribbean producers feel at this time demands a speedy response and a response which gives the proper priority to this issue.
I urge this Parliament to ensure that this item is taken as early as possible on Tuesday afternoon.
I shall now put the request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists to a vote.
(Parliament approved the request)
Mr President, this is another sensitive issue.
As chairman of the Committee on Women's Rights, I can tell you that the committee has discussed the sterilizations in Sweden, Finland, France, Denmark, and no doubt in several other countries too, according to the latest media reports.
The Conference of Presidents looked at whether a Commission statement with debate could be included on the agenda but, for reasons best known to itself, decided against.
I should very much like to see that decision reversed, especially as Commissioner Flynn has expressed his willingness to make such a statement to Parliament.
We have an important debate on a number of women's issues this morning, so I do find it extremely odd that the Presidents have decided not to put it on the agenda.
I would like us to vote on it now and I hope the statement can be made and debated as part of the general debate on women's affairs which is on this morning's agenda.
You know the Rules as well as everyone else, Mrs van Dijk.
A decision of the Conference of Presidents can be opposed by submitting an alternative to the House, but this has to be done at least one hour before the opening of the part-session.
That has not been done.
No group, including your own, has put in a request.
So, under the Rules, I cannot put it to a vote.
Wednesday:
The Group of the Party of European Socialists is asking for the Read recommendation for second reading, on the application of open network provision to voice telephony and on universal service for telecommunications in a competitive environment, to be brought forward and taken after the Council and Commission statements on the situation in the Middle East.
Mrs Green has the floor to move the request.
Mr President, I think this is simply a mistake, because of the way we set the agenda last week.
Of course, this is a second reading and we need to have it debated in time for it to be voted on Wednesday lunchtime.
It is a perfectly sensible proposal, for we usually try to have second readings voted at lunchtime on a Wednesday.
Mr Robles Piquer is asking for the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I have a question.
If this change is made, which reports or agenda items will be delayed as a result? It is very difficult to take a clear and unbiassed view without knowing that, and I think that the Secretariat could tell us before the debate continues.
Mr Robles Piquer, the recommendation for second reading of Mrs Read's report on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, No 309, would come before Mr Moorhouse's report, No 305.
The Moorhouse and Fitzsimons report and the Flemming recommendation for second reading would come immediately afterwards, in the same order as before.
Are there any other speakers in favour?
This proposal ought to mean that the Fitzsimons and Flemming reports are also brought forward.
As that is the logical consequence, I propose that we take the Fitzsimons report after the Council and Commission statements, then the Flemming report and then the report by Mrs Read.
Then we will have dealt with all the second readings by lunchtime without having to give preferential treatment to a Socialist rapporteur's report.
Does the group making the request agree?
Then I put it to the vote that the two recommendations for second reading should be brought forward, to precede the first readings of reports.
(Parliament agreed to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's proposal)
Thursday and Friday: no change.
Sittings of 1 and 2 October in Brussels
(No change)
(The order of business was adopted as amended)
Calendar of Part-Sessions 1998
At its meeting today, the Conference of Presidents agreed to propose the following calendar for the 1998 part-sessions:
12 to 16 January 28 to 29 January 16 to 20 February 9 to 13 March 25 to 26 March 14 to 17 April 29 to 30 April 11 to 15 May 15 to 19 June 1 to 2 July 13 to 17 July 14 to 18 September 5 to 9 October 19 to 23 October 4 to 5 November 16 to 20 November 2 to 3 December 14 to 18 December
The deadline for tabling amendments to these dates is 12.00 noon tomorrow, Tuesday 16 September.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Mr von Habsburg is asking for the floor.
Mr President, that does not leave us much time to table amendments.
Would it not be possible to extend the deadline for amendments at least until 9.00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, instead of doing it in such a rush when most Members are no longer present and not all the information is available in writing either.
I think we are being rather steamrollered, and we have both an interest in and a right to prior study of the motions, which at least means we need more time to table amendments.
Mr Von Habsburg, the matter has been given careful thought.
Postponing the voting day was even considered, but it was felt preferable to take the vote on Wednesday, when attendance is highest, rather than postpone it.
That involves careful preparation for the vote.
So initially the maximum time-limit is 12 noon on Tuesday.
This could be extended to 3 p.m. at the latest.
I do not think it would be possible to carry it over to the following morning, because we would not be able to prepare properly for the vote.
But, in view of what you have said, I propose extending the deadline to 3 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday.
(Parliament agreed to this deadline)
Advertising
The next item is the report (A4-0272/97) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Directive 84/450/EEC on misleading advertising with a view to including comparative advertising.
The rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, has the floor.
Mr President, at last, after six years we have conciliation, - the last stage of the legislation on comparative advertising - a result has finally been achieved.
It has taken a long time, but as rapporteur on comparative advertising I am nevertheless delighted.
The proposal on misleading advertising was first submitted as early as 1978, and it was then felt that regulating comparative advertising ought to be possible.
At the time this was blocked by a number of Member States.
Comparative advertising is a good thing and it is also a good thing that legislation is coming in, but it will still take another two and a half years - 30 months - before it is finally incorporated into national legislation.
A number of Member States which have not yet done so must now incorporate it.
There are several reasons for harmonizing comparative advertising in the European Union and I would just like to recall them here.
Firstly, there is a need for this important marketing instrument to be regulated because it has been applied in so many different ways in the Member States.
Secondly, comparative advertising is an opportunity to provide the consumer with better information and thirdly, it promotes competition.
The cross-border aspect is an important feature of advertising.
Advertisements cross borders via the packaging of goods, via radio, television and via the other media.
Differences in advertising legislation in Member States hamper the marketing process and may therefore also obstruct the free circulation of goods and services.
That could lead to an unfavourable position with regard to competition in certain Member States where comparative advertising has up to now been prohibited.
Then there is the consumer's right to information.
As a result of the internal market, the consumer is increasingly faced with products and services from other Member States.
This will continue to increase owing to the rapid growth in cross-border communication media - just think, for example, of new media such as the Internet, and so on.
In this context, the comparative advertising that is now possible will mean a whole useful source of information for the consumer, making it easier to make choices.
Nevertheless, comparative advertising must of course still fulfil certain conditions.
The conditions are described very clearly in the directive.
What exactly is understood by comparative advertising is, for example, explained in a definition.
The conditions relate, among other things, to the characteristics of goods and products, but also, for example to the trade names of products.
The producer may, after all, not be adversely affected.
There is also the protection of products with the name of origin; the wine-producing regions in particular requested this.
A provision has also been included concerning the imitation of goods.
You cannot compare a real product with an imitation and then stick on another price tag.
I must say that the last amendment was really difficult to get through in the conciliation procedure.
Another point is that by allowing comparative advertising, the opportunities of the smaller companies to challenge the market leaders become much greater.
It was also very striking in preparing for this part-session and when preparing the legislation, that the large market leaders were absolutely set against comparative advertising and that the smaller companies said that in any case it offers us a chance to market our products much better.
Parliament has made a number of adjustments and refinements to the proposal.
I am of the opinion and the Commission and the Council have also adopted that opinion that self-regulation is also an extremely useful instrument in comparative advertising.
A number of provisions have also been included in this regard, which I am very pleased about.
Just as with distance-selling, the initial impetus has been given to measures on the treatment of cross-border complaints. This is a very important subject on which we must obtain further legislation.
Parliament has made a contribution to bringing about the protection of the consumer and of companies on very tricky aspects of comparative advertising.
Where it might lead to problems, we have found good definitions.
As I have just said, the amendment for which we finally received support in the Council with regard to imitation goods, is very important.
In two and a half years the legislation will come into force.
The rapporteur is pleased and I hope that Parliament will accept the proposal as it now stands with satisfaction.
Mr President, I apologise to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that I was not in the Chamber at the moment she began.
I am actually chairing another meeting in the furthest part of this vast building.
I have just three very simple points to make in support of the position the rapporteur has taken.
I congratulate her on her patience during the prolonged conciliation proceedings.
Occasionally we exchanged a sharp word but it was all in the spirit of friendship and cooperation.
The main points worth stressing - and I speak for my whole group - are that we are now in a position where we can move beyond seeing advertising which makes direct comparisons as being somehow dangerous.
Plainly, in the single market it is not and should not be.
Advertising which makes a real comparison between real qualities in an objective way serves the interests of the consumer, and it should be seen as such.
There have been many attempts, diversions and smoke-screens which have tried to suggest in some way that this was not the case.
I believe that this is a major step forward and that we should have comparative advertising where it can be shown not to be misleading, where there is rapid redress if misleading information does actually appear in the advertisement about which there is a complaint and where there are comparisons between goods or services which meet the same real need.
The rapporteur has already referred to the second point, which my Group would like to stress: the way in which the directive has ultimately succeeded in drawing the line at advertisements which mislead by the use of remarkably similar names.
The use of a similar name to ride on the back of another product, which may have been established on the market for 20 or 30 years, is an unfair business practice, and outlawing it in the way that the amended directive has done is an eminently sensible thing to do.
We have had many examples brought to us in the recent past of jeans and other domestic commodities which trade on a remarkably similar name.
My third and last point is to say that the national self-regulatory bodies need to coordinate their work.
The directive will produce a framework in which they are able to do that.
In consumer terms, cross-border complaints are plainly now the main item on the increase.
If we can qualify and classify these with the cross-border bodies, we shall have done a very good job.
I congratulate the rapporteur once more.
Mr President, I was able to listen to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten from the beginning and as in most cases I am completely behind her as rapporteur.
However, I should like to request the Council and Commission in future to work somewhat faster.
Mrs Oomen describes this in paragraph two of the explanatory note.
It took two years after the first reading before the Commission had amended a proposal and another two years before the Council had established a common position.
I must say that when the final conciliation procedure eventually took place on 25 June this year, we also attempted to mess things up three times because the date was cancelled.
That was not the Parliament's fault and I would request the Council and the Commission to stick more to the rules.
It will be clear to you, when we examine the subject matter, that I do not have much new to report.
I think that decent compromises have been reached for all the amendments.
I would just refer to the cross-border aspect.
I expect the Commission will now make a proposal on time.
It has taken two years to implement the cross-border complaints in the directive and I hope that it will now issue a report and a proposal within two years.
Mr President, as the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party we wholeheartedly approve these directives.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on her fine work.
We have every confidence in her skills as rapporteur in this very awkward conciliation procedure.
I would like to draw your attention to two matters.
When national self-regulatory official bodies come up against these cross-border complaints, it is natural they should embark on a course of even closer mutual co-operation.
Perhaps the time will come when internal markets will have developed to the extent that there is a need for a European self-regulatory body, but I do not believe that time has yet come.
Secondly, if we are going to be able to undertake comparative advertising, we will also need a comparative study.
We should in every way encourage the creation of independent European research institutes to analyse the content of products and services and their features.
To some extent we already have such a thing, but more are needed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
The current range of national regulations, from full acceptance of to a total ban on comparative advertising, makes imperative a harmonization by demarcation of the limits, particularly in view of increasing cross-frontier advertising in the media.
The parameters which must be taken into consideration are: increasing competitiveness and conforming to fair rules of conduct; easing of goods and services trade; consumer information; and consumer protection.
Even though it has taken a considerable time, the proposed directive is successful in obeying these criteria and in creating a framework within which the consumer can be kept comprehensibly, clearly and unequivocally informed - in other words, without being either misled or deceived - about the quality of a product, whilst at the same time unjustified disparagement of competitors is avoided.
Furthermore, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the regulation allows Member States flexibility of application within the framework of its objective, and maintenance of advertising constraints.
For all these reasons we Members of the Austrian Freedom Party shall vote for the regulation.
Mr President, we have every reason to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, and also in particular Mr Collins and the members of the parliament's delegation, for their work.
The text before you today contains a whole series of points that Parliament had already formulated, but which could not be of implemented, so in this instance the procedure has resulted in total victory for Parliament.
I would like to say this to Mr Eisma: It only seems as if the Commission has taken one and a half years to present the amended resolution.
In fact, the Council in Edinburgh came between the first reading in Parliament and the first discussion by the Council, and, with the concurrence of Parliament, required the Commission to check the need for the proposals against the principle of subsidiary.
This naturally involved consultation with the Member States and led to the year and half's delay.
However we have now completed that procedure.
I would like to emphasize the agreement of the Commission to the presentation of a report on the possibility of introducing effective measures dealing with cross-border complaints in cases of comparative advertising.
In this respect the Commission declares its intention, if possible, to present the report at the same time as the one on the complaints procedure provided by Article 17 of Directive 97/7/EG dealing with protection of consumers entering into non-regional sales contracts, because the two subjects obviously have something in common.
So we can look at them at the same time.
Naturally, the Commission will do everything possible to continue to progress the matter and ensure that Parliament's intentions are put into effect.
Thank you very much, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Cultural Heritage - the Raphael programme
The next item is the report (A4-0267/97) by Mr Sanz Fernández, on behalf of the European Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a Community action programme in the field of cultural heritage - the Raphael programme (C4-0391/97-95/0078 (COD)).
Mr President, the Conciliation Committee between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers has reached an agreement over the RAPHAEL programme for the conservation of Europe's cultural heritage.
A commitment has been given for the financing of the programme over the next few years, which was the issue of particular concern to Parliament and the Council. Therefore cultural action in the area of heritage is no longer blocked, and the programme will become operational shortly.
The European Parliament proposed a sum of ECU 86 million for the four years from 1997 to 2000, while the Council reduced the figure to ECU 30 million for the same period, with a limit of ECU 10 million for each of the first two years, and subsequent revision.
The agreed solution proposes a grant of ECU 30 million between 1997 and 2000. However, this will not be divided annually, but will be fixed each year by the budgetary authority, and will be revised after the second year of operation.
This margin of manoeuvre left in the hands of the budgetary authority will allow a certain amount of flexibility in the management of these funds, which will make it possible for the annual budget to be progressive.
On the one hand, this will allow the ECU 10.6 million allowed for in the 1997 budget to be unfrozen.
This sum has not yet been used, because of the lack of a legal basis according to the Commission. On the other hand, the European Parliament will be able to allow for a reasonable increase for 1998 during the budgetary procedure currently in progress.
Therefore it looks hopeful that a real financial effort may finally be made in this area, to back up initial statements about the importance of culture.
Furthermore, at the request of Parliament and subsequently of the Culture Council which met in Luxembourg on June 30, the European Commission has made a statement in which it promises to present, as soon as possible, an framework-programme which will encompass Kaleidoscope (devoted to artistic and cultural activities), Ariane (devoted to books, reading and translation) and Raphael.
This is a very interesting approach and will allow the European Union to use a single organization to cover cultural activities, which are currently split up.
This framework-programme will be able to be operational at the end of next year, which is when the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes come to an end.
The Commission will consult widely with the parties and institutions concerned, and in particular with the European Parliament to determine their proposal for the framework programme.
The joint project, which has been adopted by codecision, includes other proposals by Parliament, such as to improve access to heritage for disadvantaged people or those who live in peripheral or rural areas.
As for the commitology, the agreement reached is the same as in the previous cases - Ariane and Kaleidoscope- with a mixed management committee for certain matters, and consultative for others.
Based on what I have just said, I think that the Plenary should vote in favour of the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee, but we must analyse the problems which arose during the approval procedure for the Raphael programme, which took more than two years.
The codecision procedure with unanimity in the Council is very inefficient.
The fact that any country can block the procedure makes agreement difficult, and it can be a long process.
One might think that the problems arose for budgetary reasons, but that was not the case.
It is simply ridiculous, in view of the low budget devoted to cultural heritage and cultural activities in general.
I believe that the problem is more serious.
There is a basic disagreement among a few countries about the Union's powers in cultural matters.
This Parliament should once again take the initiative in order to demonstrate that the cultural values which are common to all Europeans are perfectly compatible with the cultural diversity of our citizens, and that to preserve and make known our common European heritage is a necessary part of integration at this point in the building of Europe.
Finally, I should like to emphasize that activities in the heritage area lead to job creation and economic development in many regions of the European Union.
Mr President, like the rapporteur, I certainly welcome the conclusion of the interminable discussions on the Raphael Programme.
I wish to congratulate our rapporteur, Javier Sanz Fernández, for his fortitude and perseverance.
I find myself in an unusual position, given that it is Commissioner Bangemann who is here with us this evening, of wholeheartedly congratulating the Commission on its fortitude and perseverance.
But the Commission has been a willing, able and patient partner of Parliament over this programme - and quite rightly so.
The Commission proposed a programme in which Europeans would join together to protect and enhance our cultural heritage: the heritage that is visible, that gives us pride in our towns and cities, that is the very physical backbone of our European civilization.
Yet some ministers - not all - would have preferred there to be no proposal at all.
This, quite sadly, is proof of the real lack of interest and commitment on the part of certain ministers in developing European cultural initiatives, even when they prove to be of enormous popularity.
Like Mr Sanz Fernández, rather than boring our listeners, I would just like to dwell momentarily on the constitutional aspects of this report.
The length of the procedure (two years), the apparent ability of one Member State to stop all real progress in the cultural field, comes about because Article 128 is beset and dogged by the codecision procedure with unanimity in the Council of Ministers.
On that basis, my group - and I believe this whole Parliament - regrets that the Amsterdam Treaty has not changed this.
We should have qualified majority voting in this area.
Perhaps ministers will listen more if we talk more about economics and the importance of the cultural industries, of the creative economy.
Through their actions some ministers undervalue the critical part the cultural industries play in the whole of our economy and the enormous potential they have for job creation.
I wish they had realized this a little more when they were considering this important cultural programme.
Quite simply, as a former culture minister, Michael D. Higgins, reminded us: very often the European Union cannot live by commercialism alone.
Books or buildings are not the same as buckets, films are not fish.
They need a different approach, more appropriate help, more support and more special measures.
I welcome the final adoption of this programme.
I hope this is just a start, that we can build on it, improve it and give it more funding in the future.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Sanz Fernández on the fact that he has succeeded in guiding this programme safely into port.
In fact, as Parliament, we should never have been able to approve this programme and we should not have been able to approve the result of the conciliation proceedings.
Because what we are actually doing is causing disappointment among the population.
The preservation of our cultural heritage should be our number one priority within the cultural policy of the European Union.
So many projects can be tackled and when we now publicize this by the fact that we have set up a Raphael programme, then we shall find that we shall receive many applications and we shall probably very quickly have to say "no' for budgetary reasons.
It is wrong vis-à-vis the population when we create programmes that we cannot implement.
It was wrong of the Council of Ministers to think that in this case we are dealing with what I always call a spending department, in which you must be economical.
It is great that I can now disagree with Commissioner Bangemann, because he naturally has a great deal of understanding about culture but also about economics and the two come together here.
No better employment programme could be devised than the restoration of the cultural heritage in Europe and especially in the countries that are to join the Union, where there must be an enormous number of projects.
Nothing is more labour-intensive than this kind of work.
I thought it had been agreed in Amsterdam that job creation was the number one priority.
I have not heard anything specific and here is a specific programme and the Council of Ministers does not wish to provide any money for it.
Apart from the fact that it not only involves economics and not only culture.
I think that the fact that we are prepared to declare the protection and the preservation of our cultural heritage as priority number one can also be a political instrument for further European integration.
As chairman of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and he Media, there are really two reasons why I have been able to agree with the conciliation. In the first place, because I wished to do Mr Sanz Fernández the favour of rewarding the work of so many years with success.
In the second place, because we have got the Council of Ministers, together with the Commission, to organize an inter institutional conference in the next few months in which we can talk about the programmes of the future, the culture programmes of the next few years.
There is still a misunderstanding between the Council of Ministers and the Commission and the European Parliament's Committee on Culture and that is the fact that the Council of Ministers and the Commission think that we shall want to talk about the financial regulations, but I, as chairman of the Committee on Culture, shall battle to ensure that we speak about the content of this kind of programme and about the place of the programmes in the overall policy.
Do we see the cultural programmes as spending departments in which we must act thriftily or do we wish to see these programmes as an outstanding way of bringing European integration a bit further in the next few years.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate rapporteur Sanz Fernández for the excellent work he has provided us with and, above all, for his proven qualities as a negotiator in bringing the Raphael programme to a successful conclusion.
This programme is dedicated to supporting the actions of member States on behalf of European cultural heritage, be it moveable property or real estate, archaeological, subaquatic or architectural, whether it concerns developments, beauty spots or cultural landscape.
What a programme for so little money!
According to the accounts of my colleagues, the conciliation procedure between the Council and Parliament has been very difficult.
Whilst Parliament considered a budget of ECU 86 million to be necessary, the Council stuck strictly to the budget of ECU 30 million that they had always proposed.
We finally accepted this budget of 30 million divided over four years, but without an annual breakdown.
The budget will be re-examined before the end of the second year, taking into account the budgetary situation and the results obtained during the first phase of this experimental programme.
Files of requests are accumulating.
The chairman, Mr Pex has said so.
We therefore need to hurry up. Have we done well?
The question can again be asked today. Personally, being heavily involved in following the work of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and, above all, that of the Conciliation Committee, I am very happy to see this report brought to a conclusion but very sad to note the rigid attitude of Member States who, whilst having fine words to say on the theme of culture as a factor of identity and in the development of jobs, refuse to invest in the theme.
What end do political statements serve if they are not followed through with financial acts?
The conciliation procedure has once again taken time to come to a conclusion, and this being with few concessions on the part of the Council, who play at wearing down their partners.
And it is unfortunately not the Treaty of Amsterdam which is going to advance this unhappy situation, on the grounds of article 128, as Carole Tongue has clearly said.
However, we hope that the results of this programme will be sufficiently convincing for Member States to take future action to provide a decent budget for the Raphael programme.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the European Union programmes for culture have been problematic and slow to start.
The Commission has failed to grasp their great significance.
Lack of unanimity has proved a hindrance.
The result has been a lengthy debate over programme budgets.
But, in fact, the funding concerned is small-scale when compared to the whole.
The Raphael programme has gone through the same difficult process and it is with that in mind that we must obviously be pleased with the results of the conciliations and with the commencement of the programme, and we thank Mr Sanz Fernández for his excellent work.
Financing, however, has been insufficient to fulfill aims, and it will be vital to top up the budget at the end of 1988.
The aim of the Raphael programme was to enhance European cooperation in the area of cultural heritage.
When we consider what unifies us and the underlying principle of our mutual co-operation, is it not just that common European cultural heritage in all its rich variety? Support can be most effectively used by the creation of networks of co-operation between functionaries and institutes in various fields in different countries.
Telecommunications technology provides new opportunities for bringing cultural heritage to a mass public dimension and, furthermore, raising the status of cultural heritage.
Training for professionals in the cultural heritage sector, both in the area of new communications services and the administration of traditional professional methods is also one of the main aims of the Raphael programme.
I would like to emphasize the need for broader cooperation in all areas of culture, so as to achieve maximum benefit and synergy from the process, for example, in cooperation with the Council of Europe and UNESCO.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
We Greens also regret the conflict and thank the rapporteur for the fact that a solution has been found here.
We should stress, however, that we are not happy with this compromise and, indeed, cannot ever be happy with it, as long as we recall the stubborn and unreasonable attitude of the Council in recent years.
From the very beginning there were conflicts over the financial framework for the Raphael programme.
For years we have experienced the ritual refusal of the Council to carry out the wishes of Parliament for the extension of this programme and of the cultural programme as a whole.
This refusal must be regarded as particularly incomprehensible in the light of the debate on employment policy.
Here, there is already a European authority for employment policy, an authority that needs no further debate and one that undoubtedly meets with the highest level of public acceptance.
It is simply incomprehensible, therefore, that this authority is not being aggressively developed, but that the Parliament is basically dragging its way through years of conflict, in order to produce a half way acceptable programme.
That will not do, and that will not do for the coming years!
Mr President, I would also like to express sadness, whilst at the same time congratulating the rapporteur for his tireless work.
But once again, as was the case with the conciliations relating to the Ariane and Kaleidoscope programmes, the parliamentary delegation has not been able to win the case with regard to the budget.
The margin for negotiation between the ECU 30 million over four years approved by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media in the common position and the ECU 86 million requested by the European Parliament at the time of the vote on the second reading seems substantial.
There was none.
The demands of the European Parliament collided, as usual, with the principle of unanimity which is current in the Council with regard to cultural policy.
Here, above all, the problem we are faced with is that of non-respect of the principle of interinstitutional equality between the two colegislatures when the application of a codecision procedure has, in compensation, the unanimity of the Council.
The Treaty of Amsterdam has maintained the status quo and we can already expect admissions of powerlessness from Parliament in the sphere of cultural policy.
This conciliation has been a failure.
The amounts allocated to the Raphael programme will be manifestly insufficient because they will also have to cover, on the basis of a very wide definition, participation of the CEECs, Malta and Cyprus.
Certainly, however, the delegation can be satisfied with the more practical aspects of the agreement.
Thus, there will be no annual breakdown of the budget.
The annual allocation will be voted by Parliament, by means of the budgetary procedure.
Also figuring in the ranks of small satisfactions are the clause regarding revision after two years and the commitment of the Commission Executive to present a global cultural programme in 1998.
These are our only, and very slim, hopes.
Mr President, almost two years after first dealing with it in this Parliament, the Raphael action programme for cultural heritage is soon going to start up.
The budget of ECU 30 million, which is about 1.2 billion Belgian Francs, has been established and this Parliament will be able to speak its mind about how it is spent.
And although I consider myself a mild but rational Euro-sceptic, I am for once convinced that many of these millions will be usefully spent. In any case, more usefully than some other, or should I say, most other, European budgets.
I would, however, essentially take the view that culture must strictly be the responsibility of the European people and that even programmes favouring the so diverse European cultural heritage should preferably not be established at European level.
Experience in my own country with European budgets, and I am thinking very specifically of the structural funds, has taught me, speaking very practically, that, on the one hand, squandering and, on the other hand, uneven distribution are the order of the day and that is in fact very often the fault of the Member States themselves.
But almost by definition, so-called "European money' is treated less carefully and what is more the money does not have to be coughed up by the taxpayer.
For these two reasons, I shall not approve this report, although I wish to state explicitly once more that that does not mean that I am not in agreement with the intended aims of the programme.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and Parliament's delegation which brought the difficult conciliation on the Raphael programme to a conclusion.
I think they reached a very valid compromise, particularly in view of the revision of the financial appropriation - currently ECU 30 million for a four year period, but without any annual breakdown - by the end of 1998, that is, two years after adoption. That revision will give the programme more flexibility.
The proposed actions are initiatives to promote conservation of the European cultural heritage, thematic networks and cooperation between European museums, professional training in cultural heritage conservation, restoration of facades which have been painted over, and the study and appreciation of the cultural heritage of the preindustrial age.
It is also planned that Community actions geared to supporting and incorporating initiatives by Member States involving cultural property of Europe-wide interest should be covered by a framework programme for culture, which the European Commission is starting to formulate in the current weeks, as soon as the latter becomes operational.
Conservation of cultural and architectural heritage clearly highlights culture's role in society and the objectives to be pursued by cultural policy through decisions which, unfortunately, usually drop down to second place at crucial and dramatic times in the life of mankind.
The language of art and architecture, particularly in their most varied and outstanding forms and expressions, can be seen as a universal language understood by all, enshrining values and principles of respect, peace, tolerance and solidarity.
It should also be borne in mind that recognized cultural contributions and stylistic influences deriving from other countries and cultures produce an individuality and a symbolism which becomes our common cultural heritage, that is, our identity, enriched by national diversity.
Identity crises are not born of momentary bewilderment or doubt of the value of our heritage, but of lack of an exciting project to be shared with others.
Cultural policy, the expression of Europe, thus becomes a bulwark of our design for the construction of a Europe which is more than an economic, political and social area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
We too agee with the rapporteur that a lot of effort into grappling with a severe shortage of money.
Maintaining the cultural heritage is certainly a European responsibility.
But we cannot first moraleize on the subject or give up, just because the cost has to be counted, because there is the duty to administer the cultural heritage.
So we advocate further research and that projects to be funded be prepared accordingly.
The Parliament's responsibility cannot end when the cheque has been posted and the money has been paid; that is a long way from ensuring that Europe's cultural heritage is preserved.
The o/t acclaimed integration, the cross-border effects and, above all, the economic success constantly referred to here in relation to sustained employment and so on will only be achieved when communication about the cultural heritage is managed in the same way.
The custodians of cultural property must ensure that their message reaches the public.
Mr President, I believe that nearly everything has been said on the remarkable interest of the Raphael programme at the time of its first reading in October 1995, its second reading in October 1996 and here today.
I therefore wish, at the time of this final phase, to express my regret that the budget fixed by the Conciliation Committee is not sufficient to respond to the ambitions of this programme.
My concern increases all the more on reading chapter 6 of Agenda 2000, where the Commission warns us against the risks of dilution and reduction of cultural activities currently developed by the European Union, since the financial resources of the new members will not cover their needs in the area of culture.
What will Raphael become? Our European civilization rests on a common spirit and the feeling of belonging to the same cultural community.
Great artistic trends have crossed Europe at different times, gathering together its people, trends such as Roman, Gothic and Baroque Art and Romanticism.
Today Europeans, who are living through great changes in the areas of economics, science and technology, are more and more interested in their heritage.
The magnificent success of the European Heritage Days, which will take place at the end of this week, shows us the path to follow.
The protection of heritage, its knowledge, brings undeniable intellectual, human and technical wealth and above all, and this needs to be repeated, economic and job creating wealth.
We can better exploit what we have had in common for centuries.
The Raphael programme is an excellent answer.
For pity's sake, Mr Commissioner, honourable Ministers, give us the resources!
, Member of the Commission. (DE) Mr President, to start with the last point: it is not up to me, Mrs Poisson, nor up to the Commission.
Of course the resources are inadequate, and the Commission would have been delighted if the programme had been better funded, but there was no more was to be had.
When the programme has proved its worth there will be a better case for continuing and improving the funding.
In any case, the rapporteur - whom I should like to congratulate at this point - has achieved a great measure of success for the programme itself. Indeed, you have all emphasized that yourselves.
The question of culture is not so simple.
I was just wondering, what Parliament would do if this discussion were taking place before an election.
Say, for instance, you had to take 150 million away from the agricultural policy and add it to this programme.
I do not mean to be rude, but it really would be interesting to take a vote in Parliament and see which of the two would win.
But it is quite true that culture is much more than the expression of human life.
Even in this debate there has been dissension on what culture actually is.
I do not think it can be defined.
It is the expression of the lives of individuals, groups and peoples.
But if you look at the four stages or this programme more closely, it is not based on the assumption that there is a kind of artificial, superior, European culture that has nothing to do with the individual cultures of the regions and peoples.
Quite the reverse: the programme is actually designed so that lesser known cultures undervalued by others can become better known; to broadcast their existence and inform people of their life and development.
This means any representative of a regional or folk culture can happily support this programme.
It goes far beyond the boundaries of individual Member States.
In my view it would be very short-sighted to define culture as only existing in one region or one nation, and unable to develop a European form of expression as well.
I believe that all our European regional and national cultures contain elements in common.
That becomes clear at latest when one compares them with other cultures from other parts of the world.
The Commission recognizes that here we have a way of combatting unemployment.
I hope that will become ever better understood.
Looking at where the new jobs are being created today - Mrs Tongue has touched on this - culture in its widest sense, as described by Mr Pex, is certainly one of the few areas where new jobs are being created.
The point is not just that we want to do something to preserve our cultural heritage, without regard to what this means for the development of the economy and hence for the creation of new jobs.
No one should be in any doubt about the connection.
I am aware that economic and employment policy-makers frequently fail to recognize that connection, and the importance of culture first has to be explained to them in many ways.
First of all, it must be explained that most activities which today lead to economic success are creative.
People no longer have to prove that they are superior to machines: anything machines can do, it can do better than a human being.
What is really human in work, and in capacity for work, is creativity inspiration.
I have never met a creative or inspired person whose abilities were not in some way based upon or used as a result of his relationship with culture.
So economic activity today is to have a purpose and reason, if it is to be capable of being utilized, it must have a connection with and be relevant to culture.
That is much more important than a direct means of creating jobs.
Let that be absolutely clear.
Today, culture is a direct economic factor.
Port exhibitions and tourism depend on it.
It is always much easier to establish businesses in a country or a region, in which a cultural heritage is discernible, in which culture thrives.
Of course there are also direct effects of culture upon the economy, but I believe that the real heart of the matter is the coexistence of peoples and the creative, innovative force arising from that coexistence, in terms of the current position of Europeans and their employment markets.
The funding available here may seem laughable against this background.
But, at least, it is a beginning.
As you know, the Commission is organizing a conference, what we call a forum, in January, in which Parliament and cultural life representatives will be able to participate.
This forum will examine how these programmes can be implemented.
We are in the process of preparing a green paper to be laid before Parliament and the Council towards the end of 1997, specifically on the subject of the effects of culture on the creation of jobs.
So as you see the Commission shares the position of Parliament's Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
I am delighted at this cooperative effort.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00.
Cohesion policy and culture
Mr President, I want to thank the Committee on Regional Policy for assigning this report to me and I must say I have found it very absorbing because I have always maintained that culture is a great instrument with vast potential for regional development.
If it is true - and it is true - that one of the fundamental aims of our Community action is to guarantee and ensure peace and development in the Community, it is also true that the basic objective remains the employment of present and future generations.
Culture can only be seen in this light and it is essential pursue a plan to integrate it with other activities leading to development and employment, which is of concern to us all and on which all are trying to concentrate their efforts.
But I also have to say that, from a 'cultural' point of view, there is clearly a lack of strategic knowledge on how to integrate the resources.
I am revising my speech in the light of what Commissioner Bangemann said just now, because, objectively, it is important to achieve conciliation on a programme like Raphael to obtain a really complex and well-expressed demonstration of the validity of sustaining a cultural programme.
In the recent past there has been, and unfortunately there still is, a serious dysfunction, a serious gap in structural funds spending capacity in certain objective 1 areas, especially in our country, alas.
That is why I maintain, and I say so in this report, the fundamental importance of making culture a basic link in this development, this commitment, and this expenditure.
So an increase in the link with the employment strategy is not unthinkable, but would be both sensible and wholly consistent, because the old continent is the custodian and provider of a cultural heritage which is just waiting to be exploited, but in a structured and appropriate way.
It is also necessary to have the capacity to re-examine the cultural process on our continent.
We have objective 1 areas with latent potential which has not been properly exploited, and they could experience a time of recovery through appropriate use of the structural funds, precisely in a cultural key.
Our Committee on Regional Policy has dealt with this issue several times and I am also particularly sensitive to the Euromediterranean policy aspect involved.
In short, these regions' best chance of affirming their cultural identity is through a process of cultural renewal.
This can be done through the enlargement mentioned earlier.
At this point I also want to thank the committee secretary and our officers for their contribution, because the issue was very complex and, obviously, everyone's contribution was essential.
Those contributions, the reports of the draftsmen of opinions and the many amendments I have taken up were all excellent in my opinion.
I believe this report of ours effectively represents an innovative step in the area we are debating and which was also dealt with a little earlier.
In fact, Europe, the old continent, can draw full advantage from this issue which is so crucial not only to jobs, but also to peace.
Cultural deepening clearly adds to the consolidation of peace and cohesion between peoples and areas, especially in the Mediterranean, a much more remarkable aspect than the one more generally dealt with.
I have accepted almost all the amendments including Amendment No 5, as long as it is incorporated into paragraph 25, otherwise I will have to reject it as too specific.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in this headlong rush towards the Euro and eastern Europe, it almost seems unusual to be talking about cohesion, regional development, culture - culture, indeed! - and their contribution to creating jobs.
But it is urgent to do so and overcome all resistance, transcend all indifference.
In doing so we are talking about local power, about participation by the people, about democracy.
And about respect for the cultural heritage bequeathed to us, which is deep-rooted and must be preserved or humanity will be the poorer.
We are talking about the local power of those of us who have been elected, and who remain close to the people and share with them their daily traditions and the appeals of modernity which can undermine identity.
And we are talking about employment, about cultural activities as generators of jobs, which can and must create the indispensable harmony between the past to be preserved and the future to be built, not denying that past but valuing it.
I am delighted that this report has taken up the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and industrial policy which I had the honour and pleasure of drafting and presenting.
I congratulate Mr Azzolini on his work and the receptiveness he has shown.
And I hope this report will not be submerged by the wave of economic liberalism and cultural abdication, that it will not remain an incidental report, a set of good intentions and fine words neglected in the strategies and neglected by the actions and the financial resources which, as the Commissioner himself has just recognized, are ludicrous and need to be reconsidered and strengthened.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, structural funds have been used to finance projects linked to culture in its widest sense.
On first assessment, the Commission estimates such finance at about ECU 400 million.
Perhaps the most obvious are those activities in the area of restoration of our architectural heritage, but culture is not one of the objectives of the structural funds, despite what it has been possible to do.
In its communication, the Commission gives us some important examples, and it would be useful if our committee had access to as much information as possible. This would give us more details about the added value of these activities in the area of employment, and allow us to define more clearly our strategy for future action.
Culture, which is both defined and expressed in many ways, is also an activity which involves large numbers, with respect to funding, employment, tourist movements, etc....You could say that there is a real industry linked to cultural matters, with a potential for employment.
In countries visited by tourists, culture in all its manifestations is an additional attraction (and not the least) for those visitors.
It is an important attraction, and it would be useful to give some attention to the training of staff who play a role in these activities.
We must insist on developing the intrinsic potential of the regions; implementing large projects for the renovation, restoration and conservation of infrastructure; intervening in new forms of cultural activity; and optimizing the reasonable exploitation of our historical, architectural - in short - cultural heritage.
The quality of interventions within the framework of Community aid depends on the strategies and ideas of the Member States.
Nevertheless, cooperation and a greater awareness of experiences must be encouraged, in order (I repeat what I said at the beginning) to see the significant added value of the cultural activities of the structural funds for the development of some regions, and for employment.
Mr President, culture has long been the Cinderella of the structural funds. No mention is made of culture in the funds' present regulations, except in a narrow and marginal way.
It seems clear, from the Commission's communication, from the Council's various recent meetings, and, above all, from what has been put forward by the European Parliament for years, that support for cultural activities is not an unproductive luxury but a condition of development, progress and job-creation for the whole European Union.
In our opinion, drafted on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, we have essentially emphasized three points: the first relates to what can already be done using the existing funds and regulations.
Intervention in the cultural sector and, above all, the integration of culture at all levels of socioeconomic development are, by their nature, valuable in both social and civic terms and economic and employment terms.
They fulfil the provisions of article 128, paragraph 4, of the treaty, and permit better integration of culture into all Community policies.
In this context, they involve promoting dialogue between those responsible, at any level, for programming Community funds and the operators in the cultural sector - be they institutions, associations or private organizations.
The second point relates to the definition of the future structural policies of the Union.
It is clear that the objectives and regulations of the structural funds, after 1999, must provide for and permit better integration of culture into the Community's policies for economic and social cohesion and development.
The fact is, investments in the cultural field are neither encouraged nor promoted at present.
Thirdly, we stress the need to develop, in addition to the structural funds, direct Community action in the cultural sector, giving it greater consistency and visibility.
We suggest that the existing cultural programmes should be grouped together under a single framework programme with new actions and programmes, the promotion of cultural industries, high level training in the sector, and so on.
As well as promoting Community action, this would have the effect of promoting, boosting, guiding and completing the projects promoted and carried out at decentralized level under the structural funds.
Mr President, I very much welcome the Commission communication which followed a request from the Committee on Regional Policy for further discussion and debate on the role that culture can play in achieving economic and social cohesion.
I believe that Structural Funds have provided many opportunities for the promotion of our cultural heritage and a recognition of cultural trades.
If we have a problem, it is that we have not made enough of that, nor have we blown our trumpet enough about what we can do with European regional development funds.
I would like to give some examples of things that have been done in my constituency.
Increasingly my constituency has become a sought-after film location after the British Broadcasting Corporation produced the film 'Pride and Prejudice' and, more recently, a European-backed film 'Jane Eyre' , by Franco Zefferelli.
It created a tremendous boost for local jobs in the constituency and for the tourist industry.
This Thursday I will be launching the Durban house project, a heritage centre in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, which has only been made possible with European Rechar funding.
As you said, Commissioner, this is not only about heritage; this is not just about honouring D. H. Lawrence, a twentieth century novelist famous for 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' .
The building has training rooms; it has a cafeteria; it is linked in with the local training college and, in fact, we are providing jobs and training for a very high youth unemployment problem that we have in that area.
I also believe that we should not only look at the issue of heritage and culture in an architectural sense, such as renovating town centres.
I believe that we have a lot of potential in promoting cultural industries where there is very good value for money.
Culture in its broadest sense means making the link with the youth culture, with the pop industry.
I do not know whether you have heard of the Spice Girls, Commissioner, or indeed if you have one of their records, but there are very many famous British pop bands such as Oasis and the Spice Girls.
Behind them there are many thousands of jobs.
We have done it with structural funds in Liverpool with the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts where £3.5 million of European regional development money has gone into promoting youth training and training in the cultural industries for young unemployed people and, indeed, for young offenders.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will take away some of these ideas and that you will push for the cultural industries to be put on the agenda at the forthcoming employment summit.
We can make more of this and we can make the link with communities right across the EU, particularly disaffected young people and the unemployed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great satisfaction to welcome Mr Azzolini's report and the Commission communication on cohesion policy and culture because I firmly believe culture must be protected and also considered anew in terms of employment and development.
But I think one comment is called for, and I am sure the rapporteur and the other speakers will agree with it.
If culture and the individual traditions of European countries are to be truly respected, I believe it is fundamental to distinguish between culture to be protected and culture to be sold, while keeping to the line proposed by the Commission whereby culture as a whole, in all its many aspects, should be regarded as an instrument for employment.
Culture should indeed be seen as a source of employment, but there must be no attempt to cast it into the hands of speculators and others who might destroy what peoples and their traditions have succeeded in fostering and handing down over the centuries.
What has substantially happened in tourism is the example that must not be followed. The unbridled development of the tourist industry has often transformed coastlines, islands and cities of the arts into building sites, asphalt jungles or camps for tourists, usually without any sense of culture or even a minimum code of behaviour.
Rather, the fact that must be emphasized is that all forms of culture are fragile and at risk of being lost over the years, at risk of being engulfed by globalization and muddled up with new forms of mass culture without any link with tradition.
This means prioritizing all types of intervention, assistance, and encouragement to respect and conserve the cultural heritage, linguistic traditions, regional forms of expression and sports events, all handed down to us by history.
Culture and cohesion policy as a new source of employment: here I want to stress the need to avoid creating new forms of seasonal, casual employment, which happens all too often in tourism.
It would be better to stimulate sensitivity to cultural factors in the most structured way possible, with the development, for example, of faculties for the restoration of cultural heritage, with registers of professionals, recognized throughout Europe, and diplomas or certificates which permit mobility of architects, restorers and so on.
The Commission ought to confront these issues starting from the recognition that only 3 per cent of structural funds appropriations going to fund projects relating to cultural heritage - the current position - is too little.
This share must be increased. A new and extended legal basis is also needed, with culture included in the reform of the structural funds.
I would also like to see two geographic features more strongly emphasized in the approach to cohesion policy and culture: cities and islands. Cities, because they are the real scene of this idea, capable of making European artistic expression a driving force in development, and islands, precisely because they are distant from the continent we often like to call cultural and are the visible testimony to historical periods, architectural styles, crafts, and individual dialects which are still largely pure.
So I fully support the amendment tabled by Mr Alavanos on this issue and I am very glad he tabled it.
During the public hearing last November, when culture and cohesion policy were discussed, the interesting suggestion emerged of an objective 7 devoted to culture, a horizontal objective.
With the planned reform of the structural funds, this idea is very unlikely to be considered, given the considerable reduction in the objectives in general.
It would therefore be appropriate to look at different forms of implementation, one of which might be Community training initiatives.
Mr President, this is a positive communication from the Commission which highlights to the importance of culture for employment, regional development and, of course, trade between regions and nations, as well as for ensuring that the structural funds are used in a better way than today to support the cultural sector.
The report is positive too.
On the whole it supports the communication from the Commission and points to examples of sites of historical or architectural interest, which is good.
In this context, the significance of the structural funds too could be quite different to what it has been so far.
Another important point is that employment should be widespread and evenly distributed across the various regions of a country.
But perhaps the most important contribution we can make, in the form of both job opportunities and cultural exchange, is to be found, I believe, in another area, i.e. in the activities of local and regional associations and organizations.
There are lots of associations and organizations which quietly make major contributions to society and are of great value to democracy.
These include organizations which we more generally regard as NGOs, i.e. non-governmental organizations, in areas such as the environment, nature, schools, sport, academic work and educational associations.
There are great opportunities here to support local and regional cultural life by providing assistance and by developing various cultural activities and cultural institutions which can create both a better cultural exchange and job opportunities which are well distributed over regions and countries.
This is money well spent and we in the Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Group support both the communication and the report wholeheartedly.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his hard work on this report.
Cultural projects have a great potential in our Community framework - a potential not yet realised, unfortunately.
They not only have the strong interest and support of citizens for their intrinsic value but they also have an important contribution to make to employment in our European regions.
In this regard, I would like in particular to welcome and support the proposal for the dissemination and communication of information through innovative libraries and new technologies.
I should also like to welcome in particular paragraph 37 of the report in which there is a proposal to mobilize local and regional authorities, together with the close participation of Community and women's groups who are active in promoting heritage and culture at grass-roots level.
In this context, I welcome the importance the rapporteur has given to culture in peaceful conflict resolution.
The support project for Northern Ireland for peace and reconciliation is a model of grass-roots activism and could be a model for this particular proposal here in listening closely to the grass roots and giving them support.
Particular reference has been made to the importance of different bodies in the Commission working closely together in the cultural field in order to pull the strings together.
Finally, since Mrs McCarthy has referred to her region, I cannot resist referring to my own region and the importance of the film business there at the moment.
At present we have Meryl Streep making a film based on one of our twentieth century playwrights.
I can give her more information on that later.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in its communication the Commission identifies culture as being a sector with strong employment potential and analyses the link existing between culture and regional development.
It is true that culture is one of the main European assets from an economic point of view, although it is largely under-exploited.
Culture is an important source of employment, for example, in tourism: this sector alone accounts for 7 % of jobs in the Union.
In his excellent report, Mr Azzolini demonstrates the importance of structural funds and, particularly in objective 5 regions, for the financing of cultural projects in the European Union.
As rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture for Agenda 2000, I have particularly studied the Commission's proposals grouped together as the Santer package.
In a work document that I have already written and which has been distributed to all the members of the Committee on Agriculture I showed, amongst other things, the difficulties that the Santer package poses for objective 5 regions, which are largely rural areas.
We note that rural policy is virtually absent from the Santer package, since objective 5a and 5b regions are grouped together under objective 2.
The geographic limitation of objective 2 regions, as defined in the Santer package, will cause a considerable deceleration in rural policy.
Rural European culture exists and must therefore survive.
Allow me to remind you that our agriculture and our rurality have existed for more than 2, 500 years, as opposed to that of United States or even of the Cairns Group.
If you want to retain a specifically European agriculture, that is, an agriculture which takes into account constraints linked to regional planning and to rural culture, it is necessary to have an ambitious policy, both at the level of agricultural policy and at the level of all Union policies, of which cultural policy is one.
I will end by giving an example of the rural intersections put in place in numerous regions, which are the cogs in the transmission of this essential information.
We must not cut off their financial means of existence....
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, of the many valuable and forward-looking ideas contained in this report I would emphasize the need to link cultural requirements with quality tourism.
The areas of cultural variety, quality tourism and employment policy must in future represent a sort of golden triangle in European regional policy.
The reform of the structural funds after 1999 presents a first class opportunity to bind the cultural dimension, generating economic growth through quality tourism, much more closely to aid policy.
The European Parliament will play a particularly active part in this matter as a focus for the variety of European cultures.
I am particularly grateful to the rapporteur for emphasizing that sport is a cultural activity which should also be used in the struggle against racism.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen.
I believe it is important that the part played by culture in regional development, as highlighted in this report, is always understood.
Article 128(4) of the treaty requires that the Community pay regard to the cultural aspects of its duties.
Only a few weeks ago German students at Witten University asked me about the possibility of realizing the following question: How can we make it possible for culture to be recognized amongst the activities of the European Union? Is it, indeed, always reasonable for culture to be considered, even when the main concern is for economic aspects?
This report shows that there are indeed areas, as shown in the structural policy, in which culture may not at first glance appear to play a role, but in which closer inspection shows it to have a clear influence.
It has been shown, furthermore, that cultural projects are thoroughly compatible with the aims of the cohesion and development plans.
According to current regulations culture can only then be considered when it is part of the regional or local development plans for the creation of permanent jobs.
The development of our society shows that services and mobility continue to grow in importance.
The demand increases constantly for cultural aspects of tourism, because of ever more leisure time and raised expectations.
The cultural sector is, therefore, in other areas, such as in the media, a particularly dynamic part of the service industries that can also play a positive part in employment.
We should not forget, however, that cultural measures have a mainly indirect effect on employment.
It is questionable, therefore, if they can be as effective for employment as are direct investment measures.
According to the programme support of the structural funds, it is the role of the Member States and regions to give due weight to the enhancement of culture within the framework of over-all support.
In accordance with the subsidiarity principle it must also be left in future to Member States and regions as to how they value cultural activities.
Mr President, all too often regional authorities fail to make use of cultural opportunities as a source of employment and innovation.
Only rarely is it realised that cultural events, new works, or activities concerned with the conservation of the landscapes or buildings, create jobs both directly and indirectly, and sometimes even more than with traditional productive companies.
Commissioner Bangemann referred to this in his speech.
From Mr Azzolini's excellent report it is clear that culture does not feature as part of the region's development strategy in objective 1 programmes.
And, unfortunately, other programmes lack the cultural angle.
People have only just awoken to the fact that development projects can be structured to fund culture also.
In fact that happened only after the Venice meeting.
Culture has to be understood in a broad sense.
Culture is the past and a respect for tradition, but it is also the creation of the new: new realizations, an appeal to human emotion, aesthetics, and the need for knowledge.
The new applications of information technology and their use to enhance cohesion and regional equality are part of today's culture.
The dissemination of culture and the products of culture to all people, irrespective of where they live or their social background, will require public funding.
To that end, the Commission should now adopt those measures recommended in the report, such as the production of sufficient background information and statistics on what the real effect of cultural activity is on employment, to make the case to the responsible authorities.
And so I think it would be an excellent idea if, in the November conference, prominence were given to the subject of culture as a force for the creation of jobs.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in today's debate we are considering culture from an unusual angle, from an economic viewpoint; its contribution to economic development, its great potential for the creation of employment and the impulse it gives to regional and local development - in a word - its contribution to European economic and social cohesion.
Ever since this debate opened in Venice in May 1996, various Community documents have stressed the economic potential of culture in the creation of skilled and lasting employment, both directly and indirectly, as well as its potential contribution to regional or local development.
But the Azzolini report shows quite rightly that this potential has so far been under-used. Only 3 % of all structural fund loans are directed towards cultural projects, despite the fact that 80 % of spending on culture comes from those very structural funds.
This fact will have to be considered during the reform of regional policy which is currently in progress.
But the Azzolini report contributes new and worthwhile approaches.
It mentions the conservation of our natural heritage (which could be called ecoculture or natural culture) thereby involving culture and environment.
It mentions quality tourism.
We should acknowledge, and also demand, the encouragement of: high quality urban development; the use of new social information technologies; the participation of the private sector, foundations and patronage; inter-regional transborder cooperation; and the globalized institutional dialogue of all the institutions of the European Union. This is the way to apply the principle of subsidiarity, which is so important in an area such as culture where the inter-regional, regional and local bodies have such great powers.
But it must not be forgotten that in addition to its economic aspects, culture is also an end in itself, as a basis for identity, and individual and collective integration. It allows a qualitative leap to be made in the process of building Europe, to create an authentic and historical community of values.
I congratulate the Commission on its initiative, the rapporteur for his excellent report, and allow me to conclude, Mr President, by recalling the words of Jean Monnet: to rebuild Europe, we must start with its culture.
Mr President, may I thank Mr Azzolini most sincerely for his input, which pulled off the trick of incorporating the various amendments and which is still here!
This, too, is a contribution to a piece of political culture.
I am still sorry that some Members, such as Mr Ribeiro and others, pose questions and make critical remarks, but are then not here when one attempts to give an answer.
After all, in the long run this communication between Commission and Parliament is only possible on such occasions, at least for the main part.
For instance, I should have liked to tell Mr Ribeiro that culture seldom or never has anything to do with political beliefs.
One should preferably let culture get on by itself, and one should not try to possess it for oneself.
Political systems which have attempted that have been wrecked.
To introduce culture into the conflict between liberal economic systems and socialism is not, in my view, relevant.
Nor do I believe that Mr Viola, who is also unfortunately no longer present, but I shall say it anyway, perhaps he can read it in the Minutes - is right when he says that there are special parts of culture deserving of protection, and one should concentrate on these, leaving the others, which find a place in economic life anyway, to one side.
At any rate, I do not share that view.
It is very difficult to decide what counts as culture according to this definition, and is to be valued as real culture, and what is not culture.
With regard to the so-called pop culture, Mrs McCarthy asked me a moment ago if I had heard of the Spice Girls.
I can confirm that I have, and perhaps that proves that I do not belong to any elitist cultural movement.
I just hope the Spice Girls do not get banned by the European Parliament one day when you debate Mrs Lorenz report.
It is my belief, therefore, that there should be no elitist cultural movement, but that we must try as far as is possible to define culture.
In this must be included those cultural values which do not belong to created works, having been more or less donated to mankind as landscape, but whose cultural value it alone appreciates and, of course, it alone can preserve; so we have also included that in our report.
I hope that you will very quickly abandon any reservations which still remain here and there, such as that we are intending certain powers of the regions.
We are doing no more here than already pertains to regional policy: projects and matters seeking funding are not processed by us, but individually by the regions.
As far as that goes there can be no danger, they are processed in the same way as everything else under regional policy.
Here too, I believe, one should look back after a certain period on what one has achieved.
The first pilot projects which we shall carry out will perhaps show what is achievable.
I think we shall then see somewhat more clearly how to incorporate this important factor in the future.
As for what culture and the maintenance of culture mean for jobs, I have explained this in the preceding report and have no need to repeat it.
Once again my thanks to the Parliament. I should like your understanding for the fact that neither Mr Oreja nor my female colleague could be here today.
Neither is it a fact that I am the secret Cultural Commissioner, but merely that I am here today because postal services are on today's agenda.
However, it has been an enormous pleasure for me, to speak on culture for once.
I rise to inform Mr Bangemann of what he surely knows from his parliamentary experience: that we often have three meetings at the same time in this Parliament.
Members unable to be present at the moment are at committee meetings at the same time, just like the colleagues you are representing.
Perhaps you might discuss these cultural differences with Mr Ribeiro and the others, for whom I hereby apologize, over a good meal.
That is undoubtedly a culture that you share with our colleagues, the reply to whom I, or those colleagues who are present, have received on their behalf.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Postal Services
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0271/97) on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, concerning the common position of the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of services provided (C4-0223/97-95/0221 (COD)).
Mr President, first of all, congratulations on reading the title.
The title in itself should take up about three minutes' speaking time.
To us, in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, it has become known simply as the postal directive.
The second reading of the postal directive sees us approaching the end of what has been a long-running saga.
Honourable Members of this House will be aware of the positions taken by the House, not only on the first reading but on the original Green Paper and various oral questions.
Indeed, while both the Commission and Council have been divided on this issue, Parliament has been very clear in its views - with the exception of Mr Wijsenbeek, of course, who always finds himself in a minority of one: the retention of a public service with a reserved area large enough to ensure a universal service at an affordable price to all citizens of the EU irrespective of where they live.
Add to this our wish that an improvement in the quality of service should be aimed for and you have Parliament's position in a nutshell.
The pros and cons and our arguments have been debated on previous occasions and, frankly, this time last year there seemed to be little prospect of an agreement being reached.
However, thanks to the intervention at the Dublin Summit of President Chiral and some goodwill on all sides, things began to move, with the Council reaching agreement earlier this year which was very close to Parliament's position.
Therefore, as rapporteur, it is my belief that for the second reading Parliament should keep its amendments to a bare minimum, thus facilitating a common agreement in this sector.
Can I, however, bring Parliament's attention to some technical adjustments that will need to be made to article 2(13), and article 5(1) which follow from Amendment No 3 that was adopted by the Transport Committee.
First of all, the definition of a universal service provider in article 2(13) should read: ' the public or private entity providing a universal postal service or parts thereof within a Member State, the identity of which has been notified to the Commission in accordance with article 4' .
Then at the beginning of article 5(1) the words: ' is guaranteed an' should be deleted to avoid duplication with article 4.
I stress that these are technical adjustments - not changes of substance or of principle.
Can I thank Parliament's Secretariat and all those people, including the trade unions who work within the postal sector, for their help in what has been a complicated and sensitive issue and also the Council and the Commission for their help, particularly in the later stages.
I believe that should Parliament accept the amendments of the Transport Committee, and only those amendments, at second reading, then together we will have succeeded in ensuring that the goals I set out earlier are achieved and the common position with the Council realised.
There is still one outstanding issue - that of terminal dues.
No doubt, both the Commission and Parliament will return to this problem at a later date.
However, I believe that introducing this issue at this stage could seriously undermine our ability to reach an agreement with the Council, which is why I cannot support amendments on this subject.
Nevertheless, I would like to see some indication from the Commission as to what action, if any, it proposes to take on this issue in the future.
In conclusion, I would ask Parliament to support the Transport Committee on this second reading and, in so doing, to strike a blow not only for the universal public service but also for Parliament itself.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
Slowly but surely is a German maxim.
I should like to apply this saying to the discussion about the postal services guidelines, for this really has been a slow process.
Whether or not the guideline is a good one, I take leave to doubt.
It could be much more satisfactory - in particular, a definite reference to protection for employees as a result of restructuring is missing.
Nevertheless, the Group of the Party of European Socialists will accept this proposal by the Council.
We are aware how difficult it has been to obtain agreement in the Council, and we should not wish to endanger this compromise.
Our concept of a good and commercially viable postal service within the Union went further; and although the Commission regrettably adopted only a few of our amendments, the Council proposal did reflect the tenor of our resolution.
It is important for the whole Union that a regulatory framework should at last be in place for the postal services, upon which the member states can base their legislation.
Unfortunately, the wording of the guideline too often contains the word "can' , instead of "must' , and I fear that this "can' will be exploited by some Member States as a means of avoiding the European regulations.
The clear definition of universal service and the reserved sectors is really positive.
That will guarantee the consumer a service at a reasonable price in every region.
It will also be helpful during the debate in the Federal Republic on the new postal services law.
I trust that this guideline will quickly become effective without a third reading, for that will nullify the mendacious rumours in my country, which maintain that Europe is, for example, forcing us to close sub-post offices, make collections only twice a week, and so forth.
I fully support Mr Simpson's amendments, and I am pleased that the postal service for blind and partially-sighted people has been more precisely defined by Amendment No 4.
We shall not support Mr Ferber's amendments on the subject of redirection.
However reasonable and beneficial these may actually seem to me personally, they would not be accepted by the Council, and would therefore endanger the fragile compromise.
A solution will have to be found to the problem of redirection, and it will have to be more clearly defined than at present in article 13, otherwise distortions of competitiveness will remain.
I ask the Commission, therefore, to present a separate guideline proposal on the final payments, and for this to be December 2000 at the very latest when it reports on the new postal services guidelines and their implementation.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen.
Today we have another opportunity, after well over a year, to debate the postal services, and this time during the second reading of the guidelines with the interminable title.
If we are to be honest, this guideline is no great leap forward.
The only success one can acknowledge is that the guideline is temporary and thus - I say it quite openly - this puts a certain amount of pressure on Member States to make their postal services competitive and fit for the internal market.
If this were not possible, the guideline would not be worth the paper it is printed on.
We do not wish, however, to quarrel with the main planks of the compromise, agreed by the Telecommunications Council of Ministers last December, because I naturally see the following problems here: a) a majority decision, b) forcing the issue through in Council.
A certain reserved sector is essential to ensure that basic postal coverage also applies to rural areas.
A universal commitment to service - in other words a certain minimum range of postal products available to all citizens at acceptable prices - is equally justified.
My group, the Group of the European People's Party will not puss for a compromise procedure, as we must at long last come to the point where things start moving in the member states.
The crucial issue is how we organize a common market in which the central European question, namely final accounting, has to be regulated by an antiquated system - the World Postal Union.
No one has been able to give me a satisfactory answer to this question.
It was quite astonishing how diplomatically Brian Simpson presented his report today, with little trace left of the combative and innovative spirit we saw in the first reading.
A year ago we agreed that we had to find a European solution to the problem of final payment.
Now, in the second reading, allegiance is withdrawn, just so as not to endanger the Council's compromise.
My compliments to the British on how quickly they have learned the rules of the game!
We in the Group of the European People's Party feel that we must achieve a common market, with competition even in the postal services, but that this competition should not grant one nation advantages over another.
A reserved sector, a universal service obligation, which is attacked, even undermined, by unauthorised redirection can never meet with our approval.
I am really touched by Mrs Schmidbauer's crocodile tears, but if you want social protection and so on, support my amendment!
Then things will proceed automatically, then we shall no longer have any need to discuss small post offices in Germany and the like.
You have it in your power to do something tomorrow for your comrades!
I had wanted to cover a few more things, but time has run away from me.
Mr Commissioner, The matter of terminal dress has still not been settled.
Even though, thanks to the dissension of the opposing side, we shall not win tomorrow, I must ask you to see that we make progress here.
We cannot create an internal market with a World Postal Union!
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Mr Simpson for his excellent draft recommendations on the harmonization of postal services.
In fact, these will play a decisive role in the organization of this sector in Europe since they pick up once again the position taken by the European Parliament at the time of the first reading and that of the Franco-German agreement, an initiative of Jacques Chiral, which is the implementation of a universal service along with the clear definition of a reserved service for businesses which will be allocated by each Member State in respect of the principle of subsidiarity.
Today, the postal sector is experiencing the urgent need to have a regulatory framework which guarantees its legal security and economic viability.
Similarly, citizens and businesses expect from the European Union the guarantee of a quality public service at an affordable price.
My group repeats our attachment to public services, an irreplaceable element in social cohesion and of balanced regional and rural planning.
I repeat that public service cannot be guaranteed if the balance in its economy is compromised by an uncontrolled and unbridled liberalization and, in particular, by an overly restrictive definition of the reserved services sector.
For all these reasons, my group wishes to see rapid adoption of the directive, if possible during the Telecommunications Council on 1 December.
We must avoid recourse to the conciliation procedure which could cause questions about an agreement that was extremely difficult to obtain from the Council.
This is why the Group Union for Europe will vote in favour of Mr Simpson's draft recommendation.
Mr President, here we are with the remains of what once should have been a liberalizing policy.
It is typical that all the previous speakers drew attention to the workers in the postal services and that nobody said a word on behalf of the consumer who is entitled to a good service.
Not even Mrs Schmidbauer, she talked about the postal workers, too.
It is really very depressing that the Commission can sit here blushing with shame.
Because what has happened is that we have been hanged for vested interests.
But there is one thing that we cannot forget. The postal service that thinks that it can be monopolistic has not been so for a long time.
Both fax and E-mail will also force the postal services to be really competitive.
At first reading, my group, not just me, Mr Simpson, voted against.
We shall not do that at this second reading.
But we do want to try one thing: save what can still be saved for the European consumer who is entitled to a decent service, who is entitled to the letters that he has posted at the post office being delivered within a certain time.
Very recently Agence Europe reported that only 80 % of letters were delivered on time.
I really do not understand how anyone can imagine that means are not standards in Europe.
The Commission should be held accountable in the future, it should monitor these standards and immediately point out to the services that do not comply with them, using the means at its disposal, under the treaty, that the consumer is the first affected party and that we are engaged in making European policy for the consumer.
Mr President, the post office question is urgent!
The input of Parliament with regard to the report or guidelines on the internal market for the postal services is thus important to correct the matter.
Our contribution is important in order for there to be no adverse competition during the liberalization of markets, and above all so that there is no social disadvantage, but that social security is maintained and the social functions of the postal services can be retained.
European regulation is in my view absolutely essential for the period in which the European postal businesses are negotiating over the problem of terminal dues.
We know that there are huge, competing, economic interests.
Misuse, which was previously possible, was barred by Amendment No 19 to Article 13, paragraph 2.
In a common market we need common regulations.
We must not use national arguments, but in the World Postal Union we must argue as a European Union.
In my view the legal basis for all future legal statutes aimed at liberalisation of the postal market should be article 100.
There was found little support from the Commission for this at first reading.
We are pleased that the Council has taken up our protest and shares our opinion, and we hope that things will go better at second reading.
We must preserve social security for work in the postal industry, and for this reason the primacy of politics is also important.
I think conditions should not be as they are amongst private providers.
We have just seen in the USA how jobs can be cut by UPS a universal postal service.
That must not be allowed to happen in the European Union.
I myself worked for many years as a postman.
I know that the social function of the post is important for old people and for underdeveloped regions.
There must therefore be no regional discrimination, either against the sender or the receiver.
Because there is a social obligation, so must there be state control.
Then there can be either public or private providers.
I hope that we shall come to a solution in the interests of the consumer and of the postal workers, and that we can then regulate the problem of final payment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a directive formulated by the Commission is an important step towards the setting up of a single market for postal services in the European Union.
The most enthusiastic defenders of public services will certainly not find in this text the guarantees that generally ensue from a benefit of this nature, even if the Commission accepts, at second reading, what I obviously hope it will, the amendments proposed by the rapporteur and retained supported by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
But if we are talking about quality of service and citizen equality as regards pricing, in whatever geographic area where the service is provided, including peripheral or island regions, if we are talking about the employment of hundreds of thousands of workers in this sector, then in these essential areas the future is not guaranteed, not for more than a few years, at all events.
Therefore, the implementation of the directive will have to its merit the fixing of a regulatory framework, and its adoption will also throw into the nettles the, to say the least, strange text drawn up by the Commission which was described as a 'notice of application' , a text which was totally inconsistent with that of the directive, to which it claimed to refer.
The European Parliament, in all of this, was able to remain clear and firm in its position, even if all the amendments passed at first reading were not taken up. It is certainly this clarity and firmness that will have enabled the Council to look for, and find, a compromise, and lead the Commission to be more attentive to the direction in which Parliament wished this directive to go.
In this regard, the rapporteur, Brian Simpson, both for his tenacity and the quality of his work, deserves both our congratulations and our thanks.
Mr President, postal services fulfil a crucial function in society.
The considerable differences in the quality of the services provided between the Member States represent a serious problem.
Where quality fails, it is not because of geographical differences, but because of a lack of efficiency.
The strengthening of the operation of the market should undoubtedly improve this quality.
However, in its common position, the Council postpones real liberalization of the postal market for at least five years.
And that is despite the fact that good results have already been achieved with liberalization of the postal services, particularly in Sweden.
Just like this Parliament at first reading, the Council chose by a majority the short term interests of the inefficient postal services, particularly in the large Member States of the Union.
The interests of its citizens and companies have been subordinated here.
The liberalization of direct mail and incoming cross-border post has not only been postponed but, what is more, the Council and Parliament will have to decide on them again in the year 2000.
All this time the subject has remained on the political agenda and, what is much more serious, the postal sector in the European Union has clearly been denied clarity on the subject.
The Council should have put forward a clear timetable for liberalization.
Unfortunately, the Council also extended the possibilities escaping the obligations involved in the universal provision of services.
Because of the fact that the national bodies may themselves determine whether such an exception is applicable, the principle of the universal provision of services is seriously affected.
Furthermore, the common position has no standard for the delivery of domestic post, so that a detrimental backlog still remains in various Member States.
My criticism of the common position means that I am far from happy with the report by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which largely endorses the Council's position.
In view of the opinion of the majority of this Committee, I have little hope of any improvement in the report.
At a time when technological development is constantly making the alternatives to physical post more attractive, postal services remain inefficient monopolies.
It looks as if they will lose even more of the market share than with limited liberalization.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Simpson report on common rules for the development of the internal market of Community postal services and the improvement of quality of service, which we shall be considering at second reading, is extremely important.
One has only to think of the number of committees which have been asked for opinions, including the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights, to mention only a few.
This problem has been building up since 1992.
So we in the Alleanza Nazionale will vote for those amendments which are aimed at better and more equal border tariff arrangements in the European Union.
I would mention Amendment No 7, which requires Member States to respect the same quality standards for internal mail as for cross-border mail, and Amendment No 5, which seeks to reconcile the wish to introduce a uniform tariff, supported by Parliament, with giving postal operators the right to conclude individual agreements on prices with customers.
The rapporteur is right to recommend - and I am glad he does - the adoption of the common position by Parliament on the basis of few improvements to the final text which could be accepted by the Council and by the Commission and which are intended to enhance and clarify the general aim of the directive.
Mr President, as I have said often before in this Parliament, I am a former postal worker and remain strongly linked to the postal workers' unions as well of course as primarily representing here more than half a million postal consumers in my constituency. I want to congratulate Brian Simpson, the rapporteur, on the way he has steered the European postal services debate and directive over the past few years.
The rights of Member States to reserve collection, sorting, transport and delivery of mail for the post offices that provide the universal service, and the principle of the price of sending letters remaining affordable for all, will go a long way to defending the interests of the postal consumers and the postal workers.
I am pleased that the Council eventually saw sense when it adopted its common position on the directive and I pay tribute to the role of President Chiral in the lead he provided to the Council to get it to reflect the French crossparty positive approach to postal services as an essential public service.
If the Commission goes ahead with its notice concerning competition in the postal sector, it must be drastically amended from the published draft so as to be fully in line with the directive.
The directive is the result of agreement between the democratically elected European Parliament and the overwhelming majority of democratically elected Member State governments in the European Council of Ministers.
With the greatest respect to Commissioner Bangemann and Commissioner Van Miert, I would remind the Commissioners that they are appointed not elected and they should remember that, rather than even thinking of trying to overturn democratically decided policies. It is in the interests of the people of Europe that we have an efficient and affordable postal service that reflects the fact that postal communications are an essential public service.
Mr President, in area after area today demands are being made for deregulation and liberalization.
We make these demands because the old monopolies are failing to live up to the demand for a wellfunctioning service which we are all entitled to make.
We also make them in order to be able to keep up with technical developments in various areas, and in order to be able to lower prices.
That is how it is in a number of different areas. However, so far the activities of the post office are a major and regrettable exception.
If the decision which the European Parliament took at first reading a little over a year ago had been the final position, then the countries which had carried out the necessary deregulation and so created alternatives to and competition for the old postal monopolies would presumably have been forced to re-regulate at least parts of the post office's activities.
It would have been quite unreasonable if we had made such a decision.
A year ago the emphasis was very much on regulation and very little on liberalization and open competition.
Fortunately, the Commission is more far-sighted than this Parliament.
I want to thank Commissioner Bangemann for that.
Of the 57 proposed amendments which Parliament supported, very little remains today, which I consider positive.
For the countries in the EU which have made demands for free competition in the postal sector, there is now the opportunity to continue this development in a liberalizing direction, which is also positive.
As far as Sweden is concerned, this is a development which is also being made step by step in substantial political unity.
This means that there is now a lot of choice, and many new companies have created many new job opportunities.
I say this to Mrs Moreau in particular: the reduction in the number of people employed in the former postal monopolies, both in Sweden and in other countries, is due more to technical development than to the existence of competition.
On the contrary, competition has created many new job opportunities.
Mr President, postal services are social services and, as such, both their profitability and the level of quality of the services provided are matters that should be addressed.
But in this matter, as in the other public utility sectors, the deregulation and liberalisation of the sector and the fundamental abandonment of the meaning of a universal service is being carried out to the detriment of the quality of the services and to the disadvantage of consumers.
The surrender to private ownership of the most lucrative sectors and analogous services means in fact reducing public services to a minimum, resulting in the downgrading of the services provided for the great majority of consumers, private individuals and small businesses.
At the same time it directly affects the position of the workers, which can be translated into a significant loss of jobs in postal offices which at present employ 1, 500, 000 workers.
It is a fact, Mr President, that the common position of the Council has sustained certain positions and proposals of the European Parliament, which allow, to some degree, for the strengthening of the capacity of those public providers of postal services to offer additional services to the citizens of Europe, for however long the relevant regulations remain in force.
However, the restricted period of enforcement of these regulations and the refusal of the Council to accept proposals concerning the protection of public post offices against uniform rates in a liberalized market of postal services causes intense anxiety not only about the fate of the public service, but also about the level of service provision in disadvantaged mountainous, island and farming regions, since here, of course, the interest of private businesses is non-existent, due to the lack of profit, while public organisations will soon not be in a position to provide these services.
Mr President, we are also concerned not only about the workers in this sector, but also about the users of the services, especially in the disadvantaged regions, who, with the complete liberalisation of the market, will be abandoned to their fate.
For this reason I think that the relevant modifications that we have submitted must be approved by the European Parliament.
Mr President, the right to receive and send mail is an essential civil right in any civilized state.
Accordingly, it is society's duty to ensure civil rights are observed.
Furthermore, in large, sparsely-populated countries the post services must access all regions and all citizens on as equal a basis as possible.
This principle inevitably comes into conflict, at least to a certain extent, with the principle of free markets.
We must ensure that the rationalization and growth of the postal markets do not supplant the postal service as a public civil and regionally equal service.
It is difficult to ignore the impression that in the debate on, for example, public services, virtually free access to the postal markets on the part of different companies was emphasized, to some extent, as an important principle.
Timely and sufficient attention should be given to such a development.
It is quite clear that the general move to enter the mail markets is not meant as a guarantee to the public and companies of a better, more competent mail service, but as a chance to engage in lucrative business.
It follows that the main interest will be large cities, where they can operate more profitably.
Postal services for the inhabitants of remote and sparsely-populated regions will remain the task of public services, which will not make huge profits as a result.
It will prove a costly business and a drain on revenue resources.
This kind of development will lead to a decline in postal services, severely affected, as they will be, with budgetary problems related to public finance, as well as to haggling over the important issue of equality.
We have to call a halt to this trend in good time, in order that society may see that the rights of people living in remote regions are not being violated in this way.
The transportation of post as a business purely and simply also carries with it questions of responsibility, which have not been adequately discussed.
Mr President, may I begin by congratulating our colleague Mr Van Dam on his maiden speech: it was intelligent and clear, the kind of speech we used to hear from his predecessor.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Brian Simpson, on the common position of the Council.
I know of few cases where the Council has so greatly departed from a Commission proposal in order extensively to meet the views of the rapporteur and the majority of the Parliament.
In this situation, I feel it is important for the directive to be accepted as quickly as possible.
I would ask my colleagues again to reflect carefully before we accept amendments that will lead to the conciliation procedure and therefore to further delay.
The postal services and companies may also request that the politicians finally provide some clarity, so that they can develop a policy for the future, in which of course the interests of the consumers must be central.
I should like to hear from the Commissioner whether I am right that if Amendments Nos 7 to 12 in particular are accepted, they will very probably mean further delay.
The present directive is an extremely small step on the way to an internal market for the post in which there is room for a modest market operation in the interests of the consumer.
To hollow out this directive even further as some of the amendments aim for, is not good for the consumer and is also not good for jobs in the medium term.
Technological developments occur quickly.
I should very much like a pledge from the Commissioner that at the end of next year he will come up with a realistic programme for the real liberalization of the market in the interests of the consumer and jobs.
Mr President.
Because I am watching the clock I shall summarize in a few words what has quite correctly been said during part of the discussion.
I should like, however, to make my position on this matter quite clear.
First. What was agreed in the Council which is close to the position of the Parliament, does not coincide with my view of the matter.
Nevertheless I have accepted it, but not because I am not an elected member - that is not the problem; even having once been a postman does not necessarily ensure better more detailed knowledge.
On the contrary, I believe that this solution to the post question will make life considerably more difficult, and most particularly for the employees.
I have only accepted this solution because two important amendments were adopted by the Council: the principle of liberalization will be accepted, and a timetable will be constructed that I shall most carefully adhere to.
Mr Cornelissen, I shall be putting forward a new proposal early next year because, as Mr Ferber correctly remarked, a deadline has been set, a last chance, by which liberalization has to be developed, or everything will collapse.
We have now created pressure additional to what would have happened in any case.
I should also say to my friend who was wrongly described by Mr Simpson as being in a minority of one, that he is not alone.
In any case, protection of minorities has always been a major interest of the European Parliament.
We should certainly honour him.
The following will, in fact, take place: the postal services will have to become self-financing.
The more unprofitable, the less efficient, they are - and there are inefficient postal services, we cannot close our eyes to that fact - the greater will be the income they have to achieve.
And where can they acquire an income? Either through charges or perhaps from subsidies.
I believe that the latter is becoming increasingly difficult.
But charges, too, will naturally accelerate the process of displacement by other means of communication.
The German post office, Post AG, has as you know recently had to raise charges by 10 %, and that will be the pattern for others; using a fax is not magic nowadays and a great many people are capable of doing that.
So, instead of relying on a postal service which may deliver to islands late or not at all, as has been described here, or which is too expensive, people buy a fax machine and...
No. Our proposal assumed that liberalization would achieve exactly what liberalization in the telecommunications industry achieved: the service would become more efficient and the charges would be reduced.
The old-fashioned Marxist attitudes the Greens have adopted can hardly be tolerated today.
They fly in the face of all experience.
For the first time - Mr Telkämper - telephone charges are falling steadily, fax charges are cheaper, and if you use the Internet you can forget all your postman's experience.
You can frame it and hang it on the wall at home.
That is what will happen, Mr Simpson, and I refuse to accept any responsibility for it.
I shall continue to work towards making the post an important and viable part of the information society by means of sensible, permanent regulation.
That is possible, as shown clearly by the example of Finland - and Sweden too, by the way.
That is possible, but with these guidelines it is not yet possible.
But at any rate a framework has been created in which it could be possible in the future, and for that reason I am not against it and I can accept the rapporteur's amendment.
But not Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9, 11, and 12, as Mr Cornelissen correctly assumes, because guidelines cannot be passed with that.
That is perfectly obvious.
Naturally you can always accept these amendments.
Then the discussion will have to continue and things will be worse than they are already.
The least you can do to help the post to some degree is to accept these guidelines - but please do not take any pride in that.
Do not give yourselves too much credit because you will have to take the blame.
Within two years you will see that a non-elected Commissioner, who never in his life delivered a letter, might have appreciated the problem rather better than you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.00 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes from yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I wanted to draw your attention to the fact that on page 5, under the item 'Tribute' , it is stated that Sir James Goldsmith died on 19 June 1997.
In fact, the date was 19 July.
I would like to take this opportunity to observe that the first page of yesterday's 'Info-session' mentions the tributes paid to Mother Teresa and Diana, Princess of Wales.
I do not think it would have involved excessive expenditure on ink to have added the name of Sir James Goldsmith.
On your first point we will correct the Minutes.
On the second point the English Minutes say quite clearly that the President also paid tribute to Sir James Goldsmith.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Equal opportunities for men and women
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports:
(A4-0257/97) by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the Commission's annual report on equal opportunities for men and women in the European Union (1996) (COM(96)0650 - C4-0084/97)-(A4-0251/97) by Mrs Kokkola, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the Commission communication 'Incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies and activities' (COM(96)0067 - C4-0148/96)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on behalf of my colleagues on the Committee on Women's Rights, I wish to express our great satisfaction.
The fact that four of our reports, and there were very nearly five, can be dealt with together in a debate on a Tuesday morning is quite an achievement.
To my knowledge, Mr President, this preferential treatment has rarely or never before been applied.
It is proof that the equal opportunities policy is being taken seriously and this is indeed as it should be.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this annual report is the first of its kind and in that sense we are dealing with something new.
We wholeheartedly applaud the Commission's initiative, first, because it is a valuable instrument with which to establish the progress made from year to year and secondly, because the debate on the future of the equal opportunities policy must be initiated.
Mr President, as this is a first report it is also important to make a few comments on the form, with a view to putting the Commission on the right track in the future.
The structure is far from sound, it is too much of an overview and there is too little evaluation.
The second criticism is that important areas are missing, such as violence against women.
Now to the content: I shall go through the six sections which approximately coincide with the objectives of the fourth action programme.
The first, and in my view, most important section concerns mainstreaming or the integration of the equal opportunities policy into other policy areas.
The Committee on Women's Rights is completely behind these new approaches.
To promote mainstreaming, we would particularly request that more attention be paid to statistics broken down by gender.
Next, a gender impact assessment on proposed legislation by analogy with already existing business or environmental impact assessments and thirdly, mainstreaming in the operation of the European Parliament itself by setting up a mainstreaming monitoring board consisting of two members from each Parliamentary Committee as proposed by Mrs Hadar Cars.
Mr President, the same points are repeated in the Kokkola report, which we fully support.
The second section deals with the UN Beijing Conference on Women.
Here I want to refer to the Union's responsibility for implementation.
Unfortunately we find that the Union has done virtually nothing about several of the priority objectives of the Beijing Platform For Action. Women and the environment, violence against women, and women and health.
As far as the latter is concerned, the recent communication on women and health did nevertheless herald some progress.
Thirdly, the problem of under-representation of women in decision-making.
Ladies and gentlemen, the photograph of the Heads of State and of Government who put the final touches to the new Treaty of Amsterdam speaks for itself.
Apart from Queen Beatrix, there was not a single woman.
The Commission rightly points to the underrepresentation of women in political decision-making as one of the causes of the democratic deficit.
Positive action is necessary here and the following measures must be emphasized.
Number one, the introduction of a temporary quota or targets.
These can be effective and sometimes necessary means of achieving equal participation in decision-making and we also wish to highlight the repercussions of electoral systems on the representation of women in the political bodies.
An investigation by the study service of this Parliament has shown that majoritarian voting systems like those used in the United Kingdom or France have a clearly adverse effect on the equal participation of men and women.
The fourth section is on women and the economy.
Broad dissemination of the European code of conduct on equal pay is needed.
We trust the Commission will evaluate the success of this code of conduct in its next annual report.
In order to improve the position of women in the labour market further, we would request that further research be undertaken into the individualization of social security entitlements and an improved status for assisting spouses via the long-awaited revision of the existing directives.
The fifth section deals with combining work and household.
If we wish to offer men and women equal opportunities on the labour market, then both women and men must be better able to reconcile work and family life.
In this regard, we would argue for flexible opening hours for shops and public services and promotion of child care initiatives.
The last section deals with women's rights.
A Eurobarometer poll shows that most women are not aware of their rights.
Information campaigns must rectify this.
And here I am thinking, for example, of the Citizens' First campaign.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Women's rights supported my report unanimously.
We hope, Mr Commissioner, that all Parliament's proposals and comments will be taken into account when the next and subsequent annual reports are drawn up.
I would like to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Women's Rights, and all those who have contributed, for their sterling work in producing this report.
Finally, I also wish to congratulate the three other rapporteurs who are presenting their reports in this morning's debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to begin by expressing my satisfaction with the set of reports on women before this House, and especially that this is happening on the Tuesday rather than the Friday as is normally the case.
It would be a good thing if this continued, since there is rarely much discussion of topics relating to equal opportunities, and this might be a way to achieve it.
There is still a long way to go to attain the goal of incorporating equality into all the Union's policies.
That is why this debate is so important.
In its first annual report on equal opportunities, the Commission has presented a very full and well-researched document which really gives us a broad picture of the situation throughout the Member States.
And yet, Mr Commissioner, after studying the document I can only say that my feeling is one of helplessness.
Helplessness at the lack of effective measures to promote equality, helplessness at the lack of stability in women's employment, helplessness because we women are under-represented in decision-making positions, and, above all, helplessness at the lack of strategies in the Commission's communication.
We have a good study, some good statistics, and an evaluation of the general situation.
But my question is: ' now what?' In her excellent report, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens sets out some interesting proposals which I wholeheartedly support, and, Mr Commissioner, I urge the Commission to bear them in mind in its future reports, so as to progress more rapidly along the long road towards equality.
Turning to Mrs Kokkola's report also, I would say that, of the four reports on equality presented this Tuesday, hers is without a doubt the one which, if implemented, would contribute most towards improving the situation of women in European society.
What Mrs Kokkola's report is calling for is genuine incorporation of the principle of equality into all the Union's policies and strategies.
I congratulate Mrs Kokkola on her work and her critical analysis of the Commission's communication, and I support her in her request for greater clarity.
The confusion begins with the very term 'mainstreaming' and ends at that fuzzy boundary between Community powers and the principle of subsidiarity.
If the Commission delegates the responsibility to the Member States and they have other priorities, then there will be no real change in equality policies.
So it is vital that the aid given to the various countries should contain clauses about the principle of equality, which should be binding.
The incorporation of equality should be something for everybody to aim at, in all areas of internal policy, but also in development cooperation agreements and - why not?- in negotiations about enlargement.
In order to implement these policies successfully, investment is necessary. Certainly, the structural funds may be the best instrument to achieve success in mainstreaming and in the horizontal policies on equality in all the policies of the European Union.
Mr Commissioner, we look forward - I certainly look forward - to the Commission's proposals on this, in order to progress more rapidly towards achieving equality for all women within the European Union, and we hope to be able to export this model as well.
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate both the rapporteurs.
Mrs Kokkola's report gives a thorough and lucid description of EU policy on equality and the current, highly essential concept of mainstreaming.
I have had the honour of drafting the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy on this issue, and analysing the extent to which equality is taken into account in the structural funds.
Despite the fact that the principle of mainstreaming was contained in the structural funds regulation four years ago, its implementation still poses major problems.
Technical and rational issues have been emphasized in the aims and methodology of regional and structural funding. These are areas where men are well entrenched through traditional career choices.
So in general, structural policy, which is ostensibly sexually neutral, only offers real opportunities to the opposite sex - to men.
To achieve equal opportunities, areas of particular interest to women must be included in the process.
Women have more interest than me in the everyday infrastructure, so to speak, that is, local and social issues.
Also, women still have greater responsibility for the family than men.
Women's opportunities to work or receive education or training therefore undeniably depend on social services such as child care and care for the elderly, school meals, and public transport.
Financial support for these should also fall within the scope of the structural funds.
These needs cannot be fully met unless they are applied at every level of planning, decision-making, implementation and monitoring of structural policy.
Mr Commissioner, this action should be undertaken right down the line from the Commission to regional cooperation panels.
A common complaint is that it is hard, not to say impossible, to find qualified women for expert bodies.
We have made some progress in Finland in this respect: agencies always have to put forward one male and one female candidate for any vacancy, and one of them is elected.
This ensures that the principle of better representation by women on various bodies is safeguarded.
I would recommend the adoption of this practice throughout the European Union.
Mr President, this policy of action to incorporate equality is very important, and Mrs Kokkola has done an excellent piece of parliamentary work.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs has worked on its opinion in the light of the new draft Treaty of Amsterdam, and has made an important contribution by suggesting a new term - and I thank Mrs Kokkola very much for accepting it - as well as proposing the creation of an interinstitutional working group.
As regards the new draft Treaty of Amsterdam it should be noted that, in contrast to other areas where the new treaty hardly makes any advances, but rather marks time or even loses ground, in the field of women's rights it must be acknowledged that it represents significant progress on both recognition of discrimination against women and defence of women's equality.
In the employment and social policies of this new treaty, we will be able to find an effective method.
It must also be said that this is not guaranteed, because the new treaty is highly ambivalent and whether it is effective or not depends on which method is used.
However, it must be recognized that finally, at the dawn of the Twenty-first Century, the new Treaty on European Union is attending to the enormous problem of discrimination against women, which affects over half of all Europeans.
For the first time we have been noticed, and that is no small thing, for we are well aware that in politics recognizing a problem may be the first step towards solving it.
Mr President, at last a significant morning to deal with a significant issue!
And one which concerns all European Union citizens, not just the women.
So I hail the European Parliament directive which recognizes that.
And I congratulate all the rapporteurs and draftsmen of opinions taking part in this debate.
It was high time the Commission drafted and presented to the European Parliament a report on equality of opportunity between men and women in the European Union.
Fortunately it did so in 1996.
It is not enough to define policies full of good intentions: if their implementation and the results obtained are not studied, they may not be sufficiently effective unless the politicians responsible are aware of what is happening.
So it is essential not only for the statistics to break down the results by sex, but for the indicators used to make it possible to monitor and check the results of the policies followed.
For example, this year, for the first time, the Portuguese government presented a programme for incorporating equality between men and women into all policy areas.
To support its implementation, equality councils have been set up for each ministry, reporting directly to the High Commission for Equality and the Family, which is responsible for monitoring and controlling the implementation of this plan.
In addition, in June 1998, in the context of the fourth action programme for equality, the Portuguese Parliament will be organizing the second interparliamentary conference of the committees responsible for women's rights in the parliaments of the fifteen countries of the European Union and in the European Parliament.
The objective is precisely to analyse the way the policies drawn up, both by the European Parliament and by each country, to promote equality between men and women are being applied and what results have been obtained.
We hope that this interparliamentary conference in Lisbon will help the Commission to draft a more concrete report for 1997, effectively taking advantage of the equality policies.
Commissioner Flynn, I hope that, with the help of the European Parliament and the parliaments of the European Union, the Commission will be in a position to incorporate into its next report on equality policy the numerous suggestions we are proposing to you here today.
As regards mainstreaming policy, or incorporation of equality between men and women into all policy sectors, I consider it a decisive step for achieving normality in society, that is, women and men having not only the same rights and obligations, but also the capacity to become really able to exercise them.
So, this report, magnificently drafted by Mrs Angela Kokkola, is one of the most important that has ever been debated by the European Parliament on equality policy.
With the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, mainstreaming will come to be one of the objectives of the Union and consequently there will be an enormous strengthening of opportunities for applying it.
So we will be looking forward to that very much, Mr Commissioner, and it would be appreciated if you would pass that on to the Commission.
We are not naive: as long as equality is not achieved, implementing horizontal policies which incorporate this objective across the sectors are not enough.
It is absolutely necessary to continue expanding specific actions and programmes to support women.
If we want equality, specific measures will still be needed for a considerable time to close the gap that exists today.
If we want women to be financially independent, managers of companies, creators of employment, promoters of more human and environmentally sustainable development, mainstreaming is not enough, although this policy is very important.
Positive action for women must be maintained and broadened.
And it is essential to apply the new technologies that exist in society today more effectively.
I am firmly convinced that only with us making decisions jointly with the men can that equality truly be obtained.
Mr President, in this debate, I particularly wish to focus on Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens's excellent report, and my colleague, Mrs Peijs, will speak on Mrs Kokkola's report.
It is a very good thing that the Commission has issued the annual report and also excellent that the Commission has decided to produce such a report every year.
I would like to compliment Commissioner Flynn on that initiative.
It is fifteen years since this Parliament undertook a detailed study on the position of women in Europe and a lot has happened since then.
At that time, if I may just reminisce, Mrs Veil was the President of our Parliament, Yvette Roudi was the chairman of the committee of inquiry and I myself, as a young Member of Parliament, was the general rapporteur for that committee of inquiry.
That action in 1981 has achieved a great deal.
Since then, the European Commission has placed the subject of women high on the agenda and we now have our own Committee on Women's Rights, which was set up afterwards.
Much has changed for the better since that time.
On the basis of the European directives, the Member States have taken many legal measures in order to enforce the equal treatment of women.
The position of women in education, the labour market, in politics and in administrative bodies has improved.
Arrangements that make it possible for women and men to combine work and caring for children have been greatly extended.
Nevertheless, there are still many aspects which have not yet been settled properly or where the situation is unsatisfactory.
In fact, it is inconceivable that 25 years after the third wave of emancipation and 15 years after the European Parliament's committee of inquiry, our children, our daughters - I apologize for speaking about our generation - still experience the same problems purely and simply because they are female.
I shall give a number of examples: in education, boys and girls currently reach the same level and that is great progress.
But still far too few girls go in for technical education, as a result of which women fall far behind in the area of new technologies.
The labour market is now made up of about 40 % women and that is great progress.
Fifteen years ago the figure was only 20 % in the Netherlands.
On average women still earn lower salaries and women are much too concentrated in a small segment of the labour market and are therefore very vulnerable to unemployment.
Further action is necessary to remedy these problems.
Combining child care and work has become less complicated for women as the facilities available have expanded.
But the situation is still unsatisfactory.
A recent survey in the Netherlands showed that half of young mothers who initially tried to keep working nevertheless gave up after a few months, with all the consequences that involves for their position in the job market.
And then there is the matter of how many women make it through to top positions in policy-making. I myself was a minister for five years in a cabinet with only three women ministers.
There are four female ministers in the current Dutch government.
So the advances are very small and that does not apply only to the Dutch government, it actually applies to all governments.
The same applies to the top positions in the civil service, in business, in the trade unions and in social organizations.
The European institutions also project the wrong image here.
The number of female Commissioners is not encouraging, and nor is the number of female directors-general and directors.
And that is worrying because the European Commission really ought to set a good example, otherwise criticism of the Member States is not really credible.
I should like to ask Commissioner Flynn whether he will consider the position of women in the institutions in his future annual reports.
The situation for women as the year 2000 approaches is therefore a bit better than 25 years ago, but the problems have still not been resolved and a number of additional problems have even arisen.
I believe it is a good thing that the Commission will be issuing annual reports in the future.
Attention to and action on the role of women in our society will still be necessary for years to come and women must therefore show solidarity in this regard with the men who help them.
Because, in my view, equality between men and women in this world makes for a better world.
Mr President, like other speakers, I would like to emphasize how important it is that this debate is taking place this morning, with time at our disposal, and that we have the opportunity to discuss and to develop very important issues, which warrant special attention.
I would particularly like to mention Mrs Kokkola's report, which urges the Commission and the Member States to act on two fronts, simultaneously promoting a policy of equal opportunities for men and women and measures of positive discrimination on behalf of women in sectors where women are still in a minority.
The rapporteur states that we should invest much more, especially in terms of financial resources, so that we can develop support structures aimed at allowing women to play a much more active role in the world of work and chiefly at facilitating professional reintegration of women who, for reasons which apply only to their own sex, have been forced to interrupt their careers.
Among many other extremely important proposals, the rapporteur wants all departments responsible for implementing the principle of mainstreaming to appoint an employee to monitor the implementation of mainstreaming criteria and to submit proposals for improvements.
As has already been recognized, the report is extremely detailed and well-researched, and it deserves our full attention and support.
Mrs Kokkola is right to ask for the appropriation of funds in order to achieve equality and to insist on the establishment of a working group to ensure that, in every Community activity, regard is had to equality between men and women.
As stated earlier in this Chamber, we can talk all we like, we can propound all the theories we like.
Words are fine and they can be written down or spoken aloud, but if the finance is not there to implement the policies, then words are just words, and we have all had occasion to witness that reality, especially where women's issues are concerned.
So we have no alternative but to agree with her that, if mainstreaming is to be implemented, these necessary preconditions must be in place.
At the same time, however, long-standing prejudices and ideas about the participation of women in the creation and development of our society must be swept aside.
Now is not the time to expand on them: we all know very well what we understand by the meaning of prejudice.
Because, as was mentioned a short time ago, nobody can claim that there is real equality between men and women, especially as far as work opportunities are concerned, either in the countries of the European Union or, more generally, in the countries of the western world: all those countries we regard as particularly civilized but which in reality fall short on basic issues of civilization, such as equal opportunities for men and women.
Mr President, we are taking part once again in a debate on equal opportunities because it is always our intention to contribute to making equality a reality and also to add a male voice to the voices of the women Members who are calling for it and demanding it.
In the very short time we have available, we want to make two comments, also very short.
The first is to highlight the fact that this debate is being held today, this Tuesday, and not on a Friday morning, as has unfortunately been customary for this issue and the others that are also exiled to that morning. The second is that this is the result of some positive signals at the institutional level, with the inclusion, in Amsterdam, of new Article 6-A and with the addition to Article 2.
As Mrs Kokkola has emphasized - and we would like to compliment her on her work, together with all the other rapporteurs - they must not represent just new advances in theory, with no practical effects, and there must no longer be just a few fine words like those about mainstreaming, but quantitative and qualitative ex-ante and ex-post evaluation.
We are also delighted with the proposal for proper definition and translation of mainstreaming, which reflects a necessary sense of universality, and we agree with the Portuguese words for 'action for equality' .
And action is what is needed!
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty certainly provides new tools for improving equality, and must be regarded as a gain for women in general.
But what Mrs Dybkjær said is quite right.
The same view is apparent in the management of the European Union.
The family image of the European Union is still a bunch of men in grey suits, with Queen Beatrix in the middle and a couple of female foreign ministers, and that is all.
The right tools are needed to improve equality, as many speakers have mentioned.
One means of improving equality is to have all companies and public institutions produce an annual equality plan.
This could include the idea of imposing temporary quotas to ensure better representation of women or of the under-represented gender.
Furthermore, training plays an essential part in improving equality in companies and public institutions.
Close attention must be paid to these issues.
They must be studied and that is precisely why mainstreaming is a doubleedged sword. It requires a great deal of careful attention.
It will not implement itself.
In preparing for monetary union it is especially important to promote equality and the status of women, because, as Mrs' Kokkola's report states, adapting public finance to EMU conditions may hit women badly.
Jobs will be cut in the public sector, which is largely the domain of women.
Finally, I wish to remind everyone that the Council of Europe drafted a proposal in 1992 for Member States to organize daycare places, and progress must be made on that to enable women to go out to work.
Mr President, the inclusion of equality of opportunity between women and men as part of Community policy and action is laudable, and I would like to congratulate Mrs Kokkola, the author of this excellent report.
The content of the report and the efforts of the Commission are reassuring.
The principle of mainstreaming underpins all the actions and all the policies of the Union, at all levels.
It therefore involves all the parliamentary committees.
So the goal of equality between men and women has become an issue governing all our actions, and we can but rejoice.
Nevertheless, there are still grounds for concern.
How can equality of opportunity apply unless there are measures of positive discrimination in favour of women, if real equality is indeed the aim? Their absence suggests a degree of ambiguity, and that worries me.
Our rapporteur seems to be aware of this in asking for the introduction of measures along these lines in fields where women are still disadvantaged.
Such fields, alas, are all too numerous, and at all events significant both in the economic and political field.
Rare indeed are the women who occupy decision-making posts.
In the fifteen Member States, women do not even occupy one position of responsibility in five, and we can just about take heart at the fact that 25 % of decision-making posts are occupied by women in the Commission.
Of course this is remarkable progress, but we need to go much further still.
I therefore believe, ladies and gentlemen, that the principle of mainstreaming should be a priority as far as women are concerned.
The inequality which is the subject of this debate affects women more than any other form of inequality.
The current situation requires the introduction of compensatory inequality, the only principle likely to lead to real equality between men and women!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the concept of mainstreaming in the Committee on Women's Rights and in my parliamentary group because, I believe, we have a massive task ahead of us.
This debate is crucial, but we do not make the newspaper headlines.
We must establish the concept in people's consciousness, and that means we must proceed on two fronts.
We must have positive measures for developing women's opportunities, and this cannot happen without quotas.
We must also establish equality of opportunity in other political fields.
I want to talk about the budgetary procedure because it is very interesting.
In last year's budget we established feminization for the first time and raised the subject of women and gender-specific issues in all the reports.
We were successful in introducing reports on the structural funds and major programmes like Phare, Tacis, Meda, and so on.
As a result of detailed contacts with the Commission directorates general we achieved a result which clearly shows how well mainstreaming can operate in individual cases, but also how badly it operates in other fields such as, for example, industrial policy, where mainstreaming is still very unsatisfactory.
Great efforts are being made in regional policy, whilst in information policy there are many opportunities.
A working document I presented to the Committee on Women's' Rights sets out the detail clearly.
We must create a climate of awareness.
As the annual report of the Commission has stated, if we go on establishing equal opportunities at this rate, it will take about another 100 years before they are finally achieved.
There is an interesting model in Sweden.
There, all senior managers have to undergo gender training before they can occupy a senior position.
Even ministers - all ministers - and bishops, for example, have to be trained.
I think this is the right path to follow.
So we shall fight to establish the concept of equal opportunities in people's consciousness, and to get it incorporated into all policy areas and all regulations.
I particularly ask men to support women in this matter.
Mr President, I could quite easily live with Mrs Kokkola's definition of mainstreaming.
It just misses one small point, in that the actual meaning of the term mainstreaming is to join the mainstream and not be marginalized.
I feel that concept is still absent from the definition but apart from that I could accept it.
The report we are debating today is important for men and women.
The implementation of the principle of equal treatment in all sectors of society is quite obviously necessary, but in practice it does not occur in the least. Let me tell you a true story.
It is not a joke, this actually happened last week. There was a meeting in the Netherlands where the question of why women do not rise from middle to top management, and one senior manager of a large multinational in the Netherlands asked another: "Do you like seeing women in your top management?'
And the other senior manager replied: "I like seeing them, but not hearing them.'
As long as senior managers are still saying things like that, there will be no question of equal treatment and equal presence of both sexes.
So the action the European Commission has taken is all the more necessary, and I have every respect for it.
But it will be more difficult in practice.
Fortunately, the Treaty of Amsterdam has given the initial impetus to achieving a mature policy.
It provides the basis for the necessary legislation to integrate equal opportunities for men and women in all areas of policy.
I would stress that the treaty also opens up the possibility of taking specific measures in the professional field that can be a particular stimulus for a group that is discriminated against or under-represented.
So positive action indeed.
I should just like to examine the amendments. The amendment by Mrs Thyssen is naturally close to our hearts because it refers to a group which has really been left in the lurch by the Council, despite great expectations: assisting spouses.
Everyone is naturally sympathetic to Mrs Cederschiöld's amendment because it is self-evident.
She points out that expertise is an obvious criterion for appointing either men or women.
Obvious, but, surprisingly, only regarded as particularly important for making appointments when equal representation of women in certain functions is at issue.
Expertise in men seems to be an accepted norm, but we know better.
I would recommend voting against this amendment because in essence it discriminates.
Expertise is an obvious requirement for appointing women, but the same goes for men too.
That has never had to be stated before, so why should it be stated when it comes to women. With regard to the amendment to point 20 of the resolution, we would recommend just voting against the last part.
It is good that everything mentioned in Amendment No 20 - transport, education, etcetera - is being looked at, and the financing considered, but not all women need financial support.
I think the structural funds should be used where they are needed, not just as a matter of principle.
Point 14 calls for assessment.
I would make this more specific.
The term 'benchmarking' is used in business. It means establishing a yardstick by which to compare your own performance against that of others.
Commissioner Flynn, perhaps you could establish some benchmarking criteria for assessing the results of mainstreaming?
Finally, thinking of the candidates for membership from eastern Europe, I maintain that emphasis must also be placed on equal treatment in terms of to the acquis communautaire .
Agenda 2000 says nothing about mainstreaming in central and eastern Europe.
One last point: the European Parliament needs to have a look at its own staffing policy.
We point the finger at everyone except ourselves.
I can find no women in the top parliamentary service positions.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the commission's first annual report on equal opportunities for women and men is, in itself, a positive step forward.
I believe that use will be made of it in the planning and implementation of future developments in equality, although it is obviously regrettable that the report still does not contain the thorough evaluation and analysis required to speed up the process.
I hope that the excellent measures outlined in the report will also be implemented.
The participation of women in the decision-making process at all levels must be promoted.
I believe that interim quotas are an effective tool for achieving this goal, and when there is natural equality of representation in the decision-making process the system of quotas can be ended.
I believe that experience of quotas in the Finnish Equality Act will show the way.
I really must bemoan the fact that, despite Community legislation and national laws in many countries, the implementation of equal pay is still a long way off.
The pay gap must be closed once and for all and vanish from the various labour markets.
Similarly, effective methods for job evaluation must be adopted to enable us to reassess jobs in the underpaid, female-dominated sectors.
Furthermore, women are clearly under-represented in regional development.
The result of this is that femaledominated projects and companies will not be part of regional development programmes or enjoy structural funds support.
So the proportion of women on decision-making bodies must also be increased immediately at the regional level.
Mr President, I too wish to applaud the fact that part of a Tuesday morning debate is being devoted to the issue of equal opportunities.
This means that what the Committee on Women's Rights and Parliament has been saying is not only beginning to be taken into account, but is also becoming one of the central issues for the European Union, alongside others.
We are now talking about two important reports.
The first, by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, on the Commission's annual report on equal opportunities for women and men, looks at the progress made over the last few years in implementing equal opportunities, increasing the visibility of Community policy on equal opportunities, encouraging discussion of future strategies and reaching a vast public, because the data that emerges from this report makes it clear that women's awareness of their rights, and the importance and possibility of having those rights respected, is still very limited.
The annual report is divided into six chapters and substantially follows the approach of the fourth action programme.
That is positive; it means there is continuity in the choices made and the policies followed during the last few years, and they are taking concrete form..
Overall, and on this I am in agreement with the rapporteur, the report provides a vast quantity of information which demonstrates that, notwithstanding the progress made, the principle of equality of opportunity is far from actually acquired.
I would like to give some examples, starting with work.
Despite the increased feminization of the labour market, extremely strong occupational segregation of women persists, both horizontally and vertically.
Women have a higher recorded rate of unemployment, especially long term unemployment.
In addition, despite national and Union legislation, there is still a gap averaging around 20 per cent between women's pay and men's pay.
Another example is the need for balanced participation of men and women in decision-making processes.
Here too, while forward steps have been taken - the Beijing Conference, the Commission communication - there has been little progress for women in the European Union on average, though of course the level varies depending on the Member State, despite the significant development in the contribution of women and their role, again varying considerably between the different countries.
But there is no follow up of all the information we have on these various issues in terms of precise analysis and, in particular, careful assessment of impact on policy.
That is why I invite the Commission to take account of the rapporteur's suggestions, so that the next annual report is slimmer, perhaps more broadly usable and also more responsive to the proposals the European Parliament has been making for years in its various reports, richer in examples of good practice and specific instruments. The Commission should also make mainstreaming, the issue specifically dealt with in Mrs Kokkola's report, the true guiding principle of all the policies of both the Union and the Member States.
Mrs Kokkola has carried out a very lucid examination of the principle of mainstreaming, highlighting not only the positive aspects, but also all the shortcomings that still exist, and she makes a number of suggestions which I think the Commission should take into account in a committed way.
Mainstreaming is not an alternative to positive action: given that we are far from genuine application of equal opportunities, both must be taken forward.
Mainstreaming should be applied in all policies, so responsibility lies both with the Commission and the Member States.
The Commission should be able to play a more compelling role in terms of Member States' training programmes, as it has its own responsibility for the training of staff who apply equal opportunities.
Compulsory elements must be incorporated during the debate on the revision of the structural funds, so that Member States respect this principle or face financial penalties.
The guidelines which have emerged so far must become binding elements and concrete instruments of a genuine equal opportunities policy for the European Union.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, like so many other speakers, I would first like to express my satisfaction.
Indeed, contrary to the highly unacceptable custom in this Parliament, the reports from the Committee on Women's Rights for once appear on the agenda for Tuesday rather than Friday, when most Members have adopted the disgraceful habit of leaving Strasbourg early.
Like us, the Commission hopes this debate will reach a wide public, as it deals with improving both understanding and development of equal opportunities policies.
However, in both reports, we ourselves and the interested public are confronted with new terminology, which, I fear, is unlikely to improve comprehension of what we are saying.
Here I have in mind the millions of women for whom we wish to ensure equality of treatment and equality of opportunity.
The invention of mainstreaming is very laudable, but the word is difficult to translate into the language of Voltaire.
As Mrs Kokkola, our rapporteur, so rightly says, and I congratulate her, mainstreaming is a vehicle for a foreign concept for everyone except a small minority of specialists.
Even so, the Commission's intention of making equality of opportunity between men and women an integral part of Community policy and action deserves our support, on the understanding that mainstreaming must not make equality policy under Article 119, and in the directives and specific programmes, superfluous. These programmes must of course be granted adequate budgetary resources, which is not the case at present.
The report by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, whom I also congratulate, is a perfect illustration of how far we have yet to go, forty years after the Treaty of Rome came into force, if we are to abolish the discrimination still adversely affecting women in many fields.
Furthermore, the question arises of including the concept of gender awareness in mainstreaming.
The promotion of gender awareness in the drafting stage of projects and programmes and the raising of officials' consciousness of gender issues are mentioned in the reports.
As regards the term gender, one of my French colleagues, Mr Bourlanges, has pointed out that in his language, the word gender is normally reserved for grammar. For real people, however, the word is sex.
He has also specified that it is only in Marcel Proust that genre , the French word for gender, is used with an indirect sexual connotation.
At the end of Un amour de Swann , the novelist writes that Swann had spoiled his life for a woman who was not his genre .
This is a coded play on words to suggest that possibly Swann's preferred gender was not in fact the feminine gender.
Must we therefore assume that the use of the proposed new concept of gender in our text implies that we are frightened of using the word sex? I hope not, because sexual discrimination exists, and it will not be eliminated by finding new terminology for a policy which must remain firmly based on a determination to treat the two sexes - which, thank goodness, are different - equally in terms of the rights and opportunities of both men and women.
Mr President, I am ashamed that I will not be able to quote Voltaire and Proust as Mrs Lulling has so eruditely done.
I want to join my colleagues in saying how wonderful it is to have a whole morning to celebrate the advances that women have made in the European Union as well as raise our very serious concerns about the attitudes and the lack of effective action on the part of the governments and the European Union when it comes to the disadvantages that women still face.
I warmly welcome my two colleagues' reports.
Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens' report rightly applauds the fact that for the first time we have an annual report in the European Union on equal opportunities for women and men.
This annual report can be an instrument to clarify and explain equality policy to the European Union's public, especially women, who have long called for a recognizable structure through which they can make sense of its progress, timetable and decision-making.
The Commission's annual report is a serious and significant contribution to the European Union's equality debate at the end of the Twentieth Century.
Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens is also right, however, to draw attention to the shortcomings of the Commission's report, such as the need for greater analysis and evaluation, the disregard for important European Parliamentary work on equality and the lack of attention to major topics of discussion close to our hearts such as violence against women and the possible impact of the Intergovernmental Conference on equal opportunities as well as the impact of enlargement.
On the issue of mainstreaming I congratulate my colleague, Mrs Kokkola, on her report.
Mainstreaming is a very serious attempt by the European Union's institutions to bring about a cultural shift in attitudes across policy areas.
That cultural shift is going to take time.
It has been complained that only a small group of interested people, of experts, of those in the equality business if you like, understands what mainstreaming is.
If it is to work and if women are to really get a fair deal in European Union policies, the Commission and Parliament must endeavour to promulgate mainstreaming from now until the Twenty-first Century.
Mr President, the Commissioner has deservedly received a number of eulogies today, eulogies which must also be extended to the two rapporteurs, and I add my own.
This is an important discussion, both because of the issue and because of the comprehensiveness of the debate, and it is important not just for us.
It is immensely important because of the support it can give to the designated equality institutions: the Member States, the councils and the associations.
I would like to emphasize certain points in this discussion, first of all the validity of this annual report.
It is a valid instrument because of what it already represents today and, in my opinion, because of what it can mean, especially in terms of the visibility of the problem - given that only 20 % of women are aware of the existence of the equality policies either of the Community or of the Member States.
After all, if we really succeed in activating it, this report can become an observatory of progress in overcoming the difficulties faced by equal opportunities policies.
Now, because of the very importance of the instrument, the Commissioner will appreciate the emphasis placed upon it by the committee and the very pertinent signposts the rapporteur, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, wished to erect through her report, especially when she talks about the need for a strategic vision.
What does 'strategic vision' mean? It means the report should take a position at the intersection between Community and national policies, and between the various equal opportunities issues debated within the Community.
So this certainly involves a new understanding of the objectives of the fourth programme - in the end, if they were not topical today, that would mean we had made a mistake about the objectives themselves - but it also means picking up on everything significant that happens in this area in the Community and the Member States, not forgetting aspects which are sometimes dramatic and unforeseeable.
For example, if we also had the Waddington report, we would have been able, in a sense, to appreciate the anomaly of the modern slave traffic not being mentioned in the report.
A second point, finally, especially on Mrs Kokkola's report.
I believe the core of this strategy must be the good example the Community succeeds in setting, particularly in one respect: the relationship between equal opportunities and European Community social and structural funds, both at the time of the programming - it is true that, as far back as April 1997, the Commission explicitly stated why equality must also be introduced in the Member States, but we know this is only a guideline which has yet to be implemented in practice - and especially when the structural funds are revised.
We believe a simplification of the objectives could allow systematic inclusion of equal opportunities and, at last, an impact assessment of the parity dimension in all policies.
Coincidentally, this afternoon we will be talking about the observatory for small and medium-sized enterprises, where this kind of assessment will take place, and that could be significant...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to use my two minutes at the end of this debate to look to the future, because with the Commission's communication and the annual report - and I want to thank the Commissioner for them - we have a good set of instruments.
Now we have the task of making hard facts out of sound principles on paper and of transforming them into concrete measures. It is abundantly clear that in most of the Member States there is absolutely no evidence of mainstreaming.
I am convinced that this is not a matter of terminology, of not understanding the word, but of a lack of political culture.
There will, nevertheless, in the very near future, be a number of extremely important challenges in which the concept of mainstreaming will have to demonstrate its usefulness.
First and foremost, jobs, and the Luxembourg Summit.
In most Member States, the multiannual plans drawn up after Essen hardly measure up to the equality test.
Most of the plans of most Member States either ignore women or marginalize them as an at-risk group.
It is clear to me, Mr Commissioner, that the main point to be grasped at the Luxembourg Summit is that the battle against unemployment is also a battle for equal opportunities.
Secondly, the structural funds, which have already been mentioned here several times.
Here again, it seems that spending, particularly from the regional and agricultural funds, is rarely used for initiatives which promote the participation of women.
It is clear to me that the revision of the structural funds must ensure that these funds are used in a way that is more favourable to women all round.
That means we must make mainstreaming more specific, formulating clear goals and criteria, and establishing indicators and methods of assessment based on statistics broken down by gender.
As someone just said, Mr Commissioner, we therefore expect you to develop benchmarking for women and an equal opportunities test.
The strongest instrument would of course be for many more women to be able to take part in decision-making. This has been mentioned at various times in this debate.
Unfortunately, Amsterdam did not give us a new instrument for this purpose.
I hope that the Commissioner and the Commission will use the Treaty of Amsterdam as creatively as possible in order to assist this process.
Mr President, modest advances have been made within the European Union in achieving equality of opportunity between men and women, as can be clearly seen from the Commission's annual report for 1996 and Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens' report.
There are still considerable shortcomings, both at community and national levels.
The preceding speaker has correctly pointed these out.
However, mainstreaming is an important idea for securing long-overdue equal rights, provided that it is included in all concepts and measures of the European Union, and not tucked away in corners and areas of secondary importance.
To achieve positive change over the longer term, special programmes are required to cover areas ranging from information and awareness programmes to qualitative analysis of programmes and actions.
The Amsterdam Draft Treaty has strengthened the legal basis for equal rights measures.
At one time it was only mentioned in Article 119.
Now Article 2 has been extended to include equal rights.
So the Community has a duty to remove inequality and ban discrimination on grounds of gender.
Also, as we in the Committee on Women's Rights were pleased to discover, the Social Protocol and the Employment Chapter contain important amendments.
Mainstreaming concerns everyone, both men and women, as the rapporteur, Angela Kokkola, put it in forthright terms.
A change of mental attitude by men, abandonment of old-fashioned traditions, and a readiness to accept change are all unavoidable.
That is obvious in professional life, where top jobs continue to be occupied on genderspecific lines, despite every evidence of high qualifications and expertise produced amongst women.
On the job market women continue to be a reserve available as required.
In good times they are sought after, only to be sacked when times are hard.
They have no security or long term prospects.
There is still a scarcity of retraining programmes, for instance, to improve professional qualifications, enter the technical field - heaven knows, still a typically male-dominated area! - or return to work after pregnancy.
The report recommends criteria for assessing equal rights and quite rightly supports studies on the effects of mainstreaming in Member States.
The numerous ways in which women's participation in the structural funds can be increased, from pilot projects to raising the proportion of women, are also on our common list of requirements.
Mr Commissioner, we are confidently relying on the motivation and authority of the European Commission.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking all those who have contributed for their very strong support for our new instrument - the annual report. It has been very well received and I am very pleased with that.
I would like particularly to take the opportunity to thank the rapporteurs of the Committee on Women's Rights, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens and Mrs Kokkola, for their very great work in the preparation of the reports on the Commission's 1996 annual report on equal opportunities for men and women in the European Union and on the Commission communication - incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies and activities.
I am certainly very pleased to note that they warmly welcomed this first annual report of the Commission on equal opportunities for women and men.
Since its publication the report has been very well received by the press and also by the European Advisory Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, by the Economic and Social Committee and by many of the other equal opportunities organizations as well.
Many of the suggestions proposed in the report by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens for the Committee on Women's Rights are very constructive and very useful to us, and we will try to take them into account as much as possible in preparing the next report.
The first report aims to respond to three main goals: visibility, strategy and convergence.
The rapporteur considers that the aim of strategy is not yet fully developed.
This is something we are going to work on and which will be further developed in the future.
I welcome the suggestions on subjects to be included in the next annual reports, and we will take them forward as very useful proposals.
The forthcoming reports will certainly be more devoted to developments in the year in question.
As far as the chapter on implementation of the Beijing Platform by the Member States is concerned, this was written on the basis of information gathered from the Member States and it covers the period up to June 1996.
Further information on the implementation at national level of the platform will be included in the 1997 report, which is already in preparation.
As requested, that year's report will include more information on developments at national level.
So, as Mrs Van Lancker said, we have a very useful instrument here in the annual report; it can be termed a kind of measuring instrument, and we look forward to improving it in accordance with your wishes as we progress.
Concerning the report on mainstreaming drawn up by Mrs Kokkola, I am pleased to note the similarity of views between Parliament and the Commission on this essential issue of the promotion of gender equality and the integration of a gender perspective into all Community policies.
It is a goal which can only be achieved if all European institutions recognize it and commit themselves to taking concrete measures.
Her report highlights a series of important issues, which the Commission has already included in its fourth action programme, such as the need to change structures and attitudes and to develop policies if progress is to be made towards equality between women and men.
The Commission has already taken concrete steps towards mainstreaming equality in all policies and, in particular, in labour market and vocational training policies, as highlighted in the report.
In this context, a strategy document has recently been adopted outlining measures for future action.
These include the strengthening of inter-service cooperation, the development of procedures and guidelines for gender-impact assessment and the monitoring of results.
These measures also reflect some of Parliament's main concerns.
Twenty-nine directorates general and horizontal services are involved in the implementation of this strategy within the Commission itself.
I note with satisfaction that the rapporteur stresses the link between mainstreaming and the participation of women in the decision-making process.
Commission personnel policy on equality between women and men is designed in such a way as to achieve real change in this particular direction.
I wish to welcome in particular the emphasis placed on the importance of adopting a dual approach incorporating both positive action and mainstreaming activities, the need to increase women's participation in the formulation and implementation of the structural funds and to improve statistical data on the use of structural funds by women and men and, finally, the need to make mainstreaming policy an important element of our enlargement negotiations.
The Commission will take into account Parliament's concerns and try to intensify its effort towards the objectives prioritized in its report.
A number of Members made reference to the interpretation and definition of the term 'mainstreaming' and to the confusion that sometimes surrounds it.
This term was not an invention of the Commission but came from the women's movement itself.
It is quite clear to all of us here, and indeed to the institutions of the Union as well, that what we mean by this term is really integration into other policies and funding mechanisms.
Mrs Crawley summarized it very well when she said that we need a culture shift here.
The wider definition can be summarized as follows: a more active and encompassing strategy to promote equal opportunity by mobilizing, not only positive action in its own right, but also mobilizing all general policies and measures to this end.
We will concentrate our efforts on delivering on real progress in integration of equality concerns into the practical implementation of all the relevant actions.
That is the key; whatever definition and understanding we have, we should certainly have some action.
It was mentioned that perhaps it might be useful for our next report to have a glossary of terms commonly used in discussions on equality matters.
Such a glossary would perhaps remove a lot of the confusion about what precisely is meant by the particular terms we use.
I am recommending that perhaps we might do that on the next occasion.
Mrs Maij-Weggen was very supportive of the annual report and I thank her for that.
But she did make a very specific point about women in senior positions in the Community Institutions.
That is something we should certainly pay very close attention to.
The Commission, Mrs Maij-Weggen, has made some good progress here that I would like to tell you about.
Between 1 January 1994 and 1997, the number of women at A1 and A2 level, the highest levels we have in the Commission services, more than tripled from 5 to 18. That is a very good improvement in that area.
It is not enough but it is quite a substantial improvement, and I would sincerely hope that we might be able to have the same kind of progress in the other institutions as well.
Mrs Van Lancker made a particular point about the job summit and what we can do there. I am very concerned about this.
I want to assure you that equal opportunities will be included in the employment guidelines that I will be proposing to the Commission in the very near future, I think that should be seen as very good news.
The Commission is sincere in its commitment to implement the mainstreaming strategy.
We are committed also to a long-term strategy of mobilizing all the policies and measures to achieve equality between women and men.
There is very limited experience to draw upon in so far as mainstreaming is concerned but as we go along we can improve that. We have started well, I believe, in what we have done today.
I am optimistic for the future.
Gender mainstreaming should, from now on, be pursued as a principle which forms part of the new draft Treaty and we certainly have some positive movement there as well. This should allow us to undertake much more significant steps in the future.
Your contribution in this respect is very important.
I thank you all collectively for it, in particular within the co-decision process, wherever that is appropriate.
Progress has been made and we should recognize that.
Over the years it has been quite substantial but the issues raised require our constant attention and we have to raise the level of awareness and the profile of this equality issue everywhere.
Having the meeting here today, on the Tuesday, gives a significant boost to what the Commission and Parliament would like to do in this regard.
Our annual reports and our programme implementation will be our constant concern and will continue to be the top priority of my term as Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken today at 12.00 noon.
Violence against women
The next item is the report (A4-0250/97) by Mrs Eriksson, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the need to establish a European Union-wide campaign for zero tolerance of violence against women.
Mr President, there are not many people here, but that does not mean that this issue does not concern a great number of people.
I am sometimes sceptical when I hear that phrase in this House: it is a issue which concerns a great number of people.
However, in this case I know that it is one, because for a whole year now I have had the opportunity to work on this report and also to meet people who have themselves been subjected to physical violence, or who work to support people who have.
Sometimes we are astonished that we have wage discrimination and so few women in decision-making positions, which we were talking about only a moment ago.
What is the cause and what is the effect? We can only point out that we have come a little way since Aristotle asserted that woman was a defective and subordinate being whose only purpose was to give birth to more men.
However, there is still a lot of Aristotelian thinking in the societies we live in.
In short, we live in a patriarchal structure where man is superior and woman is inferior in all areas and in every way.
Even we women perceive ourselves as inferior to men.
And as long as we do, we will still be living in the age of Aristotle.
The ultimate consequence of these social structures is the physical violence which is carried out against women.
This includes rape and other sexual attacks, beating, sexual harassment, prostitution and pornography.
These are the ultimate consequences with which we live.
In my homeland of Sweden, a women dies every ten days because she has been badly beaten by a man who is close to her.
Last summer we had several rape cases before the courts where we could directly see the mirroring of pornography in real events with so-called gang rapes of solitary women.
Violence in the home is still regarded as a private matter.
But we now know that it is not.
We do not know how much in financial terms this large-scale violence against women costs the taxpayer, not only in the EU, but all over the world.
In this report, we on the committee also point out that it is perhaps time for us to look at the size of this cost, so that we can discuss it with those who are only able to discuss things and consider problems in terms of money.
I think the report we are presenting in this part-session is a good one.
We have discussed it several times.
However, at this last moment, I would like to discuss something which has not been included, and which is an issue where I have had very bad luck.
It concerns pornography and prostitution and the criminalization of the clients of prostitutes instead of the prostitutes themselves.
This proposed amendment is not included because of very bad luck in the administration.
I therefore entreat the House to allow me to present it as an oral amendment and take a recorded vote on it.
This is an issue of the highest importance, not least to the whole combined feminist movement of the European Union.
I think it would be fair to put the issue on the table and discover the extent of the disagreement in this House, so that we know how to deal with such issues later.
Since we have Commissioner Gradin here, I am naturally curious to know how this report was received by the Commission and, as usual, what the position is in terms of financial opportunities and resources for making 1999 European Year Against Violence Against Women.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Eriksson for her excellent report and Mr David Martin for bringing this idea to the House in the first place.
I would like to give you five reasons why we need a Europe-wide campaign against violence to women.
Firstly, there is a need to raise awareness of the prevalence of violence against women in every country, every city and amongst all social classes.
For example, ten studies quoted by the Council of Europe this year found a remarkable consistency in that 25 % of women have experienced domestic violence and between 6 % and 10 % of women suffer violence in any one year.
Secondly, it is vitally important that all Member States should be invited to review the legal, economic and social support systems for the victims of violence and the protection that is provided against further attacks.
Women who have suffered violence - and a majority suffer in silence - and their children need to have the confidence to report attacks, secure in the knowledge that they will be provided with effective support.
Thirdly, violence against women should be universally regarded as unacceptable.
Public authorities should make a commitment to zero tolerance and public education campaigns should be undertaken to shift the view which is still held in many quarters that violence against women in the family, for example, is a private and minimal matter.
Fourthly, non-governmental organizations with expertise in supporting women and combatting violence should have the opportunity to share ideas and exchange good practice.
Some excellent and innovative local campaigns against violence could have a wider impact on the European stage.
Fifthly, more research is needed into the causes of violence and how we can prevent it; how we can educate our children, boys and girls, to solve disputes without violence; how we can address bullying; how we can develop mutual respect for the human rights of men and women and how the attitudes and behaviour of violent men can be changed.
I hope that this House and the Commission will support the call of the Committee on Women's Rights for a Europewide campaign against violence to women.
I hope that 1999 will be a year that we will remember, when Europe as a whole began to combat violence against women and show respect for human rights.
Mr President, in the absence of Mrs Banotti, I should like to take up a little of your time and my own to speak on behalf of myself and my group.
First of all, I want to thank Mrs Eriksson for her thorough and detailed report on the need for an effort of solidarity and tolerance, and for positive action against violence against women and children.
This report is another cry for help.
How many more will be needed before grand and eloquent speeches are turned into effective changes in the attitudes of European governments to the violence? The Beijing Conference gave a clear definition of specifically sexual violence - threats, insecurity, physical and psychological torture, assault, misery, coercion, mutilation, incest, sexual harassment, abuse, the traffic in women and rape - and these things are happening every day in a democratic Europe which upholds human rights and freedoms.
The victims are mainly women and children in the family - the hidden location where most of these attacks take place.
The causes are poverty, alcohol abuse, drugs, overcrowding and an extensive and growing trade based on pornography, prostitution and paedophilia.
Guidelines in the search for solutions can be obtained by identifying the causes which encourage violence: social isolation; lack of support, awareness and parenting skills; and, above all, bad childhood experiences.
The majority of these families have been categorized as high-risk right from the start, but even today domestic violence is a private affair, an invisible crime which the victims are too frightened to report.
What social policy measures should be adopted to achieve prevention in the first place? Most Member States have taken steps to address sexual violence within marriage, and have classed it as an offence.
There is not much information available but it is known that for women living with a male partner, the most common risk of violence is from that man.
There have been improvements in the legal status of women, and advances in the labour market too, but there is still a vast imbalance in terms of power.
The rapporteur denounces the taboo which discourages women from talking about violence and reporting the sexual harassment or unwanted attentions that many women, especially the youngest, suffer in the workplace.
Because of the lack of national statistics on these matters, it is very difficult to know whether the perceived increase in violence against women and children reflects a real rise, or whether more cases are being reported due to increased information about and awareness of the problem.
What is certainly true is that violence against women, which was originally thought of as a question of human rights, has also been recognized as a serious public health problem.
The European Women's Health Network which was created in Vienna in 1994 included violence against women among its six basic health concerns, and although such violence has no sociocultural, religious or racial boundaries, the most vulnerable are young, migrant, poor women, and children.
There have been very few studies on the physical and psychological effects of this violence, but there is a constant increase in the need for psychiatric treatment and in the suicidal feelings of many battered women.
Injuries range from death to unwanted pregnancy, disease, sleep and eating disturbances, feelings of guilt, and fear - a great deal of fear.
There are reports which indicate that in some European countries one out of every three girls under the age of 16 has suffered harassment or rape.
The rapporteur demands, as do I on behalf of my Group, a coordinated interministerial approach and specific, obligatory training for all lawyers, judges, police and health-service personnel, both male and female, about violence, prostitution, traffic and pornography. We also call for increased effectiveness in those services concerned with the victims and their protection, shelter, counselling and rehabilitation, working in coordination with nongovernmental organizations.
Free telephone help-lines need to be installed throughout Europe, and reliable statistics must be collected to expose the problem.
Mainstreaming of non-violence in education and advertising is also necessary.
Commissioner Flynn has left, but I hope Mrs Gradin will ask him to incorporate non-violence, please, into all the policies and actions for equal opportunities.
We have high expectations of the Daphne programme.
We do not have much money to deal with such a serious problem, but we will try to get the budget increased for next year.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, who could dispute the benefits of a European campaign for zero tolerance of violence against women? While the terrible events recently disclosed in a number of Union countries have thrown light on the need for vigorous combat of pornography and paedophilia, whether involving young boys or girls, it is increasingly apparent that prostitution and related operations are one of the facets of organized crime - possibly because drug traffickers are afraid wider decriminalization of drugs might result in a less lucrative trade in them.
They therefore use women as a currency of exchange, as a sort of single currency before the event, women being far more profitable as a means of payment in the traffic of stolen goods. A woman on the pavement as payment for a stolen car brings in far more money than a lump sum, however well invested, and this also sidesteps the difficulties of money laundering.
On the other hand, violence in the home and in wedlock is still very poorly identified, still taboo.
Women who are the victims of violence carry their tragedy as a secret within them, either out of fear of reprisals, or out of a sense of shame with regard to those close to them.
A European campaign might make it possible, as was the case with paedophilia and incest, to free victims, to make them understand that they can speak out and be listened to, and perhaps even be really heard.
Reliable statistics in this field would give an idea of the scope of the problem and would help women who have suffered violence to speak out.
However, it seems to me that Mrs Eriksson's report does not place sufficient emphasis on the problems of children who daily witness the violence suffered by their mother.
However, all the existing studies reveal the extent to which today's perpetrators of conjugal violence have either been victims or have witnessed violence in their childhood.
Too often, mistreated or beaten women do not disclose their situation, because they think that is the way to protect their children.
The report proposes setting up many more refuges for such women.
I do not think that is the real answer.
As a local councillor, I have often had women come to me for help, perhaps because I am a woman.
The institutional response I can make, offering them accommodation in a refuge which is often some distance from their home, is not a solution that these women accept.
They do not wish to add to the trauma of violence the trauma of uprooting their children, cutting off links with their families and their schools, and the loss of their homes.
It is truly unjust that the victim and the victim's children have to leave the home, and put distance between themselves and the aggressors.
I think this is something that we need to think about, something that has not been sufficiently explored. This should, perhaps, be the subject of a forthcoming report.
Mr President, although rape within marriage has now finally become a punishable offence in most Member States, there is still a fearsome array of taboos, ignorance, lack of understanding and unwillingness to put violence against women high on the political agenda.
Most violence occurs within the walls of the family home.
Helplines and refuges often do not exist or there are too few of them.
Training for police officers and judges is often lacking.
What can the European Union contribute here?
In the first place it can stimulate awareness, knowledge and a change in attitude, extending that to the central and eastern European candidate countries as well, so that those lagging behind can adapt their national legislation because harmonization is neither desirable nor possible.
Secondly, it can wholeheartedly adopt the rapporteur's proposal to designate 1999 as European Year Against Violence Against Women.
Then the most successful elements from the national campaigns must be identified and processed into a European campaign to be set up on a decentralized basis and adapted to national requirements.
Thirdly, the statistics must finally be brought out into the open.
In the Netherlands, violence against women has been included in the annual survey by the Central Statistical Office.
I have heard that this year Finland is undertaking a large-scale survey.
The Commission must encourage this everywhere, then we shall know just what we are really fighting against.
Because there are often no refuges and no helplines because they are too expensive.
I would point out that such initiatives actually save money for national budgets.
The Danish Women's Centre in Røntofte has calculated this and everyone should do the same.
Through those initiatives alone, the Women's' Centre has saved ECU 1.8 million in local housing services.
That would be a phenomenal saving for national exchequers throughout Europe.
My group thanks Mrs Eriksson for her excellent work, but we must now turn to action.
The ECU 3 million in the 1997 budget should not just be a fashionable reaction to a distressing Belgian situation.
A structural approach is necessary.
At least ECU 5 million in the next budget, and let us not forget to involve eastern Europe closely.
Mr President, increasing violence against women is one of the serious problems of contemporary society.
Many women live in uncertainty and fear just where they should feel safe - in their own homes.
Some even die there as a result of illtreatment, or are murdered in front of their own children - 54 women in Spain last year. The tragedy of these situations is viewed, if not with complicity, at least with tolerance.
Some women's lives could have been saved if their appeals for help had been heeded, and this shows that the problem of violence against women is related not only to domestic situations made difficult by marginalization or poverty (there is violence against women in all social classes), but also to deep-rooted social values which make allowances for the attacker.
It must be assumed that the causes of violence are present in society itself, and therefore actions are needed which go beyond the punishment of the attacker and the support of the victim. Of course, both these measures are needed (both to discourage other attackers and to alleviate the victim's suffering with psychological support) but something else is needed.
The extent of the problem must be realized. It is multi-faceted, ranging from violence in the home to rape, sexual mutilation, and sexual harassment at work.
The proposals presented in this report, such as those on refuges and protection of women's rights, which should constitute a condition for reaching agreements with third countries, are ways forward, as is the designation of 1999 as European Year Against Violence Against Women, and our Group supports them.
But above all, there is a need to adopt real and effective measures to eradicate the violence, so that it ceases to be a topic for parliamentary debate.
Substantial legal changes in the definition of violence and its prevention should be considered.
Mr President, eleven years ago, in 1986, we adopted the last report in this Parliament on violence against women, the report by Mrs d'Ancona.
It must be said that in those eleven years violence against women and girls may have become less of a taboo subject, but violence still occurs extremely frequently.
It has been said here many times that violence against women is mainly perpetrated within the family or by friends or acquaintances.
During these eleven years, women's refuges and NGOs involved in combatting violence against women have been under constant financial pressure.
So it is not surprising that we are now calling for a Europewide campaign against violence against women and for a year to be devoted to this campaign.
But we should make no mistake.
Violence against women is not perpetrated exclusively within the family or by friends.
Governments have also played a part.
Just think of the enforced sterilizations that have been so much in the news in the last few weeks. Not in one Member State but in many Member States.
And there are also Member States where it has not been in the news, but goes on just the same.
This legislation is still in force in some countries although its implementation has perhaps been put on a back burner.
These governments bear a considerable responsibility, especially as all European countries have signed the UN Convention on the elimination of discrimination against women.
And there is also a great deal about violence in that UN Convention.
So governments bear a considerable responsibility and they really should bring these sterilizations to an end.
Mr President, our intention in this debate today is to encourage governments to make violence against women a higher priority, and for this topic to be raised to the level of a major political problem.
A recent UNICEF report gives an idea of the extent of the problem.
According to this report, one woman in six, worldwide, has been the victim of rape once in her life, and this violence against women is not restricted to the developing countries.
It is estimated that one woman is beaten every ten seconds in western countries.
However, there are some countries in the world which have not legislated to make it a crime to commit violence against women, particularly when that violence takes place in the home.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I believe it is urgent to adopt a multi-institutional approach.
At all events, the costs of these actions will turn out to be less than the expenses entailed by violence in terms of health, accommodation and social services.
Furthermore, without aspiring to general harmonization throughout the Union, it has become apparent that stringent and uniform legislation is needed to provide a framework of sanctions against those responsible for such acts, while establishing appropriate assistance to victims in both the material and technical fields.
An information campaign is a priority which will help make women more aware of their fundamental rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, violence against women and children is surely one of the most despicable crimes in our society.
Although violence per se is unacceptable, many groups in the population take the view that violence within the family is, in the final analysis, a private matter.
This is the only reason why it is possible for children and women to be abused within their own four walls over many years.
Neighbours, relatives and friends all too often close their eyes to evidence of violence, because there is the feeling that problems with the police or the law are to be avoided at all costs.
Only seldom do victims have an opportunity to escape their misery.
Social institutions, such as women's refuges, which might offer a chance of escape, are usually concentrated in conurbations and they are frequently financed privately.
So the women who do try to escape often face financial ruin.
For these and many other reasons, a campaign which completely outlaws violence against women is to be welcomed, and hopefully efforts will be made to enter areas, like the family, which have hitherto remained private.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that violence is also an issue that must be considered by women.
This Parliament is finally discussing women's rights on a Tuesday: that means that at least there is a high level of consideration for the issue in this House.
The prevailing attitude, which is obviously what leads to violence, is also linked to equality.
Unfortunately we are still backward, and much needs to be done to achieve equality.
There are preconceptions and prejudices surrounding sexual violence which have yet to be dispelled.
Many people undoubtedly make the excuse that the woman's attitude is to blame and that certain types of women consent to certain types of violence.
This is really serious.
Society's attitude needs to start changing.
Prostitution, pornography and rape are not the only source of violence.
We know what giving a certain message in a certain way means.
Much more needs to be done.
Domestic violence is still regarded as a private matter, as has already been emphasized.
Only one woman in five reports what goes on at home, inside four walls.
Something very odd happened in Italy recently: in Venice a husband called the police because his wife would not have sex with him.
That certainly is quite incredible: it means we are still faced with an attitude to what goes on in family life or, rather, in a relationship between people, which is not based on anything very different.
A great deal of violence is not reported, simply because women feel afraid and ashamed; they are afraid and ashamed because society denies them freedom of self-expression, so they have to fear the social consequences.
We need European strategies for setting up shelters and refuges; we need to look at what is happening and make comparisons at European level; and to some extent we need to review the legal systems as well.
The fact is, a culture of equality, education and information is needed and much remains to be done to recognize the situation.
Mr President, the report by my Swedish colleague, Mrs Eriksson, which we are now debating concerns a fundamental problem.
I would like to thank her for a very good report.
Violence against women is unfortunately a part of the welfare state and can affect all of us regardless of age, environment and social class.
In Sweden alone around 18, 000 cases of attacks on women are reported each year.
In almost every case it is a man who lives or has lived with the woman who is involved.
However, this is only a fraction of the true number of cases.
It is a myth that only certain people are affected.
It is moreover a dangerous myth which we usually believe to protect us from recognizing the problem.
Many people say 'it won't happen to me' until they come across the problem in their own close family or circle of friends.
Often it is fear, shame, silence and feelings of guilt which are the greatest allies of violence.
Violence against women is a hidden crime, and if our battle against it is to succeed, we must make the violence visible.
Only then will we have the chance to bring about change.
This battle must be fought on all levels.
We need laws which protect women and punish the perpetrators, whether they are husbands, pimps or rapists.
We also need preventative work by voluntary organizations, etcetera.
Often these organisations seem closer and easier to contact than the authorities.
For that reason, we in the Socialist Group have also decided to support these organizations and include them in the report.
Attacks on women affect all of us.
We must work for the safety of women in Europe.
I would also like to support Mrs Eriksson in her request to be allowed to present her oral amendment in this part-session.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, of course acts of violence against women are a result of a complex of reasons, of a system of values and actions tolerated by society and its institutions.
Violence against women would not exist without the connivance of each individual man and without society's tolerance for each individual act of violence.
It represents the most widespread violation of human rights worldwide.
The latest UNICEF statistics on abuse of women are shocking.
Shocking details are given about the abuse of women in the United States of America, in India, and in Africa - where 2 million women a year are sexually mutilated while 130 million have suffered horrendous torture.
But we cannot regard ourselves as beyond reproach in Europe either.
The latest horrifying data from Belgium confirm that.
Research has shown that in the west, as in the east, few women reach adulthood without having undergone some form of violence, indecent assault, rape, incest, sexual harassment, beatings or even torture.
However, violence against women does not manifest itself only through physical abuse.
Other serious forms of violence are: discrimination and sexual harassment faced by women in the workplace and their virtual exclusion from public office and from political decision-making centres; the commonplace refusal of men to support their children morally and materially after divorce; the abuse of women through advertising and the media; pornography and prostitution.
Of course violence against women is a wall of shame in our male-dominated society and action must be taken at an individual, collective and institutional level to eradicate it.
So a massive Europe-wide campaign is needed and sufficient resources must be made available.
The ECU 3 million that were made available during 1997 on the occasion of the events in Belgium are obviously not enough to tackle the phenomenon.
We need services to provide aid and shelter, special units for the eradication of the crime of violence against women and children, a campaign of information, programmes of prevention, research and studies on the economic and social costs of male violence.
I support the motion of the rapporteur to designate 1999 as European Year Against Violence Against Women and I congratulate her on her recommendation.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, oppression and discrimination against women have been the order of the day for far too long.
It is time to match action to the many words and do something about the problems.
So it is gratifying that we have now allocated ECU 3 million a year to combat violence against women.
Violence against women is the brutal and unhappy consequence of a lack of equality between the two sexes, and the fact that there is still a great deal of violence against women in today's Europe is a sign that there is still a long way to go before we have a society where the two sexes have the same rights and opportunities.
So to combat violence against women, it is absolutely necessary to work for more equality on a broad front.
I would also like to make a few comments on the next report.
The lack of equality between men and women is most noticeable in the world of advertising.
In that world a woman is still a stay-at-home housewife or a sex object.
All too often advertising agencies crudely attempt to entice people to buy products with the help of pictures of naked or semi-naked women.
It is degrading both for the women who appear in the advertisements and for those who are forced to look at them.
And it contributes to maintaining an outdated pattern of sexual roles.
The world is getting smaller and smaller these days.
Cross-border media such as satellite TV and the Internet are increasing in importance.
So we need international rules in this area, unless the sector begins to practice self-regulation.
If the advertising agencies are incapable of drawing the line themselves, we politicians must intervene, and in that context we are sending an important signal from this Parliament by adopting the reports by Mrs Eriksson and Mrs Lenz.
To make further progress and combat violence against women, more of our male colleagues ought to have shown solidarity by being present in the House during this debate.
It would have become them.
Mr President, violence against women is a major social problem.
It is basically a human rights issue.
Violence against women is the most extreme expression of the lack of equality which exists between women and men.
Physical violence is one of several strategies of oppression.
Put simply, it is a question of men's power over women.
I therefore welcome the fact that today the European Parliament is devoting a proper debate to this important issue, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Eriksson, on her thorough report.
For a long time violence against women was looked on as something private.
The general view was that women who were beaten and raped were themselves to blame.
The situation has now changed.
Now violence against women is internationally seen as a real problem.
The Vienna Conference on Human Rights in 1993 established that human rights are also women's rights.
This represented a real breakthrough and led, among other things, to a special rapporteur being appointed on the issue of violence against women.
The United Nations Conference in Beijing also took up the question of violence against women.
The Beijing Platform maintains that violence against women is an obstacle to achieving the goals of equality, development and peace.
In 1993 the UN General Assembly adopted a declaration on the abolition of violence against women.
In the resolution, the General Assembly stresses that violence against women means that women are being forced into a subordinate position relative to men.
The issue has also been raised in other international contexts.
In this regard I would like to praise the European Parliament for the work it has done in this area.
As early as 1986 Parliament took up the question of women and violence in a special report.
This has been followed up by several resolutions and now we have the Eriksson report on a campaign against violence against women.
It is an important report.
I would particularly like to emphasize the excellent proposal that 1999 be designated European Year Against Violence Against Women.
Mrs Eriksson, I sincerely hope that the Committee on Women's Rights takes the initiative for a special budget item next time so that we also get the resources to be able to finance and jointly implement that year.
The problem needs to be highlighted and explained before progress can be made.
A campaign is one way to get public opinion behind action against violence.
Action against violence against women must take place simultaneously in different areas and on different levels.
We must ensure that we help women who have been subjected to violence and support the voluntary organizations working in this area.
Everywhere, women's organizations have been the first to have set up homes for battered wives and support them and their children.
When we discuss violence against women we should not forget the role which men have.
We concentrate on the women because they are the victims.
But women are not the source of the actual problem.
When I was the Minister for Equal Opportunities in the Swedish government, I realised that we would make no further progress on equality if we did not involve men too.
I therefore set up a men's group which used seminars and studies to encourage men themselves to start discussing the role of men.
It turned out very well and led to increased interest among men in discussing their own role in relation to women and children.
Of course, this is also important at European level.
We need more research into men and violence.
We also need men's groups which themselves tackle the question of their own male role.
Let me stress that the Commission will continue to do what it can within its powers to combat violence against women.
The modern slave trade in women is one form of violence I have done a lot of work on in recent years.
Increasing numbers of young women are being brought from the countries in central and eastern Europe to western Europe to be forced into prostitution.
It is a serious problem involving large sums of money.
Trafficking in women has clearly become a lucrative business for international organized crime.
Since I presented the action plan against the slave trade, we have been working on a broad front.
We are making efforts under the third pillar, but also in other areas.
The slave trade in women, like all violence against women, is a problem we must tackle from several directions at once.
We now have a number of projects under way in the Stop Programme.
These are aimed at judges, lawyers and others who, in their work, come into contact with women who are victims of the slave trade and sexual exploitation.
The aim is to increase awareness and knowledge of the problem and to learn from each other.
We have ECU 6.5 million for the programme which runs from 1996 to the year 2000.
Also in the European Drug Unit, the basis for Europol, which has not yet been ratified by the Member States, a project is under way to prevent trafficking in women.
This year, thanks to the initiative of this Parliament, we have also been able to set up the Daphne programme.
As you know, this is intended for voluntary organizations working with issues of violence against children, adolescents and women.
All of us who have worked on these issues for many years know that women who are victims of violence often prefer to turn to a voluntary organization than to the authorities.
We have had a good response, and the day before yesterday I received a summary of all the projects which are now ready to be implemented.
A second round of applications is also taking place out in the community.
We will soon be able to start projects to support women and children who have become victims of violence.
We have projects for immigrant women, for cooperation between the police and women's organizations with regard to female rape victims, for the setting up networks and exchanging experiences and models of good practice.
Men's groups are also included in the latter project.
I hope that the pilot project within Daphne will provide useful experience for everyone working against violence against women and children to build on.
I hope Parliament will continue to support this initiative so that we can continue the practical and concrete work on a broad front.
Obviously, the need is great.
If we have the money, we can also make important contributions of this kind.
Many of the recommendations in Mrs Eriksson's report are directed at the Member States.
It is important that continuous work takes place both locally and nationally.
At the same time we are studying with interest the recommendations directed at the Commission.
It is important for the Commission to work actively against violence against women and for this to be done in a way which complements the work of the Member States.
As I said earlier, I think that the proposal for a European Year Against Violence Against Women is an idea which deserves full support.
It would focus attention on the issue of violence against women and also provide real support for all those within authorities and voluntary organizations who work against violence.
Mr President, now that the debate is over, I have a small request.
It is freezing in this Chamber and I hope this is not part of some strategy to keep the women super-cool during this debate on women, and stop them getting too heated.
But could you please do something about the temperature?
Mrs Larive, the services responsible have heard what you said and I trust they will act as soon as possible.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
Discrimination against women in advertising
The next item is the report by Mrs Lenz (A4-0258/97), on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on discrimination against women in advertising.
Mr President, to return once more to women.
This, too, is a question of discrimination: this time it is discrimination against women in advertising.
Take the example of a distiller's advertisement: a picture of a woman - and a black one, at that - caught in a net, with the caption: ' Wouldn't you like to open it right now?
Which one, the bottle?'.
The European Parliament's Committee on Women's' Rights has opened the bottle labelled 'Discrimination against Women in Advertising' .
There have been a number of articles on just how close the report has come to striking at the sensitivities of the advertising profession.
Actually, this has always happened, even when we presented a report about women and the media ten years ago and it contained a section called 'Women and Advertising' .
Surprisingly, the first words of criticism came from the ranks of the German Advertising Council, even though it was itself responsible for control. Compared with international standards these instances were not bad, as is shown by the examples it quoted for criticism or condemnation.
Are these cracks in expensive monoliths? I think the question is justified.
Over the years, advertising has become both more strident and more earthy.
The examples make that clear. The depiction of women - and of men too, as I have seen - which many women perceive as debasing, and which frequently bears no relation to the product being advertised, or is punctuated by more or less offensive remarks, is simply hurtful to women.
It encourages either discrimination against women as available sex objects or, in less harmful cliché situations, a role for women which is unacceptable in the modern world.
The majority of protests to advertising standards bodies concern pictures of women, and the fact that only few official reprimands have been issued is not significant: 90 % of the pictures criticized were previously withdrawn.
In recent weeks we have learned just how the media push ahead, and no end is in sight.
We cannot act as if there were always a clear division between such things.
Women's rights are human rights.
Both the Beijing Women's World Conference and, in particular, the Vienna Human Rights Conference have shown that.
National advertising laws and advertising control organizations in individual Member States are very different.
National and EU legislation does not protect against unworthy depiction of women in media content.
Television guidelines, for instance, give no definition of gender discrimination.
The increase in cross-border broadcasting of commercials and the depiction of violence raise new challenges to for traditional advertising control mechanisms.
The report calls for greater clarity and recommends closing gaps in national advertising control, convergence in advertising controls across the European Union, and long term evolution of the existing amalgamation of European advertising control bodies into a genuine European control organization.
The report also recommends the creation of an advisory European Media Council consisting of representatives from the European Commission and the European advertising industry, which could draft a code against discrimination in advertising.
Incidentally, that is something which has certainly been raised before in this House.
The proposal for an ethics committee under each national television council also falls within this context.
We should also like to urge, as we have done before, the establishment of a prize for the best European advertisement meeting our standards, in order to develop a realistic image of women.
Women in advertising should also make an effort to gain greater influence over the production and decision-making processes, and establish alternative agencies producing innovative advertising.
They would thus contribute to a gradual transformation of the image of women in advertising along the lines of the variety, originality and creativity of modern woman, and to a final goodbye to the myth that naked flesh makes the best salesman.
We are aware that this report will not please everyone, and I also know that this is a sensitive area.
But we on the Committee on Women's Rights - and we have also heard from many others this morning - should take up these themes and make people aware that these things must no longer happen.
There are so many ways of depicting women - their variety, their abilities.
The advertising profession, with its budgets of millions and billions, should also give that a thought.
Mr President, women are not goods for anyone to buy, although that is sometimes the impression given.
It is not the product, but naked flesh that is displayed for advertising purposes.
As long ago as 1995 I tabled an amendment calling for a report investigating discrimination against women in advertising.
The Committee on Women's Rights has taken steps to achieve this in its Lenz Report.
We are not concerned with morals, I want to make that quite clear, and certainly not with censorship; we do not wish to censor the advertising profession, but to ensure that certain minimum standards for the protection of women's dignity are maintained.
We are concerned with the implementation of the UN agreement banning all discrimination against women.
We need a code of conduct - Mrs Lenz described it - that goes further than self-regulation within the advertising profession.
In a market of over ECU 250 billion worldwide, the danger is it will exceed all bounds, disgusting pictures and naked flesh will be shown, and anything will be justified as long as it brings in a slice of the cake.
However, we saw the power of women consumers In the case of a worldwide mineral water producer in Belgium.
The company had displayed three bare-breasted women on huge billboards, with just their nipples covered by the firm's bottletops.
As a result of protests from the Committee on Women's Rights and a threatened boycott by European women's associations the advertisement was withdrawn by the firm.
As I said, women consumers have considerable power.
But we in Parliament also have considerable responsibility.
The non-discrimination clause in the Amsterdam Treaty will present us with a further need to act.
We have the opportunity of intervening - and the Lenz Report is only one element here - and of achieving equality of opportunity in the general concept.
We must also extend our activities into other areas of the new media.
It is not just advertising that must observe the basic law against discrimination, but the other areas as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, advertising that misuses sexist stereotypes and women's bodies to market products is discriminatory, because it debases the dignity of women.
The pointed double meanings of offensive texts and the provocative display of the naked female form cannot be tolerated, although the boundary between eroticism, with aesthetic photographs, and pornography cannot always be clearly defined.
Amongst Member States of the European Union there are varying standards for what may be said, printed, or shown, based on varying cultural views.
But that cannot absolve us from finding common European rules, even if our efforts are denounced as prudish, unenlightened or perhaps outmoded.
I think reducing women to the role of an object in advertising is outmoded.
Women have long fulfilled a variety of functions with great competence, from psychology in everyday life, through leadership qualities in the professions, to engagement in politics, culture and society.
It would be an exciting task for advertising to prepare this reality in an interesting way, and it would underline the message more convincingly.
There are regulations at national level for those involved in advertising and communication.
Although not always voluntary, they still incorporate guidance and monitoring functions.
The German Advertising Council, for instance, which has just celebrated its 25th birthday, has made effective contributions to self-regulation, including measures for public condemnation and warnings against repetition.
Further legal regulation can be dispensed with if control is effective.
There is no European code of ethics, however, and there are no agreements at national level.
Advertising that discriminates against women must be stopped before it is broadcast or printed.
For this reason those who create advertising must be sensitized.
I was in creative advertising for more than 20 years.
We tried to give a positive impression, design product concepts and communication content appropriate to the target audience, achieve identification with and acceptance of the products, clarify, and initiate a buying response, but without using clichés, without causing embarrassment or offence, and without being defamatory.
That was, and is, the intellectual challenge of creative contact with customers.
The excellent and detailed report by Marlene Lenz, and the hearing initiated by her in the Committee on Women's Rights, have clearly shown that we must keep up the fight against discrimination.
That is particularly true after the adoption of important passages in the Amsterdam Draft Treaty.
Mr President, I will say right away that I am going to rock the boat.
But before I get my eyes torn out, I want to make one conciliatory remark.
I am of course lined up with the majority, I support all action to promote equal opportunities and I oppose any instrument or act of violence that harms women.
I think it is even more important to make that statement as a man, to avoid any suspicion of corporatism in these matters, as other speakers have observed.
But I am also against any escalation of the problem and it seems to me that this report runs that risk: in the title itself, for example, by mentioning discrimination, but especially in the tone and in some of the arguments.
I would say that such muddled and violent shooting goes way beyond the target.
This is violence against violence and that seems paradoxical.
This is a case and an area where the word discrimination can be interpreted from at least two points of view: first, women are discriminated against as the active subjects of certain advertising, it is said. That may be true, in fact it undoubtedly is true.
But at the same time this action discriminates against men as passive subjects, stupid subjects, of this discrimination against women.
The second point of view is this: men are increasingly players in identical active messages.
Think of those androgynous beauties, think of the hairy chests, think of the well-muscled, increasingly ostentatious monsters.
So the premise in the report, stating - and I quote - ' The clichéd view of men as bread-winners, business-like and productive, whereas women are portrayed as domestic, dependent and passive, does not reflect the social reality in Europe' is at least dated.
But it does not reflect advertising reality either.
Do look at some modern commercials and let us get away from the Middle Ages of advertising!
So, even in this case, equal opportunities are defended to the end.
Where vigilance is actually needed, obviously, is where certain messages offend good taste and cross the boundary to pornography.
But this applies equally to everyone, women, men, and children.
Nor does the presence of the female shape in advertising always involve violence, because women are, after all, free to accept or reject roles offered to them.
Instead, there is a queue - look outside any advertising agency - of women seeking to engage in this profession. So, I repeat, it is up to them to decide how to do so and with how much good taste.
In addition to these reasons, in the end, where women know how to combine beauty with intelligence they emerge victorious.
If you notice, both in the distance relationship between message and television viewer and especially in the division of roles in the commercials, it is always the man who comes across as incompetent, represented as letting himself be ensnared in the dazzling trap of some portion of the female epidermis, always shown artfully, true, but also sometimes with grace, and that needs to be stated calmly.
The idea that men can only make a choice because a woman discloses a bit of epidermis does, I think, make the male the ridiculous figure.
So, Mr President, if I may close with a hint of irony on an issue which, I recognize, is actually very serious, I call for a report on discrimination against men as involuntary victims of discrimination against women in advertising.
I hardly think Parliament will agree to that request, but there is nothing wrong with proposing it.
Mr President, the rather heated atmosphere of the original Lenz report has largely disappeared and that is a good thing.
I can hardly imagine advertisements for lingerie, for example, without women in them and as Mrs Ewing said to me just now, the fact is women look nicer than men.
However, I find a great deal of advertising, soap powder for instance, pretty tedious and many people agree with me.
But is it the task of the advertising sector to undertake pioneering work to break down stereotypes? I think each country gets the advertising it deserves.
And if that advertising does not keep up with new developments or behaves unworthily, then the consumer is woman enough to give it the brush-off, because more than half of all consumers are women.
For liberals, the boundary between press freedom, and freedom of speech, and discrimination is violation of human dignity and the unnecessary exploitation of the human body.
These are moral limits, but there is also a plethora of legal limits.
National legislation, self-regulation, European legislation, the code of the International Chamber of Commerce, EASA, Article 19 of the UN Convention on Civil and Political Rights.
These meant that the infamous Perrier advertisement was rightly banned.
So is the Lenz report dealing with a non-issue? Partly, but it is nevertheless a good thing for the European Parliament to draw attention to the question.
However I do not think we need new legislation or harmonization of national legislation.
I do not think we need a European Media Council dealing specifically with discrimination, or ethics committees, so my group is voting against paragraphs 15, 20 and 23 and we have submitted amendments to them.
The appeal made by Mrs Lenz to the advertising sector is right: more women in decision-making, greater accessibility in national rules, improved complaints procedures and the EASA must as a real European selfregulating body, drawing up European minimum standards for non-discriminatory advertising and upholding them.
Then we shall not need any extra legislation.
If the advertising world really listened to the consumer, I mean, to all those women, then decent advertisements that meet the requirements of responsible modern men and women would be produced as a matter of course without legislation and all kinds of rules.
Mr President, first of all I should like to say that I consider it an initial sign of mainstreaming that the debates on women are being followed not only by one Commissioner but by several Commissioners and that we are also getting responses from other Commissioners.
As far as women in advertising are concerned, I must nevertheless say that it is a great virtue of the women's movement that in the last few years sexy men have also appeared.
Chippendale-type men have appeared in advertisements.
It is extremely doubtful whether that is a true image of men, because you do not come across Chippendales every day.
There are plenty of men in this Parliament, but you have to look pretty hard to find a Chippendale!
To put it briefly, advertising gives a very distorted picture of reality and of course that is also the aim of advertising.
I must honestly say that I do not think censorship of advertising would be appropriate.
It is true that stereotypes of women are still shown a great deal, but some improvement has occurred.
Perhaps those stereotypes have receded a little, but it would be going too far to say that the advertising world does not have trail-blazing work to do.
Of course the advertising world can undertake pioneering work and it would also be a good thing if women were actually a lot more involved in advertising and themselves made a contribution to changing the image of women in advertisements.
So I am not in favour of censorship but of self-regulation, and codes of conduct.
I think we can continue to make progress in that way.
And progress really is necessary because the situation in advertising is still not good enough.
Mr President, at the threshold of the Twenty-first Century women's bodies are used, often gratuitously, to sell goods in order to make money for other people.
Ask yourself exactly why Diana, Princess of Wales, was pursued everywhere she went: to make money for others.
Women are still portrayed stereotypically even if a few new stereotypes have been added.
This is a European matter.
Satellite and cable television have ensured that.
Most European countries are bad and some are appalling.
We heard from a citizen of one of them earlier on.
Much advertising goes well beyond the erotic to the pornographic with overtones of violence and sadism. This advertising cheapens all women.
It cheapens every one of us and our daughters. It takes away our individuality and our humanity.
Stereotyping of women is much more dangerous than stereotyping of men.
It incites women to a pursuit of perfection with consequences like eating disorders.
We know of a recent victim.
The current legislation and self-regulation are inadequate.
All the various pacts and conventions are inadequate.
Mrs Lenz's proposals will do something to improve that situation.
Colleagues, when you introduce moral issues into the process of money-making, it is never welcomed by those making money. They do not want to hear about moral issues.
But moral issues matter to those people that we represent.
I hope, therefore, that this will be taken seriously and Mrs Lenz's report will be supported by all groups.
Mr President, this report affects freedom of expression.
Indeed, it advocates not only professional self-regulation, which has been in existence for a long time incidentally, but goes further by stating that freedom of expression might have to be limited to protect public morality.
What is this notion which, to boot, does not appear in the European Convention of Human Rights?
What is this willingness to punish, not clearly identified violations of decent behaviour, but the breaking of a mere social convention, supposedly forbidden according to the definition of some political body or other at European level, whereas sensitivity on these matters differs from north to south.
In the past in Europe, and now today in many countries, this is how the intolerance associated with fundamentalist thinking both arose and continues to arise.
Finally, this report seems to me to have been somewhat overtaken by events.
Women are not the only ones whose image is used. So is men's.
The latest Daewoo advertisement showed a man and a woman in exactly the same position and the same state of near-nakedness.
Today, even in Belgium, Crédit Lyonnais has advertisements showing the naked body of a man in the newspapers.
Here too, we need to adopt a more relative or qualified approach.
It may be irritating for women, all women, not to be Botticelli's Venus, but it is just as irritating for men not to be Michelangelo's David, or the Apollo of Praxiteles.
The illegitimate use of outward beauty, when abused, is criticized, sometimes to a ludicrous extent. But outward beauty has and always will be a motive for action in many circumstances..
I would like to end by referring to a passage from Amélie Nothomb's book 'Attentat ' . She writes that when Quasimodo falls in love with Esmeralda, he longs to cry out to the beautiful lady: look beyond my outward appearance!
But what has Quasimodo himself done except go no further than the outward appearance of this beautiful creature.
He should have fallen in love with a toothless old woman.
Then Quasimodo would have been credible.
But his heart has been stopped by the splendid appearance of a beautiful gypsy girl who is only too easy to fall in love with.
Fortunately this report will not change the face of things.
Mr President, I would also like to add to the appreciation already expressed by other Members of the President's decision to debate all four reports from the Committee on Women's Rights together on Tuesday morning, thus giving the issues dealt with a very high profile.
That sends a very positive signal: it certainly means that the work so many of us have done for so long, undervalued and opposed, is beginning to bear fruit and these issues are attracting more attention, in fact the feminist position is becoming common sense and received opinion.
This is not yet the case when it comes to images of women - as we have heard - in advertising and the mass media in general.
Despite the recommendations of the Council of Europe, the resolutions of the European Council and the European Parliament, all based on fundamental principles affirmed in international documents and agreements, despite the militant commitment of women's associations, and the decisions taken on equality mechanisms by our countries, ministries and committees, the use of the female body to sell consumer goods, that stereotype of the presumed traditional role of women, continues to infest the walls of our cities, television broadcasts at every hour of the day, and the pages of newspapers and magazines.
In Italy, two intellectual weeklies and a left-wing periodical have both persisted for years in the bad habit of chasing high circulation by showing naked women on their covers.
In fact, recently, an editor controversially explained that trying a naked man had caused a drop in sales.
Meanwhile - and this is the other side of the coin as regards the women/mass media report - it continues to be difficult if not impossible for the associations and even ministries working to affirm women's rights to raise awareness of what they are trying to do.
Even here, today, in spite of the politically correct timing of this debate, as we can see, some of the broadcasters who cover important debates are not present. The rights of half of all Europeans are not important enough for the European communications media.
Perhaps if some of us, young and beautiful of course, had spoken in the nude....!
Perhaps!
So Mrs Gröner has made a very timely effort to draw the attention of the European Union to this wholly unresolved problem, and in her scholarly report, Mrs Lenz, whom I congratulate, quite rightly calls for legislative initiatives by Member States and codes of conduct on the part of advertisers, and presents a series of important proposals to the Commission which I trust Commissioner Flynn will wish to respond to promptly.
Mr President, from a scientific point of view, semantics today accepts that the language of advertising constitutes an extremely effective message.
Today more than ever, we have to realise that this advertising message is planned, conceived and broadcast to seduce, to be assimilated, to make millions of people react in a specific way.
We must bear in mind that these images and slogans are carefully thought out and planned to have an effect, to make a psychological attack, to have an impact, and when confronted with them we human beings tend to be passive, defenceless subjects.
So in one sense, they could be described as an imposition using the wonders of images, sounds, colours and stimulation of the senses.
Today, in an era ruled by the media, advertising is all of this.
Advertising today can do wonders, but it can also commit atrocities. It is a very powerful instrument, as we know, and the important thing is that this powerful instrument should not contravene certain principles.
In fact, this instrument should also be used to further the worthy aims of the human race and - why not? - to counter discrimination against women.
Beware, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, because it is incomprehensible that we should spend so much time perfecting legal documents and guideline texts, and yet allow a poisonous, discriminatory message to be conveyed by attractive advertising and injected into the veins of thousands and millions of Europeans.
Also, we must remember that the repetition of discriminatory messages effectively perpetuates discrimination.
Therefore, this is a good moment to progress beyond unwanted moralizing and criticism, and say that when it comes to things that affect people, not everything is acceptable in this Europe ruled by merchandise, where some people try to turn women into a commodity.
We have political mechanisms to enable us to say no!
So this report is a magnificent initiative by the European Parliament to set up a policy which should be active, non-discriminatory and in favour of equal treatment.
Mr President, I should like to take the opportunity to thank the European Parliament for this initiative and Mrs Lenz in particular for the excellent work she has done.
The Commission is fully aware of the importance of protecting women against discrimination in advertising and of the need to strike the right balance between respect for the fundamental right of freedom of expression and respect for human dignity.
The report highlights a number of important issues, which I welcome.
It makes very constructive proposals, most of which are in line with the development of the Commission's policies and activities in this particular field.
Parliament, along with the Commission, insisted on the need for a non-discrimination clause to be inserted in the new treaty and called in particular for discrimination against women to be included in the categories of discrimination.
Article 6(a) of the draft Amsterdam Treaty responds to this request and provides for possibilities of appropriate action in the afore-mentioned field.
I should also like to remind the House of Council and Parliament Directive 97/31 adopted in June on coordination of television broadcasting activities, which represents the most important European instrument for television advertising.
This directive provides that advertising shall not include any discrimination on grounds of sex.
The integration of a gender perspective in media policy is one of the Commission's priorities within its gender mainstreaming policy.
Concrete measures are laid down in the fourth equal opportunities programme.
The Commission encourages the exchange of information and experience between the Member States and between relevant national bodies.
It also encourages a balanced participation by women and men at decision-taking levels of the advertising industry and the media, in order to strengthen the influence of women in this field.
A meeting has been planned for later on this year, bringing together major participants, experts and NGOs in the media sector in order to build on good experience.
Mrs Lenz's proposal to include advertising in our studies is noted.
The Commission supports an overview study of the image of women in advertising and the media and the encouragement of cooperation between professional associations, women's organizations and project leaders active at Community level.
We cannot reply positively to the request for a European advertising prize but the NIKI Prize supported by the Commission, which aims to improve the portrayal of women on television, will be awarded again this year for good practice in the advertising sector.
Finally, the Commission will examine carefully the proposal to set up an advisory committee for all media with the aim of drawing up a code for the advertising industry to stamp out all forms of discrimination.
In this respect, I should like to remind the House that the recent TV directive provides for the creation of a contact committee chaired by the Commission and composed of representatives of the competent authorities in the Member States with the task of facilitating the implementation of the directive.
The Commission could examine the possibility of creating a subgroup within the committee to prepare such a code and this would be a good example of gender mainstreaming.
We all know that equality in practice will not become reality until there has been profound change in many areas, not least those of ideas, attitudes and images in the media.
So, the Commission will continue and strengthen its action in this direction, taking into account your suggestions.
I thank all those who have contributed to the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.00 noon)
VOTES
In order to explain why I am putting forward an oral amendment, I said in the debate that this is due to an administrative misfortune.
That is why I sincerely hope you are now listening very carefully, and will support my proposed amendment.
I would also like to point out that both proposed amendments are controversial, and not just in this House; they are also being followed with great interest by our electorates outside the House in all Member States.
With my proposed amendment, paragraph 14 would read as follows: ' Calls for the programmes planned by the Commission with the aim of combatting trafficking in women for purposes of sexual exploitation and combatting violence against women not to be confined to campaigns to provide information about and to prevent prostitution, but also to include support for projects to rehabilitate victims and action against pornography and prostitution ' .
This adds the words 'and action against pornography and prostitution' which is my oral amendment.
Mr President, there was detailed discussion within the Committee on Women's Rights, and I do not feel that we can accept any oral amendment in the part-session.
If Parliament has no objection, I will put the rapporteur's oral amendment to paragraph 14 to a vote.
(The President established that more than 13 members opposed the oral amendment which was therefore not put to the vote, under Rule 124(6) )
Paragraph 17
With my proposed amendment, paragraph 17 would therefore read as follows: ' welcomes initiatives in some Member States to develop, in addition to effective sanctions, programmes for perpetrators which result in men taking responsibility for their actions, and calls for greater commitment from all Member States to adopt such initiatives' , and then my addition, ' for example, criminalization of the customers of prostitutes ' .
If Parliament has no objection, I will put the rapporteur's oral amendment to paragraph 17 to a vote.
(The President established that more than 13 members opposed the oral amendment which was therefore not put to the vote, under Rule 124(6) )
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
This proposal to modify the directive on to misleading advertising so as to include comparative advertising, satisfies me in more than one respect.
This proposal for codecision is the result of fruitful work between the Commission and Parliament.
The text aims at a necessary harmonization in the field of advertising, and the final result of this decision appears to me to be balanced.
The introduction of comparative advertising should make it possible to give better information to consumers, and this is the reason why I have always fought for it.
The amendments proposed by Parliament and accepted by the Commission will limit abuses, and be reinforced in this respect by the provisions on misleading advertising already in existence.
As the Commission has refused to include the establishment of a European control body in the directive, it is important for consumer protection organizations to be involved in checking up on tests at the Community level.
Political leaders in the various Member States have a responsibility to encourage independent approaches along these lines.
In the near future, the issue of the European control body will need to be raised again.
Commission proposal on the wine market
I am going to vote against this document.
I believe a support system for the wine market is fundamentally flawed in any case.
Our group has submitted two amendments to the Commission's proposal.
The Commission wanted to eliminate assistance for production of rectified concentrated musts in wine-growing zones C III.
The Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Midi-Pyrénées production regions were directly concerned.
Our group is delighted at the vote on these two amendments, which were adopted virtually unanimously by the Members of the European Parliament, and regrets that the Commission wishes to make fundamental amendments through an apparently anodyne regulation.
Does the Commission need reminding that we are still awaiting to a new text for the proposed reform of the COM in wine from the Commission? In the spring of 1995, the European Parliament debated, voted on and amended the Commission's original proposal.
In its proposal, the Commission has sought to reopen the debate on chaptalization and the enrichment of rectified concentrated musts.
At the time this was first discussed, the Commission replied to the Council that it was awaiting the opinion of the European Parliament before amending its proposal.
The European Parliament as a whole has been vigilant and has rejected this proposal from the Commission.
The Europe of Nations Group can only rejoice at the outcome, and we thank the Members of the European Parliament for supporting these amendments.
Simpson recommendation (Á4-0271/97)
The common position we are preparing to adopt is acceptable for the public service.
It opens up the way to a degree of liberalization in the field of postal services, and hence enables some opening up to competition, which the consumers and companies wish for.
It nevertheless sets aside important domains, such as cross-border mail and advertising mail, which are left to monopoly public postal services.
In its deliberations, Parliament has respected the delicate balance achieved at the Council.
Indeed, the majority of the post office ministers have been more favourable to the public service than the Commission.
Hopefully the Luxembourg Presidency - in the person of Mrs Mady Delvaux, to whom I pay tribute for her clear and frank attitude in support of the public service in the postal field - will speedily wrap up this dossier, and conclude procedures in the Council.
Finally, it is worth raising the question why the all-powerful wave of liberalization championed by the Commission has slowed when confronted with the postal services.
I believe one of the essential reasons for this is the importance of the postal services in terms of social cohesion and land-use planning in national territory.
In many cases the postman is still out there, whereas most public services have been withdrawn for reasons of cost and productivity.
It has to be hoped that this pause in liberalization and deregulation will give decision-makers time to reflect, and the postal services the ability to work ever harder to serve customers.
I have voted for the report.
I think the rapporteur's amendments substantially improve the Commission's proposals, but I would like to clarify one point.
The provision of postal services is a public service.
Experience from other businesses shows that deregulation does not result in increased efficiency, but instead more often results in unemployment and increased regional inequality.
Scapagnini report (A4-0268/97)
Nuclear energy is a non-renewable source of energy.
Serious nuclear power accidents have occurred at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl.
The problem of waste from nuclear power has not been solved.
Following a referendum, Sweden has decided to phase out nuclear power.
A reactor in Barsebäck is going to be shut down before the general election in Sweden in September 1998.
The Centre Party has been a driving force for phasing out nuclear power in Sweden.
The decision to shut down the nuclear power station at Chernobyl will be carried out.
In our opinion, the EU should not subsidize the construction of other reactors as compensation for this.
We therefore oppose EU aid for the Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4 reactors in the Ukraine and that is why we have voted against the resolution.
On the other hand we support efforts at national and EU level which improve the safety of existing reactors.
The energy system must switch as soon as possible to renewable and sustainable sources of energy.
Azzolini report (A4-0252/97)
I should like to express our group's support for the Azzolini report, since the cultural field encourages direct and indirect employment, promoting the survival and creation of small and medium-sized enterprises connected with the cultural sector, and offering prospects for the creation of employment.
I should also emphasize that tourism and culture reinforce each other and, with our help, can increase the effects of structural funds intervention on employment.
Regrettably, the cultural projects financed by Community structural policy only represent 3 %, which is too low if you consider the influence of culture on regional development and the achievement of economic and social cohesion.
So the new Treaty on European Union should include a section to promote explicit support for cultural projects, and increase the number of Community regional development initiatives which have cultural aspects, with the aim of strengthening the link between the structural funds and cultural action itself.
Finally, I should like to stress that local and regional bodies should continue to play an important role, to ensure good results from the European Union's development strategy, based on culture and the creation of employment.
We are voting for the Azzolini report on the link between cohesion policy and culture and the promotion of employment for a number of reasons, and we highlight the following:
1.For the first time an effort is being made to have a more systematic and coherent approach to the enormous potential in conservation of cultural and natural heritage, whether rural or urban, national, regional or local, and cultural investments in general, for sustainable development, defence of identity, and to combat desertification and exclusion.2.The current foot-dragging over this approach and the inadequate funding - specifically funding of structural measures, still dogged by an inadequate and indeed restrictive regulation, moreover - are recognized and there needs to be a change as soon as possible, and preferably in the current financial framework.
This must all be done without prejudice to the presentation of proposals and guidelines with a view to improving awareness and empowering synergies between cohesion policies, culture and employment.3.The importance of preventing excessive interpretation or identification between the tourist industry and the promotion of cultural policies is recognized, but we would like to stress this to make it even clearer.
Without prejudice to a desirable and useful link between tourism and culture, it would certainly be perverse and profoundly limiting if support for cultural promotion were to be conditioned by and/or subordinated to the strategies of the tourist industry.4.Attention is drawn to the consequences that the budget cuts required for fulfilment of the nominal convergence criteria are likely to have by weakening or reversing the growth trend in employment in cultural activities, as these depend, at least in part, on government finance, whether national or regional.- Kestelijn-Sierens report (A4-0257/97)
I am not particularly impressed by this report which is full of clichés.
It goes without saying that no sensible person would oppose equal rights for men and women.
But just as obviously I am not in favour of all kinds of quota regulations that all in all are rather degrading to women.
When, for example, I hear several speakers in the debate this morning complaining about the fact that there are still far fewer girls than boys in technical education - and that something must be done about it - then I do wonder whether we actually know the difference between 'equal opportunities' and 'equal treatment' .
With regard to combining family and working life, my party in Flanders has for many years been arguing in favour of a proper carer's wage that would give one of the two parents the opportunity to bring up and take care of the children at home.
It should be a real choice, based on real free will and no longer on financial necessities.
Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens report goes a long way in many respects, but as far as parental leave is concerned, it gets stuck in the well-worn paths.
That of course has everything to do with the fact that bringing up children in the family may nowadays no longer be considered as valuable and socially essential work and that women who - voluntarily - choose this path are actually regarded with some pity.
Essentially, I regret that the very important section on work and family life has got bogged down in political correctness.
Kokkola report (A4-0251/97)
On the Kokkola report (A4-0251/97) on the Commission communication on incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies and activities and on the KestelijnSierens report on the Commission's annual report on equal opportunities for women and men in the EU 1996 (A40257/97).
I and many British Conservative Members of the European Parliament wholeheartedly support the principle of equal opportunities for women and men and agree that mainstreaming is a valuable tool in helping to put that principle into practice.
We welcome the increasing recognition of the problems experienced by women in particular and the increasing efforts being made at all levels to remedy the situation.
We are not convinced, however, that the best way to achieve an equal representation of women in decision-making, for example, is through artificial discrimination of the sort proposed in both the Kokkola and Kestelijn-Sierens reports.
The fixing of temporary quotas, though perhaps attractive in the short-term, is not the answer.
We consider the suggestion in the Kokkola report that Commission working groups and expert committees should be made up of equal numbers of men and women to be particularly impractical and unhelpful.
We firmly believe that appointments to such positions should be made on merit and qualification.
To impose so-called positive discrimination in the way suggested may have the short-term benefit of increasing the figures of female representation in decision-making bodies. In the long-term, however, it could only be detrimental to the position of women in general.
The proposal in the Kestelijn-Sierens report that the Commission should include a gender-impact assessment in its proposals for legislation is equally impractical.
What is needed is practical concrete measures to give women the opportunities to achieve the qualifications and freedoms which will allow them to compete on a fair and equal footing with men on the jobs market and in the decision-making arena - not airy statements of the likely implications of proposed legislation, which in most cases are impossible to define or quantify with any degree of accuracy.
Improvements are needed in many areas, not least with regard to the difficult task of combining work outside the home with family responsibilities.
However, to suggest, as Mrs Kokkola's report does, that social services, such as care for children and the elderly, school meals and public transport, should be financed by the structural funds, is nothing short of ludicrous.
I am glad that Parliament as a whole voted against this proposal, although I note that British Labour MEPs voted for it.
We also do not believe that it is the Commission's role to decide how fiscal measures and social security benefit can be used to help bring work in the family into the official economy.
These are all matters which should be dealt with at national, regional and local level in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
The Kokkola and Kestelijn-Sierens reports rightly highlight the difficulties involved in achieving equal opportunities for men and women today and contain some very salient points.
I and my colleagues will vote for these reports because their ultimate aim and motivation is to the benefit of women in Europe.
We nevertheless wish to place on record our regret that they contain some suggestions which are unlikely to help women, and risk bringing the EP's work for women into disrepute.
Eriksson report (A4-0201/97)
Mr President, I speak from local experience of the zero-tolerance campaign run in Thurrock in my constituency.
Colleagues from the South Essex Rape and Incest Crisis Line tell me that posters in shops, public houses and at bus-stops enabled the issue of violence against women to be discussed in the open and validated the private experiences of many women for the very first time.
This local project fully supports the extension of zerotolerance campaigns to other European countries, backed up by rape crisis telephone helplines, also absent in many of our countries.
Another local women's project in my constituency - the Southend Women's Refuge - also supports this initiative.
I helped them recently to open their new 'dove' project - an open drop-in counselling centre for women who are victims of domestic violence.
In just a few weeks five new women a day came forward for counselling.
These two local examples show how far sexual violence is a reality for women today. They fully justify today's parliamentary decision to respond with a European-wide campaign.
In the multicultural and pluralistic European Union, people clearly find it difficult to show respect for different opinions.
With laughter and scorn, Parliament rejected the opportunity to vote on Mrs Eriksson's two oral amendments to support active work against pornography and prostitution and to welcome initiatives from Member States concerning the criminalization of the customers of prostitutes.
These are amendments which we would naturally have supported.
That prostitution and pornography are the reason for the misconceptions about women which often lead to rape and beating etc., is something we are convinced of, and we regret that Parliament did not have the courage to reach a decision on the proposed amendment.
We would also like to stress how important it is that society gives vulnerable women and children help in the form of national legislation, and also in the form of help to take on a new identity, a new area to live in and a new job, and thereby the opportunity to escape their tormentor.
We also call on Member States to give financial support for women's refuges and for legal aid.
Violence against women is basically a matter of human rights, something which most people claim to defend.
In spite of this, violence against women takes place all over the world and in all social classes.
Making 1999 an EU campaign year against violence against women should focus attention on the problem and help make the issue a topical one in the Member States.
However, this requires sufficient funding to be allocated in the EU's next budget, and we hope that will happen.
Lenz report (A4-0258/97)
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Lenz on her report calling for an end to discrimination against women in advertising.
It is a call that is ignored, derided and considered old-fashioned by the advertising industry.
The advertising industry believes that as long as a sardonic quote or a look can be incorporated into the advert, it is open season for portraying women's bodies in any derogatory way, to sell anything from cars to underwear.
In my local paper, the Birmingham Mail, I am told that an advertisement is going to be unveiled in Birmingham this week in the form of an electronic, 20-foot-high billboard showing a woman taking off her clothes continuously.
The AA, the Automobile Association, is warning that it could be a source of distraction and could lead to accidents.
I quote this as an example of the lengths to which the advertising industry in Britain is going at present in order to sell products: women in chains to sell cosmetics, women who are overweight portrayed in the most derogatory terms.
Mrs Lenz's call for self-regulation is a laudable one but I fear that the industry will ignore it.
The European Union institutions must use their combined forces and recognize this as a growing problem in the 1990s.
They must act to provide a Europe-wide code of conduct for the advertising industry in order for this discrimination to be stopped.
Mrs Crawley, I happily allowed you to exceed your time because your previous experience over a number of years as chairman of the Committee on Women's Rights and your activity in this Parliament give you the right to justify exceeding your speaking time, when the Chair can allow it, and I was very pleased that you were able to complete your remarks.
The Danish Social Democrats are voting for the Lenz report on their own initiative.
Because the media operate across borders, it is necessary to take up this issue at EU level.
It would be desirable for the advertising sector to exercise more self-regulation and to recognize that it is discriminatory to show naked or semi-naked women in advertisements.
If the sector itself is incapable of setting and maintaining certain guidelines for good marketing, it could become necessary to regulate this area at EU level.
That completes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.05 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Draft budget for 1998
The next item is the presentation by the Council of the draft budget for 1998.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, as required by tradition and by the budget procedure, it is my responsibility to present to this House the draft budget for financial 1998, as drawn up by the Council on 24 July last.
Mr President, I would like to emphasize that, from the start, this budget procedure has - and I am delighted about that - been marked by excellent and open cooperation between the three institutions.
Before the Council drew up the draft budget, the three institutions undertook to enter into a real and open exchange.
Each wished to show its willingness to listen to the other, and even to go some way down the other's path, on every occasion possible.
The budgetary procedure laid down by the treaty is a highly significant moment in the collaboration between the three institutions.
The 1993 interinstitutional agreement established the framework.
Since then, the interest in and the need for such cooperation have become clearer from one year to the next.
The launch of the budgetary procedure in 1998 has been, in our view, exemplary in this respect.
Hence, the trialogue on the likely priorities for the forthcoming financial year gave rise on 21 April to in-depth exchanges of views between the Presidency of the Council, the Parliament and the Commission with, as a corollary, the introduction of milestones leading to a number of points of convergence of views.
Subsequently, the trialogue of 26 June last ensured that the Council was in a position to understand Parliament's principal wishes better.
This further exchange was extremely valuable for the concertation meeting of 24 July, the very day of the Budget Council. This meeting enabled the parties to set out the points they considered essential, and grapple with the specific difficulties they regarded as inescapably important for this particularly difficult and tough financial year.
Your representatives, Mr President, drew our attention to their priorities for strengthening the measures aimed at encouraging job creation, research and development, preparation of candidate countries for membership and programmes intended for youth and culture, the environmentalization of the budget and the ongoing restructuring of Community administration, in order to ensure greater efficiency and more flexibility in the allocation of resources.
On behalf of the Council, I had the opportunity to emphasize that the institution which I represent was preparing, in the 1998 draft budget, to adhere to the same principles of budgetary rigour as those imposed on themselves and their citizens by the Member States in pursuit of the effort already broadly undertaken in 1997.
This ad hoc concertation made it possible, in my view, to bring about a significant if not complete convergence of views between the two branches of the budgetary authority, with the help of the Commission, particularly as regards agriculture and fisheries expenditure.
In a word, in my view, these contacts were extremely useful.
As regards the CFSP, and over and above the consensus on the total amount of funding recorded in the 1998 budget, we agreed to continue the consultation which was provided for under the institutional agreement signed on 15 July last.
In the light of the results of this meeting, the Council, as required by its obligations, drew up its draft budget for 1998.
In order to meet the inescapable requirement for rigour and budgetary discipline, the Council believed that a number of fundamental measures were indispensable.
These were: maintaining the funds in the preliminary draft of the budget under Category 1 of the financial perspectives; taking into account the current agricultural legislation regarding arable crops and the price package for the 1997-1998 financial year; a reduction of ECU 1 billion in payment appropriations, as compared with the preliminary draft budget, under Category 2, ' Structural Action' ; significant reduction in the payment appropriations for the whole of headings 3, ' Internal Policy, ' and 4, ' External Actions, ' with a consistent expression of these in terms of commitment appropriations.
Finally, a very rigorous approach towards administrative expenditure.
Mr President, in the Council's opinion, all these measures add up to an indissociable whole.
And by the words 'indissociable whole' , I mean the symmetrical handling of both agricultural expenditure and structural expenditure which, taking into consideration the priorities and concerns of the Council, is and will remain essential.
The Council fundamentally expects and relies on Parliament's adherence to this strategy.
In this context, the Council noted with satisfaction that, in its orientations regarding budget procedures for 1998, Parliament recognized and underwrote the need for budget headings to be made in a spirit of maximum realism.
The measures proposed by the Council in its draft budget tend towards that very thing: restricting budgetary allocations to what is strictly necessary, taking account of the realities, but without interfering with the essential policies of the Community, all the while respecting commitments, and in particular those of the Edinburgh European Council.
Mr President, I shall now deal briefly with the essential components of the draft budget drawn up by the Council at first reading.
I shall begin with agricultural expenditure.
In this field, the Council made major changes to the Commission's preliminary draft.
First, under the overall strategy of making savings which I have just outlined, the Council has decided to maintain the spending envelope planned for the 1998 budget, at the level proposed by the Commission in its preliminary draft budget, that is, ECU 40, 987 million, an amount which is some ECU 2, 276 million below the guideline, including the monetary reserve.
Agricultural expenditure is set at ECU 41, 487 million, a very limited increase of some 0.44 % over the current financial year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this decision implies a certain number of deeply incisive measures.
To take into account the agricultural regulations in force, the chapter relating to arable crops has been increased by ECU 1, 353 million, the increase of ECU 55 million arising from the decisions on the price package for the 1997-1998 financial year.
In order to comply with the overall spending envelope, the Council then decided on an across-theboard reduction of some ECU 1, 408 million on all lines of agricultural expenditure.
It was also decided to place ECU 329 million in the B 040 reserve for additional savings identified by the Commission within the framework of a first updating of forecast expenditure for 1998.
The Council has thus implemented the provisions discussed at the meeting of 24 July.
The Council most earnestly urges the European Parliament to underwrite this approach.
I say this with all the more conviction as these measures have been taken while awaiting the presentation by the Commission of a rectificatory letter in the autumn, taking into account the updated forecasts of requirements.
I now come to the field of structural actions.
The Council has recorded all the commitment appropriations proposed by the Commission under the structural funds, that is, ECU 3, 482 million, in line with the final decisions of the Edinburgh Council.
This amount implies substantial growth of 6.14 %.
On the other hand, this is a point which has been widely discussed and debated with representatives of your Committee on Budgets during the ad hoc concertation.
The payment appropriations for this Category have been reduced by ECU 1 billion, a Council decision introducing the second part of its overall savings strategy.
In so doing, the Council wishes to state that such a measure - due to the major difficulties with which we are familiar - should in no way call into question the proper operation of the essential policy financed by such funding. All the more so as the payment appropriations recently made in various sectors.
This is the reason why the Council decided not to entertain the slightest reduction in regard to objectives 1 and 6 of the structural funds and the disadvantaged regions.
The countries which have joined the European Union most recently will therefore not be affected.
The funding decision represents growth of 2.95 % compared to 1997.
If this is not enough to de-escalate the debate, I would add that the Council has agreed not to touch the cohesion fund.
The cohesion fund was not involved in the across-the-board reduction.
Indeed, the Council accepted all provisions in the preliminary draft budget for the cohesion fund, that is, ECU 2, 871 million in commitment appropriations, and ECU 2, 649 million in payment appropriations, hence an increase, as compared with 1997, of 4.40 % in commitment appropriations, and 13.88 % in payment appropriations.
As regards Community initiatives, the Council decided that the additional allocation of ECU 100 million in commitment appropriations, proposed under the Peace initiative, that is, for the Northern Ireland peace process, would be covered by the envelope of commitment appropriations intended for Community initiatives.
Consequently, the Council deleted the negative reserves written into the preliminary draft budget.
This issue, whose political impact requires no further emphasis, was also the subject of a considerable degree of mutual understanding at our meeting on 24 July.
For all these structural actions, the amounts entered into the draft budget were ECU 33, 461 million in commitment appropriations and ECU 27, 400 million in payment appropriations, which have increased by ECU 1, 980 million or 6.3 %, and ECU 1, 100 million or 4.18 %, respectively.
In conclusion, Mr President, on structural policy, I invite the European Parliament to adopt an approach directly in line with that of the Council.
As regards internal policies, this year the Council has once again placed the emphasis on the two priority policies of the Community, research and the transeuropean networks.
Hence, the Council accepts all of the commitment appropriations proposed by the Commission for sub-section B6, i.e. ECU 3, 476 million, virtually equivalent to the status quo in 1997.
As regards payment appropriations, the Council decided, in the light of budget constraints, to reduce the proposed amount from ECU 3, 216 million to ECU 3, 066 million, an overall reduction of ECU 150 million distributed between the Common Research Centre, in an amount of ECU 5.6 million, and the fourth framework program, in an amount of ECU 144 million.
As regards the transeuropean networks, within the framework of chapter B5-7, the Council accepted the preliminary draft budget allocations of commitment appropriations for the financial support of transport networks, in an amount of ECU 475 million, a considerable increase over 1997 of ECU 123 million or 35 % for recorded payment appropriations.
Although ECU 27 million below the amount proposed in the preliminary draft budget, the appropriations increased by 56 %.
As regards energy networks, the draft budget is ECU 2 million below the preliminary draft budget for payment appropriations.
In the telecommunications field, the draft budget is slightly down, in both commitment and payment appropriations.
For amounts under this Category as a whole, the Council has recorded substantial amounts, ECU 560 million in commitments, and ECU 413 million in payments, a rise of ECU 95 million in commitment appropriations or more than 20 %, and of ECU 86 million in payment appropriations, or 26 %.
In so doing, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council very clearly expressed its determination to give preference to these two major policies, and to these two major lines of Community action directly influencing growth and hence employment.
Consequently, as regards other internal policies, the Council has been faced with the need - and this you will understand - to make extremely hard choices.
Hence emphasis has been placed on only those policies which are truly important, such as education, vocational training, and youth, which have been granted ECU 325 million in commitment appropriations, and other social actions, which have been allocated ECU 118 million in commitment appropriations.
Priority was also given to policies which are now well established, such as the environment, with ECU 135 million in commitment funds, a rise of 2.45 %; consumer protection, with ECU 18 million and ECU 16 million, and the internal market, with ECU 207 million and ECU 188 million.
The margin, and this will certainly be of interest to you - as the Parliament from the outset made a tight connection between the margin under Category 15, for agricultural expenditure, and the expenditures under headings 3 and 4 - the margin left by the Council under this financial prospects Category amounts to a substantial ECU 619 million.
The Council earnestly hopes that the other branch of the budget authority will approve similar measures, and hence adopt the Council's approach, which restricts itself to realistic budget spending headings, and devoting European taxpayers' funds solely to those policies which hold out the promise of concrete results.
I now come quickly to the last of the major Community policies financed by the budget, i.e. external actions.
For the whole of sub-section B7, the Council, aside from its reserve for emergency assistance, has allocated ECU 5, 476 million in commitment appropriations, and ECU 4 billion 207 million in payment appropriations, a reduction of ECU 145 million in commitment appropriations and of ECU 341 million in payment appropriations.
These overall figures include different special provisions.
In effect, in this field, the Council believes that the budget authority cannot escape its responsibility for restricting the use of the Union's financial resources strictly to genuine priorities.
So the Council has accepted all the commitment appropriations set out in the preliminary draft budget for the central and eastern European countries, and for third party Mediterranean countries, namely ECU 1, 125 million and ECU 1, 142 million respectively, an increase of 15 %, in accordance with the conclusions of the Cannes European Council.
In relation to international fisheries agreements, and in the light of the further information supplied by the Commission in the course of the concertation procedure on obligatory expenditure, the Council accepted a reduction in the amount planned for commitment appropriations of ECU 5 million, the justification for which was exclusively an overestimate in the forecast.
For fisheries and for obligatory payments, the amounts agreed are ECU 292 and ECU 297 million, a payment appropriations increase of 5.7 % and 20.6 %.
Spending in the field of cooperation with Latin America, Asia, and Southern Africa, including South Africa itself, amounted to ECU 730 million in commitments, and ECU 334 million in payment appropriations.
As another essential arm of the policy of cooperation with the independent states of the CIS, these countries were granted ECU 510 million in commitment appropriations, in line with the preliminary draft budget, and ECU 460 million in payment appropriations.
The share for Tacis amounts to ECU 480 million in commitment appropriations, as provided for in the preliminary draft budget, and ECU 445 million in payment appropriations.
Cooperation with former Yugoslavia has been allocated ECU 259 million in commitment appropriations, in accordance with the preliminary draft budget, and ECU 180 million in payment appropriations.
Furthermore, and once again, the draft budget largely accords with the request of the Commission regarding other cooperation actions, ECU 315 million being allocated to commitment appropriations, particularly for actions for the defence of democracy and human rights, both in central and eastern Europe, and more particularly in Yugoslavia, or in the newly independent states, as well as in Mongolia, Latin America, and the Meda zone.
So while on the one hand the Council has been determined to preserve the fundamental policies under Category 4, by voting for considerable commitment appropriations, it has believed it to be both necessary and its duty to call for further contributions in respect of the payment appropriations required for 1998, while ensuring respect for the requirements of the financial settlement and the interinstitutional agreement, particularly as regards the costefficiency ratio, the possible payment of the funds voted, and, of course, the existence of the appropriate legal arrangements.
As regards foreign and security policy, the Council has adopted a new nomenclature, using six headings in chapter B 8.O1, following the interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament, the Council, and the European Commission, relating to provisions for the finance of the common foreign and security policy, signed on 16 July.
The Council has accepted the funds proposed in the preliminary draft budget, namely ECU 30 million in commitment appropriations, and ECU 20.25 million in payment appropriations, which were the subject of an exchange of views on 24 July last.
The Council has transferred these funds from reserve B 0.40 to the budget lines of the new nomenclature, by application of the interinstitutional agreement.
The remaining margin, under Category 4 of the financial perspectives, amounts to ECU 725 million in the draft budget.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, finally I come to Category 5 of the financial perspectives, that is, expenditure relating to the administrative operation of the Union institutions.
The Council's decisions in this field are based on the following principles.
Firstly, zero growth for all expenditure relating to Category 5 of the financial perspectives, although this does not necessarily exclude quite unavoidable exceptions to the principle; there is also a refusal in principle to create new jobs, except when required for enlarging the Union, while functional requirements must be met by the redeployment of existing resources.
The Council has set total administrative appropriations for all institutions, European Parliament and mediators included, at ECU 4, 301 million, an increase of ECU 18 million, or 0.42 % above the funding agreed in 1997.
Excluding Parliament's budget, the overall amount is ECU 3, 386 million, a reduction of ECU 9.7 million, or 0.29 % compared to the 1997 budget.
Mr President, the Council has held an exchange of views on the impact of funding relating to pensions within the Commission's operating funds.
The Council is of the opinion that, with the support of the two branches of the budget authority, pensions expenditure should be appropriately shared between the institutions.
Indeed, it is not equitable to abide by the negative growth of 2.4 % for the administrative expenses of the Commission alone, as this is the result of rising expenditure due to the redemption of pension rights accruing under institutional arrangements, but charged to Commission services.
With the delegation led by Mr Detlev Samland, we held in-depth exchanges on this question which, if it were to lead to an agreement between the Council and the European Parliament, would in fact restore to the Commission an amount of some ECU 20 million for the 1998 financial year, on the understanding that the principle of zero growth, as decided by the Council for the other institutions would not be called into question.
Following on from the work of the Council, the margin below the ceiling of Category 5 amounts to ECU 239.7 million.
Here I would like to recall the Council's wish, already expressed at the time of the budget meeting of 24 July last, to see Parliament become broadly convinced of the need for the rigour which has guided the Council, and to see the administrative expenditures adopted, if possible, at a single reading.
So, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, those are the main elements of the draft budget drawn up by the Council for 1998.
There is no need to remind you that this final draft, as presented, is shaped by the rigorous measures that the Council has decided upon.
This draft, ladies and gentlemen, is the very opposite of an easy option.
Sacrifices have had to be made by all the Member States, but it must be recognized that the sought-after balance has been achieved through measures which now appear best suited to that major objective, which the Member States are called on to pursue in the domestic field, with a view to the introduction of economic and monetary union.
Furthermore, the Council is perfectly aware of the fact that close collaboration and understanding with your Parliament is essential for the implementation of the balanced budget effort that the Council is proposing.
Mr President, the Presidency will make every effort, throughout the budgetary procedure, and alongside Parliament and the Commission, to finalize a budget which will best serve the interests of the Community.
In conclusion, let me thank all those who have worked in this direction and who will continue to do so in the months to come.
By this, I mean those in the ranks of the Parliament, Mr President, and in particular members of the Committee on Budgets, notably the chairman, Mr Detlev Samland and the two rapporteurs, Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson.
On the Commission side, I would also like to thank Mr Erkki Liikanen, in particular, and the departments with responsibility for the budgets, for their excellent collaboration, which the Presidency has been fortunate enough to enjoy throughout the last few weeks.
So, Mr President, that is the summary of the key points of the draft budget for 1998.
The Council and above all the Presidency remain at the disposal of Parliament to reply to any questions that may be raised.
For my part, Mr President, I thank you for giving me the floor, and for your attention.
Mr President, Mr Fischbach, just a few remarks with regard to the draft Community budget for 1998.
In general, the Dutch and Luxembourg Presidencies have been, and will certainly continue to be, serious in their efforts to contribute to a rigorous and solid Community budget for 1998.
The draft budget, however, falls somewhat short in both respects.
The most important sector - agriculture - looks rigorous but relies on changes in estimates. In other parts the provisions are not sufficient given the commitments of the Union.
As far as agricultural spending is concerned, the key factor in strict budget discipline for the Commission was the proposed cut in per hectare aid for cereal producers.
I can only repeat my regret that the Council has been unable to agree on this or any equivalent real saving measure.
Of course, the Council did not receive much encouragement from Parliament either.
Without any real savings, the efforts of the Council are reduced to cuts in estimates.
At least there is the agreement between the institutions on a rectifying letter before the end of October.
This will make it possible to improve the estimates on the basis of the most up-to-date information.
With regard to payment appropriations for structural funds, the most recent information available to the Commission confirms the amount entered in the preliminary draft budget.
The implementation of the 1997 budget is very high and the available information from Member States indicates ambitious spending targets for 1998.
With regard to categories 3 and 4, Parliament will obviously express its own priorities.
The Commission is ready to work with Parliament and the Presidency of the Council to find the most effective contribution the Community budget can make to the November jobs summit.
Nevertheless, the overall outcome for the budget should leave no doubt that all Community institutions accept and support the budgetary rigour which is a prerequisite for the successful start of economic and monetary union.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commissioner's last remark prompts me to follow on straight away, although I actually intended to deal with this as my final point.
So that the ladies and gentlemen present do not get lost in the Council's maze of budgetary items and gain the impression that we in the Community will be spending more money in 1998 than in 1997, I should like to make a few facts clear: the Commission's budget proposal is about 1.15 % of Community GNP!
For 1992, six budget years ago, this figure was about 1.20 % as a maximum spending limit.
And the Council has now managed to bring this down from 1.15 % to 1.12 %, thus making it clear that the challenges the Community will face as from the 1998 financial year are really not economic ones.
In the same breath the Commission lays before us Agenda 2000, in which it presents the introductory phase of the eastward enlargement beginning in 1998.
The Council furthermore accepts additional cuts for that same financial year, and to top it all the Council tells us: Dear Commission, if you are very good and go along with a proposal to cut funding in Category 2 of the budget - structural policy - then we will give you back ECU 20 million for administrative costs.
Now this is a game that goes beyond the mendacious, and has nothing, absolutely nothing whatever, to do with the challenges facing the Community.
Let me now come to the point I actually meant to start with.
I wanted to praise the President-in-Office of the Council.
The Luxemburg Presidency has been diligent and active.
But it is clear from the results of the vote on the first reading of the budget that it does not matter how diligent and active anyone is: if there are some people sitting on the Council who will not agree - and the majority of them will not - then the result is what we have now, namely an inadequate response to the challenges facing the European Union, both from within and from outside the Union.
Mr President-in-Office, I should like to comment on some of the points you raised. First, agricultural policy.
We made you a fair offer which did not come easily to us.
That was not simple on our side of the House, because the budget and agriculture experts have different views.
But we offered to make a cut in expenditure which was not just done with a lawnmower moving horizontally across the agricultural policy expenditure line, but was aimed at the resources that have always been underspent in recent years.
What could be a better solution, than to examine recent years for evidence of where the budget has been consistently unrealistic in the past? You had neither the courage nor the willingness of your fellow opposition in the Council to undertake such a cut in expenditure.
You agreed merely to do the simplest thing budget-makers can do, namely, make a horizontal cut across all budget items.
I welcome the fact that you have created a reserve, and we invite you to continue to maintain that reserve, because we wanted it.
We wanted a reserve and we should like it if the reserve were even to grow a little during the months leading up to the second reading of the budget in the European Parliament.
A third point. You have had a field day in that 20 % of the expenditure is where you wanted it, just as it is every year.
That was no surprise to us; that was nothing new.
We know the budget items after all, including those to be cut; when you cut Leonardo or Socrates, or when you cut the new voluntary service for young people, none of that is any surprise.
The problem you present us with, however, is that you behave as though you were this European Union's radical savers.
Where it hits the citizen hardest, that is where you are the radical savers of expenditure!
But here, where the citizen is most indirectly affected, you show the courage to cut expenditure by a thousand million.
When I compare agricultural expenditure and cuts, and compare that with expenditure on youth policy, then in youth policy you are showing 24 times the courage you are showing in agricultural policy!
Mr President, Parliament cannot take that line. Nor can we take it at the first reading of Parliament's budget.
We realise that we shall have to apply corrective action to show those we represent that the European Parliament stands for the interests of people.
For us, saving is not an end in itself, but is actually used to achieve the priorities this Parliament has established. That sentence bears repeating.
Throughout the whole debate, whether in my homeland or in the other Member States, whether in relation to monetary union or regardless of monetary union - because we would still have to make savings if there were no monetary union - throughout this whole debate, discussion has only been about saving.
I would like to see the savings discussion at last turn into a discussion of financial management.
After all, saving, in itself, has absolutely no value, whereas there is a lack of an orderly management of the budget, a form to the presentation and implementation of the budget.
You have made it very easy for yourselves by adjourning the debate until next year or the year after, just by drastically reducing the financial resources.
(Applause from the left)
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen.
The Council passed its first resolution at its first reading on 24 July following our coordination meeting, and the Council Presidency has today tried to sell us its allegedly good product, as any good PR man should.
But it is not a good product and the objectives of the Council, unlike those of the Commission and the European Parliament, are stamped with the aim of achieving zero growth at all costs.
So far so good.
However, even the Council knows that this concept contains risks.
No other interpretation can be placed on the formal declaration by the Council that, should the budget for 1998 be insufficient in certain policy areas, particularly payments, it would look favourably on a supplementary budget proposal from the Commission.
I beg leave to say that that is very unusual and has nothing to do with serious budgeting.
The Council proposal differs from the Commission proposal for payments by minus ECU 1.8 billion.
For this reason, the European Parliament has asked the Commission for a position statement to see if there is any legal way in which Parliament could accept the budget under these conditions, as in our view there is a real chance in some areas that budgetary provisions for policies arising from the relevant treaties could not be financed.
The individual specialist committees must state their views, hence the reason for this appeal to colleagues in the House.
In 1985 this was the reason for rejecting the budget, and the situation then was similar in every respect.
The Commission said yesterday at the meeting of the Committee on Budgets that there were no basic doubts from their point of view, but that in the area of Category 2 - structural policy - doubts certainly continued to be felt.
On the subject of Category 1 - agricultural policy - Mr Samland, the committee chairman, has already made a firm statement, so I shall not comment on that again.
Just one more thing for my colleagues on the Committee on Agriculture, and for you as President of the Council: in April we came to an agreement regarding agricultural expenditure, and we know that that ad hoc procedure has yet to be concluded.
There is still a lot needing negotiation here, including the resources you have placed in the general reserve.
Now to Category 2.
You spoke about it at length, Mr President-in-Office. We cannot and will not accept the cut of ECU 1 billion in structural funds payment appropriations.
As long ago as April this year the Commission proved that the outflow of funds had long overtaken the arrears from previous years, and that we were now almost within the budget figures.
The Commission made no secret of the fact that it doubted the legality of its measures regarding cuts in the payment appropriations.
In the tripartite talks on 6 October we expect from you, Mr Council President, and above all from the Commission, a binding proposal on how we should proceed with the peace initiative for Northern Ireland.
Neither the Commission's proposal nor the proposal from the Presidency of the Council - is acceptable to Parliament.
In the meantime the Commission has also adopted this view and is ready to issue a proposal whereby, regardless of existing initiatives and other programmes, that is, without offsetting against them, appropriations which have not been spent may be made available.
We all want the same thing: to help the people of Northern Ireland in a normal way.
Turning to Category 3, Mr Samland said of the general situation that every year it is the same, but it is just a little worse this year.
That puts it in a nutshell.
At Amsterdam stress was laid on the need to inform citizens about the Euro and the Treaty of Amsterdam, but these funds appear in the budget marked "reminder' - which means, for the benefit of those in the public gallery, that the figure is zero.
Had you used this "reminder' in general information policy, we might have been able to understand it, but you used these funds in the reserves for the Prince initiative, which is concerned with the campaign on the Euro and the Amsterdam Treaty, and thus reduced them by about half.
That is incomprehensible.
I would remind you of a decision you yourselves made in Amsterdam: the European Council emphasizes the paramount importance of providing citizens and business with unlimited information about the single market.
You have cut funds for the single market by ECU 17 million and those for public information, section B-33, by 50 %.
The same goes for social actions.
On the one hand the European Council stresses yet again the major importance of supporting employment and reducing the unacceptably high level of unemployment in Europe, particularly amongst young people, the long term unemployed and the less skilled. On the other, you promptly cut social action by 25 %!
As regards Category 4, one is left in principle with the impression that, here too, initiatives have been neglected in favour of zero growth, instead of having a balanced policy for the whole world.
There is no other way of interpreting the fact that you limit your priorities solely to the Mediterranean countries and central and eastern Europe.
In general one may say that the initial attempt, at the end of the debate on the 1998 budget, to target zero growth has become redundant.
Despite the fact that your first reading took place after the Amsterdam Summit, I note that there is no reflection of the importance of employment policy in the premises of the draft budget.
I should like to invite you, as well as the Commission, to join us in searching for solutions.
I know that the Luxemburg Presidency supports that.
So I call on the other 14 Member States: this affects the credibility of us all, after the resolutions you made in Amsterdam.
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, I should first like to welcome Mr Fischbach.
I am sure he will understand if I say to him that I welcome him more than I welcome his message.
I learned at an early age that it may sometimes be necessary to kill the message without shooting the messenger.
In the discussions we had at the trialogue I made one undertaking on behalf of Parliament, one that Parliament had already committed itself to.
That was to honour the arrangements we had always informally agreed to, namely that Parliament would not take more than 20 % of Category 5 appropriations.
Last night I had a discussion with Parliament's Bureau and we concluded the modalities by which that will happen.
There will be a cut of some ECU 4.5 million in the first reading of Parliament's budget that will secure the necessary cuts and will take Parliament, as we always said we would, below the 20 % of Category 5 appropriations.
Those cuts will come principally in Chapter 11 of Parliament's budget and the principal contributory factor will be the beneficial impact of exchange rates between the ECU and the Belgian franc which makes substantial savings possible.
Having said that, the budgetary problems facing us as a Parliament are largely the consequence of decisions taken by the Council itself.
If we look at Parliament's budget and why we ever had the problem about going above 20 % of Category 5 appropriations, we must look at those three places in Europe that have one thing in common - Edinburgh, Maastricht and Amsterdam.
The rather ludicrous decision taken at one and reaffirmed at another are now encapsulated in a draft treaty at the third which says Parliament shall meet like gypsies round Europe and which forces us to create a surplus of hemicycles, an abundance of offices at public expense.
These chaotic and expensive organizational surpluses are something the Council has to accept responsibility for.
Over and above that, when we sought to make the provision of those necessary buildings at the lowest possible cost, Council itself produced the obstructions to us doing so.
The fact that Parliament will have to buy its D3 building in Brussels by using a special purpose vehicle might be to the advantage of the Luxembourg taxpayer who will receive certain benefits from the additional taxes we pay in Luxembourg, but it will cost the European taxpayer about ECU 1 million more in year one than if we had followed the Commission's proposal of direct Community financing of the acquisition of our buildings.
So, the acquisition of buildings in consequence of those decisions has been one problem, but of course in our budget for next year the disposal of our surplus buildings is the other side of the same problem.
I suppose, as rapporteur on Parliament's budget, I have felt precious little like a budget rapporteur and rather more like a peripatetic estate agent, trying to dispose of our surplus physical assets on whoever might be interested in them.
Certainly, as far as Parliament is concerned, next year's budget is seriously contingent upon our ability to dispose of the leases of Belliard I and II building and of the Van Maerlant buildings.
Parliament will accept that challenge, will do those things, will produce its budget and will live within a 20 % of category 5 ceiling.
Having said that, I do not think there is anybody in Parliament, as we go through the necessary cuts to make that possible, who will weep crocodile tears for those who say that this is a necessary contribution towards those Member States who are having to curtail their expenditure in order to meet Maastricht convergence criteria: many of us see the generosity with which they can treat some of their domestic spending programmes and the rather parsimonious approach they adopt towards Europe's budget.
Parliament will play its part this year but we do it in the context of a rather boringly constrained budgetary ceiling which is unnecessary if we are going to meet the aspirations of the citizens of Europe.
(Applause from the left)
Mr President, I seek the floor very briefly, and do so first to thank Mr Samland and the two rapporteurs, Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson, who have spoken in this debate.
Mr Liikanen has replied very concisely and I have nothing to add.
I will just say that the message from the Members of Parliament, the chairman and the two rapporteurs, has come across loud and clear.
But I would like to qualify some of the comments that have just been made.
Obviously I accept that we are arguing very openly, but it must be remembered that even the President of the Council, and all Presidents of the Council, who are either ministers of finance or budget ministers, know perfectly well that the art of budgeting is not to spend more, but to spend more wisely.
I think that this is an exercise to which we are committed on a daily basis in our Member States.
So I do assure you that we are extremely attentive to what you have said.
However I would say to Mr Samland - who is perfectly aware of this, moreover, but did not wish to say so here - that expenditure now amounts to some 1.15 % of Community GDP, whereas three or four years ago, it was around 1.20 %.
It should not be forgotten that the basis of calculation has changed over the last three or four years, and that the GDP of Member States, at Community level, has increased by 2.5 %.
So we must compare like with like, and it should not be insinuated that, in the final analysis, the Community is spending less than it was some four years ago.
We all of us know that constraints have changed, and that in a certain number of fields, the urgent considerations are such, that we cannot indulge in the luxury of making savings to the detriment of the priority interests of the Community, and hence of the European Union itself.
I would also like to tell Mr Tillich that we are well aware of the fact that these deletions from the budget, and even these reductions of payment appropriations are a matter for discussion, but I do not accept that there should be any doubts cast on the determination of the Council to honour the obligations of the European Union.
We made it crystal clear at the Budget Council - and I think Parliament knows this and appreciates it at its full value - that we were prepared to give favourable consideration to any proposal from the Commission, in the event that the payments were not enough to cover commitments entered into.
I think that that is a very important point, and - although I risk the reproach that in the final analysis the Council has made a declaration which does not match its willingness and determination to achieve zero growth in the 1998 budget - I would say that the Council is sufficiently realistic and reasonable to share Parliament's view of all the legal obligations of the European Union.
I will end by saying that the Presidency of the Council is dependent on the Parliament.
It is now up to the Parliament to shoulder its responsibilities.
I await with impatience the discussions that will take place in this hall on 21 October.
I shall certainly be here.
I shall listen very carefully to Parliament's message, and we shall then see.
But there is no need to feel sorry for the Luxembourg Presidency: we are very small, but we are quite strong enough to channel the Council's debate in the right direction.
The debate is closed.
Common organization of the market in bananas
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the position of the World Trade Organization panel on bananas.
Mr President, the truth is that Mr Fischler's words are not very reassuring.
If I have understood his speech correctly, he is disappointed with and concerned about the ruling on the common organization of the market, and he says the Commission is worried, but I think this was the right time for the Commissioner to have told us a little more.
As he correctly reminded us, the appeal decision will probably be ratified on 25 September, and then the Commission has a month to decide what to do - whether to implement the decision or propose some type of compensation.
We would have liked the Commissioner to have given us a little more guidance today, because something he mentioned only briefly seems very important to us. Namely, that the banana regime is not just a deal for the Community and the ACP states.
As he well knows, for many mountainous countries it is virtually the only export, and it has a decisive influence on their social, economic and political structure. So for many ACP states, raising questions about this regime can mean raising questions about their very economy and political life.
That is why it is so important for us to emphasize this.
And we urge the Commission to do something more than worry about being disappointed.
We want the Commission to tell us what solutions it is proposing in order to redress the situation, which is of vital importance for peripheral areas of the Community and for third countries with which we have long maintained relations.
I repeat, disappointment is not enough.
We want the Commission, as the executive, to be able to offer positive responses for the future of something which is tremendously important for the economy and the social and political life of other countries.
We want a little more effort from the Commission on this problem.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, like the earlier ones, this latest diktat from the World Trade Organization in this banana war is deeply disagreeable in tone, not to say unacceptable to the European Union.
The Commissioner has informed us of the bureaucratic terms of the diatribe, which is his job.
However, as rapporteur for this Parliament on the common organization of the banana market, it is up to me to mention another aspect of the problem, which cannot be reduced to mere economics and law.
Production of bananas in ACP countries, overseas territories and the Community represents more than an item in the trade balance; it is a crucial factor in general economic and social equilibrium.
The banana is an endemic crop in these countries, it represents the history of the inhabitants but it may have no future if this absurd trade agreement continues to be escalated.
The high cost of production and marketing means ACP bananas are not competitive on the world market with dollar area bananas, predominantly produced in South America and marketed by United States multinationals.
These bananas have a monopoly of the United States market and are also conquering the world market.
In Europe they have 70 % of the market, compared with 30 % for Community and ACP bananas.
At least this has been the case up to now as, with the contesting of the recent common organization of the market, the trend will be to remove even this small portion, which the poorest depended or depend on thanks to the compensation mechanism.
The World Trade Organization states that those who fail to be competitive must stop producing bananas, use them themselves and grow something else.
It is difficult to imagine diversification with such traditional products, and it would also be like changing the cultural connotations, as well as the environmental and economic ones, of entire regions.
In addition, it would legitimize a highly speculative system. In Ecuador the growers get $3-4 a box which is then resold at $22-23.
An ACP box has a cost price of $8-9 and is sold for $16-18.
Besides, dollar area bananas also rely on a heavy reduction in duties.
The compensation to ACP countries serves to guarantee the survival of this crop.
I am not even sure if the item involved merits a trade agreement.
Try asking that in Guadeloupe, Martinique, the Dominican Republic or the Canaries.
Finally, Mr Commissioner, Somalia.
Not one of the clauses contained in the COM document approved by this Parliament has yet been applied.
The endemic state of civil war continues to prevent the export of Somalia's quota.
And the absurd thing is that, on the one hand, we do not help them to be self-sufficient, but on the other we rush to help them with humanitarian aid and even then, Mr Commissioner, it is always the American multinationals who gain.
Mr President, when we endorsed the GATT Agreement it implied that we also agreed to an independent body to settle disputes.
We also knew at that time that certain statements before this panel could turn out badly for us.
That is now clearly the case, but I think there is no alternative but to respect it.
The first question that arises is what the Commission proposing to do.
For my group, how banana producers in the European Union itself will be affected is important. We feel that these producers must be treated in the same way as other producers of agricultural products in Europe.
The second point, if I have understood correctly, is whether or not this decision adversely affects the Lomé Agreements.
If that is the case, then it is important to know what reference quantity the Commission will use.
The decision says we must use the pre-1991 quantities. What exactly are they?
Before 1991 there was no common market in bananas. How will this quantity be accurate?
With regard to the Lomé Agreement, it is also important to know what sort of compensation may be available for the ACP countries. Can they diversify their economies with European support?
And finally, Mr President, perhaps it is still possible to devote some attention in the Commission's statement to a point that I also mentioned in May and that is, is it possible to give rather more preference to 'fair-crate' bananas, bananas which have been produced in an ecologically sound way and in a socially acceptable manner?
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the United States do not produce bananas, nor do they export them.
So it is to defend the interests of the great banana companies that exploit Latin America and dominate the world market that they have made a complaint to the WTO against the Community banana imports system.
The WTO appeal panel has just confirmed the initial conclusions, by rejecting the Commission's appeal.
This decision is unacceptable.
It proves once again that, as in the case of hormone meat, the WTO is solely guided by the blind pursuit of free trade, without any concern for the interests of the poorest, the developing countries and Community producers.
It must be accepted that the WTO ruling was favoured by divisions between the Member States, which weakened the Community position.
From this point of view, the German leaders played a very harmful role by disputing the common organization of the banana market, even before the Court of Justice.
Just like German livestock breeders or cereal growers, Community banana producers have a right to have their incomes protected and Community preference applied.
Commissioner Brittan has just called on the Member States to comply with WTO decisions, by accepting the good with the bad.
This is not the position of our group.
In agriculture, be it bananas or hormone meat, there is only the bad and the very bad.
In its proposed resolution, our group insists anew that neither the European Union nor the Member States should give in to the dictates of the WTO, and that they should do all in their power in order to protect the vital interests of the Community producers and the ACP countries.
What do you intend to do, Mr Commissioner? For our part, we say we must refuse to change the banana COM, just as we must refuse to pay financial compensation.
By resisting the WTO ruling, it will be possible to open the way to revising the mechanisms of that organization and its procedures for settling disputes so as to take more account of social, health, cultural and environmental concerns.
Mr President, even in 1994, following the decision of the GATT group of experts, it should have been clear that the common organization of the banana market did not conform to the rules of free international trade.
The GATT and the WTO are blind to the requirements of consumer protection, environmental protection and social standards.
The GATT agreement obeys only the logic of unfettered free trade.
Even in December 1994, we Greens rejected the WTO Basic Agreement in this Parliament, and were half criticized for it.
So it is nice to see that some of those in the grand coalition of uncritical WTO-sympathisers have in the meantime found their way to a somewhat more realistic assessment of the World Trade Organization. There are some here in Parliament, and - if Mr Fischler can be believed - there are apparently some in the Commission.
The WTO threatens the development policy aims of the Community.
I am afraid the ruling against the common organization of the banana market will become a precedent for condemning all cooperation with ACP states.
The Lomé Agreement is subject to a WTO exemption only until February 2000.
Then the World Trade Organization regulations will force a basic modification to the development cooperation of states in the European Union.
I do not mean by this that the banana COM was perfect in every way.
Clearly it did not only serve development policy objectives, but because of the system of licensing allocations, it also fuelled competition for market share between the banana multinationals.
Quotas should be allocated to producing countries, not to importing companies.
Small and medium businesses, and fair trade initiatives in particular, need appropriate access to the European market.
An explicit fair trade quota, as has always been demanded by the European Parliament, must at long last be introduced.
By just such a generously tailored quota for production resulting from social and environmental agreements, EU development policy objectives can be made more visible.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, we were all really eager to see what was going to happen and, following your brief speech, we are all a bit disappointed.
On behalf of our group, I want to express our definite support of any initiative the European Commission may take, whether legal or administrative, in order to be able to maintain and improve the Community banana regime and thereby guarantee the interests of our producers and those of the ACP states.
We must prevent the weight of the North American multinationals, whose only aim is to obtain high economic benefits, from weakening and destroying a sector with as many social repercussions as the banana sector. This is a sector whose importance for certain regions of the Union (such as the Canary Islands and the French overseas departments) and certain ACP countries goes beyond economics and simple profit, since it represents their system of survival.
I sincerely believe, Commissioner, that this aspect should be kept very much in mind.
I have received six motions for resolutions under Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, the banana story is drawing to a close. But this is not a happy ending.
The story is an example.
It is not just a matter of an import licence arrangement, a purely technical dossier, it is yet another stage in the great transatlantic war for the control of plant and animal proteins, for the control of the food weapon, with all the familiar stages in that war: wheat war, maize war, genetically modified organisms war, meat war.
Sometimes we win, or we gain a little time.
For somatotropin, for hormone milk, the codex alimentarius has granted us one extra year.
For non-pasteurized cheese, we have one extra year.
For mineral water, we have been able to impose our definition, which is stricter than the wide definition in the United States.
The water will really have to come out of the ground, and not be a sort of mineral Coca-Cola.
But on hormone meat and on bananas, well, we are losing.
We know the story: Mexico, Ecuador, Honduras and Guatemala, four states enslaved to the United States, have decided to make a complaint - all the others have made an agreement with us - supported by the United States who have no direct interest in the business, except that these countries are where Chiquita, Delmonte and Dole have taken up residence.
These banana-dollar billionaires say that they are the victims of discrimination.
They dispute the preferential regime granted to the poor people of Africa, the Caribbean or the Pacific, and in so doing they are calling into question the policies of the European Union, and even the European Union itself, which might possibly be the least negative aspect of this whole affair.
So first our cooperation and development policy is called into question.
Lomé IV is being disputed.
This is the preferential regime granted to the Cameroons and the Ivory Coast, which goes back to General de Gaulle in 1960.
It was also one of the conditions of the Common Market.
All these small growers, who have a low level of technology, only account for 7 % of the Community market, some 850, 000 tonnes as against the 2, 500 million tonnes offered to the North American multinationals, and all of this is supposedly getting in the way of the giants.
This is a perfect expression of economic imperialism, which has gone so far that compensation is being rejected.
Even if we were prepared to pay compensation, the United States would not take it. They want crushing domination.
Our regional policy for the ultraperipheral regions is called into question because we produce at ECU 50 a day in the Canaries, Madeira, Guadeloupe and Martinique, whereas the multinationals produce at a cost of ECU 50 per month, with their slaves.
With regard to Honduras, I would remind you that the Honduras army is in multinational hands, and that when the Honduras tax authorities wish to levy taxes on a crate of bananas, they are forbidden to do so.
Our budget policy is called into question.
Indeed, at ECU 75 of customs duties per tonne, multiplied by 2, 500 million tonnes, under the pretext of the accession to EU membership of Austria, Sweden and Finland - this all adds up to a gift of ECU 2 billion in banana duties.
I don't know where Mrs Gradin is, who shows such concern about the financial interests of the European Community and about fraud, but here is a wonderful case of fraud, fraud on the weight of the crates, not to mention the German political parties, who may not be lily-white with regard to Chiquita.
Finally, our sovereignty over standards is being called into question, our legal sovereignty.
European law has had judgement made against it in the first instance, and in the second instance, in Geneva, by a small panel made up of Australians, Swiss and British.
The superiority of Community law is called into question, by which I mean the law of the Court of Justice of the European Community, the Costa decision against ENEL in 1963, where Community law prevailed over national law.
Now Community law is dominated by Geneva law.
This is the victory of globalization over regionalism. And the single currency, may I say with your permission, would not have changed things very much.
We have been despoiled of our national sovereignty, in favour of Brussels. Brussels is abrogating its rights in favour of Geneva.
What is left of the European Union sovereignty, before it has even been constituted?
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his comments and I especially welcome those comments which, in effect, suggested that the repercussions will go far beyond bananas. That is true.
This ruling spells despair for many ACP countries. They now have a tremendous fear of future WTO rulings.
Unlike some of my colleagues I did not expect too much from the Commissioner's statement at this point. The reason I say that is because I hope he is still discussing with his colleagues what approach to take to arbitration on 25 September.
What we need to know is whether the Commission is determined to get as good a result as it can.
We now have to make the best of a bad job.
The ruling has been made, whether we like it or not.
What we now have to do is try to salvage something from it.
When Mrs Kinnock, Mr Thomas and I were in the Windward Islands in May it was quite obvious that the producers there were living in fear - and I mean fear - of the WTO ruling.
Now that it has appeared, goodness knows what they feel like.
They said to us that they accept that liberalization and globalization are inevitable in the future.
But what they need more than anything is time - time to adjust to a very competitive market; in some cases it will take at least five years and in other cases it will take a far longer period until they can compete with dollar-banana producers.
I therefore ask the Commissioner to take that on board. It is essential.
If he can get those types of concessions from the arbitration deal on 25 September he will have done the Windward Islands a tremendous favour. Parliament wants to help.
We want to play our part. We will do so and we will support you; but we need a commitment from the Commission that this is a real attempt to salvage something from this deal.
I am afraid that in this case free trade means that those countries are free to see their economies and their democracies actually collapse.
This arbitration outcome is essential.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have been discussing the banana regulations in this Parliament for a considerable time and many of the arguments that have been presented ever since I entered Parliament, rather more than three years ago, have been repeated today.
The debate in this House has moved on a little, however, and I want to emphasize that for anyone who has not entirely grasped that fact.
In May we held a discussion about the first WTO ruling.
Our debate at that time was very heated, and so was the discussion in our delegation; there were even some who felt that the ruling was unacceptable.
The majority decided, however, not to support the wording that the ruling was unacceptable, and I made sure that the liberal group did not support that move either at that time.
So some movement has entered into the debate.
If you now read the motion by the Group of the European People's Party, many of you may be surprised that the PPE of all groups is calling for the Commission to present a proposal to amendment the common organization of the market.
Why has this happened? Obviously it is primarily due to the WTO.
I believe we have no alternative but to initiate an amendment, because there is no further appeals procedure at the WTO.
Many may perhaps think that we could now offer compensation, but that is certainly not correct.
Those who have complained can make us a proposal for compensation.
If they do not do so - and that appears to be the case - then debating compensation is not an alternative.
The only alternative would be to call the whole WTO into question, but I do not think the majority of this House would want that.
Although the WTO could be further developed, social and environmental standards could be more strongly represented, a majority of this House would not essentially question the existence of the WTO.
For my second point I should like to mention the reason why we should like to see the market regulation amended.
But it is my personal opinion, and there is still heated debate in my parliamentary group about it.
I believe it exhibits important weaknesses.
This is not something I know nothing about: I have investigated the situation in Guadeloupe and St. Lucia, as well as in Latin America.
This is in no way a case of the good guys being in the ACP and European producer states, and the baddies in Latin America.
That is simply not so.
In Ecuador there are more small producers than in the whole of the Windward Islands put together.
In Ecuador 60 % of the bananas are marketed by small producers, and they particularly suffer from lack of access to the European market.
They are coming under even more pressure from the multinationals.
This cannot represent the intention of the initiator.
I feel, therefore, that it is high time for the COM to be amended.
The concept of fair trade as proposed by Mr Miller and Mr Kreissl-Dörfler should in my view receive greater emphasis, regardless of the origin of the bananas, as far as that is possible.
In any case, we cannot avoid an amendment, and I am pleased that here, too, the debate is moving forward.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure I need not remind you that the Community regulation setting up the COM in bananas is the result of a compromise respecting a balance between the interests of the various sources of Community supply (ACP and dollar area), and takes into account earlier commitments of the European Union, namely Community preference, preferential access for ACP state bananas, and GATT rules with regard to third countries.
The facts available to us, and your speech, Commissioner, lead to the conclusion that the COM in bananas will disappear.
If such is really the case, it is not just the banana marketing system that is under threat, but the entire Community banana policy.
Aside from the question of Community preference and privileged access for our traditional partners, there is a point that I, for my part, would wish to raise, and which, unless there is an agreement between ourselves and those who are attacking our production, would finally condemn European production. This is the question of the distribution of licences, as laid down in regulation 404/93.
The distribution of licences for imports of the allowable quota was set up to establish a balance, in the European Union market, between different types of operator.
If the basic regulations of 404/93 had granted operators import certificates and customs quotas only on the basis of purchases of Latin American bananas made in the three years prior to the COM, B operators, who had never in the past purchased these bananas, would not, on the basis of that criterion, have had access to the import certificate.
By setting out a specific provision, namely the granting of 30 % of import licences for Latin American bananas to B operators, the basic regulations precisely avoided the maintenance in the EU single market of the de facto monopoly granted prior to the COM by operators who had always marketed exclusively Latin American bananas.
The maintenance of this monopoly would have been all the more unlawful as Latin American bananas are less costly and would furthermore have been the only ones under the regulations to benefit from the increase in consumption of bananas in the Community market, due to the restrictions on deliveries of Community and ACP bananas, while the customs quota is adaptable in the light of increase in consumption.
Also, everything must be done to maintain the banana COM in its current form.
Banana producers have a right, under the same heading as other agricultural producers, to support from the Union and to the benefits of Community preference.
Production in the Caribbean, which is regularly hit by natural disasters, will not survive if the principle of distribution of licences is not protected.
I would like to remind you that in the ultraperipheral regions, the banana is the driving force in the economy.
Mr President, the rejection of the European Union's efforts to retain the banana regime spells utter disaster to small banana-growers in the Caribbean, in Europe and elsewhere.
This decision demonstrates how the world free trade system, which we are building, enables rich and powerful multinationals to destroy the livelihoods of poor but hard-working people.
The producers who have been hit did not represent any threat to the principal banana-growers and suppliers on the Latin American continent.
The plantation workers of Chiquita, Del Monte and the other multinationals will not receive much benefit. Their remuneration is poor, their conditions are bad and their rights to organize TUs are limited.
At this stage it is difficult to see what can be done to defend the victims of this situation.
I had hoped that the Commission would spell out the options more carefully.
Every possible effort must be made to provide help if the changes go through. But we should also consider all alternative means of supporting the banana industry in these circumstances.
We should consult the governments and representatives of all those affected and go back to the World Trade Organization and say that this decision is totally unacceptable.
More must, however, be done if this results in the ruination of small economies, increased poverty, a boost to drug production and criminality.
We must seek to put in hand measures to modify the system itself.
The Commission, Parliament and the Council should come together to formulate a programme, perhaps convening a conference and conducting a campaign to safeguard the interests of all small producers at risk, of whom the small banana producers are typical.
And, we must, of course, continue to the end to give every possible support to those people who are the victims of this decision.
(Applause )
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the European Union has a priority obligation to defend, at all times and in all circumstances, the interests of the Member States and their regions, and also to honour the commitments it has made with third countries.
This position is all the more compelling when it involves the defence of the interests of European regions which are heavily penalized by negative structural factors in their economies and limited development, aggravated by peripheral geography and territorial discontinuity.
Banana production in European regions like the Autonomous Region of Madeira constitutes the principal and sometimes the only source of income for many thousands of Madeiran families and makes a strong contribution to the environmental balance of the region.
The economic and environmental damage, amongst other things, of having to reduce banana production in Madeira drastically, as a result of complete liberalization of trade in this product, is incalculable.
It will be unacceptable for the European Union not to maintain and defend a policy of quantitative management of the European market.
Especially when - as is widely known - Community producers are not competing under the same conditions as others in a completely free market.
We think it would be appropriate to affirm now that, along with this policy of quantitative management, the European Union must continue to have available a system of income support, already in existence moreover, and that it must not only be maintained but must be fundamentally strengthened.
The policy of cooperation and support to the development of ACP countries established for decades and enshrined in successive Lomé agreements and in the European development fund is a necessary and sufficient basis to make it unacceptable for the European Union not to be able to apply preferential treatment to these countries in the banana sector, when it maintains this same preferential treatment in many other sectors.
For all these reasons and many more, which fall outside these terms of reference, we would like to corroborate and strengthen here the motion for a resolution presented by the Group of the European People's Party.
And, if possible, we would also like to know the Commissioner's views.
Mr President, I realize that, because of the delicacy of the issue, Commissioner Fischler has been extremely cautious this afternoon.
Next week the Commission will have to make an important decision, and I think it is a good thing that we have the opportunity to express our opinion to the Commissioner before the Commission makes that decision. I also hope that the Commissioner is taking note of what is being said in this Parliament which, as the Commissioner will see, is composed of a wide political and geographical spectrum, in which not only the banana-producing countries but also the majority of Parliament defend a stable regime.
I should like to draw the Commission's attention to a point which has perhaps not been sufficiently stressed this afternoon. What we have been dealing with is free trade.
Has it occurred to the Commission or the World Trade Organization that the greatest attack on free trade at the moment is being perpetrated by the multinationals who have turned the world banana market into a cartel? The other day I travelled on a plane with some independent producers from Ecuador, who represent about 25 % of the banana production, and they assured me that they have no freedom - they have no choice but to hand over their fruit to the multinationals.
Besides having converted the world market into a cartel and having 100 % of the North American market, which is a very rich market, the multinationals at the moment have 65 % of the Community market.
If current attempts to establish this regime in the name of free trade lead to the loss of the small 30 % of the Community market which is all that remains to Community producers and ACP countries which have traditionally exported to the Union, then we will have done away with free trade.
I believe, Mr Commissioner, that at this moment the Commission has some regulations about free competition under Community law which the World Trade Organization has failed to take into account; it must be remembered that the World Trade Organization also has powers relating to services.
What is being attempted is precisely the destruction of free trade.
Free trade is not being defended. It is we who must defend free trade against the cartelization of the banana market by the large multinationals.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is important for the European Union to respect international agreements and, as part of this, the rulings of international courts.
It is important for the very reasons that we want Member States of the EU to respect EU rules.
We have entered into these agreements because in many respects nation states are too small and because it pays to cooperate within a common set of rules, even if in some cases we think the rules are against us.
Ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is founded on the realization that free trade benefits the world economy and our own economy.
That is why we participate in the World Trade Organization.
Within that organization we have, like other countries, made certain commitments which must be respected.
If we break them because they do not suit us, other countries will break their commitments when it suits them but does not suit us.
The discriminatory import barriers which we are now discussing were introduced because, if they were given a free choice, consumers would to a large extent prefer to buy bananas from other sources.
Imports should therefore be deregulated also out of consideration for consumers.
Import barriers lead to bananas being more expensive than they would otherwise be.
If this import system did not conflict with international agreements we have entered into, such a price increase might possibly be acceptable, but then only on condition that the import barrier really provided proper support for the development of the ACP countries.
But it does not.
The import regulations are very complicated and have given rise to a trade in licences as a result of the extra money consumers are forced to pay.
To a considerable extent this money ends up in the hands of bureaucratic middlemen.
Therefore the EU must change its current rules on the banana trade for several reasons: because it is in accordance with our international commitments, because it would benefit consumers, and because there are more effective ways to support the developing countries within the ACP in their efforts to find forward-looking structures of production.
If we do not follow the WTO's ruling we will be exposed to costly counter-measures.
The EU's credibility, when we talk in the WTO and elsewhere about free trade and respect for agreements entered into, will be damaged.
Mr President, I thank Commissioner Fischler for affording us this opportunity to discuss a very important issue.
I am sure he would acknowledge, as I do, that the clear winner after this WTO ruling is Chiquita bananas.
It is as a direct result of the improper influence which Chiquita exerted over the US Administration that the complaint was originally made to the WTO.
As I am sure he is aware, a Senate committee is now looking at this influence and perhaps will shed some light on what was a rather sordid part of the US presidential election campaign.
The Caribbean producers have been somewhat perplexed at the ruling of the WTO.
They were denied full participation in the WTO, their legal representatives were expelled from the WTO and then, to cap it all, an American chaired the appeal.
If you can call this impartial or if you can acknowledge that this is completely insensitive to the needs of the Caribbean, then I am sure you would wish to do that.
Last week I visited the United States and I was astonished at the number of times I had to remind them that aid is no substitute for trade and that we have a very important development commitment here.
It is one that they are completely ignorant of, and they are completely ignorant of the impact of this decision on the Caribbean.
I would like some clarification from the Commissioner on whether the precedent set by the Japanese agreement of 15 months ago on compliance is one which the Commission will be sticking to.
I would also like to know whether the Commission is aware of the American amendments to our regime which have been drawn up at this moment and whether it intends to object to them, as I hope.
Finally, I would like to ask whether we might have some consistency from the Commission.
Sir Leon Brittan says that we have other irons in the fire and that therefore we must accept the hormone/beef decision and the banana decision.
Commissioner Pinheiro says that we must have very clear development objectives in our international economic relations.
Commissioner Fischler says that we should not implement the hormone panel findings but provide compensation.
He is no doubt right. So why can we not consider a similar approach to the banana dispute as he has adopted to the hormone panel disputes?
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, it is well-known that the distribution of import licences is one of the bases of the COM in force since 1993, limiting entry of Central American bananas so as to guarantee the marketing of Community and ACP country production.
The conclusions of the WTO panel were firmly on the side of the countries which appealed against the current COM in bananas.
Knowing that if we accept its decision the attraction for importers to buy Community bananas ceases to exist, and they will buy bananas from whoever gives them the most profit, that is, from the American multinationals, what measures does the Commission propose to take?
Will it guarantee the marketing of Community banana production without loss of income to the growers? Will it prevent this crop being abandoned so as to maintain the beneficial effects on the countryside and the environment, factors which have so much influence on the tourist industry, itself the generator of tens of thousands of jobs in the ultraperipheral regions, including the Autonomous Region of Madeira?
Mr President, it is hard to do justice to the extreme injustice of this decision in one minute but I will try to portray to Members the conversations Mrs Kinnock and I had in Washington last week.
I have to say that the Caribbean ambassadors were utterly devastated by this decision.
They feel they have nowhere to turn, that they have been heavily penalized and hammered by a large country and squeezed out by multinationals.
We believe that this is unfair. They represent only 3 % of world trade.
As European consumers it is our right to be able to buy bananas from those areas which represent good value for money and which reflect the democratic rights and good social standards that we expect and promote in those countries.
I believe that the Commission has a very firm obligation to help out those countries.
It is no good saying, as the US has said to us, that diversification is the answer.
They said very glibly 'textiles is the answer' , but it has to be pointed out that the US is one of the most protectionist countries in textiles in the world.
That is not the answer for those countries.
We want to exercise our right. We want to ensure that they do have a right to grow bananas, in particular in the interests of the many people involved in banana production in those countries.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
Chernobyl, Khmelnitsky and Rovno 4 nuclear reactors
The next item is the oral question by Mr Scapagnini (B4-0519/97 - O-0087/97), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, to the Commission, on the closure of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor by 2000 and the completion of the Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4 nuclear reactors in Ukraine.
Mr President, today our committee would like to put on record that eleven years after the Chernobyl disaster, the problem is still unresolved.
The solution is linked to the will to affirm the role of the European Union in the recovery and development of countries like Ukraine where distortions linked to the move from a state economy to a market economy persist, distortions which are a burden on daily life.
We have heard and you will hear from Mr Adam how this state of affairs continues to weigh down everyday life in those countries.
The European Union has an instrument - pretty limited, true - in the Euratom loans to improve the safety and efficiency of reactors in third countries.
It is also true that we, as a Community, are the principal contributors to what is called 'nuclear safety' at the EBRD, created to manage G-24 aid to the eastern countries.
The Memorandum of Understanding signed in Ottawa in December 1995, provided for the closure of the Chernobyl reactor in the year 2000, completed by a long term energy strategy including, as a least cost investment plan, the completion of reactors K2 and R4 which you, Mr President, have mentioned.
The report, chaired by Professor Surrey of Sussex University, was followed, as we know, by an avalanche of documents, including the Lahmeyer and Stone & Webster report, the subject of analysis by our parliamentary committee.
All this has done no more than create further confusion on the matter and has not indicated a clear route for taking a decision at Community level.
We recall that we have held specific hearings on this issue, we have listened to the experts, we have also analysed the positions of those countries, of the energy committees and agencies, but the plain fact is that nothing has changed.
The EBRD itself has established a series of working groups in order to clarify to what point the conditions of economic viability, environmental viability and nuclear safety are respected in the chosen option - least cost investment - to complete the Russian-designed WWER 1000 megawatt electrical power Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4 reactors, to meet the safety standards approved by whoever originally conceived of these nuclear reactors.
Time is passing and the decision of the EBRD is still awaited.
That is why we strongly urge the European Commission to let us know its own position on this matter and to make it very clear whether we should await the position of the EBRD or not; otherwise - clearly - we have to assess whether the European Union should dissociate its actions as regards Euratom loans from the activities of the EBRD, whose logic could diverge from the Community's modus operandi on this particular dossier.
Mr President, despite the multiple difficulties we have faced in getting to the truth of the matter, we are now aware of a range of different interpretations of the facts themselves and we have succeeded in getting a general picture of the situation thanks to the excellent work of Mr Gordon Adam.
As you know, the vice-chairman of our committee has been to Ukraine several times, he has kept us up-to-date on what is going on and will be in a position to summarize it to the House with full knowledge of the facts.
In May he returned with extremely important news, backed up by the interparliamentary delegation chaired by Mrs Erika Mann.
Mr Adam's excellent report in fact ends with a disturbing analysis of the need for Ukraine to be independent in present and future energy resources.
Mr President, we anxiously await the Commission's response to this question.
The importance of this issue and the tragedy of a situation, unchanged for eleven years, and capable of having dramatic repercussions on us all at any time, escapes no-one.
Mr President, I am sorry to interrupt this debate, but I am somewhat confused.
I understood that we were to have a response from the Commissioner to the previous debate and that we would not just move on to the next debate.
Do we have to wait until the end of this debate to give Commissioner Fischler the chance to respond? What exactly is happening?
Mrs Kinnock, the Commission did not ask to reply on the last item and that is why I closed the debate, precisely because there was no request to speak.
We are now on another item.
Mr President, first of all I want to apologize for being late.
I would like to go into Mr Scapagnini's question about Chernobyl and I will begin by giving a brief general picture concerning Chernobyl before dealing with specific questions in more detail.
In December 1995 the G7 decided on a comprehensive programme to support the decision by President Kuchma to proceed with the closure of Chernobyl in the year 2000.
In 1995 the Memorandum of Understanding was drawn up, containing various measures for the reform of the energy sector in Ukraine with the aim of establishing an energy sector that conforms with the market.
The emphasis is on the implementation of measures to achieve energy saving and greater energy efficiency.
Furthermore, there are also measures to modernize non-nuclear generation and to increase the safety of the existing nuclear reactors.
The G7 has now made considerable progress in the implementation of this programme.
Some US$ 1 billion in the form of loans have been made available for investments in non-nuclear projects and some $ 500 million have been raised for the purchase of equipment, the subsidizing of technical studies and projects relating to the closure of the Chernobyl power plant.
The $ 100 million recently made available by the Commission for the renewal of the sarcophagus also forms part of the sum of $ 500 million.
Important aspects of the G7 policy for Ukraine are therefore the modernization of thermal and hydro-electric power stations, the promotion of energy saving, but also, as rightly stated by the European Parliament, the financing of the dismantling of two nuclear power stations, Rovno 4 and Khmelnitsky 2, still under construction.
As is well-known, the financing of this project has been the subject of frequent consultation within the G7.
A number of important points are at issue here.
The agreements in force as laid down in the Memorandum of Understanding must be observed in full.
Because the objective of closing Chernobyl in the year 2000 can in no way be jeopardized.
Particularly as the only reactor still in operation, unit 3, is in poor condition as was recently confirmed again in a report by independent experts.
Moreover, financing by us offers the only guarantee that the dismantling of the uncompleted plants will take place in accordance with international nuclear safety standards.
As stated in the MOU, the financing of the reactor must take place on the basis of the least cost principle; however, in practice it has transpired that it is difficult to come to unambiguous conclusions on this point.
Renowned international organizations and experts differ in their opinions on the parameters to be taken as the starting point for studies of least cost.
Future economic developments in Ukraine and the resulting demand for energy, for example, are difficult to determine and estimate.
Taking all this into consideration, after serious and in-depth deliberation with the other G7 partners, the Commission has come to the conclusion that a phased implementation of the Rovno 4 and Khmelnitsky 2 project offers the best guarantee for the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding.
This implies that after the completion of the preparatory work in the first half of next year, the financing of the first unfinished reactor can be set in motion by Euratom.
The Commission is, however, of the opinion that this can only happen if at that time the other international financial institutions, in the first place, and particularly the EBRD, have also played their part and made a loan available; if, furthermore, the Ukraine authorities have again confirmed that Chernobyl will be closed in the year 2000 and also if sufficient guarantees are obtained for the dismantling of the reactors on the basis of international nuclear safety standards; and if, finally, a number of other technical and financial conditions have been met satisfactorily.
That brings me to the more specific questions.
Mr President, I have sensed a certain dissatisfaction in Parliament about the provision of information on this complicated but at the same time politically sensitive subject.
As a result of this I have instructed the Commission departments to send you immediately, Mr President, copies of studies, reports and other relevant material.
I have also in the last few months personally had detailed discussions on a number of occasions with individual members of Parliament concerned about these problems.
With the aid of our Tacis technical assistance programme a safety programme for the two uncompleted reactors concerned has been developed.
Guidelines from the International Atomic Energy Agency underlie this programme.
Independent experts have also carried out a study of the current state of the two reactors. As you know, they are 70 % completed but the work has been stopped for some years.
The condition of the reactors has therefore deteriorated to a certain degree and some additional work will probably be necessary.
There is close collaboration between the EBRD and the Commission with regard to the preparation of the loan applications, although the criteria and procedures for the EBRD on the one hand and Euratom on the other hand do differ from each other.
The EBRD in particular has not yet prepared a final judgment on the loan application submitted to it. We are also awaiting, I believe, a final study by the European Investment Bank before the Euratom loan can be finalized.
The Commission recently responded to the report by the European Court of Auditors on activities of Tacis in the field of nuclear energy in Ukraine.
On the basis of this report, a number of mainly administrative measures have been taken.
The report, however, did not contain any explicit reference to the two unfinished nuclear reactors.
Finally, I would point out that there is no direct involvement of the EBRD nuclear safety account in the implementation of the R4/K2 project.
As far as I know, this programme is being implemented with due regard to the content of the relevant Council decision.
Mr President, few countries in the world have more difficulty producing, importing and using energy than Ukraine. I quote from the International Energy Agency's report on energy in Ukraine which was published very recently.
We are faced with a mix of economic and political issues on a grand scale.
First of all, the Ukrainians are very concerned about their energy dependence.
They are very dependent on Russia for oil and gas and they do not want to become any more dependent than they are at present.
The prospects in their own coal industry are not good so it is not surprising that they have decided to carry on with their nuclear industry.
I have to say that I do not think there is any likelihood of the country giving up its nuclear option.
That is something we have to come to terms with.
It becomes a question of what sort of safety culture is going to operate. Is it going to be the old Russian standards, or is it going to be the safety culture we have developed here in Western Europe?
The other problem they are facing is the question of introducing a free market, in particular in electricity.
Private customers are not doing badly in paying their bills but the large industrial consumers are still trying to barter.
There is not an electricity market in anything like the sense that we would understand it. We cannot expect it be done in five minutes.
After all, it took our own European Council six years to work out how it would have an internal electricity market here.
Energoatom, the company which is managing a privatized nuclear industry with considerable funding from the European countries is now operating under a new chairman and under a new energy minister but it has a long way to go to fulfil anything like the conditions that are set down.
This is the sticking point. We have not been able to make the financial provision.
Study after study tells us what has to be done on both the thermal and nuclear side but we seem to be incapable of making the financial arrangements.
If I understand the Commissioner correctly, what has now been decided is that the two reactors are going to be completed with funds from Euratom and the EIB and that the EBRD is going to have no part of that.
I find that a bit surprising because the whole tenor of my argument was going to be that the EBRD had to make its mind up as quickly as possible.
That is where we need clear-cut decisions so that we can see where we are going.
The Ukrainians want to have us as their friends. We have to show greater willingness than we have in the last two years.
Commissioner, as Mr Adam said, we would like to have firm information and not just guesses about whether the EBRD is going to respond or not - you still don't know - and whether Euratom and the EBRD will finance these two reactors if Ukraine makes certain promises.
We are always talking and doing studies, yet the question is so simple.
We are not talking about whether there should or should not be nuclear power, nor are we deciding the energy policy of Ukraine (which only the Ukrainians have the right to do).
We are saying that the whole of Europe, and the Ukrainians most of all, want all the Chernobyl units to be shut down, especially unit 3, which is currently operation, the sarcophagus to be repaired, and the necessary efforts made.
As Mr Adams rightly said, the economic situation in Ukraine is still extremely difficult.
The regime and situation are still the same as when they were under socialist control. Either we give them real technological assistance or help them economically, or it will all continue to be just empty words.
In truth, as Mr Adam also explained to us so well, they do not want to depend any longer on Russian gas.
They find it very difficult to pay for, because many customers also do not pay for it. Also, many people do not receive their pay, and the economic and social chaos in the countries of the former Soviet Union makes life very difficult.
That is the reality, but that is not what we are talking about.
So, Chernobyl must be shut down. But they have to produce electricity somehow, until they can use less.
It should be very easy to save electricity in Ukraine, because they waste it. But, Mr Commissioner, you know better than I that it is very expensive.
Saving energy requires enormous investment, starting with the introduction of metres to measure electricity, then creating a market, renewing equipment, replacing power stations and doing all sorts of things. Surely nothing requires more investment than saving energy, even when it is absolutely necessary.
Therefore, since we all want Chernobyl to be shut down, the Ukrainian Parliament has said that if the Khmelnitsky 2 group and Rovno 4 are not completed - and soon, I should imagine - they will start up another of the inactive Chernobyl units.
Do the Ukrainians want to take risks? Well, of course not, but we all know - at least those of us who understand the sector - that they need electricity to get out of the extremely difficult situation they are in.
All in all, it seems to me that the Union's support is essential for really working out how to save energy. It may perhaps be as simple as installing electricity and gas metres in homes so that people can pay for it, even if it is at a very low price.
There is no better way of persuading people to save energy than giving it a reasonably appropriate price. It is also true that for that method to work, people will need to be paid, which in many cases does not happen.
But this programme to re-equip new power stations, which I think is excellent, should deliver more. $ 1, 000 million have been given.
It is true that much more is needed.
It is also true that the Chernobyl sarcophagus needs $ 700 million - it has been an effort for the Tacis programme to contribute $ 100 million.
But something else will have to be done, Mr Commissioner, because the whole of Europe, not just this Parliament, not just the Members, not just the representatives of the people, but the people themselves, think the Chernobyl problem must be solved once and for all, and this involves measures from energy-saving and safety to the remodelling of the sarcophagus.
And, above all, the Ukrainians are tired of our criticisms; they beg us to criticize them less and help them more.
Unfortunately, that is the situation.
Mr President, we are all agreed, Chernobyl must close in the year 2000.
But that was clearly linked to taking the least cost principle as the starting point for dismantling the two nuclear power plants.
That was agreed in December 1995 between the G7 and Ukraine.
And that principle has now been abandoned, by the Commission as well.
The EBRD panel is well aware that dismantling the two existing nuclear power plants is a poor use of funds.
So the principle has been abandoned.
I do not think that the phased implementation of the two nuclear plants under construction to be the best way.
We disapprove of this and we understand from the Commissioner that next year the Euratom financing for the two existing nuclear plants will commence.
That means that $ 410 million will be provided by Euratom, $ 340 million by the EBRD and $ 200 million by the G7.
That is money badly spent, not accounted for to the voters.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if the Commission can still turn the tide to some extent by only supporting either K2 or R4 financially, and I hope it can.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I will not repeat what my colleagues have said because I think we concur.
We are naturally in agreement on closing Chernobyl, and we agree on increasing safety generally.
However, Mr Commissioner, please allow me to widen the issue a little.
What are we planning for beyond the millennium? The year 2000 is very close.
How many nuclear power stations are there in existence or still being built in Eastern Europe, installations using old technology, dangerous nuclear technology, and to what extent will we be committed to them? For how many years will we be committed to them and to their poor safety conditions?
That, I think, is the big problem.
The second problem, and I agree entirely with Mr Eisma, who emphasized it, is the cost.
As we ask economics students at university, is there an alternative to this very high cost? Is it possible for us to accept such a high cost, which will, in my opinion, have controversial results, and not examine alternative uses for these funds for future energy solutions that will be safer and, in the long term, possibly more productive?
That is the essential point, Mr Commissioner. I know that I am moving away a little from the specific question about Chernobyl, but I believe we need to think again about the whole issue.
Thank you very much, Mr Papayannakis.
The debate is adjourned.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is question time (B4-0520/97).
We will take questions to the Commission.
The Commission has examined Mr Escudero's question very carefully.
It is a question which obviously has implications which go beyond the Kaleidoscope programme, since it indirectly affects all the cultural programmes which have just come into force.
These programmes provide for projects involving all the various activities to be presented at periodic meetings, and for these to be made public.
As a result of these meetings, the Commission receives many projects from the cultural organizers - projects which need to be evaluated throughout the selection process.
For this process, the Commission can seek the opinion of competent individuals within the cultural sectors. These experts have a purely consultative role and take no decisions about the finance awarded to each project.
It is the Commission's responsibility, in accordance with what has been agreed with Parliament and the Council, to finalize the list of those projects which it considers should receive Community support.
In appointing these experts, the Commission can accept names proposed by the appropriate national authorities.
But it can also, when appropriate, call directly upon acknowledged experts in the various cultural sectors.
The Commission is careful to rotate the experts, so that opinions are not always sought from the same people.
It tries to bring in new experts, and ensures that their report is arrived at completely independently and in accordance with objective criteria.
On behalf of the Commission, I should like to inform Mr Escudero that the names and professional qualifications of the experts consulted in this way are available to Parliament and the Council.
I therefore place the names of these experts at his disposal, and that of Parliament. As I said, they rotate over time, because we believe that they should not always be the same, in accordance with the two criteria I mentioned a moment ago.
Mr President, I should just like to thank the Commissioner for his reply, which has clarified things greatly for me.
The fact that the experts are changed periodically seems to me a very important point.
When it is convenient, I should like to avail myself of the Commissioner's kind offer to let me see the names of the experts who have taken part.
I just want to say I can give Mr Escudero the list of these people immediately, in the form he has mentioned, so that he can make use of it as he sees fit.
Mr Commissioner, I have two questions: first, the extent to which the advancement of minority groups and/or minority languages, perhaps better called 'languages less often used in the European Union' , play a part in Kaleidoscope; and secondly, what role is played in Kaleidoscope by the eastward enlargement and the preparatory process for the candidate states.
First, I want to tell you that I have an enormous respect for all languages.
Obviously, some are less used than others because of the number of people who speak them, but the Commission clearly demonstrates the importance of every language, and not just the official languages but also those other languages which, while they may not be the official language of any State, are used in a certain community or region. The Commission bears all these aspects specifically in mind.
As regards your other question, I should particularly like to thank you for having raised it because, on various occasions during the structured discussions which we hold with countries which have applied to join the Community, the question has been raised as to what extent they can participate in the cultural sphere.
As you know, in many of the proposals this is covered by some existing Community programme which can allocate resources, such as the Phare programme itself, but the choice is theirs.
Something I try to encourage in my discussions with these countries is that they should not just use the aid for strictly economic purposes, but should also use it for cultural matters.
I believe that is very important.
Although these countries can still have problems with the development of a market economy or the application of Community patrimony, nevertheless there is no doubt that they can contribute to the final composition of the cultural sphere.
Question No 23 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0596/97)
Subject: The 'Television without frontiers' directive
Following the Commission's rejection on 14 February 1996 of the amendment to Directive 89/552/EEC (Television without frontiers), the purpose of which was to prohibit advertising directed at under-twelves, Commissioner Oreja promised that the Commission would conduct a wide-ranging study of the effects of advertising on children.
On Wednesday, 9 July 1997, the Court of Justice ruled in the De Agostini case that Sweden could not ban advertising aimed at children carried by TV channels broadcasting from other countries, such as TV3 or Kanal 5.
Sweden does, however, have the right to take action against misleading advertising broadcast by the same TV companies.
The Court's judgement could be contradictory because, as pointed out in the Swedish National Board for Consumer Policies' study of children and advertising, " younger children in particular often take literally what is said about various products' .
If that is true, then advertising aimed at children must be deemed to be misleading.
What progress has the Commission made with the study it promised, and when is it planning to brief Parliament on its findings?
The 'Television without frontiers' directive was approved in 1989, as Mrs Ahlqvist well knows.
We are now in the process of revising the directive and hope that it will soon be able to come into effect as a result of its transfer to the various Member States.
It has taken us nearly two years to make the leap from the previous to the current directive.
Well, that 'Television without frontiers' directive, as approved in 1989, contained two articles about the protection of children.
Article 16 established effective, concrete, specific resources designed to prevent advertising from harming children morally or physically. Article 22 of this same directive established general resources designed to prevent television broadcasts from damaging children's physical, mental or moral development.
The Court of Justice, in its rulings on these measures and certain well-known cases (the Agostini affair and TV Shop) describes them as a complete set of measures specifically designed for the protection of children from television programmes in general and television advertising in particular.
Also, the Court of Justice makes a clear distinction between misleading advertising and television advertising designed to attract children's attention.
So these are two clearly separate questions.
Therefore, the Commission is not worried about the possible contradictory effects to which the honourable Member refers.
We have carefully examined the honourable Member's question, but we do not believe these contradictory effects occur.
In fact, by modifying the 1989 directive with the adoption of this new directive, the measures in question are strengthened, but without going as far as prohibiting television advertising directed at children.
In fact, neither Parliament, the Council nor the Commission felt that such a prohibition was necessary or justified.
The three institutions actually reached agreement on that in the end.
Nevertheless, taking account of a petition from a delegation to the Council, the Commission did promise to carry out a study into the repercussions of television advertising and telesales on children, with a view to re-examining this question when the directive underwent its first revision.
As you know, the directive has several years of life, so to speak, before being revised again.
When I took up this portfolio in 1994 I found that the time-limit had expired, and that is why we carried out that revision, and there will be another one soon.
We are certainly going to pay particular attention to this matter.
I should like to tell the honourable Member that I am extremely aware of the matter she has raised, and I share her concerns.
But I believe that we have found an answer in the directive itself, and we will continue to be very vigilant. It is for precisely that reason that we want to carry out the study on the effects of television advertising and telesales on children.
As I say, the Commission is going to carry out that study in plenty of time, bearing in mind that Article 26 of the directive states that the Commission has to present the report on its application by 31 December 2000 at the latest, with proposals for its alteration, if necessary.
And of course, the European Parliament will receive a special briefing on the report.
I would like to thank Commissioner Oreja for this answer.
I am very pleased that you are positive about carrying out a study on children and how they react to children's advertisements.
However, I also received the same promise from the Commissioner in the Committee on Culture in February.
I was under the impression, in fact, that the Commission had started this study.
I therefore hope that a start will be made as soon as possible, since this is a major problem, not only in our country, Sweden, but throughout Europe.
Children should not be a means of making profits.
Nor should they be exposed to these sales messages which they cannot properly interpret because of their lack of experience.
I shall keep coming back with this question until this study is started, which I hope will be very soon.
Consumers in Sweden have, by the way, reacted very strongly against the unrestricted children's advertising found in Europe.
Mr President, I should like to inform Mrs Ahlqvist that the study has already started and there is no reason why it should not be discussed even before it is finished, probably within the framework of the Committee on Culture rather than the part-session.
And it will be very valuable for the Commission to follow up the various viewpoints which may be expressed, so that in the end we can present a text which I hope may be acceptable to everybody.
I come from the same country as Mrs Ahlqvist and I am not particularly happy with this answer.
As I understand it, you expect to have an answer by 31 December 2000 at the latest.
That is a very long way off.
At least, that is the impression you gave me just now.
The choice of media is growing very fast.
There are more and more TV channels, and advertising is taking greater and greater liberties.
I think it would not be out of place perhaps if we received a somewhat more definite answer about when this study will be completed since it has been one and a half years since the issue was first raised in this Parliament.
The answer which was then given was that a study was under way.
I think that the answer could be made more precise than simply giving a date in the Twenty-first Century.
Mr Lindqvist, I should like to point out that Parliament has already expressed its opinion on this matter, because there was an amendment, and that amendment did not receive sufficient votes when the 'Television without frontiers' directive was debated. So the current position has had the backing of Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
I put it to you that you are now trying to alter something which was approved by Parliament only a few months ago, when the transfer of the current directive has not yet come into force in any country.
We are therefore talking about the future, about what the law ought to be.
This is a subject to which the Commission is particularly sensitive. As you well know, we have not been content with just a directive but we have also brought out a Green Paper in which we tried to respond to the important problem of the protection of children.
Thus we do not believe that the existing legislation is enough, but rather we want to investigate what can be done in the future.
I want to show you that there is no lack of interest on the part of the Commission.
Parliament made its decision, and there was an amendment along the lines of what has been suggested by the two Swedish representatives here.
That amendment did not get enough votes and that is why it has not been included in the directive.
That, therefore, is the situation currently in force - the law as it stands.
What I can assure you of is that the Commission is keen, and that is why we are carrying out a study. There is no need to wait for the study to be finished before it is made known to Parliament.
Instead, we can exchange our views within the framework of the Committee on Culture. It will be very valuable for us to hear your ideas, the experiences you have had, and the examples you can give us.
We have not finished the study; we have hardly started it. Your contributions will therefore be very useful to us.
At the moment I cannot tell you what the outcome of the study will be.
I understand the honourable Member's impatience, because he wants a quick answer and I can not give him the final answer at this moment. We will know it at the end of the study.
What I can tell him is that we are not going to carry out this study in isolation, but in collaboration with you. And not only with you, but also with those members of the European public who have something to say to us on this matter.
It is a matter which interests and concerns us, and which we want to get right.
So I can assure you that we will act together, we will listen to your ideas, we will make progress within a few months. I hope to be able to go to the Committee on Culture and tell you how far we have progressed in our deliberations and, finally, on the agreed date, the Commission will formally present the document.
Question No 24 by Mr James Fitzsimons (H-0676/97) will not be taken because it is on the agenda for the current part-session.
Question No 25 by Irini Lambraki (H-0563/97)
Subject: Agreements between airlines
What action does the Commission intend to take to protect the European public against agreements between airlines which infringe IATA safety rules and EU competition rules, as in the case of the agreement between Sabena and Virgin?
The Commission is satisfied that agreements between airlines have not resulted in violations of existing safety rules.
All Community carriers possess the appropriate licences and operator certificates under the terms of the 1992 Council regulation on the licensing of carriers.
If an agreement between air carriers results in substantial change in their activities, the air carriers concerned must notify those changes to the national licensing authorities.
Those licensing authorities are therefore in a position to monitor the possible consequences for air safety of any agreement entered into between Community carriers and, of course, they fulfil that duty.
As far as competition is concerned, air transport within the Community is subject to the competition rules of the Treaty on the basis of the 1987 Council regulation.
Under Article 85 of the Treaty any agreement between air carriers which may affect trade between Member States and which results in the restriction and distortion of competition within the common market is incompatible with the common market and is therefore prohibited.
The exception to that rule, as provided for in both the 1987 and the 1993 regulations, is those agreements which may ultimately result in better services for consumers when such agreements have as their purpose the joint planning and coordination of schedules, the joint operation of services on new or low-density routes, the holding of tariff consultations and slot-allocation and airport scheduling.
Mr President, I am sorry but I do not entirely agree with the Commissioner because, as a passenger, I have experienced distortion of the regulation.
As a passenger travelling from Rome, I felt I was being exploited, first because half the people on the same flight had paid a reduced charter rate, while I had paid the normal price because of my Sabena ticket.
Secondly, my ticket was issued by Sabena, a company which is a member of IATA, while I was travelling, without my knowledge, with a company which was not a member of IATA.
I think it would be worthwhile for the Commission to investigate these matters seriously because, in my opinion, this represents clear violation of the competition rules.
Secondly, I feel even more strongly that it is a question of passenger safety and, at least now that so much is heard about airline companies, we must bear in mind the safety of thousands of people who travel both in Europe and elsewhere.
For my part, I will study the regulations that you mentioned, Mr Commissioner, and I will come back, but I think it would be a good idea for you to investigate the particular case that I referred to in the question.
Question No 26 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0598/97)
Subject: Competition policy and cartels
The Commission has been championing a competition policy which seeks to ensure maximum transparency while combatting cartels and dominant positions. The Commission has claimed that this year 14 cartels are being investigated.
Which are they?
It is certainly true that the Commission always has a whole series of investigations in progress regarding cartels, agreements and possible abuses of dominant positions.
I gave a figure about this the last time, if I remember well, when we had a debate in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
But I hope that honourable Members will understand that when we are dealing with such investigations, we must comply with the rules and the procedures that naturally prescribe that such investigations be conducted discreetly.
For example, when an investigation is started up when inquiries may be made on the spot, it would be completely irresponsible for statements about it, on our part, to be circulated or indiscretions to be organized with regard to the material that is found.
That is simply necessary because the Commission really fulfils a kind of judicial function here.
It is only at a later stage that the Commission can come outside when the investigation has been completed, when the conclusions must be drawn and where appropriate sanctions must even be imposed and the Members of Parliament know that when that time has come, I am always the first to inform Parliament about it.
So in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to ask you to take account of the fact that the basic rule is that such investigations must take place discreetly, also with regard to company and business secrets and so on, because if the Commission does not do that, then the companies concerned can of course take us to court and rightly so because we do not respect their rights as affected parties.
That is how it should be in a democracy and therefore I would once again call on your understanding that we cannot provide more information until the time when the investigation is completed, the necessary conclusions can be drawn and I am very willing to keep the respective parliamentary committees or Members of Parliament informed on this subject.
Commissioner, I was not asking for details of the cartels.
I was simply asking which they were - nothing more.
I notice that this matter is still approached with care, since the 26th report on competition policy also said that the Commission will continue the task of modernizing its legislation and increasing the transparency of its policy. It also added that it was actively investigating 14 cartels - I only wanted to know which ones, not the details - and that the Commission receives an increasing number of complaints about attempts by companies in dominant positions to prevent new operators from entering their market.
In your introduction, Mr Commissioner, you emphatically said that the fight against these secret cartels continued to be at the forefront, and that you hoped to step up the fight even more in the future.
We realized that this was a very good aim, and therefore we tried to encourage you in this action, although we asked that it might be done in a transparent manner.
Very briefly, first of all, sometimes the companies where on-the-spot visits take place make them public, and by making them public indicate that something is going on.
We do not do that ourselves, for the very good reasons I have just explained.
From time to time it is known that we are investigating cases and that the Commission is pursuing a case from the point of view of cartels or dominant positions.
It would be improper for us to reveal cases which we are looking into on our own initiative and there are very good reasons therefore to stick to our policy.
I can mention one case which has been made public by the companies concerned.
We heard complaints from publishers of newspapers that the price of newsprint was going up very rapidly and they suspected some kind of cartel.
So then we started investigations, which were made public by some of the companies where on-the-spot visits took place.
So it is well known that we are looking into this case.
But if the companies concerned do not reveal that, we do not do so on our own initiative.
Question No 27 by Ludivina García Arias (H-0605/97)
Subject: The privatization of the Spanish Steel Corporation (CSI)
Does the Commission consider that, as part of the process of privatizing the Spanish Steel Corporation (CSI, S.A.), the acquisition of a third of its share capital by a major European enterprise, and its business management, constitutes a European merger as well as a transfer of the decision-making centre to another enterprise in which institutional and public investors of another Member State have a majority shareholding? In accordance with the relevant articles of the ECSC Treaty, has the Commission looked at the effects of this operation on the European market?
Has it ensured that the shares that were sold off were properly valued, in accordance with the European Union's competition policy?
On the basis of the information currently available to the Commission services, I believe that the acquisition of 35 % of the shares of CSI by the ARBED group will give rise to a concentration that will have to be examined under both the merger regulation and the relevant provisions of the ECSC Treaty.
As the details of the operation and in particular the relationship between ARBED and the Spanish companies which are negotiating for up to 50 % of the capital of CSI, have yet to be finalized, no notification has been made to date and no investigations have been carried out in relation to the concentration.
So, we are still waiting for the relevant documents to be tabled.
Only then can we start investigations.
As far as the proper valuation of the company is concerned, prior to its sale, it appears that ARBED paid the full market price for its shareholding, as its offer was made in competition with other steel producers.
I am sure you are very well aware of the fact that a lot of people were expecting that some other European company would win the contest.
But, at the end of the day it was ARBED.
So, this proves that there has been normal competition for participation in CSI.
The concentration cannot be completed until it has been authorized under the two regulations I just mentioned.
So, in any case, we will have to wait for the investigation and the final findings.
Having said this, as you know there is a lot of movement in the steel sector and we will probably end up with four or five big European steel companies.
By the way, by the time the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty expires in 2002 we are likely to have a kind of European common market for steel.
Up to now we have had an addition of national markets, usually with publicly-owned steel companies.
So, finally we are close to a European steel market.
This is enhanced by the fact that more and more alliances are being concluded, our concentrations are happening, our acquisitions are taking place across borders.
This is in line with Community policy but it has to be looked into properly from the point of view of competition rules and state rules.
This was done a few years ago when we discussed difficult cases in Spain, Italy, Germany and so on.
Mr Commissioner, what is being presented to the public and the European Commission as a strategic alliance between ARBED and CSI is really a strange privatization operation, or absorption. We Spanish socialists think it is a present from the Spanish Government to a company, strangely enough, with public participation.
As you know, following the major restructuring authorized by the European Union, CSI is a completely reorganized company with no debts, with 10, 000 million in the bank. It was restructured socially (at Spanish taxpayers' expense, by the way) and at the moment it is in a privileged position compared with other large companies such as USINOR, ARBED, Thyssen or British Steel.
It is a beauty, Commissioner.
According to the share-transfer formula, the implied holdings of CSI in ARBED are greater than the estimated cash outlay by ARBED for the acquisition, and ARBED's holding is valued at a level way above the market price. This is based on a report by Salomon Brothers, who were previously advising against buying ARBED shares.
You are right. It is not that there was no competition from other companies.
But the problem lies in the offer, in the gift which the Spanish Government was making right from the start. This may have been for dogmatic reasons, to get rid of a company which has cost much human sacrifice, and economic effort from Spanish taxpayers too.
I think, Commissioner, that you really ought to study this right from first principles and perhaps see, with the advice of independent companies, what the true valuation of this Spanish company is, and whether or not it has been bought at below market price.
It was not the Commission which took the decision to privatise the company. That was a decision made by the government.
We did not impose it.
Secondly, since there was a transparent procedure under which a lot of other companies were asked to bid for CSI, we must assume that the winner offered the best terms.
It was up to the government of Spain to make up its mind and that is apparently what it did.
As far as I know, we certainly did not receive a complaint that the procedure was not transparent or was not a fair one.
Question No 28 by Niels Sindal (H-0617/97)
Subject: Government aid
It is deplorable that, while opposed in principle to national government aid, the Commission and the Council continue to give the go-ahead for packages of massive national aid, particularly to ailing shipyards, most recently in Germany, Spain and Greece.
This double entry book-keeping obviously goes some way towards undermining confidence in a consistent and credible effort to reduce government aid which distorts competition.
More resources must be set aside to monitor government aid.
This issue is currently relevant to the shipbuilding industry but also to other sectors.
What steps will the Commission take to set aside more resources to monitor government aid in order to obtain an up-to-date and comprehensive picture of the scope and nature of such aid?
Mr President, I shall also be brief, as these decisions were taken some time ago already, and as the honourable member knows, these are cases that have been with us for years.
In the case of Greece, the delay in the payment of subsidies which had been authorized some years earlier, prompted the Council to accept the Commission's proposal, under which interest relating to late payments could be added, but nothing more.
In the case of Spain, things were a little more complicated.
I remind you that Spain had, as part of the OECD negotiations, obtained a number of concessions relating to investment grants and for social and labour difficulties associated with restructuring, in the shipyard sector.
Here too, there was late payment, and hence extra interest, for which compensation had to be made.
Then, as a result of late payment, a certain extra amount was granted for investment.
The Council considered that this was a matter of settling a case from the past, and that consequently, there was in reality nothing new.
It was a matter of closing the dossier.
I draw your attention to fact that at the same time, the Spanish authorities made the following commitment: if at the end of next year the shipyards in question were still loss-making, were not viable, they would draw the necessary conclusions, and would not come knocking on the door of the Commission for still further requests for assistance.
Firm commitments of this kind have been made both to the Commission and to the Council of Ministers.
This was what made it possible for a large majority of the Council of Ministers to accept these commitments.
Finally, capacity must be reduced. As you know, we entered into a commitment to inspect this four times a year.
The Spanish authorities produce reports on the state of the progress in the commitments, four times annually, and we send teams on site to check, in the shipyards, that commitments have effectively been met.
The last case involves Germany.
Here too, this was the consequence of a drama that had involved Bremen Vulkan.
It was finally agreed to allow the two East German shipyards to continue to work under the conditions which had been previously determined.
But as the money had been taken out by Bremen Vulkan, compensation had to be made.
Here too, a commitment was entered into for the last time.
If the shipyards are privatized in the future, there will be no question of anyone coming back to knock on the door and ask for more public money.
Furthermore, as you know, a very considerable reduction in capacity will take place in Bremen, in Germany.
This is the context in which things are done, and done in a manner which can be defended.
Now I come to my conclusion, and to two points.
We are still not certain that the United States will ratify the OECD agreement.
The solution and way out is there, but the United States is not budging.
We have, however, ratified the agreement.
As soon as they ratify it, it will immediately come into force.
If that is not the case, we must prepare for the future.
The Commission, Before the end of this month, the Commission will put a proposal on the Council table, given that the seventh directive will come to an end at the end of next year, a proposal relating to the future of the shipyards in this sector.
I can tell you already, that the Commission will take a fairly strict attitude with regard to assistance in this sector.
Of course, I am sure we shall have the opportunity to come back on this, once I have presented this proposal to my colleagues, and the college has accepted it.
I am naturally perfectly ready to stand before you and discuss this in Parliament.
First I would like to thank the Commissioner for a very satisfactory answer and generally to say thank you for the Commissioner's work in connection with state aid.
My question was equally concerned with what will happen in future generally, that is, in other areas as well, with regard to state aid.
Since I put this question, fate has decreed that a Kellogg's breakfast cereal plant, which stands beside a shipyard which has been closed in my hometown, is now going to close to as it is being moved to Spain and Manchester.
They are objective areas - objective 1 and objective 2 - where subsidies are also provided in a different way.
My question therefore equally concerns what the Commission is going to do to ensure that there is capacity in the Commission to monitor how aid is provided from both Community and state funds in future.
We have had the case of Boston Scientific in Denmark, we have had Renault, and now we have Kellogg's: businesses which move around in Europe, all depending on where conditions are most favourable with regard to capital.
I wish to suggest to the honourable Member that we continue this discussion later because in the coming weeks and months there will be several initiatives by the Commission, including some by Monika WulfMathies in the field of the structural funds.
As far as national regional aid is concerned, I will be trying to reduce the eligible regions - at least to some proportion - and also to reduce the levels of aid intensity linked to a whole series of other initiatives to tighten the rules and try to develop a stricter public aid policy.
So there will be plenty of opportunities to come back to that issue, and I will be readily available to Parliament to discuss it in depth.
Mr Commissioner, I should like to inform my colleague that I don't know what he means by 'ailing shipyards' .
I think he should visit some of those 'ailing shipyards' , and he will realize that they are competing with shipyards in other countries such as Korea.
The Commissioner has mentioned the OECD agreement and the renewal of the next directive on state aid. If the United States does not ratify what has been agreed, and if other countries such as Korea continue with discussions about shipyard aid, then we will commit suicide by not compensating for a control of subsidies which we cannot exercise in other countries.
I should also like to remind my colleague that it is companies in the richest countries which receive most government aid. The Commissioner will correct me if I am wrong.
I would just suggest to the honourable Members that they wait a few weeks and then there will be a proposal from us on the future of shipbuilding in Europe and what we think might be envisaged from the point of view of state aid.
So there will be many opportunities to discuss it further, and I reiterate our willingness to discuss it fully with Parliament.
Since the time allocated to questions to Mr van Miert has now run out, Question No 29 will be dealt with in writing.
The protocol to the Amsterdam Treaty establishes a general principle.
It means that all Member States in the European Union shall be considered to be safe countries of origin.
The protocol's single article is formulated so as to limit the ability of EU citizens to seek asylum in another Member State to four specific situations.
These are found in four separate paragraphs of exceptions.
Mr Sjöstedt's question concerns the protocol's fourth paragraph in particular.
This stipulates that a Member State, regardless of the protocol's basic principle, always has the right ultimately to decide for itself whether or not an asylum application shall be examined.
If a Member State chooses to examine such an application for asylum, the Council of Ministers must be informed, and the application shall always be assumed to be manifestly unfounded.
However, the protocol expressly states that this in no way affects the Member State's right of self-determination.
It could therefore be said that what is new is that the Member States are put under an obligation to inform the Council of Ministers if and when an application for asylum from an EU citizen is being examined.
Although I personally regret that this protocol has been included in the new treaty, I welcome the fact that in the preamble to the protocol it is expressly established that the spirit and letter of the Geneva Convention shall be respected with regard to the granting of refugee status.
Member States have the right to take the administrative measures considered necessary to fulfil the requirements of the Geneva Convention.
A special declaration which was attached to the protocol also expresses clearly and unambiguously that agreements in no way have a prejudicial effect in this regard.
A further declaration is directly linked to the fourth exception paragraph.
It premises an examination of how one can best speed up the procedures for examining manifestly unfounded asylum applications from EU citizens.
Let me summarize my answer in three points.
My understanding is that the Amsterdam Treaty's Asylum Protocol means the following: Firstly, that the obligations Member States have under the Geneva Convention remain unchanged.
Secondly, that an application for asylum made by an EU citizen shall not normally be seen as valid, since the Member States are to be regarded as safe countries of origin.
Thirdly, that all Member States retain their right to make decisions and can therefore always examine applications for asylum from EU citizens on condition that the Council of Ministers is informed and the examination is done on the basis that the application is manifestly unfounded.
I would like to thank the Commissioner warmly for her answer, in particular for her personal observation on her view of this protocol, which I fully share, and her opinion that what has happened in the Amsterdam Treaty is unfortunate.
I also think it is important to establish that each Member State has a perfect right to examine each asylum application itself.
At the same time, it is impossible to get away from the fact that an attempt is being made here to put pressure on the Member States to apply a partly different practice.
Strong criticism has also been directed by, for example, the UN High Commission for Refugees, against these formulations and also by organizations which work with refugee cases.
It would be best if this could be reconsidered, since it is in fact a dangerous example; if, for example, it is followed by other areas of the world, which could use it as justification for them to restrict in various ways the right to seek asylum and to have one's asylum application heard.
Remember that this proposal was not put forward by the Commission.
This is what the Member States have agreed.
Therefore the question should perhaps have been put to the Council of Ministers.
I feel that I must speak now that the whole debate is in the beautiful Swedish language.
I would just like to put the following question to Commissioner Gradin.
When you say that an application for asylum in a Member State shall not normally be seen as valid and that the examination shall be done on the basis that the application is unfounded, exactly how do people think this will be implemented as far as the law is concerned? We have a legally independent judiciary.
Shall it in some way start saying that the score is 1-0 against asylum being granted? I do not know whether the Council has considered this, but to me it appears to be a totally impossible juridical problem.
I do not think people will turn this into legal red tape.
What is important is that under these provisions each country has the right to examine an application in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
Secondly, I would like to say that I cannot answer for the Council of Ministers.
It is the Council of Ministers which is responsible for this.
It was in the Council of Ministers that this was adopted, and it was not at the Commission's request.
Firstly, I should like to thank Mrs Gradin for her very full and thorough explanation of the Commission's interpretation of the protocol to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mrs Gradin, you have confirmed firstly the independence of the courts; secondly, the sovereignty of Member States to examine any application for asylum; and thirdly, that these applications will be considered unfounded from the outset if they originate from citizens of a State which guarantees all the basic rights and is therefore considered a safe place to live.
These are the normal conditions.
Is it not also true, Mrs Gradin, that the extent of political integration currently enjoyed by the Member States of the European Union does not exist in any other part of the world at the moment?
Let me once again sum up the Amsterdam Treaty's Asylum Protocol.
It means, firstly, that the obligations Member States have under the Geneva Convention remain unchanged.
Secondly, an application for asylum made by an EU citizen shall not normally be seen as valid since the Member States shall be regarded, as the protocol states, as 'safe countries of origin' .
Thirdly, all Member States retain their right to make decisions and can therefore always examine applications for asylum from EU citizens on condition that the Council of Ministers is informed and that the examination is done on the basis that the application should be manifestly unfounded.
Question No 31 by Jan Andersson (H-0616/97)
Subject: Measures to combat trafficking in synthetic drugs
Trafficking in synthetic drugs is on the increase in Europe.
Much of the production and distribution is based in countries applying for membership of the European Union.
How will the Commission, in membership negotiations, attempt to persuade those countries in which production and distribution takes place to tackle the problem of synthetic drugs?
The Commission shares Mr Andersson's concern over the spread of the new synthetic drugs in Europe.
Until a few years ago amphetamines and ecstasy were produced mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Today production is increasingly taking place in some of the central and eastern European or Baltic countries.
I understand, for example, that around half of the amphetamines which are seized in Stockholm now come from Poland.
In May this year the Commission issued at my suggestion a communication with a thorough analysis of this development.
We also proposed a number of measures, including increased co-operation with central and eastern European and Baltic countries on this issue.
The battle against narcotics was also a major issue in the structural dialogue during the Irish Presidency in spring 1996.
At that time I took up in particular the question of the spread of synthetic drugs.
None of the Ministers from the applicant countries who were present can have any doubt that this is a high priority question in the European Union. This is something I have also taken up during all my visits to the applicant countries.
The Commission has explained very clearly that this is an area which will attract a great deal of attention during membership negotiations.
The applicant countries are expected to adopt our acquis communautaire .
This also includes the battle against narcotics in general and chemical drugs in particular.
It is important therefore to be able to live up to the rules we have with regard to the control of precursors, money laundering and the like.
On 16 June the Council of Ministers passed a resolution to set up what we call an early warning system.
This means that in future the Member States will get information much faster than today when a new type of chemical drug appears on the market. This will be very useful.
For the applicant countries all this is, of course, a delicate problem.
From the Commission's point of view we shall therefore provide as much help as we can.
Moreover, since 1993 we have provided technical assistance through Phare, not least for the control of chemical precursors.
A lot remains to be done, of course, and I am working intensively to ensure that this issue will continue to be prioritized in future in our cooperation with the new democracies in the east.
I thank the Commissioner for her answer, which was quite excellent.
In connection with the eastern enlargement, we often discuss questions which concern economics, and on the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, on which I sit, we also about social rights, etcetera.
That is extremely important, but the cross-border trade in drugs is also a major issue.
I am very pleased with the answer and with the work which the Commissioner presented, but I have two questions in connection with this.
Firstly, I wonder what reaction the Commissioner received from Poland and the Baltic States when all these measures were presented.
Did the countries take it seriously, were they positive and do they intend to do anything about it?
Secondly, in spite of everything there is also production in our own countries.
I therefore wonder whether you have ever been asked this question: ' Shouldn't you put your own house in order?'
The applicant countries covered by structured dialogue and with which we have had talks on visits have understood very clearly that we consider it very important that they make sure they get to work on issues such as synthetic drugs.
There is no doubt that the majority of these countries do not currently have an adequate legal basis to do this. They still need to get laws and regulations which provide them with better tools - that is one thing.
The other is that they get to grips with corruption, not least on borders, etcetera, in order to further intensify their activities.
On the question of our own countries: when we proposed the communication in the spring the idea was that we should put our own European house in order, that is, we in the fifteen Member States should also recognize that we are producers too and make sure that we find solutions.
That is why this early warning system has been put on the agenda.
Question No 32 by Richard Howitt (H-0647/97)
Subject: Harmonization of immigration policy - discrimination against a constituent
An immigration case involving the Russian spouse of Mr Clark of Leigh-on-Sea, one of my constituents, whereby a settlement visa has been awarded by German immigration authorities but not by UK immigration authorities, highlights the fact that harmonization of EU immigration law, as provided for in the European Treaty, does not yet exist in the European Union.
What action can the Commission take to help Mr Clark return his wife to the United Kingdom and what further action to ensure that greater harmony of immigration policy exists throughout the EU so that cases such as this do not recur in the future?
The question from Mr Howitt concerns the fact that immigration rules are part of Community law in certain cases and are governed by national legislation in others.
This sometimes creates a certain amount of confusion.
The situation is currently as follows: It is only when an EU citizen exercises his or her right to freedom of movement and takes up residence in another Member State that the members of his or her family are covered by Community law.
In such cases a family member can assert his or her right to family reunion.
For citizens of third countries who need visas, Community law requires that a visa shall be issued at no cost and without burdensome procedures.
However, if it is a citizen who lives in the country where he or she is a citizen, the family members are covered by the national rules and laws applicable in that country.
According to rulings by the European Court of Justice, a person can assert his or her right to freedom of movement and right of residence against their own Member State.
This applies when he or she returns to their homeland after having resided in another Member State.
It is quite clear that the decisive factor with regard to the rights of family members to immigration and residence under Community law is that the EU citizen is exercising or has exercised the right to freedom of movement.
It is therefore difficult for the Commission to judge in what category Mr Clark or his wife belong.
The Commission would obviously prefer to see common immigration rules for the whole Union.
On 30 June the Commission adopted a draft convention on rules for immigration throughout the European Union. The proposal is an important first step in the work of creating a more homogenous immigration policy in our Member States.
One paragraph in the proposal covers precisely the problems raised by the honourable Member.
It means that the same rules on family reunion would apply everywhere within the European Union.
I hope, of course, that the European Parliament will give the Commission all possible support to the proposal which will begin to be discussed in the Council of Ministers in the autumn.
Thank you, Commissioner for taking this question.
I accept, as you said, that the role of Member States in this matter is crucial.
Indeed I welcome the abolition of the primary purpose rule by the UK's new Labour Government, which will very much assist in cases such as this.
However, what I would like to press the Commissioner on is the fact that Community law is being discredited.
We cannot continue with a situation whereby citizens of a Member State enjoy rights under their own national law which are less favourable than those they enjoy as EU citizens in other European countries.
Mr Clark, a British national, found that he could bring his Russian wife into Germany but not Britain - unless he lived for six months in Germany first.
If he found that he had a Greek grandfather he could claim Greek citizenship and again have no problem.
If he was Italian there would be no dispute at all.
Such anomalies generate a sense of grievance amongst Europe's citizens, not least my own constituents.
I call on the Commissioner to argue with some force in favour of the proposals to which she has referred to support the right of genuine family reunion in all European countries.
I agree with the honourable Member that it is very confusing that we have these contradictory rules and regulations in the Union.
The reason behind the Convention that I have now presented to the Commission and that has been accepted, and that will be discussed by Parliament and the Council of Ministers, is that we will get common rules for all our citizens concerning migration and admittance to our countries.
Nobody can understand what is going on sometimes. This is very confusing.
I am very concerned that Commissioner Fischler should have been here at 6.40 p.m. to take the questions.
I think, out of all courtesy to this House, he should be here promptly and I would like an explanation as to why he is not here.
Mrs McIntosh, I share your concern entirely. I am very surprised, because I insisted that the parliamentary services should call upon the Commissioner to be here.
In fact, Mrs Gradin has been kind enough to overrun by 6 minutes the length of time she had promised to spend with us.
I do not know why the Commissioner is still not here, but I imagine there must be a good reason.
But, with Mrs Gradin's help, we will continue our work.
Question No 33 by Bernd Posselt (H-0649/97)
Subject: Sharing the burden of refugees and asylum applicants
What is the current situation as regards burden-sharing among the Member States where asylum applicants and sudden movements of refugees are concerned, and when will the Commission submit to the European Parliament an overview of the rights and material benefits that these two groups of people enjoy in the various Member States?
Against the background of the Bosnian refugee crisis, the Council of Ministers initiated a debate on how the division of responsibility for asylum seekers shall take place in mass refugee situations, that is, burden-sharing.
This initial debate resulted in the Council Resolution of 25 September 1995 on the division of responsibility with regard to a temporary solution for the admission and residence of people in need of asylum.
This was followed by the Council of Ministers' Decision of 4 March 1996 on an early warning and contingency system.
The Commission has tried to take the question one step further with its proposal in April this year for joint action on temporary asylum for refugees.
The proposal requires a joint decision-making mechanism for the introduction, review and phasing out of temporary asylum.
It also establishes certain minimum rights and conditions for the reception of refugees.
The idea is that this joint decision-making process will form the framework for a real division of the burden of responsibility with regard to the mass immigration of people who are refugees and in need of asylum.
The European Parliament has also contributed to stimulating concrete efforts for a division of the burden of responsibility by introducing two new budgetary lines.
Line B5-803 is intended to cover the costs of carrying out pilot projects with regard to the reception of refugees.
It is based on the idea of shared responsibility between the Member States.
The other line, B7-6008, covers the Community's financing of pilot projects which aim to facilitate the voluntary return of people who have received temporary asylum in the Member States.
The Commission has already successfully got the necessary legal instrument through the Council of Ministers, based on Article K 3(2 b), for the implementation of these two budgetary lines.
The Council decision was taken on 22 July.
It has made it possible for the Commission to start pilot projects in these areas in accordance with the budget notes.
The Commission will evaluate the results of the pilot projects financed during the year and intends to return with a proposal for a programme lasting several years in 1998.
As far as the other part of the question is concerned, I would like to refer the honourable Member to the document which the Commission produced in connection with the joint action on temporary asylum.
It is a summary of the central points of the Member States' policies in this area, in particular the rights and obligations which each Member State gives people who are granted temporary asylum.
According to the proposed joint action, the Commission should report annually to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers on how the rules on temporary asylum are being implemented in the Member States as well as the financial effects.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin, and may I say how grateful we are to you for having patiently remained here way beyond the call of duty. You have covered for an absence that would certainly have hindered the work of this House.
Questions Nos 34 and 35 will be dealt with in writing.
.
(DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as stated in the question, Directive 93/119 on the protection of animals at the time of slaughter or killing provides that this directive is not applicable in the case of the killing of animals at cultural or sporting events.
The Commission is of the opinion that in these cases national authorities are responsible for the welfare of the animals in question.
This approach is in accordance with the Protocol on Animal Protection to the Amsterdam Treaty agreed in June 1997.
As animal protection is not an express part of the Treaty of Rome or other agreements, the Commission can only repeat its earlier advice to the governments of Member States to do all in their power to bring to an end all unacceptable practices where animals are killed during cultural and sporting events.
It is always a pleasure to see the Commissioner albeit, on this occasion, quite late.
How would the Commissioner satisfy my constituents, and I am very happy to copy every single letter I have had from them on this point - particularly in relation to killings in cultural and sports events?
Is it not the Commissioner's duty, under the Protocol to the original Maastricht Treaty, to ensure that every piece of legislation and every act does comply with the animal welfare provisions which were agreed on in that Protocol?
While I have already stated in my question the fact that I realise that Directive 93/119 applies, constituents still have substantial misgivings about the unnecessary and needless suffering of those animals which are killed in cultural and sporting events.
They are not satisfied - not in my own country but in other Member States - that the Protocol is being adhered to or that the directive is being complied with.
If the directive is being breached, do they have an action which can be taken before the Court of Justice?
Mr President, Mrs McIntosh, as I said earlier, one must first bear in mind that the question of animal protection is not solely the task of, or not solely regulated by, Community law, but that merely specific aspects of animal protection are regulated at Community level.
Anything more than that comes within the authority of Member States and their legislation.
Member States must also be responsible to this authority.
Where regulations under Community law are concerned, in this case Guideline 119/93, Member States are also charged with the execution and application of these Guidelines.
Where it is discovered during an inspection that a Member State is paying insufficient attention to the regulations, or has undertaken unsatisfactory measures for the execution of the guidelines, it has to be decided if a charge of contravention should be initiated against such a member state.
I should be pleased to send my colleague, Mrs Bonino, information on this, as the subject of inspection of animal protection measures, according to the new distribution of responsibilities within the Commission that was mainly demanded by Parliament, now falls within her province.
Mr Commissioner, you have said that even though this may not be within the jurisdiction of Community law, you hope that Member States will soon cease these practices, which you consider cruel.
Is it not rather the case, Mr Fischler, that this is one of the basic legal precepts of Article 128, that is, subsidiarity applies fully because it is a cultural matter. Is it not also true that there is still no unifying view of what constitutes animal welfare when cultural interests are involved?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think I have made it quite clear that there are separate responsibilities here, if you want to call them that, in accordance with subsidiarity.
We as a Commission have to obey the requirements of the treaty, but I should like to stress that we also have to ensure that the treaty is complied with.
If there are any transgressions to these guidelines, then we are obliged to correct those transgressions.
Question No 37 by John Iversen (H-0550/97)
Subject: Pesticides
One of the results of the new Treaty of Amsterdam will be that a number of directives now based on Article 43 such as the Pesticides Directive, 91/414 will instead be based on Article 129.
This will give the European Parliament greater influence over the criteria used in the approval of pesticides in the EU as the matter will fall under codecision.
Will the Commission therefore temporarily refrain from approving active substances on the positive list of pesticides, as it is now said to have begun doing? Is the Commission prepared instead to review the directive now so that any requirements the European Parliament may put forward may be taken into account before the new substances are approved?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Guideline 91/414 concerning the dissemination of plant pesticides has been in effect since 1993.
The first testing stage for previous active agents and the testing of certain new agents has just started.
The Commission does not, therefore, yet have sufficient evidence at the present stage of guideline implementation to make it imperative for the basic criteria concerning approval of chemical synthetic agents to be modified, or for the testing programme to be stopped.
Any future Commission proposals concerning modification to the criteria that were made subsequent to ratification would, of course, be binding on the corresponding new regulations.
Thank you for your answer Mr Commissioner.
I understand the answer to mean that there could be a situation where there is a period of overlap because there is insufficient information.
That is at least how I understood your answer.
As such, I think it is quite excellent and I would just like to urge you, if the new treaty is very close to coming into force, not to hurry some things through on the basis of the old standards if new information is needed.
As such, it is a kind of suggestion or request to you, Mr Commissioner, to delay looking at these new chemicals until the treaty has entered into force, even if it appears, as I understood you, that there will be a certain period of overlap.
Question No 38 by Raul Rosado Fernandes (H-0554/97)
Subject: Vine growing - Directive 193/68/EEC
In order to survive, the EU's vine growing sector needs to be constantly renewed with selected vegetative material which will enable it to achieve optimum productivity or quality based on market requirements.
Vine growing is still governed by Directive 193/68/EEC , which was an excellent piece of legislation for its time, but now growers in Greece, Spain and Portugal are in practice unable meet the health standards, which are interpreted differently nowadays.
Since vine cultivation in these three countries has not been subject to selection over a period of decades as in the 'founding' vine growing countries, it is important that the above directive be interpreted in a way which meets their needs, so that strains which can never be imported from the more advanced Member States can be preserved.
Why does DG VI not explain objectively the criteria to be met when applying the directive in accordance with the historical situation of each country? Why does the Standing Committee referred to in Article 17 of Directive 193/68/EEC not include representatives of the private sector?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this question concerns the bringing into circulation of so-called vegetative propagation material from grapes.
Unified quality standards were introduced for this, which the Member States have to meet on circulating such material.
The aim has been to increase productivity in the wine industry.
Relevant offices of the Commission are currently preparing a revision of these guidelines, not only in order to simplify them in view of relevant legal and technical developments and to update them, but also to remove existing trade barriers and ensure conformity with the internal market.
The Commission will probably lay the proposal before Council, and hence Parliament, towards the end of this year.
The various plant health regulations referred to by the honourable Member in his question have their origin in the requirements of the guideline itself.
For in this guideline Member States are expressly given the freedom, under certain circumstances, to apply additional requirements for their own products. They are also permitted to apply certain other requirements according to various circumstances in individual wine-growing regions.
Legal developments and likely problems in applying the regulations were mentioned by experts from Member States in the Standing Committee on Seed and Plant Material. During this the situation in each individual country was carefully investigated.
As for the participation of representatives of the private sector in meetings of the Standing Committee, the relevant Council decision establishing the Committee only permits representatives of Member States.
Representatives of the private sector may, however, present their points to those consultative meetings of the Commission in which important new developments in legal regulations may be mentioned.
The relevant offices of the Commission have held direct consultations for this revision work with professional associations having relevant knowledge on the subject of propagation material for vines, and specialize in it.
Mr Commissioner, there is a degree of tolerance for the commercialization of Portuguese grape varieties that are grown from unclassified cultivated rice material.
That can only be explained by the fact that the Portuguese authorities are fairly strict - it is an old tradition since our Inquisition, if not a very wise one!
For this reason some are grown in France, then loaded and sold again to Portugal.
There have already been complaints about it.
For instance, Mr Legras received a complaint on 1 September this year, which can be easily established.
That is just for your information.
I would just like to respond quickly to that.
I have, of course, little influence on the wisdom of the Portuguese authorities.
But I can assure you of one thing: if there are definite complaints, then we shall investigate them.
I f complaints stem from the private sector, that is, from businesses or plant propagation cooperatives, then these may be made in addition within the framework of consultative committees and discussed at specialist level.
Question No 39 by Arlindo Cunha (H-0595/97)
Subject: The Commission's strategy for CAP reform
The next CAP reform must provide the EU's farmers with the resources and conditions they need to adapt to the increasing external competition caused by eastward enlargement and GATT.
This means that the reform cannot be carried out on a purely sectoral basis, since, over and above alterations to certain common organizations of the market, the emphasis of the policy needs to be shifted towards boosting rural development and establishing a minimum level of income support for all farmers.
Only in this way can unacceptable social and political discrimination be avoided.
How does the Commission plan to reconcile all these aspects of the problem? Does it intend, as in 1991, to submit a general discussion and strategy paper to facilitate debate with technical, professional and political circles?
As everyone in this House knows, the President of the Commission presented Agenda 2000 on 16 July this year.
In this the Commission gave a wide overview of the development of the European Union and its policies from the millennium into the middle of the following decade. The effects of expansion and the budget framework after the year 2000 were discussed.
For agriculture, the Commission proposed a further expansion of the reform introduced in 1992 - which was established under Mr Cunha when he was a minister and President-in-Office of the Council - and the development of a coherent policy for rural areas in support of this process.
By changing from price subsidy to direct payment the European Union can greatly improve its competitiveness through lowering the price of grain, beef and milk. This will also help producers in the European Union to have access in full measure to positive developments on the international market.
At the same time, food hygiene and food quality, as well as food safety, will be improved.
The proposals for development of a coherent policy supporting rural areas have as their objective, on the one hand, to secure a suitable income for the rural population. They should also play a part in creating stability of agricultural incomes and new sources of employment and income for farmers and their families.
The Commission intends to present to the Council, after consultation with the European Parliament, a first report on the Agenda 2000 package of measures, and then to suggest relevant legal texts and distribute concrete proposals for individual areas following the Luxembourg Summit.
Mr President, I am grateful for the Commissioner's reply, but the fact is that the Agenda 2000 proposal will continue to exclude the producers of certain Mediterranean products, like wine, fruit and even rice, from direct aid.
This will lead to more than half of agricultural production in certain countries of southern Europe being excluded from the premiums of direct aid to income, creating discrimination difficult to sustain at the political level.
The Commissioner knows that.
We cannot explain to Portuguese, Spanish or Italian farmers why half of their agricultural production is not entitled to premiums, when in other countries, which have other production, almost all of agricultural production gets premiums.
I would like to ask the Commissioner what the Commission intends to do to prevent this discrimination between countries, as this is a difficult political issue which we, the politicians, must try to resolve.
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make a very clear distinction here.
First, as far as Mediterranean or southern products are concerned, Agenda 2000 says that the Commission intends to make firm proposals for the tobacco and olive oil sectors.
I should like to remind you that here in Parliament it has been repeatedly urged that the Commission should only make such proposals when reports on these two sectors are being discussed in the European Parliament, and when a view has been expressed on them.
We are complying with that.
Concerning the wine sector, there is a proposal here for reform which we believe, however, should not be processed in its existing state.
I see here the necessity of presenting to the Commission a new proposal.
You may rest assured that these concrete proposals will be made available just as punctually - at the end of the year, or the beginning of next year - as the firm proposals for the areas grain, milk and beef, so that these southern products can be discussed within the framework of more general discussion.
A situation like that of Reform 92 should not arise, therefore, whereby it is really only possible to deliver a Council declaration at that time, work on reforming southern products having to be dealt with afterwards.
I should also like to draw attention to the fact that there is naturally a fundamental difference between grain, milk and beef products - although I must add in parenthesis that these products are also of the greatest importance in southern countries - and that is, that we are recommending here a marked reduction in price guarantees which will result in prices falling in these areas.
In the other sectors we are making no recommendations that would result in a fall in market prices for olive oil or tobacco grown by tobacco farmers within the European Union.
This aspect, that of the target income for agriculture, we must regard in future along with many others as one of the primary objectives.
Mr Commissioner, can we deduce from what you have said that there will be guarantees and prospects for the future of Mediterranean agriculture? Please be more specific, because the last Council of Ministers caused a lot of anxiety.
In what you have said so far I have not heard any details.
Mediterranean farmers need you to give them these guarantees of future prospects, as you do for other parts of Europe.
Please be more specific.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I agree with you that farmers throughout the European Union need a plan for the future.
That is precisely the purpose of Agenda 2000: to offer the farmers of Europe a vision for the future.
We want to make no differentiation between farmers from the south and those from the north.
The future of agriculture must be secured throughout Europe, and the reform proposals should, amongst other things, help to clarify what we can secure this future with.
Mr President, what I really want to ask the Commissioner is that, since it is quite clear that we are not going to reach the large number of questions on BSE, could he please ensure that the written answers which Members will receive go to everyone who has tabled those questions, because all of us would be interested in the answers to the other questions.
Chernobyl, Khmelnitsky and Rovno 4 nuclear reactors (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the oral question by Mr Scapagnini (B4-0519/97 - O-0087/97), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, to the Commission, on the closure of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor by 2000 and the completion of the Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4 nuclear reactors in Ukraine.
Mr President, the sarcophagus at Chernobyl is in a worsening condition and new risks are emerging, including the plutonium dust cloud release, so that securing it and closing the remaining unit are more urgent than ever.
The completion of K2 and R4 nuclear reactors is part of an agreement between the G7 and Ukraine on the closure of Chernobyl.
The agreement stipulates that the nuclear option must, however, be least-cost and the independent least-cost study commissioned by the EBRD makes clear that the nuclear option is far from least-cost.
Other least-cost studies were unofficially undertaken later, but these were not done by an independent panel of experts.
Any other report is unofficial and suspect under the EBRD's own operating principles for investment.
I must labour this point.
The official economic due diligence, I must emphasize, was done by an independent panel of experts and it follows that in the absence of a weighty published critique of the panel's work, any work, such as that being done by Stone and Webster, is unofficial and its basis must therefore be suspect under the EBRD operating principles for investment in the energy sector.
Indeed the Stone and Webster study has changed the assumptions to try to make K2 and R4 economic, and the model produced a long list of other projects which became economic before K2 and R4.
If they tried to make K2 or R4 economic, the investment bill for the bank would be astronomic.
A computer model cannot, without human intervention, make one reactor least-cost and the other uneconomic, so I was actually quite shocked at your own reaction today, Mr Commissioner.
ECU 30m nuclear-safety funds have already been committed to the K2 and R4 reactors through taxes.
Despite EP budget responsibility, decisions are being taken in a secretive manner without any consultation or proper information being given to Parliament or any clarity on the decision-making procedure.
Parliament is, along with the Council, the budgetary authority.
The budget for 1997 includes a stipulation that requires that Parliament be consulted in advance about individual Community loans.
To date this has not happened.
This lack of consultation is inconsistent with current proposals from the Commission to increase the level of the Guarantee Fund.
I am also alarmed at the Court of Auditors' report.
If we want to close Chernobyl we need to look carefully at what is actually being done in that particular area.
Mr Commissioner, you did not and cannot answer the question on consistent safety standards tonight.
The truth is that these reactors cannot be completed to Western safety standards.
You are planning to spend upwards of ECU 800m on unsafe reactors.
We will not be forgiven if we fail to close Chernobyl and create another accident zone.
Mr President, the more we hear about this whole project the more alarmed I have become.
I have the feeling that this Parliament could become embroiled in a cause célèbre with the Commission.
If it is the case that the EBRD is evading its own requirements to go for the lowest cost option, this is a serious matter which could have serious repercussions.
The European public also will fail to understand why Ukraine is being encouraged to rely on the nuclear option instead of going for what would appear to be a very fruitful alternative, i.e. energy saving, energy efficiency, and renewables.
A big push in that direction would be signalled by not replacing the Chernobyl-era plants. That is the direction in which the European Union's policy should be pointing.
It would be very strange indeed if Chernobyl, which to the West stands as a terrible warning of the dangers of nuclear power, and should therefore lead to the phasing out of nuclear power, was instead to become the symbol of its replacement by a new generation of nuclear power.
This is - or could be - a historic turning-point.
Instead of propping up the Western European desire to renew the nuclear energy of Ukraine, we should be looking to alternatives.
This would be in the best interests of the European Union and of the people of Ukraine who have suffered long enough from nuclear contamination.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the closure of the nuclear power station at Chernobyl is an extremely sensitive subject, in the light of the dramatic accident which occurred, and which we naturally all remember.
In the light of the dangers of this type of power station, it is in the interests of all that the closure of Chernobyl should occur as soon as possible.
However, the Ukrainian government has put a prior condition on the closure of the unit still operating at Chernobyl, namely finance for the completion of the replacement nuclear power stations at Khmelnitzky 2 and Rovno 4.
This position is understandable, if Ukraine's requirements in energy are taken into account. However, it appears that loans from the EBRD intended to finance the replacement power stations may be rejected, under the criterion of least cost.
It appears to us completely unacceptable that the achieving of a goal as essential as that of the closure of a supremely hazardous power station should be deferred for purely technocratic and budgetary reasons.
If the EBRD is to be managed as a private bank under common law, one cannot really see why there is any need for its existence.
It is clear that, if the logic of the least cost were to carry the day, the closure of Chernobyl would be indefinitely postponed.
After all, it was also for reasons of cost reduction that power stations such as Chernobyl were built in the past.
The adoption of stricter safety standards would have increased costs and led to the construction of more technologically sophisticated power stations.
Here it is quite apparent that the European Commission's logic is a budgetary logic.
Of course, that has its merits for day-to-day administration, but in our opinion, this should not win out over the need to insure oneself against major nuclear risks.
Furthermore, it appears to us regrettable that the European authorities which, in general, and fairly systematically, it must be said, push for the integration of European states, even when this goes against the wish of the population, as can be seen in Bosnia, does not recommend Ukraine at any time to intensify its energy cooperation with the Russian Federation.
However, the interests of the two countries are indissociable one from the other, by reason of a long common history, and it is absurd not to take into consideration such a historical heritage.
If ever Ukraine were to be short of nuclear-powered electricity following the closure of Chernobyl, why not envisage supplying energy from Russia and Central Asia - which is already being done - but on a much greater scale, as the oil and gas resources of these regions are considerable.
Here of course this is really a question of politics, and not a matter of mere experts.
We believe, indeed, that this possibility has only been excluded in order to marginalize the Russian Federation and deliver up Ukraine to the economic appetites of the west.
Such an attitude does not appear to us to be reasonable in the long term, and it is essential in our opinion to breach the law of silence which benefits western policy, and founded on the determined pursuit of limitless profit.
The wish increasingly to dissociate members of the CIS one from another, and so make them into Western economic colonies, in a manner of speaking, may well be profitable in the very short term, but probably not in the longer term.
To isolate Ukraine, to impose upon it ever more rigorous financial standards, appears not to be the best way to render it service.
This logic is tantamount to doing nothing about the hazards of Chernobyl, which is perfectly scandalous in human terms.
It is therefore, we believe, necessary to grant the priority loans which Ukraine needs, or alternatively - and this is not incompatible - to prompt Ukraine to draw closer to Russia, and finalize a common energy policy with Russia.
Why would any form of rapprochement between the Russian Federation and Ukraine be taboo, whereas everywhere else, there is a push to closer links between states?
In our view, only such a political line of rapprochement could provide some safe outcome, first for the urgent needs of short term nuclear safety, and secondly, for the need to create a climate of peaceful cooperation in Europe, reminding ourselves of this obvious truth, which is apparently too often forgotten: the Russian Federation is also in Europe, and no-one has the power to expel it.
Thank you Mr President, and thank you too, Mr Commissioner, for your attendance and for your answers this afternoon.
Perhaps they were not all quite as detailed as we had hoped but perhaps you will get another chance to comment.
We would be particularly interested in any fall-back plans you might have should things not go according to our expectations.
Clearly we need a solution to Chernobyl.
I am sure there is complete unanimity on that.
Also, it is quite obvious that you, Mr Commissioner, will be safeguarding the European Union by not simply accepting the wishes of Ukraine without imposing certain conditions.
We are indebted to our colleague, Gordon Adam, for his extremely thorough report - quite characteristic of that very diligent person - on the situation in Ukraine, which is clearly terrifying.
This is not the time for a debate on whether or not nuclear power is a good idea and I urge colleagues not to misuse this debate for that reason.
We are looking at a specific case.
We are asked, and indeed President Larosière of the EBRD did raise the four safeguards that we would all want, whether, as a result of the EBRD loan we will have the highest possible existing standard of safety.
Are we doing something which is sound in financial terms? What is the bankability of Ukraine?
Are we putting money at risk? Are we doing what is the least costly solution?
Other aspects also arise.
Clearly, in western Europe, constructing nuclear power stations in our market and in our conditions is not always the least-cost at the moment. This worries me a lot: will the long term operational management be satisfactory?
If we have any doubts can we ensure through specific help, through a long term programme, that there will be backing for these people who are living through very traumatic times, so that whatever solution is chosen they will not be abandoned in a period of difficulties? We know that it would not be acceptable to you, and certainly not to us, to have lower standards, money at risk, public money wasted, and we want the assurance from you that this is not contemplated.
The energy situation in Ukraine raises much wider questions than those we have posed this evening and we have alluded to some other aspects and, indeed, other possibilities.
They include the geo-political situation of Ukraine and its relationship with its neighbours and former masters, which we have to take into account.
We have to look at the need to use the available western expertise in nuclear power.
What we want more than anything else, though, is to know that no rules are being broken, that they are being kept and that what we are doing is sensible and can be justified in the eyes of the public.
Mr President, safety aspects also militate against completion of the two nuclear power stations.
Neither project accords with the allocation guidelines of the EBRD, and I have the results of studies which come out most clearly against the construction of these nuclear power stations.
The modernization and completion programme planned by the operators will never satisfy Western safety principles.
The planned modernization programme will not even comply, Mr Commissioner, with the new Russian safety standards, as the construction of the reactor type used in K2 and R4 still fulfills the old Russian standards.
Furthermore, the modernization programme does not even meet all post-Three Mile Island requirements.
If the project were so to be modified that it met all the above requirements, then the financial means needed for it and the time frame required for a corresponding re-equipment programme would alter so radically, that it would greatly exceed all the assumptions so far made.
With regard to the fourth condition - environmental friendliness and citizen participation - I leave it to your assessment just what citizen participation might look like in Ukraine today.
There must be no retreat on the closure of Chernobyl.
On the contrary, everything possible must be done to close this damaged reactor for all time as quickly as we can.
I think it is irresponsible to allow Chernobyl to run for even one more day, or perhaps to use it as an excuse for the construction of two more, equally problematic, nuclear power stations.
A few days ago the President of the EBRD, Jacques Larosière, was in Austria, where he held talks with members of the Austrian Government.
Austria came out quite clearly against any financing of these two nuclear power stations.
As an alternative, Austria supported, amongst other measures, the modernization of existing calorific power stations.
When one considers the heat loss of everything being built in Ukraine - up to 60 % - that is so huge that one can easily imagine that one could help the people there with far fewer resources and in a much less dangerous manner.
Austria will obviously help to finance the sheathing of the ruined reactor at Chernobyl, and it will also pay into the corresponding funds.
Chernobyl was one catastrophe.
In God's name let us not create potential new catastrophes through the completion of these two doubtful nuclear power stations!
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I shall address myself directly to you, because this debate seems to me to be utterly absurd.
It is suggested that about ECU 1 billion be collected to buy the closure of Chernobyl from the Ukrainians - let us be blunt about it - and then we should finance with this money two new nuclear power stations, which will be - as Mrs Flemming has just said - an ongoing risk.
A risk not only for Ukraine, but for Europe as well. And at the same time they will produce energy which Ukraine does not even need!
I think that is an absurd development.
By all means assist the eastern and central European countries to move away from nuclear power, but not one single ECU for the construction of more nuclear power stations!
Mr Commissioner, I exhort you to represent this line in the Commission, because it is the only energy policy line which can sustain the future.
Anything else would be a continuation of, and a support for, a policy that is recognized as wrong.
I exhort you to allow this line of development in energy policy generally, and particularly in this special case.
Above all, to allow the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to withstand pressure from the nuclear lobby, and not to permit the very opposite.
Mr President, the results of the disaster at Chernobyl have hung like a sword of Damocles over Ukraine and the whole of Europe for more than ten years.
It was only possible two years ago to negotiate serious closure programmes and put them into action.
Just how difficult this is can be seen from the question that we have put to the Commission today.
This is a matter of more than just the completion of two nuclear power stations which - as has previously been said - are very complex and expensive, and above all do not meet Western safety requirements.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has undertaken a safety assessment and was unable to discover this degree of safety in all points.
In fact some important points were omitted.
A main argument that Ukraine always raises, when alternative forms of energy are discussed, is the supply of fuel.
If Ukraine does not want to be dependent on Russia, which would have to supply the gas for a gas power station, then I ask myself where the big uranium mines are in Ukraine, from which it could obtain its own uranium. This is exactly the same sort of dependence.
I believe we have to look at energy policy in its entirety.
We should start with least cost planning - which the bank also prescribes - and invest no money in projects that do not meet our concepts of safety and electricity output.
It is interesting, by the way, that there has been a reduction in power production in Ukraine, where mainly calorific power stations have been closed down.
Mr Commissioner, I very much regret that we find ourselves in a situation where we must apparently choose the lesser of two evils. I urge you to produce an energy policy with the eastern European countries which is orientated towards the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, occasionally we end up standing on our heads.
Everybody knows today that Chernobyl must be definitively closed.
This summer, a report from the nuclear operators throughout the world was unanimous in saying that unit 3 was now exposed to a major risk along the lines of the 1986 accident.
Everyone agrees that Chernobyl must be closed.
Now other nations are saying to us: we want the Ukrainians to agree with out point of view.
The Ukrainians are independent people, they have decided to undertake an energy policy which is suitable to them, and they have asked us to help them.
If we do not help them, what will happen? We had experience of this in 1996.
They built a nuclear power station at Zapörozhe, which is an exact replica of Chernobyl, without containment, and without the safety facilities that we employ in the west.
If that is what we want, that is what we shall get, and you will always be able to say in Austria, or elsewhere, or in Portugal, that you don't like it, but the power station will still be there.
Alternatively, some say, we need only recommend the building of coal, gas or oil-fired power stations.
Well, I say that this will cost you more, and I hope that the Commission will confirm what I am saying: $ 100 million a year for a coal-fired power station which emits more CO2 into the atmosphere than is acceptable.
And hence, curiously, the ecologists will come up to demonstrate that the nuclear power station is hazardous, while accepting coal combustion pollution.
You need to be clear on what you want.
What is the problem we face today? It is simple: two nuclear power stations are 80 % to 85 % completed.
In no way, ladies and gentlemen, are we to accept a new Chernobyl.
Already western companies from France or Germany are working to install in Ukraine the facilities employed in their own western nuclear power stations.
I would like to say to those who are exposing us today to a twin danger, that their calculation is all wrong.
On the one hand, we shall have a nuclear accident if we do not close Chernobyl. On the other hand, we shall have pollution, if we accept power generation by archaic resources.
This is why, today, the Ukrainians wish to be independent, and do not wish to be in the hands of the Russians, either for gas, or for uranium, or for coal, and are therefore asking us to provide them with assistance.
Shall we in response to their expectations simply keep our mouths shut? Or shall we implement the policy that suits the circumstances?
Mr President, I should be pleased to go into the matter more deeply on another occasion perhaps.
I would say to those who have the feeling that they are not well informed, that the European Commission, I believe, has shown the necessary transparency on this point and spoken on this matter many times with the members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
I agree with the comments that have been made that we cannot hold a debate this evening for or against nuclear energy.
We have here a debate about closing down Chernobyl and how it can be made as safe as possible.
When two weeks ago, during a summit with Ukraine, we again asked President Kuchma whether he was able to confirm that his earlier political commitment to close Chernobyl in the year 2000 was still applicable, he said that it was, inasfar as the international community is also prepared to honour the commitment that it made in the Memorandum of Understanding in 1994 and 1995.
That not only involves assistance in implementing a large energy saving programme, also in the MOU, which is also jointly financed.
But it also involves, among other things, supporting completion of the two nuclear power plants under construction.
If the international community does not come up with the financing - let us also be realistic about this - then we know that Ukraine has already reserved funds in its own budget at the moment in order to achieve the dismantling of the two reactors in another way, but that of course does not give the West the opportunity to lay down the safety conditions that now form part of the loans that we wish to provide for the dismantling of the reactors.
Also, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, I understand very well that there is a dilemma at the EBRD.
I also understand very well that scientists have argued with each other about whether this is a matter of a least cost solution or not.
We can discuss this with each other for a long time, but in the meantime the closure of Chernobyl would be jeopardized.
Therefore the Commission said at a given moment: we will in any case comply with what was agreed within the G7 at that time, inasfar as it is within the power of the Union.
That implies that we are offering joint finance via Euratom loans for everything on condition a) that Chernobyl complies with the safety requirements and b) that the EBRD is prepared to jointly financed it.
In addition, it will also be financed by Ukraine itself and third party donors will also part-finance it.
We are awaiting the statement by the EBRD.
The Union is spending an enormous amount of money, hundreds of millions per annum, in contributions to eastern Europe, former countries of the Soviet Union in order to ensure that unsafe nuclear reactors are either closed down or made safe again.
I would refer you to the many discussions that we have had with each other about Kosloduy, Mochovse and so on.
These things concern all of us.
We do not take it lightly and we are not trail-blazers who purely and simply wish to promote nuclear energy.
But we are facing an enormous dilemma here, in which, as has just been said, the Chernobyl plant and particularly unit 3 has now been declared unsafe again by international experts.
We therefore do not have very much time left for discussion.
We must act. The Commission will shoulder its responsibilities in this regard.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Van den Broek.
I have received six motions for resolutions under Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
The debate is closed.
Innovation action plan
The next item is the report (A4-0269/97) by Mr Rovsing, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Commission communication 'The first action plan for innovation in Europe - Innovation for growth and employment' (COM(96)0589 - C4-0624/96)
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur Mr Rovsing for an excellent report. It is one that has been very helpful to our debates.
It is appropriate that the first action plan for innovation in Europe should come from Florence which was the centre of so much early European civilization.
We are aware that the correlation between research, technological development and innovation on the one hand and productivity growth and job creation on the other is very strong.
We are aware too that the European Union is less efficient than its competitors at exploiting the ideas we have.
Indeed, we currently have a deficit of ECU 24 billion per annum in hi-tech trade with Japan and the USA.
Clearly we need education and skills development.
Clearly we need, and are seeing, benchmarking by our companies.
Clearly we need better provision of finance for small businesses.
Essentially this will be at the individual, local and national level but it is important that the Union sets the operational environment.
That it can do in areas such as competition, intellectual property and the functioning of the single market. And not least too in assisting with finance for small businesses.
This action plan is good and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of this Parliament welcomes it.
But we need to prioritize to a greater extent, which is not easy for the Commission but which is essential, to create more opportunity to provide equity finance and to work on the European company statute.
There is much to be gained.
The great giant, IBM, recently looked to a small Belgian company when it was looking for voice recognition technology.
Clearly there is a lot that can be done in Europe.
Far more will be achieved through programmes such as this than ever will be achieved through the jobs package which is being dressed up by the European Council to convince our citizens that we are doing something about employment.
I welcome this report and believe that Parliament should spend a lot of time looking at what the Commission is doing and ensuring that our innovation policies, which will really foster jobs, will take us forward into the next century.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have been appointed rapporteur on the current and future situation regarding European industrial competitiveness, and I am therefore working urgently on this important dossier.
I can also tell you that I am a militant Web-surfer, and therefore extremely conscious, not only of the great importance of the Net, but also of our considerable backwardness in this field.
I therefore read Mr Rovsing's report with great interest, and I can say that I accept, that the Socialist group accepts, many of the observations, reflections and proposals contained in that report.
I can also say that I shall include a number of those observations, reflections and propositions in my own report, which is due in a few months.
In the few minutes available to me, I wish to go to the essential, in the three briefest of points.
First point, in the European Union - you have said so and everyone has said so - we are short of innovation, which is the consequence of the relative trimming back in our research effort. This has occurred in spite of the initiatives of the European Commission.
The shortfall in research is, without any doubt, one of the causes of the rise in unemployment in the European Union in the last few years, and the situation has been aggravated by very substantial delays in the field of new technologies - a dossier with which I am also well acquainted - and in particular, the take-up of new technology among the population, and especially among the youth, through our national educational systems.
Additionally, as has been said or can be read here and there, in the fields of information technology and communications, we are still in the Middle Ages, in a manner of speaking. And as some countries will move from the Middle Ages into the third millennium in the next ten or twenty years to come, we should take stock of the urgency and importance of the efforts required in Europe to improve research, develop new technologies and promote innovation, and in particular in communication.
For this, we need larger budgets, as everyone will agree, but also priorities in our actions, a proposal with which I also agree.
Can I say that it will be necessary perhaps, everywhere in Europe, to put everyone on Internet, and in particular political and economic managers and senior decision makers, who often spend their time talking about things they know little about. This is either because they have no personal experience, or because they ensure that that experience is confined to their secretaries.
This for me would be a real, a new, a great service to be developed, one which would indeed be universal, and in the general public interest.
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today much is being said about employment.
However employment presupposes economic growth, which itself requires research, technological development and innovation.
Hence, ladies and gentlemen, members of the Commission and ministers - who are not represented here this evening - maybe we need to combat all temptations or attempts at bringing cost cutting of the Malthus style into our budgets.
Mr President, our group values Mr Rovsing's report highly and considers it to be very good overall. We also think that the Commission's communication is a positive step.
We agree with Mr Rovsing's appraisal of communication failings and about the need to establish priorities and clarify the European Union's obligations.
However, there are various contradictions and ambiguities, which mean that in the end our opinion is not entirely positive.
Firstly, it is said that innovation will result in more jobs, but the innovation and employment statistics from the last 25 years indicate precisely the opposite.
The increased productivity yield per hour worked means there is a decrease in the number of jobs.
Secondly, there are calls for European policy to improve the structure of research - which we think is correct - and also its relationship with small businesses.
But the way the framework-programmes have developed in recent years means that there is a growing concentration of resources in a few outstanding regions, and a privileged link with large industries.
Thirdly, we think that although the investments supported by the Commission are important and result in improved funding, the Maastricht criteria are nevertheless imposing budgetary restrictions on research as well, both overall and in each country.
Fourthly, it is said that there is a need for a favourable climate, but students' training causes an increase in competitiveness and individualism, and this can hinder that favourable climate.
Finally, we believe that we need to rely much more on the workers and the unions, both within companies and outside them, to be able to create this climate of technological innovation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has a special place within the industrial world.
Alas, that position is one of particularly low growth, and particularly high unemployment levels.
Under such circumstances, innovation is effectively a necessity, not only for the present, but also for the future.
Mr Rovsing's report rightly emphasizes the comparative weakness of the research and development drive in Europe as compared to the United States and Japan.
While this is easily said, the solutions have yet to be found.
In this respect, I wish to remind you that innovation is above all a matter of business, and those who work in businesses.
As has so rightly been said by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, the public authorities, be they regional, national or European, are not the best place to decide on the skills and qualifications required by businesses.
The role of the authorities in this field, as in many others incidentally, is to create an environment favourable to corporate innovation.
Indeed, it is only if society as a whole is borne up by a spirit of enterprise, with the risks and innovations that this involves, that enterprises will effectively be able to develop a dynamics of research and development.
The key factor is therefore to ensure that national legislation applies to the patents and know-how which promote innovation. But we must also ensure that the burden of taxation should not be intolerable and discouraging for companies that might no longer have the resources to invest in research and development.
We therefore need to congratulate the rapporteur, who has emphasized the need to avoid excessive regulation.
The report's recommendations lay great emphasis on the role of small and medium-sized companies.
Their role is clear, but you will allow me to give equal emphasis to the major role of the larger companies in this field.
We should also, possibly, have raised the question of technology transfers and cooperation between large and small companies, particularly large companies and sub-contracting companies.
In regard to small and medium-sized companies, it should be noted that they already consider that they are all too often at some considerable distance from the national authorities.
Hence, the Community authorities will appear to them to be even more remote.
In this field, as in others, the principle of subsidiarity must not only be raised, but also respected.
Finally and in conclusion, I would like to insist on the fact that innovation can only develop in an economic and social climate which is favourable to enterprise, and that it is vain to promote special campaigns in this field and to devise assistance and incentives, if economic policy is locked up in narrow monetarism, and does not favour growth.
Innovation, and here I repeat myself, is above all the business of the enterprise sector itself, and of the men and women who give that sector life.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate concerns an extremely interesting subject. I wish to bring forward a few points in this debate that I personally feel are of great importance.
I have also found them in the Commission document and in the excellent report by the rapporteur.
The financing of innovative companies and especially young people starting up and pace-setting companies by means of investment and risk capital is one of the keys to innovation. From research we know that innovation is especially to be found among these young, new companies.
We have spoken here about getting the discussion going.
If we debate this subject with each other, then I should very much like to mention the phenomenon of the role of the bankers and the large pension funds.
There are enormous amounts of money there.
I think they could be made better use of and in order to get the banks in on this, I think this debate could be an excellent way of doing this.
I also want to ask again for attention be paid to the European company statute.
It has been dropped again. It was often discussed in Parliament in the past.
Also very important is the role of education, the role of the combination of universities and business and last but not least I believe that the SMEs in particular can play a large part in this innovation which is something that we all want.
As my very last point, I therefore wish to refer to the letter from the chairman of the Committee on Culture who is afraid that we just keep on talking to each other and invites us to do something.
I think that is a message we should take to heart.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Parliament for the interest it has shown in the first action plan for innovation.
This has benefited from extensive scrutiny, as three Committees - the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs - have given their opinions to the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
My thanks go first to Mr Rovsing for the quality of his report.
It is stimulating in its criticism and motivating for the Commission, because the report invites the Commission to do more, particularly in the fields of finance for innovation and management of Community programmes for research and development.
The Commission is sensitive to the rapporteur's recommendation, which invites the Commission to set up priorities on four points.
The Commission shares the opinion of the rapporteur with regard to the priority to be granted to the question of finance and innovation.
This, as you have rightly emphasized, is a vast question, which covers company start-ups, venture capital, transeuropean capital markets for high-growth companies, stock options, equity finance, etc.
The Commission on 1 July 1997 launched a pilot project - Hightech, Innovation and Technology Equity Capital - in collaboration with the European Investment Fund, to encourage private venture capital operators to invest in the start-up phases of technologically innovative projects.
The project was very warmly welcomed, and in two months, many funds were committed to playing a more active role.
The European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund should also in the future, and in accordance with the resolution of the European summit for growth and employment held at Amsterdam, contribute to the improvement of the potential for innovation among companies in the European Union.
The second point is that of intellectual property, and this is one of the priorities of the Commission.
On 25 June 1997 the Commission adopted the Green Paper on the Community patent and on patent systems in Europe.
The Green Paper was to be an incentive to extensive debate and was intended to result in measures for substantial improvement of the current system of patent protection.
And you know that in this field there is much that needs to be done.
I rely on the support of Parliament in the approach adopted, which will be absolutely decisive.
The Commission also intends to introduce an assistance and information service on questions of intellectual property for the fifth framework programme.
It is vital that results financed out of public money should be better exploited, and this service should contribute to that.
The third point is that the framework programme should mark a change in Community policy towards research for innovation.
Innovation should become a concern to be included in the operation of theme-based programmes.
The innovation and participation programme for small and medium-sized companies should be attentive to this as part of its co-ordinating and supporting role, while carrying out its own activities.
The rapprochement between the themes of innovation and small and medium-sized companies within a single programme should make it possible to open up this framework programme more widely to small and medium-sized companies, and to ensure they benefit more broadly from its results, by making a better evaluation of their requirements.
The improvement in methods of management of the framework programme should facilitate the re-orientation of programmes or projects currently in their execution phase, in the light of technological and social requirements.
Finally, and this is the fourth point, the Commission is convinced of the importance of the educational and cultural dimension.
This is one of the three themes retained by the action plan.
Competitiveness and employment in Europe depend upon mastery of information, of knowledge and of adaptability.
The implementation of the proposals of the White Paper on education and training, in particular Erasmus and apprenticeship, and the pilot projects such as 'Learning in the information society' , should contribute to promoting innovation and ensuring its image is democratized.
In conclusion, the debate around the Green Paper and the publication of the action plan have raised awareness of the importance of innovation for company competitiveness, for growth and for employment.
Mr Rovsing's report provides a critical and enriching back-up to the approach of the Commission.
This report encourages the Commission to pursue its efforts and even to go further on some points.
Parliament's recommendations and suggestions will be taken into account by the Commission in the implementation of its action plan and in the preparation of the Luxembourg summit on employment.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Cresson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Imports of CFC products from China and Russia
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0522/97 - O-0106/97 by Mr Teverson and Mr Eisma, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party to the Commission, on the illegal network importing CFC products from China and Russia into the European Union; -B4-0523/97 - O-0107/97 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on illegal imports of CFCs.
Mr President, one of the things that impressed the world most in terms of global environmental action was the Montreal Protocol - the agreement, that was unique at that time, between 24 nations to work towards a ban on CFCs.
That has now grown to 163 countries and indeed production is now banned in the European Union, in OECD countries and will be in developing countries from the year 2010.
That protocol was a unique combination of determination between NGOs, government and business to solve a vital environmental problem.
But that good work, as we have seen from a number of reports recently, has been undermined by smuggling, estimated at up to some 20, 000 tonnes a year, a third of world trade, undermining quite substantially the legitimate industry that is trying to provide substitutes.
Europe has been described as being awash with illegal CFCs.
These have come primarily from Russia, often relabelled as being recycled products - Russia appears to be contravening the Montreal Convention - and from China where output is actually growing.
The solution must be a ban on sales; not just of virgin CFCs which is important and taken on board quite substantially by the European Commission and a number of European nations, but a total ban because of the problem of relabelling and lack of control.
While those sales go on there must also be a licensing system world-wide that is fully accountable and fully traceable.
I, personally, have always been a great subscriber to the principle of subsidiarity in European decision-making, but this is one area in a global environmental issue where there is no room for subsidiarity.
Europe, the Council of Ministers, the Commission and Parliament together should be working for the highest standards to make sure that the principles of the Montreal Protocol are not undermined but are indeed strengthened.
Industry is behind it.
The health of future generations, certainly in the northern hemisphere, is very much threatened by this smuggling and continued use of CFCs.
I ask the Commission, which has been a strong advocate of reform, what step it is now going to take to stop this smuggling of CFCs into the European Union?
Mr President, we generally keep an extremely close watch on the action of the Commission services, and we often recommend they show more vigour.
However, in the matter about which we have just received information from our colleague, the Parliament should be invited to congratulate the Commission services, which are frequently put in a difficult position because, in the field of combatting fraud, they bring to light fraud which very often is more or less covered by the administrations of the Member States.
Our group therefore wishes that the action of the Commission services should be supported by the whole of the Parliament.
It should be remembered that production of CFCs has been banned since 1995 in the European Union, and is also in general banned in all the developed countries, and will be so in all the developing countries from 2010.
For the present, we accept the import of these products into the European Union, on a quota system.
However these quotas must be respected!
Nevertheless, we see that the lack of international customs cooperation and the poor quality of cooperation between the customs departments of the Member States, in matters affecting the environment, creates breaches in the protection to which our countries should be entitled.
The intervention of UCLAF is therefore a major victory, in so far as coordination at European Union level seems to have borne fruit.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance wishes to invite Parliament to make progress towards total prohibition of CFC imports into the European Union.
It invites the Commissioner and the Commission to work in close cooperation with the parties to the Montreal Convention, in order to set up a very strict regime of sanctions against those operating illegally.
Ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission was warned, some time back, of illicit transactions in substances which deplete the ozone layer, and has therefore taken and continues to take measures at various levels.
The European Commission unit for combatting fraud has intervened, as you emphasized, to institute and coordinate inquiries with the customs departments of the Member States.
These inquiries have recently resulted in discoveries of illegal imports into a number of Member States (Germany, Netherlands, Belgium) of some 1, 000 tonnes of CFC and halon of Chinese origin.
The merchandise was seized and the persons suspected of the fraud arrested.
Other inquiries relating to situations and products of different types and provenance are underway.
Simultaneously, several initiatives have been taken to reinforce the control system and seek out possible sources of illegal imports.
In these past few days in particular, parties to the Montreal protocol on substances depleting the ozone layer have been studying the problem as part of a tenth anniversary meeting, and are discussing a proposal whose aim is to oblige all parties to set up a regime of licences for the import and export of substances of this type.
The European Community is already managing a system of quotas and licences for the import of these substances. However, it goes without saying that the efforts of all parties should be coordinated to prevent illegal trading.
The Commission intends, at the time of the revision of Council Regulation 3093/94 relating to such substances, to propose the prohibition of the sale and use of CFCs, whose production has already been banned since 1995.
The prohibition of sale would eliminate demand, and hence the temptation of illegal trade.
In parallel, the European Union has, under the Montreal protocol, submitted a proposal to all the industrialized countries, and this is also under discussion.
The regulation lays the obligation on all Member States to set out persuasive sanctions in the event of non-compliance with provisions, but it is their responsibility, clearly, to apply these sanctions effectively.
Mr President, I am pleased to hear what Mrs Cresson says.
It is certainly different from what the Commission said last year when Mrs Bjerregaard spoke on the subject.
First of all, I must welcome the report by the Environmental Investigation Agency which has exposed this trade and provided the undeniable evidence which means that the Commission must act against this illegal trade.
Despite the report and questions from the Institute of International Affairs and questions by myself and other Members in the past, the Commission has been slow to act on this.
Indeed, in May last year Mrs Bjerregaard said: ' we obviously are interested to study reports from the UK, but we will have to see if there is enough information to take the matter forward' .
Well, I am pleased to hear that the Commission is taking the matter forward at last - at last - but not far enough!
Anybody who has studied this trade knows quite clearly that it is a classic example of the operations of illegal crime and illegal trade in general.
The Commission must not just take action against the demand, it must take action against the supply.
There are clearly alternatives to all existing uses and the Commission has been slow to ban the use and the sale of CFCs within the Community.
But the matter does not stop there, Mrs Cresson.
You have got to take action against the supply as well.
A World Bank plan exists to buy out almost half the world's production in Russia, costing only $ 27 million, yet the response by Member States so far has been poor.
Britain has offered $ 3 million, Denmark has offered $ 2 million, Norway - it is not in the Union, but at least it is a responsible country - has offered $ 2 million.
The Americans have also offered money.
I would call upon the Commission to get its full strength and full weight behind this proposal to buy that production out, to isolate the remaining production in China and to ensure that this illegal trade is stopped. You can buy it out - it costs peanuts.
Why has the Commission not done it?
Why has it not acted in the interests of the people of Europe in response to calls from their representatives like myself and others who have asked questions in the past? It has been slow to act and the consequences are severe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two old proverbs to start with.
Whenever money is to be earned by circumventing the law, crime cannot be far away.
The other: the fact that UCLAF, the European Commission's fraud squad, has got onto the trail of these nefarious dealings shows that the controls are working.
At the forefront of the oral question are illegal imports from China, and possibly also from Russia.
In Germany they have just uncovered the illegal import of 1, 000 tonnes of CFCs from Great Britain.
There is also evidence that some other countries in eastern and central Europe are not obeying the current agreement on ending the production and use of CFCs, which have been identified as an ozone killer.
Ten years ago 24 states and the European Union signed the Montreal Agreement, the aim of which was, and is, the phased cessation of CFC production and a phased renunciation of other agents which are most damaging to the ozone layer.
CFCs have been forbidden in industrial countries since 1996.
Despite this, some 240, 000 tonnes are still produced worldwide every year.
Consumption still rises worldwide by about 4 %, mainly in the developing countries.
Even here in Europe CFCs have not been entirely abandoned in existing installations, for instance, condenser plant. This is not merely on grounds of cost - the replacement of all these installations would swallow enormous sums - but also for environmental reasons.
There are insufficient plants across the world to remove these CFCs without causing environmental damage.
To satisfy the need for an alternative there is the so-called quota system, and in the resolution motion which we are voting on tomorrow we shall be unable to pass point 6, because here the question is raised about what is to happen to the quantities that cannot be removed.
We in the European Union must not only see that the existing laws and treaties are obeyed, and that offenses are strictly penalized, but we must take every step to ensure that developing countries and those in the former Eastern Block are persuaded to forgo the use of CFCs earlier than hitherto foreseen - by the year 2010, in fact.
For this they need our financial and technical support.
We must likewise do all in our power to reduce the use of other ozoneharmful agents.
Methyl bromide, which has two thirds of the damaging potential of CFC, and is used mainly in developing countries in agriculture, is principal amongst these.
The same applies, though, to the partially-halogenated hydro-chloro-fluorocarbons, the HCFCs, which are being increasingly introduced throughout the world as replacements for CFCs, and whose damaging effect is only 20 % of the CFCs' potential.
For this reason we cannot vote under point 7 for inclusion of the HCFCs.
We should like it removed, because it is simply impossible.
Throughout the world there is resistance to an earlier end to the use of these materials.
The European Union should, as already agreed, lead with a good example here.
Mr President, in this one minute I can merely say that I am very worried about the illegal trade.
Another 96, 000 tonnes of CFCs, and in July of this year it was discovered that 150 tonnes of these dangerous substances were being dealt in illegally and that they come particularly from China and Russia.
But I have not completely understood from the Commission what specific action and sanctions they now wish to impose on the dealers in these illegal substances.
Perhaps the Commission could just have a better look at this matter.
If I have understood the Commission properly, during the Montreal conference that ends tomorrow, it will also put forward proposals to prohibit the sale and use of all CFCs worldwide.
But I should also like to know, and I ask the Commission once again, whether in the one remaining day of the conference it also wishes to ban the substitutes for CFCs and methyl bromide.
I hope we will receive a report on this Montreal Conference and the effort that the Commission has made and we would ask the Commission to let us have the report as quickly as possible so that we will know what the Commission has done.
Mr President, as many speakers have already mentioned, part, in fact a very large part, of the illegal imports of freons comes from China. Some also comes from Russia.
A while ago German newspapers reported on how a seller of fire-fighting equipment had been arrested for illegally importing freons from China.
The profits which can be made from this are thought to be up to around 300 per cent, and around 10, 000 tonnes of illegal freons are said to be imported into the European Union each year.
This is therefore a very serious problem as everyone has stressed in this debate.
The question is how we are to overcome it.
The World Bank is now trying, as some speakers also mentioned, to buy out the people who produce these substances. For example, by providing DM 140 million to Russia so that they will refrain from producing what they have committed themselves by agreement not to produce.
This is perhaps a doubtful method, but you must still ask yourself whether it is not a necessary method.
Since developing countries now have the right to produce freons until the year 2010, there is perhaps no alternative but to buy them out in one way or another.
It would be interesting to know whether the Commission has thought about this; in other words, what is its view on the World Bank's project and is it prepared to support it?
Is the Commission further prepared in the case of China to open special discussions with the Chinese government to see whether the Chinese authorities can be of assistance in stopping this at source?
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, smuggling occurs when it brings in a lot of money.
The contraband CFCs that have been discovered are surely a mere fraction of what is being smuggled into the Union.
My colleague, Mr Bowe, has drawn attention to that fact.
I, too, have put a series of questions to the Commission in this context, because rumours of smuggling have repeatedly arisen.
They are not being smuggled because they are themselves so valuable, but because their manufacture is prohibited, and yet much equipment and many installations that cannot function without CFCs are still in existence.
This is, I believe, one of the main points we have to bear in mind.
It is not enough to prohibit manufacture.
It is not enough to prohibit sales.
It is not enough to prohibit imports.
One must also work towards the phased removal, modification or replacement with new models of all those installations that still operate with CFCs today.
That is most certainly also an area which must be researched, not just into replacement materials, but also replacement equipment and installations.
If someone owns a car cooled with CFCs, replacement for the air conditioning costs over $ 200, and that money can buy a car in the USA.
So this means that if we are serious about the matter, we must start with the total removal from use of this material, which causes long term damage to the ozone layer.
Many of us will not live to see the day when the ozone layer has so far recovered as to equate once more with pre-1970 levels.
I believe it will also be necessary to reinforce control measures in Member States, to examine quotas carefully, and perhaps to buy more equipment like that used in the USA to detect smuggled CFCs.
This also would be an important step, but all that can only be one measure to bring about a faster end to use.
As far as I am aware, Directorate General XI is preparing a document that will also enable the Union to introduce an earlier end to the use of HCFCs.
We should all work together on this, as far as both investment and replacement compounds are concerned.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall try to reply to the questions which have been raised, and this will enable me to give details of the Commission's position.
Some of you have raised questions as to the exact scope of this traffic.
For some time already, complaints have been made about illegal imports of CFCs, and the industry believes that such traffic could involve volumes of between 10, 000 and 15, 000 tonnes annually.
Furthermore, an NGO, the Environmental Investigation Agency, which is principally in charge of such problems, in a recent publication made reference to imports ranging from 6, 000 to 20, 000 tonnes.
Others have raised questions as to the resources available to the Commission for undertaking legal action against customers involved in traffic of this kind.
The follow-up on violations of European legislation - that is, the obligation to set up a system of licences, prohibition of imports, and the relevant sanctions - falls within the responsibility of the Member States.
As I said earlier, the European Commission anti-fraud unit has opened and coordinated inquiries with the customs departments of the Member States.
Sanctions differ from one state to another, and are not homogeneous.
Yet others again have raised questions about the current situation on the application of Community legislation in the various Member States.
The Community stipulations relating to the inspection of substances depleting the ozone layer are applied thanks to regulations which directly involve economic operators.
Another question raised relates to the continuation of CFC imports.
Basically, are there no replacement products? If we look at the various sectors in which the CFCs were originally used, it can be seen that in aerosols, with the exception of inhalers for asthma treatment - where their use is essential - solvents have been suppressed, and foams are now totally CFC-free.
Replacement products used in this sector are hydrocarbons, HCFCs, and to a lesser extent, HFCs.
In the refrigeration equipment field, the industry believes that a volume of between 50, 000 and 100, 000 tonnes of CFC is still contained in existing equipment.
Increasingly, HCFCs are used as a substitute for CFCs.
Ammonia and hydrocarbons are also increasingly used in the new equipment.
The question may arise as to whether the Commission believes that total prohibition of the sale and use of CFCs - which is equivalent to drying up the supply of CFCs - would also be the most appropriate means to eliminate demand and facilitate inspections.
Effectively, a provision which would make it unlawful to maintain CFCs on the market, for example, prohibition of sale, would certainly contribute greatly to ease of control.
What strategy does the Commission intend to adopt now, particularly within the framework of the Montreal conference? At the Montreal conference, the Community is working for the introduction by all parties of a regime of licences for the import and export of substances which deplete the ozone layer.
The position of the Commission is therefore very firm.
Furthermore, the European Community has put forward a proposal whose aim is to forbid the sale of CFCs in all industrialized countries.
Mr President, the Commissioner was about to tell us whether or not the Commission believed that a total ban was going to be Commission policy or not and then, certainly as far as the interpreting was concerned, I never heard the answer to that question.
I seek clarification.
Does the Commission believe that this strong policy of stopping sales altogether is a Commission policy or not?
Yes, Mr Teverson, you are quite right.
The European Community has presented a proposal whose aim is to forbid sales of CFCs in all industrialized countries.
I also said that, clearly, the prohibition of CFC sales would facilitate the combat against fraud.
These two proposals therefore overlap.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Cresson.
I have received four motions for resolutions under Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
The joint debate is closed.
Helms-Burton Act
The next item is the oral question (B4-0521/97 - O-0102/97) by Mrs Castellina, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, to the Commission, on the negotiations between the Commission and the US administration on the Helms-Burton Act.
Mr President, this is an oral question put by the Committee on External Economic Relations.
I am grateful to Commissioner Brittan for being here.
Next Thursday the second bilateral meeting between the United States and the European Union will begin in Paris on setting common criteria for the definition of rules to guarantee the safety of investments.
These rules are to be included in the multilateral agreement on MIA investments currently under negotiation.
We do not know what was discussed and what guidelines were adopted at the previous meeting.
But we do know that they will be decisive, given the weight of the two players in the CSCE.
That is also why the Committee on External Economic Relations is raising the need to be better informed during the actual course of the discussions, before being faced with a take-it-or-leave-it agreement.
We are all convinced that guarantee rules for all should be established at the international level, but we are still concerned, all the more so as the decision on this closer consultation between the European Union and the United States was part of an agreement which led to the suspension of the WTO panel when the United States was in the dock over its Helms-Burton Act.
This suspension has already caused concern in this Parliament which had, moreover, like the Council, taken a firm position against the American embargo.
So we would like to understand better how and whether the rules intended to guarantee investments will safeguard the sovereignty of our countries, so as to continue to guarantee their legislative autonomy.
Your colleague, Commissioner Fischler, himself raised the same question the other day on the BSE issue, asking whether and to what extent, within the context of this general liberalization, it would still be possible to take the necessary steps to protect the health of European citizens.
In short, we do not want obligations introduced through this agreement to distort our legislation and, I think, many European constitutions as well. But, more particularly, we would like clarification on any proposed retroactive effect of the rules in question.
What is intended? Is it really intended to reopen the nationalization chapter?
And if it is, starting from when? I hear that a Polish citizen, who at one time had his Warsaw mansion expropriated, is now reclaiming the building which is now the property of the American embassy, which has naturally refused to hand it over.
That is only one example of what could happen if this chapter is reopened.
Finally, and this is a basic clarification, if there is a wish to apply a retroactive criterion to Cuba and support the approach of the United States on nationalization issues, given that in that country a large part of the property belonging to foreigners or Cubans who have emigrated to the United States was nationalized 36 years ago, and considering that, while virtually every other state has for years sought compromise solutions on its citizens' nationalized property, the United States has refused to do so, the new rules under discussion could be extended to any commercial operation, any investment in that island, in contradiction, I repeat, to the decisions which have been taken by the European Union.
Mr Commissioner, these are the clarifications the Committee on External Economic Relations would like to have.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I say first of all that looking at the question generally, the existence of the World Trade Organization and the ability to take a case to the World Trade Organization has been the best and perhaps the only effective weapon the European Union has against the completely unacceptable attempt of the United States to export its policies and impose them upon us.
Without such a dispute settlement mechanism, without those rules, we would have very little ammunition indeed in this contest.
I say that because it illustrates very well the importance of the European Union staying loyal to the principles of the World Trade Organization because they enable us to defend our interests.
But we have to use them in the right way.
In answer to some of the other points, I will reiterate the facts of the matter.
The understanding of 11 April 1997 reached between the European Union and the United States calls for the development of disciplines which 'should inhibit and deter the future acquisition of investments from any state which has expropriated or nationalized such investments in contravention of international law and subsequent dealings in covert investments' .
It is clear from that language that the understanding does not necessarily provide for the negotiation of disciplines which would prohibit future investments in expropriative property because it talks about inhibiting and deterring and also refers to investments in contravention of international law and not otherwise.
Of course not all such investments will be in contravention of international law.
In addition and in parallel, the understanding also calls for the European Union and the United States to work together to address and resolve through agreed principles the issues of conflicting jurisdictions and secondary boycotts.
It is very important to note that the negotiations on this point have to be parallel with the negotiations on investment disciplines.
There is one thing that is of interest to the United States; there is the other which is of interest to us.
Therefore it is a balanced agreement.
Another element of the understanding is the D'Amato legislation.
The full implementation of the understanding would call for the United States to grant the European Union a multilateral regime waiver under this legislation, which is not the subject of the case in the WTO but nonetheless is part of our agreement with the United States.
The understanding presupposes the continued waiver of Title 3 of the Helms-Burton Act and also that Congress will amend Helms-Burton to permit a presidential waiver of Title 4.
With regard to the observation that the European Union has committed itself to join the efforts of the United States to promote democracy in Cuba, which is referred to in the text of the oral question, I would remind the honourable Member that the language of the understanding is quite clear.
It does not contain a commitment on the part of the European Union and the United States to take action jointly.
Each side remains free to judge how, where and when it wishes to raise these issues in Cuba.
Therefore, on the question of whether the Commission considers that such disciplines would make it impossible to invest in Cuba, taking account of the historical factors mentioned by the honourable Member, I would say clearly once again that the coverage of past expropriations is not excluded by the wording of the understanding but that it presupposes that a clear violation of international law has taken place and, as I have indicated, the understanding only commits the European Union to disciplines which would inhibit and deter investments, and not to disciplines which would prohibit investments.
The latter would in any case be difficult for the Community owing to our almost complete freedom from capital movement restrictions as set forth by Article 73(b) of the EC Treaty.
The next question relates to the fact that international law provides rules on investment protection, including rules on the legality of expropriations. One of the criteria for determining the legality of an expropriation is whether prompt, adequate and effective compensation has been paid by the expropriating state.
The Commission and the Member States have consistently in our negotiations insisted on the fact that under the understanding, disciplines could only apply to expropriations which have taken place in contravention of international law.
The precise conditions for determining when that has happened are still a matter for discussion.
It will be clear from what I have said that the negotiations are currently at a complex and delicate stage.
The Commission's objective remains to achieve a balanced solution covering both the disciplines for investment in expropriated property in the sense that I have described them, and the principles on conflicting requirements and secondary boycotts.
Any deal would have to lead to Congress adopting the legislative amendments to permit a waiver of Title 4 of the Helms-Burton Act; and the United States' Administration would also have to grant a multilateral regime waiver under the D'Amato Act.
The negotiators are in Paris this week for the sixth round of negotiations and further discussions are scheduled for the month of October.
For the moment we do not have an agreement but those are the principles and procedures which we are applying.
Mr President, I am glad the Commissioner has reminded us of the terms of the agreement which was reached between the European Commission and the Clinton Administration (and subsequently modified in part by the Council of Ministers of the European Union) because, as the Commissioner has well demonstrated, this is not just any agreement, but is conditional. Sir Leon has reminded us of the conditions, but I would like to stress the two basic ones.
On the one hand the European Union suspended the World Trade Organization complaint proceedings, and the United States promised to postpone the application of Title 3. President Clinton renewed this promise on July 18, incidentally provoking a further six months' worth of sarcasm from the Cuban authorities, who jokingly said that the United States were postponing the sovereignty of the rest of the world for another six months.
As I understand it, the second basic condition accepted by the United States authorities was the amendment of Title 4. But, Mr President, I have heard nothing to say that this amendment to Title 4, which requires the intervention of the United States Congress, has yet happened.
And as the Commissioner knows perfectly well, the Clinton Administration is one thing, and the United States Congress is quite another.
All these agreements were forged, Mr President, on the understanding that if any person physically, legally or morally belonging to the European Union was affected, or if the conceded annulments did not happen or were altered, the European Union reserved the automatic right to re-initiate the normal WTO complaint procedure.
And we have never accepted the extra-territorial principle of the act, which interferes with the trade relations of the European Union and its Member States with third countries such as Cuba.
I should like to say, Mr President, that our political group has always rejected the Helms-Burton Act. This is mainly for three basic reasons.
Firstly, it increases the already great suffering of the Cuban people. Secondly, it introduces an extra-territorial aspect which deeply offends any sovereign state, as I have previously stated to this House.
And thirdly, Mr President, it calls into question the authority of the WTO as a body devoted to settling and resolving these conflicts.
Sir Leon has told us that it is the best guarantee of defending the basic concepts of the European Union. Going by the results of the recent banana and hormone panels, I am not sure about that.
Anyway, as regards this Helms-Burton Act proposal, it is absolutely clear that the European Union has right on its side, but it has nevertheless sought an amicable solution for the time being.
Bearing in mind that when the European Commission signed this agreement with the Clinton Administration the time limit was 15 October, it would perhaps be a good idea if the Commission could tell us the position of the United States Congress as regards the amendment of Title 4.
I was recently in the United States, with the delegation which I head, and judging from what we heard on the subject of the amendment to Title 4 from congressmen and senators, their position is not at all clear.
I end, Mr President, by saying that we reject the terms of this act because, although the aims include the promotion of a peaceful transition towards freedom in Cuba, as regards human rights and democratic liberties, we do not agree with the method. These boycott policies which have been going on now for 40 years have not led to the slightest advance in these matters, as mentioned by the European Union in its statement of 2 December.
Mr President, we have debated the Helms-Burton Act here many times and passed resolutions on it, and the position of my group with regard to the extra-territorial provisions in this Act is unchanged.
The American Congress simply cannot lay down the law for our companies and if there are disputes then arbitration is in the hands of the WTO. The WTO exclusively.
Mr President, I have two questions for Commissioner Brittan.
Why did the Commissioner go it alone in the negotiations with the Americans on the Helms-Burton Act? Only 20 % of this act deals with trade policy in the context of the WTO and that is the prime concern of the Commission and Parliament.
But 80 % of it involves investments in Cuba by third countries and then in former American ownership.
The latter, if we are dealing with investments, is the prime concern of the Council.
It is therefore not surprising that the Commissioner going it alone causes irritation in this Parliament but also and especially in the Council.
And the result was no new powers within the framework of Article 13 for the Parliament and the Commission in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
My second question concerns the multilateral agreement on investment that is currently being prepared by the OECD.
The agreement will be signed in May, if it is good, by 29 countries and the Union.
It will provide for a ban on investments in illegally expropriated property.
The question is whether the American property expropriated in Cuba 36 years ago was illegally expropriated. Because there was no international law in that field and at that time the Americans categorically refused an offer for compensation.
Can we reasonably speak of illegal expropriation? I should like to know the opinion of the Commissioner on these two questions.
Mr President, the last time Sir Leon was here it was also to speak about the Helms-Burton Act, and as my compatriot, Mr Salafranca, recalls, he said that if the United States did not keep their side of the agreement, by continuing to postpone Title 3 and by revoking Title 4, the Commission reserved the right to go back to the WTO panel.
Although Title 3 may have been postponed for a further six months, it seems to us that not only has Title 4 not been revoked, but the United States Congress has made the Helms-Burton Act worse with eight amendments demanding strict compliance with it.
In other words, the wishes of the United States Congress lead in completely the opposite direction to what Sir Leon told us.
Furthermore, Sir Leon says that investments are not going to be prohibited, but inhibited.
I wonder what the formula for this inhibition is. This is a concept which I have never heard mentioned in international law and I would like to know what it consists of, especially in view of the fact that until not long ago the European Union had been holding talks with the Cuban Government in order to reach an agreement on trade and cooperation since, as I should like to remind you, Cuba is the only country with which we do not have such an agreement.
We think this is unfair.
It seems to us that the discussions at the WTO are resulting in greater acceptance of the premises put forward by the United States, and do not safeguard the interests of the European Union - the sovereignty of the countries of the European Union.
When they talk about regulating investments, they are of course thinking about Cuba - as you know as well as I do, Sir Leon - about Cuba and the investments which certain countries in the European Union are putting into Cuba.
It seems to us that we are going down a dangerous path, and the European Commission should re-register its objection with the WTO.
Mr President. Our debate today would be completely unnecessary in a fully-functioning democracy.
The will of this Parliament would have been respected and the intention of the WTO panel on Helms-Burton would have been implemented.
But in May this year, Mr Commissioner, you proceeded independently and we reprimanded you.
We learned that you had had a private audience with Big Brother to calm things down.
You made completely unacceptable concessions.
That had nothing, absolutely nothing whatever, in common with staying loyal to principles.
Two months later we were proved quite right.
On 11 June the US Congress further increased the internationally much-criticized US embargo.
We had voted for the exact opposite and for that very reason had demanded the panel you circumvented.
Mr Commissioner, the citizens of Europe as a whole have become more than sceptical about the WTO. The World Trade Organization has run into a real crisis of legitimacy.
What do we need such an organization for, if it only acts as a referee when the matter concerns opposition to social achievements, or opposition to conservation of the environment?
What do we need a WTO for, if those with power continue to machinate independently, as soon as they themselves come up for public scrutiny? What do we need a WTO for, if it gets round its own rules in secret negotiations, and then even proposes to use the results of these as the basis for a multilateral investment agreement affecting us all?
We demand detailed information and the participation of everyone at the negotiations for an MIA, which has so far been at OECD level and will certainly later continue at WTO level.
At least a significant number of developing nations must vote for it, in order for such an agreement to be made at all.
I think the point made by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel is very relevant.
To return to the matter of Cuba.
The EU must not continue to knuckle under, but must sensibly fund the existing budget items, instead of deleting them.
It must at long last introduce a treaty of cooperation with Cuba.
The investment protection that the USA has set at such a high level is no current problem at all for Europe.
I would point only to Cuba's investment protection agreements with such countries as France or Germany.
Miami vice is really not our business!
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, relationships between the United States and Europe are studded with misunderstanding and divergences in approach, even in fields where the objectives sought are in reality identical.
The case of the Helms-Burton legislation is a supreme example of this type of transatlantic misunderstanding.
The Member States of the European Union and the United States of America wholly share the aim of democratization in Cuba, even if, within this Parliament, romanticism of Castro still seems - and this is strangely out of tune with the times - to be quite popular.
But the European Union is seeking to promote democratic change in Cuba by a proliferation of human, economic and political exchanges and trade.
The Americans, who are more sensitive to the pressure of those who have had to flee the Castro dictatorship, and are very close to the country concerned, believe that the only effective line of conduct is that of firmness and sanctions.
The goal sought is the same, but the orientations are radically different. There are two approaches, each of which is as legitimate as the other.
It nevertheless remains true that the use of legislation which has such extra-territorial repercussions is totally unacceptable.
Now, the Commission's compromise is closer to an exercise in pure pragmatism, since the Commission has given up on getting results by sticking to principle.
This is a poor figleaf for the total absence of concessions on the American side.
We have hardly anything to be proud of, in my view, as regards the exemption which will be made in respect of companies belonging to the European Union, when we leave our partners in the third countries to face the power of America alone.
Since there has been no success over the principle of the unacceptability of extra-territorial provisions, nothing now stands in the way of the perverse proliferation of such legislation at all political and administrative levels from the United States.
This defeat on principle is, on the contrary, an encouragement to such proliferation and sends out a bad signal.
It is already deplorable that towns or cities have made enactments whose consequences are extra-territorial, without Mr Clinton's government having the resources to oppose them.
Proliferation is of all the more concern in that it very often advances the politically correct concern to fight for human rights or the protection of the environment, in order, in reality, to winkle out foreign firms and prevent their competition in tenders for American government contracts.
This compromise, in the eyes of our group, is a poor one.
It will not, I fear, prevent there being further discomfiture.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, It must feel strange to you, as a convinced supporter of free trade who has always demonstrated that fact, to find yourselves receiving criticism of the sort just expressed by Mr Wolf.
I want to leap immediately to your defence, because it was not merely rhetorical overstatement, but above all did no service to the subject.
The situation is as follows. Cuba is a democratic country, but the USA is trying, contrary to human rights, to penalize democratic countries such as those united in the European Union, because they are on the wrong road.
We all considered it right to call in the WTO, not in order to make an example in the interests of the WTO's negotiating freedom and free international trade, but in order to enforce our legal rights.
It was difficult to understand how the Commission could attempt - not in secret negotiation, as Mr Wolf supposes - to find a compromise or take a path whose success is more dubious.
If it should not be successful, it will be difficult to start again on the path left for the compromise, that is, to complete a successful WTO panel procedure.
The Americans negotiated differently in the banana dispute.
They followed the matter through to the end, and it is still being discussed today.
I mention that because here we have, something I quite understand, due respect for the internal policies of the USA.
Anyone following the way in which Mr Helms is behaving in the matter of the nomination of ambassadors - bearing in mind that he is himself the one who drove through the Helms-Burton Act - will know how difficult it is for the President of the United States to force what he promised through Congress.
Be that as it may, that is an internal matter for the USA.
When we see that it was mainly the USA and Europe that established the WTO, and that the beneficiaries are those who replaced the GATT, and when we see the concern with which the third world reacts, lest it should suffer whenever the major powers frame agreements, then we should not really be surprised when, as in Singapore, Asian and other countries grow to suspect that the WTO is really only there to serve the rich, who could settle their disagreements in any case.
For this reason I put this request to you on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party: If it appears that your efforts to reach a compromise are unsuccessful, return speedily to the path of virtue and pursue a legal case wherever one may be required.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I think Europe can be proud of its policy.
We have been very successful.
Our expansion into the east was successful and marked by mutual agreements and negotiations.
The Americans have only sought confrontation with Cuba and have lagged far behind Europe.
I think it is simply essential when talking to Helms and Burton, who have after all adopted a clear position and are not ready to negotiate, to make a case for our modern strategy. This involves the offer of alternatives, the practical search for a system that supports the democrats in Cuba, that supports the market economy in Cuba.
If we employ a policy that offers alternatives, in order to support those forces in Cuba that also pursue our aims, and do not look for blind confrontation, then we Europeans shall be successful in Cuba as well.
I have received six motions for resolutions under Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
I would like to reply briefly to some of the points that have been made and put the matter in perspective.
If I may say so, the views put forward by Mr Rübig and Mr Kittelmann are closer to reality than some that we have heard.
Let us start from first principles.
We share with the United States an objection to the non-democratic government in Cuba.
We differ as to the way in which we should handle that and we object to the United States trying to impose on us its policy.
We object so strongly that, uniquely, we have taken legislative action through this Parliament and through the Council of Ministers in order to impose blocking legislation.
We object so strongly that we went to the WTO to assert our rights. not only with regard to Helms-Burton but also, although not in the WTO, with regard to the D'Amato legislation affecting Iran and Libya which is equally objectionable.
We are and remain quite prepared to proceed with the WTO case.
But a strong wish was expressed repeatedly in the Council of Ministers that we should try to find a negotiated settlement.
And we have achieved a settlement of an interim kind which enables us to go back to the WTO if that settlement is not observed and if our objectives are not achieved.
What are our objectives? By definition a settlement means that you will not get a ringing declaration saying that we are right and the Americans are wrong in an international tribunal.
But we and the Member States have rightly taken the view that what is important is to protect the interests of the European economy above all else and to ensure that no action taken by the United States could damage us.
The consequence has been that the President of the United States has suspended Title 3, the most damaging title of this legislation, and that since the understanding there has been no action under Title 4.
We then entered into a negotiation which, if successful would have the effect of permanently suspending Title 3, so that European industry and individuals were never threatened in that way, and of giving the President of the right to do the same with regard to Title 4.
In addition, as a result of this negotiation we were given the prospect and the possibility of obtaining a waiver from the operation of the other objectionable legislation, namely the D'Amato legislation.
And what has happened is that we are engaged in negotiations.
There is nothing mysterious about it.
The MIA negotiation is another matter which is broader than this and which we are also engaged in.
It does not affect the developing countries.
We hope to negotiate with them later in the WTO on a broader agreement.
The 15 October target date is a serious one and we have told the Americans that.
We are free participants in the negotiation.
There is no obligation on us to agree to anything which is not in the interests of Europe and we will not do so.
The negotiation is not concluded.
The Americans also have their task to do what is needed to satisfy us in the negotiation.
I believe that if we are successful in the negotiation, we will have protected the interests of the European Union in a very effective way and we will actually have used the WTO procedure, which is valuable.
For only by bringing the case will we have led the United States to suspend Title 3, not to take further action under Title 4 and to do something with regard to the D'Amato legislation as well.
If we do not succeed in our objectives we will have the full right to return to the WTO, to resume the case and to seek its resolution through the WTO.
Therefore we have lost nothing, we have gained a lot, we have every possibility of gaining more.
If we are unsuccessful we can resort once again to the international forum which we have helped to create and which we must defend in order to achieve our rights.
That is the true position as it stands.
The negotiations are complicated and incomplete but I can assure you that we will not come to a conclusion or agree to an agreement which does not protect fully and adequately the interests of the European Union as I have defined them.
Commissioner, if I am here at 11.00 p.m. and ask you questions, I hope you will answer my questions and not only answer people who have the same view as you on this.
I had two questions. You did not answer them.
I thought I made it absolutely clear that we have not gone it alone, as you put it, with the Helms-Burton problem.
We have repeatedly reported to the Council.
I have explained the matter to committees of this House repeatedly.
The interim understanding has received the support of the Member States.
That is the answer to your first question.
Nor is there the slightest reason to think that the reluctance of the Member States to change Article 113 has anything whatsoever to do with this issue.
As to the question of what is illegal expropriation, that is an issue which has not been determined in the negotiations and therefore it is impossible to give an answer to it.
But in my opening remarks I indicated the principles of international law which determined whether expropriation was illegal or otherwise, in relation to the question of compensation.
Mr Commissioner, the question of who will decide what is an illegal expropriation is a very interesting one if it opens the possibility that a big country, by its legal system, decides effectively what is constitutional in other countries.
For instance, in the Federal Republic of Germany, we have Clause 15 which allows for expropriation on a legal basis.
But if the American Congress judges that this is inappropriate, would this then be illegal?
I can assure the honourable gentleman that we will not allow this matter to be determined by the United States Congress.
To the extent that it is covered in the negotiations, we will have to be satisfied that there is an adequate definition which satisfies us, not the United States Congress.
Obviously, in the negotiations, the United States administration will also have to be satisfied, but it is not something that is going to be unilaterally imposed on us.
Mr President, this is not an attempt to reopen the debate but rather, as my colleague has said, to ask the Commissioner to be more precise, as far as he is able.
He has told us that the negotiations are in a complex and delicate phase, and the question is as follows. The interim agreement was signed in April.
April has now passed, as have May, June, July and August. It is now 15 September, and on 15 October the time limit set by the Clinton Administration and the Commission for reaching an agreement, expires.
Does the Commissioner think that the problems currently under consideration will be resolved before October 15? Secondly, does the Commissioner think that the mood in the United States Congress will allow the President to amend Title 4, in accordance with the Clinton Administration's promise, although it has not yet come into effect?
15 October is indeed the target date for the conclusion of the negotiation.
In my experience of all negotiations it is very, very rare for there to be any conclusion except, at least, on the date which has been specified.
At this stage, therefore, it is impossible to say whether we are going to have a successful conclusion.
We are quite a long way from it but we have made some progress.
To say any more would be to give a greater precision than the facts warrant.
As to whether the mood in the Congress permits a solution which would enable the requisite amendment to the legislation to amend Title 4, I cannot answer that either.
All I can say is that unless that amendment is passed, there is no deal with the European Union.
I have great admiration for the diplomatic ability of Sir Leon and I am certainly not going to comment on what he said because I have to study carefully the significance of 'eventually' , ' inhibiting' and ''not preventing' and all these nuances.
These really have to be studied carefully before I can judge what he said and what it means.
I understand that while one is negotiating it is difficult to talk about it.
Nevertheless, my question is: are we going to be informed of what is going on before there is an agreement? We are worried about Helms-Burton and its effects on Cuba.
This is one point on which concern has been expressed by my colleagues.
We are also worried by the more general implications of the Multilateral Investment Agreement.
How is the sovereignty of our countries going to be affected by an agreement which may give the right of property an interpretation which is very different from the one which is in the European tradition.
This is a point I would love to understand.
The answer to the question is very simple.
Sovereignty does not arise.
Every European country, quite apart from the European Union, is constantly entering into treaties.
The entry into a treaty is not an abdication of a sovereignty but the exercise of sovereignty because no country that enters into a treaty is compelled to do so unless it thinks it is in its interest.
In negotiating the multilateral investment agreement in the OECD, of which of course the members of the European Union are members, the Member States will not agree to an agreement unless they think it is in their interests and compatible with their approach to these matters.
As everybody knows, but just to clarify it, the MIA negotiation is something that existed long before the Helms-Burton issue arose.
It is seeking an agreement which covers many things and it would be in our interest to encourage investment.
That is why we are doing it and why all the Member States of the European Union are very enthusiastic that such a thing should be completed.
This issue rose at a late stage in negotiations and we are talking about a particular provision which will have to be agreed in the same way as any other provision.
Of course, that is only part of the settlement of the Helms-Burton agreement as a whole and as far as that is concerned, I will follow all the normal constitutional and parliamentary practices in keeping the House informed.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Brittan.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.10 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, on a point of order.
I just wish to draw the attention of this House to the agenda for this week, particular the agenda for Friday, when the only item on the agenda is the Hallam report...
which is on the agri-monetary system for the single market, 1 July 1995 to 30 June 1996.
Between you and me, Madam President, this is hardly earth-shattering news.
I am wondering whether it might be wise for Parliament, rather than to have a half-hour debate on a Friday - I am very flattered we are having this debate - to bring it forward and have it with the Hardstaff report on Thursday, delay the vote until the following Wednesday in Brussels, and thereby save the taxpayers of Europe thousands of pounds by not opening this building on Friday.
(Applause)
Mr Hallam, you have raised a delicate point which has in fact been considered by the Conference of Presidents.
You will be aware that, because of an exceptional chain of events, yours is in actual fact the only item on the agenda for Friday.
Nevertheless, colleagues have made arrangements, changed their flights and so on.
It seems to me - and this is my personal opinion, the Conference of Presidents may, of course, look at the question again - but I think it would be extremely strange to alter our agenda so abruptly by missing a morning's plenary session.
I do not doubt for an instant that after the powerful plea you have just made, Mr Hallam, all our colleagues here will be intent on attending the presentation of your report, to which I strongly invite them.
Madam President, on a point of order. It concerns the Rules of this House.
As chairman of Parliament's Delegation for relations with the United States, I had arranged a meeting this morning with President Santer in advance of our visit next week to Washington to discuss those issues that are pressing in relation to European-US affairs. We were told that because of the Rules of this House we could not meet on a Wednesday morning with the President of the Commission, we could only meet on Wednesday afternoon.
I now find that the Conference of Presidents has called an extraordinary meeting this morning to meet President Santer to discuss the Commission's work programme.
Madam President, you might find it an amusing issue, but let me tell you that there seems to be one set of rules for the chairmen of groups in this House and a different set of rules for the rest of this House.
I would like the President to write to me, so that I can explain to the Delegation for relations with the United States why we were refused a meeting with Jacques Santer but you later this morning will be having a meeting with the President of the Commission.
Mr Donnelly, your comments have not made this member of the Bureau either laugh nor smile.
You are aware that I do not participate in the Conference of Presidents, but I see some group leaders here, and I will allow them to reply.
Mrs Green has asked for the opportunity to reply to Mr Donnelly, I believe.
Madam President, I do not wish to reply to Mr Donnelly: I want to confirm what he has said.
In fact I spoke with the President at the Conference of Presidents last week and asked him to make a room available for the Delegation for relations with the United States, given the nature of the issues that we have to discuss between Europe and the United States.
I was assured that that would happen, so I am somewhat dismayed if what Mr Donnelly has said is correct.
We will clarify that point.
We will see.
In any case, Mr Donnelly, I will make sure that this sort of incident does not happen again, as far as it is within my capacity to do so, of course.
I now hand over to Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, for a procedural motion.
I repeat, a procedural motion.
Madam President, I asked the Presidency in this House three months ago, how it was possible for the Dutch President-in-Office of the Council, when asked at the CITES Conference in Zimbabwe what the view of Parliament was, to reply that Parliament does not have a view, even though Parliament in an emergency debate three days earlier had expressed its views perfectly clearly.
I was told by one of your colleagues - I do not now know just which President that was - that I would receive an answer.
Up to now I have received no answer, and I am beginning to think, to be convinced, almost, that we go to a lot of trouble to pass resolutions here, but do not know if they ever reach the recipients.
It appears that they have not.
If that is so, we might as well scrap the whole of Thursday evening's debate and go home!
I would like an answer now!
Ladies and gentlemen, if I am to understand it correctly, you have been promised a reply which you have not received.
We will look into this and make sure that an answer to your question is obtained as quickly as possible.
Situation in Algeria
The next item is the statements by the Council and Commission on the situation in Algeria.
Mr Wohlfart, President-in-Office of the Council, has the floor.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, by way of introduction I would like to thank the European Parliament for offering me this occasion to explain the Council's position with regard to the situation in Algeria.
From the outset, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I can assure you that the Council fully shares your apprehension about the situation in Algeria, which we are following closely.
As we pointed out in a press release published last Friday, the European Union is deeply shocked by the wave of assassinations and other atrocities which are now bringing bloodshed to Algeria.
The estimated figure of more than 60, 000 victims over the course of the last few years is an eloquent and tragic testimony to this.
We are all deeply moved by the upsurge of violence in Algeria, culminating in these last few weeks.
It is hardly necessary to remind you that hundreds of people have been brutally assassinated with axes and sabres, had their throats cut and worse.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, young girls have been kidnapped and raped, only to be murdered shortly afterwards.
Newspapers, radio and the television report murder after murder, affecting not only isolated rural areas but also the capital.
Only a few days ago, Algiers was the site of a mass murder.
More than sixty people were killed at Sidi Yessef under particularly atrocious conditions.
I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that like yourselves the Council clearly and firmly condemns these acts of terrorism and blind violence.
As far as the political position of the Council is concerned, it is scarcely necessary to remind you, Madam President, that on many occasions the Council has re-affirmed its unconditional support for the process of political and economic reform being undertaken by the Algerian authorities.
We have therefore expressed our satisfaction concerning the legislative elections held on 5 June, whilst noting the statement by joint international mission of observers regarding certain significant shortcomings.
I already had occasion to refer to this last July, during Question Time.
Nevertheless, we consider that these elections, which took place under what can be termed generally satisfactory conditions, marked a step forward in this process and enabled the Algerian people to participate directly in the building of a democratic and non-violent society in which human rights must be fully respected.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to human rights issues, international human rights organizations, and Parliament itself, have expressed criticism of the way in which Algeria is fighting the armed Islamic groups.
The Council is well aware of this, and does not hesitate to insist that the Algerian government adopt a moderate attitude in the face of crisis and respect human rights.
The Council emphasizes that, with a new association agreement in preparation, it is entitled to expect that a country going through such a crisis should settle its problems as far as possible with wisdom and moderation.
As far as the association agreement is concerned, I am convinced that this new agreement will be able to contribute significantly to the process of democracy and economic reform in Algeria.
Consequently, the Council hopes that the Commission will be able to bring the negotiations with the Algerian government to a rapid and satisfactory conclusion.
With regard to the local elections, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to highlight the fact that the Council is encouraging Algeria to follow the path of democratization and to respect the next date for the elections - as you know these are local elections - which is expected to be 23 October, following the presidential elections of 1995, the revision of the constitution in 1996 and the general elections in June of this year.
In conclusion, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council is following the internal situation in Algeria with concern.
It is hardly necessary to emphasize that Algeria is an important partner of the European Union in the Barcelona process.
Our vision of Algeria is necessarily part of a long term perspective.
Algerians themselves must find a solution to this serious and deep crisis which their country is enduring, through the completion of the reform process, both on a political and on an economic level.
It is in this spirit that the Union is determined to continue negotiations to conclude a new association agreement.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, what you have presented today is certainly a position we can very broadly support and accept from the outset, and which represents the situation in Algeria.
I feel, however, that we as a Parliament must be even franker, to try to change the immensely difficult situation in Algeria today.
Each attempted assassination and each terrorist attack is a blow, not only for Algeria, but also for Europe.
For this reason we must make it clear to the Algerian Government that this is not a case of outside influence, or intervention, but of our concern for an area and matters of mutual interest.
I think our proposals from Parliament should be understood in this sense.
We in Parliament condemn the use of force just as unreservedly as do you in the Council and Commission.
Force destroys not only people, but the soul of a people.
Force must not be successful, not even, and most particularly not, in Algeria!
For that reason we emphatically support all measures aimed at limiting or preventing the use of force.
At the same time, however, human rights must be maintained.
We sometimes get the impression that human rights are being regarded as secondary.
To some extent that is understandable in a difficult situation, but here limits are sometimes crossed, and we can in no way accept that.
There are also doubts, let us be quite frank about it, in many media about whether force is being combatted everywhere with the utmost rigour.
The government is accused of not proceeding with the required degree of decisiveness.
We do not mean to cast any aspersions here, and that is why we have included nothing on that in the resolution.
I must make a most heartfelt request to the Council and Commission, however, to find out if these rumours and accusations are indeed relevant, and how force can be more effectively withstood.
People must not be tortured for hours, murdered in their villages, without intervention by the police, army or other security forces.
I should like to draw particular attention to that point.
In the context of what the Commissioner said about the association agreement and the Barcelona process, we emphatically demand that the dialogue in Algeria be continued.
There have been repeated set-backs.
People who declare themselves ready for dialogue, and who renounce the use of force, are still not met with the support and the positive reaction which both they and the situation deserve.
It should also be noted that the dialogue should be carried out with those who renounce force.
Just as in all crisis regions, however, like Ireland or other parts of the world, one must naturally take many steps to convince those who currently support the use of force that it is better to renounce it. A really effective dialogue can clearly be held only with those who say no to force.
But we must persuade as many political, social and religious movements as possible to renounce the use of force.
For that it is necessary to make contacts within, to give advice to, and above all to encourage the Algerian Government.
I consider it unacceptable that the Algerian Government is being relatively hesitant and reserved.
We want to go ahead with this dialogue, and that is why we seek this dialogue between the European Parliament and the newly-elected Algerian Government.
That cannot be a unilateral offer, but must be a real dialogue that keeps the peace process and the maintenance of human rights in the forefront of the priorities.
To return again to what Commissioner Marín said about negotiations.
We, too, hope that negotiations on the association agreement include Algeria more closely into the whole Barcelona process.
This is how I understand what you have said and should like to offer you my full support on behalf of my group.
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are all appalled by the horror of the massacres that cast a daily shadow over the Algerian people and which arouse unanimous disapproval.
It is largely women and children, and also the elderly, who are the innocent victims of this murderous madness which no cause can justify.
Our sympathy goes out to the families of the victims, cruelly tested, to whom we send our sincere condolences.
But above all we have a pressing duty to do everything within our power to put an end to these barbarous acts.
Of course a return to a climate of peace is, first and foremost, the Algerian people's own business but we know these people want peace and that they need the moral support of friendly nations in order that those who perpetuate the terror finally understand that their battle, fought in this way, cannot be won.
We must pay tribute to the courageous struggle of the Algerian women who, defying the terrorists' threats have clearly shown their revolt and their desire to impose both an end to the attacks and the recognition of their rights.
We must support the efforts that have been made, both by the Algerian authorities - notably those put into action by President Zéroual, whose electoral legitimacy is beyond question - and by the different political groups who participated in the last elections in order to re-establish a normal functioning of the democratic institutions.
I am completely and without reserve in agreement with the initiative of our colleague Mr Soulier, since a meeting between the European Parliament and the Algerian parliament would be likely to favour a resumption of democratic functioning.
We must actively support all attempts at dialogue which are appearing in order to put an end to the current massacres.
We must call on all sectors of Algerian society to take part in this dialogue. But such a dialogue cannot take place in a climate of terror for, to evoke General De Gaulle's well-known remark, after he had courageously put an end to the Franco-Algerian conflict, it is high time the knives were checked in at the desk.
Then Algeria will be able to fully resume its place in the necessary Euromediterranean dialogue, the basis for which was laid at the Barcelona Conference.
With peace re-established and the Algerian people reconciled, we will all - Algerians and Europeans together - be able to help in the construction of an Algeria for the Twenty-first Century.
We have to respond to the aspirations of large numbers of young people, desperate because of unemployment and an uncertain future which, unfortunately, has led some of them to commit the acts of murderous folly we are condemning today.
The immediate solution to the Algerian tragedy will be an agreement between all the political leaders who, regardless of any ulterior motive, must impose national reconciliation.
Nevertheless the solution, in the end, will depend on the joint capacity of Algerians and Europeans to give back hope to the youth of that country, on the one hand through introducing the necessary social reforms which are required at a socio-economic level, and on the other hand by reinforcing the links which unite them in partnership.
It seems to me that this is the message of hope that Europe must today send to the Algerian people and its leaders, whilst at the same time strongly re-emphasizing that nothing can be built in a climate of hatred and murderous violence and that all acts of terrorism must cease immediately.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party which has, on many occasions over recent months, requested a discussion on the serious crisis which is raging in Algeria.
This has been refused until today.
I thank the Council and the Commission for finally having answered this request.
I am, however, very disappointed by the inconsistency of their statements in the face of such a tragedy.
Their lack of responsibility leaves us flabbergasted.
Respect for human rights is a prior condition for the maintenance of our agreements.
What will the Commission and the Council do from now on when they are not respected?
The absence of a common foreign policy has once again resulted in the failure of our international policy and has highlighted the need for reform of our institutions in this area.
More than six years after the vote which gave victory to the Islamic Salvation Front was ruled invalid, Algeria lives in fear of tomorrow.
Barbarity has reached an unbearable level: 60, 000 people have been massacred and the Algerian Government confines itself to eradicating terrorism by answering violence with violence.
The recent legislative elections and the constitution of a new government have not led to the long awaited dialogue between different sectors of Algerian society.
On the contrary, the few signs of democratic goodwill on the part of the Algerian authorities have been wiped out by blind terrorism.
What is worse, information has shown the powerlessness of the forces of law and order to foresee and prevent even massacres perpetrated near barracks.
We think that only an initiative on the part of the Algerian authorities, aimed at bringing together all the life blood within civil society, including the Islamic movements, will enable an agreement on the rejection of violence to be reached, based on a respect for human rights and cultural minorities.
The European Union must support the setting up of a true national dialogue likely, let us hope, to put an end to the terrorism which is hitting the Algerian people ever harder.
It is not a question of interference, but of helping a people in danger.
We cannot stand by and do nothing whilst assassinations are committed on a daily basis in a country with which we have deep historic, cultural and friendship links.
It is our duty to act.
Our joint resolution calls for the establishment of an ad-hoc parliamentary delegation which will be able to engage in a dialogue, both here and in Algiers, to help restore peace and strengthen cooperation between Algeria and the Union.
We must not let this opportunity pass us by.
We cannot allow ourselves to fail.
Moreover, we will be able to help the Commission, which will have a predominant role to play in the democratization process to be established during the negotiations for a new Euromediterranean agreement with Algeria, with respect to human rights.
I would not want to end without paying tribute to the courage and tenacity of Algerian journalists who, at the risk of their lives, continue to keep us informed and I would like to commiserate, in their terrible grief, with the families touched by a barbarity which has gone beyond all bounds.
It is to be hoped that this friendly country will very quickly return to the path of peace and stability.
Madam President, the Algerian people are suffering a new escalation of terror that is without precedent since 1992.
Armed Islamic groups excel themselves in a horror which intimidates the population in order to create a situation of chaos in the country, destabilize the Algerian government and force it to capitulate.
My group would similarly like to express its indignation at and vigorous condemnation of these barbarous acts.
But it is necessary to go further and denounce without ambiguity the fanatical fundamentalists and their leaders who are the true authors of and inspiration behind this wave of terror.
The recent remarks of Abassi Madani, the lately liberated former leader of the ISF, shine an alarming light on his responsibilities.
The blackmail he tried to exert by agreeing to do his best to stop the massacres if the authorities submitted to his conditions proves his full and complete complicity with the terrorists.
That is why our group, which refuses to give lessons to others, will not take part in any manoeuvre, wherever it may come from, which aims at including within the negotiations the fundamentalist forces responsible for, and complicit in, the massacres, for example by means of an international conference.
We reject any interference in the affairs of the Algerian people.
The Algerian people have within them, their history proves it, the necessary strength to overcome terrorism and to contribute to their social, democratic and cultural emancipation.
Algerian women have a considerable role to play in this fight, with a courage which demands admiration and which should be praised.
In our opinion, it is not in the search for compromise with the fundamentalist forces that Algeria will find its salvation and the path to democracy and social and economic progress.
Europe can contribute by reaffirming its solidarity with the Algerian people, by encouraging a strengthening of cooperation between the European Union and Algeria in close contact with the lifeblood of the country, notably through debt reduction, assistance with modernization of infrastructure and building local authority housing.
In order to express our support to all who fight, risking their lives against terrorism, my group similarly proposes that our Parliament send a delegation to Algeria to meet the members of parliament as well as all the forces who are courageously struggling in that country.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Algerian people are a martyred people in history.
Angelism in the face of fundamentalism is synonymous with cowardice and abdication.
Angelism in the face of eradication is synonymous with intellectual perversity.
The situation is both complicated and very simple.
When a country goes through such a crisis, it is very difficult for a government to follow good policies.
But when the crisis reaches such a degree of violence, government reaction determines whether there is a possibility of finding a solution or not.
If secret detention centres exist, if massacres are also perpetrated by government forces, it does not mean the government is no better than the terrorists, but it means that the government is accentuating the spiral of violence set off by the terrorists.
Thus when we say 'no' to eradication, it is not the same as saying 'yes' to fundamentalism, but it is saying that a different solution to Algeria's problems must be found.
That is my first point.
Secondly, let us not deceive ourselves!
It is obvious that if we want dialogue, then this dialogue must go as far as possible. This dialogue must reach those who, at one point, thought they could gain their liberty through the gun.
It is precisely those guns that need to be disarmed.
It is therefore necessary to try to hold a dialogue with the worst of them.
If you only dialogue with the good, you will always be good, but you will not accomplish anything.
Talking to the bad guys does not mean you support them, or accept them, it means you want to persuade them that they have no future.
So we will go to Algiers together, we will hold discussions with the human rights committee of the Algerian Parliament, with all the political forces of the Algerian Parliament, we will discuss with the lifeblood of Algeria, even with the perverse in Algeria so that the perverse stop being perverse.
I am sure that hope will be reborn in Algeria when the Algerian population feels that there are people who do not want to interfere in Algeria to give them lessons.
Since when have communists not wanted to give others lessons? It is an intellectual abdication.
As for me, I maintain that a lesson in dialogue must be given to those who do not want to dialogue, whether it be in Algeria, Afghanistan, Cambodia or anywhere else.
And to do that the European Parliament must use every means to tell the Algerians: you are a part of our world, a world in which dialogue is the only solution to massacres and any other problems.
Madam President, this morning the Council confirmed its support to the Algerian Government for the economic and political reforms it has undertaken.
I consider the elections which took place on 5 June to be a step forward, and I regard the association agreement as a factor for progress.
It may be so. But the Council, like the Commission, has not put forward any concrete proposal, any initiative to stem the horror, the slaughter and the violence, and it concludes by stating that the Algerians must find the solution to their problems on their own.
Well, that is not the view of the Alleanza Nazionale, because we think their problem is also our problem, Europe's problem.
The progressive and increasingly rapid descent into barbarism in Algeria has now made horror a daily event in that martyred country.
Senseless violence, carried forward by the spiral of blind terrorism and subsequent repression, is feeding on the blood of an innocent population.
If the responsibility for this state of affairs lies, in part, with the past dictatorship of the National Liberation Front, born of the tremendous anti-colonial struggle which preceded its rightful independence, it cannot be denied that today it is also our responsibility and our countries' responsibility to put an end to this martyrdom.
For a young population like the Algerian population, which has known nothing but the poverty of five year plans, then to slide into the horror of a civil war sparked off by the fight for religious freedom, is a time bomb which threatens not only the Maghreb and the whole vast Arab world but constitutes a very serious threat to Europe which should not be undervalued.
Restoring hope to Algeria must be a priority objective for the Union, which confirms the validity of a cultural and civil model based on a tolerant, democratic and lay state, open to freedom of association, thought and religion.
So it is not facile rhetoric to affirm that the struggle of the Algerian population, hostage to violence, is our struggle.
To isolate the extremism and establish a dialogue between the parties is certainly possible, and we Europeans have the means to get it accepted.
But it requires a political will which already proved lacking, unfortunately, when it came to the war in former Yugoslavia.
Failure to restore peace in Algeria would confirm the image of a faint-hearted Europe, turned in on itself, incapable of acting and hence of reacting, making it dangerously vulnerable to separatist ideologies, the symptoms of which are already being felt and could grow in strength.
The Alleanza Nazionale is conscious of the external, but also internal, dangers of this situation, should it persist, and hopes the European Parliament will take the initiative to call a conference to bring the parties involved - the Union, the Maghreb countries, the CSCE - together.
We ask that the European Parliament pledge the governments of the 15 countries to a determined battle against fundamentalism of any kind, and we ask that no concessions be made to those who have brutally exterminated women, old people and children.
We maintain that the west also has a responsibility for letting violence take hold.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, if we are absolutely honest with ourselves, we do not actually know what to do about Algeria.
All that we have heard so far confirms that.
In fact this was clearly illustrated last February, in Parliament, when we failed miserably to agree on a resolution about Algeria.
What we do know is that the violence is barbaric and unacceptable and should be condemned absolutely and without any conditions attached to that condemnation.
We also know that the situation is not as simple as some speakers this morning seem to think it is.
We have to ask ourselves questions such as why it is that some of these murders have taken place close to security positions; why it is that the military have not been able to protect their population. Not all these murders have taken place in obscure rural villages, some were in built-up areas.
Why have these murders happened?
We also know that we increasingly seem to be seeing the development of death squads along the lines we are familiar with in South America.
We know from the South American experience that once that happens you begin to completely lose control of a political situation.
Because Algeria is so close to the European Union, we know that this dangerous instability could ultimately undermine the European Union.
Therefore, we have to develop a strategy.
It is essential that the common foreign and security policy starts to have some teeth and starts to take effective action.
Clearly we have to start on political dialogue; clearly we have to develop inter-parliamentary dialogue.
We have to try and use the association agreement, as Commissioner Marin has indicated, in order to develop that dialogue and allow access to Algeria by non-governmental organizations that can begin to assess the reality of the situation there.
We should be encouraging that dialogue, in order to establish greater freedom of the press in Algeria so that we can all become aware of what is happening.
Also, as Mr Dupuis has said, we need to encourage further economic reform.
Ultimately it is only through improvements in the economic situation that we will begin to ensure a more peaceful development in future in Algeria.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in response to this tragic crisis, I utterly and firmly condemn the terrorist acts ravaging a country a few sea miles from the European Union, a country which aspires to associate itself with our Community and set up a free trade area with us. I would also like to express a few thoughts.
First of all, I think there should be more emphasis on the possibility that the events in Algeria may cross the country's frontiers and spread to nearby Tunisia and Libya.
Indeed, this is a factor of great concern which prompts me to ask for the European Union to pay the greatest possible attention to all three of these countries.
My fear fundamentally arises from the fact that I consider the terrorism in Algeria to be the direct consequence of a socio-economic crisis rather than a cultural and religious one, which is why, given the similar economic situation in the other Maghreb countries, terrorism could also emerge dangerously elsewhere.
Assessing the Algerian crisis as socio-economic in nature, I believe that the Euromediterranean policy undertaken in Barcelona is fundamental and that, therefore, the European Union must respond to the terrorist attacks with instruments of structural development and financial engineering rather than diplomatic ones.
It is therefore necessary to implement the association agreement, as a first step.
In fact encouragement is needed which runs the gamut of economic and social aid and not the isolation which Europe and the western world are now, in substance, decreeing.
I also support the fact that at least the European Parliament is doing all it can to promote dialogue and respect for human rights, sometimes forgotten in all the drama and repression.
I welcome with great satisfaction the idea that a delegation from this Parliament is going to make an urgent visit to Algeria to begin as constructive a dialogue as possible with the new Algerian Parliament.
But I would mention that there is already a delegation on relations with the Maghreb countries, which carries out its duties with a sense of responsibility and which, if required, can be broadened for the occasion, so as to represent the whole of the European Parliament better.
I hope this delegation can make contact with both majority and minority members of parliament and the social movements, and that it can lay the foundations for a new Euromediterranean dialogue in the spirit of that Europarliamentary forum repeatedly called for as necessary to the development of a dialogue which, in cases like these, can undoubtedly provide support and a clarion call to all the European democracies.
Finally, it has to be said that the paralysis and, perhaps, the fear the European Union has for too long been victim to in the face of the spread of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, and this carries the risk of discrediting, if not swamping, every Euromediterranean initiative.
But having said that, I believe we need to avoid too simplistic a comparison, which some people are making, between the procrastination and failure of the European Union - and it certainly occurred - in the tragic Yugoslav civil war and the response to the Algerian crisis.
While equally tragic, they are obviously different situations.
I have deliberately talked about civil war in the Yugoslav case and crisis in the Algerian case, just to emphasize that it is quite impossible to regard the Algerian events as a clash of ethnic groups or opposite sides in society.
In short, we should not make the mistake of seeing the Algerian terrorists as combatants in a civil war, thus giving them international recognition and legitimacy.
In saying that, I am not trying to justify the European Union, I simply believe it is essential to identify the appropriate means of correcting the serious delay that does exist as soon as possible.
Madam President, as regards the escalation of raging barbarity which we are seeing in Algeria, it must be remembered that this is also a question of a struggle for political and economic power.
Today we have raised the matter in this House, with wide agreement it would seem.
I believe it is important for Europe - the European Union - to take up its responsibilities for the sake of its interests and obligations, and because of its solidarity with certain countries - particularly France.
And the question we have to address is what we can do.
The Council has told us that it is in favour of the association agreement - within the joint political viewpoint which we share.
The Commission tells us that it is waiting for the Algerian Government to want to negotiate, if I have understood correctly.
The problem is, what should we do in the meantime, besides showing our disapproval by voting, as we are going to do?
I think that as regards our negotiating partner (which basically is the Algerian Government) there are some things we can and should do.
Firstly, as regards that reaction to interference, we should remind them that the Euro-Mediterranean Agreements do not involve the European Union alone.
They involve many countries which also share the values of respect for human rights and democracy, and some of these countries are Islamic.
Secondly, we should remind them of another important thing, which is that one of the responsibilities of a legitimately formed government is the maintenance of public order, starting with the protection of the right to live.
This is something which is the responsibility of the Algerian Government.
Furthermore, we are prepared to help to achieve this in a democratic fashion.
Thirdly, Madam President, there is the question of dialogue.
I believe that we need to talk and to support dialogue.
First, with those democratic Algerian political forces, of which there is no shortage, which can also join in this process.
Next, there is a pre-condition for dialogue with the terrorists - because people are still calling them men of violence - who are murdering the population on a massive scale. The pre-condition is that they should be isolated and made to disarm.
It is not just a question of working miracles, but we have to know what our responsibilities are.
Madam President, we have to ask ourselves the reason for this terrible violence which is staining Algeria with blood and killing civilians, soldiers, town- and country-dwellers and, above all, women and children, cruelly and with incomprehensible barbarity.
No doubt Algerian history has something to do with it.
During the last century that territory never experienced a state structure like those which were headed, for example, by the sultans of Morocco or the beys of Tunisia. Perhaps that made it easier for the French influence to take root.
It became so great that France really and sincerely believed that it was another part of its own territory. Certainly, that was the reason why the struggle for Algerian liberation was subsequently so violent.
That struggle was enormously hard.
It was led, as was natural, by an armed movement, which took power. It was a totalitarian power - not just total - which was military rather than civil and which, by the way, mistakenly operated economic policies similar to the Soviet five-year plans.
This created huge structures of low productivity, squandered resources, probably destroyed the traditional sources of wealth to a large extent, bred corruption and, finally, deprived the Algerians of hope, especially the young. This in turn led many of them to turn to solutions which are supposedly based on religion but which are far removed from the true Islamic faith - solutions which border on magic and even false miracles.
And let us admit that when electoral victory for the IFS seemed likely, we were too ready to accept the cancellation of the subsequent general elections, once again because of the French Government's attitude.
We should recognize that now.
The truth is that elections have taken place, despite these excesses of blood and suffering. Of course, we know that they were not perfect, but they were valid enough to allow us to enter into dialogue and, in fact, speaking from Parliament we have to talk about parliamentary dialogue.
I do not believe that an ad hoc delegation is needed, and on this small point I differ from what was said by my friend, the chairman of the Committee on Human Rights, Mr Soulier.
As Mr Viola has just mentioned, we have a delegation for relations with the Maghreb, which by the way has visited Morocco and Tunisia on several occasions, but not Algeria.
Well, there is now an Algerian Parliament whose president, as I have been informed, wishes to receive such a visit, and I believe that our Parliament must send that delegation.
Perhaps the ad hoc response will be to arrange for it to be sent now , rather than make Algeria wait its turn. Perhaps another ad hoc response could be to somehow increase the number of members in the delegation, in order to cover as much ground as possible.
Also, of course, to talk with all the political forces represented in that parliament, and perhaps also to make contact with other political forces able to switch soon enough from an attitude of violence to one of moderation and peace - for that violent attitude not to be thought of as irreversible.
Madam President, we Europeans have a long and violent history which has often been stained with blood.
Well, we have now arrived at an era when we can give a modest example of dialogue to others who are currently in a violent phase.
Of course, we should encourage the Council and the Commission in their decisions on the cooperation agreements, as we are indeed doing, but above all we should set an example with an initiative of our own - we ourselves should initiate that dialogue.
Mr President, over the last few weeks I personally have been particularly shocked by the resignation with which the international community has reacted to the horror in Algeria and I am therefore pleased with the tone that has been set for the most part in this debate and also with the proposal to send a delegation from this Parliament.
I am nevertheless convinced, ladies and gentlemen, that any steps taken by this Parliament will only be meaningful if we remain objective and if we are not selectively outraged.
It is of course clear to everyone that this is fundamentalist terror at work which wants to force its ideology on people by violent means, and I actually believe that we must not only show respect for the women who are organizing but also support them from here.
But there is also something else and fortunately it has already been mentioned a few times in the debate today. More and more journalists and human rights organizations attest to the fact that violence also occurs by armed gangs associated with the army.
And may we not ask any questions about the impunity with which murders are carried out? May we not ask any questions about the army's impotence to protect the civilian population?
May we not ask any questions about the fact that the Algerian authorities react by restricting press freedom, human rights and the rule of law? It is important that the parliamentary delegation also discusses these problems with their colleagues in the Algerian Parliament.
Finally, colleagues, I should like to point out our own responsibility in this debate.
Algerian refugees are still being sent back to their country without guarantees for their safety.
The UN Commissioner for Refugees has already made several dramatic appeals to a number of Member States still applying these practices.
He asks that for the time being these states suspend the sending back of these refugees until the situation in Algeria changes.
I am convinced that this can only succeed if all Member States together take this decision and I invite the Council to come up with a proposal in this regard.
I hope Parliament will also be able to support this.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Algerian people have had enough of violence and as Mrs André Léonard has already said: neutrality in these circumstances would amount to refusing assistance to a people in need.
Madam President, over and above other considerations it is good for Algeria and the Algerian people to be able to see that there is an enormous feeling of support and a wish for mutual progress here in the European Parliament.
The most important challenge is one which we both have in common, and we can do a great deal towards meeting this common challenge.
It is the challenge of working towards a decisive link between Algeria and the European Union.
We propose stepping up political and parliamentary dialogue, opening a dialogue between the European Parliament and the Algerian National Assembly within the framework of the partenariat.
We support the determination to set Algeria on the road to progress, to consolidate it as a democratic state and to promote human rights.
We condemn unreservedly the brutal scourge of terrorism which the Algerian people are suffering, and support the people and the country of Algeria.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank all those who have spoken in this debate, an animated and passionate but dignified debate, which has well reflected the horror, the challenges and the dangers of the current situation in Algeria.
I would also like to thank the speakers for the quality of their contributions, even if some have been disappointed by the Council's statement on the role the European Union should play in Algeria.
I believe the unanimous watchword in this House has been that we cannot be indifferent to Algeria, that Algeria - and I would go further and say the whole of the Maghreb - needs the European Union.
But, on the other hand, the European Union needs an Algeria and a Maghreb that is peaceful and politically stable.
I pay tribute to the initiative taken by Parliament, to face up to its responsibilities.
The Council has its role to play, the Commission has its role to play - in particular concerning the future association agreement within the framework of the Barcelona process - and the European Parliament (this is a purely personal opinion) also has its role to play.
We have talked about constructive dialogue. I would add 'watchful dialogue' on everything involved in this sensitive area of protection of human rights.
Certainly, nearly everyone is in agreement that the circle of participants in the dialogue in Algeria must be as large as possible, but this is a long drawn process and it has to be said that, unfortunately, in Algeria as in other crises, there are people who do not want to talk.
Our common effort will therefore take a long time.
Algeria is worth supporting because, by and large, the people want peace. This has been stated by one of the speakers and was proved by the people themselves at the last elections and the ones before that.
Before handing over to Vice-President Marín to present his conclusions in his capacity as representative of the Commission, I would like to conclude by saying that our role is to accompany and encourage the different institutions to assume their proper role in this long process of peace, but that all the lifeblood of Algeria and all willing Algerians are called on to resolve this problem.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I support what Mr Wohlfart has said on behalf of the Council, and I should simply like to add that if the European Parliament would like to set in motion a mechanism for political dialogue at the parliamentary level, the Commission would put itself at your disposal, because just at the moment, anything which can help to open new channels of dialogue with the representatives of the Algerian people is interesting.
When it comes down to it, the association agreement negotiations have a precise mandate, and their methodology and language are also precise. Regardless of whether the discussions are of politics or not, the overall framework and the negotiating brief do not allow political dialogue with the Algerian authorities to be entered into.
In other words, circumstances dictate that the Commission's discussions are limited in an objective manner by the nature of the negotiating brief.
In contrast, I think that the European Parliament could perhaps represent a far more open route for opinions to be expressed - much more open, and also wider, more global in a certain sense, and much less restricted than diplomatic language. If this Parliament decides to act in this way, then I support what Mr Wohlfart has said; we would set up all the mechanisms to encourage progress in this political operation.
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
Situation in the Middle East
The next item on the agenda is the statements by the Council and Commission on the situation in the Middle East.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad we are also able to tackle the issue of peace in the Middle East this morning, which is a very important issue.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you that the Council's position regarding the current situation is based on two elements.
Firstly, co-operation on the issue of security and secondly, negotiations, all under the umbrella of 'land for peace' .
The Palestinian authorities must do all they can to prevent acts of terrorism.
The Council speaks regularly, notably through its special envoy, to the Palestinian authorities to encourage total cooperation with Israel on the issue of security.
We have suggested to both parties that a permanent security committee should be set up which we consider could prevent the extremists from taking the peace process hostage.
We must at all costs avoid the stalling of negotiations after every incident, however tragic, however abject and reprehensible it may be.
Negotiations leading to acceptable results for both sides and to a real improvement in the economic position of the Palestinians is the only way possible to create, little by little, the climate of confidence that is essential for the re-establishment of a situation where a maximum of security can be guaranteed.
Mr President, on the subject of honouring the Oslo agreements, the President-in-Office of the Council seized the occasion of the recent visit of the American Secretary of State, Mrs Madeleine Albright, to the region, to reiterate the position of the Council regarding the honouring of agreements reached and to ask Israel to honour her obligations and commitments.
Real and credible confidence building measures, such as the unblocking of projects essential for the viability of the Palestinian economy, are more than ever necessary.
Both sides must adopt a code of conduct.
Any revival in the negotiations regarding the final statute must be accompanied by the parallel and complex drafting of an interim agreement.
We particularly want to see the next phase of redeployment taking place as agreed.
Both parties must avoid unilateral acts, which could prejudice the final statute, which implies that Israel must suspend all new expansion of colonies.
Regarding the Palestinian economy, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, its situation is, to say the least, precarious and since the recent attacks in Jerusalem, the Israeli government has continued to enforce strict measures over the population of the Palestinian territories.
In addition to the cordoning off of the territories, Israel continues, in particular, to freeze the tax receipts due to the Palestinian authorities, even though as recently as Monday they announced they were going to free up half the amount due to the Palestinian authorities, that is 50 % of the amount, which equals some 50 million shekels.
The Council has, on many occasions, repeated that it respects the legitimacy of the Israeli government to defend its population.
However, the measures taken by the Israelis are, to our mind, excessive and do not affect those who are truly responsible for the attacks.
We have insistently requested that Israel respect her obligations by handing over the full sum of tax revenue to the Palestinian authorities.
In order to help the latter face up to its immediate needs, we are going to send, as a matter of urgency, ECU 4 million and, in the same context, we are going to look into the possibility of creating a medium term revolving fund for the Palestinian authorities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to say a word about corruption within the Palestinian authority itself.
The Council is particularly worried by the apparently quite widespread unhealthy practices within the Palestinian authority and with regard to this we have urged President Arafat on many occasions to make a serious effort to put this situation right.
Having said this, the fact that critical reports have been published by the Palestinian authorities themselves shows a willingness on their part to be transparent and I can assure you that the Council will follow this very closely, along with the other main donors.
I would also like to add a word on relations between the European Union and Jordan, a country which plays a major role in the process I have just mentioned, a country with whom it was possible to announce, during the General Affairs Council last Monday, that the negotiations led by the Commission had finally ended in a Euromediterranean association agreement, the final two obstacles being removed at the last minute.
It is a result with which I am extremely pleased.
I will finish by mentioning Syria.
I think everyone is aware that Syria has an important role to play in the peace process and the meetings our special envoy has had with President Assad have confirmed previous impressions.
In fact, Syria would be seriously interested in re-opening negotiations with Israel.
Of course, Mr President, the most difficult part is yet to come, that is, defining a basis on which discussions can be re-opened.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it would be difficult for the Commission not to go along with what Mr Wohlfart has said on behalf of the Council.
His description is correct and the Commission agrees completely.
There is no doubt, especially since the Israeli Government's decision to build a new settlement in East Jerusalem, that we have entered a vicious circle which has placed the Middle-East peace process in a frankly delicate situation.
You are all familiar with the United States' initiative and Mrs Madeleine Albright's visit.
It seems that a meeting between Palestinians and Israelis, not involving the United Nations, is planned for next week.
We shall see whether a United-States package can finally achieve significant progress in a situation which has deteriorated at internal, regional and international levels.
Lastly, I am not going to try to hide from you the Commission's primary cause for concern, which is that it will be our responsibility to manage the financial package which was approved by the Council and supported by the European Parliament.
I am afraid that, as a budgetary authority, we will have to take that responsibility in the future, because of the Council's decision.
The Palestinian economy has been placed in an absolutely impossible position because of numerous factors. These include border closures, restriction of movement, cases of corruption and lack of transparency in the management of the Palestinian budget, and financial sanctions - such as not handing over taxes, and so on.
What has been created by the European Union and particularly the Commission - which has had responsibility in the Palestinian case - has been a system of social security, financed by the international community, rather than a model of economic development.
The events of last year mean that this economic model is not now viable, unless a peace plan can be resurrected quickly. This also needs to allow the Palestinians the opportunity for economic development in the medium and long term.
The peace process will not be able to rely for ever on large-scale financial efforts by the international community, and particularly the European Union, as it has done for the last four years. As you know, the European Union contributes the most financially - much more than the United States, the so-called moderate Arab states, the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund.
And because of our extensive experience the Council, at the Commission's suggestion, has again decided to grant urgent financial aid in an attempt to salvage the political momentum. Once again we are going to salvage the political momentum so that the Palestinian Presidency can pay for the government, the police, the hospitals and the local authorities.
It has become traditional for the European Union to perform this operation.
Finally, the Council authorized the Commission to make a rapid transfer of approximately ECU 4 million and to present a new financial engineering system by means of a cash fund. We want to consolidate this, to help the Palestinian Government in their struggle against the problems of border closure or the failure to receive their share of the taxes collected by the Israelis, which stem from the Oslo agreements.
I am telling you this because the European Parliament will have a great deal to contribute. The only way of achieving these aims will be by what is known as the Notenboom procedure.
When the time comes to calculate the new distribution, we will have to find an adjustment to set this new political decision in motion. This will allow us to grant a special aid programme for the peace process in Palestine from November, depending on how well the money problems of the Palestinian Government may have been resolved.
As Mr Wohlfart said, the causes of these problems are very diverse, but they all matter.
We should think about this, because the current aid programme expires next year.
This is not the moment of the Oslo agreements, or the elation in Washington or Casablanca - this is not a moment for elation.
But the Community and its Member States have agreed to a financial effort, which by the end of the process will probably amount to about ECU 2, 000 million.
We have rescued some very difficult situations by injecting financial resources, but we are stretched to the limit.
The reason is that up to two million Palestinians living in the territories are in a desperate situation because the Palestinian economy is based essentially on international donations and because of regular border closures, restricted circulation in the territories, and being unable to export to the European common market as a result of infrastructural problems and systematic obstruction by the Israeli authorities.
So one of the things the Commission must do is regularly approach the Council and the European Parliament with a whole series of important questions. As Mr Wohlfart has said, this is a long-term matter, and next year we will have to define what we are going to do.
The special budget runs out next year.
I mention this because last week we were very distressed because the Council asked us to provide finance to help Palestine and the Arafat Government, and we could not do so because we have no money left.
So we will have to find a solution in November, using the Notenboom procedure. And from 1999, we will have to think very carefully how to spend the same amount of money as we have spent in the last five years, or more.
We certainly do not want to perpetuate political difficulties or obstacles. Instead, we want to provide a regional solution for the Middle East and, most importantly, a viable and sustained economy for the Palestinian people.
Otherwise, I doubt whether the international community can sustain this enormous financial effort which, despite all attempts, has not been able to prevent the Palestinians becoming even poorer this year, and having fewer investments than four years ago.
A population living in a desperate situation, where there is not only no peace but also increasing poverty, where the level of private investment has plummeted, especially in the last year, and there are no investors from Europe, the United States, or the "moderate' Arab states, is, as you will appreciate, a situation which does not favour restraint.
And I want to assure you that we will come to Parliament again, and I hope we will have your sympathy and support in finding a solution in November, when we discuss the problem of the reassignment of resources.
On behalf of my parliamentary group I should like to thank the representatives of the Council and the Commission most sincerely for their clear, frank words. We shall certainly support you, Commissioner Marín, in your efforts to find money, which will be, and will have to be, used efficiently.
We are confronted here once more with a spiralling use of force which is difficult to break.
Thus we regret all the more emphatically that the Israeli Government has undertaken measures that increase yet again the conditions for force.
As Mr Marín has just said, the reply to the use of force that the Israeli Government has just given will naturally lead via more misery and greater problems for the Palestinian population to further escalation in the use of force.
This is not to say that such escalation can in any way be justified, supported or condoned, but it must be quite clear what responsibility the Israeli Government also bears for the overall development of the situation.
It is of course the settlements policy, above all, that was the starting point for the new spiral in the use of force.
We reject a settlements policy, which seeks to create a fait accompli before talks have even started and negotiations begin.
The present Israeli Government finds itself in a situation where it can no longer control the forces it has conjured up, because there now exist new activities that involve too great an intrusion, even for this Government, into the Palestinian area.
In this context, however, the question of land will have to be negotiated.
It is totally unacceptable that people who sell land, from Palestinians to Israelis, should be "punished' by death in a legal or illegal manner.
Yet it is obviously the right of any community and any country, particularly in such a difficult phase, to take steps to ensure that the peace process is not impeded again by arbitrary land sales. I believe that here, too, one must find a solution by dialogue with the Israelis and the Palestinians.
As has already been said, the Israeli Government 's reaction to the use of a force that they had to resist was appropriate, but it was inappropriately intensive and it has created new conditions for force.
The financial restrictions, the restrictions on freedom of movement, lead a people to the point where even those who previously rejected the use of force now support it as the only way out of this situation.
I consider that to be catastrophic, and I hope that the measures announced by the Council and Commission, and also those presented today by Commissioner Marín, which I hope Parliament will approve, will at least cover the financial aspects.
The fact remains, though, that freedom of movement is being massively restricted here, and also that the only peace partner there is, Arafat and the PLO, is being divorced from the support of its own population.
I believe that this last point is very important, and I am delighted at the statement by the President of the Council.
We want an independent Palestinian State.
I think that is the only chance, and more and more groups in Israel are saying that themselves.
It has to be, however, a democratic state and one free from corruption.
I emphatically request that efforts be made so that we, as friends of the Palestinian people, may be assured that the new state to be established is a democratic one, and one that respects human rights.
I also request the Council and the Commission to ensure that the measure announced against corruption is also enforced, as no one in the European population will be prepared to spend a lot of money if there is the slightest suspicion that it will not arrive where it belongs, namely, with the people of Palestine.
Mr President, first of all I would also like to warmly congratulate both the Presidentin-Office of the Council for his very important words and also the honourable Member of the Commission, Mr Marín, for his very detailed analysis.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that this is yet another critical moment for the Middle East.
It is not for this Parliament to make a list of charges and to restrict ourselves to a discussion of what is at fault.
The European Union must now deal with specific measures and recommendations to restore the peace process.
These would include the following four general measures and preconditions. First, actions to end terrorist activities.
This is a necessary precondition since, in addition to its many human victims, terrorism gives rise to strong feelings of insecurity in Israel, creating problems in the development of Israel and in its participation in the peace process.
This is a very difficult undertaking and there are two aspects to it.
The first aspect is repressive: finding and capturing the terrorists.
The second is long term: eradication of the origins of terrorism.
Secondly, actions to end all those terrorist acts and the decisions that they provoke.
As an example I will refer to the subject of the settlements.
This is something that must end, as must other, related, activities.
Thirdly, actions to implement the Oslo agreements in full, since, because of their international nature, these agreements are the basis of any peace process in the Middle East.
And fourthly, actions to ensure the success of the proposed new New York process - a process that will proceed in two phases: a bipartite phase, namely Palestine and Israel, and a tripartite phase, namely Palestine, Israel and the United States.
Here we must bear in mind that this new New York process should not be a process which has to produce an immediate result within 48 hours.
Of course this will not happen.
But it should be a conference at which two things will be determined: first, the agenda for future negotiations, and secondly, and most importantly, the process to enable those negotiations to take place.
In addition there are other, more specific, proposals.
I congratulate the Council on the two proposals it has already made public, that is, the creation of a standing committee on security and the recommendation for a code of conduct.
These are two extremely important issues.
But I would like to propose the following: first, a re-examination of the European presence in the Middle East.
And secondly, in place of a special envoy, I propose that the Council, the Commission and, dare I say it, the European Parliament, should create a task force which is linked with the standing committee on security.
It would be helpful if the Middle East peace process could come under the heading of the Barcelona process and if it could become a permanent, on-going conference, within the Barcelona process for the Middle East peace process, which would be based on the creation of working groups.
And I would like to propose four such working groups: a group on security, which would deal, among other things, with the issue of terrorism and the relations with and actions towards other countries, such as the Lebanon and Syria, which play a role in the peace process. A second group which would deal with the matter of the settlements, a third working group to deal with the status of the Palestinian regions and with the status of Jerusalem, and a fourth group to examine the extremely important issue of refugees.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I personally believe that we must devote a lot of time to these negotiations and processes.
We do not need spectacular results for television at this time.
We need results with substance.
Mr President, this is a cry for help and not a study because we can call on Mr Wohlfart and Commissioner Marín for studies, for which I thank them most sincerely.
The peace process has got into an extremely bad state. Everyone knows that.
It seems to be as good as dead and if new impetus is not given quickly, it will die.
Even the attempts at mediation by the American Secretary of State did not manage to break the deadlock.
In a spiral of bomb attacks by Hamas and retaliatory measures, the peace process seems dead and gone, and has only produced losers.
The terrorism by Hamas must be fought in every way possible and Arafat must be made to keep his promises.
But by the long term closing off of the Palestinian areas and the freezing of 60 % of the national income of the Palestinian authorities, the Israeli government is creating its own enemies in an atmosphere of frustration, poverty and hopelessness.
The political leaders have lost the initiative owing to a lack of political guts and extremists on both sides, with escalating outrageous acts, have created a climate of mistrust and hatred that is probably stronger than two years ago.
If the momentum sinks further, there is the risk that the parties involved in the Middle East will lose their way even further in their own sandstorm and be blinded.
Where are the visionary politicians who set the peace process going?
A new breakthrough in the deadlock is needed now.
That is easy to say, but difficult to achieve.
On the basis of the Oslo agreements we must seek a definitive solution to the disputes and in this approach there is no room for taboos and certainly no eye for an eye or tooth for a tooth approach as between Israel and the Palestinians and between Israel and Lebanon.
We are living in a modern age with modern slogans and hopefully with a modern peace.
Mr President, last Saturday, the fourth anniversary of the signing of the Oslo agreements in Washington, should have been a day of rejoicing, both for Israel and for Palestine.
It was, in fact, a day of anguish for the peace process which is now only held together by a thread.
It was also, and I am delighted, a great day of struggle.
The united gathering in Tel Aviv against the policies of the Netanyahu government and for the defence of the people is a sign of hope that we must hail.
More than ever the line of demarcation separates not Palestinians from Israelis, but those in favour of the peace process from those against.
The reaction, impressive in its dignity, of the mother of little Smadar, one of the victims of the latest attack on Israel for which Hamas claim responsibility, a criminal act that we have strongly condemned, is significant.
To Benjamin Netanyahu, who was accusing Yasser Arafat when those who plant the bombs are his worst enemies, she retorted, "It is your policy that killed her' .
This policy, which the French Minister for Foreign Affairs was right to qualify as catastrophic, will lead straight to an explosion of violence and to war, if nothing is done to counteract it in time.
If the colonization of the West Bank and Jerusalem continues, if the autonomous territories remain closed off and isolated from each other, if the port of Gaza remains blockaded, if the airport is closed, if thousands of political prisoners who are still in detention are not released, if the withdrawal of troops that was explicit in the agreements is not carried out, even if Tsahal dares to venture once more into the autonomous territories, and the worst is possible, efforts made up until now to try to guarantee the security, peace and mutual development of all the people of the region will at once be ruined.
So what can Europe do other than provide aid - emergency aid and development aid - more than ever needed by the Palestinian authority? The problem raised by Mr Marín regarding this is absolutely crucial.
But beyond that, what can Europe do on a political level to save peace in the Middle East? I will say it once again here, the immediate suspension of the association agreement between the European Union and Israel would seem to me to be a healthy measure since it would make clear to Israeli opinion that it was aimed not at Israel but at the current government in order to try to put the required political pressure on it to drive it to respect the obligations undertaken in Oslo and in Washington.
Europe often regrets not playing a more worthy role on the international scene.
Here is an opportunity to demonstrate clear political will, that of saving the peace process of the Middle East.
Mr President, the other day, the French intellectual Edgar Morin compared Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu to the fugitive Bosnian Serb leader Karadzic.
The comparison could be seen as exaggerated, but on reflection it has a lot of truth in it.
In Palestine both sides are indeed committing acts of violence which we all condemn, not least the latest insane acts of terrorism in Jerusalem.
The remarkable thing is, however, that on the Palestinian side it is the friends of peace who have the political power and the peace saboteurs who are hunted by the police.
In Israel it is the other way round.
According to the Israeli opposition politician Yossi Sarid, Prime Minister Netanyahu was even in agreement with the latest illegal Jewish acts of colonization in a Palestinian area in Jerusalem.
Why does Netanyahu react in this way? The answer is quite simple: he represents an ideological extremism which lives and thrives only in strife, only when insecurity is a part of normal Israeli life, only when an Arab threat can be portrayed with some credibility.
What would become of Netanyahu, Sharon and the other Israeli 'hawks' if there were a final peace settlement with a Palestinian state? Of course, they would be swept away by the peace-loving Israeli electorate.
That is why there is, sadly, reason to be concerned about the future in the region of Palestine.
In the international press there is now talk of Palestinian revolt, a new intifada , in response to Israeli provocation.
There is also talk of Israel waging a "preventative' war against Syria.
We have seen that kind of thing a number of times before in history.
We shall of course condemn all acts of violence.
We shall of course examine all those involved, including the Palestinian authorities, and not least Arafat's own authoritarian methods and the opportunities for corruption which the Palestinians themselves have also now investigated.
But in the European Union's actions there should be no doubt that the main responsibility for the current threat to the peace process lies with the current Israeli Government , not with the Israeli people.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, bombings in Israel, attacks on buses, in the market, are once again sowing grief and death.
Everyone who goes off to work in the morning has the right to return home alive in the evening, and every national authority has the right to protect its civil population.
That is an absolute fact.
To do this, is it necessarily the best thing to establish military control along all the roads of the West Bank?
To confiscate thousands of hectares from your neighbours?
To shut off hundreds of thousands of citizens in their town or village, thus condemning people to unemployment when their only crime is to have been born an Arab? Is it the best thing to blow up the home and family of someone suspected of belonging to an extremist movement?
Is it the best thing to move colonies of people armed up to the hilt into the territory of your neighbours?
To maintain mercenary militia in South Lebanon or to prevent the Palestinians from exporting their own produce?
The Israeli authorities seem to think it is the best thing, in any case, it is a necessity.
The least that can be said is that if it is necessary, it is certainly not sufficient.
The renewal of attacks on Israel demonstrates that there is clearly an error in the path that has been chosen.
Obviously, such an attitude is deplorable.
If you turn your back on peace you draw together once again all the conditions for the fanatics to devote themselves to new attacks.
The European Union must join in the efforts which have been deployed tirelessly by American diplomacy for years, to whom I believe we should be grateful at least in a small way, since the few advances that have been achieved up to now, at least in the last few years, are really due to this activity.
I am sure everyone remembers the weekly trips to the Middle East by Mr Baker, to obtain a signature.
In any case, Mr Marín has reminded us, and I must admit that his comments have terrified me somewhat, that the European Union injects considerable quantities of money and energy, but probably not under the right conditions needed to make it effective.
It would be fitting therefore if this same effort could be deployed on a political level, through pressure on the Israeli government, but also, and perhaps at least in the same manner, on the Palestinian authority so that it reforms its methods and its customs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in his remarkable work, ' Christians of the Orient' , between jihad and dhimmitude, the Israeli Jewish historian Bat Yeor observes that if Christians have often been unfaithful to the message of the love of Christ then Muslims, when they devote themselves to violence, do no more than imitate the prophet Mohamed himself, cruel leader of the war of Medina, who cut off the heads of his enemies by the thousand and gave the women and children to the men.
It is true that numerous sorats of the Koran - I am referring to the Pleiad edition, approved by the University of Al Azhar, order the annihilation of non-believers and, depending on the interests of Islam, death or a saved life for the people of the Book, Jewish or Christian, according to a statute of dhimmi.
There is unfortunately no alternative Koran.
But, opposing the fundamentalist violence of Islam, there is also the fundamentalist violence of Judaism.
I must here pay tribute to the work of a professor at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel Schak who, in his book '3000 Years of Israel' courageously denounces the foundations of what the famous Jerusalem philosopher, Yoshua Leibowicz, did not hesitate to call judeo-nazism in the French newspaper 'Le Monde' .
Let me give an example.
Believing cynically that it would go no further, the Regional Councillor for the Ile de France, the eco-Communist Konopnicki, proclaims in No 463 of "The Ark' his admiration for the famous rabbi Élie Munk, great commentator of Maimonides who, in his book 'The Lost People' , page 615, claims that the Turks and the Negroes are not men and develops in some depth the need, and I quote, "to kill, in the name of the Ten Commandments, the descendants of idolaters, even young children, along with their fathers and grandfathers' .
Rooted in Maimonides, the religious ideology of Élie Munk, to consider but one of the mentors of Konopnicki widely diffused in France and notably at the great Jewish Colbo bookshop explains, I believe, along with many others, the behaviour of the Netanyahu government, coming from both this theocratic culture and the extremist nationalism of Gordon, the mentor of Ben Gurion.
It is through this terrible confrontation, the exterminationist logic professed by the distant children of Abraham, for centuries brothers yet enemies, that unfortunately the Israeli-Arab war is perpetuated.
But Mr Netanyahu is mistaken.
Israel cannot win peace by continuing to crush the Palestinian people, which will in the end lead to a revival of Arab solidarity.
I once believed that perhaps the Afrikaners were not so wrong to want to organize, in South Africa, the separate development of peoples so different.
When I saw the reality of apartheid, its world of barbed wire, of townships and of homelands, I immediately understood the madness of both the policy and the practice.
It is the same with Israel who, although they receive immense support from the United States, will not be able to coop up indefinitely, in a number of small territories, between watchtowers, a Palestinian population - poverty-stricken but young, courageous, intelligent and enterprising.
The policy of apartheid is madness for Israel, just as it was for the Union of South Africa .
If Israel does not find a solution in keeping with the dignity of people and peoples, nothing will save it from disaster.
So when you consider that the Arab citizens of Israel do not even have the same identity cards as the Jews, you can but shudder.
I would like to put a question before I end, Mr President.
Why do some people in France, who want to grant, without limit, the rights of French people to foreigners, accept that over there, the Arabs, who are in their own country, are so badly treated? An error on the banks of the Seine is certainly not the same as a similar error on the banks of the Jordan.
I have received six motions for Resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, we still refuse to admit that the Oslo agreements are dead, because we see no alternative other than war.
If there are alternatives to Oslo, as sometimes seems to surface in press statements by Israeli spokespersons, the international community at Oslo - that is, the United States, Europe and Russia, which stood guarantor for those agreements - has the right to know about it now.
The peace process has been going through a very severe crisis, which is why every effort has to be made now to prevent it being destroyed with no alternative in sight.
There is not much time because the situation is on the brink.
For this reason, we support the proposal from the President of the Council to set up a permanent security committee between Europe and the United States to exercise the maximum possible pressure on both sides.
A code of conduct is needed to reverse the rout which is leading to catastrophe, but the next New York summit, at the end of the month, must primarily clarify the strategic position: is the peace process still in the minds and amongst the basic options of the two protagonists?
The summit must determine whether the peace process is still valid for the Israeli government.
This is an essential point, because it looks as if the answer is no! If it is not valid, the summit must come up with a new proposal, explicit and comprehensive, which is, as I have said, surfacing every so often in the press.
Without this fundamental clarification, no partial proposal will have any effect.
Certainly if this point is made clear in New York, the code of conduct can be approved, the measures the Palestinians intend to adopt against terrorism can be examined and a common approach can be agreed in the fight against terrorism which does not rely entirely on the armed forces and the police.
I say that because Hamas terrorism is not the only terrorism in the world.
In countries where terrorism has been isolated and defeated - and I could give many examples - it has always happened on the basis of a political defeat first and foremost, and not a police or military one.
The Israeli government seems to forget that terrorism can only be defeated when it is isolated from the people and not by carrying on as at present, creating all kinds of difficulties for Arafat, for example, political and economic, and undermining his credibility.
The terrorists can be isolated if the people see the peace making progress, see the benefits, see what the leaders, starting with Arafat and Rabin, have done in the interests of the people.
If the process is shattered the forces ranged against it will naturally gain strength, terrorism first and foremost.
Isolating terrorism is the only way.
This is a very important point because the Israeli government's requirement for security, and the accusation against the Palestinians of not doing enough, is based on an approach to fighting terrorism which must be questioned, because it is probably a method which does not produce results.
As regards Commissioner Marín's requests, I will be brief.
You are right: in November the European Parliament will try to do its share.
Madam President, I must say that it is with a large amount of sadness that I participate in this debate today.
We have been for a long time hoping that the peace process in the Middle East would come to some form of conclusion.
I recall very well when the European Parliament delegation visited Israel earlier this year that I came home with a great deal of sadness.
There seemed to be no unanimity within Israel or within the PLO, and the Palestinian cause generally, as to how to proceed.
When there is a lack of unanimity it is very difficult to come to a conclusion.
I listened very carefully to what the President-in-Office and the Commissioner said this morning.
I must say that I thought that Commissioner Marín was extremely frank and very open and, indeed, courageous in his remarks.
These things have to be said at the present time and Parliament will have to come to a conclusion because it has a role to play in this process.
But there are many others who have a role to play and it is not always appreciated that we need better coordination of the way we are approaching the difficulties that are currently being faced in the Middle East.
Syria, as I have mentioned before, is a key player and has a lot to answer for in terms of the failure to find a solution to the peace process which we all want to see succeed.
And likewise Iran.
Those two countries in particular should be brought to task, not only by the United States but also by the United Nations and by the European Union.
I hope that the EU in particular will try to encourage the United Nations - which at this very moment is undertaking reforms - to respond to events in the problem areas of the world.
It is not necessarily right that we always depend on the United States to be the world's policeman.
The European Union certainly has a role to play.
We have great interests there as has been pointed out: the financial contribution we make to the Palestinians and also, of course, the trade association agreements we have with the Israelis.
But, overall, I was encouraged to hear Mr Colajanni say what may be the one thing we can all agree on - that terrorism must be isolated.
However that is to be achieved, it must be with the cooperation of Syria and with the Iranians.
I was encouraged also to hear that our relationship with the Jordanian Government - which has a key role to play in this issue - is currently good.
The Egyptians have always believed that they have a major role to play in the Middle East and I would encourage them to be full participants in this overall discussion which we must surely try to address from that international perspective.
We all hope that the discussions in Washington next week will be successful.
But let us also remind everybody that life goes on in the Middle East.
There are 30, 000 Palestinians crossing the Israeli border every day to go to work.
We have a great opportunity as a European Union to make sure that we can bring those conclusions and peace process together so that we do not need to continue this debate on a never-ending basis.
Mr President, I believe the greatest error that Parliament could make today would be to bury the peace process prematurely.
If we look at the situation we can see that, according to the famous saying, it is serious but not desperate.
Mrs Albright's visit to the Middle East did not have such a negative outcome as some bright spirits would have us believe.
The removal of the blockade, this is one measure which is by no means negligible when it concerns a country obliged to defend itself from the daily threat of terrorism.
What we have to try to avoid is pouring oil on the fire.
In this respect, the recent comments of the French Minister for Foreign Affairs are regrettable.
The peace process will take place between the Palestinians and the Israeli government, both democratically elected.
To insult either of them would be to insult the peace process.
Mr President, there is no doubt that it would be a serious mistake to try to reduce the current crisis in the peace process in the Middle East to a question of security.
We all roundly condemn the unacceptable outrages which have been suffered by innocent victims in Israel.
But we all know that the key to what is happening in that region lies in the failure to observe the Oslo agreement, principally on the part of Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to renegotiate, or rather to impose something different from what was agreed, and not just in relation to the settlements.
For example, he is not carrying out the withdrawal which was agreed with the Palestinian National Authority, he is blockading the territories under that authority's control, he is detaining thousands of prisoners.
What is Netanyahu achieving with this harmful policy? First, he is weakening President Arafat; secondly, he is frustrating the Palestinians and encouraging the terrorists; and lastly he is encouraging the Israeli extremists, who are currently committing regrettable and provocative actions such as those of Ras al Aloud.
Mr Netanyahu goes even further by carrying out actions against the Lebanon, to which that country's army have had to respond, quite legitimately.
In other words, it is Mr Netanyahu who is mainly responsible for what is happening, because he is not keeping to the Oslo agreement and he is disregarding international law.
The United States is gradually losing its role as arbitrator in this matter.
For example, Mrs Albright is acting in a manner directly opposed to Mr Baker.
She has gone to give support to Netanyahu, not to condemn what needs to be condemned.
Europe should ask the United States to play a relatively balanced role again and to put pressure on Netanyahu, for example by freezing the current agreements with Israel, and of course encouraging aid for the Palestinian National Authority.
In this respect, I want to support Mr Marín's proposal.
Mr President, missio pacis , mission of peace.
The bible of the old church used this translation for the name of Jerusalem.
Is it possible to maintain this name in view of the barbaric terror used by the enemies of peace? Not only must it be maintained, but it can be, because this city, the city of Yad Vashem and of the Grove of the Righteous of All Nations, is a symbol of the vulnerability of terrorism.
Terrorism can be vanquished, but only by one method: by the unshakeableness of the conviction that there is no alternative to peace and the peace process.
For this reason I should like here - and I am aware of the bias of my vote - in the name of my parliamentary party to call upon Prime Minister Netanyahu and his Government to fulfill the Oslo agreements to the letter, comprehensively and in the spirit of the peace process.
Because, whereas security is the central point of his policy, it is also clear that security for the Israeli people can only be achieved in this one way, begun in Washington and Oslo.
Mr President, the Alleanza Nazionale wishes to express its full solidarity with the Israeli people over the recent criminal terrorist attacks they have suffered.
At the same time we firmly condemn the resurgence and advance of Islamic fundamentalist fanaticism which, whatever right there may be on its side, has no justification for carrying out indiscriminate attacks in which innocent civilians of all ages often perish.
Having said that, there is no doubt that the peace process has received some severe blows from the oft-exchanged intransigence of Arabs and Israelis.
And, unfortunately, we must emphasize again Europe's failure to have a strong political presence in this sector in crisis, once again left almost entirely to American diplomacy.
This, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, is the Europe we do not like, the Europe which tries or seeks to make progress in the economic and monetary sectors but remains passive or absent when it comes to political initiatives and international diplomacy: a one-armed Europe.
In fact, we would appreciate it if the European representative would work alongside the American ally for peace and actual resolution of conflict. That representative should be a position not just to make formal statements but to have his suggestions and decisions converted into binding responsibilities for the nations of Europe.
We also have the duty to ask ourselves what we can do in the present situation to halt this escalation of hatred and intolerance.
We believe the European Union should both apply all its economic and commercial leverage to penalize states which protect and subsidize terrorist groups and urge the present Israeli rulers to reconsider the new settlements policy.
To conclude, we think Shimon Peres' remark, that winning a war - Israel has already won three - is something very different from defeating terrorism. It is wise and worth thinking about.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in order to avoid any ambiguity regarding my position I would like to state immediately that I support the draft joint resolution concerning the murderous attacks in Jerusalem and the peace process in the Middle East.
I approve of the balance and I support the appeal made, along with the proposed steps, for a resumption of the peace process.
It is the only way to ensure the long term security of the citizens and people of Israel, as well as the self-respect, dignity and liberty of the Palestinian people.
I want to devote the main part of my time to say that nothing, I say nothing, can justify terrorism, attacks against civilians and massacres of the innocent.
Terrorism always has fathers, leaders, an organization, networks, financial backers.
There is never any justification! Many countries have recent experience of this, or continue to experience it, even in Europe - Italy, Germany, France, Great Britain and Spain.
Today in Algeria thousands of innocent people are massacred in the name of an obscurantist Islamic ideology.
All of the countries were, or are, different cases, but nevertheless they suffered or suffer, have fought or are fighting terrorism.
Even in Israel, terrorism struck Jerusalem under the Pérez government, at the height of the peace discussions, as it strikes Jerusalem today under the Netanyahu government.
Only firm and massive condemnation by world opinion, unconditional and without digression, only co-ordinated organization of all civilised countries and peoples in the fight against terrorism, will make erosion of it, if not eradication, possible.
This is the price of peace in the Middle East.
This is the price of world peace.
I will conclude by saying that the victims of torture in Jerusalem, like those in Algiers, await not our tears, but this reaction.
It is the duty of Europe and our Parliament to remind everyone of that this morning!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, regrettably this Parliament is once again forced to discuss the deterioration in the Middle East peace process, which is really frustrating.
As we have seen, peace and stability in the zone are still a long way from being achieved, and the recent acts of terrorism are simply a manifestation of injustice, and an obstacle in the way of pacification.
I think it is important to stress that none of the main protagonists in this process have the absolute right to impose their own views of the problems which exist, much less do so by means of provocation or violence.
We all realise that the Arab-Israeli conflict is complex and contains numerous factors whose solution needs a firm political will. But we should demand that the parties concerned play their part.
The Israeli Government should end its policy of provocation by means of the settlements, while the Palestinian Legislative Council should step up its fight against terrorism by arresting the activists, controlling and restoring order, and taking repressive measures against these terrorist groups.
As we have repeated many times, dialogue and strict compliance with the Oslo agreements represent the only way to reach a solution which will benefit the peace process.
Therefore, we in this Parliament should welcome the proposal made by the President of the Council, to create a permanent security committee in which the European Union and the United States can work together in order to mediate in the conflict.
To do so, the European Union needs to reinforce its identity, and respond rapidly and unanimously to events.
I am very worried by what Mr Marín said - unless I misunderstood - about the possibility that the Commission might cut off aid to the Palestinians.
In any case, Mr Marín, I believe the European Union also needs to make a major effort to get the Arab countries to collaborate more effectively in the peace process, by not harbouring terrorist groups, as well as making an economic contribution to assist Palestinian development in the face of economic aggression on the part of the Israeli Government, as we have already discussed.
Lastly, Mr President, allow me to conclude by saying that what is needed is firmness and political measures to control the zone's stability, and the support of the international sector for continued dialogue between the parties involved.
Let us hope that the announcement of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations, at the end of this month, brings good results and that no provocation may be able to frustrate it.
Mr President, I think that, after the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin and the accession to power of Benjamin Netanyahu, the scenario we now see unfolding is not something that could have been regarded as beyond the realms of possibility.
Unfortunately its international dimensions, beyond what has already been said, are extremely important.
Relations between Israel and all Arab countries have been blown to pieces.
Relations between Europe and those countries whose people are of the Muslim faith are, if you like, being undermined.
Relations between Greece and Turkey, the Cyprus problem, both fall within a wider zone of instability.
For this reason I believe that decisive measures need to be taken.
Such measures have never existed, they have never existed even on the part of the United Nations.
I think that the essential thing is to salvage Oslo.
We cannot abandon Oslo in the search for another reality.
Pressure needs to be exerted on Israel which is unambiguous and comprehensible, and there needs to be, of course, our support for the Palestinian principle, under the conditions that many of my colleagues have set out.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing new under the sun in the Middle East.
Confronting each other, two peoples, two nations: one intolerant, colonialist, probably the only fundamentally racist state with complete impunity and the other, the Palestinian people, in search for decades for a land, their promised land, their homeland, land of their ancestors and also of their children.
It goes without saying that we unreservedly condemn the actions taken by the Palestinian terrorists.
Nothing can excuse murderous attacks, not the provocation of the Hebrew State, nor the benevolence of Uncle Sam towards Israel.
Throughout the last three years in this Assembly, I have frequently heard talk of the duty to interfere.
Has the time not come for Europe, which devotes considerable sums of money to peace in the Middle East, to make its voice heard and to impose with a firmness that would surprise the world, its will to respect the rights of peoples, of men, women and children to peace, security and liberty?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this morning a lot has been said to describe the situation, but let us look for a moment at a scene, a backdrop, which could threaten from the Middle East.
Netanyahu campaigned for election and won - I should like to remind Mr Wurtz that the Israelis elected him with a majority - on a platform of three "noes' : no to an end to the settlements, no to the withdrawal of troops, and no to a Palestinian state.
If this is not transformed into a three-fold "yes' , which would basically mean a return to Oslo, so that an active peace policy can be implemented, then the dangerous policy introduced by Netanyahu will not be stopped and will combine itself with another dangerous development.
Of course Arafat must stop the terrorists.
Of course we must continue to repeat that requirement, that is entirely right.
But we must also be clear about another thing: the terrorists are hitting not just Israeli civilians, but also - and that in my view is a political objective - Arafat. For those who throw bombs have, besides the basic aim of hitting Israel, an internal Palestinian aim of weakening Arafat.
If Arafat is weakened - let us even assume he is deposed - then you have the scenario of a Netanyahu operating with three noes opposing a Palestinian leadership dedicated exclusively to the use of violence, or at least a majority of the Palestinian population who want that.
Then the outlook is, in my view, clearly one of long term conflict.
That means we are in a very serious and dangerous position.
Fortunately Mrs Albright has once more achieved the necessary equidistance between Israel and terrorism during her current visit.
At first it appeared to be rather different.
If America were to adopt a unilateral position in favour of one side or the other the peace process would come to an end.
For this reason, Mr President of the Council, the European Union must adopt a much more active role - and thank you, Mr Commissioner, for mentioned this - because it is the only way we can play our part in the maintenance of peace.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to add a few words to this debate, a debate marked by - and all the speeches have shown it - a feeling of sadness and frustration in the face of the situation in the region four years after the signing of the Oslo accords.
But I still have hope, as I note that none of the speakers have succumbed to resignation and that all are agreed in saying that, even if the current period is tragic and extremely difficult, even if some speak of a last chance for the peace process, it is necessary to try to keep trying, in the absence, as has been said, of any other solution.
Let us be clear. The consequences would be tragic for Israel and for the Palestinians, for their neighbours, but also for the international community.
As a doctor by profession, I have to say that the patient is in danger of dying, perhaps in agony.
But emergency resuscitation is still possible, and on this point I agree with the comments of my friend, Manuel Marín. I strongly doubt that the closure of borders, ports and airports, the withholding of tax receipts, the cutting off of what corresponds to vital oxygen for the patient, is the most appropriate way of saving him.
It is the duty of the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament to support the efforts deployed at an international level, not only by the United States but also by our special envoy, and to seize this last chance.
Success is possible, if a security committee is first of all created.
It is essential to take into consideration the legitimate concerns of Israel with regard to the security of its citizens and to condemn and isolate terrorism. Mr Arafat alone will not be able to overcome terrorism.
This seems obvious to me.
He needs help, but to achieve this, it is equally necessary to offer prospects to the Palestinian youth who are currently experiencing an extremely difficult situation, to say the least.
At the same time we must also try to draw up the details of how the security committee would be run, a committee which sounds like a good idea in theory but within which there will be clashes which will require neutral arbitration.
As for the code of conduct, I am well aware that it is not a miracle cure, but it is an instrument which could be useful as long as there is the courage to maintain political pressure on both sides in the peace process at a political level within the European Union.
This is equally the duty of other partners involved in the process.
I will conclude by thanking all those who, in a truly exhaustive manner, have reiterated their support for this peace process in the Middle East.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
ONP and universal telecommunications service
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0263/97) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, concerning the common position of the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the application of open network provision (ONP) to voice telephony and on universal service for telecommunications in a competitive environment (C4-0256/97-96/0226(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs Read).
Mr President, I am delighted to introduce the second reading of this proposal from the Commission, particularly as this basic voice-telephony service is the one which is the most important to consumers.
It is for that reason that a number of my amendments concentrate on the rights of consumers, the right of blind and deaf consumers and others at the margins while, of course, reinforcing the principle of universal service and adding some extra comments on it.
I would remind you very briefly of the definition of universal service in the Interconnection Directive, for which I was also responsible.
I quote: ' a defined minimum set of services of specified quality which is available to all users, independent of their geographical location and, in the light of specific national conditions, at an affordable price' .
The Commission will notice that one of the amendments in the name of my group calls for a biannual report on the progress of universal service to be made to Parliament.
I think that would be of value to the Commission to have some scrutiny and comment - constructive comment, I hope - from Parliament.
I note with approval that at first reading the Commission and Council took on board a number of my own proposals on the partial inclusion of mobile telephony in the scope of this directive, even though, at the time, Parliament did not agree.
I am quite certain, and perhaps the Commission would want to comment on this, that from the point of view of the consumer, mobile telephones and fixed-point telephones, will very soon be virtually one market.
I have also tabled two amendments on the timetable of transposition and implementation.
I know it is always difficult if Parliament gives any leeway on implementation - it is taken as a red light to Member States that they need not hurry.
I do appreciate the importance of the general liberalization deadline of 1 January 1998 but it did seem, in the view of my group too, that two months for Member States to transpose really was less than adequate.
I would like to voice my own disappointment, and that of a number of colleagues, that the Council did not even consider a number of Parliament's first reading amendments, particularly when we were asked to do our work swiftly and in fact did do so.
I think it has set an unfortunate climate for the second reading and any possible further conciliations.
The last point is on the question of directories, and I have been heavily lobbied about that: the question of privacy, rights of confidentiality, the right to be included in directories at no cost to the consumer and, not at this stage but eventually, an examination of how publishers of directories and others who will benefit from the profits of this sector should at some stage be asked to make a contribution to universal service.
That is a very brief description, in view of the time, of the broad thrust.
I hope the Commission will be able to accept these amendments, as indeed they accepted many of the first reading amendments.
I would also thank colleagues in other political groups with whom I have worked very hard to come up with some compromises.
We will, of course, have a major review in 1999 from the Commission about the whole thrust of telecommunications legislation and I am sure that this third attempt at liberalization of voice telephony will again be reviewed in 1999.
I commend the second reading to this House.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Read. As usual, she has done an excellent job.
She has been extremely sensitive to the different points of view expressed and, true to her nature, she has defended the interests of the consumers and users with pugnacity.
On the main points, we are in agreement.
There are two points on which we have minor differences and I would like to elaborate on these.
The first of these points concerns entries in telephone directories.
In many countries this is organized in quite a different way from the way it is done in England or elsewhere.
In some countries it is a business operation, notably for business directories - what is known as yellow pages - and where, of course, those who want an entry and who want to use the directory as a form of publicity must pay for this.
The way Mrs Read has drawn up some of the amendments rules out this possibility which creates difficulties and an removes a significant income.
I know there is no ideal solution, since different countries organize this differently.
In ours, it is more commercially organized and consequently the best thing to do is to invoke the principle of subsidiarity and leave each country to sort out the problem as it sees best.
In any case, we believe that there are certain essential rights: the right to have an entry, the right not to have an entry and the right to correction of any publication which is contrary to the truth or the interests of the person concerned.
The problem is knowing what conditions this occurs under and it is here that some small difficulties appear.
As regards the date problem, you are aware that 1 January is a symbolic date.
On 1 January 1998, the telecommunications market will be deregulated.
For three or four years we have talked, acted, made proposals and legislated with that date in mind.
Consequently, what we need to know today, only a few months from that deadline, is whether we should be realistic and change the date in the legislation on the grounds that certain States are not in a position to honour the deadline.
We personally feel that the date of 1 January 1998 should be retained, but we equally understand that there are worries about being able to achieve all this in three months.
I would like the Commissioner to clarify the position of the Commission on this point.
His response will be the determining factor in how we vote on Mrs Read's Amendments Nos 27 and 28.
Mr President, this is all I wanted to say.
I would like to thank once again both the Commission and the rapporteur for the excellent work which they have done to date.
Mr President, it is a pleasure to speak for the first time when you are sitting in the Chair.
Since the rapporteur has been conciliatory, our Group will also support the report on the whole.
The most important thing now is for the matter to progress.
We shall then wait and see how the regulations work and what amendments are proposed.
In her explanatory statement, the rapporteur said she was disappointed that mobile telephony is not included in its entirety in this report.
I would like to say that I am pleased about that because, for example, where funding is concerned, it provides development opportunities for that part of telephony.
Development opportunities are what are needed today.
As I said, the report is conciliatory.
It tries to compromise between standardization at the European level and respect for national differences.
Unfortunately, I think that certain parts of the report have gone too far in removing references to national differences.
There are well-intentioned proposals to take special groups into account.
It is right that the Member States should be allowed to decide in what way various special groups should be taken into consideration, either through tax policy or social services.
However, we are concerned that what is said about free directory enquiry services will turn out to be another proposal where the best can be described as the enemy of the good.
I have an example from my homeland.
There we have in an excellent way been able through competition to allow a small telephone company to take over responsibility for directory enquiry services for all the country's blind people, and today they have a high level of service.
If this proposal goes through, I do not believe that there would be the same interest in developing quality.
We also support the data protection aspect.
I believe it is important that this report also proposes that the subscriber should be able to ensure that all information, or certain parts of it, can be kept secret.
This is necessary in an insecure world where people are increasingly able to combine different lists, which makes elderly people feel their situation is very insecure.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I wish to congratulate Mel Read most warmly on the excellent work she has done, sometimes under great pressure.
I shall straight away mention the important points from the report that are of interest to my group.
To begin with, I would state that the Council of Ministers has adopted a number of important amendments from the European Parliament and those tabled by the European People's Party at first reading in particular.
I would remind you of our amendments with regard, for example, to tariff restructuring and number portability.
Furthermore, the Group of the European People's Party is pleased that by means of this directive the European citizen will be guaranteed an extended range of essential telecom services at his disposal.
After all, every citizen has the right to an affordable connection, access to emergency services, a fair contract and access to public telephone booths.
However, improvements could be made. As far as the extra-universal provision of services is concerned, there are quite a few differences between the various Member States which means that the market participants' contributions requested for the universal provision of services, vary.
We have repeatedly received complaints from the new parties in the market.
The European People's Party takes the view that for the basket of services determined at EU level, the parties in the market may be required to make a contribution, but that contributions for extra requirements must be produced from other sources of financing.
This variation and the high contribution create a very uncertain investment climate for the telecommunications sector, prevent the creation of the internal market and we believe that it costs jobs.
So Amendment No 11 is vitally important for us.
My group also wants more attention to be paid to the rights of the disabled, the blind and the hard of hearing, a tariff for telecom services determined more at EU level and, to a certain extent, more consumer protection. We are therefore supporting a number of amendments in that area.
We are well-disposed to more attention being paid to the rights of the disabled, the blind and the hard of hearing.
One can of course also ask the question of whether special arrangements for them do not belong in more general legislation or whether regulations could be established at national level through the subsidiarity principle.
But access, for example, to telephone booths is very important for the smooth functioning of the disabled in society and their integration.
The affordability of the universal service should be determined more at EU level. My group supports this.
After all, a Member State could be inclined to set a tariff that was so low that a de facto monopoly situation would remain and sound monitoring of this from the Commission by means of guidelines is an excellent instrument.
We have decided to support Amendment No 26 by the Group of the Party of European Socialists because the universal provision of services is not a fixed but a dynamic concept.
Interesting new developments keep on coming.
Through the advent of the Internet, for example, and especially through Intranets, enormous cost-savings are anticipated in the field of sending documents by post for companies.
But we can also expect that drastic changes will take place in voice telephony.
Microsoft, for example, is starting a service whereby consumers will have access via their televisions to entertainment services supplied via the Internet.
So that means we must take those changes into account.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner to respond.
Mr President, we are very positive towards this report as far as strengthening the rights of users and consumers is concerned, and also as far as improving access to alternative services for the disabled, the blind, the partially-sighted, the deaf and the hard of hearing is concerned, in that they will get free directory enquiry services.
We also think it is a good thing subscribers have the right at no extra cost to withhold information about themselves, and that this information will not be made available for commercial purposes.
Nor will it be possible to use the information in such a way without the consumers and users having given their permission.
The Member States will be ensuring the provision of telephone services.
We therefore think it should also be the Member States who ultimately determine the charges.
However, there can be discussion and agreement at EU level on reasonable prices.
However, as far as guaranteeing quality and cost levels is concerned, we believe, like the Council and the Commission, that this is a matter for the Member States.
The proposal that the Commission should check the quality twice a year is rather excessive.
I also think it is unnecessary.
Mr President, in view of the late hour it would be simplest if I were just to give the Commission's views on the amendments you are about to vote on.
We have discussed the matter many times and it is surely unnecessary to go into the basic details yet again.
We can accept Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 16, and, in principle, Nos 14, 15, 19 and 26 as well, with a few reservations.
We are not in a position to accept Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 24 to the indexes, because they do not accord with the provisions of the data protection directive.
We can hardly pass something which contradicts legislation we have already passed.
We cannot accept Amendment No 25, but we will accept No16.
We accept Amendments Nos 3, 7 and 17 on handicapped users.
We should like to point out, however, that comprehensive treatment of all possible cases is not relevant in the legislative part and nor can it be incorporated there.
We would do better to put this into the explanations and notes.
We accept Amendments Nos 6 and 10, but oppose Nos 1, 8, 9 and 23.
We can support Amendments Nos 11 and 2 in principle, and Nos 21, 22 and 20 entirely.
What Fernand Herman said about the date was completely right: if we set the ratification date at 1 January next year, not all Member States will be able to comply.
It has to be said, however, that we are already working on the basis for a permanent directive, whose ratification requirements would not be affected by this directive.
This means that many Member States have already been working in the direction set down here in detail.
So it is not entirely impossible.
What I find particularly convincing is the argument put forward by Fernand Herman: we should not in any way cast doubt upon the date of 1 January 1998.
We should not create any misunderstandings, so I feel we should leave well alone and not accept Amendments Nos 27 and 28.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a few moments.
Votes
Mr President, I am speaking on a point of procedure motion, Rule 126, a brief point of order, Rule 127, and place of meeting, Rule 11 of the Rules of Procedure.
Excuse my nerves, this is my maiden speech in this House.
On the place of meeting, there are irritated nationalists in every country, but there are also reasonable Europeans, more than one would think.
The time seems right to find a lasting and reasonable solution regarding where we meet, satisfactory for Strasbourg and Brussels, for the French and for others, in short for all the MEPs, for France and for Europe.
Let us not allow the ultranationalists and the impatient media to prevent the reasonable and decent spirits - I emphasize these two words reasonable and decent - to try to succeed.
Our Parliament cannot be taken seriously - and this is so important - unless lasting and consensual rules are put in place, but we, the French, must remain specifically French until it is confirmed to us that reason can triumph.
Mr Duhamel, this is the first time that you have spoken.
But you are a well-known constitutionalist.
May I remind you that points of procedure are different from substantive debates.
They must therefore accord with the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I am speaking on a point of procedure on Rule 122.
The agenda for the sitting indicates that there will be no explanations of vote in this voting time because under Rule 122 explanations of vote should take place only after the final vote and in this case there will be no final vote.
I have to say that it is not reasonable to deprive MEPs of their explanations of vote.
They attend, they vote, they have the right to explain why they have voted in a particular way.
If you want me to follow procedure I will, by saying, effectively, that although there is no global vote on the list of votes, there are indeed several final votes, since different weekly sessions are decided one after the other.
Therefore, Mr President, I request that explanations of vote be allowed.
Mr Berthu, you have a good memory, you will remember that you already expressed that interpretation last year.
My predecessor confirmed that there would not be any explanations of vote on this point.
You could have referred it to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure if you were not in agreement with this interpretation.
You did not.
I agree with the interpretation of my predecessor. There will be no explanations of vote.
Mr President, briefly.
A huge number of Members were very happy with your original draft calendar for the part-sessions, which brought the July part-session forward by one week.
Is there an explanation for why it has now been changed, so that it is in the middle of July instead of at the beginning of July? Can Mrs Green or Mr Martens explain this last minute change, which many of us are very unhappy about?
Mr Haarder, now is not the time to explain the reasons behind the decisions taken by the Conference of Presidents, in which each group votes and explains its vote if it thinks it appropriate to do so.
What I can tell you, and all honourable Members, is that there will be a separate vote on that point, so the House will be able to make a separate decision on it.
(Parliament adopted the calendar of 1998 part-sessions as amended)
Mr President, first I would like to express my wholehearted approval the excellent speech made by our new colleague, Mr Stéphane Buffetaut, last night when he presented our concept of an innovative employment service in Europe to this House.
I would like to add that this question raises, more widely, the problem of the scope of the European Parliament.
Indeed, the European Parliament is not a parliament which enjoys limitless sovereignty.
It is a parliament with an area of work allocated to it within the framework of the treaty signed by the different peoples of Europe, a treaty which we must respect.
Mr President, in my view that treaty has just been violated by the preceding vote, which has cut a week's sitting in October out of next year's session.
This decision is contrary to the letter of the Edinburgh decision of 1992, which will be confirmed, if need be, by the future Treaty of Amsterdam.
Moreover, if this House felt there were too many days of session in the calendar for next year presented by the secretariat, then the days corresponding to additional sessions are the ones that should be cut and not the days of normal sessions.
The amendment from the Europe of Nations Group, Amendment No 19, intended to cut the November mini-session was a move in that direction.
We note with regret that the House has taken an inconsistent decision by rejecting our amendment and cutting a normal part-session.
Mr Berthu, I note that you are mixing the Rovsing report up with other votes. Nevertheless, the Chair allowed you could express your opinion by using the explanation of vote for a different vote, which is equivalent to a flagrant breach of the Rules of Procedure.
I think you will appreciate the consideration the Chair has shown you.
The Rovsing report is important because it concerns innovations within EU countries. Unfortunately, I must say that I do not agree with all of the conclusions reached.
In many cases, liberalization, deregulation and EU harmonization appear to be the major issues, which I cannot agree with.
Greater coordination at the EU level, also covering research, appears to be a passable recipe. But I am not convinced, for example, that research is best looked after at the EU level instead of at regional or national level.
The experience so far in Sweden is that many research projects are aimed at what the EU thinks is good so that they can get EU funding rather than putting the research itself first.
That is tragic.
There are also, of course, good conclusions in Mr Rovsing's report, including point 3 and point 12 which concern environmental requirements and the setting up of a capital market for expanding companies to support 'risk' companies which are involved with new high-technology products.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.50 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
NGOs in environmental protection
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0264/97) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the common position of the Council with a view to the adoption of the Council Decision on a Community action programme promoting non-governmental organizations which are primarily active in the field of environmental protection (C4-0217/97-95/0336(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Flemming).
I would also like to welcome the Commissioner, Mrs Bjerregaard.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner.
I would like first of all to thank my colleague Mr Rübig for the considerable work which he did on this report at first reading.
I should also like to thank the Commission.
Cooperation with the Commission was exceptionally pleasant and helpful.
Ten out of 21 amendments were already accepted after the first reading, and I hope very much that possibly a majority of the six amendments I shall introduce today will again accord with the Commission's intentions.
At this second reading my first main point is that a financial reference framework has no place in this action programme.
I am also concerned that cross-frontier European cooperation with environmental organizations should be strengthened, particularly in central and eastern Europe, but also in other countries bordering on the EU.
This was a request from an English colleague in the Committee on the Environment, and I am pleased to accept her proposal.
She has Russia particularly in mind here, and I think that is very sensible.
When one thinks what a catastrophic state the environment has got into in these former Communist countries, how little public environmental awareness there is, then one can hardly overstate the importance of cooperation with environmental organizations.
Particularly in view of the highly important cooperation with NGOs in former Communist countries, I am not at all happy about the proposed sum of ECU 10.6 million over four years.
Perhaps, Madam Commissioner, we could allocate this ECU 10.6 million in one year.
Then we would all be very happy, I think.
I am very hopeful that the Commission will agree to Amendment No 4, under which not 50 %, but 60 % of the operational and administrative costs foreseen in the budget are to be set aside for the Community.
Organizations which have been found guilty by a court in the European Community during the last two years, should generally not be financed, according to the resolution.
We introduced this amendment in English, and an error has occurred in translation.
The English word "offence' that we used was translated as "Vergehen' .
I want to state here, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, that this translation does not reflect our intentions.
We mean the word "Verbrechen' .
English is not my mother tongue, so perhaps we should have introduced the amendment in German.
Possibly we should have used the word "crime ' in English.
I already know that there is no harmonization of the criminal law, but when one is aware that in Austria, for example, a crime (' Verbrechen' ) occurs when a premeditated deed could incur a sentence of life or more than three years in gaol, then the correct translation for it in other languages cannot be hard to find.
We want to exclude by this means any possible penalty within an administrative procedure: when someone parks illegally, or when a demonstration is not registered, we are not interested in the slightest.
Libel and slander would not fall into this category either - no indictable offence which is punishable by a sentence of up to three years.
All that does not fall within the meaning of "Verbrechen' as far as I am concerned, but I admit that it does qualify for "Vergehen' , which was incorrectly introduced here in translation.
Over the next few years we must above all achieve success for western Europe in the former communist countries.
The west has a really great task here, with its knowledge and its success in technical know-how, and this task can only be achieved if we work closely together with the local environmental organizations, and try to raise the awareness, not only of the population, but of the political authorities there at present.
Now my last item. I really hope, Madam Commissioner, that you also include, as I do, animal welfare organizations in the term environmental protection organizations, and will allow these highly committed organizations to receive just some of the financial benefits.
Mr President, national agencies working on ways to protect the environment are doing a serious job to change public opinion on the environment and its preservation.
Without a national viewpoint committed to protecting the environment, politicians will turn a deaf ear to environmental demands.
This is perfectly visible in countries where there is an active green movement, which have gone the furthest in national legislation on environmental matters.
Community appropriation for such environmental agencies is well justified.
It is also justified to extend aid to cover the work the agencies are doing in cooperation with central and eastern European countries.
One of the biggest problems with countries applying for EU membership is how EU regulation levels are to be achieved, and that is particularly so with the environment.
Thus, cooperation on environmental issues and cooperation between the agencies should form a proper part of any strategy to promote membership for the eastern European countries.
The Member States and our citizens are affected by everything that happens on our borders.
Cross-border cooperation among the environmental agencies might have a dramatic effect on general awareness in the nations and the possible creation of environmental projects at grass roots level.
And Community aid should be extended to the work the agencies are doing with others besides our neighbours in eastern and central Europe.
From north to south there are border zones where environmental problems, along with poverty, are burning issues.
I made the suggestion that this aid should be extended beyond EU borders.
I am delighted that it was approved by the committee, just as it was approved by the rapporteur.
Actually, I heard from the interpretation that the person who made the suggestion was English.
I am Finnish.
I totally disagree that the problems, which, for example, are associated with St. Petersburg, Murmansk, the Kola Peninsula, or South Africa, are solvable merely through the actions of the agencies, but any small-scale action in these regions means more than any in our own internal market regions.
An ECU invested there would yield more, through the environmental agencies, the EU or the various Member States, than anywhere else.
Mrs Flemming, in her otherwise excellent report, slipped in a rather dubious amendment in the final part.
The rapporteur suggests an amendment to article 3, section 3, which she explained; an amendment where she personally tries to define what activities in the Community may be granted funding.
In my opinion, this is a very bureaucratic amendment.
We cannot at this stage know which activities qualify for funding and which do not.
Mr President. Non-governmental environmental protection organizations play a particularly important role in Europe.
We are bound to the principle of the eco-social market economy and ecology represents an important basic constituent of life for us.
But we also live in a democracy, and these organizations must also obey the rules of democracy.
In this programme it is our absolute priority to support environmental organizations at European level, and not merely in the Europe of the Fifteen, but particularly in geographical Europe as well, that is, particularly in the countries surrounding the European Community.
We want to place environmental education above all at the centre, because the environment is also a matter of attitude and one cannot begin early enough to teach young people how important a clean, healthy environment is for us all.
For this we need research.
We simply must find methods that allow us to demonstrate to young people where the path leads.
We need an objective base, and we must depart from such power words as fear, from stirring up fear, from deriding things.
I believe we have to move on towards providing a positive example.
In accordance with the methods of new public management and best practice, we should look for ideal situations around the world, which we could adopt for our own use.
We should utilize benchmarking, that is, we should evaluate where the environmental situation can be improved, with what means it can be improved, and we should make the necessary infrastructure available to these organizations.
It is essential that creative forces in the market place should continuously make us aware of where there are weaknesses in the system, and it is our duty to prove that we are looking for the best path.
For this reason we want to raise the funding. Not 50 %, but 60 % of the costs should be refunded.
We maintain that the whole framework should be better financed, but we also expect from the environmental organizations that they operate according to the democratic principles usual for us in Europe.
We also want correct accounting, that is, we want no funding which is not subject to controls, or which flows into channels where it cannot be scrutinized, and which simply give environmental organizations a bad image.
For this reason we demand that when more than ECU 100, 000 is spent, we should have at least a qualified book-keeper, a balance sheet and a correct profit and loss account, so that the European taxpayer can see that his money is being used in a lawful and orderly manner.
We must also say quite clearly, and I should like to stress this to the Commission, what we do not want.
We do not want the funds to be spent on general education, on the public in general, or on work that often follows objectives which fail to place environmental issues at the forefront.
We want specifically to illuminate the ecological situation and to achieve improvements there.
Furthermore, we ask that criminal organizations, terrorists, those who attack our system by really criminal means, should receive no European Union money.
That is an absolutely essential principle.
It is intolerable, in the light of our duty towards the people of Europe, for us to be supporting criminals or terrorists.
I should be pleased if we were to gain support for this from all other democratic parties in this Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of the recommendation that is today submitted for second reading is to ensure the legal and financial security of an existing practice which consists of co-financing the activities of certain non-governmental organizations particularly active in environmental protection at a European level, by adopting a four-year Community action programme.
The establishment of a Community action programme for the promotion of NGOs working in environmental protection seems to me, in this context, a useful way of avoiding loss of control over how Community funds destined for environmental protection associations are used.
Mrs Flemming emphasizes the need to monitor and supervise the possibilities for co-financing NGO activities by reinforcing selection and monitoring criteria and by protecting our Parliament's power to determine the amount of the financial appropriation.
Nevertheless, I would like to add that it seems to me irresponsible to rashly increase the grants accorded to environmental protection NGOs in respect of their information activities, of which the concrete results are difficult to evaluate.
It must not be forgotten, indeed, that protecting our environment also means protecting man and his future.
Antoine de Saint Exupéry considered not that we inherited the earth from our parents, but that we were borrowing it from our children.
Children hold the key to the future.
It is therefore important to protect their environment, be it natural, social, cultural or family.
This is why I would like to see NGOs for the protection of children, who carry out remarkable work on the ground, recognised with the same legitimacy as environmental NGOs by the European institutions and Community support measuring up to what is at stake on a human level in their action.
Organizations fighting child abuse obtained this year, for the first time and, as we know, due to pressure of events, no more than ECU 1.5 million, that is, half of the budget of ECU 3 million allocated for fighting violence against women.
We are still a long way from the amounts granted to environmental NGOs.
It therefore seems to me extremely important for Parliament to act on this issue in the near future and that we continue to fight for a solid legal basis and a multi-annual framework for the protection of the children of Europe.
Mr President, since this is a second reading, I will pay particular attention to the proposed amendments, but before I do so I would like to thank both the rapporteurs for the work that has been done so far.
There are only six amendments in all.
The Group of the Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party is able to support the five amendments from the committee, and I will return to one of them, but we cannot support Amendment No 6 tabled by the rapporteur.
In fact we think that in the general area there are some restrictions which are inappropriate considering that many different countries are going to cooperate and it is undeniable that the conditions are not the same in all countries.
As far as the penalty terms are concerned, I am confident that we can leave that kind of thing to the Commission.
I know nothing about whether money will be distributed to illegal and/or convicted organizations.
I shall concentrate on Amendment No 2 where the Commission has included a contribution to a multinational approach as its final criterion.
It is not that we have problems with the wording as such, but we believe the wording which was arrived at in committee, or at least by part of the committee, is understood more as a guide in the sense that we would very much like to see a concentration on cooperation with the central and eastern European organizations.
The reason we put so much emphasis on this is, of course, because we are confronting the biggest task in Europe, the enlargement to include the central and eastern European countries, and this enlargement will only succeed if all forces concentrate on it.
We believe that the NGOs could make a major contribution to this work.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I do not think there are going to be any problems with this document.
The Commission had already accepted several of the amendments presented at first reading, and this document by Mrs Flemming was approved unanimously by the Committee on the Environment.
Most of the Members of this House who made comments felt that this is a good report, and that perhaps it should stress the question of finance for transborder cooperation and the use of objective criteria in the choice of projects. As Mrs Flemming mentions, it is most important that the projects should involve education, and that environmental education should be included in general education.
It is clear that the people who report attacks on the environment have usually been educated about environmental protection. The commissioner will smile because I nearly always give an example, but only yesterday a pressure group of environmental NGOs was here in Strasbourg.
They are very worried about what is going to happen to Doñana National Park, which is part of mankind's heritage and a biosphere reserve. We had already raised questions to the Commission about Doñana because a residential development had been approved.
These NGOs are complaining that once one development is allowed, there are another three waiting to surround the park. The nature of the reserve means that it could be endangered.
Before we have a European network of protected zones in the year 2000, some of these zones will probably have lost their special characteristics and their prospects for the future. That is why it is so important to help the NGOs, because I know from my experience in the Committee on the Environment that they alert us to potential problems.
We cannot cover the whole of Europe, and they are the ones who warn us about what is happening in our continent's natural spaces. They do not only help European Members of Parliament.
I believe they also help the European Commission in this way.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a high technocratic awareness of politics in the European Union, and much doubt about the capability of democracy in a complex society. Because of this it is now particularly important to remind ourselves that awareness of the threat, the danger to the environment does not emanate from politics or the established parties, but from the population, from the core of civil society, with its thousands of civic actions and community initiatives.
To this extent we obviously welcome the European Union's attempt to support non-governmental environmental organizations.
They are to be thanked for the greatest political revolution that has taken place in the last few decades.
For this reason I am even more astounded by an attempt at general discrimination against these groups, which is meeting with extreme outrage throughout Europe. I refer to the amendment attempting to re-introduce a concept long thought to be extinct: a prohibition of finance for environmental groups that have been sentenced by the courts.
The translation confusion reflects the confused, diffuse and emotional way the matter has been presented.
Ladies and gentlemen, without civil disobedience, without the culture of civil disobedience, the environmental protection movement would never have occurred in Europe.
From Wackersdorf to Hainburg; almost national myths are connected with them, where ordinary people tried to defend themselves against politics and the political establishment.
The environmental groups in Europe are deeply concerned by the attempt generally to condemn them here.
There has not been one single case in the last ten years, and yet - just imagine it, ladies and gentlemen - there is an attempt in this House to pass a resolution restricting cultural subsidies or economic support for something which has never happened!
On behalf of the Greens, I reject this attempt at defamation most emphatically.
Mr President, I had prepared myself in the one minute available to me to speak about the penalty terms which the environmental organizations are so opposed to. Now Mrs Flemming is saying that it is only a question of sentences of at least three years.
But, firstly, who can ensure that all countries interpret it in that way? And, secondly, is it at all reasonable to believe that environmental organizations will commit such crimes?
What they were thinking of must have been, for example, that in 1995 Finnish environmental activists were convicted by a court for an action against a fish farm which had the parasite G. salaris, which kills salmon.
They were convicted even through the action got the Finnish Agriculture Minister to close the fish farm.
This week a date was set for the trial of Bellona employee Alexander Nikitin.
He has now been charged with spying because he wrote a report on radioactive pollution in Murmansk. This is, of course, the EU, but is it really so hard to imagine that there are also sensitive areas here which environmental organizations must stay away from because they might be brought before the courts and sentenced?
I think we should vote against Amendment No 6, and if Parliament does not assume this responsibility, then I hope that the Commission will reject it.
Mr President, my group's position on budget line B4-306 is a reticent one. This budget finances three activities: awareness raising, grants to non-governmental organizations and publications.
Clearly it relates to campaigning funds.
The way they are planned, the grants to NGOs seem to us questionable.
Firstly, they risk overloading the European budget at a time when it would be more sensible to look for savings rather than extra expenses.
Secondly, it is always risky to entrust public money to private organizations.
Moreover the rapporteur agrees, by proposing a sub-section 3a to ensure financial control of the funded organizations.
Lastly, some associations funded are, in fact, politically active organizations which should survive through money from their members' subscriptions, not the taxpayers' money.
This is notably the case with Friends of the Earth, an organization operational in a number of European countries, which received in 1996, ECU 601, 668, or Greenpeace, which devoted itself in France throughout this summer to a veritable campaign of disinformation and panic amongst the population of Nord-Cotentin, where the nuclear reprocessing plant of the Hague is established.
This was a truly scandalous piece of disinformation, of panicspreading, of manipulation of people.
In any case it is clear that such actions must not be funded by public money.
This is the reason why we wish to see the maximum control possible over grants provided to different nongovernmental associations and organizations.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mrs Flemming for her work on this report.
Some of the debate so far has shown, however, that we have quite different views on what an environmental organization actually is.
This action programme to promote non-governmental organizations concerns fundamental questions about society's participation and influence with regard to EU policy. Social and political institutions which are shielded from civil society risk losing their legitimacy.
The citizens' awareness and ability to participate in the debate are fundamental to democracy.
The EU's legitimacy can never be taken care of through some kind of artificial information campaign aimed at convincing the citizens of decisions which have already been taken.
Instead, as in this action programme, it is support and encouragement for broad co-operation on the European level which is important.
That is why it is interesting to see that in the first reading Parliament gained a hearing for the demand to strengthen the organizations' independent role in the programme.
The benefit should not lie in using environmental organizations to communicate the EU's policy, but in taking advantage of the experience and views which the organizations themselves possess.
Since I am convinced that the action programme is important, I concur with Mrs Flemming's criticism of both the fact that the Council set a reference amount and also the size of this reference amount; ECU 2.65 million per year is far too small a sum to cope with these tasks.
My principal criticism, however, concerns article 3.2 which indicates the criteria for selecting the activities in question.
To simply indicate some kind of cost-benefit, a lasting multiplier effect at European level, and a contribution to a multinational approach suggests a certain amount of self-interested steering on the part of the Commission.
In particular, the criterion of contributing to a multinational approach should be deleted entirely to avoid the suspicion that we are doing this for our own sake.
On the Committee on Environment we have together formulated a number of additional criteria which strongly emphasize the action programme's aim of strengthening the influence of citizens through clearer focussing on integration in education.
I think it is strange that these criteria did not gain a hearing at first reading.
However, I sympathise most strongly with the point on cooperation between environmental organizations within the EU and other states, especially the countries which have now applied for membership and which will soon begin negotiations for membership of the EU.
We know that this will be a great challenge both for the Union and for the environmental sector.
Regarding Amendment No 6 from the Group of the European People's Party, I would like to say that we shall, of course, make demands on the organizations who apply for funding from the EU. They will have to be able to show that they used previous funding in a proper way.
Book-keeping and auditing are two important parts of this. However, I do not believe in drawing up some kind of morality clause to say that only organizations without convictions will be able to get funding from the EU.
Moreover, I am quite convinced that criminal legislation is not harmonized within the EU. What is carried out by an organization or perhaps by an individual or by a group of individuals is a difficult and complicated question.
I therefore think that the wording in Amendment No 6 is wholly unnecessary.
Finally, I would again like to stress that our Community actually needs active, critical, independent voluntary organizations.
We need an impetus which gets us going and drives us on.
With that I move to support the work of the Committee on Environment and to reject Amendment No 6.
Mr President, our group welcomes Mrs Flemming's report.
The organizations which work in the area of the environment play a decisive role in the development of environmental policy and awareness of environmental problems.
It is therefore quite right to give them a stronger position, which this proposal entails.
We are going to vote for the amendments which have been adopted by the Committee, that is, not to be bound by these very tight financial limits, to be able to give a higher level of cofinancing from the EU's side and that there should be thorough checks on whether the funds have been used correctly.
We shall, of course, also vote for Amendment No 2, which clarifies the criteria for the grants.
Just like several others here, I think it is particularly good that we are stressing international cooperation in relation to central and eastern Europe.
However, we are not going to vote for Amendment No 6 from the Group of the European People's Party.
I shall try to explain this a little further.
We think the limits it creates on how these grants can be used are too restrictive.
The amendment contains several points.
Point a) is on not giving grants for information aimed at the general public.
We consider this to be a much too restrictive limit to set for this kind of support.
It is in fact a very important part of the role of environmental organizations to influence public opinion.
Point d) of the same amendment states that an organization which has been convicted by a court shall not be able to receive a grant.
It is obvious that you should not be able to give support to organizations that use violence or which may be regarded as criminal.
However, we all know that many environmental movements use civil disobedience and extra-parliamentary action in various ways.
These are very serious organizations doing extensive environmental work.
I believe it is entirely wrong to automatically exclude all these organizations through such a formulation.
Finally, I would like to say something about the contribution from our French colleague who attacked Greenpeace.
I think that we should also reflect on the history of France and Greenpeace a little further back in time.
It is not very many years since the French security service sank one of Greenpeace's vessels in a New Zealand harbour.
We can remember that too.
Mr President, I find I can fully support this report.
The report covers the cofinancing of the administrative activities of NGOs operating in the environmental field, and seeks to institutionalize the cooperation planned under the fifth framework programme for environmental research.
In particular, in my opinion, support for NGOs engaged in environmental protection needs to be strengthened.
Amongst other things, we believe it is appropriate to include cross-border projects with the central and eastern European organizations and professional training in the priorities and, above all, to raise the ceiling for European Union financial participation in the projects to 60 %.
None of this corresponds to the Council's determination to cap the budget for the four-year programme at ECU 10.6 million, a figure we regard as grossly inadequate.
Non-governmental organizations fulfill an important function, particularly in the environmental and social sectors.
Some have become a sort of political conscience - and I am thinking here particularly of Greenpeace or the WWF - and so carry out a public function.
It is thus correct that they be supported by official means.
It is obvious that criminal and terrorist organizations are not deserving of support.
However, in case Mr Rübig is applauding at this point, his attempt to discredit named environmental organizations leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth.
The danger exists - and you may have noticed from which side the applause has just come - and one has to proceed here with particular caution.
For this reason I suggest that the proposer of the amendment, for whom I have high regard, most particularly because of her personal resistance, should perhaps withdraw Amendment No 6.
Mr President, I would like to begin, as others here have done, by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Flemming, and also the previous rapporteur, Mr Rübig.
A great deal of excellent work has been done.
Most speakers have spoken of the important role of NGOs.
I fully share that view.
They are important for channelling the citizens' desires and misgivings, and they are also an important source for the Commission's work.
I also share the view expressed by Mrs Dybkjær and many other speakers that the importance of the NGOs is very great in connection with the development of the new democracies in central and eastern Europe, and I shall come back to that in connection with the amendments.
As you know, the aim of this proposal is to bring about a specific legal basis for a practice which has already worked satisfactorily for a number of years.
Therefore the proposal is also a concrete expression of the Commission's appreciation of the contribution of these NGOs to the improvement of the environment.
So the text should, of course, be as clear as possible, and it is also in that spirit that we have examined the proposed amendments.
We can accept wholly, partly or in principle, five of the six amendments.
Amendments Nos 1 and 3 are acceptable in full.
They are in accordance with the Commission's rejection of the Council's desire to introduce a financial reference base into the text.
Amendment No 4, whereby the Commission can finance up to 60 % of an NGO's budget, is acceptable in full.
Part of Amendment No 2 concerning the criteria for grants is acceptable in principle, and, in any case, this is really about what Mrs Dybkjær touched on, that is, a change in the wording so that we talk about cross-border cooperation instead. Amendment No 5 concerning financial controls is acceptable in principle, but here too it will be necessary to achieve the greatest possible clarity.
Like several other speakers here today, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 6 because it would be inappropriate to introduce such exclusion criteria into the draft decision.
I would like to thank Parliament once again for the thorough debate and also for the interest it has thereby shown in the active participation of NGOs in the political work.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions
The next item is report(A4-0253/97) by Mr Fitzsimons, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision amending Decision 93/389/EEC for a monitoring mechanism of Community CO2 and other Greenhouse gas emissions (COM(96)0369 - C4-0540/96-96/0192(CNS)).
Mr President, at the end of the summer and with a lovely sunny day outside, a lot of people probably think that global warming is really quite a pleasant thing.
But we know in reality that it leads to a great deal of unstable and dangerous weather conditions and is going to have some very serious effects across the world.
I do not intend to give a lecture here today about climate change because we have rehearsed this issue many, many times in Parliament.
We know that the main purpose of this legislation on the monitoring of greenhouse gases is twofold.
First, it aims to build a framework in which we can measure these emissions against the reduction targets to which we committed ourselves at Rio.
Secondly, they are designed at a more local level to assist in alerting people to occasions and the locations when air pollution is putting health at risk.
In 1993 what was put in place as the original monitoring device was, frankly, little better than an acknowledgement and agreement at the European level of existing practice in the Member States.
Despite calls by Parliament for harmonization of national measurement and inventory compilation and for more transparency at that time, this was a little too much for the Council of Ministers to agree on.
Certainly stabilization of emissions has not taken place.
I expect that we are going to find that some fairly shocking emission levels will be found when the environment agency brings out its next Dobris report shortly.
We have just learned, for instance, that in London, the European Union guidelines for NOx have been breached right across that city for pretty well the whole of last year.
The Commission's attempt to revise and improve on the 1983 decision is therefore very welcome.
Not only do we need a better and more comprehensive monitoring mechanism for greenhouse gas emissions now, but it is essential to put in place a mechanism to cover monitoring post-2000.
It is particularly important to take greater account of the greenhouse gases other than CO2 , such as methane and nitrogen oxide.
In December we are going to Kyoto to try and persuade the world to agree to a 15 % reduction in emissions of a "basket' of greenhouse gases between 1990 and 2010.
It would be helpful to think that we were making some useful progress ourselves.
Evidence sadly shows that we may not reach our own targets.
The Commission, in the cautious mode it adopts these days, was very vague about its timetable.
Therefore my group supports the amendments for a report each year on cumulative emissions of greenhouse gases and projected cumulative emissions up to 2005, 2010 and 2020.
We believe that this cumulative monitoring is essential to prevent countries from allowing excessive emissions throughout a time scale, and only lowering them right at the end to meet a target.
This would not be a great help in the global warming stakes.
Furthermore we believe it is better to determine whether targets are being achieved using a gas-by-gas approach rather than the all-in basket approach.
On the substance of the amendments, we support all those from the committee but we are not in favour of Mrs Schleicher's Amendment No 13, which appears to be unnecessarily restrictive.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the current great horror scenario is global warming, that is, the warming greenhouse effect harmful to the environment, an increase in ocean levels, or growth of deserts.
It also means the opposite: destruction of the ozone layer, which would have the result of making all life on Earth impossible. The theories are based on model experiments which appear to provide incontrovertible evidence that these environmental effects are caused by emissions resulting from human activity.
Model calculations are only as good, however, as the assumptions on which they are based. This is the Achilles heel of the matter, in my view.
We humans simply know too little. Why, for example, did Ice Ages arise thousands of years ago, and disappear again?
Why does El Niño occur in a particular cycle off the South American west coast and influence the weather? What influence have ocean currents and seas in any case?
What is the influence of cloud formation? Is it coincidental that at the moment doubts are increasing again about the effectiveness of current climate models, which are being created at enormous cost throughout the World?
As many serious scientists complain, the major problem lies in the fact that no, or too few, data are available from many parts of the world, often because the poor state of the detection stations makes the data unusable, or incapable of comparison.
This scenario illuminates the importance of today's report on the proposed European Union systems for observing and recording CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
The European Union has been making efforts to improve the area coverage of detection stations in every country of the Union even since the 1980s.
It is important not only to reduce CFCs and stop their use, but that gradually all other poisonous materials with similar effects are detected.
This proposal by the Commission is a further step in this direction, which our group supports without reservation.
We do have, however, like the rapporteur, a few improvements to make.
Firstly, the estimated values must in future, if we require them, be produced from unified criteria. Yet these are not obtainable.
I have, though, serious doubts about the value of such estimated values a long time in advance, over and above that they give rise to considerable bureaucratic effort.
Secondly, as a result of the Rio Agreement all relevant measures of the European Union and member states are included into the international work of UNEP, OECD and IPCC, the multilateral groups for climate changes.
For this amendment to be put into operation at all, Member States must test for emissions according to a unified procedure to be laid down in this directive. This procedure should be that currently being developed by the IPCC.
This is the reason for my amendment motion.
To learn more we must measure more.
But that costs money.
We have a responsibility to future generations, however, not only to deal carefully with non-renewable natural resources, but also with that rare commodity, money.
It seems to me to be more responsible to invest money worldwide in detection stations, than to put it into estimated figures which are partially politically inspired.
I regret that my colleague, Mr Fitzsimons, cannot be here, as he was responsible for the other two reports and made important contributions to improvements which can we fully support, all except for one: Amendment No 5.
I should like to propose, however, that an addition be made to my amendment, because that idea came from him.
If I could learn from the Commission how the proposal is looking, it might be improved by an addition.
I should have no objection to that.
I would be very interested to learn, therefore, how the Commission views the matter.
Mr President, in the Netherlands, the month of August was the hottest month since temperature measurements began in the 18th Century.
We have been able to establish that since the 18th century the seven hottest years have occurred since 1980, that is to say, in the last 17 years.
The figures from the IPCC again showed us last year that there is quite definitely a greenhouse effect.
Despite this, the emissions of carbon dioxide continue to increase.
In the Netherlands, the emissions from 1990 until this year have increased by 8 %, while they should decrease by 10 % by the year 2010.
How difficult it will be to change this situation!
As our colleague, Mr Fitzsimons, who unfortunately cannot be here today, so rightly said in his report, a very good monitoring system and reporting system for the emission of greenhouse gases is really necessary, because with it we shall be able to assess the results of the policy meaningfully.
My group also considers it to be right that in its proposal the Commission goes further than the year 2000 because in the Environment Council agreements were made for the key year 2010.
Therefore the European Union's legislation must be adapted.
A reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases demands drastic measures that will have very great consequences for the economy.
Such difficult political decisions must be able to be monitored properly.
The discussion often revolves around a few percentage points.
If there is no adequate measuring system, the debate will be very easy to manipulate.
We are speaking today about the monitoring systems and we are doing so at a time when Europe is prospering economically, but economic growth unfortunately means an increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases.
Let us be sensible and use the economic recovery to pay more attention to this environmental pollution.
Mr President, the decision that we are discussing here is none other than a means to an end and that end is the pushing back of the greenhouse effect.
My group finds it alarming that recently throughout the world so little priority has been given to this objective.
It is a fact that the European union plays an exemplary role in the run up to Kyoto.
Not only in drawing up ambitious objectives, but also with regard to their implementation.
Therefore I feel it is a good thing that the Commission has made this proposal to amend the decision.
Monitoring is extremely important in order to check the emission of greenhouse gases.
The data must be reliable and comparable, otherwise monitoring is impossible.
Also, the fact that it is no longer only carbon dioxide but all greenhouse gases that must be measured, is quite right, especially because the other gases cause a considerable part of the greenhouse effect.
Recently a small movement has emerged in the scientific world that is trying to undermine the conclusions of the IPCC, by pointing to other causes of the increase in temperature.
The changes in the intensity of solar radiation are apparently mainly responsible for the temperature fluctuations on earth.
I think that is a dangerous development.
First of all, because you then ignore the precautionary principle and secondly because the existing theory does demonstrate convincingly that the greenhouse effect is manmade.
Already the EU objective is in danger of being exceeded by 5 % before the year 2000.
So doubt about the influence of greenhouse gases is particularly worrying.
I therefore wholeheartedly support the Commission's proposal and the amendments by the Environment Committee.
Mr President, everything in nature is closely linked: we all play a part in environmental equilibrium and in turn it affects our well-being.
Today the consumption-at-all-costs society is taking a toll on that well-being through unfettered progress which is taking place at the price of increasingly intolerable environmental disequilibrium.
This is true of emissions of greenhouse gases, responsible amongst other things for global warming, a highly dangerous phenomenon for the planet's eco-system.
The Fitzsimons report underlines the importance of monitoring these emissions in order to assess the progress achieved on European standards.
We are in agreement with the rapporteur when he proposes the strengthening of the Community control mechanism beyond 2000, also taking account of other greenhouse gas emissions deriving from industrial activities.
Finally, we trust the traditional control methods will combine transparency with interchangeability.
Mr President, I would like to make a few remarks on the subject of the greenhouse effect.
It is true that we are observing a global warming, but as Mrs Schleicher has suggested in her speech, there is nothing to prove that this warming comes from the emission of greenhouse gases produced by human activity.
I would simply like to make a few sensible remarks.
We note that in the Alps, the glaciers have been melting since 1820.
At that time, the Industrial Revolution could not have yet been having any significant effect.
Similarly there are today glaciers re-covering the tips of the Alps which were free of ice and where troops passed in the 12th or 13th century.
And as we know very well, Erik the Red, after crossing the Atlantic, found a land which he called Greenland simply because it was warm and green.
However, I do not think that their boats produced greenhouse gases.
There is thus undoubtedly a great deal of exaggeration in this field when human activity is accused of global warming.
Having said that, it is also true that you cannot be too careful and that it is certainly necessary to try to limit the production of greenhouse gases.
Carbon dioxide, CO2 , is responsible for 65 % of greenhouse gases and it is interesting to see how many tonnes of carbon dioxide per inhabitant were emitted into the atmosphere in 1995, country by country in Europe: Germany, 2.9 tonnes; Austria, 1.9 tonnes; Belgium, 3.2 tonnes; Denmark, 3.2 tonnes; Spain, 1.8 tonnes; Finland, 3.6 tonnes; Ireland, 2.7 tonnes; Italy, 2 tonnes; Greece, 2 tonnes; Luxembourg, 6 tonnes; Great Britain, 2.5 tonnes; France, 1.7 tonnes.
Why does France discharge less carbon dioxide than other countries? Is it because there are less towns in France?
No. Is it because there are less cars in France?
No. Do we use less heating?
No. Do we use less light?
No. The truth is, if there are less greenhouse gases produced in France than elsewhere, it is for a very simple reason, that in France there are more nuclear power stations than elsewhere.
Ecologists have long had a slogan, ' Nuclear power, no thank you' translated into the different languages of the Community.
But when you look at the results on the level of greenhouse gases, you should rather want to say, ' nuclear power, yes please!'.
Mr President, I will try to concentrate on the amendments which have been proposed, but I would first like to thank the Committee on the Environment and the rapporteur, Mr Fitzsimons, although he is unable to be present today. I would then like to ask Mr d'Aboville to convey my best wishes for his health, and I would like to thank Mr d'Aboville for having deputized for him here today.
Almost all the proposed amendments are an improvement on the quality and clarity of the proposal.
As you know, the aim of the proposal is to amend the Council's Decision of 1993 which introduced the supervision mechanism referred to.
It will generally bring the mechanism up to date by continuing it after the year 2000 and by extending it to cover all the greenhouse gases not covered by the Montreal protocol.
There were some individual questions about that from some of the speakers.
The Commission is able to accept all the amendments with the exception of Amendment No 5.
Amendments Nos 7 and 13 are acceptable in principal, but they require some changes.
The accepted amendments are, as I have already said, welcome, either because they clarify the regulations or because of the idea behind them.
The Commission does not accept amendment 5 because it places additional burdens on the Member States without giving clear benefits.
Amendment No 7 is acceptable in principle, because the Member States are required to submit national programmes no later than three months after the Council's adoption of the Commission's proposal, and because the Commission will carry out a follow-up assessment no more than six months after that, and so we are sure that we can find a sensible solution for those Member States who drew up plans a short while ago.
As I said, Amendment No 13 on the compilation and reporting of data is acceptable in principle.
We are not happy with the present wording.
It is possible that, within the comments which came from Mr d'Aboville, there are opportunities to arrive at an improved text in the area concerned.
In conclusion, I believe that we can look forward to this proposal helping to ensure that the Community and the Member States fulfil their current and future obligations in accordance with the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change and the goals we hope to see in the Kyoto Protocol.
And finally, I would like to thank you for the debate here today.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard. I would like to join you in sending my best wishes to Mr Fitzsimons.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Europe and Japan: the next steps
The next item is the report (A4-0259/97) by Mr Moorhouse, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament 'Europe and Japan: the next steps' (COM(95)0073 - C4-0147/95).
Mr President, this is the third time that, as rapporteur, I have had the honour of presenting a report from the Committee on External Economic Relations on relations between the EU and Japan.
As a former chairman of our delegation to Japan, Mr President, you are well aware of that.
This particular report is wider in scope, dealing not only with trade and economic relations but also with increasingly vital political aspects, which I rather feel we have tended to neglect as the European Union.
Some ten years ago when I presented a draft motion for a resolution in the Committee on External Economic Relations, political groups were very much at odds on what our approach to Japan should be.
That report, indeed, was adopted by a relatively narrow majority.
Happily, however, we are now much more at one, which no doubt says something about changing attitudes but equally may have to do with the changing nature of Japan-EU relations.
As far as political aspects are concerned, we owe a great deal to the 1991 Japanese Government which, together with the Council of Ministers, agreed on a joint declaration which inter alia highlighted political and security issues, bringing a much better balance to the relationship.
We believe Japan should be encouraged to be more involved in international affairs.
In this connection, I refer the House to paragraph 4 of the resolution in which we advocate a restructuring of the United Nations system, and in particular the Security Council, which has clear implications.
However, inevitably a report of this nature is rapidly overtaken by events.
I refer, for instance, to the EU-Japan trade surplus, which had halved between 1992 and 1996 to just ECU 17bn - a big figure, of course, but it had halved.
Alas, from the European point of view, it is now growing again as domestic consumption in Japan has fallen and exports remain the only buoyant part of its economy.
Perhaps the Commissioner will want to comment on future prospects.
Much of the report deals with the perennial chestnuts of market access and foreign direct investment.
The former is hardly new territory but some degree of progress can, nonetheless, be discerned, however slow that may be.
What is of great concern is the inadequate progress over the last ten years on EU direct investment in Japan and the liberalization of the market in services - maybe with some qualification.
We welcome the recent Commission announcement that a study is to be carried out to investigate the obstacles to investment. I would not wish to second-guess the study, but the Commission has lots of experience in dealing with the Japanese.
Could the Commissioner not tell us what his own concerns are and what he intends to do about them?
To what extent can we improve the situation bilaterally? Or do we have to wait for the painfully slow process of extracting concessions within the WTO context?
That brings me to Euro-Japanese relations within the WTO.
I think we can readily agree that we wish to cooperate closely with Japan, and paragraphs 20, 22 and 23 of the resolution deal with this very subject.
However, does the Commissioner share the view that this cooperation could be jeopardized, say by the SinoJapanese negotiations on tariffs and on quotas, which may have the effect of undermining EU-Japanese attempts to reach agreements within the WTO? I put the question.
In conclusion, the preparations for the Kyoto Conference in December demonstrate for all to see how important the deepening political and diplomatic triangular relationship between the EU, the USA and Japan is for the exercise of global leadership in international fora.
I look forward to hearing what the Commissioner has to say to reassure us that stale, old trade squabbles will not be allowed to sour the political and diplomatic atmosphere between the world's three great trading powers as a result of Japan's domestic economic difficulties.
One last word: there is so much else one could say and time does not allow me to do so, but let me congratulate the Commission on the ongoing executive training programme for young European executives going to Japan - some 600 or so.
This certainly deserves every support, and we in the Committee on External Economic Relations will give it that support.
Thank you very much Mr Moorhouse.
You are quite right that I am listening to this debate with particular interest.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, for several decades, and especially since the last world war, European interests in Asia, and especially Japan, have been in decline, while United States interests have grown, taking their place.
As the great victors of the war in the Pacific, the United States has been able to impose its rules on the foreign policy of this zone and increase its economic interests throughout Asia, with particular incidence on Japan.
However, in the last few years, political and economic relations between the European Union and Japan have seen a moderate development.
The meetings of the European institutions with their Japanese counterparts and the normal bilateral contacts between the Member States and Japan have contributed to this development.
In continuing and deepening this policy, the Commission published a document on the next steps in relations between Europe and Japan.
The Commission's proposal to strengthen these relations deserves our full support, both for the reciprocal advantages and mutual interests, and for the external relations equilibrium of Japan, which finds in the European Union a credible partner on the international scene.
We think there are advantages for the European Union in active - and I do mean active - and concerted support, with Japan, for the policy of world peace and security, as well as the continued development of a multilateral and open economic policy.
It is in the European Union's interests for Japan to be a factor for political stability in its region and in the world, to support the multilateral free trade system, to encourage democracy and greater respect for human rights in Asia.
We believe four things are needed to achieve this: one, the European Union should support Japan's aspirations to play a major political role on the world scene, notably in the restructuring of the United Nations, which is currently under discussion.
Two, Japan should give more support to European Union policies in Asia.
Three, political dialogue with Japan should include human rights issues, especially in other Asian states.
Four, there should be greater participation by Japan in international peace missions.
To conclude, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would say that developed political relations between the European Union and Japan is a crucial factor for better equilibrium in foreign policy on the world scene.
And I want to refer very particularly to the existing disequilibrium, in the zone which includes Japan, between the foreign policy of the European Union and the foreign policy of the United States.
For these reasons, we support Mr Moorhouse's enlightened report and the Commission's communication, and we intend our support to be active - and for that purpose we are at the disposal of the Commission.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate both the rapporteur and the Commissioner for the work the two of them have done in relation to Europe-Japan relations.
Mr Moorhouse is entirely right when he says that when his reports were put forward, maybe a decade ago - when we were both in this Parliament - relations between Europe and Japan were actually an object of some political divisions in this House and his early reports went through on a number of occasions with very narrow majorities.
What I welcome about his new report is the fact that there are only five amendments and those five amendments come from the Committee on Research.
The reason they come from that committee is merely that there was a glitch in transmitting the Research Committee's opinion to the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Rather than be formally incorporated at that stage, we have had to table them as amendments but I understand that they are being supported across the House.
We have a report which I think for the first time is going to be all but unanimously accepted by this House.
This is partly due to the work that Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan has done with relation to Japan.
He knows how the Japanese actually value that work and the work of the Parliament.
The Committee on Research believes that we need to strengthen Euro-Japan relations and that we need to put our relations in terms of research and development policy on a new and stronger footing.
This is why we are proposing that we should strongly support the existing sectoral scientific and technological cooperation agreements between the EU and Japan; that we support increased EU involvement in the Japanese-inspired human frontier science programme which is looking at new biotechnology uses, that we should welcome the exchange fellowship scheme between the EU and Japan, in terms of scientific exchanges; and, of course, that we should encourage the idea of drawing up and exchanging a memorandum of understanding between the EU and the Agency for Industrial Science and Technology to enable European researchers to go to the Science City in Tsukuba and other scientific centres in Japan.
We hope that that is going to be incorporated in the report.
More generally, as a member of the Japanese delegation for the last 13 years I believe - and most of the delegation now believes - that it is important for us to cooperate and compete simultaneously with Japan.
In some areas we should be working together with the Japanese, in other areas we need to be competing with them.
Recognition of a dual track approach is very important.
The old state trade squabbles have now gone.
Now the tariff barriers have almost disappeared and the non-tariff barriers are being attacked, not only because of what we are saying from outside but because of the new politics inside Japan where Japanese politicians are also moving in the direction of deregulation and, on some occasions, even privatization.
We have to recognize that when we fail in the Japanese market it is very often not because of unfair competition - it can be on occasion, Japan is no different from any other country - but because they out-compete us and we have to recognize that the way to be successful in that market is to be more competitive.
We need to cooperate with the Japanese industrially.
It seems to me that there are a number of areas where the United States is very clearly in the lead and Europe and Japan lag behind.
It is in our interest to work together there to make sure that the US does not have a monopoly.
One might look at the medium- and large-scale aircraft industry as an example of where it would be sensible to cooperate and in other industrial areas.
Economically it is in our interest to make sure that we do not allow the United States to actually dominate the world economic agenda and, as Mr Moorhouse has said, in a number of areas it is important that we cooperate politically.
The Japanese are making a sizeable financial contribution to dealing with the problems of Bosnia.
They are looking to the European Union to actually do something about the Korean Energy Development Organization (KEDO).
I understand that in the Foreign Affairs Committee there is some resistance to that.
My colleagues on the Foreign Affairs Committee do not appear to appreciate the strategic nature of that assistance.
There are voices in Japan looking for a new relationship with Europe.
If we do not respond I fear they are going to turn away and look back across the Pacific rather than look over to the European Union.
Those new politicians are on both sides of the political fence: in Shinshinto and in the Democratic Party.
It is very important for us, in passing this report, to make sure that they hear that message and the Japanese delegation, of which Mr Moorhouse and I are both a part, will convey that message to them when we meet in Tokyo in October.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank the rapporteur for the clarifications he has provided regarding the deepening of collaboration between the European Union and Japan, and to congratulate Sir Leon Brittan, the Commissioner, as well as the Commission, for the pragmatic approach of the Commission's text.
Within the framework of globalization of markets and commerce, as within that of political dialogue, relations between the European Union and Japan will from now on play a vital role within the World Trade Organization, both in the framework of annual summits and ministerial meetings, and in interparliamentary dialogue within the delegation on relations with Japan, which I have the honour of chairing.
You will know, Mr President, as former chairman of this delegation, that the strengthening of political, economic and industrial links has become essential with the third millennium in sight.
On a political level, within the framework of the new partnership between Europe and Asia, Japan can indeed play a preponderant role.
It seems to me that our historic and cultural links even accord us a pivotal role, all the more so, given that, since the fall of the Berlin wall, the sociological similarities between the European Union and Japan are more and more striking: ageing of the population, strengthening of administrative authorities, threats to employment and, nevertheless, positioning on the international market.
Whilst working for the achievement of common objectives aimed at preserving stability in Asia, Japan is becoming a preferred contact for Europe in terms of relations with Asiatic countries.
On an economic level, the situation is on balance positive.
Indeed, during the last few years, the surplus on the balance of payments on current account in relation to the world economy has shown a significant fall.
Therefore the imbalance that exists between European Union investments in Japan and Japanese investments in Europe should rapidly even out.
The negotiation of a compromise regarding the conclusion of a multi-lateral agreement on investment would give further guarantees to foreign investors who are looking to establish themselves on the Japanese market.
In this context, the programme of deregulation, commenced by Japan in March 1995, represents a starting point in terms of a global agreement that could also include the details of a mutual recognition of products.
Finally, I can only rejoice in the fact that scientific and technical cooperation between the European Union and Japan is progressing steadily.
Glyn Ford mentioned it earlier - he is moreover the author of a report on this subject - as the meeting of high level scientific experts which will take place in two weeks time in Tokyo shows - and I am pleased to be personally participating in this - with eminent members of the international scientific community.
It is in this particular context that I am in favour of the amendments submitted, aimed at reinforcing scientific and technological co-operation between Japan and the European Union.
The European Union is thus establishing the details of a dialogue which will serve the mutual and reciprocal interests of both Japan and the Union, with a view to preparing the next stages of our political and economic relations.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to compliment Mr Moorhouse on behalf of the Group of the Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party on his excellent report.
Mr President, the uneven balance of trade between Europe and Japan has greatly concerned the Parliament for many years.
My group welcomes the recent drop in the trade surplus, but nevertheless feels that too little progress is being made in the liberalization of the Japanese market.
Particularly in the field of the removal of administrative barriers and the mutual recognition of certificates and tests, there is still a long way to go.
It is these very barriers that mean high costs for the individual entrepreneur and reduce his competitiveness.
The Japanese market is not sufficiently accessible and the recent flight of capital from Japan is possibly a consequence of this.
The number of scientific and technological cooperation projects between the European Union and Japan is fairly small.
In view of the fact that Japan is the country with the highest research and development expenditure in the world, expressed as a percentage of the gross national product, it is regrettable that there is little cooperation in this area.
In a global economy with increasing competition, it is no longer sufficient only to cooperate with European partners on R&D. International cooperation with countries outside the Union must be given greater priority in the fifth framework programme for research and technology policy.
This must of course occur on the basis of reciprocity.
The Union should make an effort at all levels to involve Japan in our Community life, both political and economic.
My Group will wholeheartedly support this.
Mr, President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is a very good idea for the Commission to think about how the dialogue and cooperation between the European Union and Japan should be conducted in future.
After all, these are two of the most economically powerful units in the world, if one looks at this trio illustration.
At any rate, and this is a negative record, the most environmental sins are produced in these two blocs together!
The greatest power is concentrated in these two blocs to make them precursors for the production of another form of economy, an economy that no longer continues to carry out irresponsible economic plunder of the world's resources.
There is little point in the Japanese protecting their forests in Japan, whilst in Asia or Latin America they relentlessly clear the land of trees to make disposable chopsticks!
That may very well be a cultural viewpoint, but it is not enough for me.
Yet there was not a word on it in the original wording of the resolution to the Commission awaiting our votes today.
We actually had to include in the text such obvious ideas, as that there was a common interest in global environmental stability.
Instead of an agreement on a common procedure for the path towards a stable future, I find in the text the suggestion that Japan and the EU should give each other mutual support, in order to secure each other's global economic spheres of influence.
To return to the point about the environment: there still rings in our ears Japan's vehement rejection at the Kyoto World Climate Conference of any binding declaration on a reduction of emissions.
As though nothing had occurred, our declaration now says that we should each act together on the environment within the WTO.
We know quite well what is possible on the environment within the WTO.
The Singapore Conference showed that perfectly clearly.
I have a high regard for Mr Moorhouse as an excellent rapporteur and I can substantiate much of what is in his report. I think it is very important at this point that the EU and Japan should together consider as a single de facto power base in this trio how a social, ecological and cooperative economy, with cooperative world trade, could be made possible.
For it is of no use to us - neither Japan nor ourselves - if one day we are first and Japan third, because someone will have to pay for this deficit. Our concern is to bring in all countries, so that we can escape from these deficitary, ecologically and socially damaging conditions.
I feel it is most important to plan the future exchange of culture and points of view on this, and not to consider how best to deregulate the most. Each country should decide for itself, how it should like to construct its economy.
One thing I can say: many deregulating procedures in this world have had just the opposite effect.
The rich can afford them and the poor can neither visit a hospital nor make a telephone call; nor in any other way participate in the good things of this Earth.
Madam President, I would similarly like to congratulate Mr Moorhouse for his report, and make a few comments.
The reduction over the last few years of the commercial deficit between the European Union and Japan, often presented as a victory, is in fact no more than a mirage due to currency fluctuations.
Indeed, the strengthening of the yen in relation to the dollar has strongly handicapped Japanese exports and has led to massive relocations of entire sections of Japanese industry.
This is the reality!
At the moment, now that the yen is falling, we are noting a considerable increase in Japanese exports to the European Union.
The mirage has thus gone but the obstacles remain.
Of course, with the exception of certain products such as copper, footwear and some agricultural products, the Japanese customs duties are no longer restricting access to the market.
On the other hand, the non-acceptance, by Japan, of international norms and procedures with regard to testing and approval poses a serious problem for our trade with this country.
On this crucial question, the Japanese authorities should tolerate from Europe what they tolerate from the United States.
The Union should clearly reject any difference in treatment.
We are today requesting that the Japanese authorities guarantee free trade within the country, without having to go through such monopolistic groups as the 'keretsu'.
If a real effort is not made in this area we will be forced to reconsider the complete opening of our borders to Japanese cars in 1999.
As for direct investment, the figures are even more overwhelming.
Indeed, according to Eurostat, the Union has reduced its investments in Japan on average by ECU 300 million per year between 1992 and 1995.
Consequently, the imbalance of trade with this country will continue to grow over the coming years if nothing is done.
However, positive points do exist in the area of science and technology, telecommunications, financial services and transport, where advanced cooperation has been established between the Union and Japan.
The Commission must today, therefore, make a precise evaluation of relations between the Union and Japan, taking into account all aspects including the monetary and provide a forecast on the subject to Parliament.
Clear and precise measures must be proposed so that European products free themselves from the 'keretsu' and so that the Japanese authorities are convinced of the procedures for testing and international agreement.
Madam President, bilateral negotiations continue and will continue long after playing their role on an international business level.
Yesterday's debate on bananas demonstrated to what extent the WTO was not sufficiently independent to deal with some matters of crucial importance for the European Union.
Let us not get caught up in multilateral negotiations which often really benefit no-one but the American multinationals and let us develop a true dialogue with Japan, including on the subjects of human rights and the death penalty, which still exists in their country.
It is in this way that a true community foreign policy will be born.
Madam President, we have noted in this report devoted to the future of economic relations between Europe and Japan certain useful assessments and recommendations, but also some important gaps.
The report correctly highlights the need for the Commission to be more attentive to the effects of bilateralism with regard to Japan, which is assiduously practiced by the United States, who are becoming, in addition, the eulogists of multilateralism, in order to avoid possible discrimination of our service and manufacturing industries in the Japanese market in relation to their American equivalents.
This is clearly the case in essential sectors such as semi-conductors, mobile phones, and automobile parts.
If the Commission really wants to defend the interests of European business - and this is what its role should be - it should follow the recommendations of Mr Moorhouse who correctly recommends a much more aggressive policy if we want to avoid the vice being tightened around our companies' necks by, on the one hand, criticism of the Europe from the WTO because of American complaints and on the other hand, the American-Japanese sectoral agreements negotiated without taking any account of our interests.
But should this report not have considered, as a priority, a certain number of sectors strategic for Europe, in particular the car industry? I noted no analysis on the effect of the steps, inspired by American protectionist measures, which the Commission has taken in terms of import quotas for Japanese vehicles, and I noted no recommendation for the future.
Do the numbers fixed and the timetable accepted effectively protect the interests of our manufacturers and the numerous SMEs that depend on them? What will be the consequences of the ending of quotas and what compensation will be requested?
In the same fashion, nothing is said of the way Japan clings to protecting her agricultural and livestock resources: agricultural products, processed agricultural products, fish produce.
How can it be that this net exporter of goods, services and investments can manage to protect its achievements in the area of production and agricultural prices, thus escaping the alignment of its agriculture with world prices and maintaining the uniqueness of Japanese agriculture? Can Japan develop an agricultural model suited to its needs whilst we are unable to develop one suited to ours?
In this respect, will Japan be a model to follow?
Mr President, I would have liked to see, in an otherwise relevant report on many points, some substantial development of these important questions.
Madam President, the clear message from the Moorhouse report, as many speakers have stressed, is that in the last ten years there have been significant developments in relations between the European Union and Japan.
We are now engaged in many more areas than 10 or 50 years ago.
At the same time I think it is clear that there is still a certain distance in cultural and political terms between Europe and Japan.
Although the United States, Japan and Europe are often described as the three sides of the triangle, very clearly, in Japanese terms, relations between Europe and Japan are of what they would call a 'younger brother' nature compared to those between Europe and the United States and the United States and Japan.
There are certainly no grounds for complacency.
We cannot take it for granted that relations between Japan and Europe will develop as closely as those between Europe and the United States or between the United States and Japan.
On top of that, we are forging ever closer relations with other parts of Asia.
Relations with China are 'young' in the same way as the overall security relationship which Japan has with the United States.
For that country, we remain the fundamental anchor.
That element is very often overlooked in Europe.
We are appealing for exactly the same kind of treatment.
The question I would like to put to Sir Leon is whether the time has not come to look for a broader, more strategic objective in our relationship.
It is strange that of all the countries in the world, the European Union has no bilateral agreements with either the United States or Japan.
We have had an agreement with China since 1984 and this is certainly going to develop.
In the case of the United States, our links are of a quite different nature.
The question therefore is whether it would be wise to work toward a strategic framework agreement, enveloping the various links which we have in the scientific, economic, political, cultural and environmental fields as a way of saying that this is the development which gives us a strategic link to the future.
Madam President, the report by Mr Moorhouse, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, has been carefully prepared.
I was not able to participate in it myself, but I greatly appreciate it.
In its communication to the Council, the European Commission places the emphasis on intensifying political relations with Japan.
The rapporteur rightly corrects this approach. The policy of the European Union must above all be geared to the improvement of trading relations with Japan.
European companies still experience problems in accessing the Japanese market.
Japan's continuing high trade surplus vis-à-vis the European Union is an indication of this.
Direct investments also are still a long way from being in balance.
In the communication and the report the various trade barriers are described.
We may request that Japan make clear promises about the lifting of these barriers. The intentions expressed by Japan at the summit in the Hague on 25 June give some hope of this.
The World Trade Organization is, in my view, the appropriate forum in which to raise trading relations with Japan.
The United States have chosen an aggressive unilateral approach to Japan; that is not appropriate for the European Union.
Not only is the position of the European Union different, but the American approach has only achieved limited results.
The strategy of the Commission and the rapporteur, of constant, broad insistence on change, is what I consider to be the correct path. Here, it is important that multilateral agreements on direct investments and financial services come about quickly.
The Commission makes the strange proposal of supporting Japan in its demand to obtain a permanent seat on the Security Council.
This seems to me to be premature and, moreover, the question arises of whether such a political stand in fact falls within the powers of the Commission.
So it was wise of the Council not to adopt that proposal.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I first of all thank and congratulate Mr Moorhouse for his admirable report, with which I almost entirely agree, and to thank him and others such as Mr Ford and Mr Pompidou for the kind remarks they have made about the evolution of Commission policy and my role in it.
It is no exaggeration to say that of all the developments in external affairs, in the years I have been involved, the evolution of policy, progress and attitudes to relations between Europe and Japan has been the most substantial if not the most dramatic.
It has not been dramatic because it has not been achieved by any single leap or single agreement but it has been the most substantial because we have moved from a time when, as has been said, relations - largely trade relations - have been contentious to a time when trade relations have greatly improved and when relations have been considerably broadened to cover political activities as well as economic activities.
Reference has been made in relation to political activities, for example to the question of KEDO by Mr Ford.
That is of fundamental importance because it shows that the European Union is prepared to participate in an arrangement which costs us a bit with the United States, Japan and Korea of profound importance for the security of the region.
It is a symbol of our much greater interest in the whole.
The question was also raised of how have we come to make the progress we have made and what further progress is there to be made.
This has come about through adopting an approach that is significantly different from the United States and certainly in my mind more suitable for us and at least as successful.
It has not been a soft approach.
It has not been an approach which simply says we will go along with whatever the Japanese do.
We have been even-handed.
We have insisted in our relations with Japan, that there should be no discrimination against us compared with the United States.
Here I beg to differ from what Mr Souchet said.
He mentioned semi-conductors.
It is interesting that we were able to hold out and indeed to delay the whole of the information technology agreement, which was fundamentally in our interest, unless and until we reached a point when the exclusive features of the agreement between Japan and the United States with regard to semi-conductors were brought to an end and we were brought into the semi-conductor council as full partners.
That is an example of the way in which, through the use of multilateral measures as well as bilateral pressures, we are able to defend ourselves against that which was objectionable whether it came from the United States, or from Japan, or both.
But also we have been free and ready to take whatever line is appropriate.
For example, when Japan was threatened by the United States with measures in the automobile sector, we incurred a considerable degree of hostility in the United States by saying that what the United States was threatening would be contrary to the international rules of the WTO.
The effect was that the United States did not proceed with those threats.
Our interest was not a theoretical one because any move the Japanese were forced to take would have been at the expense of European industry.
So we were able effectively to defend ourselves.
As far as Japan is concerned, we did not hesitate to take action in the WTO when it came to discrimination in the taxation of spirits and we were successful.
I made it clear throughout to our Japanese friends that this was not being done in a hostile way but rather by using the international system to achieve the objectives which it was there for, namely the peaceful resolution of disputes.
I hope when people talk about bananas they will remember that case as well.
Nonetheless, it is indeed a fact that as a consequence of these measures, which have been non-confrontational, but not wet or weak, we have been able to develop a trading position with Japan and gain access to the Japanese market.
Above all, we have been able to show that our own experience in deregulation is valid for Japan.
The speaker who said that the Japanese, for their own internal reasons, are now very concerned about deregulation to modernize the economy was absolutely right.
We have been able to show that we can teach, through our own hardwon experience, something about that.
As to the future, progress still needs to be made.
Mr Moorhouse referred to the upturn in the deficit once again and reference was made by Mrs Sainjon to the impact of currency changes on the trade figures.
That is always the case and always will be.
Therefore we need to press on and to insist on further deregulation and to give advice as to how that could be done.
We need also to continue with the trade disputes where we have complaints about what has happened, for example in the harbour area, and in some agricultural areas as well.
But we do so in a spirit of cooperation.
What has been said by many speakers in the course of this debate about science and technology and the further advances that can be made has great validity.
So, I believe that a policy of friendship and cooperation, while at the same time putting forward European interests using the bilateral and multilateral means at our disposal combined with support for Japan playing a larger role in the world, as Mr Moorhouse has suggested, and by us assisting in that process through being ready to participate ourselves, as in KEDO, and to put our money where our mouth is.
This combination of approaches has in the past decade proved to be the right one, as is shown by the fact that the Commission and all parts of the House have come together in an unusual display of very substantial unity in support of a policy which is in the interests of Europe.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Universal telecommunications service
The next item is the report (A4-0270/97) by Mr van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on assessment criteria for national schemes for the costing and financing of universal service in telecommunications and guidelines for Member States on operation of such schemes.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the Netherlands the largest telecom operator is going to put on the market a telecom card with a smell as a marketing stunt.
The largest newspaper in the Netherlands ran a report about it last week.
Where will the deregulation of the European telecom market lead us next, Mr Commissioner?
In December a card will come onto the market that will smell of pine, freesias, strawberries or mint.
Mr Commissioner, I promise that I shall give you one of these cards as soon as they are on the market.
But now to more serious matters.
The cost calculation of the universal service is a very technical but extremely important subject as it involves enormous amounts of money.
In various telecommunications directives we have defined what the content of the universal service for the telecommunications sector is - that is in the ONP voice telephony report by Mrs Read - and how the financing must be regulated - that is in the interconnection directive and in the full competition directive. This communication gives points of departure for Member States to calculate the costs of universal service.
Doubts have been expressed by the Committee on Legal Affairs of this House about the legal status of this communication.
The provisions of a communication are after all not legally enforceable and, according to the Court of Justice, may not create new obligations.
And there the problem begins, because operators need clear guidelines in this field whereas the legal status of a communication now prevents this.
This is a fundamental problem because we get a great number of messages from telecom companies that universal service tariffs are too high in a number of Member States to be able to make profitable investments.
In addition, the term "universal service' itself creates uncertainly because it is not always defined clearly.
I wish to speak of my extreme concern here.
The European Institutions can make splendid EU legislation, but in the end it is up to the willingness to invest of new entrants on the market whether the liberalization will actually work.
There must be a strict limit to what Member States can finance via a universal service mechanism.
Indeed, a large contribution for the service falsifies the competition, creates high tariffs for the consumer and is harmful to the development of the European economy.
I said that this morning when we were dealing with the other report by Mrs Read.
The best thing would of course be a new directive in this field, but that would probably not be feasible at the moment, just before full liberalization, nor do we wish to open Pandora's box, but to close it.
In the short term, a technical review of the Commission's communication would be a step in the right direction, together with Amendment No 11 to Mrs Read's report that was adopted this morning.
That gives the operators clarity.
A technical review is also necessary and I should like to illustrate that for you with a few examples.
To begin with: interconnection tariffs, access deficit contributions and universal service tariffs are mixed up whereas they are completely different concepts: universal service tariffs may only reflect the actual costs of the universal service and ensure a contribution by the parties on the market for the operator that has the universal service obligation; interconnection tariffs are taken into account by a network operator for the use of his facilities.
Access deficits arise from an unbalanced tariff structure.
In the annex to the communication it says that the rules on access deficits are of a temporary nature and may continue until 1 January 2000.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is in full agreement.
After all, tariff restructuring is an essential characteristic of the liberalized market and access deficits do not belong there.
But it should just be clarified.
I understand from my contacts that the Commission considers ONP voice telephony to be the place where that must be regulated.
But I cannot find anything really clear about it there.
Clarification of all of this in a corrigendum to this communication would be very helpful.
And then there is the essential question: who will provide the universal service and how will the costs be determined? To begin with the latter, the net costs: Community legislation states that the net costs must be calculated on an objective, transparent and non-discriminatory basis.
Everyone in the sector knows that in a liberalized environment the cost calculation must be future-orientated. However, the exact cost items and types of cost that may be calculated are not mentioned in the legislation and the sector really needs that now.
Paragraphs 1 to 7 of the guidelines to this communication provide good points of departure. Unfortunately, though, there is no legislation here.
And then there is the matter of supplying the universal service. As the Commission indicates in this communication, it may not automatically be assumed that the current provider of the universal service must continue to provide the service in a free market.
It must also be possible to designate different suppliers for different regions of a country.
That is an essential issue, because I also believe that the company that can supply a universal service under the best conditions and most efficiently, must also do this.
That is appropriate in the liberalized market, but where do we find that in the EU legislation? The supply of the service can, moreover, have considerable commercial and marketing advantages for the telecom company.
In calculating the net costs, account should also be taken here of the "pay or play' approach. But this is not to be found in the current legislation.
I am therefore worried about the clarity with which the operators can work at the moment with regard to the matter of financing a universal service.
I would ask the Commissioner urgently whether he is prepared to undertake a technical review of this communication.
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, on a thorough piece of work, as we have come to expect of him.
I want to highlight some of the dilemmas arising from this proposal from the Commission.
The first is one that Mr van Velzen has already touched on: the use of a communication in this matter.
I am sure the Commissioner and Members of this House will know that the Court has already taken a view in a very similar instance and there is, of course, the worry that this particular course might lead to further actions in the courts brought by the operators or others who are affected.
The second dilemma is also touched on in Mr van Velzen's report - although not directly highlighted in his contribution.
I do not want to be too critical about this, because a number of aspects of this question of the financing of universal service, and indeed of the definitions, are contained in a variety of pieces of legislation - some of which, but not all, is logical.
We in this Parliament accept that the pressure to meet the deadline, indeed the commercial and industrial pressures of the progress of liberalization, make some cross-over almost inevitable.
I sometimes feel when I come into this House and speak on telecommunications matters, that I could dip into a bag and pull out almost any speech and it would be appropriate to that particular proposal.
The third dilemma is that we attach such importance to the development of a universal service in telecommunications that we want to seize on almost any progress.
As you can see from Mr van Velzen's report, we see considerable merit in the substance of what the Commission has come up with.
However, I and my group still feel that it would be best to have a directive that draws together the various pieces of legislation in this field into one overall legislative text.
It was unfortunate that this morning we were unable to hear from the Commissioner as fully as we would have liked on the proposals concerning voice telephony.
However, I was very pleased that the amendment asking for a biennial report to this Parliament from the Commission was adopted, and I very much hope that Parliament and Commission together can use that to consolidate some of this work.
I was also glad to see that paragraph 10 of Mr Van Velzen's report 'stresses that universal service is an evolving concept which can eventually be expanded' .
He and I might disagree on the pace of that expansion but it is very important for documents like this to acknowledge that there is a case for changing our definition as developments in technology and on the market move forward.
I hope that the Commissioner will give consideration to the points that have already been raised, because this is an example where, both in the definition and in the funding of universal service, the citizens of Europe can derive some very real value in their own personal, domestic and business lives from what is coming out of the European Union.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report is part of a strategy for change working through the privatization of sectors of activity which are linked to a notion or concept of public service.
This being the Community, not to say the universal, strategy, it is inevitably taking shape in a very different way in the various Member States and giving rise to a variety of interpretations and rates of implementation, which the rapporteur begins by emphasizing, speaking, indeed, of great divergencies in interpretation and extent, primarily relating to the uncertain climate of investment and problems of competition.
The report also refers to the "inequalities in the level of service for European citizens' , but it seems obvious, at least to the committee responsible for the report, that the price and cost perspective predominates.
Besides, and this is our greater concern, the concept of universal service is an evolving concept - point 10 of the resolution - and we are fighting for a concept of public service fitted to citizens' rights, which are not to be replaced by this new evolving concept, totally dominated by the logic of prices, accessibility notwithstanding - for whom and at what point? - and costs.
The other reservation we have in this debate relates to the possibility of universal service mechanisms being created, even if not explicitly, which correspond to opening up the possibility or pretext of subsidiarity of private interests - which would have already taken advantage of the process of privatization to appropriate what formerly belonged to the collectivity - so that the universal services can be brought into being through these private services or activities, subsidizing them so that prices are accessible without squeezing the cost ratios and profits of these private interests, or even allowing them to make greater profits.
That is the underlying logic of this process and this dynamic.
But it should not prevent us from denouncing it and reconsidering the logic, the process and the dynamic.
Madam President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr van Velzen for this report and for having done his best to analyse and bring clarity to a very complicated matter.
We have talked about telecommunications and universal services from many aspects today in various reports.
There are, just as the previous speaker pointed out, very many different definitions of what universal services entail.
There are different ways of carrying out the deregulation which is now taking place.
I believe it will have to continue to appear a little like this in future too, since there are different traditions and cultures.
We cannot suddenly decide how it will look and what the definition will be. It has to take time and we have to accept what we call variety and flexibility.
As far as this communication from the Commission is concerned, it is the case that the Member States can decide on, among other things, the financing of universal services and how this shall take place.
It is currently carried out through taxes or by redistributing income between the various operators.
In addition we have various directives.
There is Community law, the competition directive, the interoperability directive and the telephony directive.
There are a number of directives which even give the Member States guidelines on how this is to be done.
Now we have a very comprehensive communication from the Commission on further guidelines on how costs shall be calculated and how the costs shall be divided between the operators.
I believe this communication from the Commission, together with the directives which already exist, is quite sufficient.
To demand another directive, as the rapporteur does, I consider to be going too far.
I think we need the flexibility that exists today.
I therefore support the Commission in this case.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to congratulate Mr van Velzen on his report and the relevance of his proposals.
The area of telecommunications is going through unprecedented upheaval: optic fibres, mobile phones, Internet, deregulation, all of this is the biggest maelstrom which has ever shaken the, until now, protected universe of telecommunications.
But the strategic alliances which are today forming between European companies must not be dictated only by the demands of the most important clients nor only by the pursuit of new value added services.
The interests of the company employees must also be taken into account along with, of course, those of private users and citizens.
The citizens must not be abandoned on the hard shoulder of the information superhighway.
It is up to us to protect access for all to the new technologies and to make sure that private operators, newly arrived on the market, do not set up only in urban areas where they can obviously expect a fast profit.
It introduces then, into the policies that we are to define, a certain obligatory mission of universal service according to social expectations and thanks to the possibilities offered by the new technologies.
If it is necessary to develop a European concept of universal service, it is clearly understood that each State must be able to develop its own concept of public service action and to guarantee all users a connection to the network without price increases for, as you know, the vast majority of citizens do not care if the price of communication between Strasbourg and St Petersburg has fallen by half!
The interest of the citizen-consumer seems to me to be the indispensable element to take into account.
It is the only one in a position to go beyond certain dogmatic conflicts.
It is probable that free competition in the telecommunications sector is today the structure best adapted to the mission of public service, but I want to draw the Commission's attention to the fact that, without a European regional policy, without a policy on social cohesion, deregulation will only benefit interests devoid of democratic legitimacy.
Madam President, I am of course grateful for the Commissioner's reply and as always, it was very instructive.
I am also pleased that the Commissioner promises that he is willing to correct the unclear phrasing.
But I also asked the Commissioner whether at the same time he would consider a number of the gaps that I mentioned, such as who will supply the universal service, the pay and play principle and how will future-orientated costs be calculated? And if we could consider it in the same way, I believe that not only for the Member States, but particularly for the operators, it becomes clear what they have to stick to and what the point of departure is for the Member States.
I think that is essential, because we have now entered a very important phase and there are problems in a number of Member States with regard to the financing of the universal service.
Perhaps the Commissioner would respond to this?
Mr van Velzen, if you will allow me to say so, you are now behaving rather contradictorily.
On one hand you are saying this communication must not in any way be mandatory, and we shall have to watch out lest we end up in the devil of a mess.
Yet now you are saying it is not quite complete, because this and that belong in it.
I think we should leave well alone for the time being.
We shall correct the impression which might lead to a false interpretation, and anyway we shall have an opportunity in at most two years to have look for ourselves how matters have developed.
I am also prepared, if a - let us say - problem case should arise, to discuss with the Member concerned how one might best remedy it.
But as I have said, up to now we have had no such case.
There is no problem with the universal service.
There are problems with interconnection and with other market accesses, charges, etc.
There we have any number of problems, but we have the regulations.
We have not a single problem with the universal service.
If a problem should arise I should willingly examine what else one might do in addition to solve it. but it seems to me a bit extreme to say that we should write into this in detail anything that might at some time possibly happen in some Member State. I would ask you to let the matter rest with what I have said.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.25 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m. )
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-0520/97).
Question No 1 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0591/97)
Subject: The Maghreb during the Luxembourg Presidency
Within the context of Euromediterranean policy, what progress does the Luxembourg Presidency foresee in the political and security fields? Is Euromediterranean policy not experiencing a major downturn?
Ladies and gentlemen, in reply to the first question relating to the Maghreb and the way in which the Luxembourg Presidency intends to advance the dossier between the European Union and the countries of this part of the world, I would say that the European Union attaches a unique importance to its relations with the countries in question.
I happen to know that, this morning, a long discussion was dedicated to the situation in some of these countries or in those bordering the region, and I would like to expand on this briefly in order to emphasize the interest of the Council in the Maghreb.
Within the CFSP, the Union follows the domestic situation of the countries of the Maghreb very closely, and these are analysed in depth at regular meetings of the Mashrek/Maghreb Working Group.
Within the framework of Euromediterranean policy, bilateral relations have been strengthened by the Barcelona process.
The countries of the Maghreb play an active role in the partnership and have proved their determination to contribute to the success of the said process.
The Luxembourg Presidency has the firm intention to continue this policy of strengthening relations with Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, both through the intermediary of the Barcelona process, of which the next meeting of senior officials responsible for politics and security will take place on 23 and 24 October, and at a bilateral level.
Concerning bilateral relations, the ratification by national parliaments of the association agreement with Tunisia is extremely advanced and the European Parliament has already given its assent. It is therefore possible that this agreement will come into effect before the end of the year.
Given these conditions, it is not impossible that a meeting of the EU/Tunisia Association Council may be held under the Luxembourg Presidency.
This will enable us to take a bearing on the situation of the agreement and to examine from a wider perspective the future of relations between Tunisia and the European Union.
This meeting will also be an opportunity to commence an exchange of views on political questions of common interest within the framework for political dialogue foreseen by the agreement.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his helpfulness, both in answering my question and in this morning's debate on Algeria, which he has also mentioned.
Most of all, I should like express my appreciation of the goodwill being shown by the Luxembourg Presidency.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have mentioned some important meetings and work in progress.
But it is important to recognize that these meetings are not enough, and that in the phase of activity which Euromediterranean policy is now entering there are far more meetings than concrete actions.
However, there are tragedies taking place every day, to which our European institutions must respond - the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
Today, more than 20 people were killed at sea in an accident involving a motor launch in the Straits of Gibraltar.
Deaths are caused far too frequently in this way.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in view of the goodwill of the Luxembourg Presidency, I should like there to be a response to this problem, and some specific action found to help prevent these tragic events.
Today's tragedy - they are retrieving the bodies at this very moment - deserves a response. We know that the effective way to prevent this emigration, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, is to invest - in six industrial zones in northern Morocco.
That is what we need to put an effective end to this carnage.
Please, do something about it.
It is not a question of civil servants or meetings, but of actions and urgent investments.
Thank you, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, but allow me to remind you that the time allocated for a supplementary question is one minute, and you have taken twice as long.
Once again, this Presidency asks you to please observe the rules because there are many questions and Mr Wohlfart will not be able to answer them all if every Member of the House who speaks takes twice the allotted time.
Mr Wohlfart, you may now reply to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's long question.
I will endeavour to make my answer shorter but also a little more concrete.
I do not want to go back to the debate of this morning which was devoted to the situation in Algeria.
In conclusion to that debate, I underlined the fact that not only the Council, but also the Commission and Parliament, had a role to play and I have been won over to the idea put forward by your friends in the European Parliament, that is, the establishment of direct contact with your counterparts in the Algerian Parliament.
The Algerian situation affects us all.
You say that action is required and that meetings are not going to move things on.
My reply to that is, whilst respecting your approach, the method of gathering the antagonists around the negotiating table has been the subject of wide consensus, as participants at this morning's debate will have noticed.
You say that it is essential that Morocco gains investment.
My reply is that I am in agreement with you.
I visited to this country, and I can see that it is confronted by an enormous historic challenge, through this partnership association itself.
It is an economy which is currently more than 40 % dependent on agriculture, a country which in twelve years time wants to see a free trade zone achieved with Europe.
Of course they are in need of our investment, and the Community and the Presidency will do their best to make sure that the association agreement with Morocco, already signed, is ratified by all the Member States as quickly as possible.
I would like to give you an example that struck me.
Last week I accompanied the Prime Minister, Mr Junker, to Ukraine, within the context of a visit linked both to the European Union/Ukraine summit and to bilateral relations.
Investment was thus one subject on the agenda.
During the press conference, a journalist asked the two Prime Ministers if they had reached an agreement on investment.
They had had no more than one hour to talk to each other!
By telling you this story what I am trying to say is that investments are vital for Morocco, of course, but let us first create - and here I am in agreement with you - the necessary conditions for political and economic stability.
Once a favourable climate has been established, investments will be attracted to the region.
Mr President. I am very grateful for what you have said.
I should like to put just one question about that: how do you assess the situation in Morocco particularly with regard to the investments you mentioned? My impression of Morocco is that it is the most stable Mahgreb country and we need it.
Secondly, I should like to ask you how long the negotiations with Morocco will continue, in your view, and when can Morocco be brought in the negotiations to something like the position now occupied by Tunisia? That is very important, because we need Morocco as the neighbour of what one can regard as the most explosive Mahgreb state, namely Algeria.
My last question is, how do you view the chances of talking to the Parliament there? This Parliament only represents a small part of the population.
Is it not time to question also those small groups who are not represented in Parliament because they are excluded?
I would like to reply to the three questions from Mr von Habsburg. Firstly, by giving him my personal impression concerning Morocco.
I visited this country at the head of a delegation of businessmen as recently as June of this year.
I, along with many of those who accompanied me, was completely surprised by the efforts made within the context of economic and institutional reform in this country, even if it is still lagging compared to the current level of development in Tunisia.
I believe there are solid opportunities.
I was equally surprised to note that our delegation included around ten businesses from Luxembourg - for a small country this is a lot - who are ready to forge ahead and participate in true partnership between the two countries, a partnership that the Luxembourg government, for its part, is going to provide with the financial means to try to promote, as best it can, investment in Morocco.
I believe the second question depends somewhat on the speed at which the parliaments of the different Member States ratify this agreement.
It is very important for Morocco.
This point was insisted upon. We have tried hard to get this message across, not only at the level of the Council of Ministers but equally in all the bodies of the European Union.
This political message is that the partnership must now become effective.
Once again, I hope that we will have done our duty within the Fifteen by the end of the year and, in my opinion, if the conditions are fulfilled, I think that in five or six years time Morocco could reach the same level as Tunisia, a country which, and this equally surprised me, has achieved an exceptional level of development for a country in this region.
Mr von Habsburg will have to forgive me but I believe, regarding his third question, which is a completely legitimate one, that the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of this Parliament is better placed to reply to this question regarding the establishment of contact between this Parliament and members of parliamentary and other political forces in Algeria.
Question No 2 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0597/97)
Subject: Peripheral regions and eurotaxes
With regard to the 'eurotax' on road haulage within the European Union, what is the Council's view of the fact that Finland and Spain still do not enjoy the status of peripheral regions?
I will do my best to reply to Mr Camisón Asensio.
First of all, the Council would not be able to foresee the results of ongoing discussions on the proposal for a directive concerning taxation of heavy goods vehicles using certain road systems. I am talking about the eurotax disc.
The Council however would like to clarify that the dispensation regarding rights of use which figures in Directive 93/89/EEC only permits the granting of a temporary reduction in the rates of duty on usage to certain Member States disadvantaged by their weak economic development and by their particular geographical location, on occasion by political conflict in third countries.
It is convenient at the same time to note that the idea of a peripheral region did not feature in the text of Directive 93/89/EEC - which was overruled by the Court of Justice - whose objective was, I repeat, and the honourable member knows very well, to come to the aid of certain Member States handicapped by their late development or their particular geographic location.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we had been informed in committees of this House that during the June Transport Council the Dutch Presidency was confronted by a highly confusing situation as regards this matter.
One of the contradictions was the proposal that Ireland, Portugal and Greece should benefit temporarily from a 50 % reduction in eurotax utilization rights, because of their peripheral positions.
Of course, we think this proposal is reasonable and fair.
However, during the debates this benefit was denied to Finland and Spain because they were not considered to be peripheral countries.
We think this is illogical. It seems to us unacceptable to deny the peripheral nature of a country such as Spain, when a Tarifa promontory is virtually in Africa, or Finland, which touches the North Pole.
Let us hope the Luxembourg Presidency will find a more reasonable solution.
I will try to give an answer that I hope will be satisfactory to the honourable gentleman.
We have to recognize that during the session of 17 June this year, the Committee on Transport could not come to an agreement.
The honourable Member has already recalled in part certain difficulties on which political consensus was not possible, without even considering that a unanimous vote was also required.
I would therefore like to say the following: the Luxembourg Presidency intends to conduct bilateral relations at the highest political level in order to unblock this issue.
It is a commitment I take on behalf of the Presidency and on behalf of my colleague, Mrs Delvaux, who is responsible for the Committee on Transport.
But I would also add that the Presidency will not include this matter on the agenda of the Council unless the bilateral contacts have brought about a true political will to come to a solution.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 3 and 4 will be taken together.
The Council will explain to us how two such different questions can be considered the same.
Question No 3 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0599/97)
Subject: Right of asylum for nationals of EU Member States
There is a protocol to the Amsterdam Treaty containing a sole article whose purpose is to regulate and restrict the right of nationals of EU Member States to have applications for asylum considered in a Member State other than that of which they are a national.
The practical implications of the article are disputed.
Would it be correct to interpret paragraph (d) as allowing Member States, notwithstanding this article, to examine any application for asylum in accordance with their national practices? Would it be correct to interpret the article as not in any way limiting Member States' rights individually to consider and approve applications for asylum by nationals of EU Member States?
Question No 4 by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0505/97)
Subject: The Maastricht II Treaty and the environmental guarantee
Implementation of the environmental guarantee (Article 100a(4)) requires the approval of the Commission.
According to the provisional text of the new Maastricht II Treaty, the Commission will be obliged to give its views within six months.
How far will the Member States be able to implement the environmental guarantee, and thus introduce higher environmental standards, during the six months the Commission has to confirm whether the Member State may implement the environmental guarantee?
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for that reply, even though I think it is wholly unacceptable that the Council will not discuss the treaty which the European Council has just concluded.
We are now involved in a democratic process with referendums in some Member States and parliamentary debates in others.
It is therefore quite essential and a question of democracy to be able to know what it is that is to be decided on.
The Council must be prepared to provide information where the treaty is unclear and ambiguous, such as with regard to the refugee question, that is, whether the right of asylum will be restricted and at the same time remain in place.
Yesterday I discussed the same question on the right of asylum with the Commission, which was prepared to discuss this question even though it is the Council which has taken the decision.
However, the Commission referred me to the Council and said that it was clearly the Council which should respond to this question, since it is the Council which is responsible.
I therefore expect an answer to the question.
At the risk of upsetting the honourable Member, I must say that if a process of ratification and referendum is underway in different countries, it would be dangerous for the Presidency, or the Council, to give interpretations that might be likely to cause misunderstandings in certain countries.
You know very well, you have just mentioned it, that it is a democratic process in which parliaments and even, by means of referendums, populations, are called to make a political choice.
Therefore, for the reasons I have just given, it would be completely inappropriate for the President-in-Office of the Council to engage in this exercise of interpretation at the moment. Consequently, I will not throw the ball back into your court, by replying that the Commission has said that you should have referred to the Council in this matter.
Each one of the institutions has its own remit.
Once again, it is not the intention of the Presidency-in-Office to hide anything, however, I would wish this discussion to be withheld until after ratification, which will provide the necessary elements required.
But I do understand, as a former Member of Parliament, that it is sometimes very hard to receive a reply that is not satisfying.
I must say that the last sentence of the honourable lady's speech pleased me much more than the first.
She said that we were not ready to interpret the texts, whereas in the beginning she said that we were acting as if we did not know the texts.
This is a small difference that I note in passing.
Madam, I have complete faith in you.
You have, of course, read the texts and are able to interpret them as well as, if not better, than I. So I am sure that, as a Member of Parliament who respects the electorate, you will interpret them appropriately.
The electorate, I am convinced, will not be forced to buy a pig in a poke.
Thank you very much, Mr Wohlfart.
I think the Presidency's position has been made clear, but Mr Lindqvist would like to ask a supplementary question.
I shall let him speak, because the rules allow me to do so, but I would remind you all that prolonging a debate which is always going to receive the same reply uses up time which is needed to answer other questions.
Mr Lindqvist has the floor for a supplementary question.
I have to say that I am amazed too that we cannot get any answer from the Council.
To respond by saying that it is too early or that it is inconvenient, or that it could even be dangerous, is a very strange way to respond to questions from Members of Parliament who are going to debate these questions in their respective homelands, in some cases prior to a referendum.
What are we to do when we get the same kinds of questions from the general public if we cannot get the smallest piece of information from the President-in-Office of the Council?
I am concerned to say the least.
I believe the same can be said of many others.
I have understood that we will not get an answer today.
I note that that will clearly continue to be the case until the Member States have had their referendums and made their yes or no decisions in the national parliaments. That is, we will not get any information until the debates in the respective Member States are over.
That is how I understood the answer.
I am very concerned and unhappy about this answer from the Council.
To go back to Mrs Sandbæk's expression concerning a cat, I see that we could spend another hour playing cat and mouse on this subject.
But I am not going to take the place of the nationally elected Members of Parliament who, I am confident, will be able to interpret the texts as they have been agreed.
They will also be able, as will both you and your colleague here present, to read the text and thus convince their electorate.
Moreover, it is also out of respect for your electorate that, as President-in-Office of the Council, I do not wish to set myself up as judge and thus replace the national Members of Parliament and their different governments.
Question No 5 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0606/97)
Subject: EU structural Funds
Agenda 2000 proposes that Objective 6 should cease to be a separate area of aid and should be incorporated within Objective 1.
'Special arrangements' are to be made for the areas concerned.
What are the implications for Sweden in terms of aid from the EU's structural Funds as a result of this change?
The work of the Council relating to the communication of the Agenda 2000 Committee, has only just begun.
As you know, ladies and gentlemen, at the time of its meeting on 22 July this year, the Council listened to a report by the President, Mr Santer, on Agenda 2000, as well as to the Commission's opinion on countries which could be candidates for admission.
On that occasion the Council agreed to proceed, at its next meeting, which in fact took place last Monday, to a first discussion of general orientation on the group of questions.
It indicated in particular its agreement on the work method presented by the Presidency for the guidelines for the various dossiers.
In accordance with the conclusions of the European Council of Amsterdam, the Council will proceed to an in-depth study of the dossiers in question and will present a detailed report to the European Council in Luxembourg next December.
We consider that at this stage it would be premature to take any position on the question of the reform of Union structural policies, which moreover only make up one element of this package.
Thank you for your answer.
Sweden and Finland were given a special, new objective within the structural funds in connection with the accession negotiations, objective 6.
It arose because the northern part of Europe where we live is very sparsely populated and had special reasons to get extra aid.
It is now being proposed in Agenda 2000 that objective area 6 should disappear as a specific area for aid, that is, exactly what Sweden, among others, negotiated.
It will be included in objective area 1.
In the available documents, it is stated that special arrangements will ensure that aid is provided more or less as before, but under objective 1.
There is now a proposal from the Swedish government, which must be connected with the EU, to turn the whole of northern Sweden into one large aid area, which would mean that what was originally the aid area for special sparsely-populated districts will find it more difficult to get money.
There is a great deal of uncertainty and I would therefore very much like to have a somewhat clearer answer than the one I have received.
Let me first of all say that at the first exchange of views at the General Affairs Council, the two country delegations Mr Lindqvist has just mentioned informed us in their speeches of the concerns they shared with the honourable gentleman. He has himself made allusion, in his supplementary question, to the issue of the disappearance of objective 6.
This is the proposal of the Commission which, in its communication on Agenda 2000, in the chapter relating to economic and social cohesion, proposes, for reasons of eligibility and efficiency, to reduce the number of current objectives to three. Of these, two are regional objectives and one a horizontal objective dedicated to human resources.
It also stated that those currently eligible under objective 6 but not under objective 1 should benefit from individual arrangements.
For the moment the Council has not yet settled on a line of action.
We have agreed our work method for the different aspects connected with Agenda 2000, which consists of doing the spadework on the different problems which are being raised in the different spheres, notably that of structural funds.
It will then be proposed that, at the highest ministerial level in the different Councils which are in charge of preparing the Luxembourg Summit - Ecofin and others - the wishes of the various Member States should as far as possible be taken into account. At the same time it is understood that an orientation is emerging, which for the moment seems to me quite clear, by which a large majority of Member States would not want to go beyond the 1.27 % finance ceiling which was fixed up until 2006.
But many other questions merit a response and the Presidency is in the process of getting down to this task.
It is also the objective of the different informal Councils which, as you know Mr Lindqvist, often move things on substantially.
In any case we are going to get on with the work of seeking a consensus at the level of the Fifteen.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 6 and 7 fall.
Question No 8 by Mr Imaz San Miguel has been withdrawn.
Question No 9 by Hugh McMahon (H-0614/97)
Subject: Philoxenia 1997-2000 (European tourism)
Does the Luxembourg Presidency intend to pursue the adoption of the Philoxenia programme designed to assist European tourism during its term in office?
Concerning the adoption of a programme aimed at promoting European tourism, the work group of the Council which was set up for this reason, will recommence its work as from tomorrow.
The objective sought is precisely to derive an agreement on the content of this programme before the end of December 1997, in other words this year, and the Presidency proposes to present as the basis for work a document which will take into account the discussions held up until now at the level of the Council.
Once this agreement has been reached, the Presidency envisages calling a meeting of the Council dedicated to tourism in order to proceed to the adoption of a programme on this subject and to establish definitively the actions to be promoted in the tourism sector.
These actions should mainly be aimed at objectives which have gained sufficient support within the Council, such as the development of information and the co-operation of the involved actors.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for a very full answer.
Perhaps he would clarify one point for me.
Would the conference which is to be held take place during the Luxembourg presidency or the British presidency?
I will try, but Mr McMahon is a specialist with regard to Question Time.
I will say to the honourable Member that that depends not only on the Presidency but also on the will of certain Member States who, up until now, have been very respectful regarding the principle of subsidiarity.
So, either the Luxembourg Presidency will handle it, if a political agreement is found, or it will be necessary to put your confidence in the British Presidency to resolve the problem.
The following questions and answers are going to take even less time because Mr Sören Wibe, the author of Question No 10, is not present and nor Mr Watson, the author of Question No 11.
I cannot see Mr Alavanos, the author of Question No 12.
So the next question is No 13.
But I see that Mr Wibe has just arrived.
Mr Wohlfart, if you do not mind, I suggest you answer Mrs Jensen first, since she was already here, and then we will go back to Mr Wibe's question, since he has now arrived.
Question No 13 by Kirsten Jensen (H-0635/97)
Subject: The situation in Burma
What political conclusions does the Council intend to draw from Burma's admittance to ASEAN?
. (FR) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my answer to the question raised by the honourable Member of Parliament will be a little longer than that which I have just given.
Regarding the political consequences that the Council envisages in the admission of Burma to ASEAN, I can indicate to honourable Members that at the General Affairs Council on 26 June last, the following conclusions were drawn, which I think everyone already knows.
The Council has examined the effect on the European Union of the membership of certain countries, notably Burma, in ASEAN.
It has underlined that the deterioration of the situation with regard to human rights in Burma is the subject of grave concern for the European Union.
On several occasions the European Union has expressed its concern in the face of events in Burma and recently, on 30th May, the anniversary of the 1990 elections, the European Union adopted a statement inviting the State Law and Order Restoration Council, more commonly known as SLORC, to mark this occasion by freeing those people detained and to commence a true dialogue with groups in favour of democracy.
Furthermore, the Council requested SLORC to accept a visit from the United Nations special rapporteur in the near future.
Furthermore, the Council underlined the importance it gave to the strengthening and deepening of EU-ASEAN relations, in accordance with the conclusions of the ministerial meeting between the European Union and ASEAN countries, held in Singapore in February 1997.
The Council confirmed the EU's attachment to EU-ASEAN dialogue, in particular on human rights and democratic principles. It hopes that joining ASEAN will contribute to the promotion of these fundamental values in Burma.
It considers that EU-ASEAN dialogue should be an occasion for examining the situation in this country.
Given that the current circumstances, which have led the European Union to extend its common position for a new 6 month period, prevent the commencement of negotiations on the possible membership of Burma to the ECASEAN cooperation agreement, the Council considers that Burma's presence at ministerial meetings within the framework of the ASEAN post-ministerial conference and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARFPMC) does not automatically mean it will participate as an observer at the next EU-ASEAN Joint Cooperation Committee which will be held in November 1997 and other meetings within the EU-ASEAN institutional framework.
The Council has reaffirmed that Burma's membership of ASEAN does not automatically imply that it will become a member of the Asia-Europe Meeting, that is ASEM.
Concerning the possible adoption of new measures against Burma, the Council has agreed to return to this question shortly and to examine it according to the results of ministerial meetings, ASEAN (Regional Forum post ministerial meeting) and how the situation evolves.
This is the position that has been communicated by Mr Poos, President of the Council of the European Union, to ASEAN on the occasion of ASEAN's post-ministerial conference which was held in Kuala Lumpur on 28 July last.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for that excellent answer, but I have just a few things I would like to ask him about. Are there positive signs in this critical dialogue?
How are our trade relations with the area developing? Are we not, in fact, politically in a situation like the one in connection with South Africa when apartheid existed, when, fortunately, Europe realised, if a little late, that continuous strong pressure should be brought to bear to change the conditions in the country.
It is human rights that are under attack.
It is democracy that is under attack.
And, as you know, this Parliament is very concerned about the situation of the elected representatives in Burma.
I believe that you used terms like "call on' , ' demand an answer' and so on.
That is perhaps a little too diplomatic given the seriousness of the situation.
You must excuse me, Mrs Jensen, if I have been too diplomatic.
Normally in Luxembourg I do not have the reputation of a great diplomat because I always have a tendency to, shall we say, say what I think.
So, I will be brief in replying to your questions.
Unfortunately, concerning progress in the area of human rights in Burma itself, I think there has been very little.
Moreover, I would be happy, Madam, for you to put your question to the Commission regarding trade.
I am not able to give you the figures that you are interested in.
It is not that I do not want to, but the truth is I cannot.
To come to your question concerning South Africa, on the subject of increased pressure, I think I can say from a personal point of view that the policy of the carrot and the stick, as it was called in 1990/91, has born fruit.
Even if in the beginning it was hotly disputed by our ACP friends - I remember a ministerial meeting where this policy was disputed - I believe that in the end it bore fruit.
I hope it will be the same for a country which is close to your heart.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to interpret the Rules generously and invite the President-in-Office of the Council to reply to Question 10, although this means going back a little bit.
This is the question by Mr Sören Wibe, who is now with us.
I invite you to reply to his question, if that is possible.
Question No 10 by Sören Wibe (H-0618/97)
Subject: Development of democracy in Europe
On paper all the countries in Europe are now democracies, which is totally unique in historical perspective.
However, there are differences of degree in terms of functioning democracies, democratic freedoms and rights, rule of law etc. and, if they are scrutinized more closely, some countries reveal major shortcomings.
The countries with the most significant shortcomings at present are Croatia and Belarus.
Although their presidents were elected democratically, control over TV and radio was such that only one message -the incumbent president's - came across to voters.
Voters were not even schooled in the implications of democracy. They have lived all their lives under authoritarian rule and do not know their rights or how to conduct themselves to question political messages.
The question is what can be done to put pressure on those regimes in Europe which rule their countries in authoritarian fashion and through tight control of the media.
Has the Council discussed diplomatic protests and economic isolation of countries such as Croatia and Bailers, which do not respect the fundamental democratic freedoms and rights that must prevail in a democratic Europe?
. (FR) Please be assured, ladies and gentlemen, as to the flexibility of the President-in-Office of the Council with regard to the procedure proposed by the President.
In fact, the question is extremely important and I have a great deal of sympathy with overworked Members of Parliament.
I was one myself a few years ago.
This is why I yield willingly to this exercise.
Concerning the problems raised by Mr Sören Wibe, I believe that a question on the development of democracy in Europe is worthy of an appropriate response from the Council.
First of all, I would like to assure Mr Wibe concerning respect for democracy and human rights, which are always at the heart of the fundamental principles which the European Union defends and to which the Council gives special attention.
In the two cases mentioned, Bailers and Croatia, as in other countries where values are under threat, the Council is endeavouring, with vigilance and determination, to exercise its influence with the aim of promoting democratic values as far as is possible.
I would like to draw up an appraisal with regard to Bailers.
The Council is following the development of the situation in the Republic of Bailers with acute concern and is actively endeavouring to put pressure on the authorities of that country so that they re-establish full respect for the democratic practices and principles that are accepted at an international level, along with freedom of the press.
A European Union survey mission, led by a former Dutch Minister of Justice, was sent to Bailers in January of this year in order to investigate the legality of the 1996 constitutional referendums, to evaluate how far the principle of the separation of powers is respected and to establish whether the opposition or the media were the subjects of harassment.
The mission noted serious constitutional and political dysfunctions in Bailers.
Given the conclusions of the mission, in February of this year the Council defined the global approach within which future relations between the European Union and Bailers would be framed.
Moreover, in April, the Council adopted a critical position and reminded Bailers that cooperation between the European Union and that country could not continue without a convincing effort on the part of Bailers to put in place a political system which is in accordance with accepted international norms.
Furthermore, the Council urged the Bailers authorities to respect its commitment to initiate talks with the thirteenth Supreme Soviet, elected with the aim of establishing a true separation of powers and of commencing a dialogue within a tripartite work group which is made up of representatives of the Bailers government, of the thirteenth Supreme Soviet and of experts from the European Union, the Council of Europe and the CSCE.
The Council of 15 September, that is last Monday, were forced to note that no progress had been made over the last months in the area of political and economic reforms in Bailers and that the political and constitutional situation, along with continual violations of human rights and fundamental liberties, in particular freedom of the press, was still very worrying.
Consequently, The Council decided to take the following measures.
Firstly, suspension of Union participation in the tripartite work group.
Secondly, refusal to support the membership of Bailers in the Council of Europe.
Thirdly, refusal to conclude the interim agreement and the partnership and cooperation agreement.
Fourthly, restrictions on bilateral ministerial contact.
Fifthly, a freeze on technical assistance programmes from the Community and Member States with the exception of humanitarian and regional projects and those which directly support the process of democratization.
With regard to Croatia, in April of this year the Council adopted various conclusions relating to the implementation of conditionality with a view to developing a coherent strategy on the part of the European Union to be applied to relations with those south-east European countries not linked to the European Union by an association agreement, in this instance Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania.
In order to consolidate peace and stability in the region and to contribute to its economic revival, the European Union aims to develop bilateral relations with the countries of this region, in a context which favours democracy, rule of law, the establishment of stricter standards with regard to human rights and minority rights, movement towards a market economy and the strengthening of co-operation between these countries.
In an annexe to the conclusions the Council included a number factors by which the level of respect for the conditions relating to democratic principles, human rights, rule of law, respect and protection of minorities and movement towards a market economy could be scrutinised.
The Council explicitly included freedom of expression, including the media, separately in the list.
I can assure you, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that the European Union is very closely following, and evaluating regularly, the progress made in the countries of this region, including Croatia, in terms of satisfying the demands of conditionality.
As these countries were reminded by the Council at the time of the session of 16 and 17 June in Amsterdam, rigorous respect for human rights and the rights of minorities in all countries, including repatriation of displaced people and refugees, remains an essential condition in the improvement of relations between the European Union and Croatia.
The progressive implementation of the conditions specified in the conclusions of 29 April will enable a progressive strengthening of relations, provided of course that there is a political and economic evaluation, global and permanent, through which each country, including Croatia, will be judged on an individual basis.
Furthermore, the European Union continues to ask Croatia, and other countries in the region, to respect fundamental democratic rights and liberties which, according to us, must prevail in European democracies.
I would firstly like to say thank you for the generosity which has been shown to me.
Even though I arrived late, I have had both an answer and a chance to reply.
I would also like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his answer which I thought was very exhaustive.
As far as the plans for Bailers are concerned, I am not actually acquainted with the details.
It is clear that we have also shown our economic muscle there to put pressure on the regime.
I believe in fact that that is the language which Bailers's leaders understand.
However, there was one thing I could not understand from your answer, so I have a small follow-up question: have we any means of putting economic pressure on the regime in Croatia?
Within this global context, I think I have underlined on two or three occasions the concept of conditionality.
I have also emphasized the fact that the countries of southern Europe which are not linked to the Union by an association agreement, notably Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia, would now be submitted to this conditionality, which naturally also implies the area of economic relations.
Mr President. Croatia is a young democracy that is also suffering from the aftermath of a war.
There is certainly much there to be improved, but I think it is inadmissible to lump it in with Byelorussia, a dictatorship.
I should like mainly to say at this point that the President of the Council has rightly drawn attention to the human and minority rights - I am myself a great supporter of minority rights - but he has done this on a day when one of the largest Member States of the European Union has declared that it would not ratify the Minorities Convention of the Council of Europe.
We must watch out that we do not fall into an ambiguous situation here and apply double standards.
I believe it is above all important that we soon give Croatia associate status - I was the rapporteur for the association agreement with Slovenia.
Even the Slovenes, who had a period of tension with Croatia, have said that it would be in their own interests for Croatia to be bound to the EU.
Briefly I will say that I entirely share the approach of the honourable Member in making a distinction, which also exists in the eyes of the Council, between Bailers and Croatia.
I think we are agreed on this.
Thank you, Mr Wohlfart.
As the author is not present, Question No 11 falls.
Mr Wohlfart, you and I between us have created a precedent, which is a dangerous thing to do.
As it turns out, Mr Alavanos, the author of Question No 12, is now with us.
Chronologically and from a strict interpretation of the Rules, this question should have fallen.
But, given that we have made one exception, I propose that we make a second one, and I beg you to be kind enough to reply to the question.
Question No 12 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0632/97)
Subject: Joint Declaration by Turkey and the 'TRNC'
On 19 July 1997 Turkey and the self-styled "Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus' (TRNC) signed a joint declaration which contains the following provisions:
"At any international conference concerning Cyprus, Turkish delegations shall include "TRNC' representatives.
For this purpose a framework agreement shall be concluded between these two "states' together with a cooperation protocol of the "foreign ministers' .
In order to prevent the economy of the "TRNC' being affected by unjust embargoes, economic and financial union shall be established between Turkey and the "TRNC' .
Will the Council say whether it will receive any delegation from Turkey which declares that it includes representatives of the "TRNC' , if and when it is asked to do so? What does it intend to do to ensure that the ban on imports of goods from the occupied part of Cyprus to the Community market continues?
Since we share responsibility for this procedure, I will do the same with regard to Mr Alavanos' question.
Firstly, on the subject of the Cypriot question, the Union is pursuing two objectives which are both clear and distinct.
On the one hand it is involved in the Cypriot question in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council aiming for a bi-zonal federation with community aim and, on the other hand, it is working towards the membership of Cyprus in the European Union.
For its part, the Presidency remains determined to contribute significantly to the search for a solution to the Cypriot question.
I would like to note to the honourable Member that the Presidency recently made a visit to Athens and Ankara at the end of August.
The Presidency's representative for Cyprus will closely follow the daily development of the situation.
In this context, allow me, Mr President, to strongly assert that the European Union only recognises one government, that of the Republic of Cyprus, naturally.
With regard to exchanges with the northern part of Cyprus, let me remind you of the ruling of the European Court of Justice on 5 July 1994 confirming that certificates coming from the north of Cyprus cannot be accepted.
In view of the realization of a customs union with Turkey, the Council and the Commission are committed to showing vigilance in order to avoid any misappropriation of trade or other violation of community benefits, including recourse to the case law of the Court to which I have just referred, which would result from the prevailing situation in the northern part of Cyprus.
The effective implementation of the Association Council agreement, signed between the Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs and the self-proclaimed authorities of northern Cyprus on 7 August last, means that the situation would need to be seriously reconsidered and would have, in any case, more general political implications as I have just explained.
Mr President, I would like to thank you for having created a precedent and for having thus enabled my question to be debated, and for the wisdom you and the President-in-Office have shown when tackling this issue.
I would also like to thank the President-in-Office for the full and very positive answer that he gave to my question.
I would like to take this opportunity to bring up a wholly related issue, more specifically the fact that last week Ankara decided not to allow ships flying the Cypriot flag, flying the flag of the Republic of Cyprus, to enter its ports.
That is to say ships, flying the flag of the Republic of Cyprus, the flag of a country associated with the European Union, of a country which is in the process of acceding to the European Union, have been prohibited from approaching Turkish ports since last week.
Up until a few days ago they had been approaching Turkish ports.
Do you think that this action is in keeping with the spirit of the customs union and with the spirit of respect for the basic principles that govern it?
Provided more information is obtained by the appropriate departments, if what we have just been told turns out to be correct, this would be completely unacceptable.
Question No 14 by Christine Oddy (H-0638/97)
Subject: Sri Lankan assassination
Is the Council aware of the assassination of Mr A. Thanqathurai, Member of Parliament in Sri Lanka and a leading official of the Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF), an organization committed to non-violence in politics?
What moves will the Council take to press for a peaceful solution to the escalation of violence in Sri Lanka?
As President-in-Office of the Council I take note of the constant interest of the honourable Member regarding the situation in Sri Lanka, especially with regard to the respect, or rather lack of respect, for human rights.
However, the Council was not aware of the tragic and deplorable events which the honourable Member mentions in her question.
Concerning the position of the European Union on the situation of civil war in Sri Lanka, the honourable Member could usefully refer to the replies to questions that she herself raised during the sessions of last May and July.
I thank the President-in-Office for his kind remarks and concern.
However, the situation is not getting any better.
There are atrocities on both side all the time and the civilian population is being squeezed.
Would the President-in-Office use his good offices to try to facilitate some kind of high level political peace process, perhaps using the offices of Mary Robinson who is now human rights representative for the United Nations?
Following the reply to Mrs Oddy's question I have just noticed that nearly all of the issues tackled today, whether at the level of statements, or through questions that are put to me for reply, deal with violence, terrorism and non-respect of human rights.
I find this most distressing.
Concerning Mrs Oddy's proposal to consider the possibility of putting Mary Robinson in charge of a special mission aimed at promoting a rapprochement between the two sides and to put an end to the conflict which is raging in the country, I am completely open to this proposal.
I will, moreover, be meeting Mrs Robinson in my role as President-inOffice of the Council during the annual session of the United Nations in New York.
This will be one of the subjects of the meeting.
Thank you for your proposal.
Question No 15 by Richard Howitt (H-0646/97)
Subject: Regional representation at meetings
Can the Council specify on how many occasions and on which issues regional levels of government have been represented at Council meetings rather than central government since the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty? Given the current moves in the UK towards devolution for Scotland and Wales and also the proposed establishment of regional chambers in England, can the Council confirm that it welcomes participation at its official meetings by representatives from the regions instead of those from central government?
My reply is the following. Without prejudice to article 146, first paragraph of the EC treaty which foresees that the Council is made up of one representative at ministerial level from each Member State, if there is a minister who is skilled at advising the government of his state and the rules relating to quorum are met which, as you know, demand the minimum presence of the Council to be able to proceed to a vote, then it is for each member of the Council to make up his delegation in the way which seems most appropriate to him.
Consequently, on a ministerial level, article 146 stipulates that a Member State can be represented by a regional minister, provided of course that he is skilled at advising the government of the Member State in question.
I do not think I listed as much a detail in that answer as perhaps I hoped for when I first put the question.
We know of course that both the Belgian and German members of the European Union have at the very least put forward ministers from regional government from within their own country at Council meetings.
An exercise should perhaps be conducted in order to enumerate the number of occasions that is taking place with those Member States or with others to demonstrate that regional government can play a role in the European to bring our decisions closer to the citizen and to improve our decision-making.
In the context of that and of my question, which I notice the President-in-Office did not refer to, would he now welcome the decision which has now taken place in Scotland through the referendum to support a Scottish Parliament? There will be a referendum in Wales tomorrow when the people will have a chance to decide to set up their own Assembly.
Will he join me in welcoming that and will he agree with me that this demonstrates that countries and regions of the UK are finally taking their places in a Europe of the regions?
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his very full answer.
As the only Scottish Member present and one who voted the double Yes in the referendum last week, I should like to say that we are particularly interested, in particular as it concerns one area which he did not mention, namely fishing.
Three-quarters of the United Kingdom's catch is landed in Scotland.
Fishing is one of the powers which will be devolved to a Scottish Parliament.
So the situation will be that in agriculture and fishing the powers will be devolved from the national parliament to the Scottish Parliament.
So what would the President-in-Office think about a Scottish fisheries minister - who would not necessarily be of the same party as the UK Government - going to Fisheries and Agriculture Councils?
Thank you very much, Mr McMahon.
Mr Wohlfart may now reply to Mr McMahon's question, if he would like to do so.
What an interesting question!
I must admit that I am not a fisherman, but I think that the question goes further than fishing for pleasure.
If an arrangement exists between the national government and the future regional government, why not? If there is a transfer of power in favour of our future Scottish colleague who will be in charge of fishing, there will not be a problem, even if he belongs to a different party from the prime minister.
I do not know.
Anyway, it is the rules of democracy that will apply.
Question No 16 by Bernd Posselt (H-0648/97)
Subject: The Czech Republic's accession to the EU
Despite its Europe Agreement and efforts to accede to the EU, the Czech Republic intends to continue preventing foreigners, including EU citizens, from acquiring real estate and also to exclude EU citizens from the privatization of agricultural property.
How does the Council Presidency view this, especially as different conditions have been imposed on Slovenia in the association agreement, and how does this attitude fit in with the pre-accession strategy?
The honourable Member's questions regarding the possibility of foreigners acquiring property and agricultural land in the Czech Republic have been dealt with during the negotiations aimed at concluding a European association agreement with this country.
At the request of the Czechs, the Community had accepted the inclusion, in the chapter devoted to the right of establishment (article 45 and following), a certain number of exceptions to the general principle of treatment of nationals that the Czech Republic must grant to Community companies and nationals.
Thus the possession, use, sale and rent of property will form part of the dispensations of annexe 16b granted to the Czech Republic until the end of the transition period and the implementation of the agreement.
As far as the purchase and sale of agricultural land and forest is concerned, it figures amongst the dispensations of annexe 16c, which are permanent in character.
It should be noted, moreover, that similar clauses figure in the European agreements concluded with other eastern and central European countries.
In as far as prospects for the membership of the Czech Republic to the Union are concerned, the necessary decisions on the whole of the enlargement process will be taken, according to the conclusions of the Amsterdam Summit, by the Luxembourg European Council next December, on the basis of a detailed report by the General Affairs Council on the recommendations regarding requests for membership, as well as on the basis of Agenda 2000.
The Council notes the honourable Member's remarks and will make sure they are taken into account during the process of negotiation of new members.
Thank you, Mr President, for the very precise answer.
I just want to say that in Slovenia a special regulation has been passed with the association agreement, and I believe that a regulation mentioned during the accession negotiations can hardly take second place to the association of Slovenia.
One should not operate with two sets of laws here.
That was the first point I wished to mention.
The other is the specific question of whether one or more Member States had mentioned this point in the Council, or if that will happen only in Luxemburg.
With regard to Slovenia, a different solution has been applied.
Secondly, concerning the Czech Republic and other countries which have signed association agreements, the Council's opinion is that the problems are similar but that they appear in different contexts.
Consequently, they call for different solutions with regard to content.
I think this is my first element of appraisal.
With regard to the question of whether I know if other delegations have already brought up the problem that you mention in your supplementary question within the General Affairs Council, I must admit that I do not attend all of the General Affairs Councils.
Nevertheless, as far as I know, the problem has not yet been raised.
As the author is not present, Question No 17 falls.
Question No 18 by Bertel Haarder (H-0658/97)
Subject: Fraud in connection with the EU's financial interests
The Member States are required to provide information about irregularities in connection with the administration of the EU's financial interests and it is their responsibility entirely to recover unduly paid sums.
Experience shows, however, that the Member States are not fulfilling their obligation to recover such sums.
How does the Council explain the fact that only one third of the sums involved in fraud cases prior to 1993 have so far been returned to the EU and is this not in contempt of Article 209a of the Treaty?
Will the Council ensure that there are no impediments to prevent the Commission using every means available to recover the sums owed?
The situation we are in is quite ludicrous.
The Council has again and again spoken of how we should combat fraud in the Union, and then it transpires that nearly all the States do not help to combat fraud and that they do not help to pay back to the Union the money which has been wrongfully paid out.
I am asking the question because I know that Commissioner Anita Gradin feels very isolated in this matter.
She does not feel that she gets help from the Council and so I would like to ask you, Mr Wohlfart: will you promise to take the matter up at some time or other during the Luxembourg Presidency, to speak sternly to the Ministers, and to ask them to go home and get the money paid back to the Union which they owe. That is the least one can ask if one wants to talk at all about combatting fraud.
Mr Haarder somewhat overestimates my ministerial capacities for tax recovery.
Nevertheless, I will endeavour to satisfy him as regards the Council's intentions because it is a question which I believe is of interest not only to the European Parliament and the Commission but also to our taxpayers.
I would first of all like to refer to the conclusions passed by the Ecofin Council.
I have the document with me, and I can assure Mr Haarder that it contains the elements which should, in part, satisfy him.
But as time is pressing, I am not going to read it now.
However, I can hand it over to Mr Haarder whilst reminding him that our Luxembourg Prime Minister, Mr JeanClaude Juncker, is also Minister of Finance.
I know him and he will not hesitate to make the problem of fraud recovery one of his main themes, especially as he has just put a Luxembourg Member of Parliament in charge of drawing up an exhaustive report on tax fraud in our country.
Question No 19 by Concepció Ferrer (H-0670/97)
Subject: Respect for social standards
The Dutch Social Affairs and Labour Minister, Ad Melkert, suggested that the EU Social Affairs and Labour Ministers might hold a meeting with their Asian counterparts in Geneva two days before the June Council meeting, with a view to discussing the question of respect for social standards and the extension of WTO control procedures in accordance with the Singapore agreements.
Did this meeting take place? If so, what was the outcome?
I can inform the honourable Member that in his capacity as President of the Employment and Social Affairs Council, Minister Ad Melkert did indeed meet representatives of certain Asian countries on the fringes of the ILO conference in Geneva on 10 June 1997.
The main theme of the exchange of views that took place on this occasion was that of respect for international work standards.
Mr Melkert reported on these discussions to his colleagues during the Council of 27 June and underlined the usefulness of such contacts.
It was agreed that such meetings should be pursued in the future.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your answer.
Bearing in mind that this Parliament still considers (as it has always done) that it is important to comply with the minimal social guidelines recommended by the International Labour Organization, and insofar as these social guidelines are linked to respect for fundamental rights, the freedom to form trade unions, and the abolition of compulsory and child labour, I would beg that we should encourage this discussion. We should not be satisfied simply with information and exchanges of opinion, but a decided effort should really be made.
We need to do this in order to adhere to one of our basic objectives, which is to encourage respect for human rights and defend the European social model. Nor should we forget to defend the jobs of many of our workers, because this is the reason - one of the reasons - for the delocalization of our companies.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 20 and 21 lapse.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Green paper on commerce
The next item is the report (A4-0254/97) by Mr Garosci, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission's Green Paper on commerce (COM(96)0530-C40646/96)
Mr President, I have an evening all to myself - or rather, all for commerce - and I think it deserves this special sitting devoted to the distribution system and the Commission's Green Paper.
The Green Paper on commerce was in fact completed at the end of 1996 after almost two years of preparation.
It is an important document, for two reasons especially: it is the first comprehensive text by the European institutions on a sector which has always been underestimated historically and poorly understood in all its forms, a sector which has given and can give much to the economy and society, and which deserved to have its substance and potential tackled and analysed earlier. Undervaluing it has meant the loss of vast entrepreneurial and employment opportunities.
A few figures suffice to remind us of the value of commerce.
It is the second largest provider of jobs in the European Union, with 4.5 million commercial business, one third of all European businesses, 95 per cent of which have less than 10 employees, 22 million direct jobs, 16 per cent of the European workforce, 55 per cent of employees in the retail sector are women, 3.4 million retail businesses employ 15 million people, 1.1 million wholesale businesses with 7 million jobs, and 13 per cent of the value added of the European economy.
The Green Paper is the result of the political and executive attention paid to commerce since 1994, with greater involvement of the Community institutions, which had previously been more concerned with other economic sectors and larger companies, certainly not concentrating on commerce and small and medium-sized firms.
Commerce is actually more concentrated in small and medium-sized firms and it is thanks to the growing attention and commitment of DG XXIII that a document has finally been produced which both analyses and evaluates the substance and the opportunities for the second most important economic sector in the European Union.
Precisely because of its responsibilities (commerce, tourism, small and medium-sized businesses), DG XXIII needs to be strengthened, just as the sectors it deals with are being strengthened, to maintain increasingly continuous contact with the indispensable consultative structures which represent commerce - the Economic and Social Committee, the Commerce and Distribution Committee - and also to be in a position to expand its own number of participants in order to allow every state and every commercial formula to be represented in Europe in this highly important sector for the economic and social future.
It is an indisputable fact that few other sectors are as valuable to society as commerce.
Historically the community has always congregated in the cafés and shops, and there is still an extraordinary vitality in historic centres and commercial centres today.
Hence the need, recognized in the Green Paper, to monitor and devote attention and resources to all the various forms of commercial distribution
In the last analysis, it will be up to consumers to choose their own sales outlets from amongst the various opportunities that the market offers: small, medium-sized or large, specialist or multi-specialized, traditional or selfservice, local shops or out-of-town shopping centres.
Their choices derive from their differing social composition: young, old, families, singles, etcetera.
The duty of commerce is to offer a response to all these requests, seeking to anticipate and interpret changes in consumer preference, because the final consumer is entitled to the whole range of distribution formulae.
I will rapidly list the sectors commerce is involved in and for which commerce should speak up for itself.
I am thinking of the association between commercial operators, medium-sized and small in particular, of a better relationship between wholesale and retail, of the way the branded goods industry operates, of the general role of industrial and agricultural production, of the synergy with tourism and services, of the developing technology, of the spread of electronic commerce, of the international context and the importance of trading companies, of the recovery of historic centres with more appropriate town planning, of environmental protection - also through more efficient packaging and logistics systems - of direct sales, of fair and reliable commerce, of the growth in new and modern forms of commercial, franchising, mail order sales and so on.
With the Green Paper on commerce all the public and private institutions and the direct players in the market, large and small, were invited to take part in discussion to lead, within two years, to the completion of a final white paper.
The governments of the Member States, in their different ways, and naturally upholding the principle of subsidiarity, must be the first to adopt the suggestions of the Green Paper to standardize, where possible, and set up a comprehensive programme for their country's commercial system.
If the economic and social changes already in progress are not enough, tomorrow, or at the latest the day after tomorrow, they must begin to think in terms of the single European currency, an instrument which will be successful only if it is fully taken up and supported in time in the commercial universe.
The European citizen and consumer will not discover the Euro at the bank, but rather in the shops, the supermarkets, the travel agencies, the restaurants, and wherever there is a businessman, an office worker, a cashier able to explain the way the single currency works.
And to the extent that they can shorten the time it takes to understand the Euro, the costs of introduction will be less, because they absolutely cannot fall on the shoulders of the final consumer.
It is for the consumer, after all, that millions of businessmen and their assistants devote every possible effort every day, bringing their products and services ever closer to a changing market.
Mr Garosci, I respected your hard work and I allowed you to greatly exceed your time, as we have the opportunity to do that today, but I would not wish to exaggerate.
Mr President, the scope of the sector has already been described and I am not going to repeat it.
But there are few sectors that are as dynamic as the commercial sector and I would take as an example the development in the field of electronic trade.
In the United States developments are occurring quicker than in Europe.
However, the first shifts and particularly in the record and book trade have already been observed.
In electronic trade there is also a new payment system which must obtain the confidence of both the consumer and the entrepreneur in order to be a success, and without that confidence the entrepreneur will not invest.
Perhaps the Commission can chip in and give that confidence a basis.
With commercial distribution we are talking about a sector full of contrasts.
There are large chains of department stores, there are chains of retail stores, there are franchise chains and self-employed entrepreneurs who keep going through outstanding quality and specialities and which sometimes join forces, for example in purchasing cooperatives.
But these same self-employed entrepreneurs have to deal with gigantic changes in payment systems such as the euro and the electronic purse.
The sector must comply with the most complex legislation in the world in the areas of, among other things, food hygiene, the environment and above all competition together with our national cartel opponents.
We are making cooperation between the last self-employed entrepreneurs as difficult as possible.
Administrative and tax obligations, just think, for example, of VAT, have become almost unbearable.
Everyone acknowledges that a new VAT system would be very helpful to this sector.
Can the Commissioner say whether progress has been made with regard to the problems with the Member States in this field, that up to now have prevented the introduction of the new system? There are quite a few of them.
Up to now there has not been a European vision of what is happening in the market and of the greatly changing market position in the field, where producers and the distribution sector itself, in a reaction to each other, join forces in constantly changing "coalitions' in order to maintain their mutual positions in the negotiations on prices, quality and shelf space in the supermarkets for their brands.
Moreover, with regard to this position of power, and I would draw the Commissioner's attention to this, I think that, for example, in a country such as the Netherlands, some chains still remain.
So you see that the free competition in the end again results in monopolies, which can never have been the intention.
With the euro everyone can get involved. But this sector should be given a due amount of attention.
The distribution sector will be the natural place where the Euro will be brought into circulation, where the old currency will be withdrawn and where very many adjustments will have to be made without it being a matter of a working off effect such as with import and export companies, whereby the costs to commerce are disproportionate.
I should therefore like to ask the Commission to urge the Member States from 1999 to make possible tax reserves and extended rebates.
Subsidies are too bureaucratic: there won't be a penny for the risk-bearing entrepreneur.
I don't believe in subsidies.
There is also a large social claim on the distribution sector. Christa Randzio-Plath has already spoken about this.
You see vast rural areas and empty areas of town lose their quality of life through ageing and dereliction, decay and a sense of insecurity.
The economic basis for the sector is therefore lost.
Greatly changing consumer preferences do the rest.
Elderly people and young families bear the consequences.
But perhaps the new forms of distribution, such as electronic trade, will bring a solution.
Reviewing all of this and assessing the pressure to which the self-employed entrepreneur is exposed, I feel most strongly that the Commission pays far too little attention to such an important dynamic sector.
It took years before the Commission even wanted to talk to this sector.
And the sector is constantly informed, in accordance with the Commission's conditions, in a consultation procedure set up by the Commission, the CCD.
And that was fine when the sector was still in its infancy from the European point of view.
But the sector has now grown up. I would say to the Commission, treat this sector as an adult, treat it as it is.
And the Commission must also adjust its own house in order to be able to serve and guide this important sector, that is going to function in an increasingly European way. That means that changes should be made to DG XXIII.
Mr President, firstly on behalf of my group I should like to stress the importance of our colleague Riccardo Garosci's report, which we support unreservedly.
I should also like to say how pleased we are that the Commission has become increasingly willing to give more attention to the commercial sector, as shown by the production of this Green Paper on commerce.
The report being considered today stresses the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the commercial sector within the European Union's economies.
The process of intense change which our economies have undergone, and the development of all developed economies obviously mean that the service sector is increasingly important, and commerce plays a key role in this.
We are well aware of this. In my country, Catalonia, we have a slogan that "trade is life' because it is a motive force which drives economic activity.
Obviously, it is the most important outlet for manufacturing activity, which is also a very important basic element of our economies. Furthermore, as shown in this Green Paper and emphasized in Mr Garosci's report, commerce has very important social effects in the area of employment and the promotion of private enterprise, which normally starts at SME level.
As Mrs Peijs said, it is a factor in the regeneration of both rural and urban areas.
I had ten points prepared to comment on, but since there is not enough time to mention them all, I shall summarize them basically in three. Firstly, commerce has positive effects within modern society and in the development of economies similar to our own European, developed models; secondly, we must help the commercial sector to adapt to a very intense and dynamic transformation (and action from the European Commission is essential on this point); and thirdly, European Union programmes, especially the application of the structural funds, must be adapted to the capabilities of the commercial sector.
Since I do not want to take advantage of the President's patience, I have condensed my ten prepared comments into those three basic points.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I find aspects of this report very important and I am very glad to be able to underline that.
First of all, the report draws attention to the importance of commerce as a network of social relationships which should be incorporated into a global view of economic relationships which takes account of the productive, regional, environmental and social angles.
And in this perspective, I would like to stress the significance of the role of local commerce in economic and social cohesion, and state my agreement with the provision of point 18, especially as regards information for those concerned, however long or short their experience of the meanderings of access to Community funds which might benefit them and which are essential if the weakest links in an indispensable network are to resist the dynamic of the competitive steamroller.
So I also applaud the restatement of the cultural function of commerce, at point 45, which I believe should be even more closely linked to the role of local commerce in economic and social cohesion, because nothing has done more damage to cultural characteristics as the out-of -town shopping centres, all trying to be the biggest in the town, the region, the country, the peninsula, Europe, the world.
And to be so big, so huge, so vast, they are all the same on various scales, and they squeeze out local commerce and oppress the citizens with their ostentatious arrogance and insidious financial facilities.
For the same reason, and because I think this report is so positive, I fear that it may fail to become an oasis of good sense in the encroaching desert of subjecting everything to financial laws and mechanisms, which is even present in the report itself when it puts forward the idea - which seems to me the wrong way round - that the commercial sector can, or even must, serve as an instrument in spreading awareness and use of the Euro, the single currency.
This wrong way round approach has been reinforced by the rapporteur and other Members in their speeches.
The question is, what is this instrument for and who is it for?
But later. On this calm night, let us accentuate the positive points, rare as they are and necessary as they are, until the contradictions become clear.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, we are very pleased that the vast sector of trade is at last being tackled by the Commission in a Green Paper, although the figures mentioned are totally out of date as they date from the beginning of the 1990s.
This Green Paper should be particularly important because of the predominant role that trade plays in the search for new pools of jobs, since it is the second largest employer in the Community.
But whilst the Commission asks businessmen to trade with the Euro, is there not a risk of a cost-benefit imbalance for small businesses, which constitute the majority in this sector. In fact, the Commission puts individual businessmen, SMEs and large companies all in the same basket, whilst it is clear that the financial repercussions and the difficulties of implementing the Euro with regard to clients, in terms of conversion, rounding up or down and information will not be felt in the same way by such different structures, even though they are all part of the trade sector.
We regret that the Commission did not tackle the question of protection of small businesses except within the framework of relations and co-operation with hypermarkets, while it seems to have skimmed over the main problem when it mentions the equilibrium to be found between the best price for the consumer and the non-disappearance of individual traders in relation to large integrated companies.
In this area we think that every country of the Union, and in particular France, has a role to play in terms of the defence of small traders and the promotion of labelled local produce in the face of the hypermarkets and their central buying, even if, once again, the defence of our identity clashes with supranational community regulations.
In terms of deregulation, it is interesting to note that the Commission starts from the point of a double acknowledgement, firstly that trade must be flexible, competitive and therefore not tied up in overly strict regulations, secondly that such regulation of commercial activity falls within the remit of the Member States.
But it hastens to justify centralised European regulations through the obligation to respect community rules concerning competition, establishment rights and free movement of goods and services.
In view of the desired reduction in administrative charges, notably to the benefit of SMEs, the soft focus maintained by the Commission must be noted.
It is certainly praiseworthy to speak of the role that trade can play in social cohesion, mainly the retail outlets found in overly built-up town centres or in the under-populated countryside, but the difficulty is in finding the balance between this social role and a necessary concentration as an instrument in the face of world competition.
It therefore appears that the Commission is content to note the difficulties in the trade sector in its Green Paper without proposing solutions.
It is paradoxical to ask contributors to the said sector to find their own solutions whilst refusing them these solutions because of non-respect of community law relating to competition.
Mr President, colleagues, the commission has finally produced this long-awaited Green Paper on the retail trade.
Retail companies have long been the second largest employer in the EU.
There are four and a half million retail traders in the area, and they employ twenty-two million people.
But how is it possible that, with unemployment the biggest nightmare in the union area, we are worsening the situation by taking away the better service of the corner shop and replacing it with pollution-making supermarkets.
An irrational structure has been created on purpose It takes a hundred cars to pick up the equivalent of one car load, from outside the city.
The result is unemployment, pollution, traffic jams and dying city centres.
Besides, aren't the hypermarkets starting to remind you of those special boxes they use for rat experiments, with their one-way corridors and automatic doors?
The corner shop should also be a part of that famous principle of community spirit.
My proposal is that we start humanising and reviving our cities, rather than kill them off.
Corner shop services could diversify into postal services, computer networking facilities and meal services for the elderly and disabled.
The Union summit conference on employment to be held in November should decide, for example, on a three percent interest subsidy for the small and medium business sector, which gives employment.
Shops are important employers and so they should come in for this kind of subsidy.
Thus employment and the quality of life both improve simultaneously.
The report emphasizes aiding innovative marketing activity on the part of small and medium-sized retail businesses, and supporting regional development and local skills.
We can all be united on this, as it is very important to give guarantees to the regional retailer at a time of accelerating competition.
We must invest in aid to the retail trade through structural funding right away also because the sector employs more women than men, which is obviously right.
In Mr Garosci's excellent report and in the Commission's Green Paper faith is expressed in the role of electronic shopping as a way of reviving remote rural areas.
Rural development by electronic means can only be a good thing.
But electronic shopping at the moment favours existing supermarkets, not small village shops.
Mr Garosci's report also touches on how, when there is a common currency for Europe, it will be just that retail sector which will be affected in the most obvious way.
In a shop you spend money.
When discussing the single currency and its preparatory stage we should not forget, however, along with shop workers, bank staff who will be doing all the practical work leading up to the single currency, and this under the threat of future unemployment We would be taking it out of one pocket to put it in the next if we aided women's employment in retail and at the same time witness perfectly able women bank employees in their forties and fifties being relegated to the dole queues.
The Commission's Green Paper on commerce is an important document, too, because it tackles the inexorable onslaught of the supermarkets.
It appeals against the problems of pollution among other things.
For example, the concentration of supermarkets in Finland is driven by the tyranny of big business, where local shops cannot use regional sub-suppliers, but have to order from central firms just like everyone else.
The Commission, however, encourages regional co-operation and condemns vertical development.
I fully support the Commission's proposal since, if we do not reverse these frightening trends in shopping, the natural demand will not be met.
The uniform supply trends we are seeing now do not grant the customers freedom of choice, and retail as it is cannot grow.
Mr President, the Commission's initiative on commerce is extremely well-judged, as is the position taken by the European Parliament based on the report by Mr Garosci, whom I also congratulate.
The sector's significance is demonstrated by impressive figures. It provides 13 % of Union GDP and employs 22 thousand people (2.3 thousand more in 1992 than in 1982) in 4.5 million businesses, 95 % of which have less than 10 employees, distributed throughout the territory from the great cities to the most remote villages.
So commerce has an irreplaceable role in the economy and in society.
The idea that nothing new would develop is already outdated, even an intermediate stage, pushing up prices to consumers and reducing the incomes of those engaged in agricultural and industrial activities, has proved to be unnecessary.
It is clear today that commerce adds immense value, monitoring the tastes of consumers, letting them know about products and providing them with complementary support on the one hand, while expanding the sales opportunities of those engaged in production on the other.
The Commission's report also eloquently emphasizes the social role of commerce, saying that it is the means by which people meet, communicate, make contact and integrate, and represents, for many, the only regular source of contact and conversation with other people and the outside world.
The wealth of opportunities and support that commerce alone can provide is impossible to express in a few words.
Certain developments in the modern world, welcome no doubt, still give rise to apprehension - which is expressed - about the traditional role of commerce, notably as regards certain aspects of its social function.
Modern distance selling systems, mail order services, or even large supermarkets, making small local shops lose their relevance,
It would be a pointless battle to try to prevent these developments, and they do offer great advantages to consumers.
Besides, it seems clear to us that small scale commerce will continue to have a role, because proximity and personal service make it irreplaceable.
Recognizing its importance - including political importance, in the best sense of the word - traders and authorities need to join forces to smooth away its limitations and realise its potential.
The traders can develop an even more personal approach to the interests of their customers or, for example, explore wider forms of association, allowing them to buy in on better terms.
The authorities can reduce bureaucratic burdens - in my country, for instance - as well as providing facilities for fulfilling fiscal obligations, credit support, etcetera.
It is especially important to improve the town planning framework as regards suitable location, and restructure support - for example under programmes like the Urban programme, extending urban resources to all, not just the biggest.
In the tourist areas commerce will still be a particular important factor for attracting people who appreciate its presence, for the benefit of all.
The large traders also have great responsibilities to promote quality products linked to the crafts and other specialities of the region, and thus become valuable promoters of its culture, which will be spread to their countries of origin by tourists returning with their purchases.
The report also gives due importance to the unique capacity of commerce to promote border areas.
This is a capacity which has special importance for Portugal, as the border areas - in the interior, with Spain, are the most backward areas and, symptomatically, only have more favourable indicators in the towns on the traditional main connections with Spain.
Under the circumstances, instead of continuing to concentrate on only a limited number of crossing points, it is important to multiply and improve the links between the countries as much as possible, and the benefits will far outstrip the cost of the investment.
This is an advantage which will increase greatly when the Euro comes into circulation and eliminates the costs and limitations currently involved in changing money.
Mr President, when the European Union was founded it was probably inconceivable for anyone to think that we would come to such a debate.
It is only today, as we see the economic effects of the developments in our society in terms of distribution and consumption, that we recognize how important small businesses have been, particularly in the commercial sector.
We certainly need more study of this and of the effects of the growing concentration of large businesses.
As many speakers have said in this debate, small businesses in the commercial sector play a role which is greater than their role in economic terms.
They play a role which is important socially and environmentally.
They represent an opportunity for many people to go into business on their own and to develop entrepreneurial skills which would not otherwise be there.
I should like to quote as an example the town in which I live.
It is a small town in the southwest of England, called Langport. It is 17 miles from the nearest large town and 12 miles from a town that can even vaguely be described as large.
We have a number of shops. We are fortunate.
We have three newsagents, five hairdressers and two butchers.
And yet there are proposals to open a supermarket in our town. Some of the traders favour it.
They say that their businesses are dying anyway. Others say that the introduction of a supermarket, not limited - as has been the trend in Britain until now - to selling food, but selling many kinds of things, would kill all other trade in the town.
We will conduct an economic impact assessment and a transport impact assessment before this goes ahead.
Yet this is an important example, because it is happening all over Britain and sooner or later it will happen all over the Union.
I welcome the Garosci report. It is a very important contribution to this debate.
I hope that the Commission will follow the recommendations in this paper and bring forward a White Paper within two years, recognizing the importance of small business and recognizing that it needs our assistance.
Mr President, the Commission's Green Paper on commerce gives a good analysis of the situation in which European commerce finds itself at the moment.
I have criticisms on two points.
Firstly, the Commission assumes right away that national legislation forms the greatest obstruction to cross-border trade.
It is true that the internal market does not function perfectly.
But uniform or harmonized legislation will not remove the cause.
It would indicate more of a sense of reality if we respected the often deeply-rooted cultural traditions.
I do not think that the diversity in market structures and the variety in the regions could be exchanged for a boring, one-dimensional mono-culture.
The second comment I would make is that the Commission wants things to go well in commerce.
I do too.
But is more trade better? It is striking that nicer shops are mentioned and are one of the instruments for increasing turnover.
It seems that the motto of Descartes: "I think, therefore I am' has been transformed into "I spend, therefore I am.'
When buying and selling lead the way as policy objectives, you encourage consumerism and materialism.
The interests of the environment are then pushed into the background.
Of course I support the Commission in its efforts to achieve more environmentally-friendly products and packaging.
But environmental interests also demand that we encourage the consumer to recycle and repair goods.
Finally, I am of the opinion that for a balanced judgement about commerce additional statistical information must be available on the environmental pollution that this sector causes.
I should be pleased to hear from the Commissioner whether he will be including these ideas in the future White Paper.
Mr President, this report and debate are very important, because trade is important to European economic and employment policy, not because of its size -and the impressive figures prove that.
Commerce also a cultural and socio-political dimension in a local area.
The small shop on the corner or in a village is part of European quality of life.
It is often the centre of local life and also has great importance for tourism.
Neighbourhood shops which are forced to disappear from town centres, just like village shops which have to close, create gaps that have the greatest possible socio-political consequences.
The recreation of a better balance between small and large shops must be, therefore, an important purpose of Member States and also the Commission
The shopping experience must not be allowed to disappear from villages by the closing of the last shop.
Everything possible must be done, therefore, to persuade Member States to use the structural funds and suitable common initiatives for the maintenance of retail outlets in rural and urban areas.
In order to understand the importance of trade for European development one must look upon it as a network., a sort of link between agriculture, commerce, industry and tourism.
I am sorry but those in the public gallery have not yet been informed that they are not allowed to make any comments.
They may applaud or not applaud an intervention, but without extraneous comments.
I would be very grateful if it did not happen again.
Mr President, commerce is a sector with many SMEs that do not always get the attention they deserve and the sector is almost the largest employer and makes an important contribution to the economic and social well-being of many Europeans.
The Green Paper, Mr Commissioner, has therefore not come too soon and especially not as there is now quite a lot of movement in this sector.
There is increasing competition as a result of the operation of the internal market which has resulted in an enormous trend towards concentration.
There are also considerable urban and rural shifts in the retail trade. It is moving out of the centre to the edge of town and away from rural areas.
Furthermore, there is the imminent introduction of the euro and the advent of the information society.
Despite the internal market, we should not forget that a large part of the retail trade limits its activity to the local market and has to survive there by means of cooperation.
As European employers we must regulate in a European way those areas that need European rules, but we must also leave room for the locally-orientated entrepreneurs who are active in the regions that differ from each other in their structural, cultural and demographic characteristics and therefore cannot all tolerate a centralized approach.
We must ensure that there is free movement, free establishment, harmonized technical and fiscal rules and not forget rules on competition that do not ignore the specific nature of the SME but leave things such as the establishment of commercial areas, opening times and so on to the Member States themselves.
A second matter concerns urban and rural shifts.
In rural areas there is an exodus from the local shop and the arrival of shopping centres on the edge of towns and ugly rows of shops along major roads which has led to the decline of town centres.
The Commission rightly states that commerce can be an efficient means against the marginalization of certain groups of the population and that an integrated policy is necessary with regard to the towns.
In Flanders, the authorities have made funds available for commercial centres in the town centres.
The European Commission should encourage such initiatives by at the very least organizing exchanges of best practice and especially by not blindly deregulating in matters of town and country planning and the establishment of businesses.
Mr President, the fact that in its Green Paper the Commission gives a lot of space to the role of the retail trade on the introduction of the Euro is a good thing.
The rapporteur and other colleagues have explained why.
But adequate account must be taken of the concern of this sector, among other things, with regard to prices and determining the beginning and end dates of the transitional period.
The Commission should also not forget the increased price transparency through the use of the euro, that will make the call for the harmonization of VAT rates even louder, Mrs Peijs referred to this in more detail.
Furthermore, there is the information society which will thoroughly shake up commerce and the relationship with both the consumer and the banks will change.
Electronic trade, new translation techniques, colleagues has it occurred to you, will only be able to be successful if there is confidence in these new things and if they can be used in an affordable way and so there is still work to be done.
Finally, I should like to say a word about the Committee on Commerce and Distribution.
This Committee must of course remain representative for the heterogeneous sector that it represents.
Furthermore, consideration must be given to not only the entrepreneurs themselves but also their representative organizations to let them play a full part in the work, and especially for the SME world, Mr Commissioner, the need is a real one and I should like to hear your particular opinion on this matter.
Mr President, I am curious to know the reaction of other parties to the Green Paper.
In any case, I hope that the Commission will take account of the Parliament's resolution.
I nevertheless congratulate the rapporteur on drawing it up and I await concrete proposals from the Commission that attest to a mature policy for the commercial sector.
Mr President, it is a pleasure to rise to a full public gallery.
I only regret that the benches of the House are not as full as the public gallery.
If, at the end of my speech, the public gallery want to applaud or even give me a standing ovation, I shall be more than pleased.
Although I do not usually do so, may I say I would be very glad indeed if you received this ovation at the end of the meeting.
As to your other remark that there are not many Members in the House, you know very well that colleagues have been working, just as you and I have been, since 8.00 a.m. today. I really cannot oblige them to remain in the Chamber until now.
Mr President, I understand.
They are about to miss a great speech, but there we are.
The subject of the report this evening by our colleague, Mr Garosci, which is an excellent report, is a matter of profound importance because commerce, retail and wholesale distribution and retail services to the public in general are great creators of jobs, as has been pointed out by a number of other speakers in the debate so far.
I would like to concentrate attention on paragraphs 10 and 11 of Mr Garosci's report.
Paragraph 10 states that the distributive trades, small and medium-sized enterprises, suffer disproportionately from over-regulation as a result both of European Community directives and of national regulations.
I would like to expand a little bit on that point.
Large companies can afford to employ all the experts that modern legislation requires: health and safety officers, fire officers, welfare officers - all those posts which large companies create to give employment to highly paid executives.
Smaller firms, on the other hand, particularly small retail firms, cannot afford such specialists.
The job is done by the boss and either the boss's wife or husband.
We cannot go on adding burdens of this kind on the small enterprises which are the great creators of jobs.
In my country the situation is even worse.
We get European Community directives, of which I can give one example, the famous 'six-pack' of health and safety directives which we passed in 1992.
Those six directives specifically excluded the self-employed. Many small retailers are self-employed.
But those six directives, when they became law in the United Kingdom, were extended to apply to the self-employed.
Not only were they extended to apply to the self-employed, they had added into them penalties, imprisonment, fines and other condemnations which would have made life difficult for these people.
All this was blamed on Brussels, on those wicked people in the European Commission, or in the European Parliament.
Again in my country - I am sorry to refer specifically to British experience - I regret to say that all too often Brussels, the European Commission, the European Community, being used as a scapegoat or, indeed, as a fig-leaf.
I can quote an example of a public house in my constituency which served lunches.
The publican - the manager of the public house - was told by his local environmental health officer that he could no longer serve underdone beef.
In parenthesis I would add that this was long before the BSE crisis occurred.
He was told that he could no longer serve underdone beef because Brussels had forbidden the serving of underdone beef.
In another restaurant in London, of a rather higher status, I was told recently that crêpes suzettes could no longer be served because Brussels had decreed that flames were dangerous and therefore crêpes suzettes were no longer on the menu.
The Commissioner and you, Mr President, are laughing.
I can assure you that people seeking crêpes suzettes or the people who used to earn their living making them in the United Kingdom are now out of a job and that Brussels is being blamed.
One of the important things which I would hope that the Commission will take away from our debate this evening is the way in which national administrations - I have talked about the British experience but, from comparing notes with other colleagues I understand it is just as bad in other countries - use Brussels and the European Commission as an excuse.
If we can encourage the Commissioner to highlight this and to protest when he sees national governments act in this way, he will certainly have our wholehearted support and mine in particular.
The Commissioner, who has been listening patiently, may now reply.
Mr President, I would like to thank you for showing special forbearance as regards time this evening and for allowing a substantial debate to be held with substantial contributions from all those who spoke.
The world of commerce will be very grateful to you.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is indeed a great pleasure for me to be here with you today to inform you of the sequel to the promotion of those issues that are examined in the Green Paper on commerce.
I have to tell you that the positive reactions from the public dialogue exceeded our expectations.
And I will not hide from you the fact that I was especially pleased that Parliament decided on its own initiative to submit a report on the subject of the Green Paper.
This shows that Parliament makes as much of this crucial sector of the economy as I do.
At this point allow me to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Garosci, for this wonderful report which he is presenting to us, and for the detailed analysis of the Green Paper that he makes in the report.
The basic aim of the Green Paper is to provoke a wider dialogue on the future of the sector in Europe.
The contribution of Parliament to this dialogue was and is of special significance, not only in addressing and understanding the problems, but also in shaping the basic policies concerning trade at a European level.
Your opinion is indeed especially important for us, not only because, in principle, it adopts the approach of the European Commission, but mainly because it sets out new ideas and new issues for the development of the sector.
During the consultation process we received more than 1, 000 written replies from national governments, from European bodies, from national professional bodies, from consultants or from individual companies.
I would like to tell you that this enormous contribution with more than 1, 000 comments and recommendations is exactly what we were seeking. Our wish was to create a large debate, an open debate at a European level capable of revealing the importance of the sector in question.
I agree with the comment that was expressed that the Green Paper does not give an exhaustive description of the situation and of the prospects for commerce.
Nor do we doubt the usefulness of a detailed analysis at an intrasector level.
Our basic objective, however, was to give a brief presentation of the problems that preoccupy the whole of the commercial sector and, in this way, to play our part in facing the challenges that affect its future.
It is also important to point out the lack of statistical data for commerce and the desire of professional bodies to improve these data seemed to be very strong.
We must emphasize the fact that there has been noticeable progress since the publication of the Green Paper.
In October 1996 the Council adopted a regulation for the organization of businesses, in which commerce is also included.
Moreover, Eurostat and my services on the European Commission, together with the Economic and Social Committee, will be organising a seminar on statistics in the sector before the end of the current year.
Granted that commercial activity is linked to a series of more general economic matters, the issues that are contained in the answers are often of a horizontal nature, such as, for example, the need for the harmonization of taxation, VAT regulations and, of course, compliance with the most general rules of competition.
These are matters to which we must give considerable care and attention throughout the coming months.
The trend towards commercial consolidation also causes particular anxiety because of the consequences that this has in the distortion of competition, and these consequences have, quite rightly, been described in the opinions that you have put forward. But very many speakers have spoken of the dangers facing many small shops and of their survival.
More specifically, emphasis has been given to the need to study measures to encourage independent traders to come together, especially in the context of the creation of partnerships or associations.
It must also be said that in many countries, in many Member States of the European Union, this idea of consolidation of businesses within associations or partnerships has proved to be particularly successful, more so indeed when this idea has been reinforced by state authorities, by national legislation and by the governments of the Member States.
The creation of more jobs is always one of the top, I would say the top priority of the Commission and of the European Parliament.
The advice of commerce in this regard is of particular importance since there is great diversity in its structure and operation and it offers employment to many working people, from the unskilled labourer to the highly specialized worker.
In the opinions that you have put forward you have also quite rightly stressed the importance of organization.
It is a crucially important issue for the future of commerce in this rapidly changing technological, social and legislative environment.
The Commission fully sympathizes with the need for the simplification of administration and the improvement of the business environment.
Our recent decision to create a special task force after the Amsterdam Council, a decision which the European Commission put into effect only yesterday with the presentation of the composition of the task force, has exactly this purpose in mind.
Its findings will be borne in mind in the action programme for commerce.
We estimate that this task force, which will aim at shaping a better and more favourable business environment, will be in a position to present a preliminary report at the special Council summit on employment in Amsterdam. In any event it will conclude its work and will present a complete report at the meeting of the European Council in Cardiff at the end of the British Presidency.
Electronic trade was also one of the basic challenges of the Green Paper.
I believe that its development will be a real help to many retailers in internationalising their activities. It may also be a vital tool for shops in remote regions.
The introduction of a common currency, the Euro, seems to be the overriding concern of commercial companies and, I would say, with justification.
The majority are against the obligatory legislative regulation concerning the double recording of prices. There is also a preference for a shorter period for the parallel circulation of the national and the common currency.
But correct information needs to be given.
There needs to be appropriate organization concerning the introduction of the Euro.
We need to improve communication between consumers and commerce.
On this point the Commission, working together with Parliament, has set up a round table on the Euro with the participation of all interested parties.
And, furthermore, to ensure that the decisions concerning the Euro that affect commerce are taken with the greatest possible consensus among fair-minded people on the finding of joint solutions, I have set in motion meetings between commerce and consumers with the agreement of my colleagues, Mr De Silguy and Mrs Bonino.
Another important issue concerns the survival of small shops, in particular those shops in the sparsely populated island and mountain regions, and also in the centres of towns and cities, where small shops play a vital social, economic and cultural role, a fact that many of you have pointed out today during our debate.
The solution to this problem can not be the protection of small shops from all forms of competition.
However, we need to strengthen their capacity to face just these new challenges.
And this means improved organization, better information, finding ways of correctly positioning small shops in the marketplace.
The pilot programme that you all know about, Emborio 2000, will be oriented in just this direction.
We will also be organizing a conference on commerce in rural areas during the first few months of 1998 and this conference will take place with the cooperation of the Committee on Regional Policy.
I would also like to emphasize that our policies must contribute to the preservation and improvement of the quality of life in rural and urban areas and in the centres of towns and cities, bearing in mind the particular characteristics of the weaker members of society, especially, I would say, the elderly and people with special needs.
We are now at the stage at which we draw our conclusions and your report is indeed an important contribution in this process.
I would therefore like to once again thank the parliamentary committees that have expressed their opinions in this regard for the contribution they have made and, of course, to thank once again the rapporteur, Mr Garosci.
The guidelines and objectives for our future actions will be set out soon in a communication of the European Commission and will be submitted to the Council, to Parliament and to the other relevant bodies.
I hope that by the end of this year we will be in a position to present a specific programme of action with specific actions that are needed immediately by commerce.
At the same time, however, we will seriously consider your suggestion about the drafting of a White Paper.
And I hope that by the end of the term in office of this European Commission, that is within the next one and a half to two years, we will be in a position to present a White Paper on commerce with the basic legal guidelines that are needed to strengthen commerce, and to shape a better environment within which commerce may play its many-faceted role.
Of course I acknowledge that when the services of the European Commission hear this, they will feel that this constitutes a large work load which has fallen on their shoulders.
And I can see that my director, Mr McKenzie, is already feeling the burden of responsibility for the work that he is about to undertake.
However, I know that all of us who have responsibility for this huge undertaking - the creation of jobs - and for the creation of better conditions for the development of commerce and of economic activities within the European Union, that is to say, the Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission, will agree that, in order to be equal to this great challenge, in order to be able to face up to and to formulate a White Paper on commerce, we need the support of the Directorate General XXIII in this regard.
We do indeed need more human resources and more specialist skill in this regard.
And for this reason I would like to thank Parliament once again for the great support it is giving Directorate General XXIII.
I hope, however, that we will go beyond just words and that we will continue to take concrete decisions on the strengthening of the administrative function of Directorate General XXIII and that this will translate into both human resources and financial resources.
Then our conclusions will lead to proposals for a long term programme of action within the framework of an integrated approach to the policy on commerce.
And I would like to assure you that we will continue our efforts towards the provision of a framework within which commerce will be able to make progress and to participate in pushing forward development and in creating new jobs.
To end, I would simply like you to allow me to mention the last comment by Mr Cassidy.
It is true that the European Commission and the institutional bodies of the European Union are often in the gun sights of governments.
Indeed, they are often used as an alibi for policies that are carried out at a national level or for the weaknesses of policy within the Member States.
I would like to say, however, that we have learnt to live under these conditions and I believe that we will continue to live, so long as we always know that the contribution of each of us is positive at whichever level it is made.
We know that Brussels is to blame for everything and that national governments are responsible for the good things, that Brussels and the institutional bodies of the European Union are responsible for the bad things, but it is mainly the European Commission that is responsible.
We will nevertheless continue our efforts with regard to the strengthening of European unity and we will continue to contribute to better and more productive work, to a more productive promotion of our policies both at European and at national level.
This is, moreover, the role of the European Commission: to serve Member States and to serve the common interest of the citizens of Europe.
Mr Commissioner, I see that, like Mr Cassidy, when face to face with the large number of European citizens in the galleries, you were inspired, and you were quite exhaustive in your responses to the comments of Members.
Mr President, as we are not up against the clock tonight, I would just like to take a few seconds, although it is not usual, to thank the Members who have spoken in this debate, those from the crossparty group on commerce and distribution, those from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, Commissioner Papoutsis for his commitment which is no overnight affair, and not just for commerce but for the whole sector of small and medium-sized firms, and the entire DG XXIII, in particular the commerce and distribution unit.
And thanks to their work, we confidently await a fine White Paper on commerce by the end of 1998.
Thank you, Mr President for kindly letting me speak.
I naturally agree with our colleague Mr Garosci's words of thanks and I think that the words of the Commissioner have really put some heart into the commercial sector.
But I should still like a reply to a specific question that I raised, and that was with regard to the composition of the Committee for Commerce and Distribution.
At the moment this committee is made up entirely of entrepreneurs.
In his intervention, which left nothing unexplained, Mr Cassidy outlined what the difference is between small companies and large companies.
Large companies are themselves experts or have experts in every field in house and if they do not then they can afford to call on the best experts outside.
With small companies, the situation is not the same.
If now in the Committee for Commerce and Distribution the entrepreneurs wish to be present themselves and speak for themselves, that means that the small and medium-sized enterprises can articulate their interests in a far less expert way than is the case for the large entrepreneurs.
Therefore in that sector the demand is for representation via professionals and that means experts and so my request that account be taken of this and that consideration be given to reconstituting the Committee for Commerce and Distribution.
I should like to know the Commissioner's view on that point.
If he is not able to give it now, then I should also be pleased to receive a written reply, but I should nevertheless like to know what he thinks about it.
) Mr President, you have given me the opportunity to come back to the podium and give a clear answer to Mrs Thyssen, whom I would like to take this opportunity to thank for her special contribution in promoting the issues on commerce.
Addressing myself to you, Mrs Thyssen, I would like to tell you that the European Commission fully sympathizes with your views and indeed we are turning our attention even more to small businesses and to how they can take part in all the decision-making processes.
If you are referring to the composition of the Committee on Commerce and Distribution, I would like to tell you that in this case the participation of professional bodies is not envisaged.
What the European Commission, however, is looking to elaborate is a framework within which the representatives of small businesses will be able to express their opinions through the many processes that we are evolving, either in the Member States or at a European level.
In any event, however, you are completely right, it is very difficult, very small businesses do not have the experts, they do not have the possibility to turn to experts to gain access to what we call European involvement in the developments that are taking shape at a European level, nor even to the programmes that we ourselves are developing.
For this reason, therefore, we are endeavouring, by means of all the networks of information that we have either at a European level or at the level of the Member States, to diffuse the information that is required, and at the same time to ask for their views and opinions in a reciprocal relationship, which we have trying to develop over the last three years.
I have to tell you that so far results have been especially positive and whenever we have had the opportunity to talk with representatives of small businesses, either from national bodies or from European bodies, they have defended their demands and their positions in a very successful way, and in many cases have made the representatives of larger business more sensitive to their difficulties.
As far as the Committee on Commerce and Distribution is concerned, however, I would like to remind you that this is made up of representatives of Chambers of Commerce that have been recommended in the European Commission by the national Chambers of Commerce, or of representatives of the trade associations of the Member States.
And in this regard we must hold to certain principles, we must maintain certain frames of reference so that we may have credibility in the eyes of the Member States.
If the European Commission took it upon itself to select representatives of professional bodies from one Member State or another, then the European Commission and its decision, any decision, would be open to very strong criticism, intense criticism, both from Parliament and from the Member States.
In any event, however, I would like to finish by saying to you and by assuring you that our resolution is steadfast to strengthen very small businesses in any way we can, either through long term programmes for small and medium sized companies, or through special initiatives and special programmes that we are developing in concert with the Member States.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 10.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Posselt has the floor.
Mr President, on page 15 of the German version it says that in yesterday's Question Time I asked a question on the addition of certain categories of nature to nature protection.
My question was, however, on the eastward enlargement, the Czech Republic and the introduction of certain legal and human rights categories into the process of eastwards enlargement.
That is a pretty big difference.
I just wanted to draw attention to it.
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
We will make the appropriate correction.
Mr President, I should like to ask you whether it is correct that the Bureau has taken a decision to turn us into administrative offices instead of representatives of the people and henceforth to keep records of our mileage, train tickets, visits to the various facilities and the trips that we make.
In short, we are supposed to submit our whole body and soul to the administration.
Would you just bear in mind, Mr President, that we are here to represent our constituents and not to operate as administrative offices or keepers of long lists of our movements for the benefit of the administration.
May I point out to you that it is up to our constituents to judge us and not the body of members.
Thank you very much, Mr Habsburg.
I do not know if anybody said that, and I am not going to comment. What is clear in any case, however, is that the Bureau's decision does not mean that the administration wants to control anything.
The Bureau's decision simply involves supplying evidence of travel. This is not the first time we have had to supply proof of travel, as honourable Members are all aware.
Evidence is provided for all travel apart from the normal weekly journey, and nobody has ever considered that a threat to honourable Members' dignity, or an attempt by the administration to exercise control.
This is simply an agreement, which was not made today.
It was adopted in Luxembourg during the June meeting, and the Bureau has simply adopted the necessary measures to implement the Luxembourg agreement.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Yesterday in Oslo the international community approved an agreement to prohibit manufacture and storage of and trade in anti-personnel mines.
Every year weapons of this type kill or maim more than 25, 000 people, mostly civilians.
There are still more than a hundred million mines distributed throughout 70 countries.
On several different occasions our Parliament has passed resolutions in support of the result achieved yesterday in Oslo.
I should like to thank the Member States of our Union for the efforts they have made to achieve this result.
I should also like to acknowledge the United States' "constructive abstention' , in the hope that they may be able to revise their stance.
This result will not compensate for the suffering which these weapons have already caused.
We will have to continue to support the process of deactivating the mines.
But every time the international community achieves this sort of agreement, the world is a slightly better place.
Europe contributes to this process, and I am sure that is a source of satisfaction to us all.
Extradition between Member States
The next item is the report (A4-265/97) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Convention drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union relating to extradition between the Member States of the European Union (C4-0640/96).
The rapporteur, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Institutional Affairs is unanimous in presenting three essentially points to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
I am pleased to say that two of them have been taken into consideration.
The rapporteur has now distanced herself very vehemently from one of them, much to my regret.
The two points concern the powers of the European Court of Justice.
Firstly, an appeal to national parliaments to make their ratification dependent upon powers for the Court of Justice, and secondly, an urgent appeal to the Council not to leave examination of the powers of the Court of Justice for a year, but to do so immediately.
A third point concerns a defect which was not mentioned in Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's report on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, namely the absence of the minimum constitutional requirements for the operation of such extradition requests.
It may not be known to some, but it is an incredible fact, that the most primitive legal guarantees of civil rights provided in every criminal code - the right to a lawyer, a right to instruction on the law, trial dates - are not provided in these national extradition procedures. That means that citizens can be held for months without a trial date, and without an investigation of arrest, and there have been no attempts by the Council to reach an agreement.
I have the utmost regret that the rapporteur has distanced herself from this.
This Parliament has always been an advocate for two objectives: the intensification of cooperation in Europe, and the creation of a European democracy with basic and civil rights.
The way in which Parliament conducts itself in a disagreement is important, and such a disagreement between intensified cooperation - which we welcome - and civil rights is the case here.
The rapporteur has simply pointed out that a number of obstacles have been removed here.
That is one view of things, and obviously we welcome it when obstacles in the way of the extradition process between EU states are removed.
But it is important to keep a close watch lest these obstacles represent constitutional safeguards for the citizen. This not a matter of a few administrative obstacles.
It concerns, for example, the prohibition of extradition if the crime is not punishable in one's own country, prohibition of extradition of one's own citizens, or a prohibition of extradition to third countries, without reference to the first country.
All these so-called obstacles represent substantial civil rights.
I think it is right to question these obstacles as part of an intensification of European cooperation, but - and this 'but' is absolute - uniquely where legal safeguards and legal competency are being created at a European level.
We are facing a conflict which is very, very important.
I think that if we do not stop centralization in some areas, particularly concerning internal security, and demolishing national civil rights and democratic standards in the process, without recreating them simultaneously at European level, then we cause a deep conflict in this issue of European integration.
I appeal to you, therefore, to support this resolution - which is also supported in the main by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs - for minimum guarantees in extradition procedures.
My parliamentary group will not vote for this report, for the reasons given.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unlike the Green Group, we shall vote for the report by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, even though we share some of the reservations expressed by Mr Voggenhuber on behalf of his group.
I shall start, as so often with reports of this type, with a critique of the Council procedural methods, which have once again been completely symptomatic.
When we argue - there is a reference to this in the Palacio Vallelersundi report - that in the European Union there must in the long term be common constitutional development, parallel to economic and financial development, but at the start of this debate we once again discover that basic rules are ignored every time, then this procedural error by the Council shows how undemocratic the Council is, particularly concerning the third pillar of Maastricht. An example of basic rules being ignored is that the European Parliament is only consulted within the consultative procedure when matters are already on the move.
That may change with the Amsterdam Treaty, which lays down the requirement to consult the European Parliament.
As well as this undemocratic procedure, powers for the Court of Justice are also missing, as Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi has already mentioned.
This is not for the first time either.
We complain about it over and over again.
The mere fact that the European Court of Justice is not granted powers is itself a missing legal safeguard for the citizens concerned.
Not to incorporate legal guarantees still existing in national legislation, when elements of national legislation concerning internal security have been delegated to the European Union, only reinforces the permanent, unexpressed mistrust which is felt about the procedures of the European Union.
In my view these points have all been rightly made.
There are, however, some improvements which we, despite criticism, must also praise.
During the debate in our committee we came to a point, however, where we had to make our positions plain.
This concerned the question of political crime.
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi touched on it, and I shall not repeat it here, because it occupied our committee for weeks.
I want to say quite clearly on behalf of my group that if we are a Community of democratic constitutional states, and if each Member State only acknowledges in another that the constitution it practises and uses accords with basic democratic principles, then there can be no protection against political crimes within the European Union.
One of the most important contributions to this debate is that the Palacio Vallelersundi report makes that clear and records it.
Not only the rapporteur, but all who worked on the report, deserve our thanks for that.
Despite all doubts which we still have, we have arrived at the conclusion that we shall vote for the report, and that is a compliment to Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi for her hard work and also her readiness to accept our criticisms.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi on her excellent report.
Speaking on behalf of my group, I join her in welcoming the substantial progress contained in this convention.
In a common borderless market, improving legal cooperation in penal law is essential to step up the fight against organized crime and terrorism.
A Member State must not be allowed to act as a refuge for a criminal who can then avoid prosecution and sanctions brought by another Member State.
While the basic aim of the convention meets our expectations by revoking the principle of double jeopardy, by rejecting the deeming of criminal acts as political crimes, by including tax misdemeanours, and by accepting the extradition of its own nationals, I, like Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, can only regret the reservations expressed by certain states.
These might strip the convention of its substance and more especially could suggest a lack of mutual trust between states.
It is quite true that I do not completely share her analysis from a legal point of view, in particular when it comes to the conditions for consulting Parliament, as laid down in article 4.6. paragraph 2, although I fully concur with her on the need for such consultation.
In any case, the new article k.11, paragraph 1 of the Treaty of Amsterdam will relegate this semantic dispute to the archives.
I fervently hope that Member States ratify this convention as quickly as possible and that they seize the opportunity given to them to enforce it once ratified.
Of course, the thorny issue of the role of the Court of Justice still remains.
After the agreement signed during the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Council should be able to settle this issue quickly by drawing on the Amsterdam compromise, but the urgency of enforcing this convention for the Union must not be undermined on any grounds, not even by invoking the role of the Court of Justice.
The approval of paragraph 13 of the report, originating from the adoption of Mrs Roth's amendment, will be the cornerstone of my group's support for this report.
Mr President, I feel honoured by the presence of Commissioner Fischler, who knows a lot about agriculture.
But I do discreetly wonder where Commissioner Gradin is today.
I believe she was here this week. Maybe she is still coming.
Mr President, the new extradition convention is an improvement.
The extradition of criminals within the European Union takes too long, there is too much red tape and the procedure will now be quicker when this convention comes into force.
The fact that one's own nationals, that is to say, Dutchmen by the Dutch government and Belgians by the Belgian government, will be able to be extradited is in a certain sense also an important step forward.
The fact that terrorists will be extradited more easily, or rather with less difficulty, is a good thing and all in all this is a step on the way to the European legal area on which we are all working, at least the majority of this House.
The weakness of the convention has already been set out by the rapporteur, whom I wish to compliment on her work.
I am in agreement.
However, I also wish it to be said on behalf of the liberal group that the fact that the Court of Justice has no authority in this very area where we are dealing with criminal law and that type of case, is a serious shortcoming.
The Treaty of Amsterdam did do something about this, but it should still be improved afterwards.
Mr President, the European Parliament, it has already been said here several times, was not consulted.
In the draft resolution it states that we regret this fact.
I must say that we shall vote for it, but I consider it to be expressed rather weakly.
It is really not reasonable that we were not consulted.
The conclusion of the Group of the Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party is that, having weighed everything up, we shall vote for the draft resolution.
Mr President, the extradition convention between Member States of the European Union, with which we are concerned today, can represent a step forward in achieving that European legal and judicial area which, with the necessary transparency and democratic guarantees, should complete and extend the building of economic Europe, as has already been said here.
Nevertheless, a few comments are needed in reference to both the content and the adoption procedure.
Above all, we need to show our strong disapproval that the Council did not respect the stipulations of article VI of the European Union Treaty, and adopted the convention without informing the European Parliament or consulting it beforehand.
As concerns its content, we sympathize with the objective of improving judicial cooperation in the area of extradition.
But the fact that the Member States are permitted to express reservations about almost all the convention's innovations will mean that its worth will depend on whether the states formulate such reservations or not.
As regards extradition procedures to deal with terrorism we, like the speaker, regret that lack of clarity in the wording of the agreement, and lack of trust between Member States could mean that collaborating with or belonging to a terrorist group may not be covered by extradition. This would make no sense at all, in an area of freedom and democracy where there is no room for political crime.
In any case, it must be stressed that extradition must always be a matter for the legal and not the executive institutions. Handing over the responsibility for such decisions to governments would violate the individual's legal rights.
Finally, it is important to work towards an automatic extradition procedure within the framework of an area of freedom, security and law, in order to achieve a European legal and judicial continuum, which continues to respect basic rights and democratic control, and maintains the legal nature of the proceedings, without damaging people's rights to defence.
Mr President, first of all we should congratulate the rapporteur for the quality of her report, although some comments are called for.
Clearly, legal cooperation within the Union is improving but we do not have a single legal jurisdiction yet.
We are moving in this direction but are only making slight progress for the moment.
The key aim is to ensure that crimes do not go unpunished while at the same time protecting citizens from arbitrary application of the law.
In this respect, the concern of all of us, the concern that we all have partly in mind is political crime, or rather what has been described as such.
In Europe today, under existing legislation and legal institutions, only assassins, extortionists, kidnappers or those who have committed premeditated murder are really prosecuted, but here political inspiration must not be taken into account.
These are delinquents and criminals who are prosecuted as such.
Let us bear this in mind to improve our judiciary.
At all events, let us protect ourselves against crimes committed within the countries of the Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, the extradition convention between the Member States of the European Union before us, which was passed by the Council on 27 September last year, is essentially to be welcomed.
I think the previous speakers have made that clear.
Europe is experiencing ever closer union and increasing citizen mobility, but criminal mobility is also increasing, unfortunately.
The conditions of the previous extradition agreement have not, however, kept pace with these developments and are thus not efficient enough.
They must be improved.
We want a Europe where the citizens feel secure.
So we accept that the proposed extradition conditions are to be welcomed.
But like Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi - whom I congratulate on her wellresearched report - I too must protest most strongly about the behaviour of the Council.
The Council did not consider it necessary to involve Parliament at once and comprehensively in the preparation of the convention - as laid down in the treaty.
For this reason we must consider whether we want to continue to present our demands regarding third pillar agreements only in retrospect, or whether we should not debate how we as a Parliament should conduct ourselves with regard to the Council in order to utilize still better those few rights we still have.
On the content I would briefly like to say that the many reservations the Member States have expressed are particularly unsuitable for genuine construction of a Europe of mutual trust.
Here too I am of one mind with Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi and many other colleagues.
We also agree about the urgent need for a solution to the problem of the European Court of Justice's powers under this convention, which must be tested now.
After all Union citizens must have the opportunity to turn to the European Court of Justice on legal matters with a European dimension.
Furthermore, it is important to me that the duration of the extradition procedure should be limited and a set deadline should be introduced.
A short duration is preferable for humanitarian reasons and because of the basic law of consideration for human rights.
A clear procedure gives the person concerned the necessary legal security.
Legal security is also the point when we talk about the relationships between extradition and asylum law in the European Union.
Not without reason the Council found it necessary to add a suitable explanation to the convention.
In the Amsterdam Treaty Member States are declared to be safe countries of origin.
It seems to me to be to the point that the joint statements about asylum law in the annex to the convention should now be amended to meet these new conditions.
I now come to my last point on content, which is equally important to me, and I thank you in advance for listening to me.
As the Council recognizes in the preamble, an agreement about extradition can only be applied between states that have committed themselves to the principles of democratic constitutional states and the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Basic Freedoms.
I am quite sure that no state can be expected to make an extradition to another Member State which has either annulled parts of this convention for itself by using article 15 of the EMRR, or where human rights violations are known to occur in police custody or in prison.
I must unfortunately point this out, for many human rights organizations continue to draw attention to it and we regularly condemn it in our annual reports on violations of human rights within the Union.
Mr President, the issue that we are debating today is fundamental to all who realise that, in order to consolidate its position and to be able to fulfil its historic mission in the international arena, the European Union must be a place of freedom, security and justice.
The introduction of an effective convention on extradition will not only provide a solution for existing legal problems, it will contribute to effective procedural collaboration and lead finally to the integration of criminal law, which is one of the preconditions for real union with the obligatory, self-evident but unfortunately undebated move towards federalism.
Since, of course, if this federal structure existed, if internal borders had really been abolished, there would be no reason to regulate the extradition of illegal immigrants between Member States.
There would be an automatic mechanism for the handing over of illegal immigrants to the competent authority on the basis of jurisdictional rules and regulations.
Unfortunately, with the almost exclusive emphasis given to the economic aspects of our progress toward integration, these basic objectives of unification are considered to be remote and of secondary importance.
The detailed and dispassionate report by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi points out the efforts that must realistically be made in the mid-term.
It is necessary to stress the need not to underestimate the role of the European Parliament, which is a guarantor of liberties, of the European Court of Justice and finally of the Member States, which must not abuse the reservations contained in the convention nor refer its implementation to the Greek Calends, that is, postpone it indefinitely.
Mr President, I too would like to add my voice to the congratulations to Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, who has done excellent work. I also join in the chorus of vigorous protest against the fact that Parliament has been by-passed yet again, and as usual our position has been ignored and matters have gone ahead with no consideration of the opinions of the people's elected representatives.
The extradition issue is especially interesting because it is at the centre of the whole question of the authority and sovereignty of Member States, and is thus part of the general ambiguity currently affecting the European institutions.
There is a clear and absolute need to make progress with cooperation on justice issues - we all agree about that - in a very delicate sector which represents the very core of the criminal law in Member States.
As organized crime gains ground, obviously now transcending national borders, cooperation in fighting it must become increasingly close.
But I also want to urge prudence about over-simplistic abolition of guarantee procedures on the grounds that they are muddled, given that we do not yet have a real and actual European legal area.
As everyone knows, I am in favour of the European legal area, but I also believe that, without a fundamental charter of individual rights, extradition is of course one of the guarantees for individuals.
Because of this I also believe that the central issue of the powers of the Court of Justice cannot be undervalued.
Without clarification of the powers of the Court of Justice it is very difficult at the moment to deny that there is a possibility of undermining guarantees of individual freedom.
Mr President, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left is not united on this question.
Several Members and myself are going to vote against this report.
We will do so primarily for two reasons: partly because we think that the report is far too weak with regard to legal certainty and rules concerning legal certainty on extradition, and partly because we believe that questions of criminal law are national questions and agreements about questions of criminal law should be intergovernmental.
That is our view. This report also supports the restrictions on the right of asylum which are proposed in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We are also opposed to that.
There was a case in Sweden a few years ago which attracted a lot of attention when France requested the extradition of an Algerian citizen to France.
The Swedish authorities refused to do so because it could not be proven that he had committed a crime.
It later transpired that he was innocent and had an alibi for this crime.
I believe that it is right that a country's judicial authority should be able to decide for itself whether a person should be extradited in such a case.
Mr President, I think we are all aware that we are involved in a difficult and innovative operation, constructing a basic element of European citizenship represented by the legal and judiciary area.
My colleagues have already mentioned the essential reasons, which are obvious to all the citizens, 80 % of whom state security as their number one concern.
I think it should be recorded that the Council is being very active at the moment and a step forward has also been taken in the Treaty of Amsterdam, if you like.
But this activity, which involves not only this convention but others which we will be debating over the next few months, and that treaty, exist within the contradiction, already mentioned here, of progress towards cooperation, but slow, very slow, establishment of a guarantee system, especially the Court of Justice and the European Parliament.
Now I think the serious position to take on the issue is to judge each measure on its merits.
Well, in this case, I think it is important to approve Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's report - and I must say it is excellent, even at the legal level - but that does not mean we should not argue our position against the Council. First because it deals with improving the existing procedures of a historic institution, which has too often been used to escape justice.
Secondly, because experience tells us that the most recurrent cases are terrorism cases - at least in my country, but not just there - and I support Mr Pradier's speech on that subject and on economic crime.
Too often those with plenty of money, and especially the perpetrators of economic crimes, very easily succeed in influencing the country of extradition.
Thirdly, because I too am intensely concerned about the guarantee issue and I think we should all be, because it affects everyone, I want to mention an innovation in the Treaty of Amsterdam: article F calls for the sanctions against Member States which violate human rights.
I believe we need to reconcile these points, and have the courage, not to stop an important train in its tracks, but to intervene to prevent a derailment.
Mr President, I sincerely believe that this extradition convention is a valid instrument to achieve something which this Parliament has long called for and sought to achieve; to make an area of freedom - freedom of movement - in Europe compatible with the security and protection of its people.
It is very difficult for people who have suffered violence at the hands of terrorists or other criminals to understand how these offenders can be allowed to take advantage of loopholes and find refuge within the European Union simply because of suspicion between states which are theoretically moving towards a high degree of political union.
We are well aware of this in my country, which is why we have wanted this convention for a long time.
Therefore, I am pleased that it now exists, and I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on her report.
Now we just have to wait for the agreement to be ratified by the Member States, by means of that complex procedure for which the third pillar is designed, and hope that they obey it in letter and in spirit, and that it will improve the extradition procedure, which is what we all hope.
It only remains for me to say, as so many colleagues have done, that I hope in the future, as well as congratulating ourselves on the content and wording of one of this Parliament's reports, we may also go away satisfied and congratulate ourselves that it is truly functional and useful.
Thank you very much, Mrs Terrón.
Commissioner Fischler has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I too would like to congratulate Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi on her report, and thank her sincerely for her work on the committees.
The European extradition convention signed on 26 September 1996 contains a range of clearly defined basic articles, which include conspiracy to commit a crime, political crimes and the extradition of one's own citizens.
From these articles it is clear that the Member States are determined to proceed jointly against organized crime and terrorism.
At the same time the convention expresses the confidence that all Member States honour and utilize human rights within their penal systems.
As you know, human rights are laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty in a form that can be recognized as expressing their quasi-constitutional status for the Union.
Although the extradition agreement allows of exemptions, the grounds for these are certainly not lack of mutual trust.
Rather, the relevant decisions recognize the sensitivity of certain questions concerning the constitutional laws of individual Member States and allow them time to adapt themselves to new conditions arising from the creation of a common area of freedom and law.
That notwithstanding, the Commission regrets as much as does Parliament that the views of Parliament were not obtained before the acceptance of this important instrument.
It would be nice if a Council representative were to express that regret here.
Views and intentions are formulated in the resolution on the agenda, for which I have great sympathy.
For example, I too would like only very limited use be made of the exemptions provided.
I would like to go into one particular point in more detail.
I fear that the call on individual state parliaments to ratify the convention only after the role of the European Court of Law has been clarified, could have very detrimental effects.
It would withhold from Member States a very useful additional means of combatting organized crime, without automatically demanding a rapid and satisfactory solution.
I also see in this respect a certain contradiction in points 7 and 13 of the resolution.
I wonder whether it would not be more sensible to examine the powers of the European Court of Justice at the time the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force, as it expressly includes the right of the Court of Justice to interpret instruments introduced within the new convention.
Perhaps this would be the appropriate time to examine whether the current instruments, which do not provide for powers for the Court of Justice, should not be included in the future regulations.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
Fourth annual report of the SME Observatory
The next item is the report (A4-0245/97) by Mr Torres Couto, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the fourth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs (1996) (C4-0292/97).
Mr Torres Couto, the rapporteur, now has the floor for five minutes.
Mr President, 16.5 million small and medium-sized enterprises with 110 million workers in the European Union: these figures highlight the economic and social importance of this segment of European business.
The fourth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs provides an extensive and valuable overview of SMEs and the craft sector in all the Member States of the Union.
A major objective of the report, which has been produced by the European Network for SME Research, is to provide an information basis for decision-making in relation to the SMEs, including the craft sector.
As in the 1995 report, the main part of the 1996 report concerns the measuring of the effect of the completion of the internal market on small and medium-sized firms.
Given the importance of SMEs as backbone of the European economy, as rapporteur, I welcome the report and appreciate the work put into it.
The 1996 report includes two in-depth thematic studies on "women and SMEs' and "cooperatives, mutuals and non-profit organizations' .
In the European Union of the twelve, in 1993, 20 to 30 % of all the enterprises were managed by women and 25 to 30 % of all new enterprises were started by women, with assisting spouses playing an important role.
At the present time it is estimated that 60 to 80 per cent of assisting spouses work in the small and medium-sized business sector.
Although these figures clearly demonstrate the importance of this subject, it has been largely neglected so far.
Businesswomen are frequently faced with great difficulties, for example, in terms of financing.
Women are discriminated against in access to credit.
Consequently urgent action is needed to remedy this situation.
For assisting spouses the main problems lie in the fields of social protection, legal status and matrimonial, tax and company law.
Adequate social security provisions must be introduced and the areas of law I have just mentioned need to be reformed.
As far as cooperatives, mutuals, associations and foundations are concerned, they account for at least 6.5 % of the number of private enterprises, and thus represent a factor in the European economy which is not negligible.
Unfortunately, little information exists.
The European Cooperatives Statute needs to be urgently approved because it can provide valuable assistance in resolving this situation.
The subject of transfer of enterprises, which is analysed in detail, merits special attention, taking into account the fact that 1.5 million small and medium-sized European firms risk closure and some 6.5 million jobs are in danger if the transfer issue continues to be neglected.
The observatory lists the four most important obstacles to transfer: the valuation of the enterprise, financing the takeover, legal disposals and emotional aspects.
In particular, the high level of inheritance and gift taxes is an important factor inhibiting business transfer in several European countries, so the possibility of reducing or eliminating these taxes should be taken into consideration.
While the fourth annual report provides a thorough analysis of the matter, as rapporteur, I feel the possibilities offered by the transfer of enterprises to their employees has not been sufficiently considered.
Other important aspects are financing and training, which are also dealt with in the fourth annual report.
As regards financing, the positive experience of financial insurance provided by the mutual guarantee schemes and loan guarantee schemes in the United States show that these instruments can and should be used on a larger scale in Europe, to tackle the grave financing problems facing small and medium-sized firms.
As far as training is concerned both initial training and continuous training need to be improved, one important step being the harmonization of apprenticeships within in the European Union.
The fiscal environment also plays an important role in the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The current companies tax system in many Member States still holds back many small businesses with potential for growth by favouring the investment of profits outside rather than inside the company.
A reduction in companies tax on retained profits of small businesses is thus recommended as an effective measure for sustaining and increasing employment.
Mr President, the fourth report thus analyzes a large number of areas which are very important to the performance of SMEs.
And we need to remember that, without them, the economy and employment in Europe could be profoundly and severely disturbed.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Torres Couto on his text on the fourth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs. SMEs are all the more important after the Amsterdam Council and Gordon Brown's jobs initiative emphasizing the primacy of SMEs was included in the final text.
Mr Torres Couto identifies certain problem areas such as the transfer of enterprises, where 1.5 million SMEs are at risk. An earlier Commission communiqué told us that some 30, 000 firms go under each year because of this problem, which translates into something like 300, 000 jobs.
Often the problems are administrative or legal in nature on the death or retirement of an entrepreneur.
This problem will intensify as the single market itself intensifies.
A second problem area is financing SMEs. The EU's existence helps exchange of best practice.
Reference is made, in particular, to mutual guarantee schemes.
These are almost unknown in the UK, though prevalent on the Continent.
But I am happy to say that there is a launch this autumn, in London, under the auspices of the small businesses minister, Barbara Roche, of the first UK mutual guarantee schemes, piloted by my colleague, Mr Nigel Bottomley.
These schemes have a high degree of mutuality attached to them.
It is therefore disappointing, as is pointed out by the rapporteur, that the European cooperative statutes have not been established and has the multiannual programme, which was scheduled for 1994/1996.
Another positive move supported by the rapporteur is the reduction of corporation tax on retained profits, thereby encouraging SMEs to invest in growth.
This is another short cut to fast and sustainable job creation.
In this respect I welcome the fact that the British Chancellor, Gordon Brown is slashing corporation tax for small businesses in the first Labour budget for two decades.
This is more than the decayed Tories did for small firms throughout the whole period of their sleazy tenancy.
The fourth Observatory Report produces a highly valuable and in-depth analysis of women and small businesses.
This, in my view, is the great pool of untapped talent.
I speak as a son and a brother of three women in my family who have successfully run or participated in the running of small businesses.
The truth of the matter, however, is that too many obstacles are put in the way of women taking the plunge into the pool of talent.
Recently in my Chester office I listened to a constituent of mine recall the sexism she had encountered in both the UK and Holland in trying to expand her business of producing effective literature for SMEs trading across borders. A good business idea was being stymied for non-business reasons.
Europe is the poorer for it.
Another constituent woman entrepreneur warns me about the application of good and praiseworthy European legislation, e.g. the pregnant women workers' directive.
My constituent runs a small business which happens to contain all women employees.
She fears that her small business could be imperilled by a series of pregnancies and the loss of key workers.
A large business would not suffer in the same disproportionate way under similar circumstances.
The solution is not to tamper in any way with the rights of workers in small businesses.
Indeed, I would argue that in these circumstances we need to differentially favour small businesses and their workers through the tax system, especially to avoid penalizing women workers.
Beyond the Torres Couto report, we need to become more active in promoting SMEs in their biggest arena, the single European market, a market too closely made and shaped by the image of big business.
I support the Torres Couto report.
It has many good things to say.
We need to look forward to helping small business to provide jobs for the future.
Mr President, the European Observatory for SMEs has the task of providing the European Commission and other institutions each year with fundamental qualitative and quantitative data on SMEs.
In the last four years it has managed to perform this task more than adequately.
The annual report of the Observatory has in the meantime become a recognized reference document in scientific and economic circles.
Furthermore, the participants in the Observatory have succeeded among themselves in forming a smoothly-functioning network of scientific institutions that possess special knowledge about SMEs.
For the SME world, that means added value that is not to be underestimated.
The report that we are discussing this morning was unanimously approved in the Committee on Economic Affairs and it goes without saying that we wall also support it in this House.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur on behalf of my group on his work.
In addition to the general part, the Observatory has also paid specific attention to cooperatives and to women.
These two groups are very prominent and are rightly given special attention.
The potential of each of them is often underestimated and therefore up to now they have received too little positive attention.
Let us hope that the information collected in the report will contribute to changing that situation.
In many Member States a lot of work still needs to be done to give female entrepreneurs more opportunities and certainly in order to let wives work with their husbands under a proper legal status.
The cooperatives must also have sufficient room to breathe.
In my view, certainly in the northern part of Europe, they still have an image that is too ideologically loaded.
That must go, as in traditional business they can also be an effective legal structure.
Moreover, I would ask the Commission when we can expect specific progress with regard to the European Cooperatives Statute and when and whether work is being undertaken on a European private limited liability company, because these things are also needed.
Mr President, the approach of the Observatory, with its dual structure, is greatly appreciated in our group.
I would argue that in the future the frequency of the publications should be maintained, particularly with regard to the general part with relevant figures and basic data.
But the studies that are included in the more specific part must also continue to be carried out on a regular basis.
They provide more in-depth information about a certain sector or a certain aspect of the SME and there is all the more need for them because the world of the SME is not homogeneous and from the scientific point of view is still virgin territory.
I also hope, and I will close here Mr President, that the Commission will continue to support this useful initiative and I would have liked to know from the Commission what the specific future plans for the Observatory are.
As far as we are concerned, we would request that it be continued.
Mr President, it is not very easy to make an appointment with my plumber.
He is a busy man, a very busy man, he has a family firm, he works hard and makes a good living.
But, he fails when it comes to his limited feeling of responsibility towards staff from outside his family business.
He has tried many times and he therefore now keeps things strictly within the family circle.
My chimney sweep - yes, they still exist - is a jolly whistling fifty year old entrepreneur, he enjoys his work and the human contacts and is absolutely not prepared to take on the administrative and social rigmarole involved in having any employees.
Plumbers and chimney sweeps are stable undertakings but they do not create more jobs.
I encountered the opposite entrepreneur's view of those who do wish to expand during the European election campaign in 1994, in the form of female entrepreneurs who were not able to expand because the bank considered them to be a financial risk.
The good thing about an annual report is that it can highlight a number of bottlenecks: the financial discrimination, a number of fiscal aspects and the legal status.
This is very worthwhile, because Europe must do things properly with regard to employment in this sector.
The important role of women here is again confirmed by the report. For me that is not really surprising as women always have responsibility and want to and dare to take it.
More harmonization with regard to apprenticeships within the EU is not a bad thing, but I do not see it as an absolute necessity, any more than the multi-annual work programme in respect of cooperatives.
It seems a bit centralistic to me.
That does not remove the fact that the other recommendations by Mr Torres Couto for the improvement of small and medium-sized undertakings remain and deserve attention at the forthcoming summit on employment and the continuation of the Observatory is very important.
My group is voting in favour of this report.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to congratulate Mr Torres Couto on his report.
We can endorse all his conclusions.
In my speech, I should like to place the emphasis on three of them.
First of all, the status and social protection of assisting spouses.
I am pleased that the fourth annual report devotes a full study to women and small and medium-sized enterprises.
Just as on Tuesday with the vote on the annual report on equal opportunities, today with this report we are pressing for a reform of the legislation on marriage and taxation and the creation of adequate social security regulations in order to offer the assisting spouse better social protection.
It is gradually becoming time for the national governments to pay this subject the attention it deserves.
Secondly, the financing of the SMEs.
The Elise programme was a good project in terms of providing great leverage.
Now we know that the Austrian, Dutch and German governments are blocking a decision on this loan guarantee regulation.
They think that this regulation does not comply with the subsidiarity principle and that their own guarantee regulations are subject to illegal competition.
The rapporteur rightly states that we regret this blocking.
Ladies and gentlemen, with a view to the impending summit on employment, let us put our full weight behind other new programmes for the SMEs.
The European Commission will shortly come up with a new proposal: the joint European venture.
From the annual report of the Observatory, it appears that the Europeanization of the SME forms a problem.
That's why the Union should be able to help SMEs financially by forming cross-border joint ventures.
This is a project that we as a Parliament must support.
Finally, and this has been stressed on many occasions in the House, I wish to argue in favour of European legal formalities that simplify cooperation between SMEs at European level.
An agreement on the European company statute is essential if we wish to see more SMEs reach their full potential in Europe.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, from all the evidence, attention is being paid to small and medium-sized enterprises.
The great question is whether this attention and interest is genuine or just circumstantial and instrumental to mitigate the real destruction working against a relatively balanced network of economic agents so that public opinion recognizes that some effort is being made to counteract a predatory dynamic.
The report by Mr Torres Couto, whom I congratulate, is positive in its approach, and I want to mention the way it highlights cooperatives and emphasizes the role of women in the survival and revitalization of SMEs.
However, the report skirts around certain fundamental issues like financing, access to credit and the difficulties and discrimination suffered by SMEs in this area, covered by point 15.
It is true that it is not a report dealing with all the problems of SMEs, only with the fourth annual report of the European Observatory, but I think it could have gone much further, even given its modest objective, and dealt in greater depth with the financing question.
Especially as, ostensibly, SMEs and their financing by the EIB is supposed to be one of the new issues being prepared for the extraordinary summit in Luxembourg, with the clear intention of talking about something apparently new.
Which is very different from doing something new!
Finally, returning to the attention SMEs deserve, the Industry Round Table where the great directors of vast businesses and multinational groups get together, published a study last July on the establishment of concrete partnerships between large and small companies, setting out five rules of good conduct. This is just like a fox which has already got into the chicken coop getting a good conduct certificate based on rules it has made up itself!
I would like to thank the rapporteur and the speakers and identify with what they have said about the importance of this area.
Here we have the potential for job creation.
We know that the disgrace of the EU are the job queues where millions have no hope.
I would like to stress the importance of the very small enterprises of under 10, which is what I am used to in my type of area - the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
Let us beg our governments to stop blocking ELISE.
That was a practical measure that enabled very small enterprises to get access to finance.
What we need here are practical measures instead of lip service, for people to be able to start enterprises.
It is wonderful that so many women want to do that in the area of very small firms.
I agree with what Mr Lyndon Harrison also said about the need for differential tax arrangements.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate our colleague Mr Torres Couto on his report. He calls for attention to be paid to problems faced by SMEs.
The first problem is the lack of management capacity.
A practical example that aims to make up for this gap is the Live Wire Project that has been set up by the Rotterdam Chamber of Commerce specially for people starting up in business, in which banks, lawyers and business experts provide a wide range of training and advice.
Another problem is the transfer of businesses.
The closing down of a business causes the undesirable destruction of capital, knowledge and jobs.
Only the taxman does well out of it.
Member States can promote the transfer of undertakings - and thereby safeguard jobs - by adapting their tax legislation.
Finally, I have a question for the Commissioner: is it possible for the Observatory to deal in a future annual report with the subject of the environment? At the informal Environment Council in Amsterdam on 18 April last, it was concluded that the SME, apart from being a driving force behind jobs, is also an important cause of environmental pollution.
I am curious to know the answer.
Mr President, the fourth annual report of the European Observatory for small and mediumsized enterprises is an important subject of debate, providing a snapshot of the position in crafts and small and medium-sized firms and appropriate measures for effective development which can contribute to the creation of jobs.
It certainly has not come too soon and seems to constitute a step forward on some very important issues, for example, social security and the legal position of spouses who own the same company.
We also agree with the rapporteur in identifying the high rates of inheritance and gift tax applied in the majority of Member States as a brake on property transfer, and deprecating the inadequate consideration of the possibility of transferring property to employees.
We also congratulate the rapporteur on his remarks about reducing taxes on capital reinvested, a principle the Alleanza Nazionale sought to promote in government, and we are also convinced that reducing the burden of tax and encouraging partnership between SMEs and large-scale industry would surely have beneficial effects on both the level of employment and the creation of new jobs.
Mr President, Mrs Thyssen has already illustrated the reasons why the Group of the European People's Party fully supports Mr Torres Couto's report and she has also stressed some important issues contained in the annual report of the European Observatory for small and medium-sized enterprises.
I think the importance of small and medium-sized and craft businesses in the European economy and in European society is now unanimously recognized so it is unnecessary to expand further on that issue.
I shall confine myself to discussing a few points that I consider important.
The first is that what small and medium-sized and craft enterprises primarily need is not so much incentives of the traditional kind, as a favourable context for their establishment and development.
And I refer in particular to the urgent need - frequently confirmed in this House - for intervention on work-related bureaucracy, regulation and taxation, which represent a brake which threatens to suffocate much of the potential of this sector.
To go further, I believe, as also emerged in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, that a great deal of thought should be given to the subject of training and, in particular, encouraging link-ups and cooperation between the various management colleges in the Member States in terms of the initiatives they are pursuing.
Finally, we would like to support what other Members have already said. The subject of small and medium-sized and craft enterprises should be the focus of the Employment Summit on 21 and 22 November.
Only small and medium-sized firms can realistically make a contribution to improving employment levels in Europe and it would make a mockery of the summit to concentrate on other sectors and overlook this one.
Mr President, the fourth annual report and the report by Mr Torres Couto provide a good information base and numerous pointers for the necessary political decisions and measures.
The fact that female business people, in the financial services for example, often encounter difficulties is a great handicap for the operation of a business, especially for the whole small business structure.
The problems of assisting spouses for social security, legal security, tax law and company law need urgent solution.
Small businesses are often family firms.
Legislators should have regard for their continuance and their important role in job security.
This particularly applies to the inheritance of businesses where death duties and gift tax can endanger the competitiveness of the whole European economy.
I think point 18 of the report is particularly important, where it indicates reduction of corporation tax on undistributed profits as an instrument for increased employment.
Capital accumulation and innovation could be greatly increased by this measure.
The state could motivate the entrepreneur to internal investment oriented towards growth and innovation, and thus improve Europe as an economic centre.
Mr President, speaking as a blacksmith who himself comes from a family business I particularly welcome this report.
It shows that new public management is operating here and that with objective processes like benchmarking and best practice opportunities are being sought to improve the situation in many small European family businesses.
There is a trend towards the strengthening of many small businesses in Europe.
When one sees that in 1992 there was an average of seven employees per business, and in 1995 it was six, then one can understand that the small firms are actually the main pillar of the economy and also offer employment security: they do not work a hire and fire policy during economic swings, but prefer one of partnership because they are all known to one another.
It is important, therefore, that training and career improvement are supported, and it is quite impossible to understand how, when that is being discussed, Leonardo funds should be considered for cuts, to give just one example.
Quite the contrary, I shall demand at the Employment Summit in Luxembourg a marked increase in Leonardo funding, because this is exactly what gives currently unemployed young people the means of getting jobs.
I also demand that exporting partnerships should be supported, and finally that cooperation with industry should be improved, as industrial export is the basis for many small family businesses worldwide.
Age transition is also a gigantic problem.
One third of entrepreneurs in these small firms is over 50, which corresponds to about 6.3 million work places in Europe.
I support the ending of inheritance and gift taxes in particular, when a business is handed on within the family. Also of course, that undistributed profits in the business should not be taxed.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, small businesses play a vital role in the creation of prosperity in Europe.
It is only now that their full role is beginning to be recognized.
However, it is not support in the form of more measures and programmes which is needed, but rather the removal of obstacles.
The report and Mr Torres Couto's excellent speech highlight, among other things, the brake which high taxes on enterprise represent, not least for transfers.
It is also apparent that it is the smallest companies which are hit hardest and are hindered by excessive regulation.
We need a change in attitudes.
More enterprise and initiative would give Europe the adaptability and variety we need to be able to benefit from the global economy.
It is the small businessmen, and not more politicians in employment meetings, who are the heroes the EU needs to get to grips with unemployment.
And so I would like to say to Mr Harrison, who was unfortunately forced to rush away from the debate, with all due respect to Gordon Brown and all his initiatives, it was under a Tory government that the UK was the only country in the EU able to show a real upturn in enterprise and new jobs.
I think that deserves both our attention and reflection.
Let us therefore create the conditions and demolish the obstacles for the EU to be able to become an enterprise union for freedom, prosperity and belief in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes the contribution by Mr Torres Couto to the Fourth Annual Report of the European Observer Network for Small and Medium-sized Businesses.
As with former reports, this one offers a good overview of the current situation of and outlook for small and medium-sized businesses, and examines their performance on the internal market.
The report comes to the conclusion that completion of the internal market has so far had positive results on economic growth in Europe, whereby there has been strong growth in output in particular, and considerable increase in productivity.
The report also emphasises that those businesses which have most profited from the internal market are mainly small and medium-sized ones, and this type of concern demonstrates the greatest potential for jobs dependent on growth.
The Commission takes the view that the report by Mr Torres Couto raises numerous important questions, only three of which I should like to mention here.
Firstly, the importance of women to small and medium-sized businesses, and the need for measures to encourage female entrepreneurs and assisting spouses.
At the summits in Essen and Madrid the important role played by women in the development of small and medium-sized businesses, the creation of new jobs and the competitiveness of the European economy were confirmed.
The success of these hung to a large extent on whether or not women were receiving optimal encouragement.
The third multi-year programme for small and medium-sixed enterprises in 1997-2000 provides concrete political measures for the equality of female entrepreneurs and joint entrepreneurs.
Secondly, the contribution of social economy businesses - cooperatives, mutual societies, associations and foundations - to growth and employment.
For the first time the Observatory's network of small and medium-sized businesses has given this group priority consideration, because they contribute 5 % to employment and constitute 6 % of private businesses.
The increasingly important role of the social economy in the European Union is clear from the most recent Commission communication, which aims at making the role of associations and foundations in Europe better known.
The results of a detailed examination by the Commission are contained in this document, which is intended to make the sector better known.
In addition, the document proposes a range of measures that could be implemented at Member State level.
And thirdly, the importance of encouraging entrepreneurial spirit as an important element for the existence and growth of small and medium-sized businesses. The Commission realises that the construction of a dynamic business culture is of very special importance to the creation of jobs and strengthening of competitiveness in Europe.
Concerning the question raised here on the future of reporting, may I point out that the next Observatory report is due at the end of this year and that invitations for the 1998/99 report will also fall due this year
Concerning the main theme for the next report - this time it was the role of women in small and medium-sized businesses - it is correct that it is to be the environment.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today, at 12.00 noon.
Beef and veal
The next item is the report (A4-0260/97) by Mrs Hardstaff, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on measures to promote and market quality beef and veal and on publicity measures on the labelling of beef and veal and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 2067/92 (COM(97)0070 - C4-0193/97-97/0058(CNS)).
Mrs Hardstaff, the rapporteur, now has the floor for five minutes.
Mr President, I think at least one representative from each political group should speak after we have heard the Commissioner, and I would ask you to check whether there is time to comply with this request.
The Agenda sets out the reports indicated to be debated from 10.00 a.m. to 12.00 noon and from 6.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m., with voting at 12.00 noon.
The rapporteur, Mrs Hardstaff, has the floor.
Mr President, the background to this report, recommending a marketing and promotion campaign for European beef and veal, is of course the steep decline in the consumption of beef and veal since BSE emerged over 10 years ago.
This decline became catastrophic for Europe's beef farmers and all involved in the beef industry following the March 1996 announcement that a link between BSE in cattle and CJD in human beings could not be ruled out.
This arose, as tragically, a small number of younger people had contracted CJD - normally a disease of old age.
Many measures have been taken, both in the UK and at EU level to address this problem, not least the continuing export ban on British beef, hopefully soon to be relaxed as a result of the many measures taken and much stricter enforcement of feeding and hygiene regulations.
Parliament agreed some months ago on measures for the identification of herds and a meat-labelling scheme, drawing on the information on the cattle database now being established, where it does not already exist.
In addition, the new British Government has called on all EU Members to implement the regulations now in force in the UK for the removal of specified bovine offals.
Nevertheless, the beef market remains very depressed and large sums of public money from the agriculture budget are being spent on taking good-quality beef and veal into intervention storage.
If more beef and veal is consumed within the EU and more exported to third countries, a great deal of public money can be saved in the long term and the European beef market will again be able to achieve some kind of equilibrium between supply and demand.
This is why the Commission brought forward proposals for a marketing campaign and requested speedy consultation with the European Parliament, so that they can be implemented as soon as possible.
In my report I suggest that the definition of quality beef should be widened from its previous, very restricted definition of a limited number of cuts and carcase types.
Quality should include all beef carcase types, including cheaper cuts, providing that they can fulfil the criteria of food safety using the labelling system to which I have already referred.
I also propose that national organizations with expertise and knowledge of local market conditions should be used to carry out the promotion.
This was widened in the Committee on Agriculture to include equivalent regional organizations also.
Amendments from the Committee on the Environment strengthened the consumer aspects of this campaign, stressing that good consumer information should be at its core.
I should like to thank colleagues from both committees for their helpful amendments.
If we are to persuade Europe's consumers to eat more beef and veal and to sell more beef outside the EU, we must ensure that sales are increased, not because of clever marketing, but because purchasers have wellfounded confidence in the quality of the product.
They must be reassured that all the necessary measures really are in place to ensure that they are buying good wholesome food.
The proposed labelling and European logo for quality beef must be a cast-iron guarantee that this is the case and that lessons really have been learned from the recent crisis.
This is something on which this House can unite today in passing on its opinion to the Commission and to the Council.
Mr President, on this occasion the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has recommended that the legal basis of article 43 alone should be contested, and that there should be a proposal that the legal basis of draft b) of the first paragraph of article 129a should be added to the basis of article 43, on an equal footing.
The reason is that draft b) of the first paragraph of article 129a establishes the measures - the concrete actions - designed for the protection of consumers to which the rapporteur has referred.
It is absolutely true, Mr President, that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and this House are both aware that traditionally the appropriate legal basis for any regulation or action in the agriculture area is article 43, to the exclusion of all others.
And that the jurisprudence of the Court has regularly established that the reason for this is not just that article 43 represents a lex specialis as regards any other legal basis which could be employed, but also because in article 43 - with recourse only to article 43, also in agreement with the Court's jurisprudence - all the other legal interests are taken into account, such as the protection of health or consumers.
There was a well known sentence about the conditions concerning egg-laying hens, in 1988.
That is one of the key questions.
Nevertheless, Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights thinks that, for the second time, the traditional approach to this legal basis should be changed.
This opinion was arrived at singlemindedly, taking into account the events of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis and the measures taken since it started, and the report which this House approved.
It was clearly established in that report that it was possible to have recourse to article 100a, especially in matters of harmonization and that, above all, there should be consultation, participation and fuller democratic control on the part of this Assembly.
I should remind you that that criterion has been respected by the Commission, represented at the time by its President, Mr Santer, and subsequently in concrete actions such as the two rulings recently sent to this House.
In this case, Mr President, once again we call not for article 100a, because this is not a question of harmonization, but for article 129A.
The reason is simply that since this crisis started, there has been a re-shuffle in the hierarchy of legal interests which require protection. Now it is not agriculture and agricultural interests which should have priority.
Currently, until consumers' confidence is re-established, the interest which deserves priority is consumer protection.
Therefore, by strictly applying the criteria established by the Court of Justice in its interpretation of the appropriate legal bases, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights believes that it should be clearly established that those are the prevailing interests, with the addition of the legal basis. I hope that Parliament agrees with us, as we believe we have the support of the Commission.
Mr President, there is one thing I cannot understand.
The chairman requested a detailed discussion and then we learn that Commissioner Fischler will no longer be present this evening after 6.00 p.m.
I really do not know what this alteration to the agenda is about.
We will be talking to the birds, our arguments will not heard and we shall receive no replies.
For this reason I really must ask for a little more flexibility, because I have the following questions: is the Commission really prepared to undertake a tightening of the registration code regulations; and are there any new proposals, Mr Commissioner, over and above what was agreed in Council? The discussion about whether we should rearrange the agenda will last longer than if we extend it.
I will only accept points of order.
I am not going to deal with the question, because this is not the time for questions.
I have already said that the Agenda specifies that the debate starts at 10.00 a.m.and continues this evening, and that there will be voting at 12.00 noon, as has already been approved by this House.
Therefore, the debate will be adjourned at noon, as is traditional.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, Union for Europe, I quote the first paragraph of Rule 130: "A debate may be closed before the list of speakers has been exhausted on a proposal from the President or at the request of a political group - my group is requesting it - or at least twenty-nine Members' .
I do not think such an important regulation can be put back to tomorrow morning, when there is only one report on the agenda with the likelihood that there will be very few of us here to vote indeed.
We are discussing legislation which will determine the fate of breeders, traders and consumers of meat, and which is a response to the widespread anxiety caused by BSE.
So I think Members who have prepared speeches should regard them as explanations of vote and the vote should be taken immediately after Commissioner Fischler has spoken.
You have moved application of Rule 130(1).
I shall call one speaker in favour of the motion and one against. Then we shall move to the vote, as planned.
Thank you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
Does anybody wish to speak in favour of Mr Santini's motion?
Mrs Poisson has the floor to support Mr Santini's motion.
Yes, I support Mr Santini's motion because even beyond the debate, as important as it is, I believe that the situation facing livestock farmers and consumers following the BSE crisis largely justifies the ending of the debate and a vote on the report today, Mr President.
Mrs Hardstaff has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I just wish to point out, as rapporteur, that it is quite normal in this House to discuss issues on a Thursday evening and vote on them on a Friday morning, and I do not see why an exception should be made for my report.
Thank you, Mrs Hardstaff.
The request to close the debate will now be put to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request)
The debate continues then.
Mr Fischler now has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all may I point out - although I do not wish to prolong this formal debate on procedure - that I did ask for this report to be debated first just because of its very importance.
To start with let me thank most sincerely all those who contributed to the report, particularly the Committee on Agriculture and the rapporteur, Mrs Hardstaff, but also all other committees for their positive input and for the detail and goodwill applied to dealing with the proposal.
This proposal meets two different aims.
Firstly, it serves to inform the consumer about the guarantees that the new identification regulations for beef, introduced in Regulation 820/97, have to offer.
Secondly, marketing and advertising campaigns carried out by the trade and its associations for the development of consumption and the marketing of beef, not just in the Community, but also in third countries, ought to be co-financed by the Community. This would allow the beef sector, in crisis because of the sharp drop in consumption, to recover.
Heaven forbid that it should be sunk here!
The most important amendment is Amendment No1, which concerns the legal basis of the proposal.
In view of Parliament's arguments and the assurance given by President Santer, the Commission can declare itself partly in agreement with Amendment No1, and recognize article 129a as the legal basis in addition to article 43.
As far as Amendments Nos 7 and 15 on the definition of beef quality, the object of these marketing programmes, are concerned, these definitions have already been incorporated into a Commission regulation.
These amendments are, therefore, obsolete.
All forms of carcass are, as recommended by the author, authorized for support.
Because the new identification regulation is a Community regulation, I am quite sure that the information and advertising measures for the regulation must be exceptionally financed entirely by the Community.
As a result I am able also to vote for Amendments Nos 4 and 12.
One of the most important objectives of this whole proposal is to provide the consumer with a guaranteed ability to trace back the origins of the products.
Concerning the aid to direct marketing, this direct marketing must obviously conform to the community quality and traceability measures or regulations, and above all the veterinary regulations as well.
For that reason the amendment you have so carefully worked out can be only partially taken into consideration if its wording is altered accordingly.
In addition, Amendment No 13 in its current form cannot be accepted, because of the danger that traceability would not then be possible.
Amendments Nos 6, 10, 16 and the second sentence of No 17 on support for seals or marks of quality also cannot be accepted.
The proposal itself already contains rules for their use under conditions laid down by the Community.
In the view of the Commission support for such quality seals or marks should remain with the trade and/or trade associations making the request.
Internal state authorities can also regulate this to whatever extent they think necessary.
On Amendments Nos 5, 8, 17, third sentence, and 19 concerning the participation of national offices and the provision of technical aid, it must be stressed that it is the responsibility of the relevant internal national authorities to monitor every campaign. The trade and its associations must submit their applications to the competent internal state authority.
This initiative rests on the subsidiarity principle.
We for our part should make the necessary flexibility available.
If the internal state authorities feel it is necessary, they can prescribe consultation with particular offices.
The aforementioned amendments thus make no sense, because they breach this basic principle.
Finally, Amendment No 2 is superfluous in the Commission's view, and Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 17, first sentence, are partly unclear or particularly incompatible with the aim of the proposal.
For this reason the Commission cannot agree to them.
Amendment No 18 concerns amendments that were not accepted, and so it must also be rejected.
The Commission is prepared, however, to accept Amendment No 11.
Amendment No 20, which concerns a Commission report on the execution of this requirement, can also be accepted.
It will be useful in the preparation and improvement of future campaigns.
In closing may I point out that because of the acceptance of Amendment No 1, Article 129 will also be used from now on, without involving codecision procedure.
Mr President, Mr Fischler has explained to us on behalf of the Commission which amendments can be accepted and which cannot.
It has rejected Amendment No 18, which was concerned with financing and the percentage rate of financing.
That may be due to the fact that you required a clarification on direct marketing...
This is a continuation of the debate, not a point of order.
We will now move to the vote.
The debate will continue at 6.00 p.m.
Mr President, we have here a particular situation that you have not appreciated, whereby we have interrupted a speech, but Mr Fischler is unable to be present this evening.
It is a matter of whether we must refer the report back to the Committee, and so we need clarification from Mr Fischler as long as he is present.
That is the particular situation.
That is why I am bringing up this one question again, so that we can have clarity for tonight's debate that we shall be unable to obtain tonight.
So I ask you Mr President, to allow this.
You did not realise what was taking place just now, because you have only just taken over the Chair.
As a result I ask once more if the financing mentioned in Amendments Nos 18 and 22, namely the acceptance of 100 % of the costs incurred by the industry for informing about the introduction of labels, will be reduced.
This is a one-off cost, to be financed 100 %.
It would be scandalous!
If you do not permit a reduction we will refer this back to Committee, I am fairly sure about that!
This was an important point in the Committee on Agriculture!
I have pointed out that, in view of the facts and the experience we have had with earlier actions in this context, we are prepared to finance this activity 100 % within the internal market.
It is not the first time this has happened, by the way.
A similar regulation exists for protected designations of origin.
But that has nothing to do with direct marketing.
If there were to be a similar alteration with respect to direct marketing, I said, then direct marketing could be partially included.
It is important, and a prerequisite, however, that traceability is ensured and that only such direct marketers are involved as can produce clear proof that they include all veterinary regulations 100 %.
Mr President, would you please note that I am now here, that I signed in this morning and that in the meantime I have been in my office, that I picked up some letters there and that I have now come here by bicycle, for which no facilities have been provided by the Bureau.
Thank you, and welcome to the House!
Mr President, I am very sorry.
After what has been said by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, I wish to inform you that our group is also planning to put forward a proposal for the withdrawal of the regulation that we have been debating.
Our position, and we will recommend this to our colleagues, will depend on the reply the Commissioner refuses to give us.
I asked him if there is any factually correct information on whether at this moment it is possible to change the labelling system.
Details were given yesterday to the Committee on Inquiry into BSE.
I also asked him whether he will take the necessary measures to correct this situation. If he does not, the whole system will collapse and we will request a referral back.
Will the Commissioner give us an answer or not?
Mr President, on a point of order.
I apologize to the House but I gave notice of this point of order to the President's Office this morning.
I have only just had a chance to look at the text of the resolution on alleged human rights abuses in Ethiopia.
Preamble D refers to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in its fifty-third session and what it is alleged to have expressed.
When I checked with the United Nations' sources, I did not find that had been covered in the fifty-third session.
I therefore ask the presidency to contact the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva before the urgency debates start this afternoon, because this House would be ill-advised to start a debate on the basis of information which cannot be shown to be factually correct.
I appeal to the presidency to contact the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva and see if the allegations in preamble D., as to what was decided in its fifty-third session, have any basis of accuracy.
Mr Tomlinson, thank you for the notice of the question.
In fact the President's Office has already investigated this and agrees with your interpretation.
An announcement will be made at 3 o'clock.
I have now sat in this Parliament for two years.
In the parliamentary publications and in other publications it looks as if I drift back and forth between the Christian Democrats, the Conservatives, the Greens and the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
I would hereby like to tell everyone that I have no intention whatsoever of leaving the group in which I sit.
I have sat in this group for two years - Nordic Green Left, which is part of the Confederal Group of the European United Left.
I hope that I will no longer have to see myself waltz around in the internal press and various parliamentary publications like an unparalleled drifter.
I can understand that causes you some disquiet and we will ensure it is corrected.
Welcome
Votes
Mr President, Mr Fitzsimons is absent for reasons of ill- health and has asked me to speak on his behalf.
I would like to add a few words to the final sentence of Amendment No 13.
The final sentence reads: ' on the basis of the methods established by the intergovernmental group on the shift in climate' and we would like to add: ' .. these methods must comply with the most recent standards adopted under the United Nations Convention on climatic changes' .
(Parliament rejected the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, Mr Liese has referred to a Spanish text, but the Spanish text in front of me finishes with the sentence: "and guarantee maintenance of European and ACP banana production' .
It finishes there, with nothing else.
Therefore, I do not know whether it is possible to make that correction now.
Mr Medina Ortega is correct in saying that these three words were also missing from the Spanish at the time of distribution, but we in our group signed the original and submitted it, and the three words were there.
I shall therefore read out the Spanish text of the last two lines.
' ...y asegure el mantenimiento de las producciones europeas y ACP de plátanos y las producciones fair-trade de plátanos' .
(Parliament rejected the oral amendment)
(Parliament rejected the amendment)
Mr President, I am beginning to get irritated.
We submitted the amendment correctly.
I would ask the staff to check that.
Those three words were In the Spanish original.
What is now happening is not right!
If there is a technical error within the services, then that is human error. But we have to vote for what the group tabled, and I ask once again for that to be done.
Mr President, as we tabled this resolution to the committee oral question, we want to make it clear in the title that it is the G7 proposal for the Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4 nuclear power reactors in Ukraine.
Of course the Green Group is not proposing to complete these reactors: we are against the completion of all nuclear reactors; we want all nuclear reactors in Ukraine and elsewhere closed down.
The G7 criteria for doing so is leastcost and safety conscious and it has now been proven by official studies that this is not the least-cost or the safest option.
I want the title to make it clear that it is the G7 proposal for the completion of the Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4 nuclear reactors in Ukraine.
(Parliament agreed to the oral amendment)
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution) Joint motion for a resolution on the closure of Chernobyl nuclear power plant by 2000 and completion of Khmelnitsky and Rovno 4 nuclear reactors in Ukraine
I should like to introduce the oral amendment, after which we will vote again, even though we actually know better.
Yesterday we had a vague discussion with the Commission on the subject.
But we continue to support this, even if it all blows up in our faces one day.
I should at least like to introduce the amendment to our joint resolution.
I move that we vote separately on Amendments Nos 3 and 4, so that it is at least demonstrated that part of this House has kept a clear head and does not want to continue completion of scrap value reactors and permit the continued operation of another of the same, with the result that we shall have no money with which to pay for the frightful consequences.
We shall be unable in any case to pay for the human consequences...
(The President cut off the speaker)
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
I would just like to say that this is going a little too quickly, at least for me and those of us who speak Swedish.
There is really no point at all in trying to raise one's hand.
I would therefore very much like to ask the President to slow down the tempo and think of us and the interpreters.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, in the text of the report reference is made to the draft Treaty of Amsterdam, which was subsequently amended at the final signing.
Therefore, when article 236 is mentioned, we are really referring to the only relevant article of the protocol.
These are technical matters which the linguistic lawyers themselves will be able to attend to.
We will make sure it corresponds with the correct articles in the draft treaty.
Paragraph 8 :
Mr President, the Socialist Group's amendment is an addition to the original text and for the vote I would suggest to the Socialist Group that it should be considered as 8 a), and be slightly modified as follows: "Considers that the harmonization of the relevant legislation at European level would be the best way to eradicate the reservations' - it is not the only way to eradicate them, but it is the best way.
In that case, my opinion as rapporteur is that it should be voted for - putting the amendment to the vote as 8 a), as I said, and with that wording.
Mr President, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi has generally proved to be very unbending, but this time she is being rather more flexible.
We agree.
Mr President. If Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's happiness depends on this, then we agree, to make her happy today.
It is nice to have a happy House on a Thursday at 1.00 p.m.
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, under Rule 22, with your permission, I would like to go and have lunch in the Members' Bar.
After lunch I will give you the receipt so that you can control it.
I look forward to seeing what you had.
The Council's opinion on this question is very remarkable and also alarming.
I therefore fully support Mrs Flemming's report.
It is of great importance that environmental organisations are given the opportunity to participate in this environmental work which is so important to us.
The Council should be aware of this and not obstruct it by allocating a smaller sum of money than the European Parliament is recommending.
Since the EU in so many ways, directly or indirectly, supports those who work to promote views about the environmental work other than those developed by the environmental movement, I consider it necessary for the EU to give its support to the environmental organizations.
It is also good that the programme is being expanded to include countries in central and eastern Europe too.
Finally, I consider Amendment No 6 proposed by the Group of the European People's Party impossible to support.
Setting up such a criterion is totally untenable.
You have to be aware that laws and regulations in the EU's Member States differ with regard to what is or is not considered to be a crime.
The result is that this proposal for a criterion cannot be fair.
The undersigned voted against Mrs Flemming's amendment no.
6 which contained a proposal to exclude grants to, amongst others, organisations which have been found guilty of a crime by a court on the territory of the European Community during the past two years.
I had two main reasons for voting against: Firstly, it is up to the Commission as the executive organ to adopt supplementary rules for the prioritising of applications.
Secondly, the provision would not have distinguished the type of crime it referred to. Sadly, we have experience of organisations which were peacefully exercising their freedom of speech being convicted by courts.
I assume, however, that Parliament will vigilantly keep track of which organisations are given grants and ensure that there is no question of organisations like the Animal Liberation Front being able to make use of grants at the European level. Particularly considering recent events in Finland, where minks were released from cages at great risk to birdlife and with large financial losses as a result, since the unknown perpetrators mentioned ALF.
Fitzsimmons report (A4-253/97)
Consideration by the European Union and Parliament of CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions is not something new; the proposed amendment inspired by the Council proposes to strengthen monitoring.
We really have no alternative but to subscribe to this.
I would like to pay tribute to the work of our colleague and I subscribe to the amendments that he proposes to add to the initial text of the Commission.
I also want to stress that while it is laudable to pay special attention to monitoring techniques, to continue towards greater accountability and to ensure comparability between the different Member States, we cannot overlook the essentials, namely to substantially reduce emissions of CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) as well as other pollutants.
The situation last summer in our large towns and cities showed just how urgent this need has become.
Political will must be matched by resources.
Without doubt we will have to consider restrictive and repressive measures in this sensitive and complex environmental matter.
Speeches alone will not suffice.
As politicians we must be able to guarantee for present and future generations an improvement in their living conditions without destroying economic growth and jobs, and we must equally stop hiding behind claims that we nothing can be done.
As everybody knows, carbon dioxide (CO2 ) is the commonest greenhouse gas and contributes 65 % of global warming.
Therefore it is essential to measure accurately and regularly how well the Community is complying with its obligations for CO2 reduction.
That will require the Member States to provide information each year about the cumulative emissions of each greenhouse gas, and will also guarantee comparability and transparency.
All of this entails adequate monitoring of Member States' national programmes, and submission of the findings to Parliament and the Commission.
The Commission's new proposal is a step in this direction, and will therefore have my vote.
I voted yes to the proposal, but I think that the report neglects an important area.
The EU must plan in an entirely different way for monitoring and control systems for the environment in the countries which are applying for membership.
This should have been included in the monitoring mechanisms for the 21st Century, particularly as there are often major problems in these countries.
As demanded in my own report on this instrument in 1993, we really must ensure that those Member States which fail to provide data are singled out.
There continues to be a lack of political will to take action in this area on the part of some Member States.
We have found in other areas where the Commission is supposed to supply annual reports to Parliament that these reports can be held up by the Commission if all the Member States have not supplied data.
We have had enough of this and want annual reports even if there are gaps, so that we can get a clear picture of what is happening and where the problems lie.
Although this may at first glance seem to be simply a technical measure, the smooth operation of monitoring measures and exchange of information on greenhouse gas emissions is an essential tool in our battle against global warming, and I urge the Commission and the Council to agree to the improvements in this proposal which Parliament has carried in its votes today.
WTO panel on bananas
Mr President, the World Trade Organisation is about to declare the Community system of banana import licences incompatible with the rules of free trade, at least as they interpret them.
However this system, which gives preference to bananas from overseas, the less favoured African countries, the Caribbean and the Pacific which we intend to support, appears vital to the economic survival of these regions.
The European Parliament therefore finds itself once again facing the disastrous consequences of the Uruguay Round agreement which it approved, all too lightly, without first checking that the agreement took into account social, health, cultural or environmental distortions in international trade.
I do not mention these facts merely to rake up the past again and again, but to emphasize that there are both good and bad advisers in Europe.
Perhaps we should re-read the proceedings of the GATT talks to see who the bad advisers were and to draw conclusions from that.
In an attempt to protect overseas markets, despite the condemnations of the WTO, the Amsterdam project provided article 227 (299 in the new numbering system) aimed at granting special subsidies to regions ultraperipheral to the Union.
This would have succeeded in replacing a system of import licences which kept the production of overseas countries alive with a system of state subsidies which kept the people of these regions on aid.
Of the two options, I believe that the most liberal is not the one we think.
Moreover, it cannot be ruled out that the WTO will one day tackle the system provided under article 227. There is nothing to suggest it will not.
We therefore believe, Mr President, that the only solution is to resume international trade negotiations to gain recognition once and for all for social, health, cultural and environmental concerns and we regret that in its agricultural Agenda 2000 project the Commission only seems to be guided, yet again, by the concern to align its prices to world prices.
Mr President, with my colleagues of the Europe of Nations group I voted in support of the common resolution on the position of the WTO panel concerning the banana industry; this resolution was adopted by 286 votes in favour, 124 against with 14 abstentions.
The adoption of this resolution give grounds for satisfaction and hope.
Satisfaction since some three years ago we were the only group here that condemned the flaws in the Marrakesh and GATT agreements.
When we expressed our views virtually the only group to support us was the Greens.
At the ACP conference in Libreville and later in Dakar, together with my colleague, Dominique Souchet, I raised the problem of compatibility of the system of generalized preferences with the GATT agreement.
We received formal assurances from the Commission that there was no incompatibility.
What is happening today shows that we were right.
Hope lies in the fact that our colleagues, who in this particular matter are aware of the problems with the GATT and WTO, see the difficulties in far more general terms, in the way we have always condemned, as did our late president Jimmy Goldsmith.
We believe that the WTO's attempts to maintain free trade in the area of the banana trade should be supported rather than opposed.
Free trade is an important instrument for ensuring that, in the long term, all the banana producing countries concerned will be able to function as equals in the global market.
We also believe that the type of intervention taking place in the banana market obstructs the rights of consumers to choose products on the basis of price and quality, as well as on the basis of environmental considerations and a sense of social and international responsibility.
In addition, interventions in free trade and supply controls on the European market obstruct a necessary adaptation of food production to market conditions and to necessary demands to settle the global food situation.
We believe that the issue of the banana trade is being handled on the basis of all the important aspects involved in this issue, including, amongst others, environmental aspects, social conditions for plantation workers, the economic situation of small growers and taking into consideration the difficulties which exist for the one-sided trade dependency of several countries.
These are aspects which cannot be dealt with through obstacles to the free trade in bananas or through supply intervention on the European market for bananas.
Each difficulty connected with the production and trading of bananas must be dealt with through measures specially designed for each difficulty of that kind.
I voted no to this resolution because I think there were only imperialist arguments on the part of the EU not to follow the WTO's decision on this issue.
In my opinion there are no reasons, whether ecological or economic, why the EU should have such a narrow view regarding the import of bananas as to mean that, in principal, it only approves imports from ACP countries.
There are other countries, apart from ACP countries, which are dependent on exports of bananas.
We could therefore just as well buy from these countries as from ACP countries.
I do, however, agree with the criticism that the WTO is only considering free trade and is forgetting other important values.
There are other values which must be taken into consideration before the WTO makes decisions, including the environmental effects.
But as I said, on this issue I think that the WTO has made the right decision.
Our group signed the draft joint resolution on the OCM for the banana industry.
It is surprising that both the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European People's Party refused to sign that draft joint resolution, even though the PSE rallied to it in extremis .
This reflects the lack of enthusiasm shown by the two political groups that numerically dominate this Parliament and that share the same free trade, globalist and federalist philosophy when the aim is to defend the interests of European banana producers, especially those in our overseas French departments and the interests of banana production in the ACP countries.
We all know that the shaping of Europe rests on the principles of Community preference (Treaty of Rome) and on the preservation of the economic interests of the ACP countries with whom the EU Member States have committed under an agreement of original, specific and close co-operation (Lomé Agreements).
Why then, on behalf of the GATT and the WTO, must we sacrifice the interests of our producers and those of the countries with whom we have been tied under international accords for so many years?
In my contribution during the debate and in my explanation on the Helms-Burton law I asked whether the WTO was not acting as the secular arm of the United States, pointing out the extent to which it effectively defended US interests during trade globalisation.
Beyond this, it is also regrettable that the Commission, especially Sir Leon Brittan, wishes to settle the difference of opinion that arose following the Helms-Burton law separately, without even thinking of negotiating the closure of the WTO panel against European and ACP bananas.
Since the Treaty of Rome, access for bananas into the Community market has always enjoyed special provisions given the particularity of this tropical product which is grown at the extreme periphery of the European Union (overseas departments, Madeira, the Canaries, Crete) and in the former overseas territories that later became the ACP states and with whom we are contractually bound under the terms of the Lomé Convention.
Community and ACP bananas only represent 30 % of our consumption and cannot compete with bananas from the dollar zone which are produced in Latin America by American multinationals.
Some speakers have suggested that the European Union should allocate financial aid in order to diversify crops.
However, in the tropical countries where cyclones are frequent, the diversification of banana crops is very hard to achieve.
It is important to protect the economy and stability of producers in overseas countries, where wages and social charges match those in the European Union.
A good trade-off was found with the European common orgnization of the banana market; this system enabled banana producers, including those in the dollar zone, to benefit from access to the European market through import licences.
It is necessary to maintain these trade-offs at all costs.
That is why I voted in support of the joint resolution.
Nuclear power plants in Ukraine
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Green Party voted against the joint resolution because we have not progressed a single step with this resolution as far as the decisive subject is concerned, namely the phased ending of nuclear energy.
The European Parliament could not even bring itself to support the closure of Chernobyl and not completing reactors R4 and K2.
Not only have the most serious doubts on safety been ignored, but also the fact that energy from nuclear sources is quite unnecessary in the Ukraine, and that these reactors represent an economic risk.
We also regret that part of Parliament has still not understood the stupidity of the least cost argument, with regard to the risk of accidents with uninsurable costs, with regard to the unresolved risks involved in disposal of nuclear waste, and with regard to the unsolved problems of safety in routine operation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the political ultimatum of the Ukrainian Government - and this is what it seems to be about - not to shut down Chernobyl if international funding for R4 and K2 is not forthcoming, must not be allowed to succeed.
On the contrary, falling energy demand and the potential for enormous savings will permit Ukraine to close down all nuclear power stations, and we regret that the European Parliament has not promoted this environmental measure, which is so important for Europe.
Mr President, yesterday's debate merely skirted around the issue.
The Commission's answers were woolly and completely unsatisfactory.
I should just like to draw attention to one point: we have been spending Phare and Tacis funds for years.
Now we have before us a study about how much improvement there has been in safety, and the study comes to the staggering conclusion that there has been absolutely no improvement in safety.
The Commission has also contracted a study and up to now it has refused to put this at Parliament's disposal.
This study comes to the same conclusion.
We are once again about to agree the completion of two scrap reactors that are quite incapable of completion because the technology is not compatible, and still, after almost eleven years, this scrap reactor in Chernobyl is running.
I say that we should at long last complete the sealed sacophagus and make money available for that.
But it is scandalous how health, even that of future generations, is placed at risk.
I have voted against it, because this was not a clear statement and it was not representative of Parliament's purpose.
Umberto Scapagnini's question on the closure of Chernobyl and the completion of the Khmelnitsky 2 et Rovno 4 reactors deserves our full attention.
I support this without any hesitation.
All these issues are giving considerable cause for concern.
There is really no time to lose.
Without pre-empting the response of the Commission, it is essential that the loans for both these reactors be granted.
I trust that safety criteria in the design and construction of the Khmelnitsky 2 et Rovno 4 reactors will be strictly adhered to.
I believe that the necessary inspections will be conducted.
More generally, Mr Scapagnini's question concerns the application of the Euratom Treaty and the undertakings given in the European Energy Charter.
These treaties bind the states that ratify them and it is important that industrial companies enact them, particularly in the nuclear industry.
The concern of people on environmental issues is being expressed with greater urgency - and rightly so.
In the nuclear energy field we should exercise greater transparency, which is still not always the case today.
For the time being nuclear power is a necessary source of energy but not at any cost and under any conditions.
Moreover, the future also requires that we think about alternative solutions to try and safeguard our already damaged environment and our safety from all aspects.
Today, Thursday, the Austrian Members of the Group of the European People's Party rejected the joint resolution by five groups - including the PPE and the PSE - concerning the financing and completion of the Ukrainian nuclear reactors Khmelnitsky2 and Rovno4.
The Austrian Members' explanation of vote is that they are obviously in favour of parliamentary support for the development of a comprehensive energy strategy, as contained in the resolution.
We are also in favour of the Commission making its position and future policy on nuclear safety clear, and of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development declaring its position.
But in this resolution it is not even clear that the proposers are against the construction of new nuclear power stations.
Nor can the amendments from individual groups be agreed, especially not that of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, which, whilst it was very praiseworthy in supporting efforts to develop a unified energy strategy, on the other hand quite clearly declared that the G7 states and Ukraine must maintain the December 1995 agreement promising the completion of both nuclear power stations.
Austria has also declared to the President of the EBRD that it was ready to finance and support the modification of calorific power stations in the Ukraine, but at the same time it declared its strict opposition to the completion or further construction of nuclear power stations.
It is well known that the juxtaposition of old Russian and new Western technologies would produce a hermaphrodite system, which would be a major safety risk for the future.
This has been proven beyond reasonable doubt by foreign and Austrian studies.
Nuclear power is not safe.
Unfortunately, there have been many accidents, including Chernobyl.
In spite of this, the work on closing the remaining reactors in Chernobyl is progressing very slowly.
In my opinion, it is remarkable that the accidents, and the terrible effects these accidents have had, are not enough for people to bring about a closure of nuclear power.
Instead, to a large extent the Commission is encouraging the building of new reactors, Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4, in Ukraine.
That is something I cannot accept.
No EU funds should go towards the construction of new reactors.
The money should instead go to aid for developing renewable energy sources, so that the eastern European countries can have a functioning energy structure based on energy sources which are part of an ecologically sustainable society.
Nuclear power is a non-renewable energy source which should therefore be phased out of the energy system as soon as possible.
My homeland has finally taken the first step towards phasing out nuclear power by deciding to close the Barsebäck power station starting next year.
Against this background, I have today voted no to the European Parliament's resolution on this issue.
The Danish Social Democrats are voting yes to the resolution on the closure of the nuclear power station at Chernobyl.
It is irresponsible to continue producing energy with reactors of the same type that was the cause of the major accident in 1985.
But we would like to draw attention to the fact that the problem of the poor safety of nuclear power stations is far from being solved by closing the power station at Chernobyl.
There are, amongst other things, major safety problems at the large Ignalina nuclear power station in Lithuania.
The European Union has a duty to offer the Lithuanian people a helping hand in the same way as we are doing in connection with Chernobyl.
Illegal imports of CFCs
We voted in favour of the joint resolution on the Helms-Burton Act which has the merit of clearly and firmly stating the unacceptable face of extra-territorial legislation.
The pyrrhic victory gained by the Commission must not suggest that Europeans complacently accept practices and principles that are so radically opposed to international law.
So why did the Commission refrain from asking the WTO to arbitrate in this dispute? Did it fear that the WTO would not give the United States the same treatment as it did the European Community in regard to hormoneinjected meat, and the developing countries in regard to bananas?
Was this an implicit acknowledgement that since the WTO in reality acts as the secular arm of the United States, which imposes its own concept and vision of globalism, it is preferable to negotiate and empirically accept a few concessions by refraining from invoking the exercise of the law?
However, if we decide to negotiate because we deem that it is the best way to defend European interests, we must negotiate well.
Why then was no attempt made to obtain the withdrawal of the American claim against hormoneinjected meat and bananas in return for the withdrawal of the claim of the European Union against the HelmsBurton Act?
Situation in Algeria
We voted in favour of the resolution on Algeria presented after a compromise between several political groups in Parliament.
However, we believe that the resolution could be clearer in a sharp criticism of both the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups' dreadful outrages and lack of respect for human dignity and the Algerian government's crimes against democracy and human rights.
The statement should also point out one of the important reasons for the economic and social crisis in Algeria, i.e. the large debt which the International Monetary Fund, amongst others, is demanding that the country should repay.
The Group Union for Europe regrets the fact that it was unable to join in the vote on the common resolution on the situation in Algeria.
Indeed, while it is urgent to condemn and deplore the unspeakable massacres perpetrated against the Algerian people by groups of terrorists, it should also be mentioned that this country has recently held democratic elections which have enabled all sections of Algerian society to be represented in the country's parliament and government.
Our assembly has always had relations with the representatives of the Algerian people through its interparliamentary delegation.
There is therefore no need to form an ad hoc delegation as the common draft resolution proposes, and we feel it is essential to draw on existing parliamentary structures on both sides, possibly enlarging them to include a few members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
For this reason we will be abstaining.
I believe that this Parliament has rarely made such an exhibition of itself or shown itself to be so completely powerless as yesterday during the debate on the situation in Algeria.
The meeting between Algerian and European Parliaments that was so heatedly argued for by almost all the speakers will of course not solve anything at all and was merely non-committal "show politics' which sensible people can only treat with contempt.
Nobody could accuse me of having the slightest sympathy for the murderers who are carrying out the Islamic reign of terror in Algeria.
We can, of course, ask ourselves what the difference is between a possible ISF regime in Algeria, on the one hand, and the Islamic terror regimes supported so keenly by the West in countries such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, on the other hand.
However, I still remember that the misery begun in January 1992, when the first democratic elections in Algeria - still in the name of democracy - were prevented by a military coup.
I also remember that the Socialist NLF dictatorship in Algeria after decolonization was literally swamped by French and European support and by expressions of praise from the so-called intelligentsia in Europe.
It is these socialists who have changed Algeria in less than thirty years from a relatively rich and prosperous country into a backward developing country with great poverty, where millions of people see the only way out through Islamic fundamentalism.
As things are at the moment, I do not believe that Europe has a big part to play in that country.
As European politicians, we have no lessons to teach the Algerians.
We must, on the contrary, ensure that the Islamic advance does not strike our own continent.
I wish my fellow Members of Parliament were as motivated about that as they are about possible trips to Algeria.
Moorhouse report (A4-259/97)
Faced with the problems raised by the creation of balanced economic relations between the European Union and Japan, it was desirable to evaluate these ties.
Regarding the current state of these relations, I share the opinion of the committee's rapporteur.
Having said that, while I approve the moves which ultimately should strengthen and balance our trade relations with Japan, I am worried about one of the points that affect deregulation.
I fear that the latter is decidedly against our Community interests.
I refer to the textile industry in which firms must apply existing legislation - often ignored by the competition that is slow to enforce it.
The automotive sector would probably be one of the first to suffer the effects of deregulation applied rigorously by the European Union.
The automotive industry - one of Europe's industrial mainstays - will have to undergo restructuring in the next ten years.
We should be mindful of the consequences that may prove disastrous for jobs in this sector, indeed for its very future.
I approve this communication but I will remain vigilant over the enactment of this new approach towards Japan by opposing any hasty move, any unbridled liberalism and above all any step taken to impose rules and constraints upon us which will be ignored by the competition.
We have abstained from voting on the report on 'Europe and Japan: the next steps' by Mr Moorhouse.
We are in favour of developing and improving relations between the EU and Japan.
However, we believe that the report only concentrates on economics and trade without showing any interest at all in important areas such as culture and the environment.
As far as the trade issues are concerned, we are critical of many of Japan's technical trade barriers, but we can sympathise with the existence of state monopolies.
We do not share the report's positive view of Japan's participation in UN forces, but instead share the critical view of the Japanese peace movement.
For these reasons we have chosen to abstain.
A rapprochement between the EU and Japan is positive.
Human rights, international peace, relations with China, Russia and Korea, questions of nuclear weapons, the environment, trade, deregulation and the WTO are important areas of cooperation.
I have also voted yes to the report in the hope that the endless talk of competition between the EU, the USA and Japan can be toned down in favour of cooperation and dialogue.
Garosci report (A4-254/97)
The Commission Green Paper and the rapporteur recognize that the commercial sector is the second largest employer in the European Union, since it employs more than 22 million people and concerns 35 % of the total number of businesses, most of which are small and medium-sized businesses.
Anyone considering the general orientational framework of the Commission may realise that the general trend in the restructuring of the sector forebodes negative developments, chiefly for small businesses, whilst at the same time speeding up already existing processes of consolidation and thus paving the way for the creation and domination of oligopolies and the control of commerce by certain large groups of multinational companies.
This will turn out to be disastrous both for employment, since it will mean a significant loss of jobs and the imposition of part time employment, and for the protection of consumers who, once again, will become the victims of unrestrained competition and of the laws of a notorious free market.
Nor is the widespread expansion of new technology for the modernisation of the provision of services and for the facilitation of new forms of direct transactions a panacea.
The appearance and expansion of electronic distance selling could lead to the exclusion of large sections of the population and chiefly in remote, disadvantaged island and mountain regions where the levels of development are low and where, of course, there is no access to such networks of communication.
The development of such networks without appropriate planning, without the development of appropriate infrastructures and without the most effective safety measures could irreparably damage the social and economic fabric of these regions, condemning them to lasting decline and underdevelopment and excluding them from the marketplace.
Neither the consumer nor the person employed in the sector, neither the self-employed person nor the small businessperson can gain from competition between commercial monopolies and from the abolition of any form of control.
What is needed is a joint plan of economic action for the common interest of both working people and consumers.
We need to institute measures of labour control in the commercial sector.
There need to be in operation, both at the grass-roots level and in large commercial enterprises of the European Union, workers' supervisory councils for issues relating to pricing, expansion, labour relations and wages, and for issues relating to environmental and consumer protection.
At the same time rules and regulations need to be laid down to prevent the unchecked activity of large multinational companies, large-scale mergers, buy outs, and the creation of monopolies in the commercial sector.
Regulations need to be instituted that serve working people and consumers on issues of working hours and quality standards.
In this regard there needs to be a fundamental debate and an exchange of views with the masses of working people and of small and medium-sized companies.
I have supported Mr Garosci's report today as I share his welcome for the Commission's long overdue recognition of the importance of commerce.
Twenty-two million people across the EU work in commerce as part of the wider tertiary sector which is outperforming other parts of the European economy.
This sector is not just about economics but about communities.
Mr Garosci is right to ask for the burden of unnecessary regulations to be lifted from small retailers especially.
Small neighbourhood shops are part of the communities they serve.
We have all seen too many areas where the closed shop fronts are a sign of a run-down neighbourhood.
Looking to the future, it is also important to consider the unfairness of Internet-style selling not being subject to VAT whilst traditional shops are.
The Commission should take up the idea of looking for an international answer to this question.
However, the technology of electronic payment systems could also allow us to reduce the opportunity for criminals to steal from vulnerable small shops, reducing the amount of cash held there.
I hope that the potentially useful ideas in the Green Paper and this report now lead to practical policies to help our local shops enjoy a successful future.
After two years of work, the Commission is now submitting its Green Paper on commerce to us.
It examines the structure and development of the commerce and distribution sector, the second largest economic activity in the Union, employing 22 million people - 16 per cent of the total labour force - in about 4.5 million firms. So this is a key sector, both for the economy and for employment.
I congratulate Mr Garosci on his exhaustive analysis of the current situation in this sector and the challenges it faces, and it is a pity that the statistics he had available, provided by the Commission, are no longer current.
Competition in the commerce sector has grown with the growth in trade and the enlargement of the market, reflecting the need to adapt to the changes that are taking place and to respond to the evolution of consumer needs and desires.
So it is essential to train staff, provide vocational courses for young people and develop a specialized labour force adapted to the way new technologies are modernizing the sector.
Vocational training also allows even small and medium-sized firms and micro-businesses to keep up with the growth process in the sector, driving forward the creation of SMEs linked together in cross-border commerce, in line with the principle of economic and social cohesion which the Commission must support with concrete measures through the structural funds and innovative projects.
And the role of the Member States must not be forgotten, especially as regards the regulation of access to credit.
To make business conditions more flexible for firms, a simplification of Community legislation, taking account of the situation in individual states, is desirable, and is particularly important to this sector.
Finally, I would mention that the sector needs to be paid special attention with a view to the introduction of the Euro and the impact, not just economic, that this will have on the market.
Palacio Vallelersundi report (A4-265/97)- Situation in Algeria
Mr President, the convention on extradition between Member States of the European Union which reconciles the general definitions and principles of this procedure in the various countries was concluded within a short time frame according to a purely inter-governmental method.
This therefore refutes the claim that is widespread in this chamber that only the community method works.
In reality, when a given need, such as in the area of security, is strongly felt by members, the intergovernmental method works very well.
True, it does not work when the need is not felt or when one of the parties makes exorbitant or over-constraining claims on other partners, but must we bemoan this fact?
No, of course, not!
On the contrary, the intergovernment approach in this case serves to regulate the exorbitant claims that cannot be adequately countered by the community method.
Caution is essential in the issues we are discussing here since they directly impact the exercise of public liberties and this is why - quite rightly - the intergovernmental method has been chosen for this agreement.
How can we improve this procedure while respecting its form? It would be worthwhile to begin by securing consensus between the partners whereby the agreement can be enacted between the signatories without waiting for all the different ratifications.
Secondly, I believe that we should seek a procedure to ensure more effective monitoring of the agreement by national parliaments, as already proposed by the Europe of Nations Group.
On the other hand, we feel it unnecessary and even totally counter-productive to provide for the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice or the systematic involvement of the European Parliament.
These institutions, with their exaggerated claims and obsession of always requests texts that follow their own subjective aims, would arouse negative reactions that we must avoid at all costs on subjects as sensitive as these.
Mr President, I voted for Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's resolution, but in the recorded vote I voted against paragraph 11 of the resolution on the reservations entered to this convention by Greece and Portugal, for different reasons.
I voted against because the reference to Portugal is factually wrong.
The Portuguese reservation is not based on the same grounds as the Greek reservation.
Under its constitution, Portugal does not allow extradition when the country seeking it applies the death penalty or whole life imprisonment.
And this is what is involved.
The recent constitutional review carried out in Portugal maintains this prohibition, rightly in my opinion.
I do not think we could approve the wording of paragraph 11 here, especially as it is factually wrong in its reference to Portugal.
The protocol of the Amsterdam Treaty on this matter of extradition seems to me to resolve the matter satisfactorily in the context of progressive construction of an area of freedom and justice.
That is the reason for my declaration of vote.
We have chosen to abstain from voting on this report.
This question is complicated and must be considered carefully.
Of course society should have powerful tools to bring about freedom, security and justice, as the report states.
However, that cannot be allowed to happen at the price of jeopardising the legal rights of individual citizens.
We are sceptical about several points in this report:
Point C of the draft report talks of introducing an automatic extradition procedure in the long term.
We consider it far too hasty to declare oneself in favour of this purely in principal.-We are also very sceptical about giving the European Court of Justice jurisdiction to interpret and decide on the extradition of citizens above the national courts.We have the greatest faith that the justice ministers of the Member States will together arrive at a solution on how intergovernmental police co-operation can be organised effectively in the battle against crime.
However desirable closer cooperation in the area of the criminal law may be, having in mind the Europe-wide increase in organized crime, it must not be overlooked that the Agreement discards very significant basic principles of extradition law. Some of these latter also have the effect of reducing the protection provided by one's own citizenship.
The reservations voiced by Member States, repeatedly regretted in the report before us, are from that point of view perfectly understandable.
Criminal law is - viewed historically - a basic characteristic of the sovereignty of a state. This is why, at this stage of development, one must obviously acknowledge - as Amsterdam has shown - that neither a further unification of the criminal law nor the progressive relinquishment of sovereign authority has the support of citizens.
Apart from that, the convention is conspicuous for the absence of discussion on procedural problems and the guarantee of constitutional minimum standards.
For these reasons we are unable to support the resolution.
Firstly, in the short term the report's proposal means reduced legal certainty because of a lack of clarity about the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.
In the longer term it means increased supranationalism.
The report also supports the restrictions on the right of asylum found in the Amsterdam Treaty, which we find unacceptable.
We have therefore voted no to the report.
The vote against paragraph 11 of the Palacio Vallelersundi report is based on respect for the "constitutional identity' of Member States, a principle for which there is a special proviso both in the Treaty on European Union and long before that in Community law and precedent.
Moreover, it is through this identity that the Member States contribute to a common legal culture.
Portugal was the first country to abolish the death penalty and whole life imprisonment.
In the case of the abolition of the death penalty, this is already a common feature of European identity itself, in that it is no longer applied in any country of the Union.
The text of paragraph 11 is also outdated in relation to Portugal since, in the case of whole life imprisonment or sentences of indeterminate length, the recent constitutional review allows extradition subject to the existence of reciprocal mechanisms guaranteeing that such sentences will not be effectively applied or carried out.
So defending our "constitutional identity' does not imply any lack of confidence in the legal mechanisms of the other Member States. We have full confidence in them and seek to collaborate increasingly closely with them in the fight against crime and terrorism.
We hope we will receive the same confidence in return, as we are not and we never will be a refuge or sanctuary for criminals, but, on the contrary, a particularly safe and peaceful country, as millions of our fellow European citizens in the other Member States can already testify.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, under Rule 22 of the Rules of Procedure, I draw your attention to the fact that you want us, as Members, to give you an exact account of what we do, at what time.
We started this meeting three minutes late.
Secondly, after the House broke up at 1.00 p.m., I went to the Members' restaurant where I spoke with other colleagues about the business of the House.
I have the bill from the restaurant which I will give to administration.
I went to the intergroup on tourism affairs where I spent half an hour.
Alas, I must tell you that I have no ticket for the toilets, where I also went quickly in between.
Next time I will see to it that you get an account of that as well so that under Rule 22 of the Rules of Procedure the Bureau has a full account of my activities in this House as a Member.
I do not think that I have to render account to the members of the Bureau, but rather to my electorate.
Thank you very much, Mr Wijsenbeek.
We would all like to have it in duplicate, and we look forward to receiving these regular reports, but perhaps you could submit a written report rather than using Parliamentary time to deliver a verbal report each time.
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Shortly before lunch Mr Tomlinson raised a question about the resolution on Ethiopia.
Parliament's services have now looked into the matter and ascertained that Mr Tomlinson, as usual, is right.
Point D has been corrected accordingly, so I hope Mr Tomlinson is satisfied with that.
I thank the presidency and its services for checking this so quickly.
But it is a matter for substantial concern that preamble D actually says that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in its 53rd session expressed its condemnation .
That is what this text says.
There was no such condemnation.
Therefore I believe all the ensuing comments, which are highly prejudicial, should be deleted from the text - all of them.
It then goes on to talk about continuing violation of human rights in Ethiopia.
If there was no decision, everything else is supposition.
This is no way for a Parliament that is supposed to be serious to conduct its foreign policy and relations with other countries in other parts of the world.
Either the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in its 53rd session did express condemnation, or it did not .
I hope that rather than change a word, we should delete the whole of preamble D because it is tendentious nonsense which holds this Parliament up to ridicule with the rest of the world.
Mr Tomlinson, it appears to me that there are two problems here.
One is that there was an actual error.
That has now been corrected.
Then you say, and I understand well what you are saying, that the following two sentences are also tendentious.
If people agree with you, and there are perhaps many Members who do, the conclusion is that they must vote against.
I do not think that I can sit here as President and let the whole point be deleted. So I hope you will accept that it remains, and perhaps I should read it out as it now reads:
Amend Recital D as follows: ' D. Noting that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, in its 53rd session, discussed the violation of human rights in Ethiopia, including extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, deaths in custody, torture, rape, arbitrary and politically motivated arrests and detentions and the oppression by the authorities of ethnic and religious minorities' .
This was discussed.
This is what it says.
If you do not like this, then you should vote against it.
It would be helpful if you added at the end of the sentence that it discussed them without coming to a conclusion.
I wonder whether as President I am authorized to do that.
The solution is to vote against it if you do not like it or you could put this as an oral amendment if everybody accepts that but I am afraid some will object to it.
I, as President, cannot do that so it will go forward as it stands.
You have corrected the factual error; the political error can be corrected by voting it down.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yet another resolution on Cyprus.
One more resolution full of nice words of support for Cyprus and full of advice to Turkey and to Mr Denktash.
What is the result? Absolutely nothing.
Neither Mr Denktash nor Turkey, and I regret to have to say this, neither the Council nor the Commission attach any significance to the resolutions of the European Parliament.
And if that was not enough we also have paragraph 5, which refers to the S300s.
Ladies and gentlemen, are you not aware that in occupied Cyprus there has been a Turkish army of occupation for twenty three years?
Are you not aware that there are 40, 000 Turkish soldiers in Cyprus?
Are you not aware that there are heavy weapons?
Are you not aware that there are tanks and aeroplanes?
In the name of what legal authority of the European Union do you reject the right of the government of Cyprus to organize its own defence? Since you know very well, ladies and gentlemen, that the S300s are weapons of defence and not weapons of aggression, unless we are expecting that one fine morning Mr Denktash will occupy the rest of Cyprus and we will continue to put forward resolutions while the whole of Cyprus falls to the army of occupation.
Unless, ladies and gentlemen, and I regret to say this but it is the hard truth, we are annoyed that the S300s are purchased from Russia and not from the European Union, that is to say, from France, from Germany or from the United Kingdom, or even from America.
It seems that when a missile bears a stamp saying 'made in the United States' or 'made in Europe' it is a good missile, since this is the impression that you give me, and I regret that in this resolution, which will have no significance whatsoever, there is this paragraph.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are trying to cover up a reprehensible fact.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
We entered the summer break in the hope that the talks under the auspices of the United Nations between Glafcos Clerides and Raouf Denktash would be successful.
Once again these hopes were destroyed - hopes that the 23-year-old partition of Cyprus, and the Turkish occupation since 1974 of 37 % of Cypriot territory, might be ended in favour of a solution that would make possible the peaceful co-existence of Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
These hopes were once more destroyed by the inflexible attitude of Raouf Denktash.
It is quite unacceptable for Denktash to call for a cessation of the membership talks between the Union and Cyprus.
It is equally unacceptable for the Turkish Government and the illegal regime in the occupied part of Cyprus to threaten annexation by Turkey of the occupied part, if membership of the EU by Cyprus should take place.
We reject with disgust and outrage the declaration by Denktash that membership could result in a war in Cyprus.
When will it be realised that it is high time for the use of reason and most certainly not of weapons?
The European Union's resolutions are clear.
Membership talks with Cyprus begin six months after the government conference: at the beginning of next year, therefore.
As has been reiterated in Agenda 2000, talks can be held only with the one constitutionally recognized authority, the Government of the Republic of Cyprus.
I would comment here, that European Ministers should not touch that point either, in private remarks made in public.
Membership should be to the benefit of all Cypriots, however.
That is our declared will.
For that reason ways must be found to include the Turkish Cypriot community in negotiations.
For despite the current failure of the talks, and despite the escalation of words, I hope for a rapid victory for good sense in the interests of all Cypriots.
In Agenda 2000 the Union declares its determination to play a positive role in reaching a solution.
It would be a useful contribution to make it emphatically clear to Turkey yet again that improved relations also depend on a solution in Cyprus.
We know that Turkey possesses the key to this.
Mr President, even if it is a compromise, this resolution on Cyprus is worthwhile since on the one hand it condemns the blocking of negotiations, attributable to the Turkish Cypriots, and the new attempts at intimidation by Turkey, and, on the other hand, it reiterates Europe's desire to undertake from the start of 1998 negotiations on membership with the single recognized government, that of the Republic of Cyprus.
Beyond that, it has to be said that Cyprus currently meets almost all the terms of membership needed to join the European Union.
The negotiations, once initiated, should not drag on eternally pending a possible agreement, which would be tantamount to yielding to Turkish blackmail.
I therefore appeal to the Commission so ensure that the negotiations with Cyprus are conducted with all desirable resolve and speed so that Cyprus becomes the sixteenth state of the European Union as soon as possible, even without the final agreement of Mr Denktash and with Turkey.
Mr President, without a shadow of a doubt there has recently been movement on the Cypriot question and I think that the main reason for this movement is the application of Cyprus to join the European Union.
Many hopes had indeed been invested in the talks that took place in the United States and in Switzerland between President Clerides and the leader of the Turkish Cypriots, Mr Denktash, but it must be said that those hopes have been vindicated in only a very small part.
But there has been real progress on humanitarian issues and now there is the prospect of the beginning of talks on security on the island, and it is the wish of all of us, I imagine, in this room to see the complete demilitarisation of Cyprus.
These positive developments, however, do not change the picture that emerged during the negotiations. What is this picture?
The picture that emerged is that the Greek Cypriots agreed with the ideas of the United Nations, there was 90 % agreement, they accepted them fully and I think that nobody can claim that the United Nations is an organ of the Greek Cypriots. On the other hand the Turkish Cypriots and Mr Denktash showed complete intransigence and at the same time there were threats of the annexation of the northern section of Cyprus by Turkey, and also threats of war if the accession of Cyprus to the European Union went ahead.
In any case, the accession of Cyprus is a decision that has been taken.
Negotiations begin in April and we all hope that the Turkish Cypriots will be an organic part of the state that will, at some point, become a member of the European Union. For this to happen, pressure must be exerted on Turkey to find a solution and to encourage all those forces in Turkey who want this to happen and who believe in a solution to the Cypriot question and in the accession of Cyprus to the European Union.
Because there are forces in Turkey who realise that the European Union is a guarantor of the human rights of all the people of Cyprus, and that the Turkish Cypriots will be the first to benefit financially from accession. They realise that Turkey, through the Turkish Cypriots, will have an, albeit indirect, part to play in the European Union, and, last but not least, that it will improve its image, free from charges of intransigence and aggression.
Let us therefore encourage the progressive forces of Turkey.
Mr President, as has been mentioned, this is the nth resolution on Cyprus.
I would say this resolution makes sense if the Commissioner can reassure us during this debate on what is being asked. That is, if he can reassure us that initiatives will immediately be taken to try to review the Turkish Cypriot community's boycott of the negotiations.
Furthermore, it is important for the Commissioner to reassure us that the Commission intends to keep faith with its own declarations: in particular I believe the Commission should immediately confirm that the current difficulties are due solely and exclusively to the fact that Turkey remains a country in military occupation of another country.
It is also crucial to confirm that, in the face of the boycott, the European Union will continue the negotiations with the only internationally recognized authority, that is, the government of Cyprus.
Finally, I think it would be helpful if I responded to something Mrs Roth said in her speech.
The position taken by an Italian minister was a personal position, and the Italian government has confirmed that it is entirely in line with the position of the European Union. I just wanted to make that clear on behalf of my country.
Mr President.
I think we should really make an effort here to discriminate between the current moment and the general development.
At the current time it is clear that we must express ourselves unambiguously against the way Raouf Denktash's attitude sabotaged the peace talks, which had begun optimistically.
Whilst obeying international law, however, we must not fail to remember that the Cypriot conflict is somewhat more complex, that there are two sides, and that it is of vital important for peace that Cypriots make peace amongst themselves, distancing themselves from false friends on both sides of the sea.
That is the key to the problem, and one may get a little applause here for attacks on Turkey, where one can find much to criticise.
Raouf Denktash has made impossible demands, yet there can be no peace in Cyprus without an agreement with the Turkish Cypriot side as well, and for this one must seek new ways.
This is not an argument for departure from any sort of resolution, but a plea for fantasy, imagination and initiative.
Mr President, Denktash has in fact slammed the door on the negotiations which initially seemed to have been opened with such imagination by the United Nations.
He set unacceptable prior conditions and the reaction of the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey was as expected.
However, every effort must still be made to find a solution to the dispute and to make clear that Cypriot entry to the European Union cannot be blocked by the fact that peace has not yet been achieved on the island.
The reaction of the Union was the right one. The Commission gave the right signal.
The accession negotiations with Cyprus must begin in 1998 - at the beginning of the year - and the Union must consequently stick to its position: the illegal occupation regime in northern Cyprus cannot be recognized and as such cannot take part in negotiations.
The negotiations on the Cypriot dispute must be carried out independently of the accession talks.
We must build on the successes such as the progress made in the humanitarian field.
The announcement that security problems will also be discussed soon is an encouraging sign.
The over-supply of arms makes the dispute on the island all the more explosive. Perhaps agreements on the limitation of weapon imports would be a good first step.
Mr President, recent developments bear witness to the fact that, unfortunately, we are now facing the worst situation regarding the Cypriot problem since 1974.
There is a serious danger that the island will finally be partitioned.
Responsibility for this lies in the policy that is being conducted in the region by the United States and NATO.
The move for the accession of Cyprus into the European Union, while seen by many as the catalyst for the solution of the Cyprus question, is already being transformed into an instrument of pressure and blackmail against the legally elected government of the Republic of Cyprus, and allows Turkey, with the indulgence not only of the European Union but also of the governments of certain Member States, to undermine any prospect whatsoever for a just and honourable solution to the Cypriot problem.
The only contribution of the present resolution is that it acts to remind us of the problem and of the responsibilities that exist.
For this reason I also endorse the resolution.
Mr President, now that the question of Cyprus is again on the agenda, I must just remind you that in December 1995, this Parliament, with a very large majority and without setting conditions, approved a customs union with Turkey and in addition billions in financing from the European Union to Turkey.
We nevertheless already knew then, in December 1995, that since 1974 Turkey has militarily occupied part of Cyprus and furthermore is actually carrying out a policy of cultural genocide there.
We also knew at that time that the entry of Cyprus into the European Union would become particularly problematic owing to this Turkish occupation.
It seems to me in all honesty a bit ridiculous, now, in this resolution, to point out in a friendly way to the Turkish government, the fact that, and I quote, constructive relations between Turkey and the European Union depend partly upon the policy concerning Cyprus.
The Turkish policy with regard to Cyprus is after all well known and one can perhaps reproach the Turkish government for it but we can certainly not blame the Turkish government for not speaking in clear terms about it.
Not then, in December 1995, and not now.
The difference is that in December 1995, we could have thrashed things out around the table and now, all we can do is make a protest on paper.
This will of course not stop me from approving the paper protest because it may after all still make a small contribution to letting Turkey, our neighbour country and NATO partner, know that the best possible neighbours can only remain so if first of all the Turkish occupation troops leave Cyprus and certainly if the Turkish threat of war, because that is what it is, ceases.
Mr President, the solution to the Cypriot crisis lies in the rediscovery of a Cypriot identity based on values of tolerance and mutual respect, putting aside ethnic hatred and divisions based on retrospective nationalist appeals.
If the Greek Cypriots felt more Cypriot than Greek and the same was true of the Turkish Cypriots, and both Greece and Turkey collaborated in the birth of a new nation which was neither pro-Greek nor pro-Turkish, perhaps this situation could be brought to an end.
Europe could send a peace contingent to guarantee the birth of a federal state which would respect cultural and religious autonomy, where the different identities could be reconstructed. That is the Alleanza Nazionale proposal.
To achieve this, it is obvious that the European Union must put the maximum political, commercial and economic pressure on Turkey to withdraw its troops from the island, just as the Greek Cypriot community must mute its desire for revenge.
Otherwise it would be better to close the chapter on Cypriot membership of the Union and regard Cyprus as just like all the other crisis areas we assiduously and hopelessly concern ourselves with.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes the motions for resolutions regarding the political situation following the UN sponsored talks on Cyprus in Troutbeck and Montreux.
The Commission fully supports the efforts under the auspices of the UN to work towards a political settlement and regrets that at the talks in August in Montreux there was no progress.
However, let me make it quite clear that accession negotiations with Cyprus will start six months after the conclusion of the IGC in conformity with the Council decision of 6 March 1995.
The Commission shares the view expressed by the UN Secretary-General that the decision to open negotiations should be seen as a positive development which could promote the search for a political settlement.
Together with the Council, the Commission looks to the leaders of the two communities to resume their direct negotiations and urges that they, and all parties concerned, should in the meantime work and act constructively and in good faith to promote the success of those negotiations.
In this context, the Commission welcomes the recent announcement of a forthcoming meeting between President Clerides and Mr Denktash to discuss security matters and the decision to continue direct contacts on humanitarian issues.
As requested by the Council, the Commission will continue to inform the Turkish Cypriot community about the advantages of accession to the European Union.
Thank you very much, Mr Pinheiro.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following six motions for resolutions:
B4-0762/97 by Mr Dell'Alba and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina; -B4-0765/97 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina; -B4-0774/97 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina; -B4-0782/97 by Mr Cars and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina; -B4-0789/97 by Mr Oostlander and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina; -B4-0791/97 by Mrs Pack and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Sandzak, former Yugoslavia.
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance to which I belong will probably vote in support of the resolution.
However, we cannot overlook a certain number of contradictions related to this resolution.
The first is that in the preambles, the European institutions express their full support for the return of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-confessional society.
Moreover, paragraph 6 in particular mentions that we should approve the attitudes currently observed with respect to a person who today holds an official post in the Republika Srpska and who for a long time, according to his own statements, worked closely with Karadzic and Mladic.
The fact that we must continue being favourably disposed towards this person because he now apparently defends the legitimate state is worrying or at least puzzling.
I believe that the crucial point in this text is the one that defends the permanent presence of the SFOR, which in our view is probably the only way to avoid a replica of the programmed massacre of the kind we have seen ordered by the persons already named.
As a member of the delegation which observed the elections in Bosnia, I have to say immediately that we must recognize with satisfaction the fact that the elections took place without incident and in a satisfactory manner from the formal point of view.
This is a step forward both for the implementation of the Dayton agreements, and for going further than the Dayton agreements.
But having said that, I think it is also important to say that good formal results are not enough. The situation needs to move forward and this will only happen if we are successful, starting from the results of the elections, in energizing the interactive relations which need to exist between the various parts of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In particular, the result already risks being compromised by the way voters were registered.
Hence, with the sole and important exception of the city of Tuzla, the result threatens to allow room only for the extremist nationalist parties.
This situation is a consequence of the way the elections were put in place.
I hope that we, as a Parliament, as the European Union, will be able to take forward initiatives on the basis of this result, which is important but not sufficient, so that peace can be brought to this area.
Mr President.
Firstly may I express the consternation and sorrow of our Party that so many very distinguished people have been killed in the tragic helicopter crash in Bosnia, including Mr Carlos Westendorp's deputy, Mr Wagner, whom I met only a few weeks ago in Sarajevo, and who had achieved a very high reputation in a very short time.
He had also expressed considerable criticism - perhaps I can quote this as his legacy here - about some things that had prevented Europe speaking with a stronger voice, from playing a stronger role in Bosnia. I would ask the Commissioner most sincerely to do all in his power to see that we do not merely give a lot of money - there is something to be said about that, as well - but really make a more powerful impression in Bosnia for the implementation of our concepts in general.
Today we are discussing Bosnia not just because there were elections a short time ago, but because, I think, we want to make an unequivocal statement of our view that we cannot and will not allow the peace process to be destroyed.
This is not a matter of angels, not a case of only good on one side and evil on the other, but it is a case of those who are ready to see the Dayton Process through to a good conclusion - regardless of where they may stand on it individually - needing our complete support.
Those who cannot refrain from continuing to disrupt this peace process must count on us taking definite measures against them, and I entirely share the view of Carlos Westendorp and the senior Delegate, that we must proceed against them with all severity and must not be afraid of doing so.
It must not be possible following the end of the war for people still to exist - unfortunately on all sides, but certainly mainly on one side or the other - who hinder the return of refugees, or the operation of this whole programme in which a multi-ethnic Bosnia is being created.
I should also like to say, Mr Commissioner, that there are cases where even the USA, the Commission or representatives of the Commission hinder the return of refugees to their homelands, and no new groups find entrance, because certain groups of citizens do not wish that to happen.
I believe one must take a firm stand against that.
The last point in the resolution is that we, the European countries, should make a lot of money available.
This money is not always used efficiently.
The money is also not sufficiently used, or used too late, because there are too few people to administer it as long as experts are at hand.
I would ask you, Mr Commissioner, to ensure that the money we make available can be more efficiently used, so that we do everything possible towards the restoration and securing of peace in Bosnia.
Mr President, the day before Karl Habsburg and I arrived as election observers in Bugojno in Bosnia, there was an explosion which destroyed a house.
Did it have anything to do with the election? The explanation was simpler than that.
Across the road from the house there was a car park.
Its Muslim owner could no longer make use of it because it ended up on the 'wrong side' after the war.
He had therefore sold it to the Croat house-owner.
That was not good.
The car park could now be regarded as a Croat area.
Hence the explosion.
From car and helicopter we gained a frightening picture of the destruction in Bosnia.
With systematic precision, tens of thousands of houses have been destroyed, most with the help of ordinary civilian tools.
Those who lived in them were of the 'wrong kind' .
The people in Bosnia belong to the same ethnic group and speak the same language, but history has created a mistrust which ruthless nationalist leaders have been able to exploit for their own ends.
I admit that I was ashamed of being a human being when I saw in Bosnia how vicious we can be towards our neighbours and work colleagues.
It is in this Bosnia that local elections have now been held for the first time.
A requirement for free elections is that the citizens find out what the parties stand for.
The voters in Bosnia never got that chance. But with international effort, it was possible to carry out the election itself in an acceptable way.
One outcome of the election is that it has strengthened the Bosnians' democratic awareness.
They had experience of elections in which the results were decided in advance in the President's Office.
Now they know that it can be different, that every vote is important.
The election has also given Bosnia local leaders with authority to act and think in a new way as a result of the voters' trust.
One may perhaps dare to imagine a light at the end of the tunnel, but the journey there will not be smooth.
Mr President, I should firstly like to join with those people who expressed their sympathy to the next of kin of those who recently lost their lives in the tragic helicopter accident.
I also wish to express my appreciation of the fact that Mr Swoboda now says from his group on this occasion once again how important it is to take very harsh action against those who carry out the evil deeds, from whichever side, in BosniaHerzegovina. This attitude is shared pretty well throughout the Parliament.
I believe that to be an extemely important point, particularly with regard to the future.
We have now had a successful election process. I am not going into that in depth now, but I do believe it is very important in particular that it has appeared that Serbs have withdrawn from the influence of their bosses and have gone to vote outside the Serb Republic in the places where they come from.
I think that is an important achievement.
In this way, the possibility is also created that criminals who are in power in various places may be cast out of their seats.
That is naturally very important with regard to the necessary return of refugees and the subsequent building up of the economy.
Because before that the return of the refugees will be essential.
I really wish to urge the Commission to provide assistance more forcefully and on a local basis to provide assistance to all communities that really want to get involved in completing the Dayton process.
I believe it is important to react immediately, in order to provide the conditional assistance quickly and effectively to those people, towns and regions that really want to work together towards the goals of Dayton.
I hope that it won't all founder in procedures, as did, for example, our pledge to repair a parliament building in Sarajevo, which has sort of become a monument to the impotence of the European Union.
I wish to insist upon the possibility that the mandate of SFOR be strengthened because of course the return of refugees and the guarantee of the results of these elections cannot be achieved without some force.
And I also commend, in that regard, the harsher position that SFOR in particular has already taken in respect of the protection of the media and of the radio and television stations in that area of the Serb Republic.
I would therefore ask the Commission in which way it is adapting its strategy to this successful result in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
I should like to follow what my colleague Oostlander has said, and to thank Mr Swoboda for mentioning the accident which has occurred.
These were all people who, on behalf of the international community, wanted to help people down there to regain freedom and peace, to make co-operation possible.
The fact that life has to be sacrificed for this is very sad.
I hope the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina appreciate that there are people who risk their lives to help them organise the future.
Now to return to the election which we observed.
I think we should note that this step towards elections was a very important one towards making this country achieve of peace.
Without communal elections there can be no multi-ethnic cooperation in this country.
Without the achievement of these communal elections this cannot happen.
I should like to remind you that - as my colleague Oostlander has already said - the people in this election voted where they wanted, because they came from there.
They did not, therefore, vote for the places to which they had been expelled, but for their places of origin.
I think that is an important sign for us, so that we, the international community, should now try to use the results of these communal elections with the local authorities in order that these people really can return. This should not be in order for us to produce a community without a population, but that the government elected there, the council, should once more have the citizens whom it represents.
I think this is an important step towards the implementation of Daytona.
We must obviously take other steps together with the Commission.
Commissioner van den Broek has promised me this.
We must be flexible in laying down conditions for aid.
If a community behaves in such a way that it really implements the results of this election, and in the speediest possible manner, the we must give it the means towards to reconstruction.
And so that it can be an example and noted by neighbouring communities: if one behaves properly, if one really obeys the agreement, then one will be rewarded.
That is the only way for us to establish peace and ensure that multi-ethnic cooperation is once again possible.
Mr President.
I should like to stress one point, which has, thank goodness, been included in the resolution. This concerns the problems of Sandjak in Novi Pazar, about which we have previously spoken hardly at all, but which present a very serious human rights problem.
As you know, the Sandjak of Novi Pazar has about 500, 000 Muslims who live between Montenegro and Serbia and who were, even in the past, subject to the most serious oppression.
Once again there has been deceit, and in the elections the freely elected community council was dissolved, to be replaced by other individuals loyal to Serbia. This is proof that Serbia, and perhaps Montenegro also, - although one must not take the independence of Montenegro too seriously - is simply not prepared to play the game according to the rules we laid down at Daytona.
I request that everything should be extended to include the Sandjak of Novi Pazar and the rights of that population.
Mr President, as we are aware, the European Union was represented by a committee of observers with unfortunately only five members, expertly presided over by Mrs Pack.
As in the previous year, I had the opportunity, together with my colleagues, to see the situation at close hand, and indeed in the extremely sensitive region of Britzko.
It is clear that in these elections displaced persons expressed their desire to return to their homes, but it is also clear that the implementation of the result of the elections will be beset by many difficulties.
It is encouraging that in a town like Tuzla the prudent and moderate mayor has been re-elected, but this is not sufficient.
The ambassador, Mr Frowick, rushed to celebrate before the ballot boxes had been well and truly closed.
There were problems, however.
Regarding Britzka especially, everybody agreed that equivocation and confusion reigned for which the organisers were chiefly responsible.
What must happen? Of course every attempt to rebuild local multiethnic societies must be supported.
Wherever it happens, the more it happens the better, without, however, actions that may lead to more violence.
The European Union has spent enormous sums of money intermittently here without having played any substantial political role.
The Croat entity is the most developed, the Muslim entity attempts to follow and also accepts enormous sums of money from the Organization of Muslim Countries (an American Officer there told us) while the Serbian entity is in a very difficult position.
Of course the mega question of war crimes still hasn't been resolved.
Such crimes, however, were committed on all sides and, in any case, those who pay are just ordinary people and the weakest among them at that.
Bosnia needs every support and help it can get, at all levels and throughout the whole of the region.
The international armed force, SFOR, also needs to be maintained there, and, and we in this House must emphasise this in particular, the units of unarmed ECMM must also be maintained there, that is to say, of those who have offered so much under the flag of the European Union.
And when we talk of aid, we are not talking of philanthropy. We are talking of the need of the European Union never to see such conflagrations at its door again.
Madam President, let me start by saying that the Commission is deeply shocked and saddened by the helicopter accident yesterday in which 10 foreign officials working in Bosnia for peace died and, among them, our very much appreciated Deputy High Representative, Dr Wagner.
The Commission of course welcomes the successful holding of municipal elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina on 13 and 14 September.
The high turnout underlines the fact that these elections mark an important step towards democracy.
But let us not fool ourselves.
The next vital step will be the enabling the officials elected to take office.
The Commission calls on the parties to enable this to happen smoothly and rapidly.
The elections mark a step on the road towards implementing the Dayton agreement, which remains the national communities' and the Commission's firm objective.
As you may recall, at the ministerial meeting in Sintra last May, we agreed on the need to support those parties who are themselves supporting Dayton and to do what we can to undermine those who are opposing it.
This explains why the Commission has so warmly welcomed Mrs Plavsic's determination to lead the Republic of Srpska towards the implementation of Dayton and, at the same time, her intention to eliminate corruption in the Republic of Srpska government.
Unfortunately, the political confusion and the impossibility of being sure that assistance would not be exploited to the profit of Karadzic as well as some legal constraints on the memorandum of understanding governing the programme of assistance to Bosnia, meant that not all the resources at our disposal have been fully utilized.
I refer to the utilization of ECU 15 million but the non-utilization of ECU 35 million.
One of the Honourable Members asked the Commission what we intend to do about that.
We have agreed with the High Representative, Mr Westendorp, that we will work very closely, and as a matter of urgency, with the economic task force in order to identify the best projects that would help the people in Bosnia and help the Dayton process.
In that sense, support for free media and, just as importantly, support for municipalities that are working to put Dayton into practice - these are the main goals of the Commission following these recent elections in Bosnia.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, I am pleased to introduce this motion.
The situation in Kenya has been going from bad to worse, it seems.
Not only is the situation bad in human rights terms, with regular violations of human rights, regular beatings by the police, detention without trial, but the situation socially is bad too.
The schools and hospitals in Kenya do not have the resources they need nor, in some cases, do the local authorities.
There seems to be discrimination against people according to the tribes they come from.
Indeed tribal relations are far from good.
The European Union is a major aid donor to Kenya.
We know that we can exercise pressure on the Kenyan Government in collaboration with others, pressure that can be effective.
We know this because recently the ruling party actually made some concessions to the opposition to help create free and fair elections.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for having met me and a colleague this morning to talk about this situation.
I would urge him to do all he can to carry out the demands of this motion and bring pressure to bear on the Kenyan Government with a view to free and fair elections and the development of a healthy democracy.
Madam President, we are now at a rather crucial stage in Kenya, with elections coming up very fast on the horizon.
We certainly welcome the concessions made by the government and the vote by the parliament on 11 September.
I have a question I hope the Commissioner can answer.
When exactly will these reforms take effect? Clearly, if we go on President Moi's past record, he will delay their implementation until after the elections.
That would not be acceptable to us in Parliament or to the Commission.
Secondly, how far will the reforms go? In particular, the requirement to have a certain proportion of the votes in a number of regions seems to be the reason why there have been oppression, beatings and intimidation in the Mombasa region.
Will that also be part of the package?
I should like to end with a quotation from a letter which I have received from the Presbyterian Church of East Africa.
It says, on behalf of the people: ' The people's participation in the affairs of their country is an inalienable right which cannot be denied' .
I would commend that to the House.
Let us do everything we can to support the Kenyan people in the exercise of their democratic rights.
Madam President, unfortunately we are again forced to concern ourselves with violence and human rights abuses in Kenya.
Last week's serious disorder, which took many victims, was, I believe, a very clear demonstration of the way the regime is using all possible means to oppose the development of democracy in the country.
While the interpretation of any individual act of violence is never simple, what does seem certain is that a consistent proportion of the acts of violence are organized and carried out by government forces or forces under the orders of the regime.
On top of this there is fierce repression of representatives of the opposition forces and the widespread violation of human rights continues.
Even more dangerous is the outbreak of violence presented as ethnic and religious in origin when it is clearly politically motivated, violence which threatens to destabilize the country permanently.
There is still one element of hope.
The recent constitutional reforms approved by the Kenyan Parliament, if they are actually implemented, could begin - only begin - a spiral establishing democracy in the country.
The prospect of free elections and of putting an end to the extremely protracted authoritarian regime can begin to emerge.
But to do this it is necessary to continue down the road to reform and above all to build a political dialogue.
Now, more than ever, the international community can play a positive role to promote that prospect.
So we call on the Council and the Commission to monitor the situation in Kenya and, above all, using all the available instruments, to bring strong pressure to bear on the Kenyan authorities so that all provocation and violence ceases and does not impede the reform process.
Then it is necessary to guarantee the maximum possible assistance to the vast number of evacuees created by the violence of the past few months, and it needs to be remembered that there are hundreds of thousands of refugees from other countries in Kenya and that the stability of that country is fundamental for the whole region.
Madam President. Kenya was not always the scene of disorder and brutality.
I was myself in Nairobi for the World Conference of Women in 1990, when the city peacefully welcomed 13, 000 women.
That is unthinkable today.
Everything has changed.
Today there is the rule of fear, terror and violence by the Police and by gangs.
Kenya's tourism is under threat as an important source of foreign exchange, neighbouring countries fear that the crisis will cross their borders.
We appeal to the parties, whether they be in Government or Opposition, not to support any kind of violence, but to turn against any form of terrorism, to enable constitutional reform with the possibility for freedom of expression, and to prepare for free elections.
This concerns their own race, after all.
It concerns their own people and their own families.
Corruption must be combatted and I, too, should like to end with the proposal: the Commission and the Council should make much more use of their opportunity to use article 5 of the Lomé Convention in the ending of human rights abuses on behalf of the population.
Kenya will be another example of how seriously we take our own human rights clauses, which we insist on having in agreements, and how effectively we are able to enforce them.
Kenya is a great African country. It has played an important role in the past, a peaceful role as well, and it could play this role again, if it should be successful in restoring public order, democracy and the rule of law.
I think we cannot do enough to try and influence these countries, because we have seen that we are in a position to do so.
We must support, therefore, all those who are prepared to restore peace and public order.
Madam President, once again we have to pass a resolution on Kenya - as we did last July - and we have to do so because the Nairobi military authorities continue to promote tension in that country.
In this way President Arap Moi is putting de facto obstacles in the way of a process of democratization which Kenya has yet to experience and which it badly needs.
I think the international community should put political and economic pressure on President Arap Moi.
In effect, I think the Commission should apply all the instruments provided for by article 5 of the Lomé Convention to stop the regime violating human rights and democratic freedoms.
Like other Members, I think the Commission should make a firm financial and practical commitment to assist the electoral process in every way, because the country needs democratic, transparent, multi-party elections.
Perhaps this aim, this stage of democracy, can draw the line under the dictatorial regime which, as the resolution states, has existed for far too long.
Madam President.
We discussed the situation in Kenya back in June and expressed our regret at how violent the situation there was.
This situation has not improved.
Fear, terror and violence rule the land, violence by the state forces.
We are currently concerned at the unrest and the wave of brutal oppression which exist, and which have already cost many people their lives.
We are concerned by the latest attacks by armed militia who have forced many thousands of people in Mombasa to leave their homes.
Kenya is, however, a signatory to the Lomé Convention.
Precisely because of this convention and its article 5, we are obliged to assert ourselves on behalf of human rights in Kenya and to demand of the government or the president that the promised constitutional reform at last be implemented, and thus the basis for elections be prepared.
We support democratic conditions in Kenya.
That is also the demand of the local opposition, so that there may be an equal chance in the elections.
We, as the European Union and as signatories to the Lomé Convention, can implement this by means of political and economic pressure, and it is my view, Mr Pinheiro, that it should be included in the next Lomé meeting, which is imminent.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as happens unfortunately all too often in our assembly, the know-alls have again struck by tabling in response to the situation in Kenya a motion which is almost a word for word copy of a text drafted by the International Monetary Fund dated last July, despite the fact that it is very difficulty to understand who was responsible for the violence in Kenya.
As this is election year, the ill-informed media have hastily concluded that this was a revolt by the opposition that was quashed by the police forces.
This explains why the motion submitted to us mentions that civilians have fled acts of intimidation and brutality perpetrated by the security forces.
A telegram from the Agence France-Presse dated yesterday 17 September informs us that according to the leaders of the three opposition parties - Ford-Kenya, Ford-Asili and the democratic party - acts of violence are being committed by Islamic extremists in the region of Mombasa on the Indian Ocean and are spreading terror by burning homes and tourist centres because alcohol is consumed there.
I fail to see how the government of Mr Arap Moi could gain from wrecking the economy of his country, which mainly relies on tourism, only months from elections and only weeks from the start of the tourist season.
This is why the Group Union for Europe cannot vote in favour of a resolution which is clearly misguided and which proves, yet again, that instead off acting so self-importantly, some members of our assembly would be better advised to put aside their textbooks on ideology and carefully appraise the facts.
Gulf States
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the revolting news last week of the public executions of those who had been sentenced to death in the United Arab Emirates and the impending beheading of two British nurses found guilty of murder, bring back into the limelight in the most dramatic way the issue of capital punishment and the widespread abuse of basic human rights.
The increase in the imposition of the death penalty and the frequent public executions, as mentioned by Amnesty International and the Human Rights Agency, must concern us greatly and must make our Parliament, and other institutional bodies of the European Union, sensitive to the situation, so that it will engage in campaigns on a global scale for the abolition of the death penalty.
The European Parliament has both the authority and the power, and the necessary financial and human resources to achieve this.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is not a single scientifically reliable shred of evidence to support the fact that the death penalty acts as a deterrent. On the contrary it increases rather then reduces incidences of murder through a process of dehumanisation.
Today, unfortunately, the increased trend towards the restoration of the death penalty is all too obvious, and the reasons for this return to a mediaeval form of punishment are:
firstly, the inability of governments to control crime, which is on the increase because there is no investment in a long term anti-crime social policy with prevention as its aim.-secondly, the increase in the fear of becoming a victim.
We all fear falling victim to a criminal act.
This fear is systematically cultivated by the mass media and plays a part in the adoption of measures of containment and not of prevention.-thirdly, the pressure that is exerted on the one hand by those who mould public opinion and on the other hand by those strata of society of a low educational and socio-economic level who tend to think that the courts are lenient towards criminals.-fourthly, mass media images present the most rare and repugnant forms of crime inciting mass hysteria and arousing the desire of the public for more severe punishments and, indirectly, for the death penalty.Capital punishment has no place in democratic societies, noone has the absolute right of life and death over another human being.
On the contrary, capital punishment is the weapon preferred by totalitarian regimes, since it is the symbol of the deification of the state and of the humiliation of the individual in the face of state power. And so capital punishment is most often used for the extermination of opponents of the state.
The European Union must intensify its efforts against the concluding of economic and political agreements to ensure that provisions for the respect of human rights are not violated.
Mr President, more than 20 years ago, in 1975, the Government of Bahrain dissolved the firstever elected Bahraini parliament which had existed for only two years.
Ever since, it has refused to restore it or call new elections.
Protests and campaigns opposed to arbitrary rule have been subject to draconic suppression under the 1974 State Security Law and other measures.
Very large numbers of people have been intimidated, arrested, convicted, imprisoned without trial or sent into compulsory exile.
There have, furthermore, been very serious complaints of violence, ill-treatment and torture.
It is, of course, true that some of the discontent generated in the tense atmosphere created has taken violent forms.
We in the European Parliament do not support in any way acts of terrorism, bombing or attempts by Islamic fundamentalists, for example, to limit the freedom of women.
Such acts however cannot be used to justify the refusal to provide any genuine democratic structures or the failure to guarantee human rights.
Many true democrats and peaceful campaigners have been punished and persecuted in a way that constitutes the most flagrant abuse of their human democratic rights.
Raids on meeting places, homes and other locations, the suspension of a professor from her job, dismissals of people for instigating a petition and the raid on 13 December on a women's organization are all unacceptable.
The purpose of this resolution is not only to denounce the abuse of human and democratic rights but to appeal to the Bahraini authorities to restore democracy, call elections, release political prisoners and allow exiles to return.
I acknowledge receipt of representations from the Bahraini authorities against this resolution.
But I say to them, this is the only way for their country to end the tension and the possibility of an explosion in the long run.
We therefore call on the European Union Member States, the USA and others, to exert real pressure on Bahrain as indicated in this resolution to introduce genuine democratic change forthwith.
Madam President, the situation in Bahrain, about which Mr Newens spoke very eloquently, is visibly deteriorating.
The parliament has been dissolved for 22 years and human rights are being violated.
The recent demonstrations that call for the restoration of the constitutional order were aggressively suppressed on a grand scale.
Political prisoners are being tortured. Reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch speak volumes.
The Union must demonstrate its clear condemnation of this policy and it must also be clear that such a reaction to peaceful demonstrations is only pouring petrol on the flames.
And they have plenty of petrol there, from what I've understood.
This must be made clear in the bilateral contacts between the Union and Bahrain.
Democratization is the only solution that can end the situation there.
Political prisoners must be released and political exiles must be able to return to Bahrain without risk.
The countries of the Union should finally refrain from supplying weapons to Bahrain and this approach must also be urged with partners in order to have as great an effect as possible.
Madam President. I am truly sorry to have to contradict my good friends, the previous two speakers.
I have been to Bahrain on more than one occasion.
I know a bit about the history of Bahrain, back into the Forties.
It shows that these reports on Bahrain had nothing whatever to do with realities there.
We must not forget one thing: there is no doubt that certain excesses exist there, as in all Arab countries, which we cannot oppose sufficiently strongly.
On the other hand, however, Bahrain is under extreme threat from Iranian forces.
Shiite extremists, guided by the Iranian authorities, are responsible for the unrest one has seen in Bahrain generally.
Naturally they are anti-Government.
There is also a simple reason why they want to overthrow the Bahrain Government.
One merely needs to look at a map.
Bahrain has a, if not the, key position in the whole region.
If extremist forces were able to take Bahrain they would destabilize not just the region, but effectively create great violence.
I have to say that if we were successful in overthrowing the Government of Bahrain we would then really see what is meant by violence, oppression, repression and torture.
It is my view that one should certainly speak gently to the Bahrainis.
They are not our enemies.
But one should make quite clear to them that we would defend them against this threat from Iran, that we would support them, and that we would do everything possible to ensure that greater freedom is created in Bahrain, but that, in God's name, internal order there should not now be destroyed.
For that reason we shall vote against this resolution.
Columbia
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament has often spoken about the situation in Colombia - about the violence, the terrorism and the attacks on human rights.
This debate today and the corresponding resolution are different because, finally, a glimmer of hope can be seen.
Violence has not solved a single problem in Colombia.
On the contrary, the situation has been getting worse throughout the last 30 years, reaching the limits of endurance.
The State has been replaced by violent organizations or drug mafias.
The country's disruption has been caused by a violence which we wholly condemn.
That is why the proposal launched by the Samper Government to initiate talks between the conflicting parties should receive the support of all the Union's institutions, which in their debates on many occasions have demonstrated enormous concern for the future of that country.
Furthermore, Colombian society is clearly demonstrating its commitment to peace through various types of initiatives, ranging from the mobilization of the population to education in tolerance, leaving aside the understandable fear of reprisals.
This is a new situation, which deserves careful thought from the guerrillas, the paramilitaries and all those who employ weapons instead of words.
The determination of Colombian society cannot be frustrated.
The Colombian Government has realized this, and is offering a chance for discussions which should lead to peace.
Finally, we ask several things: we ask the guerrillas to respond positively to this initiative; we also ask for the paramilitary groups to be dismantled; also, that a group of friendly countries should be formed to guarantee the process, as has been done on other recent occasions; and we ask the Commission to offer their cooperation, with the full support of Parliament, to help with the success of this peaceful enterprise.
The unavoidable prerequisite for any peace process in Columbia is a basic improvement in the human rights situation in the country.
More than a million people are displaced in their own country, not just because they are caught between the fronts of the guerillas and the army, but because they have been sacrificed to the ever-worsening social conflict.
Large landowners like the regular army maintain paramilitary gangs that drive people away from fertile land.
You must all remember the exemplary case of Hacienda de la Cruz, as an example.
Human rights exponents are not safe in their homes even in Bogota, the capital, as we have recently seen from the murder of two members of CINEP.
It is possible, however, to see a glimmer of hope in this situation, as the Government has offered peace talks to the guerillas.
We are very ready to do everything in our power to support this process.
And that goes for both sides.
They must sit down at one table and at last negotiate, but it has got to be more than just a PR exercise to refresh the damaged image of this government.
We are very ready to help here.
Madam President, in support of this resolution, it is right that this European Parliament maintains its criticism of violence and human rights abuses on all sides in the Colombian conflict.
We condemn guerrilla violence and whilst welcoming the release of the kidnapped 70 young conscripts earlier this year against some expectations, we express concern at reports of widespread interference in the electoral process in the run-up to local elections due on 26 October.
Whilst welcoming peace proposals from the Colombian Government, we recognize the serious and outstanding questions of human rights abuse against state authorities, including the apparent sanctioning of paramilitary violence through Conviver.
Let us remember too that the vast majority of the civilian population are embroiled as innocent victims in the conflict, including nearly a million internally displaced people who, as my colleague says, have been driven from their homes through fear.
There can be no true peace without justice; an end to widespread impunity in the country and social justice for peasants and indigenous communities are an absolute prerequisite for a lasting peace.
Finally, this Parliament passed a landmark resolution on human rights in Colombia last October.
Let us hear from you what practical actions you have taken and what you have achieved over the past twelve months to contribute towards the aims of that resolution.
Madam President, unfortunately in Colombia today violence is a law unto itself.
The proof of this is that more than 900 candidates for the forthcoming municipal elections in October have withdrawn their candidature. This is not surprising when you consider that more than 120 have been kidnapped and 22 murdered, and members of the Colombian Parliament have been advised to wear bullet-proof vests.
The economic situation is still deteriorating and relations with the United States are the worst they have been for several years.
What can the European Union do about this situation?
Unfortunately, very little: we can support the Government and various sectors of civilian society in their efforts to achieve a rightful peace; and we can support the efforts of the European Commission, and Commissioner Marín in particular, in that direction.
But let us not deceive ourselves. It will not be possible to achieve any solution unless the right conditions are created to permit a form of justice that is worthy of the name, in accordance with a system of law, and if absolutely nobody is above the law.
Madam President, the draft resolution welcomes the Colombian government's peace initiative.
This initiative was announced on 28 August.
We should, however, note that on 4 September the army and paramilitary groups had already begun an offensive, including mass bombing of civilian targets.
This state of affairs has been documented by the indigenous people's national organisation, amongst others, and also in newspapers like El País and La Nación .
It appears that in future Parliament and the Commission should be more on their guard against the double game the Colombian government is playing and its armed forces.
Chile
Madam President. It is a long time since we spoke in this House about human rights violations in Chile.
Despite that there are still open wounds which have existed since the time of President Pinochet.
An amnesty law guaranteeing the military immunity from prosecution has so far prevented those guilty of the hideous crimes carried out by the military dictatorship in the country from being themselves brought before a court and sentenced.
The days of immunity from punishment, however, may now be over.
For just this very reason our resolution today is so important.
An action brought in Spain by Spanish lawyers is about to lead to an investigation into crimes against humanity carried out by the dictatorship.
If this leads to the opening of a criminal case - as is foreseeable - Pinochet would even have to be extradited to Spain under an existing extradition treaty.
I think it is very important for other states to follow this example, so that these wounds can finally heal, because only one who also knows the facts can forgive.
Madam President, my first point is that this is a resolution designed to combat impunity directly.
It is not concerned with the past, but instead defends the present and the future, for impunity is the cause of continuing human rights abuses.
But, at the same time, this resolution shows the greatest respect for Chile's democratic and civilian authorities.
Apart from the people of Chile, hardly any other institution has fought so much for the restoration of democracy in that country as has this Parliament.
The resolution is completely consistent both with this Parliament's policy, which has made constant efforts to defend human rights, and with international law, which demonstrates that crimes against humanity cannot be tolerated.
At the same time, we are in direct agreement with the rulings of the Chilean legal authorities, who say that the actions of the political police during the dictatorship were true crimes against humanity.
We are also in line with what has been expressed by the current Spanish Government in the Senado , which echoes popular feeling and fully supports a solution to this case.
This resolution is also similar to those passed by the Basque Parliament and the Valencian Community, and to the support currently being given by the United States authorities to the Spanish judge, opening the archives on cases which occurred during the dictatorship.
Therefore it makes reference to the opinions not only of Spain, but of many European people who want this impunity to be challenged.
This Parliament cannot ignore the outcry, and we cannot employ double standards.
That is why I am asking you to vote affirmatively, because it would be incomprehensible for this Parliament to fail to respond to this case.
Madam President, I believe the significance of this motion for a resolution has been explained extremely well by the proposer, our colleague Mr Pons Grau.
The position the European Parliament is voting on here today is the maintenance of constant and consistent action, well-grounded in law and justice, against impunity and neglect in relation to crimes systematically committed against human rights.
The Chilean case is a particularly serious one.
It is shocking that, just a few days ago, the dictator should have been able to glorify himself, in a military ceremony, offensive to the Chilean armed forces themselves, let alone offensive to the democratic authorities, as if the past had not been a past, as it was, of crimes against humanity.
The initiative of the Unión de Fiscales Progresistas, which was received by a Spanish court, should be given our political support.
That is what we can do; that is what we ought to do, in the name of the European Community doctrine of defence of human rights and democracy.
And this is what we ask the Commission to do: support the action in Chile against impunity, which is helping consolidate democracy.
Madam President, General Pinochet will cease to be Chief Head of State of Chile in March 1998.
We all hope that the transition to democracy will culminate at that precise moment.
Since we energetically condemn any human rights violation, our political Group has not the slightest doubts about the nature of the resolution presented by our colleagues.
However, we should like to emphasize that the Chilean Government, headed by President Frei, is making significant efforts towards the consolidation of democracy and the State of Law.
I should also like to remind the honourable Members that for more than ten years Chile has had a consensus Government made up of President Frei's party, the Socialist Party and the Democracy Party.
Relations between the European Union and Chile are excellent at the moment, and a European Parliamentary delegation will soon be visiting Santiago.
I should like to conclude by asking you, on behalf of my group, for a separate vote on section 4 of the resolution.
Madam President, I am sorry to be out of tune with the chorus of the politically correct.
The reasons are simple: Chile is the only country in South America which has experienced democracy for 150 years.
Democratic elections brought President Allende to power.
His government was tragically troubled by the violent action of the MIR and its high-minded leader, but it is also politically incorrect to talk about him.
The persecutions and deaths that took place at that time opened the way to a violent and tragic military dictatorship, more criticized at world level than many others, equally or more violent, which exist and have existed in Africa and Asia.
The good democratic sense of the Chilean people forced the dictator to withdraw partially and allowed democracy to return.
I, who was born and lived under the Salazar dictatorship and who lived under and fought the communist dictatorship which followed it, have always approved of the democratic fate reserved for the soldiers guilty of unleashing blood and fire in Africa and East Timor, and the many who grew rich in the shade of the so-called "revolution of the nails' .
So I appeal to this Parliament to have the good sense and the courage to see the beam in its own eye and not the mote in its neighbour's, because the fact is that we are not even able to fight corruption and fraud within our own frontiers, far less give lessons to an already established democratic government.
Madam President. The point about this resolution - as we understand it - is also to show that we as Europeans always have a particular responsibility for the punishment of those guilty of crimes under a dictatorship.
Transition from a dictatorship to a democracy is a development which many countries in Europe have made.
This has often not been easy, nor did it take place by simply altering the form of state government at a stroke.
This is not a matter of revenge, therefore, nor of proving that perhaps the new democracy in Chile is not sufficiently stable.
It is essential, however, to seek out and sentence those who were responsible for crimes during the dictatorship.
Transition from dictatorship to democracy is always a bit of family history as well.
My generation has experienced that here in Europe.
It concerns the fate of perpetrators and victims who were part of one's own family and whom one has to acknowledge as part of our history.
Perhaps it is only the recognition of this development in one's own family that has made our democracies in Europe so stable.
For this reason the prosecution those responsible is a basic requirement for the stability of a new democracy.
An amnesty or statute of limitations is not an expression of generosity, but in the end would cause a destabilisation of Chile's democratic future.
This is not a matter of revenge, but of a process by which one proves that a democracy is strong enough to condemn, not those who simply carried out orders, but those who were specifically responsible for crimes.
Ethiopia
Madam President, my motion for a resolution today concerns the situation in Ethiopia which, despite its natural resources, is one of the poorest and least-developed countries in the world.
It is a very complex country with some 55 million people, including no fewer than 76 ethnic groups, speaking 286 languages.
Ethiopia, as we well know and first learned graphically ten years ago and more, has a long history of war, famine and drought.
The last elections in 1992 gave everyone hope that the situation would eventually improve.
Alas, only three years since the new constitution was drawn up guaranteeing basic human rights, and despite promises made by the Ethiopian authorities, there are still numerous reports of human rights abuses committed by the Ethiopian government forces, and no doubt others.
The authorities admit that some of these have occurred, but say that they are isolated incidents committed without their approval.
They maintain that such abuses are to be expected in a country which has been brutalized by 17 years of oppression and civil war.
The recent killing on 11 June 1997 of Mr Assefa Maru, of the Ethiopian Teachers' Association, once again highlights the necessity for the Ethiopian authorities to respect the human rights of their citizens, whatever ethnic group they may belong to, and for the European Union to monitor closely the situation in Ethiopia.
I ask for the support of the House in the face of this grave violation of human rights.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I am surprised that just before this debate on Ethiopia began it was not made clear by Mr Moorhouse, or by anybody else, that the President of Parliament has insisted that the printed text be changed.
I made a complaint this morning that recital D. of the text is fundamentally inaccurate.
I asked the President to check with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva as to whether in its fifty-third session it did in fact make the condemnation that Mr Moorhouse's text purports.
The President checked with Geneva and he has insisted that the words 'expressed its condemnation of the continuing' (those six words) be deleted and be replaced by the more accurate phrase 'discussed' .
There was a discussion in Geneva: there was no expression of condemnation.
Before the debate proceeds, Madam President, it must be made absolutely clear to everybody in this House that we are debating a different text to that submitted by Mr Moorhouse, because the President has instructed the correction to be made because of the fundamental inaccuracy of that allegation in recital D.
Mr Tomlinson. I followed what you said when you spoke this morning.
Recital D is no longer contained in the text.
You can see that.
You now say that the choice of words "has condemned' and in article 1 "condemned the murder' , etcetera, does not fit the facts.
In the German text I would read this as follows: "condemns the murder of Assefa Marin' is not necessarily meant in a legal sense, but it can be an expression of rejection.
I have been told that that has in the meantime been checked and that the facts are correct.
Madam President, according to my information there are different designations of the item in individual versions. That which appears in the German version as recital C appears in an English version as recital D. That will be amended.
There are also some in this House who would like the recital to be omitted entirely.
I should like to call on my colleague Moorhouse to say if he could not omit completely recital C in the German version and recital D in the English version.
Madam President, on a point of order. I am at a slight loss to understand why Mr Tomlinson is taking such a strong line.
To my knowledge it is the first time he has ever taken any part in any debate on human rights.
I can only presume that he has been suborned by the Ethiopian Ambassador to the European Union because, as we shall hear shortly, the Ambassador in Brussels has been extremely slow, to put it mildly - this will be confirmed shortly - in responding to accusations of the sort which we are making here in this resolution.
That is my first point.
I just do not understand why he should be in the pocket, so to speak, of the Ethiopian Ambassador and of the Ethiopian authorities who are very guilty indeed in the human rights field.
We are concerned here about human life and the fate of Mr Assefa Maru, who was murdered.
It is not the time, therefore, to be highly critical of the semantics of the resolution, which I am more than happy to amend to the extent that is thought necessary by the House.
Indeed, it has already been acknowledged by the presidency, and alterations have been made to the resolution which I hope will be acceptable.
Mr Moorhouse.
Are you prepared to withdraw recital C? That was the compromise proposal.
Madam President, we have had informal discussions.
I am quite ready to do so since it would ease our situation as the matter has been highlighted so virulently by one of my colleagues.
Mr Tomlinson. If recital C has been withdrawn there is no further need to discuss it.
Recital C has just been withdrawn by Mr Moorhouse.
Madam President, Mr Moorhouse has made a statement which is about the most offensive statement that can ever be made about a fellow parliamentarian.
His exact words - and I must insist on defending myself against them - was first of all to say that I did not participate in these debates and then he went on to suggest that I was 'in the pocket of' the Ambassador of a foreign country.
That is an offence to any parliamentarian; it is totally inaccurate; it is as inaccurate as Mr Moorhouse's draft resolution.
Mr Moorhouse's draft resolution - and I am merely asking to get a resolution that reflects the truth - states that the United Nations Commission 'expressed its condemnation' .
It did no such thing!
That is an untruth, and you do not have to be in anybody's pocket to speak the truth in a democratic parliament.
I hope Mr Moorhouse has something approaching the courage sufficient to stand up and withdraw that slur.
Mr Tomlinson. I think we are now clear about the text concerning the resolution.
As for you yourself, you feel insulted.
I think we can discuss that again at the end of the debate.
We shall have three minutes for it.
Mr Maccartney has a point of order.
Madam President, I have two very short and relevant points to make.
Firstly, if there is genuine confusion about what is or is not before the House to vote on, we cannot possibly vote this afternoon; and there is confusion.
Secondly, Mr Moorhouse should consider his position and withdraw the allegations right now, because those of us who share the concern feel equally attacked.
Mr Macartney, as regards the text, what we shall be voting on afterwards is completely clear.
We shall return to the other matter later.
Mr President, this is a topical and urgent debate.
An hour ago a bomb exploded in a tourist bus in Cairo: nine people were killed, including six German tourists.
I wish to express my sympathy.
On my fax machine I have received a cry for help from Guatemala.
Felipe de Jesurín and Immelda Lopez de Sandoval were pursued by cars and threatened with death.
Mr President, by speaking their names, I can possibly save their lives.
We were dealing with Ethiopia. For two years, people have been knocking on my door about the violation of human rights.
I believed that the government after the dictatorship should be given space.
Unfortunately that did not work.
On 11 July I wrote and asked for clarification about the murder of Assefa Maru and Wakotola.
The ambassador promised a reply.
I telephoned him recently. He was arrogant and my request fell on deaf ears.
Mr President, if an ambassador is not even open-minded enough to listen to the real worries about imprisoned journalists and arbitrary executions, then we have at the very least the right to denounce that.
This is a sign to Ethiopia and my group supports that sign.
Madam President, of course terminology, concepts and accuracy of the texts we may adopt in this House are extremely important.
But the actual content of the debate which has just taken place testifies to the importance of the European Union and notably this Parliament strongly urging the Ethiopian authorities to show full respect for freedom of the press, union independence, citizens' right of association, irrespective of any action taken by other bodies.
It is also crucial to press the Ethiopian Government to release the political prisoners and prisoners of conscience and take steps to correct the procedures of an unjust legal system.
I think this should be done irrespective of whether certain expressions exactly correspond to the absolute truth.
Inner Mongolia
Madam President, human rights are indivisible and wherever they are violated we in this group, like many others in the House, will always condemn them.
But just as we declined yesterday to talk again about Turkey, so we shall not always be able to give our approval to this resolution. Because, if you demand in recital G an open and continuous dialogue with China about this question, then it makes no sense to pass a resolution against China at every sitting of this House.
In the same way it really makes no sense at all - and I would ask you to remember this in future - always to combine the subject of human rights with the question of the external integrity of the Peoples' Republic of China, in which things are demanded for Tibet which even the Dalai Lama does not ask for!
I do ask you to consider that.
We are united in our opposition to violations of human rights.
We cannot permanently connect this, however, to the question of the integrity of the Peoples' Republic of China!
Madam President, of course I must take issue with the previous speaker, Mr Swoboda.
We are referring here to the last great colonial power on Earth.
We are talking about a country with three huge colonies, Tibet, East Turkestan and Mongolia.
If we do not make it absolutely clear what we stand for, what we accept, that we stand for the right of races to self-determination, that we stand for respect of human rights in China's various colonies, then we shall, in my view, have indeed missed our target and our purpose.
We can certainly see that in all three parts of the area the same means are being used.
People are deported, there is forced sterilisation, there is forced abortion. Chinese immigrants are moved in with unbelievable promises: they are told they can have more children than in China, where they are allowed only one.
What sort of conditions are those?
They get up to all kinds of tricks, the population structure in the sub-areas is completely altered, and in these colonies, representing different areas, we are supposed for all practical purposes to close our eyes to it.
That cannot be in the interests of our Parliament.
I believe it is absolutely essential for us to express clearly what we stand for in this.
In the European Union we have a whole group of Mongolians who live amongst us, who have spent years in gaol in Beijing and in concentration camps in other places, and have only got out because of pressure from the West.
Many of them are my friends and I know their circumstances very well.
The Mongolians are in a particularly difficult position, because large numbers of them have been involved in various demonstrations - particularly the demonstration in Tienanmen Square.
Many died there, or in the aftermath to it. Many were just able to escape and are now exiles without a chance of returning to their homeland.
I think we must also be quite clear in this case what we are talking about: that we represent the self-determination of peoples, particularly in all those places where this is being violated.
We must not shirk this, just because we are talking about the largest country on Earth.
We must speak of human rights, we must stand up for them; in other words, we must accept the consequences of being the European Union and the European Parliament.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
Mr Moorhouse now wishes to raise a point of order.
Please do not re-open the debate, but keep to the point of order.
Madam President, I think I owe it to Mr Tomlinson to make an apology for my rather strong statement in relation to his views.
I feel sure that he and I are at one in wishing to expose human rights violations, not only in Ethiopia, but in any country that we may feel obliged to do so and he, like I, will want to take action where necessary against offending governments.
Therefore, I gladly withdraw the particular remark I made which I know he felt very deeply about.
Thank you very much, Mr Moorhouse.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the motion for a resolution ((B4-0786/97) by delegates Mr Günther and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party on the conference in Oslo towards a total ban convention on anti-personnel mines.
Madam President, as a Parliament we were active participants at the Ottawa Conference, called by Canada when it became clear that the official organs of the United Nations would not be in a position effectively to fight the mines situation.
The first success came during negotiations in Brussels.
During the Brussels meeting we were able to observe that the United Nations had indeed moved their position slightly at the standing talks in Geneva, and had appointed a coordinator for mines problems.
I must admit, however, that since then his activities have rather escaped my notice.
The Ottawa Conference represented a source of hope for millions of people.
In the meantime we have learned to keep our objectives very limited and to reduce them.
I should myself be satisfied if we could achieve a situation in which markedly more mines were cleared than were laid.
We had hoped to come a small step nearer this objective when we learned that the United States was also to participate at the Oslo talks.
This was a hope which has now unfortunately come to nothing.
In my view, though, this cannot be the end of this development, because I believe that public opinion in the United States will finally cause the USA to refrain from isolationism and become active participants in the process once more.
I think this should be a lesson to the United Nations, that there are countries that want to progress, and will not wait until the very last mine manufacturer is ready to stop production.
I should ask you, when voting on this resolution, to ensure you adopt the oral amendment resolution that Mr Bertens and I have introduced, so that the declaration is brought up to date.
I believe that a unanimous vote by this House on the matter would greatly hasten the subsequent conferences in Ottawa.
Madam President. First of all I should like to thank all those in this House, such as Mrs Günther, Mr Bertens, Mr Cunningham and others, who have made such an important contribution to the fact that we can celebrate success today, despite all the limitations mentioned.
My sincere thanks, anyway.
I can also say that my Party will support the motion because of our interest in the subject, despite the reservation that the introduction of oral amendments of this size must not be made a precedent.
As has already been said, the last day or days in Oslo have proved to be a success.
We are very pleased that agreement has been reached.
I may say with pride and pleasure that Austria, my homeland, was one of the first to speak out for a total legal ban.
I am of course sorry that America is not, or not yet, participating, even though this really contradicts the principle that President Clinton himself always puts forward.
I hope that there are forces in America strong enough to persuade the President - force him, I would almost say - to add his signature after all.
I and my Party, however, should like to see this total ban remain undiluted. We simply have another task ahead of us regarding the United States of America, rather than having to accept a diluted version now.
There is certainly still a task to be carried out in Europe.
That can be seen from the resolution and the amendment resolutions to it.
Even in Europe there are some who need to be convinced that it is not right, even with the problems which may arise from its long frontiers, for anti-personnel mines to be used here.
No one who has been to Bosnia, no one who has been to any country where every day they produce casualties killed and wounded, can accept any argument for the continued use of anti-personnel mines.
The situation in these countries, the situation of the families, the children, the people, demands that this total ban be signed by every European country and by the whole world.
Madam president, the humanitarian aims expressed at the Oslo conference for a total ban on landmines are in themselves worthy of support.
The infantry mine, however, when used responsibly, offers an extra dimension to security, which cannot be compared, for example, with the situation concerning mines in former Yugoslavia.
For Finland infantry mines are a vital force in our land defences.
Finland has just under 1300 kilometres of shared frontier with Russia.
For around one thousand years, wars and conflicts have been common and, almost without exception, the attack has been from the east.
Although the situation on our eastern border, which is, furthermore, the sole frontier the EU has facing Russia, now appears more peaceful than before, the permanence of this situation in the long term is unfortunately not guaranteed.
Infantry mines are used in Finland only in crisis situations to halt an aggressor.
Mine fields are precisely marked and are all collected when the conflict eases off.
A ban on the use of infantry mines would mean an intolerable increase in the cost of defence for Finland.
That is why the call in the resolution on land mines made by the EPP group to change options in border-zone security is meaningless unless it includes concrete suggestions as to how a country like Finland can, when threatened with conflict, protect her land borders efficiently and effectively.
I believe that the previous speaker does not know the story of the Maginot Line.
However, I do not intend to give any of my colleagues a history lesson.
Ottawa has been a success and the fact that the Americans did not join in is a pity, but we have achieved a great victory in that the participating countries did not give in to the American pressure to react in the same cowardly way to the Canadian initiative.
I also wish to ascribe the success that was achieved in Oslo and will soon be confirmed and signed in Ottawa, to the NGO International Campaign to ban landmines.
Mr Cunningham and I and Mrs Günther have worked closely together on this and I must say that I salute this success.
I hope that Greece and Finland are persuaded to sign the new treaty so that the Union as well, when it acts outside, can give credible international support to this treaty.
The Union must next also let the support for the Ottawa treaty appear in its bilateral political dialogue with third countries, including third world countries.
After the official ceremony in December, we shall have to build on the momentum to actually ban anti-personnel mines.
The first battle may have been won, but there is still a lot of work to be done, also for countries that still think that they need anti-personnel mines for their own security.
Madam President, landmines, anti-personnel mines, mines of any kind are the Devil's work and should be neither used nor manufactured.
The conference in Oslo is a first step, a first victory, but we should beware of praising its result too highly.
I think that would be a hypocritical policy.
Many Third-World countries are not participating: Russia, India, China, and now even the USA, are not signatories.
For the most part they are not signatories because western countries manufacture high-tech mines, and thus do not want anti-tank mines to be included.
When we look at the situation in Bosnia we see that 30 to 40 % of deaths in Bosnia are caused by anti-tank mines. Anti-tank mines which have anti-personnel mines integrated in them.
Of course they must also fall within such an agreement.
In the Bundeswehr of the Federal Republic of Germany there are still 1.5 million of these anti-tank mines.
When we are talking about anti-personnel mines it is easy for a Foreign Minister or the Minister of Defence simply to say there will be no more anti-personnel mines by the end of 1997.
If we really want to ban mines, however, then these anti-tank mines must be included. Furthermore, we must not allow any more funds to be invested in research, with which point I should like to come to a close: companies such as Diehl and Rheinmetall are developing the next generation, in which a single mine will cover an average area of 300 m2 , which makes it impossible to search for these mines.
We have advanced a small step, therefore, but there is a long way to go, and mines have got to be banned.
We must not produce any more of them, and we in the European Union should put that into practice and present a good example.
Madam President, we are again discussing one of the cruellest episodes in modern warfare and each of us who experienced one of these wars from close quarters lost a friend, or approached or treated several victims of these killing machines.
We therefore give our unconditional support for the Ottawa process and the total, final and unconditional ban on this type of weapon.
Our American allies, for misleading reasons, have not always joined us in this fight.
Let us help them to share this common ground.
A certain number of events are particularly repugnant, in particular the surreal proposal, made to the Member States who are signatories to this Treaty, to withdraw from the Treaty should they face an armed conflict.
In other words, waive the use of anti-personal mines as long they do not need them, but pledge to use them the day the need arises.
This defies belief!
I can tell you, Madam President, that over 600, 000 victims whose lower limbs have been amputated, will not be fooled by this kind of alibi.
Madam President, this debate, like others calling for arms reduction and bans on production of certain weapons, is surreal.
In fact it is my impression that the search for an international agreement signed at all costs by all the countries which produce anti-personnel mines hides the secret desire that opposition from some country will ruin the whole agreement.
Let me explain myself: why do the British Labour, French Socialist, and Italian left MEPs, who claim in this European Parliament to be fiercely opposed to the production of anti-personnel mines, not act with conviction to persuade their government colleagues in England, France and Italy to pass a tiny little law in their respective parliaments, worded more or less like this: "production of anti-personnel mines by the British, French or Italian arms industry is prohibited' ?
Waiting for the signature or an agreement which binds all the producer countries is, in our opinion, a hypocritical excuse for not starting to ban production in European countries immediately.
Then we would not be worrying about the good deals others might make if we ban this production in our countries, but rather about our own consistency and sense of justice!
Madam President, it is a question of humanity that we are debating.
We want to reduce human suffering caused by anti-personnel mines.
It is important that we devote resources to this, and that we strive to achieve a lasting reduction.
As a Finn, I cannot myself, unfortunately, support all parts of this resolution, even though my group does so.
But the goal is right. We should strive for verifiable, international standards which are really binding.
Today there are great differences in how we will be able to verify or live up to the agreements we are discussing.
The ban will also have different effects in different countries.
It affects mines which are placed in advance, but not those fired by artillery.
Unfortunately, we must recognise that mines for defensive purposes have not outlived their role, in spite of opposite claims in the Red Cross report.
As a colleague here has pointed out, Finland only places mines for defensive purposes, against aggression.
By so doing we want, in any event, to reduce the suffering of the civilian population in incidents of aggression.
We neither produce nor sell anti-personnel mines.
Madam President, disarmament would never get off the ground if in negotiations we always returned to the idea that in certain circumstances certain weapons of defence are indispensable.
This, I think, is something Finland should take note of also.
Finland should endorse the agreement banning infantry mines as quickly as possible, and Finland ought to reconsider the image she has of outside threats.
We Finns should now admit that the military threat in Europe has greatly diminished and security policy is based more on repelling threats from outside.
This should also lead on to practical solutions for Finnish defence.
It is not necessarily so, either, that Finland would have to replace infantry mines with technologically more advanced and more expensive equipment.
Since the Commission fully endorses the sentiments in the motion, I would just add that we know that our work will not be completed until there is an effective global ban implemented by all states, until all mines are cleared from areas of habitation and economic use, and until all victims of mines are properly cared for.
This is an achievable goal.
In the ACP area, the Commission and I, in particular, will continue to make a major contribution, as we have done over the past five years.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint on the following four motions for resolutions:
(B4-0757/97) by Mrs Hautala and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on toxic blue-green algae in the Baltic Sea; -(B4-0772/97) by Mrs Myller, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the ecological problem in the Baltic Sea; -(B4-0781/97) by Mr Thors and Mr Olsson, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party on the environmental situation in the Baltic Sea; -(B4-0799/97) by Mr Sjöstedt and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on pollution in the Baltic Sea.
Madam President, the environmental problem in the Baltic Sea is nothing new.
We have known about it for a long time.
With its vulnerable shallow bays and large loading points the Baltic is in a really serious crisis at the moment.
This is now on the agenda as an urgent matter because this Summer a huge number of people have had first-hand experience of what a polluted Baltic means, because a vast area of the sea was covered in poisonous blue-green algae.
This pollution of the Baltic Sea, the seriousness of this kind of environmental problem, calls for some stringent measures.
We know in principle what the sources of the pollution are, and what the biggest problems are, but no measures have been taken.
The European Union is perfectly capable of getting involved in the Baltic clean-up operation.
And EU regional programmes, such as Interreg II C, are a possible co-ordination tool in this region.
Actually, it is not a question of whether there are enough organisations, enough agencies, or even enough sources of funding.
The real question is how these can be put to better use than they are now, and how things that have to be done can be prioritised so that the Baltic Sea can become cleaner and safe.
Generally speaking no one source of effluent can be singled out.
All those known to be responsible for effluent must cut down the amount they release into the sea.
Agriculture is a very big problem.
To resolve this we need both national decisions and supra-national regulations.
The Helsinki Commission regulations must be taken seriously.
More effective means of treating community waste must be adopted.
In membership negotiations with East and central European countries, it is essential to stress that environmental standards of this sort must be observed.
The harmonisation of environmental standards for the Baltic, and generally, must be an essential part of the strategy for the enhancement of unification with these countries.
St Petersburg, taking up an enormous area of one end of the Gulf of Finland as it does, is a very serious problem.
The TACIS fund has not yet been used to serve concrete environmental projects.
It is now high time we got away from the drawing board and addressed matters in a practical way, got some practical co-operation going for the environment in the Baltic Region, instead of just consultants' reports.
Madam President, after the alarm bells which the events of the summer have been, I hope that the debate we have today leads to the Commission recognising how serious the people of Europe are about the conditions in the Baltic Sea, even though only Finns have spoken so far.
The Commission must take a more active role in the Helsinki Commission now that it has one year left in the chair of this important organ for environmental co-operation.
This week in a reply to my question the Commission promised that it would be guided by a desire to achieve the highest possible level of environmental protection.
I hope that the whole Parliament is going to see that the Commission keeps its promise.
The preceding speakers have talked of eutrophication.
It is important to look at that, but we must take wider action to avoid ecological collapse.
An inventory must be made of all the risk factors.
We must know who has dumped what in the sea over the past fifty years.
We must prevent vessels from dumping more in future.
Finally, I would like to point out that in this debate a proposal is being made that the whole of the EU should introduce a tax on fertilisers.
Many in our group support this proposal in principal, but many also believe that this is not the right context in which to take it up.
Madam President, the ecology of the Baltic underlies the importance of interBaltic state co-operation.
In the present situation the EU and its Member States are in an excellent position to get this co-operation into gear.
That is why the Commission's input into the co-operation taking place in the Baltic region, like the implementation of the Baltic Region AGENDA 21 programme, must be increased considerably.
Furthermore, the inclusion of the Baltic countries and Russia in the clean-up talks will add considerably to their successful outcome.
It is vital to restrict the overloading of the waters, mainly due to agricultural fertilisers, with recourse to stringent regulations for both present and future members of the EU.
For example, over seventy percent of Finnish waters suffer from eutrophication due to agriculture.
New Member States coming into talks must be aware of this, because they are important agricultural countries.
The Helsinki Commission has a programme for action to reduce nutrient loads.
The EU Commission must do more to support the implementation of the measures contained in this programme.
The algae seen in the Baltic Sea this Summer is not just a one-off.
The heavy floods in Poland and central Europe this Summer will have a real effect on the Baltic in terms of fertiliser pollution.
The result will be that next Summer we'll have an even worse algae problem than we did this year.
The Baltic Sea needs help now. Fast.
Madam President, to begin with I would like to say that I am Swedish and am therefore breaking the Finnish domination.
The Baltic Sea with its brackish water is one of the world's most sensitive inland seas.
This year the bloom of toxic algae covers an area which is twice as large as the whole of Belgium.
It is necessary for the EU to begin to work actively as the environmental organisation it claims to be, and to take the resolution of the Visby meeting seriously as well as to recognise that it is the sum of all the emissions and acts of pollution which could be the death of the Baltic Sea.
It is therefore unacceptable for the EU to give grants to projects which further contribute to environmental damage.
The right hand has to know what the left hand is doing.
Examples of such projects include the high-tension cables for the distribution of electricity being planned to crisscross the Baltic Sea, and which apart from large, direct emissions of chlorine, and enormous magnetic fields, will also lead to increased lignite consumption in countries like Poland.
A topical concern right now is a high-tension cable planned between Blekinge in southern Sweden and Poland which has met strong opposition among citizens who are concerned about their environment.
Can they count on any help from the EU to stop this crazy, large-scale, anti-environmental project? Or will short-term economic gain, in the form of Transeuropean Networks, actively contribute to the death of the Baltic Sea?
For two years, since July 1996, the European Commission has chaired the Helsinki Commission, the executive organ of the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea.
In this involvement, the European Commission is always guided by the principles of the highest degree of environmental protection possible for the Baltic Sea region.
The prospect of accession to the Union of the Central European countries has led the Commission to further intensify its cooperation, so that candidate countries can adopt and implement the acquis communitaire including the EU's environmental legislation.
This is clearly set out in the Agenda 2000 documents.
The PHARE programme will be fully geared towards preparing the applicant countries for accession to the Union.
Environmental issues will also attract greater priority in the TACIS programme.
But the responsibility for the environmental well-being of the Baltic Sea lies primarily with the countries around it.
The Union has sought to cooperate with them in all the appropriate fora which promote the protection of the Baltic Sea.
Our engagement in the running of the Helsinki Commission, the Council of the Baltic Sea States and the development of the Baltic Sea Agenda 21 currently under way are some examples of such actions.
There is a need that the Baltic Sea countries also accentuate their efforts in the context of the implementation of the 1992 Baltic Sea Convention, which has not yet come into force because two countries have not yet ratified it.
The Commission believes that the answer to the preoccupations expressed in the submitted draft resolutions lies primarily in the full implementation of the actions foreseen by the Baltic Sea Convention and the programmes of the Helsinki Commission, in particular, its up-dated Joint Comprehensive Environmental Action Programme, the adherence to Union environmental standards and the appropriate assistance from the Union and other sources, but especially from the countries concerned.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote on topical and urgen subjects will take place in a few moments.
Beef and veal (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on beef and veal.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, high quality meat products must no longer remain just a catchword.
In the light of the extent of the BSE crisis, and continuation of the enormous market imbalance, an investigation into the common market organisation for beef is urgently needed.
The Agricultural Council has already agreed a package of measures designed to stabilise the beef market, influenced by the BSE crisis.
Throughout the debate on the sales market for the beef sector it must be remembered first and foremost that European farmers and their co-operatives are confronted by ever-stricter restrictions, such as those on landscape conservation, environmental protection, veterinary regulations, health authority hygiene standards and animal protection standards. These often involve them in seriously increased costs.
This leads partly to a loss of competitiveness by EU producers both on the internal and external markets, because in many other countries strict standards are applied.
It is essential that appropriate measures are introduced in order to regain consumer confidence and encourage consumption.
Measures in support of specific sales campaigns are in my view one of the most cost-effective means of rebuilding market balance in the beef sector.
Even though Germany has more than a fifth of the European population, and German beef and veal production is about 20 % of the total EU production, only about 10 % of benefits from the EU sales promotion programme have so far flowed into our country.
This shows quite clearly that there is an urgent need for amendment to the draft regulation prepared by the Commission.
Principally, the planned financial means must be increased and distributed amongst Member States using objective criteria.
By objective criteria I mean beef production and beef consumption.
That means that Germany must have a share of at least 20 %.
This distribution criteria must be laid down in the Council regulation.
Furthermore, I believe it is urgently necessary to take into account different consumer preferences in the EU.
For regional peculiarities to be taken into account in the quality criteria, Member States and those involved in the economy must be given greater influence on, and more freedom in, the establishment of their own sales promotion programmes, even regional ones, which would be encouraged by EU funding.
We must achieve a situation whereby beef is not transported all across Europe. We must think more about regional circulation, so that the consumer can buy local meat whose production he also knows.
It has been shown particularly in Germany that a mark of origin plays a central role in regaining consumer confidence.
For this reason a specific authorization should be introduced, allowing the advertisement of regional origins within the framework of the proposed programmes.
Quality meat products must no longer remain just a catchword.
For this more attention must be paid to the fact that in the EU concepts of quality and consumer preferences are very varied.
Bonus regulations detrimental to quality production, such as trimmings thickness regulations or second premiums for castrated male cattle, must receive urgent amendment.
Let me say finally, that you should all support a situation in which the expectations and requirements of the European consumer and producer receive better consideration than hitherto.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking also on behalf of Mr Santini, coordinator of our group on the Committee on Agriculture.
It is said that necessity is the mother of invention.
It took bovine spongiform encephalopathy to make us understand that even in a controlled and supported production system consumption can collapse because of disasters or consumer caprice.
The fall in consumption has been intensifying for ten years now and suggests a diversification in the eating habits of European consumers.
This may be part of the explanation, but it is largely linked to the BSE.
Also, while the flashpoint of the epidemic occurred between 1994 and 1996, it was already present in Great Britain in 1986.
Many knew about it, including the consumer organizations, but few could imagine the criminal behind-the-scenes activity concealed by what appeared to be just a more serious zoonosis than the traditional ones.
The fact is, someone in Great Britain tried to hide something - the gravity of the epidemic - to save something else - its own market - with the complicity of someone else - departments of the European Commission.
This whole thesis of illegality, now laid bare by the Committee of Inquiry, was already known to many.
And this was not just suspicion: there were alarming signs.
The 1993 regulation dates from the period of the Commission's deep sleep and the veritable explosion of the epidemic.
Bear in mind that it began to appear in 1986.
Animal starch was identified as the proven cause only a year later, but it was not until 1990 that its seriousness was recognized in Brussels.
But from that year until 1994 all the veterinary controls were suspended; the order went out not to talk about it so as not to damage the markets, and in 1992 this regulation, No 1318/93, was produced, with the objective of promoting consumption of meat, including English meat, which was known to be dangerous.
The proposal for a regulation under discussion today completes that implemented in 1993 and is intended to promote not only the best cuts but also the lesser ones, putting them on the market with the same labelling.
We think this is a weakness in the proposal, because in the present atmosphere of mistrust, the consumer may have reservations about all the legislation, reservations which we partly share.
Madam President, I wish first to thank Mrs Hardstaff for her excellent report.
The EU beef markets were shaken when mad cow disease made an appearance and became publicly known.
The markets almost collapsed in 1996 when it was found there was an undisputed link between BSE and CreutzfeldtJacob disease, which affects humans.
There has been an EU attempt to intervene in problems of the beef markets.
From the start of 1993 a quality regulation came into force followed last February by a livestock identification scheme and provision for passports for animals, animal identification schemes and the marking of beef.
The aim was to find a trail, through legislation, leading to the possible source of the disease.
Now the intention is to revise the rulings of 1993 and add certain new elements to the problems of the beef market; a new common marking scheme and classification system for beef, a scheme to encourage marking in the place of origin, and an educational campaign,
The beef question is a typical example of a problem which gets harder to solve the further you get from the original source.
The new schemes threaten to become mind-bogglingly complicated.
The bureaucracy and costs of monitoring grow at a tremendous rate whilst the effect of the measures diminishes and a return to the confidence of former times becomes less likely.
The situation shows clearly that the measures should be addressed at source, and monitoring should concentrate on the production of beef and the cattle feed industry.
When we know how the meat comes to be contaminated, its elimination will be easy and restored confidence in the markets will be nothing less than overwhelming.
It is therefore most desirable that the Commission concentrate more earnestly than before on discovering and eliminating the source, and monitoring the work carefully.
The regulation in force is important not just in the eradication of BSE, but in addressing the difficult challenges of the future.
Hormone meat might flood EU markets in the not too distant future, and problems arising from that will require sturdy weapons to deal with them.
In this respect it is a good idea for good-quality EU beef to be stamped with a common logo, denoting the fact that you are bringing good-quality meat onto the market with the result that consumer confidence grows again.
Madam President, the draft regulation submitted to us and Mrs Hardstaff's report considerably improve the area of information to consumers and the promotion of beef.
Indeed, we must meet the crisis of confidence among consumers in the EU countries not only by promoting the sale of all quality beef products but also by giving consumers genuine information on the origin of meat, breeds of livestock, locations of production and methods of production.
The efforts already deployed in this direction by regional and national professional organisations show that this is the right way.
But first we must ask one question.
Do the national and European authorities ensure the necessary basis for enacting this quality policy by providing controls and by sanctioning fraud? What guarantees does the Commission provide us in this area?
What is the point of promoting quality meat if the resources for conducting controls are non-existent or insufficient, as highlighted by the work of the BSE Commission? In that event we would be deceiving both the consumers and the producers.
The question is rendered all the more important since one wonders whether the Commission and the Council wish to restore the confidence of consumers when at the same time they adopt, or allegedly adopt, contradictory provisions in other areas.
How can quality be defended if the Commission and the Council do not follow through on their denunciation of the verdicts of the WTO on the Banana OCM and hormone-treated meat and their verdicts are dictated by the USA whose criteria on food quality lead to 9, 000 deaths by food poisoning a year compared with 5 % in France, for example?
How can we defend quality by proposing a reform of the CAP which, through a 30 % reduction of the price of beef, leads to productivism which has already resulted in impaired health and caused social and human harm that we are now trying to repair through this procedure.
This raises a final question. Should we not pledge to break with the liberal and productivist logic that is a feature of the current workings of the Union, which is inspiring the Agenda 2000 project and for which producers and consumers are today paying the costs?
Madam President, consumer protection begins with the type of product.
For this reason it is understandable when consumers have show caution in past years, and also in the most recent past, in the consumption of beef.
If we had allowed cows to graze on pasture and had not fed them with meat protein - which also happened to be infected - we should not have this problem today. Then we should probably not have had to introduce a sales promotion programme, because beef is a delicacy and everyone knows that; enough meat would certainly have been sold without this measure.
We now do have BSE, however, simply because we paid too little attention to the method of production, and also because consumers established no channel for monitoring products in the shops, as they knew where the meat came from.
Now the state has got to intervene and put the train back on the rails.
This regulation which we are debating today is not new.
It became effective back in 1993.
I quote: "The quality of beef depends upon the breed, the method of rearing the animals concerned, and the conditions of slaughter, transport and marketing' .
It continues to say that which materials are used, and which not, is also relevant.
I welcome the fact that a new version of this regulation is now pending, particularly if we are really given the opportunity to direct the method of production.
We do not have just this sales promotion, however, but an extension has been made within the framework of this regulation. This concerns the support given to the tagging of beef, its identification.
This tagging, required of farmers as an obligatory measure and of the industry as a voluntary one - we then altered it in Parliament, Mr Mayer was the rapporteur - was accepted by Council.
You are aware of the decision whereby our submission according to 100a was unanimously rejected.
According to this measure tagging is now to be financed 100 % by the industry.
That is not contained in the Articles at all, only in the Annex.
In the Article there is a mention only of a requirement for between 60 % and 80 %.
That is for the sales promotion, but the 100 % is, I quote: "for information about the new tagging and the technical support' .
What has occurred here is that the whole logistic effort to be made by the industry in order to introduce tagging is to receive a subvention from the Commission - this would not be controversial, if it were not 100 %!
I asked the Commissioner about this today, and you have heard how he insisted on a 100 % subvention.
I approached him and, Lo and behold!, he was entirely unaware that this was a new regulation because of the introduction of logistics.
He will consider the matter.
For this reason I believe we must refer this report by Mrs Hardstaff, good as it is - and I congratulate her on it - back to the Committee, so that we can clarify this point and not, in a manner of speaking, force the 100 % money down the throat of the industry.
Madam President, Mrs Hardstaff's report is particularly timely since it touches on our current major concerns, such as BSE and the transportation of beef cattle, their carcasses and by-products within the European Union, as well as the consumer's demands for quality - issues central to the reform of the CAP and to discussions on the Agenda 2000 project, both from the viewpoint of replacing quantity in order to adjust overproduction, and from the viewpoint of consumer health.
We are all concerned, firstly because we are consumers, secondly because the Committee on Agriculture has appointed our colleague Jan Mulder to compile an initiative report on the quality and recognition of farm produce and foods.
Two points are crucial: the method of production and consumer confidence towards products thanks to traceability from the breeding farms to the consumer's plate.
I will emphasize three points: firstly, rigour in the method of production which must be more 'natural' : we must combat the authorisation to use hormones and to link production to the land.
Secondly, anti-fraud controls and provisions, which must operate more effectively - especially in Great Britain - as revealed by the recent discovery of illegal shipments to Belgium.
Finally the more active promotion of quality beef which must involve consumers and steer them to healthier products, failing which consumers will again prefer pork and poultry products whose production is highly intensive and which has a considerable impact on the environment.
My group will support the report compiled by Mrs Hardstaff whom I congratulate in passing for her work.
However, the lack of genuine harmonisation of wording on labels is regrettable.
Moreover, we are only talking here about beef.
What about other meats? For full transparency we must scrutinise these questions too.
Madam President, as the agenda has not been followed as scheduled, Mr des Places, who was to have spoken, cannot attend this sitting and has appointed me to speak on his behalf.
This report is central to the BSE crisis which has caused consumers to largely shift their loyalty away from beef.
I remain convinced that the loss of consumer confidence in beef has been mitigated thanks to the embargo.
The Commission, administrations of Member States and the entire 'European beef industry' , including the livestock farmers, have done much to improve traceability to restore this confidence.
In its proposal on promoting beef, the Commission is in no way challenging the quality of eligible products.
This quality is defined in the applicable legislation.
We naturally support this position.
Conversely, Mrs Hardstaff in her report proposes to convert this promotional campaign in favour of quality products into a generic campaign in favour of indiscriminate and standardised products encompassing all products and Member States.
In plain language, there are shortcomings in the rapporteur's proposals to develop promotional measures partly financed by the European Union to support British beef as well as beef derived from slaughter dairy cows whose organoleptic quality is widely known.
Although the rapporteur's proposals were accepted as such by the Council, the entire quality beef industry which control its supplies under a strict set of specifications, would be penalised.
Madam Rapporteur, as staunch defenders of quality agriculture, you will appreciate why Mr des Places and myself asked our group not to vote in favour of your amendment since we believe that the Commission's proposal must be adopted as it stands.
Madam President, we are again addressing the meat issue in an environment in which, as the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. Similarly, when consumers do not want to eat meat, there is not much you can do to make them.
In a ruling dated 30 June 1992 an attempt was made to promote the consumption of beef products.
This was not very successful since in February 1997 in this very Parliament we adopted a system of identity tags for beef cattle.
Humans can now travel without a passport thanks to the Schengen accords but here we are introducing a passport for cows, an identity card to reassure people with the grand term "traceability' .
This did not reassure people much since tagging was optional and will not apparently be compulsory until the year 2000.
Until then, importers of British beef will be allowed not to tag.
Moreover, even when the tag is added, the decline in consumption slows down but does not stop.
The slowdown is so slight that we are now asked to examine a new draft ruling aimed at revising, updating and revoking the 1992 ruling since previous measures clearly did not produce the expected results.
On the internal market consumption is falling while on the external market third-party countries are reluctant to buy European meat.
Consumption is therefore promoted through advertising, with supermarket promotions - "Eat meat' and participation in trade fairs.
This shows how low we have stooped.
We now turn our attention to supermarkets and trade fairs while meat consumption continues to fall and pork, sheep and poultry meats, which are heavy pollutants in terms of livestock farming, continue to increase.
In other words, we are still feeling the consequences of BSE because a British company, De Mulder brothers, wanted to poison British beef cattle.
Now the whole of Europe is paying the price.
Within the system introduced, the aim is to obtain meat that inspires trust and confidence, meat that is derived from healthy animals, sound livestock farming and healthy animal feed.
For this purpose a sound budget is allocated with joint financing.
A budget line is provided, B-1.38, on aid for promotional purposes, of which up to 60 % could be co-financed.
A grant of up to 32 million ECU's may also be provided for the Raphael programme.
In other words, for broken cow's brains receive more financing that the brains of European intellectuals.
That is how confused we have become!
This argument is all very nice and useful, but it comprises a series of contradictions.
The first is central to the system on confidence: on the one hand the aim is to reassure the consumer through advertising policies but at the same time the consumer becomes worried through imports of hormone-injected beef following the verdict of the panel of the World Trade Organization.
The second contradiction concerns revenues.
The aim is to safeguard the market by protecting consumption and by increasing the income of farmers but at the same time, authorisation is given to import hormone injected meat which will be cheaper and which will lower the income of our livestock farmers.
The third contradiction has to do with prices.
Here, too, the aim is to safeguard the market by advertising or other measures but at the same time, the Agenda 2000 project provides for a 30 % reduction in the intervention price of beef, which is tantamount to hammering the livestock farmers hard on the head with the four tomes of the Agenda 2000 project and then administering them with an analgesic to reassure them!
We are still practising a baling out policy!
However, all is not in vain.
Paul-Valéry said that even Sisyphus, in rolling his stone, was not working in vain since he was flexing his muscles.
In addressing for a third time this beef issue that no one wants to handle after all the media hype we know about, we are flexing our legislative and regulatory muscles!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am deputizing for Honor Funk because he has been called away urgently.
It is a fact that, at the moment, the pleasure of eating British beef is a somewhat limited one, although I would stress that Mrs Hardstaff of the United Kingdom has presented a good report, and I should like to congratulate her on it.
We know, however, that beef consumption has been in recession for years.
Last year, when it became known that there was a connection between BSE and Creutzfeld-Jacob disease, sales reached absolute rock-bottom.
The results are well known, and I do not need to go into them here.
Prices have collapsed, beef surpluses have had to be removed from the market by intervention.
For these reasons we expressly welcome the fact that measures are being taken to stop the crisis in sales and improve the situation.
It is always better to support and finance a sales promotion for quality meat, than to store it.
It is now critical that the proposed financial means - and I emphasise this particularly - pass into the right hands.
It must not be permitted for the money finally to end up in the hands of advertising agencies or wholesalers.
In recent months - and I attach great importance to this - regional markets, in some areas called farmers' markets, and farmers active in selling their own produce have come to pay more attention to this market and built it up considerably.
This is a meeting of specialist knowledge and local needs with corresponding consumer requirements.
These institutions are now in place and in many regions do not need to be established afresh.
We should support them.
I was the rapporteur for the report on identification marking for beef.
The quality of the animals, and particularly the identification and traceability, are a major concern to consumers.
This home produce selling is obviously one of the best ways of ensuring that the consumer who has an interest can learn precisely where, and under what circumstances and conditions, the animal has been reared.
These regional standards of origin and quality are regularly monitored and sales promotions are regularly held.
That should become clearly recognised.
Mrs Hardstaff, in Amendment No 8 to recital 7 we regarded the description "meat marketing industry' as a little restrictive and we therefore rejected the phrase.
The Commission has admittedly phrased things very generally, but this was a bit too limiting.
I must make one comment to Mr Graefe: I believe Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf was rather casual in his phraseology when he generalised that - and I reject this also - all producers make mistakes.
Some do, but not all.
Mr Mayer, I would remind you that you have had two minutes, but I granted you four because you inherited the two minutes allotted to Mr Cunha who is a member of your group.
Mrs Hardstaff, do you want to add anything in conclusion?
Madam President, I would just like to thank all those who have contributed to the debate.
I would remind colleagues that this was already delayed to get the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection when we had really hoped to vote on it in July. The fate of our farmers and meat industry, in terms of getting the market moving, depends on getting this started as quickly as possible.
So I hope that it will go through tomorrow and that it will be possible to put this action into place and start to sell European beef not only within Europe, but also throughout the world so that it will again be recognized as among the best in the world.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning at 9.00 a.m.
As you can see, Mr Hallam, we will not waste our time tomorrow morning, in two respects!
The next sitting will begin at 9.00 a.m. tomorrow morning.
(The sitting was closed at 8.55 p.m.) .
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, we are used to having the Minutes in two parts. This morning we have them in four.
How will we know when we have got a full set?
We shall leave that to the intelligence of the Members.
Mr President, in yesterday's Minutes, halfway down page 19, it says the following: "Mr Wijsenbeek referred to his remarks at the start of that morning's sitting (part 1, item 1) and reported on how he had spent his time until the resumption of the sitting' .
This Dutch is not correct, but the fact is I have still not received a reply from the Bureau as to whether it is actually true that the Bureau is now going to record Members of Parliament entering and leaving Parliament on camera.
Would you also state whether this is in accordance with the legislation in Europe on the protection of personal privacy and tell Members - because as the Bureau you wish to monitor how we spend our time - how many extra members of staff this will take and what that will cost the taxpayer, so that we can weigh one up against the other.
I believe that we Members are entitled to a reply to this question from the Bureau and we have not given you carte blanche to take measures that mean we can be spied on and be monitored from dawn to dusk.
Thank you very much Mr Wijsenbeek.
As usual, I have no idea what you are talking about.
Mr President, yesterday, in the debate on the banana issue, my colleague, Mr Liese, discovered a discrepancy between the resolution we were debating and one that had been handed in. It concerned three missing words.
I should like to ask you if you have now clarified this matter.
I understand it is still being investigated.
I would endorse your congratulations to the Welsh.
It is probably just as well no Welsh were here, given how narrow the vote was.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, I should like to raise another matter.
Travelling to this place each week I have to pass through Charles de Gaulle Airport, Paris.
On three occasions this year I have been refused entry into Terminal D on my laissez-passer. I am told that it is not an official document.
On the last occasion, last Monday, I was actually held aside and not allowed to pass until I produced my national passport.
Surely the French realise that we have a Union and that we have a laissez-passer which gives us the right to travel anywhere within the 15 nations.
(Applause ) Could I ask your office, in that case, to write to the French immigration authorities, pointing out that it is a document which does allow us to pass, so that we do not have this embarrassment in the future.
I agree with you entirely.
As you know, I used to travel on the same flight with you. I stopped doing so because I was so damned annoyed at the inconvenience at Paris airport.
Could I ask you to include Frankfurt?
(Laughter ) I travel through Frankfurt airport and there our European passports have been described by customs as a joke.
(Laughter )
All right.
I have Paris, Frankfurt and I also heard someone say Amsterdam.
Anyone else can give it to me in writing.
Mr President, I would also request you to instruct the German authorities to finally recognize European passports because one has, from time to time, great difficulties - including, I am sad to say, even at Munich airport - which is generally the best airport in the world.
(Laughter ) It would be a good idea to take steps to secure universal recognition so that all these countries recognize the European passport.
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg.
Votes
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
On behalf of the Greens I should like to move referral back to Committee under Rule 129, on the following grounds: we have just accepted Amendment No 22 by the Green Party.
In this we say that under no circumstances do we want a 100 % subsidy.
Yesterday Mr Fischler, in anticipation of this vote, said he would not accept the 100 % withdrawal, and that he insisted on it.
Now we come to the interesting bit, where the sales subsidies, which is what concerns the rapporteur and ourselves, will only be 60 % and 80 %.
The 100 % subsidy is for the technical introduction, in other words, the logistics of introducing labelling into the industry.
100 % is proposed for this category.
Now, the Commission did not put this into the main part of the article, but included it exclusively in the financial section.
So the 100 %, which we cannot do anything to change, is included there.
I spoke to Mr Fischler again yesterday.
He made it clear that there had been a lapse in the information chain within the Commission, and that they had not intended this.
So we need to refer this report back, so that the Commission can correct its line and follow our suggestions.
I urge Members to support referral back.
Mr President, I want to speak against referral back.
This has already been delayed.
The original request was for urgency and for it to go through in July to enable this programme to go ahead.
This is something which is going to save the Community money.
If we spend money to try to ensure that people eat our beef, we will save a great deal of money on storage and intervention in the longer term.
This was the whole point.
The Commission is very anxious to set this in train to save the Community budget. I do not want to see it held up any further.
Mr President, I am in favour of referral back.
Yesterday Mr Fischler systematically and insistently refused to answer questions or to give any clarification on the disclosure at the parliamentary Committee of Inquiry that there are loopholes in the law and that it is possible to violate, legally, the legislation which we have gradually been building up over the year for identifying animals, labelling meat, and reestablishing consumer confidence.
He gave no explanation and gave no pledge to improve the situation.
I am therefore in support of referring back the regulation so that the Commission can consider it better and so that Parliament can do its work better on behalf of the citizens and consumers.
(Parliament decided against referral back to committee)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, we have lost the vote on for referral back to the Committee, but the problem remains unsolved.
We have been successful, nevertheless, in having this report dealt with under Rule 129a, and that means that it goes into a second reading.
Before that we shall follow with keen interest whether the Commission resolves its insecurity, which was obvious, about the withdrawal of the 100 % subsidy for the industry.
The introduction of labelling concerns not just the industry, but also farms, although farmers do not get repaid a penny for their efforts.
I think that is sensible, just to make my view on it clear.
I do not want any subsidies.
However, if one side wants to introduce something which should be taken for granted, namely the identification and traceability of beef for consumers, and must accept the financial liability, then there is no sense in paying the other side, the industry - and then a full 100 % at that!
Admittedly, setting up the logistics in abattoirs for this tagging is not insignificant, but 100 % subsidies are almost immoral.
When this is contained only in the finance section, it smacks of lobbying, of cooperation between the administration and lobbyists of the meat industry, who do not wish to bring this into the parliamentary process, but would force it on us more or less behind our backs.
We must reject that most emphatically.
We want to deal with this here in Parliament, and I hope that will happen at second reading.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I first want to acknowledge Mrs Hardstaff's excellent work, and that of the draftsmen of opinions, Mr Papayannakis and Mr Giansily.
Moreover, I should like to state that my group considers it absolutely necessary to bring in measures to ensure that consumers are correctly informed, by means of correct labelling.
Nevertheless Mrs Hardstaff's report, which as I said is excellent, needs to be considered within the context of the BSE crisis.
Both in the Committee of Inquiry into BSE and in BSE monitoring, shortcomings have been detected which can make this legislative initiative less effective.
It is clear that there is a shortage of legislation covering the identification of beef and veal.
At the moment there is nothing to stop the removal from cattle carcasses of the identification marks which specify their origin, and this is creating serious problems.
The existing shortcomings in the regulations on identification and monitoring can produce effects which are the opposite of what is being sought.
Moreover, since there is no guarantee that the Commission will correct these shortcomings immediately, my group has voted against the legislative resolution, to put pressure on the Commission to make the necessary amendments to the regulations and monitoring.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a thorough report.
However, we have abstained from voting on the proposed amendments concerning the proposal for a publicity campaign to promote the consumption of beef.
In our opinion, consumers themselves can decide what kind of food they want to consume.
To subsidize campaigns for a certain type of meat is inappropriate. Campaigns for different types of products should be paid for by the food industry and not through Community funds.
We think it would be preferable to let the price mechanism of the market create a working balance in the beef sector with supply matching the price allowed by demand at the consumer stage.
Given the suspicion that beef is arousing among consumers, the best and most immediate strategy was to prove the origin of beef products and develop communication.
In France, for example, despite accusations of protectionism levelled by certain Member-States, a communication campaign was developed by deploying different advertising media at sales outlets and with the financial backing of professional groups.
Thanks to this strategy, the worst was probably avoided although the market was severely shaken.
Between 60 and 70 % of French consumers questioned said that they found the "original beef' logos reassuring.
Through this initiative the decline in consumption was limited to 15 % on average in the second half of 1996, whereas following the announcement of the outbreak of BSE, the decline exceeded 30 %.
Clearly, the Commission's proposal is a move in the right direction but I fear that the Hardstaff report will lead to a generalization of products by supporting a generic message. This is likely to penalize high-quality beef products heavily as they would then be confused under a European generic label without explanation.
I believe, however, that the identification and traceability of beef products are all-important.
Information for the consumer's benefit is crucial in this context and is necessary to help kick-start the market which has been hit hard and which has heavily penalized producers upstream.
We must not lose sight of the fact that the consumer holds the trump cards here.
Let me say at the outset that all participants are agreed on the aim. It concerns re-establishing consumer confidence in the safety and the quality of beef.
We appear not to be in agreement, however, about how this is to be achieved.
The Commission, which proposes financial support of both sales promotion measures and an information campaign on the marking of beef, seems to possess the majority support of this House.
I consider this move to be a mistake, however, because it does not define the main point of effort sufficiently clearly.
The insecurity and mistrust of the consumer stem mainly from the fact that on the European internal market the origin of beef and beef products is often unstated or untraceable.
It is for just this reason that the new regulation on identification of beef and registration of cattle has assumed such importance.
The consumer can only obtain information on the origin of beef by means of identification and registration, and only thus will confidence be created.
I think it is urgently necessary to establish political priorities.
This wish was clearly expressed at the time of the debate in plenary session on the identification negotiations.
It has become diffused in the current debate, however.
If we declare our wish for simultaneous and equally weighted financial subsidy, both of sales promotion measures and of an information campaign, then we are failing to make the clear political statement which is so important in the struggle against BSE and its effects. Health and consumer protection have priority in European policy; security of agricultural markets is only possible when this initial priority has been ensured.
Certainly, sales promotion measures are necessary. But we should concentrate our limited resources on what we think is of first importance, both politically and economically, and here is the creation of consumer confidence by clarification of the origin of beef.
As my colleague Edouard des Places mentioned during the debate, our group rejects most of the amendments proposed by the rapporteur.
Indeed, at the present time only quality meat products offering health, taste and organoleptic guarantees are eligible for European Union aid with a view to financing promotional campaigns.
What exactly does the rapporteur propose? Mrs Hardstaff, in her report and various amendments, asks that all beef products benefit from Community aid in favour of promotion.
These proposals are contrary to the interests of the quality meat industry.
I know personally that the United Kingdom is seeking an early lifting of the ban on beef.
How will the lifting of this embargo impact consumer attitudes?
I strongly suspect that Mrs Hardstaff wants British beef to benefit from Community aid for promotional purposes.
Of course, given the poor press that beef is getting at present, Mrs Hardstaff calls for a general promotional campaign, which is unacceptable.
Agri-monetary system for the single market
The next item is the report (A4-0261/97) by Mr Hallam, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the agri-monetary system for the single market: 1 July 1995 to 30 June 1996 (COM(96) 0636 - C4-0026/97)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday, when Mrs Fontaine was in the Chair, I spoke for rather a long time.
Today my speech will be quite brief.
In the past it has been demonstrated many times over the years that changes in exchange rates have led to very considerable disagreements and distortions in competitiveness.
The agriculture of Member States has had to offset this in some way or other.
The compensatory mechanisms have been insufficient.
In the reporting year 1 July 1995 to 30 June 1996 - an agricultural accounting year, therefore - there were hardly any exchange rate movements, and where there were any, they were exactly the opposite of previous years.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Hallam, on his report.
Even in the committee stage there was general unanimity, which I should like to record today.
There is support for it today, as well.
We should like to emphasize the demand for continuation of efforts towards simplification and greater transparency, and in particular the introduction in 1998 of new regulations, even though monetary union, the enlargement of the Union, the WTO round of talks, and particularly the discussion on Agenda 2000, are imminent and will be very emotive.
Enough about that for today.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, let me immediately congratulate Mr Hallam on the enthusiasm he has put into the discussion of this very important subject for each and every farmer in Europe, north or south. Although we agree with the Commission's theses on the agri-monetary system in force, that is, no basic change in the present arrangements, simplification without comprising the system as a whole, or abolishing the agricultural conversion rate and reappraising possible future choices, we nevertheless consider it necessary to make some comments.
In the first place, it is probable that the agri-monetary system will have to be revised retroactively - it is not the first time this has happened - and not just in view of the introduction of the Euro, which is actually becoming a European ideal.
During the whole period up to that date there are very good grounds for apprehension about a significant increase in the EAGGF costs with dangerous instability on the exchange markets.
Limited presence of the Euro in the early stage of implementation would significantly prejudice agricultural production, whose equilibrium depends - as we all know - on a complex and integrated common architecture, weighted as the result of a continuous, difficult and controversial political adjustment.
There is acute sensitivity to and fear of the implications of this scenario in the agricultural world, a sector prey to the negative effects of any weakening of European structures, especially after the difficulties experienced as a result of excessively strict monetary convergence criteria.
The agri-monetary report presented by the Commission at the end of 1996 fully confirmed suspicions of deviation of major financial flows, which will take the increase in the base level of the agricultural guideline to about 28 %.
A situation of this magnitude for the European Union budget will, in practice, compromise the CAP reforms and make it completely impossible to make the necessary improvements in the structures and organization of markets for Mediterranean crops.
Mr President, I should also like to begin by complimenting Mr Hallam on his report.
If I have read the report properly, I have understood between the lines that he is already a long way ahead of his government and his party because he is already arguing in favour of all the countries of the European Union being part of the future EMU.
I think that is a courageous point of view for a member of the Labour Party.
In the first place, I believe we can say that since the abolition of the switch-over mechanism, the present agrimonetary system has worked extremely well.
The costs are considerably less and at the moment the difference between the green rate and the normal rate is about 2 %.
With a bit of luck it will become even less over the next year. But there will have to be a bit of luck.
I wonder whether the Commission is making adequate preparations for the abolition of the green rate if EMU ever does come about. Because what will happen then?
Will there be compensation for the farmers or will prices be temporarily increased so that the farmers in Europe do not suffer any disadvantage? As the Finance Ministers have already made clear, in May certain rates will be "rivetted' to each other and I think that it is also appropriate for European farmers to know what will happen to the green rate system.
Will they also be rivetted to each other?
Because that then automatically means that the present system will become superfluous. The big question will be: what will happen to those countries and those currencies that do not take part in EMU?
Will there be a similar system of application, etcetera?
The main point is also - and I am mentioning it because I am the rapporteur for the 1998 agriculture budget - that in the whole agriculture budget for 1998 not a single provision has been made for contingencies of this kind. And I wonder whether that is a good thing.
It is quite probable that nothing much will happen until after 15 October 1998, but if the currencies are being rivetted together in May, then something could happen the green ECU and I think the Commission should be ready for this contingency.
I should also like to know the Commission's position on what Mr Hallam has just set out: at the moment there is an upper limit of 5 % before action is taken and a lower limit of 2 %.
Is it possible to even them up: for example, both at 3 % or both at 5 % or are they just mentioned because in the future, after EMU has come about, these things must be neutral in the budget?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this present report from the Commission keeps the pledge given at the Agriculture Council meeting in June 1995 to compile a report each year that analyses the impact of currency fluctuations and the current agri-monetary system on the CAP and the single market, together with suitable proposals to counter any difficulties that might result.
Parts A and B are devoted to a description of the monetary and agri-monetary events that occurred during 1995-1996, including the granting of compensatory aid.
The drafting of preamble A, as proposed in Amendment 1, tallies with the part described in the Commission's report.
For these reasons we will vote in favour of this amendment.
Part C contains an approach on how all this will economically affect agricultural markets and the income of farmers, while part D assesses the impact of the agri-monetary system on Community achievements.
In substance, the Commission's annual report on the agri-monetary system proposes abandoning the green tariff for import duties by emphasizing the need to ease agri-monetary processes.
Mr Hallam's initial draft report proposed this option.
Under the current system, two tariffs co-exist to calculate customs tariffs: the customs tariffs and the green tariff or agricultural conversion rate.
We all want to simplify this system but unlike the rapporteur's initial proposals, this simplification must not only entail the application of customs tariffs but, conversely, the systematic application of the green tariff.
In fact, the green tariff is higher than the customs tariff.
The conversion rate differential between these two tariffs may reach 5 %.
Consequently, the proposals of both the Commission and the rapporteur tend to lead to a lessening of Community protection.
We all know that in the very tough international context that we are experiencing the principle of Community preference is constantly under threat and is often challenged both by the WTO agreements and the host of agreements signed by the European Union with third countries.
It is therefore paramount to ensure maximum possible protection and hence preserve the green tariff.
The latter will continue to apply for repayments and domestic market prices, whatever the method of calculation chosen to calculate customs tariffs.
In the amendment I have tabled with my colleague Edouard des Places, which was passed by the Committee on Agriculture, I proposed an effective means of simplification.
Effective simplification entails the use of the green tariff to calculate customs tariffs, as indeed it is already used to calculate repayments and domestic market prices.
The other amendments tabled with Mr des Places in committee, which were all adopted, enable us to support the rapporteur's resolution, apart from preamble A, to which we prefer the wording of Amendment No 1.
In conclusion, Mr President, we all want to see an easing of the administrative formalities that European enterprises need to complete.
Our approach diverges from that of the Commission on one specific point: we want to preserve community preference as far as possible.
The choice of a single customs tariffs demonstrates that the Commission has systematically opted for solutions that do least to safeguard the interests of the European agricultural economy.
No international agreement or legal stipulation obliges the Commission to propose the customs rate instead of the green rate for customs tariffs. So why does it do this?
Following these proposals and especially after the approval of the Agenda 2000 project, I, like many farmers, wonder whether the European Commission really has the will to preserve the one and only genuine integrated Community policy which broadly gives the European Union legitimacy - I refer to the Common Agricultural Policy.
Mr President, I should like to add my congratulations to our colleague, David Hallam for the excellent report that he has produced, which actually sheds some clarity on what is a very, very complicated issue, namely the way in which the agri-monetary system works.
I certainly feel, having read his report, that I understand it very much better.
I would also like to assure colleagues that he did not write the text of my speech this morning, any more than I did the text of his speech yesterday on my report.
The compliments are meant very sincerely.
One of the reasons for welcoming this report is that farmers have to contend with so many uncertainties in their job.
One very heavy storm or two or three weeks of very dry weather at the wrong time of the year can make all the difference as to whether they make a profit or loss on a whole year's work.
Fluctuations in exchange rates add a further hazard in terms of forward planning.
The agri-monetary system is supposed to give some protection against this.
However, as the report points out, the rises and falls in exchange rates do not necessarily balance each other out and adjustments are necessary to ensure that farmers in one group of countries are not disadvantaged through such monetary movements.
I very much welcome the proposals in Mr Hallam's resolution recommending the maintenance of maximum stability in the run-up to the introduction of the Euro.
We want only minimum changes in the existing system, those which are required to maintain financial equilibrium in the agriculture sector during this interim period.
I believe that farmers throughout Europe will welcome these recommendations as uncertainty is their greatest problem in an area where long term planning is absolutely essential.
I too want to congratulate Mr Hallam on his report and thank him for his heroic efforts to shed light on a very complicated subject.
I once heard a former member of the Council of Ministers say that he put the question informally to all of the finance ministers who were seated around the table: ' What are NCAs?' . There was not a single minister able to explain that.
They had to send for someone in the Commission.
Mr Hallam has gone one better than that.
I take issue with one point in the opening of the first paragraph of his report which says that there is considerable doubt about the whole question of EMU, or words to that effect.
We, in this House, should not accept that there is any doubt about EMU.
Parliament has to accept that EMU is going to proceed according to the timetable.
By the middle of next year we will, in effect, have European monetary union for perhaps 80 % of the entire economy of our 15 countries and we should proceed on that basis.
Another point I want to make is that Mr Hallam seems to suggest that we might continue with this system after monetary union has been put in place.
Even if it does not cost the Community budget any money, it gives some farmers in strong currency areas payments at the expense of farmers in weak currency countries. I could not agree that there is any need for that.
I believe that we will have monetary union by the middle of next year.
Once the rates are fixed, this makes the whole agri-monetary system totally redundant.
We will have something like 80 % of the economy of the European Union in the system and there will be one or two countries who want to join but whose currencies are too weak.
It would be very wrong if we were to suggest that there should be a tax imposed on the farmers exporting from those countries if their governments are forced to submit to a devaluation of their currency.
On the other hand I cannot accept that countries which have strong currencies and are eligible to join the European Union, but are not willing to do so, should be given the facility of subsidizing the nominal reductions in prices which occur if their currencies appreciate against the Euro.
To do this would be to offer some sort of an incentive to those countries not to participate in monetary union if they have strong currencies and are eligible to do so.
I believe that we should proceed on the basis that we will use the Euro from the day that the currency rates are fixed.
From there on, the entire system is redundant and farmers within the system have absolute certainties while farmers outside the systems will deal with the problems just like any other sector in their economy - manufacturing, industry, services, importing or exporting.
They exchange their money at the rate that the Euro gives them. There is no need to have any other system.
I can understand in the past why there was political pressure in countries like Germany and Holland where currencies were appreciating very rapidly. There was political pressure to give some concessions.
I recall that in 1992, in a report that I wrote, Parliament rejected the switch-over system. That system eventually incurred costs for the European budget.
My group did not agree with me at the time. But that system incurred costs of something like ECU 7 billion in the European budget.
I was against it because it provided for unplanned and unscheduled increases in farmers' incomes which they were not looking for and did not expect.
If we had that ECU 7 billion today to devote to the rural development aspects of our agricultural policy, it could be put to use to achieve social and economic objectives which are closer to the hearts of most people in this Parliament.
Mr President, I would like first of all to congratulate Mr Hallam on his report on a very sensitive issue.
However, I still have many worries, as do other Members, about certain proposals of the Commission.
The Commission proposal on the agri-monetary system of a single market is, in its basic outline, correct.
The rapporteur was quite right to emphasise that at the present stage it is not advisable to make vast changes, as the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union from January 1999 will make these changes.
I would like to add, however, that, particularly in respect of the proposed safety net, in section (d) of paragraph 1, with a ceiling and a floor in local currency, this cannot exceed the limit of + 2-3 % at the most, and it appears that section (e) of the same paragraph causes more problems than it was meant to solve.
In my opinion it would have been better to remove it completely.
Such a possibility of redirecting community funds, as is proposed here, will very easily lead to countries with strong economies playing monetary games with exchange rates at the expense of economically weaker countries, which will not be able to do anything about it.
What is more, it limits the free exercise of a policy of public economy by Member States in the run up to EMU, since this section is in fact a system of rewards and punishments.
When a country with a weaker economy is obliged to devalue its currency in order to achieve economic recovery and a more conducive environment for exports, then the European Union comes along with this system and punishes the farmer.
In other words, it takes money from the weakest members and gives it to the strongest, thus perpetuating a vicious circle.
On the one hand the Commission points out that there are no great monetary fluctuations, but it also states that strong currencies have been devalued while other currencies have tended to be revalued.
This may be a fact, but it is not sufficient to make us resort to such measures.
In his conclusions to the report under consideration, the rapporteur supports the Commission in its stance that the Community must in some way end its present guarantees of farmers' incomes.
"The Community role should be to even out and soften the effect of appreciable fluctuations, rather than to ensure, as the present system does, that whether a currency is devaluing or revaluing, farmers in both situations get more' , as he puts it.
In accounting terms this position may have a basis.
In practice, however, farmers do a very difficult job, with many imponderables, dependent on thousands of external dangers, not only weather conditions and natural disasters, as has been mentioned here today, but also decisions taken by technocrats at a European level.
Mr President, Mr David Hallam's report on the function of the agri-monetary system for the years 1995-1996 describes the scheme admirably.
I would like to thank him accordingly.
With the green ECU scheme there is an intention to implement the two goals of article 39 of the Treaty of Rome: the guarantee of a reasonable standard of living for farmers, and the freeing-up of markets.
In serving these basic tasks the system has done well.
This of course has been helped by the relative inter-stability of the currencies of the EU Member States.
There was no currency crisis during the early part of the decade.
In the future the agri-monetary system has to face two challenges: the possible implementation of the third stage of EMU, and agriculture turning its attention to world markets.
The switch to a single currency from the start of 1999 should bring a certain degree of stability to the common agricultural policy.
Those Member States which belong to the EMU will no longer experience any major monetary fluctuations.
On the other hand, there will remain the problem of those countries that possibly stay outside the EMU area.
These important agricultural countries may, at least as far as we may gather from our open debate, include Britain, Denmark and Sweden, and perhaps others.
There are no plans by the Commission for a new system.
The formulation of the system, however, is becoming a burning issue, as other speakers have mentioned.
The second question is agricultural production and its importance, even more than before, in view of world markets.
The basic principle in agricultural policy, as contained in Agenda 2000, is the reconciliation of the level of agricultural aid with world market prices.
World markets are, however, dominated to a large extent by the US dollar.
Over the last year the dollar has increased in value by more than 20 % in relation to the ECU.
This may be at least partly due to the uncertainty that prevails in the world with regard to the single currency.
Because the new Euro exchange rate might be particularly unstable in the early stages, there may be large fluctuations in prices for agricultural products on the world market when they are converted into Euros.
This of course would be promptly reflected in EU internal prices and agricultural aid, when there would be rapid swings in value.
For this reason, the internal connections in Agenda 2000 to world market prices and via them to the US dollar, for example, must be considered thoroughly.
It is worrying that, with the establishment of the Euro, prices for agricultural produce and the value of agricultural aid might not grow and, indeed, may instead fall.
I can second Mr Habsburg's words as far as the importance of traditional farming for our European continent is concerned.
At your age, however, Mr Habsburg, you really should consider whether you ought to join the Green Party, because with your proposals you are not in good company with the Christian Democrats.
This Christian Democratic Party has supported a policy here, and not only here, but in the national Parliament, which is heading in precisely the opposite direction: the destruction of those farms which you warn us we shall need.
A farm goes bankrupt every two minutes in Europe, and those are the smaller businesses.
Every year 500, 000 jobs are lost in European agriculture.
That is a shocking figure, and if we want to stop this, then we must either accept your concepts, or we must do what has always been Green agricultural policy, and declare support for the traditional farming as the aim of agricultural policy.
In that case we should not have to mention this report, which we have to deal with here, because, Mr Hallam, there are two possibilities for beating the system: one is that we join in monetary union, which you already mentioned.
The other system would be to withdraw from interventionism, state buying and export subventions.
Because these monetary measures and the offset measures being debated here are only necessary for areas and products to which intervention is applied.
These are, indeed, the classic market regulatory products not, for example, potatoes, not vegetables, not fruit, not the whole range of products which we in Baringdorf place on the direct-sales market, the direct path to producers and consumers, from our farm.
These are completely unaffected by variations in the exchange rate.
Nor do we benefit from offset payments which are affected by this monetary system, but we obtain our prices from the market; we get the prices from the quality of our products and from the awareness of our consumers that these products have a special value for them.
We see here increasingly that the value of the product is not merely measured by the quality intrinsic to it, which can be quantitively measured, but that these products are valued increasingly for their external quality - as one might call it: that there must be an agricultural structure to ensure that our old people do not become poor, that our variety of species is maintained, that there is a landscape with farming businesses and not one, as we can see in the former GDR, with farms devoid of any aesthetic value.
Europe's cultural achievements lie in rural areas and have their origins there.
Without wishing to blow our own trumpet, farmers made this culture, they were the basis of this culture.
If we attack this basis we should not be surprised if Europe's culture changes.
For this reason these monetary matters have a great deal to do with general development; so I should like to complain here that we are using the discussion on Agenda 2000 - which comes next and in which such hesitant attempts are being made to leave an intervention system for one producing quality products - as a way of submitting in the European Parliament the brave outline of a new agricultural policy lying beyond all agro-industrial logic.
Whoever then wishes to produce within a particular agro-industrial production for world markets - as authorized by our constitutional law and our free economic laws - may do so, but then, if you please, without state support.
And for those who maintain the culture and the landscape, who produce quality, who are in contact with the consumer, who are actually not responsible for the billions we now have to spend on BSE, there must be support.
The agricultural budget is not too high, agriculture is not too expensive.
The money is simply being spent incorrectly. It is being spent against maintenance of the structure, instead of in support of it.
If we dare to make a courageous proposal here, and you, Mr Habsburg, reconsider the matter with the Green Party, then we shall be on the right path and your memory will be honoured.
Then it will be said that at his age he still did the right thing!
Madam President, first of all I would like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, its rapporteur, Mr David Hallam, and the honourable Members of the European Parliament for the support they are giving to the report on the agri-monetary system for the single market in the period from 1 July 1995 to 30 June 1996 and for the debate in this House today.
I am quite sure that Commissioner Fischler is looking forward to the debate on Agenda 2000 and agricultural policy, and I shall make a point of not dealing with that on this occasion.
I would like to address one point with which the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development agrees. The Commission believes that it is too early to put forward a proposal for a Council Regulation on the adaptation of the agri-monetary system on the basis of the Euro.
We do not yet know which or how many currencies will participate and we have no idea what exchange rates will be set, so nor do we know anything about the monetary deviations between these exchange rates and the current agricultural conversion rates.
As long as there is uncertainty about the size of the problem, the Commission's view is that it serves no purpose to draw up a proposal for a Council regulation.
Even though the Commission can fully accept the guidelines in the proposed resolution, I shall allow myself to make a small observation on the first reading.
I think the statement on the currencies' relative stability for several years is too general.
I am therefore pleased that an amendment is being submitted for the first reading to limit it to the period covered by the report, that is, from 1 July 1995 to 30 June 1996.
Mr Mulder asked some specific questions and I have been informed that the departments are also considering the questions mentioned here, as well as the various possible scenarios, so we are aware of the problems.
In conclusion I would like to say that the Commission agrees with the guidelines which are listed in the resolution concerning the future agri-monetary system, i.e. simplicity and transparency, a limited number of changes to the agricultural conversion rates and manageable costs. And with these observations, I thank you for the debate.
The debate is closed.
We will now vote on Mr Hallam's report.
We abstained from the vote on this report.
In our opinion it is desirable to change the agri-monetary system of the internal market as soon as possible.
The cost of ECU 1.3 billion per year is not acceptable.
The question is whether the system has not had its day, now that almost all farmers can gain financial benefit from it.
There is no balance, since amounts paid out to farmers in countries which revalue their currencies are not balanced against savings on amounts which are paid out to farmers who receive more in national currencies because of devaluation.
We welcome the rapporteur's conclusions that agri-monetary systems should play a smaller role and cost substantially less than they do now.
A saving in this area is desirable as soon as possible.
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on this excellent report.
It is reassuring to know that he also wants the rules to be simplified.
I agree with him that this is not the time to make any dramatic changes, in view of the uncertainty about EMU.
In the longer term a radical reform is necessary.
For the moment, fluctuations in exchange rates are not a thing of the past.
We must endeavour to achieve a system that is self-financing.
The conditions in paragraph 1 (d) of the draft resolution do not remove the openended nature of the system.
That open end could be closed up with an asymmetrical system.
Compensation for farmers in devaluing countries can be frozen in the national currency, while the payments for the revaluing countries are established in ECU.
From the savings, the farmers in revaluing countries can receive compensation afterwards.
In this way the agrimonetary compensation can be neutral in the budget.
With regard to the reform of the system, this Parliament already pointed out in 1995 the risk that the Member States would contribute to the compensation for the revaluation of the green rates.
From the annual report of the Commission, it appears that Luxembourg, Germany and Belgium additionally compensated their farmers.
The Netherlands, Denmark and Austria, among others, did not pay their share of the compensation.
In this way, producers in comparable circumstances are treated differently, depending on the country in which they are established.
A European agriculture market does not tolerate this.
With the review of the agri-monetary system, the possibility of national compensation must therefore disappear.
As early as 1969, the Council abandoned the unity of market and price, one of the basic principles of the common agricultural policy.
Perhaps phase III of the EMU means the rehabilitation of this principle in an important part of the European agriculture market.
The precondition will be that the exchange rates are stable.
Owing to the macroeconomic differences between the Member States we cannot expect that by 1998.
It is very much to be hoped that from the start the European Central Bank will pursue a solid monetary policy geared to price stability.
National currencies outside the EMU area will then tend to devalue with regard to the euro and certainly when countries from Central and Eastern Europe become members.
I wish to show by this that the budget problems will continue to exist as long as the Commission does not close up the "open end' .
Therefore I would request the Commissioner to take seriously my suggestion for an improved agri-monetary system.
The Commission wishes to wait until 1 January 1999 to review the system.
In the meantime the Ecofin Council has decided that next May it will draw up both the list of EMU participants and the bilateral parities between the currencies of these countries.
It is to be expected that differences will arise with the mutual parities according to the green central rate.
What does the Commission intend to do then? Will there be a sudden adjustment or a gradual one?
The decision of the Ecofin Council requires the Commission shortly after May 1998 to propose a review of the agrimonetary system.
Can the Commission give an undertaking as to when it will present such a proposal?
(The Parliament adopts the resolution)
Mr rapporteur, I congratulate Mr Hallam and welcome the fact that so many colleagues have attended the presentation of your report. This is a major feat for a Friday morning!
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting ended at 10.10 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 19 September 1997.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Friday 19 September 1997 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, it will be seen from the Minutes that the Friday session finished at 10.10 a.m., and that we only had a single item on the agenda.
However, our agenda today is totally overcrowded, so that an important agreement like the cooperation agreement with Macedonia will only be dealt with towards midnight.
I would therefore urge that we should organize these meetings better in future.
If we had made good use of the last Friday, we could today have dealt with this important subject during the day, in the presence of our guests!
You are right, Mr Posselt.
It is a pity more topics were not prepared for the last Strasbourg session, but the committees which were supposed to have completed the relevant reports were not able to approve them in time.
Thank you very much.
I welcome the guests you mention. However, as you know, the Rules of this House are that the Chair only welcomes visitors who have been officially invited.
Many distinguished visitors attend at the invitation of honourable Members, in which case there is not normally a public welcome. However, the Chair is glad to join in your welcome.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you must not mix up different issues.
The Minutes record what was decided, and it was decided that we would have a sitting today, which is now taking place.
Secondly, with regard to the ruling of the Court of Justice, the Bureau has today asked the legal adviser to give an opinion regarding the consequences of this matter.
Once that opinion has been prepared, it will be submitted to the appropriate parliamentary bodies which will draw all the necessary conclusions.
Mr President, the Court of Justice has, in effect, just passed a ruling which concerns us directly, stating that the Edinburgh decision should be interpreted as defining the seat of Parliament as the place where twelve ordinary part-sessions must be held regularly.
Furthermore, article 176 of the Treaty of Rome, which governs our work, stipulates that the institution or institutions from which the act appealed against emanates, or whose failure to act has been declared contrary to the current Treaty, are required to take the measures involved in the implementation of the ruling of the Court of Justice.
Mr President, you have just announced the expected initiative, and we are very pleased about that. It will enable our institution to conform to the ruling of the Court.
All things considered, Mr President, I invite you to act to enable Parliament to comply fully with the law and prevent us from having to give an opinion, year after year, on a timetable which should be permanently fixed.
Mrs Berès, I am not going to continue this discussion.
The Bureau, which is the appropriate authority, has requested an opinion on the consequences of this matter.
This will be submitted to the Conference of Presidents and to the Bureau and, if necessary, to the whole House so that all the consequences may be drawn.
I shall not prejudice that and, of course, it in no way encroaches on Parliament's right to set its own timetable.
But this will all be in accordance with the treaties, in accordance with the ruling of the Court and in accordance with our Rules of Procedure.
That is all we can say on the subject today. It is a serious matter and allows of no improvisation.
There is no question of opening a debate on the matter now and I hope everyone will show understanding.
I, too, would like to speak about Parliament's session and the part-sessions for 1998.
You have all heard, and I regret it, the Court of Justice's decision ruling given at the request of France.
We have...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr Striby, please listen. I said this debate would not continue.
We will draw the consequences of the situation according to our Rules of Procedure when the time comes, but we are not going to discuss it now.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I have been trying to get the floor since I came in.
I indicated to your services that I wanted to issue a statement on behalf of my group, the Union for Europe.
This is the third largest group in Parliament.
It sought to visit Angola on a peace mission...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Thank you very much, Mr Crowley.
If you would be kind enough to send me the relevant documents I will take the appropriate measures and contact the Italian authorities.
As for Mrs Bonino, she has not asked us for any assistance and I am sure that the President of the Commission gave her whatever help she needed.
She does not need our help, but if she did, we would give it.
Request for procedure without debate
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has just asked for procedure without debate, pursuant to Rule 99, to be applied to Mr Kittelmann's report on the procedure for adopting the Community's position at the Customs Union Joint Committee set up by Decision No 1/95 of the EC-Turkey Association Council on implementation of the final phase of the customs union.
Therefore, this report will simply be put to the vote during tomorrow's voting time at 11 a.m.
Mr President, this is a request for procedure without debate under Rule 99(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
I would like to request the President not to adopt Mr Kittelman's very important report without debate - I do not know if he is in the Chamber.
The report is about strengthening the customs union.
We cannot adopt a report of this kind during a period when - and this is my reason - we are effectively taking part in negotiations on the accession of Turkey to the European Union, and while there are problems with Cyprus.
I would like to ask the President to proceed accordingly, as there are comments to be made, including those of Mr Kittelman.
You have invoked the relevant Rule and, as you know, the report must be submitted to a vote without debate unless at least 29 Members ask for it to be debated.
Are there 29 Members in support of Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's request?
(The President noted that more than 29 Members supported Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's petition. The report would therefore be placed on the draft agenda for a future part-session, to be taken with debate)
Urgent political matters
The next item is a Commission communication on Member States' employment policy guidelines for 1998 (in preparation for the European Council summit on employment to be held on 20 and 21 November 1997 in Luxembourg).
The President of the Commission, Mr Santer, now has the floor.
Mr President, broadly speaking, the report follows the same direction as the report that we are soon to discuss in the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment, although of course there are differences.
I have two questions.
Firstly, I cannot find in the whole story on tax credits the proposal to reduce VAT on labour-intensive services.
I should like to know from the President of the Commission whether I am mistaken.
And if I am not mistaken, what are the arguments for not making that important proposal, where the Commission itself has authority?
Secondly, I would like to know whether you have based this proposal on a survey of Member States or, to put it another way, how broad do you think support for your proposals will be at the Luxembourg Council?
Mr President, regarding tax proposals we have this very morning identified a global package of tax measures including a code of conduct for tax regulations and a certain number of other proposals which are aimed both at direct and indirect taxation.
This package will, moreover, be submitted to the Ecofin Council on 13 October.
We expect the Ecofin Council of 13 October to produce certain orientations for the European Council of 21 November because we consider that the fiscal package also has an influence on employment, that a relationship between employment and taxation exists, as in other areas, for example the environment, and we are also counting on the European Council of 21 November to give some guidance in this respect.
Regarding your second question about whether the Council will follow our lead, my answer is that we hope so.
In the area of taxation, unanimity is still the rule and with this in mind we consider that, at least by the end of the six months of this Presidency, that is, by the end of December, we will have reached a political agreement concerning the fiscal package and also, I hope, the fiscal package in relation to employment.
Mr President, one way to reduce unemployment, as it appears in the statistics - and I emphasize the words "as it appears in the statistics' - is to reduce the supply of labour through various adjustments and subsidies, that is, removing people from the labour force, reducing labour force participation.
Do you think, Mr President, that this method, which is used in a number of countries, is a good way to solve Europe's problems, as they appear in the statistics, by actually working less?
Or would you rather do what Mr Blair is proposing in the United Kingdom, that is, increasing employment by introducing greater flexibility into all the rules which immobilize the labour markets of Europe?
We have taken this particular question on board in one of the employment guidelines where we talk about making the taxation systems more employment-friendly.
In order to encourage enterprises to create more new jobs, Member States must exploit the current favourable macro-economic climate to reverse finally the adverse long-term trend towards higher taxes and, indeed, charges on labour, which have increased from 35 % in 1980 to over 42 % in 1995.
So we are saying that each Member State should set a target for reducing the tax burden on labour while maintaining budget neutrality with a view to achieving substantial progress by the year 2000.
My question is about the politics of this special Employment Summit.
I would like to hear from President Santer his assessment of how we stand in terms of momentum as we near the special summit.
We came out of Amsterdam with a considerable head of steam behind the employment debate.
Does he think that the guidelines he has adopted today can be a rallying point for the Heads of State?
What is his assessment of the current state of momentum among the Member States and what would be his test of the success of the special summit?
All the players must of course must be mobilized so that the European Council is a success.
I have mentioned the difficulties with regard to this summit.
The exercise we carried out this morning, that is, the proposals for guidelines which are a first in the area of employment, because they anticipate the employment chapter in the Amsterdam Treaty, is definitely a new type of exercise.
In fact, it launches a process by which Member States can review their employment position year on year and adopt guidelines for a national employment policy.
Using a similar approach to that for economic and monetary union, we are seeking to establish methods of convergence and surveillance, with these guidelines, as the starting point, to provide Member States with a monitoring system for checking whether or not their targets have been achieved each year.
Secondly, you asked how we can move the package of measures forward so that the European Council of 21 November is a success.
I think we need to mobilize the other players.
I mentioned the social partners.
They have a paramount role to play.
That is why we have organized a summit for unions and management on 13 November next.
I think all the other Community bodies must be included, such as the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee on Regional Policy, and so on.
A genuine process needs to be undertaken.
We are very much aware that the European Council itself is not going to create employment, but a process must be initiated and I believe that if the political will is there in the fifteen Member States, and they have a document based on that political will through the acceptance of the employment chapter in the Amsterdam Treaty - and we will be present when it is signed tomorrow morning in Amsterdam - then I believe the follow-up from this European Council has a chance of success.
Mr President, this employment summit must be a success and for that reason I should again like to go into the two questions that were raised by Mr van Velzen, because I do not think any reply was given to Mr van Velzen's two questions.
The first question was: what are you actually proposing on taxation?
Do you, for example, actually propose shifting taxes on work to other areas such as energy? And are you going to make proposals in the context of VAT where we have an authority for reducing charges on intensive services?
My second question is related to that one, and you have now replied to it three times: what exactly are the possibilities open to the European Commission if the Member States are not prepared to agree on convergence in their aims? What sanctions can the European Union then impose?
Or are we going to carry on in the same old way, begun in Essen, where it was stated that we were going to do certain things, but in the end nothing was fixed and no basis laid down whereby the Member States can implement these plans.
Finally, Mr President, what proposals are you going to put forward for reforms in the longer term?
Because what you now propose deals with the short term, but what are you going to do about the long term?
We consider that tax regulations must be more favourable to employment.
I have not gone into detail regarding the proposals, which you must of course study within the global package and which cover several dozen pages, but in order to encourage businesses to create new jobs we consider that the Member States must exploit the favourable macro-economic climate in order to reverse the long term trend towards increasing tax and social security contributions.
We have established the objective of reducing fiscal pressure on labour, whilst maintaining budgetary neutrality, so that substantial progress can be made by the year 2000.
We have also made a proposal, which is on the table, concerning the taxation of energy.
We consider that this is perhaps one of the ways in which taxation on labour can be reduced.
It is not a new proposal, for we have repeated it endlessly since the White Paper in 1993.
Both the previous Commission and the current Commission have made proposals on this.
There therefore exists a group of proposals which aim to reduce taxation on labour, to reinforce the general trend.
If you study the dossier on taxation you will find extremely precise points with regard to this.
Secondly, you ask me what provision has been made for sanctions by the Commission.
It is difficult to say because it is a process that we are only just initiating.
We did not make provision for sanctions in our approach when we began the process of economic and monetary union.
We are counting on peer review, that is, the group discipline which is evident in the Council when the national reports submitted by the various Member States, which must fall within the framework of the guidelines, are examined, year after year.
Finally, the Commission has the right, as stated in the employment chapter, to make recommendations to the Member States.
We have not yet reached that point.
We are, of course, waiting for the European Council of 21 November to see how we should draw up those recommendations.
So the process has not yet started.
No sanctions are in place because, like economic policy, social policy and employment policy are largely national responsibilities, and that must be borne in mind.
Mr President, my question to President Santer is also on taxation.
If the Council is not ready to make a unanimous decision on taxation, what conclusions can the Commission draw? In fact, does he agree that all these jobs will be undermined unless the very essence of taxation changes, substituting forms of energy tax and VAT so that income tax can be cut.
If we could only cut income tax we would then be in a position to cut social security.
Is it the philosophy of the Commission that the income tax position can be eased by reducing the social security burden?
I would also like to ask Commissioner Flynn what is meant by this 'flexibility' which we need to have more of in the name of adaptability. Does it mean the USA-style development, where new jobs actually mean jobs which pay salaries that no one can live on, or does it mean dialogue in the labour markets?
The first thing that should be said here is that this process will require each of the Member States to draw up an action plan.
This plan will be interactive and deal specifically with all the matters raised in the guidelines, always remembering that it will be done within a common European framework of the objectives and guidelines set down.
But each Member State will set it out to satisfy its own particular circumstances.
Regarding the sanction, after the summit in December adopts these guidelines, it will then be for the Member States to draw up the action plans.
Then we will be in a position to evaluate and monitor what the Member States do.
As a consequence of that evaluation, it is possible that the Commission, on its own initiative, will be able to make recommendations to the individual Member States as to how they have met the challenges of the guidelines.
We are not talking here about cuts in social security; that is not the point.
A huge resource of finance - over ECU 200 billion per year - is spent on the social security systems.
Two-thirds of it is used on passive income maintenance measures.
We want to see a greater proportion of the taxation and the social security systems reserves transferred into active labour market policies.
We should always remember that we are responding to the strategy that was agreed in Amsterdam.
This is what the Amsterdam Summit asked us to do; to regard unemployment and job creation as a matter of common concern.
We will not be working against the Member States so far as sanctions are concerned; we will be working with governments.
We are building cooperation so that we can finally make a quantum leap.
This process goes back to 1993 and has now reached a point where we can set down guidelines which will help the Member States to draw up their action plans.
Mr President, the Commission wants to turn the ship around in five years.
It is a challenge, it is optimistic, but I feel that without vision there can never be success.
To achieve an enterprise culture, a new mentality must naturally be in place. This is a long term vision.
In the short term, we must think about finance for businesses.
My question is thus the following: where will this finance come from?
From the Community budget, from the private sector, or from national budgets? What does the Commission think?
There is no question of suggesting that a new volume of money is required.
What we are talking about here is taking the existing financial structures, whether at Community or national level, and converting them into more active labour market policies.
We must remember that we are talking about increasing the employment rate to 65 % over five years.
This is not an impossible target.
We were at that figure before in the 1970s when our employment rate was on a par with the United States.
But they have moved ahead.
We have carried out a simulation which shows that if we can maintain macro-economic growth pattern of at least 3 % per annum over the next few years, together with the structural reforms and the policy employment guidelines we are suggesting here, we will achieve at least a 65 % employment rate which corresponds to somewhere between 7 % and 8 % of an unemployment rate after five years of operation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are holding this debate while nearly 30 million people in the Union are unemployed and at least 50 million are living in poverty.
We should not delude ourselves into thinking that the active labour market policy needed can be financed from petty cash.
I would like to ask the Commission if, in December, in connection with the Monti initiative, it will at least discuss reclaiming tax-raising powers, namely on financial operations, company profits and property, as in view of the stability pact this can only be done through gains on the receipts side.
Secondly, what about industry's responsibility? What does the Commission intend to do to get industry to create jobs and training places, instead of rationalizing and dispersing jobs?
Thirdly, I welcome the fact that it will not be a deregulation summit.
But I am not satisfied with just that.
It must not be a workfare and flexible working summit either, because this USA model cannot be applied to the European Communities and even over there it has led to the destruction of social cohesion and to lasting social unrest.
We are seeking to promote and encourage adaptability.
We are talking here about modernizing work organization and working patterns in the Union.
We will be asking the social partners - who will play a key role in all this - to negotiate, in particular in economic sectors undergoing major structural change, agreements on work organization and flexible working arrangements.
The Member States will also be asked to put in place a framework for more adaptable forms of contract, taking into account increasingly diverse forms of employment.
Those in non-standard work should be given greater security, for instance an occupational status.
Those who opt to work reduced hours should not be penalized in terms of career advancement.
All in all, we are supporting adaptability in enterprise and we want to see greater employability and to reduce the skills gap which is the main structural deficit in the Union at the present time.
Mr President, I should like to begin with a specific point in your report where you say that 45 % of students in higher education fail to complete their course of studies. To these must be added about 65 % of university students who fail to graduate.
This has given me an idea which I am preparing as a proposal for the committee: besides the incentives for employers, besides the incentives for occupational training for these young people who otherwise would automatically become unemployed, why not provide a programme of assistance for students who are in difficulties as very often they are in this position not because they do not want to study but because they need to work?
Why not provide them with a programme that will help them to complete their studies? There would be a number of parallel results: first of all the number of potential unemployed would decrease and secondly we would be increasing the educational level of those young people who would subsequently have a better chance of being employed at a higher level as a result.
Why not turn this proposal into a future programme?
This is quite a good idea.
We would like to suggest that it involves employability, that is, enhancing people's capacity to be employed.
And that is the core of the guidelines we are presenting to you today.
We are talking here about tackling the problem of the long-term unemployed; and we are talking about tackling the problem of youth unemployment.
In particular, we are talking about those who have never had the opportunity for training.
We should not forget that 10 % of all the unemployed in Europe have had no training whatsoever.
These are the people who end up as the long term unemployed.
We want to see a guideline: and it is stated here quite specifically that every unemployed person will either be in a job, a skill experience or a training situation within twelve months of being unemployed.
And every young person under 25 will be in a similar situation of training, education, or work experience within six months.
So the work ethic will be there from the very start and we will be able finally to reduce the level of dependency in the Union.
That is what has to be tackled if we are going to plug the skills gap that is bedevilling the whole labour market of Europe.
Mr President, we are currently in a transitional period until monetary union comes into effect, allowing us to become more competitive, and our economies to converge.
But the fact of the matter is that the Member States are currently making major efforts to improve their financial situations, and to converge.
I should like the President of the Commission to give an assessment of Member States' efforts towards the convergence of their economies, and the effects these efforts are having on the labour market and job creation.
I should also like to hear the President of the Commission's judgement of how well the multiannual employment programmes have been adhered to since 1995, and what value the Commission places on these programmes.
In fact, quite a lot of things have been done in the recent past.
While today President Santer and I have been focusing on the employment guidelines, we also approved two other documents.
One of those is the employment report for 1997 where we bring together all the data, analyse it and discuss questions of policy.
The second document, the joint report, is of considerable importance for it is from this document that the economic guidelines were derived.
The joint report is a collection of all the best practices submitted to us in the multiannual programmes and the submissions made to the Luxembourgish President-in-Office.
We have drawn from specific best effort and best experience and they are in the joint report.
From that it will be clearly seen that most of the Member States have been doing positive things as far as developing their labour markets and their educational systems and reforms of all their other systems are concerned.
Unfortunately, it has not always been done in a coordinated way.
With these guidelines and with the Amsterdam mandate, we are seeking a coordinated action which is set out in the action plans, so that we can address the evaluation process on an ongoing basis.
A lot has been done; it is not suggested that Member States are not giving this top priority.
But now finally, because of Amsterdam, we have this process which allows the strategy to have real teeth.
And I believe we have grasped that nettle today.
Mr President, we have here a great many issues connected with taxation.
It is also a very important part of the Commission's employment package or at least it ought to be an important part of the Commission's proposal because the President has said we should not set our sights too high in terms of what can be done about employment at EU level.
But we can actually achieve something in taxation.
I would also like to ask to what extent capital tax and the harmonization of capital tax feature in this proposal. We should be wary of tax dumping or tax competition, with different Member States chasing jobs and investment, unless progress is made in this area.
I would also like to ask a question which has already been asked several times here: what does the Commission mean by wage flexibility being a good way of remedying the employment problem?
Mr President, the fiscal package is not a part of this Commission communication.
This communication relates, in particular - I have said this from the start and we must make no mistake about it - to proposals for guidelines for Member States' employment policies for 1998 pursuant to, and in anticipation of, the employment chapter of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This is the communication that I have put to you this morning.
However, in addition to this communication, another fiscal package was this morning identified by the Commission within a different context.
It relates to an agreement in principle which was reached by the informal Council of Finance Ministers held some time ago in Luxembourg-Mondorf-les-Bains, and which incorporated harmonization of taxation on capital.
It is a separate package which will be submitted to the Ecofin Council on 13 October.
Of course, you are entirely correct in saying that competition in the area of taxation, which currently occurs between Member States, reduces the tax base, creates problems of tax receipts for Member States and leads to fiscal dumping.
This is why I believe we need to act in the face of this unhealthy competition between Member States in the sphere of taxation and, as I said, we will put in place more precise guidelines at the European Council in order to tie up, at least in a political agreement, the global package on taxation, which is far-reaching, I can assure you.
Thus we are at least assured of having succeeded, after two years of hard work, in unblocking the taxation package which, as you know, has been bogged down for quite a while.
So I think the Ecofin Council on 13 October will be able to give the green light to a policy agreement which we will then ratify at the European Council.
Mr President, I am perfectly happy to agree with the honourable Member, because I have always felt that it is a moral duty for each Member State to combat unemployment, which is the curse of modern times.
I myself took the initiative, on 31 January last year, to set before you a confidence pact for employment which, it has to be said, did not find the same success with the Member States as it did with you.
I have constantly repeated that something must be done about unemployment in Europe if Europe wishes to remain credible to its citizens. We have to consider the perception of the man in the street, the worker in Europe, if we do not succeed in curbing this scourge.
I am very happy that at Amsterdam - it was not easy, the President knows that very well, having participated in a number of intergovernmental conferences - the employment chapter was accepted, since now, at least mutatis mutandis , a connection is established with the process of monetary union.
Now, in the eyes of the citizens, the European Union is not only a market, not only a single currency, but it also has a social dimension.
And I hope, indeed I am sure that, thanks to the process to be undertaken, the Member States will also shoulder their individual responsibilities.
The process which will be undertaken will enable the employment situation to be reviewed each year, because it is necessary to ensure concrete annual follow-up.
I believe that is where success will lie.
Mr Flynn, since you talked about a quantum leap and a new culture, do you not think the Commission could suggest, in the area of intellectual creativity, the following new approach: since SMEs, as we know, are the main source of job creation, I propose that you regard the mother of a large family as the head of a genuine SME.
This would revolutionize our economic thinking. It pains me to see these women still considered inactive when they are accomplishing work of great social value through the important training they give during childhood, which is the basis for further training.
Would this not be a great innovation to propose to our Member States?
That is quite right.
You will be particularly interested in the fourth line of action which we have styled: ' To strengthen the policies for equal opportunities' .
Therein we state quite clearly that following on the demographic reports as outlined, the working-age population is now growing much slower than it has done for the last twenty years.
Over the next decade it is going to decline.
In the longer term you are quite right that the growth of employment necessary to sustain our living standards and the European social model is critically dependent on an increase in the participation of women in the labour market.
I believe we will succeed in what we have put our hands to today.
When the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment was introduced, you will remember that was regarded as a breakthrough in developing European policy.
It rejected wholesale deregulation and growth alone as being a solution to our unemployment problems.
It advocated growth and structural reform.
But neither have been achieved to the extent we hoped for.
Governments have been too slow and sometimes too timid in adopting the reforms we proposed at that time.
But things have changed and moved on.
There is a much stronger commitment now coming through and that is evident since Amsterdam.
And we here today have grasped what is necessary to move that on and to make the commitment really substantial, to get action plans that will deliver the goods over the next five years.
I thank the President of the Commission and Commissioner Flynn for their replies and their readiness to answer Members' questions.
The debate is closed.
Implementation of 1997 budget
The next item is a motion for a resolution (B4-0818/97) by Mr Brinkhorst, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and Mr Tillich, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the implementation of the Community budget for 1997.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Commissioner Liikanen and Commissioner Gradin for the way in which the implementation of the European budget has improved recently.
It is clear that in the last year we have improved the way in which the budget proposed by the budgetary authority is voted on.
There are of course a number of criticisms, but I just wanted to say that first of all.
It is clear that we still have problems with regard to the milk quota.
This year no less than six countries have exceeded the quota and the question to the Commission is whether it is now time to consider proposals for restructuring in this sector.
With regard to the structural funds, there is also a global improvement, but to the disappointment of the Committee on Budgetary Control the situation is such that there are certain shortcomings in the implementation of certain Community initiatives.
I would like to stress the need for Commissioner Liikanen take account of this fact.
Thirdly, last year we rightly focussed our attention on the transeuropean networks in the field of transport, energy and telecommunications.
The Commission promised that by the end of this year there would be full implementation and the credits would be taken up.
Is it correct that in August this year no more than 4 % of the transeuropean network funds were being used and if so, what does the Commission intend to do to improve this situation during this year.
We are pleased about the fact that there is far greater use made of the durability of the structural funds.
Last year, Commissioner Liikanen's colleague, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, together with the Committee on the Environment, gave clear priority to the better use of the structural funds and particularly to encouraging this durability.
We welcome that.
We also hope that it will be possible to make further progress in that regard because in that way durability in the European Union will be enhanced.
With regard to external policy there is fundamental change to the Phare programmes.
The Commission has announced that the Phare programmes will be revised, also with a view to making pre-accession easier.
That has led to a certain amount of underspend this year.
The question I have for the Commissioner, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, is how quickly can the reform of the Phare programme be implemented, especially as, in the near future, we need to prioritize giving the countries of eastern Europe a sign that the situation is improving.
As far as former Yugoslavia is concerned, there are still considerable problems.
Yesterday we had a discussion with representatives of the High Commissioner for former Yugoslavia and it seems that, regarding the spending of the money, there are serious problems, particularly with regard to the development of land for housing.
Finally, the Meda programme. We are pleased that after the initial difficulties, we can now see an improvement in Meda.
We also hope that it will be possible with regard to the establishment obligations to achieve a clear change of emphasis regarding the payment obligations.
Welcome
Implementation of 1997 budget (continuation)
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is not our job as a Parliament to spend more money at all costs.
Our job is rather to recognize obstacles and clear them out of the way, to make the Community capable of action.
Those words were used by Heinrich Aigner, the first chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control of the European Parliament, on 11 October 1977, nearly 20 years ago, to describe our purpose here today.
The authoritative procedure that he initiated at that time for monitoring the implementation of the budget has lost none of its importance since then.
As a Parliament we have a duty to check whether the money that we have provided in the budget is also properly spent in practice.
We have to recognize in good time if something is amiss with the budget's implementation.
In good enough time to change course or take counter-measures.
Later on in this process we need to find out what needs to be changed in the budget for the coming year and what needs to be improved.
I would like to give just a few examples of where things must definitely get better.
Firstly, reconstruction in former Yugoslavia.
The European Union was and is at the forefront in terms of commitments for financial support in aid of reconstruction there, in order to make people's return home easier.
But we also know that various projects have had to be discontinued or could not even start at all, because political conditions were not met and because money was only to be given to those who fully respected the peace agreement.
Nevertheless, the actual outflow of funds and the management and efficiency of aid from the European Union also leave a lot to be desired in many areas, so that drastic improvements are urgently needed.
The credibility of the Commission is now at stake here.
Now for a second example, where I also consider the situation critical. The money that we have made available for nuclear safety in central and eastern Europe is only being used in dribs and drabs, or not at all.
Of course the Commission is not solely responsible for the coordination of international aid for Chernobyl, but coordination problems should not be constantly used as an excuse.
All I can do is to urgently ask the Commission again to treat these problems with the priority that they deserve.
I know splendid arguments can be advanced about the correct priorities in politics.
But there can be no doubt that enhancing the safety of nuclear installations in central and eastern Europe is one of these priorities.
However, if problems arise in implementing the budget, the blame cannot always simply be laid at the Commission's door.
One example of this is the money provided in the budget for anti-fraud measures, particularly in agriculture.
ECU 15 million are available for improved control programmes in that area, for example.
Apparently, the problem is just that until now no proposals have been submitted by Member States for suitable projects.
This does not exactly cast the Member States' efforts in this field in a good light.
We can only hope and appeal for some proposals in the coming months.
For years we have been greatly concerned about exceeding milk quotas, and in 1992 we even had to postpone the final discharge.
But I would also like to say something positive.
In the case of the structural funds, the new trend already discernible in 1996 seems to have been confirmed.
In the first half-year, at the final count more payments were effected than new funds committed.
Nevertheless, the backlog of commitments still to be processed is enormous.
We now have unused commitments of over ECU 24 billion and need to be very careful they do not turn into an unmanageable inherited financial burden.
I would particularly ask you to look after that, Mr Liikanen!
I would also like to draw particular attention to the Community initiatives that our rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst, has already mentioned.
To conclude, I would like to go back to Mr Aigner again.
The top priority mentioned in his speech twenty years ago was to initiate actions in favour of young people.
Thanks to pressure from the European Parliament, some projects have indeed been initiated since then.
I have in mind in particular the Socrates programme, which has been totally exhausted, and which needs to have enough funds in the next budget so that we can also make a contribution to the issue that we have just been discussing with the President of the Commission and with the Commission.
Lastly, I would like to thank the two rapporteurs, who have put in a great deal of work and have brought everything together in questions and in evaluating answers, and I would like to thank the Commission, Commissioner Liikanen and Mrs Gradin for their willing cooperation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to adopt an approach to today's debate which is perhaps different from that of the previous speaker.
Maybe we could look at things somewhat more keenly from the viewpoint of a totally ordinary elected representative of the taxpayers.
It will then be seen that to some extent we are giving the starting signal today for the debate on the Commission's final discharge.
I see that the submission by the two rapporteurs, who have done a good job, is pretty much in line with expectations.
We criticize the fact that milk quotas have been exceeded, regret the low take-up of Phare, and are even concerned about the use of our funds for Yugoslavia, but in contrast we welcome the high Meda utilization rate.
That just about sums up our position.
At the end of this process, in the interest of Europe's taxpayers, that is to say - we hope - our electorate, we will wag a warning finger and then give good discharge to the Commission for its implementation of the budget.
We will once more have seen - and it will be touched upon in various speeches - that 80 % of the EU budget will regrettably have been spent by Member States, and only 20 % - peanuts, as we now say in Germany - will have been spent directly by the Commission.
Perhaps it would be interesting if just once we did what we promise our fellow citizens before the elections, and quite simply and dispassionately exercised political control over the Brussels bureaucracy.
I would suggest that to start with we concentrate on the 20 % where it is not the Member States who are the naughty boys, but the European Commission itself.
For once, let us not concentrate exclusively on the implementation percentage rates, according to the motto 'High rate good, low rate bad!' .
We would soon strike rich then.
We have already mentioned the Phare programme.
After seven years, the Commission is still unable to spend more than half of the budget provided.
In the same position, any national minister responsible for a department would have to resign and admit that he is not capable of properly carrying out the work entrusted to him, and the Court of Auditors says just that in its reports.
And all this in an area where the Commission has set its own sights very high with its Agenda 2000, and says that this is practically the most important thing that we have to do in the next few years, that is, enlargement to the east.
Given the European Commission's total inability to spend ECU 1 billion a year meaningfully in our neighbouring countries in central and eastern Europe, can we really expect that the same Commission, with the same people, will be capable of managing the far more expensive and complex process of these countries' accession to the European Union? I certainly could not explain that to my voters in Austria, in view of the figures before us today.
This assumption is supported by the "utilization' rate - which I can only say in quotation marks - for the ECU 10 million under the Phare democracy budget heading, of which by 31 August this year, precisely 0 % had been used or committed!
This is at a time when the Commission is ostentatiously issuing testimonials to our eastern neighbours and explaining to them the great scope for improvement in society, and how much they can rely on the support of the European Commission.
I do not want to labour the point about the Phare programme, and I think we could say the same about the Meda programme, where there are also reports by the Court of Auditors.
Their verdict?
Irregularities!
So far we have not had an opportunity, because of the somewhat limited staff resources at our disposal, to go into the details here.
Mrs Theato, the chairman of our Committee on Budgetary Control, has already touched on nuclear power stations and the utilization of Tacis funds.
The situation there looks disastrous as well.
I have to say that it may be a good thing that we have not committed more than 20 % in the Ukraine.
I do not want to quote any more examples, but I do believe that during these debates we should perhaps really investigate the quality of budget implementation.
Surely we owe that to our electorate and to ourselves as the European Parliament.
Mr President, I should like to begin with a general remark before making a few specific comments.
It seems to me that the debate we are having this afternoon is sometimes relegated in importance in our budgetary debates.
It seems to be thought of as just a means by which we look at the way in which the budget has gone.
Then we make a switch in our minds and look to the budget debate next week in the Committee on Budgets and later this month with the vote in Strasbourg.
But the monitoring of expenditure should be treated with equal importance by the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control and by Parliament's spending committees.
I was pleased to see that there has been some progress in ensuring that the monitoring of expenditure is an important item.
It should be the jumping off position for us.
After this debate we should be able to say: we know where the weaknesses are in the budgetary process.
And we should not be voting new credits until matters such as those Mr Bösch has raised are cleared up.
We can use the reserve to caution the Commission in the expenditure process that something is not right.
So this debate forms part of a developing process and is important.
A whole range of ideas have been put forward by Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Tillich in their resolution about the underutilization of credits.
Low utilization should be a sign for treating amendments in these areas with some considerable caution.
There are particular areas such as ex-Yugoslavia where we have to take into account special circumstances.
I am interested in what our rapporteur Mr Brinkhorst has said to us about the difficulties in implementation of programmes.
It would be helpful to have the Commission's comments on what has been set out in paragraph 16.
Secondly, as Mr Bösch said - and my group agrees with him - rapid utilization does not necessarily lead to effective utilization of the credits.
You could have some eager bureaucrat who says: As long as I spend my money, Parliament will vote me more, because it sees that utilization has actually been carried out.
We notice that where there has been good utilization in Category 1, the forecasts have been perhaps over-optimistic and therefore I welcome the fact that we will have an updated picture of the 1998 budget before we come to our final vote.
In the programmes in Category 4 where we see high utilization in Meda and low utilization in Tacis, the Group of the European People's Party does not feel that we should necessarily be voting all the credits for Meda next year but put Tacis in the reserve.
Precisely as Mr Bösch says, we have to look at the quality of the expenditure.
Lastly the European People's Party would hope that where we have had an unexpected event like in the Jet programme in Culham this year, where there have been unexpected exchange rate movements -the pound gained vis-à-vis the ecu - there should be some consideration to make sure that cuts are not made in the effective operational budgets of an important programme like that of the fusion programme at Culham.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the joint report by Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Tillich seems to me an excellent occasion to remind everyone of an obvious principle that can be stated thus: funds approved by Parliament are intended to be spent.
If this report notes, rightly, some progress in the tendency to spend funds activated two years ago more fully, then it underlines, and I want to insist on this, a certain number of malfunctions with regard to which certain drastic conclusions need to be drawn for the next budget.
Firstly, concerning funds for the Phare programme, the availability of ECU 150 million which is forecast for the end of the financial year must lead us to question ourselves sincerely as to whether the tool is sufficiently adapted for the intended objective.
The delegation which visited Romania last week within the framework of the joint committee was able to observe the difficulties which this country is having, like many others, in integrating into the accession negotiations due to lack of funds, whilst at the same time we have ECU 150 million unspent.
When we are beginning, through the Agenda 2000 discussions, to build what must be our new border, it seems to me distressing that we cannot find a response appropriate to this type of problem, which leads to the cancellation of credits when there is a crying need voiced by the candidates for enlargement.
Concerning former Yugoslavia, and in my position as special rapporteur for this budget, I would also like to underline here my utter dismay in the face of the virtual lack of take up of some of these credits.
Thus, for example, the rate of use of payment appropriations allocated for reconstruction of the republics was 6.14 % by the end of August 1997, for Sarajevo the rate was 4.15 % and none of the funds allocated whatsoever had been used for rehabilitation of the republics born of the former Yugoslavia.
I must say that, notably with regard to refugees, it seems to me incredible that funds provided by Europeans are used for objectives whose concrete effects cannot be seen, since the refugees are still here in the countries which have given them a home.
I believe that, for the vote on the 1998 budget, a certain number of conclusions should be drawn so that the budget is not disrupted by open credits which we now know perfectly well will not be spent.
Concerning Tacis, I must say that the problem is a little different, since we know of certain specific difficulties, in particular nuclear energy in the countries of the former Soviet Union, and in this respect it would be extremely useful if effective decisions were taken.
On the other hand, last year we were lamenting the lack of use of funds for the Meda programme.
I think we must from now on take pleasure in the substantial acceleration in the use of these credits.
However on a more general note, and by way of conclusion, I would like to warn the Council against an initiative which would once again mean a reduction of payment appropriations in the 1998 budget for the financial year to come.
Now that the stability pact has been ratified in Amsterdam, it is up to each Member State to reduce its domestic expenditure and to stop regarding the Community budget as something for a rainy day which, at the end of the financial year, enables them - thanks to the return of unused funds - to carry out last minute adjustments in which European credits are a positive variable for finance ministers in difficulties.
I believe we must make sure that the policy of commitment appropriations and payment appropriations is used so that there is no difference, or as small a difference as possible, between the amounts committed and the amounts paid.
It is because some governments do not wish to implement the interinstitutional agreement fully that it often seems as if the European Parliament is not doing its job.
Here I would here like to say that exactly the opposite is the case. I believe the Committee on Budgets of this Parliament works meticulously on the use of credits.
It just wishes its work was followed up in the same way by the Council and the Commission.
Mr President, Mr Brinkhorst's and Mr Tillich's presentation of the resolution provides an excellent interim picture of the implementation of this year's budget.
I would like to thank them both, accordingly.
There are several interesting points to note in the document on the implementation of the budget for 1997.
Of these, I would like to draw your attention to point 5 which states that the objective 6 commitment appropriation may not have been spent at all. This is both worrying and surprising.
The objective 6 regions are sparsely-populated areas in northern Europe which have experienced immense structural change, and where the employment situation is bad.
So it is worrying if monies set aside for the development of these regions goes unspent.
Although the presentation of the resolution is very recent, it may be slightly out of date.
According to my information, Finland has committed half the appropriation it got for this year's objective 6 programme.
In itself, this is positive, but the situation is hardly satisfactory.
The implementation of structural funding is hampered by bureaucracy and complicated systems.
Getting funds means complicated administrative procedures, and good projects remain unimplemented because applicants are fed up with grappling with formalities to do with application procedure.
These procedures should, therefore, be simplified.
The main topic of debate at the Luxembourg Summit is employment.
The employment situation in Europe is alarmingly fragile.
In improving the situation one of the EU's most important tools is the structural funds, so more effective use of them should be high on the agenda.
Mr President, Mr van den Broek.
We included ECU 105 million in the budget for reconstruction in Yugoslavia.
Of that, just ECU 3, 376 million had been implemented by August.
We made ECU 15 million available for 'Europe for Sarajevo' in 1997, of which ECU 623, 000 had been implemented by August.
How can you demonstrate to us, the Parliament, which at a future date will be required to give you final discharge, that the Commission is committed to making every effort actively to support reconstruction in former Yugoslavia?
Less than four weeks ago I sat in your office and we analysed together the considerable political and legal problems, and those of your own making, involved in using these funds.
We came to the common conclusion that things could not carry on as they were.
Some political imagination was needed and we had to come up with some proposals for getting out of this mess.
You agreed with this, and suggested that Mr Giansily, some other colleagues and I should undertake to get together with the Commission and consider a way forward.
We have waited in vain for this invitation, which should actually have come at the last part-session.
So how can the Commission convince us that you are really prepared to do something? This much I can tell you: during the budget process next week, we will include a reservation, and it will not be the Parliament that has to explain to the public why this money is not flowing out, it will be the Commission that will have to explain why this money had not been made available by August and why - I think I dare say this - it will not be have been made available by the end of the year!
(Applause from the left)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my previous life I was involved with the Belgian budget, and now I am dealing with the European budget.
In the Belgian budget for years our problem was to prevent expenditure going off the rails and to remedy it.
In Europe the situation is somewhat different.
Here, our main problem is to ensure that what we plan to spend is also effectively spent.
On closer inspection both tasks are important democratic imperatives.
A budget must be the reflection of a political will and so our task is the optimum implementation of the budget within the margins, and not outside the margins.
It is important to seize the opportunity of this debate in order to stand still.
I can limit myself quickly to two observations.
Firstly, a favourable observation. I can endorse what Mr Brinkhorst said, that with regard to the structural funds, spending is gradually improving.
That is a good thing.
I can confirm much more emphatically what Mr Giansily and Mrs Müller have said with regard to assistance to former Yugoslavia.
Here we have an immense moral obligation to fulfil in connection with the reconstruction after our failure to dam up the conflict, and we are fulfilling it in an extremely poor and non-transparent way.
This must be remedied in the short term and for me that is the most important message that I have learned from the implementation of the 1997 Community budget.
My group has asked me, with reference to the implementation of the 1997 budget, just to take a look at the future.
In the future the budget will be politically dominated by two subjects: 1. employment, 2. enlargement.
As far as employment is concerned, it must be clear from the outset. The European Parliament as budgetary authority must dare to stick its neck out in order to contribute to the offensive that Europe must make against the scourge of unemployment.
But it must also be clear that we only form part of a global approach.
It will not be possible without greater effort, not only in our budget, but also from the Member States and in other areas which largely cannot be included in our budget at European level today.
I continue to go on about the non-implementation, the scandalous non-implementation, of the Delors White Paper from 1993, particularly with regard to the transeuropean networks.
These are the things we must assess in a global framework and within that global framework we must assume our responsibility with regard to the European budget.
The hypocrisy must stop where the budgetary authority votes on certain items that later cannot be implemented owing to a lack of legal basis.
That is humbug. We cannot accept that any longer.
The difficulty we face in the discussions about the first reading of the 1998 budget in the next few weeks is that the Luxembourg summit takes place between the first reading of the budget and the second reading of the budget.
I think we will have to be creative in order to maximize the negotiating position of the European Parliament and pressure by the European Parliament on decision-making during the Luxembourg summit at the end of November.
The second aspect is the implementation and preparation of the enlargement of the Union.
Let it be clear: enlargement stands or falls for us on further institutional adjustments.
Whatever is provided for in the budget, if institutionally we cannot go further than Amsterdam, then Europe is destined to become paralysed on enlargement.
So in the first place for me enlargement is an institutional debate, but in addition it is a fact that we must prepare ourselves for the financing of the European Union after enlargement.
In this connection a central feature is of course a more rational structural policy that cannot harm the underestimated, in my view, redistribution function that Europe now already has and which is a good thing.
We must dare to say loudly that the enlargement of the Union means not less solidarity but more solidarity.
We must also dare to say out loud that we do not accept people attacking the enlargement of the Union in order to restart a debate about the just return and once again endanger a number of commitments connected with the financing of the Union. An enlarged Union, whether we like it now or not, will cost the Member States more money.
That is, however, our basic political duty.
And lastly, we shall have to assume our responsibilities.
Within a certain budgetary strait-jacket, we shall selectively have to cut back on certain items.
May I now on the eve of our budget debate call on both the Council and my colleagues in Parliament to make these cuts selectively in order to avoid linear cuts at all costs. Linear cuts for me amount to a lack of courage and lack of political choice.
Therefore I argue in favour of selectiveness.
Mr President, as many speakers have already said, as far as the European Parliament is concerned, we should be pleased that developments have gone in the right direction.
The implementation of the budget is gradually getting better and better, but we should not content ourselves with that.
As the resolution states, there is still a great deal left to do.
Just like my Finnish colleague from the Liberal Group, I was surprised by paragraph 5 concerning objective 6 areas, and that no money has gone to this.
I have now checked this and found out that what is said is not entirely true.
Money has, in fact, been earmarked, but the systems in Sweden and elsewhere mean that the money is not paid out.
It is, nonetheless, very important to find out why full use has not been made of these accounts.
The Commission must find out about this as soon as possible in cooperation with the Member States.
Objective 6 is important for northern parts of Sweden and Finland in view of, amongst other things, their geographic situation.
May I mention, in parentheses, that the first snows already fell in northern Sweden last week bringing 20 centimetres of snow.
Compare that with Brussels, where it is 20 degrees above freezing, and you can see that it could cause certain problems in northern Sweden.
We must therefore make sure that the objective 6 funds are used.
The reason why they have not been used is two-fold. It may be due in part to bureaucracy, and in part to the fact that the funds might not match up with projects on which decisions have already been taken in Sweden.
And, finally, to the eternal headache: the agricultural sector.
I want the Commission to produce a real restructuring plan for milk quotas, so that we do at some time bring some order into this problem in future.
I want the Commission to reply to this too.
Mr President, the resolution discussed today concludes the procedure to inform the budgetary authority about the implementation of the current Community budget.
This procedure which was initiated by the European Parliament has turned out to be very helpful for the control and also for us as the executor.
It has been quite effective in permitting the Commission and Parliament a detailed discussion of the state of execution as we have been able to note today.
Furthermore, it provides the basis for the global transfer which the Commission will propose next week.
As far as the overall execution of the 1997 budget is concerned, the outlines, of which the Commission informed the budgetary authority in July, are confirmed by the most recent data.
The execution of the budget as a whole at the end of September exceeds the level of previous years, in particular with regard to payment appropriations.
Although one-third of the budget still needs to be implemented, the Commission's expectations are that execution at the end of this year will be higher than in 1996 and therefore continue the recent trend.
There are two main factors to explain this development.
Firstly, there were no major new spending programmes in the 1997 budget.
In particular with regard to the structural funds, implementation now progresses smoothly.
Secondly, the 1997 budget was intentionally conceived more tightly than previous budgets.
Both in agriculture and with regard to payment appropriations for structural actions, the budgetary authority to some extent decided to anticipate the underspend.
While this does not seem to create particular problems in category 1, the payment appropriations for the structural funds will very likely be fully used.
I have a few remarks and replies regarding the individual categories.
In category 1 the Commission has already proposed a transfer to re-balance the budget lines before the end of the budgetary year.
Lower than expected needs in the beef and cereals sector will enable us to pay the advance on the oil seed premiums and to cover the costs of swine fever.
The agreement of the budgetary authority to examine a late rectifying letter will permit the drawing of the appropriate conclusions also for the 1998 budget.
As far as the matter of the milk quota is concerned, that discussion will be a part of Agenda 2000, the CAP reform, so we may come back to it in discussions in that context.
In Category 2 the only exceptions to the high rate of implementation are a few Community initiatives.
In these areas some re-programming towards the end of the programming period has been inevitable.
As far as the questions from Mr Virrankoski and Mr Holm on the execution of objective 6 are concerned, it looks very likely that the funds will be fully used by the end of the year.
Our information points in that direction.
The particular problems of objective 6 have been widely discussed in the context of Agenda 2000.
Concerning the internal policies, the Commission expects an overall execution close to 100 % in commitments, taking into account very limited redeployments in the framework of the global transfer.
Mr Brinkhorst asked about the transeuropean networks.
The emphasis put on the TENs by the European Parliament has been met by an already very high rate of execution.
I have here the figures from yesterday which say that execution as far as commitments are concerned is at the level of 82 %.
As far as payments are concerned the level is 40 %.
In category 4 the picture is more mixed as has been noted by a few speakers.
The Commission will propose some more significant redeployment in the global transfer.
Most important, the reorientation of Phare towards a preaccession instrument will reduce the amount which can still be executed this year by ECU 150 million.
These funds could be made available this year for Meda and recuperated in 1999 thus fully respecting the pluriannual envelopes for both programmes.
Concerning Mr Bösch's remarks, I have two comments.
As far as Phare is concerned, as long as the projects were very small on average, execution was extremely complicated and control was also difficult.
That was one reason for reorientating Phare towards the two major areas of infrastructure and institutions and also increasing the critical size of the programmes.
As far as Meda is concerned, his criticism was directed at programmes which are programmes of the past.
For the present Meda programme, the size of the programmes is higher and execution is already this year at the level of 63 %.
Finally, as far as the administrative budget of the Commission is concerned, the exchange rate developments have been favourable.
The Commission will shortly transmit a proposal to the budgetary authority to use these funds to reduce future budgetary needs and I hope this proposal will receive support.
Mr Commissioner, you must excuse me but by mistake we have not given the floor to Mr Lukas. I therefore immediately give him the floor for one minute.
Mr President, I have the unexpected honour of speaking after the Commissioner.
My intervention will not be so earth-shattering, but order must prevail and I am happy to accept that.
The motion for a resolution gives a very objective overview of a serious situation.
The rapporteurs deserve thanks for their work.
If in many important areas funds have been scarcely used or even not at all, that begs the question whether the contributions from the Member States, or from some individual states, are not too high.
As regards plans for enlargement to the east, the low utilization rate of Phare programme funds and of those for cross-border cooperation in the structural area are particularly to be regretted.
The extremely low implementation rate for the heading covering measures to counter violence against children is not totally devoid of a certain cynicism.
The consistently low implementation rate of funds for agricultural controls is worrying.
Bearing in mind the growing incidence of fraud and the consequent anger felt by citizens of the Union, all control mechanisms need to be fully and efficiently applied.
It is particularly hard to explain to the citizens of those countries which are net contributors why large parts of the budget which they help to finance are barely implemented.
A reform of income and expenditure policy really is needed.
With the social situation deteriorating in many Member States common decency alone demands a stricter and more efficient budget policy!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
EU-Canada relations
The next item is the report (A4-0140/97) by Mr Graziani, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission on relations between the European Union and Canada (SEC(96)0331 - C4-0620/96).
Mr President, at the beginning of the sitting I asked to speak to make one of those digressions from the Rules of Procedure which are a fairly frequent occurrence in this Parliament.
Allow me, Mr President, to draw the attention of the House and the Commission to the tragic event that has struck Italy in two regions, Umbria and the Marche: the toll of victims is high as is the toll of lost works of art.
I believe it would be useful, positive and necessary for Italy, as the country directly affected, but also the European Union, to take charge of the work of restoring a heritage which - and it is not going too far to say this - belongs not just to Italy or Europe but to humanity as a whole.
Let us now come to the report on the agenda.
Bilateral relations between Europe and Canada have a history going back to the signing of the Treaties of Rome.
The first agreement concerned nuclear cooperation, then, in 1976, there was the framework agreement on commercial and economic cooperation, and in successive stages we arrived at the political declaration and the relative joint action plan of December last.
This cooperation and these links have been renewed over time and are now becoming closer in terms of strengthening transatlantic relations which, although first established with the United States, certainly cannot ignore Canada today.
In fact, within the sphere of new international relations, an agreement between Europe and Canada may be useful in bringing the necessary equilibrium to this complex of transatlantic relationships.
What we have to do is in fact find out what are, after the end of the cold war, the new areas of agreement between Europe, the United States and Canada, now that the cement of security which has held these relationships together for 50 years has been substantially altered.
A period in which joint security was the prime consideration can only be succeeded by a period of the closest collaboration in all fields, where no one party can exercise excessive hegemony.
But hegemony cannot be exorcised, it has to be contained by appropriate policies.
Here the understanding between the European Union and Canada constitutes a balancing factor of primary importance, useful, I think, to the United States which, with its Helms-Burton and D'Amico laws, obviously thought - incorrectly - that it could make its allies accept unilateral measures.
Maintaining the right balance is what binds together the democracies, together with the rule of law and more firmly based international relations.
Failure to achieve the right balance also has an impact on relations and cooperation and so if we now treat our transatlantic relationship with Canada in the same way as we treat our relationship with the United States, it will follow the same logic and they will reinforce each other.
It is therefore in the interests of the European Union to ensure that North America does not abandon its relationship with Europe in favour of its, admittedly necessary, relationship with the Pacific area.
Certainly there are advantages in seeing this scenario as the possible, but currently objectively uncertain way forward for Europe, if it does not become an institutional and political entity with a foreign policy, the creation and development of which will be the expression of a genuine ability to govern.
Today this is not the case, and this deficiency is the reason for the imbalance.
What Amsterdam offers us is only a substitute, like using chicory to make coffee.
However, with Canada, a young country which has the advantages but also the disadvantages of a young, multilingual nation, collaboration opens things up even more, which makes it impossible to hide current disputes such as the issue of fishing.
The biggest problem from this point of view - I would remind you - is that the shoals off Newfoundland are no longer what they were and it is in everyone's interest, not just Canada's but Europe's as well, to take account of the fact that the fish have disappeared.
The same goes for hunting. The culture and the needs of the indigenous population must be respected above all, but that does not rule out the need to use traps which cause as little suffering as possible.
Canada is - I would remind you - an essential partner for ensuring Europe's stability and security.
It is a modern country with a culture of democracy and respect for minorities.
In this regard, Mr President, I have the honour of presenting this report to Parliament in the hope that it may be approved.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal on EU-Canada relations includes a chapter on cooperation in the field of internal affairs and justice.
That is a good thing.
It takes account of the fact that long before the globalization of the economy there was globalization of international organized crime.
Modern criminal organizations are now organizing their activities on a global scale.
Thus we can see the Russian mafia committing organized social security fraud in Los Angeles, not just in Moscow.
The Japanese Yakuza are not just active in Tokyo, but also in Düsseldorf and Toronto.
Chinese Triads are not just active in Hong Kong, but also in Amsterdam, London and San Francisco.
There are lessons to be learnt from this.
The lesson is that crime has long since been organized across borders, whereas the police are still cooped up in the pen of nation states.
We in the European Union have drawn the obvious conclusions by developing the third pillar.
But that is not enough.
What is taking place in the third pillar needs to be complemented by agreements with third countries.
Internal security needs its flanks protected from the outside.
The conditions for doing this with Canada are favourable.
First, the Canadian government and both chambers of the Canadian Parliament are also in favour of this.
Secondly, the authorities in Canada concerned with internal affairs and justice are deeply interested in the problems that I have just mentioned.
And thirdly, the partner for police cooperation is highly qualified, you cannot fail to learn from the Canadian Mounted Police when you see what they actually do.
No, the obstacle lies in Europe's disunity.
We are not yet as able as we might wish to speak with one voice.
That must change.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Graziani, on his report, which evaluates the various aspects of EU-Canadian relations in a balanced way and is forward-looking.
However, at the same time I would also like to emphasize how important it is that the European Parliament should state its position on the joint action plan.
It is precisely because cooperation between Canada and the European Union is very good in many areas, but has nevertheless been difficult on the environment, for example, that strong contacts between elected representatives are needed.
We need many contacts and conversations in order to understand one another, and then we must be in a position to influence the action plan.
That is why I find it almost incomprehensible that the action plan was adopted before Parliament had expressed its views on it.
I would now like to turn to some environmental issues.
As I see it, environmental protection is a field where the EU and Canada cooperate within international bodies in order to find common solutions to global environmental problems.
In addition, there are also bilateral issues, such as efforts to introduce humane animal trapping standards.
Intensive discussions and negotiations have now led to acceptance by the EU's foreign ministers of the agreement negotiated between the EU, Canada and Russia.
In future, when it comes to implementing the agreement - which I in fact support - a key issue will be to find specific humane alternatives to the trapping methods used up to now.
The abolition of steel jaw traps alone will not necessarily solve the problem.
This is not just a matter for government and Commission officials.
The contribution of people who have enormous practical experience and expert knowledge will be critical.
I have in mind both animal protection organizations and indigenous trappers in Canada, and also in the USA or Russia.
They have practical experience.
You will see that I would like to extend EU-Canadian relations, especially on the environment and animal protection, to other levels as well.
In Autumn last year, I had an opportunity to learn about the experiences and practices of Indians in Quebec at first hand.
This experience, and also the experiences of other groups and peoples should be passed on and discussed, for example, with international animal protection organizations and with Members of this House interested in this.
It is certainly not a question of interference.
After all, animal protection is a matter of common worldwide interest, as are the efforts made to give indigenous peoples an appropriate role in achieving environmentally sound and sustainable development, and to allow them to participate in decision-making about the utilization of resources and development in their territories.
As for general cooperation on the environment, the action plan shows that the environmental consultations that have taken place in the past should be continued.
However, we realize that negotiation is not anticipated, but simply the production of a report.
We also warmly welcome the processes or the agreements concerning health policy.
Now we need to get on with the programme and negotiate!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy I wish to compliment Mr Graziani on his excellent report.
The bilateral relations between the Union and Canada have a long history.
In 1995 important agreements were signed on cooperation in the field of science and technology.
Since 1959, there has also been cooperation in the field of energy and particularly nuclear cooperation.
And Canada of course has a strong tradition in science and research.
This also offers sound prospects for Canada as the site of the future thermonuclear experimental reactor, known as ETER, but only in fact if the Union decides to continue the fusion research in full.
The strengthening of the ties with Canada is also important in the light of the recent reinforcement of transatlantic relations with the United States.
In the new action plan, cooperation is extended to information and communications technology and biotechnology.
Two sectors in which there will be the most job opportunities in the future.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy hopes that the planned scientific cooperation in the field of biotechnology, including regulations in the field of genetic manipulation, can quickly be put into action.
With regard to cooperation in the field of information technology, attention should above all be paid to the formation of networks between companies in order to encourage the transfer of technology.
Top priority must be given to joint research projects in the ICT sector.
In view of the considerable amount of development in this sector in Canada, the European ICT sector can benefit from it.
Mr President, like my colleagues I also wish to congratulate Mr Graziani on the presentation of an excellent report.
Generally speaking, there has always been cooperation and mutual good will between Canada and the Union so it is difficult for most people to fully understand the often fraught relations between the EU and Canada in the fishery sector.
The question is often asked how fisheries became the subject of such disagreement.
It is important therefore to look at the background.
Both the EU and Canada have very similar fishery structures.
The EU and Canada's dependence on the fishing industry in peripheral regions is high and any threat to the resource understandably gives rise to emotion and tension.
In 1975 Canada, Iceland and Norway declared a two hundred mile exclusive economic zone to protect their dwindling stocks and Europe followed suit in 1977.
This led to a loss of fishing opportunities for European vessels and after the accession of Spain and Portugal in 1986, the problems which they faced then became Community problems.
In 1992 Canada declared a moratorium on the fishing of northern cod and they estimate that this resulted in the loss of some 40, 000 jobs in Newfoundland.
The effects of the reduced fishing opportunities for the EU fleet are well known; we had years of stalemate and deteriorating relations.
The Union and Canada in 1992 initialled a memorandum of understanding and this was to constitute a new fisheries agreement to supersede the 1981 framework accord.
In 1994 Canada amended its coastal fishery protection act to allow measures to be taken for the conservation of straddling stocks within the exclusive two hundred mile zone and in adjacent waters.
This gave the authorities power to arrest vessels of designated states and in March 1995 Spain and Portugal were added to that list.
The arrest of the Spanish vessel and the bitter battle which ensued are now history.
Fortunately, the dispute was settled some weeks afterwards and in September of that year Spain and Portugal were removed from the list of designated states.
Having said all that I share the optimism that it seems possible for the Union and Canada to cooperate more fully and that both sides better understand and respect each other's point of view.
My committee hopes that increasing cooperation in the fishery sector will help develop the strong ties which exist.
This can be achieved through confidence-building measures, both at bilateral level and multilaterally through NAFO.
My committee calls on the Union and Canada to ensure compliance with their bilateral commitment.
We support the NAFO initiative to maintain the current objection mechanism.
We reject the extra-territorial provisions of current Canadian fishery legislation and in conclusion can I say....
(The President cut off the speaker )
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Graziani on his report and say that I am glad he is better and can be with us.
I should like to raise two important points.
This report on our relations with Canada is particularly important now, with all the talk of modernizing transatlantic relations. Right from the outset, and even during the most difficult moments, Canada has always supported the causes of Europe and freedom.
This must be recognized and brought up to date. It is not just a question of discussions with the United States.
There are two aspects I want to mention.
Firstly, transatlantic relations are entering a new dimension now that Canada is also becoming involved in the creation of a free trade area with the United States - the NAFTA Treaty - which has also been extended to Mexico. At the moment there are even suggestions for a continental free trade area for the whole of America.
This means that in the near future we too will have to reconsider not only our economic but also our political relations.
We have to recognize this because it will have repercussions for us.
Similarly, I think it is important to consider how our relations with Canada are affected by international law and relations within the framework of the WTO. In particular, I am thinking about extra-territorial laws, such as the Helms-Burton Act, which are as damaging to Canada as they are to the European Union.
I think it is a good idea to combine our efforts in this respect.
Finally, Mr President, I should like to mention fishing, which I think is an important aspect of the report. Mr Graziani has incorporated amendments in this area, some of them at my suggestion.
As the previous speaker said, it is best if long-standing relations, such as concern fishing, can respect international law.
We are well aware that fishing is a contentious matter, as shown by the current "salmon war' between the United States and Canada.
As a former Community leader said, Jesus chose fishermen for his disciples because fishing can easily become contentious.
In any case, I believe it is important to look to the future positively, by developing our relations in a climate of solidarity, cooperation and respect for international law.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to congratulate Mr Graziani warmly on his magnificent report.
Canada is a great country with which we have strong historical, political and economic ties.
We share common principles and values, and our relations should be governed by cooperation.
However, as a Spaniard and a Galician in particular, I must mention a matter which has cast a shadow over our relations - namely, fishing.
The Galician people whom I represent here still cannot understand why Canada behaved so aggressively in the fishing conflict which it started, in violation of international law.
I do not want to reopen old wounds, but rather to help to heal them once and for all. Therefore, I would like to draw attention to sections 20 and 21 of the Graziani report, and the eight conclusions which the Committee on Fisheries has added to it.
These reject Canadian extraterritorial legislation, calling for it to be repealed, and for guarantees to be given to Community vessels. They also call for true cooperation within NAFO, maintaining the existing objection mechanism and avoiding discrimination with other fleets, and also call for the 1992 Fisheries Agreement to come into force, albeit in a modified form, but including the main European requests as already granted, such as access for the Community fleet to Canada's surplus fisheries resources.
As the Graziani report says, for the joint action plan to be useful it must not just be a declaration of good intentions, but an effective commitment to improve cooperation.
As a member of this Parliament's delegation to Canada and of the Committee on Fisheries, I sincerely hope that this cooperation may be strengthened.
Fishing, Mr President, can be the test of these new relations between Canada and the European Union.
Mr Chairman, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our common interest in maintaining and developing relations between the European Union and Canada is not derived - or at least should not be exclusively derived - from the extensive major commercial interests represented here.
On the contrary, cooperation and agreement on matters such as those relating to our opposition to the extraterritorial effect of certain national legislation, such as the American Helms-Burton Act and laws of some NATO countries, or, similarly, cooperation and agreement in the case of certain humanitarian actions, or indeed that of resolving the question of how to finance the United Nations, are political fields of joint cooperation which certainly ought to be maintained and strengthened.
In the strictly commercial sector, it is important that a small number of extremely powerful economic interests, such as those connected with steel, wheat, beef and the audio-visual industry, should not predominate, nor cause us to overlook - or even cause us to consider as less important or marginal - the need to achieve by consensus mutually acceptable solutions to problems which are socially and economically relevant for certain regions and countries of the European Union which, by coincidence, belong to less developed areas, and where, furthermore, solidarity is far from being a reality.
I refer, of course, to the problems associated with the controversy over fishing in the NAFO zone, which is still going on and, we believe, cannot be resolved at the expense of unilateral measures with extraterritorial effect. Such measures have been rightly repudiated by both Canadians and Europeans in another context.
It is thus important that Canada should not adopt different weights and measures as regards fishing but that, on the contrary, negotiations to safeguard the interests of all the countries represented here should be pursued, including our common interest in preserving fishing resources.
Mr President, relations between the European Union and Canada have existed for just fifty years and we must congratulate ourselves on seeing them take on a new dimension.
In fact, as we know, transatlantic solidarity has been an indispensable element in maintaining peace, liberty and stability.
It is therefore pleasing that this communication, whilst maintaining the scope of the previous framework agreement, emphasizes its political, social and cultural dimension by opening up cooperation in new sectors such as scientific research, technological development and education.
What is more, after the period of the Cold War, the international situation which placed the United States in a dominant position required a revision of transatlantic relations.
In this context, relations between the European Union and Canada are the guarantee of readjustment.
We both find ourselves standing up to unilateralism, and the Helms-Burton and D'Amato laws are an interesting and significant example of this convergence of interests.
This is why I fully share the point of view of Mr Graziani, author of this excellent report.
Let us not allow sectoral controversies to cast doubts over bilateral relations which have always existed.
The reciprocal interest which is represented by the strengthening of political and commercial links is too important.
There are however two problems: fishing is the first stumbling block and the problem of catch quotas has literally poisoned relations between the European Union and Canada over the last few years.
Another bone of contention is the question of leghold traps and imports of furs.
In both cases solutions need to be found so that our relations remain tranquil.
In fact, Canada is a partner indispensable to the stability and security of Europe.
And the breadth of the areas of cooperation reflects the challenges with which the western world is confronted.
It is therefore desirable that Canada and the European Union join efforts in the search for new stability for the international community.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Canada is particularly close to us, in spite of its geography, since it shares a part of its history with two members of the Union, Great Britain and France.
Our heritage of common values must be maintained and must serve as a basis for active cooperation between government and business and above all between people who, today, have ever more solid links across the Atlantic.
Canada also offers the example, a very interesting one for all those concerned with the European institutions, of a federal country which, in spite of its age, has not found its equilibrium.
Its troubled institutional history is marked by an absence of approval from the province of Quebec of the current constitutional law of Canada and by the impossibility of finding, at least up until now, an original formula to unite the sovereignty of francophone Quebec with its association with the rest of the country.
Consequently, in its first referendum on sovereignty held in 1980, the 'yes' vote was 40 %.
In the second, held in 1995, the 'yes' vote was 49.5 % and a third referendum has been announced.
This evolution should also set Europeans thinking. For whilst federalism works well in relation to one people, as in Germany, it becomes blocked, or goes through endless convulsions when it relates to several peoples desirous of conserving their identity and the mastery of their destiny.
In fact, since the coordination required subordinates member nations, it lays itself endlessly open to suspicions that it may not be respected by one of the partners.
This remark is all the more true, of course, when the basic constitutional charter has not even been approved by one of the member nations.
This is why I am happy to see that most responsible Europeans do not now have federalism as an explicit target.
And in the same perspective, I would also like to say to our friends overseas, that we follow with sympathy the efforts of Quebec and Canada to find an institutional formula that will clarify their relationship.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in his report on relations between Canada and Europe, Mr Graziani has tackled many extremely diverse subjects, from leghold traps to reflections on the interest in a trilateral dimension between the Union, the United States and Canada, via the problem of coastal fishing.
There is therefore a lot that could be said, some criticisms expressed too, in particular with regard to the position taken in favour of the World Trade Organisation, that is, a world without frontiers abandoned to the appetites of the multinationals.
But two minutes would not be enough, all the more so as the text which has been submitted to us does not tackle the key points.
What Canada has become represents what Europe could become, a federal group which is a satellite of the United States.
Ottawa is a model for Brussels, the capital of an artificial entity binding together in a federal straitjacket two nations, the French Canadians and the Anglo-Saxons. Both are victims of the system.
The French Canadians of course, but also the Anglo-Saxons who, as Ottawa cuts the links with London, lose all uniqueness.
Today, the two peoples are dissolving in the American melting pot.
The natives of Quebec are putting up a good fight in defence of French, but the collapse of their birthrate, since the onset of what is known as the silent revolution, makes this battle in vain.
Within a few decades the six million French Canadians risk disappearing, wiped off the map just like the Acadians, the French of Louisiana.
There is however one way out for these two peoples: getting rid of the federal strait-jacket, just as the peoples of central Europe did, and as our countries - progressively being suffocated by Brussels - want to do.
This is the reason why we French patriots support the cause of an independent Quebec.
In 1995, the Ottawa federalists won by a narrow margin, benefitting from the same advantages as the Maastricht Euro-federalists in France in 1992 - ethnic minority vote, financial and media related pressures.
And, just as in 1763, Paris was uninterested in the fate of the new France.
Our intellectuals are truly the inheritors of Voltaire, who said he wished Canada was at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.
Next time they will win.
The natives of Quebec should know they are not alone.
Once we French have freed ourselves from Brussels' authority, we will be able to tie once again the links broken with our Quebec brothers two centuries ago.
Mr President, Mr Graziani's report is excellent, and I am grateful to him for conveying such a positive spirit in it, as I believe that we depend on having good transatlantic relations not only with Canada, but also with the United States.
It provides an important foundation for western values, for which I am very grateful to him.
By the way, I am also delighted that he is in good health and back with us again.
The joint action plan of 17 December 1996 consolidates the 1976 framework agreement and thus opens up a new form of cooperation between the European Union and Canada.
I am pleased that this agreement is before us, and I am glad that we have also found new types of cooperation as a basis for this.
I will return to that point in a moment.
The main focus of the agreement is the area of bilateral trade and investment relations, but also closer cooperation in multilateral trade matters, and closer and more stable political cooperation.
This is a wide-ranging package, and the Commission has put in very solid work.
So what is this new type and new style of cooperation? I would like to mention just a few areas.
The first point is that there is a direct form of cooperation, which involves the Commission working with its Canadian administrative counterparts.
There is a much more direct form of political cooperation, that is, in future there will simply be direct means of cooperation for each case and for each topic to be dealt with.
The second point is that it will be possible to resolve trade disputes directly, avoiding the complicated conventions which used to apply.
We should not underestimate the value of this.
We know that trade disputes make life difficult for us, and so this is important.
We have totally new types of agreement before us, and I am glad the Commission has done this.
Nevertheless, you are quite right, Mr President, in saying that the Parliament needs to be involved in this more closely.
I would ask the Commission to keep us informed of what they are doing at all times.
Mr President, may I also begin by warmly congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Graziani, on this comprehensive report and perhaps firstly just add to the introductory remarks that he made on the disaster that has befallen his country.
I should just like to tell him that the matter was discussed this morning in the Commission and I should like to take this opportunity, on behalf of the Commission, once again to express our feelings of sympathy for the victims of the earthquake in Italy.
It was also said very spontaneously this morning that it is really a pity that owing to a lack of funds and exhausted budget headings we are not able to translate a firm sign of sympathy into one of some support, even if it were just a symbolic amount, because we do not have any resources for natural disasters.
We have nevertheless looked into this possibility and I know that Commissioner Oreja is investigating to what extent a contribution could perhaps be provided for the restoration of damaged art treasures - we all know that the great cathedral in Assisi has also been damaged. I cannot provide a solution at the moment, but it did seem appropriate to me at least to mention this matter here.
As far as the report is concerned, I am pleased to report to Parliament on the recent positive developments in relations between the European Union and Canada.
Further to the communication from the Commission to the Council on 28 February last year, on 17 December last a joint political declaration and a joint action plan were adopted.
The action plan has already had a positive effect on bilateral relations which are now more balanced than a year ago.
This was confirmed on 20 June last by both parties during the summit between the EU and Canada in Denver.
At a meeting a few weeks later within the context of the political dialogue, Foreign Minister Axworthy said that the progress made so far with the action plan had exceeded Canadian expectations.
In my view, we can be reassured that our own expectations have also been exceeded.
There are nevertheless still some problems in the bilateral sphere, particularly with regard to the various opinions - this has also been on the agenda this afternoon - on the extraterritorial application of legislation in the field of fisheries and I could also mention certain trade and investment matters.
In general, Canada is, however, an important transatlantic partner for us with whom we share common values and aims.
I am completely behind Mr Graziani's comments on the importance of our relations with Canada.
With regard to the action plan, I would also draw your attention to four agreements with Canada that have almost been completed.
Firstly, there is the mutual recognition of standards and certification.
The negotiations have been completed and the agreement was initialled on 30 May.
Further information on the institutions for conformity assessment must be exchanged.
Secondly, an agreement on cooperation and mutual assistance in customs matters.
The agreement is ready to be signed.
Thirdly, the veterinary and phytosanitary standards. The negotiations have been completed.
But certain matters relating to the BSE situation still remain to be sorted out.
Fourthly, in the field of competition, the negotiations have also been completed and the agreement will be sent to the Council in the next few weeks.
We feel we can say that these four agreements together will certainly encourage trade with Canada.
A start has also been made on the preparatory work for a joint trade study on the promotion of trade in goods and services and the reduction or removal of tariff and non-tariff obstructions.
On 30 September, lists of the trade restrictions were exchanged within the context of this study.
Also worthy of mention is the fact that Canada is an important ally in our resistance to the Helms-Burton and d'Amato Acts.
This is a matter we have discussed with our Canadian friends.
In the field of foreign and security policy, the Union and Canada have for years worked closely together in multilateral forums such as the UN and the OSCE.
As a direct result of the action plan, during the Luxembourg presidency, the EU at expert level will conduct discussions on the following areas: reform of the UN, disarmament, non-proliferation, human rights, Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
As Mr Graziani rightly remarks in his report, Canada is an important player in the Pacific Ocean region.
As such, it currently holds the chair of the APEC and next November is organizing the APEC summit in Vancouver.
As far as the last chapter of the action programme is concerned, the title of which is "fostering links' , I am of the opinion that the agreements with Canada in the field of higher education and vocational training and also in the field of science and technology have already led to some very good results.
With regard to the links, that is to say from one people to another, I would like to say how pleased I am about the Canadian decision in April that for Portuguese nationals there is no longer a visa requirement.
This was a matter the Commission had discussed within the action plan with Canada.
Not least I should point out that the European Parliament delegation for relations with Canada will visit the capital later this year and in my view that visit comes at an extremely convenient time in EU-Canadian relations and I hope and expect that it will be a success.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 am.
Economic and monetary union
The next item is the report (A4-0255/97) by Mr Willockx, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the convergence criteria for economic and monetary union and the funding of the social security systems in the Member States of the European Union.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by making it clear that my report on social security is really part of a single whole. A single whole with three components: work, social security and income.
These three components are inextricably linked to each other.
In this sense the targets the Commission wishes to propose to the Member States also contain important elements of social security and income guarantees.
It is important that during the Luxembourg Summit on employment the coherence of these three components is not lost from view.
I would just say as an aside that, on the one hand, it is a mistake to say, regarding compliance with the convergence criteria in the budgetary field that non-compliance could solve the employment problem.
On the other hand, it is also a mistake to use compliance with the convergence criteria as an excuse to cut back social security and in that way also indirectly mortgage the employment policy.
I think we should guard against artificial comparisons with the United States of America.
We have our own Rhineland model.
We must also remain true to our own Rhineland model here in Europe.
For me these criteria do not constitute a risk to the financing of social security.
On the contrary, in a country such as Belgium, compliance with and pursuance of the convergence criteria has certainly become the best way to guarantee the financing of social protection in the long term.
So I refuse, and I would stress this, to recognize a contradiction between the two objectives.
In this debate we have repeatedly discussed pensions.
Here again, we must guard against using slogans.
Capitalization is not a panacea to secure the future of pensions.
Support of the distribution systems by additional capitalization on the other hand, certainly as far as I am concerned, is not a mortal sin.
But one thing is clear, caution is required, and here I would echo the position the European Commission expressed in its latest communication on the modernization of social security, in the transition from one system to the other.
The key question that we face in the future is: how can we keep social security affordable without weakening the social safety net. I shall give you three factors.
The first is a repetition: healthy government finances.
The best guarantee for the future of social security because it will in future allow more funds to be made available for social security.
Secondly: employment.
A system of social security cannot function without a high degree of employment.
Thirdly, the necessary modernization of the systems to face the new challenges. What can Europe do?
Our task here is not so great. We can only try to create the framework to bring this task that I have just described to a satisfactory conclusion.
There are three important instruments.
First of all, fiscal coordination between the Member States in the field of mobile bases of taxation.
I am pleased with what President Santer said this afternoon on this point.
Secondly, the search for coordinated fiscal responses to the need for alternative financing of the social security system, for example, energy tax to finance the reduction in the paternal contribution.
Thirdly, the establishment of social convergence criteria in order to direct social protection and wage policy and to prevent social dumping in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am firmly convinced that the more democratic Europe becomes, the greater the strength will be of an adapted, modernized social security system.
Some theorists also say that the population who elect us do not wish for and will never accept the dismantling of such a social security system.
The more democracy there is in Europe, the more efficient our social security system will be.
That is my firm conviction.
Mr President, first of all I should like to say as the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment that I am pleased that both the rapporteur and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have largely taken up the conclusions of our advisory committee.
There is no doubt that economic and monetary union has an important influence on social security in the Member States.
However, this does not provide well-founded reasons to reject EMU.
On the contrary, the objectives, criteria and timetable should be retained in full.
Not because they form part of some economic dogma, but because they contribute to the success of EMU and thus to monetary stability, economic growth, more competitiveness and consequently to promoting employment.
The temporary drawbacks do spur us on to prepare social security for EMU.
This should nevertheless happen without running the risk of jeopardizing social security. On the one hand, there is the insurance aspect, that is to say, being collectively covered against the main social risks and on the other hand the assistance aspect that expresses solidarity.
Social security is, after all, one of the cornerstones of the European social model.
We all agree that the financing of social security nevertheless forms the major problem facing every Member State.
The budgetary stranglehold inevitably leads to the question of whether all parts of social security can be maintained and whether judicious intervention should not be chosen rather than finally giving up rights and entitlements out of necessity.
It is too often forgotten that social security is not of course only influenced by EMU, but also by demographic developments and technological factors.
Just think of ageing and the fact that there are not enough younger people in work to provide funds for social security.
Think of the changes in the composition of families, the entry of women on to the labour market and the constantly high unemployment.
Think, on the other hand, too of the progress in medical science and medicines, the developments in information technology, robotics, telematics and multimedia.
Such demographic and technological upheavals lead in the main to a shrinking of earnings and expansion of social security expenditure.
The resulting imbalance cannot be sustained.
The Committee on Social Affairs and Employment sets out four spheres where we could intervene.
Firstly, the completion of the internal market in order to counteract distortions in competition and social dumping.
Secondly, the support of economic growth, among other things, through additional investments and the improvement of competitiveness.
Thirdly, the promotion of employment, for example, by using unemployment benefit as a wage allowance.
Fourthly the reform of tax law in order to reduce both the charges on work and to help to bring the national budget more into balance.
In the draft Treaty of Amsterdam it states that the European Union is aiming for a high level of employment and a high level of social protection.
This is explicitly mentioned. Although at the moment there is no European social contract, the employment chapter is in the Treaty of Amsterdam and in the employment summit to be held in November.
Hopefully they are both a start on intervention that in itself will not be sufficient to secure the financing of social security, but in combination with the various national policy measures could ensure that the way is opened to an economic, monetary and at the same time social union and that is ultimately what we have to do.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Willockx for his report and Mr Chanterie for his opinion.
This is a very timely debate because we heard President Santer earlier this afternoon discussing the issue of the jobs summit meeting to be held in Luxembourg and there is an intimate link between our social security systems, the levels of unemployment and the whole future of growth and employment within the European Union.
While this report asks the question, what will happen to social security systems as a result of economic and monetary union, we on all sides of this House have to face up to one simple truth: our social security system, regardless of economic and monetary union, needs serious reforming.
Mr Willockx's report points that out very clearly indeed.
The Socialist Group wants to see a review of social security but as Mr Willockx's report points out, we want to do it on the basis of ensuring that we keep a social safety net.
We must reform the system but maintain the safety net we have within the European Union.
The system set up at the end of the second World War is no longer appropriate for the types of employment and unemployment we have today.
Therefore, we would like three things to be addressed in the review that will take place.
I would like the Commission, perhaps, in their further studies and the Council to consider these in the future.
The first is to establish a new system of social security systems which offer flexible help, tailored to the needs of the individual citizen and focused on assisting people through periods of unemployment rather than excluding them permanently from work.
It is a fact that in some of our countries the social security systems permanently exclude our people from work.
That is why 50 % of the people out of work in Europe today are long-term unemployed.
We need to recognize that the social security bill for the taxpayer is increasing.
That is why we need job creation in the European Union.
If we create jobs then we can reduce the debt and the borrowing to pay for social security.
That is why, Commissioner, this summit meeting in Luxembourg is crucial not only for the social cohesion of the European Union but also to bring down the budget deficit and ensure that the pact for stability and growth can actually operate.
Particularly for our young people we have to break down the barriers which make the move from benefit to work almost impossible for hundreds of thousands of young people.
In the European Union today it is virtually impossible for some of our young people to make that move from benefit to work.
I say to you as a social democrat, let us for heaven's sake have an honest debate on this issue and let us design a social security system that will be sensitive to the individual and will help to maximise the opportunities for employment in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if I so obviously applauded Mr Willockx and Mr Donnelly, it is because what they said was exactly what I wanted to hear.
But it was not exactly what was written in their text.
This is why we have some small differences of opinion, although on the whole I am happy with the combination of ideas and consensus between us.
In fact, as Mr Donnelly has clearly said, we need to keep our social security systems, and we are very happy to do so, if they are adapted.
This is not exactly the same as saying we must maintain social security systems and strengthen them, if necessary.
If you had said we must reform them in order to adapt them, I would immediately have been in agreement.
Similarly when you say that neither the observation of convergence criteria nor the date of implementation of the third phase can undermine the indispensable efforts made by the Union to create jobs, I am sorry but that sentence is ambiguous.
If it could be read as you said it in your speech I would vote for it, but that is not what you wrote.
Similarly, in paragraph 14 you speak again about social security and you introduce a notion of rigidity which was not in what either you or Mr Donnelly have said.
With you, there are nuances.
But I find that Mr Donnelly has become extraordinarily realistic and I can only applaud him.
It is probably the experience of power that makes things more comprehensible and makes people more responsible.
Having said that, Mr President, the report is otherwise excellent.
We all have an interest in maintaining a system of social security and solidarity, for this is essential for the smooth running of the economic system.
We do not believe in the law of the jungle.
We do not think that the market can rule everything.
We believe that the State has a role to play and that the social partners have an important role to play.
They must therefore be in agreement, and the government too, but that implies an awareness of reality on their part.
In fact, as Mr Donnelly has clearly said, and I repeat, the current system as it works in most of our States, is no longer fundable, it is no longer sustainable in the face of globalization.
There must be efforts to adapt it therefore, and I am happy that, in these discussions, unhappily less so in the texts, we may arrive at an agreement on this point.
Mr President, our group has not difficulty voting for this report and we would like to thank and congratulate Mr Willockx again.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party has mixed feelings about the report by Mr Willockx.
We applaud the fact that the rapporteur has had the courage over a period of several months to seek something of a consensus.
But nevertheless it is a fact that nobody can really recognize their views in the report.
It is difficult to ignore the fact that the resolution is disjointed and ambiguous.
Disjointed, for example, because it is difficult to maintain that Maastricht affects the criteria for budgetary leeway on social measures and at the same time that it does not really do so because a small shortfall leads to lower interest costs, more investment, growth, jobs and therefore a broader tax basis.
I must admit, Mr Willockx, that you have expressed a clearer position today, which I cannot find so easily in the report.
On behalf of the Liberal Group, I should like to make a few things clear.
I should first like to stress that it is the countries that persevere and systematically make their government finances healthy that score highest in terms of jobs and therefore lay the bases for affordable social security.
Secondly, as far as pensions are concerned, we are of the opinion that the system of capitalization can exist next to the system of distribution.
It is not a matter of replacing one system by the other, both can function side by side.
My group does support paragraph 6 of the resolution in which the Commission is called upon to undertake a study into the effect of the ageing of the population on the pension system.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, we shall soon obtain the report on the modernization and improvement of social security in the European Union to debate in the House.
The same material will come up again in Parliament. It would enhance the credibility of this House if we devoted one report to the subject instead of a whole series.
It would not only reduce the paper mountain but ensure greater consistency in our positions.
Mr President, it is an indisputable fact that the entire social security system in Europe is in danger of total collapse.
Social security systems are on the edge of bankruptcy.
The question to which there should be a very clear answer, at least from the European Parliament, which is the only elected body of the Community and is considered, for that reason, to be closer to the people of the European Union, is: who is responsible for this unacceptable situation? The answer is clear to all: mass unemployment and the policies that cause it.
But then another question automatically arises: who is responsible for unemployment? In this respect the answers that are given not only defy the intelligence of the citizens of Europe, but, by attempting to turn reality upside down, call for the continuation and intensification of just those policies that are responsible for the dramatic increase in unemployment and poverty.
Unfortunately the present report does exactly the same, as it insists on leaving it up to economic and monetary union to address unemployment.
Whereas it should be discussing the consequences of EMU on the social security system, it calls for enforcing to the letter the criteria and the starting date of the third phase for the creation - it says - of a more effective framework for higher levels of employment.
Delusion or conscious distortion? Let those involved choose which of the two they prefer.
The result is the same.
Totally ignorant of the consequences that the EMU criteria and the programmes of convergence are having on the ability of the social security system to fulfill its obligations to its citizens and to the unemployed, they are proposing transfer of the sources of social security financing and transfer of resources are available for unemployment benefits and professional training, to employment initiatives, that is to say, to the advantage of commercial profit.
Mr President, at a time when statistics show that the contribution of employers to social security is on the decrease, making it easier for businesses to plunder the financial resources of social policy and to profit at the expense of working people and their social rights, is nothing short of provocation.
If the new integrated employment strategy, as the leaders of the European Union call it, and the appeal to the social services for adaptability, flexibility and the shouldering of their responsibilities means stripping working people and European Union citizens of the rights they have fought so hard for, if the success of the policy that is being mapped out means the complete dismantling of the European social model, then you can be sure that their response will be further conflict which, sooner or later, will sweep away not only this unpopular policy but also the implementors of this policy.
Mr President, EMU compels us to debate the subject of social security structures, because there has been great pressure on us to reduce state expenditure.
And it is with equal zeal that we should consider where states will get their funding from in the future to deal, for example, with the organization of social security.
In this respect, I do not believe that EU policy is uniform.
We have been properly concerned when there have been so many shortages, but the European Union has not, by any stretch of the imagination, been able to do everything to guarantee social security funding, or, in other words, state income.
In this regard, I believe the most essential single reform would be to end the process of tax erosion, that is to say, guarantee that producers cease to wander from one country to another in search of lower taxation systems.
There is really a lot that needs doing in the harmonization of indirect taxation especially.
Obviously, as EMU draws near, we are starting to speak more and more of the European model. We do not want to tread on people sleeping in the street.
We even want to pay taxes, to some extent, so that people can have a minimum of state support. The dialogue already begun on the different social security models prevailing in the various countries must be pressed on with.
Each European country has something to offer the European model.
I certainly believe there is no cause for concern, in this respect, with the Nordic countries, and, indeed, that social security thinking in Europe generally runs along the same track as the Scandinavian philosophy. Just one example is the German health insurance system, which is clearly a step in this direction.
Mr President, Mr Willockx' report is of an extremely high quality and I in turn would like to congratulate the author and underline that it concerns probably one of the most difficult subjects that we will have to face up to in the coming years.
Mr Herman's speech a few moments ago gave us a glimpse of this.
If the implementation of economic and monetary union and the Euro is accompanied by an overly rapid deregulation this could in fact provoke an overall increase in unemployment and a worsening of the standards of living for a growing, and already too large, number of people in Europe.
This is all the more true because extremely divergent policies are pursued by the Member States in the area of social security and this causes considerable and additional distortions of competition.
It is, therefore, now necessary to tackle the establishment of true convergence in our social security systems.
On this point I want to underline the interest that the Commission will find in the wider and more vigorous exploitation of the conclusions in the White Paper on growth and employment.
Concerning the fight for jobs, we must emphasize the budgets which are destined, on a regional level, to facilitate insertion and return to work, notably by supporting the fabric of the community which is now trying to respond to this, but with insufficient resources.
It is also necessary to make a start on the convergence of health insurance policies of Member States, taking good care not to reduce the area currently covered by national health services, so that the health of Europeans is not abandoned solely to the private insurance business.
This implies many new decisions, of which one of the most urgent is certainly the establishment of a directive on the mutual insurance system.
Finally, I would like to give the backing of the Group of the European Radical Alliance to the decisions to be taken to move towards a progressive transfer of the resources necessary for the social security system so that they come from the taxation of capital and non-renewable energy sources, in order to lighten the costs which now weigh too heavily on those in work, to the detriment of employment.
Mr President, the report by Mr Willockx is a problematic one.
Perhaps this is the only conclusion we can agree on today.
Naturally we admire the courage of the rapporteur, who is as it were sticking his hand into a hornets' nest.
But the preceding question asks whether all this is necessary.
Anyone who reads the opinion of the Committee on Social Affairs, knows the answer: no.
Because the report in no way deals with the consequences of EMU for the financing of social security systems in the European Union.
This report is also a contradictory report.
Take the first part of the preamble, which states that the current social model must continue to exist.
If you are looking for the solution to a problem you must not switch off the light, but let your light shine on all creative possibilities.
The challenge of increasing international competition requires an appropriate response.
According to the World Economic Outlook published this month by the IMF, drastic reforms are necessary in the European Union in the fields of social security and labour market policy in order to be able to push down unemployment.
EMU demands greater mobility of labour.
Anyone who considers that to be socially unacceptable must be consistent and remove the EMU from their list of priorities.
But the rapporteur does not do that.
Finally, this report is out of date. It is turning its back on the future.
Using subsidies to create jobs and to neutralize inter-regional differences are actions that are dead and gone.
They kill off any innovative initiative.
Nobody is actively encouraged to support himself.
Of course governments must put into action measures to discourage fiscal, social and environmental dumping.
And they should also encourage education and training.
But this can go hand in hand with the dismantling of the social welfare state.
Is it really so honest to saddle our children with enormous repayment obligations because we refuse to assume this responsibility?
Mr President, this report demonstrates very clearly the extent of the measures that still need to be taken precisely in the field of social and employment policy in the context of preparing for monetary union.
Every one of the suggestions and demands made by the rapporteur is valid, and I personally would support them.
However, I believe that all these points contradict paragraph 1.
The very fact that there are still no coordinated tax systems and that it has not yet been possible to reform national budgets in a socially acceptable way; the fact that in trying to meet the convergence criteria Member States are damaging the basis of social security systems - these are an indication that the deadline for introducing the Euro needs to be reconsidered.
In this context a petition for referendum is to take place in Austria at the beginning of December on the holding of a plebiscite on this subject.
This step, which is important in democratic terms, is intended to give citizens an opportunity to become involved in a critical way in an issue that affects them personally.
We believe that it is wrong to use controlled advertising and propaganda campaigns to persuade our citizens that all the social and employment policy problems that need to be solved in connection with the introduction of monetary union simply do not exist.
European monetary union should be treated as a final and important aspect of the internal market at a point in time when at least the most serious problems, including social policy problems, have already been solved and the most important conditions have been achieved.
Mr President, the report which we are debating today has had a long passage and extensive debate in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
It is now over twenty-two months since we had our first exchange of views on the subject.
Given the importance and sensitivity of the subject, our rapporteur has guided the committee skilfully throughout this period until we were able to reach a conclusion which we were able to adopt with no votes against.
This is of great credit to the rapporteur and he deserves our congratulations.
Nevertheless, fundamental questions still remain, I am afraid.
We have not all been able to agree on the effects of the convergence criteria and the stability pact, in particular, on the European economy.
I am among those who believe that they have and will continue to have deflationary effects.
Moreover the single currency exposes Member States to the danger of asymmetric shocks on the demand side which it will no longer be able to possible to offset by a readjustment of the exchange rate.
Of course, I am not arguing for abandoning the single currency with the great benefits and the historic change that it is bringing to European affairs, but we need antidotes.
The important antidote in this particular case is a pan-European coordinated employment and social policy.
By some new taxes, if necessary, like the windfall tax which was so successfully applied in Britain recently and which financed an important campaign against unemployment.
There is a fundamental last question.
After all the skilful surgery that Mr Donnelly has so justifiably spoken about has been applied, will the standard of living of the European worker remain the same or will it go down, and will it even plunge towards the level of the third world worker to which reference has been made in the reference to globalization?
Mr President, this report makes an honest attempt to tackle the issues, but in very traditional areas, and it raises a few questions of principle that I would like to deal with.
Firstly, the report says that there should be no adverse social consequences.
Of course, no-one wants that!
But we have to be honest and admit that a reorganization of our social structures and of our social security systems is unavoidable, and there is a danger that this will involve some cuts.
My second point is that in the context of pension provision, the report says that there is little chance of a change from the adjustable contribution system to the formation of capital coverage system.
If it happened at all, it would take a very long time, I know that much.
However, it has to be said quite unambiguously that private provision will play a very central role in pension provision in the future.
My third point is about the employment summit in Luxembourg.
The President of the Council, Mr Juncker, always stresses that this will not be a deregulation summit.
Fine, it would really be too little to have just that.
But I do hope at least that one subject dealt with by this employment summit will be the need to change our economic and labour law structures and make them more flexible.
In two areas the report includes hints about the future, one case being where it touches upon environmental tax reform, implying a shift of taxation away from employment and towards energy, consumption, etcetera.
However, it only suggests investigating this.
That is absolutely not enough as far as I am concerned!
We know that this is one of the forward-looking instruments.
We need to summon up the political will actually to get on with it.
The report quotes the Commission's 1995 report on the future of social welfare, which questions the direct link between the payments made by social security contributors and the covering of risk.
I think that is important.
I believe that we should seriously contemplate a basic level of provision, as there is ever less work, and the gap between those who have work and those who do not is getting greater.
However, social solidarity should also extend to people who have not made sufficient contributions to the social security system through paid work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is yet another debate which clearly illustrates that we are trying to square the circle or round off the square.
In the short time I have at my disposal to deal with such a demanding topic, I congratulate the rapporteur on his effort, which puts forward a number of extremely relevant points, but which reaches opposite conclusions to those which would seem to follow logically from those premises.
But we must not forget that this is a report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which is more concerned with EMU and the effects social security financing will have on it than with social security and the effects EMU will have on the social situation and security of citizens.
At this point I would like to make what seems to me to be an urgent observation of central relevance on a view which is gaining general acceptance, namely that social security protects citizens against risks of a social nature. The expression of this view is found both in Community documents and in those of member States, such as the Portuguese Green Paper on the subject.
I consider that this view has the capacity to be extremely damaging if it were to replace another according to which social security enshrines the rights of anyone born or living, who works or has worked, as social rights corresponding to society's obligations to individuals.
This is not a question of individual insurance and actuarial calculations, but of human rights appropriate to the times in which we live.
Furthermore, there is nothing innocent about the way in which, when considering the serious problem of social security financing, the responsibility of those who do not comply with their social obligation to contribute to that financing is being removed from them - an obligation which still exists, so long as the systems are not altered, and is not being complied with - and no attempt is made to emphasize it, nor is any responsibility being placed on those who are failing in their duty.
Mr President, please forgive me if, having asked to speak since the beginning of this sitting and having been regularly passed over, I follow the example of my colleague, Mr Graziani, and begin my speech on the Willockx report with a slight digression.
In fact, I should like to stress the gravity of the situation which has been created in Italy, particularly in Umbria and the Marche, following the recent catastrophic earthquake, and I should like to impress on the President, the Committee on Budgets and all my colleagues the urgent need to reallocate funds for natural disasters, also in advance of the next vote on the European Union's budget for 1998.
Because of the current state of affairs the Italian government has not yet submitted an official request for aid, but Europe cannot stand idly by when confronted with such extremely serious events which have resulted in deaths, damage costing hundreds of billions of lire and thousands of people losing their homes and jobs, and damaged a substantial number of works of art which are not the heritage of Italy or Europe but the world.
Returning to Mr Willockx's report, the convergence criteria are the torment and delight of the Member States.
On the one hand, it is true that convergence limits room for manoeuvre in the budgets of individual Member States and necessitates a restructuring of welfare institutions but, on the other hand, complying with the convergence criteria increases the overall efficiency of the European economy and reinforces its position in the world economy, promoting growth and employment.
Perhaps the problem is slightly different and has to do with the fact that to date no body of Community laws and regulations, even of a minimal nature, has been introduced to govern fiscal and financial policy.
Tax dumping reduces government revenue and shifts the tax burden from capital to labour, thereby impeding the welfare policies of Member States.
In this connection, however, the meeting of the Ecofin Council held on 13 September last finally seemed to produce encouraging results.
The Fifteen seem to be prepared to go down the road of a coordinated tax policy and indeed the first decisions are expected to be taken by the end of the year during the meeting of the European Council which are likely to include the approval of a code of conduct relating to fiscal matters.
We must fight against competitive defiscalization - President Santer was talking about this earlier this afternoon in relation to employment - and unfair competition without increasing the tax burden.
The level of taxation has to be adjusted downwards, particularly in relation to direct and indirect taxes on workers in employment, the growing burden of which is having a disastrous effect on employment.
As the report rightly pointed out, it would be desirable to create a fund from which aid would be granted to help needier Member States to combat unemployment.
It should be borne in mind that the absence of a European agreement on worker protection will enable industries to relocate to regions where the workforce is less expensive and has less protection, running the risk that national systems will be harmonized at the lowest level of social security because national governments will be able to cut their expenditure on social protection in order to be competitive.
If we wish to avoid this dangerous scenario we shall have to endeavour to ensure that the Union has sufficient room to manoeuvre in the field of social protection.
Policies must be harmonized at European level: if we are to be an efficient economic union I believe that this is all the more reason why Europe-wide social standards are an important prerequisite if we really want to maintain the economic and social cohesion of the European Union.
Thank you very much, Mr Cellai, and thank you for your sympathetic words about those who have been affected by the earthquake.
I am very pleased that you were able to say those words during your speech.
Thank you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very grateful to Mr Willockx for having clearly shown in his report the extent to which social and economic policy are interdependent rather than being mutually exclusive or opposites, whereas for that very reason it has already virtually become commonplace within the 15 Member States of the European Union to attribute the growing pressure for reform which exists at many levels in politics solely to the EU.
There is already a discernible tendency for the convergence criteria to be taken as an excuse for not reforming social security systems, but deregulating them.
It must be obvious to all of us that this is scarcely a suitable basis for maintaining wealth and well-being, and that a more comprehensive examination of the problems is needed.
Our objective is a genuine European Union, underpinned by social harmony, and not just a superior free trade zone that ignores social policy.
Of course we should not underestimate demographic change.
Over the last decade alone, life expectancy has increased by two to three years.
That alone should be sufficient incentive to treat the question of living standards more fully.
It is certainly necessary to shift the tax burden from employment not only to capital, energy consumption and environmental impact, but also to value added.
But it is certain that the greatest distortions in competition that we see are due to differences between taxation systems.
That is where have to start.
It is more likely to lead us to our objective than indiscriminate pressure on social systems or on social support mechanisms.
Thus the key conditions for putting the financing of social security systems on a stable footing again are a European taxation policy in accordance with the Commission's Monti memorandum, combined with a European social pact to solve the problem of unemployment, and continuity in economic growth.
A debate on the future of social security in the EU is long overdue, and we - the European Parliament - could make a positive contribution to it with all our initiatives.
The reports contain very strong proposals to this effect.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the comments made today by the rapporteur, Mr Willockx, make the specific point of reminding us of the finality of economic and monetary union, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, and all those who have spoken in this House this morning.
The Euro is not an end in itself.
The Euro must be an instrument of growth and employment.
It must also be a guarantee of our social security system.
As your rapporteur noted, article 2 of the Treaty on the European Union gives the Community the objective of promoting a high level of social security and a high level of employment.
Your Parliament also legitimately raises the question of the financing of social security systems in Member States, within the context of economic and monetary union.
This is a subject which also concerns the Commission, who last March adopted a communication entitled: ' Modernizing and improving social security in the European Union' , which largely answers the questions put by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens just now.
Following your discussions, I would like to make two brief comments.
The first concerns demographic evolution in Europe and its potential consequences for the financing of social security systems of Member States in the future.
The second is related to the management of public finances in order to guarantee the smooth running of social security systems.
Firstly, the difficulties in financing social security systems that may be encountered in the future - I am here replying to Mr de Lassus - will be demographic ones.
The ageing of the population will mean growing costs for an ever shrinking active population.
In fact, the employment rate in Europe, that is, the ratio between the total number of employed and the number of people of working age has dropped from 67 % in 1960 to 59 % currently.
As a reference point may I remind you that in the United States, as in Japan, it is over 73 %.
If policies are not changed, the drain on public finances will be ever growing with the following consequences.
First consequence: the weight of retirement and health costs linked to the ageing population will increase.
The ratio of retirement costs in relation to GDP will increase 3 or 4 points from 1995 to 2030; that is a great deal.
Second consequence: the changing age structure of the population will lead to an increase in the demand for services and welfare transfers will probably weigh heavily on public expenditure.
What will be the effects of this demographic evolution? There will be budgetary effects, but there will also be implications for the labour market.
In fact, firstly, national savings will decrease significantly due to the worsening of the financial accounts.
Similarly, according to a recent study by the OECD, the development of private savings will be negatively affected by the aging of the population.
Secondly, labour market mobility will be less.
The 20-30 age group will decrease by 9.4 million people, whilst the 50-60 age group will increase by 5.5 million.
The decrease in professional and geographic mobility which will follow could, what is more, negatively affect growth and productivity.
These perspectives could be worrying for future generations.
They must therefore encourage us, in order to preserve social and economic cohesion and ensure the proper funding of social security systems in Europe, to take and safeguard for good the European social model, beyond a simple safety net, Mr Donnelly.
In this respect, the establishment of economic and monetary union - on 1 January 1999, Mr Lukas - may bring some elements of a solution.
As your rapporteur notes, the improvement in public finances, linked to the achievement of economic and monetary union, is not dangerous.
It is even the best guarantee for the preservation of social security systems in Europe, and I would say it is the same for employment.
But this budgetary readjustment must also be accompanied by true structural reform, and Mr Chanterie underlined that just now.
To face up to this demographic challenge and to be in a position to take the necessary political decisions - the arbitration will have to be political - the Member States must first of all once more find sufficient budgetary margin for manoeuvre.
The budgetary framework introduced by economic and monetary union provides a way.
We must aim, first of all, to respect the rule regarding virtual balancing of the budgets, which moreover figures in the pact for stability and growth.
If the actual rate of improvement of public finances continues, and that should be possible with the return to growth, this objective of a virtual balancing should be reached by 2002, that is, several years before the effects of the demographic change are felt.
In fact, the demographic deficit will be the strongest in the European Union in the year 2010.
Until that date the impact of population ageing will be less.
Member States therefore have a sufficient time lapse in which to prepare for the necessary changes.
This preparation must, however, begin immediately and these efforts must include true structural reform.
From your speeches, ladies and gentlemen, I have understood that everyone is agreed on this point, even if the recommended solutions differ according to the speaker.
The structural reforms to be undertaken - many of you noted this - concern both fiscal systems and social security systems or, properly speaking, pension schemes.
The reform of the welfare state is at the heart of the necessary adjustments.
It is essential in order to ensure the lasting character of budgetary consolidation, for the objectives of solidarity and social security must be made compatible with those of mastering public expenditure.
As your rapporteur rightly noted, suitable fiscal reforms will be essential, which does not mean, Mr Katiforis, that taxes will necessarily have to be increased, but without such reforms, social harmonization would be much more difficult.
That is why the Commission has revived the idea of fiscal harmony, and work is progressing within the framework of the Monti group.
Moreover this has been highlighted by many of you and notably by the rapporteur for the Committee on Social Affairs.
This is why the Commission insists that social harmonization be achieved through social dialogue.
I am not going to talk about the employment aspect as, earlier, President Santer and Padraig Flynn had the opportunity of presenting to you the guidelines to be adopted by the Commission in view of the jobs summit, but it seems to me that they signal an extremely innovative element in the context of this desire to recreate jobs in Europe, which of course will be a step towards improving our social accounts.
Finally, reform of pension schemes is also a priority.
A pension scheme based on accumulation is being developed in most of the countries.
This is a positive evolution, in so far as a balanced system must be based both on assessment and accumulation.
Therefore, such an evolution can only be a progressive one as, again rightly, your rapporteur reminded us.
And the creation of a pension fund must not brutally challenge existing systems of assessment.
It must complement these systems.
I believe, moreover, that Mr Frischenschlager noted this just now.
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to underline that the Commission congratulates the European Parliament on its contribution to this particularly sensitive and delicate subject.
Your report very usefully contributes to the public awareness which is currently coming to light in Europe.
Many states are applying themselves with courage and determination to the establishment of the necessary fiscal and social reforms.
The culture of stability which accompanies the introduction of the Euro strengthens the conditions of success for this necessary adjustment, and it is thus that economic and monetary union appears the best safeguard of the European social model for the future.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Convention on the Law of the Sea
The next item is the recommendation (A4-0283/97) for second reading by Mr Cot, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion by the European Community of the United Nations Convention of 10 December 1982 on the Law of the Sea and the Agreement of 28 July 1994 on the application of part XI thereof (COM(97)0037 - COM(97)0037/2-9032/97 - C4-0477/97-97/0038(AVC)).
Mr President, I must report back, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion by the European Community of the United Nations Convention of 10 December 1982 on the Law of the Sea and the agreement of 28 July 1994 on part XI thereof.
This Convention, the so-called Montego Bay or Jamaica Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a basic text, which was signed by the European Community on 7 December 1984, as is the supplementary agreement which was signed by the Commission on 16 November 1994.
A first question clearly comes to mind: why are these texts coming to us now, almost fifteen years after the Montego Bay Conference? The answer: it is because as an international organization we cannot deposit our instrument of ratification regarding a convention until a majority of Member States, that is Member States of the Community, have first gone through this procedure.
Being a party to the Convention on the Law of the Sea seems to us essential, firstly because of the Community's own jurisdiction in the area of the Law of the Sea, jurisdiction in the area of commercial policy, fisheries, and the environment.
The delay with which we are proceeding to this ratification, I hasten to note immediately for my colleagues, will cause no harm to the European Community, since our Community is already a member, albeit provisionally, of the International Seabed Authority, the instrument which implements the measures in this chapter of the convention.
We will lose this privilege if we do not authorize our adherence before the 16 November 1998, that is, in one year's time.
The main problem that arises in my eyes is that of the settlement of disputes.
Article 287 of the convention offers the choice between four procedures: the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, which is in Hamburg, the International Court of Justice at the Hague, an arbitral tribunal constituted in accordance with Annex 7 of the convention, and a special arbitral tribunal constituted in accordance with Annex 8.
In this matter, our Community chose not to choose.
The decision under consideration by us specifies only that the Council undertakes to re-examine, on the basis of a proposal from the Commission and within a reasonable period, once the dispute-settlement procedures provided for have been in operation long enough, whether it is in the Community's interest to opt for a dispute-settlement procedure other than arbitration.
This tortuous formula raises three problems.
Firstly, a basic problem.
The decision seems to me unfortunate.
I would have preferred, personally, that the Community support the setting up of a new tribunal in Hamburg, or at least show its confidence in the International Court of Justice.
The second problem, I would say, is one of "ping pong' .
At the time of the ratification of the agreement on the United Nations convention relating to the conservation and management of fishery resources found both within and outside exclusive economic zones - look at the species that are thus targeted - the Commission stated that it would use, for the settlement of disputes, the model to be chosen at such time as the Community ratified the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Thus, in this instance, the cost of playing "ping pong' is such that we score neither of the two points that were foreseen, which means that the two conventions are hanging in mid-air with regard to dispute-settlements.
Finally, the last problem is one of procedure.
By giving our compliance to the whole of the convention, we will no longer be able to participate at a later date in the decision on this particular and important point.
I am also asking Mr Van den Broek, on behalf of the Commission, to agree to consult Parliament on the content and modalities of the solution to be adopted regarding this point of the procedure for settling disputes, when the time comes.
With the benefit of these observations, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, having considered the opinions of Mrs van Bladel, Mrs Langenhagen and Mr Collins, unanimously proposes that you approve the decision.
Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating Mr Cot, a Vice-President of our Parliament and also a university professor, on his magnificent report. I agree with all the details he has set out in the report.
Furthermore, as somebody who is familiar with this area, I want to say how important this convention is.
I have followed its ups and downs from the Conference on the Sea to its conclusion in Montego Bay (Jamaica) in 1982.
Some very significant things happened at that conference. For example, the contribution of the small countries was extremely important, and for that reason representatives at the conference wanted the convention to be wideranging.
They demanded at least 60 ratifications before it came into force, and that is why it has taken 12 years.
The agreement on the application of part 11 of the convention encountered fewer difficulties.
This extremely important convention satisfactorily defines the Law of the Sea, with respect to its economic aspects.
It is so important that even before it came into force following the sixtieth ratification, international guidelines which had been created by it were already in use.
Therefore, it would still have been very important even if it had never come into force, because it had already given rise to international usages (for example concerning the exclusive economic area), and therefore to extremely important competencies which are currently the responsibility of the Community, as Mr Cot has said.
By means of this report, Parliament must give its opinion on the Council decision which examines whether it is advisable for the Community to be part of the convention and the agreement on its application.
I agree with Professor Cot when he says that the proposal for a Council decision hinges on two major questions. Firstly, on the allocation of competences, because many of the aspects assigned by the convention and the agreement are the responsibility of the Community, because of the Treaties, and therefore powers must be granted to the countries which make up the European Union, and by establishing a ratification instrument the Community's participation will finally be strengthened and the problem resolved.
Secondly, another important problem is the settlement of the disputes which the convention will bring.
Unfortunately we cannot avoid this.
That is why Mr Cot is turning to the Commissioner, quite rightly in my opinion, to ask him whether it is possible to resolve that lack of clarity in this respect.
Article 287 establishes several methods, but neither the Council nor the Commission has been willing to be specific on this point.
The only choice remaining to this House is to trust in the other institutions' good intentions and to ask the Commission (which will propose the method) and the Council (which will decide on the proposal) that when they come to examine it, they should consult Parliament again and bear our views in mind.
Like Mr Cot, I beg the Commissioner to make sure that this is done.
Mr President, the formal adhesion of the European Community to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea concludes a long and difficult process in which Europeans have not always been able to identify their real interests. That process began in 1982 when the Convention was signed and went on to its coming into force in 1994, with the initial ratification by 60 member States.
For Portugal, a country which has historic links with the sea, and which in recent years has been in the vanguard, together with a few other small States, of the fight to establish specific international rules protecting the irreplaceable heritage of the oceans, this act of adhesion by the European Community is of great symbolic importance.
It is indeed through a Portuguese initiative that 1998 has been declared World Year of the Ocean, and this has been due to intense efforts on the part of Cavaco Silva's government, which, at the same time, has won the 1998 International Exhibition for Lisbon with the title 'The Ocean: a heritage for the future' .
The Independent World Commission for the Ocean, created by UNESCO in 1995 under the presidency of Portuguese former president Mário Soares, will present its final report in Lisbon in 1998.
I am certain that the Committee's reflections on the enormous potential of the oceans will point to solutions which will contribute to the genuine implementation of this Convention on the Law of the Sea, also taking into account the Rio conclusions, in chapter 17, on seas and coastal areas.
For that reason, however, we must now go beyond the apparent conflicts which are dragging on interminably between the defenders of traditional concepts based on acquired practices and those who uphold inter-sectorial and integrated interests.
The interests of both parties must be - and are - compatible.
There is no doubt that the oceans are a three-dimensional area which requires the integrated management of resources.
Europe can only gain by taking the lead, following its formal adhesion to the convention, in introducing a new concept making specific proposals to transpose it into Community law, thus opening the doors to the 21st Century.
This would be achieved by means of the creation of a European Oceans Agency and by a resources management concept which balances not only the rights of maritime states and those states which traditionally fish in the high seas, but also the collective right to those resources.
But in concluding, Mr President, I must express my regrets concerning the blatant contradiction which is currently in evidence in Portugal.
After our leading role over the last few years, with the results I have described, it appears that my country is not among the 120 which - to date - have signed the convention.
Is this forgetfulness, lack of vision or what?
Mr President, the Commission also wishes to thank Mr Cot for his excellent report and wholeheartedly supports the position taken by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Fisheries, the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
The Commission is very pleased that this important last step has been taken so that the Community can quickly become a party to this Convention, following the example of the majority of its Member States.
It represents an essential development in the gradual establishment of international law in this field and is an example of international cooperation in the conclusion of conventions.
Together with the Member States, the Community has actively participated in the different phases of the lengthy negotiations whose objective was the achievement of a comprehensive and universally accepted law of the sea.
This convention concerns areas in which the EC has extensive powers, particularly in the field of fisheries, the environment, commercial policy and safety at sea.
The report rightly refers to the importance of the convention for the fishing interests of the Community.
As a coastal region, the Community, which has very important fishing interests on the high seas and at the same time manages the fish stocks in waters that fall within the jurisdiction of the Member States, endeavours to obtain a balance between the interests of the coastal states and the countries that fish on the high seas.
This balance between the interests is very clearly reflected in the provisions of the convention on fishing activity.
Furthermore, the Community has always referred to the convention in implementing its external fisheries policy and in concluding bilateral fisheries agreements and other multilateral fishing accords.
As far as the EC authority in the field of commercial policy is concerned, the convention provides that the Community shall be a permanent member of the International Seabed Commission.
This organization, which deals with the exploitation of the substratum of the seabed, should become operational in 2015 when the trade in polymetallic granules should be able to become effective.
Mr Cot and others have referred to the dispute procedure and with regard to the reference to this subject in the report, I should like to stress that there have been no ulterior motives in the decision that was taken in this phase.
In particular, it is in no way the Commission's intention to bypass the consultation procedure with Parliament.
For the time being, we felt, however, that it was more sensible to gain experience before coming to a definitive decision that is based on the necessary information.
That therefore really means leaving open a definitive choice with regard to the method of settling disputes, which is referred to in article 15 of the convention.
The Commission is completely behind the European Parliament's request to be fully involved in the definitive choice of procedure.
In good time, that is before the end of 1998, a new and separate communication will be submitted to the Council, either in order to confirm the current choice for arbitration which by default of another choice is automatically the procedure used at the moment, or in order to put forward a new possibility, such as, for example, the Court of Justice in Hamburg.
But whatever the choice is, the European Parliament will be fully consulted in view of the fact that the new decision must be considered as the follow-up to the procedure for concluding an international agreement, in which the European Parliament must fulfil its institutional role.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Van den Broek.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
International law, Community law, national constitutional law
The next item is the report (A4-278/97) by Mr Alber, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on relationships between international law, Community law and the constitutional law of the Member States.
Mr President, that was the last report by my colleague, Mr Alber.
I would like to thank him for his helpful and considerate cooperation and to wish him all the best for his new post.
My group will vote for the motion for a resolution and reject all the amendments.
I would like to say a word, Mr Alber, about the specific function of the term 'union of states'.
In the terminology used by Germany's Federal Constitutional Court it is evidently an attempt to reduce the law of the European Union, of the European Communities, to international law.
We are not talking about a theoretical problem.
We talking about a full-blooded political conflict, which could develop into a crisis for the European Union.
It is not a general question about whether there are limits to European integration in national constitutions.
No, the question is whether constitutional courts can review the validity of the actions of the Community. That is what is at stake.
This is not just about Germany's Federal Constitutional Court, there are also comparable trends in other Member States, such as Austria or Sweden, to name just two.
Ten years ago, as you pointed out, Mr Alber, the European Court of Justice said that the need for uniformity, that is, the uniform application of Community law through the national courts, was particularly important when the legal force of some Community action - such as the adoption of a directive - was in doubt.
Differences of opinion between the courts of the Member States about the validity of Community actions could jeopardize the unity of the Community's legal system itself and threaten the fundamental need for legal certainty.
That is the reason for the primacy of Community law.
It is not presumptuousness, it is not arrogance, it is an absolute necessity!
That is why it is no wonder that the President of the European Court of Justice, Mr Rodriguez Iglesias, is talking about an attack on the basic elements of the Community's constitution in this context.
I very much hope that the national constitutional courts will recognise that in accordance with article 164 it is the task of the European Court of Justice to ensure the law in interpreting and applying this treaty.
To ensure, that is the wording, to ensure!
No national constitutional court can set itself up as ruling over Community law.
No constitutional court can be the tutor.
Incidentally, there is an element of control by national parliaments in all this, because they decide which additional powers can be transferred.
I very much hope that we will be spared one situation, namely treaty infringement proceedings against a Member State because of a judgement by a constitutional court.
We can do without that!
Mr President, the report by our dear colleague, Siegbert Alber, which we are debating this evening, is worthy of our special attention for two principle reasons.
Firstly, because it examines an issue which is not only very delicate, but is also extremely important for the European Union.
This is the position held by community law in the legal system which governs our society, either within each Member State of the European Union, through its relationship with the constitutional or fundamental law of that Member State, or in its international relationships with pubic international law.
Secondly, because it is the final contribution of a colleague who is greatly valued by all of us and who has contributed much to the European Union, before he devotes himself the day after tomorrow to defending Community law from another, very different and even more distinguished bastion.
I had the pleasure and the honour of working closely with Siegbert Alber, initially in the presidency of the European Parliament, when we sat side by side as Vice-Presidents, then, in more recent years, on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which he set up, and I consider it my duty to express with deep emotion the more general appreciation of the people in this room of his entire contribution over so many years as elected representative of one of the great European nations.
Two years have not gone by, Mr President, since I felt the need to point out, in the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on the twelfth annual report of the European Commission on the Monitoring of the Implementation of Community Law, after the special hearing organized by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, the following details which I regarded as revealing: one, that the Community Treaties had established a new law and order in support of which the Member States had curtailed their sovereign rights in everexpanding areas; two, that the control that the constitutional courts were beginning to exercise in recent years as to the validity of Community regulatory actions in relation to the respective constitutions of the Member States was pregnant with dangers for the uniform implementation and harmony of Community law.
It took three whole years for the principle of the supremacy of Community law over domestic law to be accepted by the French State Council, which was the last, chronologically, to put it in place. Nor did we manage to breathe a sigh of relief before the German Supreme Federal Constitutional Court made the decision, concerning the Treaty of Maastricht, to call this principle once again into even greater question throughout the nineties, this time from a different standpoint.
A principle which was shaped basically by jurisprudence and which was indirectly strengthened by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is being signed tomorrow, as Siegbert Alber also observes in his report.
Nevertheless, we would naturally prefer this recognition to be more direct and more explicit.
The ideas that I put forward in my report of 1995 are strengthened and systematized in our German colleague's text, which supports the supremacy of Community law in the innovatory and unique character of the European Union, and also in its inclination towards further development.
A development which creates new conditions and facts in the field of law, which establish opportunely the observation of the Ancient Greek philosopher, Theophrastos: not the things for the laws, but the laws for the things. In other words, reality should not adapt to the law, but the law should adapt to reality.
This new reality is represented today by the European Union, which embodies all the hopes and aspirations that its inspirers and founders invested in it.
Mr Alber's report has appeared at a very timely moment, because the building of a united Europe, albeit with many hurdles in its way, is making progress, but there is no lack of shock waves and indeed shock waves which assume the dangerous form of decisions of venerable supreme legislative bodies of the Member States.
The value of the report that we are now debating lies in exactly this point, that in its content, with the very valid argumentation that we have heard this evening by the rapporteur, it rejects any tendency for the substitution of supreme national legislative bodies in a task that belongs exclusively to the Court of the European Communities.
Because only the latter guarantees the independence and unity of Community law and order.
And from tomorrow, today's rapporteur, Mr Alber, will be called upon to defend this independence and unity, in his new capacity as Advocate-General to the Court.
We are delighted and proud of his new position.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, defining the relationships between Community law, constitutional law and international law is an issue of great importance which affects every citizen, even though they are often unaware of it.
The application of an apparently abstract principle, such as the principle of the direct applicability of Community legislation places obligations on judges dealing with national law which dictates their jurisdictional activities.
The most fervent supporters of the supremacy of Community law consider that it has precedence over any other legislation, whether national or international.
This theory maintains that the relationship between Community law and national law is substantially a federal type of relationship. A different interpretation is maintained by those whose aim is to safeguard the fundamental principles of national constitutional law against the encroachment of Community law.
According to these people, national constitutional arrangements are the ultimate expression of popular sovereignty, whereas Community law, encumbered as it is by a democratic deficit, cannot be considered as a higher source on principle.
The rapporteur, Mr Alber, who was recently appointed Advocate-General at the Court of Justice - and we congratulate him on this appointment - maintains the federalist position.
He was critical of the judgement of the German Federal Constitutional Court of October 1993 concerning the draft Maastricht Treaty: the author did not share the basis of his assertion that the passing of power to the European Community would potentially constitute a deprivation of the democratic principle.
Our group appreciates the views expressed by Mr Alber and lays particular emphasis on how important it is that the preeminence of community law, as requested by the rapporteur, was sanctioned by the Treaty of Rome and that this treaty clearly defined the relationship between international law and European law.
However, in this respect we believe we have to point out the urgency of overcoming the present democratic deficit which, if it continues, will end up by perpetuating anomalies in European decision-making processes which can only be tolerated in the short term.
Mr President, I have never seen a report in which so many judgments have been quoted as the report by Mr Alber that we are now discussing.
It must have been a preliminary exercise for his appointment as Advocate-General and I must say that now that he is going to join the ranks of the Court of Justice together with our former colleague Mr La Pergola, we do not need to waste too many more words on the right of appointment of the European Parliament of members and prosecutors at the Court of Justice, because soon the government judges will also become this Parliament's judges.
Does this mean, and I cannot refrain from mentioning it, that a decision such as today's where the Court has already dropped us like a hot potato will perhaps be more difficult in the future.
However, let us learn a sound lesson from this, because for years in the reports on the application of Community law in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights we have warned that we should not involve the Court of Justice too much in our political battle with the other institutions.
Now that has been done in this case by France, but it is a fact that from time to time the Court must distance itself from the Parliament.
I believe that the primordiality of Community law stands very clearly in the hierarchy of standards that are mentioned in Mr Alber's report and also very clearly in the political battle and the political role of the Court of Justice, as Mr Rothley has so rightly said.
Nevertheless, it is a fact that the Member States must not only adapt to this but there must also be a unity of jurisdiction and this is caused above all by the preliminary rulings under article 177.
I hope that Mr Alber in his role of Advocate-General will have to deal with a preliminary ruling that will be sought tomorrow morning by myself and my counsel Mr Janssen van Raay before the Court of Rotterdam where I must appear in a criminal case that I have provoked because I believe that Community law must be applied equally in all the Member States and that the treaty must be applied above national law.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is still a long way from being a political union.
On the other hand, as a European Community it is most certainly a legal community, and one which has developed an astonishing dynamic over the decades it has existed.
The Alber report is a kind of summary of this dynamic.
Mr Alber, it is a matter of some personal satisfaction for me that this outcome has been possible because of an initiative by the European Parliament, or rather of its Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which in June 1995 held a symposium on the relationship of Community law to international law and to the constitutional law of the Member States respectively.
This initiative and the discussions which followed it resulted in the clarification presented in this report, although this clarification is far from being common knowledge or a commonly accepted feature of jurisdiction in the Member States.
The first point of clarification, which defines all the others, is the primacy of Community law as opposed to national law.
This primacy is not some theory propounded by extravagant Eurocrats, but is a guaranteed matter of legal fact, for the simple reason that in an area without internal borders, the area of the four freedoms, there is no competing law nor can there be as long as observance of the principle of subsidiarity guarantees national powers, which are at a totally different level.
Connected with this is the fact that the freedom of movement of persons has for a long time not just been seen as a commercial activity, but rather, as in the Bosman Judgement, as a personal right and as an expression of the liberty of the citizens of the Union.
This should be sufficient cause for this Parliament to support the rapporteur in his demands for high-level and extensive protection of fundamental rights and accordingly for a legal personality for the European Union, which is in a position to support this protection of fundamental rights at international level and to defend it.
Whilst expressing my thanks for this handsome and encouraging report, I would like to offer my very best wishes for the responsible position which its draftsman will in future hold as Advocate-General of the European Court of Justice.
Mr President, I too have a great deal of respect for the rapporteur and I wish him the best of luck in his future post, but I must admit, on behalf of my group, that I am in total disagreement with his report.
We were in fact expecting a legal study, a reflection on the problems posed by the hierarchy of laws, relationships, for example, between the European Council and the European Parliament, or the Council of Ministers.
We were expecting a better way of reconciling Community law with national law to be defined.
Instead of that, we find a political, I would say almost ideological, report in front of us.
His starting point is the observation that the Supreme Courts show a tendency to resistance, claiming the right to examine Community law for its compatibility with national constitutional law.
It is clearly the German Federal Constitutional Court, with its decision of 12 October 1995, and the Danish Supreme Court, which my colleague will talk about in a moment, and its ruling of 12 October 1996, which are being targeted, I was going to say reviled.
But you could also add the French Constitutional Court or the Italian Court, or plenty of others.
You cannot state, as does the report, that the European Union's purpose is to create primary international law to be imposed on all the States and their national law.
Nor can you say, as the resolution proposes, that every national judge, including the supreme national authorities, have the duty to apply the primacy of Community law.
One cannot claim, moreover, that the European Community takes the place of national states in the enforcement of public international law.
National law has to be respected, in particular national constitutional law for, by asserting that national constitutional law must be subordinated to Community law when national constitutional law is often the result of referenda, it is people's right to self-determination that you are challenging and that is a curious thing for a supposedly democratic institution to do.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome Mr Zurab Zhvania, President of the Parliament of the Republic of Georgia, and Mr Georgy Kobakhidze, Vice-President and President of the Permanent Parliamentary Delegation for Relations with the European Union, whom we had the pleasure of welcoming to the European Parliament in May 1997.
Our two distinguished Parliamentary colleagues from Georgia...
... and their accompanying delegation will take part in the European Conference entitled 'Initiative for Democracy' tomorrow and on Friday.
These Members of Parliament will also have conversations in the European Parliament, particularly with the Delegation for Relations with the Transcaucasian Republics and the President of the European Parliament.
I hope our meetings and debates over the next few days will be profitable and will contribute to the achievement of closer relations between your country and the European Parliament.
International law, Community law, national constitutional law (continuation)
Mr President, allow me to say first of all that it is my custom to refrain from complimenting the rapporteur not out of a lack of politeness or because of the content of his report, but rather because of the need to be concise.
I would like to comment on another point in addition to what we have already heard.
As Mrs Spaak, in the Committee on Institutional Affairs, originally put it with truly commendable frankness in her capacity as rapporteur, our citizens feel overwhelmed by the accelerated pace of institutional integration in Europe and cannot identify with it.
We are of the opinion that it would be logical to look for another approach, an approach that would give the Member States more room for manoeuvre. In fact, the opposite is happening.
People are looking for a new way to render an approach that our citizens do not want to accept more palatable them.
You are probably asking what all this has to do with the report before us.
We believe, as Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has already emphasized, that this report follows exactly the same political line, in that an attempt is being made to put the highest courts, such as Germany's Federal Constitutional Court and Denmark's Supreme Court, in their place, because they have drawn attention to the limits to integration.
It is for this reason alone that we cannot support the approach adopted in this report, despite the high regard in which we of course hold the rapporteur.
Mr President, I have three good reasons for whole-heartedly supporting Mr Alber's report.
As a university lecturer in both constitutional law and European law, I am delighted that a serious text is now available for my students, in which the nuances of the not so simple and not so easy to understand Solange judgement of the German Federal Constitutional Court is set out very precisely and above all in the correct perspective.
The Alber Report will therefore provide material for numerous, nay countless, seminar papers and dissertations, which cannot be sand of many other academic texts of this type.
As one who has long been committed to the idea of Europe, I welcome the fact that this report represents a clear rejection of the many "yes, but' Europeans.
A rejection of those who always speak out for a greater role for Europe on every appropriate or inappropriate occasion, but who then, when things get serious, fall back on their country's special interests and legal situation; a rejection of those, for example, who not only in Germany but also in my own country say that they want the Euro, but not just yet, and not quite like this, and not quite as laid down in the treaty.
It is also a rejection of those who, in many Member States, want one kind of subsidiarity one day and another the next, depending on what they are after or on how it suits their interests at that particular time.
The Alber report very clearly tells these people that there can only be a common Europe when Member States share sovereignty and partly transfer it to the Community, and then continue to respect this surrender of sovereignty.
Yet the Alber report also says - and I consider this to be very important - that there can only be a common Europe, now and in the future, if this Europe uses all the means at its disposal to protect fundamental rights, exactly as this report formally requests.
As a university lecturer and as one who is committed to the European ideal, I have good grounds for saying 'yes' to this Alber report a third time.
This report, and this has already been said several times, provides an excellent starting point for Siegbert Alber in his important new post as Advocate-General to the European Court of Justice.
In that post Siegbert Alber will, I am quite sure, contribute to ensuring that Europe not only becomes a reality through the decisions of the European Court of Justice, but also that it is brought closer to its citizens.
He will make this contribution in his usual friendly and knowledgeable manner, and because during the short time that I have worked alongside him I have got to know him a little and have come to appreciate his fine sense of humour, I hope that in future the European Court of Justice will make judgements that one cannot just acknowledge with a nod, not only respect and accept, but I also hope that a quiet smile to oneself will sometimes be in order.
Mr President, Mr Alber, dear Siegbert, that sounds rather more normal in the German translation than in the Dutch, but I must honestly say that after Mrs Ewing you are the most long-standing member of this Parliament.
You beat me by two years.
We have worked together for years.
Your swan song is stylish and as the accused Mr Wijsenbeek has already said, tomorrow we hope, I as his counsel and he as the accused, to ensure that the important matter of the refusal by Mr Wijsenbeek to show his passport at Rotterdam Airport is submitted to you under principles 8A and 7A of the treaty for a preliminary ruling.
It is only at that moment that we will no longer say dear Siegbert, but will be able to use the correct Dutch terminology: "Your Honour' .
We thank you, your honour, for everything that you have done in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for your colleagues and Europe as a constitutional state.
We wish you the best of luck in your new position.
It will be a Freudian slip of mine if we appear with our lawsuit before you at the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
I have no doubts that Mr Alber is an excellent lawyer, and I would also like to join in congratulating him both on this report and on his future job.
It is a clear and unambiguous rendition of one of the fundamental principles of EU integration, the principle of supremacy, which even Mr Rack's students will be able to enjoy reading.
There are certainly others who would also enjoy reading it, including the judges in the Danish Supreme Court, before whom I shall be presenting a case next month.
This principle, which is expressed very accurately and in detail, has the support both of the rapporteur and of the great majority of Members, and more than that: it will be extended and strengthened, as a number of the paragraphs in the report indicate, and tendencies in the opposite direction, and here I am thinking in particular of some statements and rulings by the German Constitutional Court, which were followed, although on a somewhat different level, by the Danish Supreme Court in a ruling in August last year in a case which I myself conducted.
But, and here come the problems, as integration and the principle of supremacy are extended, the national decision-making processes are weakened.
If I may say so, the colossus, if one can be so irreverent as to describe the system in that way, is growing bigger, but its feet of clay are growing weaker and weaker.
The national democracies are being undermined, and hopefully, in the course of the next six months, the Danish Supreme Court will deliver a ruling which will send shockwaves through this selfsatisfied system.
Mr President, I must confess that I have been very much looking forward to taking part in this debate, knowing that it concerns my colleague Siegbert Alber's last report.
I sincerely believe that this House is losing one of its best Members and, speaking from a personal point of view, I am losing a close colleague.
We have always sat next to each other, because of our surnames, and I feel very sorry to be losing the advice and help which he has given me on so many occasions. At the same time, however, I am also very pleased for him because I believe the post he is going to take up - that of Advocate-General in the European Union Court of Justice - is one of law's most prestigious positions.
The European Community is a Community of law, which honours the rule of law.
This in its turn is closely related to the principle of the separation of powers.
In legitimately yielding certain aspects of their national sovereignty to the Union, the Member States should not weaken the democratic control which is able to bring about this transfer.
This potential deficit should be offset by a greater political control on the part of the legislative power.
Thus we can say that fundamental rights will only enjoy true legal protection when there is a parallel process between the transfer of national powers to Community competence on the one hand, and on the other hand, when the European Parliament and the national parliaments together gradually acquire greater control over the executive's activities.
We must not forget that although the European Union is based on the rule of law, it has not yet completely assimilated the principle of the separation of powers, since the treaties only grant powers and do not completely design a system of political control.
Another of the important consequences, to which Mr Rothley and Mr Florio have referred, is the principle of a legal hierarchy.
This axiom has been repeatedly defined by the Court of Justice and could be summed up in the idea that any national decision which is contrary to Community law is inapplicable.
Among the measures to guarantee this, there is for example article 177, concerning the question of prejudice.
As Mr Alber, the rapporteur, has specifically mentioned, during discussions of this report in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Industrial Policy reference was made to the Foto-Frost judgement of the Court of Justice, which emphatically and exclusively stated that the national courts are not competent to declare invalid the acts of the Community institutions, and that the Court of Justice is the only body competent to evaluate the binding nature of Community law.
It must not be forgotten that Community law is a unitary legal order in which various types of rulings can be found, including derived law, which is that which results from the acts of the Community institutions and is an integral part of Community law.
If I may say so, I think it is more than that - it is the most visible part of Community law.
This derived law is only controlled by the Court of Justice and not by national jurisdiction.
A national judge should not and cannot pass judgement on the validity of derived law.
This point brings us, Mr President, to the tricky and dangerous question of the principle of subsidiarity, which has also been alluded to during this debate.
Although I do not propose to do so, I could quote the protocol on the application of the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity which is included in the Treaty of Amsterdam, and which is to be annexed to the treaty.
I conclude by saying that I agree with what Mr Rack has said about the firm, constant and decisive defence of Community law, and the request, also made by Mr Alber, that the primacy of Community law be respected in the treaty.
Mr President, this is a debate for legal connoisseurs and my lawyers heart is rejoicing.
I should like to begin by warmly congratulating the rapporteur on this thorough report that certainly invites further reflection to which he will contribute, although from a certain distance.
But once again, our heartiest congratulations on the quality of this report.
In the Commission's view he comes out with a great many interesting ideas and particularly about the precedence of Community law and the ratification of international treaties in the Community system of law.
The Commission endorses the rapporteur's view that the doctrine of the precedence of Community law is of crucial importance in order to ensure that Community law is applied in the same way in all the Member States.
This aspect of the Community system of law has contributed in particular to the implementation of the objectives of article 2 of the treaty.
A number of means that the rapporteur refers to in order to strengthen the precedence of Community law, and I am thinking firstly of the strengthening of the role of the European Parliament, are to a greater or lesser extent generally accepted in the Community.
The Commission considers the other means that the rapporteur proposes to be valuable ideas that certainly merit further consideration.
The contribution from the rapporteur on the relationship between Community law and international law is very interesting now that the Community increasingly participates in international negotiations and concludes ever more treaties.
The issue of the integration of the international treaties into the Community system of law certainly demands further reflection, but the suggestions made by the rapporteur for certain solutions in this field definitely provide a good start.
We can therefore conclude right away that the rapporteur has covered a number of subjects that concern the very heart of the Community system of law.
The Commission will undoubtedly undertake further study of all these subjects and the many suggestions made by the rapporteur.
Finally, may I take this opportunity, on behalf of the Commission to wish Mr Alber every success in his new position of Advocate-General to the Court of Justice.
This institution will now be strengthened with someone who is a powerful defender of the values of the Community and whose important contribution to the development of Community law is undeniable.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Van den Broek.
May I also address my personal congratulations to Mr Alber.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.55 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
EU-Asean Relations
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0221/97 by Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the Kingdom of Cambodia (COM(97)78-6828/97 - C4-0250/97-97/0060(CNS)), -A4-0216/97 by Mr Castagnède, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the Lao People's Democratic Republic (COM(97)79-6829/97 - C4-0251/97-97/0062(CNS)), -A4-0195/97 by Mr Hindley, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the protocol on the extension of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and Brunei-Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, member countries of the Association of South-East Asian Nations, to Vietnam (COM(97)0002 - C4-0152/97-97/0017(CNS)), -A4-0262/97 by Mr Hindley, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee "creating a new dynamic in EU-ASEAN relations' (COM(96)0314 - C4-0467/96).
Mr President, the political situation in Cambodia has altered radically since the Committee on Development and Cooperation approved the cooperation agreement last July.
This is a situation which will prompt me to recommend to the Chamber tomorrow, when the vote is taken on my report, that this report be referred back to committee to allow me to update it as necessary and to give us time to contribute towards a peaceful resolution of the crisis in Cambodia.
Two months ago we witnessed a political upheaval in Phnom Penh where military action enabled the leader, Hun Sen, to take virtual control of all of Cambodia and force Prince Ranariddh to flee abroad.
The spectre of the Khmer Rouge was and continues to be behind this fighting, particularly since Pol Pot's movement broke away and has been trying to get back into civilian life in Cambodia.
The prospect of the Khmer Rouge being able to change the political framework in Cambodia, mostly thanks to alliances with the main national parties, has produced an unstable situation and brought forth the least democratic elements in Cambodian politics.
I believe it is necessary to renew our appeal to the parties to accept an immediate cease-fire in the provinces still affected by the fighting and I would ask the Cambodian government to respect the people's basic rights as a precondition for finding a solution to the crisis.
The European Union can and should play a peacemaker's role in Cambodia, as should the European Parliament by using the instrument of the framework cooperation agreement which, I repeat, it is premature to ratify at this stage.
I believe that the approval of the agreement, which will be necessary at a later date, should be subject to three basic conditions, already discussed in the Committee on Development and Cooperation: first and foremost, full adherence to the Paris agreements of 1991 and the national institutional apparatus determined by these agreements; secondly, adherence to the timetable for elections, or a guarantee that legislative elections will be held in March 1998. The elections I am talking about must be free, multi-party, democratic elections which guarantee full right of expression to all parties in Cambodia.
Moreover, these elections should be monitored by international observers, obviously including envoys from the European Parliament.
The third condition is the strict observance of human rights, a point on which we cannot give way. I therefore believe that a committee of inquiry should be set up as soon as possible to investigate accusations of massacres perpetrated during the recent fighting shortly before summer.
In the meantime, the European Union should also make a contribution to stabilizing the situation now that former Foreign Minister Um Guot has succeeded Prince Ranariddh as Head of Government.
In this connection it is necessary to support the mediation work done by King Sihanouk who has preferred to remain impartial with regard to the main players in the crisis and try to resolve the conflict on behalf of the Cambodian people who have already been severely tested by decades of dramatic history.
I also note the decision by ASEAN foreign ministers to delay further the admission of Cambodia to their organisation.
This is a real novelty as for the first time in its history ASEAN has decided that a country's internal political situation could have an adverse effect on that country's relations with the organisation.
At any rate, it is a positive approach which I hope can also be used in future with Burma, a military dictatorship which was nevertheless recently admitted to ASEAN.
Mr President, the European Parliament has an opportunity to make an active contribution to the search for a negotiated political settlement of the crisis in Cambodia and it can do so if we can by a large majority in this House use the ratification process for the framework economic and commercial cooperation agreement.
At this point we know we can count on the collaboration and cooperation of the Commission.
For these reasons I would therefore ask Parliament to grant my motion tomorrow for the report on Cambodia to be referred back to committee.
In this way I shall be attempting to convey to the Cambodian authorities the extent of Europe's concern about a political crisis which must be resolved as soon as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Laos is one of the most modest of countries - I am talking in terms of its population, which is only 5 million - in South East Asia.
It is also one of the poorest, since 46 % of the population live below the poverty line.
It is perhaps also one of the most charming due to its ethnic and cultural diversity - more than sixty different ethnic groups living together - due to its authenticity, largely preserved, its nature, its cultural heritage and its traditional ways of life.
It is also a country which has had to suffer long and painful ordeals since independence, gained in 1953.
First of all internal ordeals between the right wing, the 'neutralists' and the communist Pathet Lao.
Then, above all, the ordeal of the Vietnam War in which Laos, in spite of itself, found itself drawn in and above all the victim.
Since the supply lines of North Vietnam passed along its frontier, Laos became the object of bombing, by the American air force, on a staggering scale.
It is claimed that almost the equivalent of half a tonne of bombs per person were dropped on Laos.
We know, however, that after the fall of Saigon and the departure of the Americans from the region in 1975, Laos fell under the control of the Pathet Lao communist movement.
They imposed a Soviet-style economic model for around ten years, with no truly convincing success.
Finally, from 1986 onwards, Laos launched a programme of economic reforms which moved towards a market economy, a direction that was clearly confirmed in its 1991 constitution.
An agreement was concluded with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The first elements of co-operation were put in place with the European Union.
These concerns to open up to the outside world are being more widely concretised with Laos' adhesion to ASEAN, although they are at the same time involved in negotiations with a view to reaching commercial agreements with the United States and the European Community.
The agreement reached between the Community and Laos is a trade and cooperation agreement.
With regard to trade, the two parties agree to most favoured nation status for the exchange of goods.
With regard to cooperation, the Community has showed its willingness to contribute to a lasting development in Laos and an improvement in the living conditions of the people of Laos.
In this sense, certain priorities have already been defined in the fight against poverty, the favouring of rural development, the role of women in development, and also the development of human resources.
We would like to briefly draw Parliament's attention to the four particular features of this cooperation agreement.
It mentions first of all the serious problem of unexploded devices, the anti-personnel mines that were widespread during the Vietnam War.
Their proliferation is today a major handicap for agricultural development.
The Community will have to continue its efforts to contribute to the eradication of this blight.
The particular importance of environmental considerations in this co-operation agreement should also be highlighted.
I will not go into details, but this is an extremely interesting feature of the agreement.
The agreement contains measures with a view to combatting the production of opium, which remains a major problem in Laos.
The solution here is obviously the establishment of substitution crops.
Encouraging experiences have already been undertaken. The agreement will enable these to be extended.
It is necessary to mention, finally, the particular importance of concerns in the areas of human rights and democratic principles in the agreement which is submitted for our study.
Now established as a free market economy, it is true that Laos is still ruled by a regime which, if not one-party, is certainly one-party dominant.
It is a regime which has favourably evolved as the after effects of civil and international war have faded, but respect for human rights and democratic principles needs more in-depth treatment, which both parties to the cooperation agreement were clearly concerned about.
In fact the agreement sets out, in its first article, that respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights is an essential element of the agreement, and violation of this article would constitute a case of special urgency under which measures may be taken for the non-execution of the agreement.
Because it enables the development of human rights and freedoms in this part of South East Asia by making it a determining factor in our support to development and economic liberalization in Laos, this agreement on trade and cooperation between Laos and the Community is worthy of approval.
This is in any case the unanimous position of your Committee on Development and Cooperation, an opinion also held, of course, by your rapporteur.
Mr President, before turning to my report on Vietnam and the report on ASEAN, may I first make a procedural point.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy submitted an opinion to my report on ASEAN.
Due to an unfortunate lack of coordination between committees, this resolution was not included into today's resolution.
It will be presented as an oral amendment tomorrow and I should be grateful if whoever is in the Chair tomorrow gives me a few moments of time before the vote to explain that.
If I may turn to the substance, I would like to spend a few moments discussing the agreement with Vietnam, or that part relating to Vietnam, and then move on to the wider issue of ASEAN.
The question of Vietnam is simply a technicality to take into account that Vietnam is now a member of ASEAN and to amend our existing cooperation agreement with ASEAN to include Vietnam.
Vietnam is a poor country; it is a country which is recovering; it is a country which has tremendous potential; and is a country which really in essence has never been part of the wider world because since gaining independence at the end of the Second World War it has been submerged in its internal and external wars.
So it cannot be simply said that joining ASEAN and our agreements with ASEAN and our bilateral agreements with Vietnam are rehabilitating Vietnam.
In a very real sense Vietnam has never been allowed the privilege of joining the wider world and these agreements give that country that right at long last.
The question has been raised of human rights in Vietnam and I am sure other Members will wish to make reference to that in the succeeding debate.
For my own part could I remind the House that our bilateral agreement with Vietnam includes a human rights conditionality and this will be carried with Vietnam, as it were, into ASEAN.
That question of extending our already existing agreements with ASEAN to a new entry into ASEAN and the question of human rights, gives me the opportunity of reaching to the wider question of ASEAN itself.
ASEAN, this summer, admitted Burma at last and there is, as has just been indicated, still the possibility of Cambodia joining.
This raises the question of how we handle human rights because Members will clearly have grave reservations when it comes to the admission to our treaty with ASEAN of Burma and, to a lesser extent or perhaps equally now, Cambodia.
Let me make it clear that I myself and my Committee categorically consider membership of ASEAN to be an ASEAN issue.
Who ASEAN admits is ASEAN's business.
No one can recall ASEAN having an opinion on the enlargement of the European Union.
However, when ASEAN has been enlarged, clearly our relations with the old ASEAN will have to significantly change to take into account that new composition.
In that respect, let me say that the committee thought the most prudent and wise course is to insist that when the Treaty needs to be amended for Cambodia, Laos and Burma - we will certainly soon be presented with that in the case of Laos and Burma - we should follow the procedure adopted for Vietnam and have a separate mandate.
I would not like the issue of enlargement of ASEAN, including Burma and Laos, to be finessed by putting them together.
We would like a separate mandate so that each can be considered on its merits.
We understand that the composition and constitution of ASEAN has a concept of concentric and overlapping circles, so that membership of ASEAN does not necessarily imply that a new entrant has the right to participate fully in all the dialogues which ASEAN has with third parties.
From that we could conclude that with some skill and some wit and good judgment, we can continue our wider relations between the EU and ASEAN, taking into account the moral disapproval we may have with some of the new entrants and yet manage to continue a dialogue.
I do not think that is far beyond the wit of the Commission, the Council and other people involved to arrange.
However, the Committee is not happy with the anomalous situation that we will now have countries inside ASEAN who have bilateral human rights conditionality in their agreements with us when the overall EU ASEAN agreement does not contain such conditionality.
We would like to insist as much as we can on drawing up a new agreement between the EU and ASEAN which contains specifically human rights conditionality, not simply in the form of freedom of conscience and freedom of expression but also human rights at work.
We all accept the idea of social conditionality being important within the European Union; we accept a social chapter.
It is perfectly reasonable therefore to demand a social chapter and a social dimension to our relations with any other block, and that would include ASEAN.
If I can move on to more a positive aspect, I would stress that our relations economically and in trade terms with ASEAN seem to be a great success story.
However, it has been remarked by no less a person than the Prime Minister of Singapore himself that in the triangular world which is emerging of Europe, America and Asia, it is certain that the US-Europe link is strong.
It is also clear that the US-Asia link is emerging strong but as yet the Asia-Europe link remains weak and that would eventually have, we feel, disproportionate and disorientating effects on the general world economic welfare.
In that respect, when we talk about strengthening dialogue, the Parliament welcomes the ASEM dialogue process.
That seems to have been a successful way of moving items onto the agenda and making sure there is progress which obviates the difficulties caused by the blockage in EU ASEAN relations themselves.
We congratulate sincerely those who participate in that dialogue.
When we read the presentations to that dialogue, we welcome the mention of ministers meeting each other, we welcome the mention of academics meeting each other, we welcome youth exchanges, we welcome business exchanges, we welcome the Commission exchanging visits.
What we are looking for, however, and what is certainly not in any of the documents that we have seen is mention of parliamentarians having an exchange.
Clearly if we are to develop a genuine dialogue between Europe and ASEAN, we must involve directly elected members who have a mandate and we must facilitate contacts as part of the ASEM process and wider EU-ASEAN relations.
Finally, I should like to say a word of genuine welcome and appreciation of the document which talks of creating a new dynamic in EU ASEAN relations.
We recognise the need for more dialogue and strengthening our agreements and our cooperation.
However, that must not be at the expense of Parliament's rights to issue opinions and eventually vote on such matters.
We can accept, as a temporary expedient, the production of a document to bring on the dialogue but there really is, I must say to the Commission, no substitute for an actual agreement.
If an actual agreement is to be avoided because we fear that the ASEAN side will not accept human rights conditionality, then I am afraid Parliament will not accept that.
That must be pointed out; we can accept as a temporary measure you using a communication for a new dynamic but that is no substitute for a permanent relationship.
We do not wish to see the responsibilities of Parliament undermined in this way, so we would urge the conclusion, difficult as it may be, sticky as some issues are, of a genuine new agreement.
In that regard, President, I commend to the House approval of both the Vietnam report and the wider ASEAN report as well.
Thank you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, obviously the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy considers the relationship between the European Union and ASEAN to be an extremely important and delicate matter, for a variety of reasons.
I need not repeat how strategically important the South-East Asian region has become; I would also remind you that Europe is now the second-largest investor in this region and a need is clearly felt for an ongoing political dialogue between the European Union and ASEAN.
However, with regard to the technical question of how to go forward in this political dialogue, we believe that the best solution would be to negotiate a new, third-generation, agreement.
For this reason we believe it necessary to ask Portugal to withdraw its refusal to give the Committee a mandate to negotiate this third-generation agreement.
The various pieces of sleight of hand looked at by the Committee to get round the problem - for example, the addition of protocols to the 1980 agreement or a package of economic and social cooperation measures - cannot in our opinion be regarded as an alternative to a new, third-generation agreement with ASEAN, for one simple reason: this would weaken the agreement between Europe and ASEAN at a political level, particularly with regard to the issue of human rights, which is a key issue. We cannot hide behind a fig leaf or behind economic interests which, although important, obviously cannot have priority over certain basic principles which are currently burning issues.
Burma, which recently joined ASEAN, flagrantly and brutally violates human and democratic rights while other ASEAN countries routinely exercise the death penalty, in breach of all internationally agreed conventions.
East Timor is in a situation which up to now has been in a state of suspended animation. The arms trade is in breach of all internationally agreed conventions.
We therefore consider it necessary not to negotiate on principles, principles of self-determination, liberty and human rights.
We believe it is vital for the ASEAN countries to sign the two international conventions on human rights and against torture.
I conclude, Mr President, merely by saying that for technical and bureaucratic reasons the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security was not included in the general report of the Committee on External Economic Relations.
I hope that this intervention can be included tomorrow by means of oral amendments.
Mr President, before we go any further, I should like to congratulate my colleague Mr Hindley on his work.
The conclusions he has presented are clearly the result of a detailed study of the complex problems involved in the European Union's relations with ASEAN.
It notes the growing importance of the ASEAN countries in the international economy, their strategic relevance in safeguarding peace, stability and security in a region which is having a very significant influence on world events.
It correctly evaluates the positioning of the European Union, which, from the economic point of view, is the second largest investor in the region, and will have to opt for a positive approach of strengthening its participation in actions which further the economic and social development of those countries.
Thus it is absolutely necessary to enter into closer dialogue and raise levels of cooperation, a desideratum not clearly secured by Agenda 2000, be it said, in the fields of either commerce, investment policy or market access.
It is, nevertheless, essential to make a permanent evaluation of levels of cooperation, bearing in mind the requirements of reciprocity and the limits imposed by ASEAN internal legislation.
Just as it is also imperative to ensure that conditionality on human rights applies to all European Union-ASEAN agreements, and that this is not only agreed on paper but effectively secures the social rights of workers and the individual freedom of citizens.
We all consider the restrictions the European Union has been placing on Burma as a result of her disregard of human rights to be perfectly proper.
But all of us are also aware of the intransigent position of Indonesia, especially as regards East Timor, representing a clearly offensive attitude to which the European Union must give an effective and determined response.
It would therefore be more appropriate and politically justifiable to require that country to comply with the international rules recognised by the UNO than to ask Portugal for leave to negotiate thirdgeneration agreements, although it is recognized that these have intrinsic importance and value as the best option for a new dynamic in European Union-ASEAN relations.
All this must be achieved within a democratic framework of justice and respect for human dignity.
Mr President, if there is any country in the world which the European Union should help then it is Cambodia, for at least two reasons.
Firstly, because Cambodia is one of the poorest countries on the planet and since its trading relations are largely in deficit, only vigorous support on the part of the international community can curb and reverse the process of pauperization which this country is going through.
But this effort is required also for moral reasons.
The passivity, the cowardice which the international community, in particular the countries of Europe, showed at a time when the Cambodian people were truly the objects of genocide at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, makes it our duty to today help these people to develop their economy, improve their living conditions and move down the path to democracy.
We welcomed with satisfaction the cooperation agreement between the European Union and Cambodia, signed last 29 April, in Luxembourg.
This is a good agreement and the priorities that it establishes respond very well to the situation in the country and to the needs of its inhabitants.
The fight against poverty, the search for lasting development, defence of the environment, notably the fight against deforestation, mine clearance, education, encouragement of private investment, and also the promotion of democracy and respect for human rights are amongst the main objectives of this agreement.
Last June, for various reasons and in spite of reservations on the situation in the country regarding political stability and respect for human rights, the Group of the European People's Party approved the implementation of this agreement.
Today, unfortunately, the situation is completely different.
The coup d'etat on 5 July, by which the second Prime Minister, Mr Hun Sen, deposed the first Prime Minister, Mr Norodom Ranariddh, has plunged Cambodia once more into chaos.
Fighting has recommenced, violence is appearing in different forms - looting, assassinations - those in power challenge political pluralism and human rights are scorned.
To ratify this agreement now under these tragic circumstances would be to give our approval to the coup and all the acts of violence that it has given rise to, which are still multiplying throughout the Cambodian territory.
The PPE Group supports Luciano Pettinari's recommendation at the beginning of the sitting, to refer the report aimed at ratifying the agreement with Cambodia back to committee.
It is certainly not a question, for Europe, for the European Union, for the European Parliament, of ignoring for a second time the fate of the unhappy Cambodian people.
On the contrary, by resorting to what the rapporteur called 'active referral', it is a way of putting pressure on those who keep hold of power in order that their reign of illegality and violence may cease, so that the Paris agreements, notably those concerning the holding of elections in March 1998, may be applied, elections which we must demand take place under international supervision.
The Cambodian people have suffered far too much in their recent history and our responsibility in this is too large for our Parliament, at the time of this vote, to fail to show its clear and vigorous desire to help Cambodia to finally find the path to development and democracy.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to compliment the rapporteur, Mr Hindley, on both his detailed reports.
The Group of the Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party is pleased about the extension of our cooperation with ASEAN to Vietnam.
This will stimulate economic growth in that land and benefit social stability in that poor country.
Commercial ties within ASEAN stabilize regional relationships so that the region becomes more attractive to European investors.
Electronic trade in particular offers very interesting prospects for large and small European entrepreneurs provided that the ASEAN countries do not put up any thresholds in that area.
I am thinking particularly here of the strict rules in Singapore regarding censorship on the Internet.
International consultation is very important in order to guarantee electronic free trade.
The Liberal Group is also glad that cooperation with Vietnam is placed under the condition of respect for human rights.
This clause is one of the few instruments that the Union possesses to enforce the protection of human rights.
My group hopes that there will also be a quick result in the discussions about human rights with the other ASEAN countries.
With regard to cooperation with these other ASEAN member countries, the forest fires in Indonesia again clearly show the importance of cooperation with regard to the environment and development.
We hope that cooperation in these areas will also help to prevent such ecological disasters in the future.
Finally, my group wishes to stress that it is very important to give the euro, our common currency, a good reputation among the business world in Asia.
This can bring about an improvement in our position as the third trading partner in this region.
Mr President, there is no doubt that South-East Asia is a booming region, as Mr Hindley has just said.
From which it follows that the 1980 agreement between the European Union and the ASEAN states should continue. But just what is booming at present?
Crashes and anxiety - so that it is starting to look like Mexico a couple of years ago. In Thailand the baht is plunging, and in Kalimantan, Sumatra and Celebes the forests have been burning for weeks.
In Burma, Cambodia, East Timor and many other regions there are human rights violations going back years in some cases.
What can we conclude from this? Our relations cannot just carry on as they are.
We cannot simply liberalize trade or pursue the liberalization of investment according in line with the WTO model.
I believe that instead we need to consider whether it would not be sensible, as a means of stabilizing financial markets, to introduce something like the Tobin Tax.
Malaysia's premier was right when he told the IMF-World Bank Conference in Hong Kong a few days ago that currency speculation is immoral and demanded that it should be prohibited.
My second point is that if we conclude a treaty, it must of course cover human rights.
The EU cannot just fiddle around with protocols on a matter like this.
A basic requirement for new treaties, given our own democratic standpoint, has to be the participation of the European Parliament.
So we do not need any protocols, but a new third generation agreement.
That is why we - and many other colleagues - are asking Portugal to give up their veto on East Timor.
This does not mean that we condone the human rights violations there, no, it signals the fact that this is a European Union problem and not just one for Portugal.
The other European countries are just as involved, and it is a legacy from the colonial era.
Maybe we will even decide to apply something like a European Union protection order to the East Timor region, out of a sense of historical responsibility; maybe it can even be taken out of the treaties.
My third point is that the sustainable economy must have the utmost priority.
The economy must not be further liberalised, it needs to be restructured.
It is not a question of removing constraints, but about banning products manufactured in conditions that involve squandering resources or infringing human rights. To do this we need commitments to protection, and I believe that if we had had these, the forest fires would not have happened.
I have a question for the Commissioner: the European Union or its Commission has supported early warning systems in Sumatra. Why did they not work?
What happened to the natives in these fires?
Were they burnt to death? Are these fires possibly a form of liberalisation, to allow rice to be planted there in the near future, to complete the Transmigrasi project and perhaps to replace virgin jungle with plantations soon?
What are we doing to preserve the environment? What are we doing to conserve resources and to preserve the knowledge, the richness of the peoples in this region and in the forests?
Lastly, a word about the treaties. If we conclude new treaties and Burma is included, at present we can only, as many others have said before, support the position of Great Britain, who are pursuing a policy of not granting Burma a visa in relation to ASEAN 1998.
I believe that we should not include a state like this in the expansion process.
Of course, expansion is a matter for ASEAN, but we need to have our own ideas about it.
Are we to accept what ASEAN presents to us or not? If we cannot accept this on human rights or economic grounds, then we should not do that either, but instead make our position clear.
Mr President, Vice-President Marín, ladies and gentlemen, today in a certain number of European newspapers a group of MPs have said, notably, that Europe is not doing well, not doing well because, under the terms of the Treaty of Amsterdam, it has not made democracy a sufficiently high priority within its institutions, its procedures, or its rules of operation.
If Europe is doing badly, then ASEAN is doing very badly.
It is not by chance that fires ravage the region, that their currency is in free fall.
It is not liberalism at any cost which reigns there, Mr Telkämper, it is just liberalism, an economic system which is causing deadlock in human rights, in democracy, and which claims, in the name of the market and growth, to forget that human rights are a universal value, to forget about political democracy, and to think that the model of the state can function without these values.
We members of the Union, we have other values and I believe that in this case it is important to emphasize, as all our colleagues have rightly done, that we cannot accept, in the name of the laws of trade and profit, to close our eyes to the fact that, in spite of its generals - a little dictatorial it is true - ASEAN has accepted Burma as a member, and whilst Aung San Sun Kyi, winner of the Nobel prize and the Sakharov prize is under house arrest.
No, I believe that our Parliament and our Union have the right and the duty to say no and thus do everything possible in order that human rights clauses, and the rules which we set out in our relations with the countries with which we co-operate should be accepted.
If this is not the case, we can quite simply say to our friends in ASEAN that they can look elsewhere because we are not interested.
I know that it is a difficult position and that, very often, with China, with other countries, we fob ourselves off with fine words and then go and do the opposite.
I believe that a firm attitude towards the ASEAN countries would be a way of testing whether our values really exist or not, or of seeing if we can review them when it suits us.
Malaysia and other countries are heading a movement which will try to oppose the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Well, if our values are real, it is through them that we will put in place the co-operation that we want.
From this point of view, the comments of the rapporteur of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy are very important.
The challenging of the death penalty which is practised there, and all the other violations denounced in the report must serve as test cases, for the Commission, for us all, to demonstrate our priorities in the way in which we treat these countries.
The English Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, has just turned down a very interesting arms deal with Indonesia.
I think he did the right thing.
Such signs are important to enable us to break this agreement, if ASEAN want to accept Burma as a member.
Why not conclude bilateral agreements on the basis of our values?
Such is the challenge that in my opinion we have to take up, the challenge for which, for example, at the level of the European Union budget, our group proposed to put to one side a certain number of credits allocated to the ASEAN countries, just to show that we are not happy that they have accepted Burma as one of their members.
Mr President, regarding the report that Mr Hindley has provided on the relations between the European Union and Vietnam, and their extension through the agreements signed with the Association of South East Asian Nations.
The text presents indicative figures for economic progress achieved by Vietnam and also reminds us of the possibility of suspending our agreement in the case of human rights violations.
This 'in the case of' is truly astounding, for simple good sense should prompt the observation that no accord should have been signed from the moment when it was subjected to respect for human rights.
But perhaps the opponents of the communist regime, the believers, Christians, Buddhists, and others, persecuted, would not here be considered as humans.
Vietnam has not been liberated from the communist strait-jacket, no more than has Laos, or Cambodia.
There is also a lot than can be said regarding what the figures of improved economic well-being really reflect, the country having been reduced to generalised misery by the most ferocious form of collectivism.
The slightest relaxation evidently brings improvement, but how relative that is.
What is unfortunately certain is the phenomenal corruption that is running through the country like gangrene, in accordance with the process current in all socialist regimes where, after the eradication of men and the natural structures of the market economy, they are left swarming with mafia, like bad undergrowth in a field long ago laid to waste.
But as in 'lao gai' China, as in Cambodia, as in Laos, Vietnam remains a country of oppression, where the great martyrdom of a people subjugated by communism continues.
Let us repeat it as many times as it needs, communism was killing before Nazism killed. It was killing while Nazism killed.
In 1997, it is still killing.
The news which comes from Vietnam - I have three little Vietnamese godchildren - is frequent and always concerns the violent repression of all freedoms and the bloody repression of all demonstrations, but then two-thirds of this Assembly fought for so-called peace in Vietnam.
In its two wars of conquest, Vietnamese communism has killed millions of people in mass executions, death camps, and also through the flight of the boat people.
Unfortunately, firstly the Vietminh then the Vietcong were not lacking in support from the countries of the West, from the communist party of course, that of Boudarel the traitor, not yet come to trial, the sinister torturer of camp 113, author of crimes against humanity, who was this morning taking a coffee on the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
But it also gained massive support from the Catholic hierarchy and clergy, by admission of Cardinal de Courtray himself, on 5 January 1990.
We French are now waiting for the French bishops to ask forgiveness for their inexcusable compromise of principle, over tens of years, with the butchers of 200 million victims of these subjugated peoples.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
Today's debate is concerned with ASEAN in general, with its relatively new member Vietnam, and with Laos which has recently been included in the membership process, as well as with Cambodia, whose ASEAN membership had to be deferred for the time being because of the violent change of government last July.
Another new ASEAN member, Burma, is not the subject of discussion today, but cannot be totally ignored.
ASEAN is an inter-Asian association which, as Mr Hindley accurately writes in his report, was designed as a bulwark against communism.
However, with Laos and Vietnam, the 'tiger club' now includes two countries which despite all their economic liberalization, politically speaking still have communist governments.
The political situation has changed since the dissolution of the old blocs.
This alliance now has a geographically strategic significance in the face of the Chinese giant to the north.
Until recently, most of ASEAN's members - especially Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and to some extent Indonesia - were regarded as a never ending success story.
With two-figure growth rates, high-rise buildings were shooting up like mushrooms, output and exports were booming like never before, and Europe was starting to feel the aggressive competition in trade and had to - and is still having to - contend with job relocation.
At the same time, the ASEAN countries were recognised as an important market that had to be strategically addressed, so that the European Union became the second largest investor in this region.
The cooperation agreement with ASEAN is based on relations as they were in 1980.
So it can rightly be said that modernization is long overdue.
But that is easier said than done.
Extending the existing agreement to the new members is really just a matter of getting in training for that.
There was no problem with Brunei, a wealthy oil sultanate.
With Vietnam as well it is almost a formality, even if it is a bit tricky.
We have already mentioned the human rights issue.
Anyone who has ever set eyes on an ASEAN country knows that child labour, the sexual exploitation of women and children, the absence of workers' rights, and the oppression of ethnic and religious minorities are the order of the day in many places.
Working conditions in Malaysia and Indonesia and elsewhere constantly give rise to calls for the observance of the standards set by international labour organisations and for agreement on a social clause in the context of the WTO, but this scarcely bothers the ASEAN countries.
They refer to Asian values, which they say should be respected.
Malaysia has even called for an amendment of the definition of human rights in the 1950 UN convention.
However, more recently the tigers have suffered some severe setbacks.
Turbulence on the currency markets, economic collapse, and environmental disasters, especially in recent weeks, have made it clear that there is a penalty to pay for over-exploitation of people and of the environment, and economic development 'on tick' without a solid foundation.
This gives the call for a new dynamic in relations with ASEAN a new dimension.
For the European Union, this means a balancing act between political and economic systems, and between cooperation, toleration and rejection, if tolerance levels are exceeded.
So at present there can be no question of an agreement with the new ruler of Cambodia, Hun Sen, who literally walked over dead bodies to achieve power, nor can there be any question of supporting the military regime in Burma, which shows contempt for humanity, finances itself from the drug trade and from smuggling, and which accordingly has an unhealthy influence on its neighbouring countries, which out of poverty are driven to grow opium.
However, I believe that it is important, particularly in the case of Vietnam and Laos, to stress the development policy side, and to emphasise the need for sustainable development.
It is the job of the European Union to take care of this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to restrict my intervention to Laos, and would first like to thank Mr Castagnède for his report and for his contribution to the debate just now.
As far as development goes, we are primarily concerned with the ACP States.
But here we are dealing with Laos, one of the poorest countries in the world, which, however, has no access to the resources of the European development fund.
In that respect this agreement brings expectations of partnership and cooperation.
Poverty in a country like Laos does not just mean a shortage of food, but also inadequate health care, education and general prospects in life.
The per capita income of this country is 290 dollars a year, and when you allow for the development aid which we have given so far, in the final count 15 % of this income is actually in the form of financial support or contributions from the European Union.
If we are to work towards cooperation in the framework of this agreement, then we certainly need to be clear that we are looking at trade and cooperation spanning half the globe.
On the other hand, the entry of this country into ASEAN means that there is a market on its doorstep covering 400 million consumers.
I also have a few more questions for the Commission, much as I am pleased with this treaty.
The first question is this: what are the real prospects now for the democratisation of a single party government, given that some 75 % of the leading figures in this country are high-ranking and other military officers? The second question is this: will the market prospects for this country improve significantly inside the community of Asian countries, resulting in what we always particularly strive towards in development, that is, a regional market involving deliveries over relatively short distances?
The third question is about anti-personnel mines.
The treaty says that the Commission will examine this problem.
I would like to know what 'examining this problem' means. The fact is that up to now we have not managed to clear more mines each year than are laid.
There is an enormous discrepancy here, and would be very pleased if this issue could be treated as a priority, rather than just taking small steps here and there.
The last question that I would like to ask is this: what about the strength of the currency? Are efforts being made and plans drawn up to gradually give the country a stable and less vulnerable currency, a convertible currency?
With an inflation rate of 20 %, even growth rates of 7 % look somewhat modest.
Mr President, ASEAN is growing up fast and fraternal Europe has just started to notice this precocious, younger brother whose family ties to Europe, whether political, economic or cultural, are strengthening daily.
Like good brothers, we need a sensible and constructive way of talking to each other and so I warmly welcome the Commission's communications and Parliament's rapporteurs for the fine reports that they have written.
Take Europe's biggest project, EMU; a recent conference in Singapore highlighted the enormous trade, commercial and financial opportunities which will deepen between the two economic blocks once the Euro partners the dollar and the yen as a world reserve currency.
Commissioner De Silguy's recent ASEAN visit highlights these exciting developments.
Unfortunately, ASEAN's own recent financial wobbles may have obscured Mr De Silguy's message.
As one Thai official put it, 'I am more worried about today's mark than tomorrow's Euro.'
Doctor Mahathir's spat with George Soros about the threat to the Malaysian ringgit only serves to emphasize the interdependence of the world's financial markets, as if Baring Brothers of Singapore had not already thrown up warning signals enough.
Political ties are also strengthening inside and outside ASEAN.
The ASEAN ten must now deal with internal tensions, especially when such tensions spill over to contaminate relations with the EU.
We have to find a voice, neither rasping nor sotto voce to raise concerns about the abuse of human and political rights throughout the region and especially in Burma.
The British Government has made it clear that Burma would not be deemed a full participating Member of next year's ASEM meeting in London under the British Presidency.
At the same time, we must acknowledge ASEAN's decision to incorporate Burma, as well as Laos, and eventually Cambodia into the full block.
Cambodia's decline into political instability must surely prompt us into supporting any impetus towards democracy that rises in that troubled country.
Let us hope that free and fair elections can be held with EU encouragement next May or November.
For Vietnam, the EU cooperation agreement offers potent opportunities for lively but constructive dialogue.
Just how will the first ever human rights call for an ASEAN country be interpreted in the case of Vietnam.
It must surely be remiss of us to pass over the importance of countries like Malaysia and Indonesia in today's world.
The world's fourth largest nation, Indonesia, still has to resolve its difficulties with Europe, including Portugal, over the question of East Timor.
I hope that they can be sympathetic to Parliament's request to visit East Timor in an official EP delegation.
We in turn, if visas are granted, should be prepared to report fairly and honestly all that we see and hear several years on now from the dreadful deaths of Deli.
Finally, smog.
El Niño and the slash-and-burn forestry clearance policies of Indonesia are a devastating cocktail.
ASEAN countries cannot insulate themselves from the outside world, just as we in Europe and Britain cannot.
When our friends and colleagues come next year to London, now miraculously free from its all-enveloping 19th century smog, let us hope that only the mist and mizzle of the 21st century stand between us and ASEAN in the development of our fraternal futures together.
Thank you President.
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner four questions, of which he answered two in his speech.
I would also very much like to know if there are any definite plans regarding antipersonnel mines.
What is the meaning of 'we will examine the problem' ? My second question was whether measures are envisaged to stabilize the currency in Laos.
I also asked the Commissioner a couple of questions; I mentioned that the European Union had supported or set up an early warning system in Sumatra.
This early warning system did not alert us quickly enough to the forest fires.
Why did it not work? I would be grateful for an answer to this question.
I just think that this is important in the light of the current debate.
Mr President, I also asked a question, albeit not at all explicit, which I should now like to repeat. If, as I have heard, a meeting of the ASEAN countries is to be held next year during the British Presidency and we could ask about Burma, if it would be acceptable to ASEAN to proceed by means of bilateral agreements where we had something to say about Burma.
What did the Committee think of the other idea, namely not to accept ASEAN as a block but to negotiate separate cooperation agreements with the different countries?
What is your position in this specific case, which could of course happen?
Mr President, my reply to the first question from Mrs Günther about anti-personnel mines, is that this is an urgent and fundamental matter in Cambodia, but not one of the aims of the cooperation agreement as such.
It is a problem which exists in the area, but it is not part of the agreement.
What are we doing about this problem? Well, for some time now the European Union has had some very intensive programmes to rid Cambodia of mines, and we have been working very hard to try to resolve the problem.
My opinion on anti-personnel mines is that their manufacture should be halted world-wide.
In other words, there is no problem in this respect.
Furthermore, I believe that the whole of the European Union thinks the same way.
As for monetary stabilization, as you well know the Commission does not have financial powers, and unfortunately the euro still does not exist.
Will the European Union be able to intervene the day the euro comes into existence? You are asking me a question which I cannot answer.
You know better than I that as yet the European Union has no external responsibility in financial matters.
Perhaps from January 1, 1999, when the euro has responsibilities internally and externally, the European Union may perhaps be able to intervene by means of normal participation in the international financial institutions, for example the Asian Development Bank which is a World Bank regional bank.
However, as things stand we do not have the means or the ability, not even internally.
This is a debate for the future.
If you want my opinion, I am in reasonable agreement with the views expressed by the Director General of the Fund, Mr Camdessus, in Hong Kong.
Globalization is fine and so is free movement of capital, but there are of course certain objective limits which must be adjusted to make sure that the positive aspects of globalization do not turn into a powerful element of destabilization, particularly in those countries with the weakest economies.
As for the fires in Sumatra, it was said that the early warning system did not work.
I do not understand your question, Mr Telkämper.
Mr President, another quick point of clarification.
I had mentioned that it was worthwhile to support environmentally sustainable projects and, regarding human rights, to protect the peoples living in these forests.
As far as I know, funding from the European Union was used to set up and support an early warning system for the Sumatra Kalimantan region, to prevent such fires, such disasters.
In this case the Commission was very progressive and did something with a lasting effect.
My question is why this European Union project did not work. If the question is too specific, Mr Commissioner, you can also let me have a written reply if necessary.
Mr Telkämper, why do you say that it did not work?
Because there are now major forest fires, and in my intervention I asked if this was perhaps the result of liberalisation, with forests simply being burnt to clear land for the migration project, for rice cultivation, for new plantations.
That was the question at the root of it.
But, as I said, if that is too specific to answer now, you can also let me have a written reply.
That is simple, Mr President.
You say the system did not work, and I am asking you to explain why you think it did not work. If I want to prove to you that there is no light in this semicircle, I have to show you that we are sitting in the dark.
Perhaps we are misunderstanding each other, but if the European Union supports a project, I assume that it is put into effect well technically and administratively speaking, and that it is intended to have a preventive function...
(The President cut off the speaker)
I cannot remember Mr Dell'Alba's question.
My friend Mr Telkämper always unsettles me politically, Mr President.
Now I do not remember where I had got to.
Mr Commissioner, you may answer in writing.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
EU-former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia cooperation agreement
The next item is the report (A4-0273/97) by Mr Pons Grau, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding a Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (COM(96)533-8204/97 - C4-0305/97-96/305-96/0259 (AVC)).
Mr President, I am speaking in support of this agreement on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, whose members supported it unanimously.
The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is the only republic to emerge from the former Yugoslavia without bloodshed.
This small country of two million inhabitants in the heart of the Balkans between Albania, SerbiaMontenegro, Bulgaria and Greece has had to face inter-ethnic tensions and difficult relations with its closest neighbours, the direct repercussions of which on its economy and its insertion into the international economy and international community have been negative in the extreme.
However, more than six years on from the declaration of sovereignty, it is gradually beginning to emerge from the economic and international isolation in which it found itself thanks to a double embargo: the direct embargo imposed by Greece, and the indirect repercussions of the international community's embargo on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Mr President, I am not going to spend much time on the problems which this Republic and the Greek people have both suffered - you know these much better than I do. But at the present time, the only major problem remaining is that of the Republic's name.
Everything appears to indicate that this point will also be resolved shortly in the United Nations Security Council.
Considering the country's economic and political circumstances, one success achieved by its government's current policies is inflation control, which has been carried out very decisively.
At the same time however, on the minus side, it must be said that unemployment has reached a record level of 37 % in a short time, which shows that the economic measures have been very harsh.
The key problem of the country's economy is how to raise levels of investment to modernize production structures, transport infrastructure and social infrastructure in an economic context characterized by very low levels of domestic saving, high interest rates and a heavy burden of public spending.
Despite the positive changes seen in the Republic's economic situation, its economic future would appear to be completely conditional on the political uncertainties which characterize both the country's own domestic politics and those of its neighbours.
The complexity of the situation is clearly revealed by the country's ethnic makeup: 65 % of the two million inhabitants are Macedonians, 22 % are Albanians, 4 % Turks, 2 % Serbs, and 4 % belong to other minorities.
In fact, the principle threat to the country's stability lies in the treatment of the problem of the Albanian minority.
As regards the content of the cooperation agreement, it is similar to the one signed with Slovenia in 1993.
It is a framework trade and cooperation agreement, preferential and susceptible of further development.
The democratic basis of cooperation constitutes an essential part of the agreement.
There is also a joint declaration which will permit: the establishment of a regular political dialogue; the reinforcement of democratic principles and institutions as well as respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities; and the Republic's full integration into the community of democratic nations.
Meetings and contacts are provided for at ministerial, technical and parliamentary level, and the joint declaration also envisages the possibility of organizing political dialogue as regional dialogue.
The trade arrangements are the usual ones in such cases: provisions concerning rules of origin; intellectual, industrial and commercial property; anti-dumping procedures and subsidies; safeguard measures required for infant industries and for difficulties with regard to trade and balance of payment; and provisions for consultation within the Cooperation Council.
We think this cooperation agreement is of enormous value, for reasons of politics more than of economics.
Therefore, the Committee on External Economic Relations thinks that in this region troubled by continuous political, economic and even military problems, which have gone so far as to affect the development of the European Union, it is politically important that we should support this cooperation agreement.
Mr President, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has voted in favour of signing the cooperation agreement between the European Union and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
To the economic reasons stated by Mr Pons Grau, I should like to add the considerations of a more strictly political nature advanced by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
Over the past few years Macedonia has managed to achieve independence without the terrible tragedies that accompanied the independence of the other regions of former Yugoslavia and the European Union will have to do everything in its power to sustain the continuing economic transformation of Macedonia and consolidate its democratic life.
In our judgement it would be very useful for the European Union to have its own delegation in Skopje to monitor carefully and from close at hand the development of this democratic experience.
In commending to the House approval of this agreement, which we consider to be of great political importance, we consider it incumbent upon us to call on the Macedonian government to monitor carefully the situation with regard to its minorities and the situation with regard to civil rights in general.
Macedonia has a population which is complex in its ethnic origins and this government must show a high degree of respect for the complexity of the situation over which it governs.
With this opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, we move that this House should vote in favour.
Mr President, first of all please allow me to take a few moments to say that having seen Mr Telkämper and Vice-President Marín confer I hope to have, at least in writing, the reply I was expecting to my previous question.
As the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets I should like to say that our committee also voted in favour of enabling us to go ahead with this agreement.
This effort is very important.
This issue has three essential elements: Parliament has already accepted macroeconomic aid to ease the country's balance of payments situation.
Now, with this agreement, and therefore with all the elements of technical, financial and commercial cooperation, we are doing something important and significant for the Republic of Macedonia.
From this point of view, the aspect of the financial protocol is significant: 150 million ECU from the BEI, guaranteed by the community budget.
We have asked, and duly received from the Commission, estimates as to the financial implications.
The Committee on Budgets now confirms the favourable assessment given to this agreement.
I take the liberty of making a small point with regard to financial cooperation: the rapporteur believes that recycling is in conflict with other methods, with a different policy in relation to drugs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the concluding of a cooperation agreement between the European Union and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, together with the finance protocol and the agreement on transport, is indeed of great political value since it will make a vital contribution to the economic development of this small Balkan state, to the restructuring of its industry, the rekindling of its commercial dealings, and the promotion of more stable and balanced relations with neighbouring countries.
It must be emphasized, however, that the agreement comprises a special provision and gives particular importance to social development and social rights, which is an innovative aspect of this agreement.
It is a fact that the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, as demonstrated in the debates that took place in the Interparliamentary Assembly yesterday and the day before yesterday, has made great efforts to modernize and to strengthen the competitiveness of its economy, and also to gradually adapt its infrastructures to the European models and indeed, as is well known, under particularly difficult conditions and at a difficult historical juncture.
Following its interim agreement with Greece, the economic activities across its southern borders take on even greater significance.
Greece is the Community state with the greatest amount of exports to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the third as regards the totality of its commercial dealings.
The development of road networks that is provided for by the agreement is expected to further facilitate the development of economic relations and an increase in the volume of reciprocal trade.
The cooperation agreement is expected, among other things, to facilitate political dialogue on the consolidation of democratic institutions, respect for human rights, including the rights of minorities, and the promotion of security, peace and stability throughout the whole of Europe, and, more especially, in this sensitive region of the Balkans.
Closer ties between the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the European Union must be given support.
The country has a pro-European parliament and a government which recognises the importance of good regional cooperation.
Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, if you would allow me, as someone from a country which is of course a signatory to this agreement, Greece, to express my desire and my wish to break down the final barrier to relations between the two countries by finding a viable and dignified solution, which is acceptable to both sides, to the problem of the international name of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, a solution that will respect the sensitivities of both countries.
In addition, I also would like to support the request of this country for the creation of a European Union office in Skopje.
Mr President, as a Czech Bishop from Northern Bohemia used to say, to love one's neighbour would be a wonderful thing, if only the neighbour did not live so terribly close!
That is exactly the problem with Macedonia.
Macedonia is a small country with various neighbours and a very complicated history, and it has repeatedly been in danger of being overwhelmed by this history.
So we will be all the happier both now and in the future if our Parliament says yes to this agreement, which will represent a breakthrough in accepting this country into the community of Europeans, a country which has contributed a great deal to our history and culture, and will also make a great contribution to the future of Europe.
Nevertheless, the problems remain acute.
We only have to think, as my colleague Mr Pons Grau has mentioned, about the problems of the ethnic Albanians in Macedonia, but who mentions the fact that this is directly connected with the Kosovo problem, the fact that the oppression of Kosovo led to the extremely difficult situation at the Albanian University in Tetovo in Macedonia? This is just one example that demonstrates how various different issues are closely interwoven in this region.
Therefore we owe it to this country to offer it unambiguous support on the path to Europe, and above all we must make sure that the freedom and independence of this country are safeguarded.
We have talked about Asia today, and quite rightly so, but it would be a pity if we talked about Asia without being able to solve elementary European problems.
The country of Macedonia would not even exist today if the United States of America had not begun to defend that country's independence in the face of possible Serbian aggression.
When one considers the forces currently involved in taking over power in Serbia, it is a question of out of the frying pan, into the fire, and there is a risk of renewed massive conflict.
It is therefore high time that we concluded this trade and cooperation agreement after years of blockade.
We must support the forces of democracy in this country.
We should not reproach this country for failings in the reform process, because logic dictates that when there is external pressure it is incredibly difficult to carry out internal reforms at the same time.
For that reason it is impressive that reform has taken place to such an amazing extent at all, but we need to intensify the process.
Above all, we need to agree that the next stage, that is an association agreement and Europe agreement, should follow as quickly as possible.
Slovenia needed three years to take this step, and I believe that Macedonia should not have to wait any longer.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, my colleague Mr Posselt has already suggested that this agreement will be just one step into the future for Macedonia. I would like to add how pleased I am that this cooperation agreement with Macedonia has fallen on such fertile soil in this Parliament.
First of all, I would of course like to thank Mr Pons Grau very warmly for his report.
Macedonia is a country that has gone through a lot in recent years, a country that has managed to free itself from a very difficult hold, which many other countries in a similar situation did not succeed in doing - we only have to think of the fate of Bosnia-Herzegovina, for example.
I believe that this country therefore deserves our support.
So I would also like to stress how delighted I am that a few weeks ago, when we were discussing macro-economic aid for Macedonia, this Parliament changed its spots and agreed to this aid, although there had not been a corresponding debate either in committee or in this House, and displayed enormous confidence, quite rightly in my opinion.
I believe that we in the European Union occupy a significant position, when one considers who Macedonia's traditional trading partners are today.
These are first Bulgaria, followed by the remains of Yugoslavia and then by Russia.
But if we take a look at the map now, and I often have the feeling we do not do that often enough, we can see that Macedonia really is a key country in the Balkans.
For that reason, we must promote overall transport links.
Macedonia is situated almost in the European Union, if you can envisage the route from Greece to Austria or Germany.
This infrastructure needs to be built up both for the sake of this country and also to provide adequate links for the European Union.
I honestly believe that we have a great obligation towards this country.
It is almost a moral obligation, if you consider the geography, if you consider what this country has been through.
Once again, I am pleased that this report has been received so positively by this Parliament, and I hope that it will continue on the path determined for it.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Pons Grau for his excellent report and tell him that the Commission shares his opinion that the cooperation agreement is of supreme importance for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and the development of its relations with the Community. This is because it includes a system of trade preferences, a financial protocol and political dialogue (based on a separate declaration) which sets in motion relations which are unquestionably important for the future of this country, not just within its own region but also of course in its relations with the European Union.
Furthermore, together with the separate transport agreement, the cooperation agreement will greatly promote stability and cooperation in the region.
The Commission also goes along with the general opinion expressed by the speakers, that this cooperation agreement is a first step of great political significance which, in the final analysis, is far more important than its economic value.
Because of this importance, the Commission hopes that the Council will approve without delay the decision to bring in the cooperation agreement and the transport agreement, so that it can come into force on 1 December 1997 at the latest.
The Macedonian Government is still applying its policy of economic and political reforms, but we all know that it is faced with difficult economic and social problems such as low economic growth and, of course, high unemployment as a result.
As well as the normal financial aid under the Phare programme - ECU 15 million directly from the Phare programme and ECU 10 million for transfrontier cooperation with Greece - a further ECU 8 million has recently been made available to the country.
There will be no difficulty in absorbing these funds, which will be used to promote projects which have priority under the existing multiannual indicative programme for 1996-1999 - namely, those involving SMEs, public investment aid, and the Tempus education programme.
Similarly, the Commission is studying how the Phare programme can help to improve inter-ethnic relations, which constitute one of the most complex aspects of the domestic political situation.
Finally, the Commission would like to express its appreciation of the European Parliament's initiatives to develop contacts with the Macedonian Parliament. Such contacts are an important focus for increasingly close relations also between the European Union and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Therefore, the Commission would be very pleased if this political dialogue between the European Parliament and the Macedonian Parliament could be developed and strengthened even further.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.55 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
The Union for Europe Group, of which I am a member, initiated a peace mission last week to Angola.
We received visas to visit Angola and the purpose of the visit was purely peaceful to try to ensure that both sides were fully involved in implementation of the Lusaka Accords.
Unfortunately, when we arrived in Lisbon, our visas were cancelled by the Angolan Ambassador to Portugal.
It seems to me that if a vice-president of the ACP Joint Assembly and Mrs van Bladel, a vice-chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and five members of the Portuguese Parliament are prevented from visiting Angola, there is something radically wrong in that region.
I would ask you, Mr President, on behalf of the third largest group in this Parliament to protest at the treatment meted out to Members of the European Parliament by the Angolan Government.
There has to be two sides, Unita and MPLA, implementing the Lusaka Accords to have a solution in Angola and the tension in the region.
We all felt it was a challenge to the legitimacy of the Angolan Government that we were treated in this manner.
I would ask you to write to the Angolan Ambassador to the European Union in Brussels for an explanation of why we were prevented from visiting Angola at the very last moment.
Thank you very much, Mr Andrews.
Not only will your comment be recorded in the Minutes as the Rules stipulate, but I have also made a note of it, as President of this sitting, and I will ensure that it is brought to the attention of Parliament's President .
EU-ACP relations for the 21st Century
The next item is the report (A4-0274/97) by Mr Martens, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Commission's Green Paper on relations between the European Union and the ACP countries on the eve of the 21st Century - Challenges and options for a new partnership (COM(96)0570 - C4-0639/96).
Mr President, the subject of future relations between the European Union and the ACP countries is an essential part of the Union's future external relations and a fundamental part of cooperation policies aimed at development. It is also an important element in defining the internal aspect of the process of European integration.
The European Commission has done well to launch a thorough debate over the past few months which has already involved thousands of participants, both from the institutions and society in general.
Now it is up to the European Parliament to state its views before the Commission's negotiating mandate to discuss the future of the agreement with the ACP countries is worked out.
In my opinion, over twenty years' experience of the Lomé Convention has essentially shown two things: the first is that the principles of a global, even-handed, contractual agreement based on partnership are still valid today and that in the new reality of a world which is even more globalized and interdependent they must therefore be put into practice more vigorously and coherently; the second is that many of the practical mechanisms and the priorities of our cooperation on development must be changed to make them more efficient and appropriate to the current needs of countries in which a headlong rush towards modernity and underdevelopment live together in an increasingly conflicting manner.
We must therefore speak our mind very forcefully to make sure that there is a 5th Lomé Convention, even before the year 2000, based on the same geographical limits and the same essential principles as the convention currently in force, but with a far-reaching reorientation of its content.
Based on this, however, there must be a new awareness on the part of the European Union that the development of relations with the ACP countries represents a strategic option, which is to the benefit of all the contracting parties, of facing the challenges of globalization together.
European cooperation on development must therefore cease to be on the political sidelines and must become an essential part of our foreign policy and contribute to a reorientation of our strategic options.
The ACP countries in general, and the African countries in particular, have undergone an intense process of marginalization which has forced them, with one or two exceptions, towards a more severe state of underdevelopment.
Fighting poverty and helping the poorest countries to become part of the international system must therefore become two sides of the same coin.
To do this it is necessary to give top priority to the objectives of sustainable human development based on the appropriation by the poorest countries of the means of development through the exploitation of their human resources.
Together with the ACP countries the Union must therefore contribute to a redefinition of the mechanisms governing international relations.
On this not only depends the future of hundreds of millions of people in the ACP countries but also the possibility of the European Union becoming an effective and efficient player on the international scene, capable of furthering the cause of equality, justice and prosperity in all parts of the world.
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating Mr Martens on his excellent report.
It is excellent because it provides a broad vision of the relationship between the European Union and the third world and also excellent because the report above all also shows an understanding of the difficult position in which many developing countries find themselves.
The rapporteur did not let himself be drawn into the fashionable criticism of our relationship with the third world.
A number of constructive proposals have been placed on the table here in order to improve and streamline the relationship and to adjust to the modern period of globalization, renewed trading relations and development of civil society.
In this connection I wish to make a few remarks in order to underline our vision once more.
My first comment concerns regionalization.
Many third-world countries with which we cooperate, as far as their trade is concerned, are very dependent upon Europe and the large trading blocks.
Their infrastructure with regard to exports is mainly geared towards the coast and the links between the countries themselves, even neighbouring countries, are often much worse.
I would stress here that the building up of a successful economy is often primarily geared to the domestic market, then to the market of the neighbouring country and only then to distant overseas markets.
It is therefore very important to encourage the building up of cross-border regional cooperation.
In my view that is an important point in the new Lomé V.
A second remark concerns democratization and the protection of human rights and the rights of minorities.
Several times progress that has been made with great effort, has been lost because small groups sought power, internal wars have broken out and corruption has occurred on a grand scale.
I feel it is especially important to stipulate better terms and to monitor them more closely.
It is also important in this context that preventive diplomacy be given more of a chance, as Mr Rocard already said earlier in a report.
My third comment concerns civil society.
I cannot stress strongly enough that countries cannot only develop on the basis of governments and business; social organizations also play a key part in building up a society.
That is of especially great importance and I am pleased that Mr Martens has stressed that and that it will also be given an important place in the new structure of Lomé V.
Finally, I would make a comment on the OCTs, the overseas countries and territories.
Many of them are among the ACP countries, but the relationship with the European Union and the ACP countries is particularly complicated.
I would call upon Commissioner Pinheiro to submit the OCT decisions as quickly as possible and to ensure that the relationship between the OCTs, the ACP countries and the European Union also improves and does not lead to havoc as was the case, amongst others, with the rice dispute.
That is a painful matter that must also be placed on the table within the context of this discussion.
Mr President, Mr Martens has undertaken some excellent work.
Enough leads have been given for renewal up to Lomé V. We want a Lomé V, let that be understood, but it must be a good Lomé V that follows the lines that have been brought out so clearly in Mr Martens' excellent report.
Mr President, the Lomé Convention is a first-rate model of cooperation which, despite its imperfections, is now preparing to enter the third millennium.
The various problems raised, studied and dealt with in the Commission's Green Paper, along with the worthy contribution of the Committee on Development and Cooperation - here I would like to pay tribute to our rapporteur - have led to the drafting of this motion for a resolution, in which Parliament's desire to see the birth of a Lomé V, whose main objective would be the plugging of gaps in our cooperation, is clearly highlighted.
We all know that globalization of the economy leads to social disparities and thus development aid, which is the premise on which the Lomé Convention is based, should be an instrument of economic regularization for a better distribution of the wealth of this planet.
This new alliance which is emerging between the ACP countries and the European Union must be approached in a global and coordinated way, taking into consideration the disparate interventions of Member States in development cooperation policy.
Ladies and gentlemen, only cooperation between the European Union and its Member States around an efficient development aid policy can enable the ACP countries to integrate progressively into the world economy.
While the wider principles which governed the drafting of the Lomé Convention in 1975, its contractual character, partnership, security, forward planning must be maintained, it is also desirable that more appropriate and substantial means be made available by the European Union in order to satisfy the real needs that are appearing in the negotiations.
Thus, for example, the incorporation of the EDF into the European Union's budget becomes a legal obligation, designed to ensure a permanent and reasonable level of resources, and a greater involvement of our Parliament in their management.
Furthermore, the reconciliation of the European Union's duty of solidarity towards countries once subject to European colonization, and the safeguarding of our commercial interests through partnership with the ACP countries, which is also a legal obligation, are above all moral duties that we all share.
Quite clearly, no progress is possible, no advances will be made, if free trade remains the only vehicle of international commerce.
Quite clearly, the question mark over the banana COM actually serves to confirm and consolidate our convictions in this area.
Finally, I would like to stress the need to take into consideration the dimension of regional integration and decentralized cooperation, through the implementation of legal mechanisms and adequate means enabling the development of concrete relations between, above all, the ACP countries and certain ultraperipheral regions of the European Union.
Mr President, I too would like to join those who have been praising the good work done by the honourable Member, Mr Martens, and it precisely for this reason that I shall be dwelling on two criticisms of the report he has presented to this House.
The first point concerns paragraph 9, third indent, where Mr Martens wants contracts to replace the unmanageable accumulation of multiple conditionalities.
I and my group agree with the need to reduce the number of conditionalities but at the same time it must be stressed, forcefully, at the same time that the instrument of conditionality is the best way to make sure that the country sets out on the road to democracy and respect for human rights.
This is why I and my group believe that this replacement of the accumulation of conditionalities by contracts cannot fail to be conditional on the fact that the affected countries have to respect human rights and the principles of democracy.
The same criticism applies to paragraph 83, where it is stated that the principles established by the World Trade Organization could be waived for developing countries.
If we believe in the principles of a liberal, free-market economy on which the European Union is based, the only way we can state this is solely and exclusively on condition of achieving the predetermined objectives.
Once a developing country is able to stand on its own two feet, we do not see why the principles established by that organization should be waived.
That is the significance of two amendments we have proposed and we seek to uphold them before this House.
Mr President, within the framework of economic globalization and at a time when unfortunately there is decreased development cooperation in many countries, it is more important than ever for the European Union to confirm its political, economic and financial commitment to the 70 ACP countries. This is the very least it is obliged to do for the sake of international solidarity.
From our point of view, it is essential to use the Lomé V debate to consider some vital questions.
Firstly, we must promote greater consistency in provisions for development cooperation and in other policy sectors, especially trade.
In this respect, we must bear in mind the regrettable and negative example of the cocoa directive.
Secondly, the European Union's message must be that the ACP countries cannot be strictly bound by WTO rulings, because these countries are not able to compete on equal terms with countries which are more developed economically and industrially.
In this respect, it is essential that ACP policy should retain those provisions which guarantee the ACP countries a presence in exports to European countries, by means of preference systems.
Doubtless this point brings to mind the example of the banana, which was also negative.
There can be no doubt that political dialogue with the ACP countries must be strengthened, and that we should move from a system of aid and cooperation to one based principally on political partnership.
Finally in this debate, Lomé V must also be made consistent.
It is a unique frame of reference for the Union's specific political aims of cooperation with the ACP countries. However, other provisions could also be made, to promote subregional cooperation and integration.
Mr President. Mr, Martens has presented here a report which will find the support of a broad majority, simply because he has also provided for a broad dialogue between the political Parties.
That is similar to what was done earlier by Mr Pinheiro, who visited the capitals of Member States to form a view on the continuation of the Parity Meeting, the relationship between the ACP and the EU. It is as a result of this dialogue that we on the European side can arrive at a clear position.
What is missing, in my view, is a completely clear declaration by the ACP side on what their concepts are, and what their demands are.
We can but say that this was a special programme.
It should also remain special programme.
This concerns the poorest of the poor and it is, therefore, a basic requirement that we on the European side also have a concept of a programme where...
(The President interrupted the speaker.)
I do not think we should operate a policy of divide and rule, dividing the future of the ACP into A, C and P. Just because they are the poorest countries they must be able to stand together opposite us and maintain a dialogue line representing the south.
The instruments we had formerly, such as Stabex for price stabilization, were important ones in enabling emergence from the dependence of colonialism.
In view of the experience we have gathered, however, they must be revised, because they often continued to support a monoculture.
Scientists have produced models for us here, and I think we should put them to use.
From a development policy standpoint it is not acceptable to believe, as Mr Fassa has said, that these countries can develop within a WTO framework and keep pace with industrialized nations or the World market.
Experience contradicts that.
We need protection for the poorer countries so that they can first catch up in development.
What is still missing is the inclusion of women in development.
In these countries they are often the main people who contribute to the development process.
What we need above all - and for me this was not sufficiently emphasized in Mr Martens' report - is the Parity Conference.
The history of relationships is a history of partnership, and we must maintain this partnership.
For this reason we need a place for political dialogue, for mutual discussion. That was the special thing about the Lomé Convention, and we should advocate it in the future.
In short, we need a fifth agreement in principle, so that this story can be continued towards development, and not towards constriction within industrialization; so that structures change; so that we also obtain the budget here; so that this Parliament participates in the whole process; and above all, so that changes occur in these countries, so that a democratic development like that of the European Union can take place, and so that human rights are respected.
Those must be the main essentials of the new agreement.
Mr Martens has described that, so we shall support this report.
Mr President, in its Green Paper, the European Commission rightly states that the balance of Lomé is moderate.
Despite the trade preferences, the share of the ACP countries of the internal market of the Union has fallen from 6.7 % in 1975 to 3.7 % in 1994.
Sysmin and Stabex have not contributed to the diversification of the exports of the ACP countries.
Project aid has not helped their prosperity.
My greatest objection to Mr Martens' resolution is that, despite its length, it completely ignores the Commission's analysis.
The resolution stresses the basic principles of the Lomé Convention as partnership, predictability and certainty.
However noble these principles may be, they have not brought about any improvement in the situation of the ACP countries after some 20 years.
Continuing more or less in the same way, as the rapporteur proposes, is not in the interests of the ACP countries.
Therefore on the final vote I shall be voting against the resolution.
That does not alter the fact that I can agree with many paragraphs of the resolution.
In particular I wholeheartedly support paragraph 20 on decentralized cooperation and paragraph 43 on the strengthening of trade cooperation and the elimination of the residual obstacles.
However, I do object greatly to paragraph 80 in which it is regretted that development cooperation has not been further "communitarized' .
In my view, the Member States must hold the responsibility for the development policy.
Therefore I feel that the permanent political dialogue proposed by the European Commission goes much too far.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of the summit of the ACP Heads of State which is due to take place in Libreville, it is now necessary for Parliament to give them a very strong political signal.
My group, the European Radical Alliance, is convinced of the absolute need to maintain the framework of reference of the Lomé Convention by revitalizing its content.
We are therefore in complete agreement with the rapporteur, whose remarkable work will, I hope, be able to convince not only the Council, the Commission and our ACP partners but also all the citizens of Europe, of the need for a 5th Lomé Convention.
Let me remind you of a few essential points.
We must fight against the loss of interest in development aid and against the so-called crisis of legitimacy which it is suffering.
There are still shared interests between the countries of the Union and the developing world.
We must also fight against the tendency towards renationalization of development cooperation policies.
The European Union must remain the crucible of public development aid, for it is a privileged partner able to stand up to the Americans and the Asians.
Similarly, we must make sure that the enlargement of the European Union is not used as a pretext to divert the Union away from pre-existing forms of solidarity, notably with the ACP countries.
On this basis, we must set out to reorganize ACP-European Union cooperation within the framework of a responsible partnership.
We must, nevertheless, take care that this partnership is a truly balanced one and that it is not once more directed towards solely satisfying European concerns.
This partnership creates duties for us: the democratization process, human resource training, the development of localized and lasting economic structures.
With this in mind, we note with interest and satisfaction that Togo, the host country of the Lomé Convention, is now combining a growth rate of 6 % per year with a positive and rapid development of its democratic institutions.
It is a strong and encouraging sign for the next ACP-EU Joint Assembly which will take place at the end of October.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a supporter, not of a Europe of fusion and confusion but of a confederal Europe which respects the freedom and sovereignty of our peoples, you will not be surprised when I say that we do not approve of all of the spirit of the Green Paper nor the report by Mr Martens.
We are, of course, agreed on the wishes and general principles, the partnership and the call for participation from all of the population.
But we do not think that a globalizing vision, as somehow key to relationships between blocks, is satisfactory.
We approve of exchange rate regulation, of course, but with regard to concrete development aid, to agriculture, industry, health, housing, we think flexible coordination is called for, rather than a centralized organization.
Indeed, our countries have woven links with the countries of Africa, a past, a history, lessons of experience.
France can work best with Senegal, the Ivory Coast or Togo, as Portugal probably can with Angola or Mozambique.
I fear that in the area of development as well, people continue to pay a high price for ideological constructivism.
Thank you very much, Mrs Barthet-Mayer.
I have two general requests from the Presidency to the House.
Firstly, that in preparing their speeches, honourable Members should try to respect the time allotted to them by their groups.
I know how difficult it is to put across such important messages in such a short time.
However, when you repeatedly overrun, there is not enough time left for us to complete the agenda.
Secondly, despite the short time available to you, please speak slowly because otherwise the already difficult work of interpretation is made even harder.
I constantly receive complaints from the interpretation booths about how difficult it is for the interpreters to follow our speeches.
Ladies and gentlemen, you know I never stop you from speaking. All I do is tell you - perhaps emphatically - when your time is up.
I beg you to exercise some self-control please, so that we can do our work properly.
Ladies and gentlemen, that comment was not directed at any one person in particular. Now that I have made it, Mr Rocard has the floor for two minutes.
Mr President, Mr Martens has presented a report of exceptional quality.
This report is a credit to Parliament as well as a useful tool for the Commission and for the negotiations.
Thank you!
The report has two virtues: the strength of its language and convictions and a willingness to add to the courses plotted with many amendments and further detail, which gives the overall resolution a strongly innovative character.
I hope the virtual unanimity in our committee heralds virtual unanimity in this Parliament to maintain a convention, to confirm that the geographic field must not change except at the request of the ACP countries, and to insist that, beyond the economic aspect, the main innovation we can expect will relate to the political aspect, absent until now from the first four conventions.
This is aimed at support for training and democratic structures.
This is aimed at integration - there is even an amendment which will surprise you by its technical nature but which is important in the prevention of crises and conflict resolution.
This even aims at measures of solidarity, interafrican probably, of encouragement and monitoring of good governance.
If the ACP countries are in agreement amongst themselves, the ideas we bring will be important.
In economic terms we are naturally less innovative, but all the same may I remind you first of all of the importance of restoring all its power to Sysmin, our assistance to infrastructure in a market which is becoming more standardized, and above all the very new aspect, the recognition of a people's economy, which should no longer be called informal so as not to confuse it with drugs and delinquence, for the small scale grass roots economy is the very heart of development.
When we speak, Mrs Barthet-Mayer, of the rural world, this is what we have in mind, and I think you have forgotten that.
Lastly, Mr President, and I will finish on this note, perhaps the newest aspect of the report is the desire to move away from direct development aid towards a releasing of the brakes, by getting rid of the obstacles to development.
Firstly we have to put an end to the intellectual plundering of Africa and protect the rare patents and licences and their new products, avoiding the appropriation of their intellectual property by multinationals from the developed world.
Secondly we need to underline the necessity of regional integration as an aid to development.
Thirdly we need to speculate in decentralized cooperation by stressing, Mr Commissioner, the fact that in decentralized cooperation local communities are not treated as NGOs, but as a different category.
Finally, and this is my last point, we stress the emergence of this new and very hopeful concept of micro-credit.
Banking consisting of tiny loans, based on trust in a small group, but without material guarantees.
It is another world.
Here is the way out of poverty.
We are proud that this report incorporates so many innovations.
Mr President, the report by our group leader, Mr Martens, who has the constant support for the Group of the European People's Party, is the mirror image of our years of experience in the Europe Parliament of development co-operation, not only in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, but also in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
This report, which has wide-ranging consequences, is an expression of the consensus in the European Parliament, and I therefore ask Commissioner Pinheiro to include the main elements of it in the next mandate proposal for talks with the ACP countries. We are very interested in that.
Let me extract three key elements of Mr Martens' report.
Firstly, we want to see a partnership - preferably with the democracies amongst the ACP countries and with those countries that have resolutely and irrevocably taken the path to democracy, constitutional government and human rights, and who are successfully creating it by positive efforts in Government and Parliament.
It is inconceivable to us that this cooperation should stretch to include corrupt dictators.
These dictators should not even play a further role now in the negotiation of a new agreement.
Secondly, the African continent should be the main objective of our mutual development work.
The policy of good neighbourliness, the geographic proximity of Africa, the historic responsibility of European countries, but also the only modest achievements of our partnership, all are a special challenge for the improvement of our instruments and for the strengthening of a broadly based cooperation.
Africa is the most backward continent in the world in terms of the development of its economy, society and democratic structures.
A new impetus to our relationship is therefore essential.
Thirdly, having an ACP development policy as part of the global development strategy means that we must also check our instruments for cooperation with Caribbean and Pacific countries. The poorest developing countries, who are neighbours of our partners in the Caribbean and Pacific, must also be able to participate in permanent economic and social development.
We ask the Commission to consider whether a corresponding framing of the general preferences could not be undertaken on behalf of those poorest developing nations in Central and South America and Southeast Asia who are neighbours of our Caribbean and Pacific partners.
Or perhaps the European Union could create additional instruments, within the framework of existing resources, which could reach beyond the geographic base of the Lomé Convention? This question - and I would expressly address you with it, Commissioner Pinheiro - should be investigated in detail during the preparation of the mandate for EU-ACP talks.
Mr President, the Martens report touches on an essential subject which, from the very beginning, has been one of the distinctive traits of the European Community, that is, the will to establish a partnership, a specific form of cooperation based on official aid to significant development, with a privileged geographic sphere of cooperation.
This example is unique, its results positive.
The desire of the ACP countries is to continue this partnership.
The aim must therefore clearly be supported.
This is what Mr Martens rightly recommends, by insisting on the necessity of preserving a European Union-ACP countries global framework, along with the instruments which have made Lomé a success - product protocols, Stabex, Sysmin - all of which guarantee ACP countries the minimum of predictability and security necessary to enable them to master their development.
But heavy threats weigh against the continuation of this policy.
In reality, we find ourselves at a complete deadlock because we have let the Commission follow two parallel and contradictory policies: a foreign trade policy based on absolute free trade principles and a policy of development aid to privileged partners.
The contradiction now appears clear with the destruction, by the WTO, of a leading element of the Lomé measures, the banana protocol.
If we do not want to let the WTO systematically dismantle the Lomé system instrument by instrument then it is high time that the Council at last showed leadership and used its recognized pre-eminence to define clearly and to defend with determination the broad spheres of common interest such as development, clear and long term direction, including a set of foreign policy instruments.
This is the only way, Mr President, that the European Union will be able to avoid having its policies dictated by outside interests.
We regret that the Martens report does not sufficiently labour this absolutely conclusive point.
We will however vote in its favour, because of the positive will it clearly confirms for resolutely continuing our partnership with the ACP countries.
Mr President, I also would like to welcome this report and commend it to this House.
Commissioner Pinheiro will recall that many of us expressed some reservations about the Green Paper but we very much welcome the consultation that has taken place and the opportunity for dialogue since the publication of the Green Paper.
I hope the Commission position will reflect that consultation, both of this Parliament, the ACP Group and of course the NGOs you have had discussions with.
There are a number of very fundamental points in Mr Martens' report. The composition of the ACP should not be called into question until they decide that should happen.
Reliance on markets and blanket liberalization alone is in no way a panacea for the poorest countries.
The Commission must continue to support our view that without aid and trade preferences to provide the social safety nets there will be never any possibility of delivering equitable growth to the poorest countries.
The EU is the biggest trading block in the world and it is about time we stopped rolling over in the face of the WTO and of the United States.
There are a number of important priorities the committee on Development has identified relating to the central role of women in the development process.
Also, we should introduce an independent complaints mechanism for individuals or communities who consider that their interests have not been represented.
Moreover, the ACP-EU Joint Assembly should be consulted should there ever be a situation when Article 5 is invoked in the suspension of countries under consideration.
I would ask that we support the 20/20 compact idea; the idea that recipient countries should be providing and increasing their basic social expenditure.
Also, the Commission should undertake conflict impact assessment in regions of instability to ensure that we can protect vulnerable groups and communities.
We have a fine opportunity now to make a strong case for long-term multilateral development.
An important change of vocabulary has taken place and Commissioner Pinheiro has used that new vocabulary. We no longer say post-Lomé, we now say Lomé V and we very much welcome that change of vocabulary.
Mr President, this discussion regarding what a new partnership between the European Union and the ACP countries must be the opportunity for the European Parliament to stand firmly by a certain number of obvious facts.
First of all, cooperation policy is not a marginal policy for the European Union.
It must be at the heart of European Union policy, at the heart of European will.
Indeed, we cannot conceive of a Europe shut off from the rest of the world.
Opening up to the world, desiring to contribute to a new solidarity between people, these are amongst the essential elements of European identity.
The European Union must be exemplary with regard to cooperation with poor countries.
We must also remember that, for the European Union, it is in no way a question of imposing a model on countries in other continents, with other cultures.
On the contrary, our aim must be to help them to safeguard what is most deserving of respect in their traditions, in their way of thinking, in their lives, despite the risks run by weaker countries through the growth of globalization.
We must also remember, at a time when the European Union is initiating a new process of enlargement, that this process, which will probably bring new costs for the European Union, must not be carried out to the detriment of our cooperation with the ACP countries.
This would be to forget our responsibilities with regard to these countries and to forget our vocation in the world.
Lastly, we must remember that the success of this new partnership requires the participation of the people.
In this respect, the decentralized cooperation which is pursued by a growing number of local communities will be called to play an ever more important role.
This form of cooperation strengthens the process of decentralization and democratization in the ACP countries as well as raising awareness amongst the populations of the countries of Europe regarding the problems of their partners.
Decentralized cooperation gives a human dimension to relations between the European Union and the ACP countries, without which it would not achieve its objectives as outlined in Mr Martens excellent report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Martens Report is a good basis for guidance of future discussion and, I hope, the design of Lomé V in accordance with future needs.
I should like to highlight one aspect that does not seem to me to have been sufficiently considered.
For that reason my group has made additional proposals, but I think they conform to the line taken by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and I hope the rapporteur will be able to agree with them.
They concern access of women in particular to basic services, be these education, health services, or even equal rights to participation in decision-making processes; for the key to development lies in strengthening women's rights.
That is a proven fact and has been discussed for years in great detail.
We have the concept of mainstreaming in the European Union and I think mainstreaming must be valid also for our development work.
Accordingly, I hope we will add to the report during voting.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the successful cooperation between Europe and the ACP countries should be continued in the future, and I personally thank Mr Martens most sincerely for taking on the work of introducing this.
There are, however, several points concerning cooperation between Europe and the developing nations which are certainly capable of improvement, despite certain successes in the past. That is also a reason for our talking it over in such detail today.
In this context it can also be seen that a comparison of the Green Paper with the report shows how much the debate has moved on.
Nevertheless, in my view a number of questions, to our partners as well, remain unanswered and worthy of debate.
Firstly, there is the question of efficient management.
We can see difficulties in acceptance of cooperation in the northern countries, if no efforts are discernible here for securing the aid by a functioning administration.
Secondly, there is the point about expenditure on armaments.
Some developing countries have in past years always spent more money on the army than was available for training their citizens.
A third point concerns resources, which are sometimes rich.
This raises the question of how much the population benefits from the country's wealth, or is it only the few who do so? In this context one must also ask whether all ACP countries are equally poor, or whether there should not be a certain amount of differentiation.
The developing countries must be strengthened to accept ever more responsibility for their own futures, and it would be nice if we could see the day when transfers of this magnitude were no longer necessary.
But until that day these countries must be confident of our solidarity.
Mr President, now that we are agreed on entering into a new Lomé Convention, it is also important that we have the courage to recognize the faults of the old one.
That is what the Green Paper does; for example, by pointing out that the idea of partnership does not work in many countries because there is insufficient institutional capacity to conduct this partnership.
That is only one example of how cooperation must be differentiated within the large heterogeneous group made up of the 70 ACP countries.
When such a differentiation is made, emphasis must be placed, in my opinion, on the criterion of poverty and on sustainable development.
In addition, as Mrs Junker has just pointed out, much more attention must be paid to the position of women than has been today.
Mr President, I wish to turn your attention to that point in time which the negotiations for the continuation of the Lomé Convention are aimed at.
For the EU the success of the expansionist negotiations and the start of the third stage of European economic and monetary union are matters of destiny for all Europe.
There is a need to stress the importance of the negotiations aimed at the continuation of the Lomé Convention against this kind of background.
It is a matter of a comprehensive geographical policy in the EU, its effectiveness, and, at the same time, its role in the worldwide context.
We should seriously live in the hope that the EU, more clearly than before, grasps the importance of a common foreign and security policy that is vitally relevant to the developing world.
It follows, also, that the hopefully successful expansionist negotiations must not lead to the weakening of the position of the developing world.
Mr President, in its reflections the Committee on External Economic Relations was very much aware that the trade provisions of the Lomé Convention are economically the most significant aspect of EU-ACP relationship.
That is why we believe a detailed analysis and assessment of the economic impact of the proposed options for change should be conducted for the individual countries.
Such an analysis is missing from the Green Paper and maybe it is a task that the Committee on External Economic Relations should take upon itself in the coming months.
In any case, a proper assessment should be insisted upon by this Parliament before it gives its support to any of the trade options.
The Martens Report, quite correctly, states that non-reciprocal trade preferences are crucial instruments of development and they should be recognised as such.
I also suggest that the Commission could do a lot better to defend its development partners vis-à-vis the WTO.
Read this and act, Commissioner, please.
The Committee on External Economic Relations had this very much in mind when it called for the elaboration of a trade and development concept within the WTO.
This concept should address more radically than existing WTO rules the issue of reciprocal and non-reciprocal trade arrangements between developing and developed countries.
Unlike the present WTO rules, it should also fully take account of the different levels of development and sizes of respective economies.
The WTO advocates equal rules for all but if we have learnt anything at all from the discussions for South Africa and the banana panel, it is this: if you treat unequal partners equally you end up with unequal and unjust outcomes.
Mr President, I would first of all like to say that in the past the European Parliament has always been a fundamental partner in the definition and pursuit of cooperation policies.
But I never expected, after the publishing of the Green Paper in which problems were identified without attempting to solve them, that we might truly benefit from an orientation, a response, to the numerous problems evoked in Mr Martens report.
Happily, we now have at our disposal a report which will provide the necessary framework, through its quality, its policy proposals and its orientations, for the Commission.
I say this openly because it is, in my opinion, a report of truly exceptional quality.
Having said that, and at the same time thanking Mr Martens and the Committee on Development and Cooperation and the other committees because my task and my work will be very much simplified, I would however like to touch on two or three points which have been raised.
Firstly, the question of trade.
I honestly believe that something must be done at the level of the WTO.
The ministers themselves recognized, last December in Singapore, that the less developed countries needed special rules.
But up until now, we have received no response from the WTO.
And to be fair, it is not simply a question of having equal rules for everyone.
As was said the other day, I could fight Mike Tyson under equal rules but I would never win, even if I bit his ears!
It is not enough to have equal rules for everyone.
The weakest economies, be they small islands or the poorest countries, need something more, that has to be clearly and fearlessly said.
Another aspect, which does not unfortunately fall within our jurisdiction, concerns the question of foreign debt.
My dear friends, our cooperation could be a fantastic model.
But if the majority of countries continue to be suffocated by debt, our action will be virtually lost.
I honestly hope that, at least politically, we may all have the courage to put pressure on the Bretton Woods institution so that initiatives in favour of the most indebted countries may be a little more ambitious.
I must underline the extraordinary efforts of two Member States, France and the United Kingdom, in the cancellation of debt, in circumstances that must be underlined.
These efforts must be supported and we must ask other authorities to do the same.
Finally, it has to be said that human and social development must, in all cases, be the framework for our actions.
You can discuss macroeconomics, trade, micro-credits, the informal economy, but the very spirit of the Convention must lie in the fight against poverty and a long term vision of human and social development.
I honestly believe that the Martens report underlines this on many occasions and that, in this respect, we are totally in agreement.
The same applies to simplifying the convention, the participation of women, the effectiveness of aid, the EDF's incorporation into the budget.
Regarding the latter, why this discrimination? I cannot understand it.
I have participated in negotiations as a minister and as a Commissioner, but, ladies and gentlemen, I have never heard a good argument in favour of the current situation.
On the contrary.
It is discriminatory.
And in my opinion, both the Commission and Parliament must continue to do all they can to include the EDF in the budget.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to say that the Commission has decided to make proposals for a negotiating brief in two stages.
The first stage will be that of a political framework for the negotiations that we will submit to the Council and to Parliament.
I am telling Parliament that in advance, Mr Martens, and you will recognize your own report in a good many of these orientations.
Secondly, at the end of the year, we will propose the detailed technical aspects that we want to integrate into the approval of a political framework.
I hope that Parliament will be able to support us in this frontal approach, because in my opinion it is the best way of anchoring the Lomé V Convention.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
I am sure your remarks were much appreciated by the rapporteur, all the members of the committee who have worked so hard on this report and every Members of the Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Transport of live animals
The next item is the report (A4-0266/97) by Mrs van Dijk, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the transport of horses and other live animals.
Mr President, this report on the transport of horses and other animals has not just appeared from nowhere.
In October 1994 the President of the European Parliament received a petition with more than three million signatures.
In the meantime another petition has been started which also concerns the transport of animals and since then more than half a million signatures have been collected.
It is a sign of public outrage that exists about the way in which we transport our animals in Europe, to Europe and from Europe to other places.
The circumstances under which this transport takes place are often horrific.
Members of this Parliament and others who were able to see the pictures that were broadcast on television in many Member States were able to conclude that animals often arrive at borders dehydrated, exhausted, seriously injured, with broken legs in the case of horses and limbs in the case of other animals and that abuses like this also take place within the European Union.
These animals often travel for days and are therefore completely exhausted and dehydrated.
Such situations are unacceptable.
The European Parliament wishes to take measures against this and there is great social pressure for such measures to be taken.
Furthermore, it is in fact in contravention of Community law.
Because under pressure from the same public opinion, in 1995, the directive on the transport of animals was amended.
The 1995 directive lays down that the travelling time of animals may not amount to more than eight hours.
After that the animals must be let out, given a rest period of 24 hours and be fed and watered.
The directive is very animal-friendly but in practice far too little is done properly.
That is for a number of reasons.
In the first place, it is a fact that some five Member States still have not fully implemented it in their national legislation.
But even if they had done so it appears the compliance with the directive is completely inadequate and also inadequately monitored.
I must say that the European Commission, with the powers that it possesses, is looking at that and is helping but it does not possess that many powers to intervene.
The second problem with the existing directive is that in this directive it is laid down that two other directives must be enacted.
The first one is on staging points, and in the meantime a lot of hard work has been done - this directive already exists - and secondly on the criteria which the means of transport must meet if animals are to be on the road for more than eight hours.
Owing to the lack of these criteria at the moment every livestock lorry may be used as if it is a luxury livestock transporter in which animals may be transported for longer than eight hours.
In short, in this way the 1995 directive has become a dead letter.
It is urgently necessary that the Council, naturally on a proposal from the Commission, now finally adopt the directive for the establishment of the criteria for livestock transporters and ensure that a change occurs to the present situation.
The lax attitude of the Member States not only has a negative effect on the animals transported.
It is also not good for the consumer.
It is not surprising that when animals are transported under such stressful conditions, the quality of the meat does not improve.
Animals are injured, animals are dehydrated.
We try to set up the situation in the slaughterhouses so that animals suffer as little stress as possible when being slaughtered, particularly in order to improve the quality of the meat and we ignore the conditions when they are being transported.
That is incomprehensible.
The report clearly requires a maximum travelling time of eight hours for animals that are going directly to the slaughterhouse.
In the case of animals that are going for fattening or to be used for breeding, then an exception may only be made when they are transported in extremely good quality vehicles for which the criteria are listed in the report.
And then they must be allowed out of the vehicle after eight hours, watered, fed, rested and then possibly put back in the vehicle.
It is incomprehensible that the European Union promotes the transport of live animals by paying out export refunds.
Therefore this report requires that a clear end be made to this.
Furthermore, we must realize that we must get rid of these export refunds in one way or another in the near future by means of discussions in the WTO.
I trust Parliament will accept the resolution as it stands.
I also have confidence that the Commission will take this resolution to heart and that the Commission and the Council will now get to work on this matter.
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur for her total involvement and commitment to this report.
She has done a splendid job to bring this report before Parliament today.
It is the first time that the Committee on Transport and Tourism has actually ever addressed the issue of animal transport.
I am delighted that they have involved themselves because unless all the players in animal production are involved and consulted, we cannot really get proper application of rules. Animal welfare is an exceedingly important matter, as far as transport is concerned.
I am delighted that representatives from the International League for the Protection of Horses are in the gallery today.
They initiated the petition, which is the largest petition ever raised in Europe.
It has practically three and a half million signatures from right across the European Union.
That shows the strength of feeling of the people of the Union that something needs to be done in this area.
It is quite clear from a number of television programmes that when it comes to issues regarding the production of food and animal welfare this is a very important issue in people's minds.
It is a subject, therefore, that matters to many, many people. It is going to be of growing importance and it is right that this Parliament address the issue today.
The main objective must be to stop completely the unnecessary long-distance transport of animals for slaughter.
There is no reason why they should not be slaughtered as close to the point of production, as close to their home, as possible.
To transport animals in the undignified way in which it has happened in the past is totally wrong.
If one takes an example of horses coming from the far east of Russia to countries within the Community being transported, perhaps for two and half or three thousand miles, five thousand kilometres; it is totally unnecessary but is a trade which is highly lucrative to those involved because of the poor value of the Russian rouble.
They are exploiting animals quite unnecessarily and this Parliament, I am glad to say, is going to stand up and impose some rules to make sure that those animals are at least transported with some dignity.
At the end of the day, as I said, we must make sure that they are slaughtered as close to home as possible.
However none of this is going to be really going to be carried out efficiently unless we get proper control mechanisms at the points of entry into the European Union.
That is something that the Commission must face up to; it is something that we will harass the Commission on until it is done completely well.
There are many voluntary organizations throughout Europe who have the opportunity to make sure that we are properly advised when things are not carried out.
This report is really providing what I believe is the minimum necessary to ensure proper respect for animal welfare in the transport of animals.
Mr President, as Mr Provan commented in his opinion on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, in 1983 I was the rapporteur on this same subject.
I now feel that I am repeating myself.
Because since 1983, not very much has changed in the welfare of animals as far as transport is concerned.
What has occurred in the meantime has either not been implemented or only been partially implemented by the Member States or if it has been implemented, then it is not being checked.
That surprises us and worries us a great deal.
We obviously want to oppose the transport of live animals as much as possible.
However, those animals that are transported must be moved using the most animal-friendly methods possible.
Mrs van Dijk has mentioned the staging points.
Fortunately the criteria were laid down by the Council of Ministers in May of this year under the Dutch presidency, but my question to the Commission is how are the checks and monitoring of compliance with the criteria for staging points actually organized in practice?
How many of the 100 veterinary inspectors that the Commission recently appointed have gone into action? In what way are the reliable NGOs involved in implementing the monitoring of these matters?
Because again it seems, as Mrs van Dijk has said, that the eight-hour limit that we now have is a dead letter.
Animals may be transported for no more than eight hours but nobody checks this.
So it doesn't happen.
So I wonder, now that we are talking about the luxury cattle trucks, or "business-class' cattle trucks, as they have been called, when the Commission is going to establish the criteria to put these luxury cattle trucks into operation.
It is strange that the Union's current export refunds still encourage long-distance transport of live animals.
What possibilities does the Commission see within the WTO context to dismantle these export refunds?
I would like a clear response from the Commission to the suggestions in this outstanding report by Mrs van Dijk and to the specific questions that I have just raised.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
I am very pleased that we are discussing this subject today in the European Parliament, because awareness of animal protection and animal welfare has a high priority in the minds of Europeans.
To this end, inspection of transport conditions and the condition of the animals is necessary during import as well as export.
Naturally, sanctions are also needed for cases where controls disclose contravention of EU standards.
Sanctions might consist, for example, of withdrawal of export licences, or import quotas granted to third countries.
Authorization for the export of live animals should be made dependent upon a certificate from an official veterinary surgeon, who should confirm that transportation is in order.
The strict standards applied in Austria, that is, a maximum transport duration of six hours, should become valid for the whole of Europe.
I would regard it as a first step, however, if the international transport duration for cross-border traffic were reduced initially to eight hours.
Furthermore, the proportion of live cattle to total exports has shrunk in recent years from 16 % to about 10 %.
It should also be taken into account that these figures include exports of domestic and breeding cattle, which have risen from 16 % to 28 %. So, from this point of view it is a positive development.
It should also be noted that the compensation for live cattle is much less than for carcasses.
On behalf of farmers, however, I have to say that a complete switch from live transport is impossible, but that transport time should be kept as short as possible.
European farmers have the closest possible interest in seeing that their animals are not subjected to distress during transportation, because pain and stress have a detrimental effect on the quality of the meat.
In general I support the export of meat, but at the same time there is a need for encouragement of the construction of abattoirs and cold storage installations in those third countries which are the main customers of the EU, and who do not possess any such means of keeping food fresh.
For this reason we in the European Union must build these installations, in order to make it possible for customers in third countries to buy meat instead of live animals.
The general public is very sensitive to this aspect, and I welcome that.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs van Dijk for her very thorough report in which she makes excellent suggestions on the subject of animal transportation, so that the welfare of animals is paramount during their transportation.
The EU must aim to end the transportation of animals for slaughter once and for all, as it causes the animals stress and suffering.
That is Finland's official position.
The EU must present the matter at the next round of WTO talks, as the issue should apply globally.
With the transportation of animals for slaughter there has been a reduction in the overproduction of beef, in particular, arising from the distrust of transporters brought about by, for example, the BSE crisis.
The rapporteur urges the Commission to cut the import subsidy for one third of the countries involved.
I cannot go along with this as yet, because it would mean a surplus of beef, more import subsidies and pressures on the agricultural budget.
That problem must be solved first.
Furthermore, the rapporteur suggests the Commission should increase staff and at the same time pour more money into staging points when animals are being transported, and for the monitoring of abattoirs.
I cannot sanction this recommendation since such monitoring operations should be the task of the authorities in Member States where transportation is being carried out.
It is impossible to observe in Brussels what is going on in Germany, Italy or France during the transportation of animals.
Finally, I demand that all Member States incorporate the directives in force as part of its national law, and I mean those five countries which have still not done so.
The rapporteur should have named those five countries to put pressure on them.
The Commission must embark upon the implementation of a ratification process with respect to those countries without delay.
The law must be put into practice in every country and the Commission has responsibility for monitoring the process, and making demands on Member States in that respect.
Mr President, Mrs van Dijk has written a good and important report.
In spite of the fact that the EU has tightened up the rules on animal transport, and in spite of the pressure of public opinion on this issue, the unnecessary and cruel transportation of animals continues to a large extent.
The reduction in transportation which has taken place is mainly due to the BSE crisis and not to greater consideration for animals.
It is also a serious matter that the most important accompanying directives to the tougher EU directive still do not work, that is, directives on the design of vehicles and on staging points.
As long as that is so, no transport with an overall length of more than eight hours should be allowed.
It is also good that Mrs van Dijk tackles the system more fundamentally in her report.
I am thinking above all of paragraph 35 on the abolition of export subsidies which mean in practice that the EU is supporting this system.
The principle that animals should be slaughtered as close as possible to the place where they are reared is also important.
Mr President, the cause of the scandal and the millions of cases of suffering and maltreatment of animals - unnecessary suffering and unnecessary maltreatment - is that animals are still regarded as goods to be dealt with as one wishes, so that as much profit as possible is wrung out of them.
And when there is no further use for them, they can be thrown away.
So it is, for example, with horses, one of mankind's oldest companions, and that is a particularly strong example as often man would not have advanced without horses.
As long as we do not realise that animals are not goods, maintained just for our profit, nothing will change here.
Allow me to read out something written by St Francis of Assisi in the 12th Century.
It shows how little we have learned, even though we maintain that we are such a cultured nation: "All the creatures of the Earth feel as we do.
All the creatures of the Earth strive for happiness as we do.
All the creatures of the Earth love, suffer, and die as we do.
Therefore they are equal works of the Almighty Creator' .
We should take that to heart.
We are just as much a part of creation as animals, yet we maltreat them and exploit them.
Think about what happens in horse transporters over thousands of kilometres.
Horses are timid flight animals.
They are torn from their home stables, put into strange stalls, loaded onto transporters without food or water.
They are close- tethered, they cannot lie down, they cannot make themselves comfortable, they can do nothing, and they trample each other to death.
And we still allow this to happen today!
That takes place every day.
It is exactly the same with pig transport, cattle transport, etcetera.
We make great speeches, we pass many papers and resolutions, yet no one takes any notice of what happens as a result of it all.
That has got to change!
If we want to be able to face ourselves in the mirror, or - as many, including myself, still do - got to church and pray, then we do not have the right to treat creatures, who are similar products of creation, in the way we do today.
That has finally got to stop and I can only hope that the Commission stands firm at last, and that more serious controls take place within Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am of course in favour of Mrs van Dijk's report, which states the problem well, describing the legitimate indignation of many of our citizens and the scandals linked to the transport of animals.
Nevertheless, I do not believe the problem can be solely examined in the light of romanticism and moral indignation. It must also be the opportunity to see what perverse mechanisms of international trade are permitting the expansion of all these misdeeds.
Mrs van Dijk's proposals regarding improvements in the conditions of transport are good, also because they anticipate encouraging the reduction of this transport.
This is definitely the central question.
We spoke earlier about the difficult conditions in third countries.
This is what must be attacked.
You can clearly see the bad effects of free trade in this matter, and in this respect paragraph 38 does not go far enough.
Why not consider a tax on imports of live animals?
From an economic point of view it would be logical in relation to paragraph 35, which proposes putting an end to the granting of export refunds.
Thus it is also an opportunity to question the economic mechanisms of the overly commercialised civilization in which we are currently submerged, and its ill-effects.
Mr President, I would first like to express regret for the fact that Mr Seal has not been present.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for a good report and a good initiative.
Unfortunately, it is an initiative report and not legislative.
But it is incredible - and this, of course, echoes what my colleagues have said - it is incredible that we should still be dealing with the subject in spite of the directives of 1991 and 1995.
As has been mentioned several times today, it is reprehensible that the transport of horses, calves, pigs and sheep still takes place under conditions which time and time again have been exposed in the media, in spite of directives and good intentions.
As a general rule, the transport of live animals is necessary, but not desirable, partly out of consideration for the welfare of the animals and partly because of the risk of infection. Out of consideration for the welfare of the animals, it is unacceptable that transport should take place in poorly equipped lorries over enormous distances.
The animals suffer stress and that often leads to suffering and death.
As far as the risk of infection is concerned, the spread of infectious diseases is increased by the long journeys.
But perhaps it is a combination of the fact that we have vast abattoirs and that transport in Europe is too cheap that gives rise to this situation.
We need action in this area.
It is too cheap to transport animals over long distances.
There is a need for precise, tough requirements for the lorries which are to transport the animals when that is necessary.
There is a need for tougher requirements at borders and for inspections.
There is a need for precise criteria regarding staging points, for example.
Measures like those mentioned would be able to improve the welfare of the animals and reduce the spread of infectious diseases.
But the aim must still be that live animals should not be transported over long distances, and that slaughtering should take place as close as possible to the place where the animal is reared.
Some things have got easier today with refrigeration technology and so on, but we should perhaps consider whether regional self-sufficiency should be reintroduced so that there is no need to transport animals to slaughter over long distances.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have all experienced the feeling of pain.
It is a feeling which all mammals have in common.
Therefore it is also necessary for us to show respect for animals, and we can only do that by reducing the suffering they have to go through.
I want to say to the rapporteur and Mr Eisma that there is a problem in the fact that we transport calves from Denmark to the Netherlands to be fattened up, after which they are transported back again.
So I believe that we must all start by looking at the situation in our own countries.
Mr President, when three million people take the trouble to write letters and send signatures to this Parliament with a plea for something to be done about the shameful animal transport across Europe, then something is definitely wrong.
Moreover, when it appears from pictures from animal protection inspection teams that attempts by the Union to improve the situation for animals have not been taken up by a number of countries, that legislation is not respected, that services are not used, then we must conclude that the protests by our citizens are justified.
Then we must also realize that the Union must tackle things better.
I wish to stress four points.
Animals must be slaughtered as close as possible to the place where they have been reared.
Meat can be transported deep-frozen.
Animals transports are often unnecessary.
Transport of more than six to eight hours must simply be prohibited.
It is crazy to drag animals around for so long before they are slaughtered.
Transport of animals from outside the Union should only be admitted if they have been treated in the same way as in the Union.
Transport of horses from Poland, Belarus and Lithuania is a downright disgrace.
Legislation on animals transport must be implemented.
If that does not happen then the Commission must act decisively.
Mr President, Nel van Dijk has written a first-class report and Jimmy Provan deserves great appreciation for the action he has undertaken.
We often discuss the people's Europe but here is a subject that has been raised by three million people.
We expect sound proposals and action from the Commission in order to bring this undignified and harrowing situation to an end.
Mr President, first I would like to express my warmest thanks to Mrs van Dijk for her excellent report.
I can fully support all the suggestions she makes in it including point 35 which is being discussed.
I am, however, quite sure that we will need new Commission regulations.
The present regulations, although not even fully implemented, do not go far enough.
Concrete proposals are required from the Commission.
The transport of animals is dreadfully cruel, as has been mentioned here several times.
I myself believe that the only way to prevent this cruelty is to introduce economic sanctions.
Because the ending of the import subsidy - which cost ECU 300 Million in the year 1995-1996, for example - will not have a rapid effect, the Commission should now embark on a programme of measures whereby those companies guilty of abuse would have to pay back their transport subsidy.
I think that would be one way.
Responsibility ultimately lies with the Member States; that is why it is hard for us to get anywhere.
Nevertheless, I think we also need more people in the Commission to monitor things. We need more openness; it is vital that each and every instance of abuse is publicly exposed.
And company names should be publicized when they are guilty of flagrant violation of the animal rights.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs van Dijk on this important report.
Let us now hope that it really leads to improvements.
I really hope that the European Parliament today has the courage to vote through this report in its entirety.
It is easy to be pessimistic when you read that the European Parliament has in fact voted to have improvements in the area of animal protection since 1983.
In reality not very much has happened.
Live animals are still exported and imported on a scale and in ways which would not have happened if the EU's own policies, its agricultural policy, did not lead to it and support it in the form of export and transport subsidies, and thereby encourage it to continue as it does.
It is also incredibly negligent of the Commission not to set the standards and requirements which it said it would do with regard to means of transport and staging points or rest sites, which means that this directive is ineffectual in certain areas.
We consequently have an entirely unacceptable situation.
Mrs van Dijk takes up technical improvements which must be made to vehicles and staging points.
I am particularly pleased about two points which are the only the only reasonable options, namely putting a stop to export subsidies or other forms of direct or indirect subsidy for the transport of live animals for slaughter, and also that the EU's policy should be that animals for meat consumption should be slaughtered as close as possible to where they are reared.
That is the only reasonable option.
Refrigerated transport and refrigerated lorries exist today in 1997.
So use them, for God's sake!
We have seen the horrors and the brutal treatment in films showing the everyday life of animals on the road in Europe.
That cannot be allowed in a civilised society.
Ladies and gentlemen, vote now for this report in its entirety.
Mr President, the report by Mrs van Dijk has my full support.
All the proposed technical and veterinary measures for the improvement of transport conditions for animals are sensible.
They are well-considered and above all practicable.
They should be implemented as soon as possible.
Let me point out that in Austria at the moment the Independent Party is doing lot on behalf of animals who suffer as a result of live transport.
Our activities so far reach from open letters to Commissioner Fischler, through collecting signatures and action days, to blockades of sensitive border crossings; because in Austria there is a special situation arising from Austria's Animal Transport Law.
The regulation on total transport duration has not yet been brought into line with the strictly-worded EU guidelines in this respect. Although in Austria the total authorized transport duration of six hours is a more rigorous limit than that proposed by the EU, a driver cannot be prosecuted if he has not exceeded this limit in Austria, even though he has been driving for more than six hours in a foreign country.
This is - excuse me for speaking plainly - absolute rubbish, which holds life in contempt!
It is an invitation to misuse a well-meaning law.
Now I come to the main problem.
Every regulation will remain a toothless tiger unless it contains effective and stricter controls and, above all, efficient criminal sanctions.
This means that the EU guidelines will lead to serious problems in practice, simply because they contain no criminal penalties.
I believe, therefore, that the requirements of the relevant criminal laws should be much more strictly worded.
In Austria, for example, we introduced on our own initiative, in April this year, an animal transport inspector on the busiest motorway route. His task is to force any truck to be taken to a specially established animal and watering station if its floor is not correctly covered with straw or sawdust, or if its animals have not been watered and fed.
Yet again, without effective penalties, without considerable fines, we are just achieving half a solution.
Live animal transport has expanded explosively since precisely that moment when it received such generous help from Commission.
That shows that many people in the business are very well aware of the power of money, and with animal suffering there is still much too much money to be made.
That is the actual core of the problem.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mrs van Dijk on this excellent report.
It was and is indeed a terrible situation that we have here, in the way animals are treated to an extent and in a manner that can only be described as inhuman.
I should like fully to support the resolution of the Commission to issue a directive on the design of transporter vehicles, whether they be cars, trains or whatever.
We have also seen in the film how animals are herded together, how they die in the trucks, and how nothing is done to provide a half-way reasonable method of transport suitable for animals.
Secondly, the equipment of abattoirs has quite rightly been touched on.
Some of them have no weekend duty staff.
Animals die and are left to lie there, they are not removed when they die.
These are quite unimaginable conditions.
Thirdly, the cancellation of any kind of financial subsidy for such transporters that are not in accordance with regulations and not up to today's standards.
On the contrary; we need strict penalties to prevent these things from continuing.
This financial system must also be used to achieve something close to all our hearts, namely that as few animal transports as possible, as few movements of live animals as possible, take place in Europe, and that freezer transportation is available.
That must be our primary objective.
This is not matter of high politics in accordance with the standards of journalists and politicians, but of something where the EU can show that it takes the concerns of citizens seriously, where the EU - the Commission, Council and this Parliament, too - can demonstrate that when citizens worry about a problem, when they have an emotional problem with something, the EU goes into action, and fast.
For this reason I ask not just for a yes vote, but I also ask the Commissioner or the Commission to seize this great opportunity to show Europe's citizens that the EU is able to act speedily on matters that concern the public; to show that the EU is able to act fast wherever citizens think that action is needed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the van Dijk report which has arisen out of a draft resolution by Mr Provan and others was finally requested from the European Parliament by the Committee on Transport and Tourism in November 1996.
It also concerns the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection who have been asked for their opinion.
The report deals with a serious issue: the transport of horses and other live animals and the seriousness of the issue is also reflected by the number of committees consulted for their opinion and represented here by Mr Provan and Mr Eisma.
In view of the time available I shall not dwell on the general conditions - means of transport, staging points, the import and export of live animals: cattle, pigs, sheep and horses in particular - but as all these points I have listed relate to the welfare of animals during transport, whether they are destined for consumption by or the entertainment of human beings, as is the case with racehorses, I should, however, like to say that I agree with the resolutions of Parliament and the rapporteur's proposals - which I applaud - as these proposals are all valid ones.
I shall quote some of them: a maximum of 500 km for road transport or not more than eight hours' journey time; the slaughter of animals destined for consumption as close as possible to the place of production; granting powers to the veterinary inspection service; supervised staging points, particularly with regard to the supply of food and water, the loading and unloading of animals and their accommodation; improved supervision of exports and imports.
In addition I welcome the right of recourse which provides the right to prosecute people and companies who cause suffering to the animals being transported.
I now look forward to the Commission's proposals!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see from the preamble to Mrs van Dijk's excellent report, concern for the safe transport of horses and other animals goes back along way in this Parliament.
The Commission also considers the protection of all animals - which obviously includes horses - during transport to be a matter of great importance.
This House, as well as many organizations and individuals, has repeatedly stressed its desire to see the Community adopt effective measures in this field.
The Commission shares your view that correct and effective Community rules on animal welfare are necessary and I can assure you that the Commission has always given and will continue to give animal welfare a high priority.
The Commission has become increasingly concerned about the welfare of animals during transportation and, in particular, the long-distance transport of animals.
Although the Union has various measures to protect transported animals both within its territory and also where part of the journey involves the territories of third countries, it cannot be denied that problems of inadequate enforcement by the responsible authorities of the Member States and inadequate respect for the rules by commercial operators have occurred.
The Commission has opened infringement proceedings against Member States in default.
I will refer now to some of the specific concerns expressed in the draft resolution, such as means of transport, staging points and export refunds.
It should be acknowledged that considerable progress has been made in the domain of Community welfare legislation.
I will mention a few examples.
Following the adoption in the Council of new standards on the protection of animals during transport, there were two major obligations for the Commission to propose further detailed rules.
Regarding the staging points, the Commission proposal was already adopted last June.
Furthermore, in July the Commission forwarded a proposal to the Council concerning the standards for upgraded lorries.
We expect this matter to be concluded during the Luxembourg Presidency.
The Commission also presented a proposal to the Council under which the payment of export refunds would be subject to compliance with the provisions on the protection of animals during transport.
As you are well aware, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development discussed this proposal just a few days ago and the matter is expected to be debated in the November part-session.
Once this regulation is adopted by the Council, the Commission will then decide detailed implementing rules which will gradually increase the degree of protection for cattle being transported.
Turning now to enforcement and monitoring methods, the Commission's veterinary experts from the Food and Veterinary Service have carried out on-the-spot checks in all the Member States.
These have indicated that the uniform application of the relevant Council directive has not yet been achieved in all Member States.
Three major deficiencies have been found.
In many Member States on a number of occasions animals were found to be suffering during transport.
Checks carried out by some Member States were considered to be inadequate or insufficient and the means of transport were quite often inadequate.
The Commission, through the Food and Veterinary Service will continue its mission to monitor the situation in Member States, despite the fact that enforcement is the responsibility of each Member State.
In conclusion, my colleague Mr Fischler has asked me to assure you that the Commission is as anxious as this House to provide the legislative framework within which the Member States can ensure that all animals are transported under statutory conditions, providing operators with a clear set of rules which they have to follow.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Votes
Madam President, I would like to inform you that we have as our guests today Members of the Greek Parliament and I would ask you, as President, to welcome them, if that is possible.
Madam President, in accordance with yesterday's debate in the Chamber and also with regard to the work done in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Cooperation and Development, I should like to ask the Chamber to refer my report back to committee, and for one very simple reason. We approved the report during a meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy in June when the situation in Cambodia was different from what it has since become.
The debate yesterday afternoon confirmed the need for referral back to allow the committee and the rapporteur to change the explanatory statements, do some more work and also contribute to a peaceful resolution of the tensions that currently exist in Cambodia.
To do all this we therefore need a little more time, without losing sight of the objective of then ratifying the agreement, but in a political context in which peace has been restored.
For this reason I would request the Chamber to adopt the motion for referral back to committee, which I now put formally.
(Parliament approved the request)
Madam President, I should like to explain a simple procedural point.
Due to an administrative oversight, the resolution from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is not included in the text as it should be.
Your services have agreed that this can be done by an oral amendment.
I would ask if the House would support that.
To help the services perhaps it would be best if it were included after Article 16 of my resolution.
So I suggest we vote on everything up to paragraph 16, then vote on 2 to 7 from the Committee on Foreign Affairs as a whole and then continue with paragraph 17.
I hope that is clear.
I would add as guidance to the House that the Committee on Foreign Affairs adopted its resolution unanimously.
So there is no question of any political dispute.
Are there any objections? There are not.
Mr Hindley, we will therefore proceed as you suggest.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
. Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, from the enthralling debate on my report yesterday evening, a compromise proposal in the form of an oral amendment has resulted which summarizes this paragraph of my original text with the text of the amendment from the Group of the European People's Party.
The text making this compromise possible is as follows: "2. recalls that budgetary discipline and the achievement of monetary union are perfectly compatible with sustainable growth and job-creation policies, but that neither compliance with the convergence criteria nor the date for stage three should detract from the need for efforts on the part of the Union and the Member States to create jobs and to maintain and, where necessary, improve social security.'
I think this compromise accords with the spirit of yesterday evening's debate and I would ask my colleagues to accept this as an oral amendment.
Are there any objections to this oral amendment?
There are not.
On Amendment No 4
Madam President, we have the classic problem with wording and translation.
The Dutch text of the amendment on modernizing technologies has "especially in the field of environmental protection' .
"Especially' narrows the definition.
It should read "inter alia, in the area of environmental protection' .
This is one of the possibilities.
That is the interpretation I wish to give it and I would like to finalize that in the Dutch text by replacing the word "especially' with "inter alia' .
The Green Group has been consulted on this matter.
Are there any objections to this oral amendment?
There are not.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, this amendment reflects the unanimous opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
As draftsman of the opinion I deplore the fact that the timetable did not permit the Committee on Development and Cooperation to take this opinion, which places the right emphasis on agriculture, into consideration.
I therefore call on Members to vote in favour of this amendment.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, may we have some clarification from the rapporteur regarding paragraph 22. It says quite clearly: ' Takes the view that cross-border transport, etc.'
As far as we in this group are concerned, there are no longer any internal barriers within the Community.
I would like an assurance from the rapporteur that relates purely to external borders into the Community.
Regarding paragraph 26, there is a nuance in the different languages.
In the German version it says: ' In addition it would be expedient for part of such control' .
In the English text it says: ' It would be expedient for part of such monitoring' . We can support the word 'monitoring' but not 'control' .
I should like to be reassured that it is the English text that is valid.
Mr President, I have absolutely no objection to adding the word "external' in paragraph 22, because it is of course my intention that it concerns "the external borders of the Union' and not "the internal borders' .
In fact they should no longer be there.
That is paragraph 22.
With regard to paragraph 26, the English word 'monitoring' is in fact better than the word "control' .
In Dutch it should perhaps be "toezicht' instead of "controle' . That also applies to the German.
Madam President, I would just like to ask you to check paragraph 5 in the Swedish version when you check the different language versions because there is a mistake there.
I think it should be "rearing and breeding' instead of "rearing and fattening' .
There are also a number of other bits of nonsense there.
So could you please check those too.
Quite, absolutely, I can undertake to make sure that is done.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The UN Convention is of great importance for regulating at a truly international level the problems relating to the Law of the Sea and the marine environment.
I therefore have nothing against the substance of the convention.
However, what I am critical of is that the EU is to become a signatory to this Convention.
That means the EU is being accepted as a legal person, that is, a state.
That is something I cannot accept.
It was and still is the various Member States of the EU which are signatories to UN conventions.
The EU is not a state.
There is no reason at all why the EU should be a formal signatory to the Convention rather than the various Member States.
This is all the more bewildering since not all Member States have ratified it.
There is therefore no justification for the Member States, as the report proposes, transferring authority from themselves to the EU on matters concerning trade policy, fishing policy, environmental issues, sovereignty over sea areas and fishing rights.
In the light of this, I have voted against the report.
As an advocate of international intergovernmental cooperation, respecting each country's sovereignty, I am critical of giving the EU authority to represent the Member States in international contexts.
The Convention on the Law of the Sea is, however, a very important agreement to save the marine environment and an opportunity for countries in the third world to assert their right to the sea on the same terms as the rich countries.
Hopefully, the EU's conclusion of the Convention on the Law of the Sea will lead to the Union being forced to a greater extent to respect environmental requirements and to cooperate with countries in the third world on equal terms.
That is why I am voting for the recommendation.
Pettinari Report (A4-221/97)
The intensely sad history of Cambodia is written in blood.
It shows something of the glaring contrasts in the ASEAN region.
If this organization tries to mediate in the civil war, the EU should take a detached attitude.
After the 1993 elections, the situation in Cambodia seemed to improve, but the recent battle between Premier Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh has again brought the country to the edge of the abyss.
We feel that the time is not ripe for a cooperation agreement with Cambodia, although we certainly agree on the content.
We must wait for the parliamentary elections in 1998. That is why we have abstained on the Pettinari report.
Furthermore, an agreement with Cambodia, but also with Vietnam and Laos, is above all a gesture of friendship by the EU as support for reforms in these countries.
It may in no way be seen as approval of the political situation.
In cooperation with countries such as Laos and Cambodia there must be strict supervision to ensure that financial support is given legitimately and appropriately and in no way must it reach the pockets of corrupt officials.
Hindley Report (A4-0195/97)
Madam President, I also have an explanation of vote on Commissioner Martens's report, but it is also in writing.
Madam President, in the explanatory statement in the report on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations it is stated that ASEAN was initially meant as an alliance against rising communism.
A very worthy objective, some will think.
And they are entitled to their opinion.
They should not, however, forget the massacres which already resulted from that struggle in the area in question, in Indonesia, for example, even before ASEAN existed.
But the Committee on External Economic Relations, as the committee responsible for the basic issue, is more concerned with strengthening relations with a major economic partner, and its proposal therefore seeks to contribute to resolving the impasse caused by Portugal's opposition to the third-generation agreement.
And it does not so much as mention the blocking of the vote and the reasons for blocking it, but identifies the question as turning on possible options for a new dynamic, with protocols annexed to the 1980 agreement, active partnerships and other stratagems, stating, with excellent intentions, the need to safeguard environmental and cultural conservation, which is considered to include the Portuguese language and other symbols of a historic past in Timor.
And emphasizing, also with excellent intentions, the importance of observing the principle of conditionality on respect for human rights.
The opinion of the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is even more political: it refers explicitly to the blocking of the agreement and sees the way out of the situation as being an order that Portugal withdraw her objection, arguing that this would make it possible to create a legal basis for the protection of human rights in East Timor.
It demands nothing of Indonesia, however, despite the fact that the country has been in continuous military occupation of East Timor for over twenty years, although the opinion, to do it justice, does call on Member States to respect the decision of the Parliament as regards the sale of arms to Indonesia.
For that reason, we are faced with a political sleight of hand which overlooks the invasion and military occupation of a territory which needs to be decolonized, which ignores the cultural and physical genocide of a people, which disregards the decisions of the United Nations demanding practical respect for the right to self-determination, all of which reduces the protection of human rights by the amount it forgets, the amount it ignores, the amount it disregards, as if Timor were part of Indonesia.
End of story!
In the name of economics, of business, solutions are sought for awkward situations, but they cannot rely on our silent complicity, because there is a military operation and invasion, because there is disrespect for the right of a people to self-determination, because there is cultural and physical genocide going on.
The Europe of Nations Group participated in the adoption of the group of reports on the agenda for this period of additional session which deal with relationships between the European Union and the countries of Asia, notably with the Member States of ASEAN, with whom we have longstanding and deep relationships.
The development and readjustment of our relations with this part of the world is indeed a challenge and an objective common to all the Member States of the Union.
The European Union must take into account both the potential markets in these countries and their distinctive commercial aggressiveness.
We must therefore pay particular attention to the balance of the agreements and reciprocal concessions, carefully studying their consequences on jobs.
The extension of the benefits of the cooperation agreement to Vietnam is, for the Union, a way of signalling our interest in this country and our desire to take into account the realities of political and economic developments in the region.
With regard to the cooperation agreement with Cambodia, the I-EDN group would like to signal its agreement with a policy which is, in this case, both wise and reasonable for, whilst adapting our cooperation to the difficult situation that this country is experiencing, it manages to preserve its achievements and encourages, in advance, any positive change.
It is essential to underline the importance we attach to the organization of an equitable electoral process.
The conditions in which the ballot proceeds should determine both the breadth and nature of our cooperation.
Given its experience and competence in this sphere, our Parliament could certainly provide useful support in the monitoring of these elections.
The most important thing, for the moment, is to signal our desire to support all positive progress, to punish all deterioration into violence and to protect the interests of populations benefitting from humanitarian cooperation.
This objective is therefore perfectly consistent with the referral of Mr Pettinari's report to the parliamentary committee, which will enable us to integrate into our resolution the most recent developments in the situation in Cambodia.
Hindley Report (A4-0262/97)
Since this is an area of extraordinary potential, the European Union's concern to establish a new dynamic in relations with ASEAN is understandable.
This does not mean, however, that values which ought to be safeguarded can be abandoned, particularly in the economic and social fields.
But, over and above these values, particularly bearing in mind the extremely serious situation in East Timor, it was necessary that very specific mention should be made of the requirement that human rights should be respected.
This is a point to which we on the Committee on External Economic Relations have paid special attention, and it has been considered in paragraph 16 of the approved resolution, where its importance is emphasized and there is even a demand for 'the adherence to human rights conditionality in the bilateral relations between the EU and certain ASEAN member states' .
Whatever the attractions of big business, there are values on which Europe should stand firm, or it will lose all credibility.
The relationship between the ASEAN countries and the EU, which has changed a great deal since 1980, certainly requires a new dynamism.
We support the Council's and the Commission's choice of option 2.
A joint declaration offers the parties more space to take advantage of developments and can be supplemented by agreements with the separate ASEAN countries.
The rapporteur states that the voice of the European Parliament is more limited than if option 1 were chosen.
We have no objection to that. Foreign policy is the responsibility of the Member States, after all.
Close cooperation with the ASEAN countries is clearly desirable.
In this context, priority must be given to trade and investment barriers.
The promotion of exports by the EU is, moreover, no more that a supplement to the export policies of the Member States, where this task primarily lies.
There the necessary involvement of the business world can also take shape.
The EU should particularly create the preconditions in a multilateral context.
I am convinced that in the field of human rights, in particular the arrogant attitude of many Western countries is distasteful to the ASEAN countries.
Standing up for human rights is best served if the EU treats the Asian countries more as equal, adult countries.
That does not, however, remove the basic fact that man as a creation of God is worthy of protection.
The ASEAN countries may also be spoken to like that.
The amendment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is, as far as I am concerned, not on the agenda, although in view of its highly humanist nature, I can sympathize with criticism of it.
It is not up to the EU to determine which countries in this region may or may not accede to ASEAN, however much trouble we have with the situation in some countries in the region.
So we were able to agree to the extension of the agreement to Vietnam.
The Council should, however, point to abuses in contacts with the ASEAN countries.
Programmes that promote human rights should be given priority by the Union and the Member States.
The disgusting sexual exploitation of children in Thailand and in the Philippines and also the white slave trade call for joint measures to combat them.
Considerations about South East Asian countries mostly deal with the explosive and economic growth, trade and investments.
It is forgotten that poverty and the lack of development are still the main problems in many ASEAN countries.
The Commission communication also pays too little attention to this.
Countless NGOs in the region are doing good work in that field.
Unfortunately it is often no more than a drop in the ocean.
In cooperation with the ASEAN countries the battle against poverty and underdevelopment must be continued unabated.
Hindley Reports (A4-0195/97 et A4-0262/97)
I voted for the report on the EU's relations with the ASEAN states.
However, it is necessary to stress the point relating to human rights more clearly than the report does.
This has been powerfully underlined in the cooperation agreement with Vietnam, but not yet with the other combined ASEAN states.
There are breaches of human rights in all of these states, particularly in Indonesia and the Philippines.
For a long time the trades union and democratic movements in these states have been subjected to oppression and persecution, not least in rural districts.
Indonesia is also responsible for the terrible genocide in East Timor and the occupation of that country.
The EU must strongly defend human rights in the whole ASEAN area.
Graziani Report (A4-0140/97)
The Euro-Canadian common declaration of 17 December 1996 and the plan of action which goes with it, in our minds, do not respect the current law of the Union, and we do not understand how the national governments represented on the Council could have accepted it.
Indeed, you would look in vain in the treaty for any legal basis enabling the Union to sign such commitments.
It does not relate to a common position under article J2, as this is an agreement with a third country.
Nor is it related to a common action under article J3, for the same reason, and also because the expected procedure in these cases has not been followed.
Furthermore, reservations must also be expressed on the nature of the areas covered by the declaration and plan of action: they certainly deal with trade relations, in which the Community has authority, but also with security, disarmament, justice, immigration, terrorism, etc., in other words areas which are strictly national or inter-governmental.
The surprise is even greater when one notices that the whole of this hotchpotch document is co-signed by the Commission, when it only has the authority to negotiate certain limited parts of it.
It is true that the Commission, since its initial communication to the Council at the beginning of 1996, has coldly explained the need to take into consideration the changing nature of the Union's foreign relations since Maastricht.
One would indeed like to know what this changing nature consists of since, after Maastricht as before, common foreign policy is still of an inter-governmental nature.
It was probably to illustrate this alleged change that Leon Brittan went to present a proposal to the Canadians without even having the formal go ahead from the Council.
It is probably in the same spirit that throughout the signed document, the Union is presented on an equal legal footing with Canada, as if it were a state, when it does not even have an artificial personality.
In reality, these agreements should have been co-signed by all the European countries, or by those who were the most interested.
In their present state, they are legally worthless.
Added to the desire of the authors to pass off the European Union as a sort of federal state is their determination to remove, from the body of the text, any mention by name of a Member State, even of those, France or Great Britain, who have the most obvious historic links with Canada.
You have to read the document to be conscious, with considerable astonishment moreover, of this true passion for erasing nations.
Indeed, the very notion of a Member State seems to have been banished.
It appears only in a brief and sibylline phrase, added at the last minute of the negotiations to the effect that these documents have no impact on the legal position of the European Community, of its Member States, or of Canada.
It is the only place in the text where the reader learns, by chance, that there are Member States in the Union.
You will also note the obscure style (the legal position), designed to avoid displaying the shameful truth: only the sovereign Member States have the right to act in the Union's foreign policy.
Since you must above all not talk of Member States and their different foreign policies, the Euro-Canadian documents never mention, of course, the existence of special links between France and Quebec, and the need to preserve these.
You see here at work the integrational mechanism: instead of protecting the differences, which in theory is its duty, the Union strives to eliminate them: instead of valuing and defending member nations, it tries to remove them in order to pull itself up and place itself in the forefront.
It seems to me that governments and national diplomats should carefully consider this text, and draw conclusions from it.
I voted for the report on the EU's relations with Canada, but I voted against the criticism of Canada's fishing policy.
I think it is a lot more sensible than the EU's policy because it takes account of the reduced fish stocks.
Canada's policy is necessary to make sure there is no depletion of stocks.
I am also opposed to the proposal that there should be a developed cooperation between Europol and the Canadian police authorities.
As an opponent of the development of a Europol, I think it would be better for international police cooperation to take place through Interpol.
I note, as do several of my colleagues, the happy coincidence of the particularly notable visit of the Prime Minister of Quebec to Paris and our debate on relations between the European Union and Canada.
This coincidence leads us to accord a special importance to the unresolved problems of the Canadian federation, to which Mr Graziani has rightly drawn our attention and which determine the future of our relationships with the different constituent parts.
Canada, as she is currently organized, carries within her, like a nagging torment and a destructive ferment, the unresolved question of the recognition of the uniqueness of her origins, due to the fact that she is the result of two founding peoples.
An insoluble question, in any case, within the framework of a federal formula which has shown itself to be incapable of providing a satisfactory solution, since even the recognition of Quebec as a 'distinct society' within the framework of the Meech Lake Accord - which raised great hopes - could not succeed; likewise nor could the modification of the federal constitution by the Charlottetown Agreement.
This tragedy of Canada and Quebec must encourage us to act very prudently and responsibly within Europe, for it shows that no lasting balance can be found when people feel that their sovereignty has been taken away from them.
General de Gaulle highlighted this thirty years ago.
And it is also the reason why we see today, across Europe but also elsewhere, so many federations falling apart.
Of course, it is for the people of Quebec, as is their intention, to democratically give their opinion on their future and it is for us to respect their choice, whatever it may be.
Moreover it could be, and this only appears to be a paradox, that the survival of Canada, with whom we are united by so many historic and friendly links, will be through the recognition of the sovereignty of its component parts.
The President of the French Republic has just stated that, whatever Quebec's choice, France will accompany her on the path she decides to take.
For our part, is it not for us to make clearly known, to both Canada and Quebec, that whatever the choice of the latter, Europe will accompany her on the path she chooses?
Willockx Report (A4-0255/97)
The Willockx report is the result of an initiative of the European Parliament which wanted to clarify, in its opinion, what the links between the convergence criteria for monetary union and the financing of the social security systems of Member States were.
It came to such an embarrassing conclusion that it preferred to relegate it to the preamble, officially drawn up under the sole responsibility of the rapporteur, and to leave nothing but a tissue of platitudes in the final resolution this House has voted for.
Indeed, this resolution, after having shown that it is difficult but necessary to reduce the deficit on social schemes (who would say otherwise?), gets round the problem by proposing to lighten taxation on labour in order to facilitate, in exchange, the levying of social security contributions.
Thus this proposal brings no fundamental solution to the social deficit, nor to the wider problem of convergence criteria, for if you change taxation, you naturally have to look for economies elsewhere.
The debate, however, must not end there.
Monetary union will have plenty of other impacts on social schemes and the question of convergence criteria, although it is the most immediate, is not the most important.
It is only the tip of the iceberg.
Indeed, as the preamble shows, the most substantial consequences of monetary union will develop after it has come into effect: a centralized redistribution will have to be put in place on a European scale, for the benefit of less developed regions, notably in terms of their social security.
Looking to evaluate the cost of this redistribution, the rapporteur quotes from studies that conclude that a European budget of around 5 to 7 % of Union GNP (as opposed to 1.2 % now) will be necessary.
We here come up against the real difficulties of monetary union in the social sphere, difficulties that the citizens will discover in the future when they are already immersed in the new system, but which the Europe of Nations Group has denounced for a long time. It will be necessary to put in place, in the end, a European budget which is much bigger than the current one, with corresponding compulsory deductions which will cancel out the competitive advantages we will have been able to gain through the euro.
Thus businesses and citizens will have made a fool's bargain.
The link established by the report between the criteria for convergence and social security systems does not seem justified to me.
Whilst our rapporteur has in no way challenged the pertinence of the criteria, I do not share his view that the convergence criteria would limit the margin for manoeuvre of Member States in their social mission.
Indeed, once deficits go below the 3 % mark and have been reduced to the balance required by the pact for stability and growth, the states will have a true margin for manoeuvre: they will then have the possibility of increasing their deficit up to 3 % of GDP in order to face up to possible economic and social shocks.
Similarly, whilst I approve of the fact that employers' contributions need to be reduced in order to reduce unemployment, a compensatory rise in other taxes would not be welcome.
Under no circumstances must the safeguarding of our social security systems cause new increases in taxes on capital, as the rapporteur suggests.
We would be going against much sought after economic efficiency, that is, against growth and employment, without managing to resolve the different social problems and deficits on our social accounts.
On the contrary, it would be much wiser to rationalize our social security expenses without jeopardizing the social structure.
To a certain extent the report is a recognition of the fact that the social situation in most of the EU's Member States is strained, mainly because of the struggle to achieve the EMU convergence criteria.
In spite of that it is said that the policy of EMU must continue as the only option.
There are many conclusions in the report which I find odd.
That includes, for example, paragraph 4, where it says that in future there will be a need for more money in the social services sector because of increased pension and health insurance and that this increase in expenditure shall be compensated through reduced expenditure on child support and unemployment benefit.
I cannot support that policy.
To improve national finances it would be far better to save money on the military and the construction of motorways, but not on children - our future - and on those who have the most problems.
However, the rapporteur is not satisfied with that, but is also demanding coordination of the tax system, i.e. that it be made into EU policy. If that were done large parts of the Swedish welfare system would collapse since the level of tax is higher in Sweden than in other countries and would therefore have to be reduced.
There is no way that that would create any social security for the citizens.
I do not share these visions of the social model of the future in the countries of the EU, and I have therefore voted against the report.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the report by Frederik A. Willockx, which is concerned with the relationship between EMU and the social security systems of the Member States of the European Union.
The report finds that in trying to meet the convergence criteria, countries have restricted the room for manoeuvre in their budgets.
The Danish Social Democrats agree with the above finding, but point out that restrictions in the room for manoeuvre in budgets have only occurred in those countries which have chosen to meet the convergence criteria by saving, while Denmark has chosen to boost its economy in order to meet the convergence criteria.
The report calls for a better coordination of tax systems taking account of the Member States' different requirements for public amenities.
The Danish Social Democrats agree that a better coordination of tax systems would be good in view of, amongst other things, the unfortunate situations we saw when Ireland drastically reduced its corporation tax and so took jobs away from other countries, including Denmark.
The Danish Social Democrats would like to point out that social policy is still the concern of sovereign national states.
I share the aims of the report regarding the need to ensure a high level of social protection within the European Union and the analysis noting that the convergence criteria limit the budgetary margin for manoeuvre which Member States have to fulfil their social mission.
However, I am surprised by the unproven assertion that neither these criteria nor the date on which the euro comes into force can undermine the concerted efforts of the EU to create jobs, maintain social security and, if necessary, strengthen it!
On the contrary, in numerous countries of the EU, there are growing threats to the level of pensions or people's right to health care.
No concrete measures have been put in place, alongside monetary union, to guarantee that the two objectives of healthy budgetary policy and quality employment and social security will be compatible.
I am particularly sad that, by harmonizing social gains from above, the principle of social convergence has been abandoned and there is no social measure to achieve this.
Finally, the Commission's White Paper strives to accommodate the growing insecurity of employment and even to justify it in the name of flexibility.
The White Paper strives to favour the progression in Europe from a pensions system based on assessment to a mixed system with minimal guarantees for employees through assessment, the rest being ensured by pension funds.
This would be an open door for a two-tier system of social security and for a long term swing towards capitalization, a system which is more unjust.
I cannot approve of the report's support of the Commission's White Paper without some qualifications.
Consequently, I am voting against the Willockx report.
I agree that the Maastricht Treaty's requirements for EMU should not involve tearing down the welfare models of the Member States.
In my opinion the risk that that will be the consequence of EMU is great.
Therefore I cannot agree with the somewhat illogical conclusion that EMU must be carried out to the letter.
I can agree even less that it will automatically lead to lower interest rates, promote employment and reduce social spending.
On the contrary, there is a great risk that EMU will lead to the opposite, namely to increased regional imbalances, a massive centralization and de-democratization of economic policy and the risk of higher unemployment through the one-sided prioritizing of economic convergence criteria and the lack of corresponding requirements to increase employment.
Proposals in the direction of a common tax policy are rejected while the committee's recommendations for switching tax from work to environmental discharges, natural resources, energy and consumption are approved.
The negative proposals outweigh the positive.
That is why I voted against the report.
Because we do not agree with the idea of a common currency for the EU's Member States, we have decided to abstain from the vote on this report.
However, we would like to make the observation that the rapporteur, in the conclusions to his explanatory statement, writes that the forthcoming intergovernmental conference must restore the balance between a unified monetary policy on one side and the Union's political authority on the other.
We have misgivings that, when it has been implemented, EMU will be followed up by a common financial policy within the EU, strengthened in this report, even though the arguments on the issue are well disguised.
Alber Report (A4-0276/97)
Strange coincidences sometimes occur in European affairs: at the same time as the Alber report of the European Parliament raises concerns about national resistance to the omnipotence of Community law, the draft amendment adopted at the Council of Amsterdam proposes to resolve the problem in a radical and, in our opinion, undemocratic way: to completely subordinate national constitutions to Community law.
At European level, the Court of Justice has long proclaimed the superiority of Community law over national law.
Moreover it draws this principle from deductive reasoning and not from the treaty itself, which has never contained a general rule on this subject (except the particular rule of article 189 regarding regulations).
The Court has not stopped there: it has proclaimed this superiority, not only with regard to previous guidelines but also to subsequent ones, which is more questionable.
It has even stated that the superiority applies whatever the nature of the national standard, including fundamental laws as they are formulated by the constitution of a Member State or the principles of its national constitutional structure.
It has finished by describing the treaty as the basic constitutional charter of the Community.
In the face of this truly legal aggression, what has happened at national level?
At first, nothing.
The authorities of final resort have endorsed the decision of the Court of Justice, governments have kept quiet, people have not understood the problem; the treaty has never been revised to include the so-called new principles clearly.
But then, certain national constitutional courts, notably in Denmark and Germany, showed themselves to be concerned about the growing lack of democracy induced by the principle of absolute superiority of Community law.
Had we not arrived, from logical deduction to logical deduction, at the conclusion that a simple regulation of the Commission could have greater value than a national law of referendum?
The Constitutional Court of Karlsruhe, in its ruling of 12 October 1993, the so-called 'Maastricht ruling', reacted the most clearly: it declares the superiority of the German constitution along with a national duty to protect the rights of German citizens in the face of possible excesses of Community law.
It confirms that Community law is not applicable in cases where it oversteps the delegation of power agreed by the German people.
It even mentions the possibility of a withdrawal from the Union if the constitutional rights of German citizens are not respected.
So, Germany having authorized the adoption of the Maastricht Treaty, this ruling is the official interpretation of this treaty, with an equal value.
In the face of this situation threatening supranational power, the European institutions have carefully considered their reply.
Four years on, in 1997, they succeeded in including in the Amsterdam proposal, through the roundabout means of the protocol on subsidiarity, a clear guarantee of the authority of the Court of Justice: the application of the principle of subsidiarity does not infringe on the principles clarified by the Court of Justice regarding the relationship between national law and Community law, it said, as if these principles were already well established, as if they went without saying, and as if there were no question about them.
Thus if the Amsterdam proposal is ratified, people will be approving, in a roundabout way, the total superiority of Community law, even regarding subsequent law, including laws passed by referendum, the complete subordination of national constitutions to Community law and the establishment of a federal European State, moreover of the most rigorous kind imaginable, that which purely and simply denies the right of people's self-determination.
Let us dwell for a moment on the method used here: this reform, of great scope - we are all agreed - has never been clearly discussed at an intergovernmental conference.
Nor has anyone drawn up a precise list of legal principles that the treaty would sanction if the protocol on subsidiarity were adopted.
There is a complete lack of clarity, even though we are talking about sensible questions, extremely important for national sovereignty, where only precise and clearly delineated delegations of authority should be accepted.
So, if we accept this fuzziness, we will be referring back to the Court of Justice for interpretations, which we know in advance will be as broadly as possible in favour of Community authority.
This cannot be serious, and we ask ourselves what our negotiators can be thinking of, to want to make us accept such a makeshift job.
In fact, the Europe of Nations Group has long outlined its counter proposals, notably in the draft report on the institutional nature of the European Union which I myself introduced and which, of course, was not supported by the ruling federalist majority in this Parliament.
We consider that the network of values, of legal regulations, of solidarity which makes up our nations is the natural framework for the good exercise of democracy.
The current European undertaking - consisting of destroying this and trying to build in its place an equivalent network covering the whole of the Union out of the well-stocked heads of Eurocrats - is a mad venture.
It can only succeed, after having dismantled everything, in leaving our citizens in a vacuum, which cannot profit anyone.
We therefore consider that it is necessary to protect the national democracies, and to build on this base, little by little, complementary cooperation at European level.
Consequently, national constitutions and laws passed by referendum must be clearly recognized as the superior standards of the Union.
The Court of Justice is not a supraconstitutional court, but a tribunal with responsibility for honestly interpreting a treaty, of which the rulings must be able to be submitted to the higher verdict of the people if they modify the initial concept of the rules.
For all these reasons, we reject the Amsterdam proposals as well as the Alber report on Community law.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(DA) The proposed resolution contains, firstly, a detailed rendition of one of the EU's basic integration mechanisms, i.e. the principle that EU law supplants national law (the principle of supremacy, paragraphs 1, 3-8, 10 and 13), secondly, a number of legislative recommendations, which are aimed at developing and strengthening the principle of supremacy and thereby integration (paragraphs 2, 11, 12 and 14-17), and thirdly, a dissociation from developments in certain parts of national legal systems whereby the facility provided by Community law to test secondary Community legislation is called into question (paragraph 9).
With the latter, the report is alluding partly to the practice of the German Constitutional Court based on the Maastricht ruling of 12 October 1993, and partly to the Danish Supreme Court's ruling of 12 August 1996, which allows the Danish Supreme Court to verify the meaning of the Danish Constitution in relation to the Maastricht Treaty.
We are opposed to the trends which underlie the report's findings and recommendations.
These trends will strengthen integration and reduce the importance of the national constitutional safeguard against the exercise of the EU's powers.
We shall therefore vote against the report.
We cannot vote for this report, since our view is that the EU should be a cooperation between sovereign and democratic states.
Martens Report (A4-0274/97)
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party voted against paragraph 87 of the resolution in the Martens report.
We thought that it was not irrelevant to state why we did so.
Paragraph 87 relates to a Commission proposal for a new cocoa directive.
Everyone knows that that is a very complex and sensitive subject.
It is a subject that requires detailed consideration.
We cannot casually just state our opinion here on the occasion of another more comprehensive report, particularly as the proposal is now being dealt with in detail in the Committee on Environment and we will speak on it again in the next part-session.
I can say that the PPE is in any case making every effort to contribute to it in every way it can so that there is a large majority in this Parliament lending its full weight to the necessary amendments to the Commission's proposal.
We support the report, since it is based on the partnership principle and the fight against poverty and a greater concordance between development policy and agricultural policy.
However, we cannot agree to paragraphs 84 and 85 because we think the WTO's trade rules should be followed in all areas.
We think that exceptions to the WTO's trade rules are not sustainable in the long term, since they remove the necessary predictability which has to exist in the economies of all countries.
The Commission's Green Paper on the future of relations between the European Union and the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) is an initiative with wide political implications, in terms of both strategic options and operations.
The Commission, and particularly Commissioner João de Deus Pinheiro, the team leader, are therefore to be congratulated.
The starting-point for a new Lomé Convention for the period from 2000 to 2010 is the awareness that the spirit and policy of Lomé are a basic element of the political identity of the European Union and that the four Lomé conventions which have already run their course represent the most advanced instrument of north/south cooperation.
At the same time, it is assumed that economic globalization, which in theory penalizes the poorest, must be accompanied by a strengthening of solidarity with the weakest and that this dimension must go hand in hand with support for the sustainable development of those countries and giving them a stable place in the world economy.
I should like to emphasize three profoundly innovative aspects of the policies of cooperation and support for development:
the establishment of forms of cooperation which transcend the traditional national level, with the object of strengthening the regional integration of the ACP countries' economies, particularly in Africa; -the selective nature of future cooperation, giving absolute priority to the poorest countries, which include most of the Portuguese-speaking African countries; -The creation of means of preventing conflict in all national and regional indicative programmes, thus ensuring greater political efficiency in the ratio between the means expended in humanitarian aid and the results achieved in armed conflicts, which, unfortunately, are so common in many of the countries in question.The report by our colleague Wilfried Martens, leader of the European People's Party, emphasizes all these ideas, reinforcing them with major innovative concepts, particularly in the case of the priority to be given in those countries to children, the war-wounded, the removal of mines, and also a total ban on the manufacture of anti-personnel mines and greater restrictions and control on the sale of arms.
For all these reasons I support this report and appeal to my colleagues to do likewise.
I have decided to vote for Mr Martens' report, in spite of reservations.
The Commission's Green Paper was intended as a catalogue of ideas, but as such it is an imperfect draft.
Mr Martens has put a lot of work into the report, but unfortunately the result is a compromise.
A compromise which covers a large number of very significant points, most of which I agree with.
The Lomé Convention is unique and should be maintained, of that there should be no doubt.
But the Lomé Convention has not worked as well as it might.
What I miss in Mr Martens' report are the guidelines and vision of how a new cooperation could be formed.
I miss a direct criticism of the Commission's Green Paper and a prioritizing of the many substantial elements which Mr Martens has already withdrawn.
A prioritizing in which I think that information about poverty and partnership - perhaps with more concrete content - should be given pride of place.
Without these guiding visions and priorities, it will be difficult for the European Parliament to make a constructive contribution when the final European guidelines and negotiating mandate are to be drawn up.
I voted for the Martens report for the following reasons:
1.Over the last 3 years within the ACP-EU Joint Assembly we have published, together with our ACP partners, pioneering concepts in central reports.
These include, amongst others: the absolute necessity for cross-border regional cooperation in Africa; improved use of the instruments for industrial co-operation, e.g., support for young African entrepreneurs and for small and medium-sized businesses; development of the infrastructure from the coast into the interior of Africa for cross-border development of the whole region; the minimum requirements for urban development.Specific reports prepared by the Joint Assembly have been placed before the Commission, and they are to be included in the discussion mandate of the Commission and Council.
2.A further key point of our concepts is subsidiarity and aid for self-assistance.
A social and ecological market economy is only possible if the efforts of the NRO, national development aid and European cooperation are coordinated and combined.
This is one firm outcome from our discussions with those concerned in Africa.3.We need to have a single, European, foreign policy towards our partners in the ACP countries, combining on the one hand peace safeguards, prevention of warlike conflict and humanitarian aid, and which also particularly encourages co-operative foreign economics and foreign trade with ACP countries, coordinating with that our development cooperation instruments.4.The new partnership, particularly with Africa, also demands greater efficiency and quality control of financial payments.
Other necessary and vital practical changes which have to be decided within the framework of the new Convention are the financing of development cooperation as part of the communal budget, effective control by the European Parliament towards more efficient and more sparing use of means by the Committee on Budgetary Control, systematic encouragement of aid for self-help, and observance of the subsidiarity principle.Private local development organisations and the numerous development initiatives in Europe for the African Continent must be supported as a basis for the solidarity of the European population with that of Africa.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
Indeed, I share his point of view on the Commission's Green Paper, which enables the fuelling of debate and a reflection on our future relations with our ACP partners. I would like to stress a few points which seem to me particularly important.
Firstly, there is cause to rejoice in the initiative of the European Commission.
In presenting this Green Paper, it enables a true debate to be established around different options, without it prejudging the proposals which will subsequently be made.
The renewal, but above all the strengthening, advocated by the rapporteur of future relations between the EU and ACP countries entirely satisfies me.
The 5th Convention will need to provide a global agreement applicable to all of the ACP countries, suited to unique institutions in order to promote interparliamentary dialogue and including tools adapted to the different levels of development of our partners.
I am very favourable to the development of a level of regional cooperation which will better enable the prevention of certain crises.
The approval of the cooperation by the populations in question seems to me to be a good way of ensuring greater transparency and accessibility of programmes.
In the future, measures aimed at favouring the integration of ACP countries into the global economy must be taken concerning, notably, the setting up of true regional economic areas, the diversification of crops and produce and the modification of the rules of international trade.
The EU must continue and deepen its relations with these countries and contribute, through a real partnership, to the fight against poverty, to the development of the awareness of environmental problems, to the involvement of civil societies and to a better awareness of the social dimension of the problems encountered.
For all these reasons, I fully support my colleague's report.
van Dijk Report (A4-0266/97)
Madam President, I want to express my delight at this report having been adopted without amendment.
I congratulate the rapporteur.
It marks an important further step forward in the laying down of proper requirements so long as we still have to carry on with the transport of animals.
In my view, and in the view of a great many people, it is necessary that we work towards the elimination of any long-distance transportation of live animals.
The transportation of meat should be in carcass form and not 'on the hoof' where animals can and do suffer very greatly.
I am delighted to say that announcements have been made in Britain this week by the new Labour government that in future the rather cosy but unsatisfactory arrangements whereby transporters engage their own vets to do checks will be replaced by vets appointed by the Ministry of Agriculture in Britain.
Transporters will have to pay for very stringent checks carried out by Ministry-appointed vets.
Since it is essential in all this that we have proper inspection and monitoring of what is going on, this is going to be tightened up and assurances have been made that any transporters who offend against European regulations on these matters will instantly lose their licences for transportation.
This is the only way we can ensure that decent and humane standards are applied.
Madam President. May I first record for the minutes that both I and my colleague Karl Habsburg-Lothringen have voted, or intend to vote, against paragraphs 16 and 17.
We are not quite sure if our machines have operated properly, but we intended to, and have, voted against paragraphs 16 and 17.
I should like to explain on behalf of my Austrian colleagues in the VP, and also for Mr Frischenschlager in the Liberals, why we rejected the eight hour clause.
This is not because we were in favour of a longer transport duration, but just the opposite: we consider eight hours too long, and in Austria we already have a maximum transport of six hours laid down in law.
We shall certainly never tire of pressing in this Parliament for other European states, countries of the Union, to accept the six hour ruling.
We were simply unable to vote for this measure, because anything else is for us cruelty to animals, and in our view should be prosecuted as a crime in all European countries.
Madam President, I abstained on Mrs van Dijk's report even though I am naturally in favour of the protection of animals, and thus all measures enabling us to ensure their welfare during transportation, in particular over long distances.
I have doubts for three reasons.
Firstly, I believe that some of the measures are too strict, I am thinking of paragraph 16 regarding the length of eight hours.
In placing the same requirements over all the countries, it raises some problems.
I am not sure that all the consequences have been considered.
Nor am I sure that all the economic consequences of this report have been considered as it initially related to the transportation of horses and has now been extended to the transportation of other animals.
I think it would have been worth submitting this to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I finally, and on this point I will finish, question the absence of a measure.
There is nothing regarding the occasional transportation of horses.
As you know, many of our traditional holidays, particularly the traditional holidays of St. Éloi in Provence, bring in cattle trucks which transport horses occasionally over short distances.
It would be good not too impose too heavy a constraint on these.
This report is unrealistic and fundamentally flawed.
Mrs Van Dijk reasserts the eight-hour transportation rule despite a compromise by Member States on this issue.
Furthermore, she calls on the Commission to put an end to the granting of export refunds for the export to third countries of live cattle intended for consumption.
The Greens are once again throwing out the baby with the bath water.
The question of export refunds is a fundamental part of the support system of the CAP.
Without export refunds, the EU's surplus beef will end up in new, costly and unwanted beef mountains.
There is a demand for live cattle in third countries.
If these cattle are not supplied by Member States then they will be found elsewhere.
EU Member States, including Ireland, have taken considerable steps since January this year to improve transportation conditions for animals.
If, as the Greens are demanding, export refunds are abolished, the demand for live cattle will not diminish and countries without protective legislation will gain - to the detriment of the animals.
I voted against the van Dijk report because it would make it virtually impossible to transport live cattle out of Ireland.
Irish beef producers have already been experiencing a severe financial crisis.
If the proposals of the van Dijk report were to be implemented it would add to their problems.
Many would not survive if they were denied the opportunity to sell cattle 'on the hoof' in non-Irish and non-European markets.
If they were denied this facility they would be even more at the mercy of those that operate monopolies and cartels in the Irish cattle trade.
Furthermore the record of Irish farmers in relation to animal welfare is an exemplary one.
First and foremost, we can but regret the procedure established for this own initiative report of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
In fact, it is not at all normal that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has been excluded from the legislative process and that it has never had the possibility of debating and giving its opinion on this subject, which has a direct impact on both the meat market, farmers and companies operating at all levels in the chain.
The I-EDN Group asked for a roll call vote on two essential points.
Point 16 of the motion for a resolution considers that the total journey time involved in the transport by road of animals intended for slaughter should not exceed eight hours.
We of course voted against this point.
In fact, in the guise of a report on an initiative regarding transportation of horses, the transportation of all animals is in fact covered by the text (cattle, sheep, etc.).
This parliamentary practice is totally abnormal.
Point 35 calls on the Commission to put an end to the granting of export refunds for the export to third countries of live cattle intended for consumption.
Let me remind you, on this precise point, that the European Union exports live animals to certain third countries, particularly the Arab world, who prefer to kill the animals themselves for religious reasons, because of refrigeration infrastructure or simply for employment.
If we no longer export to these destinations, others will do it in our place.
I wonder if there is not a connection between the pressure groups and certain third countries who wish to take part in the traditional market of the European Union.
Finally, along the same lines, I am surprised that the same pressure groups, defenders of the welfare of live animals, do not concern themselves with the conditions of transportation of live animals imported into the European Union from third countries.
The Committee on Transport, which is very close to these pressure groups, should have been able, for example, to ask for the withdrawal of the preferential treatment that we grant to certain third countries.
Why penalize European exports without proposing to penalize imports?
As a member of the Committee on Agriculture, I can but remember that the European Union was built around a common agricultural policy integrating the notion of community preference.
Everything is being done, within this very Parliament, to destroy the unity of European agriculture and agricultural policy.
The transport of animals is characterized mainly by the cruelty, immorality and unethical treatment animals are forced to go through.
In recent years we have seen many examples of this on our TV screens.
The cornerstone must be that these transports cease.
This report is, therefore, important and will mean a great advance for animals if it is adopted.
This is especially true of paragraph 1, which states that animals should be slaughtered as close as possible to their place of origin, paragraph 16, which sets a maximum of eight hours for the length of time long-distance transports of animals may last without a break, and paragraph 35, in which the Commission is urged to stop paying export subsidies for the export to third countries of live animals intended for consumption.
I consider these three points to be of great importance.
If they become reality, I think it should be possible to avoid many of the problems which exist today.
It is also important to make clear that these requirements are only minimum levels.
It is up to individual countries or regions to introduce tougher rules regarding, for example, the time of transports.
In view of the above, I am voting for the report in its entirety.
Export subsidies should not go towards the transport of live animals at all.
It is contrary to the whole intention of the report.
The inspection of transports is primarily a national issue.
New funds should not be granted for inspection services within the Commission.
Detailed rules about the design of loading ramps etc. should be drawn up at public authority level and should not be included in the decision in principle.
On the whole, the report is good, and I have therefore voted for it.
I am voting against the van Dijk report on the transport of live animals because it is designed to make the whole business of trading in live cattle impossible.
To put the proposals contained in this report into full effect would add so much to the cost of moving live animals that the price of Community meat would make it unacceptable to the consumer.
The report ignores the fact that while relentless pressure exists on European farmers to concede free trade in agricultural products, we have no means to ensure that the costly standards we seek to impose on our own farmers will be observed by our competitors in third countries.
A proposal contained in the report for the provision of mobile abattoirs is totally unrealistic and ignores the fact that the Commission has, through the use of EAGGF funds, encouraged the establishment of larger abattoirs and larger cattle markets in order to ensure lower costs and maintain higher standards.
A proposal in paragraph 35 to withdraw export refunds from live cattle would seriously discriminate against farmers in remote regions where a live trade is necessary to ensure competition and maintain reasonable prices.
The report under debate states that 'the long-distance transport of animals intended for consumption is not only undesirable but also unnecessary' .
I agree completely with this statement.
There is no justification - economic, cultural or whatever - for subjecting animals to the cruelty which the live export trade involves.
As leading EU figures gather in Amsterdam today to sign the new Treaty, it is appropriate that we should remember that one of the commitments they have agreed is to 'pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals' in implementing policies on agriculture, transport, internal market and research.
If they are to honour this commitment, then the long-distance transport of live animals must end.
In Ireland the livestock industry has been arguing ferociously that live exports, particularly to the Middle East and North Africa, are an essential source of revenue for Irish agriculture- The only reason why this is the case is that the authorities have focused on preserving this trade, to the detriment of other agricultural activities.
Organizations such as the Irish Meat Processors Association have argued that it would make more sense for the government to end live exports and instead develop jobs in the meat processing sector by slaughtering animals in Ireland, instead of exporting them live.
Sadly, successive governments have ignored these calls.
About 1, 000 jobs are dependent on live exports from Ireland.
The meat processing lobby estimates that three times that amount could be created if a slaughter at home policy was adopted as an alternative.
The BSE crisis should have forced a re-evaluation of the issue.
For years Egypt has been the main importer of Irish cattle but has now placed a ban on such imports because of fears of BSE contamination.
Recent newspaper reports have indicated Egypt may be willing to lift the ban in the near future after an intense lobbying campaign by Irish officials.
This would be a retrograde step, with dire consequences for animal welfare.
Last year 5, 000 Irish cattle were stranded off the Egyptian port of Alexandria, with meagre food supplies, because the Egyptian authorities would not accept delivery.
No amount of regulation could stop such events recurring if the government insists on maintaining its live exports policy.
There have been several other documented instances of gross suffering to animals en route to the Middle East and North Africa.
In February 1995, 140 cattle out of a consignment of 1, 000 bound for Egypt died when their ship entered the turbulent waters off the Bay of Biscay.
In conclusion, I would suggest that simply tinkering around the edges of the problem will not end the inherent cruelty in long-distance live transports.
New regulations on the vehicles used for transport and on rest periods for the animals involved are insufficient. I would urge all MEPs to campaign for a complete halt to long-distance live transports.
Before commenting on the van Dijk report, as a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I would like to state my astonishment at the fact that a report concerning the transportation of horses and other live animals has not been put to the Committee on Agriculture for an opinion, given that it is directly concerned.
Regarding the vote on this resolution, my group asked for a certain number of votes by division, separate votes, as well as two recorded votes in order to avoid issues being mixed up, withdrawing from this resolution the points which had been unjustifiably added and which did not concern its direct objective: the transportation of horses.
The objective of this procedure being, of course, to isolate from this resolution anything that did not concern the transportation of horses.
In fact, after pressure from certain associations and following a petition presented by the International League for the Protection of Horses, the 1991 directive had already been modified in 1995.
It is completely abnormal that the Committee on Transport of the European Parliament, under the influence of these same pressure groups, should have undertaken this own-initiative report with the clear aim of challenging a text that was modified barely two years ago, and of which we know the difficulties of implementing.
Our group asked for a recorded vote on point 35 and, naturally, voted against the proposed text.
In fact, the Committee on Transport was hoping purely and simply to abolish all the export refunds for the export of live animals to third countries (including, of course, cattle).
I would like to remind you that the European Union exports to a certain number of third countries, notably Arab countries, almost 500, 000 head of live cattle.
If we ourselves were to block our own exports to these countries, others would immediately take hold of this important market.
As we know what the situation of the European market for beef is, we can obviously do nothing but resolutely oppose this proposal.
We note with surprise that the Committee on Transport and Tourism has not proposed the abolition of the tariff advantages we grant to certain third countries regarding imports of live animals into the EU.
This inconsistency clearly demonstrates the real intentions of the instigators and initiators of this text: once more pressure groups are using this as a pretext to try to dismantle the common agricultural policy and system of community preference.
That concludes the votes.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.25 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 2 October 1997.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, allow me to intervene on the same subject as Mr Medina Ortega because I believe Members have the right to be fully informed about this matter.
This issue concerns me too.
I therefore invoke Rule 108 of the Rules of Procedure, personal statements.
What is this all about? In fact, we were all seriously defamed by a broadcast on 13 October last on a Dutch television channel, NCRV.
In fact, on Friday 19 September, as many of you will recall because there were many of us present, we were debating the excellent report by Mr Hallam in this House.
On that day this Dutch channel decided to make a programme, the aim of which, publicly stated from the outset, was to demonstrate, as they put it, that the misuse of daily allowances was continuing in full swing.
In order to do this, and in violation of Parliament's Rules, the channel's technicians set up hidden cameras in the public galleries to which they have been admitted.
I am not making any of this up, the commentator himself said it, without any scruples whatsoever.
They decided to film Members who had just signed the attendance registers and they selected mainly Manuel Medina Ortega and myself.
The commentaries accompanying the pictures clearly show their malicious intent.
I shall let you be the judge.
This is what was said: just after 9.30 a.m. the Spanish socialist, Manuel Medina Ortega, leaves the floor of the Chamber.
A moment later he arrives at the drivers' office.
Mr Ortega has signed for 500 Florins daily allowance.
Less than a minute later the Christian Democrat Nicole Fontaine appears.
The French Vice-President has worked for less than three- quarters of an hour.
She too has signed for 500 Florins.
However, unfortunately for this channel, the two victims had been badly chosen.
Our colleague Manuel Medina Ortega did not slip away after having signed - as he has just told you himself - he completely discharged his parliamentary duty, right to the end of the sitting, voting on the Hallam report, as the recorded vote will confirm.
As for myself, present from 9 a.m., I left the floor of the Chamber only when the agenda for the sitting had been dealt with in full, since I was in the Chair.
Everyone is fully aware of that.
This crude slander, Mr President, does have at least one merit, that of showing up the incompetence and deception of the journalists concerned, who did not even bother to find out what we were doing, what we were voting on, who had voted, who was in the Chair and so on.
(Applause) All that meant nothing to them.
They had one aim and were prepared to use any means to achieve it.
One can imagine the way they worked, or even the orders which came from on high: find two or three Members, preferably from different political groups, as that will make us look objective; film them signing in, then go round to the drivers' office and wait for them, then you film them and that is that.
Well, no, Mr President, that is by no means that!
No parliament, in any democratic country, can tolerate working in an environment with hidden cameras.
No Member of Parliament can allow this campaign to continue with impunity, a campaign we have now been witnessing for months and which consists of lying articles, faked films - we now have formal proof of that - designed to besmirch and ridicule us personally and beyond us our parliamentary institution and democracy itself.
I have too much respect, Mr President, for the freedom of the press to know that journalists who do their work with integrity - and fortunately many of them do - cannot be held responsible for such goings on, which could in fact rebound upon them.
Other Members who have suffered similar attacks, victims of pictures which have been manipulated, mutilated or falsified, have not had the chance, like Manuel Medina Ortega and myself, to be able to confound these slanderers.
Also, thinking of us all and of our institution, which you Mr President are charged with defending, I shall be requesting presently, at the meeting of the Bureau, that exemplary measures be taken in order to put an end to machinations which constitute a serious assault on the dignity of our Parliament.
(Sustained applause)
Several people want to speak.
In view of the strong feelings raised in the House by this subject, I will make an exception and give them the floor.
We will start with somebody else who has been affected by this.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler has the floor.
Mr President, I repeat what I said at the Conference of Presidents: it is disgraceful and unacceptable that the dignity of Parliament and its Members should be trifled with in this way.
The people who have been besmirched behave in an exemplary fashion and were fulfilling their duty on the day in question.
The imputations made by that Dutch television company were repeated by a member of the Spanish press, and it is now extremely difficult to put the record straight and defend the parliamentary work carried out by Mr Medina Ortega, Mrs Nicole Fontaine and those others of our colleagues who are involved.
In fighting corruption and misuse, it is also necessary to defend Parliament's dignity and the good example of those who fulfil their duty as representatives of the people.
On behalf of my group and of us all, therefore, I join the protest.
This is not just a question of corporate loyalty.
There is no mutual back-scratching here.
What is at stake is our dignity as the representatives of the European people.
Therefore, I call again for us to give our support and protection to these honourable Members, who have been grossly insulted and now find it extremely difficult to explain to the public that they were carrying out their duty.
Mr President, it will take me less than a minute to say that my group fully supports the honourable Members who have been so unjustly attacked, and I am sure our chairman, Mr Martens, will be happy for me to say so.
We support them all, of course.
I am thinking in particular of Mrs Fontaine, whose work we all admire, and my compatriot and friend Professor Medina, who fulfils his obligations extremely reliably, as those of us who always stay on Fridays know very well - and not just on Fridays, but on each and every day of our long weeks in Strasbourg and Brussels.
We think that this Dutch television company has not done any favours to the concept of freedom of information, and it is regrettable that certain Spanish newspapers have repeated such untruths.
We are sure, Mr President, that you will do your utmost to protect the honour of this House and its Members, especially those who - like the people in question - are highly responsible in their work.
Mr President, I have two comments.
First, I am also in this programme.
I asked if it was correct that despite the protection of privacy rules all Members of this Parliament were to be filmed.
As always when I ask a question, Mr David Martin from the Bureau replied that he knew nothing about it.
So it now seems that Mr Martin was evidently misinformed and on the basis of Rule 8 I would like him to retract those words.
Secondly I would point out to Mr Telkämper and Mr Kreissl-Dörfler that it is only their own group that they have to call to account, since it was their group which was involved in the programme from the beginning and which inspired and initiated it.
Mr President, I shall speak for less than thirty seconds.
I simply wish to make the point that there is perhaps a way of adding to the justified indignation a necessary response which, in my opinion can only come from the President of the European Parliament, for it is he who defends the Institution.
This response consists, for the President, in making use of the legal right of response in the media when this right exists and for the countries where it does not exist, to demand a moral right of response in order to protect the Institution.
In fact, the response must now be added to the indignation.
Mr President, we fully support the idea that this House should summon up the moral and political resolve to set its affairs in order where necessary.
It was clear from Klaus Hänsch's initiative over a year ago that this was necessary.
The question still unanswered after this programme is: what has happened in the past year?
The point is that there has been only one minor decision, nothing else has been done yet.
My group, like most of the other groups, collaborated in this programme.
There are also other Members of this House who were rightly critical.
I totally refute that we organized this and that we were responsible for the unfair attacks on colleagues.
That is quite untrue.
We ask only one thing and that is that this House should set things right itself.
If we are prepared to do so our public image will be quite different.
The result of the whole operation should be that we ourselves have the courage to regulate our affairs convincingly and transparently.
That is what I ask Parliament as a whole.
Mr President I shall make no addition to this debate.
I am delighted at the unanimity which reigns in our Chamber on this subject.
Nevertheless, as Mr de Vries has just said, and as I took part in the Conference of Presidents on behalf of our group, I think it is our methods which are in question.
I would have liked the same unanimity and the same wish for reform to have prevailed in the working party which was set up under the presidency of Mrs Péry, and for everyone to agree on reforming the system and also on the enforcement of the few minor decisions taken by the Bureau.
I recall that, as far as we are concerned, we made proposals on the amount of the daily allowances, on the amount of the mileage allowance, on the conditions for reimbursement of travel expenses and on the conditions for reimbursement of intermediate travel expenses.
I also believe that our desire for openness must be made clear when there is the slightest suspicion and that there should be unanimity about setting up a committee of inquiry, as we have often demanded, particularly from the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Thank you very much, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
I am not going to get involved in the debate.
However, the Conference of Presidents has asked me to contact the television company in question to put matters straight.
I will do this today, now that I have had time to draft a letter describing and justifying our grievances clearly, and I would like to thank you for the details we have heard today.
Secondly, at the request of one of our Vice-Presidents, the Bureau will examine this question during today's meeting, together with the measures we might need to take. I cannot comment on these at this stage, of course.
Thirdly, as you may already know, the working party on a Members' statute is going to start work immediately, with Mr Martin, our Vice-President, as its Chairman.
Those are the three pieces of information I am able to give in response to your justifiable indignation. I do not think I need add my voice to the protests because, like all of you, I have seen how hard the honourable Members in question work in carrying out their parliamentary duties.
Therefore, if there are no further comments on this subject, we pass on to the matter raised by Mr Coates.
Mr President, my problem is covered by Rules 2 and 3 of the Parliament's Rules of Procedure, that is, the rule concerning mandates and the rule concerning privileges and immunities.
As I have already informed you by letter, the question arises because members of the Labour Party in this House were issued with what was called a 'code of practice' which sought to determine their behaviour in ways which seemed to be in conflict with Parliament's rules.
I have just this minute been informed that my letter to the General Secretary of the Labour Party on this matter has in fact been answered.
I should explain that I had written to the General Secretary of the Labour Party informing him that under Rule 2 we could not be given a mandate, and that under Rule 3, as part of the protocols governing Members of the European Parliament in the treaties, it was clear that we shall not be subject to any form of inquiry - amongst other things by external bodies.
I do not yet know whether Mr Sawyer has or has not agreed to accede to my request to withdraw the code of practice.
I request your indulgence to obtain this response before I raise the question with you again if necessary.
When I receive your letter I will of course give it whatever attention is required, and if any information is needed I will ask for it.
Mr President, I have a brief question about another matter.
On the eve of the European employment summit we are receiving various letters and reports about the thousands of jobs that will be lost as a result of the abolition of tax-free sales in European trade planned for 1999.
My question is whether you will urge the President of the European Commission to ensure that the findings of the study on this matter promised in 1990 are considered as quickly as possible.
Please do not make suggestions like that. It has nothing to do with the Agenda and all it does is upset the flow of our work.
Mr President, on a point of order, following Mr Coates' point, I think I can help the House.
What he is talking about is an instruction from the Labour Party that no Member of this House may discuss with the press the electoral mechanisms in the United Kingdom.
If it would help you, I have a copy of that instruction myself and I will pass it on to you.
This is not the time to discuss domestic political issues, as you know.
(The Minutes were approved)
Calendar of part-sessions 1998
Following the ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Communities of 1 October 1997 (Case C-345/95) the Conference of Presidents, at its meeting of 16 October 1997, has decided to propose that no partsession should be added to this year's calendar of part-sessions, but that a part-session from 5 to 9 October 1998 should be added to the calendar of part-sessions for 1998, which was adopted by the European Parliament on 17 September 1997.
The deadline for tabling amendments to this proposal will be 12 noon on Tuesday, 21 October 1997.
The vote will be taken at 12 noon on Wednesday, 22 October 1997.
Mr President, the Conference of Presidents did in fact decide to propose what you have just mentioned to the House.
I wish to recall that our group was against this proposal since it does not enforce, for the year 1997, a decision of the Court of Justice.
Indeed, in a system which professes to be democratic, decisions taken by a legal authority must be enforced.
We therefore request that it be possible to amend this proposal in the two respects you have specified, that is, both for 1997 and 1998.
In fact I do not see how Parliament can continue to give lessons in democracy to the whole world every Thursday afternoon, if it does not itself respect a legal decision made in the last resort by the European Court in Luxembourg.
This decision is extremely clear and it happens to be the case that in our system we may be condemned by virtue of a decision of a court and that, naturally, the practical consequences of this may be slightly painful.
Well, even if there are difficult practical consequences, we must apply the decree of the Court.
Mr President, I shall be extremely brief.
My point is on the same lines as Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's, but I would like to add a question, if I may.
I would like to know what legal reason the Conference of Presidents has found for not adding another part-session in 1997.
I use the term "legal reason' because I know perfectly well that there are practical reasons - which are understandable.
Nevertheless, in the absence of legal reasons we find ourselves in the situation described by M. Fabre-Aubrespy: ultimately, we are not enforcing a legal decision.
It is extremely worrying in terms of principles, you will agree.
Mr President, I have no wish to inflame matters further, but I think that we must not place ourselves at variance with the clear and precise provisions of the Court of Justice which unquestionably apply to the year 1997.
We have a choice of two solutions.
Either we add a part-session for 1997, in Strasbourg, and everything is in order; or we do not do so because of material and other difficulties.
But we cannot hold the two additional part-sessions in November and December!
Preamble 29 is crystal clear on this subject.
So, Mr President, I put two questions to you.
First, if we persist in holding these part-sessions in Brussels in November and December, will it not be possible for any person to contest the votes taken there before the Court if it is in their interest to do so? Secondly, is the expenditure incurred because of these part-sessions in accordance with our financial rules and will the signature of our financial controller - his vigilance is well known - be forthcoming for this expenditure?
Order of business
Mr President, we are all aware of the gravity of the situation in Afghanistan.
This issue is included in the debate on urgent issues.
Fine!
But we would prefer it to be the subject of a Commission statement, which be made place tomorrow afternoon or evening. Why?
We know that one of the commissioners was recently in Afghanistan and was able to gather information there at first hand; what is more it was extremely serious information and concerns us very directly.
We also know that in the event of emergencies the Commission cannot make its views known.
That is why it does not seem to us inappropriate to prefer a statement to a simple topical and urgent debate. It would give us vitally important up-to-date information on the situation in that country and the aid the European Union is giving it through the Echo programme.
That is the aim of our request; the statement could perhaps be made on Tuesday evening, if tomorrow's agenda is too full during the day.
Mr President, speaking on behalf of my colleague Mrs Bonino, I can say that she would have been prepared to make such a statement on Tuesday afternoon or Tuesday evening, but naturally the Commission also has to abide by Parliament's Agenda.
If this matter is to be discussed in the debate on urgency, then as I see it, the possibility would also exist for the Commission to make its statement during that debate.
I was previously unaware that the Commission could express an opinion on matters of urgency.
But in fact it can.
I leave it to this House to decide its preference.
We for our part can comply with either request.
Mr President, I want to draw your attention and the attention of this House to the safety of our visitors' groups.
Yesterday evening a group of visitors was attacked when they were getting off the coach in Molsheim.
The attacker came from a BMW and got away with a bag.
One of the visitors tried to stop him and was injured.
It now transpires that this kind of attack takes place regularly.
I am asking you, Mr President, what you can suggest to protect visitors to Strasbourg. Also on the subject of safety and crime prevention, the Council, Mr Van Miert in particular, has still not answered the question I put in March.
Mrs van Bladel, this is neither the time or place to raise that point, so I am not going to answer you in any way.
Mr President, I have drawn up a resolution on behalf of my group on the subject of Afghanistan and I think the point Mrs Lalumière made is a very good one.
I would endorse that and I think a good debate on a statement from Mrs Bonino is really more important than dealing with the matter in the topical debate.
I am therefore in favour.
Mr President, I am very sorry, Mrs Maij-Weggen, but we did not discuss this point again in the group today.
We decided at the Conference of Presidents on Thursday, with our group's full cooperation, that the statement that Mrs Bonino wants to make on the Tuesday afternoon is absolutely impossible because we have the debate on the budget, which in my opinion is very important.
That means, Mr President, that we have arranged for a resolution in the topical debate on Thursday.
We do not therefore want a debate on Tuesday but we want to deal with it in the normal way in the topical debate on Thursday afternoon.
Thank you very much and apologies to Mrs Maij-Weggen.
I put the request from the Group of the European Radical Alliance to a vote.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: no changes Sittings of 5 and 6 November in Brussels
To enable Commissioner Van Miert to take part in the debate on the report by Mr Areitio Toledo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the 26th Report on Competition Policy (1996), the Group of the Party of European Socialists has asked for this report to be placed on the Agenda for Thursday 6 November, as originally planned, and for Mr Sainjon's report, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on relocation of foreign direct investment in third countries, to be placed on the agenda for Wednesday 5 November, as the penultimate item.
Mrs Green may now move the request.
Mr President, we strongly support the proposal for the Areitio Toledo report because it is important that it is dealt with in the presence of the Commissioner.
We understand he is not able to be there on Wednesday but could be on Thursday morning.
That information was not available to us when we took the decision to move the report in the Conference of Presidents.
We would ask the plenary to agree.
Mr President, I should also like to support the proposal.
Nobody opposes the request, then.
I put the request from the Group of the Party of European Socialists to a vote.
(Parliament approved the request)
(The order of business was adopted as amended)
Request for the waiver of Mr Campos' immunity
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr António Carlos Ribeiro Campos:
A4-0311/97 by Mr Fayot (procedure 6119/94)-A4-0312/97 by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi (procedure 384/96)
Mr President, we are going to talk about parliamentary immunity - in other words the rights and privileges of this House and us, its Members.
As is always the case when talking about rights and privileges, we need to think very carefully about why we have them.
So let us be quite clear about it.
The rights and privileges of this House and its Members do not belong to us. Instead, they are an asset which it is our responsibility to administer with great care, and which must be weighed up against that other basic principle upon which our legislation and culture rest: the principle of equality.
We are all equal before the law.
We are all equal in questions of justice.
And if ever an exception has to be made to this principle, it must never be for the sake of an individual's interest, gain or privilege, but rather, because higher principles demand it - principles such as the maintenance of the democratic system, to quote the ultimate example.
This is a problem, Mr President, which requires us to think about legal interests and the responsibilities of this House.
We shall consider the two reports separately.
I shall first deal with the report on procedure 384/96, on which my name appears as rapporteur.
With this report, Mr President, the first question which this House needs to examine is whether the necessary procedural criteria apply for parliamentary immunity to be considered.
For as I have already mentioned, we are the trustees of these privileges and rights - only the trustees.
Therefore, we have to be extremely careful when we analyse them.
Well, Mr President, in the case of this request from the Portuguese legal authorities, Parliament cannot make a decision about whether immunity should be lifted, because the procedural criteria have not been met. This was the unanimous vote of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
In order to examine the question of whether or not to proceed with a waiver of immunity, according to the relevant European regulations - which refer to the Portuguese Constitution and the Rules of Procedure of the Portuguese Parliament - there has to be a definitive accusation - a formal charge.
In other words, it is not enough for legal proceedings to have started, or for investigations to be underway to determine whether a specific criminally punishable offence has taken place. Rather, these investigations have to be at an advanced stage; an indictment has to have been drawn up; and the competent legal body has to consider that there is sufficient evidence for there to be a charge or formal accusation.
In this first case - procedure 384/96 - these procedural requirements have not been met.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities was therefore emphatic, and as rapporteur I have no choice but to support its position: there are no grounds for Mr Ribeiro Campos' parliamentary immunity to be lifted in this case.
I repeat: this is because of a failure to conform with the procedural requirements demanded by our European regulations, together with and in reference to Portuguese Constitutional Law, specifically Article 160 of the Portuguese Constitution.
The second procedure, No 6119/94, is very different.
The first thing which must be said here, Mr President, is that there is a formal accusation.
Therefore, the answer to the first question is that the procedural criteria have been met.
So it remains for us to decide whether this House should waive the parliamentary immunity of our colleague Mr Ribeiro Campos.
Let us bear in mind that the waiver of immunity requested by the Portuguese legal authorities seeks to allow Mr Ribeiro Campos to give evidence as the accused in these legal proceedings - simply to give evidence as the accused.
This brings us back to what I said at the beginning of my speech. The easiest and most convenient thing for this House to do would be not to waive immunity, and there are even political reasons for such a decision.
Nevertheless, Mr President, I am in favour of lifting immunity, although I hasten to add that I will respect, observe and endorse whatever the majority opinion of this House may be. I am reminded of the beautiful words spoken by Argüelles in the Preamble to the Spanish Constitution of 1812 when he said that light comes from the starry sky of ideas.
On that premise, I believe that the responsible thing for this House to do is to lift Mr Ribeiro Campos' immunity in this second case.
The reason is that, as I said, parliamentary immunity is not our right but a responsibility which we administer on behalf of and because of our position, for the benefit of the House, but never in our own interest.
I am not going to state here the private interests at stake because they are a matter for the judge, not for us.
However, there can be little doubt that Mr Ribeiro Campos did make imputations which are, in principle, clearly, simply and bluntly slanderous, as the indictment says.
I am not going to elaborate on the injured party's concern that the matter should be resolved. The matter can only be resolved if the case is heard.
Because otherwise, in the words of the old Latin principle, the situation will be one of 'probatio diabolica' .
Nobody can prove that they are not corrupt.
Nobody can prove that they have not abused the responsibilities vested in them by virtue of their position - unless there is a trial.
Nor is it relevant to my argument that Mr Ribeiro Campos may have a private interest in proving that there is substance in what he said, and that there really was a case of corruption.
What is at stake, Mr President, is simply our responsibility to administer these privileges and rights.
This House, which is always demanding transparency and equality from other institutions, must understand that one of its Members has been formally accused by means of an indictment drawn up with all due assurances.
And it is in the interest of this House that this question should be resolved, without being prejudged. This matter needs to be cleared up.
We need the judge to say whether an offence of defamation has been committed in this case or not, because otherwise Mr President, the uncertainty and lack of transparency will rebound upon the whole House.
I appreciate that there can be political arguments in support of the opposite course of action, and the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities voted accordingly.
However, I believe these political arguments are essentially opportunistic and should not be considered in this case.
Mr President, several of my colleagues share my view that we should administer these rights and privileges responsibly, and that any privilege or right which contravenes the basic principle of equality should be interpreted in a restrictive manner. As a Member of this House, on my own behalf and on behalf of these colleagues, I therefore believe that for the sake of this House and the mandate we have all received from the people of Europe, this situation should be resolved as soon as possible, and therefore we should authorize a waiver of parliamentary immunity so that Mr Ribeiro Campos can go and give evidence.
Mr President, as vice-chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, I am presenting this report on behalf of the chairman Mr Fayot who cannot be here and sends his apologies.
As Mrs Palacio, the original rapporteur, has mentioned, Mr Fayot took over the role in the accepted manner when she indicated after the vote that she felt unable to continue.
She took an opposing view and once the committee had adopted the report she asked Mr Fayot to present it. However, I should like to pay tribute to Mrs Palacio for the work she has put into this report and for the extremely honest way she made her contribution to the report and has presented her views again this afternoon.
The vote in our committee was not along political lines.
People in the political parties voted in different ways.
As has been said, this case goes back over three years to the time of the last elections to the European Parliament in the summer of 1994.
For a variety of reasons, it has taken this length of time to come before Parliament.
One of these reasons - perhaps the primary one - was because there was some rather ambiguous communications with the Portuguese authorities at first and Parliament was not sure exactly what was being requested of it.
During the 1994 European election campaign, the Portuguese Socialist Party held a press conference at its headquarters at which Mr Campos made some remarks about Mr Arlindo Cunha, the former Agricultural Minister.
The report before you notes that there were three particular allegations.
They are listed on page five of this report and I do not need to read them out now.
The accusations are that, under Portuguese law, by making such remarks, Mr Campos contravened various articles of the Portuguese penal code.
We all know that the press can present matters and statements in a way that does not necessarily show a Member of the European Parliament in a favourable light and in this case certainly one remark was taken out of context and misconstrued by the press.
However, it seems that Mr Campos' remarks were not made on the spur of the moment.
Notwithstanding that, under article 10 of the Protocol to the Treaty of the European Communities, a Member of the European Parliament is immune from prosecution during its sessions.
This has been taken and accepted to mean any time during the period of office and at any place within his or her own country and within any other Member State.
To face prosecution for any charge, a Member must have his or her immunity lifted as the previous speaker said.
Since the offence of which Mr Campos is accused happened in Portugal he is protected by the same laws that would protect a member of the Portuguese Parliament under article 160 of their constitution.
In this Parliament, Rule 6 of the Rules of Procedure covers the matter.
The allegations against Mr Campos stem from the election campaign and the election campaign was before he was elected.
The purpose of Rule 6 is to protect both Members and Parliament itself by guaranteeing the independence of the institution.
At that time Mr Campos was a Member of the Portuguese Parliament but only a member of the opposition.
In any constitution or any democracy, the opposition's role is sometimes to support the government but also to oppose when it sees fit.
There can be no more important time to oppose than during an election campaign.
That is what Mr Campos did when both he and Mr Cunha were both candidates.
He opposed the policies of a government minister during an election campaign, making various public statements.
I would suggest that during a campaign the minister, Mr Cunha, could have defended himself in the same political way.
It happens all the time in politics.
It happens especially at election time - it is what elections are for.
This was the interpretation and the view that prevailed by a majority in the committee.
It was for the reasons I have stated and which are listed in the report that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities decided in this instance alone against waiving the parliamentary immunity of the aforementioned Mr Campos.
Mr President, I shall just very briefly give an account of the principles which form the basis of my position.
I am opposed to waiving Mr Campos' immunity.
There are two charges against Mr Campos.
The first concerns an event which took place before this term of office began.
People have said that that does not justify him keeping his immunity.
But the point of immunity is that it should apply during the term of office, i.e. that you should be able to carry out political activities during the term of office without hindrance.
In that case it makes no difference from a legal point of view whether the charge relates to an event which occurred before or during the session concerned. That is the crux of the matter.
As far as the offence which Mr Campos is said to have committed is concerned, it is quite clear that the immunity which we Members enjoy here does not relate to criminal offences, for instance, murder or theft. It relates to political conflicts which we may get involved in because of our positions as Members of the European Parliament.
In this case it is quite clear that what Mr Campos is being charged with is a political matter. He made a political statement which annoyed the then agriculture minister who therefore wishes to prosecute him.
To me it is quite clear that both of these stated facts mean that Mr Campos' immunity should not be waived.
In this case we should instead follow the proposal made by the rapporteur.
Mr President, I would like to apologize to my colleague Mr Campos for speaking in this debate, but I would also like to tell him that I think things would be easier for him if he had waived his immunity himself.
Our immunity is in fact a shield which protects us: we can accuse, insult, and do whatever we like, but that, of course, is contrary to political ethics.
In my grandfather's day, such matters were resolved by a duel.
Now, no-one dares to fire a shot.
In my father's day, they were resolved with blows.
Now, they are resolved by a discussion here in Parliament.
Mr Campos could have saved us a great deal of work, and this extremely difficult and unpleasant task of stating whether or not we want to see the suspension of the immunity of a colleague we respect.
And, personally, I have always found him a courageous man, but I have always regretted that his passionate nature should carry him to the extreme of firing shots not only at our enemies but also at our friends, and even to end up by shooting himself in the foot.
That is what has happened to him!
I have always believed that he who has no debts has no fears.
There are obviously two different cases involved here: there is a case of personal defamation, but there is also a more political case, a dispute with the present government.
If in fact Members of Parliament wish to gain credibility, if they want to acquire some prestige from the ethical point of view - which they do not have - if they want to win the consideration of the press - and I know that there are a large number of not very honourable journalists, as we have seen in the case we discussed earlier - the Members themselves will have to fight for that cause.
The day I want to insult someone is the day I will waive my parliamentary immunity, unless there is some more violent exchange of views with the person I have insulted.
I think, as I thought in the case of Mr Tapie - and there is no comparison between the two cases - that the suspension of immunity was necessary to preserve the ethical integrity of this Parliament.
Mr President, may I first of all thank Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi for her introduction, as well as Mr Evans.
The contradiction between the two reports is an indication of precisely the fundamental question that we are discussing today: in the absence of a single Community set of rules we apply various methods based on various traditions.
In some Member States no parliamentary immunity exists for anything said outside the parliamentary chamber.
In other systems anything a person says in the context of his political mandate, whether or not it is offensive - but it was clear that these offensive remarks were made in the course of the election campaign - is considered to be part of his political mandate.
The precedent up to now, established by Mr Donnez and subsequently by Mr Defraigne, has been that the political mandate in the broadest sense of the word must uphold immunity, but we in this House actually changed tack after the Italian Parliament expressed a different view.
That is precisely the question raised by the two reports.
Do we consider that this was part of the political mandate or not? I think that the rapporteur, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, is right and we are saying that when there is a personal conflict the judge just has to choose.
Especially as regards what happens within this House, parliamentary immunity should operate and should exist in the interests of the institution and not in the interests of individuals.
Mr President, in these two requests for the raising of parliamentary immunity it is a question of considering the facts as they occurred, independently of the personality of our colleague.
These facts have been recalled by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi and I would like to tell her that I share her conclusions entirely.
With regard to the second matter - that of 1996 -, Mr Campos at that time accused Mr Da Silva of fraudulent misuse of community subsidies, of favours which had been granted him by a friendly company, of conflicts of interest, and so on.
The request which is being made to us must, in my opinion, be rejected for two reasons. The first is a reason of form: there are no conclusions or charges made on a contradictory basis as required by article 160, paragraph 3 of the Constitution.
The second is reason of substance: the remarks were made when Mr Campos was a Member of the European Parliament. They concern the latter's activity during his mandate and it in this case parliamentary immunity must, it seems to me, obtain.
This is not the case, on the other hand, in the first matter, that of 1994, during the press conference at the national headquarters of the Socialist Party, during which the former Minister of Agriculture, Mr Cunha, who is now one of our colleagues, and Mr Rosado Fernandez, also our colleague, were accused of corrupt practices and active corruption.
In fact these remarks were made by Mr Campos during the campaign for the European elections of June 1994. Mr Campos was not at the time a Member of the European Parliament.
The lifting of his parliamentary immunity would allow him to defend himself, to justify the serious accusations which he made against our two colleagues.
He would have no difficulty in doing so, he tells us, and I think I can say that if France were involved there would be no difficulty in regarding the remarks, however regrettable they may have been, as not constituting an offence since they were made in the context of an election campaign.
That is why I shall vote for the lifting of parliamentary immunity in the first matter and I draw the attention of Members to the fact that by wishing to protect Members through parliamentary immunity, they are feeding the campaign, which is still in force today, against members of the political profession.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.30 p.m. tomorrow.
Satellite communications
The next item is the report (A4-0279/97) by Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the 'EU Action Plan: Satellite communications in the Information Society' (COM(97)0091 - C4-0131/97).
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen.
Today's agenda included two reports on space policy.
One deals with the European Union and space travel, namely the promotion of applications, markets and industrial competitiveness, the other covers the EU action plan for satellite communications in today's information society.
Unfortunately, the first report cannot be debated today.
However, I think it right that our report, which in some respects is related to the first, should be dealt with today, because we cannot afford to lose time in this matter.
We cannot afford to lose time because of the furious speed at which satellite communications are developing.
But the use of satellite technology in the information society is on the agenda of many of our competitors and there it is being treated with real urgency.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has approved this report unanimously.
This is just as well, as it means support for the report and, more particularly, for the efforts of the Commission to do everything possible to ensure the future of satellite-supported information and communications.
Some steps have already been taken and a number of interesting reports submitted, which have led to purposive discussions - both in plenary session and in Parliament in general, as well as with the Commission and other bodies - on the subject of personal communications via satellite links and the use of satellites in the field of telecommunications.
I believe these to be important steps towards improving Europe's competence in this area.
Global satellite infrastructures are becoming a critical part of the world's economic system.
An efficient and coherent satellite communications and services sector for Europe is therefore extremely important, both from a technological as well as from a political viewpoint.
If we look at what is happening in the USA - the biggest supplier of such services - we see that decisive steps have already been taken towards the age of satellite-supported telecommunications.
Successful commercial services and applications are essential if we are to achieve a leading position in the space race.
If we examine the forecasts for this sector, namely a market share of around US$ 400 billion over the next 10 years, imagine what other applications are waiting to be discovered which do not yet form part of current calculations.
With Teledesic planning a future for services and communications which involves the provision of global services with a network of hundreds of orbiting satellites, it becomes clear just how active others have been in this field.
Personal communications services are also well developed. A total of 17 possible suppliers are in the market, including a European company.
Of course, this is not enough to sustain our presence in this field, but it does mean that we still have a chance of participating, of gaining a foothold.
The Commission's report therefore constitutes an important step in this direction.
What is needed is greater cooperation between the European Union and the other competitor nations, such as the United States, Russia, the Ukraine, Japan and China.
We need European success at international level, particularly in the organization of the global market.
We need greater collaboration between the European Union, the international space authorities and the relevant market competitors.
This has already taken place to the extent that all relevant market competitors were consulted during the preparation of this report.
We also call for greater support for research and development and greater cooperation in these areas, which will in turn promote the development of new technologies.
We also need to press ahead with the harmonization of technical standards for high-tech multimedia broad-band satellite terminals and receivers.
The emphasis on the significance of the market-oriented concept is obvious.
We too believe that the multi-layered harmonization problems must be solved.
We also think that bureaucratic delays must be avoided, particularly from the national agencies towards the European Union.
We especially require - and this is one of the main focuses of the coming months - an action plan for satellite navigation.
We can no longer tolerate an air-traffic system which sees us dependent on GLONASS and GPS - the Russian and American military systems.
European components must be introduced here.
I am sure that the European Commission will soon be launching an action plan.
We shall do our utmost to support the Commission, since we know that the European dimension has a role to play not only for Europe but also for Africa, and that Europe must collaborate with the other market participants I have already mentioned, namely Russia and America.
If we in Europe do not hold any cards, then we will be in no position to play.
We can no longer tolerate a situation in which funding for space research, manned space travel and the European space laboratory is not part of the political landscape due to pressure for cost savings.
The question which then arises is whether the billions of ECU used to support European tobacco growing should also be part of the landscape.
I believe that we should do everything in our power to demonstrate much more clearly to Europe's taxpayers that space travel, the satellite industry and its applications are of special global significance for the citizens of Europe and the rest of the world.
I am sure that we can achieve this in the years ahead through actions and debate both here in Parliament and with other European bodies.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the rapporteur, Mr Franco Malerba.
As we are on the matter, I wish to recall that he was the first Italian astronaut, and one of the very first in Italy, to fly into space with the Americans.
And so I think it would have been a shame not to have his enlightened opinion today, as his experience with satellites is certainly broader than all of ours.
Telecommunications satellites comprise the space sector with the maximum potential for development.
Competition between telephone and television technologies in residential connections, the offer of multimedia transmission capacity without geographical frontiers for use in the business field, make satellite telecommunications a technology and a strategic system for achieving an information society.
This perception of a strategic business is very clear in the focussed and concerted action taken by American industry in research plans supported by the American Government, both in the NASA civil programme and in the military programme, and even in the international undertaking assumed by the Federal Communication Commission.
The action plan presented by the Commission deserves our full support and great encouragement.
In the report presented by Mr Malerba on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, the need to incorporate different sections into the framework programme for research for the development of several specific basic technologies and for the construction of platforms is emphasized.
The Commission is encouraged to become that client and user of new services, as well as satellite applications at the service of Union policy.
The subject of satellite communications is again proposed for cooperation projects with Mediterranean third countries, both for the dissemination of technical standards, with the aim of becoming interoperable, and for the many applications that could quickly multiply the opportunities for dialogue with the other side of the Mediterranean by providing assistance for air and maritime traffic, distance learning, telemedicine, promoting tourism by studying and managing the territory and costs, and, finally, the monitoring of natural resources.
Two aspects should be studied in greater depth: the status of the EUTELSAT-type satellite service operators, to make it consistent with the context of the liberalization of services, and the respective roles played by the Commission and the ESA in the management of satellite application programmes, although the close cooperation which already exists today between the Commission and the ESA makes this problem less urgent.
On the other hand, we are shortly expecting an action plan for satellite navigation, which has not been covered by this communication and which, in our opinion, is just as urgent as the subject of the report we are dealing with.
Finally, on behalf of my colleague, Mr Malerba, and on my own behalf, I offer my warmest congratulations to the rapporteur.
Mr President, I thank Mr Hoppenstedt for an excellent report and response to what I believe to be an excellent document from the European Commission.
The technologies that we are speaking about are critical to the success or failure of key European industries into the next century.
The move towards digital convergence has meant that many technologies now use the same sort of communications methods, and for that reason much of what we are discussing today will have an impact going beyond the issue of delivery of satellites into space and what they can be used for - particularly military aspects, but also the development of peaceful aspects and, in particular, the development of the information society.
What we have got to recognize is that either we must get stuck into this approach, as we are doing at the moment, or else we will fall well behind the Americans.
The EU action plan itself makes a strong case for a more proactive and consistent European approach in satellite communications, asserting, and rightly so, that European information technology and satellite technology lags behind the United States, first of all, in terms of the technology itself, but also because of the regulatory framework.
I know that Mr Bangemann met Mrs Cresson and other EU ministers in October of last year in Paris, when this action plan was discussed in some detail.
As a result of that meeting there is clearly a need to coordinate that EU action to complete the EU internal market and remove trade barriers to the creation of the home markets for satellite communications, in particular in the manufacturing sector, and also in the services sector.
There is also a need for improved coordination to reinforce the EU position, particularly in the international fora where these are discussed at global level and, indeed, for the markets as well.
We also need a stronger emphasis on EU programmes for research and development in these sectors in particular.
I believe that the fifth framework programme will be part and parcel of that, when it comes.
The objectives of this are quite clear.
We should support the Commission's initiative.
Also, we should stress that the CEPT, whilst it has made good progress in harmonizing the role of Member States to some degree, does not have all the answers.
I believe the Commission can play a strong role in that respect.
I take issue with one or two points in Mr Hoppenstedt's report, in particular item 5, which talks about privatization as being necessary in order to liberalize.
In my view, there are other models of liberalization that do not include privatization.
Combinations of public and private capital should be thrown into the equation as well.
Perhaps some sort of compromise should be found between the Commission playing a lead role and the CEPT playing the lead role in terms of being the spokespersons, simply because some Member States may not yet be in a position to adopt that.
These are complex issues that need to be grappled with.
Unless we in the European Union grasp the nettle now, we will fall even further behind, to the extent that we may never catch up.
Mr President, we are dealing with an expanding sector with a very high level of technology which, as has been mentioned in earlier speeches, has a very extensive international market from which, obviously, the European Union cannot afford to be absent.
On the contrary, we should be able to have a wide impact, not just within the European Union, but internationally.
Therefore, the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party welcomes the Commission's proposals. The Commission has paid particular attention to this specific sector, and Mr Hoppenstedt's report, the main arguments of which we support, has been written on this basis.
Unfortunately, the sector in question presents a familiar European problem.
In some respects we have been pioneers, and in some areas our technological achievements are very good.
On the other hand however, we are once again faced with a set of problems, including: market fragmentation; a lack of cooperation in some Member States within some subsectors (in other words, inadequate liberalization of the sector in some Member States); and a lack of balance in our technological research and development.
In some aspects we are still at the international forefront of development; in others, we are lagging behind.
Therefore, we believe the Commission's proposals and those of Mr Hoppenstedt - stressing the importance to research and development of coordinating the sectors and encouraging cooperation with the European Space Agency - are a step in the right direction, and therefore they have our full support.
Mr President, it is true that every technological advance gives rise to suspicion and uncertainties in proportion to the size of the changes that it produces.
Nevertheless, in this particular case we are talking about the working out of a plan which proposes not simply to bring about changes, but to reorganize the structures of our society and for that reason we need the greatest possible circumspection and critical stance and the widest possible participation of citizens and their representative voices in the shaping of the final programmes.
However, the Commission's entire programme of action has been mapped out on the basis of strategies imposed by large multinational players in this arena, mainly American and Japanese, with no account being taken of the needs of society, of the services that should be offered to citizens, and of safeguarding the catholic nature of these services by ensuring the possibility of access to them by all citizens.
We very much fear that the starting-point of this course of action, as set out in the Commission communication, as well as the objectives that have been laid down, will lead rather to an Orwellian society, to a society in which the grey matter of Europe is intertwined, with the aim of enslaving this grey matter and channelling it into the attainment of specific economic aims in support of profit, instead of a society based on freedom of thought, equality before the law, and progress.
Our anxieties are more than well-founded, when one takes account of the fact that the forming, a short time ago, of a high level team, which drew up the Commission communication on the information society, was notable not only for the absence of the Member States from the whole debate but also for the total exclusion of social and cultural vehicles of the citizens of Europe and also the total exclusion of the European Parliament's Committee on Culture.
Nowhere in the concerns that are evolving is there any mention of safety valves for the protection of consumers and the workers' social rights.
The only thing that is asked of them is that they appear willing and acquiescent in the name of progress, which in the end is going to replace them and dehumanize them, transforming them into linchpins in the production of wealth for the benefit of big finance.
It is still unclear what the legal framework for the protection of the privacy and dignity of the citizen will be.
Are we talking about the pluralism of information or the super-concentration of means of communication in the hands of a few with the aim of directing free thought? The advance of technology and the development of satellite systems must be notable for the widest possible cooperation aimed at contributing to the improvement and upgrading of the standard of living of the citizen and at a human centred conception of progress.
Programmes of international cooperation must not be used for military purposes and must not apportion the exploitation of space to large multinational companies.
The administration of space with a persistent eye on the market opens up dangerous roads for the whole of the planet and its citizens.
Who can, in truth, rule out centralized control at global level of all space satellite communications? If mankind is to be at the centre of development rather than the profits of large multinational concerns, then the European Union should play a leading role in the promotion, within the UN framework, of an international and equally honoured agreement on the use of space, the participation of all countries not only in costs but also in profits, the protection of the national security and sovereignty of all nations, the promotion of cooperation between those countries which have the financial resources and the technology, while recognizing the needs of the less developed regions of the planet, something which cannot be guaranteed by the market and its spirit of competition.
Mr President, satellite communications touch on a range of areas.
Many of these areas are, in my opinion, extremely important. For example, areas like television and radio broadcasts, multimedia and the Internet, which really are a chance for my generation and even for people living in sparsely-populated areas to participate in the new society being built.
We must therefore put a lot into this.
It is very, very important that we continue this struggle in an international arena.
I must say, however, that I am a little critical of Mr Hoppenstedt's resolution because it includes too many military aspects.
I consider space concentration and the military sector to be the critical point.
We know that in both the USA and Russia there are very close links between these issues and the military.
I do not think that the EU shall develop a military capacity in any way.
It is therefore very difficult to know where to draw the line in this area.
Finally, I would just like to comment on a point Mr Malerba raised in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
There we felt that the Commission should take it upon itself to promote the use of new satellite services of social interest.
I think this is a very, very important point, which I really hope the Commission will take upon itself, and which, to an extent, I also think Mr Hoppenstedt missed it out in his conclusions.
Mr President, in view of the fact that the future information infrastructure worldwide will depend to a large extent on telecommunications satellites, one cannot but support Mr Hoppenstedt's report, since we must prevent Europe from falling behind in this sector of industry.
It is particularly important to incorporate the ESA in the Commission's plans and to push ahead with research and development in this area.
The amazing advantage of satellite systems is that they provide the means to achieve the political objective of universal access by all citizens to the information society - at competitive prices.
Finally, let me cite an unrealistic example of a rational application.
At Telecom Interaktiv in Geneva, EUTELSAT showed that Internet services could be received by satellite.
A special new Internet channel, the European tourism channel, brings tourist information systems into the home and therefore provides a revolutionary new route for efficient tourism marketing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when the then Soviet Union put the Sputnik satellite into orbit in 1957, it caused consternation around the world - the interest then being primarily of a military nature.
The first civil applications, primarily television transmission between America and Europe, were not exactly breathtaking - namely a time window of some eleven minutes.
Today we accept the satellite-supported worldwide telephone network and direct television transmission as normal.
But development never stands still.
Satellite-backed communications with worldwide coverage will be part of the future technology of the next Millennium.
So in this respect we must welcome the fact that the European Commission is making proposals to remedy the current situation and respond to the challenge by encouraging public and private investment in this sector.
However, let me now draw attention to a number of aspects which are not being given due consideration.
Firstly, the Commission's proposals are mainly focused on the market and on private initiative.
I believe that this does not give us a parity of weapons with our main competitors.
As ever, the necessary impetus is coming from the armaments industries of America, Russia and China.
And it is no secret that in Japan the old relationships still ensure that sufficient support is provided, even from the MITI.
Secondly, it is high time for us to reflect on the significance which this technology will have for the increasing globalization of the labour market.
I am not against this, but we should not wait until it is too late before beginning to talk about it.
Thirdly and lastly, we must also see to it that earth-bound broad-band networks, which allow access to the new system, are also extended to cover a greater area, otherwise the benefits of the new technology will only be available to our towns and cities and the rural areas will be left out.
Mr President, my colleague, Mr Hoppenstedt, has produced an excellent report on satellite communications, and one which was read with a very flexible attitude on the part of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The report aims at a rapid development in the situation, based on a proposal by the Commission, for the next century, when satellite communications will be of great importance.
Perhaps rather tardily in view of the speed with which the report is being dealt with, I have also discussed this issue with various Finnish experts.
They confirm my view that, aside from the excellent coverage in the report, there is a need here to emphasize the importance of data protection as well.
Although the directive already refers to this, the differing spirit of the law that exists between the USA and Europe might make sufficient global guarantees for data protection difficult.
The need for individual and corporate data protection is high on the agenda in society today, let alone in the next century. Obviously, satellites will be transmitting even more industrial secrets in the future, and the business world is keen to safeguard these secrets.
They will be transmitting financial information on funding schemes as well as private individuals. Information of a sensitive nature, such as in the area of telemedicine, will be carried by them, let alone the flood of information there will be to do with security.
Violation of data protection thus embraces a wide area, ranging from industrial espionage to tinkering with and hacking away at national security.
We must therefore hope that the Commission, represented here by Mr Bangemann, will turn its attention to this question.
Mr President, first let me express my thanks to the rapporteur and all those who have voiced fundamental support for the proposals contained in our action plan.
Of course there will always be comments on one point or another, and I would also be pleased to discuss these.
However, I think that we should first accentuate what Mr Hoppenstedt has said.
If we do not pull ourselves together then there will be no need for a debate next year or the year after, for the others will have crossed the line and, whether we like it or not, will be controlling world telecommunications by satellite. They will not only be ahead of us in this vital field of economic development, they will have knocked us out of the ring.
When people ask about the social benefits, I can state quite simply that if we want to create jobs, then this is an area - and I mean communications in general - in which employment is being created.
We calculate that in the years to come most jobs, and not only new jobs, but also old-style jobs whose character is changing, will be in information and communications.
One should not therefore underestimate the importance of this sector.
We shall only succeed if everyone concerned works together.
I am sure that Parliament and the Commission will do what is necessary.
We shall be able to do away with those obstacles which still stand in the way of the internal market.
In the field of research too, as Mr Hendrick rightly said, we must set ourselves new targets.
We should be able to achieve this because here the Commission and Parliament can cooperate effectively.
There are two problems on the horizon: one is a certain reticence on the part of industry. Sadly, this attitude still prevails.
We have in some respects brought industry closer together, we work with it and there is quite a good ongoing debate. But there is still too little action from industrial quarters.
Our industry does not participate in the way that individual consortiums do in America.
We have commissioned a study to identify business opportunities in this area.
What Mr Schmid and Mr Hendrick said is of course quite correct: we need a degree of public participation in the form of public-private partnerships.
In this respect privatization should not be regarded in too ideological a way. It is really just a reference.
In the area of telecommunications we need private funding, and this will only be forthcoming when the investment is worthwhile.
At present we are looking into the best way of organizing things so that we can get a full picture of the high risks involved.
It is worth pointing out here that such a set-up will cost $ 10 billion or more. Investors must therefore be certain that they will get their money back, or even make a profit, which is after all the usual object of the exercise.
I do not wish to discuss the comments made by Mr Theonas.
These have partly been covered in the general debate.
There are information society fora in which consumers, trades unions, journalists and many others are represented.
It is not the case that we have regarded this matter purely from a technological or economic viewpoint from the outset.
Neither do I share his fears in this respect.
In my opinion we should reflect on whether a "brave new world' is not always better than a timid old one.
But these are really ideological arguments which, I hope, we have now left far behind.
The information society forum, in which all these people mentioned by Mr Theonas work, is quite enthusiastic about the new possibilities.
Maybe he should pay them a visit.
We have also made arrangements for Members of Parliament.
Special seats have been provided and it would be very useful for him to see that those whose fears he has just voiced have now become much more daring.
But I only say that in passing.
Now what about the military aspects mentioned by Mr Holm? We now basically use GPS for all navigational purposes, whether seaborne or airborne, and this is an American system originally developed for military purposes.
The Russian system was also developed for a military role.
If we now want to use such technology to land our aeroplanes, then to my mind it would be a progressive step if we had our own system, rather than relying on an American or Russian set-up which was developed or perfected for military reasons.
From this point of view the creation of a European satellite-supported communications system could be regarded as a demilitarization of the current technology.
As for using such a system for military ends, if one wished to - I see that you are still impressed by my line of reasoning, are you not? I find it really encouraging that you are listening to this!
Naturally such a system could be used for military purposes, if one wished. That is selfevident.
This then becomes a political decision and in the European Union we have to ask ourselves if we want a common foreign, security and defence policy.
This is not my decision, but rather one for the Union as a whole.
However, initially we require this system for quite conventional purposes, such as the landing of aircraft.
You are quite right to mention the peripheral regions, such as the Greek islands. And I mention the Greek islands because no-one else has - not even Mr Theonas.
One might say that each Greek island is basically peripheral and like Sweden or Finland is located in an extensive and thinlypopulated country.
If one wants to ensure effective communications, then the satellite offers the cheapest solution.
It is both the cheapest and the simplest.
Its benefits are enormous and it also offers something for those who live in such peripheral regions.
Now to the Member States.
Unfortunately, the reaction from this body has been muted, and for two reasons: first, because of the old arguments over jurisdiction - something I can partly understand, because when a country loses political jurisdiction to the European institutions, it is hard for national politicians to swallow, and they do not like it - and secondly, because of the existence of the CEPT.
The latter has the advantage of including more countries than the European Union.
On the other hand it is a very loose alliance of countries, in which strategic and tactical considerations do not always receive the necessary response.
For this reason, our action programme states that Member States must participate fully.
Incidentally, what I have always said would happen is now taking place in the field of telecommunications.
The independent regulatory bodies which were set up are now working together superbly.
They have created a European level at which they can cooperate very effectively, and this shows that national resistance can best be counteracted by way of good, practical examples.
My final remark is this. We require greater cooperation at international level.
The whole system can only work by being global, and for this reason we must start considering - and the Commission will undertake to do this and present its findings - how everything that we are seeking to achieve in the area of the information society can be tailored to existing international organizations, or indeed how existing international organizations have to be altered to reflect their global character.
We have today focussed on an important aspect of the global information society and I wish to thank Parliament for its support.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.30 p.m. tomorrow.
Fourth framework programme for research, technological development and demonstration actions (1994-1998)
The next item is the report (A4-0322/97) by Mr Linkohr, on behalf of Parliament 's Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Decision adapting for the second time Decision No 1110/94/EC, concerning the Fourth Framework Programme of the European Community activities in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1994 to 1998) (C4-0516/97-96/0034(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after one and a half years of extremely tough negotiations with the Council, and I mean extremely tough, which on a number of occasions were close to failure, the European Parliament through its conciliation procedure finally succeeded in increasing funding for the current research framework programme by ECU 115 million.
This was especially difficult because - and I emphasize the point - the Commission itself had seemed well satisfied with a figure of ECU 100 million.
The figure of ECU 115 million is a real success for Parliament and I wish to thank all those who made it possible, namely my colleagues in this House and - let me be quite clear about it - the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council.
But to what extent can this really be considered a success? Our success in carrying through the measure is certainly a positive development, despite the fact that the original figure was ECU 700 million.
It is also good to see the adoption of a new programme, the first time this has been done on the initiative of the European Parliament, rather than at the behest of the Commission.
This programme is aimed at eliminating land-mines, and its funding stands at ECU 20 million, including the supplementary budget.
It has often been said, and I repeat the fact here, that an estimated 110 million land-mines have been laid around the world.
Using current technology, it would take 1000 years to get rid of them all - even if the money were available.
We also approved an additional ECU 35 million for BSE research - a real success in my opinion.
This will benefit research not only into the BSE disease, but also into new transmission mechanisms.
I also anticipate that this work will provide an insight into other epidemic transmission processes.
Last but not least - I believe this is due to pressure from Parliament - we now have more money for renewable energies and also of course for the current programme for multimedia, climate, transport, telematics, etcetera.
The procedure itself, or at least the one employed in this case, prevented any real negotiations - a fact which is worth reflecting on.
We were not confronted with the decision-makers themselves - as I like to call the research ministers.
We should in fact have been negotiating with the Council of Finance Ministers itself, but this body was not present as technically this subject was outside its responsibility.
It is also interesting that in the budgetary process Parliament had been hoping for ECU 200 million through the reallocation of funds for research, whereas the Council finally only agreed ECU 115 million.
A sum of ECU 200 million could have been made available without having to issue additional funds, since this amount was provided through reallocation.
However, the Council only wanted to spend ECU 115 million on research.
This is a remarkable u-turn on research and it certainly shows up all those Sunday speeches we heard in this House.
This decision is all the more regrettable since research activities in the European Union are generally in stagnation.
There may be exceptions, but in overall terms research in the fifteen Member States is in recession, or at least in the doldrums.
This is hardly a good example for the EU's policy of innovation.
In the coming weeks and months we will presumably be faced with a situation in which economic growth, which is now happily on the horizon again, has stimulated the demand for new skilled workers which we simply do not have because we have not been training them in recent years. This is down to the fact that our young people have been discouraged from studying engineering and natural sciences.
Presumably this means that we shall have to recruit these skills from the Indian subcontinent or elsewhere.
This is good news for them, but bad news for Europeans.
Finally let me say that Members of this Parliament did not find it easy to agree to this compromise.
Nevertheless, I would ask everyone, including those who expressed very little enthusiasm for the decision, to vote for the programme tomorrow.
We should not behave as if we wanted to reject it completely.
If we were to vote against the proposal, then we would ultimately get even less from it.
I therefore call upon all Members to vote for the proposal.
I also urgently implore the Commission to implement these decisions as quickly as possible.
This applies especially to the land-mines issue.
The Commission must also - and I stress the point - set up an appropriate management unit which is capable of taking action and, in the short space of time available next year, must also ensure that the funds are distributed in a rational manner.
Madam President, first of all congratulations to Mr Linkohr, not least for his persistence and his patience over the years.
Like him, I am pleased that we have a result, although I recommend acceptance with a rather heavy heart.
I have mixed feelings and some doubts.
On the one hand I feel considerable relief: it looks as though if Parliament concurs we have an agreement.
This gives some certainty to the scientific community of the European Union, it allows some important programmes to proceed, it gives us a clean sheet for the Fifth Framework Programme and it allows money to be spent with a legal base.
On the other hand, I feel deep disappointment at the result of all the discussions, at the waste of work which went into drawing up more ambitious proposals, at the lost opportunities, at the lack of investment in Europe's economy and at the failure to respond to the challenge to our economy from elsewhere in the world.
I feel disappointed, too, at the broken understanding, if not broken promise, and the failure of the Council of Ministers to recognize the European Parliament's codecision powers.
There is a clear and demonstrable link between growth and research and development.
That is understood by Parliament's Committee on Budgets and I want to emphasize here tonight that every effort was made, particularly by the chair of that committee, to help in the process of obtaining more money for research.
He may feel that his efforts in this agreement are wasted and not appreciated.
That is not so.
If it were not for his efforts in enabling ECU 100 million to be put on the line from the reserve through the supplementary budget, we would not have had the impetus for this tiny success.
The Council of Ministers has been less helpful, if not obdurate, in its approach.
There were two very unsatisfactory meetings, the first of which showed no recognition of the role of the European Parliament.
The second, fortunately, did produce some movement and added ECU 15 million to the figure to be spent on Parliament's priorities.
That is not a superb victory for the cause of research and development.
We had three choices.
We could carry on negotiating, trying to get more changes in the redistribution of the money - if we had had more time that might have been an option.
We could have abandoned negotiations and abandoned any extra money, just contenting ourselves with rearranging a little bit of money via the supplementary budget - a very ambiguous message from Parliament to the research community. Lastly, we could do what we are recommending to Parliament - accept on the grounds that no further money is forthcoming, to be realistic, but that some concessions have been made to our priorities.
It was not easy to decide on our tactics.
Our strategy was clear - more money for research.
Each of those choices had serious disadvantages.
I would maintain that acceptance of the deal struck in conciliation is the best solution for Parliament but we must learn the lessons, particularly in our negotiations on the Fifth Framework Programme.
Madam President, I am not going to repeat what Mr Linkohr and Mrs McNally have explained so well to us.
Nobody in the European Parliamentary Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy is happy with the result, but I must make it clear that we have all done what had to be done.
This is the third reading in a codecision procedure for a programme which is of major importance for Europe's future - namely, research and development.
Mr Linkohr, I congratulate you on your perseverance, as I do everybody who has taken part in the Conciliation Committee meetings.
I do not want to dwell on the fact that we are not pleased with the result. I prefer to emphasize the positive aspects, which do exist.
The finance ministers believe it is important to save money.
We all think so; housewives do it all the time. However, perhaps in an area as important as research this view is mistaken.
Nevertheless, we have opened up several lines: we have an extra ECU 115 million. There was no time to negotiate more than this because the Commission - Directorate-General XII - would not have had time to prepare these resources and make proper use of them.
With the Fifth Framework Programme for research and development we will have the chance to follow through the ideas which we would have liked to have applied to these programmes.
However, I do want to say that something which we have all fought for, especially you, Mr Linkohr, does now feature here: research to eradicate anti-personnel mines. This is an enormous problem which this Parliament cannot ignore.
We have also opened up the line for renewable energy sources, albeit in a small way, and water technology research, in two programmes: industrial technology and environmental technology. And we have extended several lines which deal with biomedical research.
Europe is an ageing society, Mr Commissioner. You should tell that to all the commissioners, and maybe they will provide more funds for biomedical programmes.
Europe needs to do plenty of research in brain biology, biomedicine and biotechnology.
This is simply a first step, but one I think we can be satisfied with.
Therefore, Mr Linkohr, I can tell you that the Group of the European People's Party will give you its majority support.
No doubt there will be members who are not happy with the result and would have liked the negotiations to continue or be broken off.
I think it is better to conciliate - hence the constant use of the word "conciliation' - and therefore you can be sure that most of the members of the PPE Group will support your excellent report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Bangemann, unfortunately I cannot compliment the rapporteur on the result achieved in the consultation procedure on the financial increase in the fourth framework programme.
I do not agree with him that it is the best possible result.
My group is disappointed, especially since various colleagues were not as firm as they should have been in the consultation procedure.
The final financial increase of ECU 115 million in the financial Framework Programme is very small.
In fact the Council was extremely inflexible.
As far as the allocation of the funds to the various research topics is concerned, more could really have been achieved if, like the Council, we had been a little less accommodating. By that I mean a more equal allocation, more geared to new technologies which create employment than to projects relating to current issues like BSE or particular hobbyhorses.
But - and here of course I am addressing Mrs Cresson's Directorate-General because otherwise I will once again incur Mr Bangemann's wrath - the group is equally unhappy with Commissioner Cresson's behaviour in the consultation procedure.
Right from the start she was hand in glove with the Council and the Commission fought more against Parliament than with it for more money for research.
Despite this very unsatisfactory result my group will vote in favour, because the decision has been taken and consultation has taken place and unfortunately there is nothing more to be done.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is certainly no success story, either from the point of view of the amount of funding or its allocation.
An extra ECU 9 million for renewable energies is not a joke, it is a tragedy.
The relationship between what we know about climate change and what we are willing to spend in this area is really laughable.
The second item is of course welcome.
ECU 15 million for investigating more efficient ways of removing land-mines is clearly a good idea.
However, new mines are being manufactured, sold and laid all the time.
We need $ 40.5 million just to eliminate mines already laid in the former Yugoslavia.
Now to the next item.
We want to spend ECU 35 million on BSE research.
This goes against the grain with me for two reasons: first, the initial findings from BSE research have taken 10 years to produce.
We will again have sent thousands of chimpanzees to their death and we have absolutely no right to do so.
And all this without altering our agricultural policy.
Because our farming policy is quite simply the cause of BSE.
Yet we are doing nothing to change it.
All the while we are spending enormous sums of money on investigating something whose origins we have known about for ages.
The facts are obvious: if for the sake of sheer greed we want to turn a cud-chewing animal into a feeder on carrion, then we have got it all wrong.
We follow this up by doing something different along just the same lines.
We have made mistakes - with political approval - and now we are trying to catch up by spending the few funds available - and here I am referring to tax money, which itself does not grow on trees - in the hope of damping down the flames.
I am not impressed by this approach, in fact I am absolutely against it.
For this reason, Mr Linkohr, it is going to be very difficult for us indeed to support your report tomorrow.
I know that some money is better than none.
As my grandmother used to say, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
But surely the time has come for us to take a good look at the direction we should be going in, and this is not it.
As far as land-mines are concerned, there seems to be not enough pressure on our political thinking to force a change.
I have even heard the argument that the production and marketing of these devices creates jobs.
The money earned from these jobs is then spent on finding out how to get rid of the products they created.
This is madness!
As usual, there is then nothing but pennies left over for the important things, namely renewable energies and future technologies.
This is a disgrace.
Thank you for your generosity!
Madam President, it is certainly true that we are adding ECU 115 million to the research programme as a result of this report, but that has to be seen in the context of the original indicative figure of ECU 700 million.
There is a big difference here.
Although we support and are very appreciative of the work that Mr Linkohr has done on this, it is clear a lot of disappointment exists about the eventual outcome of the process.
For once, my sentiments are perhaps more with Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel and Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz than is normally the case in the deliberations of our committee.
The very important point that Mrs McNally brought out was that the Committee on Budgets had made available a total of ECU 200 million.
We are only spending ECU 115 million of that. So the result does not reflect the financial priorities of Parliament.
What is going to happen to the other ECU 85 million?
There was a lot of discussion about this in the conciliation process and some disagreement.
The chairman of the Committee on Budgets put it very strongly that this money would be spent anyway on lesser priorities as Parliament saw it.
The Council of Ministers' representatives clearly felt that they were actually making a saving in the overall total of budget expenditure.
The truth will be seen in the eventual outcome. I would hope that our colleagues on the Committee on Budgets will take up this point, perhaps by a small own-initiative report or something of that type, to reveal what happens at the end of the day to this ECU 85 million.
That was really the crux of the argument and we were unable to convince the Council.
Secondly, the result does not really respect the research priorities of Parliament either because we are not getting as much for telematics, information technology, the environment, transport or for non-nuclear energies as we had originally hoped. The Council, in fact, refused to have any discussion at all about the allocation.
If you call this codecision then there are other better words that could be found for it.
We have not had any discussion at all on the allocation.
Regarding Parliament's team itself, we had a lot of difficulty.
The conditions under which we have to work in these procedures are not ideal.
We did not get the agreement across the political groups that we should have had for such an important issue.
I hope that we will carry those lessons forward when we come to the fifth framework programme.
Madam President, this extra money is a result of the fact that my own country, Sweden, as well as Finland and Austria became Members of the EU.
It is therefore a little disappointing to see how little money has been added.
People may well say that the things money is being invested in, such as information technology, renewable sources of energy and work against land-mines, are very good, but that is far from sufficient.
I would like to refer to the matter raised by my colleague Mrs Block von Blottnitz and ask Commissioner Bangemann whether there is not a great risk that this money for BSE will be wasted as long as the EU's agricultural policy is not reformed. That is, after all, the heart of the matter.
I really hope the Commission starts the reform of the agricultural policy so that we get to grips with this problem.
Voting yes or no to this report would be like choosing between pest and cholera.
However, one may as well support it, since it is better than nothing at all.
Madame President, I shall not repeat what my predecessors have said, but I shall recall a point in history to which I was a direct witness.
When in April 1994 the first joint decision was reached between Parliament and the Council, two countries were opposed to the granting of a sum of ECU 12, 359 billion.
The two countries were opposed right up to the last minute: the United Kingdom - I mention this as a reminder - and Germany.
These two countries finally came round to the common position, saying they could agree to the sum but it should not be presented as such.
There would be ECU 11, 700 billion, and then ECU 700 million would be refinanced as things went along.
Today let us confirm not only that the Council has not met its commitments, but that there are still these two countries which, up to the last moment, have prevented us from obtaining larger sums, notwithstanding the fact that the financial perspectives have not been revised.
It is therefore a totally extraordinary situation.
The Commission, which is the guardian of the treaties, Mr Commissioner, would do well to question, as Rolf Linkohr has just said, this institutional deviation which is becoming more and more serious, and where we see a particular Council like Ecofin assuming powers exceeding even those of the Council of Europe, as we saw recently with the White Paper.
I draw your attention to this deviation.
This is not just parliamentary talk.
It really is a threat to the balance of our institutions and the mechanics of joint decisions.
As for the Commission, it has been criticized.
Of course, to be fair, I would say that it did its duty conscientiously by presenting a proposal for ECU 700 million.
I would not venture to say that it did so with any great conviction.
And we still have not felt the indispensable support of the Commission in this matter.
To all those who find the result rather feeble today, and not without reason, I offer - and this will not surprise my colleagues in the Socialist Group - a Chinese proverb, which says: "It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness' .
So, let us approve the candle lit for us by Rolf Linkohr.
Madam President, despite the fact that the parliamentary delegation managed to hold its own, from what I have heard - maybe there is even more to come, but it did get results - I can still well understand why people are asking: What do we do now? Yet when one bears in mind the various alternatives, as outlined by Mrs McNally, then the question becomes a relatively simple one.
We have - and I have checked this out - made so much progress in the preliminary work connected with all these matters, that the money can now be distributed next year.
This means that next year we have an extra ECU 115 million available.
One might now say that this is not what we expected.
However, if this solution is now rejected, or another codecision procedure is initiated, then it will not be possible to distribute the money next year, that is obvious.
I therefore believe that the best policy is to accept this deal.
As far as the Commission is concerned, I accept the criticism expressed by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel and finally by Mr Desama.
I shall pass these comments on to those concerned.
It may be that they did not fight with great conviction, as Mr Desama states.
That is not acceptable, obviously.
The Commission must always pursue its goals with conviction, possibly even more so when it sees no great hope of achieving its objectives.
It is a strategic error not to enter the fray with drums beating and flags flying.
I shall inform my colleagues and those represented there of this.
I hope that will not jeopardize your support for this proposal.
Let me end by thanking you for this debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Legal protection of designs
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0319/97) by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of the European Parliament and Council Directive on the legal protection of designs (C40296/97-00/0464(COD)).
Madam President, this topic - the European Parliament and Council Directive on the legal protection of designs - has been occupying us for some time.
At first reading, the European Parliament tabled a series of amendments.
The Commission corrected and modified some of those amendments, and added its own.
The matter was referred to the Council, which rejected most of the European Parliament's amendments.
The scope of the directive is broader than the public sometimes realizes, because it is mainly concerned with the legal protection of designs.
In contrast to other types of industrial property, which could be termed functional - being concerned with making things work, design introduces an artistic element.
You could say it is artistic property and should be considered an aspect of intellectual property.
Therefore, we are not so much interested in whether the machine works or not, as that its visible appearance should contribute to a harmonious overall effect.
So there are elements here that could be termed artistic property rather than industrial property, strictly speaking.
The Directive is not restricted to the legal protection of a specific type of design, but covers them all.
We are talking about protecting textile designs, for example, or designs in glass or plastic - all the types of design which may be involved in a given industrial product at a given time.
That is the nature of the Directive in general, but I think the problems fall into two classes: those concerning the general properties of the design, and those which specifically concern the notorious question of spare parts.
It seems to me that there are not too many differences of opinion about the first, more general problem, which involves protecting industrial designs by means of a harmonization directive. This has led the Council to believe that this matter could be resolved by leaving the other problem - about the protection of spare parts - to one side.
Discussion of spare parts starts with an almost philosophical question: do we protect the overall design of an industrial product, or just a part of it?
I remember when I was a child, if a radio or something got broken, it was sent to be repaired.
Today, as we all know, repairing most manufactured items is more expensive than buying them in the first place, and therefore the question of spare parts does not arise.
If a watch breaks, we normally throw it away and buy a new one - unless it is an antique, when industrial considerations virtually cease to be relevant.
The question has arisen in relation to spare parts for cars, specifically external parts.
When there is a serious accident in which people are killed, normally the car is a write-off, but most car accidents happen in our cities, when somebody comes too close alongside and the car gets scraped, resulting in damage to the door or mirror, or perhaps just the bumper.
Because of this, the spare parts industry is becoming important in many European countries.
When a spare parts producer copies a design from a specific car, perhaps a luxury model, and puts it on the market, the manufacturer of that car claims that their intellectual property is being violated.
Other people disagree, saying that design protection should only cover the overall design and therefore, if a single part of the design is damaged, that part is not protected.
At the moment legal opinion is sharply divided. In the United Kingdom, protection is not currently granted to individual components, and in at least two other European countries legal opinion is also beginning to deny this protection to the original manufacturer, and grant spare parts producers the right to substitute components in various ways.
My viewpoint as rapporteur for the first reading was that protection should extend to components, but this was thrown out by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, whereupon I gave in gracefully and accepted their opinion.
The committee proposed an intermediate solution, whereby spare parts manufacturers would be allowed to use the designs in question - or at least those parts of them involved in the repair- but would have to pay compensation to the car manufacturer.
This solution was a compromise between the two positions and established a system based on compulsory licences.
The Commission seems to have been happy with this, and decided to go ahead with it.
The Council disagreed, however, and said it was a judgement of Solomon.
We believe that from Parliament's point of view this is the worst possible solution. There is nothing worse for the internal market than leaving things undecided.
Problems must be resolved in order to provide a certain stability for commercial and industrial relations, and investment. This stability can only be achieved by finding a solution - either good or bad.
The worst solution is no solution at all.
Therefore, Parliament has reintroduced most of the first reading amendments, making use of the Commission's improvements to the text.
There are a few other, less important, amendments.
For example, there is a clause relating to visible and invisible motorcycle components.
But on the whole, the situation is that the Council has rejected Parliament's proposals and wants to shelve the matter, whereas Parliament is proposing a solution.
I hope the members of the Council will be able to resolve their differences. Because, as we all know, the real problem is that some Member States in the Council favour one solution, while others would prefer another.
As for Parliament, I believe we have fulfilled our obligations by presenting this set of reasonable amendments, designed with compromise in mind. These amendments were supported by the Commission on a previous occasion, and are perfectly capable of being upheld before the Council.
In other words, Parliament's position is totally constructive. We have a great interest in seeing this directive adopted as soon as possible, in order to harmonize the whole question of industrial design.
On the other hand, however, we insist that the ensuing regulation must be correct and solve the problems adequately.
Therefore, I call upon this House to support the amendments which have been approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Madam President, I wish to congratulate Manuel Medina Ortega on the amount of work he has put into this report and also the very fair way in which he has synthesized all the various views of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
This is a very important report.
A lot of jobs are at stake: there are about 70, 000 jobs in the components and motor manufacturing industry in Coventry and the West Midlands alone.
So we are talking about something of economic importance in this directive.
I share Manuel Medina's annoyance that the Council thought fit to reject the very fair solution that this Parliament worked out in its first reading.
It was hard to get everyone to more or less agree, and this was the best solution that we could find. It is not absolutely perfect but it gathered maximum support in this Chamber.
Then the Council threw it out and went for a free-for-all, with no harmonization on the repair clause issue at all.
It has failed in its duty to look for a proper European solution and I sincerely hope it listens to this Parliament and replaces the repair clause.
It is important for jobs, as I have already said, and it is important for exports: ensuring that companies can export from one country to another.
As Mr Medina Ortega said, the British market will remain open but we are worried about jobs being lost if we cannot export to other countries.
Then there is the consumer issue.
Consumers are entitled to have speedy repairs done at sensible prices with maximum choice, and the repair clause allows this. There are some concerns about the health and safety issues of spare parts, but this is better dealt with in other legislation.
I urge the Council to listen to this Parliament properly.
Madam President, I only wish to examine the point that has been the subject of particular discussion within the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
The delicacy of the case in question stems from the fact that the object of the measure submitted for our consideration is openly that of creating harmonization between the different legislations to ensure freer competition and greater ease of circulation.
With regard to the point discussed today, and mainly that of the prices of spare parts in the automobile and motorcycle industry, the Commission starts with a motion that provides for the rights of the manufacturers of the original parts forming part of a composite unit to be protected for only three years. Parliament considers this solution inappropriate and resorts to the compulsory licence system, which does offer protection, but protection that should not prevent the free circulation of spare parts, free manufacture and compensation by giving fair indemnity.
The Commission accepts this motion for mediation, except that the Council, in its common position, abandons the object for which the Directive had been proposed, i.e. that of creating harmonization and ensuring greater competition and a freer movement of goods, and decides that, for the next five years, we will not decide anything.
This solution is clearly unacceptable, which is why the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights proposes once again, through the rapporteur and with a large majority, that the amendments and therefore the position that Parliament had already voted for be reintroduced.
The Group of the European People's Party, which I represent, will support the rapporteur's position on this point, and here I would like to argue four points extremely briefly.
The first one, which has already been mentioned by Mr Medina, is a philosophical one, or rather an ontological one: beauty and aesthetics - meaning the design - are connected with the whole and not with an individual part.
An eye, a nose, a hair are beautiful or ugly in relation to the total body of which they form part.
Anyone preparing to design a machine thinks of the whole machine, which is bought because it is attractive as a whole, not for an individual part, which is not beautiful enough on its own.
But the other, and possibly more important, reason is competition.
As the specialists explain, competition can either relate to aesthetics, in the sense that, for the same price a product is more attractive if it is more beautiful -and this is the sense in which the automobile and motorcycle industries are competing today - or to the price, in the sense that, with the same product and aesthetics, consumers are offered a better deal through a price reduction.
When it comes to spare parts, if we do not allow the spare part manufacturers to operate, competition no longer exists and we have a monopolostic system, because the spare parts cannot compete among themselves for aesthetics, as they necessarily always have to be the same and have to be incorporated into that specific type of machine.
So, if we want to ensure competition, which is precisely the object of the directive, we have to allow the production of spare parts even by those who have not produced the whole machine, obviously with guarantees - the trade mark, know-how and efficiency that are described in the directive.
The third argument has already been mentioned - the risk that, if we do not make laws in this connection, we will establish further grounds for redundancies and unemployment because not just a few companies producing spare parts would have to close.
Finally, I have to say, there is a very serious legal reason because, although a law already exists in England, as pointed out by my colleague, Mr Medina Ortega, some countries have case law that does not recognize intellectual property rights in the production of separate parts of a whole.
Finally, I would like to recall that the Court of Justice, in its ruling of 6 April 1995, said on this subject that the intellectual property right has to be reconciled with free competition and freedom of movement.
It seems to me that this can support the amendments proposed by Parliament through the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, which I hope will be accepted by a large majority.
Madame President, we have before us a text which is very delicate because of its content.
The proposed directive on designs and models was the subject of a common position adopted unanimously by the Council.
So it is highly desirable to conclude with the Council's balanced version, because going through the conciliation stage would imperil this delicate construction and above all could lead to the final collapse of the entire text.
The European Union really does needs a harmonized and balanced system of legal protection of industrial property.
By returning to the repair clause adopted at first reading, we have created a system which is inapplicable in the circumstances.
Repair clauses do not create any bond between the owner of a right and the copier, who is limited to offering compensation with no guarantee in respect of the volume sold and in respect of the payment made.
This unbalanced relationship can only multiply disputes.
In principle the repair clause should not apply when the owner is able to prove that the copier cannot or will not fulfil his obligations.
But can such proof be produced against a copier when he is based outside the European Union?
Even linked to a system of payments the repair clause proposed by the rapporteur raises major objections at the level of fairness.
On the one hand it provides that the copier is liable only to offer a payment to the owner of the rights for his copying activity to be considered legal and to escape the description of pirate.
On the other hand the copier will restrict himself to producing articles with a rapid turnover and a high sales volume, while the manufacturer himself will, over ten years, have to produce more than 150, 000 articles so that they will be available to the consumer.
Contrary to what we are expected to believe the repair clause will not benefit the consumer.
Only the original articles offer the guaranteed resistance to corrosion, mechanical strength and safety demanded by the consumer and to which the manufacturer is committed.
It is particularly for reasons of safety that, in association with the competent legal and administrative authorities of the Member States of the European Union, the manufacturers have launched an unprecedented campaign against the safety risks inherent in fraudulent copying and the black market in spare parts.
In reality, in terms of price, respecting industrial property is not prejudicial to the consumer.
In the United Kingdom, where copying is free, the prices of spare parts increased by 13 % between 1989 and 1993, whereas in France, a country where industrial property is protected, during the same period prices increased by only 1.6 %.
So the advantage for the consumer is highly likely to be illusory.
A price which appears to be low actually represents a higher final cost, because of problems with quality, safety and adaptability.
Finally, in accepting the copying of spare parts from day one, this clause goes against the basic principles of industrial property and represents a very high economic risk for manufacturers who have to invest massively in the aesthetic elements.
The common position is a balanced whole which cannot be called into question by a factor as serious in economic terms as the reintroduction of the repair clause.
Madam President, right from the start the discussion of this important subject has focussed on the famous repair clause.
I hope the European Parliament will follow the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights in promoting a proper balance between all the interests involved.
This contrasts with the ineffectiveness of the Council of Ministers, which has left it to individual Member States to find a solution.
Such a lack of decisiveness negates any efforts towards European harmonization.
Unless the Council is willing to follow the European Parliament and the Commission, we are heading straight for a confrontation.
I sincerely hope that we shall come to an agreement on the whole question of designs, so that eventually real protection will actually be introduced at European level.
The protection of designs is in fact not only important to the car and cycle market.
It is important for the car market and that market is important.
But countless other sectors, our European fashion houses, those who design equipment like telephones, computers and radios, are waiting for uniform European legislation.
The protection of intellectual property is the legal expression of our intellectual curiosity, creativity and inventiveness, which are beneficial not only to the further implementation of the internal market but above all to our competition with our main trading partners.
It is in that spirit that I hope Mr Medina Ortega's report will be approved.
Madam President, the problems which have arisen during debates about the common position on the legal protection of designs have been caused not by attempting to protect artistic design, but by trying to resolve the conflicts of interests between manufacturers and consumers.
The difficulty in arriving at a satisfactory legal definition of design has been due to problems related to resolving this conflict.
The very act of resorting to the visibility or otherwise of the design of a component in a complex product, in order to exclude it from protection, demonstrates just how difficult it is to find a concept and a formula to reconcile these interests without causing legal ambiguities and uncertainties.
We have had to perform a balancing act to safeguard the interests of consumers and independent vehicle spare parts manufacturers, who provide a considerable number of jobs.
Parliament has been careful to achieve a balance, showing that we realize this is a delicate matter, but we are in favour of retaining a spare parts market open to free competition, where the interests of the manufacturing industry are also safeguarded.
In Parliament's proposed solutions, internal market competition is safeguarded in law, and designs are sufficiently protected. This, after all, is what we are trying to do.
The reasonable remuneration established in the repair clause guarantees that car manufacturers will be repaid for the investment they make in technical improvements to their designs.
Therefore, it is difficult to understand why Parliament's compromise solutions have been rejected.
I would have been in favour of an even greater reduction in the time-scale for protection, but I nevertheless think that Parliament's solutions are compromises which deserve to be supported.
And despite my difference of opinion about time-limits, I think that at this time a minimum form of protection, like the one suggested in the compromise solution, should definitely not be ruled out.
Madam President, I would like to say that Parliament's position is a balanced one and has weighed up all the pros and cons in this debate.
However, the Council's position is very strange. If it gets its way in the controversy over the spare parts repair clause in article 4, this would amount to creating and preserving monopolies to the disadvantage of consumers and the freedom of competition, and to the disadvantage of small and mediumsized industries which we purport to support.
I ask myself: is this really a Council position or is it the position of one or two Member States? 80 % of Member States have design protection already in national law.
So Parliament is entitled to ask if this is actually a Council position or the position of one Member State.
The vote on this report will show who in practice is in favour of freedom of competition when it serves consumers and small businesses and who, on the other hand, supports legal protection of multinational monopolies.
Mr President, the role of the legislator is to draw up texts which are accurate, balanced and clear, in order to avoid perpetual legal arguments and disastrous economic effects on the sectors concerned.
The proposal for a directive concerning the protection of designs and models will no longer meet these criteria if the repair clause is reinstated. It removes all protection from designs and models for external parts.
By way of compensation it is proposed that the copier himself should take the initiative of informing the copyright owner of his intention to copy the parts and to propose a fair and reasonable payment.
In practice we do not know how this compensation can operate or how the designers will be able to obtain maximum value from their rights.
What is at stake is research and innovation in the European Union, where industrial companies make enormous efforts to perfect original designs after a complex process.
These efforts, which are needed because of international competition, involve taking industrial risks which represent billions of francs in some sectors.
The repair clause authorizes the copying of the results of these efforts by third parties who will never bear the costs of research and development or the costs of innovation.
The adoption of this clause, which is counter to the basic principle of intellectual property, would send a negative signal to numerous companies in Europe, who could be tempted to reduce their innovative or creative efforts or to relocate to places where costs are lower.
It is a matter of opting for an industrial Europe where the companies which create and invest receive fair protection for the fruits of their efforts of creation, innovation and development.
In addition, this repair clause will be a source of perpetual argument and permanent legal uncertainty.
We are constantly told about a Europe of 380 million consumers; this Europe must also be a Europe of producers, failing which it will always be more a Europe of the unemployed.
These are the reasons why we shall not be voting for the repair clause.
Madam President, I wish to express my disappointment, and that of my group, at the clear inconsistency of the Council.
Let me explain: on the one hand, the Council does not waste an opportunity to praise the open market, consumer protection and job protection; on the other, when it comes to the legal protection of designs and models, it adopts rather debatable legal devices that actually favour the predominance of the large spare parts manufacturers to the detriment of the smaller producers, the open market, consumers and workers.
This is the reason for the disagreement between the Council, the Commission and Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
In fact, with the introduction and approval of the amendment to article 14, albeit at second reading, Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs sought to protect the market and the workers.
If article 14 is excluded their position is worse and with the introduction of the individual states' right to choose between freedom and monopoly, the Council is distorting the very principles of the European Union.
The Alleanza Nazionale chooses freedom, by tradition and firm conviction.
We hope the other groups will do the same by supporting the Medina Ortega report.
Madam President, I, too, would like to support Mr Medina Ortega's report.
This directive deals with something quite central to the internal market within the European Union, namely the need to protect those firms which carry out research and development.
These are the firms which create Europe's competitiveness.
The foundation stone for the economy of the future is initiative and research.
Having said that, however, it is also important to say that monopoly status must not be created for individual manufacturers at the expense of consumers.
The second reading of this directive gives me an opportunity to express my surprise at the Council and its attitude in this process.
With its free-for-all clause, the Council has left us in a vacuum, The free-for-all clause will give motor manufacturers a monopoly in the repair market - a monopoly status which means sharp price rises for spare parts.
And this is a price which European consumers will have to pay.
The Council has thus refrained from giving an opinion on design legislation and in so doing has missed the opportunity to lay down a clear standard which could ensure an effective internal market within the design sphere for spare parts.
It is our task here in Parliament to ensure that the internal market is carried into effect.
It must be for the benefit of Europe's population and protect firms against non-EU countries.
This is a big task, a balancing process, and monopoly status for the motor manufacturers in spare parts is clearly to the detriment of the population.
It is absolutely essential to remove the free-for-all clause.
Consumers must put their trust in the European Parliament and the Commission.
I hope that we will get a majority tomorrow to amend the text.
Last night, the word "copy' was used.
I would like to say on this that in some cases it is the sub-contractor who develops a spare part - and observes the standard - meaning that we have here cooperation between motor manufacturers, sub-contractors, and so on.
So it is not only a question of car producers here.
Madam President, I very much welcome the Commission proposal and would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work.
The European Parliament reached, after great length, an acceptable compromise.
In my view, the present situation where differences in national laws hinder free movement is no longer acceptable.
The Commission proposal is to be welcomed because it seeks to harmonize provisions which most directly affect the proper functioning of the internal market: the definition of design requirements for obtaining protection, the scope and terms of such protection, grounds for refusal or invalidity of such protection, the definition of rights conferred and the limitations thereon.
Adopting this directive would benefit all sectors of the manufacturing industry, but most especially the consumer goods sector.
As a point of principle, I very much hope that this House will reinsert the repair clause amendment.
I totally agree that when needed for repair, unhindered copying of designs of spare parts on payment of remuneration represents a reasonable compromise.
I therefore support the Commission proposal and the amendments adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I hope this House will have the courage to adopt those amendments and satisfy the needs of consumers and the manufacturing industry in this regard.
Madame President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive is grounds, in my opinion, for a warning about amendments which might call into question the extremely delicate balance which has been created at Council level between the States and between the commercial interests.
Given the time, I shall refer mainly to article 14, which is of course the repair clause.
On the pretext of defending the consumer, indeed even small firms, we risk putting the European producers in difficulty and in certain cases facilitating copying and possible piracy, particularly in south east Asia, even if, so far, people have had understandable reservations about mentioning this real danger in geographical terms.
On the other hand, the European Parliament has always shown great concern about the level of unemployment in Europe, quite rightly moreover, and about relocation, which considerably aggravates the unemployment situation in the industrial sector.
The motor industry is already faced with clear and very powerful competition and we can hardly talk about a monopoly in the sector. So opening up this sector to a little more competition involves a risk of weakening manufacturers' rights over their protected property.
In our opinion this can only favour piracy, engender litigation, in short, create legal uncertainty.
Indeed, everybody knows that legal uncertainty is against the interests of business and that what is against the interests of business is generally, in time, harmful to employment.
The motor industry is powerful, true, but it is also very fragile and the arguments in favour of the amendments before Parliament, although they are very cogent in legal terms, do, in my opinion and in certain cases, lack economic sense and logic in the real world of day-to-day economic existence.
That is why I sincerely hope our Parliament will stick to the common position of the Council, and that, of course, is how I shall vote.
Madam President, we are at second reading!
At first reading, Parliament was almost unanimous in approving the repair clause.
The Commission supported Parliament in this and the Council avoided making any decision.
On the crucial point, namely what we do about the spare parts sector - which was after all the point of the directive - the Council avoided the issue.
Now the matter is going through second reading in Parliament and we say that we did not mean to take things quite so seriously.
This sort of thing only undermines Parliament.
In future the Commission and the Council will not take Parliament's first reading seriously - even if there is unanimity in the House.
There have been two high court decisions, namely in the House of Lords and the Italian Constitutional Court, which state that the legal protection of designs only protects the design and not the components which constitute it.
All the same, these are just high court decisions!
We are now being told that jobs are under threat.
The repair clause does not deprive the car industry of its market share of the spare parts trade but merely opens it up to competition.
Car manufacturers currently control 88 % of the spares market!
They operate an effective dealer and sales network and there will always be plenty of customers who prefer to use factory-produced components.
To talk of a decline in this market share is therefore totally unrealistic.
The question is whether or not the free market will in future be able to maintain a 12 % share of the spares business.
Manufacturers quite simply want to have a monopoly of this market, and that is not desirable.
Madam President, I want to confine my remarks to the repairs clause.
This will soon become reality if we accept the suggestion that the 180 car and motorcycle manufacturers concerned will end up charging more for repairs and, consequently, for insurance.
This will happen if we do not accept what Parliament has already decided and what the Commission has already proposed.
This means - and here I reinforce what has just been said - that we are actually proposing to prohibit the reproduction of visible components.
This would result in a monopoly, in other words the car manufacturing companies would be in a position to dictate prices.
Of course we do not want this.
We do not want increased repair charges any more than we want to see jobs lost.
I would just like to point out that jobs are going to be lost not only on the production line but also, quite understandably, in the trade sector where spare parts are sold, and of course in turn in the free-market factories which would no longer be able to operate to full capacity.
Jobs are going to be lost there too.
We should be advocating both sides of the argument, that is to say both original replacement parts and reproduction parts.
Both sectors should be tolerated in the same way as we accept authorized repairers and free-market workshops.
After all, this is the beauty of the free market and it should remain so.
This approach is entirely justified when one realises that car manufacturers actually have to buy-in 70 % of their original parts.
The problem of reproduction parts is therefore not as blatant as many would suggest.
The conclusions to be drawn from this are as follows: yes to design protection - but with a repair clause which allows the reproduction of visible components under quite specific conditions, namely that the original manufacturer is notified that copyright royalties apply.
The Council has taken the side of the motor companies in this, and in tomorrow's vote we in Parliament should support the consumer and the free market.
Madam President, it is regrettable that the debate on the very important report submitted by Mr Medina Ortega concerning the legal protection of designs has basically become restricted to the repair clause.
In my opinion a decision supporting this repair clause would represent a pyrrhic victory for the motorists' representatives.
By this I mean of course a pyrrhic victory not in the economic sense but rather in the legal sense.
I can well understand the arguments of motorists' representatives and spare parts manufacturers, but as a lawyer I cannot recognize any objective criterion for abandoning the principles of design protection in respect of car spares of all things.
In fact, I consider this development highly questionable and possibly even creating a precedent.
In truth, the matter under consideration has, I believe, more to do with competition than design protection and it should be judged from that viewpoint.
Madam President, as the Commissioner responsible for industry I should have plenty to say about today's debate.
However, with an eye on the clock I would prefer not to do that but rather to abide by Mr Rothley's request that the Commissioner should be consistent.
In the first reading the Commission supported the amendments proposed by Mr Medina Ortega.
The Council did not accept these proposals.
Incidentally, responding to a question from a certain female Member, may I just say that the Council vote was unanimous and that therefore one should actually call it a Council decision.
But we want to remain consistent. We therefore support Parliament's proposed amendments, but with four exceptions: we do not support Amendment No 12 since we are of the opinion that it complicates things unnecessarily in that it relates to a matter which is itself undecided, and this will certainly not aid the course of events, particularly in respect of a quick decision.
Then we have material reasons for rejecting Amendments Nos 1, 5 and 6.
If the repair clause is to be introduced in the form preferred by Parliament, these amendments could in our opinion give rise to uncertainty as to the meaning of the individual details of the clause itself.
Nevertheless, this indicates that we support the greater part of the proposals, including the repair clause, as we did at first reading, and we hope that today's discussion will have some influence on the Council.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.30 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.15 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Medina Ortega has the floor.
Mr President, this is just a question of a detail in the Minutes, but as it affects you too, I would like it to be corrected.
Referring to my first speech, it specifically says, "he called on the President of Parliament to confirm publicly that he had been present on that day, and had only caught a flight back to Spain at 3 p.m.'
You normally travel with me, Mr President, but in fact on that particular day I think we both caught the 1 p.m. flight.
The Verbatim report of proceedings is correct in that I said, "and for that reason, as I think the President is aware, I do not usually catch the special plane, but one which leaves at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, so that I can stay until 1 p.m.'
In fact, on that particular day I flew at 1 p.m., because the sitting finished earlier.
It is just a small detail.
Mr President, I appreciate your being present in Madrid on 12 October for our anti-racism match, although of course that is not my point.
But I do want to thank you.
My point is that as a Parliament we need to have access to our own legislative documents, which we do not have.
I am writing to you on the subject today.
Mr President, I rise to speak on the point raised by Mr Coates which is to be found on page 6 of the Minutes.
I do not think this is an accurate Minute.
In the first place, it merely states that Mr Coates raised a matter under the Rules.
It does not minute that he raised the very important matter of the mandate of Members.
There can be few matters as important as that.
Secondly, the Minutes do not reflect the President's reply, which is also of great significance.
He said that this was an internal matter. I would like to suggest that it is not an internal matter.
If a Head of Government of this Union issues a restriction on Members, saying they may not discuss electoral reform with the press, that is a total invasion of independence under Rule 2. I would like the Minutes to be accurate on this matter.
Mrs Ewing, it was an internal matter, that is why it is not there.
It was when answering Mr McMillan-Scott that I said this was not the occasion to discuss internal British politics, which is quite different.
In reply to Mr Coates, I said that I would study his letter and answer it in due course.
Mr Perry, any issue raised by Members is taken very seriously.
Of course, I will answer the letter and, if there is any doubt, I will submit it to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, which I think is the right way.
I will not allow any more time to be spent on this matter.
Mr President, I can find no mention in the Minutes of the fact that yesterday I drew attention to an attack on a group of Dutch visitors in which one member of the group was injured.
Crime is on the increase and safety cannot be guaranteed.
I have been tabling written questions on that point since March.
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mrs van Bladel, your questions will be answered in the proper way.
I asked you yesterday not to raise this matter in the part-session, because this is not the appropriate channel.
If you look at the Report of Proceedings, you will see that what I said was that the subject was not on the Agenda.
Mr President, page 25 of the Minutes of yesterday's sitting records the proposal you made, on behalf of the Conference of Presidents, regarding the calendar for 1997 and 1998.
You mentioned Tuesday's Conference of Presidents.
To my great surprise, on leaving the sitting, I found the 1998 calendar in my pigeonhole, full version and summary.
I must say that this denotes, at very worst, an intention to disregard the vote that was to take place on Tuesday, and at best, a serious malfunction in the department that distributes the calendar, which knew it was going to be modified, or, in any case, which knew modifications had been proposed.
I would like clarification from you on this point.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, naturally, after the first vote which was taken during the September part-session, the appropriate department published a calendar which reflected the outcome of that vote.
This was distributed after the meeting of the Conference of Presidents.
Clearly, the next vote may change that decision.
Until then, the binding decision is that of September and a calendar already being distributed cannot not be withdrawn.
Other Members probably received it before the Wednesday meeting, in your case it arrived afterwards.
Mr President, I just wish to advise you that some of us in the Labour Party share Mr Coates' concern and would like this code of conduct to be addressed by the President in Parliament.
(The Minutes were approved)
Decision on urgency
Mr President, this is without doubt an important issue.
We are also looking into the matter, but regrettably it will not be possible to debate it in this sitting.
The Committee sits next week and we shall then be in a position to reach our final decision in the first November meeting.
I therefore propose that we decline the urgency for this week.
Mr President, I insist that we should not proceed with this urgency, because I have caught the Commission at some underhand behaviour, I am afraid.
I asked it last summer why it is insisting on the use of Nordic gold in the new euro rather than nickel; the day after the committee discussed it, the Commission admitted to me that it had absolutely no medical evidence to show that nickel is a particular problem for the large proportion of the population, as it seems to be claiming in its document.
Therefore I would advise the committee to watch very carefully what the Commission is saying about nickel and Nordic gold, because we are not being told the truth.
Mr President, as Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer is not here, I shall presume to defend the suggestion that this report should be debated, according to plan, only when the Brussels sittings start in November.
Loath as I am to express an opinion on the effect on health of Nordic gold or nickel, everyone will surely agree that this matter must be gone over carefully, and that this request for urgency cannot be complied with.
I put the request for urgent procedure to a vote.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
European Council on Employment
The next item is the report (A4-0307/97) by Mr Wim van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal of the European Parliament to the Extraordinary European Council Summit on Employment (20-21 November 1997) (C4-0389/97).
The rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, has the floor.
Mr President, following the Amsterdam negotiations and the introduction of the new chapter on employment, and following the decision to hold a special summit on employment, Mr JeanClaude Juncker threw down a challenge to all Member States and to our institutions that such a summit would only be worthwhile if it led to concrete and viable steps forward.
Mr Wim van Velzen is to be congratulated for meeting that challenge on behalf of Parliament in his excellent report.
Equally, the Commission is to congratulated for its guidelines. The draft guidelines it has produced on the four subjects of entrepreneurship, employability, adaptability and, crucially, equal opportunities, hit the nail right on the head.
These are the subjects we need to be addressing if we are to properly manage the whole range of changes that need to be managed in our societies.
There are two possible views of what came out of the Amsterdam negotiations.
Either our leaders were giving effect to a genuine desire to restore balance in the Treaty between concern for convergence and monetary union, on the one hand, and employment, on the other - either they were acting honestly to give the Treaty relevance to every citizen of Europe or they were engaging in a cynical exercise; a pretence by including an employment chapter which they had no intention of giving real meaning or real effect.
If it is the latter, then it is my clear view that citizens and voters in referenda will see through the pretence.
It is also clear that we, on this side of the House, will not be part of a marketing exercise to sell such a pretence.
The test of which view is correct - genuine commitment or a cynical exercise - will be the special summit on employment.
If it does not cut through the endless circular rhetoric of the past, if it does not lead to concrete actions or guarantees for citizens, it will be judged and will deserve to be judged a failure.
It will not be quietly forgotten.
It will be a failure that will dog attempts to have the Amsterdam Treaty ratified.
At the same time we have to recognize that the special employment summit is the beginning and not the end of the new process.
We cannot expect all of the required new mechanisms and procedures to give meaning to the employment chapter; the employment guideline and recommendation procedures to be put in place with a click of the fingers.
We should not load all of our expectations for these new procedures on to this one special summit, but we must see a clear signal that these procedures will be given substance and real meaning for our citizens.
That involves agreement on at least some concrete actions or guarantees.
That is now recognized by most governments.
I hope those who have still not recognized it will do so by 20 November.
In my view, based on consultations in recent weeks, there are four key actions or guarantees which should be possible for our leaders to agree to at the summit: first, a guarantee that no person will be allowed to drift more than twelve months into unemployment without intervention: job placement, training or retraining, further education, or whatever, the mix to be determined at Member State level; secondly, a guarantee that no young person under the age of 25 will be classed as unemployed, but rather as a person undergoing training, retraining, work placement, or further or higher education; thirdly, a decision to allow the reduction of social VAT on labour-intensive services to the lowest possible level; fourthly, an agreement to establish a benchmark based on the ratio of the active to the inactive population in the three Member States with the best performance.
These are the core tests, in my view, by which we should gauge the success or failure of the summit.
I hope our leaders will meet this challenge.
Mr President, we have to recognize that Europe now has more than 18 million people unemployed, of whom 5 million are under the age of 25 and, as President Santer has just mentioned, nearly 50 % are long term unemployed.
It is agreed therefore, and this is important for us if we want to avoid this destructive process, to give each one of them the chance to find a job again in a growth society with a human face.
Indeed, our citizens expect concrete measures, realistic measures which will be enough to enable Europe to relaunch a dynamic of job creation.
We all know the Amsterdam Treaty includes social improvements, notably in the area of the fight against social exclusion, but we must recognize that with regard to employment, progress on the legal front has not been sufficiently concrete.
This is the reason why the European Council on employment, to be held on 20 and 21 November, will awaken legitimate hopes in the population because, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our citizens expect tangible initiatives to come out of this employment summit and all goodwill must be mobilized.
It is in this spirit that we are today discussing an important report, and the work which has been done by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, under the aegis of its chairman and rapporteur, is of great interest.
So, how can we act concretely? On behalf of our group, I have tabled an amendment which we feel is extremely important.
We are requesting the use, in advance, of the ECSC surpluses in order to promote employment, through an exceptional allocation to the European Investment Bank so that it can encourage projects providing jobs in SMEs.
ECU 50 million could thus be freed up.
We think that this non-bureaucratic method, which is a transparent method of management of funds and consists of allocating the funds directly to the EIB, has the advantage of stimulating a spirit of enterprise and innovation and of building the foundations for real aid in the creation of lasting jobs, notably to the benefit of small and medium-sized enterprises.
With regard to this, I thank the rapporteur for his support, because I think it is important that we defend this constructive proposal for employment together.
The second important initiative is that we must encourage the emergence of a new organization of work.
The report indicates that this reorganization should necessarily be through a systematic reduction in working hours.
I am genuinely afraid that the expression "reduction in working hours' is fashionable today in some European countries and that it will eventually, perhaps not immediately, but eventually, be revealed as paradoxical and antisocial if it is applied in a restrictive way to all businesses.
I also fear that, on the contrary, an automatic reduction in working hours favours the development of overtime, even informal working arrangements, and mechanization.
So, rather than systematically advocating the reduction of working hours, I think it would be better for the competitiveness of European enterprises if we considered a flexible and judicious way of organizing working time, adapted to the economic and human realities of business and the business environment.
It is in this spirit that our group has tabled a number of amendments to Mr van Velzen's report.
Mr President, it gives me great satisfaction that the President-in-Office of the Council is here, but nevertheless I have to say that, since the first agreements were reached on labour market policy at the European summit in Essen, the European Union has stumbled from one employment proposal to another.
The components of the plans have always been the same.
Even the Commission's proposal is a repetition.
What is different now? What is different is that now there is a Treaty of Amsterdam which is to lead to the Luxembourg summit.
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Juncker, has just given us hope.
But all the same my group looked forward expectantly to the Council of Social Affairs Ministers for both short term concrete agreements and the impetus for new longer term policy.
Since Mr Delors' White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment, not a single new idea has been put forward, let alone a start being made on implementing the existing proposals.
A typical example is that the issue of the European company statute has again reached stalemate.
It has been known for a long time that a European company statute would considerably increase transfrontier activity and substantially reduce legal costs.
But certain Member States still cling stubbornly to their tried and tested positions and have been standing in the way of decision-making for thirty years.
In this House too, we are all trying to fall into line and innovative ideas go by the board.
The political debate should be about our differences, not our agreements.
But in order to push the European Council forward somehow the van Velzen report and the amendments tabled are chiefly aimed at consensus: consensus in Parliament and consensus between Parliament and the Commission.
Of course we all support this because we regard it as very important to combat unemployment in Europe.
But, Mr President, I would rather see a genuine political debate.
In my opinion Europe cannot in the long run avoid introducing a taxation system that does not tax the employment factor and goes further than the ecotax and energy levies we are already familiar with.
Efficiency improvements in businesses are at the moment almost entirely geared to shedding jobs.
The average tax on labour and businesses in the European Union is high, in many countries over 50 %.
Many proposals at Community level talk about shifting the labour tax to capital.
However no one has the courage to create a workable basis for taxation on capital.
Mostly we remain committed to a capital levy which, with the globalization of the economy, is becoming more and more difficult.
However Mr Juncker has given me hope by raising this point and saying that we have to do something about this issue.
Other innovative ideas such as new pension schemes, growth and dynamism with an appropriate infrastructure and proper functioning of the goods and services market, are all areas to be tackled in the short and longer term if this employment summit is to be a success.
For that spirit is needed.
Spirit from the Member States, spirit from this Parliament and spirit from the European Commission.
That is what I am hoping for.
Mr President, the holding of an extraordinary Council on employment, at the request of the French government, puts this question at the centre of the debate, along with a social dimension to European construction which has until now been lacking.
With nearly 20 million unemployed and 50 million on the poverty line, it transpires that policies followed to date have sacrificed employment and devastated the existence of millions of citizens in our countries, particularly young people.
Unfortunately, the Commission does not show the political will to modify these directions.
Attractive objectives are set.
Who would not be in agreement with the idea of creating 12 million jobs, of bringing the unemployment rate down to 7 % and of reducing the number of young unemployed by half by the year 2002? But what are the means proposed?
The Commission bases its proposals on competitiveness by relying on flexibility, camouflaged under the concepts of adaptability and feasibility which, I have to say, treats with disdain the elementary right of each person to a stable job, correctly remunerated and reconcilable with family life.
The Commission persists in regarding labour as a cost which it must at all costs reduce, but labour is not a cost, it is a resource.
The van Velzen report is faithful to the Commission's objectives, as well as the logic which underlies them and which is that of the single currency and its constraints.
This is so much the case that, in dealing with unemployment, the van Velzen report says not a word about the reduction of working hours, and this at the very time when two governments of the European Union have just decided to move towards a 35-hour working week in the next few years.
The 35-hour week is not a fashion, Mrs Hermange, it is a part of the great objective of civilization to achieve better quality of life and create jobs.
Our group therefore positively appreciates the decisions of the French and Italian Governments to move down this path of progress, breaking with the policies followed up to now.
The 35-hour week has burst upon Europe, as a recent headline in the El Pais newspaper put it. The General Secretary of the ETUC was not wrong when he said that the guidelines for employment which will be decided at Luxembourg will have to include the explicit prospect of reorganization and reduction of working hours amongst the essential priorities in the fight against unemployment.
More generally, our group thinks that the challenge of employment must be raised in order to end the threat to social cohesion in our societies.
The means exist to do this.
Considerable funds are suppressed in market capitalization; enormous amounts of public funds are misused; credit and taxation do a disservice to employment and investment.
This is what needs to be changed to be able to increase purchasing power, to revive industrial policies, to develop training on a large scale, to reduce working hours and develop and renovate the public sector.
Our group wants to contribute to this, along with the social movement and the unions, and to act to convert the Luxembourg Summit into political acts and not only....
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the spectre of European mass unemployment is once again turning into a major scandal.
It is still unclear whether the summit in Luxembourg will be a PR exercise or whether it will seriously attempt to break down the door to a European exchange-rate policy.
We are therefore obliged, European United Left Members, to debate the minutiae of the matter, and that is something which we should do in all seriousness.
The urgency of the matter is not that employment constitutes an exceptional case, but rather that employment trends are symptomatic of a misplaced policy, a one-sided policy of promoting the supply sector, whose legacy after 10 years is now all too apparent.
This policy must now be ended.
The alternative is clear.
We either have an exchange-rate policy, and one which is not primarily macroeconomic, but rather which is aimed at a new socio-ecological development model in overall economic policy, or the European governments must take the blame for bringing in the euro on the backs of the unemployed.
The summit must not be a cover-up, promoting deregulation and flexibilization, nor should it seek to impose a policy of jobs with no real prospects.
Of course the attempt to apply the Maastricht method to employment policy, with the very sensible proposals made by Mr Juncker as well as by the Commission, is by no means just a continuation of previous policy.
There is the possibility that a door has now been opened, through which a majority of European states will later be able to pass in a determined manner.
I am assuming here that the political make-up will also change in the years ahead so that Bonn too will have a red-green government.
European employment policy requires a fresh approach in a number of areas.
We need an employment-oriented policy mix which incorporates social dialogue with training and education.
We must realise that the restructuring of industrial policy creates jobs.
What is basically required is a redistribution of labour and a reorganization and reduction of working hours.
France and Italy have set an example in this respect and have given us signs of hope.
We need a third sector between private enterprise and the conventional form of public services, which can organize public sector employment in such a way as to avoid the social barriers which have resulted from more than 10 years of neo-liberal policy.
It is our intention to hold a green summit in early November, at which our proposals can be developed and focussed.
I agree with Mr van Velzen that this is now not primarily a matter of funding, though naturally it cannot be financed from petty cash.
We now require the machinery and a clear idea of the issues we have to tackle.
Only then will the German government, currently holed-up in the brakeman's van, be able to see a clear track ahead and take the necessary turning.
Strategic playing of trump cards is simply no longer enough, Mr President.
The whole deck needs reshuffling.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr van Velzen on his excellent work.
My only regret is that the report reaches a dead end on the theme of reduction of working hours.
It seems to me that we should not be scared to talk about it as one of the many means of fighting unemployment in Europe.
To my mind it is certainly not a question of getting wrapped up in a dogmatic vision by implementing a statutory 35-hour week in an authoritarian manner, but the reduction of the working week is something which the tide of history has brought with it.
The reduction of the working week could create hundreds of thousands of jobs in Europe, on the condition that it is implemented alongside a true revolution in the organization of work, based - why not - on annualization and on a revival of the policy of innovation and training.
This policy has already been emphasized by the Commission.
It has today transpired that economic growth and the drop in unemployment in the USA are based partly on technological innovation.
Why not imagine a European plan that could bring together a certain number of existing programmes in the field of industrial technological development? I am thinking of Brite and Euram but also of information technology through Acts, and here it is vital that European SMEs have greater access to the Internet.
I also believe it is fundamental that coordination with Eureka is established on the subject.
Let us not be under any illusions: the EIB funds announced are, when all is said and done, negligible in the face of such issues.
European SMEs often have difficulties when they cannot obtain loans from the banks. Why does the Eureka programme work so well?
First because it is close to the ground and to the heads of businesses but also, and above all, because it awards a label of technological excellence which strengthens some enterprises in obtaining bank loans.
So why not think of this labelling idea for the EIB, which could vouch for them with the banks?
The idea of making activity compulsory for young people after eighteen months seems to me excellent.
I consider that for certain young people from marginal areas, a real brass-knuckle fight is now needed to dig them out of the bottomless pit they have sunk into.
I therefore think that a programme which immerses them in modernity would bring a response to this distress; this programme would need to be associated with apprenticeships in information technology and foreign languages from the starting points of the Lingua and Leonardo programmes.
Finally, the Danish policy on staff rotation is a proven success: while certain employees are on maternity leave or training, the long term unemployed replace them and are thus trained in the business.
The over-50s are often involved. Let us therefore participate in this challenge from the viewpoint of objective 4 and a strengthened Adapt programme.
Europeans are expecting a great deal from the states of Europe.
They are tired of speeches.
The 20 million unemployed and 50 million who live in conditions of serious insecurity expect concrete actions.
Proposals being formulated on the eve of the Luxembourg Summit are going in the right direction.
A flicker of hope is appearing and we must make sure it grows brighter.
To enable the citizens of Europe to work is a task of the first order for all politicians in positions of responsibility.
We each have a duty to do all we can to defeat this social and economic cancer.
It is also a way of restoring meaning to the lives of millions of Europeans.
Mr President, I can very well understand that the European Union needs results at the extraordinary summit meeting on unemployment.
Hope has been held out to the unemployed on this, of course; but I suppose the question is whether it is at all realistic to expect results, presumably also because certain members of the EU Commission have begun to refer to the summit meeting as a kind of study group.
Since the Amsterdam Treaty was signed there has been no shortage of golden promises, you know.
This also comes through in the Danish debate where, among other things, the Danish Prime Minister thinks that the goalposts have been moved by getting a section on employment included in the new Union treaty.
But an important addition to this is that the countries are, of course, to be obliged to subordinate all forms of policy to a stability-oriented economic policy at the EU level.
This applies to social and labour market policy and to employment policy.
It is thus reasonable to ask oneself the following question: will there be any benefit to employment at all? My answer is definitely no.
It is common knowledge, of course, that the economic policy and implementing EMU will specifically mean a rise in unemployment, not least in the public sector.
In an earlier employment report by Ken Coates, there are calculations which show that if the EMU is carried through to deadline it will actually mean 2.1 million more unemployed people in the European Union.
I do not find this aspect in the report by Mr van Velzen.
Nor do I find it in the debate we are having here today.
When Commission President Jacques Santer says that many new jobs were created last year, I think it should be added that these were above all part-time jobs.
Is this really what the unemployed want? It is not - at any rate, not where I come from.
There, across broad sectors of the Danish trade union movement, people entirely dissociate themselves from the flexibilization currently taking place in the labour market, spurred on by the European Union.
The report has only words of praise left for the view that everything must be subordinated to EU economic policy and competitiveness.
However, setting a few minimum unemployment rates is recommended.
But I think the unemployment percentages are something the individual Member States should set themselves.
The report shows quite clearly how, in the EU, one step after the other is being taken in a particular direction.
This has happened in rapid succession just since the summit meeting in Essen, and when this report proposes common minimum incomes and common minimum wages, you are moving out onto a slippery slope which will not do for either this Parliament, the Commission or the populations within the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European employment summit must set in motion a train of events which will ensure that the European Union's political system gains more credibility.
The 18 million unemployed will be left without hope unless the Treaty of Amsterdam also includes concrete measures.
While the targets set by the Commission, the Council Presidency and the rapporteur too, are quite correct, we still need, in addition to labour-market stimuli and reforms, a quite different economic framework in which to operate.
In spite of the favourable autumn forecasts, further action is needed in this area.
The European Union's investment ratio is completely unsatisfactory and cannot help us overcome the unemployment problem.
We need at least 1 % more public investment and at least 1 % of GDP more private investment.
I hope this can be combined in a partnership between the public and private sectors so that a European majority can be created in this area to promote employment prospects.
I consider it essential that the employment summit should tackle this issue in a determined manner, so that the dramatic employment crisis can be resolved.
I also believe that taxation requires restructuring, not only to relieve the tax burden affecting the labour market, but also through this means to promote demand within our borders.
To boost employment - which cannot solely be promoted by labour-market policy - we require, in addition to investment benchmarking and infrastructure investment, accountability that public investment is actually helping the employment situation.
I believe that proof needs to be provided every year.
Investment in infrastructure will allow us not only to improve the weak competitive position of the European Union in respect of logistics, transport and communication, but also actually to create new jobs.
I am also of the opinion that in order to boost employment, EU policy, that is to say, all policy measures adopted by the European Union, must focus directly on the job market, and consequently taxation must be restructured away from large-scale enterprises, particularly those engaged in industry, technology and research, and towards the major employers, namely small and medium-sized enterprises.
This would represent a real contribution to tax restructuring from a passive to an active labour market policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the importance of this subject has already been emphasized by several parties. To use Jacques Delors' parting words to this Parliament, we are dealing with the most important issue for Europe over the next fifteen years.
Somebody used a strong expression today: mass unemployment, almost twenty million Europeans without a stable job.
Surely the need to increase resources for development is one of the priority issues, but I believe that one of the fundamental aspects is connected with the conditions in which the resources intended for development may provide a stable result for greater employment.
We are living at a time in which the world economies are confronting each other, and this will happen more and more.
And so we cannot think of heading in a direction that goes against the general context.
In this situation of grave concern, two countries - France and Italy - have chosen to reduce working hours by law, in an official and organized manner.
Just a few minutes ago, someone used the expression a "better quality of life' . But work is part of that quality of life!
Work has a sacredness of its own, it is something that ennobles man, and the fact that working hours have been reduced is incomprehensible.
Let us think for a moment: the work is created by the company, and the company is a living being, a being whose needs change from day to day.
Only if the social forces are capable of talking, of reaching an agreement on needs and objectives, will it be possible to protect employment properly.
What will happen if we reduce the number of working hours to 35 by law? There will probably be an increase in costs, there will probably be a drive towards greater mechanization of production, greater automation, we will probably encourage relocation outside the European Union, not only of the large but also of the small and medium-sized companies.
There are specific examples in Europe: Great Britain and Holland, where the unemployment rate has been reduced by several percentage points in the space of a few years by resorting to flexibility and not imposing a reduction in working hours in a planned and bureaucratic manner.
Because everyone is anxious to meet the very important challenge of stable employment and the creation of wealth to protect the guarantees provided by the welfare state, I believe Europe should apply efficient methods to the overall situation we are facing.
Madam President, our resolution today will have no binding effect but it provides an important backdrop to the approach of the Member States and the Commission to the summit.
It is a pity that we have not found greater consensus in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs: we have no fewer than 55 amendments from three major political groups.
What we know is that we are heading for a return to normal growth but that growth will not be enough to reduce unemployment to a tolerable level, and we must tackle youth unemployment and long-term unemployment particularly.
We know that to do this we must make the single market work.
We must recognize the interdependence of our economies and the limits to the effectiveness of national policies, particularly in monetary policy.
It is ironic that countries which cannot make up their minds about the single currency are those in which monetary union would have the greatest job-creating effect.
We need to provide access to capital and training, for small businesses especially, and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, under my rapporteurship, has put budget lines worth a total of ECU 150 million into a package to enable the heads of government to do this.
I am looking forward to welcoming Commissioner Flynn to my constituency in three weeks' time to look at how we are currently spending some of the money under these budget lines.
But that money will only be made available to the summit if the national governments are prepared to take it seriously.
This must be more than a charade; we must put real effort into job creation.
Making a reality of the infrastructure projects discussed at the Essen summit would be a good start.
We need to shift the tax burden away from the things that we want, like jobs and investment, and on to the things that we do not want, like use of scarce natural resources and pollution.
I welcome in particular the draft employment guidelines for the summit and its four pillars - employability, entrepreneurship, adaptability and equal opportunities - which are so important in creating a climate in which jobs will emerge.
Exchange of best practice is important too.
The summit provides an opportunity for Member States to make a commitment to creating more jobs.
Exchange of experience is a key role for the European Union.
In conclusion, the most difficult job for the President-in-Office, Mr Junker, will be to find a compromise between different ideological approaches to economic organization.
This must not be a Luxembourg compromise.
Madam President, we must work for success at the Luxembourg summit conference on employment and ensure that clear decisions are taken to improve the employment situation.
Improving the employment situation is perhaps the most important way we have of boosting the confidence of the people in the EU.
When EMU begins we will need a more effective employment policy than before, in order that European growth can continue, and that prosperity can be divided equally.
I have given my approval to Mr van Velzen's report, as it is important that the Union gets to work on the issue of employment.
And, you know, it is dangerous to keep the issue of employment merely at the verbal level.
It is not enough to create ambitious target programmes if they are not going to be implemented until the next millennium.
What is especially important in the report is the introduction of the lowest possible rate of VAT in the labour-intensive service industries.
It is vital to insist that the Council take a positive stance in this matter.
The report does not go far enough, though.
Too little attention is paid to reducing working hours.
Shortening the working day will be the most enduring way to respond to job losses due to increased productivity, especially in industry.
I think the most essential thing is not whether working hours should be shortened by a change in the law, through negotiations among the labour organizations or by experimenting with working hours.
It is important to act now.
In Finland we have carried out very interesting experiments and had interesting results from the 6+6 scheme, where the previous eight-hour shift has been replaced by two six-hour slots.
The number of jobs has increased and companies have gained by increasing production capacity and heightening the efficient use of the day.
Nor does the report pay enough attention to jobs in the public service sector.
These are of untold importance in the Nordic Member States, not only in social security, but especially in jobs for women.
When EMU begins, the public sector will also come into its own in terms of employment as t will be working on the issues of balancing out trade levels and other problems that come along.
That is why the public sector should be higher up the agenda than it is.
Madam President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mr Wim van Velzen on this report on employment and the proposals which he and the European Parliament will present to the summit in Luxembourg.
There are many good proposals in this report which I am going to support.
The summit really needs all the help and all the good proposals it can get, since it has a very, very difficult task. The summit cannot be allowed to fail.
Nor should it be allowed to end in fine words and hopes. Instead it must really try to arrive at a solution, particularly for the long term unemployed and with regard to youth unemployment.
At the part-session in Brussels, when President Santer gave an account of the guidelines which the summit will discuss and decide on, he said that we must be wary of creating excessive expectations, which we have also heard others say here today.
Yet the EU's policy is still based on a very optimistic growth forecast with an increase of more than 3 per cent per year.
This also means that the employment policy and the EU's attempts to create more jobs are based on this growth rate and on encouraging companies to invest.
It is, of course, one measure, but we should not believe that economic growth is a guarantee for creating employment.
In that case we would be deceiving both ourselves and others.
What is needed are more structural measures against unemployment in the form of shorter working hours and a lasting reduction in taxes on employment.
Working hours should be both shorter and, of course, more flexible.
In the slightly longer term our aim should be a 30-hour working week, and our aim now should be a working week of 35 hours.
A reduction in employer contributions and other taxes on work should, in our opinion, be financed through higher energy and environmental taxes, so-called tax switching.
EMU troubles me just as it troubles the rapporteur.
I therefore believe the summit must discuss whether the EU's own policies are not contributing to the creation of more unemployment because such massive cuts are being made in the public sector.
Another serious structural problem in the current system, and in the EU's policy, is that far too many people make money by depleting natural resources and destroying the environment.
We have therefore proposed an amendment, No 51, which I hope many will support.
In it we propose that a new treaty should be concluded, a treaty which would balance other treaties, a treaty with an environmental content, that is, the creation of job opportunities through environmental conversion programmes.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, after the great hopes of Jacques Delors' transeuropean projects in the early 1990s, Europe is finally concerned about jobs. Hence today's report.
It is never too late to do the right thing. 20 million unemployed: it has finally impinged on the good conscience of the Eurocrats.
This employment plan, which at least has the merit of existing, has come up against a brick wall on the reduction of working hours but it directs its essential efforts towards two priority sectors, and that is all the better.
The sector of innovation in communications technology, in multimedia, takes much of its attention, thus highlighting the importance of training.
50 % of the 20 million unemployed Europeans - and not 18 million - have been without work for a year, 30 % of them for two years. By the year 2007, 80 % of technology used today will be out of date.
That is why the Group of the European Radical Alliance proposed that, from the year 2000, nearly 2 % of national budgets should be dedicated to training.
The second priority in the report is aid to SMEs, since for the past fifteen years these have been the only true source of employment in Europe, as opposed to the large industrial groups which have continued to lay off staff.
But in order to help the SMEs, a support fund must be established for the creation of enterprises in Europe, and it will need ECU 800 million if the effort is to be significant.
There are other directions: the creation of a European legal and fiscal status for heads of enterprises, because if you want to encourage individual initiative, you have to specify and limit the risks of the person taking the creative initiative.
A stimulating fiscal policy, with charges reduced and abolished for the creation of jobs, needs to be implemented.
There should also be promotion of small home-based enterprises and teleworking, because that is the economy of the 21st Century.
The European Union has to stop being the Red Adair of economics in Europe and intervene upstream, reflecting on the world of activity as it will be over the next twenty years.
Ultimately it has to define - I and my group insist on this - the quaternary economy, which will be based on community life and activities within easy reach and which will move us from social utility to economic utility.
For, let there be no doubt, Madam President, modernity, as foreseen by the great thinkers of the 19th Century, has accomplished its historic mission: work has liberated us from work.
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, the Luxembourg Presidency has set a very high target for the employment summit.
It must be congratulated.
In particular, it must be congratulated for having introduced new ideas and for having ceaselessly revived the dialogue with Member States, with the social partners, and obviously with the European Parliament too.
If only in this respect, the Summit can no longer be purely an act of public relations, as Mr Wolf suspects. This summit must, moreover, be a summit which breaks with the siren statements of previous summits.
Madam President, we can no longer believe that one-off adjustments are satisfactory.
If we want to avoid a two-tier society, we must rework certain accepted ideas.
It may not be obvious, but the report by Wim van Velzen is both specific and in-depth, since it raises the essential question while proposing an immediate starting point.
An example is the proposal for a social or minimal rate of VAT for services absorbing a great deal of labour.
This could be applied to convenience services, to the social economy, to apprenticeships.
It is a radical change of perspective.
It would finally allow the local and regional economy to be respected for its specificity, alongside the global economy.
For a part of the economy, it would make adaptation of the standardizing logic of the single market possible.
I think the Commission should leap on this idea and introduce concrete proposals, within the context of the Monti group.
Furthermore, this should not prevent the Member States from being active at the same time.
Madam President, all in all, the Heads of State and of Government, at least some of them, tired by a night of negotiations at Amsterdam, thought they would get some peace by referring the question of employment to an extraordinary summit.
They did not realise how much good they were doing.
They have given Europe a capital occasion not only to reflect on employment but also on the whole of our economic system and above all to make a decision on it.
With the van Velzen report, Madam President, no one will be able to say that there are no concrete measures on which to make an immediate decision.
Madam President, I quite unreservedly agree with the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, that employment policy is a matter for the nation states.
On the other hand, I am convinced that in view of the high unemployment figures, the EU should not close its eyes to this problem.
For this reason I would welcome the employment summit due to take place in November.
I await real results from this summit. The debate has gone on long enough, now is the time for action.
We need concrete results here.
The rapporteur, my colleague Wim van Velzen, has produced an excellent report, undoubtedly with the support of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
A number of vital topics for debate can now be tabled at the employment summit.
I quite agree that the training of unemployed young people and the long term unemployed is a very important issue.
However, like Council President Juncker and my colleague Mr Pronk, I doubt that such precise targets can be set, since the starting point is different for the various Member States and such a policy is therefore only likely to arouse false hopes.
This also applies to the percentage targets.
Lifelong learning should be encouraged, of that there is no doubt.
However, whether 0.5 % is required overall for this purpose is another question.
Continued employment after training is tremendously important for motivating young working people.
A reduction in the amount of overtime is something which we have quite rightly promoted for many years, since this will doubtless lead to greater employment opportunities.
In Germany this also applies to the DM 610 category.
Abuse of this regulation does not significantly affect the employment situation in the Federal Republic of Germany.
I unreservedly support moves aimed at placing atypical working arrangements on an equal footing with full-time work.
Equal job opportunities for women have still not been achieved.
Wage incidental costs must be reduced for small and medium-sized enterprises, which are subject to high salary costs.
This will also help control the illicit job market, currently on the increase, which is damaging job opportunities.
It should be made easier to establish new companies.
We must reduce the level of bureaucracy and simplify the legal requirements.
Guarantee funds are urgently required to protect risk capital, so that innovative ideas can be converted into jobs.
The EIB has a role to play here.
The euro must be introduced by 1 January 1999.
This of course pre-supposes that all participants meet the entry criteria laid down in the Treaty, since only a hard euro can create real jobs.
In conclusion let me say once again that the Council and the Commission must eliminate tax dumping in the Member States once and for all, as this also destroys job opportunities.
Let me recapitulate: the debate has gone on long enough, now is the time for action.
Europe must maintain its social market economy.
This should be neither socialist nor liberal.
Let me end by pointing out that the investment ratio in Bavaria is more than 5 % higher than in all Germany's red-green Länder.
The advice offered by our colleague Mr Wolf is therefore erroneous, as witness the example I have just given.
Madam President, with economic and monetary union just around the corner the Union is starting to be seen by the public as only concerned with mergers by big companies and serving the interests of shareholders.
The proposal by Mr van Velzen corrects that view, for which I am grateful.
Although I personally feel that job creation is mainly the role of business, this initiative can have its uses, certainly as regards education and providing funds to create jobs.
However I am doubtful about concepts such as lifelong learning. Great!
But how and who is going to pay for it?
There are problems about outlawing structural overtime. Why should people be forced?
And forced to work shorter hours. These three aspects are partly up to the individual and of course partly the responsibility of the social partners, whom we should not undermine.
My colleagues are mainly concerned about the younger people who are unemployed.
But the generations that have helped to achieve Europe's prosperity and well-being should not be left out because of age discrimination.
Opportunities must be offered so that they can stay in employment after reaching pensionable age.
I have tabled an amendment on that point.
The demographic trend in the Union makes it imperative that we address this problem seriously.
Not only so that we continue to make use of the knowledge and experience of that generation and thereby encourage a flexible labour market, but also to make sure that pensions can be afforded in the future.
And after all that is also important.
Mr President, depending on whether or not the aspects I have objections to are adopted, I am certainly in agreement with Mr van Velzen's proposal.
Madam President, the people and workers of Europe cannot but be overcome with anger and indignation when they hear that employment may gain a firm foundation through the promotion of EMU and the single market, negative changes in the structure of pay and through the flexibility of working hours.
In other words, we are entrusting the care of the sheep to the wolf.
But it is in fact the convergence criteria and the policies of EMU and the single market that are leading to mass unemployment.
Making the labour market more adaptable and flexible is leading to mass poverty.
The President-in-Office of the European Council and also our rapporteur have expressed their fears concerning the credibility of the summit meeting.
The question is, are you in a position to change policy? Only that will prevent the summit meeting being shown up as the alibi for the acceptance and promotion of the stability pact.
Madam President, only a combination of policy measures to promote the reduction of the working week without a reduction in wages, the strengthening of the purchasing power of the broad strata of the people, an increase in social spending, a substantial strengthening of small and medium-sized companies, the strengthening and revival of public investment and the public sector, only such a policy would be able to play a role in reducing unemployment and in promoting employment without poverty and social exclusion becoming more widespread.
These are the immediate aims of working people and you can be sure that by fighting and struggling for them sooner or later they will achieve them.
Madam President, in view of the current figure of 18 million unemployed, an improvement of the employment situation is the greatest challenge currently facing the Union.
We have all experienced a certain amount of scepticism when talking to our citizens, the most common question being "what is the point of Europe if it cannot safeguard our jobs?' .
I believe that if decisive action is to be taken against unemployment, then Europe must also be brought into the hearts and minds of its citizens.
Amsterdam has set a clear assignment.
The objective, or as Commissioner Flynn puts it, the result, is to create 12 million new jobs in five years - an ambitious undertaking, particularly since no additional resources are to be made available.
This begs two questions: first, do the financing plans stand up to critical analysis, and secondly, are the measures being taken really suitable?
If we are talking about a release of funds by the EIB, incredible though that may be, then a closer inspection proves to be somewhat sobering.
According to an internal German study, the EIB funds referred to are only sufficient to create a maximum of 60, 000 new jobs. The measures proposed by the Commission for combatting unemployment are well known.
The report on employment opportunities in Europe in 1997 basically reiterates previous calls for a reform of taxation policy, better training programmes, a reduction in labour costs and many other measures.
The implementation of these measures is the responsibility of each Member State.
The EU can only participate through exchange of experience, since Europe lacks suitable job-creation instruments.
It remains to be seen whether Amsterdam will give the EU in Luxembourg a new impetus and, more importantly, whether Europe can maintain its credibility and fulfil the hopes of its citizens.
Madam President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council, the President of the Commission and the rapporteur for their comments today.
I would say to the President-in-Office of the Council that if the key thing that comes out of the Luxembourg summit meeting is simply the facility from the European Investment Bank, and if that is what we are all putting our whole emphasis on, that is not what this summit meeting should be about.
We should recognize that the EIB cannot solve the problems of unemployment in the European Union.
We should not present that at the end of the Luxembourg summit meeting as the cure-all for our problems.
I would much rather use this summit meeting as a historic opportunity to look at the whole question of employability and how we can boost employability in the European Union.
On all sides of this House we have to be very honest with ourselves if we want Luxembourg to be a success.
We have to look at employability in relation to work patterns.
I use that phrase because you, Mr President, used the phrase 'work patterns' rather than 'a shorter working week' .
We have to look at employability in the context of education and training.
It is disastrous, the number of long term unemployed people who are not in education or training in Europe.
We need to look at employability as far as the welfare state is concerned. We have to admit that at the moment we have a passive welfare state rather than an active payment system which encourages people to get into employment within the European Union.
I can say that because I represent the area of the UK that has the highest level of unemployment outside Northern Ireland.
In conclusion, we do not want a cure-all for unemployment.
We do not want quick fixes.
We want this to be a historic summit meeting that looks at employability, where there are no sacred cows and where on all sides of this House and on all sides of the political argument, we look maturely and sensibly at how to get our people back to work.
Madam President, there is no doubt that the Luxembourg Employment Summit is one of the most important results of the Amsterdam Council.
It is true that it is an issue that affects the nation states, but it is also true that Europe cannot pretend not to see that the citizens of Europe have great expectations of an overall, coordinated answer.
So I am pleased that President Santer and the President of the Juncker Council have firmly established the objective of achieving the most concrete results possible, as Europe cannot fail to take up the burden.
No doubt there will be a contradiction with the objective of monetary union, which inevitably leads to the requirement for a stability pact, a stability pact comprising social peace within the individual countries and, therefore, political stability.
As has been said, social peace is achieved by the harmonization of fiscal policies, but also of welfare policies.
Europe should deal with this matter, as the information provided by President Santer describes a structural unemployment; there are structural elements in European unemployment.
The statement that 50 % have been unemployed for one year, 30 % for more than two years, 20 % consist of young people and 75 % of the unemployed have only had compulsory schooling shows the urgent need both to finalize vocational training and, as stated in the van Velzen report, the use of the structural funds and, above all, to finalize a measure aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, as indicated, by reducing administrative expenses, easier access to capital and credit, tax exemption for the cost of labour in particular and greater flexibility in the job market.
Jobs, which have not yet been mentioned here, are being created not only through flexibility in the job market, but also through flexiblity in other production factors, based on the product market.
Those countries that have created a number jobs have also created genuine deregulation of the product market.
The final consideration, in my capacity as an Italian citizen, is on the proposed reduction in working hours.
There is no doubt that a certain reduction in working hours is inherent in technological progress.
A study appeared recently stating that, if recourse was made in Germany to the robots already known today, there would be nine million fewer jobs, and 25 million fewer in the United States!
The problem of reducing working hours is therefore a real one; we need to study the ways in which we can deal with it.
I do not think the way indicated by the French Government is the best; it cannot be dealt with by decree or by law, but rather it should be tackled by contracts and agreements between the social parties, as stated, inter alia, in consideration J of the Rocard report, which states that it should only take place following an agreement between the social parties and even then with financial support.
I am not surprised, but would rather ask that financial support should be provided by the state.
It would be much better if the state paid for employment rather than unemployment.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on 20 and 21 November in Luxembourg, the Heads of State and of Government will have a difficult job to do.
They will have to be able to combine the need to find a common desire to identify ways and means of fighting unemployment in Europe with that of not introducing obligations or obstacles or anything else that may prove detrimental to the path to a single currency.
However, the European Union, and the governments in particular, by forcing our countries to achieve the budget objectives laid down by Maastricht, even laboriously, to the limits of possibility, is obliged to make just as much effort to make a specific contribution towards solving the serious unemployment problem.
The European Union should first have the courage and determination to warn the member countries that have adopted deflationary but also recessive economic policies to the detriment of employment not to submit to a monetary union which now has no resources.
Mr Podestà's position, which I adopt, does not require any further comment.
We believe that the Union, in laying down the conditions for the single currency, should indicate the ways of achieving full development, which it should have done beforehand, a long time ago.
It seems to me that, if the programme submitted by the Commission is adopted, we can consider ourselves to be on the right path.
Today's speech by President Santer gives me reason to be optimistic.
I would like to make one point, however, in the hope that the summit will adopt it. It relates to the question of the structural funds which, in my opinion, can play an even clearer role in this context.
It is a well-known fact that in some countries the structural funds have not performed the tasks assigned to them in full but, owing to the seriousness of unemployment, we should not feel we are prisoners of mechanisms which, when activated by us, place huge budgets at our disposal which are actually often not used or badly used.
To give an example, and without claiming to be exhaustive, I remember that, on 16 September last, this Parliament voted by a large majority for the report, which I had the honour of preparing, on the extension of the structural funds to measures aimed at preserving and increasing the value of the artistic and architectural wealth, also providing direct benefits for further stable and skilled employment.
Madam President, we do not expect miracle solutions from the November summit.
I hope the summit will not be restricted to the usual statements with no appreciable results, but will lead to concrete measures which, observing the principle of subsidiarity, identify the most appropriate national and Community measures, in both the short and long term, for economic recovery, development and employment.
Best wishes to the Luxembourg Summit!
Madam President, the EU should devote itself to the big issues.
Employment is one such big issue which affects and concerns people.
So it is a good thing it is now high on the agenda.
Convergence criteria for employment and unemployment should therefore be inserted into the Treaty on European Union so that they are given the same weight as requirements for membership of EMU. The way EMU is constructed today means there is, unfortunately, a risk that it will increase unemployment instead.
I see three main areas for action.
First, a good business climate which creates more small and medium-sized enterprises with increased investment, better universities and apprenticeships. Secondly, a switching of taxes with reduced tax on work for low and middle-income earners and increased taxes on natural resources, energy and environmental discharges.
And thirdly, flexible working hours, down to a working week of 35 hours, through negotiation or, as a last resort, through legislation.
Madam President, convergence criteria, PR work, good examples and coordination at EU level together with legislation, collective agreements and implementation at national level could be the way to reduce unemployment in Europe.
Madam President, I share the rapporteur's view that it is important that we talk in concrete terms before, during and after this summit.
I would like to give some examples of such concrete things.
I share the rapporteur's views on lifelong learning and knowledge, but in recent years in my country we have seen in concrete terms how the education system has been cut back from the first year of primary school right up to university level, and that selection is increasing in primary education.
I share the view about active rather than passive measures, but at the same time in recent years in Sweden we have seen tens of thousands of women go from their badly-needed jobs in the public sector into passive unemployment.
This is therefore a criticism of the convergence criteria which were determined for economic and monetary union.
Finally, the TEN project.
In addition, the transeuropean networks have recently created an unprecedented environmental disaster in Sweden.
I therefore believe that when we debate this project it is very, very important to see what is happening in concrete terms as a result of what we are doing.
Madam President, still today, unfortunately, we MEPs, with speeches taking half a minute to one and a half minutes, have to offer solutions to the massive problem of unemployment in Europe.
And, as usual, owing to the adverse organizational system of the European Parliament, we have to offer solutions so that the Commission can then disregard them completely.
Everyone complains about the rise in unemployment, everyone maintains that the solution may lie in the small and medium-sized businesses, which could play a fundamental role in employment.
On the other hand, very few Member States encourage their small and medium-sized businesses to take on young people to improve vocational training.
In Italy, it is even prohibitive for a small or medium-sized business to take on young people: the current laws discourage any good intentions, as union logic wants a young apprentice to cost the company the same as a specialist worker.
Consequently, we will have fewer and fewer young people in the workshops, which will have fewer specialists and fewer skilled workers, with ever greater losses for the European economy in the future.
In the few seconds left to me, Madam President, I would like to announce my specific plan for the creation of new jobs in Europe: grouping all Non-attached Members of the European Parliament together into a single mixed group, so as to be able to take on new young executives and so make a positive contribution to the reduction in the percentage of young unemployed in Europe.
Madam President, Mrs Berès, other colleagues and myself have tabled three amendments to Mr van Velzen's report, which we support and which I hope there will be room for in the Luxembourg Summit discussions.
Firstly, we can but note that in fighting against unemployment, we not only have to control it but we also have to create jobs.
Like you, we raise the problem of the macro-economic context.
But we think that the resources at the disposal of the large networks, including the EIB and our budget, are weak.
We want to revive the idea of a large European loan and we would like your opinion on this.
Secondly, we think that European industrial policies are necessary in sensitive sectors such as the car industry, of course, but also in the more active sectors such as telecommunications, computers and multimedia or the sectors of the future such as space.
Jobs must be created in Europe, they must be created in dynamic industrial sectors and they must give rise to both public and private investments.
Thirdly, the discussion on the reduction of working hours has been forcefully raised within Europe, notably by French government policy.
We think the problem must be considered at European level, for some people are rightly questioning the competitiveness of companies and we want to know your level of commitment to agreements on the 35 hour week, and indeed what you think of the prescriptive route.
Mr Santer has rightly said that readjustments are required in Europe.
From a political point of view, people are becoming visibly aware of the fact that a social and employment union is required alongside economic and monetary union.
As regards the unions, it is one of their demands.
But from an employers' point of view, what will they do?
The employers have gained everything in Europe - the single currency, the single market, liberalization.
But now we do not see them at our side on the issue of a true employment policy.
I have no answer as to how to get the employers moving.
Please tell us how you intend to convince them.
Madam President, in this Parliament a regrettable belief exists that we are wiser than the members of the national parliaments.
We must cure ourselves of that.
Particularly when there are 25 Member States, it cannot do any good for this Parliament to discuss every possible thing which is the responsibility of the national parliaments.
I am sure that van Velzen's report is good for a social democratic government in Holland; but it will not work in my country, nor in several other countries, because the problems are different.
Some people need more education, others need demarcation between trades to be broken down and increased incentives to find work.
There must be debate and clarification in the national parliaments.
We must therefore try here to limit the amount of general and - forgive me for saying so - superficial advice about areas where the Union has no influence.
Let us concentrate on what the Union can do, namely stable frameworks, common currency, market access, research, innovation.
I agree that no-one under 25 should receive passive social security benefit - but this, too, is an idea which must be debated in the national parliaments.
Madam President, I agree that this extraordinary European Council meeting on employment is very important for the European Union's credibility.
My colleagues have emphasized that the most important question is the reduction in working hours, but I would like to stress two other matters which I think are very important: small and medium-sized enterprises, and women.
Small and medium-sized enterprises are essential in the creation and maintenance of employment.
In Spain, we have a wonderful example to prove this point: in the Valencian Community where I live there are a great many such enterprises, producing ceramics, toys, footwear or furniture. They are highly labour intensive, but they are in crisis because their competitiveness depends on cheap labour.
They need to change, and produce quality goods which are well-designed and technologically advanced.
But they cannot make these changes, which almost amount to a revolution, on their own. They need assistance, access to finance, and reduced burdens.
As for women, we make up 83 % of all part-time workers, and have an unemployment level which is 4 % greater than the Community average. This summit has to introduce concrete measures to guarantee equal access to the labour market.
I believe that the credibility of this Parliament and the other Community institutions depends on our finding solutions to the biggest problem faced by the citizens of the Union: job creation.
Madam President, the van Velzen report, for which I offer my congratulations, proposes to move urgently from words to facts by implementing what the European Parliament has always maintained: if we want to dignify a concerted policy on employment by giving it the same importance as the single currency process, we need to take decisions on employment convergence criteria, together with medium term objectives and guidelines for achieving them.
The central point is therefore to show a desire to regulate processes by means of a concerted European policy that forces Institutions at all levels, European, national and local, to direct overall economic choices towards a new model of development, to create the contextual conditions for this development to be made in the direction of creating new jobs.
I think that the contextual conditions are created with the information provided in the van Velzen report: measure relating to training and inservice training, a reorganization of and reduction in working hours.
On this latter point, I wish to digress slightly: my government, the Italian Government, has, in my opinion, made a bold proposal, not to establish a reduction in working hours by law by a decree forcing everyone to do so, but to encourage agreement between the social parties to arrive at a reduction in working hours, with the assistance of the Institutions as well.
This direction favours all the unemployed but, I think, women in particular, who are the most heavily penalized by the rate of unemployment and who have always said that the problem of working hours requires intervention for everyone, men and women.
The contextual conditions are also created with measures favouring retraining, technological innovation and capital support for small and medium-sized businesses.
The European Parliament has done so, not only with the Van Velzen report, but also with the choices made in terms of budget which will be discussed this afternoon.
The European Parliament has shown courage. As Mr van Velzen said, it is true that we do not always have the necessary resources, but experience has taught me that, if the strategies do not result in resources, they can easily remain a dead letter.
The European Parliament has made a specific choice: an employment package that contains measures favouring small and medium-sized businesses cooperating with the EIB, but aimed at favouring local pilot projects for employment.
I think that the Commission with its guidelines and the European Parliament with the specific information contained in the van Velzen report and with the choices of budget have played their part.
All responsibility now lies in the hands of the Council.
The Luxembourg Summit should conclude with specific choices that also form the legal basis for these programmes.
I would like to tell the President of the Council, Mr Juncker, that he was very brave to put forward his motions.
However, this summit should conclude with a specific fact: legal bases for this programme, otherwise it will only end in words once again.
Madam President, I am pleased that we have all come to the conclusion that employment policy is now a focal issue for the European Union.
This is due in no small part to the prominence which this matter has been given by the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission.
It is now absolutely essential for us to focus our attention on youth unemployment, which now stands at over 20 % for Europe as a whole, with peaks of over 40 % in some of the Member States.
This means that by failing to tackle this problem the EU will be faced with a social powder keg which will threaten the entire future of the Union.
I would therefore like to direct my attention to measures seeking to combat youth unemployment. I urgently request that we pursue our efforts with renewed vigour, both at national as well as at European level.
In this context President Santer has stated that we need new strategies which must be both diverse and durable and, if I may add, most importantly practical.
Here I wish to focus on a number of measures whose implementation is necessary, in my opinion, to combat youth unemployment.
Firstly, we should strive to provide young people with a basic education which includes both a fundamental knowledge of EDP skills and the language of another EU country, with a view to increasing their job mobility.
Secondly, mobility should be an educational requirement, and by this I mean students and teachers alike, since the latter are often not fully familiar with the concept.
This means that we must try to direct the Union's available capacity towards mobility programmes and overcoming existing barriers to the application of such programmes.
Thirdly, we must learn to educate people to meet the actual needs of the job market.
All too often we tend to over-educate.
I would suggest that annual reports be prepared to assist the Member States in this respect, in order that training and education can be tailored to meet the needs of the future.
Fourthly, we should harmonize our skills training, that is to say we must bring this to the level proposed by the Commission.
Dual training, which is regarded as the optimum solution, should for example be introduced into all European states.
Fifthly, we need to speed-up the creation of new businesses, since the greatest potential is to be found in small and medium-sized enterprises and because many young people want to become instructors and to adopt the American system of business angels.
Finally, to promote innovation in the business sector, I would propose the introduction of networked innovation exchanges throughout Europe for the purpose of displaying and implementing new ideas.
I see the employment summit as a real opportunity to encourage employment throughout Europe, particularly for the younger generation who represent the future of Europe.
Madam President, the great debate for the end of this century is how to create employment in our societies.
In this debate, our actions cannot be preventative or defensive in nature, nor be based on formulae which may have been valid in the past, but are not so valid today.
The current situation would benefit from a bold approach.
As opposed to the concept of deregulation, which seems to cover everything, our proposals should combine flexibility and security, in the view that there is no single employment policy, but that all policies can, and should, benefit employment - although policies which actively favour employment may also be needed.
There are a lot of hopes resting on the forthcoming employment summit - perhaps too many.
Let us hope that they are not disappointed.
As Wim van Velzen's report says, it would be good to form concrete, even quantifiable, objectives, bearing in mind that the initial employment figures are not the same in all the Member States, and neither are the conditions for creating work. We need to create work in order to create jobs, in each and every one of our Member States.
For employment is created only by creating work - work which satisfies traditional and new needs.
Unemployed young people, who experience extra difficulties in finding a job, need imaginative and even risky formulae, such as increasing the numbers who train for a profession, linking training and work experience, or supporting lifelong learning.
We must share our experiences in how to convert passive policies into active policies, and unemployment benefits into support for new jobs.
The social partners should offer specific agreements designed to create employment. Possibilities include: the conversion of overtime into jobs rather than pay - in Spain last year 65 million hours of overtime were worked; formulae for flexible working practices, such as agreeing to reduce the working day in exchange for new jobs, as long as companies' productivity is safeguarded; and agreements on new ways of organizing work.
We must insist on fiscal flexibility for labour-intensive and unskilled work.
Small enterprises should be given more than a declaration of intent, or concessions on loans.
Small industries need to be helped to understand how they fit into the potential of the single market, and how they can benefit from a single currency.
As has been said many times, the European Union must find a way of adding value to the policies of the Member States, and must give decisive support to certain active policies designed to promote employment.
If this is done, the Luxembourg employment summit could turn out to be a European pact for employment and solidarity.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that 18 million people are unemployed throughout the European Community constitutes a challenge to the European Union, even though the primary responsibility for this lies with the employment policy of the Member States, and particularly with both sides of industry.
This view is now shared by the Amsterdam Council and is reflected in an employment statement and in a supplement to the minutes, with the aim of organizing a special summit.
The European Parliament has successfully intervened in the preparation of the Luxembourg summit and Wim van Velzen has made a significant contribution through his work in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I should like to express my appreciation for this and wish the project every success for the future.
We agree on many points, including those voiced by the President of the Commission.
Of the many proposals put forward today for combatting unemployment, I would only reiterate the importance of qualifications, both for employees as well as for the unemployed.
This matter should be at the top of the agenda at the special meeting of Heads of State and of Government in Luxembourg.
Incentives are needed to promote job training and lifelong learning.
Europe's position requires not only modern high technology machinery but also a workforce capable of operating it.
Wim van Velzen has made interesting proposals for vocational training and for combatting youth unemployment.
Some of these - and a number of speakers have already made the same point - have admittedly focused too much on percentages and planning.
The Group of the European People's Party wishes to introduce amendments to give the proposals a much needed boost.
The President-in-Office of the Council has brought a refreshing new tone into the European debate.
He is quite right in warning of the danger of setting the sights too high.
Mr Juncker will, I am sure, be able to make a significant contribution to the summit. The latter must see practical decisions being taken and should not get bogged down in matters of theory.
But it will not work without money, Mr van Velzen, as you well know.
The European budget will have to be scrutinized line by line to see if additional reserves can be found.
The Davignon report has put forward the European Limited Company as an ideal legal instrument, particularly for mobilizing private capital for the establishment of transeuropean networks.
The European Limited Company project has already failed due to the contentious issue of comanagement.
The Council Presidency in Luxembourg has come up with an interesting compromise in this respect.
If political accord can be reached this year within the Council of Ministers on the basis of this partnership solution, then this will also be good for European employment policy.
The challenge to the job market can be answered not by a free market policy but by a social one with real partnership!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Social Democrats are pleased to see this debate taking place today.
I am especially glad that all my colleagues recognize that running down the social system is no way to create jobs.
May I remind you, President-in-Office of the Council, that the employment statement contained in the Amsterdam Treaty was initially quite unpopular.
Germany in particular wanted to reject its adoption right up to the last minute.
The present situation was only achieved through public debate and by the intervention of the European Parliament, the Commission and several Member States.
I mention this because the danger naturally exists that former opponents will again wreck our efforts on 21 November by staging a boycott.
We have lost a great deal of time by the Council's failure to recognise the need to adopt the Elise programme.
Risk capital for SMEs will now be given top priority by Luxembourg.
The national parliaments and governments will not be released from their responsibility, but Mr Santer, you are quite right, nothing more can be achieved by misinterpretations of subsidiarity.
I would briefly like to mention three points.
First, we need high quality, sustainable employment opportunities.
We have had enough cheap jobs without training, without a future and without social security.
Secondly, we need more jobs for women.
A certain amount of courage is required, even today, to promote this.
Those in responsibility find it much easier to send women back to the kitchen or to parttime jobs.
Thirdly, we need new ideas.
What Member States cannot achieve by themselves, measures which they have neglected and those which they do not yet trust, could be implemented at European level in the form of pilot projects.
For my part I am convinced that the planned funding by the European Investment Bank will not be sufficient in the medium term if the Council of Ministers takes its job seriously.
Mr Juncker, we will be keeping a critical and positive eye on the activities of the Council, demanding real results when necessary and intervening constructively whenever possible.
Mr President-in-Office, you just said very poetically in your introduction that you did not want the summit to be a paraphrase summit, giving birth to another poem.
I could not have put it better and I entirely agree.
Incidentally I want to say to Johanna Boogerd-Quaak that we do not really need new ideas.
We have produced enough ideas.
The Commission in the White Paper, the Stability Pact, this Parliament in the Rocard report and in the various resolutions it has put forward.
What we need now is for the ideas to be implemented.
If Luxembourg is to be a success, at least three things are necessary, Mr President-in-Office.
Firstly, the summit must formulate clear objectives.
It has already been said a few times that a European employment agreement must be courageous enough ultimately to create convergence criteria for employment as well.
The summit must also dare to establish objectives for education, investment in employment, job guarantees and working hours.
I must honestly say that I am slightly surprised that some colleagues have overlooked that passage in the van Velzen report.
But I am even more surprised when I hear that so many governments are afraid to take the plunge and I see it myself in some of the amendments tabled by the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reformist Party when it comes to establishing concrete objectives.
After all we have known for a long time, from our experience with monetary convergence, that such criteria are necessary if we are to move in the same direction.
I hope, Mr President-in-Office, that the summit will be successful in this respect.
Secondly, nothing can be achieved without spending money.
And that is also true of a European employment strategy that offers not workfare projects but job guarantees, investment in employment and a better future.
On this point I perhaps differ slightly in emphasis from our rapporteur, Wim van Velzen.
Of course employment must be on the national agenda and therefore the Member States must spend as much as they can possibly afford on employment as a matter of priority.
But that will not satisfy my colleagues.
The concern for sound government finances which is, indeed, laid down in the stability pact, means that policy scope is particularly limited, at any rate in my own country, and fresh resources will therefore be needed to boost the European economy.
For that reason the Amsterdam commitment to financing a European growth initiative must be put into practice at the very least.
In fact, as I see it, Eurobonds could be put back on the agenda in a Delors-style initiative.
In any event I would like to conclude, Mr President-in-Office, by wishing you success.
I hope the summit will not once again result in a beautiful poem.
Madam President, we are not hoping for miracles from the employment summit, but we do expect that from now on the problem of 18 million unemployed in Europe will be treated with due seriousness, that is to say that it will be at the top of all agendas.
The credibility of European policy depends on the extent to which results can be achieved, and not only for millions of unemployed people and their families.
As Jean-Claude Juncker has just outlined, that means not just singing the same old song, but actually beginning a new refrain with new lyrics to match.
The principle of subsidiarity is not being violated.
While main responsibility continues to lie with the Member States, it is now time to give practical effect to the common strategy for employment, as agreed at the Essen summit.
Commission President Jacques Santer is correct in saying that integrated, coordinated action must now be taken, and without further delay.
The Essen summit correctly focussed on five recognized key areas, namely investment in vocational training, raising the employment index, reducing wage incidentals, a more effective labour market policy and measures to assist groups affected by unemployment.
These also feature highly in the report submitted by Wim van Velzen, which is a precise and focussed piece of work, and we intend further to improve the situation through amendments from the Group of the European People's Party.
Employment and economic policy are two sides of the same coin of a social market economy.
We therefore need convergence criteria for employment in order to supplement the stability pact initiated by Theo Waigel.
The level of commitment of the Member States must be available for monitoring and inspection.
Clearly we need to survey what has been accomplished, but also what remains to be accomplished, and this should include the annual reports submitted to the European Parliament.
Only through qualitative objectives with clear time definitions will we reach the standard needed to evaluate the effective coordination of national policies.
Our key targets are ultimately achievable.
In the area of human resources, the cost of training measures should be based on the average national budget for the three best Member States.
Education and training should be adapted in a much more flexible way to meet the needs of the marketplace.
Both sides of industry need to reach agreements so that after training, job opportunities, including contract-type work, are available to the long term unemployed and the young.
As far as SMEs are concerned, we need to reduce the risk associated with the establishment of new companies and to set up a guarantee fund to provide loans from the European Investment Bank, which naturally includes strengthening the competitive position of the guarantors of most of the jobs and training places in Europe. At regional level, we must set up local employment initiatives and introduce measures to promote territorial pacts.
I believe that the European Parliament has actively complied both with the Council decision on growth and employment and with the Amsterdam employment statement.
The ambitious goal which has been set, Mr President, namely to organize a summit with tangible results, has every chance of success, not least because of the enormous personal commitment and inspiration involved.
Madam President, with the Amsterdam Treaty we have taken a great step towards a better Europe.
The EU must tackle what is most important for the populations of Europe, namely employment and hence the defence of the welfare society.
Treaties do not themselves solve problems.
The many proposals and good intentions must lead to action.
In 1992-93 Denmark had high unemployment and a budget deficit.
We changed our financial policy by reorganizing our tax system and through comprehensive reform of the labour market - things which have made Denmark today the European job-creation champion.
The fact is we can kick-start the economy and in this way secure for ourselves better employment and, at the same time, a budget surplus.
We have carried out tax reform which was the beginning of lower taxation of labour and higher taxation on consumption of resources.
We have carried out a reform of the labour market which has activated the jobless, and leave of absence for training and parental leave have helped to create a more flexible and social labour market for both business and wage-earners.
We have chosen a strategy which invests in training people and not in passivity.
A strategy in which growth and employment go hand in hand with sustainable finance.
We have in Denmark come a long way towards both higher employment and order in public finance, while at the same time preserving a socially responsible community and taking account of the environment.
We now need all EU states to commit themselves to concrete objectives in the employment campaign.
In job creation we in Europe must invest in training, research and quality, and thereby improve our competitiveness in relation to non-EU countries.
The single market means that we have a 90 % common economy and are therefore dependent upon one another.
The Danish effort would have had even greater effect if a corresponding kick-start of the economy had taken place everywhere in Europe.
Good luck with the summit meeting in November!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the extraordinary meeting of the European Council to be held this November in Luxembourg should not and must not be one more of the many European summits marked by the firm and assured repetition of good intentions which have never been, nor ever will be, put into practice.
This will not be a time for further reflection and meditation on unemployment; it must be a time for realising and implementing the texts adopted at the European Council of Amsterdam, especially those which are essential for the development of an active and coordinated European strategy on employment.
The new section of the treaty on employment, the resolution on the growth of employment and the President's conclusions on employment, competitiveness and growth have introduced principles, provisions and intentions of such importance that they must, as a matter of urgency, be explored and implemented all the way to the final results.
We cannot wait until the extraordinary Luxembourg summit for new ideas to emerge.
The important thing is to put into practice the innumerable ideas which have already been propagated and discussed.
According to the Amsterdam Treaty, Member States consider the promotion of employment as a matter of common interest, with the Community contributing to the achievement of a high level of employment, encouraging Member States to cooperate with one another, supporting and, where necessary, supplementing their actions.
The Community will respect the jurisdiction of Member States, but Member States must not fail to shoulder their responsibilities to resolve this worrying social problem.
European citizens, particularly the millions of young people without jobs and as many millions again of long term unemployed, are waiting, perhaps with some hope, for the urgent implementation of measures including employment training appropriate to market needs, the organization of working time - not just a reduction in working hours - and the financial measures made necessary by the coordination of economic policy.
The report we are now discussing is an important source of assistance for the Luxembourg Summit.
It seeks to create a catalogue of new opportunities provided by the Amsterdam Treaty, extrapolating a considerable and important number of concrete proposals, which should be taken into consideration at the Luxembourg Summit and implemented the day after their adoption, without further delay.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first let me too express my sincere appreciation to Wim van Velzen for his excellent report.
I also welcome the proposed measures for greater workplace adaptability and more flexible working hours.
However, flexibility should not be introduced without social safeguards.
Flexibility for employers is one side of the coin, social security should be the other.
In this respect we are all under an obligation, governments and social partners alike.
The enormous growth in short term contract work and the current boom in teleworking are the result of exploitation by companies preoccupied with global competition, a sort of Manchester-type capitalism.
Since it is better to have any kind of work than none at all, I now see increasing numbers of people in such a plight that they are forced to accept this type of employment, despite the fact that it involves no social safeguards whatsoever and in terms of workers' rights falls far short of the benefits enjoyed by full-time workers.
This demonstrates a serious shortcoming in European social policy, and one which must be redressed as a matter of urgency if we are seriously to introduce a more flexible approach to employment.
What is needed here are precise rules and practical European minimum standards.
If we continue with the faint-hearted approach adopted by both sides of industry in their European agreement on part-time employment, then we may as well give up now and go home.
No social progress has ever been made on the zero tax rate and this will never bring us peace in labour relations.
What we need are flexible employment conditions which do not discriminate between employment and social insurance rights.
Madam President, I too wish to congratulate the rapporteur for producing a very concise report which cuts through the usual verbiage that we get when we are talking about reducing unemployment.
In this regard, I would like to refute the criticisms that have been made here by Mrs Carlsson and others in relation to the report.
Last week, in Brussels, we heard the Commission's latest economic forecasts and on the basis of these projections, Commissioner de Silguy told us that up to eleven Member States will take part in EMU from January 1999.
While this is to be welcomed, it means very little for millions of people throughout the European Union.
In particular I would submit that it means nothing at all for the 18 million people who we have heard of so often this morning - our fellow European citizens who are without work.
My country, Ireland, has seen a very welcome reversal in its economic fortunes over the past five years but even our "Celtic Tiger' suffers from the cancer of unemployment.
Its roar is an offence in my view to our many long term unemployed and to our young people who get no job start at all.
Concrete steps must be taken at the Luxembourg Summit to ensure that the battle against unemployment can be won.
One very important step that the Member States could take would be to reverse their position on the abolition of duty-free sales for internal EU travel.
This decision, which was taken by Bertie Ahern and the other finance ministers in 1991, will have drastic consequences for thousands of workers across the European Union.
It is ironic that we should be talking, on the one hand, about creating employment and, on the other hand, cutting jobs ourselves by our own actions.
I would ask Commissioner Flynn, who is with us here today, where he stands on this issue.
Will he indicate where he stands on duty-free and will he argue for its retention at Commission level?
If not, thousands of workers will be added to our shameful statistics.
Finally I have just come from a meeting of the Intergroup on Ageing.
Mr Santer might like to reassure us that the concerns of older workers will be taken into account in his deliberations in Luxembourg.
Madam President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for a good report.
In my homeland people sometimes talk as if the high unemployment is due to the EU. That is not true, because so far the EU has not had the instruments to conduct an active employment policy.
Instead it is the Member States who have until now had the instruments, but who have not managed to conduct a good employment policy on their own.
Now there are these instruments in the Amsterdam Treaty.
That does not mean, however, that either the regions or the states will be relieved of their responsibility for future employment policy. It is to do with creating added value.
When we create this added value it is important to do so in concrete terms.
We should not allow another meeting which involves lofty declarations which commit us to nothing.
It is important to have clear objectives with regard to levels of employment and unemployment, particularly youth unemployment and long term unemployment.
It is also important to have clear objectives with regard to the question of an active labour market policy.
On this point Mr van Velzen's report brings clarification.
Learn a lesson from this at the Luxembourg Council, and do not let it become another document like the rest.
As far as the issue of working hours is concerned, it is true that a reduced working week, correctly carried out, can create jobs.
We know that. We have examples of it around Europe.
What we can learn from EMU is the following: if you create clear, concrete objectives, countries will try to fulfil them.
That has been done in the area of inflation and with regard to budget deficits.
Let us now do the same thing for employment and unemployment.
It is a great challenge, but it is a challenge which the Council must accept.
In conclusion, I would also like to support Mr Malone's views on the question of duty-free shopping.
Let us now make sure, while we work for increased employment and reduced unemployment, that we do not increase unemployment in certain areas because of past decisions.
Let employment be the overriding objective.
In that case we should postpone the proposal to abolish duty-free shopping.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, at the time of the Single European Act we forecast the creation of many new jobs for our people.
But unemployment has done nothing but grow.
At the time of Maastricht there were the same unkept promises.
The austerity of convergence criteria has not enabled us to escape from the spiral of unemployment.
We can clearly see that we must change course.
Change macro-economic course, maybe, but also change the method.
We can no longer accept constricting economic criteria without protective social criteria favourable to employment being confirmed within Europe at the same time.
This is why Europe must rapidly move towards a reduction in the working week.
Productivity gains and new technologies must speed up this historically age-old movement.
We can work less and produce more.
Work must therefore be shared, the working week reduced.
In order for this to create jobs, this reduction must be on a large scale, rapid and generalized.
Of course, it is better to do this through negotiation, better to do it through incentives.
But by the dawn of the 21st Century, by the year 2000, all European enterprises ought to be working on the basis of a 35 hour week.
That is possible.
The same arguments have been put forward throughout history: the economy will not be able to stand it, businesses will no longer be competitive.
This is what was said to Jaurès when he introduced the eight-hour day, it was also said when paid holidays were introduced.
But history has resolved the problem, and it has not been the case.
We can create massive numbers of jobs if, at the same time as reducing the working week, we readjust the relationship between capital and labour, which has been extremely unbalanced to the detriment of the workers, and if we proceed to reform tax deductions and social security contributions in favour of businesses employing large numbers of staff and penalizing more heavily those who make large profits without creating jobs.
A European fiscal policy is therefore needed to accompany the reduction in the working week.
Finally, this summit must not be one of rapid social deregulation.
On the contrary, it must bring a halt to deregulation because, Mr President, what good are convergence rates and apparently lower unemployment rates if, in reality, workers who no longer form part of the statistics no longer have the means to live and live below the poverty line?
This is not the Europe we want.
A social Europe must gather momentum around the fight against deregulation.
Social progress ought to bring economic progress.
Unfortunately this never happens spontaneously, like a sort of inevitable consequence.
Madam President, for the first time in European history we have a golden opportunity to create an employment strategy for this part of the world.
Parliament has long been active in this respect and has also been calling for action.
Mr van Velzen's report is, again, a splendid example of this.
The council, on the other hand, got involved only quite recently, in accordance with harmonization policies, after necessary political changes in Member States' governments took place after elections.
Now there are ideal opportunities to implement an employment programme that contains concrete targets.
Heads of Member States must not return empty-handed from the Luxembourg Employment Summit.
The Commission's concrete targets have been criticized, because they are hard to measure.
I think, though, that concrete targets are needed for the very reason that we should have a means of assessing the effectiveness of any employment measures.
I am not saying that a 7 % unemployment rate is not a sufficiently ambitious target, but we do need short term goals so that we can monitor our success.
Job creation is the keyword.
There is obviously a limit to the EU budget, but good use must be made of all the benefits of structural funding and the European Investment Bank.
The Council has more room to manoeuvre in this area than it has been prepared to take hitherto.
In the market economy, taxation is also an effective way of controlling supply and demand in the labour market.
Many speakers have emphasized the need to alter the incidence of tax and steer it away from the workforce and towards the areas of energy, capital and environment.
This change must really be put into effect, but, at the same time, it must be recognized that altering the centre of gravity of taxation obviously must not pose a threat to the welfare state.
The criteria for the employment programme must be as plausible as those for EMU, and the Luxembourg summit must produce the criteria for both.
Only then will it have succeeded in its task.
Madam President, addressing unemployment is a fundamental condition for establishing and safeguarding social cohesion in the European Union.
Moreover, it has proved to be the precondition for the ability of the European community to respond to the challenge of globalization.
And I am speaking naturally of the European model and not of some framework "made in the USA' or "made in Japan' .
Eighteen million people out of work in the European Union. Worthy people.
But it is not just this outrageous number. Also included in the vicious circle are people who are now in work and struggling with insecurity, and people who will be looking for work in the future and struggling with uncertainty.
And of course the nightmarish circle gets even bigger when their families are included.
In the final analysis desperate citizens do not care about who or what is to blame.
They value solutions and results, and quite rightly so.
And that means allocating and assuming responsibilities, obligations and actions on all sides and throughout the whole spectrum of powers.
The special summit on employment may prove to be historic in the true sense of the word.
It is now or never!
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.30 p.m., in a few minutes.
(The session was suspended at 12.25 p.m., and resumed at 12.30 p.m.)
Votes
I must say that with some results I have a strong urge to recommend a negative vote, mainly because I very much wonder what agreements and consultation really mean.
But it will be an absolute scandal if the European Parliament is not in a position to present a report to the summit.
That is the only reason, but a more than sufficient one, to urge a vote in favour.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I regret that my opportunity to speak has only come after the vote.
The European Parliament has in its deliberations already caused a scandal in allowing this important report to be debated with so few seats occupied. Indeed, only the employment experts from the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment were present.
Now we have added to this by the fact that with our contribution to the employment summit we fell below the minimum level required.
This is an absolute scandal and we have now only voted for the resolution to prevent an even bigger one.
Mr President, I also wished to speak to explain why I eventually voted in favour of this report.
Just as Mr Wolf affirmed, it would have been a scandal if this report had been overturned here.
(The President cut off the speaker)
The Green Group has today decided to vote in favour of the Conciliation Committee's report concerning the overhaul of the Fourth Framework Programme.
However, we do so without any great enthusiasm.
The compromise is not really a success for the European Parliament.
The distribution of the money is in the right direction, but the sums in several of the areas are far too small.
The money allocated, including the ECU 9 million for renewable sources of energy, is a ridiculously small sum considering the needs which exist in the EU. If we are to succeed in phasing out nuclear energy, much larger sums need to be allocated for renewable sources of energy.
We see it as positive, of course, that money has been allocated for the fight to remove the awful anti-personnel land-mines, but the money now allocated will not be anywhere near enough to remove the more than 100 million mines which have been laid around the world.
A major point of criticism concerns the money allocated for research in the area of BSE.
We have nothing against research in this area, but there is a high risk that the money has been wasted, since the crux of the problem is the EU's agricultural policy. As long as the EU's agricultural policy is not changed to reduce the use of chemicals, end the use of antibiotics, stop the cruel transport of animals, stop research into cloning, remove genetically-modified products, etcetera, the problems will continue.
Organic farming is a requirement for us to be able to reduce the anomalies currently found in the EU's agricultural area. However, revolutionary initiatives in this area are conspicuous by their absence within the European Commission.
The revision of the Fourth Framework Programme for research is a result of Sweden, Finland and Austria joining the Union.
The new investments which have been made are good, but the levels are too low.
I decided this was a viable compromise and have therefore voted yes to the proposal.
Industrial accidents (C4-0469/97)
A Convention of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe on the transboundary effects of industrial accidents was signed on 16 March 1992 in Helsinki.
26 countries ratified it, of which 14 were Member States of the Community, including the Community itself.
Being from a border constituency, bordering both a Member State of the Union and a third country, I can only vote in favour of this proposal for a Council decision.
Indeed, pollution knows no administrative or boundary limits between countries.
In Alsace a few years ago, we suffered pollution from Switzerland (industrial accidents), from the Ukraine (nuclear accidents), from the CEEC (industrial accidents causing acid rain).
Work relating to the drafting of the Convention was largely influenced by Community and French policy regarding control of the dangers linked to major accidents involving dangerous substances, taking into account of course, the principle of "the polluter pays' as the general principle within international environmental law.
Consequently, we have the necessary legal and technical tools to fulfil our obligations resulting from the Convention.
It is necessary for all the Member States of the European Union, as well as the candidates for membership as they may soon be members of the Union, to abide by the conclusions of this Convention.
I will end by mentioning that, within the framework of enlargement, it will be necessary for future Member States to conform to all Community regulations, including environmental restrictions.
I noted with a great deal of astonishment that in the Commission's communication entitled Agenda 2000, there is no mention of the restrictions covered by this Convention.
Bonn Convention (C4-0470/97)
My group has unanimously voted for the proposal for a Council decision on the amendments to the Bonn Convention on the conservation of migratory species of wild animals.
At the fifth meeting of the Conference, which was held from 10 to 16 April 1997, 21 threatened migratory species were added to Annex 1 and 22 to Annex 2.
Eleven species are covered by Council Directive 79/409/CE concerning the conservation of wild birds.
I want to discuss this last point today.
I have often said that we cannot but support the conservation of wild flora and fauna.
We must protect all species in order to maintain the eco-system intact.
On the other hand, on many occasions I have come up against the problem of the cormorant.
In fact, after having protected this species, we have been witnessing a spectacular increase in the cormorant population within European territory for a number of years.
We must protect all species, but do it discerningly.
Indeed now, the cormorant, which was a threatened bird, has become a threatening bird because of its excessive population.
It is threatening for fishermen, for aquaculture and, quite simply, for fish.
It is necessary, and I have asked Mrs van Putten, rapporteur on this subject for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, to do what is necessary quickly.
Ecology must not be a religion, on the contrary, it must be analysed as a science permitting respectful development of the environment.
I await her response impatiently so that I can pass it on to those concerned who are suffering important losses in their economic activity. It is also essential as much for regional development as for respect for our countryside.
Fayot report (A4-0311/97)
In May 1994, at the beginning of the election campaign for the European Parliament, I was insulted and my honour was called into question by António Campos, now my colleague in this Parliament.
I prosecuted him for this, and the Lisbon Criminal Court would have found the accused Member, António Campos, guilty of defamation and insulting behaviour towards me.
Since the court cannot pass judgment unless his parliamentary immunity is waived, the Public Prosecutor of the Portuguese Republic has made a request to the European Parliament accordingly.
Since it is the practice of the European Parliament never to waive immunity "in all cases where the offences alleged to have been committed by a Member of the European Parliament fall under the heading of political activity' (Fayot Report, p.
9), it appears to be up to Mr António Campos himself to request that his immunity be waived, or to resign his mandate, so that the case can be decided.
Contrary to his earlier promise, he has done neither, which shows that he is afraid of being judged by the Court.
When all is said and done, it is always true that the guilty have something to fear.
Since he will undoubtedly continue to take shelter behind successive Parliamentary immunities, I have reached the regrettable conclusion that in the end, for some people, crime does pay.
For that reason, I wish to inform my colleagues that I shall not be pursuing the case any further.
Finally, I wish to inform Parliament that I abstained in the vote.
van Velzen report (A4-0307/97)
Mr President, the proposals we are considering with the Extraordinary Council on Employment in mind are based on an excellent initial idea.
It would be good if all the Member States could exchange their experiences on employment so that each one could benefit from the successes of the others, while remaining responsible for their own policies.
Unfortunately, the procedures defined for the application of this good idea, notably within the Amsterdam framework, seem excessively bureaucratic to us.
First, the Community, not content with a simple coordination role, has to define a rather rigid framework with reference criteria for us all.
We only just avoided the establishment of the system of sanctions some people wanted.
Furthermore, the authority of the Member States of the Community seems, in practice, very muddled, since the Council will draw up the guidelines, is likely to go into considerable detail, and may, furthermore, adopt minimal prescriptions in the social field.
So the procedure of reducing differences between states foreseen in the Amsterdam Treaty, which it seems is going to be applied in advance, appears dreadfully complex since there are at least ten different stages. Finally, this coordination which could have been very useful in terms of cooperation and mutual exchange, risks becoming a constraint and a bureaucratic marathon.
On the whole, the proposals drawn up by the European Parliament in the van Velzen report seem inspired by good sense, notably in the area of training and flexibility of working hours, as well as in the lightening of the burden on the low paid.
On the other hand, we have some reservations.
The report shows too great a reverence towards the systematic reduction of the working week, an idea contrary to the way the economy is currently working, but which enables all those who do not have real solutions to unemployment to momentarily look good by making some noise.
Once again, both in the conclusions of the Amsterdam Council and in the Commission's proposals or those of the European Parliament, the total absence of any reference to the role of European trade defence policy in the fight for jobs is noted.
For us, this policy must necessarily be an integral part of the definition of a healthy macro-economic framework for the European Union.
Mr President, it has largely been a question, this morning, of good or bad recipes for the reduction of unemployment in Europe.
Some have recommended solutions such as an all-round reduction of working hours with full compensation for employees, in other words demonizing flexibility and the new organization of work!
These are recipes that risk destroying employment in Europe even more.
Alongside all the laudable efforts to make the coming jobs summit in Luxembourg a success and not another literary effort to be added to all those since Essen, the Commission and above all Commissioner Monti are applying themselves to the destruction of at least another quarter of a million jobs, because they refuse to take an initiative that could stop the legislation which will end in the automatical removal, by 1999, of duty-free shops from airports and ships for travellers within the Community.
We have just voted on paragraph 17 of the resolution on the jobs summit which asks the Council to declare that the Monti proposals concerning the single market must be adopted as soon as possible, because of the favourable impact they could have on jobs.
This is certainly not the case for Mr Monti's position aimed at abolishing duty-free shops in Europe and that is why I could not vote for this report.
Mr President, I must say that I am really sorry that I could not vote for this report or abstain, but actively voted against it.
I think we have said a lot about the 20 million unemployed, which is good, but we have said nothing about the 55 million poor people, many of whom actually have jobs.
Nor do I think that we have considered the defects of the underlying economic policy we are pursuing.
We are now continuing on this road, totally blindly, without making any other changes when we see we are heading in the wrong direction. And that is why I have actively voted against it.
It is ironic, as we have observed several times in a small way during today's debate, that the decisions we are making here lead to increased unemployment, even though we say the opposite.
I would have looked forward to a debate and a decision which took more notice of the value of human beings than the value of shares.
I now feel that our hopes lie with the French and Italian governments at the forthcoming summit in Luxembourg, which I am sorry that we could not support.
Mr President, I voted in favour of this report although, unfortunately, during the debate in this Chamber Mr van Velzen's report declined in value.
It already lacked certain components, but, regrettably, in getting it through as a whole, certain proposals were approved which actually do harm to the report.
However, I consider it important that Parliament has clear aims on employment and the shorter working day to present to the summit conference.
It would be immensely embarrassing otherwise.
Nevertheless, I am not going to commit to those proposed changes I voted against.
Although I voted in favour of the report as a whole, I do not subscribe to the notion of creating low-paid sectors, which is included in the Liberal amendment, and was approved by a majority in Parliament.
But I think it is important for Parliament to have one view, in the end.
It would have been embarrassing to set off for Luxembourg without one.
The van Velzen report is based on the idea that politicians, through interventionist measures in the form of large and small adjustments and subsidies, really can create new jobs.
The report lacks proposals for measures to encourage entrepreneurs and enterprise, in other words, the basis for sustainable new employment.
The concept of competitiveness as the basis for sustainable employment is missing.
The idea that by imposing cuts in working hours you can lead companies to employ more people is illfounded.
A strong reduction in working hours to a six-hour day could be compared to extending the statutory holiday by a further two months.
Measures like that are more suited to increasing cost levels and so reducing competitiveness and employment.
Cuts in working hours should come on a voluntary basis in a flexible labour market.
Measures to increase levels of expertise and knowledge are very important.
Many people leave school with inadequate knowledge and with limited chances of getting demanding work in the knowledge society.
There is a lack of availability of more unskilled work since high minimum wages make that kind of work unprofitable for companies.
These young people become long term unemployed and are thus excluded even from the training which every job entails.
But meaningful training programmes for young people must above all be based on improvements in education at school.
There are points of view in the van Velzen report which we also embrace, but because of its fundamental flaws we have decided to vote against this report.
The starting point of Mr van Velzen's report is good intention. It affirms loudly and clearly that the jobs summit must not be another pretext for new texts, new solutions to unemployment which will go unheeded.
In this respect, I concur with our rapporteur.
On the other hand, we go our separate ways when it comes to considering the means necessary for reducing unemployment in Europe.
I do not believe that we will succeed in this enterprise by applying the devices of technocracy: fixing as an objective an unemployment rate of 7 % of the active population within three years seems to me badly inspired.
Why not 5 %, even 3 %? No, this type of measure only serves to ease one's conscience.
You cannot set a rate of unemployment to be achieved in the same way as you set other economic convergence criteria.
Of course we must reduce unemployment.
But setting a figure has no economic foundation.
And the means for combatting unemployment are well known: make the labour market more flexible, reduce the cost of labour, step up training, all while making sure that the most impoverished are protected.
To do this, Europe of course has its role to play, and the euro will be a great help. But it is above all from national economies that the solution will have to come, by putting in place the structural reforms that are called for.
Mr van Velzen's report is too far from economic reality.
I will not be able to vote for it unless certain European People's Party amendments are adopted.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted for Wim van Velzen's report concerning the employment summit.
The report contains a number of good proposals as to how the EU states can mutually undertake to combat unemployment.
The Danish Social Democrats agree to the report's many good job-creation proposals.
The report calls for a lowering of the VAT rate for labour-intensive businesses.
However, the Danish Social democrats do not regard this as the right way to go in the campaign for lower unemployment.
Instead, we should invest in training, research and quality, if Europe is to revive employment.
Unemployment, employment and new jobs are national tasks.
However, now that the EU is in the process of introducing a common currency through EMU, it is also necessary to consider employment in connection with this issue.
The general public expects the EU to devote its energy to the big issues. Unemployment and employment are a big issue.
Convergence criteria for employment must therefore be inserted into the EU Treaty so that unemployment is not increased even further through EMU.
Employment can be encouraged at the EU level through convergence criteria for employment, which should have the same weight as the convergence criteria for EMU, both through PR work and good examples.
The Member States and the national parliaments should have the main responsibility through legislation, tax and incentive policy, collective agreements and implementation.
For the above reasons I have voted yes to the report.
I, and my colleagues within the European Parliamentary Labour Party, broadly welcome Mr van Velzen's report.
It addresses what is a hugely important issue for Europe - unemployment.
Our broad support for this report must, however, be tempered by certain reservations.
Paragraph 1 is overly specific and prescriptive.
Paragraphs 3 and 5 detail what we feel to be unnecessary extra spending commitments.
Paragraph 7 is, again, overly specific and prescriptive, whilst paragraph 11 falls foul of the same, and also contains an unnecessary spending commitment.
Finally, paragraph 13 also has unfortunate spending implications.
As an overall observation, it is important to recognize that economies do react in different ways, at different times.
Mr van Velzen's report has managed to ignore the normal rhetoric on economic and social problems which is repeated year on year and from one Council to the next.
This is a welcome development, since it is the only way to achieve satisfactory results from the Luxembourg employment summit.
As Council President Jean-Claude Juncker has repeated often enough, a practical approach is required here.
In this context it should not be forgotten that employment policy has to be directed at national level.
It is not the role of the European Union to issue the Member States with precise instructions as to how they must tackle the unemployment problem: the situations existing in the individual States are too varied to be solved by one single European approach.
The EU would be better served by issuing guidelines for the development of a cohesive (coherent) framework strategy, within which the Member States are called upon to act at national level.
This framework should name no names, so as not to provoke disappointment and disillusionment when purely conceptual calculation criteria fail to be met.
It is therefore wrong to focus on quantitative criteria, as proposed by the Commission in its strategy paper.
As the report itself suggests, it is first necessary to identify best practice before any reference points can be found therein.
It is therefore somewhat premature to be influenced by the controversial attempts being made by certain Member States.
This criticism, which is aimed at some parts of the report, should not detract from the excellent qualitative proposals contained therein, namely training as a means of matching the unemployed to the needs of the job market, more flexibility in the organization of working hours, lower VAT rates for highlabour service industries, greater consideration of employment policy objectives when introducing structural aid, general reduction in the tax burden and a lowering of the various burdens imposed on SMEs.
The move to reduce working hours shows that while flexibility is necessary, it makes no sense whatsoever to impose rigid working times at European or even at national level: individual enterprises must be free to find the happy medium, in collaboration with their social partners.
More important than qualitatively rigid convergence criteria is the better coordination of a European economic, finance, income and currency policy, in order that a framework may be built which promotes growth, investment and employment in equal measure.
I have, of course, voted for the van Velzen report in accordance with the Social Democrat line.
But I have strong objections on a couple of points.
Paragraph 9 calls for VAT to be reduced in labour-intensive sectors.
This is described in Sweden as subsidizing "servant's jobs' and is not regarded as providing any increase in employment to match the negative effects caused by the tax reduction.
Paragraph 10 calls for tax on work to be reduced and for tax on energy and natural resources to be increased.
The view is often expressed that this will create new jobs, but there is absolutely no theoretical or empirical evidence for this.
In spite of praiseworthy ambitions, my conclusion is that the aims sketched out in Mr van Velzen's report will not reduce unemployment in the Union.
The summit risks producing "another volume of poetry' about employment.
That concludes the votes.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Amending budget No 1/97-1998 draft general budget - draft 1997 ECSC operating budget
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0299/97 by Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Fabra Vallés, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on draft supplementary and amending budget No 1 for the 1997 financial year; -A4-0290/97 by Mr Tillich, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year for 1998: Section III - Commission (COM(97)0280 - C4-0300/97); -A4-280/97 by Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 1998: Section I - European Parliament, Office of the Ombudsman, Section II - Council, Section IV - Court of Justice, Section V - Court of Auditors, Section VI - Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions (COM(97)0280 -C4-0300/97); -A4/0314/97 by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft amending ECSC operating budget for 1997 (SEC(97)0933 - C4-0249/97).
Mr President, this is a joint debate on a number of reports.
I will just make one comment on the report for which I am the rapporteur.
I regret that we could not reach an agreement with the Council to fix this in one reading.
The Council procedure made it impossible although only very minor amendments were being made.
The result has been inter alia a delay in the adoption of the supplementary post for DG XXIV - services for fighting BSE.
This is a sad situation.
I should like to emphasize strongly that the European Parliament's responsibility is not in question here, and I should like to ask the Commission at least to show the flexibility to take measures very rapidly to deal with DG XXIV.
On the two major reports, I compliment Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson for their reports.
John Tomlinson is a safe pair of hands and once again this year has brought more transparency to the European Parliament.
My group believes it is important that we go one step further than him concerning the function of Parliament itself, specifically on the number of costs and the various special arrangements which exist for the benefit of Members.
If we criticize others, we should be open to criticism ourselves.
Mr Tillich - our rapporteur for 1998 - has achieved excellent cooperation with a number of specific committees but above all, as in previous years, with the Committee on Agriculture.
This is no mean feat in this House.
It helped that Mr Mulder was rapporteur for the agriculture side.
It is very clear that we are moving in the right direction in creating reserves and also in asking the Commission to be forthcoming in putting forward modifications which will enable us to establish an agriculture budget by the end of this year which is more in line with reality.
The 1998 budget is once again clearly a very rigorous budget and Parliament has again contributed considerably to this point.
We are now below 1.15 %, that is, 0.11 % lower than permitted by Edinburgh.
It is about time - and I am pleased to see the President-in-Office present - that the Council recognized that Parliament is also responsible for the change in the culture of spending in the European Community.
It would therefore be very useful if the Council committee on Budgets would also recognize that important budget lines which are relevant for the citizens of Europe, like those on information, NGOs, development, environment and consumers, are not simply cut nearly to zero, thereafter using the margin on Parliament's part to restore it.
It is a childish game and it would be a step forward if two grown-up institutions such as the Council and Parliament were to take the necessary joint action to ensure that in the future this game of ping-pong was unnecessary.
A major initiative for this year is that on employment.
I would like to congratulate the Luxembourg presidency for working so actively with Parliament on this point.
ECU 150 million has provisionally been set aside and it can have considerable leverage through the special way it can be used for the European Investment Bank loans and guarantees.
It is also clear that the Council should understand the following message.
If it does not respond in kind - and we know that the Luxembourg presidency would like to work actively in that direction - and does not create the proper legal structure, then, quite clearly, on second reading Parliament will take a different orientation.
Dogmatism in the Council has been responsible for the simple issues of legal bases being beset by difficulties for too long.
I have one or two comments on individual lines.
It is very important that on internal policy we have made a beginning on real information policy.
The fact that Parliament will probably put 30 % in reserve is a sign that we are not yet totally satisfied.
A European Information System worthy of that name can only be achieved if there is real cooperation between the Commission and Parliament.
It is very important, therefore, that we pool all our reserves in that respect.
Finally, this year for the first time we have made the matter of subventions central to our debate.
Subventions are not insiders' money to play with.
Subventions are there to help useful institutions to work towards the improvement of the situation in Europe in a number of areas.
It is for that reason that we have rejected the idea that behind every budget line there is a specific face.
It is up to the Commission now to take action.
It is up to Parliament to be quite clear on how it will carry out control.
I hope we will continue this line in the coming years.
Mr President, in this joint debate I should first like to comment on the report on draft supplementary and amending budget No 1 for the 1997 financial year, for the Court of Auditors.
As we all know, the Court of Auditors does not have enough auditors. This is due first to the scope of its monitoring activities, secondly, to its increased workload, and thirdly, because of the extent to which it has to produce statements of assurance.
A joint study was carried out into the institution's needs, and the conclusion was that 48 posts were required.
It was thought that 23 of these could be covered by producing a supplementary and amending budget within the 1997 budget, and that the other 25 would be covered by the budget which Mr Tomlinson will present shortly.
As regards the 23 posts to come from the 1997 budget, the Council approved 5 at first reading, and another 5 at second reading.
I hope that the remaining 13 posts may also be approved in the end, besides the 10 already approved, so that the Court of Auditors may be granted the 23 posts which we requested for 1997.
I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Court of Auditors on its work, especially the clear and diaphanous use (if that is a valid expression - and in this case it is) which it always makes of favourable changes in the ECU-Belgian franc exchange rate. This attitude cannot be observed in all the institutions.
I should also like to remind you of the indispensable contribution of the Court of Auditors to Parliament's monitoring process.
I come now to the budget which Mr Tomlinson is about to present to us. I think it is a very good budget.
He has done the best he could with the available resources, and this is the result.
It is an austere budget, along the same lines as previous years. Furthermore, it maintains the same pressure on the Member States, in order to be able to achieve Monetary Union.
Despite this austerity, I do not believe that the proper functioning of the institutions will be adversely affected.
I should also like to thank Mr Tomlinson for the improvements he has made in the area of staff management, which take account of the following factors: cost-efficiency, equal opportunities, the objective evaluation of the institutions' landed property requirements, measures to strengthen and improve interinstitutional cooperation, guarantees for a coherent information policy, and encouragement for the use of new technologies.
As for the huge Commission budget, presented by Mr Tillich, all I want to add is that I am pleased with the following aspects: first, that it has been possible for the Peace initiative to continue, secondly, that the figure of ECU 1, 000 million has been restored to the structural funds, thirdly, that category 3 sees, for example, the creation of the package of budget lines on the labour market and technological innovation, and fourthly, that funding for Latin America has also been increased, albeit by means of an amendment.
I should like to point out that a 10 % reserve was approved for the Meda programme in an amendment, although we may perhaps be able to find a new amendment here in the House.
I should like to remind you that in fact it was through an amendment of my own that the reserve for the Meda programme was decreased last year.
My aim is that the reserve should not hinder the work.
At the moment we need a provisional evaluation report. I think that 10 % should not hold the work up, but nevertheless I think it clearly shows the Commission what Parliament wants: the provisional evaluation report.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful to the two previous speakers for having lessened my workload in one respect.
You will see that there is not much more to say on the subject of the supplementary budget for 1997.
For this reason the 1998 budget featured so prominently in the remarks made by my two colleagues.
And my presentation will be no different.
I shall attempt to present my report in less than the allotted 15 minutes, since I am simply unused to speaking for a quarter of an hour in the House.
Our objective in respect of the 1998 budget is to stamp it with a European seal of quality, characterized by an economical approach, greater openness, protection of European added value, the combatting of unemployment and the support of our young people, including the use of financial resources, so that the younger generation is enthused with the idea of a common Europe.
In its first reading the European Parliament has tabled a budget proposal which corresponds fully with the wishes of the Member States for a rigorous and rational budget for 1998.
The Commission draft for the 1998 budget includes 1.15 % of gross national product, while in the Council draft the figure is 1.12 % of GNP.
We propose that the figure be somewhere between the two.
I seem to recall that the Edinburgh summit proposed an expenditure level of 1.26 % of GNP for 1998.
In its preliminary draft the Commission has left wide margins below the upper category limits.
I believe I am correct in saying that after intense political debate our current proposal reflects a responsible approach; to this effect the margin has been left at about ECU 700 million.
That is a much higher figure than several recent years combined.
This result was not easy to achieve and at this juncture may I express my sincere thanks to the rapporteurs of the individual technical committees for their cooperation.
The result also signifies a new level of cooperation between the various European institutions.
May I request that the Commission, and above all the Council, recognize this achievement and take it on board politically.
Here I am thinking in particular of the employment initiative.
While the margin represents an excellent achievement, so too is the galvanizing of our support for the Extraordinary European Summit on Employment, which is due to take place in Luxembourg in November.
In its 1998 budget the European Parliament wishes to set aside ECU 150 million for internal policies, budget category 3, so that instruments can be put in place, in collaboration with the Council Presidency, the Commission and the Parliament, as well as with the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund, which will give small and medium-sized enterprises the incentive they need to invest in creating additional employment opportunities.
The Council is called upon to establish the necessary legal basis and to take clear steps towards this at the Luxembourg meeting in November.
The Council should be aware of the fact that a new level of cooperation now exists between the two bodies responsible for budgetary matters.
The President-in-Office has it in his power to convince his colleagues of this, and I call upon him to do so.
With this proposal the European Parliament has sought to discharge part of its responsibilities, in the conviction that this disposes of one of the priorities from the budgetary guidelines for 1998, which we adopted in March of this year.
In late Spring the Amsterdam meeting and the national governments then followed by examining the employment problems affecting the European Union.
If the Council proves incapable of acting, then the European Parliament will be deeply disappointed, as no doubt will be the peoples of Europe.
What is more, the EP would not again have the opportunity to make such efforts on behalf of the budgetary procedure.
Our technical possibilities for 1998 in terms of the second reading would then be completely exhausted, and for the following years there would then be no grounds for the European Parliament renouncing its own priorities in favour of common ones.
In this context may I draw attention to the excellent cooperation and collaboration we have enjoyed with the Luxembourg Presidency.
We greatly value its contribution and its pledge, as stated in its letter of 6 October, to do everything in its power to promote the success of the Extraordinary Council Summit.
We too are convinced the summit must be a success, though we are not fully persuaded that all your colleagues are of the same conviction.
For this reason, and for this reason only, we have created a set of operating conditions which prevent our position within the budgetary procedure from being weakened.
We in the European Parliament are convinced of a successful outcome.
Unfortunately, with this particular general rapporteur you have someone who hails from the Meissen porcelain area.
Our motto, which is a well-known German saying, is "caution is the mother of wisdom' .
Let me now comment on the individual expenditure headings.
First agriculture: With the ad hoc procedure still open, and with it the possibility for the Commission to submit a letter of amendment to its preliminary draft budget, we - the two budgetary authorities - will be in a position to adopt a realistic budget appropriation which meets actual expenditure requirements for 1998.
This represents an important contribution to budgetary stringency, to which we are committed.
It also means - and you are invited to join us here - that we achieve agreement on this letter of amendment.
Now to structural policy, which has already been mentioned by my colleague Fabra Vallés.
We are in principle not opposed to restoring the authority to pay ECU 1 billion to the structural fund; we stand by this, as we have indicated from the outset, and this is reflected in our proposal.
We are pleased that the Commission has found the means to provide financial support for the peace initiative in Northern Ireland.
I wish to stress that this is to go ahead on the assumption that the Edinburgh decisions are not affected and that demands are not made of existing Community financing initiatives.
Under these conditions we are prepared to agree to the Commission's proposal and indeed have included it in our own proposal.
I now wish to recall the 1995 decisions contained in the special report, where we came to the understanding that the Rechar and Retex initiatives are priorities for the European Parliament.
As the Commission was able to find the money for Peace under category 2, and since in the discussions with the Commission the figures involved have steadily increased, it was obvious that we in the European Parliament should ultimately seek to tap the same bountiful source in order to finance Rechar and Retex.
In the area of internal politics I should like to point out that we naturally adhere to the priorities agreed in March, namely to support the Socrates programme and the European Year of Volunteers.
I would like to re-emphasize - and here I come back to a matter already covered by my colleague Mr Brinkhorst - that for 3 years the European Parliament has been promoting a European information policy.
While the progress made here is all too evident, the interinstitutional cooperation between Parliament and the Commission leaves room for improvement.
Together with the guidelines which will emanate from the European Parliament initiative report on information policy, political guidelines for a European information system should be agreed at the highest level between representatives of the Parliament and the Commission.
The Commission is now finally being called upon to provide clarity for its most recently established agencies.
It is simply unacceptable to have a confusion of different regulations which prevent any budget transparency.
The veterinary agency now to be set up in Ireland is a welcome example with its new structure and new rules of operation.
Here it is worth continuing to push for the harmonization of regulations so that a permanent arrangement can finally be agreed.
In the field of research a motion has been tabled which promises to bring a saving of more than ECU 13 million by introducing greater transparency in administrative procedures.
This is almost as much as that obtained from the ten discussions held as part of the mediation process between the European Parliament and the Council.
For the sake of transparency the Commission should also be required to show the amount allocated, for example, to the Socrates programme for countries with which association agreements have been concluded.
We have tabled an amendment to this effect.
If the proposals are serious and if sums are to be allocated, then we in the European Parliament also want to know the amounts involved.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, we have again established a balance between the Mediterranean states, the central and eastern European states and Latin America, in favour of the latter.
Once a regular reporting procedure has been established for the Phare programme, we intend doing the same for the Meda and Tacis programmes.
We are therefore tabling an amendment aimed at forcing the Commission to administer the Meda and Tacis programmes, to name but two, with greater transparency, particularly since the Commission has admitted in an interim report that it is not capable of submitting an evaluation report on Meda.
For this reason I believe that a 10 % reserve is quite moderate.
It does not impede the implementation of the programme, but at the end of the day it should force the Commission to respond to our wishes and conditions.
As far as administrative expenditure is concerned, we ultimately support the Commission's appropriation for zero growth and do not agree with the Council's proposal to make cuts in this area.
However, we do call upon the Commission to create the conditions necessary for the achievement of this objective.
Consequently, we have also placed certain sums in reserve so as to be forearmed for the enlargement negotiations with those countries applying for membership, the aim here being ultimately to justify and support the work of DG XIV, as required by the individual examining committees, and to safeguard the activities of UCLAF vis-à-vis third countries.
We therefore request that the Commission should provide a personal guarantee to this effect and should undertake to implement the necessary restructuring within itself.
Finally, let me express my sincere thanks to all those colleagues who have worked on the draft budget now being presented and who have provided their encouragement and support.
Nor must I forget the contribution made by the officials of this House to the successful preparation of the present draft budget.
I now request all parties and all Members of this House to give their approval to this draft, which is the result of deliberations by the Committee on Budgets.
The 1998 budget will then be another success for the European Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the agreement of the House I am going to condense the two speeches anticipated for today into one, but one which will have two parts: the first will be on behalf of the Committee on Budgets concerning the ECSC budget, and the second will be the opinion of the Group Union for Europe on the other reports under discussion.
First the draft amending budget for the ECSC for 1997, which requires no special remarks on my part, but I would like to draw your attention to the proposal, currently being examined within a legal framework and which I would like to set out on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, aimed at maintaining, in 1998, the anticipated contribution of 0.011 % of the turnover of the coal and steel industries.
The ECSC, created in 1952 for fifty years, will disappear as an institutional entity in its own right in the year 2002.
As the loans financed by the ECSC are over a five-year term, it will grant no further loans as from 1998.
In the eyes of the Council this seems to justify the removal of this contribution which is - and I would like to highlight this - the only Community tax, thus the only receipt instrument, over which this House has a say.
This is a time when the European Union must show proof of its initiative in the area of employment and where everyone well knows that the future is not in the creation of small jobs in an already overcrowded civil service but, on the contrary, in the selective support of SMEs.
It is generally recognized that they are the compost on which jobs truly grow and it seems to me that a gesture of an amount of ECU 50 million on the budget of the ECSC, of which the return would be, if the Commission is to be believed, ECU 1 billion, a gesture which would consist of transferring ECU 50 million to the EIB to enable it to grant improved loans to those SMEs using components coming from the coal and steel sectors, such a gesture would be perceived in a positive way, in the name of solidarity with an industry which has been entirely restructured due to the community system, which it seems to me must now watch over its future.
Let me now come to the opinion of my group on the other reports under discussion.
With regard to the 1998 budget, in the eyes of the Group Union for Europe, it seems clearly more successful than in previous years, largely due to the great desire for dialogue shown on this occasion by the Dutch and Luxembourg Presidencies and marked, probably because of economic reasons, by a clear desire to come to a consensus a month before the Luxembourg Employment Summit.
I must say that nearly all tendencies in the Committee on Budgets took up Mr Jean-Claude Junker's invitation to make a special effort to free up the financial resources that would enable it to be a success.
The rapporteur, Mr Stanislas Tillich, proposes freeing up ECU 150 million in heading 3, destined to encourage job creation.
It goes without saying that our group can only be in favour of this proposal and that the risk of seeing the Commission using funds thus made available for an objective other than that which is at the heart of all European concerns seems to us a slender one.
On the other hand, our group would not wish to see the Council's proposal to reduce the payment appropriations that are destined for structural funds by ECU 1 billion in 1998 followed.
From our point of view, respect for the letter of the interinstitutional agreement with regard to as wide as possible a use of the credits committed in the 1994-1999 planning seems to me to go without saying.
Let us not forget that these funds are also jobs, notably in the building and public works sectors, and let me simply remind you that 1998 and 1999 are the two last years in which the cohesion funds will be wholly destined to areas in difficulty within the Europe of fifteen countries.
Enlargement could not, except by deliberately sacrificing the balances too painfully achieved over the years, translate into a transfer from the countries of cohesion towards the candidates for membership, without coming up with other systems for the regions with the weakest incomes.
This is the task of the Agenda 2000 programme, which we will again be discussing in the future.
But it is one more reason for previously undertaken commitments to be adhered to and that payment appropriations should follow, without the least alteration, the funds which have already been allocated.
With regard to particular funds, and notably the special programmes of Phare, Tacis, Meda and the reconstruction programme for former Yugoslavia, a real effort of control and optimization must be accomplished without delay.
Indeed, it would be regrettable that programmes aimed at enabling enlargement under the best conditions, at sorting out the difficulties of the Republics of the Former Soviet Union, at developing a Euromediterranean partnership and at putting an end to the war in the former Yugoslavia, should remain unused through lack of organization, monitoring and, in a word, efficiency.
This is why the 30 % of funds put to one side that were destined for the reconstruction of former Yugoslavia must be taken as the desire to scrupulously verify the good use of funds whoever the beneficiary is.
Europe, which is heading blithely towards an overspend of ECU 5 million on its programmes overall, spends, relatively speaking, markedly more than the Marshall Plan did previously, of which many Europeans remain nostalgic.
But these new tasks, whose effects now reach as far as the Court of Auditors which is an essential institution for the coherence of European budgetary systems, need large amounts of supplementary funding.
It is therefore very willingly that the Group Union for Europe will follow Mr Tomlinson's proposals to create jobs in the Court of Auditors in 1998.
In another sphere, that of communication, our group supports the proposal of the Committee on Economics, aimed at significantly increasing the funds destined for informing public opinion within Member States about the implementation of the euro.
This will be with us in less than fifteen months.
Let us not run the risk of implementing it with badly informed citizens, when they are not deliberately disinformed.
This budget must also, and this is for us a crucial issue, be the opportunity to put an indisputable legal basis in place like, for example, the guarantee fund for the audiovisual industry.
The compromise arrived at in the Committee on Budgets on this resolution seems to me to be going in the right direction.
Lastly, I will finish by mentioning agriculture expenditure, which is so important for the cohesion of European policies and which constitutes a model for common policy.
The extremely tight calculations established by the Commission for next year meet with our approval.
We now have to hope that no catastrophe of the "mad cow' variety comes along to disturb a structure which can undoubtedly stand up to easy circumstances, but which would not resist very strong pressure on the various COM systems.
Mr President, on this occasion I again want to begin, as on previous occasions, by thanking Mr Tillich for the excellent cooperation we have had as rapporteurs, which has meant that for the first time, as far as I can tell, this Parliament's efforts were not at an end after the vote on Thursday.
The ad hoc procedure remains open and to me that means that Parliament can have a greater influence on the agriculture budget, which is to be welcomed.
We are now waiting for the Commission's letter of amendment.
We expect it to stay within the 0.45 % increase, but I can assure you that as far as the other matters are concerned the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development will continue to concern itself fully with how the money is spent.
On previous occasions we have already indicated that we would prefer an adjusted reduction or increase of the individual budget headings to an across-the-board reduction, whatever the result.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development welcomes the fact that most of the amendments by the Committee on Budgets have been approved.
We are neutral in budget terms and they all relate to more environmentally-friendly agriculture, more action to combat fraud in agricultural expenditure and improvements in the quality of agricultural products through active promotion campaigns.
We hope that these amendments will be favourably received by the Council and the Commission.
The accompanying measures in category B1 are also important.
In that respect it is very disappointing that despite the Commission's promise this Parliament has still not been able to study the results of this programme.
We look forward to a statement from the Commissioner.
When can Parliament study this report?
As far as the other categories are concerned, of all the amendments drafted most of them, apart from one from the Committee on Budgets, have again been tabled by the Committee on Agriculture.
I would like to draw your attention to one and that is the amendment concerning B2-5122, relating inter alia to aid to farmers who have been relegated to the sidelines by various political measures arising from agricultural policy.
We commend that to your attention and hope that the House will approve it.
Mr President, I have not time in two minutes to talk in great detail about what we have done.
However, let me try to draw some of the main lines of the discussion in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The committee has once again this year sought to present a balanced budget, that is to balance any additions that we have made to budget lines with cuts in other areas.
Perhaps the most important addition we have made is to create a budget of ECU 40 million for the Prince programme, the information programme for European citizens.
We consider it particularly important in this coming year that European citizens be well informed about the introduction of the single currency - a major step forward in the development of Europe.
I find it an irony that in my own country the government has finally decided to take money from this budget line but, at the same time, cannot make up its mind whether to join the single currency or not.
Nonetheless I welcome the fact that the opportunity exists for British citizens to become better informed about such an important development.
At the same time we have cut the budget and, in particular, we have made a cut of some ECU 30 million in the publication of the S series of the Official Journal.
This is currently published in paper and nobody reads it.
There is no reason why it should not be published electronically, the form in which most people get access to it.
Perhaps the most salient feature of this year's budget, however, is the package of budget lines that we have put together, worth some ECU 150 million in total, to assist in the jobs summit.
These are budget lines that have been assisting in job creation, that we have put together as a package and we are offering to assist the heads of government in putting together a wider budget package.
I hope that they will find new money from their own sources to go along with this.
The budget this year in total is only ECU 87 billion, and it is a disgrace that some ECU 5 billion are paid back to Member States at the end of every year.
If Member States are serious about things like job creation, let them put this money into that.
I wish to conclude by thanking the shadow rapporteurs on the Economics Committee and the budget rapporteur, Mr Tillich, for their helpful and cooperative spirit in all of our work.
Mr President, over the years the budget of the Committee on External Economic Relations has grown very considerably as our relations with Eastern and Central Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Meda countries have developed.
For this reason alone, as a committee, we are having to exercise increasing vigilance.
I cannot in all honesty claim that we have a complete handle on the budget for these three highly significant areas.
However, the Commission will know that we are increasingly calling for greater accountability.
That said, I do not find the responses by Commission officials in committee to be anywhere near sufficient.
This is an issue that the Commissioners would do well to consider afresh: the Phare programme, the Tacis programme and the Meda programme.
On the detail, we have questioned the size of the external delegation budget.
Colleagues are keen to support certain European/Latin-American organizations, and I concur with that.
There is support for the textile industry in relation to the external relations budget. That is high on our list and I refer to Mrs Ferrer's amendment in particular.
We wish to sustain the budget line on promotion of European exports to Japan, which we regard as one of the great success stories.
Regrettably, the Council - I cannot think why - wants to cut back on that, but we are resolutely opposed to any cuts.
I draw the attention of the representatives of the Council to that specific point here, because many Members here will be familiar with the outstanding success of the executive training programme which enables young men and women each year to go to Japan to learn Japanese for 12 months and to spend 6 months in Japanese business learning the ropes.
No fewer than 650 graduates have benefited from this scheme, which is a further boost for European exports to Japan and investment in that country.
Mr President, the dominant feature of this year's budget is economy, both on the part of this Parliament and on the part of the Council and the Commission.
I think Mr Tillich has been extraordinarily successful in combining this economy with an effective budget.
The most important aspect as far as social policy is concerned was the employment initiative.
The House has created a package, the Tillich package, containing ECU 150 million.
The specific feature of this package is that it consists both of measures which can have a direct influence on employment and measures relating to labour market policy.
We are thereby lending support to the Council and in particular to you, Mr President-in-Office, and your prime minister, to help do something in the context of the Luxembourg summit.
The package is flexible, but clear enough.
It is a package in which ECU 150 million can be spent and ECU 200 million actually saved.
I think that we have been very successful and that that is a focal point of this budget.
On behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment I very much welcome this development.
Apart from that, Mr President, I should like to say a word about the Commission.
In its draft budget the Commission has in fact seriously underestimated the chapter on social affairs and employment.
Parliament's priorities were clear and the Commission's priorities contained too much of Mr Kinnock's 'employment is money' ; I do not believe that is the aim and I think it is contrary to what was decided in Amsterdam.
I believe that we need a balanced package which also of course takes account of transport, but it should not be as exclusive as the Commission has proposed.
I think we have been successful in cutting back on that aspect slightly.
I think we have produced a good budget and I want to thank the rapporteur in particular for that.
, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy. (PT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, speaking also on behalf of my colleague Mr Costa Neves, who is unable to be here with us today, I should like to emphasize that Parliament's proposal is substantially better than the poor draft Budget the Council has sent us.
And Mr Tillich is particularly to be commended in that respect.
The Council did indeed say that it wanted to promote a policy for employment.
Yet the proposal it has submitted to us has nothing in it about employment.
In the structural funds, preparations were being made to cut payments by ECU 1, 000 million.
It was Parliament, through the rapporteur of the Committee on Regional Policy, Mr Tillich, which reinstated the ECU 1, 000 million.
These funds are used, as has been said, in projects that obviously promote employment in the least favoured regions.
The Council offers no suggestions on the Retex and Rechar programmes, as the Committee on Budgets informs us here. These programmes offer jobs in areas affected by the restructuring of the mining or textile industries.
The Council says nothing about unemployment packages.
There is a letter from Mr Jünkers, which I consider is a poetic letter, because we are talking about budgets, and, therefore, if the Council were seriously proposing an employment initiative, it ought to have incorporated it in the draft budget it has sent this House.
It was this Parliament, particularly through the rapporteur, Mr Tillich, which set up the mechanism of obtaining an ECU 150 million package, which the Council was unable to achieve by the wholesale direct cuts it made in the European Communities Budget.
Finally, the education and mobility of young people.
It is this Parliament which is promoting the Socrates and Leonardo programmes.
These are fundamental instruments for making young people employable, for providing them with technical and professional training, for giving them mobility; it is we who must provide the budgetary reinforcement those gentlemen are incapable of providing.
And, in addition, the Prince programme for increasing the information available to citizens, of which we have already spoken.
I would only like to ask Mr Tillich, as a footnote, perhaps towards the end, to show a measure of goodwill towards the tropical forests. This is also an extremely important programme in terms of aid and for the image of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if the Commission or the Council were to have their way, then consumer protection and environment policy would have been well and truly blamed for the finances.
That this has not happened is down to the fact that the Committee on the Environment has submitted a very practical proposal and that the rapporteur, Mr Stanislas Tillich, has steadfastly supported our endeavours.
I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to him and to the Committee on Budgets, which has been extremely cooperative.
We are again on the road to progress in the fields of environment and consumer policy, which commenced a number of years ago.
To go into the details of this would not be appropriate at this time.
However, I believe that the basic premises laid down by us in recent years have been taken further, such as the issue that citizens might actually participate in the internal market, for example in the setting of standards.
We have succeeded in extending the Life environment programme.
In the field of public health we have seen that structures have been set up for the future definition and implementation of a European public health policy, and we have at last been able to force the Commission to act.
Alas, this is something which it has recently failed to do in the matter of Alzheimer's disease.
We have extended the measures and research in place to deal with this new illness.
Environment policy is not only a question of money but also of imagination.
By this we mean screening the budget, not that this is intended to delete money from the structural fund, but rather to allow environment policy measures, including those affecting structures, and promotional measures to take effect.
We are quite happy to leave the responsibility for these areas to those who are legally entrusted with them.
We must insist, however, that resolutions made at European level be retained even in respect of structural measures.
We cannot in this respect disregard environmental and competition policy considerations.
I believe that it is right to have a green structural policy, and in the years to come the agricultural policy should also be made green.
No doubt there will be some opposition to this, but it does constitute the only way to emerge unscathed from future agricultural policy negotiations.
Let me now conclude by again thanking the rapporteur.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the course of drawing up the budgetary proposals for 1998, and more specifically in drafting the opinion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, there were clear signs of constructive cooperation between the Commission and Parliament, as well as between Parliament and the various states and parties.
May I therefore express my warmest thanks to all those who participated in this work.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism welcomes the substantial increase in funding for transeuropean transport networks, which will create jobs in both the short and the long term.
The last four EU summit meetings have all shown that the TEN are a means for stimulating the European economy.
Though the budgetary provisions for trans-European networks are somewhat less than that promised or proposed by the Commission and Parliament, they do send the right message and we should support this initiative.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism is agreed that the increased contribution to TEN should not be at the expense of all other transport policies.
The Committee is therefore concerned about cuts in the area of transport safety and the promotion of combined transport systems and/or long term mobility.
We have reached the pain barrier here.
If I recommend that we approve the proposals of the Committee on Budgets, then I do it in the confidence that the appropriations will be used effectively to support the employment initiative.
However, I recommend all colleagues to reject the proposal of the Committee on Budgets in respect of budget line B5-325, which bears the abbreviated title "Promotion of tourism' .
When acknowledging all discussions on subsidiarity, the European Union cannot and should not fail to provide budget funds for such a labour-intensive and dynamic sector.
Mr President, as the Committee on Culture rapporteur, I wish to state that we are generally very pleased with the outcome of the budget process which is a recognition of the importance of culture, education and the media in the process of job creation.
Our approach has been one of openness and transparency and we have stopped earmarking specific projects.
We are particularly pleased to have seen the support we have received on Socrates - the education programme - and hope that the substantial increase that we have found within the budget of the European Parliament is now matched by a commitment from the European Council.
On the cultural programmes, we are very disappointed with the amount suggested for Raphael, especially after a long conciliation process.
The amount proposed by the general rapporteur does not take into account the new umbrella cultural programme proposed in two years' time.
We hope that this will be considered during the vote.
On the media aspect of the budget, we are disappointed that there has been no agreement from the Council on the film guarantee fund and we hope that an opportunity will be found later to reinstate this money when a legal base has been secured.
On the information lines, we are concerned that much of the money for the relays may go to just five big documentation centres, but apart from that I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on a good job.
Mr President, right from the beginning, the Committee on Development and Cooperation has considered the draft budget presented by the Council to be completely unacceptable, as far as the section on external actions is concerned.
The preliminary draft presented by the Commission had already introduced major cutbacks in those lines specifically concerned with development.
Whereas the Commission's proposal showed a very limited increase in overall spending on external actions (of 0.41 %), the Council's proposal shows an actual decrease of 2 % compared with the 1997 budget. The most badly affected cooperation appropriations are those relating to Africa, Asia and Latin America.
We are grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Tillich, because his attitude ensured that the vote in the Committee on Budgets gave satisfactory results, with certain amendments being approved.
We will continue to press for other amendments in the part-session.
In what remains of my time, Mr President, I should just like to say that the European Union's efforts to economize cannot always be made at the expense of the poorest countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I would first like to express my regret that the amendments that we had proposed - at least some of them, which in our opinion were important - have not been considered by our eminent colleagues in the Committee on Budgets.
I refer particularly to the modest supplementary credits that we requested to fight against organized crime and to support the common action of the Council.
A great deal more funds were put aside for town twinning: this is undoubtedly what is known as "big politics' .
I am thinking above all - and this is at the heart of my speech - of the refusal of the Committee on Budgets to add a single penny to budget heading B3-4109, allocated to the implementation of measures to fight against violence towards children, teenagers and women.
I do not want to dwell here on the tragic events of the Dutroux affair, which cast a shadow over my country and shocked the whole of Europe.
I would, nevertheless, like to remind you that following these events the whole of the European Union declared the protection of children and the fight against trafficking in human beings to be a fundamental priority for the Union.
I would also like to remind you that in two weeks time, the European Parliament will adopt the report of Mr Schulz, which contains numerous urgent recommendations, both necessary and essential, the implementation of which will require supplementary funds.
I am therefore asking Parliament to support the request of the Committee on Civil Liberties to grant supplementary appropriations to line B3-4109.
I know that there are some in this Parliament who think that by asking a European judge to resign they are doing a lot for the protection of children.
I can affirm, for my part, that those who will not vote for extra funds for line B3-4109 while wrapping themselves in the cloak of moral superiority with regard to a judge, will be just making mischief and, worse still, they will be hypocrites.
Mr President, as rapporteur for the fisheries budget, I have intervened on many occasions throughout the budgetary procedure in order to draw the attention of the general rapporteur to the fact that it is not possible to bring about - as had been envisaged - an across-the-board reduction on all the budgeted posts relating to fisheries without challenging the proper implementation of essential elements of the multiannual plan, which are the foundations of the common fisheries policy.
I am happy that the Committee on Budgets has listened to us on this important point.
Furthermore, by unanimously adopting the two amendments I have proposed concerning lines B2-910 and B2-901 and 902, the Committee on Fisheries has shown a particular interest in two essential aspects of the CFP, in this case, priority to traditional fishing and the essential means anticipated to put a fair monitoring system in place.
Regarding traditional fishing, I am happy that the Committee on Budgets has followed our proposal to allocate ECU 2 million to this line.
Small coastal fishing is a permanent activity of crucial importance for the survival of numerous maritime regions.
It was therefore essential to provide follow-up to the action initiated in 1995 benefitting a professional activity which requires large amounts of local labour and whose economic and social role, as well as its role in regional planning, is irreplaceable.
With regard to monitoring, the Committee on Budgets has unfortunately not followed our proposal, and I strongly regret this.
If the part-session confirms this vote, we will not have sufficient funds available to put in place an objective essential for the efficiency of the common fisheries policy.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Tillich.
He has been helpful and cooperative throughout.
I am very disappointed at the continuing decrease in spending on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
We have problems with legal bases.
They must be put right by the Commission.
As far as research is concerned, we have always appreciated the support of the Committee on Budgets, and that has continued this year.
We understand that the Commission will be making adjustments in its administrative arrangements in order to retain the needs of the service while making sure that they are accountable.
The transparency is greater, in fact, on the research programmes than in any other item, since it is quite clear how much is spent on administration on each of those specific programmes.
Because of a lack of legal base and little progress on energy we are sending our delegates to Kyoto with very little in their bags.
Our priorities must continue to be renewable energy and energy efficiency.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 16 September last I had the honour of presenting to you the principal elements of the draft general budget for 1998, as formulated in the first reading by the Council during July.
Today, as you get ready to proceed to the first reading of the draft general budget, I would particularly like to raise what seems, in the current budgetary procedure, essential to the institution which I represent.
First of all, let me say that the first duty of any budget authority - and in particular community budget authorities - must be that of as efficient and effective a policy on spending as possible.
Respect for this rule - respect for this budgetary principle - is a must in the framework of the budgetary rigour which the 1998 financial year implies.
It is, furthermore, by this yardstick that the Council measured the expenses registered in the draft general budget for 1998.
Mr President, the exercise in which you are taking part today and the day after tomorrow is, in fact, a major event in the budgetary procedure.
I say "a major event' because the amendments you are going to discuss and vote on are, in fact, a budgetary transcription of the directions formulated by the House in its March resolution.
It is a major event because these amendments largely reflect the image of the draft general budget that the President of Parliament will sign in December.
It is a major event because - and in this we are living up to tradition - a certain number of amendments contain a little cherry or a little cactus directed at the other budget authority and, once more, I note that the current exercise is no exception to that practice.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, without wanting to prejudge next Thursday's votes on the amendments you are going to discuss, I would like to note particularly amendment 815, which relates to the necessary financing for the promotion of jobs, an area in which the Presidency wanted to include Parliament from the very start of the debate on budgetary procedure.
This initiative, Mr President, is a great credit to your Parliament, as it contributes in a decisive way to the legitimation of the jobs package as it will be submitted to the Extraordinary European Council on 20 and 21 November.
But this initiative will be all the more credible if you are willing to maintain, in Section 3, a sufficiently high margin along the lines of the substantial margins you are about to maintain in sections 4 and 5.
With more specific regard to section 1, the Presidency notes changes - I mean changes and not modifications - sub-section 8.1 appearing as an annex to the rapporteur's motion for a resolution.
Indeed, these changes constitute a mandate for negotiation between Parliament with the Council at the next trialogue concerning the letter of amendment the Commission will formulate on 29 October next.
The Council will give its opinion on the Commission's letter of amendment, but I would already like to recall the bilateral commitment of April in order to say to you, Mr President, that the Presidency will do everything it can to ensure the procedure is concluded in only one session.
With regard to section 2, as I understand, Parliament is ready to re-establish the payment appropriations reduced by the Council at first reading.
I wish to remind you, just to get this straight, that this decision is based on the foreseeable implementation of payments committed during the coming financial year.
With regard to the Peace initiative, we have noted the alternative to the preliminary draft budget, as suggested by the Commission, which would thus like recourse to appropriations not affected by section 2.
The Presidency is delighted with this solution, which it will support with all its might, and I think the Council will also support the solution, on condition, of course, of respect for the Edinburgh decisions and, more specifically, for the decisions regarding available resources for commitments within objective 1.
With regard to the financing of the CFSP, I should say that the trialogue of 6 October was a good one, extremely fruitful, following the signing of the interinstitutional agreement of 16 July.
This trialogue considered a new distribution of the total amount amongst different lines as they were formulated by the Council.
The Council will therefore give its final decision on this distribution.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to say how pleased I am that, thanks to the willingness and the sense of responsibility of Parliament, understanding between the two branches of the budget authority has been exemplary from the start of the budgetary procedure.
I note that cooperation between Parliament and the Council has already produced tangible results, both in the area of agricultural expenditure and in expenditure on fisheries and the CFSP.
Mr President, this is all I wanted to say at a moment when you are ready to proceed to the first reading of the draft budget.
In conclusion, I would also, and above all, like to thank all of those in the Parliament who have contributed in a determinant way to the results that we have obtained at this stage of the budgetary procedure.
I would first like to mention the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Detlev Samland.
I would also like to mention the two rapporteurs, Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson and, last but not least, I would also like to show appreciation for the considerable work that has been accomplished by the Commissioner, Mr Liikanen and his team, and to include them in my acknowledgements.
That said, Mr President, I thank you for your attention, and am ready to listen to Parliament.
Thank you very much, President Fischbach, and thank you, too, for your kind words to Parliament and Mr Liikanen.
Welcome
Amending budget No 1/97-1998 draft general budget - draft 1997 ECSC operating budget (continuation)
Mr President, I should like to reiterate what Mr Bourlanges and Commissioner Liikanen have said about the way that we have had good cooperation with the Council on this occasion compared to last year for instance. It shows what can be done when we work together.
There is a 'but' coming up shortly. I wish to congratulate both rapporteurs because the work they have done has helped us tremendously.
In Mr Tomlinson's case, the other institutions report has gone pretty smoothly; and in Stanislaw Tillich's case, he has gone out of his way to work with the various groups to try to get good results when we voted in committee.
I also wish to thank Jan Mulder, the rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, as the problems we have had in the past over the agricultural budget have been smoothed tremendously because of him.
I do not need to say too much on category 1, because Jan has already said it.
I should like to make clear that the Socialists have tried to be consistent in their approach to this budget.
We know that a stringent, prudent budget was needed and we also know that employment had to be at the top of the agenda.
We have tried to look at the positions of Parliament and at what had and what had not got a legal base; we have looked at the wishes of the committee and at how the lines were being spent.
Taking those things into consideration, we have actually come up with a consistent policy.
At times we have done things with which I did not agree.
In agriculture, I actually led the vote against the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the tobacco sector, where we agreed to keep the money on tobacco where it is rather than take it out, because that is the way Parliament had voted in July.
That is just one example of where we have tried to go along with Parliament's wishes.
On the structural funds, the ECU 100 million that we have all now agreed for the Irish peace process is an excellent example of how the three institutions have worked together to ensure that this has been achieved without a legal base.
I should like to make one point clear to the Commission on this - I am not too sure that it is directed at DG XIX so much as DG XVI: we are not kidding, this is serious, we want to see the monies we have made available for Rechar and Retex implemented.
It is Parliament's wish from last year and we want to ensure that this money on Rechar and Retex is indeed spent.
On category 3, as I said, our priority has been on the employment chapter.
I wish to say to the President-in-Office at this point: our group has put a lot of effort into getting a commitment and an agreement on this strategy.
At times it has not been easy.
We have seen some budget lines sacrificed so that we could go for this strategy; we have seen some lines take decreases and some lines disappear, where some of our colleagues were asking us to maintain them or indeed increase them.
It has not been easy to convince our colleagues of the validity of this exercise.
However, we have stuck with it, we have gone with it, and we hope that on Thursday Parliament can vote through a programme which will help create jobs in Europe.
I have to say to the President-in-Office - and this is where the 'but' comes in - that our great cooperation depends on this.
If the Council cannot deliver, if we do not get a legal base and if his colleagues treat this in a flippant manner, then all hell will be let loose.
That ECU 350 million will be redistributed throughout category 3.
We will find lines where it will go; we will ensure that it is put on those lines where it can be spent; and that will make a joke of our strategy.
A lot depends on whether the President-in-Office can persuade his colleagues in the Council, and I am sure that he will do that.
If it does come off, if we are successful, then once again we can show that if we have good interinstitutional cooperation, we can find the solutions that we all look for in a variety of areas.
On category 4, the Group has been consistent in its approach to Turkey and Meda.
We do not agree with the vote in committee about putting an amount in reserve.
I make the point now that we will be voting against the amendment to put the Meda money on the line.
It is worth mentioning two lines specifically in category 4: one is the sex tourism line, introduced by Mr Colom, which we need to do something about; the second is the CFSP for the landmines.
That should be given full support from all groups.
Mr President, like others I would like to congratulate the two rapporteurs, but in particular, Mr Tillich.
I think he has done an excellent job in what has not been an easy budget year.
Like Mr Liikanen, I prefer this kind of atmosphere to the one we had last year; but I would simply point out that we in the Group of the European People's Party are being as consistent as we were last year in looking for a tight and rigorous approach to the budget and also maintenance of our commitments that we, as a Parliament, have signed in the context of the interinstitutional agreement.
Let me make three points for the EPP in this debate. Firstly, I would like to underline what the rapporteur has pointed out regarding the rigorous approach of the European Parliament to this budget.
We will be somewhere in between the 1.12 % of the Council on first reading and the 1.15 % of the Commission.
It should set at rest the minds of those who have thought that this institution is simply interested in spending money right up to the limits.
The margins in category 3 are over ECU 200 million, and in category 4, external policy, where we might have been tending to spend funds on tropical forests or other areas of importance as we have done in the past, we have kept a margin of nearly ECU 500 million.
That is over ECU 700 million altogether on first reading.
That is a first, so far as I know.
Secondly, when we then come to the other institutions - if our rapporteur could tune in to my wavelength, Mr Tomlinson - I would like to welcome the fact that we have actually kept our commitments of being within the 20 %, as we have always done.
I would particularly like to thank our own Secretary-General and Secretariat in Parliament for coming forward with a report on interinstitutional cooperation.
It has shown that it has been working.
It does add value to our ability to get value for money in the institutions.
I would certainly support the recommendation at the end of that report that there should be an annual process within the budgetary system whereby, when the Secretary-General submits his draft estimates, we should have a report on that.
Perhaps the Commission could also insert that on a regular basis in its presentation of the budget.
In terms of the other institutions and the European Parliament budget in particular, I would like to draw attention to what we consider the innovation of having clearer public disclosure of the costs of all the buildings owned by the European institutions.
We believe that this is a common 'patrimony' of the European Union, and at least in this way a start can be made in achieving clarity about where the money is spent.
We hope it will be adopted on an annual basis.
Turning to the European budget itself, for the Commission, section III, there is firstly the point on the jobs initiative.
Ever since 1994 we have supported having an idea of growth and jobs.
This is where the idea initially came from, but it was always stymied by the lack of a legal base.
In the EPP we support what the Socialist Group has said.
We expect the deal to be done at the summit so that we can have a second reading which should go as planned.
We would also like to have, as Mr Tillich's report clearly points out, a commitment at the summit that when we are looking to the longer term - when we come to December and talk about Agenda 2000 - we should bring together all the elements of job creation into one section under the financial perspective.
It seems to be somewhat odd that we talk about category 3 when we are looking at job creation, whereas category 2 is also doing a significant amount in that perspective.
Lastly, when we come to the use of reserves, we have shown that in the system for Jet - where we want a solution by second reading, and also on the information system - we can, as a Parliament, judiciously use the reserve for matters of policy so that we can then make sure that the system runs as we in Parliament would like it to do.
Mr President, negotiations are underway for the next structural funds programme between the national governments and the European Commission and this budget affects structural funds.
The European budget will play a central role bearing in mind that no budget increases are proposed.
From an Irish perspective we must remember that the infamous Celtic Tiger has not had the effect of giving a boost to all of my country.
Parts of the constituency that I represent in the border counties and the West of Ireland have not felt the effects of this Celtic Tiger.
The average income per capita in my region is well below the national average, to say nothing of the EU average.
By 1999 the average income per capita for all Ireland will be close to 90 % of the EU average while in my region it will be less than 75 %.
Budget reallocations of EU regional, social, agricultural and fishery funds must in future be disbursed on a region-by-region basis taking into account the social and economic problems of each region together with the disadvantages of peripherality.
The border counties of Ireland and the west of Ireland must be given Objective 1 status guaranteeing the maximum amount of EU structural funds under the 2000-2006 programme.
It is neither fair nor equitable that my region is compared, for the purposes of EU structural funds allocations, to other more affluent regions in the country and indeed in Europe.
It is imperative that the border counties and the West of Ireland be treated as a separate region for structural fund purposes and there is nothing new or innovative about this.
There was a special case for the north of Scotland, as well as for the south of Italy.
Therefore there is no reason why a special case cannot be made for the equally disadvantaged west of Ireland.
In conclusion, I wish to say to the Parliament: hands off - no reductions or further reductions in areas where lesser-used languages are spoken.
Lesser-used languages are an integral part of our culture and instead of reducing funds, we should be increasing them.
In conclusion I should like to express my thanks for the further allocation to the peace and reconciliation fund.
Mr President, the EU budget for 1998 has been prepared carefully and responsibly.
I would like to express my thanks to Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson, its rapporteurs, and to Mr Samland, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
The improvement in the employment situation is the main principle behind the budget.
The most important innovation is the new employment initiative, which, hopefully, will achieve statutory status.
The initiative makes available reserves for the risk financing of, for example, small and medium-sized businesses, so that the EU can guarantee Europe Investment Bank loans.
It might also be worth explaining the possibility of utilising interest subsidy loans.
They could be, for example, easier to administer.
Connected with the question of employment is also the funding of the Community initiative for small and medium-sized businesses.
This has been approved but the important thing is that the ECU 1 billion that the Council cut be restored to the structural funds.
Although there is inefficiency in the administration of the structural funds, they are nevertheless the EU's most important tool for improving the employment situation.
A couple of problems cropped up again when the budget was being debated.
The administration of the EU special agencies is still unclear.
Although the special agencies wield power based on EU legislation and receive payments accordingly, their funding and monitoring is confusing.
Because the received payments are not counted as part of Member States' costs contributions, the Commission has no great interest in monitoring these bodies.
For this reason, their administration procedures should be clarified.
The other problem is heading A-30 - "Community Support Measures' in administrative expenditure.
The heading may be too detailed and the aid points and sums might reflect the personal favourite organizations of past generations of Parliament.
This part of the budget should be made clearer.
But, aside from these observations, the presentation of the budget must be praised as being excellent and thoroughly approvable.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteurs even though I have to say immediately, in general terms, that I profoundly disagree with the highly restrictive guidelines we are faced with for 1998, particularly in the Council's draft.
Because that is, in fact, the essential characteristic of the present budgetary process, and, furthermore, it conflicts with the priority which, it is claimed, is being given to employment.
Obviously we cannot but agree that priority should be given to employment.
This, moreover, should not be merely a budgetary priority but the general priority of the Union.
Nevertheless, any agreement and vote of approval we may give to the inclusion of a fund for that purpose does not mean that we have any great illusions as to the practical reality of that declaration of priority.
In the first place, because we consider that the fight against unemployment and the creation of jobs must immediately be set free from the present restrictive policies.
Next, since not only is the allotted amount limited, since the ECU 390 million earmarked for that use have really been secured essentially by means of financial engineering, which boils down to taking funds away from a number of other appropriations, or from purposes to which they might have been allocated, particularly social objectives, to concentrate them on this new purpose.
The importance of this priority required much more of us.
It demanded new means, and sufficient means to face up to the seriousness of the scourge with which we are all familiar in this field.
It is true that there is not much more the European Parliament could do in the face of the Council's preliminary and definitive drafts.
But we cannot in any event fail to note the drastic limits of this action, particularly evidenced by the cuts made particularly in important areas of our social, education and youth, cultural, environmental, consumer protection and research policies, to mention only a few of the most important.
These limits are also evidenced by the very increases proposed for other areas, particularly the suggested allocations to information campaigns, which amount to ECU 106 million and do indeed turn that item into a real, if undeclared, priority.
Also on the subject of cuts, I would like to state that in our vote on Thursday we will insist on the reinstatement of some items which have been sacrificed, and also on the reinforcement of certain objectives.
This applies to tourism - which has disappeared - and also to the fight against racism, to the audio-visual industry and the ultra-peripheral regions.
With regard to certain aspects of the process, I should like to say that we consider it a positive sign that it is proposed to reject the cut of ECU 1, 000 million ecus in payments for the structural actions adopted by the Council.
This is a totally unacceptable proposal and for that reason alone should not be approved.
Meanwhile, and following the same line of thought, we cannot understand and do not accept allocation of the Committee on Budget of ECU 100 million in class II to the Prince initiative; similarly, we do not agree that the additional allocation of ECU 60 million to the Retex and Rechar programmes should also be at the cost of normal structural actions.
We agree with these objectives, but we do not agree with the means used to include them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this year's budgetary process has been overshadowed by the deliberations on Agenda 2000.
Major strategic decisions are therefore not expected.
One is entitled to ask, however, whether or not this budgetary process shows that the European Institutions, the Council, Parliament and the Commission, are in possession of sufficient creative talent.
First a positive example: this year, our budgetary process has centred around the EU's capacity to act in the fight against unemployment. The Sunday speeches should now be followed by effective action.
The question is, what can be actually be achieved, given that the EU budget of just under ECU 6 billion for internal policy matters is hardly adequate for major initiatives?
How do we guard against the illusion that the EU can do something which is really the responsibility of the Member States, the regions, communities and enterprises - namely to promote new employment opportunities in a reforming and innovative way?
How go we get away from the views of the Members of this House, who sought to add a rider to every existing programme so as to turn it into an employment promotion initiative? How do we prevent the raising of expectations which cannot be fulfilled, as was the case with transeuropean networks?
This can now be seen in the proposal which we have developed for submission to the Council as part of a concerted action.
ECU 150 million for credit relief for SMEs, which is intended to affect assets of between ECU 5 billion and 6 billion. This action promises more success than a certain employment initiative launched with great pomp and ceremony, namely transeuropean networks, whose job-creation component was from the outset nothing more than pure fiction.
It is regrettable that this scheme did not undergo public review, since my assessment of it would read "Fictions come to fictitious ends' .
The current initiative is a clear improvement for three reasons: it does not restrict itself to one single area, the construction sector, it focuses on smaller rather than major investment projects and it seeks to meet business head-on, thereby maximizing its catalytic impact.
It is to be hoped that the Council and many national governments, including ours in Germany, takes up Parliament's offer.
Now to the negative example: in December 1995 this House first made some ECU 150 million available for an urgent rebuilding programme in former Yugoslavia.
A lot of time has passed since then, though sadly little money has been forthcoming and what has been provided has had little or no impact.
Implementation rates are alarmingly low, the restructuring programme has become bogged down and the urgent house-building programme, which is essential to encourage the return of refugees, is completely inadequate, according to representatives sitting on the committee.
A proper review procedure is needed here to assess the international cooperation required for such a venture.
To improve matters, and for no other reason, the Committee has set aside a reserve fund.
Now it is up to the Commission.
It will have to improve its internal personnel management procedure and open up faster routes for the deployment of funds.
The recently agreed fund for democracy in Bosnia-Herzegovina should provide assistance here.
Yet we should not allow the Council to dodge its responsibility in this respect.
Regulations should be simplified in such a way as to focus attention not on the job-orders of home-based tendering companies, such as those based in Spain, but rather on the people of Bosnia.
How then do I sum up our creative achievements? Members of Parliament, I leave the decision to you.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of the budgetary process and procedure, it is the tradition for group spokesmen to start by duly thanking the rapporteurs for carrying out the difficult task of reconciling positions and thus achieving a European Parliament position which is compact, uniform and able to reinforce the role played by Parliament itself, in constituting a reference point both for all of us and for the Council and the Commission.
The desire for dialogue, patience, ability to understand the common priorities of an institution that requires unity in the budget, to affirm its prerogatives; these seem to me to be the basic aspects of the difficult task of the rapporteurs, which will end on Thursday, at least as regards the first reading.
On behalf of my group, I too wish to offer my heartfelt thanks to the general rapporteur, Mr Tillich, the rapporteurs for the draft supplementary and amending budget 1997, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Fabra Vallés, my colleague Mr Giansily for the ECSC budget, President Samland, the entire secretariat and, as already recalled, the Council and the Commission for the excellent cooperation shown throughout this period.
Personally, however, I do not see any reason for thanking the rapporteur for the other institutions who, on my request to make a minor change to increase the Sakharov Prize allocation, replied that the European Parliament and the Committee on Budgets do not enter into politics.
As if the decision to switch from 12 to 11 meetings, including the budget procedure, had nothing to do with politics, although the general rapporteur says so, and the general rapporteur for the other institutions is an honourable man.
And as if the decision taken by the Committee on Budgets to abolish, or to take to pieces, the budget lines to set up the reserve to increase the funds intended for the Brussels buildings once again had nothing to do with politics!
But the rapporteur Mr Tomlinson says so, and Mr Tomlinson is an honourable man.
So I will not join in the thanks offered so far, and I hope that the Chamber will, at least on this point, support the amendment I have submitted together with 35 other colleagues, so that, after eight years, the appropriation of ECU 15, 000 to the Sakharov Price can be increased, and can therefore stand at the minimum that constitutes appropriate recognition for one of the most important initiatives taken by the European Parliament in the field of human rights.
On the other matters and more generally, beyond this minor internal polemic, I would simply like this Assembly to note, at the end of the proceedings, that we are all certainly in favour of this compulsory policy, and heaven help us if we damage this consensus, but we should be aware of the fact that Parliament and the Council still agree to remain below the minimum, or rather, the maximum rate, which is always a minimum, fixed in Edinburgh: so that ultimately we do not risk taking the EU budget to be a public deficit to be corrected, to be reduced, etcetera, etcetera, in any way.
I almost have the impression, from the experience of these last two years, that, beyond the questions of the economic and monetary union, we understand or want public opinion to understand that the more we spend, the more we increase a hypothetical public deficit, as if 1.26 or 1.16 comprised a deficit and not an essential tool for Community policy.
We are therefore paying attention to this point!
Taking care not to say, on 21 November, that we will solve the problem of unemployment in Europe with ECU 350 million.
We have agreed this initiative this year; I too hope and expect that the Luxembourg Council will produce positive results on 21 November.
However, we should all be aware that this budget is not a non-refundable expenses budget, and the money available seems insufficient to me to achieve a real policy on employment.
Mr President, like last year, the Committee on Budgets is refusing to subscribe to the desire for rigour expressed by the Council which adopted a 1998 budget with zero growth in terms of real ECUs.
Concerned, as always, to confirm the budgetary power of the European Parliament, the Committee on Budgets proposes to reduce the margin, on the financial perspective ceiling, from ECU 1.35 billion to ECU 500 million, as opposed to the ECU 950 million in the Commission's preliminary draft budget.
My group will vote against this draft budget, regretting that the Committee on Budgets has not retained the broad lines of the initial draft budget of the Council.
A draft in which the ECU 82.5 billion of payment appropriations, although a decrease of ECU 1.8 billion compared with the preliminary draft budget, still exceed 1996 real expenditure by 8 % and are adapted to the foreseeable implementation needs.
Increases in the Council's draft budget are limited to 0.7 % in relation to the 1997 budget.
The effort is balanced between the budget lines, with a particular reduction of ECU 1 billion in the structural funds, which nevertheless increases by 4.2 %.
This said, the draft budget takes into account the need to limit national contributions to the Community budget.
Let me make three comments to illustrate the legitimacy of this objective.
For 1998, France's contribution is already 91.5 billion French francs, being 6.3 % of tax receipts or 36 % of the budget deficit.
Approval of the Committee on Budget's draft budget would mean an increase in this contribution of 1.9 billion, being a 2.2 % increase as opposed to a 1.4 % increase for the overall increase in expenses.
If the French budget had been indexed to an increase in GDP, as the draft budget proposes, the extra expenditure for France would have been 45 billion French francs, that is 0.5 % of gross domestic product.
There is a discrepancy, Mr President, between what the European Parliament says with regard to the need to put in place the single currency and its behaviour as a budget authority.
Mr President, this budget is excessive, cosmetic and intended to curry favour.
It is excessive for three reasons.
First, because the 1992 European Council overestimated the needs of Community expenditure by fixing the limit of its own resources at 1.27 % of the gross domestic product of Member States, it encouraged budgetary laxity.
This budgetary laxity led governments to propose, for 1998, a budget which, in payment appropriations, surpasses the real expenditure of 1996 by 8 %.
This budgetary laxity leads the Committee on Budgets to go further and to propose an increase in payment appropriations and commitment appropriations of 2.9 %, nearly 3 %, in relation to the 1997 budget.
This means much higher increases than those of national budgets on which, however, budgetary constraints weigh much more heavily.
This excessive expenditure can be explained first as a way of currying favour.
Currying favour with the structural funds, of which the amount is arbitrarily fixed at too high a level, leading Member States, regions, provinces, districts, public and private organizations, to strive to find ways, often useless and sometimes harmful, of spending the money.
This attempt to ingratiate is also found in internal policies, where a multitude of grants are made with no follow-up.
I have set up a register, thanks to replies from the Commission to my written questions, and I thank the Commissioner who collected together the grants approved, not to all organizations, but to the French ones, which means that there is the equivalent of fifteen times this list for the whole of Europe.
How can you believe that this spending is all effectively used and effectively controlled?
In reality, this Parliament is too often ready to listen to the different ever present lobbies and not ready enough to listen to the taxpayers, and we often have the impression, on the European right, that we are the only defenders of European taxpayers.
Lastly, this budget is cosmetic since it seeks to disguise the reality. The Committee on Budgets proposes ECU 150 million to fight unemployment.
ECU 150 million for 20 million unemployed, is this serious?
Who is going to believe that the problem can be solved with ECU 7 per unemployed person? In reality, it is not a matter of solving unemployment with these ECUs, which is due to the opening up of borders, free trade, and an excess of immigration, it is a matter of getting publicity for the European budget.
ECU 150 million will not solve the problem but it will get coverage in the media.
So, this budget, which is ingratiating, cosmetic, excessive and inflationary, ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Gallou has not said anything new.
In fact, the difference between Mr Gallou and the Committee on Budgets, since the former was not present at the voting stage, is that we do not discuss the subject, we make decisions.
We have, and we can say this with every justification, agreed a budget which supports greater financial management and safeguards the interests of taxpayers, in complete contrast to the remarks of Mr Gallou.
Let me illustrate this by citing three examples.
First, what Mr Gallou has been calling for is no different from the flag we have been flying, namely a decisive response to the problem of subsidy abuse.
To put a spoke in the wheels of those lobbyists who are always hanging about, and here I am referring to those whose hobby is blocking as many doorways as possible, the rapporteur has devised a plan for financing EU organizations which is transparency itself.
Organizations are required to generate 10 % of their own resources.
The Commission is required, in September of each succeeding year, to submit to us a report on the application of funds which the Community has issued to any organization, together with an assessment of whether further funding is proposed in this area.
If not, the organizations in question are relegated, as in a football league.
Secondly, we have helped make a decisive change to the structure of administrative expenditure.
No previous budget plan in the history of the European Community has featured a Commission organization chart in which the number of boxes displayed is fewer than in the preceding year.
Our resolution is designed to carry this trend forward and to adopt a similar approach to structural policy.
We can no longer tolerate a situation in which the number of A boxes in the Commission is the same as the number of C boxes.
While the new concept of information technology is making inroads in the Commission, it remains merely a matter of prestige that a C box is assigned to an A box.
For this reason a change is called for in the structure of the chart.
This, Mr Commissioner, is a policy which we are determined to adhere to, not only this year but also in the years ahead.
Thirdly, we have undertaken to prove that we have indeed made preparations to enlarge the Union.
Neither Council nor Commission have taken account of what they themselves proposed in Agenda 2000, namely to begin negotiations with new partners, how ever many they may be, from 1st January 1998.
For such negotiations we need a structure.
We have made a proposal for making this structure pluralist.
On this issue let me just state clearly and frankly, and here I refer to a discussion which took place in Brussels on the Notenboom procedure, that if a body like DG I is incapable of managing the Yugoslavia programme, the Phare programme and the Tacis programme to our complete satisfaction, then it should not be put in charge of the enlargement programme - unless we want to wait 25 years for the first new member to join.
One thing must therefore be clearly understood: the resources which we have set aside for a new administrative structure will only be available on the condition that the Commission organisation chart is a fully functional structure and is organised differently from the current model.
We surely cannot allow this task to remain in the hands of those who are still incapable of administering the funds concerned.
I have deliberately focused my remarks on a subject which encompasses not just the issue of employment policy and the other matters already discussed.
The debate in this budget procedure was very encouraging, since it raised a considerable number of points, including new institutional issues.
Speakers have quite justifiably pointed out that in the mandatory functions we have found a process which would have been unthinkable some years ago.
Letters of amendment after the first reading of the budget in Parliament, no voting motions being placed during the first reading in Parliament, and then a joint procedure in the trialogue prior to the budget's second reading in the Council - from an institutional viewpoint, that constitutes a decisive step forward.
Let me just add the following: yesterday evening in the Committee on Budgets I quoted the words of Bertolt Brecht: times are not so or are not always so.
The problem is that we now have a Council Presidency with which we can genuinely cooperate.
Unfortunately, the time may also come when we are again faced with presidencies which are either untrustworthy or lack the strength to carry through in the Council those policies which they themselves have drawn up.
The process which we are initiating here today is therefore an invitation to the Council to make interinstitutional changes to the framework conditions and ultimately to modify the treaty, so that we are at last given clear guidelines - and this should also include the agricultural policy.
Mr President, at the moment Europe is experiencing deflation, and that is the wrong way to go about preventing unemployment.
This deflation is happening as a result of the influence of the EMU criteria.
And, furthermore, Parliament is on the deflation bandwagon.
That is what Mr Tillich meant when he said that Parliament has done its homework and its housework too.
Actually, Parliament's employment initiative will do nothing to affect unemployment in Europe in any noticeable way.
About ECU 1 a month will be spent in aid of unemployment.
This is the feeding of the five thousand.
But that was then, and I don't think it is going to work this time.
That is why the summit conference on unemployment has been condemned as a propaganda conference and it will fail unless more money gets to be spent.
Let us turn to Mr Tomlinson's report.
He has done important work in the area of structure and, in doing so, has described the interests of the European Parliament well.
There are two things I would like to draw to your attention. He refers to defence aid for a European political defence machine, and he has changed the bases for parliamentary appropriation so that it can be used as aid for a general European defence machine.
I think this is a dangerous basis for the independence of nations and the preservation of freedom.
Furthermore, this Parliament ought to take a firmer stand on the revision of the expenses claim system, which Mr Tomlinson left unsettled.
I get, after paying all my expenses, ECU 12, 000 a month cash in hand salary and expenses, and that is much too much.
In the Nordic countries we cannot tolerate such inflated rewards.
When we start to re-examine the pay scheme we must sort things out with Elmar Brok and other such representatives who are in the employ of private companies at the same time as working as Members of Parliament.
Mr President, although the employment initiative is the main topic of this debate, the European Union cannot really make a significant contribution to employment with ECU 150 million.
At most the Union can, for instance, contribute to the exchange of information between Member States.
Employment policy should remain primarily the responsibility of the Member States.
I am not at all happy with the procedure by which the European Parliament is trying to deal with employment legislation through the Council.
Parliament is exceeding its powers.
The proposal to add all the category 3 amendments together into one large amendment is at odds with the spirit of the budget procedure.
At second reading all the budget headings amended by the Council should be on the agenda, not a whole category of expenditure.
The information is still too much like propaganda for the federal model.
It is therefore to be welcomed that the explanatory statement on budget heading B3-300 states that the information and communication policy should take more account of different ideas of European integration.
An objective information source should in any event be independent.
I am therefore strongly opposed to including Euronews in European information.
I also think it is undesirable that the ECU 1 billion from the structural funds which the Council cancelled should be reinstated.
This is not justified by the scale of 1997 spending.
In the Council's draft budget payment appropriations are already 4.18 % higher than in 1997.
Mr President, while not wishing to belittle the good work of the rapporteur, I must say that the draft budget represents nothing more than an extrapolation without any clear consideration of the main political priorities and with no real initiatives for reform.
The most serious problem, as we all know, is the high unemployment figure, particularly youth and long term unemployment.
This muchvaunted initiative to combat what has become a problem of serious proportions, while in itself a remarkable achievement, is still far from satisfactory.
It is still particularly regrettable that the ECU 3.5 billion allocated to research and technological development still represents less than 4 % of the total budget.
It is hard to conceive of another area which is as important for long term employment as research and development, especially in view of the fact that the EU is continuously losing ground to the USA and the Asiatic countries in the field of technological development.
At the end of the day, real jobs can only be created by a healthy and competitive European economy.
Mr President, I will start with Mr Tomlinson's excellent report, on which I should like to congratulate him. It is the result of a great deal of work.
I shall therefore vote in favour of it this time, which I did not do in committee.
Nevertheless, I should like to take this opportunity to point out that this work has been flawed, even plagued, by a series of populist and demagogic amendments, which can only act to reinforce the prejudices which were seen, for example, in the television programme we were talking about yesterday in this House, and which end up damaging the institution's prestige.
Parliament is paying for the consequences of the Council's lack of political will in considering it unnecessary, until Amsterdam, to have a Members' statute.
There was an Officials' Statute, a Commissioners' Statute, a Statute for Members of the Court of Auditors and a Statute for the Advocates-General of the Court of Justice; but there is no statute for Members of the European Parliament.
This has had a series of adverse effects on the system by which parliamentarians are paid.
I think it is high time this was resolved once and for all, throughout the whole system.
Any half measure will only create dissatisfaction and unfairness.
That is all I want to say on the matter.
Ladies and gentlemen, I come now to the general budget.
I want to thank Mr Tillich for his work, but there are too many ad hoc procedures. There are proposals for amendments in the resolution but not in the budgetary section; there are too many letters of amendment; and there is the Council's commitment to approve a legal basis for actions against unemployment, which have still not been approved in time for the first reading; and so on, and so on.
In any case, my dear Mr Tillich, Mr President, if we were to ask a normal person whether they had understood any of this, I think the answer would be no.
Therefore, I believe that this budgetary procedure provides evidence that the Treaty of Amsterdam left a lot to be desired, in not updating article 203.
I think that is very clear.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to harp on about the question of the Meda programme, but I will say that I find it surprising that two weeks ago we voted to congratulate the Commission unusually warmly on having implemented the programme so well, and now in the budget, we are trying to put part of its funds in the reserve.
As for the structural funds, I think this year's formula is a good one, since we can now count on having enough money to provide for the structural funds in full. I should like to thank the European People's Party for changing its mind since last year.
In this sector the structural funds are spending objectives, and an attitude like that seen last year could result in a very grave future commitment.
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to conclude by mentioning the employment initiative.
I congratulate the Luxembourg Presidency for the initiative itself and for its commitment, and I have complete trust in President Juncker.
But I hope you will not mind me saying that I do have a lot of doubts, and am worried about the attitude of some members of the Council. I would not like to see Parliament sacrifice part of the non-compulsory expenditure which it has at its disposal just for the sake of a news story on television the day after the extraordinary summit in Luxembourg.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think our amendment on this point is just a sign of our misgivings, as Mr Fischbach so diplomatically said.
We hope that the Council's decision in a month's time will show us that our misgivings were unfounded.
Furthermore, ladies and gentlemen, it is now time to mobilize the whole Community budget, to unblock other initiatives directed against unemployment which have been blocked by the Council for some time, so that the whole of the Community budget can be proemployment, and so that we can motivate the people of Europe and prepare the Union for enlargement.
Mr President, I believe that Mr Tillich, Mr Tomlinson and Mr Samland and all on the Committee on Budgets have done a sterling and exhausting job. But I think it is a game, played out each year, which has its technique, its skill, its difficulties, its fun, but essentially does not give the European Parliament the power to set its own course and to question some of the more basic aspects of the move towards integration within the European Union.
That said, I think that the first observation that I would like to make is that the 1998 budget shows that we have a European Union with feet of clay, with big aspirations, big possibilities, but without the essential finance mechanism to enable it to act in a world that is beset by rivalry and competition.
The second point that I wish to make is that, while we welcome the initiative on employment, we cannot forget the experience we had of the Europe-wide networks and of the fact that they had no substantial effect on stemming the growing tide of unemployment within the European Union.
We would also like to say that, unfortunately, if we divide ECU 150 million by 20, 000, 000 jobless people, we are talking peanuts.
Unfortunately, Mr President, I must stop.
Thank you.
Mr President, I would like to refer in particular to the Tillich report and to the further two years' extension for the peace and reconciliation fund for Northern Ireland.
Members of this House will be only too well aware of the very delicate position within my constituency at the present time with regard to the talks process.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Tillich and the other members of the Committee on Budgets who came to Northern Ireland to witness for themselves the support that exists for peace within that constituency and to see how people are working together from diverse backgrounds to achieve a consensus.
To Mr Samland, Mr Tomlinson, Mr Wynn and Mr Tillich, our thanks go out to you for your initiative in coming to Northern Ireland, seeing for yourselves and giving up your valuable time.
The peace and reconciliation fund began from scratch and there are many elements to that funding mechanism.
If I had to make a criticism, it would be that there is too much red tape involved.
For the next two years it must be made more user-friendly.
On a positive note, the district partnerships have been a resounding success and have brought together all the social partners working together to build a future for everyone.
This has been no mean achievement in our divided society, an example set that I believe we can not only build upon, in Northern Ireland, but which can also be developed and brought to other areas of the European Union, especially as we expand towards Eastern European countries.
While I and my colleagues have concerns, I wish to state my support for that programme and to reiterate my thanks to the Committee on Budgets.
I am aware that there is an argument between the Committee on Budgets and the Commission.
We understand their argument. We understand the position of the Committee on Budgets, we are supporting you in that argument with the Commission, and it will be sorted out.
Mr President, time constraints mean that I can only make a brief comment on the budget, and I am going to talk about cultural policy again, as I have done for the past five years.
At last, after almost two years of conciliation with the Council, the Community has witnessed the birth of a new child - the cultural programme christened Raphael.
We hoped and longed for the arrival of this child, but unfortunately it is a little sickly for lack of sufficient financial support.
In fact, this child does not have much of a chance of completely fulfilling its destiny.
When we talk about social cohesion, I wonder why we do not include culture? When we talk about economic development and the problem of unemployment, I think to myself: surely culture is a source of employment and economic development?
There has to come a time when this House's declarations of goodwill are reflected in the budget.
Next year, as budgetary rapporteur, I hope to be able to treat Raphael as a true son, and not as a stepson.
Mr President, the draft general budget which has been presented is relatively restrictive.
I think it is good that it is a very tight limit.
It ought to be possible to keep it so in future, particularly if there is success in bringing about real reforms in the areas of agricultural policy and regional aid in the coming years.
I also think the initiatives which are included to release money for an employment initiative are positive.
But then it will, of course, depend on what political content is put into this initiative, which is entirely unclear today.
I get a little doubtful when I see how it is to be financed, since there is a risk that not very much new will actually happen, and that it will instead just disappear in another direction with similar effect.
I am opposed to the proposal for a publicity campaign which is in practice a form of political propaganda in favour of, for example, the euro or the Amsterdam Treaty.
It is unreasonable for the EU to make propaganda for a particular opinion, such as in relation to the Amsterdam Treaty, when it is a controversial political issue in many countries.
I also think that Parliament should take the opportunity to gain credibility by reforming its own system for travel expenses, for example.
I have therefore taken part in drawing up such an amendment.
Mr President, I am going to speak on the satellite agencies.
Firstly, I would like to thank Mr Liikanen and through him his colleague Mr Mingasson for the way in which we have moved to harmonize the regulations.
With the appointment of a financial controller, surpluses should be returned to the European budget and we have made great strides on the control over discharge.
I am very pleased to see the package you are putting to Council for their approval.
Thank you for your help on that: common sense prevails.
Secondly, we are now moving towards having an efficient and transparent agency system as reported in the budget.
We are moving towards management by objectives; transparency whereby both staffing, administrative expenditure and substantive expenditure are now exposed in the budget remarks.
That is a good move.
In conclusion, I would like to say that establishing and developing agencies is not a one-year job.
The European Parliament must maintain its commitments to existing bodies when redefining budgetary priorities.
Finally, thank you for your very kind remarks which were reported to me by my visitors' group.
At the end of the story I come to the moral.
I want to talk about this Parliament's credibility in a number of Member States.
I do not think it is as bad as a journalist from your country suggested to me recently when he said to me that it is difficult to talk to fraudsters about fraud but the fact is that I find the European Parliament is being taken less and less seriously.
The debate about our system of allowances, especially the travel allowance, which has been going on for over a year now, and now, in the Netherlands, about our voluntary pension fund, has a lot to do with this.
Sometimes one is justified in blaming the press, as happened yesterday with a Dutch TV programme about signing in on Friday.
But sometimes we ourselves should also make more of an effort to be credible.
I know it is hard in a Parliament in which fifteen countries are represented and the members receive different salaries and also have to work with highly-paid European officials.
All the same the Tomlinson resolution is correct in my view in trying to persuade the Bureau to take further action than it has done up to now.
In the opinion of the Partij van de Arbeid members this resolution still does not go far enough.
We have therefore tabled an amendment with a number of others, including representatives from other countries, to sharpen up the text.
We also think that the pension fund should be further examined and that the burden should shift from Parliament to the parliamentarians.
What is ultimately needed - we do not have any regulations at present - is a supplementary pension.
I know that it will not be possible to have proper ratios as quickly as all that.
That is why we need regulations.
The same work, the same pay, everyone the same.
We decided that for the British in Culham and for staff other than the European officials.
We should also have that for ourselves.
We must have regulations.
I think in fact that it is important in the long run for the Union's legitimacy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can only say on behalf of the Flemish Socialists that I entirely agree with Mr Dankert.
I find this budget positive to the extent that we have managed to focus the discussion and the drafting of the budget on employment.
I also think it is positive that the budget translation ensures that at the second reading we will be able to evaluate the results of the Luxembourg summit in budgetary terms.
I would like to emphasize that the evaluation must be a general evaluation and that is what I think is lacking in the resolution before us.
The resolution places too much emphasis on the problems relating to the legal principle.
That is an important problem but it is only one aspect.
We must therefore be able to assess the results of the Luxembourg employment conference in the light of everything that Mr Van Velzen has had approved by this Parliament here today.
At the second reading we must try to reevaluate the political role of the budget instrument and we can only do that by seizing the unique opportunity with the assessment of the employment conference.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank all the Members of Parliament who have spoken in this debate.
The quality of their speeches is a measure for the issues in the Union.
Parliament's initiative with regard to employment shows to what point its Members are desirous of finally seeing the economy put back into the service of man and not the reverse.
Thus the expectations of success, which the Presidency wants at all costs, is largely shared by Parliament.
But our troubles are not over and we must continue to work flat out in order to achieve the desired results.
That said, Mr President, the debate which I have just listened to has personally enriched me.
It has enriched the Presidency and it will inspire and guide its future directions.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
Government procurement
The next item is the report (A4-0309/97) by Mr Tappin, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission Green Paper on public procurement in the European Union: exploring the way forward (COM(96)0583 - C4-0009/97)
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to present the report on the Green Paper on public procurement to Parliament.
The Green Paper is a policy paper.
It is not legislation and therefore Parliament's response must reflect that.
There are things we can get the Commission to tackle now and other measures which will require a change in Council regulations before they can be enacted.
What can we do in the short term? One of the first things the Commission can and must tackle is the need for clarification of the rules, procedures and the language of the directives.
This aspect of the amendment should not create any difficulties for my colleagues.
Logically, neither should the calls for clarification of procedures.
At the moment it is quite legal for a contracting entity to specify the nature of the product or service they wish to be supplied with as long as the specifications do not cause a distortion of competition.
This seems a reasonable position.
Yet some colleagues on the other side of the House wish to deny or limit that basic right.
Amendments have been tabled calling on the Commission to explain how criteria other than that of price can be included in the prerequisites of a procurement contract, to enable contracting authorities to tailor the product to their needs, including qualitative, environmental, social or any other criteria which does not distort competition, if they wish to.
I repeat 'if they wish to' .
No one can force anyone unless there is a change of Council regulations.
Under the current directives the possibility of choice already exists.
The problem is that due to the complicated nature of procurement legislation and the comparative lack of expertise, many contracting entities are nervous of relying on anything other than price in case they fall foul of the law.
So, if Parliament votes against these amendments, they are not changing any laws nor are they advancing the cause of the free market unless ignorance and fear is what they want the free market to be about.
Because the lowest price is not always the best value, they are preventing the citizen getting the best deal.
Also, lowest price criteria can favour big businesses over SMEs which are normally based in the region where the contract is being offered.
Parliament wants to do something to encourage SMEs to participate in this ECU 720 billion market.
We are committed to encouraging SMEs to create jobs and prosperity in the regions and to promoting the diversification of wealth creation.
We have a chance here with this report.
Bearing in mind the problems with understanding current directives, we have asked Member States to identify or establish one or more procurement centres.
These are places where official information can be obtained on procurement.
This is not another layer of bureaucracy because an existing office, centre or network can be used.
What it does is identify where you can go for accurate advice and information.
There is no control function and this proposal represents subsidiarity.
From the central or regional points of information I hope there will be a flow of good information through informal centres such as libraries, one-stop shops and so on.
To complete the chain of good advice, I have suggested that Member States should establish national procurement accreditation examinations.
This would enable procurement officers within companies or business centres or members of law or accountancy firms to become accredited advisers.
This is a private sector scheme and is therefore self-funding, non-bureaucratic and totally efficient. This idea has been welcomed by large and small firms alike as well as government and other organizations.
The need is evident. One utility reported that 75 % of tenders from SMEs had to be binned due to bad submissions.
We need to enable European SMEs as well as bigger business to be competitive.
This is a global market in which we work.
Therefore dissemination is important.
In the longer term we also have to put down other markers for future revisions and this will be a matter for legislation.
We must insist that future revisions take place according to the timetable, that they are full revisions and not a rubber stamp, that there will be a time and opportunity to decide which sectors should be included, how procedures can be simplified and how we can achieve enforcement without tying everyone up in rules and regulations.
There must also be discussion of time and detail.
We can ask the Commission to look at ways that enforcement can be made more efficient and less long-winded, ways of improving communication through the Internet, investigations into sustainability, actions on raising thresholds. Some of these cannot be tackled by the EU alone.
We are already a partner to the GPA Agreement and the WTO.
Amendments putting down strong statements on the way negotiations should go are tabled and I hope we have cross-party support.
Finally, I should like to thank the Commission, colleagues and the secretariat for all the assistance they have given me on this report. The EU's problems with procurement will not go away.
It is the black hole of the internal market and through this report I hope Parliament has shed a little light.
This report's aim was to set the parameters for a future debate and I thank colleagues for their support in helping us to achieve this aim.
Mr President, is the fact that the Member States have approved the Community's directive on public procurement only a question of paying lip-service?
People ask themselves that question when they see how the Member States have followed up the directive or, rather, how they have neglected to do so.
Last year the Commission was obliged to deal with 148 matters concerning complaints against the Member States.
The new co-ordinating directives have been implemented so badly that in the spring of 1996 the Court found three Member States guilty of not taking measures.
Several new cases are in progress.
This is only information about when nothing has been done.
We have many examples of things being done wrong with 29 cases in progress.
It is therefore not only a question of a lack of clarity, but also unwillingness. I cannot help feeling an urge to adapt Machiavelli's saying about the relationship between morality and law: ' Without morality there is no law; without law there is no morality.'
In this case: ' Without will there are no objective rules, but without rules there is also no fair procurement.'
The cure cannot be for the Commission to take on further direct powers and tasks in the Member States and for bureaucracy to be thereby increased, as one of the questions in the Green Paper asked.
There are more cost-efficient ways of implementing what we have agreed on in the Union.
It would increase the risk of serious economic consequences, as the Committee on Legal Affairs also suggests.
Discussions about the relationship between the single market and high levels of protection for the environment and industrial safety are dominating the debate today.
I share the view of the rapporteur, Mr Tappin that it is possible to combine these rules.
We shall have experts in the area of procurement who can set up fair, non-discriminatory conditions and who know how to buy environmentally-friendly buses or environmentally-friendly washing powder.
But what I think we have forgotten, even today, is that the rules on procurement are designed to treat everyone equally, to in fact prevent corruption, to prevent certain groups from gaining advantage at the cost of the general public and to prevent officials from granting contracts as a reward for services.
That is the most important part of public procurement for the benefit of the citizens.
We should not forget that.
Mr President, the report as such is excellent, but I consider it my duty to point out some areas on which we should continue the debate.
The debate on supply and demand must be based upon a number of facts.
We have created the internal market and are working on completing it.
We have established free competition; we have liberalizations over a wide range of areas.
Both have taken place at community level.
At the same time, a very wide variety of traditions exist which must be taken into account in the different countries.
Creating something shared and something that is reasonable, whilst taking account of the subsidiarity principle, is a huge task.
In the report a new role for the Commission within the supply sector is mentioned.
The Commission will have the same access to the supply sector as to the area of competition law, and this is something that I find alarming.
The Commission will be able to impose penalties with a delaying effect and to suspend supply.
The question of penalties and suspension is in my view a matter for the national law-courts.
A change of this kind will conflict with the subsidiarity principle.
The decisive factor within this area is that the Member States set up national and regional control authorities.
I am thinking here not only of actual appeal bodies, but also of a supervisory authority such as we know from countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Holland.
In public sector supply, parameters other than price must be included.
There has to be room for environmental and other quality requirements, for public sector supply.
Through requirements of this kind, it will be possible to ensure genuine competition and not only competition on price.
The opinion of the European Parliament is playing a big role in the debate on public demand, and I think that with this report we have made a good contribution to the discussion within this sphere.
I look forward to further debate which will come on the basis of the Commission's green book and Parliament's recommendations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, why do we need a European legal framework for public contracts? This is an important part of the European internal market and in the Green Paper the Commission has tried to carry out a stocktaking exercise.
But we also need it to ensure the rational deployment of public funds, a transparent and fair contracts system, competition among suppliers and maximum access by companies to the enormous procurement market, which is worth over ECU 700 billion.
If we cannot guarantee a competitive system, then will shall face the threat of corruption, excessive prices, unfair treatment of competitors and even bad investments.
It is therefore important that we should address ourselves to this matter.
The Commission has described its experience with the previous system.
Only 3 % of public contracts were awarded on a transborder basis.
The conversion of legal provisions into national law has become bogged down and even the European system of mutual legal recognition is lacking in equivalence.
These procedures are bureaucratic and are not easily understood, particularly by SMEs.
As a result, the internal market does not function correctly in this area and it is now important for us to make practical proposals to remedy the situation.
What are the Commission's proposals here? Initially it has adopted a relatively pessimistic stance by citing the legal recalcitrance of the Member States as the reason for the lack of stimulation in transborder public contracts, and proposes integration with other target areas, such as environment, social and consumer protection.
It also wishes to acquire additional powers of sanction, such as the establishment of a central body to deal with fraud and corruption - which is surely the responsibility of the Member States.
On a more positive side, it wants to promote education and the introduction of information technology in order to improve transparency for the benefit of SMEs.
No proposals have been made to develop the legal framework, for instance article 8 of the sectional guideline relating to telecommunications.
I wish to congratulate and thank Mr Tappin for his excellent work.
However, the report of the Committee on Economic Affairs contains a number of inconsistencies which do not concur with what we have discussed in Parliament and indeed in the hearing.
It does not for example set reasonable targets for raising threshold values in the services sector.
It proposes an accreditation procedure in the area of technical dialogue, which is surely nonsense.
No proposals are made for handling telecommunications in a liberalized and privatized market.
If the internal market is our real objective, then we should not be making the regulations more stringent and more difficult for SMEs.
Alien rules only serve to confuse, more bureaucracy only pushes costs higher and impedes transparency.
Guidelines are becoming more complicated, rather than less.
We do not want to have a super-bureaucracy in Brussels, we just want the Member States to do their homework.
Those are our party objectives.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the public procurement sector in our countries represents ECU 720 billion per year, or if you prefer, 11 % of the gross domestic product of the European Union.
Following the implementation of European legislation, this sector is open to community competition, and this is a good thing, both for consumers and for businesses.
If the European Union has already made considerable progress in the implementation of its policy in the area of public procurement, the directives also need to be monitored and more efficiently implemented by putting in place, if need be, significant sanctions for those who do not respect the rules, for example, by forbidding offending companies from bidding for tenders for a certain period of time.
On an international level, the European Commission must act in such a way as to enable third countries to have access to public procurement contracts, certainly, but on the basis of complete reciprocity.
Similarly, with the prospect of the future membership of eastern and central European states to the Union, it is essential that the candidates for membership accept the current regulations applied to public procurement contracts within a reasonable period of time.
It is also essential, in the interests of our small and mediums sized enterprises, that the Commission, within the context of the WTO, fights to obtain an increase in the limits upon which the implementation of the directives are conditional.
Lastly, Mr President, our group requests a separate vote on paragraph 5 of the report, to which we cannot give our agreement.
In fact, we consider this issue is not relevant here.
But, in conclusion, may I thank Mr Michael Tappin for the quality of his report and for the work he has accomplished, and also for having taken into account our thoughts and comments in the formulation of his text and in that of the explanatory memorandum.
Mr President, I would like to thank the chairman, Mr Tappin, for his painstaking work with this report.
He has been very receptive to the various political views in this area.
I agree, of course, with the chairman that there is a need to evaluate the situation for public sector supply within the Union.
Unfortunately, there are many countries - as we have also heard in the debate here - which have not yet implemented the existing directives, and this is a huge problem.
It means a nontransparent market and unequal treatment of suppliers.
It is necessary, therefore, in order to obtain better conditions of competition and with a view to completion of the internal market, that the Commission should look at the implementation and execution of the directives.
Another thing which I would very much like to emphasize is the importance of there being no doubt about the interpretation of the directives.
The Commission should for this reason consider a more uniform formulation of the directives in future revisions, thereby excluding the ambiguity.
Consideration might be given also to standardizing the requirements for the reference bases and the reference information.
The Commission must, of course, keep an effective check on the directives and firms must have better opportunities to complain.
Lodging complaints must be an easy and fast process for the individual firms.
But what happens when a public sector supplier breaks the rules? Does anything happen?
No!
Where are the sanctions? We must tackle this problem and I would like to invite the Commission to take a look at sanctions.
Lastly, I wish to draw the Commission's attention to the question of environmental requirements for public sector purchases.
I think the supplier must be allowed to impose environmental requirements in all parts of the production cycle and not only for the finished characteristics of the product.
This will enable us to live up to EU's environmental policy.
I have a ready ear for commissioner Monti's views on the question of standardizing the reference base, the question of sanctions and the question of taking environmental questions into account when contracts are awarded.
Mr President, public procurement form a really important part of our financial activity.
The EU spends ECU 720 billion every year on the public procurement of goods and services, and these comprise a large portion of the fifteen-country gross domestic product, almost 12 percent.
But I would like to draw your attention to the ecological and social criteria which inevitably have to be given consideration when undertaking public procurement.
I'd like to mention, for example, that many local authorities have begun to implement the long-term development strategy, Agenda 21, and they really strive to implement ecological criteria in their own areas of activity.
They may also have importance for the solution to environmental problems at Union level.
I think it is just as Mrs RiisJørgensen said: we must ensure that the regulations pertaining to public procurement on the part of the Union enable us to defer to the demands of the environment.
Likewise, the social criteria are terribly important.
At the same time as achieving savings and efficiency, we must create criteria for what constitutes a good deal for human beings.
One day, in a Swedish newspaper there was an article on something that came to light only just recently: a Danish home care firm, which worked in Swedish old people's homes, had not actually bothered to look after the old people in its care.
Who are we to blame? We must be able to ensure that public services also fulfil the quality criteria that people want.
It isn't enough that we settle for just efficiency.
I am very happy that Mr Tappin, the rapporteur of the report, was glad to hear these views, although, unfortunately, most of our proposals were overturned on the Committee on Budgets.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to thank Mr Tappin for his excellent report, which raises the problems to do with the Commission's Green Paper on public procurement.
The report is especially important because, as has just been said, public procurement accounts for ECU 720 billion of EU gross domestic product.
Public procurement is paid for publicly, that is, the market is responsible to the consumer.
That is what Mr Tappin says.
Effective public procurement is said to enhance opportunities for industry and business to exploit the common markets and to improve competition for European businesses in world markets.
The Commission has, however, had to admit that the Union's own public procurement has not worked out as effectively as anticipated.
The main reason for this situation is the Commission's lumpy administration together with the fact that the Member States did not adopt directives on public procurement comprehensively enough to implement their contents into the law of the land.
Public procurement has proved beyond the reach of small and medium-sized businesses.
These, however, must now be on the receiving end, as this sector is seen as one of the most important ways of easing unemployment.
I fully agree with Mr Tappin's proposal appealing for the education and training of staff employed in such companies.
Delays in payment to procurement units only help to hinder access to markets on the part of these companies.
We here in Parliament must be able to do something about these problems.
The main weakness in the operational policy on public procurement by the Commission is that public procurement is seen just as tools for establishing internal markets.
These are viewed almost exclusively from the private business angle.
The Commission's document contains no assessment either of how a policy of competitiveness can promote the availability, quality and cost-effectiveness of public services.
However, public procurement is actually just part of the administration and service of the public authority.
The Commission is also examining the proper procurement process and the problems that go along with it, from the viewpoint of the producer exclusively, and not the private sector.
The customers, that is to say the public sector or public authorities, have not had their needs taken into account.
Competing for public procurement is also absurd from the point of view of staff.
The public procurement process should be improved so that the working conditions and job security of those employed in the procurement service can be taken into account in connection with competitive activity.
There should be an increase in public procurement when there is mass unemployment.
It is then that market forces and the labour market should be taken into account; and employment, social, and environmental policy must be included in this process.
Mr President, both tenderers and those who issue invitations to tender for public works have their problems.
A Dutch organization in the construction business recently described European tendering as nonsense and extremely expensive.
The main complaint of anyone who has anything to do with the directives is their lack of clarity.
On just those points where it is important to be clear the text leaves you in the lurch.
Take a region with serious unemployment that has to put a project out to tender.
Can the region require tenderers to take on a number of local or regional unemployed people to carry out the work? Nobody knows.
Can a government inviting tenders impose stricter requirements, environmental for example, on tenderers from its own country than on foreign tenderers because it can, as a government, impose those requirements? Expensive tenders which can cost thousands are thrown out because one little copy is missing and sometimes small and medium-sized businesses miss the boat whereas at one time they could easily have walked off with the orders.
The bureaucratic procedures are such that they have no chance.
So there are many questions that the European Commission needs to answer.
Up to now, for instance, some countries have complied with the directives and others have ignored them. It should be self-evident that they are to be treated in the same way, in this area too.
What is the Commissioner going to do about it?
For the building sector the directives are proving disastrous.
The Aitkins report warned that unrestricted competition for the building sector does not mean lower prices or higher quality.
Quite the reverse.
Margins are under pressure, firms are taking work on for an irresponsibly low price and the consumer gets bad work but unfortunately he often does not find that out until ten years later.
In my opinion, and that is not the opinion of the rapporteur, this report was certainly the place to draw attention to sectorspecific matters.
It is said, Commissioner, that there is going to be no White Paper.
So when are the sectors to be discussed? And can the Commissioner say who he is going to consult with on the sectors at a later stage?
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Tappin for his report and I would like to concentrate on the building sector with regard to major works.
Clearly, the main objectives, as stated and repeated, relate to transparency, achieving a situation of non-discrimination not only between countries but also with regard to company size.
Surely, as the previous speaker said, there is also the objective of legal clarity and simplification of procedure.
I think that, above all, there is a need for public authorities to be sure that the works will be completed by fixed deadlines and for agreed amounts.
My question is this, Mr Commissioner: does the Commission not think that different forms of guarantees from the usual ones should be introduced for many countries, such as the performance bonds that have already been introduced in America and England?
There is a substantial difference that should be pointed out, which I will do for those who are not familiar with these things. Nowadays, guarantees are given above all in relation to the company's capital capacity, while the actual guarantees we are talking about relate to the company's technical and organizational capacity to complete a work by the agreed deadlines.
This gives public authorities the advantage not of having a late reimbursement for any loss and the work not finished, but of having the work and the use of it within the specified periods, and it gives companies the advantage of not exhausting the funds the banking system may grant them.
Mr President, this debate based on Mr Tappin's report, for which I offer my congratulations, hinges on one crucial point in relation to the single market: the opening up to competition of a substantial amount of supplies, works and services produced within the European Union, when they are the subject of contracts issued by the general government or by bodies managing services of general economic interest.
As recalled, we are talking about 11 % of the gross domestic product.
The rules on opening public contracts up to competition currently in force have so far had a limited impact on the market.
This situation gives us cause for concern, and it is precisely for this reason that we firmly propose to offer the relevant initiatives with your support, so that the single market will develop its potential to the full in this sector too - the objectives at stake are, in fact, really significant - so that the competiveness of suppliers is strengthened, the quality of supply is improved, prices fall, the services offered by the public sector are always better and, finally, the taxpayer's money is spent more cautiously, contributing, among other things, towards reducing public deficits.
It should not be forgotten that a rigorous observance of the rules of the game enables us to fight more effectively against corruption in the field of contracts.
For this purpose, the regulations drawn up on the subject should be incorporated into the national laws and correctly applied.
However, for the Community regulations to have the desired effects, it is not sufficient to concentrate on legal texts: we need to change practices and behaviours which in the past have situated the policy on contracts in a predominantly national context.
We therefore need a real desire to achieve the objective defined effectively in English as "best value for money' , encouraging suppliers to look beyond the national territory and take part in contracts tendered over the whole Union market.
With the Green Paper, we have tried to draw public attention to the sector on a large and profound scale, and we have thus opened a debate on the matter.
The position of the European Parliament is crucial for our analysis.
Your contribution, together with the 300 other contributions received from the various parties - Community Institutions, Member States, purchasers and suppliers - will enable the Commission to fix the objectives and guidelines for a new policy on public contracts in a communication which the Commission will present at the beginning of next year.
The draft report we have in front of us provides interesting ideas and proposals.
Today's debate and the debates held within the Commission on economic and monetary problems and the industrial policy have focused on the essential points of the question.
I would now like to point out, Mr President, some of the main points that are emerging.
I fully agree with the point made in the report that it is necessary to take measures for the current regulations to be incorporated into each Member State, thereby enabling all operators in the Union to take part in the contracts under the same conditions.
The Commission has drawn up each relevant measure for the Member States who have still not incorporated these regulations to do so as soon as possible.
I would like to recall that, within the scope of the action plan for the single market, to which the European Parliament has given its valued support, we fixed a deadline, 1 October, which was observed by most of the Member States, for them to present the schedule for the incorporation of the directives not yet incorporated, and, in this framework, those on contracts unfortunately constitute a significant part.
We should also ensure that the current regulations meet market requirements.
Owing to several problems, such as the possibility of using electronic procedures, specific amendments to the directives will be required.
Other possible adaptations, where the necessary requirements exist, could affect several special sectors for which a gradual liberalization process is taking place at European level.
The question of a partnership between public and private should also be raised, in the expressions specific to each Member State.
On other matters, such as recourse to negotiation procedures, the debate is still going on.
In other sectors, it may be sufficient to clarify the current regulations in interpreting documents or vademecum .
There is one requirement, which we would like to point out and which seems to me has been pointed out by several parties: a requirement for stability in the framework of regulations.
I would like to add that this is an extremely important message for those markets which in recent years have tried to adapt to the rules on contracts.
Although it is true that the current regulations will have to be adapted on certain points and clarified, ensuring a correct and uniform application in all Member States, it is also true that a series of accompanying measures will have to be taken, enabling the maximum benefits to be obtained from the regulations.
One important accompanying sector relates to training and information, and also the preparation of different markets for the use of electronic trading.
The report emphasizes the important role that may be played by small and medium-sized businesses in the liberalization of the contracts sector.
I fully share this point of view and I am convinced that greater accessibility of information on tenders and regulations, even by electronic means, would be a significant step forward towards the actual integration of small and medium-sized businesses into the sector.
I will be very brief on specific questions that have already been raised, Mr President.
With regard to telecommunications, the same directive on special sectors establishes the conditions for the exclusion of telecommunications from its sphere of application.
The Court of Justice has laid down these conditions, however, affirming that the possible exclusion of telecommunications from the directive on special sectors may actually take place when that sector operates under competitive market conditions.
The Commission will certainly examine the actual market situation in the sense specified by the Court of Justice.
With regard to the important question of environmental policy and contracts, the aim of a genuine policy on contracts is to choose the best product under the most favourable conditions offered on the market.
Contracts do not constitute the appropriate context for pursuing different policies.
However, this does not mean that aspects of environmental policy cannot and should not be taken into consideration.
There are specific possibilities for protecting the environment in the current regulations, such as a definition of the technical or qualitative characteristics of a product, but I could give other examples as well.
With regard to standardization, this is taking place field by field; with regard to the possible introduction of new forms of guarantee, such as the performance bond, I think this is a good idea and we would have to ensure that it is not detrimental to the conditions of the small and medium-sized businesses; however, with a study of experiences, including America, I think that progress could be made in this field.
Finally, I would like to point out that, by engaging in the enforcement and application of Community law, which we have made increasingly clearer, attention focuses on the contracts sector; some of those who recalled the number of proceedings for infringements we have brought and, with regard to the future single market, that relating to the countries of central and eastern Europe, I can assure you that, in the preparations we are making with these countries, we are giving top priority to the problem of contracts.
I will conclude by thanking Mr Tappin once again and the rapporteurs of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, Mr Thors, and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Mr Hughes, for their contributions.
The contributions made will no doubt be absolutely crucial to the follow-up shortly to be given by the Commission with its communication.
The very precise response Commissioner Monti has made to many of the comments from honourable Members required a commensurate amount of time.
And this is much longer than the average length of time we usually programme for Commission speeches.
In this particular case I will not object because I think it facilitated the fullest debate.
Perhaps, however, we should bear this in mind so that we can plan our work better.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Financial intermediation services (FISIM)
The next item is the report (Á4-0282/97) by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the allocation of the financial intermediation services indirectly measured (FISIM) within the European system of national and regional accounts (COM(97)0050 - C4-0138/97-97/0037(CNS).
Mr President, the regulation proposal that we are called upon to consider today has its roots in the need for the harmonization of the operations of the statistical services of the Member States, the key word here being harmonization.
This need stems from the fact that there is no unified statistical service for the European Union, though one may hope that there will be in the future.
The Statistical Office of the European Communities bases its operation on the information gathering mechanisms of the statistical services of the Member States.
However, in order to achieve the necessary uniformity in the methods of information gathering and presentation, the office resorts to the issuing of regulations by the legislative bodies of the European Union even concerning matters which a unified, organized statistical service would resolve through established internal procedures.
It is evident that the widespread view has been held in the office that in that way differences of opinion and disagreements among experts on account of the different national services can be avoided, and that these disagreements could cause interminable delays in the fulfilling of the office's obligations to the European Union.
From the practical aspect, however, while this solution may be attractive, it has the disadvantage in that it subjects technical matters to the judgement of political legislative bodies who are not equipped for discussions of that nature.
Furthermore, it could be claimed that legislative intervention in statistical matters, though there may be no harmful intention, as of course there is not in the present case, violates the principle of the scientific independence of statisticians, which is imperative to ensure the impartiality of their work.
Of course there is no such problem in the matter that concerns us here: besides, our intervention is at the request of the office. But the matter of principle remains and will remain until we have a unified statistical service, which is of course preferable to legislative regulation of technical details.
And, Mr President, I think that this debate gives us the opportunity to put this important subject of the creation of a unified statistical service for the European Union on the agenda.
Now, as regards this particular arrangement, which the regulation under consideration is hoping to achieve, this refers to assessing the value of products of the financial sector.
The financial sector provides intangible services, some of which are paid for by specially invoiced procurement, while for others the cost is included in the interest on loans or deposits.
For those services that are provided by specific procurement and for which an invoice is issued there is no statistical problem.
The value of these services is clear, it is assessed and added to other data concerning sales of financial sector products.
The problem arises, and indeed exists, for those services whose cost is included in the interest that is paid and does not appear separately in the accounts of the transactions of the companies in this sector.
In the past the statistical service used the following method: it considered that those payments which were concealed within different interest rates were payments for intermediate products and, as is well known to experts on national income statistics, intermediate products are not added to the final products.
In consequence, a part of the services offered by the financial sector was not assessed and was not added to the total national product.
A not insignificant part evaded statistical records.
The method that is now being proposed by the statistical service to address the problem is to debit the difference of the bank rate of interest from the interest paid by the end user and to regard this as representing the cost of services that are not charged to end users by means of specific invoices, just as, for example, when someone borrows money to build a house and pays a somewhat higher rate of interest than the bank rate.
Technically, this is of course an approximate solution. It is not a scientifically accurate solution, but, as an approximate solution, I consider it to be satisfactory, and I propose that we accept it.
Of course there are certain problems concerning the time it will take for the statistical services of the Member States to readjust to this new method, which the Statistical Office of the European Union is putting forward to them, and for that reason I have introduced two changes whose sole purpose is to ease the introduction of the new methods in the Member States.
Mr President, with this qualification I believe the proposal from the Statistical Office is useful and we must accept it.
I must emphasize, however, that it is not our business here to resolve the issues of the Statistical Service, and that the ideal solution is for us to have an independent statistical service for the whole of the European Union, which would be a very good starting point for political cohesion on a relatively simple matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Katiforis for this report.
I would immediately like to state that this is not the place to have a long discussion on the nature and accuracy of statistics.
We know that each country has its own method of calculating certain things and if we want to make comparisons and take decisions on the basis of these comparisons then it is necessary for things to be comparable.
I cannot agree with Mr Katiforis when he raises questions or doubts concerning the way in which the statisticians have made this proposal.
I believe that, if we are going to be absolutely rigorous, no calculation is fair.
We all know that the way in which Member States draw up their statistics is to be treated with caution from the moment you really get into details.
We therefore have to be satisfied with the best statistics available.
For the purpose of our objectives, this is often enough.
The important thing is that there are no distortions from one country to another.
This is why the proposal which has just been made is going in the right direction when it puts the whole world on the same footing by imposing a single method.
Even if this method is not the best, the important thing is that it applies to everyone equally.
In this case, I believe we can use different statistics.
This is why, Mr President, our group supports the Commission's proposal.
We were a little shocked by the rapporteur's proposal to request a four year period.
This seems a lot to me.
I have spoken to a few people in my country and I was told that such a long time would probably not be necessary.
I do not know the situation in other countries but I would hope the Commission would tell us what it thinks.
It perhaps has information that we do not.
It is highly likely that Mr Katiforis, in making this proposal, was inspired by a particular country that he knows well.
Nor must we ignore the interest in having these documents as soon as possible.
Therefore, I believe that a delay of four years is an absolute maximum.
I would have preferred - but everything will depend on what the Commission says regarding this - to see if, along with Mr Katiforis, we could not agree on three years, or something nearer to this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to speak very briefly to express my group's support for this proposal. I think it is an interesting example of European economic, financial and monetary progress in different areas.
I think there is a need to move further towards both a European approach to statistics, and improved accuracy. This is demonstrated by the comments of both the rapporteur, Mr Katiforis, and our colleague Mr Herman: first we need a truly European statistical service, not just a coordination service; and secondly, it would be useful to pinpoint more accurately what the criteria are in some sectors of the European economy which are becoming more important, such as the service sectors, especially the financial sectors.
As for our rapporteur's proposal about the timing, our group accepted it in committee, but I think we can reach a consensual agreement on that timing which will really guarantee that the statistical services of all the Member States can offer reliable information for the purposes of this report.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Fight against fraud
The next item is the report (Á4-0287/97) by Mr Herbert Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission's 1996 Annual Report (COM(97)0200- C4-0230/97) and its Work Programme for 1997/98 on the protection of financial interests and the fight against fraud (COM(97)0199- C4-0231/97).
Mr Bösch, I have allowed you to go rather beyond your time because when a rapporteur has put in serious work on a subject, I think he should have the opportunity to express his ideas.
Mr President, I think that this subject of combatting fraud and the inspections we are making this year as well with Mr Bösch's excellent report provide a litmus paper for measuring the EU's capacity to develop in a dual sense: one of greater efficiency and one of maintaining fundamental democratic characteristics.
This seems to be the point to me; the reflections we have made over all these years, and in particular in recent years and months, attempt to identify one of the means of ensuring this efficiency in a framework of essentially Parliamentary control and jurisdictional control in more advanced means of cooperation, certainly among the administrative and investigative bodies, but also among the legal bodies.
Saying this, I think that, even on the basis of this work plan this year, we should recall the efforts made by the study called corpus juris , which identifies the need to achieve a unification of the rules on substantial criminal law and procedural law in combatting fraud to enable the means we have as a democracy, that is, Parliament and the Court of Justice, to participate in their supervisory function in an action that can only become more effective by unification.
And, I repeat, this is why we recall perfectly that the stake is not just one of meeting the citizens' need for security and the requirements of our finances, but also one of building an efficient democratic structure to combat crime more generally.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Herbert Bösch has addressed the matter both in his report and in his comments.
There is basic dissatisfaction within the Committee on Budgetary Control, not only with regard to the control of fraud in general and in the Member States, but also in terms of our dealings with the Commission and our debate on how this problem can be tackled through dialogue with Parliament.
There are many examples of this, and I cannot address them all today.
Time is too short and these matters can be dealt with on another occasion.
Let me just cite one example: As a result of their discontent, the Committee on Budgetary Control decided some weeks ago to send a letter to Commission President Santer asking for talks on the matter.
No response has yet been received, a fact which does little to reinforce our trust in collaboration with the Commission.
This is in keeping with the views of Mr Bösch, namely that while it says a lot of things, the Commission is not too happy to talk about measures which it is proposing to implement when this might also implicate it in fraud and corruption.
This subject is admittedly not part of our remit, but I mention it just the same.
In its communication on corruption control, the Commission covered a wide range of issues, but failed to mention corruption within its own organisation.
That is a serious omission, and we recognise it as such.
It is not just an accidental oversight, it is an increasingly obvious one.
Why is the Commission dragging its heels in an area in which it holds all the cards and where it can set the pace, call the tune? The question is neither theoretical nor rhetorical.
More and more of us are wondering just why the Commission is failing to sort out its own affairs. This is an opportunity to set an example not only to Member States but also to the often criticized executive controls and the rightly criticized system of audit implementation in the Member States.
How much more credible it would be if the two bodies we represent could set a good example here.
Let me cite another instance.
In your work programme you repeatedly state that you will sending us a communication on fraud in the tariff preference systems.
Madam Commissioner, this is all very convincing I am sure, but this particular topic has now featured three or four times in the work programme.
It keeps cropping up.
We know that there is a serious problem in this area, and this is something which is within the competence of the Commission.
The latter has promised to submit a communication to the Council and to Parliament, as this is such a pressing matter.
But we know the matter is pressing - you told us it was years ago!
Mr Bösch is preparing a hearing on the subject and your communication would have been very useful as a reference document.
I now believe that this hearing too has been postponed for a year.
We are still waiting for you!
We initially did it with patience and civility.
While we retain our civility, our patience is now at an end!
Mr President, let me begin by complimenting Mr Bösch on his report.
I think that if there is one area in which we can never do enough it is in combatting fraud and I see the European Parliament as having a special role here.
The fact is that no single national parliament can monitor the European Commission or any other European body under whose supervision or responsibility fraud can occur.
In this whole situation I see UCLAF's role as essential.
What is our view of UCLAF's role? My group does not believe that we should set up a separate new body in the European Union.
It is not necessary; what is necessary is that UCLAF should be assigned a highly independent role in the Commission itself.
An independent position which perhaps is only responsible to the President of the Commission and which can act completely independently of any Directorate-General even in the Commission itself.
From this point of view democratic control is essential and I therefore think that from time to time a special debate should be held on UCLAF's activities in general.
If we talk about combatting fraud and we see what is wrong in this respect, then it is essential that there should be penalties.
I think that the remarks by the Commission, the committee of enquiry, on this point are well worth considering and I also think that the Commission will abide by them, at least that is my impression.
It is also important that the Commission, and again that is from the committee of enquiry, makes much more use of the right relating to the 10 % to be paid to the Member States to exercise control, particularly at the external borders. If that does not happen, the 10 % can easily be called into question.
That is something that to which in my view the Commission should give a little more consideration.
Mr President, a lot has already been said.
I therefore intend to concentrate only on what relates to internal corruption.
There have been a number of cases which have shown that both corruption and fraud obviously exist in, amongst other places, the European Commission, which is serious.
In spite of that, these issues are not taken up in the Commission's work programme, which must be seen as a very big mistake.
Or is it the case that people want to keep the stories hidden?
In view of this, I had intended to present a number of amendments, but, unfortunately, I missed the deadline for that and will therefore propose a small, simple oral amendment.
I would like to add some words to paragraph 11, namely through increased openness and insight .
Paragraph 11 would then read: ' Believes that internal fraud and corruption in EU institutions can only adequately addressed through increased openness and insight and by an independent European judicial authority...'
I believe, you see, that openness and insight would be able to counteract the risk of irregularities.
It cannot eliminate the risk, but it is a step in the right direction.
I would like to know Commissioner Gradin's opinion of such an amendment.
Finally, I would like to thank Mrs Wemheuer for her Amendment No 1 which we in the Green Group are going to support.
I would, of course, also like to thank Mr Bösch for the report.
Mr President, I agree with what has been said about the problems we are experiencing at the moment with the organization of committees and plenary sessions. We have just this minute arrived from a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control, which is supposed to be dealing with this matter.
Now that we have interpreters - good interpreters - I should like to take this opportunity to see whether Mr Bösch and I can finally agree about the content of the two amendments I am tabling.
On one hand, Mr Bösch, my first amendment would make the Committee on Budgetary Control responsible for presenting a report on the independence, role and status of UCLAF, and also a report on the legal procedures likely to protect Community finances. There does not appear to be any problem with this.
There was a problem with the positioning of the amendment, but I think it should come between paragraphs 12 and 13.
As for the second amendment, I add, in the third line of that thirteenth paragraph, that the document we are calling for from the European Commission should be in agreement with the guidelines formulated by the European Parliament. In other words, it should agree with the report which we will have already produced in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Additionally, in the last line of paragraph 13, I add the words "within the Community institutions' . That is: ' reviewing the chain of accountability in cases of alleged internal corruption and fraud within the Community institutions...'
In other words, we are not just talking here about cases of fraud which may have occurred in the Member States or in the Commission.
I am including all types of fraud which could occur in the European institutions.
This is because we have often found that a member of one of the institutions has been involved in a case of fraud, and has hindered us from finding out about it.
I think that fact should be reflected here.
As I still have 15 seconds left, Mr President, I should like to stress the importance of this piece of work by the Committee on Budgetary Control. With the help of Parliament's subsequent vote, we will have made great progress.
The only problem we have - I am just finishing - is that Europe as a juridical area continues to be divided, and this prevents us from completing the process.
While the Member States fail to realize that criminal organizations are international and that we therefore need to construct a single legal area, we will not make any real progress.
Mr President, the taxpayers' money must be managed efficiently and in a way which protects it from cheating and fraud.
That has always been this Commission's firm opinion. As Parliament proposed, we have decided to present the annual report and the new work programme in one context this time.
I believe it is good to be able to evaluate the measures already implemented at the same time as we make plans for future work.
Let me also state, Mr President, that for my part I have endeavoured to have good relations with the committee.
I have always attended inquiries and meetings of the committee.
I have provided Members of this House with a considerable amount of information material.
The Bösch report serves a good purpose.
The report points to the progress in recent years in the Commission's work to uncover and investigate cheating and fraud.
At the same time it makes the criticism that the resources which we now have for this work are far too limited.
The report then goes into various proposals for improvements.
It is a good way of working.
For my part I would be pleased to listen carefully to new, constructive proposals.
Let me first say a few words about the analysis itself.
It is certainly true that the increase in the number of cases of cheating and fraud uncovered was lower in 1996 than in previous years.
However, it must be admitted that the number is still at an unacceptably high level.
That is true both of the expenditure side and the income side. On the expenditure side the increased cheating with money from structural funds can be explained by the improved reporting system.
As far as agriculture is concerned, we hope that cheating will decline in line with the shifting of agricultural aid from price support to direct income support for farmers.
The year's report confirms that organised crime is behind a large proportion of the fraud with EU money.
That clearly shows that we must have the ability to fight cheating and fraud in a more systematic and co-ordinated way, both in the Member States and inside the Commission.
This brings me to the question of cooperation with the Member States.
The Commission cannot fight cheating and fraud effectively on its own.
We will never be able to do that.
It is the Member States who are entirely responsible for the income side of the EU budget.
They are also responsible for 80 % of the spending.
I am therefore very concerned that not one single Member State has yet ratified the Convention on the protection of EU financial interests.
The same applies to the two supplementary protocols on judicial cooperation and corruption.
I welcome the support which Parliament can give us to get these important instruments in place.
This year the Commission has taken several initiatives in the fight against fraud.
One of these concerns tightening up the system of trading preferences.
We have also proposed a special information system to be able to give earlier warning signals when certain players in the market demand increased attention.
In addition, UCLAF has substantially built up its intelligence contacts with corresponding institutions in the Member States.
Within the framework of the SEM2000 programme, we have improved cooperation in the question of taking care of and controlling Community finances.
As far as UCLAF is concerned, I can add that the unit has built up a more efficient and more flexible contact network with the specialised investigative bodies in the Member States.
But in order for its to be effective, the practical cooperation must be complemented by a legal framework.
This is needed to make it possible to present evidence before a court and to be able to prosecute and examine suspected cheats and frauds.
A number of these ideas are found in the corpus juris study which Parliament has had done.
I quite agree that these questions need to be considered further, both from a technical and a constitutional point of view, and not least against the background of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But, unfortunately, this treaty does not satisfy the needs.
I would also like to take the opportunity to say something about UCLAF's role and functions. First something about UCLAF having an independent position: it is absolutely necessary for the Commission to have the type of investigative capacity which UCLAF represents in order to be able to investigate fraud and other financial irregularities.
We would be faced with difficult legal and constitutional problems if we were dependent on external institutions to investigate suspected fraud within the Commission.
I entirely share the view that UCLAF must be able to work independently.
The same applies to its work in following up investigations.
To further strengthen UCLAF's independence the Commission is considering converting it into a task force . I will inform Parliament as soon as the Commission has reached a decision on this matter.
Parliament has also discussed whether UCLAF should also be given formal responsibility for fraud investigations which concern other EU institutions.
That has already happened and UCLAF has been requested to help in some individual investigations.
I connection with that, I would also like at the same time to stress each institution's independence and its independent responsibility for its own finances.
That also entails the responsibility to fight fraud and corruption within its activities.
As far as suspected cases of irregularities within the Commission are concerned, we are obliged to follow the staff regulations and the protocol on special immunities.
We also have to respect the basic right of each employee to defend him or herself against such suspicions, but we have absolutely no intention of hiding anything which might have happened within the Commission.
It goes without saying that every decision of the Commission in a disciplinary case must be able to stand up to a judicial review at the Court in Luxembourg.
Of course, the Commission attaches great importance to these issues and to the need to follow up every single case properly and carefully.
The new provisions for on the spot controls give UCLAF the ability to start investigations on its own initiative.
This is a clear step forward, but we are still faced with several difficulties in the area of judicial cooperation, such as in questions of the hearing of evidence and of jurisdiction.
I hope that the Council will address these problems.
I would also like so say a few words about how the Commission's work on fighting fraud is organised.
It is important to listen to the criticism which is made.
Therefore in the Commission we have followed Parliament's proposal to set up a separate unit to deal with suspected fraud in the Phare, Tacis and Meda programmes as well as in other aid projects.
This is particularly important with the prospect of the enlargement of the Union.
Preparations for the accession of new Member States from central and eastern Europe means that a substantially increased amount of support has to be given.
More people have already been taken on for this purpose, but we must also be quite clear about the major problems we are facing in the recipient countries in this area.
The Commission has reacted positively to the ideas about judicial cooperation, legal interface .
The same goes for the proposal for a special investigative unit for fraud in customs cases.
Against the background of the Committee's Report on transit, the Commission took up these recommendations in the new work programme.
I share the view that UCLAF should also be given a role in these cases.
It is important that prosecutors and judges are given all the support necessary for an efficient judicial cooperation in Europe.
Because we do not have a common European customs union, there is a very great need for an effective exchange of information between the national customs bodies.
That is something on which my colleague, Commissioner Monti, and I both agree.
Otherwise we will come off badly in the fight against cheating and fraud in Europe.
However, this requires additional resources.
That can be done either through a redistribution of existing resources or through the institutions responsible for budget allowing funds for new services.
President Santer has been very clear on this point.
During a question time in Parliament on 15 April this year, he explained that UCLAF's work cannot be expanded simply through a redistribution of resources; a decision on new resources is needed.
The Commission welcomes the progress which was made in Amsterdam concerning the legal basis for the fight against fraud and cheating.
The new and improved article 209a (article 280 in the new treaty) makes it possible to have an efficient and equal fight against fraud in all the Member States.
A decision on this will be taken by qualified majority voting in the Council, and Parliament will be fully involved.
I think that is a clear improvement.
As soon as the new treaty has been ratified, the Commission can, of course, begin to use its right of initiative in this area too.
I'm sorry that the parallel sitting of the Committee on Budgetary Control unfortunately did not permit the presence of all the Members who might have been in the room for such a serious debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-0524/97).
There is no such proposal as the one referred to by the honourable Member of Parliament in the question concerned.
What is currently under consideration - and I underline, consideration - is the abolition of the so-called non-discrimination rule, which is embodied in some payment systems.
This rule prohibits merchants from imposing on customers a surcharge for using the means of payment offered by their particular payment system.
That means a surcharge on top of the sales price for the product or service supplied.
The issue under consideration concerns the compatibility of the non-discrimination rule with the EU competition rules.
If the Commission takes a position on the abolition of the non-discrimination rules as regards a particular national payment system, it would, of course, apply in all Member States where the system was in place.
As far as Sweden is concerned, Sweden has already abolished the non-discrimination rule in 1995.
The same is true for some other Member States.
I shall just ask a very short follow-up question.
I am pleased that this is only 'under consideration' since it is a question of very great importance for consumers in Europe.
I believe that they would take great offence if this proposal were carried out, at least as it has been reported in the Swedish press.
My follow-up question is: how far have these considerations progressed? Can we expect a proposal from the Commission some time during next year, or is it further into the future?
That was my simple question.
Again, there is not going to be a proposal in the classical sense of the term.
There might be, at the end of the procedure, a position taken by the Commission on the basis of competition rules eventually to abolish the non-discrimination rule.
It is under consideration for the time being.
We will discuss this with the national competition authorities concerned, drawing on the experience in some Member States.
As I said earlier, the non-discrimination rule has already been abolished in Sweden and earlier in Great Britain, and apparently the consumer organizations are very satisfied with that.
It has also been abolished in the Netherlands and two other Member States.
The competition authorities of the Member States concerned - Finland and Ireland - are also actively considering abolishing the non-discrimination rule.
The situation is a little more confused in some other Member States, and the remainder still maintain that rule.
It is a rather complicated picture if you look at the situation in different Member States.
We feel that this needs to be discussed and must lead to a conclusion by the Commission at the end of this process.
Then the Commission will eventually take a decision, not on the basis of a proposal, but just as the competition authorities and as we ourselves usually do.
As the author is not present, Question No 31 falls.
Question No 32 by Julio Añoveros Trias de Bes (H-0709/97)
Subject: Trade in beverages between Member States
Does Community law permit undertakings to purchase soft drinks in one Member State and sell them in another with their original labelling?
What is the position of the official distributor of the brand concerned in the Member State in which the imported beverages are sold? Does the fact that the labelling is in a different language constitute a potential health risk to consumer health in the Member State in which the beverages are sold, despite their recognized international market presence?
The labelling of food commodities and drinks is covered at Community level by Directive 79/112.
Article 14 of this directive states that information to be shown on the label should be in a language that will easily be understood by the consumer.
It is a matter of ensuring good information for consumers about all the characteristics of the commodity they are buying and thus avoiding any health risk.
This position was interpreted in a Commission communication in 1993.
This communication stated that the official language of a Member State is, in principle, the language which guarantees a good understanding of the label by the consumer in the country of sale.
Monitoring of the proper implementation of these provisions is the responsibility of Member States.
The monitoring authorities of Member States check that the labelling of foodstuffs on sale in their country is easily understandable to the consumer on a case-by-case basis.
It should also be noted that community regulations allow the use of several languages on the same label.
In conclusion, drinks bought in one Member State in order to be resold in another Member State cannot keep their original labelling unless the information given on it is understandable to the consumer of the Member State in which it is being sold.
Mr President, I am happy with the Commissioner's reply, and have no further questions.
Question No 33 by Hadar Cars (H-0734/97)
Subject: Risk of drugs from Switzerland reaching EU citizens
In a referendum on 28 September 1997 the Swiss people decided to continue and extend a scheme involving the free distribution of heroin to drug addicts. This legalization of drugs could present problems to EC countries if Switzerland acceded to the Schengen Agreement.
It would appear that there is a great risk of the spread of drugs from Switzerland to other parts of Europe, which would be aggravated if it were be to covered by the Schengen Agreement. What action is the Commission taking to prevent the entry into the EU of drugs from Switzerland?
In Switzerland a decision has been taken to continue the medically supervised distribution of heroin to a limited number of heavy abusers.
The project is aimed at limiting the damaging effects which drug abuse has in Swiss society.
It is aimed in particular at chronic addicts who are in poor physical and mental condition and who have not succeeded with other treatment programmes.
The Swiss Government has ruled that abusers who participate in the programme may only have access to the drugs under strict supervision.
An abuser may not under any circumstances leave the premises with the drugs.
The project is also part of a scientific research programme.
This project was developed for the particular situation in Switzerland.
We in the European Commission cannot judge whether the results are relevant for any other country.
It is my hope that projects like this do not lead to more drugs being smuggled into the illegal European market.
But the condition is, of course, that inspection and supervision are done properly.
The Commission and the Member States are deeply involved in the work against the abuse and smuggling of drugs.
This is a question of taking social responsibility for the citizens of the EU, to use all suitable means to fight drug smuggling. To have an effective tool against drug smuggling we need a Europol which is fully functional.
I would therefore like to urge all friends in this Parliament to work for the ratification of the Convention on Europol as soon as possible, and to remind the ministers in our respective countries that they have promised to ratify Europol during 1997.
According to the Schengen Agreement, only Member States of the EU can become members.
The exceptions for Norway and Iceland are the result of a special arrangement which takes into account the freedom of movement of people within the Nordic countries.
I would first like to thank Commissioner Gradin for her answer and to say that, as regards the ratification of Europol, it is no problem for me to work to get all countries to do so, all those which I can influence.
I would also like to say that the answer which the Commissioner has given is a different answer to what has appeared in the press concerning the result of the referendum in Switzerland and what it meant.
I am convinced that her answer is based on accurate facts.
In that case the risk that narcotics could be brought into the European Union by this route does not appear particularly serious.
But it would be important and valuable for the Commission to pay attention to where such risks could arise, so that measures could be taken at an early stage if there is any reason to believe that narcotics might more easily enter the European Union as a result of the type of issues which were raised in the referendum.
I actually had one second of my speaking time left when the President brought his gavel down.
I would be grateful if the President did not use the gavel before my time was up.
The reason why I am keen that we ratify Europol is that when that day comes there will be opportunities for cross-border police cooperation.
I also see a possibility then of having police cooperation with the Swiss authorities too with regard to narcotics trading.
I believe that could be valuable.
Mr President, Mrs Gradin, first let me thank you wholeheartedly for the support you have given to Europol.
My concern is the following: Switzerland is not only a threat from the point of view of drugs, but in another area too.
There exists, particularly in Germany, a smear campaign against the euro and many of the less-well-off, such as pensioners, are being sent letters from Switzerland advising them to invest their money in Switzerland to avert the threat of the euro.
At the same time they are being offered investment funds promising a 30 % rate of return - and that is simply an economic impossibility.
Switzerland is therefore building an investment pyramid in the same way as a number of former-Communist countries did some years ago.
Mrs Gradin, I ask that something is done urgently to warn people of this situation.
Question No 34 by Anita Pollack (H-0736/97)
Subject: Forest fires in Indonesia
Is the Commission undertaking any evaluation of the medium and long-term global effects of the environmental disaster which is occurring in south east Asia as a result of the forest fires and drought, and what, if any, action is being proposed?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission and the delegations from the Member States in Djakarta have set up a joint committee of European Union experts.
This committee is made up of specialists on forest fires from various programmes of the Commission and of the Member States in Indonesia.
The work of this team of experts is to give information and advice to the local government for as long as is necessary, to monitor and assess the situation on a daily basis, to assess contingency needs such as, for example, concerning equipment for putting out fires, and to improve the effectiveness of measures taken by the local government.
During this phase, the Commission is assessing the medium- and long-term impact of the catastrophic forest fires, both at a regional and a global level, which is being made worse by the El Niño phenomenon.
This forms part of the duties of this team of European Union experts.
The team responsible for the assessment of disasters and the coordination of the United Nations, which also recently arrived in Djakarta, will no doubt do the same.
The Commission is ready to help the government and local populations in whatever way help is requested, within the scope of its competence, of course.
Can I ask the Commission, in response to that heartening reply, if the committee will be taking on board the effects on the climate in Europe as well as locally.
This is perhaps one of the best examples we have of something exacerbating the climate change problem and being caused by the results of the climate change problem in the first place.
This makes it a unique possibility to try and find out exactly what is happening.
Is the Commission and its committee of experts also aware of the problems which are likely to beset our climate here in Europe in the following couple of years as a result of what is similar to a volcano being let off?
Question No 35 by Caroline Jackson (H-0717/97)
Subject: Cancellation of CMAF Funding
The European Commission announced to applicants in August this year that it had cancelled the Call for Proposals for Action in Favour of Cooperatives, Mutual Societies, Associations and Foundations (CMAFs, 96/C 246/15).
This decision was notified to the European Foundation for Osteoporosis by letter of 18 August 1997, although it had submitted an application to the Commission (DG XXIII) in December 1996 and had not been told of any prospective cancellation when it contacted the Commission in March and June 1997.
Can the Commission state why the CMAF action has been cancelled, and what has happened to the money?
That is a pretty confusing reply.
I wonder whether I could just ask the Commissioner to confirm that at the end of 1996 the programme we are talking about had not been adopted by the Council of Ministers but that it was nevertheless decided in the Commission to finance twelve projects under the programme which had not been adopted.
His reply was confusing on that point.
If the Council had not adopted the decision at the end of 1996, why was his office still writing to the European Foundation for Osteoporosis and advising them via DG XXIII in March 1997 that they would be hearing from the Commission in June 1997? If the programme had been cancelled why were you still encouraging applications?
Why do you say you should not financially compensate an organization which was encouraged to apply for a programme which had been cancelled? And what hope can you hold out to an organization such as this in the future when the board of the organization itself is likely to say; ' why bother to apply for something which is so badly handled?'
Mr President, I would like to respond to the honourable Member of Parliament that, in fact, the European Commission hoped that, before the end of 1996, the Council of Ministers would investigate the long term programme on behalf of the social economy, and immediately afterwards, during the following months, we continued to hope that it would be possible, within the first few months of 1997, to have the go-ahead, albeit somewhat belated, of the Council so that we could use the funds made available for the social economy, on a legal basis which was acceptable to the Council.
That, however, did not prove possible.
For that reason my office, addressing itself to the organization that you refer to, that is the Foundation for Osteoporosis, mentioned to you that within the coming months we would be informing you of exactly what the outcome would be.
The decision of the Commission to withdraw the long-term programme for the social economy was taken in July 1997 and the official announcement was made at the beginning of August 1997 and was officially publicized in all the official documents of the Community.
During the same period, however, we had to take a policy decision on the continuation of certain projects concerning the social economy.
For that reason, therefore, after the cancellation of the invitation of interest, the decision was taken to finance twelve projects.
And to avoid complaints from all who had declared their interest, twelve were chosen out of the 173 for which they had been invited to submit applications.
However, regarding the particular Foundation for Osteoporosis, the reason for the rejection of the request for finances for this programme was that the Foundation for Osteoporosis itself made a proposal, and filed an application with the European Commission with actions that had no connection with the social economy, but which had a connection with other sectors, with programmes concerning public health.
They had absolutely no connection with the social economy sector.
For those reasons their request was turned down.
In any event, if there are equivalent foundations which are actually active in the social economy sector and which fulfil the criteria referred to in the budget of the European Parliament in the corresponding section for the programme for the social economy, and especially in the comments of section B5-321, where mention is made of the conditions for the financing of those works, that is to say that they do in fact strengthen the working of the social economy, create jobs, contribute to the greater competitiveness of those foundations when they are active within the framework of the free economy, then, yes, financial backing could be granted.
In this case, however, and specifically concerning the Foundation for Osteoporosis to which you are referring, there was no such possibility since - and I repeat- the proposals had to do with public health and not social economy.
Rather than trying to shift the blame on to the Council, as we all love to do, would the Commission not agree that this is actually a piece of gross mismanagement? First of all, to publish a tender for something which has not received the approval of the Council strikes me as being extraordinary to say the least; and secondly, to encourage an organization which is clearly involved in the public health sector to apply for a tender which is about the social economy also seems to me to be perhaps well-meaning but nonetheless gross mismanagement.
Would the Commission accept that this is really not the way to attempt to support programmes which perhaps we might all wish to support, as it simply ends in grief?
Mr President, I would first of all like to make it clear that foundations which are active and submit proposals in the public health sector have the possibility of submitting the same proposals to corresponding programmes of the European Commission and the European Union which are directed at public health.
The social economy concerns associations, mutual aid foundations, foundations, unions, and associations which are active within the framework of the free market and the economy.
The programme of the social economy, as the European Parliament itself has repeatedly maintained, and as the European Parliament itself has committed the European Commission as regards the allocation of the funds of the budget of section B5-321, refers very specifically to those actions at which those funds could be directed.
The European Commission could not escape from this framework, however much it wanted to.
In this particular case it was unable to escape from that framework.
Now, as regards the long-term programme, this in fact was not approved by the Council, in spite of repeated and unstinting efforts that we made throughout the duration of the last presidencies and especially throughout the duration of the Dutch Presidency.
We had hopes, even up to the spring of 1997, that this programme could be approved.
In spite of everything it was not approved.
But the deadline for this programme had already passed.
May I remind you that the programme ran until the end of 1996.
We waited throughout the first few months of 1997 but there was no progress.
We will continue our efforts to present a new long-term programme for 1998 and the year 2000.
In the meantime, however, there have been budget allocations, which the European Parliament itself has registered - and I wish once again to thank Parliament for this policy initiative and the policy commitment which it undertook - so there were available funds that had to be allocated in accordance with the policy intention expressed by Parliament.
We followed up this exhortation of Parliament to finance some of those long-term programmes - twelve of them - which of course are not included among the long-term programmes as they are autonomous, and, on the other hand, we of course undertook to finance certain pilot schemes to prepare for the presentation of a new long-term programme concerning the social economy.
I repeat that, especially in the social economy sector, on account of the problems cropping up in the Council and the inability of the Council to get to grips with the adoption of a legal basis, the European Commission wishes to work closely with the European Parliament and not just that.
In the case in point we are faithfully following your orders.
As the author is not present, Question No 36 falls.
Question No 37 by Ivar Virgin (H-0724/97)
Subject: State domination of the electricity market
In its proposal for a new electricity law (96/97: 136) the Swedish Government is proposing the introduction of new arrangements with a view to giving the public sector Svenska Kraftnät the sole concession to lay new power lines for links to foreign countries and to introduce a notification system so that power generators may use the new lines.
Is this not a breach of Article 30 of the EC Treaty on the free movement of goods and discrimination between nationals of Member States pursuant to Article 37 on state monopolies of a commercial nature?
Mr President, the operation of the single electricity market within the European Union is regulated by means of Directive 96/92/EC of the 19th December 1996 regarding joint regulations for the single electricity market.
This particular directive came into force on the 19th February 1997.
Sweden has a period of two years in which to put into effect the legislative, regulative and administrative provisions necessary to comply with this directive.
The European Commission is working closely with all the Member States in order to ensure the timely and correct implementation of the directive.
This collaboration is taking place by means of two-day meetings with national administrations, for example with regulatory bodies among others, and by means of meetings lasting several days with all Member States.
The directive sets out the regulations relating to the organisation and operation of the electricity sector, access to the market, the criteria and implementation procedures when issuing invitations to tender, and the granting of permits, as well as the mechanisms for the exploitation of electricity systems.
However, the directive does not regulate issues relating to the ownership of the electricity network and it does not oblige Member States to open up the construction of new service connections to competition either within the Member States or between Member States.
Nevertheless, article 21 of the directive stipulates that the production of electricity and the utility companies supplying electricity, when Member States allow them to exist, may have their own buildings and may have subsidiary companies and customers linked by direct line.
The construction of direct service connections will be carried out on the basis of authorizations granted according to objective criteria which do not allow for any discrimination.
This authorization may be linked to a previous denial of access to already existing service connections, for example due to lack of power.
Through this provision, which is referred to in article 21, paragraph 4, they may avoid parallel service connections when there exists adequate power.
The Commission is monitoring this matter very closely, including of course the proposed system of communication, and in the course of the next two-day meeting that we will have with the Swedish authorities we will discuss the issue that you have raised and, if you wish, we will inform you in writing of the relevant results.
Thank you for your answer, Mr Commissioner, in particular the end, which I believe indicates that you have noticed that something is a bit fishy and needs to be looked at a bit closer.
I see a great risk if Svenska Kraftnät (the Swedish national grid company) is the licensing authority and at the same time shall run operations.
There is a great risk that they will exploit monopoly rights.
This is a genuine Community interest, particularly now that we are about to open up the energy markets in Europe.
I therefore presume that you will continue to have control over this, and I really hope that we can get a more comprehensive directive which also pays attention to this matter.
As things appear in Sweden in the area of the electricity market at the moment, things are going in quite the wrong direction.
Mr President, I would like to assure the honourable Member of Parliament that in fact we will continue our efforts to implement the directive in the correct manner, in close collaboration not only with the Swedish authorities but also with the governments of all the Member States.
I would also like to assure you that the European Commission will use all the time at its disposal for mediation in this debate, so that the implementation of this directive will permit full competition in the electricity sector and not the creation of monopolies.
As the author is not present, Question No 38 falls.
As the author is not present, Question No 39 falls.
Question No 40 by Roy Perry (H-0732/97)
Subject: Nuclear safety
Following the recent suspension of cleaning activities at the Cap de la Hague Reprocessing Plant by the French Government, is the Commission able to give a full assurance of the safety of current operations at the Cap de la Hague insofar as they might impact on inhabitants on both sides of the English Channel and the validity of French national checks on radioactivity and nuclear reprocessing plants.
Mr President, France and the United Kingdom have undertaken to comply with the ban on dumping radioactive substances in the sea as laid down in the 1992 convention on protection of the marine environment in the north-eastern Atlantic.
This prohibition concerns dumping of waste in the sea and not emission of low-radioactivity liquid waste from landbased plants.
Such emissions are subject to stringent approval requirements from the national authorities, however.
It is up to the individual Member State to ensure compliance with the basic standards for protection of the health of the population and of employees against the hazards associated with ionizing radiation.
Therefore, it is the competent national authorities who carry out regular inspection of the control arrangements set up for the purpose.
Moreover, in July 1996 the Commission inspected, in accordance with the provisions in article 35 of the Euratom-treaty, the environmental inspection installations set up on and around the La Hague plant.
A similar inspection visit took place in the Sellafield area in December 1993.
It was concluded that both Member States had taken adequate steps to monitor the level of radioactivity in the local environment.
The Commission is aware that allegations have been made in connection with cleaning of the pipeline for emitting waste from the Hague and that allegations were also made earlier of unacceptably heavy radioactive contamination of the local environment.
The French authorities have investigated the matter and have issued reports on the circumstances concerning cleaning of the pipeline.
It was concluded that, despite some irregularities, the work was done without risk to the environment.
The earlier allegations of emission of high-radioactivity materials resulted in temporary extension of the existing restrictions of public access to the area around the pipeline, whereas the French authorities had independent tests carried out on the level of radioactivity within the area.
The test report concludes that the radioactivity of the emitted materials lies within the limits set by the competent national authorities and that the radioactivity in the local environment for the most exposed individuals in the population resulted in doses well below the values laid down in the Community's basic safety standards.
And the more stringent standards should be noted which were adopted in 1996 and which the Member States are to implement as national law, but not before the end of May in the year 2000.The dose for the most exposed individuals in the population, that is to say those living near the plant, is very small, and the dose in the UK will be even lower, so there is even less reason for concern about the situation there.
The question of radio-activity in lobsters in the Irish Sea was addressed in the reply to written query no.
0443/97 from Mrs Pollack.
However, the Commission has received data for 1996 from the British authorities.
It is estimated that the highest annual dose for those who eat local fish and fish products has risen slightly, mainly as a result of increased consumption of lobsters; but it lies below 0.2 millisievert (mSv) as in 1995.
The dose from technetium 99 was 0.018 mSv in 1995 and 0.042 mSv in 1996.
Even if compliance with the basic safety standards is the responsibility of each individual Member State, the Commission will continue to keep itself well-informed on these topics.
I thank the Commissioner for that reply.
I am not one of those Members who is opposed to nuclear power per se but I accept that if there is to be nuclear power there is no room for a single mistake.
That is why there was concern on the south coast of England and on the Isle of Wight when the French Minister for the Environment not only ordered the suspension of sailing and swimming in the vicinity of Cap de la Hague but subsequent to the July check ordered a close-down in the cleaning process.
I would be very grateful if the Commissioner could perhaps give us further information on the checks she referred to that the Commission undertook in July, and whether there have been any subsequent checks by the Commission or by Euratom authorities subsequent to the French Government ordering a cessation of the cleaning process at Cap de la Hague.
I am sure the Commissioner will appreciate that people resident on the south coast of England, while they may not be facing a serious threat, need to be assured that the European Commission itself is looking into these problems.
I share Mr Perry's view completely, that it is incumbent upon us to keep a close check on the existing plants, and when suspicion arises that there is something wrong it is our duty, of course, to get it inspected as carefully as we can.
It was also for this reason that I referred to our test report, and I have just learned that we have continued to check the area.
We should not, therefore, exceed the permitted doses, as I said also in my first intervention.
In other words, we are continuing to keep an eye on developments.
As the author is not present, Question No 41 falls.
Question No 42 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0697/97)
Subject: Used bottle and can return system
Sweden has a long-established and efficient system for the return of used glass bottles and aluminium cans, of which over 95 % are now recycled, and for a number of years has also had an efficient system for the return of used plastic bottles.
Increasingly internationalized trade and the opening-up of the EU's internal frontiers have to some extent meant that there is a greater variety of products but have unfortunately also caused serious disruption to the Swedish bottle and can return system.
Imported cans are unsuitable, as the original deposit was not paid in Sweden, etc.
The system operated by Systembolaget has virtually collapsed owing to the various types of foreign bottles.
This state of affairs is unacceptable from an environmental point of view.
Are there any plans to standardize bottles and cans? Can a Member State, on environmental grounds, require all imported bottles and cans to be adapted for its return system?
Thank you for your answer, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
I think the system we have in Sweden works well.
It is working well even after 20-30 per cent of the bottles are no longer recycled as before.
Of course, you don't see that in the recycling process itself.
There you only see the bottles it is possible to recycle.
All the other bottles are lying in garages, in refrigerators or at home in pantries and are not seen, but they are seen on the rubbish tips around Sweden.
We certainly see that, but perhaps you don't see that in offices when you are looking for information.
So I want to ask whether this is such an important issue that, for environmental reasons, with reference to the environmental guarantee, a Member State would be able to demand that imported bottles, cans and the like are adapted to the country's own system? In other words, should a country, in order to keep its own system, be able to point to the environmental guarantee, which according to the Commission and the Council of Ministers has been strengthened in the Amsterdam Treaty?
First of all, I would like to say thank you for the confirmation that the Swedish system is working extremely well.
I had some doubts when I saw the formulation of the question, so it was nice to learn that it is working.
Regarding the possibility of preserving existing systems, and implementing the environmental guarantee, this is a choice made by the individual Member State, and it is not possible for me to take any decision here today as to how right or wrong it would be for Sweden to do something like this or say something about the outcome.
As I mentioned in the reply to the question, the situation will be that we evaluate the different schemes that exist, quite individually, and nothing of a general nature can be said about these schemes.
It is also connected with the fact that quite a lot of different schemes exist in the Member States.
As the author is not present, Question No 43 falls.
Question No 44 by Mihail Papayannakis (H-0713/97)
Subject: Violation of directive on drinking water
According to public health inspectors, recent tests in Greece revealed that half the water supply networks were unsuitable and that some samples of bottled water contained concentrations of bromine ions over ten times more than the 10 mg/l limit laid down by Directives 80/777 and 80/778/EEC .
Will the Commission say to what extent Member States have complied with the above directives, and whether Greece in particular has failed completely and correctly to transpose the directives regarding drinking water into national law?
What sanctions will be imposed for a failure properly to implement the above directives where detected, and in particular a failure to respect the maximum permissible concentration for bromine ions and a violation of Article 12 of Directive 80/778/EEC which provides that 'Member States shall take all necessary steps to ensure regular monitoring of the quality of water intended for human consumption'?
Mr President, the Commission understands the two honourable Members' concern about this question regarding something as vitally important as the quality of drinking water.
Natural mineral water and spring water are covered by Directive 80/777, the directive on natural mineral water that was amended by Directive 96/70.
All other types of water, whether bottled or not, are covered by Directive 80/778.
This is what we call the "drinking water directive' .
None of these directives contains provisions on bromate.
The reason for this is that bromate is normally not expected to be present in raw water, as it is a by-product of disinfection.
Bromate is to be found particularly in ozone-treated water.
The present drinking water directive is based upon the knowledge that existed in the 1970's, and at that time there was no reason to suppose that bromate might be present in drinking water.
In the light of WHO guidelines for drinking water and in the light of present knowledge of bromate's carcinogenic effects, the Commission has included bromate in its proposal for revision of the drinking water-directive with a proposed standard of 10 milligrams per litre.
So far as I can remember, the WHO guideline is 25.
As far as natural mineral water is concerned, disinfection is prohibited under the directive on natural mineral water, and I refer here to article 4.
It should thus not be possible for bromate to be found in natural mineral water.
The Commission has not been officially informed that certain types of bottled mineral water in Greece should, according to the press, contain bromate in amounts several times the recommended standard for drinking water.
During the next few days, the Commission will send a letter to the Greek authorities to find out whether it is a matter of contravening EU legislation and whether further steps should be taken in a given case.
As part of the information on 13 water directives on which the Commission will publish a report next year, an evaluation is at the moment being made of the information on drinking water-quality in Greece and other Member States.
Madam Commissioner, I did not understand all the technical details you mentioned but I imagine your services will know more about them than we do.
Nevertheless, the question concerned two issues:
Firstly, as regards Bromine ions, we have reports and information on at least eight makes of bottled water which exceed the well known 10mg/kg.
In this regard, I would like you to tell me what precautions the Commission can take and what more it can do, since it appears that you have not been fully informed about what Greece is doing to protect the quality of the drinking water it provides for consumers, which is provided for in Directive 80/778/ EEC.
Secondly, we have in the past asked your General Directorate many questions, and myself personally, about the quality of our water supplies: there is lead and asbestos in urban supplies. I also requested to know what measures the Commission was going to take.
Perhaps you could bring me up to date on that score.
As I mentioned in my first reply, the situation is that the Commission has not been officially informed about this problem, which clearly appeared in the Greek media.
But on the basis of the question posed by you, Mt. Papayannakis, we will contact the Greek authorities to ask them to investigate the matter.
This is normally the procedure we use in cases of this kind.
If the Greek authorities find substances in mineral water which should not be there, then we will assume first and foremost that the Greek authorities will themselves rectify the undesirable situation that has arisen; otherwise, you know as well as I do that a procedure will then be started which in the extreme case can end in a court of law.
I also mentioned to you at the end of my first reply that we are in fact in the process of investigating drinking water-quality and, taking it all together, our water directives and implementation of them in the Member States.
We expect to be able to publish a report by next year, and then we will be able to see, of course, how things are in the Member States.
Question No 45 by Bárbara Dührkop Dührkop (H-0727/97)
Subject: Amendment to Spanish hunting law
On 26 September 1997 the Spanish Parliament adopted an amendment to Law 4/1989 on the conservation of rural areas and wildlife.
This amendment enables birds to be shot 'in the places in which they are traditionally found, in limited numbers, under strict supervision by the authorities and within specific limits in order to ensure that species are preserved' and during their spring or pre-mating migratory period, i.e. when they migrate from the Iberian Peninsula to central and northern Europe in order to nest.
The European Court of Justice has previously condemned Italy, France and Germany for allowing the hunting of wildlife species during their migratory period.
Is the Commission aware of this change to Spanish law?
Does it not contravene article 7(4) of the Directive on birds, which stipulates that migratory species may not be hunted during the period in which they return to their nesting place?
Mr President, the Commission knows of a proposal to amend the Spanish Law No 4/1989 concerning preservation of natural species and also wild animals and plants, which would probably permit the hunting of birds on their migration back to their breeding grounds.
The Commission has already informed the Spanish authorities that the adoption of such a measure would contravene the provisions in article 7, paragraph 4, of Council Directive 79/409 from April 1979 concerning protection of wild birds.
We have warned the Spanish authorities that this measure would clearly result in infringement of the above-mentioned directive.
The Spanish authorities replied on 1 August 1997, explaining that the purpose of the proposed amendment of Law No 4/1989 was to adapt it to a decision of the Spanish Constitutional Court, according to which Spain was bound to take account of the distribution of powers between the Spanish central government and the individual autonomous regions.
According to the information available to the Commission, there was great risk that the amendment of Law No 4/1989 would come to include permission to hunt birds during their annual passage back to their breeding grounds.
The honourable member now confirms that the Spanish Parliament has already approved the amendment of Law No 4/1989 concerned, including this unlawful permission.
If this amendment comes into force, the Commission will take all necessary precautions, including the procedure in article 169, to ensure full compliance with the directive.
Madam Commissioner, I think that answer might surprise the Spanish Environment Minister, because she herself said in the Spanish Parliament that it was the European Commission which had demanded this amendment to the Spanish law, in order to regulate the exception to the prohibition on hunting birds during their breeding period.
Perhaps the Commissioner could tell us what she thinks about the Spanish Minister having justified the action in this way.
Secondly, what is the Commission's view of another change to the same law, which makes it no longer compulsory to have passed a test in order to obtain a hunting licence?
I understand that the questioner was remarkably satisfied with the reply that I gave, in which I stated that we do not, of course, accept breach of the adopted legislation.
With regard to the regulations for hunting, I must say that this lies outside my competence.
I do not know what Community legislation applies in this area, so the question must certainly be put to someone else.
Madam Commissioner, I should like to point out that all this change involves is the incorporation into Spanish Law No 4/1989 of an exception under precise conditions, as provided for in European Directive 79/409. In fact, the changes are even more restrictive than the directive itself.
The European directive provides for these exceptions to apply to all types of birds, whereas this case is limited to certain game birds and unlisted species.
Furthermore, it is limited to small numbers.
The Court of Justice itself has not interpreted this expression in absolute terms, but rather as being of a relative nature. Monitoring would be carried out by the governments of Spain's autonomous communities, which are the competent authorities for regulating and checking such exceptions.
Therefore, given these circumstances, I should like to ask the Commissioner specifically if she appreciates that this change to the Spanish law is therefore actually more restrictive than the European directive as regards exceptions, and whether she agrees that if these small numbers are regulated, and if the monitoring is correctly controlled, then the European Commission should have no reason to place any impediment in the way of this Spanish law being passed.
I can hear that we are now about to get into a Spanish domestic argument.
I do not intend to enter into this argument; I will rest content with referring to the reply which I gave earlier to the question from Mrs Dührkop.
I said that we had already pointed out, in a provisional communication with the Spanish authorities, that we did not think that the amendment was in accord with the directive.
According to the information available to the Commission, there was great risk of the amendment to the above-mentioned law including permission to hunt birds during their annual migration to their breeding grounds.
It will be necessary for us to investigate this, of course, since if this happens, it will contravene the adopted directive on birds, and Spain must, of course - like other Member States - conform to the adopted legislation.
It will therefore be necessary for us to contact the Spanish authorities again in order to get this question settled.
Question No 46 by Heidi Hautala (H-0744/97)
Subject: Natura 2000 and military zones
The EU Member States have drawn up their proposals for Natura 2000 sites on the basis of the directives on birds and wildlife.
However, some Member States have opted not to propose certain areas as Natura 2000 sites because they lie within military zones.
Could the Commission clarify the Community legislation and indicate what provisions apply to Natura 2000 areas if they lie wholly or partially within military zones?
Mr President, Natura 2000 consists of two parts: specially protected areas designated in accordance with Directive 79/409 on protection of wild birds - the directive, incidentally, about which we just spoke under the preceding question - but also special conservation areas in accordance with Directive 92/43 on preservation of natural species and also wild animals and plants.
The community has adopted a list of such areas on the basis of lists drawn up by the individual Member States.
For specially protected areas, the EC Court has confirmed that the designation must take only ornithological criteria into consideration.
For special conservation areas in accordance with Directive 92/43, the directive contains scientific criteria which are to be used in drawing up the lists of the Member States and of the Community.
The Commission takes the view, in principle, that neither of the two directives enables military areas to be excluded from the Natura 2000programme if the areas fulfil the above-mentioned criteria.
Mr President, thank you for that reply, and I would like to ask something else connected with the definition of the Natura 2000 area in Finland.
Something has astonished me.
The Deputy Mayor of Helsinki has said publicly that he was assured by the Commission that the city of Helsinki could have built a gigantic harbour, although, as you well know and as you yourselves have publicly stated, the importance of bird-life in this area is very clearly grounded on the directive on birdlife.
Is it possible that the Deputy Mayor of Helsinki is telling the truth, or what is actually going on here? He says the Commission assured him this harbour could be constructed.
I may say that both Natura 2000 and the directive on birds can lead us to many places.
The question which I have to answer here today concerns military areas, and the supplementary question put to me concerns the port in Helsinki.
I cannot answer this, of course, without having studied the matter beforehand.
If it was found that we had a certain number of restricted areas which ought to be set up and it was found that a country had, for example, put forward a proposal for the protection of a species under the bird directive, so that it could be said that the stock of that species was then sufficient, would there not be the possibility then, Madam Commissioner, of recognizing that the species was sufficiently protected and that the area could then be exempt? This could be for various reasons.
In any case, the country has put forward such a proposal after it was established that we have these areas which fulfil the criteria.
A choice will be made between them later, after a scientific analysis has been carried out.
I shall not discuss further the selection of Natura 2000 areas that has taken place in Finland.
I know that it has prompted a very comprehensive and lively debate in Finland.
Regarding quite concrete choices in relation to the other plants, we will come to a decision on this if we come across an infringement or if we get a request from the Finnish Government to find alternative solutions.
I have not inquired into whether, in connection with the question here today, such a request exists, or what, if it does, the possibilities would be.
The allotted time for questions to Mrs Bjerregaard has now expired, so Questions Nos 47 and 48 will be dealt with in writing.
As the Commission understands the question, the honourable Parliamentarian wishes to know whether the United Kingdom's Child Support Act could infringe Article 6 of Council Directive 93/104, which is the Working Time Directive.
I have stated in a reply to Written Question No 1175/93: ' Questions concerning maintenance payments for single women with children, made pursuant to the Child Support Act, are a matter exclusively for the United Kingdom' .
The Community has no powers to act in this field.
However, according to the information available to the Commission, the Child Support Agency has no power to force anybody to work a certain number of hours.
Furthermore, although it is understood that the automatic, periodic review of child support assessments in general only takes place every two years, Section 17 of the Child Support Act expressly provides for the parent concerned to apply for a review at any time if his or her circumstances have changed.
It is the Commission's understanding that child support assessments are determined in proportion to actual income, the only exception being the emergency rate applied when the parent without care refuses to cooperate and give details of his income and outgoings.
Moreover, it is also understood that if a parent who has been made the subject of a child support assessment is dissatisfied with the child support officer's determination, that decision may be appealed to a specific, independent tribunal and thereafter, on points of law only, to an independent child support commissioner, to the Court of Appeal and ultimately to the House of Lords.
In the light of the foregoing considerations there seems to be no link between the practice of the Child Support Agency and article 6 of the Working Time Directive.
I would like to thank Commissioner Flynn for his reply.
I hope that he will continue to monitor individual Member States' implementation of the directive, although it may be down to them in detail to implement it.
I should just like to clarify that he is suggesting that in his view, in this case, a child support agency should not be including overtime and bonus payments within the 48-hour working week.
Is he also saying that in his view, if there is a dispute, then there should be legal recourse in the UK?
You will be aware that the whole question about the implementation provisions will not be in force in the United Kingdom until about April of next year.
But we will certainly do as you say.
We shall continue to monitor the implementation.
But as I have tried to make clear, appeal is available, right up to the House of Lords.
One would hope that it would never have to go that far, but that route is available to somebody who is dissatisfied.
They can go to the independent tribunal and afterwards, to the other areas of recourse as well.
We would look forward to the early implementation, finally, in the United Kingdom.
You will be aware that a consultation document went out when the last government was in office.
That is being assessed with a view to putting the matter into law at as early a date as possible.
We will be pursuing that as rigidly as possible as well.
Question No 50 by Anne McIntosh (H-0627/97)
Subject: Unemployment in the European Union's service sector
What assistance is specifically available to help combat the effects of unemployment in port and tourism-related industries under the European Social Fund (ESF)?
Would the Commission consider extending those initiatives designed to assist service sector industries in the forthcoming review of the structural funds, for the period after the year 2000, so that the problem of unemployment in port and tourism-related industries can be effectively tackled?
The European Social Fund is the European Union's main tool for developing human resources and improving the workings of the labour market throughout the Union.
It is not sectoral in its approach but covers a broad range of activities aimed at improving the employability of people for the local labour market by training them to fill the jobs available or by giving them access to new employment opportunities.
Such activities centred on people may relate to service sector industries, including tourism.
In fact, improved vocational qualifications and management skills are basic requirements for developing the tourism industry, which is acknowledged to offer considerable prospects for growth in job creation, already accounting for some 6 % of the total employment in the Union.
Because the social fund assistance to service sector industries is included in the general human resource development programmes, it is not specifically and easily identifiable from programming documents.
However, some social fund programmes are set up in several countries to underpin existing regional efforts to develop tourism - two examples would be Portugal and Greece.
In this regional context, social fund assistance for improving qualifications related to tourism amounts to more than ECU 200 million for the period 1994-1999, and it covers more than 100, 000 participants.
The total impact of social fund actions in this area is, of course, enhanced if one takes into account the scope of general programmes for dealing with human resource development.
For the period after the year 2000, the Commission's document Agenda 2000 has outlined a new framework based on two regional objectives and one horizontal human resource objective, implying a consistent transversal approach with regard to human resources development.
The priorities in the new human resource objectives are very similar to those which are pursued at present: vocational adaptability, continuous training, social inclusion and a preventive approach to unemployment.
Activities in service sector industries dealing with human resource development will, therefore, continue to remain eligible for support from the social fund in accordance with the principles outlined.
Finally, I wish to add that the reference to 'port-related industry' is not understood and it is not possible to deal with this aspect of the question on its own.
However, the points I have already made in regard to tourism, and especially that point about the horizontal as distinct from sectoral nature of the social fund support, would apply equally to most, if not to all, industrial and service activities in ports.
I appreciate the full reply that we have received tonight from the Commissioner.
Representing, as I do, an area which does not include any part of Portugal or Greece, perhaps you will understand my impatience.
If I could just explain, port-related activities relate to activities in a port area, in my own case, Harwich - although it could be the port of Athens or indeed the port of Hamburg where people have lost their jobs because of a decline in port activities and a general decline in the maritime transport sector.
Perhaps the closest parallel we can draw with is the success of the Konver programme, which of all the European social fund and other programmes has actually brought most human resources and training money into the counties of Essex and Suffolk; also, in relation to tourism and the Adapt programme as well, to Felixstowe, which I do not represent.
All that we are asking is that the Commission should, under the programme Agenda 2000, be a little more flexible so as to incorporate the ideas included in the Adapt and Konver programmes to other ESF programmes.
I would like to reply to Miss McIntosh by saying that what would be applicable in one particular country is applicable to all of the Member States.
I just picked out Portugal and Greece as examples of how tourism activities can be helped.
They can be helped in any country.
You are quite right to say that there are areas of decline and areas that have suffered greatly because of lack of activity and changing circumstances.
Certainly the social fund does apply in a horizontal way to activities that would retrain people and get them back into the labour market.
Such assistance and support is available.
It would certainly be available to your area, just as it is to other areas in the United Kingdom.
Question No 51 by Graham Watson (H-0667/97)
Subject: Europe against cancer
In the ongoing battle against cancer, does the Commission agree that far greater emphasis should be afforded to strategies of prevention?
What plans does the Commission have to reduce the number of new cancer cases over the next 10 years?
Cancer has always been one of the main issues of public health policy in Europe.
About one-third of European citizens will be diagnosed with cancer at some time in their lives.
One-quarter will die from the disease.
Thus the Commission's current third action programme particularly stresses the importance of health education and information of the public in the field of cancer provision as it is generally accepted that around 70 % of cancer-related deaths have their origins in individual choices affecting lifestyles and environments.
One major tool which the Europe Against Cancer programme uses in its communication campaigns is the European Code against Cancer, which is a series of recommendations containing the key messages for cancer prevention established by leading European cancer experts.
Every year the Europe against Cancer programme organizes the European Week against Cancer, which is a campaign aiming at the public at large and focusing on one of these prevention messages.
This year's theme, for instance, is the prevention, early detection and screening of breast and cervical cancer.
The Europe against Cancer programme has also been at the forefront for making recommendations for the organization and quality assurance of screening programmes for breast and cervical cancer, which can lead to an important reduction in the incidence of these diseases.
Moreover, the programme supports and coordinates one of the world's biggest epidemiological studies in the field of cancer and nutrition, which involves more than 400, 000 subjects and will identify diets which can reduce the risk of certain cancers.
With regard to the second part of the question, mainly because of the ageing population in Europe, experts predict a continued rise in cancer incidence in the coming years.
Individual choices also contribute to this increase.
For example, the fact that a large proportion of women in southern Europe started smoking in the last decade can be expected to lead to a sharp rise in lung cancer incidence among women there in the years to come.
The cancer prevention activities which the Commission is at present carrying out or supporting include information, health education and early detection activities.
These are designed to slow down the rate at which cancer is progressing and to prevent it occurring at earlier ages.
I welcome the Commissioner's response and, indeed, the action the Commission is taking, because this is a terribly important subject and one where we can do a lot at European level.
This year we have had the fifth 'Europe Against Cancer Week' , and priority number two for that was destined to be health, education and information.
Commissioner, as part of this 'Week' I went to visit one of the local hospitals in my constituency - indeed the biggest cancer unit of all the local hospitals - in a medium-sized town, precisely because it was Europe Against Cancer Week.
I was very sorry to note that this hospital had never even heard of Europe Against Cancer Week, despite the fact that we were in our fifth year, and that the hospital had certainly not heard of the ten-point plan which I was due to launch on my visit.
I wonder whether the Commissioner would look into the extent to which this information is getting out.
I read in some of the Commission's documentation that it issued a public invitation to tender and selected a professional communication agency with offices in nearly all the Member States.
I can only conclude, Commissioner, that this agency is not doing its work properly in the United Kingdom.
Firstly, I thank Mr Watson for the information.
I regret that he found this particular problem.
It is a little distressing and I intend to pursue the matter.
I am grateful for his interest.
I should like to say that we do not have a lot of money, as he knows very well, for the programme: about ECU 11-12 million a year, spread over the 15 Member States is very small money.
However, we carry out an in-depth evaluation of the European Week Against Cancer.
That is organized, as you know, for the second week in October every year.
The campaign happens every year and more than six million leaflets are printed and distributed across Europe, along with advertisements in the press, and we also get some television and video spots.
I am told that they have created somewhere between 300 and 500 million contacts with European citizens every year.
But, even with all that cover, it can still find its way to the bottom of the pile and the leaflet that comes in the door is not put on display.
The impact of the campaign is measured by Eurobarometer, which does surveys before and after the campaign.
It is interesting to look at the 1995 campaign where the survey results were passed to the European Parliament.
That shows for instance that by the end of the campaign over 20 million more Europeans were convinced that cancer is preventable and that the various risk factors - for example smoking and lack of fruit, vegetables and cereals in the diet - were better known after the campaign.
That is all I can say.
There seemed to be a good response from that point of view but we are relying on the experts, as you say.
I would be particularly interested if you could give me the name of the hospital privately, without making any fuss about it, and I would be glad to see whether they were in fact on the list of contacts, because they should be.
For we women the prevention of cancer is an important topic and it has been in the news this year.
What is worrying is that people say that bad prevention is worse than no prevention.
Unfortunately there have been signs that we have laboratories in Europe which carry out tests and checks to screen women for cancer in a way which is not scientifically thorough or correct.
What guidance does the Commission intend to give the Member States in this regard? It is clear that we need some kind of quality control of the laboratories which check the tests.
My second question is: how does the Commission see the chances of getting really thorough screening systems in the Member States? I believe this is vital in order for us to succeed in the fight against cancer.
You are quite right to highlight the question about quality control and the whole question of screening.
Quite a lot of what we recommend in this area does in fact refer to the quality that is absolutely necessary where any of these screening processes is concerned.
I would recommend to you a booklet which we have about the Code against Cancer, which outlines all of the recommendations together with the ten points which have been drawn up by cancer experts from all over the Union.
It is a very useful document and it deals both with the primary and the secondary elements.
Insofar as the primary area is concerned, we are talking about exclusion and risk factors, e.g. smoking and drinking and too much exposure to sunshine, and the secondary area deals with early detection which is where the whole question about routine examinations and checkups comes in.
We do very much concern ourselves with promoting good quality control and screening, but of course it is a matter for the Member States how they organize their own screening activities.
But we would wish that they would share best practice that is available and we try and make that available to them.
Excuse me, Mr Commissioner, but this discussion prompts me to make a small inquiry.
Do you not sometimes think it contradictory that the Commission should on one hand behave so admirably in informing us of the dangers of cancer, while at the same time providing substantial funds each year, and in fact probably more, for the promotion of tobacco growing - an industry which even from an employment point of view hardly justifies such rewards?
The short answer is that you are correct.
There is a contradiction here, about which I have expressed myself on a number of occasions.
When you are supporting a product that, in my view, is harmful, there is implied support for the whole industry and I regret that.
I wish it were not so and I look forward to the day when it will not be so.
You will be aware that the Commission adopted a report on the organization of the tobacco market simultaneously with its communication on smoking prevention.
That was last December.
By taking this parallel approach it demonstrated that reform of the tobacco market and the promotion of public health must be seen together.
A huge reform was carried out after quite a struggle which I actively support; and, in my opinion, the decision that was taken at that time will lead to an improvement in the situation.
It was possible to get some further money as 1 % was levied off all the subsidies for use by the Community fund for tobacco research and information; and I would hope to apply that to good advantage.
However, you are quite right and I support you.
I look forward to the day when this Union will not be supporting by way of subsidy the growing of a product that causes injury, harm, sickness and death.
As the allotted time for questions to the Commission has now expired, Questions Nos 52 to 89 will be answered in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
Agreement with FYROM - agreement with Slovenia
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0296/97 by Mr Nikitas Kaklamanis, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of an Agreement in the field of transport between the European Community and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (COM(96)0533 - C4-0310/97-96/0260(AVC))-A4-0275/97 by Mr Francesco Baldarelli, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of an Additional Protocol to the Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Slovenia in the field of Transport (COM(96)0544 - C-0144/97-96/0261(CNS)).
Mr President, the European Association Agreement with Slovenia contains a section relating to the transport sector.
It is a mixed preferential agreement intended to replace the Agreement on Trade and Cooperation, which provides for the creation of a free trade area following a transitional period lasting a maximum of six years.
It lays down provisions on the freedom of movement of goods and workers, on the right of transport companies to set up establishments and the freedom to provide services.
Economic cooperation is then contemplated in the transport, post and tourism sectors as well.
Finally, financial cooperation is established by Slovenia taking part in the Phare programme and in the loans granted by the EIB.
At the same time as this mixed preferential agreement, a political dialogue will also be opened, which is very important.
The agreement contains specific provisions on transport: the provisions of the transport agreement between the European Union and Slovenia with regard to the overland system, the rules on the freedom to provide transport services and the right to set up establishments remain in force.
It should be recalled that this latter provision does not apply between the European Community and Slovenia, because the relationship between Member States and Slovenia remains subject to bilateral agreements.
It should also be pointed out that, on the basis of article 46 of the protocol, and this point is rather lacking, the agreements on the air transport, internal navigation and maritime coasting services are not applied.
These are points that should be dealt with later, at the time of full accession.
We obviously hope this agreement will contribute towards the full accession of Slovenia to the European Union; we are, however, aware that the European Union consists of a delicate area, the Alpine area, afflicted by major problems, including environmental ones: it is not by chance that this agreement contains a specific reference to Slovenia and Austria and, with regard to goods traffic and road traffic, the eco-points system is specifically mentioned, and will have to be assessed and be subject to access between individual countries.
This point relates to environmental protection, in particular.
Another argument I believe to be important is that of the infrastructure.
This agreement provides for great investment in this sector; Slovenia undertakes to pay 50 % of the estimated cost of the infrastructure works, while the remainder should come from international financial institutions.
We are still faced with a general statement and one of principle on this point, however: we know, in fact, that, while Slovenia has already committed a substantial part of its budget to the construction of infrastructure, the remaining 50 % borne by the financial institutions has not yet arrived.
We have holdings that only amount to around 12-15 %; the international financial institutions have therefore not yet met the expectations contained in the agreement to obtain maximum freedom of movement of goods and persons.
From this point of view, the European Union actually has a deficit which, although it makes statements in treaties and confirms and organizes several important issues, in reality, when it is a question of implementing financial business, has problems executing commitments assumed with regard to those countries.
Consequently, with regard to the financial aspect, I believe it important to insist that these infrastructures be constructed as they are fundamental for penetration into other CEECs, through Slovenia: I am referring to Hungary, the Czech Republic and the other countries connected with Slovenia by trade relations consolidated in the past.
To conclude, I believe this to be an important agreement, which should be approved.
Naturally, we will also have to ensure that the Commission contributes the necessary information.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after the words of criticism, let me now say something positive about this agreement.
The agreement between the European Community and the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia - a long name, but I prefer it to the somewhat synthetic label FYROM - is for me a ray of hope in this economically and politically unstable part of Europe.
We should for this reason support the agreement.
The promotion and extension of the transport infrastructure is in my opinion critical for the continued economic development of the area.
However, the EU has not been entirely selfless in concluding the agreement.
It will, for one thing, help complete the structure of the internal market by providing better north-south European traffic links to Greece and by improving connections between Macedonia and Greece.
Furthermore, its interregional possibilities will strengthen the latter's economic and political position within the crisis region of southeast Europe.
The Commission is now called upon to ensure that the transport projects are planned not in an isolated way, but rather in close collaboration with neighbouring countries, particularly the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, so as to help promote the economic recovery of the entire region.
From a trade point of view it appears to me of fundamental importance that we should improve the conditions for access to the internal market by products from the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia.
In this respect we should immediately commence talks on an agreement to simplify controls and conventions affecting the transport of goods, in order that barriers to trade might be reduced.
Finally, I also consider it important that this agreement should not only pay lip-service to environmental issues but that it should include practical environmental measures along the new transport routes, including priority status for rail-borne and combined transport solutions.
Mr President. I would have been most unhappy, indeed I would not have been able to sleep, had you not given me this opportunity to speak.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have here two agreements which I consider to be extremely important.
I am pleased that Commissioner Van den Broek is here, since we are not really discussing detailed transport policy issues in the narrower sense, but rather are dealing with transport infrastructures, both remote and close to home, which are adapted to the needs of the last enlargement process as well as to those of the next.
Last week I travelled to Slovenia to attend the joint sitting of the European and Slovenian Parliaments.
Being unable to catch the early flight from Vienna, due to my own travel schedule, I was obliged to fly from Vienna to Frankfurt and from Frankfurt on to Ljubljana, the train journey being so lengthy that I would have missed my evening rendez-vous in Ljubljana on Sunday evening.
This illustrates that complicated, protracted and not at all environmentally-friendly routes still have to be used to travel from one adjoining country to another.
It is therefore important, and this agreement lays the cornerstone in this respect, that we should extend the transport infrastructure in a way which meets the needs of today as well as those of tomorrow.
Slovenia, as a prime candidate for admission to the EU, is naturally important in this respect.
But even though that particular country's economy is doing well, we must extend the transport infrastructure to promote the economic structure of Slovenia, which is in need of reform.
There is not much to say on the subject.
An extension of the transport infrastructure will naturally be one of the elements of EU partnership.
May I also say that we asked the Slovenians to focus on developing links to Croatia, and that this should not be forgotten.
The second agreement concerns the FYROM, or Macedonia.
Here the situation is naturally different, since EU entry will take much much longer in this case.
Nevertheless, I believe it to be important, particularly in the interests of Greece, that the transport infrastructure - both rail as well as road -should be extended accordingly, since Greece's link with the rest of Europe will, if I can put it this way, primarily be through the FYROM, and everything which helps improve this connection will benefit not only the FYROM but also the European Union as a whole.
In this sense, Mr President, and in spite of the lack of available information, I would recommend that we approve both reports for transport policy as well as foreign policy reasons.
Mr President, I would first of all like to make just two points with regard to the two agreements, that is the agreement with Slovenia and the agreement with FYROM.
The first thing I would like to say, and I am very glad that Mr Van den Broek is here today, is that Rule 90 has not been observed, that is, that the Commission would make an announcement when it received an instruction from the Council to work out an agreement, as prescribed by Rule 90.
Rule 90 of the Rules of Procedure came about as a result of the well-known standing agreement between the Commission and Parliament, an agreement to which we assigned a great deal of importance immediately after the signing of the Treaty of Maastricht.
This agreement has not been observed and indeed the non-observation of this agreement has placed the rapporteur in a compromising position as regards the agreement with FYROM since his report was delayed and many Members began to wonder what the reason for this was and why there was this delay, as it had been established that a letter had been sent to the Commission and the Commission had not answered. In other words it never wanted to inform the Committee on Transport about the negotiations, nor about what had happened, nor how agreement had been reached and what the content of the directive was.
That is one point.
The second point is that both these agreements must be put to the vote.
They follow along the wellbeaten track of those agreements that the European Union has made.
You may remember, Mr Commissioner, that in 1990 an agreement on transport was signed with the former Yugoslavia.
The Third Finance Protocol was also signed.
Unfortunately, it was never implemented.
It was suspended at the very beginning, so essentially this protocol which, as I remember, provided for around $ 800 million for the whole of Yugoslavia in 1990, does not exist.
The second issue I would like to talk about is that, in the countries of former Yugoslavia, a rather strange transport situation has developed.
It is true that, as I pointed out, we are making progress and we are ratifying these agreements, and, all right we are ratifying them in a rather piecemeal way, but there is, I would say, no common ground.
I shall start with the agreement with Slovenia. You know that there is great conflict between Slovenia and Croatia over the famous Maribor junction.
It is not possible for us to move slowly, country by country, and then suddenly to see that these countries cannot use to best advantage the money that they are getting from the Community, since there is this difference of opinion between Slovenia and Croatia.
In other words there must be a superordinate multilateral agreement, mainly concerning the railways and not cars, to enable these countries to one day sort out their rail network.
I would like Mr Van den Broek, who deals with other foreign policy matters, to convey these matters to the officials of the directorates general responsible, for example, Mr Kinnock, who is a great orator, but I sometimes think that these details have great significance in the service of an effective Community foreign policy in the Balkans.
Mr President, I would like to point out the great importance, perhaps the example represented by this proposed opening to Slovenia, a dynamic country that is not just a door to central and eastern Europe, as our rapporteur rightly pointed out, but perhaps even a model to be followed to try and understand how and how quickly some central and eastern European countries can be incorporated and fall into line with the countries of western Europe.
It is not just a door because, if we look at its flourishing and active economy, Slovenia is already is line with the Maastricht criteria, almost all of which focus on becoming a partner like all the other countries.
It should be said that an economic agreement is already in force which has given it a great hand, but there is a well developed private initiative.
Today, according to our rapporteur, 90 % of Slovenian products are exported, which is also facilitated by the presence of large connecting structures.
There is a desire to work, both in the road sector and in the rail sector, which may lead to a further 200 km of roads and 700 km of railways by 1998.
Having said that, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that has aroused my curiosity and has led to me a particular thought.
On page 7, where the report mentions frontiers, it says that it is planned to complete the construction of terminals for heavy vehicles using Phare and other structures.
I would like the Commissioner to be aware of a problem that is not particular but unique, which has been of concern to us in this Parliament in the last two months: that is the problem of Gorizia and Nova Gorica, two cities divided by a boundary, or rather a single city, the last little Berlin of Europe: the boundary dividing these two cities is destined to fall between 2002 and 2003. What will happen?
There is the danger of a sensational case of unemployment, 2, 500-3, 000 more unemployed in a city of around 30, 000 people.
In this double city, there is an airport that is one of the largest in Europe, built highly intelligently several years ago; there are in fact two airports, one Italian and one Slovenian, divided by a fence that is ready to fall and there will then be two perfectly matching structures.
Before constructing new plant, I would like to point out the presence of this large airport with all the collateral services which the two mayors of the twin cities are now thinking of converting with a European project.
It would provide a good example to use what already exists without spending more money.
I see that we want to copy the Austrian model.
I recommend we copy it in full as regards the eco-points but not as regards the motorway tolls!
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen still in the Chamber. May I first of all thank Mr Baldarelli and Mr Kaklamanis for their reports.
While I do not share the conclusions which Mr Kaklamanis has drawn from today's meeting, both Members have gone to some trouble to prepare their reports and I believe that the claim that interested Members have attempted to delay the agreement cannot be upheld.
Commissioner Van den Broek, and my remarks are also addressed to Commissioner Kinnock, we simply must devise a new system for informing Parliament of the negotiations which the Commission logically is required to conduct. This sort of communication problem between Parliament and Commission cannot be allowed to continue.
In spite of the information breakdown, Mr Kaklamanis, we should be pleased that Parliament is to ratify both agreements tomorrow, one hopes with a large majority.
These agreements are important not only for rebuilding and opening up the two countries concerned, but also for helping our Greek partners, whose transport and trade links with the rest of the Community have been seriously affected, to put it positively, by the war in the former Yugoslavia.
How important it is for us to come to the aid of Macedonia and Slovenia, and indeed Greece too.
The third pan-European Conference on Transport, which was held in Helsinki in June of this year, served to indicate that we need greater European cooperation in the transport sector, both from an infrastructure point of view as well as with regard to transport and communication.
In this respect we should be pleased that both reports are being debated here today and will be voted on tomorrow.
Neither of the two countries concerned will have cause for complaint against Parliament.
Let us voice our approval so that both agreements can take effect.
Mr President, I too would like to express appreciation of the two reports by Mr Kaklamanis and Mr Baldarelli.
But I shall begin by saying something about the transport agreement between the Community and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
This agreement is an important part of the Union's more general approach to relations with this former Yugoslav republic.
As the rapporteur, Mr Kaklamanis, rightly points out, this agreement is a contribution to resolving that country's economic problems and thus also to resolving political difficulties.
The agreement is also of great importance for the Union in that the flow of goods between Greece and the other Member States via former Yugoslavia, which was suspended at the beginning of the crisis in the region in 1991, can now be resumed.
This agreement follows on from the Community's 1993 transport agreement with Slovenia and when the political situation allows will be supplemented by similar agreements with Croatia and in time we hope also with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Essentially the agreement is more or less the same as the Slovenian agreement.
In view of the very positive experience with the implementation of the Slovenian agreement since 1993 the Commission cannot therefore entirely share the rapporteur's concern about some of the provisions of the FYROM agreement.
I can, however, assure Mr Kaklamanis that the Commission will take care to ensure that if the special provisions of the agreement to which he refers are invoked, we shall see to it that it is fully justified and that in any event it will have as little effect as possible on Community interests.
An important element of the agreement is of course the choice of priority routes referred to, which is taken into consideration for financial assistance from the Community to develop the infrastructure.
I would also drawn attention to Mr Swoboda's comments, which I fully endorse.
This aspect will be particularly important in improving the new pan-European tenth transport corridor, linking Greece to Austria via the countries of former Yugoslavia.
The agreement is a first step towards the establishment of full relations between the Community and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and I welcome the fact that the report by the Committee on Transport and Tourism proposes to your Parliament that the agreement be approved.
Certainly I do not want to ignore the criticisms of the rapporteur and others as to the way in which Parliament is kept informed of the progress of the negotiations.
Clearly the European Commission wishes to respect both the letter and the spirit of the interinstitutional agreement.
We have therefore already proposed to the Committee on Transport and Tourism that a proper exchange of views be held in the committee on matters relating to foreign relations.
This also satisfactorily answers the comment by Mr Sarlis, who I think has unfortunately since left the room.
That seems to us the most appropriate way of informing Parliament regularly and promptly, whilst at the same time avoiding the difficulties that might otherwise arise from the fact that the Commission's agendas are always over-full.
That also caught us out in this case - Mr Kaklamanis knows that the negotiations on the agreement were completed within three months and that that presented a few problems in terms of finding time to place this important agreement on the Commission's agenda.
But again I hope that the proposed procedure on that point will also dispel Parliament's objections and I regret that this situation has arisen in the past.
In saying that I know that I am speaking for my colleague Mr Kinnock as well.
Mr President, might I now say a few words about Mr Baldarelli's report on Slovenia?
It is clear from this report that the scope of the proposal is limited since it relates to an amendment to the 1993 transport agreement with Slovenia to take account of the fact that since 1 January 1995 special transit regulations for lorries have applied in part of the Union's territory, namely Austria.
This is a special situation which applies only to Slovenia, since the Community had signed no other comparable agreements before Austria's accession.
The eco-points system has been applicable to lorries from Slovenia on a de facto basis since 1 January this year, pending the signature of this protocol.
The signature of the protocol will now formalize the situation.
I naturally appreciate the recommendations of the two rapporteurs, Mr Kaklamanis and Mr Baldarelli, and I would very much like also to express my appreciation and that of my colleague Mr Kinnock, not only for the contents of the reports but also for the speed with which they have been submitted in part-session.
The Commission really appreciates this gesture by Parliament.
Thank you very much, Mr Van den Broek.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.17 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to point out that on page 11 of the Minutes, there is a reference to my opposition to the urgency that came through yesterday.
The Minutes do not accurately reflect my concern which was that the document (COM(97)0247) made a number of extreme statements about the use of nickel coins, saying it had important consequences for health and so on.
Yet, just last week I received an answer from Mr De Silguy pointing out that this was absolute nonsense, that nickel does not pose a threat to health.
But here we are about to insist that nickel is not used in the new euro coins.
We have fifteen days to stop the European Union - the Council, the Member States, this Parliament and the Commission - making itself look very silly.
I hope we can react accordingly.
The services will take note of your point.
Mr President, I rise in respect of the Minutes and the remark which is reported from my colleague Mr David who said that my complaint to you at the beginning of the week was made in a personal capacity.
I wish, through you Mr President, to assure him that it was not made in a personal capacity but in my capacity as a Member of this House where I have certain democratic duties.
It was not made from any personal sense of grievance whatsoever but in pursuance of my parliamentary duty.
I promised you on Monday that I would report to you what happened when I finally received the letter from the General Secretary of the Labour Party, Mr Sawyer.
I received this letter yesterday morning after enquiries had been made.
In fact, it was a very conciliatory letter but insisted on remaining with the code of practice of which I complained.
The problem is that subsequently I received a letter from the Labour Party Whip, threatening disciplinary action.
Mr President, this is a very serious matter...
Mr Coates, it is a very serious matter but it is not a matter on the Agenda today.
I will give you an answer by letter this morning but not now in the part-session because it is not on the Agenda.
I will not have a debate on the matter.
Mr President, the full record states, but I would like it to be noted, I mean in the Minutes, that Cantona, president of the Association internationale des footballeurs professionels , appreciates that you yourself were present at the anti-racism match in Madrid.
And you will be getting the letter about the legislation today.
But we are very grateful to you for coming to the Real Madrid stadium.
Thank you very much, Mr Janssen van Raay.
There were three matches, and it has to be said that they were quite entertaining.
I enjoyed them very much, especially in view of the reason for them.
Mr President, I should briefly like to point out that my name is not on the attendance register for yesterday, probably through my own fault. Perhaps I forgot to sign, but I would ask for it to be recorded that I was present.
That will be corrected.
Mr President, this is about the same problem.
Yesterday I spoke on the budget but it appears as though I was absent.
Perhaps I did not sign.
Could the Minutes please be corrected.
Very well, that will be verified and corrected.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, before the Minutes were approved I tried to catch your attention concerning a point of order that was raised yesterday by Mr Imaz.
I understand the Rules are quite clear.
You can only ask one supplementary question during the course of Question Time.
My group was told that was the case.
However, the Minutes state that, in response to both Questions Nos 46 and 51, Mrs Thors was allowed to ask two supplementary questions.
Could we have clarification on this ruling?
Very well.
I take note of your point, and I shall give you reply as soon as possible.
Mr President, also on the Minutes, I would draw to your attention a report in this morning's Times newspaper which suggests that four of our colleagues have been given an ultimatum to sign a document by 3 p.m. this afternoon, failing which their rights as Members of the House will be infringed.
Could you give me guidance, Mr President...
Mr Mather, I have already said that I was not going to open a debate on this subject.
I said that to all your colleagues.
State of the Union and the Commission's annual programme for 1998
The next item is the debate on the state of the Union including the main policy priorities of the Commission's annual programme for 1998.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, today we are holding one of the most important debates in the life of any democratic parliament: the debate on the state of the nation, or in this case, the state of the Union.
This is a special occasion, an opportune moment to look up from the trees and see the wood, to devote some time to considering aloud, taking an overall view, the phase that the European Union is going through and the prospects that are opening up.
This year, for the first time, we wished to separate clearly the global consideration of the Union's policy priorities from the debate on the detail of the European Commission's legislative programme for next year.
Indeed, it is appropriate to assess this programme, in due course, in the light of the main policy priorities that will determine the Community's political action over the next few years.
At the end of the day, the legislative programme is only part of that action - a very important part, of course, but one which has to be consistent with the rest and set within a time frame broader than a single year, precisely because of its great importance.
Similarly, we have modified the system traditionally used in these debates and reduced the number of speakers as far as possible.
I wish to thank the Presidents of the Council and the Commission for the facilities that they have provided to make possible a debate which I am sure will be rich and useful to everyone.
The European Parliament's growing role in the tasks of legislation and control must also be reflected on occasions such as this.
Each institution has a specific part to play in that debate, and ours is to voice the priorities, objectives and concerns of our fellow citizens, whom we represent.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we wished to summarize the demands that our fellow citizens are currently making of the European Union in a single word, that word would be "security' .
In a world in constant change, in a Union that never ceases to evolve, our fellow citizens are feeling, for the first time in a many years, insecure.
If anything has contributed to the Community's success over the last forty years, it is the fact that it has been able to provide security: securing peace when the echoes of war could still be heard, developing an effective agricultural policy when memories of rationing and starvation were still vivid, designing a new single market system when the interrelationship of our economies made it appropriate, introducing new solidarity policies when internal disparities made clear that market forces alone could not ensure the Union's cohesion.
In each period there were needs, and our Community was able to help meet them.
And it did so using a method that was as simple and effective as it was prudent, and which is summed up in the brilliant phrase contained in the Declaration of 9 May 1950.
I recall the original French text: "L'Europe ne se fera pas d'un coup ni dans une construction d'ensemble; elle se fera par des réalisations concrètes créant d'abord une solidarité de fait' .
End of quote.
This method made it possible, ladies and gentlemen, to create, in the latter half of the Twentieth Century, an impressive number of ties of solidarity between the peoples of the Union, a fabric which has given its citizens security.
We cannot, without great risk, abandon this method, when new challenges call that security into question.
Over the last few years, negative events such as the rise of unemployment and the calling into question of social security systems, and positive events such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the development of new technologies, have instilled a feeling of insecurity amongst the people of Europe, to the extent that important steps forward such as those relating to economic and monetary union are viewed with suspicion, which is no less real for being unjustified.
The security that the people of Europe are demanding of us as the century draws to a close is at once economic security, internal security and security vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
With regard to all three, it is our obligation to present them with clear projects that match their needs, projects which demonstrate that we know where we are going and why.
I should now like briefly to address these three aspects of security.
Economic security - what we call welfare - has a lot to do with employment and the development of sound and competitive national and European economies.
I shall not address at present the question of employment, on which we had a substantial debate yesterday, but I should at least like to underline the fact that there is a direct relationship between the creation of wealth and investment, and stress how the latter has been increasing as important unknown factors such as the fate of the single currency have been removed.
In this sense, launching the euro, along with job creation, is our top priority, because of the contribution that it will make to both boosting the Union's economy and promoting its political development. The introduction of the single currency will represent an historic step forward in the history of European integration.
For our fellow citizens, the euro will be a clear symbol of the fact that they belong to a united Europe.
When all Europeans are using the same currency, a large number of psychological barriers will fall.
With the euro in their pocket, the people of our countries will feel a little more European, will appreciate Europe a little more.
Much of the legislation relating to the introduction of the new common currency is already in place or awaiting adoption by the Council. However, two decisive steps remain to be taken: the selection of the countries that will be allowed to join the third stage of economic and monetary union, and the appointment of the President of the European Central Bank and the other members of the Executive Board.
The treaties provide for consultation of the European Parliament before each of these decisions are taken.
We are currently considering how to organize these consultation processes in such a way as to ensure that they enhance the decision-making process and do not upset the operation of the financial markets.
The people of Europe will be able to find out via their representatives what criteria have been used to select the countries that join the single currency in 1999.
Parliament's participation in the appointment of the President of the European Central Bank and the other members of the Executive Board will also give the people of Europe an opportunity to find out beforehand about the people who will be responsible for the Union's monetary policy.
The use of a transparent procedure based on objective criteria will undoubtedly help to increase the people's confidence in the future common currency.
All currencies need the confidence of those that use them.
It is that confidence, which, at the end of the day, determines their value.
Parliament has a duty to foster and strengthen that confidence.
The introduction of economic and monetary union will confer enormous power on the Community's institutions.
The people of Europe will demand the democratic control of that power, and Parliament, as a democratically legitimate institution, cannot remain on the sidelines of that control.
The greater the transparency and control, the greater the people's confidence will be in the thrust and decision-making of the common economic policy. Now is not the time to examine in detail how that control might be effected.
The Maastricht Treaty provides for a number of possibilities in this regard, which can be developed in practice, in some cases, and by means of the interinstitutional agreement, in others.
The only thing that should be made clear, in order to avoid malicious interpretations, is that, with regard to monetary affairs, this control must be effected with the strictest respect for the European Central Bank's independence.
Parliament has been devising, by agreement with the European Monetary Institute and the national central banks, a set of practical solutions which will ensure transparency whilst respecting the ECB's independence.
In the coming months, it will also be necessary to perfect a system of parliamentary control of the most important economic decisions provided for in the Maastricht Treaty and the Pact on Stability and Growth.
In this regard, democracy cannot be put on hold for the sake of a misconceived effectiveness.
Ladies and gentlemen, another factor of economic insecurity for the people of Europe concerns the need to revise the financial perspectives.
This revision must be carried out with a view to the essential enlargement of the Union.
There is very broad consensus on the need for enlargement.
Since 1989, the conviction has been growing that this is an historic challenge, which must be met in order to secure our future - the future of all Europeans, inside and outside the Union.
In the interests of our own security, it is essential to strengthen the new democracies of the applicant states and prevent at all costs the emergence of a fragmented or divided Europe.
It is vital to give those countries a clear signal that the accession process is under way, and under way for them all, although at speeds that will vary according to their different circumstances.
Like all the other challenges that we have met during the past half-century, this challenge must be tackled with the philosophy that has enabled us to achieve what is now the Union: gradually creating - as Jean Monnet would have said - the greatest possible common interest amongst all the men and women of Europe, those of the Member States and those of the applicant countries.
This means, ladies and gentlemen, that this common interest cannot be created at the cost of loosening or undoing the ties of solidarity that we have been establishing during the past half-century almost of labouriously building the Community.
Enlarging the Union at the cost of curtailing or jeopardizing the policies on which the cohesion and prosperity of the Union rest would be a vast error, a disastrous change of course in relation to previous enlargements, an about-turn that would endanger the very survival of the Union.
It is essential for the revision of the financial perspectives to remove this danger once and for all and guarantee to all the people of Europe - present and future - that what has been achieved so far - the "acquis communautaire' which makes the Union attractive to those who do not yet belong to it - will be preserved.
Ladies and gentlemen, another cause for anxiety for the citizens of Europe is undoubtedly the insecurity created by the constant rise in crime of all kinds.
The results of the Intergovernmental Conference in this regard fell short of what might have been expected.
Many of the advances envisaged ultimately failed to materialize.
But there were advances, and it is our duty to exploit them.
The Luxembourg presidency of the Council and the Member States have shown the way forward by anticipating the entry into force of a number of these provisions, including the systematic consultation of the European Parliament on a substantial proportion of the decisions concerning justice and home affairs.
This represents a step forward which we must welcome and applaud.
Let us use to the maximum the opportunities provided by the treaty to convince the people of Europe that the Community way is the only way to overcome the opposition to combatting crime and terrorism jointly, and the only way to lay the foundations for an effective and coherent immigration policy.
At stake here is the ability to enjoy peacefully the freedoms which cost so much to achieve.
The feeling of security that we must give to our fellow citizens will only be complete if we are able to demonstrate that we also know where we are going with regard to the Community's foreign policy.
It is not necessary to recall past events which severely shook the people of Europe's confidence in the Community's ability to contribute to peace: we all remember them.
The matter of urgency is to establish the main joint strategies called for by the Amsterdam Treaty and endow them with the necessary resources, utilizing the possibilities of strengthened cooperation if there is no other solution.
It is better to have clear objectives that are accepted by all and underpinned by the instruments of a credible foreign policy in a small number of areas than to disperse efforts with little or no effectiveness and end up being dragged along by other powers and interests.
Parliament has been contributing to the formulation and implementation of these strategies for some time, via the interparliamentary dialogue.
It will undoubtedly support any steps forward in this field.
Ladies and gentlemen, the fall of the Berlin Wall did not mean the end of history, but its rapid acceleration.
Only now are we beginning to channel this force.
The winds of change are blowing hard, and in gusts, but they will only catch unawares those ships which are unable to steer because they have lost speed or because their navigation instruments are not appropriate for their size.
The first supposition does not apply to us.
Despite everything, Europe has maintained its drive.
The adaptation of our economies to the requirements of the single currency is a good example of that.
The same cannot be said of the Community ship's navigation instruments. Designed for a smaller vessel and for sailing in calm waters, they have scarcely been able to cope with the historic storm that has engulfed us.
It is essential to modify them, to adapt them to a ship which is growing in size and which has to sail through waters that are usually rough.
It is therefore unavoidable to pick up the work interrupted during the final stage of the recent Intergovernmental Conference and begin preparing without delay the arrangements for carrying out the impending institutional reform.
It is highly likely that it will not be possible to do this in the next few months.
The uncertainties to which I referred in the first part of my speech, and which weighed so heavily on the final stage of the Amsterdam Summit, still exist.
We must hope that they will be removed.
But if this time we are going to finish the job, we cannot simply wait for the right moment.
We must begin preparing now, implementing a method which is different to that adopted hitherto.
We do not have to invent one; we have one already, and it has continually proved its effectiveness.
It is no more nor less than the Community method, which reserves the right of initiative for the European Commission and makes the adoption of proposals by the Member States subject to prior consultation of the European Parliament.
Applying this method will enable us to discuss coherent texts based on the common interest, something which does not always happen in the case of traditional intergovernmental negotiation.
I sincerely believe that a good service that Parliament could render to the people of Europe would be to promote the future institutional reform of the Union, in such a way that the forthcoming European elections could serve as a sort of referendum on this project.
I am therefore confident that we can complete the first part of the journey before our current term of office ends, and I cordially invite the European Commission, here and now, to begin this work.
Nevertheless, it is not enough to use a good method and choose the right moment.
We must also give up our attachment to institutional systems that were useful in their day but are no longer adequate.
A Community of several hundred million people, which is one of the world's great economic powers, cannot be managed effectively by a Council of twenty or so ministers with a presidency that rotates every six months.
We have to opt for one of the two systems that have worked successfully for other large groups: the presidential or the parliamentary.
In fact, the Maastricht Treaty provided the blueprint for the evolution towards a parliamentary system.
The Amsterdam Treaty continued this trend by strengthening the European Parliament's legislative powers and requiring the President of the Commission - whose position was also strengthened - to have the confidence of Parliament.
This is the course to follow, and this is the direction that relations between Parliament and the Commission have been taking in practice.
It is therefore good that an attempt is being made to make the operation of the Council more workable and continuous and that the obstacles to decision-making are being removed.
But this must be done without going down the road of directorates or adopting other inappropriate formulas of an intergovernmental nature, such as the proposal to turn the Commission back into a smaller college with predominantly administrative tasks.
The Commission is a political body, and it will always be so.
Ladies and gentlemen, achieving the enormous task that must be accomplished over the next few years will only be possible if we prove capable of restoring the values that inspired those true revolutionaries who founded the European Community on the basis of two golden rules: the replacement of confrontation with agreement and compromise; and the promotion of dialogue as a means of achieving greater freedom and equality.
The fact that so many millions of Europeans are waiting for us to open the doors of the Union to them should serve to make us appreciate anew things which today we take for granted, but which forty or fifty years ago seemed like unachievable dreams.
It is five decades since we ceased being enemies and become loyal partners in an enterprise in which all either win or lose.
On 20 June 1950, Robert Schuman opened the first Intergovernmental Conference in the Salon de l'Horloge at the French Foreign Office.
Without wasting time, on the following day, Jean Monnet described the change of mentality needed to make the Union, today's Union, possible.
This is what he wrote in his memoirs:
We are here to work together, I said, not to negotiate benefits for ourselves, but to seek benefit in the common good.
The sixty delegates present did not know they would have to listen to me for more than ten months, and start this lesson over again, one of the most difficult lessons to learn that there is, for men trained up in the defence and conquest of purely national interests.
(Applause) Forty seven years on, we must go on tirelessly repeating that message.
In order to meet the challenges facing us, in order to give the people of Europe security, we must think in terms of a joint enterprise.
Not in terms of negotiating our own prosperity, but in terms of achieving that prosperity through the prosperity of all.
May this debate serve to renew that spirit.
Thank you.
(Applause) Mr Juncker, President-in-Office, has the floor on behalf of the Council of Ministers.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, my responsibilities have brought me to this rostrum to speak twice in less than twenty-four hours.
I am concerned not to generate a sense of weariness in those kind enough to listen to me this second time round, and I shall be brief, something which I am not, incidentally, accustomed to.
I shall limit my words to an analysis, which I hope will be concise and realistic, of the state of our Union.
This third debate on the state of the Union is taking place 23 days after the signature of the Amsterdam treaty, 30 days before the European Summit on employment, exactly 51 days before the European Council of December devoted to enlargement, and seven months before the final decision on economic and monetary union.
These meetings have given us, and the meetings that lie ahead will give us, precise information on the future of the Community concept and action, and hence, on the way ahead for our common projects.
This project should remain firmly based on a sense of purpose and on a methodical approach, and on the binding solidarity of all members.
We aspire progressively to create a political entity of federal vocation, driven onward by the institutions which are guardians of the common interest, working ever more closely together.
The decisions recently made, or which will be made in the meetings that I have just mentioned, will in the light of the actual stances adopted, demonstrate how far this ambition is still shared by all, and whether our project remains a pertinent one.
Mr President, I shall not repeat here what I think about the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I did so publicly on the day of its signature.
Let me simply remind you that the treaty, which will have gone through the meanderings both known and unknown of its ratification, is a good treaty.
It represents an undeniable step towards the aspirations of our citizens.
It contains virtualities and potentialities which open up areas of endeavour for community action.
Last but not least, Amsterdam has made substantial progress in the institutional field.
Your Parliament will acknowledge this in all objectivity, although the treaty is still too timid and insufficiently conclusive in that respect.
Let us acknowledge that this new treaty, despite its shortfalls, in spite of its weaknesses, is a major step forward in the long road towards achieving Union.
Let us beware of an over-hasty and over-summary judgement.
Let us give this treaty its chance, and remember this two-fold fact: perfect treaties may give rise to imperfect results.
But imperfect treaties, and the treaty of Amsterdam very likely merits this description, may lead to perfect results, if such is the collective will of all those who have responsibility for its implementation.
Treaties are important, of course, but it is the ambition of the actors involved, and the willingness of those who inspire those treaties, which are fundamentally more essential.
Hence, let us have real ambition.
Let us overcome the cleavage between those in favour of a national sovereignty, who at one point nearly prevailed, and the federalists, their opponents, who by no means had everything their own way!
As for economic and monetary union, it has continued, almost imperturbably, to move on methodically, according to the scenario approved and articulated around a whole plethora of new legislative provisions.
Let us say so, and say so proudly, the Maastricht method has been remarkably successful.
The progress towards convergence, in our countries, has been and remains impressive.
Monetary union will see the light of day, as expected, on 1 January 1999.
The monetary revolution will take place, not withstanding all those, both inside and outside, who sought to discredit the single currency.
Remember the undesirable propositions of those who felt they had authority to divide up the Member States into two groups, the virtuous, and the Club Med countries, an insulting description.
Remember, the repeated injunctions of those who never left off having us believe that monetary union would be better put off for a few years more.
If we do not achieve the single currency before this century is out, we shall have lost it forever.
Be mindful of the failure of the European Defence Community!
The presidency, for its part, has done everything to further reinforce the credibility of the euro.
The recent decision of the Ministers of Finance to fix parities, on the very day the list of participatory countries is set, is a step in this direction.
The provisional figures published by the Commission follow the same path.
The good economic and budgetary results of the Member States give me reason to believe that a great number of Member States will be ready to join the euro from 1 January 1999.
The time for decision is nearly upon us, but we must remain vigilant.
Let us not, between now and the decisive spring of next year, allow those nostalgic supporters of the nation state to impede the process underway.
It may be possible to win elections by opposing the euro.
But in so doing we would certainly compromise the future, by killing off the last great European ambition of this century.
(Applause) Mr President, on 21 November, the Heads of State and of Government will meet to talk and to decide, as I hope, on employment.
I hope that 21 November will become a great European meeting.
If we go our separate ways having simply stated that unemployment is an evil and that it must be combatted, without deciding on concrete, quantified, and verifiable instruments to combat unemployment effectively, the employment summit will be a failure, and I shall say so.
Enough of words, enough of statements, enough of analysis, enough of literature...
(Applause) We have to act, and act together.
I propose the application of the Maastricht method, that of economic and monetary convergence, to the policy of employment.
I hope that we will, in the field of employment, be won over by the same pressure for convergence which has been ours for the last few years in the field of economic and monetary matters.
Let us prove that the summit on unemployment will have been more than a mere summit.
Let us act to make it a turning point.
My wish is that on the morning after 21 November, the European project will have become comprehensive, and that in becoming concrete, it will have made both mankind and the dignity of mankind central to our concerns.
If we are successful with employment, and equally so several months later with monetary union, confidence will have once again become a European virtue.
What Europe today most lacks, is confidence in its own destiny.
So let us demonstrate that we are up to our task, and by we, I mean ourselves, the Parliament, the Commission, the national and regional governments, the local decision-makers and social partners, whose responsibility is on a par with our own.
European history, Mr President, does not stop short at monetary ambition and social concern.
We must establish a new frontier for the European Union.
This will be its enlargement to the countries of central, eastern and southern Europe.
As we enter the home stretch leading to the century's end, European history and geography have converged.
We must now reconcile them and resolutely and unhesitatingly go down the avenue of enlargement.
Enlargement is a burning moral obligation.
Men and women who, at the price of a thousand deprivations and so many sacrifices, have freed themselves from Communist oppression, and have given body to the new hopes that we had believed lost for always, now place a very simple question before us. Are you ready to grant us the place which is ours within the sphere of European solidarity?
Or not? Our response should not and must not be complicated.
It must be simple, it must be yes.
Our response must also be honest. Membership of the European Union will not solve all the problems which the candidate countries have to confront.
Sometimes, when I listen to our friends who were, for too long, separated from us by the iron curtain, which fortunately no longer exists, I have the impression that the prevailing sentiment is that the European Union would be the best of all possible worlds.
No, that is not so, and major efforts of adjustment are still required in all candidate countries.
But I hasten to add that we too must prepare for the entry of new Member States.
Agenda 2000, presented by the Commission, is a work of analysis and of conception of a rare quality, and it demonstrates that enlargement requires not only the future, but the present members of the Union, to make a considerable effort.
At the European Council of December, we need to be driven by a concern for all the candidate countries.
Our message must be clear: all candidate countries have a vocation for membership of the European Union.
All will be part of the enlargement process, from the moment that it has been launched.
We shall reject no one, we do not have the right to exclude a candidate country from our European family.
(Applause) It is highly likely, ladies and gentlemen, that we shall begin negotiations with the countries that are the best prepared.
These will be bilateral negotiations between the European Union and the countries concerned.
There will be no group negotiations.
The central and eastern European countries do not form a group.
They are independent and proud nations, justly proud.
To consider them as forming part of a group would be to revert to Soviet logic.
Year by year, we shall re-examine the situation of the various candidate countries.
Those that have made sufficient progress shall be offered the opportunity to enter into negotiations.
It will doubtless be difficult to begin negotiations with everyone on the same day, and they will not be completed on the same day for all either. However, it will be essential to act in such a way that on the eve of the December European Council, all of the peoples of Europe will have the certainty, and the assurance that Europe will never again be divided.
Mr President, may I say in the wake of the considerations inspired by Agenda 2000 a word about a debate which is of passionate interest to those involved, and which, if we are not careful, may be a cause of considerable irritation.
I wish to speak about this new, and old, question of the national contributions to the community budget.
I perfectly understand the reactions of those who believe that they are asked to make too heavy a contribution.
We will need, at the appropriate time, to devote thought to a new articulation of the system of our own resources, one which would take into account the desiderata of some, and the needs of others.
But until that occurs, I would like to say three things.
The first is that we should give no credit to the idea that the benefits of the European Union can be measured on the sole basis of budget inflows and outflows.
(Applause) The union budget amounts to 1.2 % of gross national product of the European Union.
It is not possible to reduce the European idea to 1.2 % of its GDP.
That is not acceptable.
(Applause) Second comment: among the numerous achievements of European construction, there are intangible elements that cannot be quantified.
There is no quantifiable response possible to the only question which is of real importance: what is the price of an hour of peace?
Third comment: let us not fall into the errors of a still recent past.
We lost four precious years at the beginning of the 1980s because of the budget battle which brought us into a conflict and ended up by paralysing our policy in all respects.
But now that we are on the point of crossing over into a new century, we have no time to lose.
Europe, Mr President, ladies, gentlemen, cannot be sufficient unto itself.
We have a role to play on the international stage, a position to occupy, a vocation to live up to.
The forthcoming century will not be European.
We shall share that century with other actors.
We must therefore entertain and develop balanced relationships with the United States, and reinforce the relationships that we have with the countries which will tomorrow be the direct neighbours of an enlarged Europe.
Here, I am speaking of Russia and Ukraine.
Nothing which is Russian or Ukrainian over the next thirty years will be really foreign to us.
We must also reinforce our presence and our commitment in the Middle East.
We must have an influential presence.
We want to be players, not just payers .
(Applause) We must pursue a direct and multi-faceted dialogue with the Asian countries, and must turn our eyes to Africa, that unhappy, but so frequently courageous continent, to that Africa where on closer inspection we see, alongside regrettable and untoward events, arising here and there, new, young, democratic, capable and generous leaders, who deserve our trust.
In short, Mr President, although I do know we have weaknesses and sometimes lack courage, I cannot understand why, in the final analysis, we give in so easily to the ambient depression which is the distinctive state of mind of our continent, as compared to other continents.
All is not perfect, of course, but we can at least be proud, and should be proud, of our success since the end of the Second World War.
I am part of that first European generation which did not know nor live through the war.
When my father was born in 1924, he too was in the post war generation.
When I was born, thirty years later, my father had once again become part of the post war generation.
Our parents represent a generation who were a post-war generation twice over.
So, yes, let us apply ourselves to perfecting European construction, but let us be grateful to those who went before us who, in circumstances far more difficult than those of today, were able to draw the true lessons of history. Let us, we who have grown up in peace, act in such a way that in the next century war will not be, as it so frequently has been in our past, a European option.
Those who want peace, want Europe.
(Sustained applause)
Thank you very much, President Santer.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 1997 was certainly a turning point for the European Union.
The Amsterdam Treaty is certainly another milestone in the constitution and development of the European Union.
How can we forget the Agenda 2000 package, for example, presented by the Commission to commence all reform procedures for accepting new countries? In a month's time, the European Council will be faced with an even more urgent problem that affects our citizens at close quarters, that of unemployment with a good 20 million out of work.
The Union's activities have undoubtedly speeded up considerably in the last twelve months; however, although on the one hand the action to strengthen the Union can only receive our applause and our support, we wonder whether the institutional and democratic establishment of the Union is adequate enough.
We note, for example, that the recent Intergovernmental Conference showed the limits of the current process of amending the treaties.
This Parliament has the duty and the right to claim an institutional role which can have a political effect, particularly with regard to future amendments to the treaties themselves.
The Union is aiming for new goals and the legitimizing function of this Parliament, the only democratically elected Institution, can no longer be deferred indefinitely, on pain of entrenching a belief already held by our citizens about a Europe of governments and government officials ever more distant from their interests.
With regard to the single currency and expansion, for example, the Union's decision-making process has demonstrated its failings, even if we share the final objects.
This Parliament has been complaining of problems such as unemployment and economic development for some time, paying them just as strong and determined attention as that reserved for the monetary union, but we, and the Commission in particular, have had to wait for the initiative of a Member State.
I come now to expansion: this is an historic process, possibly owing to the geopolitical implications and possibly owing to the number of countries involved and the impact on our countries.
For a process of such scope, Parliament was informed of the Commission's decisions in the press, and then had to wait a long time for a reasoned document. As decisions of this nature should be typically political, as they are, I wonder whether it is possible and acceptable for such responsibilities to be assumed by the Commission.
Perhaps, Mr President, that is the paradox of this Europe: establishing highly ambitious objectives without having an adequate political and institutional structure to take into account the wishes of its citizens through the Parliamentary representation it already has.
I would like to point out, however, concluding on the subject of expansion, that we very much appreciated the vote in favour of Mr Barón Crespo's resolution, which recognizes the principle whereby the checking and pre-accession procedure should be applied to all applicant countries at the same time as being more appropriate.
I will pass on to the great political priority for 1998, employment.
I agree with Mr Van Velzen who, in the resolution passed yesterday, commented on the futility of inventing something new if it is useless and possibly harmful: I am thinking about the 35 hours, for example.
I believe that, with a reorientation of structural funds, passing a stability and social cohesion pact, encouraging and ensuring that member countries have appropriate budget and tax policies for an economic revival, unemployment may be fought in the medium term.
Many of us do not believe that the monetary approach alone is adequate and sufficient, on pain of excluding and marginalizing various strata of the population.
The single currency. We believe that in the spring of next year, alongside the technical evaluations required for accepting countries into the single currency, we should not lose sight of the objective of the single currency which is just a tool at the service of a political objective.
I wonder on this point about the reasons for the decision taken by the Bundesbank and the Bank of France to raise discount rates, which leaves me somewhat perplexed.
Agenda 2000 and enlargement: the points I made earlier apply here.
Moreover, I am delighted that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Italian Republic has expressed doubts and reservations over the exclusion of certain countries.
We have asked for an in-depth parliamentary debate on this matter and I think that this House should make it one of the political priorities of the next few months.
The reforms contemplated by Agenda 2000 will be a reason for a full and exhaustive debate in our Institution, but from now one we can say that we will give our entire support to completing the single market, to reviewing the problem of indirect taxation, to better finalizing the efforts made to make our economy more competitive, to continuing hastily with regard to trans-European infrastructural networks, to reassessing the scientific and technological potential and to a qualifying review of the structural funds.
Everything will have to take place in a framework of economic and social cohesion for the sole, direct benefit of the citizens of the Union.
This presupposes a new medium term financial framework commencing as from 2000 that can guarantee adequate resources for the ambitious objectives we have set ourselves.
There are two requirements which are fundamental to us which I fail to see mentioned in the document drawn up by the Commission: a serious fight against fraud and greater control and an effective rationality of the Union's expenses.
These two financial resources are significant, taking into consideration the 1.27 % limit of the gross domestic product, as a contribution to the financing of own resources.
The Union's presence on the international scene.
This is a very delicate point.
Although, on the one hand, the absence of a political union prevents us from having a strong and unique representation at international level, having recently opted for a faceless structure, on the other, we are applying a foreign policy, albeit limited, consisting of aid, contacts, roving delegations, bilateral agreements, representative offices of the Commission and anything else.
A policy once again left in the hands of an institution of officials, the Commission.
I do believe that our institution should recognize the quality of the Commission's work, but it should also, having the citizens' mandate, establish an objective in the political priorities for next year: the commencement of a Euromediterranean Parliamentary Forum, desired by this House and warmly welcomed by us, as some of the convinced proponents of it.
However, we consider greater involvement of the European Parliament in foreign policy to be essential to and certainly functional in the Union's ambitions.
Citizens' quality of life.
The improvement in the quality of life of European citizens is not just one of the Commission's objectives but also a priority of this Parliament.
Presidents, I believe that, at the dawn of the third Millennium, the European Union is preparing for an unprecedented challenge, that of achieving the design of the founder fathers of Community Europe, a political design in which the European ideal takes the form of a union of objectives in a strong and solidary common motherland.
Mr President, may I begin by welcoming the President-in-Office of the Council on behalf of my group.
Mr Juncker rightly criticized the lack of self-confidence in Europe.
I would like to say on behalf of my group that we all have confidence in the Luxembourg presidency and the qualities of this President-in-Office.
Early next year the European Council is to decide which countries are to participate in the European currency.
The offer by the strongest country in Europe, Germany, to share its greatest source of strength, its currency, with neighbouring countries is a historic step.
The euro is essential for all Europeans who, in the words of Thomas Mann, prefer a European Germany to a German Europe.
Secondly the euro is necessary to counterbalance the shift from the centre that will result from enlargement.
The Union's decision-making rules had to be adapted to allow for enlargement.
Unfortunately this was not done satisfactorily in Amsterdam, partly because this Parliament still does not have the right to approve treaties.
That means that the euro is at present the only project for strengthening the Union.
The economic advantages of this currency are also clear: less disruption of exchange rates, more price transparency, low inflation.
But is Europe ready for the euro? In many countries the public still have very little confidence in the new currency.
Instead of making an effort to win public support for the euro, some governments are evading the responsibility, the Swedish and British Governments for example.
But how can the public have confidence in the currency when politicians are not courageous enough to back it?
A second risk concerns interest.
The bigger the EMU becomes, the more stringent the central bank's anti-inflation policy will need to be.
The bank cannot hesitate to increase interest rates when necessary.
But this is likely to cause conflict between the bank and national governments.
It is after all to the advantage of governments to have low interest rates.
This makes it cheaper to finance deficits and debts and is also better for employment.
The euro can easily be made the scapegoat for unemployment.
This is all the more true in that the Member States themselves will still have to take a number of unpopular measures.
A permanently low interest rate requires permanently low government debts and deficits.
Countries like Germany, France, Italy and Spain have still not dared to implement the necessary reforms.
In order to create employment, labour costs must come down, there must be greater flexibility in wages and working hours and the unemployed need more incentives to find work.
These reforms will be needed even without the euro.
Governments must have the courage to explain that, if this does not happen, then many people will turn against the European currency and the euro will encourage nationalism rather than contributing to European unity.
Monetary policy, Mr President, is one of the traditional areas of national sovereignty.
By sharing its currency a country is sharing power.
The concentration of power resulting from the introduction of the euro has to be coupled with stronger democratic control.
But that is not all.
This Parliament must use its own powers more effectively.
That calls for a number of reforms.
Firstly I think that we should work much more closely with the national parliaments, which are an essential part of democratic legitimacy in Europe.
There should be annual consultation on such matters as foreign policy, monetary policy, domestic affairs and justice and combatting fraud.
Then there are parliamentary enquiries.
Our two committees on enquiry, on BSE and customs fraud, have had excellent and impressive results.
This work has to continue.
We should consider the justification for setting up a parliamentary enquiry into areas such as the aid programmes for Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean or the Commission's internal administration.
It is important that we make democratic control in the Commission as strong as possible.
Of course Parliament has to meet the same standards of transparency in its own operations as we ask of the other institutions.
The continuing negative publicity about members' travel expenses damages Parliament's reputation.
The reforms the Bureau decided on in July must therefore be implemented without delay, before the end of the year.
Internal management action is also needed.
Serious errors have been made in areas such as building policy, office equipment, security and informatics and an independent investigation needs to be set up in the short term to prevent mistakes of this kind in the future.
The organization of our parliamentary work also needs improvement.
No parliament in Europe has as many meetings as the European Parliament.
But quantity does not necessarily mean quality.
All too often our agendas are overloaded, our debates tedious.
Parliament must have the courage to set priorities.
Less time for voting, less time for undisputed matters, more time for political debate.
The art is knowing how to set limits.
We must use our powers to the full, we must have the courage to assert ourselves more often.
I do not think that the Council and the Commission are the only institutions responsible for the Union's public image.
In this debate the focus is on the Council and Commission representatives.
Parliament too has a responsibility for the Union's reputation.
Parliament must do its best to improve the Union's image through its own activities as well and that is why I wanted to draw attention to this aspect in this debate.
Mr President, we were concerned about this debate, because the debate on the state of the Union, which we are now holding for the third time, must not be either a matter of rhetorical or superficial routine.
But I have to acknowledge that beginning with the opening speech of the President of Parliament, and continuing with the other speeches, important points have been raised and a forward-looking approach has been adopted.
So we want to register our delight.
Nevertheless, we must strike a balance.
To use the medical simile of the state of the Union, it is necessary not only to take the supposed patient's pulse, but to give him a genuine health check-up, a thorough examination with diagnoses and proposals for cures.
And in this sense, the main problem, the main illness - which we have all identified - is unemployment.
Employment is rising - it has risen during the last year - but only very insignificantly.
Casting our gaze back - as some poet such as Antonio Machado once said - we see the jobs that have disappeared as well as those that have been created.
I am thinking now of the tragic case of Vilevoorde, which was debated in this House, and of other equally important cases.
On behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left, therefore, I wish to say that we support unequivocally the integration of the European Union's employment policies.
We believe that the reduction of working hours must be a fundamental component of employment policies. And, in this sense, the commitments of the French Government and the recent decision taken following a debate in the Italian Parliament give hope for the future, make it possible to have a genuine debate and achieve positive solutions.
And it has to be said that the debate in those two countries has gone far beyond the debate in this Parliament or the other European institutions.
Naturally, we attach great importance to the Luxembourg Summit and we back the efforts of the President of the Commission. We especially support the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Juncker, in his drive to defend and take action in favour of real convergence - what he called the convergence of employment.
And we also support the idea of allocating ECU 150 million from the budget to employment programmes.
If we do a simple division exercise, however, we see that this works out at only ECU 8 for each unemployed person in Europe.
We wish those employment programmes the best of luck.
In my country, the leader of my political group repeats continuously that "programmes, programmes, programmes' are essential.
And I should like to commend this employment proposal to the European Parliament with the words: "employment, employment, employment' .
Let us see if by saying it three times we can increase the resources and mechanisms that need to be implemented in favour of an employment policy.
With regard to the euro, we all agree that we are on the final stretch.
The more countries join the euro the better.
It will be better for everyone to share the responsibility.
Nevertheless, we are critical of the Maastricht criteria, and we are sceptical of the view that the euro will automatically generate growth, which will automatically generate employment.
Nor do we believe that the Stability Pact will be good medicine; we fear its consequences for European society.
And in this check-up, we wish to consider not only the physical state of European society, but also its state of mind, the state of its soul.
As has already been said, there is anxiety and uncertainty.
And much of this anxiety and uncertainty exists because we have no clear model for enlargement.
We are in favour of enlargement, but we fear that the wrong approach, a lack of foresight, could have negative effects on both the countries that accede to the Union and those already in it.
The greatest danger is that of turning the political union to which we aspire back into a vast free-trade area.
Added to this is the problem of the revision of the financial perspectives and the effects that it could have on existing north-south solidarity within the Union, with the reduction of the structural funds and repercussions for the common agricultural policy.
As has already been said today, it is necessary to count in all the countries requesting accession and not to classify them strictly as suitable or unsuitable.
Within this new framework, however - and I am echoing the words of Mr Martens, whose political position and ideological views are completely different to mine - there is a need to ensure that Europe's foreign policy has a genuine identity.
In his speech today, Mr Juncker moved from considering the European subcontinent to examining our ambitions within a Eurasian continent.
But we shall never be able to achieve those ambitions, not even within the European subcontinent, if Europe's identity is subordinated to the policies of the United States.
We must be friends, but never subordinates.
Faced with these challenges - and I am coming to an end, Mr President - the Amsterdam Treaty is inadequate to the task of carrying out the essential reform of the institutions prior to enlargement.
A Spanish journalist defined it as a colourless, odourless and tasteless treaty.
Describing it in the same terms as treated water is perhaps being too generous.
In conclusion, I wish to say that if these key problems are to be resolved, the problems of democracy must also be resolved. I believe that I am in tune with European public opinion here.
Who decides in the European Union? Who is responsible?
To whom are they accountable? Perhaps the time has come for the Council to start being politically accountable to the European Parliament, which represents all the Union's citizens.
Mr President-in-Office, Mr Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is an interesting Belgian radio programme called 'Situation hopeless but not serious' .
Transposing this to the European Union, I would say that the situation is worrying and could become hopeless unless the main parties concerned take some action.
The disappointing results of the Amsterdam summit did not equip the Union for the task ahead.
Even Commissioner Van Miert stated publicly in September that Amsterdam was simply 'marking time' .
So the Union is not ready for enlargement because it has not made a start on institutional reforms itself.
The muchneeded and complete political union which has to be in place to provide a social and ecological counterbalance to a deregulated market does not exist.
As a result of the strict monetary policy, the euro is already associated by millions of Europeans with social breakdown and job losses even before it has come into being.
Amsterdam did, it is true, help create the employment agreement but the weak point was always that Europe was not putting any money on the table to help create jobs.
If the employment summit in Luxembourg fails to reach a breakthrough and just puts forward recommendations without any commitment, there will be great disillusionment.
My group therefore particularly deplores the fact that no measures have been taken to stop the taxation race between the Member States.
The trend for labour to be more heavily taxed all the time and capital less heavily taxed so that jobs are lost just when new ones should be being created is continuing.
It seems to me that the Luxembourg presidency is particularly well placed to address the difficult problem of tax harmonization.
My question to you, Mr Juncker, is whether you are going to take any action on this.
We see not only in the results of Amsterdam but also in the work of the Commission that there is no impetus towards lasting cooperation, or at least very little.
There is no energy tax and the Commission itself is not managing to take advantage of its strong position in public procurement in this area to make production more ecological - an important area which is not being exploited.
Finally, and on this point I agree with Mr Santer, we cannot help but say that foreign policy seems to have serious shortcomings, for instance in Bosnia, Algeria, Palestine... we could go on.
Europe makes no difference in supporting the peace processes in these countries properly and effectively.
How well-meaning we are towards Africa can be seen in particular this week in the chocolate directive.
At any event, without a convincing democratic political plan both internally and externally Europe remains nothing but a bureaucracy.
Mr President, in this autumn of 1997, the state of the Union appears to be one of contrast.
On the one hand, there are positive elements.
One of these, already mentioned, is the single currency.
There is reason to believe that the euro will go into circulation, that the timetable will be respected, that the number of countries participating in EMU from the outset will be large, as countries such as Spain and Italy, which were a cause for concern, will very probably be members of the leading group.
As such, the euro is a good thing for the financial and economic power of Europe, and indirectly - it is to be hoped - for employment.
In itself, the euro is also a very good thing for the reinforcement of political union, which remains our objective.
I finally add that the considerable efforts made by the various parties - and I am thinking here in particular of Italy - to ensure convergence among their economies and to successfully launch the euro are a sign of a political will which must be commended.
This determination very fortunately contrasts with the depression and the moroseness that we deplore elsewhere.
Indeed, the state of the Union also has its areas of darkness.
I shall not return to the darkest point, which is unemployment, as others have already spoken on this.
I will speak of enlargement, which is a matter, as you rightly said, Mr President of the Council, for the whole future of Europe.
Until now, the question has indeed been treated, but without enthusiasm or dynamism, and the Council as much as the Commission has given the impression that it was simply resigned to opening a dossier which was an embarrassment and came at the wrong time.
How comfortable were times past, when the eastern European countries were behind the iron curtain and outside the fold of European affairs!
I hope that in a few months, when the euro is on track, the Council and the Commission will really take enlargement on board at last.
We still do not have enough of a political objective.
Do we want a strong political union for the new Europe, or a simple free trade area? The question has not truly been settled.
We lack a political strategy.
Hence it is difficult to accept without protest the imprudent presentation proposed by the Commission, which consists of literally separating the candidates into two categories.
The European Conference proposed by some countries - including France - risks being no more than a palliative. It will certainly be better than nothing, but will reveal itself to be insufficient, like all palliatives.
We also need institutional reform of the Union, which would allow the Union to bear the consequence of enlargement without disintegrating under the pressure of numbers.
From that point of view, the Treaty of Amsterdam is a failure, and illustrates exactly this lack of political will which is characteristic of the way the enlargement process as a whole has been handled.
In addition to enlargement, there is another question, which is not unrelated to it.
This is the financial question.
Everybody, in the Council, the Commission and the Member States, seems to be delighted at the prospect of a zerogrowth budget, with a ceiling strictly capped at 1.7 % of GDP, with the hope of remaining below that ceiling.
This budgetary dogma is not consistent with the new tasks of the Union, whether they involve enlargement, of course, but also the struggle for employment and keeping up the policies of solidarity.
Finally, Mr President, the European Union has got some colour back over the last few months, with a return to growth, albeit very moderate, and has shown a real determination to launch the euro successfully.
But aside from such progress, there remains an enormous amount to do. For this, we require the political will that I wish and hope for with all my might.
Mr President, the first two priorities of the Council and the Commission for the year to come, namely employment and the euro, appear to be fairly broadly contradictory.
The euro will by definition involve unity in terms of monetary policy and the harmonization of other economic policies, in such a way that they cannot necessarily be adapted to the special features of every country.
We have seen this clearly, with the raising of interest rates at the beginning of October, as a precursor of monetary union.
My country has followed suit with a rise in interest rates, although it did not need it, as rising rates risked dampening down the recovery in growth.
More generally, all the while there is no optimal monetary area at the Union level, the euro will impose a monetary rigidity which is contrary to the idea of flexibility, which some claim to seek in other quarters, and which will be costly in employment terms.
Furthermore, as was said in the debate yesterday, the procedure of coordination of employment, with its guidelines and, very likely soon, its sanctions, intends to be an exact copy of the procedure used for economic and monetary union.
In both cases the procedures are dominated by a key word, convergence, a word frequently heard, incidentally, in the speeches today.
But convergence seems to have become a real ideology in Brussels.
It has to be admitted without any discussion that in all fields promulgating a unified standard for all is far better for growth and employment, than differentiation of policies to suit the requirements of each.
While it is possibly true that, in a Union based on solidarity, it is desirable to avoid the sort of substantial contradictions which means that one country might cause great damage to its neighbours, in pursuit of a petty advantage to itself, it is on the other hand wrong to believe that convergence, understood as systematic mutual alignment, is good in itself.
A moment ago Mr Juncker spoke about the 'virtuous' process.
For my part, I would talk about a 'vicious' process.
The Europe of Nations Group, for its part, believes that the optimum in terms of employment would be better achieved through freedom for nations, rather than obedience to a uniform rule handed down from on high.
Mr President, 1997 should have been the year of reforms and the signal for the start of a new stage of unification, characterized by the restoration of the institutional structure, by the increase in the skills of Parliament, by the specific definition of the commencement of the political union.
These were our hopes when the Intergovernmental Conference began its work - to take steps forward towards democracy within the Union and to establish the bases for the definition of appropriate rules for creating the political union and for meeting the conditions required for expansion.
Never have we been as disappointed as we have been here.
The Amsterdam Treaty, signed in the silence of the press, crowned the failure of the work of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The late effort by the French, which was also joined by my compatriots at the last minute, to call a European Council on 21 November dedicated to employment, was not enough to dissipate the fears for our immediate and long term future. What future, Mr President?
The future of economic and monetary union on its own or the future of the whole Union, which also comprises countries that have not been able to obtain immediate access to the euro? Two speeds could add further problems to those we are already experiencing, for which we still have no exhaustive solutions.
The problems of employment and expansion which, together with the euro, will be the political priorities of the forthcoming year, comprise a stake of exceptional significance for the future of the Union, for, if it is played badly, it may risk shattering what little remains of the Community before it becomes simply a large free trade area.
That is the fundamental problem: either the Union, under the influence of the single currency, will manage to establish a political status, or it will be destined, from crisis to crisis, from expansion to expansion, to become a trading area for 400 million consumers, subject to political decisions that will be decided by other countries, based on strong, economic and financial relations prevailing from time to time.
We should not forget the increasing weight of the Pacific rim, including China, in world affairs, and the current inactivity of the Atlantic rim, of which Europe is partly the cause.
To allay these fears, we ask our governments, the Council and the Commission, to speak up and make the voters understand that the development or decline of our countries is the same as the development or decline of the Union which, if it mistakes the methods and timing of enlargement, if the employment problems are not sorted out soon, if for these reasons we do not manage to keep the citizen's consent, he will change his vote and Europe will become what none of us wants: a highly bureaucratized, somewhat laissez-faire body somewhat in favour of state intervention, which will move like an elephant between the crystal vases of international politics, without any shared security and defence, without a policy of justice, without what it takes to perform the political role of a body of that size.
We will have to restore the same dashed hopes in the motions presented to combat unemployment.
For the time being, we are faced with a long list of hopes and nominal affirmations: dialogue between the parties, united Europe, social Europe, fight against marginalization, but no new policy has been announced, no medium or long term strategy has been presented.
Where will the new jobs come from?
Will the rigid regulations of national job markets, real plaster casts for the mobility and appointment of new employees, come to an end?
Or will recourse be had to public budgets - as a certain government tried to do - to generate a temporary euphoria? Jacques Delors, in his White Paper on Employment, stated, with regard to the insistence on miraculous methods for growth, that untying the purse strings may generate temporary euphoria, in the same way as drugs do, but the awakening will be all the harder when the damage caused by inflation and by internal imbalances has to be rectified.
The greatest damage, he concluded, would be the increase in unemployment.
This seems to be something no-one wants, but which no-one is doing anything about.
In the same section, Delors said no, just as Monti and Bangemann are saying no today, to a general reduction in working hours, to which it seems that some governments refer.
A similar point should be made for expansion: in the absence of a more than substantial financial effort, there will be a constant reduction in the resources currently intended for regions of the Union that benefit from the policy of cohesion - objectives 1 and 5 - and a probable increase in the imbalances between rich regions and poor regions.
There is no policy on growth; without it, however, the resources would not be produced to give rise to the development of possible new members and the current 15.
I would now like to raise several questions: what would our future be if the United Kingdom really took a step sideways and London, one of the leading financial markets, remained outside the euro? And what cynical indifference will enable us to continue to ignore the Mediterranean?
Europe must be Mediterranean or it will not exist, because we will not have the strength to withstand an ever more desperate immigration.
Europe must be political or it will not exist! And so, Mr President-in-Office, it is true that we have obligations, as you said yesterday, including obligations to the countries of the former eastern republics, but above all we have obligations to the 20 million European unemployed: obligations to control the relocation of companies, obligations to reconcile the freedom of the market with solidarity and, finally, to build political union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are confronted with a period of decision-making, and when President Gil-Robles began in the early stages with Robert Schuman and the Treaty of Paris, I had the impression that decades of European development had reached their culmination.
Ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, expansion and its concomitant institutional and financial reforms, all these will allow us an opportunity to finish this work in broad areas.
We must ask ourselves, however, if we really do have the means for this, and for that reason we must concentrate on a number of things.
The main points mentioned by the Commission concerning the euro, employment, expansion, the role in the World, and citizens' rights, are, I think the correct ones.
I think it is right when the President of the Council says one should use Maastricht methods for employment as well, because those countries that then do not participate in such a coordination of employment policy will, because of poor results, end up having a problem justifying their actions to their electorates.
I think that is a good start!
Our unbelievable success - which two years ago no one would have imagined possible - concerning stability in preparation for the euro is, I think, proof that this method is the right one.
This European Union has turned into a stable community such as no one would have imagined possible.
When we approach expansion, however, we must be equipped with the right instruments for us to accomplish the tasks and responsibilities.
It is of no consequence the European Union collecting responsibilities, but not having the instruments to control them so that the citizen can perceive ability and results.
For this reason one important prerequisite for the expansion is the extension of the qualified majority decision.
If we do not achieve this, and if this is not systematically prepared over the next few years, then we shall not have a strengthened Union.
The Commission, the Council and we ourselves, therefore, are under challenge to do a great deal in this area.
It is not so much a matter of obtaining new responsibilities for Europe, but of our needing instruments with which to meet existing responsibilities.
And where the Amsterdam Treaty offers opportunities for it, we should establish a sensible method.
For this reason, Mr Commission President, provision must be made, for example, for making the Planning Unit for foreign policy not into some new for m of Council activity on the Coreper pattern, but it must be so designed, with the participation of the Commission, that it provides added communal value.
The Commission must prepare itself for a future where we have a new troika, in which the Commissioner for foreign policy plays an important role.
Thus, the Commission should be thinking now abut a reorganization, in order for it to be fit for the new opportunities, for it to build an operation on this base.
The treaty has potential, but this potential has to be utilised by preparing oneself for it accordingly.
As for our role in the world, we are approaching the next WTO round.
We were unable, however, to make the necessary decisions in the Amsterdam Treaty, so we must now prepare ourselves to see how we can nevertheless achieve our tasks and serve our mutual interests.
One might perhaps consider a fast track solution to make the Commission capable of negotiation.
Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, we need a cost-benefit analysis of the European Union.
If we talk about costs you all rush to point out that you pay too much, receive too little, and must have more!
But we want at last to have the benefits of the European Union quantified for each country.
Once this has been made clear, then we can hold a balanced debate to find a fair balance here.
I think the Commission should give us this.
As a result of the expansion this European Union could become a community of peace for the whole of Europe.
It could achieve stability and balance, and thus have economic and socio-ecological value for all of us in the long term.
What we have to learn together is that we can only achieve the future together, and that common value for each of us is better than that we insist on individual apparent values.
We should establish a federation of institutions in order to achieve these tasks!
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this debate on the state of the Union it is obviously interesting to see whether the Treaty of Amsterdam, which has after all been the most important development in the Union in the past year, has had any appreciable influence. What is the Commission's view of the treaty?
Did it, like us, find the result disappointing?
And if so, what conclusions does it draw from that? But to my surprise Amsterdam is conspicuous by its absence in the Commission's plans, just when I would expect the Commission to have announced specific new initiatives in its plans, either to achieve the further institutional reforms that are needed before enlargement or by exploiting the possibilities that the treaty will in fact offer practically and creatively.
We expect a little more initiative from the Commission, just as we do from some parliamentary committees, including the committee of which I am chairman, which are now being consulted beforehand on ratification.
The Commission should therefore perhaps anticipate the entry into force of the treaty.
But if it does not wish to do so it is all the more necessary, pending formal ratification, to address a number of matters which have been under discussion for so long.
I am thinking firstly of the free movement of goods and persons, the Monti proposals.
These are not discussed at all in the 1997 annual report and in the 1998 report are only mentioned in the light of the opinion by the Veil consultative group.
The Council is not dealing with these initiatives either, apparently awaiting ratification of the treaty.
Apart from the fact that the Monti proposals go further and are stronger than the provisions on the free movement of persons in the Treaty of Amsterdam, it is surely unacceptable that nothing is happening in this area.
In 1993 our Parliament urged the Commission to act on this point.
So I now want to know what the Commission is going to do, or does the Parliament have to take legal steps to force the Council to act?
Moving on now to a more general problem facing the Union, namely the decline in public confidence in the Union, I see the Monti proposals as a good test case.
How can the Union complain about the lack of support for the European project, when the Union is not able to implement such an essential component of Union policy, the free movement of persons.
It is surely illogical that beans can cross internal borders freely whilst people have less and less freedom of movement. In the people's Union, and I put this point specifically to the Commission, more attention should be paid to closing the gap between the institutions and policy on the one hand and the people with whom it all started on the other hand.
National policy makers, national finance ministers, are always warning that Union policy is too costly and that they should receive as much nationally as they pay in contributions.
The renationalization card keeps being played, something we obviously oppose as a Parliament.
But the Commission will surely agree with me that it is naive to assume that we can stop the renationalization trend unless we have concrete European results at the same time.
Mr President, the essential purpose of this debate this morning is to take stock of where we are today in the European Union and to map out a way forward for the future; a way forward which is practical but also inspirational.
Today, if we are objective, we have reason to be optimistic.
A new treaty has been agreed, a treaty which extends democracy, which deepens the Union and which clarifies many of our structures and procedures.
We have Agenda 2000, which provides a framework for enlargement and a new financial perspective. At the same time, all the indications are that we are on course for the creation of a single currency on 1 January 1999.
Having said that, we should not be complacent - far from it.
What needs to be done is immense.
Two issues, I believe, need to be emphasized above all others.
First, there is the issue of enlargement.
I believe it is essential that the enlargement negotiations begin as soon as is practicable.
If we are to see swift progress we should begin those negotiations with five of the applicant states in central and eastern Europe, plus, of course, Cyprus.
However, the other countries who aspire to membership must not be excluded from the process.
We have to be inclusive, not just sending out the right message, but also making practical proposals to facilitate this process.
At the same time we have to be mindful of our responsibilities with regard to economic and social cohesion within the existing Member States.
I am encouraged by many of the comments and proposals that the Commission is making in this respect.
The second issue is the issue of unemployment.
Frankly, the situation where we have between 18 and 20 million people unemployed in the European Union is unacceptable.
Our goal should be nothing less than full employment.
We should be careful that we do not simply engage in the rhetoric of full employment, but at the same time we come forward with the proposals which will actually attain that goal.
I hope that the special employment summit will be an ideal opportunity for national governments to pool their experiences and to come forward with a set of practical propositions which we can all implement in our different ways throughout the 15 Member States.
We have to be clear that there are no shortcuts to creating jobs for our people.
We have to make sure that the emphasis is on competitiveness for the European economy as a whole.
We must ensure that we have radical policies to guarantee that our workforce is employable, as far as possible.
We have to continue to put the emphasis on education and training right through our entire educational systems.
At the same time, we must ensure that we have policies that stimulate sustainable growth in those sections of the economy which will produce the greatest number of jobs.
One area stands out: the small and medium-sized enterprise sector.
If we want to create jobs, that is where our emphasis should be.
Let us not forget that although we have the single market on paper, we are a long way from having that single market in reality.
Let us make sure that that single market is actually in place, as many people claim it is already, even though we know that in reality it is not.
Let us make sure, in other words, that we have a practical agenda, one that is relevant to the people and one that sets out a vision for a genuine people's Europe.
One moment, Mr Santer.
I ask for silence from all.
The President of the Commission is speaking.
Have the courtesy to enter the room in silence.
Thank you, Mr President of the Commission.
With that we come to the end of this debate, and I should like to thank all those who took part in it. I especially wish to thank the Presidents of the Council and the Commission for the facilities that they provided to make it possible for us to hold this genuinely political debate on the state of the Union.
I think we should all be very pleased.
Mr McMillan-Scott, I will not allow a debate on this matter.
I am sorry, it is not the item on our agenda - it is another point.
That is what I said this morning.
That is why I replied to the Members concerned who wrote to me on the matter.
Mr McMillan-Scott has asked me to put the matter before the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities. I will do that so no one can have any doubt about the right interpretation.
This House is not the place to have a debate on this matter.
Mr David, I am sorry I will not give you or anyone else the floor because I do not want to raise again a matter which will be put before the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Votes
I shall speak on Amendment No 1.
Very well, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, but allow me to state that Amendment No 1 is out of order, and I am giving you the floor because I assume that you do not agree.
Mr President, I do indeed dispute your point of view, founded I imagine on Rule 125 of the Rules of Procedure, and more precisely paragraph 1a).
You intend to apply the Rule under which the amendment is out of order because it applies to 1997 instead of 1998.
I specify first that the full text of my amendment was not exactly the one that was proposed to our Chamber.
I would also like to remind you, referring to page 24 of the Minutes of our meeting of Monday, as approved Tuesday morning, that you yourself proposed not adding a part-session to the 1997 calendar, but adding one to the 1998 calendar.
The deadline for tabling amendments to this proposal was noon on Tuesday.
There was therefore a possibility of amending your proposal.
This proposal was a double one, and Mr President, I have done no more than take up the terms of your letter of 8 October sent to all group presidents.
You said there that after checking all the information, there should be an item on the agenda for the October part-session in Strasbourg on setting dates for a twelfth session in Strasbourg, from 3 to 7 November.
I have done no more than defer to the opinion of the legal department, and you know very well that if the Parliament does not introduce this twelfth session, it will also be acting against the decision of the Court of Justice.
As Jean-Claude Pasty said only the other day, Parliament would also be contravening the financial rules of our institution.
I know, Mr President, that you have come under considerable pressure not to put this amendment to the vote, but you are President of the Parliament.
It behoves you to ensure that the institution is respected from without.
Respect for our institution depends on respect for a decision of the Court of Justice.
It is for this reason that I request you to put this amendment to the vote.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I consider your amendment out of order for two reasons.
The first is that the agenda says: ' Votes: change to the calendar of the European Parliament's 1998 part-sessions.'
It is therefore not a question of 1997, as you yourself stated.
But there is another far more important reason, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
After my letter, I was able to check that it would be impossible, in practice, to hold that part-session.
Just yesterday, after my first reaction, which was to declare your amendment in order, I was able to check with the Commission that it would cause insurmountable problems for its members too.
I consequently believe that it would be incompatible with the seriousness of a Parliament to adopt a resolution in that it cannot put into practice.
There must be no doubt about it, that is the reason why I have decided to declare this amendment out of order, knowing full well that the decision would be criticized.
Mr President, on a point of order.
You have assured me that you are committed not only to respect the Court decision on our sessions here in Strasbourg but that you are equally committed to applying the whole of the Edinburgh package to the meetings of Parliament.
In that case, I withdraw my amendment.
Now we have to vote on the proposal of the Conference of Presidents which is the only proposal put forward.
The Socialist Group has asked for a recorded vote.
(Parliament adopted the proposal)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the question raised by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, over and above the strict problem of whether the amendment is in order, is nevertheless a question which should be posed.
When this house voted on its timetable for 1997, it violated legality, violated treaties, violated the Edinburgh compromise and violated its Rules of Procedure.
(Mixed reactions) This legal violation was condemned by the highest judicial body in the European Union, the European Court of Justice, on which the duty of stating the law is conferred under treaty.
Now 1997, as far as I know, is not over.
It is therefore consequently perfectly possible even now to comply with this decision.
And the question which is raised is how we are, between now and the end of 1997...
Mr Gollnisch, you have gone beyond your minute and at all events you are aware of the fact that the Court of Justice did not make a decision for 1997.
It made a decision for 1996, that is exactly what it did in the judgement, which it suffices to read.
Therefore, for the time being, there is no decision relating to 1997.
The Court is free to take a decision, and legal action is furthermore underway.
The Member States which took the initiative to institute that action are perfectly free to continue it or, as I hope, to suspend it, in the light of the impossibility of holding the session.
Our role is not to poison things still further, but to try and calm them, and that is what this House did this morning with the vote that it has just taken.
(Applause)
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a really important report.
It concerns the future of a sector of the future, telecommunications.
It concerns the regulation of the World Trade Organization, which is establishing itself as a new World Government in many areas that are particularly important to us.
The report itself makes abundantly clear what problems exist in finding agreement, which we still have to discuss.
For example, the USA is making exceptions for itself, which it will not grant to others.
(Mixed reactions) The report draws no conclusions from this, and in view of the fact that we have come to the last moment when Parliament will discuss the matter, I do not move that it be dealt with other than as proposed.
Mr President, I only wish to say that I cannot share Mr Wolf's opinion.
I also wish to state that we have had to agree to vote for this report without debate owing to the enormous delay with which Council decided to pass the issue to Parliament.
And this happens constantly!
I am therefore taking the opportunity to say that we cannot work in this way.
Mrs Castellina, I have taken note of your comment, which in fact has more general substance.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, in principle, on each occasion you quote the opinion of the rapporteur.
I remind the rapporteur that he should defend the text the committee voted for, and not just the Socialist list.
Mr Herman, that is the rule.
The rapporteur can also have personal opinions, but he should also make it clearly understood that this is a personal preference, and that the committee voted differently.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President. I have asked to make an explanation of vote on the motion concerning the calendar.
I have been informed that it is not possible to make an explanation and I should like to ask you, first, to explain why I cannot make a explanation of vote, and, secondly, to give me an opportunity to do so.
Mrs Müller, I am very sorry, but procedurally I cannot allow you to give an explanation of vote.
There is no text on which you can give an explanation of vote.
That has never happened.
Mr President, could you then please inform me on what legal basis you decline to allow me to make an explanation of vote? If you say that the procedure does not allow it, then I must ask you to tell me which Rule in the Rules of Procedure forbids this explanation of vote.
Mr President, I do not wish to detain you any longer.
I take note of what you say, but I should like to reserve the right to request a comprehensive statement on this from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunity.
My interpretation of the paragraph you read out is that, because we have taken a final vote, I have a perfect right to make an explanation of vote.
I shall not, however, debate the matter any further with you now.
I should be grateful if you would perhaps join with me in requesting the Committee on the Rules of Procedure to produce an expert report on the matter.
Mrs Müller, I have no objection to you referring the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure for an authoritative interpretation, and if the Committee on the Rules considers it necessary to amend the Rule, it can make a proposal to amend it.
But as Rule 122 stands, according to my interpretation, it does not permit an explanation of vote because there was no final vote.
But I will note your proposal, with which I personally do not disagree.
Does this now mean that I should make my explanation of vote?
No.
I agreed to refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure to clear it up and, if it so decides, to propose the amendment of this article.
Kaklamanis recommendation (A4-0296/97)
We must, according to the assent procedure, give an opinion on the agreement linking our Union with the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia in the transportation field.
Our Chamber must give a strong political signal to this country, which has been severely affected by the war situation on the frontiers of Bosnia.
By giving our green light, we will enable the necessary development of road, rail and combined transportation infrastructures.
Infrastructure improvement will improve travel not only within Macedonia, but also to and from our Community.
The European Union must have its place in the reconstruction of this part of Europe.
The European Union will have such a place if we give our approval as proposed by our rapporteur.
This will translate into the granting of substantial economic assistance through the European Investment Bank.
I associate myself with the request of our colleague, and hope that our Chamber will back this stance.
We think that agreements between countries should be based on mutual respect and not, as in this case, on one party being forced to change its constitution and its tax system to obtain a trade agreement and subsidies for its transport system.
We also think that greater weight should be given to environmental considerations when the EU gives subsidies to transport investments.
We are therefore abstaining from the vote on the Additional Protocol to the Agreement between the EU and Slovenia in the field of transport, and the Agreement in the field of transport between the EU and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Medina Ortega recommendation (A4-0319/97)
For the benefit of consumers we support the committee's Amendment No 10 on exemptions from the protection of designs.
To give spare parts producers the opportunity to make products which are included in or form a part of a complete product contributes, through increased competition, to lower prices in the market.
Price levels are an important factor for consumers.
In our judgment this would not be harmful to the industry's development.
Legal protection of designs and models raises not only delicate legal problems, but also major economic and political problems.
In its first reading, the debate focused on the question of the repairs clause.
Our interlocutors in the Council and in the Commission agreed in saying that this was the essential part of the draft directive.
However, in the second reading, it is proposed we adopt the draft by setting aside the question of the repairs clause, which has become secondary, as if by magic.
The Parliament should ensure that the Commission and the Council face up to their responsibilities.
Mr Medina Ortega has proposed a compromise solution.
If the Council prefers another one, let it say so, and we shall take our decision.
The conciliation procedure is there for that.
Even so, in order to engage in the conciliation procedure, we have to re-establish the amendments voted on in the first reading.
This is why I voted in favour of Mr Medina Ortega's proposals.
Car manufacturers make an important contribution to the European economy, not least in terms of the number of people employed in the industry throughout the continent.
It is understandable that their priority is to protect their own position and that they see the production of spare parts as important to this.
However, given the size of the car industry in Europe, surely the car manufacturers should recognize that it is large enough to accommodate those small and medium-sized enterprises who also provide valuable employment in the production of spare parts.
Given the emphasis in current thinking with the EU on developing small and medium-sized enterprises as well as promoting improved competition, it is regrettable that the Council took a position contrary to that thinking.
In Northern Ireland there are a number of small businesses that depend on the right to produce spare parts.
These businesses contribute at least as much to the local economy as the big car manufacturers do to the larger European economy.
I am voting for this report today as I am committed to seeing the repair clause reinstated to the design directive.
In this I am not alone.
The British Government is keen to see this clause reinstated.
There is wide consensus between original vehicle manufacturers and the spare parts market in Britain that this clause is an acceptable compromise.
The repair clause is like a classic British compromise.
Vehicle manufacturers have a right to benefit from their investment in design.
Customers also deserve easy access to spare parts and the lower prices from competition between parts suppliers and the original manufacturers, provided that a reasonable payment is made by parts suppliers to the manufacturers.
I feel confident that industry could reach a sensible compromise here.
By voting for the repair clause today, we can urge the Council to allow industry to get on with this task and protect the interests of those who work in or use the spare parts sector.
That way we can safeguard jobs and create a competitive framework for businesses to thrive in.
COM in processed fruit and vegetable products
In its proposed amendment to the regulation, the European Commission proposes to reduce the quota of tinned whole peeled tomatoes by 15, 000 tonnes and, in counterpart to this, to increase its quota of other products by the same amount in order to take into account the needs of the French food processing industry.
Our group, of course, has unreservedly voted in favour of this modification of the Council regulation.
I must specify that this amendment arises from last spring's negotiation of the price package, and that it is a response to the request from the French Minister of Agriculture at the time.
It is important that the Parliament adopt this amendment to the regulation with great speed, as our food processing industry needs it in order to adapt in line with the changing market.
I take advantage of this occasion to remind you of the difficulties which French tomato producers have faced for a number of years.
At the appropriate time our group proposed a number of amendments as part of the fruit and vegetable WTO (Arias Cañete report).
For the most part, these were adopted in the part-session, but unfortunately, those relating to Community preference were not taken up by the Commission.
In conclusion I would remind you that French producers have substantial expenses, and that the competition from other Member States, and also from third countries, is in fact unfair competition, as labour costs and taxation are not the same, at a time when markets are increasingly globalized.
The Commission should take into account such comments, if it wishes to preserve market gardening throughout the regions.
Castellina report (Á4-0305/97)
The European Parliament has been called upon for some time to take a position on the texts relating to the operation of the WTO.
The report by Mrs Castellina is an excellent contribution to raising awareness within the Parliament of the real consequences of the general commitments which were subscribed to without an attentive study of their foreseeable economic and social effects.
Mrs Castellina emphasizes the regularity with which the European negotiators decline to use the principle of symmetrical concessions, without in most cases energetically putting forward the interests of its Member States, particularly if the United States of America are involved.
The report justly denounces the lack of foresight on the part of the Commission, which would have enabled the Commission and this Parliament to measure the impact of this agreement on the telecommunications sectors of the Member States of the Union.
Mrs Castellina is also concerned at the absence of foresight regarding the consequences of this agreement on this sector in the developing countries.
I can but approve the position adopted by the rapporteur.
The absence of data enabling an evaluation of the consequences of our international trade agreements is unfortunately a constant factor in the external trade policy of the European Union.
In its management of the WTO, and of free trade agreements in all directions, as well as of the customs unions to which it has allowed itself to be blindly committed, the European Union appears to be more guided by ideological presuppositions than by the will to serve the real interests of the Member States.
The Commission appears very often to renounce early on the use of the very varied range of protection procedures of which the United States in particular avail themselves.
This agreement is a new illustration of this in the field of telecommunications.
The signature by almost 70 countries of an agreement on the liberalization of the international telecommunications market after three years of negotiation is to be welcomed, especially since it provides a sound legal framework for worldwide investments in the telecom sector.
The 'most favoured nation' principle and the WTO arbitration ensures clarity for businesses.
However it cannot be inferred that the agreement only produces winners.
The Castellina report is rightly both positive and critical.
We voted for the report and also for the result of the negotiations.
The following critical observations must be made on the result.
1.Complete liberalization still does not exist in every country.
The United States and Japan in particular have stipulated a number of exceptions.
The risk that these create is detrimental to the EU, which is opening up its market completely.
The implementation of the agreement must be properly monitored.2.It is still uncertain whether the agreement will lead to a drastic reduction in international telephone charges.
That can only be expected in non-Western countries with a state monopoly in the telecom market.
Charges in the US are already low and the EU market will be completely free from 1998.
So the consumer will in fact notice very little effect from the international telecom agreement.3.The advantages for developing countries also have to be seen in relative terms.
With the improved international legal framework those countries are becoming more attractive for investment, which encourages economic growth and technical development.
But because they are also less involved in the telecom infrastructure, there is a strong risk that when their telecom market is completely liberalized they will be caught unawares and will suffer serious damage.Finally the implications of the agreement for employment must not be overestimated.
It will probably only increase the demand for jobs requiring high qualifications.
The liberalization of the telecom market will be of very little benefit to the lower end of the labour market.
It remains to be seen how far the agreement will help reduce unemployment.
Baldarelli report (A4-0275/97)
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Republic of Slovenia, with its two million inhabitants and with an area of 20, 250 square kilometres, has become one of the most economically developed eastern republics and the first one to declare its independence with a people's referendum on 25 July 1991.
It has a healthy economy with inflation estimated at around 6 %.
Its currency, the talarar, can be considered to be one of the most significant European currencies.
Slovenia submitted an application to join the European Union in June 1996.
The Commission recommended that negotiations commence for its accession.
For some time now, this country has held economic and commercial relations with the EU, concluding an economic and commercial cooperation agreement and an agreement in the road and rail transport sector, which is valid until 2003.
I cannot be certain in recalling the works to be constructed and the support services here.
However, I would like to point out that Slovenia will undertake to invest ECU 2, 200 million of its own budget, corresponding to 2.9 % of the GDP.
I will conclude by expressing the favourable opinion of my group, the Alleanza Nazionale, to the approval of this motion, therefore agreeing with the rapporteur.
Tappin report (A4-0309/97)
I would like to thank the rapporteur for doing a good job on the report on an issue which is important for Europe.
In connection with the drawing up of the report, I had a number of additional proposals in the opinion of the Committee on Employment on the report which above all emphasize the social and environmental aspects of public procurement.
My additional proposals have not in all respects been taken into consideration by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I think that more account should be taken of environmental and social considerations in the rules which apply to public procurement and that the current rules contain uncertainty which justifies such considerations.
My position in the voting has been guided by this.
Today, the Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the report by Michael Tappin dealing with the Commission's Green Paper, covering the field of public sector procurement.
Danish Social Democrats agree with the report that public sector procurement is an important field, as it accounts for no less than 11 % of the total GDP of the EU.
The report finds (as does the Green Paper) that there are still countries which are not following the rules for tenders for public procurement.
The Danish Social Democrats wish to emphasize that free and healthy competition in the public procurement market is essential to ensure a certain, properly working single market to the benefit of all the citizens of the EU.
In his speech during the debate, Niels Sindal expressed scepticism about the possibility of issuing tenders with suspensive effect and suspending tenders.
The Danish Social Democrats see this as a matter for the national courts.
The report challenges the individual Member States to implement the legislation which the EU has already implemented in this field as soon as possible.
The Danish Social Democrats look forward to the continuing debate on the field of public procurement based on the Commission's Green Paper and the report of the European Parliament now produced.
I welcome the production of this report.
In particular I support the proposal to blacklist companies that are involved in cartels and price-fixing agreements.
While the report relates specifically to public contracts, I would like to draw the Commission's attention to suspicions that similar practices operate in Ireland's meat processing factories.
Irish beef farmers have experienced severe financial problems as a consequence of the BSE crisis.
As they have been denied access to both certain European and third markets they have been unable to export their beef as they have done in the past. This places them at the mercy of those who dominate the Irish meat industry.
I would urge the Commission to investigate this area to see if any malpractice exists and if it does to take immediate action.
The levels for public procurement in the EU should be as low as possible to allow local production for local consumption and to stimulate local enterprise.
Since several amendments to take things into account other than purely economic considerations were approved, e.g. Amendment No 6 on environmental considerations, I have voted yes in the final vote.
Bösch report (A4-0287/97)
We have great sympathy for the rapporteur's ambition to overcome the fraud which exists within the EU. However, unlike the rapporteur we do not think that this requires a supranational level in the fight against crime, and that it is sufficient to have an intensified fight at the national level.
We are therefore opposed to the supranationalism which advocated in paragraph 3, the independent European judicial authority which is advocated in paragraph 11 and the separate category of crime which is discussed in paragraph 17.
It is because of this, the rapporteur's demands for supranationalism in the judicial system, that we are abstaining in the final vote.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a thorough report on a important matter.
We voted for the report, but we think that the forms of an independent European judiciary should be examined in the future work.
The Danish Social Democrats support the report by Mr Bösch.
Fraud involving EU resources is a very serious problem which affects all the citizens of the European Union to a greater or lesser extent.
There is no doubt that this fraud must be combatted and that this can be done most effectively at Community level.
On the other hand, Denmark's reservations about participating in legal cooperation in the EU prevent it from being involved in the initiatives to combat fraud which the report demands, which is why we have not voted in favour of all parts of the report.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbaek (I-EDN), in writing.
(DA) Openness is the best and cheapest weapon against fraud involving EU funds.
All the monitoring committees in national parliaments and the European Parliament, the EU's auditors and national auditing organizations must have access to all documents where EU funds have been used.
The public should be guaranteed access to the files on the use of the resources (possibly with the actual names involved being deleted before they are handed over).
In this way, fear of being discovered will automatically limit the amount of fraud drastically, and we will not need a larger supervisory apparatus and more EU competence to hunt the fraudsters to whom the current lack of openness at the EU is an invitation to fraud.
Fraud is a great evil which endangers the EU, not only because of the financial loss, which probably exceeds ECU 1.3 billion, but also because it seriously damages public confidence in the European institutions.
Like the rapporteur I am pleased with the Commission's annual report and work programme on combatting fraud.
I agree with many of the Committee on Budgets' recommendations, including setting up an independent body to investigate the operation of the European institutions.
I do disagree strongly with the view that fraud can only be combatted effectively by a European investigation office, under the control of the European institutions.
Such a body is incompatible with the principle of subsidiarity.
Justice and investigation (including criminal law) are the responsibility of the Member States.
It has to be admitted that Member States have neglected their customs departments since the internal market came into force.
Whilst trade between the Member States was growing fast, customs manpower and budgets were cut.
Also there is still insufficient cooperation between customs departments.
If the functioning and cooperation of national investigation departments are optimalized, there is ample scope for reducing fraud at European level.
Although we reject the idea of a European investigation office we consider combatting fraud such an important issue that we are otherwise entirely in favour of the report.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Protection of displaced persons
The next item is the report (A4-0284/97) by Mr Wiebenga, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the proposal to the Council for a Joint Action based on Article K.3(2)(b) of the Treaty on European Union concerning temporary protection of displaced persons (COM(97)0093 - C4-0247/97-97/0081(CNS)).
Mr President, since the fall of the Berlin wall and the end of the cold war numerous wars and civil wars have broken out in the world.
We read about them every week.
There is talk of instability in a turbulent world and even in Europe, as we know, there are civil wars and so on. Just look at Bosnia.
These disturbances lead to large-scale migration.
The figure mentioned for former Yugoslavia is two million displaced persons, half a million of them flooding into the European Union.
Such a large number of people cannot be dealt with through the usual asylum procedures and yet they need to be allowed in.
The admission of displaced persons into the European Union has so far been uneven.
Germany has taken in a large number of Bosnian refugees.
The Netherlands and Sweden have played their part, but France, England and Spain for instance have done very little.
This is an unsatisfactory situation because at the moment, as we know, the borders in Europe are being dismantled, Europe is becoming one legal area and solidarity and cooperation are needed in its immigration and asylum policy.
That means that a fair distribution of the burden and I would really prefer to say a fair distribution of responsibilities must be the crux of Europe's asylum and immigration policy.
The present Community action, a form of draft law, is a step in that direction.
The Community action is also of course aimed at the rights of displaced persons in the various Member States - which have up to now all had different rules, nationally orientated - with a view to harmonizing rights throughout Europe.
Then I would like to mention housing for the displaced persons, education, work and so on.
That is an important aspect of this draft law, but some aspects are open to criticism.
For instance the time taken to reach a decision on entry.
How long should it take? The proposal is vague on that point.
It indicates that asylum procedures can be suspended after not more than five years and governments will then consider what is to be done.
An amendment I tabled in committee, which the committee adopted, makes it clear that it should not take more than five years to admit displaced persons.
It is inhuman to make people wait more than five years in uncertainty.
After five years people have to go back to their country of origin when the situation there is believed to be safe and reasonable, or they must be granted permanent leave to remain in the country to which they have been admitted, in other words in the European Union, with the possibility of naturalization.
Another matter of concern with regard to this Community action is the decision-making process.
In the Community action it is proposed that decisions on the introduction of rules on entry should be taken by qualified majority and that is very positive.
What is the problem then? There are - and I say this quite openly and clearly - two amendments by Mrs Palacio and a number of other colleagues, Amendments Nos 39 and 40, which call for unanimity on this point and that means that there will again be a right of veto.
I say to my Spanish colleagues, just imagine that in the near future a civil war breaks out in Morocco and tens of thousands of Moroccans, maybe even more, come from Morocco to Spain and Spain wants to introduce rules on the admission of displaced persons to the European Union and there is a possibility of a right of veto.
Do you really think that you can accommodate Spain with fifteen Ministers of Justice? It is obviously impossible.
I therefore appeal to Parliament to firmly reject Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's amendments calling for unanimity in particular and I am obviously appealing on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
Mr President, may I conclude by complimenting Commissioner Gradin.
This is the first time that the European Commission has made use of its right of initiative in a Community action.
I hope that we can still sharpen up and improve the European Commission's draft by means of amendment but this is the way to operate.
And I also want to say to her, keep up the good work.
Mr President, the figures displaced persons have risen dramatically in recent years.
We are therefore very glad that the Commission has taken an initiative aimed at temporary protection for large numbers of people who are fleeing from particular geographic areas.
The proposal to the Council is to decide on common rules on protection based on Article K 3.
In recent years we have seen a number of crises, such as the migration from Bosnia and the flight from Albania.
Thank you Mrs Zimmermann for mentioning Sweden's efforts in this area; they have, of course, been quite considerable.
When large numbers of people close to the Union begin to move because of disasters of various kinds, the Union is affected.
Our underlying common values in the Union, a Union founded on humanity, demand that we also show solidarity in this area for people moving away from a disaster.
However, solidarity requires that measures are in the context of a set of rules which can be accepted by the citizens of the Union.
It is now up to each country to do this itself, otherwise a few countries will have to cope with the consequences alone.
That is unreasonable in a Union with freedom of movement.
We must help each other.
That means common rules, but it also means that in future we will need common ways of making decisions when we adopt these rules, rules which are not about making people into permanent refugees, but about giving them just what they need, i.e. protection for the period that they cannot remain in their home country.
As the Commission has also pointed out, it is very important that the conditions are created in our countries for these people to be able to support themselves and their children.
That is also one of the conditions for them to be able to be received in the proper way in all of our Member States.
This is an area which the Council should in future look at with more modern eyes and adapt to the new growing labour market which demands greater flexibility.
I will conclude by thanking Commissioner Gradin for this initiative and also for wanting to listen to Parliament.
This initiative is central for the Union, since it is a test of whether we are capable of collective responsibility in difficult situations.
Because if we cannot manage it in this area, how are we going to succeed in all of the others? Therefore it is important that we listen closely to each other.
These are sensitive issues.
In the Group of the European People's Party we have some political points which are very important for us. I have highlighted some of them here.
Mrs Zimmermann and not least Mr Wiebenga, on behalf of the EPP Group, we shall support this report.
We think it is a good report that Mr Wiebenga has produced.
I would particularly like to underline the excellent example from Spain, which I think was very good, and on which I have the same opinion.
However, the condition for us in the EPP Group is that certain of our central points go through.
Otherwise we will be obliged to abstain from the vote.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have greatly appreciated the work carried out by Mr Wiebenga, who has always been very attentive to these topics, and my group will support the general positions assumed by the rapporteur.
We also consider the procedure undertaken by the Commission to be very serious, procedure that involves the European Parliament directly.
This constitutes a very important fact, significant progress.
The subject that concerns us today is certainly a very delicate subject.
On the other hand, wars, hunger, famine, disasters, that make history even today, are part of the history that characterized the migrations in the world, belong to the history of the world.
So obviously, we cannot shut our eyes to the events of recent years, to what happened in the course of history.
Hence the need for more developed, more refined regulations and the need to give a connotation to this new category of so-called "displaced persons' ; a category that is distinguished from that of refugees, those seeking asylum; a category to which a great deal of attention needs to be paid, however: in fact, we would not want this category to have been created, let us say, artificially, to avoid a term, which I appreciated a great deal in Mr Wiebenga's speech, the term "responsibility' .
In fact, Europe has a great responsibility today on this matter: the responsibility of being a beacon, a reference point for all those in difficult situations, those subjected to particular and temporary dramatic living conditions.
We cannot forget that Europe is a reference point, and therefore has great responsibilities, the burdens of solidarity.
On the other hand, we should ensure that the framework of regulations does not represent a further obligation, a further tie and trap to the work of responsibility, of solidarity that Europe should have.
I therefore agree with Mr Wiebenga when he states that the qualified majority in this case is absolutely essential, that turning back unanimously would be a great mistake.
And so the question of compensation is very important: compensation means that it is not just one member country assuming possible responsibility for the acceptance of these displaced persons, but that responsibility is common to the 15 countries of Europe.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Wiebenga, on his report.
A number of aspects could be highlighted, but I shall restrict myself to referring to certain paragraphs that I believe are particularly important.
One of the main points concerns article 10 of the joint action.
In its present wording, article 10 is, in my view, legally incorrect.
It provides that the examination of an application for asylum under the Geneva Convention introduced by a beneficiary of a temporary protection regime may be postponed for as long as the Council has not adopted a decision on the phasing out of the temporary protection regime.
The examination of an application for asylum cannot be legally delayed.
The procedure must offer all applicants the possibility of presenting their application for asylum as soon as possible.
In fact, this article should establish the procedure for dealing with displaced persons who, besides receiving temporary humanitarian protection, seek asylum.
I would therefore ask the House to pay particular attention to Amendment No 37, tabled by our group, which provides that the fact that an applicant is the beneficiary of a temporary protection regime may be taken into account when examining an application for asylum, without this - I stress - determining the refusal of the application or a delay in the granting of the application which could jeopardize the ultimate aim of protection.
Otherwise, in my view, the essential legal protection which must be granted to all asylum seekers will be undermined.
With regard to article 11, it is essential to underline the importance of Parliament's mission to help ensure the uniform application of the rule of law in different situations within the Union.
In this sense, I should like to draw the House's attention to Amendment No 41, which establishes the grounds for refusing to grant a temporary protection regime.
We must be aware of the fact that we cannot sanctify the content of legal texts, in this case the Geneva Convention, since the case law of international courts and the courts of the Member States, as well as the Member States' constitutional traditions, interpret the various sources that feed our legal systems - and the law is constantly evolving, as the Members are aware.
I should also like to ask the House to give close thought to approving Amendments Nos 39 and 40, which provide that the Council shall adopt the measures implementing the joint action by unanimity, in the light of Parliament's report.
In this House, we have always insisted that Parliament's role must be strengthened; and the arrangements for implementing this joint action must therefore also include the consultation of Parliament.
Similarly, we have included, in the second part of these amendments, the provision that the Council shall decide by unanimity, something to which Mr Wiebenga - with whom I regret to say I cannot agree on this occasion - has already referred.
I am aware that this proposal meets with the disagreement of a number of the Members.
Nevertheless, I would argue in its defence that, as we all know, no Community institution can contravene the provisions of Community law or the acquis communautaire. And it should be pointed out that the new Amsterdam Treaty itself maintains the requirement of unanimity in the Council for action in this field.
Consequently, Mr Wiebenga, the Spanish delegation in the EPP Group will not be withdrawing these amendments.
I therefore trust, ladies and gentlemen, that you will support the arguments that I have put forward.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Wiebenga.
I have studied this report and can see no reason to put in any amendments to it. I completely support his position on it.
The report on temporary protection represents the recognition of the desire at the level of the European Union for a coordinated joint action to deal with the situation where there is a sudden mass influx of displaced persons resulting from an armed conflict in their own countries.
This initiative derives from the experiences of conflict in the former Yugoslavia and, more recently, the situation in Albania.
The question is, can the European Union find a flexible way, through a joint action, of responding in a coordinated manner to any future situations that might arise where persons are temporarily in need of international protection?
People in need of such temporary action do not necessarily meet the conditions of refugee status under the terms of the Geneva Convention.
The proposal is essentially a humanitarian response to the need to offer protection on a temporary basis to individuals fleeing a country in significant numbers as their lives are in imminent danger.
The temporary protection period is limited to the time during which the conditions in their country of origin do not allow a safe return of those caught up in the conflicts.
It is important to bear in mind that we cannot predict now where the next conflict might arise, the number of people in immediate danger, nor their particular circumstances.
No two situations involving displaced persons are the same.
There are no simple mathematical formulae which can be worked out in advance.
The criteria to be agreed must therefore be adaptable and flexible.
Applications for asylum should be looked at without undue delay.
One of the fundamental characteristics of temporary protection is that it is not a right established by any international instrument.
As the Commission points out, the proposed joint action does not seek to introduce a new right to seek temporary protection in addition to the existing right to seek asylum.
Some of the amendments tabled will not facilitate progress with this proposal which, I want to stress, should prepare the way for a humanitarian response to future situations which might arise where a mass influx of people in need of international protection takes place.
Finally, I want to congratulate the Commissioner.
I have known her for many years. Any proposal that she would put before this House would have my full support and confidence because I trust entirely her integrity in these matters.
I congratulate her on it.
Mr President, there can be few problems we discuss here, which so affect us on a moral and ethical plane, as the problem of refugees.
For that reason I think it is particularly necessary to find a solution which can be upheld by a large majority in Parliament.
As this concerns a moral responsibility, however, we believe that personal off-set has been too little mentioned in the report.
The problem of refugees does not just concern paying and then deciding who pays, but it also principally demands that the whole of Europe be prepared to solve this problem together.
A further problem - and here we agree that it is a special problem - is that of a qualified majority.
One can look at it like a glass of water: either half empty, or half full.
Naturally the right of veto is a problem that one will have to argue out.
On the other hand it can be seen as positive, if it is declared to be a pan-European problem and we all have to find a common solution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by Mr Wiebenga is an excellent one. It can help to remove the helplessness of European Union states which has been revealed by the sudden appearance of refugee streams from various regions surrounding Europe and from Europe itself.
Only in recent years have we seen that problems leading to streams of refugees into the European Union, but originating within Europe, have been inadequately mastered by the European Union.
Incidentally, they were inadequately dealt with politically, because there are forces amongst the Member States of the EU who are represented here in this House, who spoke in this debate, and who are just waiting to exploit refugee influxes as part of their political tactics.
The extreme right in this House, namely, has the effrontery to make a speech here like the one just made by my colleague Mr Gollnisch.
In this he used a phrase which I really must comment on.
Mr Gollnisch, you said you asked yourself why Algerians were coming to France in such large numbers.
I ask myself the same question, when I think that in France an Algerian could meet you.
He would immediately make a run for it to some other country, I am quite sure of that.
You should ponder that the cause of refugee streams such as this one from Algeria can also be found in the fact that your country's arms industry was delivering weapons up to a short time ago to the parties contributing to this flight.
Mr President, Mr Gollnisch has just made an impolite gesture at me.
I request that you note that in the Minutes, because I consider it an honour to be designated as mad by a fascist.
That can only mean that I must be a serious politician.
I congratulate Mr Wiebenga on one point.
He has made proposals which can be construed as meaning that the governments of the European Union and also the institutions of the European Union, particularly the Commission, should do more than they have already in one direction. That is that we should put into practice our claim, made from time to time in this Parliament, to formulate our strategy for solving political problems based not only on monetary and economic considerations, but mainly on humanitarian ones.
The Wiebenga report can make a useful contribution to that.
Mr President, may I begin by complimenting Mr Wiebenga very sincerely on his excellent report.
We find it very sound.
It is carefully worded.
What I also like very much is that it does not overdramatise.
We just heard from the far right that Europe could be overrun by hungry Parisians.
I do not think that there is any place for that sort of over dramatisation here.
I also welcome the fact that Mr Wiebenga has completely avoided any opportunity to play on xenophobic feelings in discussing this subject; he has specifically avoided that, which I consider extremely important, because when dealing with displaced persons and others who come here through need we should take care to preserve harmony in our society.
That is why we are opposed to any xenophobic dramatization of the situation.
It is the people themselves who are the drama.
It is a terrible thing to be displaced.
It is not something you do yourself.
Being displaced is also the result of foreign policy, or rather the deficiencies of our foreign policy.
I must say there are Member States that really do want to have a common foreign policy - they have nothing to reproach themselves for - but those that do not wish to, creating misery around us, as in Bosnia-Herzegovina for instance, do have something to reproach themselves for and they should not complain about immigrants arriving out of need, which is the case with these displaced persons.
There are countries that do a great deal and the responsibility is always shifted on to them.
I mean Germany, Luxembourg - given the percentage in relation to Luxembourg's total population, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands.
That is about all.
It is particularly important that in future the responsibility should be shared equally.
I would also like to congratulate the Commissioner on the fact that she has done well in finally producing the third pillar policy.
That should not turn into a meaningless gesture whose main characteristic is that it manages to avoid the shortsighted interests of the fifteen Member States, because then there is just about nothing than can be said.
Amsterdam contains a promise in relation to the third pillar.
I would also like to say that for us in the Christian Democrat Party the report contains a couple of important aspects which we consider should definitely be retained in the final version.
Firstly the articles on the distribution of responsibility which Mr Wiebenga introduced himself.
Then the articles about consensus or the majority decision.
We do not therefore feel that the Spanish proposals in this area should be approved, because if so we are really giving up Amsterdam, a second, very important aspect.
A third aspect we argued about was the idea that the concept of safe countries should be retained.
It might not entirely have to do with displaced persons as such, but the idea that the safe countries principle, which is not a purely automatic principle but does allow proper scope for individual assessment if it is absolutely necessary, that that safe countries principle is upheld.
For those reasons I would like to say that our group will be particularly pleased if this report is well received, because a report like this deserves a very large majority.
Mr President, firstly let me congratulate Mr Wiebenga on his critical comments on the proposal for a Community action for the temporary protection of displaced persons.
I would like to raise a couple of points.
It is a good idea for separate rules to be proposed for temporary protection for refugees in the event of a massive influx.
It is essential to harmonize the existing regulations because they differ in a number of ways and the differences have terrible consequences for the refugees.
Mr Wiebenga rightly points out that Member States need to begin, operate and end the temporary protection for displaced persons at the same time, so that excessive influxes of immigrants are prevented and each country bears a proportionate share of the burden.
A Member State should not be able to close its borders when there is a massive influx of immigrants, forcing displaced persons to enter an adjoining country illegally.
The most important point in this proposal, however, is the harmonization of the fundamental rights of displaced persons.
As the rapporteur has said, this proposal is in fact sharing responsibility within the Union.
A remarkably good proposal after the signature of the Treaty of Amsterdam is to use the opportunities it offers in the third pillar.
I am in fact curious to know how the Member States themselves will handle it.
In any event, Mr President, the clock must not be turned back to a veto.
I fully endorse what the rapporteur has said on that subject.
Mr President, first of all may I congratulate Mr Wiebenga on what is a very well-intentioned and wellpresented report.
Of course it presupposes basic approval for the Commission proposals
It is vitally important that we should make proper provision for a mass influx of displaced persons of the kind we have had at least once in the last few years.
We should ensure these people can be properly provided for in terms of housing, medical care, education for their children and so on.
Indeed the provisions for such people already exist in my own country and are implemented.
However, the British Labour members have some difficulties with the Commission's proposals as they stand.
I understand that the Commission proposals did not receive an altogether positive response from Council.
I suspect that this issue will return because I doubt whether the Council will accept them in the present form.
Rightly or wrongly a number of Member State governments feel that it should be an individual national responsibility to deal with this issue, certainly in terms of the length of time that the displaced persons are provided for, rather than a Community function.
We have particular difficulties over the question of how the burden-sharing is to be organized and flexibility in relation to these matters.
There is a basic feeling that we should be able to deal with cases on an individual basis as promptly as possible rather than lump everybody together and so postpone a decision.
In conclusion, we may find we have to abstain on this report, depending on how the amendments are voted and I wanted to highlight our difficulties.
Madam Commissioner, we have frequently discussed with one another the subject of burden sharing, and you have told various ministers - Bavarian Interior Minister Beckstein, for example - how important you think burden sharing is.
Thus, I regret that your proposal contains no mention of burden sharing.
I am thankful that our colleague Wiebenga takes a step in the right direction in his report, particularly if we are successful in passing the amendments by Mr Nassauer and defeating the others.
Then we can take a step in the right direction.
I still believe, however, that the real problem of personnel burden sharing will not be solved, for it is not primarily a question of finance, but of community solidarity.
This solidarity is challenged in many areas and it must naturally dominate when it is a question of accepting refugees and expellees - and these are not asylum seekers, as Mr Pirker has rightly said. Certain countries are proportionately under extreme pressure here as well.
We are concerned here with the sharing of people, because too large an influx at one point decreases public acceptance for it, with all the dangerous consequential psychological results.
For this reason we need a set code for the sharing of people between different member countries of the European Union - rather as we have in Germany, with the system for sharing between individual Länder.
As this is not included in the proposal, I think that we have missed the point with this proposal and that we need a new one.
We will attempt to introduce improvements.
We shall rely, however, on new improvements being produced in the Council, and we shall particularly rely on finding a solution in which the required objective is achieved at the second stage.
As for unanimity, I believe we should use the Amsterdam compromise solution, in which we unanimously vote in the fundamentals for a new policy, and then react to routine policy challenges after five years with a qualified majority.
Mr President, the mass movement of displaced people is a constantly recurring phenomenon.
It is seldom possible to predict when and where it is going to happen, only that it certainly will happen again and again.
In recent years we have experienced a refugee crisis which meant hat nearly a million people in need of protection have found a temporary place of refuge in Europe.
I am thinking of the Bosnian refugee crisis.
The main problem was that the number of people was so large that our capacity to examine asylum applications threatened to break down.
Most of the Member States have therefore chosen to postpone asylum tests for a while and instead to offer temporary protection.
In that way a very large number of people have been able to find the protection they need.
The problem is that this has taken place without any kind of coordination or cooperation between the Member States.
The result has been that the policies are very different from one country to the next.
We have seen, for example, how the opportunity to get a temporary residence permit is given at different times.
The same applies to the decision that the protection should cease.
This has led to a situation whereby people with temporary protection which is soon to expire are beginning to move towards countries where the opportunity to get temporary protection still exists.
We have also been able to see that the social rights of the people in need of protection differ from one country to the next.
In one country they are allowed to work, in another they must wait, and in a third they must stay completely outside the labour market.
There are also large differences with regard to access to housing, medical treatment, education and other services.
There is a risk that this too will lead to movements of refugees within the European Union. It is therefore vital that the European Union reviews its conditions for meeting the refugee crises of the future.
Our citizens see it as obvious that a better cooperation and more similar rules should be built up.
This is reflected in both the Maastricht Treaty and, to an even greater extent, in the new Amsterdam Treaty.
It is our task to ensure that this objective can be realized.
Mr President, in many respects the Commission's proposal can be seen as a compromise.
We known that historical ties and geographical factors play a large role with regard to which countries accept asylum seekers from a certain region or a certain country.
Our proposal therefore gives the Council of Ministers a large amount of flexibility.
The idea is that decisions can be made from case to case.
As part of the proposal we have included a section dealing with the question of a collective division of responsibility for asylum burdens.
This is an issue which has greatly concerned this Parliament through the years.
I think that is also shown by today's debate.
Our idea is to create space for the Council of Ministers to also make such decisions when a mass refugee situation arises.
Then people can always debate whether this proposal is sufficient or not.
It is probably also the most controversial issue in the proposal and was intensively debated at the time in the Commission.
That is why I have also decided as far as possible to take into account the results of the many long negotiations which we have already had on this issue in the Council of Ministers.
My aim has been to avoid a situation where this part of the contents of the proposal jeopardise the possibility of reaching any agreement at all on temporary residence permits.
The Luxembourg Presidency has so far taken the negotiations forward in a very constructive way.
The proposal was also raised recently at the informal ministerial meeting in Luxembourg on 9-10 October.
There I had the opportunity to remind the Council of Ministers how important it is for use to achieve a positive result.
We can only speculate on when the next mass refugee situation will arise.
The sooner we can achieve a result on this issue the better.
Mr President, Mr Gollnisch's last remark in particular prompts my next comment: there are some people whom one must forgive anything, because of their deplorable state.
Mr Gollnisch belongs amongst them.
Mr President, I wish to speak for a different reason, but first just one sentence: I reject the insult to Mr Schulz' parents and to all our parents, and should like to express opposition to all forms of collective blame.
That is upheld in this House.
I say this as a German and a European.
I wanted to put a question to the Commissioner, however, and that is why I rose to speak.
She did not react to it in her answer.
Madam Commissioner, I just wanted to know why you did not address a proposal on burden sharing to the Council. Did you fail to receive a majority for it in the Commission?
Or was it a predisposed obedience towards the Council? That is my specific question.
Mr President, I was in fact saying that the Commission is also taking up this question of burden sharing in its proposal and is making it quite possible for the Council of Ministers in connection with this situation to take up the proposal to carry out a sharing of burdens.
You can then always debate whether this proposal is strong enough or not, but, as I have said, it is in the proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
Cocoa, chocolate, coffee and chicory
The next item is the report (A4-0310/97) by Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposals for European Parliament and Council Directives on: I. cocoa and chocolate products intended for human consumption (COM(95)0722 - C4-0303/96-96/0117(COD)); II. coffee extracts and chicory extracts (COM(95)0722 - C4-0304/96-96/0117(COD)).
Mr President, seldom has a draft directive led to so many problems as the one the Commission has now submitted to us.
When we note that this matter has now been going on for over 20 years and that the Commission has already made three attempts to find a workable compromise, then we really must say that the Commission appears to have been terribly incompetent.
As far as the Committee on Development and Cooperation is concerned, and I am speaking as its rapporteur, the position is that this umpteenth Commission proposal is simply unacceptable.
Commissioner Bangemann should take this to heart.
What are our objections? I shall go through them again.
With this proposal the European Union is contravening its own treaties; the Treaty of Rome, the Treaty of Maastricht, the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Lomé Convention state that the European Union must improve the position of the developing countries.
I will just quote one of the articles, article 130u(1) of the Maastricht Treaty: ' Community policy in the sphere of development cooperation... shall foster... the sustainable economic and social development of the developing countries and more particularly the most disadvantaged among them' .
Well, this directive will result in a drop in exports of 60, 000 and up to a maximum of 200, 000 tonnes of cacao from over ten third world countries and serious losses for millions of small cocoa farmers who are dependent on cocoa.
In this directive the European Commission is also contravening the international cocoa agreement which requires the Union to encourage the free import of cocoa in order to stabilise the revenue of cocoa producing countries.
Here again it is infringing its own treaties.
The Maastricht Treaty states that the Community shall comply with the commitments and take account of the objectives that it has approved in the context of the United Nations and other competent international organizations.
The Commission has in addition submitted a directive to us which states that 5 % alternative fats are permitted in chocolate throughout the Union whilst that 5 % cannot be precisely determined.
The Commission itself recently instituted research into better measurement methods to identify the 40 % margin.
Why did the Commission not do that in the twenty years it has already been struggling with this problem?
The position of the Committee on Development and Cooperation is clear.
We consider that alternative fats have no place in chocolate and that the Commission must either set the directive at 0 % or withdraw it.
The damage to the developing countries is disproportionate to the profit on the internal market and the profit to the consumer.
The only third party that will be laughing - and here I agree with Mr Happart - is the big chocolate industry, the big multinationals, which will be 40 million dollars a year better off.
If none of our views receives a majority, I shall as a last resort, and I stress that, vote for the amendments that Mrs Thyssen has tabled.
She asks that only tropical fats should be permitted as alternative fats and that the directive should not be allowed to enter into force until it is clear that that 5 % can be determined really accurately.
But it is a final recourse when there is nothing else to be salvaged.
In principle I uphold my view: it must be nil, otherwise the Commission would do better to withdraw the proposal.
It really is a disgraceful proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the chocolate debate is an emotional debate so let us therefore start with the facts.
The European Commission has drawn up a proposal with two principles.
First, the Member States themselves decide on the use of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
Secondly, free movement must be guaranteed but with an additional labelling requirement for chocolate with vegetable fats.
I have two comments to make on this.
How far will a Member State be able to resist pressure from its own industry if the industry suffers competitive disadvantages in relation to Member States in which vegetable fats are permitted? Here again economic pressure is likely to undermine the proportionality principle.
The labelling requirement is very vague.
The Commission talks about clear, neutral and objective information in addition to the list of ingredients.
But what does this mean exactly?
Does this additional labelling requirement not conflict with the Béarnaise judgment or the labelling directive? I put the question to the Commission at the September part-session.
I received an official written reply from the Commission.
The Commission wrote that the Béarnaise judgment is not applicable and secondly that the labelling requirements are in no way an impediment.
On the contrary, article 6(6) of Directive 79/112 expressly provides for the possibility of such measures.
The Commission is therefore invoking article 6(6) of the labelling directive and I, together with a number of colleagues, have tabled two amendments that do precisely the same, so it seems to me natural that the Commission should accept these amendments since we are saying precisely the same thing.
May I ask for a specific answer on that point from the Commission at the end of the debate?
Because what is the crucial question when it comes down to it?
Obviously it is not simply whether we are for or against vegetable fats at a time when the use of vegetable fats is tolerated and permitted in seven Member States - which I find regrettable, but it is a fact.
It is not simply a question of how you inform the consumer and I am surprised that some do want to inform the consumer but preferably not too much.
The advocates of vegetable fats say that their products are excellent.
I believe them.
So why are they afraid to inform the consumer that they are using them if they are so excellent? Do they have something to hide?
A further point: the proposed directive is based on the principle that the same packaging must be used for the same product anywhere in the Union.
An excellent principle!
In fact let us not allow any exceptions for ordinary milk chocolate.
The Committee on the Environment has expressed a similar view.
Let us be consistent. One rule for everyone, no exceptions.
I will end with a twofold appeal to the national delegations and political groups.
Let us stop the embarrassing and shameful business of whose amendment is actually best.
We, like many other people, want better information for the consumer.
We have produced a proposal based on what the Commission wants, article 6(6) of the labelling directive.
But other colleagues have also produced good proposals.
It is not a question of who has the best amendment, it is a question of obtaining a sizeable political majority so that we can have an influence on the legislative process.
A second appeal.
A number of national governments, many political parties and Members of Parliament are in principle opposed to the use of animal fats.
We have made our position an abstraction.
We accept the two regulations, but on the basis of clear consumer information.
Might we ask that a significant step is taken by the other side as well?
Mr President, the application of quality standards and controls is an essential ingredient of Europe's food sector and, from a consumer perspective, we must be vigilant so as to ensure that all food products meet the most stringent production and market requirements.
Over-regulation, however, leads to unnecessary stifling of the sector, resulting in a lack of variety, and ignores the indigenous range of high-quality regional and national food products.
From an Irish perspective, agriculture and the associated food industry are central to our economy, and the chocolate industry, which is the subject of this debate, is a very important component.
Ireland's quality chocolate sector employs 3, 000 people and uses 50 million gallons of milk and 40 tonnes of Irish sugar.
Irish milk chocolate - I was tempted to partake in the chocolate bar that was on display - is appreciated as a product of quality and provides high consumer satisfaction.
The agri-dairy sector is as crucial to Ireland's farmers as cocoa is to other producing countries, and I have no desire to minimize the importance of cocoa to the countries which are dependent on it.
The Commission proposal to allow up to 5 % vegetable fat in the manufacture of chocolate is acceptable, as is the decision of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection to allow the listing of vegetable fats with other ingredients.
This rules out the necessity of putting the designation on the front of the package.
The Commission proposal, which makes it possible to sell chocolate with vegetable fat in all 15 Member States instead of the present 7, is, in my view, to be commended, thus allowing the internal market to function properly.
For the reasons already stated, and in particular because of Ireland's dependency on its agri-food sector, I appeal to colleagues to support the existing derogation for Ireland and the United Kingdom to allow the description 'milk chocolate' within the marketing territory of both countries.
I would ask the Member States and those present to allow the continuation of that derogation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am afraid that we are getting into a debate in which reason and generally accepted principles are having to give way to emotion, national interests and also self-interest.
In my view the harmonization of the chocolate legislation should meet a dual objective: firstly to make chocolate manufacturers, importers and exporters subject to the same rights and obligations to give them the same advantages on the European internal market and secondly to enable consumers to benefit from the advantages of an internal market by offering them a choice.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party is therefore in favour of, firstly, full harmonization and, secondly, clear labelling.
By full harmonization we mean that it must be possible not just to sell but also to manufacture chocolate with vegetable fats anywhere in the Union.
If we are in favour of a real internal market, it is logical that we should allow not only freedom of movement but production anywhere.
A regulation in which the Member States take a sovereign decision as to whether or not they permit vegetable fats in their production is no longer tenable.
Major producers can shift their production to countries where it is permitted and then sell their products under the same name in countries where it is prohibited.
The small local chocolate makers on the other hand are restricted as to where they can operate and are therefore at a disadvantage.
Moving on to labelling, in a free market it is not up to the legislator to decide what ingredients the manufacturer is to use.
It is however responsible for ensuring compliance with the stipulated minimum quantities.
On the other hand the consumer must be able to choose, with the help of clear labelling, the chocolate that suits his taste, his tradition and, why not, his concern for developing countries.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party believes that clear labelling should consist of uniform, clear information in a fixed position, with the name at the top, clearly distinguishable from the list of ingredients, in clearly readable letters.
I would like to make two further comments.
Our group is opposed to the idea of restricting vegetable fats to three tropical fats.
With such a restriction we would soon have problems with the World Trade Organization and then this directive would never get off the ground.
Secondly, we are not in favour of the amendments making the application of this directive conditional upon a Community detection method.
In this connection I would like to draw attention to the 1989 directive on official control of foodstuffs, which lays down uniform rules on the subject.
We are therefore tabling amendment 54, which ties in with this directive.
Mr President, we supported Mr Lannoye's proposal in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection because we thought that it was balanced.
And we agree with Mr Lannoye's proposal because we believe that it respects certain principles that must be observed when it comes to approving the revision of the directive.
Firstly, the need for clear and comprehensive labelling. As article 2 of Directive 79/111 rightly states, consumers must not be confused.
Secondly, the need to reduce the ecological, social and economic repercussions to a minimum.
Mr Lannoye also took into account the Lomé Convention and Articles 130u and 130v of the Treaty, which clearly stipulate the consideration that the European Union must show towards the ACP countries, and especially towards the thirty or thirty one of them directly involved in cocoa production.
Nevertheless, this debate makes clear the complexity of this issue, and makes clear that we must opt to support Mr Lannoye's proposals.
We must attempt, that is, to reduce the economic, ecological and social repercussions to a minimum.
This morning in the debate on the state of the Union, the leaders of Parliament's two largest groups referred to the Union's relations with the ACP countries and stressed the need for those relations to be based on fair trade.
According to Parliament's Directorate-General for Research, if the proposal is adopted as it stands, demand for cocoa butter could fall by up to 200, 000 tonnes. This would be a severe economic blow for certain countries, especially considering that more than one and a half million farmers - small-scale farmers, who, as Mr Lannoye rightly points out in his report, are respectful of the environment because they use few chemical products - would be drastically affected.
Furthermore, there is the question of labelling. I believe that the people of Europe's awareness has been raised.
We all remember the problem of mad cow disease, the monitoring committee's report on which Mrs Roth-Behrendt will be presenting.
This new public awareness makes it necessary for increasingly clear information to be provided about the products that we consume.
Mrs Thyssen held up a bar of chocolate and described how clearly indicating whether or not it contained vegetable fats would help consumers to decide whether or no to buy it.
In short, it is a question of respect for our agreements with third countries, respect for the consumer, and respect for the European Union's own legislation.
This is what Mr Lannoye's report calls for.
Let us hope that the amendments tabled go forward and we can vote in favour of this proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first and foremost I should like to welcome Mr Gauze, the Ivory Coast Minister for Raw Materials, who considered the issue important enough to attend this debate.
Firstly may I say that Paul Lannoye, our representative on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, who was also rapporteur for this directive, soon had to accept that there was absolutely no support for the zero option in this Parliament.
We therefore, reluctantly, had to abandon that idea almost immediately.
Secondly, as soon as we realized that that was impracticable we had to look at the possibility of putting the maximum onus on the consumer, allowing full participation by the consumer. You then have to add something to the name of the product.
That was the position and it was never contradicted in the Committee on the Environment but then later amendments were tabled to make it impossible.
In any event we still consider it important and we have therefore tabled an amendment which again offers that choice, because that is the best choice.
Not because it comes from us but if the name indicates that other vegetable fats are added it is clear to every consumer.
The examples of packaging that Mrs Thyssen showed, all this is of course in the present situation where only real chocolate is available on our market and then Cote d'Or does not need to put it on the front in big letters.
That is obvious, even a child could understand it.
Thirdly, it is therefore perfectly possible according to the labelling directive to use the name of the product and on this I entirely agree with Mr De Coene.
We therefore have to try and ensure the best possible choice and find a majority for the best possible choice.
The higher the majority, the better for us and we shall fight for that.
Fourthly it is clear that the Commission's draft proposal, which has not been improved on by the Committee on Environment, is totally at odds with the commitments we have entered into in the Lomé Convention and the international cocoa agreement, in which among other things the EU made a commitment to bigger cocoa butter sales.
It cannot therefore be claimed that exports from the African countries in particular can be safeguarded if the descriptions for the consumer are very poor.
The outcome in the Committee on Environment is now that information should be given in small print on the back, preferably actually in the name itself, and if that is unacceptable, we have to consider where would be most appropriate.
But let us try for the best option.
Finally, may I address myself to Mrs Maij-Weggen. I find your conclusion slightly confusing.
You said quite rightly that this is a bad proposal and then you end by saying: but let us support Mrs Thyssen's amendments.
I am not saying that it should not be supported under any circumstances but I must point out that there are other possibilities that would offer better protection than Mrs Thyssen's amendments and they could be tried first.
Therefore, and this is my final comment, if Mrs Thyssen asks for an impact study in 2002 then it is too late to be any use and Mr Moreels' chef de cabinet told me that too: that's no use, it is much too late.
You do an impact study beforehand.
Secondly, if we are going to say it still has to be the analysis instrument, it would be useful if it was accepted because that gives us more time.
But there is no point in having more time unless it can be coupled with information for the consumer, so that the consumer can distinguish properly and the best way of doing that is by adding the information to the name.
Mr President, Mrs Aelvoet has addressed remarks to me and she has misunderstood me.
I can correct the misunderstanding in two sentences.
I said that if the zero level is not accepted - and amendments have been tabled on that - and if the referral back is not agreed to - amendments have been tabled on that as well - then in a worst case scenario Mrs Thyssen's amendments are still better than the 5 %.
But in my opinion the rapporteur should see at the end what the result is and if the result is good he should simply refer it back to the Commission.
Thank you very much, Mrs Maij-Weggen.
In any event, a speaker may speak more than once in a debate only where justified by a point of order, and no such point has been raised.
And I note that fact.
Thank you nevertheless for your brief intervention.
Mrs Aelvoet has mentioned my name three times.
She says that what I am proposing is ultimately not feasible or not good, but I would like to say to Mrs Aelvoet, please just read the labelling directive.
Mrs Thyssen, if you wish to make a protest, I will ask you to speak at the end of the debate.
You may not do so now.
Mr President, I did not know the Commissioner was a specialist in chocolate, but this Wednesday her colleagues certainly had other obligations.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Minister for Raw Materials from the Ivory Coast, let us make no mistake about it. Our discussion on chocolate is much more important than one might think on first sight.
If our Parliament is as divided as it is today, and if passions are running high on this topic, this is not because Christmas and New Year are approaching, but much more because we are dealing with an essential dossier, which reveals the risks of an unwholesome slide from best practice in the internal market.
It is a shame, from this point of view, that the Commissioner responsible should not be present, even if I am happy to see you among our number.
What in the final analysis are we dealing with? Since 1973, the European Union in the chocolate sector adopted legislation which fulfilled a double function perfectly.
On the one hand consumer protection and on the other hand, the defence of the interests of the producing countries. To suit some new Member States and respect their national traditions, derogations were granted.
Indeed, it was difficult to see Brussels or Strasbourg imposing laws covering matters of taste on European citizens.
However, it happens that the Commission considers that the cohabitation of the two regimes is not satisfactory, because it would not respect the sacrosanct rules of the internal market.
So now it proposes that we should generalise these derogations.
In fact, by this complete U-turn, the Commission is once again proposing harmonization at the low end.
Today, I see the Commission is simply returning to the fray on this dossier, although I believe I am right in remembering that the European Parliament had already clearly rejected the Commission's first attempt.
At this pace, we shall be constructing a European model without any taste at all and beginning with the harmonization of European cuisine.
This would be perfectly stupid and terribly dangerous.
Unlike many of you, I am not a chocolate specialist, but I do see, as it happens, that the Commission is getting ready to generalise a practice which, according to its own admission, entails many risks.
I beg of you, therefore, that we do not follow the Commission's proposal to the end.
We have laid down amendments - and other colleagues have also done so, enabling the Lannoye report to come out in accordance with the tradition of this House.
I believe that we have as our priorities not only the harmonization of the interests of our countries, but also the protection of the interests of our partners, such as the ACP countries.
I hope that Parliament will be able to defend these priorities without allowing itself to be carried away by soft harmonization, which may well turn out to have a very bitter taste.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal on cocoa which we are discussing today is clearly deficient on a number of points.
Those points must be corrected otherwise my group will be unable to approve it.
The European Commission has tried to resolve the problems with the production and sale of chocolate products on the internal market in the simplest possible manner, namely by allowing maximum freedom for everyone in chocolate production.
That means complete freedom for everyone to use 5 % alternative fats.
That seems an attractive possibility, but it fails to take account of the differences that have existed between Member States for over twenty years as regards the use of fats.
For us the essential point is that pure chocolate should not contain any alternative fats, that is what consumers in most of the Union are accustomed to and you cannot just change it.
There is also the fact that it could have very drastic consequences for the developing countries that produce cocoa.
We have to realize that there are a number of real problems in the internal market.
Makers of pure chocolate which contains no other fats are at a competitive disadvantage and the consumer can be deceived by a product name which fits in with his experience.
So something certainly has to be done.
I think that it is possible to find a compromise by means of information on the label.
Consumers are becoming more aware: they want to know what they are eating.
In my view therefore there is no reason not to be as clear as possible about what is and is not in the product.
Also we must not overlook the effects that altering the composition of chocolate will have on the cocoa producing countries.
Certainly the demand for chocolate has been on the increase for years, but a sudden change to 5 %, without accompanying measures, could prove disastrous for many developing countries.
I must therefore reiterate that as far as I am concerned the label is the right place to resolve this conflict which has been going on for years.
The information must be shown prominently on the label, not in tiny letters in the list of ingredients.
That makes a mockery of it for most of the people who eat chocolate in Europe.
But if that is the way the vote on the amendments goes, then we cannot support the resolution.
Mr President, first congratulations to Mr Lannoye.
The aspect characterizing the motion is given by article 2 of the directive being discussed today, whereby member countries can authorize the addition of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
If the directive were adopted, it would force the Member States to market products with vegetable fats in their territory under the name of chocolate.
Consequently, products with vegetable fats were recompensed, thus making the superior product commonplace, no longer being pure cocoa chocolate, but a more expensive product falling under luxury products.
Being aware that, in the current state of technical know-how, determining the proportion of vegetable fats in chocolate is difficult and may have a 40 % error margin, we have submitted an amendment authorizing the replacement of up to 5 % of cocoa butter with vegetable fats in total weight of finished product, so as to quantify the obligations.
The social and economic consequences of the Directive would then have a particularly negative effect on the producing countries.
In West Africa, for example, cocoa is grown by over two million farmers with family involvement raising the number of people involved in the outcome of this crop to over 11 million.
Even the ACP producing countries (31 out of 70) would feel the negative impact of a Directive which, according to us, should have been based on a certain method of analysis in determining vegetable fats in the product, should have quantified the consequences on the course of the cocoa market by time, and it could certainly only have been effective later.
The African and Caribbean economies, which are based entirely on the cocoa income, would collapse and give rise to hunger and unemployment and no doubt emigration for those populations for whom the cocoa crop is their main source of income.
If we take into consideration the political and economic upsets that too hasty an adoption and a superficial study of the directive would bring, we think that this directive should be rejected, also in the light of the fight against poverty which the Union is involved in the developing countries, with a view to their gradual inclusion in the world economy.
Mr President, nothing I say today will be very popular with the grand alliance of legitimate concerns for the third world, distaste for the single market and economic interests masquerading as high principle which has dominated this debate today.
I would just like to say two or three things to the rapporteurs and then to Members in the Chamber.
I speak as someone passionately concerned for the third world and emotionally affected by some of the attacks there have been on those of us who happen to make chocolate in a different way and have done so throughout my lifetime.
The first thing I would say to the rapporteurs is that the Committee on the Environment's attempt at a compromise was based on the need to strike a medium here between those legitimate concerns and the pressures of the single market.
If you only want the one and not the other, you would not go with us.
But Mr Lannoye did not accurately represent some of the amendments, including Amendment No 13 in my name and others which sought to set proper labelling in a position where the consumer can see it and can get all the information necessary in order to make a judgment about whether you use cocoa butter or not.
Then Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of her committee, said that what they really want is zero content.
They do not want to have any fat at all throughout the European Union.
If that is not possible - and plainly it is not: even Mr Happart had to accept, however much he deplored it, that the Committee on Agriculture was prepared to accept 5 % of vegetable fats throughout the European Union - the fall-back position is to go to Mrs Thyssen who has had two bites of this cherry-flavoured chocolate already.
She wants us to have a foolproof method in terms of the measurement of chocolates which has never been thought of before.
You never think of this when you bite on your praline and you discuss whether or not the chocolate is adulterated by the ingredients.
Now we have to have a foolproof method of measuring all the ingredients.
In the control directive there is already a way of making sure that the manufacturers are compelled to say in terms of what goes into the chocolate where the 5 % is and what the ingredients are.
Mr Happart is not right when he says that chocolate as we have always manufactured it is ersatz chocolate.
That is what they really want when they talk about change of title here.
They want us to call chocolate as manufactured in seven Member States ersatz chocolate.
It is not, it is chocolate and you had better get used to that fact.
In the single market it has to co-exist with other products and it has to do so in a manner consistent with our international obligations.
Finally, in terms of milk chocolate, the decision to strike out the derogations on milk chocolate has no business in this debate.
The fact is that we are dealing here with added animal fat - a quite different matter.
I cannot think of a more specific description of chocolate with added milk than to call it milk chocolate.
On that basis, we should support the Environment Committee's suggestions and the bulk of what the Commission is trying to do.
Mr President, I would like sincerely to congratulate Mr Lannoye for the quality of his report.
I have some reason to do so, as some twelve years ago I was myself in the same situation as he is now, having been the rapporteur at the time of the Commission's first attempt in this direction.
Today, as twelve years ago, the tune remains the same.
The issues challenging us are exactly the same as before, and no progress has been made.
The Commission's proposal is useless, it is dangerous and it is bad.
It is useless because today the status quo enables everyone to consume the sort of chocolate that they actually want.
It is dangerous, because it very seriously damages the quality of our relationships and of our assistance to certain developing countries.
It is bad, because the reports is badly prepared, and it has not got the appropriate technical support.
I shall not come back again over the problem as a whole.
Instead I simply draw your attention, Mr President, to the question of inspection regarding the 5 % limit on substitute vegetable fats.
There exists today no technique such as will enable us not to detect, but to quantify substitute fats.
Twelve years ago, the Commission said these methods would be developed.
Today the Commission is still saying these methods will be developed.
Everything is imminent, just as before. There has been not a jot of progress.
In response to the questions raised by the committee on environment, of public health and of consumer protection, the Commission representative hammered out that there had been progress.
But he was unable to cite chapter and verse for any progress.
This illustrates, incidentally, the Commission's dependency, when it came to preparing this draft, on a number of people with influence.
This directive is so mediocre and so badly prepared that the question arises, can we amend it?
I hope we can, but I doubt it.
If we cannot amend it, we must have the courage to throw it out.
Mr President, there are cultural and emotional aspects to chocolate of course, but without being a specialist, I would like to talk about taste.
Chocolate lovers know it full well. Good chocolate is chocolate made with cocoa butter.
And addition of other fatty matter deteriorates the quality. Hence to defend quality the 1973 directive laid down a prohibition on the use of vegetable fat other than cocoa butter for the manufacture of chocolate.
This rule was respected by the six founding members of the Community.
With the first enlargement of the Community, the new Member States benefited from a derogation which authorised 5 % of the total weight of the chocolate to be vegetable fat.
The breach was now open.
At present, seven Member States use this derogation, and eight support the initial prohibition.
Under pressure from the multinational chocolate companies, the Commission adopted a draft directive on 17 April 1996 whose purpose was to allow Member States the option to authorise the addition of vegetable fat in the name of the free circulation of goods.
This directive was a further step down a slippery slope.
Its application would, and we all know it, have had immense repercussions both on the quality of chocolate and on the revenues of the cocoa-producing ACP countries.
As regards the quality of chocolate, it would have led to levelling down, with the introduction of vegetable and even synthetic fats.
Furthermore, there are no accurate and easily-usable techniques to measure the quantity of fat in chocolate.
The cocoa-producing developing countries would have suffered a substantial loss in revenues, valued at some $ 300 million, due both to loss of market outlet and pressure on prices.
This directive is also a failure by the European Union to meet its commitments within the framework of the International Cocoa Agreement.
I am delighted that the committee on Development and Cooperation has rejected this proposed directive.
Unfortunately, it was not rejected by the committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I have heard the arguments put forward by Mr Lannoye, but if we are to adopt amendments to the directive, we would become involved in a dangerous and complicated process which would in practice be equivalent to accepting it.
Even if there are a number of modifications, they are matters mainly of form.
In the name of defence of the quality of chocolate and in the interests of the cocoa-producing ACP countries, I am in favour of rejecting the directive in order to give a strong signal to the Council.
If the Council really wishes for Europe-wide harmonization, let it prohibit the addition of other fats than cocoa butter throughout the whole of the European Union, and not leave the Member States any possibility of derogation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's proposal is an attack on lovers of chocolate.
They want chocolate to remain chocolate.
They do not want substitute chocolate, but genuine chocolate made from cocoa butter.
Chocolate made with synthetic fats, such as soybean and rapeseed oil, does not just stick in the throats of gourmets, but approval of these ersatz materials would have disastrous consequences in developing countries, because demand there would fall away.
They also mean a blatant breaking of the undertaking in the Cocoa Agreement back in 1993, in which the Union promised to encourage the use of cocoa.
Producers planted their cocoa trees then in the expectation of the Agreement being met.
About one tenth of global cocoa bean production would fail to find a buyer.
The European Parliament must insist on clear designation.
Members of the Committee on Environment simply wanted to ensure that synthetic vegetable fats in chocolate were recorded in the constituents list, but we know that only 4 % of consumers ever read the small print.
We consider that the mature consumer should be allowed to make his own choice.
Our amendment has as its objective, therefore, that this fact is clearly printed on the product, so that the consumer can make his choice.
Anything else is quite unacceptable to us, such as if the identification were merely to be included in the small print of the contents list.
We also reject the use of substitute materials made from chemicals or gene technology.
We know that chocolate is a substitute drug, but we want no substitute materials in chocolate.
The European Parliament is now challenged not to cow-tow to the substitute foods industry, but to stand up for the purity regulation with regard to chocolate.
That has to be the position of the European Parliament!
Harmonization is right, but it has to be in the right direction. Instead of using low value substitutes and instead of accepting a consequent increase in indebtedness amongst developing countries, we must maintain high standards of quality and cocoa imports.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall say it quite clearly, personally, I and my group are totally hostile to the draft directive before us, and in particular to article 2.
My point of view will perhaps appear excessively simple, but I believe that chocolate should be made with cocoa, and that any product obtained from other constituent should have another name, quite simply.
To defend the directive, our colleague, Mr Schnellhardt has said, fairly curiously, that no one really wanted to know how many strawberries there were in a strawberry pie.
This is true, but I would reply, and with as much simplicity, that if you make a plum pie, it is not a strawberry pie, it is a plum pie.
Would we call wine a drink made from apple juice, or call butter a sort of margarine? Of course not.
And we'd be absolutely right! We have accepted as cows, strange animals which are puffed up with hormones and fed on dead sheep; and we've seen the result.
Although not so serious, the matter before us is a matter of real concern, as the rapporteur has reminded us, and everything that needs to be said has been said on the technical and commercial aspects of this question.
I would therefore like to raise the question in more general terms.
Is our European Union a supermarket, where the only law is maximizing profit at least production cost? Or is it a political construction, based on the values of solidarity, quality, and loyalty?
Solidarity, with regard to the cocoa producing countries, whom we encourage in this speculative business, would involve at the very least not adopting legislation which would contribute to their ruination.
The quality that we need to promote, is the quality of product, whose singularity, inner qualities, and the cultural aspect of its use, makes a contribution to reconciling man with the best of himself, even if here we are dealing only with chocolate.
I, for my part, believe that the combat of quality over quantity is one of the battles that human civilization undertakes against industrial and productivist barbarity.
A sense of loyalty, finally, extends over and above pure free trade and market rules, means we must provide precise information to consumers, who are also citizens, as regards the products proposed to them.
Our drive towards integration must, in the minds of European citizens, be seen as consistent with a constant improvement, and not as downgrading of their quality of life.
If there were to be harmonization, this should happen from the top, by introducing the most elevated requirements and not bottom-up, as our citizens would refuse a Europe which was so conceived.
This is the reason why, Mr President, with the unanimous backing of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, I oppose this draft, and I support the amendments which are in radical opposition to it.
Mr President, when we discuss chocolate today, we find there are national differences of opinion, as we have different traditions and rules on what vegetable foodstuffs can be used in making chocolate.
The rules in seven countries have considered the cocoa-producing countries.
The rules in eight countries have guaranteed women in the poorest countries such as Burkina Faso and Mali exports of shea nuts which account for 20 % of their national product.
Personally, I feel that we could quite well have continued living with this distortion of competition for chocolate making and concentrated on loosening the marking rules in this directive.
But, having said that, I would like to wish Paul Lannoye luck in his work towards reaching a compromise in a simple but very difficult matter, which I believe makes sense on a number of points.
It should be stated that what some Member States have always called chocolate must continue to go by that name, and that marking must be used to show what vegetable foodstuffs are used.
I find it sensible that the marking should follow the list of ingredients, as the Committee on the Environment decided.
But what I find completely decisive is that we pass the proposed amendments which prohibit the use of synthetic methods in making vegetable foodstuffs.
This will give the developing countries the assurance that they can continue to export the products which they produce naturally.
If these proposed amendments are accepted, it would be totally unacceptable to allow any vegetable foodstuffs other than cocoa butter should be used, and I say that as a Dane.
This also applies to the proposed amendments prohibiting GMOs.
The novel foods directive only applies to markings, whereas what the developing countries need is that production should not take place in the first place.
Mr President, Europe is involved in all sorts of different things, and today it is involved in chocolate.
The dictatorship of the single market inevitably results in the dictatorship of a single regulation. This is fine for regulation on chocolate, on condition that it respects essential principles.
So we are full steam ahead for regulations on chocolate, provided it respects fundamental principles. These are honest information to the consumers, the diversity and quality of products, the interests of national companies.
This is not the meaning of what is proposed to us by the European authorities and by certain amendments.
No, it is not to respect honest information to the consumer to describe as chocolate products including vegetable fat other than cocoa, in particular when we know that it will be difficult to actually check the percentages of the different fats included.
It is not to respect the diversity and quality of products, to be able to sell as chocolate fat-based products based on karite or palm oil, or even soya or rapeseed.
To do this would be to go down the road towards not only standardisation but the lowering of standard quality with regard to food, in the direction of a loss of taste and savours, in a sort of Anglo-Saxonization of gastronomy.
And here, I welcome the ambassadors of chocolate and of good taste who are taking the floor today.
No, it is not to respect European interests, and beyond those interests, the interests of friendly countries with whom we cooperate, such as the Ivory Coast, to play the same game as the multinationals and to prepare for the entry of American soya into the make-up of sweets which will be chocolate only in name.
In this whole business, the Brussels Commission has behaved badly.
It is behaving as General de Gaulle feared it would in the past, as a Commission of the Congress of the United States of America.
We reject the American standardization of the world. We reject serving multinational interests.
The Members of Parliament from the National Front will vote against this draft directive.
Mr President, we are talking here - let us remind ourselves - about food legislation in the European Union, which, like legislation in general, is governed by the basic demand for harmonization.
Everyone who wants to sell a product wants free trade in goods.
Even France is amongst these when it wants to sell French products, although it forgets that quite happily in the relevant debate.
If we want free trade and wish to encourage it, which all of us do, then we must have certain prerequisites.
One of these has always been for us that goods produced within the European Union must consist of ingredients free of substances that endanger health.
That has always been the basic understanding of our food legislation.
Unlike many who have spoken today, I have followed every single food resolution for the last 8 years, and always said the same thing: ingredients must be free of substances that endanger health, they must contain no allergen risks, they may not be carcinogenic, they must be such that people can eat them without becoming ill.
We all surely agree on that.
When it is maintained here, however, that there are some substances which are obviously worse than others, then I should like to know why.
I admire the courage - if I were to be malicious I should call it arrogance - of those who believe that there is good and bad chocolate.
Those who like eating Swiss chocolate - and I am an expert on every chocolate in the world - are very surprised when they learn that there is vegetable fat in it.
The same applies to other chocolate. I have my own favourite chocolate, as do we all.
I do not care one bit if there is vegetable fat in it or not.
It is a matter of flavour, and that goes for the others as well.
To believe that to say that just because vegetable fat - and I repeat, vegetable fat - is used in Great Britain or Sweden, this makes it a chocolate substitute, is an arrogance towards the whole population there, who are accustomed to this chocolate and like eating it.
I believe it has always been our intention here in the European Parliament to encourage the emancipation of citizens, because I hear this said repeatedly. If we are to do that, then we must regulate just one thing: how much must there be in a product for that product to be capable of designation as such.
We do that with liver sausage, laying down the quantity of liver it has to contain, or whether soya protein may be included; we do it with wine and everything else. And I am sure I shall have on my side all of you who have already spoken, when we talk soon about consumer protection and consumer information, for instance, on concerning wine, identification and other matters.
But we shall return to that on another occasion.
Let us not fool ourselves. We are concerned today with competition and money!
This a matter of economic interests, and nothing else.
Anyone who says here today that this concerns the degrading of a product, is not talking about realities.
Recipes and contents cannot be altered arbitrarily.
One thing is quite right: we must inform consumers, and here I am in agreement with Mrs Thyssen and everyone else.
If we believe, however, that the list of ingredients is not sufficient for this purpose, then I would ask you to introduce another consumer information regulation for all colouring agents and all other additives.
I am convinced that the ingredients list for a product must contain details of what is in the product.
That applies equally to cocoa butter, dry cocoa, and vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
Mr President, a lot of things of have been repeated in this debate.
A large number of us support Mr Lannoye's report and agree with the need for certain basic requirements.
And it is no bad thing that, one after another, the representatives of the various political groups, with their different sympathies, have been repeating a fundamental idea to the Commission.
We are no longer, Commissioner, simply concerned with the question of arranging and harmonizing the technical norms for chocolate; rather, we are concerned, and very seriously, about the logic and attitude that has brought the Commission to submit this proposal.
And all the more so considering that Parliament flatly rejected it a few years ago.
The Commission must therefore explain to Parliament what has brought it to submit this proposal, which goes against the interests of consumers, which will seriously affect the economy of third countries that fully cooperate with the Community, and which even breaches the principle of the adequate provision of information.
Madam Commissioner, we shall never understand why the Commission did not adopt the simple formula of distinguishing between the generic designation of a product and the specific designation of particular products derived from the basic product. I doubt that you are interested, Madam Commissioner, but in my view that was the only rational solution.
The Commissioners themselves acknowledge that they made a mistake when failing to make that distinction in the case of honey.
Now, after years of confusing and misleading consumers, they have to rectify that mistake. They accept that it is necessary to distinguish between the generic designation of honey and the specific designation of honey derivatives.
And they themselves acknowledge that they are doing this in order to prevent distortions of competition and avoid confusing consumers.
What, after years of error, they accept is necessary for honey, they do not wish to introduce for chocolate.
Nobody in this House understands why there is not going to be a distinction between the generic designation of chocolate and the specific designation of the various derivatives that can be marketed in the different Member States according to their traditions - such as Spanish drinking chocolate, which, when Spain joined the European Community, had to be distinguished because it did not meet the general requirements which, according to the Brussels Commission, characterized chocolate generically.
That was accepted, the directive was adopted, and now the Commission wants to introduce confusion.
I believe that the principle of quid pro quo in the food field is leading the European Commission down an unacceptable road, and this is why all the political groups are expressing their concern.
Mr President, in February 1995, at the Joint Assembly of ACP countries and the European Union which was held in Dakar, Commissioner Pinheiro declared that there was no proposal to change the existing rules in the chocolate directive, and he ended by saying that to include fat other than cocoa butter would have serious consequences for many ACP countries.
Today, within a few days of the Joint Assembly in Togo, we cannot but observe that these commitments have not been respected.
Fats will be accepted in the manufacture of chocolate, and worse, there is no guarantee that there will be no recourse to artificial fats.
The ACP countries will lose all along the line.
The fall in world cocoa prices risks being catastrophic for many of them.
It is clear that the primary responsibility for this will attach to ourselves and, of course, in order to salve our consciences, we will possibly provide compensation for others' financial losses.
And hence we also will be losing all along the line.
We will lose the quality of our chocolate, and we will have to cope with the financial deficits arising from our own shameless attitude with regard to those who put their trust in us.
Personally, Mr President, I will not associate myself with such betrayal.
Mr President, the chocolate directive has led to a stream of calls and letters from farmers in developing countries who grow cocoa and other chocolate fats, from consumer organizations and not least from the chocolate industry.
There is an interesting letter from the Swedish food industry, which like other Swedish industries carries a great responsibility for the fact that EU regulations play any role at all in Swedish legislation.
Now it thinks it sees a threat in the form of an EU regulation which it does not like and calls upon us to vote no to an additional declaration of animal fat in connection with the product name.
It would, of course, be easy for me as a EU opponent to vote no on the grounds that the EU should not regulate the details of product names.
Into the bargain I could gain points for defending Swedish economic interests. but I do not sit here as a representative of Swedish industry, but as a representative of green political ideas.
The Green Party in Sweden has always demanded that trade policy be conducted on the basis of social and environmental considerations.
We have also said that, as long as it lasts, Swedish EU membership should be used above all for the benefit of the environment, the interests of consumers and solidarity with the world's poor.
On that basis it is obvious that I listen more closely to the interests of consumers and poor farmers that to the Swedish food industry.
The reasonable conclusion then is that goods should be labelled so that the consumers can get effective information quickly and easily.
For example, edible fats from vegetable oils should not be called butter.
Similarly it is reasonable that it should be apparent from the brand name that there is a distinction between chocolate with and without cocoa butter, in accordance with the Green Group's Amendments Nos 56 and 57.
It is also reasonable not to allow genetically modified or other new ingredients, but to limit the permitted substitute fats in chocolate products to those which are now in use in Sweden, amongst other places, as demanded by the Green Group's Amendments Nos 58 and 59.
Mr President, we knew that the EU would bring extensive detailed regulation before the 1994 referendum in Sweden. That was one of many reasons my party voted no.
But as long as we are members we cannot simply pick the cherries from the cake. Instead we must try to enable the EU to take overall responsibility for health, the environment and global solidarity.
It is high time that Swedish industry recognized that, and recognized that we who sit here for Sweden are not some lackeys for Swedish industry, but that we stand for certain ideas, in my case for green ideas.
Mr President, few of our debates have been followed by the press and the public like this one on chocolate has been.
Some people are amazed, some smile, some ask if we have not got anything more important to do?' The fact is that this chocolate war is first and foremost a commercial war, in which great economic interests are involved, not only those of the chocolate producing countries but also those of the developing countries, some exporting cocoa and others shea butter or other vegetable fats.
The interests of not only the large confectionery multinationals but also the large chemicals multinationals are at stake.
But it is also a question of a great emotional conflict: cultural identity that is very strong in countries such as Belgium and Italy, historic producers of historic and magnificent chocolates; childhood for many of us; levels of rationality and levels of irrational nostalgia.
But what is chocolate? Since the discovery of cocoa in the sixteenth century and since its introduction into Europe, chocolate has been obtained from cocoa products.
That is the case for the WHO and for the Codex Alimentarius ; that was the case in Community Europe until the entry of the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark, countries in which - since the war and not always, and I am sorry for them, because in those countries there are two generations who do not know what real chocolate is - a product has been marketed with a fairly high percentage of vegetable fats.
With the recent entry of three new countries with the same habits, and in the presence of the single market, we are faced with the need for harmonization.
In view of the Commission's debatable motion - because, in fact, the seven countries would be encouraged to do what the other eight, that is, the majority, are doing - the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has carried out serious, exhaustive work, and the socialist group believes that the wording approved and now submitted to the Chamber's vote, is a wise compromise to be supported in its entirety.
The Italian national delegation to which I belong will only digress on one point: that of labelling, with the aim, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, of better protecting the consumer, by enabling him to read, alongside the name of the product, whether it is cocoa-based chocolate or whether it is a product with a fairly high percentage of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter.
Mr President, this month is the 25th anniversary of the passing of the European Communities Bill in the British Houses of Parliament, which signalled the arrival of the United Kingdom in the European Community.
We thought we were joining a common market, and the amazing fact is that it has taken 24 years to try to agree a common market in chocolate.
One of my colleagues, Mr Valverde I think, asked why this directive is required. I will now enlighten him.
The common market is not working.
On 25 March 1996 the Italian Ministry of Health issued a notice stating that chocolate from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark could only be marketed in Italy under the name surrogate chocolate.
I believe that this was withdrawn on the insistence of the European Commission, but difficulties still remain.
What we want in the United Kingdom is a free common market.
We welcome the Commission directive which allows up to 5 % vegetable fat in chocolate with an indication of its presence next to the list of ingredients.
We reject those amendments, put down by a number of colleagues, which we regard as last-ditch attempts to fragment the supposedly common market and protect national industries, especially in Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands.
That is why you have been hearing from Belgian, Italian, French and Dutch colleagues on precisely that point.
In particular, we reject the amendments which would tend, first of all, to make the statement on vegetable fat part of the name of the product or place it on the front of the product.
After all, what is cocoa butter if it is not a vegetable fat, and why should we not simply rely on the labelling directive which says that all labelling must be clear, visible and indelible?
Another amendment says that the directive cannot come into force until a method of verifying the vegetable fat content is agreed. What are we dealing with here?
It is not radioactive, for heaven's sake! Why did they not put that into the 1973 directive?
They had 24 years to think this one up, and then at the last moment somebody comes forward with the idea that we should verify the presence of vegetable fat.
Rubbish!
Finally, the idea that the British and Irish should have to rename their milk chocolate is ludicrous.
Let consumers have a choice.
Why should consumers have to alter or find a product with a different name from the name that they have traditionally had? I do not know what MEP produced this amendment.
I think it was Mr De Coene and I would like to invite Mr De Coene to come to Cadburys Works in my constituency in Keynsham and tell the people who work there why he wants to rename the chocolate that they make.
The net effect of this directive would, we believe, be to increase the chocolate market to the advantage of consumers, cocoa and vegetable fat producers.
But, above all, the net effect of this directive would be to make the common market work.
And about time!
Mr President, as the debate this afternoon has shown, this directive is about feelings and interests.
We have the developing countries, we have the chocolate makers, we have the consumers, and we have so-called good taste.
As a Dane, I find it interesting to hear that the chocolate I have been eating for nearly 45 years does not taste nice and is not good quality.
What matters to a liberal politician today is to get the internal market to work as Mrs Jackson has just said. We will be able to make and sell chocolate with up to 5 % fat throughout the Union.
It is also important that we as consumers should have free choice, and so that we can decide whether we want so-called nice tasting chocolate or not.
We must be able to make the choice ourselves as consumers, and so we are in favour of markings which are neutral, objective and clear and are right next to the list of ingredients.
That is my recommendation to my colleagues this afternoon.
My name has been mentioned by Mrs Jackson and she has invited me to come and explain.
I will do so, I will accept the challenge and I will use Mrs Jackson's argument: that in the internal market products that are the same must bear the same name.
No exceptions, no derogations: harmonization.
Mr De Coene, although your intervention was brief, I must remind you of the Rule that, in the present circumstances, where it is a matter of explaining some personal position which in your view has not been correctly stated, you are entitled to do so at the end of the debate.
Since you did so very briefly, I did not stop you.
Mr President, I was born in the country of Côte d'Or, of Leonidas and of Ferrero which, as is not apparent from their names, are of Belgian origin, a country of truly great chocolate.
Belgium is also the country of common sense.
This is universally recognized, and I believe that common sense, ladies and gentlemen, means that we should reserve the name 'chocolate' to those products that deserve that name.
Just as you do not call a carp a rabbit, you do not give the name of chocolate to what is simply an Anglo-Saxon sweet with all the subtle flavouring of aftershave.
At most, we might stretch our generosity to give products which contain very different qualities of vegetable fats, the name 'cocoa-based fantasy.'
To do anything other, would mean that you call 'whisky' any sort of rot-gut which has been distilled outside Scotland or Ireland.
I beseech you, let us respect the traditions of our respective countries.
If we go against them, we will undoubtedly generate the growing disaffection of our citizens with regard to European institutions.
Mr President, I would like to say that I agree with those who say that logically the minority follows the majority or just imports cocoa butter.
But that is not the logic of politics.
I would like to mention several points which might not have been brought up yet.
Chocolate has already been made for hundreds of years from a fine raw material and it is a semi-finished product.
Mrs Jackson referred to a firm in her constituency.
As an Amsterdammer I would say she should come to Amsterdam, the biggest cocoa port in the world, and she will see that cocoa butter is one of the Netherlands's main export products.
It is obviously not just British interests that are at stake here.
Did you know, for instance, that 75 % of the chocolate consumed in the European Union is eaten in countries that only use cocoa butter? So it is more than seven against eight or eight again seven.
Did you know, for instance, that in your country, England, only cocoa butter was used until the beginning of this century and that was the law? Did you know that the Commission simply forgot to bring this up in the negotiations with the newest Member States?
This is an omission for which the Commission deserves to be criticized, as it has admitted in its answer to a question I put on the subject. Did you know, for instance, that a few weeks before joining the European Union Austria changed the law so that we ended up with nearly seven against eight, because there was Portugal as well?
Portugal should really be brought before the European Court of Justice because it infringed the existing European legislation and already permits the other fats.
It is unfair and inexplicable that the European Commission has not brought Portugal before the European Court of Justice.
But I can assure you that on that point we can expect an action by the current Member States.
I anticipate that they will go to the European Court of Justice because there are plenty of things that are not as they should be in this directive.
Mr President, I am for the most part in agreement with Mrs Jackson's argument.
As regards international trade, I am surprised that our Committee on External Economic Relations is actually present at this debate.
I would like to put two questions: to the Commission, can you say whether it is consistent with our international trade commitments to give different treatment to cocoa exporting countries and countries that export oils and fats? I would not have thought so but I would like to hear the Commission's opinion.
As regards Amendment No 7 tabled by Mrs Thyssen - for whom I have the greatest respect, for what she has said here among other things - is it not inconsistent with our World Trade Organization and GATT obligations just to speak about tropical fat imports? I would like a clear answer on this point.
It also strikes me that in this debate it seems just as if the next thing is it will be forbidden in the European Union to use 100 % cocoa to manufacture chocolate.
Mr President, we are talking about the ingredients of chocolate and its name.
Of course it is our task to protect European consumers adequately, and to ensure that products can be designated.
In the debate about chocolate, however, much more is at stake.
We are also voting on the way of life in cocoa-producing countries.
A discussion has developed in the forefront of this debate, which we should never forget in future.
In the medium-term we need a fair partnership between European consumers and producing countries.
That means that we must also ensure that the fairest possible production conditions exist in those countries.
The more seriously we take this responsibility, the more people we can free from enslavement to neo-colonialist economic powers and lead them to peace and affluence.
I believe that is a task which benefits both sides.
Mr President, the Directive which we are discussing today dates from 1973, when it was decided that ordinary milk chocolate must contain a minimum of 25 % cocoa, while dark chocolate must contain a minimum of 35 % cocoa.
I think it is important to bear this in mind in this debate.
Some people insist of course that allowing 5 % vegetable foodstuffs to be used means that the product cannot be called chocolate at all.
That was, and still is, rubbish.
Nothing in this directive changes the basic rule that there must a minimum of 25 % and 35 % cocoa in the product respectively before it can be called chocolate.
Seven EU Member States, including Denmark, allow and use vegetable foodstuffs.
The other eight countries, which stick to cocoa butter, want to prohibit the use of vegetable foodstuffs.
In other words, as we have seen today, this is one area where the single European market is not functioning.
I do not believe that the arguments against a ban are convincing.
It is said that we should use cocoa butter out of consideration for the cocoa-exporting countries of Africa, but the dispute is after all only about the maximum 5 % of the chocolate product which vegetable foodstuffs can comprise, so this matter can hardly be catastrophic for the countries concerned.
In any case - and not many people have mentioned this, it was mentioned by Mrs Sandbaek amongst others, and I think she was right - vegetable foodstuffs are made from shea nuts and palm oil, which are also imported from third world countries.
One of the poorest countries in the world, Burkina Faso, in fact depends on its exports of shea nuts.
So I think this aspect is worth mentioning when we are discussing this thing.
People are also saying that it is the poor countries which will be hit if we impose a ban on using vegetable foodstuffs.
Mr President, first and foremost I would like to thank the rapporteur on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for the great amount of work which has been done on this issue.
I will begin by also giving some background to the Commission's proposal.
The European Council in Edinburgh gave the Commission the task of working for a simplification of a whole series of Community rights.
Only the provisions which are really necessary for the single market to work shall be kept.
In the area of food seven directives from the 1970s are affected by these simplification measures.
Two of them are draft directives on cocoa products and chocolate and on coffee extracts and chicory, which is what we are discussing today.
The various social and occupational groups who are affected by the directive and national authorities have been given the opportunity to participate in the preparations and give their opinions.
Initially the Commission considered it advisable to keep the Community's regulations for these product groups.
The simplification measures are aimed mainly at adapting the existing directives to general food legislation.
The aim is, in other words, to prevent the various texts from overlapping each other or from containing contradictory provisions.
The simplification shall also be followed up by an adaptation to technological developments.
Finally, it was necessary to find solutions to a number of separate problems, which constituted real obstacles to the functioning of the single market, in order to ensure the free movement of goods.
One paragraph in the proposal on chocolate has led to strong reactions, which we have really experienced in the debate here this evening.
It concerns the question of using vegetable fats other than cocoa butter in chocolate.
As you know, out of the fifteen Member States of the Union, three countries give permission for the use of these fats through exceptions, four countries allow it, and eight have bans.
This leads to an unsolvable situation in the single market, since discrimination arises between the various economic players within the sector.
In this case the Commission has tried to find a balance between the various points of view.
This means trying to find compromises between the various demands.
In this particular case the Commission has examined the question on the basis of the legal principles of the working of the single market.
We have also looked at the Union's international obligations, in this case the obligations we have in the WTO, and finally what rules should apply to provide consumer protection.
It has, of course, been impossible to find a complete solution.
In the Commission's proposal we have tried to solve the problem in the following way.
First and foremost the Member States will from now on have the right to allow their chocolate producers to use up to 5 % of other vegetable fats in addition to the proportions of cocoa and cocoa butter laid down in the proposal.
In addition, the Member States who in future still want to forbid their chocolate producers from using vegetable fats other than cocoa butter will have the right to do so.
The Commission, of course, attaches great importance to consumer information.
That is the reason why we provide that the label on chocolate which contains other fat must clearly show that such products are included.
In that respect it is not sufficient to say that fats are included in the list of ingredients.
Through these provisions the Commission has tried to unite three fundamental principles. Firstly, the principle of subsidiarity, which means that the Member States themselves may decide what substances may be included in their chocolate.
Through that the States have the opportunity to retain their national legislation.
In that way we avoid adapting quality by reducing it, which is something against which warnings have at times been given.
Secondly, the free movement of goods is ensured.
Thirdly, the labelling provisions give the consumers the opportunity to decide for themselves what chocolate they want to buy and what chocolate they want to eat.
The Commission can only approve amendments which respect these principles.
A lot has been said about the consequences this proposal could have for developing countries.
The Community must of course give priority to sustainable development in these countries, but we do not think that our proposal will have a negative effect on developing countries.
On the contrary, we believe that chocolate consumption will of course be the same in the Community when the proposal has been adopted.
Developing countries can therefore expect their market opportunities to remain.
From what I have said so far you can draw the conclusion that the Commission is able to approve Amendments Nos 8 and 13 which concern the fundamental issue of labelling.
The Commission is in favour of precise information about what vegetable fats, apart from cocoa butter, are used, but we do not think it necessary to prescribe where on the label this information should be placed.
Of the other amendments, we can accept Amendment No 14 on the use of additives and Amendments Nos 19 and 20 on the definition of 'gianduja' chocolate.
Amendments Nos 28 and 29 concern the date of the coming into force of the new directive.
The Commission is positive towards the idea behind these amendments and is prepared to revise the wording.
As regards the question of analyses which make it possible to check whether the chocolate contains vegetable fat other than cocoa butter, the Commission will of course ensure that an effective method is introduced before the directive enters into force.
We have also received positive information on this point.
Finally, the Commission is unable to accept the three proposed amendments concerning coffee extract and chicory.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Gradin.
Mr President, as rapporteur, I wish to deplore the fact that the commissioners directly affected, Messrs Bangemann and Pinheiro, are not here.
This debate is not a debate, inasmuch as Mrs Gradin has, with great good will, just read us a letter stating the information she was given.
Secondly, I note, on hearing what she has just said, that the Commission systematically rejects all the politically significative amendments which have been supported today.
This raises an enormous problem and I wish to discuss this tomorrow with the Commissioner, who will once again be asked at the time of voting, about the real attitude of the Commission.
Could the Commissioner confirm that she is rejecting all the amendments except the seven which she has said she is accepting? Is she positively rejecting all the rest?
I hope so. Stick to it, Mrs Gradin!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0524/97).
I should like to apologize to the President-in-Office of the Council and everyone present for this delay, the reason for which is beyond my control. I therefore wish to express publicly my unhappiness about this delay, and I shall duly inform the Bureau of the reason for it.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, I should like to ask for a written reply to my Question No 2, in view of the fact that I was here at 5.30 p.m. when Question Time was due to begin.
I have to attend a meeting which starts at 6 p.m., and I would therefore ask for a written reply.
Mr President, I should simply like to ask if you would be so kind as to raise the matter, at the next meeting of the Bureau, of what we are going to do about the half hour of Question Time that has been lost.
For the provisions of the Rules of Procedure concerning the time allocated to Question Time are quite clear.
It is out of order that our time was taken up by the programme.
Thank you for your kind words to us all.
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg.
The personal authority which you enjoy and the words that you just spoken will increase my sense of responsibility when it comes to raising this matter with the Bureau.
I therefore thank you for your remarks and propose that we move on to the first question without further delay.
Question No 1 by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0668/97):
Subject: EU funding for the conservation of the African elephant after the Cites Cop 10.
The 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to CITES was held in Harare, Zimbabwe, on June 9-20, 1997.
The Parties agreed by an overwhelming majority of two-thirds to downlist only the populations of African elephant of Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe back to Appendix II of the Convention.
For the leading conservation organizations, this firm decision rewards the conservation success of the three African nations whose elephant populations should never have been listed in the CITES Appendix I. The mechanisms and procedures agreed in Harare provide every assurance of adequate safeguards and the conditional decision to allow such trade to resume in the future will prove to be positive and will be of benefit in the long term to elephant conservation throughout Africa.
However, in order to be effective and successful, the decision taken by the CITES parties requires that the donor community, of which the EU is an important part, must move quickly to provide at least a substantial proportion of the necessary funds.
Is the Council prepared to take all the necessary steps to ensure that the funds required to implement the decisions taken by the CITES COP 10 can be allocated as soon as possible?
What financial and political support can be expected from the EU?
In reply to the question that was raised, I would emphasize first - as the honourable Member has just reminded us - that the tenth conference of the parties to the CITES Convention made a number of important decisions, whose purpose was, on an experimental basis, and once a number of conditions had been met, to allow a limited trade in ivory between three African states and Japan.
Among such conditions were the introduction of a system of trade monitoring.
These decisions take into account progress made in some African countries with regard to the management of the elephant population, while noting that, in other countries, substantial effort is still required.
On these points, i.e. the monitoring of trade and management of the elephant population, the community, although it is not part of the CITES Convention, has been making a contribution for some years, by means of actions which are specifically targeted to the elephant, or whose more general purpose is the conservation of wildlife in Africa.
As regards the implementation of the Harare decisions, the Council has still not had submitted to it the final text of these decisions, nor the evaluation of those texts by the Commission.
I do not think my question has been answered at all.
First, the EU has already implemented CITES, so it is not true to say it has not been dealt with.
Second, given that the EU played a decisive role in getting the elephant moved from annex I to annex II, one might well ask if this is going to be followed up and money is going to be given to endow such an observation system, for if it doesn't happen, it is clear that the agreement to moving the elephant to annex II is useless.
So I would like to know if it is the intention to authorize the money so that we can get some results out of moving the elephant from one annex to another at all.
Thank you, Mr Wohlfart.
I would remind that we have undertaken - I did so on your behalf - to give a written reply to Question No 2 by Mrs Izquierdo Rojo.
Question No 3 by Patricia McKenna (H-0689/97):
Subject: British arms supplies to Indonesia
The British Government recently announced that it would proceed with contracts to sell 16 Hawk trainer aircraft, 50 Alvis armoured cars and Tactica water cannon to Indonesia.
British-manufactured weapons have reportedly been used by Indonesian troops in acts of oppression in East Timor.
Journalists John Pilger and Hugh O'Shaughnessy have both documented the use of Hawk jets there.
In 1991 the European Community set a number of criteria for arms export policy.
Factors to be taken into account include the human rights record of countries buying arms from EU states.
Given these criteria, the evidence of British arms being used in attacks on the Timorese, the numerous reports of human rights abuses within Indonesia and the EU's common position on East Timor, when will the Council impose an arms embargo on Indonesia?
The Council is always vigilant with respect to human rights in East Timor.
The adoption in June 1996 of a common position of the European Union relating to East Timor-- which I would ask you to remember - testifies to this.
The promotion of the respect of human rights and of democracy is an integral part of the Union's foreign policy.
The Council, like the European Parliament, will continue to monitor with concern the situation in East Timor, and expresses its concern regarding this matter each time that it arises.
However, the Council believes that dialogue is the only way forward to a durable solution.
Within this context, it firmly supports the negotiations taking place between Portugal and Indonesia, under the aegis of the General Secretary of the United Nations.
The Council hopes that they will conclude within the foreseeable future in a just, overall, and internationally acceptable solution.
This must, of course, occur while there is respect for the rights of the East Timor people, by agreement with the resolutions of the General Chamber, and in conformance with the principles of the United Nations Charter.
As the honourable Member rightly reminded us, the European Council has agreed at its meetings of June 1991 and 1992 on a list of seven, and subsequently eight, common criteria applicable to arms exports.
These common criteria provide an orientation for the decisions that continue to be the responsibility of the national authorities.
Having said that, the Council has not up to now officially considered the possible imposition of an embargo on arms supply to Indonesia.
The Council will continue, nevertheless, to monitor the situation in Indonesia and in East Timor.
I still feel the question about imposing an arms embargo on Indonesia has not been answered.
There are stories going around at the moment that in Britain they are going to actually block sales to certain countries in the world because of the campaign against the arms trade.
It is very difficult to get any information from the Foreign Office even though the new Labour Government has promised openness and transparency.
A British Labour MP, Ms Clwyd, received a letter from the Department of Trade and Industry acknowledging that there were 59 arms exports licences being considered by the British Government.
Of these, four have been turned down and 11 have been approved.
No details were given on the types of arms that would be exported, their value, or the decisions that would likely be taken regarding the other 44 licences.
Groups campaigning against the arms trade have been very frustrated by this.
Despite the fact that there has been a change of government, there seems to be no change in policy.
The Tories used to announce every year that they were blocking a few arms exports to ruthless regimes while at the very same time proceeding with much greater deals.
I do not think that Mr Robin Cook is pursuing an ethical foreign policy, as he promised.
We have to consider the ethics of promising one thing and doing something different.
The European Union has to impose an arms embargo on Indonesia.
You see what those weapons are doing to the East Timorese people.
It is unacceptable that we sit back here in the European Union and do nothing about it.
I do not think the honourable Member asked a supplementary question.
She simply commented and regretted the fact that to date, the Council had not taken a decision on other measures, notably a possible embargo on arms supply to Indonesia. I would say simply this.
Mrs McKenna, I understand your commitment as regards the respect of human rights in this part of the world.
Furthermore, unless I'm wrong, you already received a written reply at the beginning of the month on a question similar to the one that you have just asked.
I believe that you and I might well be able to discuss for hours a subject which is close to your heart, but I will simply repeat that the Council has not to date been able to undertake an official examination of the possible imposition of the arms embargo to Indonesia.
This may be regrettable, but these are the facts.
I can give you no other answer.
Question No 4 by Arthur Newens (H-0693/97):
Subject: EU banana regime - WTO panel ruling
Following the debate in the European Parliament on 16 September, would the Council please make a statement about the options which are open to it and what action it plans to take to counteract the likely effects on small banana producers following rejection of the appeal to the WTO Panel?
I would like to thank the Parliament for the proposed compromise, given that I must be in Geneva again this evening.
Thank you, Mr President.
To come back to the honourable Member's question, I would like to say this. The Council wishes to emphasize that it is conscious of the consequences arising from the rejection of the appeal against the decision of the World Trade Organization panel regarding the community regime and the banana sector.
That being said, at this stage, the Council has not yet been able to take a position on the report on the appeal organ for settlement of World Trade Organization disputes, nor on the action to be taken with regard to this business.
The Council will, of course, do this at the appropriate time on the basis of formal proposals of the Commission, bearing in mind that the legitimate interests of the European producers and producers from the ACP, and while respecting the existing international rules.
However, in the light of technical constraints involved in these matters, there should be no expectation of proposals being put forward except after a few months.
I am rather disappointed that the Minister was unable to tell us more.
In theory, at least, the European Union could maintain the present banana regime if it agreed to compensate complaining countries or firmly refused to renege on its commitments to Caribbean and other countries under the Lomé Convention, and call for talks as happened, for example, on the issue of Helms-Burton.
What steps has the Council or Commission made to calculate the cost of compensation or to initiate talks with complaining countries to seek to find an alternative means of maintaining the market for small banana producers? Last week the President of Ecuador, Mr Fabián Alarcón, while opposing the present licences system, said in an answer to me personally that his country had no wish to injure others and would be prepared to discuss alternatives.
Surely we should be following up some of those possible alternatives.
First, I would like to come back to the second question that was raised, regarding the idea that it might be possible to do it in theory.
This is an idea which I can subscribe to.
Secondly, I would like to say to the honourable Member that, as regards the regulations he has just mentioned, it is clearly down to the Commission to present proposals.
I can assure you that the presidency will spare no effort if proposals from the Commission are rapidly presented with a view to reconciliation of the recent decision of the WTO with the interests of European producers in particular.
Thank you, Mr Wohlfart, but we are not moving on from Mr Newens' question yet.
I have received three requests to put supplementary questions.
I can only grant two.
I shall therefore give the floor to Mr von Habsburg and Mr Medina Ortega.
Mr von Habsburg has the floor for one minute.
Mr President of the Council, you said that you would need a few more weeks or months before a decision were taken.
Would you not be of a disposition to request a solution very quickly, because, let us not forget, our banana producers, who are affected by these decisions, are small farmers, whose capital and financial possibilities are relatively limited, whereas on the other side, there are major capitalist companies, such as United Fruit, Chiquita, etc. who can hold out for a fairly long time.
I think it is our duty to try to make a decision as quickly as possible.
That is the reason why I would ask you if you might not be of a mind to ask the Commission to be diligent, as the question is a decisive one for the small fruit farms.
I would like to respond, I hope positively, to Mr von Habsburg's question.
I propose to place this point on the Council Agenda for its General Affairs meeting of 10 November, because we are going to devote this Council to the revision of the Lomé convention, and I believe that this is a topic of current interest.
I shall try to act in such a way that the message gets through to the Commission, which will be represented, and I also rely on members of Parliament to exercise the necessary pressure on the Commission.
Mr President, my concern is practically the opposite of that expressed by Mr Newens and Mr von Habsburg.
The problem of the banana regime is extremely complex, since it affects not only small islands in the Antilles, but also sizeable areas of the Community, Africa and the rest of the world.
My concern, Mr President, is that at the last meeting of the World Trade Organization, the Community was apparently put under pressure to resolve this issue in a very short period of time.
In fact, a strict deadline of fifteen months was set.
My question to the representative of the Council is: is this in fact a fixed deadline, or will we have more time, since I fear that adjusting the banana regime will take longer than fifteen months?
The presidency is always caught between two fires. On the one hand, people want the question to be dealt with rapidly, and with valid arguments, and on the other hand, another aspect of the question has just been raised, that is, the deadline which has been imposed upon us.
I do not think this is a final date.
If my information is exact, this is a reasonable deadline.
The fifteen month deadline could in reality be extended to sixteen or seventeen months.
But I am pleased that the complexity, not only in technical but also in political terms, of the question has been admitted.
At all events, I think that we should get down to this task as quickly as possible, however complex it may be.
Question No 5 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0696/97):
Subject: Used bottle and can return system
Sweden has a long-established and efficient system for the return of used glass bottles and aluminium cans, of which over 95 % are now recycled, and for a number of years has also had an efficient system for the return of used plastic bottles.
Increasingly internationalized trade and the opening-up of the EU's internal frontiers have to some extent meant that there is a greater variety of products but have unfortunately also caused serious disruption to the Swedish bottle and can return system.
Imported cans are unsuitable, as the original deposit was not paid in Sweden, etc.
The system operated by Systembolaget has virtually collapsed owing to the various types of foreign bottles.
This state of affairs is unacceptable from an environmental point of view.
Are there any plans to standardize bottles and cans? Can a Member State, on environmental grounds, require all imported bottles and cans to be adapted for its return system?
The reply of the President-in-office of the Council to this question will be very brief.
I would like to emphasize that the Council takes note of the explanations of the honourable Member with interest, and also regarding the ancillary question he has raised.
I must however draw the attention of the Honourable Member to the fact that the Council, as such, has no competency in this matter.
It is up to the Commission to examine the problem raised, and, as the case may be, to present appropriate proposals.
I put the same question to the Commission and Commissioner Bjerregaard yesterday, and I got an evasive answer from her.
She certainly did not give the Council as an excuse, but I did not get any answer.
The question concerns developed systems for deposits on bottles, cans, plastic, glass and metal in Sweden which have worked well and are now working well.
When the border controls disappeared, the bottles and cans etc. which existed before were, unfortunately, mixed with a lot of different plastic bottles, cans and glass which do not yet fit into our developed systems.
My question is whether the Council has any proposals for how you could prevent these environmental problems from arising.
Perhaps people could benefit from the good systems which exist in countries like Sweden.
Perhaps a proposal could come from the EU which could solve the problem of the large volume of waste products which, unfortunately, are now the result of opening up border controls.
I believe I can say to Mr Lindqvist that the difference between my reply and that of the Commission, is perhaps not that I have not satisfied the person who raised the question, but at least that my reply was not trying to veer with the prevailing wind, my reply was straightforward.
I have referred the matter back to the competency of the Commission.
I know that the Swedish system that you have just recalled is a model system, and that it operated for many years to general satisfaction.
I think that the Council directive relating to packaging and packaging waste adopted on 20 December 1994 provides for the reutilisation and the recycling of packaging, but not for the standardisation of drinks bottles and cans, for example.
The national systems for recovery and collection of packaging should cover not only national but imported products, without discrimination.
According to the information at my disposal, although I am not a member of the Commission, it would appear that other Member States do not encounter the same difficulties in this respect.
It behoves the Commission to proceed to undertake the necessary checks and to draw the necessary conclusions.
I believe that you made an approach yesterday to the relevant persons.
As I know you, Mr Lindqvist, I do not doubt for one moment that you will make a further attempt to make things move in the weeks and months to come.
Question No 6 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0698/97):
Subject: Treaty of Amsterdam
The text of article 100a (5) of the treaty, as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam, concerning the possibility of introducing national provisions relating to the environment and the working environment, differs in one respect from the preliminary version of the text since the latter was examined by the jurist linguists.
In the preliminary version, it was stated that such provisions must be based on "scientific facts' , but in the final version sent to the delegations, those words have been changed to "scientific evidence' .
The word "evidence' is usually taken to mean something which is more conclusive and may also be regarded as controversial by scientists and researchers, whose task is to study and question things all of the time.
Why has the term "scientific facts' been replaced by "scientific evidence' in the final version of the draft Treaty of Amsterdam? Can the Council provide examples of what "scientific evidence' covers and what distinguishes it from "scientific facts' ?
I do not think my answer will satisfy the honourable Member.
Similar questions were already raised in the sessions of July and September, that is, questions relating to the motivations underlying this or that provision of the treaty of Amsterdam, and their interpretation.
I must, in the present case, emphasize one again that it is not the responsibility of the Council to comment on the reasons why the intergovernmental conference amended some provisions of the treaty setting up the European Community, such as the one cited by the honourable Member.
I must also emphasize that it is no more the responsibility of the Council, at least not at this stage, to take a position on a question relating to the provision of a treaty which is not yet in force, although it may in the intervening period have been signed.
Under such conditions, I would ask the honourable Member to be kind enough to understand that at this stage, any exegesis of the documents agreed in Amsterdam would be inopportune, especially as the only institution accredited, in our view, to interpret the text of these treaties, is the European Court of Justice.
Thank you for your answer, but just as you suspected, I am not entirely satisfied with it.
The last time we discussed this, one of the reasons you gave was that the Treaty in Amsterdam was not yet signed.
Now it has been signed by the foreign ministers.
I had therefore hoped that you would be prepared to have a discussion about its contents.
I think the situation we find ourselves in is completely absurd.
The citizens of several countries shall now vote in referendums on this, but the Council of Ministers, which wrote the Treaty, is not prepared to say what the Treaty means.
For example, I go to meetings every week in Sweden and I am asked about what various things in the Amsterdam Treaty mean.
The only thing I can answer now is that not even the Council of Minsters can give an answer to what it means.
I think that you are ever so slightly avoiding your political responsibilities if you are not prepared to explain texts which you have actually been involved in writing.
I would therefore like to urge you to be able to answer the next time I ask a question about the actual content of the treaty.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am unsure whether that is a question or a threat.
In any event, you have the floor, since it seems that Mr Sjöstedt's opinions and yours do not exactly coincide; but that is the purpose of Parliament.
Mr Sjöstedt is well aware of my opinion on this subject.
He has just alluded to the referendums which will be held in some countries of the European Union.
There have also been discussions at the parliamentary level about the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I think it is the responsibility of the various governments involved in the intergovernmental conference to make the interpretation which they deem to be not only fit but also exactly concordant with the treaty terms.
I would not wish to intervene in the referendum or pre-referendum in Sweden, but once procedures for ratification have been completed, Mr Sjöstedt, we can have a fundamental discussion about the treaty of Amsterdam.
This treaty will, incidentally, be revised - I am well informed in this respect - in the years to come, because the process of integration is a dynamic one.
You also raised a question about the difference between scientific proof and scientific data.
I am neither a great legal expert, nor a great language expert.
Therefore, I had to use my son's Petit Larousse dictionary, and I think I can tell you that scientific data - but this is a purely personal interpretation, and I am not responding as the President-inoffice here - is a part of a scientific proof.
It therefore does not have the same value as scientific proof.
Thank you, Mr Wohlfart.
I appreciate that your reference to a certain dictionary was not subliminal advertising, because subliminal advertising is not allowed in this House.
In any event, that was, as you said, solely and exclusively a personal opinion.
It is interesting to discuss this matter; that is why it was taken up.
As I understood the answer, your chap's description of the concepts 'scientific facts' and 'scientific proof' would mean that scientific facts are part of and are less than scientific proof.
That means that the legal-linguistic change which has been made makes greater demands after the Amsterdam summit and since the linguistic adjustments were made.
That is why this these debates arise: How great are the demands?
As you noted, in my previous question I took Sweden as an example.
Should Sweden, for example, be able provide scientific proof that our recycling system has worked so well that we want to keep it and stop the import of bottles, glass and cans which do not meet our environmental requirements. That question was never answered.
I am not asking for an answer now.
We are sure to return to this debate.
However, this is extremely important for how the Amsterdam Treaty should be interpreted.
Question No 7 by John Cushnahan (H-0701/97):
Subject: Developing country debt
The problem of developing countries' debt was on the agenda of the annual conference of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Hong Kong in September.
What action did the Council take in order to alleviate the difficulties facing debtor countries?
The Council is determined to support the poor countries which are heavily indebted.
When I read that sentence, I realized there is now a new abbreviation in French, PPLE, for 'pays pauvres lourdement endettés ' , or heavily indebted poor countries.
The Commission recently presented a paper proposing a community response to the initiative in favour of such countries, launched by the international community in the wake of the Lyons summit, with a view of lightening the debt burden of these countries.
This proposal is currently being examined within the Council.
The Member States, particularly as within the framework of the Paris Club, as well as community institutions, have stated that they would associate with the initiative in question.
They will make an appropriate contribution to this international commitment in favour of the poorest countries of the planet.
The participation of the European Union and of its Member States was also recently confirmed in Hong Kong at the time of the annual general meetings of the IMF and of the World Bank.
I very much welcome the response of the President-in-office and I am sure he is aware of the scale of this problem.
Although Latin American countries would be the most indebted in global amounts, it is the sub-Saharam African countries that are in most difficulty.
This is best shown by the scale of debt that they now owe.
In 1962 they owed $3 billion, whereas it is now in the region of $235 billion - equivalent to 76 % of GNP.
Arrears for those countries which were at $1.2 billion in 1980 have now increased to $43 billion.
They have a real problem servicing this debt.
I appreciate that there has been rescheduling of debt but multilateral lenders do not reschedule and that is reflected in the fact that African countries owe the International Development Agency $25 billion compared with $2.58 billion in 1980.
I wonder, taking into consideration what the President-in-office has stated in relation to initiatives that have been taken, whether or not pressure can be put on the multilateral lenders to reschedule debts to assist those countries.
I believe that Mr Cushnahan has appropriately identified the scale of the debate and what is at stake.
He has mentioned debt, which amounts to 65 % of these countries' GDP.
This is a truly heavy burden, and I believe that we shall be able to discuss this question at the General Affairs Council of 10 November.
I hope that we shall be able to agree not only to ask the Commission to present a concrete proposal in the months to come regarding the financial effort which might be supported by the European Union and its Member States, but also the strategy which should be adopted by the European Union to ensure its voice is heard in international fora.
Question No 8 by Hugh McMahon (H-0702/97):
Subject: Agenda 2000
Can the Luxembourg Presidency inform Parliament as to the outcome of discussions on Agenda 2000 at the Foreign Affairs Council on 15 September 1997?
What efforts has the Presidency made to reach a compromise between those Member States who wish to curtail disbursement of Community resources and the others who wish to maintain the existing levels of Community expenditure?
Given that Agenda 2000 is a subject of the greatest interest, not only to the Presidency, to the Council, to the Commission, but also to the members of Parliament, I shall try to give a reply which is appropriate to the question raised by the honourable Member.
I would like to make a brief summary of the voluminous documents, relating not only to the evolution of Union policies, but particularly to structural and agricultural policies, as well as to the oh so important financial framework of the Union beyond the year 2000, as well as to a certain number of general questions related to the enlargement process, and finally, to the Commission opinion on the countries applying for membership.
The orientation debate on Agenda 2000, which was held by the Council in its session of 15 September last, enabled the presidency to take note of the initial reflections of the Member States on the general tendencies that we have been able to identify, on the one hand, namely the deepening and development of Union policies and its future financial framework, and on the other hand, the decisions to be taken by the European Council for the process of enlargement as a whole.
This debate has now identified the essential political elements which will naturally require in-depth examination from the perspective of the report that the Council will be called on to present to the European Council at Luxembourg in December.
The Presidency can also assure the honourable Member that it will take every useful step to proceed to an attentive and detailed examination at the political and technical level of the whole of these complex and sensitive questions.
The Presidency, as is its duty, will spare no effort to contribute throughout the whole of this semester to a drawing together of positions so that we can reach the decisions that are required in the interest of the Union and of the candidate countries on all of the questions related to the enlargement process, at the time of the European Council of Luxembourg.
I believe that I am right in saying that the proceedings of yesterday and today were also put to good use by our Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, in the debate on the state of the Union and also on the Employment summit, which indicates the importance which he personally attaches to these matters.
Mr President, I was interested to hear what the President-in-office had to say about the efforts which the Luxembourg Presidency are going to make to endeavour to find a compromise between the differing views of the individual Member States.
Firstly, what efforts will the Luxembourg Presidency make to ensure that the timetable of adoption in December is adhered to? Secondly, in regard to the point being put forward by several Members of the Council that there should be further institutional change prior to enlargement, what impetus or weight will the Luxembourg Presidency give to this?
This question relating to the date and deadlines calls for some comments on my part.
Firstly, the date itself of the European Council, which was fixed for 12 and 13 December, has imposed upon us an extremely tight schedule.
Furthermore, I believe that we are deploying every effort at all levels to ensure that preparations for the Council go ahead as they should, so as to reach the consensus which is absolutely necessary on questions such as enlargement and other connected questions.
We are making every effort, firstly at the prime ministerial level.
Our prime minister is currently visiting the capitals of the European Union in order personally to meet the heads of state and government to collect their feelings, their comments and their reactions with a view to formulating a compromise at the Luxembourg Summit, because there will necessarily have to be compromises given that there are divergences of points of view on, for example, the financial aspects and also on the allocation of structural funds, to name but a few.
But consensus is necessary and it will, I am convinced, be obtained.
What is at stake is too great for us to be able to not make this meeting a success.
Subsequently, we shall make every effort at the relevant ministerial level.
Be these ministers of foreign affairs or ministers with technical briefs, we are also pursuing regular contacts with our counterparts in the countries of the European Union.
We have also, under the Luxembourg presidency, and furthermore in the General Affairs Council, the Ecofin Council and other specialized Councils, scheduled six informal ministerial meetings with a view to preparing for the Luxembourg summit.
I have furthermore, myself presided over the meeting which dealt with the questions of the internal market.
This was also an opportunity for the Luxembourg presidency, after the decision of the Amsterdam summit, to make contact at ministerial level with central and eastern European countries who wish to become part of the European Union.
I think, Mr President, that I can say, with your permission, that this ministerial level meeting took place in conditions, if I might put it so, of frank friendliness, in a very open spirit, and that we were able to avoid what we might call a breakdown.
People were fully aware of the fact that they were engaged in a historic process, a process which deserved our getting deeply involved in it, because this is the only alternative for the year 2000 and beyond.
We are deploying every effort, finally, at the level of the Committee of Permanent Representatives, which has been mandated by the Council of Ministers.
We took the trouble to go into the details of finalisation of the various horizontal agendas, in order to ensure we had a discussion basis for the Luxembourg summit.
Then our heads of state and government will shoulder the responsibility which is theirs.
I can only tell you that, all together, with the Commission and the other Member States, we are doing our very best to be ready on time.
Thank you, Mr-President-in-Office, for that very full answer.
I think we are all agreed that it is not a zero-sum game and it is in every Member State's interest to welcome in new members because of the generation of income and the new trading relationships that will bring about.
I have to say that I, and I think my colleagues in this House, sense a threat in some areas.
We have to stress, as you said, the need for a fair and equitable distribution of resources while retaining priority for poorer areas and declining regions.
I wonder if you have also detected that unwillingness, and which Member States would you say are concerned about the future and which Member States fear that they may be asked to pay for enlargement? How can we ensure that we get a consensus that it is a fair and equitable distribution?
I do not think I need to tell Mrs McCarthy the names of the countries because she knows them as well as I do, if not better.
A debate is currently underway over the fair and impartial division of the financial burden.
It is a very heated debate, and I will simply say that as regards my country, Luxembourg, the figures, which are not always correct, make it appear sometimes as a beneficiary of funds and at other times as a net provider of funds.
I can tell you that Luxembourg is a net provider of funds, but I do not want to go into the details of that discussion now.
I believe that consensus is really possible.
It will be decided, Mrs McCarthy, at the highest level, and moreover it may be decided - I am not a prophet - very late at night or late in the evening. I do not know.
As regards enlargement, I have glanced at the statistics relating to our trading relationships with the central and eastern European countries.
I share your opinion, of course it will not be straightforward.
But if you look at the statistics on our external trade with these countries, as the European Union, despite the setting up of free trade areas, in spite of the advantageous conditions granted, it is a fact that the balance of trade is very much in favour of the European Union.
I, personally, am convinced that the non-membership of these central and eastern European countries, on the basis of objective criteria and a well-spaced timetable, will at the end of the day be much more costly than membership.
It is a challenge, Mrs McCarthy, I am convinced of this, just I am convinced that it is a historic opportunity for this continent.
Let us not waste it.
Question No 9 by Sören Wibe (H-0704/97):
Subject: Classification of Schengen manuals
According to reports in Sweden the Swedish Government has classified two out of three Schengen manuals.
These are instructions for the conduct of the checks at the external borders and the exchange of information between the Member States.
The Schengen agreement is now to be incorporated in the EU Treaty, which itself advocates open government.
Does the Council not believe it would be appropriate to recommend that the Member States should ensure that all Schengen manuals are accessible to the public?
Mr President, it is with pleasure that I reply to this question, as I was one of the signatories to the Schengen agreement in 1990, already some years back.
To reply to the double question raised, I would say that on its meeting of 16 October 1997, six days ago, the Committee of Permanent Representatives set up a working group with responsibility for examining questions relating to the Schengen manuals and their assignment to the first and third pillars.
This group, who will begin its work tomorrow, 23 October.
Among the questions which it will need to examine, is the question of the publication of Schengen manuals.
This publication raises various problems, which involve not only their voluminousness, but also the confidential nature of some of the information.
The honourable Member will certainly understand that some instructions, which are addressed to authorities with external frontier controls, for example, are by nature confidential and therefore not accessible to the public.
This in no way calls into question the principle of transparency reaffirmed by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Thank you very much for your answer.
It was a very positive answer.
I was not aware of this working group and am very pleased that it has been set up.
Actually I just have a small follow-up question. Can you say anything about what principles of publicity guide this group's work?
You say we cannot make external border controls public.
I am not so sure of that. A large part of that should also be able to be made public, but I understand that some technical details must be kept secret.
I would be glad if you had some comments on these guiding principles.
In fact, I am going to try and reply.
I believe that the Presidency and the members of the working group do intend to bear in mind the legitimate concerns of the European Parliament and national parliamentarians regarding the transparency of operation of the Schengen system.
I remember, Mr President, that I myself appeared before the competent commission of the European Parliament in 1992, at a time when Luxembourg was taking on the Schengen presidency.
At the time, one of the great criticisms levelled against Schengen was clearly the absence of parliamentary control and the absence of control by the European Court of Justice.
Even so, I think I can say that with the new provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which re-establishes the Schengen manuals at the Community level, we have now made a great step forward, even though there will still need to be improvements, of that I am convinced.
Now to the subject of transparency. I can conceive that the ministers with responsibility, the President-in-office of the Council with responsibility for justice and internal security might regularly appear before the competent committees of the European Parliament to draw up, let us say, a report on the activities and also on the Schengen manuals.
It is also possible to conceive of a public debate, like so many others, here in the European Parliament on Schengen operations.
I think this would be a good way to prove that we really do wish for transparency within the system, in the way Schengen operates on a day to day basis.
Secondly, another major debate in the Schengen context is that of the protection of privacy, which involves everything relating to personal data. I think that in this respect you are all in agreement with me and acknowledge that we have to be extremely prudent, and that for evident reasons for the protection of human life, that access to such data must be limited to persons who are really authorized.
I would also like to point out that there is an independent controlling authority which had responsibility for oversight of Schengen, which was in charge of the surveillance and of the non-violation of individual rights in the framework of the Schengen system.
I think we will need to articulate our works around these two lines of action: transparency and protection of privacy.
Thank you, Mr Wohlfart, but I would ask you not to move on from Mr Wibe's question yet, since, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, I have to give the floor to Mr Sjöstedt for a supplementary question.
Mr Sjöstedt therefore has the floor for one minute on this issue.
I would like to thank you for the Council's answer, which I thought was very interesting, that developments are still taking place in this area with the large amount of confidential material in Schengen.
You mentioned the instructions to the external border controls.
There are two other confidential documents which are controversial, the Sirene handbook and instructions to embassies and consulates abroad. Do you have the same view about these documents, that they should remain confidential?
Could you not conceive of at least partly disclosing these documents? I could quite understand that there is certain information in them which cannot be disclosed, but could you not disclose other information in these documents?
In addition, I wonder whether the process of assessing the announcement will be finished before the ratification of the treaty in the Member States begins? That is, you see, also the basis for ratification.
For Sweden and Denmark, for example, the Amsterdam Treaty means the countries will also become a part of Schengen for the first time.
That must therefore be decided before ratification starts in the national parliaments.
I also wonder whether people can have a copy of the President-in-Office of the Council's son's dictionary, which appears to be a central document in the interpretation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Mr President, I have the impression that things are a little vague, a little too vague yet with regard to the Schengen manuals.
I remember a very interesting debate in 1991, in which European Parliamentarians levelled two fundamental criticisms against the Schengen initiative: that negotiations relating to the Schengen convention of application had taken place as part of an intergovernmental conference, without the involvement of the European Parliament.
Furthermore, at the time I was a little surprised - and I say so without bitterness and without cynicism - that so many people, right down to our national parliaments made every possible sort of claim when they raised Schengen.
Either they said "Big Brother is watching you' - purely and simply the police state intervening in all fields, or else it was exactly the opposite.
Even so in our negotiations, we tried to compensate for the elimination of internal borders by new measures on the external borders.
I believe that today we are in somewhat the same situation.
I believe everyone agrees with there being a degree of police cooperation, because organized crime raises a challenge which goes beyond the field of action of a given police, of a national police force, however competent it is.
Hence we need to provide ourselves with a means of prevention and repression, while bearing in mind what is, as far as I am concerned, of primordial importance in the Schengen system, i.e. protection of privacy and protection of data.
I know that there are some provisions, notably as regards the delivery of visas, which are no longer the competency of honorary consul, as was the case at the time, but which are reserved to ambassadors and consulates.
At the national parliamentary level, there are oversight committees which at any time may have access to data which they deem necessary.
I think that we will need to be very prudent in the management of some dossiers.
Question No 10 by Anne McIntosh (H-0707/97):
Subject: Abolition of Duty Free sales
As the Council prepares for its extraordinary summit on Employment, does it not understand the contradiction of continuing with the abolition of Duty Free sales in 1999, and the unemployment that this would cause in the transport and tourism sectors, alongside moves to promote job creation?
In view of the recent report by the aviation industry indicating that the abolition of duty free sales after June 1999 would result in the loss of 30, 000 jobs, cause airports to raise charges and airlines to raise prices, does the Council agree that it is therefore imperative that further studies are undertaken into the social and economic impact that abolition would cause?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I already had an opportunity to reply to similar questions during Question Time in July, and I fear that the reply I shall give the honourable Member will disappoint her.
Indeed, I would like to say straight away that there is no really new element in this dossier, which is one particularly close to her heart.
I must, Mr President, underline from the outset that the maintenance of duty free sales, as part of the interCommunity passenger travel is in contradiction with the existence of a border-free internal market.
Indeed, the circulation between Member States of goods privately purchased by individuals for their personal use is now a matter of no consequence from the point of view of tax law.
Hence individuals may purchase goods intended for their personal use in any Member State and take these goods into any other state whatsoever without needing to declare them and pay border taxes.
In such a situation, the existence of areas of reduced taxation for travellers has no justification.
The maintenance of duty-free sales in inter-Community passenger travel, beyond the above mentioned period, could furthermore create competitive distortion with regard to businesses selling goods on a tax-inclusive basis, and between the various means of transportation or travel, depending on whether or not they propose duty free sales.
While the Council, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, temporarily extended duty free sales to inter-Community travellers until 30 June 1999, it did so out of a concern to offset the social and regional difficulties that might have arisen from sudden abolition of duty free sales.
The statement just made by the President-in-Office of the Council makes a complete mockery of the concept of an employment summit to be held in Luxembourg.
I do not see the point in holding such a summit.
Peripheral countries and islands are more dependent on duty-free sales than central mainland European countries.
The distances travelled in Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg are necessarily less and the prices charged are less.
The contribution to the local economy from duty-free sales, not least in terms of jobs, is therefore not as notable.
The numbers employed in duty-free sales by airports, airlines, sea ports and ferries are substantial, in particular in countries like the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, where nobody enjoys the same low duties as those paid in particular in Luxembourg and Belgium.
Those people employed in airports, airlines, sea ports and ferries will no longer find employment after 1 January.
I ask the President-in-Office to use the Luxembourg summit to study this question.
Believe me, employment and full employment is one of the preoccupations, not only of the European Parliament - and I congratulate the parliamentarians who are concerned about this dossier - but also of my own responsibilities, as I can say that every day I also receive requests for ministerial support for a job, whether in writing or by telephone.
I therefore in no way underestimate the extent of the problem which concerns you.
Nevertheless, with every due respect, I would not like to make a link between one of the provisions of the internal market and the employment summit at Luxembourg.
I think it is a temptation so to do.
I would simply like to say one thing, Mr President, on the internal market, as I have had responsibility for the internal market dossier for some eight years now.
The aim of free movement of goods, services, capital and persons, which should 100 % in force on 1 January 1999, is an aim which in the medium term certainly will ensure the creation of new jobs.
In a first assessment on the operation of the internal market, which the Commission drew up in November last year, it appears - according to Commission estimates - that there were up to 900, 000 new jobs created simply by the implementation of the single market on 1 January 1993.
There are still distortions and obstacles, we know.
This is the reason why the European Council has adopted the proposals of the Commission seeking to launch this internal market action plan, with four strategic objectives for the effective and unhindered implementation of the single market between now and 1 January 1999.
Why do I say this? Because some elements contained in these action plans, in these strategic objectives affect areas which are sensitive, and very important for the single market operation, as taxation - and not just corporate taxation - such as, for example, state aid and other subsidies, as part of the policy for setting up new companies in our various countries, research and development assistance, and many more besides.
It is with the aim of avoiding competitive distortions that all such measures will be taken, and also with the aim of ensuring the setting up of a single currency for the internal market.
Hence, once all these conditions have been met, the full development of this single market will be possible, and also, by the year 2000, the creation of new jobs arising from the 100 % implementation of the single market.
But I said this also, because I am convinced that some tax provisions, of state or other origin, could in the shorter term have as their consequence - and I stress in the shorter term - the painful loss of jobs.
When we are speaking about the single market in 1999, we must include all the opportunities that arise as a result.
Of course, we must not underestimate the fact that in the short term, some problems could arise, relating to regulatory tax and other provisions that I have just mentioned.
But in the medium term, the objective which we have fixed is of course the promotion of employment.
Miss McIntosh, I know our Prime Minister well, even if I am not a member of his party.
He is really convinced of the usefulness of the summit for employment and he is going to do his best, with his colleagues, to ensure that the summit on employment deserves that name.
As an aside, if we are dealing with completing the internal market, I wonder what we can do about opening the market here to do something about the appallingly bad Air France service to Strasbourg.
However, on the point in question, I understand that duty-free helps to provide the services for the flying public in this area.
What assurances can we have that the flying public will not be ill-served by this measure?
I wish to congratulate the President-in-Office on his firmness in the face of what, frankly, has been a very unscrupulous and dishonest lobbying of this Parliament.
The President-in-Office might be interested to know that there is a thing called the 'Duty-Free Intergroup' , which is simply an organization of the lobby, and that there are some very powerful vested interests involved in this.
Is he aware that many of the statistics claimed for job losses and air traffic increases are highly speculative and that the reality is that it is a taxpayers' subsidy to the traveller? Is he aware that one British airline executive admitted that duty-free is equivalent to an ECU 21 subsidy per passenger on charter flights?
Mr Wohlfart, do you wish to answer Mr Cassidy's question or make any comments?
No, Mr President, because I think that there is still one other question which deserves a reply.
Thank you nevertheless for having given me the floor.
Is it in order for my colleague to accuse those who are in support of duty-free as unscrupulous, when all they are trying to do is preserve jobs, ensure lower airfares, promote tourism and the retention of essential ferry services. I think that is a gross insult to those who want to see duty-free retained.
Mr Cushnahan, allow me to tell you that that was not a point of order.
Anyway, it could disturb our business.
Mr Papayannakis, you have the floor to raise a point of order.
But not to rebut remarks made about you personally.
I did not hear anyone refer to you personally.
Perhaps they referred to you with some alias or nickname that I do not know.
Mr President, I was one of those who fought to extend duty-free.
And I am continuing that fight.
I do not consider myself as dishonest. I am doing this in collaboration with the unions of dutyfree employees in Greece.
And we are talking of 2, 500 employees.
I have nothing else to say.
Question No 11 by Christine Oddy (H-0711/97):
Subject: Nicaragua, the national forum and the national dialogue
What steps is the Council of Ministers taking to foster the official national dialogue in Nicaragua and the national forum following the street protests earlier this Year?
What steps will the Council take to assist the Nicaraguan government to implement the property agreement which would resolve the problem of 20 000 urban dwellers and many rural families and prevent eviction?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council has always supported the efforts of the Nicaraguan democratic forces to achieve a national dialogue and wishes most strongly that we could strengthen the agreements that we have already come to and develop dialogue with all sectors of civil society.
The Council is very conscious of the challenge faced by the Nicaraguan administration, which confronts a broad program of social and economic reforms which can only be implemented with the consensus of all political groups, and on the basis of parliamentary agreement between the governing party and the opposition.
Furthermore, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Council hopes that Nicaragua, in order to enter successfully and harmoniously the world economy, will be able to draw benefit from the process of integration currently underway among countries in the San José group.
The Council has supported the San José group from the moment it was founded, and in this context, welcomes the recent decision taken in Managua by the member countries to provide for common institutions based on the European Union model.
I just like to draw the Council's attention to the fact that there are increasing social problems and increasing tension in Nicaragua including the problem of street children.
I trust that the Council will continue to show the very greatest concern about that country because it needs our help and assistance.
I can really subscribe to everything that has just been said by the honourable Member, and the Council Presidency will not spare its efforts.
In my personal capacity and as Minister for Cooperation and Development, and not as President of the Council, I must tell you that Nicaragua and its internal situation are particularly close to my heart, as this is one of our target countries.
Question No 12 by Mary Banotti, which has been taken over by Winifred Ewing (H-0719/97):
Subject: National taxation of the European Union Prize for Literature (Aristeion)
Denmark does not subject to national taxation the prize money awarded in connection with the Nordic prize for literature, nor the Nobel Prize.
However, the prize money received by the Danish winner of the European Union Prize for Literature, the 1996 Aristeion prize, has been subjected to a national tax of almost 50 %.
Can the Council inform us why Denmark is making this difference between a European Union and a Scandinavian award, and whether the Council will not deem this to be an obvious act of discrimination against winners of European awards?
Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, in reply to the question of the honourable Member, I regret to emphasize that the organizational procedures for the Aristeion literary prize do not include provisions for the tax regime which this prize may be subject to.
Furthermore, I must point out, Mr President, that it is not the responsibility of the Council to make assessments on the positions taken by the governments of the Member States, nor to interpret those positions.
I am very honoured to replace Mrs Banotti who is otherwise engaged.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office if he would bear in mind that this is a European Union prize financed by the European Union; a prize for translation, which is the essence of our exchange of culture, close to the hearts of all of us, paid for by the European citizen.
Half the prize has, in effect, been stolen by the Danish Treasury.
Surely this is contrary, if you look at it, to all the similar prizes.
This is a European Union prize, not an unrelated prize.
Therefore I feel that there are financial interests raised by this matter. I ask the President-in-Office to look at this again.
I can certainly not enter into any formal commitment, and you as an honourable Member will certainly understand this, but I find your idea interesting, and I shall do my best, Mrs Ewing, to try to give you satisfaction.
But I do not make any commitment in this respect as President, simply as Minister for Cooperation.
Mr Cushnahan, you have the floor for a point of order.
But let it be a genuine point of order this time, since last time it was not.
I am surprised that you abused my good faith.
I was with Mrs Banotti, who was canvassing in my home town yesterday.
She asked me to apologize for her not being able to be here.
I also take this opportunity to wish her all the best in the election to become President of Ireland.
Would it not be wonderful for us if a Member of this House were to become the constitutional Head of State of Ireland, especially since it is someone who is committed to the ideal of European integration, breaking down barriers, sweeping aside old enmities? Who better to be President of Ireland than Mrs Banotti, who has worked for that in this House and who is the best placed to build bridges in Ireland itself and sweep away old enmities?
On your behalf I extend my best wishes to her.
Thank you, Mr Cushnahan.
I listened closely to your remarks, and I am not sure that they belong in Question Time.
Nevertheless, I am generous enough to allow them.
Mr Posselt, do you wish to put a supplementary question?
Mr President, I should just like to say something on the Rules of Procedure.
You are already aware of the matter.
I am not criticizing you all the time, for you are of the right opinion, but our Bureau and the Conference of Presidents, because Question Time can almost never be utilized in full, now that it has been moved from the evening to the afternoon.
Every part-session is subject to late starts, and each time I criticize that, a representative of the Bureau tells me that it was an exceptional case.
I should like to know how many exceptions we are going to allow ourselves, and whether we should not now accept the consequences and hold Question Time at a set hour.
Mr Posselt, at the start of Question Time, I apologized for the delay, first to the President-in-Office of the Council, and then to all the Members of Parliament, and said that I would refer the matter to the Bureau.
However, this is a matter not only for the Bureau, but also for the political groups.
I would therefore invite the Members also to raise it with the leaders of their respective groups.
Mr Martin has the floor for a point of order.
To reinforce the point you have just made, Mr President, it is the Conference of Presidents who set the part-session agenda and not the Bureau.
Secondly, this House is sovereign on this matter.
If enough Members shared Mr Posselt's view of Question Time, we could change it to 5 pm. on a Monday.
The problem is that at present Members of this House undervalue Question Time.
As the time allocated to Question Time to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 13 to 29 will be answered in writing.
Before suspending the sitting, however, allow me to thank everyone present, including the interpreters and other parliamentary officials helping us this afternoon, for their patience in the face of today's delay.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.21 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Insurance undertakings
The next item is the second report (A4-0295/97) by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the supplementary supervision of insurance undertakings in an insurance group (COM(95)0406 - C4-0464/95-95/0245(COD)).
The rapporteur, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, has the floor.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the whole point of this guideline proposal is better to equip insurance supervisory authorities in assessing the actual solvency of individual insurance companies within a group.
It is an extremely difficult proposition to achieve this aim within limited means, because the legal status of group supervision in Europe is extraordinarily varied, both with regard to soloplus supervision and to the methods of accounting used, the threshold value, holding and re-insurance businesses.
In accordance with the third Accident Insurance Guideline and the 3rd Life Insurance Guideline of 1992, insurance supervision in the European Union currently covers the licencing and continuous supervision of the insurance sector.
The supervisory regulations within Member States, which are harmonised and coordinated by these guidelines, primarily ensure the protection of the insured, and thus emphasize supervision of the financial position and solvency of individual companies.
This so-called solo supervision of the financial situation arises from the principle of separation of insurance lines of business.
The aim of the proposed resolution is the extension of the supervision guidelines on individual supervision of insurance companies - solo supervision - by additional supervisory regulations - solo-plus supervision - for those insurance companies that are part of an insurance group.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has met a total of twelve times.
That is exceptional. It heard experts on supervision, science, the profession and also the European Insurance Association advising on the extraordinarily difficult material.
In addition, interested members of the committee have struggled with me to find solutions in so-called informal meetings.
I should like here to thank these members very sincerely for their patience, their stamina and their efforts to reach by constructive suggestion a position capable of commanding a majority in the committee.
The committee feels that it is necessary and right that insurance supervisory bodies be informed about the structure and internal transactions of insurance groups, so that they can step in in good time as part of their consumer protection responsibilities when financial dangers threaten.
Accordingly, the committee welcomes the proposal to increase the transparency of insurance companies by means of improved rights to information - articles 5 and 6. Also, in view of the increasing internationalisation of insurance groups, to strengthen cooperation between supervisory authorities - article 7.
Equally, it welcomes the proposal for supervision of transactions between different insurance companies, based on market behaviour - article 8.
We should not lose sight of the fact, however, that existing regulations - the 3rd Insurance Guideline, the BCCI guideline, and regulations in Company and Tax Law - already provide extensive supervisory powers to insurance supervisory authorities.
The additional regulations proposed by the Commission are realisable, as far as they can be understood - the text of the proposal is in some places unfortunately very unclear or even ambiguous. They are capable, however, of being useful in reaching the objective they set.
The only question is whether they accord with the basic law principle of relativity.
In this context I should like to come now to four points.
The Commission proposes the inclusion of minority holdings of at least 20 %, or of non-controlled insurance companies, into the scope of the guideline.
The participation of 20 % does not, however, represent any relevant value for the inclusion of parent companies.
European legislation should be consistent within itself.
The 20 % limit fails to take cognisance of the fact that regulations for corporations in Europe already exist within the framework of the 7th Company Guideline.
The basis used in auditing corporation accounts according to the 7th Company Guideline should also apply to supervision.
Despite this the following is applicable: double gearing opens up opportunities for a business to extend its business activities without additional capital resources, by, instead of using other assets, investing in another company which already uses the invested capital as the basis of its business activity.
Double gearing is, therefore, a view of finance independent of the value of the investment.
It has been recognized that with double gearing a financial danger could exist to the insurance company and the consumer, and to this extent a European guideline is justified.
The Commission and also some of the insurance supervisory bodies in the Member States regard double gearing as undermining the existing regulations on solvency of insurance companies.
This is because, although in some circumstances every individual insurance company may meet the solvency requirements of an insurance group just as well as an independent insurance company, taken all together less capital resources have to be used to achieve the same volume of business.
For this reason an end to the double gearing effect is required from the standpoint of equality, but without weighing up the security advantages and disadvantages of group businesses and independent businesses. Also, without looking at evidence of specific cases where, since European solvency regulations have been in place, such businesses have got into financial difficulties because of double gearing to the detriment of consumers, and which could not be solved within the relevant supervision laws.
The existing law on bank supervision is probably an example to use for the proposed exclusion of the double gearing effect.
Representatives of the Commission have told the Committee that they did not overlook the differences between bank and insurance supervisory systems, as well as the different risk situation for banks, that is, credit pyramids, budgetary equality and insurance using the principle of keeping lines of business separate, and the Commission proposes for this reason a higher investment threshold, namely 20 % for the whole guideline.
The majority of the Committee, however, took the view that supervisory legislation to counter the effects of double gearing were only needed insofar as double gearing was a source of danger to insurance companies, and thus consumers.
Such a danger does not come about merely with a minority holding of 20 %, but when there are majority rights, and when the qualitative elements of a guiding influence or a single management board are added to a minority holding.
Precisely this corresponds to the Consolidation Group in article 1 of the Th Company Guideline.
This is also regarded by a majority of the Committee on Law on Law in the same way, and I ask the House, therefore, for agreement to amendments Nos 1 to 7 and 8.
Secondly, in accordance with the Commission's proposal, after calculation of net solvency of insurance groups, certain capital resources should not be taken into account, if they were acknowledged as capital resources by Solo supervision.
The Commission intends with this proposal to prevent the multiple booking of capital resources within one insurance group.
The double booking of capital resources in insurance groups must not be regarded, however, as necessarily a particular danger, as it is the natural result of the separation of insurance lines of business in the interests of the consumer.
The proposed strengthening of the capital resources requirement is, therefore, neither necessary nor materially correct.
Anything which is permitted as a capital resource within solo supervision must also be capable of being included in solo-plus supervision.
There can be no differentiation of qualities for capital resources.
Particular qualifying means cannot suddenly lose their quality as capital resources just because, for instance, the life insurance parent organization is subject to a different set of supervisory rules.
Otherwise we should have the grotesque situation whereby the same insurance company which had industrial participation, could continue to use these particular capital resources within the solo supervision system, but these means would cease being capital resources the moment it took on supervised insurance subsidiary companies.
From the economic point of view this would be a contradiction and would particularly hit the mutual insurance societies.
That was also agreed in Committee and so I ask for agreement to Amendment No 14.
Thirdly, the Commission proposes the inclusion of insurance holding companies within the guideline, particularly for the solvency warning test.
The majority of the Committee felt that the inclusion of holding companies was justified.
As rapporteur I wold personally have preferred holding companies not to be included.
Holding companies have a guidance function and are in a position to finance investment even in insurance companies by drawing on outside funds.
If a holding company at the head of the group goes into receivership, the insurance companies in which it has invested do not lose their capital, but the shareholders in the holding company do.
Quite rightly, though, the latter do not get the protection of the insurance supervisory law.
The Commission justified its inclusion of holding companies in the measures by trying to remove the double gearing effect, fearing that a holding company could obtain credit financed not from outside the corporation, but from within it, that is, by its subsidiary companies, or that it could exert undue pressure on the latter to give it assistance when in financial difficulties.
For these reasons I suggested that credit financing from within a group should be specifically prohibited.
The Committee did not agree the suggestion. I now ask the House on behalf of my Party to agree to Amendments Nos 23 and 24 which provide that capital holdings should be calculated inclusive of means originating from an insurance holding company outside an insurance group.
And fourthly, the Commission also includes re-insurance companies in its proposal.
It is undisputed that the security of re-insurance companies, that is, their capability, is of decisive importance to the capability of the first insurer.
Reinsurance protection is thus a further quality characteristic for consumer protection in the insurance sector.
Reinsurance companies are not subject to the European solvency regulations and other European insurance regulations, so that that is from the outset invalid as an argument for equality in this respect.
Various Member States, however, make re-insurance companies subject to their national regulations, individual supervision and group supervision.
A majority of the Committee, therefore, voted against excluding re-insurance companies, but also against a Member State's right of choice.
Amendment No 22, which has been reintroduced on behalf of the party, is a new compromise attempt aiming to make it possible for Member States to bring in legislation, so that re-insurers are not included in the audited solvency position in accordance with Annex 1.
On behalf once more of my group I ask for your agreement to this amendment
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, Madam Rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, , on behalf of my group I would like to pay tribute to Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's important work.
We have not always been in agreement, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, but you have devoted a great deal of energy to furthering this case, to organizing the important public hearing which has allowed us to see things more clearly, to prepare the deliberations of our committee which has met twelve times on this subject to seek amongst ourselves the terms of an agreement.
My group agrees with the general spirit of the Commission's proposal.
Moreover it does so along with most of the Member States and the supervisory authorities.
We believe it is important to harmonize our respective laws on this subject in order to guarantee the major market.
We support most of Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's amendments which improve the text.
The point of disagreement which remains - and it is not slight - relates to the inclusion of holding companies and re-insurance companies within the scope of the directive.
Along with the majority of the judicial committee we think that the directive must cover these situations, in the interests of the consumers, in the interest of those insured, but also to guarantee the equality of operators, in particular the cooperative societies in view of the European law.
We cannot therefore support Amendment No 22 which Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn has just presented.
On the text as a whole we would undoubtedly have preferred clearer drafting on this or that point.
But we consider that, as a whole, the text issued by the judicial committee is a good one and we shall vote for it, this being the case, and improve it during the second reading.
We naturally support Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's Amendments Nos 23 and 24, which draw conclusions from the votes of the judicial committee and give coherence to the whole of our deliberations.
We cannot accept the other amendments from the EPP Group which seem to us to put at risk the balance of the text issued by the Committee on Legal Affairs.
We hope that the spirit of compromise which breathes through the text resulting from our votes will be respected by the House.
In that spirit we shall, of course, vote in favour of the Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's report, and I want to thank her again for her excellent work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to praise two different things. First, the courageous attack by the Commission in an area that is exceptionally controversial, and secondly the untiring patience of the rapporteur in reconnoitring a passable road through this controversial terrain towards the achievement of compromises.
I admit that it is my impression, that all these attempts at finding alternatives only end up where one must decide by voting.
Either one takes the Commission's line by including every controlling or controlled company within the definition of parent and subsidiary companies, or one chooses the amendment s that would understand both terms in the stricter sense of the previous guidelines.
Either one calculates solvency with the inclusion of external means, or one excludes these, as was foreseen by the Commission's original proposal.
I make no secret - and Madam rapporteur knows this - of the fact that I support the Commission's views on both issues and shall vote accordingly.
But that does not in the least reduce my gratitude to the rapporteur for her work, the more so, because this guideline concerns a pilot project in the supervision of the movement of capital, and I hope Mr Cot will not deny me the spirit of compromise, despite my position.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, Madam rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, the adoption of the directive on the supplementary supervision of insurance undertakings in an insurance group is not only desirable but also necessary.
It is in fact very important that the national supervisory authorities can have a clear view of what happens within insurance groups in order to avoid the double use of separate funds and to prevent cases of company bankruptcy in which the consumers would, in a word, be the principal victims.
Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's report, as seen from the work of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is a coherent whole.
She has created an agreement in a highly technical sphere.
Prudence demands that we deviate as little as possible from the Legal Committee's text.
In agreement with Mr Cot we consider that, in order for this directive to be fully effective it is necessary that its scope includes re-insurance interests and holding companies.
On this condition we will vote for the report by Mme Mosiek-Urbahn.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn for her hard work on this difficult issue and I would broadly like to support the conclusions tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and to thank my colleagues on that committee for the hard work they have put in.
Insurance is an important issue.
It is a bit dry and boring and that is why there are not many people listening to us tonight. But it has vital implications for people's feeling of financial security.
Issues like health insurance, legal insurance, insurance for motor accidents, accidents in the home, etc., all make people feel that bit more safe and secure that, should any tragedy occur, they will be covered financially.
This may well become more important in the future as social security systems become very stretched and strained because of government financial restrictions.
Having said that, I would just like to flag up one or two points on the amendments that have been tabled subsequent to the amendments being passed by the committee.
Amendment No 22 allows Member States to exclude reinsurers from the adjusted solvency calculation.
This is unfortunate.
Reinsurers should be included in the scope of this directive.
Secondly, on Amendments Nos 23 and 24, this allows the funds of an insurance company arising from outside the group to be taken into account in the holding company test. This is important and should be supported.
There is some difficulty with Amendment No 25.
Finally, we should support Amendment No 27, but not Amendment No 26.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish first of all to thank Mme Mosiek-Urbahn for the excellent and difficult job she has done on this complex matter.
Not being personally a specialist on the question I realize the full value of the efforts your Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I can imagine just how difficult the debates must have been bearing in mind the importance and technicality of this subject.
The proposed Directive on insurance groups constitutes a major stage in the completion of the single market in insurance.
As you know, insurance companies are required to keep a certain level of funds separate so that their solvency is guaranteed.
This solvency margin, which is a guarantee of security for those who buy insurance, it reinforces the protection of consumers.
The aim of the present proposal is to stop these requirements being evaded by groups of insurance companies who, without these measures, would have the possibility of accounting for the same capital more than once in their calculation of solvency.
Furthermore, this proposal will facilitate the elimination of certain distortions of competition on the European insurance market.
A certain number of states, as you know - some of you have moreover mentioned this fact - have already adopted rules similar to those proposed by the Commission.
Unlike groups of credit companies or investment undertakings, who are already covered by Community legislation, there was no text for insurance groups.
This proposal seeks to remedy this deficiency with an eye to proportionality.
I wish to emphasize that it does not impose new capital requirements on insurance undertakings.
Nor does it penalise companies which form part of a group.
It is intended simply to guarantee the solvency margin currently required by community directives on insurance which will be effectively respected.
Nor is the aim of this proposal to impose capital requirements on re-insurance companies and insurance holding companies.
It nevertheless seeks to guarantee that the financial situation of these companies will be duly taken into account to determine if the insurance companies in the group of which they form part meet the required solvency criteria.
Concerning the amendments proposed by your Assembly, I have the pleasure of informing you that the Commission agrees to accept partially the Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 14.
For Amendments Nos 1 and 2 the inclusion of a reference to the first article, paragraph 2 of the seventh directive on company law is acceptable, on condition that the rest of these definitions are kept as they are.
For Amendment No 3, the reference to the first sentence of article 17 of the fourth directive on company law is acceptable, on condition that the rest of the definition remains unchanged.
With regard to Amendment No 14 - I believe that this was the second point of your statement, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn - only the first paragraph and the first two hyphens, which list the elements which are eligible for the calculation of the solvency margin and already allowed by current insurance directive, can be accepted.
I then refer to another group of amendments which can be accepted in their spirit conditional on certain changes to their wording.
This relates to Amendments Nos 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24 and 27.
A word about Amendments Nos 18 and 19 - It was, I believe, the third point in your statement, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn - concerning holding companies.
Why are they included in the scope? The creation of artificial separate funds by an indirect method by holding companies might serve to mask the real solvency situation of an insurance company and the holding company, excessively in debt, thus risks creating financial tensions in the group by seeking to repay this debt.
If the proposal takes holding companies into account it is in order to be able to evaluate accurately the solvency of insurance companies..
This is why the text provides a method of detection enabling the supervisor to check the level of the holding company's separate funds.
The proposal does not, however, impose any requirements on the holding companies as such.
There is another very important amendment - it was the first point in your speech - which is Amendment No 8.
Its adoption would deprive the proposal of an important part of its impact.
In fact, this Amendment No 8 would considerably reduce the scope of the directive by limiting the field of applications solely to parent-branch relationships.
Indeed, the criterion of dominant influence which underlies the relationship between the parent company and its branch is not relevant in the matter of double usage.
This amendment would have a negative impact on the protection enjoyed currently by consumers and those who are insured, for it would authorise insurance groups to evade more easily the rules of solvency.
It would thus constitute, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, a backward step by comparison with the approach followed by the Community in the other sectors of financial services.
As a consequence I must inform you that the Commission will not be able to accept this amendment.
For the same reasons the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 22, which would leave to the discretion of Member States the application to re-insurance companies the key provisions of the directive.
In fact when an insurance undertaking hold an interest in another insurance company the risks covered by the latter are indirectly supported by the former.
It will be noted, moreover, that the current directives authorise insurance companies to deduct from their solvability charge obligations the operations which they have assigned to a re-insurance company.
This deduction is justified because the risks incurred in these operations are in the end borne by the re-insurance company which is assumed to be an external third party.
A certain number of other amendments also seem to us to have to be rejected in order not to harm coherence with other elements of the proposal.
These are Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6, 9, 20, 25 and 26.
Finally, I shall end, Mr President, by mentioning just one point which was raised just now by several speakers who wanted to know if this proposal would create additional costs.
Well, no, it would not have to create additional costs, either for the insurance sector or for the consumer, since it does not contain any requirement of additional capital for the insurance companies and since its sole aim is to ensure that current requirements are not evaded in the case of groups.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
Copyright and related rights
The next item is the report (A4-0297/97) by Mr Barzanti, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the communication from the Commission: Follow-up to the Green Paper on copyright and related rights in the information society (COM(96)0568 - C4-0090/97).
The rapporteur, Mr Barzanti, has the floor.
Mr President, so far much of the work of the Union has been carried out in favour of a harmonized approach, a unanimous, similar undertaking in all Member States on the complex questions of copyright and related rights.
But what has been done, or rather acquired, with the decisive support of our Parliament is now insufficient, incomplete and would also encounter further difficulties of application in a panorama devastated by enormous technological developments, which we usually include in the somewhat hazy but fascinating concept of a global information society.
I think I should repeat here first of all that we need to oppose the technological euphoria that often denies the need for clear and precise rules and regulations opposed to the very possibility of governing and directing the liberalization of telecommunications, the multiplicity of information, access rights to guarantee the protection of works of interest to industries, users and authors for citizens.
These objectives are all essential to the European Union, which is called upon to be ever more present and active with its identifiable voice in international places, starting from the World Intellectual Property Organization.
We therefore need to take action without scepticism and distrust.
I would say, in passing, that I have always considered a good antitrust legislation to be a priority question in this framework, even at European level, avoiding the abnormal formation of dominant positions in a sector in which it is essential to guarantee the citizens' right to a multiplicity of information.
But that is not the subject of the report I am presenting.
The subject of my report is copyright and related rights.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights believes that copyright and related rights should not be considered obstacles, a tiresome heritage of the past, possibly opposed to consumers' rights and public rights.
No!
Guaranteeing the protection of works, guaranteeing copyright in its new forms, is a fundamental fact to ensure a democratic, useful development consistent with the information society and all the opportunities to which it should give rise.
The digital environment, the growing extension of information networks, the globalization of the market do not annul either the principles or the rights or the requirements to make these rights specific and current.
The convergence of technologies and means should not be taken as a reason for denying specificity and politics which are now more necessary than ever.
We do not object to an idea of information on the basis of which any datum, any contents can be included within this general concept.
There is information and information; there are works and works; there are the works of authors asking for the necessary distinction and requiring the necessary protections.
With no good rules, with no regard for the integrity and authenticity of languages with which the authors' works are nourished, there can be no good, sound European cultural industry, nor can the authors' creativity be guaranteed and assured for, without any rules, there would be no moral respect or specific remuneration.
That is why we believe it important for the directive currently being prepared by the Commission on systems of technical identification of works to be issued shortly, as well as a directive updating fundamental concepts, such as that of public communication, distribution, reproduction, providing for exceptions that have to be made, that fill the void that still exists on private copy, that establishes the procedures for handling rights praising the task of the collective management companies and also the so-called single counter method, which is necessary for rights to be acquired more simply and more quickly in view of an increased multimedia environment.
I should point out in this connection that I am in favour of many of the amendments presented, that risk a resolution that is already rather long, also on account of the fairly exhaustive work the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has carried out; in particular, I am in favour of Amendments Nos 9, 7, 4, 10, 15 and 16 presented by various groups.
As we know, the World Intellectual Property Organization has prepared two treaties of great importance.
It is absolutely essential for the exclusive rights specified in them for artists and actors, or performers producing records to be recognized as well as the artists and actors in the audiovisual world, as always pointed out in the Community directives.
I should like to conclude by pointing out that moral rights as well, which are contested internationally but which are typical of European culture, should be strengthened, should be considered to be one of the aspects by which Europe presents itself in the international context to ensure a protection that is not aimed solely at remuneration but also at the inseparable relationship between works and authors, since works are no more than a projection of the creative activity and a relationship with the public that is renewed each time in terms of continuity and in such terms as to merit deep and absolute respect.
I am confident that our Parliament will continue to fight for an appreciation of industrial strategies, the property of ideas and languages, the creative outburst and cultural identities that make the diversified Europe we all love.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the technical opportunities of the information society and, as we can see, also its pleasingly rapid growth in acceptance by both private and commercial participants, offer artists and craftsmen today not just entirely new opportunities for expressing their creativity, but also huge access to their publics.
Just as in the area of teaching and learning the boundaries between the teacher and the taught are dissolving, so can the information society play its part in blurring the dividing line between the creative on the one hand and the passive public on the other. The oft-mentioned word interactivity becomes a reality here.
That is a blurring that we welcome, but also a blurring that is unwelcome if the legal framework for these new forms is not clear.
The unclear and diverse legal position that we currently have is of no use to anyone, either the culturally creative, the service providers and network operators, or the consumer.
It is, therefore, in the interests of all concerned that now, following extensive discussion of the Green Paper, the Commission should produce with all good haste a draft guideline that contains regulations covering all the burning questions, and does not merely adjourn some issues once again.
The copyright laws, the laws of public reproduction of material, the laws on publicity, the laws on protection of privacy, technical identification and protection systems, and also laws on the limitation of arrest need to be discussed and resolved.
I believe it must be possible to find a fair compromise between the interests of all those involved, in view of the varied dependencies of all participants in this system and the likelihood of a rapidly expanding market.
The report by my colleague Mr Barzanti contains excellent and thoughtful proposals on the form such compromises could take.
I should also like to thank him most sincerely for his ready cooperation in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Mr President, my objective is for us in the EU to speak in plain language as much as possible so that as many people as possible understand what we are saying.
Unfortunately, I am a little afraid that this report is very difficult to read, in spite of the fact that it does not concern a legislative text, but an answer to a communication.
We are talking about encryption, but our own language is cryptic and we often refer to various articles.
I am afraid that many who vote on the report in the morning do not really know what we are talking about.
I am not sure that we have succeeded.
I believe that it is important that we, on a question which is so fundamentally to do with democracy, are more successful in publicising what we are talking about, the society which we are trying to build.
I am, you see, convinced that this area is one of the most urgent ones for the EU. We need legislation together with rules for electronic trading and electronic signatures.
Today it is 80-90 per cent a question of politics and legislation for this part of the information society to be able to become reality.
The absence of rules is equally as serious for the development of the information society and within this sector as us trying to make too many or too detailed rules.
The developments are rapid.
I am convinced that new ways will arise for owners of copyright to be able to benefit legitimately from their copyright and get payment for what they have produced.
Often the information society which is now in the process of being created does not depend on what politicians do, i.e. what we do.
It is a society in which we will be certain that messages are confidential, that Big Brother is not watching what we read.
We must also think about this when we impose a responsibility on the various players in the information chain.
We should not impose on them things that are impossible to carry out, things that hinder development.
I am pleased that we stress balance in paragraph 15, that is, that there should be a balance between the various interests which are at work in this area.
What surprised me in the negotiations was the resistance which there was against putting more emphasis on this balance.
At the same time as I would like to aim for balance and fairness between the various players, I would also like to aim for balance between the various copyright holders, as the previous speaker pointed out, and as we point out in the report.
We also want rights for those who have created audiovisual works.
I presume that the debate will continue.
I hope that the Commission will soon bring forward a proposal, since we need a situation in which we also have a borderless market in this area in our EU.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I should like particularly to thank the rapporteur for continuing to press for the new opportunities of the information society to be treated by EU legislation not just as matters for the internal market and commerce, but as cultural concerns.
It then becomes unavoidable for copyright law to become the focus of this work.
But what sort of law is copyright law? According to the TRIPS Agreement it is property law.
Something does not fit with this classification, however, because a collector with a databank gets the same right - or better - as a composer, a poet or a visual artist.
Copyright is a personality right, a right to recognition and identification.
My groups amendments all have the aim of addressing this problem in future legislation, and thus taking a currently rather fluid terminology to normative clarification.
I believe that is why the Organization of Composers, Creative and Performing Artists specifically supports them.
The Barzanti report seems to us, however, to be an important advance in this direction, with which we completely agree.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
Food additives
The next item is the report (A4-0281/97) by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending European Parliament and Council Directive 95/2/EC on food additives other than colours and sweeteners (COM(96)0303 - C4-0468/96-96/0166(COD)).
The rapporteur, Mrs Breyer, has the floor.
Mr President, Directive 95/2 states that an evaluation of the level of use and consumption of foods is to be made within five years.
The additives we approve in the EU will be assessed in the light of how many additives people may be exposed to.
It is simply amazing that the Commission is putting a proposal before us now before the studies of the population's potential intake of additives have been produced.
So now we are dealing with the proposal on the basis of responsibility for health and the concept of technical necessity.
There are some people in this Parliament who are going around wanting a real European health policy.
My advice to them is to examine the EU policies which may affect people's health, including the food policy.
Prevention is more important than cure.
This directive should not be extended, but limited.
Substances such as nisin should not be used in food, as this is an antibiotic and so belongs to the world of medicine.
We do not want to stroll lightly into a resistance problem further with our eyes open.
Sausages and cheese will no doubt continue to occupy a central position in Europe, even without adding nisin.
Marking of food is the alpha and omega.
Some foods, as most people have reason to know, can trigger asthma and allergic attacks in others.
So we must know what food contains.
With the proposal to allow sulphite in the production process for breakfast foods, we are running the risk of sulphite residues reaching consumers without their being able to read on the product that it may contain sulphite, as sulphite is not included in the list of ingredients.
This is irresponsible, and so are the proposals for change by the Environmental Committee.
An extensive lobbying business has developed against the proposal to give two different carageens their own E number each, namely E407 and E408.
As the substances are refined differently, and 408 is not as pure as 407, I think they should each be given their own E number.
We should remember that carageen can be used in baby food and create problems in babies' digestive systems.
It is important to insist that we should only use additives if there is a technical necessity and a health test can be passed. The Commission is bound to give reasons why things are technically necessary, but it has not done this in all cases.
Rather, it and some of the EPP Group's proposals are based on what is possible for industry and technology, which is quite a different thing.
It is only in recent years that food has been plugged with additives.
Before, we managed to make food without artificial additives.
In other words, European civilization existed before there were additives, so I am not worried about what will happen to society if we put on the handbrake slightly, rather the opposite!
The number of allergies is constantly increasing, and it will of course end up with the Commission one day having to put forward totally different proposals if it wants to live up to the health aims of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must rather regret that the debate on food additives is sinking under cocoa and chocolate.
This subject is usually good for the emotions and it is used from time to time to upset food consumers. It spans the range from falsified food ingredient lists, which regularly raises its head and is declared as scientific, to horror stories about damaging health effects.
The amendment to the guidelines before us today is the first major revision to the 1995 guidelines on additives, which comprehensively regulates this sector.
Even during consultation on the 1995 guidelines it became apparent that modifying guidelines would be necessary because a few additives were still undergoing scientific testing.
In my view four objectives are set by the present amendment to the guideline.
Firstly, the correction of some errors in the basic guideline of 1995; then the consideration of traditions in the new member countries of Austria, Finland and Sweden.
Also, some new additives had to be authorised and, arising from subsequent testing by the Scientific Food Committee of previously authorised additives, new uses or amended quantities had to be agreed.
Fourthly, a completely new annex of authorized additives for baby and infant foods had to be created.
Whereas the correction of errors, the incorporation of traditions in new member countries and the creation of an annex on baby and infant foods have proved largely uncontroversial, the other point has met with differing views within the groups.
Our group does not support Mrs Breyer's amendment on labelling, to the extent that labelling within this guideline is to be achieved with additives.
There is little to criticize in Mrs Breyer's demands on marking, as far as the content is concerned, but unfortunately, by their inclusion within the identification guidelines for additives, these amendment are located in the wrong place.
We have a comprehensive identification guideline, and it is here that amendments to the identification guidelines must be undertaken, if we are to stay within the law classification system.
We can support Amendment No 42 made by Mr Lannoye, which draws attention to the identification guideline.
I would ask the Commission to make a specific statement on Amendment No 42.
Then there is Amendment No 32.
Here I am torn both ways.
My name has also been incorrectly connected with it.
I should like to ask the Commission about No 32, on nisin.
I have meanwhile learnt that this is very useful for problems with egg products, and I should like to know how the Commission stands on that.
There is heated discussion about Amendment No 6, which was accepted in Committee by a small majority.
This concerns the designation E407 or E408 for treated eucheuma algae.
In a previous amendment to the guidelines we passed the designation E407a after two readings in the European Parliament.
This legislation came into force in March this year, and there is absolutely no sense in altering this European Union designation, when it has only just come into force and is, in any case, internationally recorded as a WHO designation.
Contrary to what it says in the comments to Amendment No 6, publication has already taken place in the Official Journal, so it is existing law.
I should also like to explain my Amendment No 30, which at the beginning is the same as Amendment No 31 by Mrs Jackson and Amendment No 38 by Mr Whitehead.
This concerns the use of SO2 , sulphur dioxide, for preservation of dried fruit.
According to Mrs Breyer this point should be completely deleted, as in her view the use of sorbic acid is quite sufficient.
All the information I have received fails to support this view, as sorbic acid merely affects the discolouration, the darkening, and not the conservation.
Also the Commission's text, as it has been given to us, is not quite correct from a technological standpoint.
Apples and pears, in particular, with a moisture content of more than 12 % are sold to end consumers, and must be treated with a higher dose than products that are merely intended for further processing.
Because of these different uses there is a need for the application of different quantities.
In my Amendment No 30 I propose, therefore, just as does the Economic and Social Committee, a better differentiation, and I am obviously opposed to Amendment No 11 by the rapporteur.
The use of additives is, after careful scientific testing, a technological necessity in many cases.
Precisely this technological necessity has been repeatedly emphasized by the European Parliament.
According to the checks available to me the Commission is in this respect worthy of support.
Mr President, as Mrs Breyer has recalled, the proposal before us has the aim of amending a directive on food additives in order to adapt it to recent developments and to the requirements of consumers.
In this context I would like first of all to speak from a personal point of view on Amendment No 6, which has already been mentioned, designed to give the seaweed known as processed euchema, produced in the Philippines, the E number 408 rather than 407a in order better to distinguish it from related products which bear the E number 407.
We know that these related products are processed in Europe and that our producers wish to establish a very clear distinction in order to protect their interests.
But we must also consider that the European Union spends significant amounts of money - ECU 250 million per year - on a programme of aid to the Philippines, a programme for the most part designed to ensure stability through economic development in certain sensitive areas.
I am thinking of the island of Mindanao, where 240, 000 families live off the production of this seaweed.
It is not jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, scarcely coherent, to give aid with one hand and penalise with the other.
Finally, and I speak on behalf of my group, Mrs Breyer has put down a series of amendments designed to prevent the authorisation of new substances which have, however, received favourable notices from the Commission and from the Scientific Committee on Food.
Apart from the fact that her position does not seem to be based on very serious scientific data it could have very negative consequences for certain products already authorised for sale in most Member States.
I am thinking, for example, of the production of mozzarella, of certain margarines and of cider, treated by methods widely used in Ireland, in particular.
It is for this reason that our group will not be able to support Mrs Breyer's proposal.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Breyer for all the work she has put into this report.
I am also doing so because I believe that the directives on additives and so on, are in a class of their own when it comes to complexity.
I will come back to this later.
Of course, it is partly because of the history of the directives, including all the compromises and changes which have been made over the years.
But, when you read this version of the directive we are dealing with today, you cannot help but think that the Commission does not particularly feel inclined to explain what is happening either.
So they have simply offered us a technical summary.
But, apart from this, when the Commission tries to explain on the background for the proposals, there is also a conflict between the grounds for the proposals and the specific remarks.
The reasons state that technical scientific developments make this proposal necessary.
No other reasons are given, even if that is a so-called reason.
The specific remarks state that in fact this is a collection of forgotten additives, that new Member States have joined with specific traditions, and that some substances have been updated which the Scientific Committee has completed since last time.
Finally, another possible factor is that some countries are again trying to get something through which they tried to do before without success.
The truth can be read in the specific remarks.
And if this had been said straight off, we could quite easily have had a discussion on that basis.
But that is not it, the overall reasons say.
And if we add that it is largely inaccessible, so we will have to spend oceans of time on the directive, that may well be slightly irritating.
Which brings me back to the start, namely that in fact only experts could read this directive. This might perhaps be partly justifiable at a time when it was only experts who were involved in the directive's proposals, but now that the directive is part of the democratic process at both national and international level, it is totally unacceptable.
It cannot be the intention that European legislation can only be read, understood and amended by experts.
And, as we know, it only leads to totally irrelevant discussions. One of the main demands for the next version which we will be dealing with must therefore be that, apart from the fact that some results from a consumer survey will be available, these directives must also be rewritten so they are reasonably readable.
To continue with amendments on the present basis is totally unacceptable.
I would also like to say that, apart from two proposed amendments, my group is able to vote in favour of the amendments the committee puts forward, and I would like to emphasize in particular that, even if the marking proposals are a bit involved, we believe it is incredibly important to get them through.
Mr President, it is very clear that there has to be clear labelling.
People who have allergies need to see what is in the packet.
This does not apply just to packaged products but also to loose products.
People who have allergies look at the list.
To go back to a point that the Union for Europe Group made about the additive to cider, I am from Ireland and I am not in favour of this additive.
It is already prohibited in catfoods so there are serious question marks hanging over it.
As regards additives in general, there is very little advantage to the consumer in the vast majority of them.
They are for the benefit of business and profit and the consumer is hoodwinked which is completely unjust. As regards the antibiotic issue where nisin is going to be allowed into egg products, this is completely unacceptable.
There is already a situation where people are dying because they are immune to antibiotics.
Medicine should be kept out of food. It is a completely separate issue and it is unacceptable.
This matter of the eggs is one of hygiene and is not a consumer issue.
Antibiotics should not be added to foods.
As regards sulphates and sulphides, it is clear that they cause asthma and, in the worst cases, death ensues.
So we have to look at what we are doing and the interests of consumers have to come before the interests of big business and profit.
Amendments Nos 32 and 36 concerning antibiotics have to be rejected.
It is wrong to include antibiotics in food.
The long term consequences will be that we go back a hundred years to where people will be dying from diseases which presently can be cured by antibiotics.
It is irresponsible for anyone to suggest that this is in the interests of consumers.
Mr President, this is the second time today that we are going round a course dictated to us by two simple facts: one, the extension and expansion of the Community, which means that custom and practice in different Member States have to be accommodated, and secondly the pace of technological change.
Mrs Breyer, who has put in an enormous amount of work on this and deserves to be commended for it, is absolutely right to draw our attention to the warnings of the latter - the pressure of the market to bring in new products which cannot be scientifically tested.
However, when I look at the amendments, there are some that I cannot support which went through the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I cannot see that products which are not new, not the result of some technological freak but as old as sorbates, for example, should be excluded in the way now suggested from dehydrated apples and pears. We will be supporting Amendments Nos 31 and 38 to allow that back.
Secondly, in terms of the objections which have been raised in that quite passionate and impressive philippic from Ms McKenna just now - and she almost converted me - the fact of the matter is that when we come to the point of nisin, it does not have medical applications.
So the idea that you build up a resistance to it as an antibiotic is quite wrong. What I would like to hear from the Commission is whether it accepts that the alternatives, sorbates and benzoates, needed to kill listeria, are equally effective.
We never received a clear answer to that in the Committee on Environment and I should like to get one now.
And the reason why, Ms McKenna, is that more people are dying - particularly in my country - from listeria and from infections that come from the mass production of foods, than are likely to die as a result of a building up of antibiotic resistance.
This is a real danger and it must be acknowledged.
My last point is on the issue of Amendment No 6 and Carrageenan and Processed Eucheuma seaweed.
It is not the position of my group but I am persuaded that we should look again at the case for the Philippines, and it is ironic that those who have wanted to change the designation here to a quite new E number, E 408, are the very same people who have been arguing earlier today that we must defend the third world and its right to import products into the European Union.
We should look again at this and consider carefully what we are doing to those who produce this material in the Philippines.
Mr President, Mrs Breyer and Mrs McKenna are the worst possible advertisement for life without additives.
I think they probably need a few additives in order to calm down a bit.
I agree with Mr Whitehead that what we should do is to be very careful about any new additives which we allow onto the European market.
There are three points I want to make.
One echoes his own point with regard to Amendments Nos 31 and 38.
I wonder whether Mr de Silguy, who is taking time off from the euro, could possibly tell us whether the European Commission is going to be in favour of Amendments Nos 31 and 38.
They would rectify a situation whereby the Italian fruit processors have essentially set up a protected area and are trying to exclude the possibility of using sulphur dioxide as a preservative in dried fruit.
So I hope the Commission is going to be in favour of Amendments Nos 31 and 38.
If not, we want some very good reasons why they are not.
I support what Mr Whitehead has said on nisin.
I challenge the Commission to produce any evidence that it acts as an antibiotic.
We were given misleading information in the Commission.
If I were Mr de Silguy I would not listen to Mr Gaerner.
They are playing Chinese whispers there together.
What we want from the Commission is some backup as to why they have not accepted these amendments in the past.
We would like to have this explained to us here, out in the open, because the use of nisin as a guard against listeria is a very important aspect of the additives list for the future of human health.
Finally, what is the Commission's view on Amendment No 16 on E405? The rapporteur wishes to delete the use of E405.
Ms McKenna has referred to this.
It would be used, under the proposed amendment to the list, to retain the head or foam on cider. I would point out to Ms McKenna that it is already permitted in beer.
If her cat is drinking beer, then that is probably what is making the cat ill.
It is not the presence of the additive, it is the fact that the cat should not be drinking beer.
Could the Commissioner please tell us whether or not he is in favour of Amendment No 16.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, food additives have a particularly important role, not only because they are significant to quality and price, but because they are important to the consumer.
Austria, Finland and Sweden have a tradition here and I think that this question is of particular importance to those countries.
I believe the identification guideline is sufficient and that it is unnecessary, where E407 and E 407a with the eucheuma alga are concerned, to amend existing law. These products are not going to be sold to consumers, but only to the processing industry, which has learnt how to handle them and where it is clearly seen as sensible for them to be used in the future.
Even the Philippines, which are to a large extent involved with the supply, can draw attention to the fact that these products are permitted in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and the USA, and recognized as very useful.
After all, 240, 000 jobs depend on this product in the Philippines.
I believe we should give serious consideration to the fact that this is also a matter of the future in these countries.
Mr President, both Mrs Schleicher and Mr Rübig have pointed out that they support the identification regulation, but are of the opinion that it does to belong here, but rather in the framework directive.
You too have told me that, Mr Commissioner.
Hence my question: if we agree that this identification regulation should receive political support, but we disagree where it belongs in law, can we then agree for the Commission to make a declaration to the effect that, should Parliament pass these regulations, they will be accepted into the framework directive? That is my question to the Commission.
I see that Mrs Schleicher is nodding.
I hope she would also be in agreement with such a regulation, because identification is, after all, what the consumer wants.
Then I should like to put another question, Mr Commissioner: Mr Gerner, sitting next to you, said a few days ago at the last vote in the Committee on the Environment, that the Commission would not support it because of these very doubts expressed here.
He pointed out that there were other possibilities: that technically one could avoid the use of messin.
I should be interested to know what has brought about this change of mind within the Commission, and if new information has become available.
Another matter, because the Commission has just declared that we were sent the report with the definition of technological necessity: I believe, and several of the speakers here - Mrs Dybkjær and also Mrs Schleicher - have mentioned it in committee, that that was unfortunately most unsatisfactory, Mr Commissioner, and I hope that it improves in future!
Mr Commissioner. I should just like to ask again about Amendment No 42 and to hear the views of the Commission on it.
Mr President, I still was rather unclear whether the name which the Commissioner announced was actually mine, but it could hardly be otherwise at this point.
I would like to say that I have been involved in this for quite a long time, and that means I know how complex it is.
Unlike the Commissioner, perhaps, I have also talked with ordinary people, if I may put it that way, so-called ordinary people who have tried to read this as they were interested in it, and no matter how superior the Commissioner acts on this, he is simply mistaken if he cannot see that these directives are simply written in such a complex way that only the experts can read them.
It was in all modesty I was trying to say, and so I said that if the directive is to be amended, and it will be, it must be structured in a logical, readable way.
That has nothing to do with whether you use E and all possible other descriptions.
That's not the problem at all.
It is the fact that the text is so convoluted, the way the annexes are constructed etc. which makes it totally inaccessible.
Yes, we already know that, but that is not the issue.
Does Mr Whitehead wish to ask a question?
Mr President, I want to support Mrs Breyer's request for exactly the opposite reason.
I am delighted to hear that Amendments Nos 32 and 36 have been accepted but we now have to give this information to people by the vote tomorrow.
All we have is the statement that the position has changed, not the reason for it. I would like to hear the explanations just as Mrs Breyer would but for the opposite reason.
I shall reply to the best of my ability, Mr President, first of all, as far as labelling is concerned, I believe that just now I was sufficiently clear in telling you that the Commission is not in favour of adopting Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4 and 42 because they introduce requirements with regard to labelling which refer to Directive 4 on the labelling of foodstuffs.
I do not wish to make here, in the absence of M. Bangemann, a commitment on his behalf on the modification of the directive relating to labelling, I can only commit myself to studying your suggestion and reporting it to him.
We shall examine next what we can give him.
As for Amendment No 32, I have told you that we were in favour of authorisation where it is scientifically proven that this additive is effective against listeria, which are dangerous bacteria.
The other question on Amendment No 42.
We reject this amendment for the reason I have just given you, namely, this point refers to the labelling directive.
I believe I have already replied to Mr Whitehead on the subject of Amendments Nos 32 and 36 by telling him that we can accept them. I do not want there to be any misunderstanding on what I have said to Mrs Dybkjaer.
I do not dispute the complexity of certain texts but that is, I said, a reflection of the subject being dealt with.
It is a matter for the Community institutions, for our communication services: it is up to us to be able to present them and to explain them so that they are more consumer friendly.
I therefore share your point of view, which does not, moreover apply only to the texts on food additives.
I could show you some texts on monetary matters which are no more direct or easy to understand, and the euro affects all citizens.
In a more general sense, I think that all European institutions have to make great efforts in terms of information and that, if we wish to convince and win the support of our fellow citizens we must first achieve a more legible, more comprehensible way of presenting what we decide.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
Socrates action programme
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0320/97), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0481/97-97/0103(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 819/95/EC establishing the Community action programme Socrates (Rapporteur: Mrs Pack).
The rapporteur, Mrs Pack, has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at this late hour I will just make a few comments.
There are indisputable facts about Socrates - not the late lamented, but the programme.
First, this Socrates programme, with its elements Erasmus and Komenius, is the success story of the European Union, as far as adult and language training are concerned.
What needs to be done, what has to be strengthened or improved? Nothing, actually, except that expenditure of money is associated with it.
Secondly, education and training are the important pillars of all efforts for the future that we can undertake today.
In Europe our capital lies in the best trained young people of all classes, in other words irrespective of their family origins.
Thirdly, xenophobia can only be reduced and hatred of foreigners prevented by mobility and living with one another in Europe.
The Socrates programme in all its parts is the instrument for many young people to achieve a European capability.
I am sure - one can read that also in the Council's joint declaration - that this is common ground.
The conclusions in the joint declaration are, however, curiously illogical.
Knowing that the programme is a good one; that it has gained acceptance; that young people want to use this programme to invest in European added value for the rest of their lives; the Council takes no cognisance of it.
Today I received by coincidence a letter from a young student who said he wants to take part in Erasmus, is taking part and receives DM 100 per month - ECU 50 for his mobility.
He is sorry, but he cannot do it.
We first need more money, therefore, in order to meet the desires we have awakened.
Secondly, the Council must give solid financing to its own promises.
I want the central and eastern European states and all associated countries also to be able to participate in the Socrates programme.
Today I have to ask myself, however, if the Council really wants that too. We want it.
The Council owes us proof.
A miserable sum of ECU 23 million for 1998 and 1999.
That means the Council allows us ECU 12.5 million for next year.
How generous!
Particularly when we needed over ECU 80 million just for 1997 in order to complete but one part of Erasmus.
Parliament is very moderate. Really.
In view of the stretched budgetary situation in all Member States we really do not want to be immoderate.
We are not quite so moderate, Commissioner Cresson, as you will probably have to be today, unfortunately, for reasons of collegial responsibility.
We are not quite so moderate.
We ask for ECU 50 million for the next budgetary year - and it is in tomorrow's budget and we shall vote for it.
That is still much less than we planned for in 1994, at a time when neither Sweden, Finland nor Austria was a member, and when there were no associated nations.
We still remain today below what we previously planned for the whole programme, what we estimated for the whole duration for 12 countries, namely ECU 1, 000 million.
We remain under this today.
One cannot be more moderate.
We do understand the budgetary situation.
I believe we have no option but to appeal to the Council.
I hope that the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council really helps us to get over this in the next few weeks.
We appeal to the Council to do everything in its power not miss this investment in the future of our children.
What we miss today cannot be recovered tomorrow.
It is the best possible investment in a good future for the whole of Europe!
Mr President, thank you for coming to listen to us debate Socrates again.
I hope this will be the final time we are congregated to discuss this issue because we hope we will have a result following conciliation.
But it is important that we appreciate the importance of the Socrates programme in its attempts to cement the links between the young people of Europe.
It is a programme that has served to combat racism and xenophobia.
But if it is to continue its good work, it needs to be properly funded.
If we take the example of the Erasmus student grants, the maximum that people are allowed to get is around ECU 5, 000.
If every eligible student were to receive funding, there would only be enough for about ECU 750 per person.
This is totally inadequate for those not of independent means.
But it is a vital way of ensuring that links between the people of Europe continue.
Parliament has consistently shown its commitment to this programme by supporting a ECU 100 million increase in its funding over the next two years of the programme.
The Commission has come up with ECU 50 million.
We understand that you have collegiate responsibilities.
Of course we then have the big battle with the Council, which has come up with the paltry sum of ECU 25 million.
It is important that the Council puts its money where its mouth is with this vital programme.
It is important that our children are our future.
We understand this, but it is important that our rhetoric is backed up by our commitment and resources.
The programme is also being extended to the ten associated countries of central and eastern Europe.
The budgetary effects of this expansion have to be considered.
We originally ordered a set meal for our family of 12 people. We then invited 12 more people to the table but I am afraid we did not order any extra food.
What we need is more resources for the caterer to ensure that none of our family or our guests leaves our educational table unfed or hungry.
Our citizens have an educational and a cultural appetite. We must try to make sure those appetites are satisfied.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, training is one of the most important instruments available to us for ensuring future employment.
There are three main divisions in economic policy: research and development, infrastructure and training.
I think that we in Europe have done a lot for training.
We have had the Year of Learning for Life, we have Socrates, we have Leonardo, we have Youth for Europe, we have the Green Paper on Training and Continuation Training.
I believe it is necessary to do a lot more in this direction in future.
Quite simply, it is important for us to obtain people for the professions, for the exercise of the professions, who have the ability to make quantitative and qualitative decisions, who are good at time management, and who involve themselves and try to produce results accordingly.
Socrates in particular is in a position, because of its cross-border activities, to motivate our young people to become active in this area and to make themselves available to act as models for other young people.
Our purpose in training is to see that young people gain experience.
In the past it has always been taken for granted that one gained knowledge and then was able to pass it on.
But it is also our purpose for them to gain social knowledge, that is, to talk to citizens of other countries, to learn about conditions there, and to bring positive aspects of other countries back home with them.
Finally, there is self confidence, that is, how one appears to others, how one presents oneself.
I think that here we can learn a great deal from other countries.
I am very pleased that the programme is now open to all 15 states in Europe, including those countries who want to join.
I believe that particularly with training we can point the way Europe is going, and I think it is necessary for that reason to invest in this programme, and to make efforts in future to integrate the new Member States into the training programme, passing on our knowledge to them.
If Parliament makes ECU 150 million available for the Luxembourg Summit, I think it is up to the Council and the Commission to give some thought to how this money should best be spent.
And I believe that in the training programmes we have the best starting point for tackling employment: for making an employment programme available in future to young people who are currently out of work.
Our foremost objective should be integration into work.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, we in the Union's decision making body are concerned for that reason about people's indifference or active dislike of the Union.
It is hard for ordinary people to see the positive work of the EU in everyday life.
However, it is hoped the Union can promote useful projects to achieve that extra credibility for Europe, and increase crucial understanding and confidence.
In fact, this should obviously be the clear aim of international harmonization.
How is the Commission and Council of Ministers going to respond, then, to the challenge when it debates the Socrates programme? The common attitude of the Council, the result of which the extra funding required by Parliament is rejected, is totally incomprehensible in the light of the issue.
How can we bring the Union to the people if we are watering down a programme that people in each member country see as important, useful and effective? This Parliament, which represents those people, cannot go along with this.
The Socrates programme has already achieved much to improve quality in training in Europe, and it is very important that we carry on with the work to do with the development of further training for teachers and language learning.
Aside from current Member States, the Socrates programme has much to offer applicant countries in Central and eastern Europe.
The reciprocal movement must be ensured, and the ECU 100 million claimed by Parliament is the absolute minimum for the programme to be viable and credible.
We can't afford to allow such an excellent and vital programme to wither away into just a kind of elitist programme with dwindling aid and diminishing aided project numbers.
The level of aid must be maintained to enable all students to participate in the exchange programme.
The situation is particularly awkward in colleges, which do not have the funds to support it.
I sincerely hope that in future arbitration we will be successful in salvaging the EU training policy flag-ship, Socrates, and that in the future more young people will have the chance of an internationalised and interactive education, regardless of background or origin.
I wish Mrs Pack every success in her splendid and purposeful work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to support most energetically the criticism expressed here.
The financing of Socrates is indeed scandalous.
There are few activities of the European Community in which the personal sense of an increase in European value, the experience of increased value, can be so appreciated, as in training and exchange programmes, and they have been really successful.
No one can deny that.
These training programmes also make an increasing contribution to employment policy for young people in Europe, who by learning foreign languages, new legal systems, new mentalities in other countries, gain invaluable knowledge and skills. From these they produce for themselves new opportunities on the European employment market.
Yet I am forced to say that precisely here, where Europe can make some of its credibility visible, the Council is proving to be a Scrooge.
They are being utterly insensitive to what the rump of Europe actually perceives: communication and understanding as the basis for integration.
The commitment of the German Government and others to the open-mindedness, work and life of Europe loses its credibility against this background.
I should also like to say a quick word about the sociopolitical aspect.
It is not just that the payments are so low - and that is itself scandalous - but that this has led to real selection of participants.
Anyone today who can afford it goes abroad to study in any case, and if the finances of Erasmus, for example, are not increased, socially underprivileged young people will be unable to go in future years.
Without additional finance we shall not be able to improve on the current participation by barely 1 % of young people on professional training courses.
One always finds oneself in a dilemma in one's constituency. Should one advertise the programmes in schools and workplaces to which one is invited, or should one show a sense of responsibility and keep silent about them, because the ratio of applicants to means is growing ever shorter?
I should also like to comment on making the schemes available to central and eastern Europe. The same heads of government who promise their states EU membership put financial hurdles in the way of a meeting of peoples through the youth exchange scheme.
What is an increase of 25 million on a total budget of 860 million, when the countries who are to profit from Socrates in the future amount to about a third of the population of the present EU?
Just continue in this way, one would just say if one were cynical, and the credibility of this EU will sink still further in the eyes of the population.
All the glossy brochures in the world will not help here.
Reality speaks a different language, and with this financial arrangement we shall not inspire young people for Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank Parliament, in particular the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for the commitment and determination it has shown in reaching a substantial increase in the budgetary funding of the Socrates programme.
I would like to thank in particular your rapporteur, Mrs Pack, for her work on behalf of this programme which, we all agree, is of prime importance for the future of Europe.
It is of proven interest.
More than ever the development of our citizens, the fight against social exclusion, the creation of jobs, depend in fact on our investment in education and development throughout life.
It is thanks to Socrates and other programmes like Leonardo da Vinci, Youth for Europe and, in the future, European Voluntary Service, that we shall move progressively to a Europe of knowledge and that our fellow citizens' expectations in this field will be realized.
But there are many other reasons why Socrates should receive the necessary funding.
First of all because by enabling each year about a hundred million persons to participate actively in European cooperation it contributes to bringing the Union closer to its citizens.
This is a role of absolutely prime importance in particular in this phase of ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Then, and you were right to draw attention to this aspect during your first reading of the dossier, it constitutes an important point of support for the enlargement of the Union to include countries of central and eastern Europe.
However, the Council has not supported us in our proposal for a significant increase in the initial financial framework of the programme.
The ECU 25 million proposed in the common position of the Council represents only half of what the Commission proposed.
That is what pushes the principle of budgetary austerity to the limits which correspond neither to the views of the Commission nor to those of Parliament in this matter.
That is why, at the Council in June I fought to the end in favour of our proposal.
Without even talking about a real increase in the funds available the sums proposed by the Council would not even cover the rate of year-on-year inflation.
The Commission, in the opinion which it has just sent to the Parliament and to the Council, has firmly rejected this amount.
Parliament, by proposing an increase of ECU 100 million at the first reading, has shown how much it acknowledges the impact of Socrates both for the citizens and in the perspective of the long term development of the Union.
The Commission, at the presentation of its amended proposal, took into account almost all of the amendments proposed by Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is true that the Commission's proposal relating to the amount of increase is modest.
We recognized this by declaring clearly in the explanation of our motives, and I quote: in a more favourable global budgetary context the Commission would not have hesitated to propose a much larger increase, which would have been fully justified by the ratio between costs and advantages of this activity and the necessity of establishing extra funding.
Nevertheless for 1998 the Commission has adopted a preliminary draft budget which proposes an increase limited to 2.4 % of committed credits by comparison with 1997.
Bearing in mind the sums which will go to the structural activities to meet the commitments of the inter-institutional agreement of October 1993, this severity imposes an extremely low increase under the other expenditure headings.
For all the internal policies it is limited to 0.5 % by comparison with 1997.
Such a limitation in the increase in the funding of internal policies did not enable us to propose as significant a revision of the Socrates programme as desired and in relation to the importance and success of this programme.
The Commission sees itself as constrained to continue to support a position of austerity.
But you can be sure that your commitment is shared by the Commission.
We shall fight to the last for a significant increase which will enable the programme to meet its goals in the coming years.
First we shall redouble our efforts to convince the Council to soften its position between now and the Education Council on 20 November.
Nevertheless it is most probable, as we all know, that we shall have to put in hand a procedure of conciliation.
I can assure you that the Commission is ready to play fully the role accorded to it by the treaty in the context of this procedure.
We are going to use every means, in close collaboration with the Parliament, to obtain a result which is as favourable as possible.
Allow me therefore, in conclusion, to cast a glance at the future.
It is in fact at this moment when we approach the planning work for the next generation of Community programmes put into operation from the year 2000.
The Commission will at the beginning of November adopt a communication comprising the guidelines which we intend to follow in our work.
This will give us another opportunity to exchange ideas on the future of this most important sector.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
(The sitting was closed at 11.17 p.m.)
Madam President, I have a question.
Before the summer I wrote to the College of Quaestors and also to the President of Parliament asking what the position was with the move and computer equipment for Members in their offices.
I now understand that we shall be moving in November, in other words in the November political group week and the November part-session week.
I should like to know whether, if Members want to have their own computers installed in their own offices, it is possible for the computer provided by Parliament to be put in the assistants' room and what arrangements do I need to make? That is the first question.
I put it in writing and have still not received an answer and I should very much like one.
My second comment is that there have been quite a few moves in the last few weeks and is there any guarantee that when Members move electricity and water and also all telephone connections will be working?
I have my doubts, because there have been a great many problems with the moves in the last few weeks.
Can you guarantee that and also perhaps let Parliament have a plan so that it can all be done in those fourteen days without any hitches?
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, your point of order has the great merit of allowing our colleagues to join us as quickly as possible, since we are going to vote on the budget soon.
That being so, it is an important question.
The College of Quaestors examined your questions on Tuesday, and the reply, from what I have been told, is on its way to you.
On this point, Mr Tomlinson has some details to give you.
I am letting him speak, because, as you can see, we still do not have the necessary majority to vote on the budget, but I do ask you please to avoid spending much time on this question.
I can assure you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, that all the points you have raised will naturally be examined with the attention they deserve.
Madam President, this follows on in a slightly different direction from the interesting point made by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
There are rumours circulating concerning new furniture that has been purchased for the D3 Building.
There are those who I would call 'first class' Members of Parliament who have better quality furniture than the 'second class' Members of Parliament who have decided that they are unhappy with their first class allocations.
There is also a rumour circulating that a number of Members has asked for unused furniture to be removed from their rooms.
This, I am sure, is incorrect.
I am also quite sure that the Bureau and the chairs of committee and everybody else will want to be as financially responsible as possible when we are trying to meet Maastricht convergence criteria.
However, if there is any truth in this rumour, can you discuss it in the Bureau and ensure that it is quashed.
Mr Tomlinson, we heard you.
Anyway, as far as I am concerned, I heard your message well.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
The matter of my visitors from Twente who were attacked and robbed was ruled out of order, but the President has taken it up himself, for which I am grateful.
I am happy to hand the matter over to Mr GilRobles.
Madam President, there is an error on page 8 of the Minutes where the President is described as referring a letter from a colleague to the Bureau.
In fact, the President decided to refer it to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Speaking for myself, I think that both bodies should be involved: the Committee on the Rules of Procedure to establish an authentic interpretation and the Bureau to comment on the discourtesy shown by the Labour Party in suspending four of its members after the President had made it clear he wished to have the code of conduct further discussed and considered.
Mr Donnelly, I want to make it clear that we are not going to reopen that debate.
What was said was the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, we all heard it in our headphones.
There is an error in the English version, which says 'Bureau' .
All the versions will therefore be revised so that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure appears.
For the moment, we are approving the Minutes, and it is important that the Minutes reflect properly what was said yesterday.
It was the Committee on the Rules of Procedure which was mentioned.
Madam President, I would like to refute the comments from across the floor and say that there are totally inappropriate.
I would also like to support the President's comments which he has made in writing.
Madam President, I request your help.
I have on two occasions raised an issue in this Chamber during the course of discussions such as this and it has been incorrectly minuted.
I will now dictate the minutes which I wanted for Tuesday and that I asked again to be reinstated.
It should read 'Mr Hallam complained that the proposed Council Regulation 96/0247 banning the use of nickel in the new euro coin on health grounds was based on a myth.
There was no health risk from nickel.
The proposal to insist on Nordic gold in the new euro coins was an expensive nonsense.'
The aforementioned relates to Tuesday and I request that it be included in the minutes for that day.
Mr Hallam, I can say to you now that your remarks will indeed be faithfully recorded in the minutes of today's session, but they are worth correcting for the other sessions.
Madam President, pages 18 and 19 of the Spanish version record the incidents that took place yesterday at Question Time to the Council. The Minutes faithfully record that, at the beginning of Question Time, the President apologized to the President-in-Office of the Council for the fact that Question Time had started almost half an hour late.
They also faithfully record that a number of Members expressed their discontent.
However, Madam President, they do not record that the President, after consulting the Council Presidency and Parliament's services, proposed extending Question Time by twenty minutes.
That was a clear proposal and it is not recorded in the Minutes.
We will make the correction.
Madam President, I notice from the Minutes of this morning, as well as yesterday morning and the previous day that there is obviously a serious problem of underemployment among the Conservatives in this House.
They seem to spend most of their time looking at the internal procedures of other parties.
Perhaps you could give them some reports to do, some real work.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, on a point of order.
I wonder whether the Bureau could clarify the rules governing demonstrations in this institution?
As we came into the hemicycle Members were greeted by a demonstration of members of staff with a very laudable aim: ' Tomlinson go home!'
We have had discussions about this in the past, and I remember during the miners' demonstrations those of us who supported the miners in their struggle against the Thatcher Government were not allowed to display our support and publish posters.
However, here we have a situation where members of staff appear willy-nilly to be able to demonstrate and Members appear to be denied the same privilege!
I would like some clarification here.
I do not object to people being allowed to demonstrate but what is sauce for the MEP goose should be sauce for the parliament official ganders.
Madam President, on a point of order.
The Rules of Parliament are quite clear that Parliament must issue its amendments and its reports in the languages of the Members present.
I went to Distribution and asked for the amendments to the Tomlinson report and I have received them in German.
Now as most people in this room will know, because of the English language that us Scots get taught in Scotland our English isn't very good.
I can assure you my German is absolutely hopeless.
Is it possible for you to instruct the office to ensure that these amendments are available in English and the languages of the other Members so that we can understand what we are voting on?
Mr Falconer, I think there was a mistake, because the amendments exist in all the languages.
But someone must have thought that you also spoke German, you see.
Thank you, Mr Tomlinson.
Mr McMahon had raised the same problem, but in the meantime I have actually been able to check on the material existence of this demonstration.
It is quite unacceptable.
An end must indeed be put to it, and I ask the ushers to take the action Mr Tomlinson has called for.
I believe the dignity of our Parliament requires us to put a stop to activities which damage the credibility of our institution.
I believe that we must be very, very careful, and that everyone must do his or her part.
I think you understand me.
I hope that will happen.
Madam President, the posters are still there attacking a Member of this House.
I asked the ushers to remove them; they said that they were authorized.
I asked who had authorized them and received no answer.
This is a very unsatisfactory situation.
I would like these posters to be removed right now!
Madam President, I must report a mistake in the Dutch version of the attendance list.
The members present are shown from A to K and the next page is the same.
To reassure Mrs Van Dijk and her press officers it is important that names from K to Z are also shown on the attendance list.
Thank you, Mr Tillich.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you agree, I suggest that when we come to the amendments which Mr Tillich has indicated, you take account of the technical points which he has just given us, and on which there seems to be a broad consensus in the House.
On Amendment No 127
Madam President, the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development have tabled this again.
It concerns an increase of ECU 1 million.
That was rejected in the Committees on Budgets.
We have now reached agreement with the rapporteur that we shall try to arrange it again for the second reading. So as not to give the impression now that this is a programme which has to be defended by Parliament against the Commission, as though it had been rejected here, we have resolved to withdraw the amendment.
on Amendment No 707
Madam President, I just asked to speak to put it on record that I am amazed by the fact that, with a budget of ECU 90, 000 million and with 500 amendments presented, separate votes have only been requested on one point.
I just wish to express my amazement to the House so that at least it is recorded in the Minutes.
On the remarks of Amendment No 199
Madam President, there is a great deal of importance in having the remarks of 199 voted because they will make this money more easily available to the Administration to facilitate spending.
At the moment they are operating under some difficulty and the remarks are designed to remove that.
That is why there has been a request to vote the remarks separately.
Madam President, we want a split vote on this amendment to paragraph 13, so that we vote first on the first sentence up to the words 'suggest improvements' , and then on the second part.
Madam President, this resolution which has been put down, apparently as a result of a television programme in Holland, would effectively undermine, if not end, Parliament's pension scheme.
It is a voluntary scheme.
Anyone who wishes to leave, can leave.
I would hope that the House will vote solidly against all of this amendment.
Then let us have some discussions if we want some changes, but we do not change the pension scheme by a resolution put down at the last minute.
I invite the House to vote against.
(Mixed reactions)
Madam President, I did sign the amendment and I would like to say to Mr Balfe that as regards the attacks on this voluntary pension scheme, to which I too belong, we need the authority of an institution from the European Union which confirms what we think, in particular that the scheme is legitimate, the pension fund is legitimate, but there is nothing to be gained by failing to respond to the continual attacks.
We believe that an authoritative institution from the European Union can and should confirm this and we therefore support this amendment.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am quite embarrassed because I really would not want you to restart a debate on this subject.
Mrs Green and Mr Samland have asked me for permission to speak.
I shall give it to them very briefly, but you will understand that it is not possible to start a debate on such a question now.
Madam President, I have no intention of opening a debate on the amendment.
That is what I am standing to criticize - that Mr Balfe should have been given the floor on this issue in the way that he was.
It is not appropriate to discuss the content of the amendment at this point.
Some of us - just so that everyone here is aware - have been arguing and asking for clarification about this pension fund for years.
It is not the result of one television programme!
Madam President, I should like to avoid giving the wrong impression here.
If you support this resolution you will not be calling the system into question, but you will be supporting an additional examination.
Those colleagues who may not yet have the text in front of them must not get the impression that a decision in favour of the application will put the system at risk.
I just wanted to correct that on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
Personally, I think that Mr Samland's explanation was quite important, and I thank him for it.
Madam President, before the final vote on the second resolution I should like to thank you personally on behalf of the House and the Committee on Budgets for having just completed the whole voting procedure on the 1998 budget in hardly more than an hour.
Thank you very much.
Applause
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I would like to point out that there are a number of serious errors in the Danish translation.
For instance, Amendment No 20 refers to a law on mother's milk product itself containing polyunsaturated fatty acids.
The Danish translation translates this as "packaging' .
Of course, packaging immediately leads one to think of physical packaging, and that is definitely not what this is about.
In Amendment No 19, the words "polished rice' have been removed from the Danish translation: in other words, polished rice can still be surface treated, even though Amendment No 19 states the opposite.
Amendment 15 refers to liquid coffee and tea in tins, while the French refers to liquid coffee and drinks based on tea in tins.
If we are voting on subjects which are reasonably technical, and of course we are not experts, I think it is very important that the translations we are given are correct.
I do not mean of course that we should not vote on these proposed amendments, but I would like to ask that people check that the Danish translations are more accurate in future than is the case with this report.
Thank you very much, Mrs Sandbaek.
All the necessary linguistic checks will certainly be made so that no doubts or ambiguities remain at the end of our work.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I shall be as brief as possible, since I do not want to hold up the voting.
Yesterday, in the debate on the Wiebenga report, we in the Group of the European People's Party requested an answer from the Commission, but we did not get it.
I shall not delay everything now by touching on all the points involved, but I can mention one, which is the sharing of responsibility for temporary protection of displaced persons.
I do not know whether Commissioner Wulf-Mathies is able to answer on Commissioner Gradin's area.
In any case I would now like to give the Commissioner the opportunity to answer, since for reasons of democracy it would perhaps have been reasonable for the Group of the European People's Party to hear the Commission's views on our significant amendments in this area, even if very briefly.
I now invite the Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, to speak so that we are then in a better position to vote.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope the information I have been given is correct, and that you have accepted the Commission's remarks on Amendments Nos 39 and 40, 25 and 30, and 20.
If that is so I am perfectly ready to give you the answers on behalf of my colleague, Mrs Gradin.
First, the Commission must insist on its proposal concerning Amendments Nos 39 and 40, that the resolution be passed with a qualified majority.
We consider it important that the qualified majority pertains here, so that specific results can be achieved.
The Commission cannot, therefore, support the request for a unanimous resolution.
(Applause from certain quarters ) Concerning Amendments Nos 25 and 30, I should point out that it is hardly realistic to lift the requirement for a visa and the ability to turn crossers back at the border.
It is a fact that at the moment every Member State decides for itself on the need for a visa.
As for sending people back, that falls under the Geneva Convention.
Now to Amendment No 20. The reason why the Commission has not provided for consultation of Parliament as an absolute condition in article 12, is that the Council of Ministers must be able to react quickly in cases of mass flight.
In practice Parliament will then of course be told directly.
My last general comment: during our discussion in the Council of Ministers, which will now take place, we shall be happy to include the positive comments of Parliament and hope in this way to achieve a sensible compromise.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Excuse me, Mr President, I wish to refer to another matter.
In the vote on the Breyer report, I intended to vote against Amendment No 6, but - either through tiredness or illness, or both at once - I am not sure that I did.
I should therefore like it to be recorded that I voted against Amendment No 6.
Mr President, I am very keen to cast this vote.
We have experienced an important day and so it is also important for a record to be made in the Minutes for future reference of the profound disappointment that both I, on behalf of my group, and many other colleagues, feel at this time.
Let me explain: at the end of a budget procedure, marked by an atmosphere of dialogue, of tolerance, in which all the political groups, with a spirit of understanding, agreed that a procedure be adopted which has caused a whole series of points to be passed with oral amendments, against all the rules, which, in practice, means several million ECU which we have orally decided to allocate or not to allocate in the budget. I am sorry that a series of amendments, accepted by the Committee on Budgets and by the relevant committees, did not have the support of the Chamber.
It seems important to me that our disappointment at the poor way in which several amendments have been made should be recorded.
Mr President, on behalf of the Austrian ÖVP Members I should like to emphasize that we support the budget decision, particularly on safety, safeguarding of health and right to information, which in the area of nuclear energy production must be guaranteed by appropriate means.
I voted against the draft general budget for 1998 to show my disapproval, first of the increased amount of expenditure on the structural funds, which has been forecast since the preliminary draft, but also of the other increased expenditure which the European Parliament requests.
In fact, the Commission had presented a preliminary draft in which payment appropriations rose to ECU 91, 350 billion.
The Council reduced this figure to 90, 884, to make the Union participate in the budgetary discipline efforts which are demanded of the Member States in view of the single currency.
The European Parliament has just proposed increasing the total to ECU 91, 750 billion.
The difference is admittedly not enormous, but it covers requests which I do not support, particularly for propaganda in favour of the euro and for subsidies for the projects of associations claiming to be of European interest, or associations of immigrants from third countries.
On this subject, I would remind you once again that it is intolerable to see associations of immigrants, like the Immigrants Forum, which are 100 % subsidized by the Commission - that is, the taxpayers of the countries of Europe - being invited to meetings of the European Parliament to give us lessons on citizenship rights that we ought to grant to nationals of third countries.
There should be sanctions against this permanent brainwashing used by the Commission uses to get policies I consider anti-European accepted.
Once and for all, the Commission must be deprived of appropriations it uses to manipulate opinion.
Finally, the draft budget includes a serious legal error. By an agreement signed on 16 July between the Commission, Parliament and the Council, it was accepted that the common foreign policy budget should be placed in the category of 'non-obligatory' expenditure, on which the European Parliament has the last word.
Now, common foreign policy being, until further notice, by nature inter-governmental, it is contrary to the treaty to give such a power to the European Parliament.
This situation, which shows in passing how much the European institutions disregard the letter of texts when they want to, would by itself justify rejecting the budget on principle.
The draft general budget for 1998 is a shameful attempt at pulling the wool over the eyes of working people and public opinion.
It is characterized by the most shameless adherence to the logic of austerity programmes and policies and by blatant contempt shown for economic, social and other problems, and for the protests and demands of working people.
It maintains the utterly inadequate figure of 1.27 % of the budget for financing common foreign policy, with a forecast take-up of up to 1.15 % at the most.
It totally butchers budget expenditure in the agricultural sector, whose viability is in the most dangerous crisis, and in the structural sector, with the structural funds and the cohesion fund.
For reasons of demagogy and disorientation it makes a gesture towards the scourge of unemployment with forecasts of the availability of the derisory sum of ECU 150 million.
It is a hypocritical attempt to present budget appropriations as available for unemployment and for employment, at a time when not a single ECU has been added to the European Union budget and when the titles of certain lines are simply being changed.
The European Parliament's proposals on employment, which are not sure of being accepted by the Council, amount to approximately ECU 8 per registered unemployed person, and naturally that is incapable of contributing in the least to addressing this most critical issue for the people of Europe.
They are simply an alibi for those who adopt yet another grim austerity budget for working people, farmers and small and medium-sized businesses, in the name of the competitiveness of large concerns and in support of the exorbitant profits of big finance.
It is all too clear that the budget appropriations to cover economic and social problems - unemployment, social security, health and education - are certain to be at unacceptably low levels.
However, it is also certain that the profitability of big finance and its conglomerates will reach new record highs.
This is evidence of the fact that we have an even worse example of European Union budgetary absurdity.
The same logic will be displayed by Parliament if it adopts this budget.
When all is said and done it is only in budgetary matters that the European Parliament has any real power.
It is time that this power was exercised on behalf of working people, on behalf of the people who, with their votes, elected it as an institutional body of the European Union.
The undersigned ÖVP Members have voted for the budget, because it is a good and important instrument for the further development of our common Union.
We protest most emphatically, however, against the "Herod Premium' contained in the budget, which is a payment for the killing of new-born calves.
We shall do everything within our power to see that this premium is no longer included in the next budget.
The Danish Social Democrats support the proposal that the EU should provide assistance for setting up an information office for organic farming in the EU.
We also believe strict control should be exercised over the money set aside in the budget for Turkey.
We think it is important that all 11 official languages of the EU continue to enjoy the same official status.
We are therefore in favour of the full amount continuing to be set aside for translations of the proceedings of the European Parliament.
We are also in favour of more control of MEPs' travel accounts.
Travelling expenses should be refunded on the basis of expenses actually incurred or on submission of evidence that the journey was made at the cheapest published rate.
As far as the agricultural expenditure procedure is concerned it may be noted that cooperation between the Council, Parliament and the Commission has been much more open and regular than in previous years.
That is also true of the two parliamentary committees, the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
By having an opinion on the preliminary draft budget ready on time it was possible to have a sensible dialogue before the Council established the draft budget.
Consequently it was more realistic than in previous years.
Furthermore it was later agreed not to conclude the ad hoc procedure at first reading by Parliament, but to lay down Parliament's terms of reference in an annex to Parliament's resolution.
Thus the agriculture budget and the development of the actual expenditure follow on to the second reading in Parliament.
In the present instance that may lead to a timely review of the across-the-board reduction in all budget items under heading 1, which Parliament considered undesirable but which was accepted in the dialogue between the three institutions.
In a subsequent budget year it must be considered whether this fairly simplistic and automatic across-the-board reduction approach can be repeated.
Parliament still prefers reduction on the basis of recent experience.
But as has been said, keeping the ad hoc procedure open after the first reading by Parliament largely deals with that objection.
When the budget was examined this year the main focus was on the financing of additional revenue.
Where there was an imminent deficit in the agriculture budget (initially because of the BSE crisis) the Commission immediately resorted to this budget item and proposed an across-the-board reduction of 7 % in expenditure.
The Commission even used the argument of current overcompensation.
The Council and Parliament were strongly opposed to the Commission's approach and were of course successful.
Even so, the way in which the matter was handled was still unsatisfactory.
In future we must look seriously into ways of differentiating between premiums per hectare and per head of livestock.
But I also think that to put the financing of the agricultural income premiums on a more durable footing we should look for our own new system of financing such expenditure.
Certainly income premiums are becoming so much more important that they now account for roughly half the expenditure of the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF.
A few years ago it was only a few per cent.
However the burden of this very specific expenditure, which in my opinion cannot be compared with the rest of the EU's expenditure, is still shared in the same way and it is extremely doubtful whether this situation is tenable in the long term.
In refusing to vote for the draft 1998 budget of the European Union as it was presented to the House by the Committee on Budgets of the European Parliament, I was eager to mark my disagreement on several essential points.
As vice-chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, I wanted, by my vote, to mark a very clear disagreement with the attitude of the Committee on Budgets, which did not consider it necessary to put forward in the part-session a unanimous request from the Committee on Fisheries intended to give Member States the necessary means to implement controls in reliable and fair conditions for all the fishermen of our various countries.
Surely this is a major inconsistency by our Parliament, which on the one hand approves of rapid, general implementation of control by satellite, and massively adopted the report which I presented to it on this question, and on the other hand refuses to write into the budget the necessary means to put into concrete effect the decision which it has just taken?
Yet this House, in approving the implementation of control by satellite, which the fishermen's organizations consider to be the only suitable form of control, had explicitly retained, as I proposed, the principle of financial compensation, so that this new arrangement does not upset the financial balance of our small fishing companies, which is often precarious.
In refusing to take up the proposal from the Committee on Fisheries, the Committee on Budgets, which has chosen the path of budget laxity in many other fields, is going to delay the implementation of an objective, incontestable control mechanism, which is essential if the rules of the common fisheries policy are to be observed by everyone.
As a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I also want to stand very firm against the legal error - but we know that the majority in this Parliament rarely acts legally - of applying in advance, in the 1998 budget, the interinstitutional agreement about the CFSP which is contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam, when the treaty has not yet been ratified by the legitimate representatives of our peoples, the national parliaments.
As a member of the Committee on Agriculture, I must also very firmly oppose point 16 of the Tillich resolution, which actually proposes a change to the distribution of obligatory expenditure.
To be able to finance so-called quality promotion campaigns for the benefit of, notably, British beef, and to develop production of honey, flax and hemp, it is proposed that the amount of refunds on wheat, flour, barley, malt, sugar and isoglucose should be lowered.
Now, I must remind you that agricultural expenditure is obligatory expenditure, and that neither the Committee on Budgets nor the European Parliament is authorized to change it in any way.
This House has no power over obligatory expenditure.
Surely it works against the interests of our producers to propose furtively, in an appendix to the resolution, amendments which penalize European exports in the field of large-scale agriculture and cereals, for the benefit of promotional budgets which are intended to highlight generic products? For instance, European flower producers, who only represent, as is known, 40 % of our consumption, are hardly going to benefit from a campaign to promote flowers when the Union imports 60 % of its consumption of horticultural products.
Tillich report (A4-0290/97)
More than half of the Community's budget goes to support agriculture in the Member States.
We think it is high time that the Council of Ministers intensified the discussions on the future agricultural policy since it is the Council which has the decisive influence over agricultural questions.
In our view it is quite unacceptable to earmark a large proportion of the Community budget to an agriculture which in its current form is not adapted to environmental considerations, animal protection, the promotion of consumer interests and the consideration of needs in relation to the global food supply.
We also consider it wholly unacceptable that Community funds are used to support tobacco growing.
We think it would be a good thing if, in the budget, Parliament now pointed to measures for creating employment.
We support the proposal to set up a separate budget item for special measures for the Baltic area.
In connection with the discussion of the budget, attention has again been drawn to the issue of travel allowances for Members of Parliament.
We support the proposal that travel allowances should be based on the actual costs and be on the same terms for all Members.
As far as Parliament's voluntary pension system is concerned, we support Mr Dankert's proposal to make essential reforms to the voluntary pension scheme and increase supervision and controls.
We have abstained from voting.
We welcome the restrictiveness which characterizes the annual budget, even if the ambitions are not as far-reaching as the Council's draft budget.
We are also positive towards the ambition to emphasize employment issues, but we cannot support the methods of financing which entail cut-backs even in areas which are not connected to employment.
We are also opposed to combining investments in transeuropean networks with increased employment.
We think that Parliament should also have reduced the appropriation for various kinds of propaganda campaign.
We are abstaining on controlled thermonuclear fusion, controlled nuclear fusion.
We are voting for safety, protection of health, rights to and duties of information, to be ensured in the area of nuclear energy production.
In the annual budget debate our aim was to reduce the EU's budget and at the same time to try to make it greener.
That means we supported proposals to cut back on tobacco subsidies and to give more to the promotion of organic farming, proposals to give smaller grants to organizations which promote the European Ideal and proposals which are opposed to the EU's information campaigns, including those for the euro.
We support the Committee on Budget's line as far as employment policy is concerned.
We do so because it does not entail any increase in the budget, but only a redistribution of funds within the budget.
We think it would be better to put the proposed ECU 150 million into investments in small and medium-sized businesses than into various campaigns and doubtful programmes.
This does not mean, however, that we think the EU should begin to conduct an active labour market policy.
We are entirely opposed to that.
There are also positive sides, including the fact that the allowance for the clearing of anti-personnel mines is increased by ECU 1 million under the paragraph on arms reductions.
That is something at least.
The expenditure in the area of agriculture and the regional structural funds are among the compulsory items of expenditure and are decided by the Council of Ministers, even though the President of the Parliament ultimately signs the budget.
We think there are a lot of things within the EU's expenditure in these two areas which can be strongly called into question.
Unfortunately we do not have the ability to influence through our votes the items of expenditure in the areas of agriculture and regional policy with which we do not agree.
We think that regional policy should be returned to the Member States.
Similarly there has to be an extensive reform of the current Common Agricultural Policy as soon as possible, both for reasons of efficiency and to facilitate an enlargement of the Union.
Furthermore, subsidies to wine and tobacco growing must be phased out as soon as possible.
There are also a number of doubtful budget items whose purpose, according to the justification, is to strengthen the European Ideal.
Above all we are opposed to budget lines A-3020 - grants to organizations which promote the European ideal, A-3030 - grants to projects set up by clubs and associations of European interest, and A-3501 - preparations and assistance for the achievement of economic and monetary union.
We oppose these budget lines in the strongest terms.
There are several budget lines which appear to us superfluous, but which we cannot influence at this stage.
Tomlinson report (A4-0280/97)
Mr President, this vote has also been marked by the same attitude.
When examining the budget of the other institutions, we sought to adopt a uniform line which, once again, came up against a brick wall on several highly significant amendments, such as the one to increase the Sakharov Prize appropriation. We all know that the Nobel Prize is worth close to a million dollars for the winner.
This seems to me to be encouraging for research, science, culture and work for peace.
The stubborn refusal of the rapporteur Mr Tomlinson and the Group of the Party of European Socialists to increase this funding, which currently amounts to only ECU 15, 000, seemed to me to be obstinacy I can only take to be personal, aimed at me and the other MEPs who supported me in seeking this amendment, which was also approved by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and frankly I think it is totally narrow-minded.
That is the point I want to make, using the only opportunity for complaint now left to me, as we have decided that the votes should be cast before an empty Chamber, causing you, Mr President, and those who want to listen to me to waste time.
I am greatly concerned as to how to record that, even now, in a budget in which we have managed to allocate the Van Maerlant building to three different Institutions in one year, and perhaps at second reading we will also have a fourth idea, there was an obstinate determination to reject an amendment which would have dignified one of the most important manifestation of the European Parliament on the international scene: the Sakharov Prize, which will be decided at the Conference of Presidents this afternoon and to which we will then make a donation of just ECU 15, 000.
I would like that to be recorded as well.
In the vote on the budget we have consistently supported proposals concerning a reform of Members' various travel allowances, so that people only receive an allowance for actual costs (Amendments Nos 2 and 3 which are largely the same).
As far as the voluntary pension fund is concerned, we have decided to support Amendment No 4.
The amendment does not end the pension fund, but asks the Court of Auditors to carry out an investigation and asks the Bureau for suggestions on how it could be changed.
On the other hand, we do not support the proposal for a common charter for the Members which is mentioned in the amendment.
Naturally, we also supported the ending of subsidies for the restaurants in the European Parliament (paragraph 24 of the report).
We regret the decision by the European Court of Justice that the European Parliament must have 12 partsessions per year in Strasbourg, which has an affect on the budget because the costs of the weekly move are increasing.
We have also consistently supported other proposals aimed at reducing administrative costs.
Mr President, there was a lot of comment in the press to the effect that the votes on the cocoa directive were totally predictable and that they took the line of individual Members' Member States.
In particular, they were alleged to support the producer lobbies within each Member State.
I would like to state quite categorically on behalf of the Scottish National Party members here, Mrs Ewing and myself, that is not the case.
Many Members in this House - and certainly the SNP members share this - care very much for the Third World and especially for the cocoa producers in countries such as Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire.
That is why we voted with our group, the European Radical Alliance, and took that line.
There is, however, one specific opt-out where we differed, and that concerned the fact that in Ireland and Great Britain there is a tradition of producing a particular kind of chocolate and labelling it milk chocolate.
To me there is no harm in that, and the acceptability of Europe requires that we do not try to do away with that tradition.
So we voted differently on that particular amendment.
But the main thing is to support the interests of the Third World, and that is what we did.
Mr President, I did not vote for the proposed directive, and I do not totally share the satisfaction of the rapporteur, since even if there have been improvements, we are faced by a draft which is eminently contestable.
In the European Union, it will be possible to call viscous brown substances, which are at best odourless, ' chocolate' without them being real chocolate.
The absence of any precision on the specific names means that the wellfoundedness of this directive is heavily mortgaged.
I add that the inapplicable nature of some arrangements makes them null and void before they have even been adopted.
And if the Commission had two pennyworth of good sense, it would do as it did twelve years ago, and withdraw its draft.
I hope that it will have that good sense.
The Commission proposes to make the use of vegetable fats in the composition of chocolate, up to 5 %, general in the fifteen countries of the European Union.
In our opinion, three conditions absolutely must be fulfilled before such a measure can be considered.
First condition: a clear, obvious indication for the consumer, that is not a simple mention in the list of ingredients, but a visible description such as "chocolate with vegetable fats' .
Second condition: it must be possible to measure the quality of these vegetable fats exactly, which is not the case in the current state of scientific knowledge.
If vegetable fats must be accepted with a ceiling of 5 %, this possibility should only be offered when it is possible to measure the quantity of them precisely.
Third condition: a restrictive list of authorized vegetable fats must be established.
If any of these three conditions - which are converted into amendments - is not fulfilled, we will be unable to vote for the Lannoye report.
The revision of the former 1973 directive turned out to be very useful, and EU harmonization was absolutely necessary.
But harmonization does not mean levelling down with respect to the protection and information of the consumer.
And in this way the situation today is serious, even grave!
When a directive is revised, it must, for chocolate in this case, maintain the demand for quality of the product, and harmonize it in the European countries.
This is perfectly obvious.
This is why the proposal to authorize the addition of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter to chocolate is unacceptable, because it undermines the integrity of the product.
Besides, the composition of vegetable fats is very close to that of cocoa butter, so that checking the 5 % limit is difficult, or even impossible, which is unsatisfactory for the consumer.
I support, and have supported, amendments which observe these principles.
I have also signed several of them.
That is why, I do not understand the attitude of the Commission at this stage, and I consider it unacceptable.
Mr President, I wish to place on the record the fact that I voted against the Lannoye report.
Amendments Nos 9 and 21 were particularly hostile to the interests of the Irish milk chocolate industry as indeed were many other amendments.
Although I was in favour of the directive I am convinced that the legislative proposals as modified will be damaging to the Irish chocolate sector.
In the first place, I would like to stress the fact that the Commission has introduced a proposal which drastically changes a situation which is certainly somewhat untidy - eight Member States on one side, seven on the other - but where, in fact, everyone was relatively satisfied, particularly consumers, who could consume the type of chocolate they wanted.
From the moment when, in the name of the single market, making a uniform regulation on the content of chocolate is proposed, it is normal that everyone wants to protect "his system' , and thus "his chocolate' .
In my eyes, and those of many of my fellow citizens, the name "chocolate' must be reserved for products which are 100 % cocoa.
It follows that if permitting the marketing of chocolate-flavoured products containing up to 5 % of substituted vegetable fats in all Member States is desired, it is difficult for me to accept that these products have exactly the same name as 100 % cocoa products.
A clear label such as "chocolate-flavoured' ought to be used for this type of product.
If it is not possible to reach agreement on this point, at the very least the rule must be that the note "contains substituted vegetable fats' must be printed in large characters beside the word "chocolate' , so that the consumer is informed about the objective qualities of the product which he is about to buy and consume.
If no consensus emerges on one of these principles, I prefer to vote against the proposed directive, and to maintain the status quo .
Seven Member States permit the use of 5 % vegetable fats other than cocoa butter in the manufacture of chocolate products, and, in the face of the Commission's attempt to simplify the regulations on foodstuffs by means of this draft directive, a "chocolate war' has broken out, amongst other reasons - and let us not deceive ourselves - because the industry itself is divided.
It is the understanding of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, of which I am a member, that what is important is to provide consumers with adequate information.
This requires labelling which clearly indicates whether or not the chocolate in question contains vegetable fats other than cocoa butter, in order to guarantee freedom of choice.
I recall that a few years ago I unfortunately had to convince Mr Nordmann that Spanish drinking chocolate, which is thickened with flour, was not harmful, but a culinary speciality of my country, which should be respected.
This exception was taken into account in the final vote.
Today, other considerations are undoubtedly important, but this is what the debate is about.
My final vote will therefore be in favour.
I am eager to congratulate Mr Lannoye, who has carried out excellent work which I support.
Despite the complexity of this dossier, he has succeeded in amending the proposal of the European Commission in terms which satisfy me completely.
The 1973 directive defines chocolate, and forbids the use of vegetable fats in its composition as a substitute for cocoa butter.
However, a derogation was provided when three new states - the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland - entered the EEC, authorizing them to use vegetable fats other than cocoa butter up to 5 % of the total weight.
Austria, Finland, Sweden and Portugal also apply this derogation, even if legally they do not all have the formal authorization of the Commission.
This derogation thus authorizes these states to manufacture and sell this type of chocolate on their territory only .
These products are currently freely on sale in most of the other Member States, but without being called "chocolate' .
Only Italy and Spain have closed their borders to these products, and thus violated the rules of free movement of goods.
By virtue of the principle of subsidiarity, the Commission's proposal allows Member States the option of authorizing the addition of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter, up to 5 % of the total weight of the product, while guaranteeing its free movement throughout the EU by the name "chocolate' .
However, the labelling which the Commission proposes must mention this addition clearly and objectively.
This simple condition is quite insufficient, and thus unacceptable.
In fact, the Commission wishes to allow a product which contains vegetable fats other than cocoa butter, and is manufactured in a state which permits this addition, to be called chocolate, whereas this is not possible today.
Currently, the countries which forbid these vegetable fats in the production of chocolate represent two-thirds of EU production.
The Commission thus chooses to make the exception into the rule, to the detriment of traditional chocolates and the information of consumers.
I think that is unacceptable.
It is essential that the labelling carries the name of the product, and that this is made prominent, so that the consumer makes a clear distinction between two products with different characteristics at first glance, without having to read the whole of the ingredients list with a magnifying glass.
As a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection - and although I appreciate traditional black chocolate - I consider that, in accepting the different traditions of our British, Austrian, Swedish or Danish neighbours, we have taken a step forward.
But we cannot accept that traditional products which contain only cocoa may be confused with products containing other vegetable fats.
The British, Swedes and Danes will tell us that it is only a matter of taste.
Certainly, it is entirely a matter of taste, which cannot represent a decisive argument, but I wish to defend "true' chocolate, not only for myself but above all for generations to come.
The proposal of the Commission also raises a series of questions concerning, in particular, the relations of the EU with the less developed countries, particularly the cocoa-producing countries.
For these reasons, the development and cooperation commission, when asked for its opinion, unanimously rejected the proposal of the Commission.
So it is indispensable to limit the use of vegetable fats to tropical fats - illipé , shea and palm oil - of which some ACP countries such as Mali or Burkina Faso are producers, in such a way that these countries are not disadvantaged too much and the use of vegetable fats by producers is limited.
Six multinational companies share 80 % of the world market for chocolate, so their weight cannot be ignored.
The principal motivation of these chocolate giants is economic. Vegetable fats cost much less than cocoa, and the consumer has little chance of seeing this gain reflected in the retail price of chocolate.
Also, no method today makes it possible to detect exactly the presence, quality and type of vegetable fats other than cocoa butter in chocolate.
The margin of error is at least 30 %.
I think it is irresponsible to set standards when we have no way of checking that they are applied.
It is therefore right to make bringing this directive into force depend on perfecting a technique for detecting vegetable fats other than cocoa butter in chocolate.
Mr President, I set three conditions which must all be fulfilled before the proposal is adopted, namely: enforcing a different name for chocolate containing vegetable fats other than cocoa butter; making the implementation of this directive dependent on perfecting a technique for detecting and quantifying vegetable fats; limiting the use of vegetable fats in chocolate to certain tropical fats.
Unfortunately these amendments did not receive the majority of votes, and therefore I have rejected the whole text.
This has been an extremely difficult question for me, partly because I do not sit on the committee which discussed the details of Mr Lannoye's report.
However, I am guided mainly by listening to the consumer interest, the trade aspects and the countries' cultural background where chocolate is concerned.
I have therefore voted for the proposals which mean that there should be labelling on the packaging so that the consumer is able to know what he or she is buying and eating.
I have taken into consideration the fact that trade policy should be conducted with regard to both the social and environmental aspects.
Last but not least, the cultural aspects must be taken into consideration.
The EU countries do not have anything like a shared history when it comes to the amount of cocoa in chocolate.
In Sweden, amongst other countries, the level of cocoa in chocolate is traditionally low.
In the light of that it is inappropriate to introduce a directive which conflicts with this cultural difference.
The section on chocolate in this proposed directive has aroused much lively reaction which is perfectly understandable because of the economic and social consequences which it is likely to have in Europe, but also outside Europe, and particularly in Africa.
The debate, like the flood of amendments tabled, has brought out very contradictory positions.
Some people want priority given to consumers, cocoa producers and small and medium chocolate companies, whereas others want to grant privileges to the six multinational companies which by themselves represent 74 % of the European market for chocolate-flavoured products.
Obviously, our group belongs to the first category, and has tabled numerous amendments along those lines.
A first group of amendments relates to the supply of cocoa.
It is essential to preserve the economy of the 31 ACP states which are heavily dependent on cocoa exports.
I remind you that the West African cocoa producers market 90 % of their production within the European Union, and that 11 million people depend directly on the cocoa harvest.
The European Parliament's research department estimates that if the proposal is adopted in its present version, the drop in demand would be between a minimum of 30, 000 tonnes and 200, 000 tonnes.
Apart from the loss of outlets, we can expect significant consequences for the world price of the raw material, cocoa. The European Union absolutely must comply with the agreements which it has made with its partners, the ACP states.
This is the sense of the first series of amendments which we have put down.
A second series of amendments relates to consumer protection.
A product which incorporates vegetable fats other than cocoa must not be called chocolate, but a chocolate-flavoured product.
It is also necessary to spread exact information among consumers.
This information must be clear, precise, legible and printed both beside the list of ingredients and on the display side of the product beside the brand name.
A third series of amendments relates to control.
Indeed, how is it possible to authorize incorporation of vegetable fats in a chocolate-flavoured product, at 5 % maximum, unless reliable quantitative methods of checking are available?
The final series of amendments relates to the curious request which was expressed by the Committee on the Environment, to have research carried out to evaluate the impact of this directive on exports of cocoa from developing countries.
But research after the fact is not what is needed.
In contrast, I propose having research carried out before the fact, before any authorization to incorporate these vegetable fats, on the economic and social consequences, within and outside Europe, that this would have.
I know very well that the Commission often has a habit of proceeding like this, and adopting decisions regarding external commercial relations without any research in advance on the consequences.
It does not seem to me necessary to encourage and adopt these bad tendencies for ourselves.
Regarding employment within the European Union, I would remind you that 6 companies by themselves represent 74 % of the European market for chocolate, and that a large number of small and medium-sized food processing companies exist and share the remaining percentage.
These companies have neither sufficient financial capacity nor the production structure to be able to incorporate vegetable fats other than cocoa.
If this directive is adopted as it stands, many of these companies will be doomed to disappear, and obviously, many jobs will also disappear in this sector, which represents a famous traditional European activity.
I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Lannoye, who has carried out difficult but remarkable work.
His report has succeeded in taking stock of all the problems raised by this proposal from the European Commission.
As a member of the joint EU/ACP assembly, I cannot accept that the European Commission is proposing such a text.
The fact is, our partners would not be able to understand it if we agreed to vote for a proposal which violates the Treaty of Maastricht and the agreements which bind the EU.
Indeed, without returning to these points in detail, I am eager to stress that a general authorization to add vegetable fats other than cocoa butter throughout the EU would result in a reduction of cocoa consumption, estimated at between 88, 000 and 125, 000 tonnes, compared to total world production of 2.6 million tonnes.
This would be a body blow to many farmers.
The most affected countries would be the Ivory Coast, Ghana and the Cameroons.
The EU is party to agreements within its relations with the ACP countries.
The Lomé Convention, one of the principal purposes of which is to promote the exports of these countries, would be quite simply violated.
Also, this decision would be contrary to the international agreement on cocoa, and would have a very negative impact on the price of cocoa, and thus on the Stabex, the system for stabilizing cocoa prices within the Lomé Convention.
This could cost the EU billions of ECUs, and would be very bad for the producer countries in the long term.
For all these reasons, when the Committee on Development and Cooperation was asked for its advice, it unanimously rejected the Commission's proposal, and today I insist on the fact that, in spite of these elements, I was ready to vote for this proposal on certain conditions.
The amendments on which my vote in favour of this text depended have not all been adopted, and I regret this.
That is why I voted against the report as amended by this House.
I have voted in accordance with the Swedish Social Democrat line that it should be permissible to add 5 % of vegetable fat other than cocoa butter to chocolate.
However, I cannot help being struck by the thought of the enormous volume of documentation which is being produced on the matter when we could instead have let it remain a matter of national legislation.
That has worked well for at least a hundred years.
It is things like this which damage the Union's reputation among its citizens.
Mosiek-Urbahn report (A4-0295/97)
There is absolutely no reason for the EU to concern itself with this question.
It is a national question, or a question for an international organization.
Breyer report (A4-0281/97)
Mr President, I want to speak on the Breyer report, as a Member for Lubéron and LanguedocRoussillon, the premier wine-producing region of the world, but also of your country, President Imbeni.
Foolishly, we have rejected Amendment No 41 on grape juice, or to be technical, metatartaric acid, which makes it possible to return acidity to grape juice and to improve the flavours of grape juices.
By doing this, we are doing considerable damage to the production of grape juices, which makes it possible to use thousands and thousands of hectolitres of must.
We cannot be told that there is overproduction of wine, which is anyway untrue, and at the same time prevented from using, or at least reducing, this alleged overproduction.
By a majority of two votes, partly from the left, begging your pardon, Mr President, we have done enormous economic damage.
Knowing the environment, and the behaviour of the European Commission, as you know, on the common organization of the wine market, knowing all the efforts the European Commission is making to destroy the European vineyard for the benefit of the Chilean, Eastern European, Argentinean or Australian vineyard, one cannot be surprised at the damage which has just been done, once again, by the action of a pseudo-green lobby.
I regret and condemn this attitude.
I hope that you and your group do not carry this responsibility, Mr President.
We have voted for the report because it entails a restrictive approach to food additives.
That does not mean that we approve of the increase in additives in baby food which could, unfortunately, also be a result of the directive, something which the National Food Board in Sweden has warned against and Sweden's representatives on the Council have tried to stop.
We think these issues need to be analysed much more thoroughly.
What consumers want is clear.
European consumers are increasingly thinking in environmental terms.
They want cleaner raw materials and they do not want additives.
But the Commission is ignoring the wishes of European consumers, and instead is extending the so-called positive list by allowing a number of additives.
The Commission is also allowing them without any evidence that the additives are technically necessary and without any evidence that they benefit consumers, and without any evidence that the doses proposed present no risks to health.
These are also matters which the Commission is bound to consider if the positive list is to be extended.
Once again, we find that the wishes of consumers are being ignored.
I am voting in favour of the Breyer report as a whole, as it involves tightening up labelling requirements in a number of important areas and criticizes the Commission's lead in extending the approved list.
This is the case, for example, in connection with the use of sulphite or the more grotesque example of the Commission's authorization of E405, which makes cider will look better, even if the substance is prohibited in cat food.
But there are a number of proposed amendments to the report which give cause for concern.
I am voting against the proposed amendments which seek to increase the number of permitted additives.
In many cases, there is no reason for the extension - and especially not when it comes to additives in baby food.
But one exception here must be additives for baby food designed for sick children, where there may be special requirements.
When it comes to sulphates and sulphites, I must vehemently oppose the use of these agents.
Denmark amongst others has tried to limit the use of sulphites, and that is the way it should be at European level too.
To a large group of people, sulphites may cause health problems, particularly in the form of allergic reactions, especially in asthmatics.
The reaction depends on the dose ingested, of course, and how predisposed one is, but may vary from discomfort and breathing problems to, in extreme cases, death.
Sulphites should be limited, also because in many cases they are unnecessary, as we have seen in the debate on dried fruit, for example.
Nor are sulphates necessary when it comes to making canned potatoes, as non-toxic agents such as citric acid and anti-oxidants can be used just as easily, as is the case in Denmark, for example.
To prevent further use of sulphite I am therefore voting against Amendments Nos 7, 30, 31 and 38.
I am voting for Amendment No 10, precisely because this attempts to limit the use of sulphites; but I am voting against the part seeking to add to the list the possibility of using sulphite in connection with alcoholic drinks with whole pears, as this would mean increasing the use of sulphite.
I must also object strongly to nicine being included on the approved list (Amendments Nos 32 and 36).
Nicine is an antibiotic, and who wants that added to their food? Medicine and food should always be kept strictly separate, and particularly when, as in this amendment, it involves using egg products as ingredients in a wide range of products.
Finally, the additive PES should have its own E-number, as otherwise consumers might confuse it with E407, which differs considerably from PES, both in the way it is made and in health terms.
The Breyer report is important, and we can only hope that sensible, restrictive Danish rules are not undermined by less consumer-friendly European legislation.
For the Danish consumer (and especially those at risk), this would be nothing short of a catastrophe.
The effect of Mrs Breyer's report is not to favour the development of a certain number of important food products.
For instance, certain amendments which the Committee on the Environment has adopted will cause very serious problems in the sector of low-fat dairy product manufacture or of dehydrated potatoes.
Our group has put down two very specific amendments concerning two different sectors of activity.
These two amendments illustrate the philosophy which, in our opinion, the directive concerning ingredients ought to have accepted.
The first amendment concerns the use of metatartaric acid at 50 mg/l, which makes manufacture of grape juice possible.
On 8 October last, the food technology commission published, an unambiguous opinion authorizing the use of metatartaric acid to preserve the natural acidity potential of fruits.
Since this metatartaric acid is not completely degraded, it must be considered as a food additive.
We all know that grape juice is an important outlet for European viticulture.
Metatartaric acid is used for many kinds of food production.
So why forbid it for grape juice? It is necessary to know that France represents 75 % of European production of grape juice.
I dare not think that the development of this production, which seems to meet the needs of consumers well, can be considered as undesirable competition, for instance, by the producers of orange juice, who mostly belong to other Member States and might wish to limit its growth in this way.
The second amendment concerns the use of potassium sulphate, which is necessary for manufacture of pre-packed bacon cubes.
The purpose of this amendment is to ensure the microbiological safety of the products.
It is necessary to know that there can often be contamination outward from the raw material itself.
The development of this germ must therefore be controlled, particularly if there is a break in the cold chain between manufacturer and consumer.
In conclusion, I wish to draw the attention of the House to the fact that standards must not be used with the intention of diverting parts of the market to the profit of competing companies in other Member States.
Also, in the name of badly understood consumer protection, the use of certain additives which are recognized as perfectly neutral by the scientific authorities should not be refused, to the detriment of food safety itself.
On this last point, I must remind you that the USA, which is often held up as an example for the sophistication of its food safety legislation, is one of the countries where the number of food poisonings is highest.
Wiebenga report (A4-0284/97)
Mr President, Europe has often been the scene of tragic events, which have forced people to flee their country to escape Communist repression: the crushing of the liberation movement in Hungary in 1956, the suppression of the Prague Spring in 1966.
Closer to us, the war in former Yugoslavia, which is also a sequel to a Marxist regime, has demonstrated the need to prepare for any eventuality.
All the more so because the situation in Algeria could be heavy with consequences for the European countries surrounding the Mediterranean.
In this context, whereas it may be desirable to organize cooperation among the nations which make up the European Union, it seems unimaginable to us that the possibility of recourse to a system of temporary protection can be imposed on a Member State by the device of a Council decision taken by qualified majority.
Can anyone fail to see that a massive flow of displaced people may undermine civil peace and the social and economic equilibrium of a nation which undergoes such an event? In this field, perhaps even more than others, the sovereignty of the States must be absolutely respected.
Besides, surely the system being proposed to us, when there is not even an international obligation, risks having a disastrously attractive effect, all the more so because no action to encourage return is provided?
Hell is paved with good intentions, Mr President, and generosity which is not framed by reason can turn out to be more disastrous than anything.
For these reasons we have been unable to vote for the Wiebenga report.
We supported the report because it calls for the humanizing of the reception of refugees.
At the same time we want to stress that it should not be used as a pretext to weaken the Member States' sovereign authority to decide their own immigration and refugee policy in accordance with the UN Convention.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report on temporary protection for refugees.
The enormous masses of refugees from the war in Yugoslavia are still vivid in our memory.
In the light of this experience, we can understand why it is so important that we work together on this area.
These are people in need and we should be aware of our own humanitarian responsibilities.
The Commission's proposals are good, as they give people in need the opportunity for being treated equally by the EU.
We can get certain minimum rights in the Community.
To us, it is important that a war in a country does not devastate its people's future.
If they are allowed into the EU, they should also be able to get education and jobs.
But we would like to have seen the burden actually shared.
So we should also work towards an agreement which spreads refugees over the EU as soon as they cross the EU's borders.
Everyone must realise they are responsible.
This will be in everyone's best interests in the long run, both the Member States and the refugees.
In cases where nation states are unable to find solutions to asylum issues, among other things, these should be solved through the UN, the Council of Europe and through contacts with international refugee organizations.
The EU is not a state, but should strictly be intergovernmental cooperation.
The refugee issue is very much an international issue which, in cases which cannot be solved nationally, are too big to be limited to the EU.
My vision of a Europe of the democracies is that each and every one of the independent States should conduct a general, human refugee policy.
I have nothing against a protocol concerning temporary protection for displaced persons being added to the Convention on Refugees.
However, I do find it difficult to see why this is being discussed in the European Parliament.
It would, of course, be desirable if the Council could unanimously agree on minimum rights in connection with this issue.
(The sitting was suspended at 1: 15 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for motions for resolutions:
B4-0826/97 by Mrs André-Léonard, Mr Fassa and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on Afghanistan; -B4-0840/97 by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the violation of women's rights in Afghanistan; -B4-0852/97 by Mrs Lalumière, Mr Dell'Alba, Mr Dupuis and Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on Afghanistan; -B4-0860/97 by Mrs Maij-Weggen, Mr Mann and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Afghanistan; -B4-0874/97 by Mrs Aglietta, Mr Van Dijk, Mrs Roth, Mr Gahrton, Mrs Schroedter, Mr Telkämper and Mr Ripa di Meana, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on Afghanistan; -B4-0875/97 by Mr Sornosa Martínez, Mrs Pailler, Mrs Castellina, Mrs González Álvarez, Mr Papayannakis, Mrs Eriksson, Mr Ojala and Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the situation in Afghanistan; -B4-0888/97 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on the situation in Afghanistan.
Madam President, Parliament must make a strong protest to the Taliban.
Commissioner Bonino's arrest is a slap in the face for her important work on humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
Partly because of the lack of response from the United States on Afghanistan, the Union has a particularly important role to play and we must be ready to play it.
We must use all our influence to improve human rights in that country and of course the Taliban's unacceptable policy on human rights must be properly and consistently condemned.
In providing aid the Commission must work with NGOs which place human rights and equal treatment for men and women at the top of their agenda.
In the political sense we must stand firm in not recognizing the Taliban authorities.
The Union must take steps to restore peace.
Other countries must be persuaded to follow the same line.
Only a lasting peace can put an end to the continued suffering of the Afghan people.
And furthermore this is the only way we can put a stop to the growth in opium production and trafficking under the Taliban leadership and that is why an amendment has been tabled, which we shall be pleased to support.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the reverberations of the pain and grief, the fear, despair and screams of the women of Afghanistan have finally reached the European Parliament where they will be transformed, I believe, into a global message of solidarity, support and, above all, of action to halt the nightmare experienced by the people of Afghanistan under the irrational, bloodthirsty power of a band of young, illiterate fanatics, who, one year ago, took over two-thirds of the country and who claim to be acting in the name of Allah and Islam.
The power of the Taliban takes us back centuries, to the darkest years of the Middle Ages.
The lives of women there have been transformed into a tragedy which not even the imagination of the Ancient Greek tragic poets could ever have conceived of.
The Taliban did away with any notion of democracy and human rights in the country, depriving the women of any possibility of education, work, freedom of speech and movement, and even of the right to medical and pharmaceutical care, since the only general hospital in Kabul for women operates with inadequate electricity, water and medical equipment.
The women, living under this singular and abhorrent system of apartheid, are forced to wear the tobourka and to reduce going out of doors to a minimum, resulting in the appearance of osteopathies from lack of sunlight and vitamin D. By the way, what does the World Health Organization have to say about this?
In Afghanistan, disobeying the authority of the extremists is tantamount to the death penalty. Women are flogged, sprayed with burning acid, stoned and murdered for crimes such as not having their ankles covered!
If their hands or face show, if they allow their children to play with toys, if they go to the market unaccompanied by a male relative, punishment is death by stoning, while television, radio, applause, photographs, singing and dancing are prohibited.
Girls who are victims of rape must, in accordance with the laws of the extremists, have four male witnesses to prove that they did not provoke the rape themselves!
Of course, such witnesses are never found.
In such an event the family is obliged to kill the girl, in order to protect its honour.
Horror and revulsion!
What twisted mind could think of all this at a time of technological revolution, and in the year 1997?
After all that, it is no wonder that the Taliban reached the point of attacking the Bonino Commission, the Commission responsible for the humanitarian aid which the European Union provides for the people of Afghanistan.
The Taliban, of course, maintain most vehemently that they are acting in the service of Islam.
However, we know that Muslim intellectuals throughout the world claim that Islam has nothing to do with all this.
The motive, of course, is power and the control of the country, of a country which has been struggling for eighteen years to find its way to democracy and progress.
To conclude, I would like to call on the Council of Ministers, the European Commission, the governments of Member States and the international organizations to stop all aid to Afghanistan, unless this aid goes directly to the nongovernmental organizations, and to undertake global action to resolve the political problems of Afghanistan through peaceful means, and to institute respect for human rights and democratic freedoms.
The Socialist Women's International, of which I am Vice-President, has already begun to act in this regard.
Mrs Karamanou, I can understand that you are very keen to say a great deal, but if everyone were to overrun one minute we would need a third as much time again for our debate, and we are very short of time today.
So I really must ask speakers to keep to the time limit.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our group modestly requested that following the mission of Mrs Bonino to Afghanistan a debate would be organized to listen to her directly, and to hear her impressions, particularly what she felt during the three hours she spent "in sheet metal' , if I can put it like that, in the prisons of the Taliban.
But the big groups did not want that, so Commissioner de Silguy is now obliged to turn from his monetary preoccupations to devote himself to the Afghanistan file.
I thank him for being there.
And I thank the Commission for having had, through Emma Bonino, the courage to raise again the question of the Taliban and their mediaeval regime, which particularly oppresses Afghan women, as everyone knows, with a severity unparalleled in any other country.
I am very happy that the Commission has made this gesture.
It has reminded the European Union and the international community of their duties.
The Council must express itself, the Union must express itself, UN must take a clear position on the attitude to be adopted towards this regime.
The European Union must make its voice heard, particularly regarding the fate of Afghan women.
From this point of view, I am very happy that a paragraph of the resolution which we are going to approve shortly states that 8 March is a symbolic date to be dedicated to Afghan women.
I would like to ask Commissioner de Silguy, as a member of the Commission, what he thinks of this idea of the Parliament, if he can make it his own, and if we can see together how to ensure that 8 March 1998 is a day dedicated to Afghan women and thus to the freedom of women and men throughout the world.
Mr President, the detention of our European Commissioner Emma Bonino in Kabul a few weeks ago was not only an unheard-of diplomatic scandal and a tremendous insult to the European Union and Mrs Bonino, it was also a clear indication of how serious the situation is, particularly for women in that country.
Since the Taliban came to power there has been an unprecedented campaign of terror against women, young or old, married or widowed.
Women can no longer work, they have no right to education, access to health care is much more difficult for them, they are forced to cover themselves completely and when they have to go out it is under very strict conditions and only if accompanied by a male relative.
This can only be described as outright terror.
And we are also surprised that there has not so far been more protest in the world.
The treatment of Mrs Bonino, who has given so much help to Afghan refugees, should certainly reinforce the Union's protest.
Mr President, another comment that follows on from what my Socialist colleague just said.
The Taliban's treatment of women is really a disgrace to Islam as well.
It would be good if the Arab world could state more clearly that this is not what Islam ought to be.
However I think that in this case the Western democracies and the Arab democracies should unite in opposing this reign of terror because what is happening there is a disgrace to the Arab world and a disgrace to Islam.
Madam President, under the guise of Islam the Taliban regime is oppressing women in a truly horrendous fashion.
Of course we see women oppressed in other Muslim countries too but nowhere in as many ways as in Afghanistan.
This does not really have anything to do with Islam, it is simply an unprecedented abuse of power by the Taliban.
They are really nothing more than a bunch of ruffians who use this as a means of increasing their power.
An initiative is urgently needed to resolve the conflict in Afghanistan peacefully and ensure that human rights are restored.
It seems to me that a code of conduct is urgently needed for aid workers outlawing any form of sex discrimination in humanitarian aid work so that in any event we try to isolate the Taliban there.
This is an issue on which joint action by the Union is appropriate.
Madam President, Afghanistan is not returning to the Middle Ages: incredible as it may seem, it is regressing even further.
The Taliban regime is currently one of the most barbaric and anti-democratic in the world.
There are scores of clear and abhorrent examples of this, such as the total lack of women's rights, the continuous violations of basic rights, and even, as we witness every day, the barbaric executions and punishments meted out to the civilian population: a civil population which barely survives in conditions of poverty and destruction, because, Madam President, the consequences of the civil war are being compounded by Taliban mis-government and the continuation of the Cold War.
I believe we must be quite clear: the Taliban are mainly to blame, but the international community and its leading members must begin to assume their responsibilities, because the mistakes of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s are still being paid for today.
And we cannot restrict ourselves to condemning the atrocities of the Taliban and the treatment to which Commissioner Bonino was subjected.
We must act.
And there are a number of very clear, simple and forceful things that we can do.
We can continually condemn the Taliban regime from the standpoint of the European Union and in the United Nations, and we can call on countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which have relations with the European Union, not to have diplomatic relations with the Taliban. If they fail to respond, we can bring some sort of pressure to bear on them.
In the context of the transatlantic relationship, which we talk about so much, we can ask the US Government to call on Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to say something about the Taliban regime. We can call for a genuine arms embargo, including the spare parts which keep the weapons in service, to be imposed once and for all; we can call for aid to be granted to NGOs so that they can in turn directly aid the civilian population, employing a clear code of conduct; and we can, of course, put the protection of women's rights at the forefront of all our action.
There must be an international conference on Afghanistan; and, Commissioner, I believe that it is time to decide on a European Union joint action in the context of the CFSP, to follow up Mrs Bonino's bold, courageous and unequivocal actions.
Madam President, the situation on human rights in Afghanistan is growing increasingly threatening.
The population is suffering from the civil war, which has lasted nearly 20 years, with catastrophic economic results, and it is suffering under the self-aggrandisement and lack of human respect of the Civil War Party.
The Taliban is a stone-age fundamentalist regime.
Its politics are aimed at the female part of the population.
They are systematically excluded from public life by means of draconian measures. Medical assistance is forbidden, rape and terror of unbearable kinds are daily routine.
These self-styled holy wars have further victims: religious and ethnic minorities, the politically active and intellectuals.
In the Islamic world they are acknowledged only by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
This isolation shows that the Taliban is not so much interested in religion, as in power and money.
The European delegation in Afghanistan has shown how little they care for the Convention on Human Rights.
We must take care that with help from the European Union efforts are not relaxed, that the NGOs participate, and that this help takes concrete forms. We must strive to achieve a peaceful end to the conflict.
The Council of Ministers cannot remain uninvolved for much longer.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0829/97 by Mrs Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the situation in North Korea; -B4-0841/97 by Mr Ford, Mr Malone, Mr Needle and Mr Thomas, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the famine in North Korea; -B4-0853/97 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the famine and political situation in North Korea; -B4-0861/97 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, Mr Rinsche, Mr Decourrière and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the serious famine in North Korea; -B4-0873/97 by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, Mrs Müller and Mr Holm, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the famine disaster in North Korea; -B4-0876/97 by Mr Alavanos and Mrs Eriksson, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the famine in North Korea; -B4-0889/97 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on the situation in North Korea
Madam President, North Korea fulfils all the classic requirements to be called a tyranny.
Even worse is the fact that it is a tyranny where power is handed down from father to son.
North Korea's people are forced to live in a permanent disaster.
The information which leaks out indicates suffering on a vast scale.
Children are dying of starvation, and malnourishment has reached such proportions that there is a risk of cannibalism.
North Korea is like one huge concentration camp, in which the prisoners, that is, the citizens, are brutally abused, both physically and mentally.
The regime has closed the door and put on a blindfold.
The outside world must enable it to take care of those who are suffering and look its people in the eyes.
Let me add that it would be sad if there were Members of this Parliament who through misguided socialist solidarity closed their eyes to the suffering of the North Korean people.
Madam President, as someone who has visited North Korea, at my own expense, with two colleagues, Clive Needle and David Thomas, I am pleased to speak in this debate.
It is a sad country.
The climate, culture and history have conspired against it.
They have had the worst floods in 63 years and the worst drought in 52 years in the last eighteen months.
The result has been that the daily distribution of food has shrunk from 700 grams a day to 500, then to 300 and is now a starving 100 grams.
Since 1989 agricultural production has fallen by 50 %, production of coal by 65 % and fertilizer by 75 %.
During our visit they had the bizarre situation of being unable to mine coal because there was no electricity for the machinery to work.
The UN has recently indicated that 17 % of North Korean children are suffering from malnutrition.
We visited a children's centre, a paediatric hospital, a series of orphanages and nurseries to see that for ourselves.
The NGOs on the spot, the UNDP, UNICEF, MSF, Children's Aid Direct and representatives of the European Commission all confirm what we saw for ourselves.
Some would say: ' So what? It is the last of the Stalinist regimes ruled by a puppet king in control of the military which, according to the United States, has nuclear weapons.'
I would echo Mr de Silguy in the last debate.
It would be a crime against humanity to visit retribution on today's children for yesterday's perfidies.
Who would advocate infanticide as a new weapon of mass destruction?
It is madness to drive a country with 1.5 million troops and nuclear weapons into a corner. We can afford to put $4 000 million into the KEDO programme.
The USS Independence protecting us against North Korea and the Japanese is costing a $1 million a day.
The alternative is possible war, famine and pestilence.
A soft landing would suit us all.
That is why we will try to modify the resolution during the vote.
North Korea is slowly starting to open up.
The NGOs and the European Commission confirm this.
To push demands for immediate and complete access to a country still formally at war with its neighbour would be to ask them to open up more than South Korea.
It must open up and it is opening up - it won't help to demand the impossible.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I challenge the idyllic picture which my predecessor has just painted of what is happening in North Korea.
The only thing missing was little angels floating by chirping and it would be perfect.
What is happening in North Korea today is the result of forty years of the maddest of regimes.
Ceaucescu almost seemed like a choirboy beside those who reign in North Korea, and some people want to make us believe, today, that the problem is merely one of drought, of shortage of food, whereas we are confronted by a crazy regime, which throws itself like the Pharaohs into projects in honour of Kim Il-Sung I, II and soon III.
We are confronted by an absurd regime, and some people - our socialist friends - claim that we must temper our resolution, that we must not bluntly condemn the government.
Perhaps we can criticize the North Korean authorities, but only a little.
This is really insanity.
We are asked for a separate vote on point 2, the only purpose of which is that Western journalists should be able to go to North Korea and travel around there, to check whether, at least, the food aid does not finish in the pockets of the existing holders of power, but actually benefits those who need it.
We, the radicals, have introduced a little amendment so that, unless the situation in that country changes drastically, if no privatization or political reform is carried out there, it will be put under international supervision in six months, because it not only does not guarantee liberty, it does not even guarantee bread for its inhabitants.
Madam President, although we are concerned today with a degree of urgency about North Korea, we must still be absolutely clear that we are not discussing a normal country.
North Korea is a country which behaves as though it were free of all moral obligations.
It is a totalitarian state unlike any other.
It cannot be compared in its actions with any other country.
For this reason it is, in my opinion, quite wrong for us at a time when we are confronted with the biggest famine in the second half of this century, to try to convince some people that this is just a matter of catastrophic flooding, periods of drought and the like.
There was famine in North Korea even when these terrible environmental catastrophes were not taking place.
They just amplify what is taking place there.
Let us be honest with ourselves.
Even the Chinese now admit that this is due to the politics of North Korea, and these politics, Mr Ford, have not altered in recent times.
There has been famine much longer than just over the past four years.
The figures speak for themselves, even if they are not clear.
All NGOs active there, the various organizations already mentioned, give varying figures.
But every one of them talks of many millions of people subjected to this famine, of some 800, 000 starving children, of the first evidence of cannibalism, and of aid being rejected again and again by North Korea as being political agitation.
That is not acceptable to us.
For that reason we must make a clear statement from this Parliament that we make both our short term and our long term aid subject to certain conditions.
Short term aid must be quite clearly subject to the condition that we say we want to know where our aid is ending up.
It is just not acceptable that the majority of the aid actually reaching North Korea really benefits the military and does not reach the civilian population in anything like the quantity required.
As for long term aid, it will also be necessary to make this dependent upon real improvements within the country.
I think the proposal by Mr Dupuis, that we should begin with the privatization of land, would be a very important example.
I think it is our duty as a Parliament to vote accordingly.
Madam President, the famine is growing worse.
And what is the regime in North Korea doing? It is making it difficult or even impossible for the aid which is arriving to be distributed in the country and so benefit the people.
That is something we can only condemn in the European Parliament.
The Commission must carry out a rapid expansion of its humanitarian aid, and at the same time develop a more long-term strategy to be able to prevent similar situations from arising in future.
The EU's behaviour is, however, double-edged.
At the same time the EU is giving a huge amount of money to North Korea for the country to build two new nuclear power stations.
However, when the nuclear power stations have been built there will be no distribution network to distribute the electricity.
This is nothing but wasted money and a policy which the EU should not be involved with.
We should be helping the citizens of North Korea to survive the famine, not to build a load of nuclear power stations.
Madam President, as has been said, the people of North Korea are suffering from an unprecedented famine that is producing a real massacre.
The situation is worsened by the well-known closure policy of the Pyongyang government which prevents us appreciating the real extent of the food crisis affecting that country.
But the famine is very serious and we believe the Commission should give full food aid to the people of North Korea as a matter of urgency.
I hope that the Commission will answer this point clearly and will respond to the propaganda that has been made in this Chamber in the face of a tragedy: the propaganda of those who would like to see the aid given to a people subject to forcing a government we may condemn into political negotiations, without in any way altering the gravity of the situation.
We are all aware of the need for reforms in North Korea and I hope that these will take place shortly.
But I think that the urgent thing now is humanitarian aid and Europe cannot turn its back on this tragedy; it would be very serious and would amount to complicity.
Madam President, first and foremost, this is a humanitarian problem.
That should be the central concern of the European Parliament.
I thank my colleagues Mr Ford, Mr Thomas, Mr Needle and Mrs Malone for bringing back information concerning the famine in North Korea and for alerting us to the plight of starving children there.
I am glad that the EU has been the biggest donor to North Korea in recent times.
But I should like to make one political point: it is imperative to reconvene the talks between South and North Korea under the copresidency of the USA and China.
We must do everything in our power to encourage that search for political solutions.
I know that our colleagues in South Korea are keen for that to happen.
I hope that North Korea can reciprocate.
That must be the best mid-term hope for these starving children.
Madam President, I must say that it is not something that happens to me every day but this time I am in complete agreement with the resolution on the famine in North Korea.
So I would just like to say a few words about the amendments.
Firstly the three amendments by Mr Dupuis, which I consider a useful addition in that they refer more explicitly than the resolution itself to what is really responsible for this disaster: the communist regime in which the rulers and their families live in almost unbelievable luxury and the rest of the population in almost unbelievable poverty. Mr Ford did not mention the slow martyrdom of two hundred thousand political prisoners.
In fact the misery and famine were not caused by the devastating floods but mainly by the years of Stalinist government.
Nevertheless Amendment No 4 by the Group of the Party of European Socialists does not condemn the government but simply criticizes it.
Mr Ford usually uses slightly more forceful language, certainly where representatives of the democratic national right in Europe are concerned.
But now that we are talking about real political murderers and criminals on the left, Mr Ford suddenly tones his language down.
I find that very interesting.
Finally a word about the three Green Group amendments on American and European support for the building of two reactors.
It is not the first time the Green Group has dwelt on this subject.
Nor is it the first time that they have been mistaken, because the two new power stations are for the urgent replacement of two especially dangerous existing power stations which, furthermore, produce plutonium for the government for military use.
Anyone opposing the scheme is actually arguing for a new and perhaps even more dramatic Chernobyl.
For me the most important lesson today is the shamefaced but real solidarity that Mr Ford and the Group of the Party of European Socialists have with the monstrous communist regime in North Korea, a regime that they are not prepared to condemn but at most mildly criticize.
We shall not forget that.
Madam President, I recently visited North Korea with Trocaire, an Irish catholic agency, courtesy of my ECU allowance.
I am still coming to terms with what I saw there.
I was in the presence of a cult.
There is no doubt about it.
It is strange and weird.
Having said that, I think it is important to bring a bit of balance into the debate.
Certainly there are very serious food shortages.
There is a huge lack of medical supplies and there are, I will agree, structural problems over and above the recent disasters of the tidal wave, etc.
I got an opportunity to raise the whole area of human rights with the various ministers we met, and I got one concession with regard to access for the media.
I agree with the resolution where it says: ' monitoring is a problem' .
But we are in a dilemma here.
There is always a dilemma between humanitarian aid and the political dimension.
We must be guided by the humanitarian imperative.
With regard to the idea of sending a delegation from Parliament, if we agree to do that, it must build on the work of people who have already gone out, and not just be a sensational visit.
There are no statistics available, but there is no evidence of cannibalism.
Those sort of remarks are unworthy of this Parliament.
If they get into the media it just stirs up hate.
That is not what we are about here.
We must continue with the dialogue.
They are looking for joint ventures.
They want help with new technology.
They want aid and are very grateful for it.
Madam President, it is a well-known fact that for Communists the logical reasons and the bare realities of the figures are contestable if they differ from their pseudo-scientific analyses.
The Communists of North Korea have obviously established in one of their central committees that the agricultural harvest produced by the collective farms is sufficient to meet the needs of the North Korean population and, faithful to that position, they continue to deny the evidence that their population is dying of hunger and that thousands and thousands of children and old people are in dire poverty and are dying from malnutrition.
And, from their point of view, the offers of aid from the western world are no more than capitalist and reactionary provocation.
So, Madam President, perhaps to convince them to accept all our aid, we should do our best to reach an agreement with another Communist country, such as Cuba, to act as intermediary with the North Korean Government, but hiding the real source of the aid, for the sake of charity!
I am sorry to be a little ironic over such a tragic matter, but the attitude of the North Korean Government is so absurd that, to be really serious, we would have to hope for a revolutionary popular uprising to restore freedom and legality to that tortured country.
Madam President, the isolationist policy of the North Korean government means that precise data on the extent of the humanitarian problem cannot be available.
Mr von Habsburg, the figures which are circulating for the number of famine victims are all estimates which are very difficult to verify.
However, it cannot be disputed that the situation is very worrying.
The European Union has been giving significant humanitarian aid since 1995, the year in which Korea was the victim of serious floods.
This aid has been increased to meet the food shortage.
The total aid for 1997 thus rose to about 230, 000 tonnes of cereal equivalent.
Part is distributed via the World Food Programme, and part bilaterally.
As well as this aid, there are specific nutritional programmes for children and a complete set of health aid actions, which are supplied by UNICEF and the various NGOs, Médécins Sans Frontières, the International Federation of the Red Cross, etcetera.
Today, Mr Pettinari, the European Union, with ECU 66.5 million, is the biggest aid donor to North Korea.
Independent checkers are working in the country, in close collaboration with the World Food Programme, UNICEF and the NGOs, to ensure that our aid is used effectively, and of course to ensure that it is not deflected from its purposes.
The Commission has successfully adopted a firm position so that the monitoring teams can work without hindrance.
The result of these urgent actions is positive.
The officials of the World Food Programme estimate that the nutritional state of young children has improved.
Nevertheless, the food situation of Korea remains - and I share the feelings of many of you - very difficult.
Additional aid measures may have to be adopted in the coming months.
For this, the Commission is waiting for the result of the research by FAO and the World Food Programme on the quality of the harvests in Korea.
But it is clear - and I believe that here I am associating myself with a comment by Mr Dupuis - that economic reforms are necessary.
I would also say that political reforms are necessary to solve the structural deficit of food production in North Korea.
Aid relieves the risk of famine, but does not cure the evils which cause it.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, on 3 October last, the United Nations Mission for Human Rights was called to the UN headquarters for consultations.
The Congolese Government, in fact, was preventing it from investigating the alleged massacres in the country.
The High Commission for Refugees and many non-governmental organizations decided to suspend their operations in the eastern part of Congo and were then forced to leave the territory.
It is fairly difficult, if not impossible, for the new Congolese authorities to be able to run their country on the path of democracy and development without European Union aid.
But we cannot fail to stress that they should earn this Union aid, respecting human rights, the fundamental principles of democracy and, above all, cooperating constantly, and with no uncertainties and obstacles, with those who are there to help them.
Madam President, we regret the complete absence of any readiness for cooperation by the Congolese Government, and should like to express our deep concern about the departure of the UN mission of inquiry from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This delegation arrived on 24 August and was forced to leave Kinshasa again on 3 October.
I think that only damages the peaceful future development of Congo.
We should like to emphasize that the UN measures must be carried out, and appeal to President Kabila to cooperate fully with the UN mission of inquiry, and to permit it unlimited and unconditional access to the interior of the country.
Otherwise, Congo is threatened with isolation and that would also endanger the resumption of cooperation.
We acknowledge that European cooperation with the new Congolese Government and authorities is crucial to promoting democratization and development of the country, which has to recover from dictatorship and war.
We further stress that prerequisites for such cooperation must be the maintenance of human rights, democratic institutions and international law.
These requirements must be met, and the UN is an important institution for that.
I hope that Mr Kabila is ready for cooperation in this respect in future.
Madam President, first of all, let there be no ambiguity about our move.
We are intervening in defence of human rights, and perhaps we should state clearly that we are delighted that the Mobutu regime has ended.
We hope that this will be of benefit to the whole population of Congo, and after all, that is what we must get to work on.
It is true that the new regime must be clear from now on about respect for human rights, and it would really be a pity if Kabila wastes the opportunity which the mission of inquiry offers, because this must produce the truth about the killings and massacres which have actually occurred.
We know that Mrs Bonino has also brought us evidence about this.
We really want the mission of inquiry to be able to work.
This has not been the case until now, and we regret it.
We regret it for obvious reasons, because we think that a regime cannot base its authority or create international confidence unless it is based on the common values of respect for human rights.
So we say to Mr Kabila: open your borders, let us do the inquiry, which will be done objectively, and then, together, we will try to reconstruct Congo with all the aid which the European Union can provide.
Truly, we have here only one concern, which is the fate of the Congolese and their marvellous country.
Madam President, with the members of my group and most Members of this Chamber, I certainly associate myself with the criticism which has been made of the obstacles which the authorities of the Democratic Republic of Congo have put in the way of the United Nations mission of inquiry.
I also associate myself with the feelings of everyone at the fate of the civilian Rwandan refugees, who were hostages of the former Rwandan and Zairean dictatorships for so long.
I want to thank Mrs Dury for the details she has just provided about these dictatorships, because in the end I cannot help comparing the interest which our Chamber is bringing to the situation in former Zaire and its lack of interest in, for instance, Congo Brazzaville.
On one side, we condemn every month those who have been able to raise an army of liberation, supported by the population, to destroy a tyranny which several Member States of the Union had protected for thirty years, in the name of mutual corruption.
On the other side of the river, a dictator who was driven out at the ballot box returns to power by force, and thanks to the help of several foreign states, and in this case we find nothing to say in our emergency resolutions.
Anyone would think there is no emergency in that situation!
If we want to keep some credibility in our interventions, we must be careful in future to treat attacks on human rights and democracy equally.
Madam President, many of us had hoped that the end of the Mobutu dictatorship would bring the new Congo to greater democratic achievements and development.
However, since the first moves made by President Kabila, it seems to be necessary to continue with an active and firm policy with regard to the new Kinshasa authorities.
The European Union cannot, in fact, accept that the Congolese President is defying the entire international community and preventing a United Nations mission from investigating accusations made against the Kinshasa Government for making indiscriminate massacres in eastern Zaire. Europe should make respect for international legality and the implementation of the UN mission in Kivu a fundamental condition for the resumption of cooperation with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
And so it seems advisable to us for the Commission, and above all the Council, to coordinate this necessarily firm position with the United States, so that President Kabila does not have any way out and can be forced, by the international and European initiative, to observe at least some of the rules of democracy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has been taken in by President Kabila, who never intended to agree to anything democratic.
Today's resolution did not need to express indignation, simply to call for the aid to be stopped.
Aid to an absolute ruler is money wasted.
We found that before with Mobutu.
This debate is supposed to be topical.
I am certainly glad that I have a colleague who shares my opinion.
Today we should have talked about the other Congo, Congo Brazzaville.
What has happened to the protests from the Commission and Parliament against military intervention in the country by neighbouring Angola, against a dictator it is true.
We give a great deal of money to Angola as well. I did not think EU money was intended to fill the humanitarian gap that has opened up since the government in Rwanda hired hundreds of mercenaries, allocated the oil revenue to weapons from Russia and ordered 130 aircraft in America in order to rush to the aid of its neighbour.
I am in favour of maintaining public support in Europe for humanitarian aid to Africa and we cannot do that if we continue to support despots in Africa.
Commissioner, I urge you to dissociate yourself from African despots.
Madam President, Mr Tindemans has asked me to represent him.
I should just like to say that although Mr Kabila's second name is Desiré, he would not be our first choice of candidate for President.
He was brought top power by American commercial interests, and we Europeans have the task of taking energetic steps to see that even worse violations of human rights than in the Mobutu era do not occur. We should also be insisting that the United States of America work with us within the framework of Atlantic cooperation.
This concerns support for the position of the UN Commission, but also an energetic human rights policy, without which chaos will break out in the most central, most important country in Central Africa, which is also the largest and richest in raw materials.
China
Madam President, at the meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights last March the Union staked everything on its relationship with China and the credibility of its human rights policy.
Because of the discord between Member States the UN missed an opportunity to expose human rights violations.
But another result of the discord was that China was able to punish a number of Member States with impunity.
The lack of unity made the Union a very weak partner for China.
Now the Union has to show that it has learned its lesson.
The Maastricht Treaty requires that Union should have an active common human rights policy.
The events of March, as I said, showed that this can only be done jointly.
To make that possible the Union now has to start the preparatory discussions on a Community framework before the next meeting of the Commission on Human Rights.
The resumption of the political dialogue with China is welcome but national positions need to be harmonized.
We hope that this resolution is an important signal and at the same time an invitation to the Council to explain what has happened in order to avoid a repetition of the debacle a couple of months ago.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Unionist Party has therefore decided this morning to request an oral question with debate next month, so that the Council can explain its strategy.
Hopefully it will then become clear that the Council has also learned its lesson.
Both human rights policy and an unequivocal relationship with China are more important for the Union than dancing to the tune of China's rulers.
Madam President, some people have one minute worth and speak for two.
I shall endeavour to keep to the two minutes.
I should like to concur with what Mr Bertens has said.
We need to have a common approach, a common opinion.
Although the European states have been unable to achieve that, at least we should do so in the European Parliament.
Today we have a resolution which in my view makes a common opinion possible.
You are aware that we have had a series of resolutions to which I, on behalf of my party, was unable to give consent. This was because human rights have been bound up here with a series of political questions on which one may legitimately have a variety of opinions.
I believe that the human rights question in China is so urgent - and not just for the principle of maintaining human rights, but also for the healthy economic and social development of China itself - that it is right for us to take this initiative.
It must be our obligation - and for this we need a dialogue with China - to convince the Chinese side that as long as human rights are not widely recognized, as long as there is no progress in this respect, there cannot be the necessary advances in economic and social systems.
A society which does to acknowledge human rights, in which they are spurned, cannot be a society that meets with broad acceptance and it simply cannot organize all human resources to achieve economic progress.
Of course, economic progress in China continues apace, but that will soon meet limits if the process of economic development does not give rise to better conditions.
For these reasons the proposals we have produced should be fully supported, and I hope that at least in this House a unified and critical, though frank and solid, front can be presented to China.
Madam President, as colleagues will recall, we adopted a resolution in my name in this House on the subject of EU-China relations in the long term just before the summer break.
That report dealt with a very wide spectrum of relationships: the economic, the political and, of course, the question of human rights.
The fundamental point is that human rights in China remain absolutely dire.
Last year there were 6, 000 death sentences which is equivalent to the total for rest of the world.
The European Union, represented by the Commission on this occasion, has recently come to an agreement under which the human rights troika, in other words the dialogue between China and the European Union, will be resumed without conditions.
I congratulate the Commission on this achievement, in particular Sir Leon Brittan, because this means that we can once again engage in discussions about these very sensitive subjects.
Most importantly, because there are no conditions, it allows the European Union to proceed, if it wishes - and I hope it does - by tabling a resolution in Geneva at the next session next year to redeem our failure last year: the CFSP came under a lot of criticism because we could not unite on this question.
While recognizing many Member States have deep economic ties with China - and these are developing - we should not go down the road the Americans are going down, which is almost to ignore the question of human rights and the political dimension in favour of economic ties.
China takes Europe quite seriously, but not perhaps as seriously as it should.
I should like to tell the Commissioner here this afternoon that last year Mr Qian Qichen, the Foreign Minister of China, said that he could only take the European Union seriously when it had a single currency.
I would like him to bear that in mind.
Madam President, I agree with the speakers who find that not an awful lot has happened with regard to human rights in China.
I have here the latest report from Human Rights Watch on human rights in China in 1997.
It shows that not very much has really happened.
It is therefore obviously reasonable for us to adopt a resolution like the one I have signed here today.
At the same time I must admit that I was given something to think about the other day when Professor Tommy Koh, who is the director of the Asia-Europe Foundation in Singapore, was here in the European Parliament and commented on our way of dealing with China.
He supported all the substance of our criticism of China, but questioned the methods.
We must recognize that this is perhaps the fortieth resolution criticizing China which the European Parliament has adopted in a very short space of time.
The effect which we can observe has been limited.
We should criticize China, but we should still think about how we should improve our way of dealing with the Chinese so that we also bring about better human rights in China.
Mr President, when I met the new Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Tung Chee-hwa, earlier this week, I raised a number of concerns relating to recent developments there which do not augur well for the protection of human rights.
I questioned the narrowing of the franchise for next May's election in the former colony which will result in only 180, 000 of the 2.7 million voters being able to vote.
The use of universal suffrage would be more appropriate.
The introduction of the concept of national security into legislation is also a retrograde step, in particular if it is going to be used to restrict basic freedoms and especially the right of political dissent.
The repealing of four labour laws on 16 July by the Provisional Legislative Council was also discussed.
These laws protected basic trade union rights and their removal is a very worrying development.
We had a very frank exchange of views and as Parliament's rapporteur for Hong Kong I intend to monitor the situation very closely to ensure that basic human rights and freedoms are not eroded.
But I would also say that I very much appreciate that when Mr Tung came to visit the European Union, his first stop was the European Parliament.
I thank him for according our institution that respect.
Kosovo
Mr President, we in this Parliament have often, far too often, been forced to observe Serbia's unjust oppression of the Albanian population in Kosovo.
In spite of agreements entered into, the Serbs deny the Albanians, that is, the majority population in Kosovo, the education and culture they have a right to.
Peaceful demonstrations are crushed by an excess of police violence.
We, who are elected representatives of the people of Europe, demand of Serbia that the government initiates negotiations with the Kosovo Albanian leaders about the future status of the region as soon as possible, and that it immediately gives the EU the right to open an office in Pristina.
We remind honourable Members of our proposal for an international conference concentrating on the Kosovo issue.
Must thousands of people always have to die before the outside world acts? It would be wonderful if our resolution led to results now.
But if that does not happen, we must never tire.
In our battle for human rights, Kosovo still stands high on our agenda.
Mr President, no-one in this Chamber is unaware that the Kosovo problems are closely connected with the general problem in the Balkans and the fact that the Albanian communities present in Yugoslavia and Macedonia are closely connected with the problems in Albania. Having an attitude that takes these problems into account and that guarantees respect for minorities wherever they are is an element of stability and security in that highly risky area.
For this reason, we can only deplore the fact that the student demonstrations have been blocked totally unacceptably with police intervention by the Serbian Government.
For these reasons, we confirm the need, as already stated, to open a European Union office in Pristina, we confirm the need for respect for that dialogue and those agreements already effected between Milosevic and Rugova that should guarantee the opening and maintenance of university education systems for the Albanian minority.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately, we must deal once more with Kosovo, which is still a powder keg, and probably the most dangerous powder keg in Europe.
Recent developments have been far from positive when we look at incidents on Pristina in Kosovo itself, and when we see what tendencies the Serb elections have partially reinforced. They have unfortunately shown that the opposition in Yugoslavia has not been strengthened in any way, nor has it found a way of creating a democratic policy which also respects human rights.
The glimmer of light emanating from Montenegro is not sufficient to alter and improve the situation to any important extent.
There is no alternative for the Yugoslav authorities to starting a dialogue that takes account of the basic rights of the minority in Yugoslavia - which forms the majority in Kosovo, after all.
It is not the intention of this Parliament or of the European Union to call for alterations to borders.
On the contrary, we must clearly signal that the borders of European states are not up for discussion.
There must be within Yugoslavia, however, a solution achieving real autonomy and real maintenance of human and civil rights.
It is also important because there are developments in nearby Macedonia and FYROM that give cause for concern.
Although these are not comparable with what is going on in Kosovo, they do lead to unrest amongst the very large Albanian minority.
Some of the draconian punishments, though, appear to me to be too strict and too unproductive.
The Kosovo powder keg can at any rate have an effect on surrounding areas and states.
All the more important that we strive by every possible means to convince Yugoslavia that it must solve its own problems, particularly in Kosovo, with our help.
Mr President, on the subject of Kosovo, as just now on the subject of Congo, I would like to try to go against the dominant ideas.
I do not underestimate the democratic problems which may occur in Kosovo, or the possible attacks on human rights, but I want, once again, to warn against the temptation, to which the majority of this House is subject, of demonizing Serbia.
I would suggest that there will be no stable peace in the Balkans if the Serbs are kept apart from their history and their future.
I now put three simple questions. Which of our states would allow the interference in its internal affairs which we commit every month in Serbian affairs?
Secondly, whether it is the territorial limits of Bosnia yesterday, or the autonomy of Kosovo today, if we are so attached to the guarantees laid down by the laws of Yugoslavia, why were we so eager to dismember Yugoslavia? Finally, in encouraging the aspirations of the Albanians of Kosovo for autonomy, without any precautions, are we not taking the risk of feeding the implacability of Albania, and thus bringing all the borders of the region into question?
I propose to you that we leave anti-Serbian manicheism behind, and work seriously for a peace which is real because it is equitable, rather than a partisan destabilization.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately I do not have enough time to answer Mr Hory.
I should have been delighted to do so.
I have not heard so much nonsense all at one time for years. As I know the area better than Mr Hory - I have been in it constantly for seven or eight years - I have long been afraid that the dead quiet existing in Kosovo is about to come to a very bloody end.
There is about to be full retribution taken for the fact that the Western nations have been averting their eyes for eight years.
No one has so far made any attempt there to help the Albanians, who for the past eight years have been beaten, tortured and robbed of their most basic human rights.
And that is without even mentioning the fact that no one has attempted to restore to the Albanians in Kosovo, where they represent a 90 % majority, the rights stolen from them by Milosevic.
Our Western governments even forge agreements with Serbia for the return of the Kosovo refugees, a return to their executioners.
Unlike the USA, all European governments have unfortunately recognized Yugoslavia without the stipulation that steps for a solution of the Kosovo crisis had to be taken.
Unfortunately, the USA - like everyone else - also failed at Dayton.
Kosovo should have been on the table at Dayton, as this would have been the only way for Milosevic to learn that we are intent on seeing that people are not treated in the way they have been for years in Kosovo.
For seven years there has only been a shadow of an education system in this area, whose diplomas have no validity.
Young people are being defrauded of their future, and I am afraid that it will be just these young people who will one day be revenged on us.
Young people form a high proportion of the Albanian population.
We are sinning against it; we, and particularly the Serbian Government in Yugoslavia.
I hope that perhaps an opportunity will emerge from Montenegro to ensure that Yugoslavia organizes itself in such a way, that everyone who lives there can be subject to democratic government.
Mr President, western policy with regard to Kosovo is an accessory to murder.
Eight years ago Milosevic unlawfully occupied Kosovo.
Yugoslavia was destroyed by Milosevic and the Serbs when in 1988, in violation of the Yugoslavian constitution, they removed Kosovo's autonomy.
Since then they have been governed by a brutal police regime.
We have got to do something at last.
First of all, we must use pressure, not just eyewash, to see that at long last an office is opened there, similar to the one the Americans were able to establish in Kosovo without any difficulty.
We snivel, but we do nothing.
We have got to use pressure.
Secondly, we must supervise elections there with international observers.
That is essential, otherwise the police state will not disappear.
And thirdly, we must again use pressure to force Mr Milosevic to keep his vague promise to Mr Rugova, because Mr Rugova, like Ghandi, chose the non-violent approach.
We denounced him, so the young people there are resorting to weapons.
That is our fault and there is blood on our hands to this day.
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo has two features.
There is no contact between the Albanian population and the authorities and both parties are, so to speak, caught up in their own rhetoric and in the Balkans in particular you cannot risk loss of face by negotiating with anyone.
Recently the students have also entered into the picture, alongside political leaders like Rugova and Demaci.
There is more and more talk of attacks, even on refugees who have settled in the area and in my view leaders like Rugova and Demaci do too little to distance themselves from this.
With the introduction of the idea of autonomy in the area, the parties have also become enmeshed in their own positions and in this case you cannot, as it were, negotiate with the enemy without that well-known loss of face.
They say that the Serbs do want to talk about a solution but not about political status for Kosovo.
The Albanians first want their conditions met.
It seems to be time for the EU to mediate in absolute secrecy, gradually establishing positions which are then signed by both sides.
Then it might be possible to introduce the idea of autonomy, with the Albanians having their own identity but probably under the Serbian government.
EU mediation could be very significant here.
Belgrade will not be forced.
We know that from experience.
But Belgrade might be persuaded, and at any rate it is worth a try.
Souha Bechara
Mr President, throughout the case of Souha Bechara, it is in fact the state of lawlessness prevailing in that region which has to be condemned.
Between the territories where Lebanese legality applies and the territories of the south where law emerges under the democratic control of Israel, there is an area which in principle is Lebanese, but which in reality is controlled by a few warlords who are fed, armed, paid and commanded by Israeli soldiers.
But since this area is an area of lawlessness, where the arbitrary will of those who are armed rules, they arrest, they imprison, they even execute, without any complaint from anyone.
There is one prison, at Khiam, under this lawless regime.
Souha Bechara, a girl who admittedly attempted an act of tyrannicide on the person of one of these warlords, has been detained there for almost ten years.
This prison must be demolished, and the detainees must be transferred to a legitimate jurisdiction.
The major role the Israeli Government plays in the region identifies it as the one whose duty it is to end this disgrace.
Mr President, eight years ago, on 25 May 1989, the European Parliament drew attention in a resolution to the case of Souha Bechara.
She has now been in prison for nine years.
She was 21 when she went in.
She is now no longer a girl but a young woman of thirty who has no idea what will happen to her because in all those years she has not had a trial.
I think she is guilty but everyone, guilty or not guilty, has the right to a trial, including this young woman.
Guilty or not, and I think she is guilty, that is not the point, no one denies that, not even her mother, but her mother would like to see her again, and I think that is what we are asking for this afternoon.
The family has no access, the lawyers have no access, the Red Cross has no access.
I do not think that is what we mean by legal proceedings.
Mr President, we are asking you to inform the Israeli Government of what is going on so that it can take firm and positive action as a constitutional state.
Mr President, Souha Bechara was 21 years old when she was arrested, on 7 November 1988, after an act of resistance against Israel's auxiliary militia in Lebanon.
After her arrest, she was detained, without being charged or sentenced, in the sinister camp of Khiam, which recalls the prison of Tazmamart in Morocco.
Many prisoners have died there, and the health of those who survive is seriously affected, sometimes incurably.
Visits there by lawyers, the Red Cross and humanitarian organizations are forbidden.
Since 1989, as we have been reminded, our Chamber has requested the liberation of Souha Bechara. But the Israeli Government has remained deaf to all moves.
The Israeli Government is directly responsible for this imprisonment, since it occupies South Lebanon militarily, and it is using Souha Bechara as a hostage.
It is time to put an end to this intolerable situation, as Souha Bechara's mother and the humanitarian organizations asked us during the last part-session.
In its motion for a resolution, our group requests the immediate release of Souha Bechara and the other political detainees, and the dismantling of the Khiam camp.
Slovakia
Mr President, I have read the motion for a resolution on the Slovak Republic with interest.
I have something to say against it, however, and that is that insufficient differentiation is made between the Slovak peoples and their current tyrants.
Those of us who are older, those who have some experience of dictatorships, know very well that whilst there are guilty people, there is also a wider population that one cannot necessarily punish for the fact that some monster has gained power.
That particularly applies to the situation on Slovakia.
For that reason I have to say with regret that I shall have to reject two of the amendments.
They are Amendment Nos 7 and 8, which go too far in identifying President Kovacs with Mr Meciar.
Meciar is one thing, Kovacs quite another.
Kovacs is on the side of the people.
We should do everything possible for the people, but we should resist tyrants.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe it is somewhat unusual that we repeatedly have to discuss an associated country during a Thursday afternoon debate.
But it is equally unusual that a President of Parliament finds himself unable to participate in a longstanding meeting with colleagues from the central and eastern European countries in Slovakia, because a colleague has just lost his seat in the National Council of the Republic of Slovakia under conditions in glaring contravention to the Slovak constitution.
We take note of the fact that the heads of the Slovak Government are slowly appearing to realize that the path followed in recent years is forcing that country into isolation, not just from the Union, but from its other neighbours as well.
We hope - and I say this also as chairman of the Delegation to the EU-Slovak Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee - that the Slovak President and Prime Minister will take note of the recommendations of the joint parliamentary committee and heed their significance for the process of integration of Slovakia.
This was not just printed paper, and the Slovak leadership should be aware that this is the last opportunity to take part in an early round of talks on the eastward enlargement.
In particular, we should take the Prime Minister of that country at his word.
At our next meeting with our Slovak colleagues we shall discuss progress made, which up to now I have been unable to perceive in this area, and we shall then pass an appropriate recommendation to the House.
Mr President, if there is one point on which the European Union cannot compromise in its relations with associated countries, it is that of human rights and democracy.
The case of Mr Gaulieder, who has been ousted from the Slovak parliament, is the last in a long series of examples which are enough to show that Slovakia is doing everything to mortgage its relationship with the European Union, to which it is linked by an association agreement.
In Agenda 2000, the Commission does not mince words in denouncing the behaviour of Slovakia.
It is pointless to add that the request for Slovakia to join the European Union must remain a dead letter for as long as this state does not resolve to adopt behaviour which is worthy of a state of law and compatible with the Copenhagen criteria, which is a precondition of starting the accession process.
The effect of the irresponsible and unacceptable role of some Slovak institutions is to isolate Slovakia even more, and as some of the speakers before me have emphasized, this is to the detriment of the Slovak people.
Mr President, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the debate as I am the second vicechairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with Slovakia.
It is absolutely right that Parliament should, at this stage, make it perfectly clear to the government that we expect democratic standards to exist in that country.
Those certainly were the requirements that were imposed by the Joint Parliamentary Committee and agreed unanimously with our Slovak colleagues: that by the end of November, they would establish certain criteria for democracy in that country.
Sadly, the Gaulieder example demonstrates that, to date, they have not arrived at that position.
Having said that, I think we should always make it perfectly clear that our conflict is with the government of Slovakia, not with the people of Slovakia.
We should also make it perfectly clear that we regard, in the European Union, it as important that the people and the country of Slovakia should ultimately achieve their rightful place inside the European Union.
We would be pleased to see the people of Slovakia inside the EU.
Algeria
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs André-Léonard, I think the last part-session of this Parliament must have passed you by, at least as far as Algeria is concerned.
We did not vote yesterday as a united group.
We were against it because we had already passed a resolution on Algeria last time, after a full debate.
During that the hearing on human rights was agreed, which we obviously not only accept fully, but will also take very seriously. Furthermore, Parliament resolved to send a delegation to Algeria.
Unfortunately - I have to address this critical remark to the Presidency - such resolutions of Parliament have to travel a long road, and I do not understand why the Presidency and the Council of Presidents have had to delay and are still delaying, and have to await the hearing.
Here I agree with Mrs André-Léonard.
The problem is so urgent and so serious, and long discussions with the Algerian Government and Parliament will probably be necessary in any case before we can send this delegation, that I do not understand why there is delay.
We could probably have dispensed with today's resolution and another short debate, were the House to react more speedily to its own wishes.
It surprises me somewhat, as a relative newcomer, that this House passes a resolution, and yet there is still a committee saying: all right, do we want it or not; perhaps it should be deferred? If this House expresses the genuine, clear wishes of several - indeed, many - groups, then surely these should be carried out as quickly as possible.
Now a short comment on the declaration itself. I completely agree with the contents.
This is an unacceptable situation.
We must make the Algerian Government aware that this is not just an internal problem, but one for the whole Mediterranean region.
So we will not cease supporting efforts to seek a settlement of the situation in Algeria.
Mr President, the situation in Algeria remains serious and is totally unacceptable.
The EU and this Parliament are rightly concerned, as recorded in the resolution adopted in the last part-session.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, we are on the eve of a hearing currently being planned by the Sub-Committee on Human Rights, a hearing on human rights in that country.
The Algerian Foreign Minister will shortly be coming to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The Sakharov prize might be awarded to an Algerian woman - I think she has a good chance.
It is my group's view that we first have to take these steps before moving on to the initiatives proposed in the resolution - however sensible these might be in the future.
We see the resolution adopted last month as relevant and balanced and therefore cannot support this resolution today.
Mr President, during the September part-session - as we have been reminded - Parliament adopted a resolution on Algeria which asked the Algerian government to intensify the dialogue with all the political forces and national democratic elements which reject the use of violence.
In line with that resolution, a delegation of the European Parliament is being formed to go to that country.
Under the circumstances, I find the reasons for a new debate on Algeria difficult to explain.
Why this initiative? Is it to try once again to put the fundamentalist forces and their armed wing back on the rails of negotiation with the authorities, after the failure of this proposal at the time of the September part-session?
Our group will vote against the proposed resolution of the liberal group, which is a provocation on the very day of the municipal elections in Algeria.
Nevertheless, I make use of this debate to reaffirm our condemnation of the barbaric acts which are perpetrated by the fundamentalist groups, and our support of all those who fight against fundamentalism, most of all the Algerian women.
As the president of the Algerian union of democratic women recently said, the key to the solution lies with us. So let us affirm more strongly our solidarity towards the Algerian people, particularly by reinforcing cooperation in association with the active forces of the country.
Mr President, of course, one can always question how often we should criticize a particular country and take it up in resolutions.
But as far as Algeria is concerned, a new factor has appeared.
French newspapers are reporting well-founded suspicions that the Algerian Government may itself be involved in the massacres which are being attributed to the Islamic fundamentalists.
While it is true that there is no proof as yet, when such a respected paper as Libération takes it seriously and also reports that the paper itself is not allowed to send any journalists there in order to check the matter out, then it is very serious.
I am inclined to think that there has been a tendency in this Parliament to treat the Algerian Government as the only player capable of settling the matter, while in reality it might be the case that we have two players in Algeria who are both as bad as each other.
At any rate there are suspicions which mean that we are justified in re-examining the case and looking at it from a new perspective.
I am, therefore, able to agree substantially with Mrs André-Léonard.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, six countries today, in three continents.
This leads me to think that attacks on human rights are not, unfortunately, the prerogative or monopoly of certain countries or regions of the world.
That is regrettable.
I shall start with Congo, that is the Democratic Republic of Congo, since the resolution only concerns that country.
I will remind you that the Amsterdam summit and the General Affairs Council have expressed the intention of the European Union to establish constructive relations with the new government of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
However, article 5 of the Lomé Convention links European aid to respect for human rights and international humanitarian law, and to real engagement in favour of democracy and the establishment of a state of law.
The Commission will progressively resume its cooperation with the Democratic Republic of Congo depending on the progress which is recorded in these fields. This is what is called constructive conditionality.
The present situation in Congo is far from satisfactory.
First, the Congolese government continues to block the United Nations inquiry into human rights.
It prevents the High Commission for Refugees from carrying out operations to protect and assist Rwandan refugees.
Second, the government also delays starting the democratic process, which is indispensable to the recovery of the country.
The Commission regrets that the constructive dialogue which was started at the time of the troika mission to Kinshasa and continued at the meeting with the foreign affairs minister, Mr Karaha, in Brussels, has not been followed by results.
The Congolese Government must put its commitments to democratization and human rights into effect, and it must allow the United Nations to carry out the work for which it has been mandated.
The Commission is immediately pursuing its humanitarian aid programmes to help Congo to heal its wounds. ECU 81 million have been assigned for this purpose.
China is the second country under discussion.
The Commission is following the issue of respect for human rights and fundamental liberties in China with the greatest attention.
This subject has been taken up regularly with the Chinese authorities within our bilateral dialogue, since it began in 1994.
In particular, the Commission will give the greatest attention to the observance, in Hong Kong, of the agreements which have been made with Great Britain.
Mr McMillanScott referred to them just now.
I can say to him - although he is no longer among us - that we take this question seriously, without even waiting for the arrival of the euro on 1 January 1999.
China is currently participating in the preparation of the first Sino-European meeting of experts on human rights. This preparation is taking place at this very moment in Luxembourg.
The Commission hopes that this dialogue will achieve results.
It is willing to provide China with all the technical assistance which is necessary to help the implementation of its international commitments, particularly within the United Nations conventions on protection of human rights and fundamental liberties, to strengthen civil society and the state of law in China, for instance, by training judges and jurists or organizing exchanges of experts.
I can assure you that the Commission will keep the European Parliament informed on the progress which is achieved on this matter.
The third problem is that of Kosovo.
The Commission would like to take this opportunity of joining with the Parliament in condemning the violent repression of which the people who demonstrated peacefully on 1 October were victims, and of expressing its constant concern about the general situation in Kosovo.
The rights of the Albanian minority must be guaranteed, and Kosovo must be given a large degree of autonomy within the borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The Commission and Council have repeatedly expressed their wish to open an office in Pristina.
They invite the Yugoslav authorities to give their agreement, which is legally indispensable.
I do not think, incidentally, that this is an interference in internal affairs.
The Commission supports CSCE in its wish to resume its mission in Kosovo, and calls on the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to be willing to accept the presence, on the ground, of the high commissioner of CSCE to national minorities.
For the European Union, the start of a real dialogue on the status of Kosovo is a necessary condition for the development of bilateral relations with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Acceptance of this demand will be taken into consideration in the examination, next year, of a possible extension of the autonomous commercial measures.
The fourth point concerns the situation of Ms Souha Bechara.
First, the Commission wishes to see the implementation of Resolution 425 of the Security Council of the UN, asking Israel to put a time limit on the occupation of southern Lebanon.
The Commission expects Israel, as the responsible occupying power, to observe international standards on human rights, and the fourth Geneva convention on protection of civilians in wartime immediately.
The Commission is devoting the greatest attention - I can immediately reassure Mr Pradier, Mr Querbes and Mrs Puech on this point - to the arbitrary detention of Ms Souha Bechara and some other persons in Khiam prison.
This question, like all other subjects associated with the occupation of southern Lebanon, is regularly raised during contacts with the Israeli authorities.
The Commission asks the authorities concerned to hold a fair trial and to authorize visits by the International Red Cross.
The Union will be better placed to exercise a positive influence on questions associated with human rights when the Euromediterranean association agreement has been ratified.
The Euro-Israeli political dialogue will then offer an excellent forum for this purpose.
The fifth subject concerns Slovakia.
The Commission is following the development of the situation in Slovakia with the greatest attention. On this, the Commission is determined and optimistic.
First, it is determined, and intends to raise the questions of human rights, the proper functioning of Slovak democratic institutions and protection of minorities at each of its contacts with the Slovak political authorities.
Democracy has rules which do not allow compromises.
First, the representatives elected by the people must be able to exercise their mandate freely and entirely independently.
In this context, the decision of the Slovak parliament not to reinstate Mr Gaulieder, despite an injunction of the Slovak constitutional court, is worrying, and Mr Goerens is right.
Second, the opposition must be able to participate in the normal functioning of parliamentary activities.
The Commission thus vigorously deplores the impossibility, for the representatives of the opposition, of joining the parliamentary committees which are responsible for controlling the secret services and the army.
Third, minorities must benefit from the protection of the law.
The significant deterioration of relations between the public authorities and the minority of Hungarian origin is disturbing.
The Slovak authorities must continue their efforts to meet the democratic standards which are recognized in other European countries.
The Commission is nevertheless optimistic.
The Slovak President, Prime Minister and Parliament have publicly undertaken to remedy these deficiencies.
The desire of Slovakia to join the European Union is strong.
Its authorities are conscious of the efforts which must be made.
I can assure Mr Bösch that the Commission will carefully examine all recorded progress.
The partnership for accession, which is currently being prepared, will give a large place to the question of human rights and the proper functioning of institutions.
It is clear that the protection of fundamental liberties is a sine qua non of belonging to the European Union.
Lastly, Algeria.
The Commission shares the concern of the European Parliament regarding the recurring murders of civilians in Algeria.
At the time of your last part-session in September, the 17th to be exact, Mr Marín gave a long explanation of the whole of this dossier, and the debate very accurately exposed the extent and complexity of the crisis through which Algerian society is passing.
The Union cannot avoid being concerned about a conflict which is such a short distance away, has already made tens of thousands of victims, and every day seems to reach new limits of horror.
Algeria is an important partner of the Community, within the Euromediterranean partnership which was launched in 1995 in Barcelona.
The long term objective remains the creation of an area of peace and shared prosperity.
The Commission received from the Council, on 10 June 1996, a mandate to negotiate to prepare an association agreement between the Union and Algeria.
This agreement must obviously be based on respect for democratic principles and the fundamental rights of the human being, as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Two cycles of discussions have already taken place.
Some people have wondered whether this is the right time to pursue these negotiations.
Let me remind you that they are indispensable in the eyes of the Commission.
A large part of the violence has its roots in the serious economic and social problems through which Algeria is passing.
All actions which help the economic development of the country can contribute to reducing this violence.
The Union must persevere at the moment when Algeria is passing through its worst difficulties.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0839/97 by Mr Eisma, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the forest fires in Indonesia; -B4-0842/97 by Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the forest fores and air pollution in south east Asia; -B4-0868/97 by Mr Fernández Martín and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the forest fires in Indonesia; -B4-0871/97 by Mr Dell'Alba and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the fires devastating the Indonesian tropical forest; -B4-0881/97 by Mrs González Álvarez and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the forest fires in south-east Asia; -B4-0892/97 by Mrs van Bladel and others, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on the forest fires in Indonesia; -B4-0893/97 by Mr Telkämper and Mr Holm, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the forest fires and air pollution in south-east Asia.
Mr President, the Indonesian Government's policy of opening up remote forest areas for economic development has serious shortcomings.
Indonesia does not even have the resources to monitor environmental violations by companies effectively.
The Indonesian forestry service is too short of manpower and funds to exercise the necessary control.
Also it is not at all clear who is responsible for fighting the forest fires and who should take action.
We have drawn up this resolution together and it strikes us that the European Commission has certainly taken the initiative in helping Indonesia fight the fires, but in both cases it seems to me a little too late.
That is why I am so much in favour of paragraph 13 of the motion for a resolution, in which we call for a European green beret force to be set up as a kind of intervention force specialising in natural and environmental disasters.
I would like the European Commission to take this initiative.
Then Europe would mean something in the world.
Mr President, the forest fires which have been raging in Indonesia are nothing short of a global environmental catastrophe.
Some blame El Niño but the drought caused by that rain failure is itself the result of climate destabilization, to which large-scale tropical deforestation is continuing to contribute - a vicious circle.
Carcinogenic smoke, which has spread for more than 3, 000 km, will have a lasting effect on the health of 70 million people, many of whom have no access to a reasonable level of health-care or even unpolluted water.
The culprit is the Indonesian Government turning a blind eye to illegal clearances and the greed of the private companies they support which, just like the oil companies in America, have no concern for the dramatic effects on the world climate their actions are causing.
Sadly for the planet, the Indonesian timber barons are more concerned about denying guilt than preventing a recurrence of this tragedy in the future.
I call the attention of the House to the article in The Economist only last week which was predicting exactly such an event.
I call the attention of the Commission - in addition to what Mr Eisma has said, rather than repeat it - to paragraphs 10, 11 and 12 of this resolution, and trust that this disaster will concentrate minds in those in government in south-east Asia to play their part in building a more sustainable future, which is something they certainly have not been doing in the past.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the previous speakers have already referred to the enormity of the catastrophe unleashed by the forest fires currently raging in south-east, especially Indonesia.
Areas greater than any of the largest Member States of the Union are on fire.
The joint motion for a resolution, drawn up by six political groups, refers to the devastating effects of the fires on the health and small-scale economies of millions of people in the areas affected, and I wish to endorse those statements.
However, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to underline as forcefully as possible the concern caused by the growing number of natural disasters of this kind and by the absence of measures to rectify certain of the developed world's industrial activities, which threaten the environment and cause climate change, in the face of the lack of action on the part of those who are obliged to adopt more effective preventive measures.
The statement to the National Geographic Society made just a few hours ago by President Clinton, announcing his proposals concerning the reduction of CO2 emissions, is quite simply inadequate.
It is inadequate in terms of both the final objectives and the deadlines announced.
We are on the eve of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change in Kyoto.
We are obliged to make an effort to ensure that the Kyoto Conference is not a failure, as has been the case with a number of previous conferences of this kind in the latter part of the century.
We cannot simply wait for disasters like that occurring in Indonesia to happen, and then provide funds and send experts to put out the fire, whilst simultaneously remaining paralysed in our efforts to adopt measures to prevent global warming, which is the origin and cause of a great many disasters.
Mr President, when we first heard of those catastrophes the media blamed El Niño for the forest fires in Indonesia.
When we thought more about the real causes we discovered that it was over-exploitation of tropical forests: not only to produce timber, but also the conversion of those forests to produce oil plantations.
Therefore, my group has proposed that a system of civil liability should be introduced in the framework of an international convention on forests.
Of course, we know that there is severe opposition to the creation of such a convention and we have recently seen this at the negotiations in the recent intergovernmental forum on forests in New York.
As a rapporteur on the communication on research and development in developing countries, I urge the Commission especially to ensure that sustainable management - not sustainable exploitation, as we say here in our motion for a resolution - for tropical forests is introduced.
The Commission should help us in this.
Mr President, the resolution in front of us naturally reflects concern for the environment in Indonesia and the region, but in my view the resolution focuses almost exclusively on the environment and completely ignores the needs of many small farmers in the area who have to find land to make a livelihood.
The resolution does not offer them a single solution.
I also find it a little hypocritical that we in Europe still cannot take firm action on our own problems by finding common standards for emissions.
I do find the resolution a little one-sided, however worthwhile the suggestions it contains.
My group will vote for this resolution, but I myself shall vote against the one-sidedness, which to me is unacceptable.
Mr President, these forest fires in Malaysia and Indonesia are not a natural catastrophe.
They are the result of a particular method of agriculture, and they occur a the expense of nature.
A large part of the ecological lungs is being destroyed, but also people who live in the forests, indigenous races, are being killed and destroyed.
According to information from the Indonesian Forestry Minister 80 % of the current fires originated on plantations belonging to the major timber companies.
The largest plantations belong to companies such as Finantara Intiga, a joint venture by two Indonesian companies and the Finnish concern ENZO FINLAND.
Only a short while ago UPM-Kymmene Finland and the Asian group APRIL, operating from Singapore, agreed on the establishment of a joint company for the manufacture of paper.
The new concern is the largest producer of high-grade paper in Europe.
In Asia, paper mills in Sumatra, Indonesia and China will produce about two million tonnes of paper and cellulose.
Nordland Paper in Germany also belongs to UPM-Kymmene, and is involved in the Eurasian deal.
European corporate interests are contributing to the formation of plantations out of primeval forests in Indonesia.
To do this the areas concerned are frequently burned off.
In addition, the establishment of plantations endangers the existence of indigenous peoples in the region, whose original land is often commandeered, and who thus lose their economic base.
In the resolution of the European Parliament it says that indigenous residents in the Indonesian interior are hardest hit by the forest fires, because their access to unpolluted water is limited.
Furthermore, the indigenous population of West Papua is suffering acute food shortages caused by a combination of the current drought and forest fires.
Some 500 people have died of starvation so far.
UN sources estimate that at least 90, 000 people will be affected by food shortages.
The forest fires in Kalimantan also affect worst the indigenous peoples there, as their cultural and economic existence depends upon the maintenance of forest resources.
Scientists on the spot believe that plantations exclusively of fastgrowing trees with short harvesting periods will contribute to a drying out of the forests.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am surprised by some of the remarks made here, in which events have been portrayed as though this were a matter mainly of natural catastrophe and hardly capable of being influenced.
Some colleagues have made it clear that this is a close-knit web of natural factors, but it is bound up with very many important political, social and economic factors as well.
Slash and burn is frequently the cause not only of local catastrophes, but also of international and global effects. There are two reasons for slash and burn.
Either major corporations want to clear large areas; in the Indonesian example this could be for housing, agriculture, or production of palm oil. Or it may be because small farmers see no other way of acquiring land.
In both cases there are serious inroads into the natural life cycle, but as far as major corporations are concerned, as is particularly the case in Indonesia, this is especially serious.
It is not that we are against economic progress, nor that we are against clearance, even in tropical forest, but there must be sustainable agriculture.
Short-term profit must not be the main motive, as is the case here.
Everything possible must be done, therefore, even by the European Union.
I should really like to ask the Commission to give these things greater attention, in order to take measures against such practices and to arrive at a sensible method of agriculture which particularly favours the small farmers, those who this case are frequently driven out.
I think it is particularly dubious that there have been many press articles maintaining that a lot of these companies have some property association, or otherwise have some personal involvement, with President Suharto's relatives.
There is a lot of political corruption at work here.
I believe that all these factors should be investigated by the Commission and the Council in order to prevent or to stop this evil process, which is destroying people.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you know that forest fires are a recurrent problem in Indonesia.
Every year, the farmers burn almost a million hectares to free land or for cultivation to produce food - Mr Swoboda alluded to this a moment ago.
The importance of the present fire is due to the extreme drought, which has encouraged it to spread extremely rapidly.
To support the efforts of the Indonesian authorities, the Commission and the Member States have jointly created, in Jakarta, a European Union Fire Response Group (Eufreg), consisting of experts on forest fires.
This group is responsible for communicating all useful information to the government, evaluating the situation on the ground from day to day, assessing needs which may arise, for example, for fire-fighting equipment, and advising the government on the actions to be taken.
The specific proposals of Eufreg on the possibilities of intervention are expected next week, and of course we shall keep your Assembly informed on these proposals.
The Commission is now proceeding - and I am now replying to the comment of Mrs Pollack, particularly on points 10, 11 and 12 of the resolution - to evaluate the medium term and long term regional impact of these fires, and the Commission will, as far as it can, help the government and the local populations to overcome the consequences.
However, I must add that the experts today judge that only heavy rain can stop the fires completely.
Finally, I would not like to finish without replying to Mr Eisma, who put a question to me about point 13, concerning setting up a European corps of green helmets.
The concern on which this initiative is based is evident, but the Commission considers that the qualified and experienced resources which exist in the Member States can be used and coordinated efficiently by the competent services, within the mechanisms for cooperation and expertise which already exist.
Today it is therefore right to mobilize them.
Mr President, I should like to establish that the Commissioner in his speech, for which he is not responsible, has not dealt with the main points of our arguments.
I should also welcome a written answer to our questions.
That was a reply that did no justice whatever to this resolution.
We shall provide all the elements which you want.
I will pass on your request to my colleagues, Mr Marín and Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, the earthquake that affected Italy is unfortunately still having disastrous effects in one of the regions most dear to Italian culture, to European culture, I would say to world culture: Assisi, the homeland of St. Francis, where the great masterpieces of Giotto and Cimabue are to be found. Historic memorials to a great culture are affected by this disaster, and unfortunately the effects are still being felt even after some time.
I think that it would be quite reprehensible if the European Union failed to pay particular attention to this, not so much to the disaster in itself but to what this disaster means in terms of the loss of cultural wealth of humanity. It should pay particular attention to the homeland of St. Francis, the birthplace of cultural movements of great European significance, of great world significance, where today the people are living in terrible conditions, and there have been many victims.
Mr President, the earthquakes in central Italy have apparently not only caused human suffering but destroyed cultural treasures.
The Union should not look on passively, it should try to understand and follow this human and cultural tragedy and alleviate the distress.
It must obviously make a contribution to the rebuilding of the ruined houses and provide shelter for the thousands of homeless.
We must see what specific help can be counted on for the restoration of the basilica in Assisi and the Giotto and Cimabue frescoes.
Over a thousand historic buildings were damaged in the earthquakes and as Mr Graziani said that is clearly a severe blow to Europe's and not just to Italy's cultural heritage.
The Union must therefore find ways of helping with the restoration work, for instance through the Raphael programme or the structural funds earmarked for Italy.
Finally, of course, a word of sympathy to the families of the victims.
Mr President, Assisi, mentioned by Mr Graziani, Foligno, Nocera Umbra, Colfiorito and many other municipalities of Umbria and the Marches have sustained much damage with irreparable losses of monuments, works of art, churches, houses, with much suffering for the population.
The proposed joint resolution put forward gives us hope, as seven political groups have felt the need to take action and, by recourse to the Commission, to prepare the path in some way for an agreement assisting reconstruction with European resources.
Umbria and the Marches fall under objective 5b and have around ECU 150 million for the period 1994-99.
The negotiations that will be concluding in Brussels on 5 November, between President Santer and Mr Ciampi, could decide on the allocation of ECU 500 million obtained from other structural funds intended for Italy and not yet used by the authorities responsible.
The correct flexibility called for by the two regions affected in spending these sums should naturally also provide firm guarantees for a reconstruction consistent with the culture, architecture and landscape affected.
Mr President, the tragedy that has affected Central Italy has two particular features that require more complex and innovative measures and intervention than usual from the Italian Government and the European Commission.
In the first place, the region affected is one of the richest in historic and artistic wealth, at both Italian and European level.
It is not just a question of great individual monuments such as Assisi, which is the wealth of humanity, but a city fabric, made up of dozens of centres ranging from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, that has been partially destroyed or seriously damaged.
Secondly, the tremors that have continued for twenty days now, which is an exception, keep the anguish of the populations alive - tens of thousands of people are housed in tents with winter on the way - making it difficult for the work involved in shoring up the dangerous buildings to continue.
The desire for recovery is persistent and surprising: schools are being run in tents, craftsmen are trying to work in makeshift accommodation, as are the municipal authorities.
But help will soon be on the way.
There is still an enormous amount of difficult work to be done because the fundamental features of an extremely civilized world of historic places, of democratic fabric organized around municipalities in a network of small and medium-sized highly skilled craft businesses has to be reconstructed.
For this reason, seven political groups are proposing a resolution asking for emergency aid which I believe is already being provided.
The Commission is asked to provide exceptional aid to face the problem of the homeless, houses and public buildings, but also support for the recovery of production and, above all, and this is something new, we want to look at the possibility of using the structural funds allocated to Italy that have not yet been committed.
I think this is an interesting path for other similar cases as well.
A whole range of proposals is thus put forward to face the complexity of the situation arising in this part of Italy consistently.
We clearly need guarantees that the architectural features will be observed and, what is also interesting, we want two research programmes to be implemented on the prevention of earthquakes and on the new restoration technologies.
Mr President, I too would like to remind this Chamber of the tragedy being experienced by thousands and thousands of European citizens, as well as Italians, victims of the umpteenth disaster.
I want to remind you because Europe can make itself felt - once again - in these circumstances too.
Those unfortunate Italians affected by the earthquake, benefit - if I can say that with a touch of irony - from the good fortune of belonging to a state which has only managed to spend one-tenth of the structural funds allocated to it.
Consequently, if we succeed, through the efforts being made by all the groups, the Commission and the Italian Government -and I am really pleased Commissioner Silguy is listening to us this time - in completing this operation of placing unused structural funds at the disposal of the people who have suffered thousands and thousands of Italian lira worth of damage, I think it would be an excellent result and it would be really useful for the whole of the European Union, its image and its ideals.
Mr President, we have all seen the disastrous effects of the earthquake which has devastated the regions of central Italy.
Our solidarity goes out first and foremost to the people experiencing the tragedy of the earthquake, but should also lead us to consider the devastation suffered by the immense artistic wealth of the region.
In Italy, a veritable contest in solidarity has developed to come to the aid of the victims, a solidarity which today, in view of the exceptional nature of the earthquake and its tragic consequences, requires special emergency aid and special funds, in addition to the structural funds allocated to Italy, within the scope of the 1992-99 programming period.
However, beyond the more urgent aid and in the light of the exceptional duration, the extent and anomalies of the telluric motion, we believe it advisable and urgent to be able to prevent any type of disaster by finding new possibilities of prevention, also resorting to the new technologies offered by modern science.
For this purpose, the Commission needs various specific research programmes for the study and prevention of earthquakes, together with research into new technologies aimed at the reinforcement of the architectural wealth existing in the areas at risk of earthquake and at risk of natural disasters in general.
Floods in Spain
Mr President, I would first like to express my sorrow at the loss of life caused by the recent floods in Valencia and Murcia.
It is no coincidence that we agree in the joint motion for a resolution that the seriousness of these floods lies in the regularity with which they occur, in an area which is prone to deforestation and erosion on account of its geomorphological features.
We are therefore calling for the provision of urgent financial assistance to repair the damage and the preparation of a rehabilitation and reconstruction plan for the rebuilding of everything that has been destroyed by the floods.
However, I would stress that the most important thing is to call for the establishment of a specific budget heading for measures to prevent and alleviate the effects of these recurrent floods.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, in order to avoid too much repetition, it is true that these floods occur regularly in the Alicante-Valencia-Murcia region of eastern Spain, and that on this occasion there were five deaths, which is the most regrettable thing. It is also true that more than 10 billion pesetas worth of damage was caused to housing, infrastructure and agricultural land.
As my colleague said, therefore, we are calling on the Commission to provide urgent financial assistance.
It should be recalled, moreover, that one of the amendments to a report on civil protection that we examined recently proposed the establishment of a specific budget heading to cover disasters of this kind, which unfortunately occur all too frequently. We hear about them every month in the part-session, and a specific budget heading would perhaps make it easier to provide more effective and rapid assistance when it is needed.
Fires in Brazil
Mr President, no-one could have been surprised by the news that the forests are on fire in the Brazilian Amazon.
For many years human hands have been making irreparable errors in this ecologically most fragile of areas.
For years slash and burn has been carried out without any thought, and for years other infrastructure changes have been made to permit even faster deforestation and removal of the timber, so that rain forest can disappear even more rapidly for ever.
It is a fact in all this that there has been no long term utilization of the rain forest for industrial purposes and under the auspices of multinational concerns.
The only people who can really manage the essential rain forest ecosystem are the Indians who live there.
They are the first to suffer under the current smog blanket, not the aircraft captains and car drivers in Manaus.
They have for years been the first to be expelled by fire-raising cattle ranchers and by Caterpillar tractors serving the tropical timber merchants, and they are also pressurized by landless peasants from other parts of Brazil.
If only there were land reform in Brazil, if the Brazilian Government were to introduce and enforce efficient laws against slash and burn practices, if research results from the G7 pilot programme - into which a lot of money has been poured - were put into practice, then the rain forest would be under less of a threat, and sustainable and ecologically produced goods could be on sale at a fair price.
And then the tropical hardwoods could stay where they are today in the interests of local people, the multinationals and our ecosystem.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, earlier my colleague and countryman, Fernando Fernández Martín, said that the forest fires in Indonesia and Brazil were bad news for the Kyoto Conference.
And that is true.
There are two fundamental causes of the fires in Indonesia and Brazil: the interests of loggers, and the demands of farmers.
The two have to be dealt with completely differently.
The loggers, for whom the fires produce economic benefits, have to be dealt with by means of fair legislation that provides for penalties.
As for the farmers, it should be recalled that a short while ago more than 40 000 peasant farmers marched 1000 kilometres in Brazil calling for the fair distribution of land.
Indeed, this is one of the causes of the fires.
We believe that the following two measures should be adopted: the imposition of penalties on loggers who are destroying a natural resource which is the heritage of all mankind; and the fair distribution of land so that peasant farmers are not forced to burn the rain forest.
Hurricane in Mexico
Mr President, I should like to begin this speech by saying that I am very pleased to be able to congratulate the Commission for once, since it seems that the humanitarian aid supplied through Echo was extremely rapid and effective.
However, our group believes that the seriousness of the damage caused by Hurricane Pauline, with 120 deaths and three states affected - we visited one them, Chiapas, but all three suffer equally from poverty and inadequate housing and infrastructure - lies in the fact that it simply served to aggravate a situation that was already bad.
We are therefore calling for the aid provided to match the losses incurred in these terribly impoverished areas, for this is the only way to ensure that quality of life is not further reduced in the region.
Mr President, I also believe that the aid granted by the European Union is highly appropriate, since it demonstrates the EU's solidarity with Mexico, which is currently strengthening its relations with the EU as a whole, as witness the fact that a new cooperation agreement will be signed on 8 December 1997.
As Mrs González Álvarez said, although the information that we have is only provisional, it is sufficiently worrying for the European Union to have to consider the need to increase this aid. I also agree with her that we must congratulate the Commission's services, under the authority of Mrs Bonino, on the promptness and efficiency with which they mobilized this ECU 400, 000 worth of aid.
Nevertheless, Madam President, I believe that the Commission must continue its efforts and find ways to increase the aid as more definite information becomes available.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner to convey to Mrs Bonino the request to increase the aid as more definite information becomes available, as has been done with other countries, such as the countries of eastern Europe.
Acryl amide poisoning in Sweden
Mr President, the construction of the tunnel through Hallandsåsen in southern Sweden is a major environmental scandal which I would not have thought possible in Sweden in 1997.
The parties involved in this scandal are two governments, the National Rail Administration, which is building the railway, a major construction company, Skanska, which is carrying out the work and a French chemicals company, Rhône-Poulenc, which is supplying the sealing agent Rhoca-Gil for the construction of the tunnel.
This sealing agent contains many more times the amount of the toxic substance Acryl amide than the company previously disclosed.
The European Union is also involved because this is a TEN project which is receiving subsidies from the EU.
A full 1, 004 tons of this sealing agent has been pumped into the mountain.
Of this 400 tons is pure Acryl amide.
If you knew how incredibly toxic this substance is then you would understand that this is a major environmental scandal - not only in Sweden, but it could be a major environmental scandal throughout Europe, since the agent has been used for more than twenty years throughout the entire world.
In Sweden, the country which we thought had the toughest environmental standards in Europe, this scandal was discovered by chance because some cows were paralysed and we had to investigate what had caused these cows to become sick.
How many people who suffer from mysterious numbness and sensations in their hands and legs, etcetera, have been poisoned by Acryl amide? Nobody knows.
How many current or future cases of cancer are due to as yet undiscovered discharging of this substance? These are questions which we must ask ourselves and which the Commission must also ask itself.
The Commission must therefore ensure that there is a proper investigation into whether the environmental impact assessment has been followed for this TEN project.
The Commission must also examine where and how this substance has been used.
Mr President, as the previous speaker said, a few weeks ago poisoned cattle were discovered in the area where the railway tunnel is being built.
Construction was then halted and the water supply was checked.
It then became apparent that the ground water - not only the water in the brooks flowing in the area, but even the ground water - was contaminated, which means that the drinking water intended for human consumption in this area is undrinkable.
For how many decades to come, nobody yet knows.
Ironically this has happened in connection with the construction of a railway tunnel, in other words, environmentally friendly transport.
But Acryl amide, which is contained in the sealing agent Rhoca-Gil, which is sold and distributed by the French chemicals company, is not only used in tunnels but also, amongst other places, in various mines.
In 1983 just 50 kg of this sealing agent alone was used in one of Sweden's largest mines. However, its use was discontinued after it was discovered that it caused injury to the miners who worked with the agent.
It is, of course, also the case now that there are workers who have been injured.
We do not yet know the extent of their injuries.
But we do know that there have been injuries among those who have worked on this project.
In other words: poisoned cattle, a herd of breeding cattle which has been destroyed, meat production which has been stopped because contaminated meat got into the production and ground water contamination on a major scale.
The Swedish government has seen to it that a police investigation has been started.
In addition, an independent committee is to investigate the matter.
However, I think that the EU also bears a large degree of responsibility because this is a TEN project, and it must find out whether this substance is still being sold on a large scale, how many EU citizens may have come into contact with it and ensure that in future it is controlled as a harmful substance.
Mr President, what has happened in connection with Hallandsåsen is, of course, a tragedy.
It is in Sweden that we must deal with the damage which has been caused.
However, I welcome the fact that it is the subject of discussion here, because it is, of course, important that both the EU and the individual Member States learn from what has happened.
The Commission must, therefore, now find out where and how Acryl amide has been used and continues to be used, and consider the need for a ban, but also check whether the manufacturer really has followed the applicable directives as regards labelling etc.
It is astonishing that anyone could handle hazardous chemicals in the way that has happened here.
The results can now be seen in a contaminated external environment and workers who have suffered injury to their nervous systems.
In one way chemicals are the curse of society.
We who make the legislation are fighting a continuous battle to keep up with new products which are introduced onto the market.
The European Parliament has energetically pursued the question of whether we should have a comprehensive environmental assessment for Transeuropean Networks.
However, that was not applicable in this case, since the project was decided long before Sweden joined the EU.
It is worth mentioning that the tunnel under Hallandsåsen is not itself financed by EU funds, even though the construction of the railway is part of a TEN project.
This does not of course make this any less of a disaster, but I still think that it could be of interest to you, my friends in the European Parliament, to know that the tunnel is not financed by EU funds.
I welcome the resolution and hope to see some action from the Commission.
Mr President, let me begin by expressing my regret at what has happened and directing my most sincere sympathy to those who have been affected.
In this, as in so many other matters, the easiest route is very often to demand new legislation and new EU directives.
Instead we should ask ourselves the question of what really went wrong? A number of questions remain unanswered.
Who is really to blame when everybody is blaming everybody else - construction companies, authorities and government? This must now be decided by a commission and by the judicial authorities.
Part of the truth is that even this is largely a national question.
Sweden's Social Democratic government has for the past three years, since Sweden's entry into the Union, delayed environmental legislation and thus the implementation of three EU directives and the environmental impact assessment.
The tunnel through Hallandsåsen is intended to become the largest time-saving measure on a very long stretch of railway.
It would be very unfortunate if we were to now fill it in and make one of the environmentally best transport alternatives impossible to implement.
It is not the tunnel that is wrong, rather it is the clumsy handling through incompetence and inadequate management.
Mr President, pollution has occurred in Sweden during the construction of the Hallandsåsan tunnel, significant pollution because it seems that the water table has been affected.
As we have been reminded, on 30 September, several cows which were drinking water at the tunnel exit presented neurotoxic symptoms and had to be destroyed.
Since then, the work has stopped.
A judicial inquiry has been opened to determine the responsibility of the various actors.
There has been very strong media interest around this affair, but for the moment the government commission of inquiry which has been set up has not yet given its conclusions.
And that is where the shoe pinches.
In fact, the product which is the origin of the pollution was manufactured by a French manufacturer about which people have been pleased to raise questions.
This product has been used for twenty years without any adverse effect on the environment, but to use it a rigorous procedure must be observed.
I remind you that the operator himself has declared to the press, on 8 October, that mistakes might have been made on his site, and that he took full responsibility for the bodily harm which his employees had suffered.
Of course, we condemn all pollution; of course, we ask the Commission to make an inquiry; but this condemnation of the supplier of the incriminated material, without proof, seems to us all the less urgent because the official inquiry has not given its conclusions.
Mr President, everybody involved, from the Swedish government to the subcontractors, bears a responsibility for the terrible scandal in Hallandsåsen.
The situation in the area is disastrous: the residents cannot use the local water, the area risks losing its appeal as an area for leisure and recreation, agricultural and horticultural produce are not fit for consumption, the market is overreacting and even undamaged produce is impossible to sell within a large area.
Unforeseen costs in connection with the construction of the tunnel may have affected environmental safety.
But essential savings, even in the state budget must never lead to a reduction of environmental controls.
The industry and the principle contractor involved are multinationals.
For that reason it is necessary and appropriate for the international community, in this case the EU, to react.
That is why Parliament must forcefully demand that the Commission investigates whether current laws are being followed and whether they could be improved.
I support the resolution, and I am also pleased that EU opponents from Sweden in this Parliament are now putting their trust in the EU's institutions.
Mr President, it is sad to realise that the representatives of Rhone Poulenc have been lying about the Acryl amide content of this material.
They have had to admit it, although the same firm have, on various occasions, signed all sorts of declarations regarding responsible business and environmentally-friendly activity.
This very clearly shows that industry is not at all ready for any kind of self-regulatory procedure.
I know many in this Parliament appear to believe in this latter, but surely this example once again shows that there is a need for legislation.
As a member of the Committee on Budgets, I can say that we are soon going to be voting fully consciously on the report on products used in the construction industry.
In that connection there will perhaps be a chance to intervene in this matter and demand a stricter assessment of the risk of construction products.
It is obviously clear that materials are always coming onto the market, whose effects are not sufficiently well-known, which is also especially true when it comes to how they behave when released into the natural environment.
Mr President, one of Europe's most outstanding areas of natural beauty has been hit by an environmental disaster.
The people around Hallandsåsen have had their water, plants and animals poisoned by a carcinogenic substance.
People may also have been seriously injured.
It is extremely important that the question of responsibility is investigated and that those who caused the disaster are held to account.
The company Rhône-Poulenc lied about the danger posed by the substance and thus put the health of the workers and residents at risk.
But the Swedish government and the railway company did not fulfil their responsibilities either.
The project was allowed to proceed much too far before the risks to the environment were taken into consideration.
The construction of the tunnel under Hallandsåsen may only continue if this can be done without risk to the environment and in consultation with the Båstad local authority, whose opinions should be accorded a decisive role.
The most important thing for the moment, though, is that quick and satisfactory help is immediately given to those people who are affected.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall start with the first two subjects, Italy and Spain.
Allow me to present the Commission's position on both the earthquakes in Italy and the floods in Spain, and to assure you that the Commission sympathizes with the suffering of the European citizens who have been struck by these two disasters.
Regarding direct aid to the victims of these disasters, the Commission reminds you that the budget of the European Communities for 1997 unfortunately does not include credits for emergency aid within the European Union, since line B4/3400 was given a record amount for the second year running by the budgetary authority.
Let us return more particularly to the problem of the cultural heritage of which we have just been reminded.
To restore this in Italy, the Commission has released since 1 October 1997, emergency aid of ECU 100, 000 to hasten the restoration work on the Giotto and Cimabue frescoes, which were seriously damaged in Assisi.
The Commission is aware that this aid is insufficient, and the total four-year grant for the Raphael programme - ECU 30 million - would not be enough to restore the thousands of damaged historic buildings, and more particularly the Basilica of St Francis of Assisi.
Nevertheless, the Commission is disposed to examine the possibility of organizing, by agreement with the Italian authorities, some kind of European technical assistance to evaluate rapidly the extent of the damage, and to proceed to restore the damaged buildings in the best technical and scientific conditions.
The earthquakes in Italy have affected rural areas covered by objective 5b.
The presidents of the two regions concerned have therefore addressed to the Commission a request for the objective 5b programme to be adapted, because of the new priorities and new needs resulting from these earthquakes.
A meeting between the Commission and the representative of the Italian government was organized for this purpose.
It enabled us to define the magnitude of this disaster better, and to evaluate the damage.
The Commission - and I believe that I am answering all the speakers this afternoon - will do all in its power to respond to these needs, within the limits of its legal options to use the structural fund.
I would say to Mrs Todini that I have noted her suggestions about the research, and that I shall report on them to my colleague, Mrs Cresson.
Regarding Spain, the Commission considers that the indispensable reinforcement of prevention must, and can, be acquired using the existing cofinancing funds.
I think, in particular, of objective 1, which applies to the Autonomous Community of Valencia.
The services of the Commission are at the disposal of the national and regional authorities, to find adequate solutions within EAGGF, ERDF and the cohesion fund.
All requests for reprogramming of actions or credits which have not yet been assigned, and capable of protecting the susceptible area from such disasters, will be advised by the Commission on the basis of financial appropriations which are established in the Community support frameworks.
EAGGF can thus finance the recovery of the damaged agricultural and forestry production material and facilitate the installation of preventive structures.
In this context, the activities of training experts and of making the population aware of prevention may be eligible.
Nevertheless, it is indispensable that appropriate financial resources should be provided within the Community regional support framework of objectives 1 or 5b.
Also, the Commission recalls that the Spanish Government proposed, last spring, by applying Community initiative Interreg 2c, an operational programme concerning the development of the territory and the fight against drought.
This gives a privileged place to management of exceptional floods and risk situations resulting from the aridity of soils.
The instruction phase of this programme, the proposed amount of which will be of the order of ECU 140 million, is now being finalized.
The Commission will approve it when this phase has been completed.
Regarding the fires in Brazil, the Commission certainly shares the concern of the European Parliament about the consequences of the forest fires in Amazonia.
Within the pilot programme for preserving the tropical forests of Brazil - I recall that it had the effect of inspiring the Brazilian authorities to an Amazon development strategy which is better adapted to environmental constraints - a project for control of fires and deforestation has just been approved, at a cost of 20 million dollars.
The Commission will support this initiative.
Contacts have already been made for this purpose between the common research centre of ISPRA and its Brazilian partners.
The form of this project will be discussed next week in Manaus, Amazonia, during the fourth meeting of the participants in the pilot programme.
The fire control plan will make it possible to understand better the causes and consequences of these fires, by studying nine test areas in Amazonia.
The Commission wishes to help the Brazilian authorities to control sustainable management of the forests better.
It strives to multiply the incentives to this effect, for instance, by certifying products of sustainable management or by introducing an environmental clause within the system of generalized preferences.
Regarding Mexico, the Commission shares the concerns of Parliament about the situation caused by Hurricane Pauline.
Since the damage was announced, the Commission has reacted quickly and on 10 October it approved aid amounting to ECU 400, 000.
The number of dead is about 180, 300 are missing, and the number of people affected is over 300, 000.
The material damage is significant, but difficult to evaluate.
In reply to Mrs Gonzáles Álvarez, the allocated funds are dedicated to emergency rehabilitation - water purification, temporary shelters - and to buying primary requisites - blankets, clothes, emergency kits.
Food aid is also included.
This aid will be carried out via the NGOs, and the Mexican Red Cross is currently evaluating the needs.
In the light of the conclusions of these evaluations, the Commission may, in addition to this first aid intervention, decide to grant additional aid if appropriate, and on this I shall pass on the requests which you wish me to make to Mrs Bonino.
Finally, on the last subject, the Acryl amide used in the construction of a tunnel in Sweden, I would remind you that Acryl amide is considered a toxic chemical agent, which has carcinogenic and mutagenic potential, in the sense of Directive 67/548 on the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances.
It is also included in the first list of priorities for risk evaluation, which is approved by the Commission and the Member States.
The Swedish authorities are today analysing the consequences of the accidental exposure of the workers on the building site to Acryl amide.
I can tell you that Sweden is now moving on to relevant scenarios.
The study of these scenarios, which are aimed at seeing the effect of exposure to Acryl amide in the environment concerned, may re-evaluate the existing data on Acryl amide regarding human health and the environment.
The results of this work will be presented to the Member States next December, so that appropriate actions to reduce the risks can be considered.
Regarding the evaluation of the environmental impact, according to information from the Swedish authorities, this was carried out according to Swedish legislation before Sweden entered the European Union, even before it participated in the European Economic Area.
Consequently, I shall say, protectively, and according to our information, that it is very unlikely that the provisions of Directive 85/337 were applied.
Regarding your question about Community support for the Hallandsåsen project and the tunnel concerned, the financing of a series of improvements to the West Coast Railway was inferred in a decision of the Commission, which was approved in 1995.
However, this decision did not mention the tunnel project specifically, and no payment for the work on the tunnel was made.
The Commission has done nothing to give its financial support to construction of the tunnel in future.
If a request for financing is submitted, the Commission would no doubt examine the question of observance of Community environmental legislation.
And to end on this subject, I would remind you that the proposed directive on drinking water, which was the subject of a political agreement in the Council last week, is intended to limit the presence of Acryl amide strictly to 0.1 microgrammes per litre.
As a result, the Commission and the Member States are doing their utmost to limit, as far as possible, the risks associated with use of certain substances, and to prevent accidents.
Mr President, this is not a point of order.
I would just like to express my thanks to the Commissioner.
I hope that the existence of the substance in countries other than Sweden will also be investigated since we know that it has been used.
I would also like to gratify my colleague Mr Olsson and say that of course I hope that people, animals and nature will live on, and live on as intensely as my continued criticism of the EU.
That is certainly not a point of order, Mrs Eriksson.
We shall now proceed to vote on the resolutions.
On the motion for a resolution on Algeria (B4-827/97)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party was in favour of tabling a resolution on the situation in Algeria, partly in the light of a hearing at the end of next month.
We discussed it and thanks to a block vote in favour by the Group of the European People's Party we were able to have the debate.
I understand that there is now a block vote against by the group.
In order not to embarrass them and to avoid the humiliation of a resolution being killed off, we are withdrawing our resolution.
Thank you Mr Bertens, I take note of the withdrawal of the motion for a resolution.
On the motions for resolutions on natural disasters - Italian earthquake
Mr President, as I mentioned a short while ago during the debate in the House, our group would like to propose an addition to paragraph 4 of the joint resolution.
We had proposed an amendment, but I would like to point out that it is an addition to paragraph 4.
We would like to add the following: the Council and the Commission are also asked to assess the possibility that, in the event of natural disasters in a Member State, the portion of structural funds allocated to the Member State and not yet committed may be re-used to deal with the emergency situations.
I confirm once again that this is in addition to the provisions set out in paragraph 4.
Mr President, excuse me, but I know that today is a day when it is difficult to have certain things accepted.
Mrs Todini is not proposing an oral amendment.
She is merely proposing that her amendment, which has been tabled under the Rules, translated into nine languages and included in your files, should replace nothing, but should be considered as an addition.
From this point of view it is perfectly acceptable.
Mr Dell'Alba, thank you for that explanation.
We shall see the problem when the time comes, when it is the turn of Mrs Todini's amendment.
Votes
The topic dealt with in Mr Barzanti's report is very new and fairly difficult because it seeks to define the protection of intellectual property within a very different framework defined by the introduction of the new information and communication technologies, permitting many unpublished operations and many transmission channels and forms of reproducing the work.
Our group is voting for the resolution presented here with firm conviction because it confirms, albeit it with adaptations, the inspiration that has always characterized European legislation with regard to intellectual property, based on the protection of the author's moral rights, which there is no reason to abandon in the light of the new situation created by the information society.
To this effect, it therefore continues along the lines laid down by the Bern Convention and in keeping with the Commission's communication, which in turn follows the line of the recent agreement reached by the diplomatic conference held by the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization), specifying important aspects and achieving significant votes.
However, we are not entirely at ease because, at the same time, within the framework of the OECD, intergovernmental negotiations are being held (in which the representative of the European Union is also taking part) on the Multilateral Investments Agreement (MIA).
If this agreement leads to the conclusions that the guidelines laid down so far allow us to anticipate, we will be forced into a serious contradiction.
In fact, the MIA, rather than stemming from the European tradition, is more in keeping with the English, but above all the American, copyright tradition.
In short, intellectual property is considered to be an investment, protected by a system of legal licences that provide remuneration (and yet not for performers), rather than by a system based on the attribution of an exclusive right of authorization by the author.
In declaring our group's vote in favour of the resolution presented by Mr Barzanti, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, we wished to mention the possible contradiction that might arise between the future Community Directive and the commitment made by the Union in the MIA so that the Commission clarifies accurately as soon as possible that it will undertake to allow the inspiration reaffirmed here in Parliament to prevail.
The consultation which our colleague Roberto Barzanti proposes marks an advance in the awareness of the Commission of the emergence of new modes of communication.
It is not before time.
Indeed, this massive irruption of information into our society is radically modifying the concept of author's rights and related rights.
It really is vital that the Union should give itself legislative tools which are not aimed at greater harmonization, but at full harmonization.
The effectiveness of the measures which will be decreed depends on us being consistent, but we must bear in mind that however coercive they are, these measures cannot be totally impermeable.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me this digression. A paradox is being born.
While our most brilliant economists never stop praising global liberalization, it is eroding the notion of private property.
I approve of the report and the general approach of our colleague.
My doubts do not represent mistrust, on the contrary. I merely want everyone to bear in mind the difficulty and how much time we have lost collectively on the information society.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament are voting in favour of the report by Mr Barzanti.
The information society is making major demands on the copyright system we have had until now, and globalization has created a need for international rules on the subject.
On the one hand, it is about creating equal reasonable conditions for holders of copyright.
On the other hand, there must be arrangements which take account of new technological possibilities.
This applies to production, reproduction and distribution.
It is therefore pleasing to find that the Commission is now being challenged to come up with a collective approach to the area.
We very much hope that it takes up the challenge.
In Europe there is a tradition of a high degree of copyright protection.
In the radically altered world of today we must continue to concern ourselves with the preservation of those rights.
This is an immensely difficult and complicated task.
The Commission's input on the follow-up to the Green Paper on copyright and related rights is thus most welcome.
On this basis we must now quickly proceed with the establishment of legislation demanded of the new information society.
Many questions from copyright to distribution rights still need to be answered.
When we ponder the question of moral rights in the digital age, we have to take into account both the interests of the holders of a right and consumers.
Colleges and libraries have a crucial public duty to observe the copyright laws in their everyday work.
Instead of debarment, it is necessary to clarify the right of someone to gain access to works, and to be able to copy or transfer them in the most acceptable way.
As far as the development of the information society for the people goes, it is an essential achievement that the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, recognizes in their copyright agreement the right of the public to transmit messages.
The right can be adapted to fully-fledged digital transmissions.
For example, occasional copying, as part of a process, should not be prevented or made problematic by including it as reproduced material under the heading of copyright protection.
Regarding multimedia, there must be a special definition made of effective and fair procedures for compensation.
A feasible and fair copyright system is important, not only for the survival of markets, but culturally speaking also.
It is a question of maintaining equilibrium between copyright and the rights of consumers.
The information society, based, as it is, on intellectual resources requires both kinds of rights to be preserved.
Those who work as intermediary between the creator and end-user need to play their own part, but their judgement must not be to the detriment of creator and end-consumer.
The information society is, by its own nature, international, and transcends all borders.
That is why, along with Community measures, we must develop lasting international standards.
To realise full copyright protection we also need more powerful means to crush widespread piracy.
New technologies and the press
The next item is the report (A4-0289/97) by Mrs Daskalaki on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the impact of new technologies upon the press in Europe.
Mr President, I should like to echo Mrs Daskalaki's thanks to the members of the Committee of Culture, because I think it is very important that in her initiative report Mrs Daskalaki has touched on this question, which is of such interest to the press as part of the new technologies.
A difficult situation is emerging for the press from its competition with the new communication services.
The figures show, for example, that from 1991 to 1995 daily newspaper copies sold in the EU member states shrank by 3.7 %, and also that the proportion of advertising copy going to the print media has been steadily diminishing since 1980.
That is a main cause of worry for the press.
Since the beginning of the 80s television has been the main reason for the recession in advertising revenue. The situation in the competition between print media and others is now becoming increasingly critical because of the introduction of new forms of advertising in the electronic media, and the introduction of on-line information services.
For this reason I think it is very right that Mrs Daskalaki has emphasized in her report that the new media have had the benefit of community funding within the framework of initiatives for the encouragement of the information society, whereas the written press has received no such support.
We on the Committee on Culture ask not for direct support of the press by the European Community, but at least for measures towards indirect support.
Above all, I think the training of journalists is very important.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that in my report by the Committee on Culture on Agenda 2000, particular mention was made of the necessity to train journalists in the new Member States.
I agree with Mrs Daskalaki that the written press and the other media should complement one another, and can certainly exist side by side in a new field of communications, but that the Commission should concern itself with the difficult situation of the press.
I welcome, therefore, the fact that with this initiative report the question of the effects of new technology on the press has been touched on for the first time in the European Parliament.
Mr President, I agree with what has been said that Mrs Daskalaki's report addresses a critical issue for all of us in democracies.
We all agree that one of the central pillars of a democracy is a free press and a free and vibrant press is as much a sign of a healthy democracy as is a vibrant parliament.
New technologies are inevitable, and inevitably they will affect the nature of the press and conditions for journalists.
We should not seek to stop those changes.
We must seek to ensure that the vitality and the independence of the press are retained under the new conditions.
For these reasons we believe that recital W and paragraph 9 are wrong.
New technologies will require new legal rights to be identified.
Old copyright rules cannot simply be applied on the new Internet for example.
In Britain we certainly have a very dynamic press, sometimes some would say too dynamic.
But that vitality and growth are achieved by free enterprise, encouraging initiative and adopting the use of the new technologies.
Personally I have strong doubts about the call for the harmonization of VAT on newspapers and periodicals across Europe.
In my opinion newspapers should be VAT-free.
I never cease to be amazed how much the price of newspapers varies across Europe.
The Times I can buy in London for 35p - I apologise for its headline about banning Labour MEPs - costs 400 % more when I buy it in France.
So it is paragraph 13 calling for equal opportunities of distribution that is far more important than the harmonization of VAT rates which in some countries would only mean the introduction of a tax that we do not already have.
There are two other points I wish to comment on.
Paragraph 16 calls for the Commission to submit the draft directive on media ownership so that we can be sure we protect press pluralism across Europe.
This is important.
Private monopolies can be just as inimical to freedom as state monopolies.
This is an area where there is a clear need for European rules as well as national rules.
Paragraph 10 calling for self-regulation by the press also touches on an important and topical issue and there have been attempts not to debate it in this Parliament.
I support self-regulation.
Following the death of the Princess of Wales it should have been clear to us all that the present self-regulation we see in European countries is not working.
I certainly hope that European journalists and publishers will get their houses in order on this issue.
This Chamber has a responsibility to address the issue and if self-regulation is not going to work, it may well be that the European Parliament and the European Union will have to look at the issue and find a legislative solution.
Mr President, in her report Mrs Daskalaki has given us a good overview of the effects of new technologies on the European press.
She notes that the audiovisual media have an edge over the written press.
Apparently people read more in the north than in the south but maybe, Mrs Daskalaki, that is simply because the weather is so cold there and it is wonderful to sit by the fire or lie in bed and read.
Whereas in the south the weather tempts people out to explore other activities.
There is an interesting conclusion in the Daskalaki report, namely that the regional written press has managed to hold its own very well.
In my opinion this has to do with the fact that with the growth of globalization people are becoming more and more interested in their own region.
We all come across that in other areas in our day-to-day committee work.
In my view the concentrations of power in the publishing world are a growing threat to the conditions the press need to be able to function effectively.
After the latest merger with Wolters-Kluwer the shareholders of Elsevier Read were rejoicing over a concentration of power in the field of scientific publications.
To my mind this is an unhealthy trend.
In my country the written press is controlled by four large concerns.
So far there is still pluralism but it cannot be guaranteed in the future.
In our region there seems to be an obvious link between the media and democracy.
Unfortunately there is now more and more debate about the media undermining our democratic institutions.
Not all, but it is a growing trend: distortion of the facts, biassed attitudes, manipulation of pictures and sound, not checking facts, not being prepared to correct mistakes.
It is my view that when it comes down to it the press has to reform itself. It is very dangerous if it comes from outside.
I hope that will happen.
To conclude, our group agrees with Mrs Daskalaki's observation that the new technologies can and should be used to create better conditions for the media and never, ever be a substitute for or a threat to journalistic activities or standards or journalistic ethics.
I thank Mrs Daskalaki for her report and am sure that Parliament will approve it wholeheartedly this morning.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, there is an old Dutch saying, ' The writer lives on' .
That has been the motto of journalists since printing was invented.
In her report Mrs Daskalaki says that the new media will represent a real threat to the printed press and indirectly also an attack on democracy, culture and human rights.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is quite a claim.
Let me contrast it with the view of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, which is much more positive and, more importantly, closer to Parliament's earlier resolutions which were adopted by large majorities.
I welcome the contribution Mr Perry has just made.
The new communication methods, like the Internet, offer unprecedented opportunities for disseminating and communicating information.
I myself, since I I have been connected to the Internet and have started e-mailing people all over the world, have read and written more than ever before.
In fact I do not understand why rapporteur says we live in a world where people read and write less and less.
You can read a book but you can also read from a screen and disseminate information that way.
In the report the new technologies are described as a threat to the press.
In fact existing newspapers and magazines often appear in electronic versions now and so have a wider circulation than before.
In the Netherlands a judge recently ruled that texts written by journalists could not be re-used for publication, on the Internet for instance, without their permission.
Thus if a newspaper publishes an article both in printed and in electronic form, the journalist is paid extra.
The journalist is paid twice and his or her article can be read by a wider public.
This has to be a good thing.
Europe is not heading towards the information society, we are already there.
In the 21st Century information and communication technology will influence all our lives.
In the digital age knowledge and access are essential to prosperity and democracy.
The press has to keep up with the trend.
Journalists have to educate themselves in the new technologies and use them in their work.
I can assure you this is already happening.
It is not possible or in my view desirable to stand in the way of new developments in information and communication technology.
Technological progress is inevitable.
Standing in the way of new technologies simply makes firms less productive, hinders growth and eventually leads to job losses.
With consultation and forethought new technologies can offer opportunities for the written press as well.
The new media offer a number of ways of handling the supply of news in an innovative manner and it is this Parliament's task and responsibility to support such developments.
They also provide new job opportunities.
What my group would like to see in Mrs Daskalaki's report is one paragraph, or maybe more, on freedom of the press, because there could be a real threat to the press resulting from the rise of new technologies, in the form of censorship by governments.
The government is in danger of interfering in the new technologies, which was much less likely with the written press.
Press freedom can come under pressure.
Of course there are also offensive racist statements and pornography on the Internet; we have already discussed this at length.
After all the Internet is a reflection of what is happening in our society.
But as far as my group is concerned the rule is: what is illegal off-line is illegal on-line, and it has been found in practice that national measures to restrict freedom of expression have virtually no effect on new media.
Worldwide computer networks like the Internet are media without intermediaries or frontiers.
Fortunately it is difficult or impossible for states and governments to have any control over them.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to say the following.
The written and audiovisual media are in a position of power in being able to report on various matters.
The recent negative report on the European Parliament is an obvious example.
New media like the Internet offer everyone the opportunity to air and disseminate their views worldwide and that restricts the press monopoly.
Thus news coverage is no longer dependent solely on the professional press.
In the opinion of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Partythis encourages freedom of expression and therefore democracy.
And it also ensures pluralism.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mrs Daskalaki on her report.
It makes the essential points and expresses, I think, the nature of our culture, which is the irreplaceable relationship with the written word.
Nothing less would be expected from a member of the press such as Mrs Daskalaki.
I would just like to emphasize some points.
Firstly, it is not true that we are dealing with the decline of the press. We have examples of a very significant revival in many countries of the European Union, with new forms of support and commitment from readers and friends.
It is flourishing in the provinces, and also a specialized thematic press is blossoming.
As examples I will mention the ecological press and the youth press.
These are messages of optimism. The question is whether it is worthwhile debating these issues at the level of the European Union and how we can help, without of course stifling the press and its freedom through our help.
I shall be brief, Mr President.
Firstly, it is necessary to enforce transparency as to ownership.
Secondly, it is also necessary to support and safeguard the independence of journalists, with guarantees of their freedom and their professional status.
But it is also necessary and useful on our part to see how we can increase investments for the modernisation, for example, of the regional press.
In my country the regional press complains that the investments that it is proposing are not regarded as acceptable bearing in mind what is being supported in regional development and by European funds.
We can also support the training and education of journalists by means of the social fund.
And we can also harmonize systems of taxation which may make it easier for the journalist and the newspaper publisher to do their particularly difficult and sensitive job.
Mr President, there is another issue.
This is the matter of the unfair competition that the press has to suffer.
Firstly, from outside the press.
As Mrs Daskalaki quite rightly says, the Television without Frontiers Directive is not observed in many countries, at least not in my own.
This constitutes unfair competition as regards the absorption of advertising allocations, for example, where this directive is most aggressively violated.
There is also unfair competition within the sector with the more serious, shall I put it that way, and the smaller press being among the worst offenders.
We have arrived at a point where newspapers carry on regular commercial trade.
And it is here that we could possibly help, by demanding that an investigation is carried out into whether such practices of selling newspapers together with carpets, creams, food, bookcases and I don't know what else, are not stone-walled cases of tax evasion.
Finally, Mr President, we can also help through the exchange of journalists and newspaper owners, through getting to know them and through them getting to know each other, and through supporting forms of collaboration for the production of different types of newspapers etc. on a Europe-wide level, and at the level of the European Union.
Mr President, I do not think there is anything better than when, once husband and children are out of the house, one can settle down quietly at the breakfast table with a cigarette, a cup of coffee and the newspaper, and at last read the paper in peace.
I should like to begin with that.
The new technologies and new media have had positive effects on the information media.
We should on no account forget the risk, however, that the print media could be increasingly pushed aside and dominated by modern media.
It is sufficient to cast a glance at the relevant statistics already mentioned by some supporters, to see that there is the same tendency in Europe as in the United States, where the printed word is sold less and less, and vital advertising income recedes accordingly.
The European Union should pay most attention to supporting a versatile information service, that is, one in which critical comment takes precedence over sensationalism and is not excluded from the less well educated and poorer elements of society.
For this daily newspapers as well as specialist newspapers, specialist weeklies and local papers play a most important role towards pluralism, analysis of news and above all depth of knowledge.
With reference to the resolution in Mrs Daskalaki's report, we Greens would principally like to stress how important a non-homologated and homogenised news world is.
These efforts should support a deeper critical view of events, as well as secure the rights of minorities, and above all inform about minorities and other opinions.
Here I mean the rights of minorities to produce their own information media and also to broadcast ideas that run counter to the mainstream.
To end with I should like to introduce a current matter.
Parliament has once more got into bad odour because of snapshot interviews on Dutch television and the German ARD.
A long, in-depth article is one thing, even if it is in the British Sun; but two seconds with two delegates who allegedly signed on at 9.00 a.m. and were in their cars at 9.05 a.m. is quite another.
I think it is incredible when even in my own group Members jump on this sort of bandwagon.
We must be particularly careful in this House to see that Parliament is protected, and that not only are such matters are reported, but also that we take them seriously.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur rightly wants to defend the democratization of information by the press, at least keeping a certain status for the press against audio-visual competition.
But on the contrary, in most European countries, we are watching a retreat of democracy and pluralism in the press, because of two concomitant phenomena: on the one hand, the concentration of supply, and on the other, the weakening of demand.
I shall speak first about the concentration of supply.
Throughout this economic phenomenon, we find increasing uniformity and increasing control of political power over the press.
One could quote several examples, notably the press campaign which was waged in the West during the war against Iraq, which was really worthy of the most extraordinary brainwashing which has been seen for many years.
Everyone knows that in current writing journalists who do not conform are eliminated very discreetly and shiftily.
There is no need for direct orders by governments.
There is also the weakening of demand, because a large part of the population reads less and less, or at least reading is becoming again the privilege of an elite.
It is the failure of democratization which reinforces the concentration of real power.
I believe that, given this situation, the various initiatives which have been taken, including this report, will remain pious wishes, because governments today do not really want the population to leave the torpor into which they have tried to plunge it.
Instead, they try to make democracy pliable, and without doubt this is the true reason, let us say, for the weakening of the press, even beyond the competition of modern technology.
Madam President, Mrs Daskalaki's report shows very well the difficulties to which print media are subject, compared with electronic media.
New media cannot be wished away, however.
They are in any case used increasingly by newspapers and magazines.
Despite this, print media are threatened by an ambush.
Evidence of this is the decline in circulation of daily papers in the European Union.
This has less to do with the advance of new media, however, as with the trend towards print media concentration.
The only one to be successful is the one that has corresponding access to the market, that is, an appropriate distribution system.
Any policy which provides equality of opportunity for the various print media is worth supporting.
Only thus can a variety of opinions be maintained.
Newspapers and magazines should not be burdened by high postal charges, either, and thus elbowed out of the market.
Finally, one must ensure the encouragement and training of young journalists, and this training should receive EU support.
In order to equalise one disadvantage of print media against electronic media, print media should also receive global reporting guarantees.
The European Community should create the situation where newspapers can more easily open correspondents' offices worldwide.
Madam President, I want to congratulate Mrs Daskalaki and in particular compliment her on the quality of her work, which is reflected in this report, but especially on the way in which she has cooperated with the other members of the Committee on Culture.
This type of cooperation is also needed between the electronic media and the traditional media.
To me electronic information does not threaten the press, it creates new opportunities.
However, contrary to what Mrs Plooij has said I think that Mrs Daskalaki has given a very good account of the cooperation that is needed and also the balance that has to be maintained; we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater for the sake of the new electronic technology.
I would just like to make two brief comments.
Firstly, the pluralism we have mentioned must be maintained.
Opposite that is the problem of media concentration; in my view this has to be resolved quickly by legislation, which we are awaiting.
The European Commission cannot get away with just a note on the subject.
The question is, of course, whether we are in a position to separate the economic ownership of the media and editorial freedom, as we have done in my country for instance with editorial regulations.
I would also like to draw attention to the distribution problems.
It is the monopolization of newspaper and magazine distribution in Europe that threatens press freedom.
To me it is disgraceful that most of the committee chairmen in this Parliament prevented me from putting questions on this subject to the Commission on behalf of the Committee on Culture and holding a debate with the Commission.
Action is needed urgently, especially in the United Kingdom.
It is remarkable that nothing has been done there yet.
Anyone who has anything to do with the press knows that a distribution monopoly prevents the emergence of new media.
It is an issue which requires special attention.
Madam President, the information society that is so much talked about is not a natural disaster befalling us poor defenceless human beings.
The information society is a product of human ingenuity which makes new instruments and opportunities available to us to improve our quality of life.
And so I think that it should be faced by both individual citizens and the goods and service industries it affects.
The printed press, in forms such as books, is affected, but not necessarily adversely, by the arrival of multi-media industries and on-line services.
The Commission, the businesses in the multiple sectors which now produce information and professionals in those sectors must make it a priority to establish an urgent dialogue in order to find ways and means of harmonising the printed press with the new media.
It is also an urgent matter for us to adopt appropriate means of self-regulation, the most efficient and certainly the most realistic, to do away with the savage competition which produces serious attacks on the right of the individual to credible information and personal privacy.
The democratic character of life in Europe demands the continuity and strengthening of the printed press, even if not all the printed press contributes to this.
I refer to both the major press, which creates opinion and carries on investigative journalism, and the local press, which plays an irreplaceable role in social integration and maintaining links with their roots for societies located at a distance from the major centres and for emigrant communities, and even in explaining the meaning of European citizenship to local populations.
To keep the press alive we need to create regulations at European level.
We have to enforce compliance with the existing directive - as the rapporteur requests - but it must be said that directives are increasingly tending to lose their efficiency as legal instruments.
And I would conclude, Madam President, by saying that we also need to introduce press-reading modules into our school curricula, from the most elementary levels.
In this way we shall have citizens in Europe who think and are not the playthings of interests which pass over their heads.
The Daskalaki report is a contribution in that respect.
Madam President, I would just like to clarify something.
Nowhere do I talk about a threat, nowhere do I speak against new methods. Quite the contrary, I stress their importance and their exceptional contribution.
I talk about self- regulation, about complementarity and about a new framework that all can accept. That is what I wanted to clear up.
Madam President, the Commission is glad to receive this initiative report, and I am glad to thank Mrs Daskalaki personally for the quality of her work.
You put forward two principal points.
On the one hand, the essential role of the written press for the functioning of democracy, for pluralism, for human rights, as Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer very rightly commented just now.
On the other hand, the difficult situation in which this press now finds itself, particularly because of competition from the audio-visual media.
Certainly, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, endangering the freedom of the press, even a little, is inconceivable, because otherwise freedom itself would be threatened.
Nevertheless, the Commission is worried about the consequences of development of new information technologies for the equilibrium of the written press.
The rise of the power of a sensational commercial press, development of the readership and conditions of distribution also do not contribute to the strengthening of this sector.
Several of you have mentioned the problems of the media and private life, the problem of the system of ownership, all difficult, controversial subjects on which subsidiarity has a full role.
For instance, on distribution, the Commission has no competence.
It is thus a delicate matter to find a balance, and I shall not claim to settle these very difficult matters in a few minutes.
Nevertheless, I would like to make two observations.
The first concerns the traditional method of communication and information, which is the written press, and which risks being considerably weakened, with all the damaging consequences which may result in terms of loss of quality and independence.
The opinion of the Commission has always been that knowledge, information and culture are not merely products, they are not just cream or milk which can be compared to other commercial products.
Second, the Commission has always defended the necessity of preserving pluralism, and of avoiding new forms of concentration or monopoly in the ownership of the media. Certainly, help for training of journalists, which was mentioned particularly by Mrs Schierhuber and Mrs Hawlicek, is important, and use is made of it.
Mrs Daskalaki, the Commission receives favourably the suggestions which are included in your report.
I think particularly of the specific initiatives which you envisage to guarantee the originality, the role and the permanence of the written press.
It is particularly important to examine the need for a legal and institutional framework to protect the employment and professional rights of journalists, to harmonize downward the taxes which apply to newspapers and periodicals, and to introduce common rules about reduction of postal charges and the cost of telecommunications and transport.
This is a difficult debate, and you can be certain that the Commission will continue to follow future developments in this sector with interest.
We are going to examine it all in detail, and the Commission is going to initiate a broad dialogue in order, on the one hand, to create the necessary conditions to broaden the debate on the new needs of the written press, and on the other hand, to study the problems which are set by the development of the information society.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Protection of minors and human dignity
The next item is the report (A4-0227/97) by Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media on the Commission Green Paper on the protection of minors and human dignity in audiovisual and information services (COM(96)0483-C4-0621/96).
Madam President, this report springs from the major debate on the Television without Frontiers Directive, which we had in this Chamber last year.
There were twin concerns at the end of that long debate. One was about the proliferation of new services, like video-on-demand, teleconferencing, interactive communications from chat lines upwards and, indeed, the Internet.
All of them were filling the gap between television, as we have understood it, and telecommunications.
Many of them seemed to be eager to avoid traditional regulation.
We can acknowledge their energies and, indeed, their appetites without having necessarily to applaud them or always to endorse them, because there was a concern that these services, like the new abundance of digital broadcasting, could produce programmes that were harmful for some, although not illegal for all.
Such services after all are crossing all national regulatory boundaries with an impudent ease and they can be invasive for the young, the vulnerable or exposed minorities.
We all wanted to monitor how the directive was going to work.
We wanted funding for research into the possible applications of the 'V-chip' , as the Commission Green Paper has also called for.
We wanted a study into the effectiveness of the various existing systems for classifying the content of programmes.
This very day the European Parliament has endorsed the wiping out of funding for both of those on line B3-2011.
I deplore that and I think my colleague, Mr Perry, would say the same.
You cannot will the end without willing the means as well.
I also deplore the fact that two separate directorates of the Commission were called on to make reports on new services and the Internet, although their convergence is plain to all.
The issue of convergence is now itself the subject of a further Green Paper, not yet circulated to mere Members of this Parliament, from DG XIII.
We need to look at what is common to the forms of monitoring we need for system, service and content alike.
When I hear that an as yet unseen paper on convergence is circulating which takes a rather hostile view to traditional views of regulation - I understand that DG X and, indeed, its Commissioner have protested this matter already - I would simply like to say that we in this House also feel that the issue of convergence ought to be right out there in the open with all the agencies of the Commission, and indeed of Parliament, discussing the matter.
My chairman, Mr Pex, and I produced separate reports but they in their way converge, and I hope he would agree with that when we were looking at the Net and the new services.
What are we saying here? Firstly, freedom of speech and freedom from harassment always have to be kept in balance.
We need both self-regulation, as the industries themselves have come to recognize, and a measure of overall scrutiny.
Even the Net is moving rapidly from creative anarchy to control, not from some new frontier of electronics but from the biggest players of the old game.
We need to respond to developments without frustrating the undoubted energy that goes into them.
My report calls for an effective framework of self-regulation, setting out how it can be applied at each level.
It asserts the public-interest objective here, which I believe to be paramount, and it makes the distinction clear between the generally illegal and the legal but sometimes harmful.
It suggests a full exchange of information between Member States to produce agreed standards and common action when they are breached.
The notion of voluntary compliance, supported to some extent by the Green Paper, is all very fine as far as it goes but codes created by commissions are made to be obeyed and not broken.
We have to help in that by tracing the traditional loop from broadcaster to user and the complex assortment as it now is of access providers, content providers and service provide.
We intend to set out in this report a framework for the protection of minors and human dignity which has to be achieved by minimal requirements for all content providers and understood definitions of liability.
It means tests of domestic as well as industrial self-regulation.
It means the whole citizen body involved in the monitoring of selfregulation and codes of conduct.
Finally, if you look at paragraph 25 of my report you will see that we are asking for an appropriate legal framework in each new service, balancing the interests and responsibilities of providers, consumers and the Member States alike on the experience of over 75 years of regulation in radio and television-broadcasting.
Those who told us in the television without frontiers debate that audiovisual services could have no claim on the new technology, now have the arrogance to assert that audiovisual services should be absorbed by the mega-technologies of the future.
We say no to that: culture and technology, content and concern always need to be kept in balance.
Madam President, I wish to speak simply to express the full consent of the socialist group to the report presented by Mr Whitehead just now.
It emphasizes fundamental points: we need speed in decision-making because we cannot wait any longer.
The questions brought up here, the need to ensure even on a European scale that it is possible to combat the ever more worrying use of the new services to convey illegal messages that are detrimental to the development of personality, should be taken with the utmost seriousness.
I think that to do this we need to reflect once again on the need for a real European authority whose legitimate actions are based on specific regulations, in this case on a regulation with a horizontal approach, i.e. one relating to all types of services provided, with the particular and specific characteristics that have to relate to the different types of services, but with the object, as stated in the copyright report approved a short while ago, of ensuring, among other things, that, even from the point of view of regulations, minimum standards are fixed by law to be observed by the suppliers of the new services that are more invading and more accessible than the traditional ones.
Therefore, it is not just self-control, which remains a fundamental approach, voluntary self-control, which is rightly mentioned in paragraph 14, but also regulatory intervention which obviously does not mean censorship, but control, responsibility assumed by all those who, in providing these new services, should do so in the most correct manner and preventing them from conveying harmful messages and messages detrimental to the development of personality and offensive to human dignity.
Madam President, I agree with Mr Whitehead on many points.
He has produced an excellent report which in fact, as he just said, converges with mine in a number of respects.
But that is inevitable, because we had a very good and balanced discussion on this subject in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
There is and always will be a conflict between freedom of expression and the right of self-determination in information on the one hand and the protection of minors and human dignity on the other hand.
Electronic information is really no different from the traditional forms of information.
What is not allowed on paper and film is not allowed on the computer and the Internet.
The difference is of course the international dimension. With electronic information there are no longer any frontiers.
International cooperation is therefore needed on legislation, particularly as regards criminal law and investigation.
It is important to make a clear distinction between what is forbidden and what is undesirable.
Ultimately it all comes down to imparting proper standards and values, in other words good upbringing and education.
I would also like to say that everyone in the network has a responsibility: anyone who is involved in disseminating, storing, transporting, transmitting and receiving information.
I fully agree with Mr Whitehead that self-regulation is the best solution to the problems outlined.
Where self-regulation is not effective there must be legislation, but enforcing it is and always will be the central problem.
Madam President, I would first of all like to say that we fully appreciate the quality of the report of Mr Whitehead and I would propose that we support its conclusions.
However, I would like to stress that he himself, and all of us, I believe, recognise that there is a great deal of confusion in our analyses, however essentially profound, theoretical and concerned they may be.
There is confusion.
It is clear that what Mr Whitehead calls balance between freedom of speech on the one hand and "freedom' of crime on the other, is not adequate. Nor, of course, is the notion of self-regulation.
Since it might well be asked: will whosoever has the intention of making a profit from illegality and crime exercise balance? Will he worry about balances and will he exercise self-regulation?
I don't think so.
It's obvious. And we come across that everywhere.
The debate we are having today reminds me of former debates on our relationship with the environment, on our love for it and so on, when we discovered that some people were making money, and indeed a great deal of money, from the destruction of the environment.
There is an analogy between the two.
I believe that it raises the extremely serious issue of implementing the principles of the state of law under new conditions.
And I disagree with some of my colleagues who say that there is nothing new.
There is something new.
There is a new environment that does not take account of nations and borders.
So there is the issue of scrutiny and monitoring, and indeed monitoring at the source of the criminal act before it happens. This is the right thing to do.
There is also the problem of ratification, as, by analogy, could be said in any state of law. What is new, however, is the question: in an environment that does not take account of nations and borders, who is to make this intervention lawful, not just legal, who is to make it lawful in society - legitimate, as our English friends would say?
On what criteria is it to be carried out?
With what checks and balances is it to be implemented? Here is an issue which goes far beyond our debate, but which, and I would like to emphasise this, Madam President, emerges every time we discuss new problems of this kind.
It is a question of what political authority, legally and democratically elected and appointed, will do these things in a fair and lawful way. In other words, it raises again the issue of the political unification of Europe in a most dramatic way, and, I would say, since the scale of Europe is very small, the issue of its role in the regulation of such matters legally and democratically at a global level.
However utopian this may seem, Madam President, it is just as utopian as what was said about new technologies five to ten years ago.
Madam President, in this Green Paper from the Commission and in Mr Whitehead's very well-written report, several important questions are raised.
It is important to note that the preamble to the Treaty on European Union makes a direct reference to the European Convention on Human Rights, which among other things establishes the freedom of speech.
This right must be a guiding principle in our work.
I myself belong to the younger generation which has grown up with IT, the Internet and other audio-visual services.
I see this as an obvious tool for obtaining and exchanging information.
At the same time, however, this new technological development turns the usual situation in which the State can in some way control the content of the information on its head.
Now global information is what counts, and we have left the geographical boundaries of the nation state.
We must also say that there are a number of disadvantages with the new technology.
It is regrettable that the audiovisual services and information services can offend human dignity.
With regard to, for example, TV services I am positive that the consumers will be able to use some kind of filter system on a voluntary basis.
But what do we do about the global Internet? It does little good for us to discuss it here in the European Parliament or in the European Commission.
What is needed is a global solution through the UN or the WTO - I do not know which is most appropriate.
But if anything is to happen it is the global solution that counts.
The Internet brings with it fantastic opportunities.
I myself have, in my capacity as a politician, come into contact with people and citizens who I would perhaps never have come into contact with otherwise, but who now sit in front of their computers and can react quickly when I have been on TV or in a newspaper interview and ask further questions.
These are people from whom I might otherwise never hear.
This is a vitalising of democratic freedom of speech.
Unfortunately, this is not just a freedom for ordinary citizens.
It also involves, unfortunately, freedom for, for example, neo-Nazis who spread and exchange their despicable, poisonous myths, and paedophiles who can exchange information in just a few seconds.
Finally, I would like to take up paragraph 23 in Mr Whitehead's final report, which was also included in the opinion from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights by Mrs Lindholm, which says that funds must be made available to parents and teachers, for example, who shall be informed about how to best protect minors from being exposed to material which can be damaging to their development.
It is important that this is included.
Madam President, at first sight I welcome the fact that the Commission and Parliament are devoting their attention to protection against harmful media products.
There is growing scientific evidence that scenes depicting sex and violence are harmful to the development of young people.
It is appalling that media magnates allow more and more dubious material, full of bad language, violence, sex and discrimination.
The universal principles of the Ten Commandments are flouted for the sake of profit.
I must stress that the point at issue is not so much human dignity in the abstract, but people themselves.
The English writer CS Lewis said that anyone who does not respect God's law is, so to speak, giving up the human race.
The essence of policy is that parents and educationalists are responsible for their children in the first instance.
But with the flood of information and our fast-changing society parents need to be helped to fulfil their responsibilities.
I am thinking of inexpensive devices such as violence chips, pictograms on videotapes which are visible even when the video is showing, age classifications, pincodes enabling parents to block certain TV channels.
Of course parents need proper information on all these.
I think that is a task for the national governments rather than the European Commission.
Secondly the government also has a responsibility.
Crime prevention is in the interests of society.
The self-regulation of the audiovisual sector advocated by the Commission must be coupled with strict minimum standards of punishability.
And because producers have a tendency to go as far as possible, provision must be made for effective, heavy penalties for producers who transgress.
Freedom of expression is a great thing.
If we want to protect it, then we must not make it so sacrosanct that we allow that freedom to be abused.
If we as politicians do not have the courage to take firm action against obscene material, we are sealing the fate of every future child victim.
The important question for us and for you, Commissioner, is whether we are sufficiently aware of this.
On this point the Green Paper is disappointing.
Mr Whitehead's report is a step in the right direction. I hope he will support Mrs Seillier's two amendments.
I would also draw the Commission's attention to the many computer games which encourage children to behave aggressively.
Would it not be sensible to introduce a quality mark and age classification for these as well?
Finally a point which my colleague Leen van der Waal has already emphasized in the discussion of the Pradier report on illegal and harmful material on the Internet.
The difference between punishable and harmful material is also relevant in the debate on media material.
But this often-used distinction is meaningless.
I cannot understand why something that is extremely harmful to youngsters should be good - or at least harmless - to adults.
All those undesirable intimacies, the sexual abuse of women and children, the growth of sex tourism and the demand for child pornography - are these vile practices not encouraged by audiovisual material that is to some extent perverted? Do we really know the answer to that question?
The essential point is whether or not we want to do something about it. We need to act not only on extreme perversions, but also on practices that are regarded as civilized, but are nonetheless immoral.
After all the great evils in our society begin from little things.
Mr President, I myself come from a country which two years ago was shaken by a very serious paedophile scandal and so of course I agree with the general approach of the report before us and also with the general approach of the Commission document on which it was based.
However I should like to make a few comments, not on the technical aspects, because I am no technical expert, but on the political aspects.
Firstly, though, I must say to the rapporteur that to me it is a mistake in this report to give in to a fear of what must be politically correct, in other words the thought crime of so-called racism - I do say so-called racism! - because obviously I am only talking about the idea of national preference, to equate the idea with real crimes like paedophilia.
Secondly I naturally appreciate the concern of the rapporteur and the Commission at the use of new communication methods by people with sick minds.
I would just point out that nowadays there is very little to stop these people in the traditional forms of communication and in some Member States for instance you only have to go into any station kiosk to find the most sickening paedophile rubbish right before your eyes.
Finally I share the belief of the rapporteur and the Commission in the fundamental role of the family in protecting and bringing up children.
It is just a pity to have to say that in so many European countries traditional family life has been let down by the government and the European budget, if not penalized by the tax authorities and sabotaged.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the new audio-visual and information services open up new possibilities for Europe to develop actions in the field of education and access to training and culture.
The growth of these services in the European Union assumes not only favourable economic and political conditions, but also effective protection of the general interests of the European citizen.
How should the general interest be protected in the context of the new services? This is the question to which the Green Paper has tried to give a partial response.
To do this, it is first necessary to know the specific character of the service which is on offer.
It is also necessary to know the appropriate legal framework, the appropriate degree of legal obligation and self-regulation.
In this perspective, the Green Paper on protection of minors and of human dignity was approved by the Commission on 16 October 1996, just a year ago, to start a broad debate on one essential question: the protection of minors and human dignity in the audio-visual and information services of television and the Internet.
Thank you, Mr Whitehead, for your excellent report, on which I congratulate you.
It illuminates essential aspects of this debate.
First aspect: the debates which accompanied the issue of the Green Paper showed the interest of all parties concerned in an ethical approach to the information society.
The protection of minors and of human dignity is an indispensable condition of establishing a climate of confidence which is favourable to the development of new services.
The second aspect which your report illuminates concerns what the European Union must do.
The European Union, while taking account of the diversity of national cultural sensitivities and strictly observing the principle of subsidiarity, must promote a minimal consistency of the national frameworks of self-regulation.
Mr Perry, it is indeed necessary to supply the bases of cooperation at European level to all parties concerned - manufacturers, users, public authorities - and it is necessary to encourage evaluation of the actions which are taken.
I believe that it was Mr Barzanti who insisted on this point just now.
It is indispensable: self-regulation, yes, but matched by evaluation.
And self-regulation does not mean that in the end there will be no regulation, but we must not go too fast in this matter.
Third aspect: to reinforce the effectiveness of national actions, it remains essential to identify and formalize, at European Union level, common objectives - this is the first task of the European Union - regarding the protection of minors and of human dignity.
It is also essential to promote legal, responsible use of the information and communication services.
Fourth aspect: activities for information, public awareness and education must be put into effect.
On this point, I agree with Mr Holm and Mrs Heinrich.
Fifth aspect: while taking account of the world dimension of communication networks - Mr Holm mentioned this aspect just now - the development of a European approach will allow consideration of our fundamental values in the international debate. Yes, it must be at world level, but first we must have a European position.
Sixth aspect, and I am replying to Mr Papayannakis: judicial and police cooperation, the third pillar, article K. Article K of the Treaty on European Union allows us to develop cooperation in the identification of illegal content and the prosecution of its authors.
The Commission favours this and will endeavour to do it.
Finally, I will reply to Mr Blokland on the classification system.
The Commission, with all the interested parties, will study this aspect, while of course taking account of cultural diversity.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Legal profession and Community law (Robert Schuman Project)
The next item is the report (A4-0323/97) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing an action programme to improve awareness of Community law for the legal professions - Robert Schuman Project (COM(96)0580 - C4-0606/96-96/0277(COD)).
Madam President, the object of the proposal for a decision that we are now examining is to establish an action programme to improve awareness of Community law for those professions directly involved in the administration of justice.
The first thing that I should like to say is that the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which consists of 23 amendments and was adopted unanimously in committee, endorses the principles, content and objectives set out by the Commission.
And that should not surprise us.
Indeed, in paragraph 31 of Parliament's resolution of 13 February 1996 - the Anastassopoulos report - Parliament called on the Commission to establish a training and information programme for the legal professions most involved in the administration of justice in order to improve their awareness of Community law, with a view to enhancing the effective and uniform application of Community law by the Member States' legal systems.
I repeat, therefore, that this report endorses the bases of the Commission proposal.
Thus, the committee agrees with the proposed global financial framework of ECU 5.6 million and underlines the importance of the project being a financial support operation - that is, an instrument which provides financial support for the efforts of the groups concerned, thereby underpinning initiatives which must primarily be their responsibility.
The report of the Committee on Legal Affairs also endorses the approach adopted by the Commission, to the effect that the project must be geared to practical rather than academic training and concern the application of Community law, since unfortunately the statistics show that this is still lacking amongst the professions most directly involved in the administration of justice.
We must insist.
From the point of view of the coherence of Community action, the Robert Schuman project complements other programmes carried out previously, such as the Leonardo da Vinci, Jean Monnet and Grotius programmes.
Consequently, what the Committee on Legal Affairs has done is support and strengthen the Commission proposal, especially as regards its scope and legal base.
Indeed, the Commission is proposing the legal base of article 100a, which, as we know, provides for the approximation of legislation in the field of the internal market.
The reason justifying this choice of legal base is the need to set the Robert Schuman project within the framework of global arrangements for the rigorous and effective application of Community law.
And the fact is, Madam President, that internal market legislation is now so wide-ranging that the efforts of the Community institutions to control its application are insufficient on their own.
Unless the professions most directly involved in the administration of justice become aware of their responsibility, the application of Community law will continue to be non-uniform, and will therefore continue to jeopardize the achievement of the internal market's objectives.
With regard to the question of the legal base, another approach would be to opt for articles 127 or 128.
However, the Committee on Legal Affairs' deliberations led them to three conclusions: firstly, this is not the first time that the Commission has proposed a training programme under article 100a.
To cite just two examples, there are the Matthaeus and Matthaeus Tax programmes.
Article 5 of these two programmes provides for the exchange of officials, and this type of transnational cooperation is not ruled out for the Robert Schuman project either.
Secondly, it is true that the case law of the European Court of Justice has been very broad in its interpretation of what is meant by training.
There is the Gravier ruling of 1985, the Blaizot ruling of 1988 and another ruling of 1979, but let us not forget that these involved the interpretation of an article 128 which was not the article 128 currently in force, but an article that was clearly ambiguous. It is therefore evident that this case law must now be revised.
And, thirdly, Madam President, what determines the choice of legal base to which I have referred is undoubtedly the objective.
And the objective here is to create a uniform body of case law: indeed, in all our legal systems, the body of case law which is built up on the basis of the rulings of the courts is the source of the law itself, and therefore ultimately forms part of Community law.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights therefore firmly maintains that article 100a should be the legal base.
Furthermore, the 23 amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs seek to improve the definition of the project's scope, so that the legal base of article 100a is applied to those professions involved in the administration of justice.
Finally, we were pleased to incorporate into the report the three amendments concerning financial matters tabled by the Committee on Budgets, because they are fully justified.
Madam President, we cannot exaggerate the urgency of the need for clear and direct improvement of the awareness of Community law in the Member States. Let us hope that this project, which has clear goals, will be rapidly adopted and implemented.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Robert Schuman project has a clear purpose: to improve the application of Community law in the Union - not to train magistrates - by increased awareness by the legal professions in Europe.
Although the Robert Schuman Action has modest resources, it wants to be ambitious and targeted.
It is about developing increasing familiarity by judges and lawyers with the principles of Community law.
The Parliament has always emphasized that improvement of the awareness of the legal professions is an indispensable condition for the better application of the rule of Community law.
For the good application of this law, and particularly for the good functioning of the internal market, it is essential that citizens everywhere should be able to know their rights and benefit from the rights which the Community legal order confers on them.
Indeed, without an automatic Community reflex by the legal operators in the management of their affairs, we run the risk of reducing Community law to a second-order legal system, application of which would become subsidiary to national law, which would be paradoxical to say the least.
Also, the Commission is delighted with Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's report - and I congratulate her on her excellent work - which has been adopted unanimously by the Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Civil Rights. It respects the spirit of the Commission's proposal, but further improves its formulation, and I must say to you that thanks to your amendments, you have reinforced the legal base which the Commission proposed.
Indeed, what is important is article 100A, since the purpose of this action is effective and uniform application of the rule of Community law, which is a condition of the good functioning of the internal market.
So by your amendments, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, for which I thank you, you have consolidated and made explicit the legal base which the Commission proposed.
The Commission is also able to accept all the amendments of your report, subject to a small editorial precision to be applied to amendment 20, which contains a reasonable relaxation of the obligation of continuity, but which undoubtedly must be made more precise so that it is not emptied of its content, or so that there is no risk of doing so.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 9.01 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last session have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I should like to thank the services for the third attempt at minuting accurately what I have been saying day after day in this Chamber about the lack of a danger to health from using nickel in the new Euro coins.
I am sorry that I have to keep bringing this up, but I just cannot understand why it is that the European Commission is so intent on imposing on Europe a proprietary metal made by a Finnish company, known as Outokumpu.
I cannot understand why they are going to have a monopoly of supply.
I certainly hope that in the next few weeks we can sort this thing out.
Madame President, during the vote on Amendment No 4 relating to the budget - page 11 of the Minutes - Mr Samland spoke to raise an extremely important clarification and to say that the amendment certainly did not have the aim of questioning or contesting the legitimacy of the pension fund.
I think I recall, moreover, that I told him this was a very important clarification which we noted.
I would like that recorded in the Minutes.
Madam President, I do not rise to make remarks with regard to Labour gags - although some of us think they have been a bit of a joke this week -
(Mixed reactions ) but with regard to the point raised by Mr Hallam.
I seek some clarification.
I am a little confused as to whether Mr Hallam has caught the Commission nickel-less, or whether they have got their nickels in a twist?
I would appreciate some clarification.
Madam President, I should like to draw attention to one point. It is absolute nonsense that groups should allocate speaking time.
We are here until 1 p.m., yet when we indicate that we want to speak, we are suddenly told there is no more speaking time, even though we are stopping before 11 a.m.!
Officially, we are here until 1 p.m., and it is scandalous that group leaders simply allocate the time and then allow no more contributions to the debate.
I must ask for a debate on this, because this is foolishness at our taxpayers' expense.
We are still on the Minutes.
I ask for that to be checked.
I believe that on the Breyer Report an application was not announced, and as a result two amendments which should have been called were not heard.
I should like that checked again.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, regarding the Minutes, it is the point I raised yesterday which was also raised by Mrs Ewing and Mr Tomlinson about the demonstration.
Like Mr Habsburg, I believe in saving taxpayers' money so the staff employed here are not organizing demonstrations in Parliament's time against the reputation of honorable Members.
Has there been any follow-up on what measures the presidency is going to take to ensure that there will be no recurrences of this? Has any disciplinary action against the offending people been considered?
Madame President, I can reply very quickly to Mr McMahon.
I obviously enquired about the nature of the demonstration since it had occurred during my Presidency.
First of all, there were very few demonstrators, only about ten.
The demonstration was definitely not organized by the staff committee which was at pains to point out that it was not at all in agreement.
In other words it was a small, impromptu demonstration.
That is the information I wish to give you.
We are not debating any matter at the moment.
Statements on standing orders only, please.
Madam President, we are not having a debate on it, but it is somewhat disingenuous of the staff committee to say that they were not organizing it when they had put posters all around the building convening it.
They actually put a letter in every Member's letterbox about it.
It was a personal attack on the Secretary-General of the Parliament, on the decision of the Bureau in drafting the draft estimates of the Parliament, and on the Budget Committee for having adopted a report that carries my name.
It was highly personal in what it said concerning myself as the rapporteur of that committee.
If you are going to accept that the staff committee had no part in it, then I think they have to explain why they put posters around the building.
I think there is a further problem that the Bureau has to examine.
As the last staff committee elections were inquorate, we presumably do not have a staff committee and I think the Bureau needs to examine why there are members of staff on sabbatical leave when there is no quorate staff committee.
Madam President, I would like to pick up on the points made by my colleague, Mr McMahon.
While I did not agree with yesterday's demonstration, I cannot and will not accept that disciplinary action should be taken against trade unionists.
I have been a trade unionist all my life.
They are allowed to organize and demonstrate.
We should not be taking any action against them.
Ladies and gentlemen, something has already been said about that.
The matter will be discussed again.
Madam President, as the rapporteur for last year's report on human rights, I would like to ask Mr Tomlinson to look at that report again, and to read the chapter on the rights of unions and union representatives. The European parliament has pointed out that members of unions, employees, naturally have the right to demonstrate and to state their opinions...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mrs Roth, that debate is not on today's Agenda.
We can only discuss the issue if it is part of the Agenda!
Madame President, I wish to speak on page 2 of the Minutes, and, in particular about Mr McMahon's remarks.
And since there are in this Chamber Members who have things to say on questions...
The Minutes have already been approved.
May I say that in fact two speeches have just been made in the Chamber...
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I am sorry.
There must be no more debate. The Minutes have already been approved.
Votes
Madam President, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi has presented an excellent report on raising awareness of Community law, and I should like to say here that this programme deserves to bear the name of Robert Schuman, for he formed our Community into an essentially constitutional one.
Today we are extending this Community eastwards, busying ourselves with agriculture and neglecting this expansion of the concept of a constitutional state.
I would ask that we put real effort into more intensive training of the legal services, courts and administrations of the associated states.
I was told by the Minister of Justice in Prague that they have called upon the ENA for this purpose.
I have a high regard for the ENA, but doubt that it is the ENA's job to raise awareness of Community law.
For this we must do more to call upon the European Court of Justice, the European institutions, for action.
- Daskalaki report (A4-289/97)
With respect to the vote on the Daskalaki report, most of the UK Labour Members while supporting the thrust of this report, have reservations about paragraph 12.
We have abstained on this paragraph as we believe that it is crucial that VAT remains at 0 % on newspapers and periodicals.
The written word and its liberal availability to all, without censorship or restriction, is an important principle of democracies.
We should avoid anything that might restrict this availability.
This is not a question for the EU. These are purely national affairs which should be handled by nation states.
The EU is not and is not going to become a state.
The report on the future of the European press was begun out of a concern that the printed word is under pressure from electrical media and developing information technology.
Actually, the press itself exploits new technology in many ways.
The rapid change in the working environment is essentially a challenge regarding training, which can be met by recourse to EU training and media programmes.
Journalists belong to key groups in the information society, who need to be supported nationally and by the EU, in their further training to meet the demands of the international communications environment.
Journalists and editors do creative work, which must be the constant concern of all when pondering intellectual and ethical copyright protection, because a journalist's work is used many times over in the news.
This fact also underlines the personal responsibility of the journalist for the content and quality of his or her work.
Recent events concerning the guarding of privacy of public persons have given weight to our own internal debate.
In talks it is worth considering the need for international rules of the game in the form of Council debate at European level on the printed word.
Journalists and particularly the local press, which is very close to the people, have a crucial role in the construction of a citizens' Europe.
EU reporting should be made as clear and comprehensible to the people as possible if the current gulf that exists between the institutions and the people is to be bridged.
For this there needs to be thorough training in the areas of EU policy, languages and culture.
How then should the press be helped - if they should at all - with electronic data transmissions? Firstly, in communications we're going to need both the printed word and electronic media to complement each other as forms of communication.
The traditional work of the press is a defense of democracy; freedom and human rights have not disappeared, but there is a growing need to protect them.
This work is being threatened by a concentration of the communications field, of which there are recent examples in every member state, for example, in Finland and Sweden.
As an extreme case one might cite Italy, where one the country's political leader had in his possession important electronic media.
To keep a balance, the printed word - the book, the newspaper and other reading matter - now requires support to raise people's awareness.
People must become critical readers and engaged citizens when they are still in their childhood.
For example, in Finland the "Newspapers in the Classroom' campaign is producing good results.
The press has to struggle against massive costs and many new forms of new technological support mainly serve electronic communications.
Harmonization among Member States should result in lower costs, such as in transport and VAT.
We must preserve access to distribution systems for all.
You know, the preservation of pluralism and the prevention of the start of communications monopolies must be the European communications society model.
At the same time it is the guarantee of freedom of speech.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for a thorough report in an important area.
However, I consider that the recommendation of the report on the harmonization of VAT provisions for newspapers and magazines with aim of achieving the lowest possible level of VAT (paragraph 12) and the recommendation on the monitoring of the distribution system (paragraph 13) cannot be considered to be justified.
I have difficulty in seeing any reason why we should harmonize VAT provisions for newspapers and magazines in the EU. Newspapers are not in competition with one another across the Member States' borders to anything other than a very limited extent at the moment.
Nor do I see any reason why the Commission should be involved in monitoring distribution systems for the printed press in the Member States.
The Member States are best able to do this themselves.
For this reason I have voted against paragraphs Z, 12 and 13 in the report.
Market organization in beef and veal
The next item is the report (A4-0302/97) by Mrs Anttila, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 805/68 on the common organization of the market in beef and veal (COM(97)0161 - C4-0212/97-97/0122(CNS)).
Madame President, we too support this proposal.
As you know, this is an old order from 1968.
There are a few things which need to be tightened up to improve animal welfare, in both the 1991 and the 1995 directive.
The starting point here must be that transporting live animals is not in itself desirable, but is of course necessary.
The reasons are, first, the very great risk of infection amongst living animals and, second, animal welfare.
It is totally unacceptable that living animals should be carried around on the motor ways of Europe in poorly equipped trucks over long distances.
This puts the animals under stress, sometimes so much so that they die in transit.
The problem may exist because abattoirs have been concentrated in large groups, which means animals have to be transported for commercial reasons.
This may be a sign that a different approach is needed in this field.
But, until then, we need more stringent requirements on the trucks carrying the animals.
Likewise, border controls must also be tightened.
And last but not least, there is a need for commercial arguments which can help improve animal welfare.
Of course, animals can be slaughtered and then transported.
After cool, we now have refrigerated trucks.
I believe that the Parliament should not merely pass legislation which retains the old system, but should also think slightly ahead, and so I think that Parliament should discuss this matter at the Agricultural Committee and in other committees in future.
It is good that this report states that a veterinary surgeon should certify a consignment and that no preferential customs treatment will be allowed if the rules are not followed.
I think this is a step in the right direction, but, as I said, I think we should continue working on this matter.
Madam President, I would first like to thank the Commissioner for bringing forward the original document which is the base for this report.
In particular, I want to thank Mrs Anttila for her report on the transport of animals.
It is a very balanced report.
She has not made the usual mistake of condemning the whole system.
She has rightly insisted on the need to enforce the welfare rules which are already in place.
She has pointed to cases of deliberate cruelty and mistreatment of animals which have occurred in some Member States.
In June 1995 the Council of Ministers adopted wide-ranging rules on the transport of animals.
These rules had been proposed in large measure by the then Irish Minister of Agriculture, Mr Yates, and have been fully implemented in Ireland.
In fact, we have the most rigorous animal welfare regulations enshrined in Irish law and we are fully enforcing them.
Unfortunately, other Member States have not yet fully implemented the European legislation.
As the rapporteur has said, they must comply without further delay and the Commission must monitor the situation and impose severe penalties where the rules are not fully implemented.
Cruelty to animals most often occurs when the animals have left the farm.
For this reason, staff concerned with the transport of animals must be fully trained to ensure a high level of care at all times.
This is also a feature of the Irish rules and on the larger ships it is quite usual for a veterinarian to travel on board to supervise the stock.
Proper monitoring of the implementation of the rules of the directive is now urgently required.
The Commission must strictly manage the animal welfare provisions and ensure that they are respected throughout the European Union for animals imported and exported.
I call on the Commission to reject the amendment before us which has the aim of preventing the transport of animals outside the European Union by eliminating export refunds.
This would obviously destroy the beef market, not only in Ireland but in some other places and allow meat factories to further reduce prices to farmers.
Furthermore, there is no basis for such a proposal if we are really concerned with the welfare of the animals involved.
Animals can be, and are being, transported with full respect for their welfare.
It would be very unjust and damaging to make innocent exporters and farmers who do a thorough and careful job suffer because of the lack of concern and carelessness of just a few.
The rapporteur has reinforced the point that there is a remedy for such people, i.e. the withdrawal of export refunds.
The EU exports about 500, 000 live animals annually.
Ireland is an island and we export over 90 % of our total production.
In fact, 1 1/2 million cattle must be exported every year, both as beef and live cattle.
The majority is as beef.
We are obviously dependent on the markets in Europe and elsewhere and if we do not supply the markets outside Europe, our international competitors most certainly will.
When there is a demand for live animals, we have to meet this demand within the strict rules and regulations outlined of course.
I agree with the proposal to introduce severe penalties where it is found that animals have been mistreated during production and during transport.
Such events, thankfully are rare, as producers are reasonable people and their total livelihood and profit depend on the animals under their care being in good condition at the end of their journey.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, at a lethargic Friday sitting, which was therefore wrongly considered to be closing the entire week, we bring up this subject, to which I would like to draw your attention.
It is not an especially agricultural subject, but it involves a series of issues, I would go so far as to say values, and it cuts across many other committees.
I will just mention the Committee on Transport and Tourism, where we have fully debated the problem of the conditions of travel and health of animals in transit, and it is good that we have this synergy of opinions and intentions, and efforts too, to try and reach a joint and multilateral solution.
We are clearly starting from a technical and economic requirement, the amendment to this Regulation No 805/68.
As more authoritative colleagues who have been here longer have said, this is certainly not a new subject, but it is possible that because we have been talking about it for a long time and there is still a need for discussion, it means that there is no easy solution.
We have to take many factors, some strictly economic, into account before reaching a decision, such as the payment of premiums and other civil factors relating specifically to the transportation of these animals.
Showing great common sense, the rapporteur says she agrees with the Commission's motion but recalls virtually all these values, with moderation but with decision, particularly with regard to the welfare of animals during transportation, in which connection the rapporteur proposes an amendment asking for the introduction of a supervisory system including regular spot checks and, where necessary, using an independent agency placed under the control of the Commission and financed by export return.
Control - the real point of this problem is the control system.
Some of you will recall, a few months ago, some scandalous television reporting to the detriment of an Italian port and another port in the south of France.
Horses were shown coming from eastern countries which had been treated in an unorthodox not to say barbaric way.
That was the final point in a long journey that began who knows where, conducted in just as unclear a manner and ending anywhere, it might be Hanover or any European port.
At that time, all that was noted was the distressing conditions in which these animals were arriving.
Hence we should recall what the rapporteur is proposing: carrier's liability.
There should be guarantees that the maximum eight hours laid down are observed during transportation, that stopping places are provided for drinking, for feeding the animals and that those involved in the transportation, the carrier and also the driver of the vehicle, are trained to help the animals.
Think of the extent of the problem in the case of transportation to Islamic countries which, under the dictates of that religion, require live animals.
Think of the financial loss, also taking into consideration the long journey these animals have to make, if they start off, as very often happens, in the eastern countries.
There are therefore many considerations based on a single report which we still have to discuss, at least until we are clear over the basic issue: how to supervise those responsible.
Madam President, Mrs Anttila has produced an excellent report on the transportation of cattle, on which I would like to congratulate her wholeheartedly.
The transportation of cattle, and especially cattle for slaughter, has become a serious ethical problem, because cases have come to the attention of the public where animals have been treated in an inhumane and rough and ready fashion.
To improve matters, the Commission has now suggested an amendment to the decree on the export subsidy.
According to the motion for an amendment, it will be paid on condition that Community regulations are being obeyed.
This new principle, though, can hardly be considered very innovative.
On the contrary, it is astonishing that this condition was not imposed earlier, as the general conditions that pertain to agricultural subsidies have for a long time been that the rules are being observed.
Otherwise, the subsidy has been reduced or totally withdrawn.
Reducing the export subsidy is almost the only effective means whereby the EU can force the exporter to ensure that the animals are treated properly.
Naturally, it might be claimed that the exporter is unable to supervise the transportation process.
However, the exporter can have a far-reaching influence on the organization behind the transportation process, for example, by demanding an agreement to ensure that the transporting company is obliged to make good the loss of any export subsidy which may result from negligence or maltreatment of animals.
The most interesting aspect of the report now under debate is that the monitoring of transportation should be extended to the import of animals into the EU region.
This is clearly justifiable.
The amendment to the decree now being discussed will allow for broader scope for intervention in ethical matters of agriculture.
Furthermore, the production of livestock within the EU region is conducted in a dubious and ethically intolerable way.
Examples of this are the caged rearing of calves for the production of white meat for gourmet restaurants, force-feeding of geese, where the bird has food forcibly pumped into its stomach to make its liver swell, and increased beef production by means of Caesarian operation.
It is incomprehensible that a civilized international community can permit the existence of a totally unnatural breed of cattle to exist by means of repeated Caesarian operations, where the calf is pulled from the animal by cutting it open.
One of the cornerstones of European culture is a respect for, and the proper treatment of, animals.
It is quite appalling that we should be creating economic advantages for businesses that treat animals inhumanely and cruelly in the name of the free market.
The report states that the EU cannot oversee the handling of animals once they have arrived at their destination outside Europe.
Yet they may be subject to particular cruelty at that stage.
That is why we ought to try and reduce the number of animals being transported.
This could be achieved by introducing positive measures, such as the enhancement of, and aid for, the procurement of frozen food facilities and refrigerated transport equipment in both the EU region and in the countries the produce is being sent to.
A healthy outlook on the transportation of animals is extremely important for EU credibility.
I hope that the decree will be debated and got through speedily.
Mrs Wulf-Mathies, I want to address you personally.
Export refund are economic nonsense.
Export refunds, subsidies for the export of live cattle, are an accessory to animal suffering.
When we talk here about measures for improving controls, that should not hide the fact that the real point is to do away with these export refunds.
If the animals have been mostly paid for, when they are loaded onto the vehicles, then one can hardly wonder if they are treated in this way.
If you sell a horse, an Arab, to the Middle East for a million, you need not worry about its safe arrival.
If you subsidize animals for slaughter in this way, then exactly what we see in these pictures will take place.
These export subsidies must be stopped, therefore, and we shall be supporting resolutions that aim to do this.
Mrs Wulf-Mathies, do not deny what you really feel, but say that you too are against this foolishness, even if you are representing the Commission!
We must ensure that live animal breeders in North Africa are able to sell their animals, that they can do business with people there who want to eat meat in this way.
We must keep out of this.
Then we shall have made a sensible contribution to animal welfare.
People treat their animals sensibly, but we do not allow it.
That is the problem.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on the subject of the transport and welfare of animals, it is essential to make the payment export refunds for live cattle conditional on respect for Community standards.
The problem which we have discussed fully in the Committee on Agriculture concerns the supervision of animals until their arrival in the third country.
The nature of veterinary checks, in particular their frequency, their quality and the independence of the inspectors, has been put forward constantly since the beginning of the BSE crisis, and the Commission, more generally, sometimes testifies to the difficulties encountered in meeting standards with third countries.
It is fundamental that the veterinary inspectors should be qualified, independent of the transport or receiving companies and belong to an administrative service of the Commission or of a Member State.
As for the checks, they must be unexpected and carried out randomly.
We shall support amendments along those lines.
On the other hand, the Commission's text suffers from an important gap concerning the case where animals are directly imported by third countries, without passing through European Union operators.
Mrs Anttila's report fills this gap and proposes that the Commission puts in place arrangements to remove certain preferential advantages on imported cattle.
In conclusion I would like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Anttila on her particularly effective work.
My group will vote in favour of this report.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate our rapporteur Mrs Anttila on her excellent report and for having incorporated into it the five amendments we submitted in committee.
Amendments Nos 1 and 6 are a useful specification that checks must be carried out by expert officials of the Commission or the Member States.
In addition it seemed to us to be important to specify that the Food and Veterinary Office is fully equipped to carry out these checks or have them done.
In addition, contrary to the wishes of some people, it seemed to us to be essential that the cost of these checks should not be borne by the refunds budget.
In fact, because the total amount of these is limited, bearing in mind the constraints which have been accepted by the European Union in the COM framework, to incorporate them into the refunds budget would involve further dismantling of the Community preference.
Amendment No 2, which we tabled in committee and which was adopted, underlines the necessity for this rule to be fully in conformity with the aims and arrangements of the beef cattle COM.
In fact I would like to point out that the European Union exports almost 500, 000 head of live cattle to Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey and Libya.
I would like to point out that if these countries wish to import this cattle live then this can be explained for three reasons: problems associated with refrigeration, the process of ritual slaughter and the preservation of jobs in the countries concerned.
If the European Union stops exporting live animals to these countries we should not assume that they will start importing carcasses, they will continue to import live animals but from countries other than those of the European Union.
Amendments Nos 3 and 4, which we tabled in committee and which were adopted, specify that the restrictions and financial penalties which apply to the export of live animals from the European Union to third countries must also apply to the import of animals from these countries, if the conditions for the transport of live animals are not appropriate.
On this point I would like to recall that in 1996 the European Union imported about 500, 000 live animals from third countries.
If we impose restrictions on our own exports we must apply those same restrictions to our imports.
In conclusion, Madam President, during the vote we shall oppose the amendments tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists which provide that no refunds may be paid on the export of live animals to third countries.
This proposal is totally absurd and totally contrary to our European interests, for as I have said earlier, if we no longer export live animals, other countries will do so in our place.
Let us not allow Australia and New Zealand to take away our markets, which for us are traditional markets, located into the bargain in a geographical zone near to our areas of production.
The transport of live animals from countries of the European Union will permit shorter journeys which will benefit animal welfare all the more.
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Anttila on her very good report and on her hard work in drawing it up.
The regulations represent one more step in the right direction.
Animal welfare is an issue which has generated a lot of public interest over the past few years.
It is an item that has been included in the protocol to the Treaty of Amsterdam, signed earlier this year, recognizing the need to take animal welfare into account when formulating policy.
The Commission's proposals do so by making the payment of export subsidies dependent on compliance with the rules on animal transportation.
However, that in itself implies that the current legislation provides adequate protection.
I fully support the Commission's proposal before Parliament today but I urge the Commission to examine ways in which further improvements can be made.
The rapporteur has drawn attention to the fact that the rules on animal transportation are inadequate in respect of transport by sea and do not protect the animals once they reach their destinations outside the European Union.
Mrs Anttila has rightly identified the difficulties of ensuring animal welfare once they have left the European Union: even if the rules existed in destination countries they would be unenforceable by us.
What is more, the commercial arguments for the continuation of the export subsidy regime are strong.
Surely by paying the subsidy only for carcases we could ensure that welfare provisions are being met without disruption to a very troubled market.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe responsible businesses have been providing for the delivery of animals in the best condition.
Many transport firms have allowed inspection in order to counter repeated criticisms of animal transport.
We should take note of this fact also in today's general debate.
Unfortunately, there is always a reverse side to the medal.
This is what the report by Mrs Anttila emphasizes: that there are those who do not pay sufficient attention to providing transport suitable for animals.
It is now up to us to take the initiative and confront them with all the rigour of the law.
In order to improve the transport of live animals we must demand compliance with the following points:
Firstly, the frequency of controls should be increased, both within the EU and in third countries. Transport problems usually occur not because of faults in the legislation, but in its execution.
Secondly, specific transport conditions which meet EU legislation must be produced and, most particularly, agreed. That includes the recipient third countries.
Thirdly, we need strict and rigorously applied sanctions against gross negligence or premeditated transgression of animal welfare regulations.
And last but not least, Madam Commissioner, we require the European Commission so to set the export repayments for beef and cattle for slaughter, that there is no longer any economic incentive to export live animals to third countries.
In the international transport industry in particular, effective animal welfare is only possible with unified European legislation.
I do not deny that this is a very difficult and laborious process at European level, otherwise we should not have been talking about his subject for such a long time.
I am also aware, of course, that granting export subsidies is frequently open to general criticism.
Natural production conditions, environmental limitations, animal welfare criteria and animal health regulations in the EU mean, however, that our domestic beef product is less good value than that from the Argentine or the USA.
In commerce it is usual in such cases for rising costs simply to force businesses to move abroad.
Our farmers cannot do that, so that WTO agreements on the beef industry now provide for a drastic reduction in beef exports and subsidies on exports.
Between 1995 and 2001 they are due to be reduced from 1.1 million to 0.8 million tonnes.
Whilst that is one way, I think that European agriculture, what with BSE and growing surpluses, is going to be under constant pressure.
I think we should prohibit animal transport generally.
For the consumer that sounds good, but on the other hand consumers are not prepared to pay more for the product, just so that we can afford this luxury.
Mr President, I would like to join previous speakers in complimenting Mrs Anttila for her very objective and balanced presentation.
The common organization of the market in beef is an important measure in the overall framework of the common agricultural policy and is of great importance to my country, Ireland, where beef production is one of the main farm enterprises.
The fact that we export over 90 % of our production makes the Irish sector relevant to other Member States and, indeed, it is often said that Ireland's beef production is Europe's surplus.
We all know that the beef sector has come through a very difficult period, but many serious problems remain for farmers.
Cattle farming has always been a low-profit enterprise and even with generous EC subsidy many farmers are not making an acceptable profit.
Live exports are an important feature of Ireland's cattle sector.
Many of the animals exported live are unsuited to our carcase beef industry and it is to the credit of the Irish Government that we have put in place state-of-the-art facilities for shipment of cattle to third countries.
If Europe does not supply the live cattle requirements, other countries will; and surely we must have on our agenda the objective of maximizing the full potential of European agriculture.
In conclusion, we must reappraise the proposals in Agenda 2000 for Europe's beef sector and, in the context of world trade talks, provide a greater degree of protection and opportunity for Europe's beef farmers.
Mr President, I would like to put a couple of questions to Commissioner Wulf-Mathies.
When I was working on my report on the transport of livestock in Europe and elsewhere, I rapidly came to the conclusion that the European Union is in no position to exercise proper control over the welfare of animals during transport or even just to ensure that the European legislation is being complied with, and there are a few comments that should be made on that subject.
I would like to ask Commissioner Wulf-Mathies how she thinks successful control can be exercised outside the Union, not only during transport but during unloading and later at the abattoir, if it is not being done properly in the Union.
Is it not true that before long control will cost so much that it no longer compares with the advantages to the cattle sector in Europe of exporting 500, 000 head of cattle a year?
Really it is a very small part of the total cattle trade in Europe and it is completely ludicrous that we, this Parliament included, should continue paying export refunds.
We should stop immediately.
Madam President, firstly I hope you can correct an earlier decision not to accept a vote from me because I was not here.
I am here.
I have been here since Monday and will remain here until this par-session ends.
As far as the matter in hand is concerned, there are few things which have stirred up the Swedish public as much as when TV was able to show pictures of the unimaginable animal cruelty which takes place in connection with the export of live animals from the Union.
These exports have only one cause, the existence of export subsidies for this trade.
There is only one way to end these exports, and that is through us abolishing the subsidy.
The extra controls which are now being recommended are, of course, a step in the right direction.
However, opportunities for cheating remain, and we do not have any way of checking how these animals are treated in the recipient countries.
For this reason I am going to vote for Amendments Nos 11 and 12.
I hope that everybody else will do so as well.
The reason is simple: our tax-payers do not want their taxes to be used to subsidize advanced cruelty to animals.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I would first like to thank Mrs Anttila for her excellent, carefully prepared report.
Then I should like to start with the provocative question: why do we actually have animal transports, if everything is so terrible as has been depicted here? I should like to make the following comment on that: we suffer from a continuing overproduction of beef.
This has been exacerbated by the BSE scandal.
Beef consumption has sunk rapidly and we still bring in very many animals from third countries.
That is the situation confronting the European farmer.
The Council, Commission and Parliament are now searching for ways of reducing the resulting crisis.
What are our possibilities? The most expensive and most unproductive method is to store beef.
It will be returned to the market later, sold cheaply, and the quality will be affected.
The next method of reducing the quantities of meat is an early sale premium.
It has been recently resolved to do this, but presupposes that we have a market for veal, that there are consumers in Europe who will eat this veal.
Otherwise that is also just a drop in the ocean and it will only have a secondary effect.
I do not want to describe the next method more exactly, as it is described by a word from the Bible, and there are also many good things in the Bible.
It is not exactly a suitable example, but this method is not used in most states, because it meets with ethical objections.
That is where we are now.
We have a market in the Middle East and North Africa, but selling animals there requires extremely long transport times.
That is the problem.
As long as we want to make use of this market we should at least so design the conditions for the animals that they become bearable for them.
In any case, I move that the export of meat must have priority over all other methods.
That is supremely important, and it is really not possible for us to stop all animal transport completely.
I have checked the figures in my country.
There are currently 48 % live cattle transports, consisting of breeding and slaughter animals.
There is nothing against that, if those farmers build up a cattle herd in order to produce milk and meat for their own population.
In other words, we should bear this in mind and not lump everything into one category. We must continue to encourage slaughter and breeding animals, so that they can reach these markets.
In this way we will achieve a sensible result within our development policy.
Otherwise, transports should only be carried out by experts who can handle animals and who abide by Community regulations.
If that does not work, then no export subsidies should be paid.
We should be guided by this principle.
Madam President, on a point of order.
This is a most interesting debate on farming and farming subsidies.
Would it be appropriate to ask if all the speakers could indicate or have indicated - I am sure most of them will have done - if they have a particular financial interest in this debate.
It occurs to me that one or two of them might be farmers and their financial involvement and interest in the decision-making process would then affect how they voted and what they said.
We ought to know.
I am sure they will have declared it under the Rules of Procedure.
I do not know exactly. I just wanted to say that I am a farmer and have an interest.
But I am in favour of the abolition of the export subsidies.
Naturally I have an interest.
I look at that rather differently.
In my view that affects the integrity of every single Member here in the House.
We do not want to discuss that sort of question.
And of course we shall not ask the individual speakers.
Madam President, the free market has really run up against its own ethical boundaries if animals are to be transported live throughout the world.
This really ought to be stopped.
I think the only solution is for the EU to cut the refund made for the export of live animals.
It has been mentioned here that the Arabs buy live animals from New Zealand and Australia.
This is obviously a difficult problem.
But I believe the EU could make sure that also in world market negotiations the rights of live animals are recognized in future and that an effort is made around the world generally that transportation be stopped and that the slaughter of animals takes place as near as possible to the place they were originally raised.
The EU has a pretty massive ethical responsibility to ensure that these European values spread.
Mr Virrankoski mentioned that European values include a respect for animals.
This should be the starting point for us to endeavour to influence the entire world regarding this issue.
Madam President, a few weeks ago this Parliament called for an end to payments to live cattle.
We would look ridiculous now if we reverted to a weaker position.
What the Commission is proposing is simply that export refunds would not be paid if the rules on welfare during transport were broken.
But this is unrealistic.
It is impossible to comply with and when the animals leave the EU it is impossible to monitor them.
In 1995 600, 000 were exported from the EU and half of those came from Ireland.
I do not agree with my Irish colleagues.
What is going on is unacceptable.
European Union taxpayers have to subsidize heavily something that the vast majority of them are opposed to.
We are using taxpayers' money to subsidize an inhumane way of treating animals.
It is madness from an economic point of view, too.
We in Ireland are exporting jobs as well.
We are exporting live animals to be processed in other countries and then we complain about the unemployment problem in Ireland.
It is absolutely ridiculous and it has to end.
The writing is on the wall.
European Union taxpayers no longer want to see films on television documenting the cruel and inhumane treatment of animals.
It is not live beef, as some people have said, it is live animals which feel pain just as we do.
We cannot support this any longer.
Madam President, we have already had occasion to debate this very important and sensitive question of the transport of animals several times in this Parliament.
We know that the matter is not settled, but I consider that on the last few occasions we were able to progress gradually towards some degree of compromise and consensus.
And there is one point which has appeared unequivocal throughout our recent discussions. That unequivocal point is the importance that animals should be treated well, and hygienically, while they are being transported.
And why is this point unequivocal? Because the fact is that, firstly, it is just from the point of view of animal rights; and, secondly, it is vital to the improvement of the quality of meat - and it is important that this should be emphasized - which is in the interests both of the producers who sell meat and the consumers who buy it.
Mrs Anttila's report is a work of a high quality, well-reasoned and full of sensible suggestions.
The various proposed amendments to her wording do in fact improve on her suggestions and put the seal on a very positive contribution to the original text.
In particular I think the proposal that in some cases the payment of refunds might be partially limited or even refused in cases of failure to observe and respect the requisite legal conditions - as regards either hygiene or well-being - is a good idea and may help to make up for the finance which is being cut here; it may help to finance the strengthening of the technical resources, and especially the veterinary resources, that are needed by the European Union and Member States.
This is a very useful and positive proposal.
With all due respect, I think it is absolute nonsense to be suggesting here that the payment of refunds for exports of live animals should be abolished.
That would make no sense.
Furthermore, Mr Souchet has already spoken on the point here and justified it.
The point is thoroughly justified, and the only pity is that anyone should defend the abolition of aid for exports as though it were a kind of religious creed.
It is not; it is something which is perfectly justifiable in the present context of the European Union.
In conclusion, Madam President, I would like to say one thing: not long ago, an English colleague asked Members to declare whether or not they had any interest in this matter.
I would like to say that I have no interest. I am not a cattle-breeder.
But I do wish to state that this demand, in the form in which it was put to Members who are farmers, is actually an insult to the honesty of his colleagues.
And I therefore protest!
Madam President, we must remember that the Union has decreed that community funds can be used in relation to the transportation of animals as long as their welfare is respected.
However, this has not happened by any means.
For example, in Finland, at the end of last year, a documentary was shown on the loading of animals for Beirut.
It rightly outraged the Finnish people.
Not all drivers' morals live up to the spirit of the decree, clearly.
So Mrs Anttila's proposal in her report to improve veterinary certification and the proper transportation of animals is to be supported.
What is obviously happening in the transportation of animals sometimes, perhaps often, is that the conditions and welfare of the animals are being neglected, and thus spot checks and added vigilance are needed.
The Union has both the right and obligation, in this case, to bring in measures, as whenever Union taxpayers' money is being spent, it is right to make sure that anyone receiving a subsidy is implementing the wishes of the Union and its citizens.
If that is not happening, we must be bold enough to withdraw the aid.
The bearer of a transportation permit must clearly be responsible for his load.
With regard to the welfare of animals, we must recognize that transportation per se is a bad thing.
And the longer the journey the worse it gets.
The export refund on live animals fits in with Union policy incredibly badly.
The rapporteur's Amendment No 9 is also worthy of support.
We must remember, too, that the amount for the export refund for live animals has declined in recent years in comparison with meat exports, so clearly the refund is not an incentive to increasing exports of live animals.
So the question is: when can we put an end to this refund? Today we have heard that overproduction of beef in the EU area, as a result, for example, of BSE, is the commonly given reason for the transportation of live animals and the export refund.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does not follow at all when it comes to the Mansikki cow and if, instead of speeches, we want to really show respect for animals, we should not make them pay the bill for this kind of operation.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report, and in furthering its aims we hope to heighten our respect for animals, not only on paper, but also in industry.
Unfortunately, we often need financial pressures or checks in order to discover humanity in people when it comes to animals.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first let me thank Ms Anttila for her very balanced report.
The Commission is, like yourselves, growing increasingly concerned about violations of animal welfare standards, which are repeatedly observed during live cattle transports, particularly those over long distances.
Although the Community has passed various regulations for animal welfare, not just within the Union but also covering movement partially through third countries, it cannot be denied that enforcement of these regulations by national authorities, and adherence to them by those in the trade, continues to be difficult.
For this reason I can fully understand criticism made during this debate.
With this proposal the Commission intends to make the payment of subsidies dependent upon adherence to animal welfare standards as they apply to animal transport.
First let me say a few words about the amendment resolutions, and assure you that the draft now before you of an amendment to Regulation 805/68 on the common organization of the market is not going to end up undermining the basic rules.
Amendment No 2 is, therefore, superfluous.
The Commission has a lot of sympathy for the first part of Amendment No 1, which requires export subsidies to be dependent on veterinary certification of the correctness of transport.
If it cannot accept it, however, it is because the exporter may not be able in every case to demand such a certificate from the receiving country.
This would lead to discrimination.
Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 concern the application of Community regulations in third countries.
The Commission would like nothing better than to accede to this demand, but without the relevant legislation it cannot do so.
You will be aware that negotiations are currently being held with eastern European countries with the aim of getting these countries to declare their readiness to acknowledge the Community's veterinary laws.
Concerning Amendments Nos 8 and 9, which require regular spot checks to be funded out of export subsidies for live animals, I should like to say that the costs of such spot checks should follow normal commercial rules.
These include the fact that the exporter must bear the costs of checks.
Subsidies could be automatically increased according to the additional costs, but they are set in accordance with the current market situation and to that extent already take account of the exporter's situation.
The aim of this regulation is to make adherence to animal welfare standards a prerequisite for the payment of export subsidies.
The export of live animals forms an important part of the general market mechanism for beef.
For that reason the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 11 and 12, which are in contradiction to the aim of our proposal.
My comment on Amendment No 10 is that, whilst it is factually correct, such purely factual observations should not be part of a legislative text.
As for the other amendments, the Commission does not consider it practical to include these proposals in the text of the regulation itself.
It will, however, take heed of them in the implementation regulations.
Here I would refer in particular to part 3 of Amendment No 1, which calls for spot checks. This could be a thoroughly practical proposal and will be considered when the implementation regulations are being decided.
The same applies to your request for subsidiarity in the application of sanctions where certain animal welfare rules are violated.
As you know, the application of regulations is guided by detailed implementation regulations laid down by the Commission according to the usual management committee procedures.
Thus, Parliament will of course be kept up to date, in accordance with the Plumb-Delors Agreement.
Finally, may I once more emphasize that the Commission places as much value as you do on the appropriate transport of cattle, so that they arrive att heir destinations in good condition.
I would ask you, therefore, to use your parliamentary contacts with third countries to support our negotiations on achieving suitable regulations.
For that reason I would point out again that as far as third country imports are concerned, the associated states have committed themselves as part of the European Agreement to making their laws comply with those of the EU.
For that reason we are currently negotiating parity agreements with these states on veterinary matters and plant protection, in the form of supplementary agreements to the association agreements.
These agreements will also contain regulations on animal welfare during transport, so that conditions for animals will be improved not just during transport within the EU, but increasingly so in third countries as well.
Because the question has been asked, I shall also just touch on the fact that the fixed subsidy rates do not favour the export of live animals.
Quite the opposite: the ratio between subsidies for live animals and for beef between 1993 and 1997 has fallen from 65 % to 47 %.
To that extent there is also a trend, wherever practicable, for export subsidies, and thus the number of transports, to be reduced as much as possible.
I repeat, the proposed regulation is intended to contribute markedly towards improving controls, and in the view of the Commission it will do so.
The Commission assumes that one of the most effective sanctions is the removal of export subsidies where animal welfare regulations are not obeyed, as that would lead to considerable financial penalties.
We assume, therefore, that this proposal will play a substantial part in improving animal welfare during transport.
I would point out also, that veterinary controls are provided for, not just on loading, but also on arrival in the third country, in order to rule out any abuse as far as possible.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, anyone who wants to make an explanation of vote should actually be present!
That is not the case here with everyone who announced their intention to make an explanation.
You are right, Mrs Pack.
That will be recorded.
Although we can see that from here, I will call them if you wish.
Mr Morris, Mr Waidelich, Mr Cushnahan and Mr Lindqvist, are you all present? All right, now we can proceed with the business.
If the Van Dijk report on a related issue had been binding it would have effectively destroyed the Irish cattle trade.
Irish beef farmers export 90 % of their cattle and we are very dependent on our ability to export live cattle.
This option was not available until recently and its resumption is estimated to be worth £60 million annually.
It is important that it is allowed to continue and I believe the Anttila report, if passed in its original form, strikes a proper balance between the rights of animals and the rights of farmers to carry out their trade.
Irish farmers have always operated the highest standards of animal welfare.
Irish regulations on this issue are also strict.
I have every confidence that the highest standards ensuring animals do not suffer will be implemented in Ireland to the satisfaction of all concerned.
I have voted yes to the report, but can certainly not accept any export subsidies for animal transportation to third countries.
I have therefore voted yes to Amendments Nos 11 and 12.
Export subsidies create unnecessary animal transportation which causes unnecessary suffering for the animals.
As the rapporteur responsible for introducing the eight-hour rule - the maximum journey time for animals destined for slaughter - I would like to say that export subsidies for live animals lead to extensive cruelty.
In 1995 600, 000 live cattle alone were exported to the Middle East.
Dealers made in excess of £200 million out of this type of public spending.
It is wrong to use public funds in this way.
It leads to subsidizing cruelty.
The Commission justifies itself by saying that export refunds would not be paid if the welfare rules were broken.
This is unrealistic, once these animals leave the EU borders it is impossible to monitor their treatment.
The main exporters are from Germany, Ireland and the UK.
Apart from the cruelty these animals suffer on the journey and the suffering caused by unloading with ropes and slings, there is further cruelty they are subjected to at the slaughterhouse.
Support the ending of export subsidies.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for a thorough report in an important area.
I would like to stress the importance of well-drafted rules for the best animal protection possible during the transportation of animals, which is an issue which must be granted the greatest degree of consideration in connection with export subsidies.
I would particularly like to emphasize my support for Amendments 11 and 12 which say that no export subsidies should be paid for the export of animals from the Community to third countries.
Apples, pears, peaches and nectarines
The next item is the report (A4-0301/97) by Mr Rehder, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the improvement of the Community production of apples, pears, peaches and nectarines (COM(97)0035 - C4-0135/97-97/0031(CNS)).
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I will try not to get my apples mixed up with my pears and I would like to ask for a serious discussion because we are not talking peanuts, here.
This regulation will wipe out yet another burden on the European taxpayer inherited from the past.
Unfettered growth in fruit and vegetable production within the common market led until a few years ago to unfettered rises in costs of stabilizing the market.
In 1993 alone, ECU 776 million were spent in the fruit and vegetable sector on this, and at times - and this is a scandal - in some Member States almost 70 % of the harvest of a single type of fruit were destroyed.
The pressure to dump many thousands of tonnes of precious food - described in the Euro-speak euphemism as withdrawal from the market - has quite rightly infuriated Europeans against Europe as an entity.
Even today it is difficult to explain to the average European gourmet, using the logic of European trade, why an apple in only an apple when it is larger than 70 mm.
The market regulation for fruit and vegetables has finally set workable limits on this senseless waste of taxpayers' money.
I consider that the present proposal for the area of land to be grubbed up, at 10, 000 hectares, is sensible and also financially bearable, and that it will be a foundation stone for the necessary measures.
The Commission assumes that as a result of the new grubbing-up programme withdrawals from the market will fall by 80 %, and that in four years time the annual costs of ECU 28 million will have been cancelled out.
Madam Commissioner, we too pay attention to finance.
We shall be looking in four years time to see if that is really accurate.
The final objective of a thoroughly overhauled common agricultural policy must be, however, to reduce state or Community intervention to zero.
For the taxpayer as well, intervention is only justified when it concerns the maintenance of the environment and, above all, the maintenance of future-proof jobs.
Agenda 2000, which so many people mostly criticize, and which apparently few of the general critics seem to have read to the end, offers good starting points for the twin objectives of, first, maintaining jobs in rural areas, and, second, reducing costly overproduction.
Of course we welcome the fact that many points in the European Parliament's proposals of December 1996 have been taken up.
That applies particularly to our suggestion for creating an integrated policy within and for rural areas, in which there should be concern for maintenance of a regional agriculture and, equally, concern for additional jobs, improved infrastructure policy and specific environmental protection.
Those, too, who even here in Parliament - they are no longer present, unfortunately; perhaps Mr Habsburg could give them a ticking off - have made great rhetorical play about rejecting every essential and long overdue reform of the common agricultural policy, and those who continue to bury their heads in the sand - to the great detriment of small farmers in need of our help - even these should finally recognize that only in this integrated initiative can there be an effective end to depopulation and loss of significance.
Europe only has a future when rural areas, which make up 80 % of the continent, also have a secure future.
I should also like to ask those representatives of the Group of the European People's Party - they do not seem to be here either, but perhaps they are, posthumously, I almost said - who abstained in the vote, to acknowledge that such abuses have occurred.
In ancient Greece, the cradle of democracy, it was usual for those who abstained to be driven out of the Council.
These have all now driven themselves out.
Nevertheless, I would ask the surviving colleagues of these expellees to vote now for the measure.
Then I think we should between us be able to produce a fair and sensible policy.
Madam President, I should like to start by congratulating Mr Rehder on his report.
As usual, he has done an excellent job.
The proposals are one of a series of measures which the Commission has taken to reduce expenditure on the withdrawal of apples, peaches, pears and nectarines from the market and to stabilize the income of producers.
I welcome this development.
In fact, it will only affect up to 10, 000 hectares throughout the 15 Member States.
The purchase and destruction of fruit and vegetables with EU funds does little to improve the image of the European Union in the eyes of the taxpayer, particularly when retail prices limit the amounts of fresh produce in the diets of many of our citizens.
We are all well aware of the scare stories and food mountain stories.
The nature of the produce means that it must be processed and preserved, or destroyed.
In 1994 and 1995, inspections by the Court of Auditors revealed that the destruction of fruit had, in certain regions of the Union, polluted the groundwater to such an extent that it had infected water supplies to householders in the vicinity of the destruction sites.
The full extent of the damage to the environment that this practice causes is not yet evident, but it was of such concern that an inquiry into the environmental aspects of the common agricultural policy as a whole was launched.
This report has not yet been published.
Even those of us with only the most rudimentary scientific knowledge are aware that the dumping of tonnes of fruit and vegetables with high nitrate contents amounts to an environmental hazard.
This is a commendable initiative, to better balance supply and demand.
I hope that you will all support this proposal in this House, this morning, as I can see so many people are here to take part in this interesting debate.
I nevertheless ask the Commission to ensure that withdrawal prices are reviewed regularly to ensure that they do not encourage over-production.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are examining the proposal for a Council regulation on the improvement of the Community production of apples, pears, peaches and nectarines.
This reform proposal is based on what was decided for apples in 1990, and for peaches and nectarines in the marketing year 1994-1995, with certain modifications which take into account the experience gained.
Now the measures also include pears.
The total area affected will be 10, 000 hectares for apples and pears and 10, 000 hectares for peaches and nectarines.
These areas will be apportioned between the Member States on the basis of the orchard area, production levels and withdrawals of each Member State.
Experience has shown that total grubbing-up operations, such as those carried out in 1990-1993 and 1994-1995, are of limited effectiveness and more difficult to monitor, since they require complete information about and total control over the fruit orchards of applicants. We therefore consider that the measure should be extended to include partial grubbing-up as well as total grubbing-up, with the proviso that the area to be grubbed up must be at least 0.5 hectare in size, in order to avoid abuses.
In order to ensure that the measure is effective it will only apply to productive orchards of more than 300 trees per hectare. It will be financed by EAGGF Guarantee funds.
This measure will help to eliminate the mass destruction of surpluses at the Community taxpayer's expense, which provokes such bad press and has caused more indignation among the European public than any other measure under the CAP. This is due to the ethical questions raised by the destruction of valuable food products in perfect condition, for which there is a great need in other parts of the world, but which, for various reasons, are not placed on the market, causing surpluses in the countries of the Union.
In order to ensure that this one-off premium is effective, it is proposed that the measures should only apply to orchards of more than 300 trees per hectare and to areas of at least 0.5 hectare in size, and that the orchards eligible for this fixed premium should have trees of a maximum and minimum age, to be set by the Member States.
It is also proposed that the measures should only apply to orchards which meet certain ecological, environmental and social requirements, with the Member States being allowed to determine, in the framework of the future regulation and under their own responsibility, the specific regions to which the measure will apply and the details of its application.
We therefore support Mr Rehder's report and the amendments adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which we believe will improve the introduction and implementation of this measure.
However, we do not agree with Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9, since we see no reason for changing the method of apportioning the areas proposed by the Commission, which, as I said earlier, will be on the basis of the orchard area, production levels and withdrawals of each Member State.
We believe that Amendment No 7 is arbitrary, discriminatory and partisan.
With regard to Amendment No 8, we prefer the original wording of article 1(2)(2).
We do not understand Amendment No 9, since we are unsure what the objective criteria for designating priority categories of producers, rather than products or orchards, will be.
Do the authors of the amendment mean that they must be tall, blond and blue-eyed? Very well, that is a joke.
We cannot support this amendment, because we believe that the conditions established by the Commission and refined by the Committee on Agriculture's amendments are sufficient.
We therefore consider that this proposal for a regulation represents a positive step for the sector and for the public image of the European Union, and our group will be supporting it.
Madam President, we too support this report, because it breaks through the so-called open doors as well.
When a report proposes to reduce quantities that are damaging the market with a surplus, and which in particular help to clear the Community scene of images that are certainly unpopular, such as those of fruit mountains destroyed by bulldozers, it can only be met with general acceptance.
In this report drawn up by Mr Rehder, however, the technical proposals also seem to us to be balanced, the measure with which it is intended to face the serious matter of surpluses which, as we all know, is one of the hardest undertakings to propose to, rather than to impose on, the Member States.
The offer of an exchange premium for reducing cultivation of apples and pears by 10, 000 hectares, with a further 10, 000 hectares for peaches and nectarines seems balanced.
This is also because, particularly in these last two categories of fruit, there has been a type of boost on the basis of fashion: the old peach has been abandoned and we have started to produce just as many nectarines, with the inevitable result of blocking the market and confusing the consumer as well.
Very precise controls should be made.
Consequently, the areas destroyed should not be repopulated with the same type of fruit.
The minimum area of half a hectare seems to us to be adequate.
Age is important as well, to avoid speculative transactions spanning this intervention.
A minimum and maximum age helps us to avoid ad hoc plantations from being planted so as to be able to collect the premium.
Our rapporteur affirms that, thanks to this new programme, we can reduce withdrawals by 80 %.
We hope that will happen.
He also says that, in less than four annual seasons, the foreseeable costs will be balanced by savings.
This is what we all hope for, with one small regret: why did we not think of it before?
Madame President, the rule proposed by the council seems to return once more to a policy of grubbing up fruit trees, on the basic argument of reducing budget expenditure associated with the financing of withdrawal and destruction of fruit.
This grubbing up premium will be accepted by fruit growers even if it involves a reduction in their potential production.
Some of them will in fact see in this a means of reducing the financial difficulties they are encountering.
But is that the sign of an ambitious and effective policy in the sphere of fruit production? I do not think so.
The main reason for the slump in the sales of fruit products even in the Union is not associated with a real imbalance between supply and demand in the Community context.
It is due essentially to new practices in international negotiations and wholesale distribution, which uses imports from third countries to impose an artificial imbalance between supply and demand and thus to provoke the fall of prices at producer level, a slump in sales, and destruction.
Should the Commission and the Council not be considering measures to adhere to Community preference, about measures to bring about a rapid and effective operation of the safeguard clauses and about the necessary agreements and cooperation which we shall have to develop within the Union to forestall situations of internal competition?
Should the Council and the Commission not also be considering measures to propose and implement morality in the relationship between producers and consumers on the one hand, and international negotiation and large-scale distribution on the other, for example by fixing a maximum multiplication factor between the production price and the sales price, in the interests of both producers and consumers?
Instead of talking about overproduction should we not see the reality of under consumption? The Council and the Commission should ask themselves if the demand for fruit on the Union market would not be much greater if we really did reduce unemployment and poverty, which prevent tens of millions of families from having a normal consumption of fruit, which is moreover indispensable for good health.
In this respect should we not listen to the appeals of charity organizations which emphasize the poverty and malnutrition in the Union and the reduction of food aid in the Union, an aid which should, in their eyes amount to ECU 230 million to meet the needs of deprived people.
Finally, it is not true, in the sphere of fruit and vegetable production, overall in deficit in the Union, that we should guarantee fair wages for agricultural work and provide finance for diversification, product development and reconversion where necessary, thus enabling tens of thousands of young farmers to get started, in particular in southern areas? This would make priority of employment a reality and not a slogan.
The report by Mr Rehder relates to a rule which is basically conjunctural and cyclical.
It must not conceal from us the basic reforms which remain to be carried out and to which I have just referred.
Madam President. Mr Rehder, we support your report, because we think it will bring a number of improvements, but we oppose on principle the policy of grubbing up.
As you know, this is not new; we have had it for decades.
It contributed to the fact that self-seeding land was destroyed, and plantations laid out because there was simultaneous encouragement for them.
These measures gave rise to the very fact that we now have overproduction, that businesses have not been market-oriented, that production was for quantity not quality, and now we have the problem of destruction.
It is exactly the same, by the way, with wine.
In the 70s and 80s there was a reorganization of vineyards so that quality vines were removed and replaced by quantity producers.
That went so far that in the Eifel foothills vines were planted on sugarbeet fields.
There too, we have to face overproduction.
That is, all in all, the wrong way to go, and we want these enabling instruments to be deleted.
We want the market to decide the rules.
We support your report, though, because we feel that a few things have been included here which will prevent the worst from happening.
I do feel, however, that we must discuss this again, and that we must approach this market issue in a fundamental way.
Madam President, the Commission tells us to grub up. So let us grub up, if we must.
Let us grub up in the name of the law of the market place, let us not forget that we have also planted and harvested in the name of the law of the market place.
Let us allow an accountable mechanism to direct the evolution and the life of our soil.
Let us grub up because grubbing up today represents the politically correct alternative to massive destruction of surpluses.
Is that what it all comes down to? I do not think so, because in the case in point, this is already the third proposal seeking to deal with the permanent surplus of apples, pears, peaches and nectarines.
I am worried about the harmful effects of such a system, which seems to have allowed some people to plant more so that they would have more to grub up, let alone turn themselves into veritable premium hunters - planting premiums, then grubbing up premiums, via premiums for the destruction of surpluses.
Do we have them to blame for all that? Certainly not.
How can we reproach producers for utilizing the resources of a system, however worthy of criticism it may be? All that is shocking, not to say immoral, but we are obliged today to endorse this type of stop-gap measure.
Well then, in doing so let us make the stop-gap efficient. We are in favour of Mr Rehder's report but if it is necessary to grub up then let us not create any distortion of competition nor any inequity.
It is therefore useless to associate the payment of the premium to the age of the trees, whereas we fix a limit of 300 trees minimum per hectare.
We therefore reject Amendment No 6.
That said, I think we would all wish, in our chosen work, to do something other than to consolidate, here and there, the harmful effects of an unnatural system of production.
One day we will have to find the political courage to break this vicious circle and demonstrate true creativity.
To produce less in order to produce better: when will that message be really heard and understood?
Madam President, it seems from the European Commission's figures that there is considerable overproduction of apples, pears, nectarines and peaches in the horticultural sector.
Between 1991 and 1996 an average of 800, 000 tonnes of apples per year were withdrawn from the market and destroyed.
As the rapporteur rightly says, an explanation is needed for this waste of good food, which presents ethical but not practical problems, A European improvement regulation can make a valuable contribution to reducing overproduction.
The grubbing up regulation now proposed is considerably better than previous regulations. The ban on replanting on the same land will encourage efficiency.
I can support the proposed breakdown of the maximum area between Member States.
The Commission has based its proposal on objective and relevant criteria.
It nevertheless seems possible that certain Member States will not make full use of their allocation.
This will impair the effectiveness of the grubbing up regulation.
The situation will not be completely clear until the growers have had the opportunity to register for the improvement regulation.
I therefore think that it is better to wait until after the registration period to consider whether it is desirable to redistribute the allocated areas between the Member States, rather than tinkering around with the distribution at this stage.
I agree with most of the rapporteur's amendments, but certainly not Amendment No 6.
I cannot see why young trees should not be covered by the regulation.
After all they still have a long productive life ahead of them.
The grubbing up of these orchards, together with the ban on replanting, will certainly help reduce overproduction in the longer term.
Besides that the age requirements for trees are difficult to check.
Finally, I regret that it has taken so long to consider this report in Parliament.
The Commission's proposal is already 8 months old.
Because Parliament had not given its opinion the Council decision was delayed.
Time is still needed for implementation in the national legislation and for instructions to be issued to growers.
This regulation might not come into effect until mid-January, when much of the winter, the period which is particularly suitable for grubbing up, will already be over.
Madam President, allow me to first say that this is a most excellent report, but our group still cannot vote in favour of it.
The reason is that we can in no way approve the underlying directive.
This is yet another example of the absurd results which the common agricultural policy leads to. Thus first we have subsidies for the production of apples, pears and nectarines, subsidies which lead to overproduction.
We then go and buy up that overproduction and in a hungry world we then destroy the fruit.
The public is indignant, but instead of then lowering the subsidies, we introduce a new subsidy, this time for chopping down trees.
Let me assure you, Madam President, that this will lead to the same indignation among our citizens when they see how subsidies are given for chopping down living fruit trees.
Furthermore, this will not lead to any large reduction in the Union's intervention buying.
The 80 % being discussed is only in relation to the average production of this 2 % of fields which we are now going to chop down.
Furthermore, there is nothing to prevent a grower from replanting the field, but this time with a different type of fruit, or from selling it to his brother who in turn plants it with the same type of trees as has just been chopped down.
This time again with subsidies from the Union.
Nor is there anything to prevent the grower from chopping down the least productive trees, or, once he has chopped down these trees, from using the income he then gets from the EU to manage the other trees more intensively.
Let me say that this is going to fail.
It will not lead to any savings.
The only sensible way of getting away from this incredible waste is to reduce the subsidy directly.
Madam President, I should like first to thank Mr Rehder for the way he has presented his whole concept.
We are dealing here with a matter that is a real patchwork of all possible temporary measures that can be taken; just as aspirin certainly helps ease a pain, but basically alters nothing about the problem.
This is the third time since 1990 that we have considered this problem.
Each time we were told that it was the last time, and when I read in the report that this is absolutely the last time, I have to say: Mr Rehder, you will find out that there is another absolutely last time, you can be quite sure of that!
This shows once again the weakness of our general agricultural policy, which has no comprehensive concept.
For that reason I am thankful to Mr Rehder for pointing out quite clearly that we shall not repair the agricultural policy if we do not put it into perspective with the future, that is, the perspective of renewable raw materials.
I have already spoken about this during the excellent report by Mr Hallam, when I said that it was absolutely essential to alter our way of thinking.
Our great error is that we utilize our research and development capability for non-renewable raw materials.
The correct policy would be to use the same effort for renewable ones.
Meanwhile we know that in the future we shall need an agriculture that is based on farming basics and that is the way of the future.
I must thank Mr Rehder. We shall of course support the report this time, because it is necessary to maintain the existence of a few people, but we must also say that a comprehensive solution should at long last be found.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems there is a production surplus of pears, apples, peaches and nectarines in the European Union.
In that respect, we have not yet forgotten the pictures of the recent destruction of tonnes of pears in Portugal, which thus seems to suggest that the possibility of production surpluses is confirmed.
To prevent any more pictures of this kind from being seen, and from continuing to repel all those who see them, particularly the millions in this Union and this world who continue to live in hunger or continue to live in the doorways of poverty, the Council has given instructions and the Commission is obediently proposing a reward for uprooting trees, resulting in the definitive abandonment of production.
This means that around ECU 100 million are once again being used to encourage the definitive abandonment of production.
That investment, it is suggested, will be recovered in under four years, since provision is made for the abolition of the present outlay of ECU 28 million per year allocated to the payment of guaranteed prices for the removal of surpluses.
The Commission still establishes the maximum global ceiling for the area to be abandoned, distributes the money among the Member States, fixes the minimum surface area unit to be abandoned at half a hectare provided that the trees are planted with a density of 300 or more per hectare.
Nevertheless, in proposing these guidelines and figures the Commission omits from its analysis consideration of certain points which we think are essential.
It does not determine the imbalances between national consumption and national production, which might clarify who actually contributes to an overall production surplus and who produces at levels below those of actual consumption; it does not take into consideration the commercial effects of current Community imports of those products, in circumstances which often betray an increasing degree of unfair competition; it does not reflect the fact that the present price guarantee system at least guarantees yields and might possibly cease to represent a cost if we really invested in improving trading conditions and encouraged exports and consumption in order to achieve a more stable balance between production and demand.
Finally, it reveals and renews a total insensitivity and indifference to the consequences which support for the total abandonment of production has always had and will continue to have in terns of increased unemployment, widening desertification and growing abandonment of rural areas.
So long as there is no such global analysis, and we do not even think there is any political will for it, we shall go on fighting to prevent the general acceptance and implementation of the payment of rewards for the definitive abandonment of production.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, to start with, the Commission would like to thank Mr Rehder most sincerely for his report.
As you know, this proposal is directly concerned with the reform of the common organization of the market for fruit and vegetables passed last year.
The Commission has presented this proposal at the request of the Council.
It is intended to limit the measures for each of the two categories, on the one hand apples and pears - which we do not want to confuse with each other - and peaches and nectarines on the other, to 10, 000 hectares.
Bearing in mind previous experience with similar measures - and it has been said here that not all of them met with the desired success - this proposal aims principally to make the criteria for guaranteeing the grubbing up premium as flexible as possible. This is in the interests of maximum efficiency, but also in order to give Member States an opportunity to improve the economic and ecological situation in the various regions.
I should like to emphasize at this point that of course controls will be carried out, and they will concentrate on the ownership of the land, not on the present producer.
The Commission hopes that these grubbing up measures will facilitate the cleaning up of the sector in the long term, so that it can make full use of the reforms to the common organization of the market.
Let me say the following about the amendments. The Commission cannot agree with the arguments in the first amendment, which creates a direct connection between market withdrawal and structurally governed overproduction.
Because of the perishable nature of the products concerned, and because of the annual changes in harvest, market withdrawals, although not ideal, are an instrument for short term stabilization of the sector.
The Commission agrees in principle with Amendment No 2, and will bear it in mind for the implementation of the measures.
It does, however, consider its own wording, referring to the situation and not just the measures, as more suitable.
It is of the opinion, however, that the trees to be grubbed up and the measures for preventing replanting should be defined as in the previous Council Regulation or its comprehensive implementation regulations, and it therefore rejects Amendment No 3.
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 concern merely the aim and purpose of some regulations in the proposal.
Ideas of this kind, although the Commission welcomes them, should not be considered in a legislative text.
Amendment No 6, like all other previous measures of this kind, will be included in the detailed implementation regulations.
Amendment No 7 is concerned with the sensitive problem of distributing the maximum area to be grubbed up between Member States, and this has already been referred to.
The Commission welcomes the introduction of the amendment, which places production and withdrawal from the market in close relationship when determining the distribution.
Without committing itself finally at this stage, the Commission will introduce it into the final discussion.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 8.
For our decision to modify the original distribution we shall need information from the Member States.
For this reason the Commission cannot make any promises regarding a deadline.
I would expressly like to assure Parliament, however, that everything will be done to reach a rapid decision.
Last but not least, Amendment No 9: I am pleased to tell you that it will be accepted by the Commission.
Let me say something about just three points in this discussion.
First, about the economic position of those employed in this field, the grubbing up measures are just a part of the common organization of the market, and I should like to emphasize that.
The common organization of the market is also expressly aimed at giving the producer in the Community a fair market share, for which new items such as the business fund and the operational programmes are a very important beginning.
I should like to point out, therefore, that this one measure cannot offer a solution for the whole problem.
I should also like to point out that environmental damage caused by withdrawals from the market should be reduced by the common organization of the market.
First, because the common organization of the market obliges producer organizations, on withdrawal from the market, to protect the quality of water, land and landscape. Secondly, producer organizations must report their measures to national authorities.
Finally, Member States must establish national guidelines for the process of environmentally friendly withdrawal, and present drafts of them to the Commission. The Commission can demand alterations.
It is certainly too early to detect results here, but you are aware that a report is to be laid before the Council in the year 2000. I hope we shall then be in a position to say that we have made progress in the prevention of environmental damage.
One last comment. I would expressly like to thank Mr Rehder for the positive assessment of Agenda 2000 and also the emphasis on the need for an integrated policy for rural areas.
I share the opinion of all those who say that while we must still try to remove symptoms, the important thing is to find the path to further reforms.
I hope that Parliament will support these rather more in-depth proposals by the Commission.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Madam President, I have a problem.
I was outside for a moment, and during that time a woman came - most likely a staff member of this House, as my neighbour, Mr Rübig, informs me - and removed my card.
When he said she should leave the card in its place, she replied that she had been told to take this card away.
I gave no one any such order.
I would ask you to take note of that.
I would like to vote.
And that you can do.
As far as I can see, no recorded vote has been called for.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
The June Movement cannot support the Commission's proposals on grubbing up orchards.
There are better ways of counteracting the imbalances in the market.
The June Movement can only support assistance to fruit growers if this is a reward for switching to ecological production.
It is completely absurd for the EU first to give subsidies for fruit production through agricultural support and then, when a surplus arises, also give subsidies - of ECU 100 million, according to this report - in order to destroy harvests.
The best thing would be to reduce or remove the agricultural support for these crops, or to sell the surplus on the world market.
The rules must be changed so that farmers are not hit and unemployment does not rise.
Although the report makes improvements to the Commission's proposal, it is based on an idea of regulation within agricultural policy which I cannot support.
The common agricultural policy should instead be rapidly reformed with fewer rules and fewer subsidies.
That is why I cannot support the report.
The prescribed programme of grubbing up, limited to 10, 000 hectares for the European Union is grossly inadequate since, for France for example, the area assigned is only 2, 750 hectares, an area much lower than the needs expressed by the profession.
Our group has therefore submitted three amendments designed both to increase the area assigned to grubbing up and also to enlarge to a maximum the room for manoeuvre which the Member States will have at their disposal, so that they can suitably deal with the management of their tree sector.
The organization of a programme of grubbing up must meet an objective of purging the market, which is currently characterized by specific surpluses for each of the Member States.
In fact, we know that consumption evolves both quantitatively and qualitatively.
In France we can confirm flow difficulties in certain areas, such as the Loire district.
Producers are in debt and cannot get over the crisis which began in 1992.
The farms have lost their value but they continue to be worked in order to avoid bankruptcies.
Their products are thus sold at low prices and the economic situation of these producers is particularly delicate.
Apart from the fact of reducing supply the grubbing up premium can allow a certain number of farmers to pay off their debts and thereby allow the preservation of agricultural jobs which are currently in a very precarious situation.
In conclusion, our group is opposed to Amendment No 6 which seeks to define a maximum age and minimum age for trees to be grubbed up.
Let us trust in the good sense of our farmers.
Do you think, Mr President, that a farmer will be happy to grub up a hectare? No, Mr President!
If somebody grubs up a hectare of orchard it is because he is forced to do so for economic reasons.
I do not think we have to argue in this Parliament exclusively in terms of macro-economics and accountability.
We simply must not forget the reality of land and people.
Madam President. I know that some people are amused, but the matter is not funny.
This is the second time my card has disappeared before voting.
I really must ask that enquiries be made, if someone from the sitting services is responsible, because in reply to Mr Rübig's protest - he said: Mr Posselt still needs that card - the woman replied that she had been specifically ordered to remove it.
I would ask you to enquire into it.
Mr Posselt, as you had already reported this, I had enquiries made, and it was not someone from the sitting services who did this.
We shall investigate and check the matter, and you will be told at the next part-session what the explanation is.
Madam President, I think I have an explanation.
Mr Posselt belongs to the Friday Club, that is, the people who, like me, always stay here to the end.
It was probably someone from the Brussels lobby who stole his card, because they are always keen to demonstrate that Friday should no longer be a sitting day in Brussels.
(Laughter )
That is something we will also investigate, Mrs Lulling.
I am agog to know what will transpire.
Madam President, as only a few people have access to the hall, and it was not someone from the services, I shall look through the Members' directory. If I know the name I shall report it.
As I have said, we shall investigate and there will be an explanation.
That completes our Agenda, and I wish you a happy weekend.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.24 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes for the sitting of Friday 24 October have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I rise on a point of order to enquire whether or not the Commissioner is able to come to Parliament today to make an urgent statement on the French lorry blockade and the fact that France is infringing the Treaties of Rome.
Can you confirm that the Commissioner will be with us today to make a statement?
Ladies and gentlemen, could I ask all those who are getting ready to raise points of order on the same subject to be good enough to bear with me, because I shall be making a proposal in a few minutes entirely in line with your wishes.
Madam President, we should not be regarded, on this side of the House, as an appendix, or indeed an appendicitis.
If Miss McIntosh had followed the discussion that preceded your announcement, Madam President, she would have known that it was the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party which called for this debate and that it will take place.
Mr Wijsenbeek, I am going to list all the groups which made the request, so that everything is quite clear.
Madam President, I refer to something which was not in the Minutes of the Friday of the previous part-session because I was not able to put my point.
On Thursday I asked in writing for a correction to be made immediately after the vote on the chocolate directive to amend my vote on Amendment No 25.
But on Friday it was not corrected in the list of recorded votes.
I tried to raise the matter but despite the parliamentary services being aware that I was trying to raise a point of order - which was not the case with all the people called to speak - the President refused and I was again forced to put it in writing.
I ask you for an assurance that the recorded vote for Thursday will be corrected in accordance with the two letters I have sent.
Mrs Hardstaff, we will include your statement on the vote you mentioned in today's Minutes.
In the Minutes of 23 October, annoying mistakes have crept in that I simply must correct, Madam President.
I spoke about the hiring of mercenaries by the government in Luanda and the purchase of a few C130 aircraft with which the former dictator in Congo-Brazzaville was subsequently placed on the throne.
In the Minutes it does not say Luanda but Rwanda.
A delivery of 130 American aircraft is mentioned.
That would have been the sale of the century, Madam President.
Of course that is not true.
Actually, Mrs van Bladel, your comment relates to the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
Having said that, I can tell you that your remarks will be included in today's Minutes, to rectify the situation in accordance with your wishes.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Madam President, this is an important point of order concerning the application of Rule 123(5) of our Rules of Procedure to Rule 102 concerning languages.
It concerns, in particular, the very significant variations which appear in the various language versions of the Fraga report.
There are differences between the language versions and also between the version adopted by committee and that appearing before us now.
You have a dilemma now if you were in the chair at that point.
I drew the attention of the sessional services to that problem last week.
I wrote personally to the Secretary-General about it and I fear that you have no option but to declare the vote on the Fraga report invalid if we proceed to a vote on this tomorrow.
Rather than place you in this difficulty I would be prepared to listen to the big groups' views on whether they would rather refer it back to committee, which seems to me to be a possibility.
The alternative is to postpone the vote until we get the linguistic problems ironed out.
We cannot vote on this tomorrow. That would be quite absurd.
Madam President, the report Mr Macartney has just referred to raises problems in several areas.
First of all, there is the fact that we are dealing here with an own-initiative report by the Committee on Fisheries, but the Committee on Fisheries has failed to obtain the opinion of the committees that must always be consulted.
In particular the opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation is not there.
The opinion of the Committee on the Environment is not there. The opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs is not there.
I would refer in this connection to the fact that there is a very recent decision by the Conference of Presidents in which it was agreed that in this Parliament when dealing with an own-initiative report the opinion procedure must in any case be respected.
That is therefore not the case with the report by Mrs Fraga Estévez.
Secondly, I should like to draw your attention to the fact that last week in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly there was a vote by the ACP and the European Union that is completely at odds with a number of stipulations of this report.
I don't think it is right that it should be pushed to one side.
For these reasons we feel that there is absolutely every reason to refer this report back to the Committee.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot get into a debate on this issue.
A number of people are asking to speak, however, and I am going to give them the floor.
Madam President, this report by Mrs Fraga is an own-initiative report and it is a very important report for the future of the common fisheries policy.
I would say to this House that Mrs Fraga has behaved impeccably as rapporteur.
She delivered a report which had 460 amendments to it. She then withdrew her report and wrote a report on which the majority of the Fisheries Committee could agree.
She is a very fine example of how a rapporteur should behave in conducting Parliament's business and committee business.
I therefore have every confidence that this House will want to maintain the report on the floor of the House because in spite of one or two small linguistic problems which can be sorted out by the services, most groups would wish to maintain the agenda and see the work of this House move forward properly.
Madam President, this morning in my group I raised this issue because it had been raised with me several times by the Group of the European Radical Alliance which pointed out that there were significant technical and linguistic errors.
The vast majority of my group felt that there was nothing that was insurmountable in the report before us today.
Therefore, we believe it should be maintained on the agenda as it stands.
The position is very clear then.
In any case, as you know, we have already voted for the agenda.
So there is no question of putting referral back of this matter to the vote.
Only when the item is called in the agenda can the question arise, but I still thought it was important to have these clarifications.
Madam President, I want to support Mr Macartney's call for referral back.
When there were over 460 amendments and the compromise report with many amendments was presented, we did not have an opportunity in committee to vote on those amendments and we must have that opportunity now.
The English version of the report is at variance in a number of places with the Spanish and French versions.
Also, the English version contains entirely new language which does not appear in the other versions of the text.
It is only fair and reasonable that we should call for a postponement until such time as Members of this House and members of the committee have had time to examine and, if necessary, amend the report.
In conclusion, while Mrs Fraga has given to you, or to the secretariat, a recommended voting list, she had no approval from the Fisheries Committee to do that and she does not speak for us.
Mr Gallagher, you know the rules as well as I do.
Normally referral back to committee should not be decided now, but when the debate on the report by Mrs Fraga Estevez opens, or at the time of the vote.
While that is true, I think it would be better to settle this matter while Members are present.
So I take it upon myself to propose the vote, since everyone understands each other.
(Parliament decided to keep the report on the agenda)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, last Friday, a fierce storm hit the Autonomous Region of the Azores.
Sadly, 29 people lost their lives in the floods and landslides caused by the torrential rain.
In the small village of Ribeira Quente in the municipality of Povoaçao on the Island of Sao Miguel, 29 people died under a mudslide.
I shall not refer at present to the material damage caused or to the great deal that has to be done to repair it and prevent the recurrence of such situations in the future.
We shall no doubt be returning to this matter at the next part-session in Strasbourg.
At present, Madam President, I simply wish to ask you to express our solidarity with the families of the 29 people who died.
I ask you to send a message, on behalf of Parliament, and on behalf of all Members present, to the families of the victims, the population of Ribeira Quente, and the local, regional and national authorities, expressing our profound condolences to them all, without exception.
I am sure, Madam President, that you will fulfil this request without delay.
Mr Novo, I can assure you that we will take such action and send a message of solidarity and sympathy to all those involved in this tragedy and that as you have proposed, in Strasbourg we will certainly take decisions on specific measures to remedy this catastrophe.
Madam President, I really do have to protest at your handling of this referral back.
First of all, you assured us that the normal procedure was to wait until the item came up before putting referral back to the vote.
We were not putting that forward but you suddenly moved to the vote.
This did not give us a chance to press for a roll-call vote which we would certainly have done as a group.
This is an extremely important issue and I must register a protest at your departure from the procedure which you yourself described at the beginning of the session.
On the contrary, Mr Macartney, I think I have done everything possible to give you satisfaction.
Normally, as you very well know, I should not have taken that vote, because it is only possible to do that when the report is called in the agenda, and that is a time when the number of Members present is least.
I thought, and this was in line with your wishes, that the House should make its position clear.
So we heard two speakers in favour of referral back and two against, so that the procedure was perfectly balanced.
If you wanted a roll-call vote you should have asked for it.
The vote was crystal clear, as you were able to see.
I do think everything was done according to the Rules, but at all events I can assure you that we will take great care to ensure that the linguistic problems are sorted out as scrupulously as possible, as they have been in a number of other cases, moreover.
Madam President, my point of order is on Rule 22 of the Rules - the duties of the Bureau.
At the weekend Mr Liikanen made a statement on BBC Radio about employment practices and about ageism in employment.
He indicated that as from 1998 the European Commission would not have an age limit on adverts for posts.
I know the European Parliament's Bureau has been discussing this matter and what is sauce for the Commission goose is sauce for the European Parliament gander.
As a parliament we should also abolish ageism in employment. That is in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I should like to know what measures the Bureau is going to take to ensure that we are in line with the other institutions which are not discriminating against older Community citizens.
Mr McMahon, as you know, that was not a point of order.
If you wish, you can put that question to Mr Liikanen. The matter will be settled in the appropriate forum.
Urgent political matters
I am very pleased to be having an exchange of views today on the outcome of the informal Foreign Ministers' meeting which took place ten days ago in Mondorf.
That concentrated on the issues surrounding enlargement and Agenda 2000.
I can say to start with that conclusions were not reached on every issue regarding enlargement.
After all, we are in the run-up to the Luxembourg Summit where our Heads of Government will have to decide on the opening of negotiations and to agree on a number of orientations that are directly or indirectly connected with the whole of the enlargement process.
It is worthwhile noting that our Member States in fact agree that when speaking about enlargement it is of the utmost importance to make clear to all candidates without exception that as far as their application is concerned, the application is accepted.
That is to say that the enlargement will take place with all these candidate countries as soon...
(The President interrupted the speaker) The Member States when discussing enlargement unanimously wished to stress that enlargement as such is a process from which none of the candidate countries is excluded.
That means that as soon as the political and economic conditions for membership as set out on various occasions and notably at the Copenhagen Summit of 1993, are fulfilled then membership will materialize.
This is also to say - and here again I am echoing what all our Members States have agreed - that enlargement obviously includes various elements of negotiation and preparation.
Although no firm and clear-cut conclusions were reached on Ministers' recommendations to their Heads of State and of Government on how to open negotiations, it is quite clear that the emphasis must lie much more clearly on the all-inclusiveness of the process as such and not the fact that some would start negotiations and others would continue preparations.
In that sense, one firm conclusion was reached, namely that where differentiation is applied, it should never mean discrimination.
In the proposals made by the Commission in Agenda 2000, that issue is also taken up in the proposal that for all the candidates without exception, accession partnerships should represent the framework on which a continuous course towards membership should be pursued, with everything that implies.
The accession partnership should consist of very clear 'route maps' showing on the basis of the opinions that have been published, what the weaknesses are of each candidate country which need to be addressed in order to comply with the conditions for membership.
On the other hand, as part of this accession partnership, there needs to be a national strategy of each and every candidate country in which it explains and describes how it sees its future calendar of work.
Thirdly, there is the financial envelope, the Phare part of this accession partnership, which clearly indicates what funds are available to underpin this common exercise of further preparation.
This clearly reflects the all-inclusiveness of the process because that accession partnership model applies to every candidate.
Secondly, also applying to each candidate, we have said that an annual review would take place on the state of progress towards fulfilling the conditions.
No exceptions will be made but obviously the countries which have not yet reached the stage of negotiation can also expect that as soon as they meet those conditions the Commission will immediately recommend to the Heads of Government to open negotiations.
I would recall that in our original proposals we proposed that the opening of negotiations should be recommended for those countries which might be expected to fulfil the conditions of membership in the medium term.
Once this situation also obtains in other countries, the opening of negotiations should be immediately recommended.
A third element in the whole inclusiveness idea of the Commission was the proposal regarding the establishment of this permanent conference or European conference.
Here a multilateral forum would be established in which all those countries which Agenda 2000 said had a European vocation, or that aspire to membership, could participate.
That multilateral forum would deal with those issues that are of a horizontal nature, that represent a common interest of each applicant country.
It would be the only multilateral forum where these people would sit together with the Member States given that negotiations for membership would take place within a bilateral framework.
Each candidate country negotiates with the European Union bilaterally and not in a multilateral forum.
So, the substance of the permanent conference would be horizontal issues.
They may be second pillar or third pillar or even first pillar - think of regional cooperation, think of trans-regional networks - as long as the multilateral discussion in no way interferes with the bilateral negotiations.
If I see this correctly, and I think I do, Member States agree on this although there were two Member States that doubted whether the establishment of such a European conference was necessary at all and whether it was not more or less going to be a substitute for the Council of Europe.
But I do not feel that these observations have been made in a spirit of vetoing the establishment of a European Conference.
So, if one accepts that everything should be done to underline the all-inclusiveness of the enlargement process, this European Conference will most probably meet with approval and reflect the recommendation of the Commission's Agenda 2000.
What remains to be seen and where clearly no conclusions were drawn, was on the question of the participation of Turkey.
It is a country which, according to the definitions used by the Commission, can certainly be considered as a country with a European Union membership aspiration.
In the view of the Commission, under that definition it should participate in that conference but no conclusions have yet been drawn.
I can only remark that during my visit to Turkey last week we had intensive discussions with the authorities there, as it were in preparation of a visit planned by the President of the European Council, the Foreign Minister of Luxembourg, for 27 November and also in preparation of an Association Council with Turkey that will take place on 24 November.
We still have difficult discussions ahead on how to accommodate Turkey's aspirations in relation to the European Conference.
This to a certain degree depends on a certain forthcomingness on Turkey's part regarding the Cyprus question, domestic human rights and bilateral relations with Greece.
I will not go into detail as my time is limited.
I would conclude by saying that Mondorf has been an important marker in the further preparation of important decisions regarding enlargement which are to be taken at the Luxembourg Summit in December.
Madam President, I thank the Commissioner for including details worthy of a Dutch painting in his statement.
The first question that I wish to put to the Commissioner is: does he consider that the simultaneous launch of the enlargement process and the European conference signifies approximation to the so-called "regatta theory' ?
Secondly, does he consider that the general framework for the negotiations should be adopted at the Luxembourg Summit as well as their principles?
I recognize the characteristics of Dutch paintings described by the distinguished Member Mr Barón Crespo.
The view of this picture at this very moment is not that clear.
I cannot anticipate or advance conclusions that still have to be drawn by our Member States.
From what I heard from the Member States my feeling is that as long as we can ascertain that all the candidate countries want to be part of one enlargement process, much of the harm caused by using wrong terminology can be avoided.
Secondly, none of the Member States has disputed the accuracy or correctness of our evaluation of the political and economic state of preparation of the candidate countries.
None of the Member States has denied that there are significant differences in the state of preparation between the various candidates.
Having said this and again underlining the all-inclusiveness of the process, I hope there will be a meeting of minds in Luxembourg.
Mr Commissioner, we were delighted to hear that a deliberate effort was made at the Foreign Ministers Conference to make it quite clear that no one is to be excluded.
It remains to be seen what decisions are made by individual Heads of Government.
In this connection the question arises again what matters this European Conference is to deal with.
What specific cases, what specific subjects of negotiation are actually to be discussed and/or decided on, and to what extent will this ensure that everyone really feels they are included in the process of approximation and future membership?
Although not trying to draw final conclusions from a debate that has not ended, what evolves from the discussion is that the issues to be treated in that conference between the Member States and candidate countries would not be directly accession-related.
I am saying in a different way what I mentioned earlier, that the multilateral forum and its dealings should not infringe upon the bilateral negotiations to be conducted with the candidate countries.
To be more concrete, as far as horizontal issues of common interest are concerned, one can obviously think, as suggested in Agenda 2000, about common foreign and security policy issues where one really has a common interest such as in relations towards certain third countries. One can think of regional cooperation issues where a common interest is being identified.
As I mentioned earlier, one could also speak of trans-European networks.
One can also think of horizontal issues for instance regarding the environment.
I could easily understand that where the important issue of the environment is of great concern to candidate countries and the Member States alike and where such heavy demands are being made in the whole process of adjustment, that certain horizontal issues which all the candidate countries are being confronted with could form the subject of such a horizontal discussion without drawing conclusions for a specific country or having the debate develop into a negotiation which it is clearly not meant to be.
It would also provide an opportunity to engender a European family feeling regarding subjects of common concern but that certainly should not seek in any way to replicate work that typically belongs in other fora such as the Council of Europe or the OSCE.
So, when I say not accession-related, it should not interfere with the bilateral negotiations but that is not to say that we cannot discuss things of common concern with which we should familiarize ourselves in advance of future membership.
It could very well be that there have been personal views, assessments or estimates floating around.
From the policy standpoint, for me it is quite clear.
It also follows when you read Agenda 2000 carefully that the countries which meet the conditions will become members as soon as they meet the conditions.
Obviously ratification of the accession outcome will be necessary.
However, I would go even further.
The view that we developed in Agenda 2000 is that it must remain possible that those that start later but can solve their problems earlier can catch up with those which started negotiations first.
In other words, in all respects, we should insist that countries be judged on their individual merits.
This also goes for meeting the conditions for membership.
Secondly, as far as the exchange between the national administrators and candidate countries is concerned to reinforce administrative capacity, it is part and parcel of the preparation and of the reorientation of the Phare programme to allocate approximately - do not take it too rigidly - 30 % of the funds to everything that has to do with institution-building.
That is a sufficiently vague definition to allow for many activities, varying from strengthening the democratic structures or consolidating them to strengthening the judiciary which is so important as well.
But it also includes training programmes for national administrations.
In this context we have also asked our Member States to provide us with a reference point in their administration where we can deal with these questions relating to expertise or exchange or whatever of experts from both administrations, either training in the Member States or Member States' assistants going over to candidate countries.
What Mr Titley mentioned would appear to be one of the main challenges in the period ahead.
Adopting legislation and approximation of legislation is one thing, applying it and if necessary enforcing it by a knowledgeable judiciary is another.
That will certainly take time.
Therefore, multiannual programmes for training and exchanges should be an important part of the whole preparation process.
Mr President, I am especially pleased with the evidence of the convergence of positions in the Commission, Council and Parliament.
In my view it seems clear from the Commissioner's position that there may be differentiation but no discrimination and therefore no rigid classification.
My question is this: has the Commissioner obtained any view of the prospects for the Commission proposal to hold an Intergovernmental Conference prior to the next accession? Secondly, with regard to Slovakia: has the Commission obtained the impression from the Council that Slovakia, at least according to the Council, should be able to take part in negotiations of a bilateral or multilateral nature before significant steps are taken by Slovakia to meet the political criteria of Copenhagen?
To start with the last question, there is not an entirely clear picture yet on participation in the conference.
As far as Slovakia is concerned, that discussion is not concluded.
I repeat that we feel that Slovakia should be part of that conference for the reasons which I have mentioned earlier.
Nor can one say that a decision has been taken already, and I wonder if that will be the case at the Luxembourg Summit, regarding a new intergovernmental conference to deal with the remaining institutional matters not resolved in Amsterdam.
The honourable Member will be aware that three Member States have in the meantime joined in a common declaration insisting on institutional adjustments before enlargement takes place.
Agenda 2000 says very clearly that we feel that the best possible action would be for all the institutional questions left over from Amsterdam to be dealt with before the first enlargement materializes.
That is the reason why Agenda 2000 recommends such an intergovernmental conference to start somewhere around or shortly after the year 2000.
The Amsterdam Summit did not result in any reforms, Mr Commissioner, you said so yourself.
Much more needs to be done for the Union to be capable of enlargement. But reforms and enlargements go hand in hand.
France has suggested enhancing the status of the standing European Conference and extending it to include institutional matters.
Does the Commission support this suggestion? Are the Council and the Commission interested in seeing the candidate countries participating in institutional reforms?
If so, how is this to be achieved? What specific plans does the Commission have to link these processes?
I have the impression that the French proposals regarding the European Conference are very close to the Commission proposal, or the other way round, that our proposals are very close to the French ones.
In that sense there is no real fundamental difference.
It could very well be that one has first to clarify what participation one would favour in this conference and then most of the other questions could be resolved quite easily.
If I am assessing it correctly and there is still hesitation about certain elements of the conference, it had more to do with participation than with substance.
It all relates to the question as to whether participation gives a kind of automatic opening on the road towards membership.
More clarity is still needed but from what I recall from the discussions here which were very constructive, I am sure we will reach agreement and eventually the European Conference will take place.
Madam President, I would like to make a stand on the subject of Turkey and the experiences that the Commissioner had during his extremely important visit there.
The Commissioner believes that Turkey, which must aspire to membership, could participate in this European Conference without any preconditions as regards issues of democracy or respect for international law, when what we have recently been witnessing extremely provocation from Turkey, with its aerial skirmishes and violation of the national air space of a Member State.
I can only repeat that in Agenda 2000 The Commission described what we felt should be the conditions for that participation.
If you interpret those definitions clearly they should also apply to Turkey.
That does not mean in any sense that on a number of issues which I mentioned earlier, we should not expect clear signs of improvement from Turkey.
One encouraging development is that in all the talks we have had with the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and the Speaker of the parliament, they all agreed readily and openly that the human rights situation in Turkey requires improvement.
That was pretty unequivocal.
That is obviously no guarantee of improvement but any hope of an improvement starts with the realization on the Turkish side that something needs to be done.
We spoke also to the Secretary of State for Human Rights and he elaborated on legislation that is in preparation.
We made our point again to him that we would not only like to see the legislation passed through parliament but would like to see it implemented in practice.
We spoke extensively about article 8 which has been under discussion here in Parliament on many occasions and our message was unequivocal.
Lastly, what is encouraging, and should be further encouraged by us, is the lifting of the state of emergency in a number of provinces.
This has happened in three; there are still six which are under a state of emergency and before the end of the year, we hope to see the state of emergency lifted in other provinces.
Mr Commissioner, do you not think that the planned enlargement will create disequilibrium in favour of the countries bordering the Baltic Sea to the detriment of those bordering the Black Sea? Without mentioning Turkey, where reasons other than geography will lead to a difficult negotiation, as you emphasized just now, I am concerned about Romania, which did not experience real political change until last December.
Do you not think that, for political reasons, it is indispensable to help this country more and help it better, notably in the context of the Phare programme, to allow entry of the Romanians into the Community's arrangements as soon as possible?
The envisaged enlargement is well balanced because it includes future Members States in the north, the east and the south.
That is no coincidence. One tries to maintain a balance.
If one goes a step further - although it was not done, as you will understand, for geographical reasons - you will see that there are countries in the north which negotiate and others which we feel should continue preparation for a while.
The same goes for the east.
For the south we did not even propose a new avis because, as far as Cyprus is concerned, the situation is somewhat special.
So, in that sense there is a clear equilibrium.
Regarding Romania, in general the Commission is reflecting on whether and how those countries less advanced than others in their state of preparation can receive some extra attention or assistance.
In that respect we have a certain flexibility regarding the instruments of further preparation, including the Phare programme and we can put more emphasis in different places.
In general, one has to try to find a reasonable balance whereby those which are more advanced are not being punished for being more advanced.
They should be credited for it.
They started their reform process at an earlier stage and often with a lot of political sacrifices, etcetera.
Nevertheless, in the whole context of allinclusiveness, we all have an interest in seeing that those which are the least advanced receive the necessary extra attention to catch up as soon as possible.
I registered Mr Van den Broek's remarks about his will to integrate the countries of Europe into the European Union with great interest and a certain satisfaction. I do say the countries of Europe, because for me Turkey should be an exception: it is not a European country, it is an Asian country.
But all the same I have the impression that we are blowing hot and cold.
I heard Jacques Santer say the same things as the Commissioner in Riga two days ago, and I was just as satisfied with what he said.
But at the same time there is Slovakia, for example, which has had a slight setback, in my view because the Commission has taken the liberty of interfering in its internal affairs. After all, what was Slovakia told?
It was told: "Change the President of your Republic, and then we will see.'
Another problem concerns me, that of the Baltic countries, which are on the marches of our empire and of which it is now said that they would not all join the European Union at the same time.
Now it seems to me essential, for reasons of the most elementary good sense, that the three Baltic countries should enter our great Europe at the same time.
I shall start with the last question on the Baltic States.
If a situation develops in the coming years where all Baltic countries can be judged on their individual merits to have the same state of readiness for membership, I do not see why they could not become full members at the same point in time.
But the reverse is true as well.
If they are not ready at the same time, there is no reason to tell the more advanced to wait for the one that needs more time.
That is all in the philosophy and the analysis that we have produced.
There are differences now which have been assessed objectively.
Whether those differences or distances between the various candidate countries will remain the same in the coming years depends very much on them.
Some may advance sooner than others.
Some may overcome certain problems more easily than others.
As far as Slovakia is concerned, I would like to say to the honourable Member that we are not interfering in internal affairs.
We are applying a conditionality which we have established for membership of the European Union and which I think is entirely legitimate.
If those conditions are not met or are insufficiently met, that has certain consequences.
You are right when you say that we have applied the political conditionality in a more strict sense, namely that we have not anticipated what the future political developments could be but have assessed the political situation at the time of the assessment, and on that basis we have drawn our conclusions regarding recommendation of opening negotiations.
That is not only defensible but imperative.
Playing the lottery on what may develop in political terms is something the European Union, with all the values and standards it has and shares with other European countries, should not indulge in.
Some may say 'Turkey is separate and not a European country' but perhaps it would be good to have another look at the association agreement which was concluded as far back as 1963.
I will not open up that discussion right now. It could be conducted another time.
Mr Commissioner, following the criticisms provoked and the doubts raised by the Commission's financial calculations, are you still able seriously to affirm that the maximum limit of 1.27 % of the European Union's GDP for own resources is sufficient to meet the major challenges of - amongst others - enlargement and the maintenance and development of solidarity policies, such as the structural and cohesion policies?
I appreciate that the honourable Member after having used Mr Liikanen as sparring partner in the first round, is now trying it on this Commissioner.
However, I dare to stand up and say that point 27 should be sufficient up to and including the year 2006.
The calculations submitted and which Parliament is familiar with clearly show that in line with that reasoning one cannot maintain that the enlargement will be taking place solely at the expense of a group of Member States or a single Member State.
Certainly when you refer to the structural and regional policies which, as you know, are under reconsideration, the amount of ECU 275 billion for that purpose over that period should be sufficient to continue a number of important regional policies within our present Member States.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, there have been both social and political problems in fulfilling the criteria for EMU among present Member States.
Now we are being joined by countries which are quite poor.
The criteria for EU membership are broad in scope and make great demands, and they have to be met in the context of EMU.
How do you think social upheaval and other problems can be prevented in these countries while they are taking a series of harsh measures in preparation for membership?
One could give several answers.
It is not a one-factor problem.
The measures the countries are taking, for instance to stabilize their economies: on the one hand the macroeconomic measures and on the other the efforts they are making to restructure the economy; the whole process of privatization and modernization of their industries; what they are doing for instance to reform their pension systems which at the moment pose an intolerable burden on many of their national budgets, are all measures that have a connection with their aspiration for membership but that would be necessary anyhow in general terms for the economic development of the country and also for its social development.
You may say that they even have to go a step further where the whole corpus of European Union legislation has to be absorbed as well.
You are entirely right.
When one speaks of harsh measures, for instance doing away with all kinds of subsidies which raises the price level for primary goods although a lot of them are being temporarily excepted from this liberalization process, that certainly means that there is hardship.
At the same time, in many of these countries you can see that because of the economic measures that have been taken, the purchasing power and living standard is slowly but surely rising.
Where there are serious problems and bottlenecks, for example the past six months in Bulgaria, it has been the European Union. while recognizing the repercussions of certain necessary economic measures, that has provided two ECU 20 million social programmes to try to alleviate the hardship for the most needy.
So it is a matter of solidarity with those countries on the one hand to encourage them to maintain their reform policies - and we have seen that in a number of the candidate countries - without which the future looks even gloomier, and on the other where we can give a helping hand to alleviate temporary bottlenecks, we will try to assist in that respect.
Thank you for that reply and for the whole debate, Commissioner Van den Broek. The debate is closed.
I welcome Commissioner Kinnock, and I thank him very warmly for having been kind enough to agree, on the hoof as it were, to respond to Parliament's invitation.
Road blocks set up by lorry drivers in France
I am grateful for the opportunity to report to the House on the French road haulage strike and related issues.
Last Thursday before the current strike started, I wrote to Mr Gayssot, the Transport Minister and Mr Chevènement, the Interior Minister urging them to take all possible measures to avert a strike and also asking them to make arrangements that would facilitate international road traffic within the single market if the strike took place.
In addition, I asked Mr Gayssot to implement a suggestion which he had made in our previous correspondence for an information system to be set up in order to assist hauliers to travel through France.
Late last Friday I received a reply from the two ministers setting out the various efforts they were making to try to avert a strike and also reporting that they were examining the most appropriate measures in the circumstances to prevent, through all possible means, inconveniences resulting for international hauliers from a strike.
In addition to these and other contacts, my colleague Mr Monti has been in correspondence with Mr Moscovici, the French European Affairs Minister, to communicate a similar view about the essential need to maintain freedom of movement.
When the strike started, the French Government responded by deploying police forces to clear several important border crossings.
The government also established an information system in keeping with the previous undertakings and they made sustained efforts to ensure that talks between employers and Unions continue.
Yesterday, the second day of the strike, I wrote again to Mr Gayssot and Mr Chevènement and the relevant trade union leaders.
In my letters to the Ministers, I acknowledged the efforts the government has made to remove blockades at international crossings but I also urged them to achieve the removal of remaining blockades.
I am awaiting a response to that most recent letter.
In my letter to the trade union leaders, I drew attention to the very serious concern of drivers, employers and Member States about the impediments to free circulation.
I also emphasized the fact that workers and businesses from outside France were being badly damaged by a dispute in which they had no part and over which they had absolutely no influence.
Accordingly, I urged the trade unionists to remove the barriers to international haulage without delay.
Yesterday evening I was informed by the French authorities that at that stage the only international crossing being blockaded was at Calais.
I was also told that the Channel Tunnel blockade had been withdrawn after the strikers had been advised that if the blockade was not lifted, the authorities were prepared to use appropriate force.
As Members of the House will know, it appears that several blockades are still being maintained at a variety of places and some are being moved to different locations at intervals.
The disruption of traffic therefore continues to a considerable extent.
Against this background, the Commission has naturally again examined the issues of Member States' legal responsibilities to maintain freedom of movement under the treaty and of Commission powers to intervene in our role as guardians of the treaty.
I report to the House that as on previous occasions we conclude on the basis of legal advice first that Member States must make all possible efforts to facilitate the freedom of movement of international traffic in the single market and secondly that any effective legal power that the Commission has to intervene relates directly to the strength of those efforts by Member State governments.
With the present French strike now in its third day, it is evident that the French authorities have undertaken serious and sustained efforts to uphold their treaty responsibilities through their use of police forces, through the efforts they have made to sustain negotiations and through the provision of information to hauliers.
Naturally we will maintain close contact with the French Government and continue to monitor events.
The government and the Commission work in the knowledge that if a Member State neglected its obligations to strive to maintain the freedom of movement, the Commission would certainly exercise its power to initiate legal proceedings.
Meanwhile, whilst we naturally respect the civil right of people to withdraw their labour, the impediment to freedom of international movement is to be condemned, as is any physical violence, whether by strikers or by others affected by the strike.
In the course of recent days, there have been calls for legal changes which would bring rules establishing a requirement of minimum services and formal arrangements for compensation to be paid to interests damaged by disputes which prevent or inhibit the freedom of movement.
My colleagues and I are prepared to consider whether there are practical possibilities of compiling enforceable proposals on such matters, whilst at the same time being conscious of the reality that support for such initiatives may not be readily given in practice in any Council of Member State ministers.
When further assessment has been given to the legal and practical implications of pursuing the course that is being suggested from some quarters, I will gladly report to this House.
Commissioner, it is perhaps appropriate to recall that in November 1996, French farmers in the south of France repeated their attacks on Spanish and other lorry drivers transporting agricultural products.
Compensation was promised, but everything has since been quietly forgotten.
Now a new conflict has arisen, which, because of France's geographical position, has acquired a European dimension.
This is indeed a "Eurostrike' , which is affecting countries such as Spain which have nothing to do with its causes but which are suffering considerable damage.
In the case of Spain, losses are calculated at almost 3, 000 million pesetas per day, with the Spanish Levante region being one of the most affected.
As well as pointing out that compensation for past attacks should have been paid by now, this is the moment to call on the Commission, in view of this new conflict, to adopt immediately the necessary measures to guarantee the free movement of goods and examine the question of the payment of fair compensation to production sectors which have suffered losses.
The Commissioner described to us a series of measures.
Consequently, my words are designed to encourage him to continue taking action along these lines.
It is therefore also the moment to call on the competent authorities to adopt the appropriate measures to guarantee, throughout this conflict, freedom of movement and the creation of specific corridors to ensure the free passage of vehicles and compliance with this basic Community principle.
In conclusion, Mr Commissioner, I should like to...
(The President cut off the speaker)
No, Mr Camisón Asensio, that is not possible, that is more of a statement than a question, and unfortunately you have already exceeded your speaking time by one minute.
I recognize the concern and the passion which engenders the question from Mr Camisón.
I would say to him firstly that everyone in this House, as well as in the Commission, will understand the particular impact on countries like Spain and Portugal, as well as those in the north of the Community, of a dispute that seriously impedes the free passage of goods through the single market.
Secondly, as he probably already knows, in previous incidents which have resulted in physical attacks on Spanish drivers hauling fruit and similar produce, there is a case before the Court of Justice and before too long there should be conclusions reached with particular relevance to that case.
It is, however, evident that those attacks on those occasions are considerably different from those being experienced in the current dispute.
I am sure the House will want to keep clear in its own mind the distinction between these two sets of circumstances.
The honourable Member asks that the Commission adopts the necessary measures with relation to the freedom of movement and so far as compensation is concerned.
I have to say that the situation relating to the Commission's legal powers is precisely as I set it out in my initial statement.
It is a fact that unless and until a Member State shows that it is negligent in its duty to uphold the freedom of movement, there is no effective power for the Commission to act.
Secondly, there is no Community law and therefore no power so far as the Commission is concerned, to require the establishment or the provision of compensation.
I have, however, over many months past made repeated appeals to both the last and current French Governments that the undertakings given to make provision of compensation to hauliers from throughout the Community be upheld.
I regret to have to say that thus far the number of compensation claims met is extremely tiny and there are well in excess of a thousand still needing treatment and effective compensation.
Madam President, may I begin by complimenting the Commission which this time has acted more rapidly, shouldered its responsibilities more effectively and intervened with the French government.
But, acknowledging the fact that a year ago in this House we discussed exactly the same issue and the Commissioner then said that efforts were being made to provide compensation, it is clear that fewer than 1 % of the claims have been met.
Does the Commissioner not feel that the time has now come for the Council of Ministers to tackle this matter and reach a compensation ruling that is placed in the hands of the European Commission which can have a fund at its disposal in order to make direct payments quickly so that in an industry that is already in difficulties there are no more petitions for bankruptcy?
Madam President, it is impossible to speak while all my colleagues are chatting among themselves.
Thank you, Mr Wijsenbeek, but I did not see any Members talking - for once!
I am grateful to Mr Wijsenbeek for his question though I might point out that on this occasion we are acting in a completely consistent fashion with what we did last time.
I sought to intervene before the strike took place last year.
We were in constant touch with the French authorities and brought what pressure we could to bear on events.
Exactly that course is being followed this time and I would invite the honourable Member to reflect upon that.
I gave an undertaking this time last year to work on compensation.
I have kept that promise as I indicated earlier with repeated oral and written appeals to successive French ministers to ensure that the system established for compensation worked effectively and speedily.
I report my great disappointment - as I have to the French Government - that this has not taken place.
So far as future developments are concerned, I understand there is some enthusiasm in some quarters for establishing some form of Community fund and getting the agreement of the Council of Ministers to that end. When there is further reflection account may be taken of the fact that not all Member States would be agreeable to such a collective approach.
Secondly, it is worth reflecting too on the possibility that the existence of a fund, rather than lowering the possibility of strikes, could actually contribute to the encouragement of disputes.
These matters are to be assessed and analyzed in the manner which I suggested earlier.
Nothing is excluded but at the same time a measured approach is advisable in all the circumstances.
Mr Commissioner, you have been honest enough to say that the present government of France is handling, with manifest tact, a conflict born of earlier commitments which were not kept, and trying to work for a genuine long term social agreement.
You have mentioned that, even before this conflict broke, the French Government was in touch with your office, and with leading officials in Member States, to pass on information, to take stock of the road blocks, and all the road block points were known.
The actiont taken by the French government also kept the main road links open.
I am grateful to you for having mentioned that, Mr Commissioner.
But all the same, there is clearly a European dimension in this conflict.
Free movement of goods goes with harmonization of working conditions.
If we deny that we will have all the citizens of Europe on our backs.
Today we are seeing that in this conflict; tomorrow we will see it in another conflict which will affect another Member State.
Mr Commissioner, one last question: do you think this conflict calls free movement of goods into question in the exact terms of the treaties, that is, a voluntary distortion of competition? It seems to me that it does not.
It is more a conflict arising from an absence of social harmonization.
I will have to resist the temptation the honourable lady offers me to take a view about the policy of the French Government.
That is most certainly not a matter for comment by the Commission.
So far as harmonization of working conditions is concerned, maybe I can assist the House by simply quoting from the letter I sent yesterday to all the trade union leaders drawing their attention to a fact of which they are already aware that with my colleagues in the Commission I have been compiling and promoting possible improvements to Community legislation relating to road transport that would directly address several issues which cause discontent in many parts of the Union.
I draw attention to the work going on in the Council of Ministers of the Union which will result in the introduction of a new generation of electronic tachographs, to the development of proposals for tougher rules on access to the road haulage profession and to the White Paper on working time which proposed that the relevant principles of Community legislation be extended to all the sectors currently excluded, including road haulage.
I believe that a general application of decent working conditions can obviously make its contribution to good industrial relations.
However, that issue is something to be continually attended to and so far as the Commission is concerned does not have direct relevance to the conduct or origins of the current dispute which is primarily a matter for the parties to the dispute and the French Government.
I would like to ask the Commissioner for clarification of a point in his statement which I believe to be an inaccurate representation of the law as it stands today.
The Treaty of Maastricht introduced for the first time the power for the Commission to impose penalties in the form of fines on a Member State which, as in this case, is clearly in breach of the free movement provisions.
I do not know how much more evidence the Commission needs.
These disruptions have been going on since 1984 and last year's disruption ran into millions of pounds.
Would the Commissioner therefore please apply the rules as introduced by the Maastricht Treaty and withhold funds from the European taxpayers' budget from which French farmers, French fishermen and French trainees would otherwise benefit.
Would he use these provisions and confirm that no change to the law is required. He must simply implement the Maastricht Treaty provisions.
I know that the honourable Member is a lawyer and if she sat in any form of judgment and it was contended before her that there was an automatic means under the Maastricht Treaty to implement the law in the way she suggests, she would treat it with complete derision.
So, I would say to her that whilst I am aware of the provisions of article 30 and article 5 of the Treaty on Union, the fact is - and it is an undisputable fact of law - that if a Member State is striving by all practical means to uphold its duty to maintain the freedom of movement within the single market, there is a very constrained power on the Commission to intervene.
In this case the French Government has deployed police forces.
The French Government is providing information and the French Government has made a variety of attempts to ensure that negotiations continue.
In those circumstances, I am sure any lawyer or parliamentarian would acknowledge that there would be extreme difficulty in trying to demonstrate that a Member State government was not upholding its duty under the terms of the Treaty.
I am grateful to Mr Wolf for his question.
The White Paper on excluded sectors has been published and there will be draft legislation available by the end of this year.
I would share the hope of Members right across the House in just about every political section that we can make progress on this legislation and on the inclusion not only of road transport but of other transport sectors in the existing legislation of the Community.
The honourable Member is entitled to declare his solidarity for the French drivers.
I was brought up to believe, however, that solidarity is indivisible and I am sure he would want to extend his solidarity to those drivers from several nationalities now stranded in France and enduring very difficult conditions.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, we should not be blinkered about this dossier.
Beyond the legal aspect, and I quite agree with you in saying how essential it is to defend freedom of movement at all times and in all places, I understand the pressure you have to put on the French government.
But the real problem does not relate to the cases first and foremost.
Mr Commissioner, listen to the French lorry drivers' cries of anguish, listen to the same cry of anguish from their company directors, many of whom are on a tightrope, or just surviving.
The bottom line is that in this domain as in many others, Europe is not there.
We cannot talk about a serious single market with such distortions of competition.
Do not make us laugh with the tachograph of the future which will make it possible to verify that there has been no fraud, when people will work 45 hours in some countries and 65 hours in others.
Mr Commissioner, it is very important to take the essential European initiatives at company and fiscal level now.
I must say, not for the first time, that I agree wholeheartedly with the chairman of the Committee on Transport and Tourism in the strong emphasis he puts on the connection between fair competition and decent working conditions.
That is partly the reason that inspires the enthusiasm of the Commission together with many Members of this House for getting a change in the law that will enable many transport sectors including road haulage to be included in the provisions of the working time directive.
In addition, the replacement of the current tachograph with an electronic device which will be a much stronger safeguard against abuse or fraud will, I am sure, prove to be a significant advance both in ensuring fair competition within the sector in the Union and ensuring that drivers' social conditions are properly and humanely protected in the way that some do not have effective protection now.
Madam President, the debate on the paralys of French roads is almost an annual ritual.
Previous speakers have referred to a number of issues relating to freedom of movement.
I think it is a good thing we have Commissioner Kinnock in this post at this time.
Of course, I do not imagine Commissioner Kinnock leading a Commission cavalry charge to liberate the Lille-Brussels road. That is not his job.
I do not see him as an agent of the repression of French workers in a latter-day "Germinal' .
However, I know him well enough to expect him to bring forward an ambitious initiative to ensure that a major Community social policy in the transport field can be implemented. Commissioner Kinnock can take this opportunity to launch such an ambitious policy.
I am grateful to the honourable Member.
As he says we are well acquainted with each other and I hope share mutual respect.
I would simply use the opportunity of his question to emphasize strongly yet again that as an increasing number of people, including employers, come to understand the strong link between fair competition and efficient operation and decent social conditions, the environment in which the Commission is seeking to secure support for its initiatives in this sector is growing all the time.
I hope, therefore, that we can look forward in the not-too-distant future not only to the publication of draft legislation but to its ready endorsement by the Member States and its application and effective enforcement everywhere.
In my opinion the discussion is slowly taking the wrong direction.
In fact we have to distinguish between two separate issues: rates disputes between employers and employees in France may be justified, but these regional strike negotiations cannot be allowed to lead to lorry drivers throughout Europe being taken hostage by an internal French conflict.
This is quite unacceptable and the Commissioner has said as much.
Mr Commissioner, you said you had been in contact with the French Government.
You also said that the strike barricades were always changing and that time and again, despite the promises of the French Government, lorry drivers from Portugal, Spain, Germany or other Community countries were being held up.
Hence my first question: when, Mr Commissioner, will you recognize the emergency - preferably within a few hours - and apply to the European Court for a temporary injunction against the French Government, to make them lift the blockade and allow free movement. My second question is this: according to article 5 of the Community law, every country is obliged to ensure the free movement of persons - this is what we are talking about here - and goods, and in my opinion when a country fails to do that it should be required to pay compensation.
What are you going to do to protect the legitimate interests of employees and contractors?
I am grateful to the honourable Member for his question though not necessarily grateful for some of his conclusions.
And this is for the very simple reason that I hear demands from a variety of quarters for instantaneous and forceful action by the Commission without a similar call for changes in the law that would provide the Commission with power to take such action.
I must say too - and this does not necessarily include Mr Jarzembowski - that amongst those making the most intense calls for Commission intervention are many who would be the first to demonstrate outrage if the Commission were given powers to supersede the decisions and conduct of national governments when those governments were striving to uphold Community law.
I must say that I hope there is no Member of this House who will try to give an exaggerated view or an inaccurate view of what the realities relating to the law are.
The law says in plain terms that Member States have the responsibility of upholding the freedom of movement and unless and until it can be shown that they are negligent in that duty, the effective power of the Commission to intervene or to undertake proceedings against that government is very small, if it exists at all.
I hope that is clearly understood.
If there is a demand for change in the law then certainly people can make that demand.
I ask them to test it against the political realities and the attitude of Member State governments and not simply against the atmosphere in this House.
At the outset, like my colleagues, I want to thank Commissioner Kinnock for bringing us up to date.
We appreciate it.
The public perception is that the Commission has acted more expeditiously this time than it did the last time.
That is the perception though it may not be the fact.
Hopefully that will result in an early resolution of the problem.
This dispute is costing the Irish economy £10 million per day in loss of trade.
Each truck is losing £1, 000 per day.
There are 400 Irish trucks caught up in this and you will appreciate that the vast majority of our goods are exported to continental Europe and the majority of those through France.
It could have - and if it goes on much longer will have - a crippling effect on the Irish economy.
It will put many truckers out of business and many companies also.
We cannot afford that.
We are proud of our record and we do not want to dent it as a result of this.
The Commission has no legal power to intervene in such disputes unless there is neglect.
I believe there is neglect as far as the last one is concerned for which none of the Irish truckers have been paid yet.
The Commission said to me in the plenary session in September that he was doing his utmost to ensure an early payment.
But nothing has happened.
Cash flow is affected and I want to ask the Commissioner what he is doing in relation to the Irish truckers who have not yet been paid and what he is doing to help the Irish truckers in relation to this dispute?
I know of Mr Gallagher's close and continual attention to these matters.
I am acutely aware - as, indeed, everyone must be - of the damage inflicted, not just upon the Irish economy but because of its particular situation and size maybe to a greater extent the Irish economy, by a dispute of this kind.
One can only express regret at that and hope, as I do in every respect, that this dispute can be swiftly and satisfactorily brought to a conclusion.
So far as compensation is concerned, I take the opportunity of this question to repeat points I have made before.
There is no Community law of any description relating to the requirement to pay compensation for losses and damages incurred as the consequence of a dispute of the kind now going on in France.
I am not in a position, therefore, to do more than I have repeatedly done which is to write to and speak to successive French transport ministers emphasizing the extremely strong feelings that exist throughout the Community and the justifiable demand that people have to be paid fair compensation in a manner originally promised for damages incurred in previous disputes.
I hope the experience of this dispute will give further emphasis to the need to fulfil original promises.
As recently as my letter to the French ministers last Tuesday, I took the opportunity of again repeating the need to ensure that an effective system was immediately employed for the payment of compensation in respect of losses in the last dispute.
Madam President, free movement of goods cannot take place by crushing human rights.
The road hauliers bear the entire responsibility for the current conflict because they did not respect the agreements reached in 1996, because they slammed the door on the negotiations launched by the government.
The French lorry drivers refuse to be road slaves any longer.
They are standing up for their wages and working conditions, but also for those of the other countries.
I am delighted the Commission recognizes the efforts made by the French Government and its transport minister to reach an agreement acceptable to the wage-earners in the shortest possible time.
I want to say here that any sanctions procedure, any vindictive intervention by the Commission could only inflame the conflict and compromise the efforts of the French Government to end it.
Broadly speaking, it would be unacceptable for the Commission to seek to become, as some colleagues are regrettably demanding, the policeman of social movements.
Instead of opposing the wage-earners of the population in a fierce competitive struggle, it is necessary to promote social harmonization at the highest level, to which the reduction in working time without loss of earnings in the excluded sectors could effectively contribute.
This is an issue which should be urgently placed on Parliament's agenda.
I would like an assurance that the Commission will give top priority to social measures, and indeed fiscal ones, rather than to social dumping as has been the case up to now.
I am grateful to Mrs Moreau for the points she makes.
As she will I am sure accept, whilst I have my own personal views as a citizen on the origins of this dispute, the Commission cannot, and indeed should not, offer a view upon the circumstances which produced this dispute.
I am sure she understands that.
My emphasis, as indeed the honourable Member's emphasis was, is on getting the speediest possible satisfactory conclusion to this dispute, both in the interests of international haulage throughout the Community and, indeed, in the interests of France and the French people.
Everything I can do that will contribute towards that outcome, I will do and so will my colleagues.
I trust that Parliament takes the same view and puts the same emphasis on getting a quick and satisfactory result rather than simply on the exchange of political views which, whilst interesting, are not necessarily a contribution to a productive outcome.
On behalf of you all, I thank Commissioner Kinnock and all the speakers.
I am infinitely sorry that I could not give the floor to all those who wanted to speak.
There were a great many.
But unfortunately, as you will have appreciated, we did not have the time.
Child sex abuse
The next item is the report (A4-0306/97) by Mr Schulz, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the communication from the Commission on combating child sex tourism (COM(96)0547 - C.0021/97) and the aide-mémoire on the European Union's contribution to reinforcing the prevention of the sexual abuse and exploitation of children (C.-0556/96).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing a report which is complex and whose contents I believe are of significance for this Parliament, for the Commission, the Council of Ministers, the European Union and its citizens.
They are of significance because we shall be discussing two matters today that will no doubt be controversial.
Firstly, what measures has the Commission proposed, what can I add as rapporteur for this Parliament and what critical or positive contributions can I bring together?
Secondly, we have to discuss how we are going to deal with the phenomenon of child sex abuse, whether it is happening in domestic circumstances, within a personal context, or whether it is happening against a background of organized criminal activity.
How are we going to deal with this phenomenon?
What can we as a society in Europe do about it that goes beyond the level of legal, penal and policing measures. How are we going to come to terms with the fact that a society is developing in the European Union which is increasingly and appallingly devoid of respect for life and in particular for children?
In its communication on how to combat sex tourism and child abuse the Commission analyzed the problems involved and proposed various actions and steps which it can take itself or take in association with the authorities of Member States and - as far as sex tourism is concerned - in association with travel companies.
These measures - I should say straightaway - were very well thought out.
The Commission has done some very thorough work.
It has made some useful, interesting and balanced suggestions.
The Commission has - Commissioner Papoutsis, many thanks to you and your colleagues - in a difficult period under difficult conditions, taken a very serious and well-balanced approach.
You have undertaken - and I find this very admirable - to make the fight against child sex abuse a central concern of the Commission.
I trust this will not be a case of mere words!
We have heard in the last few days that there may even have been incidents of sexual abuse in one of the Commission crèches, and I trust the Commission has been in a position, and will be in a position in future, to help throw some light on the mysterious goingson we have been reading about in the press recently.
Our first concern in the debate about child sex abuse must be the protection and care of victims.
In the many cases we have been seeing - and the number of cases is rising both in the domestic and criminal areas - we are dealing with two phenomena.
First, there are perverted and abnormal people who will stop at nothing, at no foulness, to satisfy their basest instincts.
These despicable people cause damage which can be summed up in one sentence: you can destroy a person without killing them!
What happens to children who are abused is difficult to repair in later life.
Victims therefore need the full backing of society and that is why help for victims must be at the forefront of our efforts.
Individual personal help is required for victims, in other words they must be given psychological and medical care so that a reasonably tolerable life is possible despite their traumatic experiences.
This will need a great deal of work, the Commission has some good ideas for action and the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council should not hesitate to make funds available, generous funds.
Apart from direct protection for victims, however, other protective action is needed.
Society must be protected from further disintegration of their moral fibre, and this cannot be achieved through the criminal courts alone, although that is also necessary.
I believe we need to do a number of things.
We need national legal regulations fully defined for the classification and criminalization of specific acts of child sex abuse.
We have to be clear what child pornography is.
We need clear, precise rulings on what age is referred to, and we need clear precise regulations to make the production, sale and - let me say clearly, though I know it is a matter of dispute - possession of child pornography a punishable offence..
Why do I talk about possession, ladies and gentleman? If there is a market for child pornography - and there is one - it can only be because there are consumers.
I can only sell something if I have a buyer.
If there is a booming market, then there must be people, carrying on veiled activities but in the midst of our society, who buy and use this kind of thing, and I would be so bold as to say the consumer in this case is as shameful as the producer. That is why I believe possession should also be an offence!
As far as sex tourism is concerned, and after all this is a modern form of slavery, the principle of extraterritorial criminal prosecution must be possible.
Anyone going from here to a country in Asia, Africa, eastern Europe or wherever with the purpose of satisfying perverted needs by abusing children on the cheap and exploiting the poverty of families there, should be aware that he will also be brought to book at home, in the European Union, for this deed if it can be proved against him.
So as far as I am concerned, criminal prosecution for offences committed outside the EU is vital.
We should also consider prosecution of organizations which provide these travel facilities.
At the same time we should be clear that the overwhelming majority of tourist organizations are serious-minded respectable companies, who take good care that they are not polluted by the type of custom I have described.
To take steps against travel agencies, airlines and hotel chains which earn their money with sex tourism is as vital as cooperation with those who are keen to prevent it.
Both channels must be pursued simultaneously by the Commission and Member State authorities.
It is suggested that a European information system to combat child sex abuse be set up.
We have also made a unanimous request to Commission, Council and Member States to press for the creation of a European centre for missing children.
I consider this essential!
If it really is the case - and there seems to be considerable evidence - that the phenomenon is growing, that children are being traded commercially, that children are kidnapped not only in order to abuse them but to coerce them into prostitution and export them - we know from the debates on human trade that it includes children -, then we must take all possible steps from the use of EUROPOL to the founding of a European centre for missing children.
The United States of America have shown a possible way ahead with their centre even if their example is not fully applicable to European circumstances.
I have looked into many individual cases in working on this report.
No one doing such work can be happy to see what human beings are capable of.
In this connection I have also had to consider what responsibility must be taken by those acting in the public domain to protect society from such regrettable developments.
I came to the conclusion that we cannot keep silent if we know that certain persons or institutions of the European Union are not fulfilling their responsibilities.
I do not want to reopen the debate about the judge at the European Court of Justice, Melchior Wathelet, which was aired in public and also discussed by us in committee.
It is not my business to interfere in internal Belgian affairs, but I am firmly convinced that in pardonning Marc Dutroux, now suspected of multiple child murders, the judge presiding at the European Court, Melchior Wathelet, was not meeting his responsibilities as Justice Minister in Belgium when he set Dutroux free.
What is worse, he has not yet shown the remorse he ought to have for that action.
Hence my remarks in the report: if we want the European Union to make it clear that there is no room in its institutions for those who fail in their duty, then we must act accordingly and say he should go!
It is not the European Court which should go, but one member of the Court who in my opinion is not fit to work there.
This view is clearly shared by my colleague Raphaël Chanterie, who in his amendment to my point 29 largely accepted the text and content of my views, for which I am grateful.
I think this amendment is extremely helpful, because it demonstrates that we are united in this Parliament in our refusal to accept irresponsibility.
There are three sentences missing in this amendment which I shall add tomorrow in an oral amendment and that is the request to Mr Wathelet to step down.
A society which loses respect for the most vulnerable in its midst, which is indifferent to the fate of its children, which looks on while children are turned into merchandise, which allows these sinister creatures, the scum and the dross of society, to assault its children before its very eyes; a society which starts to rot so that it is not even appalled when in some dark corner, in its shadowy underbelly things go on which defy belief, and then quickly turns back to the day's business - because that is happening at the moment in the European Union although the facts are known; a society which takes the easy way out by saying Dutroux is a Belgian affair, we do not have that kind of thing; a society which will not face the fact that it has signaled its own demise if it cannot protect its children from perverts; a society like that has got to take its courage in both hands and say that the fight against child abuse, the protection of children and the chance of a decent life from the day of their birth must be the common aim of all those in authority.
If we can achieve that, my report will have made a contribution to a decent future for children in the European Union!
(Applause)
Mr President, I believe the resolution before us deserves our assent because of the contempt it shows for paedophile acts and child sex abuse in general and for everything directly or indirectly connected with them.
It deserves assent because it calls for severe punishment in terms of criminal law, court proceedings and police enquiries.
Above all it deserves assent for its invitation to the Commission and the Member States to initiate a publicity and information campaign aimed at preventing and curbing sex tourism at key points such as airports, hotels and places where tourist trips are organized.
Finally, its severe judgement on child pornography deserves assent.
There is a problem of definition with child pornography and there is a more general problem than the one indicated in the resolution.
If we do not wish to be thought hypocritical we should take into consideration the entire modern phenomenon of pornography as an industry which is capable of inuring people to it, leading them to seek ever more extreme expressions until they arrive at the terrible aberration of paedophilia.
On the other hand, some aspects of the resolution are less persuasive from the point of view of the technical legal language used.
I am sorry - and I am saying this as the representative of the Committee on Legal Affairs - that a number of technical formulations which could have been used to make it possible to prosecute offences committed abroad have not been taken into account in the text, but at the end of the day this is a secondary point. Perhaps excessive zeal and contempt have taken charge.
For example, in paragraph 2, you cannot say, as it does in the Italian version, that paedophilia must be established as a criminal offence. it is not paedophilia that is to be punished but, obviously, paedophile acts.
Paedophilia can also be an illness, so much so that again in paragraph 2, mention is made of psychiatric hospital for those who need treatment.
There may be some overzealousness in paragraph 26 which states that persons who fail to fulfil their responsibilities to protect children satisfactorily should be removed from public and private office.
Certainly, it is right to remove those who have committed paedophile acts and even paedophiles, but to apply the same measures to those who have not been sufficiently sensitive when attending to children's needs seems to me to be somewhat excessive.
However, I have to say that my dissent as a lawyer mainly stems from paragraph 29, in other words the reference to the Wathelet case.
In my opinion, it is not proper in terms of the law to use references to a particular case, such as the Wathelet case, in a resolution as important as this one and of such general relevance.
In my opinion the principle of the separation of powers also comes into play here because, at the end of the day, the President-in-Office was acting as a judge of what happened.
I do not think this is right either as it is impossible not to make a judgement ex ante , in other words at the moment at which the decisions were taken and not on what happened afterwards.
Having been a judge myself and knowing how difficult it is to take account of the checks and balances which have to be used when the judge is looking into the future, I do not feel I can assent to paragraph 29, which I hope will be deleted or suitably amended.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proliferation of abuse and violence against young adolescents, the international trade in children and the increase in paedophilia are a cause of great concern and worry.
All of this must therefore prompt the European Union to intervene in a practical way, above all by starting a campaign to make public opinion and tour operators aware of this issue, with the aid of the mass media.
I agree with the Commission that it should be possible to give national courts jurisdiction outside their borders to deal with offences and criminal acts committed abroad, but Member States would also have to introduce provisions into their legal systems to combat sex tourism involving the abuse of children and ease their application by harmonizing specific cases in their criminal legislation, by recognizing them as offences and by imposing comparable penalties in their respective penal codes.
The European institutions, with the agreement and collaboration of the Member States, must be adapted to ensure that the commercial exploitation of pornographic pictures of children, the incitement to indulge in sex tourism and child sex abuse are curbed within the territory of the European Union and to ensure that the range of sanctions also includes penalties which deprive offenders of their freedom, as has happened in France in the last few days.
It is essential to stem the flow of this type of sex tourism from the Member States with the cooperation of all the countries in the European Union by seeking to create a common barrier against those groups and companies who are interested in providing child sex tourism.
It is a serious omission that the communication from the Commission does not place any emphasis on the coordination of available community social and financial resources for the protection of the child victims of sexual abuse, identifying and promoting programmes to reintegrate them into society and provide them with special care, as rightly pointed out by Mr Schulz.
Although praiseworthy, the new budget heading proposed by Parliament - B3-4109 N, for ECU 3 million - to promote programmes to combat violence against children, adolescents and women does however have a peculiar structure which does not correspond exactly with the action plan agreed in Stockholm.
The institutions must therefore give some serious thought to this issue.
I also think it is essential to create an ad hoc task force responsible for coordinating the Union's programme to combat child sex abuse in all the areas where it occurs.
It is vital that as part of the fight against sex tourism the Commission should first and foremost take on the role of promoter in terms of pressing for and coordinating specific measures to dissuade and punish sex tourism of any kind, either in the tourists' countries of origin or in the countries which are tourist destinations, cooperating closely with the ONGs whose action in the field is indisputably effective.
It is vital that tour operators and travel agencies are encouraged to adopt codes of conduct or self-regulation and distribute and publicize them, with the Community providing every assistance and contribution to ensure that these codes are adopted.
In conclusion, the necessary measures must be taken with regard to those countries that still continue to promote what amounts to child abuse by establishing the coordination at European level which is currently lacking.
European action with regard to the fight against child abuse must therefore be coordinated and painstaking but it should also be concentrated, otherwise this scourge will never end.
Mr President, on 20 November 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the first Convention on the Rights of the Child, which obliges the signatory countries to implement measures to protect children at national level.
But, eight years on, children are not only still unprotected, but some are kidnapped, raped and murdered, and others are sold like common sexual goods for the use and enjoyment of unscrupulous and amoral customers.
Are these children the victims of incompetence or lack of protection? A large number of questions remain unanswered, and this issue concerns the fundamental values of morality and democracy.
Today we are examining the report by Mr Schulz - whom I thank for his work and efforts - on the aide-mémoire on the European Union's contribution to reinforcing the prevention of the sexual abuse and exploitation of children and on the Commission communication on combating child sex tourism.
We must deal with these two documents together, since they both reveal an undeniable truth: children are no longer legal persons, but commodities in the hands of paedophile abusers and sex and pornography merchants, about whom society knows little: they are masters of deception; their faces do not betray them; they are wolves in sheep's clothing.
We want these degenerate and unscrupulous criminals and traders in child abuse to be identified, punished and obliged to undergo specific treatment which prevents them from reoffending.
The Committee on Women's Rights is aware that a large part of the violence against, and sexual abuse of, women and children is committed within the victim's own family, and both our committee and Parliament's intergroup on the family and children, which I have the honour of chairing, call for and support the establishment of the Daphne budget line, which will promote cooperation with NGOs working in this field.
We call on the Commission to take account of the importance of the family, since we know that, sadly, people first commit acts of cruelty against their own children.
And if we fail to help them, those children who survive will in turn commit acts of cruelty in a cycle of abuse.
Another form of sexual exploitation is so-called sex tourism.
This is a misleading term, since it portrays as exotic holidays what are really trips abroad to abuse children. The organizers of these trips frequently have links with international criminal networks, and their customers hide behind the pretext that children in Thailand, Cuba or Brazil are more sexually mature than European children.
But children are children - and need protection - wherever they are in the world.
We must therefore apply the principle of extraterritoriality.
We call on the tourist and advertising industries to adopt selfregulation.
Not everything is acceptable in tourism and advertising.
There is a trade worth billions of pounds, which is a scourge and a disgrace.
Irrespective of the ECTAA's statement condemning this activity, it is essential for a register of companies and agencies which sell this product to be established, as well as for a binding code of conduct to be applied to advertising companies which use ambiguous pictures of children.
In conclusion, I call on Parliament to condemn the hypocrisy in our society, and especially in certain countries which denounce pornography, paedophilia, violence and sex tourism, but do virtually nothing to eradicate them.
We need the means to coordinate police action, registers of missing children and of convicted offenders, free telephone helplines, counseling for the victims, and education in schools and above all in the family.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Schulz most warmly on his excellent report, which I would like to support not only on behalf of the European Socialist Group, but also most particularly on behalf of the Flemish socialist delegation in all its aspects.
This report has already caused a great deal of controversy in various countries, and particularly in Belgium even before being voted on.
And it should not be any other way.
First and foremost, the European train only really got going with regard to measures against child abuse following the Dutroux affair which unfortunately occurred in Belgium.
But the fact that the tragedy of An, Eefje, Julie and Melissa and the other missing children happened in Belgium, does not mean that child abuse does not occur elsewhere in Europe.
In the meantime it has emerged that the opposite is abundantly clear.
Therefore measures must be taken in all European countries and in countries where it does not yet happen.
There must, nevertheless, be coordination and European cooperation, particularly where international networks are operating.
Secondly, it is clear that Belgium has also led the discussion in the Council on measures against child abuse - measures which can coordinate a standard approach to child abuse in all countries as the most scandalous violation of children's rights.
The Belgian government did not obtain satisfaction in respect of all its requests in February in the Council.
For example, it is most regrettable that a point that Martin Schulz just mentioned, that is, the possession of child pornography for personal use, was not considered by the Council.
Nor was Belgium able to convince the Council at that time as regards the principle of territoriality and the abolition of double incrimination.
But I am glad this European Parliament is able to support those proposals and place on the table a very strong package of measures on which the European Commission, the Member States and the European Council must all now get to work.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, there is the call for Melchior Wathelet to resign as a judge from the European Court of Justice. A call that we most certainly wish to support.
It is correct that the former Minister of Justice is not personally guilty in the tragedy.
It is also true that he acted within the then limits of Belgian legislation, which has fortunately been changed in the meantime.
But it remains a fact that Melchior Wathelet bears the political and moral responsibility for signing the decision to release Diedres at that time.
I note that the Group of the European People's Party shares this view.
We are convinced that Melchior Wathelet does not have the moral authority that a European judge must possess.
Anyone who maintains, as Mr Casini just did, that the European Parliament does not have the authority to judge the European judges, is perhaps right in the formal sense, but on the other hand, is refusing to acknowledge that the European Parliament must let its voice be heard when we are dealing with the authority of the European institutions.
So we cannot do anything other than call on Mr Wathelet to resign, but I feel that only when everyone assumes their respective responsibility will there finally be room for respect for the rights of children.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it took an unspeakable tragedy in our country for the grim phenomenon of child abuse, which many of us dared not discuss a few years ago, to become not only a recognized problem, a monster to be combated, but a priority for the European Union.
And even though it took that horror, I am glad to say that in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs we achieved - as I hope we will do in this House - unanimous agreement on all the measures designed to combat this scourge.
I congratulate Mr Schulz, because his report contains a number of proposals which I and my group consider fundamental, and which, if presented a few years ago in some political groups, would not have had the slightest chance of being accepted.
Having said that, I want to express one great regret.
In this report, paragraph 15 of the resolution states that the European Parliament is going to call for, and this will happen tomorrow, an adequate increase in appropriations for the budget line concerning measures to combat violence against children, adolescents and women.
Are you aware, ladies and gentlemen, that in the last part-session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the request for additional appropriations made by the Committee on Civil Liberties and the Committee on Women's Rights, on a proposal from the Committee on Budgets, was not accepted? So we, who will soon be giving lessons in morals to others, began by not applying our own resolutions.
And when I asked why it was not possible to increase the appropriations for this line, I was told that all the appropriations had to be mobilized for employment policy. And that is true.
But do you think unemployed people also lose the right to have their children looked after?
Do you think those who are not working now are not wondering if their children are at risk of being tomorrow's victims of paedophiles? Before we give lessons in morals, we should start by applying the principles we seek to impose on others.
My last point concerns the issue of Mr Wathelet.
For myself, like the majority of my group, I believe, the question is not whether it is appropriate or even legitimate for Mr Wathelet to be a European judge.
He is a European judge.
As to whether he should stay, that is a question we can all ask ourselves, and we can all ask it of Mr Wathelet as well. The real issue is whether or not the European Parliament, which has legislative power in the European Union can ask for a judge's resignation.
Mr President, my answer is no, even if that is hard to say, because democratic states are founded on certain basic principles, one of which is the separation of powers.
Breaking this principle and allowing a parliament to set itself up as a moral authority to judge the judges represents a danger to democracy.
We can all think what we like of Mr Wathelet, but Parliament calling for his resignation, Mr President, constitutes a political mistake and a sin against democracy.
Mr President, we are all agreed that Mr Schulz has produced an excellent and comprehensive report on the measures which need to be taken to combat child sex tourism and to reinforce the prevention of the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
The assessment of the main problems and the measures proposed have been somewhat overshadowed by the substantial interest in paragraph 29 of the resolution.
This paragraph calls on a judge at the European Court of Justice to resign his European post due to his earlier personal decision when he was Minister for Justice to permit the early release of Marc Diedres who is suspected of multiple child murders.
I understand and respect the arguments of those who say that the European Parliament has no competence or right to make such a demand.
Indeed, we are all being drawn into an internal political debate but as the rapporteur says, the consequences of the decision were indeed dreadful.
There is a moral and political responsibility which cannot be swept under the carpet.
It is very clear that the European Parliament does not have the power to dismiss a judge at the Court of Justice.
However, we have a moral obligation to draw attention to this situation and we have to stand up and be counted on an issue as important as this.
Many other important arguments and proposals are put forward in this resolution and my group is particularly pleased that at the outset of the report Mr Schulz stresses the decisive role of the family in ensuring the balanced development of children.
The family should represent the safe haven for the child.
In certain cases it is also where child abuse takes place and we know that children have been abused in schools and institutions.
The veil of secrecy on abuse is now lifting and no country can take pride in what all too often children have been subjected to.
The ultimate crime is to do nothing, to neglect our duty to protect children everywhere including those who are forced into child prostitution.
We need a range of services to protect our children and an early-warning system to alert us to potential dangers.
We are fifteen Member States with different traditions but working together we can help to close the door on child abuse and ensure there is no hiding place in the EU for child offenders.
It is the least we can do for the parents and families of all the children who have been abducted, including Julie, Melissa and Lubna.
We must break down legal barriers to harmonize those concepts of criminal legislation in the Member States which reduce our capacity to protect our children.
We should try to harmonize the criminal offence of paedophile activities, the criminal offence of child sex tourism and child pornography and there should be comparable penalties for such crimes throughout the Member States.
It is appropriate that data banks be set up at national level concerning persons found guilty of paedophile activities and everything possible must be done to make it easier for children to provide evidence to the court without fear.
We must also support the setting up of the European Centre for missing children.
The Centre for Missing and Exploited Children in Washington is an example.
Every country should support the telephone helpline for children.
I am highly critical of the way in which children can be abused for advertising purposes and I strongly hold the view that the rights of children must be respected.
The case of the young British au pair who was found guilty in the United States of fatally injuring a child in her care has raised other concerns.
There is a Council of Europe Convention on au pairs but very few countries have signed.
Therefore, I call on the Council now to ask the Commission to draw up a European Union regulation on the role and duties of au pairs but, more importantly, on the duties and responsibility of the families who invite them into their homes.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize what is said in paragraph 30 of the resolution: all those who have to take decisions which may affect the safety or well-being of children must exercise the greatest possible care and take the maximum precautions to safeguard and protect the interests of children.
The blanket of secrecy has been lifted.
We may not like what is underneath but we cannot fail our children.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Schulz on the report he has just presented.
In it he proposes a position for the European Parliament to take on the struggle against one of the most odious forms of crime.
What used to appear, even quite recently, in the "news in brief' column of the papers, is today at the very heart of a crisis of confidence which has not been defused merely by charging the perpetrators of the crimes of which Julie, Melissa, An and Eefje are the best known victims.
This crisis also contributes to awakening our consciences and highlighting all our responsibilities.
That obvious statement is indispensable to progress the study of this report.
That is why the Committee on Civil Liberties invites the European Union to come out in favour of a range of instruments for fighting sex tourism, which should be called, as the draftsman for the Committee on Women's Rights specifies in her opinion "traveling abroad to abuse children sexually' .
Prevention, suppression, cooperation at all levels, and I would add, shouldering responsibility at all levels, form part of the range of methods for combating this scourge.
The turn taken by this debate, well before its presentation in this House, means that the discussion revolves around a single point, point 29 of our resolution, which is a great pity, because all the points merit close attention.
Point 29 calls on Mr Wathelet, judge at the European Court of Justice, "to resign his post' in order to "accept moral and political responsibility' for "his personal decision, as the then Belgian Minister of Justice, to permit the early release of Marc Diedres' .
The quotation is from the Schulz report.
The amendment by Mr Nassauer and Mr Chanterie targets exactly the same result, but without explicitly specifying the word "resignation' .
We should also remember that, in a report voted for by all the Members of the Belgian Parliament, the then Minister of Justice was held responsible.
The decision to be taken is no small matter. Those who vote for the Schulz report are bound to be confronted with the duty to respect the principle of the separation of powers in all circumstances, and that is a weighty argument.
Those who support the Schulz report are bound to be reproached with having created a dangerous precedent, to the extent that Parliament would thus have taken on the obligation to give its opinion on any future nomination that might be criticized in any way.
That argument also weighs heavy on this debate.
Nevertheless, both the argument on the separation of powers and that on the risk of creating a precedent which would mortgage the future action of the European Parliament, with all the consideration they merit, have just one weakness: taken in isolation, and even together, they do not facilitate the search for the attitude to adopt in the face of the crisis of confidence unleashed by the Diedres case.
It is a crisis of confidence which spares nothing and nobody, and it is shaking a Member State of the European Union to its very foundations.
This crisis also threatens to drag on needlessly if nobody will take the political responsibility.
The majority of members of my group, on whose behalf I am speaking, and who support point 29 of the Schulz report, are doing so after mature reflection.
They stress the fact that their position is rooted in the extremely serious and exceptional crisis of confidence unleashed in Belgium by the Diedres case. If they consider themselves bound to shoulder their responsibilities by voting yes, it is because others, in other circumstances, have not had the courage to shoulder theirs.
First, Mr Wathelet, whom no-one is accusing of being guilty, but who is unanimously regarded as responsible by the parliament of the Member State of which he is a national.
Next, the government of that Member State, which nominated him, could have relieved us of this painful debate by choosing a less controversial personality for the post.
And finally, the Member States which ratified that decision.
In fact, at the heart of the real debate lies the question of how we intend to contribute to the maintenance, indeed the re-establishment of the credibility of the institutions.
This difficult response is not made without a high sense of moral necessity, and unfortunately it is impossible for us to make it without the risk that I have just mentioned.
Mr President, the issue that we are addressing today represents one of the greatest scourges that modern society - and above all, of course, the public authorities, including the European Union - must tackle.
No society today can maintain its dignity if it is unable to protect children from crimes such as child prostitution, sex tourism and child pornography.
I should like to refer to the conclusions of the Stockholm World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in 1996 and recall that the fight against this new form of slavery must embrace a number of fields: strengthened international cooperation, prevention, protection and the reintegration of the victims.
In this sense, the European Union must contribute to combating the sexual exploitation of children, not only by applying the instruments at its disposal within the Community framework, but also by carrying out joint actions under the third pillar.
The European Union must demonstrate its support for the enactment of national laws providing that citizens of the Member States who commit sexual crimes against children abroad must face the courts of their home country.
We must also support the ban on the production and possession of child pornography and the establishment of measures to prevent new technologies being used for illicit purposes.
Furthermore, prevention is essential.
We must not forget that - although this problem has multiple causes - poverty and social inequality are undoubtedly determining factors, especially as regards child prostitution.
Along with the specific promotion of information campaigns aimed at families and professionals in the education, health, legal and tourism sectors, therefore, we must not neglect the introduction of measures of a general social nature which reduce the possibility of criminals finding their perfect prey in conditions of poverty and social marginalization.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Schulz's report on child sex tourism and on combating sexual abuse and the sexual exploitation of children is a very detailed report.
A whole series of measures are put forward.
Measures that are aimed both at things that must happen within the European Union and things that must happen outside the European Union.
In that regard, my group considers it very important to focus attention on the point that a strong argument is put forward for setting up a European Centre for missing children.
This is something that has happened in Belgium in the meantime and it is important that initiatives are also taken at European level.
We also feel with regard to internal measures for the European Union that it is important to focus adequate attention and support on the NGOs working to trace children and prevent sexual abuse of children.
Because prevention beforehand is obviously better than cure afterwards.
We believe it is particularly important to legislate for measures outside the Union, geared to double incrimination.
Belgium has already adapted its legislation in that respect and I hope that other countries will follow.
The battle against poverty is also very important here.
I think Mr Deprez is absolutely right when he refers to the budget deficit that this Parliament must take responsibility for with regard to paragraph 15.
I actually find it incomprehensible that there was no majority in this Parliament to accept it.
My group voted in favour and we still hope that, thanks to the presence of this paragraph, it will be pursued in the future.
With regard to the Wathelet affair, it is clear that the main responsibility lies with the Belgian government that nominated him again for this function.
That is the main problem.
But the fact remains that the European Parliament is not just a legislature, it is also a body that expresses political opinions and speaks out on what is politically desirable.
We do that for the whole world, but we should not have to do it for Belgium.
I find it quite natural for the European Parliament to grant itself the freedom to invite Mr Wathelet to tender his resignation, because that is the only logical conclusion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I fully support the many excellent recommendations in this report.
Our group fully supports this report, but as a group we do not agree with everything.
I wish to refer to the paragraph that argues for the resignation of Mr Wathelet.
Personally I support this request for his dismissal, that is to say, the rapporteur's view, although I do not believe the concept of moral responsibility to be relevant.
I believe it would be far better to speak of political responsibility and only that. I mean political responsibility in the fullest and broadest sense.
Opponents of the Schulz position argue about the separation of powers.
This separation of powers is clear, but the separation of powers has nothing to do with the appointment itself, but with the integrity, objectivity and independence of acting as a judge after the appointment and during the execution of the mandate.
Moreover, the Treaty states that judges of the Court must be chosen from persons whose independence is beyond doubt and who possess the qualifications required for appointment to the highest judicial offices and in this specific case I have considerable doubts.
You have to look for expert judicial qualifications with a magnifying glass here.
And in other cases, for example purchases of weapons and environmental fraud, the same person is mentioned.
The Belgian Parliament's committee of inquiry had the task of examining magistrate and stated in the Diedres case that the responsibility of the then Minister of Justice, Mr Wathelet, must be taken into account.
The Belgian government said that because of this statement Mr Wathelet had been punished enough and he could therefore be a European judge.
A top European post apparently in order to be rid of the man, perhaps even a sign of contempt for the Court of Justice which is thus regarded as some kind of political recycling machine.
An argument against this paragraph states that Parliament should not have any authority with regard to European judges.
May I refer you to the United States where judges of the Supreme Court are subject to hearings of Congress and the appointment of the chairman may or may not then be confirmed.
In other words, can we, as it were, not go a step further and request further powers for the European Parliament.
This affair could perhaps be a test case.
Mr President, the level of civilization of a society is measured by the way it treats its children.
Our century, which has swung between the red plague and the black plague, has not experienced too much of the brown plague, or of massacred childhoods.
Today we are experiencing another form of baseness and contempt for childhood, its sexual exploitation.
Yet should we be surprised, in an age of moral relativism, when the dictatorship of the politically correct prohibits talk of good and evil? And in an age when money is king?
The Schulz report has the merit of dealing with this tragic issue realistically, as regards both criminal charges, notably for possession of paedophile pornographic material, and preventative measures.
We have noted with satisfaction that the rapporteur has emphasized the vital role of the family and stability for the balanced development of the child and that he has drawn the attention of the Member States to the need to ensure protection of the family, given that it constitutes the most appropriate environment in which the natural aptitudes of children can flourish.
The rapporteur congratulated the Commission on its action.
I hope that, as a result, the latter will adopt the strictest measures against those responsible for the deplorable facts which have come to light in a crèche under its authority.
We regretted the explicit mention of the case of Mr Wathelet, who, in our opinion, is not really relevant here.
But nevertheless we will not hesitate to vote for the report by Mr Schulz, whom I congratulate wholeheartedly on the quality of his work.
Mr President, in view of the very short speaking time that I have been allotted, I shall restrict myself to a few comments about the famous Wathelet paragraph 29.
Since the eruption of the Diedres affair in this country it has been said all too often that everyone feels powerless against the gruesome evil of child abuse.
This powerlessness is partly justifiably invoked because there will always in any society be criminals, sadists and monsters, but also partly invoked completely unjustifiably.
The murders, abductions and the sadistic rapes that were carried out by Diedres and his accomplices could have been prevented if the current European judge Mr Wathelet had done his duty.
All of us in this Parliament must know that Wathelet himself cannot plead the mitigating circumstance of "Wir haben es nicht gewusst' (We didn't know anything about it).
Indeed, he personally ordered the very early release of the recidivist rapist Diedres completely against all the opinions to the contrary of the bodies concerned.
You could say with certainty that Diedres would repeat his offences.
Nevertheless Wathelet released this man on his own initiative and of his own free will and thereby signed not only an order for his release but also a death sentence for An and Eefje and for Julie and Melissa.
Wathelet is, however, also politically and personally one of the main persons responsible for the complete decay of justice in this country, in Belgium.
I will not comment on whether that has to do with incompetence, corruption or the neglect of his duties by a well-known holder of several posts.
The fact remains that after the Wathelet period, Belgian justice was more corrupt, more inefficient and more inhuman than ever before.
It is actually for that reason that he became impossible in Belgium as a Minister and was dispatched to a top job in Luxembourg.
The least that one can say about Wathelet is that he was incompetent, negligent and irresponsible. But I would add that in the case of child murders in this country under Wathelet so many coincidences, mistakes and errors, and so much neglect occurred that questions have to be asked about the protection of paedophile networks extending up to the highest political circles.
And so we come to a decision on the three questions with which Parliament is faced in connection with paragraph 29. Do we want a European judge who set free a quadruple child murderer?
Do we want as a European judge a man who has ruined the whole of the Belgian judicial machine? Do we want as a judge an individual who is widely suspected of at least indirectly protecting a paedophile network?
The answer to these three questions must be no, no and no. I am glad my colleague in the Flemish socialists shares my opinion.
I would just say that in her own country her party and her party chairman enthusiastically approved the reappointment of Wathelet.
Understand that if you can!
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that this report on the Commission communication is a good document, which proposes appropriate measures.
I believe that it sets out calmly and responsibly - as it should - the problems which we must tackle in order to protect children effectively from the scourge of sexual abuse.
It contains another important achievement, in my view: it addresses the fight against the sexual abuse of children and the fight against child sex tourism in a single text.
Clearly, we have a duty to protect the children of our own countries, our fellow citizens.
But we also have a duty to protect children elsewhere in the world who are victims of the worst excesses of certain individuals, of things which we would not want to happen in our own societies.
The report begins by rightly pointing out that the majority of cases of sexual abuse occur in the private sphere.
And I wish to say, as an aside, that we must work harder and with greater imagination to prevent such cases, to protect children in the private sphere.
However, the report also warns that certain taboos are being broken, and points out how the boom of sex tourism and child pornography in our society as something more or less tolerated, or at least widespread and more open than abuses in the private sphere, may have an effect on this.
Children in other countries, who are supposedly different, whose cultures supposedly make them less victims, are being abused by citizens from our countries; and it seems that this may become increasingly tolerated.
We must take stringent measures in this regard.
I therefore wish to express my support for the measures proposed in this report, especially the appeals for the European Union to use the means that it can contribute: combating organized crime, setting up a centre for missing children, etc., as well as harmonizing Member States' legislation with a view to combating child pornography effectively.
We must not forget that whoever sells or buys this material is abusing a child - a child who is not just a picture, but a real person who exists and has been violated.
We must cooperate with the countries in which this trade takes place, requiring them to act appropriately, but also assuming our own responsibilities and acknowledging that the majority of abusers - of "customers' , so to speak - are citizens of the developed countries.
We must therefore be able to put them on trial in our own territory.
This report seeks to step up the measures to ensure that children can live without fear and develop freely, with their rights and freedoms being respected.
Finally, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur.
Mr President, it took the tragedy of young girls raped, tortured and murdered in Belgium, for our society to wake up at last, for get rid of the taboo on talking about this at last, for us to recognize at last our responsibility towards children, downgraded to merchandise, and exposed defencelessly to the unbridled appetites of certain adults.
A society incapable of protecting its children against such crimes cannot preserve its dignity.
So we must say yes to the definition as a crime, in all national criminal legislation, of the sexual exploitation of children, both in Europe and worldwide.
Yes to an effective European fight against these transfrontier criminal networks which sexually exploit minors.
Yes to the creation of the European centre for missing children, help for victims and their parents, the establishment of appropriate databases.
Yes to the strict medical and social monitoring of perpetrators of sexual crimes and the prolonged detention or permanent internment of recidivists.
Yes to the condemnation not just of production but also of possession for personal use of pornographic material using children.
Protecting our children must become the first responsibility of national and European politicians.
I hope we will finally be up to the task.
So it is wrong, if we consider all the positive elements, to reduce the Schulz report to its Wathelet paragraph, which has received so much media attention.
The European Parliament has no power to remove a European judge.
That is a fact.
But it is also true that politicians must accept moral and political responsibility for their actions and not hide behind legal screens.
Personally I find it quite incompatible for someone to reject this principle and sit on the bench of the Court of Justice.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Schulz on his proposal of a legal system for the protection of children from child prostitution, child sex tourism and exploitation.
I would also like to congratulate the Commissioner, Mr Papoutsis, who, in spite of the restrictions in section six of the Treaty on European Union, is trying to construct specific proposals within the framework of the communication on the fight against child sex tourism.
I would like to shed some light on one particular aspect of the problem, which concerns girls of 15, 16, 17, and 18 years of age who originate from the countries of central and eastern Europe and who we find today in all the pink networks that are flourishing in Greece, in Turkey, in Southern Europe, and in central and northern Europe.
Whatever we may say about these countries at least we know that there used to be a network of creches, schools, athletic and cultural activities.
Things have changed.
Is this the world that we are going to bequeath to our children? Poverty engenders exploitation and for that reason it is very important, firstly, that the problem is contained; secondly, that networks are broken up; thirdly, that we make use of the legislative mechanisms that Mr Schulz is proposing; and, fourthly, that we use programmes such as Phare and Tacis and other community programmes to get at the root causes of this problem.
Mr President, as my colleague Jaak Vandemeulebroucke has just said, our group shares the determination expressed by the rapporteur to strengthen the resources of the Union and those of the Member States to prevent violence and, if it should unfortunately occur, to punish the perpetrators of violence against children, in particular sexual violence.
The report, inspired by respect for children, contains important, firm and courageous proposals.
Nevertheless, our group is divided on one point.
This is point 29, implicating the former Belgian Minister of Justice, Mr Wathelet.
Mr Casini and other speakers have also raised point 29.
For my part, and here I am expressing the opinion of several colleagues in my group, this implication, designed to put pressure on Mr Wathelet to resign from his present position as judge at the European Court of Justice, is unacceptable.
In the first place, point 29 expressly recognizes that Mr Wathelet did not commit any unlawful act under Belgian law in authorizing the release from prison of Marc Diedres.
So we are outwith the field of criminal responsibility and criminal law.
In the circumstances, the European Parliament is intervening in the area of Mr Wathelet's political and moral responsibility.
As regards his political responsibility, it is difficult to see what the European Parliament bases itself on to implicate a Belgian minister.
We are not the Belgian Parliament.
As to our powers in relation to the Court of Justice and the choice of its members, we are forced to recognize that we have none.
Certainly a reform of the texts on this issue can be proposed.
Perhaps that would be desirable.
But today there is nothing.
Furthermore, we cannot transgress the principle of the separation of powers.
There remains the moral responsibility of Mr Wathelet.
This is the most delicate aspect.
Ladies and gentlemen, are we a moral authority which can call anyone to account on moral grounds? You will appreciate the extreme reticence I feel about stepping on to that highly dangerous ground.
The law is solid ground, or at least more solid than morality, where subjectivity and passions are to be feared.
The European Parliament, a political body par excellence, should beware of turning itself into an authority that judges a man as a function of a morality defined case by case.
While we approve the Schulz report as a whole, you will understand why, in all conscience, some of us will not vote for point 29.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the Commissioner, Mr Papoutsis, on the sensitivity and speed with which he responded to the desire of all of us to have a document so that we could begin debating this burning issue, which is of concern to thousands of citizens in the countries of Europe and across the globe alike.
I would also like to congratulate Mr Schulz on his excellent report, because he analyses the problem with great political honesty and then, with political daring, he proposes measures to resolve this complex issue.
Citizens are alarmed at the rapid increase in the number of victims of child sexual abuse and violence.
But while citizens are alarmed, it is up to us to accept our political responsibilities and exert enormous pressure on the governments of the fifteen Member States to take appropriate measures, measures which will confront, I dare not say eradicate, but which will confront this problem.
The poverty which blights many regions of our planet is the prime cause of the promotion of child sex abuse and child sex tourism.
On the other hand, the economic development of our own countries and of certain categories of citizens within our countries, gives them the right to exploit, in the shape of these children, the poverty and want of these regions.
For that reason I believe that the report of Mr Schulz is right to state that the consumers and viewers of pornographic material using children should be regarded as complicit in the act and should in fact be punished in the same way as the actual perpetrators.
Moreover, I believe that, above and beyond the criminal punishment provided for by the criminal code, in the case of these economically motivated forces within this den of vice, there should also be punishment in society.
This punishment in society will come about through revealing the acts of men who wish to be regarded as honourable in their own countries, in their families, and in their own surroundings.
I agree with the proposals for changes in the criminal legislation of our Member States, such as severely punishing the use of minors in public or private entertainment of a pornographic nature and such as the severe punishment of the production, sale and distribution of pornographic material.
However, and I insist on this point, the viewers and those in possession of this material should likewise be punished.
I would like to finish by saying that this is a complex economic, political and social problem.
As a precondition to our beginning to resolve the issue, there must be the political will of citizens both here and in our own countries to grapple with this den of vice, which is extremely powerful both economically, socially and politically.
At some point or another we politicians will have to accept our responsibilities, and these responsibilities are not merely criminal.
As politicians, we also have moral responsibilities above and beyond our criminal responsibilities.
For that reason I believe that the Commission, without interfering in the internal affairs of Belgian society and of the Belgian system, quite rightly requests the resignation of the former Minister, not because he has a criminal responsibility, but because he has a moral responsibility towards those children who will never be able to grow up and take pleasure in life.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a year ago, barely two weeks after the horrific events that took place in Belgium became known, I spoke here in the part-session as the spokeswoman of the Group of the European People's Party to urge for measures to combat child abuse to be given priority at European level as well.
I and my whole group are pleased that the Schulz report makes a vital contribution here and I wish to congratulate Mr Schulz.
More specifically, I should like to make four points.
First, the inclusion of the rights of the child in the Treaty has occurred indirectly by the mentioning in the Treaty of Amsterdam of the basic social rights and the provision in policy measures against discrimination on the basis of age, social exclusion, trading in people and offences against children.
Secondly, our proposal to include funds in the budget for the prevention and combating of child abuse has been accommodated by the European Parliament in the 1997 budget.
But we have heard from Gérard Deprez that for the 1998 budget a greater effort is expected.
The third matter, that of curbing child pornography, child prostitution, child sex tourism and child sex advertising has been covered by a number of proposals in the Schulz report as well.
Fourthly, a request to the Member States to ratify the Europol Convention quickly is gaining support both from politicians and from NGOs.
Child abuse will of course not disappear in this way and it will not be possible to prevent it completely.
However, others must also play their part here and assume their responsibility in sectors such as advertising, telecommunications, culture and tourism and from parents, educators and teachers to investigating judges, church leaders and members of governments.
Because the concern for the welfare of the child is a task to be shared jointly by society.
It is an ethical imperative.
I should also like to refer to the amendment that I have submitted on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party together with my colleague Mr Nassauer on the former Belgian Minister of Justice, Mr Wathelet.
Our opinions may differ about his political or moral responsibility.
But Melchior Wathelet is a judge at the Court and therefore cannot be removed, except by unanimous decision of the other judges of the Court.
So the amendment is not directed at Judge Wathelet, but at former Minister Wathelet, and invites former Minister Wathelet to draw the appropriate conclusion from his fatal decision to release Dutroux early.
I would also ask those responsible for this excellent report: what are we actually dealing with today?
What is there to be done?
Do you want a framework against a certain kind of offence or do you want a sensational one man show trial against a former minister? I am asking you how you envisage the situation?
Dutroux, Nihoul, Derochette and company or are you targeting Wathelet? I regret that such a delicate case and such an interesting report is going to serve as a lever to play a personal or political game.
Anyone who knows that the European Parliament cannot concern itself with his resignation and nevertheless urge his resignation is deceiving either himself or public opinion as well as the parents of the murdered and missing children.
Anyone who sows this kind of political nonsense will reap a democratic disaster when it comes to the crunch.
Even the leader of the Flemish Socialist Party, Louis Tobback, stands by the nomination of Wathelet as judge at the Court of Justice.
He has said that he refuses to take part in what he himself considers to be a kangaroo court or lynch mob and opposes a ban on Wathelet pursuing his profession.
Le Soir of Tuesday, 21 October has the headline: "Tobback to Wathelet's rescue' .
So we can rightly wonder about and ask what the attitude of the Socialist Party and its members in the European Parliament actually is.
To be perfectly clear, Mr President, I was also annoyed about what some people have called Wathelet's flight.
Along with many other people I was absolutely against this highly political appointment.
But this does not justify the European Parliament behaving like a kangaroo court without any hearing or any further investigation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, fortunately there are 33 other paragraphs that are worth taking the trouble to read and translate into policy measures and we support them.
Mr President, the travel industry and tourism as growth sectors of the 21st century bear a heavy moral burden in this phenomenon of travel with the aim of sexually abusing children.
Airlines, travel companies and travel agencies thus have an obligation to provide preventive information for potential offenders.
The offenders are often men who have children themselves or who in their local community are good with children.
It is possible to develop a conscience in these people and thereby restrain them.
In addition to legal measures, therefore, all possible channels of preventive information should be explored by the public sector and commercial interests together.
Male passengers traveling in aircraft to certain destinations should be given not condoms but informative leaflets explaining that young girls in Thailand or Africa are just children and helpless children at that!
Mr President, ladies and gentleman, it is almost exactly a year ago that we had a conference in Stockholm on the commercialized sexual abuse of children.
It is good to see the Commission has followed this up with these proposals and that our Parliament is discussing the matter today.
This excellent report is warmly to be welcomed so we can see how we are going to combat this abuse and what we can do to protect our children from it.
I read in the Süddeutsche Zeitung this week that sexual violence among young people is widespread and that it is not only in the developing countries that young men go for drugs and alcohol or exert psychological and physical pressure to pursue their sexual interests.
I believe it is not only a phenomenon in those countries, it happens here too.
It is the fertile ground on which sex tourism and child abuse flourishes.
The report we are discussing is now taking up those calls which have been made for so many years by associations like ECPAT and other women's groups for better protection of victims and the appropriately severe punishment of offenders.
But the important thing is prevention.
First, we must do everything in our power to ensure that victims do not become offenders in their turn.
Secondly, sexual violence among youth must not turn into a taboo.
Thirdly, the families of offenders should not be herded into a sort of clan. They need appropriate social and psychological attention.
Indeed the Committee on Women's Rights has given this careful consideration and urged us not to concentrate only on sex tourism and paedophilia.
That way we are shifting the problem onto abnormal and sick minorities.
It is more important to face the issue of the power balance between the sexes in our society today fairly and squarely.
We are all affected and we would urge everyone to address this problem for themselves and personally commit themselves to ensuring that children are no longer abused.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I also wish to congratulate Mr Schulz on his report.
A large number of aspects of this report deserve to be underlined, so I shall not go into the Wathelet affair.
I therefore wish to highlight only a small number of issues, especially the need for the European Union to establish increased coordination of the Member States' measures to combat the sexual exploitation of children.
In this sense, the Member States must modify and revise their legislation in order to define more precisely crimes against sexual freedom, taking into account the age of the victims.
In this task, we must not forget the importance of protecting the rights inherent to a person's dignity, especially the right to the free development of the personality, and the right of children to sexual integrity; for, lacking the necessary character formation, children can be manipulated and - frequently irreparably - harmed.
I am able to inform the House that Spain has already begun to modify its penal code along these lines.
This modification is currently being debated in the Spanish Parliament and will probably enter into force in January of next year.
I also believe that it is enormously important to point out that, in order for legislative measures to achieve the desired effect, there is, in most cases, a need to improve child care, coordinating the implementation of human and material resources to a greater degree.
We must be aware that when a child needs help, that help must be urgently provided, without the effective resolution of each and every one of his or her problems being held up by red tape.
I also wish to draw attention to the amendment which we tabled on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, concerning the identification of minors at border crossings.
As a Member of Parliament, I have received a considerable number of complaints concerning the violation of minors' rights in the form of the abduction of children and adolescents and their illegal transport across international borders - actions which frequently end in the trafficking or sexual exploitation of minors in one form or another.
In view of this situation, I believe that it is necessary - as I stipulate in the amendment - to step up the guarantees of legal protection by including new physical means of identifying minors in public documents, as well as in the model Community passport.
For all these reasons, Mr Schulz, I hope that you will support this amendment.
Mr President, the rapporteur did not have the easiest of tasks.
He had to respond with practical measures to an international issue like that dealt with at the Stockholm Conference, to a series of common actions by the Council and to timely communications from the Commission. Above all he had to respond to the shock we have all felt at the Dutroux case which has given rise to a series of distressing reports and has pointed up a certain underestimation of the problem in our countries as well.
It is always difficult to respond to distress and frustration with reasoned policies and rational proposals.
The rapporteur has chosen a method I can agree with. He has made use of this tension to confront the most pressing and risky issues.
Mr Deprez is right.
At another time we would not have reached such a full consensus on identifying the offence of committing paedophile acts, the possession of pornographic material which exploits children, the age of consent for sexual maturity or the problem of extraterritoriality.
A certain type of pseudo-culture which was stirring even among ourselves would perhaps have prevented us from taking courageous decisions.
Today, however, we have achieved a consensus which is even more marked than that achieved in the Council of Ministers.
In our respective countries we are taking part in changes to legislation in this very area.
However, in the report I also read of attention to the value of children in themselves, in their rights, and it is in light of this value that I interpret paragraph 27, which as far as I am concerned deals with political responsibility, as being much better than paragraph 29.
I believe that this political responsibility - let us be frank - does not just apply in the case of children but in this aspect finds an example which due to the sensitivity of its contents is certainly a practical one.
I have heard from Belgian friends and friends in the European People's Party that there is an amendment.
I believe that we must reach total agreement on this subject, as well as on the rest of the report. I would remind the House of one fact: in 1993 under the Belgian Presidency, it was Belgium that put forward five recommendations to combat the trade in sexual exploitation, five recommendations that were rejected, not by Belgium, but by the entire European Union.
Let us hope that we do not need any more victims!
Mr President, I will help you and tear up my speech - I know that you want us to get on with this.
I agree with the main thrust of the report; I know that there have been particular problems in Belgium but we all know this is a problem that is not confined to one country and cuts across national boundaries.
There is a question of what should we do, and what we can do, at a European level.
I certainly believe that the report sadly does not give enough emphasis to what needs to be done to control the Internet.
There was a good report last month; we want to see that report by Mr Whitehead put into effect as quickly as possible.
There is a problem of missing children across Europe so the missing children bureau is an extremely good idea.
I take Mr Collins' point that we need some regulation of control on au pairs.
There are humorous stories in Britain of Swedish au pairs; no doubt there are humorous stories in other parts of Europe about British au pairs; there needs to be regulation.
Finally, I am one of those Members who believes in the separation of powers, Mr President.
I do not intend to allow my political mandate to be used to interfere with the judges' judicial mandate.
In English we say 'two wrongs do not make a right' .
Mr President, I know you will be bringing the hammer down in exactly 60 seconds, but just another 10 seconds please. Four things.
First, I would like to thank all those who have taken part in this debate, especially my co-rapporteurs, for their valuable contributions.
Secondly, I forgot to add that my colleague Laura Esteban Martín has tabled an excellent Amendment, No 3, which I support, although the voting list states otherwise.
I shall make that clear before the vote tomorrow.
Thirdly, I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Deprez, whose cooperation over many months has been superb.
Much of what is contained in this resolution is a combined effort.
That he had to defend Mr Wathelet so vehemently throughout these months, and again today, is understandable in view of his personal circumstances.
Fourthly, if there was still any doubt that Mr Chanterie was only concerned with internal Belgian politics, then this speech has put paid to that.
Personally I am not interested in the internal politics of Belgium, what interests me is the judge at the European Court.
So I will close with remarks along the same lines as Mr Chanterie.
The place where Julie and Melissa came from is 40 kilometers from the place where my children live and the border between Germany and Belgium is open.
They might easily have been my children.
So it certainly does affect me, Mr Chanterie!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11a.m.
Common fisheries policy after 2002
The next item is the report (A4-0298/97) by Mrs Fraga Estévez, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the common fisheries policy after the year 2002.
The rapporteur, Mrs Fraga Estévez, has the floor.
Madam President, of all the issues that will affect the fisheries sector in the very near future, the reform of the common fisheries policy after 2002 is undoubtedly the most important.
The significance and implications of this reform were apparent throughout the intense debate which occupied the Committee on Fisheries for many months, the fruit of which is the compromise text which I am now submitting to the House for adoption.
Clearly, this compromise text could not include each and every aspect that certain Members wished to be incorporated, nor, of course, the most extreme and hostile positions.
Compromises are the result of a search for consensus on the most important issues, and, from the very beginning, it was my intention in drafting this report to avoid dogmatic positions and identify the inconsistencies, shortcomings and obsolete aspects of the current CFP, in order to be able, on that basis and with the help of all my colleagues, to present the Commission and the fisheries sector with an overview of what is not working in the current CFP and to suggest possible ways of making it more realistic and effective.
As I said, not everyone agreed on either what is wrong or what are the most appropriate solutions.
Nevertheless, I should like to express my thanks to the members of the committee, who, despite the disagreements and different political views, worked together to try to reach agreement on what should be the guiding principles of the future CFP.
The fruit of that work is this compromise text, which - although it does not fully incorporate everyone's views - reflects, I believe, the main concerns of the majority. Amongst these I would mention:
the consensus that the current CFP has serious fundamental defects which impede the sector's development; -the recognition that the Community fleet is oversized and that its capacity needs to be matched to resources, a large proportion of which, moreover, are under serious threat; -the need for the new CFP to be based on an integrated approach which considers the industry and its needs as a whole, with clear and consistent rules for the protection of resources and an overall view of the implications of the measures for the marine ecosystem as a whole.The compromise text also reflects the Committee on Fisheries particular concern for the social repercussions of the measures taken; the need to safeguard economies most dependent on coastal fishing, maintaining the 12-mile limit; the need to consult the sector and involve it in decisions affecting it; and the need to provide the CFP with a genuinely decentralized management system.
Furthermore, the report proposes the establishment of a genuine Community control policy, calls for urgent rules for harmonizing the system of offences and penalties throughout the Member States, and considers the future possibilities of aquaculture and the processing industry, whose ability to give value added to fisheries products must be taken into account, but whose viability depends on an in-depth reform of the common organization of markets.
With a view to ensuring the future competitiveness of the Community fisheries sector, the report puts forward a number of proposals which must be studied and examined, such as the possible ownership and transferability of fishing rights, the application of the principles of efficiency and profitability to the fisheries sector in the same way as to every other sector, and the full incorporation of the industry into the single market system.
Some of these proposals may be more feasible than others, but they are all the product of serious and in-depth deliberations.
However, Mr President, the real political importance and the greatest merit of this report lies in the fact that Parliament has taken the initiative of considering what the European fishing industry should expect from the 2002 reform, has taken the first step towards discussing with the sectors concerned what they expect from the reform, and has made clear to the Commission the need to start immediate in-depth negotiations with all the parties involved with a view to tackling the current CFP and everything that forms part of it, with all its inconsistencies and defects.
In this respect, and with regard to the Commission, I cannot but regret the absence of the Fisheries Commissioner, Mrs Bonino, who only let it be known at the last minute that she would not be attending - which says a lot for the concern and interest that she has been showing in fisheries issues recently - in a debate of this importance.
In any event, everyone must fulfil their responsibilities.
The future common fisheries policy must be the product of a debate between all the parties concerned - a debate which must take us into the year 2002, in order to ensure that the European fishing industry has a future, and whose results may be very different to the proposals put forward today.
Be that as it may, if those proposals are realistic and effective, then the European Parliament will have accomplished its task with this first, courageous step.
Mr President, I think it is very important that Parliament is discussing this report initiated by the Committee on Fisheries in the part-session, a report that takes account of the debate now taking place at international level on the reform of the common fisheries policy. The protagonist in this debate is Parliament which is the first of the Community institutions to bring forward proposals and forecast the prospects for reforming the fishing industry.
This detailed and serious forecast by Parliament takes account of some important principles which were emphasized in the document: first, the principle of relative stability which was established when two important countries, Spain and Portugal, joined the Union; secondly, the principle of maintaining fish stocks at an environmentally compatible level, bearing in mind that in this regard it is not only up to the European Union, that is, the Community institutions - Parliament, Commission and Council - to intervene but it is also up to all the international organizations to order the structures and efforts of the fisheries sector.
Resources are under severe strain.
They are being over-exposed: we have to make sure they are conserved but we also have to make sure that the European Union maintains its resources within countries and above all performs a key role in the field of international agreements as well.
In this connection, environmental compatibility is very important, just as the role of the European Union is important as a party to international agreements, agreements that provide for the development of an equal relationship with third countries which will permit the growth of manual activities and will not subject these countries to virtual acts of plunder by the European Union or other, more developed, countries.
Undoubtedly, therefore, the environment and international relations are important but there is also another aspect within the common fisheries policy which we consider relevant: the social aspect.
It is true that this sector is in crisis and has problems. It is a sector which counts for little in terms of gross national product but it is still very important and we are perfectly well aware of the fact that fishing does not just have an economic value but also a social and cultural value.
Fishing involves artisans, it involves industry and it involves cooperatives.
So, when we talk about common fisheries policy we should also be thinking about economic activities which are based on the observance of working hours, on non-exploitation, on the possibility of workers having safe conditions in which to use the tools of their trade, since, as we know, fishing is one of the industries which presents the greatest amount of hazards at work compared with other activities.
For this reason, the guidelines we have established take account of the great social option, an option in which we want to uphold the European model against other models - the United States, south east Asia, etc.
In the fishing industry the European social model must be fully upheld also because fishing is one of the sectors in which regional and local agreements have a historical, ancient tradition, have implications which are in some respects anthropological and therefore maintain a very direct relationship between the management of resources, their exploitation and the ability to find a place in the market.
I believe this is the first report to take account of all these factors. I therefore congratulate the rapporteur and I can state unequivocally that the Socialist Group will support it.
Mr President, this is an own-initiative report of the Committee on Fisheries on the fisheries policy after the year 2000.
The so-called blue Europe was created in 1983 for a period of twenty years and it therefore expires in 2002.
The idea of this report was to present some suggestions as an initial basis for discussion on reformulating a fisheries policy.
In fact we have to conclude that so far no one has really given much thought to a future fisheries policy.
That is why this report is particularly important.
It is not of course the last word of the European Parliament on this subject.
The central problem of the fisheries policy is the catastrophic stocks situation along with the fact that the fishing fleet is too large.
Almost all the points in the own-initiative report are concerned with this fact.
So what does the report suggest? As regards the problem of excess fleet capacity, it demands that fleet strength is adjusted to existing stocks with a view to creating a more balanced situation.
The social aspects of this must of course be taken into consideration at the same time.
Secondly, in order to maintain stocks, it asks for a system that must be simple and efficient.
The annual total catch must be agreed on the basis of biological, economic and social factors, and fishermen themselves must be more involved in these considerations.
In allocating the total catch weights, the principle of relative stability must continue to apply.
That is exceptionally important.
Thirdly, restructuring of the fisheries policy must continue to be supported to ensure a socially acceptable solution.
Fourthly, a control policy is an indispensable part of the fisheries policy if we are going to have a useful stocks policy.
So we considered it enormously important that the report was clear on this and that minimum standards in Member States, an increase in control resources and the extension of existing controls on the production of third countries had to be demanded.
Fifthly, as regards the policy on external resources, the report draws attention to the principles already agreed by the European Parliament.
I would, however, have liked to see a clearer statement in the report that the European Commission will continue to be solely responsible for negotiating agreements with non-EU countries.
In my opinion it is absolutely essential that the European Union acts in unison in its foreign and foreign trade policy.
We realize that this report represents a compromise, but one which we as a section within the European People's Party are happy to accept.
We would like to express warm thanks to the rapporteur Carmen Fraga Estévez, who has tackled a very difficult job extremely well!
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur on the considerable work that has been done and the conciliatory spirit Mrs Fraga Estévez has shown in reaching a compromise.
But I would like to put the debate a little in context.
What is involved? By 21 December 2003, the Commission has to present a report on the general situation in fisheries, with the Council able to decide on any necessary adjustment, notably on two points: restrictions on fishing in the zone known as the "Shetland box' , and renewal or otherwise of the derogations system for non-Community twelve-mile zones.
The Committee on Fisheries has studied the matter and two totally different points of view have emerged.
One advocates liberalization of conditions of access to Community waters, with individual allocation of fishing rights, transferable on the market; the other proposes renationalization of certain Community waters, reserving them to the bordering states.
We support neither of these two points of view, because it seems to us essential to preserve the principle of relative stability, by which each country has a fixed percentage of total annual catches, and by which each country itself distributes the fishing rights to the fishermen.
We also think it is necessary to maintain the current system, which reserves the twelve-mile zone to small-scale local fishermen.
Because what are the most ardent reformers basing themselves on? On a peremptory and unsubtle assessment, according to which the CFP has been nothing but a failure.
Of course everything is far from perfect in the organization of European fisheries, but that does not mean it can be declared a complete failure.
In any case the efforts and modifications which need to be introduced should bear, in our opinion, on the market sphere and the controls, as the shortcomings currently observed in these domains are certainly the main source of the difficulties in the common fisheries policies.
Mr President, I also think it is very sad that the Commissioner is not here today for what is probably the most important debate in the fishing sector over the next few years.
As far as the Fisheries Committee was concerned, one of the most important things was that Parliament as an institution should be ahead of the other institutions in the debate within the European Union to lay down its own views of what the Common Fisheries policy should be like after the year 2002 and what form it should take.
Here we have a comprehensive report.
I would say to other parliamentarians that we must not think of fishing as being marginal; what we are talking about here is the wider marine ecology.
The oceans cover some two thirds of the earth's surface and European fleets cover most of that area at some point.
One of the most important things that comes out when studying the CFP is that on the whole it has consistently failed.
It has failed in its conservation goals, it has failed to maintain jobs and it has also failed largely in the area of international agreements in defending third countries and their stocks and developing their industries.
That has been partly because of the over-centralization and the politicization of the common fisheries policy.
The result is that the policy itself is not respected by the industry; I think that is true throughout the European Union.
As we have seen on many other reports in the Fisheries Committee there has not been the political will among Member States to enforce it.
We have tried to solve that by putting more regulations on existing regulations, with little additional affect.
What does that tell us? I believe that there is a simple message here.
First of all that we cannot, under any circumstances, carry on as we are now.
That means that a fundamental reform of fisheries policy is essential.
So how have we to move ahead? I would say that there are two keys to finding a way forward.
First of all, it is to have clear objectives - I do not believe we have those at the moment.
They are: a sustainable exploitation of fish stock; long term prosperity for the fishing industry and those communities that are dependent on it; supply to the consumer with good quality fish at acceptable prices - we often forget the consumer side of this industry - and the long term protection of the broader marine environment.
More importantly, we must have a policy that will actually work and there we can learn from experience elsewhere.
First of all we can only successfully manage fish stocks by having a coincidence of the areas in which they are managed with the management regime itself and the range of those fish stocks.
The answer to that is regionalization.
We also have to involve the stakeholders' bottom-up process and really give them power over their own industry.
And we have to give fishermen the right over their stocks to some degree.
That means the end of common access and common resource.
In this respect I believe this report is not short enough, is not concentrated enough and although it is worthy in many areas, it has compromised too far and fails to deliver fully in these key areas.
Mr President, I have listened carefully to what the rapporteur has said but I have to confirm that as far as the Greens are concerned the content of the resolution, albeit the result of compromise, is not yet acceptable.
The issue of the common fisheries policy after 2002 is a highly significant subject for the European Union and therefore also very controversial.
There is no doubt that it is appropriate to maintain a common fisheries policy after 2002, but the main objective for us Greens is to ensure that fish stocks are preserved and I believe this is a common sense objective because if there are no fish in future there will be no fishing either.
Currently the fishing industry does not allow the fish to complete their normal reproductive cycle which reduces fish stocks and brings about a crisis for the industry itself.
It is therefore beneficial not only for the environment but for the fishing industry as well to question fishing methods that affect the actual survival of fish in order to guarantee an acceptable future livelihood for the fishermen.
Even if it is more difficult, what is needed is a genuine reform of fishing which has as its objective the sustainability and the maintenance of fish stocks.
However, the resolution under discussion does not significantly change the way the current common fisheries policy is imposed even though important innovations have been announced.
For example, the precautionary principle is rightly being upheld but in the absence of an adequate definition this can be interpreted differently in different countries.
For this reason we have presented amendments in an attempt to clarify the part of the report that refers to the environment and the preservation of fish stocks.
We also think that the fisheries agreements with the ACP countries in particular should be revised so as to provide sufficient scientific and technical cooperation in the monitoring and control of resources to guarantee their conservation.
There are, however, other aspects of the report that merit detailed discussion.
A large part of the debate held in committee concerned the possibility of the common fisheries policy continuing to be an exception to the principle of free access to Community waters.
We believe that the problem of access is a major problem but one which should take second place to issues such as conservation, actual control over fishing, the adoption of suitable technical measures and a significant reduction in fleet size consistent with the maintenance of fish stocks.
Mr President, I was a little bit surprised to hear the rapporteur introduce the report by saying that the most radical ideas were not included, quite the opposite.
It is, in fact, my group the radical group who are trying the conserve what we have of our common fisheries policy and her ideas are not only radical but to my view reckless and dangerous.
I can think of nothing more destabilizing for Europe than the prospect of fish wars right across the European waters, not just in the waters that are currently covered by this CFP but in the Baltic and the Mediterranean.
I have a very real concern that in the pursuit of this obsession about the free market and economic efficiency, we could be faced with a very destabilizing situation indeed.
It is quite significant that the common fisheries policy recognized quite the opposite of what Mrs Fraga said, namely that fisheries is not any old economic activity but, quite the contrary, it is a very specific and unique form of economic activity and it has to remain so.
It is too important to be thrown to the mercy of the free market.
The common fisheries policy is not a temporary derogation from the principle of freedom of access which will automatically lapse at the end of 2002.
That is a vital point of disagreement between the two sides in this debate.
Those of us who want to conserve and build on the CFP, with all its faults, are confronted with the ultimatum that it will all lapse and there will be a free-for-all after 2002.
That is highly alarming to the fishing industries, not just of Scotland which I represent, but right across the European Union from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.
Relative stability, which I was glad to see a number of colleagues stressing, is not really made a centre and cornerstone of this report in the way that it is of the common fisheries policy.
Relative stability is, of course, the only thing that makes the CFP semi-acceptable to the fishing industry at the moment.
I took careful notes here that colleagues Baldarelli, Langenhagen, and d'Aboville all stressed the importance of relative stability.
I totally concur but that is not the thrust of the report, it is very much a secondary stress.
I, therefore, want the House to oppose this report for the following three reasons.
First of all, it undermines conservation. Conservation is incompatible with economic efficiency and the operation of the free market.
Secondly, it will undermine the coastal communities which depend on the fish offshore, their way of life and their viability.
Finally, and this should concern everyone in this House, even if they are far from the sea, it will undermine support for the European Union and give added fuel to those who say there is only one way out of this desperate Common Fisheries Policy and that is to leave the European Union.
We must resist those siren voices and we must resist this report.
Mr President, but in the absence of Madam Commissioner, it was a good idea to prepare an own-initiative report on the future of the CFP after 2002 based on an uncompromising balance sheet of the successes and failures of twenty years of blue Europe. A first draft was presented by Mrs Fraga Estévez at the Committee on Fisheries.
It gave rise to very lively debate.
It was unacceptable.
Why? Because its ultra-liberal approach may have suited one Member State, Spain, but not the others, whose national fisheries would have been fatally demolished by it.
The first proposals in fact challenged the principle of relative stability by which each country has a fixed percentage of the annual catches which it distributes itself, to the benefit of a system of individual transferable allocations of fishing rights, opening the door to a generalization of the perverse practice of quota-hopping and, in the end, to a possible disappearance of whole national fleets to the benefit of the coastal power which already has the most overmanned fleet.
To this challenging of national quotas was added absolute priority for the processing sector, wrongly regarded as a replacement activity for the decrease in the number of fishermen, and the absence of any effective measure of support for the market in fresh fish, essential however to the life and business, including tourism, of our coastal regions.
Finally, the palliative character of the present CFP was further reinforced by an appeal to new and generalized drastic reductions of fleets - always adjustment by scrapping.
Mrs Fraga Estévez accepted the fundamental undermining of her initial report with a good grace.
A number of improvements were made to it.
But the final result remains unsatisfactory as some of our amendments were not taken into account.
Three points seem absolutely essential to us.
The first point is that it is necessary to maintain, without equivocation, the principle of the relative stability of the national quotas, and assure equitable and effective control of the TACs and quotas.
Secondly, it is indispensable to maintain the non-communitarization of territorial waters, within the twelve-mile limit, which must remain reserved for small-scale coastal fishermen.
Thirdly, it is essential for the CFP to become a policy of encouragement and protection, to the benefit of a sector which plays, in all our coastal countries, a capital role in terms of land management.
This means strengthening aid to small-scale fishing, giving it the means of developing instead of holding it back, and strengthening the market sphere, in particular in the essential area of fresh fish and the quality of the products.
Our group, Mr President, cannot but regret that the report on the future of the CFP has not been articulated with enough clarity around these three fundamental objectives, whose pursuit alone can justify the maintenance and acceptance of blue Europe in the future.
Mr President, the fishing industry of Northern Ireland must be defended and maintained after 2002.
Those who make their livelihood from fishing and the fruit of fishing in Northern Ireland must have their work sustained by proper safeguards and structural process and policies.
Our fishing industry is in the process of being entirely eliminated.
Those without fishing waters or enough fishing waters of their own, must not be allowed to plunder those whose fishing grounds have already suffered at the hands of the so-called expert conservationists, who have been proved wrong on many occasions.
For example, certain fish stocks, EU experts told us, would become extinct in the Irish Sea unless their proposals were carried through.
The opposite happened but fishermen suffered drastically because of a wrong decision from Brussels.
Regional diversities must be recognized in all policy-making.
One of the great weaknesses of the past has been a lack of efficient enforcement and member countries aiding and abetting that.
There must be fair fishing grounds with all parties committed and forced to comply with the rules.
Quota hopping must be dealt with, and in the Irish Sea the Hague preference, which totally distorts fishing quotas, should be abolished.
Fishing communities which have seen their fleets cut must now be supported to be able to retain what is left and encouraged to break in with new developments.
Mr President, I do not think I need to repeat the remarks that I made earlier about the way the rapporteur went about her work.
By accepting many amendments, and I am glad that she accepted many of my own, she has made her own position rather more uncomfortable because the report that she is delivering today is a very different report to her original draft.
But this shows that she has done her work properly and I think Parliament recognizes that fact.
The common fisheries policy is a bit of a mess at the moment.
We have a mismatch between resources and catch capacity; we need fleet reconstruction.
Discards far over quota are a matter of fact on a daily basis and the sale of fish which are not registered in the market place are ruining the respect that many people have for the common fisheries policy.
We, of course, need a policy that looks after the people who live in some of the more peripheral and poorer areas of the Community and the general philosophy of this report I believe to be correct.
It stresses relative stability, whatever some colleagues might say, and it stresses that the sensitive areas of the Community must be respected.
I am delighted that the first paragraph of this report calls for a twelve-mile exclusion zone for the coastal countries and the coastal communities so that the fishermen in those areas can manage their own resource under Community rules.
It is vital that the fishermen feel involved in the policy in a way they do not at the present time.
Eighty per cent of the fishermen fish close to their own shores and eighty per cent, therefore, of the fishermen will be involved in the policy.
The larger boats which go a further distance will require much more Community control than there has been in the past.
I believe all that is delivered in this report and I give it my full support.
Mr President, while I do not agree with many aspects of the rapporteur's report, I want to congratulate her on bringing her report this far.
I have listened to the opinions of the fishermen's representatives, many of whom believe that this motion for a resolution has been compiled simply to demolish the concept of national quota fisheries and treat the industry as no more than any other business.
All of us know that fisheries is not the same as any other business.
The importance of viable coastal fishing communities seems to have been totally ignored or treated with disdain.
The motion does not adequately take into consideration the resource allocation needs of coastal communities situated proximate to fish stocks.
The report does not accurately reflect the considered views and the needs of all Community fisheries interests.
This motion is basically attempting to assert that national quotas are incompatible with the principles of the single market and free movement of capital as if there were no other criteria whatsoever to be considered.
Some concessions have been made to the retention of the six to twelve-mile limit.
At the same time, the motion sets out to ensure that ultimately, following a period of study - and that is important - the allocation of tax should be rationalized by allocating fishing rights amongst fishermen, in other words, ITQs.
ITQs have been tried elsewhere, they have been controversial and were not successful in achieving economic objectives.
They have been used as tradable commodities, they have been sold outside Member states and I believe that they will be a recipe for disaster.
Quotas should not be nationalized.
This notion that relative stability and quota share-out was introduced to facilitate adaptation to the single market is incorrect and the requirement of the single market must not be allowed to be confused with unrestricted access to resources.
I take issue with the reference to fisheries being a sector in decline.
I believe that is too gloomy a prediction.
There have been and still are many successful fishermen and the support industries have been successful.
Fleet reductions are not necessarily the key to conservation.
Management is the key to the future.
Why do we not consider pesc-aside for the fishing industry? Set aside is good for the agricultural industry, so we should take on board a pesc-aside for the fishing industry.
In conclusion, I can only say that this motion should be rejected in its present form.
Its adoption could exacerbate the very considerable risk that some national fleets could be reduced below a critical mass, rendering the provision of infrastructural and support facilities uneconomic to many of our Member States.
Mr President, the reform of the common fisheries policy after 2002 is aimed at strengthening and supporting this many-faceted, useful and valuable sector.
For this to happen this reform must look at all aspects and all the characteristic features of the sector.
In spite of significant improvements that she herself has made to the original report and even with the acceptance of the modifications, I am afraid that the report of Mrs Fraga Estévez does not go far enough in addressing the main problems that beset the sector.
More specifically, while it is true that it makes a clear distinction between small fishing communities and large commercial and industrial activity and while it is also true that it asks for positive measures to be targeted at small coastal fishing fleets, it contains an enormous discrepancy: the common fisheries policy for the Atlantic, the North Sea and the Mediterranean.
In the first two cases it establishes territorial waters of 200 miles; in the third case, the Mediterranean, of between 6 and 12 miles.
All too evidently, this is unfair and dangerous treatment.
Secondly, it offers some positive incentives for those involved to withdraw from fishing.
But, however powerful the incentives may be, they do not solve the problem. It is like an aspirin.
At some point or other they run out.
Where will these people find work?
Will they just go to swell the ranks of the millions of people already out of work? This report offers no solution, at no point is there an indication, a paragraph on preventive measures to help all those who have withdrawn from fishing to find work.
Mr President, I am speaking as a Member of Parliament from one of the main ports of the Mediterranean, the town of Sète.
Mrs Fraga Estévez, as a good Galician, is obviously defending the 80, 000 Galician fishermen, four times as many as their French counterparts, who have 18, 000 or more ships out of the 100, 000 European ships, a fishing fleet three times larger that the French one - it is a real armada - and their 660, 000 tons of catches, four times as much as French catches.
Mrs Fraga Estévez is right; the sector is in crisis.
After the depopulation of the countryside, comes the depopulation of the fishing ports, a sector which, as we know, is difficult, tough, used to conflict, with its "Gulf War' - the Gulf of Gascony, also known as the Bay of Biscay - tuna war and indeed cod war, with very important legal constraints linked with the freedom of the high seas, and biological constraints.
We cannot do what we want with the fish stocks, that is clear.
We are still asking the fishermen to make sacrifices and the solutions are always Malthusian.
There was talk earlier of freezing the seas.
In MGP4, France will, for example, have to reduce its fishing capacity by 10 %, while in the previous MGP, in 1991, it had already destroyed nearly a thousand French ships out of a total fleet of eight thousand.
What is curious is that Mrs Fraga Estévez reverses the traditional Spanish position.
The British become protectionist and the Spaniards become ultra-liberal, wanting individual allocations of fishing rights, even a stock exchange for transferable individual quotas.
We know the solutions, oxygen sought through our 26 agreements with third countries, particularly Morocco or Mauritania.
Mrs Fraga Estévez proposes well-known solutions: sanitary inspections, crisis prevention systems, landing inspections, the fight against fraud by third parties.
We might add social security, stabilization funds, a favourable taxation system, protection of coastal fishing, avoidance of social dumping, aquaculture, maintenance of the twelve-mile exclusion zone, and so on, and the maintenance of Community preference, of course, for us Europeans, who are net importers.
In reality, Mrs Fraga Estévez, we certainly regulate intra-Community fishing, but there is also an extra-Community problem.
We have no hold over the Japanese or the others.
There lies the demonstration that legal rules only operate when a territory is circumscribed, when there are frontiers.
If Europe fails in terms of immigration, or insecurity in employment, that is because there are no frontiers, as in fishing.
The truth is fish, even Spanish fish, know no frontiers!
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I believe that, despite everything, international relations are not always a jungle.
I recognize that this report is still an initial report, but I wish to express my overall satisfaction with Mrs Fraga Estévez's text, even if I do not agree with some of the views that she puts forward.
It represents an initial contribution, and the European Parliament has done well to get down to work, to take a lead in this debate, and to endeavour to set out a position in the future discussion of the common fisheries policy after 2002.
I should like to address three specific points.
First, the question of international fisheries agreements.
I wish to express my reservations in principle concerning the renationalization of the common fisheries policy.
Indeed, returning responsibility for the funding of international fisheries agreements to the various Member States, making them dependent on national budgets - although, in the short term, it would provide a solution to the restrictions, problems and concerns raised by those who question these agreements - would, in my view, undermine the Commission's authority in a key area of the common fisheries policy.
Consequently, application of the subsidiarity principle must be restricted to the private domain, to dealings with producers' organizations, to the dialogue with vessel owners - possibly with the support of the regions, but without renationalizing the overall negotiation of international fisheries agreements.
My second point concerns structural policy - and it is not possible to disconnect this issue from the question of Agenda 2000. I wish to condemn the fact that fisheries are inadequately taken into account in Agenda 2000, and that the separation of objectives 1 and 2, in the present framework, is excessively rigid, with greater importance being attached to strictly development objectives.
This will place fisheries in a secondary and subordinate position in future Community support frameworks.
Thirdly, the question of rebalancing fleet capacity and resources.
I do not believe that rebalancing fleet capacity and resources is the only way to reduce catches, although I am in favour of the establishment of, and compliance with - and, I stress, compliance with - the multiannual guidance programmes.
It is important to stress that the reduction of the fishing effort can also be achieved by reducing the number of fishing days, controlling landings and implementing technical measures for the conservation and protection of fisheries resources.
Finally, our group supports the attachment of increased importance to environmental aspects, notably as regards the adoption of a precautionary approach, referred to in the draft report, and the upholding of the principle of relative stability.
Indeed, if we fail to preserve the fisheries sector, there will be no fishermen to discuss the common fisheries policy after 2002.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, like previous speakers, I wish to express my regret at the absence of Commissioner Bonino from a debate of such importance to the fisheries sector.
The committee's work was long and arduous, but it bore fruit.
The report which bears the name of the Chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries is the first document drawn up by a Community institution which addresses, rigorously and as a whole, the reform of the common fisheries policy after 2002.
Parliament and its Fisheries Committee must be congratulated on this initiative; and the rapporteur, Mrs Fraga Estévez, must especially be heartily congratulated on her persistence, rigour and capacity for compromise, which made it possible to achieve a good document, a good starting point for the very difficult task that is now beginning.
I wish to highlight the fact that the report puts its finger on the main problems of the current common fisheries policy and proposes solutions and alternatives; stresses that fisheries must be treated like any other sector of economic activity, fostering the capacity and competitiveness of private enterprise in a more rationalized industry; calls for greater clarity, simplicity and transparency in the norms and management of the sector, with the increased involvement of the social partners concerned, in particular fishermen and their associations; recommends the adoption of an integrated environmental, economic, social and industrial approach to fisheries; underlines the crisis that the sector is facing and its effect on employment in entire regions that are economically backward and highly dependent on this activity, requiring the increase of funds and the maintenance of specific structural instruments; asks that the industry be treated equally with other economic sectors when it comes to negotiating requirements and compensations in international fisheries agreements; stresses the need for the effective reform of the current COM, as well as for the strengthening and rationalization of the current control system, with its extension to include transport and marketing.
I trust, Mr President, that the Commission will take note of these proposals. In any event, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur, once again, on her excellent work.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur.
We have a compromise here and in any compromise we do not all get what we want.
We have not got what we wanted, she has not got what she wanted, a lot of other people have not got what they wanted.
This is a first attempt, as many people have said, at talking about the reform of the common fisheries policy in 2002.
We should congratulate her.
It has most of the elements that we can build on. Relative stability is there.
The six/twelvemile zone preservation for local fishermen is there.
Regional management is there: I would stress that I am talking, when I talk about regional management, of areas like the countries around the North Sea managing the fisheries in the North Sea and similarly with the Mediterranean, the Irish Sea and so on.
That seems sensible.
Conservation is there: unless we conserve our fish stocks we will not have any fishing industry to have a fishing policy about.
Evaluation monitoring and enforcement are there.
If we do not do something about the catching of black fish, the catching of juveniles, the discard rate, we will not have a fishing industry.
There will be no fishermen, there will be no fishing ports and we will be faced with a crisis.
We have to do something about enforcement Europe-wide.
The Commission said they were going to produce a document in 1997 about enforcement for the whole of the European Union waters.
It is not coming in 1997 I fear.
Let it come in early 1998.
Finally, I am very pleased about what the rapporteur says about international fishing agreements.
It follows on from my report last May and I am also very pleased that the Council have adopted most of the guidelines that I put down in my report.
So we are all happy on that and let us go forward on that for international agreements.
Congratulations again to the rapporteur, let us support this report.
Mr President, the report by our colleague, Mrs Fraga Estévez, aims to establish a long term strategy for the development of the common fisheries policy.
The rapporteur has produced a notable and systematic piece of work, which essentially reflects what the common fisheries policy has been in the past and what can be expected from it in the future.
I, for my part, should like to underline four issues which I believe are important.
The first concerns the application of the single market rules.
We are all familiar with the frequent conflicts in the fisheries sector, and experience has shown that enthusiasm for the technically correct principle of freedom of access to fisheries resources for all Member States must be tempered by concern for relative stability. This leads to the conclusion that the present derogation allowing the Member States to retain exclusive fishing rights within their respective twelve-mile territorial limits must be continued.
My second point is that the European Union must ensure that its fisheries products processing industries enjoy the same conditions of supply of raw materials as their main competitors.
Besides continuing to negotiate international fisheries agreements which guarantee a minimum internal supply, therefore, it must ensure that the market concessions granted in trade agreements with third countries do not jeopardize the survival of our own industries.
The type of mass relocation to other fisheries sectors that can currently be observed in the canning industry must be avoided at all costs, on pain of causing mass unemployment in a large number of coastal areas.
Thirdly, I should like to stress the importance of sound medium-term programming in the framework of the multi-annual guidance programmes, or MGPs, for the fishing industry.
However, in order to ensure that the MGPs are effective and prevent what is currently happening, a legal basis for imposing penalties for non-compliance must be established.
Finally, I wish to underline the need for us to move quickly towards introducing a joint and relatively uniform system of monitoring and control - lest the foundations of the entire policy for the sector collapse - since this will be a decisive element in the quantitative and qualitative management of fisheries resources in the future.
Dührkop (PSE). (ES) Mr President, I should first like to congratulate Mrs Fraga Estévez on her magnificent work in producing this report.
The working documents drawn up by the rapporteur set out clearly both what the common fisheries policy is - or should be - as a result of the derogations that will be in force until the year 2002, and the challenges facing the European Union in the fisheries domain.
The report that we are discussing was adopted, after long debates, by a very large majority of the Committee on Fisheries.
We must thank the rapporteur for her good offices in providing a compromise solution that everyone could accept, even those of us who thought that her original report expressed the different aspects of the common fisheries policy more successfully.
The Committee on Fisheries made a virtue of necessity, despite the regrettable and repeated filibustering manoeuvres of the kind which lead to nothing except the discredit of those who carry them out.
It is also curious that it is those who complain most about the current common fisheries policy and its results who are most opposed to reforming it and taking it forward to the year 2002.
Nevertheless, I am pleased to affirm that we have established as priorities the conservation of resources and the maintenance of employment in the fisheries sector.
Fishing is an economic activity that is mainly concentrated in peripheral regions of the European Union characterized by a high level of unemployment and per capita income below the Community average.
In 2002, the common fisheries policy will come of age and will be provided with a new regime in keeping with the single market similar to those that exist for all other economic sectors.
Freedom of access to markets will therefore be matched by freedom of access to resources.
Mr President, I want to thank the rapporteur for her work on the report and for the fact that she has rewritten the report to take account of so many amendments that were submitted including amendments from myself.
I appreciate her call for an increased role for fishermen in the decision-making process and the emphasis that she has put on conservation of fish stocks and environmental considerations.
I support her call that agriculture be made a major priority of the Common fisheries policy.
I believe that coastal areas can gain enormous benefit from a carefully established policy.
I was extremely impressed recently on visiting the rapporteur's own constituency, Galicia, to see the contribution that mussel farming has made to their local economy.
I believe that a supply of fresh, cheap seafood can be a tremendous tourist attraction in peripheral regions, particularly for areas like Galicia, the west of Ireland and Scotland.
This is an important factor in her report.
I am disappointed that my amendment to extend the thirty-mile exclusive zone has not been accepted.
I believe there is still a lot of support for that idea and I hope that the Commission will consider this idea as part of a strategy to give greater control to the local communities.
I am sorry to have to say again and again that I cannot accept the principle of relative stability without one reservation.
Fishermen on the west coast of Ireland recognize that they are allowed to catch only twenty per cent of the rich fishing resources which are adjacent to their region.
These are the natural resources of a natural region in the Community.
If the fisher people of Spain, Portugal or Denmark were told they could only catch twenty per cent of the stocks in the waters adjacent to them, they would not accept the Common fisheries policy.
I have to say we must continue to make this point.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate Mrs Fraga Estévez on her report and her will to achieve a balanced compromise - even if it is not the compromise that many of us would have perhaps desired.
I preferred Mrs Fraga Estévez's original report, but the final report must be regarded as a positive step, as a reflection on what the future main lines of the common fisheries policy should be.
It strikes a balance in favour of the promotion of a competitive and responsible fishing industry which can survive in the market place.
It is important that the report states that fisheries must be treated as simply another sector of economic activity.
I should like to underline the proposals concerning the distribution of fishing rights between companies and the possible transferability of those rights. These are necessary mechanisms for providing companies in the sector with a certain amount of flexibility as regards their rights, as well as for enhancing their profitability.
If companies are not competitive, the industry will have no future, jobs will be lost and the economic opportunities of areas dependent on fishing will be destroyed.
Furthermore, the report calls for responsible fishing: responsible from the environmental point of view, because, in the long term, competitiveness also requires the conservation of resources.
The report proposes that TACs should be established on the basis of biological and socioeconomic factors, and calls for the reduction of discards and the use of selective fishing gear.
The report also calls for social responsibility.
It underlines the need for compliance with the MGPs, so that fishing capacity can be matched to resources. It calls for alternatives to be found to the restructuring of the fleet, as well as for economic support to alleviate the latter's socioeconomic consequences, which may seriously harm local communities.
The report also refers to the fact that not all fishing is industrial fishing, but that there is also local, non-industrial fishing. The measures to restructure this sector must be different to those adopted for the competitive, industrial fishing sector.
The only thing that I would say is that local fishing must be analyzed only in the framework of its own socioeconomic context, and must be defined not only in terms of the size of vessels, but in other terms such as the provision of services to local communities, the use of selective fishing gear, and so on.
I wish to end, Mr President, by welcoming the fact that this report also calls for the fishing agreements concluded with third countries to be adapted to the specific circumstances of each of those countries.
I therefore urge the Members to vote in favour of Mrs Fraga Estévez's report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to congratulate Mrs Fraga Estevez on her excellent report and on her contribution to the debate on the common fisheries policy after 2002.
The motion for a resolution that we have just examined is indeed an extremely significant contribution, which we will take into serious consideration during the debates that are going to be held over the coming years.
At this point I would like to express the regret of our colleague, Mrs Bonino, for her absence from the debate today, due to the fact that she had prior engagements outside Brussels from which she could not extricate herself.
However, I believe that nobody in this Chamber is in any doubt as to the special respect in which Mrs Bonino is held in the European Parliament.
At this stage, the European Commission does not wish to express any substantive opinion, so as not to influence the final outcome of the debate that has only just begun.
But, as has been announced on many occasions, both in the European Parliament and in other forums, the European Commission is intending to move towards a re-examination of the common fisheries policy.
We will do this by organizing an open and constructive debate in close consultation naturally with all the concerned bodies of the sector.
The participation of all the bodies of the sector, especially of professional bodies, is the essential ingredient in the method that the European Union is intending to follow.
Our services are going to draw up a questionnaire on the common fisheries policy and send it to all the parties concerned at the beginning of 1998.
The answers to this questionnaire will allow us to pin-point the main themes on which the study of the common fisheries policy after 2002 will concentrate, in order to give the debate a better focus and direction.
During a second phase, in close collaboration with the Member States, the services of the Commission will organize decentralized meetings which will allow the Commission and the parties concerned to analyze and debate the results of this first investigation on the base of the questionnaire.
Finally, I would like to make a comment on the content of the investigation of the common fisheries policy after 2002.
From a strictly legal viewpoint 2002 can be directly characterized by three elements which stem from laws currently in force.
First, by access to waters within the 12 or 6 nautical mile zone, in accordance with article 6 of the 3760/92 Regulation.
Secondly, by the implementation details that are enforced by CETATOX, in accordance with article 7 of the 3760/92 Regulation.
Thirdly, by the conditions of access to the North Sea for Spanish and Portuguese vessels in accordance with the 1985 Act of Accession, and for Swedish and Finnish vessels in accordance with the 1994 Act of Accession.
However, the Commission aspires not to limit itself to this clearly legal framework, as provided for by the basic Regulation and the Acts of Accession.
2002 gives us the opportunity to move towards an evaluation of all the different aspects of the common fisheries policy, to see its successes and to confront its failures.
We should also evaluate the extent to which the common fisheries policy has contributed to the preservation of fish stocks, to employment and to the other objectives of the treaty, such as the protection of the environment.
It is an inspired plan, which obliges us to begin forthwith the appropriate investigative process, always in collaboration, as I said, with all the bodies concerned and, of course, working closely with Parliament.
In this context, the European Parliament resolution on the common fisheries policy after 2002 and the Commission report on the implementation of the Community fisheries and fish-farming regime are the first phases in this process.
They will be the broad outlines as regards both the short term and the medium term planning of the European Commission.
Thank you, Commissioner Papoutsis.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Sexual Discrimination
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0326/97), on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the common position established by the Council (C.-0441/97-96/0196(SYN)) with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on the burden of proof in cases of discrimination based on sex (Rapporteur: Mrs Ghilardotti).
Mr President, we are talking about the second reading on the common position adopted by the Council with regard to the directive on the burden of proof.
I should first like to report, also on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, that the Council has included the United Kingdom in this directive. The United Kingdom has stated its intention to abide by the social provisions of the new treaty and to accept the directives already adopted or to be adopted before the treaty comes into effect.
I believe that this is an extremely positive fact which must be greeted with approval.
Having said that, it should be noted that as a whole the common position adopted by the Council is unfortunately a long way from the European Parliament's position, and the Commission's position, as amended, after the vote on this directive at first reading in this House, mainly because there were many essential points where it did not even accept the Commission's original position.
The Committee on Women's Rights and I, as the rapporteur, would like to retable a series of amendments for the second reading, selecting the fundamental issues which have to do with precisely the essential elements of this directive; in particular those that have to do with article 2 which relates to the definition of indirect discrimination, article 3 which relates to the definition of the scope of the directive, article 4 which defines the conditions for the burden of proof and article 5 which defines the procedures.
We confine ourselves to retabling these amendments, leaving aside a whole series of other amendments which, although we consider them important, are not essential for the purposes of the decision on the directive.
It is for this reason that I should like to concentrate on a few points only and ask the Commissioner - whom I thank for being present in the Chamber - what the Commission intends to do with these amendments that we are retabling, with particular regard to article 2.
We want to retable, albeit with slight modifications to our first reading, the definition of indirect discrimination which explicitly includes the essential elements, also from a terminological point of view, that the Court of Justice has expressed on many occasions when defining indirect discrimination, and that is the reason that we are retabling the amendment.
With regard to the scope, I have to say that we thought the Council's explanatory statement very reductive as it excludes from the scope the directives on social protection, professional employment and self-employment. This exclusion has no legal basis and we therefore intend to retable a motion, as far as the scope is concerned, to apply this directive to the directives already in force.
With regard to article 4 which relates to the conditions for the burden of proof, we believe that the Council's decision to reject the last sentence which refers to residual doubt on the grounds that it only relates to criminal proceedings is unfounded in the sense that with this sentence the directive is leaving it to judges to decide on prima facie cases but where doubt persists, it determines that the burden of proof should be borne by the employer since he has all the information at his disposal. It does not represent any interference in the legal system because it is only a pointer to the way people should behave.
The same applies to the procedures.
As far as the procedures are concerned reference is also made to the fact that the maximum transparency is required and that all the necessary information should be placed at the disposal of the plaintiff as it could be used in court.
These are the reasons why Parliament is retabling the amendments we previously tabled.
I should therefore like to ask Commissioner Flynn what the Commission intends to do and whether it intends to support the positions adopted by Parliament as it did at the first reading.
I would remind you that we are not retabling all the amendments but are concentrating on the essential elements of this directive.
I should also like to remind you that people started talking about a first draft of this directive in 1988.
We have therefore been waiting ten years for a directive along these lines.
In the meantime there has been considerable legal precedent, which this directive, by its nature, should take into account.
Mr President, I congratulate the honourable Member, Mrs Ghilardotti, on her work.
With her recommendation for a directive on shifting the burden of proof in cases of discrimination on grounds of sex, she sums up admirably the resolutions of the Committee on Women's Rights.
The amendments constitute an important element in achieving a social Europe.
We Social Democrats want to see a clear directive that assists women in asserting their rights.
I trust the Commission, which has been so far very cooperative with Parliament, will continue to take this line.
We would like to see the position of female employees in cases of job discrimination, promotion and remuneration improved.
The draft under discussion for the last 15 years must, in our view, include the three key elements which Mrs Ghilardotti has already presented and which were not fully accepted by the Council after first reading.
The shifting of the burden of proof from plaintiff to employer as in Amendment No 8 must definitely be insisted on, and the burden of residual doubt must lie with the accused.
We regard this as an essential requirement.
The second clear definition of indirect discrimination, which the European Court has already embarked on in its judgement, must be clarified.
Indeed the draft Amsterdam Treaty takes the same approach.
Thirdly, we want to see the directive extended to the protection of expectant and nursing mothers and social security provisions, so as to avoid loopholes in Member States which may prevent female plaintiffs from asserting their rights to equality of treatment in the civil courts.
So on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would ask all colleagues to accept the proposed amendments including the key contents of Amendment No 8, and I trust we will get a majority and that the Commissioner will accept these amendments.
Mr President, this is a directive which means and shows that the EU can bring advances for men and women in Europe.
We must unite on a long term policy in this area. This directive is part of such a policy.
I represent several countries which have equivalent legislation.
I would like to help this directive to be adopted here.
I would also like to say that this directive is going to involve demands for change there.
Our group is going to support the committee's proposal as we did at the first reading.
I would, however, like to point out that this is not a directive about a reversed burden of proof, but a directive about a shared burden of proof.
I think article 4 is technically better in this proposal than last time.
For a directive with a shared burden of proof to work we need provisions, as Amendment No 9 says, on the right to receive information.
This right is indispensable if the directive is to have meaning.
I understand that Parliament has striven for a wording which guarantees the personal integrity of all the parties involved.
Documents which may contain sensitive information about someone's state of health and so on should not be released.
I also hope that we will approve Amendment No 3.
If part 15 of the preamble were to remain, it would give the Member States a virtually free hand to do something or to do nothing.
To a large extent the proposal still stresses both proportionality and subsidiarity.
It can therefore be accepted and approved, while the debate about Amendment No 3 also shows that the boundaries between the first and third pillars of the structure of our Union are very difficult to maintain.
If we are too rigid in this regard, we will not be able to carry out effective policies in various areas.
Mr President, unfortunately, due to the successive deadlocks that have occurred since the Commission submitted its first proposal in 1988, a satisfactory outcome for this draft directive has not be achieved. Are they afraid that women might use legal instruments to demand equality and defend themselves from discrimination?
What better reason for bringing forward this directive than that of defending ourselves from discrimination - before other technical considerations?
The directive must contain clear provisions which do not lend themselves to misinterpretation when it comes to implementation, as well as a clear definition of direct and indirect discrimination. The scope of this equal treatment directive must be determined, and an unambiguous legal framework must be established for the Member States, with exceptions being limited as far as possible.
All this is important to women, and will serve to enhance the credibility of the equality and mainstreaming policies which form part of the Commission's programmes and the foundations of the treaty.
It is discouraging that, after this long process, the Commission has accepted only 50 %, and the Council a mere 10 %, of Parliament's amendments.
Naturally, my group will be supporting the amendments by Mrs Ghilardotti and the Committee on Women's Rights.
Mr President, I would first like to ask Commissioner Flynn whether he can explain to us what the value of this directive still is if the Council is only prepared to adopt its own proposal.
Because, quite honestly, the Council is surely removing the core of this directive and what is more, legal precedent has moved on and the Commission's first proposal and Parliament's amendments are much closer to it than what the Council eventually cobbled together up at first reading.
To tell the truth, I am a bit worried that at second reading too, the Council will disregard the view of both Parliament and the Commission, is already unanimimous and it will be a straightforward decision.
So I really wonder what value the directive can add to existing precedent.
Perhaps it makes more sense to try to enforce the existing precedent in the Member States, and to enforce its observance in the Member States.
We do badly need this directive, but of course it must be a good directive because we must realize that women are still very much discriminated against on the labour market and that applies to all directives that we deal with concerning equal treatment in Europe and not just to half of them or a few of them.
We must realize that women still earn 30 % less than men for work of equal value.
We must realize that women are still not in a position, for example, to build up the same pension rights as men on average.
We must therefore note that at the end of their lives women will still be poorer.
We desperately need this directive, but it must be a directive of quality and I should very much like to hear the Commissioner's opinion on this matter.
Mr President, when we debated this proposal at first reading, I congratulated the Commission on its initiative and thanked Mrs Ghilardotti for her excellent report and the opportune and important amendments she proposed at the time.
Today, I wish to extend those thanks, since, in the meantime, and on the basis of the proposals drawn up by the European Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights, the Portuguese Parliament has adopted a new law - which has just entered into force - which goes far beyond the draft directive that we are discussing today.
Indeed, this new law, which guarantees the right to equal treatment between men and women in the workplace, enshrines the concept, not of shifting, but of reversing the burden of proof. Now it is incumbent upon employers to prove that no form of discrimination exists.
Furthermore, this law clearly defines the concept of indirect discrimination - something Mrs Ghilardotti and others of us have been fighting for.
As was said during the debate in Portugal, this law was based on a large number of the principles which we uphold - a reason for Portuguese women to be grateful to the Commission, the European Parliament and especially its Committee on Women's Rights.
This is an excellent example of how the European Union can help to enhance the rights of citizens - in this particular case, Portuguese citizens.
Unfortunately, the Council removed at first reading a number of the aspects which we consider to be essential.
We therefore hope, Commissioner Flynn, that the amendments tabled today at second reading - especially Amendment No 5 on indirect discrimination, Amendment No 8 on the benefit of the doubt, and Amendment No 12 - will be adopted by the necessary majority and forcefully upheld by the Commission, since these are essential to defending women's rights in the fields of employment and social security.
It will ill become the European Parliament and the European Union to lag behind one of the southern Member States in this area.
Mr President, the proposal that we are discussing today on the reversal of the burden of proof as it is called in normal human language, is of course not really a reversal of the burden of proof.
An attempt is made to translate the judgments made by the Court in Luxembourg.
I am not as negative as Mrs van Dijk.
I believe, and I can say with some pride, Mrs van Dijk, that Europe has done a great deal for the position of women.
I feel that this proposal is a step on the way to a rather better position for women.
If I compare the Council's position to the original proposal submitted by the Commission, it has unfortunately been greatly weakened under the Dutch presidency.
I have now understood and you have also just heard that in the Group of the European People's Party there are people who are afraid of this proposal and who think that we may possibly go too far on certain points.
That is the really the reason why I would ask the Commissioner to pay special attention to a few amendments.
Is it true, Commissioner, that the Commission is still sticking to including the position of self-employed women in this directive? Are you still sticking to that?
I would say it is worth sticking to it.
I would also like to know the opinion of the European Commission on Amendment No 9.
Amendment No 9 is the exact text of the original Commission proposal. I am in full agreement with that text.
It does not impose anything on the Member States but it simply asks them to ensure that information is available to parties who wish to represent themselves.
Are you sticking to this? The Group of the European People's Party would be willing to support that.
One more point, and I can deal with it very quickly, is Amendment No 8.
I have the feeling that this text is not very clear from the legal point of view.
I should like to ask your opinion on it.
But apart from that I hope the Commission will continue to do what it is doing, supporting the position of women.
Mr President, the common position represents a step forward in the elimination of discriminatory practices in so far as it recognizes the difficulty of proving the many subtle forms of indirect discrimination in judicial or extrajudicial terms.
Whilst acknowledging this positive aspect, however, it should be stressed that this explicit recognition in a legislative text represents an advance which will not be realized in practice, because the orchestration of the legal measures to be adopted in order to eliminate discriminatory practices goes only half way and is floundering in ambiguity.
The weight of the legal traditions of the majority of Member States, whereby the burden of proof falls on the plaintiff not the respondent, is evident in issues such as the scope of the directive, the definition of indirect discrimination and the reversal of the burden of proof itself, obstructing the solutions achieved.
In conclusion, all this leads us to support the amendments proposed by the Committee on Women's Rights, which will remove the ambiguities and guarantee the prevention of discrimination by judicial and extrajudicial means.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I should like to congratulate my fellow group member, Mrs Ghilardotti, underline her arguments and refer briefly to the extraordinary way the Council has handled this.
It was odd from the start that the Council hastily adopted its common position on 27 July 1997, although the report from Parliament was not submitted until 15 September.
So it made its decision almost two months before time.
Then of the 11 amendments which the Commission approved, it only accepted two.
On the other hand the Council was 11 and 18 years out of date respectively when, with Amendment No 8, it deleted three of its own directives for achieving the principle of sexual equality from the years 1979 and 1986 and only referred to two legal provisions from 1975 and 1976, which was a case of back to square one!
But that really does not suit Members of the European Parliament, far less the Committee on Women's Rights and especially after Amsterdam!
We therefore request, Commissioner Flynn, first that account is taken of the other directives on equality, that is, clear definition of areas of application.
Secondly, the definition of indirect discrimination must reflect the ten years of rulings of the European Court, in which reference is made to the disadvantage of the relative imbalance of the sexes and which make no mention of the needs of the organization and politics of a Member State.
Thirdly, the key element in the Ghilardotti report, shifting of the burden of proof, which Parliament and the Commission have approved, must be retained.
Fourthly, adoption of the Directive must be ensured.
This requires positive steps and a report to Parliament every three years, which the Council inexplicably deleted, and the withdrawal of the extenuating provisions of proposals 15 and 16.
Because, Commissioner Flynn, if we take the position that special features of the legal provisions of some Member States must be allowed for and make that a common position, we might as well forget about all EU directives and save ourselves the work!
Mr President, the road to equality between women and men is a hard one.
It has a lot of potholes.
In businesses and organizations discrimination on grounds of sex is far too often the reality.
Women - and not only women - await concrete changes and approximation of procedures in all Member States.
The European Parliament has shown the way in this respect.
With its new common position, the Council has taken the reservations of our group into account.
Some of my female colleagues have omitted to mention this.
For example, the principle of investigation has gone.
The right to information for all parties has also been dropped.
It would have led to investigations which are not compatible with the civil law of Member States.
All the suggestions of our Parliament were accepted by the European Commission - thanks to Commissioner Flynn.
Three examples: first, the now redrafted definition of indirect discrimination; secondly, the incorporation of directives into social security law; thirdly, the obligation of Member States to report after at least two years.
There are a number of amendments tabled by the, as usual, extremely precise rapporteur, Mrs Ghilardotti, which we will not be able to accept, such as the deletion of proposals 15 and 16.
We believe that specific aspects of the legal provisions of Member States certainly must be considered, especially if there is clearly discrimination taking place.
All in all, a middle way has been found.
The accused must prove that they have adhered to the principle of equality, an important corrective in all Member States, for common legal instruments will include both direct and indirect discrimination.
The burden of proof directive has, I believe, taken us a valuable step forward on the stony road I referred to at the start!
Mr President, I should briefly like to express my support for the rapporteur and her proposals in this to-and-fro process in which the common position adopted by the Council represents a step backward.
This step backward is especially unacceptable because it makes the draft directive less progressive than certain national legislation adopted in the meantime, creating a disincentive to those tackling and attempting to resolve clear instances of discrimination, such as in the scandalous case of the Commercial Bank of Portugal, which denies women equal access to employment - a case which has been dragging on for years.
Such instances can only be dealt with at judicial level if there is provision for the reversal of the burden of proof - for which Portuguese legislation has provided an example - for the possibility of the action being brought by a trade union and the plaintiff benefitting from any residual doubt, as well as for a number of other factors present in the report in second reading amendments.
I therefore congratulate the rapporteur, and - along with my group and, I hope, the whole of Parliament - I shall endeavour to uphold her proposals vis-à-vis the common position.
Mr President, let me first thank all for completing the examination of the common position so quickly.
In that respect, my thanks first to you Mrs Ghilardotti and all the Members of the Committee on Women's Rights.
The Commission's revised proposals were largely based on the amendments that you had adopted in the first reading and the Council's common position departs from the revised proposal in two essential issues: the definition of the concept of indirect discrimination, that is article 2(2), and the scope of the directive article 3(1)(a).
The Commission has expressed strong reservations on both of these issues and as regards the concept of indirect discrimination the Commission in its original proposal contained the four elements which have consistently recurred in the judgments of the Court.
The Commission regards it as difficult to accept only some of these elements, since each of them is justified by the inclusion of the others.
It is precisely the way in which they tie in with each other that gives the definition its coherence.
As regards the scope of the directive, the Commission has also expressed its difficulties with the approach taken in the common position.
It considers that the principle laid down by the Court as regards the shift in the burden of proof is a general one which should be applied in all directives aimed at upholding the principle of equal treatment between the sexes.
I would like to turn to your amendments and like your rapporteur, Mrs Ghilardotti, the Commission believes that it is now important to concentrate on the key issues.
In the re-examined proposal, the Commission wishes to focus attention on these issues.
It is in order to achieve these that the Commission cannot accept the following amendments.
That is Amendments Nos 3, 4, 7, 9 and 10. In addition, Amendments Nos 11 and 12 are in conflict with Amendments Nos 1 and 6 and in accepting the latter two, I must also reject 11 and 12.
As I have already mentioned, the Commission is willing to accept the proposed amendments which are intended to strengthen the central provisions of the common position: Amendment No 2, which reinserts recital 12 of the Commission's amended proposal of May 1997, underlying the need to take additional measures to ensure effective implementation of the principle of equal treatment; Amendments Nos 1 and 6, which reinsert a reference to the three social security directives adopted in the field of equal treatment and although a vast majority of the Member States are firmly against such a reference, the Commission must continue to try to convince the Member States that these three directives should not be excluded from the scope of the directive; Amendment No 5, whose purpose is to strengthen the rather poor definition of indirect discrimination appearing in the common position; Amendment No 8 which reinserts at the end of article 4(1), the principle that the plaintiff shall benefit from any doubt that may remain.
Thus, as you can see, the Commission accepts your proposed amendments on the three central provisions of the Commission text.
Mrs van Dijk asked a specific question, of whether there was added value here.
I think the answer is yes but the common position could do with a lot of strengthening and hopefully we will be able to convince the Council to do as the amendments suggest.
I have to say to you that the Commission's proposal aims at increasing the legal certainty and at ensuring that the principle of equal treatment as interpreted by the Court of Justice is complied with scrupulously in all the Member States.
Further, it is a clear step forward in respect of the compromise text on which eleven Member States were prepared to agree in 1993, in particular, the wider scope and greater clarity of articles 3 and 4(1).
Madam Oomen-Ruijten asked about Amendment No 9, which suggests reinserting a new article 4(a) on procedure.
It is not accepted because of the need to focus on the key issues today.
The deletion of the provision in the common position does not really do any harm, as in fact it provided for something which already exists in one way or another in all of the Member States legal systems.
In conclusion, I would like to renew my thanks to all those concerned and I hope that we will be able to convince the Council to strengthen their common position as suggested by the House.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Phare
The next item is the report (A4-0286/97) by Mrs Kjer Hansen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors Special Report No 3/97 on the decentralized system for the implementation of the Phare programme, together with the Commission's replies (C4-0349/97).
Mr President, let me start by thanking all who have contributed to the work involved in producing this report.
That applies both to the Court of Auditors and the Commission, which of course has voluntarily made itself available for discussions and providing further information.
I am also pleased at the honesty which the Commission showed about the difficulties, but what really matters now is that we can improve matters so that the Phare programme will work better in future.
So far, I have to say that some of the problems which the European Parliament has raised over the years, particularly with the adoption ruling, still exist.
It has always been widely agreed that the Phare programme should exist, but at the same time it has not been too clear what the programme should do and what it should actually lead to.
So I am in no doubt that revising the programme now is a good idea so that the aim is now clearly membership-related.
But I feel it is important to emphasize that changing the goals will not produce any results in itself.
Only if there are real improvements in the management of the programme will we achieve clearer and more visible results, and let me mention on this point that the same applies to the Commission's decision to establish a special unit to coordinate the external activities.
Unless the procedures are rationalized and simplified at the same time, there is of course on the other hand a risk that the division of responsibilities and tasks will continue to be blurred.
The question of decentralization is a core problem.
Of course, it is said that no real decentralization has occurred, only a deconcentration.
And given that the Phare countries will soon be members of the EU, it is essential in terms of the admission strategy to implement a truly decentralized management system.
I would therefore urge the Commission to implement the concept of decentralization by letting at least one country take over responsibility for implementing its national Phare project entirely in accordance with the finance regulations and also to let at least one Commission delegation in a country assume responsibility correspondingly, and lastly to have the financial administration of specific sectors of the Phare programme passed over to national administrations.
If we can expect to enlarge in the near future, there can be no doubt that the countries concerned should take over the running of the Phare programme.
One persistent problem is the staff problem at the Commission.
I fail to understand why there is an enormous turnover of staff even at the highest levels of Phare management.
This rapid turnover at all levels does of course mean a loss of continuity, experience and knowhow.
The position in the delegations is completely wrong, and I find it totally unacceptable that the Commission cannot be bothered to set up an external service to get around the lack of qualified people at the delegations.
So there are a number of areas where the Commission has announced initiatives aimed at reducing the period for ratifying treaties to six months, that contracts not implemented will be concluded, that surplus programme management units will be closed, that the approvals procedure will be simplified, that evaluation reports will be followed by actual action and that unused Phare resources will be redistributed.
It is very good that the Commission has agreed to improvements in these areas.
I look forward to their being implemented, and I hope that the Commission will present a report on progress here by the end of the year as announced.
As far as the amendments to the report are concerned, I must say that I am amazed at what interests some of my colleagues here want to consider.
We at the European Parliament have constantly complained about the grotesque situation in which less than half of the assets committed under the Phare programme are actually converted to actual payments.
So it is vital that the administrative procedures be changed and tightened up, so that a six month time limit is introduced from when funds are committed to when the relevant contract is signed.
This is a well-known problem, and the six-month period is realistic, which the Commission's own representatives have proposed.
Amendment No 2 runs contrary to the idea of decentralization, as the individual components are all covered, directly or indirectly, by the original text.
So I can only urge my colleagues in the Chamber to vote against these amendments.
Finally, I would like to thank my colleagues for their assistance and some good discussions about the Phare programme and its future.
If only the Commission will implement the measures proposed here, I am in no doubt that the Phare programme will work as intended, produce visible results in the recipient countries and help their entrance into the EU.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on her excellent report.
I believe that it sets out clearly the difficulties of the Phare programme, as well as laying down a number of guidelines for the future.
The third Special Report of the Court of Auditors, which is the subject of this report, highlights the programme's inadequacies for the umpteenth time.
The main problem is that commitments are not a good indicator of the percentage of implementation, since payments only amount to 44 % of commitments, and less than half the funds allocated to the Phare programme since its inception have reached their final recipient.
I am sure that nobody in this House questions the purpose of the programme, for simple political reasons. In the seven years of its existence, however, its poor implementation has frequently been criticized, without - until now - the Commission having proposed effective remedies.
It is unfair, in my view, simply to blame the poor implementation of the programme on the bad management or inadequate functioning of the recipient countries.
Year after year, the budget has been adopted, without a reserve being created for this budget line more than once - and that was ineffective.
And I am deliberately not addressing the issue of value for money now - an issue which must be a priority subject in the debate on the programme's future.
I do not believe that the Commission's proposed improvement of adopting a more accession-driven approach will be a cure-all either.
It is also necessary to define the objectives clearly, improve procedures and, above all, accelerate decision-making.
The demand made in Mrs Kjer Hansen's report for a six-month deadline between the commitment of funds and the signature of the relevant contract could be one way of ensuring transparency and preventing the abuses that are currently observed.
When we evaluate the results, moreover, we see that they have so far been highly inadequate.
By the end of 1995, monitoring and assessment reports on only 30 % of programmes had been submitted.
I believe that, as an instrument of reform, independent evaluation every six months would be extremely useful.
Lastly, as Mrs Kjer Hansen has already stressed, it is essential to improve the staff situation in both Brussels and the delegations of the recipient countries.
The high staff turnover must be rectified.
Finally, Mr President, I wish to say that the Socialist Group fully supports this report.
Mr President, everyone is aware that the Phare programme is the principal instrument of financial support for the pre-accession strategy.
Hence the importance of this report and the effects that it will generate when it is adopted.
I also wish to congratulate Mrs Hansen on her excellent report and thank her for her goodwill in accepting our amendments.
However, this motion for a resolution and these amendments are only possible because, once again, the Court of Auditors has scrupulously fulfilled its duty by drawing up an objective critical analysis of the decentralized system for the implementation of the Phare programme.
But if having a decentralized system should have meant the smooth implementation of programmes and the rapid mobilization of financial resources, that has not always been the case.
The reality has been inefficiencies, limited staff with insufficient experience, a poor take-up capacity on the part of the recipient countries, the dispersal of appropriations across a broad range of projects, and so on.
These inefficiencies can explain a certain amount of slowness in the implementation of the programme.
But the fact that, since its inception, the Phare programme has left more than 50 % of its funds unused, indicates that it is suffering from bigger and more serious problems.
I welcome the fact that the Commission is talking about concrete reforms to tighten up programming and financial management.
I am convinced that the Commission is right to create an independent evaluation unit within DGIA, since, if it ensures its independence and endows it with sufficient resources, this will be not only a constructive innovation but the best possible tool for improving the programme.
Mr Commissioner, when the Commission talks about reallocating funds to more fruitful activities, or reallocating unused Phare funding, it means within the programme.
If the end result does not improve, however, it will unfortunately have talk about reallocating those funds to another programme.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I think when we look at this excellent report by Mrs Kjer Hansen we really have here a damning indictment of the work of the Commission as regards the management of the Phare programme.
I have had a look at how our Committee on External Economic Relations summed up the matter.
It says that decentralization was introduced without the Commission really understanding the procedures introduced by national administrative authorities to implement it.
The volume of funds provided for Phare exceeded the Commission's ability to administer them. What does this mean?
The Court of Auditors is worried about transparency and fairness in the awarding of contracts and the compilation of shorter candidate lists.
This is a demonstration of ineptitude in a central function of Agenda 2000.
I have already made this point here: how are we going to explain to our citizens how a Commission which cannot even cope with allocating ECU 1 billion to countries which desperately need the money, is going to be able to implement the far more comprehensive, expensive and complex enlargement process facing us?
I certainly couldn't tell you! So I think Agenda 2000 must in the end have another point added, and it is this: the Commission has got to get itself into a position where it is capable of implementing the Phare programme, one enlargement programme, properly.
For, Mr Commissioner, neither the Member States nor Parliament nor anyone else is responsible for your staff problems which Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has mentioned and which this report refers to.
This is your responsibility and you will have to rectify it!
That, I believe, is the message of this report.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, today's discussion is in a sense a rehearsal for the debate we shall be having in exactly a month on Agenda 2000 and thus on the enlargement of the European Union.
Talking about the Phare programme means the countries of central Europe, all of which - sooner or later - are waiting to be admitted into the European Union.
The basis of today's debate is a special report of the Court of Auditors.
It is in the nature of such reports that it deals with difficulties and problems, so one might be tempted to be pessimistic and there are signs of that already.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Kjer Hansen, expressly for not succumbing to this temptation.
That does not mean that we should not take the Court's report seriously, on the contrary!
We all know that the candidate countries have a long way to go.
This is nothing new, but the Court makes it clear that the Commission, too, will have to change its ways considerably if the enlargement process is not to be a disaster.
I know how difficult the task of the Commission is and can understand, Mr Commissioner, if you sometimes feel like a whipping boy.
On the one hand we regret here in Parliament that the funds we have provided as budgetary authorities have in fact only been partially disbursed, and will remain so.
In the next breath we come along and complain about everything that has gone awry with the funds that have been spent.
But both are part of our responsibility as Parliament and I hope you will take the adverse remarks made here as constructive criticism, as a spur to further efforts.
A key word in this connection is concentration of forces.
In fact we have had the impression all too often in the past that both the Commission and the Phare countries themselves were wasting their time trying to identify worthwhile projects to support.
It was apparent that the system for implementing the programme was unwieldy and incurred considerable unnecessary costs.
So it is right that the duties of all those involved need to be clearly defined, the number of programmes reduced and the Commission delegations on the ground must have their staffs and their powers reinforced so they can ensure effective programme supervision.
That is what we want to see, and the Court of Auditors has made the same point.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, shutting our eyes is not going to achieve anything.
We have here a serious structural problem in the administration of the programme by the Commission.
The background, or rather the nub, of the report, as has been said, is that the Commission has never really succeeded in producing an assessment system for Phare, which allows the political effects of the programme to be evaluated.
There is no reliable system for supervising individual activities and no clear responsibilities for evaluation, which, as we know, has always been done partly by the Commission and lies partly with subordinate bodies.
Lack of transparency has naturally given rise to the suspicion that not all has been well with the award of contracts, and it was clearly the case, at least in the early stages, that certain institutions in the west managed to line their nests with a certain amount of support or, shall we say, credulity in the recipient countries.
Whether the results of the services always met the expectations of the countries concerned I would doubt.
Many of the appraisals landed up in the drawer with the costs borne by the taxpayer.
Despite the criticism though, we need the programme more than ever before to support the entry of the central and eastern European countries.
This doesn't mean we should cast doubt on decentralization of implementation if we want our partners in central and eastern Europe to have equal rights.
Decentralization must go hand in hand with proper supervision, closer financial involvement of recipient countries and better administrative preparation in these countries for their responsibilities, and I believe this was not properly appreciated.
But we also need a new method of assessing the results on the basis of clearly defined political goals.
As far as suspicion of nepotism is concerned, I can think of a number of specific ways of involving new institutions and ensuring wide participation. Why is this not done by means of regular general calls for interest so as to broaden the applicant chain?
Why does the project management not call more often on new providers instead of the same ones every time? It would also be important for the Member States themselves, who sit on the Phare management committee, to publicize the programme at home.
I hope this shot across the bows may help to ensure a better start for implementation of the Meda programme and that we shall avoid problems like this in future.
Mr President, may I begin by warmly congratulating Mrs Kjer Hansen on her detailed report, and also by thanking her for the constructive collaboration we had while this report was being drawn up.
My departments and I personally have found it a very positive experience to be able to exchange ideas with her during the preparation of this report.
It was a critical but very constructive dialogue.
I cannot say it any other way: I have read the whole report myself and I find it has been written extremely clearly and it will also be very helpful in improving the whole process of Phare assistance.
The time of this debate has been well chosen, I feel, now that the European Council in Luxembourg must take a decision on Agenda 2000 and now that the preparations for the implementation of the new points of reference for Phare are in full swing.
As you will recall, these points of reference are described in detail in the new guidelines for Phare that were sent to your Parliament in March.
As I said, the Commission welcomes Mrs Kjer Hansen's draft report, because it does not disguise the problems but at the same time it acknowledges the efforts that the Commission has made to get to grips with the problems, particularly with regard to audit and evaluation.
The rapporteur, moreover, confirms that the new Phare guidelines seriously try to overcome many of the problems that were highlighted in the report by the Court of Auditors and I feel that we have partially succeeded.
Not only is the Commission committed to further increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of Phare, but it will also use the programme as a development instrument to remedy the shortcomings of the candidate countries as identified in the accession opinions.
In the further development of the Phare programme, moreover, account will be taken of the results of the interim evaluation.
The new priorities emerging from the accession opinions will take shape for each candidate country in the accession partnership.
In this, core tasks are identified that the candidate country must undertake and which are supported by Phare and the priorities of the measures to be taken are also established.
Furthermore, the accession partnership for each country is supplemented by a national programme concerning the implementation of the acquis communautaire in which details are given on the way in which the country is intending to adopt the acquis communautaire .
In order for the planning of the Phare budget for 1998 to take account of the accession partnerships and the national programmes of the candidate countries, we will have to move fast.
The work is progressing despite the very tight schedule and the Commission is aiming to round off these instruments by spring 1998 at the latest.
The financial memoranda in respect of the Phare programmes for 1998 will be planned on this basis.
Allow me to go into more detail about a number of more specific comments from the Kjer Hansen report.
The Commission willingly agrees to the request to make a more detailed report to Parliament at the end of this year on the progress made on the improvement of the implementation.
The Commission wishes to improve the management of Phare in the following way.
The Commission delegations will be reinforced so that they can better monitor the implementation of Phare.
The approval procedures will be accelerated.
Programme management units will gradually be closed and the administration of bank accounts will be improved.
The Commission will introduce tight measures to reduce the time between the commitment of credits and the conclusion of contracts.
In order to make up the backlog, and we acknowledge that it is a huge problem, obsolete contracts and appropriations will be scrapped.
Since March, more than 1000 older contracts have been discontinued.
We are endeavouring to make further progress in this area by the end of the year.
Moreover, the fact that it has been possible to scrap 1000 contracts also underlines the finding by the Parliament that there is far too much fragmentation of the aid and that concentration on larger projects is urgently required.
In addition, we have transferred more than ECU 75 million from older programmes to measures connected with the floods in Poland and the Czech Republic.
The measures show that the Commission essentially endorses Mrs Kjer Hansen's report.
Allow me, nevertheless, just to make a few comments on four of the rapporteur's recommendations.
Although the Commission is endeavouring, in line with paragraph 5 of the draft resolution, to reduce to a minimum the period between the commitment of the appropriations and the signing of the contracts, it is difficult for it to commit itself to restricting this period to a maximum of six months under all circumstances.
Such a cut-off date would not in all cases offer sufficient opportunity for organizing tendering procedures and the negotiating and/or drawing up of contracts.
That applies in particular to measures to improve the transparency of the tendering procedure and which are considered favourably as such in the report: these sometimes extend these procedures by two or three months.
So there is some pressure involved.
Furthermore, agreements on technically complex projects do need to be set out in complicated contracts that also take the necessary time.
But again, we support the spirit behind this stimulation. We try to shorten this period as much as possible.
The Commission fully agrees with the rapporteur that the partner countries, and this has been repeated by several speakers this evening, must assume more responsibility in the implementation, as this also requires both the administration of the programmes and the planned preparation of the candidate countries for working with structural and other funds after their accession.
Because the Commission, on the basis of the Financial Regulation as it stands at present, remains responsible for the correct use of the Phare funds, ex-post audits can only be successfully introduced in those cases where the partner institutions have been found to be reliable and also operate proper systems for financial control.
Any further decentralization, as proposed by the rapporteur, will require an amendment to the Financial Regulation, but I would add that the Commission intends to submit a proposal to this effect to the Council and Parliament.
As far as the reinforcement of supervision by the delegations of the implementation of the Phare programmes is concerned, the Commission is determined to carry this out in all the candidate countries.
We do, however, wish to maintain the flexibility to put in funds where they are needed in order not to grant any particular country preferential treatment.
The rapporteur next instructs the Commission to make very limited use of closed tender procedures.
I understand what lies behind this recommendation, but would ask you to consider that precisely for the sake of the efficient and rapid implementation of projects article 118 of the Financial Regulation allows services to be tendered for according to these procedures.
However, in order to meet the objections of the rapporteur as far as possible, the Commission has taken measures to improve transparency in this area a great deal.
Because forecasts for all future tenders are published in the Official Journal and separate tenders are published via the Internet so that the circle of potential tenderers is extended.
Against this background, the Commission therefore feels that its current practice can be justified in which it will continue to strive for the greatest possible transparency.
Finally, I would make a comment, and it has been mentioned again this evening, on the staff situation at Phare.
The rapporteur points to a considerable turnover in the staff and wonders what the reason is.
There are undoubtedly many factors involved here, but as is well-known, the Commission is compelled for reasons of tight personnel policy to a large degree to take on external experts whose temporary contracts cannot be extended.
It goes without saying that these experts, these staff, on a contract basis, with the restricted terms of their contracts, do not feel the same ties with the Commission machinery as the statutory officials, which also explains the considerable turnover in this category of expert.
If you combine that with the often considerable pressure of work on the people concerned, which also has to do with the great fragmentation at the moment and the excessive number of projects, then the continuity is obstructed even more.
We are trying to cope with this situation as well as we can by concentrating projects and through the efficiency measures we have mentioned.
I hope in that regard for an improved situation when the accession partnership agreements come about, because the rapporteur has also rightly noted in her report that we shall be dealing here more with things for which expertise within the Commission and within the Commission machinery is available than is sometimes required when dealing with the current Phare programmes.
I recall from the report the example in which Mrs Kjer Hansen says that we also accept that expertise in the area of collective farms is not in abundance within the Commission.
If it is now a matter of preparing the candidate countries for the acquis communautaire , then as far as that is concerned, we have more expertise in house.
I shall conclude by once again thanking the rapporteur and also the other people who have not only shown interest in the report and in Phare but have provided constructive advice.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Relocation and foreign direct investments in third countries
The next item is the report (A4-0294) by Mr Sainjon, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on relocation and foreign direct investment in third countries.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it would be unjust, and indeed quite untrue, to say that globalization and international movements of companies do not have negative effects.
The movement of people, ideas, goods, the end of certain great totalitarian empires, the crumbling of walls and iron curtains represent real progress overall. One can even say that sometimes certain relocations give work to poor countries and by reducing the price of products consumed in rich countries they promote growth there.
All the same, Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when one looks at the construction of Europe, relocation always seems to take first place amongst phenomena regarded as negative.
European citizens no longer tolerate them and many, often wrongly, also blame the European Union.
André Sainjon has done excellent work.
He has my support and that of the socialists, just as I support, and we support, the political and union initiatives geared to the struggle against destructive ultra-liberalism.
In fact, two areas need to be distinguished as regards relocations, those taking place within the Union and those taking place in the rest of the world.
Of course, the first, within the Union, cannot be banned, but fiscal and social harmonization, from the top down, can, should and must be accelerated.
It is impossible to accept a single market where the rules of the game, and hence the costs, remain fundamentally different.
This would be disastrous for all, particularly the wage-earners, and hence for the very idea of the construction of Europe.
Harmonization, certainly, but above all, and I insist on this, relocations which benefit from direct or indirect European Union aid can, should and must be banned.
There are many well-known cases of this.
It is intolerable and legislative measures must be taken.
It is quite possible to do this, it is quite simple.
All that is needed is the political will.
But alongside internal relocations, there are also, of course, relocations outside the Union.
André Sainjon makes some interesting proposals, which I support, in particular that of a code of conduct for European multinationals, as well as the proposal to modify the OECD investment code.
Without going into detail either, we too affirm that we must fight against forced labour, against child slavery, against discrimination of all kinds, but also for the promotion of union freedom, for the generalization of collective negotiations, and as regards labour law, for a minimum code in all the countries.
In conclusion, Mr President, while free movement of people, ideas and goods in Europe and in the world is an excellent thing and progress in commercial, economic and industrial does matter, free movement must be organized and regulated, excesses prevented, and a minimum of common rules established, so as not to favour exploiters of all kinds.
While it is always good to grasp freedom, it must not lead to the law of the strongest.
That is why we do not oppose movement, but everything that resembles the generalization of the law of the strongest.
Mr President, the world gets smaller every day, and this is now so obviously the case that the globalization of the economy is something which everyone accepts as normal.
By the same token, what may start as minor monetary turbulence in south east Asian markets in the morning can turn into a crash on the New York stock exchange by the afternoon.
This is what we have been witnessing recently.
Although this may shock us adults, because when we were born there was still such a thing as distances, borders, and so on, young people today regard it as normal and part of the world we live in.
Mr Sainjon's motion for a resolution on relocation is excellent. It is well-reasoned and well- founded, although perhaps somewhat self-willed.
Thus, it states in recital A, "whereas globalization of trade, production and investment is an opportunity which should be turned to good account while limiting its adverse effects' , and adds, quite rightly, in recital C that "relocation is a logical economic development, which should not be approached from an ideological point of view' .
Naturally, amongst the economic issues, we must consider everything relating to areas, products, costs, markets and the exchange rates for the euro, the dollar and other weaker currencies.
That is something that must always be taken into account.
The report deals extensively with the relationship between foreign direct investment, usually capital investment, and relocation - which, as everyone knows, consists of the transfer of the means of production to another country or the establishment of those means through direct investment.
It focuses on a set of concepts consisting of everything relating to aid, promotional measures, incentives and strategies which countries outside the European Union directly or indirectly employ.
Lastly, Mr Sainjon asks a question which is perhaps the key to understanding relocation: are globalization of trade and relocation of production in the developing countries responsible for the rise of unemployment in Europe? That is a key question.
I sincerely believe that they are not.
The United States, for example, has an unemployment rate lower than the Community average and its citizens generally have higher incomes.
I do not believe that that is the reason, therefore.
The reason for unemployment must be sought elsewhere.
I would like to end by saying that it will be difficult to stem the tide.
In any event, I think this is an interesting report, and I shall be voting for it.
Mr President, Mr Sainjon's report is interesting and rich in original ideas, pragmatic and not too ideological.
The rapporteur was not for one minute tempted to restate the benefits of the free market and had the courage to dismiss some false theories about unemployment and relocation.
For example, technology does not inevitably result in unemployment. It actually stimulates relocation as most manufacturers prefer the option of flexible production, even if mostly automated, to a poorly qualified workforce, even if costs are extremely low.
The free market places the consumer at the centre of things, putting a premium on product specialization and innovation rather than low prices, pure and simple, so that planning and production again feel the need to stay close to the market.
In the Sainjon report, therefore, the multinationals are re-evaluated as the driving force for prosperity through job-creating investment as well as promoters of the modern job culture, acting as ambassadors and almost de facto social operators in developing countries through their voluntary codes of self-regulation.
It seems clear from the rapporteur's analysis, as many people have come to recognize, that the conditions in an area that attract investment and hence the creation of quality jobs are always more associated with high-profile technical facilities, or in other words the quality of education and training. They are associated with communication and transport infrastructures, networks that link into the world market.
To these conditions I would add, as does Mr Sainjon to some extent, certainty and clarity in legislation.
I also say this as a message to our country, Mr President, Italy, which has a reputation for paying scant attention to the rules governing intellectual property and has excessively complex tax and employment laws which discourage entrepreneurial activity and may even encourage relocation out of the country.
I endorse the rapporteur's suggestion that structural funds should be increasingly directed towards providing support for research and technology programmes for businesses.
I am less convinced by the proposal to ask for the repayment of finance granted to businesses that then relocate.
I think it would be more realistic to suspend payments and put these businesses on a black list.
To round off quickly, I congratulate the rapporteur on the work he has done.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group has problems with the Sainjon report, for three reasons.
First of all, the title does not cover the subject.
The report is supposed to deal with relocation and foreign direct investment in third countries.
Well, a large part of the resolution relates to socio-economic policy within the European Union or concerns recommendations on the introduction of the euro.
These matters are outside the scope of this report and the competence of the Committee on External Economic Relations.
The second reason why my group has problems with this report concerns its basic assumptions.
Mr Sainjon bases his conclusions and resolution on an industrial society which no longer exists.
In this context, I am glad that at least my amendment to recital B of the report has been included, referring to the new economic and social force of the information society and all the consequences that will have on world trade and further globalization.
I have also referred to the MIA, the OECD multilateral investment agreement, which needs to be established as soon as possible.
But other essential amendments that I submitted have not been included.
This is the third reason why the report as it now stands is not acceptable to my group.
We have therefore tabled another twelve amendments again.
In fact, the Sainjon report is not a well-considered project.
Tomorrow, before the vote, my group will submit a request for the report to be referred back to the Committee on External Economic Relations so that a more balanced report can be achieved within that Committee.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are debating hundreds of thousands of jobs sacrificed or threatened in the European Union by relocations carried out by firms in the name of competitiveness and lower costs.
Labour-intensive industries are the most affected.
But services are increasingly involved.
The firms which are relocating, from Hoover to Renault, are obeying the liberal creed of the European Commission which Jacques Delors expressed in his day by the formula that in the large market, everyone sets up where the conditions are best.
Now, where conditions are best is where profit is highest.
This relocation therefore sets peoples and territories against each other in competition, playing on social and wage differentials, and subjecting state aid to blackmail.
Relocation often takes place without warning or consultation of unions and local councillors, regardless of the interests of employees and their families, regardless of the economic future of the regions.
Measures must effectively be taken at national and Community level to prevent social dumping.
I am afraid the code of conduct for multinational companies, proposed in the committee report, and which is not even compulsory, constitutes only a feeble barrage against the multinationals, who do not include morality in their strategy.
So what impact can the rapporteur's recommendation to the European multinationals about the moral duty to "be in the vanguard of social progress' have?
Is it naivety?
That is why our group is putting forward other measures, on the one hand to call into question the current process of liberalization and deregulation launched by Brussels, on the other hand to establish new rights for wage-earners so that they can safeguard their social gains, defend their jobs and control the use of state aid to companies.
To fight against social dumping, we also propose including social and environmental clauses in all trade agreements and taxing capital movements to divert them towards productive, job-creating investment.
I am also disturbed by paragraph 5 of the resolution which calls for a speedy conclusion to the OECD Multilateral investment Agreement.
This position corresponds to the American strategy to accelerate unconditional liberalization of the world market.
That is why our group has tabled an amendment so that culture and audio-visual are excluded from these negotiations.
Mr President, we Greens are by no means against relocation, on the contrary!
In the right circumstances it can make an important contribution to regional development as long as it is done with regard for the political environment in the developing country, and along humane and socially positive lines.
Mercedes should by all means manufacture in Brazil.
But a worker in a subsidiary there must have the same rights to trade union membership there as his colleague here.
A French firm should certainly be able to manufacture radios in south-east Asia, but the health of the female employees there is just as important as that of a female employee in the first world.
The trouble is the neo-liberal project of free movement of free capital forces third world and threshold countries in particular into a horrendous competition to attract the investment with maximum tax exemption, the worst job protection and the lowest wages.
We have long since known that low wage costs are not the critical factor for the majority of industrial relocations.
But some people clearly think they can not only conquer new markets, but profit unobtrusively from disgraceful conditions and cover up the operation.
This is precisely why global players need binding rules .
Voluntary codes of conduct will not do.
It is our responsibility to get our firms to make a commitment.
European companies which duck European standards abroad must be excluded from all EU grants.
Bonuses for starvation wages and environmental pollution? That is ironic to say the least!
In view of this we would also ask for support for our amendments.
The Sainjon report is long since overdue, because the OECD negotiated a multilateral investment agreement ages ago which tackles national agreements and political influence.
Tomorrow we shall of course vote for agreement on this report.
We have had a very good hearing and a thorough discussion.
To Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel can only quote a saying from football: a miss is as good as mile!
Mr President, it appears from Mr Sainjon's report that the relocation of activity is not a massive phenomenon.
It is also not so much the result of differences in labour costs, but of newly discovered markets.
So governments find it difficult to get a grip on the situation.
Against that background analysis, it is rather odd that the rest of the rapporteur's report is rather "dirigiste' .
He proposes a Community strategy with harmonization, codes of conduct and a European social identity.
He even wishes to set up a multinational social "mission' .
Does Mr Sainjon consider such a concept to be realistic?
Although we appreciate his work, we do not wish to take the route the rapporteur indicates.
Too much complex government interference gives rise to high costs.
These undermine the competitiveness of European companies and their ability to create jobs.
The business climate is served by decentralization and by the reduction in and improvement of legislation.
Unfortunately not enough attention is paid to that in the report.
I do agree with Mr Sainjon's argument in favour of greater priority being given to development and innovation.
The basic assumption here is that this is mainly a task for the Member States.
European cooperation has a supplementary role of creating favourable preconditions.
Mr President, we did not expect to find Mr Sainjon subscribing to remarks Sir Leon Brittan might have made, because after reading this report, what is left of relocation? Very little.
It is not so widespread, it is not due to differences in wage costs, or hardly at all, and it has virtually no link with the growth in unemployment in our countries.
Better still, it is usually beneficial and should therefore be encouraged.
And the few negative effects it might have at the margin just need to be corrected by using optional mechanisms, voluntary codes of conduct, hypothetical confidence contracts.
Those of us who are local councillors living in the day-to-day world of relocation, and the uprooting, the collapse of the structure of areas, the massive job losses, the economic and social destabilization it causes, will not recognize it in this simplistic and naively idyllic report.
Of course, no company has the right to eternal survival, but why refuse to ask questions about the regulatory provisions which would make it possible to discipline globalization, to check the perversity of a mechanism which does away with jobs in Europe without creating a multiplier effect of development in the recipient countries? Why not try an objective balance sheet of these free zones, which are multiplying in the developing countries?
Why not analyze the perverse effects of European subsidies which become causal factors, at the origin of numerous relocation decisions, like the ECIIP programme and even certain projects supported by Phare and Tacis. The rapporteur has lost sight of his objective on the way, overcome by the dominant expertise.
That is a great pity.
It will be necessary to take up this important subject again quickly, but in a different way, on a more realistic basis.
Mr President, this report is comprehensive and ambitious and I generally welcome its tone.
I congratulate Mr Sainjon on the report and on his speech introducing it at the session.
I would say to Mr Souchet that if there is common ground between what Mr Sainjon says and what I think and am about to say that is because we have both seen the facts of life which do not correspond to some of the more ideological statements that are made about this subject.
I will not go into the more peripheral issues which Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel complained were not covered in the debate and still less will I go into the question of what should or should not be in the resolution.
But I believe that the report is right to take the view that outward foreign direct investment brings considerable benefits, both to the source of the investment and the country that receives it.
That was well recognized by Mr Caudron.
Moreover, it must be seen in the context of investment liberalization as a whole because you have to look not only at investment from European countries overseas but also investment by overseas companies into the European Union and I have no doubt at all that the Union benefits greatly from inward foreign direct investment.
I am heartened to see that the report does not get swept up in the rhetoric which sometimes surrounds this subject and in particular the idea that outward foreign direct investment comes about as a result of unfair competition from low wage countries.
That is a very limited phenomenon and most foreign direct investment in fact takes place for market access reasons.
That was explained very well, both by Mr Malerba and Mr Valdivielso de Cué who explained the complexity of the factors that are really responsible for unemployment in the European Union.
Even if the problems caused by relocation are much less great than are sometimes presented, nonetheless it is obviously a matter of concern for specific sectors and it is certainly a matter of concern to the public at large.
We should, therefore, all be looking for ways to reduce such negative impact as relocation has.
I am glad, therefore, that the report has addressed this issue head on and looked into ways in which European firms could improve their competitiveness and thereby make it possible for them to continue production in Europe.
The ideas put forward in the report on technological innovation are very welcome.
I am pleased to note the approach which has been taken with regard to a code of conduct relating to social standards for firms investing in third countries.
It is a sensible and pragmatic approach which recognizes the balance between maximizing the benefits which inward investment brings a country, while not acting as a disincentive to investors.
It has long been clear, in fact, that in overall terms the employees of multi-nationals in developing countries are paid more, receive more training and work in better conditions than workers in equivalent domestic firms.
That really is contrary to the implication of some of the things said by Mr Querbes.
Furthermore, largely as a result of increased consumer awareness, there has been a recent trend towards the elaboration of codes of conduct by businesses themselves, most notably in the United States, as Mr Malerba pointed out.
For those who decry the value of codes of conduct, let me point out that they are really, for those who create them, a rod for their own back because they certainly provide a benchmark against which they can be judged and are judged and therefore are something that has to be taken seriously.
I believe that it is on the role that the Commission has to play in the process of creating codes of conduct as set out in paragraph 1 of the resolution that our thinking to some extent diverges and virtually only there.
I would see the best role for the Commission as one of supporting businesses in the elaboration of their own codes, where such report is requested, rather than in seeking to impose a code.
At the political level, the Commission has been active in seeking to improve both international labour standards and environmental standards.
It was the Commission that proposed to the Council an initiative on trade and labour standards prior to the Singapore WTO Ministerial Meeting but that approach was not taken up.
Nevertheless, the Commission continues to support the work of the IMO in this field and to look at means to improve standards, for example through the generalized system of preferences.
I therefore conclude by saying that this report has been salutary in sweeping aside some of the misconceptions, pointing out some of the realities and making some practical proposals, many of which we can agree with, for a realistic approach towards this complex problem.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Denominations and specifications of Euro coins
The next item is the report (A4-0334/97) by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the proposal for a Council Regulation on denominations and specifications of euro coins (COM(97)0247 - C.-0304/97-97/0154(SYN)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to present a technical report on monetary union today, but make it clear at the same time that monetary union will find its physical expression coin by coin.
The report is about the type of coins which, in the opinion of the European Parliament and now the Commission, European consumers will be using for their daily purchases from 2002.
In my opinion four points are important for this report and for the decisions of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The number of denominations of European coins should be restricted to four - not the eight recommended by the Commission.
I would propose eliminating the 2 cent and 20 cent coins.
I would argue emphatically that fewer coins are easier for the user to manage and the increasing use of electronic payment systems for small amounts will further reduce the number of cash transactions like this.
The second point is important.
This is the diameter of coins.
To make them easier to distinguish, especially for blind and low-vision users, I would like to see these increase in size according to their value.
The plan we have from the Commission for this is a bit of a muddle, not a clear system.
Contrary to the Commission's suggestion that there should be several series of coins varying in thickness but of more or less the same diameter, the suggestion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy would have the advantage that the weight of new coins could be considerably reduced.
My third point is that, for reasons of forgery prevention and user friendliness the new coins in all Member States should be the same on both sides.
This is not so much a technical point as a national and emotional consideration.
At least this is what has aroused most interest in the media.
I have been working on this suggestion, which has the approval of the Committee on Economics and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, that an individual national face could indeed symbolize the variety of Member States in the EU, but this would mean - and the Commission also proposes this - that the user, believe it or not, would be dealing with up to 120 different coins.
How do we get that figure? This is what we would have if there were 8 national denominations of different design in each of 15 Member States.
In that case we could hardly ensure fast and reliable recognition of individual coins.
Health aspects of euro coins also play an important role.
So I was particularly concerned that the 1 euro and 2 euro coins were to use alloys containing nickel, as the Commission proposed.
Nickel can cause allergic reactions when it comes into contact with human skin.
This is also emphasized in the Swedish government report.
Indeed Sweden does not use any nickel in its coins at all.
As it can cause allergies, we request that no nickel is used in the coins - and this goes for all other products like earrings, chains and watch cases.
That was the original proposal.
A majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy rejected it, however, so I myself have gone for the compromise amendment which now proposes a compound of nickelfree stainless steel and nickel bronze for the coins in question.
This would not only reduce the nickel content of the coins, but more importantly release the nickel when coins were used.
At the same time it would satisfy another requirement of the report, that the new coins should if possible use recyclable materials.
This is not without importance, on the contrary it is very important.
The question has often come up in Committee to what extent our work is relevant at all. Have the nations not already decided for themselves what they want to do?
What is our role here as a Parliament? Irrespective of what fellow members think, for example, about the national face of the coin - and this may well be controversial - we are certainly agreed on one point, that the Committee takes it for granted - likewise the House tomorrow - that this report, as presented and agreed on, will be taken seriously, although the German Finance Ministry for one has already said that what this European parliament decides does not interest them, they are making their own coins, they are going to have their national face.
They do not care what we say!
I cannot imagine this kind of thing being possible under the new Amsterdam resolutions.
I also believe there is considerable unanimity among Members that Parliament does work, makes decisions and thus creates a platform for action and is not just wasting its time!
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her report and largely we can agree with most of the contents.
Before I refer directly to the issues that are raised in the report, I think it is worth noting at this point that back in 1989 I wrote the Parliament's first report on stage one of EMU.
At that stage barely any Europeans were interested in the process of economic and monetary union.
Today, we are actually talking about the design and the content of the coins because they are going to be issued in the very near future.
It is a sign of the enormous progress that the European Union has made that we are now actually dealing with the practicalities of the single currency and not simply talking about the theory of economic and monetary union.
As far as the report is concerned directly, can I say that I agree with the rapporteur's point regarding the nickel content of the coins.
I hope that the Commission will urge the Ecofin Council to look at this question again.
There is an enormous lobby within the European Union now because of the health effects of nickel and the possibility that this will be introduced into coins used widely around the European Union.
It would be rather inconsistent, since we only recently passed a report in this Parliament calling for nickel to be removed from jewellery and from other things that come into contact with people, to find that we are accepting large amounts of nickel in our new currency.
The consumer lobby on this issue really needs to be listened to.
It is not only the Scandinavian countries where there is a concern.
Throughout the European Union there are consumer organizations that are representing public opinion here.
If someone becomes sensitized to nickel, then, of course, if they ever come into contact with it subsequently, they can be subject to a very severe reaction.
I would ask Commissioner Kinnock to take this matter back and to ask the Commission to look at this question again.
We have seen the scientific evidence and clearly there is room there for worry.
We need to readdress this question.
With regard to the number of coins and the dimensions of the coins: again I would support the rapporteur.
We want to try and rationalize the number of coins that we are using and indeed in many of our Member States we are reducing the number of coins in terms of their denominations.
It seems rather strange, that as we move to the single currency with the possibility of smart cards and electronic money and so forth, that we are proposing the rather backward step of having eight separate coins in circulation.
So I would, again, ask the Commission to look at this question.
In relation to the dimensions; we have had an enormous lobby in this European Parliament from the organizations representing the blind, who want to be able to clearly differentiate between one denomination of a coin and another.
I really do not believe that the Finance Ministers have taken this question on board and I would ask the Commission and the Council to look at this matter again.
Finally, I want to come to the question of national symbols on the single currency.
We are launching this single currency on 1 January 1999, the coins and notes will be in circulation in 2002.
This is not simply a calculation, it is not simply a step that is being done by bankers, this is a step that is being taken by the citizens of the European Union.
It is absolutely crucial that in the initial stages of this enormous historic step, they feel comfortable and familiar with the currency that they are using.
I have to say that I think it is crazy for this House to consider removing the possibility of national symbols on the new currency when it is issued.
For that reason, we in the Socialist Group will be opposing the paragraphs within the report which call for a harmonized coin for the whole of the European Union and we will support Mrs Peijs' amendment which calls for national symbols to be possible on these coins.
We, in this House, having debated economic and monetary union for many years now, should not underestimate the level of public feeling, not only in countries like the United Kingdom but in other countries around the European Union.
We want this very much to be a people's initiative and we want them to be comfortable with the currency, with the coins and notes that they have in their pocket.
The possibility, if they so wish, to have national representation on those coins and notes is an extremely important step to achieve public acceptability in the early stages.
We largely support this report; it is an important step and we hope the Commission and the Council will listen to some of the criticisms that we have made.
We should not try to harmonize things for the sake of harmonization.
We have to recognize with the single currency that we still want some national diversity.
Mr President, for some inexplicable reason the proposal for a Council regulation on materials to be used in euro coins seems to be centered solely on the copper system, neglecting the use of stainless steel which can also be defined as the European silver symbolizing world leadership as represented by the member countries of the Union as a whole, in terms of both quality and quantity.
As well as reminding you of the role of this material, which more than any other is identified with our technological age and at the same time meets the expectations of the public in terms of hygiene, recyclability, permanence and availability at reasonable cost, I should like to stress that, in the specific sector of coin minting, stainless steel covers 20 per cent of world requirements as it is present in dozens of countries on the five continents and it has always been present in the European Union.
This product of Europe cannot fail to be used in the largest coin minting operation in human history, to be replaced for example by solutions such as Nordic Gold as imposed by Sweden which will not even be joining in the single currency, or copper-plated iron, an extremely high-cost, high-tech solution, which results in a non-recyclable product which is affected by corrosion and wear over a short period and cannot be disposed of in the rubbish as it is ecotoxic.
We have estimated that some 250 million euros would be saved in the supply of coin blanks due to the lower cost of stainless steel alloys compared with copper-based ones.
Any controversy linked to scientific terrorism raised by the issue of nickel would be completely smoothed out by a selection inclined towards stainless steel as, both in the types without nickel and those containing it, scientific research has recently shown that these steels are non-allergenic.
Finally, what is there to say about recyclability which affects 50 per cent of the rolled section from which the coins will be made? Whereas stainless steel will be recycled into consumer goods and investment for the everyday life of the citizen, what is to be done with the other materials which have no other use except as new coins, like copper-plated iron which, once discarded, is no use for working iron or copper, as it is contaminated?
Mr President, please do not think that I have taken up a new career as a representative of stainless steel.
However, from a reading of the Council's report, which was the result of three or four years' work by the mints of the fifteen member countries, what clearly emerges is the offence caused to many European citizens who see a metal they are already used to, stainless steel, being kept out of their pockets for no valid reason.
In other words copper has had it all its own way, not to mention the offence caused to us European parliamentarians who now find ourselves having to decide and give an opinion at short notice.
New production capacity will have to be devised and new solutions found to dispose of the copper used in the process.
I personally believe that this House should reject what the Council has come up with.
The number of coins seems well-balanced but, as far as the symbols of the Member States are concerned, I wonder what blind people will have to do to tell one state from the other.
I have presented two amendments with which I wished to improve on Mrs Soltwedel's amendments.
However, I do not think the report has been analyzed in sufficient depth and the amendments have been discussed in vain.
Mr President, as long as small coins exist they should be nickel-free.
In certain alloys the nickel can come out.
The risk of nickel allergies are then obvious for people who regularly handle coins.
Such continuous handling affects significant groups in various sectors, such as cashiers in the retail sector, in restaurants, in the postal service and in public transport.
The Swedish system using coins which are nickel-free should be taken as an example.
The interests of the nickel industry should not be set up against people's health.
The future of the euro is to say the least uncertain, but it should at least not be harmful to our physical health.
Mr President, we are debating these national symbols as if this were a discussion on whether the nations' currencies should still be preserved.
This is obviously an emotionally delicate issue, but, nevertheless, I would like to stress the practicalities of the matter.
You cannot have a hundred and twenty different coins circulating in the EU area.
It would be awfully confusing.
And the visually impaired, of whom there are more than ten million, would certainly come off the worst as a result.
Apart from that, coins bearing the symbols of the, let us say, smaller nations will not be so readily accepted in other countries, while the smaller economies will certainly be swamped with coins bearing the legends of the bigger countries.
I therefore consider this enthusiasm for national symbols to be going a bit too far.
The report is otherwise excellent.
We should also make the Commission appreciate the real danger of nickel to health.
Mr President, this report on the specification of euro coins has become extremely dubious because of action by the Socialist and Green Groups.
What strikes me most here, is that the proposed amendments run counter to the arguments used.
First of all, eight coins would be too many. Six would be enough.
So the two and the twenty cent euro coins should be scrapped.
The logic escapes me completely.
Because in this way on average you will need more coins per transaction!
And the consumer will more quickly get tired of having a purse that is too heavy.
That certainly does not contribute to the euro being more readily accepted.
Secondly, national symbols on the coins would be undesirable, because they would create confusion and facilitate fraud.
However, coins with a full European character offer the average citizen no additional means of identifying them.
The degree of acceptance therefore greatly decreases.
The European Parliament should be more realistic on this point.
In the Commission's proposal, the coins have sufficient Community characteristics in order to be able to distinguish counterfeit ones from real ones.
Thirdly, it would be wrong to use nickel in coins.
Coins are, however, not jewellery that comes into contact with the skin throughout the day.
In the Netherlands we do not have any problems with nickel in coins.
It is an excellent, durable material.
You do not have to melt coins down so often and mint new ones.
The fuss that is made about it is completely unwarranted and not in the interests of public health and the environment.
If the European Parliament does not step back, there is a considerable risk that it will become more remote from the ordinary citizen than the Council and the Commission put together.
Mr President, the feeling of European nations about their money is a part of their common culture.
This applies especially to their usage of it, their sayings about money and the names they call it.
The argument about the names euro and cent to replace ECU is one indication of this.
But let us take comfort from an old European proverb: "Money talks the same language everywhere' .
We must hope that will also go for the future euro coins, because this draft of the regulation clearly shows that there is much to be improved, and the European Parliament is quite right to insist on its right to set out suggestions for improvement in full legal procedure.
I would welcome it if in future the European Parliament would express an opinion not only on coins, but banknotes too.
I consider it quite inadequate, although it has sound historical precedent but this is not applicable to the future, that we as a European Parliament do not have a legal role as regards all types of money.
But back to coins.
They should be convenient to use, counterfeit-proof, attractive, solid and good value.
They will come, but I think there are still several problems.
I would like to support my colleagues; we need six coins, not eight.
This really is in the interests of users, forgery prevention and greater legal security.
I, in fact, would rather not abandon the smallest coin, because in all European countries the so-called lucky penny is important, so it is right that the European Parliament only proposes eliminating the 2 and 20 cent denominations.
I would also like to deal with the subject of European money "on both sides of the coin' .
In the end it is no doubt important that we have a European coin.
But I also know that it is important at the moment for acceptance of the euro and in view of people's uncertainty about it that we give them a feeling of security and allow for the sentimental importance of this coin.
In the longer term retailers in the Bavarian Forest, in Nîmes in France or Mons in Belgium cannot all be expected to accept different reverse sides, but for a transition period it will be absolutely essential for the people themselves.
We want to be clear about one thing. We want a euro we can get a grip of, something that can really can be grasped in the hand and gives everybody the feeling that it really is their euro.
The discussion on the use of nickel, from the point of view of user safety and the health considerations is a step forward.
Let me just end with another point.
I think the Sub-committee on Currency has made a constructive suggestion to compensate for the lack of judicial competence with regard to bank notes.
We really do want a 100 Euro gold coin.
It's not just a question of payment transactions, but to encourage the investment idea at the same time and for economic reasons to help - as my colleague has already suggested - to run down gold reserves in a profitable way.
Mr President, Christa Randzio-Plath does not have to worry that everyone in Mons and in Germany will pay with other coins.
After the summer, everyone in the Netherlands will pay with coins with German reverse sides. I am sure of that.
This report has unexpectedly become very important for the man in the street.
Parliament must take important decisions.
First, on the number of coins.
I think it is no bad thing to have scrapped two of the coins.
Unlike Christa Randzio-Plath, I think it is a pity that we have not scrapped the one cent coin.
In the Netherlands we have done without a one cent coin for years and everyone is quite happy about it.
Secondly, there is the matter of whether or not we can use nickel.
In my group it is a very sensitive subject and there is even the possibility that the whole group will vote against the report if the defence against nickel remains in it.
It is just nonsense.
In the Netherlands we have all kinds of nickel coins and it is simply nonsense that it would lead to problems.
There has not been a single complaint about it.
The third decision is the national face of the euro.
I am absolutely opposed to Mr Metten's amendment to design the coins with two European sides.
I am in favour, and my group will agree with my amendment on this, of keeping a national face on the new coins.
I am convinced that it will make it easier for people to accept the new coin.
The coins can happily circulate in the European Union.
They do not have to be brought back to the country of origin.
They are valid everywhere and the arguments that it will not be possible use them in slot machines, that they will be easier to forge, are complete rubbish.
Slot machines do not react to the flat surface of the coin. Slot machines react to the diameter, to the material and to the milled edge or whatever kind of edge it is.
So it is all rubbish.
One of the reasons I am in favour of a national face for the euro stems from the fact that there has been a policy of lack of information.
I must say that I find it particularly unfortunate that Mr de Silguy is not here, because I do not readily speak about someone who is not here.
Up to now the information has been purely passive.
There seems to be some disagreement between Mr de Silguy and the Dutch Minister of Finance as a result of which the man in the street in the Netherlands is completely in the dark about the European currency.
There has evidently not been any accord about an agreement and I would call upon both gentlemen to ensure that the Dutch citizen obtains what he is entitled to: information about the euro.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission presented its proposal for a regulation on 29 May.
We have to bear in mind that this proposal only concerns the denominations and technical specifications of metal coins intended for circulation.
Other aspects raised in the rapporteur's report such as the existence of a national face or the issuing of gold coins for collectors are not mentioned at all in the Commission's proposed regulation.
The vote taken at the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy welcomes the position expressed in the rapporteur's report which rejects the principle of having a national face on euro coins, reduces the number of coins from eight to six, attempts to alter the dimensions completely and finally calls for the elimination of nickel from the metal composition of the coins.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think it is really necessary and urgent to get down to basics.
First of all, allow me to remind you that the Commission's proposal is based on a thorough technical appraisal carried out by directors of the various national mints.
This proposal is therefore the result of a lengthy consultation process involving the business sector, consumers' organizations and associations for blind people.
These consultations, conducted in a serious and thorough manner, enabled a series of specifications to be produced which were acceptable to all the users.
That is not all. The Commission's proposals were unanimously approved by the Ecofin Council and three Member States have already chosen and publicized their national faces while other countries are in the process of doing the same.
Now it is extremely clear that any re-examination in this House of the points raised in Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer's report will make it impossible to meet the deadline of 1 January 2002 for putting the new coins and banknotes into circulation.
This date, which already represents a very tight deadline, is to be postponed by at least one year, maybe even two.
This constitutes a very real risk of damaging the image of the Community institutions in the eyes of Europe's citizens and creating a feeling of confusion.
After an information campaign which has already been launched in various states, how do we explain to the public that the new coins will not arrive in their pockets in 2002 as they had been told but one or two years later? And for what reason?
Because in Brussels they could not agree whether the coins should or should not have a national face. Frankly, I do not think that the citizens of Europe would understand a postponement of the date of introduction for this reason.
From a formal point of view, the Council of Europe in Madrid in 1995 and the Ecofin Council have already taken the decisions, in due time and fully within the framework of their powers, which are disputed in the report: the principle of national faces, the colour, number and size of the coins and the composition and technical characteristics of the coins.
Certainly, eight coins may seem too many but there is an important reason for this.
I now address myself to the rapporteur in particular: you have to take into account the fact that each state has completely different custom and practice with regard to the use of metal coins and only with a full range of denominations will it be possible to establish naturally the correct relationship between the currency in circulation and the denomination of the coins concerned.
In substance, we are not in agreement with the various objections raised in Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer's report.
Mr President, several speakers have mentioned the nickel problem.
I entirely agree that nickel should obviously not be present in euro coins.
Prudence alone dictates that nickel should not be present.
Nickel is, moreover, the most common cause of contact allergies in Europe and in the industrialized countries.
There is, however, another problem which people perhaps have not thought of. It is the issue of equality and class.
Who handles coins with their own hands especially often? Not the powers that be, nor the business leaders, but young women.
20 % of young women suffer from nickel allergy.
They are, for example, supermarket cashiers and shop assistants.
So it is young, defenceless women who are affected by nickel allergy.
It would therefore be quite scandalous if an assembly like this, which is ever so slightly dominated by middle-aged and older men, should decide over the heads of Europe's young women that there will be nickel in the coins.
I therefore really hope that we insist that there shall be no nickel in the coins.
Mr President, I fail to understand why it gives the previous speaker gooseflesh to think of the symbols that Spain and Portugal might put on their currencies.
Mr President, my colleague Yves de Silguy has asked me to convey to the House his apologies for not being able to be present this evening.
He has to attend the Ecofin Council which is making preparations for the Employment Summit.
Naturally that was a very important call on his time.
I am certain that when I tell him that he has been the subject of criticism by Mrs Peijs he will be devastated, not least because he recognized her concern for the understanding that is needed for the man-in-the-street and I presume the woman-in-thestreet in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
He will probably want to remind her that the Commission has actually, with this very problem in mind, offered a financial contribution to the Netherlands Government of ECU 1.5 million to assist in the programme of encouraging understanding of the implications of the introduction of the euro.
Consequently, it may be that Mrs Peijs will want to add to her view of my colleague another campaign to get the government to take up the ECU 1.5 million offer.
On 29 May the Commission, acting in accordance with article 105(a) of the Treaty presented its proposal for a regulation on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins.
Between now and 1 January 2002, 70 billion coins will have to be produced for distribution to the population in the Member States participating in the euro.
Obviously the task is challenging, although the Finance Ministers will be able to take a formal decision on the matter only after the Heads of State and of Government have decided on the list of countries that will participate from 1 January 1999 in the third stage of the euro.
It is imperative that a decision be taken by the end of the year if this challenge is to be met in good time.
The House will recall that the Commission therefore asked that this issue be treated as a matter of urgency and my colleagues and I regret that Parliament did not accept that request.
The rapporteur, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, raised four main points of disagreement with the Commission's proposal and I should like to take each point in turn after a brief description of the process by which the proposal was drawn up.
And I would like to give some brief attention to the substance of the proposal.
First, on the formulation of the proposal, that was the subject of thorough preparation by the Member States mint directors and this has guaranteed the project's industrial feasibility in accordance with the timetable laid down by the Madrid European Council in December 1995.
It is the culmination of a lengthy consultation process with all the business sectors concerned, with consumer associations and with organizations representing blind people.
In the course of the consultation, successive changes were made to the planned characteristics of euro coins.
We now have a set of specifications that is acceptable to all users or at least to those authentic representative organizations that were assessing the matter on behalf of users.
The proposal is therefore based on criteria of public acceptability, technical feasibility and public health.
It is a balanced proposal that is consistent with industrial constraints and with the requirements of users.
Secondly, the proposal provides for eight denominations as is clear from everything that has been said in the House.
One, two, five, ten, twenty and fifty cents and one and two euro coins.
That provision reflects the experience gained in all the Member States and it ensures consistency with the planned denominations for euro notes.
The number and sequence of coins have been decided in response to the needs of all consumers and take account of differing national circumstances.
In some Member States the value of the smallest coin in circulation is roughly one cent.
In others, such as Belgium, it is nearer to two cents.
The technical specifications relating to diameter, weight, thickness, shape, colour, composition, edge-milling and edge-lettering have been drawn up so as to guarantee easy identification of the coins and to meet the needs of the main user groups, in particular since I know this is of considerable interest to Members of the House, the blind and visually impaired people.
The specifications also provide guarantees against counterfeiting, in particular in the case of the higher denomination coins.
Lastly, they accommodate the public health concerns that have been voiced here in this House and elsewhere and they provide the necessary guarantees in this respect.
I would like to refer now to the four main points of divergence between the Commission and the rapporteur.
First, the question of the national face.
The Commission would point out that the decision in principle to have a national symbol on euro coins was taken in April 1996 by the Finance Ministers and confirmed in June of that year by the Florence European Council.
Since then all the preparatory work has been based on that decision, with the result that if it was called into question, the entire programme for introducing the euro would be disrupted.
It is essential to note that the European design competition which was launched in the spring of 1996 and ratified by the Amsterdam European Council relates to only one of the faces and three Member States have already unveiled their design for the national face: France, Germany and Belgium.
The other Member States concerned are about to do so.
Secondly the issue of the abandonment of the two euro coins and the 20 cent coin has been postulated in the course of this debate.
The number of coins planned was obviously not chosen at random.
The system of eight coins was adopted in order to be consistent with the euro notes and in the light of national practices.
It is designed to facilitate, as much as is humanly possible, rounding up and accounting operations throughout the euro zone.
That is essential obviously in order to safeguard consumers against covert increases in prices.
Thirdly, on the issue of the simplification of the size of the coins, the system proposed by the Commission centers on a consensus amongst users which involves the Spanish flower shape for the 20 cent coin.
(Interruption by Mr Jarzembowski) I knew that would get Mr Jarzembowski going.
Three groups of coins with three different colours - red coins, yellow coins and coins in two colours - a difference of at least 2 mms between each coin in the same group and the different definitions of the edge, whether it is smooth or has a groove.
If the Commission's proposal on the size and form of coins was called into question, it would run counter to the very terms of the consensus reached and it would hardly foster the acceptability of the euro for the general public which I know is a matter which generates enthusiasm amongst Members of the European Parliament.
Fourthly, the divergence about the elimination of nickel is obviously a matter of importance.
The public health requirements were of major concern to the Commission when it drew up its proposal.
Thus the proposal restricts the use of nickel to the one and two euro coins.
The volume of coins containing nickel will fall to 8 % compared with 75 % at the moment.
The Commission would also remind Parliament that the Scientific Committee for Toxicity and Ecotoxicity, which was consulted at Parliament's request, concluded that the risks associated with the use of nickel in existing coins are infinitesimally small.
The situation will improve further in future thanks to the Commission's proposal, in particular as contact with nickel will be significantly reduced.
Finally, the Commission is at pains to emphasize that no technological validation or examination of existing production capacities has been carried out in respect of the alloys proposed by the rapporteur.
I hope that the House will take serious note of the fact that if the amendments I have referred to were carried, it would mean that production of euro coins could not reliably start next year and would therefore jeopardize the deadline of 2002 and the introduction of notes and coins.
In conclusion, for the reasons I have indicated, the Commission is unable to accept the rapporteur's amendments concerning the technical characteristics of euro coins.
The Commission, however, shares Parliament's concerns about the need for a reliable and effective system and about the acceptability of the system to everyone in the Union.
These principles have certainly guided the work of the Commission at all times.
Therefore, the Commission is prepared to take up four amendments in its proposal. These are Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 in part and the first paragraph of Amendment No 8.
It will defend its new position before the Council and will do its utmost to ensure that a definitive decision can be taken before the end of the year since it is the responsibility of the Community institutions to adhere to the timetable for the introduction of the euro that was laid down two years ago by the Heads of State and of Government.
I am most grateful for the attention of the House at this late hour.
I feared that there was some possibility of this debate being taken before 8 p.m., thus denying me this immense pleasure.
I am very glad that following the customary practices of the European Parliament, I need not have worried because the debate got going at about 10.30 p.m.
Mr President, I must say that I do not like to be misinformed.
Yesterday the information that I have just given about the Dutch campaign came from Mr de Silguy's office and was confirmed by the Commission's information office in the Hague.
It is a practical proposal that is being obstructed by Brussels.
I think that is very tedious.
One of the items of information is not correct, either what we have been told this evening or what I was told yesterday.
In both cases I find it unacceptable.
Mr Peijs, I think this is another subject which we shall have to debate at a later date.
We shall have to draw up a balance sheet for the information campaign on the Euro - "Citizens First - Let's build Europe together' - because I believe it would be appropriate to see in one year's time how our money has been spent, in consistent figures, which are even higher than those stated by Commissioner Kinnock.
But it is a debate we must have in due course.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Passenger ship safety
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-332/97), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on safety rules and standards for passenger ships (C4-0359/97-96/0041(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Stenmarck).
Mr President, many people are critical of the European Parliament, perhaps often with some justification.
However, one thing that no-one can criticize is that few people, if any, demand increased safety in shipping, aircraft or on our roads as successfully and as effectively as this Parliament.
On numerous occasions the Members have stood as one and demanded action and measures from the Commission and have also made the Commission return with far-reaching proposals, all aimed at preventing new tragedies from occurring.
That also happened after the Estonia disaster in September 1994.
Following a number of initiatives in Parliament, that accident, in which more than 900 people lost their lives, has led to several decisions to increase safety levels in various ways.
The matter which we now have to decide on is another example of this.
Allow me in this context to take the opportunity to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his great commitment, not least on questions of safety.
With the decision which we are going to make through this report, we are setting higher safety standards than before on ferries on purely national routes.
This is important.
There has never been any common legislation in the past.
The national legislation has varied greatly from one country to the next.
That also means that today's decision will have a very varied impact.
Some of the Member States have for a long time given high priority to safety on this type of vessel.
For the ferry companies in those countries, today's decision will have no far-reaching consequences.
On the other hand, safety has lagged behind in other countries.
We shall now make strong demands that a substantially higher level of safety is reached there than has so far been the case.
What we are doing is taking the SOLAS Convention (Safety of Life at Sea), which has long been a convention on safety in international ferry traffic, and extending it to cover purely national ferry services too.
The change which has taken place between the first and second reading of this report, and which is also the reason why the Council of Ministers has taken an unreasonably long time to deal with the question, has to do with rapid technical developments.
The fast ferries which are now becoming more common on our seaways are therefore also going to be fully covered by the directive.
That is, of course, a good thing.
Let me point out that during the whole progress of this report, that is, for a period of two years, we have only really come up against one negative point of view.
It comes from those who say this is going to cost money.
That is certainly true, at least for those who have not previously invested in safety.
My answer to those people is, and has always been, that there will probably be some things that will have to cost money.
Safety at sea is one such example, if that makes it possible to avoid the kind of tragedy which has been far too common in recent decades.
It is important that work on increasing safety is continued.
A lot has been done in recent years, but there is probably a lot that remains to be done in the future too.
Let me finally say thank you to all our colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism for all their constructive points of view with regard to increasing safety on ferries around Europe.
Mr President, safety at sea is a priority for us all in the European Parliament, in particular for the Socialist Group.
Tonight we are pleased to be able to offer our full support to the rapporteur, Mr Stenmarck, who has, as ever, worked on this proposal for a directive with great skill and has steered the proposal through the committee with great speed.
I am happy to endorse what he has just said and thank him, our staff and the Commission staff for producing a proposal which will significantly enhance safety at sea.
Our argument is simply that millions of EU citizens travel by some form of maritime vehicle.
They already believe they are protected by the EU.
In some cases, alas, that is not so.
Passenger ships involved in domestic voyages and international passenger ships engaged in voyages where they do not venture further than 20 miles from the nearest land are not covered at the moment by sufficient safeguards for safety and we are glad that the Commissioner has brought forward proposals to close these loopholes.
Moreover, in the context of the single market, we think it is important - bearing in mind in 1993 maritime domestic trade was liberalized - that this measure will further consolidate the single market.
We welcome it for that reason as well.
It represents a single, simple, safe, harmonized regime that all sides of this House can support.
However, I should like to focus the Commission's mind on another issue.
This is one of many measures the Commissioner has been proudly associated with to enhance safety at sea.
But the issue that now comes before Parliament is how we can best ensure that this measure and all the measures for safety at sea are swiftly implemented by Member States rigorously and fairly.
Many of us on the committee are concerned that the good work of the Commissioner and of Parliament will come to very little unless Member States abide by the letter of the laws we agree in the European Union.
Perhaps the Commissioner could comment briefly on how we can best work together in the coming year to ensure proposals such as this and the many others on port state control are effectively implemented by Member States.
I would like to see a time when this Parliament could spend more time focusing on and reviewing the legislation that has already been agreed rather than commenting on and contemplating future legislation.
We now have the ammunition and the tools we need to achieve safety at sea at a much higher and more acceptable level.
We need to work with the Commissioner to ensure the good work he does and the good work we do with him can be implemented for the safety of the traveling public.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, first of all I would like to thank my colleague Per Stenmarck for his excellent report.
As usual, he has taken painstaking care with the question of shipping safety and passenger ships in particular.
I think it is most important that we are at last tackling common European safety standards for passenger ships including those on inland waterways.
It is important that we have common safety requirements for the construction of ships, fire prevention and the rescue equipment carried on board.
I also consider it very important that we have useful common standards regardless of the class of passenger ship.
I believe passenger confidence suffered a heavy blow, as Per Stenmarck rightly said, with the particularly severe and tragic accident in the Baltic Sea, and we have to regain their confidence in passenger ships.
One small cause for complaint, Mr Commissioner, is that we still have no free marine cabotage; we are still using transitional regulations.
Free competition is still not with us, but it is important that we agree on common safety regulations in preparation for liberalization.
I am also pleased that Council, the Commission and Parliament have taken a common position on a number of aspects, for example, that states with superior regulations have a say on the use of ships from other countries.
I consider it important that additional safety regulations can be applied internally for the safety of citizens, because hazardous situations vary greatly within the European Union.
Allow me finally a particularly important practical query which my college Mr Watts has already mentioned.
How do we ensure that the regular inspection of ships by the flag nations, as laid down in article 10 of the directive, is actually carried out? I know we poor things are always the ones left talking between 11 p.m. and midnight, but we have almost got to enjoy it now.
Perhaps, Mr Commissioner, you could describe again how the Commission, as part of its responsibility for controlling marine nations, will ensure here too in six or twelve months' time that the obligatory inspection of ships by the flag nations is actually carried out, so as to ensure safety standards are met in each case. How is the Commission going to organize this?
The question of control of Member States by the Commission is after all something we should all support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen and Mr Commissioner, it is extremely important that we have clear, tough rules on safety at sea.
As far as possible the rules should be international, global.
They should therefore be largely consistent with the rules of the International Maritime Organization, of which all EU Member States are members.
However, in practice the actual formulation of the rules varies greatly from country to country.
In that context, the EU has an important complementary role to play in ensuring that the international conventions, in this case the SOLAS Convention, are implemented.
It is good that the safety rules also apply to domestic trips, passengers and high-speed vessels.
It is also good that, as well as safety of human life, which is the most important thing, and property, the directive also takes up the question of protecting the environment .
However, I have a point to make in connection with that.
I think this formulation is far too superficial.
It must therefore be reworded and made more definite to make it clearer what is intended by these three words so as to give the report a really definite meaning.
The proposal for implementation is also good, as are the exemptions from the safety requirements.
It appears well thought out through having an advisory committee on which both the Commission and representatives of the individual Member States are included. That bodes well for a better implementation.
Since accidents in recent years have been shown to occur because of inadequate supervision of the rules, it is particularly important that these rules are supervised.
Finally, I would like to say that no effort which can save human lives, property and the environment at sea should be spared.
This directive should be seen as a part of that work.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the Committee on Transport and Tourism and, in particular, the rapporteur Mr Stenmarck for the work that has been done on the Council's common position on this measure.
I am grateful for the constructive work which is clearly demonstrated by a number of amendments which are not only supportive but which considerably enhance the new provisions introduced by the Council.
For that reason I will gladly accept the incorporation of all but one of the amendments in the Commission's reexamined proposal.
Many of the amendments are intended to further improve the new provisions which the Council introduced in its common position in order to distinguish between high-speed passenger craft constructed after 1 January 1996 and those built before that date.
I am pleased to see that the committee supports the Council and the Commission in its approach by also accommodating the new principle in the provision on surveys and certification.
I therefore look forward to rapid progress with this legislation and I am also glad to accept Amendments Nos 6 and 7.
Amendment No 3 proposes a full equivalence between the requirements for high-speed passenger craft engaged in domestic voyages and those on international voyages.
Obviously it is entirely consistent with the main objective of this proposal and it will ensure that an equivalent level of safety will be achieved for all high-speed passenger craft operating in European Union waters, irrespective of whether they are engaged in domestic or international voyages.
I am grateful to the committee for offering a pragmatic solution for small passenger ships of lightweight design operating at conventional speeds in sea areas of Class B, C and D. Subject to editorial improvements, Amendment No 2 will ensure that these designs will not be wrongly considered as high-speed passenger craft which might have been the case if the formula in the safety of life at sea definition for high-speed craft had been applied to them.
I am pleased to advise the House that I am able to accept the proposal that protection of the environment should be included as one of the objectives of this measure as requested in Amendment No 1.
Honourable Members may recall that at first reading, I referred to the International Convention for the prevention of marine pollution by ships, the Marpol Convention, as the main instrument for protection of the marine environment.
However, since the Council has now included new provisions on safeguard clauses which can be taken in case of danger to the maritime environment, protection of the environment has become a specific part of the objectives of this proposal.
It makes sense therefore to take up the wise suggestion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Amendment No 4 should also be supported.
It strengthens the main thrust of the common position by using the same terminology as in the new provisions introduced by the Council in article 7.5.
In using this same wording it has made unequivocally clear that if the committee decides that measures proposed by a Member State are not justified, the Member State concerned will be required to amend or not to propose such measures.
As far as the proposed change of the type of committee is concerned, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 5 and that is because a regulatory committee is the most appropriate because the directive allows for adaptation of its provisions to take account of developments in international fora such as the International Maritime Organization.
Summing up, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7.
I regret that because of the lateness of the hour, I am not able to respond to the many interesting points that have been made by Mr Watts and Mr Lindqvist and others but I am sure we will have a chance to return to them and the further production of legislation that will effectively enhance the safety of life and vessels at sea and safeguard the maritime environment.
I conclude by thanking the House for facilitating the speedy adoption of this directive.
It will have a direct impact on safety on board ships and craft.
Once again I express my appreciation to the Committee on Transport and in particular Mr Stenmarck for continued support and effective work which actually adds to the development of legislation by the Commission and the Council.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Fishing vessel safety
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-336/97), on behalf of the Committee for Transport and Tourism, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive setting up a harmonized safety regime for fishing vessels of 24 metres in length and over (C.-0360/97-96/0168(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Le Rachinel).
Mr President, in its common position the Council has made several changes to the Commission's proposal for a directive on the safety of fishing vessels of 24 metres in length and over.
The Commission has approved these changes for reasons of general consistency and clarity.
The same applies to the rapporteur and the Committee on Transport, who do not see anything in these modifications except changes of a technical and legal order without great consequence either for the actual content of the proposal for a directive or for its general philosophy.
The main points of the proposal for a directive which have been modified by the common position of the Council are the following.
First there is the matter of excluding pleasure craft used for fishing activities without commercial purposes. There is a series of terminological improvements and modifications of an editorial nature aimed at simplifying and making explicit certain terms and provisions in the Commission texts, considered too vague or imprecise, in order to strengthen coherence with the Torremolinos Protocol and the definitions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
The Council is proposing to distinguish between existing and new fishing vessels for the purposes of conformity to design, construction and maintenance standards.
Only new vessels will have to comply with article 14 of Directive 94/57/EC.
Existing vessels already meet the standards in force at the time of their construction.
So there will be no new costs for these entrepreneurs in the fisheries sector, known to be fragile and in difficulties.
It is a question of adapting the dates of entry into force of the general prescriptions for new and existing fishing vessels.
There is also the addition of a new annex IV to the directive.
It relates to the construction, watertight integrity, equipment, stability, navigability, electrical machines and installations and fire extinguishers.
These have been accepted by the Commission, because they correspond perfectly to the aim of harmonizing safety standards at the highest possible level.
Safety standards on these vessels will be all the higher as a result.
There is clarification about the conditions under which vessels flying the flag of a third country can be subject to inspection by the port country.
It is further added that this control also applies, once the protocol comes into force, to fishing vessels flying the flag of a state which is not party to the protocol.
The Commission has accepted these modifications, which strengthen, here too, provisions concerning the conformity of fishing vessels flying the flag of a third country to the prescriptions of the Torremolinos Protocol.
The straight line at latitude 60 degrees north, north of which the special measures can be imposed has been slightly modified to take account of the territorial waters of the Member States.
Finally, the type I advisory committee proposed by the Commission has been replaced by a type IIIA committee, which gives the national authorities more powers.
The Commission has accepted these modifications.
However, your rapporteur would like to insist on two things.
First, on the fact that the European Parliament wishes to be informed of the activities of this regulatory committee set up under article 8.
In fact, even if this committee may only make adaptations, the European Parliament wishes to be informed of the topics for discussion well before they appear on the agenda.
And on the fact, finally, that it is necessary for the Member States to fix coordinated penalties for infringements.
In the end, we can be satisfied with this common position of the Council, which respects the fundamental principles of the initial proposal and represents added value, because the clarifications and especially the supplementary provisions strengthen the harmonized level of safety.
As no amendments have been tabled, Mr President, I think it will be appropriate to adopt this report as it stands.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be very brief, for which I am sure Members will be grateful at this late hour.
I simply wish to say, as I did in my speech before the Plenary at first reading, that the high level of accidents at sea makes fishing one of the most risky and most dangerous activities of all.
This draft directive is the result of a long and difficult process geared to improving the safety of fishing vessels.
Let us therefore steer it to a safe haven, so to speak, and let us do so rapidly and surely.
This directive, which has been necessary for a long time, will enable us to take the first step of harmonizing the Member States' laws in this field, allowing them to deal with specific situations, but on the basis of common principles.
As the Commission and Council have pointed out, it has to be taken into account that we are talking about a sector in crisis, and that compliance with certain of the proposed measures would be too onerous for owners of existing vessels already facing all sorts of serious difficulties.
Our group agrees with the rapporteur that Parliament must be punctually informed of the activities of the regulatory committee to be set up.
In conclusion, Mr President, as I have already said, and because this is only a first step, the directive must be adopted as soon as possible.
Mr President, I am grateful for the full support given to the common position which will obviously expedite the adoption of this directive by the Council.
I am sure we all share the view that when implemented this measure will provide further support for our joint efforts, Commission, Parliament and Council, to achieve a high quality of shipping in European waters by ensuring a uniform level of safety for ships and the highest degree of protection for the people sailing those ships.
That, of course, is the primary aim of our proposal and in addition it will help to combat the distortion of competition by operators who, tragically, deliberately neglect adequate provisions for safety.
I would like to respond briefly to the two specific comments raised by the rapporteur in his recommendation.
The Commission will, of course, readily respond to the specific request that the House be informed well in advance of the agenda items for the committee meetings dealing with adaptations in accordance with the provisions of article 8 of the directive.
The Commission also shares the concern that different levels of penalties in the Member States could lead to the distortion of competition and hamper the proper functioning of the internal market.
It is precisely to avoid such a situation that article 11 of the common position requires that the penalties shall be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.
Furthermore, in order to ensure full transparency, Member States must in accordance with article 13 notify their system of penalties for breaching the national provisions that are adopted on the basis of the directive.
I believe, Mr President, that the rapporteur was seeking to underline the need to ensure respect for these provisions in the interests of transparency and fair competition.
The Commission will, naturally, honour its obligations in this respect and in all aspects of the directive.
I am sure that the House would not expect anything less and I am grateful, once again, for its cooperation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Promotion of renewable energy sources
The next item is the report (A4-0288/97) by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community - Altener II (COM(97)0087 - C.-0308/97-97/0106(SYN)).
Mr President, Altener II is the continuation of the Altener I programme, in other words a programme running over several years for the development of renewable energies.
For the first two budget years ECU 30 million have been allocated.
The sum is of course absolutely ridiculous, less than the proverbial drop in a bucket!
It is all the more inexplicable in view of the urgent necessity of reducing greenhouse gases, to which Member States have already committed themselves in Rio, Berlin and now Kyoto, coming up with the aim of a 15 % reduction.
It is quite absurd that we are refusing to encourage a real breakthrough in the market penetration of renewable energies such as biomass, biogas, solar energy in thermal and photovoltaic applications, wind and geothermal energy with all the means in our power.
It is all the more extraordinary since it is indisputable that this kind of energy production does not only support our aims of reducing greenhouse gases, but would also release enormous resources on the jobs front, quite apart from which it would relieve us to a great extent from our dependence on energy imports from other countries.
If it were consistently pursued - and not just with these showcase events - by 2010 the equivalent of 30 % of the demand for primary energy in the EU could be met from renewable energy sources.
It is generally accepted that if renewable energies are to succeed, the right conditions must be created by removing administrative obstacles.
For example, it is high time we had a Europe-wide supply-side price agreement for renewable energies, and fiscal measures must be taken.
But this won't happen without the political will, which Member States have so far not shown.
But as long as the conditions are not right, all these programmes like Save, Altener, Thermie and Synergy are no more than a front which hides the reality!
In view of the broad spectrum of projects proposed on the one hand and the modest funds on the other, there is little point in squandering resources in dribs and drabs.
The programme should concentrate on a few strategically sound measures.
However, there is no way that domestic waste can be regarded as recyclable energy, as planned.
Domestic waste, as the name implies, is not recyclable.
There is no question of promoting projects for the incineration of domestic waste with this pathetically small budget.
If anything, we should try instead to use the biomass content of such waste.
But if I had my way we would use our limited funds for once really boldly, make up our minds and go for really forwardlooking energy sources that set a new direction for energy policy. So I think we should give firm support to photovoltaic and geothermal energy.
The broad spread of proposals suggested by the Commission is not going to get us anywhere.
It also has to be said that Altener II will also remain a patch-up if the political will is not there and that it is not there is indisputable.
The sad fact is that for about ten years now the Commission's various proposals for community-wide control of energy have time and again been talked down and torpedoed by the Council.
And as further evidence: European governments have spent more than DM 125 billion on subsidizing fossil and nuclear energies since Rio, but only 9 % of that, DM 2.5 billion, on renewable energies.
This kind of disparity in the support for conventional and sustainable energies is greatest in the UK and Germany.
In short - preach environmental protection, support conventional consumption.
The modest Altener II programme can do little against that.
The Community policies getting major support take the diametrically opposite direction: more traffic, more energy consumption, more waste, more emissions, more environmental problems.
As long as energy and environmental policies are only pursued as a sideline, I am afraid that even a highly ambitious programme like Altener II will bring no real improvement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the core of Altener II are the actions to promote private and public investment in renewable energy sources.
However, in the Commission proposal two thirds of the programme budget are allocated to the continuation of Altener I. What is more, the 30 million proposed by the Commission for the first two years of Altener II are, by common consent and in the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, insufficient for a programme with such ambitious aims.
With this present report we are asking the Commission to introduce increased financing of the programme in general, and to reconsider the allocation of resources and to boost the sum of money for article 2e, which is the touchstone of the programme.
The Commission proposal gives greater weight to the study of the anticipated competitiveness of renewable energy sources.
We believe that more concrete actions must be proposed which would render these sources not only economically viable but also competitive enough to attract the interest of investors.
The Commission must, in the future, outline a concrete strategy to enable renewable energy sources to penetrate the free market, and elaborate a detailed investment plan with concrete proposals for economic measures to promote these energy sources.
It would be useful to create an environment conducive to investment at a national and community level, with new loan incentives and support measures, subsidies and tax exemptions to offset the initial start-up costs of renewable energy sources.
The Community must direct the Member States to modernize their legislative and investment frameworks.
The cautious stance of financial organizations, inadequate information for investors and the public, and the lack of integrated action plans for renewable energy sources at a national level are chiefly due to the structural and institutional weaknesses of the Member States.
We are hopeful that these points will be covered by the White Paper on renewable energy sources which is at the present time being prepared by the Commission and on the basis of which the development of a European industry will be encouraged, with fundamental opportunities for the export of know-how and investment to third countries, chiefly in central and eastern Europe, but also to Southern Mediterranean countries.
Joint implementation plans with the participation of the Community must also be elaborated with third countries.
It would also be useful to ensure economic support for the actions of the programme by third financial organizations, such as the European Investment Bank.
The Commission must coordinate its remaining actions regarding small and medium investments in renewable energy sources.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, for presenting such a very good report.
But we should express our appreciation to the Commission too for this suggestion of an ongoing programme of support for sustainable energy sources in the Community.
I agree unreservedly with the statement in the Commission proposal that the current combination of energy supplies is not consistent with the long term requirements of sustained development.
For environmental and climatic considerations, in view of our increasing dependence on energy imports and because it is so important for employment and industrial reasons, we are bound politically to try and ensure the increased use of renewable energies.
When we look at the low rates of growth in the last few years it is clear too that considerable efforts will be necessary to achieve the very modest goal set in the Green Paper on renewable energy of a doubling of these sources.
Apart from standard economic measures which - at least we hope, Commissioner Papoutsis - you will be presenting shortly as part of the White Paper, in its response to the Green Paper the European Parliament has demanded a more ambitious and financially stronger Altener II programme.
The proposed financial appropriation of ECU 30 million for 1998 and 1999 certainly does not meet the demands which will be made on the Union.
We must therefore agree wholeheartedly with the Commission that the budgets for the remaining three budget years must be considerably boosted, in particular with regard to the welcome proposal that the Altener II programme must put greater emphasis on support for the market penetration of renewable energy sources.
In the report on the Green Paper, the European Parliament demanded a major Community programme for sustainable energies with a million photovoltaic systems on roofs and facades, 15, 000 megawatt wind farms and 1, 000 megawatt biomass plants.
When we look at what the USA and Japan are doing, then these are fairly modest demands.
I trust, Commissioner Papoutsis, that you will shortly be giving us a White Paper which reflects this, so that the first specific steps can be taken in the - as we have said - financially inadequate Altener II programme, which must then be put on a sounder financial footing later.
Just two further brief remarks.
The amendments of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy ask for the programme to be extended to the southern Mediterranean nations and countries with cooperative arrangements with the EU.
My group approves without qualification the support of sustainable energy sources in these countries, but the Altener budget will not cover it.
Meda, Tacis and Phare could perhaps be used instead.
Finally, I cannot speak here for my whole group, I know some think otherwise, but to regard and support domestic waste, apart from biomass, as a renewable energy source is really pie in the sky!
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen - the few of you here - I believe we must first congratulate the Commission, and especially Commissioner Papoutsis, who has shown great sensitivity - Mediterranean sensitivity, I would say - towards these issues, as witnessed by the Green Paper, and as I hope will be witnessed by the forthcoming White Paper, which we are awaiting with expectation.
I think we can be reasonably optimistic.
The latest information indicates that the situation is improving.
In Germany, for example, there is news that the government, and the governments of the federal states, are going to be investing seriously in large-scale factories producing photovoltaic cells.
A book recently published in the United Kingdom states that it is an objective of my country, Spain, to be generating 800 megawatts in wind power by the beginning of the coming millennium.
However, it is the aspiration of one region alone, the Autonomous Community of Galicia, which accounts for less than a tenth of the population of Spain, to be generating up to 900 megawatts by the same period.
We know that the situation is better than average in countries such as Austria, Finland and Sweden; and, in short, I believe that the situation is improving.
The letter from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection states that it is an official objective of the United Kingdom for as much as 20 % of UK electricity to be windgenerated by the year 2025.
I also believe that we must praise - and I do so with great pleasure - Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz for admirable work, which, of course, she carried out with all the force and resolution of her convictions.
The committee responsible, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, enriched the rapporteur's excellent text with a number of amendments which have provisionally been accepted by the Commission. Our group will therefore be voting in favour of her report as amended in committee.
However, we are unable to agree with the final amendment, Amendment No 28 by Mr Holm, on behalf of the Green Group.
Indeed, the committee - and naturally our group - rejected that amendment, which seeks to eliminate the concept of energy production from urban waste, after serious debate.
We believe that urban waste should be utilized for energy production - as it has been hitherto in the framework of general projects under the Altener programme.
We believe that our amendments contribute something useful.
Let us consider what has gone before.
The Commission and - albeit with little enthusiasm in some cases - the Member States have undoubtedly done a lot.
But the Commission has had the support of civil society.
The Altener Conference in Sitges less than a year ago, and the conferences on renewable energy sources in Madrid, Milan and Athens, which would not have been possible without the Commission's backing, have shown that there is broad social support for renewable energies; and this should be remembered.
We also consider that we have helped to enrich the report by ensuring the inclusion of certain objectives, such as the replacement of at least the equivalent of 15 % of primary energy demand with renewable energies by the year 2010, and the reduction of CO2 emissions by 15 % by the same year, compared with 1990.
In short, Mr President, we believe that these and other amendments have helped to enrich Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's excellent report, and we hope that the Commission will accept them, so that they can form part of the final decision on which the Altener II programme will be based. Because of its inadequate budget, we are expecting only modest results from that programme, but results which are as effective as those of Altener I.
Mr President, in discussing renewable energy we talk about environmental protection, which is quite right.
We talk about jobs in discussing renewable energy sources, also quite right.
But we virtually never talk about the problems involved in acquiring fossil fuels.
Hundreds of thousands of people die in aid of this every year.
I am thinking of the Gulf War, the war in Afghanistan, in Chechnya and at the moment in Zaire or the Congo.
We must be aware of the full dimension of the problem, namely that no peaceful agreements will be possible in the 21st Century on the basis of fossil and nuclear energy.
So we need renewable energy sources not only for environmental reasons, economic and social reasons, but even more in the interests of peace, because there will be no peace in the 21st Century unless we switch to renewable sources of energy.
Mr President, the European Parliament welcomes this five-year programme.
We salute the ongoing commitment of Commissioner Papoutsis to renewable energy.
Altener I helped to fund the only advice centre in the United Kingdom on renewable energy.
Altener II is one of the lamentably few measures which will stop our delegates going to conference in Kyoto completely naked. It is in the spirit of the age.
Germany announced today two huge programmes for renewable energy - photovoltaics.
Both Shell and BP are investing massively in renewable energy technologies.
The United States is forging ahead, as is Japan.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you will visit the exhibition outside this hemicycle on the Teres II programme.
May I thank the Commission for that programme and Mrs Perez Latorre in particular for her help in mounting the exhibition.
I would like to make my main point three times.
There is not enough money.
There is not enough money.
There is not enough money.
I hope my meaning is clear.
ECU 250 million would be a realistic and adequate funding for Altener II.
That sounds like a lot of money.
We spend that amount of money almost without thought on nuclear fusion.
Let us get our priorities right, let us look to the future in the way I think Altener II will do.
I am glad it will be part of an energy framework which is long overdue.
It will make clear to Members of this Parliament exactly what we do in terms of energy and I hope that a legal base for that will be obtained very soon.
The Commissioner has the support of the European Parliament in pushing forward Altener II.
Mr President, I support the Commission's motion to continue with Altener 1.
There are, however, parts of the report I cannot agree to: for example, the dichotomy of renewable energy sources and research into nuclear fusion.
We must keep our feet firmly on the ground when we set great store by renewable energy sources, which, after all, only account for a very small percentage of energy production.
The most obvious ways of reducing carbon dioxide emissions are the increased use of nuclear and hydro-electric power.
If a one-thousand megawatt coal-powered station were replaced by just one nuclear power plant, the carbon dioxide emissions could be reduced by six million tonnes a year, which is no small amount.
Total carbon dioxide emissions in Finland were sixty million tonnes in 1996.
We must also remember that all forms of energy production, including renewable, have an adverse effect on the environment.
The most promising form of renewable energy is biomass, mainly wood fuel.
Finland is Europe's leading exploiter of wood fuel, mainly by taking advantage of the energy value of industrial waste.
Fifteen per cent of electricity produced in Finland comes from fuel with a timber origin.
Solar energy and wind power will be a very marginal energy source in the near future.
Some radical breakthrough would have to take place in the exploitation of solar power, for it to become a significant player in the production of energy.
Wind power, again, works best in localized contexts, where it can produce small amounts of electricity: on islands and in coastal areas.
Denmark, which has, owing to its geographical position, very favourable wind conditions, produces only about three per cent of its consumption of electricity from wind power.
The report urges the need to put more into the study of renewable energy sources, for an improvement in results.
Although I advocate research generally, I cannot give my approval in this case.
Visions of the future of renewable energy sources do not depend on financial input, as their status in the whole field of energy will never be anything more than marginal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, for her excellent report.
The first Altener programme has demonstrated its importance in the promotion of renewable energy sources and the initial results of the programme are very promising indeed.
The new Altener II programme is not simply an extension of the old programme.
I believe that the Altener II programme, as it evolves in the future, will play a particularly important role.
I would first of all like to make certain observations concerning the nature of the new programme.
The first point I would like to make concerns the Green Paper on renewable energy sources, which I had the opportunity of presenting to you a few months ago.
Your recommendations and the generous support that you gave to the Green Paper allowed us to move forward to the elaboration of the White Paper on a community strategy and a new plan of action on renewable energy sources.
I would like to say to you that I intend to present this White Paper to the Commission some time during November.
The Altener II programme has been given a new direction so that it now incorporates new actions within the framework of a more general Community strategy for renewable energy sources and also within a framework for a plan of action that we are going to put forward.
The second point I would like to make concerns the proposal for an outline programme for energy, which we discussed today in the European Commission.
The Altener II programme will be part of this future outline programme for energy and will be one of its most basic cornerstones.
I would like to stress that, in order for the programme to continue without interruption, it is essential that Altener II be approved by the Council.
This is fully compatible with the outline programme into which it will be incorporated, when this is finally approved, during the coming months and possibly into next year.
The third point concerns the process of European Union enlargement.
Indeed, in the context of the actions aimed at facilitating the accession of countries of central and eastern Europe and Cyprus, the new programme provides for the possibility of their participation and also provides for the possibility of the participation of the countries of the European Economic Area.
As regards the actions and the measures that we are intending to take within the framework of the Altener II programme, our prime objective is to continue and to extend the actions of the programme that have been judged to be positive and effective.
Our basic concern is to concentrate all our attention on those actions which may improve on the results that we have so far obtained and which may make our efforts more productive.
The programme also provides for new actions with two specific aims.
First of all, to encourage public and private investment in the production and utilization of energies from renewable sources.
Secondly, to provide the necessary means for the implementation and monitoring of the Community strategy and action plan for renewable energy sources by the year 2010.
Mr President, the Altener II programme is indeed of very special significance.
It is of special significance because, as many of the speakers have pointed out, it contributes to the achievement of all our Community goals regarding the reduction of gas emissions which cause the greenhouse effect.
It will also play a significant role in creating the necessary conditions for increasing the share of renewable sources in our energy balance and in the reduction of the dependence of the Union on imported energy.
We must not forget that the development of renewable energy sources looks to greater penetration of the market.
In this way it makes a positive contribution to the promotion of the overall policy priorities of the Union in the sectors of economic and social cohesion, for local and regional development, for economic development more generally and, of course, for the creation of new jobs.
Mr President, I would now like to make specific mention of the amendments that have been tabled.
First, a general observation: the majority of the amendments allow us to improve the proposal and for this reason we can adopt them.
We believe, however, that certain of the amendments concern the White Paper on the Community strategy for renewable energy sources rather than the Altener programme itself.
Nevertheless the Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 2, 6, 8, 9, 10, 19, 21, 23 and 25, as they have been tabled.
The Commission also accepts in principle certain of Parliament's amendments.
We could include these within the body of the text after making changes to the wording, or we consider them to be already covered by our proposal.
In this context therefore we accept Amendments Nos 5 and 7 after slight rewording.
As regards Amendment No 12, we believe that we can incorporate into the proposal a general reference to the goal of doubling the share of participation of renewable energy sources by 2010 as a result of the debates on the White Paper.
We believe that the second part of Amendment No 12 can be incorporated into our proposal, with the exception however of the reference to the promotion of technology, simply because this has more to do with the actions that are evolving within the framework of the Thermie programme.
I believe that the content of Amendment No 13 is covered by article 1 of the programme proposal.
We are also in agreement over Amendment No 15.
For this reason we will reformulate the reference to the various sectors that are covered by the studies in article 2, paragraph 1a.
As regards Amendment No 16, I agree with you that ecological tourism is an integral part of planning at a local and regional level.
Amendment No 16 could therefore be incorporated into the proposal where mention is made of certain key sectors of the planning programme.
We can also reformulate and focus the actions for the giving out of information mentioned in article 2, paragraph 1c, so that they reflect Amendments Nos 17 and 18.
As regards Amendment No 20, the Commission feels that the wording of the first and third cases of article 2, paragraph 1f needs to be global and comprehensive.
Monitoring the implementation of the strategy and its progress at Community level and at the level of the Member States alike must cover all aspects and all sectors that are developed in the White Paper.
Moreover, it would not be advisable to refer specifically to just certain sectors.
For this reason and at this point we prefer to stick to our original text.
We agree, however, with Amendment No 22 and we will incorporate it with the appropriate reformulation of article 2.
On the other hand, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 11, 14, 24, 26 and 27.
As regards Amendment No 1, the Commission expresses its complete satisfaction with the success of the Altener Congress and intends to repeat it as it proved to be useful.
However, a reference of this type could be made in the explanatory report which accompanies the proposal, but not in the legal part of the resolution.
The same is true for Amendment No 3.
Amendment No 4 is an example of an initiative which would be more suitably included in the White Paper on our Community strategy.
The content of Amendment No 11, on the opening of the Altener programme in the countries of the Mediterranean, cannot possibly be accepted at this moment due to the lack of affiliation agreements with these countries.
As regards Amendment No 14, the Commission considers that the amount of funding must be decided by the official budgetary authority.
For this reason, we cannot accept this amendment.
Nor can Amendment No 24 be accepted because the reports submitted by the Commission to the organizations are the object of article 6.
As regards Amendments Nos 26 and 27, the Commission cannot properly accept them and, on this occasion, follow the general procedure that is provided for on this issue.
Mr President, before I finish I wish to inform you that this morning the European Commission debated the outline programme on energy.
As you are aware, a large part of this programme refers to renewable energy sources and also to energy efficiency.
Unfortunately, the European Commission, while agreeing with the political objectives of the programme, did not succeed in taking the final decision on this programme due to the fact that there were differing approaches and differing opinions concerning the programme budget.
In all honesty I do not feel particularly happy about the proposals that are being made.
However, the main argument that is used is that current financial projections, which naturally also concern the years 1998 to 1999, do not allow for large increases in the renewable energy sources sector, while Parliament did not expect to express its political will, as it is being expressed here today and during the 1998 budget debate.
The framework of the new financial projections for 2000 and beyond, of which there are at the moment no indications, naturally remains open.
The only official indication that exists at the moment on the part of the institutional organizations is the proposal of the European Commission concerning Agenda 2000, and in the context of Agenda 2000 energy is not one of the top priorities.
However, since we are still at the beginning of this process and since we are still at the beginning of the debate in Council and in Parliament, I believe that those of us who wish to continue supporting renewable energy sources, and those of us who believe that this must be an area for which substantial funds must be made available and for which significant sums of money from the community budget must be used, since it has a part to play in all the basic priorities for the protection of the environment, for new technologies, and for the creation of new jobs, we must intensify our efforts throughout the coming years so that renewable energy sources can become a political priority not only in words but in terms of funding and the Community budget.
For this reason therefore I would like to accept on the one hand your criticism regarding the amount of the budget that we are presenting for the Altener programme, but at the same time I must explain why we are in such a difficult position, which is the same difficult economic climate in which the whole of the European Union finds itself.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to assure you that the European Commission has made every effort to incorporate the largest part of the proposals of Parliament into the text of the proposal for the Altener II programme.
I would once again like to thank you, to thank all of you, to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, and all the speakers who took part, for your support both in the case of the specific proposal and in our more general joint effort to promote renewable energy sources.
I have just one question: what about Amendments Nos 28 and 29? Unfortunately we have not heard anything about these and they are very important to us.
If you do not have them available at the moment, can you perhaps tell us about these tomorrow morning.
Agreed, we can get the reply to you in another way.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Fisheries agreement with Mauritania
The next item is the report (A4-0303/97) by Mr Imaz San Miguel, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation concerning the conclusion of the Agreement in the form of an exchange of letters amending the Agreement on cooperation in the sea fisheries sector between the European Community and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (COM(97)0263 - C.-0421/97-97/0158(CNS)).
Mr President, the report we are debating today was adopted by the Committee on Fisheries on 8 October and concerns four technical changes to the existing fisheries agreement between the European Union and Mauritania.
The truth is that they are minor changes.
In any event, I should like to thank the Commissioner for being present in the Chamber at such a late hour, despite the fact that these are minor changes and that she has been traveling today.
These are changes which do not affect basic aspects of the fisheries agreement, such as its duration, financial compensation or fishing opportunities, but which relate solely to technical matters for which the possibility of changes was already provided for in article 8.5 of the agreement.
Specifically, the first of the changes made involves modification of the fishing period for cephalopods. In fact, this change was already applied before 31 July of this year, and consists of the fact that a maximum of three vessels belonging to the quota for the second year has been transferred to the quota for the first year, so that what was formerly a distribution of 25 and 40 vessels has become a distribution of 28 and 37 vessels for the first and second years respectively.
Naturally, the 3 % flexibility margin in the authorized tonnage provided for in the agreement has been maintained.
The second change, which has been made at the request of the Mauritanian authorities with a view to bringing the agreement into line with the country's internal laws, involves the introduction of a ban, in pelagic fishing, on the use of double nets at the cod-end and any doubling of the lines which make up the cod-end.
The third change makes it possible for pole-and-line tuna vessels and surface longliners to obtain quarterly licences instead of the 12-month licences previously provided for.
Naturally, the fees will be reduced proportionately.
And the fourth change involves the imposition of a contribution of ECU 350 per month per vessel towards the cost of scientific observation on the owners of the 22 pelagic vessels.
These four changes will not affect the substance of the agreement or the budgetary amounts provided for therein. Moreover, they will, to a certain extent, help to improve the opportunities of Community vessel owners; and, in one way or another, they will assist the implementation of the resource conservation measures established under Mauritanian law.
Logically, therefore, Parliament should approve these four changes to the fisheries agreement with Mauritania, which benefits the Community fleet and will be in force until July 2001.
As emerged from the report on the common fisheries policy after 2002, which was debated this afternoon in this Chamber, fisheries agreements give a significant boost to the Community fleet at a time of imbalance between capacity and resources, thereby generating economic activity and creating employment in the European Union. We must therefore support these changes, which improve an existing agreement.
I therefore trust that Parliament will demonstrate a firm commitment to upholding the philosophy of fisheries agreements, which must always be adapted to the specific circumstances of the countries with which they are concluded. The changes that we shall be approving will contribute to this development.
With regard to the procedure, there is a matter to which I wish to draw attention.
As the Committee on Legal Affairs explains in its letter to the Committee on Fisheries, the proposal for a regulation amending the agreement does not justify the application of the assent procedure because none of its provisions, taken individually, has "important budgetary implications' within the meaning of the second subparagraph of article 228(3) of the EC Treaty.
However, as Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi will no doubt explain later in greater detail, this does not preclude Parliament maintaining the position set out in its resolution of November 1996 that the legal basis for the conclusion of the fisheries agreement between the European Union and Mauritania requires Parliament's assent, pursuant to article 43.
This is a prerogative of the European Parliament which must never be renounced, and compliance with which means giving greater power and control to the people and, ultimately, guaranteeing the European project.
We therefore make explicit reference to this position in paragraph 2 of the draft legislative resolution on which we shall be voting.
I therefore urge the European Parliament to adopt the report on which we shall be voting tomorrow morning, in the form in which it was adopted by the Committee on Fisheries, including the positive mandatory opinions of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Once again, Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner, who, although she was away today, has had the deference to attend this debate on the report on these technical changes, which, although minor, are undoubtedly important, as are all measures adopted by the European Union.
Mr President, this late hour is not a suitable time for an in-depth, academic discussion of the agreement with Mauritania.
The rapporteur explained quite clearly that this is not a full international treaty, but a simple exchange of letters.
It is an exchange of letters which makes a few technical changes, and the legal basis proposed by the Commission is therefore perfectly correct.
In view of the lateness of the hour, Mr President, I think that instead of making a full analysis, it would be better, taking advantage of the presence of the Commissioner, to tell a story, like a tale from 1001 Nights. Perhaps it will help us sleep better.
In our youth, the Commissioner and I - and, I imagine, many others present - were admirers of the thoughts of a certain great Chinese politician.
I refer to Mao Zedong, who produced a work called the Little Red Book which had a great impact.
Reading that book in translation - I was unable to read it in Chinese, as I do not have that ability - I came across the famous phrase in which Mao Zedong says that instead of giving a child a fish to eat, it is better to give him a rod to fish with.
It seems that the Little Red Book had an enormous impact.
And now the Chinese have increased their fishing capacity to such an extraordinary extent that, whilst we are concerning ourselves with technical changes to the agreement with Mauritania, according to local fisherman - and by coincidence I have a home very close to that country - a Chinese fleet which must consist of dozens of vessels, whereas our fleet fishes in moderation, is decimating Mauritania's fisheries stocks.
This demonstrates both the effectiveness of Mao Zedong's thoughts, and their danger to fish and fisheries.
Apparently the Chinese have a technique - I do not know if they learned this from Confucius or Lao Zi - whereby their vessels sweep a given area fishing simultaneously, so that, after a few sweeps, there are no fish left and there is no possibility of fish in the future.
Since we made the Commissioner come here tonight, and despite the lateness of the hour and the fact that she is obviously tired, I should like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission to explain to the Chinese, in the same teaching spirit as Mao Zedong, that if they extract too many fish they will end up starving.
We must make clear to our Mauritanian and Chinese friends that in carrying out fishing activity, restrictions are good.
I believe that the European Community is currently providing a good example in this regard.
I believe that we are showing concern and that Commissioner Bonino deserves a large part of the credit for these restrictions and for the way in which the European Union is now carrying out its fishing activity.
Perhaps, in parallel - and I am aware that Commissioner Bonino has a very heavy workload - the European Community could take advantage of this fisheries agreement to explain to our Mauritanian and Chinese friends that, beyond a certain level, efficiency in catching fish leads to the destruction of stocks.
In conclusion, Mr President, it is not enough for the Community to restrict its fishing capacity and adopt specific measures to reduce catches. Rather, we must also use our position to teach others that fishing is a potentially disastrous activity, that excessive fishing can destroy stocks.
And perhaps we can help the Chinese and Mauritanians to carry out this activity with a certain amount of moderation and restriction.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, after that extremely interesting digression by Mr Medina Ortega, returning to the question of the legal basis might seem a little dry.
I should also say that Mr Imaz San Miguel has already made the most important points.
I wish to stress, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, that we consider the legal basis proposed by the Commission to be appropriate: that is, as regards substance, article 43; and as regards form, the first subparagraph of article 228(2).
This is because, as Mr Imaz San Miguel said, this agreement does not involve substantial changes which have important budgetary implications.
And it is also because, in this case, and in Community law in general, parallels cannot be established between forms.
In other words, the same procedure does not necessarily have to be adopted for the amendment of an agreement as for the basic agreement.
Having said that, we must insist, as Mr Imaz San Miguel has already said, that Parliament firmly maintains its position, as did the Commission in its day, that the appropriate legal basis for the regulation on the fisheries agreement with Mauritania, Regulation 408/97, is the second subparagraph of article 228(3), in conjunction with article 43, which remains valid as regards form.
And that is because, until, as Parliament has been requesting, an interinstitutional agreement - or in the last instance, if we have no other alternative, the Court of Justice - defines the uncertain legal concept of "important budgetary implications' , this House must claim the right to interpret that concept, especially when, as in this case, the Council gives no reason for changing the legal basis proposed by the Commission, which was, as Parliament agrees, the second subparagraph of article 228(3).
Thus, Mr President, we have lodged an application for annulment with the Court of Justice; and let us hope that the Court determines what is meant by the term "important budgetary implications' .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to Mr Imaz San Miguel's report, I do not have much to add, since, as the rapporteur said, it concerns small technical changes that will improve the conservation of resources with the use of more selective fishing gear.
I should therefore like to use the few minutes available to me to say two things. The first concerns the non-Community fishing fleet in Mauritania.
A visit was made to Mauritania ten days ago to monitor the fisheries agreement.
And there are two problems: one is the fact that the Chinese fleet is using the Mauritanian flag in joint ventures, or whatever; and the other is the disorderly development of the non-industrial fleet. There are now some three or four thousand canoes fishing for octopus in coastal waters, which are, moreover, the reproduction zone.
Those are the two problems, therefore.
And I should like to assure Mr Medina Ortega that we are using all possible arguments to explain them.
But we cannot impose solutions on Mauritania, since it is a sovereign country acting in its own territorial waters.
Nevertheless, the discussions that we have had with Mauritanian - not Chinese, but Mauritanian - fishermen may help us to introduce the concept of responsible fishing to a certain extent: a concept that all Member States within the Community fleet are trying to abide by, with such great problems for fishermen.
A dialogue has begun, therefore, but, for legal reasons, as Mr Medina Ortega will understand, solutions cannot be imposed.
Nevertheless, I am confident that we can secure a number of positive achievements, such as the compliance of the non-industrial fleet with the closed season in the reproduction zone.
Moreover, we are helping the Mauritanian authorities - with Member States' funds, but also with part of the funding under this agreement - to improve their control system.
There is a long road ahead, but I can assure the honourable Member that this is one of our concerns.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to take a couple of minutes to clarify a few matters concerning the debate that took place today.
This afternoon, there was a long debate in this Chamber on the common fisheries policy after 2002.
I did not attend simply because I do not yet have the ability to be in more than one place at the same time.
I was neither traveling nor at the cinema, but opposite this building in a meeting of consumers for which dozens of people were mobilized.
Parliament undoubtedly has the sovereign right to set its own agenda, but as soon as I knew that the debate would be taking place today, I contacted the chairwoman of the Fisheries Committee and the Secretary-General's office to see if the agenda could be changed, so that I could attend, since, as the House can imagine, the reform of the common fisheries policy is a matter of the utmost interest to me.
They explained that the order of reports is based on their importance, and that, consequently, the debate could not be scheduled for the evening.
And I do not yet have the ability to be in more than one place at the same time.
In light of what I have just said, and in light of the fact that the chairwoman of the Fisheries Committee knows that we attempted to change Parliament's agenda ten days ago so that I could attend, I am amazed at some of the criticisms of me made today - which, moreover, I consider to be politically inappropriate.
Deducing from the absence of a Commissioner from a debate that she is not interested in the subject of that debate is, quite frankly, uncalled-for.
I would imagine that Mrs Fraga Estévez is also highly interested in fisheries, and that, if she is not here now, it is because she has something else to do.
That is not a complaint, it is a regret.
I simply hope that our interinstitutional relations can be more correct in the future; and I trust, Mr President, that they will be.
Thank you, Madam Commissioner.
Of course we have to believe that even Mrs Fraga cannot be everywhere at once.
I imagine that she is tied up in other meetings.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 12.30 a.m.)
Mr President, I seek your assistance on the matter of allowances paid to Members of Parliament and staff of Parliament who do languages courses.
I did such a course in the Irish language a few months ago and was refused such allowances even though in years past such courses have been sanctioned by Parliament.
This language is the everyday language of a large number of people in my constituency.
It is a language into which the treaties are translated.
It is a language of the Court of Justice and of the European Schools.
Has there been some change in the status of the language? Courses were sanctioned for other people some years ago.
If there has been a change in the status, who made the decision and when was it made?
Thank you, Mr McCartin.
I am unable to give you any concrete information at the moment.
However, your remarks have been noted and will be forwarded to both the Bureau and the committee responsible for upholding multilingualism.
We shall get back to you later.
Social protection
The next item is the report (A4-0291/97) by Mrs Weiler, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the communication from the Commission on modernizing and improving social protection in the European Union (COM(97)0102 - C4-0143/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in recent years, despite the Maastricht Treaty, social policy has been something of a poor relation in European policy.
The Commission has very tentatively brought forward some initiatives, and these few initiatives have then generally been blocked by the Council of Ministers.
Nor has the process of social dialogue lived up to our expectations of it as politicians.
But now the debate has shifted.
The deadlock has been broken.
Of course this is partly because of the great hopes we have of the Amsterdam Treaty, which has at least meant that the British have now come on board in terms of social policy, and that the protocol on social policy is part of the treaty.
Furthermore, Europe's citizens and workers naturally expect that the state should provide solid social protection against major risks at times of economic upheaval, and I believe we politicians also have an obligation in this respect.
I cannot accept the constant repetition of neo-capitalist slogans to the effect that the answer is more self-provision, because we must not forget that our workers and citizens are already paying very generously for their social protection, through either contributions or taxes from earned income.
The fact that there has been some movement is undoubtedly a consequence of the implementation of the internal market.
More and more workers also want take advantage of the freedom of movement that we have guaranteed by treaty and put it into practice.
On the other hand, when they do make use of freedom of movement, they encounter discrimination in social protection and also discrimination in job opportunities.
In response to the Commission communication, we have today tabled a second report, following the first report on the future of social protection in Europe which was adopted by a substantial majority in February.
We now have before us a report which looks at the problems more specifically, under the title 'Modernizing and Improving Social Protection in the European Union' .
In this report I have basically welcomed the fact that the Commission has made specific proposals and that it has continued to concern itself with this topic, and I would like to highlight a number of particularly important points from the report, which was adopted in committee by a large majority.
We regret that despite the outcome of the Amsterdam summit there is still a unanimity requirement in the Council of Ministers regarding social protection and taxation policy.
Past experience leads us to presume that this will continue to result in proposals being blocked, because we have had very bad experiences in the past with Great Britain and above all with the Federal Republic of Germany, which repeatedly blocked proposals in the Council of Ministers precisely in the field of social protection.
We do not believe meeting the Maastricht EMU criteria is incompatible with social security, even if Member States sometimes claim that it is and the idea is repeatedly pushed by certain groups.
But we do the Commission and the Council to respond to the challenges raised by the impact of economic and monetary union on benefit systems and on employment.
We expect an active employment policy to be implemented, something which I believe is very important for all my colleagues in this House.
The Luxembourg summit will be the acid test of our credibility, as an active employment policy and a reduction in the unemployment rate are also the best safeguards and guarantees of adequate social protection.
It is not our intention to reduce benefits for the unemployed and people receiving social assistance. We believe the award of benefit should be linked with a general policy of counselling, training and work experience opportunities.
We expect the Commission, applying the good practice principle, to bring forward proposals for flexible transition from employment to retirement and for financing new systems.
We are asking the Commission to present an annual report on trends in poverty and affluence, but here I want to say straight away that I am willing to accept the European People's Party proposal for the report to be presented just every two years.
For me, the important thing is that this report should genuinely reflect trends in poverty and affluence in the European Union, and provide a reliable analysis.
As long as that is the case, I would be happy to have the report presented every two years.
As in the first report, I have once again insisted on the urgent need to shift the tax burden from labour to other resources.
All Member States are now agreed on this and I think it is high time some action was taken.
This could mean a CO2 tax, a levy on value added or a tax on speculative capital movements.
There is an urgent need for an intensive new debate on gender inequality in the labour market, on the scope for equal opportunities, and how equal opportunities can finally be achieved.
This was embodied in the Treaties of Rome in 1957, but today, decades later, it is still not a reality.
We need reliable protection for atypical and flexible employment relationships.
The proposals put to us on part-time work do not meet this requirement, Commissioner!
Mr Flynn, in your report you announced that at the end of this year you would be making new facts and analyses available on social security trends in Europe.
Take it from me: we do not think that is enough!
We need to take stock of the Commission's actions following the first report in February of this year, and you can be sure that we will be keenly following up how you implement the demands made in this new report.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what we have before us is a sound report on how we can modernize social protection in the European Union.
As the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I am very pleased to note that my committee and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs are on the same wavelength on a number of important points.
First we would stress once again that contrary to what many people think, the achievement of the Maastricht criteria is not at odds with a sound social security policy.
Healthy government finances relieve the pressure on interest rates, give breathing space to industry and create a favourable entrepreneurial climate.
The broad fiscal basis in its turn offers possibilities for a better system of social protection.
EMU is certainly a challenge, but it is not a risk.
Furthermore, both committees are expressing general public opinion in Europe when they argue in favour of a shift of the tax burden from work to, for example, environmentally unfriendly use of energy.
A consensus has emerged about the need at the very least to coordinate corporation tax at European level.
The code of conduct to combat illegal tax competition is a step in the right direction.
It is very important that social security entitlement should relate to the individual.
This applies particularly in the case of assisting spouses of self-employed people.
As far as pension systems are concerned, the Committee on Economic Affairs is not quite as defensive as Mrs Weiler.
We feel the current assessment method is untenable.
Capitalization systems can provide a supplement.
That is why we urge the national governments to investigate whether the two systems can be combined.
Finally, transferability of social security rights within the Union is seriously lacking.
Therefore, we call upon the European Commission to revise Regulation 19/71 on the coordination of regulations in the field of social security for people moving to another Member State within the Union.
The internal market may have been largely achieved in terms of goods and capital, but it is far from a reality for people who earn their living outside their native land.
In conclusion, I am glad to say that we are very pleased with the points that have been included by the Committee on Economic Affairs in the report, apart from the point on capitalization systems in connection with pensions.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Weiler on her report, which I fully endorse.
It takes a positive view of the Commission communication, but emphasizes a number of critical areas which must be taken into account with a view to improving future reports.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights, I presented nine conclusions, which I thank the rapporteur for including and improving.
They address the issues of equal opportunities for men and women, the vulnerability of women, and the need to create care systems for all dependent persons, while stressing the fact that women start from an unequal position relative to men and that proposals for measures to rectify this situation must be included in the reports of European institutions.
Any reform of social protection systems must endorse the presence of women in today's society.
The universal right to social protection must be enshrined in all the Members States of the European Union, and, in order to modernize and improve social protection and consolidate the European model, there is a need, once research into effective systems has been carried out, to draw up binding legislation which, as well as guaranteeing rights, provides the means to exercise those rights.
Mrs Weiler, I believe this the ultimate aim of your report, and I therefore congratulate you.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mrs Weiler for an excellent report which has taken an astonishingly broad perspective on these issues.
I will not be able to touch on every aspects in the short time available.
I shall begin by saying that I share her view that in principle it is not true that the Maastricht criteria conflict with a social welfare system.
On the contrary, sound government finance and a balanced budget are a long-term precondition for us to be able to maintain and develop our welfare systems.
We are seeing progress in Europe in this area: finances are beginning to improve.
In another area which also affects the social security system, we are not seeing the same progress.
That is employment.
The high level of unemployment costs our welfare systems a lot of money.
By having so many people unemployed in Europe, the income for our welfare system is also lower than it would have been if we had been able to reduce unemployment and increase employment.
So it is a major issue for the future, and for the welfare system too, to reduce unemployment and increase employment.
A word about pension systems. I think the rapporteur's proposal for a staggered retirement age is an excellent one.
The other point the rapporteur makes is that we need a state pension system which is good enough to minimize the need for private schemes.
I share that view because state pension systems have the advantage of being the same for men and women.
The situation in private pension schemes is that women have to pay more because they live longer.
I personally prefer a pension system with founded on a basic element which can then be built on with an income-based element.
I also share her views on harmonization of tax policy and switching the tax burden from labour to environment.
Mr President, I should also like to thank the rapporteur most warmly for all the work she has put in on her report.
I think the future of social security is one of the most important subjects for the European Union in the next few years.
So it is a good thing the European Commission has issued this communication.
Historically, the social security systems in the Member States have all developed in their own ways.
This means there are also many differences between the various systems.
The European People's Party feels Member States must retain responsibility for dealing with their own social security.
There needs to be better coordination between the different systems in view of the free movement of persons and workers in Europe.
Now that social security reforms are in progress in many Member States, a common convergence strategy should be worked out in more detail.
The aim of this social strategy must be to combine the employment policy of the European Union with sound social protection.
In this connection we do not agree with Mrs Weiler about looking at the idea of a social "snake' , with minimum social security entitlement.
This is a disastrous route as long as there is no consensus about how national social security systems can converge.
There is a world of difference between systems based on the system Count Bismarck designed and systems offering only minimum social protection.
Bismarck's system is primarily based on the occupational system. The other systems try to include everyone.
Unfortunately, this is a contrast the Commission constantly has to cope with.
In the Netherlands a compromise has been reached between the two systems.
But sometimes it seems that occupational risks are in danger of being dropped, because the general system is felt to offer sufficient guarantees.
Widows in the Netherlands pay a very heavy price for this.
The Dutch experience does, however, indicate that it is possible to find compromises between both systems.
But the Commission is concentrating excessively on the sufficiency of the social protection system on its own, and thereby sacrificing the advantages of Bismarck's tried and tested system.
Fortunately, the rapporteur does not go along with that, because she is too used to the German approach.
I ask the Commission to waste no time in taking a view on bridging these main differences in European social security systems.
It is odd that the further north you go, the more social protection comes to the fore and the further south you go, the more prominent is the income-related social security system.
Much has changed in society since Bismarck set up his first system, but the five main risks that every working person faces are the same: death, illness, invalidity, old age and unemployment.
It is now up to us, with due regard for subsidiarity, to focus the different social security systems on new developments, but at the same time remember the risks that need to be insured against.
A number of these risks can also be insured privately.
Sometimes completely, sometimes partially but others cannot be insured at all or only at much too high a price.
Subsidiarity creates two problems to which we must pay particular attention.
First, cross-border workers.
I would request special attention for them, because of the fact that they cannot take out certain types of insurance; if they work in one country and live just over the border, they often fall between two stools.
This is an obstacle to the free movement of workers, and contrary to the aims of the European Union.
I therefore support Mrs Weiler's proposal to update Regulation 148/71 which removes the disadvantages for crossborder workers.
The second problem arising from subsidiarity is paying for social security.
The collection of the premium forms the basis of social security in an economic and monetary union.
So greater cooperation is needed within the Union to combat cross-border social security fraud as well as other forms of tax fraud, amongst other things.
The Group of the European People's Party will support Mrs Weiler's resolution and requests the Commission to come up with a proposal to bridge the differences between the European social security systems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our social security systems were designed just after the Second World War. Today the same problems of adequacy and continuity, and the same development difficulties are facing these systems throughout Europe.
So they need to be adapted and modernized to meet the three major challenges of the 21st Century.
First, the demographic challenge. In my opinion, this is the most serious problem facing social security, because over the next ten to fifteen years the population over 60 years of age in the European Union will increase by 50 %, and whereas there are currently four people of working age to provide for the needs of each retired person, the figure will fall to only two by 2020.
Another great challenge is the economic challenge because, as we saw in a previous debate, we do indeed have a very serious unemployment problem.
Finally, it is even more difficult to face up to the social challenge because it involves rebuilding social cohesion in our societies.
With that in mind, I and my group are delighted to welcome the action plans presented by the Commission in its communication.
Likewise, I want to congratulate Mrs Weiler on her report and associate myself with her proposals for developing a social convergence strategy as a counterpart to economic and monetary union, with established minimum social criteria.
I actually think this is indispensable to prevent social dumping within the Union and make the single currency a success.
But our social security systems must also be natural solidarity systems.
Natural, human solidarity, essential to human and social balance, is still essential in our societies, and that is why I oppose the rapporteur's proposal on individualizing social security in Europe. I see that as a mistake.
I think natural solidarity, and in particular a strong family policy, should be actively supported alongside structured social security, to promote a more human, more flexible and less expensive approach.
Families with children in our Union should be assisted because of the contribution they make to renewing society, investing in the future and keeping our economies dynamic.
But we will vote for this text, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, remembering our duty to our children and in the hope of leaving them a Europe with more to offer.
Mr President, the best way of protecting social security systems is to create jobs in Europe.
This morning I read in paper and saw on Belgian television that the Council made virtually no progress on employment yesterday.
I would like Commissioner Flynn to tell us what progress has been made on the employment summit and whether issues like modernized taxation and different uses of VAT stand a chance. I have already gathered that our suggestion that combatting youth unemployment be included has not been taken up.
The second point I want to make is on pensions.
Ladies and gentlemen, this report is called: "Modernizing and Improving Social Protection' and it is our sincere belief that within the modernization of social protection there is room for a new approach to our pension system.
Not to diminish the pension system, but to modernize it.
In addition to the basic pension, the individual can have more control over supplementary pensions, and this is needed in a more flexible labour market.
Not to give the individual less power, but to give him more power.
I think it is a great pity our amendment on this seems to have no chance because the Germans in particular have not yet got this far, and even the Christian Democrats will not support it.
The Committee on Women's Rights raised the issue of day nurseries.
We are very much in favour of day nurseries.
But we would prefer them to come through convergence agreements rather than through binding agreements at European level.
Finally, I would like to stress the point Mr Pronk made on cross-border workers and also congratulate Mrs Weiler on her report in that regard.
I am sure her report is better than last year's, but if we are talking about modernizing social protection then we really must have the courage to modernize and I think something is missing.
Mr President, in my opinion Mrs Weiler's report is excellent, in that it very clearly reflects the importance of a high level of social protection for European growth, competitiveness, and welfare.
However, I would like to concentrate on the importance of the public services in their specific role as agents of public protection.
I am astonished at the view contained in the Commission's report that only private services operating under market conditions can be economical and of good quality.
The Nordic experience tells us that public services are often of higher quality as well as more cost-effective from the national point of view than private services.
For example, a comparison of costs of health care schemes in different countries shows that the fully privatized, personal insurance-based system in the USA is considerably more expensive than the one run by local authorities in the Nordic countries.
Public social and health services also guarantee accessibility for all, including those in sparsely-populated areas, which do not represent an attractive market to the social services entrepreneur.
Common services for all the people also guarantee that everyone, rich or poor, gets high-quality service.
I think that is the cornerstone of social equality.
With that in mind I hope we are not going to automatically assume that our debates on social justice should be about services that ought to be privatized.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Weiler's report provides an accurate survey of the fundamental aspects of European social security for the future, and also puts them into perspective.
Now it is up to the Commission to translate these clear guidelines into action.
I do not intend to go into all the details again now, but I just want to discuss one basic obstacle still hindering social security in Europe.
What I mean is the idea that we are attempting to create a uniform European social security system.
The founding fathers and mothers cherished that idea, but I think it is mistaken and we should turn our back on it.
Even if we have a uniform internal market, we still have living conditions that differ not just in level, but also in customs and expectations, so we also have different social security traditions, different balances of power and arrangements between unions and management - the social partners.
These all make up historical compromises struck in the Member States, which cannot easily be broken.
But that does not mean it will be impossible to create a Europe with a common social security.
We need to revise our thinking, we need to work towards common and binding objectives.
To put it simply, what is involved is insuring everyone who lives and works in Europe against occupational risks - age, illness, unemployment and deskilling.
We are also talking about ensuring that no-one who lives and works in Europe is forced into poverty and social exclusion relative to the standard of living in the Member States and regions in question.
Those are two quite simple objectives.
By thinking in these simple terms we can begin to identify mechanisms which can be used by various Member States, in various situations and with various different approaches, to work towards protection.
By which I do not mean protection at a practical level, but the protection of interests, and working towards convergence in safeguarding against these risks and guaranteeing real citizens' rights for all the citizens of Europe in the internal market - including those with employee status.
It is high time this was done, given that attempts are repeatedly being made to undermine precisely these achievements in citizens' rights for those in employment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Radical Alliance associates itself entirely with Mrs Weiler's excellent recommendations.
I want to congratulate her on this contribution to illuminating the path towards the establishment of a European social security policy.
The continuing differences between protection systems covering citizens of the various Member States is strongly undermining the operation our internal market, which is assumed to have been unified by mere economic deregulation. These differences distort competition and causes ludicrous relocations within Europe.
It is urgent to make a real start on the public works made way for by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In our view, the Commission must resolutely commit itself to negotiating minimum thresholds, resolutely commit itself to establishing common stabilization arrangements - which probably deserve a more attractive name than "social snake' and I suggest "social link' - and, quite simply, resolutely commit itself to the definition of an ambitious objective of quality and effectiveness permitting upward convergence in the policies of Member States.
We must go on the attack, resolutely and everywhere, eliminating discrimination in protection and moving from a security system based on the head of family to one which respects the freedom of every individual.
Here I want to mention the urgent need to implement the social security directive for spouses of self-employed people.
Finally, we must pursue greater cost-effectiveness and a fall in the rate of growth of expenditure on health, prioritizing information and prevention, as Mrs Weiler says, but ageing populations and increasingly sophisticated medical techniques make it impossible to reduce the cost of care in absolute terms.
European quality of life and culture require that we build an original social model together.
People have a right to a minimum subsistence income.
People have a right not to see health regarded as a business.
Each of us understands intuitively that we cannot continue our march towards open markets, free competition and the primacy of the individual if we do not simultaneously ensure the development of the solidarity mechanism that leads to cohesion and balance in our society.
The Commission must promote the maintenance and development of such systems.
They must not be trivialized by being subjected to the rules applying to commercial insurance.
By contrast, the Commission should urgently prepare a directive recognizing their specific social value, their personal social structure, and the non-selectivity of risk, establishing pilot social work services designed to hold down costs and improve information and prevention.
We hope the European Union will resolutely follow these twin tracks of deepening convergence in Member States' social protection policies and defining rules applicable to solidarity systems, because we are also certain that this will increase the economic strength of its organizations, the social cohesion of its citizens, and the radiant humanism of its culture.
Mr President, one of the points made in Mrs Weiler's report on modernizing and improving social security in the European Union is that people should be actively seeking work to be entitled to claim social security benefit.
Something of the sort has been very effective in Member States' policies in this field, including those of Denmark, where there is a constant tightening up of how and when the unemployed are to be regarded as available on the labour market.
In her introduction to today's debate, Barbara Weiler said that she did not think the EMU convergence criteria were an obstacle to reasonable social security.
I am not so sure she is right.
Just think of the massive demonstrations that have taken place in some of the Member States, where welfare cuts in preparation for EMU have been so serious that people have turned out to protest against them.
I can fully understand that, because EMU is far from enjoying popular support.
In Denmark we have a relatively large public sector, and most welfare benefits are still a national responsibility.
But people are uncertain about the future of the social security system, not least because of the preparations for EMU, where the Danish government is of course trying to meet the criteria, even though Denmark will not be joining phase three of EMU.
As far as the Treaty of Amsterdam is concerned, I am very pleased that the Council still has to achieve unanimity on social security issues, but I would rather it was not just Great Britain and Germany doing the blocking.
I would like to see Denmark clearly distancing itself from the trend, because there is strong feeling in Denmark that welfare policy should continue to be a matter for Member States.
Clearly that is not what the Danish negotiators are saying in the Council.
Mr President, I welcome Mrs Weiler's report on modernizing and improving social protection in the EU because it highlights two important points.
First, social conditions in the EU have dramatically changed.
Secondly, Member States' social protection systems can only continue to be financed if they are modernized immediately, with the Member States being responsible for both the financing and the modernization.
I believe that in a Europe which includes so many differences due to regional diversity, varying historical development and above all different financing systems, a uniform social system is a utopian dream.
That is why I welcome Amendment No 16 tabled by the European People's Party.
I mentioned the change in conditions.
Women have been affected particularly dramatically.
In many cases poverty is a female condition.
That is why I agree with the proposals in this report which are aimed at providing a social safety net for women.
It is particularly important that periods devoted to child care should be treated as pensionable.
To do anything less would be to penalize women who devote themselves to working for their families, and ultimately that is an attack on the family.
Mr President, there is clear evidence that Europe's legendary social model and Member States' systems of social protection are failing to meet the new challenges of changing patterns of work, changing economic, social and demographic patterns and the globalization of markets.
These new challenges have been the subject of several reports to this Parliament: high rates of unemployment, an ageing population, the growth of social exclusion and persistent but changing inequalities between men and women.
This Commission communication and Barbara Weiler's excellent report address the need to modernize and improve social protection in Europe to meet these challenges and to provide a social model which respects human dignity.
We must clearly seek new ways of providing an adequate level of social protection which will enable and encourage more men and women of working age to gain employment and earn a proper income to enable them to care for their families and undertake lifelong learning as well as holding down jobs.
We need a social protection system that recognizes that many people, especially women, face poverty after retirement because they have not had the opportunity to build up occupational pensions and a social protection system that values the children of Europe and is concerned that too many of them, for example one in three in the United Kingdom, are still growing up in households which are below the poverty line.
Unfortunately the impact of economic and industrial changes have all too often been borne by individuals, families and local communities who are the casualties of the new order without sufficient support.
I have seen this in my own constituency with the closure of coalmines and the devastating effect that has had.
These issues need to be addressed in a rigorous and systematic manner in economic planning, employment policies, the development of pension schemes, education and training initiatives and community care provision.
This report points up crucial areas for action and I hope this Parliament, by supporting the report, will make a major contribution to the modernization of social protection systems that demonstrate our solidarity as Europeans.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mrs Weiler on the quality of her work.
But I have a few comments to make.
First, switching the sources for funding social protection from labour to environment and energy, a proposal coming from many quarters including this report, threatens to lead to the total collapse of the social security system, at least from the revenue angle.
Secondly, local employment pacts in the shape of associations between local authorities, private individuals and trade unions, which the report claims will remove regulatory, economic and institutional barriers, have already proved to be, not a driving force for employment, but a particularly effective vehicle for destroying the basic rights achieved by the working class, since most local pacts are not binding under either collective agreements or other labour regulations.
Thirdly, I want to talk about the strong influence the voice of the European Union should be having on the future of social protection.
Ladies and gentlemen, the European social model is being literally demolished.
The price of the Union's economic and monetary policy is that unemployment is increasing and social policy is being crushed.
Our voice must be raised in protest at the crime that is being committed against the weakest groups in society. The report we are debating is not about that.
We will not name the people who are really responsible.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Weiler, on her report, her worthy aims and her valuable proposals.
I strongly support the objective of modernizing the European social model on the basis of solidarity and protecting the citizens against growing social exclusion.
I strongly support the proposals for progress towards ending discrimination against women.
But I also want to take this important opportunity to state that the modernization of social protection must not undermine it or turn it into a factor of production and an alternative to employment in the context of a drive for competitiveness which takes no account of the need for minimum social standards.
Social protection consists of a set of hard-won social rights which progressively evolve.
It is unacceptable for those social rights to be insidiously reduced to mere individual rights - deferred remuneration for those who can pay today, and who will benefit in the future from actuarial and other calculations serving new and lucrative private businesses.
Mr President, our communication on modernizing and improving social protection in the European Union builds on the framework for a European debate on the future of social protection that was launched in October 1995.
The debate has been a real success and the European Parliament has actively taken part in the process of the joint reflection.
I should like to take the opportunity to thank Parliament and especially its rapporteur Mrs Weiler for their very detailed and inspiring contribution to the debate.
The debate has demonstrated a clear consensus on a number of points.
First that social protection is a key element of the European social model and a vital factor in maintaining social cohesion and solidarity.
Social protection is just as important today as when our systems were established several decades ago.
Indeed, as the world of work becomes less secure, so the need for effective social protection is reinforced.
Social protection must adapt to new needs and circumstances and I should emphasize that this does not mean unraveling the welfare state.
It means modernizing it.
And finally, while in accordance with subsidiarity, Member States must decide what to spend and how to spend it.
There is also the European dimension to this adaptation process.
Member States can learn from one another and the Commission has a key role to play here.
The communication you are debating today builds on the process and identifies some ways forward on four main challenges.
First, the need to adapt social protection to new ways of working and to refine our systems so that they are more effective in helping people get into and stay in the labour market.
This is the key response here this morning.
In particular, Member States must ensure that tax and benefit systems work together to increase incentives to take up a job.
There is a close interlinking here with the Commission's draft guidelines for Member States' employment policies in 1998 which place a strong emphasis on boosting individual employability.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak raised the point as to how discussions for the Employment Summit were going.
The Ecofin Council met yesterday and it was a good discussion.
When all is said and done, the important thing for Ministers of Finance is to get them talking 'jobs' .
That in itself is a considerable step forward.
But yesterday there was a good discussion and a number of Ministers - to different degrees - were quite supportive of the Commission's position.
Some negative comments were made concerning the targets but the Prime Minister and President-in-Office explained quite clearly that the global targets are the consequence of the guidelines and are not quantitative so far as the Member States are concerned.
There was very good support for the three European targets of youth unemployment, long-term unemployment and training.
We are looking forward to the meeting of the Social Affairs and Labour Council today and there will be the jumbo meeting of Ecofin Ministers and Ministers of Labour on 17 November, leading on to the Social Partners Summit and thereon to the summit.
But yesterday was a start and I am reasonably optimistic as to how things are going.
The second challenge is the ageing of the population and this was highlighted this morning.
The rapid growth of the dependent population is creating very new needs as well as forcing the pace of pension reform.
The third challenge is to promote equal opportunities by adapting social protection systems to reflect and promote the increasing participation of women in the labour market, whether through enhanced care provision or a move towards individualization of rights.
Here too there is a clear linkage with the guidelines.
The final challenge is to update the coordination of social security systems for people moving about the Union.
Here there is a real need to simplify the current rules and to extend the arrangements, for example, to insured employed and self-employed people who are not European Union nationals.
Just last month the Commission presented a draft directive on protecting the supplementary pension rights of people who move about the Community.
I see this as a considerable advance.
In conclusion, this communication sets out an ambitious and progressive agenda.
I do not disguise the fact that it involves some pretty tough decisions and choices to be made.
But the underlying message is a very positive one.
Our social protection systems are not doomed to wither on the vine in the face of international competition and budgetary rigour.
They have long been a source of Europe's strength, a vector for solidarity and a productive factor and they can remain so in the future.
But achieving this involves adapting and modernizing our systems.
Mrs Waddington and the rapporteur Mrs Weiler are right in this regard.
The debate we launched two years ago has shown its worth.
The results are already visible in the employment guidelines and I hope the Commission can rely on the continuing support of Parliament in driving this process forward.
I thank the rapporteur and her colleagues for their support in this regard.
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
1996 report on competition policy
The next item is the report (A4-0316/97) by Mr Areitio Toledo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the XXVI report by the Commission on competition policy -1996 (SEC(97)0628 - C4-0209/97).
Mr President, I should like to give Mr Areitio Toledo's apologies.
He is unable to present his report personally because he has had to return to Spain by train to have an operation.
His doctors have told him to rest.
Madam President, first of all I would like to point out that it is extremely important for the Commission to use every means at its disposal to ensure that there is real competition in the EU. I would also like to congratulate the Commission on its preemptive victory in Amsterdam, when it succeeded in warding off the attempt to muddy the competition rules and your authority through vague provisions about public services.
As previous speakers also pointed out, increased state deficits give cause for concern.
In this area I really do hope new rules the Commission has announced will increase predictability.
Tax reductions are not a neutral means of competition and need to be paid more attention, as previous speakers have said.
Predictability in the area competition is also important.
In this context I want to mention that there are certain doubts about the new concentration regulation.
Practitioners point out that it is not as predictable as it could be.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has raised some issues in its opinion.
We strongly question whether there is a legal basis for the Commission's communication of 10 July 1996, that is, for the part concerned with reductions or exemption from fines in certain cases.
Contrary to what the Commission has stated, there are no examples in case law of a reduction having been granted for anyone who has initiated such a procedure in cartel cases.
The Committee on Legal Affairs therefore rejected the communication and questioned the legal basis.
Politically we should ask ourselves whether we want a tale-telling society like the one this communication would ultimately lead to.
In many cases the Commission is dependent on active third parties.
Therefore it is also important that these parties have rights.
Public access should not exist for its own sake, but is there so that we can determine whether the Commission is treating different parties fairly within acceptable limits where the Commission's investigative freedom is concerned.
As the Amsterdam Treaty requires new rules on public access, the rules on access to documents in competition cases should also be clarified.
The Committee on Legal Affairs considers that the communication which has now been adopted is not adequate and wants the Commission to revise it so that we get a balanced treatment of commercial secrets on the one hand and the important rights of third parties on the other.
Madam President, on behalf of my group I should like to begin my speech by congratulating Mr Areitio Toledo on his excellent report and regretting his absence.
As this is one of the mechanisms that enables us to control the Commission - and, specifically, the Commissioner, or the services responsible for competition policy - I should like to emphasize the good judgement of the Commission and the Commissioner in appearing before the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in relation to this report.
In the short time available to me, Madam President, I should like to make just three points.
It is true that we recently witnessed the conclusion of the negotiation and signing of the Amsterdam Treaty, which includes an article that should lead everyone to consider carefully how services of general interest can be guaranteed and how this can be balanced with competition policy.
Secondly, at a time when public sectors or parts of public sectors are being privatized, I want to stress the need to analyze the other concentrations of interests to which the outflow of public capital from these sectors can give rise.
Are the duopolies which are frequently being created really a spur to competition and the improvement of services, or is there not a danger that society will lose control over determining what constitutes an improved service? And what about the concentration of the financial sector through privatization?
Thirdly, I should like to refer to the issue addressed by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil: state aid and its effects on regional development and competition - not between the Member States, but between the industrial sectors of the various Member States.
This is an extremely important question, because we are making progress with the single market, and we are making efforts to improve public finances through convergence programmes, yet we may find ourselves with a mechanism which distorts the internal market and could mean industrial development is not viable in a large number of areas, especially the European Union's most neglected areas, because of Member States' unequal ability to finance aid to enterprises from national budgets.
Furthermore, we must consider employment.
And considering employment in relation to competition policy is very difficult - because increased competition means cutting costs, but as we all know, cutting costs to compete better has an effect on employment and the intensity of employment in the sectors concerned.
On the other hand, increased competition should generate economic activity and create jobs.
The Commissioner is sensitive to these issues, but I think he is going to have to tread particularly carefully in these discussions.
Lastly, a paragraph which is particularly important to the Socialist Group, and which is included in the report, concerns the need for increased and more effective coordination of the different policies involved: economic, competition, industrial, internal market and trade.
One last essential comment on globalization: the process of globalization must be fair, and one of the rules of the international justice system is that we must be governed by similar laws.
That applies to competition too. It would be illogical for the European Union to endeavour to implement transparent competition policies if distortions were still being produced in other countries and other economic sectors.
We would be doing our industry - and therefore employment and the social development of the Member States - a disservice.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to contribute a few fundamental comments to this debate on competition, on behalf of the European People's Party.
More than ever, locations in all countries are facing global competition, and the world is becoming one market place.
I believe we should see this as an opportunity to grasp.
Companies are being wrested from the grip of nation states, and I think this is having a salutary effect on policy.
The wonderful thing about the mobility of capital is that it stirs up everyone whose mind is closed to the idea of reform, and especially to structural change.
However, the way goods flow demonstrates which countries have cost advantages in the production of goods and factor flows indicate where the most efficient locations are.
This means that competition for the location of investment projects is a key aspect of market economy policy as we understand it.
Other components are the safeguarding of dynamic competition and the dismantling of anti-competition regulations.
If competition for the location of investment between EU Member States means that dynamic competition is safeguarded, then I would say that we should say no to excessive tax harmonization in Europe.
We in this Parliament are also very often responsible for encouraging regulation by the state.
But in the final analysis, overregulation provides protection against competition, reduces the pressure to innovate, curbs growth, and hinders access to the market by newcomers and the creation of new jobs.
Instead of supposedly protecting responsible citizens from the risks of competition, I believe the EU - and its Member States of course - should give our citizens the scope to take responsibility for their own actions in competitive markets.
That is the real reason for having a sensible deregulation policy which would also be the best policy for creating more jobs, and I believe we are still a very long way from achieving that.
We should be demanding deregulation and liberalization instead of protection against competition.
A general prerequisite for economic renewal in Europe should be to put all subsidies, including agricultural ones, under the microscope.
The economic inefficiencies of subsidies are blindingly obvious.
First of all, they distort competitive pricing mechanisms.
Secondly, they result in the misdirection of capital.
And thirdly, as a rule they reinforce existing structures and handicap non-subsidized businesses and concerns, because they push up taxes.
In short, they undermine the market economy in Europe.
Reducing subsidies in Europe would lead to more rapid structural change, thus creating more jobs than any employment summit.
In my view, the combination of employment policy and state-financed programmes amounts to throwing good money after bad.
That is why I would say that competition policy needs to be seen as part of a comprehensive policy that combines the efficiencies of the market economy with social equilibrium in a harmonious reciprocal relationship.
Mr van Miert, I think we would agree that rather than worry about anti-trust laws and the regulation of mergers, it is more important to foster a competitive culture in Europe, to cut subsidies, as I have just mentioned, to create genuine competition and to open up markets to competition from within and from outside.
The principle of an open market economy with free competition embodied in the EU Treaty is a permanent remit and needs to be worked towards every day both in this House and in the Member States.
Madam President, at the outset I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report which had the unanimous approval of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
It is widely recognized today that the free play of market forces alone cannot in an imperfect market achieve certain priority objectives of the European Union which are widely supported.
The search for better economic and social cohesion in the Community, the reduction of differences between the regions, in particular promoting and ensuring the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises, paying more attention to the needs and prospects of research and better protection of the environment are just some of the important objectives the European Union needs to keep constantly in mind.
These objectives are just as important for my county and my constituency in the north-west of Ireland as they are for any other part of the Union.
Competition in the European Union and international market place is cut-throat.
Therefore it is essential that we produce and deliver quality products, whether in agriculture, hi-tech areas, fashion, tourism, fisheries or the widerange of service sectors.
The search for equal opportunities for small businesses and the development of a better competitive market are essential for the proper functioning of the single market and the creation and maintenance of employment in the Community at international level.
A fair and flexible competition policy is a vital instrument to stop the financial, technological and commercial war between the European Union and the United States.
For our part, because of globalization and changes taking place in production, it is necessary that a new approach in the Union's competition policy be defined which takes into account an increasing role for the World Trade Organization but which does not jeopardize certain fundamental policies.
As regards the internal market and the applications of article 85 and 86 it is important that the principle of subsidiarity be borne in mind in relation to antitrust rules with a view to seeing which cases are covered by Community competence and which are better handled by the Member States.
Madame President, I would like to thank Mr Areitio Toledo for the support he has given us and I am sorry he is not in the Chamber today.
On behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, I can fully support the report as presented.
I would like to start with a few general comments on the Commission's implementation of competition policy.
Competition policy is of central importance in the single market.
Effective, transparent and predictable management of competition policy is a guarantee of a successful single market.
A European market in which our businesses can operate freely without obstructions and unfair competition, guarantees growth and new jobs.
But, at the same time, I see many challenges to competition policy today.
Closer cooperation between international bodies such as the WTO is required, and the national competition authorities in Member States should play a greater role as a decentralized part of the administration of the EU's competition policy.
But let me say that decentralizing competition policy assumes effective, stringent control on the Commission's part, and the Commission must always be the body which ensures certainty in law.
In the face of globalization, it is also essential that the new countries of Eastern and Central Europe fully enact, implement and abide by the EU's competition rules.
Extending the Union will necessarily mean that we are undermining our own rules or the European culture of competition.
So it is essential that we strengthen and continue the close cooperation with applicant states.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur has stated that government support both distorts and is totally incompatible with the principles of the single European market.
As a Liberal, I can only deeply regret the Commission's sometimes significant tolerance of certain Member States' unfair use of government support rules.
It is like believing in Father Christmas for some of the Member States to try to prop up unviable businesses or sectors. I must once again demand that the Commission shows itself capable of acting and standing firm.
Finally, I would like to express deep concern about the group exemptions proposed for certain categories of government support.
If the present proposals go through, this may well lead to considerable distortions of the market, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, so I very much hope that Commissioner van Miert is aware of this problem.
Madam President, in its policy on competition the EU must pay greater attention than it does now to the important basic aims of the European union, which are contained in articles 2 and 3.
Competition policy should not be implemented at the expense of social equilibrium leading to threats to the protection of the environment and employment.
In this connection my group are asking for better balance in Union competition policy.
But in many areas we agree with the rapporteur and the Commission.
Aid to business is now distorting competition to a very large extent and it should be subjected to serious re-evaluation.
This evaluation calls for thorough transparency.
Information must be made public.
Much aid to business at national and Union level is responsible for unfair advantages for some companies, and others are the victims of it.
I believe that a thorough evaluation would show that aid policy ought to be pointing in some other very novel direction.
Madam President, the competition policy of the European Union will in the near future experience the consequences of so-called globalization more emphatically.
There is a great temptation to move to the rigid formation of a bloc and to raise the external borders and tariff walls of the European Union high enough to resist competition from elsewhere.
Can Commissioner van Miert give his response to a fundamental asymmetrical trend in the policy that some people support: liberalization within Europe, but resisting competition from outside?
The Member States of the European Union still give too much state aid to companies.
Government aid is based on the false assumption that companies primarily operate in a national market.
The increasing integration of the world market requires a sector by sector approach.
On this very point the Commission practices a very fragmented policy that results in all kinds of annual reports and communications.
Would it not be more sensible in sectors with structural over-capacity to ban all direct government aid to companies. The bankruptcy of one firm helps the other players in the sector.
In the other scenario the government runs the risk of pouring tax revenue into a bottomless pit.
Nevertheless, I have the impression that the emphasis is shifting towards the informal coordination of state aid. Does the Commission intend to follow this new course gradually?
I am curious to know Commissioner van Miert's response.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Areitio Toledo has done serious work.
His report is coherent.
In the name of liberalism, which he defends with skill, he proposes structural actions and priorities. These actions and priorities all lead in the same direction: elimination of what liberals call the rigidities in the internal market, elimination of subsidies to certain sectors of industry, and correct application of international treaties.
So, as I said, it is certainly a serious report, but it is a report with which I have a whole series of disagreements.
For me, for the French socialists, while free competition is a fact, it is not a goal, and even less an end in itself.
For me, for the French socialists, if international treaties must be applied, that must be done without masochism and without always wanting to be the first, the best and the quickest to apply them.
I would add that competitiveness cannot be measured - everyone knows this today - by the sole criterion of a market without rigidities.
There are many other criteria and many other methods, and I be dealing with them in the report I am currently preparing on the competitiveness of European industry.
But I want to stress right away the importance of strengthening our research programmes, both national or European.
This is something fundamental for the future of our economy and our industry.
I also want to express my disagreement with measures which, in dismantling state monopolies, threaten at the same time to destroy the public services provided to our fellow citizens.
I want to say, finally, that if the ultimate objective is the disappearance of inappropriate state aid, this cannot be done by continuing to slaughter entire sections of our industries and adding new people to the dole queue every day.
There is no lack of examples.
I will quote two: textiles and shipbuilding. They are particularly significant and always topical.
To conclude, I would say that, if state control has demonstrated its limitations - and it has virtually disappeared from four-fifths of the planet anyway - total liberalism, on the march in Europe for twenty years, is demonstrating its own limitations too, with 18 million unemployed, exacerbated insecurity and encroaching poverty.
So we must find an intermediate model - I am not the only one saying this - a European model where employment is an end, competition a means, and universal public service an important factor in the necessary solidarity.
I think this will be one of the issues at stake in the coming European employment summit in Luxembourg.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, in your introduction to the report you quite rightly pointed out again that competition policy and free competition are not an end in themselves, and I am grateful to the rapporteur for emphasizing that.
Competition should after all serve to enhance the common good and to ensure that the market, which cannot simply be left to the free play of market forces, is designed to function properly in the interests of the people.
In this way competition policy can indeed be a factor leading to higher employment in the European Union.
I would like to see the employment summit in Luxembourg on 20 and 21 November focussing not just on labour market policy measures, but also on improving macro-economic guidelines.
The summit should also treat competition policy as something that can be used constructively, as emerged very clearly from the Delors White Paper.
I would also like to touch on two other points in this context.
I believe the European Commission ought to play an even greater role in international competition law.
For example, I regard the World Trade Organization not just as another organization, not just as another partner organization alongside the OECD, but as a partner for us and our interests.
That is why we as a Parliament were right to request a report on the competition situation in the face of globalized markets, from all other states as well.
It might then at last be possible to make specific proposals about the structure of international competition.
Mr Commissioner, I also have another request for you: we have been talking about state aid policy and questioning its usefulness.
We also need to look at article 92 and the following articles today and ask to what extent tax competition in the European Union, which is unfair and ruinous, is not in practice a form of state aid, and as such incompatible with the principle of the internal market and non-discrimination between Member States.
I think that new rules need to be introduced in this area.
And the Commission should for once home in on practices which quite obviously distort relations between Member States attempting to attract inward investment and hence jobs.
Madam President, it is unfortunate that the Commission is not in a position to present an overview of state aid, although it accounts for 1.7 % of total gross domestic product.
The very fact that 51 % of EU citizens receive some kind of aid is contrary to the spirit of the internal market.
We need reforms which will ensure a shift away from the principle of 'equal shares for all' to one of providing targeted incentives, which would make Europe a competitive location.
Combatting unemployment is a key topic in this respect.
Incentives should not be allowed to distort intra-European competition, but in turn the competitiveness of the Community needs to be boosted.
So research and development must be an absolute priority, paying special attention to SMEs.
The EU budget reflects the disparity in aid objectives.
It is simply not acceptable that more money is spent from the EU budget on subsidies for tobacco, olives and sugar alone than is spent on research!
Madam President, first of all may I warmly congratulate Mr Areitio Toledo.
He is unfortunately absent today for health reasons, but I want to emphasize the extent to which he engaged in constant dialogue with my department and myself in drawing up his report in order to be able to present a good, coherent, well-documented report to this House.
I must also say that I was impressed by the assurance with which Mr García-Margallo y Marfil presented his colleague's report on the hoof.
I also thank him very sincerely for the questions he has put to me.
Obviously, Madam President, with five minutes' speaking time, I will not be in a position, unfortunately, to respond to all the pertinent questions which have been raised in the course of this debate.
I will try to give the maximum number of responses quickly.
First of all, of course, I am delighted that, overall, Mr Areitio Toledo's report is in step with the Commission's competition policy.
Certainly there is divergence of views on this or that point, pertinent questions have been raised, but we recognize that, overall, there is quite a large consensus on competition policy between us all the same.
It is probably also explained by the very close cooperation that has been established between the relevant European Parliament committee and my department.
I recall that we intensified our cooperation at the suggestion of Mrs RiisJørgensen, and that my department and I are at the disposal of Parliament to explain what we are or are not doing.
Answers, Madam President, very quickly.
First on the subject of the changes in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I think that, overall, despite certain attempts in the area of competition, the basic rules have not changed.
To tell the truth, a reference in the service of the general interest is included in the treaty.
In article 7D, we proposed article 3, others proposed article 8, but let us recognize all the same that, in effect, by explicitly including this point in the treaty, a balance has been confirmed in the application of competition policy.
This has been done through the liberalization of certain activities, but always asking the question: how do we ensure a service in the general interest of the whole population? That is the actual point that has been consolidated in the new treaty.
The deputizing rapporteur has also raised the matter of public agencies.
I think the protocol which has been concluded confirms the balanced approach of the Commission here too.
In fact, we have always said it was necessary, in the funding of public agencies, to compensate them for the public service obligations they have, but without going further than that, because competition must remain fair.
The specific nature of public agencies in the majority of Member States must be recognized, for reasons of both democracy and, notably, pluralism.
I think that side of the question has been taken up in the protocol.
Another example is the debate taking place about the public banks.
It is quite possible that the public authority could give certain public banks, sometimes even private banks, certain obligations to be fulfilled.
Of course, here too, there may be compensation, but no more than that.
And we are currently carrying out a study of the whole situation, not just that of the public banks in Germany, but equally the specific situations which exist elsewhere, so as to bring forward a coherent policy at European Union level, with the aim of creating the conditions for honest and correct competition.
So overall it can be said that the debate to which the negotiations for a new treaty gave rise has led to the consolidation, with certain modifications here and there, of the rules of the game in competition.
Very quickly, a few words on the subject of state aid, since most of the speeches rightly referred to this issue.
Madam President, I would prefer to have another opportunity to come back to this, given the extreme complexity of the problem.
I would like to tell you about everything we are currently doing in this area, because many of the criticisms made are correct.
There is too much state aid, there are too many distortions to competition.
As regards, for example, environmental research and development, certain small and medium-sized enterprises, frameworks and specific rules exist, as the rapporteur has mentioned.
We know them, but we give less to objectives of this kind, although they are good objectives, than to enterprises in difficulty, to which we give much too much, for too long, to keep them alive, considerably distorting competition in relation to other enterprises.
The rapporteur gave impressive figures.
A little while ago only 7 % of aid was granted to companies in difficulty.
Now this rate is close to 36 %, while aid granted for really laudable purposes like environment, research and development, or small and medium-sized enterprises is falling.
This trend worries us a great deal because state aid for good purposes is decreasing, while for bad purposes it is rising.
That is a real problem.
If we look at another dimension, the cohesion countries, it is generally thought that these are the countries which receive the most state aid.
That is not true.
In the secondary sector, they only receive 8 % of the aid.
The bulk of state aid goes to countries like France, Germany and Italy.
I should specify that Great Britain is not one of them.
Consequently, I understand very well that Parliament, and the rapporteur in particular, should raise this question.
Would it not be a good idea to try not only to flatten out the amount of aid, but to discuss with the Member States how they can gradually reduce it? It would be good to get into a debate of this kind and that is not easy, because it brings up a great many questions.
One that has been raised by several of you is fiscal subsidies.
What is the Commission doing about this? Well, it is taking action and it is already dealing with a number of cases.
In a few weeks time I will present a document to my fellow Commissioners which not only sets out the problems that exist in several countries, but tries to bring forward a coherent approach for all the cases in the fiscal sector.
We know very well that this or that government grants tax privileges or advantages to certain sectors and businesses, but obviously this is not a general system.
These are fiscal subsidies, which should be regarded and treated as such.
So my reply to several of you is positive: the Commission does in fact intend to deal with this type of issue.
Madam President, many other wholly pertinent questions have been raised, but I would like to state my disagreement with the amendment tabled by the Liberal Group.
We have in fact drafted a communication on what is called "leniency' .
When it is a matter of dismantling cartels, companies which cooperate with the European Commission must be able to benefit from a more understanding attitude, taking account of their cooperation.
Let me explain. Certain enterprises, for example, may be drawn into cartels against their will, because if they do not cooperate they are killed off.
Sometimes these companies, unable to go on, come to our department and tell us, in confidence, what is going on in their sector. They ask us if there is anything we can do.
And if they cooperate, can they hope for a little understanding towards them?
I find that entirely acceptable because these cartels are becoming more and more sophisticated.
These are no longer the old cement, girder or whatever cartels, they are becoming the high technology of cartels, if I can put it that way.
If the Commission cannot step up the struggle, through the cooperation of certain firms which voluntarily offer it, I do not think we would be doing our job and the result would not be satisfactory.
Madam President, I will stop there, because I can see that I have gone well over my time.
I apologize to some speakers who asked entirely pertinent questions for not being able to respond today.
And let us agree that, if the committee wishes, I will return at the first opportunity to deal with the questions raised in more detail.
Finally, once again, many thanks to the rapporteur and his colleague, whom he was good enough to deputize for.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.50 a.m. and resumed at 11.00 a.m)
Votes
Mr President, last Friday my voting card was stolen right in front of Mr Rübig, while I was briefly outside.
I was promised that the matter would be cleared up by this sitting.
I have just been to the voting card office, and I have been given my substitute card, but it had not even been reported that my card had disappeared!
I would like to protest about this and demand that this matter be cleared up.
Mr Posselt, I have been informed in this connection that it was a mistake by an assistant of a political group, who, instead of removing the card of another colleague, removed your card.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday I made a comment that was misunderstood.
I said it gave me gooseflesh to think of the national emblems Spain and Portugal might select, in view of the history of those countries.
I want to make it clear that I did not mean that the national emblems of those countries in particular give me gooseflesh.
I do not know any country in Europe whose national emblem does not make my flesh creep because of its long and bloody history.
That is why I regret the outcome of the vote.
Mr Wolf, I am wondering which Rule of Procedure you asked to speak under.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, maybe it will help to simplify the vote if I briefly explain two things about the voting list.
I explained to the secretariat that I was against Amendment No 3 on the voting list, which Mrs de Esteban Martín tabled on behalf of the European People's Party.
But I talked with Mrs de Esteban Martín again during the debate yesterday, and I am very much in favour of Amendment No 3!
So I would like to make it clear that we can vote the same way.
Mr Pradier wanted to withdraw Amendment No 4, because it is covered by my Amendment No 6.
I think that will make the vote a lot easier.
on paragraph 25
Mr President, please bear with me.
We made a mistake in paragraph 25 in the heat of the debate, although I cleared this with the other groups beforehand.
In paragraph 25b, it says that the production, distribution, exhibition or any support for the production of pornographic material should be punishable, if its production involves minors.
We agreed in this House that the possession of such material should be punishable.
It should also be possible to punish the people who buy this sort of filth, the consumers.
That is not in the text now.
I would therefore like to ask you to accept an oral amendment, so that the words 'and the possession of pornographic material' are added to paragraph 25b after 'exhibition' .
on paragraph 29
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the controversial part of this report is paragraph 29 and Amendment No 2 tabled by Mr Chanterie and Mr Nassauer.
I would like to make the following suggestion to Mr Chanterie on Amendment No 2. The content of Amendment No 2 goes further than my original text.
The wording is more consistent and radical as far as the role of the European Court of Justice is concerned.
But it does not take on board the idea of a claim relating to a person, and in that respect the amendment is illogical.
I would therefore recommend that Mr Chanterie accepts my oral amendment, adding the words 'and therefore demands his resignation' after the word 'responsibility' .
I would then withdraw my original text and accept Mr Chanterie's amendment.
Mr President, when I think about it, there are perhaps two reasons for adopting this proposal.
The first reason is that I think, and Mr Schulz has just said so, that the text of the EPP amendment is better.
The second reason is more fundamental however.
I think Parliament now has the opportunity to call unanimously for Mr Wathelet to recognize his political responsibility without running the risk of becoming a sort of kangaroo court.
Therefore, Mr President, I would request a split vote on the one hand on the EPP amendment and then on the addition that Mr Schulz proposes but which I reject.
Mr President, Mr Chanterie has made it clear that he wants to ask Mr Wathelet to resign, for which I thank him.
That is something new in the debate, but it is not unreasonable.
On the other hand he has also made it clear that we are playing a little tactical game here.
I do not want to go along with that.
So I request that we put Mr Chanterie's amendment to the vote in the original text, and then, because it will not get a majority, vote on my original text for paragraph 29.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, in a spirit of compromise my group wishes to withdraw Amendment No 50 and support Amendment No 4 tabled by the ELDR Group.
This will help the House and should be taken first before Amendment No 8.
We would maintain our request for a roll-call vote.
Mr President, my group also wishes to support Amendment No 4 and we feel that it is better to deal with it before Amendment No 8.
So I agree with Mr Macartney.
Mr President, I wish to support Amendment No 4 which stresses the importance of continuing to recognize the unique nature of the fisheries sector which as a result demands special treatment within the Community legal framework.
I do this in the spirit of compromise and in the interests of the future of the industry.
Mr President, I think we should follow the voting list which has been distributed.
If some groups are withdrawing their amendments we should take account of the withdrawn amendments when we come to vote.
But we should follow the voting list and start with Amendment No 8.
Mr President, as rapporteur for this report, I have to say the following: everyone present knows that drafting this report was a very complicated affair, and that the compromise eventually reached is extremely delicate.
And, as rapporteur for this report, I have to say that I find it very odd that new compromise proposals should now be put forward at the moment of voting.
Secondly, Mr President, I wish to say that Amendment No 8 by the Socialist Group, which is the one that your rapporteur supports, refines and improves paragraph 2 of the compromise text, whereas Amendment No 4 is diametrically opposed to it.
Following the vote on Amendments Nos 48, 49, 51 and 52
Perhaps now that you have seen the results I could ask political groups to withdraw their requests for roll-call votes.
Does it make sense for Parliament to have 10 more roll-call votes in order to confirm and reconfirm the same results? Ladies and gentlemen, it does not make sense.
May I request that they be withdrawn?
Mr President, certainly not.
This is far too important an issue for the future of the fishing industry of Europe to worry about getting to lunch on time.
It is our right to insist and we do so.
Agreed, I am sorry.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I would like to ask for Parliament's support for a small technical amendment to point 12.
Point 12 says that we must refer the decision to the Commission and Court of Auditors.
I have made a slight error, because, of course, I would also like to see us referring the decision to the Council and the governments of Phare recipient countries, so we can be sure that the wise words and stringent requirements of the report are much more widely known.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR Group I request referral back to the Committee on External Economic Relations on the basis of Rule 129.
The reason is that the title does not cover the subject dealt with.
The resolution contains many references to the relocation of companies and direct investments within the Union and not in third countries which is what the report intends.
Secondly, the resolution is based on the industrial age whereas we are now rushing into the 21st Century in which we will chiefly be dealing with the digital age.
My group therefore hopes that by referring it back to the Committee on External Economic Relations we will get a more balanced proposal in which the above-mentioned aspects are included.
I hope my colleagues will support this.
Mr President, for the benefit of the House, this is what would be called in English 'a wrecking amendment' .
It is simply to send something back and we have been given no notice of this.
At no stage in committee and certainly not in the final vote, was any indication given by the Liberals that they fundamentally disagreed with this report, as they are now doing.
No other member of that committee indicated such a line.
This should be regarded as being a frivolous attempt to wreck this report and it would serve no purpose to refer it back.
I ask this House to reject the motion.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Hindley for his speech, which I fully endorse.
I would simply like to specify that, for several months, the Committee on External Economic Relations has been doing serious, realistic, pragmatic work on a highly important subject, and in speaking of foreign investment or relocation we cannot forget the consequences which this may have, notably on the economy of the European Union, at the social level, at the monetary level, etcetera.
So I think this report, which is presented on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, should be put to the vote of Parliament today.
(Parliament approved the request for referral back)
Mr President, we need a split vote here.
I agree with the amendment from the Group of the European People's Party, which means having the report every two years.
But I think that the second part of Mr Pronk's amendment should be rejected.
I stand by my original text, which demands a report on poverty and affluence.
Mrs Weiler, you should ask Mr Pronk and the Group of the European People's Party if they wish to accept any modification of the amendment.
Otherwise I will put the amendment to a vote. I cannot put it orally.
I think the solution is simply to split the amendment in two.
We shall vote for both parts and I assume Mrs Weiler will vote against the second part.
That seems to me the simplest solution.
On Amendment No 12
Mr President, Amendment No 12 from the Confederal Group of the European United Left does not fall, it is an addition!
I am of the opinion that it falls.
But if you wish I can put it to a vote as an addendum.
On Paragraph 15
Mr President, we are grateful for the rapid progress you are making.
But I must insist - with due respect to Mrs Weiler: there has not been a vote on paragraph 15 in the original as a whole.
So far we have had individual votes on paragraph 15, and the European People's Party will vote to reject paragraph 15.
I would like to request that this should be put to the vote again.
You have not done that!
Mr Mann, once we accepted Amendment No 22, it replaced that paragraph.
We cannot put a paragraph that was replaced to the vote again.
On Amendment No 21
Mr President, yesterday evening I agreed with the spokesman of the Group of the European People's Party that in the third line, after 'social security rights' , the words 'for example' should be inserted, as examples are given.
I was told that subject to this the amendment would be withdrawn.
I therefore move that the additional words 'for example' should be inserted.
I agree with that proposal, Mr President.
As a result, amendment 21 has been withdrawn and we will insert "for example' in paragraph 21.
I shall put paragraph 21 to the vote with the rapporteur's amendment.
On Amendment No 7
Mr President, I would like to suggest to Mr Crowley that his amendment, which I support in principle because I think it is clear, should incorporate the wording from my original amendment, ' people of the same sex who cohabit' .
(Mr Crowley refused)
Mr President, I would now like my original text, or rather the second part of it, to be put to the vote, because the point has not been dealt with.
In any case, I would like the second part to be put to the vote, so that discrimination in social security systems against people of the same sex who cohabit can be voted on.
Mrs Weiler, once Parliament accepted Mr Crowley's amendment, it took the place of the original text.
There is nothing more to vote on.
On Amendment No 14
Mr President, yesterday I agreed on a compromise for this amendment with the European People's Party Group, as I insist that the words 'comprehensive care systems' should be included.
If this word 'comprehensive' is incorporated, then I will accept the amendment.
Also, I would like to withdraw the word 'binding' in the second line, in the phrase 'binding legislation' .
Mrs Weiler, I would like to point out that your comments refer to amendment 14 from the EPP Group.
But first we have to vote on the Liberal Group's amendment, which you are against.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I am sorry that I have to make a short personal comment to conclude.
This report has turned out to be very complicated, as has the vote on it.
However, I would like it to be minuted that I believe two points were not correctly voted on.
The first one is paragraph 24.
Before the vote I pointed out that I insisted that there should be a vote on the second part, which does not include Mr Crowley's amendment. You refused.
You are perfectly entitled to do that, but I cannot agree with it.
The second point is about what Thomas Mann said on paragraph 15.
I do not think we voted correctly on that paragraph either.
You said that voting had been completed with Amendment No 22 from Mrs Boogerd-Quaak of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party.
At the beginning of the vote I made it clear that I only accepted Mrs Boogerd-Quaak's amendment as an addition, and would like to have it included as an additional point.
That meant paragraph 15 was not put to the vote as a whole.
Mr Mann, I think that as far as the procedure goes, we agree.
I must say that I find this voting procedure unfortunate.
Mrs Weiler, I have noted your comments, but the Rules are quite clear.
There are several provisions for taking the votes.
You came with a difficult report, with many oral amendments and many consultations with the other political groups.
Parliament, in its wisdom, accepts, rejects, does what it wants, it is sovereign.
Neither your opinion nor mine will change the situation.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for the report.
In this explanation of vote we would like to underline our position on the issue, which is based on the fact that we think the coins should be manufactured in such a way as to eliminate the risk of allergies, that the needs of the visually impaired are met and that consideration is given to the need for a definite identity for the coins.
For these reasons we think that euro coins should be nickel-free, that the denominations should be of different sizes and that the coin should have room for national designs on one side.
The definition of the technical specifications of the future euro coins has led the Sub-Committee on Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament to ask an interesting question: is there really any point in working on defining and manufacturing the hundreds of billions of coins which would be needed in a traditional monetary system, for the deadline of 1 January 2002, when this system will be made obsolete between now and then by the development of electronic money? Perhaps we should, after all, answer yes.
But this question hides another, which our Sub-Committee on Monetary Affairs did not dare to raise: would it not be possible to make small payments with electronic money throughout Europe, just with a microchip card, even if the different currencies have been kept? The answer is yes, of course.
So that one can wonder whether the very idea of a single currency, the merits of which have been so vaunted to us to make tourists' lives easier, is not already at least outmoded from this point of view.
No doubt given vertigo by these questions, the sub-committee preferred in the end to fall back on more banal arguments, like the risk of allergy to the nickel in the coins, as defined in the Commission's proposal.
In this respect, the sub-committee invokes, with involuntary humour, Directive 94/27/EEC on the use of nickel which, in effect, takes stock of this risk for various objects in current use.
Thus the activism of the Commission on points of detail sometimes comes back to haunt it in an unexpected way.
More important is the question of the existence of a national face for the future euro coins.
The European Parliament has just accepted this, grudgingly.
But for the notes, it was decided otherwise: they will not have a national side, and will be European on both sides.
Contrary to what might be thought, this is not a simple matter of national sensitivity.
Certainly, what we see at work here is this conception of a standardized Europe, fleshless, rootless, which is in reality the worst enemy of the real Europe.
But there is also something else.
The federalists are afraid that the existence of a national side of the euro coins may eventually facilitate a switch-over at some future date to the parity of a given "national euro' in relation to another, if the single currency system should prove too rigid in use, and if the countries want to make it more flexible.
In order to prevent this eventuality, they want to lock everything up right away and not leave any way out.
This will make it impossible to go back, and the day the single currency is up the creek the disaster will be complete, thanks to them.
We have voted for a national side on the euro coins, but with reservations.
It is clear that the reason why the Commission and the Council want to have a national side is not that they wish to show respect for national, democratic self-determination, but it is principally a trick to con the citizens into thinking that the EMU project allows a certain retention of democratic self-determination, which is not the case.
We are, of course, opponents of nationalist rhetoric and chauvinism.
It is incredible that this Parliament is supporting the campaign against nickel coins on socalled health grounds with absolutely no proof that is causes problems.
The way in which this whole issue has been handled by the Commission should give rise to concern about its competence and integrity.
I will be asking appropriate questions and may refer this to the Ombudsman or Court of Auditors for a thorough investigation.
Coin it for Europe's citizens!
That is what I say.
By making the coins Euro-friendly, we can help the process of introducing the single currency - something meaningful and helpful to the men and women in the street.
First of all, let us keep the national emblem on one side of the euro coins.
In Britain, that means posting the Queen's head on one side of the Euro.
This follows current British practice where national emblems are kept on one side, and the Queen's head is left on the reverse, as the uniform side.
Secondly, let us exclude nickel from the parts of the coins open to touch.
By exercising the Precautionary Principle, we exclude the possibility of causing harm to the citizens vulnerable to skin-sensitive materials.
Thirdly, let us reduce the number of coins, from 8 to 6 and help avoid confusion for the blind and other citizens by graduating the size and value of coins.
By doing all these things, we can ensure that all citizens of the Union will coin it!
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report by Irene Soltwedel-Schäfer dealing with the technical specifications for the future euro coins.
The rapporteur emphasizes that the coins should be easily recognizable, particularly by the blind and the elderly.
The Danish Social Democrats agree.
The report states that nickel must not be used on the outside of the euro coins.
The Danish Social Democrats support this as a compromise, as using nickel would be harmful to those allergic to it.
While they support the Soltwedel-Schäfer report, the Danish Social Democrats would like to point out that Denmark will not be taking part in phase 3 of economic and monetary union.
Since the Centre Party is opposed to the introduction of EMU, we have no reason to take a view on what the euro looks like.
However, I think it is obvious that the coins should be designed so that people are not at risk of harm from them.
So they should not contain nickel.
I have voted for proposals which mean that nickel will not be included in the coins.
I wanted to vote yes to paragraph 10 on removing the nickel, but it was impossible to tell whether there was a separate vote or a block vote on that paragraph.
Of course, it would be welcome if the euro were nickel-free and therefore not harmful to health.
However, I think that the euro itself is going to cause more damage to Europe than the nickel in the coin could cause.
Because Sweden is not going to participate in the introduction of the euro in 1999 (if EMU happens at all), I am abstaining from the final vote on the report.
Ghilardotti report (A4-0326/97)
I congratulate Fiorella Ghilardotti on the content of her report.
On reading certain facts and statistics, one can only subscribe to her approach.
I support the proposal to transfer the burden of proof to the defence when evidence can be brought by the victim of apparent sexual discrimination.
Such discrimination targets women.
We cannot hide behind words!
The first type of discrimination is the wage differential between men and women doing the same job.
As the Third Millennium approaches, how can we allow such a situation to endure in a common area which claims to be an economic and social model for the rest of the world?
That remark does not target one Member State in particular, but the entire 15, which have done little to legislate for equal treatment regardless of gender.
I would add that such conduct essentially occurs in the private sector.
Can the invisible hand of liberalism, ensuring a just balance between the implementation and the implementor be seen in this example?
I would like to put it on record specifically that I am particularly opposed to those parts of this report in which a reversal of the burden of proof is called for in labour law cases.
This would conflict with the basic principles of the free democratic order.
Of course any state governed by the rule of law will have exceptions to the reversal of the burden of proof, but limited to interests requiring protection.
However, any extension of this exemption for motives of pure political agitation should be rejected.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Ghilardotti report, as the implementation of a directive on reversing the burden of proof will be a major step forward for equal opportunities in the Member States.
One of the main problems which women (and men) face when they are discriminated against is how they can prove that they have been discriminated against on grounds of their sex.
If this directive is implemented, the burden of proof will be on the employer to show that no discrimination was involved.
The European Parliament's amendments to the Council's joint approach is an extension of and a significant improvement in the scope of the directive.
We realize that implementing the directive in Denmark may result in a change to Danish legal practice in this area, which may lead to the legal procedures act having to be changed; but we believe equal opportunities are more important here.
Danish legal practice must therefore be adjusted to bring it into line with the new circumstances.
There are areas where intransigence must give way to compromise, especially if the consequence of intransigence is to remove all meaning from the act to be implemented. I would apply this point of view to the position of the Council on this directive on the burden of proof in cases of discrimination based on gender.
For several reasons.
From 1988 to 1994, the Commission did everything to ensure that such a directive saw the light of day. The opposition of one Member State prevented this happening on a strong legal basis, notably articles 100 and 235 of the EC Treaty, which required unanimity.
It was necessary to turn to the social protocol to find a legal basis for this directive. Today concessions are being made because the same Member State has decided to adhere to the social provisions of the new treaty and accept the directives already adopted.
The Council explains that it was necessary to find a solution which takes account of the position of this Member State. As a result almost all the amendments from the Committee on Women's Rights have been rejected, even those which the Commission had accepted at first reading.
The problem might have been smaller if it did not attack the very essence of the directive. By dint of compromise and derogations, the common position creates confusion instead of clarifying the situation.
By reducing the scope of the directive, in disregard of Court of Justice precedent, by not respecting the criteria established by the Court in the definition of indirect discrimination (capital in this directive), by totally overlooking positive action measures accepted by the Commission, etcetera, the Council is asking us to endorse an empty shell.
We cannot accept that and we have therefore supported the amendments from the Committee on Women's Rights which have the merit of clarity and respect for the principles established by the Court.
I believe that the reversal of the burden of proof proposed in the Ghilardotti report is the wrong way to counter sexual discrimination.
This provision conflicts with the constitutional principles according to which the plaintiff and not the defendant has to prove his accusation.
Also, an unreasonable bureaucratic burden would be imposed on companies, if they are to prove that discrimination has not taken place, should there be a complaint.
This would be the only way for an employer to protect himself against accusations by his employees and to 'clear himself' .
This would certainly have an effect on companies' recruitment policy.
It is reasonable to assume that for fear of possible difficulties with female employees, they would not be hired in the first place, with preference being given to male applicants in case of doubt.
For these reasons we cannot vote in favour of the Ghilardotti report.
Bloch von Blottnitz report (A4-0288/97)
The report by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz is courageous.
I read it with real interest. I wonder whether there are good grounds for this experiment.
The technical balance of biodiesel is not very convincing, but I would like to think the gain lies elsewhere, in environmental balance, for example.
The claimed "ecological' improvement is far from keeping its promises.
A significant decrease in toxic emissions can be glimpsed in the future, and research is imperative.
My second concern relates to the development of an intensive monoculture.
We know the impact of this type of agriculture on soil and ground water.
The net balance of this alternative in environmental terms must be clearly understood, and it is only at a second stage that it would be appropriate to establish a strategy on biodiesel fuel.
I am convinced that the European Union is aware of the stakes and the need to accelerate research into renewable and non-polluting energy.
Time is pressing, as new industrial countries develop, although we are far from satisfied with the progress of these countries and their people's standards of living. We need to find solutions as quickly as possible to an imminent environmental disaster which will be difficult to reverse in the medium term.
Far more than for public debt, we will be liable for and probably guilty of the ecosystem we bequeath to our children and grandchildren.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's report on the Alterner II programme deserves praise for its highly detailed examination of the situation in terms of the use of renewable sources of energy in the Union.
At the same time, the amendments put forward help tighten up the Commission's proposals considerably.
At present, renewable sources of energy account for just 6 % of total energy consumption in the Union, which is totally unacceptable.
The countries of Europe have a responsibility to see that this situation is put right, and sooner rather than later.
When debating the Commission's Green Paper on renewable sources of energy, the European Parliament recommended introducing a requirement that at least 15 % of European energy consumption should be covered by renewable sources of energy by the year 2010.
It is good that the rapporteur has represented this proposal, but I do not think it goes far enough.
An even better alternative energy supply could be established without problems.
It is simply essential.
When the first Alterner I programme was started, there were a lot of technical and psychological obstacles to increasing the use of renewable sources of energy.
Technical developments have really improved the efficiency of renewable sources of energy, and we must now make a major effort to overcome the psychological barriers to increasing use of renewable sources of energy.
I am pleased that the rapporteur is aware of this and that his report seeks to increase the financial incentives in order to create a favourable climate of investment to promote the use of alternative energy sources.
Renewable sources of energy are always decentralized, which is very important to the least developed regions of Europe.
On this point, I am pleased that Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's amendments do not seek to extend the number of partners to cover not only the Member States of the Community, but also the states we have partnership agreements with, such as Cyprus.
One of the main problems in Europe today, however, is that we are using far too much energy.
For this reason, I must regret that the Alterner II programme only looks at promoting the use of renewable sources of energy, but does not deal with the objective of reducing energy consumption as a whole.
Energy consumption overall in Europe must also be reduced, and this problem will not be resolved by switching part of our energy supply from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy.
Likewise, we could easily formulate a common objective for energy efficiency in the Alterner II programme.
More efficient use of energy would produce the same environmental improvements as increased use of renewable sources of energy.
As the rapporteur has also said, there are serious grounds for criticizing the funding of Alterner II.
The total budget for the first two years is just ECU 30 million.
With so few resources, it will be impossible to ensure a sufficient level of activity, and the entire project is at risk.
If we are to meet the Community's environmental and energy policy objectives, it is vital that far greater resources are budgeted in the final phase of the project.
Imaz San Miguel report (A4-0303/97)
We would like to thank the rapporteur for his report.
We believe the agreement represents a move in the right direction, if only to a limited extent.
However, we would like to emphasize our position of principle on questions concerning agreements with third countries.
We think the European Union should give up this kind of costly fishing agreement and switch to supporting developing countries' own fishing activities primarily.
Such a solution would do more to develop the importance of fishing for global food supply, to strengthen the economic and social development of these countries and also to avoid the risks which the fishing agreement might entail: for example, the fishing activities of certain Member States are being given an indirect subsidy to continue operating when major restraint is needed in European fishing as a whole.
I am a great supporter of having interim assessments or current assessments and modifications of the fisheries treaties which the Community signs, especially when it comes to the developing countries.
Such assessments are a good pretext for changing some of the terms of agreements which may prove to be inappropriate in terms of the local population or fish stocks in the area.
I have decided to abstain from voting on the report, not because I have any major objections to the four technical changes it makes to the agreement but because I feel it should be pointed out that this assessment and these changes do not amount to practising what we preach.
An amendment to a treaty should include a wider assessment and not just a few technical changes, as is the case here.
In particular, consideration should be given to the general conditions and consequences for the local population and fish stocks.
Amongst other things, the former corapporteur of the fisheries monitoring group (in respect of the developing countries) said in early November that five very large Dutch boats could catch 250 tons a day.
One cannot help wondering about the state of the fish stocks in the area on hearing things like that. And what about the plan to monitor vessels in the area which was discussed when the agreement was signed.
What has happened to that project? So a lot of questions remain unanswered even after amending the agreement, and those questions are vital to many Mauritians.
Schulz report (A4-0306/97)
Mr President, I must admit that I voted for the Schulz report with a fairly heavy heart, because I had the feeling that the report should really have been in two separate parts: first a statement concerning Mr Wathelet, and then consideration of the whole issue of child protection legislation.
I think it was very damaging to link these two things together in the report.
I voted for the report in the end because the explanatory statement, which was unfortunately not put to the vote, makes it clear that children requiring protection are defined as those up to 18 years old.
We in the Austrian People's Party have always spoken out in favour of protection up to the age of 18. For that reason, I am very pleased with the explanatory statement.
I am pleased that 18 is stipulated, even if this is to some extent qualified later on, and I think that is why I finally voted for the Schulz report.
Mr President, as a logical extension of our vote in favour of the Schulz report and the many debates we have had since the terrible Dutroux affair, I would like to make the following suggestion: removing from article 6 of the new treaty on non-discrimination the very ambiguous concept of sexual orientation, because it can justify anything, and keeping to what already appears in this article, that is, non-discrimination based on gender. That is enough.
Furthermore, I would like to draw attention to the disturbing phenomena developing in all our European countries and directly relevant to this topic, the destruction of the family as an institution. In this most fundamental area of human relations, as in other human relations and all social relations, what protects everyone, children in particular, is the law and what allows abuses and exploitation is lack of legislation.
My last point is this: I think we need to think very seriously, as we are invited to do by the Committee on Women's Rights, about pornography in itself, and not just as it involves children, because we seem to be witnessing a dehumanization of sexuality in our European countries.
Mr President, I voted for the Schulz report because it takes a stand against one of the must abominable crimes imaginable, and proposes tough measures. Nevertheless, in my eyes it typifies a rather schizophrenic attitude, in that the very people who are most vocal on this subject now, strongly advocate a permissive approach in other contexts to policies relating to the family, which actually lays the foundations for the dreadful things we have witnessed.
I voted for the report, but I regret that Mr Schulz has yet again linked an important matter like this with a domestic policy dispute, that is, the Wathelet affair.
I did not vote for that part of the report and I would not like my final vote to be taken as signifying approval of this confusion of domestic political demagoguery with one of the most important issues in Europe.
Mr President, I would also like to explain my vote on paragraph 29 of the Schulz report on the resignation of Judge Wathelet.
I do not think the European Parliament has done any good by accepting this paragraph.
We do not have any authority in this area as a Parliament. A sitting judge should be able to administer justice independently.
Even if we may think Judge Wathelet should not have been appointed, he must nevertheless be able to function independently.
We can easily speak of a precedent here.
Next year there will be another judge who does something that Parliament does not like and then we will again decide by a majority to make this other judge resign.
I do not think it is only Judge Wathelet who has been damaged here. The whole Court of Justice in Luxembourg has been damaged and essentially the European Parliament has been too, because we have not taken account of the constitutional relationships.
Mr President, one of the important questions was whether Parliament should express any kind of dissatisfaction with a judge.
Of course it should be possible to dismiss a judge who commits a crime.
However, I believe it is an important principle of law that political authorities or bodies, such as parliaments and governments, should not express general disapproval of judges in order to try to get them to resign their posts voluntarily.
If this starts happening (and it is in fact what we have done in this Parliament by voting on this report) then next time, just as Mr Wiebenga said, we could be criticizing another judge on another issue.
This sort of behaviour threatens to politicize the judiciary, and I strongly oppose that.
As a good liberal, I would like to distinguish between the judiciary and the political legislature.
Judges should not be forced resign their posts so that they can be replaced with more politically suitable judges.
I listened yesterday to Mr Schulz, the rapporteur, with great approval.
We fully share his commitment to combatting the sexual abuse of children and combatting child sex tourism.
The only point that generated a great deal of debate from the start was whether the European Parliament should express an opinion on the position of the Belgian former Minister of Justice, who has recently been appointed a judge at the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Following the debate I feel compelled to explain our vote.
From the formal point of view, the European Parliament has no authority in this area.
Furthermore, it is extremely unusual for the European Parliament to go into such great detail in a general resolution with regard to a Member State and an individual person.
Nevertheless we can perhaps say that this is a very exceptional situation; that there are grounds for supporting the Group of the European People's Party in urgently calling for Judge Wathelet to reconsider his position.
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has supported Amendment No 2.
But there is no fundamental difference between Amendment No 2 and paragraph 29, only a difference in gradation.
That is why we have given the Schulz report our full support.
I voted in favour of the report by Mr Schulz on combatting sexual abuse involving children.
I did so because it is a good report, which sets out an impressive group of measures intended to combat abominable practices.
But I want to express my deep regret at seeing the European Parliament demand, on the occasion of this report, the resignation of a judge at the European Court of Justice because of a decision, which is in no way contested on grounds of legality and regularity, taken by this person in the exercise of his duties as Minister of Justice of the Kingdom of Belgium.
Parliament's vote on this is doubly shocking.
First of all, it abusively encroaches on the prerogatives of the Belgian Parliament which alone has the power to assess the political responsibility of a member of the Belgian Government.
Secondly, it does not respect the principle of the separation of powers which forbids a political and deliberative assembly from seeking to censure a judge sitting perfectly properly on an independent judiciary. Crime can only be fought by scrupulous respect for the state of law.
This report, presented by our colleague, Martin Schulz, deals with a particularly serious and distressing subject.
And I want to thank him for the quality and depth of his work.
I unreservedly subscribe to its entire content.
That is why I hope the proposals made will not remain mere empty pious wishes or good intentions, but will be converted into decisions and actions.
Recent events have demonstrated the need to combat the perpetrators of unspeakable acts inside the European Union mercilessly.
The term sexual tourism describes a sad reality.
Extra-territorial and international legislative provisions must stamp out this barbarity. Cooperation in this field with the third countries involved must be established in order to prevent the sexual exploitation of children.
The perpetrators of these crimes and their accomplices must feel under threat wherever they are, wherever they live, whatever their age, social status, or income.
These macabre "games' are also the consequence of another reality, that of growing poverty.
The dual society is gaining ground, producing excluded people and monsters.
The very rich are using and abusing their wealth and children are the main victims.
How long will we go on accepting the deviance of a system that has gone blind? How much longer will certain crimes not be absolutely treated as crimes?
The European Parliament can and must make its contribution.
The report by Martin Schulz gives us the opportunity.
Mr President, I very much welcome the production of this report by Mr Schulz.
Following the Dutroux scandal in Belgium there was heightened awareness of the activities of paedophile rings and the alarming scale of child sex tourism.
Public anger forced national governments and the European Union into action.
Regrettably, this has not been followed through and little has happened since.
It would seem that those that operate these rings can do so with impunity because they are protected by 'friends in high places' .
If the European Union wants to be closer to its citizens, then it should take action in this area as it is an issue of great concern to many parents throughout Europe.
Action to combat the social exploitation of children will be ineffectual unless adequate budgetary resources are provided.
Furthermore, the ratification and implementation of the European Convention is also a matter of extreme urgency in order to facilitate the coordination of police activity and gathering of intelligence across Europe.
We shall of course vote for a resolution which is intended to strengthen the fight against the sexual exploitation of children.
However, we would like to stress that the international fight against the sexual exploitation of children is best carried out through intensified intergovernmental cooperation and not through a harmonization of laws.
We would also like to stress the importance of not disclosing the identity of suspects before a crime has been proven in court, and that the registration of individuals should be applied with the greatest possible care to protect the integrity of the individual.
The Schulz report is excellent from the point of view of the measures proposed against sexual abuse of children.
It contains a number of important measures which also demonstrate that legislation in the European countries has not got the measure of the foul nature of crimes against children.
In this context, the European Parliament should question the governments and may question Mr Wathelet.
I doubt whether there are good grounds for calling for Mr Wathelet's resignation.
1.Parliament and the committee concerned have never given Mr Wathelet a hearing.2.Mr Wathelet's personal responsibility has never been called into question, by contrast to his political and/or moral responsibility, and that is a matter for his conscience.
The European Parliament has no powers in this area, certainly not to set itself up as a personal conscience.3.Mr Wathelet's resignation cannot assuage a Member of Parliament's conscience.
Parliament's job is to make law, and that law is visibly insufficient.
Any Parliament must shoulder its responsibilities and have the courage of its convictions, but that does not mean pointing to one guilty party.4.The European Parliament seems to be in agreement on the accusation, but not in agreement about following its own recommendation to devote more resources to combatting sexual abuse.I have therefore voted against Amendment No 29 and for the report.
I will not vote for the Schulz report for the following reasons.
1.I cannot accept that a parliament should transform itself into a court and allow itself to accuse people without giving them the slightest chance of defending themselves.2.I accept it all the less because a parliament worthy of the name must be capable of resisting an unprecedented media lynching.
Parliamentary democracy has nothing to gain when it lets the emotions of public opinion carry more weight than the principles underlying democracy.3.The political responsibility of a politician ends with his mandate.
Criminal responsibility implies a fault which, in this case, has never been demonstrated.4.Taking a view as to his moral responsibility represents a dangerous departure, but if we are to consider it we must do so objectively.
Mr Wathelet was probably the European minister who did most to amend national legislation to repress paedophilia and the sexual abuse of children.
If Mr Schulz had taken the trouble to study Mr Wathelet's actions in this regard, he would have had the decency to recognize - at least I hope so - that the majority of the measures he is proposing were implemented in his own country by Minister Wathelet.
In voting against the report before us, I have a clear conscience because I am taking a stand against postulating moral evidence and against a convergence of dominant ideas espoused by those who cannot tolerate a simple discussion.
But I want to make three points.
As regards paedophilia and sexual tourism in general, it seems to me that these important and serious subjects would gain from being studied in a context other than the moral outrage generated by certain particularly tragic events, themselves exploited in a nauseating way.
In a report probably paved with good intentions, only point 20, which concerns the root of the evil, which is third world poverty, seems to me to merit approval.
As regards the Dutroux affair which has engendered a general climate far more dominated by emotion and vengeful passion than by reason, I would like to recall that it is duty of the courts, alone empowered to do so by delegation of the people, to establish the responsibilities and, if necessary, the appropriate penalties.
Finally, as to the "affair within the affair' , that is, the European Parliament's invitation to a judge to resign for "moral and political' reasons, it does not seem to me to fall within the powers of this House.
The French radical philosopher, Alain, wrote that democracy is not the power of the majority, but the rule of law.
We should remember that on this occasion.
More generally and in the light of the polemics this issue has produced, I want to point out that freedom is eroded when a society is exhibiting the three symptoms combined here:
confusion between the major functions - legislative, executive, judiciary - of government; -a judiciary or a legislature targeting one person in particular for punishment in a broader situation; -legislators and judges deliberating in a context of public outcry and allowing that to dictate their decisions in advance.Without in anyway underestimating the emotional hostility and feelings of resentment such a situation can provoke, I am very resolute in voting against the report before us.
The Danish Social Democrats are voting in favour of the Martin Schulz report.
Child sex tourism and sexual abuse of children are an abominable phenomenon.
They are an expression of the sick mentality of the offenders, and they also inflict intolerable damage on the children involved.
It is vitally important that Member States give top priority to the fight against sexual abuse of children.
The European Parliament's report raises a number of good ideas on how this can be done.
We would in particular demand that non-member states be obliged to observe the convention on the rights of the child.
The undersigned have voted against or abstained from voting on paragraph 29 for the following reasons:
1.The vote was confused by Mr Schulz's intervention during the vote. You cannot negotiate about wording in the middle of a vote.2.To demand accountability from a judge is the responsibility of the national government, not the European Parliament.3.Parliament is not a kangaroo court.
If he is to be held accountable Mr Wathelet should have the opportunity to defend himself.
This is a very important report aimed principally at preventing attacks on children.
However, I would like to register my reservations about some of the points in the report, such as the EU taking a political line on this question, Europol being involved, a European centre for missing children being set up, and so on.
In principle I am opposed to this kind of federalism.
Instead I think it should be the Member States that carry on the fight against this type of crime.
That is where efforts should be intensified.
Fraga Estévez report (A4-0298/97)
Mr President, I would like to make a quick comment first of all.
It is terribly difficult to hear you on the German channel.
The sound quality is so poor that we cannot hear anything at all!
Excuse me for saying this, but your voice is too loud and the interpreters are inaudible.
I am sorry if this has led to a degree of confusion.
Perhaps we could ask the secretariat to have the system adjusted or set differently.
I voted with great enthusiasm for Mrs Fraga Estévez's report, but there was just one thing I regretted.
One point of general interest is not mentioned in this report, namely that the problems with fishing policy totally contradict what we were told 15 years ago.
We should treat this as an early warning, because what is happening in fisheries today, with the changes being forced on us, will happen in other sectors in the future.
I just wanted to point out that it might have been a good thing to draw attention to this again in the report.
Mr von Habsburg, with regard to your first comment, we are indeed continuing to have a serious problem with the acoustics in this Chamber.
It is a problem Mrs Fontaine and I have repeatedly brought up with the Presidency of the European Parliament.
An initial attempt has been made to improve the acoustics of this Chamber, but they are still not at all satisfactory, as you are aware.
I must say the President is in a very difficult position, because there is murmuring from the Chamber which makes it very difficult for the President to follow and understand.
Anyway, the Parliamentary services have promised us that every effort will be made during the holidays to improve the acoustics, involving a great deal of investment and work.
But it must be done, because we cannot go on like this, creating problems like the one you mentioned and many others besides.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a well-informed report.
We believe the report contains important elements, especially on the conservation of fisheries resources, on the importance of inshore fishing and on the need for subsidiarity and increased regionalization in the future common fisheries policy.
But we think the report takes doubtful positions on the agreements with third countries and on the common organization of the market in fish.
Mr President, when the current common fisheries policy expires in 2002 it provides an opportunity to remedy some of its inherent flaws.
As it currently operates it is grossly unfair to the Irish fishing industry.
Ireland has 20 % of the European Union's coastal waters, yet we are only allowed 4 % of the total allowable catch.
In many of our coastal areas fishing is the dominant economic activity and consequently a source of local jobs and investment in the local economy.
I regret that the proposal to extend the exclusive zone from 12 to 30 miles was rejected as such a step would have redressed some of the current imbalance from which Irish fishermen suffer.
Furthermore, the Irish fishing sector is unable to fish its full quota of certain stocks because our fleet is old and badly in need of modernization.
The EU should make available the necessary funds to help us redress this problem, thereby ensuring that we can at least fully fish the meagre allowable catch that has been allocated to us.
Mr President, I wish to state for the record that this report is bad for Scotland, bad for Europe and bad for the fishermen and the entire fishing industry across Europe, threatening as it does to destabilize the industry.
The prospect of a free market free-for-all, even the spectre of fish wars, could be the consequence of the adoption of these policies.
The dark threatening cloud however has a silver lining.
In the first place, the French Government has, helpfully, and clearly, recommended outright rejection - in line with the views of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation.
Secondly, the Commission has essentially confirmed that the obligation to respect relative stability will circumscribe the adjustments the Council will be able to effect in the CFP 2002 review.
On important point to make about this 'own initiative' report is that, fortunately, it is purely an expression of opinion and as such has no legislative force - which is just as well, since it is clearly incompatible with Community law.
The common fisheries policy is due for review in 2002.
It is disappointing that the rapporteur chose to put the interests of a minority of Europe's fishermen before any consideration of how fisheries policy could be improved for all our fishermen.
The fishermen whom I represent in Northern Ireland as well as fishermen throughout the UK and the rest of Europe have a right to expect a less prejudiced approach from a committee of this Parliament.
It is quite clear that fisheries is unlike any other economic practice which takes place under the single market and yet the report takes a simplistic line on how fisheries policy can fit in with single market arrangements.
The report is also wrong in giving the impression that the restriction on Spanish vessels fishing in the grounds of other European Union nations will end in 2002.
It is unfair to promote such an idea when it is clearly not what the review is intended to be about.
We made it clear throughout the debate that we would be voting in favour of the report because we had managed to secure the inclusion of a number of important amendments.
Nevertheless, it would have been possible to improve and clarify the text further still.
We therefore tabled a number of amendments in the part-session, and I would emphasize those on the following:
the need to stipulate that the - justifiable - decentralization and regionalization of powers and the management of policies under the future common fisheries policy must not involve the transfer of financial responsibility for those policies to national budgets; -the need to introduce compensation for the processing industry, which is under pressure from imports of fisheries products from third countries.The Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European People's Party agreed beforehand to vote against these amendments.
Similarly, the joint vote of those two groups prevented paragraphs 11 and 24, which supported encouraging fishermen "to leave the industry' , from being removed from the report, as we proposed in the House.
Those groups prevented the adoption of this improvement to the report, although the recommendation that balancing of fleet size and resources should be achieved by other means which "do not entail a general cutback in vessels' was retained, and, as everyone knows, that was proposed by our group.
The Committee on Fisheries has taken the very commendable initiative of developing a view of EU fisheries after 2002.
The problem is that the term "view' suggests a coherent concept by one person or one organization.
Mrs Fraga Estévez's outline report met that criterion of a coherent view. However, as soon as we, as a democratic institution, begin to amend the report, so many compromises and conflicts creep in that it is not so easy to describe it as unambiguous.
I naturally accept this democratic procedure and therefore accept the amended report in broad outline.
But I should like to point out the less desirable aspects of the current view, as I see it.
Paragraph K of the preamble on the lack of harmonization of employment and social security conditions and the resulting supposed disruption in the fisheries sector is certainly not helpful to ever achieving a better fisheries policy.
Small-scale fisheries are given greater protection.
But this segment of the fisheries sector must also develop as we strive to achieve a more efficient and sustainable fisheries sector.
Artificial viability will not serve this area of EU fisheries policy well in the long term either.
Finally, responsible EU management of fish stocks begins with very young fish.
The EU will have to monitor them.
For one type of fish this monitoring seems completely inadequate: that is the glass eel of southern Europe.
In the tradition of Agenda 2000, it now appears clear that the Commission, the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament want to make the Phare programme a fullyfledged instrument of the pre-accession strategy.
From this viewpoint, the programme henceforth explicitly prefigures the intervention of the structural funds in the future Member States, a development which could only be in line with delegation of the financial management of Phare to the local level.
While taking up the criticisms expressed by the Court of Auditors on the implementation of the Phare programme, not by the Commission, but, in the last resort, by the contracting firms, and on the lack of transparency in the tender procedures, the rapporteur considers that the decentralization of the financial management is imperative.
The decision-making for the Phare programme in fact remain strongly centralized, which leads to the maintenance of cumbersome and lengthy procedures this programme is unfortunately famous for.
The rapporteur is also pleased with the appearance of a real will to transfer the financial responsibilities to the beneficiary countries and argues for "a bold approach whereby more advanced Phare countries be able as soon as possible (1999 at the latest) fully to take over responsibility for their Phare budgets... subject to... rigorous ex post financial control' !
So the rapporteur is proposing, in the context of measures prior to the new accessions, that certain countries should assume full financial responsibility for entire sectors of their national programme, with ex post control applying instead of ex ante control.
The financial management can certainly be effectively delegated, but we already know where that can lead, notably in the context of the Med programmes or tourism policy.
Furthermore the financial regulation is explicit: the Commission alone is responsible for the use of money from taxpayers of Member States of the Union, which means that, in the last resort, it must retain financial control of the Phare programme.
As the rapporteur specifies in his explanatory statement, "it is vital to understand that reorientation and a so-called "accession-driven' approach are not miracle cures which will, in and of themselves, transform Phare into a lean and efficient machine' !
In this context, and in view of the previous experience of financial delegation, the decentralization proposed to us is unacceptable, as is the increase in the staff of the delegations called for by the Court of Auditors.
One thing is certain: the current system is inefficient, much too cumbersome and represents an open door to irregularities and fraud in the Community budget.
Because there is too great a tendency to amalgamate decentralization, delegation and sub-contracting, Mrs Kjer Hansen's report makes no response to the questions urgently posed by the implementation and management of Phare programme projects, as highlighted by the Court of Auditors.
So my group has not been able to support it.
Weiler report (A4-0291/97)
We have heard it affirmed once again during this debate that the euro is the right response to competitive devaluations within the Union.
In my explanation of vote I would like to show that this one track-minded commonplace, dwelt on continuously, is actually an optical illusion.
Such speeches target the depreciations of the pound sterling, the Italian lira, the Spanish peseta in the years 19921993, which caused massive damage to the economies whose currencies remained at a high rate (mark, franc, etcetera).
Simplistic economists have found a radical solution to this problem: just imposing a single currency will radically eliminate internal fluctuations in parities!
But analysis shows, in reality, that the elimination of legitimate monetary fluctuations would only shift the pressure to other sectors, and the damage would be even greater in the end.
Remember first of all that the monetary disturbances of the early 1990s arose from a contradiction: on the one hand, the occurrence of an asymmetric external shock (German reunification), and on the other hand, the determination of the governments to maintain rigid parities between their currencies in the framework of the EMS, a determination later reinforced by the prospect of the march towards the single currency.
This contradiction made the system explode; whereas the asymmetric shock actually called for a general realignment, the contrary policy prevailed, entailing de facto depreciations and exit from the EMS for certain currencies, and rigidity of parities and economic damage for others.
Because it is important to recognize that the extreme depreciation of the lira (-30 % at some points) was not caused by the malevolent will of the Italian Government to manipulate its currency, but by the pressure resulting from a mistaken collective response to the asymmetric shock. It is also important to see that if the franc had itself been able to vary instead of being tied to the mark, the gap between it and the lira would not have been as large, and our economy would not have suffered so much damage.
Finally, the disturbances in the years 1992-1993 were caused by the application before their time of the principles of the single currency.
Instead of drawing the sensible conclusion that such rigidity is not appropriate in Europe today, for political reasons the opposite conclusion was drawn: this rigidity must be extended to the whole of the area.
But the economies and societies of the countries of Europe are not the same.
They do not evolve in exactly the same way.
In these circumstances, changes in internal parities remain useful for making eventual adjustments at the margin, flexibly.
If this possibility does not exist, if the parities are rigid, the pressure will be displaced elsewhere and disturb the real economy.
Pascal Salin once said that exchange rates are like a dog's tail: the dog must be allowed to wag its tail, because if you hold it, then the dog will wag itself.
The federalist ideologies have made Europe forget this elementary lesson, and we are going to have to pay very dearly for that one day.
It is positive that the EU is taking more interest in social issues in relation to questions of trade, competition, markets and economics.
There are also several good proposals in the report, on annual assessments of poverty, on tax switching with reduced tax on work and increased tax on natural resources, on energy and environmental destruction, as well as on local employment programmes.
The proposals for a common European social policy, social convergence policy, harmonization policy, binding legislation and tax harmonization (paragraphs 1, 9, 27 etc.) would entail a far-reaching supranationality which I cannot accept.
I have therefore voted no to such proposals, but otherwise I have voted yes to the report.
Social policy is a national matter.
The report is very good, but I cannot support paragraph 1, which contains the following: ' regret, however, that the treaty still requires unanimity for Council decisions on social protection and tax policy.'
As I have often said, my view is that important questions like these should be decided at the national level, where they can be given a proper democratic base, and not by some Union authority which hovers high above the people's consciousness and control.
Areitio Toledo report (A4-0316/97)
As an economist, it is difficult for me to disagree with Mr Areitio Toledo's report.
It is true that as general rule, we can put our trust in the markets to make the optimum allocation of resources, in order to achieve improvements in consumer welfare.
But for that to happen, the public authority must ensure respect for the rules against dominant positions, abusive concentrations and, worse, monopoly positions contrary to equity and economic efficiency.
I also share our rapporteur's position on the importance of monitoring the way state aid is allocated because it can be a factor which distorts competition, while emphasizing that it may prove necessary in certain cases.
Finally, I want to welcome the idea of incorporating a parameter limiting state aid in the context of the analysis of budgetary convergence programmes.
For these reasons, I will vote in favour of Mr Areitio Toledo's report.
This report seeks to open up to private enterprise key sectors of the economy with a public service component.
It calls for the continued liberalization of the energy sector, airlines and their support structures, and port infrastructure: all in the name of, and on the pretext of, competition policy.
The report expresses concern about concentration of businesses, confirming the increase in mergers and acquisitions of companies, and links these phenomena to the liberalization and globalization of the world economy - which is positive.
However, it fails to mention the responsibility of transnational business strategies in these processes, or the implications in terms of the abuse of dominant positions and the distortion of economic trends.
It underlines the importance of establishing a genuine competition policy at multilateral level - European Union and World Trade Organization - but fails to mention the need to complement that policy with policies against social dumping and environmental policies.
We believe the report gives the Commission too powerful a role, laying great stress on the need for effective control of competition policy and the harmonization of legislation, but insufficient stress on the need to combat fraud effectively. It makes an all-out attack on state aid as the root of all evil in the competition sphere, thereby establishing a bridgehead for the stability pact.
Finally, it draws attention to the problem of the abuse of dominant positions, but proposes no solutions or alternatives beyond the framework of the liberal economic logic which gives rise to those positions.
We think it contains too many negative points and not enough positive points, and that has determined the way we voted.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 1.05 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 6 November 1997.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to inform you that yesterday, 16 November, the Chinese dissident Mr Wei Jingsheng was released. In 1996, the European Parliament awarded him the Sakharov Prize for freedom of expression, in recognition of his struggle to promote democratic freedoms and human rights.
However, although Mr Wei Jingsheng has been released, we should not forget that he has been forced to leave his country, and that China's prisons are still full of political prisoners.
Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, the second news item I have to mention is by contrast a source of sorrow and anger: an extremist group has gunned down two busloads of tourists in Luxor.
As far as we know at the moment, 79 people appear to have been killed, including a number of German and French citizens of the European Union.
I feel sure I speak for the whole House in expressing our outrage at this act, and our solidarity with the victims. We will immediately send Parliament's condolences to the victims' families, and to the government of the country in which this barbarous act was committed.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of 6 November 1997 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, on a point of order.
During the last part-session of Parliament, nine Liverpool supporters were arrested following an incident outside the Strasbourg stadium.
Three of them were sentenced to eight months in prison.
Whilst I quite understand that the French authorities wish to send a firm and clear message to potential football hooligans that this will not be tolerated in next year's World Cup, I must say that I find it somewhat excessive to impose a sentence of eight months for what was actually a very minor scuffle in a very incident-free match, involving people who have no previous convictions and no history of being involved in such incidents.
I wondered whether you would join with me, Mr President, in appealing to our former colleague, Mrs Elisabeth Guigou, Minister of Justice and Garde des Sceaux , to look into the sentencing policy that surrounds this incident.
(Mixed reactions)
Mr President, I asked you four months ago if you would find out how it was possible for the Council presidency to say at the conference in Zimbabwe that Parliament had no view on CITES.
Parliament had in fact passed an urgent resolution, so it did indeed have a view.
That view was available there as well, yet the whole international assembly said that we did not have one.
I have asked here several times how such a thing could be possible, and I insist on getting an answer. I am slowly beginning to suspect that we increasingly pass resolutions here, which never reach their recipient.
This can only create the impression that our work is pointless, or that it is not taken seriously.
I do not believe either is the case, and it annoys me, for one.
I would ask you now, and I am very much in earnest, to arrange for an answer to be given please, because the matter dates from July and it is now November.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
I shall certainly ask the Council why you have still not received an answer, and we shall insist that they do reply.
Mr President, the special Air France flight which enables us to attend the week-long part-sessions is experiencing constant scheduling difficulties, because of the attitude of the authorities at Madrid-Barajas airport. I would be grateful, Mr President, if you could approach the airport authorities on our behalf to sort out this scheduling problem once and for all.
Also, I should like to thank Air France for all their efficiency and care today, which meant that we were able to arrive on time. I think they deserve our gratitude.
Thank you very much, Mrs Díez de Rivera.
It appears that the problems could not all have been due to a single airport authority, but that certain other people were also responsible. I have asked the Secretary General to find out exactly what happened, and once we know that, we will approach whoever is responsible for these alterations.
Mr McMillan-Scott, this matter has been dealt with by the committee responsible.
The decision has been taken.
It is not on the agenda and it is not a matter for the part-session.
I am sorry, I cannot let you raise this matter again.
Mr Andrews, questions of human rights cannot be dealt with in part-session at this time.
I know you are referring to Ms McAliskey.
If you want, I will take your letter and ask what is happening.
If you want to give me more information that would be good.
However, we cannot waste time now with questions which do not relate to the agenda.
Mr President, I should like to comment briefly on the issue you allowed Mr Corbett to comment on.
Thank you for saying that you will look into this issue.
I do not disagree with what you said about the judiciary in various Member States but I would say that many football supporters across Europe get very poor treatment both by police and courts.
I would also point out that there is much more reticence in criticizing courts and police behaviour in many parts of the world during our human rights debates each month in Strasbourg.
Please bear that in mind.
Mr President, I wish to comment on the agenda for today and tomorrow.
It mentions that the sittings from 7 p.m. onwards today and between 5.30 p.m. and 7 p.m. tomorrow are reserved for urgent meetings of parliamentary committees authorized by you yourself, Mr President.
I note that this method is new compared to that of previous agendas.
I believe this is a consequence of the Court of Justice's ruling of 1 October last.
I note therefore that you are applying, as from 1997, a ruling of the Court of Justice of October 1997.
I would have liked to have seen the same happen for our 1997 session timetable.
I therefore note that with regard to this ruling of the Court of Justice you are using different methods of implementation depending on the point in question.
No, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I am not implementing the points differently. It is the Conference of Presidents which has drawn the conclusions from this ruling.
On the one hand, it was not financially possible, as you well know, to organize an additional part-session in Strasbourg in November. However, on the other hand, we wanted to adhere strictly to the Edinburgh decision regarding committee meetings.
We have therefore adopted a system which limits committee meetings at Strasbourg to the bare minimum required for the work of the House.
This system will be applied as strictly as is necessary.
On this occasion, once again, we are in a transition stage.
I hope that, by the next part-session, there will be fewer committee meetings.
Mr President, I cannot understand how you can pass over the rights of an Irish person, who has been in a British prison for 12 months with no charges preferred, and yet give a hearing to UK Members who are raising the matter of four Liverpool supporters in prison in Strasbourg.
I would suggest we should have the right to raise a matter concerning a citizen of our country and I would respectfully say to Members of this House that they should have been in Brussels last Saturday night when there was no trouble at all with 10, 000 Irish supporters.
And even if there had been we would not be raising it in this House.
Mr Gallagher, I do not think we need return to a matter which, at the moment, is not our responsibility.
I have already said that we will find out the precise details.
Order of business
Ladies and gentlemen, I must inform you that the deadlines in relation to the statements on the third conference on climate change in Kyoto have been extended as follows: motions for resolutions, 7 p.m. this evening; amendments and joint motions, 4 p.m. tomorrow, Tuesday.
The vote will be taken on Thursday.
Tuesday and Wednesday: no changes.
Thursday:
The UPE Group has asked for Mr Scapagnini's report, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Commission communication on energy policy (A4-0308/97), to be given a more favourable place on the agenda on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Mr Scapagnini now has the floor, to move the request.
Mr President, thank you for allowing me to speak on this point.
I would like to point out that I have had to complain several times, including in writing, as chairman of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, that the its reports end up being discussed at very odd times: either late in the evening or at the very end of the sitting.
This has happened again today with this important report on the review of energy policy measures.
However, Mr President, as I realize that the agenda is extremely full, I would be prepared, if you agree, to ask for the report to be deferred to a future sitting provided, I must add, respectfully but also emphatically, that it is possible to discuss it at a suitable time.
We are therefore prepared to defer the report to a future sitting because I realize that the situation is very critical at present, provided, as I said, that a suitable time is allocated.
Mr Scapagnini, are you asking for your report to be dealt with on a different day of the week, or for it to be postponed to another part-session?
Mr President, the main request is to be able to bring the report forward to a more suitable time on Tuesday or Wednesday.
If that is not possible, the secondary request is to defer it to a future part-session at a suitable time.
Mr President, I wish to oppose that, because this report is a good one, and it would be a pity if we were to adjourn it.
Whether it is dealt with on Wednesday or Thursday really makes no difference.
I see no earthly reason, in any case, why we should adjourn the report.
I move that it should not be adjourned.
Mr President, I understand Mr Scapagnini's point but there is no space to bring this forward, without breaking up some of the very important debates we already have timetabled.
My group would support taking it at a later part-session if Mr Scapagnini is not happy with its position on the agenda this month.
Well, now that we have heard that comment, I put to the House the proposal that the Scapagnini report should be brought forward to Wednesday.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
I now put to the House the proposal to postpone the Scapagnini report.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
In view of the fact that there is now a space on the agenda, you will recollect the discussion in the Conference of Presidents on the Jöns report on the European Social Fund which was originally envisaged for this month's agenda but which had to be dropped because there was no space.
Perhaps we could now put this report in.
I understand it is acceptable to the chairman of the committee and to the rapporteur that it goes into that space on Thursday's agenda.
So, Mrs Green has requested that Mrs Jöns' report on the future of the European Social Fund should replace the Scapagnini report.
Does anybody wish to speak in favour of Mrs Green's request?
Mr President, I would like to support the proposition.
The Commission will issue its own communication on the future of the Social Fund at the turn of the year.
If we are to influence that with this owninitiative report, it is imperative that we adopt it this week.
There will be no time at all for it to be taken into account if we adopt it in December instead.
I very much support this proposition.
Since nobody wishes to speak against the proposal, I now put it to the House that the Jöns report should be placed on Thursday's agenda.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
Mr President, I notice that in the draft agenda you are proposing, no specific time has been fixed for Question Time to the Council. This normally takes place from 5.30 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Wednesdays - which I think is traditional, and was agreed with Council - but its normal slot has been given to the important vote on the report by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos, after which the agenda just says "followed by Question Time to the Council' .
I feel this lack of formality is inappropriate, partly because the Members of this House consider Question Time to the Council to be very important, and partly because of the respect we owe to Council, whose members should be informed of the precise time at which we plan to put these questions to them.
Therefore, Mr President, I have to tell you that I am puzzled by this lack of clarity in the draft agenda.
Thank you very much, Mr Gutiérrez.
Question Time is indeed very important, and so is the debate in question, which concerns Parliament's opinion on the Treaty of Amsterdam. They both need to be accommodated, which is why the Conference of Presidents decided to extend the evening session, as you will see in the agenda, to 8 p.m.
Assuming that the vote on the report by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos can be completed in about an hour and a half, we will still have from 6.30 p.m. until 8 p.m. for Question Time to the Council, which is the normal amount of time.
In any case, we expect Council to be very interested in the vote on the Méndez de Vigo and Tsatsos report, which means that its members will probably be here during voting time, and will therefore be available to Members of this House who might want to put proposals to them.
I realize this is not an ideal solution, but it was the only way to combine two such important items, which both had to be accommodated in a part-session which was already very full.
Mr President, I should like to support Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, who always presides over Question Time exceptionally well.
The right to ask questions is one of the most important parliamentary rights, but in recent years it has really diminished.
We used to have one and a half hours with the Council at the beginning of the evening session.
They were taboo and were always strictly observed.
Since Question Time was moved to the afternoon, it has been shortened in nearly every sitting by delays in the main business.
Each time we are told that it is an exception.
It seems to me that it has been an exception almost every month for the past year!
I do not mind if Question Time is held at the end of the sitting - I have absolutely nothing against that - or during the evening sitting - the Council could also meet us in the evening once in a while - but I really feel that we must adhere strictly to the one and a half hours.
Question Time must be strictly taboo.
Then we could hold it at the end of the session and ask the Council to stay twenty minutes longer, if necessary.
Mr President, I would like Mr Posselt to know that we did not hear the question in this group, because if we had I could have explained that we tried very hard to keep Question Time with the Council on the agenda.
It is just scheduled a little later now.
In fact, it has only been postponed by one hour.
I could tell you, Mr Posselt, what some Foreign Ministers have said to me about the evening sessions of Question Time to the Council, as regards attendance and Parliament's reputation.
However, I think it best not to repeat such things in public.
Friday: no changes.
(The order of business was thus established)
Climate change
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A4-0343/97) by Mr Linkohr, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee, and the Committee of the Regions on the energy dimension of climate change (COM(97)0196 - C4-0232/97), and-the statements by the Council and Commission on the third conference on climate change (Kyoto, December 1997).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when the Chamber empties one can at least say the greenhouse effect here is reduced a little - but only here inside the Chamber.
As for the matter in hand, I should like to say to the Commission that Europe has behaved relatively well in the runup to Kyoto.
I want to say that at the outset, because that praise is deserved.
When we look at reality, however, and not just at the printed word, there is rather more to say.
If the climatologists are correct, then we have to reduce CO2 emissions world-wide to 10 thousand million tonnes by the year 2050.
At present we stand at about 22 thousand million tonnes. If we assume that the world population by the middle of the next century will have reached 10 thousand million people, then by that time every single person will have to be producing no more than 1 tonne of CO2 .
In the EU the current figure is on average 8.4 tonnes, in Germany 11 tonnes and in Denmark 12 tonnes.
If we assume that the principle of equality applies, then Europeans will have to reduce CO2 emissions within two generations to one-eighth, Germans to one-eleventh, and Danes to one-twelfth.
In fact, though, emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are rising, and most scenarios assume that a comparison of 2000 with 1990 will show a Europe-wide CO2 increase of 5 %.
The only exceptions amongst the 15 Member States will be Great Britain, because they started early with the replacement of coal by gas, and Germany, because its statistics have been altered by reunification.
The main cause of the reduction of CO2 emissions in Germany has been the collapse of the East German industrial base; in West Germany emissions are on the increase again.
So if there is no great change in conditions, CO2 emissions will continue to increase up to 2010 and are even likely to reach a worldwide figure of 32 thousand million tonnes.
Those are the stark figures.
Unless, as I have said, we steer another course.
The years 1978 to 1985 show that this is possible.
In that period the ratio of energy consumption to gross domestic product was reduced by 2 0 %.
But because energy - oil - then became cheaper, the increase in efficiency over the following ten years was only abut 5 %.
We have to learn the moral of that: low energy costs are an obstacle to an active climate policy.
It is a harsh economic and social fact that only expensive energy gets saved.
We cannot avoid a new Community-wide energy tax.
Anyone who does not want that - and I can sympathize with them - should not talk about climate policy.
The European Union - by which I mean the Council and Commission - have, as has been said, taken a relatively courageous stand.
They have promised to reduce CO2 emissions by 15 % by the year 2010.
But our courage seems to be just a front - and I do not think that is just apparent.
We are further than ever from an ecological tax reform.
We swear by renewable energy sources, but their proportion of energy production is growing only slowly, and support programmes are being cut by the Council.
I would cite our vain efforts on behalf of Thermie II.
Voluntary measures, such as green pricing and voluntary undertakings within industry are certainly helpful, but fall far short of what is needed.
Even the joint implementation recommended in Berlin did not survive an initial phase.
Up to now clear guidelines, which would make joint implementation different from mere export trade, have been lacking.
Tradeable emission permits, proposed by the USA, meet with no favour in the Council - although I would digress to recommend that we do in fact give this proposal serious consideration.
So the proposals from the Commission and Council remain, however much I regret it, pure propaganda as long as they are not followed by definite measures.
And where are those? We even read in the press that the Commission is prepared to withdraw its proposals.
What the European Parliament or the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy wants to achieve with the resolution is this: we need specific and ambitious objectives; we should undertake to reduce greenhouse gases significantly within a definite period; and we will then undertake to see that this obligation is maintained worldwide.
Where the obligations are not upheld, sanctions should be possible.
For this we further propose an international Climate Agency.
That is the essence of the message and I hope to enlist Parliament's support for it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the eighth meeting of the Ad Hoc Berlin Mandate Group, which recently ended in Bonn after two weeks of intense negotiation, cannot be considered a success.
Progress was extremely limited and was confined to relatively unimportant issues.
Nevertheless some positions were clarified, certainly after the United States and Japan presented fairly structured proposals.
The position taken by the United States was probably the most memorable event of the ABMG meeting.
In his speech, President Clinton showed an awareness of the gravity of the problem of climate change and of the responsibilities resulting from this.
We in Europe also agree with his analysis of the great potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the industrialized countries at limited cost through improved energy efficiency and elimination of waste.
But we deplore the fact that this analysis does not translate into fixed objectives adequate to the challenges of climate change.
The Community and its Member States have reconfirmed their negotiating position regarding the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the industrialized countries: 7.5 % reduction by the year 2005, 15 % reduction by the year 2010.
These objectives are supported by the Group of 77 and China and thus by a large majority of the parties concerned.
It should nevertheless be noted that the G77 is also asking all industrialized countries to reduce their emissions by 35 % by the year 2020.
The Community also continues to support the need for common policies and measures.
We remain convinced that the reductions we are proposing are necessary and achievable, both technically and economically.
In its communication, the Commission set out a Community approach with a view to the Kyoto Conference, which provides very useful elements to that effect.
The proposals made by the United States and Japan, shared by other parties to the convention such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand, have increased flexibility in common.
Whilst recognizing that flexibility can contribute to finding an acceptable solution for everyone at Kyoto, we have clearly stated that the priority condition for possible acceptance of an element of flexibility is the existence of sufficiently ambitious objectives.
Regarding the elements of flexibility to be considered in this context, the Council of 16 October had already showed willingness to consider budgetary periods instead of base or target years, provided this does not delay action.
To put it clearly, this means that the pivotal years must be those indicated in the Berlin Mandate, and that periods must be short, no more than five years maximum.
Furthermore, the Union also accepts the need for flexibility in the choice of base years regarding the protocol commitments to be fulfilled by countries undergoing economic transition, whilst underlining that this flexibility should not be without limits.
In the same spirit, possible trading in emission rights would be subjected to a series of safeguards, in particular to avoid a trade in hot air, based on emission levels reached before commencement of trading.
Furthermore, in our opinion this trade must only represent a limited percentage of emissions and must be governed by a transparent and open international system.
Equally strict safeguards would apply to the possible implementation of projects in common between protocol signatories, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
One last factor which some parties are stressing is the need to take into account greenhouse gas sinks.
Whilst not excluding this possibility, we are aware of the difficulties of setting up appropriate methodologies and we prefer to leave this problem until a later date, after the necessary details have been worked out.
Finally, regarding commitments to be fulfilled by developing countries, whilst naturally encouraging countries not party to the protocol to take on voluntary commitments, we cannot subscribe to the demands advanced by other parties aimed at immediately imposing legally binding obligations on developing countries.
It is clear that such obligations do not fall within the Berlin Mandate, which must continue to guide our action.
Nevertheless, with regard to this we think that a review of the obligations of the different parties must take place, as anticipated in the convention.
This reexamination must be of a fairly general nature and carried out on the basis of a careful analysis of all the factors, independently of the adoption of the protocol.
This process could be set in motion when the parties meet in Kyoto, where guidelines for such a review could be drawn up.
Finally, as regards the European "bubble' , may I remind you that the Council meeting in March decided on the division of the burden between the Member States within the objective of a proposed 15 % reduction by the year 2010.
The Council of 16 October agreed on a text which was proposed by the Community and the Member States during the last negotiations and which aims to clarify responsibilities, in case the objective is not achieved by the Community as a whole.
Furthermore, the text anticipates the possibility of other parties to the protocol grouping together to form "bubbles' with commitments identical to those of the European Community.
Nevertheless, the attacks on the European Community continue, based largely on the fact that the burden-sharing decided by the Council is resulting in a wide disparity in Member States' efforts to achieve targets.
It is clear that these attacks are largely pretexts.
The convention expressly anticipates the case of organizations such as the Community, in as far as there is a formal transfer of competence from the Member States to the organization, that is the Community, regarding certain areas covered by the protocol.
It is up to the Community to ensure that the common objective is respected, even if, out of concern for transparency, we propose that burden-sharing be formally notified at the time of ratification of the protocol.
The Community must assert itself, uphold its uniqueness and be proud of the guiding role it continues to have in this process.
Following the ABMG meeting in Bonn, a series of ministerial level meetings have taken place in order to attempt to advance the process.
On 4 November we had a meeting with the State Department in Washington, followed by meetings with Senator Byrd and the Secretary of State for Energy.
This meeting, which took place in a very positive atmosphere, enabled both partners to come to a better understanding of each other's position and how they arrived at that position.
At this stage, there is still no agreement between the United States and the European Union regarding reduction objectives, particularly because the United States is depending on being able to use flexibility mechanisms such as trading and joint implementation to achieve their objective of stabilization of emissions at the 1990 level between the years 2008 and 2012.
The United States also wants key developing countries such as China and India to be included in the process for fear of their refusing legally binding commitments.
The European Union has again clearly stated its position and made known to the United States that we do not think that mere stabilization provides a sufficient political and moral basis from which to convince the developing countries to participate in the process from now on.
Furthermore, the European Union remains convinced that the mechanisms for flexibility and above all trading in emission rights should only be applied on condition that ambitious objectives are put in place which must be achieved largely through domestic actions.
The United States and the European Union agreed to continue bilateral negotiations at all levels in the days to come.
The first occasion that presented itself was the Tokyo Conference of 8 and 9 November.
The three main areas discussed were the objectives and elements of flexibility, policies and measures, and the developing world.
At the time of the discussions on reduction and limitation objectives, it appeared that nearly all the participants were of the opinion that these should be legally binding.
However, differences of opinion existed as to when action should commenc, above all regarding objective 2000.
The proposals currently on the table vary between zero (stabilization) and 15 % below the 1990 level.
A decision has yet to be taken regarding the inclusion of sinks and regarding the number of gases to be dealt with.
The participants also had different opinions on the option to be negotiated at Kyoto: the flat rate, proposed by the EU and the United States, or the differentiation of objectives.
To conclude, the discussions were held in a very constructive and positive atmosphere. We all hoped that Kyoto would be a success.
Nevertheless, there remain many points of divergence on the crucial issues and there will be a need for political will if we are to resolve all these problems in the few days remaining.
I sincerely believe agreement is still possible at Kyoto, but we must avoid agreement at any price due to pressure of time.
The European Union remains convinced that all industrialized countries must adopt legally binding and ambitious objectives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Furthermore, we cannot delay action any longer.
I have arranged for European Union Environment Ministers to have an informal meeting on 7 December in Kyoto in order to take stock of the situation and to decide on the course to take in the negotiations.
Meanwhile, we will have to make all the necessary efforts to continue discussions with other key partners so that we can come up with a way of finding a consensus.
Finally, and independently of the Kyoto results, the European Union will have to decide, at its ordinary meeting on 6 December, whether its own negotiating position can become a unilateral arrangement if the other parties cannot accept the targeted reductions.
At that time the European Union will also have to decide on future measures to be taken in order to achieve these objectives.
Mr President, I am very glad Parliament has decided to discuss climate change during this sitting on the basis of Mr Linkohr's report and Mr Pimenta's resolution on climate change.
These two proposals strengthen the EU's negotiating position, and it is recognized that there is a need for policies, measures and adequate resources, particularly in the energy sector, if our reduction targets are to be achieved.
I am sure that Parliament will support the Commission's efforts in this field after Kyoto.
International climate policy is now at a decisive stage.
In about two weeks' time, ministers from more than 150 countries will be meeting at Kyoto in Japan to issue a protocol on climate changes.
This protocol will contain legally binding commitments for the industrialized nations to reduce their emissions in the period after the year 2000.
Let me therefore now take this opportunity of giving my assessment of the situation after attending the meetings in Washington and Tokyo at the beginning of November.
First, a little about the EU's position.
The EU will of course retain its own proposals which, as you know, require a 15 % reduction in emissions of three greenhouse gases by 2010 compared with 1990 and of 7.5 % by the year 2005.
This means that concrete action must be taken immediately, and at the same time there will be a check on progress made in this field.
I am pleased that Parliament is supporting the EU's position: that will strengthen our hand at the negotiating table.
On the other hand, we must be careful not to weaken our joint position by discussing the possibility of an even more ambitious negotiating position.
The emission reduction targets were passed at the highest political level in terms of environment.
They were established in the light of studies which showed that the targets were technically feasible, financially achievable and politically possible by using existing technology and methods, as the President-in-Office has already emphasized.
But it was assumed, and I emphasize the word "assumed' , that other industrialized nations would also make the same or equivalent commitments.
In view of this, I do not think it would be appropriate to follow the approach in Mr Pimenta's resolution of the EU Member States changing their own position for the years 2005 and 2010 to a unilaterally binding commitment.
How can we put pressure on other industrialized nations if we announce that we are going to be making cuts unilaterally beforehand? We certainly need to get both the Americans and the Japanese more on board.
But the EU's proposals contain more than just targets.
We believe that the best way of meeting the reduction targets is to work together on the various policies and measures.
We have also launched an active search for a system which makes it possible to use emission trading as a cost-effective solution.
However, emission trading, as it is now called in just about every language, can only occur under conditions that ensure that something is actually being done to help the climate and not just a paper transaction.
On this point, we have emphasized, in particular, that only a minority of the overall commitments can be carried out via such flexibility arrangements so as to ensure that all parties make reasonable efforts, including on their home ground.
The second main condition is that emission trading should be based on the principle of simultaneity, that is, historical emission quotas which are established for one reason or another should not be traded.
This is particularly important because there will be far lower CO2 emissions in the next few years and for a number of years to come, in Russia and other former Communist areas for example, because of the change from one system to another.
It cannot be the intention that the OECD countries should use this fall in CO2 emissions to free themselves from reasonable commitments to do something about energy consumption in the transport sector, the energy sector and industry.
If we are to achieve an ambitious result in Kyoto, it is clear that the EU must continue to take the lead.
We cannot expect the USA and Japan to be out in front.
Their targets are too modest, and their credibility amongst the developing countries is lower than ever.
I hope that the EU can build a bridge between the parties.
The EU's negotiating position has been extensively debated, both within the EU itself and at international level, and in particular amongst other industrialized nations.
Reactions have varied considerably, from positive acceptance of an ambitious policy to scepticism and doubt about whether the targets are technically, financially or politically achievable.
To meet these concerns, the Commission issued a communication on climate change in October which meets the criticism by explaining the background to the EU's negotiating position.
The communication shows that we can achieve our emission reduction targets without harming our economies.
When I visited Washington and Tokyo, I explained how the EU will achieve the 15 % target, with concrete examples of (amongst other things) renewable energy, combined heat and power generation, cars and switches to other modes of transport and energy efficiency in the household and service sector.
On the basis of our communication on climate changes published recently, we can also show that the costs are tolerable.
But it will still take some effort to combat climate changes.
They cannot make the excuse that they will take equivalent action with equivalent results in their own countries, and as President Clinton said in his speech to the National Geographic Society on 22 October, most of that action will be wholly beneficial to the USA.
On the other hand, there was considerable reluctance to deal with vested interests and any kind of costs.
So what are the main obstacles to an effective agreement in Kyoto? The main obstacle in our view is the minimalist, rigid positions which the other industrial countries have adopted, especially the USA and Japan.
Some countries, such as Australia and Canada, have not even put forward concrete proposals yet.
The USA cannot ignore the problem.
It accounts for the greatest emissions in absolute terms of greenhouse gases in the world: 5, 006 million tonnes in 1994, and the figure is rising all the time.
And they also have the highest figure when it comes to emissions per head of population, over 10 times more than most developing countries.
Most - I think we could even say all - industrialized nations now realize that the world has actually got a problem on its hands.
They agree with the EU and others in accepting the scientific consensus that human generated climate change is a reality, and (what is even more important) that climate change will have real effects, such as serious health problems, loss of a considerable proportion of the world's biodiversity, loss of territory and infrastructural costs as a result of the rise in ocean levels, floods and droughts, and dramatic changes in weather patterns.
What can we hope to achieve at Tokyo? First, a guarantee of high, legally binding reduction targets which will put the world on the right track to solving the climate problems.
So what we have to do now is to reach a legally binding agreement which sets ambitious reduction targets for all the industrialized nations.
And ambitious is the key word.
A legally binding commitment must not become an excuse to set a reduction target which is merely a lowest common denominator.
The only way to reach a solution in Tokyo is to oppose setting the same percentage reduction for all industrialized nations.
The EU is not simply being rigid: we would like to consider flexible measures, as I said before, but only on condition that there are commitments to ambitious reduction targets, as I said earlier.
The Commission also shares Mr Pimenta's concern about other greenhouse gases, namely HFCs, PFCs and SF6, for which a solution has to be found.
The Council already decided in the conclusions of its March meeting that these gases would be included in the EU's basket of gases by the year 2000 at the latest.
But the question is whether these gases should be included in this basket now or not.
The Commission has raised the question with the Member States.
The effects of including these three gases are modest, as even the whole of the EU together would only add another 2 % in CO2 equivalent.
However, for certain Member States, this additional effort will be some proof that the burden is being shared, so it is essential to find a solution.
But as this question is important to our negotiating partners, the Commission and the Member States are currently working on it with the Presidentin-Office in Brussels.
The Commission is trying to find the best way is of reaching a common EU position in this field, and I am of course hoping that Member States will show the necessary flexibility.
These reduction targets should be accompanied by certain common measures or procedures so that we avoid the problem of distortion of competition.
I am also going to Kyoto on behalf of the Commission to get results.
We are prepared to negotiate, and I know that we can count on Parliament's support.
Parliament's resolution on climate change will send out clear signals to our partners.
The EU has marked out a clear route for dealing with the climate question.
What we need are effective, ambitious reductions in greenhouse gases.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, global warming is undoubtedly the biggest problem facing humanity today.
Man is changing the atmosphere and the climatic cycles that have shaped human life since the dawn of civilization.
They are being changed irreversibly and we do not know where we are going.
We do know that global warming, rising sea levels and the premature appearance and aggravation of phenomena such as El Niño this year have already caused thousands of deaths in South America, huge forest fires in Asia, unprecedented floods in Germany, the Central European countries, Portugal and Spain, and a whole train of destruction with incalculable human suffering.
Humanity has a rendezvous in Kyoto in three weeks' time.
It is quite unthinkable that Kyoto should turn out to be a failure.
This time the European Union's position is clear; and this Parliament has given overall support to a 7.5 % reduction in emissions by 2005 and a 15 % reduction by 2010.
We have also given overall support to the statement of 1 October 1997 on climate change, which, furthermore, is a much better-drafted and more fundamental document than the earlier one on the implications of global warming for energy, on which we have serious reservations.
It is not enough, however, to submit a good proposal such as that of 1 October.
We need an internal set of policies on the environment, energy, transport and so on which will radically improve our efficient use of energy and renewable forms of energy and bring in tax reforms.
Unfortunately, those policies do not yet exist; and, if we look at the 1998 budget, there is no provision for such policies.
There lies the Achilles heel of European strategy.
This Parliament has admitted as much: as long ago as January we asked the Commission and the Council to tell us objectively, in quantified terms and with supporting data, how we are going to achieve the reductions in emissions to which we are now committing ourselves.
As far as non-European countries are concerned, it is unacceptable that the United States, with 4 % of the world's population, should be responsible for nearly 25 % of the world's atmospheric pollution.
In Kyoto we must achieve a compulsory timetable for reduction by the developed countries and a mechanism embracing all the developing countries to achieve the levelling-out and reduction of atmospheric emissions per capita in the medium term throughout the world.
Flexibility arrangements and the devices of the market cannot conceal the enormous differences between countries.
Since we all have to make an effort, it is obviously the case that greatest effort should be made by the country that has used up most of the planet's resources and is causing most pollution.
Madam Commissioner, Minister, we shall be together in Kyoto, but I also hope we shall be here in January, when we finally begin to put into practice what we signed up to at the Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.
Mr President, I am very pleased that we have the opportunity today to talk about the way the European Union has been performing at the Kyoto conference, and I should like to thank the President of the Council and the Commissioner for briefing us so fully.
On the other hand, I am a little sad when I hear what you have to say, and when I think back nine years to the Toronto Objective, formulated at that time, in which there was talk of a 20 % reduction in emissions by the year 2005.
Today we are a long way from that, but I am glad that at least in the European Union a clear aim has been set, and that we have agreed to call for a genuine reduction within a reasonable time.
Mr Linkohr has already said we certainly want to, but will we be able to? I think we shall have to expand the political options if we are to achieve the intended reduction.
We must also discuss options other than those to do with energy, because there are one or two other things which will help us reduce greenhouse emissions, not just in the energy sector.
I am referring here to switching to other production methods, and also to the retention of emissions.
Perhaps I can mention a few examples.
As far as energy is concerned, it is certainly a matter of greater efficiency in order to achieve better utilization, but also of using forms of energy which produce less CO2 - I am thinking here of renewable resources, familiar to everyone in the House, I am sure.
One must, however, limit the use of energy by vehicles in the same way - we shall shortly have an opportunity to discuss this as part of the vehicle oil programme.
Other policy options are, for example, agriculture and forestry, and not just where the aim is to reduce methane emissions, but also where we aim to prepare our plants and forests for a general change in climate: where different forestry methods and other types of fertilizer are used so that this general change will not mean the death of our forests.
I say this as someone who comes from the Alps, where forests are very important.
We need to prepare our industry and give some thought to possible methods of producing chemicals or metals in industry; waste disposal will have to be examined as well.
My next point is very important - and here I address myself directly to the President of the Council, because I know that the subject of jobs is being discussed this week in Luxembourg.
Not only can a reduction in heating, and hence less CO2 emissions, be achieved very quickly in almost every European country by the use of heat insulation, but numerous jobs could be created, particularly in small and medium-sized businesses, and the well-being of people can be increased.
We could be in a win/win situation here, which really ought to be exploited. I hope that a proposal of this kind will be forthcoming.
It is incomprehensible that the USA appears to be thinking only of the short term and putting cheap energy for its economy before the interests of the climate.
I think we in Europe need industrial innovation right now, and that we could save the costs of change a thousand times over, compared to when the very high costs of climatic change become payable.
After Kyoto we shall certainly receive a report in this House concerning implementation, particularly how and with what programmes we can achieve it in the Union. I very much hope that we shall not have to say afterwards that it was not a legally binding agreement, and that even if it were, the values were so low that we would not achieve our aim.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the first time the European Parliament has concerned itself with the question of how we should play our part long term in the marked reduction of trace gases relevant to climatic change, in order to achieve a real alteration in climate.
The Group of the European People's Party agrees with the rapporteur on very many points.
We need clear and straightforward regulations in order really to achieve all the measures required within the general category of long term economic management.
This concerns many areas, not just energy and industrial policies.
These points have already been discussed.
I should also like to say, however, that we must approach all these problems undogmatically.
We must also change our attitudes a little, each in his own specialization, so that we can arrive at a common decision.
Climate protection and economic success are not mutually exclusive, but can be reconciled by, for example, the issue of emission permits - as you mentioned, Madam Commissioner.
I think that is the right idea.
We in the EPP Group have little sympathy for the establishment of an international Climate Agency.
If this should prove to be Kyoto's sole success, then we shall have failed, then we really shall not have achieved anything!
We think it is quite the wrong beginning, to solve environmental problems by the creation of new bureaucracies.
At both European and international levels there any number of bureaucracies available to us.
More efficient linkage of existing authorities would be a different matter.
There is a very sensible proposal in point 16 of the Linkohr resolution.
We agree with that, but please, no new administrations whose main function is cooperation with other administrations.
That will not solve any climate problems!
I should also like to say that we in the PPE Group will support Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel's amendment.
The OECD presented calculations just this weekend showing that a CO2 tax, for example, together with a reduction in taxes on labour as a factor of production, could be really practical.
That is not a matter of dogma for our group, and we shall support it.
We must also make our views felt, of course, when it comes to reminding other large economic regions of their responsibilities for climate protection.
Climate protection cannot function if reductions in some regions, such as the European Union, result in more emissions in others, because of relocation of industry.
Here it is our duty, through our numerous delegations, to work with all our partners worldwide.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the Kyoto meeting provides the opportunity to face the problem of climate change caused by anthropic activity with greater rigour.
It seems to me from the press that we can hope for a more committed attitude from the US government, which we need if we are to achieve specific results together.
On behalf of my group, and in relation to the problem of development, I would like to reaffirm several inspiring principles already set out by the Commissioner and by the Linkohr report.
First, even if the scientific information on the correlation between industrial activities and climate change is not utterly convincing, the cost of the risk is sufficiently high that serious and speedy measures are imperative.
Secondly, environmental protection measures should come first of all from the industrially developed countries.
The problem is a global one, however, and cannot be resolved without also involving the developing and recently industrialized countries.
Thirdly, it is not true that all environmental protection measures create difficulties for economic growth, but it is true that the environmental measures should be gradual and universal as far as possible, so as not to create market imbalances.
Fourthly, in addition to technical efficiency in energy production and transportation systems, I would also mention the importance of energy saving.
This point has been dealt with in Mr Linkohr's report.
The point relating to Community energy tax was dealt with by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy with our support.
The interpretation given is that the various energy taxes should be harmonized at Community level, possibly with a neutral global effect.
With regard to the action the Commission will have to take at the Kyoto Conference, I hope it will be possible to find an ambitious common position with the United States, because that could lead to a broader consensus and I do not think any progress can be made by accepting further competitive disadvantages in relation to American industry.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, first I would like to congratulate Mr Linkohr on his excellent report.
It is not that easy for sustainable energy from renewable sources to get off the ground, largely because there is no market for it at the moment.
Oil and gas continue to dominate energy consumption.
Yet the industry believes that sustainable energy has a future.
Shell, for example, is investing one billion guilders in a new division for solar energy.
Shell is following British Petroleum (BP), which already has a separate division for solar energy.
Both Shell and BP are focussing their attention on lowering the price of solar panels in order to develop a market.
In addition, investment in developing countries can play a crucial role in this.
Two-thirds of the world, after all, is not yet connected to mains electricity.
Large-scale solar energy projects contribute to the development of village communities and promote the use of renewable energy sources, thus preventing the emissions of CO2 .
My group is of the opinion that the political world and certainly Europe has the obligation to support such developments.
Partly in view of Kyoto, the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party regrets that time and again the Council refuses to allocate sufficient resources to programmes aimed at encouraging sustainable energy and energy efficiency.
The sun rises for free, and I hope the Council recognizes that soon.
To conclude, Mr President, the Liberal Group takes the view that a Community energy tax is only feasible and acceptable when set against a reduction in tax on labour, thus retaining our industry's competitiveness.
That alone will lead to new jobs and the preservation of existing jobs in Europe.
Mr President, first of all I should like to express our group's agreement with Mr Linkohr's report and with the clarifications which have been given. We also agree with the proposal for an International Climate Agency, which we think is a very positive idea.
My region, Murcia, like other regions of Spain such as Valencia, Andalusia and Estremadura, and regions of Portugal and other parts of the world, has suffered the consequences of terrible floods and rains, which can be attributed to the effects of this climate change.
So we are well aware of the importance of the Kyoto summit, and the contribution which the European Union should make to it.
However, we think it is important to get to the bottom of the problem, and not to avert our eyes when we are faced with something we do not like.
I am referring to the fact that the root cause of these problems lies in the model of irreversible industrial growth which seeks continual increases in capital return, gross national product, profitability and competitiveness, with no thought for social needs or quality of life throughout the world.
We need to change this model for one based on sustainable development and respect for nature, which can allow society to develop a similar attitude.
Therefore, although we agree with the report, we think that certain basic elements should be introduced, such as the European Union's firm commitment, given in Toronto, to move towards reduction, and not towards the precise opposite, which is what is happening.
Our energy consumption is increasing by 2 %, which will not get us anywhere.
Furthermore, other gases should be included in the basket of greenhouse gases, and there should be alternative models for everything which involves energy consumption.
We also need to provide more funds to improve the situation in Europe, and to obtain commitments from the three main players: the United States, Europe and Japan.
Five years after Rio, and nothing to show for it except a lot of speeches and a lot of noise - some of it unfortunately just behind me. Absolutely no achievement.
Nor are the Commission's reports on the subject very informative.
They are vague, they lack ambition, they are insufficiently conclusive, and the biggest mistake is in the calculations - things simply do not add up.
Our aim is to achieve a reduction of 15 % by the year 2010.
Now the Commission says we need new nuclear power stations to reach that target.
Even ignoring the fact that in most Member States these are quite unacceptable to public opinion, and the fact that their costs have grown much higher than those of gas power stations, there is still a construction period of 10 to 12 years, taking us into the year 2012, or at best 2010.
How is that to be achieved in the time?
What we need is a revolution in energy efficiency.
We need a change in our road traffic, which is the largest emitter of CO2 .
We need an energy tax, and of course we also need specific regulations for phasing in of energy from renewable sources.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, last week Greenpeace activists, who had assembled outside the US Embassy in Luxembourg, melted blocks of ice to symbolize the thawing of the polar icecaps due to the greenhouse effect.
If Greenpeace activists wanted to show that the United States' position was far from helping the cause of the environment, then NGOs are of the opinion that the Commission's proposals are also far from helping this cause and that they will certainly not prevent the greenhouse effect worsening.
Having said that, it has to be admitted that the approaches proposed by the Commission are worth considering.
In this case it is about energy efficiency, about speeding up the establishment of renewable energy sources and, above all, about fiscal instruments.
In this context, Mr President, let me recall the words of the President-in-Office himself, who last week stated the need to reduce taxation on labour and cease putting a financial burden on work, but also to introduce, at European level, taxes on CO2 and on energy.
I am pleased that, for once, the ecologists' ideas have not fallen on deaf ears and I believe that, if the European Union truly wants to be credible at Kyoto, we must first of all start by imposing, for example, a tax on energy in our own countries.
Mr President, we need to be careful when we talk about global warming, because at the moment there is nothing to prove that human action is responsible for this.
A few centuries ago the polar icecaps were melting at a far faster rate than they are today.
That said, it is clearly safer to err on the side of caution and it is therefore right to move in the direction of a reduction in the production of greenhouse gases.
But in this case the policy that is being followed, in particular by the majority in this House, needs revising in two areas.
First of all, the policy of globalization.
The policy of free trade, and generalized free trade at that, which this House pursues by voting regularly, month after month, in favour of free trade agreements, promotes an increase in the production of greenhouse gases.
In fact, each time a free trade agreement goes through there is an expansion in traffic, in movements of people and, of course, in the volume of goods transported. This is precisely what encourages the production of greenhouse gases.
If we want to produce less greenhouse gases, let us agree fewer free trade agreements.
My second comment relates to energy.
If we want to reduce the production of greenhouse gases, rather than fighting against them let us choose sources of energy which produce less greenhouse gases.
And what is currently the energy which produces the least greenhouse gases? It is, quite simply, nuclear energy.
Furthermore, France happens to be the country which produces the least greenhouse gases per inhabitant in the European Union for the very simple reason that, of the fifteen countries, it is the one that uses the most nuclear energy.
With this in mind, the majority in this House should be a little more critical and a little more introspective, if they want to reduce the production of greenhouse gases.
Finally, and in another respect, this House does not set an example. With the multiple journeys it requires and its vast glass buildings, it is not one of the greatest reducers of greenhouse gas production, but that is another issue.
Mr President, currently there is a very expensive advertising campaign on US television in which people like the chairman of the Chrysler Corporation tell lies.
This is the sort of lie they tell: ' If you took the measures that are necessary we would live in a life of dimming lights, turning off air conditioning, sacrificing our industrial competitiveness and curtailing our economic growth' .
That is a lie.
It is a lie that market forces are guaranteeing efficient behaviour.
If we undertook sensible policies, there are three things we could do which would almost eliminate the problem of climatic change.
Over one half of the threat to the climate disappears if you use energy in a way that saves money - if, for example, your household appliances are efficient.
You would eliminate another quarter if your farming and your forestry practices took carbon out of the air and put it back in the soil and the plants, where it should be.
And the remainder would disappear if you took measures on other greenhouse gases like CFCs and methane.
If our buildings and, in particular, our houses were designed properly we could manage with hardly any heating or cooling equipment.
I was in the Rocky Mountain Institute in a snow storm, with very little heating equipment in use and looking at and admiring the banana trees.
This is quite possible.
You can be in a temperature of 115ºF in California and feel comfortable with very little electricity used.
Power stations produce one-third of electricity and two-thirds of waste heat.
With combined heat and power that could be eliminated.
If we concentrated on hyper-cars we could have 70 % to 90 % fuel savings.
In the United States petrol costs less than bottled mineral water.
If we were more careful in the way we live and the materials we use, just as Mr Marset Campos said very clearly, we could eliminate this type of problem.
Let us think about the developing world and the energy needs there.
Energy efficiency in the developing world is abysmal.
It is dreadfully poor.
One shameful thing we do is to undertake negative technology transfer and deliberately sell goods in the developing world which are not energy efficient enough to use in our world.
That is disgraceful.
Luckily, where poor people live, often there is a lot of sunshine, which makes quite clearly the case for renewable energy in the developing world.
Fuel cells, a technology of the future.
Nuclear energy in the United States has cost US$ 1 trillion, one million million dollars.
Yet, because it is so expensive it is not growing at all, any more than it is in western Europe.
In fact, in the United States, it produces less energy than wood, even having cost that much.
Energy taxes need to be carefully thought about.
They certainly are a mechanism but we must make sure that they do not have other unwanted effects.
I am becoming attracted to trading as a way of meeting our needs.
In the United States - and I speak so much about it because I visited it recently to study carefully what is happening in that country - they have trading permits for sulphur dioxide.
The benefits have been far greater than anyone could have foreseen.
Once it costs you money to pollute you are very careful.
You get novel experiences.
A group of children in New York City have bought sulphur dioxide trading permits and they are keeping those permits and not selling them in order to prevent pollution.
Others are being sold, so I agree with those who say we must not shift the whole responsibility onto the developing world.
But trading permits seem to work.
In a question like climate change, the European Union justifies its existence.
It is a powerful bloc of countries whose climatic conditions could not vary more, from Lapland down to the islands of Greece, and where there is a huge variety of economic conditions.
Let us use that strength in Kyoto to show what we can do.
Mr President, the main points have actually been covered already.
I should like to restrict myself, therefore, merely to a few facts and to a description of the situation, which is none too rosy. We all agree on the facts.
We must do something to improve the climate and see that our CO2 emissions are reduced. We disagree on the objectives.
What percentage reduction do we actually want to try to achieve?
How fast should it progress? There is complete disarray about the methods for achieving our goals, themselves as yet not even properly defined.
I must ask, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, what do we actually expect of the Commission? The European Union is too small, faced by this global problem, to work out solutions on its own.
We at least need to have the USA on board.
We need to show all industrial nations our determination and to lead by example.
It is our duty to provide an example. It is our duty to show states which are still undergoing industrial development that there are other ways than the ones we have taken.
These states do not all have to repeat our mistakes.
We need voluntary agreements - my group and I would support that - which would then have to be kept.
According to optimistic assessments eight thousand million people will inhabit this planet in 2050.
Other calculations forecast even higher figures.
If those eight behave then as five do today, our planet is really close to its end.
We have got to act now!
Mr President, the problem of global warming is one that the European Union cannot ignore.
The US must also play its part in Japan.
Global warming is a problem of such magnitude that national policies alone are not effective.
International cooperation is the bottom line.
If bus and car emissions are maintained at their current levels then the average temperature could rise by 2 % compared to 1990 levels.
It is worth bearing in mind that a 1 % increase can lead to ecosystem damage.
There have already been disastrous floods in Portugal, Spain, Somalia and Mexico this year.
These disasters, while significant in themselves, may be only a portent of a greater global catastrophe to come.
I am anxious about the potential damage to the Irish ecosystem with potentially dangerous effects on Irish agriculture and our tourism sector.
In Ireland, as in all of the European Union, all sectors must play their part in tackling global warming.
For my part, I am wary of suggestions to introduce new forms of taxation.
I believe it will be the hard-pressed consumers who will end up bearing the brunt.
A report just issued by Ireland's Economic and Social Research Institute makes a significant attempt to quantify the cost of reducing gas emissions linked to global warming.
The costs involved are very real, with direct implications for jobs, consumers and electricity generation.
However, serious action is needed, and, to begin with, we need to examine what is known as 'demand-side' management.
Energy conservation must be promoted on the supply side, and we must make sure that positive alternative fuels and electricity generating systems and renewable energy sources point the way forward.
We must promote them.
In my own report I have said that the European Union must put in place a rigorous monitoring system of Community carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions at the earliest opportunity.
Mr President, we look forward to the negotiations in Tokyo with high hopes.
But even if no satisfactory result is reached in Tokyo, the European Union will have to keep to its target.
If the Union does not do so there is the additional danger that individual Member States will retreat from their targets, and that is why I do not entirely understand the Commissioneris reluctance to support the position set out in the resolution by Carlos Pimenta and ourselves.
We must stick to the Union's targets, even if the results from Kyoto turn out to be unsatisfactory.
Mr President, the results under the Dutch presidency are to be applauded.
Burden-sharing is a good thing.
But it imposes extra responsibility on the northern Member States.
Germany will have to show a 25 % reduction, and my own country, the Netherlands, a 10 % reduction, by 2010.
It will be all the more difficult to achieve those targets, as the majority of the Liberal Group does not view nuclear energy as an option for a sustainable solution to combat the emission of CO2 until the waste problem is solved.
"Après moi, le déluge' as we also say in Holland.
Because, despite the two instalments of 750 million guilders which the Dutch government has allocated, we will not manage to reduce CO2 emissions to that extent.
We will not be emitting 3 % less in the year 2000 than in 1990; in fact we can expect to emit 10 % more.
In that light, the attitude of the United States seems a little more realistic.
Of course we must try to persuade them to go further than the target of stabilization in 2010.
There is some movement within the Unites States, and that is what we have to build on in Kyoto.
And we should not be to quick to congratulate ourselves on the virtue of our position when there is considerable scepticism about its feasibility.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I agree with my fellow group-member Pedro Marset Campos when he says that the most important measure for removing the threat of this environmental catastrophe would be a new economic model to lead us towards sustainable development.
I also agree with the environmental groups who say that the European Union's stance is timid, and that we should aim for a greater reduction in the year 2005.
However, in reality, the European Union's proposal is the most advanced one available at the moment.
That is what we actually have.
Therefore, I agree with Mr Pimenta, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and with the resolution and amendments of that Committee.
I think the most important of these, as Mr Eisma has just said, is the one which says that the European Union must maintain its position and not retreat from it, even though other countries may continue to hide their heads in the sand.
I know that is very difficult, because Europe immediately thinks of its own competitiveness, but if Europe does not go ahead with its decision to reduce emissions, the other countries will never do so.
Madam Commissioner, your comment about the United States is very significant. During the preliminary meetings, as you so aptly said, they have taken a significant step in the wrong direction.
Well, let us not allow ourselves to be led by the United States and Japan. Let us show them what our own position is, for although it may not go far enough, it is more reasonable than any other at the moment.
Mr President, I wish to ask the Commissioner how the European Union can so confidently in the preliminary negotiations for Kyoto offer the reductions that they have done and although we have heard this evening how important these targets are - 7.5 % by the year 2005 and 15 % by 2010 - how can we achieve them?
We show no sign of implementing this in practice and it is clearly not possible to achieve success without clear objectives, targets, incentives and sanctions.
The Commission has made several proposals for programmes - Thermie II, Synergy, Save II - which were, however, not accepted by the Council or provided with adequate funding.
Also, all progress towards introduction of a CO2 tax has failed in Council.
The most effective method of achieving a substantial reduction in emissions would be through a European Unionwide CO2 tax.
This would restrict emissions within the European Union in the long term while advancing a strategy which would minimize the economic cost as a whole.
A CO2 tax applied to all polluters should be used to reduce other taxes and applied equally to all sectors, for example agriculture and smelting.
No one should be favoured or the whole basis of such a tax would be undermined.
Mr President, I come from a country which is, arguably, the best energy-endowed in Europe, namely Scotland.
But I do not want to talk about Scotland today, I want to talk about countries on the far side of the globe, such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and Bangladesh which will bear the brunt of the rise in sea level if we do not take immediate action.
I wonder whether this House could contemplate the disappearance off the map of these little countries like Kiribati and Tuvalu and the widespread devastation of Bangladesh, one of the world's most populous areas.
That is why this debate is so important.
I should like to commend the points made by our colleague, Mrs McNally.
I hope the Commissioner was taking copious notes and I hope she will use these as a blueprint for taking things further.
So much is at stake and although the EU is not the world and therefore we cannot take the whole world's burdens on our shoulders, at least let us argue forcibly for the right policies and the right targets and go to Japan in an aggressive frame of mind to try to save the planet from a catastrophe.
Mr President, throughout this year, as we have gone from the recent G8 Summit to the UN Earth Summit and then on to the negotiations leading up to the conference on climate change in Kyoto, it has become very obvious that there are clear divisions on a global scale with regard to global warming, in particular on the targets to restrain emissions of the main greenhouse gas CO2 .
The current series of discussions have continued all through the autumn and are not yet at an end, but it is quite clear that we must come to some form of formal decision about the reduction in the emissions of greenhouse gases in Kyoto - in particular CO2 - and that must be done by the end of the year.
I am pleased to say that so far the European Union has maintained an honourable position.
We are proposing that the by 2010 industrialized countries should cut their greenhouse gases by 15 % as compared with 1990.
I am here tonight to appeal to the Commission and the Council not to retreat from that position.
Indeed, I urge them not only not to retreat from that position but actually to seek wider agreement on the need, certainly in principle, for future measures which would in particular bring about an emission standstill in the next century and, possibly, take the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere from an emission standstill of 550 parts per million down to perhaps as low as 350 parts per million.
We cannot retreat from that position, we must accept that the negotiations at Kyoto are simply the first step.
Two weeks ago I was part of Parliament's delegation to Japan.
I spent three days in Tokyo talking with Japanese parliamentarians, the Environment Minister and a number of other ministers.
It was clear to me that they would be prepared to go further.
The position announced by their Prime Minister, pushed by their industry ministry, was not a position they had agreed on a consensual basis.
It is quite clear that they would be prepared to go further, and if we press them they will go further.
We must take up that opportunity; we must unite with them to push even the Americans towards some form of action.
I would stress that there are a whole range of issues on which we should be able to find common ground.
We must, for example, be prepared to consider very quickly the introduction of technology transfer to developing countries to ensure that they do not present a new series of CO2 emissions that cannot be controlled.
We cannot in fact rule out the possible future role of nuclear power used in a safe and sustainable way.
We cannot ignore the possible use of joint implementation.
With sufficient safeguards, I am sure that could be a step forward.
We have to realize that it is not just simply a question of CO2 : there are other greenhouse gases that we must deal with; they have to be part of the treaty.
I urge a note of caution on the question of emissions trading.
That is a tool which has not achieved a great deal of success so far.
It is worth exploring but I would not suggest that it is something we should engage in when seeking to achieve an agreement in Kyoto.
Finally, I urge the Commission not to relax its declared position.
We should instead say that this is only the first step.
We all have the future in our hands.
The Commission and the Council in particular have the future in their hands.
Future generations want them to stand firm.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have gone from great heat to intense cold, from violent rain to drought. We no longer have the in-between seasons.
In spring and autumn we go from very high temperatures, as if it were July, to very low temperatures, as if it were January. The winds are strong and devastating at times.
According to the FAO, the US Food Organization, the consequences of El Niño could be disturbing for cereals, tapioca, oil seeds, coffee, sugar, tea, bananas, tropical fruits, citrus fruits, grapes and vegetables and the repercussions could delay the planting of the rice seedlings.
The ACP-European Union working party on climatic changes and small insular States, of which I am chairman, has presented a draft resolution, approved unanimously by the Joint Assembly in Lomé on 30 October this year, on ACP-EU cooperation on climatic change and on the third Parity Conference to be held in Kyoto next month, to adopt a binding protocol, or other legal instrument, that will give rise to real reductions in greenhouse gases based on the Berlin Mandate, although we regret we cannot be present or represented in the Japanese city.
The variability of climate and the rise in the sea level are causing the coast to erode and the small ACP island states are particularly concerned because they are the most vulnerable in the global system of climatic changes. As their economic and social activities are mainly concentrated on the coastal regions, any small rise in sea level has a significant and profound effect on the local economy, on living conditions, sometimes even totally destroying infrastructures and houses.
This is because the aims of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, indicated in the EU contractual positions, by 15 % by 2010, with an intermediate aim of at least 7.5 % by 2005, are the absolute minimum acceptable and, in actual fact, we should be aspiring to a 20 % reduction by 2005.
We therefore believe that a full discussion should be held next year on the various energy options, paying particular attention to nuclear energy, hydroelectric energy and other renewable energies not emitting CO2.
I will conclude with the hope that agreement can also be reached at the Kyoto Conference with governments which take a diametrically opposed view.
Mr President, if I have understood what was said correctly, in Kyoto we will have a realistic objective, but the problem is whether or not we have partners - and indeed serious and reliable partners - who are in sympathy with this objective and the policies that go with it. I therefore want to ask the Council and the Commission whether they have, or whether they think they have, the means to exert effective pressure on the United States, so that it is possible for a reliable and serious agreement to be reached on objectives such as we have heard here and on the corresponding policies.
If so, what are these means?
Are you willing to use them? If these means do not exist, I would at least like to ask you if you are prepared to launch a large-scale campaign to inform and motivate the public regarding the seriousness of the issue, the proposals that have been put forward and the ways that exist to solve the problem, so that, at least at the level of propaganda, we can challenge the propaganda of the Unites States and other countries, which is being used to downgrade the issue and to ridicule efforts to change policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that we have to have an agreement on climate protection and reduction of greenhouse gases, in order to save mankind and the environment.
The essence of the Pimenta report is that we have come out in support of a 15 % reduction by the year 2010, even if Kyoto fails to produce a binding agreement.
Madam Commissioner, I am very disappointed in you. Did I correctly understand you to say that you do not support these measures?
Is the Commission not prepared to take on a pioneer role? I think we can only be credible when we make it clear that we - regardless of what emerges from Kyoto - are ready to reduce by 15 % by the year 2010.
If we do not do this we shall be hiding behind those climate killers, the USA and Japan.
I think that would be a declaration of environmental bankruptcy.
It would be a step backwards, were the Commission not to make clear that we want to advance realistically, that we are at last ready to accept that there is a global catastrophe, and that we are taking steps.
I believe the European floods have shown quite clearly that we are not far away from that global catastrophe.
Madam Commissioner, I urge you at long last to take on a vanguard role and to declare that we shall reduce CO2 emissions, so that we place other climate killers under pressure.
Mr President, there is an ever- continuing growth in energy consumption worldwide.
As a result of this increase, carbon dioxide emissions are increasing too, and will amount to as much as 8 % by the year 2010.
The decisions we have taken on energy policy should be long term and lead gradually to a considerable decline in carbon dioxide emission levels.
It is vital that we get large countries at the Kyoto Conference, like the USA, Japan, Australia and Canada, to commit to targets after the year 2000.
It is five years now since the Rio Conference on the Environment, so it is high time we got real commitments worldwide and established deadlines.
The problem of global warming will not be solved by an energy policy alone.
For example, increased traffic exhaust is the direct cause of the rise in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.
We must also include the existence of nuclear power as a way of expanding our selection of energy alternatives and especially of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
The production of energy cannot be based only on renewable energy resources.
Their role in the whole energy-producing scenario is only marginal.
The enhancement of forestry conservation worldwide is an effective way of tackling the problem of climatic change.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide.
We must ensure that felled trees are replaced, in one way or another, with new trees.
Finally, I would like to state that I can no longer believe in the idea of a new international climate agency.
Political support for the implementation of a climate policy is needed, but it will not come from reeling out a lot more red tape.
Mr President, limiting emissions of greenhouse gases is one of the great environmental challenges of our time.
Even if we do radically alter our policies today, we know that emissions are going to increase for decades to come.
This requires major and rapid changes in our transport and energy policies.
It also requires a very high carbon tax.
Our group naturally supports the Linkohr report, which is an excellent concrete report. Not least we support the proposals for monitoring and sanctions, which are very important.
Leading up to the meeting in Kyoto, the EU's line and proposals are better than those of the Americans.
In spite of that the EU's proposals are actually insufficient if you look at what nature is suffering.
After all, nature's limits must be more important that the limits set by the USA.
That must also mean that the EU, regardless of the outcome of Kyoto, should go ahead and try to achieve the goals which have been set.
I therefore agree with Mr Eisma and Mrs González Álvarez, for example, who have suggested this here before.
I would also like to complain about the Swedish government's position on this issue.
Sweden is one of the countries which callously expect to increase emissions of carbon dioxide in the coming years.
Mr President, my thanks to Mr Linkohr and Mr Pimenta for the reports they have presented on behalf of their two committees.
I attended the Rio follow-up conference in New York as one of two representatives of the European Parliament.
I praised the Commission at that time because it came out in favour of ambitious reduction objectives for Kyoto, even though we have to admit that, in view of what Mr Linkohr rightly said, these can only be a very first step and are not actually enough.
It is what is practical today, though, and for that reason we must support the Commission on this point.
The climate catastrophe will have many devastating effects.
That has already been said.
I would mention one point perhaps deserving of a greater public airing, and that is the effect on health.
Because of the changes in climatic zones we in Europe will become subject to tropical diseases hitherto unknown here.
I believe that when people fear for their own health they perhaps begin to think a bit more deeply.
President Clinton also mentioned this in his speech in New York.
It is most unfortunate that although that speech contained a few good points, the USA had to adopt such a restrictive position.
The reason for it is that industrial lobbyists there are spreading stories of a crisis scenario, a catastrophe scenario, if serious reduction objectives should be decided.
I believe the opposite is the case.
We can give many good reasons for that.
I shall cite one practical example, and everyone there in Kyoto should ask the Americans if they could not put an end to it. I am frequently told that people in many open-plan offices in the USA wear jerseys in summer because the air-conditioning is badly set.
I do not think it would have anything to do with a reduction in living standards if this were ended by using modern and more efficient technology.
We do not have to go back to the caves, but we must advance to better efficiency.
The Commissioner should do more in this respect.
Mr President, the Kyoto conference on our future climate is, in my opinion, an extremely important event.
As a citizen of the European Union, I am proud of the negotiating position which has been adopted, and which means a reduction of greenhouse gases by 15 % from the 1990 level by the year 2010.
That is an ambitious target which I hope will influence others in Kyoto.
I am also deeply concerned about my own country's efforts leading up to this conference.
In the past Sweden was the first country to set tough targets for carbon dioxide emissions in 1988, entailing unchanged emissions from 1987 onwards.
We even managed to reduce emissions.
Leading up to the Kyoto Conference, we in Sweden have now been given permission to increase our emissions by 5 per cent up to the year 2010.
The reason for this is the closure of two nuclear reactors in Barsebäck, both of which work very well and have a high safety standard.
If Europe followed Sweden's example, the European Union might just as well forget about going to Kyoto.
It would make it impossible to go there with the current ambitious objectives.
For the EU to be able to live up to its goals, it is necessary to introduce financial instruments. I hope it will be possible to introduce a carbon tax at EU level.
Sweden's experience is that the tax has a significant effect. There is a transition from fossil fuels to biomass fuels in lots of places in our country, which is largely due to this tax.
Vehicles are responsible for substantial emissions of greenhouse gases.
In Europe we have a rapid development of vehicles driven by alternative methods, such as electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles.
The City of Stockholm has just bought a substantial number of electric vehicles from Italy.
It appears that technical developments in this area are progressing faster than we think.
So there are grounds for considerable optimism.
Mr President, at this stage in the debate I think most things have already been said, and do not need to be repeated by me.
However, I do think it is important to convey the message that Parliament is going to support the position of the Commission and Council.
It is essential for the Community institutions to share the same objective, which will enable them to negotiate from a position of strength.
Having said that, and on the subject of the European Union's internal policy, I think it needs to be pointed out that not all governments have achieved the targets they committed themselves to at the Earth Summit. So our internal policy needs to make strict demands.
Complementary policies have not been developed either, as Mr Linkohr so rightly said.
Our Member States have to make a major effort, and we must of course call on the governments to reach an agreement about the distribution of the remaining 5 % of the commitment, in addition to the 10 % which has already been agreed.
Next, I think we have to make a clear distinction between problems caused by the emission of gases in general, on the one hand, and the overall phenomenon of climate change on the other.
There is much more to climate change than just gas emissions, and there are scientific phenomena which have not been analyzed sufficiently on a global basis, but which nevertheless need to be kept in mind: the influence of solar emission cycles cannot be ignored.
However, this phenomenon requires deeper scientific analysis.
As for negotiations with third countries, it is certainly very important for the European Union to convey the message that whoever produces the most pollution has to provide the most help. Therefore, we have to make the public understand that breathing costs money - that is also important for the European Union's internal policies.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Madam Commissioner, it is very strange that the same date and the same figure crop up twice in European Union documents: the year 2010 and the figure of 15 % apply both to the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions and to the contribution of renewable sources to the supply of raw materials for energy production.
This strange coincidence should make us stop and think, especially if we remember that, as Mr Linkohr's report says, the Commission's relevant Directorate-General predicts an 8 % increase in carbon dioxide by that same date.
The fact is, energy consumption is increasing all the time and nobody can stop it.
Nobody can prevent it.
No agreement can avoid it.
It is not just us: the developing countries are growing at the fastest rate - China, for example, with its coal.
So we need to find alternatives.
One of these, obviously, is nuclear energy.
Just as obvious, however, is the fact that people just do not want the use of this type of energy to be increased or extended.
That leaves only one choice: to rely increasingly on renewable sources of energy.
A lot of data was published recently in an article by a renowned specialist. For example: the wind industry is growing by 25 % every year; in eight years, the world market in solar cells grew from $340 million to $900 million; and the big energy companies are moving more and more towards this sort of energy.
Mr President, what we need is the political will. The Commission needs it and, above all, so does Parliament, composed as it is of the representatives of the people of Europe.
If we had that political will, then perhaps the Member States would too. At the moment, they do not possess as much of it as they should.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I first of all congratulate Parliament on this debate.
Above all I want to congratulate you on your support for the Council and the Commission.
At Kyoto we will work with determination to negotiate an ambitious agreement.
After Kyoto, we will need to establish the necessary measures to achieve the reduction rates on which we will have agreed.
Various Councils will be responsible for the matter and we will take decisions on the basis of proposals from the Commission.
Allow me to make a number of comments on the points raised during this debate.
Firstly, regarding job creation in the environmental sphere, we must explore all possible paths.
Both the Commission and the Council are aware of the efforts necessary to create jobs in the area of the environment and reducing greenhouse gases.
Secondly, regarding harmonization and an increase in energy taxation, we must remember that unanimity is required within the Council to take such a decision.
It is a big problem.
The Luxembourg Presidency firmly intends to move in this direction, if there is unanimity.
An increase in the taxation of energy could be advantageously combined with a reduction in the costs imposed on labour.
I am sure that the President of the Council will do his utmost to obtain, at the Employment summit due to take place at the end of this week, a decision in principle along these lines: combining a reduction in the costs on labour with an increase in the taxation of energy.
Parliament has laid great stress, and the last speaker reminded us of this, on the issue of renewable energy sources.
It has to be said that we have at our disposal nearly all the necessary technology for the development of renewable energy sources.
We now need investment, not only from the governments and the Commission, but also from the private sector and we need to create conditions which will encourage industry to invest more in alternative energy sources.
We fully support the objective of increasing the use of renewable energy within the Community from 6 % to 12 %, as a proportion of all energy used.
There has been a lot of talk abut industries which are opposed to measures against greenhouse gases.
I recently had a similar experience in Luxembourg, with a large American multinational.
When you negotiate seriously with an organization of this size, a large subsidiary of an American company, you can come to an agreement.
This group said it was in agreement with testing for alternative products, not only in Luxembourg but also in the United States, because its members have very clearly understood that they could be the first to offer alternatives on the world market as soon as they have them.
Therefore I believe that if the political will to negotiate firmly with industry exists, we can also come to an agreement with the United States on this subject.
I would like to come back to a point raised by several speakers: the European Union proposals for Kyoto.
I can only confirm what the Commissioner just said on this.
The European Union proposals for Kyoto are not unilateral reductions but proposals in support of our position at the Kyoto negotiations.
So our objective at Kyoto must be to obtain an ambitious agreement on this point, and I agree with everyone in recognizing that the United States has a very important role to play in this respect.
After Kyoto, the Council has decided to raise the question of the transformation of negotiation proposals into unilateral reductions, but only after Kyoto.
This is in fact what the Council decided at its ordinary meeting on 16 October.
It will therefore certainly not be done before Kyoto, but perhaps afterwards.
I am not even sure myself, it is for the Council to decide.
In any case the Presidency has the firm intention of putting this question on the Council's agenda so that there is a decision on this.
Mr President, I would also like to say thank you for the debate, which I feel has been very constructive, and I would just like to make a few remarks.
I would like to stress, as Environment Minister Lahure said in his last comment, that this debate today has been about how we can strengthen our position relative to the other players at Kyoto as far as possible.
I think it was Mr Bowe who said that the Japanese were certainly open to more pressure, and we hope that other countries are too.
The question is now very largely how we can put pressure on other countries so we can achieve the highest possible targets in Kyoto.
We will have an opportunity of discussing how we can do that later, and how we will achieve the results in the European Union.
And, as many of the speakers have emphasized, there are a lot of useful proposals.
I heartily agree with the comments which Mrs Granitz made on the possibility of linking this debate to the question of jobs as well.
I also believe (as we have emphasized in our communication) that a sensibly implemented policy offers some opportunities for jobs and not the opposite, as we sometimes hear, and it is true that there are still some unused opportunities in working with industry.
On the proposal for an international climate agency, I would like to say that, strictly speaking, something of the sort was established under the UN and based in Bonn, and it may well not be very sensible at this point in time to weaken this institution by trying to set up another one.
In my view, we in the EU, with the targets we have established and the supplementary policies which have been passed, are well equipped for the negotiations.
The only thing which amazed me during the debate was that some people have said that we in the EU do not have very ambitious targets.
It is true that, as many people have said, that when you look at the size of the problem, there was nothing to stop the targets being higher, but if on the other hand you look at what we have been met with from the other countries, there is no doubt that the EU has played a leading role here, and of course we also intend to play that role in the run-up to and at Kyoto.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the Linkohr report will be taken at 12.30 p.m. tomorrow.
The vote on the Council and Commission statements will be taken on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Customs union with Turkey
The next item is the report (A4-0276/97) by Mr Kittelmann, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision on laying down the procedure for adopting the Community's position in the Customs Union Joint Committee set up by Decision No 1/95 of the ECTurkey Association Council on implementation of the final phase of the Customs Union (5372/97 - C4-0081/97-96/0020(CNS) (Renewed consultation)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unlike many debates we hold on Turkey, here we have a task that is more concerned with technicalities.
It has to do with the fact that a Customs Union Joint Committee is to be established. The Joint Committee, pursuant to article 24 of the Association Agreement, has to advise the Association Council, consult internally - this relates to exchanges of opinion and experience - and make recommendations to the Association Council.
The European Parliament had already expressed its opinion at its sitting of 18 July 1996 on the proposal for a Council resolution to define the procedure, passing it by a large majority.
The Council resolved on 19 February 1997 to consult the European Parliament once more on the same proposal in accordance with article 113 of the treaty.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy examined the draft report at its meetings of 16 and 24 September.
At the latter meeting the committee adopted a draft of a legislative decision by 23 votes to one with one abstention.
We have examined the legal basis, i.e., whether article 113 was the correct one.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities proposed the use of another legal basis.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, together with the Committee on External Economic Relations, which had also unanimously voted for it, resolved in the light of legal opinion to use article 113, because article 113 is essentially for commercial agreements and is therefore perfectly appropriate.
An essential element of the legal opinion was that the legal basis became unimportant, once the Council accepted the recommendation from the European Parliament guaranteeing the right of Parliament to be kept informed.
In these circumstances the proposed new legal basis could be accepted, quite independently of the fact that it was in any case what we wanted right from the start.
I would briefly add that though we often discuss a range of problems during political debate, here we are dealing with the maintenance of a contractual regulation: the preparation of the Customs Union by the Association Council.
Finally, I should like to point out that in this matter of the functioning of the Customs Union we have in the past repeatedly stressed that the European Union has been the beneficiary of customs union.
With our unbelievably large export advantages we will gain goodwill from the fact that Turkey will import goods from the European Union with little formality, and it is our duty to do everything possible to establish a balance of relationships within the Customs Union between the European Union and that country.
I am sure we shall do our duty today during the voting, and I would ask you to agree with the large majorities on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on External Economic Relations, and pass the resolution.
Mr President, as Mr Kittelmann has said, the issue is political, and there are technical aspects to it as well, with matters of regulations and a succession of decisions by both the Council and the Commission.
Mr Kittelmann touches on all these in his report and I would have no difficulty agreeing but for the fact that we must look at the matter politically and substantively.
First of all, this Parliament has judged the Customs Union with Turkey on the basis of promises that Turkey will comply with certain basic preconditions concerning issues of human rights, democracy, state of law, and cohabitation in accordance with international regulations as regards the Kurds, the Cypriots and Greek-Turkish relations.
Secondly, Parliament has agreed that an annual report will come before it so that it can monitor whether these conditions are being adhered to.
We may agree to any regulation on the condition that these two basic points are being observed, that is, Turkey's compliance with the preconditions and parliamentary control based on the Commission's report as to its compliance.
Anything other than this is sheer perversity and only serves the selfserving economic, commercial and politically strategic objectives of various large powers.
Mr President, a year and a half ago we stated quite clearly the conditions under which we would agree to a Customs Union, and because of that there has been a long drawn-out concerted action against us.
Now the Council wants to push through regardless an amendment to the basic law, and that without any debate.
We are to be kept retrospectively better informed, as far as Customs Union is concerned.
The concerted action against us was, it seems, just a pilot exercise.
Last year we insisted on being heard beforehand, but now that is all to be pushed aside.
I believe this amendment in favour of article 113 is simply not applicable, and in its opinion the Committee on Legal Affairs even spoke of dangerous prejudice.
Up to now the losers from Customs Union have been small and medium-sized businesses in Turkey, whereas EU exporters have been raking in ever-increasing profits.
This imbalance is ruinous for Turkey.
We have said right from the beginning that Turkey's acceptance path into the Union should not be obstructed.
Turkey must be able to participate as an equal partner in the negotiations for the European Conference.
The prerequisite for that is, however, the democratization of Turkey, respect for human rights and a political solution to the Kurdish problem.
That includes also the cessation of all aggression in northern Iraq.
We shall unfortunately be unable to vote for this report.
Mr President, over and above its technical aspects, Mr Kittelmann's report provides us with an occasion to take stock of our relations with Turkey and, above all, to evaluate whether the political objectives which were put forward to justify the need for a customs union have been, or are being, achieved.
The majority of this House had considered that the increase in prosperity which this agreement would entail for Turkey, and the political signal that it would give, would anchor Turkey for good in the camp of democracy, blocking the rise of Islam.
The reality has been completely different since hardly a few weeks after the approval, on this basis, of the Customs Union agreement with Turkey, the Islamic Party came to power in Ankara.
Another argument had been put forward at the time: the Customs Union was to substitute for Turkey not joining the European Union and would constitute the framework within which our relations with this very close neighbour would fit.
So, there is more ambiguity than ever.
Mr van den Broek indicated, when Agenda 2000 was presented, that Turkey felt it had a vocation to be a part of the Union, and Ankara is going to participate, against the wishes of many Member States, in the conference of candidate countries.
This continued ambiguity gives rise to illusory hopes and, for Turkey in particular, the hope of achieving a status to which it cannot lay claim.
I fear that disillusion and blackmail, today regarding the Customs Union, tomorrow regarding Cyprus, may deeply trouble our relations with this great nation.
If, at a time when a specific framework for cooperation that is adapted to the importance of our relations with Turkey is being clearly heralded, we prefer to persist in this deviation rather than follow up a fruitful cooperation, then we risk compromising the good relations which have been built up by several of our Member States and of raising artificial and dangerous antagonism.
I believe, Mr President, that it is high time to correct this direction and to base our relationship with Turkey on something other than ambiguity.
Mr President, most decisions of the Joint Committee are implemented under article 113 of the EC Treaty.
This relates in particular to the protection of free trade.
However, Parliament' s Legal Department has shown, on the basis of Court of Justice precedent, that the Joint Committee should not limit itself to powers under article 113.
Legally there is little to be said against the Council's decision to apply article 113 to the position of the Joint Committee on the customs union with Turkey, instead of article 235.
It is curious that the European Commission initially chose article 235 as the legal foundation without giving the reason behind it.
On the contrary, the European Commission itself indicated itself that the powers of the Joint Committee fall under article 113.
Can the Commission explain why that illogical basis was chosen at the time?
The Committee on Legal Affairs opposes the amended legal basis and in so doing refers to the decision-making procedures in the Committee for the European Economic Area and in the Association Council with Turkey.
That comparison falls short, however, as the Joint Committee deals with a defined, limited sphere, namely customs unions and certain provisions on intellectual property.
The Committee on Legal Affairs also fears that the change of legal basis damages the institutional balance in the Community. That fear seems grossly exaggerated.
The proposal is about decision-making in a committee.
It is difficult to maintain that the Council should consult the European Parliament before every meeting of the Joint Committee.
Parliament has been promised an annual report on the decisions.
That is more than enough.
Clearly we are happy to agree with Mr Kittelmann's report, which deals with this difficult problem in a lucid way.
Mr President, I would like to start by saying thank you for all the work the rapporteur and his predecessor, Mr Matutes, have carried out.
The proposal for a decision which has been discussed today, was drawn up by the Commission in January 1996 to enable the Community to establish its position at the EC-Turkey Customs Union Joint Committee.
It is clear that the outcome is article 113 of the treaty because the Commission took the view that a technical role which was involved, thus falling within the sphere of application of article 113 of the treaty.
The new report before the European Parliament today is about the legal basis for the proposal, which was amended by the Council after Parliament delivered its first opinion.
The Commission has no problem approving the new legal basis the Council wanted.
The approach on which it is based differs from that of the Commission, but it is also correct.
The Commission therefore agrees with the conclusions of Mr Kittelmann's report.
In particular, the Commission believes that changing the legal basis in no way affects either how the Joint Committee works or the rights of the European Parliament, something which Mr Kittelmann's report very much emphasized.
And, finally, I would like to add that it is important that this legislation is implemented as soon as possible, so that the Customs Union Joint Committee can operate effectively.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Higher education
The next item is the report (A4-0358/97) by Mrs Heinisch, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Recommendation on European cooperation in quality assurance in higher education (COM(97)0159 - C4-0263/97-97/0121 (SYN))
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media we repeatedly stress the importance of mobility, not just for European integration, but in particular in preparing our young people at an early age for the demands of working life.
Globalization is going full steam ahead.
It is becoming increasingly important to learn languages, to become familiar with other cultures and to adapt oneself flexibly to the customs of other lands.
For these reasons I have very much welcomed the Commission's initiative for the establishment of a European network for quality assurance in higher education.
But I do think the title of the proposal was an unfortunate choice.
The main thrust here is an opportunity to encourage mobility, rather than ensure quality assurance in higher education.
Of course it is also important to demand a certain quality level within all European Member States.
This should be a minimum requirement which must be met, and which guarantees that quality in our places of higher education does not decrease, but improves wherever possible.
It is only in this way that our universities can continue to withstand the pressure of international competition.
Member States point out quite correctly, however, that the detail of education does not fall within the competence of the European Union.
In my report, therefore, I have tried in the first part of the proposal - which challenges Member States to develop a system of evaluation - to emphasize quite clearly the independence of the universities.
The Commission's proposal is primarily aimed, however, at giving students and teaching staff information about courses on offer, course aims, and diplomas available at universities in various Member States.
This is intended to facilitate the search by higher education centres for partner universities, and the individual selection by students of courses abroad.
This is most welcome, because I personally learn over and over again from students how often enthusiasm and interest in neighbouring countries is stifled by inadequate information.
The Commission's proposal provides that it alone will undertake the construction of the European network.
I do not believe this is sensible and I understand why the Member States are opposing it.
The establishment of this sort of network can only take place on a basis of mutual trust and with cooperation.
It is hard to envisage a European network without national frameworks and the creation of national networks.
On those grounds the Committee on Culture supports my amendment for these demands to be addressed both to the Commission and to Member States.
The funding of the network remains a sensitive point.
The proposal foresees financing by the Socrates and Leonardo programmes, but without the joint approval of Parliament.
It has been said, however, that networks can be set up within the existing proposals for electronic networks in Socrates and Leonardo, and for that reason I welcome the proposal.
The proposal also deals with the first recommendation on education under article 126.
I support this for its own sake.
In order slightly to reduce the obligations in the proposal, however, I have replaced some of the executive measures with less compulsory terms.
I am pleased that the Committee on Culture has accepted these.
Also accepted was my proposal for a definition of the term "place of higher education' .
Let me just touch on a few points in my report which seem to me to be particularly important.
I have suggested that the central and eastern European countries should become involved at once in the evaluation process and the creation of the network.
Obviously their specific problems and situations must be adequately taken into consideration.
It also seems to me to be important for research and training to be evaluated, as I am convinced that they are essential to our future knowledge.
Furthermore, I think we must work out a comprehensive and generally agreed definition of quality within the overall drive for quality assurance, so that all higher education centres can identify with it and so that it can be used for the evaluation of student courses.
Without such general agreement it will be exceptionally difficult to carry out evaluation which is applicable throughout Europe.
Unfortunately, this proposal was rejected by the Committee on Culture, but as it seems to me to be really important, I shall reintroduce it on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, and hope for the Commission's support.
There is great deal to be said for this network, ladies and gentlemen, for transparency in the quality of places of higher education, and for mutually confident cooperation in this field between the Member States.
For this reason I hope that the Commission will accept our amendments and, with the support of Parliament, remove the obstacles to student mobility that still, unfortunately, exist.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate my colleague, Mrs Heinisch, on the work she has done regarding the Council's recommendation aimed at guaranteeing the quality of higher education.
This recommendation invites all Member States to consider equipping their systems of higher education with mechanisms of evaluation and quality assurance.
The Commission starts from the principle that it is important, in order to evaluate the quality of higher education, to base it on European cooperation, on transnational exchange of experience and on the positive advice of experts.
I fully support this view, but I think that the objective is commendable precisely because it enables us, through this evaluation, to better comprehend the strengths and weaknesses in the educational systems of different European establishments.
But for all that, the creation of a European network of quality assurance must not be too hasty.
The idea of quality assurance is a difficult concept to define and, furthermore, I fear that we risk ending up with a hierarchical list of higher education establishments.
The amendments that I have proposed on behalf of the Group Union for Europe extend the thinking of the rapporteur.
We must not challenge the cultural diversity of European education systems, which is of real value.
We must also preserve the autonomy of establishments and, thus, of the policies of the Member States of the Union in this regard.
Furthermore, economic issues must not threaten the academic value of teaching as a whole.
The selective demands of the labour market must not mean that the greatest emphasis is put only on training oriented in this direction.
Vigilance is therefore called for.
The difficulties in tackling this subject stem from the fact that we are treating both universities and technical establishments of higher education in the same way.
Everyone knows that they do not serve the same purpose and they cannot therefore be judged by the same quality criteria, which will be difficult to define and of which the broad outlines must be clarified.
Mr President, progress in education is one of the EU's main aims, but responsibility for school systems and educational content lies clearly at the national level, in other words, with the Member States themselves.
This principle must be borne in mind when discussing European harmonization in quality assurance in higher education.
Harmonization is meaningful if it brings something valuable with it and if it helps European colleges of higher education to do their proper job of improving research and the quality of the education offered.
This aim will not be fulfilled by creating a centralized, uniform European scheme of evaluation.
Itemized standards and rulings from the Community will not work if the variety and independence of colleges of higher education as well as the essential authority of each of the Member States are to be respected.
Fortunately, the Commission's proposal has been improved through feedback on the part of Member States, and Mrs Heinisch's report puts forward important improvements in the area of broader harmonization.
The goal of harmonization in education is to enhance European competitiveness and promote the movement of students and researchers.
For that we need still more information on the structure and content of education in other countries.
It is by means of fruitful harmonization that absolute trust can be built for an improved knowledge of systems.
We can learn of other practice and experience, although, at the same time, we also make a stand for the wealth that exists in cultural differences, which is visible, too, in our educational systems.
It is on the basis of these principles that the creation of a European quality assurance network can be given support.
And the main task of the network will be the exchange of knowledge and experience, as well as technical assistance to Member States in creating methodologies for evaluation.
It will be especially important to find ways to integrate graduates into the labour markets more effectively than now.
To achieve that, we will need very extensive dialogue on the subject of future needs and improved training to meet those needs.
Mr President, the idea of promoting a top class, truly European university is gaining ground.
Recently, in a French evening paper, two renowned universities stated their desire for its creation.
We must applaud such initiatives but, if the idea makes headway, we must not underestimate the distance to be covered, nor the obstacles to be found along the way.
That is why this recommendation from the Commission, as unambiguous as it is, comes at the right time and I would furthermore like to congratulate Mrs Heinisch on the quality of her work.
In fact, as she quite rightly emphasized, the independence of higher education establishments remains a priority that must not be put in jeopardy by a desire for rationalization.
Furthermore, university cooperation is today built upon a certain number of programmes which are the basis for European policy in the area of university education. I am talking about the Socrates and Leonardo programmes.
Above all else, they must be provided with sufficient financial resources.
For when all is said and done what is it that guarantees the quality of teaching? It is the Member States themselves perhaps, but it is also the recognition of the university community as a whole which, at a European level, authenticates it through exchange and cooperation mechanisms.
We must not lose sight of this idea, particularly at a moment when, within the perspective of enlargement, a certain number of CEECs are being included in our youth and education programmes.
Mr President, the mobility of students and scientists within Europe is still at far too low a level.
Particularly in the field of university education a process of integration should be developed, a process which is permanent and consists of many levels, and which can function without an expensive institutional infrastructure.
Cooperation between higher education establishments is currently hindered by a lack of knowledge about the higher education structure in other countries, about the quality and content of student courses, and above all about examination methods and final examinations.
Evaluation research could contribute here to valuable enlightenment and encourage mobility amongst students and scientists.
Greater mobility and a networked education would bring untold benefits to Europe as an economic entity.
The encouragement of quality assurance and cooperation between centres of higher education, however, can only function on trust.
Any apparently forced marriages, whether they be by the state or by the Community, must be excluded from the outset.
Cultural variety, which is expressed in the diversity of educational systems, must be respected.
The basic concepts of transparency and subsidiarity have particular importance in the context of the autonomy of higher education centres and the maintenance of their unique identities.
At a time when unemployment is first on the agenda of all European institutions, I think it is extremely important that this subject should also include employment policy arguments.
I have in mind, for example, the mutual recognition of diplomas, and the easing of the transition into working life.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that I am broadly in agreement with the paper presented by the Commission and most certainly with the report by my colleague Mrs Heinisch and the amendments she has recommended.
I think all of us in Europe are now agreed that employment is a high priority and that we are going to help employment, in particular the employment of young people, by making the single market work well and by having a well-educated population.
This paper goes some way towards that.
There is still no easy acceptance across Europe of higher-education qualifications.
For example, in the Committee on Petitions we are still receiving petitions from citizens of Europe who find that their higher-education qualifications are not accepted in one country or another.
Involving foreign experts in the process of quality assurance would help us in very many ways to ensure that educational levels and provision in one country are accepted in another.
I would also endorse Amendment No 59 which states that all players must be involved and spells out who those players are.
Students have already been mentioned but we must not ignore the business community or professional associations.
They most certainly must be involved in quality assurance.
Finally, as one who has been involved in quality assurance in educational procedures in the United Kingdom, I urge the Commission and anybody involved in this to keep it simple: we do not want too much bureaucracy or a procedure where form-filling and record-taking are seen as important rather than delivering good education, which is what is called for.
If we work on this report we will help higher education, the single market and young people to get the employment that they need.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first and foremost to thank Parliament and the rapporteur, Mrs Renate Heinisch, for the speed with which they have dealt with this proposal on a very important issue but one which is also, as has also been emphasized, open to debate.
At the request of the Council, presented as part of its conclusions in November 1991, the Commission initiated a number of pilot projects during the course of 1995-1996 to test different methods before it produced its proposals on the position.
Everyone who was involved in these projects, whether they were representing ministers, rectors, further education institutions, authorities responsible for quality assurance, all insisted that the Commission should do something to promote EU cooperation in this field.
It is worth noting that as we have entered the information society it has become of decisive importance for the citizens of the EU that the standards of quality in education are set very high.
To promote such quality education has now become the job of the Community.
It is a virtually impossible task to define what the term "quality' means in terms of further education, given that the education systems within the EU are as different as they are, which is also apparent from the debate here this afternoon.
So we have not even tried.
How can we give a single definition of the different working methods, the different basic views and the different traditions which are indissolubly linked with each education system? If we follow this approach and follow the principles which should be the basis for the different assessment systems, this will create the necessary support in partnership between the universities.
So we hope that the lack of understanding and the resulting lack of support in the future will give rise to far fewer problems in terms of, say, recognition of examination certificates and hence the true freedom of movement of labour.
It should be noted that most of these problems are due to a lack of knowledge of what education has been received.
In view of this, establishing a European quality assurance network consisting of representatives of the authorities responsible and linking universities in the Member States could help bring about a better exchange of experience.
I would like to state that it is the Commission's wish that this approach should be a useful tool for the players who are responsible for evaluating the quality of education.
By definition, this tool can be indicative or prescriptive, and it cannot be too specific.
I would therefore like once again to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Renate Heinisch, and the other members of the Committee on Culture who have produced the proposals for changes or indeed improvements and additions to the text without changing the tenor of the approach itself.
I am thinking here of the 17 out of the 38 amendments proposed which the Commission is inclined to approve.
The changes we have therefore decided to make are amongst others those which relate to the variety of the education system, the independence of further education institutions and the Member States' wish to play an active role in setting up a European quality assurance network.
The Commission cannot accept the other 21 changes, amongst other things because they include what we regard as inappropriate additions, such as references to non-member states and even research.
Secondly, because they remove the reference to the Commission's White and Green Papers, and those provide the basis for the approach explaining the connection between the needs of the labour market and society in general.
And thirdly, because they propose a summary presentation of the different stages of evaluation and of those involved in the individual stages, instead of the detailed, analytical presentation which the Commission has used.
With that, I want to thank you once again for the debate here this afternoon.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.30 p.m.
Amendment of Rule 154 of the Rules of Procedure
The next item is the report (A4-0345/97) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on amendment of Rule 154 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure concerning the report for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while technical in nature, this rule change has a certain symbolism, particularly when debated in this Chamber, which we are sharing with the Council of Europe at least until next year.
What is it about and which report was I responsible for? With the aim of making our regulations more legible, several months ago Mr Ford proposed deleting the reference to our relations with the Council of Europe.
There were well-founded reasons for this initial proposal; in fact, Rule154 of our Rules of Procedure provides for the European Parliament to send the Council of Europe a report once a year, as if our MEPs were subordinate to an older brother from whom we are gradually being emancipated.
The historic reason for this is that in 1952 with the signature of the ECSC Treaty, a privileged relationship with the Council of Europe was established by a protocol concluded at the time, and the European Parliament decided to respect it by forwarding an annual report which has lost all meaning over the years.
We have had and continue to have relations, at alternate stages, which have not been intense but are still relations, not only with the authorities but also with the specialist Committees, presidential bodies, and so on. There is no doubt that the enlargement prospects and an increase in the number of members of the Council of Europe ensure that this institution precedes the developments made by our institution at this new stage too.
Maintaining a formally closer link than that of the other European parliamentary bodies seemed important to the majority of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, although it was possible to take advantage Mr Ford's resolution aimed at changing the nature of our relations.
The report I am presenting today consists of two motions which merely confirm the actual situation.
We are deleting the somewhat out-of-date reference to this moral obligation to present an annual report and we are restricting ourselves to providing in the Rules for the bodies of the European Parliament to maintain mutually beneficial relations with the Council of Europe recognizing, in terms of the Rules, the importance of our special relationship with the Council of Europe, if only because we share the same place of work.
Then we can delegate to the Conference of Presidents, which already has the institutional task, finally settlement of the matter with the other party involved in the Council of Europe.
So this is a minor amendment which essentially confirms an historic link with the Council of Europe, provided for in the treaties, delegating to the Conference of Presidents the regulation of these existing relations at an appropriate time, particularly with regard to human rights and other subjects of common interest.
It is useful to maintain these relations without the outdated forms we are deciding to abolish with this report.
I hope you agree to the resolution and that the House will vote for it tomorrow.
Mr President, I rise to speak on the Dell'Alba report on the amendment of Rule 154.
I have to confess that it is all my fault.
As a Member of this House for the last thirteen years it struck me some time ago while sitting in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities that I had never seen Rule 154 ever used.
It moved me to table a question to the President of Parliament, asking him when Rule 154 had last been used. The answer was 1969.
This is a demand for an annual report, not operated now for almost thirty years.
So I followed the logic of the argument and tabled an amendment suggesting that Rule 154 should be deleted.
But I have to make a confession - rare in politicians - and say that I was wrong.
Richard Corbett, a man who has forgotten more about the Union Treaties than I have ever known - or will ever want to know - pointed out during a brief visit to the committee that this is in fact a treaty obligation.
I have checked the matter and it is.
It is actually in the European Community Treaties.
Article 2 of the Protocol on cooperation with the Council of Europe, an annex to the ECSC Treaty says the European Parliament of the Communities shall forward each year to the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe a report on its activities.
So, I am afraid we are rather stuck with it.
It intrigues me that seventeen Presidents of this institution have managed to ignore the Rule.
I am also interested that the Commission - the guardian of the treaties - has failed over the last 28 years to ensure that the rule is observed.
It should have been taking us to the Court of Justice, although I presume the Commission is also aware of article 4 of the same protocol which demands that the Commission engages in a dialogue with the Council of Europe.
I give the Commission notice that I will be asking it when it last did that.
These meetings of the Rules Committee must be really exciting!
Mr President, it is obviously quite fashionable for Labour politicians to apologize to the public for mistakes that they have made. A yet more eminent one did so recently.
Mr Ford is following in eminent footsteps.
In my view the Dell'Alba report is not formally in contradiction with the Treaty obligation to which Mr Ford has referred.
It would be wholly appropriate that the Conference of Presidents should be given the right - as Mr Dell'Alba has proposed - to monitor and to control relationships between the European Parliament and the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly, and it would be up to them to decide whether quietly and discreetly the time had not come to honour in the breach rather than the observance this particular long-standing but not observed provision of the treaties.
I am not worried about voting for the Dell'Alba report.
On a formal level there is no contradiction.
Politically it might be quite appropriate to move to this situation and the system that Mr Dell'Alba is proposing.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Ford and Mr Dell'Alba for finding such obscure articles in the Rules of Procedure that they have actually not been implemented for so long, and then to propose deleting them, but as Mr Ford has already pointed out there is a snag.
Article 2 of the Protocol annexed to the Coal and Steel Community Treaty actually makes it a legal obligation. Why is there such a legal obligation?
Mr President, any Vice-President of this Parliament other than yourself would actually of course remember that when the Coal and Steel Community was set up only six states broke away from the then 14 that comprised the Council of Europe and its somewhat larger parliamentary assembly.
They were going ahead as pioneers and this article symbolized the fact that they were leaving the door open to the others to follow later but keeping the contacts going: a very wise decision as history proved because the other states did eventually catch up with them.
It would perhaps therefore not be appropriate to delete such a symbolic procedure.
Even if perhaps we are not about to implement it we should not get rid of it.
Who knows when it might be appropriate to do that again in the history of European integration.
But in any case even if were not at such a juncture, respect of the treaties is fundamental.
The treaties are the constitution of the European Union.
They may be a bad constitution, they may not be very well codified, they may have all sorts of articles that people have forgotten about, but nonetheless they are the constitution.
They determine the field of competence of the Union, and the powers of the institutions and we ignore the treaties at our peril.
They are the very foundation of the powers of this Parliament and they cannot be blithely ignored.
So I would urge the Parliament, and all those who have come to listen to this debate, to support the amendment that has been tabled by Glyn Ford to this report which I think will render it just about compatible with the treaty provision and make sure that this Parliament remains within the constitution.
Mr President, very briefly, as rapporteur, I would like to thank those colleagues who have taken part in this rich and historic debate.
I would also like to say that I personally have always thought that the legal basis for this amendment lay strictly speaking in the treaty.
Article 230 of the Treaty on Union states that the Community shall use all useful means of cooperation with the Council of Europe.
Vice versa, and I put this question to the authors, while awaiting tomorrow's decision, using a 1952 protocol as a basis which, among other things, recommends that the Members of our Parliament be chosen from the members of the Council of Europe, seems to me to be a little anachronistic.
We have this wording which helps us; in my opinion, we have a treaty article devoted to cooperation with the Council: this seems sufficient to me.
I would like to point this out without picking holes in a protocol which quite frankly seems rather out-of-date to me.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken on Wednesday at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.15 p.m.)
Mr Hernández Mollar, that message will be passed on.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Wynn may speak.
Mr President, on item 8 of the Minutes, the order of business.
The agenda we voted yesterday says for yesterday evening at 7 p.m. "urgent committee meetings authorized by the President' .
I attended two of those which were the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Both committees took items off their agenda because they were not considered to be urgent.
Can I ask you, Mr President, when you give authorizations for committee meetings in Strasbourg to be extremely strict in defining what is urgent.
I will be, Mr Wynn.
Just on the record of attendance, Mr President, I was here yesterday, I think you may have noticed that.
(Laughter )
I heard you so it will be corrected.
Mr President, yesterday I tried to raise the issue of Roisín McAliskey and her continued detention in a secure psychiatric unit in England.
The purpose of the exercise, as recorded in the Minutes, was to bring to the attention of the British and German Members the iniquity of her detention.
You asked me to write you a letter on the matter which I will do.
But that precludes me from asking the British and German Members to request their governments to release Roisín McAliskey on humanitarian grounds alone.
I do not want to go into the details of her continued detention.
She is in a secure psychiatric mother and baby unit in England, and it seems to me that if the decent English people who fought hard for the release of Louise Woodward were to consider the inequity of the imprisonment of this young woman on very flimsy evidence, they would call on their government for her release.
Your letter will be sent to all German and British colleagues so you will achieve your objective.
Mr President, this is a comment on the Minutes, too.
My name does not appear on the attendance register, perhaps through a mistake of my own.
I attended other meetings yesterday, of both my group and my committee, and perhaps I forgot to sign myself in for the sitting in the Chamber.
Mr President, on page 14, in the last paragraph, it says that the Scapagnini report has been postponed to the next part-session.
Yesterday I listened to the reasoning behind this and asked for the floor, but it seems I was unable to attract your attention.
I am taking this opportunity now because I can see it written in the Minutes.
It has, I see, been deferred until the next part-session.
No essential reason provided for in the Rules is given for this.
Mr Scapagnini and a certain group were simply not happy with the day and time agreed for the debate of this report.
The point, Mr President, ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr Ephremidis, I could not give you the floor yesterday because the relevant provisions of the Rules allow only one person to speak against such a request, and somebody had already done so.
The House was fully aware of the issue at the time of the vote.
We are not going to reconsider the matter.
(The Minutes were approved)
Decision on urgency
Proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing, for the period 1 July 1997 to 30 June 2000, the fishing rights and financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea on fishing off the coast of Equatorial Guinea (COM(97)0522 - C4-0567/97-97/0268(CNS)).
Fraga Estévez (PPE), Chairman of the Committee on Fisheries.
(ES) Mr President, I just want to say that the Committee on Fisheries is in favour of these three requests for urgent procedure.
I want to state the following on behalf of the Committee on Budgets. We have again agreed to the urgency, but we would like to point out urgently to the Council - at least through the Minutes, even if it is not present - that we have established in an interinstitutional agreement that a financial sheet is submitted at the right time with the relevant protocols.
But for all three protocols, it has only been possible to have the corresponding financial sheet supplied after more resistance by the Chamber.
This is an intolerable situation!
We insist that the interinstitutional agreement should be respected, and if that does not happen, this house must actually ensure that urgencies are rejected even if they are genuinely important.
It cannot be right that one side always gives way in order to push the urgency through, whereas the other side simply does not fulfil its own obligations!
Mr President, on a minor point of order.
Could you remind the House of the rule regarding mobile phones within this Chamber? It would seem that some people forget that we have a rule on this matter.
Thank you very much, Mr Thomas.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Annual report and statement of assurance by Court of Auditors for the 1996 general budget
The next item is the presentation of the annual report and statement of assurance for the 1996 general budget.
Mr Friedmann has the floor.
Mr President, the annual report and the statement of assurance relating to activities in connection with the general budget for the financial year 1996 identifies a list of shortcomings in the use of Community funds.
In key areas it will help the Commission make progress towards fulfilling its joint responsibility for significantly improving the impact of Community funds in achieving the Union's objectives.
First of all, the Court observes that a generous allocation of budgetary appropriations may discourage rigorous financial management.
Such a potential risk is clearly reduced for the 1998 budget.
However you measure it - in terms of growth rates, margins below the financial perspectives or in relation to the own-resources ceiling - the forthcoming 1998 budget is rigorous.
The Commission, like the Court and Mr Friedmann, has identified overcompensation of cereal producers in the context of the 1992 agricultural reforms. The Commission has made a proposal for a partial correction.
To its great regret, this has not been adopted, either by the Council or the European Parliament.
The Commission therefore will come back to this question in the context of Agenda 2000.
As far as the common agricultural policy in general is concerned, all observations of the Court are valuable for the clearing of accounts, and the Commission will make full use of them.
I have also noted with interest the conclusion of the Court that for the EAGGF guarantee section there are indications that the new financial arrangements for clearance of accounts are having some beneficial impact.
With regard to the structural funds, the number of significant errors affecting payments remains too high.
This is the area where the most important decisions were taken in 1997.
The rules of eligibility were agreed last April.
In October the Commission adopted a regulation on minimum standards for financial control by Member States.
These minimum standards apply to those operations which are cofinanced by the structural funds.
Last month the Commission also took note of the internal guidelines on application of net financial corrections.
I reported on the measures taken to Ecofin yesterday.
The support of the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament for this process has been vital. It has not always been easy.
Attention now shifts to framing regulations for the next programming period. This must permit a qualitative leap towards enhancing cost-effectiveness.
Concentration, simplification, decentralization, combined with more stringent checks and verification of results, are the leitmotifs here.
The discussions on the Court of Auditors' 1996 report and the discharge procedure coincide with the Commission proposal and will make it possible to draw the best possible conclusions for the next period.
Here I would like to make a plea to the Court of Auditors.
It would be valuable if, with the additional resources for the statement of assurance, the Court could in the future provide more sectoral information.
This would help identify the source of the problem and the responsibilities, and this, in turn, would allow us to target the reform activities better.
Briefly, some other observations.
This report reinforces the conviction that in many areas of the Community budget there are too many projects which are too small and have too many objectives.
Concentration and simplification need to be pursued throughout the Community budget.
In several chapters the Court criticizes the management of Community subsidies.
In line with the observations of its own Inspectorate-General and the continuous insistence of the European Parliament, the Commission is working towards general standards in this area.
It will adopt an interim report later today, and I will inform the Committee on Budgets of the European Parliament about this report next week.
Finally, the Court has convinced the Commission of the advantages of a general overhaul of the Communities' financial regulations.
The Commission should be able to provide a first reflection document in the first half of 1998.
In conclusion, let me assure you that the Commission will carefully follow up all the Court's remarks in the 1996 annual report.
The future presidency has also indicated its particular commitment in this respect.
The reform of the management of Community finances is a continuous process.
A number of reforms have been decided, as I informed you. Their implementation must be persistent and rigorous .
Improving financial management is a continuous process.
It is our duty and also the duty of the Member States.
Only in this way will our efforts bear fruit, improve the regularity of Community spending and increase value for money.
I congratulate Mr Friedmann on this annual report.
The Commission is fully committed to working with the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, the rapporteur, Mr Ellis, and all parliamentarians involved to draw the required conclusions.
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
We now come to the debate on the report, and I would ask you to keep your questions concise please.
Mr President, I have four questions.
My first is a general one: to what extent are we talking about fraud, Mr Friedmann, as opposed to mismanagement of funds? Can you give us some idea of that?
The next three questions are all on the DASS.
Paragraph 19.30 of the report talks about substantive errors - which you also referred to in your speech - where the EAGGF guarantee funds are below average.
Does this mean that we have a positive DASS for agriculture? Does it also mean that we only have a negative DASS in the structural funds?
In paragraph 19.27 where the Commission talks about limitations to their work, we are given two areas: one concerning public storage and one unforeseen legal and physical circumstances.
We are not told what these are in the report or in the Commission's response.
Could you explain what they are, Mr Friedmann?
Finally, in the response to paragraphs 19.28 to 19.36 the Commission makes a statement which I seem to have seen now for the third time.
It says it believes that because of the degree of uncertainty inherent in any statistical method and because it will be some years before the DASS has required sufficient maturity, the Court's findings must be interpreted with caution.
What is your response to that?
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, with regard to individual programmes, in particular Phare and Tacis, last year you emphasized the difficulties of both monitoring use of funds and underutilization of open accounts.
I believe the work of the Court of Auditors will be particularly useful when the time comes to develop financial procedures for the Agenda 2000 budget aimed at countries who are candidates for membership.
But I would like to ask your opinion on a subject which particularly concerns me, as I am the rapporteur for the budget. It relates to the reconstruction of former Yugoslavia.
Mr President, have you any particular information concerning the utilization of funds for this purpose?
Can you, in particular, tell us if you have effective ways of ensuring with certainty that the open accounts for rehabilitation and reconstruction are not being used for other purposes? Lastly, given that management responsibility has been largely delegated to the World Bank, can you give us any information regarding your relations with this organization and, in particular, with regard to way in which control is exercised in the award of contracts?
Mr President, once again, the Court of Auditors has severely criticized the way in which the Community's resources are managed, and for example the Economic and Social Committee has been severely criticised for fraud in connection with travelling expenses refunded without proper documentation, and the meeting lists are not reliable.
I would like to ask the chairman of the Court of Auditors when we will actually get an investigation into the European Parliament? How come we did not get a report on the situation in Parliament long ago, so we can sort out our own management of resources and hence, ladies and gentlemen, also sort out our image, because presumably the Court of Auditors is not negotiating with the President of the European Parliament on whether there should be a review of Parliament at all?
My second question, Mr President, concerns the ruling by the Court, where I think we are still not answering the question of why there are so many errors in the payments. We are failing to have it clarified whether it is actually the Court of Appeal's method which is at fault, whether it is the Commission's system of controls which is at fault or whether it is simply the Member States.
Who is responsible for the way things are, and how large a margin of error does the Court of Auditors think is acceptable in the first place?
Mr President, I refer to line 1426, former Yugoslavia.
You state in the Court of Auditors report that up to July 1997 a total of 1.3 % of the resources which we provided in December 1995 for reconstruction in Yugoslavia had been used.
Two weeks ago, we transferred ECU 100 million for 1997, which were provided for reconstruction, to fisheries and elsewhere, because DG 1a is unable to pay these funds!
I have asked Mr Westendorp to come to the Committee on Budgetary Control next week and explain this fact to us, because we are not getting any detailed information from the Commission about what is going on. My question to you is this: if you say that your work is for prevention, and if you say that the Commission has shown itself to be capable of learning to respond to your stimuli, how then do you assess the ability of DG 1a to learn something for 1997 or 1998 and following years from the mess of 1996?
Mr President, the report on the 1996 budget exercise is extremely rewarding, as were the previous years' reports.
Unfortunately, I doubt that much follow-up will be devoted to it.
On the eve of the European Summit, in which the European Union envisages attacking unemployment by making a substantial financial contribution which will benefit SMEs through the intermediary of the EIB, I would like to give a topical example, that of chapter 6, which deals with SMEs.
The report points out that, within the context of the ERDF, there are no defined regulations for SMEs, there has been no inventory of the numerous actions benefitting SMEs, nor a statement of the amounts allocated to financing them.
It notes that SMEs still have difficulty in gaining access to capital and in obtaining loans and that the SME initiative, provided with ECU 1 billion for the period 1994-1999, has not enabled more coherence to be given to the cohesion or to the strategy of aid. The procedures do not make it possible to ensure respect for the rules of cumulative aid and the Commission has carried out few analyses of the socio-economic impact of concrete actions benefitting these enterprises.
Where they exist, these analyses do not prove that the overall creation of real jobs is due to the actions financed.
So my question is: does the Court of Auditors envisage recommending that the Commission urgently rationalize and optimize the use of these Community instruments designed for SMIs and SMEs before it and Parliament release millions of ECUs, which we know in advance will not be of any use?
Mr President of the Court of Auditors, you have dedicated a chapter to general subsidies, in which you note numerous anomalies in their distribution.
There are only a few hundred of these, while the various chapters of title B of the budget cover tens of thousands of subsidies.
My question is therefore the following: do you envisage widening the study that you have made on the general subsidies of title A-3 to cover the chapters of title B of the Community budget, so that we will be able to understand them better? That is my general question.
I also have a more specific question to put to you.
Still relating to this chapter, you quote two particularly important anomalies.
One relates to a subsidy of ECU 400, 000 aimed only at internal usage, but without stating the beneficiary organization.
Do you not think that in the interests of greater transparency the offending organization should have been named?
Mrs Kjer Hansen has briefly talked about the issue of travel expenses of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions which was not mentioned by the President of the Court of Auditors.
Investigations by the Court of Auditors are based on random sampling.
My question is: would it not be sensible to complete the inquiry, both into the number of members and into the time that those members have spent on the Economic and Social Committee, to give the Council, which is politically responsible for the appointment of the members of the Economic and Social Committee, the opportunity to take the necessary action?
Secondly, the Court of Auditors clearly refers to an undervaluation of the commitment to the sum of several hundred millions.
In other words, Mr President, it is really more a question for the chairman of the committee. The impression is created that the European Commission attaches more importance to the opinions of the European Council than to those of the budget authority and to the financial regulations.
Mr President, I am glad that the President of the Court of Auditors and Commissioner Liikanen are both here, because my questions concern their lack of communication with each other.
I should like to put three specific questions.
The first question is about substantive errors.
It seems that the two of you have different ideas about what constitutes a substantive error, and what the budgetary impact of these substantive errors is.
This is quite important, because it affects, among other things, the amounts you query, for example in such important areas as the structural funds.
Could your communication with each other be improved?
My second question concerns the rules of eligibility.
From the Commission's replies, I assume that the common rules of eligibility for all the Member States have now been worked out.
Has the Court of Auditors not been informed of these rules of eligibility?
The third question, Mr President, concerns the national monitoring institutions.
It is clear that there is still a lack of cooperation between these institutions and the Court of Auditors. Does the Court of Auditors think they can perform their task of inspection without such collaboration?
Mr President of the Court of Auditors, in your report you mentioned that there are formal defects in the management of the structural funds, which amount to violations of the law.
Four-fifths of those defects arise from the structural and institutional shortcomings of Member States. Those States, however, administer 80 % of European funds and the European budget.
How, Mr President, do you suggest that this complicity or default on the part of Member States can be eradicated unless there are real changes in the criminal law and, in short, crime ceases to pay in Europe as it has paid up to now?
That is what needs to be done. Why does the Court of Auditors not accuse and indict those Member States which are not operating correctly, instead of just recording the fact?
Mr President, I have a question about overpayment of income supplements in agriculture.
Mr Friedmann, if I have understood correctly, are we only talking about the year 1996, or has he also included the previous years? And in that case, has he taken into account the monetary aspects, the fluctuation in green rates?
Another question: have the regulations been wrongly applied?
Or have they been applied correctly and were they incorrect from the outset? Had it been assumed that there would be a 5 or 10 % fluctuation against the guaranteed price?
This is important in connection with overcompensation. And then my last question, also in connection with Agenda 2000: these income supplements were set for six years; does he think it is reasonable that halfway through the game the rules are changed, and does he think it is credible in the light of the proposals the Commission is making in this context ahead of Agenda 2000?
Mr President, Mr Friedmann said there were around 5.3 % irregularities in the EU's budget. My question is: what does this look like in comparison with the budgets of the Member States?
Are the irregularities as large in the Member States' own budgets as in the EU's budget? Or is it the EU which has difficulty in keeping track of its money?
As far as tobacco subsidies are concerned, these are very regrettable.
I agree that tobacco subsidies should be revised and completely abolished, because it cannot be reasonable for the EU's taxpayers to pay four-fifths of the tobacco growers' income.
My last question concerns the Commission.
The European Commission has 17, 000 employees.
However, I can find very little in the documentation about how the Commission deals with its internal situation, that is, how much corruption there is among the EU's employees.
It cannot be only the Member States who have difficulty in keeping track of the EU's money; it must also be difficult for EU employees.
Mr President, I should like to ask two questions.
First of all, will the Court of Auditors accept that the threat to own resources shown in the annual report cannot be tackled at Community level alone? Member States receive 10 % in a payment for collection of traditional own resources and they must, therefore, accept a high level of obligation with regard to this payment, particularly as it coincides with their own self-interest.
The annual report, for example, of the United Kingdom customs and excise published yesterday shows a £1 billion shortfall in tobacco receipts alone.
Secondly, will the Commission itself note and accept a paradox concerning the tobacco regime.
While the Commission is trying to ban tobacco companies from using their post-tax profits on sports sponsorship, the Commission is supporting by over ECU 1 billion a tobacco regime as if it were a healthy agricultural pursuit.
Will the Court of Auditors make sure that the Commission fully understands the criticisms of the existing regime and point out to the Commission that they are only in a position to take the moral high ground if they stop the support for the regime?
Mr President, this presentation merits more time but its brevity should not stop us from congratulating the Court and thanking it for this very good report.
I just want to ask three questions.
In chapter 15 the Court discusses the failings of the Community's decentralized bodies.
Will the Court please look early at the proposals from the Commission, which the Committee on Budgetary Control is now considering, to see if, in the Court's view, they will meet the problem.
Chapter 1 draws attention to the problems of revenue loss in the free zones.
Could we please, at some time, have an estimate of the loss of revenue in those zones?
Thirdly, regarding the sentence quoted by the Commissioner on overprovision of resources in various areas, I would remind the House that this overprovision happens in the compulsory expenditure chapters. It lends weight to Parliament's argument that the compulsory side of the budget should disappear.
Mr President, I read the Court of Appeal's report with pleasure this year, because I cannot see Denmark mentioned in the report as we were in other years and that is pleasing.
I would like to support my colleague, Eva Kjer Hansen, in her proposal that we should have an investigation into Parliament's travel expenses, so we can improve our image.
But there is one thing on which I would very much like to have an answer from Mr Friedman: is it the case that we are pumping a mass of EU funds into the Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund without us having any way of seeing what the money is used for? The report says that people will not cooperate, and I believe this is the problem we need to take up.
Finally, I would say that, until I came down here, I used to read an incredible number of detective novels, and now that I read our annual reports I find that my need for excitement is satisfied.
Thank you very much, Mr President!
The debate is closed.
BSE
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A4-0362/97) by Mr Böge, on behalf of the Temporary Committee to follow up the recommendations on BSE, on the European Commission's follow-up of the recommendations made by the Committee of Inquiry into BSE; -16 oral questions to the Council and to the Commission (Â4-0525/97 and Â4-0526/97, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, Â4-0714/97 and Â4-0715/97, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Â40716/97 and Â4-0717/97, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, Â4-0718/97 and Â4-0719/97, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, Â4-0720/97 and Â4-0721/97, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, Â4-0722/97 and Â4-0723/97, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, Â4-0897/97 and Â4-0898/97, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, Â4-0899/97 and Â4-0900/97, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations), on the report of the Temporary Committee to follow up the recommendations on BSE.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, on 23 April this House decided to set up a Temporary Committee to follow up the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE.
Its task was to monitor the handling by the EU Commission of the 70 recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry, and to report to the Conference of Presidents about it at the beginning of November.
So we were not a new committee of inquiry, although there was sometimes a temptation to open the books again.
Our work was based on the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry and the progress reports from the Commission, which were submitted monthly.
Anyone who compares the Commission's first progress report before the summer break with the final Commission document can see that a good start has been made.
BSE was indeed no act of God, as certain people tried to tell us at the Committee of Inquiry, but a bizarre mixture of wrong behaviour, mismanagement, wrong assessment and ignorance, and these mistakes demanded that we should draw conclusions from them.
Summarizing, I can say that wherever what mattered was to draw conclusions which were important to the consumer, and to drive the decision forward, we are on the way.
Either the expressed recommendations have been put into effect, or a start has been made, or the Commission has promised to do so within a firm timetable.
These, Mr President of the Commission, are bills of exchange on the future.
Redeem these bills of exchange, because, as in business life, if you do not redeem bills of exchange, you are no longer in business!
I add that wherever we went in the undergrowth of the treaty or treaty interpretations, there really were problems.
Even knowing the very varied legal interpretations of the services of Parliament and the Commission, I say that here we would have liked the Commission to be more courageous and more on the offensive.
On the other hand, we recognize fully that the Commission has acted on some difficult issues right up to the last minute - I remember the promises to change the status of officials, and also the very clear promise from you, Mr President of the Commission, to put yourself on the side of the Parliament during the renegotiation of the interinstitutional agreement.
Let me list some positive examples where we have made a good start.
Obviously, reclaiming the costs of BSE, disciplinary measures, administrative proceedings against the United Kingdom, proceedings because of the nonappearance of Mr Hogg or the vote of no confidence against individual commissioners are so to speak the negative examples which have not been worked out.
We consider as particularly positive the successes in efforts for more transparency and openness: access by Parliament and the public to the bases of the scientific advice, new members of the scientific committees, stronger participation by experts in human medicine.
We demand here that the same principles of openness, clarity and information must also apply to international scientific bodies, otherwise we shall reject these opinions as a basis for business in future.
We consider as positive the reorganization of departments, the separation of lawmaking on the one hand and scientific advice and control on the other.
Even the supplementary budget is now finally on the way.
But I also say here that if the Commission had acted collectively, the necessary jobs could have been created long ago by switching free jobs.
And please ensure that the open question of the veterinary inspection department is settled on the principle of efficiency, not by location.
This is also a subject which concerns the Council, Mr President-inOffice.
Indeed, the actions and control activities of the Member States and the Commission, in the context of the possibilities of the internal market, were badly coordinated and inadequate.
Here there is a series of good suggestions for improvement which have been promised to us.
Spot checks in the country of origin, physical checks on the borders combined with improved information about the destination country, independently of BSE, can show a way to the future here.
I expect here from the Council that it should declare itself ready to make the results of veterinary inspection accessible to the public.
The pressure of public opinion and the pressure of markets would then have much more effect than the initiation of any breach of contract proceedings by the Commission.
Mr President-in-Office, the negligent behaviour, sometimes contemptuous of Community law, of some Member States must be finally brought to an end.
I am thinking in particular of the unbelievable events and lax behaviour about putting the appropriate directive about sterilization of animal meal into effect.
We can therefore only say that the Commission must start breach of contract proceedings much more quickly in future.
It must apply more boldly than before for interim injunctions by the European Court of Justice, and essentially, follow-up controls must become the rule when deficiencies are identified, and the costs must be charged to the defaulting Member States.
In the spirit of transparency and openness and citizen involvement and with the support of the Commission, it was possible in Amsterdam to put through the extension of the codecision procedure to the fields of animal health and plant protection.
This is positive, but at the same time we expect the Commission, where there is room for interpretation regarding the legal basis, to undertake always to exploit it in favour of Parliament.
We have talked for a long time about compensation for the victims of this crisis.
After long hesitation, the Commission has declared itself ready, in the spirit of solidarity, to provide money from the Community budget in addition to the resources provided by the Member States, if the Member States introduce corresponding initiatives.
We see the promised support of the organization which is active in this field as the first step in the right direction, and invite the British government and the Commission to consult with the organizations about suitable support actions, and to report to us.
It is quite clear that the root of the whole evil was the completely crazy use of insufficiently sterilized animal meals, which were also fed to ruminants.
We have thoroughly investigated and clarified this question during an international conference of scientists and experts.
You will find the results in the report.
A truly functional recycling system can only be sustained if three safety keys are in place in future: clean base materials, slaughtering waste only from animals which are permitted to be used as food, the highest possible processing standards, and never, never, feeding to ruminants!
The behaviour of the Member States here is really a scandal.
If a Member State completely refuses to put this directive into effect, it must be put in the pillory!
The prohibition of movement which the Commission declared was correct, but came very late.
I will add that, regarding the problems of the risk material decision of the Commission of 30 July, we as a Parliament are giving the Commission as well as the Council a real helping hand with this report, on how to escape from the dilemma: step by step removal of the export prohibition on the clear conditions which were agreed in Florence, filling in the gaps in the decision of 30 July regarding pharmaceutical products, and many other open specialist questions.
Read the report very carefully!
I believe we have made good proposals to you.
It is clear that the staffing and disciplinary actions were not sufficiently put into effect.
Mr President of the Commission, we are pleased that you have reorganized your staff, that there has been a reorganization.
We regret that you have refused to take disciplinary action.
We maintain our position but the promise to change the status of officials in the light of this recognition is also a bill of exchange on the future, which we explicitly welcome.
Mr President of the Commission, we also welcome your promise, which you have again made clearly, to strive, in the renegotiation of the interinstitutional agreement with Parliament, to ensure that in future it should be obligatory for members of national governments to appear.
It is clear that if the Council does not come, responsibility is put on the Commission, so it is in your self-interest that this should be changed for the future.
Let me finally say, Mr President, that agriculture, rural economy on the principle of sustainability and thinking over generations must be our motto, the need for an agriculture adapted to its location, observing the precautionary principle in improving efficiency and using hormones, and the development of a code of good agricultural practice.
I believe that in the last 16 months Parliament has tried, with the Committee of Inquiry and dealing with the recommendation, to recreate a front rank position for protection of health and the consumer in the internal market.
I also warn the curious that Parliament is now able to reopen such a procedure.
Therefore, let the past be a lesson to us all!
I would like to ask the Commission to remain the committed ally of the European Parliament in the future, when what matters is to put precautionary consumer and health protection at the centre of the internal market effort!
(Applause)
Mr Böge, I have allowed you to exceed your time, which was the least reward that I, as President, could give you for such a brilliant piece of work.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you and the whole of the committee under the chair of Mrs Roth-Behrendt for an exceptional piece of work undertaken over the last nine months.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, I would like to join with you in thanking the services of Parliament; sometimes they really do carry out their duties in an exemplary way and it is wrong not to give them a mention and some praise from time to time.
I would also like to thank you personally and to congratulate you on the work of your committee.
On the basis of your report and the questions to the Council and the Commission, we have accepted eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40, paragraph 5, of the Rules of Procedure.
Voting on these will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, before going to the heart of matters I wish to deal with, I would like to point out the importance of the work we have carried out on these two committees, first the Committee of Inquiry and then the Temporary Committee to follow up the Recommendations on BSE, and without any flattery, I want to highlight the great climate of cooperation within these two committees.
I had the good fortune to be a vice-chairman for both, first with Mr Böge and then with Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
I must tell Parliament that we chose two great mastiffs, so to speak, who knew how to bite shrewdly and wisely when it was important to bite and how to avoid attacking when it was better to leave room for discussion.
I think all of us who took part in the work of this committee experienced a real sense of usefulness: we were dealing with profound issues which affected citizens and their interests from close up.
Rather than make a technical speech and as we will have to vote tomorrow, I have plunged into the rather perilous exercise, of breaking down the votes by issues, by sectors and by matters we have dealt with which we will have to assess tomorrow.
This is a joint vote that relates to the United Kingdom, the Commission and the Council.
With regard to special matters, such as veterinary controls, I am giving one more vote to the Commission; with the little organization available and with few reinforcements, in this task the Commission even managed to stand in for the supervisory authorities of the Member States which, it has to be said, proved inadequate.
I am also giving one less vote to the Commission because it did not manage to accept Mrs Bonino's appeal to supplement the veterinary inspection services with around 150 new officers and, in particular, it did not manage to find the necessary funds at the right time for the joint action of DG V, VI and XXIV.
On relations with the United Kingdom, I am giving one more vote not only for the pressure on the British government which has succeeded in reinforcing the global application of the embargo (I will vote on effectiveness later) but also because the United Kingdom has realized the importance of taking measures to help families affected by the new Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
I am giving one less vote for the embargo controls, which are pitifully lacking; we realize that it may not be possible to control everything but the fact is that the United Kingdom is exporting uncontrolled quantities of meat every day; recently, it seems that 100, 000 tonnes have been exported, not only to the European continent but to third countries in particular.
I am giving one more vote to the culling plan which is proceeding with guarantees of appreciable scientific safety; however, I am giving one less vote to the quantity commitment made by the United Kingdom in this operation: with only twenty-three slaughterhouses and seven incinerators, it will take ten years to dispose of the number of heads to be slaughtered, as indicated by the European Union.
I am giving one more vote to the operation of the ban on using animal meal for feeding ruminants; but we should find out whether or not this meal can be used today for feeding other non-ruminants.
It should be pointed out that this operation has led to a clear improvement in the BSE situation with just 500 cases in the last month compared with 3, 000 in more acute times.
I am giving one less vote to the British government which is not yet taking sufficient measures in favour of families affected by the disease.
Finally, I am unfortunately giving one less vote to the Commission for the lack of disciplinary measures.
Ours is not a spirit of justice as we held six officials responsible; none of them was affected by these disciplinary measures and we will regret that for a long time to come.
Applause
Mr President, we find today that it was right to set up a monitoring committee.
It gives us an insight into what the Commission has done and what it has not done.
We can say that roughly two-thirds of Parliament's demands have been met.
This is in fact more than we expected.
I would like to name some of them briefly.
We have made the fight against BSE more transparent, we got a comprehensive information policy so that we could spread information on the results of research in this field, which was very important.
We also reinforced the national inspection authorities for veterinary and human health, which also proved to be highly necessary.
We developed better systems for transporting fodder in the Union, but these have not been completed yet.
Even if the Committee's work is over, we have to note that BSE is not.
But there are signs that the disease will fade over the next four to six years, provided the programmes put in place are followed.
Now it is often the case that people only do something about an epidemic once it is upon them, and that reduces the interest in fighting it.
People do not take so much notice any more.
So it is vital that the rules we have laid down are followed so that there is no such weakening of interest in combatting BSE.
We have a tradition in the Union of being better at regionalizing epidemics than combatting them.
I would therefore call on the Commission to follow the demands we have made on it in the committee, to try to regionalize BSE so that areas where there has been no BSE and which meet the rules on identifying cows and calves are declared BSE-free for the simple reason that this will encourage areas where there is BSE to step up the fight against the disease.
It is my wish that this demand should be met so that we can continue this tradition.
Finally, I would say that I regret to some extent that it was necessary to set up this committee, but on the other hand I have to admit that, when you have an organization which is as heavy as the Commission, it is sometimes necessary to attack it to get it to do its work better.
You can dismiss governments or put pressure on them, but the Commission is a peculiar hybrid of a legislative and administrative body.
So it has also proved necessary to put pressure on it to get it to do its work better, and that has succeeded for the moment.
I hope there is no need to set up another committee of inquiry in the near future.
Mr President, after one year of intense, continuous work on the part of the committees of the European Parliament with regard to bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the time has come for us to see what has been achieved and if there has been any real progress on the issue of the protection of public health and of consumers alike.
In particular, we can make the following observations, which must not be forgotten in the future.
First, there is no doubt that the European Parliament, with its resolution of the 19 February 1997, has succeeded in consolidating its position and today is able to exercise real control over the actions of the European Commission.
Secondly, it has been ascertained that the conduct of the Member States and of the Commission with regard to the internal market was inadvisable and so they were unable to guarantee effective protection of public health.
Thirdly, it is absolutely essential, Mr President-in-Office, for the Commission's veterinary inspection services to be organized as efficiently as possible, and we must ensure, in the future, that they operate appropriately and effectively, as regards their responsibilities, the flow of information, the guaranteeing of timely, effective action at both a legislative and a political level, and also compliance with the treaties.
Fourthly, Mr President-in-Office, effective coordination and cooperation between the various services and the Member States is the real basis on which the protection of public health and the protection of consumers must be supported, as also the mapping out and execution of the necessary Community programmes and strategies in this area.
Fifth, it is not possible to use slaughtered animals that are unfit for human consumption in the production of cattle feed.
Sixth, the production of cattle feed must take place in strict compliance with regulations concerning safety and handling.
Seventh, in the future, Mr President-in-Office, the Commission must aim, on the basis of scientific facts, at the highest possible protection of public health and consumers, especially in the area of food production and nutrition.
Eighth, it is essential that the Commission should actively monitor the transfer and implementation of Community law within the Member States and submit proposals for improving the system of control and export of meat and other foodstuffs, since the effective protection of consumers can only be safeguarded when measures are taken beforehand, rather then afterwards, when the damage has been done, as in the case of BSE.
Ninth, the Commission has of course complied with many of the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry but not always in the same satisfactory way.
There were five recommendations that were not taken into consideration at all.
For example, the recommendation concerning the investigation of the activities of certain of the Commission staff, the recommendation concerning compensation for the damage caused by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and the recommendation concerning administrative action against the United Kingdom are three of the recommendations of the European Parliament, in connection with which the Commission has done absolutely nothing.
It must be added that, once the Committee of Inquiry had completed its work, the findings showed that there is a close link between bovine spongiform encephalopathy and new-variant CreuzfeldtJakob disease.
This disease is extremely serious, it has tragic consequences for the families of the victims and of course we do not yet know the total number of deaths the disease will cause, given the fact that there are people in whom the disease has not yet manifested itself.
Mr President-in-Office, I would like to remind you of the commitment that you made that every piece of legislation, every regulation, directive or programme that is brought before the European Parliament in connection with the protection of health, will go forward under the codecision procedure.
Finally, I would like to stress that, from this dramatic crisis, which has brought about human tragedies and has had social repercussions and economic consequences for the internal market, and which has led to responsibilities for the Council, for the Commission and for the United Kingdom, we must move definitively towards taking effective action, not just uttering fine phrases.
Mr President-in-Office, these actions must be based on the principle that the protection of the health of the citizens of Europe is the greatest priority of the European Union and, as a result, is of much greater significance than other aspects of the internal market.
Mr President, we have been able to appreciate how seriously Mr Böge took his role as chairman of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE, and he has today presented us with an excellent report on behalf of the Temporary Committee for which I congratulate him whilst at the same time regretting the fact that my group, the European Radical Alliance, was left out of this committee through some ignominious procedural wangle.
Six months ago, the Committee of Inquiry highlighted some serious malfunctions in the way the crisis had been handled.
There were 118 of us who felt that this justified a motion of censure.
That path was not followed - such is democracy - and today we therefore have to draw the political and institutional conclusions of Mr Böge's report.
Much has been done, it is true, but the facts show that much remains to be done.
At the request of Parliament, the European Commission initiated reforms which represent considerable progress.
However, consumer fears persist, and recent cases of fraud in Belgium demonstrate that this affair is not over.
The European Union still does not possess the necessary instruments to enable it either to stand up to such a crisis or to avoid it.
So there is an inevitable risk that such a crisis will occur again.
It is upstream that the Commission must provide itself with effective mechanisms for risk management in general, and we note its sincere efforts in this direction.
But many questions remain unanswered and many answers are insufficient. Where are the potentially contaminated masses of unrefined meat-and-bone meal?
Are the storehouses safe?
Do the controls offer real safety?
Why do we continue to recycle sick animals?
Why are certain Member States still not implementing Community legislation?
Who will compensate the victims' families? Why are those responsible, who have been identified, not prosecuted whether they be Member States or government officials?
This crisis has brought in its wake another, that of the lack of confidence of European citizens in Members of this Parliament.
The European Union has just been shaken by a serious crisis, but will it be the Union that has to pay rather than those responsible?
It is our duty to ensure that the Commission follows through its work.
If this were not the case, I would hope that the politically correct consensus which seems to be current here would finally be weakened and that Parliament, which has begun to take itself in hand, would be able to take decisions which the interests of our citizens call for, otherwise the ultra-liberal machine would be able to lay down its own laws.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I should like to congratulate Mrs RothBehrendt.
It has been a pleasure to get to know her through the work in the committee. I also want to congratulate Mr Böge, whom I had already had the pleasure of meeting, when he chaired the earlier Committee of Inquiry.
I also want to pay tribute to my colleagues for their fine work. Finally, I should like to mention Mr Reichenbach, who represents the participation and collaboration of the Commission - that is, the participation and collaboration of all his colleagues, who regularly assisted us with our work.
We need to evaluate jointly the work done by the Committee of Inquiry and the Temporary Committee.
We must remember that since the Committee of Inquiry completed its work, clear evidence has been obtained that new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is linked with BSE. This has increased the seriousness of the responsibilities identified by the Committee of Inquiry.
Furthermore, the violation of the ban on UK beef and veal also came to light after the Committee of Inquiry had published its report.
In this respect, the Temporary Committee did not have a mandate to investigate new responsibilities nor to modify the judgements made by the Committee of Inquiry.
The recommendations which have been followed have to be considered as encouraging rather than satisfactory.
There have certainly been steps in the right direction as regards consumer protection, and new administrative units have been created.
However, for the moment my group can do no more than entertain well-founded hopes that the arrangements will all work adequately.
There are indications of the distortions which can arise in the decisionmaking process, and also of problems with implementation.
Of the recommendations which have been put into effect, there are several whose implementation has been only partial, or consists of no more than promises from the Commission.
I think this House should seriously consider a method for the monitoring and evaluation of these aspects.
As for the recommendations which have not been followed, they share a common feature which needs to be pointed out: they are all either institutional in nature, or the obstacles preventing them from being implemented are institutional in origin.
Among the recommendations which the Commission has not observed, I should particularly like to mention the lack of disciplinary measures for serious mistakes made by certain officials.
Speaking for myself as a Member of this House, this does not mean we are taking an inquisitorial attitude about punishing such mistakes - quite the contrary.
In any case, it is clear that not all the recommendations made by the Committee of Inquiry are equally important.
Several of them are extremely important in a legal sense, concerning precautions about risk materials and monitoring, but have still not been implemented to any great extent.
For example, there are still shortcomings in the use of risk materials in the pharmaceuticals industry.
I must confess that during my time on the two committees (the Committee of Inquiry and the Temporary Committee) my attitude has changed. I used to be far more critical of the Council, whereas I am now critical of the behaviour of the Member States.
However, the Council should be far more aggressive in forcing the Member States to comply with Community guidelines.
It is clear - and I am just finishing - that a lot of the progress which has been made has been due to pressure from this House.
It would therefore be a very good thing if the usual relations between Parliament and the Commission could be made completely transparent from now on.
My political group is hopeful, and we wish we did not have to be critical, but we think that in order to resolve this contradiction, next year the Commission should honour all the promises which it has made.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank our rapporteur, Mr Böge, both for the work he has done and also for his willingness and availability to listen to the members of our committee.
Regarding the report of the Temporary Committee to follow up the Recommendations on BSE, our group proposed a very short motion for a resolution, of only seven paragraphs.
It is sufficient in order to define our position and to show our determination.
In the first place, we want to support fully the rapporteur's proposals in his conclusion regarding the need to ensure transparency within the Commission.
In fact, throughout this affair, as we all know, the essential problem has been a desire to suppress the so-called mad cow affair in order to avoiding delays in both the completion of the single market and the process of ratification of the Maastricht Treaty, and perhaps also, regrettably, to satisfy many other shameful interests.
Regarding the Temporary Committee to follow up the Recommendations on BSE, we can but regret that our Parliament, by refusing to give our Temporary Committee the status of a Committee of Inquiry, did not opt for a more efficient procedure.
To put it clearly, I fear that our conclusions may not have the necessary and essential legal scope to oblige the Commission to modify its manner and its way of working.
The third paragraph of our resolution denounces the modifications to the Amsterdam Treaty - which, may I remind you, is in the process of being ratified - regarding article 100a. The new wording gives clear priority to the single market, to the detriment of European consumers' health.
And I would like to remind you that it is thanks to the action of the French Minister for Agriculture at the time, Mr Philippe Vasseur, that we were able to achieve the implementation of an embargo on British beef.
In its new version, article 100a, paragraph 4, we would no longer be able to apply this method without incurring the wrath of both the Commission and the Court of Justice of the European Community.
The fifth paragraph of our resolution specifies that we would like to know what the consequences of the development of the new CAP are, as described in Agenda 2000, as well as those of international agreements, especially agreements concluded within the framework of the COM, for the quality of agricultural and food products to be provided to consumers.
In fact, everything is pushing European farmers in the direction of improving their productivity even if, deep down, they do not want to do so.
They have a business to run; this business is very often the one and only source of income for them and their families.
Finally, Mr President, I will conclude by saying that our group reserves the right to propose a motion of censure during the November 1998 part-session, that is in a year's time to the day, if the Commission does not respect the conclusions of our two reports, that of the Temporary Committee of Inquiry and that of the Temporary Committee to follow up the recommendations on BSE.
I would like to remind you that at the beginning of this affair, our former colleague, Philippe de Villiers, had already threatened the Commission with a motion of censure.
Some months later, you will have noted, it was lodged.
We keep to our word; our credibility is at stake as is, of course, Mr President-in-Office, your own.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you will be giving your opinion, during this sitting, on the report of the Temporary Committee to follow up the Recommendations on BSE.
Nearly ten months ago to the day have passed since I came to Parliament to participate in the debate on the report of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE.
On that occasion, on 18 February, I shared with you the concrete conclusions that the Commission had already drawn from this major study.
We have acted without delay in order to rectify the weaknesses noted in the report.
Thus you will recall that the Commission decided, as from February, that an unprecedented restructuring of its department in charge of public health should take place.
This restructuring is not a simple administrative operation, but it corresponds well to the birth of a new political idea.
At Community level, all the players are now aware that the protection of health and food safety must figure amongst the highest of our priorities.
The Commission has put them at the heart of its programme of work for 1998.
And the Council has organized debates within four different fora.
On this occasion I would like to pay tribute in particular to the members of the Temporary Committee, especially its chairperson, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, and its rapporteur, Mr Böge.
An immense amount of work has been accomplished and an intense cooperation has taken place between the Temporary Committee and the departments of the Commission.
The results have been extremely fruitful and I am convinced that the mutually beneficial relations which have developed in response to this difficult issue have contributed significantly to the enhancement of dialogue between our two institutions.
Mr President, Mr Böge's report, which is now submitted to you, is an indication of the work accomplished during these last months.
It is for you to measure the progress achieved.
As President of the Commission, however, I can but rejoice to note that an ambitious and fundamentally necessary objective has been achieved.
Anyone who has read the report can but note that the Commission has achieved virtually all of more than 70 recommendations and is committed to respecting precise deadlines for the implementation of those that the brief period of time given has not enabled it to accomplish.
I will not go into details regarding all of the measures that have been taken or are anticipated by the Commission.
They are numerous.
They are given in detail in the final report on the implementation of the recommendations on BSE which the Commission adopted on 8 October last.
They are influenced by a completely innovative and essential desire for transparency in order to reestablish citizen and consumer confidence.
For consumers wish to be informed, to understand and to choose knowledgeably.
Mr President, more than 20 people have been victim to the new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Their families deserve our solidarity.
The Commission has decided to back the concrete support that your Parliament has agreed to give them.
We are confronted by immense expectations from our citizens.
Their fears relate not only to BSE, but also to other questions to which we must give clear responses.
On the basis of the Commission's new approach, in-depth work has been carried out by the departments concerned in the areas of consumer health and food safety, with the aim of improving our capacity for action.
Let me give you the most outstanding examples.
We have undertaken an in-depth overhaul of the system of scientific advisory committees, governed by the principle of transparency, independence and excellence.
Legislative measures to fight against BSE and the new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have been adopted.
Methods for monitoring respect of BSE legislation have been strengthened.
A good number of infringement procedures have been initiated following the inspection missions in Member States.
We have gone in a number of directions in order to ensure better effectiveness of control systems.
In this respect, I am committed to the fact that the proposals should be drawn up before February 1998.
The research programmes of the Commission give a predominant place to research into transmissible spongiform encephalopathies.
Two large conferences have been jointly organized with you, the conference on meat-and-bone meals, and the conference on food laws.
Their results will be translated into concrete initiatives.
Some measures have already been taken.
Thus we proposed the inclusion of agricultural raw materials in the directive governing liability for products.
The Agenda 2000 proposals contain important reforms of the common agricultural policy which move in the direction of an agriculture which is more respectful of human health and of the environment.
Mr President, we are today at the end of a first stage.
We are here to draw up a balance sheet and to talk about the future.
You are expecting the Commission to share its future intentions with you regarding the recommendations of the report of the Temporary Committee on BSE and, in particular, regarding those which, in the opinion of the Temporary Committee, have not been implemented or have been implemented insufficiently.
Your Temporary Committee has identified five specific recommendations which it considers have not been implemented.
Five out of more than seventy.
I would now like to concentrate on each one of these.
The Commission has not adopted measures to make, and I quote, "the authorities which have allowed the disease to appear and spread responsible for the financial costs of BSE' .
In fact, I hope you will understand the reasons for not adopting such measures.
The crisis has led the Commission, as well as the Council, to take a series of legislative measures involving financial support to the eradication of BSE and to the economic consequences of BSE for the producers.
At the Florence European Council, solidarity was emphasized by the Heads of State and of Government.
This solidarity must remain intact, in particular when we are faced with major and complex crises.
Should we now initiate a financial exercise, independent of all consideration with regard to the legal capacity of the Commission, in order to attribute these charges to those responsible?
How possible is it to name those presumed responsible? The exercise would not match up to the objective of solidarity that characterizes our Community, a solidarity which was furthermore underlined by the European Council of Florence in its conclusions.
I come, in this context, to another recommendation of the Committee of Inquiry.
This concluded that it was necessary for the Commission to bring immediately administrative proceedings against the United Kingdom for repayment of all sums allocated for the purposes of eradicating BSE.
This administrative action can only relate to control of the correct implementation of legislative decisions taken by the Council.
Consequently, within the context of the audit of the EAGGF accounts, the Commission will not fail to draw the financial consequences if the United Kingdom has not respected the Community regulations at issue, in accordance furthermore with the rules applying to all Member States.
It will do this with regard to controls on implementation of programmes to eradicate the disease.
This brings me to a slightly different subject.
What has happened to the financial sanctioning of companies who participated in the illegal trafficking of British beef?
Let me remind you that the Member States are responsible for the notification of any company which has committed irregularities to the detriment of the Community budget.
In this case, most of the fraudulent transactions in British beef were destined for third party countries and have benefitted from the restoration of exports.
In September, we asked for reactions from Member States concerning companies having, to the knowledge of the Commission departments, participated in this traffic and we will draw the consequences of this.
I now come to another question.
Parliament has asked the Commission to institute proceedings in the European Court of Justice on account of the failure of Mr Hogg, UK Minister of Agriculture, to appear before the Committee of Inquiry on the basis of the interinstitutional decision of 19 April 1995.
The Commission, as you know, did not do this.
Legally, according to our interpretation, such a recourse would have no chance of success.
But we are agreed with you in theory.
To make our support of your request more concrete, I wrote to your President on 5 November indicating that the Commission fully supported your demand for obligatory appearance by government members of Member States before Committees of Inquiry of the European Parliament, following the example of members of the Commission, and that the interinstitutional decision of 1995 should be revised to take account of this.
It seems to me that this is a matter, if not of a legal obligation, then at least of a political one. Furthermore, I must note that relations between the Council and Parliament seem to have improved.
Thus, the British Minister for Agriculture, Mr Cunningham, has appeared before your committee, and today, I am pleased to note the presence here of the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Fernand Boden. This was not the case, you will recall, on 18 February.
We now come to the functioning of the Commission's departments.
The Committee of Inquiry recommended individual disciplinary measures against Commission civil servants.
I would like to start by saying that since 1995 this Commission has been involved in an exercise of reform and global modernization of its administration. In this respect I would particularly refer you to the SEM 2000 and MAP 2000 programmes.
Furthermore, the College will adopt, this very afternoon, here in Strasbourg, a new and important document regarding good and sound administrative and financial management. In this document, the different possibilities for improving its ways of working are analyzed as far as professional shortcomings, financial irregularities, fraud and corruption are concerned.
Also, within this context the Commission anticipates the possibility of modifying its status.
More directly concerning the departments responsible for the fight against BSE, as I have already mentioned, we have completely restructured these departments.
This measure was necessary because the handling of the BSE affair had revealed a certain number of gaps and structural shortcomings.
With regard to possible disciplinary measures against individual staff members, after carefully examining the situation - and as you know I never refuse to accept disciplinary measures - the Commission came to the conclusion that there were not sufficient grounds for commencing disciplinary procedures, even if certain misjudgements were clearly made. I would also like to emphasize that the work of our staff was certainly not facilitated by the existence of an inadequate system and by the extremely complex nature of the issue.
I would lastly like to mention the recommendation of the Committee of Inquiry regarding the possibility of a motion of censure being brought against individual members of the Commission.
My reply will hardly surprise you.
We have, furthermore, pointed this out to the Intergovernmental Conference.
The Commission would not want to abandon the essential principle of collective responsibility.
It is the guarantee of the independent exercise of the Commissions' responsibilities in the general interest.
Any sanction of the Commission, just like its responsibilities, could only be collective and collegiate. Furthermore, the Intergovernmental Conference shared the Commission's point of view on this.
Mr President, together we have come a long way.
The work of the Temporary Committee is now finished. I would like to reiterate the Commission's full commitment to continuing the fruitful cooperation which this work has given rise to.
We will continue this cooperation within the context of the work of the permanent committees of Parliament. With regard to this, I am also happy that the codecision procedure will from now on be applied to veterinary and phytosanitary questions, with the objective of protecting public health.
A great deal has already been achieved.
We have laid new foundations, healthy new foundations, and the real work starts now. The Commission will present, twice per year, a report of activities regarding BSE to the European Parliament and to the Council.
We have additionally arranged a meeting with you for the end of 1998. A big conference on consumer health, organized jointly with you, which will give us the opportunity to measure the distance covered together and I am confident, along with the Council and Member States, for we firmly believe that only a close collaboration between the three institutions and the Council will succeed in restoring citizen and consumer confidence beyond the crucial question of protection of health.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, thank you!
What you have said today agrees to a large extent with what we have said, and I think it is unnecessary today to discuss differences between you and us or between you and the committee.
I will only make one short remark about what you said: the fact that Mr Cunningham, as British Minister for Agriculture, and Mr Boden, as President of the Council, appeared before the committee is not something I would call remarkable, however pleasant it was.
It should be taken for granted - excuse me, Mr President of the Commission - that ministers appear before a parliamentary body.
At this point, I would like to pass on immediately, and turn to the Council, because I have been able to negotiate with the Commission often enough in the last few months, and I make it clear that I am no longer speaking as chairperson of the committee, but on behalf of my group, the Party of European Socialists.
Mr Boden, I listened to you carefully, and I am convinced that you mean what you say.
The only problem is that you are one minister for agriculture out of 15, and I am not sure that with all your goodwill you will find a majority in the Council.
I listened to you when you said that until now the Council has had no time to discuss many questions which were dealt with, for instance, in our oral questions.
This amazed me somewhat, because we have said nothing in the Temporary Committee that we had not said before in the Committee of Inquiry, and I would have expected that the Council, at each of its meetings, whether started by you or another President of the Council, would have as the first item on its agenda: BSE, the fight, consequences and what we have done wrong!
I do not hear you asking - and I am now saying this to you as a representative, I am sorry, Mr Boden - I do not hear you asking: what have we done wrong? You say that consumer and health protection must be considered, fine.
Why do not you say that we have neglected consumer and health protection, and now we want to consider it?
That would be the correct formulation, Mr Boden. I say again that this is said to you as the representative of the whole Agriculture Council, because you are now its President, and I would much rather say it to the German Minister of Agriculture, for instance, or other ministers of agriculture.
For instance, why do I still have the feeling that those with responsibility have understood nothing? Mr Boden, you said that the labelling of beef products is now new grounds for creating trust.
If that is so, and if you really seriously mean to create trust in this way - and I hope you mean it seriously, but I do not believe the other ministers do - if that is so, why could not you agree to the change of the legal basis, which Parliament and the Commission decided on together? Why did you have to depart from that and again choose the soft formulation of article 43, which gives you the most power, which offers you a free ticket?
Why, Mr Boden?
Just tell me. Tell me also why I still have the feeling that the crow syndrome rules in the Council.
One crow does not peck the other's eyes out.
You said that people must be protected, including people who make their living from cattle.
I can understand that farmers must be protected, but I can also understand that the vast majority of the people of the European Union must be protected, and they are many more than the farmers!
You failed to do that in the Agriculture Council.
Why was it that the meat market and support for the market used to be more important than protection of health, and why should we believe that this has changed? Can you tell us?
For instance, when Mr Santer's Commission made a modest attempt in Agenda 2000 to decide on a change to agricultural prices, and to change the subsidy scheme, for instance, why did not you agree and rejoice about it? Why have I heard bleating and moaning and great fear from every minister for agriculture?
We all know that the basic evil of what we are now experiencing, BSE and much more, including crime, lies in this subsidy scheme. Why did not it come from you, why did not you say: we must make a clean break and change everything, we as ministers of agriculture will show that we have understood something.
Mr Boden, I am sorry that I must say that so sharply.
The Commission certainly has understood something.
How much it has understood we shall soon see.
I do not think the Agriculture Council has understood anything, or that the ministers of agriculture, except yourself, have understood anything, and we should monitor them all the more closely!
Mr President, in the interests of transparency can I declare an interest in that I am a beef farmer.
Few people in this Parliament will have any appreciation of the enormous amount of material that this temporary committee has looked at in detail over the last few months and great praise must be given to rapporteur Böge and the chairman for the way in which they have handled it.
The close scrutiny of commissioners, veterinary officers, scientists, ministry officials and many others who gave evidence has quite clearly shown that in the early days of this dreadful BSE epidemic there were mistakes at all levels, both at Commission and European level.
I stress European because, although the bulk of this problem has hit the United Kingdom, there is no doubt that there have been problems in other European countries.
It is a pity that we did not have a uniform European standard policy towards BSE from the start.
With the tonnages of contaminated material which were exported to mainland Europe from the United Kingdom, it was quite obvious that a few cases would appear.
I am delighted, Mr President, that Commissioner Fischler has taken a strong stance to create a European policy and get the same high standards in other European countries that we have been bound by in the United Kingdom.
Nor should we forget the huge knock-on costs to other industries such as transporters, renderers, slaughterhouses, which are now crippled by a devastatingly low market for beef animals and beef products.
That is looking back.
To look forward it is quite obvious from the statistics that, having had a peak of 37, 000 cases three years ago and only 3, 000 cases this year in the United Kingdom, the efforts of the last government and the present one have had a dramatic effect on the reduction of this disease.
But British hill farmers are being devastated and we must as soon as possible bring in a certified herds scheme, whereby farms can be declared clear and then, by a process of tagging and identification, make sure that meat can be traced from the animal to the butcher's shop.
Mr President, can I support both the report from Mr Böge and the resolution.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, as a member both of the Committee of Inquiry and of the Temporary Committee to follow up the recommendations on BSE, I would particularly like to congratulate Mr Böge for all the work he has accomplished.
Mr President, unfortunately the fact that we are today bringing the work of the Temporary Committee to follow up the Recommendations on BSE to a close does not mean we are going to stop talking about the so-called mad cow affair.
In fact, Mr President, I would like to underline the importance of information and transparency.
Throughout our work we have noted that for a long time everything possible has been done to get the issue forgotten, or rather to stifle it.
The European institutions will not remain credible unless transparency is the rule.
The European Parliament must remain vigilant on this point, for not only is the mad cow affair not finished, but there is nothing to say that other problems of a similar nature will not present themselves as well, be it hormones, GMOs or any other badly controlled new technology.
I must explain, Mr President, that I am of course not against technological developments, but the citizens of the Member States of the European Union must have confidence in these developments.
They will have this guarantee if they know that there is real transparency at the level of decision-making.
Both from the point of view of this report and of the development of the Commission structures, I note with satisfaction the creation and development of DG XXIV, under Mrs Bonino's responsibility.
However, I would like to draw your attention to the need to preserve a balance between the different Directorates-General.
Let us take care that we are not robbing Peter to pay Paul; I am thinking particularly of DG VI.
I would like to remind you that its mission is important and vast.
We must preserve the necessary means to enable it to fulfil its task.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to remind you that I was one of the signatories to the motion of censure which was rejected by this House, and emphasize that, in this capacity, I will remain particularly vigilant with regard to this affair and with regard to the way in which the Commission implements my recommendation.
If I see that the issue is being buried, I will know how to jog your memory when the time comes.
Mr President, I also would like to agree with those, who are congratulating the members of the Temporary Committee to follow up the Recommendations on BSE, the chairman, the rapporteurs, and the members, on the work they have done.
It is a good example of how this Parliament works and how things should be done in an Committee of Inquiry.
Thankfully the European Commission has acted upon most recommendations, and that means that as far as we are concerned, the sting has been taken out of the debate.
We are pleased with the fact that every six months the Commission will be reporting on the state of this dossier.
This will mean that we will be able to look into the situation regarding the quality of our food.
We think that is extremely important.
We also think it is important for the Commission to raise in international fora, because I find it increasingly difficult to explain to European farmers what they are or are not allowed to do for this or that reason, while this does not apply to farmers outside Europe.
Agreement on these issues needs to be reached in an international framework.
Regarding the appearance of ministers before committees of inquiry, I understood from Mr Santer that it is legally impossible to force ministers to do so.
I think that all possible resources must be used politically to do just that.
It is unacceptable that a certain parliament ratifies a Maastricht Treaty that makes this type of committee of inquiry possible, and that same parliament then endorses certain ministers not appearing.
To my mind that logic is unacceptable.
One of the issues which needs to be resolved as soon as possible is the extent to which animal meal can be used in animal feed.
I assume that sick animals cannot be used, but what can be done with other animal meal? That needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.
One last point. Participation by Members of this Parliament as observers at scientific committees is a good thing, because openness is good.
Nonetheless, I favour a separation of powers.
Parliament can never take responsibility for the decisions of these committees before they are made.
There is no doubt that first the Committee of Inquiry into BSE and then the Temporary Committee to follow up the Recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry demonstrated serious shortcomings in the assessment of risk, control and application of the Community regulations both by the Member States and by the Commission.
The European Parliament chose the conditional motion of no-confidence as a means of creating a new relationship of cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission; in some ways, this choice has borne fruit, as indicated in previous speeches.
However, many problems still remain unresolved and the speeches made by the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission do not seem to have dispelled all doubts.
For this reason, the Green Group intends to strongly oppose the need to satisfy all those requirements pointed out by the two Committees on BSE, to ensure consumer protection and to protect the health of the citizens and the animals reared.
I would now like to touch briefly on several aspects requiring further commitment and further cooperation between the Member States and all the institutions of the European Union: the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
First of all, we should recall that other cases of this disease will occur owing to negligence and omissions in the policy of combatting BSE and we should be prepared to intervene in these cases, avoiding a repetition of what happened in Belgium, where an infected animal carcass was converted into animal meal.
Just as there will be further cases of BSE, there will also be further cases of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob variant, which is now at the incubation stage, because the scientific connection between the pathogenic agent of BSE and the new Creutzfeldt-Jakob variant has unfortunately been established.
We therefore need to adapt our monitoring and actions to the safety and screening of citizens.
With regard to what President Santer said, we also need the means to make a financial contribution in solidarity with families affected and to provide compensation for the sick and their relatives, with the involvement of the Member States as well.
Drawing the necessary conclusions from all of this, we can say that we need to establish a new policy of controls right down the line, from company to table, and to apply the principle of precaution adequately.
From this point of view, we need to remember that the BSE affair is symbolic and should serve to improve the entire consumer protection policy and lead to a system of farming that is compatible with the environment.
We will soon have to deal with new problems: revision of food legislation, on which a Green Paper has been drawn up but leaves room for serious doubt, particularly with regard to the policy on hormones, antibiotics in animal feeds, novel foods, the introduction of genetically modified organisms into foods and the future of veterinary salmonella.
For all these reasons, we hope that this year, with the half-yearly reports from the Commission and joint monitoring body, the various institutions of the European Union will find adequate answers that satisfy the requirements of the consumers and citizens of the Union.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Party of the European Radical Alliance, I would like to express my simultaneous satisfaction and disappointment at the situation and the way the BSE question has been handled: first my satisfaction, as an MEP, at the very important role played by Parliament in dealing with this issue and stimulating the Commission; and my satisfaction at seeing how the Commission has in many ways responded to the legitimate expectations of this Parliament, which is also an expression of European public opinion, by curbing the risks of the mad cow affair, carrying out inspections and not repeating the mistakes of the past.
But I am also disappointed to see that not all our recommendations have been followed by the Commission, which has perhaps been too timid, President Santer, with regard to the accompanying measures, the reorganization has been good, the work carried out so far has been very good, particularly that of the Commissioner responsible for this sector and by the Commission as a whole, but in my opinion it is a pity not to have had the courage to go right to the end, as Parliament requested, both internally and with regard to measures against the state which, I have to say, was at the origin of this crisis.
I am also disappointed with those MEPs who relied on slaughter and called for a mass cull, thereby giving us and the Commission an inappropriate image.
It is just as well that those threats were not followed up and that the proposed censure motion did not materialize; Parliament will vote seriously on a critical wording but naturally cannot fail to recognize that a lot of good work has already been done.
Mr President, I also wish to join with those who have congratulated the chairman of the committee and the rapporteur on doing a very fine job.
I certainly welcome this report as a basis of ensuring that we are never again faced with such a serious or difficult problem as BSE has been to us.
Beef farmers in the United Kingdom have had to bear the maximum pain because of the short cuts taken by the meat and bonemeal industry.
We must learn from our mistakes of the past and ensure that they never again occur.
Yes, we need transparency and greater openness, and we must restore to consumers confidence that the food they buy in the shops is of the highest possible standard.
We must now look to the future.
I welcome the present approach of Mr Cunningham, because since he came to office he has certainly transformed the relationship between the Temporary Committee and the UK Government.
I was pleased that the report was able to avoid some of the more extreme views held by a minority of people.
As I say, we must now move on.
I also believe we must end the witch-hunt that has existed against Commission officials and, indeed, to a large extent, against the United Kingdom Government.
It is important to build confidence and return to the highest standards in production of all of our food and ensure that the food imported into the European Union is of the same high standards as that produced by farmers within the European Union.
In future we must base our decisions on totally scientific facts and not hyped-up misinformation put forward by the media and the press.
I wish to congratulate the Commission on the positive way it is facing up to the recommendations made to it by the Temporary Committee and I would like to put on record my tribute to both Commissioners Fischler and Bonino and their staff for the help, assistance and the responsible way in which they have approached this problem and for the way in which they have faced up to their responsibilities.
I would like to say, as I come from Northern Ireland where our beef farmers have suffered greatly from the export ban on UK beef, that I hope that both the Commission and the Council will face up to their responsibilities.
I hope that when the Florence commitments are achieved, as I believe they have been achieved in Northern Ireland, the ban will be lifted immediately, and there will be no foot-dragging or drawing back and that the increasing demands we are making will be met.
I look forward to that.
I wish you well in the future. I hope that we never again have to return in this House, on any similar occasion or at any similar time, to such a problem.
Mr President, Mr Böge has presented us with a report from the Temporary Committee to follow up the Recommendations on BSE, which has amazed all of us.
Cows continue to die in Belgium, France and Great Britain, but everything is fine.
Even if this includes cows born since the banning of meat-and-bone meal, and even if one Belgian cow finds its way into 1200 tonnes of meal, it is not serious!
There are 21 official cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
As long as all this does not affect the Commission, it does not matter.
Scientific proof of transmission from animals to human beings is presented, and that is not worrying.
Meat-and-bone meal continues to circulate, to be produced, to be consumed. What is needed is transparency!
In the name of transparency, Mrs Green removed the non-aligned and the European Radical Alliance MEPs from the Committee - 10 million voters do not have the right to transparency: they can die!
So in exchange the Commission has offered us a few crumbs about internal reorganization, the ruling on the withdrawal of specified risk materials from the food chain, a small crumb of ECU 50 million for research, a slight improvement in the treatment of animal waste meals, but the most important thing has not been done, Mr President, Mr Commissioner. There have been no disciplinary measures against those responsible for serious errors.
Only poor Mr Mansito had to go into retirement. Mr Hoelgaard, from Denmark, has been promoted to director of vegetable products so, after poisoning the animals, he is now in charge of the vegetables.
Mr Meldrum has been pensioned off, that is the only punishment, and nothing at all has happened to Mr Marchant. And as for that wheeler-dealer McSharry, he is clearly doing alright.
Neither the responsibility of the British government, nor of the De Mulder brothers has been considered. The British government has not apologized, if not for this crime against the bovine species, and I do not know whether it is indictable or not, then for the crime against the human victims, because seeing your herds destroyed is no negligible psychological tragedy for the breeders, nor for the crime against the taxpayers, if you believe Mr Tillich who, in his general report on the 1998 budget clearly told us the costs of these measures: ECU 2.2 billion in 1997, and a billion more indirectly.
I thought the European Commission was supposed to defend the financial interests of the European Union.
Furthermore, there remain discrepancies. It is true that carcasses continue to be processed as meat-and-bone meal for non-ruminants, specified risk materials which are banned in the European Union are nevertheless being imported from the United States of America, such as hormone-treated meat.
The cows will probably be labelled, but in the year 2000!
For two years, no labels, no controls at Dover, no controls on the embargo!
But worse still, Northern Ireland - the last British colony along with Gibraltar, now that Hong Kong has disappeared - has become a Trojan "cow' .
This is a little of what has essentially been done - smoke screens, technical smoke devices.
It is true, Mr President of the Commission, that the only effective measure would have been the banning of free movement, but to tell you that is the only effective measure would be to strike at the heart of European construction!
Mr President, I too welcome what my colleagues have been able to do in the committee and I salute the real heroes of this report - Mr Medina, Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt - for the major work they have done, and also those in the Commission who have interacted with us in an extremely positive way over the past six months.
BSE and CJD have been a nightmare for Europe for some years.
Many have lost their livelihoods and some have lost their lives.
The Medina report and its follow-up have shown that the European Parliament can take an appropriate initiative by itself in this matter.
It is another form of co-decision, except that here we were not responding to proposals that came to us from the Commission or the Council but taking a view because of the absence of such proposals at an earlier stage.
The criticisms of the Commission during the debate on the Medina report were made in that spirit.
We should acknowledge quite properly that the Commission has made considerable advances, in particular through DG XIV, in the last six months.
Because of that, by far the majority view in my group and in others as well, is that a vote of censure would be inappropriate.
There are many things which still trouble us.
One is the somewhat dilatory attitude to disciplinary procedures within the Commission itself but that is no ground for a vote of censure.
We said at the outset that while we were concerned with issues of public health and safety, we are not a committee of public safety in the French revolutionary sense, calling for heads, calling for show trials.
We simply want to make certain that the lessons with regard to internal discipline are learned as effectively as some others.
We also feel that the Council was lethargic early on in its response to the Commission's very necessary proposals for health and safety and the treatment of risk materials throughout the Community.
The whole of our committee, in particular on its visit to the United Kingdom, was moved by the plight of the CJD victims and their families which was eloquently expressed to us by Mr and Mrs Churchill.
The whole committee wanted to express solidarity with the victims of this terrible disease and their families.
We know that this must be material sympathy and support, as well as mere moral support.
It must involve the Member States as well as the Commission, and we look forward to initiatives on both sides in that regard.
Speaking for myself, an inquiry into the origins of CJD in the UK is long overdue and I shall do all I can to try to bring it about.
The argument in principle is settled and there should now be no unnecessary delay over the details.
The UK Government welcomes this report.
This time there is none of the spiteful criticism that was directed at Mr Medina's earlier report.
When he came before the committee the minister, Dr Cunningham, made it perfectly clear that the committee would be right to call him and that he would always attend.
It is better to lay some stress on the positive aspects of that, rather than go into the legal quibbles of what is or is not requested or permitted or demanded under the Interinstitutional Agreement.
The United Kingdom has been at the centre of the BSE epidemic from the beginning but, with the precautionary measures which have now been put into effect, it is entitled to be seen as setting an example in health and safety standards, including the safe storage of rendered carcases.
A number of people have referred to this.
I would simply point out that whilst everything has been done to meet the conditions of the Florence agreement, it is absolutely the essence of health and safety that rendered carcases - in the form of meat and bonemeal in which they are stored - should be kept in conditions of absolute security and safety until they can be safely incinerated.
We should not be demanding that the whole stockpile be put up the chimney at once.
We believe that all Member States should now be prepared to join in precisely the same preventive measures which have already been implemented in the United Kingdom.
Recent events in Belgium have shown that BSE can occur in states which felt they were free of it and that mistakes can be made in analysis and in the final destiny of the carcasses concerned.
I do not say that in any spirit other than one of sympathy and - to use the word that the President himself used today - solidarity with any country anywhere which finds itself affected by BSE in the way that we in the United Kingdom have been.
The answer is not to clamour for BSE-free regions or zones but to recognize that throughout the European Union we are a single zone which needs total security, safety, traceability and vigilance as the soundest basis for consumer confidence and for beef to be traded once again throughout the Community on its merits and in a market where that confidence has been restored.
My final point is just to say that in the future this process of scrutiny must continue and I look forward to the information campaign on food safety which DG XXIV is planning for 1998.
I hope that campaign will be launched during the British Presidency with full backing from Member States and consumer groups.
From all of this, after so much distress, much good can come for both consumers and producers in the Community.
Mutual trust between them and a proper regime of health and safety has to be the outcome of the BSE crisis.
Mr President, this Parliament is often reproached for acting somewhat irresponsibly.
Against this reproach, which is not always unjustified, it can be said that where it truly has power this Parliament acts responsibly and also achieves something. We in this committee have achieved something.
We have promises that in future health, the environment and consumer protection will be treated as more important than the other aims of the internal market.
We have promises that our agricultural policy will be changed in such a way that dimensions, quantities and areas are not the most important criteria, but we put our bets on quality, class, health and sustainable economics.
We have also achieved something on democratic politics.
Work in the Commission today is organized differently from a little while ago.
Transparency is something which we have experienced in the last days and weeks.
The relevant legislation will in future take place with the responsible cooperation of Parliament.
At least we hope so, and we hope so at the latest on the basis of the changes of authority which the Treaty of Amsterdam will bring with it.
We have not achieved everything.
We have not really sanctioned any individual responsibilities.
But in this connection we have the promise of the President of the Commission to ensure by a new disciplinary law that in future we shall have an appropriate legal basis if irregular behaviour occurs.
We have no real compensation for the victims, but at least we have starts in the right direction, and we expect that solutions for the future will be found by cooperation between this Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
We have not achieved everything, and therefore we must continue to work together in the coming months, so that the consequences of the BSE scandal are appraised and that we all profit from the work of the two BSE committees.
Mr President, for the food sector, food safety and quality must surpass all other considerations.
Profitability cannot be at the expense of consumer rights and welfare.
BSE has been an expensive lesson for Europe and one that cannot ever be repeated.
The human tragedy can never be forgotten.
I very much appreciate President Santer's acknowledgement this morning of that human tragedy. He treated it in a very sensitive manner.
In supporting the report before Parliament, it is to the credit, I believe, of the Commission that regulations were quickly put in place to address both the eradication of BSE and, more importantly, measures to prevent a recurrence.
In this regard I have to say that the work of the special committee and the views of Parliament were also significant.
I am pleased to say many of them were taken on board by the Commission.
I want to say in relation to BSE that farmers were the innocent victims of circumstances beyond their control.
Farmers are not normally involved in compounding feedstuffs and when they purchased their animal feed they were not always aware of the actual protein content.
On the question of food security and food quality, we must ensure, and I think this is important in the context of the next world trade talks, that the European Union commitment to consumer protection does not place our consumers at risk or place our industry at a competitive disadvantage.
We have faced up to the importance of food security and food quality and we must also ensure that our consumers are fully protected in the broader world trade.
Mr President, I would like to look at the deficit of political responsibility which has become so clear through this case.
It is quite clear that where economic interests and massive promotion combine with subsidies, outrages are almost compulsory.
There we should fill in the institutional gaps.
One is the absolute demand for parliamentary responsibility for European agricultural policy.
There we will not let go!
The second is political responsibility against officials.
Something has been promised by the Commission, we shall wait and see what comes.
We have established a Commission political responsibility.
That has been good and helpful, and we shall maintain it.
But one point is not fulfilled, and that is the political responsibility of the national governments.
It is a scandal if a government breaks the law, and can actually do it without any political sanction!
Here we, as the European Parliament, must work together more strongly with the national parliaments, particularly the oppositions.
Final point: it is intolerable that such wrong behaviour has no financial consequences!
We must demand that if a government, a state, burdens all the others with such massive costs, these costs can then be demanded back from that government.
This is an absolutely central demand which we shall pursue further!
Mr President, I will try to be brief.
I want to concern myself with what the President-in-Office said here.
That seems to me to be very near the truth.
Mr Boden, you ignore the fact that the Member States have a very poorly developed awareness of Community law, particularly in the case of BSE.
States can declare that they do not think about applying the standard which should be applied to animal meal, for instance.
The Commission has to fall back on lengthy breach of treaty proceedings.
What matters here is that we in Parliament enable the Commission to react faster, to take the appropriate actions for people's health.
It is also necessary, and you said nothing about this, for the veterinary controls within states to be made effective.
In Germany, for instance, they must become independent.
Inspectors have a link there, either an employee relationship or a fee relationship, so that they depend on the slaughterhouses.
What matters here is that we should decide on independent veterinary control, and that must also be put through by Parliament and the Commission.
I would have criticized the Commission much more if I had not heard your speech.
For instance, you mentioned labelling. The only point on which you were unanimous was the rejection of Parliament and the Commission!
In this matter you have made compromise after compromise, and what came out of it was what the Commission submitted and Parliament's proposals for improvement!
That is a scandal!
Excuse me, Mr President, I would love to speak for ten more minutes, to give the Council a real rocket at last!
Mr President, very briefly, of course.
There is an additional problem with regard to the entire BSE dossier, namely that the entire investigation is threatened with collapse as the result of an additional situation, and that is why I find the report somewhat incomplete.
Indeed, in addition to the BSE dossier, there is organized crime, which has made use of this file to transfer food products illegally and on a massive scale from Great Britain to countries within Europe, and also to other countries outside the European Union.
This is a case of fraud which we have raised repeatedly in other temporary committees of inquiry, and I would request that this dossier is in any case taken on board by the Committee on Budgetary Control, and that is why we have tabled a number of amendments on this matter in order that this dossier, which in addition to the ordinary BSE dossier is pending, will also be given a chance.
Mr President, when at 9.15 a.m. this morning the President asked Members to leave the chamber as quickly as possible, that happened en masse. Nonetheless I am glad that most colleagues have returned in the meantime.
As far as BSE is concerned, the rapporteur points out that the European Commission has followed up most of the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry, or at least a start has been made.
I do not believe that trust in the European Commission has been affected.
The fight against BSE and against CJD requires guaranteed safety of animal materials intended for human consumption.
The European Commission has therefore quite rightly introduced new standards for the processing of meat-and-bone meal as from 1 April this year.
That as many as ten Member States have not implemented them is a serious omission.
I would like to be told the Commission's position regarding the processing of hazardous cattle organs in gelatin and tallow.
The decree of June this year aimed at zero risk.
There was every reason for that, considering the recently proved link between BSE and CJD.
Yet the Commission appears to be abandoning the ban on the processing of risk organs in gelatin and tallow.
That such a ban endangers the availability of medical drugs, I beg to doubt.
Australia, New Zealand and European companies as well are able to produce gelatin according to European standards, in other words without organs.
Does the Commission not give in a little too quickly to the commercial policy pressure of the United States?
Although it would have been better if the British minister, Mr Hogg, had appeared in front of the Committee of Inquiry, I think it is an over-reaction to want to compel the members of the governments of Member States to appear at a Committee of Inquiry of the European Parliament.
Governments are answerable to their national parliament; the European Parliament is overplaying its hand on this.
Improvements of veterinary controls in accordance with the working programme is a good thing.
The European Commission will never be able to take the place of national control systems.
The European services fulfil an additional role.
Cooperation and coordination with the national control bodies will remain necessary.
Mr President, I welcome the submission of the report.
It shows clearly what actions the Commission has taken during the BSE crisis - taken late, but taken - and what actions it has neglected to take.
This means that many of Parliament's demands have been put into effect, and some have remained open.
The rapporteur, Mr Böge, has spoken of a bill of exchange on the future.
But first I put the question whether the Commission can be released from its political responsibility.
I would like to suggest a comparison. Austrian criminal law recognizes the concept of making good the damage, so that if the accused is only slightly guilty, he can be acquitted.
Let me now stay with my image and discuss how the Commission is making good the damage.
The efforts of the Commission to make good the damage can be clearly recognized in the report.
It speaks of a new openness, the responsibilities of the Directorate-General for Consumer Policy and Health Protection were extended, and actions to restore the function of the market were taken.
The Commission has thus attempted to make good the damage.
But in the end this all happened only because of the massive pressure from Parliament and an indignant public, and unfortunately it happened far too late!
The EP drew attention to the BSE problem as early as 1990.
For far too long, the Commission let itself be led by the nose by individual Member States in carrying out its duty of control, without doing anything about it.
I know that the Commission itself is not directly responsible for the individual Member States' lack of will to carry out the controls, but it should have fulfilled its role as guardian of the treaties long ago.
There lies the politically guilty behaviour of the Commission.
I come back to my image.
Is acquittal of the Commission by Parliament justified? Unfortunately, article 144 of the treaty only provides for a vote of no confidence against the entire Commission.
As long as this threshold exists, it will continue to be difficult to demand political responsibility in future.
I regret this, and the citizens of Europe will not understand it!
The debate will continue at 3 p.m.
Votes
I wish to inform the House that due to a technical error in the tabling of amendments to the Linkohr report, for which the vote was due to take place today, an amendment tabled by the Green Group has not been translated and distributed.
The vote on the Linkohr report is thus postponed until tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12 noon, to enable the rapporteur and the Members to become acquainted with the text.
May I furthermore remind you that the vote on the Resolutions regarding the Kyoto Conference on climate change will also take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Mr President, on a point of order under to Rule 24.2 of the Rules of Procedure, which states that a reply to a written question should have been given within 30 days.
Well, Mr President, I put a written question to the President of this Parliament in December last year.
It was question 3/97 about the report of the Vice-President of Parliament, a report dated 18 November 1996, on the installation of 128 extra shower cubicles for Members of Parliament in Brussels, at a cost of 90 million Belgian francs.
Everyone who can add up knows that 90 divided by 128 makes 703, 125 Belgian francs per cubicle.
The answer normally has to be approved by the Bureau.
This answer was already on file at the Bureau of Parliament as far back as May.
Twice I have written to ask for an explanation.
Up until today I still have not received an answer; it is now eleven months after the date the question was put.
The Bureau is meeting today, and I am asking for this be put on the agenda today, so that I will receive an answer after eleven months.
Mr Vandemeulebroucke, please be assured that this very afternoon your question is going to be submitted to the Bureau and you will receive all the necessary explanations.
That is not a point of order.
I must therefore ask you to stop.
Mr President, on a point of order: is it possible for you to make clear that the socalled Herod premium is hidden behind this order? It is about slaughtering mere calves, and this has rightly fallen into disrepute.
The animal protection organizations have rightly fought against it.
We have submitted an amendment to insert that, so that it is also clear in the Chamber, and so that people know what they are voting about.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, all the Members have read this document, which is without debate.
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
The undersigned will vote against all reports concerning the slaughter of calves unless they include bans or restrictions on the production of so-called white veal.
Colino Salamanca report (A4-0330/97)
Owing to the nature of the Portuguese sugar industry, and in order to keep it viable, we consider it essential to maintain national subsidies to Portuguese sugar-beet producers in addition to the framework laid out by the Commission.
Sugar-beet is an agricultural option which is economically viable. It facilitates crop rotation and in some regions it is contributing to an increase in agricultural production.
Against this background, we should not forget that the quota was increased not long ago to make the Portuguese sugar-beet conversion unit viable.
Furthermore, the Sturdy report on sales of agricultural products has already predicted a gradual decrease in subsidies to Portuguese sugar-beet producers up to 2001, and the present proposal by the Commission is going down the same road.
So we cannot accept the cancellation of national subsidies after 2001, as proposed by the Commission.
We also think that it is premature to reach any conclusion on the subject before the reform of the COM on sugar, which should take place before the 2000/2001 marketing campaign.
Apart from that, because sugar-beet growing is a Portuguese speciality, those subsidies should continue in order to support a profitable form of agriculture in one of countries most seriously affected by the CAP.
We therefore support Mr Colino Salamanca's proposed alteration to article 2 of the Commission's proposal, and thus we vote in favour of the report.
Mr President, I would like to ask you to have my voting machine checked.
It failed to function several times during the voting.
I therefore ask you to put into the minutes that I wanted to vote for the Greens' amendment about the Herod premium.
Heinisch Report (A4-0358/97)
Mr President, it is a shame that the Commission's text, presented by the Council, uses the word "guarantee' , otherwise who could be against European cooperation in order to evaluate better the quality of European higher education? No-one.
This is why we regret the fact that the term "guarantee of quality' has been used, because, although the text contains numerous protestations regarding respect for subsidiarity, it runs the risk of suggesting a subsequent back step through the creation of a European evaluation network.
Helping each other by perfecting evaluation methods between the different countries, an exchange of good practice, of course we can but approve.
But if the term "guarantee of quality' is used, then the text as a whole is not precise enough to enable us to go along with the House on this point.
In fact, many imprecisions remain.
No serious reflection on the concept of quality is provided.
The crucial question of teacher training, which is very different in our diverse countries, is completely left to one side, as is a concern which seems to us fundamental, that of the future of general education in our different European countries.
For example, it is striking to see that, in the whole of the Commission's and Council's text, there is virtually no mention of the task of higher education, except in one small place and in a completely incidental way - I am talking of establishments targeted at students who have completed their secondary education - there is no mention whatsoever of general education, more necessary than ever in an increasingly mobile world.
On the contrary, I am concerned to see that the accent is placed on adapting to the market, which shows an economic concern.
From this point of view, I am extremely upset that Amendment No 5 was voted for, as it is a veritable condemnation of general education, more necessary than ever to ensure that essential changes do not bring about a dehumanization of our societies.
Kittelmann Report (A4-0276/97)
We did not vote against this report because it concerns a technical change of the legal basis, but we do consider it appropriate to underline Turkey's major deficiencies with regard to human rights.
We demand that Turkey respects and improves human rights, strengthens democracy, creates a non-military solution to the Kurdish question and a peaceful solution of the Cyprus question.
, in writing . (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the proposals on Turkey and establishing the Community's position on the Customs Union Joint Committee.
The proposal is merely of a technical nature and concerns the procedure for establishing the Community's position.
We are in no doubt that the European Parliament's influence on this subject has already given democracy strength in Turkey.
The Danish Social Democrats believe that conditions in Turkey are such that quite simply there should not be any financial assistance from the EU at the moment.
To get public assistance, Turkey should observe human rights, accept and follow the rules of democracy and developments in the country should be monitored by a supervisory body.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, I should like to ask for your permission to make a brief personal statement under Rule 108 of the Rules of Procedure.
In the course of lunchtime today I received a telephone call from a prominent radio station in my constituency which attributed opinions and behaviour along the following lines indirectly to myself as a Member of this Parliament in relation to our new building in Brussels: ' there are people in Brussels who are getting massive backhanders, there is serious racketeering going on, the procedures in Parliament have not been properly followed and Parliament has gone against its own Rules in the matter of its buildings policy.'
This is not only a slur against myself - and it was put to me in these offensive terms - but a slur against the work and function of the Bureau and, moreover, a slur against officials of Parliament who cannot come here to answer for themselves.
Mr President, I invite you to ask the presidency to contact the Member who made the allegations and who has been quoted - Mrs Patricia McKenna, of the Green Group - and to ask her to substantiate these allegations or have the decency to withdraw them.
Mr President, I would like to agree wholeheartedly with the questions which have been raised just now.
This afternoon we agreed with the Group of the European People's Party's Bureau members, that all these accusations before us should be submitted to the Bureau of Parliament, and that we, as Members of Parliament must have an answer about these matters as soon as possible.
When it concerns fraud, when it concerns the misuse of expenses, travel expenses, and so on, the Members of this Parliament - and I tell you, Mr President, that is 95 % of this Parliament - think it is important that things are clarified as soon as possible, so that accusations cannot be made out of the blue for others to consider as well, and which we have nothing to do with.
I ask you, Mr President, to tell Parliament tomorrow morning what the reply should be to questions about shower cubicles, travel expenses, fraud, and the rest.
We cannot start a debate on these matters now. They are on the agenda of the meeting to be held by the Office of Presidency this afternoon.
So I would ask Mr Cox to summarize what he said in his speech a short while ago and send that comment to the President, either through me or directly.
The Office of Presidency will meet at 5 p.m. today and the agenda includes the appraisal of a Dutch television broadcast acknowledging that two of our colleagues had made at least two mistakes, may extend the discussion to the fact reported by Mr Cox as well.
BSE (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on BSE.
Mr President, the mad cow affair has shaken consumer confidence, shown the limits of an internal market which has no serious rules of consumer protection and revealed that this market can only function if the Commission and Member States work in close symbiosis.
The work of the parliamentary inquiry and the political pressure exerted on the Commission have shaken the latter and made quite a few things move at Community level.
The European Parliament recognizes this in the Böge report, adopted virtually unanimously in the Temporary Committee to follow up of the Recommendations on BSE, and in the impossibility of getting enough signatures together for a motion of censure.
That is a political fact.
However, the point of my comment here is primarily to denounce the attitudes of Member States, because they are still lagging behind.
Not only are ten of them indicted for having infringed the rule on animal meat-and-bone meal, but I wonder what national MPs are doing as far as their ministers for agriculture and consumer protection are concerned.
As well as the national MPs, the national level professional organizations have an enormous responsibility in this respect.
For example, they would do well to examine how effectively the veterinary controls function in their respective countries.
In this respect, I think a strengthening of veterinary controls is required throughout Europe, and a standardization of these controls, both qualitative and quantitative.
It is not acceptable that there are several thousand vets in a big country, and the same number, more or less, in another smaller country.
This is therefore clearly one of the great responsibilities of Member States.
Everything must be done to respect public health and to protect our consumers.
I am in complete agreement with Mrs Bonino who this morning said that the inquiry and follow up work of the European Parliament, just like the work of the Commission, is a long cleaning up process that our Parliament must undertake, together with the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, the BSE crisis has created winners and losers.
Amongst the losers I would certainly like to mention those who are affected by CJD, but I would also like to mention the farmers and all those who are dependent on them, and who have run great risks financially and who have seen their operating profits decline considerably over the past year as well.
The winners are the consumers, I hope, Mr President, in the long term.
Winners, why do I say that, because as part of the Treaty of Amsterdam we have been able to give public health and the consumer greater priority.
Also because in the fight against BSE - and this was already happening in a number of Member States - something was getting increased attention, namely the integral chain management from producer to consumer.
This means that in Europe the consumer has become the winner in this BSE crisis, although I am not forgetting the losers.
The report produced by the Committee of Inquiry and the Temporary Committee is excellent.
The issue has been tackled very systematically. All points raised by the Committee of Inquiry have been taken up.
I also think that from here, from this position, I should sincerely thank the rapporteur, Mr Böge, but most certainly the President of this Committee, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, for the way in which they have listed all the points and tackled everything in such a systematic fashion.
The Committee, too, Mrs Bonino, Mr Fischler, and certainly Mr Reichenbach, is due much gratitude.
Much has been learned, including by Parliament.
I wonder nonetheless if this greater knowledge has led to more concerns.
The concerns I have personally, are international concerns.
How can we make sure that the European concerns go on to be translated internationally? How can we make sure that the Member States follow up European concerns on an international level?
I would like to ask one more brief question: what are we going to do with gelatin and medical drugs? I understood last week that, at the request of the Netherlands, a decision by the European Commission would be withdrawn.
What exactly is going on? Could you please give me clarification on gelatin and medical drugs?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to agree with my colleague, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, when she spoke on behalf of the Socialist Group, and was critical of the Council.
I am very appreciative of what the committee has done up until now, and I also appreciate that people are present at this late stage of the debate, but I think the Council needs to make a more determined start.
I am not all that satisfied about what has happened between the final report of the Committee of Inquiry and now.
I would like to mention, as others have done before me, the illegal transit of meat, for example in Flushing harbour, and I would also like to mention the infected cow in Belgium which was turned into bone meal.
I think that what appears in the six monthly report will also be crucial in preventing these kind of things from happening.
I would like to make an urgent appeal for the British minister to give a personal report next year during the British Presidency.
Finally, I would like to agree with Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's question regarding the use of medical drugs.
Mr President, as rapporteur for the report which was approved by the European Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry, I should first like to congratulate the chair of the Temporary Committee, Mrs Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, and the committee's rapporteur, Mr Böge, for all their hard work in finishing what was started by my report, and what was approved by Parliament at the time.
At this stage, I think it is fair to say that the mad cow affair is an example of chaos theory.
A small detail, certain omissions or lack of care in the transformation of animal remains into proteins for animal consumption, has led to a terrible tragedy in the agriculture sector, and to consequences for human health which are still relatively unpredictable.
I feel that this crisis has led to a reaction from the Community - a healthy reaction from the Commission above all - and also from certain Member States (such as the United Kingdom) and from Community institutions such as the Council.
In the last analysis, I think this has just been the first example of what can happen in an internal market which is dominated exclusively by economic considerations.
It makes me think that there are limits to economic activity and to the extent to which market forces can be allowed to regulate every situation within the internal market.
If the European Union is nothing more than a mechanism for economic harmonization, then we will encounter this type of difficulty from time to time.
In other words, the European Union has to be more than just a sort of referee of market forces, and I think we made some progress during the Amsterdam Conference along these lines. It is unimaginable that the European Union should continue to function on the basis of the sovereignty of the Member States, with a totally free interaction of market forces, and a lack of effective Commission powers in health and other areas which are important for the welfare of its citizens.
Mr President, when the safety of food is in jeopardy, firm action needs to be taken, irrespective of whether the cause is malfunction of institutions, laxity, or the pursuit of financial gain at the expense of everything else.
One cannot be careful enough with food.
Let that be the lesson that the BSE crisis has taught us.
The BSE issue has also taught us that the shortest route to the solution of a problem is not always the most negative.
If we had closed down the committee in February, we would not have been able to present the same result today.
It is by showing what should be done ourselves, and by using the vote of censure as a driving force, that we have succeeded in setting in motion fundamental changes, including a new policy culture.
The BSE crisis has confirmed the need for parliamentary control.
Without the work of this Parliament, and particularly with Reimer Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt as central players, we would never have achieved this result in this time.
We should ask ourselves, however, if we as a Parliament have sufficient instruments at our disposal to carry out this control duty continuously.
Mr President, the state of affairs today shows that democracy has been vindicated, that we can be satisfied about our own work, and about the constructive and cooperative reaction from the Commission.
But while the European Parliament may have controlled the European match, we are by no means through yet.
There will soon be a world championship.
And on the WTO and Codex Alimentarius pitch it will not be an easy match.
We can be satisfied, but should not be triumphant.
The disease has not been wiped out, we cannot remove the suffering of the families and the farmers, even with a lot of money.
Not all recommendations have been turned into action, not all measures have been implemented yet, and finally, Mr President, we should ask ourselves whether it would not be a good idea to keep all animal products which are suitable for human consumption out of the cattle feed circuit.
Mr President-in-Office, your continued presence today in the European Parliament does you great honour and underlines the seriousness of the problem.
However, Mr President of the Commission, although I have followed the debate I have not yet understood who is to blame.
I have not yet understood who will take some responsibility for the situation that has been created.
The Council has, in a very elegant way, disclaimed any responsibility and has loaded all the responsibilities onto you.
You have told us that you have found no evidence against your staff and so you have not punished them. You have also said that we, as the European Parliament, rejected the generous increase in the 1998 budget funds for research, controls, and for the infrastructures of the veterinary service.
I also listened with great interest to what you said about the continuing illegal trade to third world countries is continuing.
However, I would like you to tell me in your reply whether this illegal trade is continuing not only to thirdworld countries - although it makes very little difference, people live there too - but also to countries of the European Union.
Five weeks have passed since I submitted a question in writing to the Commission and I have not yet received a reply.
I would like to know, Mr President of the Commission, if this illegal, contaminated meat has gone to countries of the European Union and to which countries.
Mr President, what have we learned from the BSE scandal? We have learned, and the learning was bitter, that he who puts the market before health precautions loses.
We have learned that keeping policies secret behind closed doors or failing to admit mistakes results in people losing trust, and that great damage results, damage of which we can still not say exactly how great it is and how long we shall need to make it good.
But we have also learned that to change can mean to win, that transparency, as we now have it, for instance, in the field of scientific advice, as we want to have much more of it in the initiation of legislation and the decisionmaking process, can instil trust back into people.
We have learned that if we give priority to precautionary health and consumer protection, and if we practise sustainable agriculture in earnest and not just in Sunday speeches, this change can regain people's trust for us.
I would like to thank Commissioner Bonino in particular, and of course her staff.
Mrs Bonino, you have demonstrated just how much really good and important work the right woman in the right place can achieve!
We have learned a great deal.
We shall see how it goes.
We shall look very carefully at the half-yearly progress reports which we discuss in the committees, and we shall check very carefully, Mr President of the Commission, on how the proposal for a new interinstitutional agreement is shaping. This will be submitted early next year, and we must debate it.
It is very important.
In my opinion, it is the Member States which have learned too little, and the President-in-Office has regrettably shown that again today.
Over 25 years ago, Willy Brandt won an election with the slogan 'Dare more democracy' .
We too must dare more democracy in this Parliament.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, along with all my colleagues, for all his work both on the follow-up committee - as we have just been discussing - and also on the earlier committee. I was a member of both.
It is obvious to everyone now that many mistakes were made in the past. Some of these mistakes were made through ignorance of the disease, which we should all accept was very new at the time.
Some mistakes were also made for political reasons.
Much of the criticism of the handling of the BSE crisis made within both committees of inquiry centred on the failure of Commission staff involved.
I do not support this criticism.
My experience of dealing with Commission officials over a long period of years has been one of great satisfaction.
They have always been cooperative and competent and they would often have liked to go much further and do much more than they were allowed to do.
I believe we should concentrate our criticism, if criticism is needed, on those responsible: in other words, the political masters of the officials concerned.
The officials acted or did not act as a result of the direct instructions of the commissioners responsible at that time and the then Council. We all need fully to recognize this.
I do not think it has been recognized well enough.
The biggest scandal surrounding this tragedy was the British decision rightly to ban the use of contaminated meat and bonemeal in the UK but, at the same time, allow and even increase the volume of infected feed which was exported to other Member States, with disastrous consequences for innocent farmers including specifically in my own country, Ireland.
Both committees have done excellent work.
The present Commission has now acted responsibly and satisfactorily on the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry. We are now at last making good progress under the direction of Commissioner Fischler and Commissioner Bonino.
So what more have we to do?
Research must be intensified as quickly as possible.
The risk to human health must be established scientifically.
Whatever the level of that risk, it can only be removed through the eradication of the disease. We must push that forward with all speed.
Mr President, we have been justifiably shocked by the failure of both the Member States and the European Commission to manage public health and by their response to the outbreak of mad cow disease.
The shock has been heard here in this House and through the Committee of Inquiry; in a number of Member States, especially in the United Kingdom, there have been some changes, as well as in the European Commission.
The achievement of the rapporteur and the chairman of the committee and its members, has been to put the European Commission under permanent pressure and to push for more transparency, more clarity.
On several fronts some things have started to move.
There remains, Mr President of the Commission, dear Commissioner, one major drawback: the lack of disciplinary measures.
Mistakes have been made, and the European Commission is not succeeding in taking the necessary disciplinary action.
I can only regret that.
As far as we are concerned there is not one single reason for complacency.
Only for vigilance and permanent parliamentary pressure to set the measures in motion.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at this stage in the BSE debate virtually everything of importance has already been said by those who have spoken before me.
However, I should like to emphasize Mr Böge's efforts, and I want to congratulate both him and Mrs Roth-Behrendt for the fine piece of work they have done, for the rigorous and responsible attitude they have shown, and for the way they remained calm throughout the whole process which, believe me, was not easy.
Since certain aspects of the matter (such as meat-and-bone meal, inspection, evidence from ministers, and so on) have already been adequately covered by the debate, I should like to say that the Commission seems to have indeed realized that consumers' health is more important than anything else, and that in everything which touches on this matter, it should therefore act with transparency, speed and responsibility. That is how it should be done, and that is what people are demanding of us.
The Commission was slow to react, but it has reacted.
That is the first step down the long road we have to travel.
As to the reorganization of services, I think it should be speeded up. It ought to be working already.
The public does not understand that the inspections are not fully implemented because of staffing problems.
Speed up the recruiting process.
There are a lot of empty posts in the Commission, and they are provided for in the budget.
So there is no excuse.
You can and should do it.
So do it!
Research in this area has been promoted, provided with funds, and coordinated.
But I am going to say the same thing again: do it now!
We cannot eradicate this disease until we have found the missing piece in the jigsaw, and this has to be done by the technical experts - the scientists - by means of those research programmes, for which they should be given adequate funds.
As for the question of responsibilities, I have just a small comment to add.
Once it has been confirmed that demands are going to be made, they should be applied across the board.
We have not made much progress on this point.
Finally, I should like to make a request to all the European institutions: please do not make us wait for another BSE to break out before you respond - attentively, vigilantly and cooperatively - to the European Parliament.
This should be the normal approach - this House's standard method.
Interinstitutional collaboration should be the trademark for constructing the Europe we all want.
Mr President, I personally do not like triumphalism: we still need to work, we still need to insist a great deal on the protection of health and ensure that no scheming goes on.
I think we have managed to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The Böge report contains several worrying points; there are still uncertainties that have to be dealt with.
They have to be dealt with by the work of the Commission and by the Member States, identifying the differences between the States.
Not all the Member States are equal and different positions are held in Council: some Member States make their contribution, while others do not.
We cannot make a general statement.
It seems to me the measures taken in Italy are very important and, from this point of view, it may be a country that has developed an extremely important action.
I am very concerned about the disposal of animal meal, because it will take fifteen years to dispose of these products, and concerned too by the possibility of this animal meal being exported for processing and incineration in third countries.
I do not want this animal meal to go back onto the market in third countries.
This is a point I think we need to watch.
It is true that we need scientific activity, but I am convinced that research should be independent.
I am not convinced by the Böge report when it says that MEPs are joining scientists in monitoring the situation.
We need separate roles and separate duties.
I think there is a lot still to be done; in particular, I fail to understand why we have not used all the legal means to bring an action for damages owing to the responsibility of the former British government.
We need to insist on this and do a lot more, because other countries will also have to assume responsibility with regard to international public opinion.
Mr President, I cannot personally share the optimism of this debate, because I believe people's lives are at risk, and also the lives of the animals themselves.
And there are two policy errors, two basic policies which have caused this problem.
Those two problems are still untouchable; I mean, we know this disease is transmitted through the use of types of meal - and we are now concerning ourselves with paying compensation to the victims - but we have not yet had the courage, in the face of vested interests, to ban the use of animal meal to feed other animals.
It is not acceptable, Mr President, for us to discuss this situation without discussing the core issue and the means by which the disease is spread.
The other matter, the other policy at issue is the common agricultural policy.
As you are aware, Mr President, under the policy, payments are made according to the quantities produced.
There is no concern about the method or the means of production; production is rewarded according to quantity.
This violates all the rules of public health and animal protection.
Unless the Commission gives an unconditional undertaking to ban the use of animal remains in feed for other animals, and unless it gives an unconditional undertaking to change the CAP, which is not on Agenda 2000, in favour of quality, animal health protection and animal welfare, then for my part I shall continue to protest here, Mr President, and use the only weapon at my disposal: my vote against this situation.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, the chairman of the committee and Commissioner Bonino for the work they have done.
The important thing in the context of the follow-up Committee of Inquiry has been the amount of change that has been implemented by the Commission.
In a reasonably short amount of time, there has been a complete reorganization of the way food safety is dealt with and I am sure this will increase public confidence and improve food safety by ensuring high standards.
The key points are reorganization of DG XXIV and transparency in the work of the scientific committees, together with improved monitoring measures and wide dissemination of data.
While the vast majority of Parliament's recommendations have been fulfilled, there is still plenty more needing to be done.
The lack of political will at Council level means that we have to keep up pressure to ensure more progress is made to keep the public fully informed about all aspects of nutrition that are important for public health.
Regaining public confidence is the essential factor in this affair and a real start has been made to achieve this.
Mr President, like so many others I agree that the consequences of BSE are terrible and tragic.
At the same time we can still see that BSE has had the effect of making us take the process forward, not least in the Commission.
We now have greater openness.
We can also see that we have the chance of having better food safety and a strong consumer perspective.
I think that is good and I also welcome the measures the Commission has taken.
For me this is just the beginning of a process which can only go forward.
For me this does not only concern BSE as a disease, but also other diseases and other parts of our agricultural policy which actually endanger people's health.
We must therefore have food legislation which is all-embracing from a health point of view.
We must have a system for registering cattle and a control system which ensures that the legislation is complied with.
Most important, however, is that we should have a change in agricultural policy which gives us good food throughout the EU.
Mr President, I congratulate you.
You have made a good move.
You have managed to give the impression of being serious about this, which has pacified the conscience of the great majority of MEPs, who were asking for no more than that.
This is the only thing on which I congratulate you.
As for the rest, allow me to put a damper on the barrage of praise that the majority of my colleagues have lavished on you.
You have made important transfers of staff from DG VI to DG XXIV but in practice nothing has changed.
Consider the last case of this kind in Belgium.
Information exchange still remains as slow, and the absence of controls still as obvious.
Is the truth frightening?
Quite clearly so. And I believe if you hide behind the status of civil servants to abandon putting sanctions in place, it is because in fact, in my opinion, you did not want, and you still do not want, to see who those truly responsible are, those who could have, at a crucial moment between 1985 and 1989, assumed their responsibilities and thus protected the health of the citizens of Europe and the world.
You have your own internal inquiry services to monitor the actions of the different bodies of the Commission and you do not make use of them.
Was it necessary, is it necessary, regardless of the suffering of the human victims and their families, regardless of the citizens of Europe as a whole, to prevent for mercenary reasons, as I have understood in my group, the condemnation of Great Britain as responsible? We must not, they say, force the current British government to pay for the errors of the previous regime.
This is a dangerous short-circuit for the principle of continuity of power.
British government, Commission, Council, European Parliament, same battle.
For what? For health?
No. Against fraud?
No. Your attitude of refusing responsibility kills political credibility amongst young people, on your knees as you are before the interests of money.
Pitiful, Mr President, but perhaps with fifty more deaths...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen in the Chamber and looking at the monitors in the office, Mr Böge's report deserves approval.
But I would have liked more for consumers and more for cattle farmers, whose existence has been endangered by failure in key positions.
It is not enough to give emphatical warning of disciplinary action in Item 7 of our decision.
We must name names!
In the case of BSE, the fact is that the very high officials who have escaped unpunished, as the Commission wanted, are not the only people to blame.
The Commission and Council, at least in the case in BSE, have entangled themselves equally in guilt.
I want instruments which do not just make possible the more flexible handling of disciplinary action which the Commission has promised.
Ministers in the Council must also be brought to account, otherwise BSE will soon flourish again in another form!
Mr President, I would just like to say a few words before leaving Mrs Bonino to reply to a number of the questions that have been discussed, which are appropriate to her own portfolio within the Commission.
For my part, I would simply like to thank everyone for their contributions, contributions sometimes worth qualifying, I have to say, because we do not share the feeling of certainty that some of you have just touched on with regard to a possible subsequent crisis.
At the moment, I feel truly humble, I must say.
I do not know how I would have reacted in 1985, or 1989, when the crisis struck, when it was in its first stages and when the scientists were still not agreed on its causes.
In terms of the mad cow crisis, I still feel very modest and very humble.
I would not dare to say that we have come a long way since then.
If we have come a long way, we have certainly still not reached the culmination of all the efforts we must make.
And we know very well that, in certain of our Member States, as some have just mentioned, illegal trafficking, which is certainly of a nature that will shake not only our confidence but that of the consumers, is still deplorable.
All these traffickers, all these criminals are, moreover, also those who are already mixed up in other fraudulent dealings, who have in the past sullied our Community, whether it is a question of trafficking in hormones or whatever else.
We will never be able to rid ourselves entirely of this type of crime.
I repeat, I feel very humble in the face of this problem.
We admitted, from the moment our first appearance before the Committee of Inquiry, that there were some malfunctions within our departments.
I did not want to accuse my predecessors.
I nevertheless took political responsibility for the Commission as an institution.
In this spirit, I believe I can confirm that, all in all, we must work constructively in this area to ensure collaboration which will enable us to straighten out the situation, both good and bad, without letting ourselves be taken in, without giving ourselves false guarantees, which nobody here can give.
I have just read, in a scientific journal which is an authority in France, La Recherche Scientifique , that scientists have a new theory on the origins of this crisis.
Let us therefore show humility in the case in point and see to it that consumers, whoever they are, regain confidence in the guarantee of the safety of our food products.
It is in this direction that we must work and I am happy that there has been a change in climate in the collaboration between the Commission and the House regarding the mad cow crisis.
I hope that the same climate of confidence is going to be established between ourselves and the Council because we should be well aware that a great responsibility still falls on Member States.
In this respect, I believe it is essential that we also work to find common ground between our different institutions and the Council.
This is all I wanted to say.
I would like to thank you once again for the spirit of collaboration you have shown, but also for the truly determined action your Temporary Committee has carried out to widen perspectives regarding the future management of this crisis.
It is to this objective that I feel an attachment, this is why we have taken a certain number of measures.
When, just now, I took stock of the five questions still pending following the reports of the Committee of Inquiry and the Temporary Committee, it was within the context of the jurisdiction of the Commission.
And I am sure that, if we continue to work as we have been doing, as we have started to do today, we will have set in motion a process, a process which opens up new perspectives, which enables us to hope that consumers will once more regain confidence in the safety of food.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place tomorrow at 12: 00 noon.
European systems of worker involvement
The next item is the report (A4-0354/97) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the final report of the Group of Experts on "European systems of worker involvement' (Davignon report) (C4-0455/97).
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights considers that Mr Davignon and his group have done good work on a difficult issue and we are largely in agreement with the conclusions that Mr Menrad has just presented on behalf of the committee in charge, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
The problem of the European company, we know, is that its stumbling block is the place of workers within the company. This has been the case for a long time.
In fact, this obstruction to the European company leads to another blockage around a different group of issues: the proposal for a fifth directive on company law, for a tenth directive on cross-border mergers, the statute for cooperative societies, mutual societies and associations.
Mr Davignon and his group also propose a solution to get around the difficulty by advocating a flexible and optional two tier system.
It is first a question of choice of formula for European companies; indeed nobody is obliged to become a European company, this is already the first option.
Once this decision has been taken, supremacy is then given to a negotiated solution between union and management who can decide what they want between themselves. It is only failing agreement that the "reference rules' proposed by the Davignon group come into play, on the one hand regarding the information and consultation of workers and on the other their participation on management boards and supervisory boards.
It is therefore a very flexible system which enables, by leaving a great deal of freedom to the unions and management, a formula to be found which is agreeable to both, which therefore enables the legal structure to be adjusted at the wish of both parties, and which simply, in the final analysis, at that point proposes what is the norm in our countries as a whole, that is one method or another of worker participation in the company.
It seems to us, and this is noted by the great majority of members of the Committee on Legal Affairs, that this solution is likely to win over a majority in the House and above all to raise, within the Council, objections for which there are no longer grounds.
Mr President, many of us are convinced that the best instrument for regulating labour relations is dialogue between the social partners, and if that dialogue can be translated into agreements, so much the better.
At European level, the involvement of the social partners has improved since the first attempts at the beginning of the seventies, but progress has been much too slow.
The history of the report we are debating today - or of the background to it - is an example of the difficulties which arise when we try to elevate normal national practices to a European level.
Problems arise in finding common ground on how to define unequivocally what we understand by worker involvement, as regards both what that involvement should consist of, and how to develop that involvement.
The implementation of the internal market, and the effects of the globalization of our economies, demand that workers' representation and involvement must be elevated to supranational level.
Today we are trying to unblock the outstanding proposals about this in Council.
It is a question of having a realistic approach to all the controversial questions relating to worker involvement; of finding formulae which go further than just information and consultation; and achieving worker representation which enjoys real involvement, and is not limited to just being on the receiving end of a little information.
Mr Menrad's report tries to promote and speed up the debate on these important matters, and allow the European company statute to rapidly achieve full legal status.
The expert report, known as the Davignon report, found a way of formulating a European system of worker involvement.
Using this approach, it should be possible to reach agreement in Council and overcome the obstacles which have been encountered so far.
In its day, the European Works Council Directive found a way to make the different labour-relations models compatible.
In questions of European companies, it is a matter of achieving the same balanced, flexible agreement (as Mr Cot said a moment ago) in order to guarantee workers' information, consultation and involvement, not by imposing a specific model, but by using a model which is compatible with those currently in force in each of the Member States.
Mr President, first may I thank the rapporteur Mr Menrad very heartily.
His understanding and broad vision are reflected in the report.
He has suggested sensible additions, and the agreement in the Social Committee also shows this.
The economy of the European Union presses for a statute on a European public company or a European company.
The Davignon group has done good preparatory work, there is no doubt about that.
Despite differing structures for participation by employees, the Member States can live with the proposals because, first, changes of legal form to evade co-determination are not possible, and secondly, for those Member States in which the employees themselves do not want participation, a null solution is even possible.
Thirdly, if the employees and employers do not reach an agreement, after the negotiation period expires a minimum quota of employee representatives is binding.
Information and consultation of employees are thus ensured.
The minimum quota seems to the rapporteur to be set too low.
In this I would like to support him explicitly.
Likewise, his reference to the need for haste after decades of discussion is surely right, and I also think that the inclusion of the European co-operative associations in the proposal is necessary.
The Commission's task of convincing the Council, Commissioner Flynn, ought to be entirely possible on the basis of the proposals, which really take account of all objections.
I wish you much success in this task, in our interests too, and I thank you in advance.
Mr President, it has been stated that the issue of the status of European companies has been blocked for the last twenty five years, during which our businesses have loudly demanded such a status.
Thus, for example, in France, a company such as Airbus lacks a legal framework.
This is the reason why I would today like to thank Mr Menrad for his work on this issue as well as his commitment to worker participation.
I believe it is important that, in this House, a certain number of Members are motivated to bring the issue of participation to a successful conclusion because it is also one way of making progress in employment policy.
In spite of this, there are two observations I believe are worth making.
Firstly, whilst being in agreement with this report, I feel that it is necessary to consider the great diversity of national traditions in the areas of worker information, consultation and participation, and compared to the Davignon report perhaps, where you feel we have found a consensus, or compared to national traditions, to avoid going too far down the path towards a German system of co-management.
Mr Rapporteur, this is the reason why it would seem reasonable to us that the House does not adopt point 9 of the report which is proposed and, in particular, the last part requesting that a higher threshold than that provided for in the report of the Group of Experts and in the compromise proposal of the Luxembourg Presidency be set for worker representation on supervisory boards.
Indeed, this seems to me unrealistic and I fear that this will once more thwart the procedure which the Davignon report is today trying to unblock.
This, Mr President, is what I wanted to say very rapidly on this issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, we do not need to persuade each other here today that the European form of company partnership offers an excellent opportunity to promote cross-border trading in Europe; thus it ultimately benefits employment.
The involvement of employees in the running of business cannot be the problem, because it is this which promotes good management. So what is the problem?
The problem is that Member States do not want to come to an agreement, and are perhaps looking for a bandage to stop the bleeding.
My question to you is: do fiscal motives play a part, and not just the participation of workers?
I make a final plea, to the Member States as well to Commissioner Flynn, to put this issue on the agenda now, formally, or if that is not possible informally, for Thursday and Friday when the Heads of State and of Government meet in Luxembourg, and to see to it that the Luxembourg Presidency produces results.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Menrad on his report and thanking him for his great commitment to this issue.
I can do nothing but agree with the committee's and the rapporteur's opinions on the report of the group of experts and even with the opinions which have been given on the Luxembourg compromise proposal which means that any statute for European companies would under no circumstances be allowed to result in it being possible to circumvent the workers' right of co-determination in companies.
Nor shall it be possible to use European legal instruments to circumvent the right of co-determination.
Furthermore, consideration must be given to the different models for negotiated settlements between the various parties in the labour market which exist in the different Member States.
The rights which unions enjoy through national legislation or by tradition must also apply to any European companies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to thank Mr Menrad for his proposal, which we as Social Democrats also support.
That it has become a minimum consensus, Mr Menrad, is not your fault, but I think that of the Council of Ministers.
However, I would also like to thank Mr President-in-Office Juncker for making the effort to bring about a compromise at all after many years.
This proposal also states that we want to use the experience from the debate and the results of the European works council.
But that also means, Mr Flynn and Mr Juncker, that we must use the negative experience from the works council directive, for example, with Vilvoorde.
There is a big disproportion in Europe between the opportunities of labour and of capital.
We have waited for 25 years for this opportunity for co-determination to come about, whereas it took only 25 months to put directives about the internal market into effect.
It is also not enough to enable employees to own more share capital.
They must also participate in decision-making. There I think we agree, Mr Menrad.
The Europe of the internal market, freedom of services and movements of capital even if they are speculative, has become taken for granted.
We need co-determination by employees and trade unions, further development and perhaps harmonization.
The reason that we have not come further today, in my opinion, does not lie in the complicated relationships, the different interests or even the different traditions, but quite clearly in the excessive power of capital.
I would also like to mention that we are happy and satisfied that this directive or consensus was reached together with the trade unions.
I do not think that the Davignon report assesses that correctly.
Finally, two principles. First, the trade unions must be represented, and second, there must be further development in the direction of true co-determination.
Mr President, it is important that worker influence can be guaranteed at all levels and in all kinds of companies.
The model being proposed here with a voluntary system for European companies is perhaps the most practical.
It makes it possible for employers and workers in each company to negotiate suitable forms of worker influence themselves through a voluntary system regardless of what country the company is in.
This is a decentralized system which provides a lot of local influence, which is good.
The weakness of the system is that the worker side, which is often the weaker in such a negotiating situation, could be put at a disadvantage.
The agreement could then become quite meaningless, which could mean that in reality European companies can circumvent the whole process.
That must not be allowed to happen.
Proposals for minimum rules could therefore be one way to gain influence and a good remedy when negotiations have failed.
However, to begin with it is national measures which should be taken and which are needed in order to be able to solve this.
If they are introduced, minimum standards must take into account local rules and local laws on negotiations in each Member State.
I would like to congratulate Mr Menrad on an excellent report.
I speak as rapporteur on a European company statute and in particular the directive on involvement of workers.
The company statute is a voluntary measure and no company, when this proposal is eventually adopted, will be forced to set up a company statute against its wishes.
Other forms of setting up branches in other countries, such as by subsidiaries, will remain, so there is no need for Member States to fear this proposal.
As a quid pro quo of setting up a company under the European company statute model, there must be an element of worker involvement.
The Commission insists on this, and so does Parliament.
The choice of method of worker involvement is flexible and respects national cultures and traditions.
Many businesses want to be able to set up European company statutes.
I urge the Member States that are being difficult over this proposal to wake up.
Not only are they undermining the position of companies which actively want this proposal, they are also undermining the good work that has been done in this Parliament over the last nine or ten years.
We need a European company statute, we want one, the workers want one and the business people of Europe want one.
They must pay heed to the work of the Davignon report experts and also the work of Mr Menrad.
Let us hurry up and get this sorted out.
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mr Menrad; he has produced a very balanced report.
We have always enjoyed the charm with which he has introduced all his reports, and he has done the same again!
However, as I would like to see this report developed into a successful one, I have to contradict what some of my colleagues have already said about a fair balance of traditions and cultures in industrial relations across the European Union.
I must point out to our colleagues and comrades alike, in agreement with Mrs Hermange, that indeed we cannot force one model on all countries across the European Union.
Many of those cultures and traditions are not enjoyed in the same way as perhaps they are enjoyed in Germany or Austria.
I am quite sure that this is where the sticking-point actually lies - in the compulsory element.
It is this issue which will unblock this mechanism and will bring about worker involvement, not participation or codetermination, as all the arguments seem to centre on.
Perhaps if we can be a bit more progressive and rather more flexible about this, we can have a voluntary arrangement between companies and trade unions which will enable them to enjoy the fruits of worker involvement, however far they want to take that.
I agree with Ms Oddy that this is voluntary in its nature.
Indeed one would hope that people will be able to spot the difference between that and other ideas about compulsion.
Let us face the other fact: if people do not join up to the European Statute, will they not be at a competitive disadvantage at some time in the future? These are the thoughts that are going through a lot of people's minds.
These are the worries and fears that some people are trying to raise. These are issues which need to be addressed and they are not being addressed thoroughly enough.
We have time to do something about that, and Mr Menrad's report goes a long way towards reducing some of the fears and qualms.
As a compromise arrangement I think and I hope it will be very successful.
Mr President, let me first of all thank the European Parliament for having taken the initiative to deliver an opinion on the Davignon report and subsequent developments in the dossier on the European company statute within the Council.
As we all know, there was a clear mandate from the European Council in Amsterdam to make every effort necessary to secure the final adoption of the company statute by the end of this year.
We are all aware that this will require an early political agreement within the Social Affairs Council on the outstanding issue of worker involvement which will allow the Internal Market Council to finalize the whole dossier in good time.
The contribution that the European Parliament is about to give to the successful completion of the dossier is of course extremely relevant and I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Menrad, for having once again understood the great difficulty of the challenge that we are facing and the issue of the adequacy of the solutions envisaged, both by the Davignon report and by the compromise proposal presented by the Luxembourg Presidency.
We all know that these texts give us a real opportunity for the very first time in very many years to make substantive progress on this dossier.
Let us exploit the opportunity to the greatest possible extent.
As underlined in the draft text by Mr Menrad, any solution capable of gathering sufficient support within the Council must preserve the autonomy of the social partners in shaping the model of worker involvement which will apply to each European company.
At the same time we need a reference framework which will apply in the event of failure of negotiations.
To facilitate consensus among the Member States, this reference framework must incorporate both information and consultation, as well as participation provisions.
It is not designed to harmonize national laws and practices on worker involvement which differ substantially from country to country.
Ms Oddy is quite right: this is voluntary and it is available as an option and should be seen as that for the benefit of business and workers.
Its real purpose consists in meeting the legitimate concerns of some Member States who fear that the European company statute will be used to circumvent national rules on worker involvement, notably with regard to the participation systems.
But, on the other hand, we also recognize the equally legitimate concern of those who do not wish to have foreign models of worker involvement imposed upon them.
The priority given to negotiations and to the fact that companies will be dealing, within this context, with mere options will, from the point of view of the Commission, greatly minimize this risk.
So I am glad to see that these fundamental elements of the possible compromise are fully endorsed here by the European Parliament.
I would like once again to thank all of you for your support and express my hope that with your help and a lot of good will - and it will require a lot of political good will and a spirit of compromise by all the parties concerned - we will manage to make real and decisive progress in this dossier and fulfil the mandate given by the European Council.
Once again to you personally, Mr Menrad, I would like to express my thanks, to you and to your colleagues, and to Mr Schiedermeir for his good wishes because it is going to take a fair bit of political goodwill to see this through.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, I know that you were denied some of your time but you made a very valid point that this should be a central issue.
We hope to achieve the momentum that you have asked for on 15 December at the Social Affairs Council and see this business through finally.
Thank you all once again.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12: 00.
Part-time work - Employment
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A4-0352/97) by Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commissionproposal for a Council Directive concerning the framework agreement on part-time work concluded by UNICE, CEEP and the ETUC (COM(97)0392 - C4-0551/97); -(A4-0353/97) by Mr Hernández Mollar, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission's report "Employment in Europe - 1997' .
Mr President, Commissioner, with only a few days left now before the Luxembourg summit, this may be the last debate before the Heads of State and of Government confront a challenge in which perhaps the people of Europe have more hopes invested than any other.
The report which I am presenting to the House was approved by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs with only two abstentions.
The gravity of the unemployment situation in the European Union is dramatic, even though it is improving.
The whole of European society needs to be aware of the sheer size of the problem with which we are confronted. It is a problem which directly threatens the very foundations of the Union.
When we talk about solving the problem of unemployment, we need a sound basis for our analyses.
There is only one realistic formula for reducing unemployment in an economy such as ours: to create useful jobs.
Everything else is, as we say in Spain, "bread for today and hunger for tomorrow' .
Useful jobs are mainly produced by businesses - more specifically, by small and medium-sized enterprises.
In order for this to happen, the right climate has to be created, to allow them to survive and be competitive.
Any government can create jobs by decree, by increasing the number of civil servants or reducing working hours, but these are only short term solutions. In the end, this sort of solution damages the economies which resort to them.
The long term effect, in an increasingly open and globalized climate, is that unemployment rises to levels even higher than those which led to such measures being applied in the first place.
The Treaty of Amsterdam, on the other hand, represents the will to coordinate national policies, in order to create more jobs.
The common objectives are very commendable, and in some ways they are necessary.
But let us not deceive ourselves: objectives do not create jobs.
There have been many objectives set and plans made, from Essen up to the present day, but unemployment figures remain almost static.
What we need is to achieve the Member States' own objectives, as set out in their multiannual employment plans.
That, of course, is compatible with the continuing development of their policies.
Mr President, I should like to share with the House my understanding of what the ten commandments for employment could be.
Firstly, to complete monetary union successfully, which is not an end in itself, but an instrument for restructuring the macro-economic climate.
Secondly, to give priority to government policies on education and training, so that our young people and long-term unemployed can gain access to the jobs market with proper and effective qualifications.
Thirdly, to reform the Member States' fiscal systems, in favour of job creation.
Fourthly, to facilitate sources of funding for small and medium-sized enterprises, removing administrative and bureaucratic obstacles, and making self-employment easier.
Fifth, to improve and complete the internal market, increasing workers' mobility, and removing language and cultural barriers, and the protection of interests.
Sixth, to promote dialogue and social contact at sectoral, national and European level, studying new ways of organizing work, and new conditions in which to develop them (including, of course, reduced working hours, new formulae for contracts, and workers' protection and health), and proposing these measures to workers and employers.
Seventh, to increase the role of local authorities in the search for solutions, and to involve the private sector also, encouraging jobs which spring from social solidarity, the voluntary sector, cultural rehabilitation and leisure itself, and the by-products of new sources of work: regional employment plans urgently need to be put into effect.
Eighth, to improve infrastructures, and support innovation within companies, and the application of new technologies.
The ninth point is the creation of the right conditions to end the discrimination suffered by women: we have to do away with those regrettable statements still heard today in our society - that women deprive men of their jobs.
Work is the traditional right of every human being, and does not belong specifically to either men or women. Both should work together - with governments as well - to create the necessary family and social conditions to grant women access to the jobs market.
There is no doubt that part-time work is a good way to achieve this.
Lastly, Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the tenth point is to modernize our social security system.
No European citizen wants to lose what society won long ago, but our companies cannot be weighed down by social burdens, and pension payments cannot be supported just on the shoulders of an ever-decreasing active population.
We have to face this problem with courage.
Mr President, those are my final thoughts as we approach a summit which all the people of Europe hope will provide realism and concrete political commitments.
Thirty million people want a job.
A man or woman without a job ends up rejecting the society to which they belong.
Economic and social exclusion causes despair, and a serious decline in the society where it occurs.
We have to compete - not just at the level of economies and markets, but also at the level of people's hopes and confidence, for the Europe we all want to see in the twenty-first century.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the employment summit will be the yardstick for the social profile of Europe.
The employment profile makes the ills we have to overcome very clear.
Because great successes in the creation of jobs will be thanks not just to labour market policy, but at the same time we need a macro-economic policy which promotes economic growth and does not put brakes on it.
Here there is more to be done.
We should not always be talking only about the deregulation of job markets, their modernization and restructuring, or about people's employability.
We must create economic conditions so that we finally bring the gainfully employed ratio in the European Union close to the Japanese and American ratio of 70 %.
Only that meets our social obligations.
We therefore certainly need a prompt start of currency union, so that monetary policy can play its constructive part at European level.
But we obviously also need coordination of economic policies, and the indescribably indifferent attitude of the finance ministers must be overcome at the European summit in Luxembourg.
We must switch to targets, to reduction of the unemployment rate and redirection to an active job market policy.
But above all we must do more in relation to investment.
Investment is the key.
When I think that job-creating investment in production plant rose by 30 % between 1989 and 1996 in the USA, but by only 5 % in Europe, we can imagine the difference in the employment trend.
I must say that benchmarking for employment and benchmarking for investment must be added to our vocabulary.
This does not only involve pump-priming for private investment, but also redirection of infrastructure investment, public investment, from wasting it on subsidies to employmentoriented public expenditure.
Mr President, I rise to put forward the view of the Committee on Fisheries about this important report on employment, drawing attention firstly to the fact that the question of employment takes on special characteristics in the fisheries sector.
Matters relating to employment and working conditions in the fisheries sector are perhaps the least developed aspects of Community fisheries policy at the moment.
This is a significant lack, when you consider that since the seventies, this sector has been suffering from continual erosion, leading to constant job losses, deteriorating working conditions, decreased job security, and so on.
In fact, the consequent lack of attractiveness is resulting in an aging workforce which is no longer being renewed by fresh generations.
As we all know, the new international law of the sea, enshrining 200 miles as the exclusive zone for the exploitation of fishing resources by coastal states, meant that the Community fleet found itself with excess capacity. This has produced a constant demand for reductions in both the ocean-going and the small-scale coastal fleet, resulting in an alarming loss of jobs.
To quote just one example, in the case of Spain, which has the greatest fishing capacity of any country in the Community, nearly 20 % of jobs in this sector have been lost over the last ten years.
The loss of jobs in the fisheries sector has in some cases had a dramatic impact, since many of these jobs - especially in small-scale coastal fishing, which is labour-intensive in terms of processing and related jobs (shipyards, marketing, etc.) as well as the actual fishing - are located in outlying regions heavily dependent on fisheries, where at present there are few real opportunities for converting to other activities.
Furthermore, since the phenomenon affects outlying regions of the Community, this can only serve to exacerbate the conditions I have already described.
Therefore - and I am just finishing - the Committee on Fisheries urges the European Commission to draw up a detailed study of employment and working conditions in this sector, and to undertake specific revisions of the directive in relation to the question of jobs.
Mr President, first I would like to thank Mr Hernández Mollar for his, in my opinion, excellent report.
Especially excellent, by the way, because it contains two issues which could provide a correction to the decisions made last time on the report to the summit on employment.
These are, in paragraph 10, a clarification on the shift from tax on labour to other factors we consider necessary and also a clear request in paragraph 15 to instigate research into the feasibility of the system proposed by Michel Rocard to modulate social security contributions between the first 32 hours worked and the remainder.
Other speakers have already said that this report has to be seen above all in the light of the summit in Luxembourg, and I also think that this must be the first subject under discussion here in this debate.
This summit is a first step, is what has frequently been heard during these past few weeks.
That is true in itself, but it is often said as if it is an excuse to ensure that the step taken will be small.
I believe that this first step should be a very clear one.
Clear enough to inspire trust, trust on the part of the citizen that finally, after all those exaggerated stories, after that huge amount of paperwork, there will be action.
I would like to concentrate on what is the least that action should achieve.
There should be concrete targets both at European and international level.
There is resistance because people are afraid that they will not be able to meet those targets.
I would like to point out that this fear did not exist when targets were formulated for the EMU.
At that time the criteria could not be tough enough, and were aimed very high.
I conclude from this that the issue is above all one of political will.
A political will to promote an employment policy, and the political will to recognize that the out-dated belief that EMU will lead to economic growth and that economic growth automatically leads to employment is wrong, and that we should pursue a much more active labour market policy.
Secondly, a important goal is benchmarking: to direct our policy, our targets at the performance of the three countries with the best performance.
If you take those targets no-one will be able to say that they are not realistic, because you have at least three countries which meet those targets.
And for the first time, at last, you are not involved in this dismal process of harmonizing to the level of the lowest common denominator, but at the level of the best.
I would think that that will give people much more hope.
Finally, various objectives should be set, but above all, as a priority, a policy that guarantees that young people under 25 will never be unemployed.
They should have a job, or be in training, and all long-term unemployed should be given a second chance to re-enter the job market.
And, last but not least, in the Delors White Paper there is finally a serious decision about tax reductions, the shift from tax on labour to the environment, to raw materials and to capital.
Mr President I would like to thank Mr Hernández Mollar sincerely for the excellent report he has produced, and also for the ten commandments for employment, which he spelled out a short time ago.
Much has been said about the summit in Luxembourg, but we must realize that we are now involved in an exercise which rises above that, which constantly tries to improve the still unhappy employment situation in the European Union.
I am sometimes surprised at how sad people feel when we discuss Luxembourg.
When it is the socialists who are particularly sad, I want to say: look at the numbers; look at the twelve of the fifteen governments in which socialists are represented.
If the summit fails, then it will be a failure of socialist Heads of Government, so beware of that.
I believe there is still hope for the summit, and I hope that we can keep this afloat.
But we are discussing the report by Mr Hernández Mollar who has given an exceptionally accurate analysis of the situation, and also of what we have already done in the past and what we should continue to do.
There is little I can add to that.
The other item on the agenda is the Jöns report on part-time work.
This report, too, has created quite a storm.
I originally wondered how it would be possible to discuss these two very different reports in one debate, but actually it makes complete sense.
In a number of countries, including my own, part-time work has contributed more to the reverse of the unemployment figures than anything else, and it has done so in a way that conforms to the market.
But then part-time work should, of course, be remunerated in the same way and be treated in the same way as full-time work, in such a way that we get rid of the outdated idea that part-time work is some sort of secondary employment, employment that does not count.
It was not an easy report.
We know that.
We fought very hard for it and for us the most important issue is that we as social partners should formulate an agreement that says that we will not interfere in the content of the agreement.
We can reject the agreement.
We can accept it, but we should not take halfway measures.
I think that in the amendments which are now on the table, we have found some kind of halfway house.
The Jöns report states quite rightly that it is incomplete, that we will have to do more for atypical industrial relations than this report alone, that this might be a small contribution.
But it is the first contribution to this debate, and that is more than we have had so far.
That is why I think it is important to support the agreement.
And also to ask the Commission, to ask you, Mr Flynn, to take the necessary extra steps so that we come up with a balanced package, because then we will be further helping to defeat unemployment.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Jöns for her report which draws attention to the nature of the work contract between employees in part-time work and their employers and the many ways in which discrimination against these workers occurs.
There are a number of other serious implications arising from parttime work which should be brought to the attention of the Commission.
The main one is the exclusion from certain EU-sponsored schemes of many of the least well-off in our society.
I regret to say that this situation pertains principally to my own country, Ireland.
I refer, for example, to the Commission's programme for rural development or accompanying measures under the common agricultural policy.
In this report and in the Commission document, great importance is attached to the need for proper provision for social security and pensions for part-time workers.
Yet, the Irish Department of Agriculture is at this very moment debarring applicants from the EU's early retirement scheme for farmers if they are found to have been engaged in part-time work for a period prior to their application.
I do not refer here to farmers with large holdings which are commercially viable.
I speak of those farmers with holdings of 15 or 16 hectares who simply must supplement their incomes with off-farm work in order to survive.
Surely it was to these farmers that schemes such as the retirement scheme were in the first instance directed.
And the matter does not end there.
For these small-scale farmers, who one would have considered unfortunate enough not to have secured some type of part-time work, the option of work on state sponsored schemes became available.
Yet, what do we discover? We discover that the modest amount they have earned on these short-term schemes is also being used to keep them out of the retirement scheme.
Before they ever reach this stage, our Department of Agriculture is seeing fit to exclude them from certain premium payments by making an assessment against them for this off-farm income.
It was always my opinion that the taxation system of our Member State was there to regulate the amount of money that an individual earned.
If they earned over a certain amount they were taxed on that amount and that was the end of the matter.
The majority of farmers are in that network.
Yet it seems to me that what is going on here is discrimination of the most blatant nature.
The weakest and traditionally most vulnerable of our rural community, in terms of social welfare, and smaller farmers are being dealt with in the harshest and most unjust manner by our state.
I most certainly hope and believe that it is against every objective and principle of the Commissioner's directive that a Member State should be allowed to manipulate what is essentially an EU social benefit in this way.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate both rapporteurs on their reports.
Many of the issues which have been raised in the Hernández Mollar report, have been under discussion here on account of the van Velzen report.
I would like to bring one more point to the attention of the Commissioner, and that is that despite fine words about tax reductions, tax on labour has risen again from 43.5 % to 51 % at present.
I think that most of the emphasis on Thursday and Friday should be directed at shifting tax on labour to other sources, as recommended in the Hernández Mollar report.
Mr President, the Jöns report is also under discussion.
Here you may ask yourself to what extent we can leave this to the social partners.
I see no sign of the participation of small and medium-sized business in the social dialogue.
But now, in principle, that we have left the issue to the social partners, this is where the main responsibility lies.
With each company they will have to give flesh and blood to this agreement in collective labour and others agreements, because we are not doing it now.
And that is why I wonder whether we should continue to deal with proposals like this in this way.
Mr President, I would like to ask Commissioner Flynn which proposals on the issue of shifting tax on labour to other sources he considers achievable at the summit in Luxembourg.
Perhaps he can indicate whether tax on energy or other taxes will indeed now stand a chance.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mrs Jöns on the splendid degree of skill she has brought to this difficult issue: the blanket agreement concerning part-time work.
What we have before us is the result of labour market negotiations.
Given this, it is very difficult to reject this proposal, although its shortcomings are evident.
I think the rapporteur has come to the right conclusion in proposing that the results of these negotiations should come in for some strong criticism, though their acceptance is recommended.
The greatest problem with the blanket agreement is its limited scope.
The agreement affects only part-time workers and totally ignores others in atypical employment relationships.
However, it is just these groups of workers that have problems which, as the report states, are often greater than those of regular part-time workers.
The Commission must immediately start drafting a motion for the equal treatment of those in untypical employment relationships, who remain left out of this motion for a directive.
Furthermore, I am afraid that there is a danger that the same kind of watered-down decision will come out of the Luxembourg Employment Summit as from this part-time work contract.
Messages emanating from yesterday's marathon meeting of the Council of Ministers have not, at least around me, increased optimism for the prospect of getting very clear and concrete decisions on how we might improve the employment situation in Europe on any large scale.
Hopefully my fears are groundless, but yesterday's meeting of the Council of Ministers was not very promising.
Even the Commission has shown more initiative and been more active that the Council of ministers and individual states appear to have been.
I also wonder about the attitude of my own country, given that it is not interested in the Commission's proposal to reduce the VAT burden on services.
But that would help to create those very jobs which are badly needed in the service sectors.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, many of us have great hopes leading up to the forthcoming summit in Luxembourg.
There are not many days left to go.
Above all it must be the 30 million unemployed who hope that this summit will achieve great things.
I am not so sure that it will, but let us still hope.
Many people believe that growth is the only thing that can help us out of unemployment. Even Mr Hernández Mollar does so in his report.
I believe that we are going to fail if we believe that growth will get us out of this mess.
I do not believe, you see, that there is one single solution. I believe there are very many solutions in which we must have faith.
These solutions look very different depending on what country, what region and what local conditions we are speaking of.
One such solution, which we must allow to bloom, might be to concentrate on the most serious problem we have, youth unemployment.
We Greens believe that you must guarantee young people training positions in companies if they are ever to get a job.
Otherwise they will end up outside the labour market for a long time.
We have to be able to give them a paid apprenticeship for a lengthy period, perhaps even up to two years.
We must also encourage and support what we call the third sector or the social economy (a loved child has many names) which is concerned with cooperatives, non-profit-making organizations, small businesses, things concerned with cultural work, with nursing, caring and that type of activity.
In Sweden there are in fact examples showing that this is the sector which is growing most rapidly; i.e. small cooperatives and the third sector.
It is also absolutely essential to have an environmental tax reform linked to a reduction of tax on work.
I totally disagree with Mr Hernández Mollar regarding the wonderfulness of EMU and that EMU is the most important thing for getting results where employment is concerned.
There are well-known economists, Mr Hernández Mollar, who maintain the precise opposite, and we have already seen the effects of EMU with the cutbacks which have been made.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Hernández Mollar for the quality of his report on employment in Europe in 1997.
Eighteen million unemployed, very different social legislation from one country to another, economic policies that are still too nationalist, a growth rate which is still not sufficient to create true jobs and to curb, let alone reduce, the European scourge of unemployment.
In the face of this balance sheet, we today have the proposals from the European Commission along with the European summit in Luxembourg which will take place in 48 hours.
My group, the European Radical Alliance, is happy with the proposals made by the Commission. How could you not subscribe to them in the face of the failures of national employment policies, at least to date?
How could you not accept the setting of quantifiable objectives at last, aimed at effectively fighting unemployment in Europe? On this point, it is unacceptable that Germany and Spain are blocking the process which is to be undertaken in Luxembourg in a few days time.
The guidelines in these proposals will enable the creation of nearly 12 million jobs by the year 2003 and bring the rate of unemployment down from 10.6 % to 7 %.
An SME/SMI plan, professional training for 25 % of those unemployed, technological innovations, reduction of costs, these are the strong points of this plan.
Very good.
But we could go further, be more daring, more ambitious.
At a time when the European Employment Summit is about to open in Luxembourg, European public opinion would not understand if we were unable to propose a strong project for employment in Europe, unable to admit the urgency, to search at a European level for solutions to this problem that undermines, traumatizes and weakens each one of our countries.
After European peace and security, which have been assured for decades by the European Union, employment is the main concern of our citizens and a good measure of the health of our societies and of the dignity of our workers.
I support a socialist government in France, which has placed employment at the heart of the European project and it is, perhaps, to reply to one of my colleagues who was asking just now, because there are today a majority of socialist governments in Europe that the Luxembourg meeting may result in a true European employment policy, which we can but welcome.
ECU 800 million of aid to SMEs, European status for company heads and workers, improved European rates of enterprise creation, the development of small home-based industries, the lightening of the tax burden, there are so many factors which could enable us to go further.
Let us take courage, if we want to give meaning to Europe, if we want to make it credible and useful to our citizens.
A coordinated employment policy is required. We need a Europe which leads the battle, here in Parliament as well as in Luxembourg, for modernization of our social relations.
After the failure of a social Europe, we must not mess up the employment meeting in Europe.
The citizens of Europe would never forgive us.
Mr President, I consider the report by Mr Hernández Mollar to be extremely important. This report of the Community Commission was given an almost unanimous vote in this committee.
Of course I also congratulate and thank its rapporteur, Mr Hernández Mollar.
Mr Flynn, the report was based on a very valuable piece of work undertaken by the Commission.
Today, just a few hours before the special summit on jobs, we in Parliament are having a debate on the same issue.
Quite by chance rather than by good fortune.
I believe that this is our opportunity to send out a strong, separate political message, but one without political oratory and without political rhetoric, but with political action.
I do not feel pessimistic concerning the special summit meeting the day after tomorrow.
What does worry me of course is the widespread - and well-worn - pessimism about the outcome of the meeting.
Yet I believe that this meeting may, and please forgive my pomposity, be of historic importance.
Since those citizens, that nightmarish number of our fellow citizens who are trapped in the vicious circle of unemployment, in the final analysis do not care about who or what is to blame, but value, quite rightly, solutions and results.
This means those responsible must shoulder their obligations and take action.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mr Hernández Mollar on his report and on a very good speech.
I would just like to add and to reiterate that jobs can only be created through many more successful and expanding companies.
Particularly in the debate on employment politicians appear to be concentrating exclusively on measures which tackle the symptoms rather than the disease.
Many of us appear to want to regulate a bit more.
But I think that some of the wording in the Jöns report suggests a fear of leaving anything unregulated.
We must look upon the new age with confidence.
I believe that employees and employers need to have more room for individual agreements.
Quite clearly the labour markets also need to have fewer regulations.
It can be seen that countries with a lower level of regulation have also succeeded best in the fight against unemployment.
The UK under a Conservative government is a prime example.
The Commission's guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States for 1998 emphasizes four sound concepts.
I welcome the debate on individual people's employability and adaptability.
But the keyword is entrepreneurship.
From 1988 to 1995 small and medium-sized businesses in Europe created 250, 000 new jobs per year, while businesses with more than 100 employees lost 200, 000 jobs.
These 250, 000 new jobs are good, but are not sufficient.
That is why the policy must now be aimed at avoiding barriers to new jobs by having more growing companies.
For that we should not switch taxes, but reduce them.
Working hours will also have to be flexible.
Again I say to this House: the EU's Member States should not give up prosperity and growth through job sharing.
Mr President, I would like to thank the two rapporteurs for their work, which falls within the remit of improving employment policy on the eve of the European Summit.
I believe that our work has shown that we have a spirit of confidence and determination with regard to this summit, because it is what our citizens are asking for.
It also shows the political will of the European Parliament to make progress in this area.
Furthermore, my group has demonstrated this, because we proposed the anticipated allocation of ECSC surpluses to EIB loans for SMEs which create jobs.
It is a concrete proposal to make progress in this area.
Personally, I would have liked to see us go further and that the employment summit would enable social indicators to be defined, for I believe that our citizens do not understand very well why criteria exist with regard to Maastricht but not with regard to social policy.
Mr Commissioner, I would like to make a concrete proposal: as the Summit will last two days, I propose that on the first day, the Heads of State reflect, but that on the second day they invite fifteen young unemployed people from Europe and they tell them clearly what proposals they could offer them so that, tomorrow, they can find work.
Share this proposal with the Heads of State and of Government.
This would prove their concrete determination to make progress on this issue.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I believe our most important task in the eyes of the general public is to solve unemployment in Europe.
That is why many people, including myself and others, have great expectations of the Luxembourg summit. In fact, it must not fail.
We need a positive business climate.
We need reduced tax on employment and increased tax on environmental and natural resources, as many have said.
We need new companies to grow which can take advantage of the future recycling society with new environmental technology, etcetera.
We need simpler and cheaper services.
We need to support female enterprise, and not just with regard to jobs for women.
We also need lots of local solutions.
I do not believe in any fiscal or financial policy.
Nor do I believe that EMU is a kind of 'open sesame' which is going to solve all the unemployment problems in the EU.
That is not how things work.
But now that there are proposals for convergence criteria for budgets and for inflation targets, there must also be convergence criteria for employment in order to balance out the budget and inflation targets.
That is why it is necessary to introduce these kinds of convergence criteria, with the same standards, requirements and levels as for budgets and inflation, as a step towards solving the problem of unemployment.
However, measures must be taken at the national level.
Mr President, I am going to speak on the framework agreement on parttime work, but first I should like to congratulate my compatriot Mr Hernández Mollar for his work and his speech.
Two types of part-time work exist at the moment. One relates to so-called corporate strategy, which is defined according to company interests.
The second type corresponds to the strategy of the individual, in which employers adapt to their workers' needs. Obviously, the first type is the most common.
This means that, generally speaking, part-time work does not satisfy the requirements of the people who are obliged to do it, most of whom - over 80 % - are women.
Mrs Jöns, I congratulate you on your report.
I agree with both the thinking behind it and the resolution.
Above all, I support the idea that this agreement should contribute to overcoming the gender-specific segregation of the labour market, and that no direct or indirect discrimination on the grounds of gender can ever be justified.
In calling on the Commission to prepare an annual report on part-time workers, I hope that my amendment requesting a specific chapter on the situation of women will be supported. My amendment was inspired by the following question: does part-time work liberate women and represent progress on the issue of equal opportunities, or does it perpetuate the traditional division of roles and fail to benefit women at all?
I hope that chapter can be written, so that we can have an answer to this question.
Mr President, the agreement between the social partners on part-time work is, to be honest, even more dreadful than the original one which covered parental leave; what is more, the treatment of part-time workers is undermined by countless exceptions in this agreement, and the flexi-workers have simply been fobbed off.
How is it possible that the European Trade Union Congress agreed to this?
Mrs Jöns uttered serious accusations in her report. It is no coincidence that the agreement was reached ten days before the Amsterdam Summit, and in doing so the social partners sacrificed the importance of part-time and flexiworkers to the preservation of their position of power in the new treaty.
I am afraid that Mrs Jöns is right about that.
Perhaps the fact that more than 80 % of part-time workers and most flexi-workers are women plays a part in this.
Or should I say: after all, they are only women, gentlemen of the trade unions.
We are on the threshold of the summit on employment, which is in danger of becoming a disaster, although I understand that Mr Pronk continues to have faith in the socialist leaders.
This agreement, too, is a missed opportunity to stimulate part-time work, and thereby create new jobs.
We really must get rid of this corporatist procedure which farms out European social policy to social partners without there being a parliamentary driving force.
In her original draft resolution Mrs Jöns took the view that the agreement, and I quote her original resolution, does not need to be transformed by a Council directive, because this contributes neither to uniform standards, nor to increased legal security.
That was a brave and appropriate conclusion.
But unfortunately it had disappeared from the current report.
Yet I continue to agree wholeheartedly with that original vision.
I would like to ask Mr Flynn if he plans to do anything with the amendments which this Parliament will adopt, and when will the Commission produce the additional directive for atypical work, as is requested in paragraph 14.
Because this is particularly important in this case.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the employment report for 1997 confirms the worsening of the job market situation in many details.
Women's unemployment has risen further, youth unemployment is at 20 %, relaxation is not in sight.
The reasons for the high unemployment lie firstly in the trend of business activity, which continues to be bad, but also in structures which have become rigid, and make it more and more difficult to act nimbly in international competition.
Fair competition within the EU is also made impossible because of the existence of different social and environmental standards in the individual Member States of the EU.
The consequence is that the net growth of jobs in 1996 is entirely due to part-time jobs.
This is a disturbing development, which offers no real solutions, above all for socially weak groups, and above all for women.
Low income, bad social security and low chances of improvement are the start of social impoverishment.
The special Luxembourg summit on employment questions takes place against this background.
A summit which is linked with high expectations, because the Commission has announced the ambitious goal of 12 million jobs.
It is in the nature of things that much is expected of those who promise much, and there will be deep disappointment in the end if these goals are not achieved.
Mr President, I wish to express my congratulations to Karin Jöns for the excellent report and thorough work she has undertaken on the issue of part-time work.
Secondly, I wish to congratulate and thank the Commissioner and the social partners for making some progress after many years of difficulties; but it is a qualified thank you and qualified congratulations.
I want to refer specifically to the position of women, who make up over 80 % of part-time workers in the European Union.
In many Member States such part-time workers do not enjoy equal rights with full-time workers.
This is reflected in their pay and pension entitlements.
For example, women working full-time receive on average 80 % of men's full-time pay.
However, in the United Kingdom women working part-time receive on average only 58 % of the average hourly earnings of men who work full-time.
This pay gap between women working part-time and men working full-time has not narrowed in the last 20 years.
The low pay of women part-time workers is reflected in their current social insurance entitlements.
Again an example from the United Kingdom: 2.25 million women workers - mainly those working part-time - are excluded from social insurance schemes because their wages are too low.
This inequality between part and full-time workers is increasingly contributing to the fastest growing group of the poor in Europe. That group is older women.
A recent study illustrated that two-thirds of older women are receiving minimum pensions compared with one-third of older men.
The framework agreement is a small, but I hope significant, step in a process which may lead to greater equality since it will allow part-time workers the opportunity to compare their positions with full-time workers and require employers to address the issues of equal treatment and equal pay.
However, the agreement, as Karin Jöns' report thoroughly demonstrates, is very limited in its scope, and it is necessary for the Commission to draw up a new draft directive which will protect all atypical workers against discrimination.
If the Commission's proposals for its employment guidelines for 1998 are to take effect, then it is important that the Commission draws up some legislation and brings it before the institutions so that this can be implemented.
We need to ensure that all our workers have equal protection in the social field and in terms of employment, pay and conditions.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate Mrs Jöns and Mr Hernández Mollar on their reports.
I would like to focus on the Hernández Mollar report.
As many speakers have already said, coming up to the Employment Summit, it is one of the key areas where Parliament could at last have its voice heard by the Council and the Heads of Government.
Despite what other people may think, some brilliant ideas come from this Parliament.
I know there is a lot of rubbish but there are some very good ideas.
In particular, in Mr Hernández Mollar's report one sees the basis for employment creation and, most importantly of all, employment retention - looking at ways of maintaining jobs as well as creating new ones.
If I were to hope for anything from the Employment Summit it would be for the Commissioner to come forward with three suggestions.
Firstly, that tourism as an employment growth area be recognized.
Secondly, that the small and medium-sized enterprise sector, which has been spoken about by other colleagues, be given freedom to operate and create new jobs and new economic growth within the whole European Union.
Thirdly, previously wrong decisions of the Council, Commission and European Parliament should be overturned. In particular, the question of the abolition of duty-free in 1999, which will cost us over 400, 000 jobs.
Those are practical measures which can assist employment growth and retention.
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my congratulations to Mrs Karin Jöns for her report, which quite accurately exposes the problems caused directly or indirectly by the Agreement that was signed by the bodies of the European organizations of employers and employees and which, unfortunately, lags far behind the settlements which have been elaborated by the International Work Organization or which are already being implemented in certain Member States.
Mr President, we are faced with two sides of the same problem, with enormous implications for the living and working conditions of working people.
On the one hand, an entire operation to make part-time employment common practice, a whole range of atypical forms of employment, the major responsibility for which lies in the general orientation of the economic and social policy of the European Union.
On the other hand, the provocative downgrading of those rights concerning not only the part-time employed, but also all atypical forms of work, which are placing millions of workers at the mercy of their employer, with dramatic reductions in wages, in holiday entitlements, in benefits, in hours of work and in social security.
Working people are being called upon, through this virulent and unjust treatment and through the widespread increase in poverty, to shoulder the burden of strengthening the competitiveness of European capital.
It would appear that the European trades unions that have signed this agreement have assumed enormous responsibilities towards working people.
On the contrary, in fact this agreement promotes employer immunity and in no case does it cover the rights of working people in part-time employment.
It is also clear that the European Union has not freed itself of its own enormous responsibilities by promoting a legal basis which downgrades rather than promotes the labour, wage and security rights of working people.
As a result it is necessary to promote measures for the defence of those who nevertheless will work under part-time or atypical work agreements. Above all, however, an obstacle must be placed in the way of the anti-labour logic of the push to make flexible employment common practice.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mr Hernández Mollar for an altogether outstanding report.
On two previous occasions I have talked about the employment situation.
Now that we are debating it again, we can note that the situation has improved slightly.
But, in spite of everything, we now have a new situation.
This time we have a new treaty with a partially new content.
We also have a summit on employment which shall take place this week.
I hope that this summit does not become one more in a series of summits between Heads of Government from which people emerge with a 'book of poetry' which is put on the shelf and taken out on ceremonial occasions.
We now need concrete objectives: concrete objectives with regard to youth unemployment, concrete objectives with regard to long-term unemployment and concrete objectives with regard to an active labour market policy.
We also need a major effort in the area of training measures and a proper effort in the area of small and medium-sized businesses.
I would like to comment on a few things.
The question of EMU and its effects on employment are disputed.
What I say is that it cannot be disadvantageous to a long-term rise in employment to have balanced budgets, to have low inflation and to have low interest rates.
Seen in the long term that can only be good.
We now have that situation in Europe, so we should now have an opportunity for long-term growth in employment.
Secondly, Mrs Carlsson from Sweden, who is not here right now, said that there was a clear link between deregulation and higher employment.
That is not true.
Before Mrs Carlsson became a member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, we had the Molitor report, which investigated this question.
We looked into it on the committee and there is no such link.
If we look at the countries in Europe which have the highest levels of employment, they do not have the most deregulated labour markets.
Finally, I want to tell Mr Pronk that it is true that there are 12 Social Democratic governments.
We shall try to influence them prior to the employment summit.
However, I believe that the most important person to talk to is Helmut Kohl.
I therefore think that is what Mr Pronk should do, since that is the greatest obstacle leading up to this employment summit.
Mrs Lulling wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I note with amazement that we are interrupting this debate for Question Time, and that it will not be continued until 9 p.m.
I know that we are running late, but if this was accepted for the mad cow issue, why not do as much for the questions.
I am asking the House to continue with the debate regardless.
It should soon be finished and you do not interrupt such an important debate for questions, whose importance I contest...
Mrs Lulling, I respect your opinion, but I must remind you that the agenda is set at the start of the session by the chairmen of the political groups, and we should respect what we have ourselves approved.
In the agenda, Mrs Lulling, it was approved that Question Time to the Commission should start at 5.30 p.m. today.
Besides which, Mrs Lulling, there is also an agreement with the members of the Commission that they should attend here at strictly specified times.
In any case, this is a question which you should refer to the chairmen of your respective groups, to see if they think the system should be changed.
However, ladies and gentlemen, my duty as the Presidency's representative at this moment is to respect the agenda which has been approved.
And the agenda states that Question Time to the Commission should start at precisely 5.30 p.m. today, so that is what we are now doing I am afraid, Mrs Lulling - and five minutes late.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0901/97).
The Council's 1991 decision on the abolition of intra-Community dutyfree sales granted a particularly long transition period (up to 1999) in which duty-free sales would still be tolerated within the scope of the single market.
This was a significant exception to enable the operators and competent authorities to take all the necessary measures to adapt to the new scenario, in which these specific tax benefits will no longer be granted.
It is the Commission's duty to report the well-known distorting effects of duty-free sales, particularly with regard to the various means of transport, where in the Union in general trains and buses compete with sea and air transport, the latter two benefitting from the possibility of offering duty-free sales.
It cannot be ruled out that some transport fares may increase following the abolition of duty-free sales.
The benefits of duty-free sales, on ferries for example, help them to operate to a certain degree.
The Commission considers that, if Community support were provided in this sector (for Ireland or other similar cases) it would be advisable to look for a specific solution totally independent from the mechanisms of indirect taxation.
Ireland has identified the tourism sector as one area where it is possible to generate economic growth and new job opportunities for our young people.
With the help of European Union structural fund investment in tourism projects in recent years, it has been possible to record significant advances in the tourism sector.
Equally vital components of successful tourism policy for an island nation such as Ireland are low-cost air and car-ferry links.
The cost of both air travel and ferry links has been kept at a low level, partly because of the EU-imposed competition between airlines and between car ferries and partly because of the cross-subsidizing of transport costs through duty-free sales.
Why does the Commission continue to disregard the calls from MEPs, Member State governments and the tourist industry and refuse to bring forward proposals to extend duty-free for a further ten years or until all indirect taxes have been harmonized?
Mr Collins, I would like to point out that the Commission also regards tourism as important as a sector generating growth and employment, and that the Commission regards the situation of the islands as important and worthy of attention.
At the same time, we believe it essential that the single market should operate fully and, within its scope, eliminate serious distortions to competition, because we think that those concerns, that may arise with reference to the specific cases indicated by Mr Collins, may be adequately taken into account with means that do not distort the single market and that do not have the disadvantage, as duty-free sales do, of generating unemployment in other sectors of the economy.
Would the Commissioner not agree that there are inevitably going to be distortions to air and ferry links, meaning very serious distortions to internal travel within a single market, as a result of the removal of duty free, for the simple reason that it costs a great deal more to fly from Dublin, Scotland or Milan to Brussels than possibly to take the train from one of the Benelux countries? Would he not think it is more appropriate to extend the derogation for ten years, bearing in mind not just the jobs in the duty free sector but also the fact that you are calling a special conference to boost employment in the European Union, whereas, in fact, with one fell swoop you are going to make approximately 13, 000 people unemployed?
What we know for sure is that the present system generates distortion.
If the elimination of intra-EU duty does have certain consequences then, as I just said in response to Mr Collins' question, specific instruments can well be considered - and the Commission is prepared to do that - to alleviate any adverse consequences.
But we must not close our eyes to the fact that the present system generates, and has for many years generated, hidden, adverse side effects on other means of transportation, on other ways of doing retail business.
It also has the more subtle and perverse effect of transferring resources from general tax-payers to those benefiting from the use of duty free.
Normally the average tax-payer is less well-off than the user of duty free.
Having said that, I repeat that though the Commission is definitely not prepared to consider a prorogation of the duty free system, it is willing to consider what transparent, clear instruments might be put in place to offset certain specific, adverse consequences, should they materialize.
Question No 25 by Jan Bertens (H-0820/97)
Subject: EU policy on APMs in the aftermath of the Conference of Ottawa
In December the 'Ottawa Treaty' to ban APMs will be signed.
In that regard it is of vital importance that the Union gives a signal to support the global campaign to ban APMs.
What concrete steps is the Commission going to take to increase participation in the Ottawa Treaty and activities in demining of third countries?
What concrete proposals is the Commission intending to make during the Ottawa Conference in December? Do the funds set aside in the 1998 draft budget give the right signal of commitment to the Ottawa Conference in December?
As everyone knows, the European Commission is making a decisive contribution to the international action aimed at overcoming the anti-personnel landmines tragedy.
In the last two years, around ECU 52 million have been allocated to mine-clearing measures in the countries most affected.
The Commission has therefore been invited as such to the Ottawa Conference where it will be represented by the Commissioner responsible for humanitarian aid.
The signal to support the Commission in the battle against landmines is now loud and clear.
It is also clear that the signature of the agreement by the States supporting it will not mark the end of the process, but will encourage all the parties in question to intensify their efforts.
For that reason, the Commission is attributing particular importance to the Action Forum that will be held at the same time as the signature ceremony.
The Commission will take an active part in all the discussion groups where it will firmly insist on the need to strengthen international coordination, emphasize the need to improve the means of management and data banks and describe the capacities it has available.
At a practical level, in 1998, the Community will implement four types of measures in the mines sector.
Firstly, the European Commission will to a large extent continue to support the anti-landmine actions worldwide, using all the resources available, including the ECU 7 million of the anti-landmine budget line and the plans implemented in all the countries affected, through the budget lines for reconstruction, cooperation in development and humanitarian aid.
Secondly, the Community will become the first individual supporter of the programmes drawn up by the International Red Cross Committee, aimed at helping landmine victims and making public opinion aware.
Thirdly, the international and regional actions will be supported by plans drawn up by organizations such as the United Nations and the Southern African Development Community.
Fourthly, and finally, the technical plans will be intensified, irrespective of the type of measure.
Mr President, the Commission, which will benefit from the constant support of Parliament, can make an enormous contribution to achieving the Ottawa objectives.
May I wholeheartedly thank the Commissioner, and through him the entire Commission, for the way in which they have defended themselves against the plague of landmines.
We are delighted that Commissioner Bonino will be present in Ottawa. Mr Cunningham and I myself will represent this Parliament.
It is unnecessary to call on this Parliament here to later on play a leading role with the Commission during the second phase of the Ottawa process.
Financial efforts, as you are well aware, Mr Commissioner, even hundreds of millions are not enough, but I am in any case delighted that the first step has been taken.
I have two questions. Will the Commission raise the issue of landmines, anti-personnel mines, at the transatlantic summit which is to be held the day after the Ottawa Summit?
And what attempts will the Commission make to get China, Vietnam, Iran and even the United States to add their names to the signatories? And furthermore, how does the Commission hope to improve the existing technology, because I understand that at present mines are still cleared using technology which originated during the First World War?
First of all, as pointed out by the questioner, I would like to record the full agreement between the European Parliament and the Commission on this important matter.
Without being able to give a very detailed answer to the second question, I can recall once again our opinion that Ottawa will certainly not end a process, as after this meeting there is a lot still to be done; certainly, the various international aspects, that Mr Bertens pointed out in his second question, will all be duly taken into consideration and, in this sense, the Action Forum that will be held at the same time as the signature ceremony will be of great importance.
I would like to add that the United States have announced that they have appointed a special representative to guide and boost the Demining 2010 initiative, which also indicates the United States' interest in this matter.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, there was something missing from your splendid answer, at least from my point of view.
It was once said - I no longer know by which Asian politician - that landmines are the nuclear bombs of poor nations.
There is some truth in that.
I believe that what it refers to is that the landmines, and the whole situation, which is sometimes difficult to solve, can mostly be traced back to the fact that the two great nuclear powers, Russia and the United States, have done nothing themselves, despite their earlier promises, about nuclear disarmament.
Is the Commission prepared to refer to this question in relation to landmines? Because as long as there is a nuclear bomb monopoly for two great powers, there will be no disarmament!
First of all, I can assure you that I will pass these points on to my colleague, Mr van den Broek, who is responsible for this matter.
Personally, I have no doubt that the aspects of the world framework you have brought to light will be kept in mind, otherwise I cannot see how the European Union can carry out its action effectively; also, aware of the determination with which the Commission has acted and intends to continue acting on this subject, I think I can assure you that this dimension you have brought to light will be perfectly kept in mind.
Question No 26 by David Martin (H-0798/97)
Subject: Primates as laboratory animals
Would the Commission please detail its plan for involving the European Parliament in the elaboration of the 'Community Policy Statement on the use of Primates as Laboratory Animals' which is currently being drafted in the meeting of national competent authorities for the implementation of Directive 86/609 ?
Mr President, the first draft of the Community's statement of policy on the use of primates in research was produced in 1994.
The initiative is aimed at improving the supervision of the acquisition and use of primates for test purposes in laboratories.
Further work on this statement was put on hold until well into 1997, as first it was necessary to resolve the important question of producing statistics on the use of animals in research.
The competent authorities of the Member States finally agreed on use of joint statistics in April 1997.
The first discussions on the draft statement have just begun.
On 4 December 1997, the Commission's service branch will have a first meeting with the national authorities responsible for protecting the animals used in animal research.
A subsequent meeting is already scheduled for early 1998.
We very much hope that the meeting in December will give the Commission's service branch an opportunity to assess the situation on primates including wild animals as it appears in the Member States.
It will then be possible to draw the necessary conclusions for the EU.
We can then decide what tools to use.
It may be a political statement, a recommendation from the Commission or an actual law initiative.
Once the preparatory work is complete and the status of the statement in law has been defined more precisely, the Commission will of course involve the European Parliament in the discussions.
And I would like to add that it is my personal belief that we will need to choose a form which gives Parliament a reasonable amount of influence in this very sensitive and important area.
I wish to begin by thanking the Commissioner for that very helpful response.
I wonder whether she would agree with me that primates are man's closest relative and all the evidence shows that they feel pain and suffering in the same way as man? Therefore, the Commission's work - which I repeat I welcome - should be aimed at ensuring that we make the minimum use of primates and secondly that their transportation and housing is of the highest order and has the highest welfare standards in mind.
I look forward to bringing this matter before the European Parliament so that we can give a political response to the Commission's technical work.
Mr President, I can only say that I agree with the additional remarks completely.
I also think it is about finding a form whereby we uses animals as little as possible, and I also agree on the comments on transport.
I have already had an opportunity to have discussions with the animal welfare group here in Parliament, and I certainly think we will get some results too.
Question No 27 by Ivar Virgin (H-0786/97)
Subject: Environmental assessment
Sweden became a Member of the EU on 1 January 1995.
The work on a rail tunnel through the Hallandsås (Halland ridge) had then already started.
The project was then governed by Swedish environmental impact assessment rules.
Work was suspended in May 1995 because of difficult working conditions and environmental problems. It resumed in February 1996.
Would it not have been reasonable for the project to have been subject to environmental assessment under the stricter environmental rules of Directive 85/337 before work was resumed?
Mr President, as both a Dane and an Environmental Commissioner, I have been following the news of the serious environmental incident which happened in connection with the building of the Hallandsås tunnel in Sweden very closely and with considerable interest.
After such an incident, it is only natural to ask what could have been done to avoid it.
Could the Commission have intervened when work was suspended in 1995 to ensure that the most appropriate solution was found to the environmental problems before work continued? And let me say straight away: no, the Commission could not.
The Commission has no powers to check that the Community's environmental legislation is being observed.
The relevant legislation, Directive 85/337/EC on environmental impact assessment (the EIA Directive) became binding on Sweden when it joined the Community, in other words on 1 January 1995.
Under the terms of the Directive, Sweden is obliged to assess the impact of new projects on the environment if the approval procedure started after 1 January 1995.
The project in question, that is the Hallandsås tunnel, which is part of the west coast railway line, did not come under this obligation, as it had already been approved and started before that date.
The relevant Directive 85/337/EC on environmental impact assessment does not state that a new EIA has to be carried out if a construction or building project which has been approved and on which work has already started is suspended temporarily and then restarted.
So there is no way the Commission can intervene in such a situation.
As I said, it is the Commission's responsibility to ensure that EU legislation is followed; but this does not extend to technical or engineering decisions, which are a matter for the implementing authority.
I would like to say thank you for your reply.
The environmental scandal at Hallandsås which involved the release of dangerous chemicals into the environment has caused serious damage.
It could most probably have been avoided.
What can be said with certainty is that if the project had complied with the requirements for environmental impact assessments found in Directive 337 of 1985, the accident would never have happened.
The directive includes far-reaching requirements for accounts of all the consequences of various methods of working and also for a public statement of emission risks.
I think this shows how important it is that the Commission really ensures that the directive is implemented as soon as possible and really puts some weight behind the Union's decision.
Sweden has had a long time to tighten up its legislation.
For investments of this type, however, I would like to question whether or not it would have been logical to have carried out a tougher environmental inspection in the light of the EU's requirements.
No, the Commission has not had an opportunity to look into this matter.
I am aware that the Swedish authorities held an environmental assessment of the project themselves at an early stage of the proceedings, and I can perhaps say for Mr Virgin's information that we have of course now amended the directive in question as Directive 97/11/EC, which must be implemented by the Member States by 14 March 1999.
If the environmental assessment Directive had been in force, it would have been possible to intervene and hold a new assessment, but this cannot be done with the existing Directive.
I would like to ask whether the draft directive on the assessment of certain plans, such as the programme's effect on the environment, which the Commission recently put forward, could have had an effect if it had been in force, since a lot of the damage which has occurred is not directly project-related, so to speak, but is connected with the transport planning which took place a long time ago and which resulted in the need to build a tunnel, which has since led to leakages, which in turn led to the emission of toxins.
I would like to hear the Commissioner's assessment of what effect this proposal from the Commission, which we in this Parliament also mentioned in a resolution on 22 October, could have had on developments at Hallandsås, and similar cases of course.
As I said to Mr Virgin, it is of course always interesting when an incident happens to consider whether it could have been avoided, and if it would have been better if another Directive had been in force.
But there was no other directive, and so of course we have to abide by the Directive which actually was in force and, under that Directive, there was no provision for the Commission to intervene in the matter.
As I said in reply to Mr Virgin's supplementary question, the matter would have looked different if it was a question of Directive 97/11/EC, but this Directive will not be implemented by the Member States until March 1999, and until it is implemented, we cannot of course use the provisions it contains.
Question No 28 by Robert Evans (H-0773/97)
Subject: Policing at international football matches
In the light of the events of Saturday 11 October in the Olympic Stadium Rome during the football match between England and Italy is the Commission intending to conduct its own enquiry into the organization and policing of the event?
With reference to previous resolutions and reports adopted in this Parliament does the Commission feel that the principles of free movement of people, including football supporters and others have been contravened?
Constituents that attended the match, or who were simply shocked by the appalling scenes on television, have asked me to raise this issue at a European level.
Football is a sport enjoyed by millions; negative images and the maltreatment of genuine supporters do serious damage to the efforts of the European Union in promoting sport as an essential part of European culture.
Proper planning and coordination, combined with effective but fair policing has demonstrated that many similar sporting events can take place without any such problems.
What steps does the Commission intend to take to enforce European legislation and to avoid any future repetition at similar events?
The implementation of appropriate policing measures for the purpose of preventing hooliganism and violence generally at sporting events or other occasions attended by large numbers of people aims primarily to maintain public order.
The Commission thus does not have competence and is therefore not in a position to intervene in the way police forces in the Member States maintain public order on their own territories.
Within the Justice and Home Affairs Council, the police cooperation working group tackles this issue from an operational point of view, with liaison officers and an annual meeting of these contact points.
In this context, the Council adopted in 1996 a recommendation on guidelines for preventing and restraining disorder connected with football matches.
More recently, in 1997, a joint action with regard to cooperation in public order and safety and a resolution on preventing and restraining football hooligans were adopted by the Council.
The Commission is, of course, in favour of the promotion and implementation of closer international police cooperation.
However, the implementation of appropriate measures for preventing and restraining disorders is undertaken by Member States in accordance with their own national laws and Community law.
Furthermore, a Council draft recommendation on the responsibility of organizers of sporting events is currently being discussed at a technical level.
The Commission is not involved in the application of UEFA regulations concerning stadiums but it does operate with organizations that have a specific role in this area such as the Council of Europe, where a standing committee has been created.
I thank the Commissioner for her answers although they are not answers to the questions I put.
She mentioned football hooligans several times.
If she were to look at the large number of newspaper cuttings regarding this particular event she would see that many of the people involved - and I have evidence - are not people who can be stereotyped as 'hooligans' .
Many of them are barristers, executives, company managers, sales people and people from wholly different walks of life to those alluded to.
The point of my question was, does the Commission feel that the principles of free movement of people have been contravened?
We hear of people being held in the football stadium until 3 a.m., by which time no public transport was available and they had to walk home.
Many of them had items of clothing taken away which were never returned.
I am talking about a broader issue than the one raised in the Commissioner answer.
Could she address my specific points?
I would once more remind the honourable Member that the Commission does not have competence and is therefore not in a position to intervene on the way police forces of the Member States maintain public order on their own territories.
We must respect that.
I just want to ask Mrs Gradin whether she is aware that a number of Members of this House will warmly welcome her statement?
The Commission has got enough serious work to do without having to try to take over the responsibility of national police and national enforcing bodies.
Will she, in her answer, perhaps add just one or two sentences, particularly in praise of the football authorities of Member States who sought to coordinate the many complaints of genuine football supporters who were caused a great deal of inconvenience during that particular match and managed to communicate those complaints with great clarity to the Italian football authorities? Perhaps she will agree that the imperative is that the lessons learned from that should not have to be relearned during the World Cup next year.
All of us who are interested in football really hope that the coming events will be handled in a proper way.
As I said, the Commission is not involved in how UEFA and the relevant organizations are working with stadiums.
We cooperate with organizations that have a specific role in the area.
We should all try our best to have good football matches that we can enjoy.
Question No 29 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0756/97)
Subject: Vocational training in the Maghreb countries
What measures and initiatives are to be undertaken to assist the development of vocational training schemes in the Maghreb countries? What are the expected results of such action?
Mrs Rojo, as you know, Community policy on technical education and vocational training forms an essential part of Euro-Mediterranean policy as established at the Barcelona Conference, and its general aim is to increase the competitiveness of the industrial and services sectors, and to help the process of economic transition in those countries by creating a much better qualified workforce.
This is being achieved by means of a series of efforts designed to restructure the systems of technical education and vocational training, in close collaboration with other aid donors, both bilaterally and multilaterally.
You ask what specific steps we have taken in the association agreements negotiated so far, of which a fundamental part relates to vocational training. Firstly, I must tell you (although I think you already know) that one of the first projects under the Meda scheme, which came into effect in October, is the Manform project being implemented in Tunisia, with a fund of ECU 40 million.
In collaboration with the Tunisian Government, we have used a programmatic approach to negotiate a large project - almost ECU 40 million - which is of great importance for that country. One of its objectives is to increase the competitiveness of Tunisian businesses, but above all, focusing on the network of small and medium-sized enterprises, it aims to improve the quality and capacity of the education and training system.
At the moment we are negotiating a similar programme with the Moroccan Government, and a decision will be reached before the end of the year.
It has the same overall aim of increasing competitiveness, which of course in the Moroccan case includes the private sector.
In the first instance, the contribution which the European Union has offered the Moroccan Government amounts to ECU 38 million.
We would like to establish negotiations covering vocational training and government attitude, which also - in the case of Morocco - take account of the demands of the private sector of Moroccan management.
I should also like to mention that in the past, within the framework of our relations with Egypt, we created the socalled Social Fund, as part of the process by which Egypt's economy is being opened up, following that country's negotiations with the Bretton Woods institutions. Of this project, which amounts to approximately ECU 70 million (if my memory is correct) a large part has been devoted specifically to helping the Egyptian Government reform its whole system of vocational training.
In conclusion, I can assure you that we are supporting the reform of the educational system, and particularly of the vocational training system, as regards its links with the manufacturing sector, and its contribution to the private sector, particularly the small and medium-sized enterprises which need it.
These enterprises have the potential for good production, because they benefit from a cost differential in their favour, but the big problem faced by small or medium-sized enterprises in the Mediterranean area is precisely a lack of qualified workers.
That, then, is the line the Commission is taking, and will continue to take as other countries join in, for vocational training is a key element in the economic adaptation and liberalization of these countries, and the countries themselves are specifically asking us for help in this area.
Thank you, Mr González, for your very full, even exemplary, answer.
I would like to thank the Commission for its decisive actions in this area, especially now that it has enabled the European Foundation for Vocational Training to get involved in the Mediterranean countries, as we had requested.
I have been able to see with my own eyes what the European Union is doing in the Maghreb, and I think it is very successful.
However, I did notice some aspects where I think we are encountering more difficulties.
With Tunisia, I think the problem lies in managing to integrate vocational training with industry.
Another problem is making sure that education is adapted to the reform.
Also problematic, though less so in Tunisia than in other countries, is the use of positive measures to promote the involvement of women.
I also wonder whether you will boost these policies particularly in those areas where there is a lot of emigration, such as northern Morocco?
Will you reform human resources training? Will you take account of the special characteristics of the Maghreb countries, so that you do not just copy what has been done with Tacis and Phare?
This last point is very important.
Thank you very much again, Mr González, Vice-President of the Commission.
Thank you very much, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, but allow me to say two things.
Firstly, you have exceeded your allotted time by one minute.
May I remind you that you are taking up time which is needed for other Members' questions.
Therefore, please keep to time.
Secondly, I am a little surprised to hear you addressing your requests to Mr González. I am not sure exactly which Mr González you are referring to, but...Ah!
Mr Marín González. I see, thank you very much.
It was just that, had it been some other Mr González, I was going to offer to pass on your comments. However, Mr Marín González now has the floor.
Mr President, my second surname is González.
I am a second son, Mr President.
You are absolutely right: that is the line we are taking.
We do not have any problems negotiating with the World Bank, because in fact we are cooperating very closely with that institution in defining the objectives.
However, the countries in question have difficulty understanding the dual system of vocational training (linking education, vocational training and industry) which is normal in Europe and works very well there - you mentioned the experience of CEDEFOP in Berlin.
Furthermore, these are countries whose political and democratic development is relatively recent, and it is not easy to get the trade unions, the employers and the authorities to sit down together.
I am not going to hide the fact that this difficulty exists, because it obviously has an effect on negotiations for collective bargains and aspects related to internal politics.
You ask if there are programmes specifically for women.
The answer is yes, there are.
You ask whether we have considered the most deprived regions. Again the answer is yes.
In the case of Morocco in particular, one of the options offered to the Moroccan Government involves the development of industrial zones in the north, to consolidate a network of small and medium-sized enterprises, together with vocational training, so that the people who emigrate across the Straits of Gibraltar in such a distressing manner can at least be shown that they do have a future in their own country.
However, that will take time.
Thank you very much, Mr Marín González.
Question No 30 by Bernd Posselt (H-0812/97)
Subject: Fundamental freedoms in Cuba
In the light of the Pope's forthcoming visit to Cuba, how do you view the current situation with regard to religious freedom in that country, and what efforts is the Commission making as part of developing economic relations to exert pressure on the Cuban Government to respect fundamental freedoms and human rights?
I have a problem with this question. It refers to fundamental freedoms in Cuba in the light of the Pope's visit, and to religious freedom and the role of the Catholic Church.
I think it is a question which should be addressed to the Vatican spokesman.
There is little sense in the Commission expressing an opinion about something which the Pope is going to do, acting through the Vatican State, which is completely sovereign.
Therefore, I do not think the Commission should express any opinion on this matter.
Mr President, privately you can believe what you like, like any of us, but you must not mock us!
You are the representative of the Commission, and what matters is that we should respect human rights in relations with third states.
That is not a job for the Pope, it is a job for the European Union, to put its external relationships, its development relationships to the service of human rights.
Religious freedom is an elementary human right, which you must press for!
What you have said seems to me to be simply mockery of the people who have died or been imprisoned in Cuba for their beliefs!
Mr Posselt, it is my responsibility as President to request - indeed, demand - that all Members of this House to show the greatest respect for the members of the Commission who attend here to answer their questions.
At no point did I notice anything offensive in the attitude of the Vice-President of the Commission, and I want to put that on record.
In any case, Mr Marín now has the floor to respond to Mr Posselt's question - if he wishes to do so.
Thank you for your comments, Mr President.
Mr Posselt, I have neither insulted nor shown a lack of respect to any Catholic or any Christian in this hemicycle.
Absolutely not! Your remarks seem to me to be deliberate and demagogic, and I do not accept them at all.
On the contrary, I have replied in an institutional capacity, because the European Commission has no reason to pass judgement on the aims of the Pope's visit, as your question asks.
To make my point absolutely clear, let me tell you that I have been personally invited to the Vatican to give my opinion on this visit, but in an individual capacity, as a private person.
I am always very respectful in this sort of situation, so please do not use such an offensive tone.
The negotiations which the Vatican State is initiating with the Cuban Government (about religious freedom, the Church's presence, the opening of new churches, and new priests) are strictly a matter for bilateral discussions between those two parties.
Furthermore, I think you should allow the Vatican authorities to carry out their work in peace.
I think they are doing very well.
That is all I can say to you.
But I will not allow anybody to say to me in public that I was lacking in my respect to Catholics.
I do not accept that at all.
Mr Commissioner, this is indeed a very delicate matter, in which I think we have to choose our words very carefully.
I think there has been a misunderstanding here, Mr Commissioner.
I think Mr Posselt is talking about defending human rights, and as far as human rights are concerned, there are certain attitudes in Cuba which do not respect them adequately.
My supplementary question is this: I recently received a directive about respect for human rights under the legal basis of article 130w, that is, development aid.
Mr Marín, with all due respect and in an attempt to regain our sense of proportion - because I realize that we have to be extremely careful with this, and what you said is entirely reasonable - I would like to stick up for this view.
Where Cuba is concerned, the Commission should also take account of the criteria expressed in the proposal I have mentioned, and should act accordingly.
Mrs Palacio, thank you very much for your balanced view, but there has been no misunderstanding.
We both heard the Spanish interpreter, and I was accused of a lack of respect towards the Catholic Church.
That is unfounded. I have tried to be very careful.
I have a very good relationship with the Catholic Church and the Pope's diplomatic representative.
However, negotiations of this type have to be conducted, as you say, with restraint and intelligence, and the Vatican authorities have to be allowed to negotiate.
Let them negotiate: I can assure you they are excellent and extremely clever negotiators.
That is all I can tell you, except to say that I am in contact with them.
Secondly, you asked me a general question, Mrs Palacio, but I have a completely clear conscience.
Indeed, I was the Commissioner who decided to break off the Cooperation Agreement negotiations, because I judged that the circumstances at that particular moment did not correspond with the mandate issued by the European Council.
How can this House ask me whether or not I am aware of problems of civil liberties? Of course I am aware of them.
However, there are ways of approaching this type of negotiation. As a layman and an agnostic - which I do not deny - it seems perfectly reasonable to me that religious freedom in Cuba, as in any other country, should be included in a set of negotiations if indeed the Cuban Government wants the Pope to visit Havana next year.
To me it seems common sense that they should negotiate, and we are in favour of it being done in this way, but your question was intended in a wider sense.
Therefore, let us allow the Vatican to negotiate with the Cuban Government, in order to resolve certain problems relating to the Catholic Church.
Do not forget, Mrs Palacio, that Catholicism is not the only religion in Cuba; there are others, with other types of problems, making this a much more far-reaching debate.
So, now that we have made contact again with the Cuban Government; now that we have made use of the new approaches they are making to a Member State - you know very well that things are improving; now that the Cuban Government has contacted us again and it seems that a point of reference is being established for the future, which the Pope's journey itself will open up: please allow us to see if we can guide this matter in a new direction.
Let us see if we can reinitiate something we would like to see: far-reaching negotiations, adapted to the Cuban situation, which will allow us to persuade that country to enter into a privileged relationship with Europe.
However, I repeat: this sort of thing has to be done very carefully and cautiously.
Since the time allocated to questions to Mr Marín has now expired, Questions Nos 31 and 32 will be answered in writing.
Mr President, the Commission has already dealt twice with the subject matter which is again presented in the question.
First, I have written a letter on this question to the Spanish government, and I have already commented on it once in the debate on the Green Paper on numbering here in Parliament.
I will willingly repeat it.
However, I must first correct the assumption in the question.
The reference to the code number for Gibraltar in the Appendix to the Green Paper about a numbering plan is not in the 'Countries' column, but in an untitled column, containing explanations of the actual use of certain code numbers, including quite different code numbers such as short codes for European services, telephone information, etc.
Also, the code numbers which have a geographical meaning are not country codes but regional codes.
The fact that the regional code for Gibraltar - which was not defined by us, but by the ITU - happens to be between those of Germany and Luxembourg has no political significance at all, but is the result of the numerical sequence of the table.
It was therefore decisively important to include a reference to code number 350, which is currently used for Gibraltar.
That is, as I said during the debate, the table only gives an overview of technical data, based on facts.
Nothing else!
It does not take a political position.
I said in the debate that if we were to change these facts now, by taking the code number out of the table or something similar, we would be making a political declaration, which the Commission never intended.
Obviously, we would not get involved in this political question in favour of either side.
That was not the intention of the table, and I hope that is now finally clear.
We take the greatest possible care to be politically neutral in this question.
Commissioner, you mention a reply that was given to the Spanish Government, which does not concern us in this House.
Also, you say that the column in question is empty, with no entries.
Nevertheless, I can read that it says "country's dialling code' .
You could have put "territorial dialling code' or "dialling codes for Member States and territories whose foreign relations are dependent on a Member State' , or anything you like.
But "country' means country, whether the word is used in a political document or an annex to a political document, which is what this is.
Therefore, I would ask you, Mr Bangemann, to please reconsider the situation, because there is a resolution from this Parliament requesting you to do so.
Mr President, the question has just been repeated again.
I have already said: If you look at the column on the far left, there is country code today, and then indeed comes 350.
In the column on the right, where the proposals are, it says quite clearly: regional code.
For this reason, we refrained from changing it, because that would have been a political declaration.
But I would like to ask you to take account of what I have said.
It is the same as what is in the letter.
Fine, the letter does not concern you, but it may interest you that we also said clearly in this letter to the Spanish government that this is not a political statement.
It does not mean that we recognize Gibraltar as an independent country.
The fact that the number was assigned to Gibraltar has nothing to do with us, but is a decision of the ITU.
I have already said in the debate that we do not associate any political motivation with it, and I say once again as the answer to your question: We do not take any position in this way to one or the other claim of one of the two countries which cannot agree about this question.
I think that must be enough!
Question No 34 by Robin Teverson (H-0779/97)
Subject: The Millennium 'Bug'
Every owner of a computer is being faced with the potential collapse of his/her computer after the year 2000 simply because of the short-sightedness of the computer industry who have failed to program their products with the information necessary to function after the start of the new Millennium.
What action is the Commission undertaking to deal with the potential catastrophic repercussions of this 'Millennium Bug', as it is now known, not only throughout the European Union but also within the Commission itself?
Mr President, this really is a problem, and Mr Teverson is quite right to refer to it again.
We have discussed this question intensively for the last two and a half to three years, prompted by the then British Minister for Telecommunications.
First we marked out the extent of the problem in a group of experts.
We then informed the Member States, and above all we informed those concerned in several conferences, and by now everyone is clear about what the problem means.
One can spend a long time thinking about where the roots of the problem are.
It may be to do with the shortsightedness of some people at that time.
It may also be, and I presume that this is the more likely explanation, that with the available memory which existed then it seemed too costly to many people, because the year 2000 was still relatively far away.
So they saved costs.
But now money has to be spent to make the necessary adjustments.
That is not cheap.
Whether a cost saving results if the two are compared to each other will surely depend on how long the old systems have been used.
So we have done everything necessary at the right time.
There is now software to make some of the necessary corrections, and therefore the users and suppliers of software themselves will know best how to solve the problem, and we know that this is now happening.
So we have again and again made people aware of this year 2000 problem.
We have set up working parties, etc.
Now we can do no more than we have already, and I think that now those who are affected must themselves do what they previously neglected.
Obviously it is easy to say that it would have been better if they had all looked forward to the year 2000, but it is sometimes the case that foresight about such things is not very great.
Thank you for that reply. Very briefly I would like to come back to you on three things: firstly is the Commission itself happy and confident that its own systems will survive through from 31 December 1999 to 1 January 2000?
Will the Commission's own systems actually function properly? I would be interested to know, given all the research and the work that has taken place in the committee of experts, how well prepared you now think that business in Europe, in the European Union, actually is.
Are you confident that commerce will not grind to a halt on 1 January 2000?
Lastly I am concerned at reports that in the computer business itself systems are still being sold that do not sufficiently take account of the millennium bug.
Is this also the Commission's understanding, and what steps is it taking in the single market to make sure that stops?
Mr President, I can really only answer the first part of the question with hope.
I do not know 100 % how things will turn out, but I think that the responsible people have thought about it just as we have.
Perhaps it is easier for us, and that is, if you like, an advantage of neglect.
Everything has two sides.
In the past, we neglected to make 100 % use of the possibilities of electronic data processing - we are now trying to change that - and to that extent we are not now in this fix, because we certainly have available data material which can be brought past the year 2000 in other ways.
That is only a provisional answer.
If the MEP is interested, we will willingly tell him what we ourselves in the Commission have done to solve this problem.
As far as others are concerned, they have been made aware of it.
We have also set up certain research programmes to help to find solutions.
The solutions are there now.
There are two problems.
For one thing, they are expensive.
The software producers expect to be well paid for what they are offering. For another thing, even if software is used, in some cases experts still have to be involved, and there are not many experts, so that there are bottlenecks, and I must say that it is possible that some companies will not sort out the problem, despite our efforts and their efforts.
Then there is a third group, to which you refer in your second question.
Indeed there are companies, even today, which think it will be all right: it does not affect us, we will get round it somehow.
And that means that there are still companies which have not discovered the problem, and that is alarming.
Mr President, I have a very long answer, and I am wondering if I can shorten it in the interests of the other questioners.
In principle, the answer is as follows. First, we have all the necessary directives to understand this dangerous substance, which incidentally is classified as poisonous, level 2 carcinogenic and level 2 mutagenic.
This means that it is not a substance which can be handled carelessly. That is legally controlled.
That is the first point, and therefore the whole legal regulations are quoted here.
The second point is this. In the first place, it is the task of national authorities to ensure that substances which in our directives are classified as poisonous and dangerous are either kept out of use altogether, or, if they are used, the appropriate regulations for use are observed, so that no environmental danger occurs.
We are waiting for what the Swedish government will tell us.
We can then decide whether we need to make our own decision.
At the moment, therefore, we see no reason to intervene, but when the Swedish government reports to us what violations have occurred and how it has been handled, we will check whether there is an additional need to act.
That is the short form of a long answer, Mr President.
I can read it out, or I can give the answer to the MEP.
It is six pages long, so we would lose a lot of time if I read it out.
I would like to thank Commissioner Bangemann for his reply.
I look forward to receiving these six pages, since, just as the Commissioner says, it concerns a very dangerous substance.
I still do not really think that I have had an answer to the questions I put.
I now wonder, among other things, whether the Commission intends to investigate the use of the substance throughout the EU's Member States.
It has been used for just over 20 years, not only in tunnel construction, but also at airports and in mines, and so on.
Are we totally unprepared? After all, the substance is forbidden in Japan and its use is restricted in the USA.
Surely, this is not the way the EU is going to compete in the world market?
Mr President, as I have already said, we shall check that when we have the report of the Swedish government.
At the moment we are also investigating this substance within our regular risk assessments, whether it should be classified at a different level or possibly use of it must be completely forbidden.
That is a possible result of our current investigations.
Since the time allocated to questions to Mr Bangemann has now expired, Question No 36 will be dealt with in writing.
Mr President, Mrs Kjer Hansen, the questions concerns one of the grants which was approved for the 1993 PACTE programme.
The programme is financed in the form of a global grant to the European Committee of the Regions, which was commissioned to monitor the programme administration.
On the basis of the reports which were submitted to it, at the start of 1997 the Commission paid the Community resources which had been approved for it since 1993, in full.
The administration office of the Committee of the Regions subjects each project to a check after the event.
In some cases, claimable expenditure which differed from the amount which the project manager stated in his final report was identified.
Before the last tranche was paid out, the Committee of the Regions required the project managers to send it vouchers for all expenditure.
It informed the Commission that most project managers met this requirement, and the remaining amount was paid to them.
If the project managers could not submit the required vouchers within the set period, the conclusion of the projects which were then still open was based exclusively on the expenditure which was classified as claimable.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I am glad that these payments have now been sorted out.
I feel it is annoying that there have been problems with the administration of the PACTE programme, because if people do not get the resources which they are due, this puts the EU in a bad light.
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner a supplementary question, as to whether he can promise a deadline by when we can get the refunds we have been promised, so we do not find things dragging on for years again before those involved in the project can get the resources which the Commission promised.
Can the Commissioner set a fixed time limit for the payments?
Yes, Mrs Kjer Hansen, indeed the execution of the PACTE programme was afflicted with many problems, and one cannot be at all satisfied with how it has gone, especially because, as you know, even during the process, because of the justified criticisms which the Court of Auditors and others made of the execution, the conditions for claimability had to be tightened.
I think that in future this must never happen again.
Directorate General XVI is therefore thinking very hard, first about how this cooperation can be further promoted, but on the other hand how such things can be avoided in future.
I can only promise you that we have learned from the problems of the past.
I welcome that answer. I should like to ask the Commissioner to say a little more about the PACTE programme.
I know in the next few weeks she will be coming to a decision about the future of the PACTE programme.
I know she will not announce that today. I understand that she has concerns about some of the deficiencies in management of the programme.
Will she accept today that some of the criticisms levelled at the PACTE programme are because some of her officials do not like the large number of small projects the PACTE entails: they prefer the bigger figures in the article 10 programme?
Will she accept that there is some merit in the principle of having a programme run by associations of local authorities themselves, which have good contacts, rather than by private consultants? While we are trying to achieve concentration, will she accept that in this very fractional, peripheral part of the structural funds there is some merit in keeping a programme which provides very small amounts of money to large numbers of authorities that otherwise just would not get involved?
Mr Howitt, I can very well share the principle, and I also know that the effect of these programmes was partly very positive, particularly in local communities.
But I also know that if we are unable to administer such programmes properly, afterwards the frustration is greater than the success.
It is not a matter of whether some officials perhaps are not so keen on seeing these programmes, but simply of what the Commission is able to do.
I believe that we must also have some ideas, not only with the PACTE programme, but also with all the article 10 actions, about how we ensure the mobilizing effect of such small projects, but at the same time find administrative forms which do not overstretch us.
There is no point in bravely starting such things and failing in the end because we are unable to ensure the appropriate management.
We therefore check all these things.
As you know, that has nothing to do with the fact that because of the inter-institutional negotiations we are forced to set up programmes where we have budget lines without a legal basis, and therefore we have to investigate again how we can include such programmes in the pilot projects.
I ask you please to understand that the Commission does not now simply make promises, but is really trying to find a system which can ensure responsible execution of such projects, at all levels, the Commission level and the level of the authorities which are carrying them out.
Mr President, I had intended to put a question to the Commissioner asking whether she knew if the cohesion fund was included in the Commission's accounts. The cohesion fund is not affected by the inclusion of a given country which benefits from it in the front line of economic and monetary union.
I was very pleased with her reply, because even before I asked the question the Commissioner gave me her assurance here that the countries in the front line of European monetary union, which will therefore be adopting the euro, will not be at a disadvantage in terms of the cohesion fund and that the fund will be maintained.
It was a splendid reply and very positive from the Portuguese point of view.
Mr President, Agenda 2000 makes a distinction, so to speak, between the continuation of structural policy for the 15 Member States, and pre-entry and structural support for new Members States after entry.
What I said, and what Agenda 2000 also ensures in this sense, is that support for objective 1 regions will not be reduced because of the entry of new members, but that the proposal is still two thirds of resources which are increasing in total.
Also, the cohesion fund will continue to be open for Member States which do not exceed 90 % of gross national product.
The half-time check refers to this 90 % and not to future members which enter in the period from 2000 to 2006.
Does the Commissioner agree that in looking at which regions will qualify under the 75 % rule for objective 1 funding after 1999, it would be inappropriate to apply this rule in a rigid, statistical way given that some regions will fall just above or just below the 75 % according to some, frankly, not very reliable statistics.
In the case of regions on the borderline, ought not consideration also be given to factors such as whether they came into objective 1 status during the last review - in other words whether they are regions that have only just gained objective 1 status and only just got the infrastructure and the procedures into place to benefit from it? Just as they are beginning to benefit from it and obtain results, it would make no sense whatsoever to cut them off, and that aspect merits consideration.
Mr Corbett, I must point out to you that your question goes beyond the scope of Mr Marinho's.
The question being considered refers to Portugal, and you have strayed a long way from the point which was being made.
I do not know whether Mrs Wulf-Mathies wishes to answer your question, but in any case, you should restrict yourself to the subject covered by the question.
The floor is yours, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, if you would like to reply.
Mr President, I think I can do that quite briefly, because afterwards I shall go into the question again specially.
But the basis for calculating the eligibility for support of the regions is the last three years for which regional data is available.
Our problem is that we must make fixed rules, and however much I understand every individual with his imaginative arguments, I think we would all be in an awful mess if we did not keep to preset criteria.
As far as I can see, the 75 % criterion is mostly undisputed throughout the Community.
Question No 39 by Hugh McMahon (H-0777/97)
Subject: Agenda 2000
In its reflections on new objective 2, Agenda 2000 states that 'a limited number of significant areas should be identified in order to facilitate an integrated strategy for economic development'.
What is the Commission's view on how these 'significant areas' should be identified, will NUTS 1 or NUTS 2 classification be used for this purpose and will the final decision be left to each Member State to decide?
Mr President, Mr McMahon, in Agenda 2000 the Commission proposed that simple, transparent and specific Community support criteria for the various types of area which fall under the new objective 2 should be set up.
These criteria should take account of the regional priorities of the Member States.
The affected areas should therefore be defined in the context of the partnership between the Commission and the authorities of the individual states, and the aid should be concentrated on the most disadvantaged areas.
However, implementation of an integrated strategy for regional development, in which actions to extend the infrastructure, human resources and the economy are meshed, requires a certain size.
Experience with objectives 2 and 5b shows that NUTS 3 regions or areas which have a coherent local economy and can be delimited administratively are most suitable as a spacial concept.
However, the Commission strives for a certain flexibility, which allows us to take account of national and regional criteria.
I thank the Commissioner for her answer. Who will make the decision on the criteria?
Will it be a joint decision?
Will it be a Commission decision? Will the Member States make the decision?
Secondly, what level will it be based on?
Will it be NUTS 1, NUTS 2, or NUTS 3? It is important that we receive some indication of the level the Commission is thinking of.
When is the decision likely to be made?
Mr President, I indicated in my answer that I assume that the NUTS 3 regions, i.e. the NUTS 3 level, is in principle the suitable level. Who decides?
First, in the new Structural Fund orders, the criteria for eligibility for support are defined, and thus European criteria, which obviously require the consent of the Member States, are specified by the Commission.
The national criteria, which we shall take into account additionally, will be proposed by the Member States, and the Commission will investigate in partnership how far these correspond to the objectives and effects which are aimed for.
Third question: when? The Commission proposes to submit the new Structural Fund orders next year around Easter, and all further decisions then depend on the decisions of the Council, not just about the financial prospects, but also about the Structural Fund order.
Here the Commission is not the sole mistress of the procedure.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for her answer, and ask her to say something, if possible, about the criteria for choosing these significant areas for objective 2 - the industrial zones mentioned in Agenda 2000.
I should like to know whether the Commissioner thinks any of the following are going to be among the selection criteria for these significant areas for objective 2: high unemployment; the relative contribution of industry to the economic structure of these areas; the proportion of jobs which have been lost in the older industrial sectors; and additional problems such as social exclusion. Finally, insofar as these structural problems can be worse in transborder areas, could this be an additional selection criterion for areas for objective 2?
I will willingly do that, Mr President.
We are currently working out the criteria.
I can therefore not give a final answer. But it is correct that all the criteria which you have listed must certainly be taken into account, e.g. for industrial areas, dependency on a particular branch of industry and associated exceptionally high unemployment, for city areas, the extent of social exclusion, for instance, and for rural areas, not just dependency on agriculture, but also the danger of emigration associated with the decline of agriculture.
We shall therefore develop criteria for eligibility for support which are based on the origin of the problems - industrial regions, rural regions, parts of cities.
But we want the actions to be taken to be based on a programme and an integrated development concept, because it is important now not to be always looking at the past, but to develop prospects for the future.
We shall make proposals about this in the structural fund orders, and I am certain that we can discuss the individual criteria then.
Thank you very much, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, for joining us here today.
Since the time allocated to questions to the Commission has now expired, Questions Nos 40 to 79 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
Mr Howitt wishes to speak on a point of order.
I congratulate you, Mr President, on preserving the integrity of Question Time by sticking to the time and even overrunning; I fully support your decision.
Could you comment briefly on the implications for the agenda this evening. At the moment there is a debate scheduled between midnight and 12.30 a.m.
By overrunning that could be even later.
Can you give some guidance to members on the implications for tonight's session. Will the agenda be finished or will some reports be postponed?
Parliament's administrative staff inform me that they expect us to be able to complete all of the scheduled programme tonight, and finish by 12.30 a.m.
That is the information I have been given.
Of course, it will also depend somewhat on the discipline of those Members who speak, and the extent to which they respect their allocated speaking time, which occasionally leaves something to be desired.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Part-time work - Employment (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the following reports:
(A4-0352/97) by Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commissionproposal for a Council Directive concerning the framework agreement on part-time work concluded by UNICE, CEEP and the ETUC (COM(97)0392 - C4-0551/97); -(A4-0353/97) by Mr Hernández Mollar, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission's report "Employment in Europe - 1997' .
Mr President, I would just like to make an addendum so that the Minutes of the proceedings are correct.
A Swedish member claimed earlier that I was not here during his previous speech.
I was here, and I heard his attack on me.
However, there is no point in replying to it now since he is not here himself now.
Thank you, Mrs Carlsson.
But how could he have overlooked you?
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the two rapporteurs on the excellent work carried out and speak in particularly about Mr Jöns' report on the agreement on part-time work within the social protocol.
For some time now, a magic word has appeared in all the documents: flexibility.
The Council uses it a lot, the Commission uses it in its guidelines, the social partners also use it, and the European Parliament considers it to be one of the means of dealing with the problem of employment in its resolutions.
To really be effective, flexibility has to be of interest and convenient for everyone: workers and employers.
It has to favour a solution to the problems; that is, it has to be able to increase employment, favour a reconciliation between work and family commitments for men and women, it should not discriminate with regard to working conditions, pay, social security and welfare, it should not penalize professional careers.
From this point of view, the Council's position is highly contradictory - on the one hand, in fact, it calls for flexibility as an efficient means but, on the other, it is not prepared to sign commitments or to define rules governing flexibility and the way it should be applied.
The Commission's first documents dealing with the regulation of atypical employment go back to the '80s.
Today, at the end of 1997, we are dealing with a partial problem on the regulation of atypical employment, part-time work, within an agreement drawn up between the social parties which we certainly welcome, because we believe that social dialogue should be developed, but we consider it very partial.
We approve of Mrs Jöns' report and believe her words to be enlightening; we approve it because the agreement is actually harmless, but we realize that it does not take significant steps forward.
The employers are even more contradictory; I think that they have been the fundamental reason for the agreement being very timid in dealing with the problem; often in fact, as in my country, employers understand flexibility in one way only, as the freedom to do what you want in the company, without taking any rights into account.
This agreement is therefore partial because it only deals with part of the problems; together with Mrs Jöns, we ask the Commission to finally take up its position, propose a directive on atypical employment and lay down regulations on all its aspects, because otherwise flexibility will remain an empty or even more dangerous word.
Mr President, there is an unfortunate tradition in the European Community that, when dealing with problems relating largely to women, a great deal of patience is required, for it will be at least several decades before you manage to get a legislative text adopted.
This has been the case concerning the implementation of article 119 on equal pay, equal social security, adjustment of the burden of proof and so on.
And too often, the mountain gives birth to a mouse.
This is once again effectively the case with part-time work.
In order to eliminate the discrimination which part-time workers face, the great majority of them - more than 80 % - women, the Commission made a good proposal for a directive regarding voluntary part-time work nearly twenty years ago.
It was, furthermore, on this basis, that a few years ago in my country, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, a law was established, after having decided to wait no longer for a European Directive as we were fighting a losing battle.
We are now confronted with a framework agreement concluded by some of the social partners - SMEs are not represented - on part-time work, an agreement that I would qualify as "watered down' in comparison with the initial proposal for a directive and even in comparison with the amended version of 1983.
First of all, it is missing an important word in the title: voluntary.
For what needs to be sorted out at European level is "voluntary' part-time work.
This work is not atypical, far from it.
It will furthermore become less and less so, and the logical and non-discriminatory solution would be to simply apply to part-time workers the same conditions of salary, work, promotion and social security as applied to full-time workers, it of course being understood that they would be paid and covered in proportion to the hours worked.
But this logical, non-discriminatory principle, which could be easily implemented, does not seem to be easily understood by everybody.
I understand that with regard to social security, for example, pensions, you need to have worked a certain length of time to be able to benefit from the right to a guaranteed minimum pension.
I understand that with regard to health insurance it could seem unfair to work, for example, one hour per week and be insured by paying derisory contributions, when the illness or the operation costs the sickness fund as much as for a full-time worker.
We know there are these problems and I hope, Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ...
(The President interrupted the speaker) I wanted to say that we intended to ask for the withdrawal of the proposal.
But I will vote for it, whilst hoping all the same that it will bring an end to discrimination.
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying to the Commissioner how pleased I am to see him at this late hour.
One thing should be said: much is being said about flexibility here, but the Parliament gave another demonstration just now of how inflexibly we venture to manage our own Regulations.
Anyhow, I would still like to congratulate Mr Hernández Molar on his report, especially as I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that it adds something to what Mr van Velzen raised in his report.
This report contains a number of points of special interest which look like they might quietly disappear from the table of the summit in Luxembourg.
I would like to cite three points.
Firstly, and especially the importance which is attached in this report to income policy and social protection, within the scope of employment policy as well.
As a matter of fact, Mr Commissioner, that was one of the most important themes at the employment week last week.
I received a study recently, which I recommend my colleagues to read, which demonstrates with crystal clarity that classic OECD recipes are completely irrelevant to the European Union countries.
A larger wage range, more wage flexibility, less generous benefits make very little difference to employment levels, Mrs Carlsson, and certainly make no difference to unemployment.
Such a policy does, however, lead to the erosion of low wages, and most certainly to an undermining of the standard of living of the people.
And that is therefore not a choice that the Luxembourg summit should make.
It is neither social protection n or employment.
They have to find ways to combine both.
Local employment, community service, fine.
We support these, but with respect for decent wage conditions, and not in the shape of compulsory workfare.
Mr Pronk, we as socialists support the promotion of part-time work and career breaks, if possible, for men and women, but only with good social security cover, so that people are not pushed into precarious circumstances.
Mr President, a second point I wanted to cite, is that this report brings up another buried topic, namely the reduction of working hours.
I am delighted with that.
We, as the European Parliament, Mr President, asked the Commission as far back as in 1996 to produce a study, a comparative study into good examples of how the working week can be reduced; into how the reduction of social security contributions can give a new impulse to shorter working hours.
Sadly, I have not been able to find a trace of this in the Commission's new report - an employment agenda for the year 2000.
I know that this issue is perceived very differently in the different European Union countries, and I also understand only too well that the employment organization UNICE is none too keen on this topic.
But all the more reason, Mr President, for the European Union to put the debate on shorter working hours on the agenda once more.
I know that not all of these topics will be discussed, or else they will be discussed insufficiently, at the Luxembourg summit, but I hope that the ministers will at least make a start with these important debates.
Mr President, let me thank Mrs Jöns for her report.
I agree fully with her assessment, and indeed with the original version of the document, and for this reason I wish to make a number of general comments on the subject of social dialogue.
Of course the latter has a valuable contribution to make. However, the achievements of the social partners in Europe, whether in respect of career breaks or part-time work, are sadly minimalist in the truest sense of the word.
We cannot be satisfied with this.
For this reason, Mr Commissioner, I do not share the euphoria which has so far surrounded the results of social dialogue.
We have but one foot in the door, and we will have to push much harder if we are to achieve anything.
I hope that we can count on your support here, though I personally am not convinced that your support will prove strong enough.
If we are to be presented for a third time with an agreement of such minimal value, then I believe, with some regret, that we must reject it.
I also wish to express my thanks to Mr Hernández Mollar.
His contribution to the employment summit has been significant and I would like to give it my wholehearted support.
However, I fear, Mr Hernández Mollar, that like the social partners in Luxembourg, the Council will adopt the minimalist approach and the peoples of Europe will ultimately blame us for this, since we in the front line may well have aroused more expectations than the Council is prepared to fulfil.
I only hope that my prophesies in this respect do not come true.
I would like to thank all those who have contributed and all those who have come back for the end of the debate.
There are two distinct topics here and I would like to address the two reports separately.
Firstly, the 1997 Employment in Europe report is part of the package on employment adopted by the Commission on 1 October along with the joint report and the Commission's proposal for employment guidelines.
Honourable Members will recall that we had an excellent debate on the guidelines at the last session here when we discussed the van Velzen report.
Indeed Mrs Van Lancker contributed eloquently on that occasion as well.
On the subject you are talking about now I would just like to say to you that this matter is covered in the Green Paper on work organization and the deadline for submissions is 30 November.
It is an on-going debate and certainly we are going to hear more about it.
The Employment in Europe report is the Commission's analysis of the employment situation and its presentation of the policy messages which come out of that analysis.
Similarly the report by Mr Hernández Mollar puts forward Parliament's view on all of these matters.
I am very reassured by the degree of convergence between the two views.
We all agree on the importance of the overall economic situation.
Achieving and maintaining a substantial rate of growth is a fundamental element in our ability to meet the objectives that are set out in our guidelines.
This was very much highlighted by several of the speakers.
We also agree that tax and benefit systems should be employment-friendly, providing the necessary incentives for employment while still providing the income support which is the hallmark of the European social model.
Among the many interesting points put forward in Mr Hernández Mollar's report I detected two areas on which I think he is trying to place somewhat more emphasis.
I would like just to pick up on these points because I believe that this emphasis is shared by the Commission as well.
The first is that there is the need to address the skills gap and the strategy for education and training that is required to fill and plug that skills gap.
In the draft guidelines submitted to the European Council the Commission has identified three areas of attack that we need to improve: the basic education of young people setting out on their working life, because that lays the foundation for the adaptable and employable workforce of the future.
We need to provide a system of life-long learning to enable people to upgrade their skills throughout their working life.
We need to address the problem of the skills of the unemployed to help to get them back into a position where they are able to compete once again on the labour market.
Parliament and the Commission are in complete accord.
We hope that the Member States will take this on board.
The other issue is the problem of the gender gap, which has been highlighted as well.
We need to help women to participate in the labour market.
Despite the growth in jobs for women over the past ten years - and there have been many new jobs - we still have a major gap in the employment rates of men and women and a somewhat lesser one in the unemployment rates.
Promoting better reconciliation between home and work is but the first step in dealing with this problem.
You will be very interested to know that the joint meeting that took place yesterday evening of the Ecofin ministers and the employment ministers was a very good one.
My impression, after spending the whole day listening, is that there is a lot of common ground there.
We eased out a lot of the misunderstandings as well.
The joint meeting had a very high level of representation.
In fact it is the highest level of representation that I have seen in my four-and-a-half years here.
So this says something for the possibilities for a very successful job summit.
Our guidelines - the ones we discussed just recently - and the joint report have provided the main basis for the discussion as far as the preparation for this summit is concerned.
It is my estimation now that there was overwhelming agreement at the jumbo Council meeting for the procedure to be followed: that is, on the action plans of the Member States, the joint surveillance, the recommendations if warranted, and, on the substance, the four pillars that I outlined here on the last occasion are agreed by all.
Also agreed is the need for both quantified and qualitative targets.
The European Union targets on the long-term unemployed - we have all spoken about youth and employment - and also on the question of training; training is not quite as settled yet.
There is going to be some other representation on the text.
My opinion is that the whole thing now has reached a watershed as a result of Amsterdam.
That is what is different.
I would think that we are set fair just now for a major breakthrough in the progress and development of the European employment strategy.
Everything is in place for this to be a success.
That is my estimation of what went on yesterday.
I hope it will convert.
If it does I will be coming back here to say very strong, favourable things in regard to what you recommended and the Commission put forward to make all that a success.
Regarding Mrs Jöns' report, the importance of the new forms of flexible working, especially part-time work, has increased very substantially over the years and the trend continues on national employment markets.
In June 1996, UNICE, CEEP and ETUC expressed their common wish, as you know, to enter into negotiations on the parttime aspects of this issue.
After a very long and detailed negotiation these three organizations agreed on 6 June 1997 the framework agreement on part-time working.
On the same occasion they requested the agreement to be implemented through a Council instrument.
We all know that.
The Commission is bringing forward this proposal to the Council pursuant to article 4(2) of the agreement on social policy.
To our mutual regret this article does not provide for involvement of the European Parliament.
However, the Commission has kept its promise to Parliament and informed it about the various phases of consultation of the social partners.
It has also provided Parliament with the proposal in order to enable it to deliver its opinion.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Jöns, for her report and for all the efforts she has made to get a general consensus here.
I appreciate it personally.
But having said that I would like to underline that I do not share the overall criticism of the social partners agreement contained in the report for this reason: I will not conceal from you that the Commission finds itself in a difficult position vis-à-vis one single amendment which affects the material content of the agreement.
In order to respect the autonomy of the social partners under the social protocol procedure, the Commission made it clear in its communication on 14 December 1993 concerning the application of the agreement on social policy that the Council could not amend the social partners agreement.
For this reason any amendment which alters the terms of the agreement and, in particular, the terms concerning objective reasons and casual work cannot be accepted.
In this context the compromise Amendment No 3 added by Mr Pronk and Mr van Velzen cannot be accepted in so far as it involves a definition of the above-mentioned terms.
The Commission will, however, monitor the implementation of the directive to ensure, in particular, that derogations concerning objective measures and casual work are strictly limited to those notions.
The Commission does not favour the inclusion of such a proposal which imposes new obligations under Amendment Nos 1 and 2 on the Member States and the social partners.
However, the Commission will monitor the implementation of this directive and will address, therefore, the issues referred to by Amendment Nos 1 and 2.
Concerning the more general question of Parliament's role during this specific procedure, the debates both in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Women's Rights have shown that this is one of your major points of concern.
In this regard the Commission is currently reflecting on the possibility of the European Parliament playing a somewhat more active role in this process while respecting both the terms of the Treaty and the autonomy of the social partners, as we are bound to do.
Part-time work is only one aspect of the broader issue concerning the protection and promotion of other flexible forms of work.
In fact the Commission consulted the social partners in a much wider context which included other forms of non-standard employment contracts.
This agreement is to be seen, therefore, as a very important first step forward.
In the preamble to the framework agreement the social partners have already expressed their intention to consider the need for similar agreements on other flexible forms of work.
In their joint contribution to the employment summit adopted last Thursday, 13 November, the partners state that they are considering the possibility of a new negotiation.
So the Commission hopes that the social partners will soon be able to agree to open the relevant negotiations and would welcome an early announcement in this regard.
Finally, since the question of social security has been mentioned by a few contributors, I should say that the adaptation of social security rules to stimulate more innovative forms of work organization is one of the issues covered by the Commission's Green Paper on work organization.
We cannot prejudge the outcome of the ongoing debate by making proposals for action at this stage.
However, the question will certainly be addressed in the social action plan for the Commission that we are going to adopt next year.
Mr President, on my Amendment No 3, is the Commissioner not misreading it?
We do not ask in that amendment to take care of that in this directive.
We ask to take care of it in general.
This is the essential difference between the Amendment No and the original text of the resolution as passed by the Social Affairs Committee.
Did the Commissioner take this difference into consideration in his answer?
The answer is yes.
I said that we would be considering the matter he has referred to.
Thank you, Mr Flynn
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Aircraft safety
The next item is the report (A4-0335/97) by Mr Gonzalez Triviño, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive establishing a Safety Assessment of Third Countries' Aircraft using Community Airports (COM(7)0055 - C4-0140/97-97/0039(SYN)).
Mr President, as rapporteur for this report on the safety of aircraft from third countries using Community airports, I am very pleased with the progress we have made in the Committee on Transport and Tourism. We have been able to reach a unanimous opinion on the improvements which can be made to the text of the Council's proposed directive.
The terrible air accident in the Dominican Republic in February 1996, in which nearly 200 people lost their lives, alerted us to the need to improve the inspection procedure for aircraft from third countries which use our airports.
The text of the directive, which seems to enjoy the Member States' unanimous support, represents an important step forward in improving safety levels, by means of equipment being inspected and its operation being forbidden when there are reasonable doubts about its safety.
Of the fourteen amendments approved by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, there are three which deserve special mention.
First, I would like to draw your attention to the amendment to article 3, allowing the scope of this directive to be extended to cover aircraft which, while operating with a company from within the European Union, are to all effects and purposes chartered from third countries -sometimes even with the crew included - to operate from Community airports.
This was the case with the unfortunate accident in the Dominican Republic to which I referred earlier.
Secondly, I should like to mention that the Committee on Transport and Tourism has approved an amendment to allow the inspection of most aircraft showing potential signs of a defect with safety implications. article 5 of the original text envisaged the inspection of just 10 % of such aircraft.
Thirdly, I think it is important to mention the amendment which will make it possible to publish the names of companies whose aircraft have been grounded for safety reasons.
We think publicity is an indispensable means for further dissuading companies from operating inadequately maintained equipment.
Finally, I should like to explain the purpose of another of the amendments. It is designed to clarify that when the directive talks about the safety of people on the ground, it does not just mean airport personnel, but also people living near airports.
In the next few months, we will have the opportunity to improve the text of this directive even more, but the most important thing at the moment is to speed up the timescale for its implementation as much as possible, and guarantee the technical, economic and administrative resources which will be needed for it to be put into practice rigorously and effectively.
This directive will also be a step forward in the creation of the single market. At present, an airline company can have its permission to fly withdrawn for safety reasons by one Member State but can nevertheless continue to operate in a neighbouring country without correcting the original defects.
This directive will prevent that situation.
Finally, my own personal opinion is that sanctions against companies with defective equipment would perhaps be more effective if the European Commission were the competent body, rather than the individual Member States.
If we are to have a directive which applies to all the airports of the European Union, and in such a sensitive area as safety, it would be a good idea to have a body of technicians who could apply the regulations in a consistent and rigorous fashion.
I would like to end, Mr President, by expressing my gratitude to Commissioner Kinnock, and to his whole technical team at the European Commission who once again, arm-in-arm with this Parliament, have made it possible to modify the original Council text. I believe that between us, including the members of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, we have achieved a good directive, which will greatly improve aircraft safety.
Mr President, the contents of the directive and of the report on safety inspections for third country aircraft were not at issue in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Though this may seem like a purely administrative process, it has to be said that the fate and lives of many people will depend on this particular resolution.
In February 1996 a Boeing 757 operated by the Turkish company Birgen Air crashed in the Dominican Republic.
All 189 people on board, most of them tourists returning home to Germany, were killed.
This accident involved a third country aircraft manufacturer, a third country airport of departure, a third country flight operator and a third country pilot.
This complexity was reflected in the accident investigations which followed.
In Germany the accident triggered a fierce public debate on safety standards, landing and take-off bans, blacklists, etcetera.
The search for the cause of the accident and for those responsible for it saw some real buck passing, with the tour operator blaming the airline, the airline blaming the airport maintenance crew, then the plane makers and even the German government.
At the end of the day it was apparent that because of competitive pressures and the liberalization of air traffic procedures all those involved had adopted sloppy working practices and that the almost voluntary system of aircraft inspections worldwide were simply inadequate.
If in Europe a third country aircraft is banned from landing in EU country A because of some particular technical fault, it simply diverts to EU country B. For this reason alone I believe that we must introduce common regulations to ensure the safety of aircraft passengers and crew.
Such a directive would allow all information on pre-flight ramp inspections to be centrally compiled and would lay down standards for aircraft inspection work. The Commission could then issue flight bans on certain aircraft or could even prohibit certain airline companies from taking-off or landing at all EU airports.
We in Parliament call for a safety check on all aircraft which have been reported for technical faults, or which are suspected of such, and not just the 10 %.
We also demand that the flight ban list be published every 3 months.
This directive will certainly lead to better standards in aviation safety.
However, binding regulations are still required on cabin crew working hours, in order to reduce the number of human errors attributable to excess fatigue, and on training standards for maintenance crews, in order to cut the number of technical malfunctions on a more consistent basis.
There is therefore still much to be done by the Commission, by the Council and by this Parliament, before these vital regulations can become a reality.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament's concern for aviation safety goes back to before the crash of a Turkish aircraft in the Dominican Republic in February 1996, which Mrs Schmidbauer has reported on so fully.
Our concern here is now focused on the safety of aircraft from third countries.
We already have adequate regulations to cover aircraft from EU countries, though if I may say from personal experience, there are still some areas requiring definite improvement here.
Like the directive on port state control in the maritime transport sector, we must introduce regulations to ensure that our standards are imposed on third country aircraft wishing to land at EU airports.
We in the European People's Party therefore support the proposal of the rapporteur, which constitutes a major improvement in many areas.
The EPP does however have a problem with one aspect of the proposal.
Can it really be logical to consult the opinions of non-governmental organisations in this connection? Passengers, people living close to airports, pilots, maintenance services, incident reports - yes, but non-governmental organizations, whatever they may be?
We in the EPP cannot accept this proposal, let me make that absolutely clear.
Pre-flight ramp checks are without doubt the best way to improve safety.
Information exchange and cooperation also constitute a important element.
On top of this, sanctions must of course be available, otherwise the proposed measures will lack the necessary bite.
Some of the proposals contained in the report are excellent.
Publication, for example, is a very important means for ensuring greater transparency in this area.
I would ask the Commission to take a long hard look at Parliaments proposals and not simply to dismiss them from the agenda with the slogan "We are in the process of collaboration' .
There is no doubt that these measures would have a major impact on passenger safety in Europe and beyond.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the Commission on this valuable proposal and the rapporteur on his excellent report.
In his explanation, the rapporteur points to the fact that, under commercial pressure, lesser airports are more inclined to turn a blind eye to an aircraft which is in a less than perfect state of repair.
The inertia of the regional authorities in the presence of the frequent risks which hang not only metaphorically, but literally over the people living around the airport of Ostend is unacceptable to me.
I will be relying fully on this legislative initiative to see that the attitudes of the authorities and the airport itself change.
Not only passengers but also people living nearby can be the victims of an aircraft which is in a less than perfect state of repair.
In the case of cargo planes, with few people on board, it is the people on the ground who are most vulnerable.
I have submitted two amendments on behalf of the Committee on Transport to include explicitly in the risk categories people living near airports.
At the same time I think that they, and not only the passengers should be able to lodge a complaint in the event that they find an irregularity.
I hope that this guideline will be given early approval.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, there is so much talk about what the Union should look at.
But here we really do have a field which the Union should be seriously involved in.
It is appropriate to discuss safety on board aircraft arriving in the Union from non-Member States.
This is about as international as it gets.
Here we have aircraft which are operating on behalf of companies who are subject to Community legislation but which are in fact owned by companies outside the Union.
This is a very, very important question, and I am pleased at the political unity which is prevailing.
Air traffic is increasing, partly because fares are falling, but also because demand is rising.
Increasing competition means that operators need more aircraft, to some extent this means building new ones, but there are also some which have come out of the dustbin!
The aircraft which are replaced are not always put into retirement, but simply go to another company in new colours.
Each year, there are a number of accidents; and we at the European Parliament must also help put a stop to aircraft which fail to meet the necessary safety standards, and this must of course be done in partnership with the Commission and the Council.
People should feel safe when they travel.
People should not have to be nervous about getting on board a bus or an aircraft, or a ship for that matter.
But we are also finding that aircraft safety, especially in aircraft from non-Member States, is not meeting the requirements we set.
So we need to go on working on this directive.
Of course, there may be different proposals and isolated action by Member States, but that will not be effective.
So we need to coordinate our efforts and exchange experience to enable aircraft and airlines which fail to meet safety requirements to be excluded quickly.
With this proposed Directive, we have taken a major step within the EU towards people's safety when they travel.
Mr President, the accident in the Dominican Republic in February 1996 clearly highlights the problem before us today.
That particular case involved a Turkish aircraft chartered by a German tour operator in which all 176 passengers were killed.
There it would appear that insufficient pre-flight ramp checks and pilot errors could be said to have turned a minor technical problem into a major disaster.
I congratulate the Commission on introducing this proposed directive and the rapporteur for his excellent work in preparing this report.
This is the first of a series of measures recommended by the high-level group of experts charged with defining the Community aviation improvement strategy which formed the subject of an earlier report in my name.
In that opinion the European Parliament wanted to introduce a similar system of safety checks for third country aircraft using European Union airports to that used in port state control in the maritime transport sector.
That is to say that ICAO safety standards should be applied in relation to all third country aircraft to create a blacklist of those third country carriers not meeting European Union safety standards.
Clearly the standards required by ICAO ought to be imposed on third country carriers carrying European Union passengers or using European Union airports.
I welcome here the fact that for the first time JAA is to centralize all information relating to ramp checks, specific conditions under which ramp checks must be carried out and set down in specific EU measures for action to ensure that these standards are applied.
These are a very welcome first step and I hope they will lead to even greater safety throughout the European Union.
Mr President, firstly I thank the rapporteur for his excellent report on our proposal to improve aviation safety by providing for a system of inspection of third country aircraft that are suspected of non-compliance with internationally agreed safety standards.
Naturally I am pleased that the rapporteur and other Members who have spoken tonight are supporting us on this very important issue and also that many of the 15 amendments which are proposed are useful additions or suggestions which complement the Commission proposal.
The House will recall, as Mr González Triviño and others said, that after the tragic accident at Puerto Plata in February last year in which 176 European Union citizens were killed, both the European Parliament and the Council asked the Commission to study possible measures to improve safety.
Consequently, in June last year the Commission published its communication on a Community aviation safety improvement strategy which included a programme of action.
The first element of this programme to be presented as a formal proposal is the one being considered by the House tonight.
That was issued in February of this year.
The Commission is happy to accept all the committee's amendments as they stand with the exception of two, as well as the new Amendment No 15 which covers issues similar to those of Amendment No 2.
With regard to Amendment No 14 which requires the Commission to draw up a report on the application of the directive no later than two years after its entry into force, I would say that if the proposal is adopted along the lines of the rapporteur's opinion, I do not believe there would be any need for a further proposal in the near future.
However, I am willing to accept that circumstances may change and maybe a new proposal would then have merit.
Consequently, the Commission will incorporate the substance of Amendment No 14 in a modified proposal.
Finally, there is one amendment that the Commission cannot support.
Amendment No 13 to the proposal as it now stands calls for the deletion of article 12 which requires Member States to lay down a system of penalties for breach of the national provisions adopted to implement the directive.
We consider that article 12 is a necessary instrument to guarantee the proper application of a Community legal instrument in the member states and we therefore want to keep it in the text.
I hope that on further reflection, especially since there is very clear and strong support for our proposal, the House will come to share our view of article 12 as a necessary provision for enforcement.
I am pleased to see such a positive common effort in attempts to improve air safety.
That common view is completely consistent with the approach of this Parliament over many years.
I look forward to the future adoption of this proposal which should contribute to improving the security of European citizens and, indeed, many other air passengers, as well as providing additional protection for people living near airports.
I am therefore very appreciative of the efforts yet again of Mr González Triviño.
Many thanks, Mr Kinnock
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Economic and social cohesion
The next item is the report (A4-0329/97) by Mr Izquierdo Collado, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the First Triennial Report on economic and social cohesion (COM(96)0542 - C4-0016/97).
Mr President, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has discussed with great interest the Commission's first report on cohesion. Its conclusions, which are in the form of a summary, overlap with those reached by Mr Izquierdo Collado in his magnificent and thorough report, although of course they are far less extensive than his.
Thus, although we think the Commission's report performs a useful analysis of cohesion, it nevertheless displays shortcomings, both in its methodology and in the scope of the study, and these aspects should be improved in subsequent versions.
The main points which attract criticism and recommendations from the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy are the same as those mentioned by Mr Izquierdo Collado.
They are: firstly, to take account of the effects of enlargement when defining future instruments for cohesion; secondly, to extend and improve both the amounts of the funds and the effectiveness with which they are used; thirdly, to devote specific lines of the funds to achieving a consistent structure for research and development throughout the European Union, to allow the percentage of GNP devoted to these functions to approach that of our competitors, and to make appropriate adjustments to the fifth framework programme for research, technological innovation, and job creation; fourthly, given the importance of the information society, to use these funds in a consistent fashion; fifth, to adapt the definition and future extension of the common agricultural policy to these objectives; sixth, bearing in mind the role played by the supply and accessibility of energy in achieving social cohesion, to focus a significant part of these funds on the supply infrastructure; and lastly, the seventh point is to demonstrate the contradiction which exists in the current model of economic growth - which is resulting in increased inequality - and to alter it so that in the future we are able to change this economic model and make it fairer.
Mr President, I am delighted that we are having the opportunity tonight, even at this very late hour, to discuss cohesion policy.
The Commission's first triennial report on cohesion policies and their impact has been an essential part of the evaluation reflection on future priorities for cohesion policies.
It takes place at an important watershed with the reform of the structural and regional policies and the Agenda 2000 package.
We can begin the process of taking stock, reviewing the achievements and success and, as our rapporteur has done very effectively in his comprehensive analysis of cohesion, set down markers for the future that we can use as our reference manuals.
But there can be no doubt about our commitment to cohesion.
In fact, we have it in every Treaty, including the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Everyone agrees that it is important just like motherhood and apple pie.
Of course the proof is in the commitment in translating those obligations into practical policies.
The rapporteur stresses the equal value - and I agree with him - of cohesion policy alongside achieving the single European market and economic and monetary union.
Sometimes you could be forgiven for getting the impression that economic and social cohesion is a flanking policy.
It is not.
It is a key priority of the EU to make the European Union more than a single market, a free trade zone or a currency zone.
Cohesion policies are vital to delivering a citizen's Europe and giving tangible support to regions and communities, to open up access to the opportunities of the single market for jobs and training.
The visible projects that I see in my constituency, such as the computer training suite that I launched yesterday, is the human and proactive side of European Union policies.
Support for coalfield communities, learning projects are an essential component of achieving economic and social cohesion.
Member States at the extraordinary summit this week on employment would do well to remember that.
Quite frequently they do not remember or think about the role that cohesion policy has.
We know that inequalities persist and it is the objective of cohesion to continue to try to overcome these.
I have to say that my comments are not addressed to Commissioner Wulf-Mathies, because we know of her commitment to cohesion policy, but to the whole College of Commissioners.
We need to see more evidence of other policies contributing to, or addressing, the cohesion imperative.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if she thinks it might be useful for us to have a cohesion audit on an annual basis and try to build that into the Commission's work programme.
The other Commissioners would do well to review their own policies and see how they are supporting cohesion.
One of the few criticisms I have of this excellent report is that the Commission has not dealt with EMU in a very effective way.
The future is running fast to meet us and we still have no clear analysis of the impact of EMU on our regions.
It is high time we looked at those issues.
Finally, we have to have the means to match our ambitions for our cohesion policies as Jacques Santer said.
Regional and cohesion policies can be successful if everyone works together - the Member States, the regions and the local authorities.
The key priorities are: to be effective, to have a fair and equitable distribution, to have affordable policy, because less sometimes can be more, and to have a sustainable cohesion policy that will take us into the new millennium.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. The report which has been presented by Mr Izquierdo Collado is very comprehensive indeed and goes far beyond the remit for a critical analysis of the achievements of the structural fund over a period of three years, in respect of economic and social cohesion, and the resulting conclusions.
We are in full agreement with the rapporteur on a number of points, namely the call for a greater concentration of resources, better coordination of community policies, improved economic competitiveness, sustained development and the creation of competitive jobs, since these are in fact priorities in the Union's structural policy.
However, detail regulations pertaining to agriculture, Union financing for the whole of the next planning period, and the enlargement process due to take place during this period, do not belong directly to the motion for a resolution contained in Mr Izquierdo Collado's report.
Now that these items are included, in spite of considerable opposition to some of them in the Committee, we are now obliged to examine them in this House, whereas the best solution would still be to delete them altogether.
Here the rapporteur is becoming entangled in his own contradictions.
On one hand it is said quite correctly that the limited instruments and resources should be deployed deliberately and purposively to reduce inequalities in economic development in those areas which require them most.
At the same time we are focusing too much on ownership, the cohesion funds, the questioning of the upper limit for own resources and precautionary adjustments upwards, and paying too little attention to one of the fundamental principles of cohesion - namely the promotion of less-developed regions to the point where support of this kind is no longer needed.
From the conception of the European structural policy it therefore becomes clear that the available aid is always to be of a temporary nature and is intended to make the recipient region independent of financial support of this kind in the medium and long term.
Here, transitional instruments can serve as an effective bridge for those who are emerging from the benefit stage.
Economic and social cohesion should not be a one way street.
Giving and receiving cannot become too much of a one-sided arrangement, otherwise solidarity can all too easily become just the reverse.
Put another way, financial agreements are always set-up for a specific period of time, and correctly so.
At the end of this period the cards can be reshuffled to correspond with the new economic situation in the countries of the Union, this applying to both givers and receivers alike.
The rapporteur quite justifiably calls for criteria for the promotion targets, but these criteria must be objective and easy-to-calculate, such as objective 1 regions receiving 75 % of GDP under the NUTS II scheme.
Though the report may be controversial, various compromises have been reached in the preliminary debate.
Its acceptance by the majority of the House will depend on the adoption of important amendments.
Mr President, the structural funds have played a positive role in helping the less developed regions on the periphery of the Union to develop their economies closer to their full potential and to close the gap with the well-off regions in the core of the Union.
This is particularly true in Ireland where the structural funds have been concentrated on constructing new improved roads, airport facilities, industrial modernization and vocational training for young people.
The results of this concentration of resources are beginning to bear fruit as the Irish economy records consistently high economic growth rates and new employment opportunities emerge throughout the country.
However, the objective of improving average living standards in Ireland to the levels existing in the better-off regions of the centre of the Union is still a long way from being achieved.
There are continuing structural problems in the economy which must be removed if our economy is to achieve its full potential and be able to maintain a GNP level similar to that of the better-off regions of the Union.
The structural funds have played a central role in encouraging the advances of recent years.
I believe the use that Ireland has made of these funds can serve as a model for other regions and countries of the Union.
It is vital to continue the programme of capital investment now under way, not just in order to finish the many important projects that have already begun, but also to maintain the impetus which has resulted in the economy recording consistently strong growth levels in recent years.
These strong growth levels have led to many commentators suggesting that the need for structural fund investment in Ireland is declining.
I would strongly disagree with this view.
The criteria for assessing whether or not a country or region qualifies for maximum structural fund levels can mask continuing, underlying problems.
For example, the use of GDP levels suggests that Irish economic development has made stronger advances than is the case if use is made of GNP levels.
Consequently our level of development as compared with better-off regions of the Union is also exaggerated.
This is because of the amount of foreign investment in our economy which distorts the situation to our advantage.
The issue should be addressed when the next round of structural funds is being divided between qualifying regions.
Secondly, unemployment levels must be given a prominent place among the criteria being used to determine qualification for Objective 1 status.
Finally, the Irish authorities, like those of many other less-developed regions of the Union, have a particularly serious problem trying to find employment opportunities for the long-term unemployed who are often without even the most basic skills which they could offer potential employers.
This problem should be taken on board when determining eligibility.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the first thing I want to do is congratulate Mr Izquierdo Collado on his report on the triennial report on economic and social cohesion.
Obviously, this report was produced at a time when the earliest information about Agenda 2000 was just becoming known.
I think the rapporteur has done the right thing in basing his report on all the information available to him at the time, because the reports which we produce in Parliament are living documents which are in touch with reality, and we should not restrict ourselves to watertight compartments.
There will be time to modify, if need be, the opinions which Mr Izquierdo Collado is expressing today in the current report.
Economic and social cohesion is the basis of the European Union. I should like to remind you that although it was not one of the themes of the Treaty of Rome, nevertheless somebody - in fact, it was Minister Spaak - was already predicting the future need for instruments to promote economic and social cohesion in the various regions and zones of Europe.
I believe the European Union has progressed in some ways in this respect, as regards the instruments, the structural funds, the cohesion fund, and the common agricultural policy itself, in order to strengthen this economic and social cohesion.
And it is clear - one of the speakers said so - that the assistance provided for this strengthening of economic and social cohesion cannot consist of unlimited aid granted for an indefinite period of time, but has to be properly controlled - which it is.
I would even say that it is controlled precisely because it is measured in terms of the domestic product of those regions which receive help in the form of structural funds.
Of course, even if this aid is for a limited time, I should say that the period is a long one, because a region cannot be developed, nor its situation improved, in a short time.
Therefore, this should be thought of as long-term aid.
In this sense, I agree with the rapporteur when he calls for more coordination in implementing these policies. I would say we need the subsidiarity principle to be applied to a greater extent, giving regional and local bodies their proper role and allowing them more responsibility in executing these funds.
I do not think we have the right legislation for applying this principle of competence to the regional bodies, in order to allow them to manage the cohesion funds and the structural funds.
I therefore think this is a good report and that this structural fund policy should be maintained.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, none of us can be satisfied or comfortable with the Commission's report on the development of economic and social cohesion in the European Union.
If a few Member States' GDPs do approximate to a very limited extent to the Community average, that cannot conceal the fact that such progress is clearly insufficient in itself and, as such, incompatible and out of line with the fundamental objectives established by the Treaty of Europe in that respect.
We also note a clear aggravation of the inequality between the richest and poorest regions, and the real and obvious inappropriateness of many policies to the objective of cohesion is confirmed beyond doubt, particularly the common agricultural policy, whose lack of structural and regional balance results in the richest farmers receiving over 80 % of subsidies and cohesion countries such as Portugal, for example, being a net contributor to the common policy.
Yet these clear limitations and insufficiencies were quite clearly foreseeable, since, the budgetary resources provided for the period from 1994 to 1999 were and are insufficient, thus confirming the appropriateness of the ceiling for the Community Budget in 1999 as proposed by Jacques Delors in Edinburgh, or the essential need for the even greater sums suggested at that time by various economic fact-finding studies, which proved that such sums were vital to ensure a real convergence rate that could deliver genuine internal cohesion.
And also because resources were paltry from the outset and therefore national capacities for financial absorption were and still are limited, not for lack of projects or needs, but because of budgetary restrictions designed to achieve the purposes of the single currency, which are thus in clear conflict with the objectives of cohesion.
On the eve of decisions on the future financial framework of a Union with more members and new and growing needs for structural and other forms of support, it is becoming increasingly obvious -despite what Mr Berend has just said, in the light of what we know about the proposals contained in Agenda 2000, and we and the rapporteur prefer not to hide our heads in the sand like ostriches - it is becoming increasingly obvious, as I was saying, that certain aspects put forward in Mr Izquierdo Collado's report are highly relevant. We must maintain the cohesion fund for its present beneficiaries with a GDP of less that 90 % of the Community average; we need to ensure that the present levels of aid to existing Member States continue in force; it is absolutely essential to match policies to principles and practise real cohesion; and it is vital that we face the new problems arising from enlargement with our financial capacity strengthened.
The consensus of opinion on these central issues inevitably brings us back to the need to reconsider the level proposed by the Committee for future financial perspectives (1.27 % of Community GDP, the same proportion as before, which has been shown to be too low a ceiling for 1999). This makes it necessary to alter the proposed figures, or at least to revise them appropriately before the first enlargement takes place.
Mr President, the European internal market has produced remarkable gains for national economies, but has so far failed to bridge the gap between rich and poor.
Unemployment in the ten poorest regions is almost seven times higher than in the ten richest regions.
The concentration effect of the internal market is clearly bringing greater wealth to the industrialized areas, but at the expense of the disadvantaged regions.
In spite of substantial structural funding we have yet to redress this inequality.
Are we to allow this to continue?
While the initial trend was to do away with economic and social cohesion as the European Union's own solidarity policy, the cohesion report is becoming a symbol for the preservation of the European social model.
Yet there are still finance ministers in individual Member States who are haunted by visions of fantastic sums being paid out by Europe's net contributors.
On a number of recent occasions the German Finance Minister has forgotten that the structural fund is not there simply to transfer financial resources between Member States, but rather is designed to use the EU's economic potential in the best possible way for the good of the Community.
Does the Commission really want to change the message of the cohesion report and to make greater use of the structural policy for the harmonious development of the Community? Here I fail to see the substantive embodiment of sustained development in Agenda 2000.
In this context sustained means restoring the balance between ecology, economy and social security - not only for the industrialised areas but also for the disadvantaged regions.
At the moment, and for the foreseeable future, the latter tend to be the rural areas.
But an effective cohesion policy is only possible with the cooperation of the people on the ground.
They are entitled to a development policy which meets their needs and should not have centralized projects, such as the current plan for trans-European networks, imposed upon them from above.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, firstly I should like to congratulate Mr Izquierdo, as my colleagues have done, for producing this complicated, difficult, important and interesting report.
We have repeatedly discussed this report during long meetings in the Committee on Regional Policy. The report evaluates the results of Community cohesion policy during the last few years, and considers it to be a basic and fundamental element in the building of the European Union, and its future.
In discussing and voting on this report, we need to think about certain points which have not only been vitally important in the recent past, but will continue to be so in the immediate future, because of enlargement.
It must be stressed that cohesion policy has had the positive effect of reducing the existing disparities between the Member States, as regards cohesion and other aspects.
However, there are still regrettable regional differences in income, while differences in unemployment rates have increased.
This fact reveals the lack of coordination between the various Community policies, and demonstrates the need for a global approach to ensure that they are consistent with the objective of economic and social cohesion.
Another worrying aspect which has arisen during the debate on this report, Mr President, is the attempt to withdraw the cohesion fund from those countries which join the first phase of economic and monetary union.
This idea, which in itself displays a lack of solidarity, contradicts the spirit and the letter of the treaty, where the cohesion fund and the method for its application are set out explicitly.
Projects to do with the environment and with transport infrastructures are vital for these Member States, and these projects take a long time and require a lot of funding.
Nevertheless, access to economic and monetary union is absolutely appropriate, and is not at all contradictory to or incompatible with what I have just said.
That is what the European Commission said in Agenda 2000 because, among other things, its legal department has set out the basis for applying the cohesion fund, and this is absolutely independent of whether or not the convergence criteria have been met and whether monetary union has been accomplished.
As Mr Izquierdo's report says, a country's efforts to join the third phase of economic and monetary union will be of no value to that country if it is immediately punished by having the cohesion fund withdrawn. This fund is essential at all stages of the process.
Therefore, Madam Commissioner, we think it would be a good idea for you to convey to this House the content of your legal department's document on this question, so that we can learn what is in it, and devote some thought to it.
It is up to us in the European Parliament to emphasize why cohesion was included in the treaty: to define a fair Europe, characterized by solidarity and social commitment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is more than a common internal market.
It is more than a common currency, which will soon be introduced, it is a Community because of its constitution and because of its composition and it is cohesion which sustains it.
For the benefit of those who do not meet it every day, it is worth explaining exactly what is meant by the term cohesion.
Cohesion is a characteristic trait, that means, we look at one another and together try to get this European Union going, the stronger working with the weaker and the weaker with the stronger.
For this purpose we have at our disposal a great European instrument, and that is the structural fund.
I will talk about this later.
Returning to the subject, however, it has to be said that individual national policies also form part of the European policy of cohesion.
Mr Izquierdo Collado and the cohesion report itself drew attention to this fact and we should be thankful for it.
Policies should not undercut or counteract each other.
Here the first step is to ensure that National States do not introduce policies which block what is being done at European level - otherwise the policies we apply here become completely nonsensical.
This also means, however, that we must coordinate our policies, while at the same time guarding against a policy in which everything is submitted to absolute diktat, since this would render us incapable of focusing on individual objectives. Research is one such area.
Here quality is the most important factor and this must be upheld.
I am truly grateful to Mr Izquierdo Collado, and this contrasts with the remarks made by Mr Berend, that he has dealt with the subject on a much wider basis.
It is a matter which also includes the structural fund.
In our discussion we had to ensure that we were not tying ourselves to the present.
The debate on the structural fund will take place next year.
There is no doubt whatsoever that guidelines are required for this debate and it without doubt also right to draw lessons from the cohesion report.
In the committee and in the following discussions we encountered difficulties when agreeing the cohesion fund for the coming years.
This is to be my final remark on the subject.
We did not want to make any commitments as far as subsequent debates on the structural fund are concerned.
We do not wish to introduce a fund which at the end of the day only results in a transfer of revenue.
For this reason we have made it clear that the compromise which has been found is for us, in its wording, both binding and reasonable.
In this respect I want to thank Mr Izquierdo Collado, who has devoted an enormous amount of time and effort to the project.
He has done great service to the subject matter, namely economic and social cohesion, and I would like to congratulate him on his report.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the realization of cohesion is affected by the globalization of economies which has been very progressing very quickly, and which the activity of the EU should act as a counterweight to.
In its essential internal policy, however, the EU had not acted in the spirit of article 130b.
For example, EU policy on traffic, competition, science and research has focused its influence more on the economy than on the enhancement of solidarity.
Likewise with energy policy, there should be alternatives for the promotion of cohesion, rather than centralization.
One example of this is the bio-energy resources of the Nordic regions and their effective exploitation.
The EU seems more concerned these days with the blending of economic policies and monetary systems than the preservation of the essentials of life in remote areas.
This is also seen in the decisions on cuts in Member States' budgets for miserly hand-outs in the future.
The EU should, in the name of cohesion, ensure that the complimentary principle takes root in Member States.
As it is now, EU funds are often used as a substitute for former national regional policy funds.
Of great importance to cohesion in the EU is, furthermore, the viability of agriculture throughout the entire EU region.
The present system of agricultural aid does not account sufficiently for production difficulties due to factors of climate and other conditions in nature in both the northern and southern peripheral regions.
Cold or drought, sparsely-populated areas and long distances from main markets are major drawbacks that require compensation.
This is one of the main issues of cohesion policy and this report merely glosses over it.
A workable and efficient cohesion policy requires the EU to aid the development of the regions, given their particular conditions, and to operate more flexibly than it does now.
Mr President, cohesion policy will soon have to face two challenges: economic and monetary union, and enlargement.
Either of these could result in the existing regional inequalities becoming more pronounced, as previous speakers have repeatedly said.
The fact that it is possible for these differences to become more pronounced shows that the application of the cohesion fund has been relatively unsuccessful.
Recognizing this failure should be the starting point for any thinking about its future.
For one thing, the budgetary rigour imposed by the stability pact can endanger even the objectives which have been achieved.
The imminent dangers demonstrate that the cohesion fund has to be made more redistributive than it is at present.
In conclusion, I should like to say that we support the measures which this report proposes as regards coordinating Community policies, administrative transparency, job creation, and so on.
However, all these measures become meaningless if the cohesion fund is not supported as an end in itself, rather than as a subordinate measure of less importance than other policies.
Mr President, the short time available forces us to make choices and omit aspects of context or appraisal of the Commission's report.
This report shows how dangerous the theory of a fair return is, developed by several Member States, when the policy of cohesion is applied, and show that the other policies only make a relative contribution towards achieving the objective of cohesion.
I want to concentrate on the essential message Parliament wishes to send through the Izquierdo Collado report, because we are about to reform the funds and the enlargement process, to achieve monetary union and hold the Extraordinary Council on Employment. These all deadlines which, in our opinion, will be affected by the follow-up to this report and, in particular, by the items taken from Parliament's report: the difficulty of overcoming regional differences; the fact that other Union policies, but also many national policies, do not contribute towards cohesion and the fact that the report has some gaps in it, for example that of not dealing entirely with the consequences of expansion and the achievement of the monetary union and particularly post monetary union.
I would like to conclude by asking the Commissioner whether he can tell us in his reply what value the Commission will place on the report but also on Parliament's opinion so as to enlighten subsequent choices.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if the first triennial report on cohesion was good, and the Commission, and particularly Directorate-General XVI, deserve our congratulations for the analysis and thought that went into the document, then the report on that document presented by our colleague Juan de Dios Izquierdo Collado is a balanced and well-structured text, containing rigorous and thorough analysis, and just to read it gives an idea of the huge efforts which such an undertaking required.
I should like to draw attention to two statements which appear in the report: firstly, the inequalities within the European Union have hardly been reduced in the last ten years, despite the progress which has been made and the effectiveness of structural policies; secondly, nearly all Community policies have effects which are clearly counterproductive to cohesion.
These statements mean that neither article 130a nor article 130b of the Treaty are being rigorously applied.
On the one hand, structural policy does not receive sufficient funds to allow regional inequalities to be reduced quickly in the medium term.
On the other hand, Community policies are not formulated in such a way as to include the basic aim of reducing regional inequalities.
Agenda 2000 can correct these shortcomings.
Regional policy reform; concentrating the effects of the structural funds; rationalizing regional programming; preserving the cohesion fund in its present form; and maintaining the relative position of the designated objective 1 regions: these measures, if applied using strict criteria, can be a golden opportunity to make progress in reducing regional inequalities. Especially if, in the context of enlargement, we can undertake a revision of the financial perspective, to provide the European Union with additional resources above 1.27 % of GNP.
Reform of the common agricultural policy can allow the European Union's agriculture to regain its balance, if we do not follow the Commission's status quo policies, and achieve a balance between continental and Mediterranean farming, so that the best-funded policy in the Community budget is also ruled by criteria based on economic and social cohesion.
I end by expressing once more my sincere congratulations to our rapporteur for his excellent work.
Madam President, we regard Mr Izquierdo Collado's report as essentially constructive because it does indeed get to the heart of the crucial issue of economic and social cohesion.
However, I would like to make a few comments concerning certain omissions, gaps and inconsistencies contained in the report.
Nowhere does it mention that problems of foreign policy or of obstacles faced by various peripheral regions of the Community have an adverse effect on their cohesion and development and also on their progress towards equal ranking with other regions.
First, I will take Greece as an example, where the situation in the Aegean, Turkish aggression, the stocking of stupid and dangerous weapons, adversely affect the development and growth of certain regions, especially the Aegean islands.
Secondly, the report does not mention the unequal distribution of the, rather limited, funds.
Madam President, while funds for Germany and Spain for 1994-1999 are increasing, they have been reduced in the case of Greece and Portugal, two of the poorest countries of the Community.
Thirdly, I am rather surprised that there is no mention in the report of where those funds go, because, in the case of Greece, and Madam President is aware of this, they go on stupid things, on doing up music halls which do not contribute to growth or to employment, and which cannot be regarded as productive investments.
Consequently, Madam President, this report must be supplemented, either by means of amendments or, on another occasion, to correct what the report emphasizes, namely the fact that the funds that are available do not meet the needs of real economic and social cohesion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by saying that cohesion is vital for a Union which is becoming increasingly integrated and will very soon be adopting a federal monetary system.
The historical experience of federal or proto-federal states clearly shows that budgets must be designed with a view to redistribution, dispensing equity and justice.
In addition to responding to enlargement, the European Union budget cannot evade that essential issue.
Mr Izquierdo Collado's report makes an excellent critical analysis of the Commission's three-yearly report, which in itself is a report of high technical quality and great analytical rigour, but, not wishing to be constantly reiterating what has already been said, Mr Izquierdo Collado skillfully bridges the gap with Agenda 2000, introducing essential ideas on the future of the Union.
Three comments seem to me to be necessary.
The 1.27 % ceiling proposed for financial perspectives should be rejected.
It is a dangerous strait-jacket.
Once upon a time, in the Delors package, it was a stimulus; now it is a hindrance.
Secondly, the cohesion fund must be maintained in view of its efficiency and relevance to the present situation.
Thirdly, the present cohesion countries and regions cannot as a matter of principle pay the costs of enlargement, even partially.
So it would be deplorable if aid to the cohesion countries were reduced.
Portugal, for example, should not be penalized for the fine results she achieves by being a good pupil of the European school.
If Portugal has achieved the feat of meeting the eligibility criteria and if she succeeds in maintaining a genuine convergence line - in 1995 Portugal achieved 67.4 % of the average Community GDP; in 1996 it went up to 68.3 %; and in 1997, with a calculated 4 % growth rate, it may rise to around 70 %, and, moreover, with unemployment under control - it would be serious, unjust and paradoxical if Portugal were penalized for her success.
It would be like punishing virtue.
This sort of confusion has happened before. In committee I have already suggested that we use first names when addressing each other.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, the previous speaker, Mr Lage, gave us the cue when he said it was all a matter of redistribution. I am of a quite different opinion and I believe that this is a subject which we must tackle and discuss in detail in the months ahead.
It is something which is going to occupy us for some time to come.
What does economic and social cohesion mean? To my mind it does not mean the creation of equal living standards, since the socialist model of wealth redistribution has failed in practice.
It is a policy which cannot be implemented.
What we can and should try to do is to create comparable living standards, and I am not just playing at semantics when I say this.
What this wordplay conceals is that we can fully accept the differences which exist within the European Union, and that this actually allows free competition and indeed makes it necessary.
My second comment is that economic and social cohesion is not, and never has been, primarily the responsibility of the European Union, but rather is a matter for the Member States, since the instruments and resources available to the Union can only act as an accessory to the main event.
Madam President, the Commission's report is an important analysis of what has happened in the area of cohesion in the European framework.
Furthermore, Mr Izquierdo Collado's report is an excellent analysis in connection with this.
But as important as it is to analyze, we have to know what is going to follow on from this analysis. How is equality going to be enhanced among the regions?
How can the less developed regions gain access to the more developed regions, to tap their resources?
We must have a background strategy on this.
Without any clear thinking on the influential forces that obtain in regional development we will not get beyond the situation where we only have projects scattered about here and there, all of which are unconnected, which threaten to take up enormous sums of money.
We must also bear this in mind when we consider what is going to happen in the future to our cohesion fund.
This kind of strategic view might be guided by Arlene McCarthy's idea that we should regularly check how cohesion is progressing.
Then we would definitely have to give consideration to the real results.
Neither can we underestimate the effects of national economic policies, national structural policies, and EMU.
It is actually quite true that structural funding and cohesion funding are small items compared to national economic policy and what EMU is going to bring along with it.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, European economic and social cohesion is an essential principle and a prime objective in the building of Europe, and is just as important as monetary union or the single market.
Nevertheless, the objectives of articles 130a and 130b of the treaty have not been achieved.
The Commission's cohesion report shows this clearly.
The inequalities between Member States have been reduced, but there is still a gulf separating rich and poor regions.
The per capita income in the 25 best-off regions is three times greater than in the 25 least-developed regions.
Therefore, we need to strengthen cohesion policy and European solidarity. We must not forget that this benefits everybody, not just those to whom it is specifically directed.
We are not designing different sectoral policies: we are building a continent.
We are providing Europe with territorial cohesion, in the face of the historic challenges of monetary union and the achievement of a great Europe.
Therefore, we need to rise to the occasion we are living through, and plan financially for the challenges we face, by contributing the means to achieve our ambitions.
Our inevitable enlargement cannot be achieved at the cost of our current European cohesion.
We should simplify the programmes and concentrate resources in the less-favoured and peripheral regions of the European Union, maintaining - as we have done so far - two-thirds of the structural funds for objective 1, as the Commission has proposed. We should obey the treaty, and make sure that all policies tend towards economic and social cohesion - not just structural policies, but policies on agriculture, fisheries, research and development, transport, competition, state aid - from which, in the last analysis, the rich regions benefit more than the poor ones.
The Izquierdo Collado report considers all these questions, or nearly all of them.
Reports do not always contain everything we would like them to, of course, but in this area we need consensus. I know very well, however, that consensus is difficult to achieve, because as Mr Izquierdo Collado knows, I was the rapporteur for the Committee on Regional Policy's first report on the future of economic and social cohesion.
However, I want to finish my speech, Mrs President, ladies and gentlemen, by expressing my sincere congratulations to Mr Izquierdo Collado for his magnificent piece of work, for its thoroughness and rigour, and everything that has been achieved in it.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I totally share the views that have been expressed on the report under debate and I would like to stress that the assertion that, after ten years of action of the structural funds there continue to be enormous economic and social inequalities between the various regions of the European Union, means that the objective of economic and social cohesion is part of a long term, steady process.
The policy of convergence and cohesion, this key policy without which European integration would be impossible, must be pursued in order to consolidate what has been gained and to ensure steady progress towards growth, competitiveness and convergence throughout the coming years.
The financial restraints that have been imposed by the pact of stability and growth, the anticipated realignments in the European market following the imminent enlargement of the Union, and the possible adverse effects on the less developed regions of the Union, such as Greece, underline the urgent need to intensify community efforts and to push forward the cohesion policy with adequate financial backing, during the new programming period.
Madam President, there is no doubting the fact that economic and social cohesion is a fundamental part of the European Union's policy.
The aim of this cohesion policy is to reduce the inequality which exists between EU regions.
Europe is regarded thus, and solidarity too, but solidarity naturally has its limits - and even rich countries have poverty and structural problems within their boundaries.
Looked at this way, net contributors want to be more than just payers.
They therefore insist that the absolute limits of 1.27 % of GDP below 0.46 %, as far as the budget and structural policy is concerned, should remain as real limits.
In this context the question which arises for me, and probably for others too, is whether a report which covers the period 1994 to 1996 really has to include subject matter relating to the future of the cohesion fund and to the future financing of the Union.
As I have already said, there are still a number of question marks hanging over the whole thing.
In other respects we can accept this report and its contents in full.
Support for SMEs and greater inclusion of private initiatives in EU structural and reform policies should be considered important, particularly when this means the creation and/or preservation of jobs, and consequently a reduction in unemployment levels.
Here Europe really is living not just in abstract solidarity, but in the kind of solidarity which matters to individual job seekers.
On the subject of enlargement, which Mr Izquierdo Collado's report also covered, one can only emphasize that the preparatory phase must be supported by a special financial instrument so that new Member States can really be brought into the European community of nations.
Madam President, this report by my compatriot and political rival, Mr Izquierdo Collado, is not good: it is magnificent.
It is magnificent because he has managed to approach the theme, not from a national viewpoint, not from a party-political viewpoint, but from a thoroughly European viewpoint - from the point of view of the philosophy and social model which should dominate the process of the building of Europe.
Mr Izquierdo Collado's political group and my own, which are the two most important groups in the building of Europe, both agree that Europe will only be possible if it is based on two elements: a functioning market, and the strict application of the principle of social compensation.
That is why everybody has so often said that the building of Europe rests on three equally important pillars: the internal market, economic and monetary union, and economic and social cohesion.
How did cohesion perform during the period we are considering? The conclusions are clear: if you add together the effects of domestic aid (state aid), non-structural Community policies (basically, research and development policies) and truly structural policies, there has been a loss of cohesion.
This is because the differences between the 25 best-off and the 25 worst-off regions is the same at the end of this period as at the beginning, and because the differences between the states have increased.
There has been a loss of cohesion, furthermore, because the amount of per capita aid (adding the three types together) is much greater in those countries not included in cohesion policy than in those countries which are included.
What should we do?
There are three reasons why we should not decrease our efforts towards cohesion.
Firstly, because it has not been enough.
Secondly, when the internal market and economic and monetary union are complete, they will increase the extent to which activities are concentrated in the richest countries. Thirdly - and this is an aspect the report does not take into account - once we no longer have exchange rates and monetary policy as a way of dealing with crises of asymmetry, funds to address the principle of cohesion will be needed more than ever.
Congratulations, rapporteur; my only regret is that you do not belong to my political group.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. This report, and the matter under discussion, focuses attention on two particular areas, namely structure and agricultural policy.
Here I must contradict Mr Rack.
What is the point of examining the past without also drawing conclusions for the future.
Mr Izquierdo Collado tries to train his argument on the future, knowing well that the EU is in constant flux and that we are right now faced with major changes if we are to include European enlargement in our considerations.
Yet this approach is the correct one, since enlargement is coming and in political terms it is both necessary and desirable.
We also have to ask how much this will cost.
Can the European family continue to manage its affairs in the same way as before when it has to look after a number of new members? Is it not time for some reorganizing here and there?
Should we also be tightening our belts? Here talk of ownership is simply out of place.
The structural fund has been introduced to enable the EU's poorer regions to adapt. I am assuming here that these regions will in fact be able to adapt over a period of years by the efficient use of resources.
There are in fact some early indications of success in this respect.
Were this not to be the case, then the resources in question will have been misappropriated.
It is simply premature to be discussing increased levels of self-generated resources.
Of course we will have to think about this again in five years time and review the situation. I advocate this, as does my group.
I believe that the same applies to the cohesion fund, which was set up to help Member States move towards monetary union.
When this has been achieved, then I would say that the cohesion fund will have fulfilled its role.
Should further support be required, then we should consider some other arrangement, possibly also involving a structural aid scheme.
Economic and social cohesion cannot only be measured in terms of financial resources.
But cohesion must also come from within.
I regret that we have had so few positive things to say this evening, but I too am running out of time.
Let me just say one final thing: structural policy and regional policy have both scored successes and that is something we should not forget.
Contributions to International Fund for Ireland
The next item is the report (A4-0317/97) by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on Community financial contributions to the International Fund for Ireland (COM(97)0130 - C4-0233/97-97/0116(CNS))
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin my presentation of this report by once more pointing out how important we in this House think it is to undertake initiatives to support the process of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
We respect that region's ability to provide its own solutions, but we also have a firm wish to cooperate in their implementation.
In the European Parliament there is unanimous support for peace, reconciliation, recovery and development in a territory which, since it is part of the European Union, we all feel part of. The Committee on Regional Policy has repeatedly expressed this wish for solidarity, in the form of concrete proposals, and is doing so again today before the European Parliament with this report which I am honoured to present.
Opinions and votes have been contributed to this report by the representatives of all the political groups who sit on the committee, and I must also mention the important role played by those Members of the European Parliament who are directly related with Northern Ireland, whose names we are all familiar with, and whom we thank once again for their efforts.
The proposal for a regulation which the Commission is presenting to us is along the same general lines as the existing 1994 regulation. The European Parliament contributed to that regulation, by means of an excellent example of collaboration with Council, who incorporated all our amendments into the text.
The new element of the current proposal is the reference to the Community initiative programme Peace. It is essential to take this into account, since it pursues the same objectives.
The proposal rightly seeks to ensure consistency between projects financed by the fund and those supported by the Peace initiative. Such consistency is vital, but proper coordination is also needed between measures financed by the fund, and those financed by the structural policies.
That is the purpose of our Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 5.
We also think, Mrs President, ladies and gentlemen, that it is important to stress that financing from the fund must be exclusively additional in nature, being directed towards objectives which will increase the region's innate potential.
That is what we intend with Amendment No 2.
Finally, bearing in mind that the European Union is the leading donor to the International Fund for Ireland, we think it is right - and important - that the citizens of Northern Ireland should be made aware of our efforts to express our solidarity with them as fellow Europeans.
This is the purpose of Amendment No 4.
The European Parliament longs to catch a glimpse of fresh hopes for peace rising above the mountain of difficulties.
It is our constant wish to help to break the vicious circle of violence, economic problems and exclusion which hinders the peace process. Therefore, we are in favour of the fund's continuation, and we hope that our amendments can help it to become better coordinated, to be used in a way which will complement and assist other initiatives, and to be better known and appreciated by the public.
Madam President, I wish to thank the rapporteur for his tremendous work and cooperation on this report.
The future of social cohesion in the two communities in Northern Ireland is inextricably linked to the future of the International Fund for Ireland for such is the importance of the fund as an instrument for reconciliation and development.
The key to lasting peace on the island of Ireland lies with the process of reconciliation at ground level in communities and in neighbourhoods.
This is work that is carried out away from the public eye, far from the high-profile peace talks currently taking place.
However, it is this work at community level which will bring people together to recognize what they have in common rather than that which divides them.
It is vital that this work underpins the continuing quest for a lasting and just peace in my country.
The International Fund has played a uniquely valuable role in facilitating and promoting the community level process.
However, this is work for the long haul; it will take many years for the scars of the past to heal and to banish the mistrust and suspicion.
It is vital, therefore, that the fund continues to prosper and grow.
The emphasis that the fund places on cross-Community projects is particularly important and must be given every support.
I welcome the strong contribution and continuing support from the European Union but, in particular, from Parliament here towards searching for that reconciliation and that peace.
The continued existence of poverty and disadvantage in Northern Ireland and in the border counties serves only to exacerbate the challenges of the peace process.
In this regard the focus of the fund on disadvantaged areas is of particular importance.
If people feel discriminated against, it is much harder for them to feel they belong to part of a community or to be part of that process.
As well as that, the key work and cooperation that can be created at cross-border level has been neglected for too long and the fund has brought together communities on both sides of the border to create greater understanding and a greater belief in what they can do for themselves.
Madam President, on behalf of my political group and my Prime Minister and the British Government, I very much welcome the contribution the EU is making in this area.
I want to say a special thank you to Mr Gutiérrez Díaz for the commitment he has shown on this issue, both as a former chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, a Vice-President of our Parliament and someone who has keenly followed these issues from the beginning of the peace process.
He has demonstrated a great deal of sensitivity in this area and for that I thank him.
I consider the International Fund for Ireland to be an essential part of the confidence-building process for the communities, alongside the peace and reconciliation programme.
It is very important to engage local communities in groups, outside the institutional level of the current peace talks.
These are their channels and their programmes and they have the ownership of this community-building peace programme.
My government welcomes the continuing efforts being made by the Commissioner and the programmes she has launched.
It is particularly important in this critical phase of talks for the EU to continue its commitment and for the International Fund to give a signal to our international partners that we still need to underpin the peace process with grass roots projects.
I agree with the rapporteur that as the single biggest donor we would like to see the Commission fly the flag more often.
Indeed, we would like to see Commissioner Wulf-Mathies there backing these projects and launching them.
Equally, we need to have budgetary rigour.
We want to see more effective use of funds and we do not want to see them duplicating what we do in mainstream funds or in the P & R programme but giving added value to work that is going on.
Finally, I wish that all Members of this House could come and see the difference this makes to grass roots communities.
Our Northern Ireland colleagues know this very well working as they do among the local communities.
They will have seen the efforts made by groups to work in partnership, to rebuild communities.
I pay tribute to the efforts of those local people, sometimes in impossible circumstances.
In particular last year, when there was a breakdown of the peace process, these projects were vital peace lifelines.
I should like to relate an anecdote.
We conducted hearings on how these funds work.
I was very impressed when a local community worker came up to me and I felt as if I had brought a case of money to him he was so grateful and so pleased for the support that the European Union was giving.
He said: ' The people, the areas, the community groups at the heart of the problem must be at the heart of the solution.'
There are no quick fixes and we cannot overstate the importance of the alliance-building that has been done to date with the support of the International Fund for Ireland.
Madam President, first I should like to compliment the rapporteur, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, on his report and in particular for the sensitive appreciation of the situation in Northern Ireland that his explanatory text displays.
Let me say straight away that I welcome the proposal by the Commission to extend European Community support for the International Fund for Ireland for a further two years.
Although the proposed level of funding is lower than the last two years, we must recognize that it represents an increase on the original amount subscribed prior to 1995.
I support the thrust of the amendments by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, in particular with regard to the need for proper coordination between the fund's activities and projects financed under Community structural programmes: with regard to ensuring that assistance from the fund is additional to and not a substitute for other public expenditure; with regard to pursuing objectives that are consistent with the peace fund programme and with regard to ensuring that appropriate measures are taken by the Commission to publicize the Community participation in the activities of the fund.
Let us get some credit for our support and if, in the process of attracting publicity, we also subject the workings of the fund and its governing body to more scrutiny then so much the better for transparency.
This fund was established under the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which was not a treaty as suggested in the explanatory statement, with the objectives of promoting economic and social advance, while encouraging dialogue and reconciliation between the two communities of Northern Ireland.
That is to be warmly supported and it is worth noting that it has been supported by countries of the Commonwealth as well as the United States, in addition to Member States of the European Union.
However, we must remember that it is not easy to apply the consensus and conciliatory approach that characterize this Parliament to the deep historical divisions of Northern Ireland society.
I hope very much that the new government in my country will not trample on Unionist wishes in its own desire to achieve a settlement but will remember that political solutions can only work if there is consent.
Madam President, I also wish to pay tribute to the rapporteur and also to the Commission and Parliament for their continued support for the International Fund for Ireland.
We are now at a crucial juncture in the peace process and I hope that in the months ahead we will see the forging of a lasting peace and the establishment of a historic accommodation between the communities on the island of Ireland.
The work of peace is slow and much of the real work will be carried out behind the scenes to bring communities together in a spirit of openness and friendship, after generations of conflict and suspicion.
The fund plays a vital role in this process and the purpose of the fund is to promote economic and social advance and to encourage contact, dialogue and reconciliation between nationalists and unionists throughout the island of Ireland.
The fund has made great strides in fulfilling this objective and much has been achieved.
The US has of course contributed ECU 270 million to date and the European Union ECU 150 million.
This is a significant practical contribution on the part of the European Union to forging of peace.
When the fund was put in place in 1986 many areas of Northern Ireland and the six border counties were experiencing business difficulties; high unemployment was the norm.
Things have improved since then.
Unemployment is down but still remains unacceptably high.
The IFI jobs impact is estimated at an impressive 27, 800.
Most importantly, support has been given to 639 organizations engaged in promoting social and economic development, involving 7, 600 community leaders.
I would like to pay tribute to the chairman of the fund who has brought great experience to his role and has been particularly successful in securing much needed employment in Northern Ireland and the border counties.
There is an important role for the International Fund for Ireland in supporting the development and in catalyzing the economic potential of the border counties.
All those involved in the peace process have an onus to put in place a lasting peace and the International Fund together with peace and reconciliation, a major contribution for the European Union, and Interreg all play an important role and I hope that in the years to come we will see tremendous developments in Northern Ireland and the border counties where we will have a just and lasting peace.
Madam President, the objective of the International Fund for Ireland to break the vicious circle of violence in Northern Ireland by contributing to peace and reconciliation is more important than ever at the moment.
The European Union is now a major source of finance for the fund.
I agree with the rapporteur, and I pay tribute to him here for his interest tonight, that it is vital to ensure proper coordination between the fund's activities and those financed under Community structural policies.
I admire the way that Commissioner Wulf-Mathies has engaged with Northern Ireland.
I know her commitment to direct participation by the citizens.
In order to achieve this properly in this very difficult situation, careful monitoring of the funds and how they are disbursed is most important.
The objectives of reconciliation and peace, establishing contacts between the two communities and forging links between them have an impeccable record in the fund.
The number of community and cross-border groups brought together in projects financed by the fund reaches into the hundreds.
We hope to increase it further.
Madam President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
I think he was the right man picked for the job for he has a depth of knowledge of Northern Ireland.
I am very pleased to see the Commissioner here tonight as well because she also has acquired a good knowledge since she took office.
The IFI has had a credibility problem in the community I represent since its inception in 1986.
When I compare this fund to the Peace and Reconciliation Fund for effectiveness, I am afraid I have to say that the IFI disappears totally into oblivion.
This, to me and the people I represent is unacceptable.
The rapporteur has called for increased transparency.
We need more accountability.
There is little doubt about that.
The IFI continues as if nothing is wrong.
It seems to me that whatever representation is made is overturned, overlooked and never given any credence.
They seem to be able to come out to Brussels and brainwash the people there.
They do not look to see where the problems actually lie in the fund.
They have made no attempt to make the fund more acceptable to the broad Unionist community.
In the next two years there must be a root-andbranch change.
Instead of hiding behind box numbers as they do at present in Belfast, they have got to come out into the open.
We need to see real transparency.
I would like to be more positive but I would be misleading this House and the Commissioner if I did not spell out the weaknesses I see in this fund at the present moment in time.
I hope we will question why the chairman and the secretariat have not been more pro-active in ensuring the IFI achieve that which it was designed to do, and that is to lend support.
Unfortunately I cannot hold out the same degree of hope for the chairman of the fund and the secretariat.
We need to get a total clearance of some of the people that are there at the moment.
We need it now, and we need the fund to achieve what it was originally designed to do.
Madam President, I want to thank the rapporteur, the Commissioner and other colleagues who are here tonight.
I think it is symptomatic of the goodwill that has been shown towards the peace process in Northern Ireland.
The International Fund, as has been said here, has played a very positive role in the quest for a lasting and peaceful settlement to the Northern Ireland conflict.
Since its inception, this particular fund has supported more than 3, 400 individual projects and has helped in the creation of roughly 28, 000 jobs.
There might be a perception that the IFI is an American programme while the Special Programme for Peace and Reconciliation is a European one.
I think it is time we dispelled this perception because Europe, in fact, is now the main contributor to both of these programmes.
Today we can see that we provide here, in Europe, almost half of the IFI's annual budget.
As the managers of the fund themselves acknowledge, the European Union's contribution represents a major international recognition of the efforts by both the Irish and British Governments to seek a peaceful solution to the Northern Ireland conflict.
With regard to what Mr Nicholson has said, I know there has been a perception in the past that the nationalist communities have benefited to some extent over the unionists, but I think that criticism has now been redressed.
I hope that the fund continues to treat, and will be seen to treat, all sides fairly.
That is very important.
Also, it is very necessary for MEPs - and not only MEPs, but the public at large - to be able to find out more about what is going on there.
Monitoring is very important.
This point has been made and I want to endorse it.
Finally, the funding must be additional. It must not replace other public or private sources of finance.
Madam President, I want to support the rapporteur's point that there could be a greater awareness of the European contribution to this fund.
The Delors package has not been so long in existence.
It has, thanks to the efforts of the Commission and Parliament, been better publicized in Northern Ireland.
To date the European Union has given ECU 150 million, as people have said, and has involved itself with more than 3, 000 projects.
Given the relatively small size of the area that is Northern Ireland and the border counties, it has touched a large proportion of the population.
What is most in evidence is that it has brought voluntary organizations together and these organizations in turn have brought their public representatives into closer contact and greater cooperation with each other.
There is one big lesson to be learned from this fund operating together with the Delors package: this is that small amounts of money can very often have a bigger political impact than the investment would suggest.
That has happened in this case.
As a representative of the border region of Ireland I want to take this opportunity to thank the rapporteur, Parliament, the various groups and the Commission for the consideration and sympathy that they have always shown with the problems in Northern Ireland.
I want to thank too the Commissioner whose name is well known in the border regions and in Northern Ireland and who has made a remarkable contribution to bringing the spirit of European goodwill and cooperation into that divided community.
The goodwill has been translated into three packages: Northern Ireland got Priority 1 status when its economic development stage would not have justified it; the Delors package and the International Fund for Ireland all together have made a fairly remarkable contribution to getting voluntary workers to come together.
I regret it if there are people in Northern Ireland who have a feeling that one community has benefited more than the other or that the transparency that should be there is not there.
It takes a while to break down prejudices, but I will certainly support any case that is brought to me on behalf of the Unionist community, just the same as the nationalists, if it is shown that they have not got their share of this money.
I am sure the Commissioner will do the same.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let me first express my thanks to Mr Gutiérrez Díaz for this very important report.
The Commission also thanks Parliament for its commitment to the peace process in Northern Ireland and in particular for its support of the International Fund for Ireland.
The IFI has a vital role to play in promoting dialogue and reconciliation between Nationalists and Unionists, and through this it complements the measures provided under the structural fund for the whole island of Ireland and the considerable efforts which the Commission has made through its programme for peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.
It is especially important, in my view, that those who are acting for the IFI should be based in both population groups and should make every effort to involve both groups in the various projects.
The draft regulation now before you clearly states that European resources should be used primarily for projects which are in accord with the Peace programme and that in this case priority should be given to projects which extend across the political and religious divide.
The Commission is therefore pleased to accept the rapporteur's proposals, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, for coordination between the IFI, the structural funds and the Peace programme.
The same applies to proposals for giving greater publicity to the work of the IFI.
This may also help to break down mistrust.
I believe it to be in all our interests that everyone should regard not only these projects but also those introduced at European level as measures designed to help both groups - and primarily those who have suffered most from the violence of recent years and months.
The Commission has already agreed with the IFI that it will give greater prominence to the involvement of the European Union in projects which are promoted jointly by Peace and the IFI or by one of the structural funds and the IFI.
As an initial step in this direction flagship projects which have a high proportion of cofinancing from EU resources shall in future be known as IFI/EU flagship projects.
I hope that this is given due attention in our publicity campaign.
Allow me yet again to express my thanks to Parliament for its support of the peace and reconciliation process in Northern Ireland and in Ireland as a whole.
Our most ardent wish is for a lasting peace in Ireland, something which will also highlight Europe's role in the application of the principles of the Union, which are to establish, and provide long-term support for, a process of peace and reconciliation by working together for the benefit of the common good.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Wulf-Mathies.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Practice of the profession of lawyer
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0337/97), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive to facilitate practice of the profession of lawyer on a permanent basis in a Member State other than that in which the qualification was obtained (C4-0440/97-94/0299(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs Fontaine)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, here we are at the happy end of a long journey because, as I have been told, the legal profession has desired this directive on freedom of establishment for more than twenty years.
But if everyone apart from the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, for reasons of their specific situation, were agreed on the principle, then discussions on the content led to a ferocious clash of two philosophies, I would even say two cultures.
In brief, I would say that the liberal concept came up against the integrationist concept and the positions taken by both sides appeared so entrenched that some said it would be impossible to reconcile them.
It was in May 1995 that the Commission submitted a first proposal for a directive to our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
It was the fruit, Mr Commissioner, of worthy efforts which attempted to resolve, it has to be said, the squaring of the circle.
But this exercise in compromise had its limits.
Some could not accept that an aptitude test should be maintained for joining the Bar of a host country, even in a toned down form, because who says test says potential lock-out, with no recourse to appeal.
Others could only accept that, after practising for five years in a European Union country, a lawyer who wished to continue to practise under his home-country professional title would be abruptly sent home.
So the Committee on Legal Affairs set about taking up the challenge.
Drawing considerable inspiration from the proposal which the Advisory Council of European Barristers managed to achieve through the impetus of its chairman, Maître Weil, whose patience and talent I applaud, we proposed an ambitious approach, based on the mutual confidence already long maintained between European lawyers, in the practice of their profession.
This approach has led us, on the one hand, to replace the aptitude test by a rigorous verification procedure of the effective and regular activity of the lawyer in question over a period of three base years, added to this the possibility of recourse to the domestic courts in the case of a refusal and, on the other hand, to guarantee, for those who want it, the permanent nature of establishment under their home-country professional title.
The scope of this text must be clearly specified.
It is in no way a question of undermining the national regulations which, in each of our countries, govern access to the profession, nor the procedures for individual or group practice.
Subsidiarity rightly imposes on us respect for these rules.
It is simply a matter of facilitating the movements of lawyers within the community and of enabling them to practise their profession in a Member State other than their own, either individually or collectively.
Furthermore it is a shame that this second aspect of group practice, which is extremely promising for the future, has been somewhat overshadowed by the liveliness of the debate on individual practice.
It has not been easy for your rapporteur, or for the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs, and I would like to say to my colleagues how much their 100 % commitment to this difficult but fascinating affair, their openness, driven on by the search for a fair balance and the wish for a successful conclusion, have been a strong encouragement to me.
I would today like to thank the Commission and the Council, who have agreed to concur with our new approach and this seems to me, Mr Commissioner, an exemplary model of the fruitful cooperation between our institutions.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has attentively studied the Council's proposal for a common position, dated 24 July last.
We are happy to note that most of the amendments voted for at the first reading have been taken up, the few differences observed having the sole objective of making certain points in the text more clear and precise.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we propose that this House approves the common position as it is presented, so that its rapid conclusion may enable the legal profession to move further towards its opening up within Europe, for which it has hoped and prayed for so long.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, in June of last year, at the time of the first reading, I congratulated Mrs Fontaine, as I do this evening, for her work and I urged the Council, without too much hope, to crystallize this work as soon as possible, for I was convinced, as were my colleagues, that if we did not seize this chance, we would run the risk of finding it extremely difficult to recommence once more the work of concluding an acceptable result for our "lawyers' directive.
And this is what has happened today.
The Council has been able to seize this opportunity.
It has been able to take up the delicate balance proposed by Parliament, with certain acceptable nuances and with some useful clarifications.
Our rapporteur proposes we accept the common position without amendment, supported in this by the Committee on Legal Affairs and tomorrow, I am sure, by the House.
I congratulate them and I am very pleased.
We must also now look further, Mr Commissioner, and ensure the faithful implementation of the future directive.
I therefore turn to you, Mr Monti, in order to express a certain concern of the professional sector and to ask you for some assurances.
I remember the terms of the exchange, if I may repeat them: freedom of permanent establishment, under one's home-country professional title on the one hand, and acceptance at the Bar of the host country without an aptitude test on the other.
The hope is that freedom of establishment will enable the development of the profession of lawyer at a European level; the fear is that hindrances will remain through a too rigorous implementation of the demands of the directive, in particular the verification of effective and regular activity by the appropriate authority.
The anticipated interview must not become an examination, a filter, a barrier imposed once more.
Furthermore, Commissioner Monti, I ask you to vigilantly ensure, on behalf of the Commission, the faithful implementation of the directive in this regard and to assure us that you will not hesitate to note failures in the implementation and to punish them, if necessary, for we also have to convince lawyers, often young, that this directive is an opportunity for them and that it is an opportunity for Europe.
I believe it; it is still necessary for it to become a reality, and that depends largely on you, Mr Commissioner.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Freedom of settlement has long been enshrined by European treaty.
There are certain occupational groups, however, which have until now been excluded from this right due to specific de facto circumstances.
European lawyers constitute one such group.
The reason for this must surely lie in the fact that legal training differs considerably from one Member State to the next and that differences have always existed between our various national laws and legal arrangements.
However, and this is a matter which I am keen to raise here, academic studies undertaken in the area of commercial law have indicated that almost 60 % of the laws which are in force in the various Member States have their origins in European legislation.
In this respect the harmonization of legislation within the internal market is now so well advanced that the fundamental differences which many legal experts say still exist are in reality no longer there.
In some cases it is simply the paragraph numbers and legislative machinery which differ, while considerable convergence has already been achieved in respect of the content of European regulations.
On this basis it makes absolute sense to apply the principle of freedom of settlement to European lawyers and ultimately to introduce this basic European right for the benefit of this particular professional group.
At this point may I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, on the successful outcome of her efforts.
It is mainly down to her that compromise has been achieved.
This matter has been the subject of great contention between the different national interests.
I still recall the arguments which took place in my homeland where early on the relevant technical committees in the German Bundestag refused point blank to approve the directive.
The compromise solution which has now been adopted is so well thought out that with one exception, namely the small country of Luxembourg, all Member States have agreed to it.
The professional groups concerned, which are represented by the CCBE - the European lawyers' association -, are satisfied with this arrangement and support it unreservedly.
For me this is an excellent example of how Parliament, through its own initiative, has been able to take steps to achieve a compromise and to actually get the Council to accept its proposals.
I believe that we can regard this as a major success for this House vis-à-vis the Council and its role as a legislator. It is an achievement which should not be underestimated.
The new agreement will make it possible for those of my profession - for I too am a lawyer - to make full use of their rights and opportunities within the European internal market, under certain conditions of course.
But it will also benefit other professions and sectors in which legislative assimilation has become necessary.
I therefore leave this House tonight feeling extremely satisfied because I believe that we have achieved real progress towards European integration and the creation of the internal market - albeit only in a small sector.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, Parliament is once again examining the draft Directive on the lawyers' right of establishment, which is of extreme importance not only to European lawyers but also to all European citizens, as potential users of the legal service.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights recently pronounced judgment unanimously in favour of the adoption without amendments of Council's common position that accepted most of the amendments proposed by Parliament and caught the spirit of them.
On behalf of the Group Union for Europe, I hope that the part-session House will take up that position this week.
The work of the rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, has in fact been persistent and useful and has enabled intelligent compromises to be reached between positions that often seemed irreconcilable.
If this House approves the motion as it left the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and in accordance with the requests of the Council of European Forensic Associations, European lawyers will be given two considerable opportunities: that of setting up, for an unspecified period, in a state other than their own, keeping their original name and providing advice on all European rights except for that of the state of establishment, and that of being equivalent for all purposes to their colleagues in the state of establishment, following the favourable appraisal of their legal competence made by the competent authorities of the host country.
This directive takes an important step forward on the path to the actual achievement of the internal market, with regard to a highly important professional sector.
I am grateful to Mrs Fontaine, both as a lawyer and as an MEP.
I would like to recall here that this year sees the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the first directive on the freedom of European lawyers to provide services, subsequently completed with few results in 1989.
The approval and actual implementation of the new directive, for which I too call warmly upon Mr Monti, will be the most useful way of celebrating this anniversary.
Madam President, I could repeat my arguments from the first reading, but I have to say that my group, for the moment, concedes defeat.
Nevertheless, we have presented some amendments to our rapporteur's compromise, for which we congratulate her.
I ask with insistence, Mr Commissioner and Madam Rapporteur, why, for a profession that is exactly the same as many others, for example, the medical profession, we need either a work placement or an examination? It is effectively because, in our Member States, professional groups want to protect themselves and have wanted to do so since the very beginning, when we demanded the freedom of establishment for lawyers as for any other group of professionals.
Now we are accepting a compromise, a rather dull one I would say, which certainly offers some possibilities, but possibilities only for a professional group which has done so much to promote the idea of Europe in the Court of Justice and in the national courts of law.
Now they are protecting themselves just like all the others, with quite weighty requests and demands.
But whilst sharing the pleasure of finally finding, once again, a certain leeway in the freedom of establishment, I still wonder why a lawyer would register at the Bar of another Member State whose law he does not know.
It is because he believes he has a future in this other country and that he has the knowledge to enable him to do so.
The fact that we now admit that the national Bar must itself impose conditions is also a form of defeat.
I am not particularly proud of this or happy about it.
But I congratulate Mrs Fontaine on having found a compromise.
Madam President, this process, which I believe is coming to an end with this evening's debate and tomorrow's vote, has indeed lasted many years.
The possibility of practising the profession of lawyer in a Member State other than that in which the professional qualification was obtained is indeed provided for by this draft directive, which is finally taking shape through the recommendation for second reading.
Twenty four of the twenty eight amendments that the European Parliament submitted during the first reading are already included in the common position of the Council of Ministers, since they had previously been accepted by the European Commission.
It is this Parliament that not only sketched out the more general direction but also determined the more specific solutions to most of the problems.
It would have been difficult to achieve this without the persistence, the steadfastness, and the ability of Mrs Nicole Fontaine to reconcile those things which initially appeared impossible to reconcile.
I think that my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs helped her to overcome opposition and, working closely with Bar Councils in most of the Member States, to arrive at today's report, which satisfies most people.
But the work is mainly her own and she is worthy of our heartiest congratulations.
This special directive was demanded by the profession, which had never been satisfied with the general system of Directive 89/48/EC.
The solution that is presented today is linked to three significant innovations: the permanent nature of establishment with the original professional qualification; making it easier to obtain this qualification; the practice of the profession in the welcoming Member State and the regulations concerning the collective practice of the profession.
However, more than all this, it ensures the dignity with which lawyers who establish themselves in another Member State deserve to be treated.
Citizens of medium-sized and smaller States, such as the country I have the honour of representing here in this Chamber, or even of the larger States, such as Germany, France and Great Britain, may, in this way, look to equality of treatment in other countries.
In this way the freedom of movement of persons and the freedom to establish oneself acquires much greater substance, and the European Union gains one more reason to justify its existence.
This is no small step, Madam President.
We are, of course, conscious of the fact that this directive will not automatically solve all the problems created by certain companies of lawyers.
Nor do we ignore the fact that the moment we arrive at a European solution which is more generally accepted, the problem assumes an even greater dimension through the globalization of the economy and the guidelines of the World Trade Organization which ensure the freedom of related professionals, chartered accountants and chartered surveyors, to establish themselves in almost all countries.
However, these facts do not undermine the importance of the achievement of Mrs Fontaine, and they show the way for us to address other similar problems.
Parliament, the Council and the Commission have done their duty.
Tomorrow it is the turn of the Member States.
It is now their duty, with the assistance of Bar Councils and the ever watchful surveillance of the Commission, to fully implement and exploit this forward-looking directive, which will provide opportunities and freedom.
Madam President, at this late hour and in this almost intimate atmosphere - almost like a chat between friends - allow me to begin by recounting an anecdote. When I first came to this Parliament in 1994, the only piece of internal Community legislation with which I was familiar was a single directive.
In fact, it was an unsuccessful directive.
Specifically, it was this directive about the free practice of the profession of lawyer. I was familiar with the discussions which had taken place in legal circles in Lisbon and Bremen, and I knew the directive had poor prospects.
Then I remember, in the spring of 1995 we finally received the text of the Commission's proposal, and when discussions on it started in the Committee on Legal Affairs, in October or November of that same year, I said to my colleagues in the General Council for European Lawyers, "I think it is going to happen; it will be approved within two years' .
And they smiled at me, as if to say, "Honestly, her Euro-enthusiasm knows no bounds' .
Nevertheless, Madam President, Commissioner, Mrs Fontaine, that is what we have achieved, thanks to the particular work of those people I have mentioned - especially you and your team, Commissioner.
I see that Mr de Visee is looking at me with that calm manner of his, which has been so important on many occasions.
And the rapporteur has mentioned Mr Hans Weil, to whom we all owe a great deal. Mr Weil is the epitome of a truly European lawyer: a German by birth, living in France, and practising law of a standard and worthiness that is a source of pride to us all.
So, we have managed it, and today's result is doubly valuable for me: we have demonstrated what the codecision process can achieve; there has been the highest degree of cooperation between the institutions; the Commission had the courage to issue a proposal at a time when everybody thought it was bound to fail; this House shouldered its responsibilities and, often confronting its groups in the Member States, ensured that reason prevailed over people's fears. I am looking at Mr Cot and Mr Lehne, and I am thinking of other people too, who are not with us today, but who assisted us throughout the whole process.
For I do not subscribe to the opinion, Mrs Fontaine, that this matter should be seen as a confrontation between a liberal view and a protectionist view.
We have faced up to the fears of the various Member States, manifested in different ways - in one way in Spain, another in France, and yet another in Germany.
Madam President, there is not going to be a flood of immigrants from one country to another. That is not where the political value of this directive lies.
The political value of this directive is of a symbolic nature.
This matter lies at the very heart of the building of Europe.
The labelling of toys is very important, common agricultural policy subsidies are very important, but even more important is the ability of lawyers - the people who manipulate that instrument which in the final analysis is the grand instrument of integration - should feel involved, should feel European. Recalling once again the words of the Spanish king, Alfonso the Wise: they become the true spokespeople of that European Law which we are all building.
Madam President, I asked the chairman a clear question and he has not deigned to reply to it.
What I mean is that I truly wonder why someone who is a lawyer would change countries without having a deep knowledge of the legal system of the country in which he is going to practise.
The Commissioner continues to support the demands of lawyers who ask for either an examination or a work placement, yet cannot answer me.
It is perhaps his right to say he has no answer, but he cannot be allowed to ignore justifiable parliamentary questions, that is not done!
I am happy to try and answer, Mr Wijsenbeek.
As you will certainly know, in the case of doctors, training is coordinated, which is not the case with lawyers.
The problem therefore arises in a different way.
In the case of lawyers, we were faced with an initial situation that needed a directive which today is luckily nearing final adoption.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Gender issues in development cooperation
The next item is the report (A4-0318/97) by Mrs Junker, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on integrating gender issues in development cooperation (COM(97)0265 - C4-024/97-97/0151(SYN)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the consequences of the Fourth World Conference on Women, which was held in Beijing in 1995, was the submission by the European Commission of a proposal for a regulation on the integration of gender issues in development cooperation.
This is meritorious, but it is also inadequate.
In order to develop the concept of mainstreaming to include development cooperation, we need more than a regulation which is restricted to sensitisation measures and has only been allocated a modest budget.
Of course it is good to see something being done to promote targeted projects with a high multiplier effect.
But we can only talk of a successful concept when it is immediately succeeded by measures which correct the current deficit in practical development cooperation in favour of women.
In practical terms this means defining salient points on the basis of which the living standards of women in the poorest countries can be improved by integrating gender issues in development cooperation.
By and large there has been a distinct improvement in the lot of women in recent years, even in the developing countries, though it has to be said that this has varied enormously from one region to another.
However, the gap between men and women has scarcely narrowed.
There is still much room for improvement, especially as regards the participation of women in politics in general and their involvement at governmental level in particular.
In the developing countries equality for women is also about the redistribution of labour, wealth and power.
The worldwide processes of transformation, which have also thrown the developing countries into turmoil, and the increasing globalization have together given rise to two trends which European development cooperation fails to take fully into account - namely, the feminization of the workplace, on one hand, and the feminization of poverty, on the other.
Feminization of the workplace is the result of growing adaptability in the labour market and the transfer of jobs to the developing countries, where they are being increasingly taken up by women.
This often means exploitation under the most deplorable conditions, but it also means new opportunities for women.
Their productive capacity is an increasingly important factor for economic growth and must be considered as such.
The feminization of poverty stems from the fact that women who find themselves in materially difficult situations are responsible to a significant extent for the survival of the family and are also dependent on income from their male partner, or must often do without this altogether.
The figures bear this out.
In 1970 there were only 37 gainfully-active women for every 100 working men.
By 1990 this figure had risen to 62 per 100.
In the developing countries there is a demand for cheap, adaptable, unqualified and non-Unionized labour. In most cases this means women.
However, as living standards increase, witness Hong Kong and Korea, women again become threatened by unemployment, particularly when there is a demand for technical and educational qualifications, which are often denied to women.
Sustained development as far as the female population is concerned also means that women must be imbued with skills and knowledge which are geared to the future and which create permanent employment opportunities.
The worldwide extension of the services sector creates job opportunities for women, though these are often socially unsecure. We should therefore oppose this trend.
How far women in developing countries still have to go to achieve equality of opportunity can be dramatically illustrated by taking as an example the food production and supply sector.
In the developing countries women produce more than 55 % of the cultivated food, and in Africa this rises to over 70 %, yet only 5 % of the advisory services provided to farming through international development aid goes to women.
Only 13 % of the agricultural consultants in development countries are women. In Latin America the figure is 8 %, in Africa 7 % and in the Middle East a mere 1 %.
Negative statistics of this kind can be reeled off ad infinitum.
These figures must be borne in mind if we are to put a stop to this unfortunate trend, instead of just bemoaning the situation.
The international women's movements have put the spotlight on women's lives and have contributed much to the development of a global civilized society.
Empowerment is the watchword here. This means the participation of women in political, economic and social activities so that structural changes can be made to the economy and to society in general.
The present regulation, which to my mind still requires a number of improvements - and which I am asking you to support -, is a step, albeit modest, in the right direction.
I hope that it will lead to a general programme for promoting the political development of women, and one which is really capable of making progress.
This does not mean spending vast sums of money, in fact it would constitute a major achievement if the needs and objectives of women could only become a yardstick for all development-policy measures.
Real democracy cannot exist where women are denied legal, economic and socio-political equality, and this applies just as much to the developing countries.
Madam President, Mrs Junker says in her report that men must take greater responsibility for social and reproductive behaviour if we are to truly promote the aim of equality for women in developing countries and therefore it is right that the male Members of the European Parliament take part in this debate and support her excellent report to protest against the denial of adequate reproductive health facilities to women across the world.
One-third of illnesses amongst women aged 15 to 44 in developing countries are caused by sexually transmitted diseases, back-street abortions or pregnancy.
Around 350 million women are still denied access to safe family planning.
We should protest against the impact of poverty which is felt disproportionately by women.
Seventy percent of the world's 1.3 billion poor are women and lone women heading households are increasing dramatically across the world.
We should protest against all forms of discrimination against women, which at its most extreme is represented by sexual violence and the female infanticide practised in India and China, which has not only perverted the gender ratio but has created a social atmosphere in which girls are seen as a curse.
Two years after the Council regulation was passed I do not think there is mainstreaming of gender issues in Europe's development policies.
If so, Commissioner, why was gender analysis so abysmally omitted from the Lomé Green Paper? Let us do better in the future.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, women are not being asked, but they are the answer.
Non-governmental organizations and executive bodies have known this for a long time and act accordingly, when they are allowed to.
An effective development policy cannot be implemented without the participation of women.
They are the driving force not only for their families, but also for any future development in this area.
One must in principle welcome the fact that the Commission has recognized this in its regulation and has drawn up a certain code of behaviour for practical policy implementation.
At this late - or indeed early hour, I would like to express my sincere thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Junker, whose appraisal of the present regulation has clearly set out the objectives and requirements of development cooperation from a woman's viewpoint.
Our group approves the report.
Naturally, we hope that as many as possible of its noble objectives will become a reality.
This will depend on the political will generated at all levels and also on cooperation from reliable partners in Europe and in the recipient countries.
It is the women of the world, particularly in the poorest countries, who bear the burden of life and who have to endure the stresses and strains of their circumstances.
Giving them aid in the form of self-help implies more than simply assisting individual women and their families.
The promotion and participation of women in the economic, political and social process means giving the developing countries a chance for the future.
We must therefore give all due attention to this report and this Council Regulation and wish them every success.
Allow me finally to say something about the general scope of this debate.
In fact it is not really a debate at all, but rather something undeserving of the few speakers and reporters who have to be present, and I wish at this point to express particular thanks to the interpreters and other ministering angels who have endured with us to the bitter end.
No-one is listening to us here, apart from the minute-takers and the tape-recorders.
It is unworthy, especially since the important subject under discussion is one which requires our full attention if we are to find a solution, or even to begin the search for one.
I propose that we put an end to debates of this nature.
After 10 p.m. we could, for example, state that we are giving the written text of our speeches to the secretariat.
Who is listening to us anyway? Certainly not the world, certainly not Europe, not even our fellow MEPs.
There is no-one here but ourselves.
We all know what our opinions are.
Such debates do no justice to us, let alone to the subject matter.
Madame President, the Commission's proposal to integrate the gender aspect as an important factor in development cooperation has the right aim.
As far as the implementation is concerned, not much has been done so far.
Karin Juncker talks about equal rights, but with the gender role pattern in the developing countries, what we need is rather positive discrimination in favour of women.
In other words, the aid must be tailored directly to women to do the most benefit.
We must support women directly through allocating ground, loans, better equipment and technology.
Women must be brought in at all stages of development work and in all policies.
The Commission's general mainstream approach could be part of this strategy, if the principle is otherwise put into practice and does not remain empty words.
When it comes to evaluating development aid, gender-based statistics should also be used all round.
Without such statistics, there is no way of measuring the effects on men and women respectively.
The EU does not appear to be serious on gender policy.
We saw this in the Green Paper on Lomé and in the lack of priority of staff in the field, which must be increased from its present three and appointed at high level to give them some effectiveness.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, let me first express my sincere thanks to the rapporteur for her presentation, which I hope has helped us make some headway.
In the last part-session we discussed reports dealing with the depiction of women in advertising and with violence against women, and I thought to myself that many women in developing countries would be only too glad to have our problems, rather that the burden which they have to bear.
They still have a very long road to travel.
When we call for women to have their fair share of power, income and so on, we are setting objectives which are still a very long way off indeed.
I would like the Commission to tell us if it is planning short-term measures to promote these objectives, such as moves to improve women's earnings and projects aimed at easing the daily toil of women who are responsible for supporting their families and who are certainly in no position to change their traditional circumstances overnight.
The report again raises the issue of a special committee.
I now ask the Commission to ensure that this committee continues to examine the matters referred to by Mrs Junker and that it does this in close collaboration with the Parliamentary Committee on Development and Cooperation.
I hardly dare express the hope that our amendment, which proposes the participation of Parliament in this committee, will become a reality.
I therefore ask that we cooperate as closely as possible with it so that we can improve the situation and take another step towards the complete achievement of our goals.
What interests me above all, however, are the methods which the Commission is intending to adopt in order really to include those who are suffering hardship in this respect, without using the standards of our society as a yardstick for what we believe to be good for women in developing countries.
Madam President. Two years have elapsed since the World Conference on Women in Beijing and a lot has happened - but it is still not enough.
I also see that the Commission's proposal and the proposed regulation are a step in the right direction, namely mainstreaming, and that they focus on gender issues in development cooperation.
However, while we have made a number of starts, we have seen very few practical proposals.
The Commission's administrative services are understaffed.
There is no real support for those nongovernmental organizations in the developing countries which are providing direct aid to women.
Traditions have become ingrained and the regulation contains little about combatting violence.
We have scarcely touched on trafficking in women - a new phenomenon in our society and one which has assumed alarming proportions.
I must reiterate that if we are to achieve sustained development here, we will have to include women much more in the drafting, planning, implementation and evaluation of the projects in question.
If we are to take the findings of the World Conference on Women seriously, then we need to come up with some real results.
Let me conclude by emphasizing that women are the vital ingredient for future development.
We have already brought this out in the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights.
Women are the key to sustained development because with them you always have the next generation on board, so to speak.
All current findings, such as the experience with micro-credits, indicate that women must be regarded as the key to future development.
Madam President, the Commission welcomes the draft report by Parliament and expresses its appreciation of the support given by Parliament to the creation of this budget line in 1990 and to policy developments since the Beijing Conference in 1995.
The Commission's position on the 18 amendments submitted for consideration and voting is as follows.
We can accept fully seven Amendments: Nos 1, 2, 4 (as concerns articles 1(2)), 5, 7, 8 and 11.
The Commission much appreciated in particular Parliament's support for the regulation's overall approach.
This seeks to prioritize strategic sensitization functions, which can improve the overall quality of the Community's whole development/cooperation concerning gender issues and focusing particularly on the major development budget lines rather than financing small-scale initiatives for women in isolation, which will not have an impact on the scale required.
We can also partially embrace Amendment Nos 3 and 9.
In both these cases there seems to be substantial policy agreement with the objective of the amendment but we would suggest rewording in order to clarify the text.
We are unable to accept the following amendments: Nos 4 (as concerns article 1(1)) and 12 to 18 inclusive.
The Commission's detailed comments on the amendments which we cannot accept or where a rewording is suggested are as follows.
In Amendment No 3 to recital 17, the amendment's wording needs revision to retain clear criteria for the budget line.
We would suggest deletion of the word 'small-scale' from the amended text, and that the last phrase should read as follows: ' European Union funds for operational development projects should be used more for interventions which integrate gender issues or specifically target inequalities between women and men' .
In Amendment No 4 to article 1(1), consistency with existing policy and the outcome of the Beijing Conference necessitate retaining the references to mainstreaming and to intervention, as well as policies.
In Amendment No 6, we wish to retain the reference to the need for action against gender disparities 'on an appropriate scale' .
The extent of gender gaps in fundamental areas such as literacy, access to health care and nutrition is clear from the Beijing Conference, which also emphasized the need for large-scale action.
This does not necessarily imply additional funding but rather a reallocation of existing funds.
In Amendment No 9, we welcome the amendment's proposed intention but find the extension of scope too ambitious for the human or financial resources available so far.
We could accept a reference to decision-makers, and I suggest 'within the Commission and in developing countries' as an alternative.
In Amendment No 10, the regulation is concerned with development cooperation and cannot easily address issues of trade - at least of international trade.
In Amendment No 12, we prefer to retain the flexibility of the references to services.
This is a standard text approved in many other recent regulations.
Restriction of cover for operating costs would cause problems for some projects covered by these budgets, particularly support for institution building which often requires some support for these items throughout the project before reaching viability.
The proposal for a new subarticle referring to the budgetary authority's powers seems to us premature.
This question should be considered at a second reading as it is normally addressed only in response to specific Council proposals for indicative budget figures.
In Amendment Nos 13 and 14, we prefer for reasons of consistency and legal clarity to retain the framework established in a series of recent regulations of this type.
In Amendment No 15, we support Parliament's desire to reduce costs to the EC budget but think that the Member States might reasonably wish to retain an option of additional representation for important or specialized projects.
We find the additional reporting requirement unnecessary as full annual reporting to Parliament is already provided for in article 9(1).
The proposal for the committee to coordinate bilateral and Community cooperation, is too ambitious and exceeds the competence of the committee.
Concerning the declarations of interest, the Commission does not think that inserting references in legislation is the most effective or appropriate approach.
Generally concerning comitology, and particularly in Amendment Nos 12, 15 and 18, we favour retention of agreed comitology for reasons of consistency, practicality and clarity.
Changes of minor detail to their organization and competence in every regulation are impracticable, particularly as these committees in practice deal with projects under numerous different regulations at each sitting.
In Amendment Nos 16 and 17, we appreciate Parliament's intention but these are internal administrative questions which cannot be appropriately addressed in legislation.
Let me add that the Commission's proposals, made just a week ago to Council and also to Parliament, for the political framework for the future Lomé Convention, identify quite clearly the strategic approach in the future Lomé Convention.
I am very pleased to say that if something is underlined as a top priority, it is the mainstreaming on gender issues and, not only that, of taking it into account in the strategic approach for development that the Union should adopt according to the proposals of the Commission.
Finally, this is just a simple regulation but I think this topic merits a major debate.
I fully agree with the honourable parliamentarian who regretted so few Members were here, because this is important and deserves the full attention of this House.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 0.25 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
Mr Janssen van Raay has just indicated a desire that the Bureau should deal with the question raised by Mr Killilea, in his procedural motion.
I can say to you, Mr Janssen van Raay, that the Bureau has already looked at this question, and believes it was a very serious one.
The President and the Bureau have decided that Ms McKenna would receive a letter from the President in which the President would express to Ms McKenna his surprise and consternation.
If, as we have every reason to believe, she has accused officials of this parliament without proof, of course the necessary follow-up action to these serious accusations will take place.
That is what I wanted to say.
I will simply add that this process of self-destruction is becoming more and more unhealthy and dangerous.
Ms McKenna, you will receive the letter in a few hours.
Under Rule 108 I should actually have three minutes to reply, if my name is mentioned, and in that connection I would just like to read out a letter from the State Prosecutor of Belgium: 'In reply to your letter of 10 July 1997...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Madam President, yesterday the Dutch member of the Court of Auditors, Mr Engwirda, gave a press conference in the Netherlands about the Court of Auditors' report.
Dutch radio, it was conveyed to me indirectly, reported that Mr Engwirda was alleged to have said that 70 % of members of the European Parliament misuse the travel expense arrangements; 70 % of the members of the European Parliament are alleged to misuse travel expenses.
The report of the Court of Auditors states that 69 % of the members of the Committee on Social and Economic Affairs are alleged to have committed irregularities with travel expenses, not the European Parliament.
One or the other; either Mr Engwirda has expressed himself incorrectly, or he was quoted incorrectly by Dutch radio.
In any case, the damage in the Netherlands is yet again vast.
I would therefore like to ask, Madam President, whether the President of the European the Parliament could contact Mr Friedmann of the Court of Auditors to obtain clarification about what Mr Engwirda said, and issue a statement in which it is made clear that the Court of Auditors did not make a pronouncement about this House.
That was my first question.
The second question. Perhaps the President can tell us why members of the Court of Auditors give out press statements in our Member States when the debate has not even begun in the European Parliament.
Madam President, I cannot say I find that very elegant.
Thirdly, Madam President, I think that we all know that the Court of Auditors is also investigating the travel expenses of this House.
I would therefore urge again, that the Bureau carries out the decisions taken by the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents in July, according to which the travel expense arrangements of this House need to be reformed.
The principal decisions have been taken.
Now they must be implemented.
It is, I think, in the interest of this House that these decisions are implemented before 1 January.
Thank you, Mr De Vries.
I can assure you that the President will do everything necessary to throw light on these matters, as you ask.
Madam President, after the excellent remarks by Mr De Vries I can be very brief, because I had wanted to speak on exactly the same point.
I totally agree with Mr De Vries, and I ask the Bureau of Parliament to make a statement about this issue which is increasingly damaging this Parliament as soon as possible.
Madam President, thank you for your support on my right under Rule 108.
I was quite surprised that I was going to be censored like this.
I am not going to apologize, I want to put on record...
I have a right to defend myself under Rule 108 and you are wasting my time by interrupting me.
The problem is, firstly, that I still stand by the allegations I have made as regards the fact that you cannot justify the expenditure on the new building and it has to be investigated.
What I said in the newspaper was that, unless these investigations were carried out, the public were going to assume that there was corruption going on, and we have a duty in this House to get things investigated.
In that regard, I just want to read out a letter from the State Prosecutor in Belgium: ' In reply to your letter of 10 June 1997, 020211, I hereby inform you that a criminal investigation is under way into matters, including the possible misappropriation of funds belonging to Belgian public works contractors which took part in the construction of the European Parliament's property complex in Brussels D1, D2 and D3 buildings.
The investigation is focusing in part on the possible payments of secret commissions to intermediaries with a view to securing contracts.
It may therefore call into question the actions of individuals, officials and politicians, some of whom enjoy immunity.
However, at this stage in the procedure, no such persons are involved.
Should incriminating evidence emerge, it goes without saying that the relevant procedures would be implemented.
I hope I have allayed your concerns. (Closing formula and signature)' .
I think that it is the duty of this House to realize that what is going on here is that the public perception of this House has to be taken into account, that we have to support any investigation, and even Members of this House have called for an independent investigation on what is going on. The cost of the new building is unjustifiable.
We are going to be using that new building and therefore we have a duty to have these questions answered.
I cannot be totally responsible for the way tabloid newspapers report things but I am still saying that I stand by what I said.
I also contacted the journalist involved yesterday and I told him that there were inaccuracies and I followed it up with a letter of which you can have a copy. But you are doing yourselves and this House a disservice by shooting the messenger, which is what you are doing here.
(Applause from the Green Group and non-attached Members)
Ms McKenna, I would really like to appeal to your conscience.
Do you have any consciousness of the gravity of repeating such words which cast suspicion on all the officials of the European Parliament? This is extremely serious.
People say either too much, or not enough.
Let the legal proceedings run their course.
If there really are people involved, they must be cited, but here, you are making unsubstantiated accusations, and you are passing on the content of this letter to the newspapers.
This will throw discredit upon the institution.
It is very unjust.
I do not think we can get into a debate on this point.
We are at the heart of something very serious taking place in this Parliament.
I really wanted to say that.
(Interruption from Mr Cohn-Bendit) No, Mr Cohn-Bendit, we cannot extend...
(Mixed react ions) But I am not attacking him!
Ms McKenna will receive the letter from the President. She will decided what response she needs to make to the President, and then we will see.
I do not think we can prolong this debate.
Mr Cohn-Bendit, you should not be contemptuous of a colleague!
Ladies and gentlemen, as you have heard, and I note it myself with satisfaction, Mr Cohn-Bendit has just corrected the words that were attributed to Ms McKenna in the press.
I now believe that Ms McKenna needs do no more than correct her words in similar manner, in response to a request from the President, and then we will see more clearly into the whole business. It has escaped nobody that there is a world of difference between what has Mr Cohn-Bendit has just said and what we all read in the press.
We will now move on to adoption of the Minutes.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, I would like to ask if you could request the Commission to give a statement tomorrow on the situation in Iraq in accordance with Rule 37, paragraph 7.
Why do I ask for this statement?
Because we believe that the situation in Iraq could, in fact, change at any moment, and any resolution we submit tomorrow could be superseded within an hour; however, we think it is necessary for us to be well acquainted with the Security Council resolutions, in unabridged version.
That is why we would like you to ask the European Commission to make a statement tomorrow during the period which is available for urgent matters.
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
That is a request under Rule 37.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I want to rise, on behalf of my group, to support that request.
You may know that there was considerable discussion in the Conference of Presidents about this last week and at the time one of the questions which I and others raised was: what exactly does one say at this point in time on a very complex and sensitive issue? It is appropriate that, if we can get a statement from the Commission, we should have thirty minutes of questions under Rule 37(6) of our Rules of Procedure.
This will allow us to examine and hear the views on this issue in an atmosphere which does not mean that we are adding to and exacerbating the problems.
I would endorse the request.
It is important that we deal with this before urgencies and objections because there are at present only four items on the urgency agenda.
We could indeed take this as the first item with half an hour set aside for questions specifically on Iraq.
Madam President, on this matter, I believe that a statement from the Commission would be welcome, but above all, we need a statement from the Council, as the Council has responsibility for the CFSP, not the Commission.
I do not believe the Council will be present tomorrow. And I regret that.
Ladies and gentlemen, a proposal has been made, from two political groups.
It complies with the rules.
This half hour of questions to the Commission would fall within the timeslot allocated for urgent matters, and preferably before then.
The statement would then take place from 3 p.m. to 3: 30 p.m. tomorrow.
Are there any objections?
There being no objections, that decision stands.
Madam President, please allow me to object to this procedure.
You know the Rules better than I do.
The proposal put forward has, it appears, come from two major groups who last week refused to accept a specific point on Iraq being put on the agenda.
You have taken up the proposal on your own initiative, because you know the Rules.
Indeed, only the President can make a proposal during the sitting itself.
However, the first urgent matter before you was raised by our group, with a view to raising the question of Iraq as the first urgent matter of major importance.
Mr Pasty is quite right.
Asking the Commission questions does not mean much.
Let us have a political debate on Iraq, and let us vote, and let everyone declare where their responsibilities lie with regard to this crisis.
Mr Dell'Alba, in reality, we are all fundamentally in agreement about having a debate on the question, which is indeed a topical subject of major importance.
I shall put my proposal to the vote.
(Parliament approved the President's proposal)
Topical and urgent debate
Pursuant to Rule 47, I have received objections in writing giving reasons for the objections to the agenda for tomorrow morning's debate on topical and urgent subjects of special importance.
Mr Dell'Alba and Mr De Vries, the objection that you raised to putting the subject of Iraq on the agenda as an urgent matter is now void, given the decision we have just taken .
Before subject I
Madam President, I would like to speak on the subject of Togo.
In fact, we all know that...
Mr Aldo, I cannot let you continue.
The Rule is, objections regarding topical and urgent subjects are raised but cannot be debated.
This is not a point of debate, this is a point of order, Madam President.
A point of order under what Rule, Mr Aldo?
Rule 127a, Madam President.
I request thirty seconds.
Togo is part of the Joint Assembly of the ACP and European Union, which operates under rules of procedure approved by us.
However, today, we are asked to take a vote which is in violation of the procedures of the Joint Assembly of the European Union and ACP.
This is why our group, Madam President, is opposed to any debate or vote on the Togo dossier, which was the subject of a debate and a vote in the Joint Assembly fifteen days ago, and the result of which was a rejection of the dossier.
As you have presented matters, Mr Aldo, you can be deemed to have remained within Rule 127.
Treaty of Amsterdam
The next item is the report (A4-0347/97) by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the Treaty of Amsterdam (CONF 4007/97 - C4-0538/97).
Madam President, this debate is the final act in a long process which began last June, when Parliament appointed Mr Tsatsos and I co-rapporteurs for the report on the Amsterdam Treaty.
Seventeen parliamentary committees, the representatives of the national parliaments - with whom we held a meeting last October - non-governmental organizations, and, especially, the Committee on Institutional Affairs have taken part in this process.
I believe that any assessment of the Amsterdam Treaty must be made from two points of view.
The first is the political circumstances surrounding the treaty. And the political circumstances of last June were not as favourable as they could have been.
The Members will recall that various elections were taking place, and that - especially - the Member States' attention was concentrated on maintaining the timetable for the introduction of the euro.
That was a good thing, in my view. I believe that the euro will provide an extremely important focus for the progress of European integration, but I wish to make clear that the political circumstances for revising the Treaties were not as favourable as they could have been.
Secondly, the Amsterdam Treaty must be assessed from the point of view of its content.
And its content cannot be evaluated in relation to the expectations that existed, or even in relation to whatever aspirations Parliament may have had.
It must be evaluated in relation to what was there before: that is, the Treaty on European Union.
And, in this regard, from the very beginning, Mr Tsatsos and I wished to send a clear political message: the Amsterdam Treaty represents substantial progress for the process of European integration.
Firstly, there is progress with regard to what we term the Community pillar. These advances are summarized in former article F, in which there are new points on the fundamental rights of European citizens and the affirmation that the Union is a Community based on the rule of law in which the principles of liberty, democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms are paramount.
At the same time, however, it is a Community based on values. It is not simply a common market: it is a Community based on values.
And the proof of this is the introduction of new policies for the environment, consumers, public health and - especially - social protection. I recall, Madam President, that when I entered Parliament I was surprised that there were no Community measures to combat employment.
A good friend and eminent Member of this Parliament explained to me that Europe was an Economic Community, and that there would never be Community social policies or measures to combat employment. Well, five years is nothing in politics.
Now there are Community measures to combat employment. It is true - as is frequently mentioned in this House - that they are inadequate.
That is true.
But the important thing is that the seed, the possibility, exists. Those who say that the available funds are insufficient are right.
But there is the possibility of increasing those funds. And experience shows that once a road begins, it widens and more progress is made.
As far as the common foreign and security policy - the second pillar - is concerned, the Amsterdam Treaty rationalizes the existing legal instruments and creates new bodies of a political nature, such as the strategic planning and early warning unit; and the new role for the Secretary-General of the Council will increase the operational ability of the troika.
All this is positive, but, in the field of foreign policy, the most important thing is political will.
There will be no common foreign policy until the Member States' governments feel the need for one. And, undoubtedly, until the people of our countries feel the need for one too, the legal instruments which we desire will be worthless.
There is a need to create that political will.
Perhaps far less progress was made in the field of security and defence than we would have wished, but we have to make use of what there is.
The Petersberg Tasks can become the launching pad for a European security and defence identity.
With regard to the third pillar - justice and home affairs - nothing is so deeply rooted in the sovereignty of the Member States. Under the Maastricht Treaty, matters of justice and home affairs are discussed in the framework of intergovernmental cooperation.
But the Amsterdam Treaty takes a giant leap forward by recognizing that these matters belong under the Community pillar, that they are best dealt with by the Community method, not the intergovernmental method. It is true that there are limitations.
But, instead of lamenting the fact, we must try to restrict those limitations. There are means with which to do this, and the annexed declaration along these lines introduced by Germany is, of course, a step in the right direction.
The Amsterdam Treaty also lays down important rules concerning the subsidiarity principle and the participation of the national parliaments via COSAC - and I wish to pay tribute to Mrs Fontaine, who chairs that conference so effectively.
Nevertheless, there is a major omission in the Amsterdam Treaty. And that omission is institutional reform: the institutional reform that is necessary for the Union to be able to function effectively and democratically with 15 Member States, and is absolutely vital for it to be able to function at all after enlargement.
Mr Tsatsos and I have therefore proposed a method for preparing this essential institutional reform. And this method is a Community method.
We are suggesting that the system of intergovernmental conferences has reached the limit of its usefulness, and we are calling for the Community method to be used to solve this problem, whereby the Commission draws up a report with proposals for the essential reform of the Union's institutions, which is then debated by Parliament and forwarded to the national parliaments in accordance with the COSAC protocol. At our last COSAC meeting - which took place just a few days ago, in Luxembourg - the responses of the representatives of the national parliaments were extremely positive.
They are interested in taking the Union forward politically, and I believe that we can depend on them and work together with them. And if we - the Commission, the European Parliament and the national parliaments - succeed in drawing up a joint text, that text could be put on the table at the Intergovernmental Conference and serve as the basis for the final agreement to be adopted by the Member States' governments.
Parliament does not wish to alter the meaning of article N. It does not wish to do anything outside the strict framework of the treaties. What it wishes to do is contribute to resolving a problem that is currently outstanding in the European Union.
And the way for it to do that is for it to move from playing the promotional role that it has played in the past to playing the codecision role envisaged for it in the Amsterdam Treaty.
In continuation, Madam President, I wish to thank Mr Tsatsos - with whom I greatly enjoyed drawing up this report; and I think that our duo worked extremely well - for his patience with me, as well as thanking the Committee on Institutional Affairs, the secretariat, which did a marvellous job, and all my collaborators.
I should like to end by referring to the vote this afternoon.
I do not wish to address those who are going to vote against, because they will always oppose the progress of Europe.
Rather, I wish to address those who are good Europeans, who have always been in the vanguard of European integration, but who are currently tempted to abstain or vote against because they believe that the Amsterdam Treaty is inadequate. I would recall the words spoken by Ortega y Gasset, in a speech that he made in Berlin, with reference to Miguel de Cervantes, who said, when he was old and tired of life, that there are times in a man's life when he has to choose between the inn and the road.
Choosing the inn means not moving, standing still.
Choosing the road means moving forward.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is a road.
Undoubtedly, it is a road which is too short for our ambitions.
Undoubtedly, it is a road which is too narrow - many of us would have wished that road to be a broad avenue.
But it is more important to choose the road and move forward than to choose the inn and stand still.
I would therefore urge all those who have always wanted to take Europe forward, who have always been in the vanguard of European integration, to reflect on this and join in building that road.
Madam President, I will limit myself to the structures and logic of the resolution.
The draft resolution that we are being asked to decide on refers to the past, the present and the future.
First of all, Mr Méndez de Vigo and I have attempted to assess politically the vital elements of the past.
In this respect we have stressed the pragmatic and decisive influence that the European Parliament has had on the content of the new treaty.
This influence, although it cannot rely on its - unfortunately non-existent - consolidation, has been won through the tenacious political activity of the European Parliament, chiefly through its previous resolutions.
Secondly, the draft resolution makes a political assessment of the historic present.
The people of Europe must be informed of the reasons why the European Parliament considers the albeit qualified ratification, but the ratification nevertheless, of the treaty, to be a historic duty.
On this point the report underlines the crucial steps that have contributed to the European issue without, however, suppressing omissions and errors.
Thirdly, we politically assess the draft resolution with regard to a historic future.
Our criticism of the treaty is not only by way of a protest but is chiefly constructive in nature.
With our eyes firmly fixed on the future, we are demanding that those steps be taken that have not yet been taken and we are proposing a new methodology for the future, as my colleague and friend, Mr Méndez de Vigo, has already mentioned.
I shall now come to the basic philosophy of the resolution.
Our first objective was to put before you a consensus view on Europe.
We believe that Europe is not only a union of peoples but also a union of states.
Processes of unification must, of course, lead to deeper understanding, which, however, must respect national constitutional governments.
Only as long as the peoples of Europe are actively reconciled with the idea of a European Union, only as long as the peoples of Europe do not consider the process of integration to be a danger to their national and cultural identity, only then will Europe successfully move forward.
Anyone who imagines European integration to be outside and beyond the will of the people, is guilty of fundamentally misunderstanding the European question.
For this reason, we strongly welcome the fact that the treaty transfers a number of chapters from the third to the first pillar (the social package, a large section of the Schengen report, coordination of employment policy) and also the fact that the treaty treads with care in areas where national identity is a particularly sensitive issue.
In the Amsterdam Treaty the issue of unemployment is of primary importance for the European Parliament.
Of course, as rapporteurs, we know that what has been agreed does not constitute a political reality just because it has been agreed.
As my co-rapporteur has stressed, we need the corresponding political will for it to take shape.
The draft resolution takes a critical stance on institutional reform.
Institutional reform has not, in essence, come about.
For this reason, I move that the European Parliament clearly states that, before each enlargement of the European Union takes place, there has to be corresponding institutional reform.
Allow me to mention two examples: the transition from the principle of unanimity to the principle of majority voting during the taking of decisions in the Council is necessary chiefly because of the projected enlargement, At the same time, however, this transition is meaningless if we do not maintain some basic exceptions in support of the principle of unanimity in constitutional matters.
The realigning, or reweighting, of votes in the Council is generally considered to be necessary.
For this precise reason, a method of implementing this must be studied and debated to ensure that it will not disturb the balance between small and large States, which is the outcome of the fundamental principle of equality among Member States.
I shall now come to the historical perspective, which my co-rapporteur, Mr Méndez de Vigo, has already given a thorough account of.
The development of European institutions must cease to be, chiefly and exclusively, a matter of diplomacy and bureaucracy.
It must form part of the political process.
The basis of a new revision procedure that we are proposing will be the initiative of the European Parliament, of national governments, and of the European Commission alike.
This means that the visions of the citizens that we represent will be those that will form the basis and the framework of the decisions of the next conference.
Only in this way can we entrust the fate of these institutions to their natural channels.
With our proposal, however, the ability of the national governments to pass legislation will be fully exploited and, at the same time, the cooperation of national parliaments will place the issue of Europe at the centre of national political debate, which is something that we have sought for years, but without success.
Madam President, my colleague, Mr Méndez de Vigo, and I have aspired to push for a new role for the European Parliament, a role it will share with national parliaments and which will justify its place as the vehicle and the champion of a new democratic idea in Europe.
Madam President, in presenting my opinion on this Treaty to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I said that it was like a glass of water: you could describe it either as half empty or as half full.
In terms of the common foreign and security policy, this treaty does not give us as much as we would want, and certainly not as much as Europe needs.
I do not believe that we have passed the crucial point at which we will have a coherent ability to influence world affairs.
I and my committee are suspicious of the decision-making formulas generated in Amsterdam.
But on the other hand there is some progress on which I believe we can, as a Parliament, build pragmatically and help the Union forward.
We welcome the establishment of the Analysis and Planning Unit.
It gives us continuity and it is based in Brussels.
It may help us to escape intellectually from the 'tripartite ad-hocery' of the existing system.
Similarly, I welcome the new role for the Secretary-General of the Council, again an individual specifically located and identifiable, and someone with whom we can build an intellectual and an ongoing relationship.
I echo what Mr Tsatsos has just said about working with national parliaments. That is particularly important in the development of a common foreign and security policy because between us - between all the parliaments of Europe - we need to destroy the myth of executive exclusivity that has too long dominated discussions of foreign policy.
I believe there is much that this Parliament could do, but we will only be able to do it if we build on the quality and the consistency of our own comments on foreign policy.
I believe we took a good step forward in our decision taken earlier this morning to ask for a Commission statement on Iraq.
The weakness of the system is shown by our inability to obtain a Council statement on Iraq.
We can welcome the inclusion of the Petersberg Tasks in the treaty, while regretting the delay in the architectural restructuring of our defence in terms of the involvement of Western European Union with the European Union.
In summary, I would say that in its common foreign and security policy aspects the treaty is pedestrian. It is to an extent disappointing.
But it is worth having. To echo Mr Méndez de Vigo, this is a road worth travelling even if it is a road that we still travel largely in hope.
Madam President, in its opinion annexed to this report, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development makes a negative assessment of the Amsterdam Treaty, specifying the inadequacies of the draft treaty's agricultural provisions and making clear its disappointment.
Our committee considers it a very serious matter that the European Parliament's legislative and supervisory powers in the agricultural sphere have not been widened.
It believes that the fact that a Community policy like the CAP remains excluded from adequate democratic control by Parliament means that a serious democratic deficit still exists in the Union, requiring the extension of the codecision procedure to include agricultural policy.
Nevertheless, this report manages to steer this criticism and these demands in a positive, forward-looking direction, enabling the Committee on Agriculture to change its initial "No' vote into a "Yes' vote for the Tsatsos-Méndez de Vigo report, which genuinely serves to mitigate the inadequacies of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Thus, ironically, what is actually a critical report by Parliament becomes the best tool for rectifying the shortcomings of this new treaty.
The co-rapporteurs and Parliament have produced an excellent piece of work which will enhance the value of this problematic treaty.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it was easy for the Committee on Budgets to examine the Treaty of Amsterdam, as nothing came out of the treaty which met the expectations raised by and commitments entered into by the governments themselves when they signed the agreement on institutional affairs in 1993.
They undertook jointly with us to deal with budget matters, the revision of the budget rules and principles so as to achieve a clarification of procedures, simplification, better concertation, and so far as possible the disappearance or at all events the elimination of this archaic practice of differentiating between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
They had undertaken to examine all these matters, undertakings which were repeated at the opening of the Turin Conference, and as was time and again requested by the Parliament.
In spite of that, nothing took place at Amsterdam.
Commissioner Liikanen knows this very well, we all know this, and that is why, from that point of view, our task is easy.
We have of course stigmatized the attitude of governments and the results of Amsterdam, and have requested the measures contained in the report of Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos, namely the paragraph which raises the demand that, in the budget field - and that includes the European development fund - there be a jointl, properly operating and democratic relationship between the two branches of the budget authority, and that the system of own resources be reviewed and subject to the approval of Parliament.
This is in my view an important point of the Tsatsos report, which reflects the concerns of the Committee on Budgets on this point.
Of course the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy must be very disappointed - to put it mildly - that no energy chapter has been included in the treaty, especially if you consider that energy will be a priority in the internal politics of Agenda 2000.
We now have the single market for energy, after all.
And, of course, you have to criticize the fact that Euratom has been totally overlooked too.
The issue here has nothing to do with Safeguard, but the entire nuclear industry, and in this area Parliament has absolutely no participation rights, a fact we deplore and are constantly complaining about.
All that happens is we are kept informed - and this in an area of policy that provokes very different reactions in all the Member States!
We would have, therefore, found it very beneficial - and we must continue to insist on this - if these two key policy areas which we are all so dependent upon had been incorporated into the treaty.
It is becoming urgently necessary that Parliament receives full participation rights here and that we do not just have the appropriate funds at our disposal.
Otherwise, democratic control is impossible, and without democratic control there can be no acceptance and still less any credibility.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the principal demands on foreign trade have been laid down in several resolutions of the European Parliament: the object being to bolster the links between foreign and security policy, foreign trade policy, and development and cooperation.
We demanded the introduction of a common foreign trade policy, including commerce, trade, services and capital transactions, intellectual property, investments, freedom of establishment and competition.
We demanded a definition of the provisions made for the Union's participation in international economic organizations, especially the World Trade Organization.
We further demanded that Parliament's powers be strengthened when it comes to formulating new strategies, negotiating mandates and monitoring talks in the area of foreign trade.
What is the outcome? I personally am of the opinion that the European Parliament has achieved a lot.
In terms of foreign trade policy, however, we have been disappointed to the point of humiliation.
The Commission in particular has been humiliated.
I hope the Commission for its part will do something about the miserable effect of applying article 113.
In international negotiations - as occur within the framework of the world trade organizations - it will not be possible in future for the Commission to speak with one voice for the European Union on the question of telecommunications and services, I regret to say, since the attempts to implement this have been rejected.
The main problem was with extending article 113's area of application so as, if need be, to clear up any ambiguities that might exist as to the respective jurisdiction of the Union and the Member States, and to place the Union in a position to speak in unison at the negotiations of international organizations.
The original motion was initially weakened and finally dropped entirely.
The reasons for this are no doubt numerous.
In conclusion I would like to say that for the European Parliament the demand that we adapt to new challenges will be the most important point on the agenda.
The politics of international competition require a unanimous approach in the relevant negotiations.
I hope that this can be implemented in practice.
Thank you for your patience.
I want to start by congratulating Mr Méndez De Vigo and Mr Tsatsos for their excellent, comprehensive report on the Treaty of Amsterdam. I recognized much of what the Social Committee has wanted to raise in the past.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I believe that the Treaty of Amsterdam is a success, and that it offers new opportunities for a social Europe.
Whether the treaty will succeed will depend primarily, however, on the way the Member States and European institutions implement it.
We are particularly pleased with the inclusion of the social protocol in the treaty, as well as with the inclusion of a number of other social provisions.
This signals that social policy in Europe will be raised to the same level as economic policy.
Even though there are still too many issues which will need unanimous decision.
Instead of an economic and monetary union we will now get a social and monetary Union.
In other words, not EMU, but SMU.
The inclusion of social protocol means social dialogue now forms part of the treaty.
We submitted an amendment for this, which has also been included in the report, as interinstitutional agreement on this needs to be reached very urgently.
A second important improvement is the inclusion of the employment chapter in the new treaty.
This means that guidelines can be adopted, and that trial projects can be set up.
Madam President, what matters now is that what we have achieved in social and employment policy is actively implemented.
Parliament, together with other institutions, will have to do a great deal to get his going.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I would first like to say that I believe that the Amsterdam Treaty has positive aspects and represents a victory for Europe, progress for Europe.
People might say that it is a Pyrrhic victory, a limited victory, but the time of great leaps forward has passed and this draft treaty represents a significant, though modest, advance.
I shall restrict myself to referring to the regional policy aspects.
First, the draft treaty recognizes the fact that the outermost regions present the European Union with significant and unique problems.
It also refers to the specific problems faced by certain regions because they are islands - even regions which could be classed as rich, such as the Balearic Islands, which I represent.
I also welcome the fact that importance has been attached to crossborder problems.
For the first time, a reference to cross-border cooperation - which, let us not forget, is one of the building blocks of European integration - has been incorporated into the Treaties.
As Robert Schuman said, borders are the scars of Europe's history.
It is important that Parliament should consult the Committee of the Regions on cross-border problems, because this means recognizing that it is at the level of the regions, at the level of the institution that is closest to the people, that such problems can be dealt with most effectively. I therefore welcome this reference to cross-border problems in relation to the Committee of the Regions.
On the other hand, I too regret the fact that the draft treaty does not provide for the right of regions with legislative powers to bring proceedings in the Court of Justice.
Nevertheless, I consider that this draft treaty represents a positive step forward as far as the European Union's regional policy is concerned.
Madam President, in the field of education and culture, the Amsterdam Treaty does not meet the expectations that it raised.
I will not have the time to undertake a complete review of what remains of our proposals. However I would like to make some comments.
While we appreciated that fact that the treaty made reference to sport - although without giving it a legal basis - we regret that youth should once again have been left out.
There is no official mention of the rights of the child nor of the European civilian volunteer service in the treaty.
We would also have liked those who drafted the treaty to have projected themselves into the future and taken into account the information society and its consequences.
But that is not the most serious aspect of things.
What gives cause for despair - and I weigh my words - is the treatment reserved to culture and that notorious article 128.
The principle of co-decision, which is a good thing in itself, associated with the maintenance of unanimous voting rights at the Council level, means that all cultural policy is sterile.
We have only to look at the 'culture programmes' to be convinced of this.
However, it is with culture and education that we shall construct a solid, open Europe, rich in values and in cultural diversity.
The problem is how to convince those who reason only in terms of growth rates and economic criteria.
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate both rapporteurs, Mr Tsatsos and Mr Méndez de Vigo, on their excellent work.
On behalf of the Committee on Development, I would like to make the following comments.
First, we welcome the extension of the codecision procedure to the common development policy and we regard this as being a positive innovation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Secondly, we regret that the European development fund has not been incorporated into the Community budget, and also that Community competence in the area of developmental cooperation remains limited and outside the policies implemented by the Member States.
Thirdly, we consider that the new treaty has not made sufficient progress with regard to the expansion of the cohesion and the coherence of external activities, which include, of course, developmental policy.
Fourthly, we consider that the new treaty unfortunately does not contain adequate means and recommendations for facing many of the enormous challenges of the twenty first century, a large number of which are mirrored in the developmental policy.
Finally, notwithstanding all the above, since we agree with the view expressed by both the rapporteurs that, despite all its problems, the Amsterdam Treaty is a step in the right direction, we declare ourselves in favour of the ratification of the treaty.
Madam President, the Amsterdam Treaty could not make friends with Blue Europe.
Even forty years after signing the Treaty of Rome, only legal scholars and other experts in Community law are likely to find the fishing policy in the treaty creating the European Community, and then to find it hidden, in fact, once in article 38 and a second time in annex II, chapter 3 between edible slaughtered waste, birds' eggs and natural honey.
From a purely legal point of view, fishing is included in agricultural policy.
Anyone who has been carefully following the debates in this House will understand that we do not have to wrestle with surpluses as farming does.
On the contrary, we have to contend with the catastrophe of oceans being fished empty.
Consequently, in their Intergovernmental Conference resolutions, the Committee on Fisheries and the European Parliament have called for the inclusion of a separate chapter on this issue in the new treaty.
A chapter that sets out the fundamental objectives of a responsible fishing policy.
Sadly, the Heads of State and of Government at Amsterdam have failed to comply with this.
The same applies to codecision.
Fishing was unable to benefit from the extension of this procedure.
That is why I am grateful to the rapporteurs and the Committee on Institutional Affairs that the resolution calls for this procedure to be extended to fishing policy.
One final point: international agreements are a most important part of the common fishing policy.
Hence, this coming Friday, for example, we will be debating four international agreements at the part-session here, yet despite this - contrary to our demands at the Intergovernmental Conference - only the consultation procedure will be used.
Here, too, I am grateful that the resolution demands that the procedure for approving key international agreements be extended.
The next intergovernmental conference will not be far away, and our demands for a policy on fishing will not be far away either!
Madam President, the Committee on Women's Rights is convinced that the draft Treaty of Amsterdam represents a step forward politically, since it codifies the principle of non-discrimination according to sex as a fundamental principle of Community law, and quotes equality of the sexes as one of the objectives of the Treaty on European Union.
It should especially be congratulated on its promotion of equality between men and women in Community posts and on recognizing the importance of mainstreaming and active equal opportunity policies in all Community actions.
The Committee on Women's Rights also considers that the distinction it makes between employment and the wider concept of work shows that it has attempted to include all aspects of women's activities, in addition to paid employment.
It appeals to the Commission, and especially Commissioner Oreja, to aim its information campaigns in favour of ratification in all Member States specifically at women, thus raising levels of awareness of what they have to gain under the proposed treaty.
Finally, the Committee on Women's Rights calls for a conference, to be organized jointly by the Commission and the Parliament, to inform and mobilize the greatest possible number of women on elected bodies and NGOs in all Member States to campaign for the ratification of the treaty.
Madam President, the Treaty of Amsterdam contains significant advances on issues relating to fundamental rights, non-discrimination, freedom of movement and citizenship and also guarantees of those rights through control by legal institutions and the right of petition itself.
Our main concern is to ensure that these rights can be effectively exercised, and we therefore fear that insufficient institutional reforms in Amsterdam will prolong the ineffectiveness of the decision-making process designed to implement the rules of the treaty.
Our approach therefore has been to read the treaty objectively, without either wildly over-stating its advances or being hyper-critical of it as a whole because there is insufficient evidence of institutional changes in the light of the proposed enlargement of the Union.
The treaty takes some positive steps towards meeting the specific interests and aspirations of its citizens.
The Parliament should therefore give a it a positive signal that will make it easy for the public to back it at a time when they are preparing for the great qualitative change represented by the single currency.
The institutional strategy we are now proposing, especially regarding a new method of reviewing Treaties, less intergovernmental and closer to the processes by which they are created, through more effective intervention by the European Parliament and, I might add, national parliaments, deserves my full support.
I cannot however say the same, nor should I do so, of the objectives of the institutional reform which is recommended, since these are limited to the decision-making powers of governments, raising the spectre of a Directoire of major states in the face of public opinion and regrettably overlooking other major institutional issues which are relevant to enlargement, such as the reform of the Community budget and the role and resources of economic and social cohesion policies.
Nor can I approve of the recommended strategy of making enlargement conditional upon those institutional reforms, taking the peoples of the candidate countries as hostages in the power- struggle strategies of the existing Member States.
Madam President, any opposition to the treaty on the grounds that it is not sufficiently pro-European and prointegration may contribute to the strengthening of anti-European criticism and mistrust regarding changes which, although limited, are moves in the right direction; a more democratic Union, better able to regulate its economic processes with the object of ensuring equity and cohesion, more closely bound to the values of states that are governed by the rule of law, and closer to their citizens.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the draft treaty rightly involves extending joint decision-making to the European Parliament.
This is to be welcomed from a democratic point of view.
I must, however, point out that, in essential areas which are important for the functioning of the single market, the codecision procedure is not guaranteed. This applies particularly to industrial policy, to the banking and finance sector, and to questions of taxation.
It would really be significant if coordination were more efficient in this area, if only in the interest of employment.
There is a need for improvement here.
What is most regrettable is the fact that very definite instruments are not provided for in the draft treaty.
As with monetary union, there should also have been instruments coordinating economic policies better.
That is why the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy believes it to be especially important that we still manage to arrive at a European strategy for cooperation and coordination in the interim.
We need to give tangible shape to the economic union and safeguard its method of operating.
This will very much require the involvement of the European Parliament, and we will need to insist that article 103 is given concrete form, if need be by interinstitutional agreement by the time the treaty is next amended. After all, we want an economic policy within the European Union which is both efficient and democratically secured, while equally oriented towards employment objectives.
We should not forget that non-coordination of economic policies in the years from 1991 to 1995 caused a drop in growth of 3 %, to the detriment of employment in the European Union.
We cannot afford this!
Even if the Amsterdam Treaty, fortunately, has not involved any retrograde steps in economic policy, we nevertheless have to say that the key policy areas of business, employment, and fiscal and monetary policy lack bite.
Hence it is vital that an extension of the Community's powers, the concretization of its political instruments and the principle of majority voting are implemented at the next amendment to the treaty.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their erudite report which has united this House.
We will support this report and, with it, the recommendation to ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This treaty, however, has failed to meet the aim of providing the groundwork for enlargement.
It satisfies the condition that we should begin negotiations, but not that we can conclude them.
This has mainly to do with the fact that the efficiency needed to increase the size of the Union by 5, 10 or 11 Member States is lacking as a result of not extending the principle of the qualified majority vote far enough.
If the Ecofin Council says there should be no competition in taxes, then it is correct.
Yet better still would be to apply the majority principle to fiscal policy to achieve the harmonization necessary in the areas needed.
The same goes for structural policy and for the impossible situation found in the area of foreign trade policy, to name but a few key points.
We should not only press for these institutional reforms at the next intergovernmental conference to be held prior to the next enlargement, but instead we should make it a priority that those legal and domestic policy areas which have become Community responsibility are given over to majority voting or codecision five years into the treaty.
It is not so much that we need new powers within the European Union.
What we do need are the instruments to make sensible use of the powers we already have.
We want to make this clear and carry it through by using the treaty appropriately.
Clearly, we should not just talk about the negative aspects.
We should look to the arrangement that, in future, Parliament enjoys codecision in those areas of the first pillar in which the Council decides with a majority.
And I consider this a major breakthrough for the rights of Parliament.
Parliament has finally appeared on the European stage where legislation is concerned.
The only exception is agriculture and fisheries policy, both in legislation and budgetary policy, and this will need to be revised in the next round, so as to achieve parity in this area.
We need to realize that the relationship of the institutions will change in the long term through the right of the European Parliament to elect the Commission President.
In future the Heads of State and of Government will consider which candidate has the majority here.
This will lead to a politicizing of this organization and will also affect the future relationship of Parliament and Commission in a particular way.
I believe this is something we should be working on.
Some of the things I have heard from the reports of individual committees should be reconsidered.
It is not a case of incorporating each particular area into the treaty by means of special rules; we actually need fewer special rules and greater simplification of the treaty to bring all policy areas under the same rules.
We must not end up with a huge treaty, but at a smaller treaty.
We need in the long term to arrive at a constitution because this is the only way to really make progress.
This treaty offers the chance to make basic social and civil rights the legally verifiable basis for evaluating our legislation.
This is a major development!
In the next round we want to implement individual rights to litigation on the strength of basic citizens' rights, but this first step is a great and positive step, which we should make proper use of.
The inclusion of the social chapter and the employment chapter in the overall treaty gives the social dimension to this European Union.
We are called upon as the European Parliament to make use of these instruments too.
The European Court, contrary to the opinion of Mrs Roth, has been strengthened by this treaty, and to make large parts of legal and domestic policy Community responsibility, that is all areas dealing with the setting of norms and standards, is a breakthrough for the Community Europe and acts as a counter to intergovernmental Europe, and we should continue with this work.
With foreign and security policy we have new areas and new procedures.
Practice will show whether these really bring progress.
If I bear the planning unit in mind and see how it is talked about in certain Member States, that it is only a COREPER body in which the countries are represented by one person, then that is not progress.
This planning unit should not be an intergovernmental organization at ambassador level or below, but rather a true Community solution fully involving the Commission, or else it will not bring success.
We will have to see to it that a motion as sensible as this is tabled, and Parliament will approve nothing less.
We have exhausted the present method of the intergovernmental conference.
Europe needs to be involved in a political dialogue and should not be held back by the doubting Thomases found in the offices of the national ministries.
Only then will we be in the position to bring about a new order for Europe, and this is something we should be working towards.
Madam President, I wish to pay tribute to the good job done by the two excellent rapporteurs, Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos.
Nevertheless, I have to say that I am disappointed by this somewhat florid debate.
When there are no results, metaphors abound - and Mr Méndez de Vigo used the especially elegant metaphor of the inn and the road, taken from Cervantes, because his report is based on the philosophy of the step forward.
There are always steps forward.
However, I would like another type of debate.
Not a populist, opportunist debate, of course, but a clear, political and responsible debate.
A debate which does not necessarily end in an obligatory yes vote by Parliament, which can decide to vote for, or against, or abstain, after a responsible appraisal from the position of responsibility conferred on it by the citizens.
I should therefore briefly like to set out my group's position on the Amsterdam Treaty, then on the report.
Objectively, we believe that the Amsterdam Treaty is a failure.
Subjectively, it is disappointment for both Parliament and the other institutions.
Why?
Because it makes inadequate provision for either social protection or the regulation of the market in the face of the predominance of, not so much the economic, as the monetary sphere - the monetarist logic; because it does not endow the Foreign Policy and Justice and Home Affairs pillars with the minimum Community characteristics that are necessary at this political moment; because it does not provide for the minimum institutional changes that are essential before enlargement, and were the principal goal of the Amsterdam Summit; and lastly, as has already been said in this Chamber, because it was drawn up using the traditional method employed for drafting treaties - a diplomatic, intergovernmental method far removed from the citizens and even their representative parliamentary institutions.
The report, which is technically very good, plays up the positive aspects and plays down the negative aspects of the draft treaty, although I recognize that it contains significant criticisms.
It proposes using the Community method, and we agree with that.
But that is not the vision set out in the draft treaty.
It is a proposal for the future.
Lastly, it recommends that the Member States ratify the Amsterdam Treaty.
In political terms, I find it unreasonable that Parliament, which does not have the right to give its assent to the draft treaty, because it is denied that right by the Member States' governments, should now feel obliged to recommend the ratification of such an inadequate treaty.
Consequently, on the basis of the declaration by the Governments of Belgium, France and Italy, we are requesting that, first, the necessary steps be taken to prepare for enlargement and significant undertakings be made to the European Parliament, the national parliaments and the citizens of the European Union.
Madam President, I believe that by voting on this resolution, the European Parliament is going to add a new chapter to its story of conformity with the governments and its refusal to carry out a role of political initiative in the process of constructing Europe.
At the moment, we are observing a rite which, in its timing and in its principal content, has been imposed by the need of the governments signing this treaty which we can say has not been executed; governments which, to appease any MEPs and reluctant, disconcerted and misinformed public opinion, need to be able to use the favourable opinion given to the ratification of the European Parliament, which is absolutely irrelevant, however, as it is lacking in political consequences.
In fact, we are voting to give our governments a headline: "European Parliament says yes to Treaty of Amsterdam' , or "Important new stage in construction of Europe' .
We all know that the truth lies elsewhere, all of us in this Chamber know that the Treaty of Amsterdam cannot achieve any of the objectives the governments had set themselves.
We know that the European Union will not control the impact of the enlargement and monetary union will be at risk, without a change in the balance and operation of its institutions.
Beyond the absence of any overall, forward-looking view of this least ambitious of all treaties that have gradually marked the stages of the construction of Europe, beyond the fair criticisms we have heard in almost all opinions from the committees involved, I believe that this treaty provides a good representation of modern times in Europe.
An integration crisis, a prevailing trend towards renationalization, a discussion of several basic principles and several clear roles acquired by the Commission and the Court of Justice, despite what Mr Brok says, a dangerous game of Russian roulette on expansion which, if developed under current institutional conditions, would penalize the Union's inability to make decisions.
On the Committee on Institutional Affairs, some of us have tried to suggest a more political, less conformist road for Parliament, more in keeping with a logic of Parliamentary independence.
We have tried to suggest the road of deferring opinion, to ask and try to obtain, before giving an opinion, by the Council of Luxembourg, the undertaking to place on site and execute, before the new accessions, the institutional amendments not made in Amsterdam, as three Union governments are already asking.
Not only has this request been dropped, but the inclusion of a somewhat diluted political content in the form of lukewarm calls to the governments has had to overcome unusual hostility and a surprising closing by the rapporteurs, not to mention the hard resistance to any change, particularly from the German delegations of the two largest groups that have guided the relevant groups in the noble undertaking to make a clean sweep of any political ambition held by the European Parliament.
We have thus witnessed the incomprehensible failure of traditionally unshakable positions held by Parliament, in a realistic logic whereby any initiative the governments do not like should not even be attempted.
This is what our rapporteurs have been telling us for months.
In this framework of attacking the independence of the role of Parliament, the political fragility of the Tsatsos and Méndez de Vigo resolution is no surprise.
It is an ambiguous text, with no political view of the future of Europe other than a request to the governments to implement the treaty properly, with no careful assessment of the Amsterdam appraisals.
Mr President, to use an English expression, this evening the whips will guide the vote of their own disciplined troops and there will be no surprises.
Unfortunately, we are only left with one vote against this resolution so far from the ideals on which the European challenge is based and the associational method that produced it, convinced that the way to honour our mandate is to do so as servants of Europe and its democratic growth, and not as government spokesmen.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, permit me, and here this in no mere ritual on my part, to pay my respects to the often difficult work of the two rapporteurs, Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos, who have defended their vision of things with brio.
I must admit that our respective points of view were initially quite far apart, and have now become somewhat closer. Unfortunately, not enough for us to be able to vote in favour of their report.
I shall not speak about content.
I shall never tire of repeating that the European Parliament, alas, does not have the power to ratify treaties.
The task which is ours is a purely political one, and this should leave us far wider scope in our judgement.
Most unfortunately, I have to observe that the work of the rapporteurs was from the very outset conditioned by the final message which they wished to get across, at no matter what cost, and even if getting that message across meant passing over the immense shortfalls in this treaty.
I myself remain convinced that a more critical approach to the treaty was not incompatible with the call for ratification by national parliaments, which we support.
As regards the link between institutional reform and enlargement, let us recognize that the report has been very substantially improved.
After the institutional fiasco of Amsterdam, it is quite unacceptable for the European Parliament not to pitch with all its weight into such a reform, prior to any enlargement. Failure to do so would mean that we risk not only delaying enlargement, but also imperilling the operation and survival of the European Union itself.
However, we do not find in the report this determination to ensure that the Parliament wields its full influence.
The guarantees given in this respect by the institutional protocol annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam are also inadequate.
Hence the questions we raised a few months ago in this very House, remain as burning now as then.
Has the time not come to say clearly that enlargement cannot be undertaken on a satisfactory basis except accompanied by the wide-ranging institutional reform of the Union, and that monetary union needs to be completed by substantial progress towards a political union, and possibly also economic, social and tax union?
As regards matters of form, and the same criticisms apply as to matters of substance, the general tone of the report seems to us to be something of a step back from the positions that have been expressed by the Parliament over the last eighteen months, and we regret this.
I appeal to the political intelligence of the two rapporteurs to improve this result somewhat, by accepting a number of amendments.
But there is also a question of strategy.
The European Parliament must one day stop being a mass of institutions trailing in the wake of events, and break the umbilical cord which ties too many of us to the purely nationalistic positions of our respective governments.
Why should we, on the eve of the European Council of Luxembourg, give governments carte blanche, and take position here and now on the Treaty of Amsterdam, when we know that there is an unavoidable link between the Treaty of Amsterdam and the opening of official negotiations for enlargement?
Why do we have to take a position today, when the national parliaments have a timetable which will allow them to pursue their own strategy? I remain convinced, like Mrs Spaak and Mrs Aglietta, that it would be preferable to come back with an opinion on the treaty at the beginning of 1998, which would enable us to exert some pressure on the Luxembourg summit, and give an opinion when the full facts were available to us.
The rapporteurs have not agreed with this point of view.
I ask them at least - and we raise a call in this direction - to accept one of the amendments, whose aim is to reinforce paragraph 4 of the resolution.
Those are the few considerations that I wish to express before this House, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
Madam President, the report from Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos recommends that the Member States ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam, in spite of its shortfalls.
But what are those shortfalls? And are they without consequence?
The accusation is first raised that the treaty does not adapt Union institutions for future enlargement. But this is an error that we could perfectly well make good in the years to come.
On the other hand, there is another failing in the treaty, which is not so easy to put right, which should cause us to reject the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The treaty makes for less democracy in Europe, as it tends to strip national democracies of their powers, without there being at the Union level any equivalent controlling authority.
The blame for this is not insufficient extension of powers of codecision with the European Parliament, as we occasionally hear, for codecision with the European Parliament could only be fully democratic if there were a single European people.
However, not only is this not the case, there is even reason to doubt that there exists among the peoples of Europe the wish - alleged - to integrate in the strongest sense of the word, that is, the merger to which the European parliament attaches so much importance.
Under such conditions, the approach of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which increases the number of cases where codecision or majority voting in the Council takes place, which reduces the role of national parliaments and affirms the superiority of Community law, even when derived, over national constitutions, appears totally artificial and quite out of touch with real society.
Here is the root cause of insufficient democracy.
The promoters of the Treaty of Amsterdam have put their money on the fact that it is possible to transfer powers to insufficiently democratic European institutions, hoping to be able to correct them at some future date.
But has anyone given any thought as to whether this date might not be very far off, and that it might never even happen! A risky bet if ever there was one!
Alternatively, democratic Europe can be built today, and substantial power transferred to it. But everybody here knows that this is impossible.
Or again, we should look at the situation face-on, and construct European Union on the basis of national democracies. But at all events, we have to put an end to the dangerous manoeuvring which is proposed by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
That is the reason why we are launching the 'SOS Democracy' appeal.
That is why, for the good of the peoples of Europe, we are refusing to ratify this illegitimate treaty, and as regards France, we shall demand a referendum.
Madam President, there are many things in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We find, among others, hypocrisy. First there is a chapter on employment when there are 20 million people who are unemployed because of Europe.
In the social field, there are 40 million people in poverty because of Europe.
There is also malpractice, teleological malpractice in the first instance. The Union has set itself all its objectives, in the economic, monetary, social, defence, public liberty, criminal, civil law and even immigration fields, because here too we are introducing Community approaches, based on article 235, the joker in the pack of Community articles, which gives the European Commission the ability to indefinitely extend its powers.
And then there is institutional malpractice, with the presidentialization of the European Commission, and the increase in the powers of Parliament.
Parliament, which can set the conditions whereby its own Members can exercise their mandate.
Just now, we witnessed an incident. Ms McKenna had to beg forgiveness for daring to show insufficient respect to the high priests of European Federalism, the senior functionaries.
Teleological malpractice is not enough, we now have theological malpractice, which in turn betrays police malpractice.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is the police, the criminal law, controls, sanctions, judge and jury, everything, in fact, except border controls, where immigration is rife.
The third pillar is in fact the third bar in the prison cell of the Amsterdam treaty, and confers on Brussels competency in criminal matters!
Brussels can even determine what constitutes a violation of the law and of the sanctions.
Then there is Europol - the European FBI.
All we need now is a European Edgar Hoover and national witch hunts.
Criminal sanctions will be taken against Member States.
In the event of serious and persistent violation of democracy, a state can be deprived of its voting rights.
Mr Ford and his friends will be able to invoke article F1 against the national government of France, if on its own territory it takes a stand against the colonization of its inhabitants.
And to crown it all, to come back full circle, and tie up all loose ends, article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam states that this treaty is agreed for an unlimited term.
Even the Soviet constitution introduced by Stalin in 1936 provided for the right of secession!
What will a population wishing to secede do!? They will be repressed.
Wherever you look, the Yugoslavia of Sarajevo, the Nigeria of the Ibos, the United States in 1860 and the Soviet Union, there is no exception to the rule.
Federalism never made anyone happy.
So with the last free men, with the last representatives of those peoples who wish to survive, at 5.30 p.m. we shall be voting against the Amsterdam close-out, and I say to the French Members of Parliament who vote in favour, that history will always end up catching up with you, in the shape of the submission to the Court of Assizes in Bordeaux.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to say how pleased I am to be able to participate in this debate to evaluate the Amsterdam Treaty, on the basis of the report presented on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos, whom I congratulate most warmly on their excellent work.
The motion for a resolution, through its methodology, and through its overall evaluation, its reflections on the legal bases and, above all, its proposals for a future strategy, clearly identifies, in my view, what the outcome of the European Council's meeting in Amsterdam represents.
I should also like to thank the representatives of the different committees and all other speakers - including those to come - for taking part in this debate. This demonstrates the importance of this debate.
You are well aware, ladies and gentlemen, that throughout the Intergovernmental Conference I engaged in deliberations with, and shared the disappointments and hopes of, Parliament and the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
No more than two months would go by without me attending a meeting of the Committee on Institutional Affairs to listen to the views of the different political groups and parliamentarians, as well as to set out the Commission's position on the various issues.
And you are also well aware that on the very day that the European Council's meeting in Amsterdam ended - at twenty to four in the morning - I left immediately for Brussels and met with you at ten in the morning to convey to you my response to the draft treaty, with the tiredness that is natural after an 18-hour meeting, and perhaps with the haste that is inevitable at moments like that.
At that time, I expressed to you - and, a moment ago, probably quite rightly, the President-in-Office, in a way, criticized this for being too hasty - my personal dissatisfaction.
But I also spoke to you later - and I shall it repeat now and repeat it continually - of my commitment, and the Commission's commitment, to carrying on the fight. Indeed - as we all know - the European project did not end in Amsterdam, and the immediate future will be full of events which require our undivided attention.
In the view of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the Amsterdam Treaty must be judged by what it really means.
We believe that it means significant progress in a number of fields - which have been underlined today - especially the field of citizenship, in the broadest sense.
As an unfinished job with a lot of loose ends, it is undoubtedly unsatisfactory in a number of other respects, especially - as has also been underlined today - as regards the institutions and foreign policy.
Faced with this situation, we clearly have a number of options. One is quite simply to say that we are completely satisfied with the draft treaty.
Another is to reject it.
A number of speakers have announced that they are going to reject the draft treaty, describing it in a variety of ways: Mrs Roth called it an inflatable monster; Mrs Spaak said that it was mediocre; and Mr Méndez de Vigo called it a failure and a disappointment, adding that metaphors abound when there are no results.
That is undoubtedly one possible response to the draft treaty.
However, alongside the options of quite simply accepting the draft treaty unreservedly or rejecting it, there is a clearly a third option, which is that presented in Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos' report: we can undertake, as of now, to seek solutions to the outstanding problems.
This will require us to do a number of things.
Firstly, we shall have to create the institutional conditions necessary for enlargement.
Almost everyone has said that.
We will not be in a position to tackle enlargement unless the necessary institutional changes are made.
The fact is that those institutional changes were already envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty, and were one of the principal reasons for negotiating the Amsterdam Treaty. But this issue was then sidetracked and left unresolved.
Consequently, we must create the institutional conditions necessary for enlargement.
Secondly, we shall have to adapt the political institutions to a Union that will have a single currency whose stability will be constitutionally guaranteed, so to speak, by the European Central Bank.
And we shall have to acquire the means to carry out - as everyone agrees, and Mr Spencer said earlier - a common foreign and security policy that is commensurate with our ambitions and responsibilities.
As the House will understand, the Commission does not wish to make a pronouncement at present on either the various amendments, judgements and criticisms put forward - many of which I support - or the objections expressed in relation to the draft treaty.
In my view, ladies and gentlemen - and here I am following on from what the two rapporteurs said - the important thing is to attempt to exploit the possibilities offered by the draft treaty to the maximum, utilizing the protocol on the institutions itself to prepare the necessary reforms.
The proposal to reopen the debate - which, in my view, is one of the most interesting and incisive elements of the report - has the political backing of the Commission, which undertakes to draw up the report requested in the motion for a resolution.
In this regard, I wish to remind the House that the Commission proposes in its document, Agenda 2000, to take immediately the political decision on the weighting of votes in the Council which must accompany the reduction of the number of Members of the Commission before the first enlargement.
It is also recommends convening a new Intergovernmental Conference as soon as possible after the year 2000 with a view to carrying out a comprehensive review of the provisions of the treaties on the composition and functioning of the institutions.
What we must not do is what we did last time.
We must not stick rigidly to an event, and then find that we do not have time to resolve the institutional problems.
Let us leave aside the event. Let us resolve the institutional problems calmly, efficiently and resolutely; and, once we resolved them, we shall be in a position to move towards enlargement.
I should also like to recall that the Commission has undertaken to submit a proposal amending the decision on commitology in June - and to do so in close cooperation with Parliament and the Council.
Our goal must be to draw up a proposal which enables us to resolve a problem which has existed for years, and which was not resolved with the introduction of the codecision procedure.
There can be doubt that the introduction of the codecision procedure was a step in the right direction, but it was clearly insufficient to resolve the commitology problem.
This has been an outstanding issue for a long time.
We have to tackle it with decisiveness.
The 1994 "modus vivendi' agreement cannot go on for ever. We must make the procedures more effective; and we must fully involve the national administrations, whilst fully respecting the rights of all the institutions.
I also wish to tell the House that I am personally convinced that it is necessary to initiate a debate on the method of revising the treaties.
A great many of speakers have referred to that today.
Clearly, as the President-in-Office said a moment ago, we are restricted by article N: the amendment of any article of the treaties, not just article N, requires unanimity.
Nevertheless, I believe that it is important for both Parliament and the Commission to be able to explore ways of changing the method of amending the treaties.
I consider that we have reached the point at which the system that we have had for many years has outlived its usefulness.
I believe that it is necessary to explore other ways.
There is therefore highly important work for the Commission, Parliament and - of course - the Council to do to improve the current procedure.
I consider that the procedure must be made more democratic, since - although not formally - it is partly constitutional in nature.
Furthermore, there is a need to increase efficiency with a view to enlargement.
Naturally, Parliament, the Commission, the Council and the Member States' governments will be the main players in this debate, along with the national parliaments and civil society.
A great many speakers, including the rapporteurs, have referred to the role of civil society and relations with the national parliaments.
In my view, this is very important.
This is new language.
I remember well when we were gathered together in November 1990 - I was a Member of the European Parliament at the time - at the celebrated assizes of Rome; although, as the House well knows, the least that can be said is that they were not a great success.
I believe that we must revive that idea, with the European Parliament fulfilling its role completely - and it can do so much more successfully with the powers conferred on it by the Amsterdam Treaty - but also ensuring a dialogue with the national parliaments, like the one that the European Parliament is conducting.
And ensuring a dialogue with civil society, because civil society - as Parliament, which has organized two sets of public hearings, well knows - cannot be ignored. It cannot remain on the sidelines, leaving it up to ministries alone - or Parliament or the Commission alone - to do everything.
Civil society must also participate.
And it is therefore worthwhile drawing attention to the quality of the proposals submitted to us by civil society.
In short, ladies and gentlemen, we have a lot of work ahead of us.
Firstly, we must perfect the implementation of the provisions of this draft treaty.
Secondly, we must address important issues such as unemployment, which is a fundamental problem, and the most serious problem currently facing the European Union.
We are on the eve of the Luxembourg meeting of the European Council on matters relating to the single currency and enlargement, and I confess that I am convinced of the urgent need to make progress.
I would therefore echo Mr Méndez de Vigo's call to the House not to dwell on the details of the draft treaty, which, for all its defects, will enable us to continue making progress.
Lastly, I should like to make an appeal to all those who believe that our countries and their citizens only have a future in a Europe of peace and solidarity, and that we must act together with determination and resolve, as well as with enthusiasm, courage and patience, for the fight ahead will be hard.
Quoting Cervantes, Mr Méndez de Vigo said that we must choose between the inn and the road.
I should also like to quote our immortal national author and say that the wizards may try to steal the adventure from us, but with courage and effort we will not let them.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with the Méndez de Vigo/Tsatsos report, the European Parliament has today sent an important political message to the Member States to ratify the Amsterdam Treaty.
As Members of the European Parliament, we do so with increased self-confidence.
For in the run-up to the treaty reform the European Parliament led the way for the discussions that followed as an engine for further integration.
I am thinking here of my colleagues Mr Bourlanges, Mr Martin, Mrs Dury and Mrs Maij-Weggen.
The European Parliament was able to play an important role in the discussions on treaty reform both with respect to the discussions themselves and in regard to public provision.
Special thanks should go to our former President, Mr Klaus Hänsch, the incumbent President, Mr Gil-Robles Gil Delgado, and the Members Elisabeth Guigou and Elmar Brok.
The European Parliament has come out the winner in the results of the treaty reform.
75 % of the legislation will be codecided by us, and we will also elect the Commission President in future.
In actual fact: Amsterdam, following the Single European Act and Maastricht, was an intergovernmental conference at which, once again, a difficult compromise between the various interests of nation states had to be reached.
There is no doubt that it was only the change from Conservative to Labour government in Britain and France that made a social policy without opt-out and an employment chapter at all possible.
If we consider the scale of what has been achieved, we can see already that it is quite considerable.
First, with employment we have progressed via a chapter of our own to coordinating the policies of the Member States, to facilitating financially assisted incentive measures and to creating a committee on employment.
Second, the agreement reached on social policy has been integrated into the treaty and improved.
We now have a real chance to actively implement equality between the sexes.
Third, where the environment is concerned, sustained development has been taken up as a treaty objective and the ecological goal for all Community policies implemented in the treaty.
The same applies to improved provision in the area of health care.
Fourth, home affairs and justice.
We now have an express safeguard for the basic democratic and constitutional structures at Union level and a guarantee of basic rights, with assured legal protection through the European Court of Justice.
We have begun to apply Community-wide procedures in the areas of asylum, immigration, control of external borders, status of non-EU citizens and customs collaboration.
We are also seeing the procedures of intergovernmental cooperation moving towards those of the Community and thereby witnessing a more precise definition of duties and powers, particularly in the area of crime-fighting.
I am thinking here of greater support for Europol.
Fifth, foreign policy through the creation of an identifiable figure in the form of the Secretary-General of the Council, strengthening of the structures through the setting-up of an analysis and planning unit, and a new troika formula including the EU Commissioner.
The funding must occur in accordance with general budget requirements in conjunction with our inter-institutional agreement.
There are approaches to majority voting within the framework of the jointly approved strategies and, above all, the inclusion in the EU's responsibilities of the Petersburg agreement.
That is one side of the coin.
The other side is - let us be open about this - that a lot of the proposals were much too timid.
In many areas, especially home affairs and justice, foreign and security policy, only slight progress has been made, and the three pillars have not been surmounted.
The European Parliament has come out in favour of a tree as the symbol of a growing community and not for three rigid pillars.
This also applies to the deficiencies where the coordination of economic policies is concerned, and to the fact that majority decisions involving equal representation on the part of the European Parliament have not been included in the legislative procedure in general.
Above all, important institutional reforms are lacking in regard to the Council and Commission.
We contend that this is not going to make today's European Union capable of enlargement.
The European Parliament is generally critical of what has been achieved - and rightly so, for a whole series of our demands have not been realized!
Still, we should not get into the habit, neither internally nor publicly, particularly where questions of European integration are concerned, of only registering successes in silence while constantly carping on about the questions left open.
That will not take us forward in Europe!
And I say to you that, in my judgement as a trade unionist too, the positive aspects outweigh the negative.
That is why we can give our consent in Parliament.
I also say this following the discussions with the national parliaments we have heard here.
I also say this following the discussions we have held with the representatives of non-governmental organizations.
For us there were only signs of approval.
There were no signs that Parliament should reject this treaty outright.
That means for me as spokesperson for the socialist group that we will be giving our political consent to it today in this House.
I am very conscious of the heckling from colleagues among the Greens.
I deeply regret that you want to vote against ratification.
I recall that a number of you brought an action in the Federal Constitutional Court against the Maastricht Treaty, while others fought against your country joining the EU.
It lacks credibility if you only welcome the European idea in its mature form and shirk responsibility on a central question and timidly vote no.
The European Union today is on the threshold of making some of the most important decisions in its nigh-on fifty-year-old history of integration - treaty reform in 1997, entry negotiations in 1998, euro currency in 1999 and a new financial framework from the year 2000.
To achieve this, we need the political vision for further institutional reforms to make the European Union work better following enlargement.
That is why the reforms must take place before enlargement, but the reforms should not delay this process either.
Not at all!
This is not an attempt to square the circle, but the situation should not be solved with the methods employed to date.
Hence, it is important for the European Parliament to develop concepts now for the next steps towards integration.
Thanks to my colleague Mrs van Putten, I had the opportunity to talk to journalists, officials and others at the Amsterdam Summit, in the Central Bank and on the fringe of the negotiations.
I sometimes thought that if the citizens of Europe witnessed this type of negotiation, they would not understand Europe in future.
We need to turn Europe into more of an open process, where controversy is debated, and help bring about greater involvement of those who have been elected for this purpose in their own countries, that is to both the national parliaments and the European Parliament, In this way the resolutions needed are not lost in a long night beset with internal problems or the institutional reforms do not fail on the pretext of those who wish to hold the new democracies in central and eastern Europe hostage for their national interests.
Europe, that means its citizens.
Their consent to the Community depends on the success of the Community's policies.
The Treaty of Amsterdam has a host of advantages.
The ruling of the European Court on women's equality is a great encouragement set against this background. The European Employment Summit needs practical success.
It should not founder on the blockade of the German Federal Government.
We all know that nationalism results from unresolved European problems.
National problems can only be solved jointly, that is on a European scale.
Hence we need to strengthen the European Union, and Amsterdam makes the European Union stronger!
Mr President, a French politician - now somewhat forgotten, although undeservedly so, because his healthy cynicism was so refreshing, President Henri Queuille - once said that politics is not about solving problems, but keeping those who raise problems quiet.
I fear that the shade of Henri Queuille may have loomed unnecessarily large over the work of the Intergovernmental Conference and the European Council of Amsterdam. For you have enforced silence on those who raised problems - be they states, institutions or some sectors of opinion - by satisfying them on some points, by fobbing them off with words when they wanted concrete reality, by dangling long term goals before them when they needed instruments by which to act, anything so long as action was avoided, lulling minds in a general incantation.
But solve problems you did not, and you know it.
There were three problems that needed to be settled. first democratization, and on this point I grant you, progress has been made.
Then deepening the Union, that is, the implementation of institutional measures giving strength and vigour to the policies proclaimed in Maastricht, but which had remained dead letters since.
Here you merely shifted the same pieces about the board, you came out with more procedures, but changed nothing with regard to fundamentals.
Finally, there was the 'massive' problem of enlargement, where I regret, Mr President of the Council, you are on record as saying that this was not the main purpose of the treaty.
How can we get a European Union of more than 500 million inhabitants, how can we get a European Union of nearly 30 Member States, how can we get a European Union as heterogeneous in political, cultural, economic and administrative terms as the one we are on the way to constructing, how can we get this Union to operate? Here you have nothing to say.
You remain sterile.
You have not settled the essential problem!
Some say that the work of Amsterdam was worthless.
I do not think so.
I find it is merely mediocre.
Above all, I find that it is off the point. And as a teacher of literature, I say that any work which is off the point is unsatisfactory.
This report proposes an approach which I broadly approve, at the stage where we now are. It can be summarized in three words.
The first is protection. Protection of what we have achieved.
As parliamentary soldiers, we have to build up our reserves, wherever we can lay our hands on them, in preparation for the campaigns that lie ahead, and that is the meaning behind the call for ratification. The second is criticism.
Here we criticize the fact that we have fallen out of step in our joint march to enlargement and deepening of the Union through its institutions.
The rapporteurs do not go far enough, although they are going in the right direction.
Finally, proposal. This is where this report makes its major contribution, I believe.
The diplomats have failed, it is now down to the citizens to take up the challenge, while respecting article N, I agree, but this provides for plenty of flexibility.
This is the essential contribution of this report.
Here, ladies and gentlemen, is why I approve the report, at this point in time today. But I do not for all that discharge the European Council of its responsibility.
The Council has not kept its promises. Incidentally, we do not see how it can keep its promises any better tomorrow!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I agree with those who are pleased with the work carried out by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos.
I recognize immediately that their work has not been easy, because they have had to live with two opposing sentiments: whether or not to vote in favour of the draft treaty.
In fact, when faced with a treaty that identifies new political objectives, that outlines the Union's strategies for the Third Millennium but that raises the problems but does not resolve them, the very strong temptation could also be to suggest that the Chamber vote against it.
The same rapporteurs also say, and rightly in my opinion, that this Chamber does not make the great political decisions of the European Union, once again leaving the problem of the democratic deficit, which is not unfounded, unresolved.
In the general interests of the Union, which should always act with the citizens' consent, the political legitimization of the great choices cannot exclude the assumption of more direct responsibility by the European Parliament which, among other things, having received the mandate, should give the citizens a direct answer.
But our rapporteurs too, like us, will have assessed the impact of a possible negative vote cast by this Chamber, not only on the citizens but also with regard to the important objectives we have raised with the new treaty.
Our vote is certainly not binding in legal terms; it is, however, a political vote and Parliament, aware of the role assigned to it by the Treaties, has the duty to remain in its own field, which we consider inadequate and insufficient in relation to the objectives aimed at.
This consistent approach which we find in the document drawn up by the Committee on Institutional Affairs fails, in our opinion, in the final paragraph of point 12, which relates to the seat of the European Parliament.
While accepting the political legitimacy of a similar request, I would like to point out that the choice of seat for Parliament was made in government circles, of which many of our parties are the expression.
I am surprised that such an article stems from the legal consistency of this document which should be adopted by a parliamentary chamber.
I would like to conclude this speech by recalling at least the passage in the Méndez de Vigo and Tsatsos report which, in point 19, calls for politics to have a more incisive and important role in the future treaty reforms, with more direct involvement of the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
The Europe we are laboriously building has to be heard by our citizens, who have to be able to discuss in order to get inside the processes of development; without them, without their consent and their convinced acceptances, irremediably involuted processes could develop one day.
For this reason, the legitimizing duty of this Parliament should be recognized by the Member States as soon as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the coverage of the Amsterdam summit has been largely negative, and that impression has lingered.
The new treaty is supposed to be a superfluous measure, or just a tiny step forward, and it would hardly matter if it was ratified or not.
The negative impression, colleagues, has been caused in particular by the failure to reach an institutional agreement.
Isn't it ironic that commentators and observers, who had up until then not attached any importance to the institutional issues, suddenly saw nothing else.
It made the task of the rapporteurs difficult, but they have accomplished it in an exemplary way.
A sober, yet correct analysis and evaluation of the treaty and a recommendation which, as Jean Racine put it, contains neither this excess of honour nor this indignity.
Their detailed report, 269 points over 72 pages, contains an excellent analysis and evaluation of the treaty, and proves the need for ratification. I will support that call, as will the majority of my group.
But it has been shown just as strongly that the entire institutionalization process has yet to start, and that it will have to happen quickly.
Quickly, so as not to not slow down the enlargement.
Because, Commissioner, colleagues, Mr President, this enlargement is the greatest challenge which this Union has faced during peace time.
A weak Union would collapse under such a confrontation, it would not be able to cope with such a confrontation.
It follows that enlargement and intensification of the Union are by no means mutually exclusive; on the contrary, they are complementary.
I have noticed recently how a gap has been growing between those who think that those things are mutually exclusive.
I can imagine that the gap is regarded with great satisfaction by all those who want neither intensification, nor enlargement.
That is why, ladies and gentlemen, we must get to work immediately, to make clear that we want both enlargement and intensification.
I am delighted that the rapporteurs suggest this is done together in conjunction with the national parliaments.
I am somewhat proud that I have been able to make a small contribution to this during the previous parliamentary session.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, whether the ominous, much cited glass of water is half full or half empty can only be gauged by the thirst of the person looking at it.
I can assure you, the thirst of the Heads of State and of Government for European democracy in Amsterdam was, God knows, very slight.
The thirst for European democracy, for a basic social order in Europe, for ecological progress, must have been very slight to make the glass seem half full to many of them.
I can at any rate assure one of the previous speakers, Mr Janssen van Raay, a glass of Mouton-Rothschild tastes different.
What this House will resolve today about the Treaty of Amsterdam is legally of no consequence. Many people, quite rightly, are complaining about this.
So, we can only offer the electorate one course which counts in politics as basic, namely the truth about the Amsterdam Treaty and the future state of the EU.
That is the only opportunity, the only power and the only duty this House has.
Yet what is the truth?
Is it the contention of the rapporteurs that the Amsterdam Treaty is a step towards the building up of Europe, or are we not closer to the truth if we open another report, a very discreetly treated one, a very secret one, conceived in this House too, the report from the Intergovernmental Conference working party to the President of the European Parliament? This says that all in all, the new treaty only represents the measure of the national and even nationalistic electoral aspirations of its signatories without any forward-looking objectives.
Do we not come closer to the truth when we follow this report further and it states that above all, the Amsterdam Treaty represents a strikingly clear failure compared with the original mandate of the Intergovernmental Conference and the three axes around which it was constructed, namely greater popular responsiveness on the part of the European Union, the reform of the institutions in a more democratic and efficient Union and the bolstering of the Union's capacity to act externally.
It may be true that we have only the truth to offer the people of Europe today.
That might not be much, but we should not make it anything less!
We should not owe that to the people as well!
For this truth will be the basis for whether we find a way out of the crisis in the Union.
Either this House will find this way out or no-one will find it.
That is the task facing this Parliament, and it should not withhold the truth to achieve this.
It will not be able to cover up the failure of the national governments.
As to the failure of Parliament, today's sitting will decide.
Amsterdam has already decided on the failure of the national governments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my fellow group member, Mr Saint-Pierre, has already outlined the reason why our group will not approve the report.
Amsterdam was above all a vain attempt in the face of necessary institutional reforms.
The Union continues only to have to dialogues with unitary Member States, even though they no longer have any legal powers in many areas.
In Belgium, for example, only the federal states of Flanders and Walloon each for itself and separately have constitutional powers over culture, education, planning, the environment, scientific research, structural funds, transport, and so on.
These federal states have become constitutionally independent with their own address, own house, own budget, own management.
Yet the Union continues to send its invoices and minutes to the old address of their parents.
A Union which cannot even keep up with a change of address is structurally hopelessly out of date.
That is why Maastricht was a missed opportunity on this issue as well, and Europe is too dear to us to say yes to this report.
Mr President, with the Amsterdam Treaty you and other Britons are getting a written constitution without democracy.
Perhaps that is better than having a living democracy without a written constitution anyway.
And the other 14 countries in the EU are getting a new constitution, a new basic law, this little bagatelle in fact, which will replace this little bagatelle, the Danish Constitution.
To the extent that the Union constitution conflicts with the Danish Constitution, we know of course that it is Union law which takes priority.
The Court of Justice made that up as a principle, and what is new about the Amsterdam Treaty is that it is written into the protocol on subsidiarity.
There it is written that the relationship which the Court of Justice has developed between national legislation and Community legislation shall not be touched, and account must also be taken of the Treaty on European Union, which says that the Union shall provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies.
So this is not a principle of subsidiarity, but the opposite.
It is the principle of the supremacy of Union law, even over national constitutions, which is now being written into the treaty itself for the first time.
And that is why it is a new written constitution, which Great Britain is now getting for the first time in your lives and in the lives of other Britons. So, is the constitution we are getting a fine constitution?
No, it is not. It is not a fine constitution with fundamental rights inscribed in the first chapter and with provisions on institutions and democracy in the following chapters.
It is a constitution which does include fundamental rights and social rights, but they are spread around the treaty. But the basic principle is that the fundamental rights of the Member States in the national constitutions are being exported, and with them the practice of the Commission on Human Rights and the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg and to the Union's authorities, which shall act in unison.
As far as content is concerned this is a constitution, but as far as form is concerned it is a normal international agreement.
I hope nevertheless that the Member States will treat it as a constitutional amendment and therefore give the voters the opportunity to have the final word.
Mr President, the new treaty has not solved the difficult problem of the competence and duties of the Institutions.
The small steps taken in the improvement in the structural requirements of the European democracy will never manage to make good the deficit we have reported for years which we have been fighting since the Treaty of Maastricht.
The current institutional structure is no longer able to govern the unification process appropriately.
The failure to execute the institutional reforms causes a fortiori a slowdown in the decisions on the expansion of the Union.
I share the attitude held by France, Italy and Belgium, which emphasize the inadequacies of the treaty in the prospect of expansion and make new accessions conditional on institutional development.
The opinion held by the Alleanza Nazionale for years is confirmed, in that, failing a reformed institutional framework, failing a political union, any new accession increases the state of operational and decision-making inadequacy of the European Union. The hierarchy of the rules is a problem the treaty leaves unresolved and is not bureaucratic but affects the nature of the Community acts closely.
Who should decide in each individual case? What competence can be transferred to the executive bodies?
Who supervises the delegated legislative business? How can the legislative bodies exercise this essential function of control?
The protocol regulations include the social protocol that gives the Union's social policy a greater consistency and unity.
The inclusion of the protocol is not yet a policy: the history of the Community is full of protocols, charters and declarations on social rights!
A real development in the social policy only took place during the period of economic development and the growth in production in our countries in the '60s and '70s, which means that, with no expansion of the economy and with no increase in the GDP, the social policy remains a protocol of good intentions.
With regard to the foreign policy and policy on justice and domestic affairs, we are far from beginning a real political union, without which the Union will remain imbalanced in favour of the single currency, not resolving the problems of imbalance and disharmony of the unification process.
Finally, the Treaty of Amsterdam has started down a road, taken a few short steps in the right direction, but the road is a long one, too long!
It does not come up to our expectations and does not convey any message of hope to the citizens, which we are sorry about.
At the October sitting, during the debate on the state of the Union, we said that Amsterdam was a big disappointment; today we would like to add that it was a lost opportunity.
We believe this Parliament should finally note that it should move in the direction of the strongest citizens, because otherwise the treaties will remain a dead letter and political union will remain a dream.
Mr President, the new treaty has just been signed by the Union's Ministers of Foreign Affairs and is today undergoing its final examination by the European institutions.
Up to now the treaty has lived in its creators' aseptic cocoon, its contents filtered through speeches by the specialists and diplomats who, for the last three years of often contradictory advances and retreats, have been trying to breathe new life into the old Maastricht Treaty.
But on attaining its majority today the text of the Treaty of Amsterdam goes to each of the States of the Union to be subjected to the risks of debate and national public opinion and, subsequently and consequently, to acceptance or rejection by the citizens of Europe.
The die is cast, therefore, as regards the fate of the treaty, from the moment of our vote today.
We count ourselves among those who will wish it a prosperous future, and will, therefore, vote in favour of the opinion of the European Parliament; who hope it will be speedily ratified to make it possible to set up a stabilized institutional framework, with clear and enduring rules, to face other challenges confronting the Europe of the Fifteen.
From our point of view there must always be a balance between stability and reform.
We must constantly assess where the priority lies according to Europe's historical interests.
In our view this is a time for stability.
To rush into amending a treaty which has not yet reached adulthood might be tantamount to throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
It is therefore more important to be calm than to agonize over it.
It is more important to publicize and immediately ratify an amended treaty than to amend it again.
Mr President, there is a saying in my country that cats in a hurry give birth blind kittens.
Let us not be blind.
So before revising the treaty, before revising what has already been revised, we must first win the argument.
Mr President, the Treaty of Amsterdam has been received with little enthusiasm by the public.
What should have been a thorough renovation of the European Union's house, has resulted in a little wall here, a shed there, and a nice dormer window.
Achievable adjustments have been implemented, but the necessary conversion, necessary, too, for enlargement and to keep the Union workable, did not take place.
What should the European Parliament advise national parliaments on their duty to either ratify or not ratify this treaty? In itself it is very positive that the national parliaments, or at least some of them, have asked for our opinion, and do not want to proceed to approval before they know this opinion.
That, incidentally, shows that the relationship between the national parliaments and the European Parliament is much better than many people think, and that is a good thing, because we have many common interests.
The cooperation between the national parliaments and the European Parliament will increase, and become increasingly necessary to improve the democratic calibre of the Union.
I am pleased to say that on that front we have reason to be somewhat satisfied.
Because precisely as far as the participation of the European Parliament in deciding legislation important leaps forward have been made.
We owe this partly to our colleague Mr Brok and our former colleague Mrs Guigou.
In fact we can say now that 80 % of European legislation is now subject to participatory procedures, and that is a substantial improvement.
At the same time it is regrettable that this democratization was not implemented for agricultural budgeting and agricultural legislation, but it is sensible to say yes to this treaty, merely for the sake of that step forward, because there is more democracy.
That way at least the small amount that was achieved in Amsterdam is landed.
Otherwise we cannot always be satisfied, unfortunately.
An achievement has been made with regard to the rights of citizens.
The anti-discrimination article has deservedly been mentioned several times.
A small step forward has also been made regards the transparency of institutions, because the Council minutes will be made public in the future.
And in the social sphere a step forward has been made, but we will have to see at the employment summit this weekend whether the content will prove to be positive or not.
Sadly far too little has been achieved in the area of internal security and in foreign and international security policy.
The large gap is institutional.
Everyone recognizes that.
That is the reason why the excellent report by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos recommends us to make a takeover in that area, too, that is to say, to organize another round to ensure that there will be solutions in that area, before new entries are discussed.
That is a sound proposal.
And it should not be attempted in the usual way, through the IGC, in the usual European way through proposals from the European Commission, through advice from Parliament, and on that basis there will be a result.
Until then enlargement cannot really justified.
The European Union will become a mess if we implement the enlargement before these institutional problems have been solved.
In that respect we can say yes to the treaty, but we must hope that at a later stage the steps will be taken which should have already been taken in Amsterdam.
Mr President, in the spring of next year there will be a referendum in Ireland to decide whether or not to ratify the Amsterdam Treaty.
During the course of the debate leading up to the referendum vote together with my colleagues in the Fianna Fáil political party, I will be campaigning enthusiastically for a strong 'yes' vote.
I hope that the Irish people will once again give a strong endorsement for my country's continued participation in the European Union as they have done on each of the three previous occasions when a European referendum has been held in Ireland.
I had expected that the Members of the European Parliament would be given an opportunity to cast a vote on the changes to the treaty being introduced following the Amsterdam Summit. If this had been the case, I would have voted in favour of endorsing the new treaty.
I very much regret that Parliament is not being asked to vote directly on the contents of the treaty but instead, is being asked to consider the merits of a lengthy opinion from the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
The document tabled by the Committee on Institutional Affairs should have confined itself to a simple recommendation to vote for or against the Amsterdam Treaty.
I hope that when a similar situation arises following the next intergovernmental conference, our procedures are changed to facilitate such a vote.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs' report contains many elements with which I am in total agreement.
However, it also contains comments with which I profoundly disagree.
It is not necessary, for example, for this text to complain about the policies which are not in the new treaty.
There is no need to reopen the argument concerning the membership of the Commission.
This issue was discussed at length prior to the Amsterdam Summit and, in my view, the correct position was taken by the Heads of State and of Government to maintain the present practice whereby each country has the right to nominate a Commissioner.
Secondly, the Heads of State and of Government took the view in Amsterdam that there was no compelling case to involve Parliament in the administration of the common agricultural policy.
The present system whereby the Commission operates the CAP on a day-to-day basis subject to the overall supervision of the Council of Ministers has been satisfactory and should be maintained. The Heads of State and of Government also took the view that there was no compelling necessity to have a common defence policy at this time and did not include it in this version of the treaty, a decision which I fully endorse.
I fail to see the need to reopen this debate in the context of this report.
For this reason and for the reasons I have already referred to, I propose to abstain on the final vote on this report while at the same time, firmly recording my support for the Amsterdam Treaty.
Votes
Mr President, as I pointed out to your services and while I understand the reasons that inspired the authors of the amendment, I nevertheless believe that the reference to a protocol which is now somewhat 'old' , if I may say so, is not necessary at this stage.
I will therefore ask you to proceed to a separate vote, the first part of the amendment being word for word identical to the text of the Rules Committee.
I will ask this House, and I will leave it free in its wisdom, to decide to also vote through the second part.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Mr President, Mr Pimenta was the author of this resolution in the Environment Committee.
He has to be in Lisbon today because of ill health in his family and I ask your permission and that of Parliament to introduce a four word oral amendment to clarify the meaning of paragraph 2 in order that we can maximize Parliament's support for the Union's position in Kyoto.
I want to insert the words 'after the Kyoto conference' following the opening phrase which says 'Calls on the European Union' to convert the Commission's recent communication into a binding commitment in order to give substance to our commitment.
It was not Mr Pimenta's intention in drafting this, or that of the Environment Committee, to bind the Commission's negotiating hands in Kyoto.
By adding that phrase 'after the Kyoto conference' we make that clear and I hope the House will then be able to support the revised text.
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, as you well know there is an unfortunate tendency on the continent to mix up England and Britain, something which you and I feel is an important distinction.
Unfortunately the services have made a mistake in Amendment No 41: the word 'anglaise' in the original French text has been translated into 'British' .
This is highly regrettable.
I should like this to be recorded.
We will ensure that all the language versions are correct and these important distinctions are adhered to.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that Amendment No 45, which we introduced, should read in the second part of the German version: ' advocates maintaining a cohesion fund' and not, as was incorrectly translated, ' demands for its part the maintenance of a cohesion fund' .
It is a very important point that the words are reproduced exactly as I uttered them, or else there are likely to be problems.
The discussion in the groups and in the Committee was very intense.
It is important to have the same, correct version in all languages.
Mr President, to avoid all doubt, I would call for the Spanish version, which is the version negotiated, to apply. I can read it out if you wish, since it is very short: "Notes that the Commission proposes that the cohesion fund be maintained in its present form; is in favour of maintaining a cohesion fund' .
Mr President, I would like to point out that at this point the first part of the original text should be taken, and this reads: ' advocates maintaining a cohesion fund' .
This is the common text which was discussed by everyone.
Now the translation of what my colleague Mr Izquierdo Collado said into German was still such that there could have been some ambiguity.
I insist that this wording 'advocates maintaining a cohesion fund' is correct in the second part.
I understand that this is important but we cannot hold a linguistic discussion at this point.
I have checked and discovered that the original version was in English. We shall therefore as is the usual practice ensure that all languages correspond to the English version.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I wanted to make a point of order because I wish to congratulate you on your patience on taking us through this vote.
However, I have to say that in committee we had 275 amendments to this report and we managed to bring it through with virtually no amendments.
I am disappointed with the I-EDN Group which chose to table amendments and ask for split votes, thus taking up valuable time in this House.
It would suit them better if they attended committee and put their energy and effort into committee work instead of taking up your time.
After long negotiations, the Conciliation Committee has finally reached an agreement relating to the internal market for postal services.
We need to guarantee a universal postal service and, within the necessary framework of the liberalization of this market, determine which services should be reserved to universal service providers, and which should be the unreserved fields, open to competition.
European quality standards will be fixed in the interests of the consumer.
Public service must absolutely be guaranteed, even in an open market.
Some domains are reserved to public service: letters and packages of a certain weight, as well as letters which are registered or have declared values.
Furthermore, this protection forces public service providers to comply with certain quality standards, that is, ' access points' (letter boxes) in sufficient number, reasonable frequency in the collection and distribution of mail, continuity of service, and pricing to allow the use of postal services by all.
Out of concern for transparency, the directive will force postal companies to operate their accounts in such a way that they separate accounts for reserved services from accounts in services open to competition.
The decision for liberalization in direct mail services and cross-border mail has been deferred to 1 January 2000, when the Council and Parliament will have to decide on whether to pursue liberalization in this sector.
Finally, the directive has struck a just balance between the all-out liberalization practised in certain parts of the world, and our perception of public service.
The new provisions should guarantee consumers better quality services and more competitive tariffs, without calling into question the universal service and the public administrations which provide for it.
Seen from this point of view, the compromise of the Conciliation Committee is an acceptable draft which will still need to be transposed into national regulations, without adversely affecting the structures that have proven their worth in Luxembourg.
In my opinion a deregulation of postal services should not be a subject of debate at all.
Postal services in society are based on public service.
The Post Office should reach everyone everywhere.
People living in cities should help to subsidize postal services in sparsely populated areas.
If this is opened up to profit-driven companies in the area of postal services, it will only lead to the profitable activities being hived off.
The profits will then go to the private companies instead of helping to subsidize the socially beneficial services.
It is with regret that I am forced to make a decision on this report today.
However, I know that the rapporteur has done everything in his power to soften the negative effects of this proposal as far as possible.
My group objects strongly to the procedure being followed at present.
It may be that Council and Parliament, as institutions, have reached a high level of agreement.
It is, however, known to all those concerned that this agreement was not reached without a fight.
First of all the Commission submitted a proposal that anticipated far more liberalization than was present in the text which is we are now waiting to vote upon.
After ten long years of resistance from national monopolies in numerous Member States the Commission has given up the fight and thus forsaken its duty as implementer of Treaties, and as defender of a free internal market.
This resistance on the part of Member States has arisen from considerations of two kinds:
as long as there is a monopoly, there is no need to take account of inefficiency and postal services can thus be used for all sorts of improper purposes such as giving away public jobs and bestowing political reward; -in a few Member States which have to wrestle with depopulation in rural areas, maintaining post offices is seen as a social service, which provides a number of essential services to an aging and decreasing population cheaply, which would otherwise have to be taken care of by an socio-administrative public service.
However, these Member States overlook the fact that for example in Sweden and Finland maintaining both essential services and privatization of the postal services go hand in hand perfectly well.
However, this should not happen at the expense of tariffs which might be seen as a subsidy given by densely populated areas to thinly populated areas.Both Council and Parliament also overlook the established fact that, whatever they protect in reserved sectors, competition will raise its head anyway.
Not only will delivery services, which are able to operate more cheaply than the top heavy postal services, increasingly be able to find ways to by-pass the monopolies, and not only will business customers make increasing use of this, but it is also absolutely certain that the liberalized telecommunication services such as fax and Internet will replace the traditional post, also for the private user.
Businesses who of necessity have to make use of physical delivery services, such as direct mail and mail order companies, will soon reach the point where they will take care of such services themselves, or make use of the services of others.
For the liberal group the most unpalatable aspect continues to be the embargo on cross-border postal services other than those provided by official postal services, and this against prices which could be described as extortionate.
This means that the principle of the free internal market is violated in such a way, that this point alone might be considered a reason for our voting against.
That not one of the Member States has not regarded this as a reason for voting against may be regarded as a sign of the birth of the integration ideal of Europe.
Everyone from the political groups and institutions knew that the liberal group had these objections.
I myself have stated this explicitly and in front of the entire conciliation delegation under the Presidency of Mrs Fontaine.
We should have at least been given the opportunity to announce this at a public meeting.
All we can do now, is to do this in an explanation of the motive behind our vote, and to make clear that the Council and Parliament are not as united as the larger groups and the large Member States would like to make us believe.
Fontaine report (A4-0337/97)
Once again, the European Parliament has demonstrated its inability to understand the problems of the smaller countries.
At the first reading, Mr Fayot and myself took the liberty of proposing an amendment stating the concerns of the Luxembourg legal environment with regard to the formalities required for the registration with the competent authority of a foreign advocate.
This amendment was rejected, and I continue to deplore this.
I am nevertheless convinced that any regime for free circulation of advocates must be defined in a manner such as will guarantee that consumers have protection in all circumstances, meaning by this that the consumer can be sure of obtaining legal assistance from an advocate with qualifications in the law of the Member State concerned.
However, this objective cannot be met if a Member State has no right to check the knowledge of advocates in the national law.
I would like to yet again raise the fact that the vote on the Fontaine Report will not in any way change the rather more than special situation of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which is at the crossing point of several legal systems.
Hence, the constitutional and administrative law is essentially of Belgian inspiration, whereas civil and commercial law are influenced by France and Belgium.
Tax law originates in German tax law, and the decisions both of the government administration and the courts are made with reference to German jurisprudence.
Another difficulty resides in the fact that the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg is a trilingual country.
However, the language problem is an essential one for any advocate who works professionally in the Grand Duchy.
It must also be noted that very many residents of Community countries who are qualified in foreign laws are currently registered with the Luxembourg legal authorities' training course, and successfully meet the requirements of the end-of-training examinations.
Having said that, I believe that the current system enables advocates of European citizens to offer their services and to set up in Luxembourg without difficulty, while ensuring that they are sufficiently qualified to give advice on Luxembourg law.
Luxembourg citizens do not understand why this situation should be changed by a directive, and this is the reason why I shall vote against the new report.
I nevertheless acknowledge that Mrs Fontaine has gone to much trouble to understand the Luxembourg problem, and for this reason I would like to thank her at all events.
I wish on the one hand to congratulate Nicole Fontaine for the excellent work that she has carried out on the subject of this proposed directive, examined under the codecision procedure.
On the other hand, there is reason to congratulate ourselves on there being a common position, which was precisely the wish of our parliament in the first reading.
Indeed, the amendments made by the Council of Ministers do not go back on the spirit that the European Parliament wished to give to the directive, and that is the reason why I voted in the favour of the decision approving the common position.
The examination of this text by the European Commission, the Council, and the Parliament shows that the three institutions can, with calm deliberation, implement the principles of negotiation, which prevail in community legislative procedures, and end up with a highly satisfactory result.
I am all the more pleased with this good result, as the draft is of major importance, insofar as it contributes to the effective introduction of the European Union, and more particularly, to a concretization of the principles of free circulation and freedom of establishment.
Dell'Alba report (A4-0345/97)
I voted yes to the report.
There are great opportunities to coordinate the European project through increased cooperation between the EU and the Council of Europe, especially the two bodies' parliamentary assemblies and their committees and delegations.
This could lead to a more firmly based European cooperation and reduce unnecessary duplication.
A wider study should be carried out jointly between the two European institutions on how this cooperation should be deepened.
Jöns report (A4-0352/97)
With this explanation of vote we would like to emphasize the fact that in the final vote we supported the report.
After the inability of the Member States to produce a directive for many years, the agreement which has been negotiated between the ETUC, CEEP and UNICE is of great importance for millions of workers in the European Union.
It is therefore vital that the European Parliament supports the agreement in its opinion.
We also believe there is cause to reiterate, as the report does, Parliament's request to the Commission that it should ensure that a directive is put forward for other atypical work.
There are, however, a number of paragraphs in the report with which we cannot agree.
Among other things we believe the report contains criticisms which cannot be regarded as entirely factually accurate. For example, the criticisms made in paragraphs D, H, 4 and 6.
These mainly concern criticisms directed against the agreement on the question of failings in establishing minimum rules and failings in the scope of the agreement and on the question of what can be regarded as objective criteria.
We also think that the criticism of articles 3 and 4 in the agreement on social policy, as it is presented in paragraphs 12 and 16, is unwarranted.
We believe, on the contrary, that the role of European partners in drawing up rules for the labour market are of great significance for the development of a European social model.
We are also sceptical in principle about the idea that the parties in the labour market should be liable to report to the Commission, as stated in paragraph 21, in an area which falls under EU law.
Finally, we consider it inappropriate to do as paragraph 22 does and propose changes to the text of the framework agreement itself. It is particularly inappropriate because the report sets out with the ambition of trying to make its own interpretations of what could be described as objective criteria and to define who is a part-time worker.
In spite of these objections, there was never any doubt that we would support the report in the final vote.
The Danish Social Democrats are voting against the report by Mrs Jöns, in spite of the fact that it contains a lot of good elements.
It is important that the European Parliament presses for corresponding agreements to be made for employees in other types of atypical employment.
And it is good that attention is being drawn to the areas where the agreement could have been better.
But social dialogue is a precondition for creating a more humane and just society and a European Union with a more human face.
The agreement on part-time work is an important step forward for the establishment of a social dialogue at the European level.
To try to restrict it at its tender birth could have catastrophic results.
It is therefore regrettable that the Commission in its legislative proposal has set the stage for interference in the agreement.
We should instead allow the agreement to remain in force without changing it, out of respect for the social partners' negotiations.
We are also concerned about the wording of paragraphs 17 and 19 of the report.
We do not believe there is cause for concern about the way in which the social protocol has been written into the Amsterdam Treaty.
And there is, in our opinion, no immediate need to expand the circle of social partners beyond those who are already involved in the social dialogue.
24 million people are employed part time in the European Union.
Women, young people and the least qualified are those most affected.
The rise in the number of those working part time is especially marked in certain countries, such as the Netherlands and Great Britain, where part time work accounts for 25 % of the whole. Too often, part time working is enforced by companies and not chosen by employees.
The framework agreement between the European social partners has set out as its first objective the recognition of the principle of non-discrimination between part time and full time workers.
This should contribute to improving the conditions of employment of part time workers and give them better conditions of service.
But there are too many shortfalls and grey areas, particularly with the absence of provisions relating to equality of treatment in the field of social protection.
This lack of clarity leaves the door open to differences in interpretation and, above all, the possibility of too many derogations for ill or undefined 'objective reasons' .
I am delighted that the report of the Committee on Social Affairs has also deplored these discriminatory derogations.
The framework agreement appears unbalanced.
While it provides some assured conditions of service, albeit limited and subject to derogation, to part time workers, it encourages flexibility in working hours in the context of the development of part time working.
From this point of view, it is part of the approach of the Commission in the run-up to the European Council of Luxemburg on employment.
Our group is opposed to this approach, which aims at greater labour market flexibility in a manner which exclusively favours the interests of companies.
To develop employment and improve the conditions of life and work of the employees, our group proposes that the reduction of working hours be one of the central themes of the European Summit on employment, and so give European employees the strong signal that they expect.
A decision on 21 November in Luxembourg to open up the prospects of reduction in working hours could also mark a new start in building Europe and a move towards a Europe of progress, peace and security, which would make social progress and employment the motors of a new form of development.
The outline agreement signed by our social partners subscribes to some of the objectives to which our group attributes great importance.
The struggle against the discrimination which afflicts part-time workers, who are victims twice over, furthermore, because they arrive in that situation by way of a process that penalizes them, the improvement of their working conditions, and the placing of emphasis on the voluntary sector as a basis for the development of this type of work - these are indeed objectives for which we are all genuinely fighting.
We must however express our regret, as we did in the amendment we submitted, that the principle of nondiscrimination against part-time workers is subject to general exceptions in the agreement, and those exceptions leave the way open for the principle to be disregarded.
Furthermore, we cannot accept the underlying philosophy represented by the enshrinement of the so-called flexible organization of time which, in reality, means that job security becomes precarious and there is a real tendency to treat the workforce as merchandise.
Even those aspects of the agreement that can be considered positive do not extend to other forms of work which until recently were considered unorthodox.
It will be said, as the Jöns report claims, that the outline agreement is a first step towards the creation of a range of legal measures which will gradually eliminate existing forms of discrimination.
It would be nice to think this is true, but the agreement is so timid and hesitant that there is a risk that it will be accepted as such - as a first step - and that the illusion will be created that we are on the right road when we are actually going against the interests of workers.
These are the reasons for all our reservations why we are voting as we are.
I am backing adoption of this agreement as reached between employers and trade unions in June this year.
Countering discrimination at work faced by part-timers, improving their working conditions as well as the promotion of part-time work and flexible hours as useful options for many people are all things which we can enthusiastically support.
I accept that the rapporteur may feel that the agreement could cover other types of work and even social security systems.
However, speaking as a British Labour Member, I feel that we should back agreements reached by the two sides of industry wherever possible.
Agreements reached by those who will carry them out might well be better able to last and evolve than anything we as politicians could devise on their behalf.
Of course we can have our say in these policy areas in future.
But we should support the social partners in their gradual development of policies which can benefit our fellow citizens at their places of work.
I for one do so with enthusiasm rather than reluctance.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last July, our Assembly adopted a resolution on the reinforcement of the Community strategy for improved air safety.
The text on which we are today to give our opinion is part of this set of measures.
By analogy, the Committee on Transport and Tourist is asking for the application to the air transport sector of what is being done in the maritime sector.
We are requesting that third world countries respect the safety standards of the Chicago Convention and the rules of the International Civil Aviation Organization.
The European Union must have a strict position in this.
We know that many aircraft do not respect elementary safety rules.
Proof of this is the 'airports of convenience' which are being developed in order to circumvent obligations.
This we cannot accept, as nobody can play around with personal safety.
Finally, we also know that some countries, particularly the least wealthy, will be adversely affected by this safety code.
We will therefore have to devise means of cooperation with these countries, through technical assistance.
Knowing the difficulty of a technical report of this kind, I would like to congratulate our colleague Mr Gonzalez Triviño on his serious work.
I am a supporter of the conclusions and the features of this directive, which deals with the safety of non-Community aircraft.
Like the rapporteur, I believe that henceforward, we must concentrate more on the airlines than on the airport authorities.
I support the key undertakings of this directive, and I appreciate its determination to impose enforceable measures on operators, who on occasion use aircraft flying in hazardous safety conditions.
I support the amendments of the initial draft, whose purpose is to make public information on grounded aircraft.
This desire for transparency is praiseworthy and necessary.
It must be imposed on all and in all fields.
More transparency will contribute to giving citizens more confidence in those who take decisions.
The report of 1 March 1996 by aviation experts from the Union shows that increasing numbers of countries are shirking their obligations to implement and uphold international safety standards.
This objectionable omission, which has already cost large numbers of human lives, must be challenged actively.
In order to protect the safety of their own citizens the European countries must be careful when entering into aviation agreements with third world countries.
It would be advisable if they adopted the policy of USA, which only enters aviation agreements once the authorities in the countries concerned are able to guarantee the safety of the air fleet.
Aviation competition in Europe tempts the Member States into adopting a flexible attitude towards unreliable airlines from third world countries.
We therefore agreed with the SAFA procedure, as suggested by the Commission.
When a breach of the safety regulations is suspected to have taken place, aeroplanes from third world countries should be checked within the Union, and if necessary, should be grounded.
That way the Commission will be able to prevent policy competition at the expense of safety.
It is desirable that a Member State proceeds to platform inspection when there are serious complaints or when there is legitimate suspicion on safety grounds.
Considering the above we supported the amendments to the González Triviño.
We regard in particular Amendment No 12, which would like to see the publication of the details of grounded aeroplanes, as a good addition to the proposal of the Commission.
Citizens need to be able to know which airlines are not totally safe.
Junker report (A4-0318/97)
I have voted yes to the report because it is important for decisions in an EU context to be based on a perspective of the role of the sexes and equal opportunity.
The Committee's addition about an EU control group with national representatives at a high level to integrate questions of gender into development work are good.
However, the setting up of a number of well-paid expert services at the Commission's DirectorateGeneral and other authorities must be rejected.
The Commission's proposal should be received positively.
It has the right objective - to integrate gender issues as an important factor in development cooperation.
But implementation, turning it into reality, is another thing.
And not a lot has happened on that point.
Mrs Junker talks about equal rights.
I would instead like to argue for a form of 'positive discrimination' for women.
The western way of thinking about equality between men and women does not hold up when you are talking about developing countries, especially not where Africa is concerned.
We must accept that, unlike in Europe, people are not people first and men or women after.
In developing countries it is often the other way round, and we cannot change that.
We must consciously make a distinction and tailor the help directly for women, because that it where it does the most good.
For example, everyday life for most African women is a life on the land, often without a husband, who is perhaps dead or working somewhere else. And it is far from certain that a woman will see anything of her husband's money.
It is her responsibility alone to get everyday life at home to work.
She tills the soil, fetches water, cooks food and has need of money for the children's schooling, medicines, tea, sugar, bus fares and shoes for the older children.
But, unfortunately, help from the EU often benefits the men, not the women, where it would do most good.
We must instead support women directly through the allocation of land, loans, better equipment and technology.
Women should be included in all aspects of development cooperation and in all EU policies which have to do with developing countries.
It is not enough to have individual success projects. The involvement should be a constant feature in all stages.
The Commission's general mainstreaming approach could be part of this strategy, if the principle is carried out in practice and does not remain empty words.
Help for the Third World will simply be wrongly organized and not benefit the right people if we do not give weight to women in the development cooperation.
In evaluating development assistance we should also use genderclassified statistics throughout.
Without such statistics we cannot measure the effect on men and women respectively.
You have to doubt how serious the EU is about gender politics.
We saw that in the Green Paper on Lomé, but also in other agreements.
Nor is any priority given to staff in the area.
At the moment there is one person in DG IB and two people in DG VII, of which one is an expert on temporary loan.
The staff should be permanent employees at a high level to have clout.
The gender issue should be involved everywhere in development cooperation. Only in that way can the aid be effective.
The gender issue must become part of development.
In many countries it is women, after all, who not only keep the economy running, but who also support society.
If our development policy is to be in the slightest bit effective, then it is important that women benefit fully from it.
Unfortunately that is not all that these days.
After all, men control the political and international, bilateral and multicultural agenda in the south, too.
In itself the proposal of the Commission contains useful suggestions, which chiefly amount to capacity-building for women.
Key words are thus advice, methodology, procedures, guidelines, training, etc. I would like to emphasize that these are all useful proposals.
But they are by no means sufficient.
In addition money absolutely must be allocated to support concrete women's projects.
That at least will achieve something!
It will definitely help to engage women more in the decision-making process, because they will start feeling stronger once their socio-economic position improves.
Fortunately Mrs Junker argued for the same thing. This is expressed in the amendments.
My group will vote wholeheartedly in favour of this report and hopes that the Commission will implement these amendments.
Gutiérrez Díaz report (A4-0317/97)
I hope that not only British, Northern Irish and Irish Members but our colleagues from across the EU will be happy to support this report.
Although the EU is already the largest contributor to this fund, I share the rapporteur's desire to ensure that the money provided from it is additional to, and not a substitute for, other public or private funding.
Of course it is also right to ask that this money be coordinated with that already committed to Ireland and Northern Ireland by the EU's structural policies.
The EU was originally founded on the basis that by living and working in peace alongside each other, old enemies across this continent could secure a prosperous and safe future for future generations.
At this time the cross-party talks process inside Northern Ireland is at a crucial early stage.
This practical gesture from the EU to continue its funding support for economic and social development inside Northern Ireland and in its relations with the Republic is welcome news.
My colleague John Hume has spoken eloquently in the past of the example this city of Strasbourg has set as a place of reconciliation between old enemies.
The jobs and projects helped by this fund build bridges between the old enemies of Ireland.
Let us remember the victims of all sides by building a 'bridge for the living' . To quote Philip Larkin, a British poet.
'Always it is by bridges that we live' .
Linkohr report (A4-0343/97) and Kyoto conference
Mr President, I did not vote for the Linkohr report.
It is not certain to me that climate change in the form of global warming is taking place, and even less clear is the part played by human activity or specifically by carbon dioxide.
Parliament should be wary of trying to solve something that may not exist.
Precautions can only be taken successfully against a known problem.
If, however, carbon dioxide is a threat to the world, then the Green position has logic on its side: an end to the use of all fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal.
However, last year the world consumed more coal, more oil and more gas than in 1995, and by significant amounts, and not only in developing countries.
My concerns are to reduce atmospheric pollutants which are life-threatening - CO2 is not - and to place maximum emphasis on energy efficiency.
Finally, we should remember the two billion people, 40 % of the world's population, who have no access to any commercial energy supply whatsoever.
For them climate change is not a priority.
The report from our colleague Rolf Linkohr is at once determined, comprehensive, serious and of high quality.
I would like to congratulate him.
The Parliament has, on many occasions, had laid before it problems relating to the environment in general and to gaseous emissions contributing to the greenhouse effect in particular.
This is a major problem both for today and over the next few years.
Not long ago, we voted in a resolution whose aim was to reinforce mechanisms of surveillance over CO2 and other gases.
Not all are pleased about this, and some may even be of the opinion that we do far too much in this field.
For my part, I believe that we should ceaselessly work to preserve our environment and the quality of our air.
In the strict sense of the term, this is a vital question.
I support Rolf Linkohr in his determination at the Kyoto conference to forge an ambitious position for the European Union, particularly as he is doing so with a keen sense of his responsibilities with regard to the economy and to employment.
As this date draws closer, I am astonished at the lack of enthusiasm by some countries for ratifying vital and minimum commitments.
These same countries are much more prompt when it comes to imposing their own visions, whenever unbridled liberalization bears down on individuals with all the weight of the sacrosanct law of profitability.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we do have to envisage measures of constraint, to enable the effective putting into practice of actions to achieve our proclaimed targets.
We should not forget that in this field, most unfortunately, the question is not how to improve the current situation, but to avoid it becoming too very much worse.
We are all beginning to suffer the consequences of climate change.
Even the most reluctant can no longer deny the scientific and factual evidence of this alarming fact, which was announced years ago.
Emissions of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, have increased by 3.4 % in the United States, but this does not deter the Clinton Administration's incomprehensible attitude towards the conference or the disappointing cuts announced by Japan.
The EU delegation is going to the conference with a positive approach and the mandate of the Fifteen to seek the inclusion in the new protocol of the target of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 15 % by 2010 compared with 1990, with a reduction of 7.5 % by 2005.
The Union must ensure that these objectives and this timetable, as well as the future strategies, are binding for everyone.
We are agreed that a failure at Kyoto would have such dramatic consequences that the industrialized countries' sense of moral responsibility must prevail at the conference.
The climate conference in Kyoto should be a starting point for being able to limit world emissions of greenhouse gases.
Unfortunately, both the USA and Japan have a very intractable position when it comes to getting to grips with the problem.
The EU's position is in the right direction, but in my opinion it does not go far enough.
I do not share Commissioner Bjerregaard's and Council representative Lahure's view that, in order to really be able to do something about the problem, the EU should not take a lead and introduce binding commitments unless other industrialized countries also do so.
Comprehensive measures are needed in the areas of energy, agricultural and transport policy.
I think it would be better for us to take these measures now rather than wait until it is too late.
We have to adapt to the limitations of nature to a much greater degree than today.
Comprehensive measures will also give companies in EU countries a competitive advantage against those of other countries if in order to reduce emissions they develop new technology which can be sold to other countries.
The EU's demands are in fact on the low side, but they are nonethe-less far more realistic than those of the USA and Japan.
I voted yes in the final vote, but no to the amendment on support for nuclear power.
Mr Linkohr deserves praise for his report on the energy dimension of climatic change.
It is good to learn that anthropogenic climatic change is being taken seriously and that the horrific scenarios which are put forward by scientists about the climatological effect of greenhouse gases on the world are not being ignored.
A sensible energy policy should aim to change behaviour at all stages in which greenhouse gases are produced.
Many of the greenhouse gases which alter the climate come from large industrial plants which can easily be regulated and which can easily be inspected.
Centrally-directed solutions are in order here.
Mr Linkohr's report gives many excellent examples of that.
However, we have to be aware that there are also very large emissions of greenhouse gases from domestic animals, traffic and other small producers which are difficult to control.
You can of course counter this to a certain extent with increased controls and by making administrable demands on the local authorities and the supply businesses which are in direct contact with the citizens.
But we must go even further.
If we really want to solve the problem of emissions which are difficult to control, we must use financial incentives.
It should be financially beneficial for individual households or farmers to save, and it should be financially beneficial to convert to using sustainable energy in households, trade and industry.
However, I am very unhappy with the energy priority which the rapporteur is proposing as a solution to anthropogenic climatic change.
It is proposed that you can let nuclear power replace existing CO2-contaminating power stations, because nuclear power is one of the cleanest sources of energy which does not emit greenhouse gases.
I do not agree with that.
Technical advances in recent years have greatly improved the efficiency of sustainable sources of energy, and instead of supporting and giving so much money to the European nuclear power industry, as the Community notoriously does, we should reinforce efforts to promote sustainable sources of energy.
Nuclear power might be cheap, but the low price should not be a reason for us to forget to think on new lines.
The many nuclear power installations also represent major safety problems for our environment, and it is true that the management of uranium mines in Canada, Mexico and Africa is far too poor.
The uranium mines are often left in an unprotected condition and are a great danger to the surrounding environment.
It is in the areas where there are uranium mines that the indigenous peoples live who are entirely dependent on nature.
They no longer dare to eat game which has been deformed by pollution, and they are themselves exposed to radiation which is making the death rate from cancer, among other things, alarmingly high.
In addition there are the problems connected with the disposal of spent reactor waste.
There are still no sensible methods of storing the spent waste.
Nor can I support the rapporteur's proposal to introduce an energy tax at the EU level.
I am an opponent of allowing the countries which wish to go forward to be held back by the less progressive countries simply because there should be joint solutions.
Tax policy should not be made an EU concern.
It would be unfortunate, for example, if Danish energy taxes were harmonized 'down' to, for example, the Belgian level.
What we need is a system in which the minimum rules are constantly raised and requirements are toughened for all Member States.
BSE
Mr President, while welcoming the debate yesterday on BSE and the subsequent resolution, this House should not forget the human price of past negligence.
Twenty-one people have died of the new variant of CJD, the human form of BSE, in Britain since 1995.
Last Friday I met the parents and boyfriend of one of the victims in my constituency.
Mr and Mrs Sinnott lost their 23-year-old daughter, Nina, to new variant CJD last May.
They and the other parents of sons and daughters who have died deserved an explanation.
The last government is guilty of a cover-up and they have been warned by the Royal Environment Commission back in 1979 and the Southwood report in 1989, but failed to act.
The Sinnotts and the public have a right to know the facts.
Parliament's work should be followed up by a public enquiry in Britain.
As a member of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE, and the Temporary Committee to follow up the Recommendations of the European Parliament relating to BSE, I would like to draw your attention to a particular point in the dossier, at a time when fifteen months of work are now being completed with the vote on the Böge report.
We have, over time, brought to light on a number of shortfalls and failures.
Now, this long and painstaking work has enabled us to set up a new strategy at the European level to guarantee our citizens food safety at all stages of the food chain, from animal feed to the table.
This was an absolute necessity.
We could not have done otherwise.
All the food production sectors, like the consumers themselves, have understood the full import of this drive to clarify matters.
In the future, we will of course not be satisfied with this.
The work that has already been done will need to be continued, so that each one of us, and in particular those who, like me, are members of the more sensitive committees, such as agriculture and health.
The conference on food safety and consumer safety which will be held twelve months hence will be one more opportunity to continue with this very strict monitoring.
However, we need not seek to go too far in all fields.
Here, I essentially have in mind industrial uses, where procedures are so tried and trusted as not to present any dangers to end users' health.
For example, industrial applications that use tallow by-products as raw materials.
This occurs in sectors other than foods, in pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, and in industrial activities and detergent production, paint manufacture, lubrication, or public works.
Such sectors would inevitably be affected if excessive measures were implemented.
In the light of their implications in the field of employment, we have to be particularly vigilant when applying directives, to avoid being overcautious, once we can be sure that consumer health is satisfactorily guaranteed.
I therefore approve of the Böge report.
This should be an opportunity for the European Parliament once again to meet the expectations of the European population in the fields of health and food fields.
The threat of a censure motion demonstrated how effective our control over the Executive can be.
I also share the opinion of the rapporteur, when he says that he is delighted at the effort undertaken by the European Commission, which has an obligation every six months to give us a regular and ongoing report.
This is progress in the right direction, even though there is still a long way to go.
Since the first report to the European Parliament on mad cow disease, which was adopted in February 1997, the discovery of a number of massive frauds has shown that the embargo on British beef can be got round with a disconcerting ease.
At the end of September, it was estimated that more than 10, 000 tonnes of prohibited meat had been sold and consumed in the European market.
This fraud is all the more dramatic as it has just been proven virtually definitively that the infectious agent causing bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or mad cow disease) has crossed the species barrier, and caused a new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in man.
Given this situation, what are the European Commission and the Member States doing? Out in the field, inspection is still inadequate, particularly in the transportation sector.
In particular, the dogma of the uncontrolled circulation of products (the so-called 'free circulation' in the biased language adopted by Brussels) is so strong that it paralyses all our defensive reactions.
The European Parliament monitoring committee report states that "measures and controls of the Member States and of the Commission, insofar as they are possible within the framework of the single market, have not been enough to prevent circumventing the embargo on British beef' , and that 'the Commission and the Member States have therefore been unable to protect the health of the population from the sale of potentially infected meat.'
To date (end November 1997), the Commission has still not presented to the Council or to the European Parliament any proposal aiming at improving border controls, and there has not even been introduced a system of compulsory notification of all meat and animal transportation from the United Kingdom.
It is therefore clear that, once again, the Commission is giving the concern for free circulation of products a higher priority on the internal market than consumer health.
However, I do not want to insinuate that the Commission has done nothing in this field.
It has ensured that the works of its expert committees are more transparent, and has undertaken a certain degree of regulatory activity, for example, regulations on the manufacture and use of animal meal, on the prohibition of potentially hazardous products in animal feed and in the human food chain, and the voluntary labelling of beef (this should become compulsory in 1998, instead of the year 2000).
But the move to regulations is hampered by three contradictory factors.
First contradiction: the Commission is unwilling to call into question the dogma of total abolition of internal border controls, as I have already said; such abolition was an error, and it will one day have to be recognized as such.
Second contradiction: the Commission is too much wedded to the idea that, in order to combat the risk to health, the powers of the Commission should be increased, and the rights of the Member States to self-defence be reduced.
A reflection of this is, for example, the stupefying amendment to article 100a, proposed to the Council of Amsterdam and accepted by it.
In the future, when taking national measures of protection in the fields of health or environment, and when making derogations to Community rules (and therefore to the rule of free circulation in particular), Member States will need to make a request under very restrictive conditions, where the Commission enjoys full latitude in its assessment.
Hence, the Member States will have no means of independent defence against the inertia, prejudices, and failures of the Commission, all of which have, as everyone knows, been the major difficulties we have been faced with in handling the mad cow affair.
At a time when the whole business should have served as a lesson to the Council of Amsterdam, to set a new balance in the relationship between the Commission and the Member States, it has been used by the dominant ideology to reinforce the powers of the Commission, and to shift the burden of guilt a little bit more onto the Member States.
Third contradiction: while trying to use Community regulation to ward off the danger of other epidemics in the future, the Commission is continuing to water the seed bed in which such epidemics can grow, by proposing a framework for an ultra-productivist agriculture, based on the lowest prices in the world market, in its Agenda 2000 programme.
For our part, we want an agriculture which respects natural mechanisms, and so supplies the peoples of Europe with hazard-free food.
However, such an agriculture will not be possible unless in future commercial international negotiations, there is recognition of the legitimate rights of regional zones of preference.
This is the reason why we are calling on the European Council of 12 and 13 of December next, which will be examining the Agenda 2000 programme, to reject the agricultural proposals of the Commission.
We are calling for a firm orientation in favour of community preference, with a view to what is already being called the 'Clinton Round.'
We are calling for a revision of the dogma of elimination of internal border controls.
Finally, we are calling on all the peoples of Europe to refuse to ratify the revision of article 100a, and therefore for this very serious reason (although this is not the only one) to reject the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I voted in favour of the Committee of Inquiry report on BSE because of the important balance that the report reflected between reminding us of the disastrous history of BSE in Britain, under the last Conservative Government, and the measures that are now being taken by the new Labour Government and by the Commission to ensure the health and safety of the public in food and agricultural policy from now on.
Much has been written about the whole question of food safety following the BSE crisis and we in Ireland, with a substantial food industry, are interested in any improvements the EU may introduce in order to enhance consumer confidence.
The Commission has recently put forward a proposal which would include primary agricultural products within the scope of the existing EU product liability directive (85/374/EEC).
Consumers will therefore be able to seek compensation for damages caused by defective primary agricultural products such as meat, cereals, fruit and vegetables. Farming groups in Ireland are concerned by the possible costs of this proposal to their members.
Consumer groups have pointed out that it is notoriously difficult to trace a disease back to the primary agricultural product.
The Commission is therefore contemplating introducing a measure which does not have the whole-hearted support of two major groups relevant to food safety - producers and consumers.
Has the Commission learnt nothing from the BSE crisis? You must get the support of all of these groups if you want to have an effective regulatory regime.
In 1995 the Commission assessed the impact of introducing such a proposal to the agricultural sector and stated that 'it would not adversely affect the agricultural sector' .
I am calling on the Commission today to further investigate this situation, before this extension of the Product Liability Directive is enacted into law.
The Commission has established a Food and Veterinary Office in Ireland.
This study is the type of work this new EU office should be completing and I call on the EU to commission such a study/report immediately.
One of the main tasks of the Food and Veterinary Office is to monitor the observance of food hygiene, and veterinary and plant health legislation within the EU and elsewhere.
It will cooperate with the many existing national food agencies, including the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.
I call on the present Irish Government to speed up the process to get this agency up and running by passing a bill in the Dáil establishing its powers.
The Fianna Fáil party during the recent general election stated that it would scrap this body.
They should not be playing with people's health while at the same time leaving the Irish food industry in the dark about what powers the agency will have.
In the original FG/Labour/DL proposals the agency was to have the power to carry out audits on food companies and ultimately fine the companies if they were not adequately following hygiene legislation.
Fianna Fáil instead believed that the ultimate decision over whether a company should be fined would be taken by the responsible Minister for Health.
Consumers will not have confidence in such a scenario.
We know that pressure can be put on Ministers not to fine a company.
I call on the present government to maintain the independence of the Food Safety Authority as that will be good for consumer confidence in the short term an for the reputation of the Irish food industry in the long term.
Since the setting-up of a Committee of enquiry on BSE, the European Parliament has been able to exercise a really effective control over the executive.
To date, we note that the Commission has taken up most of the recommendations of the Parliament, either by directly applying them, or setting deadlines for their implementation.
We have now set up a date with the Commission for six monthly assessments on work in progress.
Considerable progress can now be observed, and although relations between the Parliament and the Commission have been tense, it now appears that they may end up by being mutually beneficial, and I hope that this will continue into the future.
We of course know that there is major dissension with regard to certain specific points, on which we have taken positions - and rightly so - in our resolution, which I wish to support.
Having said that, it is fundamental that we continue with our joint efforts, with the Commission, with the Council, and with the Member States who so wish, to correct the errors of the past, to change the order of priorities to a degree, and to place public health, and hence product safety and quality, at the very top of our list of concerns.
Everyone, or nearly everyone, now agrees on this basic principle.
However, to meet this objective, there has to be a real change in mentalities.
This change must now and will need in the future to take place in the form of a number of choices that we will have to make at the European level, particularly with regard to new production and processing techniques, or in the decisions that we will need to take with regard to Agenda 2000.
This change will also need to translate into the responses that we can give to the many questions raised by the BSE problem: can herbivores continue to be fed with animal meal? If so, can this meal really be made from the recycling of sick animals, whether the sickness be BSE or rabies or anything else.
If not, what do we do with the carcasses of the animals destroyed?
Are the funds allocated to research and health inspections sufficient?
How can we provide for efficient control of the food processing chains from the farmyard to the table?
How can we reconcile the legitimate demands of our consumers with some of our international commitments (hormones, labelling of genetically modified organisms, etc.)?
We will need to set up a real ongoing process of vigilant oversight on every occasion where we need to make choices which can have repercussions on public health. We need to be sure that all these fundamental questions are the subject of public debate in each of our Member States.
The real cause of the BSE problems for the UK was a series of actions by the UK Thatcher Government.
1.The agri-feed industry, generous donors to the Tory Party, were given the benefit of deregulation; thus the feed bags to farmers did not have to list ingredients (unlike even the modest tin of beans).2.Renderers were given the benefit of removal of stringent temperature rules.
Commissioner Fischler, in a meeting with myself and Allan Macartney, agreed to the principle of regional lifting of the ban but the Unionist parties and the Farmers' Unions of England and Scotland both refused this saying the Scots had to sink or swim with England!Scotch beef is desired in EU markets but London has prevented this.
We have not taken part in the BSE vote today, for a number of reasons.
The first is that, under the procedure in force, the Group of the European Radical Alliance was involved neither with the work of the monitoring committee, nor with the drafting of the common proposal within that committee, so failing the most elementary rules of democracy.
This has prevented our voice being heard and prevented us affirming our position as we did in the temporary committee of enquiry into BSE.
The second and probably the most important reason is that the draft is a reflection of a soft and quite politically correct compromise, which is no honour to this House. We are not opposed to the majority of points raised, but we cannot by our vote in favour lend our support to what has been passed over in silence.
Do you not think it is odd that in no place is there mention of the overwhelming responsibility of the United Kingdom in the management of the BSE crisis? Or of the reticence of the Council and of certain Member States with regard to the adoption or at the very least compliance with the regulatory measures which are essential to the protection of public health?
Or of the scandal of the fraudulent breaking of the embargo?
Or of the uncertain wherabouts stocks of potentially contaminated animal meal?
Do you not think it is strange that the victims of the new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and their families have not been indemnified, at a time when we clearly know who has prime responsibility for the crisis and its origin? Do you not think it is quite illogical that the resolution fails to mention that the European Commission has not explored all means available to it to institute legal action for damage and interest against the United Kingdom?
The third reason is that we profoundly regret that the Parliament has not pursued its ambitions to their full extent, and is unable today to go beyond the analysis contained in the Böge report and to draw the true political and institutional conclusions which must be drawn.
This was the time, now or never, for the European Parliament, as an independent political organization, with the ability to overcome national constraints and divisions, to impose its authority.
Even so, I would wish to remind the House that we are otherwise delighted at the actions and initiatives already undertaken by the European Commission in order to introduce a European Community food safety policy and we exhort it to continue that action.
We hope that the Council will support its efforts and that the Parliament will be truly associated with this drive.
In spite of a real charge sheet from the Committee of Inquiry on BSE some months ago against those with responsibility for the crisis - including the British government and the Commission - the majority of the European Parliament refused to censure the Commission, and gave it a few more months.
At the time, our group, which was in favour of the censure motion, saw in this decision of the Parliament a failure on its part, evidence of a lack of necessary political will to send a clear and strong signal to governments and to the Commission which had 'given priority to market management, at the expense of health.'
I recognize that the Temporary Committee monitoring the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry has given positive results.
The Commission has effectively taken a series of decisions in line with the recommendation of the Parliament.
I am delighted in particular that financial resources have been released for the families affected by Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
But these improvements remain technical and do not go to the heart of the problem that the mad cow crisis contributed to revealing.
Here I am talking about the design itself of European construction, which sets greater store on profit and free competition, at the expense of public health and the interests of livestock breeders.
This is the essential reason why I am abstaining from the final resolution.
Even if the resolution notes the responses of the Commission and the Commission's shortfalls, it does not draw all the lessons of the mad cow crisis.
It in no way calls into question the orientations of the Commission relating to CAP reform.
As part of the same logic as that adopted in 1992, the resolution may well lead to further intensification of farming, which may adversely affect the environment and product quality.
Measures of a totally different scope should be taken, both in terms of CAP reform and for the circulation of goods, which should take more into account both the environment and consumer health.
The temporary monitoring committee, which took over from the committee of enquiry, has just completed its work, and its conclusions are damning as far as the Commission is concerned. The Commission for a long time had serious scientific information at its disposal which showed the high risks of transmissibility of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease to man.
The most recent scientific work has but confirmed this analysis, and the draft final resolution, presented by Mr Böge, naturally takes account of this.
The Commission needs to be kept under strict control, and this is the first lesson to be drawn from this sad business.
In this field, our Parliament has a legitimate role to play.
It must do so with far more firmness, clearly setting down the priorities which must be enforced on all.
Should not concern for the public health of European citizens naturally prevail over the old ideological behind-the-scenes deals which have some of our colleagues to the most regrettable self-censorship? Should we turn a blind eye to the scale of the Commission's responsibilities in the BSE dossier, on the excuse that we should not, in the name of a shared federalist ideology, diminish the credit of the 'objective ally' that the Commission is thought to be?
This surveillance of the Commission by the European Parliament appears all the more indispensable as the mad cow problem has revealed the very special malleability of European functionaries when faced with to pressures of a certain kind.
In order to dispel the merest hint of a hindrance to the extension of the single market, to the ratification of the Maastricht treaty, to the setting up a single currency, they have relegated to a secondary consideration, the priority concern which should have been the health of consumers.
To keep rigorous control over the Commission, we do not need, as is proposed in the compromise resolution - with which we do not agree with on this point - to extend codecision to agricultural expenditure.
This proposal is quite foreign to our debate.
Adequate instruments of control already exist.
All we need is the courage to use them, at a time when the Commission's responsibilities, as is the case here, have been clearly established.
We can but regret that 118 members only have supported this proposal, which was put forward in this Parliament last spring by Philippe de Villiers, in a call for a vote in favour of censuring the Commission, in the wake of the very serious failings which were brought to light by our Parliament's commission of enquiry.
We must not therefore let up the pressure.
This is the reason why, in the person of our colleague, Édouard des Places, we have stated that we would be paying the greatest attention to monitoring this dossier and that we would hold the Commission responsible at the plenary session of November 1998, by putting forward a new motion of censure, if it has not before then undertaken the indispensable reforms.
We are happy to note that the Green group, which did not support the censure motion last spring, now supports this proposal.
Vigilance in our control will be of benefit to all, and will once again enable our Parliament to act both legitimately and effectively in a field which is really part of its competency.
I am supporting these reports from Parliament's special BSE enquiry committee as I think it has done excellent work on behalf of the people whose interests we are sent here to represent.
Thanks to parliamentary pressure, confidential documents can now be seen by MEPs, monitoring of food policy has been separated from other parts of the Commission, new laws to ensure better food quality controls are set to be proposed and we have the Commission's support for a greater say by this elected House on agricultural legislation.
This last point is one of the most important to emerge from the tragic story of the BSE crisis.
Had there been more involvement and knowledge within this Parliament about agricultural policies in the past, we might by now have a less costly common agricultural policy as well as one which takes consumers' interests at least as seriously as those of producers.
It is taxpayers' money which funds EU agriculture to such excessive amounts - it is high time that their interests were taken properly into account.
For the amount of money they contribute, the least they can expect is safe food to eat.
Menrad report (A4-0354/97)
The report proposed by our colleague at the very least, reveals much cultural diversity in Europe.
The introduction of a minimum system for participation of workers is a difficult matter.
It is certainly regrettable that this text is short on ambition.
It is the result of two important cultural factors: language and relationships between managers and employees, both being the result of history.
Differences in the field of relationships are substantial.
This is not the place to draw up a list and to distribute good and bad marks to each of Member States, at least at this stage.
One thing does appear to me to be important: the acknowledgement by the European Parliament and by the European Union of the importance of negotiation, and of the need to lay the basis for workers to express themselves.
I do not have too many illusions: this discussion is heavily charged with ideology.
I am a socialist member of Parliament, and I believe that the participation of workers should enable the regulation and influence of the great free market which is being imposed upon us.
Once again, I shall repeat myself: the globalization of the economy should be done with and on behalf of citizens, who are also workers.
Gentlemen crusaders of ultraliberalism, giving more power to employees and their part in the process of production goes hand in hand with economic growth.
As far as I am concerned, this is one of the conditions of such growth.
Ultraliberalism crushes democracy.
It manufacturers poverty, just as surely as it increases the wealth of some.
This is the reason why I shall continue to fight for the dignity of the employee, of the citizen, against the totalitarianism of money, which wishes to bear down on all, and particularly on the weakest!
The European Parliamentary Labour Party expressed its opposition to elements of the Menrad report on the Davignon Conclusions concerning European systems of worker involvement.
We find the mechanism which calls for compulsory reference rules an unacceptable element of this otherwise voluntary approach to a European company statute.
In this respect we have voted against paragraph 9 (original text) and Amendment No 4(a) (new) which introduces punitive measures.
Hernandez Mollar (A4-0353/97)
We have objections to three paragraphs in the report.
In paragraph 10 the Member States in general are called upon to reduce the total tax burden for individuals by transferring taxation from work in the direction of consumption in areas like the environment and energy.
This is a far too general and ill-considered demand, which we cannot support.
In addition, paragraph 23 makes general demands for increased flexibility in the market for goods and services and in the labour market.
It claims that without this flexibility the current levels of social protection will not be able to be maintained.
To support such an abstract demand willy-nilly is impossible.
Paragraph 24 emphasizes the importance of monetary union for employment.
However, the opposite is the case. EMU is going to mean a tough blow for regions affected by decline, and is going to force citizens to be more mobile to find work.
Unemployment and social exclusion are two of the greatest problems confronting the Member States of the European Union They are problems which urgently need to be solved. If they are not, one of the main pillars of the construction of the New Europe, economic and social cohesion and solidarity between Member States will be placed in jeopardy.
The recent inclusion of a section on employment in the Treaty of Amsterdam represents an important basis for the construction of a coordinated strategy between Member States to achieve a high level of employment.
But in addition to writing it into the treaty, we must therefore define specific quantifiable objectives with practical applications at European, national and regional level, and governments must prove that they are committed to achieving those objectives, as they have been doing in relation to the convergence criteria.
Among the various suggestions made by Mr Hernández Molar, I was pleased to note the proposal for territorial employment pacts, his call to the Commission to give priority to projects in the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions designed to create lasting jobs, involving the various social partners in a partnership scheme.
The Autonomous Regions of Madeira and the Azores are privileged regions for the promotion of local employment initiatives, particularly in the fields of tourism, the environment, crafts and atypical work.
The feasibility of these projects will depend on the financial support of the structural funds.
It is to be hoped that initiative and innovation will be in evidence.
On the eve of the Luxembourg Summit on employment, the report from Mr Fernandez Mollar broadly satisfies me.
I completely agree with him when he emphasizes that growth is a necessary, but no longer sufficient, condition for job creation in Europe.
Growth must be accompanied by structural measures which will create more flexibility in the labour market.
Success by our enterprises will also depend on the increased coordination of budget policies, but also on fiscal policy at the European level, whose purpose is so far as possible to prevent distortions in competition arising from discriminatory fiscal measures.
I subscribe to the need to move from passive to active measures in the labour market, to promote the spirit of initiative and to fight against loss of worker motivation, which is also an explanation for our high rates of unemployment.
On the other hand, I would like to temper the words of the rapporteur on two points:
I am favourable to a reduction on the tax burden on labour; but for this measure to be effective, it should not translate into a transfer of taxation to other taxes such as indirect taxes, and in this respect public and social expenditure in general should be reduced, in order not to increase the budget deficit; -As regards the targets for jobs, it seems to me to be difficult to make a parallel between the criteria for economic convergence and criteria for jobs.
Job creation cannot be quantified in the same way as the reduction of budget deficits.
On the other hand, these data can be considered as benchmark indicators, so making for easier statistical comparison in Europe.Apart from these two points, I shall approve the report of Mr Hernandez Mollar.
For us the report is a disappointment.
It is of course good that we are studying how to create new jobs in the EU countries, but unfortunately there is no mention of the fact that we must also try to prevent the disappearance of jobs, particularly in the public sector.
Unfortunately, the EU's policy, through the goal of economic and monetary union, means that many jobs are being cut in the public sector where many women work.
The report entirely lacks an analysis in this area.
We cannot agree with paragraphs 3, 4 and 24, which concern the necessity to coordinate economic policy at the EU level.
We do not believe this is a way to create more jobs, mainly because, among other things, the industrial structures in the EU countries look very different.
Of course there are also parts of the report which are positive, including the request to study unemployment among the young and to put forward proposals which the Member States can use to do something about youth unemployment.
It is also important to have a switch in taxes so that tax on work is reduced while tax on energy and raw materials is increased, which is a policy the Green Parties are pursuing in the Member States.
A reduction in working hours is also a good way to reduce unemployment.
I am abstaining on the report by Mr Hernandez Mollar, as it does not deal with macro-economic orientations, which are of determining importance for employment.
The convergence criteria, which are absolute and sustainable constraints since the adoption of the stability pact, have deprived Europe of the economic recovery which is essential if mass unemployment is to be reduced.
Employment is the inevitable result of choices which are above all financial and monetarist in nature.
The dangerous and recent decision to increase interest rates, taken by the central banks, bears this out, alas!
The report does not go sufficiently onto the offensive with regard to the urgency of a European growth policy, growth through recovery of investment, by providing substantial European funding to launch a programme for major works, as proposed by the Commission in 1993, and still not implemented, growth by supporting recovery in consumption, the Achilles heel of our countries, by revising our tax system and by supporting wages policies.
Nothing will be possible without redistributing the wealth of capital towards labour, without European taxation of capital movements, without reducing VAT on essential products, in certain job-creating sectors or in sectors with a future.
Finally, the report does not sufficiently or vigorously affirm our determination to stop the current social deregulation.
Europe requires real social convergence, such as the European principle of a guaranteed minimum wage, fixing the legal working hours at 35 for the year 2000, reduction in maximum working time, etc.
The recent lorry drivers' conflict in France highlights the risk of social dumping, of an open market, without commonly accepted social and labour relations standards.
If the Luxembourg Summit does not take decisions and put them immediately into force in favour of employment, for a minimum regulatory framework, and for a pact for economic recovery, Europe will not accept an automatic move to the euro.
For monetary union without a reinforced political Europe, without social Europe becoming a reality, means that we labour under a major risk for the future: we shall have a diluted Europe, which is powerless when faced with unemployment, and far from the aspirations of the people.
Izquierdo Collado (A4-0324/97)
Mr President, I voted against maintaining a cohesion fund in this report because I believe that - should we have monetary union by 1.1.1999 - you can no longer justify subsidizing countries that are not involved in monetary union.
I think it is particularly important in regard to the vital EU enlargement eastwards that we save money here which we urgently need for enlargement in the East, and these ECU 3 billion annually can be very usefully employed for this.
Moreover, I consider it a disadvantage for the future new Member States from central and eastern Europe if we continue to subsidize countries not involved in monetary union while at the same time the new Member States fail to enjoy this cohesion fund.
That is why I have voted against this amendment to maintain a cohesion fund in contrast to the majority of my group.
Mr President, the report presented by Mr Izquierdo Collado formulates proposals whose intent is to improve the way Community policy in favour of greater social and economic cohesion currently operates.
Of course this report rightly emphasizes the need to preserve the principle of additionality, and to concentrate Community initiatives which have to date been too scattered, to pay attention to the increasing number of people who are in situations of economic precariousness and exclusion, and work for better respect of the environment, and reinforced support to small and medium-sized companies.
The report finally touches on the theme of misappropriation of subsidies.
However, our agreement on these points should not make us forget that we refuse the rampant federalism which is characteristic of this report.
The group of independents for Europe of the nations cannot concur with the act of faith recited by Mr Izquierdo Collado at the foot of the altar of monetary union, affirming that monetary union will be beneficial for the whole of Europe, provided it is associated with close economic coordination between the Member States.
Yes, we refuse any unacceptable slide towards a single European government, as is currently being prepared for under the economic approach.
And we similarly reject any propaganda in that direction.
Furthermore, the present report demonstrates as clearly as could be wished a concern to encourage cooperation with regional and local authorities in order to cut the ground from under the feet of the nations.
The only real interlocutors of European institutions in our view must remain the Member States, whose wishes are the fountainhead of the legitimacy of those institutions.
On the other hand, the financial proposals in the report leave the disagreeable impression that the intention is to give everyone a little bit of something to keep them happy, hence a glaring contradiction with the declared determination of fighting against piecemeal interventions.
No more funding for the cities.
No more funding for the information society, no more funding for research.
No more funding for the cohesion funds, etc.
Now we understand why the budgetary framework of Agenda 2000 was not bold enough in the eyes of the report.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations believes that common policies and structural policies should be kept separate, and would appreciate the Community concentrating its financial effort on common policies for cohesion, such as the CAP, and the PCP.
The Community should for example avoid scattered efforts in the labyrinth of urban deprivation, where it will inevitably be no more than window dressing.
In the immediate, you will understand why, for all these reasons, our group cannot vote otherwise than against this report.
Mr President, I would like to explain why I voted as I did on paragraph 51, Amendment No 16, referring to the policy to be adopted for the islands of the Aegean.
I voted against the amendment that was submitted by Mr Ephremidis since the subject of the policy on behalf of the islands, about which we naturally agree and which is included in the Amsterdam Treaty, is mentioned at another point in Mr Collado's report.
In no way does my vote mean that I do not agree with the implementation of an integrated policy on the part of the European Union, with the aim of giving equal opportunities for development to all the islands of the European Union including, of course, the islands of the Aegean, which are sorely in need of special support to enable them to participate on equal terms in the European Union.
The report is very full.
It makes a number of very good demands, but unfortunately it also contains a number of statements whose points of view we do not share.
Above all we do not believe at all that the common currency is going to have beneficial effects on all regions in the EU.
What paragraph E of the draft report points out is important, i.e. that even though the differences between the Member States have been reduced, the differences in income between the regions has remained practically unchanged, while at the same time the differences in levels of unemployment have increased.
With this result there is reason to wonder what the point of all the work on cohesion policy is.
Nor do we believe, as paragraph 14 of the report states, that a liberalization of the transport and telecommunications sectors will automatically bring advantages for consumers and companies. Deregulation has often proven to lead to the weakest members of society being hit the hardest.
Nor do we agree with paragraph 30 of the report on repudiating all attempts at renationalization of structural policy.
On the contrary, we believe that a lot of regional policy could be simplified if this part was returned to the Member States.
However, the most important question for us concerns the future of the objective 6 area.
It is regrettable that the report did not touch on this topic.
We shall never renounce the demand that the current support for the objective 6 area for arctic and subarctic regions should be maintained at the current level and that the criteria for these regions should remain unchanged.
We also ask to be allowed to point out that big promises were made to the Norrland region of Sweden in connection with the referendum.
These promises must be kept.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a good job on the report.
With this explanation of vote we would like to stress the importance of maintaining aid in the area currently covered by objective 6 aid even after a change in the structural funds.
We would also like to stress the need for a thorough overhaul of the aid currently given to the agriculture and fisheries sectors.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, economic and social cohesion by definition translates into a desire for solidarity going out from the richer countries to the poorer countries.
However, the excellent report of our colleague discloses shortfalls in this field, serious shortfalls in the perspective of Agenda 2000.
While, in ten years, revenue disparities between the Member States have certainly been reduced, regional disparities have remained virtually unchanged.
Worse still, unemployment has risen from 17 % to 22 % in the poorest regions!
What can be deduced from this? All the evidence shows poor coordination in many Community policies.
Such coordination is essential if we want successfully to take up the gauntlet of enlargement.
The Agenda 2000 shows some ways ahead, which must be the subject of reflection with the relevant actors.
Do not let anybody say that we have to reduce the number of structural objectives, that would only result in excluding the eligible regions who need them.
Disparities would become still greater.
At attentive and meticulous examination of what is being undertaken in these regions, with economic actors and politicians - I emphasize that - is essential, so that we can find solutions together.
In recent years, the objective of economic and social cohesion has been pursued with good planning and a certain political will, favouring a continuous development of the European regions.
Despite that, the regional disparities within the EU and the individual States have deepened.
The distance between the richest and smallest regions has grown by around 7 %.
An examination of the official documents shows an inconsistency and a lack of coordination of many Community policies with regard to the objective to strengthen cohesion.
We need to ensure greater consistency between the regional policies and the other EU policies because, even if considerable financial incentives are handed out in the scope of the structural funds, we have come to a dead end: that is not to say that quantity leads to quality.
The success of the economic and social cohesion policy should be examined not only in the light of the infrastructures constructed, but also in the light of the economic convergences, the development of human resources and productivity, and the employment statistics.
And in recent times there has been a constant loss of ground in the battle against unemployment.
It should be recalled that the policy of cohesion, aimed at favouring the adaptation of the structurally weak regions, will supplement the single market by offsetting the negative effects produced by the rules of an open market and seeking to reduce the differences in income between the states.
Moreover, when the new countries become full members of the EU, there will be an even greater difference in development within it than at present, which is already considerable, jeopardizing economic and social cohesion.
For that reason, there should be closer cooperation between MEPs, governments, European Commissioners and representatives of local authorities, with greater involvement of the regions and local partners, so as to considerably increase the efficacy of the policy of economic and social cohesion.
Without a concerted action, the EU's ambitions for the twenty-first century will be frustrated and it will inexorably head for fragmentation.
Beating the challenge of cohesion means enabling a new concept of solidarity and intra-Community unity to triumph, thanks to which the EU will not sink to the ranks of a vast free trade area.
I share the fundamental preoccupations of our colleague.
The report is frank and well-constructed in its content.
In a word, this is good work.
I fully agree with the concern to harmonize levels of technology in the various regions.
I hope that this aspect will be supported by the European Parliament and by the Commission.
The general philosophy of the report is good: it is necessary to reaffirm the vocation of the European Union for structural adjustment of the regions and the Member States.
Union enlargement, if it is to be beneficial, must take into account these priorities.
For this reason, we must maintain and reinforce the cohesion funds.
If we concentrate over-much on the internal market as part of the global market, we shall lose the political dimension of European construction, which was so dear to the heart of the founding fathers.
This report requests that more allowance be made for local authorities when meeting defined objectives.
I approve of that orientation, as this partnership would promote a better matching of proposed actions to the reality of the lives of local actors.
This would guarantee better visibility with regard to the commitment from the European Union to the regions who have vital requirements. The image of the Union would be reinforced and enhanced.
The European Union, if it is to be strong when facing the new challenges, must be united and coherent.
If some regions are left to fall behind, there is a risk of fragmentation, which would be detrimental to the future.
We should not lose sight of this idea, and of the necessity of this point of view, when we come to the study of the reform of the structural funds.
I wish to explain my vote on the report by Mr Izquierdo Collado, as it relates to a subject which in my view is essential for the future of the Union, and that is economic and social cohesion.
The first three-yearly report on economic and social cohesion threw light on the persistence of considerable disparities between the fifteen countries of the European Union, this being so in spite of the acknowledged efficiency of the structural policies undertaken for a number of years.
The report also emphasized the lack of coordination which may exist between the various Community policies with regard to the objective of cohesion.
Mr Izquierdo Collado is not content with analyzing these conclusions, but goes further, by placing the future reform of the structural funds within the perspective of the two major challenges of years to come, the enlargement of the Union and the single currency, and on this basis developing a number of recommendations for the future of cohesion.
I supported the Izquierdo Collado report, as I am, like him, convinced that economic and social cohesion must remain one of the priorities of the European Union, and that substantial resources must be employed to that end.
Account must be taken of this when establishing the financial prospects of the Union, and defining other Community policies.
Indeed, while specific policies are carried out in the name of social and economic cohesion, it is also necessary to develop synergies with the other Community policies - whether these are policies in the field of research and development, transportation, communications or competition, or contribute to meeting the objective of cohesion fixed by the text of the Union treaty.
Furthermore, while structural policies remain, of course, a privileged instrument of cohesion, their forthcoming reform naturally raises a number of expectations among all actors in the Union.
Mr Izquierdo Collado is in his report setting out a number of priorities, which I subscribe to overall.
But I would simply add that I believe it is necessary for the European Commission to inform us as soon as possible of its detailed and precise proposals in this field, both as regards the definition of new objectives, and the phasing out, or the development of partnership, so that we can give all the care and attention that they deserve to the examination of these questions, and not act over-precipitately.
In the vote on Amendment No 16 of the Confederal Group of the European United Left I abstained, though not because I believe that the islands of the Aegean should not get support.
Quite the contrary.
However, I believe that this particular paragraph concerns clause 227, paragraph 2 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which does not mention the islands of the Aegean.
Therefore whatever position Parliament were to take on this point would be meaningless.
Furthermore, there is a special reference to the islands of the Aegean in paragraph 52, where the Commission calls for immediate measures to be taken on behalf of their inhabitants.
Neither the declarations of good intentions which were shown in this report, nor calls for social cohesion, can hide the terrible social reality.
While it clearly appears that there are continuing disparities between regions, there is something which is more serious still, which is the general state of social, economic and demographic disintegration of most of the countries of the Union, and to begin with in France.
The economic policy of savage competition and of the opening of our markets enforced upon us by the Commission, the unceasing flow of immigration from outside Europe and the exorbitant social security charges which weigh down on labour are plunging our country into a crisis of employment and into an enormous social crisis.
Unemployment, insecurity, immigration, tax, drugs, loss of identity, ageing of the population: this reality is not social cohesion, but generalized social disintegration.
You propose continuing down the same track, bolstering up the same policy, ever more generously financing the same actions.
But the Commission has gone down the wrong road.
We need another policy and another Europe, in order to set up Community preference, in order to protect our markets from social dumping and from immigrationcolonization, and to re-establish security in our cities, free tax payers from tax slavery, and guarantee a true family policy.
Your Europe is one of failure and crisis.
We want nothing to do with it.
In spite of investment in economic and social cohesion through the structural funds, the cohesion fund, the social fund etc., the injustices largely remain in Europe between the poor and the rich, between those who do and those who do not have work, and between the strong and the weak regions.
The Commission's suggestion that the problems are going to be solved through the introduction of EMU and through further efforts on the route already taken does not inspire confidence.
Nor does the report, which largely recommends the same solutions.
A reduction in the number of objective areas in the structural funds is justified, but under no circumstances should it be at the cost of the aid itself as such.
The proposal to incorporate the objective 6 area into the objective 1 area must not be allowed to lead to reduced regional aid for Sweden.
It is good that the structural funds are being used more extensively to increase employment.
To merge objective 3 and objective 4 in order to concentrate solely on re-education and training appears panicky.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
On a point of order.
Mr President, I would like to bring to the House's attention an incident that happened at lunchtime today.
During the voting at lunchtime, one of the Members of this House claimed that during the translation of certain amendments one of the amendments had been incorrectly translated into English from the original version in French.
He claimed that the text should have read 'English meat' instead of 'British meat' .
Can I point out to this House that I have a copy of the original amendment, signed by that Member, which quite clearly states 'la viande britannique' , which quite clearly points to British meat.
That Member was misleading this House and I wish the record to be corrected.
Treaty of Amsterdam (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate of the report (A4-0347/98) by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mr President, I really would like to admit to our two rapporteurs that the Treaty of Amsterdam has brought benefits and developments in its wake.
However, historically, we must concede that the governments and leaders of the Member States have failed in the historic dimension insofar as they have not managed to give the European Union of the Fifteen greater decision-making powers, nor have they succeeded in making it capable of enlargement.
That is the historic failure of the governments, not Europe, but the governments.
What we are now faced with, and what I really fear, is a very difficult dilemma, that on the one hand the political situation could develop in such a way that the institutions will not get to be reformed and that, on the other, enlargement will be postponed, or even declared to be impossible, in view of the lack of institutional reform.
This dilemma is the legacy of Amsterdam.
We should admit this quite openly.
The following course seems advisable to me. The most important point is that we do not let the political discussion about institutional reform peter out.
The European Parliament needs to ensure, together with the national parliaments, that political pressure is maintained in the direction of institutional reform.
If we cannot manage that, then the thing I really fear will be upon us, with the result that neither enlargement nor a consolidation of the European Union will happen.
The reason for us getting into these difficulties still lies in the fact that in reality there is no consensus about the aim of European integration.
That is the original cause of our difficulties.
We need to show commitment to bolster support for the political union publicly, in our own countries, because this is not just a central responsibility, but also the crucial point, if we want to move forward with European integration.
Mr President, like the majority of my group, I am going to vote no to the report in question and advise the Member States against ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty.
The treaty means that even more powers will be transferred from the elected representatives in the national parliaments to the EU's institutions; institutions which are under much weaker democratic control.
There is no area where decision-making is being transferred closer to the citizens of the Member States.
Major changes are taking place in the Union of today compared with the Union which Sweden joined almost three years ago.
The border controls which it was then said would remain are now going to be banned, the right of veto which we were to have in the area of foreign policy is now to be severely limited, new steps are being taken towards a common defence which it was said would not become a reality, supranationality is increasing and the influence of small states is being reduced, while the European Parliament is being given increased power.
This negative development is not outweighed by the limited advances also being made in the treaty in areas such as employment and openness.
I would like in particular to point out two paragraphs in the report which I cannot accept.
There is a demand that the European Parliament should have a right of assent in future treaty changes.
That would be a crucial change which would change the nature of the Union in the direction of a state.
If the Member States are no longer able to decide the development of the treaty themselves, they will also have lost control over the direction in which the Union is going.
The second area is that the report demands new large institutional changes as an absolute condition for a future enlargement of the EU.
In this way enlargement is being taken 'hostage' , but there is nothing to say that an enlargement would be more successful if the dominance of the large states in the EU were increased further by giving them more votes on the Council of Ministers.
Nor is there any connection between supranationality and efficiency within the EU.
Perhaps the clearest example of this is the fact that the EU's agricultural policy, which has been supranational for almost the longest time of all policy areas, is one of the most inefficient by far.
Mr President, Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos have done a lot of work on this report, which we are grateful for.
I am, however, surprised by the turn which the reading of the Amsterdam Treaty has taken.
From seeing the treaty as a great disappointment and directing massive criticism against it, it now appears that a majority are prepared to vote for the treaty, even though it has not been changed.
We were agreed and the criticism was massive precisely because of the lack of openness and public insight as well as the 'concerns' about supranationality, intergovernmentalism and protocols etc. in the third pillar which make it completely incomprehensible, and mean that it could in fact lead to legal uncertainty.
At the beginning of the debate Mr Méndez de Vigo addressed the 'good Europeans' and not those who were thinking of voting no, i.e. not to those of us who do not want any federalism.
I would recommend him to go round the various Member States among the people of Europe.
Of course they want to have cooperation, but they do not want to be subjected to the centralized and bureaucratic acquis communautaire .
The citizens have very little sympathy for these superpower dreams and there is very little desire for EU federalism.
The really good Europeans represent a popularly-based and democratically legitimate Europe.
We want cooperation to apply to the whole of Europe, without reservations, so that we can create a stable peace and democracy.
We are going to vote no and want referendums in the Member States.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on their work, although I normally refrain from doing so in principle because of the time.
Although we will not be approving the report, the work involved really does need to be highlighted.
In presenting its arguments, the report objectively shows up the merits and deficiencies in the text of the treaty in a way that could have just as easily borne the famous 'no, although' as the 'yes, but' opted for by the rapporteur for political reasons after controversial debate.
For us independents, alongside the For and Against, the lack of progress in the institutional sphere heard today, reflecting in our view the situation in the Union, there is also the casting vote of 'no, although' .
That is largely because we see this as signalling that the intergovernmental conference has reached its limits, because the citizens of Europe are not prepared under the given circumstances to surrender sovereignty further and because we believe that this phenomenon should be taken seriously.
Mr President, this assessment is more general.
The Amsterdam Treaty could be regarded as the agreement of the many little steps, most of which must be described as positive.
However, the radical reforms that our times demand were absent.
The European Union has not been institutionally strengthened even on the eve of a new cycle of enlargements, which must not be put off till doomsday.
A joint foreign policy remained one of the demands and defence policy remained in the hands of a NATO which is not exclusively European and in which Europe does not play the leading role.
Great aspirations met with rejection and with the scepticism of those who still aim at seeing Europe gradually being transformed into a broader free trade area.
The shadow cast by the transition into the third phase of economic and monetary union and the euro did not permit new leaps forward.
Most European governments did not feel strong enough to move forward, even in the institutional sector, in a Europe that continues to be plagued by unemployment and that has not yet stabilized its economic recovery.
On this view, the Amsterdam Treaty may be regarded as an interim agreement.
The weaknesses that have been pointed out must not lead us, however, to feel disappointed and to condemn the treaty, nor to underestimate its advantages.
The steps that have been taken may well have been limited, but they were many and in the right direction.
They also contributed to transparency, to a more social and a more community-oriented Europe, which is making a greater effort to move closer to its citizens and to simplify its decision-making procedures, to a more democratic Europe with a stronger role for the European Parliament and with the balance between large and small States essentially unchanged.
The analysis of the details of the treaty, which Mr Méndez de Vigo and Professor Tsatsos achieved with such great success and after a great deal of intense effort, leaves the final conclusion in no doubt.
In spite of its weaknesses, Mr President, the treaty is worthy of ratification, and the representatives of the governments of the fifteen Member States, during their meeting with our committee, although driven by different motivations, came to the same findings.
The crucial question now is what the next step is going to be.
The intergovernmental system for the revision of Treaties has reached its limits and the rapporteurs suggest a different approach, with a Commission proposal and political dialogue with national parliaments.
Mr President, it has already become urgent for us to move forward to political dialogue without delay, because it would be dangerous to complete further enlargements without in-depth examination of the issues.
And it would be a mistake to risk this in-depth examination without respect for equality between large and small countries.
Balances need to be maintained, because they are established by the general interest and by the very philosophy of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, every time we have discussed Europe here in the European Parliament or elsewhere, we have been concerned to know where we are going and, above all, where we want to go.
We will make no exception to that rule today.
At a time when the future of the European Union is being redefined, we sincerely believe that it is by reverting to major political causes that its leadership will be affirmed.
The fundamental principles of humanism, with its inherent prosperity and quality of life, the unyielding defence of democracy and transparency in our institutions and participation by all the citizens of the various Member States in the building of Europe are the great values which will enable us to strengthen and, furthermore, to keep fresh in our memory the original foundations of the European Union.
We should be reminding ourselves that strengthening political cooperation is, therefore, an imperative which we cannot allow to be overlooked, and affirming that its grounds of justification are based on unyielding respect for the diversity of the different nations of which the Union is composed. This, then, is an aim with which we must identify ourselves.
Political cooperation between Member States must be strengthened through the effective participation of all citizens.
Everyone says so, and they are right.
What is not said by so many people is that Europe must not be imposed, but rather consented to, loved and desired.
This fits in with the Méndez de Vigo-Tsatsos report on the Treaty of Amsterdam - and I take this opportunity of warmly congratulating its authors on its technical quality and its creativity - a report which, while more reasonable than so many others, does not give answers to the fundamental questions with which we are concerned.
It contains positive aspects, such as for example the acknowledgment that the European Union is a union of states which, therefore, are equal with one another, although the necessary institutional consequences are not drawn here.
The fact is that while institutional reform is recommended before the time-limit for the formal adhesion of the 16th country to join the European Union, it omits, or perhaps it does not omit, to make a statement on a matter which really is essential for us.
What institutional reform, at the end of the day?
Furthermore, the report defends the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
While it is debatable whether the report can recommend this to Member States from the institutional point of view, it is politically entitled to do so.
In my opinion this report fails to raise the question of representative power in Europe.
And that is a question worth raising, and I shall always be willing to raise it.
Mr President, like my Liberal colleagues I am in favour of the outcome of negotiations in Amsterdam because it contains a number of small improvements with regard to the principle of subsidiarity, the environment and simplified, democratic decision-making procedures.
But the most important thing that history will remember us for is not the treaty, but what it paves the way for.
The enlargement with the new democracies in the East is our generation's historic opportunity to secure peace, democracy and prosperity for future generations in Europe. That is what the whole purpose of the European cooperation was.
It is far more important than the question of to what extent the treaty could have been better on certain points.
I agree that with 20 or 25 Member States we should change to majority decision-making in several areas so that the Union can carry out its core tasks effectively.
But I do not agree with the rapporteurs and the Committee on Institutional Affairs when they threaten to say no to any enlargement if we do not have more majority decision-making.
Imagine that we have 5 countries ready for membership in the year 2002. Would this Parliament say no to them and take them hostage because we are unhappy with the Council?
Do we really want to take the new, young democracies hostage over this dispute with the Council?
I would like to ask the representative of the Council what you think of paragraphs 15 and 16 of the report by Mr Tsatsos and Mr Méndez de Vigo. And I would like to ask the representative of the Council to repeat what your Prime Minister, Mr Juncker, said.
He has clearly distanced himself from the statement by France, Belgium and Italy.
These three countries of course have the right to have their opinion and to promote it, but, and this is the crux of the matter, if Parliament goes in and stops the enlargement, and if the twelve countries do not fall in line with the three countries, history will condemn this Parliament.
It is a simple lack of historical perspective, a lack of a sense of proportion.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, vote against the last part of paragraph 15 and against a some words in the introduction to paragraph 16.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I thank the rapporteur for this excellent report.
I would ask support for the motion for the amendment which was approved in the report.
In it a parallel is drawn between the vitally important issue of alliance for new Member States and non-alliance, actually for the first time, in this type of document.
The committee voted against the amendment but, through my initiative, we got it in the part-session as revision 18 of the whole Socialist Group.
Parliament's position as a legislator has strengthened the base for the joint decision process.
The Union is becoming more democratic, I am glad to say.
So-called globalization has, however, meant a change in direction.
The state withdraws, and keeps an eye out.
Supranational market forces means we must keep a sense of balance.
Why are decisions on these issues not forthcoming?
National opportunities for influence and information-gathering must be extended, since the broader foothold the Union has, the more open it must be too.
The working party reforms gained at Amsterdam will not, however, provide nourishment for expansion.
That is why we need a new study, or else we will choke to death.
A ship that gets wider, but not deeper, can hardly keep up straight.
What is important is the expansion of a region of peace and stability.
The change of emphasis in the Council's votes, as planned in the Amsterdam Treaty must be made very cautiously and always respecting the say of smaller Member States.
In changing the number of members in Parliament we must also remember that the small states, too, need parliamentary representation, as the most important principle of the Union is solidarity.
Uniform status for Parliament members was not achieved at Amsterdam.
I have recommended to the part-session of Parliament that all representatives receive the same pay and that only bona fide travel expenses be paid.
Mr President, I too appreciate the work of Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos.
You cannot fail to approve their report and the treaty: every small step forward, however small, is always progress and deserves appreciation.
Moreover, as the European Parliament, we have to direct the examination of the national parliaments, because it would be very serious if the national parliaments failed to approve the treaty at the confirmation stage.
We still have to favour the process of accepting the prospect of greater integration of those countries that are already members of the European Union that have not yet joined the monetary union, and we also have to offer those countries applying to join the European Union the image of a truly effective unity of intentions of the entire Union.
I approve the treaty for those reasons, but we cannot hide our disappointment at the inadequate changes at institutional level.
It is not a romantic disappointment, caused by an abstract and idealist European culture; it is a political and therefore a concrete and realistic disappointment, not so much because the European Parliament had hoped that the intergovernmental Conference would approve the institutional changes relating to operation, prerogatives, composition of the Council and the Commission, and the Parliament itself, which were largely unanswered, but also because we know that, without these institutional reforms, the European Union risks a real process of regression and even collapse.
What was not done in Amsterdam should be done as soon as possible.
What was not done in Amsterdam for political reasons, which we can readily guess, should be done first, before any concrete expansion; what was not done can be justified by being impossible technically, time-wise and politically in Amsterdam, but can never become a mental reservation for not achieving expansion or, on the contrary, for using expansion to make the powers of the political union less effective and empty.
But it is not only a question of expansion: monetary union itself invokes a rapid institutional reform, the institutionalization of a political government for the Union that is just that.
Monetary union implies the absorption into the Community of decidedly consistent shares of national sovereignty that cannot be handled with efficiency, fairness, transparency and participation: and this we cannot pretend to ignore.
As the European Parliament, we should state clearly that expansion and the birth of monetary union and the objective of a greater integration of the European Union seek the completion of the institutional reform that only began in Amsterdam.
Mr President, enlargement is now the EU's most important task and no obstacles must be put in its way by making absolute demands for reforms before an enlargement.
Doing that would create uncertainty about Europe's development with a high risk of civil war.
Therefore there are parts of paragraphs 15 and 16 for which I cannot vote.
On the other hand, I am pleased about paragraph 20 about a continued and strengthened cooperation with the national parliaments, and I would like to urge the Committee on Institutional Affairs to go further with this with regard to creating a vision of the future cooperation in Europe. The Amsterdam Treaty is not perfect, because we human beings are not perfect.
Nor do we agree on all the answers to the questions of life and of everyday living.
We have different traditions, cultures, living conditions and problems, so the Amsterdam Treaty is a compromise.
It is incomplete, but it is a good basis for peace in Europe.
I am therefore voting yes to the Committee's report, which is a signal that a yes to ratification is the most important thing.
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty clearly falls short of the aspirations of this Parliament, as has been pointed out by many speakers in this debate.
But the choice facing us today is not between the Amsterdam Treaty and an ideal treaty that we would have wanted.
It is the choice between the Amsterdam Treaty and the existing treaties as they are now.
If you make that comparison, the Amsterdam Treaty includes a dozen or more significant steps forward, even if it falls short on one major point which is preparing for a wider Union.
I will not go through all the improvements.
They have been alluded to already.
I will just mention some key ones: the social protocol, the new possibilities opened by the employment chapter; the improved provisions on public health, consumer protection and environmental policy; the integration of part of the third pillar into the first pillar; the better protection of human rights and the procedure that is introduced, for the first time, to deal with any Member State that ceases to be democratic, should that ever happen; the better provisions on transparency; and above all, the extension of the powers of this Parliament, both in scope of the codecision procedure and in the procedural changes, which are precisely the ones we wanted.
It is interesting to note that none of these changes would have taken place - not a single one of them - without the change of government in the United Kingdom on 1 May.
It is also interesting to note that many of them, especially those concerning Parliament, were certainly facilitated by the work of Mrs Guigou and Mr Brok, representing us in the Intergovernmental Conference.
That being said, the new treaty fails to provide for the functioning of an enlarged Union.
The European Council itself acknowledged that in the protocol that it attached to the treaty.
This provides and needs further institutional reform.
I believe that this reform must include, above all, the question of extending qualified majority decision-taking instead of unanimity.
Unlike Mr Haarder, I do not think this need for reform means that enlargement will be held up - far from it.
There is time to agree those reforms and to ratify them together with the enlargement as a single package, perhaps even in the same treaty in due course, which would make ratification easier in certain countries and would of course also require the assent of the European Parliament, because we give assent to accessions.
There is time to do it.
It must be done.
We must put the two processes together and make sure that enlargement takes place with the necessary institutional changes.
Mr President, in light of the speeches that have been made in this debate, I think that it is legitimate to ask whether we are talking about the same treaty. Indeed, for some Members, the Amsterdam Treaty is a resounding failure, but for others it represents the triumph of pragmatism over idealism.
And, in my view, that is the most significant thing about this draft treaty: its ambivalence.
Those who have accorded maximum priority to the institutional pillar have condemned its inadequacies - and I agree with them.
Those who have emphasized the economic aspects have welcomed the fact that the draft treaty gives a boost to economic and monetary union and introduces a large number of innovative elements - and I agree with them too.
I believe that the rapporteurs have managed to overcome this difficulty, with intellectual rigour, and without extolling the draft treaty's virtues or concealing its defects.
Whilst this considered approach is important, the most significant thing is that this report is set within three complementary perspectives:
Firstly, the perspective of the past, since the Amsterdam Treaty already belongs in the past.
However, the report does not restrict itself simply to stating the facts, since what the draft treaty represents can only be understood as a function of the historical process whose roots lie in the origins of the European project.
Secondly, the perspective of the present, since history is not made only by counting past successes. On the contrary, we must also recognize our new point of departure.
And thirdly, and most importantly, the perspective of the future, since if we do not know where we are going, we will recognize neither our new point of departure nor the road itself - to which Mr Méndez de Vigo referred this morning.
The rapporteurs firmly understood - and, in my view, have clearly expressed in the explanatory statement - what the European Union has been, what it is, what it can be in the light of the possibilities offered by the draft treaty, and, above all, what it should be.
To this end, there is an unavoidable need to change the method.
And, in my view, this is the essential contribution that this report makes: it looks to the future. This report is therefore set in the perspective that we are still in time.
But in time for what? In time for ensuring that the wrongs which we condemn do not occur?
No. We are in time to ensure that they cease being wrongs.
And, in this regard, there are two possible approaches: continuing to argue about how many angels will fit on the head of a pin - whether the Amsterdam Treaty is good or bad, that is - which will change absolutely nothing; or ratifying and implementing this treaty, and working to change and improve a situation with which we are not satisfied.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to the rapporteurs, Méndez de Vigo and Tsatsos.
The quality of their work strengthens the credibility of the European Parliament in its exercise of its share of Community powers.
It is true that we expected a Maastricht II from Amsterdam and only got a Maastricht I and a half.
Yet Amsterdam should be compared with Maastricht, and not with some ideal model, as my colleague, Mr Corbett, was saying here just now.
The construction of Europe consists of a series of efforts, not a gift from heaven.
In any event, it would be an illusion to think that history is made by laws.
In the best scenario law is an accessory to history, in the worst, a reflection of it.
Now, if we are not mistaken, Agenda 2000 is no longer than Amsterdam.
And the extension of the first enlargement to include five countries is measured by the same standard.
Amsterdam, therefore, is moving at the speed of history itself.
Obviously, institutional reform held no great attraction.
But what we have done here is a step in the right direction; a strengthening of the codecision procedure of the European Parliament and the democratic legitimacy of the President of the Commission.
The path to real Europeanization lies along the Commission/Parliament axis and it can make contact with its citizens again through the democratization of the Union.
The questions of the number of commissioners and the weighting of votes on the Council are simultaneously insufficient to resolve the problems of transition to a new enlarged Europe and too much to alter the whole European construction model, without sufficient debate or the express consent of the electors, as though it were being brought in surreptitiously by the back door.
Until the single currency comes in we have time to think about real institutional reform.
This is also the case because you do not find two revolutions taking place at the same time and the one that is now in process is the change to the single currency.
I suspect, furthermore, that the first issue on the agenda today, the institutional question, has been and still is the apportionment of powers between Union and States, due to the Intergovernmental Conference model.
Institutional reform could only take that principal place in a framework in which the codecision procedure of the European Parliament also played a part in the revision of the treaties.
That is why I agree with the rapporteurs and their suggestion of a new method of revising the treaties, with greater participation by the European Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as we already said last June, the results of Amsterdam are not satisfactory.
An observation made here, of course, and elsewhere too.
Have we given this treaty enough of a chance? Perhaps not.
Although the worst may never happen, it is never wrong to be lucid and critical.
Our ambitions for the European Union are not limited to the pure summation of national interests, averaged down to the smallest common and acceptable denominator.
It would be better even so to ratify the treaty.
We prefer a little bit of not very much, to rather a lot of nothing at all.
I know many of my colleagues and friends will vote against today, but would in fact vote for if they were member of national parliaments.
Intellectually, the teacher that I am, or that I remain, understands this subtle distinction.
But politically, now that I have become a European Member of Parliament, I disapprove of that approach.
After long and painful labour, Mr Tsatsos and Mr Méndez de Vigo heard new demands rising on all sides.
A consensus has come into being around four basic points.
Whatever our assessment of the Treaty of Amsterdam, institutional reform is still ahead of us. Institutional reform is a prerequisite to any enlargement, and must be undertaken now, and in another way than at present.
Now let us move on to the future.
Let us ask others also to think about the future.
Our parliament has said and proclaims this louder now.
The Commission has heard this voice.
It needs to act, and said that it was ready to do so this morning.
Governments have responded.
It is down to the Council to listen, and take this message forward, to give a signal, both to ourselves and to the citizens at the Luxembourg summit, to say that they have understood and that they are going to get on with the job.
We could have adopted a more radical position, especially as our expectations were so high, and our hopes so dashed. We were almost cut to the quick to see that in Amsterdam, the European idea appeared to have been set to one side.
Our expectation from the Luxembourg summit is that Heads of State and of Government should take a grip on themselves, give a meaning to Europe, and say to the citizens that they know where they are going, and above all, that they all want to go there together.
Let us listen to René Char's words, as if he were speaking to us here in this Parliament, both today and for the future, and as if he were saying to us what he wrote for others: ' Work for your happiness, go out towards where your risk lies. The more they watch you doing this, the quicker will they get used to it.'
Mr President, first, flowers for Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos, mental and verbal flowers for a well executed piece of work.
The debate has shown that the decision in Amsterdam was too shortsighted, which is why I do not intend to go into the general institutional questions now, but directly to the area which I have observed as suiveur and to ask the central questions there.
Has the Union now got a decision-making system which is capable of strengthening the work in the field of justice and home affairs? There have been a number of advances, but are they sufficient to deal with the issues which we are facing?
Europe is on the verge of great challenges which are going to require a strong legal cooperation.
This concerns refugee flows, for example. We see unevenly shared burdens among the Member States of the EU.
We also already have 200 Russian mafia organizations which have started to operate within the Union's borders, and drugs syndicates have multi-billion turnovers in the Union.
Do we now have sufficiently smooth decision-making structures for the essential decisions which the Union will have to be able to take if we are to be able to defend ourselves against criminal networks which use the highest financial, legal and high-tech expertise? The fight against drug smuggling, trafficking in people and subsidy fraud requires both European and global coordination.
Such a coordination could have benefited from a more efficient decisionmaking structure.
The Union needs to create a clearer profile and a stronger European identity in order to give our coordinating efforts greater effect on international developments.
The demand for consensus shows that understanding of what is necessary spreads too slowly.
We are going to need stronger cooperation and faster decision-making.
A shared right of initiative between the Member States and the Commission is needed during a transition period.
That ought to be able to contribute to the Member States taking a greater European responsibility and raising the value of the citizens' European interests.
The deadline of five years which has been introduced in the first pillar for qualified majority voting on legal issues is quite unreasonable, not least because the police and most of the legal issues still remain in the intergovernmental third pillar.
From the perspective of enlargement, the transition period of five years before a new decision on qualified majority voting can be taken is risky.
I am very concerned about this, since I am afraid that it could delay enlargement.
I am therefore grateful that the report takes this up.
A reprioritising must be considered before the end of the five-year period.
If the Amsterdam decision has difficulty delivering, i.e. does not deliver the security which the citizens expect, we shall risk losing public support.
I would like to end by emphasizing that the citizens must feel a European identity which makes them conscious of our European community of interests.
That is the ultimate basis for the will of the people which can drive forward the necessary reforms.
"Ille faciet ' said King Karl IX of his son Gustavus Adolphus: ' he shall do it.'
He was referring to the expansion in the Baltic of the time.
However, it is not enough to do what was done in the 1600s, that is, put our hopes in the younger generation.
It is not a matter of what others shall do later, but of what we shall do now.
Mr President, my congratulations to the rapporteurs for their report.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is very modest and for that we can be glad.
Nevertheless, it contains many good things.
For this Parliament it contains increased powers that will improve the democracy and efficiency of the EU.
For my country it provides a secure legal base for the retention of our frontier controls while not frustrating the desires of the other members of the EU.
And although I have to admit that it has not been the constant point of discussion on every street corner, it contains much that is of relevance to the citizens of the EU.
The employment chapter, the anti-discrimination clauses, the new protocol on animal welfare, the UK's opt-in to the social chapter are all of relevance to citizens.
Of course it does not contain everything that people would want.
In fact, it is not as anybody would have written it.
It is clearly a compromise, as any treaty of this sort must be.
Mr Corbett has mentioned its deficiencies in respect of enlargement.
I would like to have seen some reform of articles 38 to 43 on agricultural policy which clearly are extremely outdated.
But, on the whole, the treaty is a good one and this is partly because it recognizes, as some contributors to this debate have not, the fairly modest aspirations of most EU citizens in respect of the growth of European powers.
Members of this House may be frustrated with the slowness and lack of vision of the member governments of the EU but it is those governments who have got to get whatever treaty they agree passed by their national parliaments and passed in referendums if that is required in their countries.
Mr Bourlanges - who is now here - said: ' The diplomats have failed.
The citizens are going to have to take over' .
Personally I rather doubt that if we had a Europe shaped by the citizens, it would quite meet the aspirations of Mr Bourlanges or a majority of this House.
That is why I have doubts about the end of intergovernmentalism as a means of designing treaties, which several people in this House have mentioned.
Mr President, I thank my colleagues for this report, which seems to me a very good one, as it is, in my view, the political expression of what the Parliament as a whole believes.
It is not necessarily completely consistent with my own approach, however, and my colleagues know this well.
Firstly, much has been said here about citizens.
It is true that whenever we hold one of these meetings, at least in my political framework, the citizens reject the Treaty of Amsterdam, and reject the Treaty of Maastricht. But that is not the problem that faced our rapporteurs.
That is a collective problem, which involves the question of how are we to rekindle the European flame. And here, I see only one solution.
This is in fact to do more Europe, to make the Europe we are constructing better, and to ensure our actions relate to their problems. I hope that the Luxembourg summit on employment will contribute to this.
Secondly, should we say yes or no to Amsterdam? I think the question was already settled in July.
We said then it was not the best treaty that we could have had, but we have already said yes to it, in a certain manner.
Thirdly, the real problem is of course that of enlargement.
If this Treaty of Amsterdam was intended only for the fifteen, I would say that, in the final analysis, although this does not add up to a major revolution in the Community, the treaty does contain some things which are not too bad, in the field of the environment, in social affairs. However, when seen from the point of view of enlargement - and here, I am only repeating what our colleagues are also saying - this treaty is absolutely inadequate.
This is the real problem.
The European political project is one of enlargement.
If we do not manage our own reforms first, and achieve democracy and efficiency, we will be faced with enormous difficulties, which will mean that our citizens become even more reticent than they already are with regard to Europe.
And finally, the fourth question. This is how we are to organize the forthcoming intergovernmental conferences.
We have already seen quite clearly that the current procedures for discussion among governments did not give good results.
The governments are prisoners to their own constraints.
Let us allow the citizens to speak out more clearly, and let us give more power to the European Parliament.
This is the message already contained in the report.
This is the message we wish to lend even more support to.
Mr President, Commissioner Oreja, ladies and gentlemen, the Treaty of Amsterdam is the European Union's visiting card to introduce it to its citizens.
And through the treaty, what it says, what it does not say and above all what its citizens can succeed in learning by reading it, they can create the will to be Europeans.
To achieve this the Treaty on European Union must fulfil three objectives: it must be an effective basis to enable the European Community to meet the challenges of the information society, the knowledge society, which is what the society of the Third Millennium will be; it must give high priority to people; and it must be clear and legible.
None of these principles is satisfactorily enshrined in the text which came out of Amsterdam.
The Méndez de Vigo/Tsatsos report has been the occasion of great debate between those who advocated the pure and simple rejection of the text and those who recommended that Parliament should support its ratification.
That debate has transcended all party politics, which I think is a healthy sign.
The Parliament will show a responsible attitude by adopting a clearly critical but constructive position as regards the results of Amsterdam - as suggested by the rapporteur, who has shown great flexibility in including countless suggestions, and even criticisms, some from within his own group, in the final text.
It is obvious that there can be no enlargement without genuine institutional reform.
There can be no institutional reform without a radical change in the method of revising the treaty and, above all, of the intergovernmental rationale which has held sway up to now, and thus without the total involvement of the Parliament and parliaments; that also is obvious.
A further point which is self-evident is that only profound institutional reform will make it possible to create speedy and efficient decision-making mechanisms.
But, Mr President, the fact that statutory equality of members is the very basis of the Community and that its wealth lies in the cultural, geographical diversity and varying sizes of the States of which it is composed is another important truth which I wish to emphasize and which must be taken into account when we consider institutional reform.
The fact that the cultural dimension will be the driving force behind the European project in the future knowledge society is perhaps the least known, but also the most fundamental of truths and must be represented in the text of the treaty.
And, finally, I live in hope of seeing the Council moving closer to the Parliament's position as regards the urgency of establishing a new method for the next revision, and also of seeing a reference to culture in the preamble to the treaty and the addition of a specific article on language policy, in view of the importance of that question to every citizen.
Mr President, I think the most important achievement of the Treaty of Amsterdam is that as a result, economic and monetary union will start on time, and secondly, that the process of enlargement has not been obstructed.
The treaty itself is thin. That cannot be denied.
It offers, in particular for the European Parliament, some attractive perspectives on the issue of further democratization.
But, Mr President, the problem remains for this Parliament too, that no parliament exists without a relationship with the people: democracy.
If you look at what is in the treaty, further intergovernmentalization, opt-ins, opt-outs, flexibility, then you will end up with a situation in which the people of Europe will never be able to understand how democracy in Europe functions.
Mr President, the shortcoming of the Treaty of Amsterdam is that enlargement will not be easily achievable, and that we will have to hope that, by reaching agreement on institutional reform, enlargement will become possible; without it the quality of the existing Community will decline.
To me that this is the crux of the issue.
Mr President, I do not feel all that confident about this, as the existing Community already finds it difficult to function well.
I will illustrate this.
We are always discussing the reforms of the Commission, the number of members in this Parliament, but we never discuss the Council.
But I saw in the paper today that my Minister of Transport did not manage to get the European Council of Ministers to discuss something as topical as the transport strikes in France, because the councils are no longer able discuss topical issues, if these have not been extensively prepared by officials.
That means a lot of time is lost.
Mr President, I think the problem is starting to seem as if there is no remedy; that, as price for enlargement, further bureaucratization will occur, and this further bureaucratization can be an important obstacle in the democratization of Europe, and I think we made very little progress on that issue in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
You should always measure yourself against your opponent.
Who is fighting this Treaty of Amsterdam with the greatest vehemence? On the one hand, there are the Euro-fundamentalists.
For them the Treaty of Amsterdam does not go far enough. They want a quicker and more complete move to a European federal state, and this Treaty of Amsterdam is a long way off that.
On the other hand, the Treaty of Amsterdam is being fought by the main opponents of the European Union, who either do not want a common Europe at all or only want a very loose confederation of states, a superior free trade zone of nation states, who can say no to everything.
For such opponents and their arguments the Treaty of Amsterdam cannot be bad at all.
But it could be better.
It could, and should, embrace much broader and deeper institutional reforms if it is to bring about each bit of consolidation needed for the next enlargement of the Union. We still have a few years yet until enlargement.
We must use this time for further treaty review, which follows other rules than the previous Intergovernmental Conferences.
The previous method of treaty review is out of date.
It leads to veto positions in areas where we need movement.
It leads to the lowest common denominator in areas where we need great - if not the greatest - commonalities.
Which procedure will help us out of this dilemma?
Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos bring the correct approach to the discussion.
The next treaty review needs to follow European rules of lawmaking. It must proceed in the way we traditionally make European laws: on the basis of a notice of motion from the Commission and with the legitimate involvement of Parliament and Council.
If we conduct the next review according to these rules, then it will be successful, and then the next treaty will not only fail to prevent enlargement, but actually promote it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission and Council, if the work of the treaty were to be appraised in one idea, then it might be said of it, drawing on the words of the German poet Bertolt Brecht, that it involves 'moderate progress' .
Bertolt Brecht meant this very cynically and critically.
Certainly, you can convey this element; you can also be very positive and say that it is progress.
We should not deceive ourselves, however, into thinking that the progress is too slight when measured against the demands that this House makes.
How does the citizen of Europe regard the European Union after the Treaty of Amsterdam? The citizen of Europe sees that we will be arguing and debating hotly in the near future because in many cases we have not succeeded in moving from the principle of unanimous voting to majority voting.
That is a crucial task which we need to put right with the next reform, so that Parliament can slowly arrive at the position it really deserves.
Secondly, there is an aspect I am constantly experiencing in the area of foreign policy: the citizen of Europe sees that here there is a large continent that produces a lot, pays a lot, but has very little say in the matter, because it does not speak with one voice, but with many voices compared with the single voice that comes from America. We surely need to correct this.
My final point: Mr President, how are things to proceed from here? Mr Rack and many others have already stated - and you will find this too in the report from Mr Tsatsos and Mr Méndez de Vigo - that things need to be different.
There is a need for this House, that is for the voice of the people, to express a greater willingness to reform!
For this was the way things were after Amsterdam: each head of government went home and said, ' Amsterdam was a great success.
I gave away nothing.
We did nothing for Europe, and I saved my home country.'
That is why Parliament, which represents the higher interests, must play a greater role in future.
In this respect I would like to thank the rapporteurs Mr Tsatsos and Mr Méndez de Vigo for their excellent report as a starting point for new reform, which must express more strength and more desire for a common ground.
Mr President, I am very conscious today that we are taking part in a continuing historic evolution of our European continent.
I wish to say that this latest stage of European integration sees the third significant treaty change in over a decade.
The ordinary citizen wants to know what this treaty is all about.
We have to spell out very clearly what it is and, to put it at its simplest, it is there to strengthen the Union's policies and the effectiveness of its institutions.
In this regard, I very much welcome the fact that the Union is being given enhanced powers in the fight against crime.
In future the aim will be to ensure that citizens can benefit from free movement while criminals do not.
I also welcome the new treaty provisions which reinforce the powers and the competence of the European Parliament in areas such as employment, the environment and all the other areas, such as social exclusion and poverty, that have been mentioned here this afternoon.
These are areas, naturally, where the public expect us to be active.
A further major advance in this treaty is in the area of a more effective and coherent foreign policy.
This involves streamlining decision-making procedures with a limited provision for qualified majority voting while preserving a national veto whenever vital interests are at stake.
For Irish nationals this is very important, and it is important to realize under this heading that there is no threat here to Irish neutrality.
In fact the treaty will have to be ratified by way of a referendum in Ireland and in a number of countries.
In this regard, I would ask the Irish Government to ensure that it provides simple information, not complicated texts in legal jargon.
One regrettable point about the treaty is that the seat of the European Parliament has now been reinforced here.
The ordinary Members of Parliament, the elected Members, do not have a say on this and this is very regrettable.
I welcome the debate today and I look forward to the debate in the national parliaments in the months ahead.
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos on a clear and comprehensive report which makes a critical but realistic analysis of the Amsterdam Treaty.
This week, three important events with a European dimension are taking place: this debate in the European Parliament; the special Employment Summit in Luxembourg; and - a situation which affects Europe, although Europe is not playing a major role in it - the conflict between Iraq and the United States, or Iraq and the United Nations.
I am going to depart somewhat from the question of the Amsterdam Treaty, depart from the confines of Parliament and depart from Strasbourg.
I am going to put myself in the position of the European public.
Whatever form is given to the treaties - by means of a system of revision which clearly cannot be the present system of an Intergovernmental Conference alone - as long as Europe does not have a socioeconomic model or an international political vision, the Community, the Union, will continue to function, for better or for worse, with highly competent institutions, but it will not be integrated into the world.
And, in this regard, it should be recalled that the Community was founded on the basis of a typically European socio-economic doctrine.
Within the capitalist system, Europe was endowed with an economic model based on an indicative plan for private enterprise, a binding plan for the public sector, and provision for social security.
This model lasted from 1957 to 1986, or perhaps 1989, when Europe was subjected to a different socioeconomic interpretation and lost its distinctive identity.
Europe was built by means of a Christian Democrat-Socialist consensus.
I am now calling for a consensus to establish a European model.
When this model exists, and when Europe defines its position in a world which is no longer bipolar, or under the hegemony of single power, but multipolar, the entire European project will be easier, and the revision of the treaties will be easier.
As far as the technical revision of the treaties is concerned, it is logical for us to focus on our tasks, but we must also call on Europe to maintain its international and socio-economic models, since, otherwise, we shall be engaging in mere formalities.
European reform, European action, the European position must be viewed in relation to the need to enhance Europe's image on the world stage as a socioeconomic and international political model.
The rest will then be easier, and we shall not find ourselves with a suit made for an adolescent which is growing, or which we do not wish to grow.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, as the institutional debate on the Europe of the euro gradually deepens, we find that Amsterdam could not have been anything other than what it was.
Only when the institutional consequences of monetary unification have been specified will it be possible to outline the overall institutional framework of the European Union, not on account of virtuous automatism of monetary unification, creating political institutions, but the need to finally take into account, with all the information available, what has been the real and disturbing Maastricht revolution, that is the design of a Union that is always a union, but no longer a union of equals but rather a union of different people.
The government of differences is therefore the great challenge faced by the Union for it to remain a Union.
The extraordinary effort of convergence that has already been made in the field of public finance shows how this vision of a Union with differentiated status is both realistic and worrying owing to its intrinsic novelty for the Member States.
This should therefore be the focal point of the political and institutional attention of this Parliament in the near future, because the question of expansion will also jeopardize not only the guarantees of our unity but above all the ability to manage our differences; with this tension between unity and diversity, which already exists in our system, a decisive factor of cohesion will be the transverse institution consisting of the European people and their rights and duties, that is, the institution we call citizenship.
The deepening of the substantial dimension of Union citizenship is basically the most important institutional contribution this treaty could give and has given, as all other aspects have been brought to a compulsory standstill.
It is in this climate of transition that, concluding this long debate, I believe it is good advice to follow the opinion of Mr Tsatsos and Mr Méndez de Vigo.
The debate is closed.
The President congratulates the rapporteurs, Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos on their excellent work.
The vote will take place this evening at 5.30 p.m.
EU/USA summit and trade relations
The next item is the debate on the statements by the Council and Commission on trade relations, including sanctions, and the implementation of the new transatlantic agenda (2nd and 3rd Pillars of the Treaty on European Union) with a view to the European Union/United States of America Summit to be held on 5 December 1997
Mr President, ladies and Gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to be able, in the name of the Council, to take part in this debate on the forthcoming United States of America - European Union Summit.
As you know, the new transatlantic agenda signed after the summit between the European Union and the United States of America, which was held in Madrid on 3 December 1995, along with the joint European Union - United States action plan, which was associated with it, have given a new focal point and orientation to all aspects of partnership between the European Union and the United States.
The new transatlantic agenda, as our American friends call it, has encouraged both parties to enlarge and intensify their cooperation in many fields of common interest.
I believe I can say that the six-monthly summits are an essential element of the NTA.
Not only do they emphasize the global reinforcement of relations between the European Union and the United States, but they contribute to advancing the implementation of the NTA, and are an opportunity for overall re-examination of the European Union - United States relationship, and for debating specific matters of common interest.
The president of the European Council and myself are awaiting with interest this forthcoming summit, which will take place, as you know, in Washington on 5 December, following the summit between the European Union and Canada, held the day before.
Preparations for this summit are well advanced, and the President of the Commission and the American representatives will meet tomorrow in the top level group established between the European Union and the United States to make an assessment of the current state of implementation of the new transatlantic agenda, and to examine some of the main questions that we face today.
We are now establishing a detailed agenda for the summit with our American partners, but I can already tell you that we are expecting to raise points as important as our commercial relations with the United States, in particular in the framework of the relationship between the European Union and the United States in the WTO, and with regard to the Helms-Burton legislation.
Also, there are other topical subjects, such as the peace process in the Middle East, the question of Cypress, the question of climate change, fighting against crime and organized crime, the fight against terrorism, narcotics, drugs, immigration and asylum.
These are the essential matters, I believe, for debate at the summit.
As in previous summits, the United States and ourselves will focus on concrete successes which have been achieved in the last six months.
We hope we will be in a position first to sign the scientific and technological agreement, and then to put our initials to the agreement on the implementation of the principles of active courtesy in the application of our competition rules.
Thirdly, we can also, at least I hope so, officially announce initiatives such as the Transatlantic Information Exchange System, the digital library and transatlantic dialogue on civil society.
As regards the European Union and United States programme in favour of democracy and civil society, announced at the Hague summit, we hope that we can confirm the names of those who will have seats on the judges' college.
This summit, Mr President, ladies and Gentlemen, will be the fourth since the NTA has been set up.
In the last two years, we have reached a number of substantial, concrete results.
Hence, in the field of foreign policy, the two parties have reinforced their cooperation on key questions, including the promotion of peace, stability, and reconciliation in the Balkans, in the Middle East and in Central Africa.
The membership of Euratom, on 17 September, in the organization for energy development of the Korean peninsula, alongside the United States, Japan, and South Korea, illustrates our joint willingness to reinforce efforts undertaken in the field of nonproliferation.
As regards the field of humanitarian aid to development, we have improved our coordination in response to the needs of societies torn by war.
We are also collaborating in the promotion of democracy and the reinforcement of civil society.
The European Union and the United States are working together to meet the challenges raised at the global level.
As part of our cooperation in the field of the fight against narcotics, at the Hague summit we signed an agreement on chemical precursors, in order to combat the misappropriation of chemicals for production of illicit drugs.
We are working together in the Caribbean region, and hope to extend our cooperation to the Andes region.
We are currently making great efforts to exchange information as part of our effort fighting international organized crime, and we have launched a coordinated information campaign initially directed at Poland and the Ukraine, in order to combat international trafficking in women.
In spite of divergences between the European Union and the United States on the timetable for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, we are reflecting on the ways and means to cooperate at the Kyoto conference on climate change, which is due to be held in December.
Some important results have been achieved, as regards the multilateral agenda on trade and on efforts to create a new transatlantic market.
As part of the WTO, the European Union and the United States have made a common effort to finalize the agreement on information technologies and the agreement on basic telecommunications services, which together will make it possible to liberalize some thousand billion dollars' worth of international trade in goods and services.
Within the framework of the OECD, joint efforts have contributed to the adoption of major decisions in the field of fighting corruption in international commercial transactions.
Mr President, within the framework of the new transatlantic market, the European Union and the United States have worked together to reduce barriers to trade and investment, in many cases responding to the recommendations for transatlantic dialogue between companies.
Following the conference which was held in Chicago in November last, and the European Union - United States Summit, which was held at the Hague on 28 May of this year, the two parties signed a cooperation and mutual assistance agreement in the customs field, which will contribute to facilitating trade, reinforced implementation of decisions, and fighting fraud.
Negotiations on an agreement for the mutual recognition and the evaluation of conformance have been completed.
A fundamental aspect of the NTA is the development of links between peoples.
Transatlantic dialogue between companies is contributing to closer ties between the European and American business environments, promoting good practice, and further liberalizing transatlantic trade.
Following the success of the Chicago conference, the TABD met again on 6 and 7 November in Rome.
On the other hand, a transatlantic conference entitled 'Building a bridge across the Atlantic' was held in May in Washington, and brought together experts in civil society, education, youth and culture, in electronic trade and parliamentary links, from both sides of the Atlantic.
We are particularly pleased that relationships between the European Parliament and the American Congress are becoming every closer, a development to which Mr Alan Donnelly, member of the European Parliament, is making a substantial contribution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the NTA is a dynamic process which the two parties are constantly stimulating into new movement, by continually updating priorities and reviewing new targets.
However, it must be admitted that it is not the solution to all our problems.
Very major differences, such as those relating to the Helms-Burton and D'Amato legislations, to hormones, and even, the to the banana protocol clearly testify to this.
But the NTA on the other hand has generated mutual confidence and has allowed the two parties to develop their overall relations within a spirit of cooperation which has taken its inspiration from fundamental, jointly shared principles and objectives.
Thank you Sir Leon.
I think that was one of the longest Commission speeches ever made in this place.
I assume you were carried along by the interest you have on this subject and by how important you think it is.
And I agree with you which is why I did not ask you to wind up before the 20 minutes - double the time of the Council.
However, it has been a most interesting speech and I hope this is also the opinion of colleagues.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr Commissioner, I think it is proper that the speech from Commissioner Leon Brittan was somewhat longer than usual because it was a very full and important speech.
The Commissioner has shown that the USA and Europe are both partners and competitors at the same time.
He was very optimistic that we are increasingly becoming equal partners.
I do not know if everyone sees it like that, especially in the United States of America, or else Helms-Burton or D'Amato might perhaps be viewed differently, and then things might perhaps be viewed differently at McDonnell-Douglas and Boeing, and British Airways and American Airlines, too.
It still seems to me that the view is that Europe has to adhere to bilateral and multilateral agreements, but that America is fully entitled, every so often, when it suits its own interests, to make unilateral arrangements or even unilateral resolutions.
This is no doubt to do with the fact, Mr Commissioner, that in many areas we hold very varying opinions in Europe itself.
You mentioned Bosnia and the Middle East.
We are still not so far down the road that we support the same code, and it is precisely where the Middle East is concerned that I agree with you.
It is not acceptable that Europe should be putting a lot of money in this area, to no avail, because America is exerting too little pressure here to really bring about a peace process through the appropriate attitude of Israel.
I would like to give you my whole-hearted support where Helms-Burton, D'Amato and other acts are concerned.
Europe can be ready for compromise on the detail, but not on the substance; it should be clear that - if, for instance, action is taken against a company - the waiver must cease, for then we must be prepared for argument and debate at the WTO.
I also agree with you: it is good that we now have breathing space, but it is only breathing space and not an overall settlement, and I would like to support you in your efforts to bring about an overall settlement.
One last point in view of the time: fast-track negotiations, talks in the USA, failure and the consequences.
I believe the USA is in a similar situation to us, without overestimating the question we need to ask together - and I stress together - namely: How can we carry out and implement free trade in the world if at the same time there are many economic and, particularly, social problems connected with this form of trade? We are supporters of free trade because we gain from it.
Yet we need to make it clear to our own people, just as it is necessary for President Clinton to do so in the USA, that free and fair trade are compatible, that, with all free trade, the trade must be fair in the eyes of our citizens.
In this sense it is an important assignment to conduct these talks with the United States of America, at this summit and beyond.
In this respect, may I wish you, Mr Commissioner, a pleasant and successful trip to America, which you will be embarking on tomorrow, I believe?
Mr President, I warmly welcome the two statements which we have had this afternoon.
There is no criticism of anyone for speaking too long. It was extremely clear and very beneficial that we should be able to have such a statement before what will be an important summit meeting early in December.
Therefore I welcome the statements made.
We can recognize the significant progress made when we look at all the issues which are now under discussion concerning something which is barely two years old, the new transatlantic agenda.
However, it is important to stress why this summit in particular has its importance.
The danger is that we have at present a number of differences, as the Commissioner has pointed out, but we also have an overwhelming bundle of common interests.
Will we be falling into a trap, not through lack of interest but a lack of priority, when we come to deal with the introduction of the single currency, as the Commissioner mentioned, and as we come to the question of enlargement eastwards? It will not be simply through lack of interest but through lack of priority in dealing with the transatlantic relationship that all these issues that we have heard enumerated today could go further down our list of priorities and not get the attention they need in six or twelve months' time.
Attached to this, it is rather evident to us in the political field that all the issues under discussion between the administrations also have their political context.
Increasingly economic issues, whether sanctions or the building up of a new transatlantic market-place, will require this House and the US Congress to be involved in some way, whether in the shaping of regulations or the stimulus of finance or whatever else is necessary to ensure that this new transatlantic agenda is successful.
I would like to ask three questions of the Council and the Commission in terms of this summit meeting.
Firstly, will the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission, when they both go to the summit, ensure there is a long-term perspective built into the summit conclusions so that we know we are working together on both sides of the Atlantic to shape a longer term transatlantic partnership?
Secondly, could we ensure that such a perspective looks forward to the 21st century, where we could think of having a comprehensive institutional framework, perhaps a treaty.
Then you could bring in the political communities alongside the business communities, to work with the administrations to create this new transatlantic relationship.
Lastly, would the Commissioner like to say a little bit more on the new transatlantic market-place which I know he stressed is an important concept?
We will have to define that concept.
Perhaps it is at this summit in Washington that the green light can be given to that examination.
Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, the new transatlantic agenda, agreed in December 1995 in Madrid, underlines and confirms the joint efforts of the European Union and the United States to extend and deepen their relationship.
The liberal group is therefore pleased with the success of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue.
In this framework, many trade barriers have been demolished since November 1995.
The most important examples of this are the Multilateral Recognition Agreements.
The MRAs will stimulate international trade and lower the cost for business and the consumer.
I therefore very much regret the protectionist attitude of the American Congress at present, which seriously hinders the implementation of existing agreements and the reaching of new ones.
Trade encourages business growth and is thus crucial to employment.
I therefore hope and expect that Congress will abandon this wrong track, and return to its traditional liberal attitude regarding free trade.
On behalf of my group I also call on the Commissioner to implement this Parliament's resolutions on the trade disagreements with the United States.
The EU-USA summit in the Hague was very successful and for the first time emphasized the importance of the relationship between citizens on both sides of the ocean.
This is invaluable to our long term relationship.
During the summit in Washington this will be furthered by means of a Thai project which encourages electronic exchange between citizens.
In addition, the signing of the agreement on scientific and technological cooperation signifies a milestone within the new transatlantic agenda.
I would finally like to ask Commissioner Brittan whether he can advise Parliament on the summit with Canada which will take place on the fourth of December.
Canada is another transatlantic partner, and moreover, the Union has a joint action plan with it.
I would like to have your answer on this, Mr Brittan.
Mr President, we have heard today quite a lot about achievements, intense discussions and indeed some problems with our partners on the other side of the Atlantic.
There is no doubt that negotiations at the Washington summit or wherever else have to proceed whenever dissent emerges as a substantial obstacle to the transatlantic agenda and dialogue.
It is also true that in some cases negotiations per se, in particular with protracted deadlines, serve only the purpose of the other side.
The troublesome case of Helms-Burton should have taught us a bitter lesson by now.
Since 11 April there have been seven or eight rounds of negotiation between the European Union and the United States; on the European side naturally some satisfaction has been expressed in that Title IV and the suspension of the United States sanctions have spared some but not all European companies, while, by the way, hitting hard firms outside Europe.
At the same time an atmosphere of intimidation and fear has been created and continuously fuelled as a result of threatening statements by some congressmen.
The results are in front of us.
Trade between the countries of the Union and Cuba has been drastically reduced.
Investments are being cut or halted to the levels of 1996.
In other words, Helms-Burton is operative.
It works wonders for the USA while endless negotiations go on with only some barking and very little bite in this House and in Brussels.
May we suggest that the time has come to fix a deadline - let us say 31 December - and then go for the only option available, recourse to the WTO panel.
We would like very much to have a clear-cut opinion from the Commission on the matter of a deadline concerning negotiation, on Helms-Burton or, for that matter, the D'Amato Act.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, please persuade your group to allow more than a minute and a half.
It is only natural that you cannot express your thoughts in such a short time.
Mr President, Mr Minister, Mr Commissioner, it goes without saying, and hence I shall not take up further time on this point, that our group is perfectly aware of the extreme importance of the relationships between the European Union and the United States of America, and that we wish for them to be reinforced within the framework of the new transatlantic agenda.
But we above all wish for a new balance to be struck, so that the Europeans no longer appear in a position of inferiority, with regard to their great friend across the Atlantic.
This new balance will clearly require a change in the over-domineering attitude of the Americans.
Several members mentioned the unwelcome Helms-Burton and d'Amato laws, but I would lay particular emphasis on European responsibility.
When we are united, we can obtain a great deal.
When we are disunited, inevitably, the Americans will see to it that their interests and points of view prevail.
I will take one example; the Blair House agreements in 1994.
Initially, France, with reason, denounced the iniquity of some provisions.
Then, when it had rallied several members of the Union to its cause, among them Germany, it was able to see a number of provisions relating to community aid modified in the direction that it wished.
This example shows that the Union of the Fifteen was able, at a second stage, to achieve what negotiation in the hands of the Commission only, notwithstanding its great talent, was unable to obtain.
In this respect, I would like most emphatically to remind this House of our wish to see the Commission itself benefit from wider competency so as to act with efficiency.
In truth, in the commercial field, matters are exactly as in the political and foreign policy field.
Our national positions on their own have little chance of success.
Success requires uniting our forces, in pursuit of a clearly identified objective, with terms of negotiation jointly agreed and with converging actions of the Member States and the Commission.
If these conditions are not fulfilled, Europe will be an earthenware pot, and the United States a cast iron one, giving them a definitively dominant position, and this, like all monopoly situations, will be unhealthy.
All this requires a true foreign and common security policy.
Shortfalls in this field, or even the absence of such policies, will have perceptible effects, not only in the field of foreign policy as such, in Yugoslavia, the Middle East, Africa, or elsewhere, but also in the commercial field.
Europe's economic power, which is considerable, can only bring success with regard to the United States if the power that we have is backed up by a true political power.
With this in mind, I wish you, Mr Minister, Mr Commissioner, every success in the forthcoming European Union - United States Summit.
Mr President, transatlantic dialogue will only be truly fruitful and the meeting of 5 December will only be a truly useful stage in this dialogue, if both make moves towards the settlement of a series of major legal and commercial disputes, which today oppose the European Union and the United States of America.
I am therefore delighted with the announcement that we have just had, stating that the Helms-Burton law was on the agenda.
More broadly, we believe that the very serious question of the extra-territorial application of national American legislation should be raised to its full extent.
We have the strongest regrets that the bilateral concertation in October did not end up with substantial progress in this area.
However, it is essential for the European Union to stifle perverse practises such as these at birth, for if not, we risk proliferation in the future.
The path chosen by the Commission at the time of the Uruguay-Round was to make European countries pay a high price, in counterpart to the United States renunciation of unilateral practices.
If the United States continues with unilateralism, we shall have been sold a pup.
We therefore have to show the greatest firmness on this question of principle, and if necessary, brandish the threat of credible sanctions, and for this purpose, ensure we have the indispensable instruments for a foreign trade policy.
Has the strategy of the Commission been the right one?
Was renouncing the WTO panel, albeit on a non-definitive basis in consideration of a very fragile assurance of short-term non-application of the Helms-Burton legislation to European companies, the best possible choice? There is reason to believe not, as instead of seeking a definitive elimination of legislation whose illegality is beyond all doubt, we have contributed to maintaining a climate of legal unsafeness, which is detrimental to our companies, and which may have dissuasive and paralyzing effects.
The laws remain on the books, and may be used at any time a chance event may cause the American administration to put an end to the moderate way in which the matter is now handled.
Furthermore, leaving such legislation on the books unchanged may only encourage other lobbies to mobilize and - at the federal, state, and local authority levels - impose new legislations with extra-territorial effect, as we have seen with Massachusetts.
Our interest therefore, Mr President, is to put a complete end to this very pernicious trend.
Hence, it is essential at the meeting of 5 December that we raise the awareness of our interlocutors as to the serious and very harmful effects that these provisions may have on the climate of transatlantic relationships.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I was not surprised when I heard the Council and the Commission.
But even so, I was astonished not to hear a single word about the asymmetry in the relationships between Europe and the United States at present.
When I use the word 'asymmetry' to avoid using the word, ' colonization.'
Political and military colonization - and just see what happened in the discussion between France and the United States over the NATO southern command.
Commercial and economic dissymmetry - did the Commissioner speak about the three million workers in Europe whose livelihood depend on American decisions?
That is unilateral, and what about the other side? Cultural colonization - just look at the tidal wave from the American sub-culture which is swamping our television screens and the cultural universe of the European youth.
Building a bridge over the Atlantic under such conditions would be to set up a one-way traffic lane, reduce barriers, and allow the strongest to become even stronger at our expense.
Not a word either about Iraq, this virtual genocide under which nearly a million Iraqi children have suffered to date. All that in the name of human rights, which is really an extraordinary position.
Not a word about the scandalous cartel between Boeing and McDonell-Douglas.
Not a word about the scandalous policy of American domination in the Balkans.
Not a word about the discussion which might affect the steel market, the electrical construction markets, the agricultural markets, where America is wholly dominant.
Of course, the Helms-Burton law has been mentioned.
The truth is that the American empire has won three world wars.
With the First World War, it got rid of the German and the Austrian-Hungarian empires.
With the Second World War, it got rid of the British and French Empires, and with the Third World War - the Cold War, in fact - it got rid of the Soviet Empire.
Fine.
But the result of all that, is that we now have an American superpower, which is colonizing the whole world.
We expected just a little resistance from Europe, in the face of this unilateral process.
Mr President, may I say I welcome Sir Leon's remarks on the WTO.
I would wish, on behalf of my group, to underline his point that we cannot think the WTO is a good body when it finds in our favour and a bad body when it finds against us.
However, I do think that if the European Commission actually withdraws its case on HelmsBurton, having satisfied European interests, then it would be undermining the WTO itself.
This debate does raise a very important question of what we feel is a very dangerous emerging democratic deficit in the new global world order which, to some extent, this transatlantic dialogue can offset.
I was moved to make these remarks by Sir Leon's use of the expression 'diversion of attention' when talking of Congress's attitude to Helms-Burton.
Politicians can play an important role as intermediaries, but it is important that non-elected politicians, as you choose to be nowadays Sir Leon, are aware that it is a two-way process.
All too often politicians - and they sometimes volunteer themselves - have to be intermediaries in explaining to the electorate decisions taken by other people about which they sometimes feel uneasy.
Politicians also have another role and that is representing the views of the electorate to decision-makers.
Although politically I have no sympathy whatsoever with Jesse Helms, as an elected politician I do have some sympathy with the rights of people who are elected to put forward legislation which they feel reflects the views of their own voters.
Unless we are careful we will see a very dangerous discrepancy develop between what is decided amongst the great and the good and what needs to be encouraged and explained to the electorate.
In that respect I would hope that the transatlantic dialogue will develop a democratic arm and include more and more elected politicians as a small step to getting beyond what is, I repeat, a rather dangerous emerging democratic deficit in this new world trading order.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council and Sir Leon Brittan for their report and the insight they have given us.
I believe that over the last few years a lot has been achieved by the work of the Commission in particular.
Good relations between Europe and the United States have provided for freedom, peace, more human rights, stability and prosperity over the last decades.
We need to see to it that this is kept alive in the future, while appreciating too that, because of the new world order, the end to power bloc confrontation, the diminished significance of alliances forged through military threat, the strengthening of the European Union to the point of monetary union, things have changed to such an extent that we need to find new responses to the mechanisms and that NATO alone cannot be relied upon to maintain transatlantic relations.
I think we should see beyond the transatlantic declaration, beyond the transatlantic agenda, to how we might use the momentum from the successful work of recent years to strengthen these relations.
It is precisely the decision in regard to Helms-Burton, the inability of the American President to push fast-track through in Congress, which shows that things will only work if we can bring this together at a political level that also includes the American Congress.
Anything else, I believe, is impossible if we wish to improve relations long term.
I think that is why a transatlantic market-place with clear objectives and a timetable is very important, to maintain the momentum while providing a framework for a treaty which takes in the democratic institutions of the European Union and the United States.
In this way it can be made clear that the common interest is greater than the individual interests which are asserted at times.
Mr Commissioner, I should first like to thank you for answering a number of questions which could not be answered yesterday for lack of time.
Secondly, as I have only one minute, I shall refer solely to the question of the extra-territorial application of legislation, which, as you can see, is of concern to everyone taking part in this debate.
And this is for two reasons, I believe: firstly, because the United States seems to be trying to impose a model of political and trade relations whereby it decides how and when everyone else should trade; and secondly, because a number of us have the feeling that by withdrawing its complaint before the WTO and continuing to negotiate on illegal laws, the European Union is contributing to the illegal embargo on Cuba that has existed for years. Indeed, the Helms-Burton Act is no more nor less than a reinforcement of the embargo, or blockade, as you wish to call it.
The European Union must not contribute to this, because, as you are well aware, in the last vote in the United Nations, the General Assembly condemned the embargo as illegal by an overwhelming majority, and therefore condemned the Helms-Burton Act.
I believe that the European Union must adopt a vigorous stance vis-à-vis the United States, and must not enter into negotiations on the Helms-Burton Act, but affirm that act is illegal.
I believe that a superpower like the United States will be far more impressed by sincerity and the vigorous defence of principles - principles, which, as you can see, all the Members of this Parliament are calling on you to uphold.
In any event, I am aware that the agenda is very broad, and I wish you luck.
Mrs González Alvarez, I will make the same comment to you: that your group should take more than a minute.
I feel very bad when I have to interrupt a colleague after just one minute but, goodness me, the groups should allow two or three minutes.
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office and Sir Leon Brittan not only for their excellent presentations this afternoon but for the real commitment that has been shown by the Commission and the Council to deepening the relationship with the United States of America.
There are the Cassandras in this House and in the American Congress who will use any issue to say that the transatlantic relationship is not working, that it is disastrous and should not be continued.
The fact is that the relationship between Europe and the United States is the most important relationship that exists on this planet.
This is particularly so now that the Congress has refused fast-track for trade negotiations for the US President.
We have to step up our activity in trying to deepen the relationship.
You cannot simply allow this dynamic to fail.
We have to look at new ways: people-to-people links, education establishments, diplomats, politicians and trade negotiators working more closely to try to make the Congress understand that this relationship between Europe and the United States is so important for our mutual future.
That is why I hope when the transatlantic summit meeting takes place in a few weeks' time, that rather than being just a thin audit of what has gone on in the past it pushes the agenda further forward, in particular on electronic commerce, fighting crime and fighting organized crime and drug trafficking in the third pillar areas.
We should look for new ways of cooperation.
This House has a responsibility - and I say this to all the political groups represented here this afternoon.
You cannot expect the civil servants - this is the point Michael Hindley was making - to deal with the US Congress. It is up to us as politicians to deal with the US Congress.
We have to speak to them, we have to meet them regularly, we have to solve this problem.
That is why I hope that in the context of the work of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, the Committee on External Economic Relations, the delegation for relations with the United States, we will look very carefully over the next month or two months at ways of talking to the Congress, of deepening that relationship, in particular with the new Congressmen and Congresswomen who simply do not have a grasp of the international relations that exist between Europe and the United States.
It is our responsibility, not the responsibility of the Commission or the Council.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the forthcoming summit between the European Union and the United States is perhaps a decisive and definitive opportunity to test whether or not the European Union has its own voice, and whether or not it has institutions whose actions are governed by the will to defend Community political and economic interests.
It is therefore important that in December the Council and the Commission should be capable of preventing the United States from continuing to maintain and impose arrangements which run contrary to the guidelines that have been agreed multilaterally.
It is obvious that the existing rules on competition in the agricultural sector, or in the aeronautical, naval or audio-visual industries, should be just as valid on the east or the west coast of the Atlantic.
It is fundamental to ensure that the WTO genuinely operates independently of American interests, as regards the protection of public health, the predicted death of Community banana producers, or the pure and simple rejection of those legislative attacks on human rights, the so-called Helms-Burton or d'Amato-Kennedy Acts.
Mr President, Sir Leon Brittan, Minister, I have heard of the success you have had in recent times, and it is impressive.
Indeed, we cannot claim that there was too little on the new transatlantic agenda, rather we can assume there was too much.
Perhaps that is one of the problems.
The sweep of political and economic issues really does extend from trade disputes, via the question of how we are to deal with extra-territorial legislation, to a whole range of political questions: What are we doing in the Ukraine? What are we doing in the Baltic?
What are we doing in the Middle East? How can we bring our citizens together in future, and how can they reasonably participate in this new transatlantic agenda which politicians and economists have got off the ground?
All this is very sensible.
However, I believe we have to shoulder a special political responsibility, and by this I am referring now to the three institutions that are active on the side of the European Union.
I believe we need to add two things to the overall range of issues just mentioned on the political and economic agenda, and we should do this in the next half year. Firstly, we should bring people more into the dialogue we are conducting.
We have conceived four dialogues: one for the citizens, one for the small and medium-size companies, one for the flagship generally, namely the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, and one dialogue for the workers and trade unions.
We know we have considerable problems apart from in the area of the Transatlantic Business Dialogue.
We need to do something here; this is part of the responsibility we need to assume, and we need to do it together.
The second thing we must do, and this will not be any less dramatic: we need to include ourselves as parliamentarians in this form of the work.
It will not do that we have a political and economic agenda, but not a parliamentary one.
We need to ensure that we are included in future in all the arrangements you come to and in all forms of agreement you make, including the issue of the transatlantic market-place - and that we are included by means of the codecision procedure.
I think we can come to a sensible form of cooperation in this area too!
Mr President, I just wish to support most of what has been said in this debate this afternoon.
This is not a particularly controversial issue between the various sides of this House.
There is a general assumption that we want to maintain and improve relationships at all levels in the United States - the administration and the Congress.
I welcome the very full introduction to the debate from Sir Leon Brittan.
Without being - and certainly not wishing to be - churlish, I would, however, like to suggest that he adds one thing to his list, which appeared to be omitted, and that is the suggestion that there should be much closer cooperation between the competition authorities on this side of the Atlantic and those on the other side, notably the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission.
There have been some highly controversial competition issues in recent months in our relationship with the United States - Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas being one, Guinness and Grand Met being another, and KPMG and Ernst & Young being potentially another.
Those of us who belong to the delegation were reassured by the promise we had from Commissioner Van Miert to try to work towards closer relationships between competition authorities on both sides.
Sir Leon mentioned the need for closer cooperation between regulatory authorities but I would respectfully suggest that competition is a rather different matter.
One other thing I should like to add to the shopping list is the suggestion that every time there is a transatlantic summit we have a debate like this, with the representative of the Commission and the representative of the Council coming to talk to Parliament, just as they did this afternoon.
Mr President, relations between the European Union and the United States must be set in the political sphere, but in today's world of globalization, politics are inseparable from economics, and I should therefore like to refer to a number of trade issues.
I believe that the European Union must vigorously defend its interests, and must affirm its identity as a unified and coherent whole, both in the field of the aeronautical industry - to which other speakers have just referred - and in the field of the World Trade Organization, where the European Union has lost its cases before the panels on hormone-treated beef and the EU banana regime. And I hope that the negotiations that Sir Leon Brittan is carrying out on behalf of the Commission will enable us to ensure that the European Union's interests are adequately defended and that the chosen method of consensus will not prejudice Community action.
I should quickly like to ask the Commissioner a few questions specifically concerning the difficulties that President Clinton has encountered in securing the celebrated fast-track powers from the US Congress. What implications does this have for the new transatlantic agenda?
Does the Commissioner consider that the fact that President Clinton has not, for the moment, secured those powers from the US Congress will somehow mean that he will not secure the necessary powers to modify Title III of the Helms Burton Act? And, lastly, in view of the fact that he has not, for the moment, secured those powers, will the European Union take advantage of this window of opportunity to increase its commercial presence in, and develop commercial ties with, the countries of Latin America?
Mr President, straight away I would like to express my gratitude to all those who actively participated in this debate.
I think we all agree in recognizing that transatlantic dialogue is extremely important, not only out of technical and commercial considerations, but also because the foreign trade and direct foreign investment figures testify to very major economic ties between the European Union and the United States of America.
As regards the results obtained to date, I think it can be said, although there are some areas requiring improvement, that the overall assessment is broadly positive, particularly as transatlantic dialogue got underway some two years ago only.
There exist, as you emphasized in a number of your speeches, clear differences, and I would say that these are on occasion striking differences, between the approaches adopted by the United States and the European Union.
Witness the notorious Helms-Burton and d'Amato laws, and the European position with regard to them. I therefore wholeheartedly agree with what Sir Leon Brittan said to you.
I think it is perfectly unacceptable, and Europe should say as much loud and clear at the summit.
And since we are talking about critical dialogue, I think that the placing on the agenda of a debate on these two laws provides clear proof that the European Union intends to defend its commercial interests vigorously.
Partnership has been mentioned.
Some have said that we were under American dominance or hegemony.
Others have already mentioned partnership between equals.
For my part, I would say that we are perhaps midway between a partnership between equals, and that European monetary union will be a key element in achieving that equality of partnership.
Let me explain myself, Mr President. In July 1995, I was privileged to attend an official visit of our Prime Minister, Mr Juncker, to the United States.
At the time, we spoke a great deal about the project of economic and monetary union in the European Union with President Clinton's administration and the relevant officers of state.
At the time, nobody in the United States believed in it, and all were ready to lay money on the fact that we would be unable to rise to the challenge and achieve economic and monetary union.
I think that the fears that are now being expressed in certain quarters of the United States - the American Congress and the corporate sector - show that the completion of economic and monetary union is essential for the commercial and economic policies of the European Union at world level.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to say a word about our policy as part of the WTO.
I would quote something Mrs Lalumière said, if I am not mistaken: united we can do a great deal.
I hope that we will be united and remain united, as in these last few weeks, and particularly during the Florence euro-workshop, where we saw that there was a broad consensus on the future agenda for the WTO.
I think I can say that we will have great solidarity between ourselves on this dossier, which is a particularly important one for the European Union and the Member States, and here I mean financial services.
If we are able to show the same cohesiveness as for other dossiers, for example, telecommunications services, the meeting at the ministerial level of the WTO on 11 December in Geneva will be a great success for the European Union.
That is my hope.
On the other hand, much is being said on the settlement of disputes relating to the WTO, where we have, I would say, lost a battle or two.
This should prompt us to reflect on how to reinforce or even change procedures in the settlement of disputes.
We are open to discussions on this subject.
But I would say that the system currently in force, even if it is not always satisfactory at the multilateral level, is far better suited to the defence of commercial interests than the unilateralism practised earlier by the Americans.
That already is an important point.
On the other hand, the question has been raised as to President Clinton's chances of getting the fast track adopted.
Firstly, there is the major summit meeting, where I do not doubt for an instant that the presidency of the Council and the Commission will once again place their arguments on the table.
Having said that, this extremely important political dialogue, at the Presidency and Commission level, which takes place every two years, deserves to be pushed on to completion.
On this point, I believe that all those in this House who have pleaded in favour of a more active role in this Parliament in the political dialogue with members of the American Congress are right.
Indeed, I believe that there is a role not only for the Commission, and for the Council, but also for the Parliament.
The agenda was also raised, and it was said that subjects such as Iraq were not on it.
Mr President, in my speech I specified that the agenda for this summit with the United States made room for discussions on negotiations on peace in the Middle East.
It is quite clear, after the events of the last few weeks, that the question of Iraq will be raised. I have no doubt whatsoever about this.
Mr President, we have also been asked whether we took into account the long term, whether we had made plans to discuss themes relating to the future.
The agenda that we are now finalizing expresses the desire on the European side to deal with subjects which will play a useful role in the real development of our relations with the United States in years to come.
Mr President, I have no time to say more.
I will add just one thing.
I find the Presidency's appearance in this House prior to every summit an interesting idea.
But there is another idea which I find interesting, which is to come and keep you informed, at your December session, of the results of this summit.
Sir Leon, your contribution to this debate has been extremely interesting.
We have accepted 8 motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37, paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
The debate is closed.
Votes
Mr President, there were four problems to be solved if the reform of the European Union envisaged by the Maastricht Treaty was to become a reality: the elimination of the constitutional democratic deficit of a Union from above and of a Europe of the intergovernmental conference; the elimination of the institutional deficit of a Union without legal personality, of dualism, the pillar-and-space structure lacking any single competence to act in the matter of peace and legal policy; the elimination of the legal framework deficit in the confusion of Union, Community and international law; and finally the elimination of the paralyzing lack of clarity as to how future integration and enlargement measures should be carried out to finally overcome the East-West divide in Europe.
It is not a case of denying the partial improvements made to the Maastricht Treaty by Amsterdam when pointing out the lack of a solution still to these fundamental problems.
No-one is going to devalue the efforts of the two rapporteurs on Amsterdam.
But their report remains ambiguous in regard to these fundamental problems and is therefore unacceptable to my group.
In view of the failure of the Intergovernmental Conference it is not so vital whether this House recommends accepting the Amsterdam Treaty or not.
Rather, what is central is whether the European Parliament limits itself to being a proud co-mover of partial institutional reforms or whether it finally rouses itself to become the leading voice in a constitutional process, the heart and nerves of the next crucial steps towards integration!
(Applause from the Green Group)
Mr President, I voted against the report because I did not wish to be party to a utilization of the European Parliament by national parties and national governments, which not only serves to undermine the sovereignty of the European Parliament, but equally the sovereignty of the national parliaments themselves, because these are the bodies that have the decisive word at the moment in the ratification process.
This dilemma that we have with this decision suggests that now is the time to get serious with a central claim, which states: old-type Intergovernmental Conferences like this are no longer in the position to drive European integration forward!
Precisely because this is the case it only works if we say that, in the ratification process for Amsterdam, we need to ensure that the next intergovernmental conference takes place with the European Parliament enjoying codecision.
Otherwise we can leave everything the way it is!
Mr president, I too voted against this resolution.
The reason was that I do not believe that the intergovernmental conference is any longer the right way to further the development of the European union.
It is in many respects a failure.
I believe it will, for example, lead to the European parliament's inability to effectively influence amendments to the treaty.
Europol is a good example of how the protection by law of citizens is in danger when governments are disinclined to give either the European Parliament or national assemblies sufficient powers of democratic supervision.
The other example of an inter-governmental conference's ineptitude in solving these fundamental problems is EMU.
The issue is whether in formulating economic and monetary union we will have created an essentially federalist part of the EU, while there will be a move to administer it as if it were an inter-governmental project.
With that, the democracy deficit and the future lack of central bank control is clear.
I think we ought to switch to the kind of constitutional legal process whereby the rights of citizens would be an important ingredient in the debate.
Mr President, the European Parliamentary Labour Party, on whose behalf I speak, broadly welcomes the Amsterdam Treaty, not as something that is perfect but as something that contains many good things.
In particular, we know that our constituents would welcome the UK opt-in to the Social Chapter, the provision for Europe-wide legislation against discrimination and the new protocol on animal welfare.
There are also many other things we welcome.
However, we have some reservations about the final report and while we have kept our separate votes to a minimum, nevertheless we have voted against five parts: the first indent of paragraph 8 on border controls; the first indent to paragraph 9 on a common defence policy; the second indent of paragraph 12 extending codecision to fiscal policy; the fourth indent to paragraph 12 giving the Union and the Community a single legal personality; and, the third indent of paragraph 16, restricting unanimity to constitutional areas.
With those provisos we can broadly welcome both the report - and we congratulate the rapporteurs on their work - and the Amsterdam Treaty.
We support the Amsterdam Treaty and agree with Parliament's appeal to the national parliaments to ratify the treaty.
It is a success for political cooperation in the area of the environment, equal opportunity and, above all, employment.
We also welcome the principle of increased openness and the citizens' access to documents.
We do not support the demand for a common defence, and in a special supplementary proposal we have pointed out that the position of the non-aligned states must be respected.
We share the view that a number of institutional questions must be solved in connection with enlargement.
Regarding the decision on increased use of majority voting, we are not prepared to support the report's far-reaching demands for common majority voting.
We do not therefore support the second and third points of paragraph 16.
Nor do we support majority decision-making in the area of cultural policy (paragraph 12, eleventh point). We consider that to be mainly a question for the individual Member States.
After having indicated the paragraphs on which we have a dissenting view, partly through voting and partly through this explanation of vote, we voted for the report in the final vote.
We think that it is an important signal to the citizens of Europe that the Intergovernmental Conference was successful on several issues which are important to citizens.
We are saying no to the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is a further step towards pushing down nations.
This is not what the peoples want.
A survey recently undertaken by the Commission itself across Europe, showed that 8 % of those questioned only were favourable to a European superstate, 40 % were in favour of cooperation without loss of national sovereignty, and 38 % were in favour of cooperation accompanied by jointly pooled competencies in limited fields, and finally 14 % were for strict national independence without cooperation.
These surveys, and the Commission did not see fit to continue - and we all know the reason why - shows that Europe is today being built by Eurocrats, with the agreement of governments, and that it is not the Europe of the people.
Now we understand far better why the Treaty of Amsterdam, following on from the Treaty of Maastricht, has been drafted in such an obscure way, and why we find such esoteric provisions, hiding behind the protocol on subsidiarity, and which - but without clearly saying so - adopt the position of the European Court of Justice, on the claimed superiority of Community law over national constitutions.
There is a reason for this obscurity.
It throws simple citizens off track, and prevents any understanding of the real long term purpose of what the citizens are asked to ratify, and it allows those who are responsible - and the French Ministry of European Affairs was a recent example of this - to hide behind technical questions, to support the view that it would not be the right time to consult the people by holding a referendum.
It is easy to understand the short term tactics behinds these manoeuvrings, but the longer term aims are not so easy to divine.
People say that the federal construction, once completed, will be more effective than the Europe of the nations.
But does anyone perchance believe that it will be possible to achieve efficiency by adopting purely technocratic procedures without the commitment and support of the people?
This is a pure illusion. In reality, there can be no efficient European construction unless it has the support of the people, and this is the reason why, whatever people say, the Europe of the nations is not only the most democratic of Europe's, but also the most efficient.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted yes to the report on the Amsterdam Treaty today.
We have done so in the opinion that the report emphasizes many important Danish issues. Examples include better environmental protection, cooperation in the fight against unemployment, transparency and greater influence for the European Parliament.
However, the report on the Amsterdam Treaty is problematical in some areas.
It was therefore necessary to vote against some paragraphs in the report.
In our view it is very regrettable that the European Parliament wants to try to put obstacles in the path of enlargement by demanding that all institutional reforms should be in place before enlargement begins.
It has therefore been necessary for us to vote against these paragraphs.
Another criticism of the report is the linking together of Denmark with Ireland and the UK with regard to the Schengen cooperation.
Denmark participates in Schengen at an intergovernmental level, while both Ireland and the UK are totally outside the cooperation.
We are therefore voting against it because it sends the wrong signals to the Member States about Denmark's involvement in the Schengen cooperation.
The report also sets the scene for a further cooperation in the area of security and defence policy.
It is the opinion of the Danish Social Democrats that the security and defence of Europe should be secured through membership of NATO and not through the WEU.
We are therefore voting against paragraph 9, because we believe that it conflicts with the Danish reservations.
The European Parliament is helping to make decision-making in the EU more democratic and transparent.
We therefore support the fact that agricultural policy, among other things, is to come under joint decision-making in the European Parliament.
However, we cannot support the inclusion of defence and foreign policy or legal and internal affairs, which are in the third pillar, under this procedure.
The European Parliament is generally regarded as the big winner in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
An appropriate conclusion, in view of amongst other things the enlargement of the area in which the joint decision-making procedure is to be applied, and the required approval of Parliament for the appointment of the President of the European Commission.
A large number of the European Parliament's wishes have not been granted, but the majority of this Parliament is sufficiently pragmatic to recommend to Member States that they ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam.
That, however, is not our advice to the Member States.
The rapporteurs point out that the European Treaties, including the Treaty of Amsterdam, will not lead to a federal European state.
This ideal is evidently out of fashion.
Yet I cannot but interpret the new treaty which extends the powers of the Union in areas such as employment, social affairs, internal security, and defence, and which strengthens communal procedures, as a step in the direction of a European political union.
This ambition has been superseded, in view of the future enlargement of the Union to an even more heterogeneous bond of 20 of maybe even more Member States.
It is also problematic that no account was taken of the dissatisfaction of the citizens of the Member States about a governmental structure which has been imposed from above.
The public support for 'Europe' has decreased considerably over the past few years, as shown in opinion polls, election results, and in the turnout for European elections.
A treaty with a less ambitious estimation of what European government can do, would have been a better way to show the surplus value of European cooperation.
A slimming down of the European portfolio would make European decision-making clearer, in the end, and would simplify the enlargement.
The extension of the powers of the European Parliament is in our view not the best solution to the democratic deficit in European decision-making, after all.
The awareness that Parliament functions at a considerable distance from the citizen is not getting through frequently enough.
By definition, it has inadequate representative strength and legitimacy, partly as it has to represent an increasingly larger area via a limited number of members.
Although the European Parliament fulfils a useful role in some areas, the national parliaments need to remain the main focus to their citizens.
National parliaments will be looked at as a priority at the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We reject the Treaty of Amsterdam and that is why we have voted against the Méndez de Vigo/Tsatsos report.
It is an understatement to say that the conclusions of Amsterdam were not a cause for jubilation and enthusiasm from European public opinion.
As is the case for all compromises, the Treaty of Amsterdam leaves those who, like myself, are passionately interested in Europe and European construction, and have been for a score or more years, somewhat dissatisfied.
Let it be said clearly: this treaty is not up to the challenges and ambitions of European construction, which should, in less than five years from now, have completed single currency, enlargement, the fight against employment, political Europe, and social Europe.
But is that a reason to reject the treaty, and join the camp of those who are such constant adversaries of European construction? I think not.
If so, the cure would be worse than the illness itself!
Following on from Maastricht, Amsterdam has opened up a number of doors. We need to have no hesitation in using them and the new resources they make available to advance towards a Europe of citizenship which can combat unemployment and have a political existence on the world stage.
It is up to we sincere Europeans to work for this!
But we also must demand that tomorrow's Luxembourg summit on employment should be concrete, strong, and active, and that the day after tomorrow, we need new institutional reform, so that the forthcoming enlargement takes place as it should, without disorganization or weakening.
We have entered into a new stage with Amsterdam.
Things might have been better, but the important thing now, is to prepare for the next step.
Despite the fact the Alleanza Nazionale has made strong criticisms of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference and later of the final draft of the Treaty of Amsterdam on several occasions, we have decided, owing to a sense of responsibility, to vote in favour of the report drawn up by the Committee on Institutional Affairs, as we have found that some of our negative positions on the treaty and some of our proposals to strengthen the pillars of the foreign and defence policy have proved essential for the Union to become a real political community of European States and peoples.
Ours is therefore an act of good will, despite preferring the report to have been more decisive and complete on some points, such as the expansion of the Union and the rebalancing of its political and economic actions in respect of the South and the Mediterranean.
We are now waiting for the actions to follow the words, particularly with regard to the importance of the "unconditional approval' of the joint declaration made by Belgium, France and Italy, identifying the need for further institutional reforms, as a prerequisite to any expansion.
Our vote in favour is therefore further confirmation of the vocation and political choice of the Italian Right, with the primary objective of creating a real political Europe.
I regret that the resolution presented by the Committee on Institutional Affairs by the Parliament has not taken up the conclusions of the legal committee relating to the re-numbering of the treaty.
The decision to re-number all of the articles in the treaty appears to me to be regrettable in two respects.
As regards fundamentals, I fear that this may be an apparent simplification, which will in practice result in confusions and complications for the actual users of the treaty, who are the national administrations, professionals, etc..
Any reference to the treaty will lead to two-fold searching and checking, both with the old numbering and the new.
As regards procedure, a reform on this scale should have been preceded by in-depth consultations with the people involved, and that was not the case.
Only the European bars reacted spontaneously, by expressing their opposition to reform.
But their protests were rejected summarily, in the name of an overhasty technocratic argument.
Irish voters will have the opportunity to ratify the Amsterdam Treaty in a referendum due to be held in March of next year.
During the referendum campaign I will be strongly supporting a 'yes' vote.
I will adopt this approach not because I think that it is perfect.
It is far from that.
However despite its imperfections the treaty does represent significant progress on the road to European integration.
In particular I welcome the progress that has been made in the social area, especially with regard to employment, equal opportunities and anti-discrimination measures.
Some positive decisions were also taken in relation to improving internal security although it has to be acknowledged that much more needs to be done if we are to win the war against organized crime, especially the drug barons.
The major disappointment of Amsterdam is in the institutional area.
The failure to remove the national veto, develop a coherent common foreign and security policy and to introduce codecision for all legislative proposals will pose fundamental and long-term problems for the European Union particularly as we conclude our discussions on enlargement. These issues must be resolved before the accession of new Member States.
A failure to do so could result in an enlarged Europe which is unable to take any decisions and represent a coherent and influential view to the outside world.
Despite these reservations I still believe the treaty is worthy of support.
The outcome of the revision of the Maastricht Treaty was far from satisfactory, since the political objectives that had been set were not met.
As a convinced European, I deeply regret that having failed to rectify the Union's political defects prior to the essential enlargement, we now have to postpone to a new Intergovernmental Conference the resolution of such important institutional problems as the reduction of the number of Commissioners, the generalization of qualifiedmajority voting, etc.
What greater indication of the Amsterdam summit's failure can there be than the fact that before the draft treaty is even ratified by the Member States we already talking about the essential need to amend it?
On the threshold of economic and monetary union, the Union has still not adapted its institutions to the forthcoming enlargement - which, by any reckoning, is seriously irresponsible.
It still does not have a common defence policy, and it has still not clarified the treaties so that the citizens can understand them.
Lastly - although some people wrongly believe that this a minor issue - the Amsterdam Treaty deliberately fails to include any reference to tourism, ignoring the fact that, amongst other things, tourism is the biggest source of job creation in the European Union.
These necessarily brief remarks will explain why I abstained in the vote, although I wish to qualify that abstention by congratulating Mr Méndez de Vigo on his excellent work, for as the poet Machado said, the road is built as we go along.
The motion for a resolution on the amendment of the Union Treaties submitted to the Plenary of the European Parliament by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, is, in my view, inadequate, ambiguous, irresolute and insensitive to public opinion and the role of the national parliaments.
Admittedly, the amendments tabled have improved the motion, but the European Parliament, whose right to vote to approve or reject the revision of the treaties has not been recognized, has an obligation to point out the draft treaty's inadequacies in the fields of democratization, social rights and human rights. It also has an obligation to make clear that the Amsterdam Treaty does not make it possible to meet effectively the challenge of future enlargements, and leaves it up to the parliaments - or, as the case may be, the people - of the individual Member States to decide, in accordance with the conditions laid down, whether or not to ratify the new treaty.
Instead of that, the report submitted to Parliament mixes criticism and calls for further changes and new methods with the specific recommendation that the fifteen Member States should rapidly ratify the treaty.
Undoubtedly, the final assessment in the individual Member States will have to be made in accordance with the commitments undertaken by their respective governments. But the European Parliament, in my view, now has a duty to make its critical assessment in accordance with the positions that it maintained throughout the Intergovernmental Conference.
Consequently, in view of the rejection of the amendments that I tabled along those lines, and with a sense of responsibility as a committed European, I voted against the Méndez de Vigo-Tsatsos report, although without prejudging the position that the Iniciativa per Catalunya MPs will adopt in the Spanish Parliament in due course.
I am voting against this report, because the Treaty of Amsterdam does not allow for the establishment of a true political pillar providing for the balanced completion of the monetary aspect of European Union.
The Maastricht treaty wagered it would make moves towards a single currency on the basis of rigorous (actually, far too rigorous) economic convergence criteria, but that it would also consolidate political integration by providing for institutional reform for the purposes of improving the efficiency, democratic operations and role of the European Parliament.
The IGC should also make it possible to develop European policy in social and labour relationships, fields which are critical to our peoples.
We cannot but observe that the Maastricht bet has not paid off, and that the intended balance has not in fact been respected.
Monetary union is going full steam ahead, whereas political Europe is getting bogged down powerlessly.
This situation is all the more serious as our destiny is increasingly conditioned by the decisions taken by an independent European central bank, without there being any government with decision-making powers in the economic field over the major areas of choice affecting economic growth, European competitiveness, and employment.
Hence, Europe is increasingly becoming an extensive financial and economic area which escapes all regulation or democratic control.
Enlargement to the Eastern European countries will only increase the dilution of democracy.
While the report proposes further institutional reform, prior to any enlargement, the European Parliament has not moved to a position where it can make this an effective and absolute condition.
We have not achieved a situation where the Parliament can weigh with its influence on the future summit on employment at Luxembourg, and hence, in practice, move social Europe onwards.
While the introduction of a reference to social affairs and employment in the new treaty is positive, the way this is formulated is ambiguous, as the treaty simply makes reference to the coordination of policies of employment, which remain national.
In brief, once again, Europe has postponed political reinforcement, and has left the social question in abeyance, while monetarism and liberal dogma is enforced upon us in the form of constrictive criteria.
Far from serving the ambitions of those who wish for a federal Europe, a Europe where the people can make their will felt, the treaty is a consecration of weakened nation states, without the construction of a true European political counter-power.
It is unacceptable.
The Amsterdam Treaty does not constitute the final step towards creating a United States of Europe, but its contents move in a direction which strengthens the EU's ambitions to develop into a federal state structure with superpower characteristics.
Supranationality is being strengthened, border controls are being abolished and the EMU process with a common currency and central bank is being confirmed.
Institutionally, it is the EU's supranational organs, the Commission, the Court of Justice and the European Parliament, which benefit from the Amsterdam Treaty.
The losers are the Council of Ministers and the national parliaments.
There is not a single sentence in the treaty which confirms that decision-making power is going to be transferred from the EU to the Member States.
Questions of major concern for Nordic countries about employment, openness and the environment have at best been given well-meaning words, but ultimately these could be forced to capitulate to the supremacy of the single market.
The so-called environmental guarantee is even a step backwards compared with the time when it was introduced.
It is unacceptable for a new Intergovernmental Conference, which further strengthens the EU's federal character, to be made a condition for the eastern enlargement.
We also find it unwarranted to give additional power to the larger countries if the EU is to be enlarged.
Giving the European Parliament a right of assent for treaty amendments must be rejected.
That would entirely remove the basis for the intergovernmental nature of the treaty.
There is an obvious reason why the Amsterdam Treaty does not go as far as the most outspoken federalists in the EU had hoped.
Public sympathy for EU federalism has probably never been as low as now.
The peoples of Europe want to have cooperation, but not at the price of subordinating themselves to the EU's centralistic, bureaucratic and old-fashioned Acquis Communautaire.
According to opinion poles in the Nordic countries, there is solid opposition to participation in EMU, i.e. the project which is in a way the engine for the creation of a federal state structure at the EU level.
The basis for every society which wants to guarantee people jobs, a good education, a good environment, social justice and solidarity with the people of poor countries, is that its political system is popular and democratically legitimate.
The EU will not have the ability to achieve that for the foreseeable future.
We have voted no to the report.
I wish to state that I have voted in favour of the Vigo report and in favour of the Amsterdam Treaty.
I am disappointed with what has been achieved in Amsterdam.
What is most regrettable, Mr President, is that we must go through the whole process of ratification for what is a very small measure of progress. It will be difficult in Ireland, where a referendum is required, to generate enthusiasm for the Amsterdam Treaty.
What I most regret is the failure to secure a proper reform of the way decisions are made; institutional reform as we call it.
This failure has to be described to the people in plain language.
It means that if we enlarge the Community then from that day on not only present Member States can prevent important decisions but even Slovenia or Estonia will be able to apply a veto and block important decisions in a whole range of Community policies.
We are being irresponsible to agree to further enlargement in such circumstances.
There is the danger of creating serious crisis and stagnation. The bigger the number of states the greater the danger of a crisis occurring.
I welcome the extension of powers for the European Parliament.
It is important that 70 % of all legislation will be by codecision between Parliament and the Council. The principle of democracy must be applied to the European Union as it is in all Member States.
Finally, I want to make it clear that I am happy that we have made some progress in the area of common security and defence.
All Member States have accepted the creation of a political union in ratifying the existing treaties, and that political union cannot be complete without the development of common defence arrangements.
The Amsterdam Treaty makes common defence possible but provides for reluctant States to opt out. I am sure that in the short term my own State will decide to opt out.
This is largely because the political establishment and the Irish media still insist, in all public discussion, on retaining the terminology of World War II and defining this question in terms of neutrality as was traditionally observed by the Irish State.
On the other hand, when opinion polls in Ireland offered the question whether Ireland should help to defend a fellow Member State the majority replied positively.
That is why I believe that I am representing the view of the vast majority of Irish people when I say I support the common defence policies because I believe that it is not the will of the Irish people that they should have all the benefits of membership while refusing to accept responsibility for security and defence.
Treaty of Amsterdam, Amendment No 13: Text does not conform to the principle of Austrian neutrality.
The main criteria to be used in the assessment of the Treaty of Amsterdam have been summarized in Amendment No 32 made by the I-EDN group.
There are four such criteria.
Let me review them.
First criterion: respect for national democracy and constitutional rules of the Member States, within the framework of an association of sovereign states in which the national border is the one of greatest legitimacy for the democratic expression of the will of the people.
Second criterion: reinforcing the role of national parliaments in the European decision-making process.
Third criterion: the search of a more transparent Union.
Fourth criterion: the need for enlargement, which requires at the institutional level the setting up of a variable geometry Europe based on differentiated cooperation.
Now, what does the Amsterdam Treaty propose? Bypassing national democracy, basing itself on individuals, against the peoples and Member States.
The absence of any role for national parliaments, which are gradually to be deprived of their competency in decision-making at the European level.
Opaque negotiations, ever more complex procedures, and weakened democratic control.
Systematic communitarization in all fields, which itself raises so many obstacles on the path of the necessary enlargement.
Open communitarization of the two intergovernmental pillars of the Maastricht treaty: justice and internal affairs; and indirect communitarization, by means of its financing, of common foreign and security policy.
Far from being a harmless treaty, the Treaty of Amsterdam is considerably accentuating the process of federalization and centralization of the European Union.
Instead of making good the democratic deficit, it is increasing the democratic deficit.
Instead of providing Europe with the dynamic flexibility which it needed to come through this historic stage of continental reunification, the Treaty of Amsterdam is pushing us up the cul de sac of federalism. In so doing, the date of effective enlargement is being postponed.
For this reason, we shall resolutely militate against this very poor treaty, and promote an open concept of a variable geometry Europe.
This will mean that at last we can welcome into a renovated Europe all the Member States which communist ideology had kept artificially separate.
We will not accept that any other ideology, under whatever guise, should take over and erect a new Berlin Wall, and create two Europes.
In spite of the fact that the European Parliament has institutionally guaranteed right of participation, nor any power of ratification, it is called on to give its opinion on what they call the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This is a treaty which has caused and will certainly continue to cause much ink to flow.
This treaty, which President Juncker said it would be difficult to ratify, and which Jacques Delors did not correct the Maastricht errors enough, has in just a short space of time become a good treaty, one acceptable to all.
When you remember that for more than two years, preparations for the intergovernmental conference in all European countries mobilized the best minds in the governments, parliaments, political parties, and other organizations, we are forced now to the conclusion that all these proposals and reactions have been a waste of time.
How can we explain to our citizens that those with the most influence, in other words, our Heads of State and of Government, were able to get together on matters as important as the introduction of the euro and enlargement, but were unable to do so on themes regarded as rather minor, such as the composition of the Commission prior to the first wave of new members, or the weighting of votes in the Council of Ministers, or again, the use of majority voting.
The bets laid on the future of Europe have only partially paid off, and in spite of all that, we've said yes to a treaty which does ducks the reforms essential to the proper operation of an enlarged European Union.
With the greatest respect to our Heads of State, and to our ministers, I must say that I have difficulties accepting an agreement which leaves open practically all the questions essential to the proper functioning of European institutions, an agreement which does not say how the re-casting of regional aid and the new agricultural policy will actually take place.
I also believe that the Treaty of Amsterdam might have helped public opinion better understand how Europe was to be built, and bring it closer to the construction of a Europe of citizens.
Nothing like this has been done, on the contrary.
The gulf between the words of the specialists and the words intended for the consumption of citizens has increased yet again.
If, after all these criticisms, I am still prepared to vote in favour of this treaty, it is because the treaty confers a little bit more power on the European Parliament, thanks to which it will better play its role as a driving force in European construction.
Despite the well-known improvements achieved by the Treaty of Amsterdam in the promotion of equality between women and men in Community assignments, and with the recognition of the importance of mainstreaming and active equal opportunities policies in all Community actions, through the amendment of article 3, I find it regrettable that article 118 places the European Parliament in a weaker position - as regards the fields of social security and the social protection of workers - than that of article 119 and that it makes it difficult to take decisions in favour of women because it demands unanimity on the Council.
I consider that the enlarged role given to the Parliament in the process of adopting measures under article 119, and also the re-wording of article 119 to provide means of positive action, are encouraging.
I would request that the co-financing rules be revised so that women's NGOs can play their part in the PRINCE programme, as unanimously approved by the Committee on Women's Rights, enabling the NGOs to include factors such as the value of work performed by volunteers and set-up costs when calculating their contributions.
I therefore find it regrettable that none of the articles in Part III of the treaty explicitly defines measures designed to establish equality of rights between men and women in all aspects of life in principle and reality, and recommend that the Union be given a mandate next time the treaty is revised to carry out an express survey of all the fields in which sexual discrimination exists and follow up the political green light which has already been given in the present draft treaty, with regard to equality of opportunities and mainstreaming.
Finally, I consider that before the next revision of the treaty the following points need to be developed:
article 119 should be extended in such a way as to provide a legal basis for equality between men and women which clearly goes beyond the field of employment; -article 6-A should be re-worded to give direct effect to the prohibition of sex-based discrimination, or at least to give the Parliament a greater role in determining the measures to be taken pursuant to that article; -the implications of including equality between women and men in articles 2 and 3 should be clarified from the legal point of view.
I voted against the resolution on the Treaty of Amsterdam, as I agree with it to a large extent.
Unlike the majority in this Parliament I take the criticism of the treaty seriously.
The credibility crisis in which the EU finds itself, the arrival of EMU, the entry of the new Member States - a promise we must not go back on - necessitated a fundamental review of the treaty.
The treaty was supposed to enable us to build on a political, social and ecological union in a democratic and bold way; the necessary complement to the union of market and money.
It did not work.
The most important part of the treaty review, preparing the Union for enlargement, was likewise not achieved.
That is why we cannot advise Member States to ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam.
That would be inconsistent in the light of our criticism.
The treaty needs to be rewritten up again.
The least the European Parliament could have done, was to defer its judgment on Amsterdam, and to put the government leaders under pressure to force them to adopt a new treaty review before the millennium, at the summit on enlargement in December.
The major political groups of this House seem even to lack the courage to use our advisory role strategically, as argued by S.O.S Europe.
Some, for instance the Dutch government, proclaim Amsterdam as a victory for the European Parliament.
Yes, we will obtain more power in the main pillar.
But a gaping democratic hole remains in place around agriculture and foreign trade. in Amsterdam foreign policy is' Brussels-ized a little more, but it has certainly become no more democratic.
The idea of parliamentary control on foreign policy has perhaps been buried for good.
Even worse is the fact that democratic control on asylum and immigration policy is being eroded further as a result of Amsterdam, while it is in this area that lives literally depend on careful policy including checks and balances.
Neither the European Parliament nor the national parliaments look like they might have a grip on what will be concocted in the Council's fortress in Brussels.
If this Parliament is truly concerned about the EU's democratic deficit - and not just its own power - then it should have called on the national parliaments to ensure parliamentary control in those policy areas in which the European Parliament stands powerlessly at the sides.
If necessary, following the Dutch or Danish model, by chaining their ministers to parliamentary right of assent.
This is not a step back in European unification, it is a rescue operation for a constitutional achievement which is being undermined by the present path of integration, because would not it be convenient for ministers and civil servants to be able to make decisions in Europe without having to deal with a parliament?
With the Amsterdam Treaty the EU is taking a big step in the direction of federalism.
That is not what I wanted to come out of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Today EU federalism has very little support among the citizens.
The Union's centralism, bureaucracy and long-winded acquis communautaire are important reasons for this.
The report from the Committee on Institutional Affairs contains little that is new and, in my opinion, is of little value.
Above all I object to the growing demands for decision-making by qualified majority.
This entails a serious weakening of democracy to the extent that the governments of the national states could be forced to adopt laws to which they are opposed.
This democratic aspect is the whole reason why I am taking a stand against this report.
Nor do I think that the European Parliament deserves to be given more decision-making within the EU system, partly because this increases supranationality within the EU and so weakens democracy, but also because of the Parliament's poor discipline and weak democratic roots.
Political debate in Europe today is concentrated around elections to national parliaments. Only a very small political elite knows that the European Parliament does.
The European Union should be a cooperation between independent states.
We should build up a Europe of the democracies, not a United States of Europe.
Unfortunately the European Union being built today is an EU of the market.
It is the free movement of goods and services and open competition which now take priority over the demand for democratic roots and legitimacy.
That is why I am voting against this report.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time to the Council (B4-0901/97).
Question No 1 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0757/97)
Subject: The situation in Algeria
What consideration has the Council given to the situation in Algeria over the last few weeks?
I thank the President-in-Office for his answer, which I believe was correct and which demonstrated great respect for Algeria, although I am unsure that it was sufficient from the point of view of effectiveness.
I believe that despite the difficulties, it is possible to take forward the peace process in Algeria.
We must try to do so.
And when we tackle this immediate objective, we shall realize that the peace process is inseparable from the fight against corruption.
It is essential to take forward the process of halting the violence; and we must provide the maximum possible political and parliamentary support for this process, the initiative for which must come from Algeria itself.
Thank you, Mr Wohlfart, but allow me to detain you within the scope of this question, as I have received two requests to put supplementaries.
Before giving the floor to Mr von Habsburg, however, I shall use the powers invested in me by the Rules as President in the Chair to place on record my congratulations to him on his eighty-fifth birthday and my recognition of his work in Parliament.
Mr von Habsburg, I have the honour of giving you the floor.
On behalf of the Council, I would first of all like to join in with the Presidency in congratulating the honourable Member who wears his age so well and, as I remember the hours of questions which we were involved in together, late into the night, some six years ago, I must say that the honourable Member has lost absolutely nothing of his verve.
In response to the first question raised by Mr von Habsburg, I would say that if we were in 'It's a Knock-out' , the television game, yours would be the toughest question of them all.
Of course, there was the government decision at the time to stop the electoral process.
There is bound to be doubt as to whether this was the right approach.
Personally, I have doubts about that, and I would like to say that, under the current circumstances, we must establish positive dialogue with all moderate elements, belonging to all the factions, once they have opted for democratization and for the rule of law.
In the second instance, I fully understand your sympathy for the two neighbouring countries of Tunisia and Morocco, especially as we already answered a similar question, among others that you raised some months ago.
You wish to prompt those two countries into giving a good example, as they are already doing.
As part of the Euro-Mediterranean initiative, new partnership styles have rightly been adopted with these two countries, but the problem which arises is how, within the financial spending limits provided for in the next few years by the Commission, to achieve an equitable balance as regards interventions benefiting Tunisia and Morocco.
Knowing Mr von Habsburg as I do, I have no doubt that he will take advantage of the next opportunity to raise this pertinent question with the Commission.
Mr Posselt, as you will have noticed, we have excellent interpreting booths, which not only improve our speeches when they are translated, but are even able to determine our age in accordance with our appearance. And that is what they did for Mr von Habsburg.
Ladies and gentlemen, after that pleasant and agreeable point of order, I would remind Mr Wohlfart that I said that we had two supplementary questions.
The second is by Mr Wibe, who has just one minute, since it is not his birthday and I am unable to give him longer.
Actually, I would like to agree with the doubts about the current policy expressed by Mr von Habsburg.
For a long time people have taken it for granted that the terrible massacres in Algeria were carried out by Islamic groups.
However, recently there have been very credible reports that in fact the Algerian government itself may have been involved in this.
It is also known that the Algerian government has actively opposed attempts by international organizations to enter the country and investigate the facts.
I would like to ask the Council whether this is not a lead which should be followed up, and whether we should not strongly urge the Algerian government to open the country to international organizations which would come in and investigate this.
Let me say that I do not believe that these massacres are going to end if we simply continue to put the blame on people who we do not know are guilty, i.e. the Islamic parties.
I certainly share the fears that have just been expressed by the honourable member, and as I know how concerned M. Poos, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, is with regard to this dossier, I can guarantee that this aspect of things will certainly be raised at the meeting with the Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Furthermore, this is the purpose of this meeting, which is to send a message at once both clear and positive.
Question No 2 by Hans Lindqvist (H0781/97)
Subject: Carriage of radioactive waste within the EU
I understand that a new Euratom Directive (No 96/29) on radioactive waste has been adopted, and will become law in the Member States by May 2000.
Under the Euratom Treaty waste may be moved within the EU.
It would in principle be open to Germany, France or the UK to store their nuclear waste in a waste dump in Sweden.
So if Malå commune, which recently held a referendum on the final disposal of radioactive waste in its area, had said yes rather than no, would it also have been permissible to dump foreign waste there? The directive also proposes that radioactive waste be diluted with other waste to bring it below the 'danger' limit values.
Is this correct? If so, is there not a risk that there will be an increase in the carriage of radioactive waste and that countries with good primitive rock structures may become waste dumps for the whole of Europe?
Directives 96/29 Euratom setting basic standards relating to the health protection of the working population against the hazards of ionizing radiation, to which the honourable Member refers, and they represent, I would say, an overall approach to health protection, setting strict standards and giving better protection to all.
These standards of protection naturally also apply to radioactive waste.
In this context, the elimination, recycling, or re-use of radioactive substances or matter containing radioactive substances require prior authorization.
Furthermore, the directive contains no provisions requiring mixing radioactive waste with other waste to bring down the levels of radioactivity to comply with standards.
As regards the circulation of radioactive waste, the Council would like to remind this House that directive 92/3 Euratom relating to the oversight and control of the transfer of radioactive waste between Member States, and on entry to and exit from the Community, lays down a strict monitoring regime.
Transfers between Member States can only take place on the basis of prior approval of the competent authorities in the recipient Member State.
In more general terms, the Council specified in the resolution adopted on 19 December 1994 relating to radioactive waste management, that it believed that it was the responsibility of every Member State to see to it that radioactive waste produced on its territory was managed in an appropriate fashion.
The Council also considers that optimal use should be made of installations at the national level, and that there should be more detailed examination of the various approaches possible which might, among other things, reduce transportation of radioactive waste.
I hope it will be possible to convey that answer to those in my country who are concerned that shipments of radioactive waste are going to increase.
I understand the answer to mean that, on the contrary, the Council's representatives are saying that there is no risk that radioactive waste could stray into any Member State which has not itself approved the import of shipments from other countries.
That is, of course, good news.
I hope that it will apply for a long time to come and that each country will decide for itself what shipments of radioactive waste from other countries it will accept.
This is a positive response which I look forward to passing on in Sweden.
However, I think the second answer was very unclear.
I understood the directive to mean that it is quite clear that people intend to dilute radioactive waste with other waste to be able to get below the limits which apply for handling, transport and storage etc.
I believe that my interpretation of this is correct, but if it is the case that this is also wrong and that the Council is right, I would also be pleased to convey that message to my country, Sweden.
I think that I have so far as possible, on a very sensitive and very important subject for human health, tried to give answers to the various questions raised by the honourable Member.
For my part, the most important thing is the provision laying down the responsibilities and competencies of the recipient Member State.
This means that if in this particular case Sweden does not accept a transfer, it is thereby protected from possible storage of the radioactive materials which the honourable Member has alluded to.
I would also say that this was the principle which was very vigorously defended by Sweden at the time of its membership negotiations, because it wanted to avoid pollution of its territory with nuclear waste.
In this context it is worthwhile remembering that Sweden on the one hand, and the Community on the other hand, made a request to annex to the final membership agreement the following declaration: as regards the terminal portion in the cycle of nuclear fuel, it is the responsibility of each Member State to define its own policy.
I think this is a clear position.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, you know I come from Austria, a country where all nuclear questions are handled very sensitively.
I must confess, to my shame, that I am not familiar with the 92/3/Euratom directive quoted by you.
The question this raises for me, and which is no doubt interesting for many Austrians, concerns the passage of nuclear waste.
Only the Member States of destination are ever referred to.
Would it be possible under this guideline for a country like Austria to practically defend itself against the relevant substances being transported through it? I am not just talking about the final disposal.
I must admit, this is a question to which I would not wish to give a wrong answer.
I would therefore propose to the honourable Member to give him a reply in writing as soon as possible.
I hope the honourable Member understands the position I am in.
I have two supplementary questions.
The first concerns the explanation which the President-in-Office of the Council of Ministers gave, and which is in the Swedish Treaty of Accession.
Is it not the case that this explanation relates to the method to be used for terminal storage and that that is decided by people themselves, not by the waste that is to be terminally stored? That is how I have understood this explanation until now.
The second question is as follows: if we have a situation where Sweden, or some other country, refuses to accept a shipment of radioactive waste, will it be possible to challenge that decision in the Court of Justice? Could the Court of Justice in that case overturn a Member State's decision to refuse to accept radioactive waste?
As regards the first part of the question, I have no further information.
I would say that we would use the same procedure as was promised to Mr Habsburg.
If there is a problem in Community law, the Court of Justice should be able, in my opinion, to deal with the matter.
Question No 3 by Patricia McKenna (H-0787/97)
Subject: Mass arrests at the Amsterdam Summit
A recent report from the Coalition for a Different Europe estimates that at least 700 peaceful demonstrators were arrested during the Amsterdam Summit in June.
Photographic evidence of police behaving aggressively towards the protestors has also been published.
Between 200 to 300 demonstrators are reported to have been deported to other EU countries and there have been numerous reports of protestors being manhandled by police, including reports of women being subjected to body searches and accompanied to toilets by male police officers.
Civil liberties groups throughout the EU have criticized the Dutch Police authorities for sanctioning the mass arrests of demonstrators.
In October the Danish Foreign Minister, Niels Helvig said that the arrests were questionable.
What action will the Council take on the basis of the reports of police misconduct at a vital EU event?
I already had an opportunity to reply to questions on this matter, which was raised by Mrs Gonzales and Mr Diaz, at the July session.
The Council has never discussed the problem raised by the honourable Member in her question.
I would like, for the sake of completeness, to draw your attention to the fact that maintaining public order on the territory of the Member States of the Union is the exclusive responsibility of the national police authorities.
The honourable Member will therefore understand that the Council has no authority to take a position on something which is not part of the competencies conferred upon the Council by the treaties.
First of all I would just like to say that a report was published yesterday by the independent Amsterdam Police Complaints Commission.
They confirm that there was an inquiry, the three mass arrests were incorrect, and the criticism of the manner in which the arrested persons were treated was essentially very wellfounded.
Regarding the Minister's response, it is quite clear that the Council is playing a role here, in that it is agreeing on the Europol Convention.
Member States throughout the European Union are seeking agreement on policing throughout Europe and the Europol Convention.
Europol, without political or judicial control, will have massive powers of collection of data, etc. It will be immune from the law.
We are setting up a federal European police force that will carry out its police activities in Member States.
The European Union has to address this and the dangers this will involve.
I would like the Council's reassurance that at the next summit in Luxembourg we will not have mass arrests.
It is a very dangerous precedent to set for members of the European public, that they cannot have the right to demonstrate and to highlight their concerns regarding what is happening in Europe.
It is a fundamental right for people to be able to protest throughout the European Union. You cannot wash your hands of it and say 'Oh well, that is the individual responsibility of the Member State' .
First, I do understand the reasons which prompted Ms McKenna to raise this question.
But whether we like it or not, there are treaties and there are also community and non-community competencies.
And that is the context of my reply.
Furthermore, when making reference to Europol, in my opinion we are speaking about several things.
Europol will, at least I hope, be operational soon.
But I would like also to draw the attention of the honourable Member to the fact that if reference is made to Europol, we should not lose sight of the fact that, as things now stand, ratification took place yesterday, for two Member States only.
Therefore, I think this gives us food for thought.
My personal feeling, is that I think it would be interesting to promote in the various Member States - and here, I speak as the former Secretary of State for public order in Luxembourg - to increase the number of women in the police force.
This is a purely personal viewpoint, which would perhaps make it possible to avoid a number of controls, which are, so to speak, unfortunate or heavy-handed.
Furthermore, as regards the employment summit, I think I am in a position to say that the instructions given to our police forces are very clear.
What is involved, as was emphasized by the honourable Member, is the fundamental right of European citizens to demonstrate in the capital of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg.
This right will be respected.
On our side, we are going to make the necessary arrangements to ensure that this demonstration can take place in a calm and dignified manner.
Question No 4 by Per Gahrton (H-0794/97)
Subject: Strategy for relations with China
The visit to the USA by President Jiang Zemin of China raises the question of the West's future strategy for its relations with the world's most populous country.
The basic question is: how will it be possible to cooperate and conduct trade whilst actively and effectively helping to advance the process of democratization and introduce fundamental universal human rights?
Some Chinese affairs experts believe it necessary to keep up strong, overt criticism of China for its failings in those areas, whilst others argue that silent diplomacy would be preferable.
Norway's new government has opted for an overt, hard line, whereas some EU Member States have clearly decided to keep a low profile.
What is the Council's current China strategy? What plans are there for the EU to take action within the UN Commission on Human Rights?
The situation with regard to respect of human rights in China is a constant concern of the European Union.
All countries in the European Union share the determination and objective of achieving a significant improvement in human rights in China.
Following on from the 53rd session of the Commission of Human Rights of the United Nations in Geneva, the European Union undertook to re-examine its policy on China, from the points of view of human rights, with the aim of adopting a consistent approach.
The question of human rights is on the agenda of the regular meetings between the European Union and China.
The Luxembourg and Chinese Ministers of Foreign Affairs have had meetings on this subject in July, on the fringes of the post-ministerial meetings of the ASEAN, which took place in Kuala Lumpur, and on the fringes of the General Assembly of the United Nations in September 1997, in New York.
In New York, there was agreement that the European Union and the People's Republic of China would renew dialogue on human rights at expert level, on the understanding that this dialogue would be without preconditions.
Dialogue on the human rights between the European Union and China was first launched, I remind you, in 1994.
Before the Luxembourg presidency, two meetings took place at the beginning of 1995 and at the beginning of 1996.
Under our presidency, the first meeting took place at the end of October in Luxembourg, and the second meeting was scheduled for the beginning of December in Peking.
This dialogue will enable us to examine all questions of interest to the two parties.
Mr President, in this context, I must point out that China announced that it had signed the international pact on economic, social and cultural rights, and that work leading up to the signature of the international pact relating to civil rights and politics is continuing.
You doubtless learned last Sunday, that China released Mr Wei Jingsheng earlier than expected, a gesture that was welcomed by the presidency.
The case of Mr Wei Jingsheng had been regularly raised by the European Union, and recently in Luxembourg itself.
Thank you for the answer which contained a lot of facts, but no news.
The question is whether the release of Wei Jingsheng is the spark that could light a prairie fire in the form of further strong stands on human rights in China, whether it is the butterfly which will set off the hurricane which will really create change in China.
There are many different opinions.
A great deal has happened recently, partly at the latest party congress and partly during President Jiang's visit to the USA with the famous statement about a 'mistake' at Tiananmen Square.
Now we also have the release of Wei Jingsheng.
I wonder whether, against the background of these facts, the Council has any new strategy. Have you any interpretation of what is happening?
Is a hopeful change taking place in China or not? What is the Council's interpretation?
Thank you, Mr Wohlfart, for your answers, and especially for your recommendation of patience, which is an absolutely essential virtue in this highly complex institution.
And I must also request your patience as I ask you to maintain your attention on this question, since, pursuant to the Rules, I have received a request to put a supplementary from Mr Posselt, who has the floor for one minute.
Mr President, I congratulate you on your brilliant response to China.
I would just like to inquire by way of addition: we do not take an uncritical view of American foreign policy, of course, but actually a very critical one.
Yet American foreign policy has done something very positive recently with the appointment of its own Tibetan envoy.
I wanted to ask you whether the European Union is also planning to appoint a similar envoy, or how the question of Tibet is currently being handled in the Council.
This is a very good question.
Until now, this possibility, raised as it happens by the honourable Member, has still not been examined by the Council.
But as the European Union already has a number of special envoys in place to defend the position of the European Union as a negotiator or mediator in various parts of the world and, given the political, economic, and cultural importance of a country such as China, but also the interest that we all have in the promotion of human rights and democratization, I believe that the suggestion merits our support, and at all events, I intend to present it at the time of a forthcoming General Affairs Council.
I would first like to correct a choice of words in my previous contribution.
The reports on massacres in Algeria which I spoke about do not implicate the Algerian government, but they do implicate the Algerian authorities.
As far as the Council's reply is concerned, I would still like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council whether it is not reasonable for us to be able to introduce routine inspections in Sweden.
This is an issue which rouses the entire Swedish people.
We have never had salmonella in our country, thanks to the fact that we have had proper veterinary inspections.
However, the treaty we have entered into is based on the idea that the certificates we receive from the exporting countries should be correct.
Evidently they are not correct.
In this case, surely, concern for human health must be the spirit of the treaty, so to speak, and must therefore allow Sweden to set up routine inspections when we import meat, as long as it continues to be the case that meat is infected in spite of the fact that people have certificates saying the opposite.
Mr President, I will not conceal the fact that the question of salmonella contamination is of the greatest interest to myself as a trained doctor.
It is also a matter of consumer protection, given that there are in Europe, as mentioned in the question, around one thousand people who die every year as a consequence of sammonelosis.
The problem is therefore a relatively important one.
As concerns the supplementary question, I have just said that the Commission's mission was to take the necessary measures and as necessary to present appropriate proposals to ensure compliance with rules for the protection of consumer health.
This in my opinion should be of the utmost priority, alongside other rules whose purpose is to avoid the introduction into intracommunity trade of items adversely affecting the rules governing the internal market.
If there is no wish to consider the possibility of changing the rules governing intra-Community trade in meat to overcome the disadvantages which have been raised in the questions, the best thing to do would certainly be to invite the Commission itself tomake a proposal to the Council in the proper way.
Keeping salmonella out demands a lot of a country.
Wherever it occurs, the whole flock or herd must be destroyed.
That is also what happens.
It is necessary, but it is expensive.
How can we justify these costs when, in spite of veterinary certificates, of a lot of the meat being imported proves to contain large amounts of salmonella?
I am in favour of the European market for agricultural produce. It is good for consumers.
But a precondition is that we are all able to rely on the fact that the food we buy is not a danger to health.
We cannot do that today.
Thousands of Europeans die each year from salmonella poisoning.
As consumers we must be able to have confidence that the food we buy and eat is good for us.
It is therefore in the interests of the whole of Europe for the Council to accept its responsibility to stop salmonella.
After Mr Wohlfart's formal and uninvolved response, I am unable to trust the Council in this respect.
If my ears do not betray me, and if I understand the honourable Member aright, he was not asking a question.
He said that I had made a declaration which was fairly clear and straightforward, but he doubted that I was really convinced about the action to be undertaken, if I have understood things right.
Is that it?
I thought the answer the Minister gave did not suggest there was any great will to tackle the problem of salmonella in Europe in its entirety.
An awful lot needs to be done if we are to make Europe salmonellafree.
We have succeeded in Sweden, but it cost us a great deal.
What are you doing on the Council to ensure that other countries act in a similar, if expensive way and so eradicate salmonella?
Mr Wohlfart, Mr Cars, you are establishing a dialogue outside the framework of the Rules.
I am extremely flexible in the Chair, but I would ask you to allow me to conduct the sitting so that I can at least justify the emolument that I receive for being here.
I will not now take up all the time available for speaking by entering into a dialogue, and at all events, yours is the sole responsibility for directing the debate.
If I understood the reasons for this question, the countries are known, and I would say that if you had a suspicion, I think that controls at point of destination, by sampling, are always possible.
Furthermore I would add that if the Commission believes that the situation is becoming truly a matter of concern, it is the Commission's responsibility to make a proposal to the Council of Ministers, along the lines suggested by the honourable Member.
Salmonella in itself is one problem.
Even worse are the salmonella bacteria which have become resistant to antibiotics.
I would like to know whether the Council is aware of the situation with regard to antibiotic-resistant salmonella bacteria in the EU, how they are being fought, how people are thinking of coping with this problem at all, and where they exist.
I have not ducked an answer, but the Commission must give you a formal answer.
However, as a doctor, I must point out that as regards resistance to antibiotics, the problem, unfortunately, is not limited only to the bacteria known as salmonella.
It is due in fact to an unwarranted use of antibiotics.
We could have a 24-hourlong debate on resistance to antibiotics, and I would be very pleased to have one day in private with Mrs Hulthén.
Mr Wohlfart, you can, of course, arrange a meeting with Mrs Hulthén afterwards.
As President, and also speaking as a doctor, however, I wish to say that the appearance of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is an indisputable fact. There are countless cases of this, including staphylococcus, the bacterium which causes infections that are treated with penicillin.
However, that is a scientific matter, and we are examining the issue from the healthpolicy point of view. Mrs Thors therefore has the floor for one minute to speak on this issue.
The problem with salmonella is due partly to the fact that we cannot rely on the inspections which have been carried out.
My question is when does the Council really expect to have effectiveness so that the inspections which are carried out can be checked and we can rely on the certificates which exist.
The questioners have emphasized this.
On the other hand, we also know that we would not have the problem with infected turkey meat, for example, if the same rules which are now being introduced for beef - country of origin labelling - were to apply to all food products.
Today it is impossible for us to label meat which comes from a country whose inspections we cannot rely on.
I would also like us to be able to rely on the certificates which are issued in all parts of Europe.
When does the Council expect to realize the intentions which are contained in the Commission's proposal on food legislation and which are being so hotly debated in the Member States?
The question of controls and subsequent protection of the consumer, and in this case protection of human life, is part of the Commission's remit.
I would not wish to speculate further.
I believe that if the Commission, with proof to hand, can demonstrate other more efficient means to react to the problem, it will be the Council's responsibility to take these decisions, and take its appropriate share of responsibility.
As you see, this is a very important question for us in the North, especially in Sweden which has often been hit by infected meat.
I have a follow-up question which I would like to have answered.
If it is the case that Sweden's health authorities decide the risks of salmonella infection spreading in Sweden are too great, and, in spite of the fact that you say it is not allowed, they introduce random inspections or regular routine inspections, as mentioned in Mr Wibe's question, what will happen then? What would be the result if Sweden still introduced routine border inspections?
Would we then receive a visit from the President-in-Office of the Council, or another representative of the Council, who would stop the inspections?
What would be the result of such a decision on the part of Sweden?
I did not fully understand the end of the sentence.
I invite the honourable Member to repeat his question.
If Sweden concludes that routine border inspections are necessary and introduces such inspections, in spite of the fact that you said that it was not allowed, what would happen then? What would be the result of that for the Member State of Sweden?
I think we have possibly not understood one another.
I said that if the authorities of a member country, in this case Sweden, had a suspicion, in this instance, they could set up controls.
There is no prohibition on inspection if there are suspicions.
I think in the way you express the reasons behind Mr Wibe's question made allusion to certain countries.
It may be possible to establish a link, which would become the basis of a suspicion.
Then the Swedish government is free to carry out inspections.
I am not sure that the Council properly understands why we are so angry in Sweden and Finland, but it is of course due to the fact that this is a problem which has arisen through our becoming members of the European Union.
We were promised that the problem would not arise.
That is why we expect a little more commitment.
I would like to ask what objectives actually exist.
Is there an objective that the whole of the European Union should be as free of salmonella as Sweden and Finland were before their membership of the European Union? We are a little suspicious, because the French ambassador in Sweden went public and said, more or less, that people can tolerate a little salmonella.
These Swedes seem a bit wimpish, a bit hypochondriac and oversensitive.
Salmonella is part of everyday life.
I am not quoting word-for-word, but that was the impression he gave.
In the light of this we desire a bit more commitment and an objective that salmonella shall also be eradicated in the rest of the Union.
We are well and truly into salmonella!
Joking apart, I can assure the honourable Member that the presidency has understood perfectly well what is at issue.
It would be a pity if a doctor did not understand what is at stake with the risk of salmonella.
Trust me, I fully understand the scale of the problem raised here, because by the number of supplementary questions, I can see that it is a matter of grave concern in your countries.
On the other hand, I do not know which ambassador you had in mind when you were speaking, but to me it does not appear that this ambassador had a very sophisticated understanding of medicine.
This is a personal opinion.
I can only repeat this.
If the Commission, which gave an undertaking to carry out its homework on this, during the health council which was held in September this year, draws conclusions which are quite possibly those which you are coming to now, I believe it is the Commission's duty to accept its responsibilities, and out of concern for consumer health, to propose to the Council adequate and effective protection measures.
The Council will then take its responsibilities.
I have no doubt, in this particular case, that the Council will do just that.
Question No 7 by Robin Teverson (H-0803/97)
Subject: Road hauliers
Will the Council confirm that it will take all possible measures to protect road haulage companies from industrial action in other Member States?
If action such as road blockades, set up in France last year and threatened again recently, does result in financial loss or physical hardship will they make sure that hauliers are compensated quickly and given all possible help?
First, the Council is fully conscious of the untoward consequences that road barricades had in France in 1996 on the free circulation of goods and persons in Europe.
It is delighted at the outcome of the recent conflict between truckers and their employers.
The Council remains convinced that, now as then, negotiation is the best way to cope with these and similar situations.
I would also like to point out to the honourable Member that the Council took note of the actions undertaken by the Commission, which had responsibility for overseeing respect for free circulation within the single market, in regard to the French authorities and the authorities of the other Member States, for the purposes of facilitating a resolution of the conflict, of mitigating the effects of the barriers, and finally accelerating procedures for compensation for damage, if any, suffered.
I am glad that the President-in-Office understands the great hardship this has caused a number of companies.
My concern here is not just that compensation should be paid quickly - which has not happened at all in the past - but that a code of practice should be accepted by all Members of the Council.
First of all this should ensure that roads are kept open during national disputes so that trade between European countries can continue to take place and foreign drivers are not affected, and then, if that fails, there is a code of practice which makes sure that financial compensation is always paid by the Member State concerned, and that compensation is paid quickly.
Would the President-in-Office see whether such a code of practice could be agreed between Member States for any such future incidents?
Firstly, I would like to say that with a view to a solution to this strike, the COREPER at its meeting of 5 November last, looked at the possibility of calling an extraordinary Transport Council.
Fortunately the tripartite negotiations in France made it possible to solve the problem, out in the field.
But the questions which have been raised by earlier road blocks, involving the need to guarantee transit corridors and accelerate compensation procedures, have already been raised at the Council of Ministers of Transport, and in the General Affairs Council.
For my part, I shall try to submit your proposal, relating to a code of good conduct, to my colleague Mme Delvaux, who has responsibility for the Council of Ministers of Transport, with a view to examining the possibility of adoption of a code of good conduct, as proposed by the honourable Member.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as you will see when we reach the subject of the European City of Culture - I am the Member for Valencia - the problem of the losses caused by road hauliers' strikes is a regular occurrence.
Of the five hundred actions brought in the French courts, only one has been successful.
This is because, like all courts, the French courts require two things: that it be clearly determined who is responsible; and that the losses be quantified.
I believe that Community law can be extremely useful with regard to both those requirements.
Firstly, the President-in-Office will surely agree with me that the free movement of goods is the very essence of the treaties.
He will also agree that the Member States have a duty to ensure compliance with the treaties.
And he will probably agree that all Member States are objectively responsible for dealing with the inadequate functioning of public services.
The conclusion is that we must establish that the Member State in question is responsible by means of Community law.
And, as regards quantification of the losses, I would propose that a Commission service be set up to assess the losses objectively in order to facilitate the work of the courts.
At the very least, the witnesses would be considered expert witnesses under any of our legal systems, which are derived from the Justinian Code.
I shall be extremely brief.
The honourable Member has himself outlined the solution to the problem that he has just raised.
It is now down to the Commission services to do their duty.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you were very polite in replying to my question, but your answer reminds me of the words of the owner of a house whose roof leaks every year: when it leaks, he says "I had better do something about it' ; then, when the rain stops, he does nothing.
And, the following year, the roof leaks again, and he has to put buckets under the drips, and so on.
Do you not think, Mr President-in-Office, that, with regard to the interruption of road traffic as a result of industrial action, the Community, the free market, is like that house with a leaking roof, and that it is time for the Council to address the issue of the organization of road transport, the industrial problems and the broader question of compensation once and for all, and not wait to hold a special meeting of the Council, but adopt wide-ranging Community legislation?
You are caught between a rock and a hard place, as they say.
You know that you must address your questions to the Commission, Mr Medina Ortega, and I expect to see you at Question Time to the Commission next month.
Question No 8 by Maj Theorin (H-0805/97)
Subject: Legal rights of asylum-seekers
When an asylum seeker is refused entry and returned to his home country or another country outside the Schengen area that person must have a guaranteed right of appeal against the decision refusing him entry.
This right should initially be guaranteed by the country the individual is returned to.
If that State cannot guarantee that right it should be the country refusing entry.
Are there any guarantees that a state refusing entry will offer asylum-seekers the right of appeal?
I shall now try to perform my duties.
The Council resolution of 20 June 1995 on minimum guarantees for asylum procedures lists in detail the guaranteed rights which apply to the processing of asylum requests.
As regards the rights of asylum seekers in matters of appeals and reassessments, reference should be made to paragraph 4 of the resolution, which deals with reassessments.
The following paragraphs in my opinion give replies which adequately answer the question raised by the honourable Member.
First, it is specified in paragraph 8, in the event of a negative decision against the asylum seeker, there should be a possible appeal to a tribunal or an appraisal organization which will make an independent decision on individual cases.
I would also like to refer to paragraphs 15 and 16 of this same resolution which deals with the information given to the applicant regarding the decision, the reasons for the rejection, the possibility of reassessment of the decision and the deadlines applicable, and finally the availability of time to make an appeal.
As regards paragraph 17, this paragraph lays down general principles allowing the applicant to stay in the territory so long as no decision has been taken regarding appeal and allowing the asylum seeker to make an appeal to the independent organizations mentioned in paragraph 8, and then be granted authorization, due to the special circumstances of his or her case, for temporary residence on the territory of a Member State, when the legislation of that state authorizes an exception to the general principle.
With regard to manifestly groundless requests for asylum, I refer to paragraph 19 of the resolution which specifies that the Member States may, by derogation to the principle stated in paragraph 8, deny the right of appeal against the rejection of an application if, on a prior basis, instead of and in lieu of such procedure, an independent organization distinct from the authority examining the case, has confirmed the decision for rejection of the application..
According to paragraph 21, the Member States may lay down exceptions to the principles of paragraph 17 in limited cases.
However, there must at least be a guarantee that the decision regarding the application shall be taken at a high level and that sufficient additional measures, such as an identical assessment confirming the validity of the original decision are made by another authority which is both central and has the necessary experience and knowledge in the field of asylum rights and refugees, prior to the enforcement of the decision.
Finally, with regard to requests for asylum made at borders, I would refer you to paragraphs 23 and 24 of the resolution which guarantees that, first, any asylum seeker arriving at a border has the possibility of lodging an application for asylum, and that if a special procedure is applied for the purposes of undertaking an examination before the decision relating to entry, if the application is manifestly without foundation, no measure for deportation should be taken while the special procedure is underway, and finally that, if entry is refused and there is a derogation to the general principle of the suspensory effect of the appeals procedure, there must be a guarantee that the decision for refusal of entry is taken by a minister or by a comparable central authority, and that sufficient additional safeguard measures, such as the prior examination by another central authority, should provide an assurance that the decision taken is a just one.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his reply.
The Schengen cooperation involves a more restrictive asylum policy for Sweden, which means more applicants are going to get a negative answer and be refused.
When the chances of an asylum seeker being granted asylum are reduced, there really must not be any lack of legal certainty for him or her.
Therefore it is important for us to have certain fundamental rights truly guaranteed.
There must therefore be guarantees for the right to appeal.
I am very grateful for the legal answer which I got from the minister.
When I get the answer on paper I am going to go through it again and I will come back if I feel that the answer needs to be elaborated.
In fact, I see no objection to providing supplementary information to the honourable Member in writing.
I would simply add some words, as Schengen has been mentioned.
I was myself a signatory to the convention of application.
I can assure you that it was, as it happened, a difficult and painful exercise.
But I can also say this. The principle of the first host country having responsibility of checking whether or not rights of asylum can be granted, is indeed applied, in theory; and it is also true that, for humanitarian reasons, the second country to which the political asylum seeker may make a request for asylum may still grant the asylum seeker that right.
The rules are not as restrictive as they might appear at first sight.
The Council is not unaware of the fact that trafficking in children is a most unfortunate reality in a number of countries, and unfortunately not only in the countries that have been mentioned by the honourable Member.
On 4 November, the political committee recommended that the question of kidnapping of children should be put on the agenda for political dialogue with the 27 countries concerned.
On 31 October, seven Mauritanian nationals were arrested at the Bamako airport in Mauritania, when they were attempting to embark on a flight to the United Arab Emirates with nine children aged less than five years.
The international combat against trafficking in children is conducted by the United Nations, who have designated a special rapporteur on the question of the sale of children.
The European Union will continue to work towards an end to this odious practice, cooperating with the governments concerned and with non-governmental organizations also concerned by this question.
I would also like, in this context, to point out that every year the European Union actively participates in drafting a United Nations resolution condemning trafficking in children and child labour, and calls on Member States to put an end to such practices.
Finally, the European Union has made a commitment in favour of democracy and the protection of human rights.
Indeed, article 5 of the first Lomé Convention explicitly states that the policies of the European Union in the field of cooperation and development are closely bound up with the respect for and the exercise of fundamental human rights and liberties.
As signatories of Lomé IV, all countries cited by the honourable Member have declared their profound attachment to human dignity and human rights.
The European Union expects all signatories of the Lomé Convention to fulfil their obligations.
Thank you for your response.
The labour camp in Lagos that I mention in the question was actually known by local residents as a slave dump or children market.
People looking for cheap labour came to the camp and chose the children they wanted.
Most went on to work as domestic workers, at market stalls or as shop assistants.
Some washed vehicles or collected fares on minibuses.
In addition, they faced physical abuses in the form of beatings from their employers or were at risk of sexual exploitation by the families employing them.
A report by Anti-Slavery International found that 95 % of the child domestics were girls.
Because of these stark facts, President-in-Office, I wonder whether your answer, while I agree with it in total, is enough.
What do you expect to be the outcome of the political dialogue on 4 November, which you have described?
Although we have article 5 in the Lomé Convention, what will you do specifically to enact it in response to the countries that I have referred to in the question? What more can Europe do?
First, the European Union would have an interest in giving Mrs Mary Robinson, the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, the responsibility of dealing with these very painful matters.
I believe that she has the necessary authority to ensure that the voice of the United Nations is heard, and to remind the signatory countries of the various international conventions on human rights of their responsibilities, which I would say are elementary.
Furthermore, as regards signatory countries of the Lomé Convention, it is on the one hand absolutely necessary for the European Union as such to denounce these occurrences most vigorously, and that it should say so to the relevant Member States who are signatories to the Lomé Convention.
On the other hand, I am of the personal opinion that this is likely to be not enough.
I shall nevertheless be free, during the Development Council which will be held a week on Friday in Brussels, under questions relating to the humanitarian situation in the Great Lakes region, to add an extra point to our discussions on child labour, which you have described in terms which cannot but make us profoundly sad.
It shall then be the responsibility of the Commission to undertake further investigations and research, in close collaboration with the services of Mrs Robinson and the NGOs who are qualified in this field, so as to propose the appropriate measures which in my view are necessary, to the Council without unnecessary delay.
Mr Howitt is requesting the floor for a point of order.
I do not want to take up any more time except to genuinely thank the President-in-Office for what I regard as a very positive answer.
I felt that so strongly, Mr Howitt, that I thanked the President-in-Office several times. I believe that his answer has raised everyone's awareness of this problem enormously.
Thank you, once again, therefore, Mr Wohlfart.
Question No 10 by Anna Karamanou (H-0809/97)
Subject: Council Recommendation of 2 December 1996 on the balanced participation of women and men in the decision-taking process
On 2 December 1996 the Council, recognizing the democratic deficit that exists as regards the representation of women, adopted a Recommendation for the Member States with a view to ensuring the balanced participation of women and men in the decision-taking process.
The Recommendation calls on each Member State to adopt an integrated strategy and to take all the necessary legislative, regulatory, administrative and other measures with a view to increasing the participation of women at all levels.
Approximately one year after this Recommendation was issued, will the Council say:
What specific measures and programmes are being promoted by the Member States of the EU with a view to achieving the balanced participation of women and men at the decision-taking centres?
What steps have been taken and what efforts made to alert public opinion and the various public and private bodies concerned to the need to facilitate the access of women to Community and national political and decision-taking bodies?
In response to this question I would like to say that the recommendation of the Council, which dates back to 2 December last year, and which applies to the balanced participation of men and women in decision-making processes, lays down that the Commission will submit a report, both to the Parliament and to the Economic and Social Committee, for the first time three years after the adoption of said recommendation, and then on an annual basis, using the information supplied by the Member States.
Consequently, given that the recommendation was adopted last year, the first report will be drafted only three years later, that is, at the end of 1999. In these circumstances, the Council is not in a position at this stage to make an inventory of measures and programmes in force in the Member States, as requested by the honourable Member.
Mr President, I am in a position to know very well what is written in the final paragraph of the recommendation with regard to the obligations of the European Commission.
However, my question is addressed to the Council, which I consider should be in a position to inform the European Parliament on the reception suffered by this recommendation at the hands of the Member States and on the progress of this recommendation.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office if he is satisfied with the representation of just half the population of Europe in the democratic institutions and in the centres of political decision-taking. Does he think that our democratic system works well when it indirectly excludes the equal and balanced participation of women in all decision-taking processes?
I must limit my assessment to the specific case of Luxembourg, because I know the interest that was raised by this initiative and by the recommendation of the Council, on 10 December last.
Our government is conscious of the importance of the subject, given that, at the time of ministerial reshuffling, two years ago, we included as one of our political priorities the promotion of the role of women in Luxembourg society, by setting up a ministry for the advancement of women.
As regards other countries, political consciousness is increasingly being awakened, and advances are being made.
No later than last week, a very encouraging and positive judgement was handed down by the European Court of Justice in a manner consistent, I believe, with the wishes of the honourable Member.
As regards the role of women, I am personally convinced that here, in this House, there are many women Members who are highly dynamic and who will not restrict themselves to advocating promotion of the role of women in this House only, but in their member countries also.
As the time allotted to Question Time to the Council has elapsed, Questions Nos 11 to 23 will receive written answers.
Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot close the sitting without thanking Mr Wohlfart, once again, for being good enough to put with the inconvenience of Parliament's timetable changes for two months running.
Today, I wish to thank him especially, because I know that personal circumstances made it particularly difficult for him to be here.
Thank you, Mr Wohlfart.
Mr Posselt is requesting the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, it is not the usual problem with Question Time, instead I have something quite concrete today.
For some time we have been receiving the Council's written replies relatively late.
This is the fault of this House, however, because they are issued by the Council in good time as I understand it.
I would therefore request that we get to receive the written replies this week in Strasbourg.
Mr Posselt, I take note of your remarks and I shall look into this matter with the services responsible to see if what you propose is possible.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.15 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Action plan for the single market
The next item is the report (A4-356/97), by Mr von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission on the Action Plan for the Single Market (CSE(97)0001 - C4-0286/97).
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has examined this report and has given a highly favourable opinion on the work carried out, both by the Committee and by the rapporteur, whom I congratulate.
I would like to make a few partly critical, but constructively critical, comments which I will hasten to make.
The Committee, for example, noted with satisfaction how the Executive Commission intends to speed up investigations into the infringement of Community regulations and it is hoped that what has unfortunately happened several times in the past will not happen again, that is that reports have been dealt with after a long delay, or have not even received a reply.
This also confirms the request made to the Commission on 11 December last year within the scope of the resolution on the Commission's programme of work for 1997, to take a decision whereby the Executive undertakes to apply to the Court of Justice for pecuniary sanctions to be imposed if a Member State has not taken the measures connected with the application of a Court judgment within a year, particularly in the sectors relating to the domestic market and the environment.
The Committee on Legal Affairs is also asking the Commission and the Council and Member States to eliminate once and for all, in accordance with the provisions of the treaty, the frontier controls that are still obstructing the freedom of movement of persons and also reinforce all the measures permitting a larger number of European citizens to make use of the freedom of movement.
It also pointed out the general nature of the actions relating to objective 4, particularly the protection of consumer rights, health and the environment and establishing a dialogue with citizens, and asks the Commission to develop more specific proposals in this connection.
Finally, it confirmed how the objects of a better environmental protection and a braver consumer protection require a more marked action at Community level, as established in the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs on the Commission's communication relating to the impact and efficacy of the single market.
With these comments, the Committee on Legal Affairs expresses a favourable opinion on this action plan for the domestic market.
And so I congratulate both Commissioner Monti and the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I would like to offer my congratulations to the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau.
The internal market, ladies and gentlemen, does not exist in all areas yet, and that costs European business, large and small, year after year, a great deal of money.
In particular the absence of an internal market for energy in which the right of free choice for business and the consumer is respected in the power and gas sector, is a significant obstacle.
The gas market must be privatized as soon as possible and to a substantial extent.
A tax on energy must be implemented throughout Europe, otherwise it will lead once more to market disruption.
A second topic I would like raise on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy is the full exploitation of the opportunities for innovation and new technological developments.
Often it is the small companies who are innovative, and who consequently are able to grow and therefore create more employment in Europe.
That is what we have this summit for.
An important requirement in all this is not only the completion of the market, but also the harmonization of legislation.
The absence of European patent legislation, for instance, is a hindrance for small businesses in particular to make the most of the opportunities of the internal market.
Small businesses do not have the necessary resources to register their new developments.
The last point I would like to draw to your attention is the importance of a European market for information services.
The European Union will only be able to derive full benefit from the development in the worldwide electronics trade if this is based on multilateral instead of bilateral agreements.
But to achieve this the Union will have to do a great deal of work; also in the internal market as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a supporter of a free market economy it is a rare pleasure for me to present the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for my colleague and committed supporter of social policy Thomas Mann.
In the opinion of the committee, the Commission has a key role to play in creating the social policy to develop a forward-looking economic and social community as a model for improving the European single market.
The more clearly social aspects are built into it, the less room there is for doubt as to whether the model of success for the social market economy can actually be implemented at European level.
In the committee's opinion, there is a need for action.
First, action on the different tax systems which are an obstacle to trade and above all action to resolve the issue of frontier workers engaged in cross-border transport and double taxation.
Second, in the committee's opinion the production factor in employment should be subject to tax relief while the environmental factor must be taxed in order to promote employment.
Third, the committee supports the liberalization of public services.
However, it also believes that a minimum of universal services must be maintained and that each round of job cuts should be cushioned with job-creating measures to make it socially acceptable.
Fourth, European economic policy, which is based on the principles of a socially and environmentally-oriented market economy, needs to maintain qualified standards of protection which have grown up over the decades and which can be further developed at European level.
Fifth, the Committee is convinced that pan-European employment agency networks and agreements on the recognition of educational qualifications and degrees and increased incentives to gain job experience within Europe are major building blocks for the single market.
Only then - according to the Committee - will workers be able to support the European single market, Europe's national market as Mr von Wogau calls it, and I think that is important, as well as the promotion of self-reliance, to ensure the success of this single market.
Mr President, I would like to thank Karl von Wogau for his balanced report, which very extensively deals with the issues of the single market in an analytical manner.
The Commission also deserves thanks as the targets it has set to simplify single market regulations, bearing in mind the interests of the people, are worthy of our support.
For the individual, the two big drawbacks in the ongoing activity of the single market are the spread of crime and the lack of information on the countless opportunities there are for freedom of movement.
The single markets can operate only when our citizens stop feeling unsafe and when the fragile borders of opportunity are at last opened up to them.
The bars to the single market, especially those which spring from criminal activity, are not going to be remedied in any one single way.
We need cooperation between customs officers and police, for which Europol would be a marvellous tool, and we need more effective hi-technology for the dissemination of real-time data among the authorities.
Because the Union's internal borders are disappearing, more standardized guarding procedures for our external borders need to be paid attention to.
In preparing my statement on the report on single markets for the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs I particularly stressed the importance of exploiting technology in border control and the relay of information in order to increase the effectiveness of the single market being, as it were, invisibly monitored.
I would like to approach the question of the exploitation of technology from the viewpoint of the individual also.
For example, by listing vacant jobs on the Internet we might be able to ease the movement of a trained and qualified workforce within the Union.
Research and innovation for Europe could also benefit greatly from the more fluid movement of a trained workforce.
Besides, decisions made in the Union's institutions should be opened up to the people to a still greater extent via the information networks.
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on the issues related to tax in Mr von Wogau's report.
On the eve of the employment summit I would like to point out what the biggest contribution in terms of tax might be in terms as a result of the shift of tax from labour to other sources, especially capital and energy.
The intention to so is not new, of course.
We find it in the Delors White Paper.
There is only one element in this White Paper which actually deserves a great deal more attention at present.
But despite the intention in the Delors White Paper it is obvious that in reality no shift from tax on labour to other sources is taking place; quite the reverse.
This trend was set in motion in 1985, and, as we can see, is still continuing.
But how can we adjust this trend? I think the only option is to achieve a degree of harmonization in the area which is the most mobile, namely capital.
Capital is the most difficult thing to tax as it is mobile.
Since that is the case, most governments can tax the least mobile factor, namely labour.
Limiting the mobility of capital can effectively only be done jointly, and only really be done by means of a certain degree of harmonization.
The Commission has instigated this in the code of conduct which it recommends.
It would be a good first step, I think.
The Commission is being pragmatic by starting with taxation on interest, which will also apply to non-residents.
In addition it is particularly urgent to discuss two elements from the Ruding Committee report, namely, firstly the harmonization of the corporation tax base, and a common minimum tariff for this corporation tax.
Furthermore it is also urgent to arrive at an increased duty on energy, or the introduction of duty on energy sources which up until now have not been taxed at all.
The Commission's recommendation in this direction must indeed be supported, as the von Wogau report states.
I find it incomprehensible that this Parliament has not even devoted a first reading to this proposal, even though it dates back to May this year.
The revenue resulting from the increased on duty on energy and from making tax on capital more effective, could be used to lower labour costs for the low paid and for low and unskilled labour could be lowered.
Real profit can be made here.
Mr President, Mr von Wogau, the rapporteur, has prepared a special resolution in which he points out what, in the opinion of Parliament, should be done to complete the internal market.
After all, the fact that it does not operate very well yet, does not yet function as a true domestic market, is one of the major reasons why the European business community is lagging behind in its competitive position, and why economic growth in Europe is too slow.
Of course, a great deal needs to happen at European level.
My colleagues highlight all these issues.
But I would also like to ask the Member States to pay attention to this problem.
Often the Member States are the guilty party when it concerns late, wrong or divergent implementation of directives.
Sometimes there is even a case of over regulation because Member States attach a host of extra national legislation onto EU directives.
In addition to necessary new regulation, the Commission should concentrate on the improvement of the implementation, enforcement and simplification of European regulation.
The Commission and Member States will have to agree a new time schedule.
We know that it works in the European Union.
We need a new 1992.
I know that the Commissioner aims to have this ready in 1999, but I think that is a bit of a fantasy when considering the fiscal dossier.
Nonetheless I think we need to set a realistic date.
A new challenge, a new zest, that is what we need.
If we do not succeed in completing the internal market, further integration will automatically fail to materialize.
The new entrants do not want to be members of merely a free market, they want to be members of closely knit club which offers quality in a host of areas.
This can only be achieved if the Member States keep to their agreements, and if the Commission take its role as guardian of the treaty seriously, even with respect to large Member States.
Mr Commissioner, may I mention two sectors.
I am thinking of the market for government contracts and of the insurance market for example, which are not by any means European markets yet, but are still very much national markets.
A last remark.
Large mergers in the field of accountancy seem to be occurring, very large accountancy firms which are sitting on top of the entire financial market.
The concentration of power and the problems which arise out of this is one of the Commission's special responsibilities.
What is the Commissioner's opinion on this?
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Karl von Wogau on his report.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party supports him in his conclusions and, indeed, feels that he has carried out a very comprehensive assessment of the problems with the single market and the challenges which face us.
My Group will not support Amendment No 8, which we believe to be protectionism in disguise.
Clearly we are disappointed with the development of the single market.
It seems that the Member States lack the political will to make it work properly.
Indeed, they have even passed measures which detract from the acquis of the single market.
It seems sometimes that the Commission lacks the courage of its convictions and its powers as guardian of the treaties to pursue cases of non-compliance with sufficient determination.
The single market is essential for prosperity.
We know from surveys that before 1993 compliance with customs controls was costing traders some ECU 7.5 billion every year - that is based on 1992 trade levels but expressed in today's money.
That is equivalent to 1 % of the total value of trade between Member States at the time.
We know that since 1 January 1993 the abolition of routine customs controls has cut costs by two-thirds, saving traders some ECU 5 billion per annum.
However, compliance with transitional VAT and Intrastat systems is costly. That costs traders some ECU 2.3 billion per annum.
There are similar cost savings to road hauliers since 1992 but residual waiting times at borders are still costing some ECU 50 million every year.
Much money could be saved if the Commission could push the Member States into completing the single market effectively.
The Member States bear the greatest brunt of the blame.
Let me just give you one example from the United Kingdom, the state I represent: I have in my constituency a pensioner, called Mr Bill Smith.
Bill Smith has just lost his fight to prevent 100 fine German cigars going up in smoke - not in his living room but in a UK Customs and Excise incinerator.
UK officials have said they will destroy these cigars because Mr Smith has refused to pay £90 in duty.
I took up the case when these cigars were impounded.
Customs were claiming that since they were not imported personally the duty had to be paid.
In fact they had been ordered from a tobacconist in Germany and duty had been paid at the point of sale.
The UK Government claims that this is a distance-selling transaction, like the man-in-black case.
It is clearly not.
There are some parallels but the Commissioner who helped me early on in this case, and my efforts, have been unable to persuade UK customs to act justly.
Until we can get that kind of problem sorted out Europe's citizens will never believe in the single market.
Mr President, it is an indisputable fact that from 1993 to the Amsterdam summit last June, the construction of the single market has indeed made great strides.
This is perhaps the reason why both the European Council and the European Commission, encouraged by the results of their policy, have moved towards setting up a very ambitious plan of action, with which they aspire to accelerate the pace and to deepen the content and operation of the European single market.
This same philosophy is expressed in the report under debate, which pinpoints the immediate and specific objectives on which, according to the rapporteur, the action programme should concentrate its attention.
However, the issue which does not preoccupy the European Council, the European Commission nor the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy at all is the account of the consequences of the single market on the working people and citizens in the peripheral and weaker countries of the Union and on the economies of these countries.
If such a basic report existed, before moving to adopt a policy to speed up the further development of the internal market, we would discover that the single market and the economic policy that accompanies it are responsible to a very large extent for the tragic position to which the more than 20 million unemployed, the 21 million people with part-time work, the 14 million citizens of Europe who work with short-term contracts, the 10 million and more who do some form of atypical work, are reduced to.
The single market and the concomitant Union policies are responsible for the disintegration of the public sector of the economy and for the formation, by means of mergers, of gigantic private monopolies, which are replacing state monopolies. They are responsible for the takeover in the air-transport sector by American airline companies and the total downgrading of the European ship-repair industry, which, in just a few years, has seen its productive capacity reduced by 87 % and limited to a much smaller share of the world market than South Korea.
The single market and Union policies are responsible for the dramatic deterioration of the position of SMEs, who find support from the Union and from the Member States in words alone, and not in deeds.
The single market, in concert with economic and monetary policy, and the intensely monetarist policies, are responsible for the imminent and palpable danger of the wholesale disintegration of the European social model.
The answer to the question of who is to blame and who is to pay for the single market is, once again, in no doubt, Mr President.
Big business is to blame, the workers will pay.
Mr President, I very much fear that the insistence on speeding up this policy, the promotion of certain recommendations such as the acceleration of economic and monetary union, the strict adherence to the stability pact, the transfer of funding sources for social protection from work to taxes on the environment and energy, the application of VAT in the country of origin, will worsen the already well-known consequences of the single market and will add tens of millions of people to the ranks of the unemployed.
Mr President, our group have given their support for Commissioner Monti's attempts to achieve some degree of organization in the single market and we also support his endeavours in this plan of action for a unified market.
I would like to mention as an aside that this current struggle to end the duty free system is crucial.
This is a situation where a certain practice is being subsidized to the tune of ECU two milliard a year.
We cannot talk of a single market if we have to contend with this kind of thing.
I hope we will be able to offer the Commissioner our support for this to be ended according to schedule.
We are also fairly satisfied with Karl von Wogau's report.
This actually brings the realization that the European economic policy is based on the principle of an ecologically and socially sound market policy.
I believe that the European Union must work from this basis in the global arena also.
Graham Watson, who represents the Liberal Democrat Party, said our Amendment No 8 is protectionism in disguise.
I can assure you it is no such thing.
We only wish to stress that a balance between the free movement of goods and considerations of health and safety is required.
I hope the groups will support this motion.
With the Summit Conference on Employment coming up next week, it is vital to discuss taxation.
I think the report is very balanced in this respect.
It really shows how essential it is to reduce the tax burden to improve the employment situation.
I am in agreement with the ideas expressed by Alman Metten of the Social Democratic Party.
Finally, I would like to turn your attention to the fact that the Court of Auditors yesterday said it was not at all satisfied with the way small and middle-sized companies are aided.
The aid has not been gone to the right place.
We must pay attention to this, because, quite rightly, these types of business must be aided by the internal markets.
Mr President, the extensive action programme for the internal market is bound to have virtually everyone's agreement.
It offers a choice of action points. Something for everyone.
The programme is placed in the context of globalization of the economy, the eastward enlargement of the European Union and the fight against unemployment.
There is a desire to address all of these developments with a series of measures.
The strength of this proposal is at the same time its weakness.
The Commission has bitten off more than it can chew.
A number of debatable parts, such as the unification of rates of tax and duty, and the abolition of all types of border control within the European Union, definitely cannot be implemented in the short term.
I advocate that the programme focuses above all on the first action point: an improvement in regulation, fewer laws, transparent procedures and more effective enforcement.
People, business and government institutions will benefit directly.
In view of the enlargement of the Union and the globalization of the economy, a large number of European laws have to be scrutinized anyway.
This way you can kill two birds with one stone.
I would like also to say something about to mention the slowness with which standards for products and processes are established.
What ideas are being considered inside the European Commission to solve organizational problems in private standardization institutes?
Again on the subject of the action programme, it is better to tackle one thing well, than to deliver half measures on many issues.
The original draft resolution by Mr von Wogau was very good and concise, but unfortunately it has been expanded by the Committee on Economic Affairs into a long wish-list which would leave even Santa Claus at a loss.
I regret this.
Mr President, the Delors 1992 programme for the single market was an inspiration for all Europe to embark upon Europe's big idea to get its people back to work.
Commissioner Monti's recent analysis of the market provides evidence that the single market is working.
Up to 900, 000 new jobs in the European Union are attributable to the functioning of the single European market.
That is a real good news story.
And now the Commission's action plan suggests how we can finish the job and move into the 'super league' of job creation.
It is not quite true to say, as recital (c) of the von Wogau report suggests, that Europe's single market remains a jigsaw of 15 separate national markets.
As each day passes the market becomes a reality.
I believe there is much that we can do to hasten its progress and thus provide jobs.
Thus, under taxation, the report calls for lower rates of VAT for labour-intensive SMEs.
Codes of conduct to mitigate harmful cross-border competitive taxation should also be applied.
Eliminating the frustrating incidences of the double taxation of frontier workers represents a tangible boost to the much misunderstood concept of labour mobility.
In respect of providing a proper infrastructure for the single market to run on, it is indispensable for us to promote the laggardly implementation of the trans-European networks of transport, telecommunications and energy.
Moving swiftly to secure a European air safety agency and concluding a new Eurocontrol convention are ready examples of what might be done to clear the clouds that obscure Europe's aerospace sector.
Reinforcing such revolutionary transborder investment in the TENs is to secure the principle of a comprehensive and universal service concept in respect of Europe's public services.
Such public service provision is, of course, the groundwork upon which pride in industry can build, create, develop and flourish.
Company law still needs to be made a pan-European fact of life.
The swift adoption of the European Company Statute, naturally involving the workforce, would achieve that desideratum.
Simplifying and clarifying the legislative framework should also be our holy grail, provided that such pruning exposes even better the underlying principles of strengthening the productive social and environmental framework in which Europe's businesses can thrive and prosper.
Future legislation should always pass the test of being easily understood and transparent in purpose and effect.
Proper legislation frees and liberates; bad law cabins, cribs and confines.
No-one is more guilty of passing bad laws or failing to monitor good ones than Member State governments.
Still unable to grasp the concept of the single market, such national authorities should be put to the test of Commissioner Monti's single market scoreboard.
Let us name and blame those countries that divert the flood of the market away from its natural channels by their use of the logjams of inconvenience.
Moreover, this market must be made for the people, and not the other way round.
Delivering a single market for the benefit of all citizens is an excellent chapter in the action plan.
Europe's 120 million children must be particularly protected when the four freedoms of movement - people, goods, capital and services - range across Europe, for they are the inheritors of this market which, fashioned to the needs of all our citizens, will carry Europe dynamic, prosperous and 'job-full' into the realms of the next century.
I congratulate Mr von Wogau on his report.
Mr President, the final stage for the completion of a European single market relates to the introduction of economic and monetary union within the European Union. Notwithstanding the fact that Britain will not be joining a single European currency at the first stage the benefits of economic and monetary union for Ireland far outweigh any negatives.
The principal benefit of a single European currency for Ireland is the prospect of a lower trend in interest rates.
It also enhances the attractiveness of Ireland as a destination for foreign direct investment.
Indeed, in Ireland recently we have created 130, 000 jobs by our participation in the European activity.
A study carried out in Ireland recently came out with the fact that the impact of EMU on tourism, retailing, agriculture, manufacturing industry and financial services was excellent.
It concluded that EMU participation by Ireland would yield a net benefit for the Irish economy in these sectors.
I might conclude by saying that I would have preferred it if the British entered EMU at the first opportunity.
However at present Ireland meets all the convergence criteria laid down in the Maastricht Treaty, full qualification for EMU in terms of inflation and general government deficit etc.
The Irish people have nothing to fear from joining up to the euro on 1 January 1999.
Mr President, colleagues, I also support the action programme for the internal market and the von Wogau report.
I would like to use my one minute, Mr Commissioner, to raise one point, which I know is close to both our hearts, and that is the issue of pensions and supplementary pensions in Europe.
First of all there is the matter of pension funds which are not able to invest freely throughout in Europe, and in my opinion this means that an enormous job creation capacity is lost, because the restrictions for the pension funds and the insurers are too great.
On the other hand there is the issue of portability of pensions, which is still a big problem for cross-border workers, but also a problem in connection with flexibilization of the labour market.
Mr President, Commissioner, because of the Green Paper I am not convinces that this matter arising will be sorted out satisfactorily in this House, as we are still seeing some resistance to any liberalization on this point, particularly on the part the socialists.
I think that there is a job for this Parliament, to implement the internal market in this area, too.
Mr President, I would like to say that Mr von Wogau's report is interesting. It moves through the multiple layers that is the internal market and it is well-balanced.
However, I would like to make the following four comments:
The first comment is that the single market, like the single currency, must be seen within the framework of a European Union which seeks to move at the same speed along the main roads that open up ahead of it.
Success, the rush, the flight forward to a single market or to a single currency, when it is followed by delay and paralysis in other sectors such as, for example, the social sector, could only lead to distortions and to the self-entrapment of the European Union. But mainly, as is the case at least in certain areas of the European Union, it could undermine the morale and the support of the citizens of the European Union for the single internal market, which is the precondition par excellence of its success.
The second comment I would like to make is that the single market may be generally advantageous for the European Union, but is not of equal advantage for all countries or for all regions of the European Union.
As a result, from the moment we apply a programme until 2002, we must at the same time adhere to the programme of cohesion and support for the less developed regions of the European Union until 2002 and not have hesitations and back-tracking in that area.
The third point I would like to stress is that the single market means the abolition of internal borders, but it also means the strengthening of the external borders of the European Union and I very much fear that such a charting of these borders does not exist bearing in mind the various problems that arise, at least in the eastern sector.
As a result, a single market must move forward in parallel with the resolution of the political problems of the European Union.
The fourth and final point is the subject of taxation.
I think that the questions of lightening the tax burden of working people and of instituting an environmental tax are also very important.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr von Wogau, our rapporteur, has produced an excellent report on the Union internal market.
I would like to congratulate him, and say personally that I agree wholeheartedly with his work and with the spirit of the main objectives he has set himself.
Like him, I also believe that we need to do everything we can to ensure that, by 2002, we have a real, large-scale internal market.
I also believe that, when the decision has been taken to bring this great market into being, anything which goes against the grain, and for which there is no good reason, will result in an accumulation of disadvantages in the field of border elimination, without any of the advantages.
Hence I feel it is a must to harmonize both direct and indirect taxation, taxation on capital, and taxation on labour.
I also feel it is absolutely necessary to ensure free movement of persons, while making sure that the Community has the means to combat delinquency, trafficking, terrorism and organized crime.
And I feel we must develop major communications and energy infrastructures throughout the Union, without levelling down and without sacrifice of public service, wherever it exists.
Hence, there must be a definitive settlement of trans-border problems, of which there are too many. In my region, they disgruntle everyone who has to cross the border to get to work.
In conclusion, like the rapporteur, I agree with the completion of the great market and the single currency, and I want to emphasize that they are, in my view, an absolutely necessarily complement to a political Europe, a Europe endowed with solid institutions, a social Europe, a Europe resolutely combating unemployment, laisser-aller, speculative relocation of companies offshore, a Europe in favour of sustainable growth and of public services for the common good.
Without these urgent complements, the great market, no matter how necessary, will not extract our Europe from unemployment or deep anxiety of our citizens.
It will be quite the opposite, as everyone knows. And as you know, dear colleague and rapporteur.
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner a question on the enormous mergers in the accountancy sector.
One merger took place which provoked a counter merger with, I believe, extremely serious consequences for the internal market and monopolization.
I wonder what the Commissioner's opinion on this is.
Mr Peijs, this is proof that the single market works: we will not see these great concentrations, these great public purchase offers in the accountancy field, in the insurance field, if companies do not reap the benefits of the single market.
It is right for these phenomena to occur, but it is right for them to be subjected to the stringent regulations on the control of competition, regulations established by the treaty for some time, indeed by the Treaty of Rome, which, as I think we all know, the European Commission seeks to monitor very carefully, as its main task.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow 12 noon.
Construction products
The next item is the report (A4-0350/97) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission report on the construction-products directive (COM(96)0202 - C4-0636/96).
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as we have just been discussing, since 1987 the single market has been one of the basic elements of European integration.
In other words, competition and liberalization come before harmonization.
However, there are many areas in which technical harmonization remains an important factor.
In the construction sector this matter was dealt with in the constructionproducts directive of 21 December 1988.
Having a particularly wide scope, this directive covers every product that can be distributed and marketed for permanent incorporation in building works for structural and civil engineering projects.
Unlike other sectors of industry and other product groups, trade in many construction products and construction projects is only sensible and economically viable over short and medium distances owing to the high transport costs involved.
This is the main reason why much less progress has been made with the harmonization of standards and with the procedures and statutory provisions for construction products and construction techniques than is the case with products where technical trade barriers prevent the free circulation of goods.
The construction-products directive is supposed to remove barriers to the free circulation of construction products which are mainly due to differences in standards, test methods and certification procedures.
The directive lays down comprehensive requirements for construction work but not individual construction products, in respect of stability, fire protection, hygiene, safe occupancy, electrical safety, saving energy, all those things that are again documented in the Greens' motions.
This means that according to this directive Member States may only permit those products the use of which enables the main requirements of the directive concerning the construction work to be adhered to.
Harmonization in the construction industry is therefore necessary because it will ease the mobility of professionals, tradesmen and building contractors, making it possible for them to undertake projects in other Member States.
As experience in Europe since 1988 has shown, the drafting of standards is a long and complex process.
That is why the final result is now unsatisfactory.
Without the harmonization of standards and other technical specifications there will be no free circulation of construction products.
We have just been discussing the single market.
The competitiveness of the European construction industry is being severely prejudiced, especially as the building trade is by far the largest industrial sector in the European economy.
With an annual turnover of almost ECU 700 billion and a 10 % share of the European Union's gross national product, the construction industry employs a total of 27 million people either directly or indirectly - 13 million directly and 14 million indirectly - in Europe.
All of this takes place in small and medium-sized enterprises, 1.8 million enterprises in all, of which 97 % employ fewer than 20 workers.
The main responsibility for the laggardly implementation of the construction-products directive does not lie with the Commission, and I should like to make this clear, but first and foremost with the Member States who thus far have not shown sufficient willingness to compromise and have wanted to implement their own regulations to an excessive degree.
By mid-1997, 8 years after the directive was adopted, specifications had been laid down and standardization mandates worked out for only 17 product families.
The blocking tactics of the Member States in the Standing Committee on the Construction Industry and their lack of willingness to put national regulations to the test are the main reasons for this delay and I should like to criticize this explicitly.
Now three levels are required, as mentioned in the report.
First the Commission itself, which should undertake to lay down and complete all standardization mandates as speedily as possible, in other words by mid-1988 at the latest.
The progress which has been set in motion by these proceedings of Parliament is already perceptible, Mr Commissioner!
Second, the Member States who in future must stop insisting on a large number of detailed regulations in the implementing orders and recognize the procedure finally agreed upon.
And third, the European Committee on Standardization has been called upon to speed up its work.
The Commission has pledged itself to improve the practical implementation of the construction-products directive and has therefore refrained from proposing any amendment to the directive at the present time.
I wholeheartedly endorse the Commission's stance in this regard.
However, it will be necessary not only to observe the development but actively to shape it.
And, to this end, Mr Commissioner, I am sure we can count on your active support.
Mr President, it is my pleasure this evening to welcome this report on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Mr Langen has produced an excellent document, and I was very pleased to work with him on it.
Essentially what we are saying here to everybody concerned with the construction-products Directive is that we need progress.
Here we have one of the key building blocks, if you like, of our single market which simply is not functioning properly.
It is not necessarily the Commission's fault but what we are clearly saying to the Commission here tonight - and again in the vote tomorrow - is that it has our support to push the Member States to make progress, because it is simply not acceptable that this directive has been in force for the best part of ten years and nothing has really been achieved.
I accept that it is a very difficult problem and - having followed the SLIM procedure, with the construction-products Directive having been one of the pilot projects for SLIM - it is clear that there will be difficulties, because in the SLIM project this was one of the areas in which progress was difficult to achieve.
We must try to make the effort.
An example is a brick manufacturer in my area which makes, surprise, surprise, an awful lot of bricks and wants to sell them freely around the European marketplace, but finds that instead of having one set of red tape to understand and one set of standards to come to terms with it has 13, 14, 15 different sets of standards to apply before it can sell its products.
Often it finds it has a product ready to go into a new market and then the market changes and a new national standard is introduced.
I accept that is not necessarily one hundred percent relevant to what we are doing here today but I can tell you that if that company had the opportunities to export freely around the single market, then it might get an awful lot bigger and employ a lot more people in my part of the industrial West Midlands, which would be very good for our local economy and for the people working for that company.
So there is a real impetus for us to do something.
I very much agree with Mr Langen that the Commission must get on and complete the standardization mandates.
That would be an important boost for progress in the area.
Really, as I say, this is a report we here in Parliament can all get behind; we are here to give the Commission support and encouragement to tackle the Member State governments, because, ultimately, if we have that progress then we will move a lot closer to having a completed single market and the sort of action plan we talked about earlier on will get that much closer to being fulfilled.
Mr President, a period of almost ten years has passed before we have genuinely started trying to implement a construction- products directive.
Exactly a year ago the SLIM report was published.
It should be obvious that the Construction Products Directive was dealt with in this report for good reason.
Up until then national Member States had not been prepared to submit their existing regulations.
According to the famous maxim: he who has the standard has the market. Every Member State wanted to elevate its standard to the level of the European standard.
The SLIM report concluded that there is some life left in the directive, but that harmonized European standards should be looked at seriously, as these do not exist.
As is so often the case, the delay is not to be found at an European level, but at national level.
As a result of increased pressure, there has been a certain degree acceleration since then.
It is expected that during the middle of 1998 all commissions given to CEN for harmonization of the 40 product families will have been completed.
Unfortunately this does not mean that the business community knows exactly what its position is.
Some crucial questions remain unanswered.
For example: will EC marking become compulsory in all European Union Member States? Countries like the United Kingdom and Portugal think they can allowed themselves an optout.
How does the Commissioner think he will be able to enforce the unity of the market?
A second crucial and relevant question from the business community: what are actually going to harmonize?
It is clear that testing methods need to be harmonized. What exactly is the value of this?
Will it also be obligatory to accept the test results of a renowned Dutch testing agency for example in Germany as well? We all know that at present this presents a big difficulty and a large obstacle to the internal market.
Harmonization of the limit value will only be partly possible because of regional differences.
Please think of the difference in the climate between Lapland and Sicily.
I think the aim for harmonization is that there should also be an internal market for construction products.
That means that in establishing whether a product is satisfactory national test institutes, national requirements and national test methods will no longer be allowed to monopolize.
This will be painful in the Member States, but, Mr Commissioner, please emphasize this clearly to the Member States.
The construction industry has a right to clarity and simplicity after all those years.
Mr President, the Green Group would like to emphasize that construction materials have a major effect on the environment and, for this reason, we have submitted a whole list of amendments.
We think we need a high-level risk assessment process for all new materials.
We have all recently heard of scandals caused by relatively new materials, and their combined effects can be shown to have disastrous consequences.
Let me take just one example from this building here.
A certain construction engineer told me once that above that splendid wooden ceiling there is fibreglass and rock wool.
It is in fact demonstrably very unhealthy material; we therefore really need European standards and a decent form of risk assessment.
At the same time we must also be able to reject any materials which harm the environment and people's health.
One of our amendments concerns our opinion that the re-use and recycling of builder's waste should be promoted.
Builder's waste accounts for a very large proportion of total waste in society.
I should also like to put my question right away as I believe it is too important to be left to one side.
When we talk about standardization we should generally be thinking about the type of reorganization of the standards system we in Europe are striving for.
Time is getting short and if we consider that EUROCODES gave way to CEN in 1989, progress in this area has not exactly been setting the heather on fire.
What we should all be asking ourselves is whether it would be possible to set new standards on a voluntary basis and considering what new standardization options are available to us in any case.
It is also urgently necessary for us to get the EC mark because - as Mr Langen has quite rightly said already - many small and medium-sized enterprises are active in this sector.
If we want to do away with borders, if we want to promote public procurement, then we simply need to operate these principles of product approval, labelling, purchasing, liability and insurance.
Mr President, I can be fairly brief on this matter, not because it is not worth dwelling on it, as the subject is very important for the completion of the single market, but because Mr Langen's report is extremely clear and exhaustive. In fact, I must congratulate him, on behalf of the Commission, because the content of the report confirms the analysis made by the Commission in this sector.
Previously, the Commission had reached the conclusion that the implementation of this Directive comes up against considerable difficulties at a practical level.
The report reinforces the Commission's opinion, as it contains an analysis, which we share, of the work still be to undertaken in the field of standardization of construction products.
Within the scope of the SLIM initiative, the Commission examined the possibilities of improvement and simplification thoroughly.
Following the work carried out by all the parties concerned, by the Commission in the SLIM context, by the Member States and by the standardization authorities, the preparation of the harmonized standards is coming along well and tangible results are expected in 1998.
The Commission is up-to-date on several points raised by Mr Peijs in particular: some points have already been dealt with, while others are present in the Commission's programme.
The thirteen amendments proposed by the Greens can be summarized as an effort to increase environmental awareness at European level.
The spirit is certainly positive, but some of them have to be considered in a critical light: for example, Amendment No 4 rightly emphasizes the complexity of the standardization procedure and confirms that consequences will necessarily arise.
In emphasizing this fact, only the environment is mentioned in the amendment, however.
Although it is certainly true, it does not take into account the fact that the standardization process will have considerable repercussions on many other sectors as well as on the environment: social policy, economic policy, safety and competition.
Consequently, the Commission will only have to accept the suggestion contained in this amendment if it takes into account the possible repercussions in all fields.
With regard to Amendments Nos 7 and 9, I wish to draw attention to the fact that the Commission is already following an active policy of financing the consumer and environmental associations, so as to enable them to take part in the standardization work.
These amendments do not seem appropriate to us in this context, however, as they do not relate directly to the directive on construction products, which is the object of Mr Langen's report.
To conclude, Mr President, I can say that the Commission will be able to accept the suggestions contained in Amendments Nos 1, 2, 12 and 13.
Mr Commissioner, I only wanted to repeat the question: is a reorganization of the standards system in Europe being considered?
Mr Rübig, could you clarify your question a little further?
With regard to the single market we have seen the problem - and this is what Mr von Wogau was saying - that standardization in Europe is lagging behind.
Deadlines are too long and we quite simply have to ensure that our standardization systems are more market-oriented and operate with shorter deadlines.
The national systems are producing too much resistance.
What we need is a new style of coordination and a new type of organization at European level.
My question is whether the Commission intends to introduce reforms in this area.
This subject has not been discussed in the perspective outlined by you, Mr Rübig.
It seems to be an important subject and a good idea: I will certainly bring this consideration to the attention of the Commissioner responsible, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Indirect taxation systems (Fiscalis)
The next item is the report (A4-0344/97) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a programme of Community action to reinforce the functioning of the indirect taxation systems of the internal market (Fiscalis programme(COM(97)0175 - C4-0222/97-97/0128(COD)).
Mr President, in stating the title of this report, you have already partly explained the content, or rather the object, of the Fiscalis programme.
The content relates in particular to training, exchange of experience and development of information materials to provide a better knowledge, a better compatibility and a gradual common path towards harmonization in the field of indirect taxation and therefore, in particular, VAT and excise duties, by means of coordination by the national tax authorities.
The object is naturally to enable the different systems to operate better and to co-exist better by means of this knowledge and, therefore, to allow the market to operate in a more satisfactory manner and the taxation systems to produce a more balanced and more satisfactory revenue for the States, contributing towards the battle against fraud and evasion.
In the previous debate, we heard how, for example, the current VAT system is one of the aspects of greatest concern from this point of view.
The fact that these objects are fixed beforehand also has very significant implications from the point of view of employment.
Tomorrow, as already mentioned, the Extraordinary Summit opens in Luxembourg on the subject of employment: to be able to handle the revenue from other sources better will, ceteris paribus, allow us to reduce taxation on employment and therefore to support employment, from this point of view.
The object of the Fiscalis programme (the Committee on Economic Affairs has pointed out some similarities, for example with the previous "Customs 2000' programme) is to make better use of existing actions and introduce new ones to achieve the objects dealt with briefly in my introduction.
The Committee on Economic Affairs and the Committee on Budgets, which expressed an opinion, appreciated the Commission's proposal a great deal and, interacting with it, considered (the Committee on Economic Affairs in particular) that several improvements or amendments to the wording submitted for our examination should be proposed. I would briefly like to draw your attention to these amendments.
The possibility of bringing academic experts and also consultants and representatives of taxpayers, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, into the seminar activities to be implemented by Fiscalis has been provided for, for example.
The seminars have been better defined, from a technical point of view as well.
The problem of language training the participants will necessarily have to have has been dealt with; the concept of exchange and training has been better explained; in particular, several suggestions have been put forward which in some way extend the scope of the programme, favourably in our opinion.
It has been suggested, for example, that the experience drawn by the participants from this training and exchange can also be used by the European Commission to provide teaching aimed at further improving its action in favour of ever closer forms of coordination with a view to the harmonization of the taxation systems.
It has also been suggested that a permanent network be set up between the national training institutions so that the practice of exchanging experience, of taking common measures, leads these institutions to know each other better and therefore to operate better on a market which, as previously stated when commenting on Mr von Wogau's report, is becoming more and more of a real internal market for the Union.
The programme should enter into force on 1 January 1998.
In view of the very tight deadlines, the Committee on Economic Affairs and its rapporteur have already made informal contact with the European Commission and with representatives of Council so as to ensure reciprocal approval of the amendments.
We for our part have tried to put everything into it.
We hope that not only the Commission present here but also the Council will do as much.
The Committee on Economic Affairs has approved fifteen amendments which are more or less of the same type as I mentioned in my speech.
In addition, tomorrow I will put three verbal amendments which have been agreed with the Committee on Budgets to the vote: the first seeks formal clarification, for example, of the rules that have to be followed in the case of recourse to subcontractors; the second relates to the fact that, if the CEEC or Cyprus are involved, the allocation will have to be increased accordingly; finally, the last one points out that, since it is a five-year programme, we are half-way between the current financial budget that expires in 1999 and the subsequent one, which we should remember.
Mr President, I think the extension of the Fiscalis programme, and particularly most of the amendments suggested by Mr Secchi, deserve our support.
Among those amendments, I would like to emphasize those which are intended to increase the number of active and passive participants in the actions to be taken.
Thus Amendment No 5 (to article 2(d)), in which the 'exchange' is not confined to another administration but can also be effected with 'a training institution of another Member State' , is commendable; and so is Amendment No 10 (to article 5 (2)), accepting that the seminars to be held should be attended not only by officials but also by 'other experts in the field, such as academics, taxable persons or their representatives and advisers' , as has now been emphasized.
Furthermore, the effectiveness of the actions is also improved, with better use of existing resources, such as that proposed for article 6 (Amendment No 12), not confined to 'a common core of training for officials' with the establishment of 'a cooperation network of the national organizations, academies or schools, and the officials responsible for training' .
If there were no specific proposal to amend the existing wording, I would have some reservations about the suggestion in Recital 10 (Amendment No 3), concerning the need for 'a Community academy for indirect taxation officials' , because I fear that a single structure of that kind might lower the profile of that cooperation which is possible and desirable at national level.
In the fourth proposal, the exchange of ideas referred to in new Recital 9 (and also in Amendment No 2) should in fact be provided for and commended, since it may lead to the improvement of existing legal instruments and the extension of exchanges of information in general, which is restricted to VAT in Recital 7 (Amendment No 1).
It is especially necessary to involve ourselves in the training of a wide range of economic agents when moving from VAT to taxation in the country of origin, with a reduction in interventions by government officials at the cost of a higher degree of participation by citizens and greater responsibility being placed on them.
This, furthermore, is a commendable trend in modern tax law, which also has implications for other forms of tax.
Mr President, I trespassed on your goodwill for speaking time in an earlier debate.
I will be brief.
This is an excellent report.
The Liberal Group supports it and we support the broad sweep of the Budget Committee's amendments.
I would like to speak in particular to Mr Secchi's Amendment Nos 2, 3 and 10.
We know that although the Sixth Directive has a single set of rules, there are in fact numerous differences in practice across the European Union.
We know that to be workable the proposed origin system requires much closer cooperation and coordination between authorities of Member States.
We welcome the Commission's proposals.
We suspect that its timetable is very optimistic and that the full implementation of the work programme may need longer.
But we are convinced that the imminence of substantial change to the definitive system must not obscure the need for reforms to the existing transitional system, which can then be carried forward into the new definitive system.
The interpretation of the Sixth Directive by Member States, often to the benefit of their national treasuries, is no less than scandalous.
This is certainly the case in the UK.
I have published a pamphlet called 'Billion pound bungling: how the taxman stings British business and consumers' .
This shows how in cases of hire purchase agreements, consumer credit arrangements, the VAT treatment of housing and health provision and the problems of differential VAT registration thresholds for some small businesses, Britannia is waiving the rules.
This pamphlet calls for an indirect taxation forum.
That call is repeated tonight in Mr Secchi's report and was repeated in Mrs Randzio-Plath's report to which the Commissioner referred earlier.
The Commission must involve practitioners and academic specialists in helping to sort out the current problems, irrespective of the move to a new system.
Under my rapporteurship on the Economic Committee we have provided funds for this in the European Union's budget for next year and I hope the Commission will heed our calls.
Mr President, the Fiscalis programme and colleague Secchi's report have my approval.
The Member States and the Union have an interest in a well-organized exchange of information to improve fraud control.
The opportunity for participation by the associate countries in central and eastern Europe is positive with the emphasis has to be on the countries which are serious candidates for entry such as Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
One criticism is the obscure relationship between pain and gain.
The Commission is financing the lion's share of the cost of this programme.
It is clear that it has an interest in this.
It is the Member States, however, who will collect the main share of indirect taxation and duty.
My question is whether the advantages and disadvantages are equally shared.
Can Commissioner Monti tell us a little bit more about this?
More than half of the large sum for this programme has been earmarked for communication and information exchange systems.
Through workshops, civil servants v, guides and handbooks, civil servants are urged to use these systems.
It is difficult to measure the effectiveness of these efforts, however.
Can the Commissioner promise that specific attention will be paid to this aspect in the evaluation report, and that it will be made clear which results have been achieved?
The programme is strongly directed towards the new VAT system.
Although I do not deny that it is sensible to be as well prepared for this as possible, I note that the final system is a long time off.
The Member States are very divided about the clearing methods.
In addition the switch to the original principle requires considerable effort from companies who have only just got used to the interim system.
This seems in conflict with the aim that this programme should lead to tax reductions.
For the time being I think it would be better to direct the programme towards improving the current interim system.
I would like to hear the Commissioner's opinion on this.
Efficiency through education, that is the motto for the tax system in the single market.
If the single market is to function properly we need qualified civil servants who can also give out the right information.
It is a question of establishing an obligation to provide information and, at the end of the day, a certain degree of liability for the information provided as well.
We know, for example, that various double taxation procedures are causing enormous problems in the European Union. In this case a good training course for civil servants may be a major prerequisite for the smooth functioning of the single market.
If civil servants had sufficient technical knowledge of the tax system this would be another firm foundation on which to build the harmonization of taxation.
In particular, the improvement of language knowledge and also the training schemes available in this area, for instance Mattheus, is extremely important in order to have an efficient tax administration system in future.
I believe that in future we should concentrate on creating a situation where the people working in this field also act in an advisory capacity and do not just regard businesses as victims but as the basis for the existence of our system.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I first wish to express my appreciation of the work Parliament has carried out on the Fiscalis programme, and in particular on the undertaking carried out by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and its rapporteur, Mr Secchi.
I believe Parliament's amendments, including those presented verbally on budgetary issues, increase the level of quality of the programme significantly.
I am therefore pleased to say that the Commission can accept all of them, apart from a minor exception relating to Amendment No 12, specifically with regard to the words "within the committee foreseen by article 11' .
I should like to take the opportunity to remind you and the Council representatives of the importance of the Fiscalis programme for the internal market.
The regular operation of the VAT and excise systems depends to an ever greater extent on intense cooperation between the national tax authorities.
These authorities encounter ever greater difficulties in facing the challenges raised by the complex business of the multinationals and by the intricate international frauds committed by the extensive organized crime racket individually. The need for profound and firmly-established cooperation between tax officials to be able to face these challenges receives general consent.
But this cooperation cannot be imposed by diktat: Cooperation should stem from the creation of a relationship of trust between the national authorities by giving officials the right attitude and giving them the most appropriate means.
Fiscalis constitutes the Community contribution to this committing but necessary task. It provides for it in three ways: firstly, exchanges, seminars and multilateral controls that will give national officials the opportunity to work side by side and study their respective working methods reciprocally.
This exchange of ideas is fundamental to building the trust I mentioned.
Secondly, the information systems will provide the technical means for cooperation.
Finally, the coordinated training actions of the Member States, which are essential for creating the necessary attitude for cooperation in the national officials.
The Commission will have to take all possible measures to ensure that the Council takes the Parliamentary amendments into consideration in full in reaching its common position.
As it is broadly recognized that the Fiscalis programme should be adopted quickly, I hope the Council will reach a common position that is acceptable to Parliament.
Thanking all those who have supported the programme, firstly Mr Secchi and all the others, I only wish to add, Mr Blokland, that, with regard to the points you raised, greater attention will be paid to the assessment of the efficacy of the programme and the cofinancing between the Community and Member States is deeply rooted in the preparation of the Fiscalis programme.
Apart from the communication and the information exchange system, whose outline is very precise, cofinancing is rooted more deeply in the Fiscalis programme; I think we can guarantee it from this point of view.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Personal data and privacy in telecommunications
The next item is the report (A4-0361/97) by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of Parliament 's delegation to the Conciliation Committee on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector (C4-0571/97-00/0288(COD)).
Mr President, given that, as an eminent lawyer and a Member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, this is a subject with which you are familiar, I hope that you at least will be able to follow me.
This draft directive reminds me of the "Metamorphoses' - not Kafka's "Metamorphosis' , but the more pleasant "Metamorphoses' by the Roman poet Ovid - because it began with one title and is ending with another.
And it began with one content and is ending with another.
The directive was proposed seven years ago.
Perhaps this is not a long time in the history of a nation, but it is a long time in the history of a legislative process.
However, it seems as if twenty years has gone by since the Commission first submitted the draft directive.
It was called something else then.
It was called the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector, in particular in the integrated services digital network (ISDN) and in the public digital mobile networks.
As rapporteur, it was difficult for me to explain what I was doing, because nobody knew what that was.
And I believe that even the Commission did not know what it was, because we were entering unknown territory.
As time went by, the mists gradually cleared, and the Council finally accepted - wisely, I believe - an amendment changing the title to the slightly simpler "Directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector' .
I believe that the references to the integrated services digital network (ISDN) and the public digital mobile networks were a sort of magical incantation, which added nothing to the content of the directive.
So now we have a title which is slightly simpler, but still a mystery to the general public.
The directive was presented as a sort of annex to the general directive on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data, which was adopted without problems: the procedure ended in agreement between the Council and Parliament, without the need for conciliation.
With regard to the directive on data protection in the telecommunications sector, however, there was such an enormous difference between the proposal submitted by the Commission in 1990 and that submitted six years later by the Council and the Commission, that I raised the possibility in the Committee on Legal Affairs of asking to be consulted again.
The Council and the Commission then explained to us that the changes were not that great, that what had been done was to adapt the proposal to the general directive on data protection, that certain new developments had been taken into account - and, so as not to delay the procedure any further, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Parliament finally approved the proposal.
Thus, in the framework of a new and different procedure, progress was made, the dossier was taken forward.
Parliament placed particular emphasis on a few issues.
For me, the most important - from the point of view of principles - was that of subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity is one of those words that people like to come out with without knowing what it means.
More specifically, I believe that talking about subsidiarity in relation to the telecommunications sector is utter nonsense, for if there is a field in which there is no place for subsidiarity, it is the field of telecommunications - almost by definition.
The Council accepted Parliament's amendments in this regard, so that the word subsidiarity no longer appears in the directive.
Parliament and the Council agreed, moreover, that it is not the purpose of a directive to lay down detailed regulations. That is the function of a regulation.
Consequently, I believe that we have struck a good balance.
The reference to subsidiarity has been deleted.
It is not a question of subsidiarity here.
This a Community directive, which is binding, as to the result to be achieved, but which leaves to the Member States the choice of form and methods; and Parliament and the Council will therefore leave it up to the competent national authorities to apply it. That is something quite different from subsidiarity.
There were a number of other issues of technical and economic importance, such the question of being able to record business communications for the purpose of providing evidence of commercial transactions.
Another matter which proved to be extremely complicated concerned the possibility of charging subscribers for not appearing in a telephone directory.
This appears to be the reverse of what should be the case.
You would think that a person should have to pay to appear in a telephone directory, and should be entitled to be omitted free-of-charge.
However, it seems that things are so complicated in the telecommunications field that the reverse is actually the case.
All in all, I believe that we have collaborated successfully.
The Council and Parliament have demonstrated the best possible will, the Commission has worked with us, and together we have reached an agreement - after a reasonable period of discussion. This new European Parliament and Council directive therefore provides a good example of collaboration and the successful implementation of the codecision procedure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can only agree with the rapporteur.
In the application of new technologies it is not the technology that should be centre stage but always the people.
Their individual rights and needs have priority and must be protected at all times.
As obvious as this observation sounds, it is often difficult to put it into practice.
The history of the Directive concerning the protection of personal data and privacy in the context of telecommunications has shown this once more.
It was a long and rocky road which only had a happy ending in the conciliation procedure.
The Directive supplements the general data protection directive as regards the protection of privacy in view of the technical facilities available to the latest telecommunications networks.
It gives data protection in the context of telecommunications a similar importance to the protection of health for which the European Parliament has set particularly tough standards in many areas of our lives.
This high standard is an absolute necessity to protect personal data and safeguard people's private lives against third parties.
On the other hand, there is a danger that we are sacrificing people's individuality on the altar of the opportunities offered by a technology which is absolutely necessary and welcome and delivering them up without protection to the financial greed of those who run the telecommunications industry.
In other words, we have to arrive at an individual protection scheme which leaves the decision to each person as to how much access to him or her modern telecommunications should have.
Let me quote you the example of direct selling by fax or telephone.
Who has not been annoyed by an unsolicited call from an insurance sales person at an inconvenient moment?
This will be a thing of the past when the directive comes into force as this and similar applications of telecommunications technology will require the consent of the person affected.
I support the result of the conciliation procedure because while maintaining a high level of protection it has managed not to lose sight of the second main goal: the free transfer of data must be guaranteed.
Let me conclude by pointing out a particularly strange example of the way the unrestricted exchange of data had been put at risk.
Faced with data networks that span the globe, someone actually had the idea that, under the heading of subsidiarity in the European Union, telecommunications should be regulated differently in each country.
They must have got communications and commerce mixed up.
We have succeeded in preventing this, and a good thing too!
Mr President, it is worth being here tonight, at this late hour, to bear witness to the fact that the directive concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the telecommunications sector has - as the rapporteur rightly said - reached a safe port.
And it has reached a safe port after a voyage that - to put it bluntly - was long and complicated.
Of the thirteen amendments debated at second reading, eleven were the subject of the final stage of the codecision procedure, and the Conciliation Committee agreed a satisfactory joint text on them all.
The EPP Group will therefore be voting in favour of this joint text, and I have not the slightest doubt that tomorrow, in approving what has been agreed, Parliament will demonstrate its ability to achieve realistic compromises, whilst firmly maintaining its positions of principle regarding the protection of individual privacy and the legitimate interests of legal persons in the stormy sea of new technologies and telecommunications.
I said that a long process was ending today, and it is appropriate to underline, on behalf of my group and speaking personally, Mr Medina Ortega's excellent management, which we have witnessed on other occasions, but which assumed particular importance during this extremely complex and delicate conciliation procedure.
Indeed, as the rapporteur said, the initial proposal dates from 1990, but the process of adopting it has been taking place over the last two years.
And, in this frontier territory, in which the speed of technological change - in particular, the introduction of the integrated services digital network, interactive television and video-on-demand - is creating enormous tensions in society, the extent to which building a genuine European society depends on our ability to resolve such problems is made clear.
For it is possible to create an economic and monetary union with bankers and traders, but it is not possible to create a European Union without the citizens. And whilst the citizens are undoubtedly interested in the single currency and the free movement of goods, they are giving increasing signals that they are concerned - and exceedingly concerned - about the protection of their personal rights, and especially their right to privacy.
As I said, eleven amendments were debated, and, amongst the disputed issues, a satisfactory result was achieved - as the rapporteur said - for Parliament's request that the legal authorization of phone-tapping should conform to the requirements of article 14(1) of the general directive on data protection.
That was secured.
And it was secured by means of a flexible and intelligent solution which meets the legitimate concerns of the financial services sector regarding the recording of conversations for reasons of business security, to which the rapporteur also referred.
I should like to draw attention to a number of other matters which I believe are important, notably Parliament's amendment to recital 25 concerning the stormy sea of the commitology procedure.
Parliament voted that this procedure should not be used out of context, and should not be used to make substantial changes; and I believe that the result achieved in the conciliation procedure delimiting the Commission's commitology powers sets a useful precedent for future legislative acts.
The result secured for Parliament's demand that the legitimate right to privacy of legal persons should be guaranteed also deserves mention.
Parliament considered at second reading that, for example, small businesses should be protected from the avalanche of unsolicited advertising material which can place an intolerable burden on their effective management.
This concern has also been met.
I am coming to end, Mr President.
As the rapporteur said, a result was also obtained for Parliament's Amendment No 9 concerning the possibility of not appearing in a telephone directory; and, at this late hour, I shall simply conclude by welcoming the collaboration between the institutions which enabled us to achieve a solution to this undoubtedly thorny problem.
Mr President, as has previously been said here, it is almost seven years since the Commission presented this proposal on the protection of personal details and private lives in public digital telephone networks, i.e. the GSM and ISDN networks.
The aim was that the proposal should guarantee protection for all EU citizens with regard to information found in these various public and private lists.
On the second reading Parliament approved the proposal with 13 amendments, including an amendment saying it should cost nothing to have an ex-directory telephone number.
The Council was unable to accept all these amendments, especially not the proposal about ex-directory telephone numbers, which is why the question was referred to the Conciliation Committee.
I do not think the question about the extent to which a charge should be made for ex-directory telephone numbers has really been answered; i.e. where this kind of listing of citizens is concerned, whether people should have the right to remain outside such a list at no charge.
That also applies to people who are at special risk.
I certainly think that Parliament has drifted a little away from its original standpoint.
When the European Parliament's delegation reached agreement on this compromise proposal only four people were actually present, where there should in fact be fifteen people.
I also think it is debatable whether this is a question which requires an EU directive to set binding standards for the Member States at all, since the consumers' interests are not quite satisfied and not fully protected.
My group is therefore actually considering voting no to the proposal.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, many conflicting interests had to be reconciled here.
On the one hand, a compromise had to be reached between the need to afford Europe's citizens the greatest possible degree of protection of their privacy and the concern of the operators of public telecommunications networks to provide a comprehensive and efficient service.
There had to be harmonization at European level while on the other hand the differing interests of the Member States also had to be taken into account.
An arrangement had to be found which was mainly geared to the standards in the proposal for a directive on the protection of personal data but at the same time was open to future developments.
The solutions arrived at in the conciliation process took satisfactory account of these concerns.
Let me pick out three points.
First, the conditions under which telephone conversations can be recorded have now been stipulated unambiguously.
The wording of the common position in this respect, which was very vague and would have resulted in inconsistent practice throughout the European Union, has been improved.
At the same time, however, the justified interest of the Member States in protecting public security and order has been taken into account in the new derogation.
Second, although the European Parliament was unable to implement its demand that non-inclusion in a telephone directory should be completely free of charge, it was able to reach an acceptable compromise on this point as the actual costs incurred which are to be included have been clearly set out and they will be low.
Third, going beyond protecting the basic rights of natural persons, the compromise now also takes better care of the justified interests of legal entities.
On the one hand this prevents inconsistent application of the Directive and on the other, SMEs in particular, will be protected in respect of their inclusion in public directories and in respect of unsolicited telephone calls.
It is to be welcomed that a simplified wording of the Directive which is easier to understand has been achieved at the end of the legislative procedure, that the terminology and the facts have been adapted to the proposal for a data protection directive, thereby avoiding differing interpretations, and that these two directives - at least in essence - will have to be jointly implemented by Member States by 24 October 1998 at the latest.
The compromise reached places on record the Union's political will to create a uniform European standard for the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the context of telecommunications, in particular ISDN and digital mobile networks.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, on his, as usual, extremely diligent work.
He seems to specialize in technical, difficult reports but always does it very well.
This report covers two main issues: (1) data protection and, (2) new technology.
Data protection is an important principle for civil liberties.
We have the right to know what information is held about us and to correct information that should not be held about us.
The second issue is new technology.
Someone described the new technological devices to me as comparable to the change from sailing ships to steam ships in the last century.
This means that all kinds of information is now much more quickly accessible and far more information can be held on computers than could have been kept in manual records and can be accessed much more quickly.
This poses new problems.
New solutions need to be found.
In the report prepared by Mr Medina Ortega we have got some sensible conclusions.
I would like to support his report.
Mr President, MEPs, I wish to thank Mr Medina Ortega and the other members of the European Parliament Reconciliation Group, Mr Palacio, Mr Clercq and Mr Imbeni, for their efforts made to reach a favourable conclusion.
The European Parliament has played an important role in all stages of the procedure, protecting the directive effectively.
During the course of the reconciliation, the European Parliament made a considerable contribution towards ensuring citizens' rights, particularly with regard to the provisions on confidentiality of communications and public yearbooks.
As has been recalled, the history of the directive goes back more than seven years and the European Parliament has always played a crucial role in keeping it in the topics to be dealt with, even at times when others thought the subject could be left to subsidiarity.
Parliament's point of view has proved correct.
The technological progress and market developments have highlighted the need for a Community means of protecting personal data and protecting private life in the telecommunications sector, a need that is now broadly recognized.
The directive represents a key issue in the legal framework for the liberalized internal telecommunications market; the minimum package of regulations for consumer protection will help create a climate of trust in the information society.
One further point I would like to make is the interest of the third countries in the Community approach to the treatment of personal data and the protection of private life.
This interest of third countries is considerable; it will be important to ensure not only the correct national application of the directive as from October 1998 but also an adequate level of protection in the global telecommunications market.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Number portability and carrier pre-selection
The next item is the report (A4-346/97) by Mr van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 97/33/CE with regard to operator number portability and carrier preselection (COM(97)0480 - C4-0515/97-97/0250(COD))
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in a few more weeks liberalization of the telecommunications market will be a fact in most of the Member States of the European Union.
After business has been the first able to benefit from the liberalization of the telecommunications sector I am pleased to hear that thanks to the proposal on number portability and carrier preselection, as it is laid out before us, the ordinary consumer will be able to reap the benefits of the liberalization process.
The Commission's proposal to amend the interconnection directive meets the European Parliament's position in the most important points, as expressed in its resolution of 17 July 1997, and of which I had the honour to be rapporteur.
It is of extreme importance to the consumer that he will be actively able to experience the benefits of the liberalized telecommunications market.
The proposal will not only lead to an improvement in the quality of service, it will also encourage competition in the market, which means prices will decrease.
Mr President, the first amendment of the interconnection directive deals with number portability.
This means retaining your telephone number even when you change operator.
This is a highly effective instrument for promoting competition, as the consumer who wants to choose a different telephone company will no longer be discouraged by all manner of awkward number changes.
In time, number portability must also be introduced in the mobile sector, and I would like to ask the European Commission to develop proposals for this as soon as possible.
The second amendment, Mr President, concerns carrier preselection, which means that the consumer can choose which operator he or she uses, especially for long-distance calls.
Carrier preselection is an excellent way for the consumer to benefit in the short term from the European liberalization policy.
Considering the high expense resulting from long distance calls, the introduction of this regulation will be greatly to the advantage of the consumer, yielding hundreds of guilders a year.
The Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs has adopted one amendment which offers Member States in which outdated analogues systems are still in being used the opportunity to request postponement of the introduction of carrier preselection, as long as they can demonstrate that the introduction of this would lead to an excessive burden on certain organizations or groups of organizations.
I thank Mrs Read for her support on this amendment, and I am also pleased that she has decided against further amendments.
Mr President, whilst working on the Green Paper on Numbering it emerged that there is a need for pan-European numbers.
This could for example include one European number for the road rescue services, or one universal service number for the loss of credit or bank or cheque guarantee cards.
Once these numbers were introduced the user would no longer have to remember complicated country codes when abroad, but merely one European number.
The ITU has recently assigned 3-8-8 for the European Union, and on 1 January 1999 the European Commission will start testing a series of numbers, and I would like to ask the Commission to inform the European Parliament about the results of these tests as soon as possible.
Following on, Mr President, I would like to say something about the emergency number 112.
According to the Council's Decree the use of 1-1-2 or 112 in the European Union was, supposed to have been operational no later than 31 December 1996.
During the past few months I have tried to check what has happened about this, and I notice that accessibility via the mobile network is still not optimal in certain Member States, and I notice that in Belgium the police are still driving around with the old emergency number.
Mr President, the parallel existence of two emergency numbers, namely one national and one European number is not in keeping with the intention to have one European emergency number.
It would be good if the Commission started an investigation into the introduction of the essential 1-1-2 number.
Mr President, my group is delighted to agree with the Commission's proposal on number portability and carrier preselection, and the amendment agreed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Mr President, my compliments as ever to the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen for the thoroughness of his work.
I am grateful to him too for indicating his own support for the amendment carried by the Economic Committee which I drafted.
This proposal from the Commission and the principle of operator number portability and carrier preselection is one that my own political group very much supports as indeed do I. The reason that I was very keen for the particular amendment to go through was that there is at least a question mark over whether carrier preselection is going to deliver the benefits of liberalization to the ordinary domestic consumer, the one who very rarely makes even a longdistance call and almost never in his life makes an international call.
The fact that there is that question mark, at least in my view, is the reason for the amendment which allows derogations for individual Member States where an excessive burden would be imposed on certain organizations or classes of organizations or - and this is important - where there would be a detrimental impact on the development of competition and choice for consumers.
It is very important to recognize that derogation is not unconditional.
Member States would have to demonstrate this excessive burden or detrimental impact on consumers before that derogation could apply.
It in no way undermines the principle, particularly of carrier preselection, which Mr van Velzen so clearly articulated.
Any of us who have had the experience of trying to dial a long international telephone number will remember that by the time you get near to the end, which is the time you almost always make a mistake, you have almost forgotten who you are ringing and why.
Any simplification of that - and of course it is not only about simplification, it is giving real choice to consumers so that they can shop around so that the benefits of competition will come through - is extremely important.
This is not part of the text, Commissioner, but I would like to indicate that I as an individual Member would like to ask a question of the Commission perhaps twelve months from this day so that you could report to us the number of Member States who have asked for derogations, the reasons for those derogations.
It would give this Parliament an opportunity to look and see whether my fears are misplaced - and I do not think that they are - and if they are soundly based then we certainly would want to look for an opportunity to look at number portability and carrier preselection again.
I commend the report to you and am particularly grateful to the rapporteur for his acceptance of the amendment drafted originally by me.
Mr President, 1 January 1998 will be another historic date in the European Community.
Liberalization in this sector will bring with it considerable progress and my thanks go particularly to Mr van Velzen who has really worked hard on this issue and has contributed greatly to making this possible.
A few days ago I presented a book about telecommunications in Austria which represented the state of the art in Austria.
The interest it generated was huge.
Entirely new business opportunities are available in this sector and I believe this is of great significance for our future as well as for employment.
As far as the numbers are concerned it is very important that the number should also be a trade mark.
We can see this in the emergency number 112, and perhaps 388 will be the code for Europe.
In future we should give much more consideration to what impetus for rationalization we could trigger using numbers like these, as well as considering the cost of change.
I believe an analysis of the most frequently dialled numbers would be a giant step forward for us.
Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his brief and clear statement.
We do not always agree, but when we do, I believe it should be mentioned.
Already during the discussion of the Green Paper on number policy for telecommunication services, I expressed my support for the introduction of number portability and carrier preselection.
This is absolutely essential if the globalizing telecommunications market is to function properly.
The introduction of carrier selection alone will give the consumer a free choice of telephone company for international calls; yet having to time and time key in an extra code again is very customer unfriendly, as the technology in most Member States is not up to date.
But, colleagues and commissioner, legislation will have to be introduced carefully, and the markets will need to be opened up on the basis of reciprocality.
The telecommunication sector is a big employer and has much to lose.
The Commission must therefore see to it the Member States do not curb the simultaneous introduction of number portability and carrier selection out of protectionist considerations.
I would like to ask the Commissioner how thinks he is going to implement this.
Ladies and gentlemen, when we discuss liberalization or the completion of the internal market, crucial to our business community, and therefore to employment, this House is usually divided into a left wing and a right wing block.
I therefore join the rapporteur in welcoming the broad support for this directive in this Parliament, and the Council - membership of which is still, unfortunately, two-thirds socialist - is also unanimous in its acceptance.
This means that our citizens will soon be able to benefit of the liberalization from the telecommunications market, and my group welcomes this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, for the exceptional speed with which he submitted the report and the draft resolution.
I would also like to thank Parliament for agreeing to deal with the draft directive as a matter of urgency.
The draft directive drawn up by the Commission in October 1987 answers Parliament's resolution adopted in July 1997, in which the Commission was asked to draw up a draft directive as soon as possible to introduce number portability and carrier pre-selection by 1 January 2000.
The number portability of operators and carrier pre-selection with the possibility of change before any call are two essential tools for an effective consumer choice and for real competition.
Large businesses already have the necessary means of obtaining good quality telecommunications services at competitive prices; for small businesses and residential users, however, it is more difficult to obtain the benefits of competition, even on the liberalized markets.
For those categories of users, the directive will be a radical change.
The Commission is pleased to have the support of the European Parliament and can accept Amendment No 1 which permits a certain flexibility, in each individual case, and when there are objective difficulties on the date of introducing carrier pre-selection.
Mr President, I should like now to comment briefly on two points raised by Mr van Velzen in his introductory speech: firstly, on the European telephony numbering space - 388 - and, secondly, on the emergency number 112.
The Commission is actively involved in setting up the field trial for the European telephony numbering space on the basis of 388.
Together with the European Telecommunications Office, the national regulators and the operators concerned, we will develop a plan for this pilot ISDN, which should be operational by 1 January 1999.
We, of course, shall be happy to report to Parliament.
On the matter of the European emergency number 112, the Commission is closely monitoring progress of implementation in the Member States and will report as soon as this monitoring process has been terminated.
Finally, I will transmit Mrs Read's request for a review of Member States' applications for derogation to Commissioner Bangemann.
I am confident that he will give full support to her request and that could enter into the scope of the general regulatory review scheduled for 1999.
I understand that you would like to go home, but I asked the Commissioner a question; namely how does the he think he will be able to check whether this number portability and carrier preselection on the basis of reciprocity is to be introduced simultaneously in all Member States.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I can answer you at least in part.
Your concern is shared by the Commission.
The Member States, however, have shown a certain preference for flexibility; and so I think that there is still some way to go to achieve the objective you indicated; at the moment, I am not able to answer more specifically.
I hope that reply satisfies you, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel.
I will now close the debate, and remind you that the vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon .
(The sitting was closed at 11: 35 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any objections.
Mr President, my point concerns the Minutes.
I refer to an intervention by Mr Macartney in which he said there had been some confusion and an error in translation from the original version in French into English.
I have checked the original French version and it quite clearly states 'la viande britannique' .
My understanding is that 'britannique' means British, it does not mean English, and therefore it includes all British beef including Scottish beef.
Mr President, I appreciate my colleague's concern for linguistic accuracy but as you know the President in the Chair at the time was David Martin who is also from Scotland.
We have checked the original version signed by the group and it said 'anglaise' .
That is why I raised the point of order, just for the record.
Thank you. I think we have looked at all the details of this question, and so the facts of this matter must now be clear.
(The Minutes were approved)
Decision on urgency
Mr President, The Committee on External Economic Relations requests that you reject the urgency application.
The Commission asked on 17 November for an urgent priority according to article 97.
The Committee on External Economic Relations debated the application at a session on 18 November, and rejected it unanimously on grounds both of procedure and content.
The following concerns the procedure followed. At the time of the application for urgent priority the Committee was in possession only of a copy of the covering sheet to the basic document containing the Commission's proposal.
Under such circumstances we cannot be expected to give a Commission proposal serious consideration, however urgent it may appear to be.
Despite this, it would be possible to make an exception for the Ukraine on financial grounds, but as a tranche of ECU 100 million was to be made available, we do not believe that it was not capable of rejection on financial grounds alone.
We need time for consultation and request the rejection of the urgency application.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Organized crime
The next item is the joint debate on the following five reports on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs:
A4-0333/97 by Mrs Cederschiöld, on the Action Plan to combat organized crime (7421/97 - C4-0199/97)-A4-0348/97 by Mr Bontempi, on the draft Joint Action on making corruption in the private sector a criminal offence (10017/97 - C4-0478/97-97/0914(CNS))-A4-0351/97 by Mr Bontempi, on proposals for a Joint Action to create a European judicial network (9804/97 - C40428/97-97/0911(CNS))-A4-0355/97 by Mr Orlando, on the draft Joint Action establishing a mechanism for evaluating the application and implementation at national level of international undertakings in the fight against organized crime (10406/2/97 - C40479/97-97/0912(CNS))-A4-0349/97 by Mr Orlando, on the draft Joint Action adopted by the Council on the basis of article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union on making it a criminal offence to participate in a criminal organization in the Member States of the European Union (10407/97 - C4-0480/97-97/0913(CNS))
Mr President, organized crime moves across frontiers in precisely the same way as environmental pollution.
Joint action is required.
Concerted efforts at global, European, national, regional and local level, but also within communities and on the part of the individual.
The European level must be reinforced, but without weakening the other levels.
The narcotics syndicates know no frontiers.
People are smuggled via organizations between different parts of the world.
They have the whole world as their playground.
Hundreds of mafia organizations already have interests within our Union.
We must increase the cooperation within the Union&#x02BC;s frontiers, but also outside these frontiers towards the east and west.
The plans to start a more comprehensive initiative in this area began at international level a few years ago.
One year ago in Dublin the foundations were laid for the programme of action, which was discussed in Amsterdam last summer, with 30 different proposals for fighting organized crime.
Today we shall be discussing Parliament&#x02BC;s views on this matter.
We also have a number of legal acts with detailed question that will be discussed at the same time.
It is a question of building a fence - the fence of legal security - which is so clear-cut that we still manage to take targeted and very effective measures against crime, since this strikes a balance not only between the constitutional state and integrity, but also the effectiveness of the measures.
In my proposals I have developed some of the points and gone further than the Council wishes.
I am more specific on some points.
I build a higher safety net on some points, while at the same time trying to increase effectiveness.
I have even rejected some of the Council&#x02BC;s conclusions.
In addition, I have included in the report some new points of view that were not included, that is, areas that had not been discussed.
The report is, of course, very comprehensive.
In particular, I would like to draw attention to the practical work, since I believe that it is extremely important.
I have endeavoured to listen to my colleagues and also to understand their points of view.
I feel that this has been an extremely good cooperation.
Profit lies at the heart of organized crime.
Many of the proposals are therefore directed at profit, but also at the points of evidence, since this is the narrow sector in this context.
It is a question of finding various new ways of moving forward as far as evidence is concerned.
This is, in fact, extremely difficult in this context.
That is because organized crime often operates in such a way that it is not the people who actually take charge of the profits who are made to carry out the criminal activities, instead, it tends to be other people who do this - which means it is frequently difficult to sort out the evidence.
I believe that practical cooperation through the network is one of the key factors.
In the long term, this will help us to create an area for legal security within the Union.
In this context I would also like to take the opportunity to look at cooperation in the Nordic region.
We in the Nordic countries have had practical cooperation of this kind for a long time, which means that the parliaments take advantage of each others&#x02BC; experiences before we introduce new proposals.
We also have day-to-day cooperation, which in my opinion is among the most important areas for further development.
We must establish compatible legal systems in Europe and we must harmonize in those areas where we cannot move forward in any other way.
I would like to take the opportunity to extend a vote of thanks to the minister, Mr Fischbach, who has come to Parliament and is holding discussions and consultations with us for the first time on these questions, with the result that we shall have the opportunity to present Parliament&#x02BC;s views on an important issue under the third pillar - this is, in fact, in accordance with what was decided in Amsterdam, even though it has not yet been ratified.
I would like to extend our special thanks for this.
I think there is a wide range of opinion as to what the issue of organized crime actually involves.
We must establish a definition.
In order to be able to take effective measures, we must know what it is we are talking about.
I therefore believe that the definition is extremely important.
This, like the current law, will also be discussed on 3 and 4 December at the Council of Ministers.
It will be interesting for us to see what actually transpires, and whether they will listen to Parliament&#x02BC;s views on these questions.
I hope that they will also begin to look a little more closely at special methods of investigation, that is, more clandestine methods.
These are extremely sensitive, but I hope that the Council will address them.
I have addressed these issues in more detail in my report than the Council has previously chosen to do; they are, of course, sensitive questions.
It is also important to address questions relating to information technology.
We must prevent what happens within the field of information technology when the criminal world begins to make use of it.
We must also ensure that the police have the right opportunities to make use of information technology in order to prevent crime.
These issues should, I believe, also be explored more fully than they have been in the past.
Ninety per cent of the report was passed by the committee.
On those points where other views were expressed we have now put forward compromise proposals.
I would particularly like to express my thanks to those colleagues who have attended and taken part in the discussions, since I feel there has been exceptionally committed, productive and interesting cooperation.
I myself have been able to learn a great deal and therefore hope that the chamber will support this proposal in full.
If it does not, it would, in a sense, be a shame if Parliament did not succeed in taking advantage of the opportunity Mr Fischbach is giving us to put forward our views. This also lends this issue a weight that it would not otherwise have had.
I therefore feel it is right for Parliament to be able to put forward its views.
I also hope and believe that the lengthy work we have behind us will give rise to good opportunities to give prominence to this issue, even though not everyone has had all of their views adopted in detail.
That is why I also want to mention Italy.
The Group Union for Europe is proposing some changes we have had little discussion about.
Organized crime can take many different forms.
I have worked with many Italians and it is clear that experience in Sweden and Italy is very different in this area.
But we have a great deal to learn from Italy, since the Italians have taken some extremely drastic measures.
I am especially addressing the Group Union for Europe when I say this. We must bear in mind - and this is also my personal experience of Italy - that the Italian situation shows how exceptionally important it is to uphold the principles of the constitutional state in this context, to keep up the fight for human rights and the integrity of the individual, and not to forget this whenever we wish to take really effective action.
I eagerly await the Council of Ministers meeting in December, when we shall see whether the Heads of Government are able to live up to the hope they have given the citizens of the Union that they will make this Union an effective instrument against organized crime.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in completing the presentation begun by Mrs Cederschiöld and Mr Bontempi, I too wish to emphasize the importance of this debate on the affirmation of legality in Europe.
I wish to express my appreciation for the sensitivity shown by the Council and the Luxembourg Parliament and my satisfaction with the discussion held by the Committee on Public Liberties.
I am sorry we have so little time available, but, despite the strict deadlines, we have sought in every way to honour the commitment not to miss this important transition in the life of the Union.
We are dealing with an organic measure and I wish to talk about three of its aspects.
The first relates to the systems of assessing and implementing ways of combatting organized crime; the second to penalties for taking part in organized crime; and the third to the Falcone programme.
This third aspect is not on Parliament's agenda.
The relevant Council documents only arrived on 6 November.
As far as I am concerned, I have done my duty and I too ask the Presidency for this point to be postponed, so as to allow Parliament to express its opinion.
I have performed my own duty of indicating the positions held on the Council's motion.
Of the two documents examined by Parliament this morning, the first relates to the system of assessing the implementation of measures to combat organized crime.
I consider this document to be highly important politically as it introduces a criterion of consistency in the behaviour of the Member States with regard to the important issue of combatting organized crime and it constitutes in itself perhaps a clearer recognition of why this issue should be regarded as an issue of European interest.
Within the committee, we have sought to praise the role played by the Commission and Parliament and we have provided for several amendments, which are largely shared within the committee, to try and clarify some of the changes.
Again with regard to the first of the two documents, we should remember that, as a result of the position assumed by the Committee on Civil Liberties, the Council has made several changes and some of them, which I will refer to at voting time, have in some way absorbed the motions tabled by the Committee on Civil Liberties.
With regard to the second document, a commendable and truly important attempt has been made, even if a little late, to establish a unified definition of the issue of combatting organized crime, including the establishment of penalties for belonging to a criminal organization.
European cooperation in combatting organized crime can only prove effective if there is a common reference framework for organized crime, if there is a common awareness of the existence of criminal associations with different forms of participation.
One premise stands out in this connection: the states and their criminal law have to adapt to the change in crime.
If crime changes and the laws remain the same, they end up being ineffective and facilitating crime.
The basic problem we have to face is whether today, not just in Italy although it began mainly in Italy, there is a particular criminal phenomenon that deserves particular attention. That is the basic question!
If we do not think there is any particular criminal phenomenon and there is no particular need to combat this particular phenomenon, we can continue to combat changing crime with antiquated systems, but we must realize that we will not be effective!
The committee thought and still thinks, by a large majority, that there is a special case of a criminal association composed of individuals who participate in differentiated ways.
If this is true, and it is true as proven by the dramatic experience of my country, that the criminal organization involves and has involved not just the traditional criminal phenomenon, robbery rather than theft, but involves sectors of the church, the state and politics, it seems to me that the criminal law should take this into account; in fact, if it is not taken into account, the risk is to continue fighting a criminal organization that no longer exists or that is no longer really dangerous.
For this reason, we believe that the Council's motion contains highly important and appreciable aspects and that the amendments presented by the committee comply with Council's approach.
The respect for fundamental rights certainly needs to be stated forcefully, and this is confirmed several times, in the amendments submitted by the Commission to Parliament, but we should also not forget that legality, democracy, corruption-free institutions and a free economy are direct, subjective positions that should be protected.
We certainly need to find a balance in the knowledge that we need to guarantee the connection that exists between the right to legality and the right to personal freedom.
In the motions presented by the Commission, reference is made in particular to the requirement to take into account the fact that the criminal organization is trying to become less military and more financial; that is, it is having increasing recourse to aspects connected with finance and money laundering, while the armed military phenomenon, the phenomenon of massacres, is tending to become less significant.
That does not mean that the criminal organization has ceased to exist, it means it is becoming more pervasive and dangerous.
The motions put forward are fairly interesting and I think we will have to call upon Parliament to accept the invitation offered by a very large majority of the Committee on Civil Liberties which is seeking to take a step forward towards the European Union and the whole of Europe campaigning against organized crime, to prevent undesirable forms of it infecting the whole of Europe.
With regard to the Mafia in particular, we are all dramatically aware that it is no longer an Italian or Sicilian phenomenon, but has become and is tending to become more and more of a European phenomenon.
I confess that, with the pain of someone who is well aware of coming from a country that is the source of that infection, but with the loyalty of someone who knows that the others need to be forewarned of this phenomenon.
The Mafia wants it said that it does not exist.
The various theories as to the origin of the word "mafia' include one applying Arabic etymology: in Arabic, "ma fiiha' means "does not exist' .
The Mafia needs people to think that it does not exist.
When you are in a country other than Italy or in a city other than Palermo, and it is said that the Mafia does not exist, that is like an official invitation to the Mafia to go to that country and that city.
I would like to thank the three rapporteurs for these outstanding reports.
We shall now hear from the draftsmen of the opinions of the other committees.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs very sincerely, particularly Mrs Cederschiöld, on their reports, on which I have prepared this opinion by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I believe it is most appropriate that we should be debating these reports during a week which started with a visit by the President of the Court of Auditors and in which we have been concerned with his report on the financial situation and the weaknesses of our European budget.
It is one of the principle duties of this people's Parliament to see that the interests of the citizens and taxpayers of this united Europe are not forgotten.
The Court drew attention to the vulnerability of the European budget as a subsidy budget.
I think that was very important.
If we look at this vulnerability a little more closely, we discover that major frauds occur in the field of personal income by a ratio of about two to one.
We have seen as recently as the Committee of Inquiry into transit fraud what that can mean.
It means billions of ECUs lost to our taxpayers.
What is going on there - the disappearance of whole truckloads of cigarettes or meat - is obviously nothing less than organized crime.
It is really very much in our interests that this situation is combatted.
It really is a scandal, as the President said, how little Member States cooperate in this.
I believe it is the duty of the European Parliament constantly to point out these abuses.
This has been done in your report and I should like to thank you most sincerely for it.
Mr President, if one were to ask the citizens of the European Union what concerns them most, the overwhelming majority would reply that the Union should prioritize the fight against internationally organized crime.
I therefore welcome Mrs Cederschiöld&#x02BC;s report and the reports presented by Mr Bontempi and Mr Orlando.
One of the most important items on the agenda at the Dublin Summit was organized crime.
A High Level Group including representatives of the Member States and the Commission was therefore set up for this purpose.
The group&#x02BC;s mandate was to draw up a plan of action.
The Commission has constantly been the driving force behind work on the plans of action.
The Amsterdam summit adopted the plans.
It can be regarded as a first step in our efforts to tackle the serious crime threat and to confront the anxieties of our citizens.
It is therefore gratifying that the Council of Ministers is encouraging both the Member States and the institutions of the Union to jointly put their weight behind the text of the plans of action and make the fight against organized crime truly effective.
The Commission bears an important responsibility for ensuring that 20 of the 30 recommendations in the plan become a political reality.
Today&#x02BC;s debate shows that all of the Union&#x02BC;s institutions must accept their responsibilities in the fight against organized crime.
Let me also say something about the points at issue.
Organized crime is nothing new - a fact which Mrs Cederschiöld also underlined - but with the new technology, increased trade and ever faster means of transport, it has grown and changed.
Organized crime has adopted increasingly sophisticated methods and has increasingly become an international phenomenon.
The development of the communications sector has brought with it many positive things.
At the same time, however, the Internet and other electronic contact networks for business and monetary transactions provide organized crime with new opportunities.
The facts speak very clearly for themselves.
We have today in the European Union 15 different legal systems.
We have different definitions of fraud and we have major differences in the regulations for banks and financial activities.
Organized crime understands how to exploit this fragmented situation.
At the same time, this intensifies the need for increased cooperation and greater effectiveness in the Union&#x02BC;s fight against crime.
It is also becoming increasingly clear to us how organized crime is forcing its way into the Union&#x02BC;s own areas of cooperation.
This applies to agricultural and export subsidies, State purchasing and trade in environmentally harmful goods, not to mention the extensive trade in drugs and human beings.
At this moment UCLAF is busy investigating smuggling of hazardous substances that break down the ozone layer.
This is an example of the new problems that we must address.
The Cederschiöld report emphasizes that the plans of action are concerned partly with defining the problems and partly with proposing measures.
I also feel that it is important that we should acquire more detailed knowledge about different criminal phenomena.
In order to make headway in the fight against organized crime, we must first have a common approach to dealing with these matters.
This applies both under the current Maastricht Treaty and under the new Amsterdam Treaty.
Unfortunately, it seems that the Member States all too often want to assert their own sovereignty in these matters.
I therefore agree that we should proceed step by step on the basis of a common understanding of how we should handle the new crime problems.
This applies equally to the sharp increase in criminality with regard to electronic devices, hacking into databases, money laundering, and so on.
The Cederschiöld report also advocates cooperation between Member State police forces and judicial authorities rather than a harmonization of legislation at EU level.
I share the view that cooperation must be the first consideration.
It was for this reason also that I recently proposed the long-term Falcone programme of action.
This programme is targeted at education and exchanges between those working on the fight against organized crime within the different national authorities.
This is also the reason why I support the proposal in Mr Bontempi&#x02BC;s report to create networks for the Member States&#x02BC; legal experts.
Another good suggestion along the same lines is the idea of a special liaison group for legal experts from the Member States within UCLAF.
This proposal was made by Mr Tomlinson in the transit report which we discussed last spring.
But increased cooperation alone is not enough.
Clear and well defined rules are also needed in order for the different judicial systems to be able to function together.
I am thinking among other things about the need for mutual assistance in judicial matters, including mutual rules for the submission of evidence.
It is not a question of harmonizing penal systems.
It is, however, necessary to close the loopholes in the Union&#x02BC;s legal systems that are exploited by organized crime.
It is necessary to create effective and equivalent protection in the Member States.
The goal must be that criminals should not be able to escape because of differences in our various legal systems.
The Bontempi report on a joint action against corruption within the private sector is a good example in this connection.
We must be able to get a result, even if the Member States do not have the same penalties for private corruption.
We must, however, define these crimes in the same way and there must be reasonably similar minimum penalties for these.
In the same report, Mr Bontempi complains that the joint action against corruption does not grant any role to the Court.
I completely agree.
We should come back to this once the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified.
The problems surrounding the Court&#x02BC;s lack of jurisdiction have also been addressed in the Orlando report on a common system for the evaluation and application of international undertakings in the fight against organized crime.
In the same report it was proposed that the Commission should be given an active role in this work.
It goes without saying that I support this proposal.
The Cederschiöld report also underlines the need for preventive measures, which is also addressed in the plans of action.
I share the view that those crime-prevention measures require support both in the form of adequate legislation and the effective application of carefully considered methods.
I regret the fact that the plans of action have not given sufficient emphasis to the social and economic factors that are often at the root of criminality, not least in the cities.
The plans do, however, establish a connection with the structural funds as a means of improving the ability to fight crime in the city.
This is something that I think it is important for us to develop.
The social misery in cities is a breeding ground for organized crime.
I, for my part, see no contradiction in the context of the fight against crime between preventive work on the one hand and repressive work on the other.
We need both.
The Orlando report addresses the question of participation in criminal organizations.
The basis for sentencing a person for participation in a criminal organization is, in my opinion, that person&#x02BC;s conduct.
I believe that it is important to establish this fact.
The Cederschiöld report also addresses the problem associated with the exchange of information in the same case between courts in different Member States.
I have myself been able to witness how delays in the exchange of information between the different legal systems can directly benefit the criminals.
It can take such a long time that the criminals are simply acquitted.
The Council of Ministers is currently discussing a convention that is designed to improve the opportunities for mutual judicial support.
Work on this is at a very advanced stage and I hope that a political decision can be taken in the course of the next year.
Parliament&#x02BC;s proposal of a European public prosecutor is of interest in this connection.
I would also like to say a few words about the expansion of the Union towards Eastern and Central Europe.
It is evident that the fight against organized crime and corruption will be an important component in the coming membership negotiations.
The plans of action therefore propose a special cooperation pact against organized crime, and that this pact should be concluded between the candidate states and EU Member States.
Together with the Presidency, the Commission is now busy studying how such a pact should be formulated.
In my view, this cooperation pact should give clear guidelines on how we are to tackle organized crime within the framework of a pre-accession strategy.
The proposals for action should be presented well in advance of the summit in Cardiff next spring.
The aim should then be to include them in the partnership agreements that are to be established with each Member State.
Allow me finally to underline how important it is that we should use all of the instruments available to us in the fight against organized crime.
The Member States already have a number of conventions lying on the table.
I am thinking about Europol, the convention on extradition and the convention on fraud and cheating.
I would like to appeal to Parliament&#x02BC;s Members to make use of their contacts in their respective countries in order to ensure that these conventions can be ratified as quickly as possible.
Many thanks, Madam Commissioner, for your clear presentation and for telling off our governments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists I should like to thank all the rapporteurs for their intensive work over the last weeks and months.
I shall start with Mrs Cederschiöld, who had a difficult task to perform, namely to combine very different views, different understandings of terminology, various initiatives in the definition of organized crime, and the definition of the necessity for combatting it.
I think she has achieved this magnificently.
That does not alter the fact that there will certainly continue to be other basic views about one problem or another.
Despite this, we can concur with the basic concept of Mrs Cederschiöld's report.
That obviously applies also to the work of Rinaldo Bontempi and the preparatory work of Leoluca Orlando.
One problem runs through all the reports: through the opinion by Mrs Cederschiöld on the report of the High Level Group, and through the proposals that have been prepared by Orlando and Bontempi on individual measures.
It is music to our ears, Madam Commissioner, when you say that we as a Parliament play an important role, but I have to complete your sentence by adding "if unfortunately not in the right place' , because in the long term the European Parliament will have to be the primary legislative body for combatting organized crime in Europe, and I shall give my reason this morning for saying that.
There is no point in appealing to our colleagues in the national parliaments and asking them to hurry up with ratification of the current conventions please, because it is the right thing to do.
That makes no difference to the fact that for some fields of criminal activity we shall have to arrive at a Community solution, a European Union responsibility for combatting crime.
I shall try to make this clear to you by using practical examples.
In recommendation 19, which Mrs Cederschiöld commented on in her report, the High Level Group wants to integrate the cooperation of penal authorities.
Mrs Cederschiöld has said that cooperation should not be centralized, but take place directly between the penal authorities.
Then she proposes a multilingual glossary of various legal terms.
I accept that that is a fascinating idea.
One day I should like to consult that work, just for fun.
After Mr Orlando's speech, however, I have to ask myself if the Mafia issues a multilingual glossary of legal terms. Or perhaps it is working on one, while we wait.
That is the real problem, and it is also the problem, Mr Fischbach, which has confronted us since Amsterdam.
In Amsterdam we experienced what seemed to me to be a turning-point, as I said yesterday to my colleagues discussing the Méndez de Vigo and Tsatsos report.
Amsterdam was the start of a new phase, not a continuation of the Maastricht phase.
The reason for this is that with increasing economic intensification, and the addition now of the single currency, the accompanying - I might call it brave - de facto state control of internal security simply is not receiving equally necessary attention because national exemption continues to be claimed as a priority.
Here, as in the past, national exemption is presented as a primary objective.
For some elements we may possibly have advanced, for instance, political asylum policy - although my personal impression here is that this has arisen more out of opportunism than because of internal policy, in order to sweep it away somewhere else and remove this unpleasant subject from our agendas. For all other subjects to do with intensification, however, we saw at Amsterdam that we have a five-year deadline, at the end of which there has to be a unanimous resolution for transfer to the Community framework.
And I wonder if in the final count all 15 Member States will not in fact claim priority for their national interests.
An end has now been put to this with the report Mr Orlando had to write - I commiserate with him on the task - and the title needs another look.
We are being consulted about writing a checklist to examine national implementation of what were previously seen as Community measures.
I prophesy now that we will soon be presented with a joint consultative measure to see what measures the European Union should adopt in order to flag up insufficient implementation at national level of what were previously seen as Community measures.
I do not think this will take us any further in the suppression of organized crime.
In my view we need a courageous decision which says that, if we detect that there are criminal areas that cannot be controlled at national level, either by police or penal measures, then these tasks must be delegated to the European Union within the competency of a Commissioner with the legislative authority of the European Parliament.
That is the first obvious point.
The second point is that this may be just in the future, but I think we should define it precisely here today.
The second point is also that we must in the meantime live with the fact that things are not as we should like to have them, and that we must make compromises.
In making compromises, however, that is, when defining what is achievable now, we must show more courage.
More courage means to me that we must arrive at the closest possible integration within a basis of inter-state cooperation - what Mrs Cederschiöld tried to demonstrate in her report.
But that must not follow the pattern of Europol - and that has to be passed to you, Mr President of the Council.
Based on what I know from the debate in the German Bundestag and Bundesrat, delegates in the national parliaments fear that fundamental laws of a democratic constitution may be violated by the creation of this police force. If, when considering the proposals for the immunity of police forming a European police force, we at national level have to spend more time debating why Europol officers actually need integrated immunity than we do debating what they need in the way of technical equipment and training to hunt down criminals, then I have to say that the Council has the basic concept wrong.
At the same time I should draw attention to the following. The considerations introduced with the Europol Report, and which are repeated in every other Community measure such as the report by the High Level Group, are quite relevant to realizing that the end of border controls within the European Union, abandoned customs barriers, and the European Union itself with its huge economic activity, offer increasing opportunities for gangs of crooks and organized crime.
The Commissioner has herself drawn attention to the fact that in our own areas of responsibility the acceptance of fraud and corruption is on the increase, but in my view we have still failed to realize that we must then pay more attention to the qualifications of officials and organizations which are supposed to combat that situation.
You referred to the Falcone programme, Madam Commissioner.
I think that is essential.
We need officials who are capable of handling modern technology.
We need crime officers who are capable of understanding modern economic systems.
I am fairly certain that in future it will be more important to have better police who are able to operate the most modern computer equipment, rather than to have faster cars with flashing blue lights.
For that reason the main emphasis now being placed on integration of training and qualifications is one of the most important steps taken in recent years.
We have behind us a long period of very intensive cooperative work.
On behalf of my group I should like to end by thanking not just the rapporteurs, but also the Council President, Mr Fischbach: you promised us in Luxembourg that you wanted to abide by all the Amsterdam results that were in Parliament's interests, including the obligatory consultation of the European Parliament, for all third pillar measures.
In the cases we are considering you have done that.
We should like to ask you to hand that on to the next presidency, as far as you are able to do so, because the European Parliament has some important input to make, as you have seen from this morning's debate and as you have yourself mentioned.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Schultz has correctly drawn attention to the fact that organized crime has a relatively easy time of it.
It has money available in almost unlimited quantities, uses it for the purchase of the most up-to-date means of communication which the police can only dream of, purchases and trains people with it, has the most modern and most effective logistics and one huge, decisive advantage: it does not have to abide by our laws.
All these advantages have led to the fact that organized crime in our society and our state is spreading and will finally undermine our society.
I have enquired of experts concerned with combatting crime, and they have made it clear that organized crime already has a hand in almost one third of all criminal statistics.
It is high time, therefore, that effective measures were taken.
Thus our thanks go out to everyone who wants to proceed with more intensive measures for cooperation, beyond the demands of national interests, to improve the lot of Europe's citizens.
In particular our thanks are due to the rapporteurs, led by Mrs Cederschiöld with her very comprehensive report and the highly important reports on legal cooperation by Mr Bontempi and Mr Orlando.
Whilst we have been successful in achieving some success in police cooperation - I am thinking of Europol and Schengen - with judicial cooperation we are at the very beginning.
It will be necessary here for us to set up additional main aims for measures, as the police will only be as effective as we are successful in establishing a common legal framework, not just for detection, but obviously also within the context of common elements of the criminal code.
On behalf of my group, therefore, I assess as most valuable the network proposed by Mr Bontempi, in which the judiciary and experts can be brought together to acquire the same level of knowledge, to learn a joint legal tradition, as the first steps towards that unification of the legal systems which will now be possible following the establishment of new elements of the criminal code.
It is essential, however, that this criminal code be established to cover the field of organized crime and complicity in organized crime, otherwise we shall remain unsuccessful in the battle against it.
As elected representatives of the people we are responsible for seeing that all possible measures are taken, because our citizens do not like criminals to be enjoying freedom of action, when Europe's freedoms do not lead to more security for the citizen himself.
I appeal to the Council, therefore, to act on all these measures, and I know that in the capable hands of Mr Fischbach and his colleagues this cooperation will be intensively developed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I do not think there is a single lunatic in Europe who can say that the Mafia does not exist. The Mafia does exist!
It is very powerful and very well organized; it is now an international and transnational phenomenon that uses far more effective means than the obsolete means of our small Member States of the European Union, and I would also say outside the European Union.
Today, organized crime, a great threat to the lawful state, is a great threat to democracy in many countries; it is attacking the economic and production nerve centres of many countries and attacking many young democracies, by money laundering, by international trafficking in drugs, arms and anything else.
All this is now obvious, no-one can deny it.
So it is absolutely essential to have a European judicial network, a stronger connection, more coordination between those involved in preventing and suppressing this phenomenon.
Having said that, however, we cannot forget that, behind the legitimate requirement for more effective means, a temptation could be hiding for, after infecting Europe with unfavourable forms, such as organized crime, as Mr Orlando said, Europe could be infected with other viruses, legal substantialism, that of legal short cuts comprising exceptional laws, suspensions and compression of the right to the protection of individual rights.
We are asked for a balance. We too want a balance, with the full individual guarantee of rights of defence, such as the direct relationship between criminal fact and accused, something that some are beginning to deny.
We believe it necessary for criminals to be convicted with objective controls and not just through information on changes in living conditions that are particularly advantageous.
We do not regard this as a balance; otherwise, the fight against crime would be counterproductive: the remedy would be worse than the evil, because it would affect citizens who are defenceless against the excessive power of the state and we would leave the real criminals unpunished.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the group of experts commissioned by the European Council of Dublin for this purpose has put together the outcome of its thoughts in record time in the form of an action plan against organized crime.
Fifteen political groupings and thirty recommendations represent an enormous workload, but the pace of progress has been sustained despite the fact that the wider public is as yet unaware of the basics of what is involved.
In connection with this I would like to make the following comments.
Firstly, we should endeavour to transpose into national law the joint actions in the fight against organized crime - the first of which will be adopted at the beginning of next month in the form of joint actions - as soon as reasonably possible.
The state of ratification - or should I say nonratification - of the Europol Convention, or the agreements on extradition, for example, are sufficient justification for this pressing call to Member States.
Secondly as regards the fight against organized crime and the measures to be implemented in this area, it is clear that this is a highly sensitive area especially as regards respect for the right to a defence.
It goes without saying that the Group of the Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, in whose name I am privileged to speak attaches particular importance to this.
Thirdly, as regards the authority set down in the third pillar, the improvement of parliamentary control, which Parliament is right to insist on, has acquired a new dimension in the course of the current Presidency-in-Office of the Council.
At this point I would like to pay a particular tribute to Mr Marc Fischbach, the current President of the Justice and Home Affairs Council for having given parliamentary participation a new momentum which his successors will not be able - and, I hope - will not want to ignore.
Fourthly, I would also like to express my particular gratitude to Mrs Cederschiöld, Mr Orlando and Mr Bontempi, for successfully compiling our work within a timescale which allows the Council to make use of it in due course.
Mr President, may I start by heartily congratulating our three rapporteurs Mrs Cederschiöld, Mr Bontempi and Mr Orlando on the quality of the work they have done.
This joint action plan points up the inconvenience of not having a restrictive force and of favouring a weak consensus which we all dread to some extent. It presents the advantage of establishing long term objectives and this is something we should welcome.
These texts may also suffer somewhat from the fact that they come to us mainly from Italy, the first country really to have a firm grasp of this whole issue.
However perhaps we should guard against seeing European reality from a purely Italian perspective.
These reports largely deal with particular aspects, sometimes excessively, but do not cover certain other aspects adequately.
The authors have reported extensively on heroin trafficking, tobacco tax fraud, trading in human beings and money laundering, but yet remained silent on murderous political terrorism which is also highly organized crime.
And that is the crux of the issue: the definition provided is imprecise to the extent that rights to defence and the protection of persons may well be open to threat.
Certain professions may be very directly involved and I refer here in particular to lawyers and solicitors.
Special investigation methods will have to be handled with a great deal of care.
In short we should probably redefine the role of Europol, its area of responsibility and its control system more precisely.
We fully support Mr Bontempi's report dealing with the judicial network in Europe.
However on the other reports we remain less convinced for the reasons I have just indicated.
These technical measures lack political inspiration in our view, and this inspiration is something which may yet be a long time coming.
Mr President, this morning we are debating a series of reports on the fight against organized crime and legal cooperation in Europe.
Our group considers that these serious questions relating to the exercise of justice, public freedom and public order are, by definition, a matter for national attention, as justice is a sovereign right.
And what is more, if justice is to be implemented efficiently and with respect for the rights of individuals it must also remain close to the people.
The state control level seems to us to be the most suitable.
It cannot be denied that, faced with increasingly internationalized crime which operates through organized networks and international crime associations, inter-state cooperation is essential and must be strengthened: we need to ensure its efficiency and guarantee to our citizens respect for the established legal order and security.
The Geneva appeal judges have already stressed this point.
The reports submitted this morning are frequently of great interest and very high quality, and they present proposals which deserve examination.
However we deplore the roundabout way in which all too often it is proposed to bring justice and national public order into the domain of the Community.
This, we feel, endangers the rights of individuals and democracy.
There is room for discussion on this issue, and the debate should be transparent to the people.
European criminal law should not be created too hastily.
It cannot be set up without formal consultation of the people involved.
In this respect the draft Amsterdam Treaty and the protocol on subsidiarity indirectly reaffirm the principle which, up to now, was purely based on precedent, that is, the superiority of Community law over all national law, including constitutional law.
We believe that this problem must be debated before the European people and for these reasons of democracy within the European framework, we cannot vote in favour of all the drafts which have been proposed this morning.
Mr President, can I say that this whole issue we are debating this morning illustrates how little progress we have made as a European Union in the whole field of judicial and home affairs, compared with the great strides that we have made in certain other areas like the economic and financial sectors and many other aspects of life.
It is now becoming increasingly obvious how important it is that we tackle many of these issues.
There is for example the question of the custody of children of parents who are citizens of different Member States.
There is a question of extradition.
There is the harmonization of judicial penalties which is creating considerable problems.
There is the question of bail arrangements and many others.
These things will have to be tackled with urgency and I very much hope that the British presidency starting the beginning of next year will help to make some progress in this area.
I am concerned too about the plight of people who are arrested and held in custody in Member States of which they are not citizens, pending trial, and who are often held for extraordinarily long periods because of purely technical problems relating to translation of documents or differences between the judicial procedures of individual Member States.
Of course if they are guilty they should be punished, but they should not be in a worse situation than they would be in their own country.
Moving on, if I may, to the role of Europol - which is fulfilling a vital role and to which we have to give our support - it is very important that all the Member States should as soon as possible ratify the convention so that we can make progress.
Organized international criminal organizations have an inbuilt advantage: they do not really bother themselves very much about frontiers, subsidiarity, national judicial differences and so on.
They operate freely and the law enforcement agencies of Member States work with their hands tied behind their backs all too often.
At the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs some months ago we heard from some of the Italian prosecutors involved in the corruption trials in Italy.
They mentioned that in getting information about the things they were investigating from other Member States they sometimes found that they had to write dozens of letters and wait months and even years before they got replies.
Can you imagine the boss of some international criminal organization waiting a year, or writing 26 letters, before he gets a reply from one of his henchmen? I do not think his henchman would last very long if he did not reply to the first letter!
We have got to ensure that our law enforcement procedures and systems are able to compete effectively with these international criminal structures that we have today.
However, I must say that I could not support a greater role including operational actions by Europol until we have in place proper structures for democratic political accountability of its activities - they clearly do not exist at the moment.
We must also have in place a system for the investigation by an independent police complaints body of any complaints that there may be from citizens of Member States about the activities of Europol.
Such an independent police complaints body should not be less effective than those existing in the Member States; hopefully it will be more so.
Finally, can I say that the British Labour Members in this Parliament will be able to support all these reports with the solitary exception of the second report from Mr Orlando, where we will have to abstain.
We have some problems over the envisaged greater role for the Commission and there are also complications about the legal situation that it proposes as far as the UK is concerned.
There are problems there that will have to be investigated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since 1957, when, at the very beginning of the process of European integration, the goal of establishing ever closer union among the peoples of Europe was proclaimed, we have come a long way.
We have a come a long way, and today we are privileged to have among us an exceptional witness, Mr Fischbach, who, on behalf of the Council presidency - something to which we are unfortunately not accustomed when matters of interest are being debated - can give us the benefit of his long experience - despite his youth - in the Trevi Group.
We have come a long way since that initial proclamation of the goal of ever closer union, and today the goal set by the Amsterdam Treaty is the progressive establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
However, as previous speakers have already said, the freedom envisaged is far more the free movement of goods and services than the free movement of persons.
And when it is the free movement of persons it also partly the free movement of criminals; but adequate means to combat the free movement of criminals effectively have not yet been orchestrated.
Consequently, besides welcoming the new articles 29, 30 and 31 of the Treaty on European Union - in other words, the substantial modification of former articles K.1, K.2 and K.3 - which set the goal of the progressive establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice, we must address the following issue: after having achieved a great deal in the economic sphere, we are now getting down to the essence of European integration - a subject which is difficult to tackle: the sphere of values.
As Mr Bontempi has already said, and Mr Orlando has underlined, we cannot continue to make progress without agreeing on certain issues which, because they affect the fundamental rights of citizens, concern values.
We have to define organized crime, and, as Mr Pradier rightly pointed out, we have to adapt the fight against organized crime to current circumstances, since it is no longer simply a question of crime organized for economic reasons, but of crime organized for political reasons within the European Union: in other words, terrorism.
In this sense, with regard to the four joint actions envisaged - leaving aside Mrs Cederschiöld's excellent report, which unfortunately maintains the action plan's ambiguity on this point - the Luxembourg Presidency has had the courage to go beyond the narrow framework of the provisions of the Maastricht Treaty still in force and utilize the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It is not at all a question of bringing these matters into the Community domain, but of addressing the issue of what those values are, and, on that basis, determining how to combat this scourge of European society.
Mr President, I would first like to say that I am delighted that for once Parliament has been consulted by the Council within the framework of the third pillar.
As regards the action plan on organized crime, we can only be glad that a coordinated and coherent Community approach is being sought and that cooperation on policing, justice and customs is being strengthened.
Of course we should encourage the establishment of direct links between the repressive authorities in Member States as a first step on the road to a common justice system.
However it is important to retain the channel of national entities which work with Europol in order to avoid dispersal of information.
We must also define precisely the central system of judicial control which has been called for.
And we must not forget that Europol is first and foremost a police structure.
However we agree that ultimately the methods of special investigation should be harmonized.
On the other hand, the majority of my group certainly does not share the idea contained in Amendment No 14 tabled by the Green Group.
The act of legalizing drug sales would surely not be enough to deprive criminal organizations of the profit of this traffic.
Tobacco and alcohol are freely available for sale, and yet look at the situation there!
If this amendment were to be adopted we would have to abstain from the report as a whole.
Yet we share Mr Bontempi's fear that the links between organized crime and corruption represent risks for the state of law and for the stability of democratic institutions.
We are pleased to note that there is recognition of the political importance of the debate on legal cooperation and on putting in place in Europe instruments which permit investigators to establish a direct contact with colleagues from other countries which are faced with the problems associated with organized crime.
We are supportive of these first steps on the road towards installing practical instruments which aim to improve the efficiency of international legal cooperation.
On the other hand, the main proposal in the Orlando report on international involvement in combatting organized crime concerns the central role - granted to Member States by the Council - which would have to be attributed to the Commission during the temporary process of evaluation.
Our group does not accept this and we will abstain on the whole report if this clause is accepted.
Mr President, the fight against organized crime ranks high on the political agenda in Europe today.
It is good that we are concentrating our energies on fighting against this kind of cross-border crime which the individual countries do not solve.
But so long as Europe takes vigorous measures against criminality there is a risk of excesses.
That applies also to this proposal regarding the criminalization of participation in certain organizations.
Although such activity is increasing, we must always ensure that the right exists to an effective defence, in other words, a person is innocent until proved guilty and should be held responsible only for what turns out to have been committed deliberately.
Our group will therefore be supporting Amendment No 18 the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
We wish to emphasize the principle of the rule of law.
Clearly, the European Union wishes the countries applying for membership of the Union to respect this principle.
All the more reason, then, why we must not forget it ourselves; if we did so, we would be extremely poor teachers.
One part of the principle of the rule of law is also the principle of legality in criminal law, which states that the stipulated penalty should be exact, and that it should be absolutely clear in which situations one is considered to have committed an act so reprehensible that a penalty can be imposed.
For example, the list in the proposal for joint action of what activities are criminal is not exhaustive and does not, therefore, correctly satisfy the principle of the rule of law.
I also wonder whether we are not perhaps extending liability under criminal law too far in the committee&#x02BC;s Amendment No 12, which means that people are deemed to have committed a criminal offence if they have taken part in a certain type of organization, even if they have not become a permanent or significant part of the structure of that organization.
If we draw a comparison with existing proposals - for instance, that this interpretation of a criminal offence should apply to people who, for example, have participated in computerized crime - then this may well appear to be an example of excessive criminalization.
Mr President, the joint programme, four or five reports and all the speakers do offer certain interesting ideas and proposals, but they have a common basis, a common logic.
They address the problem of organized crime on a national and a European scale but from a one-sided viewpoint, that of the methodology, the philosophy and the practice of repression.
Mr President, I think this is a waste of effort.
Organized crime has been discussed here with this methodology for decades and it has not been eradicated, nor has it been seriously reduced. Instead it has grown and taken on gigantic proportions over the period we are now debating.
The problem, therefore, is to examine the issue jointly and to place greater weight, if you like, on prevention.
We must recognize that the forcing house in which organized crime germinates is the economic, social and political status quo that prevails in our countries.
Under these conditions it develops, matures and expands on a European and a national scale.
Let us not forget that.
On this basis the problem must be investigated.
Nor must we forget that this form of crime is closely linked to police, judicial and administrative authorities and also to political leaderships and governments.
Let us not forget the power of the drugs cartels, of arms smuggling and immigration, that is, modern-day slavery.
Mr President, we believe in a combination of the two methods.
Prevention, first and foremost, and, of course, enforced measures of repression.
But this must be done with circumspection, since I very much fear that the expansion that has been introduced here will be a pretext for you to create a gaoler of liberties and a guard over the interests of the few, of a tiny speculative minority of vested interests.
Mr President, Interpol exists in order to combat international crime.
It is therefore quite remarkable that the Cederschiöld report does not say a single word about Interpol.
Unfortunately I get the impression that the former head of Interpol, Carl Persson, who is also the former Swedish national police commissioner, was right when he publicly expressed the view a week or so ago that the EU&#x02BC;s efforts against international crime are, in part, an unnecessary duplication of work.
Among the demands made in the Cederschiöld report is a call for a centrally determined, harmonized criminal code, that is, a centrally controlled, united state of a sort that that we thought had been consigned to the scrapheap of history.
This is not even the way to build a federal state - After all, the US criminal code is not totally harmonized.
There are, of course, some good suggestions in the report, which we shall support.
We shall, however, be voting against the Cederschiöld report in the final vote, since we are advocates of a serious fight against international crime involving strong cooperation from Interpol.
However, we do not wish to contribute to making the EU into a centrally controlled police state.
Mr President, I would like to recall Mr Orlando's attention to the denial of the legal bases of our rights with his arguments for modernization and adaptation to new conditions.
All our national regulations contemplate the offence of a criminal association while the proposal made by Mr Orlando is to ensure that this offence is recognized without an offence existing.
This is an open door for the witch hunt, that is, the Europeanization of the Italian legal system, which is a real disaster, as it has put tens of thousands of innocent people in prison for many months and years.
This is Peronista justice, and would be a disaster for Europe.
Our group obviously cannot vote for this report proposing a highly convenient way of shuffling off the real problem, which is one of drugs and drugs trafficking that today represents 80 % of the organized crime business.
We want to draw your attention to the need to legalize this business as a matter of urgency, to wipe out the 80 % of Mafia income.
I would also like to ask Mr Orlando to report me for belonging to a criminal association.
Together with Marco Pannella and other colleagues in my party, in recent weeks I have been distributing hashish on the streets of Rome.
I have done so publicly. I will do it again and a lot of us will do it again because this is the real problem today: legalizing the trade, production and distribution of all drugs.
Mr President, it is a good thing we are talking today in such detail about organized crime, and we shall have to do so more frequently in future.
That is because the level of analysis of their own activities is still higher amongst those who organize crime, than amongst those who make pretty speeches on the subject in this House.
Part of this debate must be that we clarify amongst ourselves what is meant by organized crime.
I should like to make that clear by using an example.
Two things may lie behind a pickpocket theft in a city.
Firstly, it may be a single act by a drug addict needing money to buy drugs.
That is not organized crime.
It may also be, however, that a group of specialists has been flown in to work the city systematically, stealing credit cards, and by evening they are sitting in their aircraft again over the Atlantic whilst couriers take the cards to other parts of the world, where they are used.
For that one can earn about ECU 25, 000.
The booty is changed into cash through a professional organization of fences, the cash is collected and re-introduced into normal commercial circulation by means of money laundering.
Here we are talking about organized crime, and the difference must be noted.
It must also be part of the discussion that we make clear to ourselves that there are interfaces between so-called normal society and organized crime.
What do I mean by that? What makes the fight against money laundering so difficult is the fact that the techniques used in it differ in no way from those used by tax defaulters when they want to launder their illegal money.
For this reason there is a bodyguard of people, even in politics, who in the interests of their clients want to prevent stricter laws.
Those are the people for whom banking secrecy is more important than the secrecy of the confessional, even though they go to church on Sundays.
We must also include debate on weaknesses.
One obvious weakness, Mr Council President, is that only now do we have the study group on high-tech criminality and the use of technology in organized crime. What world have the ministers been living in?
If one knows that organized crime can call on a great deal of money and possesses business structures, then it must be obvious that these organizations can buy in specialists and technical experts and even modern technology.
And they do just that. They have been doing it for years.
It is high time for us to begin to consider how we can make certain technologies safer from abuse.
There must be debate like the one we had on dual use products in the armaments sector.
These were products which could be used for various tasks, and in whose whereabouts, therefore, we had to take an interest.
I should like to name two examples. The equipments one needs to counterfeit credit cards can be obtained freely on the open market without a licence.
No one is concerned about where these machines go.
Whilst we take great care that no one gets hold of the paper needed for printing money, no one pays any attention to plastic money.
That is a contradiction.
A second example is that we have a proposal from the Commission on how one should deal with encryption.
Commerce does not want any limitations.
When I read this paper I see that commercial interests have completely taken over within the Commission, and security interests take second place.
We must not allow this.
Mr President, trade in human beings, paedophilia and child abuse, arms and drugs trafficking, corruption, money laundering and fraud are the characteristics of a civilization of today which has lost its greatest values and is dying, as Paul Valéry said, from the death of its instincts, the very principles that formed the basis of civil life, of relations between human beings.
A common measure needs to be taken as a matter of urgency indicating the path of our commitment to answering the challenges of the third millennium.
We need to create a strong, firm basis for fighting the sad present-day phenomena such as slavery, which is organized crime on a world scale, without scruples, that is, attempting to import into Europe today, by means of mass immigration, unfortunate people who add to the fraud with a mockery of repatriation; and paedophilia and child abuse, which reflect a sad reality, burdening weaker categories largely in need of protection with the outlet for instincts that are no longer human.
Finally, we are trying to make the facts follow the words and the Union is trying to put the system of police cooperation into writing, by attempting to use common criminal policies.
Unfortunately it is doing so, or trying to do so, without first associating Parliament and without managing to make a suitable choice between intergovernmental cooperation, which in our opinion is now out-of-date, and harmonization of the current criminal laws of the member countries, a road we have yet to follow.
Organized crime is a real counter-power.
To be fought effectively, we need to have a valid system of rules recognized by everyone, with legal cooperation running from the intergovernmental sphere to the Community section, establishing effective penalties that include criminal liability and therefore imprisonment and extradition.
In that way, we would establish a system of fighting it, which can be all the more effective as it is capable of having a system based on absolute values suited to the requirements of the present day.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, I too wish to congratulate the rapporteurs on these reports.
As has already been emphasized in this debate, everyone is aware of the difficulty of combatting organized crime, which takes advantage of the free movement of goods, capital, persons and services, as well as technological innovations.
I believe that the time has come to abandon traditional models of combatting crime, based on antiquated ideas of impermeable borders, and begin to employ methods based on close cooperation between the judicial, police and the customs authorities beyond our national borders.
We must not forget that it is especially important to the citizens of Europe that their public and private safety be guaranteed, and I therefore believe that it is the European Union's responsibility to combat organized crime by strengthening police and judicial cooperation.
This is the sense of the action plan's political guidelines, which also stress the need to improve the implementation of the measures already adopted - essentially relating to extradition - by promoting the development of preventive instruments.
I agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Cederschiöld, on the need to promote and step up the information campaigns on the effects of the activities of criminal organizations, and especially to foster effective measures to tackle conditions which encourage a willingness to support organized crime.
However, like my colleague, Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, who spoke earlier, I profoundly regret the lack of a clear definition of organized crime in the action plan.
In this regard, we must not forget that the concept of organized crime covers many different types of crime.
I believe that a full definition of organized crime should comprise - in accordance with the provisions of article K.3(e) of the Amsterdam Treaty - the constituent elements of criminal acts and the penalties in the fields of organized crime, terrorism and drug trafficking.
Organized criminals commit serious offences. They are dangerous felons who undermine democratic institutions and cause a feeling of insecurity to grow amongst the citizens.
Organized crime is not only the business of what we might call "criminal traders' .
It involves not only the pursuit of profit and other economic benefits, but also violence - unfortunately including terrorism.
Nevertheless, I wish to conclude by saying that, overall, this debate represents a significant step forward and gives an important political signal. I would stress that the people of Europe require a response to their desire for an efficient justice system, and we must therefore present them with a body of law which provides an effective solution to the problems of cooperation in the field of combatting organized crime.
And I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that we have taken an important step forward with this action plan, although we still have a long way to go in the fight against organized crime.
Mr President, I want to congratulate the rapporteur and say that it is not before time that we had this debate in Parliament; but the more we talk, the less we appear to do on issues like this.
The criminal fraternity throughout the European Union has enormous resources - resources unimaginable even to the European Union budget.
They use it for bribery, corruption and the free flow of drugs and laundered money throughout the Community.
In my own constituency, some years ago, there was no will to tackle the problem of drugs in parts of that inner city constituency.
It is only in the recent past that the Irish Government has acted to confront the drug barons.
Before that, people took to the streets.
People knew who the drug-pushers were. They knew which people were laundering money.
They knew exactly what was going on but there seemed to be no action.
The government has now introduced the Criminal Assets Bureau.
By this means they have confiscated property and frozen bank accounts throughout the European Union belonging to the criminal fraternity in Ireland.
Unfortunately there is another element, the witness protection scheme.
Some of the hardest criminals are turning witness and are now offered very lenient sentences.
It has an upside and a downside, the witness protection scheme.
Quite frankly, I do not think it is a particularly just system because some of the hardest criminals are being released.
Four or five very hard criminals may be given soft sentences to convict one.
We must look at that particular aspect of legislation.
Mr President, organized crime has a great capacity to adapt to the situations to increase its trade.
At the moment, one of the most lucrative trades is trading in human beings: a trade that, on the one hand, serves to strengthen the networks of these criminal activities and, on the other, is obviously a source of considerable profit.
Italy is an extremely weak point today, as its coasts are experiencing an unprecedented invasion.
I am sending a warning to this Parliament, as the Italian government is trying to minimize the situation and is sending its governors around saying that everything is in order so as to obtain the application of the Treaty of Schengen.
This is not true: the situation is out of control and unmanageable, and the Italian State is also responding with the verbal assurances but is proceeding with substantial measures, such as the laws that actually favour the indiscriminate entry of people into Italian territory.
These masses of desperate people who are pawns in crime are passing through Italy and invading the whole of Europe, first the Po Valley and then the rest of Europe.
We therefore need great control and so I ask Parliament to take every possible measure for this phenomenon to be arrested.
Mr President, in spite of the deficiencies noted by the rapporteur, we must welcome the action plan against organized crime which targets a form of criminality which is on the increase as a result of the development of the internal market.
The fact is we must not unwittingly allow the free circulation of persons, goods and capital to further a single market of drugs, fraud, prostitution, illegal arms trafficking, trade in human beings, money laundering and much more.
It seems to me that the harmonization, or even the introduction, in every national criminal code of a legal definition of the concept of organized crime would be a condition sine qua non of the proper implementation of this kind of action plan; how can we effectively fight an ill-defined and poorly identified enemy?
Moreover, before we dream up new ways to fight organized crime, would it not be better to exploit the existing means more effectively first? The report quite rightly advocates that priority be given to improving cooperation between Member States which have not yet signed existing agreements on repression and convergence of penal procedures, or which do not exploit all the options offered by these agreements because of national sovereignty considerations.
In this area where results have been shown to be insufficient, despite increased cooperation, harmonization is essential; in this case we must consider a progressive convergence of criminal law in the Member States and the establishment of minimum standards.
What is clear is that criminals involved in organized crime are benefiting to the full from the inconsistencies between the different systems and from any reticence to cooperate on the part of Member States.
So it is high time that the fight against this form of crime which is constantly on the increase was coordinated at a European level; the action plan presented to us is a step in the right direction.
However two previous reports already stressed the need for increased action: these were the Schulz report on the protection of children against sexual exploitation and the Reding report on the fight against terrorism.
Despite the interesting progress contained in the Amsterdam Treaty, cooperation between the forces of order and criminal systems is still far from satisfactory, because all too often developments come up against the obstacle of national sovereignty, and we forget that the absence of effective cooperation at EU level does not serve the people, only the criminals.
Only when we realize that the number of national problems which can only be resolved at European level is on the increase will we really be in a position to fight organized crime effectively.
Mr President, one minute's speaking time is not exactly a long time for discussing three or four reports, so I have to limit myself to one single thought.
My experience in my own country is that government capitulates systematically to criminals.
In large cities like Brussels there are streets and areas where the police is no longer allowed to take action, where even public transport no longer goes, and where the remaining decent citizens, those who do not have the means to flee, are at the mercy of the law of the jungle.
My thought is therefore the following: when government does not have the courage or the wish to tackle such small local problems, how will it have the courage to tackle international crime?
Briefly, the principal problem in the fight against crime is by no means that the European Community authority is still in its infancy - and I do not advocate such a communal approach, but merely more effective cooperation between Member States - the problem is a question of mentality and the political will to combat crime.
I believe that at present this political will and mentality is sadly nowhere near strong enough in Europe, while it does exist in a small city state like Singapore, where they have been successful in stamping out crime.
Mr President, I would like to make a few brief remarks on the valuable work carried out by the rapporteurs who have diligently illustrated their work.
The first thing I would like to point out is how subjects of this kind, particularly the approach we give them, are directly connected with more general questions we dealt with yesterday, during the debate on the decision to be made on the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In pursuing general arguments, we are always sensitive to issues of political integration of the European Union, but it is when we have problems such as this that we show our capacity and real will to proceed in the direction of the political unity of the Union.
From this point of view, I think that the work carried out is so important but also requires more courage, and I believe this opinion is shared by the government of my country.
Cooperation between the Member States is no longer sufficient; we need to find courage in internal security policies, the fight against crime and other important issues such as taxation, proceeding towards harmonization, towards a more uniform set of rules that enables us to deal with and specifically solve the actual problems.
I think this is the difficulty that needs to be worked on, by finalizing the texts and working to ensure that our social analysis of and decisions on these phenomena are accompanied in the near future by specific harmonization measures as well.
Having said that, I would like to add what I believe to be the real priorities.
We should try to make an effort to identify the subjects we can deal with at European level and separate them from other issues that can be resolved by cooperation between the Member States. I wish to mention three: the first affects us directly and is the fight against Community fraud.
The legislation needs to be harmonized in this sector.
Only three Union countries have included Community fraud in the criminal code.
As we always make so many graded lists about fraud, we will start by recalling those who have not yet fulfilled their duties from this point of view.
The second issue relates to the fight against crime in the sector of trading in people, or clandestine immigration.
We cannot make a caricature of this problem as Mr Formentini did, because the problem is now a general one.
Crime initially related to cigarettes, then drugs and now drugs and human beings.
The other issue is that of money laundering.
These are the three major issues on which we can work with a little more courage, even than in the important work carried out by the rapporteurs.
Mr President, corruption threatens society, organized crime threatens society. Added dangers accrue, therefore, from the interplay between corruption and organized crime.
We in the Freedom Party have always made a stand against corruption of any kind in Austria. We have made a name for ourselves for that.
So we basically welcome the action plan - I do especially in my capacity as a judge in the criminal court - but most particularly the initiative to create throughout the Union a criminal code to combat active and passive bribery, even within private commercial activities.
International development and the annual report on fraud make quite clear the need for relevant regulations within the criminal codes of Member States, and for international prosecution procedures.
We do have ideological reservations, however, on the indictment of artificial persons and in contrast to Mr Bontempi we believe that for democratic reasons a treaty between nations would be preferable.
Mr President, I hope this discussion can be received by public opinion for what it is, beyond the technical, legal or relevant issues.
It is a coordinated response we wish to make to the need for safety and legality demonstrated by our citizens, and it is a common undertaking we are making today, with this discussion, to combat crime so that it cannot benefit from our system of rules and democracy and then place it in crisis.
It is an honest reply because this discussion leads us away from temporary uncoordinated measures and we are responding with an action plan: 30 recommendations, some of which have already been converted into specific common actions, like pieces of a common design.
This is the meaning of a choice that is strategic and also an undertaking that can be measured and assessed.
The gaps and limitations of this design also need to be mentioned, however.
It seems to me that there is a lack of a more definite harmonization, of a clear definition of organized crime, which makes everything weaker, not so much because we are not managing to define crime but because it is difficult to define the organization.
It should be recalled, however, as pointed out by our rapporteur and then taken up by Commissioner Gradin, that there is a weakness in identifying the causes and all the strategies of prevention.
We should also do this to answer those who came to talk to us in the Committee on Civil Liberties.
I mentioned an honest and, I would add, a balanced answer. The balance should be sought and assessed particularly in this Parliament, a balance between the need for an effective fight against crime and the need for this fight not to injure the fundamental rights of citizens.
It is not a comparison, as recalled by Mr Bontempi, but a construction of a system of legality.
It is a balance that should always be maintained, and the means we are approving today, from a reciprocal assessment to points of contact, to letters rogatory, are means of achieving legality.
Being Italian, and as Italy has been brought up several times, I can only say one thing: we do not want to export the emergency to Europe, or laws, or refugees, but we believe that with effective cooperation we will all be the winners, including Italy, in this sector.
Mr President, Mrs Colombo Svevo is right and I want to say the same: an honest and balanced answer, a virtuous course that begins this morning, a course of cooperation between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
And here I wish to express my appreciation to Minister Fischbach and Commissioner Gradin.
An honest and balanced answer that seeks to bring together the requirements of European cooperation and respect for individual national regulations: first, respect for rights, correct proceedings, fair proceedings, rapid proceedings, and the presumption of innocence; secondly, the identification of an organized crime: participation in the crime should be direct and certainly personal.
But the question is not whether participation has to be direct or personal; the question is what is an organized crime?
An organized crime consists in getting organized to commit a crime.
We are here for that reason, because otherwise we would have no reason to talk about a criminal organization.
One further reference to the quotation, already maintained and contained in an amendment as well, relating to the phenomenon of the collaborator, the terrorist.
The text drawn up by the Council and the Committee on Civil Liberties does not refer to collaborators and terrorists, because we consider that to be a very complex, controversial issue burdened with so many ambiguities that it cannot be dealt with just in an amendment.
For this reason, I think it is inappropriate and wrong to include this issue in a framework which needs to remain organized, honest and balanced, as Mrs Colombo Svevo says.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of this debate there will be an opportunity to demonstrate that organized crime can only be fought successfully within a common European legal environment.
The proposed joint action for construction of a European judicial network points to this and we support it.
What we need is a sort of legal internal market.
What we are seeing is a legal Europe puffing along behind a commercial Europe.
All limits have been lowered or already largely removed for internal European trade.
Legal limits, however, are being defended with great vigour.
This is leading to products, services and capital being freely exchanged, but the legal instruments for safeguarding commercial trading are being blocked at the frontiers. Why is this so?
Why is not actually possible to deliver direct a payment order by a German court in France? Why cannot an Italian witness be directly summonsed to appear before a Belgian court?
Apparently national sovereignty prohibits this.
I do not want to be misunderstood. I support the existence of a national state and we will need it for a considerable time as an organizational model for the completion of public tasks.
But national sovereignty must serve the interests of the citizen, in this case the protection of his rights and freedoms.
Where it does not do this, it must be examined.
If from time to time national sovereignty is quoted to counter legal communication, then that is simply a distorted picture of national sovereignty and has actually nothing to do with it. It is more a sign of backwoods crankiness.
Sometimes one can even detect evidence of legal racism.
Foreign legislation is opposed because it is foreign and not one's own.
Yet the constitutional status of all Member States in the European Union is fixed and securely anchored.
There is, therefore, absolutely no reason why Germans should not be summonsed before a British court, or why verdicts should not be delivered directly.
We need workable solutions to this. Workable solutions must be found.
This would happen under the European judicial network, which we therefore emphatically support.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Madam Commissioner and ladies and gentlemen, I wish to express my thanks for the excellent cooperation, the kind words and a very comprehensive piece of work.
Time does not allow me to summarize the entire debate.
I shall therefore focus on only a few points which I think need to be emphasized.
One point relates to the Community: the preventive measures which Commissioner Gradin addressed and which have also been touched upon by several others, and the social angle.
These points were not included in the High Level Group&#x02BC;s document, but I have incorporated them into my report and would like to emphasize them.
To Mr Gahrton, who has not even shown enough interest to stay on, I would like to say briefly that I think he is using this chamber for domestic policy debates.
I do not even consider his oversimplified contribution worthy of an answer in this connection.
I would, however, like to have that included in the Minutes.
To Mrs Thors, who is unfortunately not here, I would like to say that the report takes her concerns fully into account.
In fact, it addresses precisely the points that she was calling for, that is, motive, intention and active participation with regard to criminal organizations.
They are therefore included.
Finally, I would like to say briefly that it is the excise duties and contributions that we shall take with us from this debate.
These questions must be brought into focus.
We cannot allow taxpayers&#x02BC; money to end up in the pockets of criminals.
I hope that the debate results in our continuing henceforth to pursue with greater vigour and intensity - and working more closely with the Commission and the Council - what Nassauer termed a "legal internal market'
Mr President, to conclude this discussion, I wish to raise three points.
First, it is important that this formal sitting was chosen for the beginning of a new phase in the work of the European Union and also Parliament in the fight against crime.
I believe the discussion has been very useful and has offered us conditions for correcting the delays and taking more useful action in the future.
Secondly, there seems little evidence to me that the introduction of new instruments includes regulations other than Italian ones.
I would like to point out that the criminalization of private corruption, which is an important aspect of innovation, is a very important aspect; it does not exist in many regulations, it does not exist in our regulations and so its introduction shows that Europe is working through the best experiences acquired over the years.
Finally, I would like to recall that keeping the balance mentioned by Mrs Colombo Svevo between the requirements of safety and the requirements of freedom is something sacrosanct, and it is something else to discredit instrumentally and with entirely false information, an experience that has made it possible to combat corruption and the Mafia in our country effectively.
I ask everyone, if we want to take this seriously, to accept the balance and not the instrumentalization.
Mr President, like Mr Fischbach I wish to express my thanks for the good and wide-ranging debate.
To save time, I shall largely agree with the comments made by Mr Fischbach, so that we also manage to finish the next debate this morning.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon tomorrow.
Cooperation priorities in justice and home affairs
The next item is the report (A4-0367/97) by Mr Nassauer, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council Resolution laying down the priorities for cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs for the period from 1 January 1998 to the date of entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam (10021/1/97-C40426/97-97/0910(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on justice and internal political priorities has now reached a rather different plane, because we are conducting it not just on the basis of the Maastricht Treaty, which is still valid, but with the draft Amsterdam Treaty in mind.
For this reason the proposed resolution of the Council, quite understandably, uses the effective date of the Amsterdam Treaty as the deadline for this list of priorities.
At the same time, Mr President of the Council, I want to call for an examination of whether we could not keep to the usual one year deadline for checking these priorities, should it turn out that the effective date of the Amsterdam Treaty were to be delayed.
For, as the previous debate has shown, this field is of increasing importance for the whole European Union.
The first conclusion must be that work in this field must be intensively continued, regardless of the threat from the Amsterdam Treaty It will, however, have difficulty keeping the new legal instruments of the Amsterdam Treaty directly in its sights, because it is possible that modifications will have to be made after the effective date.
You, Mr President of the Council, have involved the European Parliament in good time and very fairly in your procedures, and this needs to be emphasized.
You made the welcome suggestion of hearing the European Parliament as a matter of principle during the earliest dealings on the Amsterdam regulations, and not just during the most important elements of the work.
We have certainly appreciated that.
I must add a comment addressed to you, however, when I say that we shall have to make some effort so to organize our deadlines that we do not delay the progress of procedures.
I want to make a second comment. Taken together with Amsterdam, we will have a substantial increase in legislation.
I think we will have to pay more attention to the quality of our legislative texts than has been the case in the past.
For instance, when I look at Parliament's amendments to legislative texts, I see that they lead in most cases to an almost dramatic expansion of texts which were originally shorter and more precise. This arises from many good political intentions, but leads to the texts becoming lengthy and confusing, and this is on the increase at European level.
In short, with this procedure we shall add to the flood of standards and the incomprehensibility of the law, something we otherwise complain about.
We must take great care to see that our legislative texts are shorter and more precise.
I should like to turn my attention to a few details in the list of priorities.
Mr President of the Council, it would be a good thing if a new list of priorities were to make some mention of what happened to the old ones.
A little success rate control would be helpful for all concerned.
One would be able to write in what had been achieved, and what had not, and the reasons why something had not been achieved.
In this case, unfortunately, we have had cause to complain repeatedly that freedom of individuals in the European Union has not been achieved to the extent laid down in the treaties.
The Commission has meanwhile done its homework in the form of the Monti Proposals.
It is now up to the Council to find an answer to the Commission's proposals.
My third point is on the judicial network we have been dealing with. Up to now it has been the only legislative expression of the area of freedom, security and law that we all aspire to.
It must be possible to extend this network with appreciable benefits for our citizens.
Europol comes into being next year in all probability, and will be able to start its work.
Development work on the next stage of Europol must not then be delayed. We ask that of you, Mr President of the Council.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the Luxembourg Presidency for its excellent cooperation.
I am not sure if one can really talk of priorities in this list.
It is rather more a collection of bits and pieces, and something of a contrast with the actual results in the Council.
It is true that in the field of justice the Council's aims will have to be more ambitious.
They must keep step with the development of the internal market if we are really to create an area of freedom, security and law, as set out in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Why indeed should parties, witnesses, defendants and experts not be summonsed as though we were one state? Why should parties not be required to appear personally as though we were one state?
Why not, indeed?
Let me deal with another point, concerning the duration and cost of cross-border court cases.
There was a study done on this by the Commission in 1995.
The cost and duration of cross-border legal disputes lead to the fact that we are faced with a straightforward denial of legal rights.
It is in practice pointless to initiate a case on the other side of a frontier because of the costs and the time taken.
I see a real priority here, because it has become an obstacle to the internal market. Let me point out another thing.
It is exceptionally unfortunate that according to the Amsterdam Treaty on this subject of cooperation within the civil law the Intergovernmental Conference only allows Parliament a joint right of decision where visa policy is concerned, and then only in five years time.
Considering the poor results achieved by the Council in this field so far, that is difficult to understand.
I am sure the European Parliament could participate in our achieving very much better results.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I share the Mr Nassauer's view of this because of the initial position following the Amsterdam Council, and because of the agreement by Mr Fischbach, which I already mentioned this morning, it can be hoped that successive presidencies will keep Mr Fischbach's word. I hope they will say that they will apply Amsterdam and carry out obligatory consultation with the European Parliament.
This would require of the European Parliament a consequent and comprehensive reform of its rules of procedure, or we shall be unable to keep pace with our workload.
You expressed that very politely, Mr Nassauer. I will put it in my own way a little more bluntly.
Part of what we produce here could well be left alone. That does not alter the fact, however, that the priority list - Mr Rothley called it a collection for bits and pieces - has no apparent theme.
I have to say that I get the impression that the Council did not really quite know where to set its main emphasis in the priority list.
For that reason I shall first deal with the fact that the most important thing is what can be activated from amongst the policy areas covered by the ratification procedures which are about to end.
Now let me return to Europol, Mr Fischbach. Here I must emphatically contradict you.
I have a very high regard for you and I know that you are a constant defender of the constitutional state, but you cannot stand here and say on the subject of the immunity agreement that, just because it still has no operational authority, we can simply leave the question of immunity to you.
Put another way, that is saying that when it has obtained the operational authority, then we shall take it away from it again.
Or that is how I interpret it.
Unfortunately you do not have a microphone, so I shall repeat what you have just said: "I did not say that' .
Thank you, Mr Minister, that is what I wanted to hear.
Now let me say that we no longer need to give the police this immunity, and I shall say why not.
The collection of data is also a violation of citizens' basic freedoms.
They can already do that.
I must tell you that wherever police forces exist, Mr Nassauer, and you are a former Minister of the Interior, wherever police forces exist there have to be two things in parallel. When a police force is created with the right of interference in a citizen's freedoms, then there must be a legal guarantee and parliamentary control.
These do not exist here.
Now let me add that where the collection of data has to do with personal habits, race, origins, or sexual preferences, Europol officers can go ahead and collect all of it. The individual citizen affected by Europol's activities must have the right to knowledge of that data and the right to control its availability.
So, if you are looking for a priority, Mr Fischbach, I would recommend to the Council that it withdraws the immunity regulation in its current form as quickly as possible.
Furthermore, may I quote Mr Nassauer's report, which was passed by this Parliament with a large majority: we, as the European Parliament, require that all accompanying regulations on Europol be submitted to the European Parliament for consultation before they enter the ratification procedure.
A start can be made straight away with the immunity regulation.
You quite rightly said in the priorities that the policy on asylum would become to a dramatic extent the subject of debate in European politics over the next few years.
I ask the Council, therefore - and I say this emphatically on behalf of our group, because we are giving asylum policy a leading position in our work - to prepare, as early as next year, specific ideas about how it will deal with the harmonization of asylum policy, both technically and in content.
I should like to say about content, that I assume - at least for as long as you, Mr Fischbach, are Council President - that the Council will not succumb to the temptation of believing that asylum policy can be devolved to Europe, simply because it is a delicate and touchy subject at national level which people would like to be rid of at that level, in order for minimum standards to be yet further reduced, something not achieved at national level.
That is an asylum policy which we will not support.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am not a pessimist like my colleague who just spoke, but, on behalf of my group, Union for Europe, I wish to express my keenest satisfaction with this report, which establishes the priorities of cooperation in the justice and home affairs sectors as from January 1998, the fateful day by which the Treaty of Amsterdam will enter into force.
The Council resolution confirms the importance of promoting freedom, safety and justice in the European Union, in accordance with the fundamental principles of law and politics.
It is therefore necessary for every effort to be made in this direction by all the Member States, who are always the main participants, the driving force behind any reform.
I also wish to congratulate the Council Presidency because, for the first time, it has given the European Parliament the opportunity to express its point of view on the content of the Council resolution.
We, as the Group Union for Europe, agree with the Council on the need to include in the list of priorities the fight against terrorism, fraud and organized crime and the importance of taking the necessary measures for Europol to take up its responsbilities in this area as soon as possible.
I also hope that, in accordance with paragraph 8 of the resolution, Council will ensure an improvement in legal cooperation in all member countries.
To conclude, Mr President, I would like to ask both Council and Commission to work in closer contact with the European Parliament so that the three pillars on which the Union is founded can be constructed, in a joint, parallel and speedy manner, but above all along the lines desired by the citizens.
Mr President, when we are talking about the priority schedule for justice and home affairs, we have to say that in this area many decisions have been made over the past few years.
Absolutely.
However, there is a serious problem about the decisions which have been taken. For a large part it is fake legislation, imitation legislation.
They are not directives as we know them in the first pillar of the European Union, but rather recommendations and such like.
The problem here is that it is completely unclear to what extent the measures taken have been implemented nationally.
Mr President, the Council and the Commission need to draw up a report on the progress of the implementation of Union level decisions into national legislation.
I believe a report of this kind should be discussed in this Parliament as well.
Mr President, many decisions have been taken.
Many decisions have also not been taken, including extremely important ones.
Looking at asylum and immigration policy, I ask the Council and the Commission: where is the decision on sharing the burden of displaced persons fairly?
Before we know it Algeria might explode, and no decisions will have been taken on such an issue.
Where is a proper strategy of the external border of the European Union?
It has been the subject of discussion for six or seven years.
And priority schedules or not, it is time decisions were taken.
Mr President, more and more discussions are taking place about the establishment of a European Magistrate's office, and of public prosecutors at European level; they would for example supervise Europol and so on.
This does not strike me as very desirable, as the supervision of Europol should be political.
My final question is - and with it I conclude my remarks - the Council and the European Commission prepared to draft a report on the establishment of a European Magistrate's office, including the advantages and disadvantages?
Mr President, this report, like the earlier reports, expresses some technicalities that one can endorse.
I am broadly in agreement with what Mr Rothley said on these points.
But the most important thing for me is that this is a snapshot of a process of development.
It is, so to speak, the EC&#x02BC;s route from a Common Market to Union law - or, as Mr Nassauer put it during the earlier debate, a legal internal market.
It is an integration process which - and this is a fact that has largely been overlooked in this debate - involves dismantling the national institutions and legal traditions on which Denmark&#x02BC;s law-governed society, for example, is built.
It is evident both in Mr Nassauer&#x02BC;s report and in the earlier reports, and the keystone can, of course, be found in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Of course, the proposal in question only applies to the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
And page 6 of the report states that "the Treaty of Amsterdam Treaty makes substantial changes to the existing third pillar of the Treaty on European Union and places the cooperation of Member States in the fields of justice and home affairs on a new legal footing' .
The set of priorities we are referring to now is, so to speak, an anticipation of this, and what we regard as the end-point in this development process - in viewing it as a snapshot - is, of course, also described quite clearly in Mrs Cederschiöld&#x02BC;s report. I regard this report as a bogeyman, but it is heartening for others (Commissioner Gradin, for example), in that it advocates a harmonization of the Member States&#x02BC; criminal codes.
This is actually the end-point of this development process - and, what is more, it is taking place without the national democracies having the opportunity to react.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to emphasize one fundamental point, and that is that a very important part of the quality of any democracy is measured by the degree of open control that can be exercised over the police and the penal institutions.
I can state that on a whole series of key points, these proposals, these priorities - not to mention the earlier reports - break with this fundamental principle, for instance the Europol Convention, which entrusts control only to this Parliament (and not to the national parliaments) and to the European Court of Justice - not to the national courts, as require, for example, in the Danish Constitution.
Mr President, I think I already overran my time earlier.
You should have interrupted me.
I am sorry, I was not paying attention.
I just wanted to say that of course I am delighted with this excellent report from Mr Nassauer.
It is a simple indicative programme, ladies and gentlemen, not a definitive one.
From it you can tell that the Council wishes to exert all the pressure it can to achieve results which are as firm and conclusive as possible using a maximum of actions, plans and initiatives.
So we must work with both accuracy and determination to achieve these results.
And this is what this programme actually means.
We have achieved quite a few of the points from the 1996 programme, which was the first one, albeit biennual.
I hope that this one will not go further than January 1999 when we all hope that the Amsterdam Treaty will finally be ratified.
But please do not hold it against the Council that it wishes to do too much, we have good intentions and I think that tribute should be paid to our efforts in taking this step.
Mr President, the basic principle is free movement of persons within the European Union, but many people fear that this will become free movement for criminals and swindlers.
That is why the third pillar was added within the context of the Maastricht Treaty.
My task within the Commission is therefore to work towards realizing the free movement of our citizens.
So I welcome the fact that we are having a special debate about Mr Nassauer&#x02BC;s report on the priorities for judicial and domestic questions.
The aim is that we should in future be better able to handle the problems that we encounter.
Among the areas I am thinking about are refugees, organized crime, the drugs trade, the slave trade involving women and children, and fraud, corruption and effective police cooperation.
When the new Amsterdam Treaty comes into force we shall receive new, increased opportunities for cooperation.
This is an important step forward.
The Commission, the European Parliament and the Court will all be given a stronger role in connection with the third pillar.
This is important in order to counter the anxiety felt by the citizens with regard to the threats to their safety and security.
Increased openness, greater effectiveness and better democratic and judicial control are necessary in order that people should know that this affects them.
In the short term the Commission will complete the work under the Maastricht Treaty.
This includes the proposals that are now being discussed within the Council of Ministers.
Here I would like draw attention in particular to the Commission&#x02BC;s proposal regarding admission, that is, accession, temporary protection, measures against corruption, the fight against synthetic drugs, the fight against the slave trade involving women and the fight against sexual exploitation of children.
The Commission is, of course, from now on also actively working to ensure that the plans of action against organized crime that we have just debated are carried out effectively.
In this connection I would also like to draw attention to the important cooperative projects that we have initiated through the long-term working programmes, for example, Grotius, which is leading to increased cooperation between judge and prosecution, and thus cooperation within the judicial system; Sherlock, which of course is aimed at cooperation with a view to preventing forged documents; and Oisin, which is aimed at bringing about cooperation between police forces.
Each of these programmes plays its own part in increasing legal security within Europe.
We also have the Stop programme, which involves cooperation between authorities in the Member States with a view to combatting the slave trade in women and children, and the Daphne programme, which gives support to voluntary organizations engaged in the fight against sexual exploitation of, and violence against, women and children.
Both of these programmes have met with a very big response.
Later today, Parliament will discuss Mrs Zimmermann&#x02BC;s report on the Odysseus programme, which is aimed at those who work with migration and asylum issues.
As proposed in the Nassauer report, the Commission will continue to take new initiatives with the aid of the new instruments that we now have at our disposal under the Maastricht Treaty.
I am preparing five different initiatives: one regarding enforcement of court rulings, one on legal aid, one on missing children and sexual exploitation of children, one on asylum procedures, which is missing from this debate, and one on credit and payment card fraud.
Both I myself and the Council will, of course, be sure to consult Parliament about these reports.
In parallel with our ongoing work under the current treaty, we are also preparing ourselves for the day when the new Amsterdam Treaty comes into force.
This work has already begun.
One of the questions that must be answered concerns the integration of the Schengen Agreement into Union cooperation.
As a result, the Union&#x02BC;s regulatory framework will be extended, even if the fields of responsibility within the third pillar are not expanded as such.
There are concrete agreements within Schengen that as yet have no equivalent within the EU.
This has two important consequences.
First, the Union will operate within a broader field of activity than at present.
Secondly, the expanded regulatory framework will impose greater demands regarding safety and freedom for the eastern and central European countries which are now preparing themselves for membership.
Schengen will be one more dimension that needs to be incorporated in the coming negotiations.
Two working groups are now fully occupied with the practical preparations.
One group is devoting itself to integration within the Union work and the other to the matter of what form the cooperation with Norway and Iceland is to take.
In the long term, the most important question will be how we are to take up the growing challenges in the area of justice and home affairs.
One of these concerns the development of internationally organized crime within Europe.
The most important consideration here is to meet the citizens&#x02BC; demands that we should combat the crime threat effectively.
The Europol Convention will be an important tool in this connection.
The aim is that the convention should be ratified before the end of the year.
I also hope that the Member States push on with the ratification of the extradition convention and the convention on measures against deception and fraud.
At the same time, like the committee, I regret the fact that the Hague Convention on judicial scrutiny in connection with cross-border disputes has not been ratified by all Member States.
As I said in my introduction, the Amsterdam Treaty will mean that cooperation in justice and home affairs will be raised to a new level.
The treaty includes an ambitious five-year work programme that looks into how questions of border control, migration and asylum are to be integrated with the first pillar.
Questions relating to the police and tariffs, as well as to criminal and civil law, remain within the third pillar.
But even in these areas, cooperation will be developed through framework decisions, and so on.
In my opinion, a careful review is needed of the new treaty&#x02BC;s consequences for justice and home affairs issues.
I have therefore set in motion a study which I propose to present to the Council of Ministers and Parliament in the form of a wide-ranging report.
I hope that this report, like a White Paper, will serve as an important basis for a full debate on how we are to bring about a Europe that is characterized by freedom, safety and justice.
Thank you, Madam Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
In principle, the vote ought to take place now, but if not it will take place this evening.
Votes
Mr President, there are actually three oral amendments, which I now propose to read, agreed with the rapporteur and the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, in order to clarify several aspects of the budget and financial control.
The first amendment is an addition to article 4 paragraph 2 which reads, "in the event of recourse to subcontractors, the latter shall be selected by tender, organized pursuant to the current financial provisions' .
It is therefore a general precaution.
The second amendment is an addition to article 7 relating to cooperation with the CEECs and Cyprus and reads, "the costs of such participation shall be added to the appropriation for that programme' .
The third amendment, which supplements article 9, relates to the fact that, since it is a five-year programme, it covers two different financial budgets.
It is therefore worded as follows: "this financial appropriation will be partly covered by the 1993-99 financial perspectives' .
I apologize, but the approval of this measure has required very tight deadlines.
However, it has been possible to incorporate these three oral amendments and thus subsequently amend the measure with the consent of the Committee on Budgets, if Parliament will accept this.
Madam President, as I cannot see the Socialist Group coordinator at present, I wish to say, on behalf of the Socialist Group, that I am unable to accept these oral amendments tabled at the last minute.
The vice-chairman of the Committee on Budgets submitted these amendments and during discussion of them in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy there was consensus.
It concerns budgetary specifications.
I urge that this be approved.
It was due to an oversight during the vote in committee.
Thank you, Mr Willockx.
Everyone has understood that these three oral amendments could in a sense be grouped together, in any case on the basis of the principle under which they were taken into consideration.
So I will put it to Parliament.
Are there any objections to considering these oral amendments?
(Parliament adopted the amendments)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, after the committee submitted Amendment Nos 3 and 14, the Council amended the wording to which they related.
I therefore consider the aforesaid amendments to be superseded, accepting the final wording proposed by Council.
Are there any objections to Amendment Nos 3 and 14 being considered as null and void from now on?
As there are no objections, this will be the case.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
A corrigendum is to be made to all the language versions.
Also, Amendment Nos 6, 7, 10 and 11 have been cancelled.
Madam President, there have been a certain number of corrigenda, but they do not go far enough.
For example, Amendment No 21 by my group was altered in a completely wrong way to the extent that it now says the opposite of what we intended.
At best, it would certainly be completely incomprehensible.
There are also a number of translation problems in the French version.
Our Amendment 20 has not kept its original meaning at all; in its current form it would add to Mr Orlando's argument and this is completely at odds with our own argument.
There are other instances - I could go on.
I therefore propose deferring this report to the next part-session as we cannot vote on it as it stands today.
Mr Dupuis, are you making this proposal on behalf of your group?
Yes, Madam President.
I would like to hear the opinion of the rapporteur.
Madam President, I believe we expressed our appreciation this morning to the Luxembourg Presidency and the Commission for enabling Parliament to assess such an important wording before the 4 and 5 December part-session.
It would be really odd for us to return this report now.
I therefore insist that we proceed as requested by the committee.
I think that clarifies things.
I will put Mr Dupuis' request to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request) I can assure Mr Dupuis that we will check all the language versions very closely in order to avoid any inconsistencies.
Madam President, thank you for rejecting the amendment by Mr Dupuis.
The amendments by the Group of the European Radical Alliance in any case follow a completely different path from Mr Orlando's.
But before we vote I would again like to raise the question of the many linguistic corrections.
There is a reason for this.
The Council was kind enough to send us these texts for consultation in advance of the Amsterdam Treaty, but with a very short deadline, which posed a considerable time problem for the numerous translations. But when the Council then did what followed, there was no way of coping.
First, it sent us a text. We are very thorough in our consultation procedure, but in the meantime the Council amended its own text without consulting us or waiting for our views.
That is an impossible procedure.
Parliament really cannot be treated like that.
I must ask therefore ask the President to report to the thunderous applause of this House to the Council.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Thank you, Mr Schulz.
I would have liked the Council to have heard your comments.
Unfortunately that was not the case, but we will be happy to forward them for their attention.
Madam President, with regard to Amendment No 12, I wish to point out that after the vote on the amendment the committee experienced a certain amount of confusion, so the Council drew up a wording that seems more correct to me.
I therefore report the committee's rejection of the amendment as it had been draftedincorrectly and might lead to possible legal criticism, to quote an expression used this morning.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
It is very satisfying to note that the Conciliation Committee has succeeded in arriving at a sensible and particularly satisfactory compromise between the Council and Parliament in connection with the adoption of this Directive.
It is most gratifying that both Council and Parliament have from the outset been in agreement that a high level of protection should be given to personal data within an area such as the telecommunications sector, where technological development is advancing extremely rapidly.
Nevertheless, Parliament has in the conciliation procedure been able to introduce an even greater level of protection than the Council had originally desired.
One example that can be cited is the extension of the Directive to embrace legal entities.
The provisions relating to monitoring and recording of telephone conversations have also been significantly improved in the conciliation text.
It should be emphasized that the proposed Directive is an extremely important legislative act that deserves full support.
Secchi report (A4-0344/97)
It is not possible to determine when it would be best for the EU to introduce fully harmonized regulations on VAT, but there is no doubt that if such a harmonization is to take place, the Member States must be extremely well prepared.
The Fiscalis programme is therefore a necessary initiative, which means, among other things, that national public officials acquire a thorough knowledge of Community law.
This knowledge is absolutely essential if these public officials are to continue to provide the best possible service to the citizens.
Another aspect of this question concerns the many advantages that it is hoped to achieve through formal cooperation between the Member States in the tax sector as a whole.
The Fiscalis programme is aimed at creating a solid and sensible basis for future harmonization of VAT and other taxes.
This does not, however, mean that the Member States are at this point in time committing themselves to any set time-frame for such harmonization.
The Fiscalis programme, which aims to establish coordinated European actions in support of the individual national systems of indirect taxation, is an innovation in the European tax policy.
In fact, not only does Fiscalis aim to harmonize and coordinate the existing tax system and even ensure uniform operation of the tax authorities with a view to adopting the final VAT regulations but, as rightly pointed out by Mr Secchi, it should provide a means of indicating the requirements and difficulties encountered by some national authorities in performing their duties and should be able to transfer the winning experiences implemented in other Member States for the same problems.
As mayor of an Italian municipality and aware of all the actions aimed at improving the efficiency of the public authorities, I appreciate the European Commission's decision to consider the training of human resources to be a priority objective of the programme and, agreeing with Mr Secchi, I believe it advisable for training to be provided by exchanges arranged between officials of different tax authorities.
I also agree fully with the rapporteur on the need to set up a network of cooperation between the national institutes and academies operating in the taxation training sector.
I offer my congratulations to Mr Secchi and fully agree with his report.
W.G. van Velzen report (A4-0346/97)
Numbering is one of the most conspicuous aspects of telephony and is therefore an area that concerns the consumer very directly.
At Parliament&#x02BC;s request, the Commission has proposed a very workable and sensible modification of the Interconnect Traffic Directive.
Number portability is an extremely significant area and it is important that a system should be introduced quickly that ensures the transparent, fair and objective allocation of numbers to the fixed lines.
The rapporteur is absolutely right to emphasize that the same policy must be introduced, with relevant regulations, in the mobile communications networks.
The necessary arrangements must be introduced as early as possible so as to have the desired effect and to give the operators the time to carry out changes and adjustments.
It is therefore not possible to go along with the Commission&#x02BC;s view that the time is not yet right for regulations on number portability for the mobile networks.
I therefore give the report my full support.
Cederschiöld report(A4-0333/97)
We are of the opinion that the report deals with an extremely important area for the future work of the European Union.
In making this statement on our voting, we wish to emphasize our view that in a number of areas, the report contains more far-reaching harmonization requirements than can objectively be regarded as justified in the light of the plans of action for combatting organized crime.
Among other things, we wish to draw attention to our doubts with regard to the following requirements made in the report:
there should be a harmonization of provisions in criminal law (point 12), -a public prosecutor should be introduced at European level (point 35), -in the absence of a more precise definition of the already evident need for greater public control and inspection, Europol&#x02BC;s position should be expanded in relation to the national police forces (various points).
Mrs Cederschiöld's report deals with the action plan to combat organized crime.
This plan was drafted by the High Level Group at the urgent request of the European Commission.
What the group has done is in itself praiseworthy, and considering the way it is implemented by the Council, it appears to be effective.
Yet the plan is not always sufficiently clear.
A strong point of criticism from the rapporteur, Mrs Cederschiöld, is that no clarity has been established on the question whether crime will be combatted by harmonization of the definitions of the most important punishable crimes, or by the system of improved cooperation between the Member States, whilst keeping intact the differences between national judicial systems.
In the plan, this choice is not made.
This is also where the problem lies.
Although the report aims for a pragmatic approach, the European Parliament's wish for the harmonization of criminal justice and the establishment of one large European judicial area resounds from it.
It is obvious that with this choice we would be deeply encroaching on sovereignty, the heart of the Member States.
This will be an extremely painful process, and one can ask oneself whether it would all that useful right now.
I would therefore be more inclined to opt for pragmatic cooperation without losing the differences between the national judicial systems.
As the report and our choice differ, we decided, despite all our sympathy for the action plan and the report, not to support this plan.
You will recognize this thinking in the way we will be voting on the other reports on 'the combat of organized crime' which was discussed this morning.
I would like to support the recommendations put forward by Mrs Cederschiöld.
In her draft resolution she identifies the inherent flaws and weaknesses in the current EU approach to tackling organized crime.
Organized crime is a sophisticated international business operation.
They recognize no national boundaries and because of their huge resources they are able to employ the best brains in the legal, financial and other technical fields.
In response the EU approach is uncoordinated, fragmented, under-resourced and operates on a national basis due to the chauvinistic attitude of interior ministries who wish to protect their own little 'empires' based on outdated notions of national sovereignty.
We must change these attitudes, achieve greater harmonization of our legal, judicial and policing systems if we are to win the war against organized crime.
Any sensible person could not help but be shocked by the slow pace at which the Member States of the European Union have undertaken to join forces and coordinate their actions and procedures in the fight against organized crime.
The globalization of the economy and of financial channels allows operators - including the criminal fraternity - to recycle, or rather launder without any difficulty or control the enormous profits gained from prostitution and drugs and arms trafficking.
As everyone knows, the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe laid a fertile ground in the debris of state controlled structures for various forms of gangsterism, racketeering and corruption.
The free circulation of capital and individuals within the Union, combined with technological development burst open the borders for everyone, including criminals, and thereby promoted trafficking in cars, drugs and human beings.
Under these conditions, how can we imagine that purely national legal and judicial systems and policing are in a position to confront the plurality of ever more organized serious crime? How can we accept the unbelievable amount of time taken to process requests for information or cooperation between magistrates in different countries?
How can we accept that the Europol Convention has not yet been ratified by all the signatory countries?
So of course I am delighted that on 17 June the European Council of Amsterdam adopted the action plan on combatting organized crime.
This is a step in the right direction.
Furthermore I would like to pay tribute to the efforts of the Council of Europe towards drafting an agreement against organized corruption which is rampant in international markets.
If there is one area in which the Union must prove its capacity to meet the legitimate aspirations of its people, it is that of the security of individuals and goods.
A corrupt Europe has no future.
We must act now.
It is regrettable that this report, which deals with organized international crime, does not say a word about Interpol, whose aim is precisely to combat crime at international level.
Instead, the report is aimed merely at advocating, in a more or less explicit manner, an "EU FBI' , which is to harmonize the policing and judicial systems in the EU states in accordance with the body of law governing the creation of a future common European criminal and judicial sector.
In my opinion, this development is neither reasonable nor appropriate.
It can scarcely be reasonable at this juncture to set up a policing organization that is to compete with Interpol.
Instead, work with Interpol should be intensified in order to enable this organization to challenge international crime more effectively.
It is also proposed that Europol should be given more powers, one of them being that it should also include operational activity - this in spite of the fact that Europol is subject to inadequate parliamentary and judicial control and characterized by a serious lack of openness and protection of privacy and personal data.
I can agree to several of the proposals in the report.
The best way of fighting crime and criminality in the long term is to reinforce the democratic foundations within society in the fields of child welfare, education, working life, etc.
I would particularly like to underline the importance of improved cooperation between the Member States in combatting cross-border crime.
I advocate intensified intergovernmental cooperation in this area along the lines of the Nordic model.
It is important that there should be no criminalization in the absence of malice.
The proposals regarding the interpretation of a criminal offence within a so-called criminal organization must therefore be based on this principle.
I am, however, opposed to centrally determined forms of judicial cooperation, where the main aim is a harmonization of the legislation.
The EU must not be developed into a centrally-controlled police state - using Europol as a tool - with large information systems that are subject to inadequate democratic control.
In view of the fact that the report contains several proposals along these lines, I shall be voting against it in the final vote.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the Cederschiöld report, since we believe that effective and improved efforts are needed in order to be able to cope with the growth in the organized crime that is operating across the Member States.
We are, however, uneasy about some of the statements made by the rapporteur - statements that aim to involve supranational institutions such as the Commission and the European Court of Justice more closely in judicial cooperation.
Judicial cooperation should remain within the confines of the third pillar and the Commission and the European Court of Justice must not have any further powers.
Harmonization within the field of criminal law must not be a goal in itself and the existing intergovernmental instruments should be made effective before new initiatives are undertaken.
We advocate effective and practical cooperation between the Member States in the judicial sector.
Such cooperation will be an effective counter-measure to organized criminality.
Orlando report(A4-0355/97)
Madam President, we were unable to approve the report by Mr Orlando on the implementation of international agreements to combat organized crime, because, according to an excellent text by the Council, the Parliament desired systematically to transfer the prerogatives of the Council to the Commission.
In the domain which affects one of the major sovereign areas of responsibility of nations, it seems clear to us that it is up to the Council to act and not the Commission, which is an administrative body with questionable democratic legitimacy.
Furthermore, in terms of efficiency in an area in which the specific factors, traditions, the philosophy of law and national origins have such a strong role to play, we consider it much more expedient to leave it up to each nation to act.
The report gives the Commission a much stronger role in the evaluation system.
We are of the opinion that it is the Council&#x02BC;s presidency that should continue in future to bear the responsibility for this work.
The Council is - and should be - the highest decision-making body in the European Union.
We see no reason to reinforce the Commission&#x02BC;s role in this context.
For this reason we shall be abstaining at the vote on this report.
Mr Orlando has proven his pugnacity in drawing up these different reports, and we can only welcome it.
These three reports deal with one issue: organized crime.
The European Parliament has got to prove its unstinting determination in the fight against all Mafia practices.
Mafia organizations are growing stronger in countries which already have competent services to combat organized crime.
We could question the means put in place at Community level to eradicate this scourge.
We have no choice but to affirm that Mafias are emerging, not only in eastern Europe, but also in the heart of the European Union.
I agree with the recommendations of the rapporteur which refer not only to the way these groups are evolving, but also to the spread of crimes and offences.
Reference is also made to money laundering, and as far as this goes, I too demand an end to all the hypocrisy.
Within Europe or the European Union we must provide judges with a wider range of methods of investigation, especially to check suspicious bank accounts; without these there is no point in legislating or discussing the issue further.
The European Union is becoming fussier and fussier about the help given to certain areas of activity.
I hope that it will demonstrate the same concern to implement quickly the means to combat organized crime effectively.
If the European Union does not score a few points in this war, it will lose yet more credibility with its citizens.
Orlando report(A4-0349/97)
If we are serious about tackling organized crime we have to ensure more effective coordination throughout the European Union before we can properly start cooperating with third countries.
Intergovernmentalism and lack of transparency is not the way to convince European citizens of our determination to win the war against organized crime.
I believe there are many excellent proposals in this report that are well worth considering if we want to send a message to international criminals that we mean business!
Nassauer report(A4-0367/97)
Madam President, the Nassauer report on laying down the priorities for cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs represents a return to the European Parliament's usual cliché on the free movement of persons which supposedly could not exist in the Union as long as any degree of control remains in place at internal borders.
This idea has caused a great deal of harm already and will cause even more in future if the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified, because article B of the New title 3 A in the Community section states that within five years the Council will have to put a stop to measures which "pursuant to article 7 A aim to guarantee that citizens of the European Union or of a third country will not be subject to any controls when they cross internal borders' .
As usual those in favour of a federal Europe are trying to make people believe that they are only being asked to apply a decision which had already been made, and that legally and morally, they would have no room for manoeuvre.
But in reality this is not the case, for article 7 A never said that free movement of persons implied there would be no controls, and even less that this would also apply to persons from third countries.
Furthermore, the Treaty of Amsterdam, in article B cited above, does not set any pre-conditions for the abolition of controls of persons at internal borders.
The accompanying measures are only evoked in article A, but this article deals with a legally different problem, i.e. the integration of Schengen, and nowhere does it say that the conditions evoked - which, by the way, are in a very allusive form - represent pre-conditions.
So the peoples of Europe risk once more being trapped by a European Union which is fulfilling the objective function of demolishing their defence when it should be aiming to strengthen it.
This corruption of European institutions which constantly work against its own side must be put right urgently, and initially by rejecting the Treaty of Amsterdam, for if not Europe will be lost.
I welcome the production of this report by Mr Nassauer and I support its key recommendations.
In particular, I endorse the proposal that Europol should be given precisely defined operational and executive powers determining which national police bodies are to be responsible for all the measures carried out in their countries.
A fully operational Europol is critical to ensuring successful cooperation in the area of justice and home affairs.
It is nothing short of scandalous that the Europol Convention is not ratified.
After the Dutroux scandal in Belgium there was a flurry of activity and there seemed to be a determination to ensure that Europol would be given the necessary powers to discharge its responsibilities.
Things have now ground to a halt and if Member States genuinely wish to create a citizens' Europe the progress must be made in the area of justice and home affairs.
Progress on Europol will be the litmus test of proving how serious Member States are in relation to delivering on their promises.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Situation in Iraq
The next item is the Commission statement on the situation in Iraq.
Mr President, I think we, and indeed the whole world, have followed the developments in Iraq very closely and with bated breath.
It hardly needs stating that the Commission and the Council, and most certainly this Parliament, will agree that the United Nations, the Secretary General, and the Security Council all must have our full support in their aim to have Iraq meet the relevant Security Council resolutions.
Naturally the United Nations and the Security Council is the obvious place to debate and decide on these issues.
I am sure you have will noted with a certain amount of relief the encouraging news which reached us today from Geneva, where the five permanent members of the Security Council met yesterday.
Without having exact knowledge of what was discussed in detail, it appears that some form of compromise has been reached, to which Iraq still has to respond.
But this compromise would in any case allow the UN Committee of Inquiry, UNSCOM, resuming its work with its original membership, so that this work can now be continued; which is extremely important for the safety which is needed to dismantle all the capacity which Iraq has at its disposal to produce weapons of mass destruction.
It is clear that if this conflict with Iraq drags on, it will have serious consequences, not only in the sense of security, but also as regards the enforcement of oil and food resolutions, if I may call them this for the sake of convenience; which in turn would lead to harmful consequences on the humanitarian aid which may be given to the people of Iraq, and would also hamper aid efforts to northern Iraq.
There is not much more the Commission can say about this at the moment, apart from expressing the wish that the indications (which are there) that the crisis has been averted, are being confirmed.
In the current state of affairs I am not able to more positive about in drawing this conclusion, but if we also take note of the statements and announcements made yesterday by the British Foreign Secretary after the consultation between the five permanent members, and of the text which appeared today in Telexpress, then we can hope with some justification that the crisis can be averted.
Mr commissioner, thank you for your report.
We are of course very happy that it at least appears as though the current crisis has been avoided, even though it would be an overestimate of Europe and the European Parliament to assume that the effect of today's session was so great that Saddam reacted to it.
I do think, though, that a number of questions remain to be answered, not just the fundamental questions you posed, Mr Commissioner.
Firstly, is it your opinion, Mr Commissioner, that the necessary unified European position in this crisis could have been established quickly enough? I am aware that that is not the job of the Commission or of the Commissioner, but I should still like to ask if you, as a Commissioner, could assume a common European line during all your discussions and efforts.
Secondly, how much, in your view, has the current crisis in Iraq to do with the situation in Israel? Is the impression correct, which you also may have gained, that the necessary solidarity within the Arabian area itself was not forthcoming because of the Israeli crisis and the opinion of many Arab countries that America had applied too little pressure in the days leading up to the crisis?
The third point that causes me and all of us particular anxiety is obviously the humanitarian aspect. However unacceptable this Group - and, I believe, all in this House - perceive Saddam's actions to be, just as it is not acceptable that monitoring controls were not good or effective enough, so too do we fear that humanitarian aspects, particularly those concerning children and health problems, are suffering very much under these sanctions.
I should like to ask you if it is your impression that essential humanitarian aspects have been included in the programme of oil in exchange for food, which you mentioned. Or should not indeed greater essential humanitarian aid have been forthcoming?
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his statement.
It is in fact an extremely strange, of course, that our Commissioner has to make this statement, as we would really expect the Council to talk about foreign politics in this House.
But the fact that a prelude is being used is welcome, a prelude of which our Commissioner is quite capable.
I am in actual fact sorry that this Parliament did itself not take the opportunity to take the initiative to move towards a policy.
There was a cautious resolution which supported the UN policy - I think this would anyhow have been a good back-up - and also an inducement to the Council to start working on a communal position on Iraq.
Unfortunately Parliament has let this opportunity slip.
I think it is very important nonetheless that we as a Parliament have the courage in these kinds of extremely dangerous situations, to say what we think ourselves, not only on this one, but also on Cuba and other issues, to give a signal from Europe, if nothing else.
I assume that on this kind of issue we should be able to come to agreement.
My question on Iraq, which is a state with an exceedingly criminal government, is whether it is not our responsibility to say something about it, particularly because peace in the Middle East is threatened by it.
When I hear the Israelis say, we live on only a small strip of land; a few bombs, a few long range missiles with biological and chemical weapons of the kind being developed in Iraq, and we would have had it; then we should take these noises seriously.
Furthermore, it would not have been the first time Europe, too, might be threatened by long range missiles.
It was mentioned earlier that from the Serb Republic Scud missiles can easily reach Rome.
In time this will also be possible from Iraq, so it concerns us directly.
Mr President, I would like to ask you: has enough been done in the field of foreign trade measures to prevent Europe also giving succour to the production of biological and chemical weapons in Iraq? Have you looked at this in the recent past; and would you please reply to this?
Secondly, the humanitarian aspect.
This has surely always been possible.
It is only really Saddam who is stopping humanitarian aid reaching his people.
Is there not the danger that if we direct all our energies to the humanitarian aspect, this aid will end up in the hands of Saddam and his army, and not in the hands of the people, who are at the heart of this?
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, thank you very much for your statement.
I would like to start by completely agreeing with Mr Oostlander and I would like to add that I find it is extremely regrettable that the two large groups in this Parliament have clearly rejected their actions from within this Parliament.
As the Commissioner said: Saddam Hussein appears to have accepted that UNSCOM will continue the investigation with the Americans.
This must have been the result of negotiations between the 5 permanent members of the Security Council and that is a welcome and necessary outcome of the conflict.
Does the Commissioner perhaps have any more background information on this agreement, and can he confirm that in exchange no concessions have been made to Saddam? Obviously the credibility of the entire UN system is at stake.
For years UNSCOM has been destroying weapons of mass destruction and the investigation is being constantly obstructed.
Straightforwardness, Mr President, should and must be the only answer.
The thought alone of concessions to Saddam is unacceptable.
Saddam must implement Resolution 687 without delay.
After that he may be able to a look forward to the sanctions being lifted, but not before.
Saddam can arrange for the often quoted light at the end of the tunnel by not obstructing the investigation any further.
Once that has happened, the destitute Iraqi citizens who are being held hostage by Saddam will experience an improvement in their lot.
The international community, Mr President, must act as one.
An empty slogan, perhaps.
For that matter, unilateral action by the United States would not provide the answer, even though Saddam may have hoped for it.
But nor should economic interest in the short term break this unanimity.
Can the Commissioner finally indicate whether there was European harmony, for instance, when they took their position in the United Nations, as is required by the Treaty of Maastricht? And if so, what was the result of all these efforts?
And if not, why not?
Mr President, at the eleventh hour the apparent temporary solution to the Iraqi/United States crisis has avoided a tragedy of major dimensions for the Iraqi people, that is, a prolonged air bombing and missile offensive by the United States armed forces.
We cannot but express our deeply-felt relief for such an apparent solution and our thanks to those members of the Security Council of the United Nations who worked against time to restore the UNSCOM role in Iraq and to avoid further bloodshed.
On this side of the House we nurture no sympathy for the Baghdad dictator and his desperate gambles with the lives of his people.
At the same time we cannot accept a return to the status quo ante and endless prolongation of the most cruel and senseless sanctions which, in less than six years, have led to one million dead civilians and to a veritable slaughter of the innocents at the rate of 4, 500 children a month.
The lifting of the embargo on non-strategic goods is overdue, as is in our view a gradual lifting of the oil embargo far beyond the arbitrary limits of the food for oil problem.
Enough is enough.
The European Union, shockingly absent and passive up to now, has to step forward and convince our American friends that this carnage must be stopped, that a temporary solution of this crisis could lead to a worse crisis in the future if diplomatic, political and economic alternatives are not pursued to replace the threatened use of B52 stealth bombers and tomahawk cruise missiles.
Mr President, like everyone here I am delighted both personally and on behalf of the Radical Alliance that right seems to be winning the day.
We owe this to the reticence of a certain number of permanent members of the Security Council regarding the military option, and possibly to an equal extent, to Russian diplomatic initiatives.
Be that as it may, and let's be clear about this, we have no special sympathy for the Iraq regime, not more so than we ought to have for the Syrian regime, for example. However it is clear that a peaceful, fair and lasting solution has five conditions: the withdrawal of the embargo which serves only to harm the Iraqi people; the relaxation of the oil blockade; which all too clearly serves only the interests of the Americans; the abandonment of the financial compensation due to Kuwait which Iraq does not have the means to pay as a result of the sanctions; also a clarification of the missions of UNSCOM which should not serve as a pretext for indefinite supervision; and a progressive reintegration of Iraq into the international community.
It is certainly not up to the Americans to say who should govern Iraq, but it may fall to them and to a European diplomatic mission, finally unified on this question, to create the conditions for a democratic evolution by using a more generous approach in a country where the leaders exploit a collective paranoia which we do nothing but feed.
Mr President, although this is a question which is a matter for the United Nations Security Council, and at European level, the Council and not the Commission, as you are responsible for the implementation of the embargo on Iraq on behalf of the European Union, I would like to ask you, Commissioner, if it is not time to look seriously at the basis for maintaining the embargo, which by all the evidence over the last seven years has not reached the objectives it was set.
It was supposed to destabilize a dictator who seemed scarcely affected by its consequences, if we judge by the recent expulsion of the United Nations experts.
On the other hand, this embargo, our embargo is overwhelming the population by its devastating effects on food supplies, care and education.
Will this determination effectively to imprison Iraqis improve our image in the region or will it strengthen the forces which are most hostile to us? Would it not therefore be more appropriate from now on to change our approach radically and to dissociate completely the question of chemical and nuclear weapons (on which the international community should exercise the greatest vigilance) from that of an embargo which has not contributed in any way to resolving the problem and which has only increased the suffering of a people?
Mr President, I welcome Commissioner van den Broek's opening remark that this is a UN matter and this is not necessarily the most appropriate forum.
It is important that we keep in mind that this is indeed a matter for the UN and, therefore, it is important that there be no doubt that Iraq has to comply with UN resolutions in every respect.
We feel relief that there has been - we assume - a solution to the problem.
Our relief must not be allowed to hide the fact that the inspectors should never have been expelled in the first place.
This is another example of Iraq's attempts to divide and rule: to separate out elements of the anti-Iraq alliance.
Will the Commissioner agree with me that the most important thing the European Union can do is make it absolutely clear we are united behind UN resolutions and we will not have any weakening of the EU position confronting Iraq? That is the most important statement he can make today.
Nothing must come out of this forum which implies any weakening of the resolve of the Member States of the European Union or that the dictatorship in Iraq will get any succour from the European Union.
We will reinforce the UN resolutions and we will stick by them.
Mr President, just like Commissioner van den Broek, one must naturally be relieved at the return of the UN weapons inspectors and by the fact that Iraq has accepted, in order to avoid further conflict with the USA.
What one does find troubling, though, is that this solution came about without EU involvement and that it indicates an increase in the role of Russia in the Near East, which has led to a weakening of the position of the USA as well as disclosing a splintering of Europe.
The crisis about weapons inspections which was initiated by Saddam Hussein has once more been symptomatic of weakness in the European Union's foreign policy, and has disclosed its lack of a common policy for foreign affairs and security.
I am aware that sanctions against Iraq and the Iraqi question fall primarily within the competence of the United Nations, but it would have been really useful for the EU to show solidarity in this as well.
I very much regret that the European Parliament was not in a position to act as a sort of flanking measure by passing a joint resolution, and I am very thankful that the Commissioner has taken this up today in his explanation.
One must be aware, however, that this was just an emergency repair.
A resolution would have been a clearer instrument and would have emphasized the formation of opinion in the European Parliament in order to strengthen the UN resolution and show a certain amount of solidarity with the USA.
If we want the USA to show a continuing interest in our security problems, we should make it clear once more that we feel ourselves to be in a rather critical position vis a vis solidarity with America.
I do not want to repair errors in the inadequate American strategy, but my question to you, Mr Commissioner, is this: does the Commission have a strategic plan concerning Iraq which might prevent the constant repetition of such crises?
Mr President, while totally condemning the policies pursued by Saddam Hussein and the appalling violations of human rights, particularly against his own people, can consideration now be given, firstly, at least to easing the embargo in a way that will provide more desperately needed supplies for the Iraqi people, while maintaining total opposition to the dictatorship and efforts of Saddam Hussein to build his military strength, and, secondly, to seek to help end the fratricidal struggle between the two main Iraqi Kurdish factions - the KDP, which has been cooperating with Turkish forces - and the PUK, which has been in league with Iran, which is undoubtedly playing into Saddam Hussein's hands? Both those factions have sent delegations to see him, and this is a very great problem indeed.
Can we ask for actions on these issues, now that the crisis has at least lifted a little, in order to get a more permanent settlement, which will be in the interests not only of people outside but also of the Iraqi people?
Mr President, I would like to thank those who have spoken.
Let me start by saying that hasty conclusions should be avoided at this point, in the sense that the Permanent Five have made it clear that they hope that Russia's initiative, which was welcomed by all, will lead to Baghdad allowing Unscom to return to work in its original composition.
In other words, we will obviously have to see what the detailed response from Baghdad will be before we can feel genuine relief.
Secondly, I agree with those who have said that this is first and foremost a responsibility for the members of the Security Council.
That is undoubtedly true.
But when we talk about issues which verge on questions of war and peace then it is also obvious to the Commission that this Parliament would wish to make some comments about it; although, having said that, the Commissions does not profess to have any specific authority on the subject, but would like to participate in this exchange of views.
I endorse what has been said, namely that, firstly, such a statement could obviously also come from the European Parliament, from ministers and from the Commission, that there must be and remain one voice, and that Security Council resolutions are there to be implemented in their entirety, and that is something which cannot be negotiated.
The five permanent members initially agreed about this message as such.
If it seemed that there was some difference between them in the assessment of what means should be employed to reach that goal, then that is correct, but I repeat that it is most satisfactory that the five permanent members have now jointly made an intitiave, and are now apparently awaiting an answer from Baghdad.
In itself this is very significant.
What the possible relationship might be between this conflict and the situation in Israel, respectively America's interference in this, and the subsequent impact on the attitude of the Arab states - recently visited by Madeleine Albright - is extremely difficult for us to weigh up.
It is absolutely true that the situation in Iraq was and is all the more worrying as the entire situation in the Middle East is rather explosive at the moment because the entire peace process in the Middle East is stagnating.
And in any case it is worth observing that the United States, the American President, and the American Secretary of State also talk openly about it in the sense that they are very worried that Israel's inflexibility does not contribute to the much needed progress in this process.
On the subject of humanitarian aid.
Through Echo, my colleague, Mrs Bonino, has allocated another ECU 10 million to humanitarian aid for the period up until August next year.
I agree with those who say that where there is humanitarian need, Saddam Hussein himself is primarily responsible for bringing this on, as providing for sufficient humanitarian resources is also dependent on meeting the Security Council's resolutions; that there is also a resolution of the Security Council which states that $ 2 billion worth of oil may exported so that food and medication can be imported in return for this.
In other words, I do not think that any responsibility should be attached to the international community for causing possible humanitarian need.
For that matter I would like to point out that in northern Iraq where there is a specific humanitarian situation for which the European Union is also attempting to bring relief, the situation with the Kurds, and in particular Turkish interference over the border in northern Iraq is causing real obstacles, making the transit of aid goods extremely difficult.
Mr President, I would like to leave it at that. I thank Parliament for the opportunity to exchange views on this.
The debate is closed.
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance, pursuant to Rule 47 of the Rules of Procedure.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0946/97 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the permanent International Criminal Court; -B4-0951/97 by Mr Pettinari and Mr Manisco, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the permanent International Criminal Court; -B4-0960/97 by Mr Dell'Alba and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the permanent International Criminal Court; -B4-0961/97 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the permanent International Criminal Court; -B4-0974/97 by Mrs Cars and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the permanent International Criminal Court; -B4-0985/97 by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the permanent International Criminal Tribunal.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I would first like to say how pleased I am that our resolution today has been supported by six groups in this House.
I think that is a sign of how important it is actually to establish a court of law to replace the interim courts for Ruanda and Yugoslavia.
The United Nations have realized the necessity for establishing such a court, because war crimes and internal armed conflicts do not occur just in these two countries, but in many other countries where it is necessary for this kind of court to operate.
We have seen that with our previous courts we have legally been skating on thin ice and that the room for action of these courts has been very limited.
It is also important that this resolution demands that clear definitions should be established at the talks preparatory to the conference, which thankfully takes place next year in Italy and is organized by the United Nations for the express purpose of setting up this court. What is a war criminal?
What is an internal armed conflict? And it is obviously very important also that this court - and this should if possible be clarified in the preparatory meetings - can operate independently of the United Nations and Security Council, so that matters are not constantly blocked by these institutions for professional reasons.
A great number of important things have taken place here, and I think it is not only I who thinks that this is a first step towards controlling conflict in the future.
Large problems still lie ahead of us, particularly in view of the fact that throughout the world there is so far no ethnic group law.
We have only national and constitutional law, but no law that defines and establishes what the rights of an ethnic group are, and where they can be brought before a court.
I think the creation of this sort of court of law is a first step towards this enormously important right.
If we look at conflicts over the past few years we see that most of them were in fact conflicts between various ethnic groups.
I think this will be a great step forward and that we as the European Parliament should do everything possible to see that it is successful.
I realize that certain financial obligations arise from it, in order for the project for an International Criminal Court really to become established and to flourish.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, may I first lament the absence of representatives of our Council, since, as we know, it is the Member States primarily which should be in the front line of the last battle in the United Nations to conquer this first part in the reform of the United Nations. This in fact is the first reform to merit the name since the creation of the United Nations.
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen has already outlined one of the fundamental points which the Member States of the European Union and the Commission should insist upon within the scope of their responsibilities: the independence of the Court.
They should also insist upon its financial independence. We must guarantee the Court's ability to be able to act and act well in the long term, not just the short term.
I would like to reassure Mr Ephremidis by clarifying that we do not wish to open up the question of past conflicts, be it Cuba, North Korea or the People's Republic of China; the problem we face concerns future conflicts.
I would also like to invite my colleagues to start thinking about a later step we could take: the creation of a Universal Court of Civil and Political Rights on the model of the European Court of Human Rights. This would enable citizens throughout the world, at least starting with the democratic countries, to have direct recourse to a higher body through which to assert their rights which are often violated, even within the Member States of the European Union.
All experience with dictatorships and civil wars in the east, the west and the south, whether in the former Soviet Union or in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Chile or today in Algeria, teaches us one thing: war criminals and crimes against humanity must be prosecuted by the criminal law.
Immunity from prosecution is an invitation to further crimes and prosecution has a huge preventive function.
For that reason my group has for years supported the establishment of an international criminal court.
I should like to draw your attention, Commissioner van den Broek, to Figure 3 of our joint resolution, which deals with finance.
Two years ago in this House I talked myself hoarse in order to obtain ECU 3 million for the financing of the Criminal Courts in Yugoslavia and Ruanda.
This year we have been able with rather less effort to insert ECU 3 million into the budget.
I should be grateful to the Commission if it were to develop with us in future a system of financing, so as to secure the long-term finances of such an International Criminal Court.
Mr President, we all dream of an existence without war and other evils, but we must not allow ourselves to be satisfied with that.
A permanent war crimes tribunal could be a step on way to realizing our dreams.
In wartime, many people relax all of their moral scruples.
They may then perceive that they are allowed to commit crimes that in their heart they know to be wholly unacceptable.
An independent war crimes court is for those people who are struck by war&#x02BC;s worst evil, the evil that can run riot when all constraints are set aside.
The victim should know that even then there is, somewhere on earth, a court which can administer justice and which can restore to the suffering victim his dignity and punish the guilty party.
For those who perceive that war gives them the right to carry out acts that they would otherwise never have done, the knowledge that such a court exists may have a deterrent effect.
A permanent war crimes tribunal becomes a lodestar for respect for human rights, even in the life&#x02BC;s darkest moments.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the history of the world and of Europe this century is a story of wars and of war crimes, but only partially a story of the prosecution for war crimes.
That is why I think that with this motion we are supporting a basic idea that is absolutely essential.
We cannot accept that simple murder is subject to prosecution, obviously quite rightly and necessarily, whereas mass murder frequently goes unpunished and many mass murderers can go about their daily lives as though they were respectable people.
I think the few cases where international courts have been established to deal with war crimes, complemented by one or two private initiatives - think of the Stockholm Tribunal and others - are really not up to this dramatic situation, so that we are repeatedly confronted, even in Europe unfortunately, by wars and such numbers of war crimes that our claims to civilization are completely unfounded.
For that reason I fully support this motion, as does my group, even though there are obviously several problems.
I did not understand from Mr Ephremidis whether he was for or against it, since all his points were arguments against.
I think he was called as a supporter, however.
Whatever the reason, that is a contradiction that does happen.
Naturally he is right in saying that one or the other problem will arise.
Our international political system must and will change when there is the certainty that there are independent international courts who are obliged to prosecute matters, even if perhaps political considerations weigh against it.
Clearly there is the danger that political decisions, political compromises and even some peace treaties may be blocked when the one who wants peace has to reckon on being questioned before an international court afterwards.
I should like to raise just two points.
Firstly, it is naturally critical who can be called to account.
Here too the present situation is unsatisfactory.
Although underlings may be called to account, those who give the orders for war crimes by and large escape the consequences, particularly those from the political side.
I do not think that should happen, because it contradicts the spirit of justice to try the one who carries out the crime, but to ignore the one who initiates it.
Secondly, the duty of giving evidence.
I do not entirely agree either with the most recent decision that a Croat Minister is not even obliged to give evidence.
I think that when we have these international regulations it will have to be clear that anyone, regardless of his person, must be prosecuted, and anyone, regardless of his position, is duty bound to give evidence under oath before this international court.
Mr President, Commissioner van den Broek, ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of the fiftieth birthday of the universal declaration of human rights it might be appropriate to reflect on the further development of ideas on a permanent international criminal court.
All the same I have some questions.
The resolution mentions the progress which has been made with the ad-hoc tribunals on Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Well, Mr President, I have my doubts about that, because in the absence of the will to genuinely catch those murderers, they are being very selective, and that can never have been the intention.
It is not entirely clear to me how an international independent court will relate to the decisions made by the Security Council. Will the veto disappear?
How does it work? Nor is it clear to me which nationalities with which sense of justice will occupy the office of prosecutor.
Will all the inhabitants of the planet fall under the jurisdiction of the court? Well, Mr President, America has already lodged a waiver on this.
Why the EU should be mentioned as the major financier, when it involves all Member States of this planet, is not clear to me either.
And then there is the question of who will arrest these murderers, and when and how?
We are at the start of a process which needs to be developed, fine, but let it never become a court which is just a victor's court.
Finally, Mr President, in the context of war crimes during armed conflict this permanent international criminal court would finally, finally be able to drag Surinam's ex-dictator Bouterse to court.
Mr President, my group will vote partly in favour, partly against.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I am hopeful that the diplomatic conferences which are to take place next year, will open the way for a permanent criminal court.
It is extremely important that such a court should exist.
The experiences with the ad-hoc tribunals on Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia show on the one hand that their existence is of immense importance, but on the other hand that there is much room for improvement in the way they operate.
The establishment of a permanent court will offer the continuity and expertise which everyone needs in international criminal law.
A number of difficult decision will obviously need to be taken, and exclusions and claims to sovereignty should be out of the question.
It would be at odds with the impartial international rule of law.
If necessary, we will have to continue without the countries which are not and do not want to become part of it.
Concessions to obstructionists must be avoided at all cost.
Otherwise the court will turn out to be a blunt instrument, as happened in the case of Rwanda and Yugoslavia.
I depend on the Union and Member States working towards a strong, financial and political independent permanent tribunal, and if necessary contributing towards it, but as Mrs van Bladel says, not only from within the Union, but also from the rest of the world.
Mr President, as has already been said, next year will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also of the Genocide Convention; it will also have been fifty years since the United Nations' International Law Commission was asked in the United Nations General Assembly to come up with a draft, to prepare a draft statute for the creation of an international court for criminal cases.
So we are talking about an initiative that is almost fifty years old, and which over the years has been supported by the Member States of the European Union with a great deal of effort.
We are also expressing the hope that next year the diplomatic conference which has to prepare the convention and which has to lead to the establishment of this international court, will actually meet, and that, en route, the preparatory committees will be able to solve the remaining differences, including the kind of questions which have been raised by several of your Members.
It goes without saying, of course, that the European Commission, which will not take part in this capacity in these UN negotiations, at present wishes to refrain from making any bold statements on the scope of the legal powers or the procedural rules which might have to apply when such an international court is established.
But just as the Commission at the time wholeheartedly supported the establishment of the tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, now we too support wholeheartedly all action which might lead to the realization of this larger international court.
This is a long-standing ambition of a great many countries, and for that matter, of a large number of nongovernmental organizations which have contributed to keeping interest alive on this issue.
We are therefore still grateful to this Parliament that in 1995 to budget ECU 300, 000 for aid to non-governmental organizations who committed themselves to the establishment of a permanent criminal court.
The supporting activities contribute to the development of a European position on the issue, and thus information and awareness-raising campaigns for the public at large are therefore being set up, and actions are supported which are aimed at creating coordination and cooperation mechanisms between NGO's, the governments, the ad-hoc tribunals, and the United Nations institutions, whilst work on the establishment of the court continues.
To conclude, Mr President, I think that the basic motivation behind our support for the establishment of an international court is in fact the same as the motivation behind our support for the creation of ad-hoc tribunals.
There is no better guarantee for preventing these kinds of crimes against humanity.
There is no better method of prevention than to ensure that when these crimes are committed, they will not remain unpunished.
Mr President, as far as the financing of the tribunal itself is concerned, I would like to remind you that the Commission contributed from European funds not only to the establishment, but also to the functioning of the ad-hoc tribunals, and I believe that finances should not be a barrier to shelter behind when one wants to make progress in the establishment of this extremely important international institute of law.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0937/97 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on Togo; -B4-0949/97 by Mr Chanterie and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in Togo; -B4-0952/97 by Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the situation in Togo; -B4-0988/97 by Mr Scarbonchi and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in Togo.
Mr President, some days ago the ACP-EU Joint Assembly sat in Lomé, Togo.
Some incidents caused the meeting to be peppered with denials of human rights violations, although these had been proven by Amnesty International.
I do not want to go back over these facts.
But I would like clearly to point out that even if the government has made progress, for example in setting up a constitutional court, a magistrate council or a national electoral commission, this is still not enough.
If Togo wishes, as we do, cooperation to recommence, the elections in 1998 must be completely transparent.
All political tendencies must be represented in the democratic debates, including the opposition of course.
They must have access to the media, especially to radio and television.
The security of each individual must be guaranteed, and freedom of expression and to hold gatherings must be authorized.
Finally, the government must accept the presence at the elections of international observers and human rights representatives.
Under these conditions and these only will we be in a position to declare democracy in Togo to be on the right track.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have the impression that the process of democratization in Togo has become stuck half way.
It is advancing like the Echternach Spring Procession: two steps forwards have so far generally been followed by one or one and a half steps back.
In other words, the President of Togo and his government appear to be in a dilemma as to what course the country should take: full democratization, which would also open the door to rapid political, economic and social development of the whole region in this part of West Africa, or regression into an autocratic regime leading to political isolation and internal confrontation - which is already detectable - and also to economic and social stagnation.
A democratic opening would make the way clear, however, for cooperation with the neighbouring states of Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana and Ivory Coast, who are all already several stages further along the road to constitutional government, recognition of human rights and education of a pluralist society.
What is to be done? Our business rules for cooperation with Togo are in article 5 of the Lomé Convention.
We demand the maintenance of human rights, democracy and constitutional law.
We must constantly emphasize that the resumption of development cooperation, much less its expansion, is only possible if the Government of Togo meets these requirements.
The report by the two European experts on preparations for elections has now been presented.
We should ask the Togo Government to study this report very carefully and to implement its main elements.
The Government of Togo should now at last lay out the framework for the next presidential and parliamentary elections in cooperation with the opposition, so that there is equality of opportunity for both government and opposition.
We think there should also be an opportunity within the Joint Assembly or our Committee on Development and Cooperation to start some possible mediation action, on the lines of what we did so successfully in Mali.
Mr President, I would like to express my surprise, both personally and on behalf of my group, that the situation in Togo appears among the urgent debates.
Prior to the meeting of the Joint Assembly at Lomé, our Parliament sent a mission to Togo which found that the minimal democratic conditions for holding this assembly had been met.
So we went to Lomé for a week.
As far as organization is concerned, the Joint Assembly ran perfectly.
And as regards the democratic life of the country, we all held numerous talks with the government and with the opposition.
We received a general impression that things were developing well, what with the multiparty system and the freedom of the press, even if access to television still leaves room for improvement.
All in all, in my personal opinion, if the situation in Togo is fragile, this seems to be at least as much the result of a wish for destabilization by foreign countries as it is due to the longevity of the presidential power.
In fact, at the end of its work, the Joint Assembly rejected a resolution, although very moderate, inviting the Togolese Government to reinforce its guarantees of pluralism in the 1998 elections.
In this light, it seems to me that the inclusion of this question represents a double insult both to our Togolese hosts and to the Joint Assembly which appears to be disowned here, at a time when we have many other much more pressing urgent matters to deal with.
This is why I personally intend to abstain from the vote on the compromise resolution.
Madam President, I am speaking for Lord Plumb, who feels very strongly about this resolution.
He has had to return home because his wife is unwell.
I feel sure the whole House would wish Lady Plumb a speedy recovery.
He has been to Togo twice: once, leading a delegation as Co-President of the ACP, and again, for the full session of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, when he met the President, the Prime Minister, and representatives of all the main opposition parties.
He stresses that in Togo there exists a vocal and active political opposition which chairs some of the most important parliamentary committees.
He met leaders of NGOs, journalists and ordinary people in Togo.
An account of the mission has been published. He recommends that we read it.
Togo is emerging from a difficult political and economic situation.
While it is clear that not everything is perfect in that country, it is also clear that elections have been held, that opposition parties are active and participate vigorously in the parliamentary process and that often virulent opposition newspapers are sold freely on the streets.
One-hundred-and-seventy representatives from 85 countries have discussed this subject.
European Members have played a full part in the Assembly.
Lord Plumb feels that there is little point in this resolution before the House today.
Madam President, on 20 March in Brussels, I indicated on behalf of the Group Union for Europe that the particular features of the Lomé Convention were to be found largely in the contractual framework which it offers to the partnership and that this must be revitalized within the domain of political dialogue to ensure that our action is more effective.
In addition, I pointed out that everyone agreed that this dialogue between the European Union and the ACP had failed, when the instruments are largely in place.
In fact, I wanted to specify that for Europe the ACP group is not currently a real partner in the political dialogue, and that this dialogue lacks content and visibility.
The open debate since the Green Paper shows that our cooperation with the ACP has lost legitimacy both within and outside the European Union, this cooperation is also no longer unique when commercial preferences are subjected to continuous erosion, and the debate also shows that the ACP is no longer pre-eminent in our actions.
Faced with the growing concern of the ACP countries regarding the place we accord them in our policy of cooperation with less advanced countries, you will agree that this political coup de force on Togo is not likely to re-instil our partners' confidence, but will create a deep unease about the consideration we have for populations to which we owe a historical debt.
The Group Union for Europe has always held that development aid is dependent on respect for human rights and democracy, but regrets that certain political groups demand that our Parliament questions the result of a vote to which we contributed.
This draft resolution which has been submitted to us was rejected effectively by the Joint Assembly at Lomé on 30 October, in line with the internal ruling of the Joint Assembly, following a vote by separate college and secret ballot.
To question this result in the absence of the ACP countries constitutes a violation of the internal ruling of the joint Assembly which we initiated, and stems from a lack of consideration for our ACP friends. We in the Group Union for Europe cannot sanction this in any way.
Madam President, under these conditions my group will not support this behaviour and will make it known to all of our ACP partners.
Madam President, let us be honest, Togo is not Equatorial Guinea, Sudan, Somalia, and that why it is important that we offer a helping hand to it.
During the ACP-EU Joint Assembly I had the opportunity as head of the liberal delegation to have a personal talk with the president and four of his ministers.
The response to the questions which were in the Amnesty International report gave me the impression that the promised free elections would not be entirely free.
We did not offer any criticism, we only asked questions.
The Togolese Government is aware of this, and knows that article 5 of the Lomé Agreement forms a part of the postponement policy from Europe, and yet they still made it clear they did not want to carry it out.
Therefore the situation will have to be followed closely, and that is why I ask the Commissioner whether an expert investigation on behalf of the Commission has been made; and I would like to see the results of this investigation made public very soon, if only to help the Togolese Government, to help demonstrate that free elections in a democratic Togo can be genuine.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to explain why my group has not signed this resolution about Togo.
It is not that we do not support the text of the resolution.
We do: in fact, we support everything in it.
It is, rather, the process itself - the way this question is being handled politically - that is causing us a great deal of concern.
It was only a few weeks ago that a resolution with largely the same content was defeated and rejected by a unanimous ACP delegation in Lomé, Togo.
To now vote through a resolution that has virtually the same content would signal discredit of the ACP states and the ACP delegation.
This would not be conducive to the continuation of a cooperation which is at an extremely sensitive stage.
I was present in Lomé and know that there were several resolutions that were voted down, including a resolution about Nigeria, where one could certainly say that the situation with regard to human rights and democratic principles is much more serious than it is in Togo.
We believe that it would be extremely humiliating for the ACP delegation if we were to vote this resolution through at this particular juncture.
Mr President, the theory of control, which spread in Asia in the 60s, is repeating itself in central Africa.
It is no longer the Marxist logic that is penetrating the countries, destabilizing them and causing them to fall, one after the other, but a gradual and not as slow a destabilization of the entire continent.
After Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire and Congo, Togo is still today in a state of crisis.
And yet that region of central Africa gave the impression of making progress in the life of real democratization, even at economic level, by maintaining the prices of raw materials.
These positive aspects were rendered even more promising by the geopolitical situation of black Africa, which only a few years ago managed to overcome the anachronisms of apartheid and contributed towards the consolidation in South Africa of an awareness of an indigenous majority with the vocation of supporting the smaller countries, encouraging them and helping them.
Despite that, a constant and progressive destabilization is taking hold of that region, destabilization caused above all by the role of the former European colonial powers which are today too undecided between domestic political issues and continuing to play the old role of a tutelary deity.
The protection of human rights, the development of the population and the protection of the regions threatened by the crisis are therefore forcing a redefinition of the entire European policy in the continent.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, the resolution which we are discussing is bizarre.
It asks us to celebrate Children's Day on 20 November and to fight abuse, but the compromise resolution eliminated from this text the three passages of the resolution which I tabled on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party on the serious paedophile acts which may have occurred at the Clovis crèche which is a European Union facility.
There has been a conspiracy of silence for months.
Parents are left in the dark about what is going on and are even invited by the administration to say nothing.
They are criticized when they turn to services outside the Union.
Children who have suffered ill-treatment are not taken into care.
So what about the transparency of the European institutions? I am sorry to have to say it, but the Commission obviously wants to stifle the whole affair.
This is completely unacceptable!
In the reports voted on recently we condemned everything without reserve: paedophiles, those who keep pornographic pictures, Melchior Wathelet and we are not capable of putting these resolutions into practice in our own crèches.
I would clearly say that the commissioner responsible, obviously not Mr van den Broek, ought to explain himself whether he wishes to or not, in other words, either on his own initiative in front of the honourable Members, or before a parliamentary committee of inquiry with which we are filing the text.
If this does not happen, the press will take care of it and in fact has already started to do so.
It is not right to play on the anguish of parents and risks to the physical and mental health of children, and the Commission has been doing so for too long.
Madam President, on the occasion of the eighth anniversary of the signing of the UN Convention on Children's Rights, it is high time for the European Parliament to once again take a stand on a situation which is liable to take on whirlwind dimensions and to sweep away any notion of human dignity.
The statistics from Amnesty International and UNICEF are alarming and describe an appalling reality that cannot allow any one of us to sleep easily.
Twelve million children die each year from causes that could have been foreseen or from malnutrition.
250 million children aged between five and fourteen in Pakistan, in Thailand, in India, in Brazil and elsewhere are the object of cruel exploitation, working under conditions that are totally incompatible with their physical and mental capabilities.
In many countries, side by side with the flourishing market in child labour, there operates an equally flourishing trade in children's bodies.
While this is happening in the underdeveloped world, in the supposedly civilized West the sexual exploitation of children is assuming ever greater proportions, by means of international and multinational networks.
Travel agencies and airline companies openly advertise sex tourism.
The scourge of child sex abuse and child prostitution is a latter day Hydra spreading its tentacles, as the number of clients goes on increasing.
To address this situation the law of silence must be broken, but, most of all, there must be strict provisions for the criminal prosecution of travel agencies, of airline companies, of sex traders as well as of the users of such services.
The European Parliament today is sending a message of vigilance and mobilization to eradicate this modern-day outrage.
The European Parliament, the European Commission, the Council, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, international organizations and non-governmental organizations must act to take full advantage of all the powers at their disposal to safeguard the rights of children and to protect human values and human dignity.
Mr President, today, on this day devoted to the rights of children, we must again report on the terrible violence to which they are subjected.
Two hundred and fifty million children are at work, thousands of children exploited, terrorized by war, if not dragooned, and we must also add the children in the Western world who suffer terrible abuse.
The conferences in Stockholm and Oslo gave an alarming review of the situation and its evolution.
But over and above complete and unanimous condemnation, this day should also give us pause for thought.
Firstly at an institutional level, what should we think of those countries which have forgotten to ratify the UN convention on children's rights, which was adopted some seven years ago? These are sometimes the same countries that do not guarantee refugee children the security and protection which is essential.
And in this regard, we should once again deplore the fact that the European Union has not always included in its treaties the rights of children.
Secondly, we should reflect on the place we reserve for children within our society.
Democracy and development ought to have led to more education and a prolongation of the duration of schooling.
But the opposite is the case: throughout the world, children are wandering the streets, are put to work and even sexually exploited.
By the same token, now that progress in child psychology has explained to us their emotional and intellectual needs, how can we accept that there are more and more children who are abused, especially within their own families.
And in addition, children have nowadays become the privileged target of shopkeepers.
They are taken hostage to sell the products destined for them, of course, but also to sell anything and everything.
We have entered the era of the child as an object.
What is required for our society to regard the child as a person in his or her own right, to whom it is our duty to convey a sense of humanity, happiness and hope?
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, on behalf of my group may I express my pleasure in the fact that there has been such a general and clear consensus in this House about the role and rights of children.
I can say on behalf of my group that we fully support the contents of Conclusions 1-9 of the amendment motion.
As a German delegate I must unfortunately add an appeal to the Bundestag and Federal Government for them at long last to repeal the abstention pertaining in the Federal Republic from the UN Children's Convention, and thereby to create the conditions necessary for the harsh treatment of families and children generally found in expulsion cases to lose its legal sanction.
The way it treats children and children's rights demonstrates whether a society thinks might is right, or whether by its treatment of weaker members it shows the right of its might.
That must also apply, of course, to children in the Clovis Nursery, to which a child of one of my assistants belongs.
Mr President, a few days ago an eight-year-old child was brutally raped, then beaten and finally burnt; his remains were scattered around.
Three people were responsible for the crime, with instincts more bestial than human; three people who hid their baseness and perversion behind a facade of social respectability.
This is the latest in a series of episodes involving child victims, and torturers and their accomplices, whole families or isolated individuals or groups of senseless people.
What is striking is the climate of social conspiracy that surrounds these episodes and the fact that they only come to light after something irreparable happens.
Skilled psychologists, famous sociologists and eminent MPs try to convince us that this is not happening to any greater degree than in the past, but we just hear about it more through the media; however, this is a pitiful and awful lie as so many cases of violence to minors have never taken place in other periods of history.
The ideological assumption made by the left that any message relating to sexual issues, even the most contorted, has a right to exist has proved tragically wrong because not all those who receive it have the same cultural and social defences and not everyone has the same capacity to control their own instinctive impulses.
All the falsely progressive legislators who would have liked to free sexuality from the chains of hypocrisy have not only freed absolutely nothing, but as sexuality has taken on different but fundamentally similar expressions in all eras, they have only managed to ensure that the weakest individuals with limited inhibitions consider sex to be a consumer good to be obtained at all costs, even with money and violence.
The Press in Slovakia
Thank you very much Madam President.
I am very pleased to be able to bring you good news on this day, for once.
We have just received a communique about our resolution concerning the Slovak Government's measures against the Slovak press.
The Slovak Parliament has resolved largely to reject these measures or so to rephrase them, that we have the impression that a real battle for press freedom in Slovakia has been won here.
This is of great significance because it shows yet again that, if one really confronts a matter, one is successful.
That is our good fortune, because the Slovaks are one of the most likeable races in Europe.
They are good people who have suffered a great deal throughout their history, and yet still believe in their faith and their homeland.
Today they have a Prime Minister who follows a most unfortunate policy and, particularly with regard to minorities, behaves in a manner which we cannot in any way countenance.
That is why Slovakia has fallen behind in its negotiations with the European Union, although things would doubtless have gone better under a better Prime Minister.
This development at least shows that we are progressing in the right direction, and we can say that we no longer need this resolution.
As a result of our experience with Mr Meciar, however, we should restore the matter at once, were the Parliament's resolution not to be obeyed.
Let that be sign of good faith on our part.
At the same time, it should be a signal to the Slovak people that if policies which accord with our standards are followed there, the door to European Union stands wide open for Slovakia.
As a result, at least speaking on behalf of the first signatory sitting next to me, my son, may I say that we withdraw this resolution, but with the thought that should Mr Meciar not abide by his parliament's resolution, our resolution will be reintroduced in December.
Madam President, according to my information, the situation, unfortunately, is not as good as Mr von Habsburg has said.
Only one committee in the Slovakian Parliament has proposed modifying the suggested increase in the threshold rate of VAT to 23 % The rest of the Parliament would appear to be intent on voting tomorrow on the 23 %.
So, unfortunately, the optimism is premature.
I intend to withhold my proposal because it is important that we bring pressure to bear as the elections approach.
Journalists in the country are very anxious.
The government party could and should do something but so far we have heard nothing.
The formal decision in parliament has not changed things.
Therefore, I will withhold my resolution.
At the same time, I wish to ask the Commissioner if, in the light of the recent memorandum on the language situation, she thinks that the government's proposal to do nothing has taken Slovakia nearer to fulfilling European Union membership criteria.
We know that there is now a very precise language law at state level but only constitutional references for the situation of the different minorities.
Madam President, I would like to agree with Mrs Thors, because, according to the information which I was given very recently by the Chair of the Slovakian delegation, it does not amount to much more than what Mrs Thors explained just now.
It is therefore by no means certain that the Slovakian Parliament will reject the proposal to increase VAT on publications.
We must point out therefore that this is a form of tax which will lead to fewer newspapers and magazines being read - as all taxes are regulatory, after all -, and this is an extremely serious situation, not only with respect to freedom of the press, but also democracy.
Now I have to say that I have some difficulty, as our own Bureau of Parliament has just decided to impose all manner of restrictions on journalists.
You might almost being to think that it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black, but still, I would like to stress that what is happening in Slovakia is unacceptable, and that what is happening here is also unacceptable.
Madam President, whilst I do not entirely share the views of Mr von Habsburg, on this his birthday, as far as all aspects of his speech are concerned, I do agree entirely with his statement that we have had good news today.
I believe this is information which, as I understand it, comes from European sources and suggests to us that we should be sending a positive response as a result of this action by Slovakia.
We should be well advised not to put this resolution to a vote today.
On behalf of my group I should like to withdraw our signature from this joint motion.
If it does come to a vote, we in the Socialist Group will act accordingly.
I am very pleased that the matter has taken this turn.
It is a sign that in a country such as Slovakia, too, there can be developments in mutual relations in the most positive sense.
I do not think we should endanger that and have a detrimental influence on events by adopting positions which we are unable to alter at a later stage.
I should ask, therefore, for us to proceed accordingly.
Madam President, I can only agree with the previous speaker.
I am almost embarrassed to face Mrs Thors, because I always thought I was the hardliner here, and now she is clearly a harder hardliner than I am.
I think it is good news which we have just received and we should bear in mind the fact that the full delegation will be meeting next week with the Slovaks.
Having had good news we now hope that it proves to be true and that the delegation will get the opportunity over the next few weeks to debate it.
I also think we should reserve our position to return even more firmly to this point next month, should the news prove not to be true.
On this occasion, however, I should like to say on behalf of my group that we shall withhold our signatures and also vote accordingly.
Agrarian reform in the Philippines
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is interesting to see what is taking place out in the Philippines.
There is a Ministry of Land Reform - the European Union has participated since 1986 in this programme to the tune of tens of millions - yet the local Minister has nothing better to do than to redistribute back to large landowners land already given to the farmers.
Simultaneously one of the farmers' leaders, one Romeo Cortez, and Gaudencio Devaras, chairman of a community, have been kidnapped by the military.
The farmers were successful in using a hunger strike to get President Ramos to return the land to them on this occasion.
We must press the Commission to demand coherent policies in the Philippines.
I can tell you from my own experience working with landless farmers in Brazil, that a country can very quickly deteriorate in this way, or even be driven into civil war.
We can see that in Columbia.
Such conflicts are very vicious and we must insist that, if we are to participate with money, an end is put to this situation.
Madam President, there is, unfortunately, a long history of struggle for the redistribution of land to the poor and landless in the Philippines but its bitterness has not diminished over recent years.
The fact that the European Union has devoted very considerable funds to enable the comprehensive land reform bill to be carried out underlines the importance which we have put upon it.
Unfortunately, however, there have been serious setbacks to its implementation and the recent strike by 20 farmers in Manilla over the return of land to a large landowner illustrates this.
This, however, is only one of the cases of land being distributed and then returned to a former owner.
Another matter of deep concern is the disappearance of leaders of the people, R. Cortez and G. de Varez, which shows that there are forces which are prepared to use violence and prevent land reform.
There are also reports of torture.
This resolution is an appeal to President Ramos and his government fully to maintain the policy of land reform against all opposition and to ensure also that these disappearances are fully investigated.
All these acts should be stopped and every effort by the government should be made to counter them and those responsible should, if possible, be brought to book.
This resolution further calls on the President and his government to take action on other issues.
We are against capital punishment and we hope that the sentences of death imposed on certain people at the present time will be commuted.
The European Parliament has been deeply concerned to support democratic development in the Philippines over the years and we very much hope that our resolution today will be taken very seriously.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Malaysia
Madam President, recently another ten political activists were arrested in Malaysia on account of their Islamic convictions, and specifically on the basis of the lnternal Security Act.
This is the umpteenth example of lack of respect for basic human rights in Malaysia.
Experiences in Algeria and Egypt show that suppression is not the answer to differing religious beliefs.
The internal security law is a law which the Malaysian government clearly uses against every form of political opposition.
This same government has made several promises to alter this rigorous law, but this never happened.
At the end of last month big demonstrations had been organized by NGOs, including Amnesty International, to call for the abolition of the law.
It goes without saying that we support this call, and I believe that a democratic state requires an independent legal system.
The Union, this Parliament and the Commission must, by mutual agreement, try to raise the recent arrests with Malaysia, perhaps in an ASEAN context, and to plead for their release or for fair trial.
Chittagong Hill Tracts
Madam President, the problem of the Chittagong Hill Tracts is not well known, however it concerns a large region which is relatively well populated; this is a region which, we could say, has been somewhat abandoned by the world, and in which for long years, perhaps thirty or forty, in fact since the partition of India after the war, a problem has existed which has never been confronted with the desired strength and will.
The first use of this resolution is, in my opinion, to address a friendly invitation to the government of Bangladesh to resolutely confront the problem in this region, to "get rid of it' to a certain extent by according real autonomy - autonomy and not independence - to the population in this part of its territory.
These people have their own specific identity and traditions, and in resolving this issue, the government could perhaps devote itself more resolutely to other problems which affect its large country.
The conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts arose from the attempts of past governments to settle part of their expanding populations in the area in total disregard of the rights of the indigenous people, without respect for the autonomy which they once enjoyed.
The resistance of these peoples and the brutal attempts of past Bangladeshi governments to crush this led to gross violations of human rights of which the non-combatants were frequently victims.
Large numbers of the original population lost their lives and many of the survivors were forced to flee.
Thousands still languish in camps.
The present government of Bangladesh, the Awami League Government, has, to its great credit, sought to achieve a peace agreement and the seventh round of the talks on this is set for 26 November.
It is sad that the opposition parties in Bangladesh are opposing this because it offers the only real hope of bringing this terrible conflict to an end.
The basic cause of the problem is overpopulation in Bangladesh and the settlers often come from very poor families who hope for a better life.
We recognize this problem.
It is, however, totally unacceptable that the land rights of the indigenous population should not be fully recognized.
Refugees must be allowed to return on terms which enable them to resettle, preferably those of the 20-point economic package.
It is in the interest, not only of the indigenous peoples of this region, but all the peoples of Bangladesh that this conflict, costly in both resources and lives, should be settled and peace should be restored.
I appeal to this House to support the resolution and for the European Union and the Commission to do everything possible to monitor and to assist in the process.
Madam President, I should naturally like to thank the author, Mr Dupuis, and also Mr Newens, for the fact that they particularly mentioned settlement policy in this region.
I think there is a big problem here, which is manifest not just in this area but in many.
This is that the original inhabitants have a real right to their land; that is their culture, their life, the whole core of their existence, and just because they have no piece of paper to certify this current Bangladeshi law says that only those possessing such a piece of paper has a right to own land.
In most cases those will be settlers who arrive later.
In 1947 there were about 10, 000 settlers there who had not originated directly from the Chittagong Hills Tracts.
In 1977 there were about 100, 000, and today the number already runs into seven figures.
It is clear from this that a huge policy is being pursued in this direction, such that we actually have to say that it conflicts with basic human rights and that we as the European Parliament, which invests a great deal in Bangladesh, have got to make a clear statement in support of the Jumma people 's rights.
Silvia Baraldini
Madam President, it is with heavy hearts that we again raise our voices in defence of the human rights of a political prisoner in the United States: the Italian and European citizen Silvia Baraldini, ailing in the penitentiary of Danbury, Connecticut, after having served fourteen and a half years of a 43-year sentence for a youthful association with a revolutionary Afro-American movement.
Her incrimination and sentencing did not indicate personal involvement in acts of violence leading to bloodshed.
We read in the rejection of her appeal four months ago by the local Parole Board that she is supposed to have had foreseeable knowledge of the crimes being committed by her associations.
Note, not 'knowledge' but 'foreseeable knowledge ' - a very peculiar notion indeed of guilt by our standards of justice.
It is not our intention here to criticize or interfere with the judicial system of the United States.
The purpose of this resolution - the third in three years - is to ask our American friends to abide by the terms of an international treaty - the Strasbourg Convention on transfer of foreign detainees to their country of origin - a treaty that has been signed and ratified by Italy and the United States.
We do not ask for the freedom of Mrs Baraldini but for her transfer to an Italian jail where she could at least be visited by her 80-year-old mother.
We ask for an act of compassion on humanitarian grounds.
During her long detention she has been operated on twice for cancer of the uterus.
Seven years ago she lost in tragic circumstances her sister, Marina - a highly-esteemed official in the European Communities in Brussels.
Since last July her physical and psychological state has been deteriorating rapidly, while the rules and conditions regarding her incarceration are becoming stricter and more unbearable.
We ask the American authorities not to ignore, as they have done until now, the appeals and resolutions of this House, the mood and the emotions of Italian and European public opinion.
The transfer of Mrs Baraldini to Italy would not only be an act of justice and humanity but also a great contribution to that transatlantic dialogue that has dominated our debates in this session of the European Parliament.
Madam President, Silvia Baraldini's case has now become a symbol in the fight for the assertion, at international level, of the most elementary principles of justice and freedom and respect for human rights.
With every day that passes, Silvia Baraldini's life is in greater danger owing to an absurd verdict and an absurdly long sentence and owing to terrible conditions of imprisonment and psychological pressure.
With every day that passes without the problem of Silvia Baraldini's transfer to an Italian prison being resolved, the internal and international credibility of the United States and its legal system become more compromised.
The European Parliament is still drawing up the resolution that we are preparing to vote on the same request made in the past, a very simple request: that the Strasbourg Convention at least be applied so that Silvia Baraldini can return, even in prison, to her own country.
We hope that the US political and judicial authorities respond to a request for justice that is receiving unanimous consent in Europe.
Madam President, everything has been said.
It is not the first time we are dealing with the case of Silvia Baraldini in the Chamber of this Parliament.
It is to be hoped that this time our position will have greater success than in the past.
The new aspect is the extension of the prison sentence and the worsening of Silvia Baraldini's health: these are the aspects which, from the point of view of gravity, add to the arguments already recalled by Mr Manisco and Mr Vecchi.
For these reasons, on behalf of my group as well, I support the proposed resolution submitted by Mr Manisco.
Madam President, I believe the Commissioner has forgotten to make a statement on the Philippines.
At any rate, I heard nothing.
I should like very much to have some information on the situation.
My apologies, Madam President, but having read the resolution I had understood that it was directed primarily at President Ramos and not at the European Commission in its request for support.
That is why I had not prepared a response to this.
But I would be quite happy to read through the resolution while the next matter is discussed to see if there is anything which gives good reason for the Commission to respond.
But I dare not do so without preparing myself and being able to seek justification.
Thank you very much Mr Commissioner.
I assume Mr Kreissl-Dörfler is in agreement with that.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5 p.m.
Madam President, once again, devastation caused by floods is the subject of a motion for a resolution in Parliament's topical and urgent debate.
Storms in Spain and Portugal have again left a trail of deaths, injuries and missing persons in their wake.
Whilst it is true that this type of disaster is in general difficult to avoid, it is no less true that the effects of these floods could have been less serious if certain measures had been taken in time.
It is no coincidence that disasters of this kind vent their fury on the most depressed areas of the European continent.
Nevertheless, what happened in Melilla on Monday - when a 20, 000 cubic metre reservoir burst its banks - was the chronicle of a tragedy foretold.
Nine deaths and 41 injured persons, as well as incalculable material losses, is the provisional toll of this disaster, which, far from being the product of fate is the result of pure negligence.
At present, I do not wish to apportion blame, which in any case must be established by the Spanish authorities, but to use this opportunity, as both a Member of the European Parliament and a citizen of Melilla, to call on the European Commission to provide urgent aid for the families of the victims, for those who have totally or partially lost their homes or businesses, and - in short - for all those who in one form or another have suffered material losses.
Furthermore, I wish to urge the Commission to establish, in collaboration with the Spanish authorities, a rehabilitation plan for the areas affected by these disasters, and to make available the necessary funds for the reconstruction of infrastructure, housing and, in the case of Estremadura, the farming, stockbreeding and tourist facilities affected.
Finally, I wish to take advantage of this opportunity to call on the Commission to examine the possibility of revising Community environmental legislation with a view to ensuring that the obligatory environmental impact assessments are accompanied by an appraisal of the risks to the local population posed by operations affecting the environment.
Disasters like the flooding in Estremadura and the flood in Melilla could undoubtedly be avoided if the Member States' authorities and the Commission put more effort into fulfilling one of their most important duties: guaranteeing the safety of all citizens.
The Azores
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since our request at the partsession in Brussels on 4 November that Parliament send a message of sympathy to the people of Ribeira Quente, and our subsequent submission to the President of this House of an urgent draft resolution to take measures to alleviate the effects of the storms which have devastated the Azores; since that date, huge mainland areas of my country - the Alentejo, the Algarve, metropolitan Lisbon, Setubal and the Tagus Valley - have also been laid waste by devastating storms.
I regret that there are further deaths to be recorded.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the storms have left 41 people dead or unaccounted for in Portugal, apart from many injured.
According to relatively modest estimates, the losses suffered by private individuals, public bodies and businesses amount to over 10 billion escudos.
The tremendous human chain of solidarity between the people that immediately formed from one end of Portugal to the other, is something that deserves to be recorded and commended, and I would like to mention it in this House.
I would also like to express similar sentiments to the local authorities and their services and to the fire brigade.
We are today applying to the Commission for financial support in addition to the existing instruments, with the object of mitigating the effects of the disaster and providing support to the people caught up in these human dramas.
We are also requesting the Commission, and in my view this is the most important thing, to set up a system with the authorities in my country to provide financial and technical support and cooperation in technology and research to enable us to predict and prevent the recurrence of the devastating effects of storms which it is unfortunately beyond our powers to avoid.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, once again, and within a relatively short space of time, the autonomous region of the Azores has been lashed by hurricane-force winds and torrential rain, which struck the region at dawn on 31 October, causing particular devastation in the parish of Ribeira Quente, in the district of Povoação.
I regret to say that, apart from massive material damage, which according to our information represents a cost of over five billion escudos, we have to mourn 29 dead.
It is against the background of this sad fact that we wish to state the importance of introducing an article into the Amsterdam Treaty providing for the individual and specific treatment of the ultra-peripheral regions. The Commission should recognize the disadvantages and risks to which these citizens of the European Union are subject.
In that context, we appeal to the Commission to turn its attention to re-scheduling and reinforcing the financial resources already allocated to the recovery of the infrastructures which have been destroyed in the autonomous region of the Azores.
The fact that these situations have repeated themselves leads us to state that, in future, the Regis initiative should contain an element designed to make it possible to deal with natural disasters.
Portugal
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think the facts of these disasters have been related either by the press or by my colleagues who have spoken before me.
Naturally, I do not propose to go over them again. I would merely like to put together three thoughts on the matter.
As we have already heard, these disasters happen in the most depressed areas of Europe, whether it be in the ultraperipheral region of the Azores, Estremadura in Spain or the Alentejo in Portugal.
This shows that the European Union must go on supporting those areas.
Certainly there may have been negligence, certainly there may have been errors in the planning and development of the areas, but the truth is that there are infrastructural deficiencies which we must make good.
Secondly, it is important that the Commission should provide material support, because that is another way of showing solidarity with the people involved.
Solidarity on the part of the Commission will naturally strengthen the sense of being European and will make people feel there are other Europeans who stand with them in times of difficulty.
This therefore is a matter not only of material but also of political importance, and if we may say so, of solidarity.
One final note. We consider - and my group has already pleaded this case here - that the Commission ought to have a response mechanism for these situations.
This type of aid should be institutionalized, since it would make it possible to inspect the consequences of such disasters in situand also to take immediate measures to deal with them in conjunction with national governments.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, the serious and dramatic situation caused by the floods to a greater or lesser extent all over Portugal justifies the use of Community funds.
We now need to know whether those funds will be coming out of monies already allocated to Portugal by rescheduling the present Community aid programme, or with new, additional sums provided by way of emergency relief, or again by increasing the budget and, for example amending the framework letter of the INTERREG II-C Community initiative, as has been requested in the Resolution of the European Parliament.
The question here is whether, in the light of the efforts expended by the Fire Brigade, Autonomous Authorities, municipal councils, police and military authorities in their response to the disaster, and prompt action by the Governments of the Republic and the Region, the Commission can make no better response than a restricted and academic view of the Community rules.
People - and people are the reason why the Community project exists - will not accept it.
The Commission cannot afford to forget this!
In a disaster situation we cannot respond with technical rigidity, POs, QCAs, deflectors, PMs and other Community jargon initials.
Common sense and goodwill are VITAL!
Spain/Portugal/The Azores
Madam President, I wish to express my sorrow at all the human and material losses caused by the disasters referred to in the motion.
But I should like to refer especially to the floods that occurred in the Badajoz region on 6 November, causing 25 deaths and considerable material losses in the form of goods and equipment, housing and businesses.
At the same time, however, I should like to underline the admirable solidarity that not only the authorities but the people of Estremadura, and the Spanish population as a whole, have shown in the face of this tragedy.
It is therefore only natural that the European Parliament should take part in this solidarity by calling for concrete action to rectify this terrible situation.
There will be time later to draw up measures to ensure that disasters of this type do not reoccur, such as requiring all urban projects to be accompanied by impact assessments that take account of the possibility of flooding.
Madam President, the floods which have recently brought disaster to some regions, particularly in Portugal, are a cause for struggle and also food for thought on the policies we should follow.
When 41 people have died in Portugal and 25 in Spain, our first words must be of distress at their loss, and of condolence with their families in their grief.
After that we must, out of respect for the survivors, restore their living and working conditions.
It is to be hoped that the responsible national and Community organizations will provide the essential resources. We plead, as some of our colleagues have already pleaded, for immediate action and additional aid.
Finally, the grief we feel obliges us to reflect on the conditions that caused, or at any rate aggravated, the consequences of the storms.
It has become clear that means of relief in times of disaster are insufficient, because they largely depend on voluntary action by citizens themselves.
Apart from that, it is important that due attention should at last start being given to forms of territorial planning and development that recognize that you cannot fight against nature.
On the contrary, nature should be preserved and made to serve mankind in a proper way.
Madam President, Commissioner, it is not possible to put a price on the human lives lost in disasters.
And it is not simply a question of calling for economic aid to alleviate the effects of the disasters that are the subject of this motion for a resolution.
It is also a question of fulfilling our duty of solidarity as citizens of Europe.
In Melilla, as in Estremadura and in Portugal, considerable human and material losses have been caused.
The European Commission and the local and national authorities cannot remain deaf to the appeals of Parliament - the voice of this disaster's victims, who are demanding solutions to their immediate problems. And words of condolence and solidarity will not suffice.
A large number of people in Melilla have not only lost members of their families, but have been left without a home, or have seen their businesses and livelihoods destroyed.
What can be more important than that?
Let us - at least, the Members of this Parliament - avoid entering into legal or political battles which do not fall within our area of competence. And let us avoid increasing, with our hesitancy, the despair of those who are calling on the public authorities - including the European authorities - for the material and technical aid with which, in all justice, they should immediately be provided.
Madam President, I am sure that this was an oversight, but the Commissioner neglected to express his condolences to the victims of a disaster in another Spanish and European city: Melilla. Nor he did refer to the recent floods there.
Madam President, echoing what my colleague, Mr Hernández Mollar, just said, I should also like to hear what the Commissioner has to say about Melilla, which has also recently been the victim of a disaster that has hit the headlines throughout the media.
Madam President, I would be extremely glad to rectify that. It was an involuntary omission.
That surely makes the matter clear.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m., which is in two minutes.
Votes
Mr President, the Commission's action plan for the single market, backed by the von Wogau report, presents an extreme vision of an internal market with largely unified laws and taxation, without any internal borders, and a single currency, in other words a market in which the independence of nations has largely disappeared.
Furthermore, this unified market would have relatively vague external limits, since it would have to respect the EU's commitment to a free world market.
The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties had misgivings about the relentlessness of the European Commission in organizing mobility of the work-force between Member States, and in its opinion it wisely specifies that, of course, even if mobility can be encouraged, it is far from certain that people can be invited or forced to leave one Member State to go to another in order to find a job.
But this nuance must have been held to endanger universal unification and was not included in the final report of Parliament.
The Amsterdam Council on 16 and 17 June welcomed this action plan.
Of course it also suggested that priority measures must be selected, but did not say which ones, and approved the general objective which, it said, would require political support so as to hasten the adoption of legislative measures for implementation.
Yet this position is surprising when we know that the action plan includes measures as radical as the installation within five years from now of a new system of VAT, based on the country of origin principle.
There is even a staggering passage in the plan, where we discover that the Commission should be able to implement urgent measures against countries which do not meet their obligations by adopting sanctions if need be.
The strengthening of the executive powers of the Commission will contribute to the reduction of delays in solving problems.
This action plan provides for both the obliteration of nations in the face of the internal market, and then the obliteration of the internal market in the face of the world market, and all of this is accompanied with the discretionary power of the Commission to make countries yield.
In France and elsewhere there may be those in power who will subscribe to this, but I think that their people will one day ask them for an explanation.
The report contains a series of points that we absolutely cannot support.
First of all, we do not believe that the Member States&#x02BC; value-added taxes have anything whatsoever to do with the European Union.
Nor can we back general formulations aimed at reducing the taxation of work in order to promote employment or adjust the excise duties.
The report requires the establishment of three new European agencies and regulatory authorities for air safety, telecommunications and the approval of food additives and agricultural chemicals.
Setting up centralistic authorities of this kind simply results in the production of more documents without leading to any appreciable change in the actual situation.
Furthermore, we definitely cannot back the proposal made in point 12 of the report.
Creating a common currency for the European Union would also create permanent unemployment.
One thing leads to the other.
When the internal market was about to be introduced, it was stated in the debate that the area of taxation would not under any circumstances be affected.
Now it transpires that this area too is to become part of the EU&#x02BC;s regulatory framework, which according to the report is to include such things as harmonized rates of taxation and a standard rate of VAT.
I cannot back this.
The nation states must have the freedom to determine for themselves at what level the rates of taxation are to be set; this is necessary in part in order to ensure that the public sector can apply the level that the citizens consider is appropriate in the state in question.
Nor can I agree to the content of point 12, which unilaterally embraces the single currency, since I do not believe that EMU is to the advantage of the EU&#x02BC;s citizens.
The internal market should have come into effect fully on 1 January 1993.
This was not the case.
I agree with many of the criticisms made by the Commission, but note at the same time that this report clearly shows that the Member States are neither willing nor able to proceed so quickly.
The report is a clear example that the proposals about the internal market are not keeping in step with the wishes of the Member States.
The committee goes far beyond a mere free internal market by proposing harmonization of VAT legislation, common regulations for the taxation of capital and uniform regulations for the area of company law, introduction of the common currency and a common economic policy.
This I cannot accept, and I have therefore voted no to the report.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the von Wogau report, which deals with the effect and the effectiveness of theiInternal market.
The report is in accordance with the thrust of the Commission&#x02BC;s report.
The Danish Social Democrats views the report&#x02BC;s recommendations regarding lower tax on labour in order to promote employment as positive.
This is in accordance with the tax reform that the Danish government was able to introduce in 1993, which subsequently created more jobs.
The report mentions a reduction in the VAT rates for small and medium-sized companies.
The Danish Social Democrats do not agree with this position.
The Danish Social Democrats believe that the route to a better employment situation must be through further investments and training of the European workforce.
The trans-European network is cited in the report as an important element in the creation of an efficient infrastructure in the EC.
The Danish Social Democrats regards this view as a positive one.
Langen report (A4-0350/97)
The implementing regulations governing the EU&#x02BC;s construction products directive are essential in order to allow for the application of the Directive&#x02BC;s regulations on labelling and standards for construction products.
The Commission acknowledged in its report that it is a time-consuming task to draw up implementing regulations for the exceptionally large area in which construction products are used.
The technical specifications that the materials need to satisfy are complex and vary considerably from one Member State to another.
The report acknowledged these problems, but nevertheless invites the Commission to reduce the time-frame for implementation as much as possible.
I am absolutely in agreement with the committee and the rapporteur on this point.
Construction products account for a very considerable part of the EU&#x02BC;s Internal Market, which is not yet free from barriers to trade.
Faster implementation of the directive also requires flexibility and goodwill on the part of the Member States.
This fact is underlined in the report, and I am pleased to be able to give it my full support.
That concludes the votes .
Asylum, immigration and external border crossing (Odysseus programme)
The next item is the report (A4-0366/97) by Mrs Zimmermann, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision on a joint action adopted by the Council introducing a programme of training, exchanges and cooperation in the fields of asylum, immigration and crossing of external borders (Odysseus programme) (COM(97)364-9980/97 - C4-0427/97-97/0909(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the granting of asylum to political refugees, the acceptance of citizens from former colonies and the reception of people on telling humanitarian grounds are among the tasks which the European Union has undertaken since the Second World War.
Since 1989 this range of tasks has received a new dimension, because large numbers of people have been arriving in western Europe from central and eastern european countries and the states of the former Soviet Union for economic reasons.
Political action is urgently required.
The governments of Member States of the European Union have raised asylum, immigration and border trespass to the status of subjects of special common interest.
Member States are convinced that requirements in this field can only be met effectively and sensibly by joint action.
Although there is consensus on this, Member States are hesitant about relinquishing authority to the European Union, despite the many statements about it.
Previous agreements, particularly the Dublin Agreement, can only be looked on as a first, small step.
Major effort and the will to find a common solution are necessary in order to fulfill the ambitious aims of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which provides in the medium term for the so-called communalization of the subjects involved.
This common measure which lies before us can be viewed, therefore, as a sign that the Council and Commission are prepared to undertake further efforts in this direction.
For this they can be sure of the support of the European Parliament, which, despite the late consultation and short time for processing the matter, has been able to produce a complete and comprehensive report on the Odysseus programme.
It is important to us that Parliament's opinion is particularly represented at the Luxembourg summit and can be included in it.
It has based its views on the relevant Maastricht Treaty decisions concerning the European Union, but has always born the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam in mind.
The European Parliament, therefore, would value being kept informed in detail on the progress of Odysseus, particularly where one year plans are concerned.
It should also be possible for a list of priorities to be circulated, so that its items can be included in the one year plan.
The Odysseus programme sets new standards of cooperation between Member States regarding asylum, immigration and exterior border trespass.
The laws and procedures continue to be very varied.
The aim of Odysseus is to bring them closer together.
It is not the intention, however, for Member States to be brought closer by means of unified legislation, but by learning from one another by example.
That will take place at the level of the officials who have to implement the regulations.
They will not just become better informed by means of the projects sponsored by Odysseus, but will also learn how other Member States solve certain problems.
It is valuable, for instance, to learn about the laws in different countries on uniting families.
This can make clear that there are many valid solutions to one particular problem.
I am assuming, therefore, that acceptance of the European Union's existing legislation in these fields will spread after the training of supporters within the Odysseus programme.
Participants in the projects will then have knowledge available for use during the communication phase.
I would expressly ask Member States to use this opportunity.
It is much to be welcomed that countries applying for EU membership can also participate in the programme.
In this way they will be given specific programme information about the institutional systems as well as the legal and administrative systems of participating Member States.
This will, on the one hand, lead them closer to the standards of the Union, and, on the other, make cooperation with them in these areas much easier.
The regulations in Member States for data protection must be safeguarded in the practical application of the programme.
Only anonymous case histories taken from routine experience should be used in training exercises.
Officials taking part in exchange visits who come into contact with original documents must be bound to secrecy about their contents.
The Odysseus programme is based on experience gained from pilot projects in the Sherlock programme, which is now to be integrated into it.
During its five year duration further useful experience will be gained, and this is to find constant reflection in the one year planning.
Not only will Odysseus gain special value from this, but Odysseus and the common measure for protection of refugees also show that policies in these fields do not have to mean the destruction of Fortress Europe.
On the contrary, these projects mean there is a chance for officials to see once again that there is a human element to their decisions.
They bear just as much responsibility as any politician for seeing that people entering the European Union for political, economic or other motives are treated in a manner worthy of human beings.
In the one year planning, therefore, the Commission should ensure provision for training, exchanges, research - not just in technical matters - and the checking of forged papers.
Theoretical subjects, such as the rights of persons affected by administrative acts to information, legal advice and family unification, as well as, most especially, the rights of minors, must be covered.
Certain NGOs have gained special expertise in this, and that should also be utilized as part of Odysseus.
It is important, therefore, for ONACR and other inter-state institutions such as the International Organization for Migration to be encouraged to participate in these projects.
Europe sees itself as the cradle of human rights. It also bears great international responsibility for refugees' rights.
Odysseus is a programme that can play apart in allowing Europe to live up to these responsibilities.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Zimmermann on this excellent report, which was enriched by the collaboration of all the political groups, and whose subject, moreover, is an excellent programme: the Odysseus programme of training, exchanges and cooperation in the field of asylum, immigration and crossing of external borders.
For someone like me, who lives in a border area - to be precise, the city of Melilla, which we have just been talking about, and which is on Spain and Europe's border with Morocco - and who witnesses daily the problems caused by immigration from the countries of North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Odysseus programme is undoubtedly of particular interest.
However, the first thing that I should like to say to Mrs Zimmermann is that immigrants are not criminals. I therefore believe that it is wrong to talk about "combatting' immigration, and "combatting' the entry and residence of immigrants.
It would be better, in my view, to refer to legal or administrative measures, and leave talk of "combatting' for those members of criminal organizations who use and abuse human beings, charging them money to transport them to our borders and advising them to destroy their identity documents in order to put themselves in an illegal situation and thereby prevent or hinder their expulsion from Community territory.
It is therefore highly important to train officials in this field.
In my view, this training should encompass three things: firstly, technical and professional training to enhance their knowledge of all the regulations governing immigration; secondly, provision of the necessary material resources to enable them to perform their functions in border areas with total assurance and effectiveness; and, thirdly, ensuring the ability to settle cases with sufficient flexibility to avoid delaying the resolution of waiting situations, which can give rise to breakdowns in reception centres, or require humanitarian assistance - which, with the resources of local or national authorities alone, it is not possible to provide with the dignity that everyone deserves - and which can also give rise to undesirable racist or xenophobic attitudes if they are prolonged.
For example, human tragedies are being produced on an almost daily basis in the South of Spain, in which the victims are North African migrants trying to enter Europe who sadly die in the attempt.
This programme must facilitate cooperation between not only officials, but also private organizations operating in this field.
Borders are not desirable, but they are necessary.
There is therefore also a need to avoid adopting a populist stance towards this urgent problem.
I therefore believe that the proposed exchange of experience between officials, which have the difficult job of working in a field in which it is necessary to know how to combine humanitarian considerations with the application of the frigid regulations governing the different aspects of immigration, is very important.
And I shall not conclude, Mr President, without underlining the responsibilities of third countries that a share a border with the Union, which must abide by the agreements on this subject that they have signed with the Member States.
Mr President, first of all I would like to make it clear that our group will support this proposal.
It is good, given improved cooperation.
We also believe that the emphasis made by the committee is important, i.e. that the cooperation must expand and reinforce, and not merely maintain, what is already in place.
At the same time, cooperation is to be developed with respect for the individuals&#x02BC; integrity.
We must ensure that things do not occur for experimental purposes that we would not accept in other circumstances, e.g. the transfer of data in connection with Europol.
I would like this programme to be able to lend weight to the cooperation with the applicant states.
I am therefore pleased that Commissioner van den Broek is in place.
We have a huge amount to gain - that is to say mankind has a huge amount to gain - from a reduction in the suffering that currently exists in the refugee camps in these countries.
I am thinking especially of one camp in Lithuania which has been noted by numerous humanitarian organizations.
There are a thousand refugees there waiting to be dealt with in some way.
I hope that this programme will quickly be able to support the cooperation between EU countries and Lithuania in order to expedite their handling of the refugee issue.
People who would like to return to their countries of origin are not being permitted to do so because the administration does not even sort this out.
I therefore hope that Lithuania will be given priority, and appeal to the Commission to arrange this.
I am also hoping for major participation from those Nordic countries that are outside the EU but participate in the Nordic customs union.
It is my understanding that article 10 of the proposal makes this possible.
The improved cooperation must also include them.
Otherwise, perhaps we are forfeiting our Nordic customs union.
At the same time, I would like to address a question to us all.
This week we have discussed several programmes of this type, e.g. Fiscalis, Karolus, etc.
Do we always need an exchange programme in order to bring about the improved cooperation to which we have committed ourselves politically and judicially?
I also want us to revise the question of administrative effectiveness, so that we have more horizontal rules for those provisions that are needed for financial control.
But we do not always need to have them in detail in every single programme, as is currently the case, in order actually to comply with the Commission&#x02BC;s catchphrase less but better .
In conclusion, I would like to point out that there is, therefore, a need for further horizontal regulations for financial control.
Mr President, the Odysseus programme aims to promote unequivocal implementation of the European asylum and immigration policy by training and better cooperation between national public services.
More expertise, cooperation and uniformity are fine in principle, but unfortunately the treaties, resolutions and other instruments which have given shape to European asylum law over the past few years, not infrequently constitute a violation of the Geneva refugee treaty and of the European Treaty on Human Rights - international treaties the Member States are bound by.
Better implementation of this substandard asylum policy is not by definition in the interest of refugees.
And that is why my group has mixed feelings about Odysseus.
Still it has to be said that the amendments in Mrs Zimmerman's report are generally aimed in the right direction.
I hope that the Odysseus training schemes which will inform the civil servants in the Member States on the rights and responsibilities of the asylum seeker, will not ignore the contents of the asylum agreement or the relevant EVRM decrees, and that not only the restrictive interpretation of this by the European Union and its Member States will be an opportunity, but also the interpretation itself.
The European Union shows shamefully little interest in this guardian of the refugee policy; the Treaty of Amsterdam protocol was ample proof of this.
The Odysseus programme includes training in recognizing false documents, and I have a question about this for Commissioner van de Broek.
IS Odysseus going to tell the civil servants concerned that if asylum seekers have false papers, this will not mean that they cannot be genuine refugees?
And is Odysseus also going to make this clear to the civil servants which Member States are increasingly posting at the airports of the countries of origin of asylum seekers, as extended forward border posts of fortress Europe?
Then there is the cooperation with the candidate Member States.
It is fine that the candidate Member States are also able to participate in the Odysseus programme.
But there is a big risk that the EU partners will merely teach them how to act better as a cordon sanitaire for us.
My fellow group member Claudia Roth visited three Polish detention centres last year, and spoke to 122 detainees refugees some of whom had been returned by Germany.
All 122 assumed that they were awaiting a decision about their application for asylum.
But in reality only six applications were being considered.
The Polish document which the others had signed, was not as they thought, an application for asylum.
And we think of this country as a safe third country.
If Odysseus will contribute to improved knowledge of the refugee treaty in Poland, I will be in favour of it.
But something tells me that this is not the principal aim of Odysseus.
Mr President, some surprises first of all.
Firstly, in a text which deals with border crossing - external borders are understood, because in this situation internal borders should already have completely disappeared - the word Schengen is never mentioned.
We should recognize that what is bothering us is not directly linked with this agreement, but the agreement is however the point of reference at the moment in Europe, especially as regards the movement of people.
The second element which worries me and annoys me even more is the fact that in the great freedom of movement for capital, goods and individuals, it is human beings who seem to be paying most dearly.
It only takes a few seconds, even a couple of milli-seconds for a million dollars to pass from the bank in Stockholm to Sydney.
To go from Algiers to Paris, it will be necessary to go to the consulate a number of times, queue up and quite probably have your request refused after several weeks of fruitless effort.
It is this which should remain at the forefront of our minds, and the main merit of this report, at least for me, is to force us to reflect on and debate basic freedoms again.
If only here in the Parliament a large majority would mobilize to help ensure that these freedoms are protected, and if only the action of countries and governments were better coordinated, it will happen, and we will vote on it, of course we will be happy to vote on it, and, by the way I would also like to congratulate Mrs Zimmermann.
But it is here at home in our own countries where the battle will be hard.
Everyone knows the long road down which we will need to steer our own very sensitive administrations, which are prisoners to routine, and our civil servants who are often badly informed and constantly under pressure from their hierarchy to be the ones to prevent entry.
This is true for the Member States and may be even more so for those now seeking entry, whose administrations for decades have used the vast majority of their time mainly to prevent their citizens from moving.
As far as this report goes, with the exception of some clawed dragons with poisonous tongues - that was lucky, they are not here - of course a large majority will mobilize to ensure that these elements become properly coordinated and that we can do our work properly, but we must be aware that this is a long term undertaking.
This is the very beginning of a battle which we will have to lead in our own countries.
Mr President, before I go into Mrs Zimmerman's report I would like to say that I am pleased to be able to speak to her in our mother tongue, Dutch.
Her report deals with an interesting and necessary programme.
The ultimate aim of the programme is multi annual cooperation between the Member States' government services on asylum and immigration.
To this end, training, exchange of civil servants and studies, and investigation are proposed.
This is something we can fully support.
Cooperation in these areas between Member States has become necessary since the single market without internal borders has come into being.
In addition it is desirable for people working in this field to have a better understanding of each other's and the European Union's regulations.
Only too often problems arise out of mutual misunderstanding of each other's legislation, or because national civil servants do not understand the Commission officials.
By stimulating training and exchanges of this kind through this programme, the Union is investing sensibly in its future.
As far as the future is concerned: I am very pleased that the aspiring members of Union will also be involved in this programme.
This strikes me as extremely important.
The report contains a lack of clarity which I would like to point out to Commissioner van den Broek and the rapporteur.
In Amendment No 31 the European Parliament, without having been asked, augments the autonomy of the Commission in relation to the Council by increasing the said sum.
At the same time the European Parliament restricts the autonomy of the Commission with Amendment Nos 15 and 17.
Whereas the Commission has phrased the substantive elements on which action is to be based, fairly loosely, this Parliament has curtailed these with its additions.
What is the Commission's position on this?
Finally, I would like to say that I think it is rather indelicate that the European Parliament in Amendment No 9 on article 1 is already referring to the decrees from the Treaty of Amsterdam, and is asking the Council to take these into consideration, whilst this treaty has not even been ratified by the various national parliaments in the Member States.
It strikes me as an undemocratic attitude, and that we are running a bit ahead of ourselves, it seems to me.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Zimmermann has very profoundly explained the position o f Parliament on this common measure, so that I have no need to detail the views of the European Parliament on the Odysseus programme.
I shall concentrate, therefore, on looking at the question of asylum, immigration and security of external borders from a different point of view.
The European Union is a citizens' rights union.
That is how we always describe it in the insider circle which meets here tonight.
And so it should be.
The European Union should also, therefore, guarantee the right to asylum, unified at the highest possible level for validity in all Member States.
That means, though, that asylum law in the European Union has to be unified, i.e., it has to be communized.
The Amsterdam treaty provided for this over a five year period.
A unanimous Council decision blocked this, however, in the form of the so-called permanent national reservation, Mr President of the Council, but nevertheless, one is on the way to communizing the laws on asylum.
The same applies to immigration policy.
You may ask what asylum and immigration have to do with one another. If civil rights are to be guaranteed, and if victims of political persecution are to be guaranteed asylum, so that applications for asylum can be made in the European Union, then the European Union must declare what differentiates the politically persecuted applying for asylum from the immigrant who is not politically persecuted and must not be given the opportunity, or forced, to use asylum as a key to gaining entrance.
If we want to avoid undermining asylum rights because of a lack of acceptance, with citizens of the European Union thinking that asylum seekers actually do not want asylum, but just the chance to immigrate, then we must have an immigration law to protect asylum law, and it should if possible not be split down into fifteen parts, but unified.
Finally, if this is to function within the European Union, we need qualified security of the European Union's external borders, whose internal borders have already disappeared.
I have had an opportunity of observing the Italian External Border Security Service, which is very keen and highly qualified.
I looked at the Border Security element of the Italian Coastguard in the Bay of Naples.
They are all excellent officers and I asked them what they saw as their status there. They stared at me, not having understood my question.
I then asked if they were Italian or European officials - of course they are Italian: green, white and red.
Their reply was that they had nothing to do with Europe.
But that is not true.
Since Italy became a full Schengen Member, and the borders between Austria, Italy, and Germany were thrown open, we have been aware that well organized gangs of human smugglers - this happened only yesterday - land ships on the Italian coast - yesterday it seems to have been with 800 Kurds on board whose objective was not Italy, but other European Union states.
What is the significance of this for the other countries in the European Union? It means that the Italian external border has become the German border, that it is also the Swedish border, and the French border, or that the border between Finland and Russia is now Italy's border, because anyone entering the European Union has freedom of movement, once he has been accepted by any Member State.
We have a varying structure for external border defence in each of the States, however.
In the long term that cannot function.
We need unification of the external border defences.
Mrs Zimmermann made mention of this in her report.
The Odysseus programme for the training of individual national state officials is one important point, because the individual official, such as a Fin, must understand the significance of his job to his Italian colleague, and vice versa.
In the final event, however, it will be of no avail if we do not take communizing steps in those areas where the European Union does not need increasing cooperation between states, but its own European laws.
It is at this point that essential national interests are touched on.
This is why Mrs Zimmermann's point, about harmonization being unavoidable as a sort of follow-up to training, is one of the central messages that Parliament must communicate in this declaration.
Mr Schulz, I did not interrupt you in a speech which was distinguished by its brilliance and I allowed you to exceed your time. But I did not interrupt you for another reason also: you must be aware that I particularly appreciate the fact that almost all the colleagues in the Chamber at this time are among those I see regularly whenever I am in the chair.
These are things we should appreciate and I must say that, personally, I appreciate them very much.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report talks first about amalgamating the Odysseus and Sherlock programmes.
Amalgamating Odysseus with Sherlock is certainly extremely difficult, even with the help of gene technology, which is why I - though a fan of English detective novels - must talk about Odysseus.
For we are actually on an odyssey as far as asylum law in the European Union is concerned.
I think, however, that Mrs Zimmermann has pointed out the right path, not just in her speech, but in her excellent report.
I think it really is necessary to ensure that asylum law is maintained by the training of officers.
This asylum law can only be kept alive when its massive abuse and when illegal immigration are reduced and ended.
For that reason it is very important - and this does occur to some extent on our external borders - that we take measures to lay down security criteria for internal security, just as currency criteria are laid down for currency policy.
Austria is an example of where the mistake was made of joining first, and then undertaking the harmonization procedures which are now in hand.
For that reason we should, with the future membership of central and eastern European states in mind, lay particular emphasis on including these states right from the beginning in the training programmes.
These states are in the process of picking up Community standards with great effort, particularly in the field of internal and legislative policy, but obviously they have some catching up to do.
That is why it should be our priority in this long-term project.
We must see to it that within the European Union we come to look upon ourselves as a single unit - Mr Schulz expressed that very well.
Spain really does border on Russia.
Looked at in this way it is typical that a member from the southernmost country, Spain, spoke on behalf of our group, and I am a representative of the current eastern border.
We should ponder on whether we can in the long term leave the security of our external borders to the most Southerly or the most Easterly states, or if we should not arrive here at communal measures such as, for example, a European Border Protection Service, which would take on and Europeanize the positive experience of perhaps the German Federal Border Guard.
And so I believe that Odysseus could be a first step in the right direction, and I should like to join in the proposal by Mr Schulz that we must come to the next phase of European, Community measures.
Thank you very much, Commissioner van den Broek.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Future of the ESF
The next item is the report (A4-0327/97) by Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, concerning the future of the European Social Fund.
Madam President, Karin Jöns has done this House a great service.
It was a very illuminating report, which goes into considerable depth and detail on various problems, and puts forward some very interesting, concrete and, in some cases, novel proposals for the future of the Fund.
For example, her last comment about a reserve and keeping money back from those who do not execute it well and giving it to those who implement Community policy well, is a measure which the Commission should give serious consideration to adopting.
One of the problems in many of the debates in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs concerns the management and administration of the Fund.
Sometimes it is the Commission's fault but, more often than not, it is what happens in the Member States, particularly in states like Italy where there does not appear to be a proper regional structure and where there are all sorts of problems with funds not being allocated properly.
Indeed, in this week's report by the Court of Auditors - it is very timely that we should be debating it the same week - various areas of the social fund are singled out again for poor implementation.
Italy, Spain and Portugal are three Member States which are given a dishonourable mention by the Auditors.
So it is very important that we tighten up our act.
We must improve our administration of Community taxpayers' money.
The social fund is investment in people.
Many of the other funds - infrastructure and so on - are going to industrialists or large companies.
In these cases the individual has very little tangible experience of a fund, whereas a young person who gets some training and, as a result of that training gets a job, can see that some benefit has resulted from the European social fund.
So it really is a people's Fund - it is human resources.
It is not just young people: there are also many older Community citizens and, given the current demographic trends, there are going to be more and more of them.
For example, in 1992 32 % of the Union's population were over 45; by 1996 that had risen to 36 % and by 2015 it will be over 50 %.
Thus it is important that we consider the training of older workers, particularly when we have a flexible labour market and people will be going in and out of different occupations.
In the report Karin Jöns also touched on this problem of additionality.
This again was mentioned this week in the Auditors' report which stated that there had not been a proper definition by the Member States of additionality or cofinancing.
Obviously, this is another area which the Commission must address.
We in the United Kingdom have had considerable problems with this.
The former Commissioner Millan was very anxious to do something about this and started an investigation into the regional fund and other funds but it was dropped.
The Commission should take additionality up again and look at it very seriously.
We have this recurring problem of administration, which we must get to grips with.
Karin Jöns is putting forward in this report some very concrete and well-thought-out proposals.
I commend them to the House and I am quite sure we will vote them through tomorrow.
It is a tribute to the rapporteur that we are coming to the plenary with a report on something like the social fund and there are only about ten or eleven amendments to the whole report.
It shows that she has convinced most of her colleagues in the committee.
Many of the amendments are just tidying-up amendments and I think she will be able to accept many of them.
Madam President, it's such a shame that a report that involved such a great deal of analysis and summary for the rapporteur, has been somewhat sacrificed in the debate.
However, we are not underestimating the effect our contribution might have at this time.
Our thanks to Mr Jöns are inversely proportional to the moment and time of discussion granted us and so we are deeply grateful, giving a favourable opinion both on the report and on the readiness to accept several amendments.
Firstly, I would like to state and confirm that, for us too, this strategic role exists for the European social fund, a role that holds and will continue to hold respect for the new objectives laid down by the Treaty of Amsterdam, respect also for the forthcoming Conference on Employment, and respect above all for the drama of unemployment.
The rapporteur clearly states that changes are needed; but this cannot prevent us from seeing the favourable impact this European social fund has had on integration, particularly between the training and education system and the in-service training system; it has had a significant impact on the overall system of governing training policies that have been reinforced in our countries.
What the rapporteur is saying is this: the future lies in the changes, and these changes are those required by the economic, social and employment situation, but also in the management of the Fund itself which should be simplified and stricter.
The social fund is the only fund that is directly beneficial to people and against social exclusion and it is the only direct line, the only incentive we have to exploit the human capital that may enable us to incorporate both competitiveness and social guarantees.
For this reason, the social fund has to make innovations. It cannot be degraded to a simple financial channel incorporating other funds and has to maintain its characteristic as a place of experimentation and innovation.
It has to be used, as has already partly happened, to initiate new offers and to support new methods of training.
I believe that paragraph 10 of her report answers this objective and assumes responsibility for these new aspects.
It should be read, in my opinion, in the sense that, to support the policies on employment, it cannot be limited to professional courses, but should encourage and finance ways of intervention in which different means have to be used to achieve a specific objective.
The rapporteur very realistically dealt with the limited financial resources and their desired commitment, and the need to use them better; she also dealt with the subject of bureaucratic streamlining, cofinancing and, in particular, the reallocation of budgets; a gradual, rigorous procedure was provided for; aware that this paragraph might create problems in some countries, including my own.
We would certainly have preferred reprogramming within the State itself; I have to say, however, that we approve that paragraph as an incentive, because, although we can assume responsibility for the difficulties of decentralized programming that is sometimes laborious in some countries and should therefore be assessed for what it is it, it is no longer permitted to take responsibility for bureaucratic incompetence or for incompetent planning.
Madam President, maintaining the European social fund is of extreme importance for the social face of the European Union.
Be that as it may, a fundamental reform of the structural funds is needed.
A number of aims and initiatives in particular need to be simplified, with similar procedures for the new aims.
Mr Commissioner, I am delighted to be able to speak to you in Dutch, even though your are wearing your headphones, and am glad that as Foreign Affairs Commissioner you have to listen to a contribution from home.
I completely agree with the Jöns report and it is extraordinary really that this Parliament is so unanimous.
But it is a well-considered and expert report with good proposals on the simplification and efficiency of the ESF.
Reports from the Court of Auditors still show that a large part of the available money is not being used.
And in 1995 that amounted to approximately 15 billion guilders.
In addition there are many complaints about the slow handing-over of the European social fund monies to the eventual recipient.
This is not only the fault of the European Union, colleagues, Madam President, Mr Commissioner.
In any case not in this case.
It is often to do with Member States not passing on the money.
I think it is excellent, therefore that this report suggest that the completion of payment procedures should be simplified, for example, by carrying out it once a year, and thus the red tape can be pushed back.
In addition, the involvement of local and regional authorities must increase.
This fund must be applied - and I ask you Commissioner, to pass this on to your colleague Flynn - to the new challenges of which we have so many in Europe, such as the effects of the information society, industrial changes, flexible working patterns, and so on.
Only too often Member States reach for the till, and the Netherlands is no exception; I myself haven been involved as Chair of a regional employment policy board, and then you see that national financial problems are solved through this fund, that money goes to regular education projects, and that money is used to compensate for cuts to an organization like the regional employment policy board.
I mention these examples, as they are the ones I am most familiar with, but the same happens in the United Kingdom, Germany, and I should think it also occurs in France.
So I believe that the fund should be used for what it is set up for.
I hope this report will be passed unanimously tomorrow, that it will have a big impact on the reform of the Fund, and that you will give it your full attention.
Madam President. First let me thank Mrs Jöns most sincerely for her report.
The Group of the European People's Party voted against this report in committee.
These points were, however, removed or at least blunted by compromise solutions.
As a result I am not entirely happy, but at least the report now seems to be capable of receiving my vote.
One point worries me.
We now have different percentages, Mrs Jöns, for the reserves, for the payment rates, for the ESF as opposed to the ERDF.
That will make the Commission's work more difficult in future.
I think that it is inadvisable for Parliament to use different data for two funds.
I believe the expenditure of the ESF will in future be more important and have greater coverage.
Up to now the ESF has been partly successful, but there was a part which was less so. I must admit, however, that assessment of the various measures was difficult.
Nevertheless, the results must in future be better balanced and be presented more quickly, in my opinion, so that conclusions can be drawn without delay.
The ESF will certainly become more important because of increasing globalization. That is why I accept cofinancing so that the funds, which are essentially too small for 15 countries, can be increased.
Subsidies of 70 % or even 90 % must remain the exception, or we shall be unable to increase the funds substantially.
Finally I should draw urgent attention to the fact that the ESF must look more to rural areas and their populations, rather than conurbations. In my view, rural areas will otherwise become yet more depopulated, and we know the result of that.
Conurbations increase in size, and we must avoid the results of that - increased costs, more problems - by use of the ESF.
Madam President, may I, partly on behalf of my colleague Flynn, congratulate Mrs Jöns on her extremely well-considered and far-sighted report.
I can say on behalf of the Commission that the Commission largely agrees with the opinions of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment on the fund, and we expect to have a constructive dialogue within Parliament as the reform of the structural funds progresses.
The European social fund has been working for about 40 years towards a healthy, modern labour market in Europe, and generally speaking I would like to highlight the three main functions of the fund.
First of all, within the less developed regions it is an important motor for the improvement of systems, education, training and retraining.
Elsewhere in the Union, it helps Member States to better tailor their labour supply to the ever changing requirements of the economy.
And thirdly, and by no means least, it is tangible proof of the large amount of attention the Union devotes to issues concerning participation in society, and equal opportunities for all.
Points which are emphasized in the draft resolution.
It is beyond doubt that the fund will have to engage in these aims in the future, but within a different context.
In Agenda 2000 the new challenges it will be confronted with are laid out, and I do not want go into that today.
When we place Mrs Jöns's report in the perspective the Commission has outlined, we see four fundamental points of agreement.
Firstly, there is our mutual recognition that there is an essential role is for guaranteeing vitality and fairness in our labour market, or in other words, promoting both economic and social cohesion.
The importance of these efforts is underlined by the work that the Commission has done for the summit conference which is taking place in Luxembourg at the moment; but also for the implementation of the European employment strategy and for the guidelines for employment which will be a result of that process.
This will have far-reaching results on the European social fund in the coming period.
Then a second point of communality. There is the recognition that the challenges agreed by the Fund have both a horizontal and a regional dimension.
Mrs Jöns also pointed this out in her verbal explanation.
The European social fund is the most important form of support the European Union extends to the labour market policy of the Member States.
And in that sense it functions independently from all exclusive regional contexts.
Integrated regional approaches are necessary but that does not mean that the European social fund should be separated from its most important task: supporting the reform of labour market measures and practices in accordance with European employment strategy, and in accordance with yearly guidelines for employment.
Mechanisms which will guarantee this horizontal role in the next programming period, will form an essential part of the progress under which the reforms will be arranged.
A third common point is our mutual assessment that a strong, innovative and transnational component of our activities should be maintained, in particular via the new generation of Community initiatives.
We look forward to specific support for the new initiative concerning equal opportunities and for the measures against discrimination in the labour market.
And the fourth point of common recognition is that the way in which the fund operates must be streamlined and modernized.
Streamlining and modernization must go hand in hand.
There is a double challenge.
Firstly, finding the right balance between granting scarce public resources to the relevant authorities in a quick, flexible, approachable, but also responsible fashion.
And then secondly, introducing a partnership system with the Member States which brings with it the advantages of subsidiarity and democracy on a national, regional and European level, but also via the European partnership lead to a distinct extra value.
In our opinion the aspects of the new partnership must be as follows. First of all, more emphasis on policy development whereby the Commission and the Member States together are better able to benefit from the lessons from the past about improvement of the policy.
And secondly, a new definition of management and financial responsibilities, whereby the Commission will concentrate on cooperation with the Member States towards the strategic aims and to concur with them in an agreement which binds both parties.
This means more operational and financial responsibility will be left to the Member States, and for that it is necessary, as a guarantee of the interest of the Union in its entirety that a wide spectrum of interested groups takes part in the decision-making process.
Finally, on behalf of the European Commission I would like to thank the Social Affairs Committee and in particular Mrs Jöns for their support of the main points of the Commission's own proposals.
As I said, there are a few small detailed points on which the Commission would be delighted to exchange ideas once we have entered the phase during which our detailed proposals will be prepared.
But generally speaking, I believe that this report is an important step on the road to the development of a new vision for the European social fund during the first years of the new millennium.
Thank you very much Commissioner van den Broek.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, just a brief statement.
It is about the Minutes from the day before yesterday.
I apologize, but so as not to trouble our colleagues, Mr Pirker and I handed in a written note at the front during the vote to the effect that our voting machines were not working during the vote on the climate conference.
I reported this at the front.
I was told it would be recorded but it has not been recorded.
I would ask for clarification as otherwise I will not be able to sort these things out in writing but will have to rise to speak as some other colleagues have, but that takes up a lot of time.
Very well, Mr Posselt.
The correction will be made.
Madam President, it is with some sadness that I rise this morning to comment on yesterday's Minutes.
Yesterday I rose to refer to an inaccuracy which had seemingly occurred with my colleague, Mr Macartney, regarding an error, he claims, in translation.
Yesterday he claimed that in the original version of an amendment he had put down the words 'English beef' which had been translated in to 'British beef' .
This side of the House has now seen the original transcript which was submitted by his group.
It quite clearly said 'British beef' .
I do not know whether Mr Macartney is a closet vegetarian and is trying to ban all British beef, but I suspect in this case he has been rumbled.
Really, he should be apologizing to this House for misleading it and being economical with the truth.
Madam President, it gives me no pleasure either, to have to respond to that kind of comment.
I am not a closet vegetarian but I am a bit of a linguist.
I am also very careful when I sign amendments that I know what I am signing.
Sessional services can confirm that the original amendment deposited by our group used the phrase 'viande anglaise' .
What happened subsequently I am not responsible for, but we have confirmed it with Mr David Martin, who was in the chair at the time.
Sessional services can confirm that.
I hope we can put an end to this matter which is quite ridiculous.
Anyway, Mr Macartney, we are now on the adoption of the Minutes.
I am speaking both to you and to Mr Miller.
So we will make sure that the points made by each speaker have been correctly set down.
(The Minutes were approved)
Votes
Madam President, I should like to make a short statement concerning my report.
Those who were present during the debate last night will have heard why the Commission is not prepared to accept the draft amendments relating to the Treaty of Amsterdam which have now been adopted by the Christian Democrats.
I should like to state again quite clearly that my group has not given its assent to these draft amendments because the treaty has not yet been ratified and we cannot refer back to it.
It is a pity that they have now been included in the report because that is what the majority wanted.
But we have to go along with it.
It has happened.
However I should again like to stress that my group cannot accept a situation where we are referring back to something that is not yet in force.
Madam President, I heard you give some names out of people who are going to make explanations of vote, but they are not here.
Can you check that all the Members whose names you read out for explanations of vote are present? Otherwise, it has to be an explanation of non-vote.
Yes, you are quite right.
Mr Vanhecke is here, and has just informed us that he will make his explanation of vote in writing.
Mr Lindqvist has also just informed us that it will be in writing.
Mr Holm and Mr Wibe are here.
Everybody is here.
That's excellent!
Congratulations everyone - especially since you are making your explanations of vote in writing.
I think that next time you should do it orally, so that everyone will know that you are here.
It is a good thing that refugee problems are being solved worldwide and that refugees can be dispersed among several countries.
I am concerned that a common EU policy on refugees, asylum and visas may mean a tougher refugee policy and higher walls being built against the outside world.
I am extremely concerned that the requirement made in Amendment No 3 to the report - that the Member States should gradually establish a uniform and concerted procedure with regard to asylum, immigration and the crossing of Member States&#x02BC; external frontiers - will result in the European Union building even higher walls against the outside world and make it even harder for political refugees to find sanctuary with us.
I do not support the requirement that the EU should, through a process of supranationality, be responsible for the areas of asylum and immigration.
I believe this is a question that it is most appropriate to settle at national level.
However, I am, of course, in favour of intergovernmental cooperation within this area.
The aim of this programme - to promote the cooperation between the competent authorities in the Member States - is therefore laudable.
It is also a good thing that cooperation with the central and eastern european countries is being extended.
Wheeled vehicles
The next item is the recommendation (A4-0342/97) by Mr Kittelmann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the draft Council Decision with a view to accession by the European Community to the Agreement of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe concerning the adoption of uniform technical prescriptions for wheeled vehicles, equipment and parts which can be fitted to and/or be used on wheeled vehicles and the conditions for reciprocal recognition of approvals granted on the basis of these prescriptions (Revised 1958 Agreement) (9868/97 - C4-0467/97-96/0006(AVC).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement has a long title but it is also a radically altered agreement that we will hopefully be adopting today.
The Committee on External Economic Relations recommends that you accept the recommendation.
We accepted the report as long ago as November of last year.
However, in early January the Council informed us that it wished to withdraw its request for assent to enable the Commission's proposal to be revised and presented again.
The plan was successful.
The report that is now before us has been much improved.
What is the 1958 Agreement of the United Nations Economic Committee for Europe about?
In 1958 some of the countries represented in the United Nations Economic Committee for Europe concluded an agreement on the adoption of uniform conditions for the approval of motor vehicle parts and equipment.
I know that Mr Mombaur and Mr Malangré welcome this enthusiastically.
To be more precise, it is about the mutual recognition between the contracting parties of type-approvals for automobiles which have been manufactured in accordance with these standards.
The Commission's proposal provides that the European Community as well as its individual Member States should now accede to this UN agreement. I am very pleased about this as it makes clear that the European Union is also acceding to international agreements to a much greater extent and is entitled to vote as a legal entity.
However, for legal reasons it is the European Community and not the European Union which is to be the party to the agreement as the EU, unlike the EC, does not have an international legal personality.
The economic significance of such an agreement to the European motor industry is self-evident.
Since the agreement came into being, about 100 specific provisions have been adopted, encompassing all items of equipment and parts used in motor vehicles.
A revised version has been made necessary, among other things, by the completion of the European single market. It has also become clear that a set of internationally recognized legal structures is required as a result of the speed of technological advances in the motor industry and increasing international trade links.
The present proposal differs from the first one in three respects.
First, the role of the members after the EC's accession to the agreement is described in detail.
Second, article 100a is being added as a further legal principle to the European Community's accession to the amended agreement.
Third, an appendix, Appendix 3, which provides the practical details of the Community's and Member States' participation in the agreement is being added to the resolution on contributions.
In particular this motion makes it easier for us to give our assent today than a year ago as this appendix contains the request which we made jointly with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to the Commission, to the effect that the latter should inform Parliament in good time before the formal tabling of proposals for enacting the new arrangements.
In this way Parliament can make its wishes known at this early stage.
This procedure for the provision of information has been promised by Commissioner Bangemann and confirmed in writing.
Mr Bangemann keeps his promises!
This promise is now a part of the formal legal document and its quality has therefore appreciated.
To enshrine the arrangements in Community law the codecision procedure must be applied, in other words Parliament has to give its assent.
This guarantees our consultation rights, especially if we take into account the information procedure already mentioned.
Strengthening this agreement by means of a streamlined decision-making process and the participation of the EC as a member will significantly enhance its international significance.
Other major vehicle manufacturers will accede to the agreement sooner or later.
This will further improve the sales opportunities for the European industry and the world market.
We are giving our assent to an agreement which is necessary and worthwhile for Europe.
Madam President, I am grateful to the rapporteur for giving us the technical explanation behind this report.
The recommendation stems from one acknowledgment: that a widely recognized body of international rules was required in the field of motor-vehicle type-approval.
We believe that if our aim is to globalize not only the market in all kinds of goods, we should encourage international work-sharing to the profit of poorer economies and ourselves.
But we also want the globalization of human rights, social standards and respect for the environment.
Therefore, we have an interest in keeping this process working through internationally binding legal structures in order to build up confidence, reliability and transparency in economic factors and mutual respect worldwide.
That is why we support this report.
I have to say that after some initial reservations, I am persuaded by the rapporteur that Parliament's place in the scheme of things is ensured, and I am grateful for the work Mr Kittelmann has done on that.
I only hope that his confidence bears fruit in the months and years to come.
Madam President, this agreement, which dates back to 1958, might seem a little out-of-date, but with the amendments made by our rapporteur and the Commission, we can certainly accept it and say that it still applies.
This is also proved by the application made over this period of time: over 100 specific regulations have been applied without any major problems.
I wish to point out the importance of this revised agreement to the European motor industry and employment.
In the global competition between car manufacturers, particularly between European and American manufacturers, owing to the commercial penetration of the emerging new markets, the adoption of common, uniform technical standards for cars is all the more necessary, particularly as it allows us to define the parameters for a healthy and balanced competition; we also know how much this discipline is needed in many other fields.
However, we should take into account the fact that the European Union's acceptance of the revised 1958 Agreement could lead some countries, such as Japan, Korea, China, South Africa and India, and emergent countries which will be competing in the future, which have shown an interest or even the intention of accepting the agreement, to take the final step, but to do so in the direction we want.
Finally, in this scenario, the EU's acceptance of the revised agreement is vitally important to the European motor industry, which has started a series of joint ventures in many emergent countries.
Acceptance would permit a faster adoption of the entire subject, but above all would allow the European motor industry to withstand the invasion of American industry, which has not been the case other fields.
Madam President, Mr Kittelmann, imagine that you are a car manufacturer and are endeavouring to obtain approval for a new model of car.
Let us also assume that in your view it is a very economical model even though it does not quite pass the elk test in some safety aspects.
The EC's accession to the ECE Agreement would be like manna from heaven for you!
The Committee on Industrial Policy is of the opinion that accession by the EU would substantially reduce the scope of the codecision procedure in such sensitive areas as safety and environmental legislation and that the EU would be allowing its legislative powers to be exercised by an organization whose standards are less stringent.
The rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs said that the Treaty of Rome provided for the highest possible level of environmental and consumer protection, whereas such standards were lacking from the ECE Agreement.
It is a bad joke to believe the EP could prevent a sub-standard car, which is on the home straight having gone through the whole process, from being approved by withholding its assent, in other words a mere yes or no, as it lacks the necessary leverage to maintain a meaningful position, in other words codecision powers.
In order to take account of the reservations expressed by the committees that were asked for an opinion, the Commission has undertaken to provide the EP with advance information in confidence.
I have to admit, that is a nice gesture.
But why should an emergency happen in any case, particularly with regard to safety and the environment? The EC's accession obeys the logic of finding faster and better ways of penetrating world markets and forcing other countries to accede to the ECE Agreement.
So why should we make the entrance fee more expensive? And I suggest that we do not go rushing in first and then hope things get better.
Instead we should be calling upon the responsible authorities to reform the ECE procedure first to benefit the environment, society and safety and then we could talk about acceding to the ECE vehicle type-approval system.
In that case we would certainly drop our objections, quite definitely.
I just hope we do not get an elephant test sometime!
Madam President, before I start I would like to get something off my chest about the procedure in the Committee on External Economic Relations, which voted hastily on this report on 21 October.
The fact that six out of the fourteen members present abstained shows their great unhappiness about the state of affairs.
The report was put on the agenda one working day before the meeting, and the Members did not receive the amended agenda until the day of the meeting.
The report was not available until the meeting itself.
An in-depth debate, let alone a wellconsidered opinion on this report, was therefore impossible.
This procedure should certainly not be repeated in the future.
All this does not detract from our appreciation of the rapporteur's work.
We agree with him that, for various reasons, it is important that the EC enters the ECE agreement.
Growing international trade and increased competition from the Japanese and Korean car industry means the European industry needs to be given a fair chance.
By removing technical obstacles, exports from EC countries can be increased.
Worldwide participation in this agreement is extremely desirable, and the USA in particular should take part.
Despite US self certification, I hope that the European Commission will continue to work for that country and others to sign up.
Now that the internal market is complete, it is all the more important that community regulation and ECE regulations are geared to each other.
We would like to insist that the EC makes every effort to incorporate the approved community protection level into ECE regulation.
We are pleased that the risk that entry to the ECE would lower this protection level seems to have been averted.
Now that the Council has added article 100A to the legal foundation, we trust that health, security and environmental protection will continue to be guaranteed.
The EC can take care of this, because it will be given an absolute majority in ECE decision-making, and after further enlargement will retain a minority veto.
We hope that entry will lead to a more balanced protection of interest.
The interests of the environment, of consumers and of traffic safety, as well the interests of car manufactures in the Member States should be considered.
A Community approach has the added advantage that the interests of the national car industry will not lead to unilateral lowering of the protection level.
As far as internal aspects are concerned, the position of the European Parliament is interesting.
While as yet Parliament has no right of consultation with respect to manufacturing requirements and the approval of vehicles, after entry this will be replaced by the approval procedure for new ECE regulations.
As far as we are concerned this means that parliamentary control has been guaranteed.
Furthermore, now that we have been promised that the European Parliament will be kept completely informed by means of the modus vivendi procedure, we agree with the conclusion of the rapporteur that involvement of the European Parliament after entry to the ECE agreement has been guaranteed.
I am less convinced about the involvement of the Member States.
We share the Council's criticism on the European Commission's claim to intervene at every stage of the ECE negotiations.
Is it true that under the Council's decision the European Commission will act on behalf of the EC, while Member States will be able to speak in the specialist groups?
Entry into this agreement shows that the powers of the EC stretch a long way in the international arena.
The rapporteur has rightly tested this against the subsidiarity principle, giving a great deal of weight to the increasing globalization of trade and investments.
We agree with him that joint action by the Member States in the ECE framework has clear added value.
Madam President, the Commission first wishes to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Kittelmann, on the excellent report on this proposed decision.
The report provides a detailed analysis of the content and internal procedure to be followed, from the time the European Community becomes a contracting party to this agreement.
From a political and economic point of view, I would simply like to point out the growing importance of the development in international harmonization, not only with regard to industry but also from the consumers' point of view.
I think that, from this point of view, those who have expressed concern in this House will find this instrument provides a further guarantee, because I think that multilateral harmonization alone can provide a further guarantee in a global market.
The point the Commission wishes to make, but which has already been presented in detail by the rapporteur, Mr Kittelmann, relates to the procedure, and is a point that has raised doubts in this House.
To be more precise, the Commission wishes to confirm that, before voting in favour of the adoption of a draft regulation or a draft amendment, the Community should ask the European Parliament for its favourable opinion in the event of new regulations or in the event of existing regulations that are adapted to technical progress, and submit draft amendments to the European Parliament in good time for the current procedure to be adopted at committee level.
The Commission will also inform the European Parliament of all the stages in the procedure, particularly with regard to drawing up the work programme and the progress in work done.
In the sensitive sectors, such as that of polluting agents and noise emissions, the Council and the Commission have agreed, in the context of a declaration set out in the Council documents, that the adoption of measures in these sectors should take place, at Community level, in accordance with the provisions of articles 100a and 189b and that the procedure for the adoption of an amendment to a regulation will only take place after completing that process.
In this sense, the Commission has agreed to ensure that the European Parliament is involved in all stages of the procedure and in the provision of full and correct information.
All participants should make their contribution so that this procedure can be carried out effectively.
From this point of view, in the clear legal transition from joint decisions to other forms of cooperation, as required by this type of treaty, I think the Commission has paid attention to the involvement of the European Parliament, particularly with regard to the sensitive issues which, in my own sphere, relate to consumers' rights, pollution and noise.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the recommendation by Mr Kittelmann.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Like Peter Kittelmann, I think that we should sign this agreement.
The function of these agreements is to ensure fair competition in a market that is becoming more and more internationalized.
To do that, we must ensure that commitments made by third countries are respected.
I could not accept - and the industry could not stand - unilateral implementation by the European Union of the various agreements that have been signed.
The creation of the WTO, in 1994, will only have been worthwhile if it is able to ensure that the rules enacted are implemented.
In order to do so effectively, it now appears necessary to reinforce the legal instruments.
There are many examples proving unfair competition by some of our partners.
These irregularities, Europe's reactions to which often seem timid, have had serious consequences in every industrial sector.
Everyone can think of examples.
The European Union can sign any number of agreements, but must remain vigilant as to their actual implementation by all.
Europe must fulfil its commitments.
However, it would be prejudicial to anticipate their implementation and put them into practice before our competitors.
Cinema and audiovisual productions
The next item is the joint debate on the following six oral questions:
B4-0902/97, by Mrs Guinebertière, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on the Guarantee Fund to encourage cinema and audiovisual productions; -B4-0903/97, by Mr Monfils and Mrs Ryynanen, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the Guarantee Fund to encourage cinema and audiovisual productions; -B4-0904/97, by Mrs Pailler, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the Guarantee Fund to encourage cinema and audiovisual productions; -B4-0905/97, by Mrs Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the Guarantee Fund to encourage cinema and audiovisual productions; -B4-0906/97, by Mr Ripa di Meana, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the Guarantee Fund to encourage cinema and audiovisual productions; -B4-0907/97, by Mrs Pack, Mr Pex and Mr Perry, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the Guarantee Fund to encourage cinema and audiovisual productions.
Madam President, as Mrs Guinebertière said, the guarantee fund is nothing new to the European Parliament; its creation was indeed proposed more than a year ago, and the system is both simple and inexpensive, yet extremely useful to the development of audiovisual production.
So much is said about the link between culture and economics, that now is the time to show that actions speak louder than words.
Cultural industries create jobs, which was proved long ago, so it is sensible to encourage the private sector to invest in them.
But, as every audiovisual product is a prototype, the public authorities must accept responsibility for their share of the risk in subsidizing the cinema.
The cinema is not only a source of jobs it is also the artistic expression of our similarities and differences and is a powerful lever of cultural policy.
Increasing the subsidies given to the cinema means enabling European people to see, in the cinema or on the television, a reflection of their own identity, instead of being continually alienated by a foreign culture.
For all these reasons, the guarantee fund seems to me to be a particularly appropriate additional tool for the development of European cinema production.
Madam President, in Amsterdam, the Member States did not want culture to gain importance, and many Members of the House consider article 128 to be very inadequate.
The Culture Ministers now have an opportunity, in part, to correct that mistake, by finally giving the go-ahead for the creation of the guarantee fund.
Madam President, in 1988 the European Union's deficit on cultural trade in cinema, television and video productions with the United States amounted to $ 2.1 billion.
By 1995, that deficit had more than tripled, to $ 6.8 billion.
Indeed, the high growth in the audiovisual sector in Europe, with the creation of new channels, is mainly benefitting the United States.
The percentage of American films shown in European cinemas is still increasing and has reached 80 %.
These figures clearly show that the United States has taken the measure of the issues at stake in the cinema and the audiovisual industry, which are commercial and political issues.
The European Union needs to fight against American domination in order, on the one hand, to stop the influx of American productions, and on the other, to defend and develop its own cinema and television productions.
This is a real issue of civilization.
By mobilizing professionals from the cultural world, and relaying their words in this House, we managed to impose the acceptance of the cultural exception principle, in the GATT negotiations, which recognizes the fact that cultural works are not commodities.
It is even more necessary for this principle to be defended today.
It must be defended during the present negotiations on the multilateral agreement on investments, within the framework of the OECD, from which the cinema, television and intellectual property should be excluded, but also by introducing and promoting suitable, effective, legal and financial instruments.
The guarantee fund, which would complement the Media programme, despite its mandatory limits and financial inadequacies, would effectively help to encourage the production and distribution of cultural productions originating in the Member States.
On 22 October 1996, the European Parliament adopted the Commission's proposal and reinforced it with numerous amendments.
I consider it unfortunate that the Council has not yet reached an agreement, because of the opposition of some Member States.
The main aim of this debate and the resolution tabled by my group is to suggest to the Council of Culture Ministers that its meeting on 24 November should end in an agreement.
If the recent proposals of the European Federation of Audiovisual Film Makers are taken into consideration, it may be possible unlock the situation.
By adopting the guarantee fund, the Council would show its determination to protect the cultures of European countries and to stand up to the economic and cultural domination of the United States.
Madam President, in a few days' time, the Culture Council will decide whether to create a guarantee fund to promote audiovisual production.
This question is not entirely new, as the Council has blocked this decision, which is however fundamental, since 1996.
We are now starting to hope that the Council will finally let actions speak louder than words.
Let me explain.
Now that, for the first time, the Member States of the European Union are going to meet to define a common strategy with regard to employment, we should remember that the audiovisual market is expanding rapidly.
It represents a potential source of two million jobs.
Furthermore, it is a high-tech sector, at the centre of very important technological changes: the change-over to the digital system, the 16/9th, necessitate the development of a dynamic programme industry, if we do not want yet again to trail behind the United States and to put our cultural identity in danger.
In this respect, we can see that the Americans, whose cultural invasion we rightly dread, have developed an audiovisual industry which in export terms, is larger than their car and pharmaceutical industries put together.
We can but dream of a similar situation in Europe.
The guarantee fund would act as a booster, and would stimulate investment in this sector, where the risks are high, but without however - and this should be emphasized - placing a long-term burden on the European Union's budget.
It is even more discouraging to see the guarantee fund blocked, because the reduction in the budgetary envelope of Media II was to have been compensated by its creation.
Yet again, it is the European audiovisual industry, which will be the loser, and it is even possible to say today that it has once again been sacrificed to the Council's unanimity rule.
Madam President, one request and two questions.
We are asking for a guarantee that the fund will not privilege mass production but will favour, in particular, joint production for producers in countries with a small linguistic area, thereby disseminating it to citizens of the European Union.
We have two questions for the Commission.
Is it familiar with the text of the commitment assumed by the Luxembourgian Presidency and, if so, what is its position in that connection? Finally, do you think the Culture Council of 24 November could finally reach an agreement on the establishment of the fund?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I used to be the rapporteur for the Green Paper on support for the audio-visual production industry in Europe and that was a long time ago.
We set to work on three major instruments which were to provide this support, the Television Directive which has since been abandoned, the Media II programme which is going well and the European guarantee fund with which we are unable to make any progress as it has been blocked by the Council.
But this would be an essential requirement for achieving competitiveness and marketability to take on foreign competition.
We can no longer accept the promotion of small but beautifully formed arts productions, most of which are never seen in any cinema or broadcast on any television channel.
In Germany only every second cinema film reaches a cinema in any case.
They do not even make it to small arts cinemas.
This is the disadvantage of flawed promotion and it is therefore extremely regrettable that as far as I am aware it is actually Germany that is doing the blocking in the Council.
I very much hope that we can make use of the technical knowledge of film-makers, producers, bankers, media institutes and last but not least the film foundations and reach a different decision than previously.
Only in this way will it be possible to exploit the opportunities which have been described here and promote great cinema, mainly in the form of coproductions, of course, which is now the norm in any case.
We shall only have film in coproduction with television, if it is to be competitive.
It is a major growth market.
In the USA it is usual to provide venture capital, but unfortunately not in Europe.
We wanted to use this guarantee fund to make up for this deficiency and if we want fine words to become reality it will depend on this guarantee fund also becoming reality.
I hope the Commission will be able to exert sufficient pressure to achieve this goal.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think we really have to get down to brass tacks here.
In fact, what it is all about is the development of an industry which is of great significance for the future and constitutes in its variety and diversity what distinguishes the European Union from the other large blocks that exist in the world: its diversity, its variety and its creativity.
It is therefore important that the Guarantee Fund should take account of the minority languages and small-scale productions.
Small productions, Mrs Junker, do not necessarily have to be an unmarketable investment. That is an issue which has to be addressed at the same time.
Of course we need coproduction, of course we need promotion and of course we need the guarantee fund, because that is the instrument which is potentially viable and effective now, while many other decisions have fallen by the wayside.
In my opinion we also have to address the Member States like Germany which are keeping their feet on the brakes in this respect.
It is not right for a country to maintain that it leads the way in European development and then put a block on all the major portfolios. Employment policy, audiovisual policy, the list is endless.
This has to be tackled.
Madam President, like Mr Deprez, I too have reread the report written by Mrs Guinebertière last year, and I should like to quote from it, because I could not express it better myself. "There must be an alternative to a purely American view of the world.'
I am in complete agreement with this way of describing the problem and support all the requests which have been made by various speakers, to unlock the guarantee fund project, but if you do not mind, I should like to speak in terms of general policy, because it is too often forgotten that the cultural sector is perhaps the most privileged area in which political opinions can be expressed.
We are in the habit of saying to ourselves that, as far as the past is concerned, our European project is based on a common history and traditions.
That is true.
As far as the present is concerned, it is true that it is based on a foundation of common values forged by our history, but as far as the future is concerned, it has to be said that literary, cinema, artistic and audiovisual creation will surely be our most important tools for the exploration of that future horizon, which we call "European humanism' .
I believe that the problem is much more extensive, and is perhaps related to the crisis in the values of universalism, which are progressively becoming corrupted.
For I do not believe that democracy can be reduced to a vague ideology of human rights.
I do not believe that political liberalism is simply materialism without principles.
I do not believe that international exchanges can be reduced to globalization which has no respect for people, and I do not believe that universalism can be reduced to uniformity.
The loss of a sense of values in universalism is the direct cause of the increase in what must be called - for lack of a better word - ' identity-ism' , ethnicism, tribalism and the most medieval of religiosity.
When we have surrendered completely to an international wave of pseudo-culture, supported by unprecedented financial capabilities, reproduced by communications tools which have become imperative, and sapped by its own success, when, finally, the most extreme form of liberalism has given us the freedom to choose between Pepsi and Coca-Cola, we must not be surprised to see millions of human beings seek a different future by violently affirming their own identities.
Mrs Ainardi mentioned issues of civilization.
I do believe in the main, that in order to defend European individuality and diversity, the fight we must fight is the modern equivalent of civilization's struggle against barbarity.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5).
Madam President, I will not go down the road of religiosity followed by the last speaker.
I would simply say to Mrs Guinebertière, on my part also - coming from the Anglo-Saxon world and declaring my interest as someone who has worked in the audiovisual sector now for 35 years - ' stick it out, Mrs Guinebertière' .
You must never, never give up on this one.
I want to say why.
It is not because I believe this proposal is without dangers and difficulties.
The reluctance some countries have expressed in Council - and certainly my country is one of them - lie in the fact that there is a fear of waste.
There is a fear that a self-regarding circle of cultural elites would appropriate this money and make films which no-one would see.
I reject that entirely.
I think that if you have a guarantee fund effectively put together it should be a partnership between the private and the public sector, it should be on the basis of loans, not gifts, and it should be on the basis of a process whereby it can be audited and accounted for over a five-year period.
Let us see after that whether it works or not.
In my opinion it will work and I say that on the basis of my own experience of the television and film industry.
Many small films, and not so much in the English-speaking world but certainly in the smaller countries of Europe, simply do not get off the ground in spite of the immense cultural impact they would have because of the difficulty of financing.
They cannot attract the investment that is needed.
Banks, with a long history behind them of reluctance and scepticism in this field, simply will not go with this type of investment.
The only way they can be encouraged is if they themselves have some sort of secondary guarantee.
The whole purpose of the guarantee fund was intended to do that.
Any of us who have a passion for quality in this field ought to accept that with the enormous proliferation of television in the future the staple diet there ought to be the secondary market for films which will be made in increasing numbers.
Otherwise you will have trash television seeping back like the backflow in a sewage system to affect the cinema industry as well.
I would like to hear from the Commission if it is with us emphatically express the view that Parliament has expressed and the Committee on Culture has expressed in this matter, not just over the past months, but over years, whatever the temporary blockage in the Council may be.
Mr Elchlepp has a question for the Commission.
Madam President, I wanted to ask the Commissioner another question.
If the improved quality of the European film market is supposed to win back market share for the Europeans - and we have heard about the order of magnitude involved today - will ECU 20 million bring about a reversal of the trend? How would you assess the situation?
From a financial point of view, does the order of magnitude involved not make this a token gesture?
What can you actually do with 30 million to bring about the reversal of the trend in film production?
Can you tell me what your experience is in this regard, your assessment of the situation?
I understand Mr Elchlepp's concern.
The Commission's initial proposal was indeed ECU 90 million.
Nevertheless, we are now in a situation in which, with ECU 30 million, that is, with the scope restricted to small and medium budget productions, in the Commission's opinion we can take the opportunity of giving it some value as a lever, the value of at least starting the procedure.
In that respect, the question is whether or not half a loaf is better than no bread, and in some ways, you might think that it is not worth it.
The Commission, on the other hand, considers that even if the budget is small, the fact that it exists is important, because it will open the door to the procedure and will at least provide some leverage for, let us hope, a more adequate initiative in the future in the field of audiovisual production.
We note the enthusiastic support of the Commission and Mrs Bonino, and thank her for it.
The joint debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote and I put to the vote a joint motion for a resolution on behalf of seven political groups.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Antarctic fisheries
The next item is the report (A4-0315/97) by Ms McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation laying down certain conservation and control measures applicable to fishing activities in the Antarctic and replacing Regulation (EC) No 2113/96 of 25 October 1996 (COM(97)0213 - C4-0285/97-97/0135(CNS)).
Madam President, the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) is the management body responsible for fisheries in the Antarctic Ocean, excluding marine mammals.
The Commission, which includes seven Member States of the European Union, met on 21 October and continued its work until 2 November in Hobart, Australia. The decisions taken at that meeting form the basis of for the present Commission proposal.
The measures are generally applicable within the scope of the CCAMLR and have been the object of several amendments including, in particular, quota changes to existing and new fisheries.
Several other relatively minor changes were made, such as to the internal EU procedure for authorizing a fishery, increased observer coverage, restrictions on the method of disposal of plastic wastes from fishing vessels and to the technical description of required longline fishing equipment to avoid seabird bycatch.
Many of the decisions taken during the course of the meeting relate to the opening of nine new fisheries and mainlyinvolve the toothfish.
The Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources is proud of its conservation ethics and its support for a precautionary approach, and provides for a procedure to be completed prior to issuing the authorization for a new fishery.
Only after the CCAMLR has given its approval and the total allowable catches (TACs) have been adopted is it possible for the fishery to open.
During the year, however, the simultaneous opening of many fisheries was proposed in different regions close to the Antarctic continent.
In view of the considerable amount of illegal fishing and its gradual increase, several members of the CCAMLR recommended adopting an attitude of greater precaution when examining applications.
During the course of the year, the Scientific Committee recommended the adoption of significant TACs for these new fisheries, for volumes of 1, 980 or 2, 000 tonnes depending on the regions.
A further significant amendment related to the tooth fish TAC around the Heard and McDonald islands, which has increased to 12 times the amount, from 297 to 3, 800 tonnes.
With regard to the fixing of TACs, the approach adopted by the CCAMLR in 1996 does not seem to be inspired by principles of precaution, in our opinion.
It would appear that the organization is now subject to increasing pressures to authorize fishing before making rigorous scientific analyses and implementing adequate control measures.
Illegal fishing is without doubt the main problem faced by the CCAMLR.
It is a serious threat both to the fish stocks, currently and in particular the toothfish, and to the credibility of the Committee.
Illegal fishing takes various forms: fishing vessels authorized to fish, but committing violations; fishing vessels flying the flag of a member country of the CCAMLR conducting their business with no fishing licence, thus committing a serious violation; and, finally, fishing vessels flying the flag of non-member countries of the CCAMLR fishing without any restrictions.
The European Union is interested both in the actions of vessels of its Member States and in those of vessels flying the flag of other countries, but owned by EU companies.
The situation is so serious that, according to reliable estimates, the total illegal catches equal or even exceed the permitted catches.
Since in the rest of the world the stocks are the object of ever greater impoverishment and the fishing capacity is constantly increasing, it is quite likely that an ever increasing part of the fishing effort is concentrated on the Antarctic Ocean.
The situation is further exacerbated by the high price offered for the toothfish.
For many years, the CCAMLR was able to put its principles into practice.
However, to resolve the current crisis in the fishing sector recorded in other regions, characterized by depleted stocks, the CCAMLR will need a spirit of cooperation and determination, as the situation makes the adoption of far harder decisions than those approved during the 1996 meeting inevitable in the near future.
Madam President, I would like to thank my old friend Mr Ripa di Meana for his presentation this morning.
It raises an interesting point about parliamentary procedure.
The rapporteur is meant to represent the committee responsible for the report and here we have Mr Ripa di Meana representing a rapporteur who has not asked the committee itself to find a substitute.
It is wrong for a political group to present a report on behalf of a committee when it should be another representative of the committee itself.
Could this rule be clarified at some point by the presidency?
Mr Provan, I think that there have been many precedents.
We can, of course, in future, consider how things should be done formally.
And if the procedure has not been observed, we can take steps to ensure that it is observed in future.
Having said that, I am sure you know that there have been many precedents, particularly with regard to reports submitted on Friday mornings, which cause problems when the rapporteur has other commitments.
Madam President, the fishing that goes on in a continent that feels so far away from where we are is unfortunately a good example of how easily we can forget the ecological effects of fishing.
Ms McKenna's report describes the dangers to marine birds from fishing tackle.
Species are being threatened partly as a result of being trapped in fishing nets.
There are detailed codes of practice for trawlers to protect the welfare of marine birds, but whether or not these rules are being observed is another thing.
There is no legal enforcement in the region.
There are scientific reports on the situation but they very likely cannot be used in law against vessels which have violated the rules.
Methods of countering illegal fishing seem just as ineffective.
With general reference to the fisheries agreements, the means whereby the Council and the Commission have again reviewed the agreements are not acceptable.
The Council gives its support for, and the Commission implements, using its influence, economic decisions without lending an ear to any other budgetary authority.
The Committee on Budgets and the European Parliament have often opposed this kind of approach.
Negotiations to review the procedures should commence right away so that the European Parliament can be properly heard.
Could I go on to say that while the EU spends hundreds of millions a year on different fisheries agreements, though just a few southern Member States make use of them, I think it is legitimate to wonder why there is such a high cost-gain ratio relating to fishing opportunities achieved and the cost of economic assistance to be paid out of Community funds.
Madam President, earlier this year in February I was privileged enough to go to New Zealand to look at some of the fisheries management that takes place very successfully down there.
While I was there I was introduced indirectly to the Patagonian toothfish in that, at that time on South Island, there was a landing worth several million New Zealand dollars, which was the most valuable catch ever landed in those islands.
It was being sold at something like ECU 2, 000 per tonne.
It was part of a process that has started over the last year of a large influx of major fishing fleets into the southern and the Antarctic area particularly targeting this species, which has become a fashionable food in the Far East, Japan in particular.
This is a species that has a very long life cycle and whose resources, once they have been depleted, will not recover, if at all, for many years.
The result is the destruction of another species in Antarctica and its waters, which has a very fragile environment and, ironically, where the world has decided to preserve the resources on land but has yet to make similar decisions in its oceans.
CCAMLR is an organization with an excellent remit in all sorts of ways, particularly environmentally.
However, as speakers have already said, there are huge difficulties in that area.
Firstly, it is a very large area of sea and ocean.
The CCAMLR effectively has no real power outside the EEZs of these scattered islands, many of which are under the sovereignty of European Union nations.
There are few controls even inside.
It is very difficult for South Africa, France, Britain or other nations to control fisheries within their own EEZs.
There is also the recurring difficulty on the oceans of the world of flags of convenience - vessels that are fishing very much for their own convenience and their own economic gain under the flag of some nation that has little control in terms of the fishing that takes place.
I believe there are a number of solutions which can start to be applied here.
It is not going to be easy but there are some that could be taken now.
Firstly, we need to ensure that CCAMLR increases its powers of enforcement and observation.
Although the NAFO organization in the North Atlantic is far from perfect, at least it has powers outside EEZs: powers of observation, enforcement and inspection that could be used similarly in the Southern Ocean.
It should also insist that we have observers on all these vessels to ensure that TACs are observed.
In fact, we need to move not just from TACs but to quotas so that we do not have the classic race-to-fish problem that we have here in our own waters.
There needs to be satellite control.
There needs to be tough action again on these flags of convenience.
I should like to ask the Commissioner, as many of the signatories of CCAMLR, together with the EU itself, are European nations, whether we could take a radical stance here to ensure that not only is the land-mass of Antarctica protected but that we take very tough measures to protect the Southern Ocean in terms of its own marine environment.
Only in this way will we save not just the Patagonian toothfish but whatever other species becomes the next fashion at the dinner tables of Tokyo and North America - and even Brussels as well.
This is a very serious question.
I thank the rapporteur for an excellent report and I would ask the Commissioner to ensure her own officials at future meetings of CCAMLR have this as a very high priority.
Madam President, first allow me to say a few words to Mr Ripa di Meana who has told us that he takes a very environmentally-sound position in response to this type of question.
I was therefore rather disappointed when he approached this report from a purely statistical point of view and only talked about quotas.
I believe this report deals with an extremely emotive subject because we simply must not forget that both the Arctic and the Antarctic, just like the rain forests to which Mr Kreissl-Dörfler is constantly referring, are fundamental elements for maintaining the overall ecological balance on this planet.
Thank God the Commission has slowly begun, to a certain extent, to regulate fishing in the Arctic from an environmental starting point in order to conserve living marine resources.
For one thing we should not forget that the further north and south we go from the equator, the slower is nature's ability to regenerate.
Anyone who has been in the Arctic or Antarctic and seen the way dead fish and other dead animals can lie around for years before they rot away, anyone who has seen vehicle tracks there or an oil drum lying around and how many years, how many decades they remain there, will know that we are discussing a highly emotive issue, an issue which we cannot simply sweep under the carpet.
The themes addressed here, in particular illegal fishing, are of vital concern to us.
We must make an all-out effort right from the start to put a stop to this even though we know it is very difficult.
For this reason I am actually delighted that the report and the Commission's proposals are going at a relatively tough pace.
I would hope that these words will be followed by actual deeds.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the current debate, on which I would like to raise a few points, deserves to be updated a little.
The report in question refers to the measures adopted in 1996; as recalled, a further meeting has since been held, as the CCAMLR procedure is reviewed every year and it is therefore of interest not only to report the conclusions of the meeting held in 1996, but perhaps to update MEPs on the decisions taken in 1997, which seem to me to be positive with regard to the concerns expressed here.
I will go through the points in order. With regard to illegal fishing, for the first time this year the CCAMLR accepted a proposal made by the Commission relating to vessels of non-contracting countries, consisting of the obligation for vessels engaged in fishing in the region to be subjected to inspection in the ports of the contracting parties of the CCAMLR, if they were trying to unload their catches.
This is one of the possible measures, also to establish the amount of illegal fishing of which we obviously have no basic proof.
This new compulsory measure can therefore serve not only as a deterrent but also to help us assess the extent of illegal fishing, which we all recognize exists.
If the vessels are not able to prove that their catches have not come from the CCAMLR region, they will be prohibited from unloading and transferring their catches in all the ports of the contracting parties.
A Commission proposal on satellite monitoring has also been accepted as a CCAMLR resolution.
This may present a technical problem, but it has been accepted with a resolution as a Commission proposal.
In addition, two more Commission proposals on procedural initiatives already adopted by the NAFO have been accepted, as Mr Teverson recalled, particularly with regard to the plan for observers and the plan for inspectors on board.
One problem remains, however: the number of inspectors is very small, owing to meteorological reasons as well as various kinds of technical reasons, but a possible plan for observers and inspectors has been introduced and exists in the CCAMLR.
It is now a question of encouraging the contracting parties to implement this plan that has now become possible.
With regard to one point raised by Mr Ripa di Meana, the Commission would like to point out that the measures adopted by the CCAMLR at the meeting this year comply fully and totally with the opinion held by the Scientific Committee.
This has been a major problem we have all faced before the Commission meeting but, at all events, the opinions of the Scientific Committees have been fully taken into consideration and reflect, better than we hoped, the precautionary approach supported by the Community which was only partially implemented at the meeting last year.
For all these reasons, we believe that, certainly in the fisheries as we know them, the best is always possible and even to be hoped for.
The Commission has to confirm that the last meeting held by the CCAMLR presented positive aspects for countries with a great interest in fishing in that region which obviously had a more resistant attitude.
Thank you for your speech, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Fishing off Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea and Cape Verde
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0300/97 by Mr Imaz San Miguel, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing the fishing possibilities and the financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the European Community and the Government of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau on fishing off the coast of Guinea-Bissau for the period 16 June 1997 to 15 June 2001 (COM(97)0395 - C4-0448/97-97/0205(CNS)); -A4-0365/97 by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing the fishing rights and financial contribution provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Republic of Ivory Coast on fishing off the coast of Ivory Coast for the period 1 July 1997 to 30 June 2000 (COM(97)0520 - C4-0565/97-97/0269(CNS)); -A4-0364/97 by Mr Kindermann, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing, for the period 1 July 1997 to 30 June 2000, the fishing rights and financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Government of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea on fishing off the coast of Equatorial Guinea (COM(97)0522 - C4-0567/97-97/0268(CNS)); -A4-0363/97 by Mr Novo, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol defining, for the period 6 September 1997 to 5 September 2000, the fishing rights and financial compensation provided for by the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Republic of Cape Verde on fishing off the coast of Cape Verde (COM(97)0521 - C4-0566/97-97/0270(CNS)).
Mr President, I shall be referring to the report on the agreement between the European Union and Guinea Bissau for the period June 1997 to June 2000.
I should like begin with an appraisal of that agreement.
This is a positive agreement, which is in line with the philosophy of the Union's fisheries agreements.
There is a shortfall of fish in the Community market, and fisheries agreements therefore help to balance supply and demand.
Furthermore, they provide the Community fleet - whose capacity is greater than the stocks available in Community waters - with fishing opportunities.
In this sense, they provide the Community fleet with economic alternatives and thereby contribute considerably to maintaining direct and indirect jobs - something which is important when an Employment Summit is being held in Luxembourg, and when we are all endeavouring to gear Community policies to job creation.
And they also provide local and regional communities which have genuine difficulties diversifying their economic fabric with an economic alternative, thereby ensuring their survival.
And fisheries agreements achieve all this at a relatively low cost to Community coffers, when compared with allocations from the Community budget to other areas of economic activity. It should not be forgotten, moreover, that these agreements frequently contribute to development cooperation operations in the local communities in which fisheries resources are exploited.
And they do so, of course, in keeping with an approach to exploitation geared to the conservation of those resources.
The agreement that we shall be approving today is in line with these requirements.
Turning now to the detail of the agreement, four aspects should be stressed.
Firstly, the fishing possibilities correspond to the real rates of use of those negotiated under the previous protocol.
Thus, for shrimp trawlers, a gross registered tonnage of 9000 GRT per year is provided for, in place of the 8800 GRT per year provided for previously.
For cephalopod trawlers, the gross registered tonnage has been reduced from 4000 to 3000 GRT per year.
All this is in line with the percentages of fishing possibilities used previously.
Moreover, the agreement stipulates that the fishing possibilities in the abovementioned sectors may be increased if fishing resources permit, with - of course - a proportional increase in the financial compensation.
As far as tuna vessels are concerned, the number of licences that may be granted has been substantially increased: from 26 to 37 for seiners; and from 16 to 52 for pole-and-line vessels and longliners. This is appropriate given the large extent to which the fishing possibilities in this sector were utilized under the previous protocol.
This is therefore a good agreement, which is adjusted to the degree of compliance with the previous agreement and protocol, and which, moreover, increases the fishing possibilities for the Community fleet.
The financial compensation provided for has also been markedly increased: from ECU 6.35 million per year to ECU 8.5 million per year, in line with the increase in fishing possibilities.
The cost to shipowners will also be similar to that under the previous protocol, with their licence fees being slightly increased as from the fourth year of application.
I wish to point out, moreover, that the total cost of the agreement includes budget items earmarked for funding a scientific programme to improve information on fisheries resources, study grants for scientific, technical and economic training in the field of fisheries, as well as small-scale fishing and marine surveillance programmes.
All in all, the agreement represents support for the effective control of resources and cooperation in the development of local communities devoted to small-scale fishing.
To complete this summary description of the agreement, I would mention the requirement for Community shipowners to employ a certain proportion of local seamen and to take on board observers from Guinea-Bissau to check compliance with fisheries regulations.
In short, this agreement will also serve as an instrument of development cooperation, and it is geared to the monitoring, control and conservation of resources.
I therefore urge Parliament to approve this agreement, and I congratulate the Commission on its negotiations.
I wish to end with a comment concerning the procedure.
Parliament must defend and make good use of all its powers and responsibilities, including those relating to the budget.
However, this should not in practice prevent the Commission from initiating negotiations on the renewal or implementation of agreements.
This is quite another matter from requesting that our assent be required for the adoption of an agreement, and Parliament's actions must not undermine the flexibility that the multiannual implementation of these agreements demands.
I would therefore ask Members to bear this in mind when voting on the amendments to the legislative proposal, and I would urge them to vote in favour of the report as a whole.
Mr President, I should like to begin my presentation by pointing out that Parliament's services have unfortunately made an error - and not a minor error, moreover, since it appears in the title of my report. Indeed, the Spanish version refers to the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing the fishing rights and financial contribution provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire.
Now, Côte d'Ivoire may well be the French name for that country, but in Spanish it has been called "Costa de Marfil' for a very long time; and, although there is a certain amount of linguistic tolerance with regard to geographical names in my country, this is not usual in the international sphere. So I should simply like to ask Parliament's services to correct this material error, since, moreover, the corresponding Commission document also uses the name Costa de Marfil, not Côte d'Ivoire, in its title.
Secondly, as always with this type of subject, there are questions of a procedural nature.
This agreement was signed on 30 June, but, although Parliament was informed unofficially by the Commission, it was only formally consulted at the end of October, and then by urgent procedure - with the unusual circumstance that the first payment must be made before 31 December of this year.
In other words, we have been consulted in time to give our approval, but the agreement has been in force since July, so that if Parliament now delivers an unfavourable opinion, it will put the Community institutions in a difficult position.
I recognize that the Commission has greatly improved its procedures; and Commissioner Bonino, who is partly responsible for this, is currently in the Chamber.
However, one of the elements accompanying this report is the opinion of the Committee on Budgets drawn up by Mrs Jöns; and that committee would naturally like the procedures to be further tightened up. That is, as far as possible, before agreements are signed, before definitive commitments are undertaken, and especially before those agreements enter into force, it would like Parliament to have the opportunity to deliver an opinion on the subject concerned.
Moving on to the protocol itself, this is not an agreement of overwhelming importance, but a modest agreement which concerns just sixty tuna vessels and three trawlers.
While there has been a small increase in the number of vessels, there has actually been no increase in the total capacity allowed, so I do not believe that this agreement will have a great impact on the number of fish caught.
Two species are concerned: yellowfin and skipjack tuna.
While catch levels for the first are already high, and it would be very difficult to increase their capacity, it seems that there is greater scope for exploiting skipjack tuna; and the small increase in catches that may result from this agreement will therefore not substantially affect stocks.
I should like to take this opportunity to point out that my report is accompanied by the positive opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation. Indeed, the Committee on Development and Cooperation considers that fisheries agreements are also an instrument of development aid.
Naturally, the Committee on Development and Cooperation would have liked greater amounts of money to be earmarked for specifically development objectives. However, of the total budget of this modest agreement - which consists of an annual Community contribution of ECU 1 million for three years; i.e a total of ECU 3 million - ECU 2.4 million has been allocated to compensation for fishing rights, whilst ECU 600, 000 has been earmarked for scientific programmes, training, and aid for public administration, marine surveillance and contributions to international organizations.
In other words, a significant proportion of the agreement's budget has been allocated essentially to development objectives.
In the end, I do not believe that it makes any difference to a country if we say "OK, we will pay you this much for fishing rights and give you the rest in development aid' .
I believe that we should view the whole of Community compensation to developing countries - those that are prepared to give us fishing opportunities in their waters, thereby helping us to solve a problem mainly of employment but also of supply - as development aid.
This is normal, and a better way to help them than simply giving them money.
In my view, there is nothing worse than charity.
If the Community were to replace these agreements - in which the countries concerned have to give something in exchange - with simple charity, it would probably not assist the economic development of those countries.
Among other reasons, this is because - as you are well aware, Mr President, coming from a coastal town - fishing, both that of local fishermen and that of fishermen from other places, generates economic activity in fishing towns.
I myself come from a small fishing village which has lived off fishing for a very long time, and not only that of local fisherman, but that of fishermen from other regions and countries who use our port, sign supply contracts, and so on.
Consequently, I believe that Parliament must encourage the use of fisheries agreements as instruments of development aid, and I would particularly urge the Commission to continue along those lines - staying within the limits of the rational use of fisheries stocks, of course.
Neither the developing countries nor the Community wishes to see the destruction of those stocks.
To repeat something that I said to the Commissioner in the last part-session, I believe that the European Community is currently providing a good example with the way it conducts its fishing activity - although it could do so even more - inasmuch as it displays concern for the conservation of stocks and subjects European fishermen to Community supervision - which I hope will be reinforced in the future, so that those stocks are not depleted. On the other hand, we observe that in our own coastal waters, with which we are familiar, the fleets of other countries are not providing the same good example - and the Community will probably have to take action in this regard.
The other day, I referred to educational action, but it will also have to take action at the level of international agreements, in order to ensure that the total fishing effort in the waters of the developing countries does not lead to the destruction of fisheries stocks.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as I had an opportunity to see for myself last August, the government authorities and the various economic sectors of Cape Verde with whose representatives I had a chance to talk, are very much interested in the renewal of the fishing agreement with the European Union.
Obviously the renewal of that agreement also greatly benefits the Community fishing fleet, because it will make it possible for Spanish, French and Portuguese vessels to continue to catch certain highly migratory species, especially tuna.
The agreement provides for a significant increase in the number of licences. This is how they are distributed: 37 for tuna seiners (an extra 14 units), 36 for pole-and-line tuna vessels and surface long-liners (an extra 19 units) and also providing the same three licences for bottom long-liners.
Nevertheless, this increase in the number of licences does not provide for a corresponding increase in proposed catch levels, which are kept at around 5, 000 tonnes per year.
This fact, which apparently conflicts with the increase in licences, is explained by the need of fishing vessels to follow concentrations and movements of stocks, which result in their frequently moving in and out of Cape Verde's territorial waters.
The overall costs of this are agreement are also subject to negligible or minimal increases: financial compensation of ECU 1, 086 million (2.1 % up on the previous agreement), ECU 267, 400 allocated to technical and scientific programmes (2.1 % up), and ECU 178 thousand to finance study and training grants, that is to say an additional 0.5 %.
In my report I have expressed my unequivocal support for the renewal of the fishing agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Cape Verde.
That position and that recommendation of mine are, therefore, the reason why I have today emphasized certain issues which may improve the framework for the implementation of the Agreement Protocol, whether it be in the short or medium term.
Firstly, I must emphasize that the Community fleet must without exception, and I repeat without exception, accede to all requests by the Cape Verdean authorities to put local observers on board its vessels. Unfortunately, although we all know why, there are not enough of them to cover all the Community vessels in operation.
Secondly, it is essential to remind masters and owners of their obligation to send statements of their catches to the Cape Verdean authorities within the proper time. This procedure should be observed at the same time as statements are sent to other competent national authorities.
Thirdly, we must ensure that Community owners help to support the canning plants recently set up in Cape Verde.
This is a moral duty which must be converted into a formal obligation, the more so inasmuch as such supplies of raw materials can be processed at fixed prices for the international market.
Fourthly, it would be desirable to develop increased coordination with other sectors of the Commission, particularly those concerned with development aid, to make it possible to set up automatic fleet monitoring systems which could be made available not only to Cape Verde but also other countries in that sub-region of Africa.
This area of investment is all the more important inasmuch as it is a fact that Parliament especially emphasizes the importance of responsible fisheries measures, and also that the Cape Verdean authorities have used the specific financial resources allotted to technical and scientific programmes under the agreement very correctly - I was able to check that on the spot.
Finally, the purpose of the legislative amendments I presented in my report, which were approved by the Fisheries Committee, is to try to improve coordination between the Commission and the Parliament as regards fisheries agreements.
It is important, Madam Commissioner, that the Commission should once and for all present its reports on the implementation of agreements and the situation with regard to local fish stocks, well before the terms of the relevant protocols expire, to enable the European Parliament to make a decision on their renewal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is part of a joint debate on a number of proposals relating to fishing.
This applies to the renewal of fisheries agreements with Guinea-Bissau for four years, and with Equatorial Guinea and the Ivory Coast for three years each.
I am naturally going express a few brief thoughts on these.
I am seriously concerned about the proposed terms of the protocol with Equatorial Guinea, which, as you know, is mainly about tuna, but those terms increase fishing possibilities by almost 50 %, the permissible number of licences is raised from 53 to 68, even though it has become very clear that the supervision and control measures are pretty toothless, the amount of finance allocated to scientific programmes is being substantially reduced and also that the territorial waters beyond the fourmile line are allowed to be used as a fishing zone.
In my view that is unacceptable!
This does not appear to apply to the agreement with the Ivory Coast, which is also mainly concerned with tuna-fishing. In this agreement there is only a relative increase in fishing permits and licences, and a corresponding increase in the overall sums allocated to training and grants, supervision and technical and scientific programmes.
The fishing agreement with Guinea-Bissau, which is the longest-established, fullest and most diversified of those we are discussing today, allows Spain, Italy and Portugal to take up to 9600 tonnes gross of shrimps per year, suggests a figure of three thousand tonnes gross of shellfish per year, to be used by Spain and Italy, and also establishes the possibility of granting 89 tuna-fishing licences.
With the exception of the agreement with Equatorial Guinea, the draft terms of which, as I have mentioned, seem to us to conflict with the fundamental principles of conservation of resources adopted long ago by this Parliament, and allows operations in waters which ought to be exclusively reserved for local fishermen, our group will vote in favour of the texts.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the code of conduct all three institutions undertook to do everything in their power to ensure speedy negotiation of the fisheries agreement.
But paper is patient.
Anyway, that still seems to be the Commission's motto almost a year after the code of conduct was signed as it is really consulting us with great regularity only several months after the agreement was initialled.
This also applies to the agreements we are debating today.
To be fair, the fact that we can now conclude the parliamentary procedures in less than a month is due to the Council's rapid consultation process by the Council and our rapid committee procedures.
If the Commission would adhere to the code of conduct and conclude negotiations on time, this would prevent another evil.
By that I mean the Commission's promise to third countries about fixed payment terms and sums which was made without any legal basis.
With regard to the present agreements, too, the Commission has again gone ahead without waiting for Parliament's opinion.
All this means is that the Commission is consistently circumventing Parliament in its role as the budgetary authority.
I am beginning to find this really intolerable!
It is certainly also unacceptable to expect us yet again to accept the provisional application of four agreements just because the Commission's negotiations are behind schedule.
All the agreements have already been running for six months.
I therefore note that up to now the code of conduct has not improved the Commission's appalling management in the matter of fisheries agreements.
Although we now receive the texts of the agreements immediately after signature in the original language, we do not receive details of the financial repercussions on the obligatory financial statement.
And that, dear members of the Committee on Fisheries, is really not on!
To us members of the Committee on Budgets the financial statement is essential, and the fact that it is impossible to work with drafts is proved time and time again.
In the case of Cape Verde the financial statement is still not right as of today!
Please let me restate this clearly, to my own colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries as well, as far as we budget people are concerned it is, as always, essential that international fisheries agreements are understood to be nonobligatory instruments.
Mr President, I am going to state my opinion solely from the point of view of the Committee on Fisheries.
I consider that the interventions we have heard, which put questions on procedural matters, have raised issues that ought to be dealt with.
In my opinion, the powers of this Parliament to monitor the fisheries agreements are powers of the whole Parliament, and not just of one parliamentary committee or another, but in any case I would like to emphasize here that I am going to give an opinion on fisheries agreements and more particularly on the fisheries agreements with Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau.
But I would also like to emphasize how difficult it is for us to maintain our position on the fisheries agreements when the Commission systematically violates the so-called code of conduct and when we are systematically placed in a situation where we have to give opinions on reports after the protocols have already been signed and when the process is already being rapidly adopted.
In spite of all this, the whole thing can be seen from another viewpoint.
It is obvious that we are more sensitive to this situation because the vessels that fish under the agreements come from Portugal, Spain and France.
Those Members who do not have, shall we say, citizens to whom they are answerable, may perhaps speak in more radical terms.
With regard to the agreement with Cape Verde, I would like to stress the following points.
Between 1990 and 2000 - and thus between the first and this, the third protocol - financial compensation to Cape Verde was reduced by 40 %.
At the same time, the number of fishing permits, especially for tuna, rose by 40 % from about 50 vessels under the first protocol to 73 vessels under the current one.
That is to say, we are dealing with a country in financial and economic difficulties, which is fundamentally suffering from a strategy that has come to consist of a gradual reduction in financial compensation under fisheries agreements.
I would nevertheless point out that the owners' share, especially as regards bottom longliners, increases by 30 % between the second protocol and the one now before us for approval.
But I would like to stress once more that so far as Cape Verde is concerned there has been a 40 % reduction in financial compensation between the first protocol and the one we are now asked to approve.
Finally, with regard to Guinea-Bissau, I should like to emphasize that since 1993 the amounts of the financial compensation have not been increased, and this calls for adjustment.
We must not forget, where these countries are concerned - Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau - that they are heavily dependent on these fisheries agreements for their own economic sustainability, and it should also be said - as our colleague Mr Honório Novo has said - that, so far as investigative measures and technical grants are concerned, both these countries have tried to do their very best to see that the money is well used.
Mr President, today we have before us five reports on which we have to rule.
Four concern the international agreements and, as we have already heard, one concerns conservation and control measures in the Antarctic.
The aspect of the international agreements which is relevant to fisheries policy is expressed in the decision of the European Parliament taken on Wednesday of this week concerning the Treaty of Amsterdam, which was also prompted by pressure from the Committee on Fisheries.
What is required is for the assent procedure to be applied to all major international agreements once and for all.
The fact that previously we were only listened to made it difficult, and in many cases impossible, for us - Mrs Bonino and others - to work efficiently.
I am pleased to admit that, mainly thanks to the force of her personality, Mrs Bonino has improved the situation in the past, especially with regard to information which now reaches us much more quickly.
However, it continues to be the case that the only way the European Parliament can exert any real influence on fisheries agreements with third countries is if the assent procedure is regarded as a general legal basis.
Only then will we be able to use the proper means to implement the guidelines on third country agreements which were jointly worked out and recently adopted by the European Parliament.
Before, sooner or later, another Intergovernmental Conference is held and we hopefully gain greater influence here in this House, we can hope for a positive outcome at the European Court of Justice because of international agreements - in this case the international agreement with Mauritania.
This would really be a big step forward if a judgement was given in our favour.
The result will hopefully be known soon and we look forward to it in eager anticipation.
In the meantime we have to work with the options that are available to us.
They are restricted, at least formally, to amendments from the Committee on Fisheries which the European People's Party group is pleased to support.
However, we are unable to support the amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgets.
The requirement to inform and consult Parliament on time is right on principle and in future blocking measures by us are no longer out of the question either.
However, this raises the legal question whether we are entitled to encroach upon a current agreement and therefore the legal mandate of the Commission.
But something has to happen!
I would therefore ask you not to climb down on the outstanding key policy issues.
Otherwise other people will be treading on our toes and our budget will be threatened with cuts.
That will hurt!
We have to avoid it at all costs!
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Tajani.
We approve of the fisheries agreement between the European Union and Guinea-Bissau because it is of particular interest to Italy.
In fact it is one of the very few agreements which benefit Italian fishing vessels.
The protocol offers Italy possibilities of 4, 000 tonnes gross tonnage prawn fishing and 1, 000 tonnes gross tonnage for cephalopods and demersal fish.
There are five Italian fishing vessels operating in Guinea-Bissau waters with a Community licence and a further three will be added as from January 1998.
This agreement has been praised for years; it has no controversial aspects but offers the flexibility of being drawn up on the basis of requests made by the Member States.
The renewal of the protocol brings several changes based on the current rate of use of fishing possibilities; thus cephalopod and demersal fishing, which has fallen by 1, 000 tonnes gross tonnage, has been adapted to the smaller catch volume of previous years, which only amounts to 20 % of the possibilities negotiated by the Community.
With regard to prawn fishing, the Community fleet had used around 93 % and this justifies the increase of 800 tonnes gross tonnage agreed by this protocol.
This adaptation establishes an improvement in the cost/benefit ratio between the quantity of fish made available for Community fishing vessels and the financial compensation paid to the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, which amounts to ECU 34 million in three years.
In addition to the financial return, at the request of the Guinean government, the European Community also participates, among other things, in the financing of research grants and scientific and technical programmes intended to improve the knowledge of the state of fisheries resources and the support of home fishing programmes.
I will make one last comment on the amendments presented in connection with the fisheries reports examined today.
This question, which relates to the classification as non-oligatory and the costs relating to the fisheries agreements, will be re-examined by the Council, the Parliament and the Commission and ad hoc budget procedures will then be applied.
That is why our group will not support this type of amendment.
Mr President, as I cannot go into the substance, I will restrict myself to saying that the Committee on Fisheries and Parliament as a whole constantly deplore various aspects of the agreements submitted to us, and these aspects have been pointed out today by Mr Kindermann and Mr Jöns: the costs, the fact that Parliament is only involved in the consultation procedure, apart from the agreements with Morocco, and the impact of these agreements on fish stocks and the local fishing community.
Whenever these agreements are examined, Parliament ends up accepting them.
If Parliament seriously wants the Commission and Council to take this critical state of mind into account, it should reject them today, without criticizing, but supporting the policy of the Commissioner for Fisheries, Mrs Bonino, and sending the Commission and Council a clear signal that such consultation is unacceptable.
That is why the Green Group will vote against these agreements.
Thank you, Mr Ripa di Meana, for endeavouring to keep your speech short.
Indeed, as you well know, when in the Chair, I am strict with the gavel but lax with the clock.
Thank you, Mr President, and thank you, Madam Commissioner, for being here today.
Firstly, of course, I should like to congratulate the four rapporteurs - Mr Novo, Mr Kindermann, Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Imaz San Miguel - on their excellent reports, drawn up extremely quickly, but without loss of quality.
I believe that, taken as a whole, these four protocols will be highly advantageous to both the European Union and the third countries concerned, both because of the general increase in fishing possibilities and the contributions from the Community budget to initiatives such as the development of small-scale fishing - especially in the protocols with GuineaBissau and Equatorial Guinea - and because of the monitoring mechanisms established for those third countries.
Nevertheless, and for the benefit of all those who still think that Community fishing in the waters of third countries is carried out with disregard for the state of stocks and the future of fishing in the region concerned, I should like to draw attention - with reference to the report by Mr Kindermann, who, I believe, did not emphasize this enough - to the celebrated regulation plan to protect Atlantic tuna, which was launched on the initiative of the three main Community producers of frozen tuna.
I believe that we, who frequently criticize this sector, should, on the contrary, increasingly support initiatives of this kind, because they demonstrate that this sector also knows its job and, despite the mistakes that it has made in the past, is working to protect resources in the waters of third countries as well as in those of the Community.
I wish to make clear that this plan is designed to monitor tuna stocks by means of voluntarily taking on board observers who will carry out the surveillance of a vast area encompassing the waters of Cameroon, Sao Tomé, Principe, Gabon and part of Nigeria, as well as those of Equatorial Guinea.
In conclusion, I also wish to refer to the Council of Ministers.
I should like to address Mrs Jöns. Mrs Jöns, I thank you for your advice, but I wish to tell you that a large number of Members of this Parliament do not share the views of the Committee on Budgets, and if your committee, which always bases its arguments regarding the celebrated question of non-obligatory expenditure on the Interinstitutional Agreement of October 1993, does not agree with the classification made by both the Commission and the Council, it should condemn the Commission and the Council for failure to comply with the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Otherwise, some Members will continue to believe that this should be obligatory expenditure.
Mr President, this has been a good debate and it is important for certain Member States.
I am delighted that the procedures seem to be improving although most colleagues would agree that they are not yet at a satisfactory state as regards the proposals that come from the Commission and their treatment by us and the Council.
My main concern is that as a parliament we try to make sure that we get our development policies for some of these developing countries and our fishing policies and opportunities correctly stated.
I believe in making sure that we do not over-exploit some of those fish stocks.
In the long term we have to make sure that those countries develop their own local fishing industries.
That means we have to make certain that the considerable funds we make available are properly utilized.
As far as I can see from these reports we are talking about a total of ECU 41 million which is a lot of money scattered around the number of vessels that are participating in this local fisheries we are having the agreements with.
The future of the European fisheries fleet is closely tied to these agreements.
The Member States concerned who are utilizing those funds should recognize that they may at some time in the future have to be diverted to compensate for fishing opportunities that will no longer be available.
That is why it is important that these agreements be seen in the light of future opportunities which may not always exist in the future.
We have to recognize the fact that while we are great consumers of fish, it may not always be European vessels which will have the opportunity of exploiting those resources.
Mr President, I would first like to thank the four rapporteurs for their reports and, before going into detail, dwell briefly on the recent conclusions drawn by the Council which, following a discussion, presented a final declaration based on a communication received from the Commission.
In short, on 30 October last, the Council not only confirmed unanimously the essential nature of the fisheries agreements and their vital importance to certain regions of the Community, but it also recalled the need, which I will come back to later, to reinforce the consistency of the various means available to this sector.
The Council also accepted the Commission's approach, whereby these agreements should promote more responsible and therefore more durable fisheries policies.
On two specific points in particular, the Commission has undertaken to make an overall assessment of the fisheries agreements during the forthcoming year.
I would now like to go back to the four protocols presented here and to several problems that have been raised.
The Commission is obviously not entering into a debate, which is internal, between obligatory and non-obligatory expenditure, but confirms that a code of conduct exists and has been signed, which permits internal delays, with regard to the Ivory Coast protocol, for example, but also declares that it has made unbelievable efforts in recent months in terms of providing Parliament with adequate information in good time.
I can tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that I sometimes feel a little frustrated! I know that everything can always be improved but every so often I would like to see the Commission make a considerable effort, particularly with regard to the fisheries agreements, and with regard to the consistency of the policy, the information provided to Parliament and insistence on the need for controls.
In connection with this last point, for example, you will have seen, Mr Kindermann, that for the first time we have authorized inspectors from Equatorial Guinea to board Community vessels when they consider it necessary.
I do not know if this is possible with the Japanese, Taiwanese and Koreans, but I do not think so.
In short, I would like these great or small gestures of change in the fisheries agreements to be recognized.
Still with regard to Equatorial Guinea, I would like to say that ECU 170, 000 allocated to strengthening controls is a large sum for that country, and we will have to make a great deal of effort to use such a large sum which that country may not know how to use.
Again with regard to Equatorial Guinea, the Community, as you know, Mr Kindermann, only became a full member of the ICCAT this year (it had participated in previous years), and Equatorial Guinea is a member.
I believe that efforts have been made and, among other things, the figures you have presented on stocks, figures provided by the ICCAT, relate to the stocks in the Atlantic overall and not just to Equatorial Guinea.
I would like to point out here, as I was saying to Mr Fraga Estévez, that we ourselves need to recognize when our industry is making special efforts and setting outstanding examples, and we need to encourage it.
Mr Medina, I do not know how to impose our control systems on the Japanese.
If you have any clever ideas, tell me because, besides insisting at all the multilateral meetings, I do not know what else I can do. So if anyone has any ideas on how we can make other international fleets participate in our standards (which can still be improved, I admit), we will all benefit from the advantages.
I admit, for example, the delay with regard to the Ivory Coast (I have already told the European Parliament) owing to bureaucratic problems within the Commission.
I think I have responded to a series of problems; I hope, however, that the considerable effort we are making to provide Parliament with constant information is recognized.
However, the Commission is required to apply the existing rules and the existing codes of conduct as well.
If there are ever any new treaties, the Commission will certainly apply the new rules when the time comes.
Mr President, I know my way around Guinea-Bissau quite well and am very impressed by my friend Mr Imaz San Miguel's report.
I am sorry to have to say that I had some reservations when I read it.
Although I voted for it I am not completely happy with it as fishing is the mainstay of life for the people of Guinea-Bissau.
The way in which the quotas have been determined creates the risk that in fact overfishing will result.
Although it is a good thing that quotas have been established, there were none before.
At that time the people lived mostly from fishing.
I remember people telling me that you could catch enough fish in two minutes to feed a whole family.
Today that is no longer the case and I should very much like to ask people to be very careful after two years, now that everything is to run for four years.
We were unable to support the report in the vote.
This position is based on a matter of principle and must not be regarded as a rejection of the rapporteur&#x02BC;s work.
We believe that the European Union should abandon costly fisheries agreements of this type and switch over to providing support above all to the developing countries&#x02BC; own fisheries activities.
Such a solution would make a better contribution to the task of developing the importance of fisheries for worldwide food supplies, boost these countries&#x02BC; economic development and also remove the risks that may be involved in the fisheries agreements, e.g. that certain Member States&#x02BC; fisheries activities might receive indirect support to continue operating in a situation where the entire European fishing industry is in need of substantial restrictions.
We would therefore like to see the situation developing in such a way that the Community neither enters into new agreements of this type nor extends previous agreements.
We would also like to emphasize the need for this type of agreement with third countries to be subject to improved scrutiny with regard to the budget.
Medina Ortega report (A4-0365/97)
We were unable to support the report in the vote.
This position must not be regarded as a rejection of the rapporteur&#x02BC;s work.
We believe that the European Union should abandon costly fisheries agreements of this type and switch over to providing support above all to the developing countries&#x02BC; own fisheries activities.
Such a solution would make a better contribution to the task of developing the importance of fisheries for worldwide food supplies, boost these nations&#x02BC; economic development and also remove the risks that may be involved in the fisheries agreements, e.g. that certain Member States&#x02BC; fisheries activities might receive indirect support to continue operating in a situation where the entire European fishing industry is in need of substantial restrictions.
We would therefore like to see the situation developing in such a way that the Community neither enters into new agreements of this type nor extends previous agreements.
We would also like to emphasize the need for this type of agreement with third countries to be subject to improved scrutiny with regard to the budget.
Kindermann report (A4-0364/97)
We would like to thank the rapporteur for his accomplished work on the report. However, we were unable to support the report in the final vote.
This position must not be regarded as a rejection of the rapporteur&#x02BC;s work, but is based on a matter of principle.
We believe that the European Union should abandon costly fisheries agreements of this type and switch over to providing support above all to the developing countries&#x02BC; own fisheries activities.
Such a solution would make a better contribution to the task of developing the importance of fisheries for worldwide food supplies, boost these nations&#x02BC; economic development and also remove the risks that may be involved in the fisheries agreements, e.g. that certain Member States&#x02BC; fisheries activities might receive indirect support to continue operating in a situation where the entire European fishing industry is in need of substantial restrictions.
We would therefore like to see the situation developing in such a way that the Community neither enters into new agreements of this type nor extends previous agreements.
We would also like to emphasize the need for this type of agreement with third countries to be subject to improved scrutiny with regard to the budget.
Novo report (A4-0363/97)
We did not support the report.
This position is based on a matter of principle.
We believe that the European Union should abandon costly fisheries agreements of this type and switch over to providing support above all to the developing countries&#x02BC; own fisheries activities.
Such a solution would make a better contribution to the task of developing the importance of fisheries for worldwide food supplies, boost these nations&#x02BC; economic development and also remove the risks that may be involved in the fisheries agreements, e.g. that certain Member States&#x02BC; fisheries activities might receive indirect support to continue operating in a situation where the entire European fishing industry is in need of substantial restrictions.
We would therefore like to see the situation developing in such a way that the Community neither enters into new agreements of this type nor extends previous agreements.
We would also like to emphasize the need for this type of agreement with third countries to be subject to improved scrutiny with regard to the budget.
Adjournment of the session
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 21 November 1997.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament sets great store by its relations with Russia.
I am therefore pleased to announce the presence in the official gallery of a delegation from the Duma and Federal Council of the Russian Federation, led by Mr Vladimir Ryzhkov, the First Vice-President of the Duma and chairman of the delegation for relations with the European Parliament.
I extend our official welcome to the delegation and congratulate them on their constructive and valuable work in the context of the first meeting between the European Union and the Russian Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of 21 November 1997 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, in relation to the Minutes, has any progress been made by yourself and your offices in the matter of correspondence with a Member of this House who made charges of a serious criminal nature in respect of the buildings policy of the institution?
Several letters have been exchanged, Mr Cox.
I would be happy to let you have a photocopy if you would like more information.
(The Minutes were approved)
Agenda
Mr Bazin has asked for his report (A4-0369/97), which was due to be taken without debate, not to be put to the vote tomorrow, but postponed to the December part-session in Strasbourg.
Mr President, the reason which led me to make this request is no longer valid.
I would therefore ask you to consider this request null and void and keep the item on tomorrow's agenda.
Very well, Mr Bazin.
Unless there is any change, it will be on tomorrow's agenda.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has asked for the proposal for a Council regulation extending the programme to promote international cooperation in the energy sector (Synergy) (C40555/97) to be added to the agenda under the procedure without report (Rule 99).
(Parliament approved the request)
Enlargement - Agenda 2000
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0368/97 by Mr Oostlander and Mr Barón Crespo , on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission "Agenda 2000 - for a stronger and wider Union' (COM(97)2000 - C4-0371/97); -A4-0331/97 by Mr Colom i Naval, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on Agenda 2000: the 2000-2006 financial framework for the Union and the future financing system (COM(97)2000 - C4-0372/97).
Mr President, firstlI would like to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Budgets sincerely for their invaluable help with the preparation of this report.
I am also grateful to the many MEPs who have contributed, especially the members of the Committee on Budgets.
Their contribution has been so great that I am not going to say that I take full personal responsibility for this report, as is traditional with academic works. Since all of us in the Committee on Budgets voted for this report, I think I am justified in saying that my fellow committee members share the responsibility for both the good points and any errors in the proposal we are presenting to Parliament.
To get down to business, ladies and gentlemen, I must point out that although today's joint debate is about enlargement, that is not the sole concern of this report by the Committee on Budgets.
This is a first reaction report on the Agenda 2000 communication and, notwithstanding the importance of enlargement, it considers many other aspects as well.
However, let me say that those of us who suffered forty years of fascist dictatorship, were not liberated by the Allies, and had no Marshall Plan at all, well understand the aspirations of the citizens of eastern and central Europe, and we support their hopes and wishes to join us soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has fulfilled its political obligation, according to the Intergovernmental Conference, to present a post-1999 programme, which we could think of as a notebook containing the European Union's tasks for the first years of Agenda 2000.
Among those tasks, the word enlargement is written in capital letters, but there are other entries in capitals too.
In any case, enlargement affects them all.
We must realize that whether or not enlargement takes place we have to reform and adjust our common agricultural policy, while our obligations to GATT and the World Trade Organization mean that we will have to change substantial elements of our current agricultural policy by 2003.
We must remember that the structural fund regulations expire in 1999, whether enlargement is to take place or not, and therefore we will need to revise our cohesion policy, and everything included in the existing category II of the financial perspectives.
As for monetary union and the single currency, these will be brought in regardless of whether or not enlargement takes place. Do we know what changes the euro will entail for our internal and external policies?
What will be the European Union's role on the world stage in the Twenty-first Century?
What is our contribution to the development of peace?
What are the consequences of the Treaty of Amsterdam for the Union's budget? All these questions were waiting to be answered, and the European Commission has tried to answer them by means of Agenda 2000, which includes a financial framework for the period 2000-2006.
It was a difficult task, and we think the Commission has been too pragmatic.
On previous occasions, such as the Delors I and II Packages, the Commission evaluated the objectives and the requirements, and then made the most moderate and cautious financial proposal possible.
We have the impression that on this occasion they used the opposite approach. It seems that their starting point was a prefixed and immovable financial ceiling - the sacrosanct 1.27 % of GNP - and, based on that figure, they balanced the finances to fit as much as possible under that ceiling.
I am not going to say that it is impossible for things to happen as the Commission predicts.
In fact, between 1988 and 1997 we have never reached the prevailing own resources ceiling, and there was only one financial year in which the budgetary authority (of which Parliament forms a part) was unable to make significant savings compared with the financial perspectives.
Moreover, the amount saved between 1988 and 1996 compared with what the national parliaments authorized in ratifying the own resources decision, is greater than the total amount envisaged by the Commission for pre-accession and enlargement.
Nevertheless, the Committee on Budgets thinks that the Commission's proposal is based on too many uncertain hypotheses.
For example, that growth of GNP in the Fifteen should be 2.5 % per year.
It is plausible, and we hope it happens.
However, in the previous period, 1991-1996, the real growth among the Fifteen was 1.5 %, one point less each year.
If it were to continue at 1.5 % during the period 2000-2006, the budget planned by the Commission would exceed the 1.27 % ceiling in five of the seven budgetary years.
However slightly the interannual growth rate drops below 2 %, the Commission's structure will totter - and I do not mean the Berlaymont Building!
What would be the result of a different timetable for enlargement? If the accession date or the number of new Member States changes, can anybody be sure now, in autumn 1997, what our future members' requirements would be, without even knowing the content of the accession treaties, or what the transitional periods will be - if there are any - for each country and sector?
The Commission's proposal oversimplifies the Council debate, but it is based on what we in the Committee on Budgets have termed "virtual savings' .
They are possible, but they are by no means guaranteed. We are being asked to exercise austerity and responsibility and, for our edification, the Council rejects a reduction in cereal aid, a sector in which it has been shown that overcompensation was paid, to the tune of ECU 3 thousand million, by the member governments of the Council.
If that is the Council's remedy for CAP reform, the Commission's proposal will experience an annual financial shortfall of about ECU 4 billion just in Category I - that is, agricultural spending.
And that takes no account of the financial engineering they propose for objectives 5a and 5b of the structural funds, which they are trying to include in Category I.
Similarly, the proposal contains a series of interesting points on cohesion policy, including the very maintenance of the cohesion fund, which will provoke more serious objections from Parliament in the future, although we may already hint at them.
But what will happen, ladies and gentlemen, if not all the points in the proposal are approved? To what extent is it realistic to assume that the Fifteen will accept a reduction in the structural funds directed towards their own territories and their own citizens?
I want to make it clear that we fully understand why the Commission is proposing to concentrate funds in the least welloff and least-developed zones of the current Union, taking it for granted that it is neither logical nor fair for enlargement to take place to the detriment of these regions.
Enlargement should be paid for by everybody, in an equitable manner.
All of this leads us to make the following offer to the Council and the Commission.
We accept the financial content of the Commission's communication as the starting point.
We are critical of it, and even question the timescale.
But let us be clear about this: Parliament thinks that the challenges facing the European Union mean that it is advisable for us to have budgetary peace, and therefore we call for the formal presentation of the financial perspectives for the Union of the Fifteen, including of course a chapter on enlargement, and preferably an interinstitutional agreement on financial and budgetary discipline.
However, that does not mean that Parliament is prepared to be taken for a ride.
Budgetary agreements such as last Thursday's make the Committee on Budgets deeply suspicious of the Council's attitude.
Therefore, we ask that our criticisms of and suggestions for the Commission's proposal should be heeded. We consider it an essential condition that a revision clause should be included, to make it possible to work out the budgetary implications of the various accession treaties, of course, but also the implications if the virtual savings are fulfilled - if reforms of the common agricultural policy and the structural funds (which in themselves do not aim to achieve savings) generate the savings predicted by the Commission, or if it is shown that the rate of growth of the Community economy exceeds the hoped-for 2.5 %.
We also think that between now and enlargement we should update the budgetary procedure and the own resources system, to make them fairer and more transparent to the European public.
Ladies and gentlemen, members of the Council and the Commission, the challenges of the next few years are important for Europe and, I would add, for the rest of the world.
We should certainly tackle them with austerity and responsibility.
However, the first rule of responsibility is not to try to deceive oneself, especially where money is concerned.
Therefore, it is no good pretending that we can guarantee at this stage that the whole of Agenda 2000, including enlargement, will involve no cost to anybody.
Europe deserves a more serious approach, and Parliament will demand that that is what it gets.
And I still have 30 seconds left, as a symbol of economization!
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament is today holding its second debate on the enlargement of the European Union by ten states from central and eastern Europe and Cyprus.
On 16 July the European Commission introduced its Agenda 2000 and we discussed it on the same day.
Today we are debating on the basis of the reports by our colleagues, Arie Oostlander and Enrique Barón Crespo, and I would like to talk about these two reports.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party to express very sincere thanks to Mr Oostlander and Mr Barón Crespo for their difficult and excellent work!
The people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Rumania would like to belong to the European Union because they share our convictions and ideals for Europe in the 21st Century, in order, as stated in the Treaty of Rome of 1957, and I quote: "... to lay the foundations for an ever closer union ... (and) ... by thus pooling their resources to preserve and strengthen peace and liberty ...' .
This wish is shared not only by the people in the five countries which the Commission has proposed for entry negotiations but also by the people in all ten states of central and eastern Europe which are associated with the European Union by European Agreements.
Let us not forget that in 1989-90 it was the people of the states of central and eastern Europe who by their desire for freedom, their struggle for democracy, their desire for a market economy made possible the change in our continent, and we must not disappoint these people, who engendered the peaceful revolution in Europe, by the decision which we take now.
(Applause) These are people in central and eastern Europe who live as we do in a free society and therefore the Group of the European People's Party is convinced that all Europeans have a political and moral right to live in security, peace and freedom.
Therefore for us the First Commandment is that entry negotiations must begin.
We must not discriminate against any country and let us not be so arrogant as to say what discrimination is, rather let us hear how these people themselves might feel discriminated against by our decisions.
We must therefore make our decisions so as to encourage these States, these people, to carry forward this difficult and frequently painful process of reform in anticipation of entry to the European Union.
The people need encouragement.
Therefore the Group of the European People's Party calls upon the Heads of State and of Government at the Summit on 12 and 13 December in Luxembourg to send a signal to the peoples of central and eastern Europe that they belong to the European family and that they will grow step by step into the community of nations of the European Union.
The Group of the European People's Party passed unanimous resolutions on 1 October and 26 November in Brussels and then at its congress in Toulouse on 11 November 1997.
The discussions, and I agree with Mr Swoboda, were very difficult, but we finally reached unanimous resolutions and recommend the following process for enlargement: first, an intensified accession and negotiation process with the central and eastern European countries which meet the political conditions for membership, together with Cyprus, should begin in 1998; secondly: intensive negotiations on an individual basis should be pursued with those countries which have made most progress; thirdly, an enlargement dialogue, in which the candidate countries participate, should create an informal network, in order to discuss all areas of European Union policy; fourthly: the European Conference proposed by the Commission can be a useful instrument of cooperation in order, in particular, to strengthen relations with Turkey.
The process of enlargement is becoming difficult and there are many stones in the path to enlargement which must be cleared away by the applicant countries but also by the European Union itself, which must prepare itself via the necessary institutional and political reforms for enlargement.
We should not just talk about the tasks the applicant countries must perform.
We should also be talking about the tasks which we ourselves as the European Union have to perform, because we want enlargement to lead to a strengthening of the European Union and therefore we must make this European Union more capable of action, we must make it more democratic, so that the peoples of central and eastern Europe will enter a Union enables all Europeans to achieve a stable future for the entire 21st Century.
We, the European Parliament, which today represents 370 million people must be the advocate of the peoples of the whole of Europe.
If we are not the advocate then who will be? We, the Members, must be the advocate.
Europe is not just the European Union of today!
We must work to ensure that the peoples of central and eastern Europe with whom we want to begin the intensified accession and negotiation process at the start of 1998, also send their representatives step by step to the European Parliament.
The European Parliament, where we are now, here in Brussels - we have just moved into the new offices - is certainly much too big to be merely a European Parliament for the European Union of today!
We must open up this Parliament!
Let us work together to ensure that as soon as possible in the next decade, which will also be a new century and a new millennium, we will be able to welcome freely elected representatives from central and eastern Europe here in the European Parliament.
A few years ago this idea was still utopian.
Today it is not even a vision any more but a probability which will soon become a reality if we ourselves are committed to work for it.
The Group of the European People's Party sets itself this historic task for our old continent of Europe, which is constantly renewing itself.
(Applause)
Mr President, so much has been said and written recently about the enlargement and Agenda 2000 that there is a real risk that the analyses and proposals made by the representatives of the people of Europe will not be noticed, or at least will seem less important in the eyes of the public and even the Community institutions.
Therefore, I will try to express the views of the European United Left concisely and simply.
We arrived at these views on the basis of the reports being presented today.
In the case of the Colom i Naval report on financial perspectives, our group feels able to give its support.
Our messages are as follows: Yes to enlargement, which is the appropriate response to the challenge of building Europe at this decisive moment in its history.
However, enlargement cannot be tackled without attending to its institutional, economic and financial consequences.
Enlargement should not be at the cost of renouncing the objective of economic and social cohesion among the current Member States, accompanied by an alarming reduction in the structural funds and the cohesion fund, with reform going way beyond the stated aims of concentration and effectiveness.
We need an Intergovernmental Conference to tackle the institutional review which did not happen at Amsterdam.
This needs saying clearly, and the date needs to be specified: as early as possible - the year 2000, to be precise - without waiting until the Union has been enlarged to 20 Member States.
Accession negotiations should be initiated with all those countries which satisfy the political criteria.
Given that none of them satisfies the economic criteria, initial discrimination could have serious effects on the countries concerned.
We are very critical of the proposal to freeze the Community budget, with 1.27 % of GNP as the own resources ceiling.
That would certainly mean paying for enlargement out of the current structural funds.
We think Agenda 2000 makes very specific proposals in some sectors of the common agricultural policy, apart from the effects of enlargement -because the enlargement will have effects on the common agricultural policy.
That is the case, in Agenda 2000, with the three bovine meat sectors, milk quotas and cereals, not to mention Mediterranean products.
Agenda 2000 eagerly envisages a second reform of the common agricultural policy, following the 1992 reform, which should be judged not just by improvements in agricultural income, but also by the loss of more than a fifth of the sector's jobs.
A misplaced focus on enlargement, added to the social consequences of the so-called Stability Pact, and the conditions for nominal convergence, could become a serious obstacle to job creation, both in the Member States and in the candidate countries.
That would go against the proposals recently decided upon in Luxembourg.
Finally, faced with an enlargement to cover the whole of Europe, we need to strengthen our political unity in view of the risk that the European Union might become just a huge free trade area.
The Europe of the twenty-first century cannot be simply a market, it must be an integrated area of democracy and solidarity.
Mr President, it was yearning for democracy that brought down the Berlin Wall.
The impetus for this democracy movement came from Prague and Gdansk.
Now we have a unique opportunity to create an entire Europe of peace, of democracy and freedom.
The Commission's plan is however not exactly an invitation, but rather an obstacle for those who in previous decades, at the cost of great personal privation, supported the idea of a democratic Europe in the east.
The basic decision of Copenhagen to accept the central and eastern European states was the logical political consequence stemming from the historical situation.
Agenda 2000 lags far behind that.
It contains no convincing strategy for enlargement.
On the one hand high ranking politicians from the Member States bask in praise in eastern capitals for their statements about future prospects.
On the other hand they could not agree in Amsterdam on reforms which would make the EU democratic and capable of enlargement.
Germane institutional questions were deferred.
As a consequence the European enlargement process now faces disaster, since the preparatory work for the acceptance of new applicants has begun but there is as yet neither a substantial strategy nor a timetable.
Now we are trying, by means of petty reforms, to cheat on the timetable.
Therefore the Commission's proposal to begin negotiations only with five plus one corresponds to the readiness in the Council to provide in future the 20 Commissioners equivalent to one per EU Member State.
In Agenda 2000 there are no concrete proposals or ideas to solve the problems associated with a possible second wave of applicants.
The impression is thus created that the five plus one enlargement merely opens the door to the EU a crack and it will then close again for a long time.
With this separation of the applicants from central and eastern Europe into welcome rich countries and the poor backyard, the Commission is already causing a political mess.
The rejected not only have the disadvantages due to the drawing of international borders in Europe, but they are also held responsible by their people for the whole wretched state of affairs.
Their efforts to make progress with democratic reforms and economic stabilization in their countries receive no international recognition.
The negative effect on the readiness of foreign capitalists to invest is preprogrammed.
Great hopes are vested in this parliament.
It is possible for us to send out a signal that we do not want any drawing of borders in this continent.
For a long time a clear majority in the Foreign Policy Committee has spoken out in favour of supporting the democratic forces in central and eastern European countries and not giving them the boot. But why, dear Social Democrats, are you toppling over like ninepins?
Is it a sound argument that merely to accept Estonia will have massive effects on the free trade and free movement area between the Baltic states, now of all times?
Dear Christian Democrats, why are you so laboriously withdrawing from a position which has been achieved, like the one in point 3 of the Oostlander Report? We in the Green Party are in favour of the common start of negotiations with all applicants who have created the necessary democratic conditions and who recognize human rights and the rights of minorities.
Of course it is sensible to have a differentiated form of entry and negotiation process.
We give top priority to the cooperative character and the multilateral dimension of the entry process and therefore demand a substantial strengthening of the European Conference.
We support the proposal of the French Government which seeks to extend cooperation to further areas such as institutional reform, economic cooperation and cross border projects.
The European conference also offers the chance of political dialogue with Turkey and Slovakia and will not let it be interrupted.
Civilian methods of conflict regulation in this country have of course not yet been developed by the European Union.
In Agenda 2000 scant regard is paid to the progress made by the central and eastern European countries towards meeting the environmental and social standards of the EU.
We regard that as a central, important matter.
In addition we need comprehensive and targeted support of a financial, legal and technical nature.
In terms of the political challenge which enlargement on our European continent represents, the Commission must be corrected and needs more courage to be honest.
Mr President, a bad text based on bad proposals: that is what the ambiguous, confusing and contradictory report from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on Agenda 2000 appears to be.
It is certainly difficult to draw up a good report on an unsatisfactory basis.
Let us not forget, indeed, that the Agenda 2000 proposals are covering up a huge political failure.
The fact that we have had to wait for almost ten years after the fall of the Berlin wall in order to initiate negotiations which recognize as fully European the Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, all those who have been lumped together under the dreadful acronym CEECs and who have written the pages of European history as much as we have, and participated in the development of its civilization to the same extent as we have. This says a lot about the unsuitability of the concepts which the Commission uses in an intangible way to the new European reality.
By persistently opposing enlargement and consolidation, two archaic concepts born during the Cold War, the Commission has delayed as much as possible the advent of enlargement.
It has considered it as a threat, a threat to its ideology and to its bureaucracy instead of seeing it as an opportunity, an opportunity to modify radically the way in which Europe is made up so that each one can find in it their place.
We all have the feeling that we have missed a great historic rendez-vous and that the two lungs of Europe have not been reunited as they should have been, through our inability to reform Europe in time.
It would have been sufficient to opt for an infinitely variable Europe, so that from the moment of their liberation from communism, the countries of east and central Europe could immediately participate in circles of cooperation, thus recognizing them fully as Europeans.
Does Agenda 2000, at least, finally open up this debate? Does it lay out the different possible options enabling a great Europe to be built in the best interests of each of its members and of all?
No.
The Commission continues its course unperturbed, as if nothing had happened, and as if there were only one direction possible, forever building a federal Europe.
The debate will therefore be initiated elsewhere.
It could have been initiated within this Parliament. This was not the case, since instead of correcting the dogmatism of the Commission, the report presented to us endorses it.
It wants to impose federalism on us all. It says so quite explicitly.
It does not question the arbitrary pre-selection that the Commission is carrying out between first class and second class European, and orders an unfounded ostracism of Slovakia.
It omits to note that the euro, if it is brought in, will be a new and powerful factor of division between the Member States of the wider Europe.
It endorses the participation of Turkey in the European Conference, which takes any real significance out of it.
Our relations with that great country merit an approach other than this headlong rush into double-speak, unworthy of us all.
The report nowhere protests at the distortion of the CAP surreptitiously carried out in favour of enlargement.
The report raises no objections to Agenda 2000's neglect of Lomé and the ACP countries.
So it is in the national parliaments that the real debate will be initiated.
It is already beginning, since we heard only yesterday, in the French National Assembly, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs wondering out loud wether Europe still responds to the hopes previously vested in it? Does its construction strengthen or weaken us?
Good questions, to which the European Parliament's report unfortunately does not give any answers.
That is why we cannot vote in its favour, for we will not build a great Europe with old recipes of federalism.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if today's debate is not the most important of this legislature, it certainly deals with one of the most significant issues, not only in this legislature but in the recent history of the European Union.
The coming enlargement is the direct and logical consequence of that revolutionary act which was the foundation of the construction of Europe - I refer to the Schuman Plan - revolutionary because it has weakened the nationalist culture which had been laid down over the centuries, east and west of the Rhine, giving rise to wars and tragedies with monotonous regularity.
That act underlies fifty years of peace and prosperity for the west and is also the indirect origin of the liberation of eastern Europe from the communist regimes.
The Europe which is being extended towards the east - a great man once spoke of a Europe extending to the Urals - can surely be an essential factor for equilibrium and progress on our planet.
But the enlargement must take place with all the guarantees that are needed to meet such a challenge; and I am extremely worried by the fact that not all of these guarantees seem to be there.
The resolution on the Commission's communication "Agenda 2000 - for a stronger and wider Union' seems to me to be primarily about a wider Union; I have my doubts about a stronger Union.
There is one point which does not appear in the recitals to the resolution, a phenomenon which is spreading through our countries: the return of the issue of national structures.
How can we claim to have a strong Union if its foundations are constantly being weakened by the advance of the separatist leprosy? Also, this frequently generates terrorist violence and can only be explained by the actions of a few individuals who are myopic enough to prefer narrow interests to great ideals.
So in Spain, Belgium, Italy and elsewhere, we witness tensions which may originally have been justified and legitimate, but degenerate into dangerous attacks on national unity and democratic institutions.
I am worried about this and would therefore have liked to see, amongst the many recitals in the report, at least a hint, a recommendation, a spur to greater internal cohesion in the Union.
Still in the context of the necessary strengthening of the Union through the consolidation of the Member States - because, I repeat, only a Union that is strong in every sector can sustain the shock which an enlargement of this size will inevitably produce - it is necessary to stress the management of the other two weaknesses which, together with terrorism, currently constitute the flaw in the Union: unemployment and crime - a dread combination - the one a function of the other, to which the antidotes have not yet been found.
The issue at the Luxembourg European Council was not employment but unemployment.
I cannot disguise my concern about solving this dramatic problem, and I also feel a responsibility towards the unemployed people who voted for me and for others.
This is no time for professional demagogues to wave magic wands, inventing formulae which too often resemble slogans to be trotted out at political meetings - repatriating the immigrants or having a thirty-five hour week - but nor is the time for endless debates about the sex of the angels, which reverberate from part-session to Council, from Council to part-session and so on.
The situation is moving fast.
The European Union is facing increasingly fierce competition from countries with low labour costs where, amongst other things, many companies, including European ones, are relocating their centres of production, thus creating a real vicious circle.
The enlargement must take place, but beyond the institutional reforms it is necessary to rediscover economic growth - and perhaps the single currency may not be a good trampoline - because otherwise we risk seriously disturbing the economic equilibria achieved with difficulty by candidate countries like Poland, which is today achieving success with its own development gamble to create thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises.
But will these small and medium-sized enterprises succeed in surviving tomorrow's enlargement? Will small and medium-sized European enterprises succeed in withstanding the impact of competition from products using cheaper labour?
Mr President, I would like to conclude by saying that I appreciate the emphasis the rapporteur places on Turkey and hence Cyprus.
Resolving the Cyprus problem in an equitable way means pacifying Turkey and guaranteeing it against the temptation of religious fundamentalism which, if it should prevail in that country, would mean exponential growth in the tragedy currently being experienced by Algeria.
Mr President, I will be speaking first as co-rapporteur for Bulgaria.
Everyone who has followed the developments in Bulgaria knows that its government and population are extremely motivated about joining the Union.
The Bulgarian Parliament has declared itself unanimously in favour of this.
Enormous efforts have been made in the transition to a market economy.
The budget deficit was pushed back spectacularly.
During the first months of this year inflation was 300 % a month and has now been pushed back to 0.5 %.
All are clear signs of an immense amount of hard work in order to not miss out on accession.
It is evident that decisive measures will also have to be taken in the fields of environment, transport, agriculture and energy.
A thorough reform of the administration will require a great deal of energy.
Yet the Committee for Foreign Affairs was of the opinion that the most important political criteria had been met, and that opening negotiations will give a new impulse to the reforms in Bulgaria, and that, in addition, the Bulgarian population will start to feel a sense of belonging.
What is more, the presence of the Union will be strengthened in a region which from a political point of view is very unstable.
On behalf of the Green Group I can confirm what Mr Swoboda said, namely that the toughest point of political dispute in Parliament had been the question: do we want to start the negotiations with five plus one, as suggested by the Commission, or do we want this start to include all? I have to say that I am little surprised at the categorical statements by Commissioner van den Broek, as what he is saying today is exactly the same as what he said in July.
It is as if there had been no clear political signals questioning these issues, naturally above all from the countries which will end up in category B. I fully understand and even respect people who display great tenacity, but on the other hand, closed-minded stubbornness can be counterproductive politically.
It is clear that the countries ending up in category B have the feeling that they were excluded, and clearly see this as a loss of face toward their own population.
It should not be forgotten that many of them have had the door shut in their faces twice, as they were not allowed to join NATO either.
They also foresaw a deterrent effect on foreign investors.
That is why we as a Green Group prefer a flexible system with a joint start for all, but obviously individual arrivals related to the progress actually made.
The Bulgarian Government, for instance, has said publicly in its own country that they know very well that it will take at least eight years before it will be able to qualify for membership.
I therefore think that we must, in particular, keep our ear to ground with respect to those who were in category B.
Secondly, I would like say that the entire process will only really have a chance of success if we manage to carry out serious agricultural reform within the Union.
I must express great concern about the way the Commission's proposals, which were partly aimed in the right direction, were received at the Council of Ministers of Agriculture.
There were very distinct signs of obstructions, and if we do not succeed in implementing agricultural reform in the right sense, this will have disastrous consequences for the already extremely shaky agricultural structure in the eastern European countries, which is very important in terms of employment - an average 20 % of the population still works in agriculture - and therefore accessibility for the population.
Our big question is whether this Parliament in its majority statement should continue to choose the option preferred by the Commission on 19 November, and that there should be a clear signal from this Parliament, with a view to the Luxembourg summit, so that a courageous agricultural reform which truly meets the needs of eastern European countries could really take shape.
Mr President, the three Baltic Republics share certain common characteristics.
All three were occupied by the Soviet Union for more than 50 years, interrupted only by German occupation during the Second World War.
All three have sizeable Russian-speaking minorities, especially Latvia and Estonia.
All three are small countries.
And all three have made tremendous advances since national liberation in 1991.
I do not wish to be a Cassandra but I still consider they have a very long way to go.
I hope they will make it by the time the Union has made the necessary institutional reforms.
As rapporteur on Estonia and supporting the Commission's view on that country, I am afraid that taking only Estonia, among the Baltic states, on board is creating a new borderline between the haves and the have-nots.
There should not be a new Yalta Agreement supported by the European Union.
I understand the reasons for excluding Latvia and Lithuania but I do not see a big difference between the three countries in terms of development towards accession.
I therefore respectfully support an open approach. We Finns had to face the challenge of the Soviet Union attacking us and wishing to destroy our country in 1939.
Having today's Russia as a neighbour should not be considered a threat.
It gives us a chance to participate in a development that will lead, hopefully, to a still larger family of European nations, including Russia.
In terms of security, joining the Union was for us a way of underlining where we belong in a community of independent democratic nations.
I know that the Baltic Republics share the same aspirations.
Personally I see the minority questions in a far more optimistic light than some people, especially in Estonia.
In many part of Europe we have seen the destructive effects of so-called ethno-nationalism.
Building stable institutions and the rule of law must one day lead to a multicultural, multilingual society where nobody will be excluded.
Whatever is being decided here, it is my conviction that we are starting an irreversible process which will change the face of the whole of Europe.
Mr President, as rapporteur for Latvia, I would first like to underline what Mr Donner has already said about Estonia.
Latvia is one of the three Baltic countries which were part of the Soviet Union only six years ago; it is a country which has made extraordinary progress given the tragic legacy of the Soviet system, a country which has made huge steps towards a very efficient market economy, with privatizations which should be concluded in June 1998, an inflation rate which will be 9 % by the end of 1997 and set to reach 7 % in 1998, and a budget which is very likely to be in balance in 1998.
I do not know how many countries in western Europe will be able to boast a balanced budget.
Well, Latvia is doing all that.
Certainly there are problems: there is an administrative system and a legislative system to be reformed, also the legacy of a Soviet system which had in fact devastated any possibility of protecting the state of law.
There are criminal codes and the law on criminal procedure to be rewritten, there are minorities to be better protected, there is the problem linked to the acquisition of Latvian nationality by the Russian-speaking minority, there are many "non-citizens' , there is a so-called "windows system' which does not work.
But it is clear that the progress achieved by Latvia up to now cannot be regarded as second rate and therefore, Mr President, we cannot raise new barriers where barriers have never existed.
Let me state clearly that it would be a resounding blunder to start negotiations with series A countries and series B countries at different times, especially for the Baltic countries.
We should remember that we have to put Yalta behind us, and likewise Munich agreements and Ribbentrop-Molotov pacts!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am the rapporteur for Lithuania.
I can honestly say that it has given me pleasure, because I have noticed the great effort being made in Lithuania and I could write a whole catalogue of things that have been achieved with political reforms, with the market economy and the removal of restrictions with regard to foreign currency, prices, the movement of goods and so on.
And I might point out that Lithuania does not have problems with minorities in the same way as Estonia and Latvia.
But the crucial thing for me is to point out that the idea is to get this Europe repaired and bind it together again.
A characteristic of this part of the world is that for centuries at regular intervals we have bashed each other over the head, and time and time again Europe has been dismembered.
In fact you have to marvel that this part of the world has survived at all.
But now at the end of this century the important thing is to organize relationships in this part of the world and to repair the damage that was done in the first half of the century.
The task therefore is to screw Europe together again in the political workshop after the Stalin-Hitler pact - also known as the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact - and the division of Europe into spheres of interest.
The task is to repair post-Yalta Europe and its subsequent division by the Iron Curtain in 1945.
There were three independent countries which suffered heavily under this division of Europe, and they are the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
For me it is natural to think of these three countries together, since these three countries were erased as independent nations and were under the Soviet Union for 50 years.
We Danes have a special interest in this question and a special relationship with the Baltic states. They are our neighbours on the shared Baltic Sea.
Of course we would also think of them as separate countries, but I am pleased that the attitude of this Parliament appears to be in the direction of a practical joint start for all the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe and therefore also the three Baltic states.
That is what I want too.
I have visited Lithuania and Latvia several times and meeting the people in these countries, not just government representatives, has made a strong impression on me.
I have noticed that they are working hard to qualify as full members of the EU.
There is still a lot to do, not least in the area of administration, and also in the securing of borders, which will become the external borders of the EU.
There is a need for support, a lot of support, but there is also a need to control the financial investments in order to counter crime, mafia activity and fraud.
Honourable Members, for me it is important to stress that these are independent countries, not just accession areas, but countries with their own identity and history and their own languages. They are countries which have reclaimed their freedom and rediscovered themselves.
That is something which people should respect, which people should recognize and acknowledge, including the EU, and which should characterize the current forthcoming dialogue with these countries.
Mr President, I would like to stress that the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left fully supports the enlargement of the European Union to include the countries of central and eastern Europe and Cyprus.
This enlargement should be a process which will allow us to create political, economic and social benefits for the citizens of the Member States and the candidate countries.
There would be no sense in turning this into a source of unnecessary problems, and causing sections of European public opinion to turn against the idea.
For this reason, we do not go along with some of the basic proposals which the Commission has included in Agenda 2000. We think that if they were implemented, they would end up slowing down the process of enlargement and creating unacceptable malfunctions.
Firstly, we think that negotiations should be initiated simultaneously with all the countries of central and eastern Europe which, judged objectively, are ready to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria in the future, rather than with just a sub-set of them. Obviously, the criterion which demands a system of democracy must be met.
We are therefore in favour of the so-called regatta method: that each country's accession should depend on its own ability to become a member of the European Union, at the appropriate time.
Therefore, we are opposed to any delay or conditions imposed on the start of negotiations with Cyprus, which should begin at the same time as with the other countries and involve the legitimate Government in Nicosia. If there is a European Conference, it should be for the purpose of discussions about the second and third pillars, and Turkey should not be involved.
Turkey is a very different case from the countries of central and eastern Europe and Cyprus. It is not a full democracy, and its government has allowed itself to make totally unacceptable threats in relation to the initiation of discussions with Cyprus.
To tackle enlargement properly will require a substantial increase in the own resources ceiling proposed by the Commission which, at the level of 1.27 %, is clearly inadequate.
The cost of enlargement should be borne by all the Member States together, in a spirit of solidarity, making sure that the least-developed do not end up paying for it indirectly.
Therefore, we are opposed to any questioning of or reduction in the structural funds and cohesion policies. These aspects have to be considered as additional to enlargement.
Nor do we accept in any way that enlargement should be used as an excuse for an inadequate reform of the common agricultural policy.
We believe that the accession of new members to the European Union should strengthen rather than undermine the European social model, which should aim for job creation and improvements in working conditions and living standards.
The Union should not lend its support to ultra-liberal policies, the harmful results of which everybody is aware of.
In this respect, questions such as strengthening essential public services, promoting equality between men and women, and protecting the environment should be given priority status.
By the same reasoning, we do not think the Union's enlargement process should be artificially speeded up, since this might result in economic shocks with harsh social consequences for the new Member States.
In the area of the common foreign and security policy, enlargement ought to imply an increase in the European Union's own capacity for external action, but we note that unfortunately other organizations, such as NATO, seem to have taken sole charge of the security aspirations of some of the candidate countries.
As far as institutional matters are concerned, we ask that the necessary reforms (which were not adopted at Amsterdam) should be carried out before enlargement takes place.
We continue to call for consolidation as well as enlargement.
In conclusion, we are in favour of enlargement, but we cannot help being highly critical of the content of the Commission's proposals.
In our view, that is the message this Parliament should give out, but unfortunately this has not been sufficiently stressed in the report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
Mr President, in my capacity as co-rapporteur on the Czech Republic for that report, I should like to stress that the Committee on Foreign Affairs is fully in favour of starting accession negotiations with that country, notwithstanding our demand that that country should quickly find a satisfactory political solution to current discrimination against the gypsy minority, and to the various other problems related to the administration of justice and the financial system.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when the founding fathers laid the bases of the Community, they stated two fundamental conditions for being a part of it: firstly and obviously, to be situated geographically in Europe, and secondly, to have democratic institutions.
In their eyes all else was no more than practical detail.
On the eve of the greatest enlargement we have ever experienced, it is perhaps useful to recall this approach, which signals a certain concept of Europe, political, open, generous, long term.
I sincerely believe that each time fundamental decisions have to be taken in Europe, it is this concept that must inspire us.
But for all that, we cannot forget the practical details, for the success of this enlargement depends on respect of a certain number of rules, particularly economic ones.
It is clearly this that the European Council meant by asking the Commission to examine the situation of ten applicant countries, with a view to democratic criteria, certainly, but also with regard to economic criteria such as their capacity for competition or mastery of the "acquis communautaire' .
The Commission has done its job. It has done it well, and this is acknowledged by virtually all the Member States and applicants.
We should particularly note two interesting proposals, that of the European Conference and that of reinforced partnership.
Nevertheless, the study of the different countries, particularly from the point of view of economic criteria, led the Commission to make proposals which have given the impression that it was setting itself up in judgement by distinguishing two categories of countries amongst the applicants.
It did not require much perception to anticipate that the second category would see this as a division.
It is the reason why, based on the Commission's objective analysis, I repeat again that Parliament, playing fully its role, wishes to move on from this analysis by introducing a more political and more cultural judgement into the issue of enlargement, along with a longer term outlook.
The countries in the second group know very well that the road to accession will be a long one for them.
But they need to be indisputably told once more that they are a part of the European family.
They need a sign of encouragement and a message of hope, and they need them now.
By way of example, I would like to take the case of Romania.
Only a few days after its application for membership of NATO was turned down, Romania found out that she was not amongst the countries with which the Commission considered the European Union could open accession negotiations.
For this country of 23 million inhabitants, European by culture, by history, geography and now by democracy, it was a harsh blow.
Of all of the former satellites of the USSR, Romania is certainly the one which had to endure the harshest dictatorship.
Its international trade has had to be reoriented extremely quickly, and it has had to cope with the difficult consequences of the embargo on Yugoslavia.
On a geostrategic level, Romania plays an important role in the stability of the region, particularly in the numerous accords it has entered into recently with several of its neighbours.
Furthermore, a very large consensus exists amongst the Romanian people in favour of accession, and the efforts to reform and transform Romanian society achieved by the current government are worthy of being mentioned, as are also the truly remarkable sacrifices which the Romanian people accept with stoicism in order to introduce the necessary factors of change and modernization into their society.
This people and its leaders would not understand if the European Union did not give them a firm helping hand.
The concept we have of Europe, that of a generous and united continent, demands that Romania, too, should be invited to negotiate her entry as from next year.
Furthermore, the speed of negotiations will depend on the capacity of Romanian society to cope with the reforms.
Nobody knows the date they will join, but we must not today give the impression that the door to accession is closed.
We must offer Romania an outlook worthy of the idea that it is becoming one of us.
Mr President, I think one point should be a very clear in this debate: this new phase of enlargement of the European Union is of unprecedented historic and political importance. We cannot diminish that significance or set limits on it.
What gives the enlargement that significance is not just quantity, the number of countries applying for membership, but the process of democratic stabilization and cohesion it involves.
For these reasons, we, as the European Parliament, have a great political responsibility.
There are two main issues we have to confront: first, accompanying the enlargement with consolidation and reform of the European institutions and, secondly, ensuring that the process of enlargement gets off to a good start, without excluding any countries which meet the basic requirements, without causing disappointment and division.
So it is fundamental that negotiations should start with all those countries which respect the political and democratic criteria.
I hope and believe that the European Parliament will express itself clearly to that effect and will send a clear message to the Council along those lines.
As regards Slovenia, I just want to make some fundamental points.
The country is starting from a good basis for negotiations with a view to membership.
The political and democratic situation is solid and the economy is dynamic.
Of the applicant countries, it is the one with the highest average per capita GDP and where the rate of employment in agriculture is similar to that of the existing fifteen Member States of the European Union.
It has a positive budget position and is doing its utmost to bring the other macro-economic criteria under control.
Naturally, there are many problems in this country too, which are being confronted with seriousness and continuity to achieve the objective of an open and competitive economy, to modify the internal structures, to transpose Community legislation, and to intensify training and information.
But what I want to emphasize and what I have directly observed in drafting the report on this country is the commitment and awareness of the leaders of Slovenia, the determination of the government and the parliament to pursue these objectives, as is also demonstrated by the preparation - I think it is the only country to have done this - of a strategic document which was presented this week, an important and binding document, setting out deadlines, stages and methods.
I think it sets a good example for others.
Naturally all this must proceed consistently, without uncertainty or ambiguity, but the political fact of the commitment of the institutions and leaders should be emphasized.
Slovenia can play an important political role for the European Union, filling a territorial gap, integrating that part of Europe politically, establishing new relations with neighbouring states, and providing positive stimulus for other entities created from the dissolution of former Yugoslavia.
I believe that should be seen as an important factor too.
For all these reasons, I not only believe negotiations can quickly begin, but that they can possibly enter an intensive and highly advanced stage very soon.
Mr President, on behalf of this Parliament I have been able to deal intensively with Slovakia, one of the 11 candidate countries, over the past few months.
I would like to say many things about the general aspects of the Union's enlargement, but I will deal with only one issue, Slovakia.
Others have already said enough about all the other issues. Slovakia is important enough in itself.
The future of a country and its population are at stake.
In the debate on enlargement, Slovakia stands out in a distinctly negative way.
In Agenda 2000 the Commission expresses the opinion that Slovakia, or should we say the present government of Slovakia, does not fulfil one of the most important conditions for EU Membership, namely the establishment a stable, political democracy in which human rights and minorities are respected.
Otherwise the country would be able to meet the criteria in the medium term.
The Commission is of the opinion that it is not possible to negotiate with Slovakia as long as these problems have not been solved.
We have tested the Commission's opinion carefully in many discussions held with all those involved in Slovakia.
We have had to recognize that the government is indeed trifling with the constitution, the rights of parliament and the Hungarian minority.
The European Parliament and its delegation for Slovakia pointed this out earlier. We recall only recently the case of Gaulieder, the Member of Parliament who was removed from the national parliament in an unconstitutional way.
The European Parliament did not only pronounce judgment, it also tried directly and indirectly to influence the situation in Slovakia.
There has been a great deal of contact.
In June this year the joint parliamentary delegation even published recommendations on what measures Slovakia should take, in particular on a number of important democratic issues.
This joint effort, or should I say pressure, has led to some progress over the past few months.
The President, who is virtually opposition leader in Slovakia, and the Prime Minister are communicating again, albeit haltingly; this was a big problem.
Opposition and governing parties have promised to champion Slovakia's EU interests to a greater extent.
This is not enough to change Parliament's judgment, however.
That is why it is being suggested that Slovakia is excluded from the concrete negotiations as long as democracy fails to function normally.
How Slovakia is to be involved in the wider negotiation process, is still unclear.
This depends on the negotiation formula.
Should the Council or this Parliament opt for simultaneous negotiations with all candidates, then we do not think Slovakia should be included at the moment.
In the event of a half-regatta, to use another phrase, the situation would be different; if there was to be a more symbolic start to negotiations, and subsequently more concrete ones, then Slovakia would be able to join in the first phase.
But as I said, our critique of the government in this country is the main thing.
At the same time we do not want to shut the door on Slovakia, and its population.
It is and will remain a European country which must not be allowed to disappear over the European horizon.
It is Europe's youngest state. This can lead to extra problems.
That is why we support the creation of an entry partnership and regard Slovakia's inclusion in the European Conference as a positive counter sign for everyone in that country.
That way the responsibility for Slovakia's failure will be placed where it belongs: with the government.
It is unacceptable that a government should treat the interests of a country in this way.
We hope that the opinion of the European Parliament, but also that of European Commission, will make those responsible in Slovakia think again.
Better to change now than to find a closed door later.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Bertens our distinguished rapporteur on Cyprus. He is in Canada attending the conference on landmines.
With regard to Cyprus Mr Bertens says that we are today repeating a debate we had in this House in June 1995.
Both Parliament and the Council have several times expressed the view that the accession negotiations with Cyprus will start six months after the IGC.
Today we confirm this position.
Cyprus is a special case.
As the Commission stated in Agenda 2000, Cyprus is economically and politically ready for Union membership.
It is evident says Mr Bertens that we cannot allow a foreign occupant to dictate the date and pace of accession negotiations.
Therefore, the negotiations should start as planned.
Neither the negotiations nor accession should depend on a solution of the Cyprus problem. The Union should contribute massively to the solution of the Cyprus problem.
The UN efforts of Cordovez deserves all support.
By extensive information to both communities and dialogue with and amongst them the Union can improve the atmosphere on the island.
It should push for representation of both communities in the enlargement negotiations.
The Union can make a difference if it acts coherently and consistently.
Mr President, I have listened to the speakers representing the various political groups with interest, along with the oral reports on the Commission's opinion.
I was extremely pleased to note that the European Parliament by and large shares the analysis of its rapporteurs, Mr Oostlander, Mr Barón Crespo and Mr Colom i Naval.
Your rapporteurs have said that this fifth enlargement, Mr President, is a great opportunity for Europe. It is clear that if, on the one hand, enlargement has a cost, it also creates new markets and thus new jobs, and it substantially increases the weight of Europe in the world, an important secondary effect that cannot be measured in financial terms.
Many speakers have highlighted the global nature of the enlargement package.
Mr Pöttering, for example, said that it was necessary to strengthen and deepen the European Union, reform its policies and its institutions and the way its institutions work, so that it may welcome eleven new Member States.
With regard to the procedure for negotiation, Mr Swoboda spoke of an accession fever.
He spoke of an accession fever in this Parliament, but I fear that this fever has not yet touched public opinion in our own countries.
A great effort is needed to explain to the people of the fifteen Member States, which the European Parliament, the national parliaments, the Commission and the fifteen governments will need to support.
In the coming days we have to find a procedure which discriminates against no-one.
In this respect, your Parliament's motion for a resolution, which is under discussion, is a good compromise, as Mrs Hoff said.
It says, in point 3, that all the applicants have the right to initiate negotiations at the same time, but in point 6 it clarifies that it shares the Commission's opinion which states that intensive negotiations should first begin with those countries which have achieved the most notable progress.
There is therefore on the one hand the date of commencement of negotiations, and on the other the speed of negotiations.
This therefore acknowledges a differentiation based on the state of preparation of applicant states.
There must be no exclusion, but a differentiation, within the very nature of the negotiation process with the eleven applicant countries.
Mr President, the discussions within the Council are currently moving in the same direction.
The idea of a European Conference has not been challenged during the debate.
You have acknowledged, through your position, that a multilateral framework is required for the eleven applicant countries.
It needs an instrument of political cooperation.
With regard to Turkey's participation in this conference, that question currently remains open.
Your Parliament is calling for a difficult step.
The Commission, through the intermediary of its Commissioner, Mr van den Broek, has expressed a wish for clarity.
But the Commission and the Council also hope for positive signals from Ankara.
Whilst waiting, the intention of the Presidency is to propose to the Council that Turkey should have a place in the enlargement process and that a strategy for closer ties should be defined between Turkey and the European Union.
I would also like to thank Mr De Vries for having placed enlargement within the context of the common foreign and security policy.
In fact, the incorporation of new members from the east and centre of the European continent should be seen in the same context as our relations with Russia, the United States and Canada.
A strengthening of our relations with Russia has been brought about through the partnership agreement which came into force on 1 December and of which the implementation and execution will be achieved through the high level meetings anticipated in this agreement.
Regarding links with our transatlantic partners, the United States and Canada, I would like to inform you that a summit is taking place tomorrow and the day after in Ottawa and Washington, during the course of which we will deepen our relations and strengthen dialogue on all questions of current concern, including enlargement of the European Union, with our transatlantic partners.
Let me add to this list some partners who are not to be neglected because we are embarking upon the venture of enlargement, our Mediterranean partners.
The Community must not become unbalanced through enlargement and we must at the same time strengthen our ties with our southern partners.
Finally, regarding political reforms and the financial framework, I note that these were questioned by no-one. Opinions diverge once you begin to talk figures.
Failing an agreement today on figures, let us be agreed on a principle, that stated by Mr Puerta, for example, who said that a Europe of the 21st Century must be not only a market, but also an area of solidarity. Solidarity between the fifteen former members, but also solidarity between the old and the new.
I am convinced, Mr President, that the European Parliament and the Council are on the same wavelength on this point.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, enlargement of the European Union to the CEECs and Cyprus is certainly one of the most important challenges for the future of the European institutions.
But to have two minutes in which to present to you the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on two such important reports, you will agree, I am sure, is very little.
Be that as it may, the pitfall to avoid is both that of weakening existing Union policies, particularly the common agricultural policy, and of disappointing applicant countries.
The Committee on Agriculture has declared itself to be in favour of this enlargement, on condition that a European agricultural model which makes use of the space and development of the countryside is respected.
We would like to remind you that it is agriculture which moulded our European civilization, and that it goes back more than 2000 years.
An extraordinary European summit on employment recently took place.
It would be good to try to solve the problem at the source.
I would like to remind you that, in the agricultural sector, the European Union lost 230, 000 jobs in 1996 and in the same year nearly 800, 000 farms disappeared.
These figures are terrifying, Mr President, terrifying for future generations.
So, the question is, has the Commission exceeded the mandate entrusted to it by the European Council? The reply is probably yes.
From the commissioning of a technical study has come 1500 pages, duplicated into millions of copies, of a real political programme with no consultation.
A programme in which you anticipate, with meticulous care and detail, the development of our European policies, enlargement, reform and budget, although budget, reform, enlargement would have been a more realistic order.
A programme which makes, under the pretext of harmonizing agricultural and structural policies adapted to the new cycle of the World Trade Organization, the same mistake as in 1992.
Will the American task force already have caused Europe to fold in on itself, even before the deadline?
Under the pretext of enlarging Europe eastward, which will need structural and not agricultural funds, and under the pretext of budgetary constraints, guidelines and other convergence criteria with, for good measure, a growth rate of 2.5 % in Member States and 4 % in the CEECs between the years 2000 and 2006.
It is true that if you want something done it is better to do it yourself and that the best way of doing it is simply to confuse the issue so that only a few insiders understand what is going on, in this case the Commission...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, the initial political decision on enlargement has already been taken and this has been reaffirmed in the debates and speeches that have taken place here today.
We must therefore focus our attention on attempting to implement this political decision correctly, that is, on the ways in which enlargement is to take place in the smoothest and most effective way to ensure it achieves its objectives, which we have all outlined on various occasions.
For this reason, some basic principles, chiefly those regarding the financial sector, which I am about to discuss, and the issue of European Union resources, must be accepted from the outset and must always be debated on this basis without continual changes in policy.
The first thing is that reform of the economies of those states is a long and difficult process.
We must also bear in mind that, if this reform does not happen, accession which does not fulfil these conditions will create very serious problems not only for the state concerned but also for the European Union.
No in-depth analysis is necessary for us to realize that if we accept in our midst a society and an economy which has not advanced to the point which will enable it to fulfil the conditions which accession entails, then there will be enormous problems for both.
For this reason, there must be adequate pre-accession aid and a pre-accession period to allow these states to prepare their economies adequately for proper accession.
I listened with great interest to what Commissioner van den Broek said about the creation of a fund to make up the difference.
This proposal has been elaborated by the European Parliament regarding the change to the Phare programme and I assume that what we have just heard is the development of this proposal.
Of equal importance is the issue of pragmatism and flexibility.
We cannot fashion inflexible frameworks when we do not even know if the conditions that we have set will be met, nor what the future progress of the economy will be.
For this reason, Mr President, I think we must look at the totally inflexible proposal to formulate an immediate schedule of financial perspectives for the year 2006 extremely carefully.
As you have seen, the recommendations of Parliament say that we must have a certain flexibility in this matter, that is, there must be provision for a reform clause which will adapt the financial perspectives to the situation that has developed.
I am sure that, when it drew up Agenda 2000, the Commission took account of the fact that the conditions it contained would simply serve as an economic model, without being, of course, the kind of issues which would not incite any debate and which a priori would not undergo any change.
For this reason I believe that the recommendations of the European Parliament for flexibility in the matter of financial perspectives are quite correct and I think that we will eventually come to an agreement on that issue.
However, to give the impression at the present time that we are adopting an inflexible policy and that we are beginning negotiations with some but not all of the applicant countries, which, fortunately, is now changing, creates all kinds of erroneous impressions, as well as political problems for the applicant States. These problems are sometimes of such significance, although logic tells us that they should not be, that they may have very serious repercussions on the progress of the issues.
However, whatever changes may come about, Mr President, and whatever the debate on cutbacks and on internal changes in the context of the financial perspectives, they must concern all areas and not focus on a few.
We must not reach a point where enlargement takes place with a reallocation of funds in the context of the financial perspectives, as proposed for the year 2006, which would damage efforts to deepen the Union.
Whatever happens must cover all actions of the European Union.
One final point, Mr President, which was extremely well set out by Mr Oostlander, using the Cyprus issue by way of example, in an objective and proper analysis: it is high time that the European Union assumed a political dimension.
What we see emanating from our debates is that, if we do not have a proper political dimension, everything that we debate henceforth will remain ineffectual.
This is therefore something which we must take into serious consideration.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy I would like to point out, first, that enlargement is obviously our greatest challenge in the coming period.
As far as energy is concerned, our attention is particularly focussed on nuclear power stations.
We observe that in this area no "acquis communautaire' exists in Europe.
It is therefore extremely important that we make every effort now to bring the existing nuclear power stations in central and eastern Europe up to Western safety levels, and to ensure that industrial safety is checked, against the negotiating power of the IAEA.
It is also important, of course, that we make safety checks on highly radioactive waste. Euratom could play a significant role in this.
We advocate that countries from central and eastern Europe are able to participate in the fifth framework programme.
Where this might not be possible, then this should at least be able to continue with Copernicus which has been extremely successful.
Participation in the European Union's information society projects is very important.
That way we can ensure that we are making an investment now which will lessen any claim on the structural and cohesion funds later is lessened.
That way we can also make sure that we will have a win-win situation, both here and over there.
Now I would like to make a few remarks on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party about the starting model.
Rightly, the Commission and Council President Poos pointed out that preparation and negotiations are part of the same process.
And everyone has pointed out that at the moment there is no single country we can admit, as no single country is ready.
Fine, I would say.
But let us not only give an explanation of the rational factors needed to make such a choice, as the Commission did, but also let us look at the psychology.
In countries like Romania, Bulgaria, etcetera, Yalta 1944 still lives on.
They have interpreted what is happening at the moment, whether we like it or not, whether we think it is right or not, as dividing Europe for a second time.
Their assessment of the security situation and stability in Russia is different from ours.
But they live closer to Russia, and they have personally experienced it for 45 years.
I would like to argue strongly and emphatically that these kinds of feelings and this kind of psychology are taken into account as well.
These countries in central and eastern Europe are rightly facing enormous reforms which have yet to take place.
We are not talking about small reforms, we are talking about fundamental, far-reaching reforms which will adversely affect countless people.
If you cannot offer any true prospects, such as accession to the European Union before too long, the outcome of the debate in Luxembourg might be interpreted differently than it is over here. Rationality is not immediately obvious to them, so motivating the population once again to continue with such heavy reforms and high unemployment is not easy.
It requires a great deal of courage from politicians.
Investors, too, in the end make choices about whether to go Estonia and not to Lithuania, because it will be argued that the latter is a country which is not in the first round.
So I sincerely hope that we will not have two groups of countries, and that we will be able to find a way to make rationality on the one hand go hand in hand with a feeling of solidarity on the other.
I would also like to make a forcible and emotional plea to the Commissioner to find a solution which will include everyone, because we want to have an inclusive process; this will have to find expression in our strategy.
Mr President, there are no precedents for this process. Enlargement should therefore be seen as a historic undertaking, but also as a political necessity in the context of our search for European identity and an opportunity in the context of future economic developments.
We think the Commission's proposal for pre-selection is a mistake.
It could damage and delay the adhesion process for some prospective members, causing rifts between them, and might create different opportunities at the outset - such as the opportunity to attract foreign investment - which would discriminate unfairly between them.
It would also be a mistake to retain the 'untouchable' 1.27 % ceiling, because that ceiling is dependent on an underestimate of the enlargement costs for purely tactical reasons, with a dubious allocation of two-thirds of the financing to the cost of economic growth. This will very probably cause a reduction in the weight of political structures at the present time, when major disparities exist between the regions.
It would be equally wrong not to allow for the possibility of financial reviews, if they prove necessary, because it would be the poorest countries which would bear the cost of enlargement, and that would undermine their solidarity and cohesion.
It is neither acceptable nor consistent to support enlargement without providing the means that are needed to realize it with the greatest possible functional efficiency, which must be in all our interests, and strictly according to the existing rules, using the European agreements by which countries become associates or members of the World Trade Organization as an important reference framework.
It is also consistent to support the proposition that enlargement will be an alternative, instead of complementarity and interdependence, to other existing programmes, such as those proposed for the Mediterranean or ACP countries.
To down-value the redistributive aspect and function of the Community budget and underestimate the costs of enlargement for reasons connected with the present internal politics of one Member State or another would be not only a deplorable mistake but a near reductio ad absurdum of this process, which is decisive for the future of the European Union.
Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs shares the Commission's concern about the inability of the applicant countries to apply Community legislation in their administrative and judicial systems.
This is included in the resolution.
Furthermore, we stress the need for intensified measures in the applicant countries to increase knowledge of Community legislation.
The Committee has also proposed, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has taken up the need for effective and reliable systems for property and company registration.
When there are deficiencies in this system, you do not have the conditions, that is, the basis, for a market economy.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy also stresses that the protection of minorities is of crucial importance and that the Commission should solve this problem as quickly as possible jointly with the applicant countries.
This wording is too vague.
I am disappointed that the proposal by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, that the Member States and the applicant countries should, as a first step, ratify the Convention of the Council of Europe, has not been reconsidered.
It is the argument and evidence of the Council of Europe which are fundamental; and this is the work we must take as a basis if we are to be credible.
We cannot create a stable Europe without respect for the rights of minorities.
I consider it to be an even greater weakness that nothing is said about the rights of children in the applicant countries.
The Committee's report is even weaker than the Commission's investigation of the position of children country by country.
I noticed that the Commission only mentioned children in Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania.
The UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child is only mentioned in the case of Romania.
I therefore wonder whether, in its future annual assessments of human rights, the Commission will investigate how the Convention on the Rights of the Child is being carried out, especially the obligation to report progress, since all European countries have signed up to this convention.
In the future assessment of the Phare programme we should also find out how funds have been used to improve the position of children.
We must also press for the banning of child prostitution in all applicant countries.
It is a well known teaching from the Bible that the way we treat our little ones tells us what we are: humane or inhumane.
Mr President, Ladies and Gentlemen, the question of enlargement to the East is a matter of making good use of the historic opportunity for Europe.
Making good use, however, means that in this extremely decisive question for the future, policy cannot be made over the heads of the people concerned.
The massive difference in prosperity arouses on the one hand justified hopes for a better future, but on the other hand there are fears of declining prosperity and the loss of jobs.
The way in which this question is dealt with is undoubtedly crucial for success.
If the social dimensions, the social development of our new Europe is not driven forward purposefully or with the necessary sensitivity we are heading ever more certainly for new social conflicts and that is particularly the case in the border regions of the European Union.
It is precisely that which we must avoid.
The "how' has been discussed by the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs in its opinion, and proposals have been made.
The conclusions were almost unanimously passed on to the Committee for Foreign Affairs.
But one conclusion of the Social Committee, relating to the transition periods for freedom of movement of employees was rejected by a majority of one vote.
It is this conclusion which is now before the full house for a decision to be made.
We need this proposed, very flexible condition in order to reduce the pressure on the European social model in the first phase, and particularly in the EU-border regions we must help to remove the citizens' fears with the aid of credible transition regulations.
Only in this way will we be able to begin a good cross-border dialogue in order to promote the structure in the applicant states of a lasting development.
On behalf of my group I therefore urge you to support this motion.
Mr President, I do not wish to go into what the rapporteurs of the leading committees have said about regional and structural policy.
I will only say this: a reform of the structural policy, of the structural funds, is indispensable, with or without enlargement.
We should not lose sight of that in this context.
From the conclusions drawn by the Regional Committee the authors of the reports have kindly accepted some points.
I would like to deal with two points here.
The first point is that the applicants for membership should be required to create efficient local, regional and national administrative structures, that they should encourage non-governmental players and that they should improve the systems of financial control, so that they will at least be in a position to receive and administer structural funds properly, in order to remove disparities.
I would refer to the fact that the applicants for entry together and separately, apart from Cyprus, have had to live under conditions of real socialism, where there was no such thing as regional policy.
There may well have been an economic policy, a financial policy, a cultural policy, irrespective of how good or how bad these policies were, there was the concept of these policies.
There was no regional or structural policy.
To that extent it is very important to develop amongst the potential candidates for entry at least an idea that regional and structural policies must exist.
The second point taken up by Mr Oostlander and Mr Barón Crespo is that we must seek a strategy with the central and eastern European applicants for entry so that after a first wave of enlargement it would not turn out that the prosperity gap between the European Union and the countries which do not belong to it is not just pushed, in a sense, a few hundred kilometres eastward.
That way we shall have gained nothing.
In other words, the candidates for entry must take care as soon as possible that the areas close to their particular eastern neighbours are not allowed to slip behind, thus creating new conflicts there, because the fact is that in connection with enlargement the maintenance of peace in freedom remains, as ever, the most important goal of the European integration.
Allow me in conclusion to thank the rapporteurs.
All three rapporteurs have displayed not only great knowledge of the subject matter but also in particular a very high degree of sensitivity, and I believe that this sensitive topic demands both!
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, I would like to present the viewpoints discussed by the Committee in connection with this report.
Traffic is, as you know, increasing rapidly in Europe, and many new trading relationships which increase the level of traffic have been set up, particularly with the establishment of the new democracies.
It is the Committee's view that the new Member States should live up to EU policy on sustainable mobility.
In that context the required initiatives and the required support should be set up.
The priorities, as set out in the trans-European networks, should also apply to the new Member States.
It is also important for the Committee on Transport to stress that the rules on health and safety should apply in a transport market which does not recognize borders, which is transnational.
The single market for transport is already hectic. For competition reasons and out of consideration for the environment and workers, it is necessary for us to implement binding agreements so that the traffic development is balanced and takes the environment into consideration.
New Member States should receive support for this process.
So Mr President, I would like to add, that I am pleased to hear that there is now talk of a softening with regard to negotiations and to the possibility of starting them with the applicant countries.
Today we have heard that all the applicant countries have the same opportunity, but we are still talking about a selected group and the rest.
That is a bit self-contradictory.
Perhaps it is connected with the fact that I disagree with the Commission's methods of measuring. Who is furthest ahead?
Is this being assessed from an economic viewpoint, or on the basis of ability or will to participate in the European Union? What is the difference between preparation and negotiation?
The Commissioner said it was one process, but the Commission still has a start group as part of its strategy. From the budget attached to Mr Colom i Naval's report it appears that there are three times as many euros for the first group.
I do not understand that if you are talking about equal opportunity.
But today the Commissioner has talked about a new fund, as far as I understood.
From today's debate I would conclude that, regardless of what model is chosen and regardless of how the parallel conferences are organized, an applicant country which has gone through the technical preparations and is ready for negotiations will be invited to concrete negotiations, and that is the decisive factor.
If the assurances of the Commission and the Council hold good, the reality of who will be included first will be very different.
Mr President, from an environmental point of view this Parliament's Committee on Environment has chosen the least possible distinction between the countries, because in order to reach the environment "acquis' , countries who are not in the first round may show a certain passivity, whilst those who are in the first round may display a certain selfsatisfaction.
This is what such a distinction may result in.
During my visit to a number of applicant countries my impression of the environmental issue was confirmed.
The enlargement of the Union is primarily a politically driven process, but that does not mean it should jeopardize European policy.
This is a danger with regard to the environment.
The cost of meeting the environmental legislation in the Member States is so enormous - it is estimated to be ECU 120 billion - that this cannot be reasonably produced within 20 years.
Despite this time bomb which is slowly ticking away, enlargement will go ahead.
To defuse this time bomb, the Committee on Environment adopted some amendments which have partly ended up in the plenary reports.
It is of course evident that in order to be able to join, environmental legislation related to the internal market White Paper has to be complied with, but as far as the other environmental legislation is concerned, we must ask the European Commission to set priorities.
Otherwise it will take too long for the entire "acquis' has been incorporated.
Then it might not be until 2020 or 2030 that the first country is able to join.
We would like to have a copy of that priority list.
Another important amendment is that we call for, together with EIB and EBRD, a kind of guarantee fund to be set up for banks in regions which as yet are little prepared to lend money to small and medium-sized companies for profitable environmental investments.
It would be helpful if we could support this initiative. Private finance will thus be released for accessions.
Finally, we should not underestimate the lack of capacity in these Member States, nor the lack of capacity amongst their citizens.
I hope we will also allocate Phare funds for this.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Youth, Culture, Education and the Media on the Oostlander, Barón Crespo and Colom i Naval reports, I welcome the fact that in Agenda 2000 the Commission describes enlargement as a challenge for the Union and as an opportunity vis-à-vis its security, economy, culture and its position in the world.
The cultural diversity of Europe will be a source of creativity and prosperity.
The entry of new Member States will increase the weight of the Union and its international influence.
Education and culture are an important component of confidence-building measures to secure an enlarged Union.
They also represent one of the few spheres where there are no differences between poor and rich countries, between those who have made more or less progress, but where Member States and applicants work together on the basis of equality and partnership.
Therefore we regard the spheres of education and culture as particularly important in an age where nations are planning to draw close together.
A clear sign of this is that the applicants for membership are already taking part in cultural and educational programmes and have a particular interest in the Community programmes Socrates, Leonardo, and Youth for Europe.
Therefore, in the view of the Committee on Youth, Culture, Education and the Media, it is absolutely essential to increase the financial resources for these programmes.
This amendment was unfortunately not accepted but at least the declaration of intent, that the promotion of cultural and educational programmes are of equal importance for both Member States and applicants.
Here I would like to appeal to everybody, but above all to the Committee on Budgets to raise the budgetary resources in real terms from the present total of 0.48 % of the total budget for general professional education, culture, media and information, because it is precisely in the realm of educational and cultural policies, quite significant effects can be wrought with only small financial resources.
The basic principle, the culture and education are the key to the success of rapprochement strategies, has been recognized, and I therefore ask the EU institutions to accept our motion and also to deal with cultural and educational topics at the European Conference.
It is also accepted and obvious, that cultural and educational policies not only create jobs but also exert a significant influence on the quality of life, the strengthening of Community solidarity, of Union citizenship and of democracy itself.
So it is important to me that our European Parliament, which I belong to, accepts our amendment tomorrow and raises the status of education and culture in an enlarged Union.
Mr President, with the process of enlargement, there are countries lining up for EU membership, who all display one common characteristic: a low level of income to qualify.
When you realize that the intention behind enlargement policy is to keep within the present budget, we can expect economic problems to emerge in areas other than in the relationship between Member States and an EU that has duly expanded and is expanding now.
In terms of GDP many applicant countries are at the same stage as mid-level developing countries, and some even have a lower level of income.
Despite the statistics, however, these countries are not considered to be developing countries as far as their educational systems, health care arrangements and existent infrastructure are concerned, although they are in pretty poor shape in many respects.
Negotiations are going on, at least partly simultaneously with those on enlargement, between the EU and countries in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific countries on relationships beyond the year 2000, when the fourth Lomé Conference resolutions expire.
It is quite likely that the meagre resources available for the EU enlargement process will make it tempting to redirect funds traditionally used by the EU and its Member States to help developing countries towards the candidate countries.
If this were to happen, it would mean that the poor developing countries would be, to some significant extent, funding EU expansion.
This is totally unacceptable.
The Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs is to be congratulated on its approval of the point in the report which excludes the possibility of shifting economic resources dedicated to the developing world to aid new and future Member States.
The EU with its Member States is the world's largest provider of development aid.
This brings with it a responsibility to avert poverty in the world, at a time when in our immediate environment revolutionary changes are taking place which demand huge amounts of investment.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs targeted and concentrated all its discussions and then its final opinion on enlargement towards the creation of an extended area of freedom, security and law.
From this point of view we reached the unanimous conclusion that enlargement can make a decisive, positive contribution to this, both for the present Member States and the future new Member States.
This result will only be achieved if special efforts are made by participants, by the present Member States, by the institutions of the Union and by the applicant countries.
These efforts must above all serve the following goals: the improvement of protection of basic rights and the protection of minorities, in particular of the Roma and the Sinti.
We must require the applicants to abolish the death penalty.
We must require them to contribute with us to increasing of nuclear safety, if necessary also by decommissioning and closing down nuclear power stations.
The creation of administrative and legal authorities able to cope with the full implementation of the "acquis' must be guaranteed, in order to secure for the new citizens of the Union all the rights which the Union guarantees them.
It requires the setting up of efficient border controls which conform to the Schengen Agreement on the future new external borders of the Union.
We need a concept, and I cannot yet find one in Agenda 2000, of where and when these external border controls will be deployed.
We need a European Conference, which creates binding common procedures in the spheres of justice and internal security, and a reform of the Union which guarantees greater powers of decision-making in the spheres of justice and internal security.
Mr President, as spokesman for the Committee on Budgetary Control, I support a statement on key problems seen in relation to securing an effective and transparent administration in the countries of central and eastern Europe, both before and after accession to the Union.
The applicant countries should give priority to acquiring well-functioning legal systems and preventing and fighting corruption and criminality, and we should contribute to this through our cooperation and economic help.
The applicant countries should also give priority to border controls. They must build up an effective customs service and so on.
All of these are tasks and requirements which are common to all applicant countries.
The same applies in a lot of other areas, such as environment, infrastructure, safety of nuclear power, etcetera. If the countries have the same tasks there must, in principle, also be the same need for economic support.
I am therefore quite unable to understand why the Commission is setting the scene for such a drastic difference in treatment as is the case, particularly in category 2, structural measures, with an allocation of ECU 38 billion for the countries which are admitted first and only ECU 7 billion for the rest.
This points to a totally unreasonable preferential position and one which could contribute to increasing social and economic inequality.
The countries which are left at the starting post, so to speak, by not being admitted to membership in the first round, are precisely those which will have a special need for help in order not to be left out.
The Commission's proposal lacks logic.
Normally we give most support to those who have the greatest need.
The Commission has carried out some GNP calculations under conditions which appear both unreasonable and unreliable.
The figures themselves cry out when it is proposed that ECU 70 per inhabitant per year be given in pre-accession support, while at the same time support per inhabitant in the new Member States will increase from ECU 92 to ECU 248.
There does not appear to be any consistency in the Commission's proposal, either politically, economically or in terms of need.
And I would therefore appeal for the distribution to be changed.
It is not reasonable for the countries which are not yet ready for membership to be punished further by substantially lower economic support.
On the contrary, we should use our energy and funds to make it possible for all the applicant countries to achieve membership.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, it was essential that the most important factors of the opinion adopted by the Committee on Institutional Affairs were included in Mr Oostlander and Mr Barón Crespo's report, and I congratulate them on their work.
It was therefore with conviction that I co-signed Amendments Nos 43 and 44, tabled by Mr Martens, Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, along with Mr Tsatsos and others.
I thank them for this initiative.
A simple reference to the report by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsatsos would not have been sufficient.
It was necessary that the institutional reforms considered to be the most urgent should also be brought, in this report, to the attention of those countries applying for accession to the EU.
May I remind everyone that institutional reforms must be carried out before any enlargement takes place, that the conditions for the effective work of the Commission must be specified, that the Council's way of working, that is that with five exceptions there must be a qualified majority in any vote, the political mandate given to our House and the power conferred on it with regard to the adoption of the procedure for institutional reform, are truly very important.
In summary, Mr President, this is the opinion of the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
Mr President, the Committee on Fisheries has looked at this from a technical point of view because it is a very technical subject.
Eight candidate countries have a coastline and three candidate countries are just interested in fish farming.
For the first time we will have an involvement in the Black Sea and later, with all the countries which wish to join the European Community, we will have by far the largest coastline around the Black Sea.
That will have a huge political impact eventually on the European Union.
From the technical point of view, it has been difficult to get a lot of information.
We held a hearing when we had representatives from the delegations and ambassadors of the applicant countries.
As far as the European Union is concerned, the main interest lies with Poland and the Baltic states.
Eventually, as I said, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey will have a large interest too because the Black Sea is greatly polluted.
Poland and the Baltic states are important because of the overall size of the fleets and the social and economic dependency of the coastal regions.
For instance, Poland ranks thirty-five in the fifty main fishing countries of the world.
Historic performance is going to be important.
Everybody knows of the difficulties of fishing quotas but historic performance will mark up those quotas for the future.
Probably one of the most significant things as far as the European Commission is concerned is going to be the maintenance of new third country agreements that will come on-stream with Russia, the United States, Canada, Sweden which is already a member of the European Union, Norway and Mauretania.
There are limits to expansion for the fleets from incoming applicant countries.
Restructuring is going to be necessary and structural funds will have to be made available.
The administration of the fisheries sector within practically all the applicant countries except for Cyprus is not going to be compatible with the requirements of the European Union nor will the hygeine requirements be met.
So a huge amount of work will have to be done within the fisheries sector if we are going to see proper trade taking place with those countries.
This is all summed up very nicely in paragraphs 71 and 72 of the report from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and I commend those paragraphs to the House.
Mr President, a democratic system of government and a viable market economy are the conditions which have been imposed on those countries seeking membership of the Union.
Besides these conditions, the applicant countries must also fulfil certain social conditions before they can be allowed to become members of the EU.
For example, they must be helped to bring in legislation on job protection and product safety, which must meet EU monitoring requirements.
This is important, not only for the citizens of these countries, but also to ensure that bad working conditions or dangerous products cannot get to be a tempting source of competition in the internal European markets.
We also have to be able to create adequate labour systems for applicant countries.
The well-matched system of negotiations between employers and employees is a part of democracy and European welfare.
A condition of accepting new Member States must be that their labour market systems for negotiating and agreement are sound within the context of the European internal markets.
Obviously, enlargement creates costs for the EU.
The Commission's assessment that the costs of enlargement might be covered by economic growth seem over-optimistic.
That is why I agree with Mr Colom i Naval that the whole framework has to be checked mid-term if there are significant changes to what we suppose to be its basic tenets.
The Committee has not been fully with me on this point.
We must be wary of pitting the present problems of the Member States, especially unemployment, against the costs of helping applicant countries meet the criteria for membership.
The EU has to sort out both these problems efficiently and rationally, and use its resources to aid employment in a much more enlightened way than before.
The equation will not be met, though, if money is not going to be spent.
Expansionism has its price, but it is a price that must be paid willingly for the consolidation of peace and stability in Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Budgetary Control would like to applaud the efforts made by the Commission in putting forward the Agenda 2000 proposal.
We applaud the concern for ambition, the effort in planning, and the desire for interconnection and coherence between the different European Union activities.
Ambition because it is the great issue of the next ten years, along with monetary union and perhaps the emergence of serious political union.
It is the great issue of the European Union to reunify Europe by opening up to the part of it which was kidnapped.
Effort in planning since, at last, when the governments have their noses on the handlebars and a deadline of six months, we have the desire to look a little further than the end of our nose. It is to be applauded.
Finally, effort in interconnection for it was good, it was necessary, that the greatest expenses which as a whole characterize the European Union - the common agricultural policy, the structural funds, the costs linked to enlargement - should be put into perspective in a single document.
In spite of this effort, in spite of this applause, we are all the same forced to put our compliments into perspective.
For we have the feeling that, in this issue, the Commission has offered us, not a smokescreen, far from it, but a document which expresses far more constraints than choices.
We do not hold that against it.
We understand that it is constrained in its actions and that it was confronted by some who said "I do not want to pay more, I want to pay less' ; by others saying "do not touch my structural funds' and by a third group which maintained "take care of my agricultural guideline' .
So I am, we are, well aware that you are constrained in your actions.
In spite of this, in the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control, the result is quite worrying.
We consider that worries emerge which touch on the evaluation of needs, the financial forecasts, the economic management of appropriations and the administrative and accounting implementation of the expenses.
On the subject of evaluation of needs, there is not much to say on the CAP.
There are objectives, they could be questioned. It is not the purpose of our committee to do that.
They could be confirmed. That is not our purpose either.
On the other hand, there is a coherence between objectives and means.
Regarding structural funds, we are rather worried.
We witnessed, during the previous budgetary exercise, a growth in the number of categories of structural funds.
Today we are witnessing their contraction.
We cannot avoid seeing, Mr Commissioner, in this concertina movement, an effort, perhaps not deliberate but in any case successful, to prevent effective comparisons between what was spent yesterday and what will be spent tomorrow, in the different areas of the European Union.
We are also worried about monetary union. It is the one main thing that is absent from this document.
It goes without saying that to reduce asymmetric shocks we need a budgetary tool.
It would have been good to think about this, it would have been good to provide effectively for more flexible, more active instruments which would enable the negative consequences of possible asymmetric shocks to be compensated for.
It is above all regarding enlargement that we are worried. For here we have the feeling that what you are giving us is not a sum, but a balance.
It is not a sum of appropriations, reflecting needs, it is the difference between two scales, neither of which you have mastery of. On the one hand contributions which must remain static, on the other, expenses benefiting the fifteen Member States, which are fixed.
Between the two there is a balance and it is with this balance that the applicant countries must be satisfied.
We have the same worry concerning financial forecasts.
We do not question the reasonable nature of your forecast. We are concerned about its fixed character.
If you do not make the deadlines, the results, that you anticipate with regard to growth, what will you do?
Will you reduce expenditure, will you increase contributions? You have put yourselves inside an ultra-rigid system, even if your forecasts bear the stamp of common sense.
We also have a great worry regarding economic management of appropriations.
In reality, and this directly concerns enlargement, in the enlargement you will not be spending amounts in the new states...
Ah, I see I have already spoken for five minutes. I have gone over my speaking time.
I will very rapidly conclude therefore.
I would say that you do not anticipate ways of managing appropriations which are adapted to the new needs.
You do not consider the principle of additionality, you do not reform your administrative structures, you do not demand sufficient compensation from the states in the area of management of appropriations.
In short, you clothe what it is possible to clothe but you do not raise the problems of enlargement to their true extent.
That is what we reproach you with, even if we know very well that you are only partially to blame.
Mr President, the President-inOffice has spoken about an area of solidarity.
Speaking on the budget, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, it is clear that we are far from that.
Of course one can call the Commission's position realistic in not proposing a change to the budgetary procedure or any modification of the balance of own resources to make it more equitable.
For the Committee on Institutional Affairs, it is very clear that this is a short term view.
The theory of just returns, which Commissioner van den Broek has indicated is not the Commission's approach, can only be stimulated by staying within the existing structures.
In the medium term we believe it is very important that the financial perspectives are changed to take into account that own resources are not giving a space of solidarity.
For that reason we need also to revise midterm the financial perspectives taking into account that a lot of changes may take place which require institutional reform, as the Commission also recognizes with its idea of having an intergovernmental conference where institutions will be reorganized.
Mr President, it is pleasing and sensible that the Commission has included fisheries in its last communication on Agenda 2000, because although fisheries make up a small part of the total economy, it is an important part.
There is a problem with regard to resources because a 13 % reduction in structural funds for the 15 Member States has been announced.
If this trend continues for the new Member States, it is doubtful whether it will really be possible to finance the needs.
It must be remembered that fisheries are going through dramatic structural change and that these structural changes are causing a lot of people to give up fishing.
That means that other things must be put in the place of fishing in the areas concerned.
I would like to point out that the fishing industry is a very important industry.
Not only does it provide us with protein food, but it also has a cultural function and that is very important for the tourist industry.
If fishing disappears in the small fishing communities, there will also be no opportunity for tourism.
Mr President, if you had had the courtesy and kindness to listen to me earlier, you would have understood that I have speaking time in my role as draftsman of the opinion of two committees, plus thirty seconds on behalf of my group.
Also, if you will allow me to take up the train of my text once more, and if you agree to my linking the two speeches together, I will continue.
If not, this is of no importance and I will stop.
It will be no worse than the Committee on Budgets voting on this issue before the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
So, are we reforming in all directions?
By insidiously introducing, under the agricultural guideline, expenses until now non-compulsory, you cloud the distinction between the two types of expenditure.
Either the non-compulsory expenses thus transferred are requalified as compulsory expenses, or they keep their current qualification and Parliament will have to look into the expenditure which figures in the agricultural guideline, which will lead to difficult arbitration between its position and that of the Council.
With regard to the EAGGF-Guarantee appropriations, these are regularly under-utilized.
If they were put towards financing measures of a structural nature, of interest to the rural environment, they would run less risk of later being arbitrarily reduced.
You are also going to present a proposal authorizing Member States to make direct aid payments conditional on respect for environmental measures.
We would be curious to know what, and under what conditions, since they will add to the flexibility of the agricultural aid that you recommend and encourage.
It is evidently an excellent political remedy to the policy of levelling down and a good way of gleaning a few ECUs to round off your month end.
It is imperative, Mr Commissioner, that you clarify your intentions.
It is clearly more difficult than proposing, all goods taken together, a reduction in general prices, and I would not be able to prompt you to refer to a Europe linking agriculture to its land by maintaining Community preference rather than a Europe where agriculture is linked to nothing but world prices.
That would be a bad calculation.
Mr President, I hope nobody listening to this debate is in any doubt about the seriousness of the course we are about to embark upon.
We are about to engage in a historic process which in my opinion will either make or break the European Union.
If we handle this process properly the European Union will become a genuinely wide European Union, not simply a Western European Union.
It will become a zone of stability and prosperity which will improve the quality of life of all its citizens and it will become a major force for good in the world beyond its borders.
However, if we get this process wrong, the European Union will at best become a bloated introverted structure incapable of making effective decisions and it could become one which will be in danger of losing any concept of a common vocation.
At the very worst we could see the European Union begin to crumble to the deafening sounds of mutual recriminations and contradictory ambitions, as well as endless disputes about obscure matters of European law.
Quite simply the challenge which is facing us today is to make quite sure that we get it right and that enlargement benefits the European Union and does not undermine it.
We have to make sure that at the end of the process we have a European Union which is effective and efficient, built on democratic legitimacy, which respects the relationship between small and large states and which respects the principle of subsidiarity.
That is a tall order.
It will not be easy.
It is the challenge we must confront at the beginning of the new century.
If the challenge of the 1980s was to complete the single market, the challenge of the 1990s to complete the single currency, the challenge at the turn of the century must be to create and make enlargement work for the benefit of the European Union.
It will require imagination, sensitivity, goodwill and, above all, honesty of political approach.
Our political message here today must be simply this: yes, we believe in enlargement, we want it to go ahead and we are not going to renege on our historic commitment to the countries of central and eastern Europe.
Secondly, we believe this process should be an inclusive one, that all countries in central and eastern Europe and Cyprus are in the pipeline to European Union membership, although they may be at different stages of that pipeline.
But we must also recognize that process will be immensely difficult.
We talk glibly about taking on the "acquis communautaire' , for example.
We often do not point out that the "acquis communautaire' now covers 80, 000 pages of text and 20, 000 legal acts.
That is quite a lot to take on.
We must also remember that these countries are all poorer than we are and they have to go through major problems of economic restructuring.
So our next message must be that it is vital for the European Union to step up its preaccession strategy, to increase the speed of preparing these countries for membership.
In particular, I would urge greater attention to be paid to the administrative and judicial capacity of these applicant countries.
In my view that is the biggest obstacle to accession to the European Union.
We also have to say that some countries are more ready to go through this last stage down the road to European Union membership than others.
Therefore, we have to accept the Commission's recommendations that we should proceed with five countries in addition to Cyprus.
A further message is that no country is in the European Union yet.
Starting this process does not guarantee you will finish it.
A lot of work needs to be done and, equally, if a country is not part of those initial negotiations, they can still join if they make great strides.
It is a flexible process.
We must also make it clear that the European Union has to change.
When we talk about change we must remember that enlargement has to be ratified by every single parliament in the European Union and by this parliament.
Therefore, all the changes we propose must have the consent of the people.
We cannot go beyond what they wish to see.
Finally, our message must be that the European Conference gives us a major opportunity to create a European political space that will allow us, while waiting for these negotiations, to engage in a sensible structured political dialogue with the countries which wish to join the European Union in the shorter or the longer term.
I will conclude by saying that, above all, we should remember that this is a political process, not a technical one.
It will require political courage and political decisions.
Once we get the single currency on the road we must give every ounce of our political energy to making enlargement work for the benefit of the European continent.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the fall of communism gives the European Union a changed agenda.
The original challenge was twofold: first, through close cooperation, to subdue an historic hostility which tears our continent apart in order instead to build up friendship and understanding, and secondly to provide political and economic strength and thus the confidence in our system based on democracy and market economics, which was necessary to be able to resist the external threat which the Soviet Empire posed on the dark horizon.
Through its successes the European Union has changed the path of world history.
Former arch enemies now make up the Union's backbone instead. A trusting cooperation characterizes the members of the Union, and the Soviet threat has been out-competed.
Its successes make the Union an example in the new historic era.
After previously being oppressed in the Soviet Empire, new countries in central and eastern Europe are looking to the Union to consolidate their economic and political freedom.
The challenge for the Union now is to offer membership to these countries which belong to the European circle.
After the institutional changes in the Union's decision-making mechanisms which are a condition for admitting more members, the Union can contribute to stability in a wider Europe.
The peaceful revolution in the east has its roots in the peace which it was the European Union's original task to create.
This is our historic mission.
In the new historic era, our task is not to be able to face up to someone through our strength.
Instead, by virtue of its successes through a deepened cooperation in the fields of foreign affairs and security, the European Union can contribute to stability, even in parts of the world which are outside the Union.
The conditions for this future task are improving to the extent that countries in central and eastern Europe are gaining membership and can thereby be given a role within the Union.
Let us make a comparison with the EMU project, which is already a success because the efforts by countries to fulfil the conditions for membership of EMU have had a beneficial effect on economic policy and have thus provided lower interest rates and lower inflation.
In the same way, the Union's other giant project, enlargement to the east, has already produced important results for us and for the applicant countries.
The efforts to fulfil the requirements which are a condition for membership have meant that the applicant countries have improved their policies.
Important economic adjustments have laid the basis for market economics. Reforms have strengthened the democratic system, the judiciary and respect for human rights.
The desire to become members has also got these countries to make great efforts to resolve conflicts, or potential conflicts, partly between themselves and partly with Russia and Ukraine.
The value of this is easy to underestimate, because good health is quiet.
However, the tragic experiences in the former Yugoslavia teach us how easily nationalist politicians have been able to exploit latent conflicts in the turbulence following the fall of the Soviet Empire.
We should give all the countries which apply for membership a clear opportunity to feel that they are not inadequate, and that it is worthwhile to continue the work of reform.
Several of the countries have a long way to go before they succeed in getting to the stage where they can become full members.
But it is perhaps especially important for those countries to be able to feel that the goal is not so distant that popular short-termism begins to take the upper hand in politics.
It is difficult to carry out reforms - you have to be able to see the goal.
That is why the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is recommending that Parliament decide that a strengthened enlargement process and negotiations should be opened up with all countries with European Agreements who fulfil the basic democratic and political requirements.
At the same time, however, and this is of crucial importance, the Committee stresses that intensive negotiations should quickly be taken up with those countries which have progressed furthest with their reforms.
The Committee shares the Commission's view about which countries these currently are.
Only through this clear instruction can the European Parliament give directions on how to set the enlargement process in motion.
Enlargement to the east is already having its budgetary consequences and will continue to do so when the new countries have become members of the European Union.
These costs must be kept down through transitional arrangements and through the reforms of agricultural policy and regional policy which still have to be carried out. Whatever happens, budget costs must not be allowed to cause us to lose the enormous gains, both economic and political, which enlargement to the east is going to bring.
The European Union was founded on the idea that integration brings gains, not burdens. These gains are particularly evident in the Baltic area, which at the beginning of this century had Europe's fastest economic growth.
The development was interrupted when an iron curtain even divided the sea. But with the Baltic states and Poland as members, and engaging Russia and in particular the important St Petersburg region in peaceful economic cooperation, the Baltic area can again become one of the centres of European growth, which also makes an important contribution to political stability in a region which otherwise contains the greatest risks of conflict in Europe.
Madam President, representatives of the Council and the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to express, personally and on behalf of my group, fervent appreciation of the excellent and committed work carried out by Mr Oostlander, Mr Barón Crespo and Mr Colom i Naval.
With the enlargement to the new countries, Europe is entering a historic stage which will mark a turning point in the geopolitical evolution of our continent.
We have completed the internal market, we will have a single currency, the other major pillars are being consolidated and as soon as possible we will have an institutional order more fitted to deal with the present and future challenges of the Union.
Today we are debating and deciding on an equally historic stage but perhaps the most important of all since the signing of the first treaties, in that it is born of the truest and most intrinsic vocation of the European Union, growth and progress for the peace and prosperity of the peoples of Europe. Throwing open the doors of the Union to the countries history has divided from us for too long because of ideology and nationalism condemned by that same history, is perhaps the greatest political act in the Union's forty years of existence.
It means finally sealing over those divisions which have brought destruction, poverty and marginalization to many parts of continental Europe; it means helping the young democracies to consolidate and recover a spirit of solidarity, friendship and - why not? - supporting that part of the continent which has inspired democracy and provided models of development for the whole planet; it means, above all, uniting peoples belonging to the same continent, whose history and culture are intertwined by centuries of history.
That is why, Madam President, my group has, from the start, put out a clarion call for none of the candidate countries to be excluded from this process of enlargement.
Why, in a process of union willed and sought by us, ourselves become the cause of new and indeed dangerous divisions?
If the European Union intends to be and recognizes that it is, first and foremost, a political as well as an economic union, it has a duty to help those very democracies which are governing on shaky legs and which expect help and encouragement from us.
We address another, different, call to Malta - I do so particularly as former vice-chairman of the EU-Malta delegation - to rediscover the reasons for its political, cultural and economic membership of our continent.
While this process of enlargement must represent a reciprocal opportunity, it is necessary to ensure that the Union seizes the occasion for an appropriate institutional reform, which we believe must be completed immediately, even before the entry of the new countries; thus, in line with the Italian, French and Belgian Governments, we make this a priority condition, just as we demand a serious and responsible effort from all the institutions, so that all the outstanding knots can be loosened in time.
We think it is implausible to hypothesize the future financing of the Union on the basis of long term forecasts in an uncertain and fluctuating economic period, and in the reform of the Union's intervention policy - the structural funds and the common agricultural policy - we also have the duty to guarantee development which does not penalize our existing regions.
The solution to these problems, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, certainly calls for an important effort, but if we want our enlargement process to be a responsible one - and I underline responsible - we have to take account of the fact that the Union's prospects must be shared by all, and by our citizens first and foremost.
In supporting the objectives of the enlargement, my political group will be equally vigilant and seriously committed to achieving all this in a spirit of harmony and prosperity for all.
Madam President, the enlargement of the Union is the best way to strengthen the freedom, security, peace and economic development of Europe.
It is therefore the strong wish of the Liberal Group that the process gets going quickly and that all the applicant countries become members as soon as possible.
The enlargement process includes all the applicant countries.
All European democracies who share the Union's values and objectives, and who wish and are able to accept the Union's laws, have the right to become members.
The distances which the applicant countries have come in their development differ.
On the instruction of the Council of Ministers, the Commission has carefully analyzed which countries now appear to have the best chances of fulfilling the requirements for membership.
The others should be given all possible help by the EU to get there.
For the Nordic and Baltic countries it is very gratifying that Estonia is in the first negotiating group.
Estonia's participation is also important for Latvia and Lithuania.
It does not create, as some people here are thought to believe, rifts between the countries.
On the contrary, it draws them all in the right direction.
Membership of the EU for some of the Baltic states will also be a the final proof that the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact has finally been dumped on the rubbish tip of history.
We already know that tomorrow Parliament is going to give its full support to negotiations for EU membership with countries which have been forced for a long time to cower in the shadow of the Iron Curtain and under the pressure of Soviet bayonets.
The doors are now being opened to a healed and whole Europe, a Europe founded on democracy, mutual respect and trust.
Nothing like it has ever been seen before.
This is an historic event which fills us all with gratitude and humility.
Madam President, everyone understands the considerable impact of the process of enlargement of the European Union on the countries of east and central Europe.
It takes us inevitably back to strategic choices. "Tell me how you envisage enlargement and I will tell you how ambitious you are about European construction.'
If we have the desire to build the links of our own co-development, to promote exchanges and to consolidate peace on the continent, as well as begin to make a break with the merciless logic of current globalization, then the building site of the wider Europe must respect the rules of true partnership: an effective dialogue with all the applicant countries on an equal footing, taking into consideration the real situation of these countries, a joint evaluation of the efforts of enlargement, within the perspective of a well understood mutual interest and, on this basis, the mobilization of financial means which measures up to the objectives set.
If, on the other hand, the intention of Europe is to resolutely commit itself to planetary economic war, enlargement risks being translated into draconian constraints for applicant countries, into a growth in the inequality of development between privileged and underprivileged regions, into the revision downwards of the gains of the common agricultural policy and structural funds, into an encouragement of competition between workers, into a blackmail for relocation.
In short, a fool's bargain for the populations of both the old and the new members of the Union, which would not fail to translate into dangerous disillusionment and thus tension within Europe.
Who could expect any good from an enlargement of the number of workers in the Union, if this enlargement is designed to respond to the expectations of those who, like the chairman of Siemens, now declare that what interests them in the CEECs is the fact that there, for an equally qualified person, one hour's work costs DM 4.5, as opposed to DM 45 in Germany.
Conversely, what benefit to their daily life can the populations of the CEECs expect from the strict application of the current rules of the Union on countries whose gross domestic product per capita is less than half or three quarters that of our states.
As the Philip Morris Institute noted, membership of the European Union will plunge the former communist economies into the icy waters of the single market.
What compensation for this course of liberalism does ECU 76 billion of structural funds for 120 million inhabitants give, when the 450 billion dedicated to Germany for its new Länder in the East, with a population of only 16 million people, did not prevent a particularly sharp economic and social crisis.
The Commission's directions, to be submitted to the European Council of 12 and 13 December next, fall more within the second than the first alternative that I have just summarized.
This is why the effective achievement of the declared good intentions resembles the squaring of the circle.
My conviction is therefore that we should consider working through this issue once more.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the impending enlargement presents the European Union with its most important challenge since its foundation.
It thereby fulfils its central goal, to create a united Europe and can simultaneously learn the lessons from both recent history and from the global challenges of our age, that is the danger of warlike disputes, ecological destruction, dealing with poverty and discrimination by means of the ever closer economic and political integration of Europe.
The Union is condemned to be successful.
Mistakes in the enlargement process would not only obstruct development in central and eastern Europe but also expose the existing structure to a credibility crisis of considerable proportions, and, what is more, in the matter of financial requirements.
We can learn this lesson from the German unification process.
Let us remember for example, the words of Kurt Biedenkopf from the year 1990: nobody will have less, but everybody will give up some of their future growth in prosperity.
This policy of the German government lodged in the consciousness of the people as painful arrogance towards Germany's economic power, as a missed chance for reforms and consequently as the absence of any visionary consideration.
This policy was made at the expense of future generations, has contributed to considerable new gulfs between the people of West and East Germany and shares responsibility for the barrier to reform in Germany which is bewailed on all sides by our partners in Europe.
Let us not repeat the same mistakes at the European level.
Let us learn from the German unification process.
Let us be honest in our analysis and more logical in our proposals.
The enormous transformation processes created under difficult conditions by our neighbours in central and eastern Europe since the historic turning point of 1989 should not be answered by a simple call for protection of rights of possession on our part.
On this premise the financial section of Agenda 2000 must be regarded as a failed attempts as a pre-entry strategy.
Even worse: basically the newcomers are themselves financing a considerable part of the eastward enlargement.
The built-in margin corresponds exactly to the sum of their own resources which those countries which have joined in the Commission's model should contribute to the budget from the year 2002.
That is however a very difficult venture, if one considers that in the event of fairly slight deviations from the planned growth assumed by the Commission in the gross national product amounting to 2.5 % there will be bottlenecks.
With all due respect to the Commission's optimism, the average growth in the last eight years has been only 1.8 %!
A little more conservatism in the calculations would not have gone amiss.
On the other hand conservatism in the worst sense has spread in the meagre proposals for reforms of the agricultural and structural policy.
Basically the Commission is not developing any agricultural policy at all for the applicant states, merely relying on the beneficial effects of the world market and thus accepting to some extent a second class membership in the EU, whereas the present recipients of agricultural subsidies remain to a large extent unscathed.
Any considerations with regard to freezing agricultural subsidies, the step by step transition to cofinancing, the more rapid removal of export subsidies and the diversion of the agricultural industry to regional market structures, for which there are actually good conditions in central and eastern Europe, are not even thought about.
In the structural sphere the same is happening.
The cohesion fund is to remain untouched, but how can that be justified to the new Member States, who after all also want to become members of the single currency? It would be logical either to extend the fund to those countries which in the foreseeable future will meet the criteria for monetary union or to cancel it completely as we recommend.
The tortuous efforts towards the necessary concentration of resources remain stuck in the blocks.
What is even worse is the fact that after the first planned wave of entries the actual new Member States are to participate by up to 28 % in the structural funds, whereas the remaining candidates will receive only ECU 3 billion.
To put it more clearly: the Commission has no concept of the entire enlargement; in fact it does not even have a concept of a second round of enlargement, and hence it simply divides the central and eastern European countries from one another.
Instead of this the Commission should, particularly in the financial section of Agenda, with no ifs and buts, have followed the starting line model.
Irrespective of when a country joins, all candidates must have the same access to net transfers in the context of structural policies, as far as their capacity for absorption and cofinancing allows.
It is precisely this separation of the negotiating level from the budgetary level which fulfils the rule of equal treatment so unyieldingly demanded by the countries of central and eastern Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in July the Commission presented the substance of two grand scenarios to us: one restricting the number of countries making up the first enlargement train to six, and the other setting the 1.27 % limit, that is to that maximum which must already be in force for the fifteen Member States to ensure that cohesion, the possibility of making the internal market practicable, positive and useful, without accentuating differences which have barely been flagged up, and which by some a miracle should apply to an enlargement to eighteen, twenty or twenty-five countries.
Tomorrow the European Parliament will again debate the scenario as regards the six countries, selecting or proposing another route which, of course, will also be that of the European Council of Luxembourg.
In my opinion, then, our Parliament is doing the right thing with the Colom i Naval report, by placing the other problem on the table, though perhaps not forcefully enough.
It is right to put the Commission on its mettle by asking whether it is sure its lack of ambition is indeed up to the challenge we are setting ourselves. This is a greater challenge than we have faced in recent years.
Are we sure that, as institutions with the task of proposing scenarios which then need to be ratified, it was necessary to demonstrate quite so much timidity?
Are you sure that in seven years, with a rigid system which will not, of course, allow revision of the financial perspectives in the course of the exercise, and therefore no longer according to that planned five-yearly term, are you sure it will be enough and that the challenge can be victoriously met and surpassed, both by us and by the new member countries?
Now the new scenario is opening up a different prospect, thanks also, I hope, to this report which stresses, not by chance, that the question of own resources and all the other questions on the table have not even been outlined by you.
Are you sure that this midstream change of horses does not make it necessary to review the blueprint on this point?
We think it does, and that is why we will vote with conviction for the Colom i Naval report, with some important amendments which need to be passed tomorrow, because this can be the message which accompanies the other report and which will enable you - I fervently hope so - to go to the Luxembourg European Council with a revised blueprint and perhaps - if I may say so - with a little more ambition as regards a noble and important objective: making the enlargement the genuine success we all hope it will be.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the coordinated European Right, of my colleagues in the National Front and the Vlaams block, I will express an opinion on the enlargement project underway in the European Union.
With this in mind, let me remind you of the truly prophetic behaviour of Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was the first to bring into this Chamber, as a European member of parliament in 1984, a gentleman of Romanian origin, Mr Gustave Pordea, who we see as a symbol of the oppressed peoples.
Nevertheless, should we subscribe to the idea, which seems attractive, of extending the European club of the European Union to new members? Should we extend membership to the countries of east and central Europe, to Turkey and Cyprus?
With regard to Turkey, we consider that this great state has a distinguished role to play due to its geographic location, that of a bridge between Europe and Asia, and not one member of the Union amongst others.
For neither Turkey's population, nor its language, nor its culture - wonderful as it is -, nor its religion, nor its history are European.
Saying this is not insulting to Turkey, on the contrary it shows respect for its difference and its identity, and for the pride of the Turkish people.
Regarding the east and central European countries, I have listened to a great number of speakers, Mr Oostlander, Mr Pasty and many others, who say that it is appropriate in order to rescue them from totalitarianism.
I have heard people say that it is necessary to turn the page at last on the Yalta division of Europe, of Stalin's control over half of our continent.
But, ladies and gentlemen, who are they fooling? This has already happened.
This liberation, it has to be noted, owes nothing either to the European Union or to the policies followed by our states or to the policies followed by the political groups represented here, be they conservative, liberal, socialist or anything else.
The communist system, the most dreadful totalitarianism ever, with its streams of tens of millions of deaths, of deportations, its restrictions, its terror, its sadness, has quite clearly collapsed thanks only to the courage of a handful of heroes and martyrs within the countries themselves who fought with determination when all the political leaders of the right, the centre and the left sided with communist dictators, with communist doctrine, with communist manoeuvres.
So do not rekindle the spectre of communism from which these countries, asking nothing from you, liberated themselves, in order to absorb them into the new internationalism of which you are the standard-bearers.
And what arrogance there is in the political criteria imposed on these countries.
You talk of respect for minorities. A bitter joke!
In my country, in France, nearly ten million people, supporters of the National Front and their families, are denied parliamentary representation, denied on a daily basis the right to freedom of assembly, harassed, illegally prevented from standing in workplace elections, persecuted in their profession, in their free time, in their most fundamental rights, and their position is a great deal more worrying than that of the minorities you talk about.
Yes, we consider the countries of eastern Europe, sometime martyred, as sisters, and it is because we consider them as such that we say to them: what you need is a flexible, gentle structure, organized around concrete projects. Not a Europe of the Maastricht Treaty, bureaucratic, specializing in taxes, ruinous, a new Leviathan, which aims to regulate all aspects of the political, economic, social and cultural life of hundreds of millions of Europeans.
What you need is an organization which guarantees your security whilst respecting your sovereignty, that is, a Europe of nations.
You, for example, the Baltic states or Slovenia, one of whose first acts, as soon as independence was gained, was to give yourselves your own currencies. As this was the first element of your liberty, are you going to abdicate this liberty, so recently gained, in the single currency system, and hand over essential financial authority to a prestigious assembly in Frankfurt, whose members you do not know, who will be known neither to your people nor to your elites, to whom you will be able to put neither names nor faces, who it will not be possible to dismiss and whose orders will not be open to discussion?
You, Christian nations, are you going to allow the setting up of compulsory abortion clinics in public hospitals to be imposed on you, in the name of free movement of services?
In actual fact, because the first duty of friendship is frankness, we say to the governments of eastern Europe: you want to join the European Union because you want to adopt the prosperity, what is more, the relative prosperity of our nations in relation to your own. But this prosperity, where it still exists, is the fruit of liberty and not of a Europe of the Maastricht Treaty.
Is Switzerland, for example, is Norway - which rejected membership of the European Union - the poorer for it?
It is therefore because we are the friends of these nations of eastern Europe that we say to them: do not embark upon this brilliant and luxurious cruise which you are being offered. Rather, think about the name of the ship.
The ship is called the Titanic!
Madam President, thank you very much indeed and I hope that my contribution will be somewhat more constructive than the previous one.
Could I say that I warmly support the broad thrust of the Agenda 2000 document.
I believe that enlargement is an historic opportunity for the European Union and we should not shy away from the challenges which are presented to us.
Could I also say that in particular I warmly support the fact that the Commission, very realistically, says that the own resources ceiling should stay at 1.27 % of Community GNP.
That is quite right and proper.
More specifically, with regard to the references to economic and social cohension, I think the maintenance of the 0.46 % of allocations for cohesion policies is something which should command a consensus amongst all Member States.
It takes fully into account the economic realities.
Similarly, I note what he said about the cohesion fund and its continuation and what he said about the new objective 1 which is outlined in the document.
These are all supportive comments I am making but I would like to express three reservations.
Firstly, I would like to say with regard to the proposals for the new objective 2 that we need far more clarity from the Commission with regard to this new objective.
It is simply not enough to put together industrial, rural, fishing and urban areas and somehow make the assumption that in practice things will work out alright in terms the addressing the needs of these specific areas.
We actually need commitments and clarity as to how the very particular demands of these areas can sufficiently be met in future.
Secondly, while I accept what he said about Community initiatives - we have had too many of them in the past - I think it is rather too draconian to reduce their number in one fell swoop from thirteen to three.
Finally, could I say with regard to the suggestion for an efficiency reserve that it is great in principle but I think there will be problems here.
It could lead to confusion and conflict and I certainly hope that does not happen.
I am hopeful that many of these points will be taken on board by the Commission and that something will be clarified between now and the publication of the regulations.
I also hope that a constructive dialogue between the Regional Policy Committee and the Commission will continue in the future.
Madam President, basically everything has been said in the debate.
We all wish that at the end of a process eleven eastern European states and Cyprus will be members of the European Union, and we know that not all will enter at the same point in time.
We have found a compromise between the regatta model and five plus one.
Therefore, I would summarize it as follows: if lack of clarity is a feature of good policy then we shall win a prize for good policy with what we decide tomorrow!
You notice the irony; I hope it also comes across in the translation.
If of course the New Testament is to be taken as a guideline when it says your words should be yes and no, then tomorrow we shall fail!
Well, that is politics.
What I found lacking in the debate is a reference to the fact that the European Council will set in motion a process in the course of which we must find the answers to three questions.
We must find those answers, I tell you!
The first question is: how big can Europe become? The European Union cannot be extended to infinity.
We are however acting as if it could irrespective of whether or not that is in the interest of the Union or in the interest of other states.
We talk of not putting up barriers at the start of negotiations, and we do not mention that during the process, when one joins and the other does not, much higher barriers will be erected.
We do not talk about that!
The second question is how expensive may Europe become? We are here throwing around billions and percentages!
We also know that we must not calculate small-mindedly, that we must not only add up what entry costs but we must also add up what non-entry costs.
All that is true.
But we must also know more clearly than hitherto that there are limits to the loads which can be borne by the Member States and by the population of the Member States.
I say to everyone in advance: if it is a question of making sacrifices in the sphere of agricultural policy, if it is a question of making sacrifices in the sphere of the structural funds then all the Member States and all our colleagues from the corresponding Member States here will speak a completely different language than that being used in many contributions to today's debate!
The third question of principle is: how strong is Europe becoming?
Or, how strong must Europe become in order to cope with enlargement? On this point, I tell you, what is described in the Treaty of Amsterdam is in any case too little, as we all know.
With the consequences of what we decide in our resolutions on the reform of the treaty, we are nowhere near as advanced as we really ought to be if we are talking about a stronger Union. Where were the Member States in the past?
Where were our colleagues who now talk about the Union having to become stronger and deeper? Where were they in the past, when it was a question of making sure that concrete progress was made, in Maastricht for example?
I did not see them there!
The states in eastern Europe basically have an easier task than ours.
They start from a position which from their point of view is very bad and they want to develop into members of the European Union.
Everything they do is basically a step in that direction.
Our situation is much more difficult.
We must ensure that they can join us and at the same time ensure that what we have achieved in the past 40 years is preserved.
To combine both things is a much more difficult process than just concentrating on entry.
A final point which I shall phrase in very general terms: the generation of politicians of the 1950's had the courage and the foresight to remove the thousand-year-old antagonism between France and Germany in a European Community.
Our generation of politicians will have to develop the courage and foresight to give the whole continent, for the first time in a thousand years, an organization of peace and cooperation.
Here we must be alert.
The courage and foresight of the 1950s' generation of politicians consisted of making progress, not with all European states, not even with all the states in the west, but with those which were ready and able.
Their courage and foresight consisted of holding fast to the goal of a United States of Europe.
To set themselves intermediate goals which were achievable in single steps, that was a sign of the courage and foresight of this generation.
I am eager to find out whether we in this Parliament and also our Heads of State and of Government can produce the same courage and foresight.
The opportunity is there, do not let is pass us by unused!
Madam President, may I as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee start by thanking the Commission and the Presidency of the Council for their close cooperation in the somewhat hectic months since July.
I would also like to thank the rapporteurs, not just the three primary rapporteurs but all 13 on my committee, the draftsman of the opinion and the chairmen of the Joint Parliamentary Committees.
This has been a joint effort by hundreds of people in this Parliament so that we could do our duty today, which is to give the first political response of this Parliament to the Agenda 2000 document.
I do not want to repeat the excellent speeches we have heard this afternoon but I do want to do two things.
The first is to respond to Mr Pasty's speech in which he said not to open negotiations with Slovakia was to interfere in the private affairs of a democratic sovereign state.
That is to miss the point entirely.
It is precisely because Slovakia is not by our standards a democratic state that it would be utterly wrong to open negotiations with Slovakia.
I also want to address myself to what Mr Swoboda described elegantly some hours ago as enlargement fever, the excitement of the debates about regattas and five plus-ones, buses, stadiums and the rest.
We have generated a great deal of energy but I suspect that history may show that the details of the debate are less important than its educational effect.
I suspect that the last six months have been a crash course for all of us in the geopolitics of eastern Europe, particularly for the existing Member States of the Union.
I want to play tribute tonight to the governments of Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and the rest.
By their efforts they have inserted themselves into the political reality of the European Union.
In recent weeks, and indeed in recent days, we have seen for the first time what a political system with 26 countries would actually look like and we have learnt and benefitted from the experience.
I regard our key parliamentary role as being to act a reflector of reality into the sometimes arcane discussions in this Union of ours.
I am pleased that we have played that role in this discussion amongst enlargement fever.
On 17 November the Commissioner will recall that my committee voted a triple response, what we have come to know as the Russian dolls approach to enlargement strategy.
We said that we want everyone in the enlargement process, we want to open negotiations with all the applicants except Slovakia and we want to open intensive negotiations with the five plus one countries identified by the Commission.
As I understand it, yesterday's meeting of COREPER produced a diagram; I have not had the privilege of seeing that diagram officially but if I understand it correctly it may well be the precursor of what is agreed in the Luxembourg Summit.
It seems to me very much to reflect the Russian dolls approach.
As I understand it, they are suggesting a European conference, which is the enlargement process, with a side helping of extra political support for Turkey.
Then in the second doll, free accession discussions with the ten plus one, supplemented by additional preparatory discussions with those countries which have not immediately been selected for the opening of article O negotiations.
It is that third doll, that central doll, the need to proceed with those negotiations with the five plus one countries, which I particularly welcome here tonight.
I think it would be a mistake if we regarded our discussions here tonight as the end of our discussions of enlargement - they are hardly even the end of the beginning.
In my remaining seconds I would like to warn anyone who is listening against the dangers of seeking to take hostages in this process that will stretch out in the years ahead.
These negotiations on the enlargement of our Europe, and the extension of the practice which, as Mr Hänsch pointed out, started on the Rhine and is now to be carried down the Danube and into the Baltic, are too important to be taken hostage either by a country, by an institution or by a lobby.
I believe in December 1997 we have made a good start, even if I suspect that the conversation will stretch many years ahead of us.
Thank you, Mr Spencer.
Before I give Commissioner van den Broek the floor, I shall allow Mr FabreAubrespy to rise on a point of order.
Madam President, I see that, in effect, Mr van Den Broek has asked to speak pursuant to Rule 107, paragraph 5.
I do not deny him that right, quite the contrary.
We will be very happy to hear the replies he wishes to provide regarding the different comments, but I note that he is making his request in this third series of speeches, even though all of the speakers have not yet been heard, and that he wishes to speak after the representatives of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European People's Party have spoken. There is still a representative for each political group.
For my group, it is Mr Blokland.
I wonder why he makes such a distinction between Members of Parliament. Would it not be wiser, out of respect for equality amongst Members, to wait until all have been heard?
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, Mr Commissioner van den Broek will now address the House pursuant to Rule 5 of the Rules of procedure, and he will also speak again at the end of the debate.
There is nothing at all in the Rules which objects to that.
Madam President, I certainly will be here for the rest of the debate tonight and will also listen very carefully to the other speakers.
There are very few subjects where so many speakers are involved in the debate.
We appreciate that very much, so maybe I can give an interim reaction.
My feeling as I listen carefully to the various interventions is that there is more that unites us than divides us.
The prime approach which we have in common is that we all feel very motivated, both Parliament and Commission, to make absolutely clear to the candidate countries that they are all part and parcel of the same process and that nobody is left out.
The difference between us may be how we want to make that clear.
To be very frank, when I look at the various amendments such as Nos 12 and 101, I am afraid there is a risk of a certain ambiguity towards those countries which we recommend to continue their preparations as if they were fully entitled to start the negotiations while recognizing that they are actually not sufficiently prepared.
I agree with Mr Hänsch that we could get into a situation, by starting negotiations with those who are not sufficiently prepared, that halfway, when things are not moving fast enough, the pressure is going to mount, for purely political reasons, to accelerate that negotiation process and maybe eventually settle for less fulfilment of the acquis or other conditions from Copenhagen than we normally would have imposed upon new members of the European Union.
I think that is also a factor which we have to take into account.
Finally on this point, when I read those amendments, what strikes me very much is that there is mention on the one hand of the accession process and on the other hand negotiations.
In our approach and concept, negotiations are part and parcel of the accession process.
The accession process contains both, negotiations and preparations.
When you make a recommendation to the Council for an official launch of the enlargement process which implies negotiations for those who are fit for it and preparations for the others, with the whole of the pre-accession strategy attached to it including the partnerships, in which the Council also is going to be involved because it wants to co-decide with us on the priorities to be set, then the signal in the direction of all candidates would be one of being part and parcel, all without exception, of an all-inclusive process.
Whereas now I fear that we are going to have a debate between the Member States in Luxembourg and ambiguity will come out of it as a result.
I obviously respect that the Parliament says that we have to look at this process and at the solutions that we are proposing in a political way.
Of course, and although we have been analyzing a lot of technical data and statistics for a year and a half, I hope that Parliament understands that the Commission is not there only to look at the figures but has a political notion of its own.
It has been in regular contact with each and all of these countries and knows full well what it means to give the wrong political signals.
That is exactly why the all-inclusiveness of the process, with all the elements and instruments that we have put into place: finance, procedures, annual reports, partnerships and everything has been worked out so scrupulously in the very first place for that political reason.
I think that the Commission may ask the Parliament for a minimum of recognition for its work of that kind.
We should not be accused of not knowing about the past of these countries, that they were behind an Iron Curtain and we must indeed watch out that no fear of discrimination is provoked.
Again, if we have a difference of opinion there then I hope it is more a difference in wording than substance and certainly not a difference in political approach.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
Perhaps because of this different interpretation of the decision-making an accession process we should accept a new chapter in the dictionary.
I have already been asked about it several times.
There does in fact seem to be some confusion.
But now we in fact have the official interpretation of the Commission and that is recorded in the minutes!
The sitting was suspended at 8 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
Mr President, at the outset I wish to congratulate the rapporteurs and the draftsmen on their reports which give an excellent opportunity to Parliament to debate the future of the Union, its enlargement and the consequent cost.
My contribution may appear to be narrowly focused in European terms.
I merely wish to look at enlargement and how it might affect my country and my constituency of Connaught Ulster which is on the periphery of the Union.
I welcome the recent statement of the Regional Affairs Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, when she stated that adequate funds must remain for continuing special support to the present four cohesion countries, namely Spain, Portugal, Greece and my own country of Ireland during the next structural funds round.
I hope this will help to assuage some of the concerns of my own country and my own constituency regarding the future allocation of funding to Ireland.
Enlargement of the Union is not conceivable economically or politically without firm guarantees in favour of the Union's existing poorest regions.
If such guarantees are not put in place the whole enlargement project is threatened.
I am confident, however that the poorer regions which suffer from infrastructural deficiencies will not be left behind and the Commission will ensure that these regions continue to receive the necessary funding to bring the infrastructure in those regions up to reasonable and realistic standards.
If such regional policies as outlined by the Regional Affairs Commissioner are implemented, it will be good news for my country but particularly good news for the western seaboard and the border counties which I represent.
This will entitle such regions to the maximum amount of European regional, agricultural, fisheries, social and cohesion funds post-1999.
Regions within Ireland, such as the western seaboard and the border counties will therefore continue to merit the designation of objective 1 status in accordance with the average standard of living in these areas.
In other words, the situation may well arise whereby the region of the north of Ireland and the west will secure greater European monies post-1999 by being granted objective 1 status, while other areas in Ireland will lose objective 1 status due to enhanced prosperity.
I wish to put down a marker at this stage.
There is no doubt that arrangements are needed to ease the passage for a country losing objective 1 status to provide for a softer economic landing.
It is important that any agreement on concentration - in particular geographical concentration - should have clearly linked to it a firm commitment to adequate transitional arrangements as envisaged by the Commission.
But there are regions that need more than merely transitional arrangements.
These regions must retain their objective 1 status.
I represent the most peripheral region in Europe - the west of Ireland and the border counties - one which for decades has lived in the shadow of the conflict of Northern Ireland, has suffered unemployment and emigration among the worst in Europe.
In discussing the status of less well-off regions, there is often too much emphasis on economic statistics.
Ultimately what really matters is people and communities and the structures that must be put in place to maintain these communities.
In conclusion, these regions still have very basic infrastructural needs in terms of roads, transport and water treatment and these issues must be addressed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when the Commission's proposed financial framework for the period from 2000 to 2006, contained in the document commonly known as Agenda 2000, was submitted in July, it was clear to us that the laissez-faire attitude and general inadequacy of that document was incompatible with the political and socio-economic challenges facing a Union which could be enlarged to embrace an almost indeterminate number of new Member States in the course of that period.
Apart from being a document which in certain respects contains omissions or incorrect data and figures, making it difficult or indeed impossible to make a comparative study, the Commission's proposal on new financial perspectives does not represent an accurate and rigorous estimate of the costs that will inevitably arise from the new needs enlargement will bring with it.
At the same time, furthermore, the foundation it offers for any increase in resources is no more than a frankly optimistic, and for that reason alone more than doubtful, economic growth forecast.
The Commission's proposal keeps the same limit on internal resources, without taking into account the conditionality and the economic and social consequences of economic and monetary union.
In the same way, it makes no allowance for the need to maintain and develop efforts to achieve the minimum acceptable levels for real internal cohesion, whether it be the level that the existing Member States are aiming at or the level that is increasingly imposing enlargement on countries which generally represent a third of the per capita gross domestic product of the fifteen-State European Union.
Contrary to the proposals in Agenda 2000, that conditionality, and those old and new needs, call for the clear and unequivocal strengthening of the resources and instruments designed to bring about economic and social cohesion, for which no provision whatever is made in the Commission's proposal.
The reforms suggested by the Commission in the document do not, therefore, make it their central objective to achieve any kind of cohesion in an enlarged Union.
Their objective is to aim to mobilize resources found by means of cuts and savings and do not genuinely take any account of the real need to make the Commission's instruments more efficient.
Thus the Commission mentions the reform of the common agricultural policy, which is bound up with the interests and opinions of the World Trade Organization, and will involve re-nationalization and continuing imbalances, particularly for production in the Mediterranean countries and for small producers.
The Commission talks about reforming the structural funds, which will involve substantial cuts for existing beneficiaries. This plan may result in the least developed countries in the Union at present becoming the principal sources of finance for the new needs that will come with enlargement.
And so far as internal policy is concerned, there is likely to be a major reduction in spending, which could be the ruin, right from the start, of the resources recently made available at the Luxembourg summit to fight the scourge of unemployment, resources which in themselves are already restricted and worse than inadequate.
The Colom i Naval report seems positive to us, because it brings together most of these ideas, although in some respects it could have been clearer.
The inclusion of the alteration concerning the future of the cohesion fund does certainly contribute to clarifying it, while at the same time we hope this House will reject any alterations which would neutralize the significance of the report completely or at any rate render it completely toothless and inconsequential.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact is that in our view European solidarity will not be achieved at the cost of those who already have little or continue to need a great deal.
On the contrary, European solidarity will be effective only if those who continue to have much more - and on top of that are getting ready to demand the lion's share of the economic benefits of enlargement - are aware of the need to contribute more.
Mr President, does the EU really want to enlarge into a general, pan-Europe cooperation organization? Or is the enlargement project just an example of the classic divide and rule strategy, a tactical trick to enlarge the power of the Brussels bureaucracy.
Even Carl Bildt has criticized the EU in his new book because of divisive tactics in the former Yugoslavia. Is there going to be more of that?
That is what is being decided now.
The fundamental question is this: is there to be a joint start to negotiations or not? The Commission's proposal divides not least the Baltic states.
The Committee's proposal is unclear.
Should the applicant countries be divided into first and second class? On this point it must be made clear that real negotiations will start with all nine applicant countries.
Another key question is whether the new Member States will have a say in the EU's future or not.
By demanding a new treaty amendment before any new members are admitted the Commission is saying no.
The existing EU States would therefore have a monopoly on the future.
This is a slap in the face for the applicant countries which the Green Group cannot accept.
New walls are now being built between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, something which the EU could aggravate if Slovakia is completely isolated.
Of course Cyprus cannot become a member of the EU if only the Greek population is involved.
The accession process must therefore be part of a peace process.
Turkey must have a full right to EU membership in principle, otherwise the EU will become an appendage to the Christian Religion.
Finally, a Fortress Europe must be avoided, that is, border contacts with Russia and Ukraine should not be made more difficult for countries which are close to these two countries.
Are the people or the elite to decide? The Green Group wants it to be done by the people through referenda.
It should be obvious that an EU which has been enlarged to cover the whole of Europe, cannot have the same centralized character as the original association of six states.
Many people want to have more members, but still the same EU.
Those who do not submit to the prevailing EU ideology are described as anti-Europeans.
Swedish criticism of EMU is seen as blasphemy.
Enlargement will be a success if it puts an end to such totalitarian tendencies and shows that European cooperation is something other than Franco-German power politics.
Mr President, both the Commission and the rapporteurs stress that enlargement of the Union should go hand in hand with a further intensification of the European integration process.
This overlooks the fact that an increase in the number of Member States puts limits on the communal approach, and the job responsibilities of the European administration.
Why has no attention been paid to the question whether it might be possible to simply elaborate on the existing model? The problems this model presents with regard to manageability, legitimacy of the European Administration and democratic control are being ignored.
This leaves unimpeded that the enlargement of the Union with central and eastern European countries is extremely important.
We support the rapporteurs' idea to start simultaneous negotiations with all candidate countries.
Because the terms under which the candidate countries are able to meet the conditions for membership vary, some kind of selection takes place automatically.
The fact, that for the time being, Slovakia is excluded from the entry negotiations, seems right to us.
Recent contact with a Slovakian parliamentary delegation made it clear to us that in Slovakia the constitutional state and democracy are not fully developed.
As a matter of fact, should it not be a clearly specified where the geographical border of the European Union is to be? Otherwise there is a great danger that in some countries expectations may be raised which will never be fulfilled.
Will countries like Russia or the Ukraine in future be able to lay claim to membership? Should it not be brought home to Turkey that membership of the Union looks unlikely?
We regret that, as far as structural measures are concerned, a mere ECU 45 billion has been set aside for the candidate countries.
Considering the ECU 230 billion which remains available for the present Member States, that is a mere pittance.
We call upon the Council and the Commission to share the deployment of resources more evenly.
We support the Commission's proposal to set the expenditure for the period 2000-2006, as well as its proposal to maintain the maximum ceiling at 1.27 %.
We can do without all kinds of escape clauses to get out from underneath.
Mr President, long term financial planning must also take into particular account the border regions along the present-day external EU frontiers.
Not only the applicant countries themselves but also their neighbouring regions ought to be prepared for the eastward enlargement.
Negative consequences, which could result from the anticipated distortion of competition, must be prevented by a specific support system.
We must provide our own border country support which complements our support for the applicant countries.
In the regions of Austria's very long EU border the citizens have justified fears of economic disadvantages which might arise because of the eastward enlargement.
This is an extraordinarily sensitive question which must not be disregarded during overall planning of enlargement and in the reforms of the agricultural and structural spheres.
Eastward enlargement must not create winners and losers.
The concept of cohesion must in this connection be given a new dimension.
Another essential point which in connection with the planned reforms must not be allowed to drop is the preservation of the rural Alpine area.
This landscape formed and given a special character over many centuries by farming is threatened with economic ruin and emigration.
The current agricultural policy is not applicable to the higher Alpine regions and 5b support is not being continued.
Farmers in the Alpine valleys form the backbone of the economic and cultural life of large areas in some Member States, including above all Austria.
This section of the population must not become the victim of an agricultural and structural policy which applies totally inappropriate standards.
It is therefore absolutely necessary with regard to the maintenance of cultural and scenic diversity and to the strengthening of farming jobs in the Alps, to set up in this region their own target area.
Mr President, I want to speak to the Colom report, not the others.
I have to say that during previous debates on enlargement members of the Committee on Budgets have been called all kinds of names.
At one time Mr Spencer referred to us as mere bean counters. Mr Titley once referred to us as those tyrants in the Committee on Budgets.
They say those things because we look for the pragmatic approach.
One of the answers we were looking for in the previous debate was what price were we prepared to pay for enlargement.
That seems to give the impression that we are against enlargement when we are not.
The members of the Committee on Budgets are fully supportive of enlargement but at the same time, as I said, we are pragmatic about what will be needed.
The Agenda 2000 documents set out what the Commission believes that cost will be.
If you read Mr Colom's report and you look at the total amount compared to the GNP of the Member States over that amount of time, one could say that it is peanuts.
We will not use that word in these harsh economic times but it is not great amounts of money we are talking about.
However, that cost still has to be borne by the taxpayers and by the Member States.
The Commission has agreed with the Member States that the finances have to be strict but let us be clear that Parliament also has to agree what those finances will be.
In his speech Mr Colom outlined a Committee on Budgets position absolutely perfectly.
His report is to be commended to Parliament as a sensible approach to what lies ahead.
As the coordinator for the Socialist Group, I believe that report should be unamended.
We should vote on it as it is without any additions.
We should not be trying to implement structural or agricultural policy or any other type of policy through this report. It should be seen for what it is.
It is a rapier going straight to the point. It is not a broadsword that has to be weighted down with unnecessary amendments.
Whilst I believe it should be unamended, you cannot win them all.
Therefore, our group will be supporting four amendments, namely Nos 2, 26, 27 and 28.
We consider they do not take anything away from the report.
It still maintains its thrust and they do not give excess baggage to it.
This is a report that will not lie on some shelf collecting dust.
It will be read in depth by the Council and by the Commission and they will know exactly Parliament's starting point when it comes to getting an agreement on a future financial perspective.
There are differences in our approach compared to that of the Commission and we need to make one or two things absolutely clear.
We have to say loud and clear, as it says in the explanatory statement, that there will be no financial perspective without an interinstitutional agreement.
A financial perspective which is adopted unilaterally by the Council would in no way be binding on the European Parliament and that would not be in anyone's interest.
The Colom report shows the necessity for the Council and Parliament to get an interinstitutional agreement and an agreement on a financial perspective.
If we manage that, enlargement will be much easier.
The process will go far smoother.
This report is one of those that is genuinely worth reading and supporting.
For those who make the effort to do so, they will see Parliament at its best.
Mr President, we all realize that the European Union is at a crucial stage and that if we do the right thing we can create an unprecedented area of peace, democracy, liberty and economic development.
Indeed, this is a historic opportunity which we cannot pass up or fail to make use of, as the rapporteurs, Mr Barón Crespo and Mr Colom i Naval, have already said.
We Spaniards are perhaps more sensitive to this challenge than other Europeans, because of all the citizens of the European Union, we were the last to move from an autocratic regime to democracy, twenty years ago.
Therefore, it is easier for us to remember what it means to achieve two aspirations: membership of the European Union, and the consolidation of a system of democratic liberties.
Therefore, we have an increased share of the responsibility for opening the door to those who knock, asking to be let in.
This responsibility is shared by us all, the only condition being that the candidates must fulfil the political criteria expressed at Copenhagen, of a stable political order, respect for human rights and protection for minorities.
It would not be fair to make distinctions between the candidates, since none of them fulfils the economic criteria, and if anyone is excluded the result will be political instability and irreparable economic damage, for which we will be partly to blame.
So let us allow each country to determine its own accession timetable, according to its own efforts.
Commissioner van den Broek said that to allow multilateral negotiation could provoke frustration in the candidate countries.
Our opinion is that such frustrations, if there are any, should arise from those countries' own inability to fulfil the criteria, not as a result of a political decision.
Mr President, the Union we offer to the candidate countries should be in no way inferior to the one we enjoy today.
Tomorrow this Parliament is going to make an important statement about the problems which an inadequate financial framework could cause in relation to enlargement, the consolidation of the internal market, economic and monetary union and, above all, cohesion, which is a real keystone in the building of Europe.
Discussions of the Colom i Naval report, both in the Committee on Budgets and in the main political groups, have been dominated by consensus. This is the best indication that this Parliament feels responsible for providing the European Union with an adequate and stable financial framework to cover the seven years of the forthcoming financial perspectives.
However, this consensus should not hide the fact that Agenda 2000 contains underlying problems.
For example, if the Union is to be financed in such a way that the budgetary burdens of enlargement are borne by cohesion, then that method of financing will lack solidarity and the political groups will object strongly.
Any proposal for a method of financing will be doomed to failure if it does not resolve the threat of a potential budgetary crisis caused by a lack of resources to fund the Community policies of an enlarged Europe.
Finally, if the principle aim of a financing proposal is to ensure that budget lines are limited by an unassailable ceiling of 1.27 %, then that proposal can very quickly lead to a drop in the quality of Community policy overall.
Nevertheless, we have high hopes for Agenda 2000 because it is a serious attempt to provide stability for the process of enlargement. We hope that in the negotiations which are about to begin, between us we will be able to solve all the problems which I have just outlined.
Mr President, the implications of Agenda 2000 are of great importance to my country, Ireland.
It goes without saying that any sudden adjustment or withdrawal of funds would have a detrimental effect on the Irish economy and would serve to undermine the success that we have achieved in recent times.
Tonight, while I welcome the Commission's presentation of Agenda 2000, I remain to be convinced in relation to certain aspects of the budget implications.
Due to our economic success in recent years, Ireland is set to reach the threshold of 75 % of average per capita GDP.
Consequently, there is great concern about the implications for the Irish economy and for the employment situation in particular, resulting from a loss of objective 1 status.
It is vital therefore that any financial adjustment must be gradual and carefully planned.
In other words, well-constructed, transitional arrangements should be put into place to provide an economic soft landing for the Irish economy.
Additionally, there are regions within Ireland, including the midland region, that still fall well below the EU average in terms of employment and economic growth.
It is vital that these regions continue to retain objective 1 status if they are to achieve the same level of growth as other regions within the European Union.
Within the overall context of the European Union, Ireland is uniquely dependent upon agriculture; it is one of the foundation stones of the Irish economy.
The common agricultural policy has served Ireland well over the years and while we accept that it is in our interest that European agriculture becomes more competitive on the world market, there are very legitimate concerns about the effects of future CAP reform.
Reform must take place in such a way that it ensures that the interests of all Member States are taken into account in a balanced manner and above all else, that the interests of farmers and rural communities are fully respected.
Most importantly and in conclusion, we must be ensured guaranteed compensation for any reduction in market support.
Mr President, with enlargement, once again, the European vision is back on home territory in many ways.
Once again, we are striving for peace, democracy and security, this time across the central and eastern regions of our continent.
As opposed to 40 years, there is a big difference.
Our citizens are bored, they are uninspired and the mission of building a new Europe has little resonance with them now.
There is very much a practical outcome in that you could say there is no appetite for extra taxation.
This is in many ways the irony of monetary union.
By the need to meet the Maastricht criteria with the EMU project, we are offering unprecedented unity for present members, that is true, but we are actually threatening the integration of new members because of the financial stringency that is being introduced across the continent.
So I believe that the 1.27 % ceiling is very realistic but to actually achieve it, and achieve it we must, real internal reforms have to be delivered.
There is no walking away from them.
So, yes, keeping within 1.27 % must be kept a firm target but at the death it must not become an unyielding barrier that prevents enlargement.
The last thing I want to say is about Turkey.
I feel personally very strongly about this issue.
To me, the Copenhagen summit laid down fundamental principles for accession They were very clear, they were democracy, rule of law, human rights and respect for minorities.
To me there must be no discrimination between Turkey and the other states that are trying to accede to the Union.
There need be no discrimination, it is not necessary.
Like every other applicant, Turkey's candidature must succeed or fail on those same principles.
Mr President, it is quite incredible that the Union is entering into this mammoth political project with such poor preparation and poor ground-work.
No cost analysis has been carried out.
There is no overall concept on budgetary policy.
There is no analysis of the effects on the current Member States.
There is no analysis of the social effects, or of what greatly increased food costs will mean for the people of central and eastern Europe.
Dictatorial demands are being made on the countries to submit to the whole of the "acquis communautaire' , demands which would, among other things, have a negative effect on certain environmental regulations in some of the applicant countries.
You have to ask yourself whether people in the main EU institutions really believe you can have 25 countries in a giant supranational organization which concerns itself with almost every policy area in existence? People ought to see that the only sensible option is an intergovernmental organization which concentrates on some of the major pan-European problems and they should instead carry out a corresponding transfer and decentralization of a lot of other matters to national responsibility.
Mr President, the proposals before us this evening and for the last number of months will ultimately change dramatically the European Union we have known and it will open up vast opportunities in the years, and indeed the decades, that lie ahead.
I believe very strongly that we must move forward with caution.
It would be intolerable if, by expanding the European Union and by encouraging other countries to come in, we encouraged increased resentment within the existing Member States.
We must ensure that those countries who enter the Union have a long lead-in period so they can evolve towards the standards we would require of them.
We must not force the pace.
Such a policy would not succeed and certainly would also be detrimental.
I am extremely concerned at the financial implications of enlargement and the effect this will have on the existing regions within the European Union, the future of the common agricultural policy and the very existence of our family farm structure.
None of these proposals can be expected to cost any less at any time in the future.
There must be greater in-depth budgetary scrutiny before we move any further forward.
I understand these proposals will change and develop over the next two or three years but I certainly believe that we require firmer proposals from the Commission on the reform of the common agricultural policy.
There must be wider consultation before we go further down this unknown route.
Could I make it very clear, Mr President, while I am totally in favour of enlargement in principle, that I feel there are those who want to achieve this goal without giving the real recognition that is required to the major problems that enlargement will create for the existing Member States.
That is a challenge that beholds us all.
Mr President, in this Parliament I represent the Northern League for the independence of Padania, a nation and people steeped in authentic history, today engaged in a struggle for freedom against the Roman centralism of the Italian Government.
The very fact that I am speaking indicates Padania's readiness to give new nations, new states, a positive welcome to the Union.
We are convinced that the Union has to fight two important battles simultaneously: the first task is to create a Europe with democratic instruments, that is, with a Parliament able to legislate freely, a Parliament based on the peoples, the lifeblood of democracy, before the leaders of the nation states succeed in their project of cancelling out the people and consigning Europe to American globalization.
The second battle is to enlarge western Europe to the countries of eastern Europe, so as to have a state reality not only democratic, that is, based on the peoples, but in a position to block the bi-polar world reality project which would contrast with the spirit of peace and development, the development of the whole world.
Padania and its constituent parliament therefore welcome the new member countries today and hope that together we will build the real Europe of the peoples and not the Europe of the merchants.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to give an opinion today on Agenda 2000 is to give an opinion on the future geography of our Union, for we today have the opportunity of reuniting our continent.
After the fall of the Berlin wall we must define our political project, and know where our border lies.
In fact, this enlargement is not really an enlargement, it is more a conclusion, with one or two exceptions, which requires us to consider it as a global package.
No-one should have the impression that we are diluting the process, or that the first served will be the best served. For that, two conditions are necessary.
Firstly, that we give full meaning to the European Conference, that it caters for us as fifteen plus twelve, that is, including Turkey, and that within it we may discuss all subjects, including economic cooperation, projects of common interest, particularly everything regarding infrastructure networks on a European scale and, to give but a few examples, the question of nuclear safety.
The second condition is that the negotiations commence as soon as possible, I would even say the very day it becomes possible, for each of the other applicant countries, beyond the Commission's proposal, without waiting for the first round of negotiations to be concluded.
But to enlarge our Union is also to wonder about the impact of enlargement.
It will not be a success for the new members unless it is also a success for its current members.
And from this point of view, I think that we must ask three preliminary questions: first the question of cost: it has obviously not been clearly raised.
They tell us 1.27 %, fine, but is it reasonable?
Let us recall, for example, the conditions of enlargement to include Spain and Portugal.
We had to pay for it.
Enlargement has a cost, we must say how we are going to achieve it.
The second precondition is clearly the institutional question.
The building work will commence next December, after Luxembourg II, for we know that institutional reform is, by definition, long and difficult: we have sad experiences of it.
The desire for enlargement means recommencing institutional reform immediately, as from the date of the December Council, without awaiting the end of the ratification process of the Treaty of Amsterdam. If not they will say to us: but no, you see, it is too late, these countries are waiting, we cannot say no.
And I mean institutional reform and not simply a rearrangement of the sense of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We think that enlargement must be on condition that true institutional reform is undertaken. In my opinion, this has a minimum of three factors.
Of course, balance, the composition of the Commission, increase in the qualified majority, in codecision. But also the question of the way of working out article N, and also the question of democratic control of EMU.
Finally, and I will finish on this point, Mr President, third precondition, we must define our political project: the "acquis communautaire' is also a project in the area of defence.
Let me state that for the political project of the Union, the market is not sufficient.
We want a political union, we want a successful enlargement.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I want to express my appreciation of the reports under discussion, in particular that presented by Mr Colom i Naval, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, inasmuch as it frankly faces up to what I consider the main problems. First of all, the recognition of the right of all the applicant countries to a simultaneous start to negotiations, without prejudice to the fact that the rate of progress and date of conclusion of the same will depend on the capacity of the candidate countries to meet the conditions and criteria of membership.
The report is also appreciated for having also seized the opportunity, finally, to deal seriously and carefully with the question of Turkey's candidature.
Another point that is fully supported is the need for adequate institutional reforms, which are already indispensable today and will be even more so in such an enlarged Europe.
In this respect the institutional framework resulting from the Treaty of Amsterdam delivers us a Europe with a paralyzed decision-making capacity, increasingly resembling a huge market and less and less like the Europe our fathers wanted and this Parliament hoped for.
Coming to the financial aspects of the enlargement, it has to be stressed that the restrictive policy of budgetary improvement, pursued by member countries with a view to monetary union, makes the financially painless achievement of a political operation as extensive as the enlargement an absurd idea.
Hence the pretext that the own resources ceiling is sacrosanct until 2006.
I am convinced that the start of monetary union will revive the process of development and growth, much decelerated today, and this could lead to revision of the financial perspectives at the mid-term assessment rightly called for in the report we are debating.
From the sacrosanct 1.27 % derives the consequence of financing the enlargement by squeezing either the agricultural policy or the cohesion policy.
The Commission has decided the enlargement should substantially be paid for by the cohesion policy, and I think that is a mistake. It involves the risk of further weakening regions which are already the weakest in Europe.
This is demonstrated by the fact that the 0.46 % of Community GDP decided on at Edinburgh at the time of the enlargement to Fifteen, will fall to 0.39 % in 2006, still in relation to the existing member countries.
So to guarantee solidarity between regions of Europe and genuine balance in their development, we need to be thinking, as of now, from the current design stage for the new structural funds, about policies and instruments which will avert the risk, in the early years of the new millennium, of the great majority of currently disadvantaged regions of the Union ending up excluded from the cohesion policy.
So in conclusion, taking the cue from the title of Agenda 2000, a definite yes to a wider Union, provided that the conditions for an institutionally and financially stronger Union, which do not exist today, are created.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen survivors of the "nutritional decimation' , along with the achievement of the single currency, the enlargement of the European Union to ten new countries is for Europe the major issue of the end of the 20th Century, that of the advent of a great Europe.
Enlargement, a process which is going to be undertaken in a difficult period of austerity, unemployment and also doubts, is an historic opportunity, but also a true challenge.
Its need cannot seriously be questioned.
In effect, Europe's vocation is to develop itself, unite itself. In the absence of progress in this direction, it could not acquire the importance it aims to achieve on the international scene, nor play the role it wants to play and would thus condemn itself to stagnation.
The problem is another, it is that of conditions and means, which must not conceal the extent to which this enlargement is a difficult one.
Enlargement must be thought of in terms of budgetary cost, and to want it is one thing, but to want to pay the price is another.
I admit that the Council's attitude which, at least for the moment, is that of wanting a cut-price enlargement, is a continual source of worry.
Already, they can be heard stating that whatever the cost of enlargement, the ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP cannot be transgressed and must remain as it is.
In other words, it is for us to define the new financial framework within the context and objective of stabilization of Community expenditure, which can be translated as: in line with the balancing of national budgets.
Certain delegations within the Council even theoretically qualify any debate on a possible increase in the GNP ceiling.
So without a new financial perspective and without any reevaluation of the GNP ceiling, where will the money come from?
Let us make no mistake.
If you follow the Council's position, the money will come from common policies, by reforming and adjusting them, in the name of solidarity, to the new needs.
I am thinking here of the structural funds, cohesion funds, and above all the common agricultural policy, that obvious expiatory victim of financial solidarity, as we noted last week during the Trialogue on the 1998 budget, for where farmers are concerned, solidarity is often synonymous with sacrifice.
How far can you go in the implementation of anticipated CAP measures: a planned overall decrease in prices and a maximal decoupling of compensatory aid, in order not to compromise the situation of farmers, who are often living at the limit of what is tolerable. An enlargement of the unbearable conditions of agriculture would be unacceptable.
Whoever says enlargement says financial framework appropriate to enlargement, and this financial framework, as the rapporteur Joan Colom i Naval clearly highlighted, remains to be built.
Not all of the uncertainties have been raised on the conditions for the future financing of the European Union, far from it, and this is the true keystone of the envisaged reforms.
It is the maintenance, or surpassing, of the 1.27 % GNP ceiling which will largely determine the content of the reform of common policies.
Yes, enlargement must be a factor in the development of the European Union.
Yes, enlargement must be a factor in institutional progress, but enlargement must be just as much about avoiding the dismantling of existing policies, and even be about consolidating them.
Enlargement of the European Union must mean the deepening of the policies of the European Union.
It will require a new interinstitutional agreement. A revision of the financial perspective will be required.
And the GNP own resources ceiling will need to be considered according to the financial needs of the Union, in accordance with its objectives.
But in no case can our group accept that the enlargement should serve as a pretext for an automatic revision of the financial perspective or of an uncontrolled explosion of the Community's own resources.
And I think that this should be an excellent occasion for us to reflect on how we must participate in the development, but also in the balancing, of the budget.
The path towards a successful enlargement is a difficult one and the achievement of the financial aspect is an essential factor.
Other than these difficulties, it is our obligation to respond to the immense hope that Europe represents for the applicant countries, of whom the majority are discovering, after long dark years of communist totalitarianism, the promising road to democracy.
Mr President, I am not going to talk about Padanian independence or other such grandiose issues.
Instead I will restrict myself to certain specific points which may seem modest but which are concurrent with the enlargement.
Amongst these, the position of the European regions bordering on the CEECs deserves particular attention.
Although proximity offers them greater prospects of collaboration, it is also true that this makes them more exposed to a competition still impaired by the existing socio-economic disparities.
So the European Union, which needs to reduce pre-accession friction, should avoid any possibility of such regions suspecting they are having to pay a higher price than the rest of Europe.
That suspicion is all the more pernicious because the frontier areas have already suffered the chains of half a century of cold war, so in recovering funds for the pre-accession process, it is important not only to avoid taking away those they enjoy today but also to promote programmes to mitigate the competitive aspects and encourage the development of cross-border cooperation in the interests of the enlargement process.
Mr President, the eastward enlargement project is without doubt of historic significance.
After the fall of the Iron Curtain it is a logical consequence that the Union continues with the building of the common house of Europe.
In order to do justice to this historic task, the people who already live in this house must be given the security that both the foundations and the enlarged structure are built on solid bases.
Without doubt broad sectors of the population have a sceptical view of our steps towards enlargement.
It must be the task of this Parliament to take seriously the fears and anxieties of the Union's citizens and to incorporate these into the assessment of the enlargement project.
With Agenda 2000 the Commission presented a paper designed to show the way to an enlarged Union.
To stay with my image: Agenda 2000 represents only a sketch of the enlargement structure but not by any means a detailed building plan.
Therefore a large number of corrections of an institutional, financial and political nature are still necessary.
I am an Austrian member.
Austria is like no other country in the Union, surrounded by potential candidates for entry.
So it will probably feel the effects of the eastward enlargement of the EU more directly and more sensitively than many other Member States.
Just how sensitive the question of enlargement actually is can be seen from a unanimously passed resolution of the Upper Austria State Parliament.
In this all party representatives were requested to ensure that there would be no entry negotiations with the Czech Republic until further work on the building of the Temelin nuclear power station was abandoned.
This is the stated wish and aim of a democratically legal Austrian Parliament which the Austrian MEPs were requested to represent.
The house of Europe needs solid foundations.
In order to enlarge it stone must be laid on stone, or rather stone after stone.
Willy Brandt declared at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall that what belongs together, grows together.
Let us give Europe the time to grow together!
Mr President, Mr Oostlander's report is clear on one point: all countries applying for accession to the European Union must be democratic.
Freedom of the press must be guaranteed.
In Belgium, a founder member of the Union, there is a free press, but one that is subsidized by the powers that be on condition that it is politically correct, that is, supportive of the system.
Free elections must be organized.
In Belgium, elections are free, but fixed due to the public financing that is reserved for the old parties of the establishment, fixed due to the control of the media, fixed due to the judiciary arbitrarily throwing out, when it wants to, the National Front list, a party which represents 175, 000 voters in Brussels and in Wallonia.
And we have the impertinence to demand protection of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, protection which is, however, quite evident, or protection of the Russian speaking minority in Latvia.
Ladies and gentlemen, 150, 000 French-speaking Belgians with less rights than the Hungarians in Slovakia and no more rights than the Russians in Latvia live only a few kilometres away from our Parliament.
I will finish by asking this question: how should we describe this obstinate wish to see a non-European country, Turkey, join the Union?
Neo-colonialism or cultural and intellectual poverty?
Mr President, I would like to agree in general with what Detlev Samland said about enlargement.
I think he struck the right chord on that subject.
I would like to add one more remark about the general problems.
I think Turkey should be included in the conference, and that this conference should be substantive, or to quote my late group member Mr Schäfer: the Turks cannot live on rubbish either.
I will limit myself to the Colom i Naval report. I support the report, no problem.
But I would like to point out that the report is surrounded by a large number of uncertainties.
The data the Commission has supplied is theoretical. The Commission's forecast on spending, and to which it adheres at 1.27 %, is extremely theoretical speculation.
If I look at the present political situation in the Council, I am extremely doubtful that the Commission will be able to stick to this time frame.
Because it looks unlikely that the financial problems within the Council will have led to the necessary solutions, enabling us to take the lead in the enlargement negotiations.
I think that the disagreement which is already there, and where there are different positions with regard to agriculture as well as structural funds, will continue for some time yet.
If the enlargement process is to be taken seriously, then it is advisable that the finances are geared to the policy to be pursued.
The impression I have at the moment - and Mr Samland has in fact already said this - is that we seem to be more engaged in distributing money among the fifteen existing Member States than in an enlargement process.
This has been confirmed from all sides in this plenary.
I cannot hide my concern about the scandalousness of these views.
With great regret I even begin to gain greater understanding of the Dutch net position discussion.
Because, of course, it should not be permissible that enlargement is transferred to those countries which find themselves in an exceedingly difficult net position.
I find the net position discussion, and I say this immediately, a mistaken discussion, but it happens to belong to the political reality that countries like Germany and the Netherlands are faced with.
When the discussion goes the way it does in this debate, with the Irish wanting their money, the Portuguese wanting their money, and the Spaniards wanting their money, then at some point the moment will have to come when we find ourselves in a political crisis in this Community, with the risk that the candidates for enlargement, which should be able to benefit from the relationship with the European Union on time, will end up being the victims.
I wanted to raise that in this context.
I would like to make another point with regard to accession. The Commission based their forecast on growth of 2.5 %.
Mr Colom i Naval expressly asks whether this is an achievable option. I have another question.
What is the relationship between this 2.5 % and the time frame which the Commission specified with respect to accession? Moreover, the agricultural policy reform, the structural funds reform are sufficient to cushion the problems within the 1.27 %.
On that, too, the Commission is extremely ponderous. When I look at the objective 1 areas I notice that there are considerable opportunities for savings, for instance.
I take as my example the Dutch Flevoland, but I think that a large number of objective 1 areas can do without the fact that, now that there are no more objective 1s, it will take another six years to cut back the objective 1 position.
This can be done in a much shorter space of time.
They either are or are not. If they are not, there is no automatic right to benefit from their advantageous position.
I think that the transition arrangement which the Commission has in mind will, as a result of restrictions in duration, have to offer further opportunities for adjustment than are presently provided for, and to see that other solutions are found.
Because again, the present proposals on the structural funds point to the fact that countries with few objective 1 regions - and who do not even share in the benefit of the shift in agricultural policy - will have to foot the bill for enlargement.
If I look at the opinion polls in the Netherlands, Germany and other countries on how the people feel about enlargement, following this scenario will lead to serious political risks.
Hence my warning.
I have already said that I think that the discussion on net contribution is a mistaken one, but I have to acknowledge that it has become a political problem in a number of our Member States, and I think it is therefore necessary to arrive at a balanced distribution of the budget, whereby criteria other than the typical net contribution discussion are applied, whereas other criteria are needed.
This is also necessary to create more financial space within Agenda 2000 for the entrants than there is at the moment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to associate myself with what our colleague Mr Dankert has said here.
It is very interesting that we are now faced with a more or less concealed fight over distribution within the European Union which very much reminds me of what we have already discussed at the beginning of the 1980s.
I am sometimes amazed that the arguments which at that time were ranged against the southward enlargement of the European Union are coming today from those countries which were at the time accepted into the European Union.
People ought to search their conscience to see if the arguments were not wrong even then which persuaded us not to accept these countries.
We should not follow the bus theory: we ourselves are sitting in the bus and the bus is full.
That is, I believe, sometimes a difficult situation.
The significance of the enlargement of the European Union, the historic opportunity has frequently been evoked, and I can only underline this.
In my opinion we should use two definitions when it is a matter of not discriminating.
We must not discriminate in the sense that we give some candidates no hope.
We must set in motion a process which offers them objective chances of becoming members of the European Union.
At the same time we must arm the chief negotiators with objective criteria so that they can make such a differentiation so that the countries which have developed further do not have to wait when they have finished negotiations, for the others who are not so well developed.
For this reason I believe that the compromise solutions we have reached meanwhile can be interpreted in such a way that the Commission and the Council have at their disposal this scope for differentiation.
This is of extraordinary significance, for when the first country comes in much later than it would have been possible then this means falling hopes for those countries which would come in later in any case.
Therefore it is the wrong start to just throw everything into one pot.
We must all do our homework.
The applicant countries must do their homework in order to get fit to be in the European Union, but we must also do our homework, on the structural policy, on the agricultural policy, on the institutional reforms, not in the exaggerated sense but in a way which is necessary for enlargement.
We must do this homework and we organize ourselves so that the opportunity to enlarge the European Union does not lead to new conflicts.
Enlargement must have opportunities for transition so that it does not end up in a conflict between the applicant countries and the present day Member States of the European Union.
Also the new border of the European Union means that we must build bridges to those countries who in the long term or in the foreseeable future will not get into the European Union and if in building bridges we lose sight of the Ukraine and Russia then we shall also be making a mistake.
Mr President, I would like to support our colleague Mr Samland's appeal for honesty and add three aspects to it.
First, as Elmar Brok has just said, it would really be a scandal if a country which already meets the criteria and a Member State of the European Union imposes a veto until its candidate for entry is ready.
Mr Brok knows what I am talking about, I am referring to Poland.
That must not happen!
Second point: the reform of the institutions.
I cannot get rid of the suspicion that many people address the reform of the institutions with the ulterior motive of using it to postpone enlargement for a while.
Therefore we must be on our guard to ensure that the institutional reform is tackled quickly and logically so that we do not waste any time and the enlargement process is not thereby delayed.
A third point, which is also not very straightforward: I have the impression that several countries who are now doing particularly well out of the support system, have no interest whatsoever in enlargement because they will then lose their financial privileges.
That too must not happen.
In these points we need a great deal of honesty and political logic, and I hope that we can really manage this, at least here in the European Parliament!
Mr President, I am delighted with the Colom i Naval report because of the quality and precision of the motion for a resolution.
I substantially agree with its premises and the criticisms of the Agenda 2000 document presented by the Commission.
Important historical processes like the enlargement to the countries of central and eastern Europe and the achievement of economic and monetary union, which are now being initiated, will reach their culmination, in terms of results and consequences, actually within the timespan covered by the financial perspectives and paradoxically, for the first time, notwithstanding the importance of such changes, we are faced with a political context which is not open to the prospect of increasing the financial resources of the Union.
The reason for this position is twofold: on the one hand I believe there is a pause for reflection on the process of European integration and, on the other, the choice - supported - to prioritize the Maastricht convergence criteria.
This faces us with the need to be realistic and effective with regard to the range of the objectives set by Agenda 2000, objectives which involve not only the enlargement but all the policies the Union will pursue.
There is no ignoring the fact that the Commission bases its forecasts on a rate of growth for member countries of 2.5 %, which majority opinion considers an over-optimistic estimate, and keeping a fixed ceiling on the resources for funding expenditure.
This necessarily implies the reform key Union policies, that is, the CAP and the structural funds, to finance the enlargement in the long term.
The process of enlargement in still undefined in terms of timescale and cost, and the forecasts for the economies of the candidate countries remain uncertain.
So it is evident that the purpose of achieving an enlargement in stable financial conditions requires a realignment of expenditure between the various Union policies.
As already emphasized in Agenda 2000, the Commission is espousing a principle, a procedure, which is the opposite of what has happened in the past.
We are faced with a financial package where political and economic objectives are absent while the resources ceiling constitutes a given, established a priori.
This is a low profile approach and there is therefore a strong risk that the scope of the simultaneous objectives of enlargement and deeper integration may be changed.
Left out of consideration from the ceiling is the actual system of own resources which ought to be the subject of serious rethinking and reform to bring them more into line with the wealth and prosperity of the citizens and more transparent in their eyes.
Unfortunately the Commission has not actually proposed this objective, even at a propitious time like this.
Agenda 2000 is based on automatic renewal of the financial perspectives which does not strengthen Parliament's room for political manoeuvre as a budgetary authority.
So I share the rapporteur's view when he emphasizes the need to improve the operation and flexibility of the agreement itself.
For this reason, and for the better functioning of the institutions, a review of the agreement would be useful.
I also agree with the rapporteur that given the many relevant uncertainty factors involved in the seven-year period for the financial perspectives, it is right to envisage the possibility of a financial re-examination by including a revision clause.
So regular checking is necessary.
The development of the process and the financial consequences of enlargement, which constitute the central question and the major concern of the financial perspectives, are not exactly foreseeable; basing ourselves on the Commission's figures we recognize that, in actual fact, the estimate of the cost of the enlargement for the timescale of this perspective constitutes a sum which, in absolute and percentage terms, does not represent an impossible challenge; notwithstanding this there will be a significant impact on the continuation of certain internal policies of Member States.
Taking account of this and of the considerations already developed on the centrality of the question of the enlargement and the need for a realignment of Union policies, it is confirmed that, in the present situation, the financial perspectives must provide for a margin of development for existing policies, both internal and external, from the viewpoint of the need to calibrate in an intelligent and effective way the management of the existing policies and concentrate more specifically on the difficult challenges of today, for example unemployment, and balanced socio-economic development within the integration.
This means that it is necessary to confront decisively certain reforms, for example in the agricultural sector - the success of the enlargement depends notably on the capacity of the Fifteen to modernize agriculture - just as more attention needs to be devoted to regional policy and employment, following up the new approach in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mr President, firstly I should like to pay tribute to my colleagues Mr Oostlander and Mr Barón Crespo for their excellent report which I support.
Personally, I am an enthusiastic supporter of enlargement but equally I have strong views as to how that enlarged Europe should be constructed.
In retrospect, the last enlargement, without deepening, was premature.
As a consequence we have inherited a large body of political and public opinion which is not committed to European integration and this has acted as a brake on our European ambitions.
We must not repeat this mistake.
The European Parliament must make it clear that we will not give our assent to any accession unless and until there is fundamental institutional reform.
We must use the powers we have to force Member State governments to convene another IGC and rectify the failures of Amsterdam.
If we fail to resolve this issue before enlargement we will have abandoned the goal of a United States of Europe and replaced it with a glorified large free trade area with additional rules and regulations.
While we maintain this pressure on governments, we should in parallel open negotiations simultaneously with all applicant states with the exception of Slovakia.
This would send a symbolic message to the citizens of these countries.
We would indicate that we want them to join as soon as possible and as soon as they fulfil the necessary conditions.
By not creating a first and second class category of membership we would also be sending a positive message to potential investors which is essential if these countries are to successfully meet the economic criteria for membership.
I conclude by saying that I have no time for the arguments of those who view enlargement in selfish nationalist budgetary terms.
Where is their vision? There may well be an initial demand on the EU budget but such costs will be minimal when compared to the huge peace dividend that will accrue from an enlarged and fully integrated Europe.
Mr President, my watchwords for enlargement are peace and stability in Europe.
Therefore we must not create instability through a selection method which enforces distinctions between the applicant countries.
Regardless of how well Commissioner Hans van den Broek argues his case, which he did excellently here earlier this afternoon, he cannot escape the fact that the Commission has created a distinction which is not even strictly objective, but political, which the Commissioner also said himself.
With its chosen strategy the Commission has turned enlargement into a horse race in which the participants will inevitably feel like winners and losers. An A team and a B team have been created.
It is clear enough that there are differences between the countries, including with regard to how close they are to fulfilling the requirements made by the EU, but seen in the light of the process of change Europe is in the middle of, it is the wrong time to make such a static division.
The Commission's strategy is connected with the fact that its watchwords are something other than peace and stability.
Agenda 2000 talks of the strengthening and enlargement of the Union, but it is not the Union which is to be strengthened, it is instead the citizens of Europe which are to be strengthened, and it is the ability of the citizens to decide over their own lives which shall be enlarged through Union cooperation.
Therefore the enlargement process must also not be taken hostage for the Union's need for reform.
Only through an equal cooperation with the applicant countries will we be able to secure popular backing for the EU, and without that the project will collapse.
Mr President, Agenda 2000 for a larger and more powerful European Union, and the enlargement of the European Union through the incorporation of the countries of eastern Europe, constitute the historic integration of Europe, reparation for the historic paradox of a divided Europe, and at the same time, a guarantee of growth and stability in Europe and throughout the world.
This is a great political choice for the European Union concerning its evolution, a choice which I want to believe constitutes a decision that has already been taken at all levels of the European Union.
All aspects of this historic undertaking have been analysed from every angle in a process which is, by definition, in parallel with, and bound up with, the deepening, strengthening and reinforcing of the European Union in its present form.
Of course, this evolution must be unambiguous, and devoid of inconsistencies, paradoxes and procrastination.
With the Copenhagen decisions and criteria, in accordance with the specific demands of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and following the lengthy pre-accession processes of the structured dialogue in the context of European association agreements, we are now on the threshold of the final decision concerning the implementation of this policy with the onset of accession negotiations.
I am delighted to see that the European Parliament as a whole is coming to the view that the process of accession negotiations must begin simultaneously and from the same starting point for all applicant countries in eastern, central, northern and south-east Europe.
The ten applicant countries have thrown themselves with determination into the long and difficult fight for rapprochement.
Or should I say, the ten plus one, or rather, and I emphasize, the one plus ten countries.
Cyprus is surely a completely separate case.
I remind you and refer to the positive decision taken by the European Union in 1995 on the accession of Cyprus.
According to this decision accession negotiations are to start in April 1998.
This constitutes the European Union's historic debt to Cyprus.
Unfortunately, within this overall picture, Turkey has no place.
I totally agree with Commissioner van den Broek on the following: there must be no sidelining or overshadowing of the important issue of enlargement by the matter of TurkeyEuropean Union relations.
This does not mean, however, that we can allow Turkey to worm its way stealthily into the European Union.
Some governments may need a certain leeway in the exercise of their foreign policies.
The European Commission may aim for overall regulations.
But we, the European Parliament, must maintain firm principles.
I agree that the matter of Turkey is open for debate.
However, it does not fall within the remit of this debate.
Today Turkey does not fulfil the basic conditions, unfortunately for Turkey, and unfortunately for the European Union.
Mr President, I would like to make three remarks on this debate which essentially revolves around enlargement.
Nine years ago a border fence came down in Hungary, a wall came down in Berlin, yearned for by some, feared by others: the revolution had arrived.
At the time we were already agreed that the greatest challenge to the European Community would be not only to have achieved the unification of Western Europe but also to contribute to the process of unification of the whole of Europe.
It was not merely a matter of the re-unification of Germany, to a certain extent it was also about the reunification of the European continent and we are quite clear about it: this could only happen under the symbol of democracy, of the rule of law, of human rights and the market economy.
Today we are discussing the implications of this response which, we have decided, and the others are waiting for our answers and above all for us to display our will to give this answer.
Second remark: countries are coming to us which are completely changing their historical role.
I take Poland as an example.
Poland has always been crushed between its powerful neighbours.
Today it is to change from the suppressed country to the partner.
It is a country with borders.
The border is changing as it were from the west as the borderland to the east, where it will later be the borderland for the European Union.
For the first time in its history - at least in its recent history - it will have to take on an active role for its neighbours, which certainly is not easy.
Applying to join is not hard, but becoming and being a member is on the other hand very difficult.
This is what the other countries which have applied for membership ought to know.
We must also see, and this is the third remark, that we have compiled an examination paper, according to which, as it were, entry is the certificate of capacity for democracy, and all countries are measured against this capacity for democracy.
Therefore we must approach this question with great sensitivity.
Human rights, constitutionality, democratic procedures, the protection of minorities: these are the examination questions.
This is a difficult path - I have just come from Romania - if one has long experience of dictatorship.
Democracy, and we must all learn this, nevertheless needs constant supervision, even amongst friends!
We must learn to tolerate this, for it is the cement which ultimately binds us together and the fact that we can also argue in friendship about political goals is itself also a little bit of freedom!
Mr President, I would like to support the critical comments contained in Mr Colom i Naval's report.
The Commission is caught up in the role of a Molière character, who is asked to eat well with little money.
It tries to show us that enlargement can take place without much expense, or more precisely, without Member States having to pay more.
Hence this basic premise and own resources ceiling of 1.27 % which governs the overall thinking.
We can see the reasoning behind this.
The Commission wanted to pre-empt the desire, or more precisely the lack of desire, of the Council, instead of making proposals based on consideration of the realities.
And it is galling to note that, whilst after Amsterdam we were requesting institutional strengthening as a precondition of enlargement, the thinking on enlargement today shows us the current insufficiencies of one of the institutions of our Union, the Commission, which is abandoning its previously dynamic role in order to become a planning committee of the Council.
Mr President, the end of communism and the division of Europe have opened the way to a change in the very nature of the European Union, which can now include all European peoples and states.
This is the historic change enlargement represents.
The Union and its Member States must therefore be capable of adopting enlargement as a political objective which is essential to the future of peace and democracy in Europe.
It is a case of supporting the consolidation of democracy and human rights and also a sustainable transition to the market economy, making allowance for the noble aim of resolving as quickly as possible the serious social crisis into which undisciplined liberalism has plunged nearly all the countries which have emerged from Communism.
For a country like Portugal, whose democratic consolidation and economic development has benefitted so greatly from joining the Community, there can be no doubting our support for the central and eastern European countries' applications for membership, in addition to those of the other candidates.
So I reject any internal institutional, financial or other strategy of the present Member States which involves taking applicant countries hostage.
This great historic design of enlargement therefore renders politically and morally illegitimate any attempt to rank the candidate countries, as the Commission has tried to do in the famous five plus one proposal.
I congratulate myself on the fact that the European Parliament is moving in the opposite direction.
I congratulate myself on the fact that Parliament demands that everyone should start off equal, regardless of the results, and the completion date for the negotiations should be decided according to objective Community criteria.
I also reject any attempt to exclude Turkey for cultural or religious reasons, overlooking Turkey's European history and the decisive contribution her membership would make to peace and unity in Europe, provided the democratic requirements are fulfilled.
We need to help Turkey to join and not exclude her from the start.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that such a great historic design requires more than weak-kneed accountants to deal with governments!
It needs political and moral leadership that can build solidarity and has a sense of history.
That leadership is frankly lacking in the European Union.
It is only thus, by displaying political courage and telling the truth to electorates whipped up by populist, nationalist and anti-European rabble-rousers, that we shall be able to bring to fruition a process which will demand wide reforms of certain existing policies, such as the CAP, and an increase in the Community budget to back the structural support policies that are needed by the prospective member countries, without causing them to be financed exclusively at the cost of the under-developed countries and to the detriment of economic and social cohesion.
That is what it would mean if the internal resources maximum limit is held at 1.27 % of GDP.
Enlargement is indeed a new opportunity for Europe, for peace, for democracy and for solidarity between its peoples.
That objective is incompatible with divisions between the applicant countries or a reduction in social and economic cohesion funds, both of which could in themselves bring about the disintegration of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, from an economic point of view Slovakia is not one of the strongest applicant countries.
It quickly overcame the difficulties of its separation from the former Czechoslovakia.
The high economic per capita growth, the fall in the unemployment rate, the inflation rate and the foreign debt, which compared to other countries is low, are impressive elements in this.
Politically the constitutional framework for democratically constituted and effectively operating institutions has already been in place for some years.
But one institution, the government, and for this Prime Minister Meciar and some of his ministers bear the major responsibility, is not working in the way that one might expect in a constitutional state.
His attitude to the role of the State President, his disregard of the decision of the constitutional court, the partial exclusion of the parliamentary opposition from important decision-making bodies and his treatment of the Hungarian minority are important proof of his hitherto antidemocratic attitude.
On the other hand the Slovakian administration and the Parliament are in the process of adapting the relevant legislative areas quickly to the Community law of possession.
The recommendations of the joint EU-Slovakia Parliamentary Committee about which my colleague Rübig will speak later, have set some things in motion.
All in all, however, we find that the Slovakian government does not meet all the political criteria of Copenhagen and great efforts on the part of the Government and in particular of the Prime Minister are still needed to achieve more democratic practice and constitutionality in order to be given a place in the group of candidates to be taken seriously.
Mr President, I welcome the great role that Parliament has in the process of Agenda 2000.
With regard to Agenda 2000, it has been said over and over this afternoon that the Commission is proposing a whole new financial perspective for the period under review.
It covers the entire broad range of EU policies and assumes that expansion towards the east will take place over the next ten years.
We all know that the European Union will face its greatest challenges over this period.
We have to move to EMU.
We have to incorporate anything up to ten additional Member States.
On a personal level, I regret that Malta, by its own decision, is not one of those countries.
As you probably know, I was the rapporteur for Parliament on Malta's accession and I hope that at some stage it comes on board.
Another challenge we shall have to take into account is another round of international trade negotiations.
With regard to the financial perspective, the present one which runs from 1993 to 1999 was accompanied by an increase in the EU budget ceiling to 1.27 % of EU GNP.
The Commission is rash in assuming an average EU growth rate of 2.5 % for the present Member States.
The Commissioner does not seem to be taking into account the possibility of unexpected economic shocks under EMU.
For this reason I have serious doubts about the proposal to maintain the present budget ceiling into the next perspective.
The structural funds have been very effective in poorer areas and peripheral regions in helping Ireland to reach the average standard of living of the richer regions of the Union.
Ireland has benefited enormously over the past ten years and we have made very good use of our structural funds.
Our standard of living has now reached the EU average for the first time ever. Today's budget in Ireland reflects the good health of our celtic tiger.
However, we still have enormous developmental and structural needs.
Anybody who has been to Dublin recently will know of the seriousness of our traffic congestion problems.
It is emerging as a huge barrier to investment and the government is doing very little to remedy this situation, apart from giving endless employment to consultants.
I accept the Commissioner's reasoning that there must be greater concentration of resources in the next perspective.
It makes little sense that almost half of the EU population lives in areas that are eligible for structural funding.
There should however be no sudden cutting off of structural funds.
Even though structural funding represents an everdecreasing factor in our economic prosperity in Ireland, no country could go through a drastic cutting away of investment without undergoing enormous internal disruption.
The Commission has confirmed that this will not happen.
Any agreement on concentration must include a firm commitment to proper transitional arrangements.
Mr President, first of I all I should like to say that I agree completely with the sentiments and the concerns expressed by my colleague John Cushnahan.
I too am concerned about diluting and weakening the European Union through too quick enlargement, although I am encouraged by progress towards monetary union..
I want to address the Colom i Naval report and say that ever since the Berlin Wall came down there has been a remarkable consensus in favour of admitting the countries of eastern Europe.
This consensus applied not only in the institutions and the national governments but with the EU public as well.
It was also accepted that enlargement would not be achieved without some cost and that a contribution would be required from all Member States in proportion to their ability to contribute.
So, we might ask why the Commission is proposing to admit 75 or 100 million very poor people without any expansion of the resources of the Union.
At this point we know that the new countries will come in - at the most optimistic estimate - with something like 30 % of the GDP of existing Members.
In the old European Union of twelve Member States there were 80 million people with a GDP of 65 % of the average and in order to bring about an acceptable convergence of economies, we raised resources of ECU 24 billion per year in order to encourage their development.
How can the Commission propose that an acceptable regional policy can be extended to the new states with just ECU 11 billion?
The situation in agriculture is similar.
It is extremely difficult to project how the economies of the 15 members will go, how the cost of the CAP will go, how the applicant countries will go over the next five to eight years.
But, within that limit of 1.27 % it is very difficult to see adequate resources being provided to ensure that this enlargement will satisfy the applicants and their citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first a brief word about Mr Schwaiger who spoke just before about Slovakia.
I do not wish to anticipate my colleague, Mr Rübig.
However, when we look at the reports on the countries which our rapporteurs have written, and, for example, look at the report on Estonia and think that Slovakia would treat its Hungarian-speaking minority in the same way as Estonia would treat its Russian-speaking minority, then I do not know what the verdict on Slovakia would be.
I doubt that this five plus one formula is the best solution and I believe that should be stated clearly in this House.
I also hope that the Member States ultimately come to similar conclusions in Luxembourg.
The rapporteur for the Budget Committee, Mr Colom i Naval, added in point 37 of the supporting statement of his report what he calls a final note on the administrative expenditure.
He states that the Commission did not include in the accounts any charge relating to the linguistic problems of an enlargement of the Union additional to the direct costs, that is, the employment of administrative staff, linguists, etcetera, the costs of the infrastructure such as offices, booths in the assembly halls etc.
I quote this apparently minor example - perhaps not too many colleagues noticed it - because it is very indicative of the imperfection of Agenda 2000 submitted to us by the Commission.
Once again we are shirking a very sensitive question, which is in this case not so much budgetary as political. Let us stay with the example of Slovakia.
What is the difference between the right of five million Danes to speak their own language and that of five million Slovaks? In the context of Agenda 2000 we did not ask ourselves this question.
We failed in Agenda 2000 to speak clearly to each other and I believe it is one of the achievements of Mr Colom i Naval as rapporteur of the Budget Committee, that at exactly the right time he also addressed the right questions.
To reduce it to a common denominator: anyone who does not want to reform the agricultural and structural policy, anyone who does not then at the same time want to pay more, that person cannot or will not enlarge.
I say that in this debate also to all the colleagues some of whose government representatives have taken up extremely strange positions in the various Councils in the past in Luxembourg.
On the one hand they wanted to pay in less, at the same time they turned a blind eye to the agricultural policy and its share in expenditure of 50 % of our budget, and then the Foreign Minister said: we want to enlarge eastward.
These are things which we cannot tell our citizens and therefore it was important that for once we tabled clear and also critical questions above all in the budget area.
We owed that to our people and we likewise owe it to our future colleagues in central and eastern Europe.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, enlargement is indeed a very great historic challenge.
It is first and foremost a complex political act and, above all, the supreme expression of European Union foreign policy.
In consequence, insistence on, or gnawing away at, only the economic aspects of enlargement devalues its very essence.
What would be of great significance is the message that must be given to all who are in need of it following the 1989 earthquake which demolished integration on our continent.
Unfortunately, however, there is a discrepancy in the timing, if not a paradox, in the announcement of this lofty policy.
The European Union is moving towards enlargement without first having institutionally consolidated the common foreign and security policy, and without having solved the crucial problems of its fundamental and effective operation.
The revision of the Treaty of Amsterdam, with the focus of attention on economic and monetary union, has seen fit to defer the solving of these fundamental problems.
The shortfall is huge.
At the very least let us not compound the shortfall by making mistakes.
It would be a mistake to divide the countries who wish to accede to the European Union into category A and category B. It would be a mistake to embark on accessions without first confronting unresolved institutional issues.
It would be a dangerous mistake, for the sake of economic interests or even strategic considerations, to devalue respect for human rights or to underestimate the coercive, aggressive policy of certain states towards Member States of the European Union.
It would be a tragic mistake for the European Union to appear unreliable concerning the accession of Cyprus, to which it has committed itself, by laying aside this issue out of friendship towards a country which, moreover, recently declared that it was not interested, that it indeed disregarded the Conference for which its friends are going to so much trouble, and for Cyprus, to which the European Union has an obligation, to remain at the mercy of Turkey, as Commissioner van den Broek has quite rightly pointed out.
Mr President, the European Union is embarking upon one of its most historically important projects since its inception; enlargement to eastern and central Europe, taking in the island of Cyprus.
EU membership will help underpin democracy, peace and prosperity in central and eastern Europe.
At last, that Iron Curtain, which in Churchill's memorable phrase stretched from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, has been lifted.
Enlargement will ensure that the old iron curtain is not replaced by a velvet one, excluding part of the continent from the benefits of belonging to the European family.
It is right, of course, that the enlargement process should be allinclusive.
None of the eleven applicant countries should feel excluded from enlargement.
All eleven have an equal chance for membership, with reinforced accession partnerships and annual reviews of progress towards the aim of accession.
Much needs to be done, as has been said this evening, by both the applicant countries to prepare for membership and the EU itself so that its policies and institutions are reformed in order to meet the challenges of enlargement.
Inevitably, this includes reforming the common agricultural policy.
The Commission is also right in its report, Agenda 2000, to point out that some countries are further down the road to accession than others.
The five plus one option involving early negotiations with Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus is the only realistic strategy.
To pursue other options, such as the regatta formula of starting negotiations with all the applicant states, bar Slovakia, would merely slow down the whole process and encourage unrealistic expectations.
Finally, I welcome the proposal to call a European Conference in London next February, where all applicant countries can come and discuss matters of concern to all Europeans, including the common foreign and security policy, justice and home affairs.
Mr President and Mr Commissioner, enlargement must succeed for all our sakes.
Mr President, if the Union gets larger, what else grows? Stability?
Security?
Human rights?
We hope so. There are still a few problems to solve, though.
Differences in social conditions in the Union must not get larger as we extend towards the east.
Neither must the intellectual differences among us broaden as we grow and change into an information-based society.
That is what is happening, though. So the borders that exist within our societies must not be allowed to get larger, as we extend eastward.
In the candidate countries we must expect social problems, not to say social upheaval, as a result of stringent application of the demands of membership.
The criteria for economic and monetary union have caused such phenomena already amongst ourselves.
Enlargement will not bring security unless the basis for it survives.
We cannot bring down our border with Russia either.
We therefore need the northern dimension view and a Baltic Sea policy.
We need the commitment of Russia to Europe and not Asia or a Greater Russia, which are the alternatives.
There is no European security without the participation of Russia.
You could say that NATO's spread eastward is seen in Russia as a gift to the Communists.
EU enlargement, though, is regarded as something positive for Russia.
That is why we should be concerned, not that Europe should extend its borders, but that those borders should decrease in number.
Mr President, I would like towards the end of our debate, which has quantitatively certainly been extensive but also qualitatively appropriate to the subject, to try, both for the relationship of the European Union with Latvia and also for its neighbour states Estonia and Lithuania, in other words for the relationship of the European Union with the Baltic states at least to indicate a greater connection in time and space.
One of the topical and more particularly future basic questions of European policy will be the form of relationship between the European Union and the Russian Federation.
In this matter I can only agree with Mr Paasilinna.
It is clearly in the interests of the European Union that this relationship should be constructive and stability - orientated.
In this respect particularly important is direct cross-border regional cooperation.
This is shown particularly by experiences of recent years of an increasingly intensive cooperation, the formation of numerous euro regions on the eastern borders of the European Union.
We should project these explicitly positive experiences of recent years and decades into the future.
It is precisely the three Baltic states which would as members of the European Union be potential partners in cross-border cooperation between the European Union and the Russian Federation.
The Baltic states could thus make a specific, almost irreplaceable, substantial contribution to the solution of one of the key problems of European policy.
The next and most important condition for this is the possibility of being able to join the European Union.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will only be able to perceive and desire this desirable political function, that is supporters of cooperation between the European Union and the Russian Federation when they are firmly anchored in the European Union and when they feel themselves to be equally valuable and justified partners.
Accession strategy should not be characterized only by the current framework conditions but also by future factors which are deliberately influenced and formed by us.
To enter the European Union as quickly as possible would also help to solve other marginal problems, about which I can unfortunately not go into detail at the moment.
Mr President, the enlargement of the EU will be an historic decision.
The instruments which the EU has at its disposal, that is, the political, economic and diplomatic tools, are extremely valuable and much more effective than military ones for building lasting intergovernmental cooperation.
Parliament's work has been both extensive and intensive.
It was not easy to find a compromise between immediate negotiations for all and negotiations just for some.
The most important element must be that all applicant countries are included in the enlargement process, regardless of their level of readiness.
Obviously all countries must be judged on the same terms and be treated in an even way.
It has to be clear to all the applicant countries and their populations that they are part of an enlargement process and that they will become members when they fulfil the criteria for membership.
None of the countries fulfills these criteria today.
Under those circumstances it is hardly appropriate to select just a few countries.
Nobody knows with certainty what the situation will be in the applicant countries in a few years' time.
There is a political will to enlarge the EU.
It is important to encourage this will, not least among the applicant countries.
These are young, fragile democracies.
To close the door in their faces is not right.
We would send the wrong signals by only selecting certain states.
All the applicant states must be given the opportunity to begin negotiations for membership at the same time.
Concerns have been expressed that that would risk delaying the process for those countries who are regarded as being ready for negotiations.
It is important that the applicant countries are not set up against each other.
Therefore a common start to negotiations should be made with all at the same time.
After these multilateral "acquis' negotiations, which could take a year, bilateral negotiations should be started with those countries who are ready, probably the five plus one which the Commission has selected, but also other states if they are ready.
What we gain by such a solution is that we do not rule out certain countries in advance, but encourage them to continue their ambitious efforts to be ready for membership.
Mr President, I found this a lengthy and interesting debate, and I have already trespassed on your generosity to intervene twice, so I will be brief, and thank the speakers for the important interventions which we have been able to hear today, which covered a large part of what the Commission together with the proposals on EMU regards as one of its most important proposals during this term of office.
The debate today has, I think, given a quite a complete picture about what discussions are awaiting us between the Member States.
I am not so much and not primarily thinking of discussions about the enlargement scenario, and of trying to prevent any country from feeling excluded.
I am thinking more of the discussions which are to take place about financing the enlargement.
Now, I believe that we do not have to or are able to draw any conclusions from this in view of the fact that the European Commission will also have to make further proposals.
But it is in any case good to be able to ascertain that today the uncertainty which still exists about certain sections of the internal policy reforms, and their financial consequences, as well as about the financing of enlargement in its totality, evidently give no cause for the overwhelming majority of this House to exercise restraint with regard to starting the further enlargement process.
I am more inclined to detect an encouragement to speed up the programme.
If financial motives should disturb the enlargement rhythm as such, or would occur at the cost of the least advanced candidate countries, only then there would be a case of actual discrimination.
Today it became very obvious that in this House, too, there would objections to this.
We await tomorrow's votes with interest, and over the coming months we would very much like to exchange views further about how satisfactory answers can be given to the as yet unanswered questions.
Thank you very much Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.15 p.m.)
Mr President, I have asked for the floor on a point of order pursuant to Rule 48 of our Rules of Procedure.
On 19 November in Brussels, I did in fact make a declaration pursuant to that Rule which I hoped to see included in the register on the regularity and transparency of procedures governing certain expenditure of our Parliament.
I did so because I think ordinary Members need to make their position clear on the allegations that have been made and solutions need to be found to deal with the problems affecting certain parliamentary operating expenses and investment expenditure.
Initial reactions from all the political groups were extremely favourable.
Yesterday, Mr President, you stated that my written declaration was unacceptable, when the only condition laid down by Rule 48 of our Rules of Procedure is that this declaration must fall within the sphere of activities of the European Union.
Yet declarations on issues such as a general ban on landmines and other subjects have been ruled acceptable, as you are well aware, Mr President.
You pointed out to me that other bodies are responsible for dealing with these questions: the Bureau, the Quaestors, the Committee on Budgetary Control.
That is true, Mr President, of any written declaration dealing with the activities of the European Union.
My written declaration deals with one of the fundamental activities of the European Union - the way elected Members can use public money. Mr President, I would like to know why you have ruled this written declaration unacceptable?
What are you afraid of? Why are your people advising you not even to allow distribution to all Members of a declaration making it possible to deal with an issue which everyone knows is fundamental?
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you are very well aware of the reasons why I think your declaration is unacceptable, because I sent them to you in writing.
All the same, as I am always careful to preserve the rights of Members, I did not want to decide the issue myself. I sent it to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure which is responsible for deciding whether my decision is the right one or not.
You are a member of that committee. You can set out your arguments in that forum.
This is not an issue to consider today.
The Committee on the Rules will make the decision and we will abide by that decision.
Mr President, in view of the complete blockade in British ports for Irish beef, could I ask the Commission to make a statement to say what they intend to do about this very serious and deteriorating situation, which is an interruption of trade. At this time the blockade is spreading and nothing seems to be being done by either the British Government or the Commission.
I am asking for a statement.
Mr Gillis, you know exactly how to ask for a Commission statement and if you use the proper method the Commission will comply with your request.
It cannot do so immediately.
Mr President, while I accept the Rules of this House, we must also act on an ad hoc basis when a serious situation arises.
When Irish beef products are being dumped in the sea at Holyhead and containers prevented from travelling through the UK, there is an onus on this House, the British Government and the Transport Commissioner to ensure that these Irish containers can travel through the UK unimpeded.
I appreciate that the protesters...
Mr Gallagher, you know perfectly well this is not the time to raise this matter.
I gave Mr Gillis an answer and the matter is dealt with.
Votes
Mr President, the Green Group supports this compromise.
We have also signed it and would like that to be recorded please.
I note that the Green Group in the European Parliament supports the same amendment.
I presume the rapporteur is in favour, since he has signed it, but I should like to know exactly what his position is.
Thank you very much, Mr Oostlander.
Am I to understand that the House gives its assent for this amendment to be put to the vote?
It appears so, but Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is asking for the floor.
Mr President, I ask that the two parts of this amendment be put to the vote separately.
On Amendment No 114
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party asked for a split vote on this.
I think now is the actual time to put this to you.
Would you allow me to propose the split, or would you prefer to vote on the amendment first?
I think we might end up in serious trouble if we combine the two.
This is not only an amendment which is extremely difficult to understand, I think it is also a very political amendment, because I assume that the Group of the European People's Party will vote against the first part of this text.
In actual fact this means in relation to the compromise amendment, adopted in paragraph 3, that Slovakia will not be offered a pre-accession agreement.
As rapporteur I am in any case against this.
We are against concrete negotiations with this country, but we do not want to rule it out.
Which is indeed why in my text I proposed to offer them a pre-accession agreement.
If we leave this section out of paragraph 140, in relation to what has been adopted in paragraph 3, it will result in Slovakia not getting a pre-accession agreement.
I am therefore against Mr Oostlander's proposal.
Mr President, if this remains as it is, then it will only say that Slovakia, and none of the other countries, will be given a pre-accession agreement as we agreed.
That is a bit odd, which is why I asked for it to be removed with regard to Slovakia as well.
That is the issue.
But I will be pleased to go along with your proposal.
We will take a vote on the sections as you indicate.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I am extremely satisfied with the end result.
I wonder whether you would give the Commissioner the opportunity to respond specifically to the strategy which we defined together, particularly as we would like to know how our discussions will be presented in the Commission.
Mr Colom i Naval would like to clarify something.
Mr President, I should like to draw attention to a couple of small technical errors.
Firstly, ever since 27 October I have been trying to get the last sentence of Paragraph 6 of the resolution to read "...if appropriate reforms of the agricultural and structural policies are not realized or if the estimated rate of growth is not attained' .
The published text reads "...and the estimated rate of growth is not attained' .
I do not know how this mistake got there, but it is not a translation error, because the text we voted on in committee was in Spanish, and said "or' .
Secondly, I think there are quite a few problems with the English version, especially in paragraph 22.
It has been suggested to me that the words "only then' or "then only' should be added to the end of the paragraph.
I do not know.
I am not the right person to sort it out, but I would like to request that this version is checked particularly carefully, because many of my British colleagues understand the text, having worked on it, but are not happy with the version they have seen.
Lastly, the German version of Amendment No 26 is completely unrelated to the English text, which was the original version, or to the Spanish version I was given, or to the French version which I have also checked.
This is a very sensitive issue, so if you will allow me, I would like to read it out, as best I can.
The last sentence should say, in German: ' Befürwortet die Beibehaltung eines Kohäsionsfonds' .
That is very different from what the German version says at the moment, and that is how it should stand if the amendment is approved.
I mention this because it was a compromise amendment, and the compromise was written in German and then translated into other languages.
So that is the text which applies if it is adopted.
On paragraph 15
Mr President, I have been asking for the floor for three minutes.
You have begun the vote.
Finish it now, I will ask for the floor afterwards.
That makes three minutes I have been asking your assistants for the floor on paragraph 15.
You have the floor, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
Mr President, when a group calls for a roll call vote, I would just be grateful if you would take that vote.
It was on paragraph 15.
It is in the voting list and you left it out.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, before we reached the original paragraph an amendment was passed which replaced it.
So it was not in order to vote on an amendment to it.
Mr President, first of all, the two amendments you refer to were rejected.
Furthermore, an amendment adds an element to a text.
The initial text may be poor, the amendment may be good.
In that case, we vote for.
If the original text is poor, we vote against, and we vote against the whole thing.
If a roll call vote has been requested on an original text, it is still necessary to put the request to the vote.
That is quite normal.
Moreover, the two amendments involved were checked electronically and not by roll call.
When a roll call is requested I think account must be taken of it, as you generally do for all the groups.
No, I am sorry, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, that is not the case.
We voted on Amendment No 9 from the Liberal Group, which was passed.
We then voted against Amendment No 21.
The text is therefore replaced by an amendment that was passed.
You did not ask for a roll call vote on Amendment No 9, only on the text.
So if the amendment is approved, you are left without the option of a roll call vote.
You just have to ask for a vote on the amendments as well.
It is up to you to do that, I cannot repeat a vote on a text which has been replaced, whether by roll call or not.
It is impossible to do that, I am sorry.
If you do not interpret the position in the same way, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure will take it up.
That is a perfectly acceptable practice.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The control of port states is a principle which is long overdue in the European macroregion.
It is therefore to be welcomed that it is finally being taken seriously and as an effective control which, as the report puts it with incredible naivety, also guarantees "actual adherence' to the ISM Code at least.
It must be hoped that this too will become practice.
We shall all, however, have to keep a careful eye on this so that it does not remain a mere hope.
The report itself draws attention to a new problem which is already making itself clear: if the IMO and ISM Codes also have to be seriously applied in Europe then there could be tendencies to evade them!
On the other hand in the long term the only way the situation can be helped is firstly by developing a European policy into the worldwide regulatory institutions for maritime traffic, which aims at binding, socially and environmentally supportable, clear rules and secondly puts into effect our own European guidelines for the ecological safety and social supportability of sea traffic in this, the largest economic area in the world.
In any case, the Bazin report takes some perceptible steps in that direction.
We therefore support it, however convinced we may be that it remains necessary to proceed in a clear and precise manner.
Oostlander and Barón Crespo report (A4-0368/97)
Madam President, when future historians come to judge our epoch, the chapter on the wall between east and west will be important.
The question is whether we will call the chapter the fall of the wall or the moving of the wall.
It is the fall of the wall which we are all happy about, but what we are in the middle of doing is moving the wall.
Walls are now being built around 'Fortress Europe' . Throughout northern Africa the poor can remain in their poverty.
We dump produce on their agricultural markets and cause hunger.
We have barriers against the sale of their products.
They do not get the necessary or possible help to help themselves.
In central Europe we are moving the old wall from the border of Germany eastwards.
The Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia could indeed be allowed in, in the year 2004, but for the poorest and most populous there are problems with our determination.
In the Baltic we want to make the Bay of Finland into an EU sea by negotiating with Estonia with its 1.5 million inhabitants, but Latvia with 2.6 million and Lithuania with 3.7 million inhabitants must wait for better times.
Divide and rule, that is the same logic of power which lay behind the old wall, but we now have the chance to create a whole and undivided Europe.
The strong peace movements of the seventies and eighties did not manage to overcome the division of Europe.
Nor did the hawks manage it with their military build-up and deterrence.
It was the eastern Europeans themselves who knocked down the wall, and now we are trying to gather the fragments to put it up again.
From the iron wall to the silver curtain.
We must not be remembered for that. Europe must be open to everyone.
We must create open, freer and more flexible European cooperation from which nobody is excluded.
The name of our group is Europe of Nations.
We want to have a Europe of All the Nations.
Madam President, on behalf of the British Labour group of MEPs I would like to stress that we fully support the principle of enlargement and the greater part of the Oostlander-Barón Crespo report.
However, by abstaining on the final vote we are making a statement that we feel that the final text is insufficiently clear on the question of differentiation.
In our view, it would be better for the EU and applicant countries to be clear on the envisaged enlargement process.
In these circumstances, absolute clarity is required and for that reason we believe that the five plus one option, with a reinforced accession strategy for all applicant states, is the right way forward.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that we wish the enlargement process every success and look forward to the accession of all the applicant countries which fulfil the Copenhagen criteria.
Madam President, in a referendum Austria rejected the use of nuclear power and our aim, shared by the Federal Government and all the parties represented in Parliament, is a nuclear-free central Europe.
It was therefore natural - I hope for Austrian members - to vote for Amendment No 39.
Madame President, Mr Bonde clearly wrote his explanation before the vote.
Today was a great day for the Parliament, because the heaven and hell strategy of the Commission has foundered, namely the idea of raising five countries into heaven and banishing five to hell, although all ten - including the EU itself - belong in the purgatory of profound political and economic reforms.
Therefore we have put on blinkers.
We want a flexible procedure, because in these countries nobody knows how the weightings will change politically and economically in the year-long process of application for membership.
There would be no point, as it were, in issuing reports at the beginning of the school year.
That discourages those who get good grades and those who get bad grades: the one believes he already has the situation in his pocket; the other believes that there is no point in making any effort.
We want a process of application for membership which is, as it were, open as far as the results are concerned and which includes all applicant countries.
This is what Parliament today declared with a large majority to be the will of the European peoples, and I appeal to the governments to join them in this.
We consider it important that all applicant countries are included in the enlargement process, regardless of their level of preparedness, and that all countries are measured on the same terms and are treated in an even way.
Therefore a joint start to negotiations should be introduced with all of them at the same time.
After multilateral "acquis' negotiations, which could take a year, bilateral negotiations should be started with the countries which are then ready, probably the five plus one which the Commission has selected, but also other states if they are ready.
The benefit of such a solution is that we do not rule out certain countries in advance, but instead encourage them to continue their ambitious efforts to be ready for membership.
We have about ten years available to make a success of the European Union and become organized with some thirteen new Member States.
So it is indispensable, as of now, to establish a precise strategy for this unprecedented enlargement.
Several risks are already apparent. First of all, there is the emergence of new fissures between rich and poor countries and regions.
There is also the dilution of the decisions of the European Union and its common policies.
I support the broad thrust of the Oostlander-Barón Crespo report, especially when it emphasizes the need to plan institutional reform of the European Union rapidly, in advance of any new accession.
On the other hand, as regards the timetable for opening negotiations, I am amongst those who think that it is necessary to spread the discussions over time, as a function of the degree of democratic and economic development of the candidates.
Individual negotiations with each country would stimulate all the candidates, whatever their aptitude to attain Community standards.
The enlargement would thus progress in a concrete way thanks to this dynamic, which would intensify the preparations and help the laggards reduce the gap.
The simultaneous opening of accession negotiations, by contrast, seems to me risky because of the weight of the procedure.
The least collapse in the negotiations would slow down the reforms already launched and would immobilize all the efforts of the candidates.
So I will be voting for the Oostlander-Barón Crespo report, but definitely stressing the full importance of the accompanying and pre-accession measures.
It is our duty to ensure that they are strengthened, and that our partners develop within the already existing European programmes.
The time has come for our Parliament to take a position on the Commission communication "Agenda 2000 - for a stronger and wider Union' .
First of all, we pay homage to the excellent work of the rapporteurs for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, who have highlighted the delicacy of the enlargement exercise.
We want to enlarge our Community, certainly, but not at any price.
We are already suffering as fifteen from the operational limits of our institutions.
What will happen when we are twenty?
Europe must not abandon this challenge.
Let us go forward with a strengthened pre-accession strategy.
This should be expressed through a European conference of candidate states, the brainchild of Lionel Jospin.
Similarly, we must extend our thinking on the guidelines for the enlargement.
How to solve a difficult equation: keeping the own-resources ceiling and not touching the internal policies (CAP and structural funds).
It is true that the enlargement will necessitate concessions, but they must remain limited and be properly thought through.
The Oostlander-Barón Crespo report, which the European Parliament has just devoted to the enlargement strategy proposed by the Commission in the Agenda 2000 programme, is about a politically indispensable change, but a descent into a financial impasse at the same time.
It rejects the arbitrary pre-selection the Commission has suggested applying to the eastern candidate countries, and by contrast demands, with only a few nuances, that all the candidates should participate in the enlargement process from the outset.
We think this position is politically justified, because we cannot risk marginalizing a section of our neighbours in the east right at the start, when it is clear that they will have to join us some day.
In passing, there is an innovation here: the European Parliament is dissociating itself from the Commission and correcting an exaggeratedly technocratic proposal.
May it do so again, and frequently!
Regrettably, this correct political position is also followed up by unfortunate financial proposals: the report proposes introducing a revision clause to uprate expenditure and Community resources, if the ceiling of 1.27 % of GDP proves insufficient.
Now this will obviously be the case if there is stubborn insistence on rapid and egalitarian economic and political integration of the eastern countries into the economy and institutions of the Union.
Some speakers, sensing the danger, have ventured to suggest that, to make the enlargement a success, the European project needs to be changed to seek political union before economic uniformity.
This idea demonstrates progress in the right direction, but insufficient in our view.
In fact, what do the fine words "political union' signify? The expression bears every interpretation, including European super-state, and the "federal perspective' of the existing Union, as in paragraph 35 which this House has specifically just voted for.
Now, we reject any definition of political union which would end up letting the concept of "integration' - which partisans of a Europe of nations obviously do not want - back in through the back door.
We particularly reject the haughty, indeed scornful, approach adopted by the Oostlander-Barón Crespo report, of demanding that the eastern countries adopt our rules and cease to be themselves if they want to join the Union.
Is not the European Parliament demanding of Estonia in paragraph 96 of the resolution, that it should "fully extend... citizenship to members of minority groups' ? And that is just one example amongst others.
What business is it of ours?
Our concept of the Union is very different.
As our colleague, Mr Souchet, put it so excellently yesterday evening, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, Europeans have been going down blind alleys for ten years because they conceive of the Union as a monolith.
We could have made much faster progress in cooperation with the east before the fall of the Berlin wall if we had accepted the idea of a variable geometry Europe from the start. That would have made it possible to establish different levels of cooperation in the most urgent fields immediately, encompassed within a wider and not necessarily constraining circle, which would have been called the European Union.
Then we could have gone forward in a flexible way, without excluding anyone or putting pressure on anyone.
But obviously this strategy would have assumed that a margin of manoeuvre was recognized to the nations, hence a sovereignty inside the Union, which the gurus of federalism could not accept.
However, we also record positive developments today, showing that all is not lost: in particular, the Commission and the Council have just taken a step in the direction of variable geometry, by accepting the idea of a European conference able to provide a forum of discussion and an area of intergovernmental cooperation between the countries of the Union and the candidate countries.
Unfortunately, this good idea risks being compromised by the initiative of France, which has meant the inclusion of Turkey in the conference, thus reducing the margin of possible discussion within this circle.
Will we be forced to set up a second conference without Turkey?
SDP Members will vote in favour of the Oostlander-Barón Crespo report, in accordance with their position which in principle is in favour of the enlargement of the European Union to include those European states which meet the necessary political, economic and social conditions.
We wish to emphasize that this enlargement must not, however, jeopardize the balance we have spent so much effort in achieving throughout the history of the building of Europe.
Balance between policies - the internal market and economic and social cohesion - balance in our budgets and, most of all, balance between institutions in the European decision-taking process.
So far as the evolution of our institutions is concerned, we think we must move forward gradually, as provided in the Amsterdam Treaty, fully observing the principle of equality between Member States.
The SDP places equal importance on the clarity of this report in making the acceptance of new Member States absolutely conditional upon their respect for democracy and individual freedom.
We therefore consider that Slovakia is not at present in the same position as the other candidates.
We believe there is general agreement between all the political groups in the European Parliament and all the countries of the European Union that Cyprus is eligible for full membership of the Union.
Cyprus is capable of adopting the acquis communautaire, integrating into the economic and monetary union and participating in our common external defence and security policy and thus all the requirements for Cyprus to join are fulfilled and her application deserves to be accepted.
The problem of the forced division of Cyprus into two communities could certainly find the beginnings of a solution if Cyprus were to join the European Union, and so provide Turkey with the motivation to resolve this and other issues with a view to better relations with our Union.
For these fundamental reasons we support Cyprus's application to be admitted to the European Union and elect to deal with the Government of the Republic of Cyprus as sole negotiator at the forthcoming talks, which is the United Nations position.
We in the Swedish Left Party have chosen to abstain from the final vote.
We are doing so because we do not share a number of the conclusions drawn in the report.
Our fundamental position on the enlargement of the EU is that the Union should welcome European states which fulfill the requirements of democracy, and in which the majority of the population have shown through a democratic process that they want to be part of the Union.
In cases where the countries concerned not choose not to accede to the EU, the Union must contribute to other forms of European cooperation.
It is important to recognize that many countries in eastern Europe today are not candidates for membership of the EU.
Pan-European cooperation between independent states throughout Europe is therefore the most important thing for Europe's future.
We have voted against several paragraphs in the report.
We do not believe enlargement can be made conditional on new centralistic institutional reforms.
On the contrary, we think that increased centralization, a common defence policy and EMU are obstacles to cooperation between several of Europe's countries.
We are not prepared to increase costs in the EU's budget.
Instead there is a need for real cutbacks and reforms in regional and agricultural aid.
We therefore also reject the demand for long phasing-in periods into the EU's agricultural policy.
Membership for the new countries must not be a second-class with poorer terms than for other members.
Nor can we accept the almost total demand for one-sided adaptation to the EU's single market and its set of rules.
A future enlargement must instead be characterized by respect for the applicant countries and their circumstances.
We have abstained from voting, even though in some respects the European Parliament's decision represents an improvement compared with the Committee's and particularly the Commission's line.
The compromise with regard to paragraph 3 made during the previous sitting without members having access to the text is both Parliamentarily questionable and unclear.
We would have preferred the Committee's clearer recommendation for a joint start to negotiations.
But above all we cannot accept a new treaty amendment aimed at taking a further step on the road towards a 'federal state' being made an absolute condition for entry for any new Member State.
We think new Member States should be given a say in the development of the EU.
We agree to the Amendment No 97 relating to point 85 of the Oostlander report.
The question of the transitional period depends directly on the point in time when the membership treaties come into force; since this at the moment cannot be estimated it is difficult at this point in time to lay down fixed transitional periods.
The first part of the sentence deleted in the amendment relating to the time and financing plans appears to be sensible.
The signatories have frequently requested that the applicants for membership submit plans and programmes in which precise time schemes and goals for the bringing into force of the individual items of legislation are indicated.
We should consider that the demand for a very rapid acceptance of the whole acquis could also result in the fact that applicant countries commit themselves to something which they cannot then carry out or that the environment is used as an excuse to postpone the entire eastward enlargement of the EU.
Another point against the naming of too short a period of time is the fact that the financial resources made available by the EU together with those which are available in the relevant states themselves, are limited and the demand for a short time scheme could result in the demand for more money.
Since we have agreed to considerations 0 to Q, we do not wish to allow the wording of consideration 0 - concerning Slovakia, to pass without comment.
It was in fact the last session of the joint parliamentary committee with Slovakia which showed that concrete steps were being introduced in order to take greater account of the political criteria for a subsequent membership of the EU. Even if we are furthermore of the opinion that the Copenhagen Criteria must continue to be the focal point of the Slovak efforts, we would nevertheless like to plead, on the basis of the recommendations of the joint committee for the Slovak Republic to participate fully in the current discussions about the enlargement of the Union.
Slovakia has made intensive efforts in order to enter the European Union.
We must therefore for our part work in future to create the necessary conditions for the achievement of this important goal.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted yes to the report on 'Agenda 2000 - for a stronger and wider Union' .
We did so in view of the fact that the report stresses that all applicant countries should be included in the enlargement negotiations.
The report distances itself from the Commission's proposal that only five plus one countries should start negotiations for accession to the European Union.
This is important from the point of view of the Danish Social Democrats, because we believe it is very important to send a signal to all the applicant countries that they have the possibility of joining the Union.
However, the report on 'Agenda 2000 - for a stronger and wider Union' poses problems in some areas.
It was therefore necessary to vote against some paragraphs in the report.
The report makes institutional reforms a condition for allowing enlargement to begin.
We think that is regrettable, because the European Parliament should not put obstacles in the way of enlargement.
I cannot vote for the Oostlander and Barón Crespo report, in spite of the fact that the report formally recommends that accession negotiations be started with all applicant countries at the same time.
That is a recommendation which I can fully support, even though I would always recommend to the countries of central and eastern Europe and their populations, for their own sake, not to become members of the EU.
In reality the report merely reproduces the Commission's current attitude to the demands on the central and eastern European countries.
Recommendation R says there will be no opportunity for opt-outs or derogations with regard to the treaty for the countries of central and eastern Europe.
Seen together with the opinions in paragraph 5, this confirms that the countries of central and eastern Europe will not be allowed any negotiating room to obtain, for example, economic derogations to make the path to EU membership easier.
These opinions show not only the economic and political arrogance which characterizes the EU's relationship with central and eastern Europe, but also that political EU integration itself takes priority over consideration for central and eastern Europe.
For these reasons I cannot support the report.
The best thing would have been to start negotiations with all the applicant countries at the same time without any reservations or division into groups.
That would give all the applicant countries the same opportunities.
The Commission's proposal of a division into an A team and a B team creates new walls between the applicant countries in the Baltic for example, and makes the enlargement process more difficult.
Enlargement is important for the creation of a pan-European cooperation in which there will be more emphasis on cooperation between independent states than on the building of a union.
The committee's proposal is very close to the ideal, and so I voted yes to the report.
I also supported the proposal for a European Conference for all the applicant countries including Slovakia and Turkey.
However, I cannot support the demand for another Intergovernmental Conference before enlargement can begin.
We have always voted in favour of enlargement.
We have gone even further and rejected the hypocrisy of some supporters of enlargement and the deviousness of others whose motivation was either that it opened up more markets for them or that it would make political union harder to achieve.
We have gone further, because we have always stressed the moral aspect of enlargement, because it is the consolidation of democracy in those countries that is at stake - one of Europe's greatest treasures, and one for which their peoples had been longing for decades.
But we do not want enlargement on any terms, regardless of its nature, nor do we accept the high and mighty attitude the European Union has been deliberately adopting.
In our view, there should be at least three criteria for enlargement.
In the first place, the first consideration must be political: the pre-adhesion negotiations must be founded on the great European principles from the outset.
Secondly, nothing will be achieved if for any reason, and that obviously includes budgetary considerations, the economic and social cohesion process currently taking place among the existing fifteen Member States is impaired, however slightly.
Thirdly, and contrary to the Commission's proposal, no particular country should be favoured when negotiations commence.
The lottery in which we are all about to be involved is quite bad enough, without turning it into a kind of Russian roulette!
Finally, the condescending attitude of the European Union.
Rather than presuming to lecture peoples who may perhaps have something they can teach us, or at least help us to learn, about how to overcome certain difficulties, we would do better to examine ourselves a little and, before we try to impose our will at all costs, make a determined effort to resolve the problems we say only other people have.
In conclusion: we say yes to enlargement, but not regardless of the price!
At least let us be a little bit realistic...
The Cold War is over and the EU has a unique historic opportunity to be able to bring together a Europe, which has too often been the setting for bloody and destructive wars.
There is therefore no doubt that the European Union should take the necessary steps to unite central and eastern Europe with the EU.
During the accession negotiations the applicant countries should be treated as full and equal partners.
That creates trust and will encourage greater responsibility with regard to the EU's democratic and humanitarian ideals in the future Member States.
All the applicant countries should therefore have the right to initiate negotiations for accession to the Union at the same time and the negotiations should begin at the same time.
The length of the negotiations may vary according to the ability of the individual countries to adopt the acquis communautaire and according to their ability to develop competitive market economies, stable institutions which guarantee the rule of law, democracy, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.
Before the admission of the new countries the EU should initiate an institutional reform which can ensure that an EU with 25 countries can also function properly and effectively.
It should also be stressed that great weight should be given to EU rules in the area of the environment, and the length of the transition period for the future Member States should be reduced further.
However, all in all we must express great satisfaction both with the Parliament's report and the Commission's Agenda 2000.
Under cover of an essential matter, the enlargement, and because the Commission did not want to approach it in the only reasonable way, that of a variable geometry Europe, it is the agriculture of the European Union of the fifteen Member States which must, if these proposals are followed, be the real financial contributor to the enlargement.
In its communication, Agenda 2000, commonly called the Santer Package, the Commission quite simply fails to start by defining a European agriculture model, as opposed to the American model or that of the Cairns Group of countries.
It uses a certain number of artifices in order to try to push through a complete reform of the CAP, indirectly and as smoothly as possible, even before the next round of WTO negotiations starts in 1999.
What are these artifices?
First it proposes six objectives for the future CAP, which we cannot but approve of.
Unfortunately, when we move from principles to means, we see that the means proposed by the Commission contradict the principles is has itself established.
So, while the Commission pretends to be promoting an environmental agriculture, it wants to lower the price of beef and "overlooks' compensation for production of grass-fed milking cows.
Then, the Commission is pretending to compensate for the low prices it is proposing for the period 2000-2006, but our studies show that in reality the compensation will far from balance the programmed fall in prices.
Certain sectors of agriculture will lose up to 50 % of their income and, in general, European agriculture will lose some ECU 20.5 billion, or more than 20 % of its net added value for the year 1996.
This loss of income threatens to strangle the farms which will be subjected to this major, and sometimes brutal, drop in income.
Furthermore, and in an underhand way, the Commission proposes setting a ceiling on aid per farm.
European farmers will therefore have to use legal devices to continue to live, or rather to survive, off their labour. For our part, we put one simple question.
Why not consider setting a ceiling on aid per working person instead, so that only real farmers can benefit from European aid and so as to develop employment in agriculture and in the countryside? Why has this option not been examined by the Commission?
In conclusion, we want a proper agricultural policy, that is, a policy which links products closely to the land where they are produced, and not an agriculture which is exclusively a provider of raw materials, produced anywhere provided that it is at least cost, determined exclusively on the world market, so that production is fatally subject to the process of relocation.
The link to the land and Community preference constitute two essential features of what ought to be a European agricultural model.
The resolution we have just examined should have been the occasion for this Parliament to send a strong and clear message to our partners in central and eastern Europe.
But we are sending them a confused text, a legal and political hotchpotch, which, and this will certainly be its only quality, will give them a glimpse of what the European Union has become today: an obese and impotent supranational entity which does not have the strength to make use of the prerogatives it squeezes out of its Member States and which abandons itself to the delights of empty legal nit-picking.
If the CEECs want to enter the Union, it is because that entry signifies for them a definitive break with the parentheses of fifty years of communist domination.
It also signifies entry into an area of joint prosperity and the prospect of unlimited finance for the structural reforms they hope to intensify.
But if, as the resolution we have just adopted recalls, the Commission and Parliament want lengthy debate, full participation of the populations in the process of enlargement, they run the risk, unless propaganda steals a march on information, that the populations of the candidate countries will discover the real face of the way the European Union operates.
The Community's "what is mine I hold; what is yours we discuss' negotiations threaten to bring back painful memories for them. Have the candidates really taken the measure of the delegation of sovereignty they will have to agree to?
Have they understood the nature of the institutional reform which the European Parliament is hoping for and calling for? Have they understood that they must subscribe to a federal union, in advance and without discussion?
I am very much afraid they have not.
Under the circumstances, the enlargement being prepared for us will be a fool's game.
Colom i Naval report (A4-0331/97)
The scenario for the financial perspectives presented by the Commission in the Agenda 2000 programme at least has the merit of demonstrating that, keeping the policies constant, equilibrium is, in the end, impossible.
In fact we see two major contradictions.
First, on the single currency.
We are told that it is absolutely imperative to preserve the 1.27 % of GDP ceiling for Community contributions, in order not to compromise the efforts of the states to satisfy the convergence criteria.
But at the same time, we know very well that, in the present situation, the single currency will not be able to hold without greater inter-regional redistribution at European level, hence without higher Community contributions than today.
To summarize: the success of the euro requires both Community contributions with a ceiling to contain the deficits, and increased Community contributions to oil the system.
Where does the solution lie? In our opinion, in postponing the euro.
Second contradiction, on the enlargement.
In Agenda 2000, we are presented with the prospect of an enlargement where the new arrivals will fairly rapidly attain a level of economic and political integration allowing them to participate on an equal footing in the mechanisms of a monolithic European Union.
To support this demonstration, the Commission is obliged to put rather unrealistic growth hypotheses and reduce the benefits to agricultural policy and structural actions to the detriment of the existing fifteen members of the Union, in order to free up the margins for subsidies to the eastern countries.
Even so, the exercise is proving impossible.
The Commission is not succeeding in freeing up the ECU 76 billion of subsidies over eight years, while, by comparison, an effort comparable to that made by Germany for the eastern Länder would have required ECU 3, 400 billion.
Consequently, the model for integrating the eastern countries into a standardized Europe and bringing them up to the level by dint of subsidies, as espoused for Agenda 2000, is colliding with the restrictions on our resources.
The only solution, here too, is to reconsider this model, and I go into more detail on this in my explanation of vote on the Oostlander report.
Madam President, the ambition of the Agenda 2000 proposals is to remodel the face of the political structure of Europe.
While we agree with the principle of concentration of objectives out of concern for greater efficiency, we are, on the other hand, very worried by this new formula objective 2 project the Commission has pulled out of its hat.
What do we find? A huge cauldron containing urban issues, industrial zones, rural areas and maritime facades, all pell-mell.
Should the European Union intervene everywhere and in everything, giving in to moralizing and demagoguery and as a result dispersing the aid highly inefficiently at the very time when we are rightly considering how that aid should be concentrated?
There are two eminently contradictory approaches here. And it is much to be feared that rural development is the main victim of this very indigestible cuisine.
At the risk of repeating ourselves, we reaffirm our will to see this new objective 2 at least include a specific and independent sub-objective entitled "rural areas' and another called "maritime zones' , with, for rural policy, a programming period equal to that of the CAP.
For our group, European aid should, as a priority, go to regions which are becoming depopulated, rather than those where a process of overpopulation has been in operation for some time.
If we really mean to embark on an ambitious policy for employment and the environment, a better territorial balance is needed first.
As we cannot currently find a satisfying response to our expectations in the Agenda 2000 proposals, we are obliged to condemn its existing content.
Paragraph 13 of the report says the Union's financing as things now stand is not considered suitable 'to ensure that the European tax burden is fairly distributed.'
We do not, of course, have anything against a fair tax burden, but the question is what form this shall actually take.
Our position is, firstly, that the ceiling of 1.27 % of GDP should remain, and, secondly, that Sweden's net contribution should not be allowed to increase under any circumstances.
Concrete proposals concerning this issue are, of course, always welcome, but our starting point is clear: Sweden, as the largest net contributor per person within the European Union, should not pay a higher membership fee in future.
We also distance ourselves from paragraph 18 of the report on keeping unused funds in a special reserve fund.
We believe unused funds should without question be repaid to the Member States.
Members of the Social Democratic Party will vote in favour of the Colom i Naval report because it presents a politically balanced and technically correct view of Agenda 2000.
It is certainly unrealistic to place an upper limit of 1.27 % of GDP on the budget for 2000 to 2006 from the start, when we do not know how many new Member States will be joining the European Union, when the adhesion process will be completed, what sort of reforms will be made to the Union's internal and external policies - particularly the CAP - and how radical those reforms will be, and what growth rate European GNP will achieve.
As the rapporteur says, the Commission's proposals were based on extremely tenuous premises, for no-one can foresee the real effects of the introduction of the euro, the new round of negotiations within the World Trade Organization - especially in the agricultural sector - and, more generally, the combination of accelerating technological change and the globalization of the economy.
This report attempts to introduce ways of making reviews of financial perspectives more flexible - on both the income side and the spending side -and we may need those reviews in order to make enlargement viable without jeopardizing our present policies, particularly those relating to economic and social cohesion.
What the SDP finds unacceptable in the Commission's document (Agenda 2000) is that, apart from the uncertainties mentioned above, the burden of enlargement is placed on those States of the Union which have the lowest development rates.
We are in favour of enlargement.
But we do not agree that it should basically be financed out of money at present allocated to the structural funds.
In presenting Agenda 2000 the Commission expressed its intention to offer a clear and coherent vision for the European Union as it enters the new millennium.
In order to assess whether or not these expectations can be fulfilled it is important to ask searching questions in relation to the proposed financial perspective.
In opting for maintaining the 1.27 % of GNP guideline there are doubts whether or not the Commission's proposals will be sufficient to meet the ambitious challenges it details in the Agenda 2000 document.
Enlargement has significant financial implications.
Does the financial perspective provide sufficient resources to implement it? Given the fact that fundamental reforms of CAP and the structural funds are also proposed, are we allocating sufficient funding to the key policy areas.
Also, what will be the implications for the EU budget if Germany, Holland and Sweden are successful in obtaining reduction for their contributions to the budget. These are all fundamental questions which require answers.
Obviously from an Irish point of view I will be fighting hard to ensure that there is no abrupt end to the allocation of structural funding as promised by the Commission.
In view of the inevitable ending of our objective 1 status it is imperative that there is an 'objective 1 in transition'' status.
Furthermore, given the importance of agriculture to the Irish economy it is essential that adequate resources are available for the compensation measures proposed under CAP reform.
However, despite raising these questions about the financial perspective, I totally support enlargement and strongly believe that our approach should not be based on pessimism or narrow selfish national interest.
Whatever the cost of enlargement we must recognize the benefits of bringing many millions of new consumers into the EU market.
Furthermore the economic and political stabilization of central and eastern Europe will have a positive impact on the economy of the European Union.
There is far more to be gained than lost both philosophically and economically from enlargement and for these reasons we should enthusiastically support it.
We have abstained from the vote on the report because we do not want to pave the way for a further increase in the EU's total budget, partly for reasons of principle, but also because we fear that new resources for the EU, even if they are intended to support central and eastern Europe, will be taken from aid for developing countries from the Member States.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted yes to the report on 'Agenda 2000 - the Union's future financing.'
We agree that reforms of the common agricultural policy and structural policy are necessary for a sensible enlargement.
However, the report on Agenda 2000 poses problems in some areas.
It was necessary to vote against some paragraphs.
From our point of view it is very regrettable that the European Parliament wants to try to put obstacles in the way of enlargement by demanding that all institutional reforms should be in place before enlargement begins.
Furthermore we are concerned by the Commission's proposal for the division of funds between the applicant countries in the first and second rounds of the enlargement process.
We believe the fact that countries in the second negotiating round will receive only around a third of the allocated funds sends an adverse political signal to these countries.
Our reason is that this will make these countries feel their chance of being admitted in the near future is substantially reduced.
It is important to provide these countries with a continued incentive to prepare for a future admission to the European Union.
The report goes further than the Commission on the question of the ceiling on taxation and can conceive of a taxation in excess of 1.27 % of GDP.
Alternative methods of financing are also being considered, i.e. new ways of providing the EU with funds.
The Committee mentions a more direct connection between the taxpayers and EU institutions - a more definite EU tax.
Such a development of the Union would be moving in the wrong direction.
I have therefore voted no to the report.
My group has made it clear in its declaration that it is voting in support of Mr Colom i Naval's report, not accepting that the limit of 1.27 % of GDP for the Community budget is 'untouchable' , when there is no reliable assessment of the needs we shall have to face at this historic time, nor that the funds to be distributed should only be drawn from Category 2, that is to say, they should only be taken away from the present beneficiaries of structural funding; from regions which, like Portugal, still have enormous deficits and whose per capita GDP is less than half the Community average.
I would add that if we were to sacrifice our structural policies we should be sacrificing policies of major benefit, with an enlargement of the market which will eventually benefit the Community as a whole.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of a policy like the CAP, whose distortions and injustices would actually be made worse under the present terms of Agenda 2000.
Finally, although I agree with the thoughts he has expressed, I think the rapporteur should have gone further, emphasizing the positive indications of the Maastricht Treaty and Agenda 2000 by doing away with the regressive aspect of internal resources, e.g. by a system based entirely on GNP contributions.
The experience of the admissions of Greece, Spain and Portugal into the Community and of Germany's reunification have shown that such accessions pose problems and can demand greater economic sacrifices than people are initially able to assess.
The report recognizes these difficulties, and the Committee on Budgets cautions the Commission against being too optimistic in its assessment of the current ceiling on own resources of 1.27 % of GDP.
The report also points out that the time has come for a thorough analysis and perhaps a change in the way in which the Union is financed.
I quite agree with the Committee in those views.
It is too early to say that the ceiling for own resources is untouchable when we are facing the admission of 100 million new EU citizens who will increase the total GDP by only 5 %.
But it is our duty and it is in our own interests to have the new countries admitted as quickly as possible.
It might be more expensive than the Commission initially expects, but our shoulders must be broad enough to carry the burden.
I am therefore glad to be able to give the report my full support.
Third stage of EMU
The next item is the report (A4-0378/97) by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on Economic Policy Coordination in Stage 3 of EMU: Common Ground and Ways Forward (II/523/97 - C4-0574/97).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured to present this report on economic policy coordination in Stage 3 of EMU - in other words, the policy which constitutes the basis of the euro. This report has an undeniable importance at this moment in time, since it establishes the position of the European Parliament with regard to the new dimension which the European economy will attain with the creation of economic and monetary union, and the euro.
This new situation represents a qualitative change of great importance for the consolidation and creation of the economic and monetary dimension required by a genuine economic and monetary policy of the scale of EMU.
The guidelines we are presenting are not nearly as extensive as those which would be arrived at using a more polished theoretical model.
However, we are not presenting the ideal choices here, but possible choices, based on what was established in the treaties, Regulations 1466/97 and 1467/97 (on surveillance and coordination of economic and monetary policies and excessive deficits) and the stability pact, to which has been added the recommendation of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, incorporating what was established in the Treaty of Amsterdam, and the conclusions of the Luxembourg summit on employment.
This report is based on three fundamental points.
The first is an ever-increasing coordination between European policies, which is vital for the cohesion and stability of the European Union.
The second point is that this coordination has three aspects: to establish the basis of a coherent and effective economic policy at European Union level; to ensure political debate on the various economic choices; and to improve the decision-making process to ensure effectiveness and transparency.
The third point is that the Member States should adapt to the process of multilateral surveillance and to a better coordination of their economic policies, in accordance with the aforementioned Regulation 1466/97.
As regards the first point, it is clear that there has been efficient economic convergence, leading to economic and monetary union being created on a wide and solid foundation.
This situation should be reinforced by the establishment of a balanced approach to economic policy, so that the economic dimension can be consistent with the monetary dimension, bearing in mind the economic and monetary objectives based on instruments to guarantee employment and development within a framework of monetary stability and solvency.
We call for the Commission to participate in the analysis of potential negative effects which might arise due to adverse situations developing in certain Member States, or as a result of asymmetric shocks among those joining EMU.
We need to guarantee a basis founded on social consensus and democratic supervision. Therefore, we propose applying article 118 of the Maastricht Treaty - dealing with social dialogue at the European level - and setting up an annual conference, involving the economic and social partners, encompassing the recommendation of our colleague Mr Fourçans in his report, approved by this House, on the establishment of a committee of economic experts within the European Parliament.
The proposals about guaranteeing transparency in the decision-making process, about the participation of the Economic and Financial Committee and Parliament (according to articles 103, 104C and 109C of the treaty) and about article 103.5 on derived legislation are all very important.
Lastly, Madam President, I should like to draw attention to Amendment No 5, presented by myself on behalf of my group, and to Amendment No 4 by Mr Donnelly on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, concerning the possible creation of a committee or group - the so-called Euro Council - to be composed of those Member States which join EMU, to adhere to and implement the stability pact.
Given the importance such a project would assume, if it were to happen, I think it is essential to ensure that the European Commission is included in it, as I hope our amendment makes clear. This would mean that it would cease to be strictly intergovernmental in nature.
Therefore, I commend our amendment to the House, together with the last part of the Socialists' amendment.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the questions we have addressed in this report, which was approved unanimously by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, will be discussed in the forthcoming European Council summit in Luxembourg.
It is important for this report to be approved, and for the Council to take more notice of our proposals, to ensure that the European institutions - the Commission and Parliament - can play a greater role, and to guarantee the new dimension for economic and monetary policy, reinforced by democratic supervision, social dialogue and improved, transparent procedures.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in our turn we support the broad lines of the Gasòliba I Böhm report.
We are in fact completely in agreement with the oft-expressed need to coordinate economic policies better once monetary union is achieved.
As regards the question of the Euro Council, I agree with Mr Donnelly when he calls for this body to be a Community body, that is, a body in which the Commission and, in an advisory capacity, Parliament can intervene.
But when it comes to the delicate matter of who takes the decisions inside the Council, the facts must be considered: countries cannot be in and out at the same time, as is the case today.
I would mention that the Ecofin Council was deadlocked for eight hours on this debate, because certain countries had decided - and some of them, like Sweden, without having the right - not to participate in monetary union, but, today, they accuse the others of wanting to carve Europe up because they themselves would not be able to be involved in managing that monetary union.
This is intolerable and unacceptable.
It proves that there is indeed a danger in wanting to make countries participate in Europe when they do not share either the objectives or the methods.
This is an absolutely concrete illustration of these contradictions.
So I agree with Mr Donnelly in saying that this arrangement cannot be purely informal and intergovernmental, and that is the response to the discussion which has taken place in the Ecofin Council, but furthermore I do not support those who say that everyone should participate in this Ecofin Council when it makes decisions on issues of monetary union.
As regards relations with the national parliaments, I want to distance myself from what Mr Donnelly has just said.
Much as I agree with the national parliaments discussing these issues with their governments and ensuring that the proposals the governments accept in the councils of ministers are fully, democratically and transparently debated. There must be no confusion of powers.
Once an independent European monetary power exists, run by an independent bank, the latter only has to be accountable to European public opinion, and not to the national parliaments.
It is to this Parliament that the members of the central bank, the governor of the central bank or the members of the board of directors, must come to give account of themselves.
If it is necessary to ensure that the policies are also accepted in the Member States, these problems must be dealt with at the level of the national parliaments, with their national governments.
But countries cannot insist, as some do, that the governor of the central bank can and should explain himself before the national parliaments.
That would force the unfortunate man to tour round 25 capitals when we enlarge to that size, which is ridiculous and impossible.
For the rest, Madam President, I would like to conclude by saying that, on the general economic guidelines, it is clear that after the Luxembourg summit, general economic policies must, of course, incorporate the unemployment/employment dimension.
Everyone agrees on that.
On that point, it is important not to confuse everything again and lump everything together.
The employment policies must be coordinated with the monetary policies. They are not to be confused with them.
They must not interfere with or undermine the independence of the central bank.
Madam President, it is evident that the internal market will take on a new dimension with economic and monetary union and the euro.
The European Union should finally have a real dimension.
This new situation, and we are in agreement with the rapporteur, presupposes real democratic control and an important role for this Parliament.
With regard to economic policy instruments, it is advisable to determine the orientative targets and gradually incorporate the Community economic policies linked to the internal market and take full account, given the extraordinary summit in Luxembourg on employment, of objectives laid down when the guidelines for employment are drawn up.
Our group also considers that certain questions remain to be solved.
For example, the difficult question of representation of the economic and monetary union and the euro in the international institutions.
For example, what should, or should not be, the role of the European Commission with regard to this external representation on monetary affairs.
I note that this point remained open after the Ecofin Council meeting on December 1.
Finally, there is the question of what position, official or more flexible, the consultative authority will adopt towards the countries in the first wave - the X-Council, the representatives of 'in' countries.
The point taken by the Luxembourg Presidency on December 2 in the economic committee has our agreement.
We must be aware that the eleven 'in' countries can eventually accept, according to terms which remain to be defined, to inform their 'out' partners.
Mr Waigel recently mentioned one cannot at the same time be 'in' and 'out' , outside the euro zone and inside the X-Council.
If no agreement achievement can be reached on this aspect, it seems to us that the conclusions of the next Luxembourg summit will take account of the wishes of the eleven to meet informally to discuss the instruments to be mastered to achieve balance given the newly created situation.
It is clear that the 'out' countries on their own wish cannot stop it and we all have an interest in finding an agreement on this very sensitive point.
Madam President, the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party naturally - and this will surprise no-one - supports the report by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm. It is an entirely balanced whole demonstrating that the third stage of monetary union, with an independent central bank, there is not necessarily weightlessness of the monetary institution, but necessary dialogue between the monetary power and the political authorities which must exercise economic responsibilities.
Naturally, as in any key set of problems, the question arises as to the institutional form of this dialogue, with all the difficulties that Mr Herman has raised, especially the issue of how countries which do not participate in a policy can be involved in debating or even deflecting it.
What has to be recognized, Madam President, is that the countries which are not going to participate in this policy, at least initially, will still suffer the consequences, hence the need for flexible formulae.
I also think that opinion will take responsibility for dealing with the rather stiff incongruities we are tempted to build in at the start.
Because if the euro is successful, and nobody doubts, not now in any case, that it will be established, perhaps we should think about accelerating the processes, and particularly, because the material difficulties seem increasingly obvious, about reducing the period 1999-2002, that is, the wait for the euro in everyday life.
While the big bang scenario was not to be recommended when the euro was still uncertain, once the euro is established it may be necessary, around the year 2000, to try to accelerate the process to reduce the kind of monetary schizophrenia we risk experiencing in everyday life when one party to a contract will be talking euro and the other, national currency.
Anyway, the success of the euro will certainly have a snowball effect, and contrary to Gresham's law, good money will no doubt drive out bad.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Member States have very different social and economic structures and characteristics; they also have varying levels of economic growth; and they are passing through individual cultural stages as a result of the historical processes that have shaped them.
This means that since the European Union is in many ways a heterogeneous area, a mosaic of different pieces, and since we have adopted policy dynamics that aggravate inequality, deepen differences and can deal unequal and ever greater blows, what we really need is to coordinate our internal economic policy, but that coordination must be founded on different responses and on appropriate instruments and structures.
Coordination must be based on co-operation between differing countries, and not on their being forced into a single mould.
Mr Gasòliba i Böhm's report has some interesting and thought-provoking aspects to it, but it has not freed itself from the strait-jacket of liberal thinking, the all-or-nothing approach of the financier, the monetarist, the theorist.
And I would remind him that his report has not been approved unanimously, as he has said here.
After the internal market - or rather the implementation of the aspect of the internal market which relates to the free circulation of capital - the single currency is presented as the logical and inevitable outcome of a chain of decisions.
It is even said that without a single currency the internal market will not be complete - it will not be 'single' .
Although the single currency is an instrument, however, an unequal instrument will not create equality, a retrograde instrument will not aid progress, and an instrument with no real objective capacity for competitiveness will not make anyone competitive.
And after the internal market, the single currency, the single central bank, our harmonizing intentions confuse the coordination of policies with a single policy, a single form of economic government, a single state or a federal state, or no state at all but a Euro Council .
Apart from refusing to accept that this way of thinking, this direction is the only possible one, that the steps along that road can be treated as a foregone conclusion before they become a reality and are accepted by the people, apart from all this we support a different principle, the reverse of the one we have just described. Our concern is not merely to avoid or set aside anything that might be detrimental to the implementation and functioning of monetary union.
We do support an outlook that stresses the social consequences of adopting policies of dismantling instruments for the sake of the organization.
Our amendments are intended to make our opinion the subject of another report in this Parliament, and of a resolution of this Parliament. Despite the fact that we do not share the predominant view, we are not intimidated, even when claims of unanimity are made when there are opposing votes and abstentions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to this extended sitting of the coordinators of the economic committee and the shadow rapporteurs.
The future of our national economies is too important to us all for us simply to leave them to the dictates of the financial markets.
Therefore Mr Gasòliba i Böhm raised several important questions and has also found quite well considered answers with which we can proceed but that is not sufficient. If Mr Gasòliba i Böhm says here that we would or could not implement here a theoretically perfect model then he is of course right but the introduction of the euro simply sets conditions and requirements which a model of economic policy must meet and this is not achieved following present discussions on Mr Gasòliba i Böhm's proposals.
Article 13 determines that the European central bank is committed first and foremost to monetary stability, but supports the European economic policy and the ECU and at the same time pursues the aims of the treaty, These conditions however are meaningless if there is no concrete European economic policy organized on an obligatory basis.
It is not a question of impairing the independence of the European central bank.
It is a question of substituting a reembedding for the disembedding which is taking place at the moment.
I refer here to Michael Polyanis's great book on "The Great Transformation' .
It is not acceptable, that the centre point of our economic policy in the future will be a central bank, located in the institutional, political and cultural nirvana.
Instead of this we need a synchronization of the most important spheres of economic policy in the widest sense.
Just at the moment when we are completing the transition to the euro we need to coordinate and synchronize economic, monetary, budgetary, employment and industrial policy.
Institutionally we need a structured dialogue between the European central bank, the European Parliament and the Commission, like the one which exists for the Federal Bank in the USA, and we also need a structured dialogue between Ecofin, Ecosoc and the European Council.
Madam President, I am glad I am not talking to an empty house, which is why I welcome the visitors in the public gallery.
The report by colleague Gasòliba i Böhm clearly reveals bare that the European Union is far from ready for economic and monetary union.
Meanwhile this fact is blatantly suppressed.
In this resolution, too, the problematic nature of the choice for EMU is swept aside, but hidden.
The European Commission boasts about the convergence achievements which have now been achieved.
A lot is indeed happening.
But the criteria for the Maastricht Treaty give an indication of nominal convergence.
What the real economic convergence is, or whether the economic structures of the Member States link up with each other; these questions are ignored.
It is this attitude which makes finding a solution to the unemployment problem in Europe the more difficult.
Because monetary union without sufficient employment mobility aggravates this problem.
According to the draft resolution, the trouble is the lack of coordination in economic policy.
That is just one side of the matter.
The other side is that the economic development of the Member States can really only be restructured from diverging to converging with a great deal of difficulty.
It is not the kind of thing you simply do in three years.
Such a process takes a long time.
A third point which is lacking is a vision for the future of Europe.
How can we allocate the accessing central and eastern European countries a full place in a European Union with EMU. The federal administration model is not suited to a Union with more than fifteen Member States.
Many countries do not fit the EMU corset.
The EMU and the attendant transfer of power in monetary, budgetary, fiscal and social fields create a structure in which less prosperous states can only be fitted in with a great deal of difficulty.
It looks as if the western European countries give priority to their own prosperity, thereby maintaining the former ideological division between western and eastern Europe in economic terms.
Madam President, despite the sparse presence in the Chamber, I think we are dealing with an essential issue with this matter of the coordination of economic policies.
We are dealing with the question of how to provide ourselves, in the future, with the resources for devising a global economic policy which takes full account of the interdependence of the European economies, not simply as the sum of national situations, because in a European economy, one plus one does not equal two.
We must allow the Commission to present a systematic analysis of the evolution of the European economy before breaking it down country by country.
This will be all the more true when we have a central bank president facing twelve, eleven or fifteen economics and finance ministers.
To succeed in improving the situation, several approaches are needed.
Certainly, in the spirit of the Luxembourg summit, we must encourage better synchronization of the guideline procedures in terms of economics and employment.
That is indispensable.
Secondly, we must suggest that the main guidelines for the economic policy of the Member States and the Community in future become the main guidelines of the economic policy of the Union with contributions from the Member States.
That is no semantic change.
Thirdly, the European Union needs to be provided with resources of expertise, analysis, economic institutes - scenarios constructed at Union level, which think European and can then break things down to national level.
I now come, of course, to the fourth point, which is undoubtedly the essential one, the Euro Council, the Euro X, whatever you like to call it.
This is a necessary, indeed indispensable, part of the arrangements for the move to the euro.
It is the only way a monetary policy, the policy of the euro, can be not just a monetary policy but serve growth and employment.
But we must recognize that we are only at stage one. We must go further.
The Commission must be present in this institution, all the more so because in the present arrangements it is not invited as such, while the president of the central bank could be.
There is undoubtedly an unbalance there which saddens us.
The second stage for this council must also, without a doubt, go beyond the context of economics and finance ministers.
They have our full confidence but they are not always the best vectors of social transformation.
Perhaps one day the employment and social affairs ministers should be involved - with equal powers, there lies the difficulty.
The essential point is to conclude this agreement at Luxembourg II, because that is the deadline before the move to the euro.
But I know that there we embark on the great challenge which lies ahead of us: democratic control of the genuinely strengthened cooperation which awaits us in the future, the cooperation which will be built around the euro.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am, of course, in agreement with the report by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm, because coordination of economic policies represents a crucial issue for monetary union. However, a year from the deadline, no-one knows exactly where we are going.
Certainly, we are beginning to raise the question, notably by introducing certain cabalistic signs like the X, which reminds me of those happy days when I did mathematics.
But where are the real answers? How will economic policy be managed in the euro zone?
How do we approach economic problems in a context where the external aspects of such policies will be reduced in number? How do we deal with the asymmetric shocks which certain countries or certain regions could be exposed to?
The answers to questions like this remain very evasive, and indeed, often woolly.
Nothing is really planned today, except a few speeches which are rather artistic in their vagueness.
Now, the danger for EMU is certain.
For example, if shocks occur, which God forbid, will they not lead to strong political pressure on the European central bank and will this not lead to excessively lax monetary policies, which would be very serious for the stability of the euro zone? It is very clear that the ECB must always maintain the objective of medium term price stability, and putting it back under political influence would constitute a dangerous backward step and would do a very bad turn to Europe, to growth and to employment.
The solution is not there, ladies and gentlemen, and it seems to me it must take other routes. First, an intelligent coordination of the budgetary and fiscal policies of the euro zone; secondly, a more flexible labour market and lower labour costs, notably for the least qualified.
I will dwell on the first route for a moment, since the second is better known and more classic.
Coordinating budgetary and fiscal policies does not mean a mere chorus of fine words between leaders, or a friendly exchange of information between economics ministers.
Coordinating budgetary and fiscal policies means putting clear guidelines in place, established together by the members of the euro zone, in terms of national budgetary deficits - and on this I part company from a certain number of colleagues here - and, as much as possible, should also include the countries which would be likely to enter this zone within a reasonable timescale.
Because if these countries have a virtually fixed rate of exchange with the euro zone, this means that the policies pursued by the euro zone, as well as the policies pursued by these countries will have very strong mutual influences.
So, they must also participate in economic coordination.
The political problem is a different problem.
Better still, and even if I am aware of the political difficulties, from the point of view of good economic principles, the optimal solution would be to carry out that coordination via an enlarged Community budget.
To what level? Probably something like 3 to 5 % of GDP would be sufficient.
3 to 5 %, ladies and gentlemen, is not a great deal, when we know that certain countries, including mine, have something like 55 % of public expenditure in relation to GDP and that the European average is situated around 40-50 %.
Having said that, there must be no misunderstanding.
It is not a matter of advocating an increase in compulsory contributions throughout Europe.
Believe me, that is far from my intention.
That is not my style. On the contrary the opposite approach should be followed, but it will be necessary, perhaps sooner than we think, to transfer a part of national public expenditure to Europe's budget, even if this transfer is relatively minimal.
Well, I know that sort of proposal is not particularly popular with governments today and probably not with this House either, but personally I think that a dynamic will develop which will push us in that direction.
Well, I think it is better to prepare for that coolly, calmly and intelligently, rather than go through it in time of crisis, with all the risks that involves for our economies.
Ladies and gentlemen, those seem to me the essential routes, and they will, of course, require movement towards more extended political union, in other words - and let us not be afraid of the words - movement towards a more advanced federalist structure.
I am not naive, I know that such measures will not be implemented overnight and that the political resistance will be strong.
But I think this is the direction Europe should take and will take in the future.
Madam President, this report is both unrealistic and illogical.
A coordinated economic policy in the Union cannot mean the same economic policy.
The economies of the countries are very different with different structures.
In addition, large common markets always bring a tendency towards specialization, based on what are called comparative advantages.
This continuously reinforces the differences between the countries' economies.
In the long-term it also makes all projects for a common currency impossible.
In this respect the euro is in the same predicament as the old gold standard, which was also doomed to collapse.
A coordinated economic policy must mean joint orientation and shared goals, but with differing national methods.
This is the only realistic starting point, as is also expressed in Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 of the report.
Madam President, with a year to go until the planned date for the entry into force of the single currency, we still do not have a very good idea of the extent, the substance, or indeed the reality of the economic coordination likely to accompany it.
That is the impression given by reading the Gasòliba I Böhm report, as well as the working document of the Commission on the same subject and the current arguments about the Euro Council.
Of course, the treaty does mention arrangements for coordination: the monitoring of exchange rates, the definition of the broad guidelines for economic policy, the establishment of a procedure for reducing excessive deficits, later amplified by the stability pact.
The Amsterdam draft adds the definition of employment guidelines.
But all this is still vague and in any case, it certainly does not constitute the economic governance that some consider indispensable to the success of the euro.
In their view, as in the Gasòliba I Böhm report, democracy and the coherence of the broad guidelines of economic policy have to be ensured by entrusting them to a more formalized European body, intended to counterbalance the monetary pillar.
But in Europe's current situation, where there are several countries and not just one, this single body would be threatened with continuous hindrance from internal divergencies, to the detriment of the definition of a healthy macro-economic policy.
This is an argument invoked by the partisans of complete independence of central banks, which is more effective, according to them.
Unfortunately, these partisans of complete central bank independence in turn fall into another difficulty which they are unable to escape from.
For the policy of an independent central bank to be able to deliver convincing results, that bank must be supported by a strong social consensus, which can only result from long positive experience and strong community feeling.
Now, the future European central bank will have neither of these advantages.
So, whichever way we turn, there are only these two routes leading to the implosion of the single currency.
The wise course would be to postpone it.
Madam President, during the third phase of economic and monetary union, we will have centralized monetary policy.
Whether this aim is tenable depends entirely on how effectively the economic policy of the Member States is coordinated.
As far as that is concerned the treaty creates enough opportunities.
The question is primarily to what extent these opportunities will be exploited and how this will be achieved.
In order for economic and monetary union genuininely to walk on two legs, economic coordination must not be limited to enabling a policy from the central bank which is directed at stability.
The coordination must also and explicitly be aimed at promoting growth which creates employment.
I do not quite understand how such a policy can be developed by a yet to be established economic and financial committee which will be dominated by the central bankers from the national central banks and the European central bank.
This restrictive monetary approach will dominate even more than was the case with its predecessor, the Monetary Committee.
It is feared that Ecofin will follow its advice just as slavishly as the Community Committee.
As long as the central bankers continue to call the shots behind the scenes at Ecofin, it will never be able to become a true economic counterbalance to the European central bank.
I am fully in favour of European-wide economic coordination, but it has to be genuine economic and not primarily monetary coordination.
In other to achieve this it will probably be necessary to run the economic and financial committee not with national central bankers, but instead with representatives from the ministries of Social Affairs and Finance.
To conclude, I think that altering the composition of the preparatory committee of Ecofin will be more important for the contents of European economic policy than the entire discussion on Euro X, on which Ecofin spends so much time.
Let us therefore try to get this subject onto the political agenda in Europe.
Madam President, I should first like to thank Commissioner WulfMathies for the speech she has just made on behalf of the Commission. Her views are similar to those expressed by Commissioner de Silguy.
I should also like to thank my colleagues for the other speeches in favour of this report.
Before we proceed to the vote, I should like to clarify a couple of points about my Amendment No 5 and Mr Donnelly's Amendment No 4.
In the second section of paragraph 9 in the English version it says "the two sides of industry' . My British colleagues have pointed out to me that it is better to say "the social partners' .
It is just a linguistic detail, but I would ask for it to be incorporated into the final version.
Right.
We will ask the linguistic services to do what is necessary to check the two versions.
Madam President, I have a point of order, as I am have the impression that the practice of Friday mornings in Strasbourg to take a vote after each report, is now also being taken over in the Thursday sessions of Parliament here in Brussels.
We know almost for certain that turnout will be low here.
May I ask the Bureau to consider voting at set times here in Brussels, so that everyone knows what is happening, and we will not have such a low turnout.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, I will answer you straight away.
As you certainly know, this was an exceptional situation.
It involved the votes on the reports on the enlargement, and that is why they were taken at the beginning of the morning as an exception.
But I note your comment, which is very germane, and in future we will return to the usual practice.
The debate is closed.
We will now move to the vote on the report.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The report recommends that the European Union should 'adopt an economic policy based on a close coordination of the Member States' economic policies.'
It also talks of a coordination of budget policy and finance policy as well as of a currency policy 'pillar' .
We have nothing against voluntary coordination in order to combat unemployment, for example.
However, the coordination being advocated will be voluntary.
We therefore disassociate ourselves from any idea of, for example, introducing common taxes in the Union, or of making economic policy supranational at all.
The Member States should also in future have the right to 'tax themselves' and conduct their own policy in this area.
If Europe's finance ministers then agree to work together to avoid tax dumping, for example, that would be good.
But that should take place through voluntary work between those who wish to do so, not through a system of rules within the European Union.
If the euro is to be truly successful it must have the support not only of politicians but of business and consumers.
The Commission promised to take decisions on four important issues relating to Stage 3 of EMU by the end of the year but have postponed the decisions until May next year.
The questions concern: whether to retain the 1 January 2002 date for the introduction of euro notes and coins; whether the simultaneous circulation of national currencies and euros should last six months as decided at the Madrid Summit in 1995; the question of dual pricing of goods and whether there would be need for EU legislation in this area and finally the question of conversion charges, both of bank accounts in the period 1999-2002 and notes/ coins in the period following 1 January 2002.
Does the Commission think that it will be in a position to make decisions on these important practical issues by May 1998? What is the Commission's reaction to Eurocommerce (European Retailers Association) who commissioned a Deloitte & Touche report which said that the average cost of introducing the single currency could be as high as 2.6 % of turnover for Europe's retailers?
Such costs would put many SMEs in my own constituency out of business. Small retailers will be faced with exorbitant costs updating IT systems, cash registers, retraining of staff and preparing their accounts in euros.
The start date for the introduction of notes/coins is close to the busiest time of the year - Christmas/after-Christmas sales: it may be too much for small retailers and companies to handle.
The single currency is certain going to happen, but the EU must now concentrate on these practical issues in order that businesses and consumers will be strong supporters of economic and monetary union.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted for Gasòliba i Böhm's report on coordinating economic policy within EMU.
The report mentions that all the Member States of the EU should be able to participate in the increased coordination of economic policy.
That means countries which are outside the third stage of EMU, such as Denmark, should also be able to participate in a better coordination of economic policy.
The Danish Social Democrats fully support this view.
The Danish Social Democrats reject an informal Euro X in which only countries which are in the third stage of EMU may participate.
The Danish Social Democrats agree with the rapporteur that a better coordination of overall economic policy will be beneficial to the objective of higher employment in the EU.
However, the Danish Social Democrats stress that financial policy should still be a sovereign national concern.
The undersigned voted against the report on the following grounds:
1.The report is unrealistic.
It assumes that the states' economies are the same and that EMU will be carried out throughout the Union.2.The economies are very different, and the differences are reinforced by the trend towards specialization which takes place in large markets, based on comparative costs.3.Common economic policies can therefore only be seen as a common aiming at particular targets.
The methods must be adapted to the countries' structures and their different sensitivities to economic cycles and external influences.
Structural measures in Belgium
The next item is the report (A4-0321/97) by Mr Decourrière, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on development problems and structural measures in Belgium (C4-0107/97).
Mr President, allow me to start by congratulating Mr Decourrière wholeheartedly on his excellent report, which ought to become compulsory reading for all the authorities in Belgium.
As draftsman of the opinion I have concentrated primarily on the expenditure of the European social fund in the various objective regions.
I would like to take up three points.
First and foremost, the problems around underspending.
I share the rapporteur's concern about the exceptionally low expenditure of resources in the objective regions in Belgium.
What's more, I find it incomprehensible and unacceptable that underspending is in these objective regions even bigger within the social fund, and this of all things whilst the summit in Luxembourg urges for more investment in training and jobs.
At the moment Belgium is not drawing on a large sum of European money.
European money which has not been lost yet, but time is moving.
Of course, all kinds of justified and unjustified arguments can be made for these arrears.
The programmes were approved too late, the Commission operates too bureaucratically.
Some regions are in effect too small to be able to handle structural funds, but this also applies to other countries in Europe.
A few of the reasons are typically Belgian.
Lack of coordination, the struggle for power between local, regional and federal authorities, both as far as the distribution of resources is concerned and the implementation of projects, the programming documents; I often get the impression that in Belgium more thought is given to power conflicts than to regional development and combating unemployment.
In Brussels this often leads to surreal situations, and this whilst neglect in some area of the city, and unemployment amongst young migrants is so great, that these days Brussels frequently seems to be living on a time bomb.
High long term unemployment, the problems in the regions affected by industries closing down cry out for more cooperation between the various relevant authorities in the interests of the people.
I agree with the rapporteur that, if necessary, the European Commission should lend a hand.
The conclusions of the summit in Luxembourg are a good argument for this.
Secondly, good news should also be mentioned. The rapporteur has just done this.
Outside the objective regions, European resources for training unemployed people are used very effectively.
So it is extremely regrettable that these projects are kept in a state of suspense regarding financing, that there are still no multiannual plans; so that interesting initiatives, especially from local authorities for instance, are often left standing.
Both the Commission and the regional authorities should solve these problems in the short term as a matter of urgency.
But the situation regarding to the training of employees in threatened jobs is pitiful, especially in Flanders where barely 10 % of resources have been allocated, let alone paid out.
As far as training for employees is concerned, Belgium is still by no means at the top of the class.
Industry, and especially SMEs must, as a matter of urgency, be urged to invest in their employees.
Furthermore, we keep insisting for a transfer of a part of the reserves from objective 4 to objective 3, where a lot of creativity is to be found, but little money.
Finally, I would like to say something about relocation and extra jobs.
The Liberal group's assertion that the European resources would not have served new jobs, is unjust.
However, without European money unemployment would have been even higher.
But Parliament rightly asks for more focus, clearer employment results.
It would be unheard of if European money was used to snatch jobs from one region to another.
The Renault experience is still fresh in our memory, and in the regions around Henegouwen there is still a great unrest on that front.
We emphatically urge the European Commission to see to it that structural funds are not used for unfair competition.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Decourrière, on his report, and I would like to thank him for the analysis which he put forward in his report, and for the proposals which have been included and found great approval in the proper committee.
I would like to use my intervention to go firstly into the three regionally based objectives, in particular objective 1, 2, and 5b, for which Belgium is entitled to ECU 950 million, which is 39 billion Belgian francs, for the period 1994-1999.
As of 31 December 1996 approximately 7 billion Belgian francs had been spent under the terms of the regional and structural funds.
In absolute terms the underspending of structural funds is primarily a Wallonian problem.
There is a sum of 26 billion left to spend in Wallonia, and 3 billion in Flanders, but in relative terms the underuse is primarily a Flemish problem.
Flanders has an expenditure of 12 % against 19 % in Wallonia.
It is well known that by far the most significant part, namely 30 billion Belgian francs, is set aside for the province of Henegouwen as an objective 1 region.
In fact we are talking about 60 billion if Wallonian cofinancing is honoured.
Suspicions arise - and I also draw the Commissioner's attention to this - that the Wallonian district is in fact carrying out this cofinancing by improper use of European financial resources.
I would like to ask, Madam Commissioner, whether the European Commission has investigated how cofinancing is taking place in Henegouwen? On the other hand I have received information about the investigation set up by the Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention (UCLAF) into the expenditure of European money in Henegouwen through Public Utility Boards, amongst other things.
Can the European Commission corroborate this information, and have any results come out of the UCLAF investigations yet?
With regard to the objective 2 areas, Limburg and Turnhout, the situation is markedly better, especially as far as expenditure within the European social fund are concerned.
I ascertain that in this regions a certain rhythm has been found, but that a transfer of financial resources from objective 4 to objective 5 is needed, as suggested by Mrs Van Lancker.
The problems regarding the situation in objective 5b region is grave, however.
Westhoek and Meetjesland in Flanders are entitled to approximately 2 billion Belgian francs towards rural development.
Yet a considerable part of this has not been taken up.
Up until today only the resources provided for 1994 have been utilized, whilst in the Netherlands, for example, during a comparable period, the resources for 1998 have already been utilized.
The fact Flanders does not tap the resources for 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998, merely underlines their incapacity.
In addition to this there are two further problems.
There is the problem of cofinancing, which is fixed contractually, but not executed for lack of resources provided for in the relevant budget.
On the other hand the problem of technical support, which in Flanders is already at 4 %, and where it is wished to raise this, whilst the European Commission accepts a maximum of 1.5 %.
The situation concerning the Community Leader programme is extremely worrying, also in the rural policy sector.
The two Flemish programmes have still not been approved after four years, despite eight revised versions.
I am not surprised that the European Commission is asking questions about the capacity to meet the conditions set.
I believe that these examples point to the fact that both in the Flemish and in the Wallonian regions there is a need for reflection on how we might handle the structural funds, and how we might organize better use of them over the next few years.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Decourrière on his objective and uncompromising report on the use of the structural funds in Belgium.
May I say that such understanding of the Belgian situation is rare in a Frenchman.
As regards my region, Wallonia, Mr Decourrière is absolutely right to condemn the slowness of the administrative procedures, the poor targeting of aid on the least backward sub-regions, which is the opposite of what should be happening, the dispersion and multiplication of small projects, the use of a part of the regional funds for initiatives which should have been financed by the budget for the Walloon region.
It is clear that the Walloon government has not been sufficiently precise about the objectives to be attained, sufficiently firm in the conduct of the projects, sufficiently effective in monitoring the consumption of appropriations, sufficiently convincing on the utility of research and development and targeting aid to support SMEs in the competitive sectors.
But the Commission should also think again.
It ought to ensure the seriousness and credibility of the projects, notably considered in terms of lasting jobs.
It must take measures to avoid relocations from one sub-region to another as a function of financial advantages conferred by the structural funds.
Finally, it should calculate the impact of the plan it is presenting in Agenda 2000, which will in the end make it more difficult to grant aid and will no doubt have the effect of eliminating structural funds measures for Belgian objective 1 and 2 regions.
Of course European aid to the regions should not be eternal. But to stop in midstream would be counterproductive.
We are promised gradual disengagement, but without knowing either the volume or the timescale.
The conclusions to Mr Decourrière's excellent report present particularly useful channels of thought for the future debate on the revision of the structural funds.
It is not enough to consume appropriations, maximum effectiveness in their utilization must be sought, which will require an in-depth re-examination of the objectives of the funds, as well as the modalities of project selection, as a function of a strategy decreed by common accord between the Commission and the public authority responsible.
Mr President, there is evident lack of clarity in the strategy followed by the Belgian regional authorities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not normally like it when empty words of praise are directed at the rapporteur, but in this case it is genuinely deserved, as we are getting an extremely objective picture in which both the weak points of the Belgian regional policy and the issues which can be evaluated positively are mentioned.
I think Mrs Lancker is 100 % right if she says that this report ought to be read thoroughly by all our regional and other authorities.
As far its substance is concerned, for us the two most important points are the following.
Firstly there is the conclusion we have all come to, namely that it is incomprehensible that a country which does not exactly have a surplus of resources, in any case in order not to manage certain problems better, does not manage to draw and use the funds available from Europe more effectively.
This is an absolute scandal.
I think a message should go out towards the administrations which are responsible for this.
But another point which I would like highlight, is the fact that it is not only the regional authorities, but often also the lower echelons who stand opposite each other with drawn knives; local authorities who want to snatch things from each other, topped by what goes on within the Public Utility Boards. Instead of getting a focussed approach which is genuinely aimed at the main problems in a region, his frequently leads to a number of Public Utility Boards organizing fights against each other, and this is ultimately at the expense of an effective deployment of scarce resources which are not even fully used.
We believe a great deal of attention should be paid to this so that it is improved, as it is totally counter-productive.
A last point I wanted to raise is what should happen to the structural funds, also in the light of the enlargement we talked about yesterday and today; at least during the votes today.
We can side wholly with the spirit of the report as it is expressed in paragraph 40, as it says at last: look, we have got an existing situation and we have to organize a transition which takes into the account both the challenges outside the Union, and the greatest needs amongst ourselves.
The formulation of paragraph 23, on the other hand, can be read as very conservative, in the sense that we should keep everything we have at the moment.
We do not find that a satisfactory perspective.
So we give our full support to the direction indicated in paragraph 40, but not to the one indicated in paragraph 34.
Mr President, for me Mr Decourrière's report, which we have before us, simply confirms the collapse of the structural funds programme, particularly as far as Belgium is concerned.
Since I have only two minutes to speak, I will limit myself to only two fundamental conclusions.
First, the report shows the umpteenth proof that the structural funds account for additional millions flooding from Flanders to Wallonia.
In short, the lion's share of the contributions the European Union's budget is paid by Flanders.
The lion's share of European subsidies, on the other hand, goes to Wallonia.
Now, this may seem defensible; a richer European populace is perfectly capable of helping a poorer populace, no one is against that, but in this case it is indefensible.
Wallonia is governed, after all, by a socialist regime closely linked to mafia-like operations, and itself is responsible for the arrears it is falling into.
The Wallonian politicians make absolutely no serious effort to clean up the situation, and obstruct every fundamental reform of economy and politics.
The European manna is being used solely to stretch out an untenable regime.
That may sound hard to those who are unfamiliar with my country, but it does not make it any less true.
Secondly, I would like to emphasize the objection in paragraph 29 made by the rapporteur himself.
It is true that the Wallonian province Henegouwen uses European subsidies to tempt businesses away from the Kortwijk region in Western Flanders.
The European subsidies, together with far-reaching environmental concessions, make up an attractive package for businesses.
So thanks to Europe, jobs are stolen from Flanders, and are relocated to Wallonia.
These are not new jobs, and this should not be what is behind European subsidy politics, and for that reason I will obviously not approve the report before us.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the report by Mr Decourrière can, in my view, in any case be characterized as objective.
It also contains, however, the urgent appeal to Belgium to make better use of structural resources in future.
After all, we are talking here about more than ECU 2 billion.
The figures are not, in my opinion at this point in time the most important thing.
If one reads Mr Decourrière's report it becomes clear that the use of the resources at the moment is relatively slight.
But we must not forget that there is an important phase before such use, that is, the programming.
This report makes it clear that the programming phase represents, for those who have to carry it out, a binding programme for the future.
Of course I consider that an objective 1 area with approximately 50 % cofinancing was bound to present a problem.
Where the area is already structurally weak the support from the European Union must be more intensive.
Otherwise they could have made the Hennegau a better objective 2 area.
As far as cofinancing is concerned, in the initial stages there should be stricter controls on the partnership in the cofinancing.
It is unacceptable for the programme to be put together by three or four people and then the active forces in an area have to be brought into organize a cofinancing.
Here I believe that the Commission, with due regard for the principle of subsidiarity must intervene more effectively, so that even in the programming phase all the partners sit round a table and all sign up to these programmes.
On the question of actual implementation: of course there are areas in which the implementation is already at this moment in time relatively good.
It is not a matter of having spent a great deal of money so far, but that the money has also been well spent.
In this respect I would like to address two principles.
The first principle is that if we create jobs we must also be sure that they are permanent jobs.
If, in certain spheres, and I am thinking of the middle class, subsidies are distributed on a quick, short term basis, I would almost say sprayed from a watering can, then we have to be able to check - and that too is the task of the Commission - that these jobs have also contributed to the subsequent stability of a region.
We must also create the pre-conditions.
This is revealed clearly by Mr Decourrière's report, that is, that an area can only become attractive if it first removes the existing ruins.
It is not my intention to go into the examples already present in Belgium, but the attractiveness of a region and the job creation will also depend on how things look in a region.
Resources are provided for this and they must be used more intensively.
I come from a border area and I know what minor relocations mean.
Madam Commissioner, you must consider that it is a question of the credibility of the structural fund if even today we are financing the destruction of jobs.
I shall explain this statement.
In my view it is unacceptable that certain companies leave objective 2 Areas, as happened in the Verviers area in the case of Boston Scientific, wander off into objective 1 areas, making jobs disappear en route and yet still get money for their investment elsewhere in Europe!
That is the financing of destruction. It must not be seen on a regional or national level, but on a Europe-wide level.
For the next structural funds it is therefore not only their credibility which is at risk but also the economic stability of the regions of Europe!
Mr President, when reading the excellent report one may indeed question whether the structural funds reach their objectives, or in any case whether the programmes and the funds which have been laid out have actively created new jobs, and whether structural policy contributes in an enduring way to combating unemployment.
This applies to both Wallonia and Flanders, which is why my group has submitted the amendments it has.
We have to observe that in the regions Turnhout and Limburg, which fall under objective 2, payments are made out of only 49 % of the credits, and the results regarding unemployment are below the Flemish average.
In the Flanders region which fall under 5b payments amount to less than 3 %, and in Meetjesland less than 1 %.
So it is high time that the necessary credits were released at Flemish level, and I fully support what Mrs Aelvoet amongst others said.
The time is absolutely ripe for red tape and complicated procedures to be tackled with the aim of achieving more flexibility.
The time has above all come for a global approach by all the authorized institutes.
No more passing the buck.
We are all in the same boat.
Too large a fragmentation is prejudicial.
But we can only come up with concrete and positive results following a global and constructive approach.
Let us hope that this will be the case in the future.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I agree. Mr Decourrière has delivered excellent work.
He rightly asks the crucial question as to whether the structural policy in its current shape is able to reduce the regional differences.
The whole of Henegouwen, for example, is an objective 1 region, with the result that a prosperous sub-region like Doornik and Moeskroen is a haven for investments and relocations from the middle and the south of West Flanders.
This lead to the construction of a buffer zone in the southern part of this province, with the result that the subsidy mill started to turn.
After all, the Borinage which was most in need of support, is none the better for it.
In view of the structural funds reforms we should think of a different course for structural policy.
That is why we should use principles like geographic and thematic concentration with the main emphasis on investment, infrastructure, information technology, the environment and vocational training, with an accent on endogenous development.
Direct support to companies leads to unfair competition and can only be applied to selective investments.
For that matter we conclude that the SMIs, which we have been calling job creators since the Delors White Paper, are anything but central to the structural policy.
This was pointed out by the Court of Auditors in a recent report.
We also have to bear this shortcoming in mind in the future.
Mr President, in application of the 1993 decisions linked to the reform of the structural funds, the Commission granted Belgium certain new adaptations to the regulation, including amongst the new measures the recognition of Hainaut in objective 1.
Its eligibility was justified by the fact that regional development disparities had been observed for several years.
The DOCUP established by the Walloon executive was approved by the Commission on 14 June 1994.
Following this implementation stage, the European Parliament's Committee on Regional Policy was asked to give an opinion on the programming period 1994-1999.
The rapporteur, Mr Decourrière, has deplored, and I too deplore, the slow implementation of certain programmes, above all in the initial phase concerning the Hainaut objective 1 region which is fortunately now being made up.
The report points out that this aid primarily favours the sub-regions of Hainaut which are the best adapted to benefit from the funds, that is the regions of d'Ath, Tournai and Mouscron.
Furthermore, the impact of the structural funds, as currently felt in Hainaut, has not sufficiently taken account of the guidelines for rural regions, whereas there are potential resources to be taken advantage of in these areas.
I therefore emphasize that the Community initiatives should be taken into better account - and I am thinking in particular of the Leader programme - in terms of their practical implementation on the ground.
The Commission should be aware that its late decisions on the programming do not allow the projects to be carried out effectively to their completion.
The decision sometimes falls six months or a year after the start-up of the initial programme.
For example, for the programming period 1997-1999, the green light was given in mid-July 1997, whereas, for the action to be effective, the decision should have been taken in September-October 1996.
Investment aid regimes should also have been permitted.
This would help the regions which benefit from it to cope with their difficulties and more easily attract potential entrepreneurs to Wallonia, notably for the objective 1, 2 and 5b areas involving the Walloon Brabant territorial measures.
I support Mr Decourrière's opinion, when he advocates the correction of a certain number of inadequacies and the choice of new policy guidelines.
It is essential to remedy the lack of local structure when this becomes clear.
For the programmes to function properly, it is indispensable to create local decentralized development agencies, provided with an appropriate framework and which would assure self-supported management and thus promote the relaunch of the rural regions.
Local development and employment initiatives are the prior condition for any lasting development.
Active participation, dialogue between citizens and local and regional authorities, will make it possible to mobilize and stimulate the economic, social and cultural life of the regions.
The priorities of development strategy must also be based on economic diversification, the promotion of research, the diffusion of new technologies, professional training and job creation.
Thank you, Mr Decourrière, for this good report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can only echo the praise of my colleagues in Parliament for the very analytical and clear, as well as critical and realistic report on the development problems and structural interventions in Belgium.
The Commission shares the concern expressed by Mr Decourrière throughout the report and the proposal about the serious deficiencies in the implementation of the programme and the use of European support resources in Belgium.
For its part the Commission has informed the Belgian partners not only once but repeatedly about these deficiencies and have warned that remedial measures must be taken.
The Commission therefore explicitly welcomes your appeals to the Belgian government, but also to the regional and local authorities, which must also contribute to the purposeful coordination and acceleration of the administrative procedures required for cofinancing and must ensure that the support resources of the EU already received by the national and regional offices are then finally conveyed to the ultimate beneficiaries and the resources efficiently utilized.
The report confirms the worries and concerns which have already been notified to me by the regional and local partners and social partners during my visits to those places and you can be certain that I commented very critically there on the problems which affect us all.
If one considers the financial development of the programmes at the end of 1997 it certainly appears to be characterized, particularly in the Hennegau, by a slight improvement.
We have now completed in the Hennegau the payments for 94 and 95 from the 1994/99 regional fund and have paid the first advance of 50 % for 96: in other words things are accelerating.
But that is not an all-clear signal!
It shows that we have made progress, but that we are nowhere near the point where we can say that we have now found the key to how we can proceed smoothly to our conclusion.
I too would like to deal with the point raised by Mr Chanterie, namely the UCLAF report.
We are at the moment still carrying out investigations.
There is still no confirmation of the suspicion expressed that misdemeanours may have been committed, and we are therefore continuing to study the case carefully.
Let me, however, refer to one thing, which is important: these are problems stemming from the period 1990 to 1993.
We have in the Hennegau, notwithstanding the question of what might ultimately be proved, been careful to ensure that supervision, control and transparency are improved.
We have taken particular care to see that the five local authorities in Wallonia also agree on a better system of cooperation.
When I was last there I stated this very explicitly, without arousing much enthusiasm amongst the people concerned with the very critical situation.
I am all the more grateful that your extremely extensive report now also confirms what we ourselves have been criticizing all along.
As for the question of cofinancing I can only report to you what people told us, that in fact officially there is no cofinancing problem.
We can unfortunately not even try to determine what the national or regional financial situation actually looks like.
The Commission is following with concern - and this was of course raised by several of you - the so-called subsidy-race with the relocation of companies from regions not eligible for support to regional support areas.
I would however like to point out that the Commission has allowed the Belgian Government to grant until the end of 1999 aid of up to 15 % of the enterprise investment as equivalent nett subsidy in the Flemish areas bordering on the Hennegau. This would above all provide at least some help for Wervik, Zwevelgem, Wevelgem, Ronse, Kortrijk and Vilvoorde: in other words we responded directly to problems.
Nevertheless I also consider it to be important - because this discussion really plays a major role - to refer to the basic principle of freedom of settlement in the European Union, which allows any company to settle or to relocate in any location where the economic conditions appear to be most favourable.
A company's decision on where to locate, as we have checked several times, is influenced by numerous factors such as proximity to the market, qualification of the workforce, flexibility of the relevant administrative authority, and also fiscal measures, so that the prospect of regional aid is frequently only one factor and not even the decisive one.
Moreover, according to the principle of subsidiarity the regional and national administrations are responsible in the structural programmes for the selection of the relevant projects, and we cannot of course only apply subsidiarity when it suits us, and try to abolish it just when it does not suit us.
Alarmed, particularly by the Renault-Vilvoorde case and the negative consequences of the subsidy race, the Commission intends to draw up guidelines before the end of the year for the assessment of regional aid of the Member States for 2000-2006, and to propose: firstly, generally to lower the upper limit of aid intensity in order to restrict the regions' scope for outbidding each other; secondly we are considering how we can link regional and more closely to conditions - for example on the minimum duration of the investment activity and the securing of jobs in the area in question.
This is also an essential point of consideration for the new version of the structural regulation from 2000.
Also before the end of the year the Commission will present a communication on the necessary concentration and coherence of its regional and aid policy.
We are in agreement with them that we must combat misuse.
But I want to make it clear that solidarity also means positive discrimination and that we naturally want to attract more activities to the poorest areas in the Union and into the Member States and that we must try together to perform this balancing act.
The Commission agrees with the rapporteur when he states that local development and employment initiatives are a precondition for any lasting development.
The Commission has made the raising of the efficiency of the structural fund subsidies since 1995 its prime function and its number one priority the creation and maintenance of jobs, both for its guidelines for the second phase of the 1997-99 programme for the objective 2 areas and for the intermediate evaluation of the objective 1 programmes.
This of course also applies to Belgium.
In addition the Commission is supporting five territorial employment pacts, in Flanders, Tongeren and Vilvoorde and in Wallonia, Hainaut and West Brabant and finally the region of the capital Brussels.
I agree with all those here who have said that we must support these activities on the spot and that we must also exert pressure to ensure that the resources are used and not just spent, but above all for top quality projects to create jobs and to improve the attractiveness of the region.
As for your concerns about the reforms of the structural fund after 1999 I would simply refer you to the basic statement of the Commission in Agenda 2000.
The wish of the Commission is that the high degree of communal solidarity in favour of securing economic and social cohesion despite limited resources should be maintained.
The Commission therefore provides, even for regions which have made good economic recoveries, wind-down phases which help to secure successful cohesion.
This applies clearly to the Belgian areas which may be affected by it.
I hope that your initiative report and today's debate on it will contribute to the improvement of the quality of structural fund interventions in Belgium and I can only underline what Mrs Van Lancker said, that this ought to become compulsory reading for all those involved in the application of structural fund interventions in Belgium.
Thank you, Madam Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now move to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Like the rapporteur, I am delighted with the success and quality of the programmes arising from objective 3 in the context of Community structural measures in French-speaking Belgium.
But that is indeed the only reason for satisfaction because, with him, I can only be alarmed, on the evidence, first by the dramatically worrying position Wallonia is in, and then by its current incapacity to make full use of the oxygen supply provided by Europe.
The report first condemns the very low rate of consumption of the appropriations for objectives 1, 2 and 5b, which target the development and structural adjustment of the regions assisted, as well as their conversion.
Must it be deduced that in certain sub-regions, even while money is made available, the economic numbness is such that there is no longer even the capacity to draw up projects to utilize it?
The report then states that the implementation of objective 4 also shows enormous underconsumption of appropriations.
If the rapporteur is to be believed, the fault essentially lies with the incompetence of the regional and local authorities, whose methods of operating, heavy and slow, prove, on analysis - notably in Hainaut - inadequate and incapable of rivalling, in terms of job creation, other European regions which have less Community aid.
The report condemns in barely concealed terms the local baronies and power relations which dictate the nature of the projects, and I quote: "without any concern for synergy or complementarity' , which, to quote again, are "aimed more at giving satisfaction to local politicians than to providing sustainable development' .
Furthermore, in all these cases the financing of the research and development and technological innovation projects record important delays while "the selection of strategies is unsatisfactory in some cases... (and) there would appear to be too much investment in traditional industries given that the aim is to diversify the region's economy' .
That is an extremely critical statement and a warning against the archaic attitudes and the inertia which are hindering the economic recovery of Wallonia, and I can only associate myself with that statement.
Describing a situation with all the cruelty of the reality is a first step, at once painful and necessary.
But after the lucid statement must come the project and the strategy.
That is the task to which I shall henceforth devote myself, with all those who are determined to bring Wallonia out of its sclerosis and its underdevelopment.
The structural funds measures have certainly had a major impact on Hainaut.
However, they have still proved inadequate to achieve a genuine reduction of the disparities and unemployment in the regions most affected economically and especially in the rural regions where slow but continuous depopulation is causing deterioration in the demographic structural factors and economic development.
The rapporteur has emphasized the very low rate of consumption of the appropriations - for both objective 1 and objective 4 - and I am persuaded of the need for those appropriations to be better distributed in the future.
Mr Decourrière's report draws up a clear and precise table for the utilization of the structural funds, particularly in Hainaut.
There are positive aspects and there are fears and criticisms, which we must take into account.
Personally I think point 39 of the resolution is particularly important.
Management and relations with the Commission are not easy.
The Commission does not always show flexibility, it must associate itself better with the regions and communities in the establishment and implementation of the programmes.
That completes Parliament's agenda.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 1.25 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 4 December 1997.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of 4 December 1997 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, last Friday the European Council in Luxembourg approved unanimously a resolution renouncing and condemning the terrorist organization ETA, and the following day the Basque people took to the streets in mass demonstrations, demanding exactly what we are offering to the eastern European countries knocking at our door: peace, liberty and democracy.
Mr President, I would like you to make a public statement on behalf of this House, to express our support for the aspirations of the Basque people, and our sympathy for the family of José Luis Caso, who was murdered for having been democratically elected to represent Basques like himself.
Mr President, I support what Mr Galeote has just said. I should like to add that we think murdering José Luis Caso, a simple town councillor in the small Basque town of Rentería, for the way he lived his life and represented his fellow citizens, was an attack against Spain's democracy, the democratic institutions of the Basque Country, and the great European democracy which we are all building.
We are pleased that the European Council in Luxembourg has made such a clear statement, and we are aware, Mr President, that you have already conveyed Parliament's condolences, and will give all the support you can to the victim's family.
I believe Parliament is to receive a visit tomorrow from the family of the town councillor Miguel Ángel Blanco, who was murdered in Ermua, and Vice-President Cot is going to lead a meeting to provide information and support for all the victims of terrorism in Spain and Europe.
It is in that spirit that my group wishes to express its full support, and its commitment to working energetically to ensure that such acts cannot be committed in the future.
Mr President, I want to support what my colleagues have said.
On behalf of the Spanish socialists, I should like to say that the murder of Councillor Caso is an attack against democratic principles, and against the Spanish people's attempt to construct a stable and lasting democracy. It is yet another manifestation of the totalitarianism which sometimes lurks in some of our European societies.
I should like to thank you, Mr President, for having sent our condolences. I am very pleased with the declaration made at the European Council in Luxembourg, and I hope this Parliament and our other institutions continue to support the efforts of the Spanish people to live in peace and democracy.
Thank you, Mr Medina.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think the three speakers have expressed the feelings of the whole House.
I share the same view, as I made clear at the time of the European Council declaration.
I should also like to remind you that tomorrow, at 6 p.m., as Mr Puerta has mentioned, we will be holding a meeting which will be open to all Members of this House, to express our support for all the victims of terrorism - in Spain and in Europe as a whole - and this House's strong will and commitment to combat terrorism in all its forms wherever it occurs.
Mr President, on Wednesday, the day after tomorrow, we will all witness the extremely significant moment when the Sakharov prize is awarded.
It is of exceptional significance this year, its tenth year, since it is the fiftieth anniversary of human rights.
In 1995 our Kurdish colleague in the Turkish parliament, Leyla Zana, was honoured with the Sakharov prize for her unrelenting struggles, on account of which she was mercilessly persecuted and incarcerated by the Turkish government.
Mr President, we recall Mrs Zana's speech to this House on the 12 January 1996, which was read to us by her husband because she could not be present, and which ended with the plea, "I ask for the help of the European Parliament in putting an end to the tragedy which is afflicting my people.'
Today, two years later, Leyla Zana is still in a Turkish prison, despite the fact that she has gained a reputation worldwide as a symbol of the peaceful struggle for a solution to the problem and for the survival of her people.
Mr President, since the issue of the rapprochement of Turkey with the European Union is somewhat topical, I think that today the European Council, in keeping with its principles, should request and demand from the Turkish government the immediate release of our colleague, Mrs Zana, whom we in this House honoured with the Sakharov prize.
Thank you, Mr Papakyriazis.
In any case, I should like to remind Members of this House that the best way to show support for the way Parliament awards the Sakharov prize is to show a good attendance at the partsession to be held on Wednesday at 12 noon, when this year's prize will be presented to Salima Ghezali, in recognition of work which is similar to Leyla Zana's.
Mr President, on a point of order: as you may know, the United States has apparently imposed a ban on the import of European beef into the United States.
This has not yet been officially confirmed but I believe it to be the case.
That, coupled with the other rumours circulating about both beef and lamb, suggests to me that it would be important for the Commission to make a statement to this House, particularly after the Council meeting today.
I wonder whether you could put that request to it at some stage this week.
It has been discussed by the Conference of Presidents.
As these are rumours rather than facts it was decided that it would be better to make a statement in January when we have all the facts and a statement by the Commission.
Mr President, without wanting to get into the substance of the debate, which would mean my getting slightly bitter, please allow me to point out that I heard this afternoon from Mrs Bonino that she is assuming she will issue a statement tomorrow evening after the Commission has met.
I gathered from the agenda that this statement will take place tomorrow evening at 9.00 p.m., here in this House, followed by a debate on the issue.
I was proceeding from this assumption until two minutes ago, and Mrs Bonino is proceeding from this assumption too.
For this to be the case, the Rules of Procedure state that there has to be a change to the agenda, which obviously has not happened at the moment.
Oh, I beg your pardon. I made a mistake.
In fact, the agenda states that at 9 p.m. there will be a Commission statement on beef and veal products posing a potential health risk, followed by a debate.
Allow me to correct myself.
You are right, Mrs Roth-Behrendt; it is on the agenda and will be debated tomorrow.
Mr President, on a point of order. I was going to make the same point.
It is right that we should have that debate at 9 o'clock on Tuesday night, as agreed.
Mr President, I am quite shocked by what Mr Hallam has said.
He cast a gross slur on the hygiene habits in my country since it is the Irish farmers that are being stopped at the port illegally.
I would say to Mr Hallam: it is a long time since we have kept pigs in the parlour.
(Laughter )
Mr President, rather than get into a long debate about this, could we not simply agree that the item that is scheduled for tomorrow night at 9 p.m. could cover all the aspects concerned, including lamb as well as veal and beef? I assume that is what the Conference of Presidents intended when they put this on the agenda.
It will depend on the Commissioner and his statement, of course.
Mr President, a statement will indeed be made tomorrow at 9 p.m. by the Commission, on beef and veal posing a potential health risk.
But what appals me, Mr President, is that this declaration will be followed by a debate, but not by the Parliament taking a position.
There will be no resolution or vote.
And there will be no resolution or vote taken on the labelling of genetically modified organisms, a matter to be debated on Friday morning.
I believe that the items contained in the statement from the Commission will be very much in earnest.
Doubtless a prohibition of imports from the United States, doubtless a modification on the prohibition on use of specified risk material, which should in theory come into force on 1 January next.
In short, matters which are of extreme importance, and it is inconceivable that the European Parliament should not take a clear position in a timely fashion, in other words, right now, and not in one or two months, when the European Parliament will be able to do no more than deplore what has already happened.
Mr Berthu, you were present at the Conference of Presidents which decided not to make any resolutions, just as I was.
The conference indeed considered that a debate was necessary, but that there would not, in all likelihood, be enough substance to justify a resolution without the appropriate committees expressing an opinion on the matter.
This was the explanation proffered to the Conference of Presidents.
You were there as I was.
I was keen to make this information available to this House.
Mr President, first of all I should like to agree with what you said about the position on this date with America, but perhaps I could help you a little bit with regard to Mr Hallam making a cheap political point.
He should know that British beef has been banned from America for a number of years and that it is his government that is causing a problem for the beef industry by refusing to revalue the 'green pound' .
Mr Sturdy, this is not the place to discuss the internal problems of any Member State.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, we have a very full agenda. Please let us not waste time now in mutual recriminations.
Mr President, I do not intend to get involved in the debate.
I would just like to say something about procedure and congratulate the Conference of Presidents on its wisdom.
Last month, in November, we adopted a far-reaching resolution with very few omissions in it.
To do so again this month would not be sensible in my view.
I would ask those colleagues who deem this necessary to consider the fact that in February we will be debating the next Commission report - the first of the half-yearly reports - and will have to come to a decision on that.
That is to say, in the space of just three months, we will have more BSE resolutions to adopt.
I think that will be fun enough, so we can afford ourselves the luxury tomorrow of having a discussion that will provide us with the necessary information.
This way we can save ourselves having to detail a resolution considering the Commission's report in February.
Mr President, I just want to say to Mr Hallam that had the government of his country observed...
No, Mr Gallagher, there will be no further debate on that matter.
Mr President, I indicated my desire to speak at the start.
Forgive me if I do not comment on the question of British beef.
I do not want to join Mrs Roth-Behrendt in congratulating the Conference of Presidents; on the contrary!
Tomorrow the Committee on External Economic Relations will meet, chaired by Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan.
Given the subject under discussion, it should be a matter of urgency this week.
We are now obliged to make this an informal meeting without the involvement of interpreters.
I merely wanted to protest that, while each working party and intergroup can meet here under sensible conditions, a committee discussing the sort of important matters that need to be dealt with this week, cannot!
I would ask that this way of organizing things cease.
Mr Posselt, this decision was made by the Conference of Presidents.
The decision to hold committee meetings in Brussels has been explained to the committee chairmen and to each and every one of the committees.
If you think it ought to be changed, you should approach the Conference of Presidents, but now is neither the time nor the place to make such alterations.
Thank you, Mr Provan.
I can say to Mrs van Bladel that the Secretary-General is looking for a better place for the chauffeurs in the new building.
Thank you for your remarks: we had a team that worked very well and we must congratulate the Secretary-General on providing the team for that very successful operation.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I signed the referral to place the matter in the hands of the Rules Committee as soon as I was able to do so, given that I was travelling in Great Britain.
The document has been sent today, after going through the registration procedures - you know that there are formalities with regard to internal mail. So I have signed it.
You know that there are formalities which we are trying to reduce, but which are still somewhat slowmoving.
Bear with me, the official document has gone to the Rules Committee, which will receive it today.
(The Minutes were approved)
Order of business
With the agreement of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mrs Redondo Jiménez requests that her report on the control of Pseudomonas solanacearum (Smith) Smith should be taken without debate.
Mr Colino Salamanca, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, has the floor.
Mr President, the amendments to that report were approved unanimously in committee.
There is no problem.
The request can therefore be granted.
I put Mrs Redondo Jiménez's request to the House.
(Parliament gave its assent)
The vote on this report will therefore be taken on Tuesday, at 12 noon.
I have received a request signed by Mr Ford and 28 other people, asking that a Commission statement on UEFA's decision not to allow the winners of the Coca Cola cup to take part in the European Cup competitions should be added to the agenda.
Because this part-session's agenda is so full, if it is decided to include such a statement, the only place it could be added is at the end of the Friday session.
Mr Ford has the floor to present this request for amendment.
Mr President, that will be perfectly acceptable at the end of business on Friday morning if the House is so agreeable.
Does anybody wish to speak in support of the request? Anybody against?
No?
Then we shall proceed to the vote.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
The order of business has been adopted thus amended.
Green Paper on a partnership for a new organization of work
The next item is the report (A4-0313/97) by Mr Andersson, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission Green Paper "Partnership for a new organization of work' .
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the Commission for an excellent Green Paper.
I would also like to take the opportunity to thank my fellow Committee members for excellent collaboration within the Committee in drawing up this report.
As far as changes in the organization of work are concerned, we can state that we are lagging behind the USA and Japan.
That is a fact and not an estimation.
I believe, you see, that if we are to change the organization of work in Europe, we should choose our own model, based among other things on the social model, and not plagiarize models from the USA and Japan.
I would also like to say a few words about the word flexibility.
This is a word which is steeped in taboos.
For me flexibility is about a connection with security.
The fact is that you can never create a flexible organization of work unless you also have a well-developed labour law, an active labour market policy and a right to in-house training for employees, etcetera.
It is not a case of one model if we want to create new organizations of work in Europe, but many.
Things are different for different sectors and different for different companies.
What they have in common and what is important is that the parties in the labour market are involved at both industry and company level.
However, turning to the Group of the European People's Party and Amendment 4, we should not interfere in the way the parties in the labour market organize themselves.
It is important for small and medium-sized enterprises to be included.
However, it is not we, but the employers themselves who should decide how small and medium-sized enterprises should be represented in employer organizations.
Changes in the organization of work affect a multitude of policy areas, including taxation.
The Committee now recommends, as before, a reduction in taxation which involves reduced tax on work and increased tax on energy, the environment and capital.
We therefore also oppose the amendment from the UPE Group which concerns a general reduction in taxation.
We want tax changes, not a general suppression of taxes.
The other policy area which is affected by the issue is labour law.
On a previous occasion an agreement on parttime work was approved in this House.
However, that is not enough. It is just as important for us to have changes and security where atypical forms of work are concerned.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission when it intends to return to regulation and security in the question of atypical forms of work.
We also have proposals on minimum standards with regard to information, consultation and participation.
What is the Commission's position on binding minimum standards in these important areas?
The third policy area which I shall touch on is working hours.
This is largely a question for the parties in the labour market, but society should give the basic standards and create incentives to shorten working hours.
We previously put forward proposals about this in the Rocard report. We now return to the subject.
When is the Commission going to produce its own proposals on shorter working hours? When are we going to get the intervention which has been promised so many times with regard to the situation in Europe on the question of shortening working hours?
In the fourth place, training is important where changing the organization of work is concerned.
However, in this respect the situation is gloomy.
We know that only one in three employees has access to training.
In small and medium-sized enterprises the situation is even worse.
There it is only one in ten employees.
We have to support the small and medium-sized enterprises, but we cannot, as the Green Group proposes, go into supporting certain forms of ownership.
I am a warm supporter of worker-owned companies, but we cannot go into supporting certain forms of ownership.
However, we should support small and medium-sized enterprises.
A change in the organization of work is a long-term measure.
It is also important to involved the employees.
On the question of health risks, a lot can be done to improve health and safety.
However, there is also a danger.
There are also examples of organizational changes which have made things worse, and it is reasonable for employers to have more responsibility for the costs of the working environment.
We are therefore opposed to the proposal from the UPE Group which weakens the position which the Committee has taken.
I would also like to address the area of equal opportunities.
What the Commission says is positive.
What the Committee on Women's Rights has said is also positive, and I also support the amendment from the Group of the European People's Party concerning the equal opportunity aspects and responsibility for the family both for men and women.
Finally I would like to thank the Commission for a good Green Paper, and I would like to thank my colleagues on the Committee for a constructive collaboration, both within the Committee and hopefully also now that we are considering the matter in this part-session.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Jan Andersson on his excellent report and the Commission because the Green Paper itself picked up on all of the most important themes in the future organization of work.
I would like to make just three brief points.
The first is that, as the rapporteur himself says, we now need to convert this comprehensive analysis into practical action in the framework of the next social action programme.
For example, we need to seek urgently, either a framework agreement on necessary instruments on working time management, or action on forms of atypical work contracts other than part-time contracts.
The second point is that these actions are going to require the use of both the negotiating track and the legislative track under the new Social Chapter.
We need therefore to have a clear interinstitutional agreement setting out the mechanisms and timetables which will operate to make sure that we do act expeditiously.
You yourself, President, have raised this issue in the Trialogue.
I hope that when it is reached on the agenda of the Trialogue, the Commission will take it very seriously and that we will manage to achieve some progress under the British presidency.
My third and final point is that we need a new understanding with the Member States and Council that there are very important social matters outstanding which can only and must be addressed at European level: for example the mobility of labour, another important aspect in this Green Paper.
We must end the logjam of the last two or three years in the social sphere and get things moving once again.
Otherwise I have a genuine fear that the internal market that all capitals see as being of crucial importance will be subject to increasing and massive disruption.
We must get the balance right.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, those who are following either from close by or from a distance the diversification of employment contracts, employment statutes, mobility of labour and flexibility of working hours, will observe that the existing employment system needs to be adjusted.
The employment regulations in force must be adapted because of fundamental changes in both the economic sphere, and in the social sphere.
Those who do not take this into account, will be overtaken by these changes.
Europe's responsibility in this entire area is not easily defined, however. Who takes part in the negotiations?
Who takes part in the partnership? Does it involve informal exchanges of ideas, or negotiations aimed at agreement?
What does organization of work mean? We are talking about health and safety at work and working hours in particular.
We are talking about salary conditions, employment conditions in general, insurance against industrial accidents and occupational illness, education, vocational training, labour market policy, target group policy; these are all elements which form part of this, and which are discussed in the Green Paper, but it is not always clear what Europe's role in this is.
We believe that Europe must be able to apply a certain legislative authority which can modulate the big inequalities which also exist today between the different Member States; and to try and achieve a certain harmony.
In that sense I would like to agree with the proposals made by the rapporteur and Mr Hughes just now for the next social action programme.
In all this, we must not overlook some basic principles, and in this respect we also agree with the rapporteur, that both the opportunities for economic growth and its promotion must be taken into account, but on the other hand that the opportunities for employees to retain their jobs, and also to preserve social security must be borne in mind.
It is this balance which we call the European social model, and we would like to preserve, improve and adapt this European social model where necessary in this new organization of work.
It should be clear that it should not involve something whereby the gain of one thing is at the expense of something else.
On behalf of my group I would therefore like to thank the rapporteur for his report, and for agreeing with most of our amendments.
I have just heard that the rapporteur also agrees with an amendment which we are submitting once again, in connection in particular with the effect of the organization of work on the family.
We believe there is no point in increasing growth, strengthening competitiveness, employment and employment security, if this is to bring about a deterioration in family life.
I would like to draw the attention of the rapporteur, Mr Andersson, once more to the role of SMEs and the negotiation on the level of the social partners, in which the specific representation of SMEs must also become possible.
In that sense we are also prepared to support the report tomorrow.
Mr President, I would like to join my colleagues in congratulating Mr Andersson on his report despite the misgiving that I have with regard to some parts of it.
The biggest changes that are taking place in the workplace and with regard to work are the changes in technology.
We need to consider how best we can adapt and retrain our employees to ensure that they can get the maximum benefit and the maximum advantage to gain new types of work.
To that extent there are some very welcome initiatives coming from the Andersson report and from the Commission's Green Paper.
However, there are also some anomalies within the report that we should be highlighting, for example, this proposal for a tax on capital.
If you are not going to invest capital in new machinery, in training, in new plant, in new equipment and so on, how do you expect to employ more people? If you are not going to bring in flexibility with regard to the types of work that people want to reconcile the family and working life then you will be denying people, particularly women, the opportunity to work.
Therefore, I would ask the Commission, when it gets this report back from the Parliament, to study very carefully the effect in every single country.
Mr President, colleagues, I would also like to thank Mr Andersson for his excellent report.
I think we have a report before us which is keeping pace with the times.
In relation to the globalization of the economy, the information society and demographic developments, we are facing enormous reforms of our system as regards working methods.
To permit these reforms, policy measures will have to be supportive, and in this context I would like to point to our social security systems, in particular pension schemes.
The way they are organized at the moment means that there is still a problem in many countries with regard to the portability of the value of a pension, or to put it another way, in many countries people interrupt their pensions.
In Germany, for example, there are long qualifying periods. This is very bad for reform in this sector.
In addition I would like to highlight training systems.
The rapporteur says quite rightly that we will have to learn and train throughout our lives.
He does say, however, with regard to the Christian-Democrat amendments, that we should not interfere in small and medium-sized enterprises.
Those looking at the figures relating to this point will notice that small and medium-sized firms have great difficulty in investing in the expenses associated with life-long learning, and I think it is extremely important to include small and medium-sized firms in the reforms of the organization of work; on that point, my group will therefore support the amendment of the Christian-Democratic Group.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to mention atypical work.
We will have to move towards a system in which people can choose the hours they work, whether to work part-time or not, whether to work as an employee or freelance, and our social security system should be adapted to suit this.
I hope that the Commission will take this into account when developing the proposals further.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Jan Andersson, the rapporteur, on his success in being able to include in the report the criticisms the Standing Committee on Employment and Social Welfare posed in respect of the Commission's Green Paper.
The conclusion the Commission's Green Paper draws, that the reorganization of work casts doubt on the whole basis of labour legislation and labour market relationships, is, in my opinion, pretty peculiar, to say the least.
Labour legislation, at least as far as we are concerned in Finland, does not impose restrictions on development and development policy, which the Green Paper refers to.
There are plenty of examples of this.
It is perfectly possible to come up with new and flexible solutions for work organization within the framework of present legislation.
Flexibility with security, as Mr Andersson said, is incredibly important.
It is extremely unwise to get into a situation where new developments come in at the expense of legislation and normal negotiation procedure.
The reorganization of work cannot come about by tampering with this legislation; the result would be mayhem.
In the ever-changing work scenario we need legislation to ensure the security of individuals.
Without security and guarantees, workers will find it hard to adapt to new developments in work.
That is why it is crucial that the principle of employee protection must be given far more weight than it is now in any further discussion or movement on the reorganization of work.
I, along with the Committee on Women's Rights, am deeply concerned about how the position of women will be affected in the changing work scenario.
There is a great risk that a two-tier system is being created: there are those who are in permanent employment, and those who do atypical work.
I fear that women are mainly of the latter type.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Andersson on what I think has become a good and important report in many different respects.
According to the Commission's Green Paper, new forms of organization of work are needed in order to be able to increase the competitiveness of the Union's companies.
This then requires us to have more flexible workers.
At the same time it is said that this flexibility of labour should be combined with security for workers.
I do not think we can emphasize this enough , and Mr Andersson has also tried to convey this in the report.
Productivity and flexibility should not therefore be overriding goals. Instead they must go hand in hand with social security, a guarantee of employees' rights and the aim of creating more jobs.
In that context I do think that Mr Andersson could have been a bit clearer with regard to the shortening of working hours, since it is only said that people should continue to examine whether shortening working hours might be a way.
I think we have already done that quite sufficiently.
The only thing remaining is the demand for a comprehensive shortening of working hours.
As far as our Amendment No 6 is concerned, the Green Paper also says that influence and participation are important matters for a new organization of work.
I therefore think it is important that we support employee-owned companies and make things easier for them.
Of course it is a political decision and a policy measure, but we are not going in and creating companies. Instead we are making things easier for companies and supporting them.
I think we should do that if we want a development with participation and transparency.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Andersson for his excellent report, which clearly establishes a link between innovation, training and the reorganization of work, with one major concern: employment.
We are currently experiencing a real technological revolution, particularly with the Internet, a revolution comparable in scale to the industrial revolution affecting Europe in the second half of the 19th century.
History demonstrates that there has never been a revolution on such a scale which has not been accompanied by a complete transformation in the organization of labour and lifestyle.
The interactive society which we will come to experience, operating 24 hours a day and wide open to the world, will completely destroy traditional working hours and habits.
I am convinced that these changes will generally be built on greater flexibility in the organization of work, and this will make it possible to reduce working hours on an annual basis.
Innovation, training and reorganization of work were the three pillars of the Luxembourg Summit on employment.
What remains is to put into practice the decisions taken, which still exist only in the virtual realm.
First, innovation financed by loans from the EIB.
Assistance to European small and medium-sized companies is of decisive importance, to enable them to establish a presence on Internet and access electronic trading. Then we move on to training.
This is part and parcel of the technological challenge. The Adapt and Leonardo programmes should be reinforced, along with objective 4 which goes in the same direction.
Finally, the reorganization of work, which is a responsibility of the Member States.
France is working on this and will succeed in meeting this challenge, provided that it does not enshrine the principle of the 35-hour working week in the outdated system of weekly working hours.
To conclude, Mr President, if we link up innovation, training and reorganization of work with the reduction in the costs associated with labour, then we will be certain to benefit from globalization, favouring investment in Europe and going on to win the employment battle.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to join in expressing my gratitude for the good report, which is important, but also very complex.
I would also like to thank the Commission because, in this report, it has once again grasped and accentuated the consensus view of this House, by attaching the same importance to flexibility and social security as to boosting competition and employment.
It is important for us because we want to defend and extend this European social model, which is built on solidarity and consensus.
I also find it interesting that the Commission has presented us here with a variety of models and proposals.
What I miss, though, is an action plan.
And I am not on my own in this, for this action plan has been requested by all speakers in this House.
There is, however, a huge gap between insight and the action needed.
I would like to stress a few points here.
Firstly - as has been stated - there is the question of further and continued education.
We want to assist the SMEs in assuring and improving quality because we know they are not always in the position to create the necessary conditions either technically or in terms of human resources.
I would also like to mention - which has partly been forgotten - that further education is needed for our management too.
My second point concerns equal opportunities for women.
The Commission's Green Paper overlooks one or two things here.
We have been used to better things from you in the past, and I would ask you to study the statement from the Committee on Women's Rights, which is attached to this report and which we all support.
My third point concerns the modernization of job organization.
This involves greater worker participation, more cooperation and codetermination and not less.
Finally it should be noted that the Green Paper has taken up many of the suggestions from the European Parliament in the last few years.
We are now ready and willing to turn them into reality together with the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, I am sorry but I cannot say that I agree with this document as it stands, or with the contents of the Green Paper.
Both documents start from shared and acceptable assumptions such as workers' safety, social protection, equal opportunities for women and the disabled, space for immigrants, worker profitsharing and introduction of new technologies, but then they go on to say that a reduction in hours may ensure greater competitiveness, better working conditions and a rise in employment without affecting production: everything, and the opposite of everything.
The report does not take account in the slightest of the cries of alarm from businessmen, for whom a 35-hour week would mean greater costs, lower productivity, a freeze on investments, a threat to the survival of weaker companies and, ultimately, the danger of job losses. Don't you think so?
We need only look at the experience of Germany where, after the introduction of the 35-hour week, they are now quickly taking a step backwards.
Mr President, on behalf of the European People's Party may I again welcome the Commission's Green Paper and congratulate Mr Andersson on his factual and well-balanced report.
The object is to improve the competitiveness of the European economy and, with it, the employment situation.
There are new aspects to be found in the present Green Paper and the report: with regard to the site discussion, for instance, it says that we should not just conduct a cost debate on this issue.
Europe cannot compete in the world in terms of wages, but ultimately only on productivity.
This presupposes an increase in motivation, and associated with that new forms of remuneration, changes to job organization, improvement in qualifications and life-long study.
I was very pleased that Mr Andersson refers in clause 19 to promoting worker profit-sharing.
I would like to go a step further and make a connection with greater mobility in pay policy.
Finally, I want to go into a much discussed issue.
Of course, management decides on the introduction of new forms of organization.
However, I agree with the report from the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment when it calls for worker participation in decision-making.
There are three reasons for this. Firstly, group work that goes against the will of the workers cannot function well.
Secondly, new technologies and organizational forms should not be introduced all at once, but only after the workers have been properly informed and consulted.
Thirdly, if workers' experiences from their present working environment are drawn on, then this will improve company productivity.
That is why, for me, the title of the Green Paper is also the programme: a new organization in the spirit of partnership.
Our companies need better forms of job organization, in the interest of increased employment too, and these need to be created in partnership.
In this sense we endorse Mr Andersson's report.
Mr President, I would also like to thank the rapporteur for his outstanding report.
There are some major questions on the European agenda in the coming years.
Expansion is the most important, but achieving full employment is one of the major ones.
We will do this in our own, European way, as the rapporteur writes, and this means amongst other things that viability, equality and equal opportunities are centre stage.
Viability means that we must shift taxation from labour to taxation on pollution and resources.
Without such a shift, we will merely be leaving an unholy legacy for our descendants to clear up.
Equality means amongst other things that there must be equality for men and women, including in the next generation, that is, our children.
And, here, men as managers and staff and fathers must exercise more understanding and commitment in practice than is the case today.
Not only for women's sake, but also for the sake of the children, who feel happy if their fathers are really there for them.
And finally, equal opportunities, and here I am thinking in particular of the disabled, to whom we must give real opportunities for getting involved in work.
If we can combine these three concepts, we will have the basis for creating our own path in Europe.
Mr President, the Commission Green Paper does not offer anything new.
As in the case of all Union policies, the policy concerning the organization of labour gives way to capital interests and demands.
There is great unease since the pace of labour market reform in Europe is lagging behind that of the United States and Japan, and this can be interpreted as a demand for the widespread acceptance in essence of part-time work and the quashing of workers' basic rights and achievements.
Unfortunately the report of Mr Andersson, apart from certain important ideas contained in it, is tending in the same general direction.
Mr President, workers are not worried about the pace of the reforms but about their direction.
They are demanding and fighting for a general reduction in working hours without a reduction in pay. The first essential step is the 35-hour, 7-hour a day, five-day working week, with pay, work and social security protection for those who are forced to work with part-time or atypical work contracts.
Only if the organization of labour moves in such a direction, will it be in tune with workers' demands and aspirations.
Mr President, this report is a really good piece of work.
Organizing the future labour market is a large task, but this report does a good job of covering not only the opportunities but also the risks involved in the new organization of work.
A more flexible labour market may benefit both employers and employees.
To employees, it means more varied and exciting work and slightly more fringe benefits.
To employers, it means more flexible staff who are willing to 'do that bit extra' for the business.
As Europeans, we get competitive businesses which can hold their own against the USA and Japan... there is not a dry eye!
And how!
We must make sure that the weakest employees, such as women, do not become the losers on the future labour market.
Because there is reason to fear that, while the strong and most flexible will manage to exploit the new challenges and opportunities, those in weaker positions, such as the poorly-educated, will find it even harder to keep up.
I think the rapporteur hits the nail on the head when he warns that there will be two classes in future: an underclass of untrained, vulnerable and mainly female workers, who will typically be homeworkers; and, on the other hand, a highly educated overclass enjoying all the benefits of the new technology.
Nor does the Commission's Green Paper focus on the effects of equal opportunities now that employees have to be more flexible when it comes to working hours.
Most households have set themselves up in such a way that women are flexible in relation to the family, by working part-time for example, while men are flexible in relation to their jobs by working overtime, etcetera.
This model must be used if women are also to have the chance to benefit from the new opportunities existing on the labour market.
Mr President, the labour market is changing rapidly today because of globalization and new technology.
Our efforts should therefore be directed away from collectivism and things done on a large scale in favour of individual agreements and easily adaptable organizations.
Mr Andersson's well-written report concludes that Europe is lagging behind competitors like the USA and Japan.
I believe that rigid sets of rules create hierarchies and centralism and that the rate of modernization lags behind.
I believe the change we see today must be taken heed of and accepted.
Our debates here must be based on the labour market of tomorrow.
In my opinion attempts at EU level or at national level to intervene in the organization of companies or in another way to limit their freedom of action will be counterproductive, that is, they will not help to create new jobs and increase employment.
Modernizing the organization of work in companies is a question of competitiveness and survival, and it obviously requires participation and willingness to change.
To support this I believe our conclusion should be that we need fewer, not more rules in Europe's labour markets.
I am afraid that the approach of the Green Paper and of the Andersson report do not facilitate modernization and enterprise.
Mr President, I would like to welcome the report.
I agree with you, Mr Andersson, on most things, but I would like to help widen the perspective a little.
When we talk about a new organization of work, we must not link it only to existing activities. We also have to think of new forms of work.
Traditional activities, such as the production of goods and today's public sector, are declining.
Naturally, we must concentrate more on services, on knowledge and information and on creating experiences, that is, on areas which are both socially and environmentally positive for people and for the world around us.
In that respect I am very pleased that Mr Andersson raised the question of tax changes, that we should reduce tax on work.
It is absurd to have, as we do in Europe, the highest taxation on the resource which we most wish to use.
Instead we could increase taxes on the environment.
However, I believe it would be beneficial, and on this point we may have different opinions, if we could reduce taxes a little more than we increase them.
Otherwise we will probably never compete with the USA and Japan.
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating Mr Andersson on an excellent report on the Green Paper on a new organization of work.
The principal aim of the Green Paper was to promote a debate on how we can improve employment and competitiveness through a better organization of work, and a high level of competence and quality, and at the same time guarantee social security.
The response to the Commission's Green Paper has been very positive.
The Commission also welcomes the support which this House is giving the Green Paper and we shall take account of the proposals and opinions which Parliament presents in its report.
The Commission is going to follow up the Green Paper over the next year.
Our intention is to create a European network in which Member States can exchange experiences in this area.
Only today there is a meeting of the employment and social ministers.
Last month a summit on employment was held in Luxembourg.
We expect the Council of Ministers today to approve formally the guidelines for employment policy which the Commission presented at the summit.
The guidelines we have presented are based on four main pillars: employability, enterprise, adaptability and equality between women and men.
These guidelines are also reflected in the Green Paper, not least with regard to adaptability.
At this point I would like to remind you that last month the European Council invited the parties in the labour market to negotiate agreements on modernizing the organization of work.
Such negotiations should take place at all suitable levels, i.e. local, regional and national levels, and also at company level and across industries.
This also applies, of course, to the question of working hours which was raised by the rapporteur.
I assume that we agree that the emphasis here should lie on the parties in the labour market, or, in other words, on partnership.
That is the recurring theme if you want to modernize working life.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation
The next item is the report (A4-0372/97) by Mrs Waddington, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation (COM(96)0567 - C4-0638/96).
Mr President, trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation is an increasing global trade which involves women from poorer countries being forced into sexual slavery in the EU and elsewhere.
Two examples were reported last month.
Firstly, the case of a hundred Brazilian women, aged between 18 and 25, who were persuaded to come to London to work as nannies, maids and dancers.
Once in the UK, they were forced to work as prostitutes, working six to seven days a week, twelve hours a day.
Their passports and all their earnings were confiscated by the traffickers.
Secondly, research published last month revealed that tens of thousands of women from Russia, Ukraine, Latvia and Belarus are being duped with lucrative offers to work as au pairs and waitresses in the European Union, only to find themselves trapped in prostitution.
The former Soviet bloc has become the main source of women and children trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
This report by the Committee on Women's Rights recommends a number of measures to protect women and combat trafficking.
It proposes information campaigns in the countries of origin which warn women of the dangers of falling into the hands of the mafia-type organizations responsible for trafficking.
It calls upon Member States to provide more protection and support for the victims, since victims and their families are at extreme risk of violence and intimidation.
It underlines the importance of taking effective sanctions against those organizations and individuals involved in trafficking.
It suggests that a range of Community programmes, including STOP and DAPHNE, could be developed and used more effectively to combat trafficking in women, support the victims and enable them to rebuild their lives.
It proposes that non-governmental organizations, which are close to the victims, should be given maximum access to Community programmes so that they can help the potential victims and survivors of sexual exploitation and enforced prostitution.
It urges that gender equality and the need to combat trafficking in the countries of origin are featured in the EU development programmes and EU negotiations on enlargement, since this trade is primarily fuelled by women's poverty and their lack of power and opportunity in these countries.
This Parliament should congratulate Commissioner Gradin on the work she has done in this field, persuading Member States to begin to work together to combat this trade in women.
By supporting this report, we will be providing further encouragement for action against the exploitation of vulnerable women whose human rights are being violated, and we will enable more measures to be taken to support the victims of sexual slavery in rebuilding their lives.
I hope that this report will be adopted unanimously by this Parliament, as it was in the Committee on Women's Rights, because then the work of Commissioner Gradin can gather momentum and force, and we will truly be able to say that this European Union is taking every possible step to avoid the victimization of women and violation of their human rights.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Susan Waddington and Maria Colombo Svevo most sincerely for their excellent report, but I would also like to thank Commissioner Gradin for her passionate dedication to the fight against trafficking in women.
Since the previous report, the United Nations and more especially the European Union have made a great deal of effort to tackle the problem of trafficking in women.
But despite all European agreements, the Member States have not managed to enter into the fight against trafficking in women effectively.
I believe there are two reasons for this.
First and foremost the enormous complexity of the problem, but secondly the fact that the wrong approach was used to tackle the problem.
Maria Colombo Svevo made a reference to the latter just now.
Countries would rather battle against trafficking in women, against illegal immigration, than against the most brutal violation of human rights.
Even though it is worthy of consideration, even though it is good that in some countries there are some forms of temporary protection against women, concern for victims is still very selective.
It only applies to women who have lodged a complaint, who have started legal proceedings which may develop into successful prosecutions against dealers.
We demand that all victims are protected, and that all victims are given a chance to start a new life.
Secondly, the complexity.
Trafficking in women for sexual exploitation concerns prostitution by force, and au pair, marriage and employment agencies.
It has links with drug dealing, and the black market circuit.
As long as countries do not tackle trafficking in women in similar ways, do not penalize it in similar ways, do not employ the similar penalties, prison sentences and impoundage of goods, as long as there is inefficient international policing and judicial cooperation, we will not be able to tackle trafficking in women effectively.
Finally, Madam President, I would like to say that you have done a lot of work concerning trafficking in women within the European Union.
The Parliament supports you very emphatically in this.
The problem is however, that the agreements with the Council of Ministers are not legally binding, not enforceable.
We hope that this statement which the Commission has given us, and Parliament's report, will lead us to a European Convention on human trafficking following the review in 1999; not until then can human trafficking be tackled truly efficiently.
Mr President, I would like to join colleagues in expressing my admiration to Commissioner Gradin and to Mrs Waddington for this excellent report.
I should also like to be a little bit nationalistic and say that I am extremely happy that it was during the Irish presidency that the importance of the issue that we are discussing today finally impacted on the political agenda under President Norah Owen, who was the President-in-Office at the time.
The fact that 500, 000 women are estimated to be being trafficked in the European Community is an appalling figure.
When Commissioner Gradin raised this issue and made it one of the priorities for her term of office, there was probably quite a lot of amusement and scepticism about the extent of the problem.
So it is a very good day for all of us that we are today debating Mrs Waddington's excellent and very comprehensive report.
The European fight against trafficking is a major crime issue but it is also a fundamental matter of women's rights.
To focus on trafficking only as crime means sidelining the support and services needed by the victims of trafficking.
Many of the asylum procedures in all our countries, particularly my own at the moment, seem to be taking a particularly long time.
We are in real danger of adding an extra layer of victimization for many of these women who are being brought into the trafficking net by being offered work opportunities in the EU as au pairs, domestic workers or as waitresses.
Many others are offered introductions with a view to marriage.
While some women may know they are to work as prostitutes, many do not.
They arrive in a new country often illegally, without papers and are then trapped.
Their earnings are taken by traffickers, they are unable to speak the language and they are oppressed by the fear and the secrecy that surrounds this issue.
Mr President, all measures to combat trafficking in women will be a waste of time and effort unless an intensive policy is pursued which will improve the position of women in their countries of origin.
This must be achieved by supporting more women's projects in European and national development policies; it must be achieved by strict implementation of the human rights clause in agreement with third countries; and it must be achieved by putting more emphasis on the equal opportunities policy in negotiations with candidate countries in central and eastern Europe.
Otherwise it is not worth a penny.
Women's rights are human rights.
The root of evil in the trafficking of women originates, after all, in the unequal balance in power and wealth between men and women.
Having said this, Mr President, the Group of the European Liberal Deomcrat and Reform Party thinks Mrs Waddington's report a good one.
To the Liberal Group, the emphasis is on the following issues: firstly, implementation of articles K.1 and K.3 through joint European action by police and judiciary, and by financial liberalization of the Stop and Daphne programmes, for both children and women.
Secondly, much more emphasis on the role of the non-governmental organizations in the information, prevention, protection and later reintegration of women in their countries.
And thirdly, in those third countries, support for the policy and judiciary for the training of personnel, and for the acquisition of equipment; the existing European programmes can easily be utilised for this.
Coordination and cooperation on a European level is necessary, when protecting victims, when prosecuting and punishing perpetrators, when informing and educating people through, for example, EU embassies in third countries, in strengthening the role of NGOs and through support of women's organizations in the countries involved.
Trafficking in women is degrading.
It is slavery, and it forms - this has been said before - an important part of organized crime.
The Dutch presidency organized an excellent conference on the prevention trafficking in women, and thoroughgoing agreements were made during this.
Please let us all, EU and Member States, show the political will to implement these measures efficiently and generously.
It will not be for lack of trying on the part of the European Parliament and Commissioner Gradin.
Mr President, in a typically Swedish way I am not usually very exuberant when it comes to saying thank you for a report.
In doing so now, and thanking both Mrs Waddington and Commissioner Gradin for their very solid piece of work, I am showing that it really comes from the whole of my heart.
Thank you very much.
I think it is quite right to do as Mrs Waddington has done and compare this trafficking in women with the slave trade of the past.
People were able to participate in the slave trade of the past as long as they did not think that the people being shipped from African countries to countries around the world had any humanity.
I therefore think that, although this is a solid document, there is something missing from the communication from the Commission and in the report by Mrs Waddington, namely, the "demand side' .
In September, when I raised the possibility of criminalizing the clients of prostitutes, large sections of this House roared with laughter.
But I still think that we must appeal to all the responsible men who do not buy minors and who do not buy people forced into prostitution, or even willing prostitutes.
We must have their support.
I think, as I have said, that we should inform men and have them on our side in this fight against the new slavery.
Mr President, we should not only congratulate Madam Gradin, although such congratulation is called for, but also indeed, the many others who have in the end made sure that trafficking in women is on the agenda of the European Union; and Commissioner Gradin's statement has certainly made an important contribution to this, including a number of chairmanships from the recent past.
It is in this way that the wish not only of this Parliament, but also of society, to opt for an international approach to trafficking in women, has been complied with.
It is obvious that this is not easy, because the Treaty which is in force at the moment offers very few leads, and this new Treaty, too, the Treaty of Amsterdam, is insufficiently equipped to ensure that an integrated European approach becomes possible.
This integrated approach is indeed necessary; not only cooperation between police and law services, but in particular the protection of victims is needed in order to be able to prosecute perpetrators.
The role of the NGO's, as has already been said here, is crucial in this, since they are much better able to win the trust of the women who have ended up in totally alien societies.
The DAPHNE and STOP programmes are in fact a response to the need for an integrated approach, and we should be pleased with this, although we cannot be pleased with the fact that the European Parliament has been so frugal in allocating funds for both programmes for the coming year.
But more should be done, and in the Member States it should be mentioned that as far as the protection of victims is concerned, more effective action should be taken, because a temporary residence permit is often not enough to win true trust.
We should latch onto this violation of human rights to treat the residential status of victims of trafficking more generously.
Mr President, I would like first to congratulate our rapporteur, and the Commissioner, for the quality of the work she has carried out on so delicate a subject.
The question required special attention, and substantial measures are required if this problem, which is nothing short of a plague, is to be put right.
I have nothing to add, either in form or substance.
I would rather emphasize the necessity of attacking the root of the evil, which affects the most disadvantaged women.
The root of the evil, as our rapporteur has reminded us, is the situation of disproportionate inequality between the economies of the rich and poor countries, and the inequality of economic resources devoted to men and women.
Poverty and unemployment are the reasons for the growth in this trafficking, which holds out to the women who are victimised by it the illusory hope of a better future.
This is the field where we need to concentrate our action a little more.
I would also like to mention the situation in the central and eastern european countries, where the whole of this problem has taken on considerable proportions.
Let us simply express the hope that the opening of the European Union to these countries will enhance our ability to control this problem, especially as women from the central and eastern european countries who are involved in this trafficking are young and educated, and therefore should have better chances of entering the employment market.
On the other hand, women from the developing countries are older, less well educated and have poorer prospects for the future.
The problem is most acute in the African and Latin American countries.
Women from these countries use subterfuge to obtain long-stay residence permits in the Union.
In conclusion, I would say that while I express no doubt as to the effectiveness of the measures proposed, I believe, quite simply, that we should step up our efforts at improving the economies of these poorer countries.
This is the only way to put an end to this unscrupulous exploitation of human wretchedness.
Mr President, we support Mrs Waddington's report on trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
However, there are shortfalls in the analysis of the phenomenon, and in its observable causes.
First, given the current extension of homosexuality, trade in women is no different from trade in men or in transsexuals - it is all done for the same reason, so to speak - and, worse still, it is no different from the even more horrible, more monstrous trade in children, as revealed by the unspeakable actions of Dutroux and his accomplices in Belgium.
Such trade shames our Europe, a Europe which, increasingly less Christian, is increasingly less respectful of human dignity.
However, we should not forget that the institutionalized practice of Islam, if not of the harem, at least of polygamy, and the possession of many concubines, as propounded by the prophet Mohammed in the Koran, continues to be a decisive factor in the real and ongoing practice of slavery in many African and Asian countries.
We cannot but observe also - at a time when the thought police are everywhere hunting down rather than refuting books, by the Marxist professor Garaudy, for example - that there are thousands of tonnes of literature sold in newspaper kiosks and in bookshops, magazines, books and newspapers which exult, advocate and describe all forms of sexual perversion and sadism, and incite people to them. How can this be denied, when we see that in France, for example, the number of child murders accompanied by the tortures of sexual sadism has increased twenty-fold since the 1970s, and where decadence and horrors have been allowed to flourish in unfettered freedom?
How could you in this House - where you believe the influence of certain historical theses to pose a threat to freedom - deny that the freedom permitted to sadistic pornography does not exert its own influence?
Is it not time to put things straight?
We need a spirit of freedom and challenge in the search for the truth, in the fields of science, history and philosophy. But on the other hand, for those who advocate more sadism, two centuries after the death of the Marquis de Sade, we need the prohibition and repression of their hideous industry.
But how on earth can we lay any legitimate claim to defend children, when so often we cut their lives short, so soon after their conception, by the crime of abortion?
Mr President, I too would like to heartily congratulate Mrs Waddington and Commissioner Gradin, who have had the courage to put their finger at the crux of one of the thorniest problems of our time, the trade in the souls and bodies of mainly women and children. This is a problem which, with the help of technology, is developing into a modern day scourge.
The five hundred thousand women trafficked in the European Union and the millions in Asia bear tragic witness to the fact that the pursuit of easy gains has been tolerated as of the highest merit, while the ideology of the market place and the law of supply and demand have transformed human beings into merchandise.
Here I would like to stress something which is not mentioned in the official reports. Trafficking in women and children for sexual exploitation could not take place if the demand for such services did not exist, if the respectable client consumers did not exist, if, finally, the patriarchal values and structures which apportion rights, resources and power unequally between the two sexes, did not unfortunately still determine our socio-economic system.
We must not forget this when we talk about the reasons for the phenomenon: poverty, marginalization, immigration and asylum problems etcetera, but chiefly we must not forget this when we look for the means to combat it effectively.
We need to take direct, proactive, deterrent and suppressive action.
We need political will and the economic aid provided by the funds that have already been made available for the financing of actions aimed at international cooperation, at supporting the services of Europol.
We need measures for the protection and social reintegration of the victims.
But above all we need to strengthen the policy of equal opportunities. We still need to remind Member States to implement the joint action which was approved on 24 February 1997 and to carry out the commitments that they made at the Hague Conference on 24 April 1997, with specific actions to involve both the competent authorities and women's organizations in effectively tackling the phenomenon.
Mr President, women are being lured to the EU by the promise of easy money.
They are being recruited for so-called "pleasure centres' that are anything but pleasure.
They are enticed into dubious employment and sham marriages.
Women from Asia, Africa, South America and the central and eastern european states.
Better and better organized gangs of pimps make women submissive by threatening or dispensing violence, exploiting them, forcing them into prostitution, holding them prisoner.
That is the everyday existence of more than 500, 000 women annually.
Mrs Gradin, the Commission is proposing a pan-European approach to the fight against the trade in women for the sole purpose of sexual exploitation, and we fully support this in the European Parliament.
However, it needs to be made more concrete and include the NRO.
In her committed and excellently researched report, Sue Waddington demanded that the issue be regarded from the victims' angle.
I go along with that.
First of all, we need an awareness-raising campaign to provide us with background information on, and thereby thwart, the aims of so-called recruitment agencies, the structure of their systems and their wheelings and dealings.
The victims need help in finding the courage to come forward and name the offenders.
They need a safe refuge and, at least, a limited right of abode in a women's hostel before returning home, having been properly prepared for asserting themselves there in the face of poverty and discrimination.
It might be cynical of me to say this, but it is true: trafficking in human beings is one of the growth markets in Europe.
Not limited by borders, it can be carried on without serious risk.
This international crime must be sapped of its strength by closing the localities known to traffic in people, confiscating the profits made from criminal acts, imposing maximum custodial sentences, and depriving the perpetrators of their civil rights.
The Member States must take united action and stop this slave trade through the terms of treaties concluded with non-member countries, on behalf of hundreds of thousands of suffering women.
Mr President, at the end of this debate, the Group of the Party of European Socialists is able to join in applauding Commissioner Gradin and Mrs Waddington.
We have heard how the victims of human trafficking are invariably women.
Non-government organizations estimate that some 500, 000 women annually are either lured or carried to the countries of the European Union with false contracts of employment, where they are forced into marriage or prostitution.
Most of them come from central and eastern Europe, especially Russia, Poland and the Baltic States.
Here, economic need is particularly great, and women have no other way of feeding their families and so become the puppets of dubious sponsors who promise them an income and prosperity in western Europe.
The figures supplied by the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation in Germany, the BKA, which last year registered 10, 000 female victims, are shocking.
The BKA ascertained that this represented an increase in one year of 43 %, and I am certain that the number of unreported cases is substantially higher.
With the report on the trafficking of persons, we in the Committee on Women's Rights have embarked on a course to take us out of the taboo zone.
Commissioner Gradin's statement on the trade in women and the Stop and Daphne programmes are a further important development.
In regard to the seriousness and urgency of the growth of this modern form of slavery, however, this is but a drop in the ocean, and the ministers for home affairs and justice need to act quickly at national level.
They need to develop effective strategies together with Europol, the Commission and the non-government organizations.
Specifically, on the basis of Mrs Waddington's report, we call for effective action in the area of victim support, collaboration on the part of the Member States and information.
I also consider it vital that we grant the victims a limited right of abode to give them at least a legal status until criminal proceedings against the perpetrators have been concluded.
Otherwise, lack of victim support will be the best protection of the criminal.
This resolution allows us to put a stop to the contemporary slave trade.
Mr Commissioner, let me begin by congratulating Mrs Waddington on a good and balanced report.
Thank you also for all the friendly words towards me.
The trafficking in young women which is taking place in Europe today is a shame for our continent.
It is a tragedy for all the young women who come to grief.
Unfortunately, it is very lucrative for organized crime.
As Mrs Waddington stresses, we need to take action in many different areas if we are to succeed in fighting the trafficking.
That is also why, in my draft plan of action, I stress both the need to focus on human rights and on care for the victims and the need to act in a multi-disciplined way.
Since the big conference in Vienna in the summer of 1996 and the plan of action which was adopted by the Commission in November last year, the question has really been put on the political agenda.
Last spring the Dutch Presidency held a large Conference of Ministers in the Hague.
The Conference adopted guidelines which were aimed directly at the Member States.
In that way it was a concrete follow-up of the Commission's plan of action.
The Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs have also acted swiftly and followed up both the plan of action on trafficking in women and the Stockholm Conference on the sexual exploitation of children.
Several of the measures are common to both areas.
Last autumn the Council of Ministers decided to change the mandate of the European Drug Unit so that the EDU now also deals with the problem of trafficking in people.
The Council of Ministers has also decided that trafficking in people shall be regarded as a crime and that the perpetrators will be punished.
However, that will not come into force until the Member States have changed their legislation in this direction.
As things appear today, it is very profitable to smuggle drugs, but it is also risky.
If you are caught, the sentence is often 10-12 years.
The smuggling of young women is also highly profitable, but the risks are small.
If you get caught the sentence is no more than one or two years.
My question to the House is this: is that sensible?
The Council of Ministers also made a decision on the Stop programme, which stands for Sexual Trafficking of Persons .
This is a multiannual programme providing training, information and an exchange of experience for police, judges, prosecutors, customs and immigration officers, as well as others who come into contact with the victims of trafficking.
Over the years we have had intensive activity under the Stop programme.
Courses have been started on supporting victims, on developing preventative measures, on statistics and studies.
The policewomen's network in Europe has drawn up a code of conduct for the police with regard to women who have been battered or raped.
The network of female judges recently arranged a conference in Rome, also with the support of the Stop programme.
Within the framework of the Stop programme, the Luxembourg Presidency arranged a Seminar of Experts in November.
That is the start of a joint project between the USA and the EU on the trafficking of women.
Next year we are going to carry out a joint project with preventative measures in Ukraine and Poland.
The USA is going to cooperate with the IOM, the International Organization for Migration , and we in the EU with the voluntary organization La Strada.
When we are ready the idea is that we should jointly evaluate methods and results.
It is interesting to note that interest is now growing outside the European Union.
The US President and his First Lady are deeply involved in the issue.
So is US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright who has instructed the American State Department to give the fight against trafficking the same priority as the drugs trade.
This autumn the first conference was also held in Russia, where representatives of authorities and voluntary organizations gathered in Moscow to discuss trafficking in young women.
Mr President, the Daphne programme started this year thanks to the initiative of the European Parliament.
It is aimed at voluntary organizations working with children, young people and women who have been victims of violence.
In the Commission's plan of action, I emphasize the contributions made by voluntary organizations for women who have been victims of violence of various kinds.
My experience tells me that women who are victims of violence prefer to turn to a women's organization in the first place rather than an authority.
It also appears that the DAPHNE initiative has been met by very great interest.
Many good applications have been received, but we have still not been able to give support to more than 40-50 projects.
ECU 3 million is good, but it does not go very far.
The great interest clearly shows that there is a need for contributions from voluntary organizations in this area.
Let me give some concrete examples of Daphne projects.
We have one which aims to increase awareness among the police about how to deal with women who have been raped.
We have another project which deals with victims of trafficking in Austria, mainly from Latin America and Eastern Europe.
The project involves organizations and authorities in Italy, Poland and the Dominican Republic among other places.
One aim of the project is to inform women about what rights and choices they have and to set up a network to support these women at the regional, European and international level.
A third project concerns the sexual exploitation of immigrant women.
Italy, Spain and Great Britain are cooperating on this.
All the Member States of the Union are involved in one or more projects.
We have succeeded in distributing funds so that around half of the project funding goes to women's projects and half to children.
We hope, of course, that we shall have the opportunity to continue the DAPHNE programme next year too.
Let me take this opportunity also to say a few words about other multiannual programmes we have which touch on this area.
We have the Sherlock programme which concerns training and exchanging experiences in the area of immigration, not least where the seizure of forged documents is concerned.
The Grotius programme concerns information and exchange in the judicial area, and the Oisin programme concerns increased cooperation in policing.
In her report Mrs Waddington asks about a follow-up report on the part of the Commission.
We have also heard demands for a convention.
I can inform the House that the Commission already plans a follow-up which I hope to be able to give an account of here in a year's time.
We must therefore do what we can to keep this issue on the agenda.
Through today's debate the European Parliament has made an important contribution for which I thank you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Gas emissions from internal combustion engines
The next item is the report (A4-0413/97) by Mr K. Collins, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to measures against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery (C4-0627/97-95/0209(COD))
Mr President, I must say that sometimes there are subjects we must discuss in this Chamber which are so riveting that Members come from miles around to take part in the debate.
As you can see, it is only very rarely that the Chamber is as crowded as it is at present.
I think the interpreters outnumber the Members at this present moment!
Even the public gallery is emptying.
They are all going away!
This is the conclusion of the conciliation on, not just non-road mobile machinery, but as you pointed out yourself, President, the elimination of gaseous pollutants from these vehicles.
This complements the auto-oil package which is currently going through its second reading and which takes a combined approach to engine design and fuel technology in order to cut emissions from cars and so on.
This is not about cars, this in fact is about non-road mobile machinery, and a lot of people really do not know what that is.
It is in fact tractors and combine harvesters and diggers and bulldozers and so on, and the point is that these contribute a very significant amount to this kind of pollution and without this directive these emissions would remain unregulated.
The existence of this directive will also enable European Union countries to take a lead in the manufacture and marketing of new engines which have been designed for this purpose in order to reduce gaseous emissions.
It will therefore give European industry a tremendous advantage on the world market - on the assumption, of course, that European industry grasps this opportunity.
But it is important and it is therefore welcome.
The directive was the subject of conciliation between ourselves and the Council.
The original Commission proposal was approved by this House without amendment.
That is not very common, and I have to say that it was not just because it was enormously technical.
It did genuinely meet with our approval.
But then it went to the Council, which made substantial changes in its common position.
It changed the type of procedure to be used by the Commission for implementing measures.
I will speak, President, if I may, to the gallery at this point, because in this House we spend a lot of time discussing something called comitology.
To anybody outside this Chamber, and I have to say to quite a good number of people inside this Chamber, it does not mean a great deal.
Comitology concerns the way in which technical decisions arising from directives are made, and we have a choice: either these decisions can be made publicly, so that members of the public can see what these decisions are and can understand them; or we can make these decisions behind closed doors so that you, the public, do not hear what is being said and so that you, the public, do not understand what decisions are being made and the whole thing is kept under wraps.
So we went to conciliation on this, and during conciliation we managed to change the Council common position in this regard; and I think that we have therefore advanced the democratic case that we wanted to advance.
We also secured a reference to the modus vivendi.
The modus vivendi is about bringing us and the Commission together so far as these decisions are concerned, and we do not think that the modus vivendi in its present form works very well.
We wanted to see it improved and I am very glad that the Commission has now made a statement which will be published in the Official Journal stating that it will keep the European Parliament fully informed about implementing measures arising from directives.
We also have an undertaking from the Commission that a new form of the modus vivendi will be proposed some time in the middle of 1998.
In other words the multitudes of people who have gathered here tonight to listen to this riveting debate on gaseous pollutants emitted by non-road mobile machinery can be satisfied.
Everyone in this House, everybody who is occupying these benches over there, can be very happy that we have concluded this, that it is good news for the environment, that it is good news for transparency, and that it is good news for democracy.
Mr President, let me begin by expressing the Commission's satisfaction over the result of the conciliation procedure where this very important question of legislation is concerned.
I would like to remind the House that this draft directive concerns a sector which has never before been regulated.
In the past, emissions from engines on mobile machinery intended for use outside the road network have been underestimated.
In fact their share of emissions from transport is substantially higher than was previously thought.
The use of less polluting engines in such machinery will therefore play an important role in reducing air pollution in our cities, and at a reasonable cost.
The European Parliament's first reading was done without a report, while the amendments in the second reading all concerned the question of comitology and the implementation of the modus vivendi which we have just talked about.
I am conscious that the question of comitology has raised a problem for Parliament.
The Commission has undertaken to present a proposal to revise the 1987 decision on comitology.
The Commission has also, at the direct request of Parliament, undertaken to do so at the beginning of June 1998.
This undertaking appears in a letter of 11 November 1997 from the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, to the President of the European Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado.
This means it has been possible to remove obstacles as far as the conciliation procedure is concerned on this question.
I can also inform you on behalf of the Commission that we are going to start informal contacts with the other institutions concerned at the beginning of next year in order to prepare the ground for a new proposal.
Let me finally convey the Commission's appreciation of the fact that Parliament and the Council of Ministers have reached a constructive agreement with regard to the draft directive.
As soon as this directive has come into force it will mean an important step forward for the improvement of the environment, both in terms of air quality and public health.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Consumer protection and price indication
The next item is the report (A4-0414/97) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive on consumer protection in the indication of the prices of products offered to consumers (C40643/97-95/0148(COD)).
Mr President, we often discuss how far Parliament succeeds in terms of the extension of codecision.
It would sometimes be more important to discuss what we do with co-decision when we have it.
I should like to salute the three Graces of this report: Mrs Fontaine, the Minister - Mrs Jacobs - and the rapporteur.
Their negotiations representing the three elements of the European Union have led to an exemplary performance of the co-decision role.
We now have a simple and clear way of moving from dual pricing to unit pricing.
We can prepare the way for the euro and when and how it is introduced in the various Member States.
We have met the anxieties both of those who felt that traditional measurements might be eliminated - and plainly they will not - in the various Member States and of those small shopkeepers who felt that they would be forced into a system for which they were not prepared.
At the moment we have a situation where they will have a five-year period in which to prepare themselves.
That is right and proper and I am very glad that we have reached this stage.
Mr President, a comparison between the joint draft and the original proposal yields at least three points of difference which are vital in order for the result of the compromise procedure to be called a quality product, and which prompt me to congratulate my colleague Mrs Oomen-Ruijten sincerely on her persistent efforts and on the result.
First, the sale price and the unit price have been better defined and it is clear that VAT and other taxes have been included in the prices.
Secondly, it provides an acceptable solution for the transitional period of the euro, which we will be right in the middle of when the directive becomes operational.
Even though we did not succeed in having the maximum of three prices which must be indicated statutorily accepted, nevertheless we did create space for Member States to limit the maximum number of prices which must be indicated statutorily themselves.
It is now up to the Member States on whose common sense we rely, to avoid extremely unproductive situations in which possibly 4 to 8 prices are displayed per product.
Thirdly, Mr President, there are all the small shopkeepers to whom we have to continue to give every assistance.
The Member States can issue an exemption to small businesses to whom implementation of the mandatory indication of unit price for other than loosely sold products will mean an excessive administrative burden.
I hope that the Member States will deal positively with this policy area; it is an implicit recognition, after all, of a small imperfection in the directive, but we hope that it will be dealt with positively in the expectation that we will get an adapted directive in six years' time, or who knows, that the problem will have solved itself literally automatically as a result of evolution in technological developments.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for her excellent work and assistance in this job of conciliation.
This is a matter of consumer information at its most fundamental.
For example, the consumer should be able to make a true comparison between prices in shops.
I believe that we have achieved a good result, in that under article 10 of this directive Member States can go in for even better labelling than is required by this directive.
With that in mind, no country will feel the need to back out when this regulation eventually comes into force.
It is quite proper that certain exceptions and allowances have also been made.
It would surely be pretty odd if these price-labelling regulations were to apply to auctions, for example.
I warmly approve the acceptance of the outcome of this conciliation.
Mr President, at the previous reading of the draft relating to the indication of the prices oproducts offered to consumers, the European Parliament adopted twenty-two amendments, and insisted on the need to provide for a longer period of adaptation in the introduction of these arrangements, for smaller retail outlets.
The Council accepted seven amendments, as part of the work of the Conciliation Committee.
At the relevant meeting, five other amendments were agreed.
Overall, the result is fairly satisfactory, as now, contrary to the initial proposal, separate display of unit price is no longer a requirement, if identical to the item's selling price.
In the case, for example, of quality wines sold by France, in a 0.75 l bottles, the fact that wine is typically sold in this unit size made it clear that the compulsory display of the price per litre was unnecessary.
This constraint would only have added to the cost, which would have been of no positive advantage to consumers.
It was also essential that small retail traders be released, for a transitional period, from the obligation to display product unit price in addition to the actual product selling price.
I would like to remind you of the exorbitant cost which will already be borne by retailers generally, and more particularly by smaller retailers, as a result of the compulsory double display of prices in national currency and the euro.
The considerable extra cost which will be caused by the move to the single currency will already force some traders to defer necessary business investments to meet this obligation.
For some traders, the cost of dual price display will be disproportionately high in relation to their profit margins and may threaten their continuing viability.
This is no way to encourage the development of new jobs.
We must therefore be scrupulously attentive to ensuring that there are no additional constraints to burden our shop-keepers.
The present directive will force traders to display the real selling price of the product, as well as the unit price, for all products except those sold loose.
It is fortunate that the transitional period has been extended to 24 months, and the Commission will have to present a report and make a proposal covering the special case of small traders.
In conclusion, Mr President, our group will vote in favour of the legislation arising from this directive, but wishes to draw attention to the difficult situation which small traders are likely to face as a result of the two-fold obligation under the present directive at the end of the transitional period, and the requirement to implement dual price display in the countries affected by the single currency.
It is only when it is of real extra service to consumers that such constraints are justifiable.
Mr President, the introduction of the single European currency into the European Union is now only a matter of twelve months away.
The practical ramifications and consequences of EMU for the consumer must be closely analysed and monitored.
The euro notes and coins will not physically be in consumers' pockets until the year 2002.
However, the Commissioner for Consumer Affairs, Mrs Bonino, together with national governments must put in place comprehensive information campaigns relating specifically to the pricing of products in the euro and the national currency of the host Member State in the run up to EMU.
In essence, dual pricing campaigns across Europe in all key supermarkets and shopping outlets must now begin.
Prices on products should be displayed in the euro denomination and also in the host national currency.
This should have the desired and immediate effect of appraising the consumer of the price of the product in the euro denomination so that, when it is up and running as a currency, consumers will be able to adapt to the new monetary regime with understanding and confidence.
Mr President, first I would like to express the Commission's appreciation of the fact that we have reached a compromise on the directive on consumer protection with regard to the indication of prices of goods.
I would like to congratulate Parliament and the Council for their efforts to find a compromise.
The directives on the indication of prices which were adopted in 1979, 1988 and 1995 have entailed advances with regard to price information for consumers.
However, the system did not ensure adequate price information and was also very complicated to apply.
It is therefore important that consumers get proper and transparent information through this proposal.
By showing comparative prices and the sales prices, consumers will be able to compare different products.
That makes it possible to make a well-founded decision on the basis of a simple price comparison.
The compromise which has been reached does not mean a definitive solution for small retailers.
For some of them the requirement to indicate comparative prices entails a great burden.
Here Member States have the opportunity during a transitional period to disregard the requirement to indicate comparative prices.
For its part the Commission shall, after the expiry of the implementation period, deliver a report on the application of this directive to the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
The report shall in particular propose provisions with respect to small retailers.
On the basis of the report, the European Parliament and the Council shall consider and reach a decision within three years.
During this time, until the implementation period has expired, this directive will in all certainty give European consumers the chance to get complete price information from most retailers.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Postal Services
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B4-0911/97 - O-0144/97, by Mr Ferber, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party on further development of postal services in the EU; -B4-0914/97 - O-0155/97, by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the reimbursement of terminal dues between postal services; -B4-1004/97 - O-0165/97, by Mrs Schmidbauer and Mr Simpson, on behalf of the Group of the Party of the European Socialists, on the future of postal services; -B4-1005/97 - O-0169/97, by Mr Donnay, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on postal services; -B4-1007/97 - O-0171/97, by Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance on postal services and terminal dues; -B4-1008/97 - O-0173/97, by Mrs Moreau, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left on the future of postal services in the European Union.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is not so long ago that we discussed here in Strasbourg a second reading of the directive on the development of postal services.
At the time I tabled two amendments on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, which dealt with the problem of terminal dues.
Sadly, the House - unwisely, I have to say - did not take up our proposals.
It must be our aim - and I am surely in agreement with the Commissioner here - to allow competition into the European Union, that is to say to let the rules of competition apply here too.
This is not possible, however, if a worldwide agreement, namely the Universal Postal Agreement, is employed to deal with the issue of terminal dues.
It is the basis of this agreement that incoming and outgoing mail cancel each other out and thereby create a national balance.
We do not have this situation within the European Union any longer.
The single market also means - and we have found this with other deregulations - that the costs of using the services must be recovered, be it with the single electricity market and transmission rights or in the area of telecommunications and the interconnector problem. Only where postal services are concerned are competition and the single market to carry on being ignored by a nonsensical provision.
That is why the Group of the European People's Party is asking the Commission to tell us whether it will be addressing this problem, for example, in the notice to apply the rules of competition to the postal services?
Will it also be addressing these concerns in the next postal directive, which will affect internet access, when we will be in the thick of the issue? Is it actually aware what it means to have to provide services that exceed each costing, while at the same time being locked in trade with competitors who do not have these liabilities?
Europe's postal services just cannot function in this way.
Mr Commissioner, if you do not succeed in solving this problem, you will not only put countless jobs at risk, but you will also compromise the postal provision we have agreed on in this House.
Mr President, despite the fact that in October, Parliament agreed a common position on postal services with the Council, the issue of post seems to refuse to go away and is yet again at the forefront of Parliament's deliberations.
If my first reading of the Commission's draft notice is anything to go by, then the issue of postal services may well dominate 1998 also.
Although today's debate is about a specific issue, namely terminal dues, I would like to take the opportunity to warn the Commission that article 8(3) of the notice goes against not only the views of this Parliament but the common position adopted through the directive, and should be dropped.
During discussions on the directive, the issue of terminal dues caused a great deal of concern.
Indeed it had been my wish, as Mr Ferber has said, to ensure as rapporteur that this problem was tackled within the directive.
However, disagreements emerged within the Council, and in order to get an agreed position on the directive as a whole, it was decided by Parliament to drop the amendments on this particular issue.
Of course this does not solve the problem being experienced by some Member States, particularly Germany, who are not recovering the cost of delivering mail from outside.
This, we would argue, is liable to jeopardize the proper functioning of the single market and brings into question the economic viability of some national postal authorities.
It also brings into question the stated objective of the Commission itself in its communication of June 1993 which states that postal operators should be paid according to the cost.
This terminal dues problem has to be faced.
In the absence of a multi-party agreement on the issue, then the responsibility of action has to fall on the Commission.
Therefore we are calling upon the Commission to introduce a proposal as soon as possible that would acknowledge that Member States may allow their universal service providers to determine terminal dues in accordance with their own cost.
I appreciate that this is a technical and difficult subject to address but a do-nothing solution would not be in the best interests of Europe's postal services.
With the implementation of the directive, now is the time to act on this issue.
Mr President, I am not Jacques Donnay, as you can see, but I think there has been some problem with transport, and if you will allow me, I shall speak in his place.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, at the time of the recent adoption of the directive on postal services, we agreed on the principle according to which terminal dues should be based on the real costs borne by the postal services at the distribution end.
However, the various postal operators in Europe are constantly confronted with the practice of reposting, which can be compared with poaching or piracy, or even daylight robbery, at the expense of those postal services which do not seek to circumvent international agreements and regulations.
We cannot ignore the fact that some countries process an abnormally high volume of mail for cross-border destinations, compared to their domestic mail. The proportion of international mail as compared to domestic mail is only 5 % for France, 6 % for Germany and 7 % in Italy, but rises to 12 % for Great Britain and 25 % for the Netherlands.
These figures clearly show that some postal services attract the national mail of other countries, and thus organize unacceptable and unlawful redirections of traffic, the cause of which is the depositing of mail outside national borders prior to its posting.
The only way to deal with the threat that reposting represents to the balanced arrangements of the very recent European directive on postal services is to lay down a requirement for the remuneration of the services provided, at their correct price. Hence as a matter of urgency terminal dues should be fixed on the basis of the costs borne by postal services at the distribution end.
In this case, reposting would be devoid of financial interest.
So I put my question to the Commission, Mr Commissioner.
Does the Commission believe that it is compatible with the rules on competition set out in the treaty that the postal service of a destination Member State should bill the postal service of the Member State which has sent the mail for the mail that it has despatched, at a price which covers the distribution costs, under the overall control of a national regulatory authority?
Mr President, the resolution that I have tabled jointly with my colleague Michel Dary, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, provides a corrective to the wrongful practices of some member countries of the European Union.
Indeed, some postal services, advantaged by particularly competitive tariffs, practice unfair competition by giving incentives to mail reposting, and so poach from the national mail services business which they handle as international mail services, since the mail is deposited or sorted with them outside national boundaries.
The main beneficiary mail service is the Netherlands, whose KPN postal services made profits of around 1 billion dollars in 1996, thanks to reposting acitivites.
This practice complies with neither the spirit nor the letter of the directive adopted on 1 December 1997, strict respect of whose common rules will allow the harmonious development of postal services and of the quality of those services.
For these reasons, our resolution invites the Commission to conduct an inquiry into these unfair practices and to sanction those pursuing them.
We ask the Commission to subordinate the provision of aid to third countries, under the Phare and Tacis programmes, for the purpose of reorganizing their postal services, to the adoption by these countries of a system of terminal dues which is in accordance with the provisions of the directive.
Finally, failing agreement between operators on terminal dues, it would be appropriate for Member States to authorise their universal postal companies forthwith to invoice their postal processing and distribution services for incoming cross-border mail on the basis of the real costs incurred.
Mr Donnay and I have put forward four amendments to the resolution of Mr Simpson on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socailists, the Group of the European People's Party and the Green Group in particular.
If these amendments are adopted by unanimous vote, we believe that we will be in a position of greater strength finally to solve this problem.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is an old German nursery rhyme which loosely translates as: ' I ride with the mail, I ride with the post.
I ride with the snail mail, there's no cost.'
As for the speed at which legislation for the postal services has proceeded, I am very much reminded of the 'snail mail' .
Things have really only progressed at a snail's pace.
All this would be acceptable if the directive had been drawn up on the principle of 'all good things are worth waiting for' .
Yet things have not turned out so well and considerable problems still remain.
On the one hand, the Council's decision is so weakly formulated that each Member State can read from it what they will.
Then there is the Commission's notice left ominously unresolved.
As far as I know, the notice planned makes the principles of the directive obsolete, and to that extent I consider it redundant.
The question of terminal dues for cross-border mail has not been resolved in the postal services directive.
So far it has always been claimed that the operators could be left to negotiate and solve the problem themselves without the need for legislation.
That is the way things stand, but nothing has been settled.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists is therefore calling for a legal ruling from the Commission.
It cannot be in the spirit of fair competition if letters can be sent from one country which on account of its good infrastructure and situation can offer cheap postal rates, while another country with a labour-intensive postal delivery service is encumbered with the greater expenditure - and you said yourself, Mr Bangemann, that only 80 % of the costs are covered - without appropriate compensation being made.
This tempts mail service users to send their letters into the country with cheap postage, while the actual country of origin is left with the costs.
Such remailing is an extremely unfair trade practice and it must be stopped.
It is not enough to invoke the Universal Postal Agreement.
There is a section on this in article 13 of the postal services directive, but here the Member States are only advised to ensure that in their agreements on the terminal dues involved in cross-border intra-Community post the following principles are observed.
Then the principles are described.
The single market cannot run purely on advice tendered in regard to a possible agreement.
Even if Reims II is to happen, this still is not enough.
We need clarity and legal certainty for all concerned, and it is the duty of the Commission to provide an efficient single market.
That is why we are looking for a directive proposal and do not want to have to wait so long for it.
What the Commission must not do when preparing the directive, however, is gear its speed to that of the snail mail.
Mr President, the problems surrounding terminal dues for international postal services and our recent decision about the EU Member States' postal services and the Universal Postal Union as an institution are based on a view of postal distribution as a state monopoly, a view which is on the way to becoming increasingly out-of-date.
Private distributors, electronic mail and faxes are increasingly replacing the old, overworked post offices.
Like Mr Ferber I would like to please Commissioner Bangemann and praise his insight into the problems and underline the need for a continued fight for a more deregulated and competitively neutral postal market.
My fellow Group member Mr Ferber has asked a particularly important and interesting question about terminal dues, so I will not repeat that angle.
The complementary question which I would like to ask concerns the situation of private postal companies in connection with forthcoming European legislation, something which I think we have debated far too little in the European Parliament.
Against this background let me ask Commissioner Bangemann the following: do you think that the current system of terminal dues in any way distorts competition for private companies which want to conduct international postal services? In your opinion, what is the situation of the private postal companies and their ability to operate in the European market following our, that is, the EU's, recent decision?
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, reposting is surely an aspect of the practice of dumping.
It is accepted wisdom that you do not get rid of dumping by having the parties concerned sit round the table to conclude a gentlemen's agreement, because this does not work.
What you need is a regulation to eradicate dumping.
To achieve fair competition you need binding rules, and these rules need to go further in the single market than the situation we have with the old type of international postal agreement, so to speak.
Hence there is the need for a directive.
There is the need for control, Mr Bangemann, and it comforts me to hear you say that your notice is only intended to make the directive tangible and capable of being implemented. Yet why is the directive not taken as the basis for clarifying how the rules of competition should be interpreted in this area?
This is not clear to me in your reply.
Mr President, recently Council and Parliament took the unwise decision to postpone the liberalization of cross-border postal services until the year 2003 at least.
Now that the postal services have been relieved of the requirement to be market-oriented and to work efficiently, legislation should direct itself at protecting the consumer against abuse of power by the postal services.
Most postal services in the Union take a different view on that.
Under pressure from, in particular, the German and the French postal services, the original directive for cross-border post, the so-called Reims I agreement, was laid on the table, and a new agreement, Reims II, was negotiated.
Contrary to the first Reims agreement, tariffs for cross-border post will rise without there being a commensurate improvement in the provision of services.
Moreover, as the tariffs which are charged are based on the national tariffs, Reims II operates to the advantage of the postal services with the highest national tariffs.
This makes the agreement unacceptable to me.
My sympathy is not with the five postal services which do not wish to sign Reims II.
Nonetheless, in this House too, there is more sympathy for the position of the monopolistic postal services than for the consumer.
Thus the draft resolution of the PPE Group, the PSE Group, the Liberal Group and the Green Group proposes that, now that Reims II has not been signed by all participants, the postal services will be allowed to set the tariffs in line with their costs.
In the text I do not find any minimum requirements for the provision of service.
The fact that some postal services do not even know their own costs, let alone how to set the proper tariffs, is also overlooked.
I would like to ask the Commission not to accept Reims II.
Until the liberalization of cross-border post, tariffs should be set according to the first Reims agreement, since in this the increase in tariffs is related to an improvement of service provision.
In addition, firms in other Member States, including postal services, should be given the same treatment as tenderers of large consignments of post within one Member State.
Excuse me, Mr Commissioner, for being unable to address you in your own language.
I am unable to do so.
You will not be surprised that I do not share your militant views in favour of the constant reduction of costs, which in my view has dramatic consequences for employment and lifestyle, and does not really benefit consumers.
I would simply ask you, Mr Commissioner, kindly to bear in mind that, even if one does not share your opinion, one is nevertheless able to think.
I have received three motions for resolutions on this issue pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure .
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Water, energy, transport and telecommunications markets
The next item is the report (A4-0398/97) by Mr Langen, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 93/38/EEC coordinating the procurement procedures of entities operating in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors (C4-0619/97-95/0080(COD)).
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are not many of you left. All good things are worth waiting for, however.
We have been deliberating for two-and-a-half years now about adapting the European directives on public procurement to the last WTO agreement, and we have now reached a concerted agreement at the end of the conciliation process.
I would like to thank everyone involved, especially my colleague Mr Tappin, who assisted and advised in this process in a most constructive manner.
Hence, this evening I would like to mention only the esssentials.
We could have had everything a lot quicker, Mr Commissioner, if the Commission, or part of the Commission, had been somewhat more flexible, for Parliament was of the opinion from the start that adapting the directives to the world trade agreement should only proceed as far as is absolutely necessary.
We want a key-stage review as to why the first draft - which is probably quite unique in the history of Parliament - was rejected in full with only one vote against, since the Commission wanted to regulate things which are not contained in the world trade agreement.
This was the reason for the delay, for the long consultation period, and in the end the Commission had to submit a new proposal.
This might not have been completely new, but was revised with respect to the crucial elements, just as Parliament had suggested.
So, by and large, we can chalk up a success today.
We agreed on a course, and there is common agreement on the most important aspects, which remained controversial until the end.
I mention here in particular the provisions for the technical dialogue, an issue which has preoccupied us right from the start.
The Commission has ultimately admitted - and the Council in the conciliation process likewise - that we should agree on a sensible arrangement regarding the technical dialogue, that the technical dialogue, that is to say the consultation prior to awarding the contract, will always remain a possibility, if competition is not expressly ruled out.
This solution makes technologically sophisticated and forward-looking general tenders possible, which perhaps only individual firms, say in the transport or energy sector, could provide, and so we can be satisfied about things by and large.
The Commission has taken this demand into account in the final analysis.
Ultimately we only had one argument between Parliament, Commission and Council, and that was the question of how far the demands of the so-called sector directive for both private and public contractors apply.
Now the issue has been the subject of lengthy controversial debates at all levels of European decision-making, and in the end Parliament has given its approval with the result that we will be able to reach an agreement in conciliation on two additional statements, which Commissioner Bangemann will no doubt explain to us in a moment.
Of the five recommendations made by Parliament, two have been accepted: one, the amendment affecting small and medium-sized enterprises, a project of Mr Tappin's, with regard to training and information material, and the other, the amendment providing the technological dialogue if competition is not ruled out.
In the case of Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5, seeking to make a distinction between public and private awarding entities, a compromise wording was agreed for article 1 of this proposed directive and for two statements published in the Official Journal.
The latter state that the obligation to communicate the advantages of the tender selected as well as the name of the successful tenderer must not harm firms' commercial interests.
The confidentiality of technical information should be guaranteed, in other words.
The second point is the question of how far statistical requirements can be reduced to a minimum.
The Commission has approved this, too.
In conclusion I would like to thank all those who have given their constructive and critical attention to the consultation process, and I think we can now safely say - I assume my colleague Mr Tappin will concur with this - that the conciliation team has found a sensible compromise with its proposal - even if it has taken some time to produce - which has been helped along by both sides.
We can live very well with that and it fully satisfies our requirements under the world trade agreement government purchases annex.
It will allow a new market with a volume of ECU 350 billion to be used by ourselves and others.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate my colleague, Mr Langen, for having led the conciliation team to such a successful conclusion.
I have always thought that public procurement is a bit of a bodice-ripper, and I can see by the attendance here that other people think very much the same.
The whole of the debate on public procurement has been fundamentally changed by the progress we have made since the Commission first put its proposals before Parliament.
At that time, the gap between Parliament's position and that of the Council was fundamental.
I am proud that the agreements obtained by the Conciliation Committee reflect the principles that Parliament put forward in the first reading and I welcome the willingness of the Commission to listen.
Our desire was primarily to establish good public procurement policy for the benefit of the people we represent.
Although, as with all compromise, the final result may not be exactly what we, as individuals, or we, as a committee, may have wished for, it is fair to say no one will regret the result.
In this report we have addressed the issues at the very heart of procurement policy: firstly, the distinction between public and private sectors; secondly, questions of technical dialogue, to which Mr Langen has referred; thirdly, the provision of information; and, finally and fourthly, the matter of confidentiality.
These issues will be coming up before us again in the near future.
Firstly, when the Utilities Directive 93/38 comes up for review next year but also when we receive the Commission's response to the Green Paper when that comes before Parliament early in 1998.
I hope that we in Parliament will continue to work together as effectively as we have done in the case of the Langen report and that we will be successful in getting as good a conclusion.
I hope too that the Commission and the Council will continue to take Parliament's feelings on procurement very seriously, especially when we are not there to make the case ourselves.
In this case I refer especially to negotiations at the GPA and WTO levels.
One of the dominant themes underlying this report has been the question of reciprocity, of getting and keeping the playing field level.
Even though the Langen report dealt with procurement inside the European Union, it became quite obvious, even to those who were less inclined to listen, that the global environment is as important to business in the EU as the internal regulation.
You cannot separate the effect one has on the competitiveness of the other.
This is not the time to pursue this argument but I am sure I speak for many of my colleagues when I say that we look forward to the next round of debates, most importantly to establishing transparency and accountability - two key words from Parliament when it comes to procurement.
If we can do that, we shall have gone a long way towards a system of procurement regulations which is in line with the wishes expressed at every stage of this report and will enable the user to exercise the skills of business without being hampered by the overburdening of bureaucracy and restrictive legislation.
This has been our objective.
If we achieve all that we would be even more proud.
In the meantime, my thanks and congratulations, in particular to Mr Langen, and to other colleagues who have been so active in this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in June 1996 this Parliament, by a very large majority rejected the draft directive liberalizing the code of public sector contracts, proposed by the Commission, in the water, energy, transport and telecommunications sectors, as this code was deemed to be too liberal and to open up the doors of Europe to American industry without receiving anything in return.
To all appearances, this draft was overbeneficial to companies on the other side of the Atlantic, and had it been adopted unamended, I remind this house that it would have been directly and immediately applicable, and outside parliamentary control in most of our Member States, as it fell into the regulatory field.
At the time, this draft was pushing the boat out just a little too far, and in particular, sought to demolish the existing public licensing arrangements in many local authorities, in many countries of the Union.
We remind you that this draft directive laid down that an industrial group or one of its subsidiaries asked to carry out studies for a facility would not subsequently be able to bid for its construction.
At the opportune moment, Mr Langen, and here we wish to congratulate him, took the draft directive apart point-bypoint, as it delivered up the European market to foreign companies, without any reciprocal arrangements.
Since then, much water has passed under the bridge, and we are now in a position to give an opinion on the report of the delegation to the Conciliation Committee.
(The President asked the speaker to wind up) I have one more minute, Mr President. I thought I had two minutes.
I do not?
I will conclude then.
The amended wording of the two statements to be published in the Official Journal, has allayed our fears, Mr President, and our group will fully support Mr Langen's excellent report.
I am extremely disappointed that you did not let me have another minute, because we had recovered two minutes from Mr Porto, who will not be here tomorrow, and I thought you might have used this opportunity to show a little consideration.
Mr President, I think I can make this brief.
You have all heard how Mr Langen has been rightly praised.
Sometimes he is wrongly praised, but in this instance it is absolutely true that he has helped to produce a very sensible compromise.
If the Commission has ultimately done the same, this clearly shows that we are willing to achieve a result in a procedure of this kind.
If things sometimes look different from the start, then that is because many other services within the Commission are trying to achieve an ideal position for the Commission for all sorts of reasons.
That this is sometimes unworkable is something else we know.
May I thank you again, Mr Langen, and wish Parliament equal success in future with conciliation!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.15 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I rise concerning comments made by my colleague Mr Hallam yesterday.
I think he missed the point and the question he meant to ask was: In the light of recent reports in the press, can Parliament write to the Commission and ask if there is any truth in the fact that American companies are lobbying it heavily to relax legislation with regard to genetically modified organisms and genetically engineered food? Could we find out from the Commission if this is the case?
Mr Thomas, we are on approval of the Minutes.
We are not going to return to yesterday's debate.
Let things be perfectly clear.
If anything said has not been correctly reported in the Minutes that will of course be changed.
I did not see my name in yesterday's Minutes from yesterday, but I was here.
I would therefore like it added to the Minutes that I was present here yesterday, but that I was not included in yesterday's Minutes.
Very well, Mr Lindqvist, we shall do just that.
(The Minutes were approved) .
Madam President, it is slowly becoming embarrassing and particularly irksome for me to have to remind this House every four weeks that I have been waiting for more than a year now for a reply from the Chair as to how it could be possible for the Council presidency to say in Zimbabwe that it had no idea about any resolution adopted by Parliament in the topical and urgent debate.
I have been making constant enquiries since September as to how such a thing can happen.
What happens to our resolutions, and how could the Council presidency say it had no idea although the resolution was known?
And now I would like to request again that I finally be given a reply so that I do not have to repeat my entreaty, like a prayer wheel, at the start of every sitting!
We take note of your statement and your wishes.
Are there any other comments?
I do not understand.
Why is Mr Hänsch the problem? Mr Barón Crespo, Lord Plumb and Mr Dankert are also former Presidents of this Parliament, are they not?
If these measures have not been properly applied, you may indeed place the matter before the Bureau.
I really do not understand.
There are measures and arrangements which have been adopted and affect all past Presidents.
I shall give the floor to Mr Hänsch, as this is a matter of personal concern.
I think that is the least I can do.
Madam President, thank you first of all for what you have said by way of an explanation.
Secondly, I would like to state for the benefit of the ladies and gentlemen who have put these questions with the House's approval that there is a host of subsequent duties incumbent on a former President, a great number of requests and appeals, which have to do with how the presidency has been publicly received in the past.
For occasions such as these I had an official car placed at my disposal.
Every one of you who has ever seen me here in Strasbourg and in Brussels knows that I do not have an official car available, rather I queue along with those waiting for a normal car in the evening, as any other honourable Member would do.
That as an MEP I have a car at my disposal is not true, and anyone maintaining that is lying!
(Applause)
Mrs Pack, I did understand that you were talking about Mr Hänsch, but I am not even aware if the request originated from Mr Hänsch himself.
The Bureau considered a proposal from the Secretary General, without us knowing whether...
Ladies and gentlemen, please.
The Bureau of 5 November 1997 adopted the following points.
Offices equivalent to those of the chairmen of committees or delegations, secretarial assistance for two and a half years, availability of an official vehicle with driver for the first three months, followed by priority access to drivers to allow past Presidents on termination of office to honour their commitments outside their normal place of work for the following nine months.
These were the limitations set on the Bureau's decision.
I think it is important to be specific about this, as I am tempted into believing that many colleagues, and this is quite normal, had no exact knowledge of these matters.
I would draw your attention to the fact that this proposal was not identified as originating from any particular person.
It was proposed by the Secretary General of the European Parliament as applicable to all past presidents, and the President of the European Parliament was considerate enough to say he would prefer Mrs Fontaine to take the chair for that part of the Bureau meeting, as it would affect him as well, once he was no longer President This request was not put forward by any particular person.
It was put forward in its own right, and it was adopted subject to those restrictions.
We did not get into a debate on the subject, but in my view, my colleagues should be fully informed of the context in which this decision was taken.
Madam President, the decision taken by the Bureau will apply in the future.
This means that, in future, every President of this House will be able to make use of this facility for a period of three months after the end of his mandate.
That seems reasonable to me; it also seems to me in the interest of this entire House.
And may I add, Madam President, that it is my firm belief that Mr Hänsch was one of the best Presidents this Parliament ever had, and that I am proud that, three months after his mandate has come to end, he will still be able to function in such a way.
Thank you, Mr Samland, I think that you have very appropriately conveyed the feelings of the Bureau when it took this decision.
Madam President, I have another point of order.
I submitted two questions about the building work in Brussels and Strasbourg, one to the Commission and one to the Council of Ministers.
I have asked questions before, but I have never got a letter back saying that questions cannot be asked.
However, now I have received such a letter in which my questions are answered by saying that they are not permitted under Rule 41.1.
I now have a question for you as President.
Since my questions were sent to the President of the Parliament, I would like to know who it is who decides whether questions may be asked in Parliament or not.
Is it yourself, some presiding committee or Parliament's members who decide? I do not see my questions here on the question form, neither the question to the Commission, nor the one to the Council.
I consider questions about the building work in Brussels and Strasbourg to be questions which greatly concern us and our voters who ask questions.
It must be possible to ask this kind of question.
I demand an answer as to who decides whether my questions may be asked or not.
The reply is very clear. The President of the European Parliament has the power to decide on the admissibility of questions.
In reality, your questions are directed to the Council and to the Commission, and they should have been raised pursuant to Rule 28, but it is perfectly possible for you to restate those questions under the appropriate Rule, and at that point, quite clearly, you will receive a reply.
Madam President, I too asked the President about the cost of the computer system in Brussels.
I trust that I will not receive a reply to the effect that I cannot receive a reply on the basis of Rule 41.1 which Mr Lindqvist has referred to.
When Members put a question to the President, they are entitled to an answer and Rules should not be used to obviate that answer.
We must have an answer as to why we have a computer system in Brussels which cannot take CD-roms and on which the main contractor has a three-year warranty, which prevents us using the computers for user-friendly purposes.
Answers to these questions must be given.
Our constituents demand it.
Mr Falconer, it appears that your question has been restated in accordance with Rule 28, and you will be receiving a reply.
Madam President, I will not go back to the matter I raised here.
If the Quaestors give evidence in this House we shall know what really happened. We shall know the truth.
I would just like to mention that I submitted an urgent written question to the Commission on 20 October.
That question raised the matter of the disastrous agricultural policy to which the structural funds were applied in my country.
I know it has still not arrived, and the Secretary General of this Parliament told me it should have been here by 19 November.
I have always spoken against the conspiracy of silence between the Commission and member countries.
They cover up for each other.
That is why I have not had a reply.
I am entitled to that reply and so are the people of Portugal.
The number of the question is 3479/97 and it was submitted on 20 October.
I know Commissioner Deus Pinheiro - that is, the voice of the authorities - has tried to prevent the reply from being sent out.
If that is an acceptable procedure in a democracy, Madam President, then I would rather live in a totalitarian state.
I have already lived under a dictatorship, and it certainly did not use procedures like the ones that are often used here.
Mr Rosado Fernandes, I did not hear the end of your speech.
I shall confine myself to the first part, and say that we will check and ensure that you receive a reply to the question you have raised.
Madam President, it seems to me that Mr Rosado's final statement was an insult to democracies.
I have had the misfortune to live under a dictatorship, and the procedures used in a dictator state are very different from those which this Parliament has adopted.
I would ask Mr Rosado Fernandes to rephrase his statement, in order to show support for democratic institutions and this Parliament.
Mr Medina Ortega, that was the reason I preferred not to have heard.
Draft budget for 1998
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A4-0390/97) by Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Communities for the financial year 1998, as modified by the Council (Sections I to VI) (C4-0600/97) and on amending letter 1/98 to the 1998 preliminary draft budget, Section III - Commission (C4-0645/97)-(A4-0409/97) by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft ECSC operating budget for 1998 (SEC(97)0933 - C4-0270/97)
Madam President, my task is relatively simple by comparison with that of Mr Tillich, because this year, for the first time, all the amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading, with a minor exception, have been adopted by the Council.
That is unique and it shows that we have been showing the same level of financial prudence as that which the Council has sought to apply to other areas of the budget.
I mention that because it is an object lesson.
The recognition of our financial prudence is something that could be learned by some of our colleagues who have been complaining volubly about waste and yet do not participate in any of our discussions about controlling it.
In terms of the other institutions, including our own, there have been no amendments by the Council to our budget.
The twenty per cent ceiling of category 5 appropriations has been respected, as we always said it would be, despite the cost of the new buildings, which everybody in this House knows were not necessarily our choice but were forced upon us by decisions taken by the Heads of State and of Government meeting in Edinburgh and, subsequently, Amsterdam.
We have done all that and, at the same time, in category 5, maintained a margin of ECU 187 million.
That is a very satisfactory outcome.
There is, however, a relatively minor problem concerning the revenue amendments referred to in paragraphs 24 and 25 of our report.
I said to the Council during the conciliation that I really did not think any of the members of the Council would understand the detail of what we were doing, and that proved to be the case.
What we were doing was quite simply entering into the budget remarks in accordance with article 20.2 of the Financial Regulation.
These are remarks on the revenue side of the budget, designed for the maximum clarity and transparency.
They are already incorporated by the Court of Auditors in the remarks on its budget, and we sought to get an interinstitutional standard of equal regard for article 20.2.
For some theological reason which I, and I suspect the majority of members of the Council, do not fully understand, there was a reluctance to accept our amendments.
We have nevertheless reincorporated them.
We hope that the Council will see the wisdom of this, accept it and will even go further than that by deciding that during the forthcoming year, instead of leaving a lot of our discussions to the very last minute, it will enter into a sensible dialogue with Parliament on the revenue side of the budget.
This year we have had major constraint of expenditure - sometimes damaging constraint of expenditure - without any sensible dialogue about the wastes that occur by not getting the full rights of own resources and other revenues entered into the budget.
Each extra ECU coming into the budget is worth as much as an ECU saved on the expenditure side.
Yet when we look at the wastes on the own-resources side, from the collection of traditional own resources, the fraud in preferential trade agreements, the failure to ensure proper collection of excise duty and VAT, and the whole question of transit fraud on which this Parliament had a committee of inquiry, we can see massive losses of potential income to the European budget which could be had without increasing the own-resources rates.
So we hope that the Council will start a process of sensible dialogue with us on revenue and that, instead of having this conciliation at the last minute, we can perhaps in the earlier part of next year have a sensible dialogue with the British presidency together with the Luxembourg presidency and the Austrians, so that we can take all these questions fully into consideration.
The other paragraph in the report I would just like to draw to Parliament's attention is paragraph 26.
Some Members of this House were concerned that following the decision of the Court of Justice we had not got the appropriations for the twelfth part-session on the line; they were fully in reserve.
Paragraph 26 clearly invites the administration to bring forward the appropriate transfer for the twelfth part-session in Strasbourg, and it points out that there are suitable and easy methods of financing that.
With those few words, I, like Mr Tillich, thank all the staff, the administration of Parliament, the Committee on Budgets and also the Commission and the Council for their cooperation on the budget.
I hope that this cooperation continues with their acceptance of our minor revenue-side amendments and then a sensible discussion on the revenue side later next year.
Madam President, with the ECSC budget we are dealing with a traditional report which is now of no great interest and regarded as something of a hangover from a far-off and long distant past, and which in the last few weeks has caused an astonishing rumpus, because of the position of the Committee on Budgets.
Before I deal with that, I would like, as an exception, to refer to a text which dates back a bit but which I think has something to recommend it.
It goes something like this. A common interest creates solidarity.
It makes new solutions possible, which were not possible in national forms.
The financial expression of this solidarity is the levy on all the coal and steel production of our six countries, made under the treaty and handed over to the High Authority.
This levy protects the labour force against the risks to which it was previously exposed and which stood in the way of the necessary progress.
This levy makes it possible to finance a conversion fund, so that workers who change jobs receive compensation which will contribute in large measure to removing their anxiety about the future.
The same person also said that the enlarged market, where the producer may be subject to competition from a wider range of companies, and in where the consumer knows he can rely on a greater number of suppliers, changes the attitudes of people through changes in the economic situation.
These few sentences were spoken here, in Strasbourg itself, on 20 May 1954.
You will not be surprised when I tell you they were spoken by Jean Monnet, at a time when the construction of Europe was a thing of the future, and had not yet been buried under the deadweight of technostructure.
The Commission's report on the 1998 ECSC budget proposes burying this levy, unnoticed and unmourned, five years before the 2002 deadline, the pretext being that the ECSC has not made any loans since 23 July last.
A fine thing! That decision is inappropriate.
It does not respect the spirit of the founding fathers, as the levy had not been intended to be made in consideration of anything whatsoever, but to be a system of financial compensation to promote employment.
That is why we are asking for the levy to be kept, and for the relevant funds be devoted to employment in the coal and steel sectors, to research and innovation, for the benefit for young entrepreneurs and dynamic researchers, who do not believe their sector is in terminal decline.
These funds should be handled by the EIB, which should allocate preferential interest rate loans to small and medium-sized companies creating new jobs.
In 1998, the sector is set to lose 28, 000 jobs.
When Members of the European Parliament are confronted in their own countries with the tragedy of families hard-hit by unemployment, they cannot be expected to cheerfully accept the disappearance, not only of 28, 000 jobs, but also of a source of finance which would make it possible to create at least a few alternative jobs.
It is possible, Mr Liikanen, that DG XIX has become an island managing prosperity which is now rare indeed in Europe, the ECSC treasury, which I remind you, amounts to ECU 1.2 billion.
The report on the use of these funds will provide an opportunity for interesting discussion, which will doubtless be an extension of your report for 1998, and we hope you will today be looking at the proposals of the Committee on Budgets, in the full awareness that, in addition to the financial considerations, we are faced with a full-scale problem of political philosophy, which is the reason why the majority of the Committee on Budgets opposes your proposal to eliminate the levy.
I am aware, of course, that you have the last word, but I believe you would be wrong to underestimate this issue.
Naturally, my group supports the report I have had the honour of presenting on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
By agreement with the session services, I take advantage of this opportunity to move straight on to our group's position on the report by our colleagues, Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson.
While we largely endorse the conclusions of the trialogue, in particular as regards structural funds, reduction of which was not acceptable to the Committee on Budgets in 1998, the penultimate year for the financial perspectives under the Edinburgh agreement, we cannot, on the other hand, accept a reduction of ECU 550 million in obligatory expenditure, nor, in particular, the targeted reduction of ECU 250 million: ECU 100 million for the agri-monetary regime, ECU 100 million for the beef sector support measures, and ECU 50 million for swine fever.
Indeed, I believe that the European Parliament, by agreeing to enter into a process of incipient codecision, as our colleague Mr Tillich demonstrated just a moment ago, is going down the wrong road.
There is obligatory expenditure, where the Council has the last word, and there is non-obligatory expenditure where Parliament has the last word.
To enter into commitments for expenditure over which we do not have the final say, in a codecision procedure which ends up costing us ECU 500 million, is unacceptable as far as our group is concerned, and that is the reason why we will abstain in the vote on agricultural expenditure.
For the rest, and in particular as regards the reductions affecting European Union internal policy and external actions, we are fully aware that concessions had to be made, so to speak, and sacrificial victims offered up on the altar of monetary union, in spite of the effort already made by our Parliament in 1996 for 1997.
Even so, I repeat that we are fairly satisfied with the agreement on the structural funds, as we have an agreement on the Peace programme for Northern Ireland - my Irish colleague, who will be speaking about this later, is far more competent that I am on the issue - and we are also delighted - I repeat - that measures have been taken in favour of employment, even if the initiative we proposed for the ECSC has not been agreed, and that there is still ECU 150 million for the three financial years, ECU 450 million in total, which will provide us with the finance for the decisions that were taken in Luxembourg.
I would like to conclude, Madam President, by thanking the Luxembourg Presidency of the Council, as I believe that this year, we had far better dialogue than in the previous years with other presidencies, and all these discussions were extremely fruitful, with everything put straight on the table.
I would also like to offer my sincere thanks to our colleague, Mr Tillich, for the kindness he has shown to all members of the Committee on Budgets, as well as to the chairman, Mr Samland et Mr Tomlinson, for their work in the Committee on Budgets.
Madam President, all the speeches I have made this year on the 1998 Budget have started with my saying that I enjoy excellent cooperation with the Committee on Budgets.
I am glad to say that still applies.
I would like to thank Mr Tillich and Mr Samland, in their respective positions, for this.
I would also like to include the Presidency of the Council, the Netherlands at the beginning of this year, and subsequently Luxembourg.
The agriculture budget this year is unique, because if we are to believe the latest estimates of the Commission, we are setting a budget which is certain to be too low.
The Committee on Agriculture nevertheless adopted it and accepted it because it is also aware of all the cuts which have to be implemented throughout Europe in connection with the introduction of the euro.
We therefore agreed to it, but on one clear condition. That condition is more input from this Parliament into the agriculture budget, and for this we would like an extra supplementary Budget and figures from the Commission, if necessary in March or April next year; a positive attitude from the Council and Parliament will be needed.
We welcome the solidarity which has been demonstrated in this Parliament in wanting to reduce the agriculture budget by the same amount as headings 3 and 4.
Two things were at the forefront of the discussions this year.
First, no reduction on arable farming supplements.
We considered this essential.
The rules should not be changed halfway through the game, and we are grateful to Parliament for following us in that.
The second point is on the amendments from the Agriculture Committee which have been taken up to a large extent by Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
One thing became clear. The agriculture budget - and many people may have thought this - is not safe in the sole care of the Council of Ministers.
That is why it is essential for there to be a trialogue in years to come, and the procedure followed this year should not be a nine days' wonder, but one we will continue in the years ahead.
It is necessary that we maintain agricultural spending at a satisfactory level.
Madam President, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment has frequently had to deal with the question of how the phasing-in of the ECSC policies is to be combined with the phasing-out of the ECSC.
It is important for us that parallelism really exists, that whole areas of social policy are not destroyed with the abolition of the ECSC, that the positive responsibilities anchored in the ECSC Treaty do not simply disappear and - I might add -that the ECSC reserves do not disappear in the process because, for example, the Commission is of the opinion that a lot of money needs to be spent closing down the Polish mines or similar large enterprises, for which the Commission might have appropriate plans tucked away somewhere.
I would like to stress again in context that the ECSC reserves ought to be investigated more closely, because the ECSC pursued a very far-sighted and intelligent banking policy in the past and used the system of authorizations and payments to build up a whole series of reserves, which is hard to comprehend.
Mr Giansily has suggested that something might yet be done for employment in this area via the levy.
I find this meaningful insofar as it strengthens the EIB programme.
It makes no sense simply wishing to curb structural change, instead the money must actually be used for innovative projects.
Clearly it is not very much.
Moreover, we are not all in agreement in my group whether this is a sensible strategic emphasis or rather a less sensible ad hoc venture, but the strategic emphasis could take the direction of doing something to alleviate the specific distress, particularly in the coal regions - the steel regions are less affected.
This seems sensible and no doubt also conforms to the Social Committee's line in fighting to see that the available monies are mobilized for those affected and for the wage and salary earners.
It is in this spirit that I might support Mr Giansily's initiative.
We still need to debate this, however.
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, I would like to thank the Committee on Budgets on this occasion for the great work that they have achieved in securing ECU 70 million over two years for the Socrates programme.
This, as Mr Tillich pointed out, is an unprecedented situation, where the amount eventually agreed by the Council is above the amount requested by the Commission.
I know that this is a result of heavy pressure and brinkmanship by our Parliament representatives during the conciliation process which I understand lasted for about six hours.
The amounts granted at the end recognize the role of education in enhancing job creation.
Thousands of students and teachers will be jubilant at the additional funding.
Of course the figure, as far as the Culture Committee is concerned, will always be too low, but this is a huge step in the right direction.
I would, however, like to point out an anomaly in the system that we have developed as a Parliament in terms of the conciliation process: the Culture Committee was all geared up to start conciliation on the budgetary aspects of Socrates.
The deal that was made by the Budgets Committee is something that all members of my committee would recognize as being extremely difficult to achieve in a straight conciliation process by the Culture Committee.
But the process made a nonsense of conciliation by the Culture Committee later.
In future, therefore, if individual committees are entering into conciliation of budgetary aspects, agreements will have to be made with the Budgets Committee before conciliation is tied up so that the amount agreed will be respected by the Budgets Committee in the subsequent annual budget.
We found that the system has worked against us in Raphael in the past, but in this case has worked to our advantage.
We are, however, delighted by the results of Socrates in particular, and recognize the hard work done on our behalf by the Budgets Committee.
Madam President, first of all, there is a mistake in the paperwork given to us.
The same amendments appear both as having been passed by the Committee on Budgets and not having been passed by the Committee on Budgets.
I hope that can be rectified.
I would like to thank very much my colleagues on the Budgets Committee for their cooperation throughout this year.
As far as the budget for energy and research is concerned, we need to look at what it can allow us to do, particularly in terms of the agreement reached at Kyoto which, although disappointing, nevertheless requires action from us.
There are three things you can do to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuels.
You can use nuclear energy, and the Euratom Treaty allows large amounts of money for the safe use of nuclear energy.
You can be more efficient with energy: the programme which concerns us there is the Save II programme where the Council has been disappointingly unambitious in the amount of money it has allotted.
I am pleased that Parliament is increasing the money a little and is insisting that some of the money is spent locally by networks covering the regions, islands and cities.
The third thing you can do is use renewable energy and I am disappointed that so far there is no legal base for Altener II.
When there is, I appreciate the fact that the Budgets Committee says they may be able to put more money into that programme.
As far as research is concerned, all of us were extremely disappointed, including yourself I know, Madam President, at the results of the conciliation process where the ECU 700 million we had expected to be added to the Fourth Framework Programme ended up as a mere ECU 115 million.
Nevertheless, I would like to thank the Budgets Committee for their help and cooperation, which enabled us to put some pressure on the Council.
So far as the question of fusion and the Jet staff are concerned, alI I can say is this should be a lesson to us in future: in big projects you can end up with big trouble if you are not very careful about the details.
Thank you, Mr President-in-office of the Council.
In turn, on behalf of Parliament, I would like to thank you warmly for your words.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, as you have said, this has been quite a remarkable budget procedure.
The general budget for 1998 is a rigorous one which respects the obligations of the Union and reinforces the focus on employment creation and expenditure.
The 1998 budget is a rigorous one.
Its growth rates of 2.4 % in commitments and 1.4 % in payments are below the growth in national public expenditure.
Its margin of some ECU 7 billion below the own resources ceiling facilitates the consolidation efforts of Member States.
Furthermore, it is a sizeable reserve for future responsibilities of the Union, first and foremost to prepare for enlargement.
The decision on negotiations was taken last week in Luxembourg.
The 1998 budget reserves significant margins in headings 3, 4 and 5 and, for the first time since the system of financial perspectives has been created, these margins in commitment appropriations are real savings.
They should put to rest the notion in some capitals that the Community 'spends it all' .
I heartily agree with the rapporteur, Mr Tillich
But the 1998 budget will be more than just a budget of savings.
As the result of an impressive cooperation between the institutions, in particular between the European Parliament and the Council presidency, this budget also concentrates expenditure on programmes which can have a real impact on employment in the Community.
The Commission will adopt its proposal for a single legal base early in January.
Due to the endorsements from the special European Council of 28 November 1997 it should be adopted quickly.
I understand that there is also a proposal regarding the budget of the European Coal and Steel Community to contribute to these efforts.
Such a contribution can be conceived.
Taking into account the sectoral objectives of the budget it could most effectively be linked to the Community initiatives Resider and Rechar.
The unanimous agreement of the Council would still be needed.
It is a different matter whether such a contribution would require the levy to be maintained.
It would appear that it could be comfortably financed from other resources without calling into question the long-term proposals which the Commission put forward on 8 October 1997.
The Commission will have an orientation debate on the operational budget for the ECSC this afternoon.
It will decide after the opinion of Parliament has been adopted.
Coming back to the general budget, it is also remarkable for the procedural developments which made this result possible.
Interinstitutional cooperation has been of unprecedented quality moving from what was sometimes perceived as a dialogue of the deaf, as Terry Wynn very often said, to substantive and serious discussions of priorities, procedures and expenditure in all parts of the budget.
With regard to compulsory expenditure, full agreement was found between both branches of the budgetary authority.
The agreement to have a rectifying letter late in the budgetary procedure has been a successful innovation.
It should become a permanent arrangement.
On non-compulsory expenditure, the Council and Parliament have reached agreement on the commitment appropriations for important Community activities such as the Socrates programme and the Chernobyl Shelter Fund.
And they have agreed on the overall volume of payments appropriations.
It should not be forgotten that the spirit of cooperation has facilitated rapid agreement on the new procedure for the funding of CFSP actions.
Is it possible to characterize the state of the budget procedure today as interinstitutional cooperation on a partnership basis? If the answer is yes, then the interinstitutional agreement of 1993 has borne one of its most difficult fruits, not by means of a change of the treaty but by pragmatic acceptance of what is best for the Community.
I conclude by congratulating the rapporteurs, Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson, as well as the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, for their extraordinary work on the 1998 general budget.
Last, but not least, I should include in these congratulations the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Fischbach, who has skilfully built on the foundations left by the Dutch presidency and has demonstrated what a Council presidency can achieve in cooperative dialogue between institutions.
Madam President, I will continue with this back-scratching exercise that is going on.
It is usual to begin by thanking the rapporteurs - in this case, Mr Tillich, Mr Tomlinson and Mr Giansily.
I have no hesitation in doing just that.
There are other thanks which need to be given because of the nature of this budget.
As has been said by previous speakers, we find ourselves in a position of consensus rather than the normal position of animosity between the institutions.
So, thanks to the Commission; thanks to Mr Liikanen and his team for facilitating the process; thanks to the Luxembourg presidency which, I hope, as others have said, has set a precedent for the future in working with Parliament; thanks to the secretariat of the Committee on Budgets for the extremely hard work they have done for Members; and thanks to that 'devil' of Parliament - which many people seem to think he is - Mr Samland, for the skill that he showed during the conciliation process and along with that, to the members of the Budgets Committee who were with him in getting that agreement with the Council.
The budget has not been easy.
It sounds great at this stage, but let us not forget that this has not been an easy process for Parliament.
It could be argued that we have actually given the Council more than we really should have done.
I hope that the Council - and not just the Luxembourg presidency, because I am sure you do understand it - appreciates how far Parliament has moved on this budget, not just in the sacrifices it has made, but also in the margins that exist.
We have been prudent and we have tried to play our part.
But that must not be forgotten.
We all seem to be quite smug about this and seem to be wanting to sit back and say what a good job we have done, but we must not be too complacent.
There are warning signs if we do become complacent.
The fact that in 1997 and 1998 we cut payment appropriations can only be a one-off exercise for the headings concerned.
It cannot become the norm.
If we try to make it the norm, all we do is create a burden for the future in solving short-term problems.
We need to see Parliament and the Council working closer together.
The process that took place this year with the ad hoc procedure for agriculture must be continued into next year for fisheries and the CFSP.
That can only benefit everybody.
The Luxembourg Presidency, the United Kingdom Presidency and the future Austrian Presidency need to get together as a troika with Parliament early in the New Year as is planned, to make sure that we can continue in this spirit of cooperation because there are a lot of gaps between Parliament and the Council that still need to be bridged, especially on things like legal bases, on classification, the fisheries sector, and revenue.
All those things we still need to thrash out.
I said during the first reading that the integrity of the Council rested on its ability to deliver the employment chapter.
It has done it, and I say to the President-in-Office in a colloquial term, ' you have played a blinder' in doing that.
Of course the next test is that, when the supplementary and amending budget comes along - if and when it is needed - those payments have to be found, not just for Category 1, but for headings 3 and 4.
Then both we and the Council will look to the Commission to bring forward that proposal.
If we can do that then the spirit of cooperation will indeed be evident for all to see.
I should like to give one other word of thanks before I finish, to Mr Waidelich, for the work that he did on the Jet project.
His working document, which was the basis of our report, is to be commended.
He should have the commendation of this Chamber.
In relation to that, there will be an amendment moved by Mr Tillich, the rapporteur, agreed by Mr Waidelich, which our group will be supporting.
Madam President, I too wish to congratulate the rapporteurs Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson for preparing their report on the draft budget for the Union and I would like to congratulate Mr Giansily for the 1998 ECSC draft operating budget.
And I would also like to thank the "devil' Mr Samland, as I have heard him called, for the way he is handling the work of the Committee on Budgets.
In our work, Madam President, the rigour with which the report has been drawn up can be appreciated, also in view of the need of the countries committed to the effort to converge.
The idea of reducing the payment allocations below the level of the first reading was therefore rightly accepted.
The originality of this budget should be pointed out for, despite this, resources for employment were found and I believe that the excellent work carried out by the rapporteurs, particularly Mr Tillich, should be acknowledged.
With regard to the problem of employment, which is the most important and pressing problem, I think we should understand that it is closely connected with the competitive capacity of the system.
It is obvious to many that this competitiveness is connected with the businessmen's flexibility and ability to adapt to the ever faster changing worldwide situations.
The solution therefore consists in allocating resources to training, research, the reconversion of industrial activities and, in particular, to small and medium-sized businesses creating stable and permanent jobs.
For this reason, I think the courageous proposal made by Mr Giansily to find resources in a specific sector, that is, the coal and steel sector, is in line with what the European Council of Luxembourg is saying.
I heard what Commissioner Liikanen had to say, namely that other resources may be found, but this Parliament and Mr Giansily have done well to raise the problem.
Not everything is consistent and not everything inspires hope, because we still have serious difficulties in maintaining the allocations to the cohesion policy, we have inadequate resources dedicated to the Mediterranean and we have to grant reductions to the agricultural sector; then we should not forget the existing inadequacies as regards the legal basis of many proposals.
Finally, I think we should quickly remember the enlargement.
This is a political subject we will have to face in the near future, because the approach and the choices so far made are not satisfactory.
Madam President, knowing how difficult it is to prepare a budget I would like to congratulate my colleagues, Mr Tillich, Mr Tomlinson and Mr Giansily.
This year I think they have been successful.
The approach has been pragmatic and exemplary.
At the risk of sounding like a member of a self-admiration society, I think this bodes well for the future.
I would like also to address the President of the Council.
On previous occasions I have always been somewhat bitter and critical but this presidency has shown that it understands the trend for the future which lies in cooperation and in doing away with outdated concepts.
It has been said before but let me repeat that no-one should say that this is a spending Parliament.
It is thanks to this presidency that there is this recognition.
I hope that the British and the Austrians will understand that message.
Secondly, I believe this Parliament has grown up because it understands that only with a vision of the future can you make progress.
The employment initiative has been one example.
And let me just say something about agriculture.
Agriculture has been always a special area and the point which Mr Mulder made needs repeating.
It needs to be linked to the overall budget for the benefit of the farmers but also for the benefit of the overall community.
I hope that, before we actually get to a new intergovernmental conference on changing the treaty, more unity is achieved between agricultural spending and other parts of the budget so that in the next three or four years we can finally say that the artificial gulf between the two has been bridged.
Democracy is something which we all want for the future and it can only be achieved if it can be shown that there is also an element of solidarity.
For that reason this Parliament has made cuts both in its budget and in agriculture which was not easy.
I repeat once more the point made by Mr Mulder: farmers can be grateful to Parliament that it is not the Council because with Parliament they are in good hands.
One final thing about Mr Giansily.
I do hope that the Commission will follow his courageous stand.
I speak for the majority of my group, although there will be one person speaking against.
I think it is very logical and coherent that we should not stop the levy five years before the end of the treaty especially since it is used for useful purposes.
It is not spent in vain; it is spent for specific innovation; it is spent for small and medium-sized businesses; it is spent for the coal and steel industry and against that background it is important that we support Mr Giansily.
Mr President, on the agenda for discussion is next year's European Parliament budget, which will do little to ease the unemployment problem in Europe.
Furthermore, the achievements of the Employment Summit are very modest in this area.
We do not have the resources, the financial wherewithal, to tackle unemployment as one unit, and that is why what the individual Member States do is crucial.
Our group considers a reduction in working hours, and hence structural reform, vital.
In this connection we have watched with interest the examples of France and Italy, where they have shortened working hours without reducing pay.
The solutions contained in the European Parliament's budget, or those which came out of the summit last week, are unsatisfactory, dealing, as they do, with part-time work and other unadventurous schemes, which will only serve to create an unemployed, poverty-stricken underclass.
This budget is a foretaste of what will be seen as a general thinning of funding.
There are certain resources the Community has at its disposal, and they cannot be rationed anymore, and so it is important that they be used to help the Nordic regions more than they have been hitherto.
We think that the equal flow of resources to all parts of the Community and Union is vital.
We are in favour of the development of the south, but the northern dimension is also important.
For that reason the European Parliament must include the question of the northern dimension in its next budget proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with this year's budget we have tied up a package that, without exaggeration, can be regarded as a model, which owes its existence both to the first-rate combination of people involved, in the form of the rapporteur Mr Tillich and the Luxembourg Presidency, and to the willingness of all institutions to reach beyond their shadows, as it were, especially in the area of agriculture and the employment initiative.
The most important aspect, however, is that this budget will have an effect beyond its particular year, since it involves institutional changes which will continue into subsequent years.
Hence, in time, Parliament will have more influence over compulsory expenditure and enjoy greater transparency and fairness with the subsidies.
Yet shadows are not just outreached, but also cast, and extremely long shadows at that, cast over a chapter that is turning out to be a most sad one in the area of foreign affairs.
I am talking now about former Yugoslavia.
Winter is upon us, reconstruction is sluggish in many areas, and the Commission has nothing better to do than fail to spend a sum of over ECU 100 million this year in Bosnia.
The word of Mr van den Broek no longer counts for anything, it seems.
Even before the first reading he promised me personally that improvements and greater momentum would be jointly sought in a working party.
We are still all waiting in vain here in this House for the invitation.
So, with a heavy heart, the reserve remains in the budget, and until such a time as we recognize that the situation is improving.
We will listen to what Mr Westendorp has to say in the Committee on Budgetary Control on 21 January and get an idea of things again.
Then we will decide.
Mr Giansily -he is not here unfortunately, I do not see him - however much I might agree with him on Bosnia, my view alters when I look at the proposal for the ECSC budget.
We all know that unemployment is structural.
That is why any employment initiative worthy of the name should not serve the sectors that are subject to structural change but, on the contrary, be deployed where, structurally, new job opportunities can be created long term.
Incidentally, both Resider and Rechar are available for this area, neither of which were fully utilized either last year or this, a fact which makes the urgent provision of additional funds questionable anyway.
To this extent the initiative is arch-conservative, in the truest sense of the word, not reform-oriented.
I would find it most regrettable if it was to be put into practice at the end of the day.
Mr President, our Committee on Budgets, with the laudable exception of my colleague, Mr Dell'Alba, is proposing - without saying so, naturally - that we reduce our spending, but we have not gone far enough.
At the first reading, a majority of this house raised the draft Council budget by 0.7 to 2.7 %, without in any way taking into account the efforts required of the Member States in the field of control of public expenditure.
It took the wisdom of the Council, which proposed making considerable efforts, with a reduction of ECU 600 million in agricultural expenditure, in response to a reduction of ECU 550 million under headings 3 and 4, accompanied by an effort of symbolic importance in reducing structural action expenditure by ECU 300 million, to ensure that the drive to budget rigour should not be made in the direction of agricultural expenditure only.
Unfortunately, this latter proposal was dropped.
The two branches of the budget authority have finally come to a compromise arrangement, which is a reduction of ECU 550 million in agricultural expenditure, and an equal reduction in the funding for internal policies and external actions.
Whereas the Council, unlike the European Parliament, has accounts to render, particularly to the agricultural sector, and has resigned itself to cuts out of concern for budget rigour, and to the acceptance of a new, heavy slice off agricultural funding, our Parliament has only sacrificed funding which is remarkable only by its very absence.
Nevertheless, the Council has reduced the expenditure under its control.
On the other hand, it has demanded and obtained a reduction in payments under headings 3 and 4, which are under the budgetary authority of this House.
Having said that, the 1998 budget will not be scaled back to zero growth, contrary to what has been said.
The draft budget allows for an increase in national contributions, less indeed than the increase in expenditure, but leaving growth still positive. Hence there is an increase in contributions from Member States.
With regard to the ECSC draft budget for 1998, the rapporteur is, curiously, proposing today that we re-establish a levy we had agreed to eliminate.
I heard the quotes from Jean Monnet, but I would have preferred quotes from that great European, General de Gaulle.
We cannot vote for this proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, however attached we may be to harmony between nations, we do not underrate the common European good.
But I am speaking here as a defender of the interests of my own country, France.
Contrary to what is affirmed here and there, Europe costs my country a great deal, a very great deal.
France will pay 91 billion francs in 1998. This is the fifth largest slice of the nation's budget, after the national education system, national defence, social affairs, and infrastructure.
From this sum, my fellow citizens know that they receive a benefit in return of around 70 billion francs, 85 % of which is under the EAGGF Guarantee.
However, as these funds are set to decrease - due to the enlargement of the union to include the central and eastern European countries, the beneficiary being the structural funds - French agriculture will bear the brunt of the penalty.
But beyond all that, our criticism of the European budget is directed at the following points.
This is a budget which serves the reigning political utopia, the Europe of the regions, a step towards the planetary organization which sets the nations at nought.
The proof is that only the funds under heading 2, that is, the structural funds, have not been affected by the flat budget, which we have had to accept at present, under the Maastricht criteria.
However, we know the extent to which these funds, some of whose concrete objectives are of course acceptable, are poorly used, or even not used at all.
Secondly, this is a budget which misappropriates taxpayers' money.
Hundreds of millions of ECUs, and billions of francs are allocated to the Commission to allow it to develop its systems of clientele associations, NGOs, think tanks, clubs, organizations of employers and trade unions, and its totalitarian propaganda operations.
My colleague, Jean-Yves Le Gallou, last year gave an impressive but incomplete list of the Euro-Global Propaganda Stafel which you are yourselves incapable of presenting to us in full.
I am not even going to mention the scandalous expenditure on the new Brussels building.
This is a European Union which, the world over, finances humanitarian aid to all and sundry, and draws no political benefit from it.
For example, as the leading donor organization to Palestine, we were not even invited to the Dayton conference. All we are good for is giving them money, despised as we are by two proud peoples, who are sure of themselves and dominating, as General de Gaulle used to say.
Nobody can make sense of the complications of our cross-budget lines, the misleading headings and the dissimulating appropriations.
As for large-scale organized fraud, the annual report from the Court of Accounts stands quite simply as an admission of its own impotence.
Now, as always, 12 % of the budget goes into the hands of the Mafiosi; as Borsellino, the judge who was assassinated said: ' Europe is a stroke of luck for the Mafia' .
Because of course, the Mafia hates nothing quite so much as national borders.
The budget is unacceptable in terms of its end aims and objects, its funds are too often misappropriated, and it is ineffectual to boot, as a means of dealing with the real challenges of our day.
It makes no contribution whatsoever to improving employment.
The ECU 150 million - 1 billion francs - accepted by the Council as spending on the European pact for employment, is not going to solve the unemployment crisis. This border-free Europe, with its unbridled competition, and unlimited immigration, is the first cause of unemployment, which hits the farming populations dispossessed of their land, and the uprooted young people who wander around in a hallucinatory world of their own, haggard-faced under their baseball caps.
Mr President, the budget we are now debating has two main features.
The first of course is the one all the others have mentioned, the fact that it has been debated in a spirit of general consensus, and all those who have managed to bring it this far deserve to be congratulated.
However, there is another aspect, Mr President, which is somewhat strange and I will explain why: it is embodied in a logic according to which it calls for the support of efforts of the Member States to achieve certain objectives not by means of an increase but by means of a reduction in expenditure or, to be more exact, by means of a reduction in the contributions made by the Member States to the budget.
This time of course it is justified by the need to fulfil the convergence criteria for EMU.
The next time it will be justified by the need to ensure the permanence of convergence within the framework of a stability pact and so forth.
And when, after some years, this policy has allowed for some significant margins - which, it is hoped, will be below the ceiling of 1.27 % - then we believe that we will be able to proceed, without any great difficulty, to enlargement.
It is my impression, Mr President, that we are in for some surprises, since I fear that, if we carry on with this policy over a long period, enlargement will take place much later than is politically desirable, and we, as the European Parliament, must bear this in mind.
In other words, what appears to be changing is the philosophy of the common budget, and this is where the unease that I expressed previously resides.
I am not talking about the issues of the control of fraud or of the speed of fund absorption, the responsibility for which lies with the governments of the Member States, which will be called upon to accept their responsibilities not only towards the European Union but, for the most part, towards the people of their own nation, since, in principle, it is to them that they are responsible.
I am talking more about the fact that we are proceeding towards a greater degree of integration, starting with monetary union, in which case one would logically expect the community budget to play a larger role, either in the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity, or within the framework of an increased operational redistribution.
However we can see that the opposite is happening.
And unfortunately the European Parliament is also getting into this way of thinking.
This tendency is being aided and abetted by the inherent weakness of the common budget, which is guaranteed by the manner in which it is financed.
So, as long as the common budget is deprived of funds, in the real sense of the word, the problem will persist and, with time, it will get worse.
On more specific issues, Mr President, I think that we were right to set out again all the amendments to the first reading and especially those which referred to better fund management, such as the preservation of the reserves at Meda, and other such amendments.
Mr President, I would like to say a couple of things concerning the matter of legal bases.
Mr Samland said that certain very fruitful trialogues had taken place.
The trialogues on the issue of the legal bases were a complete failure, Mr President, and I would like to hope that the positions of the European Parliament were beginning to be accepted as logical and admissible.
I hope that in the next trialogue - and I address myself both to the Council and to the Commission - we will be able to obtain a logical solution so as to remove the inconsistencies from the budget on the issue of legal bases.
Mr President, I am not at all in agreement with the budget philosophy.
However this will not prevent me from congratulating the President, Mr Samland, and the rapporteurs, Mr Tillich, Mr Tomlinson, and Mr Giansily, on their effort and on the spirit of cooperation which they showed to many members of the Commission when this budget was being prepared.
I believe that the picture painted by the budget is a little paradoxical, since we have been obliged to accept to be blackmailed by the Council in respect of the structural funds.
My question is: is the Edinburgh agreement on the structural funds in force or not? Because, if this agreement, which was a summit agreement, is in force, then why did the Council tell us that to prevent the structural funds being affected we must accept a reduction in agricultural expenditure of around ECU 550 million' ?
I would also like to ask the Commission: when, at the beginning of each year, it presents its expenditure on agriculture, is it telling the truth or not? Because, if it is telling the truth, then why did the Commission accept the reduction of ECU 550 million which, unfortunately, was also voted through by Parliament?
Finally, with regard to the cancer of unemployment, instead of going ahead with drastic therapy, this budget has prescribed aspirins; ECU 150 million for 20 million unemployed.
In other words ECU 7 for each unemployed person.
Do you know what ECU 7 is? It is what an unemployed person would spend on a pizza and a beer, and that is what we have given him, for being unemployed!
Almost nothing on social welfare, on health, on education, on culture, the things which constitute a United Europe, not just ECU and figures, when we forget that behind the ECU and the figures there are people.
Mr President, I first wish to thank the Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson of the Budget Committee for their splendid work and their lucid report.
And thanks also goes to Mr Samland for his excellent work as chairman of the committee, and to Mr Liikanen for his cooperation as member of the Commission.
The 1998 budget has been undertaken with great presence of mind.
Growth is slight, and outgoings and income are clearly below the limits of members' costs.
This has been achieved through tight budgeting and, in the latter stages, extra cuts, with costs reduced by ECU 1.1 billion.
The reduction for agriculture is ECU 550 million; in other words, agriculture is to get ECU 368 million less than this year.
This is a hefty reduction.
It is vital that these cuts do not endanger agriculture or bring about a reduction in income for the farmer, as has been the intention previously.
The Committee on Budgets bore that in mind in its resolution when it promised to approve a supplementary budget if the budgeted funds proved insufficient.
With these remarks I am happy to give my approval to the budget.
Mr President, could I first of all add my congratulations to the rapporteurs for this excellent budget and offer my congratulations on the work of the Committee on Budgets.
Mr Samland summed it all up when he told us how many hours were involved.
I welcome the fact that the peace and reconciliation package for my region of Northern Ireland has been approved, that the disagreement in principle over where the actual money comes from has been resolved, and that the Budgets Committee were able to deliver what they promised when they came to Northern Ireland.
That is a very important message to my region at this moment of time.
It is always very easy to criticize and more difficult to be constructive.
We all recognize this but this is a constructive budget and I trust it will be the forerunner to even greater cooperation in the future.
I believe we have to try to support the educational process through Socrates and other programmes.
I would also like to make the same point concerning overseas visits because that is a very constructive part of the budget and something we should not run away from.
It is very important for this Parliament to be able to send the message and encourage people to come here to see the work we are doing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, each budget is a visiting card for the political will behind it.
The desire for rigour and prudence behind this budget cannot be denied, even though the need to accommodate the financial prudence demanded by the national governments in order to meet the convergence criteria has been cited as the motivation for it.
Perhaps this rather banal reason is responsible for the fact that cuts are still tending to be made too much across the board and too little with a specific target in mind.
The priorities set by the budget are generally unsatisfactory, it seems to me.
Courageous attempts to tackle effectively the major problems Europe is struggling with are modest at best.
I would like to address the research and technological development sector because it continues to remain extremely under-resourced.
Comparing research and development on the one hand with the cultivation of olives, sugar and tobacco on the other may sound polemical perhaps, but it is symbolic of the priorities which, rather than promote the competitiveness of the European economy, target the interests of particular groups.
The total spending on R&D is rated at ECU 3.49 billion, of which only ECU 487 million are apportioned to information technology.
The total spending on olives, sugar and tobacco, in contrast, amounts to some ECU 4.5 billion altogether.
There is a succession of technological areas where European industry, particularly the small and medium-sized enterprises, increasingly lacks the competitive edge over its American rivals.
The danger is that shares of the global market will be lost and the problem of unemployment made worse.
Since both the Americans and the Japanese invest enormous sums in research, every additional ECU the Community spends in this area in future will have been usefully employed in the fight against unemployment.
Mr President, first of all I want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Tillich, for having successfully steered the 1998 budget to its conclusion.
I also want to thank him personally, in my capacity as future budgetary rapporteur, because the standards he has set with this budget can make my work easier next year.
I should like briefly to draw attention to some of the high and low points of this year's budgetary procedure. I think it has been a very constructive process because it has initiated a new, more friendly relationship between the two branches of the budgetary authority, as a result of some very open and direct trilateral discussions.
As other speakers have already mentioned, this has enabled progress to be made with the ad hoc procedure for heading 1, allowing the treatment to be more rational, and updating the budgetary forecasts as late as possible.
In this way, I believe Council and Parliament, through common agreement, have got round the difficulty of the treaty's inflexibility, for the sake of greater realism and stringency in agricultural spending.
Furthermore, in November's employment summit, the Council was finally receptive to an initiative which has the European Parliament's keen support: the creation of new financial instruments and the promise of a legal basis for employment.
I think Parliament's attitude should also be stressed.
Parliament has amply heeded Member States' demands for budgetary stringency, maintaining higher margins in headings 3 and 4 than in every year since 1988.
Similarly, in the first reading, Parliament made available the resources for the jobs initiative.
However, the will to collaborate has not been able to prevent last minute problems, because during the conciliation for the second reading, Parliament was confronted by Council requests for even greater efforts, demanding cuts in appropriations in those very headings 3 and 4, in exchange for an equivalent reduction in heading 1 appropriations.
It should be stressed that this is not a technical problem, but a political problem, since this Council request compromises Parliament's budgetary authority, by attempting to fix non-compulsory expenditure.
That is a worrying precedent for the future.
It is true that Parliament has managed to gain an extra ECU 70 million for two years for one of its priorities - the Socrates programme - but it must be emphasized that this boost for Socrates is due to Parliament's "intransigence' , since despite what the Council said in Amsterdam about giving priority to education, its proposed financial backing for the Socrates programme in 1998 and 1999 was way below what Parliament had requested.
However Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since it is now nearly Christmas (as Mr dell'Alba has already mentioned) and since Father Christmas or the Three Wise Men will be coming soon, I should like to send them my Christmas list, in my capacity as general rapporteur for the budget next year.
The first thing I should like for Christmas is to be able to witness a continuation of the constructive process of cooperation and dialogue started during this year's procedure.
My second wish is that the meeting of the troika in the New Year can help to promote an open mind for designing realistic objectives for 1999.
Thirdly, I should like the Council to be willing to take account of Parliament's declared priorities, given that Parliament has always been willing to negotiate on Council decisions, which often have financial implications.
And to conclude I would just like to say, as we do in my country when giving a Christmas list to the Three Wise Men: let us hope they come across!
Mr President, I wish to support this budget and to say that we seem to have achieved the ideal in being able to reduce administrative costs and, at the same time, provide for the vital major areas of regional and agricultural policies.
In regional affairs, we have increased the budget in line with our commitment to double the structural funds, thereby fulfilling our generous commitment to the poorer regions of the Union.
In agriculture, we should point out that we are maintaining global spending, with enough money to provide for the price guarantees and our full commitments in relation to the compensations agreed under the last reform package, in spite of the fact that the number of farmers is being reduced by 5 % per year.
So we are giving the same amount of money to fewer farmers - the global figures do not show this - providing an average of ECU 6, 000 for every farming family in the Community, even though many of them have other, off-farm income.
In budgetary terms, we should point out that, even though the farmers of the UK - this matter was raised yesterday evening - are having a difficult time at the moment, their problems arise out of their failure to join the monetary system rather than the failure of European policies.
While the average payment to farmers throughout the entire Community is ECU 6, 000, to the United Kingdom farmers it is ECU 15, 000, whereas for the Spanish and French it is only ECU 3, 000 and ECU 13, 000 respectively.
If you add the cost of BSE to that, UK farmers are each getting something like ECU 17, 000 or 18, 000 per annum.
It is above the average industrial wage and is extremely generous.
My point is that there are three pillars in the CAP: free trade, financial solidarity, and Community preference.
If we, or any group of farmers in any state of the Community, seek to undermine the pillar of free trade, then they are attacking a policy which maintains rural Europe and gives very generous aid to all farmers, particularly to UK farmers.
Mr President, I too would like to start by giving my thanks for the cooperation on the Budget committee and with my colleagues, not least when they give a positive reception to amendments proposed by the Liberal group.
I would like to start by looking at the Giansily report on the ECSC budget, and I would like to note straight away that I am totally against the report's proposal to impose a tax of 0.11 % in 1998.
It would be totally unreasonable to punish an industry with such a tax in this way when the parties involved have agreed to abolish the tax otherwise.
The proposal is pure redistribution in the best Socialist style, and I fail to understand what logic moved the rapporteur to put forward this proposal.
It is said after all that enough money has been accumulated for different measures.
As the report shows, not only will the ECSC be able to live off its own accumulated income, there will also be significant capital available when the treaty runs out.
So if further activities are to be got under way, the money is there, and so I fail to understand why businesses in this industry should be pubished by continuing to charge a tax.
I also think it is damaging to Parliament's credibility and the positive attitude we find towards the budget otherwise, because it comes as a great surprise that this question was even raised.
Otherwise, there is agreement that we will now implement a three-year employment initiative which can produce some positive results.
Let me also say that I am pleased at the responsible attitude which Parliament is taking towards the budget.
I am pleased that we have managed to set up some tight budget targets and even go on and meet those targets.
It is absolutely vital that Parliament as an institution and we as directly elected politicians show that we want to use taxpayers' money effectively, responsibily and transparently.
And I believe it is important that in the next three years we use our strength precisely to ensure that we in Parliament itself do away with greed and overconsumption and pursue a tight budget line.
Mr President, stringency, stringency, stringency: so many crimes have been committed in the name of stringency!
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honour today to express a minority view in this House.
It is as unusual as the heavy snowfall early this morning in my city, Barcelona.
But to show you the extent of this minority view, I can tell you that at the decisive moment in the Committee on Budgets, it was 15 to 13.
I fundamentally disagree with the proposal put forward by the Committee on Budgets. I think it is a backward step in institutional terms; a backward step shielded behind a totally unfounded appeal for stringency.
In my opinion, this year's procedure has helped to make the budgetary procedure meaningless. I am not sure if we can still talk about the two branches of the budgetary authority: it is more a question of one branch - and a twig!
It has been said that for the first time we have managed to play a part in the decision on compulsory expenditure, and strictly speaking that is true.
But what has really happened is that for the first time in four years the Council has fulfilled the obligations it committed itself to in the 1993 interinstitutional agreement, in exchange for making Parliament pay the price of an unprompted reduction in payment authorizations in non-compulsory expenditure.
Ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that Thursday's vote will confirm the budget which the Council wanted right from the outset.
Parliament's role has been reduced to that of stooge, carrying out the dirty work which the Council itself did not want to do, in cutting sections of headings 3 and 4.
The Council said in July that the thousand million paid to agriculture and other structural funds had to be reduced, but now it is showing that it does not care if cuts are made in external policy headings.
I shall end there, Mr President.
However, I should just like to say that the Council is not very well qualified to demand stringency, when it was responsible this year for spending more than three thousand million in unwarranted overcompensation in the cereals sector.
Mr President, that is a very bad omen for the interinstitutional agreement we must negotiate between now and the end of 1999.
Mr President, I want to talk exclusively about our colleague Mr Giansily's report.
In our opinion, the only unacceptable aspect is the idea of maintaining the European Coal and Steel Community levy for the 1998 budget. The draft operating budget presented by the Commission shows that there are now sufficient resources to maintain activities, both for conversion aid and social measures, and for research aid.
These three areas are covered until the year 2000 and beyond, so there is enough of a financial margin to be able to abolish the levy.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur proposes that at this precise moment, just when the Community coal and steel industry has managed to regain its competitiveness against production outside the Community, at this very moment, he proposes to maintain a finalist tax which will be used to create jobs outside the sector in which it is to be collected - assuming that a tax can create jobs, which is mere hypothesis.
It is impossible in the first place, because the legal opinion which was expressly sought for this purpose states that the funds collected through this levy cannot be transferred to the European Investment Bank.
That would contravene Community legislation.
Furthermore, abolishing this levy as our amendment proposes would increase the productivity of the ECSC sector, thereby safeguarding employment levels.
Mr Giansily must understand that this is not even a question of ideology, but a question of economic logic.
Maintaining the levy, as the rapporteur proposes, is not going to create jobs in other industrial sectors.
But it is certainly not going to help conserve jobs in coal and steel.
Ladies and gentlemen, the decision is yours.
Mr President, after hearing the congratulations given to the rapporteurs, as this morning a great Christmas spirit of cooperation and happiness is felt on account of the agreements reached, I would like to emphasize the role played by Parliament, and Parliament in particular, in this budget.
On the first reading, with a sense of rigour and above all responsibility and a full knowledge of the challenges that lie ahead (the single currency but, above all, the dramatic problem of employment), Parliament has found solutions for this budget to actually give a meaning to employment, a specific role and resources available.
And this has enabled Council, at its extraordinary Luxembourg summit, to take on specific responsibilities with regard to employment which, had Parliament not taken this initiative, would have proved very difficult to assume.
Council obviously accepted Parliament's proposal on a second reading.
However, I think it would have been very difficult for Council not to have done, as we have shown a great sense of responsibility.
We have emphasized the priorities that have always been defined - the role of the small and medium-sized businesses, the role of training, the role of the parties in providing opportunities in employment policies - and that correspond exactly with the guidelines by which the individual Member States have undertaken to draw up their plans on employment.
Recalling this Christmas spirit, Council is responsible for making these choices happen.
The legal basis, to which many of you have referred, is an important fact.
The Commission has undertaken to submit its proposals, and I think Council can only show a sense of responsibility by approving the legal basis.
If Council fails to show this responsibility, then Parliament has taken a measure that remains incomplete, so to speak.
Mr President, if the 1997 budget was known as the budget of austerity, then the 1998 budget, while still austere, could be termed the budget of consensus.
And I am not talking about the consensus we reach so often in this Parliament.
I am talking about the consensus reached on this occasion by Parliament and the Council which, in the case of the Socrates programme, has actually surpassed the Commission's proposals.
We can also congratulate ourselves on the way the jobs initiative has taken shape in the budget: ECU 150 million is not bad as a first step, since directly or indirectly it will help to create jobs, while simultaneously financing the internal policies related to job creation.
I am hopeful that tourism may be included among such policies, by means of an amendment.
Talking about amendments, Mr President, I am still worried about the fate of the 20 % placed in reserve for general information activities, and the reserve for the Prince programme, and even the Meda programme, which although justified initially, is worse off today than the Phare programme.
Similarly, I am hopeful that the appropriations for cooperation with the countries of Latin America voted for in the first reading will be reinstated.
Mr President, I started off by talking about consensus, and I do not want to finish without returning to the subject.
I am well aware of the magnificent work carried out by the rapporteurs, Mr Tillich and Mr Tomlinson, and the steadfastness shown by Mr Samland during conciliation. However, accepting budgetary cuts after the first reading (especially when those cuts affect Community policies) is going to require us to be especially responsible, and our information policy to be especially effective, to help the European public understand that the cuts are necessary because we need austerity to attain the Maastricht targets, and are not because we lack confidence in the exciting idea of Europe.
Mr President, I take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Giansily for the excellent work that he has done on his report.
The future of the ECSC operating budget is not without controversy or complications.
We have seen that in the opposition from some Members today.
But I feel the rapporteur has steered a clear and constant course through the whole proceedings.
He is to be commended.
The theme of this year's budget has been job creation.
Parliament, the Council and the Commission have put together a package for job creation.
Yet we know that this year we will have lost 17, 000 jobs in the steel sector.
I wish that I could imagine that these are the last 17, 000 jobs we will lose in that sector.
I wish too that the jobs we are going to lose in the coal sector - 8, 700 jobs - were the last that we will lose in the restructuring of the coal industry.
Be we know, sadly, that these 25, 0-26, 000 jobs will not be the last that will have been lost.
We know also that time is running out, but that is not a reason to stop the ECSC clock ahead of schedule.
The last few years remaining of the ECSC operating budget will be among the most important, perhaps not for the size of the operations carried out under its aegis, but because they are the last chances to do something.
The unemployed this year and those who lose their jobs in the last years of the ECSC have a right to support, no less than those we have supported in this budget in the past.
In the same way, the right to offer new opportunities to replace those ended in coal and steel still remains a need of the Community.
We should not be looking to end existing schemes earlier or reduce the amounts available for social redeployment or research.
We should be looking to maximize the chances that remain.
For this reason I totally support, on behalf of our group, Mr Giansily's resolution calling for the reinstatement of the 11 % levy.
To conclude, the ECSC is at the heart of the European Union, but it is not through sentiment that we should be taking these measures now.
It is because we have a duty to create employment in those steel communities.
How can we not continue the support of this levy and the job creation schemes in the ECSC report when we are supporting a job creation package elsewhere in our budget?
Mr President, in an amendment tabled by 34 Members and accepted by the Committee on Budgets, tourist businesses were specifically included in the scope of Community policy in support of small and medium-sized businesses for which the allocations from the 1998 budget were to be made.
A vote for those amendments in the House next Thursday will open the way to the implementation of the Philoxenia programme, at least in so far as small and medium-sized tourist enterprises are concerned.
I would like to remind you that this programme, which is a European Commission programme, following significant improvements approved by the Council, remains inoperative due to lack of funds.
An important and productive sector of the European economy, tourism has been treated unfavourably by the Council of Ministers.
May I remind you that the Member States did not include European Parliament proposal for a reference to tourism as an economic sector in the Treaty of Rotterdam.
I am optimistic that, by approving the few things accorded to tourism with the amendment we have tabled, Parliament will give hope to the 10 million people employed in the tourist industry and, of course, give a kind of signal.
How is it possible for a programme that is now three years old and which has been approved by all the Member States, not to be implemented due to lack of funds - and we are talking about ECU 5 or 6 million?
What tourism will get from the appropriation for small and medium-sized enterprises is even less than ECU 5 or 6 million.
So Parliament must vote for the amendment this time to allow this programme to be put into effect.
By so doing we will be responding to thousands of millions of people working in this sector.
Mr President, a budget without fresh borrowing is something really special in Europe and the world.
Not only is fresh borrowing not required, but a reserve has been built up too.
I think this is something we should constantly remind the listeners in the gallery of when we talk about the European Community's budget, that such careful planning is made that there is a little left over each year.
We hope the national governments will follow the example we have set.
We draw up financial plans too, of course, multiannual ones, currently from 1997 to 2002, which have tremendous advantages for planning, increasing clarity and accuracy alike.
Take the ECSC for instance, where there is now a schedule of assets, from which you can tell at a glance which monies are required in future and which are not.
We have increased the research grants, we have increased the funds for education, and we are trying to support those that are efficient to create new jobs.
We know we cannot create new jobs through spending alone.
The state cannot do it.
We need to create incentives to make employers prepared to do more in this area.
I think that retaining the 11 % levy for the ECSC is not wise.
What we are actively doing is in fact legally suspect, and I think the steel levy in particular would definitely come up against problems in this respect under article 50.
In addition, companies which work well are under enormous pressure from non-EU steel imports, which are made easier by this.
Our companies are losing their competitiveness, while substitutes for steel and coal are becoming more competitive.
That is why I think that retaining the levy would damage our healthy industries.
Mr President, first and foremost I want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Tomlinson, Mr Giansily and especially Mr Tillich, the rapporteur for the European Union's general budget, for having achieved a conciliation agreement with this budget, in what has been a difficult process. Both Mr Tillich and Mr Samland, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, have managed to defend Parliament's budgetary priorities by means of an agreement with the Council.
It is an austere budget under difficult conditions in which, nevertheless, commitments are increased by 2.1 %.
Therefore, it makes a positive contribution to the future development of the European budget.
However, this budget also supports solidarity.
In an austere year, in which budgetary commitments only grow by 2.1 %, policies directed towards solidarity grow by 6 %.
That is a positive sign, and good news for those of us who believe that Europe should be more than just a market or a free-trade zone, and want to build a truly federal political project for the people of Europe, in which solidarity with the less well-off is one of the main aspects of European policy.
The increase in structural policies has been achieved through the actions of this Parliament, which some people say is ineffective. This increase is an important step in the construction of this common space of solidarity.
I only hope that after the year 2000, with the enlargement of the European Union, we will be able to maintain internal cohesion for the Fifteen at current levels, over and above the short-term electoral interests of certain Member States.
This budget also supports employment.
Some might say that support does not go far enough, but it is the beginning of a greater role for Community policies to combat unemployment.
I also hope that in future the structural funds are used more in those regions of Europe with high unemployment rates, and in concrete actions to create jobs, mainly in those sectors where the demand has still not been consolidated, but which constitute future sources of employment.
I shall conclude, Mr President, with the Giansily report.
I beg support for the Rübig and Barton amendments in favour of abolishing the levy, which is an added tax on sectors such as coal and steel which are beginning to be competitive - the steel sector by its own efforts. We cannot punish these sectors with additional burdens, because it is essential to encourage their competitiveness.
In that way, job creation in these sectors can become a reality.
Mr President, this budget is no cause for enthusiasm, but it is reasonable.
It appears to me that our institutions have collectively - and this is good news for everyone, and particularly those who have doubts about the Parliament - reached the age of reason.
For this, our respects are owed to the rapporteur in particular, as to all others involved.
Indeed, we have accepted moderation, achieved a balance, reaffirmed our prerogatives, and expressed our priorities.
We have accepted moderation, and we were right to do so.
However, we should not exaggerate.
As Mr Christodoulou reminded us just a moment ago, it is fine to accept austerity if you are a nation state. But it would, on the other hand, be much more serious if we forgot that the European Union budget has a geographical logic, and that its responsibilities are different, as the European Union is extending and constantly increasing those responsibilities.
We have managed a balanced budget.
There was an intention to focus most of the effort on the structural funds, and we rejected that.
The sacrifices have been balanced out between the obligatory and non-obligatory expenditure.
Each side has made its own contribution to compromise.
That is a good thing, even though it was no fun for anyone to have to do so.
We have affirmed our prerogatives.
Thanks to the rectificatory letter and to the somewhat complex procedure, which is so deliciously a Community one, we have taken a modest but resolute step forward in the field of obligatory expenditure.
I have heard some people raise concerns about this. Mr Giansily, my friend Mr Giansily, in particular.
I am tempted to tell him it is later than he thinks.
We will not really defend the interests of agriculture by rejecting calm and balanced conciliation procedures between the two institutions, and by hanging onto an absurd system in which authorities at loggerheads try to establish compromises each to its own advantage, that is, make up two halfbudgets drafted along different lines.
We have expressed our priorities.
There are plenty of them, and the main one being the employment initiative.
It is not to insult the European Council to say that, without the concertation which took place between the presidency and Parliament, the European Council of Luxembourg on employment would have been rather empty, and limited to a few solemn declarations.
We brought the only truly concrete item to that summit.
I think we should be pleased about all that.
The institutional triangle has, if I may dare say so, worked as a magic square.
And if so, this is due to many people.
Many complimentary things have been said.
For my part, I have only one compliment to make, and that is a personal one, to Mr Jean-Jacques Kasel, an indefatigable, discreet, and effective hero in the Luxembourg presidency.
To him, exclusively, I pay this personal tribute, but of course my thoughts clearly go to everyone else.
My colleagues have been so prodigal in their compliments that I cannot possibly add to them.
A word on the ECSC.
We have heard the rapporteur, Mr Giansily, giving us the benefit of an interesting experience. He went down the road to Damascus twice.
This friend of Mr Madelin has discovered the virtues of compulsory levies, and this disciple of General de Gaulle has discovered the virtues of Jean Monnet.
I am delighted about the second point, because I believe that there will only be progress in the European concept in my own country if we reconcile the traditions of both Jean Monnet and Général de Gaulle.
For the rest, I have concerns, because I believe that Mr Giansily has forgotten Jean Monnet's essential virtue, which was his pragmatism.
He has proposed us a levy which is unjustified.
Why strike down one business enterprise, rather than another, with such a burden? He has proposed us a levy which is useless, as in all truth, one cannot see why there should be any need to make a levy at a time when the Commissioner explained to us that he had set aside the necessary funds in reserves to finance this operation.
Finally, he is proposing somewhat unrealistic expenditures.
I heard preferential interest rate loans mentioned.
That worries me.
I am no friend of loans at preferential interest rates.
I prefer securities on loans. I prefer venture capital.
I believe it is possible to spend the amount that Mr Giansily wants to see spent without making extra levies and providing for extra input into the Resider and Rechar initiatives.
In this respect, the Commission has made an opening, and I would like the Parliament to seize this opportunity.
In that way, ladies and gentlemen, we will turn that fundamentally fanciful notion of politicians - the ability to increase expenditure without increasing the tax burden - into reality.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 9: 30.
Progress in the areas of justice and home affairs
The next item is the oral questions by Mr Nassauer, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, to Council (B4-0915/97 - O-0108/97) and to the Commission (B4-0916/97 - O-0109/97), on the annual debate on progress made in the implementation of the areas of justice and home affairs - Article K.6, third paragraph of the EU Treaty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are taking this oral question as the basis to discuss the progress made on cooperation in the areas of justice and home affairs during this past six months.
We can now report to our total satisfaction that the Luxembourg Presidency has made progress.
This applies not only to the formal cooperation with Parliament but to the subject matter also.
Mr President-in-Office, we are pleased to point out that you made it a general rule, virtually anticipating the rules of the Amsterdam Treaty, to listen to Parliament on action in the area of the third pillar.
That is a good procedure.
You are not obliged to do so by treaty or for any other reason.
I think we have achieved some positive results from working together.
We want to make a point of stressing and applauding that.
Our request would be that you impart your convictions to your successor, of whom we now have similar expectations.
No doubt there are still demands in this area.
It would be better, for instance, if we conducted this debate on the basis of a report from the Council.
Maybe this could be passed on as a suggestion also.
Each time we study the catalogue describing such work, we find a wealth of topics where you never know exactly by the end of the half-year which direction they have progressed in or why they might not have progressed at all.
This would be a fine opportunity for any Council presidency to describe its projects and their realization, while at the same time disclosing the obstacles that stood in the way of them.
Work in this area has become very complex.
It covers issues such as the fight against trafficking in human beings, the fight against organized crime, protection of the Community's financial interests, the treatment of non-Community minors not in the company of adults, risk assessment and control of synthetic drugs, the fight against corruption, passport control at the external borders, and an issue extremely important in practice, namely agreement on the issuing of judicial and extra-judicial documents in civil and commercial matters.
Behind this very legal-sounding formulation hides a central problem of intergovernmental cooperation under the third pillar, that is cooperation in the fields of justice and home affairs.
The great task facing us here is the construction of a European judicial network, that is to say an area of European jurisdiction.
We have become accustomed to trade operating without borders where economic activity is concerned, under the single market, but the legal instruments protecting trade stop at the national frontiers.
That is bad for Europe's citizens and bad for the consumers.
Moreover, it is hard to understand why a ruling of the Local Court in Kassel cannot be issued directly to a French citizen by this court, with the result that the judgement is able to be executed immediately.
We need this, and it is feasible within this framework.
This will be the task in the coming period, even if you bear in mind that work in this field is likely to change permanently with the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
While initially the same procedural rules will apply, the Council will decide unanimously and Parliament will be consulted.
Yet, following ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, there will be a common legal base in the areas of asylum, immigration and police collaboration, and the process of inter-state cooperation we are experimenting with now will not apply any longer.
There will be questions to deal with here as well, Mr President-in-Office.
I will just mention one.
Currently the national parliaments act in controlling their governments.
Once there is a common authority, the relevant areas like asylum and immigration will pass from national control without arriving under the full control of this Parliament, since we will only be consulted and not enjoy codecision.
This is going to give some constitutional experts a real headache.
That is why we are advising in no uncertain terms, Mr President-in-Office, that the earliest possible use be made of the opportunities for introducing majority voting and codecision to this Parliament.
There are many individual aspects that we would like to see encouraged.
We need to prepare for the incorporation of Schengen.
We need to legislate for a common right of asylum.
And we want to continue to develop Europol into an effective unit, regardless of particular differences, which is subordinate to the control of a European Commissioner, the legal control of the Court of Justice and the parliamentary control of this Parliament.
At the same time we would prevail upon you to assist us, Mr President-in-Office, in view of our excellent understanding with you hitherto!
(Applause)
Madam President, questions under the third pillar have moved increasingly into the centre of the European debate, and rightly so.
It is a matter of increased security and safety for citizens.
If we are to be able to bring about free movement of people, we also have to be able to cope with the problems which go with fugitives, with organized crime, with the drugs trade, with fraud, corruption and trafficking in women and children.
We must create a more efficient cooperation between our countries.
This year has been characterized by work on the Amsterdam Treaty and on the enlargement of the Union.
The European Union is facing a task of historic proportions.
The new democracies in central and eastern europe and in the Baltic which have thrown off Communism are applying to join the Union.
For them, as for the EU's current Member States, the crux of the matter is to build a cooperation in order to ensure peace, stability and democracy.
The challenges in the area of the third pillar are large within the existing EU.
They are also very large in the applicant countries.
These questions are very much in focus.
We have different experiences in the EU and in the applicant countries, but the problems we face are fundamentally the same.
Organized crime affects us all.
Let me give an example: Trafficking in women and children is an important political question in the EU.
It is now also beginning to be recognized as an important question in the applicant countries too.
It is their young women who are affected. Another example is that drugs smugglers use applicant countries and transit countries in their business.
The applicant countries now recognize that this also leads to a domestic market for drugs.
We do not only have common interests, but also a shared responsibility.
For our part this involves living up to the pre-accession strategy.
For applicant countries it involves introducing the acquis communautaire in the field of justice and home affairs.
We have put a lot of time into drawing up the Commission's opinion for all the applicant countries.
At an early stage we pointed out that questions of justice and home affairs would require a lot of time and effort in the preparations for enlargement.
This may appear obvious.
If organized crime is allowed to spread, it will make inroads into democracy.
If the democratic institutions fail to implement and monitor laws, people will lose confidence.
That will affect the countries' economies.
People who invest want to be able to rely on the judicial system.
It is fundamental for membership negotiations that the applicant countries adopt the Union's "acquis communautaire' , which requires stable judicial institutions.
During the spring we spent a lot of time arguing for our points of view in the government negotiations before the Amsterdam meeting.
As far as the third pillar is concerned, the Amsterdam Treaty represents a large step forward, although we would, of course, have liked it to have been even larger.
During the year, apart from the work in these two key areas, we have also taken a number of special initiatives.
We presented a proposal on temporary protection, which we debated in this House in October.
Our starting point was that people with temporary residence permits should have the same kind of protection regardless of the Member State which they were in.
We have also put forward a draft convention on rules for admission.
The background was quite simply that we had a number of resolutions which we wished to combine in a single instrument with similar rules with regard to labour, sole-traders, students, post-graduate students, family members and immigrants who are permanently resident in the Union.
During the year I also presented a communication on the carrying out and recognition of civil judgments which to a certain degree corresponds to the problem about which Mr Nassauer is asking, i.e. that it currently takes too long and costs too much to have a judgment carried out in another Member State.
As Mr Fischbach said, synthetic drugs are spreading like wildfire among young people around Europe.
The drugs are designed to avoid legislative bans, and the authorities are sometimes forced to hand back confiscated drugs quite simply because we have not had time to put them on a list of banned substances.
It currently takes around two years to get a new drug onto the UN's lists of banned substances.
That is of course not acceptable.
When I saw the extent of this problem, I gave my departments the task of carrying out a proper analysis of the situation.
We finished the analysis in January and then drew up a communication to Parliament in May.
As you know, we have proposed a system for the exchange of information which would make it possible for us to quickly warn each other when new substances come onto the market and to share experiences and analyses.
We must also develop methods to ban new chemical drugs more quickly.
The Council of Ministers gave its support to this in June.
As far as the fight against drugs is concerned, we have a cooperation which works well with both the European Parliament and the presidency.
The Commission has also become deeply involved in anti-drug activities outside Europe's borders.
This applies to North Africa as well as South East Asia and Latin America.
I can mention that as recently as last week we took part in a meeting in the Dominican Republic on the implementation of the plan of action to combat drugs in the Caribbean which was adopted in Barbados in May 1996.
Madam President, trafficking in women was the subject of a special debate in the plenary session here yesterday when the Waddington report was on the agenda.
As I said then, we are already in the process of seeing how we can follow up the plan of action.
As far as the sexual exploitation of children is concerned, we are in the process of drawing up a communication which takes an overall view and which will propose, among other things, a joint European register of missing children.
During the year we started the Daphne programme which is aimed at voluntary organizations which work with women and children who are victims of violence and sexual exploitation.
We have encountered a lot of interest, but have only been able to support a fraction of the projects which have been submitted to us.
We now hope that through the individual projects we shall gain experience and knowledge which can also be of benefit to others.
All the Member States of the EU are now involved in projects in one way or another.
We have also worked hard to implement four multiannual programmes, Sherlock, Grotius, Stop and Oisin.
Quite recently the Commission presented two more multiannual programmes, Falcone and Odysseus.
Odysseus is aimed at strengthening the practical cooperation between those who work on false documents, border controls and asylum and immigration questions.
Madam President, when the question is asked, on what area should the European Union concentrate, a majority of those questioned answer that it is fighting organized crime, drugs and violence.
That is what concerns people today.
They expect us to make real efforts to protect their personal freedom, safety and security.
The Commission is playing an active role in the work on the Union's plan of action for the fight against organized crime.
The Commission did so before the summit in Dublin and continued to do so both before and after the summit in Amsterdam.
It is gratifying that the Council of Ministers has supported the fact that the Member States and the Union's institutions are together putting power behind the promise to make the fight against organized crime effective.
However, reality speaks for itself.
In the EU we have 15 different legal systems, different definitions of fraud and major differences in rules for banks and finance.
Organized crime exploits this situation.
That should make greater demands on increased cooperation and greater effectiveness in the Union's fight against crime.
To increase the opportunities for effective cooperation, I have put forward a proposal for a joint measure, the socalled Falcone programme, which is aimed at increased cooperation between those who work in the field with policing and legal questions in this area.
It is obvious that the fight against organized crime and corruption is an important element in the forthcoming membership negotiations with the countries of central and eastern europe.
The plan of action proposes that a special cooperation pact against organized crime should be entered into between the applicant countries and the Member States of the EU.
Together with the Presidency, the Commission is now in the process of studying what shape such a pact should take.
Several times I have complained, as the rapporteur does, that many conventions in the area of the third pillar have still not entered into force.
These include Europol, the Convention on extradition and the Convention on the protection of the Community's financial interests.
I would be grateful if the Members of the House also helped us, as the President said, to at least get Europol in place for 1 July next year.
As I mentioned initially, the Amsterdam Treaty means that cooperation on justice and home affairs is being raised to a new level.
It contains a five-year working programme on how border controls, immigration and asylum issues and civil rights shall be integrated into the first pillar.
That also includes the matters currently covered by the Schengen Agreement.
Cooperation in the area which remains within the third pillar, that is, the police, customs and criminal law, will be developed through framework decisions, among other things.
We are going to continue to work with the instruments we have through the Maastricht Treaty.
At the same time we are of course preparing ourselves for the day when the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
I think we need a proper overview of the consequences of the new treaty with regard to questions of justice and home affairs.
I have therefore set in motion an analytical study which I intend to present to Parliament and the Council of Ministers in the form of a broad communication.
I hope that, in the same way as a White Paper, it will serve as an important basis for a thorough debate on how we shall realize a free, safe and just Europe.
With that I would like to thank the Committees here in Parliament, with which we in the Commission work intensively, for a good cooperation during the year.
I would also like to thank the Presidency for the successful achievements we have succeeded in bringing about, in spite of everything, during 1997.
Thank you, Commissioner Gradin.
The debate is adjourned to 3 p.m.
Welcome
Before we move to the vote, I would like to make an official welcome.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are honoured to have with us today in the official visitors' gallery the family of Miguel Angel Blanco, the young town councillor from Ermua in Spain's Basque region who was kidnapped and murdered by ETA terrorists in July of this year.
(Prolonged applause) As you will no doubt recall, the death of Miguel Angel Blanco sent enormous shock waves not only through Spain but through the rest of the European Union.
The European Parliament was not immune to this feeling, which applies to all other victims of terrorism, and sent a delegation to Ermua as an unequivocal show of solidarity.
The Mayor of Ermua and the leaders of the parties represented on the town council are accompanying the family.
I would like to welcome you all most sincerely, as should be clear from the applause you have received in this House.
Thank you very much for coming!
Votes
The obligation to display the price of an article per unit of measurement is, of course, a commendable one, and can only contribute to better consumer information.
In the light of the ever more extensive range of products offered for sale, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report goes in the right direction, which is toward educating Europeans in the practice of comparative consumerism.
However, given the principle that too much information is harmful to information itself, we must remain vigilant with regard to any excesses potentially arising from such measures.
At the time when this report was examined by the Parliamentary Committee on the environment, I had occasion to draw my colleagues' attention to the problems raised by prices on a per litre basis, with regard to wines and spirits.
What possible interest can there be for a consumer to know that champagne or whisky costs so much per litre, when the bottles in which they are offered for sale contain 75 cl or 70 cl? Price comparison can be read directly from the price label on the article itself.
I think it is quite unnecessary to overload a label with extra information which is of no greater value than the unit price of the article itself.
I would therefore ask for the unrestricted application of the provisions of article 10, ' maintenance of the most favourable provisions.'
With this single reserve, I approve the report of Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
A simpler and more flexible directive is essential both for the consumer and for the retailer.
I welcome the conciliation agreement with the Council concerning arrangements for the dual pricing of goods during the transitional period for the introduction of a single currency.
The decision will result in the price of goods being displayed in both the national currency and the euro, including the price per unit, per kilo or per litre as appropriate.
The exemption of small shopkeepers also displays common sense.
Small shops will be given six years to comply with the directive.
Obviously, as these small shops sell everything, it would have been an unacceptable burden to have asked them to put the unit price on products also.
These measures are practical and will help consumers better understand the operation of the single currency.
Raw tobacco (A4-414/97)
The Swedish Social Democrat Group has abstained from voting on the amendment of this regulation because we do not think that any agricultural aid should be given to tobacco growing at all.
The introduction of the single market and ensuing liberalisation have considerably increased the degree to which some fields of our economy are exposed to international competition.
Tobacco production is in its own right fully part of the European agricultural economy.
As part of this framework, it requires all our attention.
Likewise, it must be treated independently of the dossiers dealing with combating tobacco dependency, which will be dealt with tomorrow by our Assembly.
As a medical practitioner, with responsibility for an ear, nose, and throat hospital department, I daily deplore the ravages occasioned by immoderate consumption of tobacco.
Even so, the European farmers cropping tobacco should not be those on whom the financial burden of decisions fall, especially as compared to their American or Asian colleagues.
This has not been the case until now, as this business has continued to be protected.
This is why I approve the one-year extension of the regime in force, pending an overall reform of the common organization of the tobacco market.
I am also in favour of applying an emergency procedure in the allocation of quotas for the 1998 harvest.
The single premium regime, as it exists today, is welcomed by the majority of producers, who are a not inconsiderable haven of employment opportunities in these difficult times.
Consequently, we should ensure the guarantee thresholds first, before subsequently envisaging a new basis of operation more consistent with world market prospects, and efforts to reduce the unwanted consequences of tobacco dependency.
I will therefore vote in favour of the proposal as now put forward by the Commission to the European Parliament.
I have voted against this proposal to extend the regulation concerning the common organization of the market for raw tobacco.
The reason is mainly that I consider aid for tobacco growers to be absurd, since at the same time the EU has a programme to prevent the harmful effects of smoking.
We know that thousands upon thousands of people die every year because of tobacco smoking and that the healthcare costs to take care of the people who are ill because of smoking are astronomical.
The EU's support for tobacco growing should therefore end entirely.
Aid should instead be provided so that those who grow tobacco can convert to other farming.
The alarm bells which we in Parliament have heard, including the latest annual report from the Court of Auditors, show quite clearly that the EU's policy in this area works very badly.
Among other things, the internal control systems do not work.
Fraud is also commonplace.
I do not therefore think it is sensible to continue with this policy.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against the Community arrangements for untreated tobacco being extended to cover the automun of 1998.
We do not believe that the tobacco which is cured within the EU should be subsidised for the following reasons: first, it is immoral for it to be exported, as it fails to meet the EU's own standards, and secondly, we believe that it is hypocritical for us to spend ECU 11.2 a year on fighting cancer while at the same time supporting tobacco curing through market arrangements.
Instead, we are in favour of shifting production in these areas to other crops and in this way protecting the people who are dependent on this crop at presence, and for whom it is their basis for existence.
Andersson report (A4-313/97)
The main thrust of the report on the future organization of work is good.
Issues should, as far as possible, be sorted out in a decentralized way by agreements between the parties in the labour market, so-called partnership by agreement, which means that the parties themselves decide at what level the agreement is concluded.
There is no reason, however, to draw the European Commission into the partnership as suggested in the report.
Nonetheless, I voted for the report.
I am voting against the Andersson report.
The clear agreement between the views in this report and the Commission's Green Paper merely confirms my view that the majority of the European Parliament fully share the Commission's views on how the future European labour market is to be organized.
Although the report contains much which is good, the only parameters for success in the Andersson report are quantitative growth and increased profits.
So the report simply glosses over the negative effects which the proposals in the Commission's Green Paper would have, such as the adverse effects which introducing an annual working hours standard would have for employees' family life and their social life as a whole.
I think it is unacceptable that the Andersson report should demand that the Commission get involved in an Eu-wide regulation of national labour markets (point 1).
It does not make it any more acceptable that the report refers to the importance of the European partners on the labour market in this respect.
In fact, this would mean that the national trades unions and employers' associations would be bypassed when it comes to their members' interests, and that large parts of the labour market would come under EU legislation.
My aim is to support those circles in the Danish labour movement who want to hold onto the principles of retaining the right to negotiate freely amongst the parties on the labour market at national level and who want to work against any kind of EU involvement in agreements.
The same circles in the labour movement fully support broad international labour cooperation, which is a view which I also share.
In view of this, I am abstaining from the report.
I warmly welcome this Green Paper and the rapporteur's work on it.
I hope that from discussions around this document, concrete actions will emerge.
Having experienced frustration last year when the previous British Government opposed a flexible EU policy on working time, I am glad to say that our new government is playing a leading part in such debates.
British Labour Members like myself are glad to see the rapporteur stressing lifelong learning as a policy to support at EU level as our government does at home.
He is right to emphasize the need to tailor policies to suit different people - in Britain for example our Chancellor has announced a massive increase in childcare, helping parents move from welfare into work.
We can all learn from best practice in other countries.
Where both management and staff dare to be flexible, to manage change rather than be its victims, the more secure all our economic futures will be.
I hope colleagues will back this report and move the debate on, to generate new ideas and share best current practice on the organization of work.
This can be a useful spur to national governments preparing their employment action plans for the Cardiff Summit next year.
The question of creating new forms of job organization given the current ongoing social restructuring touches three basic dimensions:
the dimension of a new division of labour in view of steady rises in productivity and efficiency, that is to say not only between paid labour and other forms of socially necessary work, and between men and women along with that, but also between the employed and the jobless; -the dimension of the new opportunities for dismantling hierarchies and extending individual or collective areas of responsibility in employment as an essential element of working life, which new technologies and management strategies make possible today; -the dimension of a more flexible and product-wise arrangement of immediate working processes in all areas of production and service.Mr Andersson's report is primarily concerned with the third dimension, which largely addresses the interests of the wage and salary earners.
This is entirely positive, but does not really go far enough.
In view of the urgent problem of mass unemployment, it is necessary to tackle also the reorganization of work in the first two dimensions referred to.
We hope that the debate will continue and be extended - especially via the EU Commission, which might discover new ways to overcome certain obstacles still affecting the whole question of a European employment and labour policy.
Waddington report (A4-372/97)
Madam President, I welcome the Waddington report as a thorough, coherent response to the Commission communication on trafficking in women for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
It is very difficult to believe that such slavery still exists in this day and age, yet we read that trafficking in women is actually on the increase according to the International Organization for Migration.
This makes it all the more important for the European Union to have a coordinated strategy to combat it.
The Commission has estimated that half a million women a year are being trafficked although the true extent of the problem is unknown because of the secretive nature of the trade.
The high profits and the low risks generated from trafficking encourage the perpetrators to supply more and more women for sexual exploitation in the European Union.
Many of these desperate women are poor and vulnerable, marginalized from their own societies, who believe that life in another country will be rosier - an escape, a new start.
It is therefore essential that there be a multi-disciplinary, transnational European approach to this problem.
It is very encouraging that Member States have recognized that trafficking is a violation of human rights and they have a common interest in fighting it.
It is also encouraging that the programmes Stop and Daphne are in place.
However, there is a strong need for increased funding for these initiatives and I call for 1999 to be announced as the European Year against Violence against Women for this will be a further encouragement to increase those budget lines.
Finally it is important that women's status in society today is included in the European Union's enlargement negotiations, especially as the central and eastern European countries have quickly become the new breeding ground and easy access areas for trafficking in women and for women being brought into the European Union.
The huge increase in the trafficking of women is resulting in many thousands of women from the poorer regions of the world being subjected to sexual slavery.
These unfortunate victims come from Latin America, the Philippines and the countries of central and eastern europe.
They are often illiterate and uneducated and are directly recruited from small towns and villages with the promise of a lavish or well-paid job in Europe.
Once they arrive in Europe they are at the mercy of traffickers who confiscate their passports and force them into prostitution.
I welcome the fact that this issue has come within the remit of the Europol drugs unit.
However much more needs to be done.
There must be better coordination of police information and laws and sentencing policy need to be harmonized across the EU.
Those that ply this evil trade must be severely punished.
Once caught they should serve long sentences on a par with those convicted of major drug-trafficking offences.
The penalty must fit the crime.
We have today voted in favour of Waddington's outstanding report on the trade in women.
We have done so even though it demands ratification of the Europol convention and extend the scope of the coming European information system (EIS).
Europol is one of the many stages which have been taken towards a United States of Europe.
Trans-border police cooperation is always essential, but there is absolutely no reason to make it international.
The same applies to the EIS and all the Schengen work.
We accept the need to act in respect of the trade in women, but we believe this should be done at intergovernmental level.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of efforts to assist women who are victims of the trade in human beings.
This is a kind of slavery in which women from non-Member States are transported to the EU to be exploited, either by being forced into prostitution or through forced marriages or other work situations involving sexual exploitation.
These women are often in a highly unfortunate and vulnerable position.
It is therefore important that efforts be made both to help the victims and to combat the trade in human beings.
This is an international problem, and so it is important that the Commission should take the initiative.
Member States should cooperate on research and education, exchange information and experience etc.
We must combat the trade in human beings, and the most effective way of doing this is to act together.
The report illustrates some of the more dramatic dimensions of the problem.
However, it does not succeed in the end in getting to the root of the basic causes that have given rise to this scourge of society and have helped it to burgeon. Nor does it put its finger on who is really to blame for this present day slave trafficking.
For this reason, although it makes some interesting recommendations, it fails to put forward any recommendations which would lead to a fundamental and complete eradication of the problem.
It is perhaps more painful for "civilized' countries to acknowledge their massive responsibilities for the economic and social collapse of entire countries, in the service of enormous European and multinational economic interests, leading to the degradation of an entire people.
The same law of the marketplace which acts against the dignity of citizens and workers in our own countries, has transformed other countries, in Europe and the Third World alike, into booty and merchandise.
It has created a "paradise' of laws of the jungle enabling all-powerful international organized crime to act with impunity, trading in the dignity and in the very lives of human beings.
The way to tackle the problem is not through the imposition of severe punishments and through suppression with the assistance of Europol, which in the end only impact on the victims themselves and do not strike at the allpowerful and flexible circles of organized crime.
At the same time the Schengen Agreement is closing in around the immigrants, the victims, depriving them of basic rights and leaving them exposed to the mercy of lawlessness and the crime which turns this into profit.
The way to tackle the problem is through securing and safeguarding the rights of immigrants, through the provision of reception services and basic living conditions.
Even more so, it is through the development of relationships of mutual, equal and profitable cooperation with third countries.
It is through the growth of their economic base, which has been destroyed by the predatory exploitation of developed countries, enabling their citizens to work and to live with dignity in their homelands.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.55 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Progress in the areas of justice and home affairs (continuation)
The next item is the continuationof the debate on the oral questions from the Committee on Civil Liberties on the annual debate relating to progress in the area of justice and home affairs.
Mr President, please forgive me for commenting on the order of business at the start of this debate.
Yet I cannot avoid making two critical observations on the procedure for today's debate, and I address my remarks to you, Mr President, together with a request.
For the third time in succession now we are experiencing how the debate on the success of cooperation in the area of justice and home affairs has been placed on the agenda in such a way that what occurs is what happened this afternoon, namely that we had to interrupt the discussion to make way for our important votes.
That is not good for the debate.
I would ask you to find another place on the agenda for such a central issue, which allows us to discuss this in context.
I have a second request to make, Mr President, together with another critical observation: I am very grateful to the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin, for concluding her speech this afternoon.
I would not have brought my speech to a close in her position, for the way in which this House thinks it can treat a Commissioner is unacceptable!
I say this particularly for our benefit, ladies and gentlemen, and would ask every one of us present here today to ensure in the groups that we do not ruin our reputation.
You cannot treat a Member of the Commission in this way with such an important debate!
I urgently request that we refrain from doing so in future.
If discussion is taking place at lunchtime - on this occasion Mrs Gradin was the victim; normally it is other people, either speakers or representatives from the Council or Commission -this is intolerable.
No-one ever listens.
That is disgraceful for the Parliament of Europe!
I would therefore entreat you, Mr President, to make this a matter for discussion in the Conference of Presidents.
Thank you!
I should like to respond briefly to your two comments, which amounted, in fact, to a lengthy critical speech, and I shall certainly take note of, and transmit to the Conference of Presidents, your comments on the fact that the debates on this subject have been interrupted for the third time by the midday break.
But I would also reflect back the criticism to you, particularly regarding the failure of speakers to keep to allocated speaking times, which has led to our being unable to keep to the planned timetables.
Furthermore, I apologize profusely to the Commissioner for the rumpus a moment or two ago, but we do not really know how to control the House when it is coming into session.
This is a recurrent problem, and I shall certainly inform the Conference of Presidents.
Mr President, just one sentence.
To give more weight Mr Schulz's remarks, I would like to say that the PPE strongly supports every word he has just said.
Thank you, Mrs Reding.
All these comments will be transmitted to the relevant authorities.
I would ask you to keep to the allocated speaking times, which will avoid putting ourselves in a difficult situation.
Mr President, I also back up the colleagues who have just spoken.
I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur who has accepted a great majority of the amendments that I proposed in the Commission on behalf of the Socialist Group.
Consequently, the motion before us, with the exception of one paragraph, has our complete approval.
I consider that there are two ways to deal with the annual report.
The first approach would be to match the advances achieved to the expectations of the citizens whom we represent.
From that point of view - and I shall return to this - there is a yawning gulf between these expectations and reality.
But we can also measure changes compared to the previous year. This is more realistic, and less discouraging.
This is what we did when we noted that the Parliament was now better informed and more often consulted, in accordance with article K6.
The over-restrictive application of this rule was the first of our earlier criticisms.
We appreciated the fact that the Luxembourg presidency undertook to implement article K, paragraph 11, of the Treaty of Amsterdam early, for it lays down the obligations of the Council and of the Commission unambiguously with regard to the Parliament.
Mr Nassauer emphasized this, this morning, and the President of the Council returned to it, and I thank him.
We also note progress in the choice of decision-making approaches, which are closer to the treaty, particularly in the area of joint action.
Our satisfaction in this respect is not total, however, as the list of the decisions of the Council also includes far too many resolutions which are not subject to our oversight.
Here, I mean, for example, the resolution on marriages of convenience, which was drafted in a totally opaque manner by the 'migrations' group, without any information to the Parliament at any time, and therefore still less any consultation.
Here, however, was a document with substantial consequences, involving the right to live in a family situation.
There is cause for surprise at the adoption of a restrictive document on a subject which was not shown on the Council's programme, at a time when the convention on the harmonization of rules in the immigration field, announced by Mme Gradin last year, has not seen the light of day.
Furthermore, as a general rule, we believe that the Council and the Commission do not give the necessary attention to the fields of asylum and immigration.
While we rejoice in the Commissioner's initiative relating to temporary protection, we regret that the draft of the harmonization of procedures for granting refugee status and subsidiary protection - although in the Council's programme for a considerable time past - has not even begun to be implemented.
In short, we note a number of areas of progress, but remain extremely critical on the slow pace of such progress, which does give European citizens the impression that, in these sensitive areas, no progress is being made at all.
This is true - and I am simplifying to the point of caricature - for the free circulation of persons, which is a subject of endless, serpentine complications.
This is also the case for the European legal space.
This was already the major priority of the Spanish Presidency in 1995.
Even so, it is turning out difficult to give shape to this legal space.
Of course there are advances in our thinking.
Concrete proposals exist.
There is no doubt about that.
The recent reports from our colleagues, Mrs Cederschiöld, Mr Orlando and Mr Bontempi prove that.
But progress is so timid, and the deadlines for implementation so long, that a wide avenue is open to the demagogues always on the look-out for whatever affects European credibility.
In this respect, I admit I was shocked by a defamatory advertisement published by the Europe of Nations Group in the French press, under the heading: Leave the big international criminals alone - Europe does not want to do anything about them, anyway.
It is interesting to note that those who are so ready to denounce the powerlessness of Europe are also those who are the most determined to deny Europe the resources it needs to be effective, by rejecting any new powers transferred to European institutions, and digging in their heels on unanimous voting, which we know is a powerful weapon of paralysis of decision-making - as the President of the Council has just emphasized in his morning speech.
And all this, of course, in the name of a narrow and restricted national sovereignty, which goes right against the principles that it is claimed to defend.
The two hundred magistrates meeting in Brussels last week, in the wake of the Geneva appeal, were right to point out the slow and sluggish pace of change in setting up a single Europe for legal affairs, which is completely at loggerheads with the festering sores of an archaic concept of national sovereignty.
Unfortunately, there are few chances of any real changes prior to the coming into force of the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam relating to the new procedures, and this promises many further years of rather uninspiring annual assessments!
Mr President, the Luxembourg presidency has innovated.
In order to reinforce parliamentary control in the field of combating crime, political asylum, free movement and so on, it decided to introduce the new rules for the Treaty of Amsterdam early and to consult the European Parliament, well before the ratification of the treaty made such consultation compulsory.
In doing this, the Luxembourg Presidency has really served the cause of transparency and democracy in Europe.
And it deserves our gratitude!
The Luxembourg Presidency also wished to innovate in other fields.
It wanted to take important decisions so that Europe should be better able to combat international crime, trafficking in men, women, and children, illegal immigration, the plague of paedophilia, and much more besides.
The presidency wanted to give substance to the wishes of the citizens in terms of concrete and effective measures, so that free circulation benefits the honest, and not criminals of all kinds.
Alas, all this great effort and positive work has in so many cases been reduced to nothing by certain member countries, who have taken advantage of the compulsory unanimous vote required in the third pillar, to stand in the way of important dossiers.
This should be said loud and clear.
If essential measures to combat terrorism and organized crime cannot be successfully completed, the blame lies with certain member countries, who take the common interest hostage in the satisfaction of obscure national interests.
This is a pure and simple abuse, and it is high time, Mr President, that this should stop, as the only people to profit from such manoeuvrings are those working in the Mafia and other criminals.
In spite of that, the Luxembourg Presidency has successfully moved ahead on important dossiers, and my colleagues have already mentioned this.
The Luxembourg presidency would have had more to record on the assets side of the account, and if it has been unable to do so, it is certainly not the fault of Marc Fischbach, the excellent president in office, but rather more the rule of unanimous voting, which has once again demonstrated its harmful effects.
Mr President, Mr President of Council, ladies and gentlemen, we too are highly satisfied with the work carried out by Mr Nassauer and we note with satisfaction that Parliament is starting to be informed and consulted to an increasing extent, and this is very important to us.
Although we still have a long way to go in this sector, we think that Parliamentary control over such delicate issues, involving the heart of national sovereignty, so to speak, is of vital importance, particularly with regard to Europol, with regard to the Court of Justice, which we have to bring into operation as soon as possible, and, in general, obviously with regard to personal data on citizens.
It is on these two words - freedom and safety - that the future of Europe depends: the freedom of the citizens, freedom of movement, which obviously cannot be called into question by the very important and increasingly difficult fight against Mafia gangs and crimes of all kinds.
The future of our continent depends on this!
Mr President, progress has been made in the European judicial policy during the past year.
It has been mentioned that the Dutch Presidency has partly put into effect the Treaty of Amsterdam.
During the Dutch Presidency the action plan against major crime was developed.
Luxembourg has decided to consult us on all motions for a resolution, and the European Commission, Commissioner Gradin, submitted an initiative in this House for joint action with regard to the temporary protection of displaced persons.
Good things, therefore, during the past year.
But the liberals do not think this makes us well-off. Because the shortcomings in the justice policy are still there in abundance.
Hardly any treaty agreement, and it says so in the papers, has been ratified by the Member States; this includes the anti-fraud agreements, the Europol agreement, etc.
May I put it this way to Commissioner Gradin: the European Commission is economical with its right legislative initiative.
Yes, the Commission, Commissioner Gradin, says informally, we do not have enough staff.
No, the President says, that is no excuse.
Because too few staff in this sector of the European Commission shows that evidently too little priority is given to this policy area.
So it is all going too slowly.
What might happen and what should happen in the future? In the future there should be a strong coalition between the European Parliament and the European Commission, and in the future we should put pressure on both the European Council of Ministers of Justice and of Internal Affairs together.
This is necessary.
There is enough to do.
Mr President, I conclude by calling on the forthcoming British Presidency to show that Labour can pursue a better European justice policy than the Conservatives.
Mr President, cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs is certainly a delicate subject, as it affects an essential component of the sovereignty of Member States.
In this field of competency, the action of the Union can only and should only be subsidiary, and relate only to criminal actions or public order offences which are really transnational in nature.
This is a requirement for efficiency.
But rather than dream on about a common European legal area, which is in fact an extraordinary conception of an overbearing centralized European state, we would be closer to combatting organized crime, or illegal immigration, if we were to set up interstate cooperation, and make the court decisions taken in each one of the Member States immediately enforceable on a reciprocal basis, and to conceive of transnational procedures that would be based on the proposals of the judges in the Geneva appeal.
Instead of the vain attempt always to seek legal uniformization, which is inappropriate and contrary to the traditions and the legal philosophies of the Member States, the European Union's efforts should focus, on the contrary, on really trans-national aspects, questions of law and public order.
On the admission of the rapporteur himself, the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam in the field of law and public order raise difficulties in terms of constitutional guarantees, as communitarization leads to the disappearance of democratic control by the national parliaments.
This state of affairs should itself suffice to condemn the treaty.
The European Parliament, which is so keen on safeguarding human rights and constitutional guarantees, should consider the consequences and draw the attention of public opinion to the dangers resident in the Treaty of Amsterdam, with regard to democratic control over European construction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to join my colleagues in thanking Mr Fischbach for his work.
Mr Fischbach, on behalf of my group may I say again: the manner in which you have presided over the Council is, in our view, exemplary.
You can only operate within the framework of the existing law, yet the skill you have revealed in anticipating the outcome of Amsterdam shows that there can be a fruitful and constructive dialogue between Parliament and Council, which helps to break down mutual mistrust and also stabilize the democratic legitimization of Council action.
If the Council works with Parliament in the area of justice and home affairs, then this is one of the greatest advances -in contrast to Mr Buffetaut's fear about the advent of a European superstate - because the constitutional reality, the basis of the Treaty, is of course the fact that there should be intergovernmental cooperation in these areas, and Amsterdam has reaffirmed this.
However, the danger we are frequently moaning about then arises: the national parliaments are unable to sufficiently exercise their control function any longer because trade has become Europeanized while both the control function and the legislative function have failed to devolve to the European Parliament.
This democratic deficit, this hole in democracy, can be remedied by working constructively and diligently with Parliament -and above all by making use of the facilities for the immediate instruction of Parliament through the Council - as you have done, Mr Fischbach.
I want to make a point of mentioning this here: the fact that last week Mr Schleder in his capacity as Chairman of the K4 Committee attended the Committee and gave us as up-to-date a progress report as never before on developments in the Justice and Home Affairs Council is clearly attributable to your initiative!
The advances that have been made can be added to -I agree with Mr Wiebenga, Madam Commissioner - by us working more closely together, Parliament and Commission, and by you making greater use of your right to initiate legislation.
I want to make one thing clear, as Mr Wiebenga has already intimated: if there is not enough staff in this area, then that is not the fault of Mrs Gradin, because she is fighting for more staff. Instead an appeal should be made to the Commission President, with whom Luxembourg has good contacts, to provide her with more staff.
My final remark: It says under item 10 of the resolution that the European Union should turn its attention to combatting marriages of convenience.
I am not familiar with this term.
I always thought that marriage and convenience are mutually exclusive!
What it should say is combatting sham marriages!
Mr President, it is pleasing and encouraging that under the Luxembourg presidency we have seen some serious attention given to progress in the area of judicial and home affairs.
I congratulate the Luxembourg presidency on having brought Parliament into the consultative process at an early stage. This is absolutely essential and we all welcome it.
I am quite confident that the steady progress in this area will continue under the forthcoming British presidency.
As more and more people in the European Union live, work, study and spend part of their lives in countries other than the one in which they were born or of which they are nominally citizens, this is going to become more and more necessary.
I want to refer to three points.
Firstly, while people must be punished if they have committed a crime, it is essential that while they are awaiting trial in another Member State accused persons should not find themselves in a more difficult situation than if they were in their own country.
The bureaucratic delays caused by translation difficulties or differences in legal systems should not mean that they are held for indefinite periods before they come to trial.
This is an area where it is important that we make progress, as is the question of the various penalties which courts can impose.
Many of the penalties which courts impose on their own citizens are not easy to apply to citizens of other countries.
I am thinking of things like community service, probation and so on.
We need to look closely at this area.
Finally, there is the role of Europol.
If we are to tackle the growth in international crime seriously and effectively, Europol is essential.
We cannot be at a disadvantage compared with the criminals in dealing with these matters.
At the same time, if we are going to create an operational role for Europol, we must ensure there are proper mechanisms in place for democratic accountability and for people to make justified complaints where they feel there has been unfairness.
We must have genuine democratic safeguards for Europol.
Mr President, I would also like to say thank you for a very interesting and rewarding debate on the third pillar and what has taken place during the past year.
In addition, I would like to say that I think the cooperation between the Commission and the various committees works excellently and we have had many rewarding meetings and exchanges during the year.
But just as Mr Fischbach says, it is clear that both you in this House and we in the Commission and the Council can complain about the inertia which working with intergovernmental cooperation entails.
That is the reason why several of the conventions which are on the tables of all the parliaments have not been ratified and why we have not got started with police cooperation etc.
Later I would like to give an answer to Mrs Lindeperg, among others, on the question of asylum.
The question of asylum and a report on asylum are now a priority, since we first gave priority to the question of temporary residence permits and admission.
A word about resources: When I arrived three years ago there were a handful of people in the task force which had to do all the immense work which has been done.
This working group is now in the process of becoming a reasonably sensible organization, but it is far from complete.
I would therefore appreciate it if both the Council and Parliament had a little more generous attitude so that many more initiatives could be taken.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11: 30 a.m.
Fifth R & D framework programme
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A4-0396/97), by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision on the fifth framework programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (1998-2002) (COM(97)0142 - C4-0186/97) - + COM(97)0439 - C4-0410/97-97/0119(COD))-(A4-0395/97) by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy on the proposal for a Council Decision on the fifth framework programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) for research and teaching activities (1998-2002) (COM(97)0142 - C4-0234/97 & COM(97)439-97/0120(CNS))I would like to specify from the outset that, in order to avoid an interruption of the vote tomorrow, as there are 171 amendments to Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl's report on the fifth framework programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities, and as we also have the formal solemn session tomorrow at midday, the vote on this report will take place on Thursday, on the understanding that the deadline for notification of requests for separate votes and for split votes is fixed for this evening at 9 p.m., to enable a proper preparation for this vote, which is a complex one.
On the other hand, the second report from Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on the fifth framework programme of the European Atomic Energy Community for training activities, will be put to the vote tomorrow, Wednesday.
So we should all be in agreement on the procedure for voting.
I want to state this clearly from the outset so that there can be no confusion: the vote on the first report on Thursday; the vote on the second report, Wednesday, the reason being, I remind you, the interruption that will be caused to tomorrow's votes by the formal session at midday.
Mr President, the amendments to the main report - not the Euratom report - are not yet available.
This makes it rather difficult for us to do our work on separate votes and split votes in time.
Could you do what you can to ensure those amendments are made available in the different languages this afternoon.
Otherwise, we cannot meet the deadline.
Mrs McNally, as I stated, we have 171 amendments, which is a substantial workload for our services, and in particular for the translators.
We are very conscious of the difficulties this causes for all of our parliamentary colleagues, but it is precisely for that reason that we are proposing to postpone the vote to Thursday, which will enable us, between now and then, or at least we hope so, to have all of the amendments in all languages, and hence to enable you to take the decisions which are your responsibilities as a political group.
I remind you that the deadline for tabling amendments is set for this evening at 9 p.m.
Under normal circumstances, you should have the necessary documents enabling you to present your requests for separate votes and split votes in good time.
So the timetable is agreed.
I shall now open the debate and naturally give the floor to our rapporteur, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, for ten minutes.
In a further answer to Mrs McNally, I have been told that amendments should be ready at 5 p.m., which will give you time to prepare your requests.
Mr President, before going into the merits of the extremely financial aspects, I would like to make two general considerations: in introducing its proposal, to which I believe it rightly attributes the utmost importance, the Commission expresses an opinion I share: the fifth framework programme should assist European society in entering the Twenty-first Century under the best conditions.
In my opinion, one of the most significant aspects of this programme is that, unlike the previous ones, it is not solely based on technology but rather on problems, to such an extent that the Commission lists several criteria which inspire the framework programme: it should be based on scientific and technological excellence, it should be effective in relation to the main Union policies, it should have an added European value, it should be interesting not only from a scientific point of view but also from the point of view of European competitiveness in the world economy and should focus on the problems that affect the whole of society.
It seemed important to me to make this introduction, just as it seems important to make another introduction on the procedure.
Like the Commission, we hope we can achieve a majority vote on Council, because this is important.
Coming now to the extremely financial aspects, I believe that the Commission's proposal, which provides for a 3.8 % increase compared with the previous programme, is important, even if we all know that far more is required in terms of the need to develop investments and research: the budget makes us take reality into account.
What we want to emphasize, however, is that, because the future financial prospects are uncertain, we also need to review the overall financing in the light of the new financial prospects; not only, but, in particular, when the new member countries join, the overall maximum amount will have to be reviewed, because we think this proposal is only adequate for the 15 member countries.
Mr President, I would like to stress what an atypical situation we are actually in, because it would in fact be right for the Council to follow this discussion from now on, as it is a subject that requires a joint decision.
It is true that the Commission will make a proposal after our debate, but it is also true that Council should follow subjects as important as those given by a strategic programme such as the fifth framework programme for research and development.
Whilst pointing out this failure, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that we have all exaggerated somewhat.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has voted 30 amendments and has certainly made a substantial contribution in quantity.
The part-session, however, will agree we concentrate on the essential, otherwise the individual governments will be in a good position to set the various opinions expressed in Parliament against each other.
We need to concentrate on the essential issues, as it will be easier to reach a joint decision on the matter and then we can reach a reconciliation.
If we get lost in a maze, Parliament can be sure of failure.
The time at which this presentation is made will be unique.
There is a sense of timing, in fact, on the eve of expansion with the new framework programme.
However, there is one aspect which the Committee on Economic Affairs has pointed out, which is the need to link this Fifth Framework Programme with the new situation which, from the geopolitical point of view, will be established within a few years with the expansion to the East and with the application of the Barcelona Agreement.
We should therefore think of a far broader scenario that is not just based on the added value for the Fifteen.
This approach emphasizes a need pointed out by the Committee on Economic Affairs that we should no longer plan for five years but for the next ten, twenty and thirty years, because it is only in this context that major investments can be made in research that will be of use to the entire Community.
Mr President, fundamentally the 4 % or so of the total EU spending on civil research is relatively little.
Nevertheless, I would like to hail the fifth framework programme for research, technological development and demonstration activities a comparatively successful instrument of programming.
Although I have to say the goal aspired to is in a bit of a cleft stick, which could do with some attention.
The European Parliament is of the opinion, like the Regional Committee, that R&D policy should make a positive contribution to cohesion.
At the same time, the needs of disadvantaged regions have frequently been neglected until now in the prioritizing of research projects.
Such approaches touch on the question of how far R&D policy, based on the principle of first-rate scientific and technological quality, can serve the objective of economic and social cohesion in the EU without watering down or even abandoning their own objectives.
Complementarity between cohesion policy, on the one hand, and R&D policy, on the other, seems hard to achieve as a solution.
Under article 130f of the treaty, the aim of R&D policy is to strengthen the scientific and technological foundations of industry in the Community and thereby promote the development of its international competitiveness.
The policy therefore supports companies, research centres and universities in their efforts to undertake research and technology development of a high quality.
The priority is still to improve international competitiveness by promoting top-quality research and development.
This intelligent conception of Community R&D policy, however, has the effect of limiting in many areas the opportunities for this policy to increase its contribution to cohesion.
What must be aimed for is improved complementarity between R&D and structural policy.
The European Parliament has called for serious integration of the structural funds and the framework programme with its resolution of 28 November 1996 on the perspectives for a European science and technology policy.
This concept is based on the development of an integrated approach, which makes use of existing synergies between both policies, while respecting the logic of each.
Structural policy should, according to this concept, help make it easier for disadvantaged regions to participate more thoroughly in the framework programme, by building up and promoting R&D capacities in these regions.
The joint R&D policy, in contrast, should assist in reducing the disparities that exist between the regions in the area of R&D, especially by the third measure -dissemination and use of findings -and the fourth measure - education and mobility of scientists.
My amendments serve this aim.
I hope they will be taken into consideration.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Transport and Tourism of the European Parliament has spent considerable time poring over the fifth framework programme, especially since sector-specific research was integrated into the field of transport in the past.
We had very positive experiences with this in the past, too, I would say.
There is noother area of research that is so politically motivated, by which I mean that transport research is also an instrument for implementing European policy.
We have already been able to use initial results as a basis for translating transport objectives into practice.
Hence it is natural that the Committee on Transport and Tourism has called for the introduction of a transport and mobility campaign to lend the necessary weight to this sector.
I think the approach seen in the Research Committee, that is to designate a specific area to transport, mobility and production, gives this request from the Committee on Transport and Tourism the necessary scope, and I can say on behalf of the Transport Committee that we find this approach acceptable.
It is precisely in the area of transport that problems need solving.
This will affect other key actions - I am thinking, for example, of the 'city of tomorrow' .
There is a transport problem to be solved here.
I am thinking of the whole question of intermodality.
How do we combine various modes of transport in order to solve the transport problem we have in Europe? Satellite-supported information systems are a very important sector too.
How can we make the information available to develop intelligent transport concepts? All these are things that need to be brought together and accounted for in this campaign.
On behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, I would like to thank the rapporteur, who was very receptive to the concerns of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
While she was not able to accommodate us 100 % in her committee, I think, if this House approves the transport, mobility and production campaign and it is taken up by the Council, we will have reached an important milestone in uniting both research and the political intentions of this House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of the opinion of the Culture Committee I have mixed feelings on the report before us today, and I hope that this will turn to satisfaction after the vote.
On the one hand, I welcome the fact that our attempt to improve the situation of young researchers has found expression at two points in the report.
However, on the question of the information society, the majority of the Committee has, in my view, retreated to positions which, it is constantly being claimed in this House, do not form part of the European understanding of the information society.
While the Commission wanted to gear research towards a user-friendly information society, which did not go far enough for us in the Culture Committee -we wanted to broaden it through the criterion of 'substantive diversity' -now there is only talk of information and communication technologies.
This is not a slip semantically.
Consequently, the Culture Committee's proposals, which aimed for an improvement in education and cultural opportunities, especially in regard to the digitalization and virtualization of libraries and museums, as well as the creation of new interactive modes of access, have not been approved.
Matters of this nature or social-economic research was apparently considered an uncalled-for luxury by the Committee majority.
I think the two days we still have before the vote should be put to good use correcting certain biasses found in the present draft resolution in the sense I have indicated.
Mr President, Mrs QuisthoudtRowhol has been a very hardworking rapporteur.
She has had animated conversations and I think she will have had one or two more by the end of this week.
I would like to thank her and the staff who have been extremely helpful throughout our deliberations.
I am speaking principally for the Women's Rights Committee but also for the Party of European Socialists.
The concept of mainstreaming was adopted by the European Commission; mainstreaming means the incorporation of equal opportunities for women and men into all the Community's policies and activities.
The fifth framework programme is one of the most important policies and activities.
It lays down criteria for research and development for four years, it has a huge budget - we hope - and it is highly regarded by the scientific community throughout the EU.
For reasons of oversight there was no mention of mainstreaming or of equal opportunities or the gender perspective in the original document.
I know that the Commissioner herself is committed to those issues and I am sure she will be able to accept the amendments put in by the Committee on Women's Rights.
Indeed the Amsterdam Treaty, if ratified, makes it clear in article 3 that the European Community in all its activities has to have the aim of eliminating inequalities.
You may say, well it is not excluded; but that is not good enough, colleagues.
It has to be spelled out and explicit and that is what our amendments have done.
We do not want to risk the fifth framework programme looking like a 'toys-for-the-boys' programme.
It is meant for all citizens, men and women in the European Union.
Some amendments have been resubmitted after consultation with members of the Women's Rights Committee so that we can see how far Parliament wants to be explicit about the need to promote equal opportunities.
Speaking for the Party of European Socialists I would like to say that the sum which is being put forward, although it is above that proposed by the Commission, is actually the minimum we think necessary to do justice to the needs of research and development in Europe.
We agree that four programmes are far more logical than the three originally suggested by the Commission.
You still have the concentration which was wanted by the Commissioner but you have something that is a little bit clearer to the scientific community.
As far as the financial breakdown is concerned, we have slight differences of opinion with the Commission and we would weight the programme slightly differently.
I hope that by Thursday when we vote it can be a massive majority from this Parliament so that we go into the Council negotiations not naked but fully clothed with a very strong position from this Parliament for a very important issue.
Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs emphasises the importance of the social and financial study in its opinion of the fifth R & D framework programme.
This view has been given scanty consideration in the research committee's report under discussion.
The framework programme should lay much greater emphasis on the issues of social exclusion, poverty, ageing, unemployment and the status of women.
The framework programme should also investigate changes in working life developments in the working community.
Good working conditions and a developing working community have an important influence on increased production in industry and, in turn, positive progress in the economy and employment.
For this reason, a study should also be planned for the issues of job protection and health and safety at work.
And technical studies do not exist as entities separate from society.
Studies and their results always have an influence on society, and this influence has to be respected.
EU research must itself promote employment and social cohesion in Europe.
It is vital that the national viewpoint be taken into account when planning and implementing research programmes.
When we consult the users of a study we should be listening to the real users - individuals and consumers.
For example, the users in a study on health are not only the health care organizations or the pharmaceutical industry, but, above all, the patients and their representative organizations.
Women have up till now been almost entirely absent from EU research planning and evaluation.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs propose that a fair balance of women and men be invited onto boards of experts in the planning and execution of the framework programme.
This will not automatically mean that competence and skills will dwindle.
There are qualified women around - you only have to look.
Mr President, allow me first of all to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Quisthoudt Rowohl, for the excellent work carried out and for her availability to find compromise solutions able to include the various requests, the various sensitivities.
I think we are submitting a good text to Parliament's vote and we hope that the Commission and Council can take it into account.
I also hope that this Chamber will wish to correct any defects and approve the necessary inclusions, and here I am referring in particular to the aspect of social and economic research.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, unanimously approving the report I presented, had confirmed the choice of the Executive Committee which had limited the thematic programmes to three and paid special attention to the environment in the first and third.
This was not the choice of the Committee on Research which, raising the number of thematic programmes to four, still gave the environment a key sub-action, also leaving considerable room for research connected with environmental protection in the other key sub-action reserved for energy.
The Committee on the Environment had also approved the motion to reserve for the Joint Research Centre higher financing than that provided by the Commission, also asking the JRC to work for Parliament as well.
The Committee on Research has not accepted the increase but, in view of the amendments seeking to reduce the financing, has defended and confirmed that laid down by the Commission, in view of the important role played by the JRC as the means of implementing the fifth framework programme and as a neutral and independent scientific body.
We hope, Madam Commissioner, that, after this initial stage, a good dialogue will continue between Parliament and the Commission, with cooperation and transparency, so that together we can finally provide the European Union with an efficient and effective framework research programme that can begin to catch up on the serious European delay compared with the United States which, with their federal organization, have for some time been able to amass substantial financial resources and huge human resources.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a declared aim of European policy is to make up for the dangerous, and by now almost permanent, way in which Europe is lagging behind the USA and Japan in terms of innovation.
Yet research comes before all technological innovation and, sadly, there is a lot of truth in the saying that the Europeans are good at making knowledge out of ECUs, but bad at making ECUs out of knowledge.
The Commission wants to change this through an increase in funds, concentration and greater flexibility.
This is apparent in its proposal for the fifth framework programme.
Where it is consistent, we support it.
Where it fails to keep its promises, we criticize it.
It is right to drastically reduce the number of subject-based programmes, and it is wrong to want to minister to virtually every particular interest.
Of course we cannot compensate for the decline in research sponsorship in the Member States through our budgetary allocations, but we can create considerable incentives for effective cooperation within the European scientific community and in collaboration with third countries.
This is of general political significance, too, for this European Union and its enlargement.
What we as socialists definitely do not want to see is a reduction in the amount of cooperation and coordination achieved in the area of European research and technological development.
Renationalization is the wrong response to the global challenges in research policy too.
My group is prepared to give the clear signals required, and in the budget for this programme if need be.
We have made compromises with the conservative side of this House.
The position reached on the budget is for us the minimum consensus.
It is very close to our pain threshold.
However, you do not need the gift of prophecy to predict that, without a strong parliamentary majority, we will be at a disadvantage vis-à-vis the Council, and that is why we will be voting in favour.
We find ourselves in a time of global changes affecting all areas of life.
In particular, the stormy developments taking place in information technology and biotechnology are going to radically alter our lives.
Hence associated social research is of major importance.
My group does not want to write this into the framework programme with just so many empty words, but rather give it a concrete shape and fund it properly.
Our proposals for this were rejected in the Research Committee by a slight majority.
Even after conservative colleagues had come out in favour of a socioeconomic campaign, especially on the subject of the information society, they could not resist the temptation to use their fortuitous majority on the day to reject this sensible amendment.
This was a mistake.
Let us put it right through, among other things, visibly improved funding for the programme's fourth line of action, namely so-called human resources.
Let me say a few words on the Euratom programme, even if Parliament is still being consulted on it.
The Euratom treaty was successful.
It brought the Community considerable autonomy in energy provision, and this autonomy can be enjoyed today in the medium term using other forms of energy in an economical and environmentally compatible manner, and a lot less dangerously too.
For this reason, the majority of socialists are in favour of switching over.
There are only three areas that can be sensibly and profitably pursued, specifically research into the safety of existing reactors, research into the substitution of C02 -neutral energy sources and research into the safe disposal of radioactive waste.
The budget should be arranged accordingly.
Let me conclude by extending my personal thanks to the rapporteur.
She has worked hard.
She has quite literally worked out a lot of important compromises.
For this, much thanks.
I think her achievement should be acknowledged through the adoption of our few, but sound and necessary, amendments.
Then we can adopt the report as a whole by an impressive majority.
Mr President, the fifth framework programme represents a clear step forward in relation the fourth programme.
It centres on the priorities and in defining them it takes the interaction between science and society into account.
By proposing an increased budget for the next five years, it acknowledges the central role of research in contributing to public well-being, economic development and European competitiveness.
I would emphasize, however, that so far as the distribution of the funds between the actions is concerned, the degree of over-concentration on the first action is frightening countries like Portugal.
For my country, actions to further international cooperation and better results are still of fundamental importance.
It is natural for viewpoints to differ from one Member State to another.
The difficulty the last 'Research Council' had in reaching an agreement proves this point.
But the widest gaps exist between those countries which favour research and want it concentrated on products for development, and those others, like Portugal, for whom the development and transfer of technology has to be their major preoccupation, together with mobility of research grants; because that is the only way they can be sure of getting their share of the improvement in the efficiency of European research policy.
I would like to draw attention to two aspects which I tried to get included in the draft report on the framework programme, one of which was taken up by the Research Committee and the other rejected.
The first, which is reflected in the report, is the importance of including socio-economic research in the first action under the Fifth Programme.
In the face of Europe's problems, which keep on getting more complicated, such as racism, xenophobia, unemployment, sustainable development, bio-ethics and public health, the development of the social dimension of research must take priority in our policy.
The second is the urgent need to develop a fully integrated marine science and technology policy, which will open the way to a genuine European policy on the oceans.
Unfortunately I was unable to get that proposal included.
I will conclude, Mr President, while on the subject of my proposals concerning the ocean, by reminding the House that with the Union signing the United Nations Convention on the oceans, the work of the Independent Commission on the Oceans, and Expo 98 in Lisbon, I am sure that a climate is being created in which a full-blown European Oceans Agency will fall into our laps one of these days.
Mr President, everyone is aware that the fifth framework programme is the foundation of the research policy of the Union for years to come.
The strategic structure devised by the Commission, in thematic programmes and in horizontal programmes, certainly directs community action to a greater extent than the four previous programmes, ensuring a better coordination of activities and avoiding overlaps and duplicates.
Moreover, the administrative simplification of the procedure will certainly provide the flexibility that was lacking at times of crisis, such as the case of BSE, and which is certainly necessary to ensure access to the programmes for thousands of small and medium-sized companies, that come up against legal, administrative and financial obstacles that prevent them from conducting research and from using the results of the research.
The Research Committee and the European Parliament can only confirm the importance of research as an answer to the growing social needs of the population with regard to health, safety, quality of life, employment and environment.
The decision to promote research in particular sectors, such as ageing and rare diseases, answers these needs.
The same can be said of research for the safeguard and protection of movable and immovable cultural assets, through the use of the new technologies applied to a sector, that represents our cultural wealth and our historic memory.
Moreover, Mr President, the international cooperation with third countries is certainly a winning policy, both for the applicant countries, for which joint research may act as a catalyst in the integration process, and for the third countries of the neighbouring Mediterranean, for which this research will mean employment, development, peace and political relations.
As chairman of the Committee on Research as well, I will conclude with great satisfaction by saying that the European Parliament has shown considerable support for the fifth framework programme through the commitment of all our colleagues and our rapporteur in particular, who has been really fantastic in his efforts and I think we are all truly very grateful to him.
Finally, I hope that a final effort of convergence will be made now to fortify our position even further.
To conclude, Mr President, we all certainly hope that the Council will play its part because research is the launching base for the economy and the basis to solve the serious employment problem.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, we value the efforts made both by the Commission, in its proposal, and by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl.
Nevertheless, we can see a few problems which I would like to mention briefly.
The Commission's proposal, by reducing and concentrating the research effort, although well-intentioned, in practice can result in this effort ending up in those countries and regions with the greatest resources, the most technology and the best research infrastructure, thereby depriving the rest of the European Community of these resources. Given the current state of Europe, that is worrying.
Another problem which worries us is the fact that inequality is on the increase in Europe, as are unemployment and problems of social exclusion. Yet the proposal fails to attach enough importance to this social aspect.
We are also a little surprised that the procedure for choosing the four themes is not clear. It seems to be dictated by the multinationals, which needs to be put right in future versions.
Therefore our group's vote will depend on the final proposal.
I should also like to say that we are pleased with the proposal to establish a science infrastructure aimed at providing a network for scientific awareness (which is important in Europe) and to enable us to compete. We are also pleased with the sensitivity shown in the proposal towards mental illness.
Mr President, I too should like to thank the rapporteur for her hard work.
Firstly, with regard to the Euratom framework programme, the promotion of nuclear energy has always characterized this programme and we are long overdue a change of vision, especially with regard to fusion.
Fusion is a complete white elephant, on which billions of ECUs have been wasted.
The fusion programme has not yet produced any energy.
It will need to deal with the waste if we are to end this extravagance.
The Greens have tabled a series of amendments with a view to converting the money spent on fusion to promoting sustainable and renewable energies.
I must insist that nuclear energy is not sustainable and produces CO2 .
If the rapporteur's proposals are accepted, however, I would still emphasize the need for detailed examination of the programme and monitoring of the expenditure.
With regard to the effects of radiation on human beings, here we have an important breakthrough due to the work of Dr Mothersill in Ireland and the UK Medical Research Council team of Dr Eric Wright on genomic instability.
Mistrust of radiation and the nuclear industry has always characterized the population, and now radiation biologists are concluding that the public may well have been right all along.
They have found a previously unknown pathway by which radiation can subvert living cells.
Radiation, they say, may cause a much wider range of diseases than epidemiological studies predict.
Even low levels of exposure to radiation could be poisoning the human gene pool, wreaking damage on future generations.
The instability research from around the world has shown that the effects on the gene pool of this low-level radiation are quite horrifying.
The Sellafield complex in Cumbria has been the largest emitter of radiation in the UK, discharging radioactive gas and liquid into the Irish Sea.
The critical groups here have included fishermen working in the sea and people who eat seaweed.
These people could be exposed to levels of radiation that could harm them, and the numbers of people who have died or suffered from radiation released from Sellafield, nuclear weapons testing, the Chernobyl accident and from medical X-rays and radon in buildings could be much greater than anyone has dared to admit.
I have tabled an amendment which I would ask Parliament to accept.
It is absolutely scandalous that radiation protection is not a key action.
With regard to the allocation for biotechnology, this has been vastly increased.
While we accept the possibilities of biotechnology, the ethical issues must be widely addressed.
We do not accept the one-dimensional concentration on genetic engineering.
Here we have an accident waiting to happen which could affect us as badly as the nuclear industry.
Mr President, I join in the congratulations to the rapporteur.
This is a convention in this House but she certainly deserves them because she has put a lot of work into this report.
I like the phrase she used in her introductory speech 'europäisches Mehrwert ' , the concept of European added value.
We should allow this - and I commend it to the Commission and, for that matter, the Council - to inform the whole approach towards R&D in the future.
We have to look at ways in which Europe can add value to research which otherwise might be going on or, for that matter, to initiate research which is not likely to take off.
There are some obvious lessons to be drawn from applying that principle.
One is that if you reduce the amount of research put into the nuclear industry and transfer it to the sustainable energy field, then clearly you are going to add value both in terms of the effectiveness of the research programme and of the generation of employment.
Likewise, I wish to echo the points made about the value of supporting the small and medium-sized enterprises - a point made by Mr Schiedermeier about the impact on the outer regions of Europe and also by Mr Adam.
We talk a lot about innovation in the whole question of research and here you have a very innovative sector.
For example, in my own area in north-east Scotland the oil industry is very important to Europe and to the world. But who are making the breakthroughs in technology?
Often it is very small firms, which are literally at the cutting edge of development. Certainly they are pushing forward new ideas for undersea technology.
This is going to be invaluable for giving Europe an advantage vis-à-vis the United States and Japan in the future.
I commend therefore this idea of European added value, especially for those who are at the leading edge but often need the support of the Commission.
My last point in this connection is to ask when people get research grants that they be paid on time, because sometimes these small industries cannot accept and sustain the losses involved by the failure to keep up the cash flow.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would like from the outset to make my own contribution, of course, to the concert of congratulations directed at Mrs Quisthoudt, and I do so the more willingly as what I am preparing to say will not always make very agreeable listening.
I therefore would like to say that I do congratulate her on her excellent work.
We are at present faced with a report which presents a number of difficulties in the field of research and development.
Even today, I cannot, through the amendments voted in the energy and research committee and through the hundreds of amendments registered here, in the plenary session, make out exactly what is the scientific orientation of the European Parliament - and that is a euphemism.
We did, however, get off to a good start, as some few months ago, when we voted in unanimously a resolution on the orientations of the scientific policy of the 21st Century.
But the fifth framework programme exercise doubtless has this peculiarity that it has brought everyone here with his or her own ideas, not to mention the ideas of the industrial, environmental, and other lobbies, to such an extent that the whole debate has been polluted by a mass of concepts which have actually confused the whole of the outline.
I therefore believe that you have the merit, Madam Rapporteur, of having set out a very clear, very precise orientation from the start, which was certainly not the one that we had voted in a few months earlier. But is it not true, as the saying goes, that only fools never change their minds?
Consequently, it appears that you consulted your conscience, and believed that we were all wrong when we voted in the resolution on research for the 21st century.
However, it cannot be said either - and this exonerates you - that the debate in the research committee and the many amendments submitted have made your own thinking richer or have improved it.
I readily admit that you have much merit insofar as you have fought your way through this mass of amendments to clear a number of avenues for compromise, and I am delighted that you are here, today, slowly and carefully finding the way forward to the necessary compromise, with assistance from the coordinators from the major groups.
Doubtless congratulations are even more in order, after all these goings on, as regards the quality of the proposal by the Commission. For while we may not always have properly reread what we voted, the Commission, for its part, has learned a great deal.
To a degree, I am delighted at this, and we may be able to say now, with a little exaggeration only, that if the Council were to be committed to the proposals of the Commission, this would be the best solution for the Parliament.
However that may be, Madam Commissioner, I would like to ask you in a while to state your view on an important point for the voting tomorrow, i.e. the structure of the programme, and more precisely, the move from three thematic programmes to four.
Clearly, the Commission must be in agreement on this point, otherwise a number of problems will rear their heads.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, congratulations to our rapporteur, Mrs Quisthoudt.
She has worked very hard and has produced an extremely consistent report, for which I would like to thank her very much.
During the fourth framework programme it became clear that it was necessary to increase thematic orientation and to ensure that there would more market orientation, using the results of Cost and the Eureka project.
On that point the intention behind the fifth framework programme is satisfactory.
I therefore think that what this Parliament has proposed is in agreement with this, and so I hope that this structure will be taken over by the Council.
When we discuss finances, the United States and Japan are often mentioned.
So they should be, but let us look above all at what the Member States are doing.
When I hear Mr Tannert speak about the conservatives in this House, then I think he might be talking about the Confederal Group of the European United Left, but certainly not about my group.
Because as a ChristianDemocrat, I would like to say to Mr Tannert that I hope he is prepared to come to a compromise on that point too, when it concerns further subdivision; that he would be prepared to readjust his position.
The issue here is the objectives of our research, and this first and foremost strengthens and improves our competitive position in Europe.
Information communication technology plays an extremely important part in this.
I also think that the sum we have now, ECU 3, 900 million, is a minimum which must not be touched.
I also think it is extremely important that SMEs, where possible, are involved, through, amongst other things, grouping with larger companies; branch organizations could also play a part.
I think it is important that communal research centres are brought more up to date.
The procedure must be altered, to include more periodical evaluation, seeing to it that more resources from third parties are obtained, and in particular ensuring that researchers can work on a temporary basis.
This would stimulate their procedures considerably.
Mr President, our rapporteur has made a considerable effort to bring about coherence, thanks to the concertation carried out with such talent in this House.
Even so, I would support four amendments.
We have on a number of occasions emphasized that research infrastructures should provide for the networking of poles of excellence, and also for networking between platforms of experimentation and modular demonstrators used when testing and validating new technologies.
I propose therefore to merge Amendment Nos 61 and 81 into a single, transversal amendment, Amendment No 109.
Our Committee also emphasized the need to ensure that research served enterprise competitiveness and employment.
For this to occur, the exploitation of results for economic purposes must be promoted, by means of the appropriate protection of intellectual property, which ensures a distinction is made between public and private research organizations.
This is the aim of my Amendment No 110, which will also promote the exchange of results between the various research laboratories in the European Union, and innovation in small and medium-sized companies.
It is also essential to prepare for the means of transportation and interconnection which will promote a truly European space.
My Amendment No 107 goes in the direction of more integration and harmonization between the various transportation systems.
Finally, scientific and technical cooperation with third party industrial countries, and with the newly emerging countries, should not create a Trojan Horse for our competitors, but should above all lead to balanced cooperation in the interests of the Union itself.
The text of the Commission does not give us enough guarantees in this respect.
My Amendment No 108 proposes placing cooperation with these countries in a framework which takes account of the interests of the Union and rules of reciprocity.
With regard to the Euratom programme, its aim is essentially to further improve nuclear security and prepare for the reactors of the future, in particular by reducing nuclear waste and increasing energy yields.
With regard to the remainder, the Group Union for Europe supports virtually all the amendments of the rapporteur, and in particular, the breakdown proposed by the rapporteur of the budget of the fifth framework programme for research.
The Union for Europe nevertheless will support amendments whose purpose it is to recognize the role of women in European research policy.
As a result of this exercise, this House will ensure a sustainable and viable future for European research, its interoperability, and its excellence, while reinforcing Union cohesion.
The purpose of these proposals is to confirm the place of research in Europe, by relying on European added value, but also reinforcing the competitiveness of Europe within a world context which is increasingly competitive, on both the scientific and technological levels.
Mr President, I think there has been an interesting and concerted effort on the part of the rapporteur and the Committee on Research covering a wide spectrum of activities and initiatives.
My own basic observation is this: I fear that both the Commission proposal and the stance of the European Parliament are driven absolutely and unilaterally by the logic of competitiveness.
Of course European society takes an interest in the competitiveness of its products in the face of other world powers.
However, a big problem that has arisen concerning modern technology is the tremendous distance between it and a society which is confused and incapable of facing up to this technology and which still has deep moral problems in its regard.
Witness the issues raised over cloning, witness the issues over BSE, witness the issues of genetic engineering in various agricultural products.
In this sense I think that the comments made by the Committee on Social Affairs hit the nail on the head when they talk about a lack of intervention in issues such as the workplace, working conditions etc., or by the Committee on Culture, which are correct in pointing out that we are promoting information technology without promoting an information society.
I think that this gulf should be bridged.
A gulf has also appeared in the issues relating to who exploits this programme of research and technology, in other words the potential of the huge conglomerates and institutions on the one hand, and the huge vacuum and difficulties faced by small and medium-sized businesses on the other.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for this report.
Admittedly, we in the Green Group do not agree with you on all questions, but we think you have done a very good job to be able to keep track of all the 700 amendments which there were on the Committee.
You are to be commended for that.
I would also like to commend the Commission, since I think that the Commission's original proposals were very good in many respects.
Now on the part of the Committee we have improved it further, but unfortunately there are also a number of things which I must say have been made worse.
This has a lot to do with money, but it also has a lot to do with details, which Mr Desama talked about earlier.
Some of the improvements we have made include introducing a lot on sustainable development, that it should be environmentally friendly and ecologically correct etc.
But I am a little afraid that this is only cosmetic.
If you look a bit more closely at Amendment No 78, the Committee's proposal on the objective with regard to future energy reads as follows: The objective of this thematic programme is therefore research and the sustainable use of existing sources of energy.
The existing source of energy in my own country of Sweden, for example, is in fact nuclear power.
Nuclear power cannot be a sustainable source of energy.
People therefore have doubts about much of the wording found here.
Sustainable energy use is, of course, the renewable sources of energy.
That is the area where we must invest more money, not in keeping old nuclear power, which Sweden, for example, is now finally beginning to phase out.
Instead we need a new drive from the EU which can show us how to replace nuclear power with renewable energy sources.
These are therefore the wrong signals to the Member States.
Many of the improvements which have been made in the Committee's proposal require some clarification.
There are many fine words about sustainable development, but we also need to show by example.
In Amendment No 154, for example, we have said that we do not want cloning of people, but we also need to say that we do not want cloning of either people or animals.
That is just as important because otherwise the research will continue and that will bring us closer and closer to what is ethically wrong.
In Amendment No 45 we have set up economic frameworks and want to have more money for things to do with energy and the environment.
With regard to Amendment No 160 we have added a proposal which is basically that we want to clarify that 60 per cent of what goes to energy for the future should be for renewable sources of energy and 75 % for demonstration.
There are no other changes in Amendment No 160.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to convey my thanks and respect to the rapporteur.
To reconcile so many different opinions in this House requires not only considerable skill, but great self-denial also.
I know a lot of hard work has gone into this.
Let me start with an example from history.
Thousands of years ago the Chinese built the first ocean-going ships.
They already had the compass before the Europeans left the Mediterranean.
Nevertheless, the Europeans went on to conquer the globe and not the Chinese.
Why? The Chinese did not want to.
They did not want to use their technology for this purpose whereas the Europeans did.
We are faced with a similar problem in regard to research.
We can only make things available, funds, ideas; whether the Europeans, Europe's researchers, make use of them, however, is up to them.
This brings me to something I am actually sorry about, namely that we are relatively guarded about the proposal where the funds are concerned.
I am aware of the financial constraints, and I am no illusionist either.
All the same, it is not enough for Europe to catch up on the USA or Japan, or to relegate the newly industrialized countries of Southeast Asia to second or third place.
Efforts need to be made in the Member States and in the companies.
Investment in research must retain or regain a high, even moral, standing in Europe.
That is what it is all about.
Perhaps a signal for such vitality will come from this debate and the discussions on the fourth framework programme.
At least I would like to think so.
Just let me say a few words, as time is short, on the Euratom section since I am very satisfied with most of the other aspects.
It is no secret that I regret cuts having been made in the Euratom programme.
I can barely understand this since we need the funds.
Unlike some of my colleagues, I am of the opinion that we need them for fusion.
We need the funds for nuclear safety, especially when central and eastern European states join us.
As you know, these all have Soviet reactors, if they have reactors at all.
We must increase safety.
Hence we do not need less money, but more.
Even if it is not nice to say as much, I say it here.
Finally, I hope that the Commission will have as much leeway as possible in research policy.
The Commission has the responsibility and it should also have the opportunity to transfer funds from one side to another on its own responsibility.
You cannot plan research; instead you have to expect surprises, and respond to them accordingly.
I wish the Commission a happy hand in this.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, during the course of the intensive work that preceded the Commission's document, the European Parliament pointed out important and original aspects such as attention to small and medium-sized businesses with an international calling, districts with a high technological density, that are included in a dedicated action, and to technologies on the conservation of cultural assets, included in the context of the city of the future.
In the structure of the thematic programmes, our Committee, guided brilliantly by Mr Quisthoudt-Rowohl, tried to maintain the focussing effort, which has been the guiding factor in the work on the fifth framework programme.
And yet we have amended the action on sustainable development by adding two key actions on energy and extended the action on marine technologies to include surface transport.
The main idea is that we are developing towards a single system of mobility, including all means of transport.
I should point out that this amendment should be understood to be an addition; we did not intend to dilute the resources on marine technologies, but to increase the budget for a global transport action.
To find this additional allocation, we are asking both for something to be taken from the biological sciences and for the total budget to be increased slightly.
I am delighted that the space applications have been included in the relevant thematic projects.
I also maintain the need for research into microgravity to be conducted at the international space station, an extremely new scientific opportunity for which the United States are preparing far more systematically than us Europeans and for which the action of the European Union should be supplementary to that of the ESA.
To conclude, a word of praise for our rapporteur and in favour of a political commitment to research as a fundamental means of building our future.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, Madam Rapporteur, I come from the North Sea coast, and it is very important where I live to make sure before setting sail anywhere that the cargo is evenly distributed, otherwise the vessel will start to roll and list.
It is my opinion that the Research Committee's resolution conceals the same danger.
What has happened? In spring this House unanimously adopted a report from our colleague Claude Desama, in which it was clearly stated that research should contribute to the European welfare-state model, not just to industrial competitiveness.
Then the latter-day freebooters, the lobbyists, came along and stood up for particular interests.
Hence, the ship is now starting to list, I feel, and this second pillar - the question of how things stand with risk assessment, sustainability and deliberation, and who has the opportunities in our society under what conditions -has been washed overboard.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is also an important site factor for Europe and for our society.
Not just technology, but how we treat each other, how we live, these are the key elements for our future development, for the interests of Europe's citizens.
We said quite clearly at the time: it is a matter of finding a socio-economic model of sustainable growth.
We said: we want risk assessment, we want to clarify the question of participation and the role of the social partners in our society.
All this has vanished.
That is why I would like to urgently request again that we get things back on an even keel.
It is a question of research efforts and, of course, finding money for these research efforts in this socioeconomic area.
Obviously, this is a new baby.
We did not introduce it until the fourth framework programme.
There were problems.
Things improved with the new leader in Mitsos.
But that is no reason to say we have reached the end of the road.
What is it all about? It concerns, for example, the question of information and communication technologies, who has access and under what circumstances.
The gender issue, the change in employment due to teleworking and, of course, the question of worker participation and the change in job organization are also significant.
All this needs to be fully reflected if we intend to explore and continue to introduce certain technologies.
For this reason, I am making an urgent plea that Amendment No 117 and, of course, Amendment No 123 be adopted so that our ship, the research vessel for the future, can stay on an even keel and steer the proper course.
The debate is closed.
The votes will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m. and on Thursday at 9.30 a.m.
Energy policy
The next item is the report (A4-0308/97) by Mr Scapagnini's, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy on the Commission communication: "An overall view of energy policy and actions' (COM(97)0167 - C4-0205/97).
Mr President, the European Union is facing a new millennium and a series of highly strategic challenges without a united and coordinated energy policy framework: a policy that should play a fundamental role in economic development, promoting employment, the environment and quality of life.
The European Parliament has for a long time emphasized the need to provide a firm legal basis for actions taken in the energy sector and a place in the treaty to ensure a consistency and a transparency that are lacking today.
If the energy solutions and problems are still faced in a fragmentary manner within the scope of other policies, such as those of the internal market, the environment, taxation, agriculture and research, the specific aims of the sector will not be taken sufficiently into account, such as the certainty of supplies, international cooperation, the integration of the energy markets, promotion of the sector sustainable in the energy sector and the promotion of research.
The development of the European markets, the competitiveness of companies and the citizens' energy purchasing power are dependent on the achievement of the energy objectives. In this connection, the Committee on Research considers the reinforcement of the role of the European Energy Observatory to be essential, even with regard to the definition of a reference framework for the major lines of transportation for natural gas and petroleum energy.
The Energy Charter remains the privileged framework of European energy cooperation and the European Parliament points out the importance of ratification by all the signatory companies.
The cooperation and assistance provided for the third countries, within the scope of the aid and cooperation programmes such as Phare, Tacis and Meda or those relating to Asia, Latin America or the ESF, should be developed to take into account the various supply markets and, at the same time, rendered more visible in relation to the past, by facilitating information, control and examination by the European Parliament.
The liberalization and integration of the energy markets is then the second objective of the Community energy policy and a clear requirement in the face of an ever greater internationalization.
Real competition will have to be created between energy producers, offering consumers various possibilities of choice of supply by free trading guaranteed by the states, using the new possibilities of development existing in the energy sector.
The environmental dimension of the energy policies is a factor that should not be undervalued in any way.
The Commission should, periodically, assess the environmental impact of the energy policies in the Member States, providing voluntary agreements and research and technological development as well as the legislative instruments.
Again within the scope of international cooperation, the energy dumping and environmental risks will have to be taken into account for the countries in which the prices are still lower owing to far less restrictive environmental regulations than the Community regulations.
The harm caused by the emission of CO2 and by global warming is a challenge for the Union which, faced with the commitments recently undertaken in Kyoto, should provide a further contribution with the initiatives to promote a rational and efficient use of energy resources, the cogeneration of renewable energy sources and the research and technological development actions.
The Commission should dedicate an appropriate space to the innovative energy technologies, capable of providing an adequate answer to the wish to privilege the renewable sources and to the current demand for natural gas applications and consumption, particularly in sectors such as those of liquefaction, transport and regasification, in view of their potential in relation to the new forms of supply from the more distant geographic regions.
No doubt the local and decentralized use of renewable energies will, together with the liberalization of the energy market, enable the existing imbalances between some European regions to be made good and to quickly favour the development of those regions in arrears, providing them with independent energy capacity for multiple use.
It is no doubt in the interests of the Union, its citizens and the industrial sector that a framework energy policy programme should contribute towards clarifying and concentrating the Community initiatives in the sector to a greater extent, ensuring a multiannual level of financing that will enable significant actions to be carried out, without involving a structural reduction in allocations available.
Finally, Mr President, the European Parliament deplores the drastic energy cuts made by the Council in the Community budget, cuts that have cast doubt on the future of the European instruments already consolidated within the Alterner, Thermie and Safe programmes, especially those intended for international cooperation in those sectors.
As Commissioner Papoutsis cannot be present this evening and as our debate will have to be interrupted at 5.30 for Commission Question Time, with the consent of the House I now invite Commissioner Papoutsis to speak.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity first and foremost to apologise to the Members of this House as I will not be able to be present at this evening's sitting.
I have to say that I have been waiting since 11.30 this morning for us to debate the Scapagnini report, but unfortunately there has been a great deal of delay, and I can understand why, over the important issue of the budget.
However, this does not allow me to stay here until this evening, given the fact that tomorrow morning the Energy Charter meeting is being held in Brussels and we have high hopes that tomorrow the 30 sanctions of the Energy Charter will be tabled with a view to putting it into effect.
As you can understand, by your leave and with the backing of Parliament, the European Commission must be present at this great event for the inception of the Energy Charter.
Returning to the issue at hand, Mr President, I would like first of all to thank the rapporteur, Mr Scapagnini, for his clear and constructive report.
The Commission agrees in principle with the proposed resolution which adopts many of the findings of the Commission communication.
The energy situation which prevails today both in the European Union and in the rest of the world demands well supported and coordinated actions.
For this reason it is important that we fully understand the challenges that confront us.
The chief aim of the Commission Communication is to describe the enormous challenges facing the energy sector and the actions that have been taken at a European level.
Our objective is simple and unequivocal - to improve transparency.
Moreover, the Commission Communication was the first stage in the setting up of a framework programme for energy policy, a framework programme for respective actions at a European level.
In his report Mr Scapagnini demonstrated that the European Parliament is fully aware of the situation and is ready to support the Commission in this regard.
On behalf of the European Commission I would therefore like to thank you for your positive stance and for your support.
In this communication the Commission underlines three important issues faced by the energy sector:
The first is the issue of the security of supply.
All kinds of analyses, all forecasts lead to the certain conclusion that energy dependency on external supply will increase significantly.
The Community must consider this fact and, in consequence, must take the necessary action.
Secondly, the energy sector plays a leading role in efforts to improve the competitiveness of Europe.
Efficient and profitable energy systems can make a major contribution to the improvement of competitiveness by ensuring appropriate production and transportation structures, while at the same time ensuring the free circulation of energy products.
Finally, the energy sector is of vital importance with respect to the protection of the environment.
In all energy policies, in all energy actions, the objective of continuous evolution must be observed.
Today, following the Kyoto Summit, the issue of greenhouse gases is of particular importance.
There are a number of environmental objectives which must be reflected fully in our energy policy.
The resolution that we are proposing demonstrates that the European Parliament concurs with these views.
Mr President, please allow me to comment specifically on certain important points raised in the resolution:
The European Commission shares the view that it is desirable that a chapter on energy be included in the treaty.
Unfortunately, however, at the recent Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam it was not possible to reach an agreement on such a chapter.
It appears that at that time this issue was not yet ripe enough to form the subject of an agreement of the Member States.
Notwithstanding, the Commission will continue to introduce recommendations aimed at making the European Union energy policy more cohesive, through the use, as and when indicated, of the legal bases in force today.
With regard to regenerative energy sources, the Commission is fully aware of the support for actions in this area.
As you know, we recently introduced the White Paper on a community strategy and a plan of action for regenerative energy sources.
Now I await your reactions, your thoughts on the White Paper and subsequently we will have the opportunity to debate this issue extensively in the near future.
Mr President, I would also like to thank Parliament for its support concerning the institution of a framework programme for European Union energy policy.
As you are aware, this programme was approved by the Commission on 18 November, just one month ago.
The framework programme comprises all the actions that have been taken so far in the context of the separate programmes, such as Save II, concerning energy output, Altener, concerning regenerative energy sources, and also Synergy, on cooperation with third countries.
It also provides for specific actions at the level of energy analyses and forecasts in the energy sector concerning nuclear safety and the clean use of coal.
All these actions have been coordinated and integrated under the roof of the basic resolution for the framework programme itself.
The proposal for the framework programme is also aimed at the formation of longterm stable conditions for the incorporation of all kinds of actions at the energy level.
The framework programme is also necessary for the creation of a clear legal basis for all of these actions.
It is the view of the Commission that the framework programme will not only create better conditions for coordinating the special actions of the energy policy, but will also provide for a better establishing of targets for actions at the energy level, that is, for those actions which are run on the basis of other community policies such as the structural funds and the programmes of external technical assistance.
The proposal for the framework programme will be one of the basic priorities of the British Presidency.
The initial reactions of the Member States have been positive, and I especially count on your support, so that we can come to a timely decision on the framework programme.
I hope that you will continue to support the serious measures for the implementation of the energy policy, based on the unified philosophy of the present new programme.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission concurs to a very great extent with the proposed resolution in the Scapagnini report on the general picture of the energy policy and appropriate actions.
I would like to finish by once again thanking the rapporteur, Mr Scapagnini, for his excellent report.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time to the Commission (B4-1002/97).
However, before we start, Mr Smith has asked for the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, my Question No 76 is on transport of nuclear fuels.
I, in my innocence, assumed that this question would be answered by the Commissioner responsible for transport but I find it is in 'Other questions' .
Can you register my concern at this, Mr President, and can you endeavour to find an explanation as to why this question was not included in the section to be dealt with by the Commissioner responsible for transport?
Mr Smith, I will make a note of your concern, but as you know, it is up to the Commission to decide which of the Commissioners respond to the questions which have been raised.
It is not our responsibility.
In any case, your comment will be noted not only by me, but will also appear in the verbatim report of proceedings. Your opinions are always valued.
The Commission is aware that the directives on public contracts have not been included satisfactorily by all the Member States and also that, even if included, they are often not applied correctly.
In its action plan for the single market, adopted last June and approved by the European Council of Amsterdam, the Commission therefore invited the Member States to prove their political desire by putting an end to this situation by asking for a commitment to complete the inclusion and to notify the exact schedule and by proposing initiatives aimed at making the application and observance of the current regulations effective.
In this connection, and under the powers it holds, the Commission has brought infringement actions against defaulting Member States, pursuant to article 169, for non-inclusion of the directives, for failing to comply with the inclusion measures and, finally, for the incorrect application of the Community regulations on public contracts.
The Commission has also had recourse to the emergency procedure, pursuant to article 186 of the Treaty, to obtain provisional measures against a Member State in which the awarding authority has refused to suspend the public contract, while waiting for the Commission to pronounce judgment on the alleged infringements.
Following the entry into force of Directives 89/665 and 92/13, economic operators have the possibility of bringing recourse before a national authority for infringement of the Community regulations on contracts by the contracting authorities.
In this context, the Commission also wishes to recall that the Member States are responsible for the measures taken by their own bodies, particularly the joint bodies, and that a Member State cannot escape the obligations it holds pursuant to the Community regulations, by invoking the possible constitutional autonomy of the local and regional bodies.
Finally, with regard to the possible improvements to arrive at a better application of the Community regulations on contracts, the Commission has started a debate on its Green Paper and plans shortly to adopt a communication in which it will propose specific measures with regard to the interpretation of the existing rules and possible legislative amendments.
The Commission emphasizes, however, that an effective control of the application of Community law also requires a reinforcement of the controls at national level.
Consequently, the Member States should also assume their own responsibilities in this connection.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his answer, which I thought was detailed and good.
I would also like to say that I appreciate the reports the Commission has made against various countries for breaching the procurement regulation, including the report directed at my own country of Sweden.
Let me just take up one more question.
Companies should obviously, as far as possible, report when they do not get their rights according to the procurement regulation.
We also know that they have difficulty doing that because they can get on the wrong side of prospective clients, important clients.
Therefore there is an idea that we should set up some kind of procurement ombudsman, i.e. someone who could receive these reports and make a case against the local and government authorities who do not follow the rules.
Is the Commissioner aware of this? I know that work is being done on this in Eurochambers.
What is the Commissioner's basic position on this?
Thank you for that supplementary question.
Firstly, I would like to point out that the Commission has actually brought a considerable number of infringement actions against the Member States.
I would also like to say that many infringement actions derive from notifications given by companies and point out that, within the scope of the broader consultation opened up by the Green Paper on public contracts, that gave rise to a further 300 contributions, one aspect much taken into consideration is that which seems to make the notification of things going wrong more effective.
Finally, I would remind the author of the question that the company, or the person making the request, can now remain anonymous, if it wishes to do so.
Mr Monti's replies indeed show that what he and questioner Cars state is and remains a problem.
There is too much opportunity for escape.
Public institutions, local authorities, and other authorities putting out to tender - and this also happens frequently in transport - may not take the cheapest option, but then they offer the excuse that the firm chosen was the best.
Then it turns out, Mr Monti, that it is always national firms who are given preference.
That is why not only the representative, but in my opinion also the Commissioner, should keep a closer eye on things, so that it is not the national firms only who are awarded contracts, but that instead contracts are spread over the entire Community.
A report from you on this issue would be very welcome.
Mr President, this is one of the most important topics for the actual completion of the single market, and it is precisely for that reason that we are giving it the greatest attention, as Parliament will see as soon as the Commission presents the communication on consultation resulting from the Green Paper at the beginning of 1998.
Mr Wijsenbeek reminds us that, at times, the contracting authorities have the same difficulties.
From this point of view, the simplification aspects, that are taken into account in the Green Paper as one of the essential factors, have their own significance and I cannot fail to agree with the author of the question when he says that, from the point of view of the single market, it is to be hoped that tender proceedings will result in contracts being awarded to nonnational companies to an ever greater extent.
This is taking place more and more, although not at the rate we would like, and a whole series of actions, provided for in the Green Paper, on the information, training plan and so on, seek to integrate to an ever greater extent this as yet not completely single public contracts market.
Mr Commissioner, are you aware that architects experience particular difficulties when it comes to public procurement. The architects find it hard to sort out real conditions exactly and that sometimes, even with minor projects, there 400 to 500 enquiries for public tenders, which can lead to problems.
This is a particular and important aspect of a broader problem and, when it does not relate to large companies or to companies in general, but to professionals or to professional offices, the aspect of comprehensive information is even more important.
With this objective in mind in the next actions relating to contracts, those which, I repeat once again, appropriately consult the Green Paper, the aspect of electronic information will be taken into consideration and emphasized in particular.
Just last week we held a very large conference in Brussels with participants from all the Member States on Electronic Procurement, which is a means of providing a better explanation of the information aspects of the substantial contracts market.
As the author is not present, Question No 26 falls.
Question No 27 by Veronica Hardstaff (H-0906/97)
Subject: The use of E111 forms in Member States
Is the Commission aware that EU citizens are experiencing difficulties in some Member States in obtaining medical treatment using the E111 form? Is it permissible for doctors in some countries to refuse to accept a valid E111, claiming it should be renewed every year, when this is no longer the case, and then make a considerable charge for the consultation and medicines?
Regulation 1408/71 on the coordination of social security schemes for migrant workers guarantees that a person staying temporarily in a Member State of the European Union or the EEA other than the one where he or she is insured will be entitled to all immediate necessary benefits in kind, that is, to all urgent medical treatment which is necessary with regard to his or her state of health.
These benefits are provided under the same conditions as for nationals of that state.
In such a case of temporary stay, the person should obtain an E111 form before departure.
This form indicates that the person is affiliated to a social security scheme of a Member State, and has to be presented to the sickness insurance institution in the country of stay.
This institution is reimbursed by the institution of the competent state.
The E111 form may be valid for a limited period only, or it may have no limitation as regards the period of validity.
This is a matter for the competent institution in each Member State to determine, according to the objective of the Community rules on social security for migrant workers, which aims to coordinate, not to harmonize, the national rules of social security systems.
However, it is clear that a valid E111 form cannot be refused by a doctor or an institution of the place of stay; and whenever the Commission has had to deal with cases where European Union citizens experience difficulties in obtaining medical treatment using the form, we have strongly intervened to have the rules respected.
However it should be emphasized that the E111 form is satisfactorily used by millions of tourists every year.
Moreover, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that there is also a possibility for persons who have had difficulties in using the E111 form to be reimbursed directly by their competent institution.
In this case, when they are obliged to pay for the emergency medical treatment themselves, they may be reimbursed only after they have returned to the country where they are insured.
I am quite sure that my constituent's E111 was in a better state than this one, which was issued in 1990.
However, when he presented it at a hospital in France, the specialist he saw ripped it up and came to a private agreement with him that he should pay a fee, instead of advising him that he should go to the appropriate office to get reimbursement.
He then got in contact both with the Department of Health and Social Security in Britain, and with myself, and I and my staff also got in touch with the Department of Health and Social Security, which suggested that I should raise it with you to try and ensure that this sort of thing does not happen, and that medical staff in all our Member States are reminded of their duty to advise people who are ill who come to them to go to the office to obtain reimbursement.
Just very quickly; I very much regret the difficulty your constituent had.
You did not say whether the constituent was finally reimbursed but you are making the point that we want to see a better system put into place, and I take note of what you say.
Of course the person did the right thing, he went to his department when he got back to his own country of residence and got reimbursed.
It should not happen that way.
There was a fault in the first instance in that the person was not sent to the proper institution.
But I will certainly look into the possibility of getting better information to all those involved.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply to Mrs Hardstaff.
But following on from Mrs Hardstaff's question, would the Commissioner care to comment on the fact that the E111 does not appear to cover all medical costs in an emergency situation.
Some of my constituents have been left with a bill, even after using the E111 form.
Will the Commissioner therefore be recommending that citizens of the European Union should be taking out additional medical insurance to cover the shortfall on the E111 form as they travel across the European Union?
It is an interesting point.
There are two main possibilities of obtaining medical care outside the state of residence.
The first is that a person staying temporarily outside the competent Member State is entitled to all necessary medical benefits in kind, using the E111 form.
Secondly, a person can move to another Member State in order to undergo treatment, but should obtain the prior authorization of the competent sickness institution, that is, form E112, in order to be properly reimbursed.
The Court of Justice has been asked to determine whether the current rules are compatible with the Treaty provisions on free movement of goods and services.
We are awaiting the outcome of that judgment.
When we have it I will be better able to answer Mr Truscott's further point.
As the author is not present, Question No 28 falls.
Question No 29 by James Fitzsimons (H-0921/97)
Subject: Toy safety
Given growing concern about the use of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) in children's toys, given that PVC can have chemicals added to it that can be hazardous to children if ingested and that certain Member States have already acted to have toys containing PVC removed from shops, is the Commission prepared to investigate the matter with a view to introducing European-wide rules?
I should like to say to Mr Fitzsimons that the Commission is well aware of the issues he has raised.
The growing concern mentioned by Mr Fitzsimons relates to the use of soft PVC in toys and childcare articles such as teething rings, and not of PVC in general.
The chemicals referred to are, in particular, some plasticizers.
They are called phthalates, and are used to make PVC soft.
The Commission has reacted promptly to the initiatives taken by certain Member States and, in particular, by the Danish authorities in the framework of the Community rapid alert system.
These initiatives concerned three teethers which are made in China, which brought the issue to the attention of the public and the authorities all over Europe.
The Danish Environmental Protection Agency alleged that these teethers leached an amount of phthalates judged inadmissible for babies.
Representatives of the Member States were invited by the Commission to a meeting of the emergencies committee dealing with consumer health in October 1997 to discuss the issue, given its potential implications for consumer health and safety.
Significant differences concerning test methods and conditions were highlighted and there was a general consensus on the need for harmonized test protocols.
The urgency of the matter led to the decision to consult the Scientific Committee on Toxicology, which met on 17 November of this year.
The committee decided to further investigate the issue and a working group on phthalates focusing specifically on toys and childcare articles, composed of prominent academics and researchers, held its first meeting on 8 December 1997.
It will deliver its findings in the first half of 1998.
In the meantime research on those substances has been going on with the support of several Commission services.
Besides the outcome of the working group that I mentioned, the investigation of the matter with a view to introducing European-wide regulation in this field as requested by Mr Fitzsimons is already under way.
Most of the chemicals involved are amongst the substances identified as priorities by Regulation 793/93 on evaluation and control of the risks of existing substances.
This means that risk assessments are currently being carried out by the Member States which have been designated as rapporteurs in this case, namely the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, Regulation 793/93 being EEA-relevant.
The first results of these assessments are expected shortly.
The results of the investigations will allow the Commission to propose if necessary the appropriate measures to be taken at European level to regulate the use of these substances in toys and in other products as well.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I am very pleased that research is being carried out with regard to the concern about toys.
There is quite considerable concern in the Member States that too often Christmas, which should be a time of joy, is a time of tragedy.
Only in the last few days the European Consumers Association has issued a statement in this regard.
Further to what the Commissioner has said, is the Commission aware that several PVC toys have already been taken off the market in Spain, Sweden and Italy? Given this situation, would the Commissioner now ensure that some ground rules are laid down concerning the manufacture and sale of such toys?
Would he also ensure that all other Member States remove such toys from their shelves before this Christmas?
In reply to Mr Fitzsimons, the Commission is aware of the voluntary withdrawal by toys distributors in several Member States of these particular items.
For the time being no ban has been implemented by the Member States in general.
So far as this particular distributor is concerned, they have agreed to voluntarily withdraw from the markets where they have been contested.
The Commission and the Member States await the outcome and the opinion of the Scientific Committee, before taking the adequate measures to restrict the use of soft PVC in toys.
What is needed is harmonization of the testing methods, and that is being considered by the working group.
As soon as the information is available the necessary action will be taken.
Mr Commissioner, I am having some difficulty with what you are telling us.
Toy safety is regulated by a guideline from 1988, in which it is stipulated that the Commission shall ensure by 1989 that the appropriate technical standards shall be enacted to guarantee this safety.
I ask you why it was only two years ago that the Commission applied to the CEN to set legal limits for organic chemical substances and plasticizers, which we are debating now.
And why, after two years, has this still not been done?
There was a misunderstanding here, I feel, because what we are talking about here...
Mr Flynn, it is not that I want to give permission to speak.
But when you can understand the language in which the question is asked, you answer straight away, while I - being no polyglot - am still listening to the skilful work of the interpreters.
That is why there has to be a short pause between the end of the question and your reply.
The floor is yours.
I appreciate your point, Mr President.
There must be no misunderstanding.
What we are talking about here is the question about plasticizers in PVC toys.
As far as the note I have here is concerned, we are talking about the fact that this group has been set up to deal specifically with the complaints that have been received.
As soon as the opinion has been received the matter will be addressed.
But the complaints have been dealt with in so far as the importer or the distributor has withdrawn the product, so there is no danger consequently.
Concerning the Member States where it has been contested, you are quite right, because there are differences in testing procedures.
It is precisely to do that and to harmonize the testing procedures that the working group is sitting to deal with the matter.
Mr Flynn, I think Mr Martin wants to put a supplementary question.
It is very encouraging that the Commission has taken the action it has.
I wonder if you have gone far enough.
The fact is that this product can still be legally on the market in 12 of our 15 Member States.
I understand that you need scientific evidence, but in the United States they would withdraw the product and then, if the scientific evidence proved the product to be safe, allow it back on the market.
In the meantime we are allowing this product, which there are serious concerns over, to remain on the market.
I wonder if we should not be taking action now to remove it from the market and then, if the scientific evidence happily proves it to be safe, we can allow it back on the market.
I am advised that the Commission does not have the legal power to do that under the existing situation and that a standardization is under way, but is not going to be ready before the year 2002.
Because of what you say and because of the difference in the testing procedures, which cannot be agreed, it is going to take some time.
I will bring the matter to the attention of the relevant Commissioner and make the point that you have addressed.
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, it is now 6.03 p.m. and an act of solidarity with those who have suffered the effects of terrorism is about to start in Hall 5 of IPE II, under the aegis of the European Parliament and at the instigation of the President of this institution, to mark the presence here today of the family of Mr Miguel Angel Blanco, the town councillor murdered by ETA.
As you can imagine, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to be present at that ceremony, and I am sure you would too.
However, to be working here today in Parliament is also an expression of solidarity, because the terrorists, who are totalitarian fascists, want to destroy democracy. Therefore, by continuing to work within our democratic institutions we are displaying our solidarity, and also showing the terrorists that though they may murder democrats in such a despicable manner, they cannot kill democracy itself.
Mr President, in January I am presenting for debate the proposal that would abolish age limits in recruitment advertisements for the Commission.
If the Commission approves the proposal, age limits will vanish from any competitions from then on.
As for current or future practice concerning other institutions, discussions are under way within the normal Community frameworks.
That is why I do not wish to comment on any possible future arrangements or any legal matters pertaining to them.
I thank the Commissioner for taking this matter up and for acting so efficiently and effectively.
Could I make the point that he might consider in the discussions with the other institutions, pointing out to them that they must try and live up to the spirit and practice of the Amsterdam Treaty, particularly those aspects dealing with discrimination in employment.
I refer in particular to the institution of which we are Members, because it appears to be one of the most laggard in retaining the archaic practice of ageism in employment.
Would he take the opportunity then in the discussions that are going on - and we know it is a delicate matter - of pointing out that the spirit of the Amsterdam Treaty demands that all European institutions set an example for other Community citizens?
We have informed the other institutions, including the European Parliament, of our intentions.
Perhaps you also have possibilities to express your views in this procedure.
We in the Commission came to the conclusion in the preparatory discussions that any age limit in the publication of a post would be very inappropriate, taking into account the spirit of the Amsterdam Treaty.
At the same time, of course, when we recruit people we need to have a good age structure, so young people will be recruited in the future.
There will be some senior people but there will be no age limit in the notice of competition.
If I expected my chances to be very limited I would not have announced my intention here.
As far as the legal side is concerned, our Staff Regulations do not oblige us to use age limits, so no changes are necessary there.
However, when we publicize new posts they must go through the normal procedures with the joint committees.
For that reason, last week we had political consultations with the staff organizations on the matter.
We have given them further information.
I expect, if everything goes as planned, that in January we will try to take a first decision, which means that we will abolish age limits and right after that publish the new general competition for officials, so that we do not remain on the level of general decisions but pass directly to the next European competition for officials without age limits, which would be organized in 1998.
Parliament has put a great deal of effort recently into including the outlawing of discrimination on the basis of age into the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This was successful.
I am pleased, therefore, that the Netherlands has been the first country to implement this.
I am also pleased, of course, with the Commission's decision to no longer set any age limits in its job advertisements.
But I would like to take you up on how you will police this.
Would the Commission be prepared to issue a yearly overview to Parliament on the actual appointment policy, so that we can see what the ages are of the people who haven been appointed? Secondly, you said, you will be able to get things changed in Parliament yourselves.
I can tell you that we have talked with the President and the Secretary-General on numerous occasions, but Parliament is very conservative on this issue.
I think it must be to do with the average age of members of Parliament.
Mr President, I am responsible for the recruitment of personnel in the Commission.
My responsibilities include taking decisions on all manner of recruitment issues.
After the decision has been made to end age limits, I'll be responsible for the matter and I'll attend to it.
They will no longer exist.
But if you want to see a list of those situations where age limits will be imposed, contrary to this decision, I will gladly prepare one, although it'll be very short.
Actually, there won't be anything on it.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, it seems to me - and this really a point of order - that a question should be given a response.
My question was by no means answered.
I fully respect Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel's opinion, but in order to comply with the Rules of Procedure I must now allow Mr Truscott to put a supplementary question.
Mr Liikanen, when replying to Mr Truscott you are free to say whatever you wish.
I wish to thank the Commissioner for his answer.
Would he join with me in calling on all EU institutions to abide by the spirit of the Amsterdam draft Treaty on anti-discrimination on ageism? In the light of that, does he have any target date for the phasing out of age limits in all the EU institutions?
Mr President, I am sorry, I misunderstood the question.
Of course we will be able, if need be, to provide information on a yearly basis on the ages of staff recruited in a general way.
There is no problem in that.
As for the Amsterdam Treaty, we are all bound by it in the same way, obviously, but we should I think refrain from commenting on the recruitment policies of other institutions.
I am responsible for what the Commission does and you have the right to observe.
What other institutions do is rather harder for me to take a view on from the legal point of view.
Question No 33 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0895/97)
Subject: Implications for the Member States of the European Parliament's first reading of the 1998 budget
The European Parliament's first reading of the 1998 budget entails an increase of payment authorizations of ECU 1 700 million over the Council's first reading.
For some Member States this increase implies perceptible costs for their national budgets in the form of higher membership contributions.
For others it implies greater amounts flowing back in the form, for example, of structural fund support.
Will the Commission describe the economic implications for the Member States of the European Parliament's first reading as compared to the Council's first reading? Which countries will gain and which will lose as a result of the European Parliament's proposal?
Mr President, I thank Mr Sjöstedt for his important question.
In the first debate on the 1998 budget in the European Parliament appropriation was increased by ECU 1.7 milliard.
The sum is meant to cover the extra costs set aside for Member States and the Third World.
The Member States, however, must also fund these additional costs.
The Commission is requested to specify to the Member States the future net benefit of these increases.
The Commission has often made it clear that it does not consider it possible to unambiguously gauge the merits of Union membership.
The advantages surpass mere considerations of bookkeeping.
For example, the effects of freeing up trade on economic growth and living standards are impossible to measure in each individual Member State.
Just as hard to assess is the influence the internal markets will have on growth, or the economic significance for Member States of the strategy being undertaken for membership.
Jacques Santer presented a document to the Ecofin Council on this issue on 13th October of this year.
The document is now available on the Internet on the Europe home pages in the eleven official languages of the Community.
I would like to state that the increases in expenditure proposed by the European Parliament and the way they are to be funded are subject to the same interpretation of the juste retour system as any other budget.
This being the case, the Commission does not consider it appropriate to make detailed assessments.
I thank the Commissioner for his friendly reply.
I promise to read the document which the Commission's President, Mr Santer, has drawn up and which is on the Internet.
I thought, however, that having such a good grasp of the budget (as I know you have, you know where the money comes from and where it goes), you could perhaps at least give a small pointer in the principal directions.
Mr President, the increases proposed by Parliament will fall into place like the employment initiative in Europe or the Socrates programme.
These are things that have a general importance for employment and youth exchange programmes throughout Europe.
I wouldn't like to make judgements as to how a Member State might benefit one way or the other.
I believe that everyone will gain.
But, obviously, each Member State, just like parliament, has the right to make its own assessments.
The Commissioner will know that in the Netherlands a lively discussion is taking place as to who are so-called net payers.
My question to the Commissioner is: when can all relevant figures be issued, so that the discussion can at least be based on real figures?
Mr President, the document, which was submitted to at the Ecofin Council and is now available to everyone, contains our assessment of the extent to which resources for structural funding or agricultural funding have been divided up among the various countries.
There again it assesses to what extent these break down into payments to the Commission in the form of VAT or GNP and to what extent they come from traditional national resources, mainly customs duties.
The document is now available and people can make their own judgements accordingly.
But I would stress that the issue is a complicated one, partly owing to all these problems on the outside.
As we now, for example, prepare for enlargement, we will invest heavily in straightening out the economies of the central and eastern European countries.
It will mean better security for Europe and, in the future, greater prosperity.
European companies will be involved in many such projects, but it is extremely difficult to tell which countries will reap the greatest rewards, and which the smallest.
But, as I said, the information relating to structural funding and agricultural funding is contained in the document I mentioned, which is at your disposal.
I would like to say to the Commissioner that what I believe Mr Sjöstedt and also Mr Cornelissen are seeking is not a measure of these indirect effects, which are of course always the result of everything, but what people want is quite simply a solid statistical basis with regard to the precise financial payments inwards and outwards.
Such a thing must in all likelihood exist.
We have of course payments coming in which clearly come from various countries.
It is also the case that each budget item obviously has a destination in a particular country.
It must be possible to make this simple division, i.e. according to the direct financial destination, both with regard to the EU's total budget and, in this case, with regard to the increases which Parliament has proposed.
I would also like to agree with Mr Cornelissen that it would be desirable if the big debate taking place all over our countries in the Union could be based on a very thorough statistical foundation.
Mr, President, as I said, this information, which relates to agricultural and structural funding, are in the document distributed by the Commission, which is available to everyone.
It accounts for more than 80 % of the budget.
Then, in the matters of external relations and administration, things get pretty complicated.
There will also be questions of interpretation relating to internal policy.
But I will say again why this matter of expenditure is not so simple.
For example, when we make guarantee funding payments in agriculture, often an exporting company might be, for instance, a company in Belgium which exports agricultural produce from France or Holland.
That is why things do not always balance out.
The other example is that we often require in our community programmes projects to involve companies or research institutes in at least three Member States.
But the account we are paying in to is generally geared to one Member State.
It is never possible to get fully accurate information on this, but we have strong indicators from a precise knowledge of how much everyone pays to the Community, what structural funds there are and what each Member State gets, and what is paid out of agricultural guarantee funds.
Though some of it might move from one country to another.
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
Mrs van Putten wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I would like to offer my apologies for having been held up, and arriving a little too late for the reply to my question.
I would like to express my reget.
Thank you, Mrs van Putten, but the Presidency has already received your apologies. We realize that Members have a great deal of work to do during the part-sessions.
Furthermore, in your particular case, the Presidency is aware of the highly responsible way in which you work.
The 1985 regulation sets out the Community rules for driving times and rest periods and article 4(2) of the regulation exempts passenger vehicles carrying nine or fewer persons including the driver from the requirements relating to driving times and rest periods which are checked by means of a tachograph. article 13(a) of that regulation permits national derogations which allow Member States to have passenger vehicles carrying up to 17 persons to be exempt from the requirements of the regulation.
The United Kingdom has taken advantage of this national derogation in respect of minibuses.
Within the EU United Kingdom rules are the exception.
There is, however, no inconsistency within Community law since other Member States have decided not to use the derogation for minibuses.
It means, however, that UK minibuses may only benefit from the exemption when they operate within the territory of the United Kingdom.
Maintaining a high level of road safety and the enforcement of driving times and rest periods has particular importance in international passenger transport which normally involves relatively long-distance driving.
The Commission, therefore, does not intend to propose any further exemptions from the requirements to fit minibuses with a tachograph.
I should like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his enlightening reply.
I will certainly pass it on to a group of charity workers in my constituency who are trying to organize a trip to the European Union.
My follow-up question is: Does Commissioner Kinnock think that this national derogation is unhelpful and, as a result, would he be making any recommendations on a personal level to UK manufacturers to instal tachographs as a matter of course in the UK? That would deal with these difficulties.
I apologize if I come in too quickly, Mr President. I am used to responding in the Westminster fashion, which is to respond instantly to a question.
I understand the problem identified by the honourable Member.
However, I have to say that the arrangements for the installation of tachographs and the observation of driving times and so on that follows from that appear to have caused no problems in other Member States.
It is, of course, for the United Kingdom Government to decide whether they want to change from using the derogation to coming into full compliance with the law.
If that was to occur, the impediments to travel from the United Kingdom to the rest of the European Union in minibuses would disappear.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock, but may I remind you that whereas in the House of Commons you use a single language, here we work in 11 different languages.
Question No 35 by Tommy Waidelich (H-0774/97)
Subject: Commission document on road safety
A fresh approach to road safety is being discussed in Sweden, under which emphasis is placed amongst other things on the sharing of responsibility for road safety, between road users and those responsible for designing and operating the road transport system, and importance is also attached to the coordination of measures at local, national and European levels.
In view of this, will the Commission state how many people have been killed or seriously injured in road accidents in Sweden and the rest of the EU in recent years, indicate the social cost of such deaths in Sweden and say whether it intends to take the necessary measures to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on Member States' roads?
I am grateful to the honourable Member for his question.
Sweden has a relatively good record on road safety with a death and injury rate that happily is below the European Union average.
Nevertheless, as the Swedish Government has repeatedly made clear, there is no cause for complacency when in 1994, for instance, the number of people killed in traffic accidents in Sweden was 560 and the number injured was 21, 083.
The Swedish Minister, Mrs Uusmann, and her colleagues are to be commended for their latest efforts, to which the honourable Member has referred in his question.
The Commission has calculated that the direct cost of road accidents, based on the cost of police, medical and emergency services and vehicle repairs, and the economic output lost as a result of deaths, is ECU 45 billion a year in the Community as a whole.
When divided by the 45, 000 fatalities annually caused by road accidents, this produces an average cost of a million ECUs per death.
In its communication last April on promoting road safety in the European Union, the Commission set out in detail its plans to build on the first action programme which ran from 1993 to 1996.
The Commission's actions to try to strengthen road safety will focus on three main areas.
Firstly, information gathering and dissemination in order to identify particular features of accidents and to assist with the development of policy priorities.
Secondly, initiating and supporting measures that can help prevent accidents, with an emphasis on the human factor and its interface with the traffic environment.
Thirdly, initiating and supporting measures to reduce the consequences of accidents when they occur.
Whenever possible we will, of course, promote the transfer of good practice, working in conjunction with national and local authorities, police forces, manufacturers and driver organizations.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his answer.
I think that the strategy which the Commission is now putting forward is very sensible in many ways.
I also believe that it will help the transport cooperation which is currently taking place in the various Member States.
Just as the Commissioner said, it is the case that even though the number of accidents in Sweden has gone down, there is still a great desire to improve road safety.
Our vision is to achieve zero injuries and zero deaths in one year.
I think above all that the profitability calculations which the Commission emphasizes are a very positive new way of working, to quite simply provide more encouragement for the work on profitability calculations in the question of traffic safety measures.
Just as the Commissioner said, people then include the costs of accidents.
In that way we can also justify efforts in a financial way.
Lastly I would just like to put a follow-up question: Does the Commissioner believe that during the next year more concrete initiatives are going to be taken on the basis of this programme? I am thinking, among other things, of the directive on vehicle safety etc.
Thank you, Mr Waidelich.
Mr Kinnock, you now have the floor - in the European Parliament, not the House of Commons.
Mr President, they might have only one language in the House of Commons, there are however a variety of accidents which from time to time cause difficulty with understanding.
That is apart from the political reasons for failures of understanding, of course.
Could I say to Mr Waidelich that I am grateful for the comment that he made in his supplementary.
There are further initiatives to be contemplated by the Commission, not least the pursuit of a proposal last made in the late 1980s on trying to secure a uniform lower level of tolerated blood alcohol content amongst drivers.
I think it appropriate to particularly draw attention to this at this time of year. Road casualties are not only sometimes higher around Christmas and the New Year but have a particular tragedy attached to them.
All efforts to reduce accidents on the roads are obviously worthwhile, not only because of the huge savings that accrue but most of all because every life saved is a tragedy avoided, not only for the family that is bereaved of a loved one, but also of course for the people responsible for causing deaths and injuries.
I would just take this opportunity provided by the honourable Member's question to make a special appeal that right throughout the Union this year people will avoid drinking and driving and show particular care, especially in winter weather, to try to save lives and avoid tragedy.
I am also interested in this question.
I think that the reply from the Commissioner is good with regard to the general contributions which the EU and the Commission can make, such as providing and gathering information.
It is perhaps going a bit too far to believe the Commission should produce a unified report on avoiding injury in the individual Member States.
I have a supplementary question.
This seems to be mostly about roads.
It would be very interesting to know, based on what we are now discussing, which kinds of traffic are safer or less safe, especially which kinds are safer, so that we who are able to encourage traffic measures concentrate on the right kind of traffic.
Is it possible to get a reasonably satisfactory answer to this question?
I am grateful to the honourable Member for his question.
It permits me to point out that in the course of the work that I described in outline earlier, our efforts to examine the human factor in accidents and the interface with the environment include attention to the effect of different kinds of infrastructure on the potential for accidents.
The traditional method of making measurements and assessments of this kind is found wanting simply because it does not take into account particular sets of circumstances.
For instance, an improved road might contribute to the prevention of accidents.
However, it can also induce increases in speed which increase the severity of accidents.
We are trying in our work therefore to make distinctions within the general definitions that will assist local and national authorities in the design of infrastructure to enhance to the greatest possible extent the safety of road travel.
I hope that the honourable Member, like others, will not only seek to exploit the information that we are able eventually to provide but to see that it is applied effectively at local level.
Question No 36 by Florus Wijsenbeek (H-0785/97)
Subject: Rail shuttle between the Netherlands and Poland
Is the Commission aware that the rail goods shuttle between the Netherlands and Poland operated by Poltrein BV has had to close down because of a lack of cooperation and because of bureaucracy on the part of the Poles?
Is the Commission prepared to take steps to enable this contribution towards shifting transport from roads to the railways to continue?
The Commission is aware of the problems identified by the honourable Member in his question which have been experienced by Poltrein in developing or trying to develop an intermodal shuttle service between Almelo in the Netherlands and Pozna in Poland.
It is, however, incorrect to state that the service has had to close down.
It is, in fact, continuing on a twice-weekly basis.
Some of the problems which Poltrein has experienced have been of a commercial nature.
The operating company recently informed the Commission that it is in negotiations for a possible merger.
One consequence of that merger would be a modification of the service to run from Rotterdam to ód&#x017C; in Poland, which should help to make the service commercially viable.
The operator has also informed the Commission of a number of operating problems due to customs procedures in Poland and difficulties with the Polish railways as well as with rail companies in the European Union.
The Commission intends to raise these problems, where appropriate, in the relevant subcommittees of the European Community Poland-Europe Committee, with a view to resolving them and with a view also to trying to improve the viability of this type of service which could potentially be extremely valuable.
I would like to draw the Commissioner's attention to the fact - and this may be question of translation - that in my question it says in Dutch: "would eventually have to stop' , in other words would eventually have to stop their operations .
It does not say that they have already been stopped.
But, Commissioner, I am very grateful to you for your answer and that you want to raise the matter during the talks with Poland.
But I would nonetheless like to point out, that while things continue the way they are, while the train stops for an extremely long time and very frequently, as result of long border procedures and constant closing of border posts, then rail transport in Eastern Europe, and beyond Poland in the CIS be disastrous.
Quite the reverse, road operations will gain power, and the Commissioner will know that Polish and Hungarian road use is increasing extremely rapidly; so this is totally contrary to the Commissioner's wishes.
Would he, in addition to raising the matter, like to make concrete proposals and, if necessary, give Polish Customs a helping hand to speed up the matter?
I am grateful to the honourable Member.
It is true that there appears to have been a change made in translation, I am certain inadvertently.
The question before me contains the words 'has had to close down' .
I am glad to be brought up-to-date by the honourable Member, who fully understands the problems affecting the efforts of Poltrein.
Indeed I take this opportunity first of all to commend the company for striving to maintain the service despite very considerable impediments, including the insistence on carrying out sanitary and phytosanitary inspections at the Polish border which leads to hold-ups en route and customs opening hours that have not been adjusted in line with the timetable for arrivals and departures so that consignments must, in some cases, wait for up to six hours before departure.
These problems will be raised as the honourable Member requests, in the Association Committee's customs subcommittee.
But there are other problems that relate to the time taken for train handover at the GermanPolish border, difficulties in negotiating train path allocations and a lack of transparency in rail pricing both within the European Union and in Poland.
Indeed, rail pricing problems are being addressed by us in the framework of the follow-up to our Commission White Paper on railways strategy which we published last year.
I have touched on only some of the multitude of problems that have to be faced by companies in trying to develop international rail freight services.
Hopefully some of those problems will be overcome completely by the establishment of the rail freight freeways, the first of which will begin in a few weeks' time, running from the North Sea coast down into Italy.
However, we need a multitude of such developments if rail is really to show what it can do in securing a shift from road to rail transport throughout the whole of our continent.
Mr President, I have no supplementary question.
I enjoyed my one question in question time.
However, since you are giving me the floor, I might be permitted a comment.
I am far from criticizing the way you conduct your office.
Only, when we have so many questions to the Commissioner -and I have been waiting for months now, Mr Kinnock, to put a question myself - then it is bad if you permit too many supplementaries, because it is entirely up to you how many you allow.
This means, therefore, that I will not get another chance today and must wait another three months.
No, Mr Schmid, that is not a matter for my own free will, but is stipulated by our Rules of Procedure.
All I can do, Mr Schmid, is try to interpret the Rules of Procedure as flexibly as possible, but I must also make sure that we keep to time, otherwise other questions suffer.
However, you can make your views known to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, to see if we need to modify Question Time. I am sure that committee will be very interested in your views.
Mr Cornelissen has the floor, for a supplementary question.
With reference to the Commissioner's good news that the rail freight freeway between Rotterdam and Italy will soon be commencing, am I to understand from his response that sufficient agreements have been made to prevent problems at the internal borders, and, Mr President, will he go as far as to make an estimate of the average speed of the freeway?
On the basis of information as recent as last week, I have every reason to suppose that the service with the first rail freight freeway will commence within weeks.
I would not want to be more specific than that.
I do not want to made a liar for the sake of a couple of days.
But we are not far away from the commencement of the service.
Since the time allocated to this set of questions has now expired, Questions Nos 37 to 42 will be dealt with in writing.
This question concerns the closure of Chernobyl and more particularly about the completion of two nuclear power stations which have to serve as alternative energy capacity.
In answer to the question, I would like to say that the Commission was asked by the relevant Ukrainian organizations to provide partial funding by means of a Euratom loan for the completion of these two reactors.
In this context and in accordance with the relevant Euratom procedure the administration of the Commission has taken a number of measures with a view to forming a judgment of the various aspects of the project to enable the Commission in due course to take a responsible decision.
The Commission can confirm that the EIB is at present preparing its recommendation with regards to the completion and the upgrading of the two reactors R4 and K2.
The Commission also confirms that the American firm Stone & Webster is at present conducting an economic analysis of the project as part of the Ukrainian request for a supplementary loan for the R4/K2 project.
The Commission, moreover, is presently financing EU consultants through the Tacis programme to help Ukrainian organizations gather the data which it has to submit according to Euratom and EBRD procedures for financiers.
This obviously also applies to cost estimates, and as far as the accuracy of this estimate is concerned, the cost estimate for the two reactors must, as with all industrial projects, be adjusted constantly, in order to, amongst other things, include contingencies for the project.
This factor should be taken into account when earlier estimates are referred to, such as the estimate used by international panel chaired by Professor Surrey.
Risk analyses have confirmed that the most important risks for the R4/K2 project have been mapped and have reasonably been taken into account in the estimate, including contingencies.
I would furthermore like to point out that a continuous exchange of views is taking place between financiers and the project management.
This way the economic and financial analyses of Euratom and EBRD are always based on the most recent data.
I am extremely surprised by the Commissioner's response and I can only characterize it as gobbledygook.
The study commissioned by the EBRD under the memorandum of understanding by Professor Surrey is the only official study and I would like to ask the Commissioner if he has actually read it.
I would recommend that he do so.
It is quite clear that nuclear power can never be the least cost option and the least cost option must be adopted under the memorandum of understanding.
Furthermore, can I have the Commission's confirmation that it will stick to the memorandum's criteria as to safety and that we will always ensure its safety is equal to that of the EU? I do not want to hear another gobbledygook response.
I really want the Commissioner to read the report.
It is extremely serious because we could have another Chernobyl.
I am just surprised as the respected representative, because the respected representative will know that when the Surrey report was published, it received serious criticism from the clients, and that a number of shortcomings were found, in particular with respect to the proposition that all thermal power stations are in operational condition, whilst most of the thermal power stations in the Ukraine are twenty years old.
I would like to mention another point of criticism.
No estimate had been included for the investments needed for thermal power stations, in particular with regard to the clean-up of the environment.
Another point of criticism was that the investments in R4/K2 was not spread over the entire lifespan of these power stations, but merely over ten years.
Finally, it contained no analysis of the macroeconomic consequences of the recommendation to import coal and gas.
So as a result of the criticism it was decided to charge Stone & Webster to undertake a supplementary investigation.
This expert consultancy, which has been asked by the United States to conduct a further investigation, is currently undertaking this, and during the first phase we asked Stone & Webster to continue calculating an economic computer model with different parameters, and this resulted in a report to the bank which was used by the working party of the Board of Directors of the EBRD in August and September 1997.
This report concluded in terms of probability that one unit would probably reach the least cost phase very soon, namely in the year 2002, and that later this might also be the case for the second unit.
The Board of Directors asked the bank to compute this analysis further and Stone & Webster is presently engaged in this.
At the end of January a second report is expected, after which the Board of Directors of the EBRD will discuss it further in February 1998.
Finally, I can inform the respected representative that the question of safety standards will obviously be examined closely, because that is what it is ultimately all about, and that when these two unfinished power stations are completed, it will be done in way which corresponds with safety requirements in the West.
Question No 44 by Heidi Hautala (H-0861/97)
Subject: Proposed project for the completion of Khmelnitski 2 and Rovno 4 nuclear reactors (k2/r4) in the Ukraine
The President of the European Investment Bank (EIB), in answer to a question of mine in the EMAC Committee on October 28th, stated that EIB employs the Least Cost planning principle in its economic advice to Euratom on nuclear loans, but their advice that Mochovce was not Least Cost was ignored.
For the completion of k2/r4, the only valid official Least Cost Study under the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) shows that the project is far from Least Cost, though efforts are being made to get around this.
As Ukraine addresses its under-priced energy supplies, the proposed project will become even less Least Cost.
Could Euratom afford to again ignore the opinion of the EIB, or will the Commission accept, for Euratom, the official view of EIB as final on the economics of the completion project, rather than granting a loan which would as a consequence not actually help the Ukraine?
This concerns questions about to the role of the European Investment Bank in all of this.
The Investment Bank is requested to make recommendations concerning all Euratom loans, and these recommendations will be taken into account by the Commission in the decision process.
I would like to point out, however, that the decisions on Euratom loans is not within the province of the Commission, and that it will be taken on the basis of a broad range of internal analyses and external studies from competent institutions.
As far as the EIB recommendation with regard to Mochovce is concerned, I would like to remind you that the Commission did not take a decision, as the Slovak authorities decided to withdraw their loan application to the EBRD and Euratom before a definite decision was taken.
The Slovak authorities consider it more desirable to complete the Mochovce reactors themselves, and this means that the European Commission is no longer involved in the project, and it therefore cannot give a guarantee that there will eventually be a level of safety which meets Western standards.
As far as the K2/R4 project is concerned, the Commission is awaiting the recommendation by the EIB concerning financial and economic aspects.
In due course the Commission will take its decision in complete accordance with the appropriate decision by the Council.
As far as the economic aspects are concerned, the Commission is basing its evaluation on a series of external analyses, including the position of the EIB and the EBRD.
Mr President, my question in a way referred to whether the economic recommendations made by the European investment banks have any importance when the Commission can make a resolution based on something quite separate from economic questions.
The issue is obviously a serious one as the question arises as to what the Commission's officially undeclared and, as it were, subliminally expressed thinking will be behind decisions taken when it embarks on the Euratom projects.
Would it possibly be that the Commission will be doing all it can to support new projects in the nuclear power industry in Eastern Europe? There are many of us who would be against this.
We cannot accept that the nuclear power industry be continually showered with new projects, when in fact it would be a lot more economical, rational and safer to lend support to, for example, natural gas.
I am fully aware of the interest in this Parliament on the state of affairs concerning the closure of Chernobyl, because that is what we are ultimately discussing, and it is also why we are presently having a debate on what type of alternative energy capacity will be installed.
During the past year I have regularly tried to inform the European Parliament about the situation, and about the further progress in regard to the decisions which were taken by the G7 at the time, to see to it as much as possible that the original promise by the Ukrainian government to close Chernobyl by 2000 would be realised.
We are presently in a critical phase: at the time the G7 promised to examine and cooperate so that the two incomplete reactors would be completed in a responsible way, and on the basis of generally accepted safety conditions. The Commission for its part has, during the past months, promised to co-finance this completion to a maximum of 50 % of this project, on conditions and on the basis of advice such as is customary with Euratom loans.
With respect to Euratom loans, the first prerequisite of these is the economic survival chances of project concerned, whilst as far as the EBRD loans are concerned, the least cost elements also play a part, as well as a number of other conditions laid down in the EBRD statutes.
To complete all this, Stone & Webster is presently conducting a supplementary study, about which I informed to the previous questioner. During the first few months of next year we therefore expect there to be more clarity on the position of the EBRD or on alternative funding possibilities, as it is in any case certain that, whatever the advice from the EIB with regard to the participation of Euratom, the Commission will never be able to go any further than funding 50 % of the project.
So should the EBRD at some point not be able to provide its loan on the basis of the recommendations, alternative possibilities will have to sought.
In the event that these are not found, then the categorical closure of Chernobyl in the year 2000 will be in danger.
That is what is at stake.
One thing to conclude, Mr President.
It goes without saying, of course, that the Commission does not pursue a nuclear policy, in the sense of trying to obtain as many nuclear contracts for industries in the Member States.
That absolutely cannot be the intention.
We are trying to arrive at a sensible solution here, which is entirely related to our fear that the safety of power stations in Chernobyl which are still operational will not be sufficiently guaranteed.
I would like to add once again: Chernobyl draws most attention because of the disaster at the time, but we have grave concerns about a number of different installations, also in the accession countries, where we need all the attention we can muster to try and improve their safety.
We have now come to the end of the time allocated for questions to the Commission, so Questions Nos 45 to 90 will be answered in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Beef and veal posing a potential health risk
The next item is the statement by the Commission on beef and veal products posing a potential health risk
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful for the opportunity to inform Parliament about some developments in relation to aspects of Community veterinary policy.
I would like to refer first to the question of what is known as SAM or specified risk material.
As far as this problem is concerned, I would like to remind you that the Commission wanted to resolve this question a year ago, but was not supported by the Member States.
I admit that this is a difficult decision, but in my opinion it is necessary and fully justified in terms of health policy.
I later argued that a decision should be taken in July on the basis of scientific recommendations then available.
But it was clear even then that this decision would have to be amended before it came into force as further scientific recommendations appeared.
Unfortunately the Member States could not reach agreement on this either.
Yesterday the Standing Veterinary Committee decided to postpone the date for introducing the Commission's proposal by three months.
But no-one should assume that this 3-month postponement offers an opportunity to weaken the decision.
We intend exactly the opposite.
We not only need to refine some technical details of the decision, but must also take account of the completely new scientific discoveries which we have only just obtained, and which further reinforce us in our preventive strategy.
Several Member States have already introduced national measures for specified risk material, and I emphasize that none of them intends to lower the high level of protection which they aim for in this way, quite the reverse.
But it is all the more necessary to harmonize the measures at Community level.
To come to a second area, you certainly know about the new scientific discoveries which have recently been announced in the United Kingdom.
These have persuaded the British government to introduce some stricter measures.
The recommendation by SEAC, the British scientific advisory committee, has resulted in new findings about the infectiousness of certain nervous tissue along the spinal column and of red bone marrow.
These findings have been checked by the Commission's Standing Scientific Committee, and are mentioned in a statement which was published last week.
I can assure you that we will take full account of this statement in reviewing the decision about specified risk material over the next few weeks.
The United Kingdom had the option of either informing consumers and giving them the opportunity to decide for themselves, or stipulating that meat must be deboned before being marketed.
The British government decided on the second option.
The deboning regulation for beef which is sold in the United Kingdom will apply equally to beef from other Member States and third countries.
This is neither - as was falsely stated - a full-scale embargo nor a violation of Community law.
All other proposed measures by the United Kingdom regarding beef and beef products from other Member States and third countries are now being checked by the Commission departments for conformity to Community law.
Another important aspect, which was mentioned in the statement by the Commission's Standing Scientific Committee and has resulted in all sorts of speculation in the media, is the danger from sheep meat.
Let me emphasize that there is no link with any suspected danger from scrapie.
We have been exposed to scrapie for centuries, and there is no reason to assume that it can now be passed on to humans.
On the other hand, we know from tests that BSE can be passed on to sheep, and if they are infected it causes symptoms which are very similar to those of scrapie.
The Scientific Committee therefore pointed out the risk that sheep might be infected with BSE if they come into contact with infected meat or bonemeal, and that this results in some risk.
Last month I submitted a proposal for a decision to the Council of Agriculture Ministers on the acceptance of the negotiated draft agreement. This is the agreement with the USA, which in my opinion has a chance of succeeding in the Community.
We managed to retain our level of protection in the area of public health, and to persuade the Americans, for the first time, to recognize the regionalization principle as the basis of Community animal health policy.
Unfortunately, only a few days before the Council discussed the Commission's proposal for the first time, the USA published its proposal about recognizing the situation about animal health, and it is unacceptable to the European Union.
The US Department of Agriculture has not recognized some Member States as free of epidemics like swine fever or Newcastle disease, although these diseases have not occurred in these Member States for a long time.
We have invited the US authorities to come to the Community and check the situation for itself.
Following this invitation, a team from the US Department of Agriculture came to Europe last week, to give itself a picture of the measures for combatting epidemics in the Member States.
However, I would like to mention here another problem regarding the USA, which has occurred recently.
The USA announced last Friday that it is temporarily suspending imports of ruminants and ruminant products from EU Member States and certain other European countries, because of concerns about BSE.
It decided to impose this ban until satisfactory information is received about the control and monitoring of BSE in the relevant states.
The USA obviously has a perfect right to take precautionary measures for health protection from BSE risks.
However, the Commission is not of the opinion that this particular measure is justified, or that it is compatible with the USA's international obligations under the world trade agreement on health and phytosanitary measures.
As basis for such measures, the SBS agreement recognizes the regulations of the appropriate international organizations, in this case the IEO.
In its letter to the authorities of the Member States, the USA claimed that it is BSE-free according to IEO criteria, and would act within the IEO trade regulations.
Neither of these claims is correct.
The USA has only recently banned the feeding of scrapie-infected sheep to cattle, and furthermore has no animal carcass disposal plants operating to the standards required to destroy the BSE agent.
Moreover, the IEO allows trade with countries in which BSE is present, but the USA has banned all imports from Europe, even from those states without a single case of BSE so far.
I very much regret that the USA has taken this action, particularly so suddenly, without prior consultation and at a crucial point in our discussions about the conclusion of the veterinary agreement.
As you can deduce from my explanations and the presence of my colleague Emma Bonino, the Commission is guided in these important health questions by a high level of consumer protection, both on the internal market and in trade with third countries.
Mr President, Mr Fischler, like my colleagues I have been listening to you attentively, and you will not be surprised to hear that what you have said certainly does not make us all perfectly happy.
But as I have often said elsewhere, being MEPs does not give us an automatic right to happiness.
Allow me to make a few comments.
In the last few days, I have again and again defended the view that the decision to postpone the implementation of the regulations on specified risk materials does not spell imminent disaster.
Admittedly, I would have liked us to have at last had a safe, protected system by 1 January.
Now let me consider four points which are important in this context and also create tension between the two scientific bodies with which we are concerned, namely the Scientific Steering Committee and the Standing Veterinary Committee.
Before getting into detail, I want to ask you, Mr Fischler, and perhaps you too, Mrs Bonino, whether you believe competition between these bodies is now, at last, at an end, and that the Scientific Steering Committee and the Standing Veterinary Committee are both giving equal priority to health policy and preventive consumer protection? Or do you believe, Mr Fischler, that it is still the case - and I know this is an assumption - that the Standing Veterinary Committee, at least, represents the individual interests of the Member States from which the representatives come, and not necessarily the position of the whole European Union?
Now let me say something about the individual points.
The position is that the proposal on specified risk material has been postponed by three months, from 1 January to 1 April.
We have three or four areas to consider.
If we leave out the USA, there are three main areas.
Do you think we will have succeeded in clarifying all these questions in the remaining time? I think even the scientists - who all happen to be men - will use the Christmas holiday period to celebrate Christmas.
What will happen about cosmetics and pharmaceuticals?
Are you sure that we will succeed in regulating this area, both within the European Union and relations with the USA, and also in regulating what happens to pharmaceuticals which have already been produced? How will you evaluate the new specification of specified risk materials, even in the Standing Veterinary Committee?
Will you include the spine?
Will you include the lungs, ganglia and so on?
How will you ensure geographic distinction, and will you encourage the Standing Veterinary Committee to cooperate with the Scientific Steering Committee?
One last point in my first speaking time - because luckily I have another speaking time at the end - the USA. Mr Fischler, it is ridiculous for the USA to say the control facilities in the Union would be insufficient.
Are you prepared to go before the WTO arbitration tribunal and tell the USA that what they are doing with hormones and pesticides is a scandal? If they think that they are clean as regards BSE, we want that shown before the WTO arbitration tribunal!
Are you prepared to do this for the European Union?
Mr President, I explicitly welcome the present decision, because it gives us the opportunity to make the necessary corrections and adjustments to earlier decisions.
I say this, knowing that of course we are on a tightrope in this sensitive debate, to ensure that preventive consumer protection is an absolute priority in future, but equally to represent matters more realistically and more distinctly, particularly the risk materials decision and the different regional rates of incidence of BSE.
Let me say quite clearly that it was a wrong scientific and political ideology from the start to define a part of a potentially infectious animal as doubtful in terms of health policy, so that the rest could still be sold.
Furthermore, the new scientific discoveries are not so new.
I would point out, in particular, that a number of scientists, the minority opinion, pointed out the problem of lymphatic and nervous tissues, but from 1990 onward they were repeatedly shot down.
But at the same time, that means far too little was actually done in the past, precisely in the areas where BSE exists.
Either an animal is healthy and suitable to be fed to humans or it is not.
There is no in-between where BSE is concerned!
So I think it is right to take other criteria, such as geographical location, more into account here, as well as evaluation of the materials.
In this connection, I would also like to say clearly that both the announcement by the USA and the announcement by Mr Cunningham must be explicitly rejected.
With his announcement, Mr Cunningham is endangering the goodwill we have shown in the BSE monitoring committee about moving step by step towards abolition of the export ban under clearly stated conditions.
The announcement breaks the law, so to speak, by going against a current decision by the Standing Veterinary Committee, and will eventually backfire against Britain's own interests.
I also propose, Mr Fischler and Mrs Bonino, that we take the opportunity to talk with you at the end of January or beginning of February in Parliament's standing committees.
At the same time, our group will ask the chairman of the Scientific Steering Committee to report to the parliamentary committees, so that at the beginning of February, before the final decision, we can have a transparent and open debate involving Parliament.
I also think the decision now made is not a gamble with preventive consumer protection, but gives us an opportunity to correct many things in the well-intentioned panic decision of 30 July of this year, and get things moving in the right direction.
Mr President, it seems to me that the three months we are taking before implementing these regulations - that is, by 1 April 1998 - demonstrate that more cautious decisions are being taken without panic.
For the time being we should take care not to thwart this attempt to reflect, to use this period of time to extend our knowledge from the viewpoint that health protection is of greater concern, knowledge which, we have to say, is not yet sufficiently reassuring.
The simpler, more trivial, but even more agonizing question asked by the people remains unanswered: how can we still be infected by mad cow disease, by Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease? No-one has yet managed to tell them.
When we were in Great Britain, we talked to families of victims of the disease: they told us they ate a perfectly normal diet, the same as those of other members of the family, certainly not a dangerous diet, in the sense that they had not eaten brain or other so-called parts at risk, those we are now banning.
These answers are therefore the first we have to find, and I think that, once again, we can find them in Great Britain.
In my opinion, the English scientists, who quickly found an early answer on transmissibility from BSE to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, already know many of these answers.
With regard to the Americans, Commission Fischler, I do not think they know a lot about the situation in Europe, but even if they do not say much, they make it clear that they are in favour of dialogue.
So, frankness, clarity and decision first, but always towards a single solution: not to promote trade, but to protect public health.
Mr President, this is obviously an initial reaction, and clearly we are going to have to come back to this in more detail.
Firstly, I want to put on record deep concern about what the United States has done.
That has to be resisted firmly, because it sends a very negative international signal that is not fair to the Union at large or to some of the Member States within it.
I am afraid that it could have a cascade effect and certainly will damage consumer confidence within Europe, irrespective of its actual trade effect.
Secondly, I am not entirely clear from listening to the Commission whether the incipient ban on trade into the United Kingdom has the goodwill of the Commissioner or not.
I hope that further partitioning of the market will not be upheld by the Commission.
It would be wrong, pending legislation being adopted in three months, to have additional internal bans.
That should be resisted.
Finally, I should like to ask whether it is the politics of the scientific community or the science of the political community that is holding up the SAM legislation, because every time we delay these things, again we raise doubts in the consumer's mind.
Even if there is very low probability of risk, we damage both consumer confidence and producer confidence.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, Commissioner Bonino, you will remember our discussion in the monitoring committee, when the risk material measure was introduced, about regionalization, that is, restrictions to this measure, and Mr Fischler, you will also remember the constructive disagreement we had, because we argued that if we have no regionalization, that is, no restrictions, we also have no possibility of organizing an escape from BSE.
You decided the opposite, and that is just where you fell into the trap.
You did not think where the raw materials for pharmaceutical and cosmetic products come from.
You had to decide on an exceptional regulation, and now Borchert, led by Germany and not wanting the risk material to be removed, blocks it, and lets you fall into the trap, and you have to postpone your measure by three months.
In my opinion, the danger of infection by BSE was in the early years, but of course it must also be taken seriously that over three months worth of material which should really not be in the food chain will now continue to be consumed.
If you had included a restriction, you would also have had no disagreement with the USA.
I obviously think it is a scandal that under Borchert's leadership the opportunity to recognize New Zealand and Australia as BSE-free was blocked, although that would be possible if Germany is not recognized.
Here the Council is blocking at the cost of consumer protection.
But, Mr Fischler, Mrs Bonino, if you had followed our suggestion of including a restriction and not staking everything just on the internal market, we would not have the present situation.
I hope it can be retrieved.
I repeat, we have not reached the end of BSE.
Regionalization also involves risks, but we must do it, to get protection going in an organized way and provide a low-risk escape route from BSE - because it is impossible to avoid all risk.
For our part, Mr Fischler, Mrs Bonino, we will continue to make constructive proposals and cooperate in this matter for the benefit of everyone, I hope, including consumers.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying how much I appreciate the Commission's presence here in strength tonight.
This reflects its concern, which we all share in this House, about the depth of the crisis and the way in which it is expanding - it seems to be in a lot of directions at once.
This must give us all grave cause for concern, because I worry that the whole issue is getting out of hand as well as, arguably, out of proportion.
I should like to thank Commissioner Fischler for his frankness and openness in explaining to us each step which has been taken and in sharing with us the various decisions taken by the Scientific and Veterinary Committee.
I look forward also to hearing from Commissioner Bonino in due course her perspective on these matters.
It is equally positive that it is now quite clearly a majority view that this is a European problem and that we have to have harmonization on a European level.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf was correct that regionalization, which I have been stressing as a possible way out for some time, is now being taken very seriously.
Perhaps if anything positive can come out of the United States' position, it is that we are now looking seriously at that as an option.
Certainly I deplore what the US has done.
It seems to me to be typical of the high-handed way in which it behaves when its trade interests are at stake.
At other times it invokes the WTO to prevent deals which the EU believes in, such as the trade in bananas, to give one example.
What is to be done? This is what the farmers are asking.
The farmers in Scotland are saying: tell us what we have to do and we will do it; we will take all the eradication measures necessary, we will produce certification.
We need to have a clear indication from the British Government and from the Commission.
There is a clear anxiety and determination to find a solution - not to hide behind smoke-screens but to find a solution.
I was intrigued by Commissioner Fischler's statement that the British Government had various options.
It could have declared risks.
For example, it could have compared the risk of eating lamb chops or other meat on the bone with smoking cigarettes, or drinking alcohol.
This is an option.
I wonder whether the Commissioner feels that would have been more helpful than what seems to be a total ban on all kinds of bone-in meat.
I wonder where the Commissioner thinks we are going in the near future.
The anger on both sides of the North Channel with the Irish, Scottish and Welsh farmers all at each other's throats has been caused by the frustration of not knowing how to go on from where we are.
One last point: could the Commissioner confirm that the failure to address the problem of the exchange rate and the compensation of the British pound has been an exacerbating factor, which is clearly within the competence of the Member States to resolve?
Mr President, first of all I am saddened that we do not have a resolution before us tonight and that we do not have a vote on this particular subject.
That should be put on record.
Since March 1997, beef farmers in my constituency in Northern Ireland have watched their business being destroyed by the effects of BSE.
They have waited in vain for a positive position to come forward from Europe and, indeed, from two United Kingdom Governments.
All we have experienced is two steps forward and three steps backwards on every occasion.
Their patience has been pushed to the limit and the miracle is that it did not boil over before.
While no-one wants to see public demonstration, I have to say I understand the anxiety and share their concern.
There has been a trailing of feet by the Commission and the Council.
We need and require a sharper decisionmaking process, one that can end the duplicity.
Farmers in the United Kingdom suffer not only from the BSE problems but also from the strength of the pound sterling.
No decision has been taken to date by the United Kingdom Government to compensate for the green pound differential.
That is, of course, an internal UK problem but it is aggravated by the advantage that exists for other Member States to export into our market.
This is the point UK farmers rebel against.
One can understand this and could be forgiven for believing that the advantage other Member States have at present encourages them to maintain the status quo.
The unfair competition must end.
Quite frankly, if Mr Cunningham takes the decision to ensure that unfair beef from other Member States will not enter the United Kingdom after 1 January, then he will have my total support.
I would like to put two questions to the two Commissioners who I am pleased to see here and who are at the coalface of this problem.
The first one is: on the beef certified herd scheme, are you now going to accept the decisions that have come forward and have been accepted by the United Kingdom Government? Will you in January, at the next Council meeting, agree that the beef certified herd scheme is acceptable, is positive and can be adopted by Europe as a scheme that is safe?
Will you also move decisively - not drag your feet - on the bornafter date scheme?
Unless we get positive answers on those two points then the farmers in the United Kingdom will continue to demonstrate and they will do it, quite frankly, with my support.
Mr President, we return to this issue in a very specific context, a context of the risk of a fall in guaranteed prices of around 20 % to 30 %, at a time when we have not recovered from the consequences of the BSE crisis.
We discovered that a dead cow was used for meal in Belgium.
We discovered later that even in Luxembourg a cow was infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, and its carcass was also turned into meal. We have come to the conclusion that controls are apparently ineffective.
We held a committee of inquiry. Its chairman is here.
We have a committee monitoring the results of the inquiry.
Its rapporteur is also here.
The United States, which is going to send us hormone meat, can enjoy the luxury of rejecting our meat, on the pretext that it is hazardous.
New scientific data has told us that meat has become hazardous.
Our British friends, who had no hesitation in contaminating everything they could, are now lording it over us saying they do not want to be contaminated by us now!
The pharmaceutical pressure group is continuing to back gelatin in medication capsules and so forth.
Even Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has concerns, although he had no scruples before, and acted to prevent a motion of censure and was not worried about environmental problems, despite being a member of the Green Group.
I think we were wrong to walk away from the political shock waves that would have been provoked by putting the burden of responsibility fairly and squarely on the Commission's shoulders.
The abscess would have been drained immediately.
Instead all this is going to go on indefinitely.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his statement.
I am seriously concerned, as many others are, with the ever-deteriorating state of the beef market and the confusion being created with regard to the vital matter of public health.
We have in the European Union a common market in beef and in other products. This market has worked extremely well and when serious animal health problems arise, such as foot-and-mouth disease, swine fever or Newcastle disease, the geographical area involved is isolated and suspended from the common trade arrangements until that disease is controlled and eradicated.
This system has served Europe well and can, if correctly used, eradicate BSE completely from the British herd.
This is our objective.
Very steady progress is now, perhaps belatedly, being made.
The disease figures show this very clearly.
There is no doubt that the British Government made very serious mistakes in its handling of the BSE crisis, but after much delay it has now put in place a well funded and scientifically based eradication programme which is working well.
But the support of other Member States is being put at risk by the ban imposed by the government yesterday or the day before on imports of bone-in beef and lamb, and also the failure by the authorities in Britain to keep the ports open, as is required by the operation of the single market.
The disastrous tit-for-tat mishandling is destroying all our efforts to rebuild consumer trust and confidence through the complete eradication of the disease.
It has also given huge advantage to our trading partners at the expense of our own producers, also without scientific base.
On behalf of the thousands of beef producers I want to appeal to the Commission and the British Government to act together to pay more attention to the real scientists and less to the biased commentators who are continuously getting it wrong.
Mr President, I would like to begin my brief contribution by again thanking Commissioner Fischler for his openness and frankness from the very moment that this very serious matter arose.
But I have to say that the continuing campaign in Great Britain against the import of Irish beef is and must be a matter of concern for all committed Members of the European Union.
It is my view that the European Commission cannot stand idly by on this matter.
It must protect the interests of all Member States.
One Member State cannot be allowed to write the rules as it goes along. One country cannot be allowed to disrupt the single market.
I am particularly angry at the attacks being made on Irish beef.
There is growing evidence that British supermarkets and depots are being warned not to purchase Irish beef.
Irish beef is known throughout Europe as a quality product.
I challenge the British authorities to let the consumers make up their own minds and ensure that Irish beef is sold in British supermarkets.
Every country has a right to promote its produce, but not at the expense of others'.
What Britain is seeking to do at present is effectively to rig the market in its own favour.
The single market is based on the premise of a fair marketing environment.
Clearly, at this moment in time, Britain will not accept this basic ground rule.
Hopefully, in the days ahead, we can redouble our political and diplomatic efforts in order to ensure the restoration of a balanced and fair competitive situation.
Clearly the British Government is using Ireland as a scapegoat for its failure to address the genuine problems of its own farmers.
Mr President, I should like to ask Commissioner Fischler how he can justify the decision to postpone the enforcement of the ban on specified risk materials and whether it is not indeed appropriate that it has been postponed until April Fools' Day.
If the problem is damage to our beef markets and to consumer confidence, is the solution not to take the toughest measures to restore that consumer confidence?
We know there is much less BSE on the continent than in the United Kingdom, but we also know there is some.
The toughest measures must be taken on the continent, as they have been in the UK.
I suspect the Commissioner agrees, otherwise he would not have given tacit approval tonight to Mr Cunningham's actions.
I would like to ask Commissioner Bonino: is the United States not dealing with Europe now as it dealt with the UK in 1989? It may be that the way they have done it was inelegant, but is their intention not honest?
They say they want to protect the safety and integrity of their food supplies. Why is it that we have to attack the United States when what they appear to be doing is retaining consumer confidence in food there, in the way that we should be here in Europe?
Mr President, the two Commissioners will know that while there is a crisis in the agriculture industry in Wales, Scotland and England, there is catastrophe in the north of Ireland.
They will also know that the three MEPs in this House representing Northern Ireland met the Prime Minister last Wednesday and he told us that he was going to negotiate a package with European help.
Can the Commissioner tell us tonight whether the British Government put forward proposals for such a package and whether that package will be forthcoming?
I might say that I associate myself entirely with the remarks made by my colleague, Mr Nicholson, and no doubt if Mr Hume were here he would be saying the same thing.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the Commissioner on his position with the proposals, of course, as always to protect consumer health.
All farmers put consumer health first but the British farmer is fed up with being kicked around like a political football.
We have reached a stage where something has to be done.
I should like to ask the Commissioner the following points.
Firstly, has the British farmer been discriminated against by the present British Government, as I believe it has, with its suggestion that it has to take British beef off the bone? For those of us who like beef on the bone, what is the justification?
Has it just responded immediately to a SEAC suggestion?
As Mr Cox said, it is destroying consumer confidence. We have heard all along about the problems of the beef industry from our Irish and other colleagues and the pressures on the industry at the moment.
Has the British Government applied for funding to help the revaluation of the pound? If so, or if not, when does that opportunity disappear?
Is it within the next month?
I have two questions for the Commissioner to which I would like, if possible, an answer: if the UK unilaterally bans beef coming into the United Kingdom from which the risk material has not been removed, can the Commissioner invoke article 169 and take it before the Court of Justice?
I have one final question as the Commissioner for the environment is here.
I heard the other day of yet another attack on the British farmer, namely that the Government is about impose a tax on fertilizer - that is just as an aside.
Is that true?
Mr President, Mrs Bonino looked quite frightened that she had just become responsible for environmental policy.
Let me make a few short remarks on the debate.
Can we please be clear about one thing: British farmers are certainly very much affected, but they are affected because a government did nothing for ten years.
The situation cannot improve dramatically because something has changed in the last year.
Let me say something about a possible lifting of the export ban for parts of Great Britain.
Mr Fischler will certainly do the same.
Yes, Great Britain has made proposals since May.
But presumably we all expect a scientific committee to take a view on this subject.
That is surely our understanding of safety, consumer confidence and health protection.
The Scientific Steering Committee quite clearly made additional demands.
If we want to work seriously here and not just worry about how we look from the outside, not just make the quick press report - I say that as selfcriticism - we should read the extensive reports, which are also available on the Internet very carefully, then we would know what this steering committee says about sheep, cattle, and other animals.
It is not easy to read, but we can read it, and then we know.
There are still needs now.
The steering committee says there is still no functioning certified herd scheme, not even in Northern Ireland.
I will be the first to support it when there is one.
I agree with those who say a postponement of this proposal is a good thing, if it will then be watertight.
Because we want it to be watertight.
If the USA believes it is BSE-free because it says it is, we must recognize that BSE-free is very clearly defined by the IEO, the International Epidemic Organization in Paris.
According to it, the USA is not BSEfree, to put it equally clearly.
And if the USA then thinks that it can ban certain imports and not others, that is wrong.
I expect the Commission to take action against it.
Also, Mr Fischler made a very clear distinction.
He said that meat can enter Great Britain on the bone and must be deboned there.
That is not an import ban.
Not to allow meat in at all is an import ban, and I definitely would not support that unless there were good reasons!
The debate is closed.
Mr President, I would just like the commissioners to wait to hear the point of order.
No, if it is addressed to the commissioners it is not a point of order.
You can only make points of order to the Chair.
Mr President, a question was asked which is of vital importance throughout the European Union, and got no answer.
I am sorry but we are over time.
I understand the importance of this matter but we could take all night dealing with it.
Energy policy (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0308/97) by Mr Scapagnini, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Commission communication 'An overall view of energy policy and actions' (COM(97)0167 -C4-0205/97)
Mr President, I want to try to get the interrupted debate on the Scapagnini report going again.
Energy policy requires a global attitude and global political action.
Even the title of the Commission's statement suggests that.
The climate summit in Kyoto made the need for this global attitude clear, at least as far as the effect of energy policy on climate is concerned.
But it also revealed how far apart understanding and implementation are.
There is hardly a policy area where the gulf between what should be and what is, between a normative requirement on the one hand and actual policies on the other, is as wide as in energy and climate policy.
The Commission's statement needs to be evaluated against this background.
It presents us with the known arguments for the need for a global attitude and strategy in the energy field.
There is the continually increasing dependence of the European Union on energy imports, and the resulting future risks.
There is the rapid growth of world energy consumption and the associated shortage of supply, and not least there is the considerable increase in worldwide environmental problems and their long term effect.
All this suggests that the European Union should have increased authority in energy policy, but we have not secured it, even in the Amsterdam Treaty.
There is no clear, specific legal basis in the treaty.
What is left, if you will excuse the comparison, is like the chatter of house-sparrows about the autumn migration to the south.
The Commission's statement is an accurate but visionless compendium of all Community initiatives in the energy field. What remains to be done in this context?
What remains is to improve international cooperation on energy.
What remains is to assess the energy and environment policies of the Member States regularly - that is new - and to try to coordinate them towards Community goals.
We need synergy effects, not mutual blockades or zero-sum games.
The implementation of the internal energy market guidelines for liberalization and integration of energy markets must be driven forward.
What remains is to continue to work on the Community energy tax, which has failed up to now, and to encourage research, technological development and demonstration of renewable energy resources.
I am anxious to know what is finally left of what we put into the fifth research programme.
In short, what remains is to keep to the idea of an outline energy policy programme, and to strengthen energy policy actions through cooperation between the Member States.
This requires periodic reports about national activities and their effects.
The rapporteur, Mr Scapagnini, sees this stimulation of the Commission, and assesses it as suitable.
What I would like to see in future - I only want to mention it briefly - would be specific implementation strategies...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Scapagnini on this report.
It is a comprehensive report and calls for many of the things which the Liberal Group has supported.
We are beginning to realize now how wise it would have been to write a chapter on energy into the Maastricht Treaty.
Particularly in the light of the failure of the Kyoto Conference, the problems of our energy policy are becoming much more apparent.
I regret one thing in this report, namely that the Commission appears to have given up on its campaign to introduce rational planning techniques into the electricity and gas sectors.
These techniques would certainly show us the way forward.
The Commission put them forward before and seems now to have withdrawn from that.
The Commission has to look wider too.
We have to look for five leitmotifs for energy policy in the European Union.
First, we have to introduce a major programme of investment in energy conservation in Europe.
Second, we have to encourage consumers and firms to use energy more efficiently.
Third, we have to cut the costs of energy efficiency in homes and offices.
Fourth, we have to make new buildings and machinery, vehicles and appliances more energy efficient, and work is being done on this.
Finally, we have to increase support for renewable sources of energy.
It is essential that these are done.
The Commission is beginning to show the way forward, but if we are serious about it we are going to have to put the money behind our political intentions.
Mr President, when we talk about the energy policy goals of the Community, I think of Fontane.
It is a broad field, and I must add that it is in thick fog, because we have no uniform energy policy goals.
I can make this clear to you with a few examples.
We always say that we must definitely become less dependent on imports.
Then the example of the nuclear industry is given, and everyone forgets that of course we must import the uranium for that.
We always talk about energy efficiency, but we do exactly the opposite.
I would just remind you of the Save programme.
We always talk about renewable energy.
I would just remind you of the Altener programme.
It has been cut to ECU 22 million for two years, which is ridiculous when we have paid ECU 250 million per year for 15 years for fusion.
We also talk about renewable energy creating many jobs, and being good for the environment, but nothing happens.
What we need in the end is an energy tax.
What we need in the end is renewable energy, energy efficiency.
In the end we must use all possible means to continue to develop these.
We cannot do that with the pittance left over because everything is going into fusion.
We also urgently need codecision by the European Parliament, and furthermore we must have a separate energy chapter at last.
We have none of that.
So I can only conclude with the words of Brecht: the circumstances are not right, because the Council blocks everything, and as long as that continues we will have no energy policy goals, but go on sprinkling a little everywhere with the watering-can, and putting all our money into fusion, when all we know about it is that it may produce energy in the year 2080 or 2050 at the earliest.
Mr President, I share the general disappointment at the failure of the Amsterdam Treaty to take on board the business it was supposed to discuss, which was the formation of an energy chapter.
The European Union started with two energy Treaties: the European Coal and Steel Community and the Euratom Treaty.
The European Coal and Steel Community has served energy well and the Euratom Treaty, although anachronistic and definitely a 1957 Treaty, has been a very powerful impetus to one form of energy - nuclear energy.
If the EU has a competence, things happen.
As far as Kyoto is concerned, there are only three things you can do in order to diminish CO2 emissions: one is to rely on nuclear energy - but there are very big risks and problems involved in that; secondly, you use energy more rationally and, thirdly, you turn to renewable energy sources.
If we had an equivalent to the Euratom Treaty - I would call it the Eurenew Treaty, a treaty on renewable energy - we could do something.
This would make things happen in Europe and give considerable added value to the European Union's work on energy.
I have to say that I find the second part of conclusion 11 by Mr Scapagnini unacceptable, because it recommends additional help to nuclear power.
This is not the answer.
I am also very disappointed at the reported reaction of the Council of Ministers to this communication from the Commission.
It is a very sensible communication.
It makes it absolutely clear that if you seriously want to do what we said in Kyoto we would do, you cannot do it without a legal base or without giving yourself the competence that was given so effectively when the European Union started back in the 1950s.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Scapagnini in his absence, on a succinct report.
It lays down some valuable guides for our consideration of the energy framework proposals which have just been approved by the Commission.
We really have to move energy issues up the political agenda.
We ought to have the same basis as for the environment.
The legislation should be subject to qualified majority voting.
The fact is that energy consumption is increasing.
In 1996, the last year for which we have figures, it was up by 3 % in world terms and 3.6 % in the European Union.
The starting point has got to be a strengthening of the analysis of energy demand.
Unless you have the figures you cannot determine policy.
We need to look in much more detail at consumption per capita, energy intensity, electricity intensity and the primary fuels that we are using for electricity production.
I must tell you, Mr President - although in your case you will already know - that the liberalized market may make this even more difficult than it was before.
We have to concentrate very strongly on the question of energy efficiency: the energy efficiency of production and of use.
Unless we get those things right, all the other things that we talk about will just be straws in the wind.
I want to draw attention to a factor which I drew attention to earlier in the debate on the research programme.
It is small companies that have the greatest difficulty in making use of the resources that we have at Community level.
I am talking about companies of less than 50 people.
That is an area where we have to make a much greater effort.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Aid to shipbuilding
The next item is the report (A4-0377/97) by Mr Sindal, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation 3094/95 thereby further prolonging the relevant provisions of the Seventh Council Directive on aid to shipbuilding (COM(97)0469 -C4-0526/97-97/0248(CNS))
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to thank Mr Sindal, because he said clearly that prolongation is right, and I am not going to say much about that, but let us come to the point.
We agree.
As long as the USA does not ratify the OECD agreement about eliminating order-related shipbuilding subsidies, preventing its implementation, we must ensure that the shipyards in our Community have at least half a chance against the highly subsidized shipyards in Asia, as well as other shipyards around us.
But we must take care that, if we decide on a common upper limit with the prolongation, the Member States make use of it, so that we do not have support in one Member State but not in another, because then we have a new distortion of competition within the Union.
I also share Mr Sindal's ideas about the debate should the USA still fail to ratify the OECD agreement.
I find the Commission's idea of submitting our own subsidy regime correct in principle, but we should check it very carefully.
Yes, Mr Karel van Miert, we both know that; we must be careful, subsidies must always be for a limited period, and they must be degressive.
Those are the first two principles.
Let me also mention two more principles.
We must take care that the so-called investment subsidies which are to be newly created are not mixed, linked or duplicated with the subsidies for research and development.
Second, we must take care that the investment subsidies are not linked to the traditional support areas of regional aid.
Then of course some shipyards would drop out although they are much more competitive than others.
Their chances would be reduced.
We must take this up with the shipbuilding sector.
Third, we must take care that the support rates in the Union are as uniform as possible, to prevent further distortions within the Union.
There will certainly be an exciting debate about this in the next year.
Mr President, I agree with Mr Sindal that there is a need to prolong the Seventh Directive.
It is essential that we do not have a period without legislation in this field.
But it is also vital for the US to ratify the OECD agreement.
Like Mr Sindal, I would like to hear what the Commission is doing to put pressure on the American government, and whether the Commission can say how far the US has got with its own deliberations.
On the other hand, I am very concerned at the Commission's proposal for the Council Directive on new rules on aid to the shipbuilding industry. It is quite simply unacceptable.
The Union's aim must of course be to phase out aid to the shipbuilding industry. The Commission's proposal replaces relatively transparent operating aid with less transparent forms of aid which will favour some shipyards rather than others.
The shipbuilding industry must prepare itself to survive without aid.
We will of course come back to this proposal on a later occasion, but for the moment I can say that it is not my cup of tea.
I can understand the Commission's argument that we must have clear rules and not end up in a vacuum if the US does not ratify.
If the US does not ratify the OECD agreement, other countries may perhaps start adopting policies which distort competition.
So you - and you in particular, Mr van Miert - must make every effort to put pressure on the US Congress to ratify the OECD agreement by the end of next year.
Mr President, I approve the regulation which is proposed, and the report by our colleague, Mr Sindal, but I am concerned about the recent approach of the Commission.
It is anticipating the application of the 1994 OECD agreement by proposing to ban state aid from 2001.
The United States would not fail to interpret this as a signal from Brussels encouragement not to ratify the OECD agreement.
The Commission has got us used to making unilateral concessions.
This was the case for agriculture within the framework of the GATT agreements and for the aeronautical industry with the Boeing-McDonnell Douglas merger.
Today, such ready acquiescence would be a new blow to European shipyards, which are suffering by serious difficulties.
Employment has fallen from 280, 000 to less than 80, 000 in twenty years, and many yards have been closed.
In the face of social dumping from certain third countries, we have to maintain existing assistance in a system which promotes the acquisition of ships built in European shipyards.
In the immediate future, should we not also renegotiate the OECD agreement, and consider it as null and void if the United States do not ratify it by the end of 1998?
Mr President, until the 1970s my country, Sweden, was one of the great shipyard nations of Europe.
That is no longer so.
There is virtually no building of new vessels at all in Sweden any more, only repair shipyards for large vessels.
There are of course many different reasons for this.
One of them, however, is that there has been such tough competition with state subsidies from other countries that Sweden has not been able to maintain a shipbuilding industry.
That is also why the OECD agreement of 1994 raised such hopes in Sweden that fairer terms of global competition would make it possible to begin to compete again when new tonnage was to be built.
That is also why it is regrettable that this agreement, which should be able to provide reasonably fair terms of competition, has not yet come into force.
Obviously I support Mr Sindal's report, which is based on the idea that once the USA ratifies the agreement it will also be respected within the EU.
Until then it is, however, quite reasonable to continue with a certain amount of state subsidy so that the industry is not wiped out.
In my party we have also proposed that Sweden should again be able to give the shipbuilding industry a limited state subsidy in order to be on equal terms with other countries.
I am therefore going to vote for the report.
I would like to start by thanking Mr Sindal and the committee for the speed with which this report was produced, because we have to make a decision on the prolongation of this seventh directive by the end of the year.
I had hoped there might have been no further need to debate this, and that might have been the case had the United States in the end ratified the OECD agreement.
It is the only country not to have done so.
There is nothing I can do about that, and I have to say to Mrs Riis-Jörgenson that a Commissioner can do a lot for competition, but one thing I cannot yet do is force the American Congress to ratify an agreement.
I cannot do that, I have not got that far, I can have another think about how I might achieve it in future, but for the moment I am afraid I cannot give you any satisfaction on that front.
For that matter I would like to say straight away, ladies and gentlemen, that we should distinguish between the issue today and what we will have to discuss in the near future, namely what will happen afterwards.
This is a prolongation by a year until the end of next year, and if in 1998 the United States once more fails to ratify the OECD agreement, then we will have to have joint discussions about a new regulation.
The Commission has made proposals for that. You may think what you like about them.
But when the time comes I will be delighted to present them to you in committee and debate them in this House.
But today I have already had a foretaste of that debate.
Some think subsidies should be abolished as soon as possible.
I also listened to Mr Querbes, who would like to continue them indefinitely.
But I would remind you that during the years 1990-1995 ECU 5 billion in government support was spent on shipbuilding in the European Union.
So those who claim that the European Union has not been pursuing a broad policy to try to enable our shipyards to adapt, do not know what they are talking about.
By the way, I have to say to Mr Querbes that I also completely disagree with him about Boeing, but I cannot do anything about the fact that some people in France have got a completely wrong idea of the situation.
Everyone here in this Parliament knows that much better than Mr Querbes.
So I am obviously going to disregard what he said, because if someone is that far off the truth there is nothing to be done.
I would like to conclude then by setting a rendezvous for the next debate, and I have already said that I am looking forward to that debate, because I believe the Commission has made a major effort in the proposals it has submitted in order to offer a solution which will mean that contractual government support, that is, operational support, can indeed be abolished in principle in the year 2000 at the latest.
If there is a majority in the Council of Ministers to do this earlier, that will not be a problem for the Commission.
On the other hand, we also want to offer our shipyards the opportunity in the future to carry out the necessary innovation, research and development, modernization of the existing yards, and, if necessary, to claim government assistance, because, in the future, when government support is no longer possible, we, the European Commission - and I am not speaking just for myself, but certainly for Mr Bangemann as well - wish to offer as many opportunities to shipyards as we can.
We must ensure that we keep enough shipyards in Europe in the future for objective as well as for purely economic reasons.
I would like to leave it at that, Mr President, but again, I already look forward to our next debate, which is bound to take place in a few months time.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Services of general interest in Europe
The next item is the report (A4-0357/97) by Mrs Billingham, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication 'Services of general interest in Europe' (COM(96)0443 -C4-0507/96)
Mr President, it is almost a year since I began this report.
In the search for consensus on this complex issue I have consulted widely throughout the Union and taken suggestions from all sides of this House.
The report is a response to a Commission communication which quite rightly takes as part of its theme the concept that services of general interest lie at the very heart of the European model of society.
My research confirms that.
How the services are delivered is not at issue.
It is the quality of the service that counts.
Services are provided in a myriad of ways across Europe.
They are delivered in monopoly and in competitive situations, by private companies, public bodies or by public-private partnerships.
But it is the product and not the process that matters to consumers.
My report focuses on economic public services which provide commercial goods or, more often, services for which there is payment.
The notion of a people's Europe where social cohesion and economic growth are dependent upon the delivery of good services right across the Community underpins this report.
Europe has been strong in trade and in industry with a bias towards business but weaker in its support for its citizens.
Public services have a noble history and are valued by citizens, but standards vary.
We must iron out some of these discrepancies and put in place a blueprint for systematic improvements in all specific areas of public services.
The report recognizes the primary role of Member States in defining public services, with the European Union having a secondary role of fixing the minimal level of service, a universal service, examples of which have already been taken on board in postal services, broadcasting and telecommunications.
I have identified three major areas where the EU can take a leading part.
First of all we must have a clear definition of services which fall within the general interest area.
Secondly, there should be a specification of basic universal services that should be expected by any citizen.
Thirdly, there has to be regulation ensuring that the specified levels of service are delivered consistently across the whole territory of the EU.
The EU should adopt a supervisory role to ensure that national regulators work to a consistent standard.
The painful history of my own country - of badly managed privatization - is a warning to the rest of the Union from which we can learn a lesson.
I have used the experiences in Member States, the Commission's communication, the Commission itself and many helpful opinions and advice received from colleagues, organizations, representatives and interested parties in arriving at my conclusion.
My report before you today welcomes the new article 7(d) and calls for it to be implemented and calls for a number of other additional actions to be taken.
Firstly I call for a charter of principles: principles for a service of economic interests to be drawn up by the Commission; secondly, I require and ask for democratic scrutiny for the Commission activity in that field to be developed in Parliament in the form of an observatory.
The report also asks for Green and White Papers to be published by the Commission, laying out a timetable plan to translate treaty and charter aspirations into action and also seeks a special responsibility for public services to be attributed to one of the Commissioners and one of the Commission's Directorates General and for Parliamentary committees to have a specific brief within this area.
This report has been an excellent example of all sides of Parliament coming together to produce what I hope is a sensible document.
I thank colleagues for that.
If we achieve a consensus here tomorrow at the vote, we will be making history.
It will be the very first time that Parliament has achieved a common position on public services.
I hope that we can do it.
If we do, we will send a clear message to the Commission and the Council that Parliament is united in its determination to demonstrate that this is indeed a people's Europe, a Europe which works to make its citizens' lives better and a Europe which is set purposefully to achieve a fairer and more cohesive future for all its citizens.
Mr President, this communication from the Commission on services of general interest gives an account of the future objectives with regard to the interest in opening up protected sectors or monopolies to competition, while at the same time we want the citizens to have access to services of general interest on the same terms and at reasonable prices, which is good.
I think there is a central theme in the Commission's communication, which I also think Mrs Billingham arrived at in the end. It is that people must recognize the multiplicity of the scope of services and the various organizations in the various Member States, that there are big differences because of tradition, that there are different methods and that people should also recognize the principle of subsidiarity and that it is the Member States who in fact decide who should carry out the services, whether it should be private or public companies, and also whether special rights should be granted as long as people stay within competition law.
It is good to have a debate in the form of a Green Paper, which is proposed.
I believe, you see, that there needs to be a very broad debate in the Community about this.
It must also be allowed to take its time. It is not something which can be implemented quickly.
On the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs we also believe that a consequential analysis should be done when services of general interest are deregulated in order to see the effects on social security, employment and, not least, on the environment as well as in peripheral areas.
Experience from Sweden, Finland and the UK, where deregulation has been carried out in many areas, shows that there are both positive and negative effects and that people should also pay attention to the need for clear, socially justified rules.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, in its statement the Commission advocates an open economic model and marketing dynamics in the production of public utility services.
The Committee on Regional Policy believes the principle is to be upheld as long as there is balance between competition on the market and the safeguarding of services.
A totally free market, with no special arrangements, can, if things go wrong, endanger the provision of all the basic services we need, particularly in peripheral and sparsely-populated regions.
On the other hand, legislation on public utility services cannot be allowed to preserve service monopolies.
There is a need to improve general services, and their efficiency, in a continually changing operational environment.
Just as important is the quality of services and their suitability for the individual and the community.
That is why public services cannot be allowed to go the way of a heavily regulated pan-European system, but responsibility for their production and operations should be defined nationally, regionally and, frequently, locally as well.
At Community level it is mainly the principles of security and fairness that are appropriate in this issue.
The Community could also demand the creation of national principles, and, within them, principles to do with equality among citizens.
One key principle of fairness is pricing, which regional differences can affect very greatly in a fully market-based system.
In essential services, like, for example, the postal services, "the same price for all' principle is still justifiable.
The Committee on Regional Policy once again stresses that the liberalization of public utility services, making them competitive on the market, cannot endanger the provision of recognized basic services anywhere in the union.
In peripheral regions subsidized and publicly provided services are often the only alternative, as, for example, with public transport.
May I first of all congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Billingham.
The report now before us is, as she said herself, more than a compromise; it is a foundation response to the Commission's statement, something we can build on.
But as she quite rightly says herself: it is the quality that counts ; we are providing a product for consumers.
This means that we have to see universal service for the public in general, and not, as some people think, that public services are there for the employees.
They are there for the public.
Now it is up to the Commission to draw up a number of definitions, because it is easy to refer in one's statement to the general interest.
But the general interest is a broad notion which everyone interprets rightly or wrongly, but in any case differently.
Let me give you two examples from the transport sector.
First example: air traffic control.
For years under national control, cooperating badly, leading to all kinds of obstacles in European air transport.
This means that guidance must be given positively to arrive at a communal service.
Let me give you another example, and unfortunately I cannot say of the Committee on Transport and Tourism's resolution what I was able to say of Mrs Billingham's, namely that the more it was rewritten the better it became.
Mine seemed to deteriorate.
If we look at the postal services - we already talked about this yesterday - I really cannot see what actually should be a universal service.
Rail transport is a typical example of how a monopoly leads to obstruction in the internal market.
The Commission should do something about this.
We then agree with the exceptions to the rule of the best service for the consumer when it concerns peripheral regions and islands, but in any case, we have a long way to go, and a lot to deliberate about before we arrive at genuine service of general interest in Europe within the principles of article 7d of the old treaty.
Mr President, like everyone else here tonight, I have to welcome Mrs Billingham's report.
She has put a lot into it and has carefully considered all the issues, and it is an extremely balanced and reasonable report in response to the Commission's White Paper.
In that context, with regard to the White Paper, I wish, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, to draw attention to the following. Whilst the Commission points out in the White Paper that consumers can benefit from the liberalization of public services, the very same process will mean that in some peripheral regions and where there is no possibility of profit in that service, the liberalization might result in services only being available at a price which excludes many consumers, or may simply mean that there will be no service at all.
It is for that reason that the importance of accepting the need, at least in principle, for a universal level of service, must be recognized.
Within the European Union the principle of universal service must be defined in the context of the Treaties, and in particular with regard to article 129.
At the same time, the principle of public service must be protected by guarantees of consumer representation and guarantees about the affordability of those services.
We must recognize the right of the public and of different Member States to provide public services in a flexible and variable way, ensuring that they can be provided by very many different actors or business activities, respecting above all, I think, the traditional methods that exist in different Member States.
Diversity is something we must continue to respect.
Public services have the possibility, if we continue to use them positively, to nurture new dynamic, environmentfriendly industries and build new sectors of the mixed economy, which will generate new jobs.
It is for that reason that I suggest that we must enshrine a special place within the treaties for public services of common interest, ensure that they are protected from the most rigorous application of competition policy and ensure in future that citizens have a right, as a minimum, to a guaranteed level of public services in order to maintain solidarity throughout the Union.
Mr President, services of general interest in Europe are necessary and important.
It is important for those who are affected, who need a functioning infrastructure with important goods of daily life such as water, electricity, gas, and so on, even in remote regions outside the economic conurbations.
These services are also important for a functioning transport infrastructure and a functioning infrastructure in the field of modern communication technologies.
This applies not only to the traditional post, but also to radiotelephony, the Internet, etcetera.
However, what is important for the Community, and in that sense for us all, is that all these services are offered within the economic framework which characterizes our Community as a whole, the framework of a competitive regime which is worthy of the name.
It was certainly not easy to unite these two points of view.
To talk of squaring the circle would probably be over the top, but Mrs Billingham should nevertheless be congratulated on finally putting together a text on which a broad consensus can be reached.
For the Institutional Committee, of course, institutional questions were at the forefront of the considerations.
In this respect we largely agree with the developments to the Billingham report in the various stages of its discussion.
Much has changed here, and very much for the better.
So again, heartfelt best wishes!
Admittedly we still have some reservations, for example concerning the legal nature of a special charter for such services.
We still have serious reservations about the institutional structure which is mentioned in paragraph 12 of the report, although there have already been clear improvements compared to the predecessors of this report and the draft report.
I would like us to reach a good joint conclusion even without paragraph 12.
If we are successful, it will have been a joint achievement of which many in this Chamber can rightly be proud, and which we can hope will finally provide something for the citizens of this Community.
I hope that then we will really have services of general interest in the European Union which we can accept in both form and content.
Mr President, Mrs Billingham's report is welcome because, for once, it has enabled Mr Herman and myself to agree on the same text, although for somewhat different reasons perhaps.
In the field of public services, that has not happened for a very long time.
In addition, this is the final stage of a trend which began in September 1996 with the communication from the Commission.
This put an end to a very lengthy dialogue of the deaf, involving on the one hand the Commission, which wished to impose its policy in the field of telecommunications, and on the other hand Parliament, which wanted at all costs to slow down the rather senseless wave of uncontrolled liberalization.
We have undertaken to put greater controls on liberalization, particularly in the debates and discussions relating to directives on energy, electricity, gas and finally the postal services.
The Commission then came to the conclusion that the world was not made up of binary oppositions, and that there were not on the one hand people wedded to the past who defended public services, as opposed to those who were wedded to the future and in favour of liberalization, but that we were working together for the achievement of the single market, and that this had no sense or future unless based on an appropriate balance and the complementary defence of both the general interest and the rules of the competitive market.
As we were engaged in the Intergovernmental Conference, we all devoted considerable interest to modifications in the treaty.
A number of us, possibly even the majority in the Parliament, would have liked to see a slight revision of article 90.2, which appeared to make services of general economic interest the only exception to the competitive market place.
We would have wanted to develop this somewhat more.
For other reasons, the Commission was far more reticent about the amendment to article 90, which it regarded as an essential article.
Finally, the Treaty of Amsterdam gave birth to article 7.2, which of course does not go very far and is not very revolutionary, but does nevertheless affirm the legitimacy of general economic interests in a manner other than as exceptions to the competitive market.
In that alone, the Treaty of Amsterdam is an important turning point at the legal level, and has been buttressed by a series of decisions from the Court of Justice, the Corbeau decision and the Almelo decision, as well as the decision relating to the monopoly on imports of gas, where the Court of Justice has made an approach which was no longer necessarily the rigid and rather dogmatic approach which it sometimes had, and which, we must say, was the approach of DG IV.
Mr Commissioner, I am not complimenting you because you are my fellow countryman. I must acknowledge that not only have you changed considerably, but you have also worked well to improve the scale and the work of the Commission in the field of general economic interests.
Communication is an element in this.
The Billingham report indicates to you today that it will be necessary to go further, by means of a Green Paper, and a White Paper, that it would be better to define what is to be understood by a mission of general economic interest, in the same way that it will be necessary to specify the notion of general interest services other than from a purely consumerist conception.
We are not only consumers.
Recent debates on the notion of universal services within the Telecommunications Council have been extremely revealing in this respect.
In conclusion, I suggest resolutely supporting the excellent report by our colleague, Mrs Billingham, and in particular to encourage the drafting of a Green and a White Paper to give us a truly adequate conception and good legislation in the field of general economic interest.
Mr President, it required a great deal of perseverance and courage, including efforts within her own party, for our friend Angela Billingham to come up with a text on which there is a wide consensus, although it may not yet be 100 %, as we shall see.
The debate was, in fact, polluted by three elements.
Firstly, there was extraordinary confusion, throughout most of the discussion, between the concepts of general interest services, public services, public sector companies, state owned companies and universal services.
People stirred all this up into some extraordinary stew, and everyone tried to extract the best bits of it to advance the cause they defended.
The second element which interfered with the debate was the use that certain monopolies made of that very confusion, as they saw that their privileged positions were threatened.
And finally, in some countries, and this is the third polluting element, the problem of public services has acquired a theological dimension.
No rational or economic element could be brought into play.
It was the state in all its splendour which should incarnate the general interest, and everything emanating from the market was suspect.
Within this theology a number of extraordinarily adventurous tactics were deployed.
There were public services whose characteristics were both permanent strikes and monstrous deficits.
By so blackmailing companies, these public services created extraordinary advantages, stipends and privileges.
Another point made the debate a difficult one.
For some, it was a question of reducing the power of the Commission.
Our friend Mr Desama has spoken of a cavalry charge.
I say that fortunately - fortunately - this took place in telecommunications but despite the cavalry charge we are still ten years behind, Mr Desama, ten years behind the United States in a series of new telecommunications services.
The only thing I regret is that the charge was only made with horses, because what we needed was tanks.
That is what we really needed to crush the resistance of the conservatives in most countries.
The conservatives are not always the ones you expect, anyway.
Today they have put on progressive masks.
Having said that, I would like to return to the draft itself, as we are in agreement about the basics.
We have put forward amendments on two points only.
We shall be deepening and supporting an amendment from the socialists, Amendment No 4 on paragraph 8.
That we accept.
We are not raising the demand to go further with the treaty, we have no illusions about that.
We think that before we go further, we need an objective analysis of the factors for and against, on the basis of the figures and on no other basis.
Mr President, I welcome this debate and I welcome very much the Commission's communication on which it is based.
It was a very useful development of thinking in the area of services of general interest, trying to define some of the territory and to mark out what is appropriate for the European Union.
We had a very difficult debate about this in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and I congratulate the rapporteur on seeking to establish a consensus, which I believe will carry the report with a great majority here.
She has done some very good work.
The great concern that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party took to this debate was to ensure that we should be able to protect appropriate diversity.
We have different regional experiences; we have different needs and capacities; we have different sectors in terms of technological development and the weight of that development by sector; and the current report, in terms of what is sets out as a future scenario and development of thinking, allows for a reflection on diversity and building on that diversity.
It is also important that we avoid excessive horizontalism in an approach to this, and I believe that perhaps the first draft that we looked at the outset was excessively so.
However, this time round it touches on some of the very important general issues but leaves open the possibility that case by case, sector by sector, we can carry the analysis forward as appropriate, and we welcome that.
We place a very strong emphasis in the Liberal Group - and I am glad to say the rapporteur will take our only amendment to this report - on recalling the necessity as we develop our thesis about universality of service, quality of service and so on - and these issues are extremely important - of not abandoning our commitment - and, indeed, the treaty requirement - to have regard to competition.
It is very important in terms of the market place we find ourselves in, because the modern consumer for the public service wants quality, choice and reasonable price, and competition is the best means of ensuring that, whatever the form of ownership.
This report leaves that avenue open, and I therefore welcome it.
Mr President, according to Mrs Billingham's report, public services are economic activities which are considered vital for citizens and society as a whole.
This means their scope should not be limited - and even that would be something - to power and gas distribution services, telecommunications, transport and postal services.
They also include other activities which, because they similarly supply essential needs and contribute to economic and social cohesion, must be provided continuously and equally to all, regardless of any criteria of economic and financial profitability.
They exist to provide a complete range of public services in such a way that their goods and products are accessible to the least favoured populations and regions, and this purpose is also enshrined in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We must remember that in Portugal, for example, the liberalization of telecommunications and the privatization of their principal operator has led to a price increase for those most deprived of public services, in the name of economic profitability and competitiveness for the benefit of those who unjustifiably want to hold long-distance conversations.
Although it is felt that certain services should remain under State control, the deciding factor should not be ownership.
What matters is the service itself.
We do however, question whether private operators should receive state aid to maintain the requirements of a service when they have benefitted from its privatization.
With regard to the protection of consumers' rights, we also say that workers' organizations in target sectors for privatization must be consulted.
The framework of these activities must be regulated, and there is good reason here to mention the principle of subsidiarity and its etymological meaning.
It is true that some of those who have built the European Union are trying to change the names of certain activities, and to alter concepts that disturb their ultraliberal presuppositions.
Since the beginning of the process of liberalizing and privatizing public service industries, the terms which have been most in evidence have been expressions such as 'universal services' and 'services of general interest' , but the expression and concept of 'public services' , which the treaty itself came to include, have not been extinguished.
That is why we are emphasizing the definition and strengthening the concept.
Mrs Billingham's report gives expression to our concerns.
We congratulate her and hope she will accept our amendments, which would help us to vote in favour of her report, as we would like to do - in defence of public services and the service of the public.
Mr President, the casualness with which the Commission's document and Mrs Billingham's report state that the European Union must have powers covering services of general interest is questionable.
The inclusion of article 7d in the Treaty of Amsterdam may be received with great acclaim, but when after much effort the description "general services' still remains extremely vague, the European authority becomes less sure.
How do we get agreement on minimum standards without avoiding a deterioration in the average level of service provision in Europe? I am very doubtful that the approach proposed here will lead to better services at lower consumer prices.
According to the subsidiarity principle, the most important powers will have to remain with the Member States.
Only general services with an obvious international dimension require minimum standards at European level.
A charter is too heavy and unsuitable an instrument for this.
The establishment of such a charter will probably require a great deal of time as there is no agreement on a clear definition of services of general economic interest.
No one will deny that these services contribute to social and economic cohesion, but mutual solidarity for the benefit of weaker regions will primarily have to take shape within the Member States of the European Union before an additional contribution from European funds and initiatives is given.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate my colleague, Mrs Billingham.
As many have said, this is a well-balanced, innovative and, dare I say, exciting report where European Union citizens are concerned.
Why? Because it actually seeks to address the needs of our people in a very direct way.
For once the European Union is saying "we care about you' and that general services that reflect community values and answer to the needs of the public are important and that the Union cannot live by sheer commercialism alone.
It is also saying something absolutely critical in a liberal democracy: that general services are part of the infrastructure of citizenship.
As you might imagine, I want to talk about public service broadcasting because it is very much a part of the infrastructure of citizenship.
We lose it at our peril.
It is what we might call a merit good, a very important term often forgotten.
It is not measurable in normal market terms.
Competition rules are not applicable in the normal way.
Here I take issue with some of my colleagues here tonight.
Naked competition in broadcasting has already proved what it will do.
We would end up, quite simply, with a diet of sport, US film and chat shows.
That is where it leads.
Member States recognized this during the negotiations at the intergovernmental conference.
As a result we got something very interesting: a protocol on public service broadcasting attached to the treaties that said public service broadcasting is an invaluable part of democracy.
But what have we seen? We have seen recently a Green Paper on the possible convergence between telecommunications and broadcasting where sadly, the Commission - or some elements of the Commission - have failed to recognize this point.
Some commercial television can deliver some public service obligations. But if I take the example of the BBC - excuse my chauvinism momentarily - it is an example of a particular broadcasting ecology which citizens, I believe, have a right to.
It is television, which puts the public interest first, not advertisers' or shareholders' interests.
It is free to air.
It is for every citizen in their majority and their minority interest, provides independent impartial news and information, education and, very importantly, facilitates mutual knowledge and understanding upon which our democracy depends.
Finally, we look forward to a charter which spells out the basic entitlement to public service broadcasting as well as the other services mentioned tonight.
It will do much for the popularity of the European Union when it recognizes that water is not a wristwatch, fax is not a film and a democracy is dependent on documentaries.
Mr President, there is plenty of justification for the initiative we are examining, which demonstrates the importance of the supply of services of general interest and the terms in which it must be monitored.
These services are determined by social and economic considerations, and especially cohesion, because there are cases where the cover and efficiency achieved by mere market forces are not enough.
But the Commission's document and Mrs Billingham's report - and I also congratulate her - are perfectly clear. They emphasize that the general interest does not coincide with as public intervention, lack of concern for efficiency and non-payment by service users.
It is important to make a factual distinction between the ends and the means, because in many cases the public interest is better served by private entities.
In the case of non-profitable services, in remote geographical areas for example, they may be made a compulsory part of the consideration for the franchises granted.
And in cases where competition is possible, consumers without much in the way of means will be the principal beneficiaries, as we have been seeing in the case of telephone services or air transport, for example, with the irreversible abolition of the old companies with their monopoly privileges - we still suffer from them in Portugal - which, it is claimed, serve a useful social function.
There are also general reasons of efficiency and equity which require that, wherever possible, the beneficiaries should pay all, or at least part, of the costs of the services they receive.
Thus we are promoting a more rational use of resources, in everyone's interest, and this also prevents the intolerable injustice that specially privileged strata of the population are often exempted from paying road tolls - or tips, in my country's case.
The whole of society benefits from motorways and higher education, but these are semi-public goods with private benefits for people who travel or those who will earn more afterwards as a result of the degrees they gain.
Apart from that, it prevents the allocation elsewhere of sparse resources that are much needed to satisfy collective requirements and provide social support for the poorest people, who really are in fundamental need of our attention.
Mr President, the process of liberalization and of deregulation implemented at Community level imperils public services and has had negative consequences on employment and social conditions, without in any way benefitting users.
Obsessed as it is by the principles of free competition, the Commission has a tendency to consider services rendered by the public service as pure commodities, without taking into account the social needs to which they are a response, and the specific historical features which have in many cases given rise to them.
In response to the ultra free-market offensive, there has over the last few years arisen a movement of resistance, of reflection, of proposals and action in favour of the public services, and in particular the powerful strike of November/December 1995 in France.
This movement, which our group permanently placed before the European Parliament, contributed to obtaining the inclusion of article 7d in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In spite of its limits, it is a point of support in the defence and promotion of public services.
The report from Mrs Billingham is part of this movement, because it recognizes the place and role of services of general interest, which is positive.
However, the report does not perhaps sufficiently call into question the involvement of competition rules, which is expressed in article 8.
For this reason, our group has put forward some amendments, which we hope will be adopted to improve this text.
The notion of universal service is advanced by the Commission as if it were some kind of fire-wall, but its content remains ambiguous and even dangerous, because its intent is minimum services, and hence it constantly threatens to level things down, to lead to a two-speed society, and hence to develop more exclusion.
What is at stake through the defence of public services is a whole concept of society.
Either we move towards aggravated social and regional inequalities, within the framework of competition between people and economies, or we act in favour of a society based on more solidarity, combatting social inequality, exclusion and unemployment.
In Europe, public services are part of a fundamental choice between a Europe dominated by economic warfare and financial markets, on the one hand, and a people's Europe, a Europe of cooperation and social progress.
The promotion of public services is a response to the imperative of national solidarity, of social cohesion, a means of ensuring equality of access and treatment for users, by providing guaranteed continuity, security and quality in services to citizens.
Public service also provides for better management of the environment, and contributes to balanced town and country planning.
We believe that public service must be renovated, and that by democratizing it, that is, by associating staff and users in the management of public services, and releasing those services from the financial pressures of the banks.
Instead of wasteful competition, we believe in and hope to promote cooperation between public services, but also between the private and the public sector, to meet and satisfy requirements.
Synergies between public services and industrial companies can also be developed, so contributing to the implementation of an industrial policy and the development of employment.
Mr President, many thanks to Angela Billingham for this report. It is particularly significant that it comes from Great Britain.
Under the previous government's policy even the city water supply was privatized.
What was the competitive value of that? Is the colour of the water coming out of the pipes different in the morning from what it is in the evening?
Water is obviously a public service.
It is the elixir of life, an absolute basic right.
What kind of democracy is it that fails to guarantee water for all? A viable public service system is the basis of equality and democracy.
For that reason it is good that the Amsterdam Treaty recognizes public services as immensely important and an essential principle of law in the EU.
I believe that effective public services also inspire confidence in the European Union.
Without them people's trust in the Union will diminish.
Small-minded privatization must not come before common rights.
The approval of this report is a historic occasion.
While the old monopolies need a good shaking up, they should not be replaced by private monopolies or duopolies.
In my view, the Union should not enlarge unless equality improves.
Now borders between countries are falling away, but gulfs within states are deepening.
Good public services help us to attain the things most essential to us: solidarity, equality, confidence, and the growth of all three.
And that is the basis of democracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing a proposal by the Commission to make an addition to article 3 of the EC Treaty.
According to it, the activity of the Community should include a contribution to supporting services which are oriented to the common good.
In my assessment, that is dangerous for integration and competition policy, and in my opinion it must be rejected.
Writing it into the treaty would mean that state services of general interest would represent a dimension to which it would no longer be possible to set any limit.
Such an article would also have an effect on the Community's competition rules and regulations, and also on the subsidy regulations, and in contrast to EU policy, which is based on opening up markets and privatization, this is the establishment of monopolies and preferential treatment of public companies, which cannot be in the interests of Europe.
We should ask ourselves what really belongs in state services of general interest.
I think, as little as possible.
In my opinion, the state must fulfil the following tasks, and it is sometimes good to remember them.
First, it must ensure internal and external security.
Second, it must ensure independent dispensation of justice, and third, it must support the sense of community of society by creating a balance between advantage and disadvantage.
Fourth, it must also fill the gaps in public life which are not filled by private business initiative.
But it does not have to operate a state airline, a state post and telephone company and a state railway company.
Where there is competition, it need not hinder it by introducing customs duties on imports and providing subsidies.
The most objective judge of services is and remains the market and not the state.
It determines the value of a service through competition.
So for a state or society, an urgent task is to organize a market, and not services of general interest.
I hope that we will not decide the opposite tomorrow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to congratulate Angela Billingham very sincerely on the excellent report she has prepared and the Commission on its statement.
The subject is of the greatest importance, because it deals with services of general interest in Europe, for which socialists have fought so hard and which have now been enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is indeed the case that both article 7d and the declaration in the final Minute provide guarantees for all those who consider that services of general interest, or 'public services' , as our rapporteur systematically and quite rightly refers to them, are economic activities which are vital to citizens and society.
This acknowledgment in the new treaty, inasmuch as it considers such services as one of the common values of Europe and a Community principle, like full respect for the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice, particularly as regards equality of treatment, quality and continuity of services, undoubtedly represents an enormous vote of confidence in a Europe centred not only on companies and competition, but above all on citizens and their rights and the European social model.
Social cohesion can only be achieved if there is a coherent social infrastructure.
Services of general interest are by definition the principal component of that infrastructure.
One of the essential problems affecting public services is competition.
Competition cannot be justified as an end in itself where public services are concerned.
Its value lies in its effect on the standard and quality of the services provided to citizens.
Legally speaking, general services can be owned by the public, local authorities, cooperatives or private entities.
The essential thing is that service suppliers should guarantee quality services, irrespective of the type of ownership or organization, that their workers should be properly specialized, trained, motivated, paid and employed, and that citizens, whichever part of the country they live in, can have the benefit of the services due to them in identical conditions.
This is the general service model I also support for the Europe we are in the process of creating.
Thank you, Mr van Miert.
Mr Desama, the floor is yours.
Mr President, I have asked for the floor on a pointr of personal explanation, because I like a joke, but there are limits.
So thank you, Karel, for alluding to my position as a teacher, and it is precisely the teacher who is going to teach you a little lesson.
The first thing is that before you criticize your teacher, you should first listen to what the teacher said.
I never said that article 7d replaced article 90.2.
At no time did I ever say that and it would be absurd to say so.
So you should have listened to me more before you gave that reply.
The second lesson relates to the decision concerning monopoly on imports.
I cited that decision because it is important for one thing, Mr Commissioner.
This time, in its decision, the Court of Justice said that it is the Commission's responsibility to provide the proof that the monopoly is an impediment to free competition.
And it is on that point that the decision of the Court of Justice is clearly an innovation.
Mr President, the important thing about this report is not just the amendments that the Commission will accept, but whether or not the Commissioner would sit down with our rapporteur early in the New Year and explore the ideas in the report to see what can be progressed between the European Commission and the European Parliament.
In spite of the rhetoric that we have all been involved in this evening, there are some very concrete ideas in Mrs Billingham's report.
What we would like to do is to progress some of those concrete ideas.
If tonight you could give a commitment that you are willing to do that then certainly in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of the European Parliament we will try and take up those ideas and work with you to develop them.
Obviously we are prepared to do so.
But I think the right way to do it is to discuss the initiatives which the Commission develops in different sectors.
Every sector has its own specifics and in light of the specifics of the sector we need to determine what kind of public service obligation - or whatever you call it - needs to be assured.
This is how we have to work together.
I certainly will be available to anyone - not just to the rapporteur - to make sure that we do not take risks as far as serving people everywhere in the European Union is concerned.
Thank you very much, Commissioner van Miert.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m. tomorrow.
Denominations in euros
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0386/97) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, concerning the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on denominations and technical specifications of euros coins intended for circulation (C4-0598/97-97/0154(SYN)) (rapporteur: Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this will not be anywhere near as lively as Commissioner van Miert was when he gave his presentation.
Allow me to comment that he was today the liveliest speaker of the whole part-session.
On the second reading of my report on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins, I would like to point out again briefly that at first reading the majority of Parliament wanted and voted for essential changes to three points.
First, to reduce the number of coins from eight to six.
Second, to create a relationship between the actual size and the form and shape.
Third, to exclude nickel from all parts of the coin which come into contact with human skin.
I would like to justify this again briefly.
We now have a total of eight coins, and in the whole EU and many nations of the EU there are at the moment six coins on average, sometimes even less.
If we start from the fact that for many sections of the population, such as blind people for instance, it is very difficult to handle a large number of coins, this would be an example of a reason for reducing the total number of coins.
Secondly, if we start from the fact that electronic money is constantly growing, this would be another reason.
The next argument, that the coin should grow with its value to avoid confusion of sizes, was also an important demand.
For instance, the 5 cent coin, at 21.75 mm, is exactly the same size as the 20 cent coin, which makes things extremely difficult for people with disabilities.
The third issue is human health, an especially important aspect.
There was also a majority on this point in Parliament at first reading.
If we say that nickel should not to come into contact with human skin, we are only following other EU directives, which established this rule for other areas of daily need long ago.
The report was accepted in November with a large majority, but rejected by the Council.
On 20 November, the Council adopted a common opinion on the proposed order.
The European Parliament had decided by a large majority, but the Council only accepted Amendment Nos 8 and 12.
I was disappointed that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy did not take advantage of its political opportunities in the last part-session.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy practically anticipated the Council.
There are now a few amendments, and incidentally I support all of them, but they are a long way from the point we were at during the November meeting.
What could we have done? Parliament could again adopt, by an absolute majority of its Members, all or some of the amendments which were rejected by the Council at first reading, as an amendment to the common position.
We have this option according to the procedure under article 189c, and we could have done it.
If the Commission or the Council show in the debate in the House that they are not prepared to accept Parliament's desired amendments to a sufficient extent, Parliament could again reject the common position, and that is what I want and have proposed.
If the Council does not accept certain amendments, we can also break down the common position, and only accept it under conditions, that is, if the Council does not accept the amendments which Parliament has adopted, the common position is not approved.
Why do I repeat that again? I do not think we have not taken advantage of these opportunities in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I would like to point out that the euro we will soon have, and which will certainly go down in European Union history as a successful and unique financial project, has the consequence that people will have the coins in their hands every day.
Problems like confusion about size, like nickel, which is recognized to be a health problem, and many other points in my report will face the population every day, so the euro coin is important and these problems will come back to us as those who are politically responsible.
I would therefore like to plead once again that we should take advantage of the political opportunities we have in Parliament.
Mr President, as you know Sweden has decided to remain outside EMU.
It is also my conviction that Sweden is going to remain outside monetary union for the foreseeable future.
There is therefore no immediate Swedish interest in the design of the euro coin.
However, I would still like to say a few words on the health aspects with regard to nickel in the outer layers of the coin.
10 % of all women and 1-2 % of all men in Western Europe have developed a nickel allergy.
These proportions are increasing, and 20 % of young women in Western Europe have this kind of illness.
Nickel is the most common cause of contact allergies in the industrialized world.
A person who has become allergic to nickel keeps this allergy for the rest of their life.
The allergy appears mainly in the form of eczema on the hands or on that part of the body which comes into contact with nickel.
Cashiers, bank employees, waitresses, and so on, daily handle large numbers of coins, which are often made from nickel alloys.
This coins deposit nickel on contact with the skin.
It can also be shown that nickel is even passed by hand to nickelfree coins and notes.
We have also proved that eczema on the hands of people allergic to nickel is made worse when they handle coins which contain nickel.
Nickel in coins does not cause allergies, but makes the problem worse for people who have already developed this illness.
A decision to introduce coins containing nickel in the outer layers could prove very difficult to change and could cause serious health problems for a growing proportion of Europe's population, particularly for women, since they are often dominant in the professions where nickel coins are handled.
For this reason at least the outer layer of the coins should be nickel-free.
In this case health reasons should take priority over economic considerations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, seeing the participation this evening, I can only say that the debate is obviously about small change.
It seems pretty unimportant to all of us, but the scale of this small change is 70 billion coins, and for this reason we in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have taken it very seriously so far, and we have seriously tried to participate in the discussion about creating the new coins, by proposing amendments among other things.
The mint directors and finance ministers saw it otherwise.
They have prepared texts, proposed strategies.
But the Council did not accept what we discussed here, with quite small exceptions.
My personal opinion is essentially that what we discussed here at first reading was right, and that what we decided was right.
The breakdown of the coins, the increasing sizes, recognition by the blind and visually handicapped, also the old, traditional minting methods - all things which we have discussed and decided here - seem vitally important to me.
Last time we also defended the national side of the coins.
That is now written into the Council's report, but we are very sad that our opinions were not accepted here.
However, my opinion is that what Mrs Sollwedel-Schäfer demanded here, in other words, the reintroduction of the earlier amendments, does not take us much further.
The scenario is clear.
In my opinion we should concentrate on two amendments, as we did in the economic committee, i.e. first the whole range of demands which have already been mentioned: increasing size, recognition of coins by blind people, recognition of coins by machines, protecting the larger coins from fraud.
We have proposed this and got it through the economic committee.
We should also decide on it in Parliament.
Secondly, we should pursue the matter of gold.
We are not suffering from gold fever.
People might have the idea that just before Christmas we caught gold fever, but we did not.
We want there to be a 100 euro gold coin, which would continue old traditions and at the same time, as we have argued here, reduce Europe's gold reserves.
I think it is important to state again that protecting coins from forgery is very important to us, particularly as there are approximately 6 million coin-operated machines in Europe.
This involves the choice of alloys and recognition by machines.
In this connection, let it be said that obviously not only the coins must be safe from forgery, but also all the notes.
We have emphasized that many times.
They must meet the highest security standards, so that they are also safe from forgery in future.
Let me plead once again for the amendments proposed by the economic committee and accepted there by a large majority to be accepted here in the House as well.
Mr President, it is not possible for Council to send us its decisions and for Parliament then to do nothing, even if it decided quite differently at first reading; it had decided to use metals that were not just nordic gold which is a metal primarily produced by certain states which will not be joining the euro.
Moreover, the other choice of metal is just copper, and I wonder why.
There are no plans to use stainless steel, which is a European metal; 20 % of world currency is made of stainless steel.
This is an unacceptable situation.
I wonder what the final solution will be.
Finally, Council has relied on the fact that time is running out and no other decision can be taken, but that is certainly not true.
The whole thing is still an insult to Parliament, which has expressed certain views and cannot just react to what the Council has decided.
Mr President, what seemed to have become a purely technical report was suddenly given weight by the debate about the nickel in the coins and the national face.
Parliament's view on how euro coins should look was raised at first reading.
I endorse the opinion of the rapporteur when she says that we should have fewer coins because the retail business will run into difficulties with a larger number of coins than we have now.
Unfortunately, the Council has dismissed the majority of the amendments and as long as the Council remains united it can do that.
The fact that Parliament only has advisory powers in this area plays a part in this.
The coin will become one of the most visible results of European integration, and respect would have been shown for the citizens if we had been able to influence this process through Parliament.
As a group we think nickel is acceptable in relation to combatting fraud.
The Council denied this Parliament the right to submit an amendment on the national face because it was alleged to have nothing to do with technical specifications.
As the Council knows very well, that is complete nonsense.
To enable the Dutch to keep the edge inscription God zij met ons -God be with us - the edge has also been declared part of the national face.
The edge and the national face therefore play a major part in the technical specifications which are needed to make the coins recognizable for the visually impaired, and for vending machines.
Thus we believe that the national face is not just a graphic aspect, as the Council states, but most certainly a technical aspect, and the old Amendment No 28 therefore deserves a full place in the Council Resolution, and not merely in the recitals.
Mr President, I believe that the proposed regulation will send a further strong message that the euro is on the way and all EMU participants are playing their part.
The aim of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy's first amendment is to establish the principle of a single set of coins which would be designed so as to enable the visually impaired and the elderly, who have the greatest difficulty in distinguishing coins, to accept them more readily.
The second amendment is a proposal to introduce a gold 100 euro coin for collectors.
However the Treaty only provides for the harmonization of coins intended for circulation.
I am pleased that associations representing the visually impaired have been consulted on the euro coins.
Furthermore, Recital 8 of the regulation underlines the importance of the relationship between the diameter and value of the coins, to which reference has been made.
Our group believes that the coins, which will have one national and one common face, can be more easily recognized by those who use them by features such as their weight, shape, colour and diameter.
In the case of most coins in use at the moment, the size of the coins is not directly linked to their face value.
This can prove to be a difficulty for those who are using them.
As regards euro notes, we should not overlook the needs of the visually impaired and older people.
We should ensure that for the visually impaired, in particular, the notes are distinguishable by touch.
Perhaps there might be a response to that.
As regards the production of a 100 euro gold coin which for collectors might seem a very seductive proposition, it would be absolutely essential, if this proposal was taken up, to ensure that the cost of producing a gold coin did not exceed its face value, thereby imposing totally unacceptable costs on the Member States.
On the other hand, could not the revenue from the sale of the 100 euro coins be transferred to the budget?
Taking account of these comments our group will be supporting this report.
Mr President, the euro, and particularly the coin, is certainly a quintessential component of Europe.
It shows on one side what we have in common, and on the other, individuality, as a symbol of Europe.
I have seen the first designs in Austria, but I was somewhat surprised that "Euro' is printed above the euro, but "Eurocent' is printed above the cent.
This could cause confusion.
Also, the size of the coins is different, and for non-experts it will really be quite difficult to distinguish the eight coins, instead of the six which have been normal up to now.
I will not dwell on the fact that many tills are equipped with six divisions, and must now be converted to eight.
The eight coins will also result in enormous production costs, and given that electronic money will soon be introduced, we are faced with a mass of costs which could have been avoided.
I also wonder how the order will be placed.
Will there be an invitation to tender with government orders? Will there be a competition?
We have heard that we need 70 billion coins, so the costs will be enormous - how do these costs appear to citizens? Finally, I also believe that the 100 Euro gold coin can be a symbol of confidence in the new currency, even as a commemorative coin, even in a limited edition.
I believe Europe has an important task here, and we must improve the coins a lot. Parliament made some proposals about this at first reading, but I believe it will be some time before we get the ideal system.
This need for improvement must be flagged up today, and I hope that it will be carried out in the second round.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at this late hour I shall be brief, but first of all I want to tell you that the Commission is delighted that Parliament has been able to take a decision this evening on the second reading of the report by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer on the technical characteristics of coins.
Indeed, this is an important question.
The euro, and I say this often, is Europe in the pockets of our citizens.
Consequently, coins are the way in which Europe takes on a real shape, as our citizens see it.
This is the reason why the euro is not just a matter for the financial markets, it is a matter for the citizens, and it is for this reason that the regulation must be particularly carefully dealt with.
As Mr Hoppenstedt emphasized, there are now 70 billion coins in circulation.
This means several tens of billions of coins to be minted between now and 1 January 2002.
This will be done, Mr Rübig, by national administrations, in the name of the principle of subsidiarity, according to the procedures of invitations to tender, or of production which apply in each of the member countries.
I know that the formal decision of the Ministers of Finance can only be taken after 2 May, immediately after the decision of the Heads of State and of Government, but for technical and practical reasons which you will understand, in the light of the number of coins, you can appreciate how important it is to get this matter wrapped up at Council level, in terms of principles, in terms of a formal agreement, before the end of this year.
The proposal before you today at second reading is based on in-depth work carried out for many months by the monetary authorities in the Member States and this has provided a guarantee of industrial feasibility, respecting the timetable agreed at Madrid in December 1995 by the Heads of State and of Government.
I would add that this is the result of a long process of consultation, of concertation with all professional sectors concerned, with associations of consumers and with organizations representing the blind and visually impaired.
The proposal made by the Commission is based on criteria of acceptability by public opinion - and we have tested that - on the basis of criteria of technical feasibility - and here we have assurances - and on public health criteria, because of course we do not want to take any risks with public health.
This proposal is therefore a balanced one, and it meets both industrial constraints and the requirements of users.
Some of you, as was the case in the debate at first reading, criticized the number of coins.
I wish to specify that the system is based on the experience acquired from all the Member States, and it ensures consistency with the unit values planned for notes.
The number and series of coins have been defined as a response to the requirements of all consumers, taking into account the diversity of national situations currently existing.
Today, in some Member States, the value of the smallest coin in circulation is around 1 euro cent.
Consensus has been reached on the size and shape of the coins, thanks, I would remind you, to the shape known as the "Latin flower' , which is not totally round, for the 20 cent piece.
Consensus was also reached by defining three groups of coins, with three different colours, differentiating each coin within each group in terms of thickness and edging.
Consequently, the preoccupations of the visually impaired have been very, very largely, I would say almost entirely, taken into consideration.
The technical specifications also represent high levels of protection against forgery, and this is particularly important for coins of high unit value, and here I am thinking of the 1 and 2 euro pieces.
Finally, the technical specifications meet the concerns expressed in the area of public health, and provide the necessary assurances in that respect.
Here I want to say that the use of nickel in the Commission's proposal will be substantially reduced in Europe, as it will be limited to the 1 and 2 euro pieces, and that the volume of coins containing nickel will fall to 8 % of the total coins currently in circulation in Europe, that is, contractually by 75 %.
I would add that the Toxicity and Ecotoxicity Committee, the scientific committee we approached on this proposal, supported this.
When the Ecofin Council adopted the common position last month, it took up the five amendments the Commission had accepted in its modified proposal.
These relate, I would remind you, to the need for a reliable system, an effective system, and a system acceptable to all the citizens of the European Union.
Your rapporteur's recommendation for second reading retables two amendments.
As at first reading, the Commission cannot accept them.
But let me specify the Commission's position on one of Mrs Randzio-Plath's amendments, on the introduction of 100 euro gold coins.
We have looked closely at this amendment, and from a legal point of view, the Commission cannot accept it within the framework of article 105a.2 which relates to euro denominations intended for circulation.
Indeed, this proposal is in contradiction both to the introduction of the 100 euro note, which was already decided, and to the opposing view of central bankers, with regard to the circulation of such a coin.
However, in order to support the initiative, the Commission has suggested that all of the monetary authorities of the Member States should consider issuing a gold 100 euro collector's coin.
This proposal should meet with the approval of the various Member States, and the Commission will keep you informed.
I think that would be heavily symbolic.
With the adoption of the regulation on the coins, the essential core of the arrangements required for moving to a single currency are now in place.
As it is late, I shall not go into the important decisions taken by the European Council at Luxembourg last week relating both to the coordination of economic policy, the euro Council, and the representation and definition of the external position of the euro in international bodies, but today we can say that all of the preparatory technical work relating to the euro is virtually complete.
This evening, on this eve of the New Year, I would like to thank the European Parliament for its support throughout these months, for its work, for our collaboration, and for its commitment to a process leading up to the introduction of the euro, according to the timetable and the conditions laid down by the treaty.
The final technical preparations, which are now just details really, will be completed at the end of May 1998.
The Commission is now working actively on this, and will naturally keep your Parliament strictly informed and closely associated with its efforts. The Commission will be bringing together - and I make this announcement this evening - a new round table on practical aspects of the euro, with all concerned partners, and of course with your Parliament.
This round table will take place on 26 February in Brussels.
The way is now open for the advent of the euro, and the political decisions will be taken on 2 May.
Thank you very much, Commissioner de Silguy.
The rapporteur, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, has a question.
Mr President, I know it is very late, but I would not be doing my job properly if I did not take up Mr Hoppenstedt's question.
Perhaps Mr Hoppenstedt will stay here for a moment.
First, I wanted to say to you, Mr de Silguy, that from my and our point of view cooperation and mutual information went very well.
But I cannot understand the Commission and the Council not accepting these logically convincing amendments, which were accepted by a clear majority in Parliament and which really - as my colleague said - correspond to the interests of female citizens.
I really cannot understand that.
But now to my question: Mr Hoppenstedt put a very important question about the minting of coins.
Is there an invitation to tender, or is it like our showers in the Members' offices, another open door for corruption and dishonest enrichment? I would like to take up that question: is there an invitation to tender?
Yes or no? I would like an answer this evening, one way or the other.
Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, perhaps I expressed myself badly, but I thought I had replied to Mr Hoppenstedt on that point.
Every country must manufacture the stock of coinage required for its own market. Each country must also produce the stock of notes required for its own market.
That is the principle adopted.
So once we have the technical regulations, once we have the decision on the Community face of the coin, it will be the responsibility of every member country, in application of the principle of subsidiarity, firstly to define the graphics of the national face of the coin, and I think that a number of countries have already done so, and secondly to make the technical arrangements required for the production of the coins in question.
The same will apply to the manufacture of euro coinage as already occurs in the manufacture of national currency coins in Germany, France, the Netherlands and other countries.
The manufacture will take place in accordance with the regulation applicable in each of the countries.
In some countries these are virtually state-run administrations, in other cases there are private companies and in yet others there are calls for competitive tender.
This is a question which is the responsibility of each of the Member States.
Manufacture will take place in the same conditions of legality and regularity and as currently apply in the production of national coinage.
I only wanted to ask, must these states then issue invitations to tender for eight coins, or would six be enough?
For eight coins, because the intention is to circulate eight coins in all of the Member States.
Thank you very much, Commissioner de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m. tomorrow.
(The sitting was closed at 12.11 a.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, as you may notice, the three presidents are all arriving late. Please forgive us.
The only time we could hold the usual three-way talks was this morning at 8 a.m. It was not easy, and even now we have still not finished, because there were delicate matters to be settled between the three institutions.
European Council in Luxembourg - Six months of the Luxembourg Presidency
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report by the Council and statement by the Commission on the European Council meetings of 21 November and 12-13 December in Luxembourg, and-the statement by the Council on the six months of the Luxembourg Presidency.The President-in-Office of the Council has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 1 July this year, Luxembourg took over the Presidency in an atmosphere of gloom, following the adoption of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This was largely unjustified as we needed to give the Treaty of Amsterdam a chance.
We are ending the Luxembourg Presidency, not in an atmosphere of boundless enthusiasm, but at least in an atmosphere which has become more objective and hardworking.
This objectivity is the result of our capacity to show that we know how to remain faithful to our long term ambitions and to those, even older, which we entered into by adopting and ratifying the Maastricht Treaty.
We have proved that we were able to make a start on new ambitions in order to bring about new horizons.
We wanted to make the European project more complete, to give it its due scope.
We have done this through the conclusions adopted on 21 November 1997, at the employment summit.
I told you in October in this very Chamber that this summit could not become one of excessive deregulation, nor even of paraphrase.
I believe I can say that we have kept our word on this point - and on others - since the European summit on employment adopted concrete decisions, quantifiable and costed wherever possible.
On leaving Amsterdam, we were told to organize a summit on employment, but not to devote extra budgetary means to policies relating to it.
At Luxembourg, we adopted conclusions which included the granting of new budgetary means. Thanks to the very effective intervention of your Parliament, the European Investment Bank is going to disburse ECU 450 million and ECU 10 billion.
Supplementary investments of ECU 30 billion will take place throughout Europe, something which would have been inconceivable without the impetus provided by the employment summit.
We have adopted concrete and quantifiable directions on the training of the unemployed.
Our ambition is to double the number of unemployed that this reaches.
Concerning long term unemployment and the young unemployed, we showed ourselves to be decisive: we have given new hope to the long term unemployed and the young unemployed by offering them a new start.
We have agreed upon a new framework for employment policies for the years to come. This framework will be that of convergence.
Do not forget the grievances that have been expressed for more than a decade: the political authorities were reprimanded for devoting themselves exclusively to monetary and economic policy, and for lacking ambition in the area of employment.
Today we are applying the same method of convergence to employment policies.
We hope that the convergency zeal which was apparent in the preparations for economic and monetary union will be the same for the drawing up of more coherent and consequential policies regarding employment.
The European Council on employment is a first important step.
It marks the start of a new ambition, the start of a new project for employment.
Luxembourg has been the point of departure.
We must verify at every stage whether there is a need to review our methods in order to complete them, if there is a need to amend the guidelines in order to make them more efficient.
On Monday, the Social Affairs Council adopted the first guidelines.
We would like the British and Austrian Presidencies to undertake the first concrete evaluations and the first readjustments.
I have asked the Member States to present their national action plans on 15 April next year.
I hope that the European Council of Cardiff will be able to deal with this, and I would like us to be able, at the European Council of Vienna at the end of next year, to draw up the first objective balance sheet.
At the employment summit we endeavoured to complete the European project.
Similarly, the decisions taken at the second Luxembourg summit on enlargement aim at widening the impact of the European project.
At the beginning of this decade, history accelerated and Europe has had to provide a solid and coherent political response.
I believe this is what we did last Friday and Saturday, in Luxembourg, when we agreed upon a method and a methodology for enlargement.
New dividing lines will never cross the European continent again.
Encouraged by the opinion of Parliament, we have done our best to ensure that the overall process of enlargement is a developing one.
The eleven applicant countries will be included in the process of enlargement and accession, and in the negotiations.
It is clear that we must take into account the progress accomplished by some applicant countries in the areas of social and economic transformation and adjustment, progress which has enabled them to put some distance between themselves and the others.
The most advanced will be able to initiate negotiations within the framework of the Intergovernmental Conferences.
Those which today still demonstrate some delay will be proposed a better adapted prescription.
It is an open process: the latecomers will of course be able to make up their delay in comparison with the others.
This process must respect the dignity of the applicant countries.
There will therefore be no group negotiation, but bilateral negotiations with the European Union, which will be personalised in order to take into account the disparities between the applicant countries.
We have spoken about Turkey and Turkey has spoken much about the European Union.
In saying yes to the countries of central and eastern europe and Cyprus, we did not want to say no to Turkey.
We consider that Turkey is a great European state.
Turkey's place within the European family is not a subject of controversy.
It is a fact acquired through history. We want Turkey to understand that we are not a club of Christians but we are, to use the same terminology, a club with certain rules.
Consequently, our Turkish friends must understand that to become members of this club, certain rules must be respected.
The European Union is not an international organization like so many others.
The European Union is a space drawn out of liberty and political will.
It is more than an international organization.
We will always respect Turkey's dignity.
I would also like Turkey to respect our dignity and our way of doing things and seeing things.
(Applause) We wanted to make the European project more complete by putting the human being, in particular the jobless human being, back in the centre of our concerns.
We wanted to enlarge the European project by trying to give a reply to the countries of eastern and central Europe and Cyprus.
We have also tried to make our main ambition more credible, that is, economic and monetary union.
Three or four months ago, everyone thought that we would not be in a position to come to an agreement on a strategy for strengthening coordination on economic policies.
Today it is a fait accompli.
On Saturday, in Luxembourg, we adopted a resolution on strengthening coordination on economic policies.
The European central bank, whose independence can be questioned by no-one, will see itself matched by a political counterpart.
To commence a constructive dialogue with the European central bank, Member States will use all the instruments necessary to articulate their political thoughts and to influence, as is proper, the economic policy choices in all the countries of the European Union.
There is a resolution on the coordination of economic policies. This provides us with a working instrument which some do not like, but which will take shape no matter what: it is the Euro Council or the Euro X Council, where Member States will take on the responsibility of jointly managing the single currency in a collective and unified way; where the Member States who are "in' will meet to discuss their specific problems, on the understanding that whenever an issue of common interest crops up, all fifteen Member States must be present.
To make the European Union's move towards a single currency more credible, we have taken a rather important decision. It consists of bringing the date of 1 January 1999, when the list of members participating in the launch of the single currency will be fixed, into line with the date by which the parities of the participating national currencies will be fixed.
We have taken all the necessary technical decisions: the coins and the notes will be introduced on 1 January 2002.
With regard to economic and monetary union, we have therefore carried out all the work that remained to be done and, by not taking decisions, we have taken an essential initiative at Luxembourg.
We have not decided that economic and monetary union would not take place on 1 January 1999.
May I remind you of this pernicious arrangement of the treaty, establishing that the third phase of European and monetary union would commence on 1 January 1999, if no decision was taken before the end of 1997.
By saying nothing about the date, we have said everything.
One day we will note that this silence on the part of the European Council may have been the most important moment for monetary construction.
As such, it is sometimes wise to keep quiet.
This is precisely what I am going to do now by saying that we have the impression of having done everything that you were entitled to expect of us.
We have assured and made more credible the European Union's move towards the euro.
By putting employment back at the centre of the Union's political concerns we have placed human beings at the centre of our concerns, and we have provided political responses to historical movements.
This decade marks the reconciliation between European history and geography.
Let us be capable of measuring up to such ambition, to such hope and to such new horizons.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a European Council which for the first time has concentrated exclusively on the core question of the last decade of this century, the common fight against unemployment in the Member States of the Union; a European Council which has fired the starting gun for the solution of the core question of Europe in the first decade of the next century, bringing the people of the whole continent together in a union of freedom, democracy and economic development; a budget in which, together with Parliament, they have put through the principles of thrift, solidarity and the ability of the Union to act.
An exemplary and successful effort of the Presidency for sensible cooperation between the Council and Parliament in all areas of Union policy; that, Mr President of the European Council, was the great Presidency of a small country!
My party supports the decisions of the European Council of 12 and 13 December on the start of the process of expanding the Union.
They correspond to the baseline which my party supported in the discussion procedure in our Chamber.
First, to start the accession procedure with all applicant countries simultaneously.
Second, to start the accession negotiations first with five plus one, and third, by intensive introductory discussions and strengthened assistance, to contribute to making the start of concrete negotiations with each of the remaining five possible, as soon as possible.
I welcome what President Juncker said about Turkey.
My party thought the offer the European Council made to Turkey was already very generous.
Some thought even too generous.
We say now that Turkey should think about its interests and use the chance the offer provides, instead of withdrawing into a sulk!
Also, the most important result of the summit is not Turkey's reaction but the fact that the summit gave the green light for the start and the method of accession of the people of Eastern Europe to the European Union.
We look towards the future, and I say that the decision to start the accession process is as nothing compared to the decisions the European Union will have to make in the next few years if enlargement is to be successful.
We shall have to prepare ourselves for long and difficult negotiations, because if it actually happens in the next five, six, or seven years, the strength of the willingness and enthusiasm for accession of the people of Eastern Europe will sometimes be tested.
But the test which our Union will have to pass is even more difficult.
The reform of agricultural policy, the structural funds, and the financing of the enlargement, will all show one thing very quickly: that the enlargement does not come at zero cost. It will demand willingness to reform, concessions, readiness to compromise and sacrifice from all, I underline all, Member States of the Union.
And the Union will not only be tested for perseverance, but also for courage and farsightedness.
That applies particularly to reform of the institutions.
My party regrets that the Luxembourg European Council said nothing more about that than to confirm Amsterdam.
We insist that the Union needs substantial reform before the first accession by a new Member State.
(Applause) The start of the enlargement process must also be the start of a great discussion by all the social forces in the European Union, a discussion about the future of the Union itself and thus of Europe.
This discussion, ladies and gentlemen, must also take place here in our Chamber, with greater vigour.
The introduction of the euro and enlargement present us all with the question of the future constitution of our Union.
They present us with the question of the future boundaries of the Union.
The enlargement must have and will have boundaries.
There must be more things in Europe than between heaven and earth, to quote Shakespeare, more than just in or out of the European Union.
We must discuss them!
Ladies and gentlemen, in the 1950s our fathers had the courage and far-sightedness to abolish the thousand-year old antagonism between France and Germany in a European Community.
For the first time for a thousand years, our generation of politicians has the opportunity to unite the whole of Europe on the basis of the free will of its peoples.
Let us show that we have the same courage and the same farsightedness as our fathers.
(Applause)
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Juncker, President of the European Council, in particular, along with the Luxembourg Presidency, for the remarkable energy they have shown to ensure that the two successive Luxembourg summits led to concrete results and to a balance sheet of decisions that are of a very high quality.
The decision taken in Luxembourg, on 12 December 1997, by the Heads of State and of Government of the fifteen governments, to commence accession negotiations with the ten countries of east and central Europe and with Cyprus as from the beginning of next year, is an historic event of major importance.
The effect of this decision will be to put an end once and for all to the division of Europe, one of the most dreadful consequences of the Second World War.
In order to avoid this decision remaining a virtual reality and to ensure that it is lasting, a great deal remains to be done; I am tempted to say the hardest remains to be done.
The train has been placed on the tracks but, for the moment, it is going through a tunnel and its passengers are unaware of the countryside they are going to discover at the end of the tunnel.
In the circumstances their anxiety is understandable.
According to well-worn tradition, the issues likely to upset institutional reform - the adaptation of the common agricultural policy to the new challenges of an enlarged Europe and the rural exodus, the financing of common policies and the financing of enlargement - have been postponed until later.
But one day we will have to reply to the existential questions which the citizens of Europe are raising, and the sooner the better. What are the geographical limits of Europe?
Whose vocation is it to be a member of the European Union? What sort of partnership should be proposed to the countries who, although their land is not European, have a European history and strong cultural and economic links with Europe, such as Turkey or Russia?
Regarding Turkey, the ambiguity of the proposed solutions has led to a rupture which it must be hoped is only a temporary one, for if not this would be tragic.
What will happen to our future relations with Russia, if the European Union opens up its borders to the east without first defining a global political architecture of the great Europe which encompasses Russia? What political content do we wish to give to an enlarged European Union in the area of defence policy, security and the project of a shared society?
If the accession negotiations are limited to searching only for the conditions by which the "acquis communautaire' can be extended to future Member States and put into practice by them - and this risk exists - will we not be losing sight of the most important thing, which is to set up a European political grouping capable of taking up the challenge of globalization and of avoiding cultural levelling, which would destroy the values of our civilization? What unity in the area of internal and external security, or of growth shared equitably do we want to establish between Europeans in order to obtain their membership of a common project?
You cannot lead people towards their destiny blindfold. So these questions must be answered as quickly as possible for our European citizens, and the Amsterdam and Luxembourg summits have left them unanswered so far.
Of course, the work continues and it is not all bad, but it is still a step in the dark and future presidencies of the European Union will have their work cut out.
I wish them lots of luck!
Mr President, as the second half of 1997 comes to an end, one might be tempted to think that the maintenance of statutory equality within the European Union prevails over all other considerations.
Mr Juncker will understand what I mean, I am sure.
Indeed, the quality of a European Council does not vary according to the number of nationals of a Member State who take on the position of President-in-Office of the Council, nor does it vary according to the number of questions of detail that are settled.
What is primarily important is its capacity to formulate true political directions.
The European Council of 20 and 21 November last, which marked the starting point of a coordinated policy on the part of Member States with regard to the fight against unemployment, responded to that expectation.
Still more recently, the Council of 12 and 13 December marked the official kick-off of a long process of reconciliation within Europe itself.
The path to enlargement is now mapped out.
Of course, important questions remain unanswered, in particular those relating to the financing of Agenda 2000.
But let us not be under any illusions.
For the foreseeable future, there will not be, or there will no longer be, cause to resort to easy solutions, either in the area of policy or in the area of financing current European Union policies or those directly related to enlargement.
This in no way undermines the historic nature of the European Council's decision to encompass ten countries of central Europe and Cyprus.
The most important thing in this decision is also, to a certain extent, and to use a well known phrase, the issue of what will remain when everything else has been forgotten.
This means the number of essential points of reference on which the step towards a stronger and larger Europe must be based: I am thinking of human rights, respect for minorities, of a state of law worthy of that name.
These have become obvious in our Member States and have been rediscovered by the applicant states of eastern and central Europe. The reference points or political criteria I am referring to are enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights.
Our Member States have signed it. So have the applicant countries.
The same applies to the Turkish Government, which signed the convention long before the CEECs. We are therefore not asking the impossible of Turkey when we remind the Turkish Government to respect the principles they themselves have signed up to, the texts they themselves have signed and ratified.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr Minister of Foreign Affairs, your presidency, which will soon come to an end, and for which I once again unreservedly congratulate you both personally and on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, will have enabled decisive progress to be made in essential areas.
Essential institutional reform, the defining of budgetary parameters, the laborious modifications both within the European Union and the applicant countries all indicate that the road is still a long one in order to achieve a European Union based on values which are ever more closely knit, ever more closely united; in short, this new order of peace, justice, liberty, law and prosperity that we want with all our hearts.
The credit for having made a good start unquestionably goes to you.
Mr President, Presidents of the Council and the Commission, I too congratulate the Luxembourg Presidency on its excellent work.
We have seen how a country which is small in demographic terms can become great in political terms.
And with that philosophy, our medium-sized group wishes to make some important comments, which are critical, but stem from our huge commitment to the building of Europe.
First, I want to consider the employment summit.
We think it is a positive step that for the first time, at the request of the French Government, there has been a summit on employment, which is the biggest problem faced by European society and the societies of our individual countries.
It is true that employment policy is still a matter for the Member States. However, the Member States have now solemnly and publicly committed themselves to solving the problem of unemployment and providing vocational training for the long term and young unemployed, within specified timescales.
I am also going to mention the obvious negative aspects: the fact that we continue to bow to the ideas contained in the stability pact, and the fact that there is no control over the autonomous power of the European central bank (although we must admit that the creation of the Euro Council shows a willingness to have a political government overseeing the European economy).
We are not making the most of the synergy between the French and Italian proposals to reduce the working day to 35 hours, although we had the chance to extend this debate to the whole of Europe.
As for the European Council of 12 and 13 December, we basically agree with the great objective of enlargement, but there are still two major problems outstanding.
The first is that the necessary institutional reforms have not been carried out, and we run the risk of converting Europe into a huge free trade zone.
Therefore, we give our most wholehearted support to the idea that this institutional reform should take place before a single new member joins the European Union.
Furthermore, in many countries there is a belief that the cost of enlargement will be paid by the less well-off Member States, with solidarity policies being reduced, and the common agricultural policy weakened.
We need to increase the financial perspectives.
We are also opposed to any discrimination in accepting new members. For that reason, we think it is a good idea to offer them all a range of possibilities.
We think the European Union is taking a clear stance on Turkey for the first time.
This is not a club for Christians.
Turkey is a real candidate, but it has to fulfil the conditions.
I do not want to repeat here the votes and circumstances of the customs union, but I do want to mention a very important related problem, because there have been declarations made by European institutions about the Republic of Cyprus, which I believe were inappropriate.
We cannot renounce our acceptance of a single, legitimate government for Cyprus because of Turkey's view, or its threats.
The people of Cyprus need to know that although there are two communities which have to work together, there is a single legitimate government.
Lastly, I want to say that we very much approve of the Council's declaration on the peace process in the Middle East.
We bid farewell to the Luxembourg Presidency with affection and gratitude. We also want to thank President Santer, who has been working steadily, together with the Commission, supporting the work of the various Council presidencies.
We often criticize him, but it is important also to support and encourage him in his tasks - if we do not want to neglect the Commission.
Mr President, Presidents of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, we are on the final approach to the end of 1997; the festive sounds and colours are even making an appearance in Parliament.
The theme of the discussions in the European political institutions during the past year was Agenda 2000, the pressing question being how the gulf which divided Europe into two blocks after World War II might be bridged in a concrete manner, and how the old continent could once again become one Europe.
The decisions of the Council on 12 and 13 December show that, although 12 countries were called, few were chosen, namely five plus one.
The Greens regret that the Council opted for a two-tier model on the main issue.
The choice made by the majority of this Parliament a few weeks ago was a different one.
I do not think it we need to hide that; it does not help the countries concerned and it does not help our credibility.
The choice we made in this Parliament was to start both the accession and negotiation procedures with all countries which meet all the Copenhagen criteria.
What has remained of that is a group photo with eleven candidates taken on the 30 March.
The true, realistic, bilateral negotiations have started with five plus one, and the other countries will be crammed to prepare for negotiations much, much later on.
To them it is therefore only a formal accession procedure, not a negotiation procedure.
Those who were able to pick up the reactions from the numerous Eastern European journalists immediately sensed the enormous disappointment of those kept waiting, and the enormous joy for those admitted to immediate negotiations.
What's more, it sticks out like a sore thumb that Slovakia, despite its serious political problems, is getting exactly the same treatment as the other four countries.
This Parliament did want to support Slovakia with a clear accession offer, but did not want to start negotiations.
As a result of the effectual cancellation of the start of the negotiations with the other four, Slovakia now enjoys exactly the same conditions.
This in contrast to Turkey, which is receiving incomparably different treatment.
Already a few weeks ago, the European Parliament stated quite rightly that Amsterdam was insufficient to implement the fundamental institutional reforms.
On that point the Council remains extremely ambiguous.
But here, ladies and gentlemen, we have a key in our hands; no country can join without our agreement.
That is why I would like to call on this Parliament to draw up a parliamentary strategy with the parliaments of the Member States and those of the candidate countries, that will lead to a reform of the Union which will make it enlargeable; and which will start a process that bridges the social and cultural gap between western and eastern Europe and develop authentic partnerships with all candidate countries, irrespective of their different ethnic and religious traditions.
That way we will be able to support democratic and humanitarian strengths in all candidate countries, and that is our mission.
Mr President, like many of the speakers before, I would like to congratulate the Presidentin-Office of the Council and the Prime Minister for the efforts deployed by their Presidency.
They have confirmed that a country which is not one of the largest can clearly demonstrate an extraordinary amount of energy in comparison to the size of its population.
But it is now a matter of evaluating the European Councils, that is, the decisions taken by the fifteen Heads of State and of Government.
The balance sheet seems rather uneven to us.
Above all, I will talk about the second summit, that of 12 and 13 December, since we have already debated the very important employment summit.
December's summit clearly has positive aspects.
I am thinking primarily of the confirmation of the desire of the Union to see the accession, in the near future, of the ten applicant countries of eastern and central Europe, plus Cyprus.
It is a very important point and I understand the emotion the President of the Commission mentioned.
In addition, Mr President-in-Office, you have managed to put all of the applicant countries of central Europe in the same family photo, thus trying your best to reduce the establishment of the two distinct categories desired by the Commission.
I congratulate you on this.
I am happy to note that the negotiations will be speeded up for all the applicant countries as long as they achieve sufficient progress.
In addition, you promise to strengthen substantially the aid which will enable them to accomplish this progress.
Let us take note of these promises.
I also consider the confirmation of measures for the establishment of the euro and the recognition that euro zone ministers can meet together amongst the positive points of this summit.
In this regard I am very happy with the stress which has been placed on the necessary coordination of economic policies.
The fact remains that many points, if not negative, are at least imprecise or vague. That applies to the enlargement.
I will make four comments.
The reduction in the distinction between the two categories of applicant countries does not mean that this distinction no longer exists. We will have to remain vigilant to avoid the negotiations ending up in a strengthening of the divisions, even a rivalry between applicant countries.
I would also like to express grave concerns regarding the necessary reform of the Union institutions, prior to enlargement.
The European Council spoke of this, but with no precise commitment and without showing a clear and distinct political will.
In this, too, we will have to be vigilant.
There is the same imprecision and the same timidity regarding the future financial framework.
The European Council remained vague on this and it is still not clear how we can realistically provide aid to the countries of eastern and central Europe, at the same time as aiding our own disadvantaged regions, preserving our common policies and promoting the creation of jobs.
From this point of view, the European Council has, in a way, rushed headlong into this.
I am not satisfied about Turkey.
In spite of what has been said this morning in this Chamber and to which I have listened attentively, I do not believe that the Union has a clear strategy towards Turkey.
This lack of strategy is not new, I admit.
It dates back to the 1960s.
But was it really appropriate to devote such long paragraphs to this country in the final document of the Luxembourg summit? Paragraphs much longer and stricter than for any of the other applicant countries, running the risk of causing an explosion of national pride in Turkey and, even more serious, the risk of appearing ahead of ourselves with ulterior motives.
It is through impartiality, objectivity and frankness that solutions will be found to this extremely complex issue, avoiding the regrettable blunders committed here and there. I am thinking, for example, of the references to religion when tracing the borders of Europe.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have done a good job, and you are not responsible for the hesitations of the fourteen other governments.
Unquestionably, you leave the Union in a better state than it was six months ago.
The morale of the troops, if you will permit me this rather trivial expression, the morale of the troops has improved.
But you know as well as I that the Union is progressing slowly.
On numerous issues we are still at the stage of intentions.
A great deal of effort is still required to turn these into achievements.
Mr President, the establishment of the process of access to the European Union of the countries of eastern and central Europe has been presented by the President of the Commission in Brussels as a wonderful present to ourselves, to the applicants and to the whole world.
This propaganda is in contrast to the reality.
With regard to the European Union, it is clear that the process fundamentally challenges the common agricultural policy of the Treaty of Rome, which will be replaced by a free trade area favouring productivity to the detriment of employment and the environment.
Thus the long term objective of the Commission will have been achieved, which consists of aligning European prices in the agricultural sector with world prices and of allocating the financial resources still available to a number of sectoral aids, as they exist or have existed, for textiles and shipbuilding.
Without doubling or tripling the European budget, that is, increasing taxes considerably, the benefits of the structural funds will have but a limited effect on the economic development of the countries applying for accession, which are at a pre-capitalist stage and must first of all reconstitute a national economy before being able to face up to outside competition.
Furthermore, is it really in the interests of these countries, having just recovered their freedom, to see their independence disappear into a European grouping which regulates all areas of political and civic life and, with a few percent of the vote, be unable to defend their own interests?
For France, it goes without saying that this Europe's decisions are not permanent ones.
Our battle is only just beginning.
Perhaps, indeed, the creation of the single currency will bring about the appearance of objective conditions which will enable the revolutionary forces of the left and right to take power.
So all the supranational Europe activists will regret having forgotten that what is not based on the confidence of the people is illegitimate and condemned by history to disappear.
Mr President, the conclusions reached by the Presidency of the Luxembourg summit begin by stating that the European Council of 12 and 13 December constitutes a milestone for the future of the Union and the whole of Europe and that the commencement of the process of enlargement inaugurates a new era, ending the divisions of the past.
We very much hope so, even if we do not share the emphasis placed on "new' ; Mr de la Palisse would call it new - there is no doubt about it, everything that comes later is new.
However, we are concerned about what the new leaves behind: a divided, weak, threatened Europe, torn to pieces by ideological or racial hatred, a poor or destroyed Europe?
No, Mr President; the Europe of today, not divided, not threatened and weak, not torn to pieces by racial hatred, not destroyed and hurt by poverty, is a collection of states of peoples which have freely chosen to live together and which, by the method of integration, have managed to overcome the hurdles of the past and become an economic and commercial power, a guarantee of stability and peace.
It is the integration process that has enabled us to reach levels of wellbeing never before reached for such a large number of citizens.
It is the integration process that has enabled countries, torn by three wars in the space of a few decades, to build a peaceful and prosperous Community together.
Integration, not mere intergovernmental cooperation; common policies, not mere commercial agreements in specific production sectors; integration, not a declaration of good will; integration, regulations, common laws.
This term has been the reason for success and it is because of the instrumental use of this term in the Presidency's conclusions that we should not agree with what has been said; that the extension of the European integration model on a continental scale is a guarantee of stability and prosperity for the future.
No, Mr President, the European integration model after Maastricht and, above all, after Amsterdam, has become a Community acquisition; we are leaving behind the Community method of integration to adopt the intergovernmental method, the new method very dear to those who have obstructed the construction of the European Communities right from the outset or those who have disputed them or been afraid of their commencement and successes.
My party supported the efforts made by the founding fathers and voted for the Treaties of Rome.
It voted critically on Maastricht because it feared the risk that the single currency would become the master of any choice, excluding policy and the functions of mediation and synthesis.
For this reason, we do not share the emphasis on this new era, on this future that will no longer be Community but intergovernmental, at the mercy of the changeable government majorities, of this or that country, whose parties in power today, in almost all countries of the Union, voted against the Treaties of Rome or, in the best case, abstained.
However, if the new era means a Europe expanded to 21 and then to 27, the change will certainly refer to the geographical aspects, not to the quality of the Union or to its depth.
Because that is what this is all about: without depth, without political union, enlargement will remain a territorial and statistical extension.
We do not mean to blame the Luxembourg Government, but there is no doubt that, apart from the decision on enlargement, in the perspective we have indicated, all the other important unresolved problems studding the Union's activity, have been forgotten or put on the agenda but not dealt with. We are thinking of unemployment, justice, majority decision-making - the symbol of greater democracy within the Union, the question of the European Parliament taking part in the European Conference on enlargement - full recognition of representation of the wishes of the electorate.
Mr President, once again Parliament has been excluded from the decisions and the future of Europe, and this is unfair and undemocratic.
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating the Luxembourg Presidency on its stewardship over the past six months.
The presidency has been a model of openness and good practice and I particularly welcome the way in which it has anticipated some of the democratic provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, in particular with regard to its relationship with the European Parliament and the justice and home affairs pillar.
For many of us one of the high points of the presidency was the special employment summit, a positive summit by any yardstick and one which saw agreement on a wide range of measures and principles.
It was a summit which stressed the need for competitiveness, training, lifelong learning, greater employability, for using the European Investment Bank to the best possible effect, for giving better support for our small and medium-sized enterprises and for greater macro-economic coordination amongst our Member States.
All of these were positive measures.
But if the employment summit was a success, last weekend's summit was a truly historic event.
We are delighted that a satisfactory and sensible agreement has been reached on the so-called Euro-X.
Informal discussions will, of course, take place amongst those Member States who join economic and monetary union in the first wave.
But Ecofin is the body which is empowered to make economic decisions and I am glad that has been recognized.
The Luxembourg summit was also a success because clear agreement was reached on the process of enlarging the European Union.
A European conference will be convened for all the aspiring countries and formal negotiations will begin in the spring of next year with Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Cyprus.
This is surely the way forward.
As we all know, there has been some controversy over the past few days because of Turkey's reaction to the summit's decision. I have to say that Turkey's reaction is very unfortunate.
The door has not been closed to Turkey - in fact, quite the opposite.
A clear strategy has been mapped out for Turkey to move progressively closer to the European Union.
I sincerely hope Ankara will consider its response.
As we all know, for enlargement to be successful, the European Union too has to change and we have to have policies in place to meet the new challenges of the years ahead.
That is why Agenda 2000 is central to all our futures.
We should therefore be pleased that the European Council saw the Commission's communication as a firm basis for agreement on a new financial perspective, and also as a basis for going forward on a wide range of policies.
In particular, we all recognize that the structural funds have to change in the near future and that the common agricultural policy must be reformed in a quite fundamental way.
The Luxembourg presidency has been an undoubted success. Next we have the British presidency, and I believe that many of the initiatives which have been taken during the past six months will be taken forward by the British presidency.
They will be taken forward, extended and reinforced.
Because of what has happened over the last six months - the hard work, the conscientiousness, the diligence of the Luxembourg presidency - Europe is now more confident.
It is now more coherent and much stronger as a result.
The President-in-Office has done a fine job and his example must be taken forward and replicated.
I congratulate him in the warmest possible way.
I have received seven motions for a resolution, pursuant to Rule 37, paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, Presidents, allow me first of all to thank the many colleagues who have praised the Luxembourg Presidency.
It is true that, as in the past, Luxembourg has demonstrated that small countries can achieve great presidencies.
This is no accident, but is explained by the fact that small nations, not having their own interests to defend, can commit themselves fully to the common good and thus work for the progress of Europe.
What are the salient features of these last six months? In my opinion, the Luxembourg Presidency has achieved a double challenge: taking fundamental, even historic, decisions, and proposing a method by which these decisions may be achieved in a balanced and timely way.
After decades during which European action was above all dominated by economic interests, the social side has finally gained its rightful place, through the employment summit.
In the future, economic decisions will have their social consequences; in the future, man, the citizen, will be once more the centre of European policy; in the future, thanks to the methods organized in Luxembourg, political decisions taken, both at European and national level, will play an important role.
In the area of social issues, after Luxembourg, nothing will be the same again, and this is just as well.
The second historic decision concerns the launching of the process of enlargement which finally puts an end to the divisions of the past and reconciles the European continent with itself.
The way to achieve this has been decided.
Now it is for the applicant countries to prepare themselves economically for accession and for the member countries to review their institutions and policies, in order to be able to cope with the arrival of the new members.
This will often be difficult, sometimes painful, but the issue is worth it.
For the process to succeed, it is of course necessary to establish a real Marshall Plan for those countries which, for decades, suffered the oppression of communism. Neither must public opinion be neglected, as the people, too, must be prepared for enlargement.
If the Luxembourg Presidency has been a success, it is due, of course, to the excellent work of Jean-Claude Juncker and his team of ministers, but also to the hundreds of people who have been mobilised during these long months so that their little country could serve the great Europe.
To each and every one, a big thank you.
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the European Council of 12 and 13 December certainly constituted a milestone for the future of the European Union and the whole of Europe.
With the decision to expand to the East, the Twentieth Century is ending with a chapter of history that, only ten years ago, when the division of Europe and its people still remained a sad reality, no-one could imagine.
We are pleased that the political wish of our Parliament not to exclude any applicant country has been accepted and we are also encouraged by the establishment of the European Conference and a negotiation procedure for accession which lays down a strategy reinforced by pre-accession, with partnerships and assistance during the preaccession period, providing a differentiated approach without excluding any applicant country.
This is important because if the European Union, given its existing responsibilities, also wishes to be a politically responsible Union, it has the duty to provide assistance as a priority to the democracies ruling on shaky ground and looking to us for assistance and encouragement.
In this context, I hope that the problem of the accession of the Turkish Republic is dealt with, both by the European Union and by the national diplomacies, with the necessary care and sensitivity.
Although we all see the enlargement as an historic development and a political event of extreme importance, I wonder how it has been possible for the European Parliament, through its highest representative, to be excluded, and the only one excluded, from the annual Conference.
The process of enlargement, in fact, is a process of integration of peoples.
This House, which answers directly to the citizens for its actions, has the duty and the right to take an active part in that process.
With regard to the decisions taken on monetary union, we are pleased with the progress so far made, which ensures a closer coordination of the economic policies in the third stage of monetary union.
Coordination should enable the consistency of national economic policies to be checked; in the Luxembourg conclusions, we read that not only the risky budget situations but also the other developments which, if they remained, would risk calling into question the stability, competitiveness and future of the creation of jobs should be duly indicated.
The fact is, Madam President, that some countries have already far exceeded these situations with very risky budgetary policies, which will create a particularly serious situation for monetary union.
Madam President, we keenly hope that all the countries applying to join monetary union can do so and we are in no doubt that this can take place, but we are most concerned that certain economic and budgetary policies of certain countries are not being properly criticized.
Madam President, I will confine myself to the issue of enlargement.
We are assessing the historic turning point represented by the prospect of a Union uniting the countries of eastern and western Europe.
Many of the citizens of our countries, like those of the applicant countries, hope this will mean the start of the lasting establishment of stable and peaceful relations, relations of mutual development, on this continent.
This is the great project for the coming century.
All steps which can be taken immediately in this direction are welcome in our eyes and will have our support.
From this point of view, where are we after the last European Council of Luxembourg? I will mention two strong criticisms and one potentially positive point.
The first criticism concerns the way in which the negotiations anticipated in the spring of next year are being undertaken, because it runs the risk of creating serious competition between populations and countries: competition between applicant countries, due to the different treatment being given to them - digging such gulfs goes against the declared ambition of unifying the continent; and competition between Member States and future Member States, due to the threats posed by the Union, under the pretext of enlargement, to the current beneficiaries of the CAP and the structural funds.
Competition, lastly, within the fifteen members themselves, with the demand of a state like the Federal Republic of Germany to focus a part of its current contribution to the Union budget on other countries in the future.
The other serious criticism regarding the type of negotiations announced is the fact that they are about a relationship of subordination.
The Commission is imposing draconian constraints of an ultra liberal inspiration on applicant countries with no regard for the achievements, the identity, the specific choices of each people concerned.
This is not the way to treat sovereign partners whom we are proposing should join us.
All this goes back to the heavy logic currently at work in the Union, which to my mind is calling for a deep reorientation of European construction.
In this context, the decision to organize a European Conference between the fifteen members and all the applicant countries seems to be a sort of corrective, albeit partial, which opens up interesting possibilities. However, this is on condition that its jurisdiction is enlarged to economic and social questions and that it is opened up in one way or another to national and European parliaments as well as to representatives of civil society.
In any case, a great building site has been initiated, and we will be there with one sole objective: to succeed.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, gentlemen from Luxembourg, the Luxembourg summit demanded honesty, credibility and responsible politics.
The dealings with Turkey were governed by ambiguity and deviousness, one-sidedness and exclusion.
Enlargement raises the question of how an active democratization process can be encouraged through the framework of the European Union.
Such a dynamic would be a service to the people in Turkey who fight for democracy, human rights and the political solution of the Kurdish question.
But the result of Luxembourg is a disservice, not a service, and will encourage precisely those forces in Turkey which are anti-European, anti-democratic and fundamentalist.
After Luxembourg, Turkey is faced with the fact that there is no prospect of accession.
That should have been said clearly. Everything else is diplomatic eyewash.
And this is the way history goes on, the history of broken promises and treaties.
Since 1963, it has always been the European Union which has broken parts of the Ankara Agreement.
Turkey has been waiting for 34 years.
In Luxembourg, it was shunted into a siding.
Mr Juncker says that he will not sit down to negotiate with torturers. That is a laudably consistent attitude for an EU President.
Consistent?
Then for God's sake why do not you immediately block the customs union with Turkey, which the Council and Commission forced through come hell or high water? Why is NATO membership not suspended?
Why do EU Member States, above all the Federal Republic of Germany, supply weapons to Turkey? Why are refugees sent back to Turkey, if torture is going on there?
The fact is that the true interest in Turkey is a geostrategic, political and above all economic self-interest. The question of human rights is forgotten until it suits the European Union politically.
The role of Turkey is that of auxiliary policeman and aircraft-carrier, and Mr Clinton's raised index finger means nothing else.
I would really like to ask you, Mr Juncker, to explain to me the difference between Slovakia and Turkey as far as democracy and human rights are concerned. What is the difference?
Is not the true background to the exclusion of Turkey the question of the identity the European Union claims? The issue of the Christian Occident versus the Islamic orient; religion as the new element which builds entirely new walls.
Is that not in turn the background for an almost paranoid, racist idea of 60 million Turks sitting on packed suitcases.
Above all, the implications of Luxembourg affect 3 million people of Turkish origin among us, and in the Year against Racism they must be feeling like third-class people.
That is a wrong and irresponsible signal.
In spite of all that, Madam President, and not just because of Christmas, thanks for a very committed and very unpretentious Council presidency!
Madam President, I followed the Luxembourg employment summit with great interest and it was only one week before the summit that I heard Jean-Claude Juncker declare that it was necessary to reduce fiscal costs on labour and increase taxes on energy and emissions.
Consequently, if it wants to create jobs, the European Union must put in place an ecological tax reform including, in particular, taxation of emissions and of energy consumption.
It is an idea which has been close to my heart since the beginning of my career and I am glad that it is now becoming a majority view.
I dare to hope that the action plans which the Member States are going to submit will take this need into consideration.
I have myself worked within presidency teams, in particular when negotiating the agreement on fighting desertification - the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests - in New York.
Colleagues from other countries' delegations regularly thanked us for our efficiency and our work.
The people of Luxembourg have thus demonstrated that a small country is perfectly capable of handling the important tasks which fall to the Presidency of the Union.
I am particularly glad that the criticisms regarding the size of our country, heard at the time of the election of our dear friend Jacques Santer to the Presidency of the Commission, have been stifled.
I will conclude by congratulating the Luxembourg government for the efficiency of its work and by saying simply: "Small is beautiful' .
Madam President, it is slippery outside today, and I fell over and hit my head and so it may be a bit difficult to hear what I have to say.
Things are also slippery for eastern and central Europe on the way to the European Union.
How can we make sure that these countries will not fall over? We can do that by opening our market here and now to all their viable products so they notice the competition in our market instead of those companies failing on their home markets when we arrive.
We can go through the "acquis' .
Can it really be correct for them to have to approve 26, 000 documents of 80, 000 pages? I would suggest that we prepare ourselves by examining all the legislation and throwing out all the laws which were not confirmed by, say, three years ago.
The Commission could then resubmit the proposals which it would like to see retained.
The Council of Ministers could adopt them, most of them by qualified majority, and Parliament can always throw them out in the cases where there are conciliation procedures.
In this way, there might be a chance that the volume of laws would be clearer and so easier for the applicant countries to accept.
It would also be to our own advantage.
We would then make the EU more flexible, allow some of the provisions to be voluntary instead of mandatory, allow some provisions to be decided at a lower level by decentralising and dropping the demand that Eastern and Central Europe be involved in everything.
Should they also join EMU and Schengen in abolishing their borders? In that case, we might perhaps get the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia in the year 2004.
The summit in Luxembourg would therefore be the start of dividing Europe rather than uniting it.
I think it is important that there should also be room for the small countries such as Luxembourg which is represented here in this chamber by the President of the Commission and the President of the Council.
I would like to end by thanking Luxembourg for an impartial presidency, and so let us not implement institutional changes demanding more power for the larger countries, which might, for example, make it impossible to have two Luxembourgers in leading positions as is the case today.
Mr President, I can fully understand the furious reaction of the Turks now that it appears that their country, for the time being, and I personally hope indefinitely, does not qualify for membership of the European Union.
Europe, after all, has never had the courage to speak plainly to Turkey.
Europe has never really expressed its concern as far as the Turkish occupation of part of Cyprus is concerned, quite the reverse, in fact.
In particular, Europe has never gone so far as to say, or never wanted to say, that Turkey cannot qualify for membership of the European Union because it is simply not a European country.
Culturally, Turkey is not a European country, historically and anthropologically, it is not a European country, and strictly geographically, it is not a European country.
So all the justified reservations about human rights violations are not exactly insignificant in this context, but they are secondary.
For the past 30 years nobody has had the courage or the will to speak plainly to Turkey, quite the reverse.
We have lost the opportunity thereby to build the very best relations and the very best cooperation agreements with Turkey not as a candidate state, but as a neighbour to Europe.
This ambiguous European attitude is at the crux of the problem.
Is Europe a confederation of free European nations and cultures working together very closely, or is it no more than a free market governed by the dogma of free trade, which does not take into consideration the geographic, cultural and historical meanings of the term Europe itself. The fact that no one has dared to speak plainly to Turkey leads me to fear that the second possibility is the case, and at any rate has made me a eurosceptic.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this stage in our debate, the Presidents-in-Office wish to take the floor once more in order to reply to the different speakers.
I will therefore willingly give them more speaking time. As you know, we will be voting at 11.30 a.m. and the debate will be continued this afternoon.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Poos, you have the floor.
Ladies and gentlemen, this applause is indicative of the feeling of this House, and we will now move on to our voting time.
The debate will continu at 3 p.m.
Votes
I voted for this amendment of the regulation since it concerns the control body.
I would like to state, however, that I am against subsidies for olive oil growing as such.
If the subsidy were removed, this control apparatus would be unnecessary.
Quisthoudt-Rowohl Report (A4-0395/97)
We support those parts of the fifth framework programme for Euratom which are aimed at developing renewable sources of energy and at supporting the phasing out of nuclear power in central and eastern Europe.
We think the Euratom Treaty should be fundamentally changed in this direction because we are very critical of the fact that we continue to give public aid at the European level for the growth and development of the nuclear power industry.
Research into and development of the sustainable sources of energy of the future could create jobs opportunities and should be the way in which European society prepares to enter the 21st Century.'
In Sweden we have recently taken the decision to create the conditions for a rapid phasing-out of our nuclear power industry.
We regard that as a big step in the right direction, but unfortunately it is in stark contrast to the Euratom Treaty.
Parliament's amendments improve the Commission's proposal to an extent, but since the fundamental direction remains, we are voting against the Quisthoudt-Rowohl report in the final vote.
It is important to maintain a high level of research expertise.
Research into energy should take place in the areas where sustainable sources of energy can be developed.
Research into more nuclear power, such as into nuclear fission and fusion power, cannot be justified.
Following a referendum, Sweden has decided to phase out nuclear power.
In several EU countries nuclear power is controversial.
I have therefore voted no to research into nuclear power and fusion energy, but yes to the four main programmes as in the final vote.
I would like to state that I do not share the negative attitude to nuclear power of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Soltwedel-Schäfer recommendation (A4-0386/97)
Mr President, at the time of our first debate on the technical specifications of the future euro coins, the European Parliament ended up admitting, after a great deal of controversy, that one side of the coin would be set aside for national symbols, and voted an article along these lines.
Curiously, the Council does not seem to want to refer to this article.
Let us hope that this does not mean a change in position on its part and that it remains clearly understood that the future coins will have one national side.
With regard to this, the curious situation in which we are going to find ourselves should be noted since, unlike the coins, the notes will have two European sides, identical in all countries and with no national symbol, in compliance with the position adopted by the Council of the European Monetary Institute on 3 December 1996.
Furthermore, you may wonder why we should accept a decision from this institute as final, when there has been no democratic debate on it.
Certainly, article 109f.3 of the treaty anticipates that the EMI will supervise the technical preparation of the future notes, but the existence or not of a national side to the notes is not a purely technical decision since it comes down to the choice of a completely uniform and thus rigid monetary union rather than a union that is sensitive to certain differences, with flexibility in case of serious crisis.
Similarly, article 105a of the treaty authorizes the European central bank to authorize the issuing of notes, but this relates to a basic knowledge of monetary policy and not to the right to decide on the principles of the single currency.
I last night put an oral question to the Commission on this subject.
It replied that this choice was certainly the responsibility of the EMI and the ECB since the treaty did not apparently anticipate any other arrangement.
This is wrong.
Within the treaty is article 109f.4, which enables the Council to take all other necessary measures for the introduction of the single currency.
Why is this not used? Are they afraid to hear the views of the different countries on this subject?
We would like to thank the rapporteur for the report.
With this explanation of vote we would like to underline our fundamental position on the question, which is due to the fact that we think the coins should be designed so that the risk of allergies is eliminated, that attention should be paid to the needs of the visually impaired and that consideration should be given to the need for a firmly established identity for the coins.
For these reasons we think that the euro coins should be nickel-free, that the denominations should be of different sizes and that the coins should have room for national designs on one side of the coin.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Soltwedel-Schäfer report, which deals with the technical specifications of the future euro coins.
The rapporteur emphasized in particular that the coins should be easily recognizable.
This is particularly important when the coins are used by the blind and old people.
In his report, the rapporteur proposes that the diameters of individual coins should increase with their stated value.
The Danish Social Democrats support this idea and see this proposal in particular as something which could make the coins more recognizable and so benefit the blind and elderly.
The Danish Social Democrats supported the amendment that, in making the euro coins, alloys should be used which release very little nickel if nickel cannot be avoided completely.
In approving the Soltwedel-Schäfer report, the Danish Social Democrats would like to point out that Denmark will not be taking part in the third phase of economic and monetary union.
It is pleasing that the Council has accepted the design of a European and a national side to the new euro coins, which is an expression of the symbolic meaning and essential for popular acceptance.
But it must be noted with regret that the Council has not met Parliament's demand to avoid nickel in the new euro coins altogether.
However, I see the acceptance of the euro coins as a major step as part of the third phase of EMU, so I am voting in favour of the report, even though I am against the use of nickel in the coins.
Sindal Report (A4-377/97)
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a thorough report.
With this explanation of vote we would like to emphasize that we are sceptical towards subsidies for the shipyard industry.
A competitive shipyard industry, which can be effective in a functioning international market cannot be kept going by subsidies.
Despite the increased competition from further afield, shipbuilding remains an important European industry.
Areas in the UK which have a shipbuilding tradition are very proud of their local shipyards and what they have achieved over the years.
Harland & Wolff, for example, was virtually synonymous with the rise of Belfast as a powerful industrial city and has enjoyed the respect of Northern Ireland people for its determination to develop its business throughout the period of changing economic circumstances.
People in cities throughout Europe have much the same attitude towards their shipyards and believe, as I believe, that the European Union should try to help them face down unfair competition as much as it possibly can.
I support the extension of the seventh directive for as long as the United States of America refuses to honour its obligation to contribute towards a level playing field in the shipbuilding industry.
That is what we want most for our shipbuilders - that they can operate with the minimum of state support because they are operating in a fair competitive environment.
We must continue to put pressure on the United States to play fair.
Within Europe, of course, we must also have a level playing field.
Whereas I support the principle that individual Member States should determine their own employment and social policies, it should be noted that we, in the UK, continue to feel that our shipbuilding firms operate at a serious disadvantage compared to those in other parts of the Union.
It would be easier to put pressure on the USA to contribute to fairer competition if that fair competition genuinely existed in the EU.
Parliament has noted once again that the Untied States, and other countries with a high naval construction capacity at world level, are continuing their repeated refusal to ratify the 1994 (!) OECD Agreement, which was ostensibly intended to 'normalize' conditions for competition in the sector.
In the circumstances, we are left with no alternative but to approve an extension of the term of the provisions contained in the Seventh Council Directive allowing national public subsidies for European naval construction to continue and remain in force until 31 December 1998.
We are nevertheless taking the opportunity to reiterate once more that we were right when we voted against that directive in 1994, because it is being more and more clearly proved that it meant we were going ahead with legislation and limiting subsidies when others were not and still are not doing so; the directive sought to standardize and limit national subsidies from Member States, leaving the door open for aid to regional government, and thus contributed decisively to reducing the size of the industry in countries where it was of strategic importance (such as Portugal), promoting concentration on certain more developed countries, for the benefit of large private groups.
A vote in favour of the extension under discussion today is a matter of the most elementary justice, but it must not allow us to forget the essential issues, nor the economic and social damage caused by the seventh directive.
In view of industry and jobs in Europe, there is no doubt that the Council's seventh directive on aid to the shipbuilding industry should be prolonged until the US ratifies the treaty on normal competitive conditions within the shipbuilding and ship repair industry.
We should compete on equal terms, so the rapporteur is absolutely right in emphasizing that this aid treaty should be dropped when or insofar as international trade treaties fall into place.
I therefore give the report my full support.
This help for shipbuilding has a complicated history, from which in our assessment an escape route which is truly right for the future can only be found through a concerted worldwide effort to renew the world shipping fleet to the highest standard of safety, navigation and environmental protection technology which is possible today. All attempts to dodge a solution of this central problem by restrictive measures or deregulation strategies will only prolong the endless loop of the world shipbuilding negotiations yet again.
It is pointless to identify and accuse the culprit directly responsible in each case!
Postal services
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once more the thorny issue of postal services takes our attention.
Having given the green light to the adoption of a directive concerning the improvement of common rules for the development of the internal market for postal services, our attention moves to the problem of terminal dues.
Indeed, some postal administrations apply duty to the distribution of post originating in another Member State at a level which does not cover the costs of distribution.
This arrangement results in international agreements which are out of touch with reality.
The cost of the actual service is not being taken into account.
Thus unacceptable practices of remailing and trade diversion have developed.
There is thus an urgent need to clarify the issue and to give the operators visibility.
Through our resolution we are asking the Commission to take action by way of a legislative proposal, after consultation with the interested parties.
We are touching on an area not covered by law, so let us give temporary opportunities by authorizing the service providers to set terminal dues according to their cost.
I support the concern of several MEPs who spoke against negative consequences of uncontrolled liberalization of postal services during the part-session in Strasbourg.
In an oral question, they asked the EU Commission to act against such dangerous developments.
In various countries, the postal service demands special charges for incoming letters because the foreign stamps do not cover the distribution costs.
In fact, the foreign postal service pays a specified percentage of the stamp charge to the distributing postal service in the destination country, to meet the costs of distribution.
But this compensation payment is often below the cost of distribution.
The new charges were introduced by some countries to make up for this difference.
This method is a direct consequence of uncontrolled liberalization, because the traditional postal companies, in competition with private companies, cannot afford to take on these systematic overheads.
These charges indicate the important difference between the absolutely free market economy and healthy competition as it is wanted in the EU.
The EU wants to open up the internal market for postal services, but not at any price. Liberalization is desired, and is intended to bring advantages for consumers, as far as the range and quality of services are concerned.
However, the prices of these services must always cover the overheads, because otherwise the door is open for wild and unrestricted competition, which will then have negative consequences for the job market.
It remains to be hoped that the Commission has actually recognized the problem, and will very quickly take steps to put it right.
Towards Christmas a few miracles occurred in this Parliament.
The debate about this question for which my group also submitted a resolution has been moved from the Friday to the Monday, without anyone informing me of this.
Nonetheless, not only did Commissioner Bangemann refer to me in the debate as having second sight, but the official press report of our services presented me as speaker, even though I was absent for valid reasons.
What is more, I was presented as one of the signatories of the joint compromise resolution, despite the fact that I had not seen the text, let alone wanted to sign it: it contains nothing, or if you like, nonsense.
What is it about? The Universal Postal Union - UPU - has a convention.
This contains a provision that the terminal dues are calculated by the kilo.
This unit of weight can comprise one item of 500 letters of 20 gram.
It is obvious that the delivery costs can therefore vary considerably.
In a word, this regulation is not satisfactory.
The IPC, a club of 20 operators, including all Member States, wanted to change this situation.
The result was Reims-I, in which it was agreed that the end costs would be calculated on the basis of delivery costs of the destination country, varying between 50-80 %, depending on the quality.
The Bundespost did not think this was enough, and has thought up a new system with La Poste Française on the payment of 85 % without the quality criterium; in other words, sponsoring inefficiency.
In my opinion it would have been obvious in a free internal market to give all universal service providers a free hand to arrive to at an agreement between themselves, on the basis of real costs and quality.
As long as this is not expressly stated in the resolution, my group is not able to agree, and will therefore abstain.
It is up to the Commission to guarantee the free market and I call on it to do so!
Progress in the area of justice and home affairs
European cooperation in the area of security seems to us absolutely essential - at least in its intergovernmental form.
Unfortunately, up until now, it has been marked by a weakness in the democratic control exercised by national parliaments.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has often proposed filling this gap by creating an interparliamentary body to follow up the actions undertaken in the area of the third pillar.
Thus it must be clearly noted that the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is going to be submitted to Member States for ratification, takes precisely the opposite path.
By transferring these areas from the intergovernmental area of the treaty to the Community area, it leads national parliaments to lose virtually all the powers they previously had, without replacing them with abilities of equivalent strength and quality at the level of the European Parliament.
In effect, the "communitarizing' of areas relating to visas, asylum, immigration and the international circulation of people will deprive national parliaments of many powers: 1) loss of the right of decision (which will be transferred to the Council or if need be the European Parliament, under supervision of the Court of Justice); 2) loss of the right of legislative initiative (which will become the prerogative of the Commission after five years); 3) loss of the power of prevention (removal of the unanimous decision procedure of the Council, in accordance with new article 67 of the EC Treaty); 4) weakening of the powers of control, which will become indirect, etc.
This eradication of national parliaments' powers is not compensated for by an increase in the power of the European Parliament, for two reasons.
On the one hand, the European Parliament does not gain exactly the same legal rights as those lost by the national parliaments: in some areas the national parliaments lose decision making rights, whilst the European Parliament has conferred on it only the right to be consulted.
On the other hand, as it is conceived, the exercise of these powers will distance the European Parliament from the concerns of its citizens, even though the areas covered by the third pillar are extremely sensitive, because they are closely linked to national sovereignty and to the security of goods and people.
This distancing may cause fatal consequences, in particular concerning decisions taken on immigration questions, an area where the lax philosophy of the European institutions is well known.
In reality, the Treaty of Amsterdam proposes an increase in the lack of democracy in Europe.
This is why we reject it.
Organized crime is a sophisticated international business that recognizes no borders.
The European Union response is piecemeal, uncoordinated to a significant degree and primarily fought within national boundaries.
Why is it that we can remove the obstacles and borders to ensure the effective functioning of the single market yet we cannot apply the same principles and practices in the war against organized crime?
It would be correct to say that some progress has been made in the area of justice and home affairs under the Irish, Dutch and Luxembourg presidencies.
However it must also be acknowledged that it is lamentably slow and much more needs to be done.
Interior ministers seem to be more interested in protecting their little empires than winning the battle against criminals.
It is also extremely disappointing to note that only five Member States have ratified Europol which has a critical role to play in the area of cooperation across frontiers. This fact is symptomatic of the problem.
Let us hope when we discuss this issue next year we will be able to report that real progress has been made.
Billingham Report (A4-0357/97)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question of services of general interest is one of the themes for discussion within the context of the Intergovernmental Conference.
By introducing a new article, article 7, the Treaty of Amsterdam ranks this notion of general interest service amongst the common values of Europe.
We can but congratulate them for this.
But what a path has been trodden since this demand by the European Parliament!
We can quote the great areas of liberalization: electricity, gas, postal sector, air sector.
At each stage of liberalization, the notion of market value gained the upper hand over the notion of public service.
And the citizens of Europe could not accept this.
Now, this notion of public service must be continued through the establishment of a charter stating its great principles.
At the beginning of the century, the French School of Public Service was able to set out the great laws developed by Léon Duguit.
It is now Europe's turn to take over on behalf of its 350 million inhabitants.
It will pay dividends for European integration!
It is good that the EU recognizes services of general interest and that deregulation has limits.
The citizens must be ensured access to services of general interest, such as post, telecommunications and transport, on equal terms and at reasonable prices.
At the same time attention must be paid to the effects on the environment, social security and employment.
Under the principle of subsidiarity, the Member States should decide how and by whom services shall be carried out, define levels and quality and the way rules operate.
We have therefore voted no to the report, since we are opposed to the proposal for EU legislation in the area.
No such new competence is given under article 7d of the Amsterdam Treaty.
I welcome the Billingham report on services of general interest and commend the 238 Members of this House who voted for a better deal for public services and the setting of minimum standards throughout the European Union.
Mrs Billingham has, to her credit, worked hard to achieve a consensus and a report which should have received a strong majority.
The Christian Democrats and Liberals have let down the citizens of the EU by withdrawing their support at the eleventh hour and voting against.
Getting progress on EU minimum standards for public services has always been a slow and painful process.
With this vote today, we have, I believe, turned the corner.
Article 7d in the Amsterdam Treaty and this report call for a stronger commitment in the area of public service delivery, and this means we have made a historic breakthrough.
An observatory on public services to act on behalf of operators, consumers, trade unions and employees will be a major leap forward.
Charging one Commissioner with responsibility in this area will begin to embed the notion of public service delivery and standards in the Commission's legislative process.
Our own House should continue the work in the Billingham report by allocating the brief of public services to a parliamentary committee.
We acknowledge and welcome the fact that Member States will retain the remit for the provision of their own public services.
People of Europe will thank us for voting through this report.
They will, in the long term, be better off as a result of our attempts to ensure that the basic level of public services is affordable and accessible to all, regardless of who the provider is.
The rapporteur has been inclusive in all her discussions on the issue of public services.
I hope that the opponents of this report will come round to the view that this is in the interests of their voters, and begin to work alongside my political group to ensure an improvement through the setting of minimum standards, to do better for Europe's citizens, and promote the idea of a socially cohesive Europe which is not only a single market.
Let us not forget that the Social Chapter started out life as a social charter and that a public services charter may well graduate into a stronger commitment by the EU to deliver public service provision, based on a strong dialogue between employers, employees, consumers and operators.
The Commission defines utility services as services which are of general interest and which are provided by public authorities.
These services are often provided on a commercial basis, so as far as the free market is concerned, as the committee is correct in pointing out, there should be a uniform set of rules for the Union as a whole.
As the committee emphasizes, these services should mainly cover important network services, such as provision of water, electricity, gas, railways, radio, TV, telecommunications and postal services.
It is therefore pleasing to see that the Commission and European Parliament are united on this point and it is therefore with great pleasure that I can support the committee's report.
In connection with the debate on efficiency with regard to services of general interest, I would like to point out that economic efficiency does not take into account quality and the protection of human values.
The number of teachers per child in school is certainly a measure of efficiency which is in fact used.
However, at the same time (and inversely proportional to the measure of efficiency) it is a measure of the quality of teaching.
It is inappropriate to use ideas of economic efficiency when the activity concerns core activities in public services, such as nursing, caring and education.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
European Council in Luxembourg - Six months of the Luxembourg Presidency (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Council statement on the six months of the Luxembourg Presidency.
I would like to welcome the presence among us of the President of the European Council and the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker.
The President of the Council has given an example to us all by following the entire debate that is being held on the review of the Luxembourg Presidency.
I would like to stress this and I would like this example to find imitators.
Although it is not customary for such comments to be made from the Chair, I would like to say that I think I echo the feelings of all our colleagues when I express my appreciation for the Luxembourg Presidency, which is coming to an end in a few days' time.
It has been an example to us in many things and I think that the Prime Minister, Mr Juncker and the Foreign Minister, Mr Poos, who had to leave, deserve the congratulations of the European Parliament for their willingness to work with us and for the excellent way in which they are bringing to an end the presidency of a small country, which demonstrates once again how successful the Luxembourg Presidencies have been and how much the presidencies of the smaller countries have helped to promote the concerns of the European Union.
I would like to thank Mr Fayot.
What he said is very true and I admit I allowed him to run over his allotted speaking time considerably in recognition of his very consistent work in this House.
Mr President, I hope that if I point to my work I might perhaps gain a second or two?
It was less than nine years ago, yet worlds away.
On 1 August 1989, on the Austrian-Hungarian border, a first breach in what was then still the Iron Curtain was made.
The opening of the Brandenburg Gate a few months later began the collapse of the Eastern bloc, and simultaneously resulted in the creation of free, sovereign and democratic states, which have now rightly reminded us of their position as candidates for membership of the Union.
The Union is facing this historic challenge.
The enlargement to the East actually promises enormous political and economic gains for us all.
Gains in security, and as far as external security is concerned I believe that I do not have to justify that.
We must work on the gains in internal security.
New economic opportunities are linked to this enlargement to the east, and one would expect to find agreement and even enthusiasm in Europe.
There is none to be found, or very little.
They are outweighed by scepticism and fear.
Even in Austria, my country, which is returning for the first time for many years from the periphery to the centre, many people are afraid that uncontrolled cheap labour and cheap agricultural products will rush in.
In other parts of the Union, people are nervous about the money from the structural and cohesion funds.
In this situation, we must ensure that we make clear to all those who are affected that there is nothing to fear.
At least, not if we use all the opportunities of the enlargement, and not if, to the extent that it is necessary and justified, we ensure that no-one is left behind, by careful negotiation results with appropriate transition rules, and if necessary also with individual, targeted support actions.
A final word of congratulation to the Luxembourgers.
They have shown - as has been said several times today - that a small country can contribute a great deal to Europe.
I hope that Austria, which will take over the presidency in autumn next year as the next of the small and medium-sized Member States, will carry out this task as well as Luxembourg has.
(Applause)
Mr President, like the previous speaker, I will wait until I have finished my contribution before giving my plaudits, but I acknowledge the fact that they are going to come.
If I do nothing else in the time available to me, I want to say a very sincere word of thanks and congratulations to the Luxembourg presidency.
Well done, we are proud of you!
Not just as Luxembourg, but we are proud of you as a small nation, and you are certainly showing the others who have been there before you and those who are coming immediately after you, how to do a good job.
Your pursued the agenda that you laid before this Parliament with skill and determination, with diplomacy, and at times with strength when necessary to ensure that you achieved your objectives. Well done, we are proud of you, and may others learn from you.
The summit represented a significant step forward in the ongoing evolution of the European Union.
That is particularly so in the context of the next wave of enlargement, an event which will transform the Union significantly, ensuring that the EU of the next century will be very different in configuration from that of the 1990s and is also of great symbolic importance given that it involves many of the countries in the former eastern bloc.
The decision to open negotiations with Poland, Estonia, the Czech republic, Hungary and Slovenia is genuinely a historic one. This, more than anything else, marks the end of the cold war and the bridging of the divisions that have existed in Europe for much of this century, and for this reason alone the summit gives cause for great satisfaction and is the culmination of years of work.
Ireland has much to offer the new applicant states as a model for what can be achieved with the help of EU transfers and policies, and I personally look forward to the forging of new and deeper relations between the applicant states and Ireland, particularly in the areas of trade and tourism.
Enlargement is also vital to the long-term development of the EU itself.
However, this enlargement must take place in a structured fashion and at a steady pace in the interests of both the Union and the applicant countries.
There are clear implications for the EU's decision-making process and the shape and size of the budget; and regarding the budget I am satisfied with the decision of the summit not to pre-empt the detailed negotiations that have yet to take place on the budget for the period 2000-2006.
But I am not altogether convinced that the budget ceiling on spending as currently constituted is wholly practical. If we are to meet on the one hand the demands of enlargement, and the need for transitional financial arrangements for existing Member States on the other, then a greater degree of budgetary flexibility may be required.
Thank you, President-in-Office and thanks to Luxembourg; and let us hope that everything goes well with the new presidency that is about to begin.
Ladies and gentlemen, you have all been trying to take advantage of the same favour I extended to Mr Fayot.
I cannot really refuse you as you probably more than deserve them.
Mr Juncker, you are right.
The most important decision of the summit was to decide on no postponement of the euro.
But that has consequences.
Even intelligence, prudence and tireless commitment must be measured against the requirements which are set by the introduction of the euro.
We need as a counterweight an effective, jointly coordinated policy against mass unemployment.
You might say that in Essen there was a pursing of the lips. In Luxembourg there was a trial whistle.
A first test run may be useful, but not enough to get a grip on the problem.
The aims have too many loopholes, and you know that.
Second: regarding the setting up of the European central bank and Euro-X, really the softest possible form has been found: informal, vague task description, unclear definition of the opt-outs.
Third: regarding tax harmonization, to a large extent it has remained as intended.
Even the code of conduct has as many explanations of exceptions as a Swiss cheese has holes, so considerable work remains to be done there.
We should not fool ourselves.
Gramsci said that optimism of the will is needed to do anything.
But pessimism of the intellect is also needed.
Very much remains to be done, too much.
At least the starting line and course are sketched out, and the Luxembourg Presidency must surely be thanked for that.
When we in Germany manage to make a political change of course, we in Europe can probably learn to go actually together in a correct - more productive and with more effect on employment - direction.
Mr President, we have heard a lot about the future of the Union in the coming months and what Luxembourg has done to prepare it for that future.
However, the last six months have been tragic for the people I represent.
The farming community in Northern Ireland, which forms the basis of the economy of the country, is on the verge of total and absolute collapse.
As Mr Hume, one of my colleagues, said recently in a speech on Northern Ireland: ' We are facing days that can only be compared to the Irish famine.'
That is how serious it is.
This has come about because in the last six months farmers and the ancillary agro-industries of Northern Ireland have been discriminated against.
They have beef health standards and traceability standards not matched anywhere else in Europe, and yet Europe has closed the market to their produce.
I have to say with great regret that if in the last six months we had had far more determination from both the Commission and the Council this calamity could have been averted.
I trust that something in the last days of the Luxembourg presidency will help to redeem this.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr Commissioner, I would like to join the ranks of those who have congratulated the past Presidency on its successful activity in many areas.
In the area of employment policy, it must be measured against what happened before.
I would like to concentrate on some points of external policy: the questions of Turkey, the Near East and - if there is still time - Yugoslavia or former Yugoslavia.
The President of the Council made intensive efforts to come to an agreement with Turkey about how this important process of rapprochement between the European Union and Turkey can happen.
The President of the Council found some public words which can be called undiplomatic or honest, depending on how one sees things.
I am not so critical or sceptical about it, because I believe that we have entered a phase in which we must talk openly and honestly to Turkey. If there are reservations - reservations with good reasons - they should be expressed openly.
I have spoken critically, even in this Chamber, against a decision or recommendation of Christian Democratic parties about the relationship with Turkey, because of the differences of religion. But as far as the differences in questions of human rights are concerned, or differences in questions of how one relates to one's neighbours and starts conflicts or not, there are serious differences which must be identified beyond the political forces in this Chamber, but at the same time the firm will to enter discussions with Turkey.
I would like to say clearly once again, even to Turkey, that what happened in Luxembourg is not closing the door but opening it.
But even to friends, one must be critical where critical comments are appropriate.
What matters now is to see whether something can be achieved with specific agreements.
As far as the Near East is concerned, you were also very active.
I had the opportunity to be in Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Syria almost in the footsteps of the Council Presidency.
I saw that very good approaches were disseminated here.
We see that the Arab world demands much more from Europe than we can give at this time.
Thank God, no longer against the USA, but altogether in cooperation, always as a strong - sometimes quite independent - partner, but a great deal happened here too.
That also applies to Yugoslavia.
I hope that we can make more progress under the British Presidency, based on your preparation.
We must make it clear that we stand by Dayton, that we insist that war crimes must be punished, that there must be true peace and cooperation.
Finally, my congratulations again on the Luxembourg Presidency. As has already been mentioned, Austria will likewise have the Presidency in the second half of 1998.
We are a small country like Luxembourg.
But one thing is exemplary, first in Luxembourg, second in Austria: low unemployment.
I hope that the European Union will soon reach the average of the Luxembourg and Austrian unemployment levels.
Mr President, I would like to stay with the issue of enlargement and Turkey, and to stress that we have all been impressed by the Luxembourg presidency and by the personal intervention of Prime Minister Juncker in combining honesty and dignity with a political spirit of conciliation and political vision.
The big question for me is: after the Luxembourg session comes to an end what will happen and how will our achievements be maintained?
I think that the first precondition for continuity is for the British Presidency to stick to the decisions of the Luxembourg session, which were not due to any veto and which have so far been the most unifying decisions that we have had with regard to Turkey.
The second thing is that the European Union must reserve the right to draw up policies that relate to itself and not yield to the demands of the United States, which is what we saw yesterday at the political session of NATO foreign ministers, with the attempt of Mrs Albright to present a European Union which would be a Banana Republic of the United States.
Thirdly, the European Union must resist - which is very easy to do - the ridiculous threats of Turkey, which is brandishing the 2.5 billion dollars for the purchase of aeroplanes until the year 2000, or the 3 to 4 billion dollars for the privatization of its energy industry or, even more so, the 150 billion dollars over a period of twenty years for the purchase of weapons.
I think that the European Union must maintain a cool-headed, unequivocal and unshakeable position, especially when it is faced with provocative actions such as those of Minister Tselembi when he says that they will boycott European businesses, with the exception however of the United Kingdom, which will hold the presidency, France and Italy.
With these preconditions and with progress in the Cyprus issue, I think that Turkey sooner or later will take advantage of this opening of the door offered to her by the European Union by taking of course the necessary steps to solve the Cyprus problem, through respect of international law and human rights and through the peaceful solution of the Kurdish problem.
Mr President, as ever when judging the results of the Commission it is a case of pluses and minuses.
I think the result is best summarised by a colleague of mine who said: it is less than we hope for, but more than we expected.
That rather expresses my feeling.
I find the fact that the mechanism which also leads to the coordination or the disciplining, if you like, of the EMU, now also includes employment very positive.
I have a strong impression that a very large number of representatives of Member States do not quite understand what this means and must mean in the future.
There are some positive issues, but it will not surprise the Prime Minister that I in any case am disappointed about what has happened in the sphere of taxes.
I do not reproach him for this.
I know there is resistance, but to shift taxation either to investigations on national level - while we know that, in a kind of prisoner's dilemma, we do not dare move because a competing colleague Member State will carry off the prize - or by passing the mandate on to Ecofin, where ultimately there must be unanimity in decision-making, does not exactly fill me with enthusiasm for the future, especially as I know that if there was one negative factor in the preparations of the summit, it was Ecofin.
I will return to this topic.
The most important issue seems to me the much welcomed presidency and the result they have delivered in looking forwards to the follow up.
What does this mean for the future?
In my opinion, extremely important new opportunities have been created for the coming years, but then we must, and I mean at the level of the Council, the Commission and this Parliament, sink our teeth into this hard-won result.
Because though we might see the result as a step forward, there are government leaders who left the summit, went back their own country and said: we can simply carry on as before.
Look, if this is the attitude amongst representatives of the Member States, then there is still an awful lot to do.
I think we have to be exceptionally alert and active in this.
I am obviously disappointed that social VAT, as I will call it for convenience sake, was not accepted.
Not because it is a pet issue in the Netherlands, but because I actually think it is ridiculous that Member States do not allow other Member States to start experiments in this field.
I really do not understand what it is in the Council that it makes it want to block this possibility.
I would like to ask the Prime Minister if I may interpret the text to mean that the Netherlands is allowed to see where the ground lies, in other words is be able to start the experiments.
The subject of economic coordination strikes me as equally important for the future.
Will the balance which was incorporated in the employment chapter, in the results of Luxembourg, also be put into practice?
I can see people thinking this is coordination, this balance has to be introduced via Ecofin.
It think that is simply ridiculous.
Up till now this has not been the obvious institution to accomplish a balance with employment.
I am also concerned for the sake of the future presidency, because the many contacts that I have had I notice that an enormous amount of missionary work has to be done, that there is an impression that Ecofin is better suited to coordination.
I would find that incredibly unfortunate, and absolutely not in line with the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Briefly and to the point, the Luxembourg summit was a start, a very important start.
The results are extremely important.
But it was a merely a start.
A great deal of undercoating still needs to be applied, a great deal needs to be done finally to wrap the term flexibility in genuine certainty.
A great deal needs to be done in the field of taxation, etc.
But I would like to conclude with expressing my appreciation just once more - it risks becoming boring - towards the presidency, because I am convinced that if it had not been launched so toughly and firmly by Jean-Claude Juncker, we would have been discussing a very different result.
As far as that is concerned, my thanks.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, even the fact that a snail's pace continues to be declared in European integration changes nothing of the positive image of the Luxembourg Presidency.
Because, as a German author says, progress is a snail, but it moves, and it moves forward.
It can therefore be said that in the field of tax cooperation, in the field of employment policy, there have really been the first steps towards letting citizens feel that they are better understood in what goes on here at the European decision level.
I think that in this Luxembourg Presidency it has become very clear that taking responsibility and leadership quality are just what a presidency needs.
That should also be emphasized in relation to economic and monetary union.
It is certainly right to emphasize, again and again, the date of the start of monetary union, 1 January 1999.
But at the same time the house tasks must be done.
Here I would like to say to the Council Presidency that this European Parliament has certainly always done the house tasks very quickly.
But it would be good if all Heads of State and of Government, and above all EU finance ministers, would use clear language about political responsibility in their testimonies, promises and messages.
Here I regret very much that the Luxembourg Presidency could not finish with two further positive results. I mean here a positive decision about the presidency of the European central bank.
I think that the way in which the staffing discussion has been conducted is not good for the future credibility of the independence of the European central bank, and I hope that before the end of the year a solution may still be given in this area, so to speak as a Christmas present for monetary peace.
But I also think that it would be important, precisely in the field of monetary union, not just to find temporary solutions for the Euro-X Council, but also to make a clear statement of who has what responsibility for macro-economic interrelated decisions.
Here we can give not only the European finance ministers, the national central banks and the European central bank responsibility, but I would also emphasize very clearly from Parliament's point of view that there must be a triad between the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission, as far as responsibility for both economic and employment policy guidelines is concerned.
We really need concentration here.
We do not need different orientations, so that the Member States, which obviously remain responsible here for economic and employment policy, create added value, and anyway no coordination.
I therefore insist that the demand of this European Parliament for inter-institutional agreements in relation to the development of economic policy guidelines for the European Union and its Member States remains a current demand even for the next Council presidency.
Mr President of the Council, if you could contribute, even after the end of the Council presidency, to ensuring that the Economic and Finance Committee of the European Union does not argue only from monetary and financial points of view, but by its composition can also consider the economic policy arguments, that would certainly be an improvement which would be valued positively.
Mr President, when we discussed the Luxembourg Presidency's programme in July, I drew your attention to the presidency's intentions with regard to fiscal harmonization which had the aim of ending all unhealthy fiscal competition, by underlining that Mr Juncker's global approach was a good one. Furthermore, it turned out to be the only practical one.
Some have again tried, as always, to accuse my country unjustly regarding this issue.
As was the case with indirect fiscal harmonization in 1991, the Luxembourg Presidency has achieved a historic breakthrough with regard to harmonizing direct taxation.
I would, however, like to clarify that there can be no directive on taxation of savings without the simultaneous adoption of a directive on the issue of taxation of businesses, that there is no reason to kill honest fiscal competition in the European Union, that it is necessary to preserve the competitiveness of European financial markets on a world scale, and that we must not lose sight of the fact that the only objective of this whole operation is the limitation of the distortions which currently exist and which truly disrupt the single market.
Jean de la Fontaine wrote, in one of his fables, that one often needs someone smaller than oneself.
Without wanting to sing the praises of the Luxembourg Presidency, which would be tiresome of me and which would go against our Prime Minister's proverbial modesty, I believe I am able to confirm that this presidency has proved that la Fontaine is always right.
Mr President, may I begin by congratulating the Luxembourg presidency on their efficiency and effectiveness.
I only wish the European Parliament could show some of the same qualities.
That way we could organize this debate as a coherent whole instead of in little bits.
This morning Mr Poos gave an extensive report on the activities of the Luxembourg presidency.
I would like to underline just one point: the importance of the EU policy towards the Ukraine.
There is a very serious situation developing in the Ukraine and EU support has been of tremendous importance.
But we have to say to the Ukrainian authorities that ultimately their fate lies in their own hands, so they must push forward their economic reform which will allow private investment to come in to galvanize their economy.
On the main issue of enlargement, it was very important that the summit came to the conclusion that this should be an inclusive process within a single framework, but that at the same time we should recognize that each country should be judged on its merits.
For that reason I support the conclusion that we should proceed at all possible speed with enlargement negotiations with the six countries named.
We must not allow countries that have been very forward in their reform process - that have gone through a very painful process - to be held back by countries that have been more half-hearted in their approach to this process.
We must also make it very clear to these countries that the fact that they have joined the negotiations does not guarantee accession to the European Union.
In view of the report in the Financial Times today, we should perhaps address that particularly to Poland.
Equally, we have to be clear that any country that makes the right sort of progress should be entitled to join in the enlargement negotiations as soon as possible.
I particularly welcome the resolution which establishes the European Conference and sets out its content.
The European Conference potentially could be a powerful engine for deepening and widening the political dialogue and cooperation throughout the European continent.
That will be very important while the enlargement negotiations are going on in parallel.
On Sunday night I was rung up by the BBC World Service who wanted me to give a quote on the position taken by the Turkish Government.
So extreme were the quotes from the Turkish Government as a result of the summit, I was really concerned that something had gone seriously wrong in the summit.
But when I read the conclusions, it is very clear that we have actually been very positive toward Turkey.
I cannot therefore understand the statements from the Turkish Government.
Perhaps it is because the Americans have given them ideas beyond what the European Union can deliver - because Americans constantly believe we can take Turkey into membership - or perhaps it could be because of their domestic situation. Either way, we have heard a lot from the Turkish Government about their rights recently, but nothing about their obligations.
EU membership brings rights and obligations.
We should reinforce that message to the Turkish Government; but equally we should say we will be delighted for them to join in this process because we recognize their position within Europe.
This is an important process.
Let us not forget that at the end of the day it needs the assent of the people of the European Union and the applicant states.
Therefore the solutions that we seek to the problems have to be realistic and acceptable to the people of Europe.
Mr President, following the truly historic Council of Luxembourg, in which we all recognize with admiration the constructive role of Mr Juncker, two hopes have been raised.
The first hope is that Turkey, despite its negative behaviour all these years and its peevish reaction to yesterday's decisions of the 15 Member States, will realise that nobody is denying its position in Europe and that it is its own activities and oversights that, since 1963, have prevented the upgrading of its relations.
The second hope, allied to the first, is that the whole of Cyprus will not only accede with the greatest possible speed, as of right - and President Santer underlined this fact - to the European Union, but that it will cease to be the hostage of the country that invaded it.
Now Turkey has a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate its Europeanness instead of running off in indignation to the Americans or the Russians.
It now has the opportunity to take advantage of what Europe is offering and above all to reinstate, for the sake of its people, the rule of law.
Mr President, I believe that at the start of each six-monthly term of office for the Council's presidency, there are two major dangers which have to be avoided.
One is the danger of thinking it possible, in such a short time, to resolve each and every one of the problems facing the European Union.
The second danger is that imbalances should arise in that constant dynamic between defending legitimate national interests, on the one hand, and the common interest on the other - which is the dynamic which drives the evolution of the European Union and makes it work.
I believe the job of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council is to unite wills, forge agreements and make sure, in short, that the European Union moves forward.
Well, as Mrs Lulling said, both the important employment summit at the end of November, and the European Council last weekend - when a decision was made on the start of membership negotiations - the current Presidency of the Council has demonstrated that some of the large Member States of the European Union are small as regards their European ambitions, whereas some small Member States are large, in terms not just of their ambitions for Europe, but also of the results they achieve.
Mr President, I will be brief.
I will first of all join in the praise which has been given to the Luxembourg presidency for the excellent work which it has carried out.
A key role in an historic summit in Luxembourg, a fine employment summit; good work has simply been done by Luxembourg, and I think this ought to be mentioned.
I have three small points.
Firstly, Turkey.
The impression has been created in the outside world that Turkey was rejected on the basis of the fact that it is largely a muslim country.
Worse still, the impression has been created that the Christian Democratic parties were largely responsible for this.
I find this curious.
We all know that Turkey has been deterred for the sake of human rights, because of its dubious democratic character and because of the way border disputes and minority problems are solved, namely through military force.
I assume nonetheless that once these problems are solved in Turkey, it will be more than welcome.
I would like to hear it again from the President-in-Office of the Council.
Then there is the issue of the European central bank.
I hope that we will be able to depend on the fact that the choice for President of the European Central will not be a political one, but one based on the basis of personal qualities.
I think it is very dangerous that all manner of discussions are held to satisfy various countries with shared presidencies: for four years it will be one, the next four another.
I have a feeling that we are entering deep water.
May I hear from the President-in-Office of the Council what he thinks of this.
National contributions to the European Union.
In my country an unpleasant debate is being conducted about the Netherlands' high contribution, and about the report by the European Commission which is alleged to prove the contrary, and the response to this from the European Commission.
I would find it helpful if the European Commission would clarify on this as soon as possible, as it is bad for the image Europe in my own country.
I have asked a question about this in writing, but if Commissioner Oreja was able to say something about it now, it might also give some comfort in the Netherlands.
I am now going to give the floor to Mr Bourlanges, but first of all I would like to protest once more because the Group of the European People's Party is giving its distinguished members speaking time of one minute, and this puts the Chair in an impossible position.
I cannot interrupt colleagues who have a speaking time of one minute.
This puts me in an impossible situation.
I understand the groups' problem.
Naturally, there are many requests to speak, I know that very well, but all the same, I would like to request that the political groups give colleagues a speaking time of at least two minutes so that they are able to make their points.
Mr President, your request touches the modest backbencher that I am.
This Parliament has an obsession: not to enlarge itself, but to succeed at enlargement.
How far has Luxembourg contributed to achieving this success?
Amsterdam was disappointing on the level of institutional reform.
We decided, then, to commence negotiations without undertaking reforms.
The European summit of Luxembourg introduced an essential notion, that of the need for reform to precede enlargement.
We are very grateful to you, Mr President.
Does this mean we are satisfied? Certainly not, for we consider that there are many things which still need to be clarified.
I will quote three of them: the timetable, the nature of reforms, the procedure for reform.
Regarding the timetable, it seems to me that you remain set on the idea of a two stage reform: a small reform before admitting the sixteenth member on the one hand, and a large reform before that of the twenty first on the other.
We want, we wish a global reform, perfectly compatible furthermore with the Amsterdam provisions, and on the principle that if you can do something complicated, you can do something simple.
On the nature of reforms, we consider that reform of the Commission and of the weighting of votes is good, but that it is the whole of the balance, political, institutional and administrative, that must be revised within the perspective of a substantial enlargement.
On the problem of procedure, finally: the method of the Intergovernmental Conference has shown its limitations.
We want a reform which will enable coherence and more democratic deliberation to be ensured.
You have laid your stone of the building.
It is not enough, but you have done your duty.
You leave it to your successors to continue and for the moment, dear friends in the Luxembourg presidency, some of whom I see exhausted by such efforts, I will say thank you and above all have a good holiday, take a rest, you deserve it!
Mr President, The Luxembourg European Council may be considered, in the main, to have been successful.
The decision on initiating draft negotiations and negotiations for membership with Cyprus and the main eastern European countries is very important.
It was good that, in deciding the scope of the next EU budget, we went into extra time.
Now we can give proper attention to what resources and means we can have recourse to in the fight against unemployment.
We must ensure that resources targeted at unemployment and social inequality are not reduced, and that they be used more efficiently in the future, especially in the creation of new jobs.
The hardest decision concerns how we democratically monitor the EU monetary union.
It was good that the status of the Ecofin council was properly defined and that member states were given the opportunity to hold policy talks on decisions regarding monetary union, but the basic problem remains.
There is still little opportunity for ordinary citizens to supervise the work of the central bank and have a say in monetary policy.
Tradition has it that European democracy reflects common, public opinion in all political decisions.
But its powers of influence are tenuous when it comes to the work of the European central bank.
The European Parliament will work towards democracy being an intrinsic part of monetary union.
It was a race against time getting here, but, anyway, thank you for allowing me to take part in the talks.
Mr President-in-Office of the European Council, I do not know the extent of the modesty of our colleague to whom you are referring, but in my own country we always say that you should take what people say on face value, thus if he considers himself modest, modest he must be.
I do not want to excuse him, but I must at least explain to you that he has had to attend another meeting which started at 3.30 p.m.
He left twenty minutes late and he was very sorry not to have been here to hear your reply.
Unfortunately, as you know, when we are here we have parallel meetings of which there are not dozens, but hundreds, and so it is always a little difficult to be everywhere at the same time.
As for me, I would simply like to thank you once again for your presence here, and for your parliamentary spirit.
You wanted to reply in person at the end of a day of debate.
I am not sure that we have given you the best proof of your talent, due to the organization of this debate, which has been interrupted two or three times.
The European Parliament is a little strange, and we apologize all the same for this.
We are coming to the end of an extremely enriching debate and we would like to thank you for your presence right to the very end and to congratulate you once again for the great presidency which a country, not one of the largest, has been able to take on for the third time.
Ah, the modest parliamentarian has just arrived.
I would like to thank you once again and congratulate you, Mr Prime Minister.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The debate is closed.
The vote on the resolution on the Luxembourg Presidency will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Commission work programme for 1998 (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Commission work programme for 1998.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want my speech today to be a routine detailed listing of each and every one of the proposals set out in the legislative programme.
I would prefer this debate to be relevant to the way the European Parliament exercises its powers of control, and the Commission explains and gives an account of itself, as befits a democratic system such as our own.
I also think this is the time to take stock and draw conclusions for the future.
This year - 1997 - has been an important year for the European Union because of the great number of questions addressed, and because of the important political events which have taken place: the Intergovernmental Conference; the employment summit; technical decisions about the implementation of economic and monetary union; and the extremely important decisions about enlargement made at the European Council in Luxembourg last weekend.
I think 1998 is also going to be an important year, because that is when membership negotiations will begin, decisions will be taken about which countries will participate in the third phase of economic and monetary union, and substantial progress must be made in the difficult matter of the financial perspectives and the reform of Community policies.
I can assure you that the Commission will continue to fulfil its role as the driving force behind Community initiatives and defender of the general interest, as it has done so far.
Before I present the work programme, please allow me to address three very topical questions. Firstly, are there too many consultation documents?
Did we produce too many consultation documents during 1997?
Have we been a bit slow, and not keen enough on bringing out new legislative initiatives? In fact, with more than half these documents, we are fulfilling formal demands of the treaty, or obligations arising from an act of derived law, or from petitions from Parliament or the Council.
Allow me to quote a few figures to put the problem into perspective: in 1997, the Commission presented 13 White or Green Papers, 103 communications - some of them virtually compulsory, while others were consultation documents - and 116 reports, all of which were requested of us. Furthermore, I believe there are three important reasons for producing consultation documents.
Firstly, in accordance with the Subsidiarity Protocol, the Commission has to carry out consultations prior to each legislative proposal. Secondly, we need to take account of the views of all the varied organizations and associations which are so active in Europe, since they make a major contribution to the quality and feasibility of the initiatives.
And finally, the Commissioners need to have a firm idea of what is needed, and what will work.
You may ask me - I may ask myself - whether we have misused this method. Have we produced consultation documents when we should have produced initiatives, because it was the easy option?
I do not think so. But I can assure you, the Commission will work hard to ensure that it can never be accused of legislative laziness.
The second matter I want to mention is codification and consolidation.
Because of what the Treaty of Amsterdam says about transparency, consolidation and codification have become one of the Commission's political priorities.
Obviously, transparency cannot be achieved by this means alone, since the treaty also demands a specific legislative initiative.
But there has to be constant codification to improve public access to Community legislation.
It is true that not many codifications have been carried out, but the relevant departments of the three institutions are working on the set of codifications which have been announced.
It is also true that codification is often delayed because of changes in legislation.
Obviously, we cannot hold back basic decisions just for the sake of codification, and you would be the first to criticize us if we did.
Text revision, which will probably be the method used in future, does not present this problem.
As far as consolidation is concerned, work is progressing fairly well.
In two years there have been 310 consolidations, based on 2, 500 documents.
I should like to request this House to look favourably on the setting up of the necessary appropriations to allow this work to be done properly.
The third matter is the success of codecision.
Despite having experienced problems, and a proliferation of statements in the proceedings, the fact is that we have worked together well.
This is best illustrated by the result - the Treaty of Amsterdam - which simplifies the procedure and allows codecision to be applied more widely.
Mr President, I now propose to talk about the implementation of our 1997 work programme, and in particular, how what we actually did compares with what we said we were going to do.
I am well aware that there have been delays, and I realize that we need to be stricter in future.
However, in several cases the delay was caused by our having to consult on certain political or technical points, which takes time to do properly, in order to achieve an effective and consistent proposal.
That is a very important aspect of the way the Commission exercises its initiative.
Thanks to that power of initiative, we can for example request to Council that proposals should be put to the vote, as happened during the last few weeks with the Robert Schuman action and tobacco advertising.
That is something Parliament has always requested.
I think the way forward has been opened up, and that is the route we should continue to take.
The same can be said - as I think should be recognized - of the requests you have made applying article 138b. In every case, the Commission has given an immediate response, although such a response does not necessarily have to involve presenting a proposal.
Presenting proposals is the Commission's responsibility.
Nevertheless, Parliament can request such a proposal because of article 138b.
For example, in the case of public liability insurance, the Commission has presented the proposal you requested.
We have prepared a White Paper on the prevention of damage to the environment.
As regards forestry strategy, we are preparing initiatives in accordance with the proposals in Agenda 2000.
In two cases - hotel safety and the European health document - we have encountered problems (mainly of a legal nature) which need to be resolved before we can present a useful proposal.
However, we hope to find solutions to meet your demands for a European health document.
And as for safety measures against hotel fires, the Commission has already informed Parliament of the obstacles which are preventing us from presenting the requested proposal.
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to repeat something I said at the beginning: it is absolutely not true that the Commission has been idle.
I must remind you that we have had priorities of great political importance, which have taken up all our attention.
Let me mention just a few of them: firstly, preparing initiatives to combat unemployment (which contributed greatly to the success of the extraordinary European Council in Luxembourg on 20 and 21 November); secondly, actively participating in the intense work and hard negotiations of the Intergovernmental Conference, the result of which - the Treaty of Amsterdam - will have to be ratified during 1998; thirdly, the communication on Agenda 2000, which is a keystone of enlargement and Community policy reform (especially the structural funds, the common agricultural policy and the future financial perspectives); fourthly, the whole set of technical proposals in connection with the implementation of the single currency; fifthly, preparing the Kyoto agreements on environmental matters; sixthly, negotiation on the liberalization of the financial services of the World Trade Organization, successfully concluded in Geneva a few days ago; and lastly - one of our highest priorities - the launch and initiation of a plan of action for the single market, which was adopted in April and presented at the European Council in Amsterdam, and includes specific proposals to make the internal market more effective.
The work and political effort which these activities demanded of us probably meant that some legislative initiatives had to be delayed, as well as certain consultation documents which some Members of Parliament are quite rightly calling for.
Is this delay justified? Probably not in every case.
But I want to emphasize that the Commission has concentrated on those areas which it judged to be the most important, and has worked hard to sketch out a strategy for Europe for the next ten years.
I hope you will recognize the efforts the Commission has made.
Allow me to pass on quickly to our priorities for 1998.
President Santer has already described them, and I do not think any of them can be neglected.
In particular, I am thinking of the following: firstly, to continue our employment strategy at European level; secondly, enlargement, which was set in motion at the weekend and is going to require us to make an exceptional effort, both political and technical, to develop and prepare the negotiations, the reform of the funds and the common agricultural policy, and the introduction of the euro; and lastly, actions for the benefit of the people of Europe - especially the conclusions of Amsterdam and the Kyoto Conference.
We must also remember our external policy, which demands far-reaching action, as regards both the World Trade Organization and the strengthening of our presence in the politics of diplomacy and security.
Furthermore, the institutions must progress quickly in this sphere, just as with Schengen's "communitarization' , to be able to apply the Amsterdam decisions.
As regards freedom of movement and immigration, penal justice, and justice within the third pillar, the Commission is starting to get ready for the new treaty being applied. There are proposals already on the table, and others in preparation.
We will also present an action programme for justice and internal affairs, as soon as we can.
In preparing the programme for next year, there are two major institutional commitments which need a mention: to prepare an amendment to the 1987 decision on comitology, which we have promised to present to Parliament and the Council by June; and to prepare a document on future institutional reforms, which was requested by Parliament for the European Council in December 1998.
As you know, the Commission has committed itself to that politically, as I confirmed in this House in connection with our Agenda 2000 communication.
To conclude, I should like to mention the relations between our two institutions.
We have presented a list of proposals which we hope to tackle in the coming year.
Our work programme and our list of legislative proposals are the result of our having used our right of initiative, and we do not want them to be seen as excessively unilateral on the part of the Commission.
Parliament must be involved in next year's programme, and its development.
It is true that the European Union's parliamentary system is not based on the dialectics between a majority and an opposition, but the Commission cannot be founded solely on the legitimacy conferred on a single occasion, at the investiture vote.
We need a permanent political reference, democratically elected, to confirm that legitimacy, and I think the example of the mad cow affair has a particular significance.
I think Parliament has constructively fulfilled its true function of control.
However, it has also been clearly shown that we will never build a healthy Union based on a lack of transparency or a feeling of mistrust between the public and the institutions, nor of refusal on the part of people in power to bow to democratic control.
I am about to finish.
The Commission has committed itself to helping to consolidate the building of Europe, and to endorsing the Union's highly positive initiatives designed to combat unemployment, reach the environmental targets set in Kyoto, make sure the euro is brought in on time, complete the single market, and undergo enlargement.
I think Parliament and the Member States share that commitment. In short, I think our future depends on effective cooperation between the institutions.
Therefore, we do not want this to be a routine exercise. We are not preparing a simple, bureaucratic series of lists, of varying degrees of controversy.
We are embarking on a real political programme.
On that basis, I beg Parliament to work with us to accomplish it, and thereby renew its confidence in this Commission.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I am going to try to be diplomatic.
I have noted, during the preparations for this debate and the ensuing resolution, that the exercise which we were devoting ourselves to interested very few members of this Parliament.
Perhaps they are not quite aware of what use it may be, or they do not know if it will have any true political impact.
Personally I think that this exercise could be crucial for the democratic functioning of the European Union, for it is essential for a Parliament which, following the Treaty of Amsterdam, is now called to become a full colegislator.
In our institutional system, the Commission has the right of legislative initiative.
Certainly Maastricht conferred on Parliament the right to make legislative proposals through article 138b, but the legislation and the work of reflection and preparation of Union acts is, essentially, the work of the Commission.
So, this Commission is in place for five years, with its bureaucracy even more immovable and untouchable than itself.
It must be submitted to the control and to the impulse of Parliament.
Of course, as a Parliament, we defend the Commission's position of strength, but it is still necessary for it to accept that it should yield to certain democratic rules.
Along with that of the more general debate on the state of the Union, this debate is the only one to go beyond the divisions and specialisations to establish a complete evaluation of Commission activity during last year and the year to come.
It is the only occasion to proceed to a detailed and concrete political evaluation of the activities of a Commission which received our nomination in 1995.
Mr President, from one year to the next, Parliament's main criticism of the Commission does not change. It does not respect its own programme.
Of 18 legislative proposals announced for 1997, by the end of November 1997 Parliament had only received 7.
The Commission does not systematically take the initiative to unblock 197 issues which are blocked by the Council.
Parliament has on many occasions requested precise indications of the legal bases and of the interinstitutional work programme.
And finally it was necessary to use up all the funds establishing a list of blocked legislative proposals and indicating those that should be withdrawn, informing Parliament in case of withdrawal.
The facts are clear and the criticisms ongoing.
They are sufficiently serious that we should draw up a better interinstitutional cooperation in the area of the legislative programme.
(Applause) Consequently, Mr Commissioner, we are proposing regular evaluation throughout the year, possibly on the basis of a written document, regarding implementation of the legislative programme.
I am not in favour of creating new institutions, new structures.
It would be better to use those we have as a framework for regular meetings between the Commission and the Parliament.
Thus, for example, the Conference of Presidents could serve as a form of regular evaluation, three monthly, of the implementation of work in progress, in the presence of the General Secretary of the Commission, duly informed.
This would offer the Commission the chance to give a progress report and to discipline itself.
We also criticize the Commission for the plethora of consultation documents.
You have replied to this criticism.
Mr Santer had, furthermore, announced that there would be less legislation and more reflection.
We have nothing against this way forward as such.
Indeed, this very day, in Mrs Billingham's report which was adopted this morning, we asked for the establishment of a Green Paper on general interest services, for it is a new area of work for the European political project.
But reflection is not enough, as useful as it may be.
At a certain point it is necessary to either move towards action or to stop altogether.
Reflection is also a slow process.
It is the ripening but never the deterioration.
Let me give you a personal example.
During the last legislature, I drew up an own-initiative report on media concentration and pluralism of opinion.
The Delors Commission presented a Green Paper in 1992, along with a questionnaire for the consultation of professionals.
I wrote a second report adopted, like the first, with a very large majority in 1994.
During the hearings, at the end of 1994, you were asked, Mr Oreja, if you considered it necessary to do anything.
I remember that you very firmly said that a directive was needed.
Mr Monti continued to work on this question within the Commission.
Parliament repeated its request on many occasions by means of resolutions.
Up until now, nothing has been provided.
We are at the end of 1997.
Either the Commission must bring out a text, or it must bury the question and if the latter is the case, it must clearly say so!
We would at least know where we stand if they did this.
Mr President, the way in which the 1997 programme has been achieved and the content of the 1998 programme are witness to the political ambition of the Commission.
On a political level, 1997 was crucial and 1998 will be even more so.
But it must be underlined that European public opinion is less and less ready to accept the absolute domination of the market, the contempt for the consumer in the name of profit and the decline of the European social model, all in the name of economic logic.
That is a political fact.
Under pressure from Parliament and public opinion, the Commission has handled the mad cow crisis well.
In this there has been a turning point, and Parliament has clearly recognized this.
Evidently much will depend on the way in which the Commission handles and, if need be, sanctions Member States who drag their feet.
They will also need to complete their legislative arsenal in the area of food safety as quickly as possible.
There is another turning point to be negotiated: that of employment.
The employment summit has raised great expectations amongst the workers and public opinion in general.
The only thing they all ask for is that action is imminent.
The Commission has an enormous responsibility to implement the decisions of this summit.
It needs to do it quickly and above all it needs to change some of its own practices.
Thus, for example, the great economic directions will have to at last take serious account of the employment dimension.
We expect the Commission to concretize rapidly the political agreement of the Council on the utilization of budget appropriations allocated to employment.
In an amendment to point 18 of our resolutions, the socialists are asking for a reformulation of the annual economic report and of the great lines of economic policy and the drawing up of proposals for secondary legislation, based on article 103, paragraph 5, in order to strengthen the role of the European Parliament in economic coordination policy.
We want new proposals to combat social exclusion rapidly.
We want the Commission to take account of the balance of employment in its liberalization measures.
Finally, a word on taxation.
The legislative programme of 1998 includes a directive on taxation of savings.
As socialists, we would have liked there to be a proposal concerning a special social VAT on highly labour intensive services.
With regard to the directive on taxation of savings that the Commission is announcing for 1998, it will be a question of seeing how the numerous conditions made by Member States at the time of the conclusion of the political agreement within the Council will be fulfilled by these very states.
It is essential that these conditions exist so that the directive on taxation of savings does not lead to capital flight from the European Union towards neighbouring tax havens.
Mr President, in conclusion, I am convinced that Parliament can help the Commission to negotiate all of these turning points, if we show more determination in our common political action.
It is the legislative programme which must be the instrument of a new political will for employment, consumer protection and the environment.
It is this programme and the transparent and complete way of implementing it which will make the Community transparent, democratic and effective.
Mr President, I would really like to repeat what I said last year.
I looked at the text on my hard disk again this morning, and I could really use it again, verbatim.
Mr President, we are having a debate today which is a gauge in relations between the Commission and the European Parliament.
We are having a debate today in which we can see each other about how the Commission and the European Parliament might help each other to bring Europe closer.
We started in 1995 with Commission Santer taking office.
The first year was for reflection, in the second year, 1996, the theme was do less to do more, in 1997 much has been done.
You yourself have already mentioned it, Mr Oreja.
We have had the IGC with the Treaty of Amsterdam, Agenda 2000 with all the attendant work, the employment summit, completion of the internal market, the entire fiscal case, and in addition, a whole host of achievements.
You will not hear me say that the Commission has not done anything.
What we are saying, is that what was announced on paper for the 1995, for the year 1996 and for the year 1997 has not reached us yet; what together should we be doing now?
Mr President, I would like to repeat again, that we are also each other's partners.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission: can we not find a method, a procedure for adjustment to check, say, every three months, whether all the activities which we have planned still fit the priorities we have set together?
That was one point.
Secondly, I wonder if you could tell me why at certain times you do not get through to the Council.
Why are you not able to clear things much more quickly, or in any case tell Parliament about it? Mr President, I would like us to take an example from the way Commissioner Fischler and Commissioner Bonino handled the BSE case, the way in which Parliament was involved in this.
I think that such a method allows us, Parliament, to work much better, as regards speed and intensity, as well as concerning the Commission.
I said a short while ago that if there are unpleasant words in the resolution, Mr Oreja, you should not take it personally.
You have been entrusted with this responsibility for coordination.
But I have a feeling that all those distinguished Commissioners hand you a list via the computer, that this list is stapled together, and subsequently submitted to Parliament.
I think - and maybe my view is a little too simplistic - that this must be what happens.
I have a feeling that on that point, with regular consultation and with the major example of the BSE inquiry, possibly via the Conference of Presidents, we will be much better able to give shape to the friendship we feel for each other.
Mr President, I do not accept the argument Commissioner Oreja uses, either: namely that this Parliament asks so many questions.
May I give an example which just came to mind, from my own experience?
Remote selling - financial services - had an chance.
The Commission proposed it.
The Commission removed it after the first reading.
And then we needed statements, memorandums and a new directive to reinstate what was taken out.
Mr President, the trouble it is not only Parliament, but also the Commission.
The only demand, and it has also been incorporated in the resolution, islet us find a way to arrive at better harmony.
If there is a word in the resolution that disturbs you, then we can talk about it.
Mr President, at the risk of again being mistranslated, because the last time I spoke Swedish the word travestera , travesty, became transvestite in translation, I am using Swedish again.
I can agree with what the previous speakers said, that the work programme debate is quite meaningless.
I am surprised at the explanations which the Commissioner gave regarding the challenges which, according to him, are the reason why the legislative programme has not been realized.
They were known when we adopted and debated the programme last time.
On the other hand, I do not think the proposal from the large Groups, the majority, for a joint resolution is serious, with 50 different points which we should consider during the coming year.
None of the institutions would manage that.
Firstly, I believe that we in Parliament must also be informed about the new programme document which the Commission is about to start using.
At the same time we have to agree that agenda work and preparing ourselves for the turn of the Millennium are the most important things.
We must also make sure that we help the Commission to use its existing powers as much as possible.
As far as the whole work programme is concerned, we now know after the debate in Luxembourg that there are other priorities which have risen above those in the work programme.
I am thinking, for example, of the issue of food safety.
Are the legislative proposals which were sought by the European Council going to come during next year or not? The same applies to the northern dimension, which was mentioned in the Council's resolution.
I believe this is one of the problems of the work on the legislative and work programme for the Commission during next year.
Mr President, in the legislative programme submitted by the Commission, the new regulations on the reform of the common agricultural policy take up a fundamental space, and we hope that the time is right! 1998 should be a year of reform, because time runs on mercilessly and the common agricultural policy cannot only be the object of theoretical debate.
Reform has been announced for the common agricultural policy for too long.
It was in 1995 in Madrid that Commissioner Fischler adopted the famous strategy paper on European agriculture, in which it was said that the status quo would not have prevailed for long.
Finally, in 1997, almost two years later, the first proposals arrived with the Agenda 2000.
However, if we take into account the uncertainties and doubts in the Agenda 2000 and the time that is slipping away, we fear that the option of the status quo that was hunted from the door may come back in through the window.
According to our group, however, there is an urgent need for changes in the common agricultural policy, and the 1996 Court of Auditors report sets out several problems including that of cohesion.
On 13 and 14 November, we, as a socialist group, held a conference on the future of the CAP, seeking to state our own, tracing the lines of thought and stating that the agricultural policy needs a new legitimation, because popular consent risks becoming weaker.
We may lose the common agricultural policy, with its task of solidarity, along the road, for, when some Ministers for Economic Affairs and Finance take stock of the debit and credit sides of the Community budget, they often mention the common agricultural policy.
The only way to recover this consent, this relationship with society, for the common agricultural policy, is to face the challenges both within and outside the CAP, the European and international challenges, with far-sightedness and without any fear of calling the present inertia into discussion.
We do not think the Commission is seeking to demolish the CAP with Agenda 2000.
However, we feel that, on decisive matters such as the ceiling for aid, modulation and eco-compatibility, the call to subsidiarity is made a little too comfortably, leaving the ball in the court of the Member States.
We have therefore confirmed a quality policy, a rural policy, new attention to Mediterranean products and simplification, and we anxiously await the draft regulations in the early months of 1998.
Mr Commissioner, our group will not adopt any unnecessary delaying tactics or, worse still, exploitation of difficulties, but we will want to contribute towards giving the common agricultural policy a future, so that it becomes a better means of accompanying the effort made by companies wishing to be competitive and face the ever more complex and global market on their feet.
Mr President, I would like to draw the attention of the Commissioner to certain areas that have to do with the external relations of the Union, which, in fact, are mentioned in the Commission programme, as this has been put before us.
The first area is the new transatlantic agenda.
This is a very important area and needs a great deal of preparation, which has already been demonstrated by what we have seen up till now in Europe's relations with the United States.
The second area is the preparation of Europe for its participation in the fresh round of negotiations for the new GATT, which begins in 1999.
This is a matter which, if we wish Europe to remain a strong producer, as it has been up till now, needs very careful preparation, especially at a legislative and institutional level.
The third issue concerns Russia and the Ukraine.
The relations between Europe and Russia and the Ukraine and the fact that very soon both Russia and the Ukraine will be knocking once again on Europe's door, and for much more than hitherto, is something that we must consider.
Fourthly, the Middle East.
This is an area which is of great significance to Europe and to which Europe is already paying a great deal of money, without however this being offset by political presence.
Very specific proposals are needed here which will help to revive the peace process.
And finally, the Balkans.
European policy in the Balkans cannot and must not be restricted to the enormous effort that is being made for reconstruction. There must also be many imaginative proposals as to how the Balkan states can come closer to us.
Mr Commissioner, I refer first to the written form of the working programme of the Commission, where you quite rightly identify Agenda 2000 and the preconditions for enlargement again and again as one of the most important projects, and in your speech itself you identified that as a cornerstone.
I was all the more disappointed that you did not mention institutional reform in the written version of the plans.
I am therefore very glad that now in your speech you identify the task of the European Parliament, to present the essential contents of institutional reform by the end of the coming year, as a task of the Commission.
I consider that to be quite essential, because we know that there will be enough political resistance against enlargement, which some people would like to postpone while pointing at the absence of institutional reform.
I am really afraid that institutional reform or the demand for it will be misused to prevent the enlargement of the European Union.
We must fight against that together, on the one hand the European Commission as the motor of agreement in our institutional structure, and on the other hand you will find in the European Parliament, or at least large parts of this Parliament, massive support for sensible and far-reaching institutional reform.
I therefore ask you, in accordance with the decision of this Parliament, to accept institutional reform as one of the most important cornerstones of the tasks of the Commission in the coming year.
Three minutes, Mr Oreja, what can I say in three minutes about this working programme? A difficult question.
Normally I have no problem with it, but this time I have.
For instance, I could ask you whether your submissions are a kind of cover-up, and with that I am saying rather more clearly what Mr Fayot wrapped up much more elegantly and politely in his speech.
The Commission - and I know that it is wrong to chastise you yourself for it, and therefore I apologize to you personally, but you are here so to speak responsible for your colleagues - the Commission has submitted several documents: a document about new legislative initiatives, with a Commission number; a document about political priorities, with a Commission number; a document about what you have done in 1997 - unfortunately not about what you have not done - with a Commission number.
What interests me most, that is the indicative list of what you intend for this year, without a Commission number, is incidentally the thickest document with the most proposals.
That means that we can rely on something perhaps coming or perhaps not.
Then I will say something about what everyone here expects from me.
We have voted in the last month on a decision about whether the Commission deserves to be sent home, whether the Commission deserves - indirectly of course - a declaration of no confidence.
We said no.
I made a speech here which was full of praise for the Commission.
In the last year, as chairperson of the BSE Monitoring Committee, I have often praised the Commission, including you, when you were in my committee.
But I now have no more reason at all to praise you!
Not you personally, Mr Oreja, not Mr Bangemann and not many others.
Where is the legislation in the follow-up to BSE, where is what we want? Yes, there is a Green Paper about food law.
But where is the proper legislation about it? Where is the framework directive about food, food control, hygiene and other aspects?
I have a slight feeling, Mr Oreja, that the Commission is returning to the doze in which it has been lying for the last ten years.
I am not prepared to accept that.
We shall look very carefully at what comes in the next few months.
None of the documents which I mentioned to you include anything about what specifically you are going to do.
You the Commission, again not you personally.
I have nothing at all against Mr Santer saying that they must reflect more.
I always think reflection is excellent.
I would just very much like to see a result of the reflection, and I do not want another Green Paper, I do not want another White Paper, I want crisp legislative initiatives.
I want nutrient identification, I want food hygiene, food control, I want the framework legislation about it!
Please go home and say to Mr Bangemann that he should finally fall on his feet and start to become active.
I know that Mr Bangemann would willingly discuss this with me directly, and I would also willingly discuss it here with Mr Bangemann.
What is in these many documents, even this semi-official document which does not even have a Commission number, is in no way enough for me to say in the next year that this Commission is doing what it must.
In no way, Mr Oreja!
I am sorry if that upsets you, please pass it on to your colleagues!
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, from the point of view of the Committee on Transport and Tourism I can continue seamlessly from what the previous speaker said.
We in the Committee on Transport and Tourism also fear that in 1998 we will receive more statements and White Papers than specific legislative proposals.
We regret that, and I hope, Commissioner, that you will talk again to your colleagues and persuade them to rethink.
I will just take an example from the transport field.
There we are supposed to receive a statement about the environment and air transport. No, Commissioner, we want a quite specific proposal on improving the environmental compatibility of air transport.
We want to talk to you about that, but not in a general debate about the environment and air transport!
I won't say that that is another cover-up, but it is the lack of courage of the Commission to submit something specific.
But perhaps the Commission is just afraid of the Council, because the Council always pushes unpleasant stories in front of it.
Road use charges have been pushed backwards and forwards for six months, and they still are.
But, Commissioner, it is better that we, the Commission and Parliament tell the Council, "here is the proposed law, confess your inactivity' than that the Commission, prematurely obedient, makes no proposals at all, but sends another statement as food for thought.
But I will take up a second subject which a previous speaker has already mentioned, and cover it in the transport field.
We need specific legislative proposals about how, four years after the completion of the internal market, traffic should be regulated from the social point of view.
We have always said that harmonization and liberalization must go together.
We have driven liberalization forward very well to a large extent, but harmonization of social, technical and tax conditions for transport is still outstanding.
I only say that many railway strikes in France, many lorry strikes in other Member States are linked to the fact that people have the feeling that the Commission owes us proposals for the promised harmonization of conditions, particularly in the social field.
A third field about which I would like to remind you: We have asked the Commission twice in the last year to submit to us within a year - to that extent you still have time, Mr Oreja, but only until February - a quite specific proposal for the calculation of external costs of transport.
We said as Parliament with an overwhelming majority: Yes, we want to internalize external costs, but we need calculation methods for all types of transport, not just for lorries, because even a nice railway produces dirt and noise, and so do many aeroplanes.
We therefore asked the Commission to submit to us the external costs of all types of transport on a demonstrably scientific basis, so that we can then internalize the external costs of all types of transport simultaneously.
But as I know the Commission - here I take up what the previous speaker said - the Commission knew that, but there is not a word about it in the legislative programme.
And if we are not careful, the Commission will say at the end of 1998 that unfortunately it has had no time.
The last field: I would like to ask the Commission, although it is clearly not guilty here, and although the Council has again refused to support tourism, to consider in the next year how it can carry out a subsidiary, accompanying support for tourism on the basis of existing policies and programmes, because tourism ensures and creates more jobs and economic growth in the Community than the whole of agriculture.
Therefore, small and medium-sized companies in particular deserve support for tourism, and we ask for your support on this point.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have two points of view.
I shall begin with the positive and would like to warmly welcome the cooperation with the USA which has inspired a new strategy with regard to synthetic drugs through, for example, the early warning system against new substances and tougher legislation against producing and dealing in narcotic substances.
And so to the points which I am less positive about and where I want to know more.
This concerns organized crime and freedom of movement.
The Commission itself has said in this House that it has a task to fulfil in 20 paragraphs in the Council's plan of action against organized crime.
But the work programme for 1998 does not contain anything about this.
Measures are required with regard to money laundering and the confiscation of criminally obtained assets.
In addition I would like to stress that there are several paragraphs in the Dublin convention which require implementation.
The other point concerns freedom of movement.
We have the Weil report which clearly shows the problems which exist.
Here the Commission must be more active as a problem solver and attack obstructing countries.
I can quite an example from my home city of Stockholm.
More than 3, 000 people do not get their rightful pension in time because the authorities are unable to calculate pensions when people have worked in other countries.
If it is the case that normal, decent citizens find they have their pension indirectly confiscated, at least temporarily, while criminal assets are not confiscated, the Union will of course risk losing credibility and even democratic support.
The Commission must have the ability to act as an effective guardian of the treaty, so that we in the Union can deliver both safety and freedom of movement.
In these areas the citizens have expectations of the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank you for all the speeches we have heard here this afternoon.
Starting with Mr Fayot's speech, which was the first, I fully agree that this is a crucial year.
And all the more so once Parliament's powers are increased by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The treaty will shortly come into effect.
As far as possible, we should try to put many of the treaty's provisions into practice before it comes into effect, just as was done so successfully at the European Council in Luxembourg with regard to employment.
Mr Fayot said the Commission must be subject to Parliament's control, and I fully agree with him, naturally.
Of course the Commission is not immovable.
That was Mr Fayot's question, and the answer is categorical: of course the Commission is subject to Parliament's control, as we made very clear in relation to the mad cow affair.
I believe that is exactly where the basis of the Commission's legitimacy lies.
What legitimacy would the Commission have if it were not subject to control? I have been a member of two Commissions - this one and the previous one - and I can assure you, I feel my legitimacy has increased since appearing before the European Parliament on 4 January 1995.
As I left the hearing on that day, I felt I had become more of a Commissioner than I had been before.
So I fully agree about what it means to exercise that power.
I also want to say - and I hope this will go some way towards answering Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's comments - that one of the difficulties between Parliament and the Commission probably stems from something I think is particularly important: the system of legal bases.
I think it is important for us to make progress in establishing the legal bases for the proposals which are made.
Obviously, that is a matter for the Commission itself, but I think that by giving clues about the legal basis and the type of action which is wanted, relations between the Commission and Parliament can be made easier.
This is where Mr Fayot's proposal comes in, which was referred to by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, and which I wholeheartedly support.
I think we should make sure we follow his suggestion - and not just once a year, but periodically.
Mr Fayot, you suggest a three-monthly meeting.
There is no reason why we should not do that.
Greatly increased transparency is exactly what the Commission wants.
Let us meet every three months, in whatever way you prefer.
It could take place at the committee chairmen's meeting, or wherever you wish.
At this moment, I cannot give you a response to all the matters which have been raised here.
Some are legislative matters and others are not.
But our work should be serious, responsible and punctual, and if we are unable to make progress on a specific matter at a certain time, we should explain why that is, or why we think we have to resort to a Green Paper.
Mr Fayot, you referred to the concentration of resources, and pluralism. That is not a matter for which I am directly responsible as Commissioner, but as a member of the College, it is my concern.
You are absolutely right.
The previous Commission raised this matter and issued a Green Paper, which produced a series of responses.
And I can tell you, the responses were extremely mixed.
At that time we were unable to judge them.
The Delors Commission was about to end.
We did not know what to do.
A new Commission was formed and Mr Monti arrived.
He produced a new Green Paper, to which the responses were again not clear.
Although the responses from the sector and the social groups were insufficiently clear, Mr Monti nevertheless put a proposal to the College of Commissioners.
We held a very long debate to discuss the matter, but at the end of the debate the College's position was not clear.
Mr Monti decided it needed more thought, and I think he was right.
You believe we have been thinking about it for too long.
Well, I think a delay of a few more months does not matter if we get it right in the end.
As you know, the matter you have raised is extremely difficult, and affects many sectors.
One thing at stake is what the concentration of resources means, and what the consequences may be for the people of Europe. There is also the question of what it means to operate a true market economy, and what difficulties there are in acquiring the actions which may perhaps allow that agreement finally to be reached, and how to safeguard interests.
It is a very serious problem.
Well, that is one of the issues, and I am sure that we will soon have a debate in the Commission, reach a solution, and put that solution to Parliament. I cannot tell you exactly when that will happen, but I am sure it will not take long because I have seen how deeply Mr Monti is studying the matter.
I want you to know that we get extremely involved in these matters, and I think a greater degree of transparency can be achieved by changing the method.
I think that where we have made mistakes has been with the method, and therefore we must improve the method we use in the future.
I also want to address another of the issues raised here: the question of proposals being blocked.
My comment is this.
Firstly, it is true that there are a lot of matters with the Council, but not everything with the Council is being blocked.
It is likely that we may be able to withdraw some of the matters which are currently with the Council. That is the Commission's right; the right to withdraw is one of the consequences of our right of initiative.
The reason for withdrawing these matters is that they are obsolete.
Other matters are currently in an information phase, and yet others are soon to be voted on in Council.
In any case, I want to assure you that we are going to keep a special watch on these matters.
I realize that Parliament is particularly concerned about this, and therefore I will give you a reply at the appropriate time, and I hope we will soon be able to hold a meeting to examine the list of matters still to be dealt with.
I do not propose to say much more, but there is something I want to say to Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, I understand your particular concern about that subject.
As you know, I have already spent a lot of time with your committee, when you asked me many questions about institutional matters, for which I was responsible at the time.
It was not easy, but I came out of it pretty well.
However, as regards the matter you have raised - which is very important - we are awaiting the results of the conference organized by the European Parliament and the Commission on 3 and 4 November last year - at the moment we are analysing the consequences of that meeting.
So you think we should have done it already? Well, sometimes we are a bit slow, but we are reliable.
Therefore, you can rest assured that we are going to study it in depth.
We also wanted to know the conclusions of the BSE investigation, and we now have that.
In a way, we also wanted to know what was happening with the European Council in Luxembourg.
So I have made a note of your concern.
Next time, I think you will be entitled to get angry, but please do not lose your temper this time. Please wait, because next time I will be able to give you more categorical answers.
There were a lot of other speeches.
I want to mention one or two, for example Mr Dimitrakopoulos' speech.
I agree that we need to prepare properly for our actions in the area of foreign policy.
I believe what is currently being prepared should be put into operation immediately.
We will see how the planning cell works.
It is one of the results of Amsterdam.
The new Treaty of Amsterdam has not yet come into force, but the planning cell could nevertheless be put into operation before that happens.
As for Mr Fantuzzi's speech, I agree with his interesting comments on agricultural policy and the role of subsidiarity.
Mr Frischenschlager's comment about institutional reform and the extent to which the institutions can affect enlargement is a question about which I am particularly concerned.
There is a very important point in the resolution approved by this House on 19 November - I think it is point No 20 - concerning Parliament's demand that the Commission should present proposals and report to the European Council to be held in Vienna in 1998.
I think this is a really important and significant matter.
If you will allow me to use a very Spanish expression, what we must not do is let the bull catch us, as has happened to date - in Maastricht and Amsterdam.
In other words, we must not allow events to overtake us in such a way that, in the end, we do not have enough time left.
We cannot always wait until the last minute, run out of time, and put it off.
We cannot allow the Community's method to be one of postponement; it has to be a decisive method.
Let us not wait until the day before a new state is due to join - much less until there is to be a twentieth, twenty-first or twenty-second state.
No, let us do it now.
First, let us wait for the treaty to be ratified, which is the important thing.
As you well know, nothing can be taken for granted - neither bad things nor good.
So let us wait now for the treaty to be ratified, and as soon as that has been done, we will set to work.
If you have charged the Commission with doing something, the Commission will do it.
And we are going to try to reach an agreement between the Commission and Parliament - and involve the Council too - and try to resolve once and for all this institutional question to which you have drawn attention, without being pressured into it by a new state's final negotiations for membership of the Community.
Well, those are some of the things I wanted to say to you.
I also want to say, on the subject of Mr Schulz's speech, that the Commission's commitment to democracy is very clear.
I think everything that has been done goes to prove that commitment, especially the Intergovernmental Conference, and the Commission's proposals on citizenship, which is not often spoken about - but should be.
Citizenship was one of the subjects to benefit most from the Intergovernmental Conference, along with codecision.
Let us attempt to go further.
We are going to try to do so.
Turning now to Mr Böge, I want to assure him that I have taken note of his proposals.
I do not think this is the right time to reopen the debate on some of the matters which have been raised in relation to the third pillar.
However, I do believe that the Treaty of Amsterdam has given us a margin there, and we must see how we can stimulate it.
The most important thing - or one of the most important - is the free movement of persons. We know we must perfect that, and we have a procedure by which to do it.
The result of Amsterdam is not what I would have liked to have seen; I would have preferred the step to be taken in three years rather than five, and I would prefer it to be by majority rather than unanimity.
But that is what the Community is like, and has always been like.
It is never completely satisfactory.
However, I think we have been shown a way forward, and we are going to try to do it. I hope that together, Parliament and the Commission will be able to continue to make progress, once and for all, towards building a Europe truly based on justice and solidarity.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.30 a.m..
Investment firms and credit institutions
The next item is the report (A4-0380/97) by Mr Cassidy, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 93/6/EEC on the capital adequacy of investment firms and credit institutions (COM(97)0071 - C4-0304/97-97/0124(COD))
Mr President, this proposal on the capital adequacy directive is a revision of a 1993 directive and that directive in turn was made necessary in order that the European Community, as it then was, should be able to take advantage of the universal rules which were agreed by the Committee on Banking Supervision in Basle.
When this House considered the 1993 directive, we were aware that other elements would be required in due course to keep up to date with technical progress, but I do not think we anticipated that technical progress would be quite as rapid as it has been.
Indeed, the rapid change in the financial services industry has required an updating of the capital adequacy rules to enable financial institutions to calculate something called value at risk, using computer models.
Under the 1993 directive, computer models are not allowed to be used.
Under the amendments to the Basle rules and under the amendment to the 1993 directive which we are considering today, they will be.
However, there was a further obligation imposed on the Commission and Parliament back in 1993, which was to draw up rules to deal with commodities and derivatives, and those have required some substantial changes to the 1993 directive.
We have all been working under conditions of some difficulty because the new Basle rules come into force on 1 January next year, in other words in two weeks' time.
One of our principal objectives in the Commission, Parliament and, indeed, the Council is to try to ensure that our amendment to the 1993 directive can be brought into force as quickly as possible in order not to place European Union financial institutions at a disadvantage compared with their competitors in Japan, the United States, Switzerland, Korea, Indonesia etc. assuming that there are still banks in places like Japan, Korea, etc. which are in a fit state to do anything at all.
Nonetheless, we have to safeguard the position of our own financial institutions.
Turning to the question of derivatives and commodities, when the Commission proposal was originally brought forward, a problem presented itself in that the Commission's original proposal required commodities firms to modernize their systems so as to be able to use computer models by 31 December 1999 - a significant date because it is the date of the millennium, but also because it is the date by which some countries are trying to get themselves organized for the single currency.
It has become apparent that there is going to be a desperate shortage of suitably qualified IT personnel, not only in the European Union but in other parts of the world.
As rapporteur, my original thought was to suggest an extension of that deadline to 31 December 2002.
However, I have discovered that the Council has been prepared to be rather more generous than that, and Amendment No 19, which will be voted on tomorrow in the name of the PPE and other political groups, and its accompanying Amendment No 20, will help to adjust the positions of commodities and derivatives firms.
I, as rapporteur, am but the humble servant of the committee and I have to leave decisions on Amendments Nos 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20 to the wisdom of the House.
But if I might presume to guide the House, I have to say that I hope it will see its way to supporting Amendments Nos 19, 20 and 16.
Some of the others may possibly have been withdrawn.
Having said all that, we do not have a great deal of time to spare on this.
I am hopeful that when we come to vote on this report tomorrow, it will go through, if not unanimously, at least with a significant majority in favour, so that Commission and Council can then move as quickly as possible to a common position, thus enabling us to give it a second reading and putting European Union financial institutions on a par with their competitors elsewhere in the world.
I am very sorry about this but we are going to have to stop the debate at this point and resume it at 9 o'clock this evening.
It is not in my hands.
The Vice-President who is taking Question Time wants to start Question Time at 5.30 p.m.
We have the honour of having the President-in-Office with us, so it is only appropriate we should start on time.
Mr Wijsenbeek wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, this really is a point of order.
I think this is a highly unsatisfactory way of doing things here in this Parliament.
This is the second time today that a debate has been interrupted somewhere in the middle, with full appreciation for the Luxembourg Presidency which worked so incredibly hard during the past six months.
But you cannot let the rapporteur begin, send for the Commissioner, make sure all speakers are present and then after the introduction say that the debate is now suspended and will resume tonight at 9 p.m.
Could you please delete my name from the list; I think this is an unsatisfactory way of doing things, and I hold the Bureau responsible, which, as so often, simply does what it feels like.
Thank you, Mr Wijsenbeek, but I must remind you that we have approved an agenda - all of us - and in that agenda it says that Question Time to the Council begins at 5.30 p.m. today.
Therefore, Mr Wijsenbeek, I am making sure that we keep precisely to what was approved by this House.
Furthermore, Mr Wijsenbeek, you are a well-known member of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities - as I know for a fact - and you are aware that there is a section of that committee which also determines how this Parliament operates as regards Question Time.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-1002/97).
First of all, allow me to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Juncker, and thank him for being here today.
We greatly appreciate his presence here, but I should also like to mention how valuable it has been to have the Secretary of State, Mr Wohlfart, with us.
I should have liked to have wished him a Happy Christmas and New Year. Mr Juncker, please be kind enough to pass that message on to him, and also thank him for having attended Question Time during the Luxembourg Presidency.
Question No 1 by Paul Rübig (H-0832/97)
Subject: Dismissal of a secondary school teacher in Slovakia for encouraging use of the minority Hungarian language
The efforts being made by Slovakia in the economic sphere in order to become a member country of the European Union are to be welcomed.
However, the worsening conflict between the Slovakian Government and the Hungarian minority, which is now spreading to education, is all the more disturbing.
Teachers and head teachers are being dismissed for what are clearly political reasons.
This situation mainly concerns Hungarian schools in the bilingual region.
Mr Alexander Tóth, for example, a Hungarian secondary school teacher, was dismissed on 30 June 1997.
The headmasters of two Hungarian schools, Mr Gyula Popélyy and Mr Peter Kovács, were dismissed in October 1997.
All three had issued their pupils with two-language reports.
Can the Council of Ministers representative say whether the Council is aware of these incidents and how it intends to respond?
Mr President, I am told that this is the first time that a Prime Minister has taken part in this exercise of questions and answers.
I am doing it firstly because I like the European Parliament a lot, but above all because Mr Wohlfart is not here.
Mr Wohlfart, my Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs who, I am told, normally represents the Presidency brilliantly, cannot be with us because he has been involved in a car accident.
It is not a serious one, but my government members still do not know how to keep to the road when there is black ice.
Consequently, Mr Wohlfart has become a victim of the carelessness which characterises the conduct of affairs in Luxembourg.
I would now like to give the awaited reply following Mr Rübig's question, to say that the Council deplores the incidents described in the question he has put.
I would like to remind you all of the importance the Council gives to respect for the political criteria of Copenhagen on the part of all countries with a European vocation.
It is with this in mind that the Council acknowledges the Slovakian Parliament's declaration of 10 October 1997 and the joint declaration of the Slovakian President and Prime Minister on 17 October 1997, declarations which it considers to be a first constructive step towards a solution of the open questions regarding Slovakia.
It is equally a question, in this case, of the beginnings of a reply to the recommendations drawn up by the joint parliamentary committee between the European Union and Slovakia.
Regarding treatment of the Hungarian minority in particular, the Council has noted the Slovakian government's memorandum on the use of minority languages, whilst hoping that this initiative will be shortly followed by a specific law governing the different aspects of this question in its entirety.
The Council has similarly noted with satisfaction the recommendations directed at the Slovakian government by the joint parliamentary committee's session of 25th and 26 November 1997, inviting it to prepare, in cooperation with European Union experts, the relevant legislation in order to find a solution to the problem of minority languages within national territory.
The European Union is resolved to help all associated countries to satisfy the criteria drawn up in Copenhagen.
In this context, it has not ceased to encourage the Slovakian Republic to put to good use the time lapse in order to remove the remaining obstacles which stand in its path to full membership of the European Union, whilst hoping that it may be possible to reach, by the same time, a just solution to the problems of the minority in question.
Mr President, first I would like to thank Prime Minister Juncker very much.
I think that it is exemplary that you are available to Parliament here in person for questions.
I believe - and I would like to emphasize this explicitly to this audience, because we were very glad about it - the Council has followed Parliament's line and not mentioned the word Slovakia explicitly.
Nevertheless we should do everything so that the criteria which are very important for us are fulfilled there.
The first problem is the minority question.
The second is the question of Mr Gaulider, the member of parliament, and I believe that we on the European side cannot emphasize too much that the Gaulider question must be solved.
We know that that is related to President Kovác and with the elections in the autumn, and my question is: Do you believe that the European Union has an opportunity to solve this Gaulider case before the elections in Slovakia?
Mr President, first I would like to thank you very much for being here, and also ask you to pass on our best wishes to your colleague for his recovery as soon as possible, because he has really done outstanding work here.
I only wanted to put one question about your previous answer: One of Meciar's main arguments is always, in all his speeches, that he recognizes only individual rights and not collective rights.
Do you intend to emphasize as much as possible that precisely minority questions depend above all on collective rights, and not individual rights? That is always the way in which Mr Meciar tries to avoid a definite answer.
Mr von Habsburg, minority rights cannot be individualized.
Minority rights are rights of a particular population group.
In our conversations in Slovakia, and subsequent conversations with Slovakia, we always pointed to Hungary, Romania, but particularly Hungary, to make clear how we think that minority problems should be handled, or rather minority questions - I much prefer the term minority questions to minority problems, because minorities are not problems, they just raise questions.
We have always pointed to the Hungarian example to show how we think minority questions should be handled, and I believe that the Slovakian leadership is very aware of this.
Question No 2 by Jens-Peter Bonde (H-0856/97)
Subject: Registration of individuals in the Schengen Information System
Can the Member States and/or the Council of Ministers say how many individuals with Danish residence or nationality are registered in the Schengen Information System for the various main categories under which individuals, objects etc. are registered and will the Member States respect the Danish ban on registering lawful political activity in their own files and in those they hold in common?
I will say to Mr Bonde that the Schengen Agreement and the convention regarding the implementation of the Schengen Agreement were concluded at an intergovernmental level between certain members of the European Union.
These agreements do not therefore for the moment come under the jurisdiction of the Council properly speaking, and the honourable gentleman's question should rather be put to the authorities of the Schengen Agreement.
Mr President, this morning, I thanked the Presidency of the Council for having been so impartial for half a year, and today I would like to thank the Minister of State for coming here and answering questions at question time in person.
And I would also like to thank him for having given me an answer.
But I obviously cannot, as it will be given by the Schengen information system.
So I would like to ask instead whether the Chairman of the Council has considered how we can balance certainty in law against political effectiveness in the records in Schengen and the AIS system which will replace the Schengen system under Europol.
My suggestion to the Chairman of the Council would be that a rule be introduced whereby, if suspicions no longer exist, the person suspected is sent the information recorded or that, if this cannot be done because of investigations, that information should be given to an independent control authority so that there is always certainty that having suspicions about someone is taken very seriously.
To reply to Mr Bonde's question, I will simply say that he must be aware that this relates to highly confidential matters; I am talking of the questions to which he is directly referring.
It is clear that integration of the points to which he has referred into the Schengen information system takes place only by demand of a judicial authority.
As his question relates directly to the treatment of Danish nationals and residents, I suggest that he puts this question to the Danish Parliament, where all the replies could be provided for him.
Amongst my youth's ambitions was that of one day being able to speak in front of the Danish Parliament.
If the Danish Government was in agreement to authorize me to reply to this very question that you will formulate for the Danish Parliament, I would be extremely pleased and honoured to be able to reply to you on behalf of the Danish Government.
But I do not know if, speaking on behalf of the Danish Government, I would be able to give you a satisfactory response.
I would like to say that I think this is a very important debate, because the Schengen material will probably become EC law in the near future.
People often talk of the advantages of the Schengen Agreement, but people must also be able to discuss how it works in practice.
In the Schengen Information System there is at least a possibility of asking to see your personal information in the SIS database.
What concerns me most is the confusion about SIRENE, that is the database which lies behind the Schengen Information System, where there is authority to provide much more sensitive personal information than is allowed to be done from the SIS database.
Does the Council of Ministers think we are going to need to tighten the supervision of the SIRENE database and the information which is provided there so that we shall have a control authority, as in the SIS database, if it is integrated into EC law.
Thank you, Mr Sjöstedt.
Mr Juncker, I do not know whether, in your youth, you ever dreamed you were a Member of the Swedish Parliament, but even if you did, I invite you to reply to Mr Sjöstedt's question.
My childhood dreams concerned only the Danish Parliament.
It was not my ambition to one day be able to address any more than one Scandinavian parliament.
As for the rest, personally, I will say that I understand perfectly the fears which can arise from the problems we are now mentioning.
For my part I would not exclude the fact that it would be wise to search for a suitable ways and means to organize things in order to achieve a real mastery of these problems.
I see no problem in continuing our common reflection in this regard.
I perfectly understand the worries that underlie the questions being put to us, but you will understand that I cannot give a ready made reply from the Council.
A dream may well become a nightmare, and I can say that people in Scandinavia regard joining Schengen as containing a number of potential nightmares.
The Chairman of the Council is correct in saying that the development which Jonas Sjöstedt touched on in his question has not happened yet, but it is a question of time if Schengen law becomes EU law, i.e. is integrated in the European legal system.
And, given that there are absolutely fatal problems of certainty in law about personal records, passing on and checking names, as the report which was published in the Spring shows, one might of course think that the Council has had some thoughts (now that it has been resolved to integrate the Schengen system) on how to resolve these problems of certainty in law, which are undoubtedly of a highly fundamental nature.
My question to the Chairman of the Council is whether such analyses and considerations exist.
Schengen is a mechanism that was invented to fight against criminality.
It is not a system which has been put in place to control citizens, their opinions or their convictions.
Indeed, we forget that Schengen is a mechanism set up to fight criminality more effectively and that its results are very often convincing.
I am not excluding some lack of control and I would like us to concentrate our thoughts on the means that we could put in place to avoid this.
We must make a distinction between the principle of Schengen and a number of exceptional failures which it may have given rise to, and which must be avoided at all cost.
Question No 3 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0863/97)
Subject: The associated countries of the Maghreb and "European voluntary service for young people' (OJ C 302 of 3.10.97)
The programme is intended to step up cooperation with third countries with which the Community has signed association agreements, and as regards the participation of the associated countries, it is open to the countries of central and eastern Europe; one of the purposes of the project is to provide Community young people with experience of contacts with other cultures in an intercultural context.
Could the Council investigate the possibility of opening up participation in this programme to the partner countries of the Maghreb which have signed a euro Mediterranean Association Agreement, i.e. Tunisia and Morocco? What might the timetable for this be?
Article 5 of the draft common position approved by the Council during its session on 28 October 1997 clearly states the countries to which participation in this programme is open. It says, "European voluntary service for youth' .
The associated countries of the Maghreb, who have concluded an agreement with the European Union, do not figure amongst the countries stated.
However, amongst the specific objectives of the programme, recorded in article 2, paragraph 2, appears the intensification of youth participation in transnational activities of community service within the Community, or in third countries, in particular those with which the Community has concluded cooperation agreements.
Completing this, paragraph 3 of the same article stipulates that support of transnational community service activities of a short or long duration within the Community, or in a third country, is one of the main actions of the programme.
Similarly, section 2 of the annex of the draft common position anticipates the active participation, in third countries, of young people residing legally in a Member State in activities which contribute to solving the needs of the society likely to have a direct effect on the well-being of the populations of the host communities.
It follows from this that, at the time of implementing the programme, projects anticipated in one of the countries mentioned in the question could, of course, be considered.
Judging by the tone and political attitude of the reply given by the President-in-Office of the Council, I assume he said yes.
However, I do not understand it, because in fact, in the Commission proposal published in the Official Journal on 3 October 1997, it is envisaged that the countries of central and eastern Europe and third countries would benefit and participate in this way, but not the associated countries of the Maghreb.
I should like him to state precisely whether, as President-in-Office of the Council, he would be in favour of the associated countries of the Maghreb being able to participate in this voluntary service programme, in two ways: firstly, young Europeans being able to do service in these countries, and secondly, the associated countries of the Maghreb being able to participate in the programme in their own right.
The Council could come to the agreement that you wish as long as it is submitted to a Commission proposal which moves in this direction.
Mr President, I only have quite a short question.
In the case of such a fundamental expansion, would the Council also be prepared to increase resources for this programme correspondingly?
If the Council was able to associate itself with a proposal made to it by the Commission, it would really have to be interested in making the relevant monetary resources available, in the context of a coherent interpretation of what the Commission would propose.
But as there is no such proposal by the Commission, we are in a very hypothetical question and answer game here.
Question No 4 by Gerard Collins (H-0865/97)
Subject: Agri-tourism
Does the Council accept that agri-tourism can play a significant role in developing the economies of rural areas and will the Council instruct the Commission to put forward measures designed to assist the further development of the agri-tourism sector in the context of the Union's tourism and rural development policies?
As the honourable gentleman himself highlights in his question, tourism can contribute to the economic development of rural areas of the European Union, given that economic development of rural areas is traditionally linked to agricultural development.
The Council shares Mr Collin's opinion that rural tourism offers possibilities which, judiciously exploited, are of a nature which will increase well-being and create jobs in these areas.
The Council attaches a particular importance to the qualitative improvement of supply in the rural tourism sector.
Such a step is likely to benefit the development of the areas in question.
In this context, the Council would like to remind you of its decision 92/421 concerning a Community action plan for tourism.
Finally, it should be noted that rural tourism plays an important role in the Community's cohesion policy.
In this regard, it is useful to underline the fact that, within the framework of the structural funds and the Leader 2 Community initiative, according to the most recent estimates, 40 % of the budget of ECU 1, 750 million anticipated for this will be allocated to projects aimed at developing rural tourism.
I just wish to record my thanks and appreciation to the Prime Minister for his very extensive and comprehensive reply.
Mr President, I have the following question: As far as agricultural tourism is concerned, we in Austria have a rather special situation, since we have a very large percentage of farmers for whom farming is a secondary occupation.
I know that this cannot be applied to the whole European Union, but that it is an argument which very much supports this agricultural tourism.
Would you consider it possible either to provide these part-time farmers with special support for agricultural tourism or to support these farmers, who live in a very special situation, from the agricultural side, so that they can commit themselves more strongly here?
Yes!
I am very pleased that Mr Habsburg-Lothringen kept his question so short; he did not use up the minute he was entitled to. I am also very pleased that the President-in-Office of the Council is being so concise.
It makes the work of our interpreters much easier.
Question No 5 by Sören Wibe (H-0868/97)
Subject: EU relations with Israel and Palestine
The Israeli government has committed serious breaches of the peace agreements it concluded with the Palestinian State.
In so doing it has jeopardized peace throughout the Middle East.
Ought not the Council to respond by imposing sanctions against the State of Israel and, for instance, consider breaking off the trade agreements which the EU has signed with Israel?
The situation in the Middle East is a complex one and the Council does not believe that measures such as those suggested would contribute to an end to the impasse in the region.
The best reply that I can give to you is to return to the Presidency's conclusions published at the end of the European Council held in Luxembourg on 12th and 13th December.
These conclusions demonstrate once more that the European Union is determined to make a concrete and positive contribution to the peace process.
Thank you for you answer Prime Minister Juncker.
As far as the relationship with Israel is concerned, the situation is still that we have repeatedly adopted resolutions in which we have criticized Israel's breaches of the peace agreement in fairly strong terms.
These resolutions have clearly had no effect whatsoever.
Is it not so, that the only language Israel understands is if we resort to concrete sanctions, such as in the economic area? It is also so that Israel as a State imposes hard economic sanctions against the Palestinians by, for example, obstructing their export of flowers to the Union.
I would like once more, at the risk of being boring, to ask whether it is not time for us to begin to consider concrete economic sanctions against Israel.
I will tomorrow be meeting, in Luxembourg, the Israeli Prime Minister, and on Friday, President Arafat.
I will have the opportunity of discussing with both representatives the problems to which you are referring, but I will not threaten the Israeli Prime Minister with sanctions during these meetings.
I do not believe that this is the method we should employ with regard to the State of Israel.
We need discussions, not threats.
I entirely agree with what the President-in-Office of the Council has just told us twice, and I should like to ask him if he thinks there is any way of clearly defining, in black and white, what we are always referring to as the spirit of Oslo. I ask this particularly, having read very carefully the text approved by the European Council in Luxembourg.
I am familiar with the Oslo written agreements, but I am always hearing people talk about violating the spirit of Oslo and I have still not found anywhere a single written reference to the spirit of Oslo.
I would like to know if the Council would be able to undertake this interesting intellectual task.
I think the details requested by Mr Robles Piquer must, indeed, be given.
It is sometimes extravagant to see with what luxurious detail we try to surround vague notions such as "the spirit of...' , in this case "the spirit of Oslo' .
In fact, we know to what, in general, we are referring when we evoke the spirit of which you speak.
I will tomorrow have the chance to contribute in a modest way to the search for the spirit which is, it seems to me, a little lost.
Question No 6 by Karl Habsburg-Lothringen (H-0873/97)
Subject: Electoral law in Gibraltar
What does the Council propose to do with regard to the law in Gibraltar on elections to the European Parliament? Is it acceptable for EU citizens there to be denied this elementary right on the grounds that Gibraltar would be too small a constituency, thus creating first- and second-class EU citizens?
Would the Council consider enabling EU citizens of Gibraltar to cast their vote in or for another EU country, if they are unable to do so through the UK?
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen undoubtedly knows that Annex II of the Act of 20 September 1976 relating to the election of representatives to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage anticipates that the United Kingdom will apply the measures of the Act in question only with regard to the United Kingdom, that is to the exclusion of Gibraltar, which is not part of the United Kingdom.
The 1976 Act was adopted on the basis of article 138, paragraph 3, of the Treaty setting up the European Economic Community, on the basis of a project drawn up by the European Parliament, which made no mention of the particular situation of Gibraltar.
Nor would the Council be able to extend, by its wish alone, the application of the 1993 directive on the exercising of voting rights and eligibility for the European Parliament, which refers to the 1976 Act, to enable the citizens of the United Kingdom resident in Gibraltar to vote in European parliamentary elections in a Member State where, hypothetically, they do not reside.
Indeed, the 1993 directive is based on article 8b, paragraph 2, of the Treaty, whose application is limited to European Union citizens resident in a Member State of which they are not nationals only.
Mr President, the fact is that I have received the proposal for a law concerning a voting right for Gibraltar from the British House of Commons, but only after I put this question - I did not know about it before.
I have heard that it is not the first proposal.
Other proposals have already been rejected.
But here there was the opinion that this proposal of 1July of this year had a better chance.
I do not know how that can be combined with that.
Furthermore, the legal situation - looking at Gibraltar today - is rather divided, if you take on one side the Peñón and on the other the isthmus, because the Peñón practically belongs to England according to the Treaty of Utrecht, whereas in the case of the isthmus there is some dispute about who it belongs to, even if it is now quite clearly under British administration.
As the author is not present, Question No 7 lapses.
Question No 8 by John Cushnahan (H-0878/97)
Subject: European Food Agency
Can the Luxembourg Presidency inform me whether the Council is prepared to give its support to the Commission's proposal to establish a European Food Agency?
I am sorry to have to say that the Commission has currently submitted no proposal to the Council regarding the creation of a European Food Agency.
As soon as it has been submitted, it goes without saying that the Council will as quickly as possible proceed to examine the text in depth and when the time comes will take a decision in full knowledge of the reason and by virtue of the Commission's proposal's own merits.
Mr President, thank you for your courtesy in allowing me to ask a question.
I do appreciate that I arrived just as you were moving on and I also thank Mr Juncker for his answer.
I have taken note of what you said regarding the Commission proposal.
I understood that it was before the Council.
I will check that but can I ask (and I do not expect you to give a formal answer) whether - maybe when it does come before the Council - the Luxembourg Government will support such a proposal and whether maybe it is something, as you go out of your presidency, that you will pressurize the next presidency about? Can I congratulate you on a successful presidency?
You certainly moved the European agenda forward.
I repeat that it is the Luxembourg government's custom to study Commission proposals before being able to support them.
Our support is not a support in principle.
We only take a decision after having read and examined the proposal.
Question No 9 by Carlos Robles Piquer (H-0882/97)
Subject: Request by thousands of Cuban citizens for a plebiscite
More than ten thousand clearly identified Cuban citizens resident in Cuba have now signed a letter addressed to the President of the National Assembly of People's Power of the Republic of Cuba respectfully requesting, in accordance with article 88(g) of the 1976 Constitution, that a plebiscite be held to consult the people on whether they wish to amend the Constitution to the effect that it would guarantee freedom of expression, freedom of association, pluralism and the election of the government through a direct, free and secret ballot.
According to Amnesty International (AMR 25/29/97/S) the first 12 signatories were visited by the police, who warned them that they were risking long prison sentences.
What information can the Council provide on this initiative, the Cuban Government's response and the likelihood, in its view, that a petition lodged in accordance with the Cuban Constitution might be accepted and acted on?
I would like to draw Mr Robles Piquer's attention to the fact that in Cuba at the moment there are not one, but two different initiatives aimed at gathering 10, 000 signatures asking for the organization of a referendum.
Indeed, these actions are based on article 88G of the current Cuban Constitution of 1976 which, in particular, grants a legislative initiative to citizens as long as 10, 000 signatures have been gathered.
At this stage, according to our information, the figure demanded by the Cuban Constitution has not yet been reached by either of the two initiatives.
In any case, the Council remains sceptical as to their chances of success since democratic pluralism does not exist on this island.
It is furthermore illustrated by article 62 of the said constitution which states that none of the recognized liberties of the people may be exercised to the detriment of the principles established in the Constitution and its laws, of the existence of the objectives of the Socialist state and of the decision of the Cuban people to build socialism and communism.
Any breach of this principle is punishable.
In this context the Council would like to remind you that the Union, in its relations with Cuba, is implementing a policy defined in a common position of 2 December 1996 aimed, particularly, at encouraging a process of peaceful transition towards democratic pluralism and respect for human rights and basic liberties.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
The information I have is not entirely consistent with yours.
I believe at least one of the two initiatives has already exceeded the figure of 10, 000 signatures, by means of worthy effort and great personal risk.
However, even if it has not yet reached that number, there is no doubt that it will do so reasonably soon.
So, my supplementary question is whether, despite the awful wording of that terrible article 62 which has been read to us and which is, of course, a proclamation of absolute totalitarianism, there is anything the Council can do to try to persuade the Cuban authorities simply to comply with their own constitution, which they themselves - Fidel Castro - approved.
I believe that once that figure of 10, 000 signatures has been reached - and as I said, if that has not yet happened then it soon will - there will have to be some effort, on the part of the Council and the official embassies there, to persuade the Cuban Government to comply with its own constitution.
I do not doubt that the Council will be able to act in the way indicated by the honourable gentleman.
Mr President, thank you for your clear statement.
We have not always heard such clear statements in this Chamber on this subject, and I also thank you for what the Council has defined not long ago as the common attitude on this question.
But I wanted to ask additionally, what about efforts to form treaty relationships with Cuba - even membership of the ACP has been mentioned - and what part is played by questions of human rights and freedom of belief and conscience in this context.
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
I am sure you realize that your supplementary question is well outside the scope of Mr Robles Piquer's original question.
Therefore, it is up to Mr Juncker whether he replies or not.
Mr Juncker, the floor is yours, to use as you see fit.
Mr President, the Council defined its Cuba policy in the common statement of 2 December 1996.
The questions which you have raised will have to be answered in the context of the implementation of what was said there.
Question No 10 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0887/97)
Subject: Abolition of the teaching of ancient Greek in France
According to information from the French Association of Language Teachers, the National Union of Secondary School Teachers and the Toulouse Regional Classics Teaching Association, moves are being made by the French Minister of Education, Claude Allegre, to abolish the teaching of ancient Greek as part of the educational reforms scheduled for the beginning of 1998.
Ancient Greek is currently taught to 1.9 % of pupils in certain secondary school classes while Latin is taught to 25.4 %.
Despite reassurances from the Minister of Education, these rumours are still giving cause for concern.
While educational curricula are the responsibility of the Member States, action to improve the teaching of European languages is one of the priorities of the European Union.
What representations will the Council of Ministers make to the French Government, which is itself engaged in an intense campaign ( "Francophonie' ) in favour of the French language in other countries?
As Mr Alavanos states, responsibility for the content of education and the organization of an education system remain within the jurisdiction of Member States.
In accordance with the relevant article of the treaty, the Community contributes to the development of a quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, by supporting and completing their actions, whilst fully respecting their responsibilities.
Furthermore article 126 of the treaty states, in paragraph 2, that Community action aims at developing the European dimension in education, in particular by apprenticeships and the diffusion of the languages of the Member States.
It should be noted that this relates to the spoken languages of the Member States and not dead languages.
In the absence of a Commission proposal, the Council would not be able to adopt the actions of encouragement in this area that the honourable gentleman has mentioned.
It is furthermore not for the Council to intervene in the content and organization of the education system of a Member State.
I consequently fear that the Council is hardly in a position to undertake any step that may be contrary to the French government regarding the teaching of ancient Greek in French schools.
Mr President, I would like to thank President Juncker for his reply.
It is a reply within his terms of reference.
I would however like to ask him the following question: does he not believe that ancient, perhaps unspoken, languages such as ancient Greek or Latin, are part of the heritage of the European Union that we are in the process of constructing? Is our heritage simply what is to be found in museums or in certain buildings?
Is not part of our cultural tradition just these languages, which play a fundamental role in European culture today?
Does he not think that they should be supported throughout Europe?
How does he react to the Greek proposal for the creation of a Centre of Classical Studies in the European Union?
I await the replies of the President with great interest.
Having spent seven years of my life studying Latin, I would like to believe that the teaching of dead languages enables a better comprehension of the integrality of European cultural heritage.
Question No 11 by Bernd Posselt (H-0890/97)
Subject: Autonomous status for Kosovo
What steps has the Luxembourg Presidency taken to reinstate Kosovo's autonomous status, which was unlawfully withdrawn in 1988?
The oppression of Kosovo's Albanian majority, which accounts for 90 % of the population, must under no circumstances be trivialized and dismissed as a "minority problem' . Is the Council considering sending international observers, or even peace-keeping forces, to Kosovo, and what means are being used to exert pressure on Belgrade so that it finally agrees to the opening of a European Union office in Prishtina, particularly in view of the fact that the United States has had such an office for a long time?
The Council continues to give a high priority to the problem of Kosovo.
In its declaration of 9 April 1996 on recognition, by Member States of the European Union, of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the European Union declared that from then on the development of good relations with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the place of this country within the international community would depend on the adoption by the FRY of a constructive attitude, in particular with regard to the full respect for human rights, rights of minorities and the right of return for all refugees or displaced people as well as the granting to Kosovo of a large degree of autonomy within the FRY.
The position that I have just stated has been repeated many times, in particular by the European Council at its meetings of 13 and 14 December 1996 in Dublin, 16 and 17 June 1997 at Amsterdam, as well as by the Council on 29 April 1997 and, more recently, in its declaration of 10 November of this year aimed at the population of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In particular in its conclusions of 29 April 1997, on the application of conditionality for relations between the European Union and the countries of the region, the Council linked the development of relations between the European Union and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to conditions both general and specific.
Thus, general assistance within the Phare programme requires that the FRY makes a credible offer with a view to initiating real dialogue on the status of Kosovo.
The opening of possible negotiations regarding a possible cooperation agreement will depend in particular on the existence of real dialogue with the Albanians of Kosovo on the status of Kosovo, within the borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
One of the conditions for the conclusion of a cooperation agreement is the effective granting of a large degree of autonomy to Kosovo.
Furthermore, the Council has underlined, in particular during its session of 6 October 1997, that the commencement of dialogue between the Belgrade authorities and the Kosovo Albanians is necessary and that all the parties concerned must contribute to this fully and rapidly.
It even insisted on the implementation of the education agreement concluded between Mr Milosevic and Mr Rugova without delay.
The European Union has indicated its intention to support this agreement.
The European Union is asking the Belgrade authorities to allow recourse in the long term to missions of the OSC to Kosovo, Vojvodine and Sandjak and it continues to follow the situation closely, in particular through the ECMM.
To the same end, the European Union intends to open an office in Pristina and it has presented a proposal to the authorities of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
As you know, no resolution of the UN's Security Council has anticipated a peace maintenance force for Kosovo in particular.
Mr President, the problem in Kosovo is simply that because of years of neglect by the international community - by which I do not mean the Luxembourg Council Presidency, which has actually done something - a situation has arisen in which everything threatens to escalate and outbreaks of violence are expected.
Therefore, we must really try, before it is too late, to bring about a political solution, even by pressure.
The Americans have an office in Pristina, and the European Union has been talking about it for years and has no office in Pristina.
The same obviously applies to autonomy.
The autonomy of Kosovo was a constituent part of the constitution of Yugoslavia before it broke up.
We must press for the restoration of this autonomy.
I believe that the attitude which Yugoslavia took at the Petersberg conference in Bonn, that this is an internal affair of Yugoslavia, cannot be accepted simply because we know that there are hundreds of thousands of displaced persons and refugees from Kosovo in the territory of the EU.
My question is therefore: Are further steps planned?
Mr President, I assume that the British Presidency will continue the efforts of the Luxembourg Presidency in this direction.
Question No 12 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0894/97)
Subject: Supervision of the Schengen Information System register
Does the Council of Ministers consider that the Joint Supervisory Authority (JSA), the authority intended to supervise the correct operation of the SIS register, has adequate resources and powers to carry out its work in a satisfactory manner? Does the Council intend to make any changes to the JSA's modus operandi if and when the Schengen Agreement is incorporated into EU law?
Will the supervision of the register within the Schengen Agreement and Europol be carried out by separate authorities even if the Schengen Agreement becomes part of EU law?
The Joint Supervisory Authority was set up by the convention for the purpose of implementing Schengen, more precisely by its article 115.
The JSA is part of the Schengen patrimony.
The Council, at this stage, is not in a position to give an opinion on the functioning of the JSA which comes within the jurisdiction of the Schengen authorities.
The creation of a Joint Supervisory Authority for Europol is anticipated in article 24, paragraph 7 of the convention which set up Europol.
Since January 1996, work has begun in order to draw up its internal regulations, in particular in the light of the work of the European data commissioners.
It is anticipated that the work on a draft text of internal regulations will be finished in the first months of next year.
It is not anticipated at this stage that one supervisory authority alone will cover the SIS and Europol.
Thank you for your reply to the question, and the answer that there are no plans for a joint supervisory authority in connection with Europol.
I think it is important to study the example of the JSA in order to see what problems could be encountered in the case of Europol.
I hold in my hand the first activity report from the authority which is supposed to supervise personal security in the Schengen Information System.
I must say, it makes catastrophic reading.
Among other things the authority has such limited resources that no real inspection can be carried out. For example, it has no offices.
In addition, the authority has been denied access to the central computer located in Schengen in order to be able to carry out the inspection it wants to do.
When some inspecting was done, it was found that there is different information about the same persons in different parts of the Schengen Information System, that it is difficult to find out who has had access to the Information System and has looked for various sensitive pieces of information, that those who have been registered, such as asylum seekers, do not know how to find out whether the information is correct, and that certain Member States use the information in an incorrect way.
A lesson must now be learned from this.
What are we considering doing in the case of Europol so that this is not repeated? What are we considering doing about this when the Schengen Agreement becomes part of EC law?
We believe that this issue will develop in the short term and, when the time comes, the Council will have the possibility of giving the European Parliament all useful information enabling it in particular to exercise, within the limits imposed by the Treaty, its role in the supervision of Community action in this area.
Question No 13 by Maren Günther (H-0896/97)
Subject: Image of the various European countries in the other EU Member States
A negative, superficial and simplistic image of other countries is often conveyed in EU Member States, especially in certain media.
Prompt measures should be taken in schools to counter this tendency.
What steps are being taken to ensure that as objective an image as possible of the various European countries is conveyed in the other Member States?
Are efforts being made in joint bodies (e.g. school book commissions) to reduce prejudice about European neighbours?
The Council has for a long time been sensitive to the concerns mentioned.
Indeed, in its resolution of 1976 which comprised a programme of action in the area of education, one of the important themes of the text was made up of what we at the time called the best opportunities for cultural and professional training for nationals of other Member States of the Community and of non-member countries and their children.
Point 2 of this chapter initiated, amongst other things, studies and works of pedagogic research into the place and importance of the culture of the mother tongue of nationals from other Member States in school programmes.
Since then the Council has continued to give concrete signs of its interest in this issue, whilst acting within a wider perspective than that following from the question.
Thus, through its conclusions of 27 September 1985, the Council introduced the concept of the European dimension into education.
Apart from the promotion of the teaching of foreign languages, its conclusions indicate, as an appropriate measure, the promotion of measures aimed at encouraging contact between pupils of different countries and the development of a European dimension in study programmes, in training and in educational materials.
In the Council resolution of 24 May 1988 on the European dimension of education, the objectives include the need to improve young people's knowledge of historical, cultural, economic, and social aspects of the Community and of its Member States and to make them understand the interest in cooperation of the European Community with other countries of Europe and the world.
In its conclusions of 27 November 1992 on the measures aimed at developing the European dimension in higher education, the Council confirms, in particular, that, to take up the challenge of an increase in the number of students having access to the European dimension, we must now strengthen the integration of this dimension in the policy and the practise of higher education at all levels.
All of this underlines the concrete interest in anchoring the concept of the European dimension in the different educational systems.
It is due to this integration that it should be progressively possible to wipe out the current bad perceptions to which you have referred.
With regard to the specific initiatives referred to, these can only be taken on the basis of proposals in due form from the Commission.
Mr President-in-Office, thank you for the answer.
A short question: Are you satisfied with the results of all these efforts over the decades, as far as the image of the states - above all in the media - is concerned? I am thinking particularly of criticism in the media, in which individual countries are really branded, particularly by young people.
No, Mrs Günther, I am not at all satisfied with what has been achieved!
Question No 14 by Alex Smith (H-0903/97)
Subject: Community policy towards climate change and the use of nuclear fuels
During the most recent Troika discussions on Community policy towards climate change, was there any consideration of the proposals advanced by the European nuclear industry to increase the use of plutonium-uranium mixed oxide (MOX) nuclear fuels in reactors as part of a strategy to reduce CO emission from electricity generation?
The Council is not aware of the proposals formulated by the European nuclear industry to which the honourable gentleman refers in his question.
In any case, I can indicate to you that, in principle, the Council would give all its attention to proposals which may be submitted to it with a view to reducing the greenhouse effect.
It goes without saying that the Council will examine these proposals according to their own merits and without prior assumptions of any kind.
I would lastly like to underline the fact that the Community strategy, with a view to the third conference of contracting parties to the framework convention of the United Nations on climatic change, which took place in Kyoto, has been recorded in the Council conclusions of 16th October 1997.
They are available to Parliament.
Mr President, I am indeed grateful to hear the Council say that it would discuss this with no a priori considerations because there is a downside to the use of MOX fuel.
A report recently issued after a two-year project makes it quite clear that it has a potential for terrorist organizations in the fabrication of nuclear devices with socalled reactor-grade plutonium, the stuff that is being produced at Sellafield and La Hague.
It is made chillingly clear how dangerous this is and obviously the transportation of nuclear fuel is equally dangerous.
Would the Council please obtain a copy of this report and study its implications? It is called "The comprehensive social impact assessment of MOX use in light water reactors' .
I would like to repeat that at this current time the Commission has not submitted a proposal to the Council with regard to this.
Once such a proposal is made, we will give it all the attention which an examination of this question requires.
Question No 15 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0911/97)
Subject: Provocative letter from the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Cem
On 20 October 1997 the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mr Cem, addressed a letter to the Foreign Ministers of all EU Member States which not only contains a large number of inaccuracies and allegations against Greece, but also basically threatens the EU with war in Cyprus if this country goes ahead with plans to station the S-300 missile defence system in areas still untouched by Turkish rapacity.
The same letter provocatively states that, even if negotiations are initiated with Turkey concerning EU accession, the problem of Cyprus will still not be solved.
Will the Council give its official view on this matter, given that Turkey is pursuing its attacks with undiminished vigour against the EU, a Member State (Greece) and Cyprus and denying the latter country the right to accede to the Union and to protect itself from unrelenting Turkish expansionism?
I have spoken about this issue three times today.
Consequently, I will refer the author of this question to the three replies I gave during the course of today's debates.
Mr Juncker, indeed you are right since the question was tabled before the Luxembourg session, and is therefore somewhat out-of-date.
This morning I have listened to the whole of the debate and to your replies, but I wish to avail myself of the opportunity to ask you if have heard about the interview given just two hours ago in Brussels by Mr Gilmaz, who said that he is giving the European Union six months' grace to revise its position, otherwise Turkey will revise its own position in respect of customs union.
Secondly, if you have heard of yesterday's statement by Mr Denktash in Brussels, who asked the representative of the Commission in northern Cyprus to leave northern Cyprus since, as he said, he was bothering them.
I would like his initial comment on the above two issues.
As for my basic question, thank you, it has been covered.
I do not wish to comment on the opinions given by the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs at a press conference in Brussels, as I am not in possession of the precise text of the minister's speech.
Unlike the Turkish Prime Minister and the Turkish government, I would first of all like to read what the Turkish government said before commenting on the content.
I would have preferred that the Turkish government had first of all read the European Union's offer before rejecting it.
I am concerned about precisely the same thing.
I have just been in touch with our Foreign Minister in Sweden who has spoken about what has emerged today.
Turkey is going to withdraw its application for full EU membership if the EU does not include Turkey on the list of applicant countries by June next year at the latest.
There is a quite threatening tone in that if it is true - I only got the information via telephone and radio.
It is still a serious matter and highly worrying since I and many others do not consider that Turkey is fulfilling the requirements of the Customs Union Agreement.
A war is taking place in Kurdistan, there is continuous torture and there is no guarantee of human rights in the country.
It is of course impossible for you to comment on what has been said today, but it is very urgent for us to now ensure that no conflict arises on the basis of the latest information.
I would like to have a comment from you on that.
You must understand that I would first of all like to be fully aware of the Turkish Minister for Foreign Affair's comments before being able to comment on them myself.
Question No 16 by Pat Gallagher (H-0913/97)
Subject: Protest march in Brussels
Can the President of the Council indicate whether the Council is prepared to re-examine the duty-free issue in the light of recent political developments such as public declarations from the Irish, Greek, Spanish, Finnish and German Governments that the issue should be reopened and, in the light of the 15, 000 workers who participated in a protest march outside the Council, Commission and the European Parliament buildings in Brussels on Monday 1 December to voice their concerns over the abolition of duty-free in June 1999?
To reply to this question I will say that the maintenance of dutyfree sales for travel within the Community is in contradiction with the existence of an internal market without borders.
Indeed, the circulation between two Member States of goods bought by individuals for their personal use is of no more consequence from the point of view of tax law.
Thus, individuals can buy goods for personal use in any other Member State without having to declare them or pay tax at the border.
In this situation, the application of exemptions for travellers beyond the deadlines anticipated could create distortions in competition for businesses selling goods with tax included, as well as between the different forms of transport, depending on whether they propose to sell duty-free or not.
If the Council has temporarily extended duty-free sales to intracommunity travellers until 30 June 1999, it was to alleviate the social and regional difficulties which risk being caused by a too sudden abolition of these sales.
Thus, it was a question of giving sufficient time to the sector concerned to prepare itself for the disappearance of intracommunity duty-free sales.
Furthermore, it should be noted that even in the absence of the aforementioned tax advantage, opportunities for sale will probably remain.
Regarding duty-free sales, these will continue to exist for travellers from third countries, due to the very fact of exports.
While I welcome the reply, which seems to be somewhat factual in relation to the decisions taken, what can he say to the Irish, Greek, Spanish, Finnish and German Governments which, we understand, are anxious that there should be a further extension?
He refers to the single market.
Surely he is referring to a pure single market.
I am sure there is a lot of other harmonization that could take place.
I also welcome his initiative in relation to the employment summit.
I should like to say to the President that these jobs which could be lost could be sustained if the Council took this very courageous decision to allow duty-free to continue for a further period.
Does he also accept that to suggest that it should not continue beyond June 1999 flies in the face of the wishes of the vast majority of Europeans?
The Commission gave an assurance to this institution that an economic and social study would be carried out.
That assurance was given in 1991.
So much for the respect that the Commission has for this House.
What does the Council intend doing about that?
How, therefore, can the Commission suggest that Community instruments and state aid could be used in the event of jobs being in jeopardy if it does not carry out this study? Mr President-in-Office, I suggest that, in the final weeks of your office, you ask the Commission to fulfil the commitment to this House and until such time as it can do that - present the recommendations of a study - that it should allow this duty-free to continue.
We have asked the Commission to provide us with this study.
When the Commission has made a proposal for a directive on this point, we will need to be unanimous to be able to amend the directive currently in force, which the Member States agreed on until 30 June 1999.
In the absence of an initiative from the Commission we cannot act and, assuming they take such an initiative, I am not certain that we would be able to achieve the necessary unanimity to be able to amend the current directive, which stands until the end of June 1999.
I congratulate the President-in-Office on his firmness.
He will be aware that the Court of Justice delivered a judgment early in November which clearly stated that the Commission and the Council had proceeded correctly in this matter and that the European Parliament had been duly consulted.
He will also be aware that there is a great deal of misleading publicity and scaremongering on the part of what is generally referred to as the dutyfree lobby.
One example is the figure of 16, 000 quoted here, which is a wild exaggeration.
It was reported to me at lunchtime by a representative of the duty-free lobby that there were at the most 6, 000 people there.
I saw a small demonstration outside the European Parliament that I would put at no more than 300.
So, my question is: Will the Council please stick to its guns on this and encourage the British presidency to do the same?
During the past few months, each time the Council discussed this question, I never had the impression that we were in a position to unanimously delay the measures anticipated to come into force on 30 June 1999.
Consequently, I do not think that the British government has need of particular encouragement in this respect.
Mr President, whichever way you look at it, it seems that there is great unrest in a number of regions and a number of sectors.
I refer to ferries, to regional airports, to tourism in peripheral regions.
Did I gather correctly from the answer of the President-in-Office of the Council that he also thinks that in 1997 people have a right to know what the probable consequences will be when this measure, as decided, takes effect on 1 July 1999? Is he prepared to have another talk with the Commission to ensure that this study will indeed be carried out in the short term, so that there will be clarity on the social and regional implications we have to draw from it?
Could I have an answer on this from the President-in-Office of the Council?
We have invited the Commission to produce a study for us, which many of you are referring to.
It is true that all of these issues should have been discussed at the time the Council took its decision. This was in 1991, at the Ecofin Council.
I believe, furthermore, that I was President of the Council.
Since then I have seen some colleagues move into opposition and ask for the revision of the directive, only to return to office and become very quiet on the subject.
Consequently, unanimity will be necessary to amend this directive.
It does not exist because governments have very different opinions on this issue.
It is true that the Council is not organized along the same lines of systematic persuasion as the duty-free lobby.
I admire the efforts put into this problem by those who are particularly affected.
If Europe had the same competence and the same capacity for marketing as the lobbies in question, we would perhaps be able to explain why we took the decision that we did in 1991.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 lapse.
Question No 22 by Brian Crowley (H-0932/97)
Subject: EU and a global traffic safety effort
According to a report just released by the World Health Organization and the Harvard School of Public Health, road accidents are set to become the third biggest cause of premature death and disability across the world by 2020.
Does the Council have a position on this alarming forecast, and does it share the view of the US Transportation Secretary that a global traffic safety effort is needed and, if it does agree, what contribution can the EU and the individual Member States make to this effort?
The Council shares the honourable gentleman's concerns regarding the harmful consequences of road traffic accidents on life and human health.
This is why the criteria for road safety, appearing in article 75, paragraph 1, letter c of the treaty inspires all the Council's actions, in particular all the legislative acts that it adopts in the area of transport.
In addition, the Council expressed a unanimous opinion on this question in its conclusions adopted during the session of 17 June of this year.
I thank the President-in-Office for his very short and curt reply.
However, the question was: What contribution the President-in-Office thought that we in the EU and he could make with regard to this global transportation safety question? In particular, there are two areas on which I thought you might have responded.
Firstly, there is our duty of care for the health and protection of EU citizens.
Secondly, there are various considerations regarding the different directives which have gone through Parliament, the Council and Commission in the recent past with regard to design and models; some thought might also be given to standardizing safety features within the automobile sector to ensure they are made available, not necessarily as extras but also as part of the normal construction of automobiles to guarantee the safety not only of the drivers but also of the passengers and pedestrians.
At the current time, the Commission has submitted no proposal to the Council regarding the problems mentioned by the honourable gentleman.
I would nevertheless like to add, on a personal level, that I consider that the European Union should pay more direct attention to these problems, which concern the daily life of many men and women in Europe.
It is a question of putting into concrete practice within Europe these formal, rhetorical, lively discussions.
A Europe of citizens exists, day after day, on our roads, and I think that much could be done, if only to harmonize all the signs and instructions, all the illustrated warnings, which add nothing to the richness of Europe but which make life difficult for European citizens when they travel.
I believe that we show a serious deficit in the area of road safety.
The fault, of course, lies with Member States, with the Commission and with Parliament, with all those in fact, who have failed to provide Europe with a strategy in this area, which would make Europe more attractive and more popular in the eyes of its citizens.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 23 and 24 fall.
That concludes Question Time.
However, I should like to offer our sincere thanks once again to Mr Juncker, the President-in-Office of the Council, for being here with us today, and for his answers, and for working with Parliament.
We wish him all the best for Christmas and the New Year.
And we request him to convey to Mr Wohlfart our best wishes for his speedy recovery, and our hopes that he will be well enough to enjoy Christmas.
(The sitting was suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Investment firms and credit institutions (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0380/97) by Mr Cassidy, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 93/6/EEC on the capital adequacy of investment firms and credit institutions (COM(97)0071 - C4-0304/97-97/0124(COD))
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Cassidy for his excellent presentation of the nuances of this complicated issue.
It is important for the people of Europe, even if they may not readily understand that because it is about underpinning the financial solvency of institutions.
It is an amendment to the CAD I directive.
I would also like to thank our colleagues on the Legal Affairs Committee who have worked so hard in reaching what I think is a sensible practical compromise and Mr Katiforis who has brought a lot of detailed technical knowledge from the Economic and Monetary Committee to this debate.
I am not going to go over what Mr Cassidy said because he explained it so lucidly.
I just want to flag up the importance of Amendments Nos 16, 19 and 20.
In particular, with Amendment No 20, trying to bring in a differentiation between different types of commodities, what is known as the expanded matrix.
To me it seems quite self-evident that the treatment of metals should be different from the treatment of perishables like coffee, cocoa, sugar etc. and the expanded matrix is simply trying to make sense of the need to treat things like tin, copper, silver differently from commodities like cocoa and coffee.
Fortunately we have been able to explain this adequately in the Council of Ministers and in this Parliament and I think now it is accepted that the expanded matrix is sensible.
So I sincerely hope that the vote will go successfully in the Parliament tomorrow.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work.
My group welcomes the Commission's proposal to introduce a more stringent and effective method of measuring banks' and investment firms' capital requirements, and one geared towards market risk.
This involves adopting the Basle rules on banking supervision, with a view in particular to avoiding distortions in competition relating to competition from outside Europe.
Therefore, like the previous speaker and the rapporteur himself, I would particularly ask you to support the three amendments tabled by my group, i.e. Amendments Nos 19, 20 and 16, which correspond to the old Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 8.
These concern the transitional period up to 31 December 2006.
The institutions affected require this transition period to adapt to the new rules, and it is needed above all to achieve a uniform deadline for all three banking supervision directives.
This means that Amendment No 20 is important.
Internal risk models are not yet sufficiently developed for banking supervision purposes, and the banks must be allowed to continue working with the extended maturity bank models up to the end of the transitional period.
I would also ask you to support Amendment No 16.
This amendment is concerned with a method for internal risk models that do not satisfy the criteria listed in paragraph 4 of Annex 8.
All these amendments reflect the Basle Rules.
Madam President, firstly I would like to thank the committee responsible and, in particular, its rapporteur Mr Cassidy for their excellent work on this highly technical proposal.
I am most grateful for the speed with which they have been able to process the proposal, given the importance of its early adoption for Europe's financial services industry.
The proposal represents a major step in improving the assessment of market risk for capital adequacy purposes.
Not only will this improve the prudential soundness of our financial institutions but it will also contribute to their competitiveness by helping to optimize the allocation of capital within them.
The Commission believes this reflects our common purpose to promote a safe and competitive financial sector in an environment of constant innovation and technological change.
Our proposal introduces into EU legislation recent developments in the international supervisory community regarding the use by institutions of their own statistical models to set supervisory capital requirements and inclusion of commodity positions in those requirements.
A number of amendments have been proposed, largely reflecting further relevant decisions taken in international regulatory fora since the adoption of our proposal.
We welcome these amendments.
However, we are concerned that some other very technical amendments are not fully consistent with the approach adopted at international level.
These we oppose.
Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 15 and 17 introduce useful technical clarifications which we welcome.
However, Amendment No 4 duplicates much of Amendment No 2.
We would prefer to draw on the latter for our amended proposal.
Amendments Nos 15 and 17 duplicate Amendments Nos 5 and 6, third paragraph.
We could accept both and will make a proposal covering the substance of these amendments.
Amendment No 1, on the other hand, introduces a new capital charge for recently issued securities which diverge from the international approach adopted by the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision.
This would create an uneven regulatory playing field between the European Union and other G10 institutions.
We fear it may also be prejudicial in certain circumstances.
It means it could impair the success of the market introduction of shares of new companies or of privatizations such as France Telecom and Halifax by imposing an 8 % charge on securities which currently attract only a 2 % charge as highly liquid instruments.
I would therefore recommend that you oppose this amendment.
Amendments Nos 9 and 10 also prescribe a degree of detail regarding the elements of risk to be covered by internal models which would impair the ability of the authorities to adapt the requirements appropriately to individual circumstances.
Such adaptability is the intention of the changes at international level.
It could also result in certain elements of risk being ignored because they are not specifically mentioned.
Our original proposal deliberately employs forms of wording which would ensure that all material risks are covered without trying to prejudge the precise requirements to be observed in every situation.
We believe that this should be left for the competent authority to judge on the basis of each individual case.
On these grounds I would encourage you to support the original wording of the proposal and reject Amendments Nos 9 and 10.
Finally, a number of additional amendments have been tabled.
Two of them - Nos 19 and 20 - relate to transitional arrangements for the treatment of commodities.
This has been one of the most difficult elements of the proposal.
The models approach requires specialized computer software and highly qualified technical staff to operate it properly.
Not only will this be very expensive for small and medium-sized investment firms but also, as you know, the euro conversion and the millennium problem are already absorbing many of these resources.
Certain institutions will therefore need time to adjust to the new capital regime for commodities.
The proposed transitional period until the year 2006 during which the authorities may apply an alternative set of capital charges for commodities represents a very sound compromise between the need to establish a common set of requirements for commodities business and the interests of individual institutions which would suffer unduly from an abrupt introduction of the new requirements. I would strongly encourage you to support these amendments.
Another of the additional amendments, No 16, clarifies that the original standardized method should be used for calculating capital requirements in cases where models do not satisfy the necessary criteria for measuring specific risk.
I consider this to be a helpful clarification.
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Olives and olive oil
The next item is the report (A4-0374/97) by Mr Jové Peres, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the Note to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament on the olive and olive oil sector (including economic, cultural, regional, social and environmental aspects), the current common market organization, the need for a reform and the alternatives envisaged - Options Paper (COM(97)0057) - C4-0096/97)
Madam President, in the first place I would like to thank the Commission for having followed the recommendation contained in the resolution approved by us in October 1996 and for having produced the document which is the subject of this report.
However, the lack of information in the report about the operation of aid in the olive oil sector is to be regretted, in spite of the fact that it was requested by Decision 2261/84 of the Council and should have been presented before January 1995.
The memorandum produced by the Commission does not meet the Council's requirements, and this deficiency has made discussion and the production of the report more difficult.
The Commission's memorandum highlights weaknesses in the analysis of the sector and, to rectify them, I made a request for complementary information which was not fully answered in the letter which the Commissioner sent me at the end of July.
One of the problems in the analysis is the pessimistic picture which is drawn in regard to the sector's position and, above all, about a possible risk of future surpluses.
This is not the case.
The last harvest was exceptional and reached levels which are considered dangerous according to the Commission's memorandum. However, at the end of the season there were hardly any stocks registered in the control system.
To have this pessimistic view, the Commission rejects its own research and uses other sources from the International Oleicola Council in which the influence of third countries, who would benefit from a reduction in the possible Community production, cannot be ignored.
As far as the options are concerned, the Committee on Agriculture has clearly played down the option of aid not linked to production - this was the meaning of the vote taken in the Committee on Agriculture at the European Parliament.
The fundamental reason is of a social nature, due to the higher risks in the loss of employment which would show up in the Community regions most affected by unemployment.
If unlinked aid, following the direction of the 1992 reform, is proposed you cannot ignore the fact that between 1990 and 1995 13 % of the Community agribusinesses and 23 % of agricultural work has disappeared, according to the survey on the structure of agribusinesses.
These are facts that the Commission cannot ignore.
If these effects have come about after the 1992 reform, the effects of destroying work in the olive growing sector would be much greater for two reasons.
Firstly, olive cultivation involves intensive manual labour.
The cost of gathering the olives is made up of 80 % of the expenses of manual labour and 70 % of the variable costs.
Consequently, if aid is not linked to production, the risks of destroying employment would be more than obvious.
In addition, the reduced level of cultivation costs made when the aid was given - 15 % as opposed to 85 % for cereals or 98 % for bulls - considerably increases the risks of destroying employment.
These sorts of risk are contrary to the Amsterdam Treaty in respect to employment.
These risks would have an effect in the regions where the rate of unemployment is double the Community average, and which, moreover, show important cohesion problems.
It is unreasonable to increase cohesion problems or the need for a possible rural development policy which, at this time, is no more than an abstract formula.
Does the Commission intend to run the risk of carrying out dangerous experiments with a problem as serious as employment?
Defenders of unlinked aid argue that control is easier with such aid.
However, the Committee, in describing the control system applicable in the case of introducing aid per tree, restricts itself to quoting a Geographical Information System.
I do not think it is appropriate to let ourselves be dazzled by technological wizardry.
Although the technical benefits of satellites would be an improvement, they would never manage to drop aid on each olive tree.
A formidable administrative framework would always be necessary to distribute the aid corresponding to each tree among more than two million producers.
These two million producers are usually found in areas of continuous cultivation and there would appear to be enormous difficulties for the distribution of aid.
If we are trying to differentiate aid as a function of returns we face the lack of consistent regulation in the producing Member States and this matter has raised fierce debates which have had to be settled by the Court of Justice.
If proof of changing the olive into oil were demanded the control system should be reasonably similar to the current one with the added cost for satellite pictures.
Therefore it would be reasonable to make the current system perfect.
It is clear that in this debate the producers of olives are in opposition to the aid collectors.
Between these two positions a great number of jobs are put at risk in those regions with most unemployment in the Community, which show serious cohesion problems and whose economies are highly dependent on the levels of olive oil production.
Madam President, I conclude: above all allow me to congratulate and express my personal gratitude to all my colleagues in the committee from the various countries who were determined to achieve a common solution in looking for a unitary position to reflect a single voice, a voice from this millenial culture, firmly based in the Mediterranean as well as in European culture.
Ladies and gentlemen, please excuse me if I have to be very firm about speaking time.
We still have a great many reports on the agenda and a good many speakers, so we will not finish by midnight otherwise.
I would therefore ask you to stick to the agreed speaking times without me having to remind you every time.
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report and I would also like to express my satisfaction that Mr Jové Peres has included in his report all of the conclusions that were unanimously approved by the Committee on Employment.
Madam President, the production of olive products is concentrated in the countries of the Mediterranean and in particular the objective 1 regions, which are structurally weak and where the per capita income is less than 75 % of the Community average.
In these regions the percentage of the workforce employed in agriculture is especially high, and the unemployment rate is about three times the Community average.
The olive oil sector is the most important economic sector and approximately 27 % of jobs are directly or indirectly linked with olive oil production, which demonstrates its importance in the wider social balance and cohesion of these regions.
Therefore there are obvious dangers for the socio-economic fabric of these regions in disturbing these balances through a policy that threatens to hit olive cultivation.
The greatest weakness of the Commission communication is that it lacked a thorough analysis in respect of the repercussions that the proposed revision of the COM would have on employment.
The Committee on Employment is deeply worried about the implementation of aid per tree, which may have catastrophic repercussions on employment in the sector.
There is the fear that olive oil producers will lose interest in the quality of the product and in improving it, and that they will be unconcerned with quantity or will abandon olive cultivation for good, resulting in a significant loss of jobs and incomes.
Our fear is that there will be significant repercussions on the entire product chain: oil-pressing; standardisation units; trade, creating serious economic and social problems and exacerbating the phenomenon of the desertification of the countryside.
The Committee on Employment calls on the European Commission to act in accordance with the recommendations in paragraphs 7.5, 11, 14, 15 and 16 of the report, which incorporate its conclusions in full, and for this reason it once again thanks the rapporteur.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, I would like, in the first place, to congratulate Mr Jové Peres on his magnificent report since he is a person who is aware of what olive plantation and olive cultivation mean to his native people.
Commissioner, we are absolutely opposed to fraud and we understand that fraud must not be any form of subsidy in any area of the European Union.
But the fact that we are against fraud and that we support all the measures which should be used against fraud is no obstacle in our thinking that preventing fraud should not be the only way to establish new standards in relation to the production of olive oil.
We understand that olive oil, olive production, is an important tradition in the Mediterranean, especially in regions and areas with objective 1 status where, as preceding speakers have already said, unemployment and economic difficulties are very serious.
In many places the production of olive oil is practically the only produce and it is this which gives rise to a larger proportion of employment in those areas.
I regret that to combat fraud, solutions are sought which may also be defrauded in the future as is the olive tree subsidy, which has not properly assessed the regional impact it may bring to bear in many areas of the European Union, in areas of the Mediterranean basin, which do not assess the consequences of unemployment and the consequences of rural exodus, nor do they assess the impact on the rural area which a reform of this type can have.
A few days ago the European Council met in Luxembourg to discuss employment.
Let us not move now with the measure such as that of olive oil to create more unemployment in areas where there are already serious problems.
Let us bear in mind that the Accounts Court, in 1991, positively evaluated the way in which the current system of olive oil subsidy has been managed.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Budgetary Control, as we know, had chosen a different option for the allocation of subsidies.
It favoured the option of tree subsidies rather than production subsidies in several majority votes.
I would particularly like to note that in an insular area such as Corsica, which has been criticized for so many things, the system of tree subsidies and the intelligent policy followed by our colleague, Jean Baggioni, who is also president of the Corsican executive, my birthplace, has enabled, with Community participation, the renovation, spreading and replanting of the island's olive groves.
Corsica has thus been given the means to fight effectively against the fires which have so ravaged it over the past few years, without however setting in motion a frantic course towards yields and production, all of this within the framework of mixed farming and the diversification desired by the European authorities.
A tree subsidy therefore has its virtues.
But I completely understand that our Spanish colleagues from regions of high production are defending another point of view and, consequently, another philosophy based on yield which justifies employment and monoculture.
It is the reason why I decided it would be useless to propose any amendments on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I am indeed persuaded that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has weighed up its responsibilities well in deciding not to follow the proposals of members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I am indeed persuaded that this is not the last we will hear of this issue and I hope, sincerely, that the conclusions of our colleague, Jové Peres, and of those who have supported him, will help us to avoid the severe criticisms of the system currently in place in the future, which I think are at the origin of numerous cases of deplorable fraud.
Madam President, whilst giving credit to Mr José Perez for the mass of work carried out, I have to say that we do not recognize some of the fundamental aspects of the resolution.
Firstly, it seems too conservative to us.
In fact, it would appear that the current olive oil COM problems are the result of the Commission's unhealthy imagination; unfortunately, however, we know that that is not the case.
The alarm bells of the marked increases in production declared for the 1996-97 season and the IOOC forecasts for the current season, which confirm them, should also ring for Parliament.
The olive growers' statements, which are already reporting a huge fall in the prices of olive oil, are not an invention of the DG VI.
Secondly, the proposed resolution too hastily rejects those options that anticipate a disconnection of aid from the level of quantities of product.
We are not enamoured by the tree aid, as if it were the miracle cure to all evils; we believe, however, that, rather than reject it initially, accusing it of intentions which do not actually exist in the Commission's document, it would be better to discuss it with judgment and clarity.
The growers fear that this option rewards land income, they fear a decline for all growers, capable or otherwise, they fear effects on employment; so this is what we have to discuss, and in our amendments we have tried to answer these fears; for example, by linking the new unconnected aid with the utilization of olive production, combining it with the historic profits for uniform regions and providing the possibility for the producing states to modulate aid according to quality parameters and respect for the environment and landscape, for the disadvantaged regions.
I understand, Mr José Perez, that things may seem a little complicated, but too much planning will not resolve anything, for everything is getting worse. How can we think of imposing a single, intensive and productive model for European olive growing that does not create marked imbalances between the companies and between the regions.
How can we think of increasing costs and support for olive growers on the basis of a single system of production aid directly connected with volumes of production; how can we use such a system to keep effective control of two million producers, knowing the cyclical fluctuations traditionally sustained by olive oil production and abolishing the simplified system of tree aid that is currently of interest to the 60 % of Community producers that fall into the category of small producers? In my opinion, if we follow this path, uncertainty, disputes and insecurity will flourish with the olives.
All things that do not help the future of the olive growers.
In our opinion, the entire CAP should start to change direction.
While Agenda 2000 finally begins to discuss a modulation of aid, environmental sustainability, rebalancing in the rural areas and limits to the increase in production, specifically for the olive which, more than other sectors, can only gain from these changes, it would be understandable for a huge and incomprehensible cultural exception to be invoked immediately.
Only with a reformed aid system will olive growing be directed towards the often declaimed policy of quality utilized on the market and in an ever more attentive and demanding consumer.
A strategic prospect for growing which is so much a part of the history, culture and landscape of Europe, is at stake, and only with a strategic choice can it be defended.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, with 28 votes in favour, seven against and two abstentions, the Committee on Agriculture approved a proposed commitment to the reform of the olive oil market, which my group strongly wished for.
In the Chamber today, we confirm the need to ratify those conclusions with a vote in favour, convinced that they are in the interests of operators in the sector and European agriculture.
Together, it was decided to find a commitment within the groups and so I am surprised that, after the clear vote within the Committee, dozens of amendments should be proposed, here in Chamber, particularly by the Socialist group.
I do not understand the logic or maybe the commitments should only be taken when they agree with the Socialist group?
We, however, are against almost all the amendments, as some of them distort the meaning of the commitment made within the Committee on Agriculture, while others offer useless answers that repeat what is already present.
We therefore call upon common sense.
Beyond the contingent problems, the olive oil sector may expand and develop; however, we should not simplify the answers to complex problems.
The path indicated by the Committee on Agriculture enables a strong dialogue and a democratic relationship to be maintained with the producers.
The solutions should be sought with the producers and their organizations involved and not against them; we already have too many examples of divisions in crisis and protests against the agricultural basis as a result of a mistaken relationship between decision-makers and managers of agricultural policies and the operators themselves.
No good reforms are made against producers.
The true reforms are those that act permanently on the structures as they are shared by the interested parties and those that exploit business capacity, permitting joint cultural changes together with a modernization of the sectors concerned.
In the case of olive oil and table olives, the listening attitude adopted by the local communities is even more necessary, if it takes into consideration the social significance of the sector from the point of view of work and employment.
To conclude, I would like to thank Mr José Perez for the way he, unlike others, has been prepared to look for commitment, starting from different positions existing among the producing countries and members of the Committee.
This has been appreciated by our group and we intend to defend it, tomorrow, when the time comes to vote.
Madam President, I would like to begin, rather than end, by thanking the rapporteur, and not just formally, for two reasons: firstly for the substantial corrections made to the Commission's document and secondly for the effort made in looking for a point of convergence between the requirements of the producing countries, valuable attention to making not just extra virgin olive oil but the entire production sector transparent.
The position approved by the Committee on Agriculture, by means of the commitment amendments, which my almost united group will support tomorrow when it comes to voting, lays down three fundamental pillars for the future of this agricultural production; these pillars can certainly be perfected but, at the moment, they represent the one and only way of satisfying everyone a little or, at least, disappointing as few producers as possible.
Firstly, the adoption of national quotas is proposed instead of the guaranteed maximum quantity calculated on a Community scale; this brings it into line many other COMs.
Secondly, tree subsidies are rejected and production subsidies are offered, based on the quantity actually produced; corrections could be made here as well, but it is a valuable way of ensuring the protection of employment.
At the same time, the abolition of consumer aid is maintained, as it fosters suspicions of fraud and doubts as to the quality of the product obtained from mixtures which are often difficult to certify, particularly with oil of a generally uncertain origin.
Finally, the funds that will no doubt be saved could be used for a valuable promotional action favouring the incentive not only for the much-desired quality, and therefore for consumer trust, but also for promotion in people's use and taste for this valuable food; also, and above all, they will be used to give a little more trust to the category which, as you know, is currently a prey to considerable anxiety, and not just in Italy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, the Commission's document prefers simply to subsidize the mere physical existence of trees, which may or may not produce olive oil, but which in any event would always be subsidized.
The Jové Peres report, on the other hand, prefers to subsidize the actual production of olives and olive oil, rejecting an alternative which would lead to absentee landlords who would simply be receiving money for having planted olive trees, and also to an increase in unemployment among the people who help to bring the olives to the presses and actually turn them into olive oil.
The Commission justifies its option on the grounds of the fraud for which the present production subsidy leaves room.
The report informs us that the problem is not the rules, which should be improved, but the lack of specific policy measures to prevent fraud.
Finally, the Commission would like subsidies to be paid on the basis of the existing land registers.
The Jové Peres report opens up the possibility of increasing national production, allowing for new plantations which would make it possible to return to traditional production levels.
The options are clear.
Our vote also goes to the Jové Peres report.
We must reject changes which are designed to conceal the Commission's intentions, overtly or under cover. It is essential to support by that act of rejection the political philosophy the report represents.
Madam President, I have just come from my group's Christmas party, and I was wondering whether I should be eating olives or come and talk about them, but out of respect for our rapporteur, Mr Jové Peres, and in view of the importance of olives for the history of civilization in the south of Europe at least, I decided to come for these one and a half minutes.
Our group has of course also been concerned about the potential for simplifying matters and the possibilities for preventing fraud.
However, we believe that the rapporteur is right, and that olives should actually be harvested.
If we grant aid related solely to the olive tree itself, then we are not recognizing the value of work.
This would be tantamount to paying for planting without any intention of achieving a crop, and that is why we support the rapporteur.
I am sorry, Mr Fantuzzi, but we want to reward work, and the quality of the product.
There are good reasons for accepting your ideas on account of manageability and fraud prevention.
But because of the fundamental considerations I have mentioned, our group has decided to stick to this approach, which we also adopted in the Agriculture Committee.
Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to begin, as the other speakers have, by recognizing the complex and difficult work which our colleague, Mr Jové Peres, has carried out in this report. I know that he has devoted very many hours and a great deal of effort to this and it has caused him some difficulty.
We must point out, in general, the positive effect which, up until now, the current COM has enjoyed with regard to olive oil: since a modernisation programme and an improvement in the operations and quality of the product has gone as far as a higher level of protection of the environment consolidating the European Union as the top producer, consumer and exporter of olive oil in the world.
Unfortunately all this will turn out to be useless if the reform proposal, which the European Commission proposes, is included in Agenda 2000, and this is because it introduces elements which are prejudicial to the correct working of this sector.
In concrete terms, the proposal to grant aid to the tree and not to production, which also includes small producers, would do no more than cause a deterioration in the quality of oil and in the stability of the market itself.
It would generate an increase in speculation which would directly affect the consumer, would cause an increase in rural exodus and the risk of turning the affected areas into deserts, this would bring with it a great and serious environmental deterioration.
To this situation, moreover, we must add that the Commission has not produced either the consequent research about the regional impact of the measures that are contained in this proposal.
This research concerning regional impact is indispensable because the main productive areas for olive oil are situated in the south of the European Union as has already been said.
Most of those are objective 1, that is to say they are underdeveloped regions, with no alternative products and with a work-force dependent on the sector.
The olive is a product which is difficult to replace and, as we have already said, is concentrated in areas with serious structural weaknesses, deprived economic status and high levels of unemployment.
Having said that, the Commission must respect the principle of economic and social cohesion, and the COM must mark out oil within a regional strategy in which its impact is researched and the agricultural, socio-economic and structural development of the areas concerned is guaranteed.
I conclude, Madam President, by demonstrating our conviction that this Parliament will take on board the proposals contained in the report which we are debating today and on which we will vote tomorrow.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Alleanza Nazionale delegation agrees with the resolution passed by the Committee on Agriculture on the olive oil COM, as it considers it more balanced and fundamental than the initial proposal made by the Committee, which, in our opinion, did not bring clarity into a sector which needs specific, definite rules for everyone.
We can only agree with the fair demonstrations of civil protest made by the olive growers of southern Italy, who have seen their income fall, as a result of a lack of control over the origin and quality of the oil in circulation.
Ahead of the more negative forecasts, there is chaos on the olive oil market, resulting from the Community and national laxity towards those who, in breach of the Community quota, have planted higher numbers of olive trees, proving detrimental to the honest farmers who have respected the Community regulations.
Consequently, the introduction onto the European and Italian market of oil of doubtful origin and quality, bought at very low prices, is causing the collapse of the domestic price of oil, aggravating an already very critical situation.
To conclude, the Alleanza Nazionale is therefore against tree aid and in favour of a single production aid, able to guarantee a fair level of income based on the quantity of oil actually produced.
We are also in favour of an abolition of consumer aid and the creation of an integrated control system running from production to consumption itself.
It is therefore essential for all the producing countries to set up an olive growing register, similar to the one introduced in Italy, to check the production declared and to define the production capacity of the agricultural companies involved.
Finally, we are also in favour of an increase in the European guaranteed maximum quantity, in a fair definition of national quotas and in a strict regulation of product labelling, permitting the utilization of quality and the identification of the place of origin of the oil.
For these reasons, we confirm our support for the resolution, congratulating the rapporteur and all the members of the Committee on Agriculture, who have really done a good job.
Madam President, we wish show the support of the Spanish socialists for the text of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and especially as it is arranged. We understand that it is a question of an agreement at the lowest level, and in any case, we wish to make a contribution so that this report is approved tomorrow in the full session.
We agree with the request for an increase in the guaranteed maximum amount which, although the text does not say so, we think that might reach a figure of about 1, 800, 000 tonnes.
The lack, in every way, of realism in the current figure of 1, 350, 000 is only incurring unfair penalties which specially affect, together with a decline in prices, small and medium-sized producers.
We think that a system of intervention must be maintained, we want the support for future rulings to continue to depend on real production and we also show our agreement with whatever measures are proposed for the promotion and improvement of quality.
And, moreover, it must occupy in this framework a central position in the banning of mixtures since these are always produced to the prejudice of olive oil and as a fraud for the consumers.
Linked to the previous point, we think that we have to strengthen the role of producer organizations as an essential element in a commercial and promotional policy in regard to the product.
Likewise, we cannot overlook at this time a specific consideration, that is table olives.
This focus should not, anyway, lead us to forget, in future rules and regulations, the existence of a large number of small and medium-sized olive growers for whom, through a specific complementary system or through appropriate modification, their role as producers ought to be recognized.
This agreement, in general terms, with the text from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development must not prevent us from calling attention to some smaller discrepancies but they have to be addressed.
Therefore it is hard for us to understand that we point out the efficiency with which current regulations have operated and, yet, we need a deep and rapid reform and that even in this report the correction of serious damage caused by rules and regulations is demanded.
Something is not right.
It is not possible to make two positive statements which in themselves are contradictory.
Likewise we think that we should escape in the future from certain wilfulness, as stated in certain paragraphs.
There seems to be no justification in stating that, in a short period of time, large increases in demand are expected, and nor does there seem any justification for us to consider that the results of the extraordinary harvest in the years 1996-1997 would be the future reality.
On the contrary, we would say that we should be a little more realistic.
I would not like, anyway, these partial and minor discrepancies to tarnish upon our general agreement with the text which must offer a positive framework so that millennial production, tightly bound to the south Mediterranean area of Europe, can carry on occupying an important position in the Common Agriculture Policy.
The olive in some regions of Spain, and especially in Andalusia, represents a strong source of employment, an environmental concern, the struggle against deserting the land, settlement of population, rural development, and to sum up it represents economic, social and territorial cohesion.
Therefore, in this sense, I insist that tomorrow we socialists vote in favour of the text presented by the Committee on Agricultural and Rural Development.
Mister President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the debate today is the first priority for us, the producer countries of this precious product.
The document put forward by the Commission has been analysed by all the previous speakers and especially by the rapporteur whom I wish to congratulate here and now for his work and for having been able to unite, without sparing any effort, almost all the views in a consensus document which many people thought impossible.
It is an assessment I share - congratulations to Mr José - and here we are, Commissioner, sending him a clear, majority message whereby this Parliament, having heard all those who had something to say on the subject, believe that this reform must go through.
A fundamental reform, I would say basic, for all producer countries, and therefore for the European Union, but especially for the Objective 1 regions - such as Crete, the Peleponese or the Alentejo and Puglia, Sicily, Calabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Estremadura and Andalusia - with a rate of agrarian unemployment varying from 45.6 % in the Peloponnese to 12.0 % in Andalusia and, more importantly, with a rate of unemployment of 4 to 33 %, but which would be increased if we moved to a reform which would not take priority over real production, agrarian environmental measures and, therefore, employment.
We are opting for a reform which is based on real production with an adequate guaranteed maximum amount with which we, all the producer countries, can feel comfortable.
We are also opting for a simplification of the rules and regulations.
Simplification, not lack of control, but rather a greater control of fraud.
But above all, Commissioner, you have shown your sensitivity because you know the situation in producer countries - for which we thank you - and you know the reality of the sector. We await a balanced response to deal with the concerns expressed which will allow a balanced development of the sector.
I hope that the words spoken by President Santer this morning become reality and that, with ambition and realism, the future reform will be set before us.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if it is true that the COM for olive oil has worked more or less well over the last few years and has enabled the maintenance of a large number of business operations and thus jobs, in spite of the competition from other vegetable oils, it is nevertheless necessary to embark on a reform of the sector.
Mr Jové Peres' report reveals the wider options which must today prevail in the proposal for a common market organization that the Commission will announce to us at the beginning of 1998.
In some Member States, the potential for olive oil production has greatly developed over the last few years and we can now see that, due to this development, the COM is no longer suitable.
The reform to be undertaken must in particular take into account our economic, social, cultural, regional and environmental concerns.
We must keep in mind the following principles: simplification and a greater transparency in the functioning of support systems, an improvement in controls with the aim of fighting against fraud, the guarantee and equity of olive growers' incomes.
France, as a small producing country with a majority of small concerns and which is currently engaged in a phase of restructuring of its groves, particularly in Corsica under the impulse of our colleague, Mr Jean Baggioni, could not support proposals which would penalise or discriminate against small producers, nor could we support anything which could be considered a threat to the continuation of this production in the disadvantaged regions of objective 1.
Like France, other producing countries of the Union which also have a large number of small businesses will support, I am sure, a reform which ensures a prosperous and balanced rural base.
Let us preserve the specificity of the small quality European olive grower.
The olive tree, a three thousand year old tree, will remain the cultural and spiritual symbol, the feature of union and the memory of the Mediterranean region.
Madam President, in Greece, when a priest baptises a child, he anoints the child with oil and makes the sign of the cross over it, and this, I think, shows that the identity of a Mediterranean person is very much tied up with oil.
It is an element of his or her culture and existence, of the economy and of the environment.
Mr Jové Peres' report acknowledges this and I thank the rapporteur for that.
However, we must also bear in mind that all the regions of olive tree cultivation are objective 1 regions, that is, structurally weak and with a high level of unemployment, and that olive oil production makes a significant contribution to their socio-economic development.
From this standpoint I think that the existing common organization of the market for olive oil was essentially constructive, despite certain problems, and that we should categorically reject the European Commission proposal for aid per tree.
It is important that we raise the maximum guaranteed quantity to higher levels than today's so that it can be adjusted to total Community consumption where there is a gap that can be filled, to average annual exports and to the establishing of a measure of security.
I believe that the proposal for reform of the common organization of the market provides a very good foundation.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, we are holding a policy debate on a note from the Commission concerning olive oil and the rewriting of the COM anticipated for next year, a COM which I hasten to mention has been in place for thirty years, which is already quite good going.
We are all agreed that it is a Mediterranean issue, the four sides of the square largely being Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, but also including my own region of Languedoc-Roussillon, and Corsica, where we have more than two thousand hectares of olive groves.
We have our small producers.
We have our three million olive trees.
It is nothing next to the approximately two hundred million in Spain, but they do exist.
You could obviously tackle this problem from the technical angle of the maximum guaranteed quantity of 1.3 million tonnes, which should be raised to 1.5 million; or of the national reference quantities, on condition that they are not historic; or subsidies for production, for marketing, of which we have always requested the removal; or even of fraud, there are thirteen thousand mills which are difficult to supervise, there must be a mixing of vegetable oils.
We also talk of the need for a register of olive cultivation.
Mr Fantuzzi was worried about the ECU 2 billion that this will cost the EAGGF annually.
We also talk, obviously, for it is the crushing argument, of the risks of surpluses which justify a reworking of the COM.
All this, ladies and gentlemen, seems to me quite trivial, because the Commission is dealing us the same blow as it did for wine.
You start from an old base, you project it and you find surpluses where there are none.
Mr Jové Peres explained to us that the market could expand by more than 400 % in the United States and more than 350 % in northern Europe, who are just now discovering what civilisation is all about.
Oil has a great history.
I remember that, in the Greek amphora they had, not oils, but olive oil.
But oil also has a great future, for this is the sort of production which poses no problems in Geneva. Tell us that is no big deal, Mr Commissioner.
This is a production which is at the heart of five great European policies: employment policy, rural development policy, environmental policy, health policy, Mediterranean policy.
And it is going to be compromised for a handful of ECUs.
Employment policy because, when there are 750, 000 people employed and tree subsidies are requested, it is in your interest to save 85 % of your costs by no longer maintaining your olive grove.
So in Amsterdam we are creating jobs and in Cadiz we are creating unemployment.
Social cohesion policy is also being challenged.
It is not worth having a cohesion fund, an objective 1, for Spain; if social cohesion is destroyed in Andalusia, Sicily, Extremadura or the Peloponnese.
Environmental policy because the desert is expanding, and the olive tree is the tree of mountain life, it is the tree of life for fragile existence, it is the tree of life in the droughts of La Mancha.
Everyone should go once in their life to Almeria to know what drought really is.
Also health policy, because Europe is a Europe of old people, a Europe of heart disease, not a Europe of AIDS, which affects only a sexual minority.
So, it appears that where olive oil is consumed, there are no Americans, fat with ice cream.
Where men are lean, billions of savings can be made on the national health.
Finally, Mediterranean policy because opening up to the east is going to destabilize Spain, Portugal and the whole of the Mediterranean.
It has been said in Agenda 2000: we are working on the basis of a constant budget and we will share objective 1 with Poland and the others and we will have an unbalanced Europe.
And I have not mentioned cultural policy!
We are coming up to Christmas and we talk of the Mount of Olives, not the Mount of Oils.
Even Mr Brittan understood that we were not talking about the Mount of Financial Services.
It is therefore at the heart of European culture.
So, Mr Commissioner, I say this to the European Commission, to Mr Giansily, do not cause a budgetary disaster for the sake of saving the end of the candle, a candle made from olive oil, moreover.
There are technical solutions.
Fraud has been mentioned. Fraud in Greece represents ECU 21 million, but ECU 21 million is nothing alongside the Brussels costs.
Mr Commissioner, I know very well that even with an olive branch in your mouth, you could never be a dove!
But this is no reason not to make peace.
I believe that the European Commission must stop attacking wine, stop attacking honey, stop attacking olive oil, stop attacking the Mediterranean.
Mr Commissioner, you have already been invited to visit Andalusia.
You will be invited again.
You will be made to eat bread rubbed with garlic, with a little olive oil on top.
You will be made to eat a sweet onion.
You will be made to drink a Corbières, a Rioja, a retsina from the Peloponnese, or a Chianti, and you will be made to discover life, Mr Commissioner!
Madam President, within the Committee on Agriculture, following an exchange of opinions among all interested members, we have arrived at the following conclusions.
Firstly: the present system of support for production has under no circumstances presented problems such as to make its abolition necessary.
Secondly, a radical change in the system towards aid per tree would create many problems.
The prevailing logic of simplifying the system in order to avoid possible fraud opens the way for many real growers to abandon their small-holdings and creates additional problems of unemployment in regions which are already disadvantaged, while failing to guarantee or maintain the high quality of European olive oil or the leading role of the European Union in the global market.
By the same token, aid per tree will require new control mechanisms for the avoidance of new forms of fraud.
Thirdly, continued reference to the need to avoid fraud creates the impression that this constitutes the main raison d'être of any system of support within the framework of the COM.
However the main objective of the systems of support is to preserve the balance of the market and to maintain the level of income of the producers.
The avoidance of fraud lies within the competence and responsibility of the control mechanisms.
Fourthly, improvement of the existing system and the correction of any shortcomings that have so far appeared must be the objective of the reform of the common organization of the market for olive oil.
Thus the abolition of the special system of support for small producers, the abolition of support for consumption and the creation of a unified system of support for production will create a framework for a more rational operation and a more effective control of the market.
Fifthly, granted the leading role of the European Union in global production and the high nutritional value of olive oil, a policy to promote European olive oil must be formulated and sustained by means of specific measures and by the authenticity of the product.
This policy must target both the global market through an increase in exports and the European market through an increase in domestic consumption.
In anticipation of the legislative motion of the COM for olive oil, which I hope the Commission will table very soon, I would like to believe that the European Parliament will give a clear indication that it will support the product, based on the principles underlying the report of the Committee on Agriculture and of Mr Jové Peres, whom I congratulate on the results of his hard work.
Madam President, I too am impressed by Mr Martínez's contribution to the debate.
I would like to emphasize three points.
The first is that the present system of subsidizing output, based on actual production for professional producers, cannot simply be compared with that of tree-by-tree subsidies which are totally divorced from production.
Since we know that in this sector the olive crop represents around 70 % of variable costs, it is obvious that if we were to opt for the tree subsidy system and apply it to producers we should have to make them prove their actual olive yields.
Otherwise we should be running the risk of abandonment and desertification.
In that respect, I am sorry that the Commission has not properly elaborated the various possible yield subsidy systems, because there are more of these than the two we have been presented with.
Secondly, I would like to say that, whatever subsidy system is used in the future, I think the two main sources of fraud in the sector should be abolished.
The first is the unification of the two present systems; the second is the absolute ban on mixing olive oil with other edible oils.
Thirdly, I would like to say that the consumption subsidy, which was created as an aid to packaging and quality, was reduced in 1993 and now amounts to such a derisory sum there is no sense in keeping it.
For that reason I think the amount we can save by abolishing it could be used to finance the strengthening of producers' association, the promotion of consumption and also the quality of olive oil.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that, since a new global reform of the CAP is currently being prepared, it is important to ensure that olive oil subsidies are not subjected to misguided reforms, but that they remain consistent with the fundamental principles to be laid down for agriculture throughout the Union; because in fact, in spite of the differences between them, the challenges they face are very much the same, and therefore the resources and responses to be provided by the CAP should also be the same.
And last of all, I would like to say that Mr Jové Peres's report deserves our total respect and support, because he has done sterling work here.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, last night I had a nightmare.
I discovered that I might have a colleague doing the same thing as is being done to tobacco - making up a report that tells us that poly-unsaturated oil damages the arteries and is bad for health.
Anything can happen in this Parliament; anything can happen in this world.
When I was a boy, I remember that olive oil was considered bad for health in Portugal, like unsaturated oil, and now we see doctors urging all old people to take this oil because it will do them good.
Anything can happen in this world.
Anything can happen with this Commission and this Europe which is always ashamed of something; we're ashamed of producing olive oil!
If we were in the United States, the Minister of Agriculture would be saying 'Just watch us flood your markets with our Californian olive oil' .
We do not have the courage to do that, but you can't buy courage on the market and so it's not easy.
Then we find cases of fraud, fraud that's perfectly controlled so that only those who want fraud get it!
Because the truth is that a combined investigation of the producer and the processor can always bring fraud to light.
Even Al Capone and Lucky Luciano got caught, so why not a poor olive-grower or oilproducer if he commits a fraud?
I would like to say, however, that there is an important point, and I will conclude with this.
That point is to determine the maximum guaranteed quantity on past figures.
For the Commission the past always means the last three years, irrespective of whether there has been a drought, as in the case of hard wheat.
This is a disgrace!
Otherwise I congratulate Mr Jové Peres, who has drafted an excellent report, for also proposing an olive subsidy, because that will make it possible to start picking the olives earlier, since they are also picked as green olives and for conserving.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, some figures have already been provided - namely seven million families in the Mediterranean.
So there is also this very important aspect, that olive oil only represents 3 % of total oil sales worldwide, and is therefore a minute part of the world oil market.
In my opinion, the Commission's proposal does not provide a strategic perspective for this sector; I find it suffocating and also unable to provide a market perspective, perhaps because it focuses too much on mediation within EU countries and it is not directed at the great boost that could be obtained on the world market, a market that provides the possibility for enormous expansion if we only have a quota of 3 %, with a good return.
The Commission has always proposed its documents with a good statistical basis; this time, the document leaps up like a statistic which I think is fundamental and does not mention employment at all, In Italy, for much of the year, the total employees engaged in the olive oil business amount to employment in four FIAT factories and this is a fundamental aspect.
The Commission's document hardly mentions employment at European level, while we are talking of nothing but employment, and we are setting up extraordinary Councils; this risks becoming a very counter-productive factor compared with the market prospects.
I think that the document drawn up by the Committee on Agriculture is a good document, indicating a path to be followed by the leading associations, by growers, by national political forces and also by the members of the left democratic party.
As far as I am concerned, this proposal is good but certainly needs to be improved.
It needs to aim at ensuring that the aspects of quality, environmental ecological factors and the possibility of exploitation of the international market are improved.
I believe the Commission should be called upon to give answers on these aspects.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Mr Jové Peres because, clearly, without his work and capacity for dialogue it would have been impossible to achieve this result.
I say this sincerely to you, from my long experience in searching for consensus.
It was a very difficult consensus to reach. Very difficult, a priori probably almost impossible.
Therefore, I congratulate you.
Commissioner, here is a debate, like all those which deal with agriculture, taking place late at night, almost on our own, but which reflects the debate in European society. Here you have the response from European society, from European farmers, to the Committee's proposals.
You have here a reasonable and balanced group of measures. I would like the Committee to consider this seriously and rigorously.
That they do not resort to financial inaction to reject reasonable proposals.
That the Committee sometimes forgets the dogma that Mediterranean production faces financial inaction and that an Agenda 2000 may be drawn up where the Commissioner's portfolio is to invite everyone except the Mediterraneans.
Commissioner, open your portfolio and this time divide to north, south, east and west because that is your duty as Commissioner.
I am concerned about the amendments that have been put forward.
I am concerned about Mr Mulder's Amendments Nos 1 to 4, based on budgetary control, when the myth of fraud in the COM is quite important in absolute and relative terms.
I am also concerned about the amendments from Mr Fantuzzi of the Socialist Group, because, if they were approved, they would mean a subtle and controlled destruction of an agreement which has been very hard to achieve.
Therefore, I ask the Assembly to support the Jové report and reject the rest of amendments so that the Committee can start work on this proposal, presenting us with a more reasonable alternative than the one initially submitted for this Parliament's consideration.
Madam President, much has been said thus far but I, in turn, would like congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
The reform of the COM for Olive Oil is a major issue and for this reason the report has very great significance, given the fact that there are structural differences between the producer Member States, which, thanks to the compromise that has been reached within the Committee on Agriculture, are being faced constructively.
Which is why I share the views of those who do not agree with the amendments that have been tabled a posteriori and which I believe we must not vote on.
It is a well-known fact that thousands of workers in Southern Europe are employed in the olive oil industry. In Greece, for example, we are talking about 710 thousand families, not just workers.
Aid per tree, as proposed by the Commission, not only does not protect basic production, but also entails the loss of jobs and the downgrading of the product.
We back the proposal for support for all those involved in actual production, including small producers, as well as proposals such as that for a register for the cultivation of olive trees.
However, at least in the initial stages, the new method of support must not be bound up, with respect to time, with the existence of this register, because there are certain states which have not yet completed this.
Also it must be stressed that keeping the same model of support for olive oil in production must not, with respect to time, be associated directly with marketable quantity but with actual production.
Madam President, when we support olive producers we must be aware that we are helping people who live in the mainly poor regions of the European Union and that, through the cultivation of olives, we are at the same time protecting the fragile Mediterranean environment.
With this in mind, the fact that reform of the common organization of the market for olive oil is the only reform which is connected with fraud causes quite an impression, and I ask myself whether fraud has not yet manifested itself with respect to other products. Is it only with respect to oil that irregularities have been shown to occur?
Have we not seen such phenomena with respect to products from Northern Europe? Have all the sins been committed by olive producers?
In addition I would like to say that, if amendments to the common organization of the market for olive oil are needed, they are not the amendments that are being proposed by the Commission.
In other words we must not move towards subsidy per tree since, in reality, by so doing we are equating those who produce with those who do not produce, and at the same time olive producers will cease to carry on intensive olive cultivation.
What we need is a system of premiums based on production and on a unified system of control for all Member States.
We also need to move away from a unified quota system.
We need national quotas, legally established, because now, when there is overproduction in one country and a low level of production in another, producers in the latter are punished twice over: once by nature and once by the European Union, when the quota is exceeded.
At the same time we need promotion of olive oil worldwide, since its positive effects on health are well known and, Madam President, we need to proceed to the abolition of support for consumption and to the utilization of money that is left in reserve for production premiums and for the promotion of olive oil on an international level.
Madam President, the new olive oil COM should have a double objective: on the one hand, it should develop the sector by improving production and the productivity of the plant, the producers' living conditions and world consumption; on the other, it should ensure the protection of the environment and olive growing, a fundamental asset for the whole of the Mediterranean Basin.
On the problems of guarantees for the sector, I would like to point out that the EU should consider the need to establish regulations seeking to prevent the mixing of seed oil with olive oil, a practice which is unfortunately permitted in some Community countries, for consumer protection.
With regard to the system of controls, it should be recalled that the olive growing register exists in Italy which, in addition to permitting a knowledge of the consistency of production, is used as a means of controlling the various levels of procedure in establishing aid.
Finally, we need to guarantee a stability of the oil price as soon as possible, by specific means such as the establishment of a private stock of product, assigned to the producers' organizations, and improving all promotional activities.
To conclude, Madam President, we intend to make a fairer redistribution and improvement of current financial resources seeking a rebalancing of the entire sector, to achieve the objectives of maintaining olive growing in difficult regions without production alternatives, where its disappearance would create serious social and environmental problems.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Combatting tobacco consumption
The next item is the report (A4-0341/97) by Mr Valverde López, on behalf of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the present and proposed Community role in combatting tobacco consumption (COM(96)0609 - C4-0014/97).
Madam President, we all agree on the approach adopted in this report and on the undertaking to promote any action helping to discourage consumption, particularly among young people.
We therefore agree to the prohibition of advertising, sponsorship, the promotion of drastic restrictions on smoking in public places and in work places, etc.
However, I fail to see how this undertaking focuses on the motion to abolish aid for tobacco production in Europe, contained in paragraph 29.
Perhaps the person supporting it is cultivating the misleading view that, by not providing more European tobacco, some smokers at home would give up?
The idea is ridiculous!
Smokers would continue to smoke by buying cigarettes from third countries and thus worsening an irreversible crisis of agricultural production in the poorest suburbs of southern Europe, that is, in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and so on, where tobacco is often the only crop possible.
The tobacco sector currently employs 284 thousand direct workers in Europe, with the subsequent stages of production bringing the figure to a million workers.
European production represents 4.6 % of world production and only meets 40 % of domestic demand; however, the quality is clearly superior, at least for that consumed in Europe.
And so, in the light of this, the request for the abolition of aid is vague, because it would only make money for the American multinationals.
Madam President, I think that we have to begin with the obvious.
But it is necessary because in every group there are going to be people who defend this report as necessary to public health while other colleagues, with the great respect and affection in which we hold them, will consider that this report is over the top.
It is clear that, from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection a report has to come out which defends public health.
In concrete terms I wholly agree with the report from Mr Valverde for several reasons.
Because the rights of non-smokers need to prevail, as he himself was saying, over the rights of smokers to smoke in public places.
It is vital that young people and children are completely separated from that world, from addiction to that world and education and training are needed for this.
In no way must it be allowed for more than 26 products to be labelled, from valerian to chocolate and the scent of liquor, which are in tobacco - this was acknowledged some days ago by a tobacco company in the Spanish press - and there are some we are not sure whether they are also addictive.
And because we think - I do not agree Mr Florenz here - that, indeed, the expression which says that tobacco harms your health should be more visible.
Finally, we see it as immoral for the European Union to export poor quality tobacco to third world countries.
It is for that reason that we - I should not say we, but rather some colleagues in my group - are going to support this report in full, because we think it necessary and it seems to us that health is above all other considerations.
However, a way out has to be sought, of course, for those farmers who see themselves as trapped and unable to grow tobacco in the future.
Madam president, this report has come at just the right time, against the background, among other things, of the Council of Ministers' common position not so long ago concerning the ban on indirect advertising of tobacco products, and also against the background of the Court of Auditors' annual report which was presented at the last session of meetings here in Strasbourg.
This report shows, among other things, that there are very big problems in the tobacco sector in the EU.
However, I do not support the rapporteur when he says that we should limit this debate to a small part of the tobacco issue.
On the contrary, I believe that we must look at the whole picture in the tobacco policy in order to effectively be able to have a strategy on the tobacco issue.
That is why we in the Left Group fully support paragraph 29 in which Parliament calls on the Council to stop direct income support for the Union's tobacco sector.
It is quite morally wrong for us to give money to tobacco growers at the same time as we discuss other anti-smoking strategies here this evening.
It is not only non-smokers who think that is wrong.
There are also many smokers who think it is quite wrong for EU money to go towards a lot of tobacco subsidies.
Madam President, passive smoking is a source of broncho-pulmonary cancers and yet three eminent chest specialists, after having studied a number of epidemiological studies said they were unable, given the available statistics, to make a formal statement on the issue.
Nothing is therefore established..
I do not know if the excellent technical report by Mr Valverde López is going to be a hit or a miss, since the public health aspect and the production aspect are unfortunately contradictory in economic terms.
You will need to be vigilant on this point, Mr Commissioner.
On the other hand, what I do know is that this report runs the risk of putting numerous tobacco producers in a difficult situation and, if that were not enough, also many seasonal workers in disadvantaged rural areas, even though this situation is in no way comparable with that of the processing and distribution multinationals, should the fundamental assessments of the rapporteur be misinterpreted.
The rapporteur knows this.
His knowledge and passion, under the Hippocratic oath, for medicine and health, must be for us a credible witness.
But the dark forces of money and, consequently, of policy will be able to distort the validity of his real and legitimate fears.
It is therefore appropriate to set the debate back in its true context.
Indeed, the European tobacco industry imports nearly 67 % of its tobacco which it processes for internal consumption within the European Union.
Also, suppression of production subsidies would in no way resolve the fight against tobacco consumption.
The image sellers, the pleasure traders, those of casinos and other vitriolic places, will only have to make sterile recommendations.
Controlling the imaginary Schengen borders, perhaps, we will be aware of the reality.
Between abuse and abstinence there must exist a happy medium in which producers, distributers and consumers can meet.
It is perhaps enough that interests should be better shared and state taxation better allocated.
The highest French authorities tell us that smoking a joint is not catastrophic.
Allow us then, Mr Valverde López, to smoke a good cigarette.
So if we cannot see life through rose-coloured spectacles, we will at least be able to make smoke rings, for dreams are sometimes a source of wisdom.
Mr President, as a doctor I know that the harmfulness of tobacco consumption is quite clear and, from the point of view of a humanist, which we all are, the massacre of innocent people, victims of passive nicotine poisoning, must stop.
Is it still necessary to remind people that there are plenty of other pathogenic agents apart from the cigar and the cigarette, such as town pollution, to which the Member States of the European Union appear surprisingly tolerant.
Perhaps it is better to be a smoker in the countryside than a non-smoker in the town.
We must also remember - and I am glad that on the right as well as the left of this Chamber, several colleagues have noted this - that 67 % of the tobacco smoked in the Union is imported from third countries.
It does not therefore seem illogical to me to ban all forms of advertising which encourage smoking, including of course, the sponsoring of cultural and sporting events, whilst taking care to maintain the employment generated by tobacco growing in Europe.
Finally, I have great difficulty in understanding why some groups which, with an admirable determination, relentlessly hunt down Gauloise smokers, at the same time demand the free sale of drugs which they call soft, against the official opinion of competent doctors.
Madam President, can I add my extreme thanks to the rapporteur for a very principled, intelligent report which very much deserves widespread support in the House.
While we are debating and voting on the report tomorrow, over a thousand Europeans will die for no good reason.
They will be killed by diseases of the heart or lungs or by cancer because they inhale tobacco smoke.
The odds that smokers take would deter anyone but an addict.
The risk of painful and premature death is one in two.
Perhaps even worse is the effect on those who choose not to smoke, especially pregnant women and children who are forced to breathe in dangerous particles emitted from those around them who light up.
Just this week independent European medical specialists have reported than 180 million citizens are exposed regularly to the smoke of others and that twenty-two thousand of them will die as a result this year.
In the face of that, the measures in this report can be seen to be justifiable and sensible, although some are perhaps more appropriate for action at Member State level.
However they are a welcome contribution to the overall plan of action.
The proposed ban on advertising and sponsorship will be discussed here in detail next year.
It will be an important part of a package of measures which should be introduced not just within our borders but in applicant countries too.
The aims of providing proper and accurate information, of encouraging health promotion and education initiatives, of using excise systems to help health measures and of removing temptation in the form of vending machines which are too accessible are not just worthy wishes but practical, effective, proven steps forward.
Separately they will be less valuable, taken together they represent a democratic assault on the lies, the smears and the shameless mendacity perpetrated by much of the tobacco industry, much of which is beyond, and hostile to, the European Union.
To tackle that misinformation fully we must put our own house in order and reform the European Union tobacco production sector rapidly and completely.
We cannot continue to spend a pittance fighting cancer and a fortune supporting tobacco.
It is time to stub out the unhealthy depressing habit to which too many of our younger citizens will become addicted and from which too many more will die unless we and our national governments succeed.
To help that, I and my Labour colleagues will vote tomorrow for the report, but against virtually all the amendments in support of the strategy explained earlier by my excellent colleague, Carmen Diez de Rivera Acaza.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, all of us here know and appreciate the dangers that this consumption involves for smokers and passive smokers.
But in wanting to substitute health guarantees, limiting free choice, responsibility itself, there is something missing.
And there are also statistical extrapolations which are made about the incidence of lung cancer in smokers.
How is the question of non-smokers explained to us? Anyway, it is their choice.
And results are not going to be achieved by banning, as the facts show.
But here I wish to point out the danger entailed in points 28, 29 and 30, as has already been highlighted by the rapporteur, for which the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has asked for a separate vote.
I would like to make a firm stand on point 29, which makes a concrete request to the Council about the withdrawal of aid.
I am against this request.
Firstly, because it does not proceed in the context in which it was presented.
Secondly, because it is not appropriate, since there will imminently be a new proposal for regulations in the sector.
And thirdly, because it has not been made in a suitable forum.
Ladies and gentlemen, if this point 29 is approved and I am keener on regulating and not banning, in the full session tomorrow there will be many of us who vote against the report.
And it would be a problem for us, since we are indeed in favour of health, but not by force of an official report, leaving farmers out in the cold.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, a lot has already been said about tobacco.
I have drawn up a report on tobacco and pleaded the cause of tobacco-growing, I know perfectly well that tobacco is harmful, I know whisky is harmful, I know it does you no good to be overweight, in fact I know that any of these things are bad for you if you have too much of them!
It is up to me to keep my cravings under control, and I hate having a Commissioner or a politician prevent me from indulging what I see as a pleasure.
I take the risk, I pay for the things and when someone actually dies of lung cancer, and it is not always due to tobacco, he has undoubtedly paid enough with the tax on every packet to pay the hospital expenses.
The truth is that the prohibitionists do not want freedom.
The truth is that they want to impose their hygienic will on all of us.
I am hygienic because that is how I was brought up, and it was preferable to concentrate on educating children, so that they actually become careful about tobacco, tobacco abuse, alcohol abuse, and anything bad for health.
At this moment, however, something more repulsive is appearing in the modern world: passive smokers suing the big tobacco multinationals for compensation for the damage they have suffered from passive smoking.
And some day we shall certainly find non-smokers suing for damages because their forebears were passive smokers.
This happens in America because they pay less tax on tobacco over there.
The fashion may possibly catch on in Europe before long.
My colleague, Mr Pimenta, has said here that tobacco was introduced into Portugal when we joined the European Community.
Not so!
Tobacco was not introduced into Portugal because in the days of the dictatorship Salazar prohibited tobacco-production there to protect the colonies' tobacco.
Please note this fact, my dear Mr Pimenta. You're old enough to be aware of it!
Madam president, on the whole I think the report we are debating is very good.
That applies to almost all the paragraphs.
However, I have some observations.
The first concerns what the rapporteur said in his speech about the fact that we should separate agricultural policy from this.
I believe it is impossible to do that if we are to achieve credibility on these issues.
It does not make sense to use very large sums of money to subsidize tobacco growing at the same time as we are going to fight the effects at the other end.
That is why paragraph 29 is very important, and it is also important that it is adopted.
I believe all support for both production and export should cease within a few years. The time should be reasonable with a view to social considerations.
Another observation is that it is important to distinguish between what measures are effective at an EU level and which belong at another level.
It is quite clear that clear marking is needed and that EU rules are needed for that.
There is also need for an effective and comprehensive ban on advertising.
However, I think that other measures belong more at the national or local level.
That includes tax issues, age limits, where people sell tobacco and what rules should apply to jobs.
Madame President, we need more information to young people on the effects of tobacco, a ban on tobacco advertising and clear labelling.
We should also not be giving ECU 1 billion in tobacco aid to a dreadful tobacco in the EU on the one hand while giving ECU 11.2 billion to fight cancer on the other.
So my colleague, Kirsten Jensen, tabled and put through an amendment to the Valverde López report to cut direct aid to the tobacco sector in the Union and so release resources which will assist with the switch to other crops in those areas.
Mr Valverde López's draft report contains much which is good, but stops just as it is beginning to get important, namely at the fact that the EU is not credible if we admit the risks involved in smoking but still go on producing tobacco.
Each year, some 400, 000 people die of smoking-related illnesses, while tobacco production supports 170, 000 tobaccogrowing farmers.
This is hypocritical, and it is pointless.
My colleague, who left the chamber once he had had his say, did not want to hear other views.
I must say that he was unbelievably well paid by the tobacco industry to come and say as much nonsense as possible in a short time.
It is a real scandal that members who are paid by the tobacco industry can stand here and talk about such things without knowing what they are talking about.
It is really scandalous.
Could the ushers please sort things out there at the back?
No, I am sorry, I am not having that.
Can I ask the ushers to sort things out please.
Please sit down again.
Mr Rosado Fernandes, can I please ask you to sit down again.
We can then sort this out, please!
Excuse me, Madam President, but he is saying that I take money from these people, he cannot say that...
Mr Rosado Fernandes, you should have made a request to raise a point of order, that would have been quite normal.
And I would have let you speak if you had made such a request.
You have now done just that. Mr Blak has asked for the floor.
If you could perhaps put your headphones back on, you will be able to hear what Mr Blak has to say now.
Madam President, I am deeply shocked at being attacked by a member who cannot bear to hear the truth.
I have never been exposed to being violently attacked in a democratic society, being physically attacked by someone.
Madam President, I would be grateful if you would report the incident to the Presidency and that the necessary action be taken.
Ladies and gentlemen, in accordance with Rule 109 of the Rules of Procedure, I have the right to call Members who create a disturbance during the proceedings to order.
I am doing exactly that now and I hope that we can now forget what has just happened.
We will now continue the debate.
Mrs Thyssen, I interrupted you, please forgive me.
Please continue.
I will then let the Member affected make a point of order.
Madam President, what I was saying was that over the past few years, we never talked as much about the public health as after the outbreak of the BSE crisis, which led us to taking a clear stance on how to deal with foodstuffs.
We said that this must be based on scientific findings, and if science cannot offer any certainty, we would like to see a political decision-making process which is based on a scientifically-responsible risk management.
Tobacco is not a foodstuff, it is a stimulant, but this fact surely does not imply we are going to be satisfied with less.
If we are talking about tobacco consumption, we are not even talking in terms of risk, but in terms of indisputable scientific findings.
We know for sure that tobacco consumption is bad for one's health, and that every year it is an avoidable cause of death and the source of much misery for 500, 000, that is half a million, Europeans.
Today we are talking about a statement from the Commission on the role of Europe in combatting tobacco consumption.
We are of course used to negotiating these resolutions.
But in this case it is not possible. In this case we cannot have it both ways.
Public health cannot be negotiated.
Transferable health rights do not exist either; this is something which was suggested here before.
So let us approve a clear message for the benefit of public health, and let us approve colleague Valverde's report as near as possible to its original version.
It is an excellent report.
The rapporteur not only deserves our congratulations, but also our support and our voice.
Thank you, Mrs Thyssen.
I now have two requests to raise points of order.
I would like to point out once again that I have made an official warning about disturbance during the proceedings, and that incident was really a gross infringement of the Rules.
I hope that we can let the matter rest there this evening.
Mr Santini now has the floor to make a point of order.
Madam President, I am speaking, but it is as though Mr Rosado Fernandes were doing so.
We are sorry about this incident but I would like to point out that the Chair may also be partly responsible.
If you, Mr President, had intervened duly and heavily in reprimanding a colleague who so grossly and directly offended another MEP, the incident would probably never have happened.
Mr Rosado Fernandes has already apologized for his reaction, which is understandable in many ways.
If the colleague who offended him would do as much, I think the incident can be considered closed.
Otherwise, we will proceed according to the Rules of Procedure.
A gross provocation has occurred which the Chair should have taken the initiative to suppress.
Mr Santini, at first, I could not see what was happening at all.
Then, taking into account of what had happened on both sides, I thought that the physical assault was the more serious, and accordingly gave a formal warning.
Mr Blak has also made a request to raise a point of order.
I wish to refer to the Rule on disciplinary measures, Mr President.
I think we should appreciate Mr Blak's politeness, a politeness which we have unfortunately seen violated by a very serious act.
Beyond the apologies and the personal forgiveness that Mr Blak very politely expressed here, I think the Bureau of the Presidency should judge an unprecedented episode in this Chamber, a physical attack against an MEP.
I also think that the debate should now move forward but I think there is still a huge difference between a political dispute, which can take on more indignant tones even in this Chamber - but we are MEPs, politicians and we know all that - and physical attack.
This is the difference between a civilized parliament, made up of civilized people, and circles and people who can be classified differently.
I think that, although, on the one hand, we should note Mr Blak's extraordinarily responsible and significant attitude, on the other, what has happened here is more than a clash of individuals and I think it should be examined by the Bureau of the Presidency with great calm and at the same time with great firmness.
I agree with your assessment of the situation, Mr Vecchi.
I hope that nothing of the kind will happen here again, and I thank both Members involved for their willingness to accept the apologies offered.
Mr Rosado Fernandes has the floor again.
Madam President, I apologize and beg your pardon for my action.
I will never allow any fellow-Member to say that I take money from anyone.
I was not brought up to be a thief.
For that reason I do not like being called something I am not.
I have no way of punishing anyone who calls me a thief and hides behind his Parliamentary immunity.
I do not have the slightest means of defending myself.
Being insulted in this way is something that puts me in an extremely difficult position.
I have no hesitation in apologizing to my fellow-Member for what I did, but I would most earnestly ask him not to call any Member a thief, because there are Members who do not like being called by such a name. They are not thieves, they take no money from anyone, because they are here to defend their constituents' interests.
That is my only intention here, and I therefore apologize to the President once again.
And if you wish to take any disciplinary action, I shall be prepared to accept full responsibility for my action, quite willingly, because I do not have the natural temperament of a St Francis of Assisi and I do not like being insulted.
Mr Rosado Fernandes, you have apologized, and Mr Blak has accepted that apology.
I would be pleased if we could leave it at that now.
The more we talk about this, the more complicated it becomes, and the more difficult it is to bring to a conclusion.
I would also ask Mr Blak, who has now asked to speak once again, and Mr Valverde López to note what I have said.
If possible, I would ask you to withdraw your requests to speak, so that we can continue with the debate.
Madame President, I am pleased at what my colleague who made the actual assault has said.
I do not know what the translation was, but this is a political debate to which I came with some remarks.
I may well have upset him: if so, I apologize.
But I do not think that that means I said I forgive his violence towards me.
But I am prepared to refrain from taking matters further.
The matter is closed as far as I am concerned.
I do not want to discuss what happened any further.
Mr Valverde López, can we leave it at that?
I share your opinion and I shall of course report this.
Madam President, I do not smoke, but more than addiction to tobacco I fear addiction to fanaticism and excess.
Nobody maintains that smoking is good for your health.
However, the persecution of smokers, tobacco producers and all those who work in the tobacco industry is almost turning into a witch hunt on the American model.
Many of the recommendations contained in the report go beyond the Commission's proposals, while some of the proposed measures give the impression that there has been no fundamental study of their economic and social repercussions, nor any consultation with the social categories that are affected.
The proposed channelling of aid for tobacco into the restructuring of production is to be equated with the annihilation of tobacco cultivation, to say nothing of the fact that this will lead to an inordinate increase in imports of a product in short supply in favour of third countries and without of course any hope of reducing consumption.
Madam President, I am surprised by the ease with which the north, in the main, invokes morality and health in order to wipe out an important Mediterranean product and all who work in the industry, when it is indeed well known that by so doing we are simply helping the products of multinational companies to enter our markets and when nobody says anything about our other evils such as alcoholism.
Why does nobody talk about alcoholism? Within the framework of this logic we could begin a very nice campaign against whisky production.
We in the south, who have no alcohol problem, will be at the forefront of such a campaign.
Madam President, I congratulate Mr Valverde López on his very succinct and illuminating report on the hazards of smoking.
The many risks associated with the consumption of tobacco are well-known.
Nevertheless, smoking is the greatest single preventable cause of death in the European Union.
The greatest change in smoking habits has taken place among the generations.
In present times smoking has become far more common among young women, and will account for an increase in female deaths in the future.
So what are we do to about it? The most important task of society is the promotion of health with every resolution made.
That is why I support the ban on tobacco advertising, which must extend to all parts of the European Union.
I do not think we can afford to wait until 1006 for the ban to come into force, as was proposed at Luxembourg.
The other main way of controlling consumer behaviour is taxation.
We should tax the life out of tobacco consumption.
There is a need to enlighten people in the Member States as to the dangers of smoking much more obviously than at present.
I would expect this to be targeted at young people, especially young women, because they are the group at most risk.
Among the young smoking is very often seen as a way of being more grown-up, a kind of fad.
We as parents and guardians have to get involved too.
Madam President, I would like to say that taking the law into one's own hands is in no way a political argument, but, by the same token, saying that someone who expresses different arguments is being paid is not a political argument either.
This is unacceptable and I think that the President should call Mr Blak to order.
Madam President, of course we are all for the protection of public health, but we cannot allow, in the name of health, to be treated hypocritically the crushing of hundreds of thousands of our co-citizens who, in unfavourable conditions in the most infertile regions of the South, are employed in tobacco production.
The implication that tobacco producers are responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in Europe is not only hypocritical but verging on the suspect, since it is a well-known fact that there is a shortage of tobacco in the European Union, and that tobacco imports exceed 70 % of its total needs.
The abolition of Community aid for tobacco producers will not reduce the effects on public health.
It will simply increase imports from third countries and the United States, while at the same time completely destroying the poorest regions, which do not have alternative solutions and where tobacco is essentially the sole industry.
The solution to the problem must be sought in an extensive anti-smoking campaign, in providing information, in the drastic reduction of imports and in the promotion of actions to substitute production in tobacco-producing regions.
Until then the subsidizing and support of producers and their employment must continue unabated.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, lung cancer is certainly not just a problem for health ministers, but also for finance ministers.
When the health ministers decided here a few days ago here to introduce a ban on tobacco advertising, incidently despite dissenting votes by my country, Austria, and by Germany, I believe that only some of the ministers affected were present.
We know that no European state can keep its budget under control without revenues from tobacco taxes.
So European governments benefit from their citizens' addiction.
It is very much in their interest for people to smoke a lot.
Not only is 20 to 30 a day better, 60 a day is much better, as the revenue is correspondingly higher!
We know that children and young people who can be stopped from smoking do not turn into addictive smokers later on.
So how can we manage to protect our children? I believe that is the main question.
We will never get people who already smoke to stop.
My husband smokes 60 cigarettes a day, and in the course of a long marriage I have given up trying to get him to stop. But how can we protect our children?
Is the Community-wide introduction of a minimum age of 18 for buying tobacco products feasible? We already have a minimum age of 16 in Austria, and it is not observed.
Today a twelve-year-old, even a ten-year-old child can go and buy cigarettes, saying they are buying them for their dad, and the child will get the cigarettes.
Nevertheless, I believe that if we were to get through this increase in the minimum age, we would at least have a chance of helping a lot of young people.
Is an advertising ban the answer? We are talking about something which it is legal to produce, which the state earns revenue from, a lot of revenue, and which quite definitely shortens many people's lives considerably.
But this product is actually a drug!
So how is it that we allow it to be sold? There are so many contradictions that we are aware of nowadays.
I wonder - today it is cigarettes, tomorrow it will be alcohol - there you have cirrhosis or cancer of the liver - next it will be smoked meat. We Austrians love smoked meat and smoked meat certainly also causes cancer of the stomach.
As an Austrian I am perhaps very sensitive about the idea of a state, like the one we share a border with, which has forbidden everything.
I would like to thank you very much, Mr Valverde, you have given us food for thought. And tomorrow we shall all have to follow both our hearts and minds when we vote.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Humane trapping
The next item is the report (A4-0325/97) by Mr Pimenta, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the signing and conclusion of an Agreement on International Humane Trapping Standards between the European Community, Canada and the Russian Federation (COM(97)0251 - C4-0425/97-97/0019(CNS)).
Mr President, we are here debating a very peculiar creature.
It is called an agreement yet in reality it is a non-agreement.
I would liken it to the Cheshire Cat because all you can see is its smile.
First, it should be said that Parliament did not seek this agreement, we want the implementation of the 1991 regulation.
That was very carefully put together to end the worst cruelty associated with the trade which allows rich women to wear the furs of tortured animals.
In the face of threats of WTO from Canada and the United States, the Commission took it upon itself to negotiate this non-agreement and it is fundamentally flawed.
The non-agreement is certainly not about humane trapping standards since, just for instance, it still permits the use of trapping underwater, leading inevitably to death by slow drowning.
The PSE wholeheartedly endorses Mr Pimenta's report, in which he comprehensively shows exactly how this non-agreement fails to protect trapped animals from cruelty.
The proposal does not even present a level playing field, since the USA deal is even weaker than that with Canada and Russia and the deadlines are about out-of-sight out-of-mind verbal undertakings.
The Americans cannot ensure implementation because of their federal system.
The Canadians are happy for it to have enough loopholes for a pack of wolves to run through, and the Russians love the self-enforcing, self-evaluating system.
So there is still no commitment to abolish the cruel, leg-hold traps.
At the end of the day this unwanted, unworkable non-agreement will perpetuate the use of the leghold trap and is unable to improve the welfare of trapped animals.
Even the Cheshire cat trapped behind its smile.
I urge support for the Pimenta report.
Madam President, my colleague, Mr Pimenta, has written a report on the international agreement on the painless snaring of animals.
This agreement is important for the international fur trade, and it also is of immense interest in the Nordic regions with regard to the protection of animals.
Mr Pimenta has now stated the agreement is a bad one.
Very often the best is the worst enemy of what is merely good.
This is something I really want to stress.
It is, of course, easy to sympathise with Mr Pimenta's concern over the well-being of animals.
Unfortunately, however, I must totally disagree with him as far as protection of animals in the agreement is concerned.
I think the agreement is an important step towards improved conditions for the trapping of fur animals.
The acceptance of the agreement would give guarantees from the EU that finally how humane trapping methods are can be judged according to international criteria.
Up till now there have not been common yardsticks for the evaluation of traps insofar as what is acceptable and what should be prohibited.
The agreement would provide for EU investigation into snaring methods currently in use within its borders, which will go a long way to improve the welfare of animals.
Mr Pimenta suggests, however, that the agreement be quashed, because it is not perfect.
So no good will come of it.
The Committee on External Economic Relations, which also cares for the wellbeing of animals, and for whom I now speak as draftsman of the opinion, considers it absolutely vital that the Community fulfills its international obligations and that a possible new WTO dispute be averted.
A possible trade war would jeopardise tens of thousands of jobs, which clearly conflicts with the aims of Union employment policy.
Unlike Mr Pimenta, the Committee on External economic relations believes the proposed agreement, such as it is, be accepted as a better alternative to outright rejection.
If you can't get the best, take what is good.
This is a never-ending story, Commissioner Brittan.
We started it as far back as in 1991.
At that time a ban on the import of fur from the thirteen animal species should have come into effect, and yet now in 1997, we are still not there.
We have an agreement with Canada and Russia.
But this agreement only states that it will be another four years before the conventional traps are banned and another eight years before the other types are done away with.
This is not enough if we look at the agreements we made earlier.
I would even say an agreement is agreement, and we will have to stick to it.
We should not accept any poor substitutes which do not meet the decree of 1991.
I know full well that in the European Union there has been a struggle between Commissioner Brittan and Mrs Bjerregaard.
Mrs Bjerregaard lost; Mr Brittan wanted to avoid trade conflicts with other countries, but I have to say Mr Brittan is in the wrong, because the proposed international agreement fails dramatically in the field of animal welfare, and in fact tries to reconcile trade and the environment by not implementing the provisions of the import ban pursuant to the decree.
That is why I fully agree with colleague Pimenta.
We must vote against this.
I am interested to know, Mr President, what is the situation regarding the agreement with the United States?
What is the agreement, and, in particular, in which US states does the ban on the use of leghold traps apply?
Madam President, first of all, I would like to express my full support for Mr Pimenta's report and I also wish to say that the agreements proposed here are a sensational mistake, for not only do they fail to solve the problems at the basis of the approval of the 1991 regulations, particularly the suffering caused by the traps used to capture animals for their fur, but have the opposite effect.
In fact, they legitimize methods of capture that cause suffering by classifying them as methods not using cruelty.
So it is no wonder that on Monday the Canadian Minister of Trade was delighted with the agreement and rightly regarded it as beneficial to the interests of the fur trade and industry.
It should be added that these agreements are legally invalid, as agreements that distort a regulation, and therefore amend it, with different procedure from that laid down for the approval of the regulation itself cannot be approved.
For these reasons, I think it right that the European Parliament, as proposed by the rapporteur, should reject the agreement and ask for the spirit of the regulation to be observed and the procedure of cooperation to be applied rather than that of simple consultation.
Madam President, I normally have the utmost admiration and respect for Carlos Pimenta's work, but in this case, I could have wished that he could have employed his efforts in a better cause.
The Council's regulations have always been totally hypocritical.
Innumerable examples of hunting methods in Europe which are just as gruesome could be put forward, involving far more animals, but which my two minutes do not allow me to mention.
But, of course, it is easier to score animal welfare points off helpless Inuits in Northern Canada than here in Europe, where the worst that can happen is to tread on a few voters' toes.
The Environment Committee has said on the subject of fox traps that gravid animals can be released, even if these are only set up in three winter months during which no animals are gravid as far as I know.
Another objection was that the Inuits of Northern Canada can only live off tourism, in the style of Marie Antoinette, who suggested that the starving people of Paris should eat cake if they were unable to buy bread.
Now we are close to an agreement which, unlike the Council's regulations, regulates and establishes standards for catching wild animals on both sides of the Atlantic, in other words here in Europe too, where we have had nothing so far.
But the Environment Committee and Carlos Pimenta as its rapporteur have sensed that the Commission has not followed Parliament and implemented the regulations.
So this agreement does not have a chance.
It was thrown out, irrespective of what was in it.
The Committee on External Economic Relations has produced an outstanding statement which regards the agreement as the first step on the road, although of course it does have its faults.
It contains both healthy common sense and animal welfare.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for years the subject of leghold traps has regularly featured on our agenda.
And for years the European Community has supported internationally agreed humane trapping standards.
That was and remains a good thing, and I believe, contrary to your view, Mr Pimenta, that it has been successful.
The agreement between the EU, Canada and the Russian Federation could of course be improved.
But something has actually happened, which we could scarcely have hoped for years ago.
There is now a treaty, and countries are committing themselves to implement animal protection measures on the basis of treaties.
That is why I think it is right that we have taken the measures adopted up to now, but we must also start to be reasonable, by which I mean reasonable as we now understand it, because we were also being reasonable before.
I would like to tell you very quickly why I believe the Parliament should support this agreement, despite many reservations.
This agreement will achieve more than anyone could have imagined a few years ago.
Canada and Russia are finally willing to enter into binding commitments.
Europe's interest in this matter used to be regarded purely as interference in internal affairs.
We now have a chance to achieve positive changes in these countries in favour of animal protection.
The agreement goes beyond leghold traps and also covers other traps.
I would quite simply like to draw your attention to that.
Only by consistently implementing the agreement do we have a chance to show that further improvements in protection standards are necessary and possible.
Everyone involved must have a chance to bring their experience and knowledge to the implementation process.
That is the essential task facing us.
I particularly have in mind indigenous trappers and animal protection organizations.
Trappers have already gone beyond what is now found in these agreements. They have already taken things much further.
Finally, I believe that it is a tactical error to reject the agreement with Canada just because of the current negotiations with the USA.
If we do that, then we will be seen as people who always want to say no in this area, and then the European Parliament would not been taken seriously by anyone any more.
Let us say yes to the agreement between the EU and Canada, and ask for permanent involvement, because that is important. Let us show realism and wisdom.
Madam President, I think it is right that since our views on this subject do not have any legal force, we should establish our position as strongly as we can.
And I think most of the Members of this House feel that this is a very sad day for the European Parliament because the agreement, although it exists - and in a sense it is an achievement that it does exist - is a very weak one and if you have regard to any of the European Parliament's reports on this issue to date, then the agreement in front of us can only be regarded as inadequate.
It may be that there are other sorts of animal cruelty in the world - I am sure there are; but an indiscriminate trapping system which traps live animals in indescribable pain must be one of the worst, and incidentally one of the avoidable, instances of such cruelty.
The agreement is inadequate because it exerts very little real force for change on countries which currently permit the leghold trap and other sorts of cruel traps.
The agreement, as Mr Pimenta has said, omits important animal welfare considerations for the future, and its test of what is or is not humane does too little to limit unnecessary pain.
In particular the leghold trap is likely to continue in use for many years.
The derogations in article 10 are potentially massive and the Joint Management Committee that is set up in article 14 is terribly woolly: it will probably rarely meet.
So I hope that because we are able tomorrow to signal our Parliament's rejection of this agreement, we will simply be able to say to those involved that we regard this agreement as a first step but certainly not the last step.
There is one point on which I would be grateful if the Commissioner could reply. It seems that the Commission was possibly reluctant to implement the original regulation because of fear of WTO proceedings.
Is this true?
How does the Commission regard the original regulation is likely to fare within the WTO? As it stands there is only one person who really emerges with any credit from all this, and that is Mr Pimenta.
Madam President, rejecting the agreement if you would actually rather have it than not have it would be a piece of self-indulgence.
Parliament has to decide whether it is better to have the agreement or not to have the agreement.
I have no hesitation whatsoever in saying that while it is possible to point out the inadequacies of the agreement it is unquestionably a major step forward in animal welfare.
Without it you could have the ban but you would have no improvement in animal welfare.
With it you will have a standard to be applied and the absolute commitment to phase out leghold traps in Canada and Russia, and now that we have an agreement with the United States, in the United States as well.
Some questions have been asked about the strength of that commitment and of the derogation.
I want to make it quite clear that in the Commission's view the derogation to the commitment to phase out the leghold traps is not possible and the Commission is behind the declaration that will be made at the time of the signing of the agreed minute with the United States making that quite clear.
I want to make it clear that as far as Canada is concerned if there were any attempt to use that derogation, we would activate the dispute settlement mechanism of the agreement in the confident belief that it would not permit such a derogation to be used.
In the case of the United States we are not restricted in any way and we could take immediate autonomous measures if there was any attempt to use that derogation including a reintroduction of the trade ban which I personally would unhesitatingly support.
Therefore this is an effective measure.
It does not go the whole way.
In the case of the United States it binds the states as well.
The United States is responsible for the commitment on the part of the states to honour this agreement.
As such it is unquestionably one which, of course, could be bettered, but which marks a significant improvement in animal welfare.
Only the agreement can do that.
Nothing else could and as far as selectivity is concerned, there is no reason to believe that is a serious problem.
It is undoubtedly the case that selectivity is really caused not so much by any particular type of trap but by the circumstances and natural conditions in which a trap is used.
As for the longer time for the United States, that is a consequence of the fact that the problem is more severe in the United States and it takes longer to get rid of it.
The fact of the matter is that we all share the same commitment.
The only question is how to go about it, how to bring about a significant improvement in animal welfare.
It is easy for Members of Parliament to say that this is not good enough.
But I should like to see them do better.
Of one thing I am quite certain: if there had been no agreement, not one single animal would be spared one moment of suffering.
With this agreement we will find the phasing out of the worst traps, the application of the standards and a significant improvement in animal welfare.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Foodstuffs
The next item is the recommendation for the second reading (A4-0379/97) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, concerning the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting the European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 89/398/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses (C40439/97-94/0076(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs Sandbæk).
Madam President, during the Environment Committee's hearings on food and food legislation, Commissioner Bangemann of Germany said that the main aim of food legislation in the EU is that it should be consistent, simple, user-friendly and formulated in consultation with all the interests involved.
And precisely the same message is formulated in the Commission's Green Paper on the European Union's food legislation, which emphasizes that it is desirable to simplify and rationalise the Community's food legislation to simply limiting its proposals to measures which are necessary to protect popular health and consumers.
I agree with that entirely.
Before a food can be defined as intended for special nutrition, it must meet specific nutritional requirements in some categories of people who cannot eat normal food, either because their digestion or metabolism is not working properly, or because they are in a specific physiological condition and may derive a particular benefit from a controlled intake of certain substances in their food.
Infants and young children are a class in themselves.
The Council should be praised for the fact that this definition has limited the original list of nine categories of food for special nutrition to five special directives.
But the list should have been four, because Parliament was correct when it said at the first reading that there were grounds for producing a special directive on food for sportspeople.
The labelling requirements of framework Directive 89/398/EEC are quite sufficient to inform and protect consumers of food which is suitable for hard physical work, and article 7 of the directive in particular.
Simplifying the rules should not of course affect consumer protection or information.
But, in this instance, sportspeople are already covered enough.
There is also a serious risk that general foods with particular characteristics which are particularly suitable for sportspeople, such as pasta and some drinks, would be moved over to the special directive on sports food.
This would lead to considerable confusion amongst consumers and go directly contrary to the simplification of the rules in the single market which all Member States are already behind.
So, to me, it seems completely paradoxical that the Council now wants suddenly to re-establish the special directive on sports food.
And Amendment Nos 1 and 2 propose deleting it from the list again.
As far as Amendment Nos 3 and 5 are concerned, I do of course quite agree that no new food products should be used in baby food, and that this must be pesticide-free.
The Council says that special rules for pesticides in foods have already been laid down, but those rules have not been revised in the light of recent scientific knowledge.
Something should be done about this.
In any case, I cannot recommend voting in favour of these two amendments.
If, as the amendment proposes, we demand that the special directive should be called 'Processed and pesticidefree cereal-based foods and pesticide-free baby food for infants and young children' , such a directive would have to be restricted to saying what the requirements for pesticide-free baby food are.
On the other hand, it cannot demand that there be no pesticides in baby food, because in that case of course the directive would be about pesticide-free baby foods.
It is all a question of semantics.
So, logically speaking, such a requirement for baby food could not be made in a directive with the name which the Commission has proposed, and the contents of which the Commission has already promised to amend by the end of 1998.
The Commission should stick to this, and I would like to have a promise from the Commission here and now that consideration has been given to banning the use of new foods and pesticides in the directive.
It would also be advisable for the Commission to take the directive on mother's milk substitutes up for review, as there are also problems here.
The problems in dealing with the special directives which have already been issued should lead us here in the European Parliament to accept that directives may be of a technical nature and yet also have a political content which cannot be left to a committee of experts, but which both the Council and Parliament should have the opportunity of commenting on.
I am pleased that the Council has raised the question of a special directive on food for diabetics.
All diabetics' organizations are against the idea.
They feel that the marketing of and ready access to diabetic products creates false needs in diabetics and that diabetic products have no place in the contemporary treatment of diabetes.
Diabetics can and should live on ordinary food.
What matters is sensible information to consumers and a correct and above all individually tailored diet, and not labelling diabetic products in blue, as one special directive suggests.
Diabetic products contain high levels of harmful fat.
The product labelling is often deficient, and labelling is vitally important to diabetics, and they also typically cost up to 400 % more than ordinary products, which is a totally unnecessary and unreasonable financial burden to impose on diabetics.
The wish and initiative for a special directive comes only from Germany, which has an enormous food industry directed specially at diabetics.
There is a lot of money at stake.
I have accepted the Council's compromise, namely that we should get the opinion of the scientific committee on foodstuffs before the question is settled finally.
I would like to end by calling on Parliament to accept the Council's joint approach and the amendments proposed by the Environment Committee.
Madam President, before us today we have an amendment to framework Directive 89, which relates to particular nutritional uses.
There was an argument between the Commission and the European Parliament about how many specific directives should be adopted.
This Parliament had already requested that foods for diabetics and sports foods should be covered by specific directives.
I realise that the Commission want to have fewer specific directives, but these products are already on the market, and many citizens are already used to them.
The problem is that if things are now changed in this way, people who are already used to a particular type of food will suddenly be effectively deprived of adequate information.
The Council has complied with the Parliament's request.
It was particularly striking that the Council adopted this unanimously, which is why I am somewhat unhappy that it is now proposed to take sports foods back out, and with the support of the Socialist Group, who did not, incidentally, take that line during the first reading.
My group opposes taking out sports foods, so we shall not be voting for this amendment.
I believe that we should keep everything as it was originally.
Sports foods in particular need to be properly controlled, because consumers' health is at stake, they have to be protected against false and inaccurate claims, not to mention the effect of such foodstuffs.
Nobody is obliged to buy foodstuffs of this kind, but we think that people who want to do so should also have the option of being provided with a high standard of information.
Madam President, there has been a great deal of talk this year about simplifying Community legislation.
The aim is not least to restrict vertical directives in favour of horizontal ones, so the natural consequence should be that vertical directives were only introduced when they were really necessary.
It is therefore remarkable, as the rapporteur has also said, that vertical directives on food for special nutrition are still being put forward. It seems crazy to legislate for the Union's sake on something which, when it comes down to it, means eating a lot of pasta and potatoes.
If we continue like this, there will be nothing which is not regulated.
There are two very basic problems with these superfluous special directives.
First, they send a signal to the population group in question that foods labelled in a given way are the most appropriate to east.
This is absolute rubbish.
There are quite ordinary foods which cover the need.
Second, foods for the special groups are often sold to consumers at inflated prices, precisely because ordinary consumers believe they are better than ordinary foods.
And here I think we are at the heart of the matter: precisely because it is a special directive for sportspeople which the Council has added.
There is a lot of money at stake here, the way this field has developed.
After all, sport has become the latest industry, with totally absurd lifestyle requirements, performance requirements and above all high earnings and not least profits for the people moving on the periphery of the sporting world.
If we want to get into sport, it should not be via a special directive on special food for sportspeople.
Of course there are special cases where special directives are in order, and particularly when it comes to food, but they must be limited to groups which are known to have special needs.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to appeal to you again in the strongest terms to support at second reading as well the amendment requiring baby food to be pesticide-free.
Mrs Sandbæk, you are mistaken in saying that is already covered, it is just the opposite!
There is still no agreement within the Commission that this food should be pesticide free.
It has merely been suggested to the committees that the German system, namely a zero detection limit, should be adopted.
But that does not mean pesticide-free.
I feel that particularly in an area as sensitive as baby food, the precautionary principle should apply.
Scandals in the past about baby food contaminated with lindane particularly disturbed consumers.
We have to make it clear that the precautionary principle must apply here.
It is possible to produce pesticide-free baby food, and the child's body is after all especially sensitive to carcinogenic substances in food.
My last point is on sports foods.
I do not think that we should make special foods for every group, otherwise we will end up with MEP food, which might have to cater for the special condition needed for sessions which last late into the night!
We should also speak out against the use of novel food ingredients in baby food.
Madam President, I would also like to speak about baby food.
Like others in this House, my group is calling for a ban on pesticides in baby food, although I have to say that we believe this criterion will be met if the limit value set is close to the detection limit.
Unfortunately, the Commission has not got that far yet.
We are extremely annoyed that this subject has been repeatedly put off by the Commission, and that they quite simply do not get round to it.
Scientific data is already available, and there are clear grounds for saying that, for lindane for example, the limit value applying to adult foods is just not enough, and babies are clearly more sensitive than adults.
BSE should have taught us that whenever there is even a mere suspicion, we should take it very seriously and rule out any risk.
Now, maybe the Commission is going to say that this is the wrong place, and that this should not be sorted out here.
In that case, I wonder why the Commission has not yet sorted it out in the right place!
You should have decided on a limit value close to the detection limit long ago, and then we would not still be discussing this.
If you discuss this over the next few weeks, I hope it will be settled, and then there will not of course be any need for this amendment.
If you can say today that you will do that, then our amendment can be dropped. But I appeal to the Commission to set really strict limit values.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of this proposal is to reduce the number of directives in this area.
Nonetheless, during the first reading, the Commission accepted Parliament's request to add another group to the four originally proposed, namely foods for diabetics, and to define the conditions for using the terms 'low sodium' and 'gluten-free' .
The Commission submitted an amended proposal doing that.
The Council did not entirely share our views and wanted to replace diabetic foods with sports foods.
We were not convinced about the necessity to have a specific directive on sports foods and I am glad to see that view is widely shared here today.
We said so at the time.
We also said so in the Council where the Commission defended strongly our amended proposal.
The Council modified it against our will and sports foods, according to the Council's common position, would be the subject of a specific directive.
As we said in our communication to you on the common position we do not agree with that and we consider that treating sports food separately is neither scientifically nor politically justified.
Amendment No 3 concerning the use of novel food ingredients is another matter.
This is not the right place to introduce such a provision.
In addition, I do not agree with this blanket prohibition since it is not necessary in the interests of the health of infants and young children.
There are rules concerning the use of these products in the Community which we think offer necessary guarantees.
With regard to the addition to the title of cereal-based foods and baby foods that they should be pesticide-free, our view is that this is not the right place to have such a compositional provision.
I am not able to say whether it would be considered appropriate elsewhere.
If it is to exist, the right place is in a specific Commission directive where we have delegated power to adopt and which is currently being prepared.
Parliament will be informed of that in accordance with the modus vivendi procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Cofinancing with NGOs for developing countries
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0371/97) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Regulation on co-financing operations with European non-governmental development organizations (NGOs) in fields of interest to developing countries (C4-0442/97-95/0168(SYN)) (rapporteur: Mr Paasio).
Madam President, the cofinancing of the projects and actions of the non-governmental organizations in development actions in the poor countries of the world and training for the development of Europe has probably been the most positive, dynamic and innovative sector in the external projection of the European Union for many years, utilizing the direct contribution made by civilized society in relation to the populations in the southern part of the world.
The current budget line B7-6000 has grown constantly over the years, thanks in particular to the boost given to the European Parliament and to a broadly positive assessment of the impact of the NGO actions.
It is natural for such an important sector of intervention to find its own clear and established legal basis: this is the objective of the draft Regulation that we are examining on a second reading today.
It should be pointed out, however, that, for over twenty years, the cofinancing of NGO projects has operated very well, even without a specific legislative regulation.
This has led us to consider, on the first reading, that we should not unnecessarily burden procedure that is already consolidated with useless, inefficient and binding regulations.
I am referring in particular to the aspects of setting up committees, which Council intends to introduce and which Parliament is contesting strongly.
Mr Paasio, whom I wish to thank, has done a good job, by managing to get the entire Committee on Development to agree to his amendments which, with the addition of amendment 9, will receive the full support of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
However, I would like to take the opportunity to extend my sincere thanks to our Parliamentary group for the denial and immense and complex work carried out in recent years by the NGO cofinancing unit of the European Commission, and ask the Commission to finally reinforce it in terms of staff.
I hope that, in the next few months, the work involved in defining the new regulations and general conditions for cofinancing that enable a leap in quality to be made in the management methods of the NGO projects by the European Commission will proceed.
Non-governmental cooperation in development has found and will find real and sincere support in our group. As well as the more general means of cooperation, it is enabling the commitment to new subjects and new objects of human and participatory development to be refocused.
Madam President, I would first like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Paasio, and to congratulate him on his report.
This is actually his first report to the Parliament and I think that in conjunction with our group he has carried out this task admirably.
But I would also like to thank the organizations being discussed here, that is the nongovernmental organizations. They do enormously important work for the European Union and for people in less developed countries.
In the first place, it is good that they make a contribution themselves and this means that the effectiveness of aid is automatically increased, as anyone collecting donations to a particular project has a great responsibility to make sure that the money is also spent properly.
Secondly, NGOs - especially church NGOs, but also many private initiatives - have partners on the ground whom they can trust and with whom they can work very well, and who also know the local structure very well.
That is why we should continue to help NGOs.
It is a good sign that we have already significantly topped up the relevant funding in the budget for next year.
However, there are also a few problems.
I cannot praise the staff in the unit which administers the relevant budget line too highly - from personal experience I can say that they seem to be very committed.
But the NGOs have a problem in that the time before an application is approved or rejected is very long.
Anybody who knows this business will confirm that it is simply not possible to withhold money for a whole year.
Once projects have been planned with partners, they have to be tackled sooner or later.
For that reason, I think that Amendment No 9 is very important, as it specifies that a reply has to be given within at most nine months.
I think that this actually possible in the present situation, difficult as it is for the staff, but we would also try to shorten the delay still further, and I therefore believe that this unit needs more staff.
I am not saying this to be entertaining, but because I really think that this needs looking at.
I am addressing this comment to Sir Leon Brittan but I also think that the other commissioners need to consider if in one of the Commission's other Directorates-General there are not perhaps some staff who could be transferred to remove this bottleneck in DG VIII.
These people are really overloaded, and they need more staff so that the money for this important work can be properly administered.
Madame President, I would like to agree with some of the things which the previous speaker, Mr Liese, said about speed in dealing with resources.
It is vital for NGOs, which of course work in a different, unbureaucratic way, that business should proceed reasonably smoothly.
Also, there may well be some people who think that it is rather amazing that we are standing here and talking about how to aid NGOs because, after all, NGOs are just that - non-governmental.
And so of course it is being said that we will support NGOs financially without making them in our own image, because we need them, because they can do things which the public sector cannot.
Above all, they can look at the people they are working with on an entirely different equal principle, because they are not burdened by government bureaucracy, rules and regulations, having to justify every step etc.
And the people they talk with, and who do not agree with the NGOs, can speak out against them without needing to fear repression.
So NGOs should be supported.
On the other hand, the responsibility for how they are supported is still a democratic matter, and so democratic control is still needed.
But it is impossible to exercise democratic control in a completely closed system, and that is why I would like to emphasize the third section of Amendment No 7, which says that meetings of the Committee of representatives of Member States which assists the Commission should be public unless there are convincing reasons to the contrary.
But what shall we do with this secretiveness? Openness is difficult, people have a tendency to meddle, but we are better off with it than without it.
Madam President, I would also like to stress that the non-governmental organizations are very valuable partners in aid work.
They show a great commitment, often great knowledge and often make a large voluntary contribution.
Therefore, as the good partners and good complement that they are for the other aid, they must be treated both with respect and trust.
We can best do that by providing efficient and correct processing of their project applications.
They should not be met by suspicion, almost insurmountable obstacles and complicated application forms, big bureaucracy and long waiting times.
I therefore welcome, as many others here have done, Amendment No 5 to article 6.1 of the report about limits on how long an application from the non-governmental organizations should be allowed to take.
It is good that there is now a clear regulation.
I am, however, convinced that cooperation with non-governmental organizations can be made more efficient. For example, by making more use of the opportunities for framework agreements, particularly with the large aid organizations which have a lot of experience and a high level of integrity.
It is, by the way, a method which I have discussed in a very positive spirit with Commissioner Pinheiro during a previous question time.
I believe we have an opportunity to go further in this area so that there is more time left to deal with applications from the small organizations which perhaps require not only an extra careful examination, but also advice about their work.
Madam President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Paasio for the excellent quality of his report.
With regard to the personnel questions, I will draw the points that have been raised to the attention of my colleague, Mr Pinheiro.
Parliament, of course, has always attached the greatest importance to cofinancing the development NGOs, and has consistently increased the budget line for these activities.
On numerous occasions Parliament has reaffirmed the specific and irreplaceable roles of NGOs and the importance of their operations.
I fully share that view, as does the Commission as a whole, and this approach is reflected in the draft regulation, which the Commission welcomes and supports.
With regard to the eight amendments, the Commission can accept most of them, either because they reflect common goals already pursued and practices already followed by the Commission, or because their aim is to supply more complete information.
I refer here to Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 (second and third parts), and 5 (second part).
However, the Commission has problems with - for various specific reasons - Amendments Nos 5 (first part and third part in its present form), 6 (first part), 7 and 8.
Amendment No 5 (first part in its present form) states that as a rule the Commission must decide within six months whether an operation presented by an NGO will be cofinanced or not.
We agree that an NGO has a right to a definite answer as quickly as possible and have no problem about the six-month deadline but we think there should be added to the amendment the words 'if during the appraisal of the application it appears that the application is incomplete, the abovementioned delay should run from the date of the reception of the information requested, that is to say not from the date of the application' .
That is done specifically in order to avoid the rejection of many otherwise excellent projects for which full information has not been made available in time.
So we accept the spirit of the amendment but would like to add that further point.
Amendment No 5, third part, though, is not acceptable because a one-month delay to check the completeness of the documents is already incorporated in the six-month delay, which I have just mentioned, and therefore is not necessary.
It is a drafting point and nothing more than that.
With regard to Amendment No 6, first part, the deadline of 30 June of each year is unfortunately an unrealistic one and it would not be sensible to indicate our support for that.
Amendment No 7 states that the Commission is to be assisted by an advisory committee of the Member States.
We do not agree with that, because it is at variance with the solution already reached in the common position on comitology, which represents the only compromise that was possible after two years' discussion with the Member States and we think we should now come to a decision.
Finally, with regard to Amendment No 8, providing that the Council Regulation should be subject to revision after five years, if you look at the time taken in the discussion on the Regulation - which has already been going on for two and a half years - it is time to have some stability, and we would not favour a five-year revision period.
However, these are comparatively small points and most of the amendments we accept.
I should like to thank Parliament for its commitment over years in favour of development NGOs and their work, and underline our determination to continue to cooperate fruitfully with such NGOs for the benefit of the poorer sections of the population in developing countries.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 12.36 a.m.)
Statement by the President
Before reading the Minutes, I have to take a decision which really affords me no pleasure.
Last night there was an unpleasant incident in the House when, for the first time ever, a Member of this Parliament physically attacked another Member of this Parliament.
The Rules contain plenty of measures for dealing with inappropriate behaviour, including extremely aggressive acts, and there are corresponding formalities.
We cannot allow verbal attacks, however aggressive, to lead to actual physical violence.
Mrs Hoff, who was in the Chair at that point in the sitting, issued the appropriate reprimand under Rule 109 of the Rules of Procedure, and at the same time announced that Rule 110 would be applied.
As you know - and I will read out the Rule - ' In serious cases of disorder, the President may, after giving formal notice, move, either immediately or no later than the next sitting, that Parliament pass a vote of censure which shall automatically involve immediate exclusion from the Chamber and suspension for two to five days.'
This morning's sitting is the next sitting, and, pursuant to that Rule, I am obliged to move a vote of censure on Mr Rosado Fernandes, which would entail his suspension for two days.
As is reasonable, and laid down in paragraph 2 of the same Rule, Mr Rosado Fernandes is entitled to explain his behaviour to Parliament.
I ask Mr Rosado Fernandes whether he wishes to exercise that right, and naturally invite him to speak.
Mr Rosado Fernandes.
The House has heard Mr Rosado Fernandes' explanation and, without further debate, I put to electronic vote the proposal I made earlier to the House, that is to say, a vote of censure involving suspension for two days.
(Parliament approved the President's motion)
In view of the outcome of the vote I am obliged to ask Mr Rosado Fernandes to be good enough to leave this House and return on completion of his two days' suspension, and I rely on him to cooperate.
Mr Hänsch wishes to raise a point of order.
Mr President, since physical aggression against a member of my group has actually been applauded in this House, I must say, Mr President, that I would have welcomed a word of solidarity and sympathy from you for the victim of this attack, namely our colleague Freddy Blak.
If we are still on the same subject, I will invite Mr Giansily and no-one else to speak, because he is a member of Mr Rosado Fernandes' group.
Mr Giansily.
Mr President, I do not wish to say any more on the incident just dealt with.
I would however like to say that it seems we are now about to vote, without a break, on an extremely important subject: the budget.
In view of what has just happened, I do not think our group will be able to vote calmly.
I would therefore like to ask for the sitting to be suspended for a few minutes to enable our group to hold a meeting.
Mr Giansily, as you know, the vote this morning will be long and very important.
I am sure that the members of your group will be able to cope and vote calmly.
We still have to approve the Minutes, which will give them time to think.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr Gallou, it is not a European Parliament publication.
A private philately firm published the envelope.
So the European Parliament has nothing to do with this issue, which is completely private.
Mr Puerta has asked to speak.
I would ask him to be brief on this matter.
Accusations have been made against a person in his political group and I must provide the opportunity to rebut them, but I would thank him not to prolong the matter.
Mr Puerta.
Mr President, I must explain that I am the leader of a group which includes communist Members, although I am a socialist.
And I find what we have heard unacceptable.
It does not seem to me to be a fitting reply - if I may say this to you, Mr President - to say that the envelope in question was not officially published by Parliament.
Mr Marchais was the leader of a party which took part in all aspects of democratic life in France and tribute has been paid to him by French democrats, starting with the present French Prime Minister.
I believe he deserves much greater respect in this House than shown by the benches from which this unacceptable description, which I have to rebut, originated.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think the incident is closed.
Mr Lataillade.
Thank you, Mr Lataillade.
Your remarks will be forwarded to the Conference of Presidents, whose members have, moreover, had the opportunity to hear to them personally.
Votes
Before the vote is taken, Mr Tillich, the rapporteur, wishes to make a brief statement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope now that as we proceed to the vote on the budget it will help to calm things down somewhat.
I would request that you take note of two comments which have to be made before we move on to voting.
We have to make two technical corrections, and here I am asking for your understanding and approval.
The first correction concerns Amendment No 1, which refers to the matter of Commission personnel attending last week-end's summit.
For this reason the reference to last week-end's summit must be deleted.
This is only one reference.
Then there is a further technical correction to be made to Amendment No 36.
My proposal here is as follows: since Amendment No 36 contains an expression which is contrary to previous joint resolutions and designations, this should be adapted to comply with normal forms of designation and Amendment No 36 corrected accordingly, so that we can vote on it in the appropriate manner.
Mr President, let me dampen any feelings of preChristmas joy among the members of the Commission by saying that the rapporteur was referring only to the asterisk and not to any relinquishing of the reserve itself!
I only say this in order to keep pre-Christmas high spirits within reasonable limits.
Mr President, there is a Neapolitan expression, which I do not know how to translate, that says, "cà nisciuno è fesso!' I want to explain what Mr Tillich refers to as a "technical amendment' .
The European Parliament has included in the 1997 budget an item for cooperation with the People's Republic of China: it voted on it at first and second readings in 1997; it voted on it again on the first reading for the 1998 budget.
This Amendment No 36 falls into block 3 and the deadline for the submission of technical amendments or corrections expired at midday on Tuesday; in fact, when I asked you if it was possible to include separate votes, yesterday at 6.30 p.m., I was rightly told that the deadline had expired.
It seems strange and quite intolerable to me now to accept that the reference to this expression should be deleted: something has been voted through by the Chamber and it therefore has the force of res judicata , forms part of a block and now the rapporteur, not knowing what to do, tells us there is a correction, whereas it was included in last year's budget and in this year's budget.
I ask you, Mr President, not to accept this, precisely because, at least in principle, "cà nisciuno è fesso' !
If I have understood correctly, one of the technical points mentioned by Mr Tillich is more in the nature of an oral amendment.
To be able to include it, I have to ask the House whether there are more than twelve Members who oppose it.
(More than twelve Members opposed the amendment, which was therefore rejected)
On the completion of voting, may I ask the Council whether it can agree with Parliament on the new maximum rate of cost increases on the basis of our deliberations?
(The President-in-office of the Council agreed)
Thank you very much, Mr Fischbach.
I invite you to speak.
I am obliged to Mr Fischbach for his remarks and declare that the General Budget for 1998 has been finally approved.
(The General Budget for 1998 was signed immediately thereafter)
Mr Chairman, I just wanted to say that it seems to me - and I think that the rapporteur agrees with me - that Amendments Nos 5 and 2 are perfectly compatible and can be combined.
Starting as you do with the vote on Amendment No 5, Amendment No 2 can then be added - they are not mutually exclusive.
Mr President, I wish to reiterate what Mr Bourlanges has just said.
These two amendments are basically congruous and indeed Amendment No 5 could be a supplement to Amendment No 2.
Even the other side of the House, which has shown itself keen to vote against the motion, could support an amalgamation of the two amendments.
I therefore recommend this to the House.
(Parliament approved the resolution as amended)
On behalf of this House, I should like to welcome the new bureau members from the Polish Delegation to the EU-Poland Joint Parliamentary Committee.
It is a great pleasure to have them with us this morning.
We welcome you and your delegation, Mr Mazowiecki, at this historic moment, following the European Union's decision to commence negotiations for Poland's entry in a few months' time.
Mr President, you have taken the votes rather quickly.
I wanted to take the floor to request that Amendments Nos 168, 104 and 172 be voted on together, as they are an addition.
As I have not had the time to speak, and neither has the rapporteur, I should like the opinion of the rapporteur to be requested with regard to these amendments.
Mr Pompidou, we did that on the responsible Committee's recommendation.
That is why the rapporteur has not expressed an opinion.
If the responsible Committee considers them compatible, so must I.
Mr President, Mr Pompidou is absolutely right.
The amendment proposed by Mr Adam adds half a sentence at the end and we support that addition.
The rest remains the same.
The amendment proposed by the Liberal Group adds a further two words, namely materials and technologies.
Mr Adam also wishes to remove two other words, namely "new vessels' .
We are against this deletion.
For my part, I am in favour of both amendments as additions.
Mr President, thank you very much indeed for your Christmas wishes.
Speaking for our group, I would be happy to persevere with the separate voting, as originally planned.
Thank you.
In relation to amendment No 122
Mr President, Amendment No 122 proposed by Mrs McNally and others on behalf of the Socialist Group provides for the creation and development of supporting measures for businesswomen.
A separate programme dedicated to female entrepreneurs, namely the Now programme, has already been set up under the European social fund, and I do believe it is more logical to combine our efforts in this area.
I only say this by way of explanation.
We support the proposal in principle, but believe that it is somewhat out of place here.
I am sorry, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, but we have already dealt with that amendment and we cannot revert to it at this stage in the voting.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, as you heard, yesterday the Commission expressed great goodwill towards the European Parliament.
I should however like the following point to be brought to the attention of the Bureau.
I asked a written question on the Commission's information policy.
Mr Santer replied that to answer the honourable (of course!) Member's questions in detail would necessitate a large amount of research, which the Commission was not able to undertake at that time.
I do not mind being told, in so many words, that I am of no account and quite useless, but I would however like to ask the Bureau to examine the Commission's attitude to a question, which it would not actually have cost much to answer!
Madam President, I have already addressed the House on the subject of the motion, though this had little impact.
I find it strange that while our committee is busy drawing up a position on UCLAF, the chairman of that committee is at the same time engaged in anticipating the possible results of these deliberations.
That is all I want to say about the amendment which has just been voted on here.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I would like to ask the Group of the Party of European Socialists to withdraw their demands for roll-call votes because we already know what the Parliament's position is.
It is not necessary to resort to a roll-call vote every time for things which are pretty clear.
Mr Anastassopoulos, I think this is a sensitive issue, but as we have been asked to hold these roll-call votes, we must do so, except of course, if the Socialist group withdraws its requests.
However, I do not think that is the case.
After the vote on paragraph 7.2
Madam President, please forgive me but do the political groups realise that each roll-call vote costs the European taxpayer ECU 1, 000?
Mr Anastassopoulos, that is the price of democracy.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
- Mr President, my group was unable to vote, at second reading, for the 1998 budget of the European Union.
We therefore did not join in the consensus the President applauded just now.
In fact, we noticed that at second reading, the House drew back compared with the vote at first reading.
At that time, in fact, the majority of the House had increased the Council budget from 0.7 % to 2.7 %, the same increase as in the expenditure of the European Union.
At second reading, in accordance with some of the Council's proposals, the budget increase is 1.4 %. It is a step, but not a sufficiently large one.
We regret that an effort was not made with regard to structural actions, as well as agricultural expenditure and heading 3 and 4 expenditure.
The commitment made in Edinburgh does not, in this respect, justify maintaining expenditure, which, we are perfectly aware, will not be made in the coming year.
We also regret that the budget has not achieved a zero growth rate, which would have been possible, if the Council's budget had been followed.
The increase in expenditure allows an increase in national contributions of 1.29 % compared with a 1.39 % increase in expenditure.
If the French budget, for example, increased by so much, my country would not be able to comply with one of the important criteria of the Maastricht Treaty, the budget deficit criteria.
We welcome the main priorities for next year's budget which have been set up with regard to the EU's new employment initiative and the employment measures of the Member States.
We also welcome the proposal to introduce a new procedure for the EU's contribution with more open criteria.
We are pleased to note the present proposal on setting up a separate budget item for environmentrelated measures for the Baltic Sea area.
It is also gratifying to see that the proposed agricultural expenditure for the 1998 budget is going to fall compared with this year's expenditure level.
However, this is not enough.
We recommend a deep and extensive reform of the common agricultural policy.
That is important not least in view of the forthcoming enlargement of the EU.
We think, for example, that it would be wrong in principle to continue to subsidize tobacco growing within the EU.
However, it is difficult not to notice the contradiction which governs EU's policy.
On the one hand Community funds are used for the production of a harmful product with little market value.
And on the other hand funds are used for measures against cancer.
It is quite unacceptable to support a sector producing a product which damages public health.
We shall therefore continue to press for an end to the tobacco subsidies.
As far as travel allowances for Members of Parliament are concerned, we are working to change the current system.
Earlier we presented proposals for a thorough overview of the system and together with other Members put forward an amendment aimed at replacing standard amounts with actual costs.
In order to avoid misunderstanding we therefore voted for Amendment No 3, in the same spirit, even though it is not identical to our original proposal.
We have voted no to the report.
Parliament's first reading, which involved an increase of ECU 1.7 billion in payment appropriations compared with the Council's first reading, entailed an extra SKR 400 million for the Swedish treasury in membership fees.
The increase in support for structural funds alone cost around an extra SEK 250 million.
This increase remains in the Council's and Parliament's agreement prior to the second reading.
The cutbacks which the Council has proposed are partly in heading 1, i.e. agricultural aid, and partly in headings 3 and 4.
However, in the past agricultural aid has been overbudgeted and the surplus has been returned to the Member States.
Thus the drain on the Swedish treasury caused by Parliament's first reading largely remains.
As at first reading we question the efficiency of the methods of financing the employment initiative.
At second reading of the 1998 budget we have acted largely in the same way as we did at first reading.
Unfortunately voting is made difficult by the fact that nearly all the amendments are put into blocks, which means that people cannot express their dissatisfaction with individual items in the blocks.
That is a shame.
Within one block there may be both good and bad proposals.
Furthermore, the majority in Parliament has once again voted down our proposal to reform the system of travel allowances (Amendment No 3).
The system which means that Members are able to stuff money into their own pockets can therefore continue. We are strongly opposed to that.
It should go without saying that we Members should only be reimbursed for the actual costs of our travel.
We have also voted against paragraph 11 which concerns 'a common information policy' , since experience so far has shown that the EU's campaigns are not objective and only express one side of the issue.
We also voted against paragraph 12 concerning the programme for controlled thermonuclear fusion.
The Danish Social Democrats support the proposal that the EU should give aid towards setting up an information centre for organic farming in the EU.
Converting from conventional farming to organic farming is a necessary and natural development, which the EU should give high priority.
We also believe there should be strict control of the money which is set aside for Turkey in the budget.
We believe it is important that all 11 official languages should continue to have the same official status: so we support continuing to set aside the full amount for translating the debates of the European Parliament.
We also support the idea that there should be more control of MEPs' travel expenses.
Travel expenses should be reimbursed at the amounts actually paid, and we are pleased that we already need to furnish proof that trips were actually made.
During this Parliament I have twice refused to vote for the budget because it contained not a single mention of support for bee-keeping in Europe.
It was my way of protesting about the Commission's failure over the years to submit to us any proposals for a regulation or directive - despite the fact that this subject has been of concern to us since 1985 - for creating the legal basis for making money available in the draft budget for this purpose.
In this respect the cat seems to have bitten its own tail.
We made a unanimous request in Parliament for the support of apiculture.
The Council of Ministers was able, quite justifiably, to refuse this since, as I have said, there was no legal basis for such expenditure.
Now at last we have the legal basis we need, even though I would say that the mountain has only brought forth a mouse, since the regulation adopted by the Council of Ministers in June for measures to improve the production and marketing of honey falls far short of the unanimous proposals of this Parliament.
What is more, the Commission even managed to do this by putting ECU 12 million less credit in the draft budget than it itself claimed its halfhearted proposals would cost.
Well, that really is the limit!
As rapporteur, I have therefore been concerned that at least ECU 3 million more be allocated in the 1998 budget to promote the development of apiculture.
I am grateful to our Agriculture Committee, our Budget Committee and also to the Luxembourg Presidency for the fact that the budget now has ECU 15 million, rather than ECU 12 million, for promoting the production and marketing of honey.
It must be the first time this has been achieved in the face of compulsory expenditure, even if this represents peanuts compared with the ECU 65 million requested by this Parliament on the basis of my request for sound structural measures, including the pollination premium.
It really is peanuts when one considers that we have money enough for all kinds of possible and impossible actions around the world, that we can reconcile ourselves to the misappropriation of ECU 60 billion, yet are simply incapable of making a trifling 0.08 % of our total expenditure available for vital activities. After all, did Einstein not say that without bees mankind would die out within two years?
For all this, I feel that I can agree to this year's budget with a better conscience, though not without affirming my continued intention to fight for proper aid and structural measures to assist our apiculturists.
At this second reading Parliament is accepting the Council's proposal for the 1998 budget cutting a further ECU 1.1 million from spending on payments.
At this second reading Parliament is accepting that the Council's final proposal for the 1998 budget therefore remains at a level of 1.14 % of GDP, the same spending level, when at Edinburgh in 1992, in the light of financial perspectives for the period 1994 to 1999, it had been decided that it should be increased to 1.26 % of GDP.
Thus Parliament is accepting the continuation of an austerity policy merely in order to try to meet the nominal convergence criteria laid down in the Maastricht Treaty.
As Mr Tillich's report says, Parliament accepts the establishment of strict budgetary objectives, which meet the need to respect the criteria imposed for economic and monetary union and the single currency, by approving reductions in payment appropriations to levels below those proposed at the first reading of the budget.
The budget still provides no complete solution to the problem of unemployment and social exclusion in the European Union today, with 18 million unemployed and 50 million people excluded.
The ECU 150 million proposed by the Council for the 1998 budget after the Luxembourg summit on employment are no more than a palliative; the sums allotted show how important the subject really is.
The Council has not even accepted Parliament's earlier proposal to allocate ECU 391 million as an employment incentive, although, as we said at the time, those were not additional funds but were transferred from other allocations.
Parliament is now accepting the amendment of its proposal and will only be allowing ECU 150 million.
We do not agree with that position, the less so because over ECU 100 million are going to be spent on information operations, and ECU 42 million are going to be made available for advertising the euro alone.
It is also clear that the objective of creating budgetary savings to enable us to finance the costs of enlargement within the present limits of our financial perspectives, using the Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal as a framework, is still inherent in this budget.
For all these reasons we are opposed to Mr Tillich's report.
In this context, I think we should be pleased with ourselves for refusing to give the Council's proposal to cut ECU 1 billion from the structural funds a second reading.
We are also pleased that some of our proposals have been included in this budget (East Timor, small-scale coastal fishing, the REPAS system, among others).
In response to the submission of the report, the President-in-Office of the Council applauded the 1998 budget.
No one will be surprised to learn that our group voted against the budget which, in reality, paves the way for the common agricultural policy's dismal future, as described in Agenda 2000.
We all know that, during the period from 2000 to 2006, budgetary problems will be determinant for the European Union.
Instead of devoting all its financial resources to integrated Community policies only - agriculture, fisheries, rural development, etcetera - the Commission wishes to extend the scope of its research, to the detriment of European agriculture.
A swift reading of the amendments adopted during the second reading of the budget shows us that the budgets of Community programmes such as Socrates, Leonardo, and so on, which are of no use to the Community, have nevertheless increased.
On the other hand, the agricultural budget lost ECU 1, 450 million between the first draft submitted by the Council of Agriculture Ministers and the end of the final second reading.
It is completely out of order that, at a meeting of COREPER on 12 November 1997, the representative of the French Finance Ministry himself requested an ECU 1 billion decrease in the agricultural budget between the first and second readings of the budget.
Indeed, I should like to remind the House that France contributes 17.4 % to the Community budget and that the share of the EAGGF redistributed to France is over 24 %.
I know that the Maastricht convergence criteria are compelling our government to reduce its budget deficit as much as possible, but a civil servant from the Finance Ministry should think in terms of the return France would receive.
French farmers will not only have to pay for enlargement in the long term; they are also already paying to set up the single currency.
Mr President, my group voted in favour of the Giansily report although I expressed strong reservations about it yesterday.
That is because we are very pleased that the House has shown a sense of political responsibility, although by a small majority, true, and one swallow does not make a summer.
In recent weeks, great excitement has in fact been aroused by the rapporteur's proposal to re-establish the ECSC levy.
The vote was contested, but common sense prevailed.
Indeed, this House pronounced itself in favour, in a resolution of 21 April 1994, of the early abolition of the ECSC levy, in order to increase the competitiveness of the coal and steel industries, whose difficulties in all European Union countries are well-known.
The Commission, usually unwilling to give up any resources, even recommended that it should be abolished, and we were going to maintain a tax, saying - what a surprise! - that it was the only Community tax in existence.
In our eyes, that is no reason to keep it, in fact it is another reason to abolish it.
The European iron, steel and coal industries already contribute, as does every other industrial sector, by means of ordinary taxation, towards the initiatives adopted by the Member States and the European Union, in favour of job creation.
These industries are in trouble.
The part-session was right to vote in favour of the amendment, which enabled the ECSC levy to be abolished forever.
Thus, these companies will be able to make a useful contribution, at their own levels, towards the prevention of unemployment, and we will not have make their difficult situations worse.
How can we fail to applaud that decision?
There is no way in which I can vote for this report, because it proposes the reintroduction of the production duty of 0.11 per cent for Member States.
That means a further burden will be put on the EU Member States' membership fees.
The economies of the Member States are stretched and they have more deserving expenses to cover.
In Sweden's case cutbacks in nursing, care and education are currently taking place.
There is no way in which I can support the absurd proposal made in this report.
Sandbæk recommendation (A4-0379/97)
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of this report today.
We are against special directives for sportspeople, because sport can cover a lot of things, and children and young people involved in sport will prefer sports drinks to soft drinks; they can be half the size but contain the same amount of energy.
Each sport has its own requirements, but the energy required can be easily met by using normal food and drink tailored to the individual sportsperson involved.
Rules on special nutrition should only be issued if they are unavoidably necessary for consumers, which is why we go in for directives such as mother's milk replacements and mixed supplements for infants and young children.
We do this because we want to ensure that food lives up to certain health requirements.
We support the amendment that there should not be any pesticide residues in baby food, a proposal which the European Parliament passed at its first reading.
Paasio recommendation (A4-0371/97)
To many societies, non-governmental development organizations, so-called NGOs, make a major contribution towards ensuring democracy, human rights and so on.
It is therefore in Europe's interest to support these organizations; but of course we should be careful about who gets Community aid and why.
On this point, it is very pleasing to note that the Council and Parliament agreed on most areas right from the start.
The Council has adopted some of the constructive proposals which Parliament put forward at the first reading.
So I can therefore give the report my full support.
We should not be continually reinventing the wheel; instead we should be taking advantage of the invaluable experience and skills that NGOs have.
The budget line for cofinancing with European NGOs is therefore important, and is a good basis for helping the developing countries.
NGOs are normally happy with it, and it means amongst other things that NGOs from countries where governments do not approve large budgets also have an opportunity of working in developing countries.
But in this partnership, it is important that NGOs retain their autonomy and independence.
It may be added that if resources are not used up, this is not the fault of the NGOs' abilities or the number of applications, but because the Commission does not have the resources to deal with the proposals received from NGOs.
This has the paradoxical effect that the NGOs, and also (which is even worse) the poor of the developing countries are punished because the Commission does not have the necessary capability.
The change of personnel which the Scandinavian NGOs have seen, for example, means that any continuity disappears.
In dealing with applications, the Commission should use experience from some of the national systems.
For example, the fact that the Commission is slow in replying makes the job of the NGOs more difficult, and even prevents work being done.
That is why the proposal to simplify the changes to the general cofinancing conditions are necessary.
As far as the CSP (cofinancing support programme) is concerned, where NGOs in the home country appoint an organization or individual to screen proposed projects before they are sent into the Commission (to improve the quality of the projects), we are led to propose that this arrangement should be only temporary.
We cannot have the NGOs doing the Commission's job just because the Commission is unable to.
The CSP arrangement is mainly funded through the cofinancing budget line; and money used for advice cannot be used for good NGO projects which might help people in the third world.
But, at the same time, the CSP scheme acts as a good consultancy function for small NGOs in particular and as such is essential.
I would therefore argue in favour of the CSP scheme being retained but not financed via the budget line for cofinancing.
Changes to the cofinancing line which provides support for the NGOs, that is, a sum of money instead of project-byproject support, are also welcome, but we must make sure that there is still enough money for the smaller NGOs which cannot handle this programmed support.
Community project funding is normally limited to 50 %.
This is a sound principle, that NGOs should be self-financing to some extent.
But the Commission has had ideas about changing the interpretation of what form this self-funding should take.
The Commission has taken it to mean that NGOs should collect money in their home countries.
But such an interpretation creates problems for NGOs in Scandinavia and the Netherlands amongst others.
In Denmark, for example, some additional financing is via government funds.
The Danes find paying for development aid via tax quite natural.
If Danish NGOs are to collect money for aid via collections, most people would have problems with that.
Danes believe that the authorities raise money for the NGOs who do the work and that NGOs' independence is not threatened by DANIDA.
If the Commission changes the self-financing rules and their interpretation, this would be contrary to the principles of Danish development aid.
I support the Paasio report and the committee's amendments, which tighten up the Community's approach on a number of points - but not Amendment No 7.
This calls for an advisory rather than a management committee.
I am against the whole committee idea in principle, it is undemocratic and closed.
But because of the problematic way the EU system is set up, especially in terms of the Commission's powers, I would rather see a management than an advisory committee.
That would bind the Commission and ensure that national representatives are involved in the process.
I am of course voting in favour of the section on openness.
Giansily Report (A4-0409/97)
Our present debate has no particular national significance, at least not for my country.
I shall, therefore, allow myself the luxury of addressing you in a language which those directly interested in the directive we are debating can understand in its full and plain directness.
Those interested are mainly the European financial community who are today scoring an important victory insofar as they are having a longstanding demand of theirs satisfied.
By means of the directive, banks and other financial institutions are given the opportunity to shake off the shackles, or what they perceive as shackles, of the regulatory authorities imposing on them minimal capital requirements for the sake of the security of their customers and for safeguarding the safety of the banking system against systemic risks.
From now on banks and financial institutions, using sophisticated mathematical models of recent vintage will be in a position to estimate the market risk they bear and themselves assess the amount of capital to be earmarked against such risk.
This new power banks and financial institutions can use for good or for evil.
They are enabled to utilize their capital more economically and to better effect under their new freedom of making their arrangements.
Alternatively, they are also put in a position to longer conceal desperate practices which banks, faced with failure, sometimes have resort to; when under the pressure of bad fortune or of an accumulation of mistakes they decide to go for broke, to use a popular expression.
Against the possibility of such abuses no legislation can ever be totally foolproof.
The directive contains certain safeguards and Parliament has added certain others, trying with great moderation and deliberation to balance the need for flexibility in business against due regard owed to the general interest.
I regret that the industry concerned, judging from the quality of the lobbying to which it exposed us, has not given much evidence of either moderation or deliberation.
This should not incite either Council or Parliament to deprive them of the latest tools of their trade.
I hope, however, that the Commissioner will also pay proper attention to the safeguards and reasonable limits imposed by Parliament's amendment.
It would be dangerous, on matters like this, for the industry to acquire delusions of omnipotence which might lead it to irresponsibility, for the financial sector to deem itself superior to the dictates of the real economy or for a government of money, by money and for money to become normal practice in this our European Union.
Pimenta Report (A4-0325/97)
I can only support catching wild animals being done in a humane way, with no risk to endangered species or natural habitats.
I therefore support the Commission's work on establishing a European hunting standard and regret that the USA, Canada and Russia are not immediately willing to sign an international treaty which ensures that wild animals are hunted humanely.
I also believe, however, that the disagreements between the USA, Canada, Russia and the EU should not lead to a "minor trade war' , but that we should strive for an amicable settlement without a dispute in the World Trade Organization (WTO).
I have to agree with the rapporteur that this draft agreement between the EU, Canada and Russia is simply unacceptable.
The three sides are at least talking about acting against these cruel animal traps.
But such agreements must be tougher than this.
They need to ensure the humane killing of animals which may be trapped but remain alive in terrible pain.
The EU should insist that its own experts' view prevails so that the maximum time between trapping and the animal losing consciousness is 30 seconds.
Just as we are moving to ban landmines which kill and maim so many of our own species, we have a responsibility to defenceless animals to get rid of as many leghold traps as we can, making those that remain as painless as possible.
People who may still need to hunt for food no longer need to use such painful and archaic killing technology.
And we cannot justify using cruel leghold traps to catch animals for their fur when alternative clothes can be manufactured.
The many members of the public who ask me about animal welfare demand better than this - and the animals that suffer slow and painful deaths deserve better than this.
EU negotiators should be told to fight on for a stronger deal involving more countries.
Such a policy may not be easy, but like so many of my constituents, I believe it is right.
Scapagnini Report (A4-0308/97)
We are strongly opposed to the report's proposals in paragraphs 2 and 3 for a supranational European energy policy.
Supranational control would make the issue less clear in the democratic debate.
Energy policy must be under democratic control.
In its communication the Commission is seeking a common energy policy for the Union.
It is questionable whether that is the most pressing measure in the area of energy in Europe.
Giving priority to security of supply, sustainable development and long-term objectives for the environment and emissions are important starting points.
We could achieve these objectives even more easily through a variety of energy sources which can broaden the supply base and at the same time still satisfy the sustainability and environmental requirements.
This includes solar, wind and biomass energy.
If a common energy policy is introduced, the Euratom Treaty should be abolished and replaced with a programme of environmentally friendly, long-term sustainable sources of energy which fit into the recycling society of the future.
I am pleased to express my full support for the report drawn up by Dr Scapagnini, the Chairman of the competent Parliamentary Committee on the Commission Communication, which gives us a global vision of our policy and actions in the field of energy.
This is only the beginning of that promised "global vision' .
The document will certainly be amplified and improved in the near future, and I would like to encourage the Commission to do so.
I therefore wish to refer only to the Energy Committee´s report.
Firstly, I am sorry that there is still no section on energy in the treaties, including the Amsterdam Treaty.
This means that we have no legal basis for getting started on that desirable global vision in the Union.
The European Commission´s effort to be open, as demonstrated by the rapporteur, is laudable.
That effort enables us to enquire which sources of energy protect the environment, create employment and improve the quality of life.
Points 7 and 11 of the report deserve to be emphasized: the first, for its reference to the desirability of a political agreement on renewable energy sources and its explicit mention of natural gas as a possible "long-term risk for the Union' ; and the second, because it highlights the "desirability of giving priority to renewable sources' so that the priority in question can be given to the fifth R&D framework programme, which certainly was not sufficiently clear from the European Commission´s proposal.
Point 12 also deserves emphasis, because it calls for "financing over several years' which will make it possible to undertake "significant actions' , particularly in the field of renewable energy.
I therefore cannot help sharing the strength of feeling with which the rapporteur attacks the cuts - which I consider intolerable - in the budgets for energy programmes as useful as Altener, Save and Joule-Thermie.
This is particularly absurd when the Commission has just completed a lengthy process by finally presenting us with White Paper on renewable energy sources.
I heartily welcome the Commission's overview of EU energy policy and measures.
This could help ensure a more coordinated EU energy policy in future, as energy and rising energy consumption in particular are becoming increasingly important at both European and world level.
On the other hand, the report points to a number of areas where the Commission's proposals could usefully be bettered.
First, the committee would like a clear statement by the Commission on the future energy policy's effects on the environment, standards of living and the quality of life in individual Member States; second, the committee wishes to emphasize the importance of the Commission doing more on EU initiatives on renewable energy sources.
Mr Scapagnini welcomes the Commission's communication, with which I can only agree.
The overview is useful and a contribution to more transparency in the field of energy.
It is clearly intended to contribute towards more coordination of efforts for a better and more effective energy supply.
In particular, I support the comments in section 9 of the report, which regrets the drastic cuts in the section of the EU budget on energy.
But there are a number of points which I would like to criticize, especially grounds D and E. Mr Scapagnini is not bothered about dearer energy prices.
I disagree totally.
I believe energy consumption should be expensive, for both industry and individuals, for environmental reasons.
Without a high price policy, energy saving measures will just be so much hot air.
But my main concern is the highly positive view of the nuclear power industry in Europe.
In section 11 of the report, the rapporteur wants to promote the Community institutions involvement in developing the nuclear sector because of the major role it plays in the EU's energy policy.
These arguments are a good example of how the nuclear power lobby is out to win back ground.
Now they play down the situation and say that nuclear power can be put to good use to reduce CO2 emissions.
I believe that nuclear power should be rejected categorically now as it was before.
As we know, it has other, unpleasant consequences and should be a footnote in the history of energy.
In any case, conventional nuclear power stations use imported fuel (uranium).
Increasing use of this technology therefore merely shifts our dependence on the 'oil states' to the 'uranium states'.
The cost of extracting uranium is imposed on aboriginal peoples everywhere in the shape of the inhuman effects of radiation which affect both humans and animals.
Then of course there are the well-known objections to this technology, not least in terms of waste.
Finally, I would like to point out that if we look at annexe 2 to the Commission's document more closely, it is striking to see what a ridiculously small amount is set aside for renewable energy compared with the figure allotted to the nuclear sector.
This distribution is completely at odds with the political signals which are being sent out by Parliament's Committee on Environment and the political intentions expressed by many of the Member States.
Despite these points of criticism, I have decided to vote in favour of Mr Scapagnini's report for the reasons I first mentioned.
European Council
Mr President, the Luxembourg Council has slowly moved towards the affirmation of a truth which will be revealed at a later date, because at present it would sound too harsh to the ears of supporters of the super-state: an enlarged Europe would not be able to conform to the monolithic model which is already unsuitable for the fifteen.
Paragraph 3 of the summit's conclusions reiterates that enlargement will necessitate the prior reform of the institutions, in compliance with the guidelines of the Amsterdam Treaty. What does the treaty say?
That at least a year before the twenty-first accession, a complete re-examination, and I repeat, a complete re-examination of the provisions of the treaties with regard to the composition and operation of the institutions, will have to be carried out.
The words 'complete re-examination' show that this will not simply be a question of redefining the number of commissioners and re-balancing the distribution of votes in the Council.
It will not necessarily mean extending the scope of the qualified majority decision as proposed by three Member States in a declaration appended to the treaty.
But it is in fact significant that only three Member States are involved.
It shows that all the others consider that extending the majority vote is hardly an appropriate solution to the growing heterogeneity of the European Union.
So, what is the solution?
What should this complete re-examination consist of? The conclusions of the Luxembourg summit show the way, and at the same time, constitute an experiment.
A European conference involving the Member States and the applicant countries would provide a multilateral framework of political consultation and cooperation, particularly with regard to foreign policy and security.
We have before us the outline of a pattern of differentiated cooperation, which will tomorrow allow all our eastern European partners to be flexibly included.
Some belittle this innovation, suggesting that it means the organization of a transitional 'platform' for eastern Europe, which will facilitate the construction of federalism in western Europe.
But they are wrong.
For, when this interesting example of an experiment in free cooperation has proved successful, it will be difficult to contain.
Mr President, the subjects covered during the Summit in Luxembourg serve one purpose: stability, security and peace.
I am afraid I have to observe that, the Union's relationship with Turkey is not very reassuring as regards this stability, security and peace.
Let me say clearly, Mr President, that Turkey is evidently good enough to defend the borders of Europe as a member of NATO, but there it ends.
I find this attitude dangerous, destabilizing and unacceptable, the more so because the Union has in no way fulfilled its obligations under the customs union.
Unfortunately, Turkey did not do so either.
But it is in the interests of neither the Union nor Turkey to allow the relationship to deteriorate further.
It is important to stop the verbal abuse on both sides, and to take a EU conciliation initiative, Mr President, before the United States, as usual, fulfils its responsibilities in this region, unlike the Union.
First of all I would like to congratulate the Luxembourg Presidency.
It has been a successful presidency and once again demonstrates the ability of small nations to undertake such a task.
The Luxembourg Presidency has had many notable successes.
For me, the most important have been the convening of the jobs Summit and the agreement on the enlargement process.
With regard to enlargement, I am particularly pleased that the Heads of State responded positively to the views of the European Parliament.
It was important to send a positive message to all applicant countries.
In this way we prevent demoralization developing among citizens in those countries who would have been placed in a second wave of accession.
Furthermore, by adopting an inclusive approach, we are also encouraging potential foreign investment in these countries and it should be stressed that this is critical if they are to bridge the economic gap between themselves and their future European partners.
This truly historic decision brings to an end the legacy of the Cold War.
However I am disappointed that a rift is developing between the EU and Turkey.
I hope that this can be healed as I strongly believe that eventually Turkey will provide an important bridgehead between the EU and the Islamic world.
Despite this setback it was nonetheless a successful Summit and provided a fitting conclusion to the Luxembourg Presidency.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted, along with the rest of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, in favour of the resolution on the Luxembourg Presidency.
We would like to point out that Denmark has four reservations which keep it out of some areas of EU cooperation.
At the same time, we believe that reforming the EU's institutional framework is not a precondition for the EU being able to start initial negotiations with the new Member States.
The decisions of the Luxembourg summit mark a new historic period in the evolution of the European Union.
Enlargement towards the countries of eastern Europe, without exclusions, that is, the ten applicant countries, including Bulgaria and Romania) and the priority given to the accession of Cyprus guarantees real European integration, putting an end once and for all to the divisions of the past.
It is very clear that, in this perspective, only those countries can take part which respect and accept the terms and conditions and the regulations that have been set.
Turkey is not one of those countries.
Yesterday's words of praise for the Council, the applause for what has been achieved and the affirmations of the whole House all seem very strange indeed when one recalls the resolutions of this House in advance of the Luxembourg summit.
Dissatisfaction with the meagre results of the Amsterdam negotiations, the call for an immediate introduction of the internal reform process, criticism of the Commission's proposal for Agenda 2000 and last but not least the request for a simultaneous process of negotiation for all membership candidates, now seem all but forgotten.
The European Parliament's current resolutions are nothing short of self-censorship.
However, even this coating of gloss cannot obscure the fact that the Council in Luxembourg has not succeeded in offering all applicants for membership real prospects for membership and negotiation - apart that is from the proposed and purely symbolic joint preliminaries to the membership process.
This is justified by the claim that one should negotiate with the economically and socially most advanced applicants in the hope that the stragglers will eventually catch up.
This shifts all responsibility for the course of the enlargement process on to the candidates themselves.
Here economic arguments have to serve as a pretext for political despair, a policy which is all too common these days.
Ladies and gentlemen, the future course of the enlargement process remains primarily a question of the EU's capacity for enlargement; the basic requirements for this are democratic and institutional reforms and a new structural and cohesion policy based on the principle of solidarity between the fifteen Member States and all applicants for membership.
If we want to achieve the ambitious goal of a Europe with no east-west division, then we cannot agree to the Council's decisions.
These constitute no advance whatsoever on the process outlined in the Amsterdam enlargement protocol, which itself is heading in the wrong direction.
The risk remains that enlargement will be restricted to just a few countries.
Now that federalist ideology has corrupted the concept of the border, no one dares to say where the geographical borders of Europe are.
With regard to Turkey, the ambiguous developments at the Luxembourg summit, illustrate the disadvantages of allowing ideology to predominate over geography.
By refusing to place their cooperation relationship with Turkey within a specific framework, not related to enlargement, and by instead assimilating that country with European applicant countries for accession, have not the fifteen, thereby adopting the same position as the United States, laid a trap which is likely to seriously affect the progress of the whole accession procedure?
When Turkey has been recognized as eligible for accession to the European Union by the Luxembourg summit, and called a major European State whose position in the heart of the European family is a historical fact, as Mr Juncker said here yesterday, how can the treatment of Turkey be dissociated from the treatment of central and eastern European countries? Placing the discussions with Turkey in the centre of the enlargement process means, of course exposing ourselves to constant, recurring, systematic requests from Ankara, to benefit from the same provisions as agreed with central and eastern European countries.
Not only do the fifteen not seem to have taken into consideration the projections made yesterday by Agence Europe, according to which in a few years' time Turkey will have a larger population than any of the fifteen countries, which, according to the new method of calculation envisaged for the distribution of votes in the council, would make it the country with the most weight in the Council.
And yet, the fifteen have not seen, or have not wished to see, the risks the whole of the enlargement process will run, if they do not deal with Turkey in a clear and dignified manner.
Our relationship with that big country, which is geographically outside Europe, is worthy of more than a specious sort of assimilation, pregnant with misunderstandings, blackmail and disappointed hopes.
Ambiguous discussions are not responsible discussions.
Commission programme
My explanation of vote will relate to an aspect of the Commission's work programme, about which the Commission, like the Council, in fact, is keeping very quiet.
It relates to the new powers, of intervention and perhaps of sanction, with which the Commission would like to be endowed, in order to impose its very specific conception of freedom of movement within the internal market.
As you know, this problem is in the news again as, on 9 December, the Court of Justice issued a ruling, which finds France guilty of having failed to respect the freedom of movement during the big demonstrations by French farmers in 1993 and 1995, during which trailers particularly those containing Spanish strawberries, were intercepted and smashed by French farmers.
No one wants to know if those strawberries were not actually grown in Morocco, and labelled as Spanish, or whether clandestine Moroccan workers grew them in Spain.
Whatever else may be wrong, goods must be free to move without restraint.
I think it possible that demonstrations like those censured by the Court of Justice would not take place if the European Union had a right and proper conception of freedom of movement.
But that question has not been raised.
On the contrary, the Commission considers that the Court of Justice does not pass sentence quickly enough.
It has therefore slipped into its latest single market action plan an allusion to the need to find ways of investing itself with the power to intervene in such cases, and even to impose sanctions.
The Amsterdam European Council, last June, approved this action plan globally, without additional remarks.
But it knew what it was doing, because the Luxembourg Council, on 13 December, has just welcomed, again allusively, a proposal, which has just been made.
It is a draft regulation, tabled on 18 November, which refers to a mechanism of immediate intervention by the Commission.
As there is no legal basis for such a regulation at present, its authors have decided to use article 235 of the treaty, which allows anything and everything, provided it is unanimous.
We shall soon see which Member States allow themselves to be stripped by a handful of European civil servants of the right to control what happens in their own country.
Very briefly to draw attention once again to the urgent need to establish a European policy on tourism, in view of the inexplicable absence of any such policy from the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This serious error is already producing its initial negative effects inasmuch as there is not a single proposal on tourism in the programme under discussion.
I have said this so many times since the legislative process commenced, that I am sorry to keep on harping on the matter; but it still seems to me the height of irresponsibility that tourism, which among its other virtues is the biggest source of employment, is ignored in the Commission's work programme.
The undersigned members of the Swedish Left Group have decided to abstain from the final vote on the resolution.
The resolution contains positive wording in several areas, not least in its proposals in the environmental and social areas.
However, the resolution also contains several paragraphs which we cannot accept.
These include demands for new Treaty amendments, European parties and foreign policy.
On behalf of the members of the European Parliamentary Labour Party I wish to record that we are supporting this resolution.
However this does not mean that we are modifying our position on free movement where we believe, as was agreed in Amsterdam, that the United Kingdom's special geographical circumstances need to be taken into account.
The Commission's Work Programme for 1998 is based on misguided political priorities.
The European Union has failed to tackle the continuing problem of unemployment.
Employment strategies should be the responsibility of national governments.
National governments are best placed to understand the economic and social conditions necessary to tackle unemployment in their respective areas.
Grandiose panEuropean schemes for tackling unemployment do not address local need.
Achieving economic and monetary union involving the introduction of the euro is the Commission's main priority in 1998 and beyond.
The strategy will be responsible for increasing unemployment as national governments continue to introduce unbalanced austerity measures in the hope of being admitted to the euro club.
The absurdity of Commission dogma in pursuing its economic goals at any price has been recent demonstrated by its could not-careless attitude to the thousands of jobs which are under threat in the duty-free trade.
The Commission also continues to take a dogmatic line in regard to what it calls "Union action in the world at large' by persevering with a strategy which replaces the long experience of individual Member States in managing foreign affairs with the collective inexperience and amateurism of the European Union in this important field.
I am opposed to all proposals aimed at tax harmonization because I think the citizens of the EU's Member States should have the exclusive right to tax themselves.
Jové Peres report
Mr President, in my view the general lines proposed by Commissioner Fischler, which Parliament has now rejected for a number of reasons, were not acceptable.
I would mention three of them: firstly, a COM is only reviewed when it is not achieving its purpose.
This is not the case here, since the olive sector has been operating without any problems, with improvements in quality in recent years, and maintaining the growers' income.
If there is fraud in any country, the Commission must fight against it.
The second reason is that this is not a simple problem of maintaining income, which could be solved by a system of subsidies that does not depend on production.
Furthermore, olive oil is a high-quality product, of which there is no surplus, and one that is competitive in the European economy. On no account should production of it be discouraged.
And the third and last reason: in Andalusia, which accounts for 30 % of European and 20 % of world production, and furthermore has a major unemployment problem, olives are a crop with a high social value, using a great deal of labour, and have provided the rural population of an enormous area with stability and eliminated agricultural unemployment for many months of the year.
Mr President, the report which has been approved today represents a good agreement for the olive oil trade.
The tree subsidy option studied by the European Commission would be a tragedy for producers and the regions affected.
The cost of harvesting the olive crop amounts to 70 % of the variable costs of the process, and a system of that kind could cause the abandonment of actual production.
That would result in job losses in those regions, which have one of the Union's highest rates of unemployment.
We cannot overlook the fact that the industry provides 46 million days' work for 400, 000 people at harvest time.
On behalf of the Basque National Party, I should like to express our support for the producers, especially in Andalusia, where olives provide fifty per cent of agricultural jobs.
In that respect we have acted in complete solidarity with our Andalusian friends.
We therefore support this proposal for subsidies for actual production, because it will create more jobs, it supports the less favoured regions of the European Union and it will produce less fraud than the tree subsidy system, which is not transparent enough.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would remind the House of the element of risk involved in the tree subsidy system from the point of view of rural depopulation and the environment.
Mr President, when the Council and the Commission approve the forthcoming regulation on olive oil in the next few months, they should very much keep in mind the employment potential of this product.
They should be very well aware of the extent to which olive oil is a source of livelihood and business throughout the Mediterranean cultural area.
This is very important, because we take too many decisions based on paper bureaucracy.
If, however, we were there on the ground, we would see that the Andalusian olive harvest started a fortnight ago, and that, Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, completely neutralizes unemployment in Andalusia.
You would see nothing but work going on.
It is the best antidote to unemployment.
There is no point in our holding extraordinary summits in Luxembourg.
Let's join the real world.
There is no unemployment in Andalusia at present simply because the olive harvest has begun.
The Commissioner for Agriculture should include a socio-economic impact study in his proposals, and what he said yesterday about its parameters is not true.
In his next proposal he should include the question of whether he is going to destroy jobs, because if there is one thing that has been made clear today, it is that we will not approve any proposal that destroys jobs.
The Swedish Social Democratic Group has today decided to vote for the amendment proposed by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
We have carefully considered the situation and have concluded that, in the voting situation in which we find ourselves today in Parliament, it is the best alternative.
We welcome the fact that the Group of the Party of European Socialists is working to achieve a compromise between the Commission and the producers.
However, we think the Commission's proposal and willingness to reform are extremely important and we hope we can achieve deregulation within the olive and olive oil sector as soon as possible.
The undersigned have voted for the report because of its criticism of the Commission's proposal and because of the olive sector's special circumstances.
This does not mean we are giving up the demand that a general, thorough reform of the common agricultural policy should also include the olive sector.
The question we have to consider today is a very important one.
Firstly, it relates to the economic interests of southern Europe and that fact that the EU is the world leader in olive oil, with about 80 % of total production.
Secondly, the olive is a part of the identity of the Mediterranean basin.
Until recently, the European Union's system of aid for production and consumption has favoured large producers, although small farmers produce 60 % of the total.
It has also contributed towards promoting quantity to the detriment of quality.
If the system continues, it could lead to a risk of over-production, and in fact, to an increase in market prices.
In the south of France and in Corsica, small quantities are produced, compared with our Italian, Spanish and Greek neighbours.
Olive oil from the Provence region for example, is above all known for its quality.
The reform, which is required, must enable small producers to benefit from a more favourable system of aid.
The transparency of the aid redistribution procedures must also be increased.
For that reason, it is becoming important to set up a new system of support, which will enable aid to be distributed more fairly, in a more controlled way, taking into consideration the role of the environment and the requirements of small producers.
Integrating new criteria associated at the same time with the countryside, the environment and employment, seems to us a fundamental requirement of reform, which would be fairer to small producers.
A reform of this kind must not ignore the new requirements of the World Trade Organization, and, in that respect, must evolve towards a system of aid for producers, which is not connected to production volumes and is adjusted in accordance with the principles of environmental protection and quality.
Ladies and gentlemen, I therefore ask you to support a new system of aid and production control, capable of being integrated into the new system of international trade of the WTO, which will respect small producers and producers who, like those in the south of France, produce high quality olive oil.
The vote this morning, concerning the WTO olive oil reform proposals, shows that you do not have to be a large political group for your amendments to be adopted.
In fact, as you can see, all the amendments tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, were rejected, whereas four of the amendments of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations were adopted during the part-session.
What is the purpose of this report? At the beginning of 1998, the Commission is going to make a proposal for the WTO olive oil reform.
There are some considerable differences in approach to this Mediterranean product, famous for its dietary qualities and effects on the health of consumers: some defend the European olive oil production policy, in order to protect Europe's position as world leader in terms of production.
Others, on the other hand, would like the blending of oils to be authorized, which would destroy the intrinsic qualities of the product.
As elected representative of the main French region of olive production, I, and the whole of my group, have at heart to protect the interests of French production, the particularity of which is that it is composed of a large number of producers who produce and market their own oil.
In Mr Jové Peres' initial report, it was proposed that production subsidies (tree subsidies) should be withdrawn and replaced by consumption subsidies.
At the time of the vote in the Committee on Agriculture, we were pleased to see that our position defending aid for production was adopted in the compromise amendments of the report.
Finally, I can say that whatever its initial direction, this report has, during the various debates in the Committee on Agriculture and part-session, been redirected in the direction we wanted.
That is why the whole of the Europe of Nations Group voted in favour of the final resolution and we await the Commission's new proposals with impatience.
We hope that Commissioner Fischler will take into consideration the European Parliament's guidelines, the aim of which is to protect agriculture in southern Europe.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the report by Jové Perez on the organization of the market for the olive and olive oil sector.
The Danish Social Democrats support the Commission's proposals for a reform of the market arrangements for the olive oil sector, which provides for giving aid per tree in future.
In our view, this is a more effective form of aid, and will help reduce fraud in the sector.
We believe José's report is problematic because it is inconsistent.
It says that the sector needs reforming, but at the same time it says that the present market arrangements are working well.
To a large extent, the report supports the southern olive oil producing countries which are against a thorough reform.
They are against the switch to aid per tree.
The reform of the COM for olive oil is the first of the new reforms to come in the common agricultural policy.
So it is important so support the Commission in its work towards new and effective reforms in agriculture.
Thorough going reforms are needed in the common agricultural policy if the Union is to be ready to admit the countries of central and eastern Europe.
We Spanish Socialists have supported the report on olive oil for one central reason: our conviction that the present COM has worked properly and has played a key role in the modernization of a sector of major economic and social importance.
That COM therefore needs no more than superficial reform.
We consider the final result, which has sprung from a compromise, to be a starting-point, which should not prevent us from continuing to insist on those points which we consider essential in the light of the final decision the Council has to agree on.
These are the points in question:
Maintaining subsidies for actual production as the axis of the COM.-Increasing the guaranteed maximum quantity to around 2, 000, 000 MT, together with the necessary budgetary allocation. We would draw attention to the fact that there has been no increase in the EAGGF Guarantee in the COM since 1992, contrary to what has happened with most of the COMs, particular as regards Continental production.-We do not agree with the distribution of the maximum guaranteed quantity as between the producing countries.
We would accept it only as the lesser of two evils, but we consider it necessary to insist that any share-out between countries should take account of actual production and the production capacities reflected in the most recent crops.-We will continue to defend consumption subsidies, as a contribution to the modernization of packaging and sales.-Maintaining the intervention system.Finally, we wish to reiterate our confidence in the future of olive oil as a key sector of Spanish and European agriculture, for reasons of quality, for environmental reasons, for social reasons and for reasons of rural development.
Valverde López report (A4-0341/97)
The cultivation of tobacco is one of the most intensive in the Union as regards the labour force.
It is carried on in small family-run agricultural smallholdings and in particularly disadvantaged regions, which, in the Community south, are mostly regions of objective I, which depend for the most part on this monocrop.
It provides more than 300, 000 full-time jobs in the primary sector and in processing, and contributes to the protection of the environment and to the fight against desertification and depopulation.
The reduction or disappearance of tobacco production, which would ensue from the proposed abolition of direct support for the tobacco sector in the Union (paragraph 29), would cause enormous irreversible social, political and economic damage to peripheral economies.
It will not have beneficial effects on public health, given that it will not necessarily bring about a reduction in tobacco consumption, but it will benefit exclusively those multinational companies which produce cigarettes, cigars and pipe tobacco and which will dominate the global market, manipulate it and import into Europe at least 30 % of what it now produces.
Measures are required to bring about a reduction in imports of tobacco products from the USA, a coordinated front to combat tobacco smuggling, an end to indirect advertising of large tobacco conglomerates, in parallel with interventions at a cultural and educational level, which will contribute to the fight against smoking.
A positive step was taken in the vote against paragraph 29 which asked, in a frivolous and unacceptable way, for the immediate cutting off of subsidies for producers.
However, paragraph 30, which has been approved, has a similar content.
It is a great mistake to confuse the safeguarding of public health from the effects of smoking with tobacco cultivation, which covers only 30 % of European consumption.
Finally, I was greatly taken aback by the fact that the rapporteur rejected my amendments against tobacco smuggling and for the non-participation of Members of the European Parliament in the publicity campaigns of large tobacco companies.
I supported the Valverde López report warmly.
The Dutch section of the I-EDN group thinks that every reasonable effort should be made to combat smoking in the Union.
The Valverde López report makes a number of good proposals to discourage smoking.
Thankfully the Council has now reached agreement on the advertising ban.
Now for everything else.
I have to get it off my chest that I think the continuation of agricultural subsidies for tobacco growing is an absurd kink in Community policy.
I believe that the continuation of this subsidy is diametrically opposed to the Maastricht Treaty.
This states, after all, that protecting public health must be part of all other policy areas of the Community.
So it is time that the Union adjusted its support policy to the requirements of the new treaty.
I have difficulty with only a few points in the resolution.
They concern paragraph 13 on the tar content in rolling tobacco.
Science is still not sure how the tar content can be measured in this kind of tobacco, as no hand-rolled cigarette is the same as another.
A solution has to be found for this.
That is why I supported Amendment No 2.
Paragraphs 17 and 34 assume in advance that a higher tax on rolling tobacco is justified.
This is premature, which is why I supported Amendments Nos 16 and 17.
I was unable to support Paragraph 20.
It seems somewhat excessive to give over 25 % of the packaging of large cigarette boxes to warnings.
25 % is fine for a standard packet of cigarettes.
Amendment No 13 therefore received my support.
To conclude, paragraphs 35 and 36 seem to me to go too far, and I did not support them.
It has been clearly established that smoking can cause serious illness such as lung cancer and cardiac problems.
For this reason I would support any education or advertising initiatives that will dissuade young people from ever starting this bad habit.
The report of Mr Valverde López has some excellent proposals in this regard.
However, there seems to me to be a major inconsistency in the action of the EU.
On the one hand the EU Commission and the EU health ministers support a ban on tobacco sponsorship.
However, on the other hand, the EU continues to provide subsidies to tobacco growers.
Where is the consistency?
Instead we should be encouraging tobacco growers to diversify and provide aid to assist them.
To follow such a course of action would be more consistent with an anti-smoking policy.
Tobacco subsidies from the EU must be phased out.
A timetable should be fixed within which this should take place.
During this time new crops must be developed and alternative ways of earning a living must be offered to those who can no longer generate their income from tobacco growing.
It is important to find a balance between public health, employment, regional policy and a realistic transition period.
The European Parliament cannot support the World Bank's practice of denying aid to tobacco-related projects without taking the same position in the EU.
On behalf of Labour members of the European Parliament, I indicate that support for the Valderde López report on the present and proposed Community role in combatting tobacco consumption has been given on the basis of its status as a report on a communication.
I believe that several aspects are more appropriate for action by Member States with a measure of cooperation.
The UK government will publish its own views during 1998 and the UK parliament will deliberate on appropriate measures to be introduced.
The Commission and Parliament proposals will be considered in detail if legislative proposals are brought forward, and the broad support of myself and colleagues does not necessarily indicate agreement that every measure should be introduced at Community level in future.
Quite recently, the European Council, under the Luxembourg Presidency, adopted a common position regarding the prohibition of direct and indirect cigarette advertising.
It therefore made haste, without waiting for the opinion of the European Parliament, so as not to defer this important file.
The position of the European Parliament is above all motivated by public health considerations.
As the rapporteur, Mr Valverde Lopez, reminded the House, half a million people die each year from the effects of smoking, in the European Union: smoking has become the main cause of avoidable death.
At the same time, it is necessary to observe that the trend to stop smoking, which began a few years' ago, has reversed.
Young people start smoking earlier and earlier, women are smoking more and more, with harmful effects on pregnancy and babies.
Passive smoking, which was ignored for a long time, is more often the subject of scientific research which proves how harmful it is.
From this point of view, and in the interests of public health, a total ban on direct and indirect advertising of tobacco products is a good approach.
It is not a question of banning tobacco or its consumption, but of preventing young people from coming into contact (by means of closely targeted advertising) with smoking when they are too young, of trying to prevent the risks of passive smoking or the consumption of tobacco during pregnancy or in the presence of babies.
Tobacco will still be sold in as many places as before, but the incitement to use it will be reduced.
It is in this respect that I support the views of the rapporteur to the European Parliament and oppose all views, which support the liberalization of tobacco advertising.
There is no doubt in my mind that tobacco is harmful, so I welcome the committee's report.
If it prevents children and young people from taking up smoking and becoming addicted to tobacco, they will probably not get into the habit later in life.
So I think the main effort should be on making tobacco less attractive to young people.
The rapporteur is entirely correct in pointing out that the use of tobacco in public places and in the workplace costs society a huge amount, so I support measures which are aimed at improving health and safety at work.
I am also voting in favour of the report for health and social reasons, even if it restricts consumers' freedom to buy tobacco as they like in some ways.
Our group voted against the final resolution in this report.
In fact, although we are very much in favour of controlling the use of tobacco, we cannot on principle accept the fact that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection should vote for a report, which aims, at the same time, to withdraw aid for the production of tobacco, and aid for the export of tobacco and withdraws all the Community protection in that sector.
I would like to remind the House that the priority aim of the Europe of Nations Group is the protection of employment: it is necessary to take into consideration the importance of tobacco production in underprivileged rural areas. In a number of production areas, it is not possible to replace the production of tobacco with any other agricultural crop.
What will we do with the workers employed in this sector?
In addition, our group wishes to remind the House that the European Union still imports a net 67 % of the tobacco it uses.
Withdrawing production aid, as well as having a very serious effect on employment, would increase our external deficit.
What is the use of decreasing our production, if we replace it with imports from third countries, particularly the United States? Indeed, if the European Union no longer produced tobacco, this would have no effect on the prevention of smoking.
To conclude, our group is pleased that the part-session rejected paragraph 29 of the rapporteur's initial motion for a resolution.
We regret that our amendments, justified by the protection of employment and the control of our external trade deficits, were not adopted.
We have requested a roll-call vote and I think that tobacco producers will be interested to find out what positions various Members will adopt.
I have voted for this report as I agree wholeheartedly that smoking is a proven health risk and should be discouraged.
I condemn the UK Government's decision to allow Formula One to be given special treatment.
The European Communication on the present and proposed Community role in combatting tobacco consumption was specifically to prevent exposure to young people.
The government has distorted what could have been a very positive message for its own reasons.
The UK Government's excuse has opened the back door to a whole range of opt-outs and challenges.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.49 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Madam President, I have the sad duty to make an announcement to the European Parliament concerning a tragic, catastrophic air accident which occurred yesterday during the night near my city, Thessaloniki.
An aeroplane belonging to the Ukraine airline company, Air Swift, on its way from Kiev to Thessaloniki, crashed and was totally destroyed.
All passengers and crew, 72 people in all, are unaccounted for.
The aeroplane crashed in the mountainous region near Thessaloniki, following a failed attempt to land. The usual search and rescue efforts are now under way with little hope of finding any survivors.
Madam President, I felt it was my duty to make this announcement and to ask the European Parliament to express its condolences to the families of the victims.
Thank you, Mr Papakyriazis.
This matter of course mainly concerns your homeland, but it therefore also affects one of the members of this Community.
I am grateful to you for this information.
It is something outside my experience.
Parliament will obtain relevant information on this matter so that we too can demonstrate an appropriate level of concern.
Outcome of the Kyoto Conference
The next item is the Commission statement on the outcome of the Kyoto Conference.
I would like to thank Mr Collins, in his capacity as Chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, for his kind words.
However, as you know, Mr Collins, we have set an agenda and everyone has agreed to it.
The Party leaders have presented this to us and no changes have been proposed.
I understand what you say, and I know that the trip has been a long one; nor is it very easy to be right on top of the situation without any time for proper reflection.
Madam President, I personally would like to welcome Mrs Bjerregaard here.
Some of us were in Kyoto and we are all back here and it is fresh in our minds.
So I would personally welcome Mrs Bjerregaard here for this statement.
Madam President, as was stated by the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I recently came back, so that is also why I shall make the statement in English and not in Danish, because there has been no time for translation.
Kyoto is over, and a protocol with legally binding targets for greenhouse-gas emissions is a fact.
Everyone participating in the Conference was relieved when Ambassador Estrada on Thursday morning at 11 a.m., after a long night's work, closed the Committee of the Whole with a final text, which was formally approved by the Conference of the Parties later in the day.
The Kyoto Protocol will prove to have been history in the making.
I do not believe many of us present, if any at all, have been part of such a difficult and ambitious undertaking before.
Let us take the necessary time to analyse and digest the result.
But I am sure that you will agree with me that this is a milestone in international environmental negotiations.
The potential implications for the global climate, for the economy of 160 countries and for the domestic politics of many major participants are staggering.
It was a particular satisfaction to see how the European Union maintained its role in pushing for the strongest possible protocol throughout the negotiations.
Even if the final result is less ambitious than our original target, there can be no doubt that had it not been for the continuous push by the EU one would not be able to claim any positive result at all.
I believe the result is a positive one for the global environment.
No agreement would have been a bad result for everyone, not least for our planet.
We achieved an agreement which is worth having, and I worked hard for it.
It is true that it is an incomplete agreement and that more work has to be done, but we now have a platform on which we can continue to build in our efforts to save the global climate.
Let me say quite openly that there were many important players in the Kyoto process, including representatives of this Parliament.
They played a key role in offsetting the unreasonable pressures brought to bear on the Conference by the US Congress and, perhaps more importantly, in building a strong bridge from the EU to the developing countries.
The Kyoto agreement is, as is always the case with international agreements, on several important points an unfinished product.
A number of provisions can only be finally judged when procedures, modalities and methodologies have been worked out and agreed in the coming year.
Before I take a close look at the result, I would like to say a few words about the negotiation process itself.
A lot of time and effort was unfortunately wasted on diplomatic positioning games.
This was a disadvantage for the climate issue.
The EU bubble, joint fulfilment of commitments within the EU, was subject to an unusually aggressive attack by the Japanese hosts and seconded by our US colleagues.
This aggression climaxed in a formal proposal of an EU 'penalty' , for 3 % extra on the target in return for the joint fulfilment.
A lot of negotiation effort had to be spent on turning this idea down, effort that could otherwise have been used constructively to improve the result.
Let me add that it was clear that the attacks on the EU bubble were another way of attacking our more ambitious target of a 15 % reduction by 2010, a figure that certainly displeased most of our OECD partners.
On the agreement itself, the most visible part, of course, is the reduction targets.
The EU has argued for the same reduction target to apply for all Annex 1 parties, the so-called flat-rate approach.
This line was supported by the United States.
In the end-game, by far the majority of the Annex 1 parties, including the EU, associated member countries, the US and Canada and Japan found themselves within a reduction target of minus 6 to minus 8 % of 1990 levels.
We pushed the United States and Japan as far as we could.
We regret that we could not push them even further.
In the end we chose a position of minus 8 % for the EU to take the necessary extra step for the environment.
I very much regret that other Annex 1 parties were allowed a higher degree of differentiation, notably Russia and Ukraine, that were required only to stabilize, and Australia, that was allowed a possible 8 % increase.
In addition, Australia was granted a provision to include in its 1990 emission baseline the emission from land-use changes as equivalent to industrial emissions.
For these parties it is now a question whether they need to undertake any specific action at all in order to stay within their targets.
Russia and Ukraine will, in all likelihood, find themselves major suppliers of quotas under a future trading regime in the protocol.
I am sure you will agree with me that this is not an acceptable situation.
During the negotiations it has become increasingly clear that the reduction targets themselves are only part of the story.
The way we reach this target and the use of so-called flexibility measures are equally important.
At an early stage of the negotiations the US made it clear that it was not ready to consider a protocol without possibilities to achieve a target through emissions trading and joint implementation.
The EU has made it clear from the beginning that it was not against such 'flexibility measures' - in fact joint implementation was part of the original EU protocol proposal.
However, such measures should provide for true costeffectiveness and not just allow for trading 'hot air' , the selling of emissions reductions already achieved.
The agreed text is not very clear on this point.
'Hot air' from the years before the first budget period cannot be traded - a very important point pushed by the EU.
A proposed article on emissions trading was rejected and replaced with a very ambiguous 'skeleton article' - article 16 bis - which clearly foresees emissions trading but leaves all modalities open to be decided later by the Conference of the Parties, if possible at COP4 in Buenos Aires in November 1998.
Joint implementation between Annex 1 parties is now part of the protocol (article 6).
Joint implementation with developing countries will be possible through the 'clean-development mechanism' , a new invention described in article 12.
This new mechanism can be a very useful way of improving cooperation and transfer of technology between industrialized and developing countries but it will only become operational after the protocol has come into force and the parties have agreed on the modalities.
The role of the developing countries in the future process was a critical issue during the negotiations, in particular after the US Senate adopted the Bird-Hagel resolution in July 1997 underlining that meaningful participation by the key developing countries within a foreseeable future would be a prerequisite for US ratification.
The proposed article that would allow developing countries to voluntarily undertake commitments in the form of quantified emission targets was not adopted as part of the protocol.
Resistance to this article was led by China which had been singled out in the United States debate on developing countries' participation because of the expected strong growth in CO2 emissions.
On a per capita basis China is not likely to exceed 20 % of the US per capita emissions level within the next 20 years.
Thus the Chinese resistance was understandable.
This position was also strongly backed by India.
Irrespective of the uncertainties linked to the various flexibility measures I have described, it is certain Kyoto put climate change at the top of the international environmental agenda.
Further work is needed to create the indisputable success but I am sure that the momentum created in Kyoto will ensure this.
This leads me to my last point. What will our next steps be?
On Tuesday I had the opportunity to discuss with colleagues in the Council how we might best proceed.
The upcoming UK Presidency is very keen to assure a fast and efficient follow-up to Kyoto and this will certainly also be followed by the Austrian Presidency during the second half of 1998 up to the first Conference of the Parties in Buenos Aires.
We have no time to waste.
COP4 is of major importance.
Modalities, rules, guidelines for emission trading, joint implementation, clean development mechanisms, sinks, etcetera, have to be discussed there.
Within 11 months from now the world will again have to take crucial decisions.
The EU will again be ready to take the lead in closing all major loopholes included in the protocol.
Our first task is to prepare for a signature of the protocol.
A decision to sign should be taken by the Council in March 1998.
For that purpose I have asked the Commission services to prepare a factual report describing our commitments under the protocol and the points that need clarification.
The next step will be to prepare for ratification. This will definitely require the development of a post-Kyoto strategy, a Commission communication to Council and Parliament describing what action will be needed to meet our commitments and a proposed burden sharing.
This communication will also have to address emission trading and joint implementation under the EU bubble.
A final aspect concerns the question of when the protocol is likely to enter into force and on what basis. article 24 stipulates that only when 55 parties, corresponding to 50 % of total Annex 1 CO2 emission in 1990, have ratified will the protocol enter into force.
The 50 % of CO2 emissions in 1990 is the critical factor.
The United States accounts for approximately 35 % of 1990 emissions and Russia for roughly 15 %.
This implies that at least one of the two will have to ratify in order for the protocol to enter into force.
Since the United States is fundamentally dependent for their target to be met on emission trading with Russia it is not likely that the United States will ratify without Russia.
Together with the EU this will bring the protocol into force.
It follows from this that the United States or Russia has the main key to activate the protocol.
The US administration has made it known that it is not ready to send the protocol to Congress for ratification at this stage.
This seems to be due partly to meagre outcome of the developing countries' participation and partly to uncertainties surrounding the trading scheme.
To facilitate US ratification it is crucial that the EU moves ahead as quickly as possible to maintain the highest possible political pressure.
It will also be necessary to continue our efforts to establish a constructive dialogue with the developing countries, not because they should be pushed to undertake quantitative commitments at this stage but because it will be necessary to include them in the process to guarantee a long-term successful outcome.
The support from the European Parliament is essential in the future as it has been important in the past.
In this context I want to extend my particular appreciation to GLOBE for their impressive activity.
It will continue to be necessary that you try to influence colleagues in Parliament from the respective main OECD partners and other main players.
Better coordination between Parliament, me and my services should start right now.
Your knowledge and your future presence in Buenos Aires is very important to make COP4 a success.
Kyoto provided the platform.
We are now starting to tackle the enormous task of reversing the upward trend in greenhouse gas emissions. We came to Kyoto to fight for the climate.
We never expected it to be easy and it certainly was not.
But it was a first step.
We now must work to widen that platform to ensure that climate change is effectively addressed.
I am sure that we can continue to rely on your support in this important task.
Madam President, I should like to begin by directing my sincere thanks and congratulations to the Commissioner and to the EU delegation at the recent talks.
This was a high point for European diplomacy which saw us taking the lead from the Americans for the first time.
In fact, the USA was left sitting in the dock.
Europe set the pace and those involved deserve our heartfelt congratulations.
This is something which we should emulate whenever possible.
At the same time, however, I have to point out that the numerous delegates from the European Parliament and the national parliaments who were present at Kyoto must cooperate more closely on this issue.
In Kyoto we were completely fragmented.
We were not even aware of one another, whereas the Americans had a very coordinated delegation and presented a very united presence.
This is a task for the management of Parliament and indeed for the Commission, with whom we should cooperate more closely in this respect.
This is really the first matter which concerns me, namely the ratification of the agreement by the US Senate.
The Council of Ministers' resolution of 16 October for Kyoto stated that the emission reduction targets for 2010 and 2005, which we have resolved to introduce, are technically achievable and economically feasible, provided that other industrial nations introduce comparable measures for the reduction of emissions. What happens if the US Senate only ratifies the Kyoto agreement in two or three years time?
Does this mean that Europe can also wait two or three years, or even longer, or does it mean that we should initiate the main phases of the emission reduction process independently of the Americans? This seems to me to be a key question for the Council.
It naturally affects the Commission too, but primarily concerns the Council.
The question which then arises is why we have not kept our original target of 15 %. Each of us who has been concerned with this issue knows that the Kyoto agreement is the result of a diplomatic deal.
And if the climatologists are right, then we are falling well short of the requirements which have to be met.
For this reason too I would recommend sticking with the 15 % proposal.
It is one which will be supported by a large proportion of young people, as well as by those engaged in science and research, throughout Europe.
From this commitment will grow a new European identity - one which is based on obligation, rather than on a lifeless agreement.
My last request and proposal is that we should draw up a binding timetable - one which includes sanctions against those who do not keep to the obligations enshrined therein.
To do this we would require a management committee.
This might be based within the Commission, in whom I have every confidence, and should be capable of implementing the scheme as well as monitoring it.
Perhaps we also need a kind of interinstitutional agreement between the Council, the Commission and Parliament, such that each makes an appropriate contribution.
I am convinced that the various parties represented here, and certainly this applies to my own group, would be prepared to convert these dead letters into a living project.
Madam President, five years ago the world's governments undertook to ensure that the quantities of greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere would be reduced to an acceptable level for our climatic system.
In his impressive speech in November, and in his contribution of today, Mr Linkohr has underlined the fact that the issues tabled at Kyoto have fallen well short of this ambitious objective.
If we assume that in the long term each citizen on the planet should produce equal amounts of CO2 , then we in the industrialised countries naturally have to achieve a much more substantial reduction than all the proposals discussed at Kyoto.
The figure in question should in fact be less than two tonnes per capita.
This becomes all too evident when one realises that a citizen in Tanzania only emits about one hundredth of the amount of greenhouse gases produced per head of the population in some of the industrialised countries.
Everything discussed at Kyoto was therefore of modest proportions.
However, I believe that politics is the art of the feasible and for this reason we were obliged to make compromises.
The difference involved is therefore only a gradual one - whether we had succeeded in getting the EU's plan fully adopted, or whether we stick with the current compromise.
There is absolutely no reason for defeatism because the EU's position did not win the day.
On the other hand, it is a matter of regret that there were a number of exceptions to the general agreement.
I would like to congratulate the Commission and the negotiators for having taken such a strong leading role. However, some criticism is also appropriate.
This particularly concerns the fact that Australia and Iceland may be allowed to increase their emission levels.
This is partly the fault of the European Union because, for various reasons, we have allowed some Member States within the EU to increase their emissions in the coming years.
It is therefore hardly surprising that other industrialised nations will demand similar concessions for themselves.
These countries, both inside the EU as well as outside, produce up to 50 times more greenhouse gases than Tanzania and many other developing countries, for example.
My own country has always been at the forefront of the environmental issue, but here too I can be self-critical.
In recent years Germany has failed to make decisive cuts in environmental emissions in the west of the country.
German unity was a piece of good fortune, especially in political terms.
But German unity was also a success for the environment, since it allowed inefficient industrial installations to be replaced by efficient plant.
Unfortunately, this is a principle which cannot necessarily be imitated by other Member States.
The situation in Germany was a special one.
We therefore have a credibility problem, both inside Germany as well as within the EU, since even the latter has failed to reach its self-imposed targets with the resources currently available.
The post-Kyoto era must therefore be a time for credible action.
We must introduce a more efficient energy policy and provide real support for climate-friendly energy forms.
I believe that we will then also have a better chance of getting further reductions adopted during future negotiations, quite apart from the fact that there are of course many reasons other than environmental ones, for us to be economical in our use of energy - and more particularly in our use of fossil fuels - since these are finite resources, and what is more, they are far too good for burning, seeing that they constitute important raw materials for many processes.
We therefore have many reasons for getting down to the job at hand.
Madam President, let me begin by offering Mrs Bjerregaard my well-deserved compliments.
It does not happen every day that I extend these to her, so she should be pleased with them this afternoon.
This is because it is partly due to the perseverance of this Commissioner that the European Union has been able to play a leading role in the Conference in Kyoto.
Like most speakers present here this afternoon, I was also in Kyoto, and heard the Commissioner speak.
A fine, resolute speech after the speech from the minister from the Netherlands, which prepared us so well for Kyoto during its presidency.
The Commissioner deserves our appreciation.
Because, as a result of the European Union setting out for Kyoto with its reduction proposal of 15 %, Japan and the United States ultimately agreed to much stricter reduction targets than they had originally intended.
Neverheless, I believe the European Union should not stick to the global agreement made in Kyoto of 8 % as the target for Europe itself, but that we should stick to the minus 15 %.
Only then the Union will be able to keep its leading role, and will be able to pull the other countries along with it in the coming years.
An alteration also occurred in Kyoto; six gases rather than three were included in the calculations as part of the reduction.
A thing or two will have to be revised. The Commissioner herself pointed to this.
Burden sharing between countries in Europe has to be looked at again.
My question is: when will the Commissioner make this announcement so that the decision can be taken under the British Presidency during the first part of next year?
Finally, Madam President, I am fully confident that during the British Presidency we will tackle this case as energetically as was the case under the Dutch Presidency.
I have already pointed out that under this presidency the Council has had the opportunity to become a historic Council, resulting in the European Union receiving praise from future generations for having broken through an impasse in the fight against global warming.
Madam President, it might be appropriate at this point to remind the House of our earlier intervention at the Kyoto Conference, when we stated that ecological and citizens' groups in general were asking for a reduction of over 20 % in the year 2010, in relation to 1990 levels.
We also said, however, that the European Union's attitude, when compared with those of other countries - basically the United States - was the clearest and most forceful option to take in the face of climate change and in defence of the environment.
We should like to congratulate the Commissioner and the European delegation on their vigorous defence of our positions.
We must denounce the environmental policy of countries like the United States, which insisted that developing countries should reduce their emissions while they themselves continued at the same rate of development as at present.
That is a totally unreasonable suggestion, especially if, as Mr Linkohr said, we take into account Mr John Kerry's statements that he would fight in the American Senate to see that this agreement on minimum emissions would not be complied with, because it was completely impossible for the Americans to change their rules of conduct as regards energy consumption.
We agree with some of our fellow-Members who have already spoken to the effect that the European Union, which has suggested a 15 % reduction in relation to 1990 levels, should continue to suggest the same guidelines for reduction and that it should be an example to the world of how environmental issues should be dealt with.
In view of the fact that in other matters, such as foreign policy or trade policy, the European Union does not have the independence it ought to have vis-à-vis the United States and other countries, we are delighted that on environmental matters the European Union has been a model of consistency in defence of the world's future.
I believe there is still a long way to go and we shall continue to require cooperation between the Commission and the European Parliament.
This is how we see it, and we shall pay close attention to events and will support the European Union whenever, as on this occasion, it consistently defends the future of the European Union and the world; because we believe that when the United States says it is unable to reduce its energy consumption levels, it is acting inconsistently with any concern for the future.
Madam President, first I should like to restore the discussion to its real scale. We face the challenge of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the world by 60-80 %.
This is an immense challenge, when we consider that, for example, the number of car/kilometres is predicted to rise in the European Union by as much as 60 % by the year 2010; we therefore have a big job on our hands. But this aside, I wish to add my congratulations to those of my colleagues to the Commission and the Commissioner personally for the excellent work done in Kyoto.
I hope cooperation between Parliament and the Commissioner will continue.
Now we have to pursue a course of international diplomacy, in which national organizations as well as MPs will play an important part.
We saw this very clearly in Kyoto.
I was there with eight other Members of the European Parliament and it is my belief that we did our very best.
But the most vital work to be done is here at home.
I agree with my colleagues and my group insists that the European Union must continue to be among the leaders in this project.
We must stick to our original bid of minus 15 % by the year 2010.
EU industry is definitely prepared to meet this challenge.
Energy-saving solutions are being developed and they will certainly have got an extra thrust from Kyoto.
I am totally convinced that new technology can improve people's quality of life and create new jobs.
This is also the model we must hold up to the developing countries, where we have not yet been able to make any great demands, as it is quite true that emissions per capita are far lower in these countries than in ours.
Thus the European Union has a very great responsibility in this matter and a major task ahead.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have rarely, in the whole of my political career, seen so much intellectual dishonesty as last week in Kyoto.
Everyone, be they American, European or Japanese declared themselves ready and willing to save the planet.
In fact, everyone came to negotiate emission rights.
Madam President, this is a disgrace!
The scientific community and NGOs had agreed that a reduction of at least 15 % in greenhouse gas emissions was necessary by the year 2010, in comparison with the reference year, 1990, in order to stabilize the greenhouse effect.
Even the European Union had pronounced itself prepared to do so.
What is the result? The Americans, who create the most emissions in absolute figures and per head of population, finally agreed to reduce emissions by 7 %, provided that tradable emissions are allowed.
The European Union will only have to decrease its emissions by 8 %, and Japan by 6 %.
Madam Commission, please be brave, accept your responsibilities.
Let us, in the European Union, undertake to make a 15 % reduction, on a voluntary basis, unconnected with the results of other industrialised nations!
According to your department's calculations, this target is quite achievable, both from an economic and a technical point of view.
Let a show a good example in Buenos Aires.
Let us also undertake not to trade the rights we have thus obtained, with countries who are not yet ready to substantially reduce their emissions.
The system of trading rights, as established in Kyoto, is immoral and cynical, because it allows the worst to borrow from those who are only mediocre.
Madam Commissioner, Madam President, we should not play such a dangerous game.
Madam President, was the Kyoto Conference a success? Opinions vary.
Last week in her response, Commissioner Bjerregaard seemed disappointed.
The EU environment ministers were relieved with the result which was achieved.
I am inclined to agree with the environment ministers, and I am pleased with the positive tone of the Commissioner's argument, and praise her for her dedication in Kyoto.
It was feared that if no one moved, there would be no agreement.
The compromise which we have now is approximately the arithmetical average between the 0 % of the United States and the 15 % of the European Union.
Not very elegant, but the maximum achievable and hopefully the beginning of greater things.
The negotiations were difficult and complex, that much is clear.
That is why it is a victory for the European Union that such clear percentages were laid down.
It shows that amongst the industrial nations the start of an awareness has grown that herein lies a responsibility.
I think that combatting global warming is one of the most obvious test cases of international environmental awareness.
It is a major plus that even countries like the United States and Japan have now agreed to the reductions.
We all know how strong the link is between economic growth and CO2 emissions.
Even stabilizing of the emissions calls for strong measures.
That is why it so important that all industrial nations set themselves reductions targets.
The Union was blamed in the beginning for setting targets which it would not be able meet.
I have to tell you that we also doubt the will to achieve this 15 % by the year 2010, yet this is necessary.
In my own country latterly economic growth has been deemed more important than achieving reduction targets.
In our view two things are therefore needed for the coming ten to fifteen years. Firstly, an enormous effort to employ the most effective reduction instruments.
Secondly, to work towards a global awareness that things cannot go on as they are.
We must aim for a new model for economic development.
This is vital, based on respect for the creation and the Creator of life.
Madam President, there are two ways we can look at Kyoto.
We can look at whether the agreement was sufficient to save the planet and we can look at whether it was an important milestone.
From the environmental point of view it is no news that the conference did not agree on the levels of greenhouse gas reduction needed to reverse the process of climate destabilization.
However, as a realist I believe we should welcome what has been agreed as a very important first step on a long and rocky road towards reversing the trend in emissions by the major industrialized countries and recognize how hard it was to get that far and how hard the Commission and other parties worked to achieve what they did.
Having met with the Americans in Kyoto, I found it rather shocking to see how absolutely opposed many of them were to reducing their emissions at all and it is a victory that any agreement was reached.
The main problem will be whether the United States will ratify and of course this is not a foregone conclusion.
In the meantime it is essential that we in the European Union remain committed to our more ambitious target of greenhouse gas reduction of 15 % and put our energies into the economic advantage for European industry in being ahead in the clean technology markets.
We must also redouble our energy saving and renewable energy efforts; we should also engage in a debate.
I think we should initiate a debate with China, Russia and India to see how we can help these developing countries and others change their trends.
We should not wait for ratification before beginning the very necessary efforts on clean development mechanisms and the necessary transfer of technology with the developing countries.
We will obviously need to analyse the text of the protocol carefully because there are a lot of important issues in the detail, such as emissions trading, carbon sinks, clean technology transfer and so on.
I hope we will be able to debate follow-up action in more detail in the New Year with the British Presidency also present because they made an enormous effort at Kyoto to achieve the deal.
I also look forward to debating the Commission communication at greater length.
Climate destabilization is not going to go away because of what happened at Kyoto, and we have very serious work ahead of us during the next year to prepare for COP4 in November to ensure that we continue to move forward.
Madam President, the results of the climate conference are discussed in today's edition of a major German newspaper, as has been the case in previous editions.
This morning's lengthy article appears under the heading "Climate politicians in a fog' .
The writer is referring here not only to a political dilemma, but also to a practical one. It is a dilemma which faced the Kyoto delegates and which underlies the main problem being dealt with at the conference.
It is based on the fact that statements being made by climatologists are, to a large degree, hypothetical, while their forecasts are unreliable and often have to be revised.
Environmental policy is in urgent need of accurate data.
This lack of information is just as pressing a problem as the lack of action.
Here, action and information are closely interrelated, since the extent and intensity of the behavioural change needed has to match the accuracy of the available scientific data.
I therefore believe that we urgently need to extend the scope of our research.
In addition to the continued application of model calculations, we need to expand our chronological and thematic thinking.
Better prognostics require a more complex research programme.
This will help extend the preferred model calculations used to date and will therefore help to control, complement and even qualify these models.
We must realise that the intensity and speed of climate change is relevant for political decision-making, and even the human impact has to be specified in terms of time and space.
If we do not constantly seek to relate research to politics, then the result will almost always be a loss in credibility.
I have a second fundamental comment to make: If I accept that climatic changes are man-made, that they are caused by human actions, if I say that climatic fluctuations exist, if I say "yes' to the idea, or consider it probable - and that is clearly what I do think - then I cannot deny the relationship which this has with energy policy, for example.
I must then at least do an approximate calculation of the potential climatic effects of the global increase in energy production.
Then I must also recognize that there is an increasing worldwide demand for energy and that the need and capacity for energy saving measures is limited to those countries which have sufficient supplies of energy available.
Anyone who does not recognize this must have a rather provincial outlook.
And those who do acknowledge it must also accept the various options available to meet our energy requirements.
Those of us who seriously believe in the careful exploitation of our natural resources, and who do not wish to see major climate changes, cannot sacrifice any of the options to blinkered ideology.
Neither can we do without energysaving products and energy-saving technologies.
Nor without renewable energies, the use of hydroelectric power, solar energy, and not even without nuclear fission, Mr Tannert, provided that it is deployed responsibly, and the future application of nuclear fusion.
To forgo any of these options for ideological reasons would, in my opinion, be downright stupid.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I, too, would like to start by congratulating the Commissioner on her determination in defending the position of the European Union in Kyoto.
If the Commission had not stood firm, we might not have achieved the result which we are able to welcome today.
It is not the result we had hoped for, but I agree with those who say that a weaker agreement is better than none at all.
We were witness in our parliamentary delegation to the fixed position of our American colleagues, and heard the weak reasoning with which they sought to protect their own industry.
I personally noticed a contradiction between delegates from the Mid-West who defended the old industries and the delegates from California, who like us, believed that the utilization of new technologies is a source of progress and new jobs.
A great deal of questions still need to be answered.
For example, the involvement of the developing countries, the trading of emission quotas, and how to include deforestation and reforestation in the calculations.
The question also arises whether the protocol will be ratified by everyone, and more specifically by the United States, the largest polluter, and how it will eventually be implemented The Commission stressed this only a few minutes ago.
There is no consensus yet, for example, on which alternative sources of energy might be suggested.
We may fear that because of this the practical implications of the Kyoto protocol will remain limited.
Moreover, international organizations are badly equipped to tackle global problems such as these.
They lack material and human resources.
Their legitimacy is weak.
We are facing an enormous challenge and we need to work with the Union on this.
Finally, Madam Commissioner, I would like to support the plea that we in the Union should keep to this reduction of 15 %, whatever the commitment of the other parties may be.
The pioneering work the Union has done must be continued.
Madam President, the outcome of the Kyoto Conference was disappointing.
The climate agreement is neither one thing nor another.
It will not prevent global warming, at best it will only slow it down, and we must assume that emissions will be reduced at most by 5 %, though we know that a reduction of between 60 % and 80 % is required in the industrialized nations.
We are very disappointed that the EU abandoned its position on a 15 % reduction and in this respect we await a clear statement from you, Madam Commissioner, on whether or not you are now prepared to take the lead here and stick with 15 % in the future.
It is incomprehensible that you allowed yourself to be beaten down on this issue, that you gave in to industry's moaning about competitive advantage, instead of seriously tackling the issue of how to solve our climate problems.
Global warming is too important an issue to be dealt with at such a toddling pace.
We now expect you to take real steps here, since we all know that it is not the summit debate itself which is important, but rather the actions which are taken as part of our everyday affairs.
If you continue to procrastinate on this issue, if you are not prepared to contemplate an environmentally-friendly energy policy, the introduction of an eco-tax and even the reduction of road traffic levels, then you are demonstrating to the whole world that you were only play-acting at Kyoto and that the EU is not really serious about tackling the environmental issue.
In preparation for Buenos Aires we are therefore pleading for the 15 % reduction and for the ultimate introduction of an environmentally-friendly energy and environment policy.
You have done seriously little to bring this about, Madam Commissioner, for where are the instruments needed to achieve this reduction target? This is what should be on the agenda, the means for real action, and not merely diplomatic rhetoric.
Madam President, first of all, congratulations to the Commissioner.
If you want to see how this world really works, go into the world of energy and see the vested interests.
She has had that experience and so have some of our colleagues.
If ever there was a justification for the existence of the European Union, our presence in Kyoto was that justification.
Going as individual countries we would not have had the effect that we did have.
Of course, as Mr Linkohr rightly says, in order to enhance our identity, we should stick to our ambitious targets.
This is not a sacrifice. It is very good business because it gives us a competitive edge, lowers our costs and makes us altogether more successful.
Why do the Americans not realize this, then? Because the Americans look at the world through the distorted glass of the heavy vested interests of the fossil fuel lobbies.
That means they cannot see the world clearly.
They see the world in a way that does not show them the simple fact that saving CO2 emissions is a very good business idea.
Nuclear energy is not the answer. Nuclear energy presents other, equally serious environmental problems.
Secondly, from an economic point of view, in a privatized market, nuclear energy is not viable.
The experience in my own country, the United Kingdom, has proved that.
If you can name me one country with a privatized market which decides to build new power stations at this moment, I will give you a prize.
You cannot.
The answer lies much more in using energy rationally and in turning to renewable energy sources.
Let me take you back to 1957, the signing of the Euratom Treaty, probably a good thing to do in 1957.
Now let us think about 1997.
What we need now is a treaty on renewable energy, a Eurenew treaty.
Nothing is as strong and as exciting as an idea whose time has come.
The time has come now for that idea.
We need some legislation; we need a directive which will allow renewable energy sources to thrive in a privatized market.
We in the Committee on Energy, Research and Technology are doing some work on that through Mr Linkohr.
We are doing an own-initiative report.
We need the rational planning directive.
Originally that was called the IRP Directive - the Integrated Resource Planning Directive.
Sometimes I think it has become the RIP Directive - rest in peace - because I do not know where it is.
Of course we need to coordinate our work.
Parliament has to coordinate with the Commission.
The Environment Commissioner has to coordinate her work with the Energy Commissioner.
Energy is 90 % of the problem in climate change.
And we in Parliament have to coordinate our work.
The Energy Committee and the Environment Committee both have responsibilities and should work together.
I sometimes wonder whether we do not need a Climate Change Committee where we could concentrate on this massive problem facing our planet.
I am very pleased that we have had this report.
It does not mean because there are few people that it is not taken seriously.
This will not be the last we hear of it.
Commissioner, you will be back when this Chamber is very much fuller, when the whole of Parliament will show that the European Union is a big player in climate change.
(Applause )
I shall be brief, owing to the confusion over speaking times.
I should simply like to make it clear that our group, the European People's Party, like the other groups, believe that it is correct, as we agreed in November, for the European Union to keep its self-imposed target of 15 % by the year 2010.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, though the road to Kyoto has been a long and stony one, the outcome, namely the Kyoto internal agreements, has provided us with a ladder up which we will have to climb in eleven months, before we are ready for the next conference in Argentina.
The climb will be a difficult one for the European Union, since we have a double load to bear.
For one thing we in the Community have to set about changing the proposals which were made by the Commission, with an eye on the Kyoto proposal of three gases and 15 %, to six gases, which are now new.
I too believe that we should stick with our ambitious target.
We must also make a new proposal for the European bubble, which in my opinion should be retained, because I believe that it is good to have a joint model for the individual countries of the European Union and together to bear the burden of emission reduction, modernisation and the modification and renovation of our industrial society.
If the European bubble is to be credible, we need a legislative process which goes beyond the mere coordination of individual national measures.
But above all, we need this common European legislation to stop other countries using the EU bubble as an excuse for running an emissions trading business which saves them the trouble of making any emission reductions themselves, and this at the expense of developing countries who actually need their own reduction quotas.
Madam Commissioner, I believe that we should also revise our existing legislation and policies so that they are in line with this objective for the reduction of environmental emissions.
Other members have referred to renewable energies, energy saving measures and so forth, and to this I would like to add my own remarks.
In addition to a new agricultural policy, we are going to have to consider a new forestry policy, especially if we are serious about tackling the problem of what to do with the credits which are to be made for reafforestation, and not to trail behind other countries but rather to forge ahead with our own proposals and initiatives.
I believe that we must draw up international proposals which set out the next course of action and define the rules governing emissions trading and joint implementation; these rules should be clear, verifiable, reconstructible and fair.
As well as offering my congratulations to those involved in the outcome of Kyoto, I therefore wish to express the hope that in the new year we shall all find the strength to accomplish the task ahead of the Buenos Aires conference, and I hope in all sincerity that here the support of Parliament will be called upon much more than in the past, for together we can achieve much more for the environment than we ever could by acting in isolation.
Madam President, I would like to say thank you for the many positive comments which have been made.
I agree entirely with Parliament that it is important that the EU continues to play a leading role in this field.
Of course, that was also why, in the last phase, instead of using the same target as the USA, namely a 7 % reduction, stated that we were committing ourselves to a reduction of 8 %.
What happens now that we will be analysing what the changed situation means.
What will it mean to have the six gases instead of three, which of course is part of the aims we established, and which of course also led to the 15 %.
A direct calculation shows that, if the reduction had been based on six and not three gases, the reduction would have been equivalent to 12 %.
In other words, there is quite a lot which has to be adjusted to the up to Kyoto.
So I can confirm here and now that we are getting down to these analyses, but, as Ken Collins has also said, we have not had a great deal of time to do so yet.
I look forward to further discussions on this matter in Parliament.
I also believe that I said in my first statement that we are preparing a communication which will give us a document which we can use as the basis for debate and reaching some joint results.
So I hope that I will have an opportunity to come back once we have analysed the figures a bit better and be able to say how things are going with the targets we have set up so far.
And so I understand we are united in the wish to continue to play a leading part.
And let me finish by referring to what the coming British Presidency said at the Council meeting the other day, namely that we should perhaps stop talking about burden-sharing and start talking instead about possibility sharing.
That is also what Mrs McNally was in favour of, and I believe that it is absolutely correct, that there are some unique opportunities here, including for European industry.
Mr President, I would not only like to thank the Commissioner for being here, but I would also like to say to all my colleagues that I think it is usual for a Parliament which respects itself to make an initial political evaluation a week after Kyoto took place.
In that sense it was quite right to discuss these issues now, and I regret Mr Collins' words at the beginning.
Mr President, I did ask the Commissioner when we might look forward to the announcement.
Can the Commissioner give a response to this?
Mr President, there were obviously some problems with the translation.
If the question was about the communication, I have already answered it.
We expect to have it ready by the Council meeting in June, or rather, we would of course very much like to have it before then, so it can be debated here in Parliament.
We know we will be busy, and we are putting quite a lot of effort into making the analyses and putting this communication together, because there is not much time before we will be in Buenos Aires, and we must be properly prepared for the occasion.
Thank you, Madam Commissioner.
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-1042/97 by Mr Gunther and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the convention of Ottawa on a total ban on anti-people mines; -B4-1051/97 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the Ottawa Treaty on anti-people mines; -B4-1059/97 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the Ottawa Treaty on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction; -B4-1063/97 by Mr Hory and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the results of the Ottawa Conference on anti-people mines; -B4-1072/97, by Mr Cunningham and others, in the name of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the Ottawa Treaty on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction; -B4-1076/97 by Mr Azzolini and others, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on banning anti-people mines; -B4-1081/97 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the Ottawa Treaty on the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we all drew a sigh of relief when the Ottawa conference showed that a moratorium was being set up to prevent the spread of landmines.
However, this should not signify that we can now take a breather, that we can now relax our efforts, but rather it means that we have even more problems to tackle - such as the illegal trade in anti-personnel mines.
Illegal devices have, for example, already been discovered in mined areas around the town of Vukovar.
The second point I wish to raise is that we must be careful not to lump all non-signatories together, since this group also includes some countries, such as Finland, who operate a very strict monitoring procedure to ensure that no mines are exported from their territory to other parts of the world.
I believe that points 6 and 8 of our resolution are of particular importance.
It would constitute a major step forward if those countries who have not yet signed the moratorium, particularly the nations of Asia, could be drawn into a commitment to stop the export of these devices, so that the trade in landmines, and possibly even the illegal trade in such weapons, would no longer be supplied from these countries.
The question which I wish to put to the Commission is therefore as follows: How do you view the likelihood of forcing those countries, with whom we have a cooperation treaty or suchlike, to introduce such an export ban?
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, as you know, at the beginning of this month an important step was made towards a global ban of anti-personnel mines.
What was unthinkable two years ago was signed two weeks ago by 122 countries: a total prohibition on the use, sale, export, storage and production of anti-personnel mines.
Credit is primarily due to the non-governmental organizations.
As you know, the coordinator of the campaign, Mrs Jody Williams, was not awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for nothing.
In addition of course the Canadian government which fourteen months ago took the political initiative for a permanently high stake.
Thirdly, the European Commission, Mr Commissioner.
The Commission played an important role in the establishment of three joint actions in the context of common foreign and security policy.
Fourthly, even this Parliament deserves a pat on the back.
Hearings, two reports and numerous resolutions which not only spurred on the Council and the Commission, but also had a positive effect outside the Union.
We all know this, but we need to hang on to the momentum.
The real work is starting.
First we have to see to it that the treaty is ratified.
Three countries have already set a good example, but we need forty in order for to the Ottawa Treaty to enter into force.
The Union must devote more energy to broadening possible participation in the treaty in to order to include more than 122 to 123 countries.
I recall that the Development Council as far back as November 1996, indicated that the most important thing is, of course, support for mine clearance, which must go in particular to countries which respect to the ban on antipersonnel mines.
This seems to me an important factor in conducting politics with third countries and with third world countries.
The implementation is important.
Ten years after coming into force, the supplies have to have been destroyed, and the minefields cleared.
This is a big task which requires a great deal of effort, as well as a great deal of money.
The Union, ourselves in other words, are the biggest donor outside the United Nations.
But in any case I hope I may look forward to the new joint actions by the Council.
To make sure that mines are cleared as quickly as possible, effective coordination between all international efforts is needed.
I think it would be good if the UN played a role in this by, for example, setting up an International Steering Committee including the UN, the Union and obviously with a suitable role for the non governmental organizations.
It is extremely important that we do not lose momentum.
To achieve this, the NGOs - which, as I have said, have already been so crucial - will have to continue to play a role in the implementation and supervision of the implementation of the convention which will bring an end to immense suffering and a monthly death toll of 2, 000 victims.
Mr President, we believe it is a matter for congratulation that 14 Member States have signed the Ottawa Convention, that Finland will probably not get through 1998 without signing it and also that several of the countries that have applied to join the European Union have signed it.
Nevertheless, we believe that some kind of pressure will have to be brought on the United States, China and Russia to sign it, because they are the biggest producing countries.
In our opinion the European Union should raise the subject of anti-personnel mines in its negotiations, trade agreements and bilateral agreements with each of those countries.
We would also emphasize - as Mr Martens did just now - the need for over 40 countries to ratify the convention immediately so that it comes into force.
Finally, I would like to emphasize the need to monitor compliance with the convention and provide financial aid for those countries which do not have the means to eliminate mines or help the victims of anti-personnel mines, so that in this way, just as it has in the case of the Kyoto summit we were discussing a few minutes ago, the European Union may continue to lead the world on matters which contribute so much to peace and the future well-being of so many people.
Mr President, it is very encouraging and refreshing to be able to stand up in this House and say that we have some results from our labours - that we see some progress.
I look around the Chamber and I see one or two Members who helped to found the All-Party Campaign Against Landmines some time ago, when I was a new Member of this Parliament.
We have seen a lot of progress made.
When the European Parliament has played a role in this peace process, we should be able to trumpet it about and perhaps take our minds off some of the negative publicity about trivia that we sometimes have to endure.
We should also congratulate Ireland on being the first of our Member States to ratify the treaty.
Also, we should congratulate Mauritius - where some of us hope to go shortly on Parliamentary business - and Canada for leading the way.
These are all very welcome developments.
I also salute the eastern European countries, from Slovakia to Bulgaria, that are also hoping to join the Union sometime, for showing the way in this regard.
All of this is very encouraging.
What we need to do now, as well as keeping up the pressure on the delinquent countries that have not signed up, is to move positively into putting resources into mine-clearance.
Here one sees some encouraging developments in the techniques of mine-clearance.
For example, just last week in Scotland somebody invented a new system which promises to speed up the clearance of mines in a safe and cheap way.
Similar breakthroughs, I know, are being made in other countries, including in Mr Cunningham's constituency.
There are experts who are just waiting to be given the green light, so let us give them the green light from this House.
I would also ask the Commissioner to be active in cooperating with other countries that want a coordinated response.
In the resolution there is a very important point about avoiding the duplication and multiplication of organizations, but instead pulling together, so that together we can make a positive contribution to ridding mankind of this particular scourge.
Mr President, could I also add my congratulations to the Canadian Government who brought all this about?
This particular fast-track approach - the Ottawa process - should be applauded and I very much hope that we will be able to use it on other occasions.
I should also like to congratulate Jody Williams and the international campaign to ban landmines, in particular on winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
I notice there are many members of the public here and I should also like to congratulate the public.
When Jody Williams spoke in Ottawa, she talked about superpowers and she referred to the general public - civil society - as a superpower, because it was the work of millions of people throughout Europe and the rest of the world that brought pressure to bear and brought the result that we are all congratulating ourselves on.
There are four things that we need to do.
We obviously need to persuade those countries that have not signed, and in particular the United States, Russia, China, Pakistan, India - some of the main producers of landmines - to sign up.
I very much hope that the Council and the Commission, in whatever dealings that they have with these countries, will raise the issue on every possible occasion.
We also need to lead the way, as people have said, on ratification.
The treaty will not come into operation until six months after forty countries have signed, but I am delighted that one or two European Union countries are in the forefront.
Would it not be absolutely brilliant if the whole of the European Union were amongst those first forty countries which led to the treaty being fully ratified?
Thirdly on mine-clearance, we need a structured and coordinated approach, not just within the institutions of the European Union but throughout the international community so that what is done is done properly and wisely.
I would like to see some statement of principle, some criterion, some yardstick by which this could be measured because I would like to think that the public money - the taxpayers' money - which will be spent on mine-clearance will be placed only with those companies who could guarantee, according to a statement of principles, that it would be spent properly, efficiently, wisely, and so on.
Finally, we also need to do something about the victims of landmines.
People have already said, there are something like 20, 000 amputees already in Angola; there are almost 10, 000 in Mozambique; there are just as many in Cambodia and so on, so we really do need to put more energy and more money into these rehabilitation programmes.
Finally, just to sum up the four points, we need the treaty ratified as quickly as possible; we need to deal with the tens of millions of mines and the unexploded ordnance littering the world; and we need to deal with the problems facing the victims.
We need to do all of these and we need to do them as speedily as possible.
Mr President, the Ottawa Conference represented a first small step, a first small victory on the long road to a comprehensive ban on landmines.
I think that the Canadian government should be congratulated on this achievement, as indeed should be Nobel Peace Prize winners Jody Williams and Thomas Gebauer of Medico International, who pressed ahead with their landmine campaign in Europe and who provided support for the Ottawa resolution.
It is now a crime to manufacture, store and deploy landmines.
We must intensify our efforts and work towards a comprehensive ban on such devices.
Whether we call them anti-personnel mines, landmines or anti-tank mines, at the end of the day, a mine is a mine, a mine is a weapon and as such it is an inhuman and deadly device.
It does not discriminate between a bus full of children or a tank.
For this reason, all mines should be banned.
In the wake of the Canadian conference the EU Member States must now ratify the Ottawa Treaty, implement its provisions as soon as possible and urge the USA, Russia, China and India to do the same.
In closing let me point out that further measures are needed in this respect and that funds must be provided for rehabilitation.
The Member States themselves should take steps to ensure that no more mines are produced.
To this effect we must make a commitment so that we are not subsequently obliged to spend money on curing the suffering which we ourselves have caused.
Thank you.
Mr President, I would just like to say a couple of words on this important matter.
Our feelings, mine and my colleagues in the Alleanza Nazionale, are fairly contradictory at the moment because, while we have accepted the conclusions of the Ottawa summit and the treaty incorporating the requests made by our Parliament, a treaty relating to an international instrument that imposes a total prohibition on anti-personnel mines and the undertaking that the signatory companies will not use them under any circumstances, and while pleased with the number of signatory companies, which is clearly higher than expectations, at the same time we can only criticize the position of those states, including in particular the United States, Russia, China and India, which persist in not signing the Treaty and continue to produce and sell this horrible instrument of death.
We therefore ask for strong political pressure to be applied by the European Institutions to those countries, so that they sign the treaty as soon as possible, and on the Member States to speed up the necessary administrative and legislative measures for the immediate inclusion of the regulations.
Mr President, just like many others here, I would like to congratulate peace prize winner Jody Williams and the campaign organization for their successful work on convincing parliaments, governments and the general public to ban these terrible weapons.
In less than five years they and the active members of the public have achieved the success of getting more than 120 states to commit themselves to banning and destroying these mines.
The truth is that these mines are deliberately designed to disable people.
An injured person requires medical care. The amount of explosive has been precisely calculated to achieve that result.
That can be seen from the sales brochures for landmines.
However, the result is not only that soldiers are maimed and killed, but that civilians, women and children also become victims.
When the war is over, the landmines are still there.
The war continues for the civilian population and the silent killers wait for their victims.
I am very pleased that the European Parliament, in anticipation of a total ban, has taken an early position to the effect that each Member State should ban landmines.
Fourteen EU countries have done so, but regrettably neither Finland, nor the applicant countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have done so.
I think they should sign up to the agreement on the banning of anti-personnel mines as soon as possible.
A ban is not enough, however.
All of the hundreds of millions of mines laid must be destroyed.
To produce a landmine costs 3 dollars. To find and destroy it costs $ 1, 000.
It is good that in its budget today the European Parliament has said that we should set about researching into this.
It is also important, as several here have said, that we have effective international coordination, both of mine- clearance and of rehabilitation of victims.
The EU can assist greatly in such work.
But we as individuals can also contribute in fact.
An example of this is what is happening in Sweden today.
Our largest newspaper has got involved in a campaign for the victims of landmines and is collecting money to train mine sniffer-dogs, which are the most effective thing we have at the moment.
I therefore call upon my colleagues here in Parliament to take the same initiative in their countries so we can rid ourselves of these terrible weapons for ever.
Mr President, I have had the less than pleasant task of having to judge the government of a country whose citizens sent me here to the European Parliament.
Namely, the Finnish government.
For once, though, I have some relatively positive news to relate: this week in Finland a high level proposal came out which stated that Finland might at last prepare to sign the Ottawa Convention.
This is reckoned to take place around the year 2006.
Finland imagines she will require around another ten years' transition time to ratify the convention, but I believe that a major breakthrough in Finland has already occurred.
Politicians will certainly do all they possibly can to get Finland to give up the use of all anti-personnel mines.
The risk is that Finland will start to consider very expensive alternatives to these anti-personnel mines.
I myself would rather Finland revised its view of the threat from the outside.
I do not think Russia is any longer the enemy of Finland she was during the Second World War.
Mr President, I think we would all agree that the Ottawa Process has been a great success.
The Commission has congratulated the Canadian Government and, in particular, Mr Lloyd Axworthy for a really remarkable effort.
Of course, the process is not yet over.
There are many key states which have not subscribed to the convention and some practical problems remain.
The Commission will take every opportunity to encourage countries that are not yet signatories to subscribe to the convention and I can assure Mrs Günther that we will certainly use the opportunities in relation to the countries she has referred to seek to persuade them to do so.
In any case, the Commission will press for immediate export bans of the kind that are already in place in the European Union so that sources of supply to areas of conflict can be removed.
The joint action of 28 November also introduces measures to implement a moratorium on the production of anti-personnel landmines and emphasizes the need, as has been stated by a number of speakers, for early ratification of the convention.
Since the Ottawa Conference there have been opportunities to discuss with Canada and other leading contributors ways in which greater coherence might be introduced into the global effort.
The European Union, along with other major donors and actors, expects to play a major role in achieving this.
The suggestion of greater coordination which was advanced by Mr Cunningham is very important.
We will strongly pursue the idea of an international steering committee supported by working groups in order to focus international efforts on the priority tasks.
At the same time I would expect that the Commission contribution to de-mining and related research will increase during the coming year and I would estimate that over ECU 40 million will be committed, drawing on various budget lines.
The Commission is grateful for the recognition that has been accorded to its own role in the resolutions.
For its part, the Commission would like to pay tribute to the role of the European Parliament and those members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Development and Cooperation who have campaigned tirelessly and with great commitment to overcome the tragedy of anti-personnel landmines.
There is still much to be done; but we believe that there is still some cause for optimism; that with continuing commitment the worst of the problems, at least, can be overcome in the medium term.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-1049/97 by Mr Tindemans and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Peoples' Party, on the situation in Burundi; -B4-1052/97 by Mrs André and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the warring factions in Burundi; -B4-1065/97 by Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the Group of European Radical Alliance, on arms flows to the warring factions in Burundi; -B4-1075/97 by Mr Swoboda and Mrs van Putten, on behalf of the group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Burundi; -B4-1077/97 by Mr Azzolini and others, on behalf of the group Union for Europe, on the situation in Burundi; -B4-1085/97 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on arms flows to the warring factions in Burundi
Yet again we are compelled to raise our voices to condemn the atrocities committed in Burundi.
Yesterday it was one faction, today it is the other; who will be the perpetrators or the victims tomorrow?
Massacres took place in Burundi in 1965, in 1972, in 1973; and between 1993 and 1997 they never stopped. Even Madeleine Albright felt compelled to speak about the errors made in Africa, albeit in notably hushed tones.
What is the point of us recommending human rights and democracy if the conditions to achieve these objectives are not fulfilled.
We rightly condemn the massacres in Burundi, committed, it says in the compromise text, by Hutu extremists.
But we do not say, or no longer say, that in that same country the present leaders assumed power through a military coup after democratic elections had taken place.
We rightly spoke of reconciliation and reform.
But what are the chances this will be achieved when the balance between Hutus and Tutsis is extremely uneven, 85 % against 15 %. The latter minority has total control of the country.
What will have to change, or can be changed in a peaceful manner?
That is why I take the opportunity to repeat once more what I suggested earlier.
The United Nations must act.
A reformed Trusteeship Council must become co-active in the administration of this country, and prevent two warring ethnic groups from massacring each other.
An ongoing, cruel reality calls for bold measures.
Diplomatic rhetoric amounts to hypocrisy in this situation.
Mr President, Burundi has by now become a classic example of the destabilizing effect of arms supplies.
A not insignificant report by Human Rights Watch shows that dozens of countries are involved in this trade, including three EU countries: France, Belgium and Germany. This has to be stated.
This Parliament would be well-advised to proceed to explicit condemnation of these Member States' policies.
Despite all our grand plans, like the code of conduct on the arms trade and joint action to combat the illegal small arms trade, the Member States continue to undermine existing policy.
This has to be denounced loud and clear and incorporated into the discussion about the forthcoming Commission Proposals concerning European arms exports.
As regards Burundi, the Union should argue for an international bilateral arms embargo and supervise proper compliance.
The EU must also promote the reactivation of the UN Committee of Inquiry on Arms Trading.
This committee of inquiry should then cover the entire Great Lakes region.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union evidently has no coherent peace strategy with respect to the states around the African Great Lakes.
This vindicates the alarming report by the organization Human Rights Watch on the situation in Burundi.
The arms embargo turns out to be a complete sieve.
Countries such as Belgium, Germany and France are mentioned, and accused, but those accusations are left out in the compromise resolution.
On top of that there is the war mafia from China, Russia, North Korea, Azerbaijan, the Ukraine, and Bulgaria.
African states are used unscrupulously as intermediate ports: Tanzania, Uganda, former Zaire, Angola, Kenya and even South Africa.
I was one of the signatories of the draft resolution, even though the European States carefully deleted their responsibility.
Yet the compromise is extremely important.
A number of international actions are needed, including expansion of the embargo, not unilaterally, but towards both parties concerned, and I fully support Mr Tindemans' suggestion which states that what is happening here is pure hypocrisy.
I would also like to see the establishment of a peace conference including all states around the Great Lakes, as well as the establishment of a regional agency for arms control with permanent military observers.
But these are few suggestions in which we can merely co-participate.
But to my mind the Commission could take more concrete action.
I will give you a few examples: the drawing up of an arms trade certificate of true destination including the intermediate countries; bringing in UCLAF which is not satisfactorily involved, stronger checks on foreign pilots who have an EU Member State as their base, measures against shipping companies who violate the embargo and who should therefore be given a licence ban within the EU.
I would like to ask, Mr President, for these things to be discussed during the ACP conference.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are today discussing the situation in Burundi, and some of you, even those on the platform, may be intrigued to know why the European Parliament is debating this issue at all.
As has already been said, as with so many conflicts in Africa, we are very directly involved.
As is the case with many conflicts, our involvement is not a positive one, but rather concerns the fact that our weapons are being used in that country for killing people.
This means that in Europe profits and even jobs, let us be honest, are linked with the death of innocent people in Africa.
I am pleased to see that there is broad agreement within this House for taking active steps to resolve the situation in Burundi and indeed in other crisis regions.
The world will never be a paradise and there will always be weapons.
But surely it is high time for us to stop supplying weapons to obvious crisis regions, to put an end to our support for such conflicts, to stop supplying the killing fields of the world.
So my party is unequivocal is supporting this motion, namely an arms embargo, which must also involve on-the-spot checks to ensure that weapons are not reaching Burundi by more obscure routes.
For this reason we naturally give our full and unreserved support to the restoration of peace through the medium of a peace conference.
As well as restoring peace to the region, we must establish the conditions which will allow people who have lived together peaceably for decades to resume this way of live, instead of going for each other's throats.
In all these matters it is imperative for Europe to act as the main peace broker, and not as a world power supplying weapons to ensure that conflicts are resolved militarily, through force of arms.
Here I would ask that the initiative taken by the UK government, which is soon to take up the EU, be carried through to its positive conclusion, namely the so-called "code of conduct' , which ensures that rules are established for arms exports, that these rules be made more transparent, and that they should more readily correspond with the concept of human rights which we have in Europe.
With the permission of this House I should like to close by informing Parliament that a member of our party, who has prepared urgency debates through numerous discussions with other groups and who is very well known to the Parliamentary staff, namely Nadia van Hamme, is leaving us for Africa, although not Burundi, to carry out active peace work on that continent.
In my official capacity I should like to express my thanks to her for the excellent work which she has undertaken in cooperation with other members of this House.
Mr President, it is true that the problem with the resolution is that it remains weak; but it had one advantage, namely that it deals with an embargo which has to monitor both sides of Burundi, which points clearly to the fact that there is a serious problem with the Burundi army.
One should never forget, after all, that it was this army which murdered a democratically elected president.
As far the as the supply of arms is concerned, it is evident that it knows no ideological bounds.
They come from everywhere.
China, Russia, France; Belgian firms are active.
We support the embargo, but the question is, how can it be made effective? On that front, too, the resolution is substandard.
I would like to conclude with one remark, namely that if no political solution in Burundi is forthcoming, no embargo in the world will do its work.
Besides, let us not forget that when push comes to shove, there is no need to import arms from abroad: machetes can be used for killing and murdering.
Mr President, it is difficult indeed in the melee of Burundi, which is beset by civil war, attacks on minorities, tribal and clan feuds, to find the all-important red thread which would mark the beginning of a peace process.
It would be easier if we could assume that all those involved were honestly striving to settle their differences without recourse to arms, but that is just not the case.
We have had a quote from an NGO, which has been mentioned by three Member States and by my own in particular.
I would like to say that I would be keen to check out this source, since no other country in Europe has such strict arms export laws as the Federal Republic of Germany.
It is also important to distinguish whether this involves the equipping of police units, whose job is to protect the unarmed civilian population, or what the details of this report actually are.
It is clear that even if our conditions were met, we are still unlikely to see peace in this region, so deplorable is the whole situation.
Everybody will be deeply affected by the concern expressed by Parliament at what is going on in the Great Lakes region, in particular at the quantity of arms that are getting there and at the death and misery that these are causing.
Speaking for myself, one could not but share the sense of frustration felt by Mr Tindemans, bringing all his considerable authority and experience to bear on this subject; the passionate call from Mr Swoboda to be active was also one that evoked a ready response.
The Commission has considered in the past the possibility of action against the uncontrolled sale of arms.
But rightly or wrongly, this lies within the competence of the Member States.
They have shown all too clearly that it is a competence that they are determined to retain.
Naturally the Commission would support any action taken by Member States or the United Nations to restrict the sales of arms in the region, but it should be borne in mind, such is the complexity of the issue, that even the present economic embargo imposed on Burundi by the neighbouring states, which includes an embargo on arms sales, is patently not working.
The Commission agrees that the Organization of African Unity has an essential role to play in restoring peace and order to the Great Lakes region, which was confirmed by the Council when it decided last October that ECU 860, 000 should be allocated for logistical support to the OAU Conflict Prevention Mechanism to assist them in this work.
It will not solve the problem in itself, but it is one of the limited number of practical acts - there were many calls - rightfully so - for practical action rather than mere expressions of concern - that can be taken by us.
Furthermore the Commission continues to call on all parties to the Burundi conflict to start peace negotiations.
Clearly the speaker who said that is the only solution is correct.
We have informed the Burundi authorities again, looking at what we can practically do to encourage what others have to perform, that we will provide financial and technical help to set up a débat national , to restart rehabilitation and human rights programmes, and for any other useful measures as soon as there are real signs of progress towards peace in Burundi.
So I share the frustration and anger that is expressed, but can do no more than state, in addition to that, the specific and practical action that we can take.
I believe we are doing what is within our capacity and certainly are ready to consider anything more.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, as the sponsor of this resolution, with colleagues, we make no apology for raising the issue of human rights violations in Nigeria yet again.
We do so following the decision by the Council of Ministers at the end of last month to extend for one more year the sanctions imposed on Nigeria.
But what concerns us, certainly me, is an apparent softening of the Council's attitude towards Nigeria and Nigerian sanctions.
It appears for instance that two or three Member States are now issuing visas to Nigerians to do business overseas, contrary to the Council decision as we understand it.
Furthermore, many of us regret that Nigeria is to be allowed to take part in the Football World Cup next year, the denial of which could ironically have had more influence on the political situation in Nigeria than anything else.
So let us be clear: the situation in Nigeria continues to be extremely serious.
General Yar'Adua, a principal opponent of General Abacha, died in prison in mysterious circumstances.
On the other hand, some western oil companies, in partnership with the Nigerians, are being denied sufficient funds by the Nigerian oil company to remedy environmental deficiencies in areas where there has been severe criticism.
And I need hardly remind the House that Nigeria is sadly short of a democratic institution: , it lacks freedom of the press, no doubt freedom of speech, and there are many other issues besides - which is ample justification for the terms of our motion.
Mr President, despite existing international pressure the so-called gradual democratization that general Abacha had promised, remains wanting.
Mr Moorhouse referred to the mysterious death of General Yar'Adua, one of the opposition leaders, and I wish to refer to the sentencing of the Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinke who is living in exile.
These are confirmations of an existing policy of infliction of torture, the arrests of journalists, and the repression of the Ogoni.
It is a good thing that the Council has extended the sanctions against Nigeria by one year.
It is a clear message, but as Moorhouse said, the sanctions do not go far enough, even more so when they are not implemented effectively, worse than that, when they are being undermined in an unacceptable way because they are evaded.
The Union must look for instruments to monitor and enforce the sanctions.
Furthermore, Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the Liberal Group remains in favour of the oil embargo.
It is the only way to punish this country effectively.
Mr President, we seem to have had a whole catalogue of missed chances in the last few months.
First of all the Commonwealth Summit in Edinburgh failed to take firm action against Nigeria; then the Council extended sanctions by only one year; and then, as has been mentioned, there was the failure to apply visa restrictions with Nigeria being allowed to play in the World Cup next year.
All of these are failures on our part, as members of the European Union, and failures by the Commonwealth.
So what is to be done now? There is some slight gleam of hope.
I was in Ghana recently with a mission from the European Parliament. They have shown that they can make the transition to democracy, and we are told that the Nigerians would like to be seen in the same light as Ghana.
So we have to say to General Abacha that if he is serious, he can try to convince us of the return to democracy that he says he espouses.
For him the message is quite clear: if he is serious about this return to democracy, he must free Abiola and the other political prisoners and return to the democratic process forthwith.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Brittan, I wish to draw your attention in particular to point 5 of the resolution, in which we call for the release of political prisoners.
The list of names includes one Ogana Ifowodo.
Let me tell you something about him. Ogana Ifowodo is a member of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, which is a German-based political group to which I myself belong.
Mr Ifowodo attended the Commonwealth Conference in Edinburgh, at the invitation of our Foundation, in order to present the annual report of the Civil Liberties Organization from Nigeria on the human rights situation in that country.
He was arrested at the Benin-Nigerian border on his return to Nigeria on 6 November.
The Nigerian security police have so far refused family members and work colleagues access to Mr Ifowodo.
There is therefore a risk that he has been tortured, or even that this is still going on.
The security police have confirmed the arrest and the place of detention and have cited "obstinacy' as the reason for the arrest.
Of course, no such offence exists in Nigerian law, but presumably this refers to the real motives behind the arrest.
The arrest itself is only one instance in a series of arrests of Nigerian journalists and workers from human rights organizations linked with the Pro-Democracy Movement.
This attempt to silence all critics of the regime is clearly designed to pave the way to a form of democracy which will be controlled by the military government.
Only this can explain the so-called charge of obstinacy.
Commission Vice-President Brittan, we recently received a visit from Nobel Peace Prize winner Wole Soyinke.
Talks were held in the Commission and in Parliament with Council representatives at all levels.
I would like to put to them the following two questions: Firstly, what further steps can the Commission take, together with the Member States, to move towards an embargo on oil from Nigeria? And secondly: the budgetary procedure now incorporates a new budget line.
How does the Commission propose to deploy this new line?
Mr President, the most serious threat to consistency in international relations is the permanent temptation to be strong towards the weak and weak towards the strong.
There is no doubt that the regime in Nigeria falls into the category of the strong.
Strong not in reason, which is totally lacking, but certainly in military and economic power.
Nigeria is a rich country where a large part of the population lives in conditions of total poverty, as the country's resources, particularly the income from oil exports, are used to keep a military clique and its loyal allies and servants in total luxury.
Sanctions have rightly been taken against Nigeria for some time.
However, we have still not taken the only decision that would really affect the interests of the regime: an embargo on oil exports.
The list of crimes committed by the Nigerian system is now very long. From the bloody suppression of entire peoples, starting with the Ogoni, to assassinations, arbitrary arrests, torture, the disappearance of any political opponents, and the aberrant measures taken against the Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinke.
The same arrogant refusal to welcome a delegation from the European Parliament in Nigeria in October, which wanted to hold a series of meetings and visits, that would not submit to the restrictions laid down by the regime, bears witness to the absolute desire not to take positive steps along the road to democratization.
However, the electoral process used in the country is nothing more than a despicable farce, given that it is impossible for any opposition to take part.
On this occasion too, the European Parliament has many requests to make to the Nigerian authorities.
We strongly support all of them but we fear that, if the international community, starting with the European Union, fails to take the appropriate pressure measures, they will once again risk falling on deaf ears.
Mr President, Nigeria is once more on our agenda as a result of the continuous violations of human rights and violations of democratic principles.
Once more, because we have criticized this country many times before, but regrettably it has not really helped very much.
In the meantime new reports come our way like the death of one of the confidants of Mr Abacha, who with forty other political prisoners was incarcerated in rough conditions in a prison near Enubu, 500 kilometres from for example health-care facilities.
Amnesty International has informed us that the conditions were degrading, and it is no surprise that this eminent person, someone we had only just got to know of, died. It is a sad situation.
It is the umpteenth drama in a long series.
The time has truly come to step us the measures.
This is the umpteenth time a drama is taking place in this country.
It is also the umpteenth time we are pleading for firmer measures.
We observe the contrary is taking place, because visas, which really ought no longer to be issued, are being issued increasingly.
Our request to impose an oil embargo, is not being observed.
Worse still, Shell, which has been reducing its activities in Nigeria, is being replaced by other oil companies, which are keen to fill up the gap left by Shell.
We ask the European Commission to genuinely step up its measures.
This has also been requested internationally.
I think an oil boycott must indeed be unavoidable.
I would like to know what Mr Brittan thinks about this.
Sierra Leone
Mr President, during the June part-session, we censured the military coup in Sierra Leone and suggested the suspension of all European aid to the Freetown regime, and we were also surprised that Nigeria was entrusted with the role of gendarme of law and democracy.
Since that resolution, the European Union has confirmed the suspension of European aid, and the Security Council has established an oil and arms embargo against Sierra Leone and has prohibited international travel by members of the junta.
Finally, an agreement to return to democracy appears to have been reached between the junta and the Committee of Five of the States of Western Africa.
That is all perfect, the recent developments, I mean, but this group would like to emphasize one point: what are our incitements to democracy worth if we do not choose to consolidate them by means of generous development aid? The democratic process in Sierra Leone has been described as exemplary, but we have left that country alone to cope with a thousand and one economic and social problems caused, as is often the case, by too rapid a programme of a structural change.
We therefore exposed Sierra Leone to a coup, which cannot fail to repeat itself tomorrow.
As one African journalist phrased it: ' The West sells democracy, but it does not provide any after-sales service.'
Mr President, Sierra Leone is a country where the situation has been getting worse in recent years, both politically and in terms of living conditions for the population.
On 25 May last, the umpteenth military coup interrupted the already difficult and fragile internal negotiation process in the country and the attempts to restore acceptable democratic living conditions.
The National Assembly, that had been elected at the elections on 16 March 1996, was dissolved and all authority was concentrated on the military junta in power.
The situation of violence and abandonment existing in the country is jeopardizing the actual survival of hundreds of thousands of people, and a substantial number of its inhabitants are now living as evacuees or refugees.
The international community has intervened here as well, particularly through the measures adopted by the UN Security Council, to try and build the conditions for a political solution.
In particular, the sanctions decided in those circumstances are significant and should be applied and observed by all countries, obviously starting with those in the region, but the European Union as well.
The Peace Agreement, signed on 23 October, could provide a positive reference point, if actually accepted by all the parties in question and if its application is controlled. A positive reference point for beginning to get the country out of its current dramatic situation.
We therefore ask the Commission and Council to take all possible initiatives to contribute towards a positive political development of the situation in Sierra Leone.
We then ask the Commission, through the international agencies and the NGO, to develop humanitarian aid and particularly the protection of populations in difficulties, particularly refugees and evacuees.
Mr President, on 25 May sections of the Sierra Leone armed forced staged a revolt.
They deposed the democratically elected President Kabbah and forced him to flee the country.
This was the third coup d'état since 1992.
The process of democratisation introduced by the civil authorities and by the rebels of the United Revolutionary Front in March 1996, which also led to the holding of free elections with several parties participating, was destroyed.
The result, according to the World Food Programme, was a situation in which 200, 000 people were faced with starvation, while a similar number became refugees.
The question which now faces us is whether or not we can and should provide immediate aid.
And how could this be done? I think that we should avoid assisting the military junta in any way and should instead support the demands of the UN Safety Council for the imposition of an arms and oil embargo in order to force the junta back to the democratisation process.
Mr President, the population of Sierra Leone is experiencing disastrous times.
After three coups the country is totally disrupted, its facilities for housing, education, and health care have been seriously damaged, and food supplies are extremely sparse.
200, 000 people in the country itself are threatened with famine, as are 200, 000 in the north of Ghana and the Ivory Coast.
When we were there recently, we found out how serious the situation was.
Thankfully, the European Union does give some assistance in those camps, but it now looks like more help is needed.
On that point we would like spur on the European Commission to take more political initiatives, particularly to support the tentative peace negotiations which have recently begun.
I would like to add that in Sierra Leone there are Nigerian soldiers to keep the peace.
Having only just heard what the Nigerians get up to in their country, and that these people come under the military authority of Nigeria, it is not difficult to imagine that they are not the best people to restore peace in that country.
The European Union has a big job to do here.
There are a number of proposals in the resolution. We support these warmly.
Croatia
Mr President, our group, the Liberal Group, hopes that we will be able to give the Croatian government a clear and unanimous sign of disapproval.
The Tudjman government undermines democracy and freedom of speech in many ways.
Things are made very difficult for independent newspapers such as Globus and Feral Tribune; and non-governmental organizations such as the Helsinki Committee and the Open Society Institute are obstructed in their work.
These are a few examples of the systematic policy of violation of international agreements which Croatia, too, signed, and violations of the rules of organizations of which Croatia is a member.
Criticism from the Council of Europe, the OSCE, and the Union are systematically ignored.
I do not think President Tudjman expects the international community wishing to continue with Croatia this way.
I only need to remind everyone that the American administration earlier this year pleaded for the suspension of Croatia's membership of the Council of Europe.
The Liberal Group has also declared itself in favour of this.
Each time we discuss the situation in Croatia, that the number of reasons for supporting this suspension appears to have only increased.
Finally, Mr President, the Union must in the meantime devote itself to further development of democracy, free media and non-governmental organizations as part of the Phare democracy programme.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Croatia is without doubt in a difficult situation.
After a war which has seen the repatriation of refugees, still tending towards nationalism, I can well understand why democracy has not been able to develop fully.
But it is a matter for particular regret that unfortunately, as we witnessed during our delegation's visit, justified complaints are increasingly common that serious problems exist in respect of press freedom.
Dealing with the media is never easy in any country, and certainly not in one which is in the grip of a social crisis.
But it is because Croatia has avowed allegiance to the European ideal, and seeks a rapprochement with us - or at least that is what is being declared - that the European Parliament must be strict in its dealings and must apply certain criteria.
After our visit I personally suggested considering whether we should provide more financial aid under the Phare programme on the basis of conditionality, when this suits Croatia and when Croatia takes active steps towards democracy, the integration of its refugees, and so on.
I regret all the more that the positive responses which we as European parliamentarians tried to give are not really being met with positive reactions from the Croatian side.
In this sense we naturally support the resolution and call upon Croatia to do everything in its power to develop a fully democratic State.
Mr President, I will use my speaking time to express my support for the honourable gentleman and the other speakers.
I think it is true that in this House we feel that we want and that we try to ensure that the European countries whose ambition it is one day to become members of the European Union respect human rights.
We consider it therefore a gesture of friendship towards the Croatian people to remind them of their obligations, because in our eyes, they are the essential basis of the dialogue with countries which, I repeat, are destined to become members of the European Union.
An important event has taken place today. I mean the arrest of two war criminals, in fact, two Croatian war criminals, indicted by the international court.
This is an important signal, if that country wants one day, and I hope it will, to become a full member of the European Union, when it complies with the principle of respect for fundamental rights.
It is in this spirit that we proposed this resolution, in the hope that the Parliament will shortly adopt it.
Mr President, censorship is prohibited by law in Croatia yet intimidation takes place on a large scale; intimidation of independent magazines, independent journalists, independent organizations.
The technique used is one the hand to summon people or institutions, and on the other hand to threaten them with financial compensations which are being claimed.
Specifically at the moment, 100 cases are running against Globus, 45 against Feral Tribune, 32 against National, 51 against Novilus.
There are 7 cases against Mr Cisak, the chairman of the Croatian Helsinki Committee.
He is threatened with six months imprisonment. So this possibility is very real.
These kinds of actions are all clearly politically motivated, these kind of actions.
In that sense I regret that the words "politically motivated' was deleted from the joint resolution shortly put to a vote, as demanded by the Christian Democrats.
Because that is the crux of the issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my Party supports this resolution because we too wish to assist Croatia in developing the type of society which we in Europe accept as normal.
As far as the electronic medium is concerned, we soon expect to see a proper Croatian television service operating under public law.
The sensitivity of Croatia's rulers to critical articles, both justified and unwarranted, which have appeared in various press media has often led to an over-reaction, and this we condemn.
The new right of association and assembly is now in line with European standards.
Foundations in Croatia can now exist quite happily under the new system.
Only the Soros Foundation has problems with this, since it has now lost its former privileges.
The Open Society Foundation is now also obliged to register as a foundation, and it is unwilling to do so.
It wants to retain its NGO status.
There are more than 1, 800 NGOs operating in Croatia.
What is needed is a regulative law similar to that which operates in the rest of Europe.
These organizations have to demonstrate, for example, that they are there for the public benefit, that is to say that they are non-profit making.
The bill to regulate humanitarian organizations, which is now before the Croatian Parliament, the Sabor, still has its flaws.
We call upon our colleagues in that Parliament to make improvements by introducing amendments to the legislative process.
We are quite confident that this will happen and today's motion will certainly help to support these efforts.
Mr President, last night Dutch and American soldiers from the SFOR arrested two Croatians suspected of war crimes in the North of Bosnia.
They are now in The Netherlands and next year will appear next year before the international criminal court of justice.
A positive bit of news we might say.
It appears that in Croatia itself the reports are little more negative.
It appears that statutes of associations are abused, but when I listen to Mrs Pack, a different picture emerges.
At any rate we find that the Helsinki Committee and Open Society Institute which have invested 30 million in the country, are not able to function openly.
Journalists are taken to court.
This is not what the Union had in mind when it recognized an independent Croatia.
In many ways we have been too patient for too long.
It is therefore time to raise the alarm, and to insist that the law is not abused and that the media are given free rein.
Mr President, the Alleanza Nazionale delegation supports the joint resolution on Croatia and will give its vote because we are convinced that, in that country, despite the assurances given by the authorities and despite the positions adopted, probably as a result of sentimental and historical reasons given by some authoritative speakers in this Chamber, the rights of expression and some basic expressions of freedom are greatly restricted.
Despite President Tudjman's reassuring Europe that Croatia will be the bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism, this is not enough and should not be the pretext for overlooking respect for fundamental rights and for violating freedom of expression, association and free communication of ideas.
The road to Europe is still a long one for Croatia and necessarily passes through the abandonment of an all-inclusive old governmentalist mentality, a clear legacy of the recent Communist practice.
Mr President, it gave me great pleasure to read the resolution before us here today.
For it is the very newspaper for which I work which is being portrayed as the object of persecution.
I know only too well that Globus is in fact one of Croatia's keenest opposition papers, that it criticizes the Croatian Government in a manner which would not be tolerated in certain other countries, even democratic ones. I know this because I have a lot to do with the editorship of this newspaper.
I do not even consider it unreasonable that action has been taken against Globus, since I am aware of a number of democratic countries close to Croatia in which similar events have also been reported, where editors of certain newspapers have even had to resign because they have offended the head of government.
I would just like to make one point. As Mr Swoboda has stated so effectively, Croatia faces enormous difficulties.
The country has been destroyed by war and has a huge problem with refugees, which Croatia has had to accommodate in very large numbers. Yet for all this, there is no doubt that in this respect the situation is not all bad.
I personally was present during the elections in Croatia, where I was following the efforts of the opposition parties, and I can say that these opposition groups were able to operate quite freely and even achieved real successes.
That the outcome of the elections was somewhat different can be blamed on the electors, but not on the government.
I make these comments only to point out that Croatia is a European State, that its culture is primarily European and that we are all keen to help that country in its current difficulties. This does not mean kicking it in the shins, but rather providing real support for the efforts which are currently being made there.
That should be the real intentions of this House.
Mr President, I will not approve the resolution on Croatia before us for various reasons.
I would first and foremost like to remind everyone that we in the European Parliament are badly placed to get on our high horse regards Croatia.
The great majority of this Parliament, after all, never even uttered one word of help to the Croatian population when, with difficulty and enormous risks, it pulled itself free from the Yugoslav straitjacket.
Then, a few years ago, piles resolutions were not produced to dismiss and condemn the struggle for independence of these people.
And I would also like to remind everyone that the European community institutions, including this Parliament, continued to defend the Yugoslav utopia to its dying day, until Germany was the only country the have the courage to chose the side of the Croatian people.
Nor will I approve the resolution, as I refuse to put Croatia on a par with countries like China, North Korea, Nigeria, and so on, who are rightly admonished here.
There is undoubtedly much to be improved in Croatia, but this country does not belong to this list or to those to be put in the dock.
I should also say that I consider the calls in this Parliament today for absolute political free speech in Croatia a little hypocritical.
After all, we adopt resolutions like clockwork in which political free speech within our Union is curtailed and rejected, for example, for anyone who questions the multicultural utopia.
Under the guise of combatting racism, almost all Member States have adopted muzzling laws which punish free speech about this enormous, political immigration problem with penalties, fines, and with ineligibility.
And equal access for all opinions to the media, which is demanded for Croatia, is a joke in most of our Member State when you belong to a democratic but right wing and national opposition, as I do.
When I consider all this, I can only conclude that Croatia should perhaps refine its democracy, but really has few lessons to learn from this Parliament.
Albania
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am very unhappy to see that the PPE has taken a stance without consulting the other members of the delegation, and is even quoting the delegation as if there were a common opinion on this issue.
This is simply going it alone and, Mrs Pack, I am very sorry that you have decided to depart from the route of cooperation which we were only too happy to travel.
Mr Habsburg, and here I mean Otto von Habsburg, has said that the outcome of the elections was not to the liking of many of those taking part.
This is the fault of the electors, not the government.
But the course which you are adopting is now just the reverse.
Because your sister or brother party did not win, but in fact lost, suddenly everything which the government there is doing is wrong.
This is something which I totally repudiate and reject.
My Party and I are not prepared to proceed with the form of non-cooperation which you have adopted within the delegation.
You have not sought contact and have not convened any delegation meetings to discuss this particular issue.
During our joint visit to Albania you even called upon the opposition to return to Parliament and to cooperate with it, something which was not part of your resolution.
In fact there is not a single mention of it in the resolution.
Your motion does not in any way convey the discussion which we had within the delegation.
I regret this, for you are biased in criticizing only the government, or rather the governing majority, and are focusing only on one side, while ignoring all the other arguments which have been put forward.
You make deadlines and then you postpone them, which makes it very difficult for us to take part in the delegation meetings.
You are then not even prepared to try to find common ground on the Albanian issue.
I regret this very much.
I am also of the opinion that the quotation at the beginning of the resolution is incorrect and unreliable.
I intend to petition the President on this matter.
Mr President, Albania, perhaps more than any other country of the former eastern bloc, is the country that suffered the greatest isolation and whose road to democratization is the most difficult and most arduous.
There is no doubt that what we understand by the rule of law is still facing many problems and, in this regard, the observations that have been set out in the resolution are based on information that we gathered when we visited Tirana within the framework of the Joint Parliamentary Commission.
However there is, I think, another dimension to the problem, which we must not ignore: Albania is trying to find its way following elections which were widely accepted and declared as such by the international community.
Only a short time has passed since then.
The country has found relative peace and is trying to stabilize its economy in the wake of a huge scandal and it is also trying to stabilize its international relations.
It has already been emphasized, and it is indeed true, that what is happening on a broad scale is the sweeping aside of political opponents, always following the Balkan model. In other words what happened before is being repeated conversely, only then, unfortunately, we failed to react.
Mr President, I believe that if the European Union had shown less tolerance of the rather high-handed acts of the then government, the fate of that government might have been better. In any event Mr Berisa would not have gained the faulty impression that we would forgive everything he did.
Of course this in no way means that we must now forgive possible violations of democratic institutions.
But, by the same token, and so as not to appear one-sided, because I believe that none of us has any party preferences in Albania, we should perhaps give an initial period of grace to the recently elected government, which must be well aware of our position with regard to democratic institutions and, more especially, with regard to the independence of the judiciary.
The observations set out in the resolution are not erroneous, but they are rather one-sided and I believe that they are somewhat hasty because, particularly with regard to the constitutional court, our information comes only from the Albanian opposition party.
I am afraid that we are rushing things, Mr President.
Mr President, the Liberal Group will vote against this resolution as, firstly, we oppose the idea expressed in the resolution as behaving like tutors in Albania and to see whether correct parliamentary procedures are followed or not.
I do not believe this is the way to treat democracy in Albania, however unstable it may be.
I think it is a pity, and this has been said before, but at the same time there was a clear exchange of views between Mr Swoboda and Mr Habsburg. I think it is a pity that the Group of the European People's Party submitted the text too late, because it is usual in this House to not do so when it concerns urgencies.
I think it is a great pity.
I also have the impression that there are no urgent elements in the resolution and I would find it a great shame if we give the impression that we are voting against Albania, and that we are not concerned about the slow rate of improvement in democracy and rule of law in the country.
In other words, Mr President, I think it a pity that hasty action by the EPP has in fact deprived us of the opportunity to produce a decent resolution.
Mr President, I would like to express my surprise at both the content and the advisability of the resolution pertaining to safeguarding law and order in Albania.
The European Parliament's delegation responsible for overseeing relations with countries of eastern Europe recently visited Tirana and, in my opinion, undertook an extremely successful mission to Albania, within the framework of the Fourth Intergovernmental Meeting between the European Parliament and the Albanian Parliament.
I had the honour of being a member of the delegation of the European Parliament and, together with the other members, I had the opportunity to identify the complex conditions prevailing in that country and the enormous economic, social and political problems that it faces.
I must point out that we did indeed identify many problems relating to the functioning of democracy in that country, but also the fact of the tenseness of the political situation due to the position adopted by the largest opposition party, which is boycotting the work of Parliament and does not take part in its sessions.
I must also point out that our delegation made note of the responsibilities of both the government and the Democratic Party, led by the former president of the country, Mr Berisa, and that these interventions were considered useful by all sides.
Given these facts I find it impossible to understand of what use this resolution can be, which I very much fear provides an alibi for the reasoning and for the tactics of Mr Berisa.
I do not want to believe that these were the intentions of those who drew it up, however impartially this was done.
With regard to the sending of an observer to the sessions of the Albanian Parliament, I would like to point out that Albania is nobody's protectorate, and that we must refrain from paternalistic conduct towards Albanian political forces.
I call on Parliament to overturn the relevant resolution as unacceptable, since it undermines the role of our parliamentary delegation following its very successful mission to Tirana.
Djibouti
Mr President, the legislative elections due to take place tomorrow in the Republic of Djibouti will not bring any great surprises, because the opposition does not have freedom of expression and even Members of Parliament for the ruling party are invalidated or declared ineligible if they criticize the President, Hassan Gouled.
However, what seems exceptionally serious to this group today, is the repressive police cooperation between Djibouti and Ethiopia, both arresting each other's opponents and extraditing them so that they can be sentenced and imprisoned, as in the recent case of Mohamed Kadamy and his family and lawyers.
The European Union cannot tolerate such practices on behalf of a country receiving development aid from the EU.
This group would also like to indirectly address the French government, which likes to refer to a new spirit in its cooperation relationships.
However, Djibouti is the main base of the French army in Africa.
Whatever one's opinion of that military presence, we consider that it should at least be subordinate to a minimum of democracy, in the interests of France itself, which runs the risk of becoming involved in a political upheaval made possible by its very complacency.
We are concerned about the human rights situation in Djibouti and are disturbed to hear of acts of violence against members of the opposition in advance of the parliamentary elections, which are due to take place on 19th December.
On 26th September this year the main leaders, the representatives of the Front for the Restoration of Unity in Djibouti, or FRUD, were arrested by Afar, the opposition group, this including FRUD representatives who are active here in Europe.
These persons were arrested in Ethiopia and then extradited to Djibouti, where they have been taken into custody.
As well as the European representatives, those arrested included Mohammed Kadhamy and his wife, Aïcha Dabalé, who belongs to a humanitarian organization and who at this moment happens to be pregnant.
We must emphatically call for the immediate release of these persons and for all those affected by the conflict to be allowed to leave the areas into which they have been driven, so that they can return to their homeland regions, if not directly to Djibouti itself.
We should advocate that those dwellings which have been occupied by the government forces be vacated and restored to their former condition.
As Vice-President of the Lomé Convention ACP Assembly, I wish finally to call upon Djibouti to comply with this convention, and particularly article 5, which states that basic human rights and freedoms should be respected.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, on the eve of the election in Djibouti, this Parliament is expressing its concern with the political developments in the country.
Rightly so, Mr President, but there are other countries in the world where the situation is equally distressing and which this Parliament in its sometimes selective enthusiasm passes over.
Such a country is Surinam, in the north of Latin America. A country with a population of 400, 000 people with 300, 00 relatives in The Netherlands.
Mr President, in Surinam an economic drugs elite rules.
Journalists and human rights activists are once again being threatened.
Last week a photographer was kidnapped by four men and beaten up with the threat that the same fate would befall his child, if his wife, the editor of the newspaper 'De Ware Tijd', did not alter her articles to the advantage of the regime.
Mr President, Christmas is approaching, political and media life will quieten down.
At least I now know that the Surinam government is aware that this Parliament has been informed, and perhaps it will also protect the journalists a little.
The joint debate is closed
Mr President, my comments concern the urgency resolution under consideration.
I am always for economy measures, but when I tried to get hold of the text of the resolution, as usual, I was given the joint resolutions - but not the original texts. The reason given was that this was a cost saving measure.
This simply cannot be true, since joint resolutions are often rejected in this House, to the effect that one then has to revert to the original texts.
I would ask for clarification on this matter.
Thanks to the efforts of Mrs Pack, for example, the absurd motion on Croatia is now somewhat less so, yet I would still have welcomed the opportunity to read the absurd texts in their original form.
I earnestly request that something be done to remedy this situation.
Mr Posselt, I have taken note of your statement.
It is true that there have been some translation problems, but as far as I know, the texts submitted to the vote and for your attention are available in all languages.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Human rights and democratization
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A4-0381/97) by Mr Imbeni, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the report from the Commission on the implementation of measures intended to promote observance of human rights and democratic principles (for 1995) (COM(96)0672 - C4-0095/97); -the report (A4-0393/97) by Mrs Lenz, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on setting up a single coordinating structure within the European Commission responsible for human rights and democratization.
Madam President, we cannot expect too much of our colleagues; it has been a very tiring week and, consequently, it is more than understandable that our debate is certainly constructive now, though it has a certain reserve.
Taking advantage of the presence of the Commissioner, I would like to start on a point we were not aware of when Mrs Lenz and I presented our two reports, the document approved by the Luxembourg Council on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I would be interested for the Commission to tell me what is meant in paragraph 11 of the Annexe to the document drawn up by the European Council on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when it mentions academic programmes within the framework of the 50th anniversary.
If there is a framework of initiatives already drawn up, already consolidated, I would like to ask the Commission, and not just for myself, to send us this framework of programmes and initiatives; a reciprocal undertaking could be made by Parliament and the Commission because, along with the national initiatives for celebrating the anniversary (I again refer to paragraph 11), there could be cooperative and positive inter-institutional participation between the Commission, Council and Parliament.
Having said that, coming to the actual report, I would like to make a few particular considerations that I believe should be made on the Commission's report.
The first is this: we are on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This gives us a special commitment, and naturally a special honour as well, particularly on the point of consistency: consistency between saying and doing, consistency to this strategic matter, the promotion of human rights, particularly to avoid those contradictory aspects that cause harm at times, to our image as well, which is the result of the very essence of the European Union, fundamentally based on universal human rights, on respect for them and on their promotion.
Contradictions often arise - sometimes, the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing - in some cases, the relationship between economic and commercial relations and the subjects of the promotion of human rights are not entirely consistent.
I would like to say that, if we have to record one step forward on the 50th anniversary, we should do so in this direction: greater consistency of behaviour between saying and doing, to ensure that all contradictions are overcome.
In my report, I emphasize the requirements for information: information not just for the European Parliament - which we do need but we are privileged and do have information, though certainly not in real time as we would like but fairly quickly - but for all the bodies operating in the non-governmental organizations, on committed world cooperation for respect for human rights, organizations, including small ones, not just the well-known ones, operating in individual countries that do not have adequate information in time.
My report proposes that the Commission should use the new technologies more to circulate information on the measures taken by the Union for the promotion of human rights in the various countries of the world, so that anyone obtaining information can do so directly and in real time.
The second aspect I wish to emphasize is that of efficacy.
We need the Commission's delegations, country by country, to be able to provide us more clearly with the relationship between the initiatives conducted, the costs, the resources used and the situation of human rights in this or that country.
In other words, we need to know whether our investments serve any purpose or not, whether the situation of human rights in a country has improved or worsened after our initiatives and our intervention.
From this point of view, we need more appropriate information on the efficacy of our intervention.
Then there is a problem of coordinating the initiatives taken by the various institutions.
On this point, there is one factor that makes my report different from that of Mrs Lenz, which is a differentiation of instruments and certainly not a strategic differentiation of objectives, because anyone can see that there is a consistency and a very broad convergence between these two reports.
There is a difference of interpretation on one point, however, with regard to coordination, to which I would like to draw your attention.
It is good to set up inter-service groups within the Commission. I personally agree that it is good to strengthen an interinstitutional group, but my personal opinion is that Parliament is not a managerial body, that management falls to the Commission, that others are responsible for managing the policies and that we have the task of directing and controlling.
If we are unable to perform our task of control, we should not fall back on the creation of means of coordination and execution seen by the Commission and Parliament, because, in my opinion, this is not consistent with the European Parliament's tasks of direction and control.
This is a point of difference on which Mrs Lenz and I hold different opinions, opinions which we will certainly try to overcome with discussion.
I would also like to point out the proposals made in my report on the idea of organizing a large conference once a year to check the programmes drawn up by the European Union on democratization worldwide.
I think it was two months ago that we held a large conference in Brussels to check the development of the Tacis and Phare programmes.
This was an important event because representatives of the countries concerned, i.e. the third countries, took part.
To tell the truth, the presence of Parliament and the Commission was not very constant or conspicuous: some of us attended from beginning to end but there were only a few people.
Our colleagues, however, MPs and representatives of non-governmental associations in these other countries, have told us of the positive results and the drawbacks.
For example, they asked us what the relationship is between bureaucratic administrative expenses and expenses going directly to the execution of a project.
This is a subject that also relates to the promotion of human rights.
It would be interesting to know the difference between bureaucratic and administrative expenses and expenses intended for the promotion of human rights.
It was a positive experience and I think that it could also be done to check the effectiveness of our measures with regard to democratization and the promotion of human rights.
I will conclude by thanking all of you for your attention and by expressing my belief that, in the end, stimulated by this deadline of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, we can do something more and better.
Just one final word: if the death penalty was at least mentioned in this document at the Luxembourg Council - I know there is a problem in one member country - we might have taken a concrete step forward in relation to all the resolutions of the past.
Madam President, I can concur directly with the remarks made by Mr Imbeni and I shall also try to respond to his comments.
A week ago we observed Human Rights Day and it has to be admitted that human rights are still being seriously violated throughout the world.
On the other hand, institutions and organizations are increasingly taking up the mantle of human rights and this has caused something of a contradictory situation.
The European Union should be one of the main institutions involved in providing effective and wide-ranging support for the cause of human rights, from individual projects to programmes promoting human rights and democracy.
We began in the 1980s with Latin America, followed by the ACP zone and the developing nations. Now we have the Phare and Tacis programmes for central and eastern Europe and the Meda programmes for the Mediterranean area.
With the backing of the Council and Commission, the European Union has laid down basic directives through numerous declarations made in this House, and it is now attempting, via treaties of cooperation and association, to implement a human rights and democracy proviso which will be a pre-condition for the said treaties.
So far, so good.
However, when one realises that within the Commission there are more than 15 departments, plus several external institutions - or satellites, involved in the administration and drafting of human rights and democracy policies, then one is hardly surprised to learn that the European Parliament has for years been concerned that these matters have not been organized in as coherent, efficient and transparent a manner as we might imagine.
The Treaty of Amsterdam consolidated the EU's commitment to uphold freedom, democracy, human rights, basic freedoms and constitutionality and established that the Union as a body is obligated to the principle of coherency in its foreign policy.
Council and Commission share this responsibility and the Commission has followed this up by submitting to the Council a proposal for a uniform legal structure which will serve as a framework for human rights and democracy.
The European Parliament's call for the control, monitoring and evaluation of the EU's actions now appears all the more urgent since a substantial amount of funding has been accumulated over the years with the extension of EU activities into the area of human rights. These actions are becoming more and more varied and the number of actors is also increasing.
Parliament's own "European democracy initiative' currently holds funding of ECU 96 million.
The fragmentation of budgetary resources for human rights and democracy projects into numerous budget categories and the lack of a coherent strategy and the division of responsibilities for its implementation within the Commission, have all contributed to this lack of transparency.
In 1994 the Commission had more than 30 budget lines for development cooperation and humanitarian aid alone.
Then there are the funds from budget heading B-8 for monies agreed under the CFSP.
My report on the creation of a uniform coordination structure is directed at a greater streamlining of responsibilities as well as the implementation of projects.
In accordance with the Committee on Budgets this report therefore opposes external structures.
I do not wish to see any external structure and if my practical proposal recommends an office for human rights and democracy within the Commission, Mr Imbeni, then that is not an office whose activities should be divided, but rather one which the Commission should set up and administer in the same way as the ECHO, so that these matters are not coordinated by an anonymous department but by an outwardly transparent operations centre - and this office may do just that.
A second proposal which I wish to make concerns the setting up of a dedicated data network for this sector. Such a network would help the institutions of the European Union, as well as outside agencies, to concentrate the available body of information and to put this into practical effect in a more efficient way.
I also want to see the institutions dovetailed into a working group for democracy and human rights, as also agreed in the budget, which is something you also address; such a group, whose role would be an advisory one, could be constituted from representatives of Parliament and of the Commission as part of the annual programme.
The effective coordination of institutions and international organizations, whose role is to monitor and assist the process of free elections, is essential for the establishment of an effective, financially viable and transparent system.
The consolidation of the 1998 budget will also help do the groundwork here.
If we are to achieve as broad a synergy and multiplier effect as possible, the EU must coordinate its human rights policy measures more effectively, and this includes international organizations such as the Council of Europe, the OSCE and others, by concluding the sort of cooperation agreements which we really want to see.
The aid which we provide in this area often goes unnoticed.
I can only agree with the report which has been presented by Mr Imbeni.
We really are on the same wavelength in this respect.
We both call for better information on the EP and on the efficiency, or failure, of the various programmes and projects, as measured against their impact on human rights and democracy in third countries. We also call for a transparent strategy for the use of funds and improved procedures for the implementation of projects - and this is also the underlying message of my report on the simplification of structures.
I too followed the conference on the Phare and Tacis programmes, which involved the NGOs, and I was also able to obtain useful information for my report.
A further basic requirement is the need for better coordination within the Commission and between the various institutions, as well as the removal of the geographical divisions.
On this point we all totally agreed.
A superposed coordination structure, under the jurisdiction of a Commissioner for human rights and democracy, would be required not only to administer the programmes and projects but also to coordinate the guarantee and sanction policies.
After Amsterdam the Commission promised to introduce a uniform Commission structure for human rights and democracy for the next period and I hope very much that this will become a reality.
I would like to ask the Commission quite openly what it intends doing to bring this about.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me close by stating that one of the most difficult and yet rewarding tasks of the European Union must surely be for its institutions to carry to the world the message of peace and freedom which is based on the respect of human rights and the ability to live together in accordance with democratic principles.
We hope that after the Amsterdam Treaty this part of the EU's foreign policy will play an even greater role and will help carry our message even further afield.
Madam President, the Committee on Civil Liberties has made me responsible for the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control on this report.
As you know, our Committee is responsible for examining respect for human rights within the European Union.
I shall therefore confine myself to questions connected with human rights which relate to both the European Union and third countries, that is, anything relating to immigration, political asylum, the trade in human beings and sexual tourism involving children.
We have concentrated in our work on particularly vulnerable people, or groups of people, often subject to discriminatory treatment, or simply deprived of the exercise or enjoyment of fundamental rights.
That is: women, children, refugees and displaced persons, national minorities, indigenous peoples, prisoners and torture victims.
This Committee has considered all these groups in detail and I shall confine myself to informing you of our main conclusions.
In particular, we ask the Commission to include, in future agreements with the third countries involved, a clause relating to the trade in human beings, and sexual tourism involving children, as is already the case for human rights. We would also like to insist that the items of the Community budget relating to human rights should be subject to careful evaluation, whether the expenditure is incurred inside or outside the EU.
We also consider that the joint action decided by the Council on 26 and 27 September 1996, which aims to extend the competence of the Europol Drugs Unit to the prevention of the trade in human beings, the prevention of paedophile rings and child prostitution, is fundamental.
We also consider it indispensable, within this context, for the Europol convention to be ratified as soon as possible by all the Member States.
It is also necessary to adopt an agreement to combat the trade in human beings, which would include, in the joint provisions, severe sanctions for dealers and the possibility of confiscating the profits of such exploitation.
I do not have enough time to mention all the conclusions.
Thank you for your attention and please refer to the written report for all the information, which I am unable to provide.
Madam President, shortly after I was first elected to Parliament in 1989, I was asked to take part in a parliamentary delegation to observe the first ever democratic elections in Chile following the Pinochet dictatorship.
While I was there I was struck by the number of people who came up to me quite spontaneously to thank me and others in our delegation for the work the European Union had done in preserving and developing democracy in Chile during the years of the dictatorship.
That made a very deep impression on me because it made me realize just how important the European Union's work on human rights is, and the effect of often quite small amounts of money, especially the effect they can have on developing democracy in countries which are suffering from a lack of human rights.
That is why I am very strongly supportive of the policies the European Union pursues.
However, it has to be said that the human rights policy of the European Union has grown up on a very ad hoc basis.
In many ways Mrs Lenz has indicated that in her earlier remarks.
It is still very ad hoc as we can see from Parliament's work.
Our monthly saga of Thursday afternoon urgencies shows a certain lack of coordination and coherence when we are looking at human rights situations
Similarly, as we have heard, the Commission's organization of its work on human rights also shows a lack of coherence and coordination.
In the Council the CFSP has had its weaknesses as we have outlined before and there is not sufficient evidence of a coherence of approach.
Now, with the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Commission report which we are debating today, we should move towards a situation where human rights is much more closely integrated within the common foreign and security policy.
In particular, I am looking to the Council and the Commission, working on the development of the policy planning unit that is an essential part of the Amsterdam Treaty, to ensure there is an effective human rights dimension and conflict prevention dimension in the work of that unit.
We need to try to define what we mean by an ethically orientated foreign policy for the European Union and we need to try to find a better balance between the institutions.
In the light of the Amsterdam Treaty and the work in Parliament by Mr Avgerinos, for example, on improving the way we deal with urgencies, we have to try to make a fresh start on human rights and to have a trialogue between the Council, the Commission and Parliament where we can sit down and start to define where we are going on human rights and how we can improve the administration of human rights.
In particular, we should look at how we assess value for money from our projects.
The Commission is very good at developing new ideas but less good at managing these ideas once they are up and running.
We ought to look at how we release funds.
Far too often funds are held up and NGOs run into difficulties because of the delays in getting funds released.
In conclusion, we ought to look also at what we do with countries like, for example, Hong Kong - which I only mention because it is fresh in my mind - where the administration argues that money we give for support of human rights is actually political interference and refuses to allow us to spend that money.
Finally, I welcome both these reports but I urge that ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Madam President, in this debate on human rights one almost invariably immediately starts talking about concrete problems; Algeria, Burma, Nigeria or about the plight of refugees, child slaves, or abused women, and one immediately asks for action.
But this debate is about something else.
Mr Imbeni and Mrs Lenz in their report primarily talked about the structures within the European Commission for human rights policy.
This is a good thing, because if you want expose something, and wish to see action, the appropriate instruments are needed.
They have to be effective, that is what counts.
Against this background both reports are extremely useful.
Mr Imbeni's report, which is a response to the European Commission document, uncovers in great detail a number of weak points in the Commission's organization of its work on human rights.
In its document the Commission has tried to circumnavigate these problems by giving a kind of catalogue of the actual human rights and democratisation projects from a regional perspective.
We can safely say that most of these projects are fine, and that it is likely that the Commission will implement them properly, but the Commission's document contains no evaluation.
This is no surprise, because Mr Imbeni concludes quite rightly that the Commission's organization of the human rights policy is rather chaotic.
Too many budget items, too many directorates-general who step in, too much red tape, and too little coordination, evaluation and effectiveness.
When we examine these different approaches, they can also be found in Mrs Lenz' report.
It is a miracle in fact that so many good things still happen when you read those two reports.
That does not alter the fact that I agree with both colleagues.
If one examines all activities, one has to conclude that more coordination and better streamlining of actions is urgently needed.
That is why Mrs Lenz's idea of arriving at one coordinating body within the Commission, primarily aimed at programmes and actions in the sphere of human rights, minority rights and democratisation, is a good idea.
I think it should be something like ECHO for humanitarian aid, but as part of the Commission.
Mr President, it is a good idea, as it may not only save much money and energy, but one might also be able to do a great deal more, and much more effectively, with this same money.
In addition I think it is excellent if a European network for human rights is made available to allow the necessary information flow smoothly.
Finally I would like to support for the idea for a unit at European level for monitoring elections.
Our socialist colleague spoke just now about the way the elections in Chile were observed - I was there in 1989 - and this happened in an excellent way.
Still we frequently see that American or other delegations handle their work efficiently and better than ours.
Yet it is important, because the preventative effects of these kind of monitoring committees is excellent.
Mr President, I conclude by saying that both rapporteurs have delivered excellent work.
They have submitted good proposals to the Commission and we would like to ask of the European Commission to take these reports to heart, and to take up the proposals.
The European Union itself is a stronghold of human rights and democracy; let us emanate this in an efficient manner throughout the world.
Madam President, though we may question whether the human rights policy pursued by the European Union is consistent, outside Europe it is experienced a great deal more positively, considering the many times appeal is made to our human rights policy.
You also heard Mr Titley and Mrs Maij-Weggen say this just now.
Yet on the eve of the Euro-Asian summit we have to accept the fact that entire continents distance themselves from our policy.
That is why it is good that by coincidence the Commissioner who is to some extent an expert in the field is here tonight.
I would like him to tell me a bit more about how he sees the proposals on the table being implemented.
Anyhow, because some countries distance themselves from our continuous persistence on human rights, the better gearing of the human rights policy within the institutions is all the more necessary, as well as making them more transparent, quicker to implement and more effective.
On the eve of the celebration of the 50th Declaration of Human Rights, Mr Imbeni and Mrs Lenz have submitted two excellent, clear and to my mind implementable reports.
The proposal to establish a coordination unit very much appeals to me.
I believe, as Mrs Lenz remarked, that it requires a Commissioner who is entirely responsible for this policy.
For the sake of the general public I think it is an excellent idea to publicize what were are doing in the institutions in future via the electronic highway or the Internet.
This is a good thing.
Our showpiece during the recent past was observations at elections.
The Union managed to appear consistent to the outside world, as visible responsibility.
It is therefore very right that Mrs Lenz requests a material foundation for this in the specific budget.
It seems a good idea to me to hold an annual evaluation conference, as suggested by Mr Imbeni.
It gives the Commission, as well as this Parliament, more power in its functioning.
It will probably direct more individuals and NGOs in our direction, which will have to make us even more selective, and we will have to give more meaning to our programmes, but with these proposals as they are before us, this must be possible in the sense of coordinating them.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the Lenz and Imbeni reports are an excellent culmination of this year.
I congratulate both colleagues, and look forward to the time when, with these reports as a solid support at the end of our mandate, we will be able to promote human rights within the European Union as well as outside.
Madam President, Mrs Lenz and Mr Imbeni speak with one voice; that saves me one response.
She calls for more coordination, consistency, coherence and this deserves full support, from the Liberal Group.
The Commission, too, occasionally deserves praise for its dedication to increased effectiveness and transparency.
But at the same time both rapporteurs' proposals for better ideas to improve consistency have not just sprung up overnight.
Our group supports the proposal for the setting up of one single service for human rights and democratization within the Commission.
But this should not mean we should get a common administrative structure for all agencies offering foreign aid.
Aid should continue to be part of the main thrust of the policy. Aid is the means of the policy, not an end in itself.
Annual evaluation conferences on human rights and democratisation programmes for third countries are much more effective.
I gladly support the strengthened role of Union delegations in third countries, the inclusion of human rights in the job responsibilities of the planning unit of the CFSP and in the creation of an interinstitutional working group to set up a European network for human rights and democratization.
Then we come to the observers, and as Mrs Lenz knows, the monitoring of elections; I, for example, have been able to experience this as a recipient from this Parliament in various third world countries some time ago, and also as a participant in observation delegations, and I have been embarrassed, Madam President, Mr Commissioner.
I hope it will become true that in this Parliament we will have an "A-team' from which we will be able to recruit those who will be able to observe in a truly professional way.
I have said it before in the foreign affairs committee, as Mrs Lenz and Mr Imbeni both know.
I think these two reports provide useful starting points.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the possession of human rights allows each individual man and woman to retain his or her dignity.
Human rights are indivisible and universal.
I stress this yet again because it is a fact which is sometimes overlooked in the daily routine of EU politics.
The protection of human rights and minorities and the furtherance of democracy must be priority issues for a combined foreign and defence policy.
We strongly reject any attempt to reverse these priorities in order to promote the cause of economic relations.
Parliament will be keeping the pressure on and, what is more, has even established a budget line for the promotion of democracy and the protection of human rights to the effect that a financial basis has now been laid for real action.
However, the EU is still a long way from having a coherent civil foreign policy.
As long as departmentalized thinking continues, as long as foreign policy is divided geographically within the Commission and as long as development policy is subjected to constant budget cuts, we shall never succeed in evolving a consistent and integrated human rights policy.
Such a sound concept is of course the basis for a credible foreign policy.
The Commission itself is not in a position to carry through the human rights programme because there simply is no comprehensive strategy for all EU policies.
In this respect Mr Lenz's report on proposals for improving our administrative structure is particularly valuable.
We support the proposal for setting up an office of human rights and democracy within the Commission.
This would also facilitate collaboration with non-governmental organizations, which are an important part of a durable policy on human rights and democratization.
I refer in particular to decentralized projects based on local initiatives which make a vital contribution to social stability and to human rights activities which seek to protect and restore the dignity of individual men and women.
Madam President, Mr Vice-President, ladies and gentlemen, I, like the rest of my group, am in complete agreement with the need to increase coordination, unify services, and rationalize a number of things.
But a political responsibility is essential, and we frequently have difficulty in finding out where it lies within the Commission.
May I congratulate Mrs Lenz, and Mr Imbeni who have written reports to that effect?
However, Point 7 of Mr Imbeni's report, in which he proposes to report on the public bodies of third countries, which hinder human rights projects, seems rather disputable to me.
I think we could have an annex and add 'to the bodies of the European Union' , because as some Members know, although a number of projects remain blocked in the Commission for many months, waiting to obtain the funding, which has been agreed, there are other projects.
I am very pleased that Commissioner Brittan is present, because some very important projects regarding democratization and human rights have been sitting in drawers in the Commission's departments for two years.
A radio project 'Boys of Tibet' has been waiting for the Commission's go-ahead for two years.
I would be very pleased if the Commissioner could answer this point.
I should also like him to reply to the requests made, on many occasions, by this Parliament, regarding a number of persons who are imprisoned.
They are Mr Wang Dan, Mr Hada, Mr Nawang Choepel, and the young Panchen Lama (Gedhun Choekyi Nyima) of whom we have no news, although we have many times asked the Commission to intervene with regard to the liberation of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in China, and other Asian countries.
I would be very pleased, Mr Commissioner if, like the United States, which has obtained the liberation of Mr Wei Jinsheng, the Commission were also soon to announce the liberation of the above four people, and of any other people to whom I have not referred today.
Madam President, the political systems are all the more democratic and pluralist as their political institutions become more effective and their legal systems more independent. The calling to the protection of human rights, even outside the Union, is sanctioned by the preambles to the treaties, and therefore constitutes a priority which we do not always manage to satisfy even if we, as the European Union, are one of the largest sources for the financing and promotion of initiatives aimed at the protection of these rights.
A European Union which, however, is not managing to provide the necessary transparency to make its overall effort for the promotion of human rights as visible as possible.
In our opinion, given its natural democratic specificity, the European Parliament should be more effective in defining policies on human rights, firstly by placing the financing allocated to the sector in one single budget entry and, even if this happened recently, exercising the additional budget power provided by the Treaty, which has still not seemed sufficient.
Above all, our Parliament should be able to operate in the context of a necessary unity in the disbursement sector; the Directorates General of the Commission seem to be called upon too much to draw up lists of priorities of activities and to exercise priorities of spending.
Although this could contribute towards a greater knowledge of sectoral and specific problems, it would certainly not improve the possibility and efficacy of Union intervention.
The geographic compartmentalization within the Commission is made worse by the various budget entries, that waste funds allocated to spending.
In addition to the managerial problems of aid for the sector, the practice of policies actually aimed at the protection of human rights seems lame to us.
Several examples include the Council resolution which, with regard to asylum procedure, provides for the application of the concept of the safe third country, actually requires the transit country bordering the Member States to readmit persons seeking asylum without providing sufficient legal guarantees, particularly for the victims of acts of violence, women and children, and belittles the quality of the protection of human rights, which we are deciding upon.
Another example of family protection is the protection of human rights in the sector, which is also a priority of our family policies, which is thwarted when we do not recognize that the immigrant citizens of third countries have the right to live in families, the right to reunite the family.
The extension of Europol's competence, particularly the drugs unit, that could effectively combat the plague of the trafficking in human beings and the paedophilia and child prostitution networks, although established in September, during the course of a Union Council, has not yet begun, while the same Europol Convention has not yet been ratified by all the Member States.
The European citizen asks us for assurance and we therefore consider it essential, in defining the policies on the right to the protection of human rights, to take measures to coordinate the criminal legislation of the Member States so as to establish a clause of universal extraterritoriality, which makes it possible to make inquiries, prosecute and penalize individuals committing offences abroad and then avoiding the punishment by hiding in the folds of an incomplete legal system which, in our opinion, should be defined as a matter of urgency on pain of our credibility in the protection of human rights.
Madam President, I wish to thank the rapporteurs for these reports on measures intended to promote observance of human rights.
The overall objective of any development policy must be to strive to build and strengthen democracy and the rule of law, with respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
In all agreements with third countries the European Union must continue to press for the inclusion of specific human rights clauses.
The fact that the European Union is the world's principal donor of humanitarian aid, is neither known nor understood by many of our citizens.
I believe we should draw clear guidelines for the acknowledgement and publication of the very important financial contribution the European Union makes to human rights and development of the third world.
While I do not agree with the policy of the US - a policy of no aid without trade - it is essential that we remain rigorous and firm with our policy of no aid without linkage to democracy, human rights and freedom.
In relation to statistics - and many other speakers have already made reference to this - we need a clear breakdown of the funding from all sources, whether they are governmental, semi-state, NGOs or whatever, and we need clear evaluation of the effectiveness of human rights projects funded by the Commission.
Unfortunately, the report does not compare projects for effectiveness, nor does it set down the criteria on which projects are or should be assessed.
In the context of the forthcoming negotiations on future relations between the European Union and the ACP countries under the Lomé Convention, a stable political system, full respect for human rights, effective participation by society, allied to good government and sound administration, should be recognized as fundamental foundations for sustainable development and the focus of our development policy.
Madam President, firstly I think one of our most important tasks in Parliament is to keep watch on human rights and democracy.
People expect that of us, and in this area we also have strong public support.
This is, of course, particularly important for countries with which we have agreements, countries with which we have some connection.
Perhaps this is most important for applicant countries like Slovakia and Turkey, where shortcomings need to be corrected.
I would, however, stress that it is important that the aim of our measures and efforts should be to help to solve problems and not simply to point out countries which do not fulfil the requirements.
The control, support, effectiveness and reporting of our measures need to be improved.
I would particularly like to emphasize some of the ELDR Group's amendments in the report.
These relate to paragraphs 6, 8 and 9 in the Imbeni report.
A collective agreement on human rights is good.
In addition the Commission should collect information from international organizations such as Amnesty, the OSCE and the Council of Europe.
Madam President, I wish to congratulate Mr Imbeni and Mrs Lenz on their reports and to state that naturally we must focus our efforts on increasing the effectiveness of the Commission itself in all its policies, rather than shifting responsibility away from the Commission by way of various offices and other structures.
I believe that this has become quite clear.
I also wish to refer to a particular matter which has been discussed in detail in the Committee on Budgets, namely a change in the structure of interinstitutional cooperation.
I believe that this is very important.
We are dissolving the old advisory group, which used to draw up recommendations for individual projects in conjunction with the Commission and the various institutions, and intend setting up an interinstitutional consultative working group whose role will be to assess the annual Work Programme.
This proposal is set out in our amendment.
This seems to be a more rational way for Parliament and Commission to deal with one another.
And I hope that by discussing a Work Programme at the beginning of the year we will really introduce greater transparency and control into this area.
Madam President, today we are discussing a document from the European Commission on the implementation in 1995 of its actions to promote human rights and democratisation.
The rapporteur, Mr Imbeni, has already laid his finger on the problem in his introduction, and I quote: ' the communication ... has the character of a catalogue of good works ... (but) does not present itself as an assessment of the effectiveness of human rightsrelated activities' .
It is curious that very large sums, fortunes in fact, have been invested in all kinds of projects, but that apparently there were no interim criteria to verify the usefulness of these investments, or in any case afterwards, and that no investigations were made either into whether the subsidized projects and organizations were also supported by third parties, for example the Member States, independently.
As far as that is concerned I can only agree wholeheartedly with paragraphs 16 and 17 of the report.
I have to admit, however, that my criticism is more fundamental, and that we will have to ask ourselves whether it should be the responsibility of European common institutions in the first place to play a kind of UN, a kind of reduced United Nations, with a truly opaque subsidizing policy, and especially, and this my basic remark, without being this encapsulated in a coherent foreign policy.
Please do not misunderstand me.
I am not saying that all the money in this budget area has been spent fruitlessly.
But I do question in a major way the lack of monitoring when subsidies are given, the lack of evaluation afterwards, the fundamental desirability of leaving the implementation of this policy, which should form part of a coherent foreign policy when it is deemed necessary, in the hands of the European Commission.
Besides, I am not able to check the expenditure of these funds on my own.
But I do know the way in which Commission officials in my own country use all kinds of subsidies to all kinds of organizations.
I can only ascertain that organizations are subsidised which either only represent themselves, or are not worthy of receiving anything, or already get their fair share from various other subsidy sources.
I am thinking of a number of trade unions, for instance.
It might be the case, and I hope so, that the Commission manages the budgets we are talking about today more usefully.
But if this is the case, then I cannot deduce this from the document the Commission is submitting.
I in any case will continue to go on about the fact that in our own Member States millions of people live in abject poverty, so that it is not acceptable in my view to spend large amounts if and when the usefulness of this expenditure of these sums is not even investigated and above all evaluated.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the defence of human rights has been one of the great causes, one of the strongest causes in the political aims of the European Union.
It would be good for human beings all over the world if those aims could be increasingly present and effective in the European Union's decisions and initiatives.
Unfortunately the Union's actions are not particularly visible - I mean in so far as European citizens are not familiar with them, because I know they support us in those decisions and therefore ought to be familiar with them - and the political reflections of those actions are normally confined to our parliamentary discussions.
There are not sufficient institutional structures in the European Union for the adequate processing of information on infringements of human rights.
There is a lack of coordination of actions to defend human rights, and the available financial resources are patently insufficient and lacking in coordination to promote actions to defend the dignity of being human.
It is also regrettably clear in many cases that economic interests, which have a certain control over information, override and almost nullify the political and humanitarian positions in defence of human rights which we have come here to uphold.
All these comments are mentioned and well analysed in the reports by Mr Imbeni and Mrs Lenz, whom I would like to compliment on their work. We support their reports and we would ask this House to approve them.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, human rights are valued very highly in Austria.
Looking ahead to Austria's Council presidency in the second half of next year we are conscious of the fact that in 1998 we are celebrating Human Rights Year, and this is an issue which will assume increasing significance.
Next autumn, an experts conference on this theme is to be held in Vienna and on the eve of the summit meeting of Heads of State and of Government in Vienna the Foreign Ministers will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.
This will also see the adoption of action plan "Human Rights 2000' .
Such actions serve to illustrate the high priority which Austria attaches to the subject of human rights.
I welcome the proposals being put forward by the rapporteur and by Mr Imbeni, since I too believe that it is sensible to have a uniform structure to deal with human rights and democratisation.
Better coordination within the Commission, a strengthening of the Council's authority over human rights issues and greater cooperation with the European Parliament, all these would be very welcome moves indeed.
The aim of the 1998 Year of Human Rights must be to underpin the respect of universal standards of human rights at national level by effective control, support and deterrence.
Over the last 50 years the international system has laid the legal and practical foundation for the protection of human rights.
Now it is time for these principles to be implemented at national and local level.
All too often, unfortunately, economic interests take precedence over human rights issues.
We in the European Parliament must, therefore, never relax in our determination to draw attention to human rights violations.
But to put something into practice also means ratifying it, and in international law this is regrettably not always possible.
Consequently, in this Year of Human Rights 1998, we must assert our democratically legitimate role as a guardian of these principles.
Madam President, I wish firstly to thank Mrs Lenz and Mr Imbeni most heartily for the excellent work which they have undertaken.
In this respect I would like to make a number of comments which are indirectly connected with their report and which have probably been engendered by it.
The first of these concerns the fact that we have far too many organizations working against each other and generally getting in each other's way.
We have to establish some kind of order here.
I am looking at his mainly from the perspective of those peoples who are in direct contact with the actions concerned, since I frequently travel to central and eastern Europe, where I am witness to the major problems which arise, and this is something which we must bear in mind.
My second point is one which has already been touched on, namely that we must exercise stricter control on the assistance we provide, for this is an important matter.
We already have a very good Committee on Budgetary Control, and its work is exemplary, but this body is hardly in a position to take on additional responsibilities.
However, there is no doubt that some similar type of organization would be required here.
As far as the annual reports are concerned, I consider these to be absolutely essential, particularly when they are entrusted to people who really know something about the subject.
In conclusion let me add one more thing: The respect of human rights is a very laudable principle.
However, all too often this can be used by certain regimes to conceal the fact that they do not adequately recognize collective rights.
I see this especially in the treatment of minority groups - linguistic minorities, racial minorities and ethnic minorities.
I believe we should draw attention to the fact that a European bill of rights for ethnic groups and minorities is absolutely imperative.
This must be made prosecutable in law so that we can ultimately bring real order to this area of human affairs.
Madam President, in the course of the debate not surprisingly a number of broader considerations have been raised and I hope the House will forgive me if I am not able to follow even the fruitful avenues that have been pursued.
I would like to comment on some of the specific points but I should first of all like to say how much Mr van den Broek would have liked to have been present, in particular, because of his high regard for the reports of Mrs Lenz and Mr Imbeni.
I shall firstly deal with the very specific point made by Mr Imbeni about the Amsterdam Summit conclusions.
These refer to an initiative for a post-graduate course for a European master's degree in human rights and democracy.
It is envisaged that ten universities from ten countries will participate and it will be handled, as I understand it, by the University of Venice, although further details obviously still have to be worked out.
I shall now comment on some more general points.
Firstly, Mrs Lenz and others talked about the possibility of there being one Commissioner in charge.
I am not sure that would solve the problem.
The real problem is not so much that there are different Commissioners but that there are different considerations relating to geographical situation and a human rights consideration generally.
It is impossible to deal with that by isolating human rights and putting it in one Commissioner's hands.
For example, to take an area for which I am responsible as I am answering this debate, namely China, there is a very important human rights dimension and at the same time a broader China policy.
You cannot simply solve that by saying that the human rights aspect should be dealt with by a Commissioner responsible for human rights.
That would weaken the policy for human rights itself.
It is only handling China as such that one can have the proper balance in handling things between a broader policy and a human rights policy.
As far as I am concerned, the human rights policy is an integral part of China policy and not just an add-on that you could give to someone else.
So that is not necessarily the most attractive solution although one can continue to reflect on it.
Incidentally, Mr de Vries referred to individual cases.
I am not in a position to give a list of answers on individual cases.
I am not sure that is the purpose of this debate but he happened to mention the Panchen Lama and I can only say that I raised that matter myself at the highest level.
I cannot pretend that I received a satisfactory answer.
The mystery, I fear, remains.
Reference has also been made to the delay between a project being suggested and it being taken up or implemented.
The reasons are various.
Sometimes it is because the idea is of such a general character that it needs to be worked up and that takes time.
Sometimes it is because it raises controversial questions and you need to hear different people's views on whether it is a good idea or not.
And sometimes it is because of the question of access to money for the particular project.
Incidentally, I am not saying that in the Commission any more than in any other organization there are never failings of an administrative character.
Of course there are sometimes.
But it is useful to mention some of the broader factors that may lead to delays, annoying though they always are.
Finally, on these general points, I should say a word about visibility.
A number of people have spoken about the importance of visibility and I entirely agree.
There is not much point in doing something in this area if people do not know what is going on.
If you are advising people and helping people to build a bridge, it is useful and good for the image of the European Union that people should know that the European Union is giving help.
But, in the case of human rights activities, I would suggest that the visibility is a much more central feature of what we are doing.
It shows not only that we are doing something but also that our concern about the country is one in which human rights is central.
I will now deal with some of the more specific points, thanking both Mrs Lenz and Mr Imbeni for their admirable reports.
The Commission shares their views in considering that priority should be given to ensuring coherence of the initiatives taken and the best use of the financial resources provided.
That is why, since his appointment Mr Santer has personally taken charge of this very sensitive and delicate facet of external policy and Mr van den Broek has been assigned responsibility for the thematic and horizontal aspects of the subject.
Within the departments, the role of coordination has been assigned to the Human Rights and Democratization Unit of Directorate-General IA, and that unit also provides a secretariat to the Steering Committee which is a coordinating body at the level of Deputy Director General set up in 1997.
In addition, the unit provides the chairmanship of the interdepartmental human rights group set up in 1991.
Implementation of human rights and democratization policy at the geographical level, to which I have referred, is the responsibility of the Commissioners in charge of political, economic and trade ties with the various non-member countries.
The Commission has restructured the departments of its Directorates General, managing the human rights budget headings by creating in each of them a unit in charge of ensuring that all activities carried out in the field of human rights, democracy and the rule of law dovetail with cooperation activities.
It is by maintaining this unity of competence and management of resources at the geographical level that human rights and democratization issues, which are part and parcel of cooperation with third countries, can be effectively pursued.
While recognizing that this coordination could be improved, we have made a real effort and will continue to do so.
With regard to some of the more specific requests in the draft resolutions relating to the measures aimed at defining a joint strategy for using financial resources allocated to human rights, the interdepartmental group for human rights and democracy identifies each year the thematic priorities and target groups corresponding to the budget headings of chapter B7-70.
For the future the Commissioners propose, in a proposal for a regulation aimed at providing a legal basis for the human rights headings, the implementation of programmes designed to give a coherent framework of action in a given country or region or on a particular topic.
With regard to the request to be notified regularly by the Commission of action taken in non-member countries, I would like to point out that various reports take stock of such action, such as the reports on action taken on the resolution on human rights, democracy and development, and the annual reports on the implementation of action to promote human rights and democratization which review the use of all funds under Chapter B7-70.
Moreover, the Commission also draws up an annual report on the utilization of the headings: ' democratization process in Latin America' and 'Meda for democracy' .
The Commission will take account of Parliament's requests in drawing up the annual reports, starting with 1996-97 report, which is currently under way.
The need to improve coordination with international and regional organizations is a continuous concern of ours.
I should like to stress that we and the Council of Europe have long been engaged in substantial cooperation by financing joint programmes in central and eastern Europe and in the former Soviet Union.
As regards the United Nations, it is examining at the moment the possibility of strengthening cooperation with the office of High Commissioner on Human Rights.
The monitoring of elections has been referred to.
That has for some years given rise to an increasing number of requests.
The Commission takes the view that priority should be given to a professional approach - which a number of people have favoured in the debate - in terms of methodology, logistics and training.
Thanks to the funds that have been made available, pilot schemes have been carried out over the last couple of years.
We will also examine the proposal to create a European network for human rights and democracy in the light of experience gained and also taking due account of other networks such as the office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and that of the Council of Europe.
We have noted Mr Imbeni's proposal for the annual organization of an evaluation conference based on the model of the Phare and Tacis programmes conference.
To respond to your concern about interinstitutional cooperation, I should like to point out that as early as 1989, the Commission approved the proposal aimed at facilitating interinstitutional contacts by creating a working group with the task of setting up an information exchange network and mapping out a joint action on human rights.
At the same time we have taken note of the proposal to amend the 1998 budget to create a consultative committee on human rights action programmes.
Let me stress that coherence, effectiveness and flexibility are the criteria which drive our positions in the various fields involving human rights.
Thank you, Commissioner Brittan.
Does either of the two rapporteurs wish to take the floor? No.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Benchmarking
The next item is the report (A4-0387/97) by Mr Murphy, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on Benchmarking - implementation of an instrument available to economic actors and public authorities (COM(97)0153 - C4-0387/97).
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, four year after the White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment, I notice with satisfaction that benchmarking occupies an important place on the European employment agenda.
When as far back as 1995 everyone was talking about European employment strategies and the European employment union, the liberals pointed out that the fight against unemployment is primarily a concern of national and regional authorities, and not Europe.
We have always been great advocates of the principle of exchange of best competitive practice.
Authorities want to know which labour market policy offers the best guarantees for more jobs, and entrepreneurs for their part want to learn how foreign competitors manage to increase their market share.
Except that both public authorities and businesses lack comparable, reliable and coherent information.
We therefore support the idea of a European knowledge based network for business, and of a High Level Group on Benchmarking.
The rapporteur rightly argues for the direct involvement of SMEs in this context.
I would like to hear from the Commission whether the SMEs will have active representation, and not merely be included.
After all we should not forget that SMEs are still the biggest job creators.
Without active cooperation from SMEs the whole affair will be rather pointless, it seems to me.
We also look forward to the results of the pilot projects which the Commission has started.
Is the Commission able to give any news on this yet?
Finally, I would to like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report.
He has highlighted the right things and stated that benchmarking should be integrated into the competition policy of Member States.
We support his request for this Parliament to be directly involved in the High Level Working Group.
I would like to know from the Commission if it is able to inform us yet if this request can be met.
Mr President, benchmarking is fashionable.
Many people are talking about benchmarking in all sorts of contexts.
The Commission has already carried out a number of pilot projects and found that benchmarking is an enormously important method for investigating and finding out what shortcomings there are in the European business climate, and how we shall find solutions to these shortcomings.
According to the Commission, and also to the report which we shall decide upon today, benchmarking should not only be applied at the company and industry level, but also in relation to framework conditions for companies.
Benchmarking is not a new discovery, as people might easily think. It has been used for many years, both by European companies and especially in the USA since the method was developed in the 1970s.
Benchmarking is certainly a very good method for measuring competitiveness, even in small and medium-sized companies.
But at the same time I would advise against having too much faith in a single method which is still a very blunt instrument, particularly when comparing framework conditions, because tradition and culture are also reflected.
That is indeed not something which is so easily measured or benchmarked.
I am very satisfied with what the rapporteur writes in paragraph 10 that people should not identify competitiveness and the connection between the Union's losses in industrial markets with wage conditions.
I also think it is good that he points out that, in fact, directors and company managements also need to be benchmarked.
Finally, Mr President, I am a bit sceptical about taking up methods development at a political level.
I think it would be more suitable for that to be done by a university or institute which is involved in methods development.
Mr President, there can be no two ways about the usefulness of benchmarking as an instrument for improving European competitiveness as a whole.
What we should be careful of, however, is to start seeing benchmarking as the miracle cure which releases us from all economic problems, such as unemployment, declining productivity, and reduced growth.
The danger threatening us is the infamous reversal of means and objectives.
We should also consider that applying this method will show up both the strong and the weak sides of the European economy.
When we rule out possible conclusions beforehand, we are on the wrong track.
Paragraph 10 gives an example of this.
The link between the loss in market share and labour costs which are too high cannot be proven, it is true, but a reasonable case can be made for it.
Benchmarking is primarily intended to make a comparison between expediency and effectiveness, as a result of which yardsticks and standards can be developed for the input of resources and the results which have be achieved by this.
The working of the economy as a whole, of institutions and government organizations, this way is observed from the outside, as it were.
This can be extremely educational, and will give rise to proper improvements.
Finally, a remark about paragraph 11, in which a better matching of acquired skills through training and skills wanted in the workplace is urged for.
I agree with the general tenor of this, but at the same time I set store by the fact that it is not industry which determines the substance of educational programmes and learning targets.
Teaching is a multi-faceted process with specific characteristics which must not be dominated by financial motives.
The consequences of the mental impoverishment of future generations are child's play in the comparison with the present unemployment problem in Europe.
Mr President, may I first of all thank the Parliament for its interest in the communication and congratulate Mr Murphy in his absence on his admirable report.
The integration of the Community's internal market, the prospects of economic and monetary union and globalization together all mean that European industry has to improve its competitiveness all the time.
As has been stressed on a number of occasions, progress has been made but there is still a lot to be done for Europe to be able to face the challenges before it.
That is the context in which the Commission proposed the benchmarking of competitive performance as a tool for continually monitoring the progress made and encouraging the adoption of the best competitive practices found at world level.
I would agree with what has been said in the debate: it is a tool but not a panacea.
The aim was to provide the European Union with a powerful instrument to boost its competitiveness and Parliament has supported that.
The communication that we are discussing today is in response to subsequent calls by Parliament and the Council for the development of pilot projects designed to give concrete expression to our contribution.
The projects formulated are aimed at improving the competitive performance of businesses, industries and the environment in which people work.
Benchmarking the performance of businesses is first and foremost a task for industry itself.
Public authorities can, however, help in the promotion of such investment.
In this context and in agreement with Parliament's proposal, the Commission plans to give priority to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises in setting up a European network for the benchmarking of business performance.
Benchmarking the performance of sectors depends on the specific conditions in each sector and we duly noted Parliament's request to examine why some sectors perform better than others in their global competitiveness.
In terms of overall economic competitiveness, it is the Member States that are primarily responsible for implementing the pilot projects and the Commission welcomes Parliament's request to the Member States to do what they can to play a full part in them.
We will transmit Parliament's call that greater priority should be given to the standard of training of business managers during the pilot project on the development of human resources.
We would also like to draw Parliament's attention to our recent report on the benchmarking of competitive performance in Ireland and New Zealand.
This report could be regarded as a first step towards benchmarking the good performance of some Member States of the European Union as Parliament suggested in its report.
As indicated in its communication, the Commission will set up a high-level advisory group on benchmarking early in the New Year.
It will ensure that the make-up of the group represents varied interests; we welcome Parliament's request to be associated with the group's work and would ask it to designate a Member to be an observer.
The Commission and the Member States have now launched this initiative for benchmarking the competitive performance of European industry.
At the end of the pilot phase the results will be made available to Parliament and all others concerned.
We are convinced that the experience will show the value of the benchmarking of competitive performance as a tool for improving the competitiveness of European industry.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Expenditure on CFSP
The next item is the report (A4-0339/97) by Mrs Müller, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on Opinion No 1/97 of the Court of Auditors of the European Communities on the conditions governing the implementation of expenditure under the common foreign and security policy (C4-0220/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mrs Müller not only for her report, but also for the thorough and unremitting way in which she has attended to the concerns of the common foreign and security policy, especially in the former Yugoslavia.
She is very committed to her work there, and unfortunately the true message about this commitment is not being properly reflected in the contribution being made here today.
The report itself was worthy of discussion, but was not controversial.
It was supported by all Groups in the Committee on Budgetary Control and I hope that the lack of debate is not seen as a lack of interest, for that would indeed be regrettable.
The report again demonstrates something which we have also seen elsewhere.
It obviously has to do mainly with aspects of budgetary control and auditing, but ultimately the problems which Mrs Müller mentions in her report conceal far-reaching and fundamental political questions and it would be good if Members of this House, including those outside the Committee on Budgetary Control, could just give this matter some attention.
The common foreign and security policy is a major undertaking and many more people than we sometimes think are hoping to get something out of this common European policy.
Many also believe that this common foreign and defence policy is much further developed than is actually the case.
But grand projects of this kind are often followed by that morning-after feeling when it comes to their actual implementation.
These problems will of course be dealt with primarily in a report from the Court of Auditors.
Lack of clear jurisdiction - a problem already mentioned by the rapporteur -, clashes of interest and confusion over the main objectives as well as over tasks which actually lie within the remit of the common development policy - all these problems make it difficult, and not only from the point of view of budget control, to say "yes' and to say "yes' unreservedly.
And underlying all this are also political implications and these too are problems which we will have to deal with.
The criticism which has been voiced is, as has been said, not that of an accountant declaring that individual bookkeeping items are difficult to separate.
We need greater transparency and clarity so that the figures can be examined more easily.
It is therefore much more a political criticism, to the effect that if we no longer know who is responsible for what, if we no longer know who decides what, then the whole system will be extremely difficult to assess.
It will then be well nigh impossible to support decisions, since a decision viewed externally can only be approved or rejected, and from our point of view defended when it is attacked, when one knows what lies behind it.
To this extent the clash of interests, the simultaneousness, which Mrs Müller touches on in her report and which has also been criticized by the Court of Auditors, is more than a question of the clear separation of the finances, more than a matter of finding a different way to regulate the financing and the control of this financing.
I would ask you to bear in mind that the Common Foreign and Security Policy is also our coat of arms, a coat of arms which the European Union displays to the world.
If there is confusion, if there is a lack of transparency, then let us carry out an internal examination of our budgetary control procedure, but you must see that the confusion which we find in this area is a sign, a symptom of a more far-reaching disarray, and this may well be seen around the world, even by people who do not even know that there is a Committee for Budgetary Control or even a European Court of Auditors.
If this confusion, this lack of transparency, should give rise to a loss of credibility, then this will not be directed at our financial control procedure but will impact upon the political standing of the European Union.
In this respect I would ask Mrs Müller just to carry on exactly as she has been doing.
And I would also like to ask the other Members of this House to continue to examine these issues outside of this debate.
Before Mrs Müller leaves us, for I know that she is extremely pressed for time, I would just like to state openly how much I welcome her report and to congratulate her on her work.
My Party supports the report and its theme, the financing of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, constitutes a real interface between the first and the second pillar of the EU Treaty.
The rapporteur has therefore been dealing with an area in which the temptation to be drawn into dogmatism, a religious war as it were, is very great indeed.
Mrs Müller has not succumbed to this temptation and has instead opted for a constructive approach.
This does not mean that we should be satisfied with the outcome of Amsterdam as far as the Common Foreign and Security Policy is concerned.
Mrs Müller's report makes this all too clear.
We in this Parliament would have liked the European Council to have shown a lot more courage here, rather than the fainthearted approach adopted to date.
But let us accept things just as they are.
In future, the political will of the Governments for joint action will continue to hold sway over the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Nothing will happen without this political will from the Member States and where there is no political will, the Common Foreign and Security Policy will not even have the effect of a fig-leaf.
Sadly, this has been our experience over the course of the last four years.
On the other side of the coin, however, it can be said that where there is a will for collaboration, or at least where the chance exists for developing one, then the Community can make a useful contribution.
And this does not only apply to the issue of financing.
The Court of Auditors has summed up the figures for previous years and the result is clear-cut: more than 90 % of the funds allocated for joint actions came from the EU budget.
We in the European Parliament have therefore to take full responsibility vis-à-vis the electors.
We want to live up to that responsibility.
We do not want to seize the reins of European foreign policy ourselves - that would not be the role of any Parliament, and certainly not a European one - but we also want to be able to monitor the situation and to satisfy ourselves that European taxpayers' money is being used wisely and well.
In July we reached an agreement with the Commission and the Council that should facilitate cooperation on these issues.
Here I can only reiterate what was clearly stated in Mrs Müller's report, namely that the consent embodied in this agreement is a clear sign of the goodwill and trust which we intend to demonstrate.
It is to be hoped that the agreement will not only put an end to the long smouldering conflict between Council and Parliament, but will also lay the foundation for a constructive new beginning.
We must therefore be allowed to develop this agreement further.
As ever, our main attention is directed at the former Yugoslavia.
To date, almost ECU 200 million have been spent in this region as part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The lion's share of this has gone to Mostar.
Our Committee has developed an excellent relationship with Hans Koschnick, the former administrator of Mostar.
Carlos Westendorp, the High Representative in Sarajevo, has agreed to attend a meeting of our Committee in January, when we will mainly be discussing the issue of fraud in the distribution of aid subsidies.
We continue to hear and read disturbing stories on this subject.
Also underlying this, however, is the question of what changes should be brought to the remit and to the work of the Commission in the former Yugoslavia.
To put it concisely, it would seem that for a long time some members of the Commission have failed to comprehend just how much has been, and is, expected of them in respect of the challenge there.
To react to this with even more red-tape is the worst response imaginable.
Here the Commission is on the point of gambling away the substantial amount of trust which has been built up.
In this connection we eagerly await a special report from the Court of Auditors and in closing may I express my thanks to the latter for the position it has adopted, which is the subject of today's debate, and request that this report be passed on to us as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I have a feeling, when I analyse the Müller report, that the technical opinion of the Court of Auditors of the European Communities on the difficulties relating to the implementation of expenditure under the CFSP is in fact only an excuse for the Committee on Budgetary Control to reaffirm the philosophy of integral communitarization which is dominant at present.
Mrs Müller is however right to point out the existence of a flaw in the CFSP.
What is particularly serious, is that this flaw is now written into the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In a totally incoherent way, the Treaty first of all reaffirms the obviously intergovernmental nature of the CFSP, and then creates a Community competence with regard to the funding of the operating expenditure of the CFSP out of nothing, thus reversing the economy of the Treaty of Maastricht.
There are two possible attitudes to this observation.
One attitude is to accept the Müller report, which, based on an apparent concern for efficiency, sees in the financial provisions of the new article 28 of the treaty, a need to increase the communitarization of the whole of the CFSP, by reinforcing the powers of the Commission, and of course, the powers of the European Parliament, within the framework of a new inter-institutional agreement.
But if this Parliament is really concerned about the efficiency of the CFSP, and not only concerned with increasing its powers rapaciously, it should recommend a different attitude in order to overcome the contradiction between the institutional nature of the CFSP, and its method of financing.
If the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP is really, as we believe it is, a necessary condition in order for it to be in touch with reality and efficient, the priority is therefore, above all, to preserve its intergovernmental nature, its control by national parliaments and therefore, to set up a method of funding which is coherent with it, without however, increasing the overall amount of expenditure devoted to the CFSP by the various Member States.
25 % of the operating expenditure of the CFSP is already directly financed by the Member States.
This percentage should be increased to cover all its expenditure.
It is therefore particularly important to emphasize, during the ratification debates which will take place in our various countries, the need to correct the division introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, as soon as possible, by finding the required technical solution so that the conditions of funding of the CFSP are suited to its intergovernmental nature.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I should like to welcome Mrs Müller's report which has sought in a very practical way to deal with some of the difficulties we have to face in implementing CFSP actions and suggest some improvements.
I should like today to deal with three key questions which can be asked about the CFSP and its practical implementation, the first of which is what have we done so far to tackle the points made by the Court of Auditors in its report.
Secondly, what is our approach to implementation of the interinstitutional agreement of July of this year? Thirdly, what is still to be done to improve CFSP joint actions?
In looking at the general context of the CFSP, we should not forget that the power to take CFSP decisions lies with the Council.
It is, after all, the Council that decides on joint actions and it then decides how they should be financed.
It is the presidency that is responsible for implementing them, as is very clear by article J5 of the Union Treaty.
It is only because the costs of the actions are charged to the general Community budget that the job of administering them lies with the Commission, as provided by article J11 of the Union Treaty.
This division of responsibilities has created problems in the past and the Court of Auditors has identified them in its report.
So what have we done in 1997 to tackle the points made by the Court? In the first place, the Commission has asked the budget authority for credits to be made available to prepare properly each joint action and it has obtained them.
In the 1998 budget ECU 500, 000 should be on the line B 8014.
Secondly, in addition to that, the Commission has drawn up a special specific financial sheet for the CFSP which encodes the global context of each action, including financial contributions from the Member States and also from other international organizations.
Then the Commission has been able to make improvements on the management of special envoys.
I welcome the recognition that Mrs Müller has given to this point in her report, paragraph 4, and there was also a reference to special envoys during the course of the debate.
I now turn to the question of our approach to the implementation of the interinstitutional agreement.
Thanks to the interinstitutional agreement on the financing of CFSP, the delay for implementing a joint action will, in my view at least, be substantially reduced.
For example, there is no longer a budgetary reserve.
Nonetheless, the Commission still thinks it is desirable for the budgetary authority to have an upstream control on expenditure when a joint action is being decided.
We think that should be done on the basis of the specific financial sheet that has been drafted by Commission services.
Finally, what still has to be done to improve CFSP joint actions?
Mrs Müller stresses the need to associate the Commission at the very beginning of the preparation of each joint action in recital Q of her report.
That is a point which is raised by the Court of Auditors as well.
I can only repeat that in our view it makes operational sense for the Commission to be associated well before the adoption of every joint action.
There is some overlap in the budget between CFSP credits and other credits such as mine-clearing or electoral process actions.
Sometimes the Commission wishes to make a political gesture by giving resources to international organizations.
We must not let the Council forget that needs to be carefully controlled, monitored and evaluated.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 19: 55)
Approval of the Minutes
Ladies and gentlemen, a very, very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to one and all.
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I indicated at the beginning that I wanted to speak on the Minutes.
I just wanted to say that page 26 of the Minutes indicates that before the vote on topical and urgent motions for resolutions I pointed out to Mr Cot that only the joint motions were available in all languages and not the motions on which they were based.
Mr Cot replied that this was an exception, and that there had been translation problems.
I made further enquiries at the documentation service afterwards, and they specifically told me that a decision had been taken that the text of original motions on which joint motions were based was no longer to be translated and made available.
I must protest against this, although I am all in favour of economy measures, as it is always possible for us to reject a joint motion, as has often happened, which means voting on the original motions.
We must therefore insist that the original motions should be translated and made available in good time.
Mr Posselt, I have made a note of your comments and I will ask that this issue be re-examined.
Votes
Mr President, it emerged from yesterday's debate that we considered it desirable for the opinion to be published in the Official Journal, but that does not alter the actual text.
This is an insertion into paragraph 7, and I understand that it reflects the rapporteur's intentions.
I have also spoken to other members of the Committee on Budgetary Control about this.
This insertion, which is the subject of an oral amendment by Mr Fabra Vallés, does not cause any problems and is not being opposed.
I would therefore recommend that we accept this oral amendment.
Mrs Müller has asked me to say that she fully agrees with the oral amendment.
Does Parliament have any objection to my putting the oral amendment from Mr Fabra Vallés to the vote? I do not see any, so I can put it to the vote, together with the entire motion for a resolution, for which we have no amendments.
It is approved.
Mr President, an oral amendment has been proposed.
You have asked if there are any objections. There are none.
However I still think that it would be more correct to vote first on this oral amendment before voting on the whole report.
Personally, I am in favour of this oral amendment, however I have considerable reservations about the report as a whole.
I will therefore ask you to proceed to the vote on the entire report as usual and also for the oral amendment. Even on the last day of the session this year!
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I am trying to simplify the work of Parliament and not to insist on formalities when I see that there is general agreement.
But, if you wish, I have no objection to holding another vote to confirm this.
The vote was held, with the oral amendment, as is often the case.
I saw that the entire Chamber was in agreement and there was not a single objection.
Let us now please vote on the amendment.
(Parliament adopted the proposal)
Mr President, the conditions under which we are proceeding to the vote have led me to speak.
Thank you for agreeing to my request. However I would have hoped that you would have us proceed formally to the vote for or against the report.
I would like to say that the report by Mrs Müller is given over to a very important report from the Court of Auditors on the functioning of the common foreign and security policy.
This is an area of the European Union where spending decisions are made at intergovernmental level.
As I say, expenditure is decided and the major decisions are taken at intergovernmental level, even though the Community budget is often called upon.
The report also indicates that some 75 % of spending is taken from the Community budget, so of course our Parliament concludes that not only should it be included in decision-making, but also in the whole process of spending control.
Recently, in conditions which were open to criticism, an interinstitutional agreement placing itself within the framework of the Amsterdam Treaty was adopted, and this agreement aims to alter the conditions in which this common foreign and security policy is implemented. We were critical of the implementation of this interinstitutional agreement.
And what is more, we are criticizing Mrs Müller's report because it has a perspective which is much more ideological than financial.
Quite often the reports from the Court of Auditors, which provide us with information enabling us to measure the degree to which community funds are sometimes employed less than strictly, give rise not to criticism on a financial basis, nor to financial reform proposals - as they ought - but to ideological proposals. And this is true of the present report.
This is why, Mr President, we have voted against, although that will not be obvious thanks to the conditions in which we have proceeded to the vote.
The report presents a number of institutional views on the Common Foreign and Security Policy as well as views of a more general institutional character to which we take exception.
These include, for example, that the system of changing Council Presidencies every six months complicates and impedes the continuous implementation of and supervision of joint actions.
We believe quite categorically that there must and shall be a right for every Member State of the European Union to occupy the presidency on a rotational basis as the case is today.
We have all heard of proposals for one-year EU Presidencies consisting of a large, a medium-sized and a small Member State.
There is no doubt that such proposals conflict with the principle that every country is equally qualified to occupy the position of President.
Just because a country is a large country, that does not mean that it is more qualified to be the holder of the title of President.
We therefore also believe that the CFSP should continue to have the character of an intergovernmental cooperation.
Furthermore, it is suggested to the Member States that they set up a CFSP personnel reserve for joint actions.
Firstly, this disregards the express desire of many Member States to remain neutral, and secondly, it should be up to the individual country whether it wishes to participate in a joint action; there is nothing automatic in that.
The CFSP, the common foreign and security policy of the European Union still has not really got off the ground, four years after the Treaty of Maastricht entered into force.
Concrete experiences, such as the EU administration of Mostar, the European electoral unit for the Palestinian elections and the EU action in Bosnia speak for themselves.
As far as the latter is concerned, the European Parliament has, in the context of the second reading of the 1998 budget, expressed its concern about the implementation of EU financing for actions in connection with the return of refugees to Bosnia.
But it is not only the European Parliament which is concerned about the implementation of the CFSP.
The Court of Auditors does not hesitate in its advice to take stock of three years' experience with joint actions as part of the CFSP, and to point the finger at continuing weak points and failings.
The core of the CFSP problem is the conflict between the exclusive powers of the Council to approve CFSP actions, and the authority of the European Parliament to release the necessary resources for these.
As rapporteur of the report on the funding of the CFSP as far back as 1994, I pointed to the existing area of tension between substantive authority for the CFSP, which is in the hands of the Council, and budgetary power.
At the time I warned urgently that no one benefits from a persistent, permanent squabbling between European Parliament and Council.
EU citizens are not the least bit interested in an endless discussion about who is responsible for what part, but want to see a Union which operates efficiently, and which also carries out its responsibilities to the outside world by means of a powerful foreign policy.
Does this mean that between 1994 and now, absolutely nothing has happened?
Have the difficulties concerning the EU administration of Mostar, the European electoral unit for the Palestinian elections, and management of budget appropriations of the post of High Representative for Bosnia led to nothing? Were the numerous discussions of the Committee on Budgets, during which it was asked to make available financial resources for CFSP actions on the basis of flimsy and extremely ill-founded information, a measure for nothing?
The answer, in my opinion, is no.
The International Agreement of Amsterdam offers considerable progress with regard to the financing of the CFSP.
Clear rules must better set out the respective powers of both partners in the budgetary power, Council and Parliament, and bring about the necessary interaction between the two.
That way financial resources for realistic requirements of the CFSP can, in future, be released more quickly and more efficiently.
But that is not the end of the matter.
The Court of Auditors rightly points out in its well-founded evaluation, a series of issues in which the CFSP is remiss, particularly:
Lack of transparency.
Information is available on policy expenditure paid from the EU budget (90.94 %); there are still problems with administrative expenses and the Member States' contributions.
As far as the latter is concerned, except for a few measures, there is little or no information about the contributions which were paid out by Member States or other donors.-The half-yearly rotation of presidency of the Council sits uncomfortably with the need for continuity in the administration of a joint action (a concrete reference to Mostar).-There are still shortcomings in the Commission's management of the CFSP.-Lack of clear separation criteria which means that too often there is an overlap between the objectives of the CFSP and the responsibilities of the Community in the sphere of development cooperation.
This translates into a lack of cohesion in the management of resources which does little for budgetary transparency.To put right these shortcomings the interinstitutional agreement might have to be specified more precisely.
On this point I fully endorse the conclusions of the Müller report.
The only thing I would like to add is that this will only succeed through a pragmatic approach.
Specifically referring to budget powers, this means that the European Parliament may not abuse its authority over the financial aspect of the CFSP actions.
Commission, Council and European Parliament (both the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control) must, by means of intense and constructive cooperation, gave shape to a powerful CFSP.
Labelling of genetically modified soya and maize
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B4-0908/97 - O-0139/97 by Mrs Breyer and Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on labelling of genetically modified soya and maize products; -B4-0909/97 - O-0141/97 by Mr Florenz, Mrs Schleicher and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on labelling of products made from genetically modified soya and maize; -B4-0910/97 - O-0143/97 by Mrs Roth-Behrendt, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on implementing provisions for the labelling of genetically modified soya beans and maize; -B4-0912/97 - O-0145/97 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on the labelling of certain foodstuffs produced from genetically modified organisms; -B4-0913/97 - O-0154/97 by Mr Eisma, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, -B4-1003/97 - O-0164/97 by Mr Papayannakis and Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the labelling of genetically modified soya and maize; -B4-1006/97 - O-0170/97 by Mr Souchet and Mr Nicholson, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, on the labelling of products made from genetically modified soya and maize.
Mr Berthu, I think that we have already had a debate on this issue.
The Conference of the Presidents of the Political Groups came round to this way of thinking, as you yourself have said.
Your group is represented at this Conference and of course, regardless of the position of the Conference, which I think was a unanimous position, from what we have been told, you could have tabled a motion for a resolution without being bound by the Conference of the Presidents of the political groups.
Mr President, the decision of the Conference of Presidents was not unanimous.
I was representing my own group and I very firmly opposed the decision.
In my opinion, the Conference of Presidents was not entitled to take this decision as it contradicts the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Berthu, as you can understand, I am not here to answer on behalf of the Conference of Presidents of the political groups.
There are presidents of the political groups here, who could take up the matter.
But my impression is that this debate is now closed.
Mr President, this was an initiative by the Green Group in the European Parliament because, although the novel foods regulation has been in force since 15 May, the Commission has been keeping us waiting, saying that there would also be provisions for genetically modified maize and soya.
But what has happened? Nothing!
When are you finally going to stop your delaying tactics towards consumers and towards this Parliament?
How much longer do you intend to keep consumers in the dark? When are the Commission and the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs finally going to agree on clear labelling of maize and soya?
Mrs Cresson, I see that you are with us today.
In other contexts we are always hearing about the latest progress in genetic engineering. Why has DNA analysis not been accepted, when it is very much state-of-the-art?
Why has the Commission suggested protein analysis, which is very old-fashioned?
Are we to believe the rumours that only a voluntary agreement by industry is planned?
What is happening about baby food?
Are we going to endorse the Scientific Committee for Food's opinion and exclude novel foods from baby food, including maize and soya? Why does the Commission not let the producers come up with the analysis method?
Why are millions of ecus of taxpayers' money being wasted, with the analysis methods being funded from the public purse?
Why can you not make a proposal at last?
When is the proposal on additives, flavourings and enzymes coming?
When is the veil of secrecy finally going to be lifted? When can consumers and we here in this House expect a meaningful proposal on the labelling of genetically modified maize and soya products, which is what both we and consumers want?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we put this topic on the agenda because we wanted to make sure that something was finally done.
The Commission then brought forward a proposal on 3 December, after we had already set the wheels in motion.
I have looked at the explanatory statement for the regulation, which was adopted without reference to the Parliament, as the joint Committee for Foodstuffs is responsible for it.
I was amazed.
We have been arguing with the Commission for nearly half a year, and the Commission has always said that it was not necessary to adopt a special regime.
Now, in points 8, 9 and 20 of its explanatory statement it has used precisely the argument that we have always put forward.
I do not quite understand that.
I am grateful that the Commission has now seen its way to doing this, but I would like the Commission to explain to me why it battled for so long against the Parliament's ideas.
We naturally support the DNA checking envisaged by the Commission, subject - as Mrs Breyer has just commented - to the analysis method to be used for this check being prescribed at the same time.
This is the only way to make this proposal practicable and to ensure that proper information is forthcoming.
The European Commission's Standing Committee on Foodstuffs had a very intensive session on this proposal yesterday involving the Member States, and it now looks as if the Commission and Council will make a decision in January.
This will clear the way, at least in the case of the labelling of genetically modified soya beans and genetically modified maize, for the provisions of the Regulation adopted on 19 September 1997, which came into force on 1 November 1997, but whose implementation subsequently had to be delayed until 1 February 1998, to be implemented by the Member States by the new deadline.
We welcome all this, but why has it taken so long?
However, I have a few more questions for the Commission.
First of all, I would be grateful if the Commissioner could tell us something about the outcome of yesterday's meeting of the Committee on Foodstuffs.
My second question is this: this year's soya and maize harvest in the USA has finished, but we can assume that genetically modified products are already on the way to Europe or are even already in Europe.
What is the Commission's estimate of the risk that genetically modified maize and genetically modified soya will be exported to Europe mixed with conventional products, without the necessary approval for marketing in the countries of the European Union under Part C of the 1990 Directive?
How many applications for such marketing approval have been submitted to the European Commission?
How will the Commission ensure that a decision can be reached in good time on all pending applications for marketing approval?
Does the Commission have an idea of the extent of deliveries of such organisms to Europe from the USA and Canada? How does the Commission rate the risk of trade conflicts with our North American trading partners, if products cannot be marketed in the European Union without approval for the parts containing genetically modified organisms?
I am conscious, Commissioner, that you are probably not in a position to answer all my questions in detail today.
But I would like to put these questions to you and I would be grateful if they could be answered by the beginning of January.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, we have put these oral questions to you today because we think that the Parliament needs to be provided with comprehensive information on genetically modified foodstuffs at an early stage, and certainly at an earlier point than is usually the case.
The fact that you were unable to arrange for the Regulation to come into force on 1 November because the provisions required for implementation were not available, and that you therefore had to delay this until February, was bad not only for consumers in Europe, but also for European industry.
In the case of foodstuffs to be distributed within the internal market, uniform regulations about labelling as a whole are needed before these foodstuffs are produced.
This is necessary both for industry and for consumer protection.
I fail to understand why this has taken so long, given that the novel foods regulation was finalized in the Conciliation Committee over a year ago, that it has been in force since May and that it has been clear since then that transitional arrangements would have to be made for maize and soya.
I would also suggest that we should consider now, before the new agreement between the institutions comes into force in early summer next year, whether the Parliament could be given information earlier and more promptly, so that it does not have to go to great lengths to have proposals drawn up for discussion in the Commission's Standing Committee on Foodstuffs.
What I would like you to tell me, since you are responsible for science and for the Joint Research Centre, is the following: what progress has been made on work to develop an analysis method that can be used throughout the Union to test for genetic modification of DNA, and to what extent is the Joint Research Centre involved with this work, given that it has already developed analysis methods for a whole string of food products using ring tests, thus ensuring uniformity within the Union, rather than leaving things to chance? I do not think that we can just leave this decision to industry alone.
In this connection, I would like to ask you another question, Madam Commissioner. Would it not be more meaningful, instead of introducing a scheme whereby a product can be marked 'may contain genetically modified ingredients' , to determine a threshold value and stipulate that the labelling 'genetically modified foodstuff' or 'non genetically modified foodstuff' can only be used above that threshold?
In Austria we had a case of contamination.
It is particularly easy for soya and maize transported in railway wagons to be contaminated, even it is only by 1 %, so it is better to say that there is a threshold value than to label something with 'may contain' and make consumers uncertain.
Madam Commissioner, I think all these questions will have to be answered very quickly if we really want the arrangements to be adopted by all Member States in February and implemented by industry then.
It is high time that a proposal to this effect was brought forward covering everything that the consumer needs to know and everything that industry needs for producing and labelling its products.
Mr President, I too am sorry about the delay over such a delicate subject, that involves not only the world of production, science and consumers, but also our ethical image, at least since the European Parliament has assumed the right of arbitrator and judge even in such delicate matters that affect the health of European citizens at close quarters.
I have to say that, even when this regulation is adopted, I honestly do not think that it will arouse great enthusiasm, if we listen to the alarms that are sounding among the European citizens, alarms that are saying, among other things, that, if the labelling rules proposed by the Commission are adopted, particularly for food products based on transgenic soya and maize, we will only regulate 30-40 % of products based on genetically modified maize and soya and the rest will not be controlled or labelled.
According to the Commission's draft regulation, only products with proteins checked and analyzed with the current methods of analysis will necessarily be labelled as genetically modified soya- or maize-based products.
Many people, even in scientific circles, raise doubts on this point as to the validity of these methods and their suitability for the new methods which, on the contrary, production science is introducing.
There is one other consideration: the draft regulation excludes all food additives, aromas and extraction solvents and we know very well that substances derived from soya, even genetically modified, are present in foods, in chocolate, in margarine, but we should not forget, for example, that in pharmacology too soya is indicated as a useful substance for use against cholesterol, the disease of the century, and so you can imagine the harm that would be done to health, rather than the improvements, if the soya lecithin failed to be of the required quality.
We also wish to recall that European citizens have great expectations on this matter.
In a recent survey, 90 % of consumers expressed great concern, but also great expectations as to what the Commission will be able to offer.
That is why I once again wish to raise the two questions contained in the document drawn up by my group, Union for Europe.
Can the Commission tell us why it has not yet communicated the regulations to be followed? Finally, what are the provisions to be observed for a better implementation of the citizen's right to be informed?
We can add these uncertainties to the others surrounding the food world, we can once again raise the problem of BSE, as well as the recent questions on extra virgin olive oil, and no-one will ever know how much is virgin! And, finally, with wine additives, and so on, we can frankly say that the next Christmas Eve dinner could become a cause for concern more than joy.
Best wishes!
Mr President, could you please ask the Commissioner to pay attention while we are speaking; it makes communication easier.
It is not only the consumer and industry who continue to be confused about the use of genetically modified organisms in food.
The European Parliament, all of us here, also frequently have to ask for clarification.
Hence the debate this morning.
It is becoming increasingly clear to me that the Commission is still not quite sure what policy to follow as regards genetically modified organisms.
It produces regulations with timetables which industry not only finds difficult, but which leave it at a loss, too.
The most important question this morning is why the Commission did not produce the regulations for implementation earlier: it has taken this long for there to be a temporary proposal.
For industry a somewhat unworkable situation has arisen, with many uncertainties. More importantly, the there is still no guarantee for the consumer when buying products, as to whether they contain genetically modified ingredients or not.
Therefore my group feels that the situation which has arisen is unacceptable.
Labelling is extremely important.
We believe in free choice for consumers as long as the labelling provides them with sufficient information.
Consumers will have to be able to decide for themselves whether to buy genetically modified foods or not.
It is up to the Commission to ensure that information on labels becomes statutory, and that it can be established by means of a reliable method whether a product contains genetically modified organisms.
It is this method which has caused so much confusion.
Initially, a majority of Member States, and the Commission itself, appeared to opt for the so-called protein method, and yet in the recent proposal the Commission suddenly chose the DNA method - also to the amazement of the Standing Committee for Food which met yesterday, or so I heard.
It looks as if the recent draft regulation is too unclear for industry to be able to start labelling products in a responsible way.
I would therefore like the Commission to explain why it opted for this new method, and to hear when it intends the implementing regulation to come into force.
To put it mildly, Mr President, it is well overdue, and I ask the Commission once more to fulfil its responsibilities at last, because it has been extremely remiss.
Mr President, I think at this stage in the debate, in the light of the contributions by other Members who have expressed their concern, which is no more than the concern of ordinary people, there is little more to be said and I do not intend to waste the time I have.
We had also submitted a question which basically expresses the same concern as our fellow-Members' questions, and that is: why do we not put these implementing measures into practice, why do we not have analyses approved at European level, and why do we not have proper labels which will enable consumers to choose?
The United States says that the European Union is putting obstacles in the way of importing genetically-modified products and that the European Union bases its actions more on public opinion than on scientific evidence.
We think the anxiety manifested in European public opinion is reasonable.
It has become sensitive as a result of other food problems.
But in addition to that, the recent approval of the possibility of producing genetically-engineered maize in France gave rise to the publication in the Spanish press, and I think in the European press, of the statement that this maize will contain three genes: one with a toxic product to deter insects, another that has a product which is resistant to antibiotics, and a third which has a product which is tolerant to herbicides.
It is reasonable for European public opinion - and any opinion - to be concerned about the effects on health of any of these products.
For these reasons proper labelling and an appropriate implementation are essential.
Madam Commissioner, it is probable that the change taking place in DG XXIV to safeguard the safety of food is a step in the right direction, since there is provision for a risk analysis unit whose basic objective is to analyze the risks to human health that each of these products represents.
In any event, Madam Commissioner, I believe that all our fellow-Members here have expressed a reasonable concern on the part of the people of the European Union, who do not want to take the risk of consuming products which are a health risk.
Mr President, our group has twice asked the European Parliament to take a clear stance by voting on a resolution relating to food safety for our fellow citizens: once on the issue of genetically modified organisms and once on that of mad cow disease.
Twice this request has been refused, contrary to the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Berthu has just highlighted this very serious irregularity.
So it seems particularly strange that the correspondent from Le Monde, Mr Scotto, in his account of 18 December, omits precisely the two parliamentary initiatives - the only ones we are aware of - calling for our Assembly to accept its responsibilities on these two critical questions during the present session.
As regards genetically modified organisms, how can we fail to note that the decisions taken by the Commission are largely in line with the economic interests of transnational seed producers? It is impossible to ignore that pressure from America has influenced your authorization of the commercialization of genetically modified soya beans and maize, without even demanding the traceability necessary to protect the consumer thoroughly.
Today, transgenic beetroot pulp has been marketed in the Netherlands even though its commercialization was banned.
Who is responsible for this situation in legal terms, Commissioner? The company Monsanto, which organizes trials, the Netherlands sugar producer, CSM, or the Commission which gave its authorization?
On November 27, the French government gave the green light to the cultivation of transgenic maize which is resistant to the "pyrale' (a lepidopterous insect), and which possesses an auxiliary resistance gene to the antibiotic ampicillin.
Mr Kouchner, who is co-author of a resolution which asked for genetically modified organisms to be banned when he was still a member of our House, also gave his approval for this type of maize with the support of Mrs Voynet, Minister for the Environment, contradicting the express recommendations of the French committee of prevention and precaution;
Who will be responsible, Commissioner, if, in the months to come, it is proven that the gene which is resistant to ampicillin can be transmitted to bacteria in the digestive tract? Will it be the French government, the company which asked for authorization or the Commission which gave the initial authorization?
We can only be sure of one thing: that you have thrown caution to the wind.
It seems it is necessary to set up a committee to reflect on these issues within our Parliament, to enable a real democratic debate to develop on the environmental and human health risks which could result from the use of genetically modified organisms.
It seems to me that we are playing at sorcerer's apprentice and at the same time we are trying to keep a good conscience about it by providing consumers with labelling which is falsely reassuring.
Let's be honest, Mr President, does the fact that we are not voting on this resolution after the debate not prove that our Parliament is trying to escape its responsibilities and to off-load them on to civil servants?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to be with you today and to have the opportunity to clarify the situation regarding the labelling of food products which come from genetically modified soya beans or maize.
This is of course a very complex subject and I may not be able to meet your expectations and answer all your questions. However, if you are in agreement, we will use this session to review the Commission's position, since you - quite rightly - have put questions to it on this issue.
I will not go back over the history of the case, since you are as familiar with it as I am, but I will respond directly to your questions which in some cases deal with the same issue.
Firstly I will address the first series of questions about the legal situation at the time of the entry into force on 1 November 1997 of the Commission's Regulation CE 1813/97 from September 19, 1997.
Regulation 1813/97 which came into force on 1 November establishes rules for additional labelling for food and ingredients which are produced from genetically modified soya and maize.
This regulation applies directly to all Member States and therefore it cannot be considered that there would be any shortcomings on this issue.
Operators are bound, as of 1 November, to label their products which are not equivalent within the meaning of article 2 of Regulation 1813/97/EEC.
As regards the adoption of detailed labelling rules for these foods or ingredients, the Commission, at the meeting of the Permanent Committee on Foodstuffs on 31 July 1997 undertook to present them as soon as possible; it also indicated on this occasion that it would consult the Scientific Committee on Human Diet for its opinion on the concept of non-equivalence which had been put in place by the regulation mentioned above.
This consultation and the desire to work together with interested parties, as well as the evaluation of different approaches which could be used, all explain the time we needed to take before adopting the relevant draft regulation.
And so I can fully appreciate the impatience felt by some of you which is entirely justified, but this method of proceeding obviously required a certain amount of time.
Another series of questions refer to the interpretation of the concept of non-equivalence and, more particularly, to the criteria selected to trigger the labelling of food produced from genetically modified soya beans and maize.
Article 2 of Regulation 1813/97/EC, which repeats article 8 of Regulation 258/97/EC relating to novel food products, states that the final consumer must be informed of all food characteristics or properties, such as composition, nutritional value or the nutritional effects, or the use for which it is intended, stating that a food product or ingredient is no longer equivalent to a food product or ingredient which already exists.
As a result, the foodstuffs and ingredients produced from genetically modified soya bean or from genetically modified maize which are not equivalent to their traditional counterparts are subject to labelling requirements.
The key concept of non-equivalence has been defined as evidence of a scientifically demonstrable difference which goes beyond the natural admissible variations.
At the same time, on 23 July 1997 the Commission made public these general guidelines on labelling for modern biotechnology. They recommend, on the one hand, labelling requirements when the origin of a product can be scientifically verified as GMO, that is "genetically modified organism' , and on the other hand the need to define clear rules for labelling to enable official controls to be carried out which are reliable, reproducible and practicable.
If we take into account both the concept of non-equivalence, and the approach recommended by these Commission guidelines, it appeared at this stage that the presence, in foodstuffs and ingredients of foodstuffs, of DNA resulting from genetic modification is the criteria which responds best to the requirements mentioned above.
Therefore on this basis the Commission approved, on 3 December, a draft regulation which established detailed regulations for labelling which apply to foodstuffs and ingredients made from genetically modified soya beans or maize.
This draft was discussed in the Permanent Committee on Foodstuffs on 18 December and proposed for voting in this committee in mid-January.
I should tell you that, at the Permanent Committee on Foodstuffs which met on 18 December to exchange views on the draft proposed by the Commission, a majority of Member States was opposed the draft!
They prefer the protein criterion and the establishment of a list of products to be included on labels before the products to be included on the list are specified.
This draft regulation proposes that the foodstuffs and ingredients produced from genetically modified soya beans or maize which contain DNA resulting from a genetic modification are not equivalent in the sense of article 2, point A of Regulation 1813/97/EEC and therefore are subject to labelling requirements.
However those which no longer contain DNA, notably due to its destruction by successive stages of processing, are not subject to these requirements since they must be considered to be equivalent to their traditional counterparts.
However, as the possibility has not been scientifically excluded that methods of food production can permit the elimination of all traces of DNA, whilst leaving proteins present, the DNA approach was supplemented in order to cover this case, which is still theoretical.
Moreover, the draft provides for a standard formula for labelling without a possible alternative to facilitate the consumer's selection and information and to avoid different interpretations within the European Union of the possible equivalence of formulas which could create new difficulties in the internal market.
This indication will be formulated as follows, and I quote: ' produced from genetically modified soya ', or, and I quote again 'produced from genetically modified maize' , respectively.
This should appear in the list of ingredients in brackets immediately after the name of the ingredient concerned.
This note could also be added legibly to the bottom of the list of ingredients, printed in characters of at least the same size as those used for the list of ingredients proper.
For those products which do not have a list of ingredients, the necessary information must appear clearly on the product label.
This regulation does not affect the right of operators to include voluntary statements on their product labels in addition to those set out by this regulation, on condition that these statements are in accordance with the clauses of Directive 79/112/EEC, which stipulates that they must not mislead the consumer.
This is also true for statements concerning the absence of foodstuffs or ingredients made from genetically modified soya or maize, or statements concerning the presence of such foodstuffs or ingredients in cases where this cannot be scientifically verified but the proof is available by other means.
The mixture of products which contain genetically modified organisms with conventional products is not banned by the ruling.
However, Council and European Parliament Regulation 258/97/EEC provides for this possibility, notably for bulk deliveries, and states that, in this case, the consumer information on the possible presence of genetically modified organisms in foodstuffs is supposed to satisfy the labelling requirements in the aforementioned regulation.
According to this approach, the draft regulation concerning labelling of foodstuffs and ingredients made from genetically modified soya or maize allows for the possibility of including the following on the label, and I quote: ' may contain, for products in which the presence of material produced from genetically modified soya/maize cannot be excluded, nor be proven' .
In addition, this note conforms to the general guidelines of the Commission on labelling of modern biotechnology.
This formulation will avoid the separation of products and the obligation to test each consignment which may combine these products in different amounts, whilst also enabling the consumer to choose whether to buy these products or not.
In response to the important question which deals with imports of genetically modified products from the United States or Canada, in accordance with the clauses of article 43 of Directive 90/220/EEC, the Member States are bound to see that this directive is observed, in other words they are responsible for monitoring the conformity of products containing genetically modified organisms which appear on the market in the European Union, and must see that the relevant authorities organize inspections and, if necessary, other control measures in an adequate way.
On 3 December, at its twenty-second meeting, the committee responsible for Directive 90/220/EEC requested that the Commission put in place harmonized control and inspection measures.
An ad hoc technical working group for inspections and control measures for genetically modified organisms was set up.
On 16 December, this working group looked at the availability and applicability of specific technical methods to detect or identify genetically modified organisms and their derivative products which would not have been granted authorization for voluntary dissemination with a view to their being put on the market.
Today, thirteen products are the subject of notification within the framework of part C of Directive 90/220/EEC.
During the revision of Directive 90/220/EEC, the Commission decided that any product in the process of being authorized under the current directive must undergo an examination by the relevant scientific committees before being approved by the Member States in the regulation committee for this directive.
As the opinions of the scientific committees will not be available until the end of January and as it would be appropriate to follow the procedure of the regulation committee for Directive 90/220, it seems unlikely that the Commission envisages the adoption of these authorization decisions before mid-March 1998.
Between the fourth term of 1996, the date of the first change, and 31 May 1997, it has been indicated that 8, 300, 000 tonnes of soya beans and 650, 000 tonnes of soya powder entered Europe from the United States. 2 % of this originated from genetically modified organisms, in other words 166, 000 tonnes of soya beans and 13, 000 tonnes of soya powder.
Imports of Novartis maize made up some 0.6 % of the total maize imports from the United States (4, 422 tonnes).
The Commission has always endeavoured to ensure that Community legislation conforms with international obligations and this means that the risk of disagreement on commercial matters is avoided as far as possible.
It is not the role of the Commission to comment upon the interpretation of the rules of international business as provided by our commercial partners, nor upon their opinions on the conformity of European Union legislation with the above rules.
So, ladies and gentlemen, I have responded to your serious questions as best I can.
It is clear that the debate will not end here.
However I would like to say that the Commission is very vigilant.
Of course the various consultations take time, but we will continue to work on this together, I hope - even though there are differences within the Member States as we have seen in this last session - and we will unite our efforts to reach a universally satisfactory solution.
I would like to thank Mrs Cresson for her clarification of the position.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner. Even if the various opinions expressed do not always totally coincide, the European Parliament seems to consider that it has already said the last word on the need for clear and full labelling of foodstuffs and ingredients affected by genetic engineering.
If that were true, today's debate would be superfluous and a repetitive waste of time.
However, my view and that of my group is that this debate is urgently needed.
We are unhappy about the way the Commission is handling the sensitive subject of labelling genetically modified foods and the scant regard it pays - sometimes at least - to Council and Parliament regulations.
We as Members of the European Parliament are being criticized from all quarters when it is the Commission which is actually at fault.
The European Commission has let our citizens down by causing confusion about the labelling of genetically modified foods.
It is not acceptable to stipulate justifiably demanded labelling requirements in a regulation and then not implement the regulation.
As a consumer, I assumed back at the beginning of this year that we had passed a turning point with the novel foods regulation.
I assumed that novel, and in particular technically modified, foodstuffs would be clearly and fully labelled.
Not a bit of it!
The relevant products containing genetically modified maize and soya are no longer considered new.
The attempt to improve matters by means of the Regulation that came into force on 1 November has not helped.
It does not include the guidelines on implementation needed to ensure a uniform protection level throughout the European Union and legal certainty for manufacturers and traders.
And it gets worse.
Regulation 81/13 will not even come into force, instead it will be replaced by a further amended version.
How can you explain all this to the average consumer? Madam Commissioner, I believe that the type of labelling that you have described is correct.
But you have not answered the following questions: why could it not actually come into force on 1 November, given that we had been discussing the novel foods regulation and labelling for over five years? There was time enough for preparatory discussions and clarification, even if it was not quite clear at the outset what form it would take.
But it was always evident that labelling would and must come. So why was that not possible?
Why is it not possible until 1 February or even March, when so many new products will already be on the market? If this regulation does come into force then, will it apply to products which are new at that time?
This issue has not been resolved at all.
I would ask you not to forget the third point, the problems surrounding methods of detection and analysis.
Suitable methods do in fact exist for detecting genetic modification of maize and soya products.
So even if it is slow to act, the Commission has no justification for denying consumers any longer a comprehensive labelling system consistent across all Member States.
From the consumer's point of view, there is now nothing to stop comprehensive labelling of our food, and it has everything going for it.
That is why my group is being so tenacious about this.
Consumers ought to be making purchasing decisions armed with proper information, not at the mercy of bureaucrats.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we, the European Parliament, decided upon full labelling of novel foods with the implementation of the novel foods regulation, so that consumers would be given the option of making their own purchasing decisions.
I would like to remind you that we resolved to provide consumers with information about all the characteristics and nutritional properties of food products, such as composition, nutritional value and intended use, which distinguish genetically modified food from conventional food.
Labelling of foodstuffs produced using genetic engineering does not amount to some kind of health warning as far as I am concerned.
I see it rather as being essential if society is to accept and trust new technology.
Nevertheless, labelling does give anyone wanting to steer clear of genetically engineered products for any reason the option of deliberately avoiding them.
I should stress again that our overriding concern must be to ensure that consumers are not exposed to nutritional deficiencies or other health risks through the consumption of novel foods and ingredients.
These products should only be put on the market once three requirements have been met: first, these products should not represent any danger to the consumer; second, there should be no attempt to mislead; and third, they should not be so different from conventional foodstuffs that when eaten normally they can result in nutritional deficiencies.
Because of the wide variety of products covered by the novel foods regulation, they generally need to be considered case by case.
The Commission has attempted to set out the arrangements for genetically modified maize and soya in its draft Regulation.
The Commission's proposal stipulates that genetically modified products must always be labelled if they contain genetically modified DNA.
This method is bound to lead to the labelling of more foodstuffs than if proteins only had to be checked.
The label for any foodstuff containing genetically modified DNA or modified proteins must include the following words in the list of ingredients or in another clearly visible place: ' Produced from genetically modified maize/soya' .
Even so, the analysis method suggested by the Commission is not compatible with the novel foods regulation or with the Luxembourg Summit Declaration.
I therefore call upon the Commission to amend its proposal so that the labelling scheme under the novel foods regulation is fully and comprehensively implemented.
Any limitation of the labelling scheme put forward by the European Parliament is unacceptable as far as I am concerned.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, as has been very clearly shown in these talks, the labelling of packaged genetically modified soya and maize has become a serious problem, which could have been avoided by the Commission and which now we must address without delay.
In this respect I consider the Commissioner's response was very timely, although I must say that there are still very many questions left unanswered and there is still a lot of work to be done before we can talk of safety with regard to this very serious matter.
It was obviously a mistake not to have implemented legislation on the new food, before genetic maize or soya came on to the market.
Consequently, these products can now be marketed with no clear labelling on the packaging, which has led to uncertainty, confusion and understandable concern, as different Member States have gone their own way in the matter, which has caused even more confusion.
As Madam Commissioner remarked, the regulation which came into force on 1 November was absolutely vital, but I have to say, the work of the Commission had lagged badly behind, there being no proposals for enforcement.
None at all.
Like many of my colleagues, I cannot but wonder why no proposals or guidance were given before the decree came into force.
Now the situation remains vague and awkward for both industry and the consumer.
Manufacturers do not actually know what they ought to be labelling or how.
We are also still in the dark as to scientific criteria which could decide, for example, whether a genetically modified product corresponds exactly to the original.
Thus, labelling requirements must be brought in for scientific evaluation to take place.
Madam Commissioner, in her response, stressed that the end-user must have clearer information.
We all agree on this, certainly.
The consumer has to have clear and comprehensible information on the quality and content of a product before he or she can make a conscious, free choice.
For this it is essential that labelling is unambiguous and as simple as possible to understand.
Too much detail can obscure what the consumer needs to know.
However, alternative and supplementary labelling can give essential information, especially when a type of food or ingredient might contain a genetically modified product or products, although it cannot be proved with certainty or ignored either.
This, however, must appear on the labelling.
All in all, both the food manufacturer and the consumer have a right to more precise information to increase food safety.
And further research needs to be done on the combined and cumulative effects of genetically modified ingredients and products on the whole food chain.
Mr President, almost a year ago the Parliament approved the work of the Committee on Conciliation on the novel foods regulation.
At that time we were the only group to express any serious reservations and indeed we then voted against the regulation.
And now, one year later, I see that our reticence, which was more than just reticence - a serious criticism in fact - has turned out to be justified.
The Commissioner has confirmed what we said: that the notion of substantial equivalence was completely confusing and ill-defined.
What is a foodstuff which is substantially equivalent?
We still do not know this today and our fears have been confirmed.
Secondly, as regards labelling, article 8 of this regulation was riddled with deficiencies and today these seem even more blatant than they were a year ago.
Of course I do not necessarily mean to say that we are the heroes of the piece, but I am delighted that everyone is now saying the same thing as us.
As regards the situation today, we can confirm that we are in a legal vacuum, and on this I cannot agree with Mrs Cresson.
We have a legal vacuum now, because we do not know what this substantial equivalent is.
We are struggling to keep up with a high-speed train, and we have no hope of catching it unless we make some radical changes.
Consequently, I would like to draw attention to the fact that consumers have never asked for genetically modified foods.
Amongst my acquaintances, I know of no consumer who wishes to have genetically modified foodstuffs, especially those modified to resist herbicides.
And what of the scientists? Well, one year on, many scientists are posing new questions and raising new doubts: notably, herbicide tolerance means that the vegetables concerned accumulate these herbicides within their organisms.
Not a word has been said about this!
There is nothing in the regulations, we do not know what this could do to our health, nor do we know what effect it could have on the environment.
Two Member States, Luxembourg and Austria took a courageous stance.
I note that others are now hesitating and questioning their original ideas.
NGOs and health and environmental associations are stepping up their intervention against the situation.
So what has the Commission to say today? I would like to thank Mrs Cresson for making a speech which was perfectly correct, at least as regards information, for now we are up to date.
But she is proposing labelling based on the detection of modified DNA or modified proteins.
But how many foodstuffs will be labelled which are made from genetically engineered soya and maize? I would like to know the exact figure!
I can report that the 2 % of genetically modified soya in the consignments imported from elsewhere, according to my information sources, will be around 15 % this year.
Soya consignments are already here and so is the next crop, so the problem is growing.
We still haven't solved the problem of additives, flavouring and extraction solvents.
And so my conclusion is that we are about to make a big mistake by adopting a method based on the analysis of finished products.
What we need - and it is our leitmotiv - is a system of certification of origin with product traceability so we can give the consumer real information about the origins of and about the use of genetic engineering in the products which end up on his or her plate.
I think this is essential.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, genetically modified organisms have entered the European Union and the Parliament can only lament this state of affairs.
In this context, the labelling motion is only a minimal measure.
Two aspects of this question should make us increase our vigilance. Firstly, labelling of genetically modified organisms and the observance and control of this, secondly, the circulation of living genetically modified organisms, their cultivation and the risks which they could spell out for the environment of which we are an integral part.
As far as labelling is concerned, we know that in order to inform the consumer we need the means by which to detect genetically modified organisms in a product and we need to be able to measure genetically modified organisms.
And yet, in spite of the excellent account you provided, Madam Commissioner, notably concerning the DNA approach, recent highly credible scientific articles reveal that the methods which enable us to check foodstuffs have not been perfected, indeed they are very expensive and depend greatly on information provided by the inventors.
And - let us not delude ourselves - any research done blindly will be very dangerous.
I do not wish to be a prophet of doom, but I think that this regulation which my group will approve because it is necessary to do so, will be hard to apply.
Basically, as regards the distribution of genetically modified organisms, both they and transgenesis have created a situation never before known in human history: man's introduction of modified genes into cultivated plants, and indirectly into wild plants.
Although the risks of cross-fertilization are slim for maize, which has no equivalent in the wild, at least within Europe, the same cannot be said for rape-seed, which is related to the cabbage plant and the mustard plant, nor for soya which belongs to the legume family for which the risk of cross-fertilization is absolutely guaranteed.
Furthermore, the introduction of insect-resistant genes will make parasites more and more resistant, until eventually we find ourselves without any further biological defences.
Let's not allow ourselves to be overwhelmed too easily by these techniques in the name of the progress which benefits a few multinationals, without having really measured their effects and without applying the indispensable principle of caution.
This is what European consumers want - and they are quite right in this.
My fear is that the labelling in question will be like a plaster on a wooden leg.
Creating separate procedures for genetically modified organisms seems somewhat unrealistic to anyone who knows the least thing about production, transport, stocks and the processing of agricultural products.
In five years' time, genetically modified organisms will be everywhere, in our vegetables and cereals, all in the name of the sacrosanct globalization of trade.
So, to ensure that European consumers can still aspire to the legitimate choice of natural foodstuffs, the least the European Union can do for now is to support biological production consistently.
In the meantime, let's follow Austria's example with its labelling policy.
Mr President, in the short time I have I would just like to say that the whole area surrounding the labelling of genetically modified foods is one of the greatest challenges we face today in the European Union.
We must be prepared to face the maximum challenge from those countries, especially America, who quite clearly have a vested interest in developing and promoting this new area.
I personally am opposed to such a policy being adopted within the European Union.
We do not need this new technology to produce more food into a market which is already oversupplied.
As someone who has had first-hand experience of the BSE crisis where ingredients were placed in compound feed which were not up to the standard one could have had expected, I find it hard to believe we are now going to create a new monster with genetically modified food.
I do not believe there is any demand anywhere in the European Union for the widespread use of this genetically modified food.
I feel we must exercise extreme caution in any decisions relating to this area.
We must also ensure that grain or any other material developed in this area is not imported into the European Union.
Mr President, I am very glad that this debate is taking place this morning.
I am also very happy that, while exercising maximum caution in the approach to genetically modified foods, this Parliament is prepared to move substantially from the totally negative position adopted by most MEPs two years ago.
Against this more open-minded background, I wish to make a few points.
Firstly, from the environmental viewpoint, the use of varieties which genetic alteration has made more resistant to soil-borne and air-borne diseases has drastically reduced the need for herbicides, fungicides and other chemical plant protection product which leave very damaging residues in the soil.
These genetically modified varieties will make decisive contributions to feeding the world's rapidly growing population.
Secondly, genetically modified foodstuffs are now a fact of life, whether we like it or not, in the US and Japan, and have been tested over multi-generation cycles, have been cleared for safety and efficacy and, indeed, have long since entered the food chain and the international food-trading market.
Thirdly, genetic engineering is achieving, in a very short period, even better results than plant breeders could achieve through conventional propagation and crossing methods over years of trials, thus enhancing food values, proteins, starches, oil contents and yields and, most importantly, offering the prospect of better uptake of soil nutrients, thus requiring less fertilizer.
However, this debate is about labelling.
I recognize that decisions have already been taken but labelling may well be only a short-term or, at least, a medium-term solution to the use of genetically modified products.
I am not sure about its long-term value.
It seems to me to have two fundamental flaws.
Firstly, labelling food such as soya beans, which are used in thousands of food preparations, is not practical.
Sometimes very small quantities of soya are used, for example in sauces and soups.
These small quantities are further diluted to almost non-existence.
Labelling in this type of circumstance would be meaningless and, in any event, would be impossible to identify or evaluate in any test.
If it is not possible to measure, then the rule on labelling will be brought into disrepute.
Secondly, establishing special labelling requirements for products which have been fully tested and found to be completely safe, seems wrong to me and makes bad law.
Either there is something wrong with the foods in question, in which case they should be banned, or they are safe, in which case no special rules are required.
Genetic modification has been part of food production since the beginning of agriculture.
Cattle breeds are different because the gene pool to which they belong has been modified through selection for certain characteristics.
Genetic modification by itself is not harmful and it is wrong for us to confuse the public by suggesting that it is.
Finally, I believe that within an ever-increasing global market operating under WTO rules, which, by the way, the EU is strongly supporting, this differentiation will become irrelevant, if not a complete nonsense.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the Commissioner said that we need more time, but I would like to say that the time is already up.
Developments in industry and research have actually overtaken us politicians.
Consumers have every right to know what they are eating.
History proves that.
We have the BSE crisis behind us, or at least mostly behind us, and we have the experience of that crisis.
It is therefore natural that there are demands like this on the part of consumers.
As the people's representatives, we must ensure that consumers get reasonable information.
The question, however, is whether it is realistic at all today to think that we can have a comprehensive labelling system.
I would very much like to elaborate on what Mr Lannoye said about equivalence.
We still do not know what is equivalent to ordinary food.
The problem is also that we already have so many genetically modified organisms in the system that we will soon be forced to put labels on almost all food, at least all complex foods, to say they may contain genetically modified organisms.
That is not, of course, satisfactory, because for a long time consumers have been saying that they want to know when genetically modified organisms are included and, if they are, how dangerous it is.
We have not been able to give answers to these questions.
On the other hand, I would also like to pick up on a little of what Mr Gillis talked about, namely that we have in fact worked on modifying the genes in crop plants and domestic animals since we left the hunter-gatherer stage around 10, 000 years ago.
We have always looked for strange plants which could be better than those we have.
The very existence of maize is an example of this.
We heard Mrs Barthet-Mayer say that maize has no cousins.
No, instead it is by some kind of strange chance that we grow maize; it should not really have existed, but even nature is very strange sometimes.
I believe it is important for European agriculture for us to be able to use the same means of production, the same methods of production as other countries in order to remain competitive in the long term.
But if we are to use gene modification in our production, consumers have to be able to feel safe, otherwise it is impossible.
Through tardiness and a lack of clarity, consumers, producers and scientists are all now in a quagmire in which consumers do not know what is dangerous, and producers and scientists do not know what it is they should be looking for.
Mr President, I am sorry to say 'I told you so' , but the Green Group in the European Parliament argued back in January that we could not vote for this regulation without an implementing regulation, because it would not then be sufficiently clear how it would be implemented.
If you buy a pig in a poke, as our colleagues here have done, then you should not be surprised if you end up with a mess.
If think it is shameful, Madam Commissioner, how the wishes of consumers have been trampled upon.
You have not made it clear today when labelling will be required.
You have again brought equivalence into the debate, which makes me worry that a little back door is being kept open to mislead consumers.
Nor have you said when there will be clear labelling for additives, flavourings and enzymes.
In the absence of such labelling, over 80 % of these foodstuffs will still be subject to secrecy, even if there is DNA analysis, and that cannot be in the interest of consumers. We have to be open with them and offer them the option of making up their own minds for or against.
Mrs Schleicher also asked which products had been notified and approved under the novel foods regulation.
Madam Commissioner, in your reply you referred to the directive on deliberate release - but that was not the question.
May I therefore ask you once again which products have already been notified and which other products we can expect in the near future besides genetically modified maize and soya.
Nor did you reply to our question about positive labelling.
There are a great many industrial companies and traders who would like to meet consumers' desire for clear labelling, including labelling of products that have not been genetically modified.
Just when can we expect labelling criteria to be available for these products?
Now to my last point. Mrs Cresson, you told us that there is no labelling regulation because the Member States opposed it.
I think that you should name the guilty men, the Member States who were against it, so that we in the European Parliament can cooperate with those Member States who are in favour to win over the ones continuing to block consumer protection and ride roughshod over health protection.
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in Austria genetic engineering is meeting widespread resistance.
The scale of this protest is evident from a petition for a referendum which was supported by 1.3 million people.
Consequently, the Austrian government has in the past reacted extremely sensitively to EU regulations which make it easier to use and release genetically modified plants.
The reason for this often justified mistrust is no secret - genetic modification affects a clearly visible part of our citizens' lives, their food.
Consumers want to know what they are eating, otherwise they lose faith in food products.
To prevent this happening, an important step is to create a system for labelling genetically modified foods so that all consumers can immediately see what they are putting on their children's plates.
It must say on the outside what is inside, it is that simple.
That is why I wonder if it is not tantamount to deceiving consumers if labelling is only required once a discernible amount of modified proteins is present, that is, above a specific limit value.
Should labelling be compulsory as soon as there is a difference from natural products, or only once the difference is detectable? As genetically modified products are in any case supposed to be an exception, I would also like to know when there will be positive labelling for conventional products as well, or whether a comprehensive and panEuropean uniform labelling system is envisaged only for modified products.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have listened to your comments on this very important subject with great interest and would like to thank you for your part in this discussion.
I have occasionally had the impression that what I said was not always heard - maybe because this is a passionate debate, and rightly so since it concerns a fundamental issue such as public health.
So I will repeat what I said earlier, that is that operators are bound, as of 1 November, to label products which are not equivalent within the meaning of article 2 of Regulation 1813/97/EEC.
Clearly it is up to Member States to check that these products are labelled.
In response to what has just been said, there is no threshold.
As soon as there is even a trace, labelling is obligatory, even if the trace is not very clear.
The indications have been formulated clearly, as follows, and I quote: ' Produced from genetically modified soya or produced from genetically modified maize' .
It could not be clearer.
Only a trace is required, there is no threshold amount.
And this formula which clearly explains, in sufficiently large letters, that the foodstuff is produced from genetically modified maize or soya seems sufficiently clear to me.
Just now, someone said that there were no positive indications.
But this is not the case, and I said so earlier.
There are positive indications for the statements concerning the absence of foodstuffs or ingredients produced from genetically modified soya or maize, or the statements concerning the presence of a certain foodstuff or ingredient in cases where this is not scientifically verifiable and the proof is available by other means.
We have also looked to provide positive indications.
In response to other observations, I would like to say that labelling does not concern the finished product, but the ingredients.
So, each time an ingredient containing - I will say it again - simply a trace of a substance which can be considered as having been genetically modified is found in an end product, this information will be provided on the label.
The Commission has chosen the criterion which is most scientifically reliable - DNA - and which is also the most product-specific.
Unfortunately this point of view is not shared by the Member States, as we have seen during the meeting which has just been held.
So it is true that the discussions of the Member States run the risk of prolonging the debate.
Of course this regulation will be hard to apply, as mentioned earlier.
It will be hard to apply because this is a difficult area, but we must proceed in a scientific way in order to develop methods of detection.
Science never stops moving forward hand in hand with the new discoveries that are made, and we can observe both the positive aspects of this and sometimes, fatally, the negative aspects.
However this is the crux of the problem, and in my opinion it will remain the big issue in the years to come.
During the last few decades there has been total confidence in science, but this is no longer the case.
Science and the progress it makes - which is clear from the prolongation of human life - can also bring threats.
Consumers must be informed about these threats and in this I share your viewpoint completely.
So, as far as I am concerned, the Commission - we can always criticize it, it is used to being a sort of scapegoat - has done its duty by stressing to Member States which support the DNA criteria - the broadest criteria - that labelling must be clear, that progress must be made rapidly, and that even if there is only a trace of the product, it should be mentioned.
Of course all this will take time because different committees must meet, because Member States cannot be brought together overnight and because they cannot agree amongst themselves.
So this debate is far from over.
However you can be sure that the Commission will be extremely vigilant in taking precautions where the health of consumers is concerned.
Mr President, I would just like to ask the Commission very quickly if it will seek to establish where infringements of these labelling requirements take place.
If Mrs Cresson wishes to reply, I invite her to speak.
Mr President, I will be happy to respond.
As I said before, it is in fact the Member States which are responsible for the application of the regulation.
So, as far as breaches of the regulation are concerned, the Member States must take action.
Naturally if shortcomings were noted, the Commission would intervene as usual.
The joint debate is now closed.
Interim agreement with Uzbekistan
The next item is the report (A4-0304/97) by Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on theproposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion by the European Community of the Interim Agreement on trade and trade-related matters between the European Community, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the Republic of Uzbekistan, of the other part (COM(96)466-10521/96 - C4-0082/97-96/0236(CNS)).
Mrs Mann will deputize for the rapporteur.
Mr President, rapporteurs Wiersma and Mrs Mann have formulated their recommendations to enter into an interim trade agreement with Uzbekistan convincingly.
Such an agreement would contribute to the bringing into effect of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed in July 1996.
The interim agreement contains a reference to a democratic form of government and human rights.
This is goes without saying to us, but the reports we are receiving about it are not positive.
I think that the members of the committee would like the Commission to give us more information about this as soon as possible.
The interim agreement may be able to strengthen European cooperation in achieving the objectives.
Applying sanctions in the event of aggravated violation of human rights remains a possibility.
The question I would like to give some thought to concerns the improvement of the economic situation as a result of the interim agreement.
When I asked a compatriot what he thought of it, he summarized his opinion, based on experience, in one phrase.
He said: trading with Uzbekistan is very smooth, trading in the country is very difficult.
Uzbekistan specializes in exporting raw materials.
We all know when it concerns gas, oil, and so on.
But the balance of payments is largely determined by the price of gold and cotton on the world market.
However, the foreign reserves allow far-reaching reforms in the country itself.
Most European insurers of public credit do not cover Uzbekistan.
In those places where it does happen it does so at the expense of the state.
Inflation remains high, as do interest rates; the banking system leaves something to be desired; the central bank does not appear fully to understand its role, there is little progress in the development of trade; the government's grip on the economy continues to be strong; the market economy is underdeveloped.
Bearing all this in mind we can follow the rapporteur and agree to an interim trade agreement.
Approval of a partnership and cooperation agreement requires much time.
It may take a long time.
The Interim Agreement may nonetheless help to speed up evolution for the better.
This is extremely important for both Uzbekistan and Europe.
Mr President, because of its natural resources such as oil and natural gas, and even more so because of its cotton, Uzbekistan is interesting trade partner.
For political and economic reasons, the country has not been able to benefit much from this potential.
Yet with the rapporteur we support the proposal to strengthen trading relations with Uzbekistan.
There is one stumbling block, however. Fundamental human rights and democracy are more or less ignored in the country.
For this reason we must weigh the matter up very carefully.
The Interim Agreement provides a basis on which to persuade the authorities to assume their responsibilities.
At the same time, trade cooperation might be beneficial for Uzbekistan.
We opt with the rapporteur for approval of the Interim Agreement and suspension of the partnership agreement.
The latter will only be considered when considerable improvements have been made to the legal situation in Uzbekistan.
Our support for the Interim Agreement presupposes that both the Council and the Commission can convince the authorities in Uzbekistan that article 1 is essential for the agreement.
I would ask the Council and the Commission to pay particular attention to the restrictions which the authorities in Uzbekistan impose on Christians.
Legislation forbids proselytizing and only allows religious meetings after official government registration.
A shocking example was the confiscation of 25, 000 bibles by the Uzbekistan Customs at the beginning of the year. These bibles had been donated to the Uzbekistan Bible Society by the Russian and Turkish Bible Societies.
After a long period of conciliation by the European Commission amongst others, these bibles were released, I am glad to say.
I would like to thank Commissioner van de Broek and his cabinet colleagues for their assistance in this "liberation' .
To summarize, it must be clear that considerable improvement in the sphere or religious freedom and other fundamental freedoms in Uzbekistan is required.
We support the Interim Agreement in the hope that it will contribute to this.
Only when fundamental freedoms and democracy have been guaranteed, can we talk of a partnership agreement.
Mr President, the Committee on External Economic Relations unanimously agreed to support Mr Wiersma's report and thus the Interim Agreement, because it considers that it would not only be wrong but also very dangerous to isolate Uzbekistan at a time of serious crisis.
We must take every opportunity to develop this country and to build up a strong relationship with it.
This is not just for economic reasons, although they also suggest the same course.
Uzbekistan has abundant resources of raw materials.
After years of crisis, in 1996 the country experienced a modest growth rate of 1 %.
However, in addition to economic reasons there are important political ones.
Human rights have been mentioned here again and again.
We must of course press for the observance of democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
But we should not forget that Uzbekistan was a central Asian colony first of Russia and then of the Soviet Union, and suffered from classic colonialism, by contrast with the Ukraine, which Mrs Mann and I constantly deal with in the Committee on External Economic Relations, or to Belarus, which gives us serious cause for concern. These are European countries.
Uzbekistan has the classic symptoms of an immediately post-colonial situation: a cotton-based single-commodity economy, over-reliance on world markets, an almost total absence of manufacturing industry, and a need to export raw materials which it cannot make use of itself.
Combined with decades of effective dictatorship under a totalitarian system, this means that we cannot measure this country by our own standards.
That is why I believe that we should refrain from being arrogant and simply say that we should apply the same yardsticks to this country as we would, for example, to an ACP country.
Although the ACP countries already have many years of development and cooperation with Europe behind them, there are of course enormous deficits there too, and democracies are in a minority.
We must therefore conclude this Interim Agreement, and we must develop an intensive dialogue and trading relationship with Uzbekistan. On the other hand, by virtue of the human rights clause and the 'suspension clause', we have an opportunity to use our influence systematically to support democracy, human rights, nationality rights and religious freedom.
I rise to endorse Mr Posselt's comments.
I certainly do not intend to oppose these proposals, but I would nevertheless like to emphasize that we in this Parliament fail to understand just what an enormous influence we can have, and what we can achieve in this area.
I would like to mention in particular the case of Michael Arzinkov.
Because he was an Islamic activist, he had his passport withdrawn and was forbidden to leave the country, and when he demanded his passport back, he was told that he would not be given it until he had submitted to a psychiatric examination.
Mr President, these are the kind of facts that define President Islam Karimov's policies.
As Mr Posselt has quite rightly said, it has to be recognized that this is a people which has been demeaned by years of suppression, so we need to give them our understanding.
However, the fact that after our delegation there intervened the passport was at least returned demonstrates that we can achieve something!
For that reason, it might have a decisive impact if we associated the acceptance of this agreement - which I support - with a statement that there is still an enormous amount of catching up to do on human rights.
This applies above all to religious rights, as Islam is very fiercely repressed there.
For example, the calls of the muezzin are forbidden, a sign of extreme political persecution.
Not to mention the fact that a whole string of leading Islamic figures, such as Mr Nazarov, are constantly locked up or threatened in their own homes, and their families subjected to various pressures.
The same applies to Christians.
For example, the Baptist representative, Mr Rashid Durebayev, has also been tried and may possibly face three years in prison.
It is well known that conditions in these prisons are so fearful that people die from illness or mistreatment in a relatively short time.
So I implore you, let us support this Agreement, but let us also make use of the influence that we can bring to bear.
The case I have quoted demonstrates that Uzbekistan has a capacity for decency not only in religious matters but also on all other problems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission would like to thank the European Parliament and the rapporteur, Mr Wiersma for his report enabling the entry into force of the Interim Agreement with Uzbekistan.
The positive approach to forge ahead thanks to this report, despite the decision to defer a decision on the partnership agreement, is accepted by the Commission.
The objective of the Interim Agreement with Uzbekistan is to enable the implementation of the commercial clauses of the partnership agreement which was signed on 21 June 1996 incidental to the European Council of Florence and pending the ratification of the partnership agreement by the European Parliament and all the parliaments of the Member States.
To date, this partnership agreement has been ratified by the national parliaments of five Member States. They are: Greece, Spain, Austria, Finland and Sweden.
Uzbekistan represents a pole of stability in a region which could prove to be important in geo-strategic terms and which could soon be part of a wider Europe.
It has proven to be a reliable and predictable partner and this has been noted by other partners, such as the United States, Japan and Korea.
Today, Uzbekistan is seeking to strengthen its links with the European Union as a way of affirming its independence, notably from Russia.
The entry into force of the Interim Agreement will enable and will favour the development of commercial relations between the European Union and Uzbekistan.
These are already showing great promise. In the course of 1996, bilateral trade increased by around 30 % compared with the previous year, and Community exports registered a rise of over 60 %, thus consolidating a trade surplus of approximately ECU 180 million.
Furthermore, it is likely that with its population of 22 million and its abundant cotton, gold and natural gas resources Uzbekistan will become an important partner for the European Union during the next few years.
Many of our companies have already taken this on board and are operating over there against stiff competition from companies from America, Asia, Turkey, Iran and other countries.
In this context, a swift entry into force of the Interim Agreement takes on even more significance.
In addition, article 1 of the Interim Agreement contains clauses regarding respect for democracy and human rights.
Several of you mentioned this point, and I would make special mention of the eloquent intervention from Mr von Habsburg whom I thank for his words.
Thanks to these clauses, the Interim Agreement will permit discussion about respect for human rights, and if need be, will exert pressure on the Uzbek authorities if respect for human rights slips in this young and fragile country.
If need be, the Interim Agreement could be used as a lever to push the Uzbek authorities in the right direction.
In reality, the suspension clause included in the Interim Agreement enables the Community to threaten Uzbekistan with suspension of the agreement if the human rights situation deteriorates.
In this instance, the questions relating to human rights could be examined formally by joint committees provided for in the Interim Agreement.
In effect, these joint committees offer the opportunity incidentally to hold political dialogue with the relevant commissioner, Mr van den Broek, with the services of the Commission and with representatives of other institutions.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mrs van Bladel wishes to raise a point of order.
Mr President, as Vice-Chairman for Human Rights I have just received word from the human rights organization in Angola, and this was confirmed by the UN, that people have been tortured and have died in dozens of provinces.
Commissioner Brittan said at the end of the topical debate that human rights form an essential part of the Lomé Convention.
These prisoners run greater risks.
You would give me a much more peaceful Christmas if you were to ask the Commission or the Council to ask all parties in Angola to uphold human rights and observe the peace process.
I would also like to wish you a Happy New Year, Mr President.
Thank you, Mrs van Bladel.
You may rest assured that the whole House shares your concern, that your comments will be recorded in the Minutes and that I will notify the President of our Parliament directly of that concern.
UEFA decisions on Coca-Cola Cup winners
The next item is the statement by the Commission on UEFA's decision not to allow the winners of the Coca-Cola Cup to take part in European cup matches .
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is aware of the problems which UEFA's decision to bar the winners of the Coca-Cola Cup from participating in the UEFA cup causes small and medium-sized clubs which participate in this national competition.
The Commission confirms that it is holding investigations to try to establish the facts in their proper economic context.
These investigations are carried out as appropriate, within the framework of the procedures established by Council Regulation 17 of 6 February 1962.
These procedural rules aim to guarantee the rights of parties to be heard and to give to third parties, whose interests could be affected by a Commission decision, the opportunity to highlight to their observations beforehand.
The Commission has already received the observations of UEFA concerning this complaint and has also had a response to some questions which were put to it to clarify the reasons which formed the basis of the adoption of the rule in question.
The assessment of UEFA's response highlighted the need to ask the Premier League and the Football Association of England to present their comments, both on the complaint and on UEFA's response.
They were also asked to explain why this conflict could not be resolved at a national level.
At the same time, the Football League was called to present its comments on the response from UEFA.
The Commission has not yet received a response from the complainant nor from the two other organizations.
It will not be possible therefore to take a position on the direction to take in this matter until we have assessed thoroughly the arguments of the parties involved.
Owing to the procedural rules which must be respected and the limited resources of the services of DG IV, we do not envisage reaching this position for several months.
In any case, the Commission would like to remind the honourable Members that, in terms of implementing the competition rules of the treaty, it cannot have as its objective to set itself up as arbiter in private conflicts of interest.
It will ensure in the first instance that the public interest is respected, and this is associated with the restoration of a situation which is in accordance in fact and in law with articles 85 and 86 of the treaty.
This action of the Commission as an administrative authority differs from the role of a civil judge whose vocation is to safeguard the subjective rights of private individuals in their reciprocal relationships.
Mr President, Mr Ford, who has raised this issue on a number of occasions, has had to go to Luxembourg to speak so I am speaking on his behalf.
I want to put this into some sort of context.
UEFA were requiring the Premier League in England be reduced from 20 clubs down to 18.
Because they were not prepared to do that, they withdrew the winners of the Coca-Cola Cup, the League Cup, from UEFA's competitions.
The Coca-Cola Cup is, however, the responsibility of the Football League, not the Premier League.
Therefore it seems ridiculous to me to prevent this competition having a team in the UEFA cup when in fact it is the Premier League with whom UEFA has a dispute.
It is grossly unfair and I believe that it is against the letter and the spirit of European law.
But it is not only unfair, it is extremely damaging and I will explain why.
The bigger clubs in England, and I am told by Mr Miller, my colleague from Glasgow, that the same thing applies to Scotland, are sending weakened teams into this competition because they do not see a UEFA place at the end of it.
As a result, you will inevitably get smaller crowds, you will get less television revenue, you will get less sponsorship and as a result of all that there will be an increased financial burden on the smaller clubs.
Now Mrs Cresson was not actually correct in saying that it was the smaller clubs in this competition; certainly clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham, Leeds and so on are in the competition.
But as the competition has evolved, because there is no UEFA place at the end of it, these clubs may well not only send weaker teams but eventually pull out.
That will result in difficulties, problems and financial uncertainty for the smaller clubs.
They are community clubs and there are also jobs at stake as well.
So this might just sound like a football story, but it is a very serious issue.
We think it is grossly unfair, we think it is illegal and we can see that unless something is done quickly - and I hope it is done quickly - some of these smaller clubs, because of the loss of revenue, may actually go to the wall.
We have seen a number of these clubs do so in the past and therefore I would urge the Commission to move as speedily as possible to resolve this issue so that in future in England, in Scotland and perhaps in other parts of the United Kingdom, we get a place for the winners of the Coca-Cola Cup so that the competition is seen as a prestigious competition and we get the proper sort of television sponsorship and money from this competition for the good of all the smaller clubs.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Cresson for her statement.
But I rise to speak in a very similar vein to the remarks by Mr Cunningham.
This may be the last debate of the week and indeed the last debate of the year in this Parliament, but it is not on an obscure or unimportant issue.
It actually touches on matters of major significance to Europe and Europeans: it touches on football.
We deceive ourselves if we think the affairs of this Parliament are of more concern to millions of our citizens than football.
Over the Christmas holiday there will be millions of European citizens going out to watch football.
It is vital and crucial to them.
They - certainly in the United Kingdom - will be looking to this Parliament and the Commission to deal with this problem.
Football is in Europe.
The development of European football competitions not only creates good sport that, again, our citizens enjoy, but it makes Europe more real for many of our citizens.
We in this Parliament, therefore - and I would urge - the Commission have a responsibility to see that football can continue to operate in Europe and that all clubs have an opportunity to participate in European championships.
Football is big business.
We are not just talking about people kicking a leather ball about.
We are talking about very substantial sums of money and big decisions that are going to have serious impact upon the clubs.
We have to make it clear that we are not just talking about little local football clubs.
We are talking about quite significant businesses that now operate in the various football leagues in the United Kingdom.
Where there is professional sport there is a lot of money involved.
The commercial rules that we would expect to apply in other businesses have to be made to apply properly and fairly in football as well.
Having studied this matter it is quite clear, in my view, that UEFA is very definitely abusing its dominant position.
When I contacted them and asked for information, all they were prepared to give me was the address of their lawyer.
That always smacks, to me, of an organization that is not 100 % sure of its position or of its facts.
In Britain, the Football Association and the League both support keeping the Coca Cola Cup winner in the European championship.
Of course football wants and needs a league competition, but we should not forget that the grassroots teams in the lower divisions, who themselves want to participate in European football, like that opportunity.
As Europeans we should say that is good.
But they also need the revenue that comes from the Coca Cola Cup.
It is estimated that something like 20 % of their revenue - some £32 million - comes from the Coca Cola Cup.
If there is not the prize of European football at the end of it then they face the risk of losing television money, of losing Coca Cola sponsorship of that competition.
So it is a serious matter for them.
Most serious of all, I have received today a letter from Portsmouth Football Club.
They say: ' Here at Portsmouth we feel that there should be another place in Europe for the winners of the Coca Cola Cup.
Any move likely to bring pressure on UEFA will get our backing.'
Anything that gets the backing of Portsmouth Football Club gets my backing as well.
Mr President, I am not sure that the Commission fully understands what is at issue here, and I would just like to make it absolutely clear to Mrs Cresson.
One organization - the Football League - is being punished for the actions of another organization - the Premier League - over which it has no control.
That discrimination is contrary to the principles of the Treaty of Rome and the principles of a single market. That is what we must focus on.
As both Mr Cunningham and Mr Perry have quite rightly said, we must not underestimate the economic damage that will come from this decision.
Clearly, playing in a competition, which at the end of the day brings with it a place in Europe, provides a major economic motivation for clubs.
For the very big football clubs such as Manchester United in the United Kingdom perhaps that is not such a motivation.
But clubs such as Bolton Wanderers, for example, need the revenue that could come from a successful cup run and a place in Europe, which is extremely lucrative, because not only does it bring participation and competition, it also brings television rights.
Equally, lesser clubs in the football league, for example Bury Football Club in my constituency, depend on having matches played against the glamour clubs as well as on the prospect of themselves getting through to the final.
If the glamour clubs do not participate, as is a possibility, or send out deliberately weakened teams, clearly they are not going to get the revenue for those matches which they depend on for their survival.
In the light of the Bosman ruling, which I entirely support, the smaller clubs in the United Kingdom are struggling because of the loss of transfer fees.
I hope the Commission will take this with the seriousness it deserves because this is a very important economic matter.
Thank you, Mr Titley, but this presidency, catching today's mood, wishes to say that it regrets that while you nominated Madrid as a great team you forgot to mention the Barcelona Football Club.
In any event, however, I am here to remedy the omission.
I now invite Mr Wynn to speak for one minute.
Mr President, I wish to begin by complimenting Mrs Cresson on containing her laughter when she was reading the script.
I am sure to a lot of people it seems quite comical but it is an extremely serious issue.
To make one other point, for those who are unaware of the issue, this is not an opportunity to give free publicity to Coca Cola in this Chamber.
The question I wish to ask the Commissioner relates to the final comments that she made about the Commission not being the final arbiter in private conflicts - that was what I wrote down from what she said.
Does that mean that, when the Commission gets the information from the parties involved, no action will be taken? Is that what I am going to tell Wigan Athletic supporters?
Thank you very much, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, before the House rises may I take advantage of the privilege I have had of chairing this sitting to remind you that today, coinciding with the end of our work in 1997, the Year against Racism in Europe is also coming to a close in Luxembourg.
Our work has no doubt been far from perfect, but it has positive aspects, and they include the contribution we have made to the fight against racism in the course of this year.
It is also right and proper, ladies and gentlemen, that we should emphasize the fact that the most important contribution has come from European citizens and from non-governmental organizations.
But as we go into 1998, some matters remain outstanding, and one of them is to continue the fight against racism.
We are not so simple as to believe that a year of struggle will remove this ugly phenomenon.
We know it is one which has many causes and we must continue the fight.
Next year too, ladies and gentlemen, our tasks will include the continuation of our work to prepare our home for our new neighbours, that is to say to complete our democratic machinery, and at the same time to spare a thought for those millions of European citizens who have no jobs and tell them that the Luxembourg Council of Europe on employment will not be a matter of mere words, but the beginning of a road that will bring them to a point at which, next year, they can celebrate Christmas and the New Year with the prospect of work ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, I now have the pleasant duty of thanking our assistants in the House for their work this year and at the same time offering them my best wishes, beginning with the ushers, for their ostensibly modest work which they nevertheless carry out with a meticulousness which plays a key role in the smooth running of our Parliament.
I would also like to mention the interpreters...
(Applause) ... those subtle filters who make it possible for us to talk with one another, notwithstanding the fact that we speak 11 different languages, and even sometimes to understand one another; our fellow-workers, the Presidents, to whom, furthermore, an apology is due from some of us Vice-Presidents, myself included, because very often when we take the Chair we spoil their extraordinarily good work.
But, ladies and gentlemen, I think we should also dedicate a few words of affection and gratitude to the workers we do not see.
Firstly, those who prepare the Verbatim Report of Proceedings and who, when we read our speeches afterwards, surprise us by giving the impression that they sounded better than they did to us when we actually spoke, without having altered anything.
And the Info-session officials, who have the wisdom and ability to pick out the best and present it for the scrutiny of public opinion.
But today may I single out one group in particular - our Parliamentary translators.
Ladies and gentlemen, 4, 400 pages are translated in our Parliament every day.
I do mean 4, 400 pages, representing the work of 32 linguists and 18 secretaries.
This is a near-miracle which sometimes means they have to work for many nights at a time.
I think, ladies and gentlemen, that we should send them a message expressing our thanks and congratulations with our Christmas and New Year greetings.
(Applause) And last of all, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my best wishes to you, and thank you for allowing me to chair these Friday sittings, which have been so calm and pleasant, and at the same time so fraternal.
Ladies and gentlemen, a Happy Christmas to you all.
Thank you very much, Mrs Lulling.
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 11.41 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you all a very happy New Year, and declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday 19 December 1997.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of 19 December 1997 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, since we last met we have seen the arrest of former President Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia and the rather shabby treatment which has been dished out to him.
Several governments have asked the Zambian Government to release him or charge him and, at present, he seems to be in a state of limbo.
I should like to ask if you would consider writing a letter to Mr Kaunda, expressing the support of this Parliament, and also to the Zambian authorities voicing similar concerns to other governments?
Thank you, Mr Wynn.
Order of business
The Commission may have the floor, to express their view on this.
Mr President, I wish to simply inform the House that it would be appropriate to put the business down for consideration.
That would serve the interests of this democratic Chamber and also, of course, the requirements of courtesy as far as the Commission is concerned.
Mr President, all I know about this case is what I have read in a few press agency telexes this afternoon.
I think it is important that the European Commission gives an explanation of this in the European Parliament.
I have read that consultation will take place in the confines of the European Commission, at least between the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, and Mr Silguy.
But it is extremely important that we in this Parliament are informed as soon as possible.
So I agree with the question, but I must insist that the European Commission is given the opportunity to define its position.
As you know, the Commission has the right to make a statement, according to Rule 37 of our Rules of Procedure.
Clearly, at least two political groups - the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party - have requested the Commission to avail itself of that right.
I am informed that the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left also support this request.
The Commission will come to its own conclusions, and it is up to them to make that statement when they are ready to do so.
I feel sure it is important for this to be done as soon as possible, for the sake of good relations between Parliament and the Commission.
(The order of business was adopted)
White Paper on railways and rail freight freeways
The next item is the report (A4-0412/97) by Mr Sarlis, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission's White Paper "A Strategy for Revitalizing the Community's Railways' , and the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, "Trans European Rail Freight Freeways' (COM(97)0242 - C40269/97).
Mr President, the Commission's White Paper is a comprehensible, clear and comprehensive text and has been constructed on firm foundations.
This commendation does not of course detract from the fact that there are disagreements about the analysis and the recommendations that the Commission makes.
Firstly I must emphasize that the views, the proposals and the conclusions of the White Paper should not be surprising, given the fact that, to a large degree, they are in keeping and in harmony with the principles laid down for the first time in the 1965 Council Resolution No 271 and Regulation 1191/69.
How and why both these statutes, which were made law 25 years ago, have to a great extent not been put into force is another story.
There are two main points on which the Committee on Transport and Tourism disagrees with the proposals of the Commission: firstly, the Committee on Transport does not accept on the one hand the Commission proposal for immediate and unlimited liberalization of access to the railway network, and on the other, the proposal for a posteriori settlement of any problems that may arise on account of total Big Bang-like liberalization.
Quite the contrary, the Committee on Transport is of the opinion that open access to the railway network must come about not all at once but progressively, step by step, in parallel with the taking of necessary accompanying measures such as those implemented in air and sea transport and telecommunications.
The second point on which the Committee on Transport disagrees is on social policy: the Committee on Transport feels that the White Paper is short on recommendations of how to face the problems that will arise for working people, and also on the safety of rail transport following the completion of open access.
With the resolution that you are being asked to rule on, the Committee on Transport is proposing various measures for the further training of personnel, for the mutual recognition of degrees and diplomas, and for the harmonization of working conditions, which we hope the Commission and Parliament will accept.
However, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Transport agrees with many of the proposals of the White Paper, such as those relating to economic measures and to the revitalizing of the railways, those relating to services of mutual benefit, to the integration of national systems and, above all, those relating to rail freight freeways.
Particularly as regards freeways, while we are in favour of creating such freeways with all possible speed, we would nevertheless wish to draw the attention of the Commission, but above all that of the Council, to the fact that particular care needs to be taken over the choice and backing of the first freeways, so as to exclude the possibility of the dissection of the rail network in the European Union.
For this reason and in this regard, in our resolution we stress the necessity of there not being a beginning or an end point which would be determined by a single port of call, especially in the initial phase of the creation of rail freeways.
We believe that rail freeways should be open to all, and they should have the possibility of being linked either from north to south or from east to west.
For this reason we repeat once more that the issue of the railways, which we regard as urgent and about which we are in sympathy with the Commission study, must be looked at very carefully and very assiduously, since it is very easy for these rail freeways to prolong the dissection of the railways of the European Union.
We must also be aware that the rail network of continental Europe still essentially reflects today the disagreements and differences that were prevalent in Europe in the nineteenth century.
Therefore, by creating rail freeways, we must make very sure that this is the nucleus of the creation of a unified European rail network and not, as I said before, the beginning of the dissection of the railways on our continent.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has been studying the social issues connected with the general revitalization of the railways.
As draftsman of the Committee's opinion on this subject I am pleased to see that the Sarlis report has dealt with the general social aspects of the public transport sector and has also included personnel issues.
Let me make a few general comments on this subject.
To do this, we must go back a little way into the history of the European railway industry to see the many instances of neglect which have led to the current need for revitalization and for the proper management of the social aspects involved.
I would like to say something about this.
Fundamental to any revitalization process is the ability to face up to economic reality - and this is an area in which the public authorities of the different Member States have often been lacking.
Without doubt, this has in turn led to unfair competition between rail and road transport.
We are attempting to rectify this situation at a time when environmental compatibility is at least being properly understood, when the advantages of rail transport are incontestable and when the appropriate framework conditions for freight transport in Europe have not even yet been laid.
To me this seems absolutely absurd.
Furthermore, I ought to mention that now the EU's eastwards enlargement has been given de facto approval, it seems to be essential that this project be given a pan-European dimension.
This question is of special significance for the environmental management of the forthcoming transport agreement, particular the freight traffic agreement, as we anticipate the growth rates currently being forecast for this sector.
As well as appreciating the full extent of this problem and the real need for a revaluation of the EU's railway services, we must not forget that safety has a vital role to play in all this.
Better training of railway personnel must therefore be high on the agenda, and this must have a trans-border dimension.
Such improvements are only sensible, yet the White Paper still makes no mention of them.
This oversight also applies to many supporting measures and to those personnel who are involved in major revitalization projects - and it is one which must be remedied with immediate effect.
Commissioner, this is not just wishful thinking, it is something which should be reflected in the policies we implement.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Sarlis for the hard work that he has put into this report.
I would also like to thank the Commission and Commissioner Kinnock for the work they have done.
The fact remains that whilst we all love railways and recognize the need for railways, there are severe problems within the European rail industry, problems that need to be addressed by us all.
There are many areas in which we can agree with both the Commission and Mr Sarlis.
We can agree that there is a need to revitalize our railway network, particularly in the freight sector.
We can agree that we need to assure open access to that rail network, particularly for international cross-border freight.
We need to wholeheartedly support the principle of the freight freeway, and the Commission has done very good work in establishing that particular principle.
We also agree that we need to ensure that the existing directives, particularly Directive 91/440, which I have a personal interest in, is implemented in national law and implemented in the railway sector.
The only point on which we differ slightly with the Commission is the speed or the timetable for introducing these proposals.
In that regard we very much support Mr Sarlis' step-by-step approach, because we must ensure that any liberalization is accompanied by the social measures that are needed to protect those within the industry.
Let us be under no illusion here.
Unless we take action in the rail sector we are in danger of having no rail freight at all in 20 years time within our continent of Europe.
That is a situation we cannot let go without taking the drastic actions that are needed.
If we can get this balance right we could be at the beginning of a much needed renewal of the railways, we could be instrumental in giving the railways back the priority that they deserve.
Mr President, the report we are debating today represents a great leap forward, because we are now closer to the highly desirable aim of liberalizing Community railways, in such a way as to permit their revitalization in terms of competition with other methods of transport.
That is what the Commission is advocating in its White Paper, and we agree.
The rapporteur, Mr Sarlis, deserves to be congratulated, because his work combines sensible doses of realism with the headstrong eagerness felt by many of us to see our railways modernized as quickly as possible.
Proof of that realism is his insistence, and the fact that he concludes that such liberalization must be carried out gradually, to avoid setbacks due to counterproductive haste.
By the same token, his proposed order of priority is entirely reasonable, dealing successively with international freight transport, national freight transport, and international passenger services.
This point needs to be stressed: it will never be possible to achieve a high quality international passenger service, worthy of a modern European Union, without developing the relevant infrastructures.
It is impossible to picture the European Union as a world pioneer, in keeping with the demands for progress which are to be expected of the twenty-first century, if we do not manage to achieve high-speed passenger links between the capitals of all the Member States, at the very least.
Because of where I live, I regularly experience the deficiencies of the rail link between Madrid and Lisbon, and there are other capital cities within the Union which could be mentioned as further examples.
Until we succeed in converting routes like Madrid-Lisbon to high speed, our railways will fail to enter the twenty-first century.
To conclude, Mr President, I want to place on record that the rapporteur is also right to attach so much importance to social aspects, especially with regard to adapting the railways for the convenience of children, the disabled and the elderly.
Mr President, Commissioner, once again we have the opportunity to cry out in pain and also, if we want to, to try to find a solution to several problems, in connection with Mr Sarlis' excellent technical report.
We all know that in Europe in general and, unfortunately, in my country in particular, the railways are facing ever deeper crises.
The statistics bear this out: over the last 25 years, the railways have lost 58 % of goods and passenger transportation, while road transportation has increased by 150 %; the passenger share has dropped to 4 % of overall transportation, and the goods share to 9 %.
In view of this situation, I believe that the full and demanding transport plan for the trans-European lines can no longer be sufficient to point out the paths to be taken.
So we have to ask ourselves: how have we reached this situation?
First of all, the initial cause is the appearance of other means of transport, certainly faster and also more economical; then the lack of management independence; and also bad management, particularly when assigned to public bodies.
So what are the solutions? It is difficult to mention them all in the space of a few seconds.
Firstly, the sector should be opened up to free competition and to private operators; then we need to carry out business improvement and a general reorganization of the sector, and, in several amendments, my group gives a few specific indications on how to act; we also need to ensure the full implementation of Directive 91/440, favour the development of railway passes for goods transportation, provide greater inter-operability between the system and, finally and above all, implement works such as railway tunnels and trans-European projects, that are the keystone to many other problems.
With regard to the central European region, I am thinking in particular of two main lines, Lyons-Turin-Venice and Monaco-Verona, of the north-south route, which would solve many problems But all the governments need to get involved in this.
Mr President, senate deliberante perit Saguntum .
We are here together, and beneath us the entire plan which the Commission presented so beautifully, which we have talked about so often and on which we actually agree, is falling to pieces.
We in Europe are suffering from a traffic infarction, we agree overwhelmingly that we want to move traffic away from the roads onto the railways as soon as possible, and yet nothing happens.
The freight freeways, assuming the Commission is right, are already doomed to failure, because every railway company continues with its own line, as ever, and says: no, we are not going to participate.
You are shaking your head, Commissioner.
SNCF does not want to participate. Ferroriale Statale , which owes the Italian State L6000 billion, does want not any stops on any part of its network, but wants journeys to be continued straight through to southern Italy.
The Rotterdam-Genoa freight freeway is now doomed to failure.
The previous speaker said it: road transport has increased by 150 % and rail transport has decreased by 75 %.
With all due regard to Mr Sarlis' report, despite the Commission's good intentions, and despite the fact that we all agree (with the exception of Mrs Moreau, whose amendments amount to nothing and are wide of the truth) we are not achieving anything.
The responsibility is yours, Commissioner.
Mr President, the revitalization of the railways is a necessity, given the structure they provide within our societies.
This revitalization is essential to provide an alternative to "everything going by road' . The environmental damage and danger to safety that road transport represents are reaching limits which are unacceptable to the public.
Unfortunately, the only way the Commission has envisaged revitalizing our railways is by completely liberalizing them.
Mr Sarlis' report proposes achieving this in two stages which, apart from opening them up to competition, will leave only national passenger transport in place.
We cannot agree to this.
This liberal fixation, whether it be in one or two stages, is not likely to provide an answer to the challenge which has been raised.
The rail transport sector has already lost 500, 000 jobs in Europe since 1985.
Yet the White Paper only devotes a few anodyne lines to the social consequences of the policy to be followed, which Mr Sarlis rightly criticizes.
In this regard, a balance sheet of how Directive 91/440 has been applied is necessary, and we are in agreement with the demand in Mr Sarlis' report that this balance sheet should be democratically drawn up, in coordination with the unions and passenger associations.
By favouring more profitable services, opening up to competition risks shattering the coherence of national networks, and open access to freight freeways for all operators - which is demanded in the report - moves in this direction.
A completely different orientation must be taken by substituting the destructive logic of competition with the constructive logic of cooperation.
That is where efficiency lies, and it is not by chance that the first freight freeway in service - opened today, I believe - is the fruit of cooperation between French, Belgian and Luxembourg state networks.
It is in the interests of the European Union to promote this perspective, enabling both the service and the supply of transport to improve.
In this regard, just like the French Government, we are opposed to moving beyond Directive 91/440.
Furthermore, the rail workers reject the ultra-liberal orientation of the Commission.
Many workers' actions have taken place, with public support, and last November 10 000 rail workers from the European Union demonstrated in Brussels against the direction the White Paper was moving in.
Our group will continue to relay constantly these demands, which highlight the urgent need to come up with a transport policy based on the development of public services and on cooperation, which encourages a quality rail transport system, accessible to the greatest number, and which respects the environment and creates jobs.
Mr President, the revitalization of the railways is of crucial importance to the sustainable society in Europe.
The developments in transport do not make us feel very optimistic, even though we have recognized for years the importance of changes in transport and of finding a way for us to organize it.
In the densely populated centres of Europe, traffic grinds to a halt daily.
The emissions of CO2 in particular are not getting any less, as we think they should, but in fact are increasing.
In the near future, it is not only passengers who should get out of the car and onto the train, but freight which should go off the road and onto the railway.
Unfortunately, our still extremely national railways are simply not ready for such an operation.
Total liberalization looks like a an elegant solution, but causes tensions, particularly in the transport of passengers, as regards the responsibilities of public services.
Besides, liberalization will not have a positive effect until all modes of transport actively foot the bill of the costs actually produced, including social and environmental costs.
We should not have a situation in which one mode of transport does not have to pay VAT or taxes, whereas the other one does; because that leaves a big discrepancy.
The White Paper's proposals for freight freeways can be called thoroughly positive.
Their development will have a positive effect on the increase in the amount of freight transported by rail.
For it requires - although we are not there yet - the demolition of national barriers and the creation of space for this form of transport.
Priority for the development of these freight freeways will have to be primarily centred on transalpine transport, and on increasing freight transport between eastern and western Europe, so that there will finally be a proper solution to the problem.
Mr President, the White Paper conveys very clearly the precarious position of the European railway companies.
In 1970 the share of rail transportation in the total movement of goods within the European Union was still 31.7 %.
In 1994 this share had dropped to 14.9 %, less than half!
The growth in freight transport has ended up entirely on the road.
This development must be reversed.
Citizens in EU countries are increasingly confronted with the harmful effects of road transport on the environment.
What's more, in large cities, road transport is reaching its spacial limits.
Roads are simply getting full up.
In addition, in the near future, an even greater increase of goods transport is to be expected.
We have to conclude that rail transport's biggest problem is the way in which the railway companies operate.
Despite the fact that there has been one internal European market since 1993, the railways are still of a very markedly national orientation.
Besides, they do not always work with the best interest of the market and customers in mind.
I therefore support the remedy recommended in the White Paper, which is for there to be more competition on the railways.
The Sarlis report, more so than the Commission, rightly points to the social consequences of restructuring the European railway companies.
On 19 November 1996, tens of thousands of railway workers from the European Union demonstrated in Brussels against the European Commission's White Paper. They would not have done that without a reason.
But we have to bear in mind two issues.
Firstly, restructuring is necessary for the survival of the railways and the preservation of jobs.
Secondly, the social consequences should not be absorbed by the European Union, but by the Member States.
The Sarlis report does at least suggest that a European solution to the social problems is required, but it thereby raises false expectations.
Setting aside the long time the rapporteur took to produce the report, another point of criticism against the report is the restrictions it wants to impose on road transport.
The restriction requested in paragraph 7 on freight weight and the speed limits for road transport does not make rail transport any more efficient.
Restrictions on freight weight is harmful for the environment as it will mean an increase in the number of journeys.
The most remarkable proposal by the Commission is the plan for freight freeways.
The first, from Rotterdam to Milan, was supposed to have started about now.
When other Member States remain uninvolved, the Commission should take measures for limited liberalization, to which the Member States were bound back in 1991 by means of the directive.
Mr President, the Commission's White Paper is full of the necessity for great foresight.
The plans resulting from the White Paper for freeways for the benefit of freight transport is proof of the notion that words and paper are no longer enough.
The report by the Committee on Transport and Tourism to which my colleague Mr Sarlis has given his best efforts, shares the analysis made in the White Paper, but displays some reticence when it comes to the speed of the necessary restructuring.
I want to say that the measures the Commission has in mind, and which in themselves are supported in Mr Sarlis' report, may be able to give the railways a new place on the map.
In this, governments will play a different, but no less important role.
What should not be allowed to happen in the meantime, is for the doors which are now ajar to be quietly closed.
The splendid cooperation Mrs Moreau spoke of just now could be an example of this.
This may have disastrous consequences for freighters, transporters, and also for society.
Mr President, it goes without saying that I am very sympathetic to fears of the social consequences of such farreaching restructuring.
But Commissioner Kinnock is right.
Without the measures he has in mind, jobs will be lost on a very grand scale.
Not only from the railways themselves, but also from the industrial railway complex that lies behind it.
However, noblesse oblige .
The call for reform may put the concern about social consequences in the shade.
When the Member States, the Commission and this Parliament all wish to give rail the future suggested in important speeches and important policy documents, employers should not be the ones to suffer, and suitable solutions must be found.
An antisocial market economy has no place in the profile of a European Union.
To conclude, political discussion about transport policy is interesting, but no less interesting are the opinions of other participants in the debate.
In the magazine of the Dutch freighters' organisation EVO, the mouthpiece of tens of thousands of small, medium and large businesses, I read the following in a survey of trends within the transport sector, under the heading of "rail transport' .
I quote: ' ' European rail policy finds itself in a crucial phase.
The freighter can expect little from rail transport over the coming years.
Politicians should therefore stop going on about the increase in road transport.'
They are mere words, but they are words which emerge from the corner which carries the freight, Mr President, and it is this freight which is the subject of this debate.
From now on we should realize this more than ever.
Mr President, I should like to welcome the Commission White Paper and the Sarlis report.
In particular, I support the main objectives with the aim of encouraging the transfer of traffic from road to rail.
All of us in this House would welcome the environmental benefits that such a transfer could bring.
Further liberalization of the rail sector is necessary.
As Mr Simpson has mentioned, we are awaiting the implementation into national law of the Commission directives already adopted.
In my view, there should be a clear separation between the management of infrastructure and the operation of services to ensure transparency.
Perhaps the Commission might like to take the UK model in this regard.
Open access should be extended to all freight and international passenger services.
It is especially important that we insist that normal state aids criteria should apply in restructuring railway finances.
It is absolutely vital that there should be no distortion of the market in this regard.
In supporting the introduction of rail freight freeways, I see this as a first step towards the creation of open access on Member States' rail networks.
However, it is important that this be accompanied by proposals on financial restructuring and the development of methodology for access charging.
I commend the Sarlis report to the House and congratulate the Commission on introducing its White Paper.
Mr President, as the late Tip O'Neill said: ' All politics is local' .
I want to address this paper on that basis.
Ireland's urban transport is in chaos.
In my own constituency of Dublin, transport congestion must be tackled as a national priority.
Gridlock is the order of the day.
With the Irish economy doing so well we cannot stand by and allow transport inefficiencies to become a limiting factor in that growth.
Hard political decisions must be made now.
It is time for firm political leadership.
It is imperative that the work begins on the Dublin light transit system known as Luas before the millennium.
New structural funds have been allocated to it and will be re-routed away from the project if work does not commence by the year 2000.
The Luas tribunal must begin as a matter of urgency.
The light transit system should be part of an integrated transport system.
It would not succeed without other mainstream transport infrastructure projects such as the major C ring road, the Dublin port tunnel and the upgrading of the main roads out of the city.
More than 30 % of the traffic into Dublin is in transit and it is time to take a firm political decision to sort out the transport problems once and for all.
All these systems should be linked to a modern rail network with up-to-date rolling stock.
Irish Rail needs major investment and modernization.
In my view, it is unfair to blame the workers for constant breakdowns and delays in the train service.
The reality is that we have neglected our transport and rail systems at a national level.
We must ensure that while the economy is buoyant we invest wisely in rail and road networks and in other transport infrastructures.
It is of the utmost importance that we in Ireland do not get left behind our mainland European neighbours on the economically and socially vital issues of transport.
Finally, I find it intolerable that in a major capital city like Dublin we still have an inefficient bus service from the airport to the city centre.
That is part of what is wrong with our transport system.
Mr President, railways and environmentally-friendly and long-term sustainable means of transport must be one of the most important areas which we as elected representatives can devote ourselves to in the European Parliament, and of course in other parliaments too.
But we must, as representatives of the peoples of the EU, decide whether we want to concentrate on railways more than on aircraft, motorways and bridges, such as the Öresund bridge in Sweden.
We must prioritize railway investment. But we are not doing that.
Instead we are treating it as part of all the other means of transport.
We should prioritize energy-saving, environmentally-friendly, sustainable means of transport.
That includes railways.
However, I am not so sure that deregulation is the best way to do that. There are other measures which are much better.
We must also ensure that old railways are improved.
In addition, we must take into account a number of different factors, such as efficiency, regional considerations, energy aspects, environmental aspects and employment aspects, so that railways become a competitive means of transport in Europe.
Mr President, the Commission's White Paper is aimed at the immediate liberalization of rail transport, and especially the unlimited access of private businesses to rail networks.
Our rapporteur, Mr Sarlis, apparently worried about the consequences, is making an admittedly notable attempt to slow the speed down and to raise a number of problems which, in his opinion, call for the gradual promotion of liberalization.
However, such intense anxieties cannot be confronted in this way.
When all is said and done, at some point in time there needs to be a rundown of the consequences of total liberalization in all sectors, such as air freight, sea freight, the European ship repair industry, etc..
The citizens of Europe need to realize the repercussions in both the public and the broader service sector, the dramatic deterioration of freight safety and of quality of service.
They need to be aware of the enormous repercussions on employment, on working conditions and on the social rights of workers.
If we look at things in this way, then we will realize the dangers involved in liberalization, which is being pushed forward by the Commission, and of course we will assume our own responsibilities and react accordingly.
Mr President, I argue in favour of an efficient and modern railway system.
Clearly, there are many ways of achieving this and I am not sure that we are all in agreement with the method proposed in the White Paper.
Why plead the case for an efficient rail system? Because, in balancing up the different methods of transport, we give an essential priority to rail as opposed to road, for social reasons, for ecological reasons, for reasons of town and country planning, for coherence of transport policies.
From this perspective, Directive 91/440 establishes what we consider to be a sufficient starting point.
When, however, a discussion came before the Council to go beyond this Directive, certain governments, including quite clearly the French government, were opposed to this direction.
This is why the idea has been put forward in a White Paper enabling the question of liberalization to be considered as a whole.
Unfortunately, not only does the White Paper maintain fully the amendments to Directive 91/440, it goes further.
It now seems that the White Paper, as it is presented, is not a realistic way to handle the future of the railways.
How could anyone think that the White Paper will enable the problems of this sector to be solved? The social consequences are vast - we have been reminded of the figures: 500 000 jobs, being one third of all staff, have been lost between 1985 and 1995, and the Commission confirms this tendency for the future, although it suggests no solution, preferring to leave responsibility with individual Member States.
It seems, however, that recent experience has shown us that to deal with the question of transport from a position of competition and liberalization only, deliberately ignoring the social dimension, may be a serious error.
In his report, Mr Sarlis does not approve of the White Paper as it stands.
Rather than an immediate liberalization, he proposes a gradual liberalization.
This does not seem realistic to us. At least for the moment, all further liberalization should be rejected, given that there has been no evaluation of the results of Directive 91/440 on an objective basis.
All the possibilities of Directive 91/440 must be explored before it is amended, and cooperation must be encouraged between rail operators.
This is the reason why, along with a number of my colleagues, I have signed many amendments and we will refuse to vote for certain paragraphs in Mr Sarlis' report.
Mr President, let me first express my sincere thanks to Mr Sarlis for his careful and comprehensive treatment of the subject matter and for his excellent conclusions, with which I agree.
I would just like to look at some of these issues in more detail.
It is regrettable that the Commission has excluded the social question, despite the fact that some 500 000 jobs have already been lost throughout the European rail industry.
Commission proposals are urgently required to provide assistance in the following areas.
Firstly, requirements and procedures for the common recognition of contracts and diplomas awarded to railway staff.
Secondly, retraining of personnel for the new jobs being provided by the new railway companies.
Thirdly, the general harmonization of working conditions for railway employees; and fourthly, the necessary formal and fundamental qualifications and the guarantee of a professional training scheme for personnel who are taken on by the new railway companies.
I would further urge the Commission to propose the necessary structural amendments to the operation of the European social fund so that it can deal with the problems arising in respect of unemployment and early retirement in the railway industry, which in many Member States have been the result of restructuring in the rail transport sector.
I would emphasize that rail transport has a vital role to play in allowing socially disadvantaged citizens, who cannot afford private transport of their own, to assert their right to freedom of mobility.
Mr President, good though unification and the attempt to revitalize the railways may be, there are nevertheless other alternatives apart from those emphasized by my colleagues, especially in the social sphere.
Firstly, the rail network is literally facing scandalously unfair competition from trucks. What direction is the Commission going in?
Will we burden trucks with the cost of motorways or will we deduct from the railways the cost of infrastructure? But then the states will get hold of it and what will become of their deficits?
I want a clear direction.
Or will we place tolls on the railways? Things must be simplified at some point or other.
Secondly, railways in Europe have problems, administrative for the most part in the west, but also problems of development and integration in the east and, chiefly, the south.
I am thinking here of the Balkans, of Greece, etc.
There, and I repeat, the problem is not so much administrative as the organization and completion of its network.
What is the direction of the Commission? Mr President, I am not convinced by the Community support frameworks that I have seen.
Priority is still given to the car and to motorways, while crumbs are given to the railways.
Policy needs to be changed.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think we know that the social issue should not be ignored.
But if we leave the railways as they are, we will lose credibility.
We need to take into account the degree of difficulty faced by the railways in Europe and in the individual Member States at the moment.
We need to restore the competitiveness of the railway system, which is possible in the light of the analysis proposed, but naturally we cannot just consider the railway system and railway transportation; we also need to take other means into account, the role this competitiveness can play in trade and in combined transportation and, naturally, how the various means of transport are integrated.
From this point of view, we cannot isolate the revitalization of the railway system from the other issues being examined by the European Union.
I am thinking, for example, of the subject that has been rightly raised regarding the internationalization of costs.
I think that, from this point of view, we need to tackle the subjects of possible incidents, congestion, pollution and noise.
The methods of transport will become competitive once again if we deal with these aspects as well as the White Paper on Railways, so as to enable the various means of transport to compete fairly.
In this connection, I therefore think we should not consider this project in isolation, but we should take into account the fact that serious problems exist in Europe. I am thinking of the 50 thousand killed in road accidents, the 7, 800 killed in Italy every year - again in road accidents - and the serious problems of atmospheric pollution.
We also have to face the social issue, otherwise it risks being faced alone, because if the railway system is no longer competitive, we will no longer be able to guarantee jobs for those currently employed on the railways.
We therefore need to assume this responsibility, and we should do so above all as the left.
From this point of view, the answer may be more significant.
Who is going to run the railways? This is a very important point.
We should ensure that, with competitiveness and competition, access to the railways is not reserved just for the large companies and large groups.
We should also ensure that access to the management of the railways is democratic, and that it is also possible for small and medium-sized companies, cooperatives and social structures to take part, providing guarantees against social dumping, observing working hours and safety.
Only in this way can the railway system be revitalized.
Mr President, thank you very much, can I begin by wishing you and the whole of the House a very happy New Year.
The Sarlis report before the House today, Mr President, is a truly valuable contribution to the debate about revitalizing the railways of the European Union.
As both the Commission and Parliament agree, major changes are essential if the railways are to survive as a significant and essential means of transport throughout Europe, as we all want for every sensible economic, employment and environmental reason.
The report is, as we would have expected from its author, positive and constructive about revitalizing rail transport and while I am glad to say it supports the general policy that the Commission has proposed, it also makes valuable recommendations about how the change should be brought about.
I therefore warmly congratulate the rapporteur Mr Sarlis for a report that has strengths of strategic vision and practicality.
I assure him and the House that the proposals which he makes will be given careful and positive consideration.
I do not think that I oversimplify when I say that there are two basic messages in the report.
One is that liberalization must be progressive and the other is that accompanying measures to facilitate change must be adopted as that liberalization takes place.
On the first point, I accept that market forces should be introduced progressively in order to give the railways time to adapt and for the Community to be able to put a comprehensive framework in place.
There has never been any intention therefore, nor is there any proposition, for what has been described as a 'Big Bang' approach to the liberalization of European rail.
I also emphasize however, that change cannot be too slow or too gradual, simply because time is not on the side of the railways.
It has to be said, that if change is not made with a greater sense of urgency than is presently the case, there may be no Big Bang and that the only sound that we will hear is the funeral bell tolling at the demise of the railways.
This is not even a twenty-year prospect; this is a dozen years ahead unless change is urgently embraced and urgently implemented.
In the course of some contributions today, which I greatly respect, including the contribution from Mme Berès, it was said that half a million jobs have gone from rail in the last fifteen years.
That is a tragic truth.
Part of our strategy, indeed central to the social consciousness of our strategy, is an absolute determination to implement policies that will save at least a substantial part of the million jobs that remain in rail and rail-associated industries over the next dozen years.
Without change, the casualty list over the next twelve years could be even bigger than it has been over the last fifteen years.
That is how grim the situation is; that is how urgent the need for change must be.
Most of us would agree that there is urgency and that change must be introduced in a progressive fashion - not with great drama or with brutality but the direction must be absolutely certain.
It is imperative therefore that we make an energetic start, for instance by opening up international rail freight as soon as possible, as both Mr Simpson and Mr Baldarelli and Mr Castricum have emphasized, not only today but on many previous occasions.
The precise timing of the implementation of liberalization will, of course, have to be considered very carefully.
Once the Commission has produced all its proposals and the Council and the Parliament have begun discussion, that will be the time to decide where transitional periods are needed and which measures should be introduced in parallel.
Clearly, it is too early to discuss a precise timetable now since we do not know what the eventual opinion of the Council and the Parliament will be in reaction to the Commission's proposal.
All I would say is that anyone , and I choose my words, who really values the contribution and the potential of rail in Europe, and certainly anyone who wants rail to thrive in the future, will not cause unnecessary delay in introducing the essential advances.
Mr Sarlis' report rightly stresses that various measures must accompany rail liberalization.
As he acknowledges, the Commission's approach makes broad provision in this respect and we are now moving forward toward action which will give practical effect to the proposal set out in our White Paper.
This year therefore I will be presenting three packages of railway measures: the first in the spring will relate to infrastructure and will include proposals for the further separation of infrastructure management and transport operations.
It will also include proposals relating to guidelines on infrastructure charges and guidelines on the allocation of train paths.
The second package to be produced in the summer will cover public service contracts in particular.
It will also cover state aids not only in the rail sector but in land transport generally.
Then, towards the end of the year, the third package will deal with railway inter-operability and the integration of national systems more generally, including the qualifications of railway staff.
In addition, in the first half of this year there will be two proposals covering transport as a whole with particular relevance obviously for rail: one relating to the extension of the working time directive to all transport workers and one in the form of a White Paper on infrastructure charges in transport generally.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity of responding to Mr Sarlis' report to inform the House with some pleasure that the first rail freight freeways have opened despite the prophecies of gloom and doom which we have heard repeated from some parts of the House again this afternoon, for reasons I understand but do not necessarily accept.
It is necessary to travel in hope and with energy because if we adopt any other attitude then we guarantee the demise of rail.
Of course, there are different models to be pursued in the reform that is now under way in rail and as yet there are no complete and conclusive arrangements, for instance, on pricing.
No one in this House or elsewhere could have reasonably expected such perfection in these very early days of rail freight freeways.
The fact that freeways are operational and capable of showing their potential for making rail freight competitive with other modes, despite the inhibitions of tradition and the reservations still held in some quarters, is a tribute to all who have worked for progress.
It is also a source of encouragement towards further steps in the future.
Naturally, I agree that the freeways should extend throughout the Community wherever the need exists and links to the ports are important, as has been registered in the course of this debate again today.
The Commission will continue to stress that, whilst recognising that policy decisions on freeways must be made by the Member States and by infrastructure managers and not by the Commission, whose role is to promote the idea and to help to overcome the difficulties.
If we were to advocate the degree of centralization that would make responsibility for the allocation of train paths rest in the Breydel building in Brussels, we would be properly inviting a description of our attitudes as absurd.
We are enablers, we simply strive to ensure that others take full advantage of the changes that we are striving to make.
To conclude I warmly welcome this report and I am sure that this Parliament will consider the forthcoming proposals in the same positive way as it has the White Paper on revitalization and indeed the communication on rail freight freeways.
I am grateful for that and that this House shares the determination of the Commission to try to help to create railways that are capable of competing with other modes, of winning back markets and meeting the demands of people and businesses in this modern age.
If railways succeed in doing all that, they will succeed in giving themselves a full and prosperous future.
Those working for the railways will share in that future.
If change is not made along the lines again set out in this report, and indeed in the Commission's White Paper the future is very bleak.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the Commissioner for the kind words he has addressed to me concerning the report.
I would just like to add that the report, as presented to the partsession, is the result of the collaborative work of my colleagues in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, who really worked hard on the issue of railways, and took part in meetings and debates, so that we were able to come up with this result.
I should also add that I am delighted with the Commission's response to the report, and that Parliament recognizes this response, from what I have gathered from the interest shown in the Committee on Transport.
I have two points that I would like to put to the Commissioner, if you would allow me.
One is that the amendment to the extending of working hours in all sections of the transport industry is very good news.
I regard this measure as extremely important. It is a measure that will smooth out the distortion of the competition that exists at the moment between road transport and the railways.
Finally, I would like to request that careful consideration be given to the issue of guidelines, if they are being contemplated, as regards the work agreements which will be signed by the network administrators.
There is a delicate issue here: that these work agreements may be judged to contravene article 85 of the Treaty.
Commissioner, these are two points that I would like you to bear in mind.
Mr President, it might be that I have missed something, or that we have completely different definitions of what a freight freeway is.
If we are talking about a rail infrastructure where there is free access and price competition, then, indeed, it might be that there is one freight freeway.
I do not want the Commissioner, by the way, to sit in the Breydel.
He should go out and persuade the operators to open up....
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, very briefly to Mr Sarlis, I wish to express my gratitude to him for the reference he made to the extension of the working time directive.
He can look forward to further progress in this respect in the near future.
So far as guidelines relating to cooperation agreements are concerned, it is quite probable that such formality will not be needed.
It is enough - heeding a point made by Mr Wijsenbeek - that working in practical conjunction with infrastructure managers, we can secure the progress necessary.
Naturally, that will be very closely scrutinized.
If we think further developments could assist the more rapid development of rail freight freeways, we will respond to that urgently.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Operation of aeroplanes
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0404/97), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive amending Directive 92/14/EEC on the limitation of the operation of aeroplanes covered by Part II, Chapter 2, Volume 1 of Annex 16 to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, second edition (1988) (C4-0530/97-96/0209(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr van Dam).
Mr President, the report proposed is the result of an exhaustive debate in committee, and it seems to me that the further amendments proposed take into account several inconsistencies that have not been accepted by Council. I am of course also referring to the Saudi Arabian navy, which is basically classified as a navy of a developing country, something which seems very anachronistic to us.
In this connection, an amendment is tabled that refers to the OECD classification, and should therefore exclude the Saudi Arabian navy from the benefits resulting from the measure relating to polluting aircraft that do not make a noise and that are more than 25 years old.
Consequently, from this point of view, a positive requirement would be restored: the motion would essentially relate to those countries actually in difficulties and would guarantee the safety and, naturally, the quality of life of citizens living near the airports.
One further point, which seems important to me but which has not been raised, is of course competition.
I would like this point to be made, and not just by the Commission, that landing rights should not be the object of transfer because, naturally, the possibility of having a slot with an authorized aircraft is very important today in competition between the various countries. There may also be the risk of this slot being transferred to third countries, and therefore the risk of a real marketing of slots on aircraft that are basically authorized and are polluting and also noisy.
All this could end up in an incorrect market mechanism.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as was the case in the first reading, we now find ourselves caught in an area of tension between efficiency and the environment.
We in the Group of the European People's Party welcome the current report and the amendments which are being proposed, although we regret that only two of the nine proposals submitted in the first reading are being considered; these two amendments are in my view very important ones.
They prevent aircraft leasing and therefore have a direct effect on the problem of competition, which has just been mentioned.
I would also be pleased if the Commission could clarify this point and explain that there is now absolutely no possibility, no matter what the circumstances are, that the exemptions which certain countries have in respect of competition and the environment, can be used in a manner which is contrary to that intended by the Directive.
In all events, we regret that certain proposals aimed at tightening up this legislation have not been generally adopted.
In our view, what the Member States propose doing in this sector should on no account fall short of the provisions of the directive, and at best should exceed what is intended in this directive.
I therefore consider that this cannot be prejudicial to the directive in the strained situation which exists in respect of efficiency, the environment and also free competition.
The current wording is a reasonable compromise. It includes a number of minor corrections.
However, it would be in everybody's interest if we could in some way clarify the definition of "developing countries' .
What has been submitted in this proposal seems, I believe, already to have met the approval of the Commission.
I would be pleased if the Commission could briefly comment on this again today.
It would be a good thing for all of us if the Council could incorporate into this definition the meaning of "developing countries' , so as to prevent any wider interpretation here.
After all, we are talking about aeroplanes which are not just a noise nuisance, but which are on the whole more than 25 years old, and in this context I am of the opinion that even a country like Saudi Arabia should not receive special treatment.
As far as the other countries are concerned, one should not really judge the problem according to the freight situation at the different European airports, but rather one should see to it that perhaps within the framework of various actions - and does this House not also distribute aid for development - certain countries which are directly affected could be provided with support in this area so that European airports, as well as those of the countries concerned, can be afforded some relief from the problem of noise nuisance.
Mr President, if I could very briefly refer to the background to the particular measure that is before the House today and is the subject of the debate.
At the time of the adoption of the 1992 directive, a number of aircraft from developing nations had not been notified to the Commission under the appropriate procedure and were therefore not included in the annex to the law, so in order to identify those aircraft the Commission entered into negotiations with the appropriate regional organization - the Arab Air Carriers' Organization.
The subject matter of these negotiations was of course the technical eligibility of the aircraft on the basis of the criteria laid down in article 3 of the directive, and the designation of countries as developing nations is completely in accordance with criteria laid down by the relevant international organization, the OECD Development Assistance Committee.
Against that background I would like to respond to the amendments presented by the rapporteur, Mr van Dam and supported by several other Members.
First, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2 and 3 which are useful technical adjustments to the annex.
The House may also be interested to know that they have the support of the Council too.
Whilst I completely understand the motivation behind Amendments Nos 1 and 4, I have to say however that the Commission cannot accept them for the very simple reason that Saudi Arabia is included in the official international list of developing nations which was used in drawing up the original annex to Council Directive 92/14.
In addition, the aircraft included in the annex meet the criteria laid down in Annex 3 of Council Directive 92/14 as amended by this directive.
If we did want to change the rules, as has been suggested, for reasons that I totally understand, we would, for the sole purpose of this directive, have to compile a new definition of what a developing nation really is, an activity which would be disproportionate to the effort involved, given that in this case we are talking about no more than 7 aircraft.
Finally, the Commission would like to point out that because of the limited use of the aircraft concerned, the inclusion of Saudi Arabia in the list has a very marginal effect in terms of increased noise nuisance around airports, although naturally we regret any impact of that kind.
I can, of course, understand the motivations which have inspired the amendments relating to the aircraft registered in Saudi Arabia.
However, I hope that the House will accept that we really cannot renege on agreements previously reached in good faith with partners and we cannot reasonably change internationally recognized definitions when that would affect about half a dozen aircraft which are in any case being phased out of use.
With those considerations in mind, and whilst thanking Mr van Dam for his very competent report, the first that I think he has formally presented to this House in the short time that he has been here, I hope that the House will, on reflection, come to share the Commission's view.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Industrial competitiveness
The next item is the report (A4-0384/97) by Mr Desama, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament entitled: "The European Union and Space: fostering applications, markets and industrial competitiveness' (COM(96)0617 - C4-0042/97).
Mr President, Commissioner, it is a very unusual sitting today.
Having talked about the inherent problems of the railways, and air transport, we are now looking at European space policy.
In spite of this brilliant ascent, I fear that given our current knowledge of space physics, we will soon be obliged to come back down to earth.
I will do my best to give a rapid outline of the space report.
First of all, we must remember that Europe is not an amateur in the area of space conquest.
Indeed, over the years we have managed to maintain our autonomy and our independence regarding space access, and this has been largely due to two efforts: firstly, intergovernmental cooperation thanks to the European Space Agency, and secondly a policy of willing public investment on the part of a certain number of European states.
But in spite of these efforts, and this independent access, it has to be noted that compared with the United States, we are the space dwarf.
The space industry employs 200 000 people in the United States, as opposed to around 40 000 in Europe; 7 % of the financing of space policy in the United States is covered by private investment and commercial interests, as opposed to 38 % in Europe. In other words we have a great deal of readjusting to do.
It is not necessarily a question of putting a tiger in your tank, but rather of adding something to European policy, of adding a little community policy, even supranational policy, to the intergovernmental in order to avoid raising up a number of old demons.
The European Union now needs its own space policy, not only in relation to others, but to bring that European added value to European space cooperation policies as a whole.
Of course, it will not be Parliament that defines this policy, but the Commission, who have made the first step through this interesting communication, and the Council.
We would like to see a European Council devoted entirely to the issue of space.
The British Presidency will perhaps hear my plea.
This policy, this European added value must, it seems to me, be based on two fundamental conditions. The first condition is that all the issues must be considered, both strategic and commercial.
This means admitting, once and for all, that a space policy is necessarily a global policy, that there is not, on the one hand, a strategic policy and on the other, a commercial policy, but that the efforts as a whole must cover all the issues of this space policy. The second condition is that the Member States and the European Union must devote more public funds to the establishment and development of space policy.
For although private investment is essential, it is not enough.
By respecting these conditions and gaining inspiration from the excellent report of my colleague, Mr Malerba, we will have placed a certain number of milestones along the path of space policy.
Firstly, the maintenance of a high level of technological competence through an instrument such as the Fifth Framework Programme, but also through our participation in a number of great scientific adventures, such as the space station, for example, and many more.
Secondly, the concentration of the space industry.
This does not mean setting up one great big European space business - an elephant will never run as fast as a zebra - but to federate all of the organizations which, today, devote themselves to pathetic competition on a world scale, into integrated projects: the conquest of a number of large commercial markets, and the provision of a good service.
Thirdly, the consolidation of our strong points, the launcher and satellite business.
Fourthly, the guaranteeing of our means of independence, in particular by putting in place a European navigation system which would be the fruit of European technology.
And, finally, the organizing of cooperation with third countries, not only with the long-standing space powers like Japan or Russia, but with the newly emerging space powers.
I am thinking in particular of China and India.
Finally, I would like to draw the Commission's attention to the need to develop the means for space education.
If we want to follow an ambitious policy, we need the support of public opinion.
But the public needs to be informed, and education is the best way of doing this.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this discussion in this House has come rather late with regard to the Commission's communication times and, in some ways, the reports being discussed now (Mr Desama's excellent report and my own) are beginning to be almost overtaken by events.
There have been moments of great interest in recent months, such as the Mars Pathfinder voyage, the successful launch of ARIANE 5 and, now, that of Lunar Prospector.
On the wings of the Pathfinder success, noting the success of the planetary exploration and the enigma of life in the universe in American public opinion, NASA is now planning to use the space station as an outpost for the manned flight to Mars as well, and is considering an inflatable module that will be attached to the space station, called a trans-hub.
Space is the place of innovation and creative imagination par excellence.
One example is satellite navigation.
Ten years ago, we did not know what it was.
Today, this application ensures safety in air navigation, offers solutions for the efficiency of taxi fleets in cities, and we are asking for a European satellite navigation system.
In this sea and space of the next millennium, the leading characters are the United States, as stated by Mr Desama, and their world leadership in the economic, military, technological and cultural sector is also shown in their scientific and industrial dynamism in the space sector.
It is not easy to draw a comparison between the American and European space sectors: the United States' annual investment is around four times that of Europe, and the largest European industrial firm in the sector comes after the three American giants, Lockheed, Hughes and Boeing.
The Commission's communication does not delve into the problems of a real European space strategy and proposes a series of specific measures which can broadly be divided into three sectors in which space applications are opening up new markets with a high economic and strategic value: multimedia telecommunications, satellite navigation and observation of the Earth.
These trends are largely shared by the European Parliament and have also been the object of a communication on telecommunication satellites, for which Mr Hoppenstedt was the rapporteur, and are to an extent also included in the Fifth Framework Programme.
Here, however, I should point out that, following the revisions to the many amendments to the report, always with tight deadlines, we have ended up by consolidating most of the space research subjects into an aeronautical and astronautical action rather than into the various sections such as transport, environment and information society, general materials technologies, and I think this consolidation should possibly be reconsidered when we get to the second reading, maintaining the assignment to the various sections.
Many political and strategic questions remain to be answered and I would like to dwell on these for a moment.
Over the last three years, the American companies have merged into just three groups of worldwide dimensions, while the European consolidation process is slow. Do the national space agencies still have a role to play in the future?
And what about the European Space Agency? And the role of the Commission?
My reasoning leads me to see the Commission assuming a more purposeful role in the near future with regard to space strategies, towards the Council and Parliament, and even internationally to take part in negotiations for frequency allocations and satellite positions.
I have suggested in my report that the Commission ask for a European Council on "space' , at least to sound it out.
We are waiting to discuss these subjects again in Parliament and we are waiting for a communication on navigation systems, while the Intergroup on space travel and the space-travel Task Force are continuing to increase contacts with the Commission, the ESA and industry.
This chapter has really only just begun!
Mr President, firstly, may I congratulate the rapporteur.
He has shown his usual willingness to incorporate the ideas of colleagues, which is appreciated.
We appreciate too the expert views of Mr Malerba.
This report emphasizes the importance of space, the need for support from public funds - commercial interests will be totally inadequate - and the real added value that comes from European Union work.
He contrasts the position in the United States and the European Union in terms of jobs, spin-offs and the development of a scientific culture.
We are not talking about military research and development.
That point is quite clearly made.
Principally we are concerned with satellite applications.
We are not recommending any encroachment on the role of ESA.
We talk about telecoms, navigation and Earth observation.
This is of tremendous value to European Union citizens and beyond that to the third world.
Mr Desama quotes regional planning, agriculture, fisheries, transport, combatting fraud and the symptoms and difficulties related to climate change.
I share his view that the space industry must 'boldly go along the path towards a concentration which will enable it to compete with American manufacturers.'
I like the reference to Star Trek in the 'boldly go' .
Although there is an emphasis on satellites, we need to realize there are tremendous synergies with manned or, more politically correct, peopled activities, which is essential.
We have to tackle the problem of space debris.
There are all sorts of things going round in space from space vehicles to hardware to power tools to teapots.
This is going to become a big problem and must be addressed.
On the question which some of the amendments raise about the problems of plutonium, we must do research into solar cells.
They will help us here on earth with energy and there will be spin-offs.
But it is not yet possible to abandon the use of nuclear power for the generation necessary for some of the instruments in deep space.
Like my colleagues I would like to emphasize the role for space education.
Please, everybody, go to Toulouse and see Space City.
It will inspire you.
And of all the sciences which inspire young people, space is paramount.
It is one which has driven people in the past into physics, and it is very serious if we have a diminution in the number of people studying that subject.
It is fascinating to all humans and it could be the key to the survival of our planet.
I very strongly support the strategy outlined in both the Desama report and the Malerba opinion, in particular the need for the Council to take on board the need for a Council meeting devoted to space in the European context.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a matter of real importance that the European Parliament is discussing aviation and space travel here this evening, since this is without doubt a European issue.
I myself come from a region which has always played an important role in the aviation and space industry and where today everyone recognizes that only through European cooperation will we be able to maintain our competitive position vis--vis the United States, or at least have a chance of recovering it.
On behalf of them, and also speaking for my own group here, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his comprehensive report.
I believe that all aspects of the problem have been examined here in an appropriate manner.
We in the Group of the European People's Party will also lend our full support to this report.
We have deliberately refrained from submitting any amendments because we do not want to jeopardize the resolution which was adopted by majority vote in committee.
I do not wish at this point to go over again all the major problems facing the aviation and space industries.
Mr Malerba, Mr Desama, as rapporteur, and also Mrs McNally have all addressed the problem in a very articulate way.
However, at this juncture I should like to refer to another matter, namely the need to achieve full equality of opportunity, particularly with the United States, in the growth markets of aviation and space travel.
It is not right that the USA should be basically funding research and development through its defence budget, thereby giving it an advantage over the European aviation and space industries.
Parliament has already dealt with this matter in connection with another report drawn up by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
I myself have proposed various amendments in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
While these proposals were unfortunately rejected, this is still a subject which merits our attention.
It is unacceptable that we in Europe - and indeed this is the basis of a communication from Directorate-General XII - should have no standard procurement system, while the United States obviously combines its research, development and procurement activities and ensures that many developments from the military sector are adopted by the civilian industries, a fact which gives that country clear advantages over the European aviation and space industry.
We must have no delusions in this respect.
We have to find a European answer to this challenge.
I hope that with the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty and the development of a common foreign and security policy we will be able to find a European solution to this problem.
Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party I would like to congratulate Mr Desama on his excellent report.
The European space market is fragmented.
Many small companies are actively involved, but they do not cooperate sufficiently.
The restructuring of the space industry - that is, the integration of several companies into one company or grouping - is needed in order to be able to compete in the global market.
European and transatlantic cooperation in space activities is an absolute must.
The Fifth Framework Programme could play a encouraging role in this, especially now the cooperation agreement in the sphere of science and technology has been signed with the Americans during the most recent summit in Washington.
My second point concerns the position of the European satellite industry.
The strategic importance of our own satellite industry has been of commercial interest since the end of the cold war.
The sector has been growing by 10 % each year, and contributes to the creation of jobs.
If the European Union does not want to miss the boat, the Commission and the Member States need to promote the competitiveness of this industry.
My group is not really thinking of sector-specific support, but of stimulating joint research and cooperation.
Satellite systems are the way to break into the globalization of the information society.
But in Europe, investments are primarily made in regional terrestrial networks.
What is more, the European satellite industry works too much in isolation, without much interaction with the industries which produce computers, networks, software and peripherals.
As a result of this, the satellite industry is losing an increasing market share to the United States.
More cooperation and merging between companies, and political support for technological development, are necessary, as well as tackling risk management.
Mr President, we in the Green Group in the European Parliament have felt obliged to put forward five amendments to this report by Mr Desama in order to clarify, and in some paragraphs also to strengthen, certain points of principle as far as the European Union and space are concerned.
Firstly, is Mr Desama not using the wrong word when in sentence b of the preamble he says we shall 'conquer' space? To my ears the word conquer has the wrong associations.
It should be about us exploring what space has to give and nothing else.
The word conquer is used for ideas in a military context, that something shall be conquered .
But that is not what this is about, it is about us exploring, because that should be the idea of the EU's space policy.
Secondly, as far as large international cooperation projects in space are concerned, on the question of the Casini space project and its 'sweep' past the earth, we think the European Parliament should call on the ESA and NASA to cancel this planned 'sweep' past the earth for safety reasons, since the probe is in fact equipped with 32 kg of highly radioactive plutonium. Several reports from Parliament in the past have said that this is dangerous on safety grounds.
This probe is going to pass the earth at a distance of 500 miles and at a speed of 68 000 km/h.
I think we in the European Parliament should prevent that.
Thirdly, in paragraph 10, as well as saying that we should not use the space programme for military research, it should be added that we should also not use nuclear material in space.
Fourthly, we must do much more research on solar energy than we have done so far.
This is something on which the ESA has come a long way, and we could go further in this research.
Mr President, Mr Desama's report largely covers the field of scientific, ethnological and financial problems by usefully - in terms of our own education - emphasizing not only the communication from the Commission, which is the least important, but also the resolutions adopted by the European Parliament between 1979 and 1994.
The density of this report is an advantage because it enables us to focus our comments.
Allow me first of all to state two preconditions.
The first is that there still seems to be a strong temptation to compare European space policy with that of the United States, in particular by comparing public commitments and by noting the private sector's contribution.
Perhaps we should remember that the United States is one single state, albeit federal, and that the European Union is made up of fifteen countries, with all the cultural differences that this entails, as well as differences in terms of representative role and weight in science and technology, in research and development relations, and in priorities.
The second observation is that it seems difficult to separate the components of a dynamic discourse which specifies spheres of cooperation and spheres of competition - in terms of healthy competitiveness - as well as policies of partnership, in particular with the United States but also with Russia, on the question, for example, of very heavy launchers, or with emerging countries such as India, China or Brazil.
That said, I would like to mention the need to strengthen the social dimension of European space policy.
We know that the technological orientations are not neutral.
The current debate relating to manned flights is not simply a debate on the question of whether, on the one hand, we should choose a combination of robots and humans or, on the other, the "fully automatic' .
It is also relates to the problem of the outlook we are giving to society for the coming decades.
The question of application is therefore essential, and the question of social utility crucial in itself.
If we make progress in earth observation it is to improve our awareness of the balances in the ecosystem and of the need to conserve them.
If telecommunications develop, it is primarily in order to combat isolation and to make progress in the area of distance medicine.
If remote sensing expands, it will be because it is a tool for town and country planning.
Finally, if navigation develops, it will be because the oceans are a favoured place for geostrategic issues.
A former head of division at the European Space Agency reminded us that there is a one to fifteen ratio between, on the one hand, the market for satellite launchers and on the other, land-based facilities and employment.
For my part, I see that in Guyana and in Kourou, all along the road, there are billboards proclaiming, "Kourou, European space terminal' .
I can assure you that the one to fifteen ratio is not born out by the facts, nor by the land-based facilities, nor by employment.
It is probably not the case for other space bases either.
I think we must look for an integrated programme.
The social conditions in our countries demand it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Desama's report illustrates the different approach to space travel on either side of the Atlantic.
The number of employees in this sector alone - 200 000 in the USA as compared with about 40 000 in Europe - tells its own story.
The growth of the commercial sector in Europe is certainly impressive.
But technological advance and the development of new activities in the field of space research will certainly not be financed by the commercial sector.
We can be absolutely sure of that.
I support the idea that European space policy should be regarded in its entirety, something which is advocated in the report.
I wish to emphasize that science and the technology of manned space travel are of vital importance, and we should not merely restrict ourselves to their commercial applications.
It is therefore essential that the Fifth Framework Programme should focus on the funding of space research for the benefit of the information society, earth observation and navigation.
The British or Austrian Presidency could demonstrate its receptiveness to the technological development of Europe by convening a separate meeting of the European Council, in addition to that of the ESA-Council of Ministers, in order to discuss the theme of a European space policy, as recommended by the rapporteur.
The urgent need for European industry to improve its competitiveness makes space policy a compulsory subject for the European Council.
Earth observation is particularly important in this respect.
When employed in a responsible manner, this activity will stand our citizens in good stead.
It is a science which guarantees progress in many areas, including environmental research.
The need for intensive public funding is therefore obvious.
It would be foolish to think that earth observation will sooner or later be nothing more than a commercial operation.
Here Europe is on the point of losing out to the United States.
The European Union must therefore not slacken its pace but must rather make earth observation a key part of its space research policy and to this effect should devise and submit a well thought out action programme.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start my comments on Mr Desama's report on Europe and space by thanking and congratulating him for the enormous amount of work he has put into this within the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Along with some of our colleagues, in spite of certain lobbies, fashions and, above all, caution, he defends the industrial and technological interests of Europe, its research and its appropriations, not to mention the safety of our energy.
As a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I very often come into contact with these issues during the writing of my own reports and during my own work.
I am, furthermore, working at this moment on industrial competitiveness in Europe, and I know the importance of public appropriations for research and the importance of space in our operations, our strengths and our European industrial hopes.
As a European, as a socialist and as a Frenchman, I therefore unreservedly support all of Mr Desama's proposals.
Firstly, on the need for the revival of investment; on the delays and the catching up needed in some areas; on the need for concentration of the industry; on the place of the Fifth Framework Programme for research in its operations; and on the strengthening of our technological and economic potential in order to improve the technological competence and the financial capacity of the space industry, both military and civil.
I also obviously support his requests for the utilization of the space industry in the protection of man against natural disasters and other major risks.
Finally, like him, I am aware of the actions necessary to control and eliminate the pollution caused by space debris.
Yes, Madam President, I will say once again that it is a good report, and very important for Europe.
Let us hope the proposals will be voted for, taken up and followed through.
I would like to finish as I started, by insisting that European public financing of this sector must not be reduced.
Do not forget that the Chinese launchers are largely financed by the Chinese State.
Without going that far, we must avoid distortions caused by competition and therefore the European Union must not withdraw.
Simply put, it is better to concentrate our efforts, better to target our objectives and not miss the small firing window in front of us.
Let us never forget - I am finishing, Madam President - that if the European space industry is flourishing commercially today, it is because, in its time, there has been some true political and public will, particularly in France.
This will, and these appropriations, remain just as necessary today in order to prepare the space industry for tomorrow.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as a Christian Democrat and member of the Group of the European People's Party I naturally welcome the report which has been presented by Mr Desama and Mr Malerba because like my colleague Mr Ferber I too perceive that it contains elements from our contributions in committee.
Of course, I also welcome the excellent collaboration which has taken place with the Commission, in this case with Mrs Cresson, Mr Bangemann and Mr Kinnock, on the subject of guidance systems
I believe that the small interest groups to be found in this House - here in this Chamber, in the Intergroup on space travel and also in the space-travel Task Force, which has been formed from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy - will develop into a major movement, and that the fascination which emanates from space travel will, I hope, attract greater attention both within this House and indeed from the wider public outside.
On the way home this evening you have only to gaze at the clear, starry night sky and at the wondrous full moon to be convinced of the fascination of our universe.
Unfortunately we are meeting here in a windowless room and cannot appreciate the magnificence of it all.
I do not want to repeat what has already been said. It has all been said already.
I believe that the most important issue for the future - to be dealt with in the next report, which has already been submitted (and of which I am the rapporteur) - namely the position of the European aviation and space industries, will provide us with answers to the global challenges we have to meet. How big should our factories be?
What should we be manufacturing in them? What sort of businesses do we need as Europeans in order to remain competitive in the global marketplace?
I think we should point out clearly that in future the development of guidance systems and aircraft navigation systems, which have already been touched on, and the work of successor organizations to GLONASS and GPS, will constitute a valuable contribution from the European Commission.
We eagerly await an action plan which will allow us to make a start on these projects this very year.
Let me close with the following remarks. Mention has been made of the problem of space debris.
In this context, we really should find a European scrap materials company capable of dealing with the problem of orbiting scrap, and we should also raise a warning finger to the various attempts being made by a number of people to have their own ashes scattered on the moon.
Moon-dust is strange enough on its own without being further altered by the addition of the cremated remains of human beings.
I do not want to see our moon becoming the favourite stamping ground of Mr Malerba.
I really believe that this particular subject merits our attention.
Madam President, the UN is now taking ten years doing research into natural disasters partly with the aim of developing satellite charting applications for the prediction, charting, and avoidance of natural disasters, and to aid relief and rescue operations. It is appropriate now to declare EU support for this work.
As Mr Desama stresses, the space programme must be seen in its entirety. It involves scientific and technological considerations and civil and military applications.
However, I do not believe we should support civil and military notions of inhabited space, as manned flights are tremendously expensive, and are not any more important for Europe than unmanned flights equipped with robots and automated equipment.
The concept of living in space is, besides, a long way off, as we are only now starting to prepare for the first international space station.
It will presumably only come together in the first half of the next millennium, and the possibility of building stations on other planets is still a very distant one.
It is especially important for the small European countries that satellites are not too large.
The risks of big, long-term projects are also very great, and the results only begin to show after many years.
It would be better to put more money into smaller carrier rockets - booster systems - and small-scale satellites.
Every European country would be able to contribute to projects like these.
Furthermore, with small booster systems we will get reasonable results in the shorter term, and money will not be spent on mere scientific exploits.
The role of the Fifth Framework Programme for research funding is important and necessary.
The framework programme must be granted appropriations for space research, for example by evolving operations that are connected with the information society and remote surveying.
Madam President, my Commission colleagues and I welcome the excellent report by Professor Desama and Mr Malerba on our 1996 Communication on a European Union policy for fostering applications, markets and competitiveness for our space industries.
The report properly reflects the sustained interest which this Parliament has taken in space policy issues over the last 19 years.
Some would argue that it is a pity that there has not been such widespread and determined commitment from other quarters over that period.
The report also has the virtue of asserting the importance of an effective European role in the variety of activities that are needed to ensure, in the words of paragraph 6 of the report, that our Community and industries can 'boldly go' towards development which is commensurate with modern needs and opportunities.
That, very obviously, is in our economic, industrial and security interests, and as several Members of this House have pointed out in the course of this very good debate, it will also help to improve the quality of life of people everywhere in a very great variety of ways.
As our Communication and this report made clear, responding to the challenges of developments in space policy will require leadership and vision, and everyone involved in national governments, industry, research and in the European institutions needs to be imbued with a sense of urgency.
The difference in the scale of activity in Europe and the USA is illustrated by the fact that just 39 000 people are employed in space-related activities in the Union - a fifth of the number currently employed in similar activities in the United States of America.
The fact that in satellite navigation alone there are reliable estimates of a global market that will be worth US$50 billion within the next seven years should inspire an avid desire to exploit the possibilities of growth.
Clearly, space issues involve a very wide variety of interests and institutions, and the role of the Union and the Commission is not to substitute for these different interests but to help to provide a vision around which they can organize and combine efforts.
To that end we will continue to use regulation and legislation.
We will exploit external relations activities to promote European interests bilaterally and in international bodies, a dimension which, as Professor Desama has made clear, is obviously crucial since these markets are, by definition, global and not European, and we need common standards.
We will further employ research and development resources in the framework programmes and in the telecoms trans-European networks and, of course, we will provide the modest support that is available for infrastructure development through the trans-European networks' budget.
As the House will know, the primary contributor to space research and development is the European Space Agency, whose annual budget for this specific area is equivalent to that of the whole of the European Union's framework programme.
Community research and development work in this area therefore needs to be closely targeted on Community priorities, and it needs to be complementary to the activities of the ESA and of Member States.
Together with my colleagues Edith Cresson and Martin Bangemann, I am therefore committed to ensuring that the Fifth Framework Programme will focus on supporting activities in the three main areas dealt with in the Commission's Communication and, indeed, focused on in the report being considered by the House tonight: satellite communication, navigation and Earth observation.
One of the key points in the report now being considered is that the private sector should not be expected to substitute for public money in the development of major space-related technologies.
I strongly share the view that there must be a continuing and substantial public investment in those areas that reflects their strategic importance to society as a whole.
It is also clear, however, that, as in many other cases, there is a need for imaginative forms of public/private partnership, partly to mobilize complementary sources of financing and partly to improve the quality and the costeffectiveness of projects by bringing in private-sector expertise.
Meanwhile the action plans which the Commission Communication promised on each of the three main policy areas are under way.
Indeed, as honourable Members will know, and as Professor Desama said, the one on telecommunications is already available, the Earth observation plan will be available later this year and I am happy to say that the satellite navigation action plan, for which I have responsibility, will be produced later this month.
That document has two main aims: the aim of catalysing a firm political commitment from Member States for a European contribution to satellite navigation so that the private sector can have the confidence to invest in the future, and, secondly, the aim of demonstrating that the European Union is in a position to take the action necessary to turn vision into reality and make secure practical progress - not a moment too soon, several honourable Members could justifiably add.
As many honourable Members here will be aware, there are several sensitive areas to deal with, including financing, the question of how the European contribution should relate to the existing United States' and Russian military base systems, and what forms of organization we need in order to run and to regulate the European component of satellite navigation.
I look forward to discussing that action plan in this Parliament, especially in view of the support given to a European approach to satellite navigation in Professor Desama's report.
The Commission fully shares this Parliament's commitment to an active and comprehensive European policy for space, with the European Union and its institutions promoting a forward-looking European perspective and cooperating with Member States and other institutions to make a reality of the vision which is increasingly shared.
I thank this Parliament for its continuing efforts to stimulate and to guide that vision and I express the gratitude of the Commission and particularly my colleagues, Mrs Cresson and Mr Bangemann, for the quality of this report, and my gratitude to those who have compiled it.
Thank you, Commissioner Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
New Rule 79a of the Rules of Procedure
The next item is the report (A4-0006/98) by Mr Fayot, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on inserting a new Rule 79a on the procedure for delivering opinions pursuant to Article 109j of the EC Treaty.
Madam President, I am raising a preliminary question to this debate, in accordance with Rule 128 of our Rules of Procedure.
In fact, the proposal for a decision in the report and the amendments of the Rules of Procedure included are inadmissible, both for reasons of procedure and for reasons of substance.
On the level of procedure, the text proposed to the House is not in keeping with the text adopted in committee.
In fact, the text we had adopted in committee reads as follows, at the end of Paragraph 2: "Parliament will then vote on the recommendations, with no amendments; there will be a single collective vote for this proposal' . The text submitted to us today is, "Parliament will then vote en bloc on the recommendations, with no amendments' .
Thus this totally different text is, moreover, an amendment - Amendment No 11 - which had been removed by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure as it was an oral amendment.
Article 150 has therefore not been respected.
On the substance, the proposed text takes up once again the current drafting of Article 80, Paragraph 1, of the Rules of Procedure, which provides for an assent but not for a consultation of Parliament, whereas Article 109j of the Treaty provides for a parliamentary consultation and not for an assent.
That is why I am raising this preliminary question.
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
The rapporteur, Mr Fayot, will now speak against the motion.
Madam President, I request the rejection of this preliminary question for two reasons.
The first concerns the text proposed to the House.
According to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, it is not the same as that voted for by the Committee.
In effect, the Committee voted for the addition by saying that Parliament would vote en bloc and it was clearly stated, at the time of discussion and decision by the Committee, that this addition should be integrated into the text.
This is therefore exactly what has been done.
As regards the second argument, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy says that it is a question here of an assent text, but the Committee on the Rules of Procedure was not of this opinion.
This discussion has already taken place in committee; that is why the text presented to you corresponds perfectly, in spirit and in letter, to that which was voted for by the great majority of members of the Committee.
I therefore ask the House to reject this preliminary question.
(Parliament decided against referral back to committee)
Madam President, Article 109j of the Treaty defines the procedure by which a decision will be made on the countries to participate in monetary union.
It will be enforced on 1 and 2 May 1998.
Given the importance of the political issue, it is essential that the institutions involved in this procedure act with the utmost clarity possible.
The solidity of monetary union, along with its credibility in the eyes of the financial markets and the public, depends upon the transparency and rigour with which key decisions are made.
The European Parliament will have a role to play in this procedure.
The Treaty foresees, in Article 109j, Paragraph 2, last subparagraph, and I quote: "The European Parliament is consulted and conveys its opinion to the Council, which will meet at the level of Heads of State and of Government' .
It is not for me to comment here on the quite specific nature of the whole of the procedure.
But I would like to underline that Parliament intervenes on two occasions and that, in my opinion, this double intervention constitutes a whole, from a political point of view.
The first intervention takes place when Parliament expresses its opinion on the reports of the Commission and the European Monetary Institute, which will be ready on 24 March 1998.
This first intervention is "good policy' , since Parliament, through public debate on respect for convergence criteria and on the whole of the monetary situation, gives a guarantee of democracy to the process.
On this subject, there is an agreement between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament.
This first stage enables Parliament to establish a detailed report in which normal parliamentary rules will play a full role.
There will probably be a vote on the conclusions on 30 April, or even earlier, but in any case sufficiently close to the weekend of 1 and 2 May 1998 to be available for the Ecofin Council on 1 May.
If this first intervention on the part of Parliament is not anticipated in the Treaty, then the second, on the contrary, most clearly is, as I emphasized at the start.
It is, in fact, obligatory and it must therefore take place according to a procedure that must be marred by no uncertainty, due to the risk of invalidating the whole of the process towards monetary union.
It must, furthermore, take place within time constraints the like of which apply to no procedure currently anticipated in our Rules of Procedure.
It has therefore been necessary to improvise, and amend the Rules of Procedure by introducing a new procedure.
These constraints are not born of our imagination, but they have been imposed on us as a precondition that cannot be ignored, following the exchange of letters between the President of Parliament, duly mandated by the Conference of Presidents, and the Presidents of the Council and the Commission.
They are the result of a political will to sort everything out during the weekend in question, whilst the financial markets are shut from the Thursday evening to the Monday morning.
For the success of the operation, it is an essential condition.
In this way, Parliament will not have access to the recommendations of the Ecofin Council until the morning of 2 May.
Given that the European Council is being held that afternoon, it is physically not possible to use the procedure of a written report with amendments.
The vast majority of the Committee therefore opted for an oral procedure, without amendment, with a block vote on the list of countries to take part in monetary union.
The text adopted is absolutely clear and unequivocal and is not open to any debate on procedure.
I am therefore convinced, Madam President, that the text we are proposing to Parliament is in complete accordance with the wishes of the vast majority of our Parliament to bring this extraordinarily complex and important task of completing monetary union to a successful conclusion.
Madam President, the deadline for submitting amendments has been extended until this evening, even if the political groups had at their disposal, and I wish to emphasize this, the text of the amendment last Tuesday afternoon, after the vote of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure that same afternoon.
I was told, at 7 p.m. this evening, that only one amendment had been introduced.
This amendment is an amendment by the Green Group requesting, instead of a block vote, a separate vote on each country on the proposed list of monetary union participants.
As rapporteur I must oppose this amendment because Parliament cannot, at this stage, start giving out individual marks to countries agreed by the Ecofin Council.
I think that if Parliament wishes to do so, it can do this during the first stage but, once at this stage of the procedure, to want to comment separately on one country or another would only confuse the political message we have to give.
Madam President, I request that the House kindly approves the text as proposed by the vast majority of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, and I would like to end by highlighting the excellent collaboration of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure with the Legal Service, but above all with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The Conference of Presidents had asked us to deal with this amendment of the Rules of Procedure together with this Committee.
I would like to thank in particular the chair of this Committee, Mr von Wogau, and also Mrs Randzio-Plath, chair of the Monetary Sub-Committee, for their very interesting contributions.
Once again, I ask that the House kindly approves in its majority this amendment to the rules.
Madam President, I will be brief.
I congratulate Mr Fayot on his report.
The Socialist Group, of whom I am the spokesman, will be supporting it in its entirety and without amendment.
It was necessary to amend our rules to incorporate our ability to be consulted, swiftly and speedily, on opinions pursuant to article 109j with respect to economic and monetary union.
Mr Fayot's report is a mean, lean and green report.
It is short, sharp and to the point.
Parliament will debate on the basis of an oral report by its responsible committee.
It will then take a single collective vote on the recommendations with no amendments.
This will enable Parliament to speak with a sharp, clear voice and at the same time frustrate those prepared to use all means possible to hinder Europe's forward march.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by saying that speaking for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs as well as for the PPE I both welcome and support the rapporteur's report.
Within the Group of the European People's Party and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs there is a large majority in favour of the Fayot report and I would like to express my own personal thanks for the cooperation shown by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Why do we need to amend our Rules of Procedure? Because, for one thing, the process we use to make this resolution is of enormous importance, and, for another, we are going to be in a situation which is relatively new to us.
What does the Treaty stipulate? It stipulates that the European Parliament is to make known its position on the Finance Ministers' proposal.
However, this proposal will not be drawn up until the evening of 1 May.
As a result of this, a written procedure will not be possible and we shall be obliged to state our position to the Finance Ministers' proposal at this special sitting of the European Parliament on 2 May, which will presumably take up the whole morning.
For this reason, we have opted for a two-part procedure.
On 25 March, the European Monetary Institute and the European Commission will submit their recommendations.
On this basis, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs will then draw up a report giving all the possibilities for the submission of amendments in committee.
The European Parliament will subsequently adopt an initial position at its part-session of 29-30 April.
As Mr Fayot has already said, this position is not expressly provided for in the Treaty, yet neither is it expressly ruled out.
At the same time, the national parliaments of the various Member States will also be adopting a position on the proposals of the European Commission and the European Monetary Institute.
When these possibilities have been exhausted and Parliament's position has been made clear, we shall examine the proposal of the Finance Ministers and make our position on it known by verbal process.
In view of the fact that we previously had a period of one month in which to prepare our position by a truly democratic procedure, I consider it entirely justified that we should concentrate on voting either "Yes' or "No' to the Finance Ministers' proposals.
This is a process which on the one hand will satisfy all the democratic requirements, and on the other will also ensure that the European Parliament properly discharges its duty in this historic situation.
Madam President, I cannot be as enthusiastic as the previous speakers.
My group will of course support the report, but we have to ask ourselves if we as Parliament are not giving away a little bit too much by saying that this is right.
We are having a first debate on the basis of a report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, but as Parliament, we will then still have an important vote on Saturday 2 May.
It is a special article for a special occasion, because I cannot see us using it much thereafter.
We can ask ourselves what will be the use of this Parliament's recommendations, and we may assume that the Council will take note of these.
But must we really restrict ourselves by saying we will vote for or against, and we will not be able to make any amendments?
I find this all the more regrettable, because we can only work with oral recommendation in the present version of the Fayot report.
I would prefer to have seen this oral recommendation as optional.
We will also consider whether we will have a separate vote on this.
We know that one Member States meets all the criteria for membership of EMU, did not enter a condition in the Accession Treaty, but yet does not want to participate.
Formally we should really say that this invalidates the Ecofin Council recommendation, as this country will not be included.
We will nonetheless be in favour of starting EMU, but are not able include the qualifications that this country should actually belong.
I regret this.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the weak position of Parliament within the legislature is the main flaw in the EU's democratic structure.
This deficiency also lies at the heart of a further problem, namely the failure of our citizens fully to accept European integration.
In view of this deplorable situation it must seem absolutely incomprehensible that Parliament of its own accord should opt for a further curtailment of its rights.
Here I am in no way underestimating the urgency of the situation, and the special circumstances which mean that Parliament very quickly has to adopt a position on the recommendations of the Ecofin Council.
However, it is quite unjustified that we should forgo a written report on this matter and spontaneously remove the fundamental right of the Members of this House to submit amendments in plenary session, as well as having to vote en bloc .
This is tantamount to Parliament cutting its own throat.
It seems to me to be very important that Parliament is able to adopt a discriminating position prior to the final resolution of the Council on the introduction of monetary union.
I therefore implore this House, politely yet forcefully, to support our amendment and allow a split vote on the recommendations of the Ecofin Council, so that we can vote individually on this issue.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Radical Alliance will also vote in favour of Mr Fayot's report, thanking the rapporteur for the speed with which we in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunity have carried out what seemed to be in the general interests.
I told that Committee, and I confirm it now in Chamber for it to be put on record: I think that, in these proceedings, obviously faced with a series of general contingencies and in the interests of the Union, we have gone beyond the limit of the autonomy, the independence of the rights of the MEPs and Parliament which are guaranteed by our Rules of Procedure.
We have certainly tried to take into account the requirement that these proceedings should be swift and enable the Union, without upsetting the markets, to take a decision that contemplates Parliament's opinion, but, in doing so, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is basically seeking to interpret it but, in my opinion, he is exaggerating when he says that some rights have been violated - we actually have fewer guarantees of rights, certainly on two or three points.
That is why, when voting on Mr Fayot's report, I believe that, in the trialogue and in the dialogues we are having with the other institutions, the President should assert our wish for fair cooperation, and should, however, also inform all the other institutions: for example, Council should be told clearly that Parliament is also prepared to do this provided Council is prepared for other forms of cooperation, such as cooperation with the Committees of Inquiry or with other sectors deserving fair cooperation, the cooperation we are prepared to provide and which we would also like to see from the other institutions, from Council and - if Commissioner Kinnock will allow me - from the Commission as well.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the report proposed to us by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, is legally questionable and politically inappropriate.
I have given two reasons in a minority opinion, which appears in the report.
On a legal level, I maintain that the opinion requested from Parliament is different to an assent. The opinion that is requested by article 109j of the Treaty, an opinion given on an Ecofin Council text, in this case, conveyed to a Council meeting at the level of Heads of State and of Government, must be pronounced by Parliament on the basis of a written report including a preamble, a proposal for a resolution and a right to amendment, which is the same whether within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy or within this House.
It is not possible to disregard this without deliberately violating article 109j of the Treaty.
I was told: Parliament will sit and give its opinion at the stage of recommendations to the Commission, but the Commission is not the same body as the Council of Ministers.
The text that it will draw up is legally different.
The opinion that Parliament will give - which is a non-obligatory opinion - is legally different.
The report is politically inappropriate.
It is inappropriate because Parliament - and it is paradoxical that our group should end up defending the rights of Parliament on such a serious matter - in reality refuses to exercise the authority it draws from the Treaty. Technical arguments do not exist.
You can find a procedure permitting Parliament to have its say.
How can you imagine that such a serious decision as the implementation of economic and monetary union can be carried out on the basis of an oral report?
How can you imagine that MEPs, either together or individually, would not have the right of amendment? How can you imagine that the representatives of the people of the Member States of the European Union are not able to comment on each one of the recommendations that the Ecofin Council's conclusions will cover?
They want to gag Parliament.
We will not accept this, and we will use all the legal means possible to enable us to gain satisfaction in this matter.
Madam President, I found the last contribution rather surprising because anyone who has observed the process of economic and monetary union over the last 7 ½ years knows that this House has followed the whole process very closely.
Anyone would think that the debate that we are going to have on 2 May is the first and only time that Parliament has ever looked at the question of economic and monetary union.
We debate it every month in the Economic Committee.
We debate it at least every other month in this Parliament and we have done so for the last 7 ½ years.
I think that some of the contributions today show that those people who have spoken simply do not understand the process that we have undergone since 1990 when stage one of EMU began.
There are two opportunities for the European Parliament to look at the process of EMU.
The first will be in the report that Karl von Wogau writes for us where he will look in detail at the information that comes from the European Monetary Institute and the Commission.
Parliament can then make all of the political points that it needs to make.
It can build into that report all the new ones that it wants to incorporate.
We can debate at length in the various committees and in Parliament all of the aspects of the convergence criteria - the effect on employment, the effect on the external exchange rate.
All of these other points can be debated and I have no doubt that the groups that seem so quick to run for further legal advice will take part in that debate.
But the most important thing for us to do, having passed the von Wogau report during the Brussels plenary session on 29 and 30 April, is to realize the historic decision that we then have to take on 2 May.
What the Rules Committee and Mr Fayot have done - and I would like to thank him on behalf of the members of the Economic Committee; I would like to join with Karl von Wogau in thanking him and his colleagues - is to provide an opportunity for Parliament to give its historic seal of approval, after all the lengthy and detailed debates that we have undergone, and make that historic decision.
If there are political groups in this Chamber who choose to try and make cheap political capital out of 2 May, we will not forget them in this House and I certainly hope that people in Europe do not forget them.
Madam President, let me first say that I think Mr Fayot has produced a very elegant solution to a very difficult problem.
In fact I believe this is the only possible solution given the pressure of time under which we have to work.
However, I would still like to complain that through this accelerated procedure we are turning our opinion into a formality which in practice cannot result in anything but an approval of Ecofin's recommendation.
As the situation stands, I believe it would have been better almost if we had not given any opinion at all before the Council's decision, quite simply for the simple reason that I am afraid this is going to be seen and represented as an empty gesture from the European Parliament and not as a real exercise of Parliamentary power.
I am also afraid that it is going to strengthen the impression that the whole EMU project has a very dubious, if not to say bad, democratic basis.
That is of course not something which Mr Fayot can control.
His report and solution are the only possible ones, and I can only hope that as many of us as possible vote for the report tomorrow.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Amendment to Rule 75 of the Rules of Procedure
The next item is the report (A4-0400/97) by Mr Ford, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on amending Rule 75 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure (Delegation to Conciliation Committee).
Madam President, I promise I will not take anything like five minutes for my report.
As you said, this is a report on amending Rule 75 of the Rules of Procedure, on conciliation.
It has been argued in the past in this House that Parliament has not been punching its full weight with respect to conciliation and its role in the Conciliation Committee.
Following a referral by the President of Parliament to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, the Committee has looked at the matter, and it is not our view that Parliament's representatives have in any way been lacking in their efforts to make Parliament's position clear on the Conciliation Committee and, as it were, to ensure that Parliament has the maximum possible say on that important committee.
However, it was clear that there could be a number of small procedural changes in our rules which would actually help Parliament's side of this work.
Members will see in front of them three proposed amendments to the procedure, one of which incorporates two small changes.
Firstly, with respect to Amendment No 2, we propose changing 'may appoint substitutes' to 'shall appoint substitutes' because there have been problems in the past when groups have not had named substitutes available.
The second amendment removes restrictions on substitutes actually attending meetings when a full Member has attended for part of the time, in other words we would follow the same procedure as laid down at the moment in our committees on the Conciliation Committee.
Thirdly, we are proposing that the meetings should be not in camera, but merely not public, which would allow the participation of representatives from other institutions and, on occasion, the substitutes who may be called on later.
Finally, we call on the Conference of Presidents to lay down procedural guidelines because we think that there are other points which are not the purview of the Rules Committee which could aid the functioning of the Conciliation Committees.
I urge Parliament to support these changes to the Rules for now and to come back and look at this matter after the next European Parliament elections to see if further changes are required.
Madam President, it is a great pleasure to rise in support of Mr Ford's report.
These are only small amendments to the Rules of Procedure, but they are highly significant.
They will put Parliament on an equal footing with the Council in the conciliation procedure itself.
The Council, up to now, has had an advantage in that the Treaty specifies that the Council or its representatives attend the conciliation meetings and in practice, when necessary, in cases where meetings have gone on longer than expected - as they often do in conciliation, with extra meetings called at short notice - the Council has been able to change its representatives.
We in Parliament have tied our hands somewhat in not making full use of the possibility of using substitute Members in the Conciliation Committee.
Very often it is necessary to change representatives at the last minute because of the very nature of negotiations that take place in conciliation.
These small changes will make it possible for Parliament to do that and thereby place us on an equal footing with the Council in the Conciliation Committee.
It is timely to introduce that change at this very moment because the Amsterdam Treaty changes the procedure under the Codecision Procedure of the Treaty - the Codecision Procedure which is actually the culmination of Parliament's legislative powers.
Amsterdam will make it impossible to adopt any legislation that falls under the Codecision Procedure without the explicit agreement of the European Parliament.
Most codecision, even now, does not require conciliation.
The two readings in each institution suffice to reach agreement.
But where the matter does have to go to conciliation, under the Amsterdam Treaty agreement in the Conciliation Committee will be necessary in order for legislation to be adopted.
Under Maastricht it was possible for the Council to opt out and unilaterally adopt its own text, challenging Parliament to reject that text.
That will no longer be possible.
Therefore the significance of the Conciliation Committee is enhanced still further.
It is absolutely right that at this stage we get our procedures into line to make sure we can take full advantage of that.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
The Group of the European People's Party will be supporting it in its entirety.
Since it is late and there are few of us present I can be short and brutally frank.
It is my view that the European Parliament spends too much time wishing it had more power and not enough time effectively implementing the powers it has.
There is a symbolic and institutional importance in what Mr Ford is doing.
He is making it easier for us to make coherent and consistent use of the powers we have.
That is a genuine contribution to closing the democratic deficit.
It is not as intellectually and politically seductive as all the things we talk about in the Committee on Institutional Affairs but perhaps in the long term it is going to be even more effective and even more important.
So not merely for administrative and technical reasons but also for political and institutional reasons, we in the Group of the European People's Party will enthusiastically be supporting this report.
Madam President, I offer my congratulations to Mr Ford and to the other speakers in this heated debate.
My contribution to the air of unanimity will be to agree with everything that has been said so far.
Conciliation and codecision were long fought for by Parliament and were a recognition of Parliament's role.
They were a significant step forward.
Generally speaking the Council's attendance at these meetings was good, whereas, for whatever reason, Parliament delegations have sometimes been poorly attended.
This rule change both facilitates and encourages greater participation.
As Mr Ford explained, the logic behind it, the reasoning and the very clear wording put pressure on political groups and oblige them to provide a substitute so that Parliament will be better represented and can play a full part in all the debates.
Attendance will be better as will decisions.
In the end, for parliamentarians, it will be seen as one of the best reports to come before Parliament so far this year.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.05 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, yesterday there was an unfortunate accident in Asturias, Spain, which caused the death of a miner.
I raise this matter here because the stoppages and strikes in the Asturian mining industry may get worse, because tension is rising.
The European Union is involved in this, because the underlying problem in the conflict is that the European Commission has not accepted the plan which had already been negotiated between the Spanish Government and the unions.
Mr President, would you please ask the Commission to give very careful thought to what is happening in Spain, because I fear tension is rising.
I would like our sympathy to be expressed, and also a call to the Spanish mining unions and Government to remain calm.
However, the Commission must realize that it has to respect what has already been agreed between the unions and the Spanish Government. Otherwise, because of the geographical distance between Brussels and the areas in question, it will seem as if the Commission is hiding behind an authoritarian attitude.
Mrs Garcia Arias, we read about this distressing incident in the newspapers today.
I have made a note of your comments.
Mr President, to be brief I will just say that I completely agree with what Mrs García Arias just said.
Those of us who live in Asturias are very concerned about the Commission's attitude to the mining plan signed by the Spanish Government and the unions in Asturias.
When you pass on our condolences, could you please also tell the European Commission how worried we are about what is happening.
The conflict may get worse, and who knows what that might lead to.
Mr President, concerning the Minutes, page 15, the issue raised by Mr de Vries and Mr Martens.
I see Commissioner de Silguy in the House and I wonder if he is now prepared to make a statement on what is happening or at least consider the request from Parliament to make a statement.
Will he make a personal statement today or will President Santer inform the House why it is important at this time of great unemployment in Europe that Commissioners should hold two jobs?
Mr McMahon, since we are approving the Minutes, I should inform the House that with regard to the Commission's position on the issue of whether its Members have the right to take on political commitments when they are also Members of the Commission, the Commission has advised me that its President is proposing to make an announcement during our next sittings, on 28 and 29 January in Brussels.
Consequently, the request of Mr de Vries and of Mr Martens, with which the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Confederal Group of the European United Left- Nordic Green Left agreed, will be granted.
This announcement will be made in Brussels.
Mr President, I seem to have been missed out of the Minutes as the last speaker on Item 11, the White Paper on Railways and Rail Freight Freeways.
I would be grateful if my name could be included in the list of speakers.
Mr President, I simply wish to return to the matter raised yesterday by Mr de Vries which you have dealt with.
I hope the Commission will use its discretion to make such a statement.
Mr President, I was present at yesterday's session but I forgot to sign in.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
The euro, the capital markets, the consumer and EMU
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0383/97 by Mr Friedrich, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission on the impact of the introduction of the euro on capital markets (COM(97)0337 - C4-0443/97)-A4-0338/97 by Mr Ruffolo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission's working paper on external aspects of economic and monetary union (SEC(97)0803 - C40265/97)-A4-0417/97 by Mr Stevens, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on electronic money and economic and monetary union-A4-0415/97 by Mr Pérez Royo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the euro and the consumer.
Mr President, the euro is coming, and when it does it will be a stable currency.
All the indicators both inside and outside Europe suggest that we are entering a phase of above-average currency stability, and there can be no objections to that.
Nevertheless, we cannot totally ignore the warning note sounded by Mr Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank: there is a danger of deflation.
We need neither deflation nor inflation, in Europe or in the world at large.
The introduction of the European currency is likely to have several consequences for Europe's finance markets. Firstly, Europe's bond market will become the second largest in the world.
Secondly, as far as we can judge, the euro will become the world's second most important reserve currency, roughly on a par with the dollar.
Thirdly - and this is something we must support - the euro may well encourage a share culture to flourish in Europe.
This trend is very important for us, because the lack of broad share ownership in Europe, and especially in Germany, has put the burden of pension provision very much on the state, rather than on taxpayers.
An effective and growing share market is essential for any private pension fund and for the capital stock accumulation for future pension provision that this clearly involves.
This allows broad sections of the population to participate in economic growth.
This represents a long-overdue and much-needed change in the way property has up to now been distributed - inequitably - among our citizens.
To this extent, a flourishing share market driven by the euro could result in positive change.
My fourth point is that the euro will of course lead to a process of stock market concentration.
There are at present 32 stock exchanges and 23 futures exchanges in Europe, compared with only 8 stock exchanges and just 14 futures exchanges in the USA.
So we in Europe and our financial centres will have to be prepared for greater cooperation and specialization by our stock exchanges, if they are to survive in the new euro-world.
Fifth, we have not yet really solved the question of how much harmonization and regulation of Europe's financial markets is actually needed.
There is of course no argument about further tax harmonization, adoption of the European Company Statute, and the need to block tax loopholes, but our report requests that any further control and regulation should proceed gradually here in Europe, and that we should learn from the experience of the USA, the other major financial market.
As far as possible, the markets should regulate themselves without state intervention.
This would be ideal, but we know of course that a total absence of state, or rather European Union, involvement is not possible.
In this connection I would like to comment on the complaint of unconstitutionality lodged against the euro by the four professors in Germany.
If this really jeopardizes Germany's ability to join European monetary union as scheduled, that would of course be a dramatic setback for the development of a financial area comparable with the USA, with adverse consequences for all our citizens.
I personally do not expect the complaint to be successful, because the central claim was satisfied at the time of the first judgement by the Constitutional Court in Germany. The central claim was that Germany may not join an unstable union.
Germany may only join a stability community.
However, I believe that the last few years have demonstrated, and I intend this as a compliment to our southern neighbours, that Europeans are serious about stabilizing their currency, and there has been an undeniable success story. All the usual indicators suggest that a stable currency community is developing in Europe.
Here today, before the European Parliament, I make an appeal to the German Constitutional Court.
A judgement on content should not be delayed unnecessarily.
Germany and Europe need this issue, which is central to our development, to be clarified. If the German Constitutional Court were to reject the complaint at this stage on purely formal grounds, namely that it is premature, but then in accordance with its treatment in the Bundestag were to go on to set a date for deliberation on content, my country's scope for action would be severely impaired, with adverse consequences for all concerned.
It is essential that we avoid this.
That is why I am appealing today to the Constitutional Court's sense of responsibility, and asking it to make a prompt and proper decision on the content of the complaint, so as to clarify matters and allow further progress.
You have to adapt to survive.
We want a stable euro so that we as Europeans can retain a central place in the globalized world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are 352 days left before the start of the third phase of EMU.
So far, the successive phases of the timetable fixed in the Treaty are being achieved on time. Today we can say that in all probability the euro will begin to function on 1 January 1999 under the conditions laid down at the European Council in Madrid, and eleven Member States will participate in this third phase right from the outset - that is, virtually all of them except those that have chosen not to do so.
That means that from that date the euro will become the common currency for about two hundred million European citizens.
Their attitude to the single currency is crucial in ensuring the final success of this enterprise.
Throughout the different phases of EMU, its protagonists have been fulfilling their commitments: the Member States have prepared their convergence programmes; the Commission and the Council have carried out their supervisory tasks and elaborated regulatory instruments; the European Monetary Institute has been set up and has started to work properly; Parliament has made the euro one of the priorities of its debates; industry, the credit institutions and the capital markets are getting ready for the new situation which will be created when the euro is introduced.
Nevertheless, a whole set of unknowns exists in relation to consumers, who are the euro's end users.
Money or currency is not just an economic concept, but is also symbolic and social - a fundamental part of life within society. The ultimate users are the citizens, who are used to their national currencies, and who are very diverse, having varying levels of education, and a wide range of habits and customs relating to money usage and methods of payment.
For these citizens - for consumers in general - the introduction of the euro raises a series of problems: use of the euro during the transitional period; exchange between national currencies participating in the euro during that transitional phase; finally moving to euro notes and coins at the end of that phase; the continuity of contracts, especially the so-called accession contracts with telephone and electricity supply companies, etc.
In tackling these questions, we have tried to favour the views of consumers, as conveyed to us by their representative organizations. In some cases, amendments have been presented to reinforce this position, and we are willing to vote in favour of them.
Our starting point must be to stress the importance of the change which will happen on 1 January 1999.
Although notes and coins will not enter circulation until three years later, in 2002, the big change will already have taken place in 1999.
We need to use the transitional period to ensure that the introduction of the euro is efficient, and to get consumers used to thinking in euros.
From 1 January next year, it will be possible to use the euro as a means of payment, by cheque or credit card, or in the form of electronic money. We need to promote such usage and guarantee that it does not involve additional costs to users.
One particular concern is the question of exchange charges or commissions in the final conversion to the euro. We think it should be clearly established that conversion will not be subject to charges or commissions.
It has to be said that the Council's ruling is ambiguous on this point, and therefore in our resolution we ask that the Commission should propose the appropriate amendment to make this clear. This is a question that has repercussions not just for consumers as such, but also for the very credibility of the new currency.
Similarly, we propose that precise rules should be established for dual pricing in the final phase.
In conclusion, I should like to stress something which has often been repeated in this Parliament: the success of the euro as far as the European people are concerned depends on them seeing the single currency as being linked to progress in the functioning of the economy, in their own wellbeing, and in solving the basic problems which worry them - starting with unemployment.
I should just like to finish by saying that I am confident that this is the spirit which will dominate our debate on this report and the others we are considering this morning.
Given the fact that he is the rapporteur, I shall now call on Mr Stevens to speak. He was delayed, which is unusual for him.
Members of this House must be here when they are called upon, otherwise this will create problems.
Mr President, I apologize for being delayed.
I was held up by an interview on this report and my watch was wrong.
This report is about the limitations of technology which is, perhaps, appropriate.
There is a curious coincidence that the timetable for Europe entering the single currency coincides with a technological revolution in the provision of financial services and, indeed, perhaps even in the definition of money itself.
The advent of electronic money is as big a revolution as the single currency itself.
The question which my report has looked at, but I fear not resolved, is whether these two processes could be combined.
There is obviously a huge prize to be gained from doing so.
European businesses are going to be investing very heavily in information technology for the introduction of the euro.
It would be logical to combine that investment with a further step forward towards electronic money, either in the form of Internet money or smart-card electronic purses.
From the point of view of the citizen, the difficulties of moving from their national notes and coins to the new euro notes and coins might indeed have been reduced by creating conditions whereby notes and coins scarcely matter any more, with money largely being held in electronic form.
In addition, in the case of electronic smart-cards, there would be the possibility of having a calculator function for citizens, to allow them to see the German mark or French franc equivalent of the new euro amounts that they see in the shops in front of them.
Of course, electronic money has a whole range of other implications for central banking and for banking supervision.
However, the opportunity that undoubtedly exists in this area is one that, I regret to say, the Commission, the European Monetary Institute and national governments seem very reluctant to take up.
They seem to have concluded that the shift to the single currency is such a big step for our citizens to go through that to complicate the issue with a technological revolution is altogether asking too much.
They have concluded that the pace at which electronic money is likely to come into European economies is not sufficiently fast for it to be a factor by 1 January 2002.
They are probably right in that assessment if they adopt a passive attitude towards this development.
However, I would say that if they had adopted a more active attitude and recognized the huge potential of this technology the story might have been different - but so be it!
The function of my report, therefore, is a rather modest one.
What was initially envisaged as a spur to action by the Commission, the Council and the European Monetary Institute should now be regarded merely as a warning shot.
The euro is going to revolutionize the European economy.
It is going to massively increase the competitive capacity of our economy in global terms, but the introduction of electronic money has that potential too.
The pace at which Europe becomes an electronic market-place is going to determine the pace at which Europe becomes a true information society.
And ultimately, Europe's competitive position in the world is going to depend on how fast we do that.
So I feel an opportunity is being lost here.
I, myself, believe that the rather modest calculations of the pace at which electronic money is going to come into the economy may well prove to be mistaken.
If you look at Internet money in the United States that has come through much more quickly.
My task is the modest one of warning our partners in the Commission, the Council and in Member State governments that this interface between the introduction of the euro and the advent of electronic money is something which we have to watch very carefully.
I hope that my rather pessimistic assessment is not proved correct by events.
Mr President, with the interests of the EU primarily in mind, the creation of the euro may also be of great significance to the other areas of the world.
This may be the case, for all the indications are that it will be a widely established currency.
Already today, around 30 % of world payments are made with all the various European currencies.
But the significance of a single currency will certainly be greater, with an added attraction, apart from payments, of financial applications and the formation of reserves by the issuing banks.
This is in line with the growing use of the main European currencies in recent years, with the simultaneous weakening of the world prevalence of the dollar: from 50 % to 42 % in payments between 1990-95, from 67 % to 40 % in financial applications between 1981 and 1995, and from 76 % to 6.5 % as a reserve currency between 1973 and 1995.
The prospects open to the euro are thus an additional reason for making the EU take responsibility, making it important for it to be a strong and stable currency with the correct balance, avoiding penalizing our exports by overvaluation, while, if undervalued, it would lose credibility and have inflationist consequences.
In view of the desirability of its world-wide acceptance, we need an immediate broad dissemination campaign in the various areas of the world, a point to which I would particularly like to draw the Commissioner's attention, as we suggested in the report we made to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
The European campaign is obviously important, but we cannot put off a world campaign, accompanied by other appropriate measures.
This campaign and these measures cannot be uniform, in view of different situations, with the overall numbers mentioned in the report on the general use of the euro saying little on that account.
More specifically, we should not, for example, confuse areas such as non-euro Europe and a large part of Africa (which by fact or law forms part of a large euro area) with Latin America, North America or Asia, where the prospects opened in the fields of payments, financial applications and the formation of reserves by issuing banks are in some way significant, as is the intention already shown by the Bank of China of holding 30 % of its reserves in euros, in a continent where the yen does not take priority.
Measures aimed at all areas of the world are therefore important.
To conclude, the prospects being opened up on a horizon where the euro will give Europe a greater role, in its interests and in the interests of the world economy, are significant.
Mr President, I am addressing Mr Friedrich's report, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I would like to congratulate the Commissioner for the work he has accomplished, and perhaps even more congratulate the Giovannini group which, it appears to me, has comprehensively staked out the ground covering the question.
Mr Friedrich is putting forward an ambitious, long and substantial resolution.
So much the better!
There are few legal questions raised in connection with this report.
The problem of continuity of contract was already settled by the regulations which we examined some time past, and the report now basically deals with regulations to be adopted, either by the national authorities of the Member States, or by professional organizations.
Hence, our comments relate mainly to the wider legal framework which is to accompany the introduction of the euro and which, in the financial markets field, clearly has to deal with the issue of European company statutes.
It is high time that this question should come out into the open, and along with it, mutual investment fund organizations, and at a later date, tax harmonization.
As regards consumer protection - we are dealing here with paragraph 23 of Mr Friedrich's resolution and this subject was of course touched on in the report from Mr Pérez Royo - I would like to come back to you, Mr Commissioner.
You know that I am very concerned about the protection of consumers against fraud, but I am just as opposed to confusing consumers, and I believe it is important to give incentives to Member States to introduce efficient structures for small claims settlement.
Furthermore, it will be unavoidably necessary, at one time or another, to get back to work on the problem of repressing criminality through the third pillar, or by means of conventions.
Now that the euro is off the launchpad, we should be looking at this. I would therefore like to hear your views.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their work.
I joined this Parliament in 1989 and I was Parliament's first rapporteur, along with Mr Cox, on economic and monetary union.
We have travelled quite a distance in terms of the technical work to finally complete this important project.
If you look at these reports and the work that we have undertaken on economic and monetary union, despite the difficulties that we have had, including the economic downturn in the early 1990s, we have now reached a point where the momentum behind economic and monetary union is unstoppable.
If you look at the biggest players in the financial services sector they have based their strategic decisions over the past few years on the assumption that EMU will indeed go ahead.
We have seen recently a wave of mergers and restructuring that spread throughout the financial services sector.
In the private sector as a whole there has been large-scale investment in the updating of information technology systems and the retraining of staff.
All this marks the transition to economic and monetary union on 1 January 1999.
This demonstrates that when the European Union sets itself clear targets and when it sets itself realistic timetables, we can achieve great things in this Europe.
Since it started its first phase in 1990 the EMU project has had clear targets.
It has had a manageable timetable and, of course, that is why we will achieve the single currency on 1 January 1999.
In less than four months, the Council will take that final important decision, and as a Parliament we have to look beyond that decision of 2 May and the start of the EMU on 1 January 1999 and set ourselves a new agenda within the European Parliament.
It is no good sitting here self-satisfied with the fact that we have created the single currency; we have to see how we apply that single currency and what role it is going to have in our lives.
Today I would like to set out some of the priorities for my group over the coming years.
We need to learn an important lesson from the financial turmoil in south-east Asia.
A currency must be stable and we must be able to demonstrate its stability.
Therefore the pact for stability and growth is extremely important indeed.
We in this Parliament must make sure that it is applied rigorously so that we can protect the stability of our currency.
Secondly, our group wants to see greater steps made in economic coordination.
I would say to the Commissioner today, because I know that his services are working on the annual economic report at the moment, that we would like to know exactly what the new annual economic report will look like.
What will the broad economic guidelines look like in terms of building this new strengthened economic coordination? We would like to have a dialogue with you over the next couple of weeks to ensure that the broad economic guidelines for the future are what we actually require in this new European environment.
We want to ensure that the European Bank is independent.
No one in this house would challenge that, but there is no reason why an independent bank should not also be accountable.
We need to apply ourselves very carefully, particularly in the context of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, to how we make that bank accountable.
It is our job here in the European Parliament to do that.
That means, President, and I say this to you because you are a member of Parliament's Bureau, we need to restructure the committees of the European Parliament.
We need a Banking Committee in the European Parliament that deals with financial services and which will deal with the European Central Bank in the same way that nations like the United States of America have a powerful Banking Committee.
We in our group will pursue this over the next few months.
What will be the role of national parliaments in this whole new environment? Will we be so arrogant as to believe that we do not need to have a relationship with national parliaments?
We need at least informally to build a relationship with national parliaments and I will be taking steps in the next few weeks to do this, hopefully with colleagues from across the Chamber. We should set up a European Economic Forum where national parliaments and Members of this European Parliament can meet to monitor carefully economic coordination and the role of the European Central Bank.
I hope that some in this room will join in that endeavour.
My last point is in relation to the citizens and the consumer.
We have done the technical work but we have not yet sold the message to the public.
Our job as a European Parliament, your job as a Commission and the job of the Council is to make sure that between now and 1 January 1999, and particularly 2002, the citizens accept and welcome all the work that we have done and the creation of that single currency.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, I wish to address the excellent report by our colleague Ingo Friedrich.
The Commission's proposal is based on the principle that market harmonization, which will accompany the introduction of the euro, is a subject of great interest for the financial markets.
This proposal has come at just the right time, and I would here like to congratulate Mr Friedrich for the contents of this report.
In paragraph 11, the resolution rightly raises the fact that dividends and redemptions of pension funds, life assurance and property funds are made in local currency, which means that a substantial portion of the funds must remain in the country of origin according to the principle of congruence.
In reality, thanks to monetary union, the whole of the monetary space of the EU will become a single territory.
This considerably enlarges the field of action for invested capital, and it is at this point that the full scope of the challenge faced by the EU with regard to the United States arises, as regards the capital markets and the future of the savings and investment sector at the global level, both in the medium and longer term.
It is vital for the future of Europe that the Member States, for example, re-examine the question of a strict, quantitative limit to be placed on the value of their pension funds, in the run up to the introduction of the euro.
If I take the example of France, a tool such as the internal market for financial instruments is visibly of particular importance.
The MATIF, which is one of the most important futures markets in Europe, if not the most important, should be able to continue to develop and compete with the futures market of the United States.
We need also to bear in mind the determining importance of the euro with regard to the monthly scheduling of debt.
On the other hand, the internal capital market, now euro denominated, depends clearly on the continuing good quality of the loans already issued, which is ample justification for the stability pact, whose purpose is to guarantee repayment of loans already contracted to lenders at constant value.
Mr Friedrich's report specifically deals with the impact of the introduction of the euro on the capital markets.
In the light of the recent problems affecting NAFTA, one can draw the conclusion that limiting oneself to a free-trade area can lead up a blind alley.
This shows that the Community's approach, one of an integrated economic and monetary space, on the basis of a whole set of precise and coordinated policies, is quite justified, an approach indefatigably advocated by Commissioner de Silguy.
We need to regard EMU both as a logical follow-up to the single market, and also as a teaching tool, popularizing European integration and enlargement.
For the western European countries, the euro represents the dynamism associated with the completion of the ordered competitive market place.
The decisive initiative here is membership of monetary union.
Monetary union also assumes - and here I have in mind our eastern European friends, who are all called on subject to certain conditions to join the EU in the longer term - that pan-European convergence will be the result both of international flexibility and of the planned approach to economic and monetary union adopted by the countries of Europe who have been able to overcome their scepticism and have resolved to go down that path to the future.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party I wish to address the report by Mr Ruffolo.
The Union has come through quite a long period of introspection in economic terms as we have sought to create the required convergence for monetary union.
This report has come forward now that we are on the threshold of achieving our objective and it is entirely timely to ask what should be the external purpose of and role of the euro.
One thing is very clear: the new European monetary area, though it is wholly open to trade, will have a very different degree of openness to the separate Member State economies.
In fact, it is in that context, in a global market, that the euro perhaps offers its greatest potential to Europe for the future and to the single market in particular.
With regard to the exchange rate, I agree with the rapporteur.
A central issue for the external role of the euro is stability.
In that context, the role of politicians is to look at economic fundamentals in the real economy; the role of politicians is to achieve an appropriate level of convergence; the role of politicians is to define what is the desirable level of price stability internally.
But when those elements are set, it is the role of the Central Bank to call the monetary policy mix, and we need not at this stage reopen old debates.
The unknown quantity in regard to the external value of the euro is clear: it is the speed and extent to which the euro has the market-base capacity to become a reserve currency and what the implications of that would be in feed-back terms for internal policy, which at the moment is conjectural.
In summary for the Liberal Group I would say, as between the politicians' role and the Bank, let us render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto the Bank what is determined in the Treaty.
Mr President, Mr Ruffolo speaks of the exchange rate balance between the euro and the dollar.
We should not close our eyes to the fact that the balance mechanism operating on 1 May this year or the 1 January next year is not a constant; it is variable.
National economies are dynamic because they are bound up with their history and dependent on structures related to a nation's finance and society.
Today's basic stability will mean considerable instability for some countries.
Thus, the exchange rate is right for some and wrong for others.
The desire and demand for simultaneity in the trade cycle is groundless.
It cannot come about in practice, as all countries are different.
So now we are headed for an administrative and not an economic exchange rate and mechanism.
I represent the Finns, a nation that regards the advent of EMU the most negatively of all Member States.
Finland will be brought into EMU only through political force, which our political elite is prepared to use in the spirit of commitment to the Dublin Treaty.
Different countries' parliaments, in ratifying the Maastricht treaty, have not taken decisions on the Dublin Treaty.
Its obligations and disciplines are new to Europe.
That is why we should have a national referendum on EMU in all those countries which intend to join.
Democracy is called for here.
EMU is a step backwards for European democracy.
Because there is just no parliamentary or democratic supervision of it.
The irremovable six-strong membership of the board takes decisions for 370 million people, who have not accorded them the power to do so by means of any referendum.
Mr President, I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that we face a revolution.
Its elements consist of what we speak of here today, the advent of the euro and electronic money.
To these, I would add two more: the growing trade taking place on the Internet, which might cause problems for individual states to collect taxes and thus fund the welfare state; and the fact that the year 2000 might cause some computer systems to fail.
All these factors together will bring about changes in the behaviourial patterns of the economy.
There is also the psychological question.
This will certainly be something that companies, the public sector and educators will have to deal with.
Hence, there are many unknown factors which can endanger the EU economy.
That is why I support totally Alan Donnelly's proposal that there should be some kind of Banking Committee in Parliament to discuss these matters.
It would also be important as a factor in improved risk awareness, because there is a special need for risk awareness in this area.
Mr Friedrich mentions something in his report that may raise our hopes on this issue: when the national currency risk disappears, so too does one factor that affects differentials in interest rates.
This may have a stabilizing effect.
Finally, I would like to say that the EU must now dare to create a counterweight to monetary union in the shape of a common economic policy, particularly in the area of taxation, but also to be able to defend the European economic policy model.
It will differ, obviously, from other regional models.
It would thus be very important to create mechanisms to ensure that the European partners, at various times in their recent history engulfed in recession, do not get into inordinate economic difficulties.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am particularly addressing the Stevens report.
There is virtually nothing to stand in the way of the take-off of electronic money in Europe, except the deafening silence and "wait and see' attitude of political and economic decision-makers in Europe.
I therefore congratulate the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and its rapporteur, Mr Stevens, for this initiative, in which he has reflected on what could indeed be one of the great challenges of tomorrow's society - the control of electronic money.
In the light of the two revolutions which are currently causing a radical upheaval in European financial practice - and here I mean the introduction of the single currency and the development of digital moneys of account - how can we not conceive of the introduction of new forms of payment, and more particularly, of the re-definition of money and currency itself, and of the role of the banks and the supervisory authorities?
In the last few years, the maelstrom affecting the telecommunications sector has profoundly changed banking.
Electronic banking has become part of day-to-day consumer practice in Belgium, with the massive use of the 'Proton' card. The same will soon be true of France, with the electronic purse sold by the Post Office.
As my colleagues have already said, we can but be delighted at the move from the magnetic strip to the on-board chip card, whether disposable, re-chargeable, or re-programmable.
The virtual purse should have a tremendous future ahead of it, as the advantages it presents are many and varied.
It works both for customers and for European retailers. It also has the advantage of providing users with greater security, by supplying the virtual account with money transferred from the account-holder's credit card.
Disclosure of the number of one's carte bleue -style banker's card can be avoided, and there will be no need to dispose safely of the ticket issued by the cash dispenser when money is paid out.
But while Europe is currently in the lead of on-board chip technology - as the rapporteur reminded us in his introduction - is it not true that the very sinews of electronic money are the manner in which it is to be controlled and supervised?
Contrary to the rapporteur - and here I am referring to Paragraph C - I believe the commercial battle will rage on the Internet rather than in the field of the virtual purse, for the simple reason that the whole thing is at present firmly American orchestrated.
Is there not a tremendous risk that the national banking authorities, or the future European Central Bank, will be stripped of their supervisory power by the telecommunications multi-nationals over the next twenty years?
Even now as we reflect on the question, our governments are staying quiet, and major manoeuvres have already begun on the other side of the Atlantic, alliances are being struck between the major American multi-nationals in the multimedia field and the main global institutions specializing in bank card-mediated and processed banking transactions - the alliance between Netscape Communication and First Data, or Microsoft and Visa International, for example. They have but one objective, which is to bear down on all of us, Europeans that we are, with their hegemony.
In the United States, the multi-nationals, with the support of the White House, have long since understood that control of the cyber-economy, by means of technological mastery, will give them victory in the only battle they seem to care about - the information revolution.
I am sounding the alarm while we still have time. The proper operation of the single currency, the competitiveness of the European Union, and the stability of our European financial system, are so many reasons for governments to take urgent measures.
Mr President, this report, which is brimful with optimism, should not blind us to the fact that the introduction of the single currency has forced our countries to adopt the policy of austerity, a policy which was welcome after the years of budgetary laisser faire and which - particularly in Belgium - led to astronomical public debt.
But this austerity has severely penalized the most disadvantaged, those for whom the euro provides no prospect of improvement in living standards.
At the same time, if we are to believe the promises made last summer by the President of the French Republic to the Prince of Monaco, the Council and the Commission are seriously envisaging granting the Principality the benefits of the euro - at a time when the Principality is promoting tax evasion on a gigantic scale, to the detriment of the interests of the Member States - without there being any requirement on the residents of Monaco to make the slightest financial effort.
Such a gift to the wealthy would be an act of immorality and an insult to the financially disadvantaged, who will have to continue to tighten their belts for a very long time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a year from now we will be living in the euro era.
This should be a golden era in which international currencies are linked together in a climate of monetary stability.
I agree with Mr Ruffolo, the rapporteur, that it will be very difficult to achieve balanced and stable monetary relations in the short term. Nevertheless I believe, as the crisis in Asia has made very clear, that we will very soon have to create political control mechanisms in the world, to help ensure that the real economy is not jeopardized by turbulence on the currency markets at the cost of workers and the economic development of world prosperity.
That is why I believe European monetary union can make a contribution not only to achieving a reasonable situation as regards competition between today's world currencies, but also to developing international monetary stability and also normality in the significance of world currencies to each other in relation to trade and economic conditions.
So the European Parliament and the European Commission are right in attaching great importance to stability and to the international dimension of the euro.
I deeply regret that until now the Council of Ministers has not made it clear that the European Union will speak with one voice on monetary matters in the euro era.
We cannot have a monetary union and yet continue to voice differing views in international financial organizations or at G8 or G10 meetings.
We have already had painful experiences of the downside of this, during the Uruguay Round and also in the World Trade Organization.
We should not repeat this mistake in monetary matters.
I hope, therefore, that the role of the Commission will be enhanced in view of the international dimension of the euro.
Moreover, the European Parliament has rightly demonstrated in today's debate that it is important not just to want European monetary union, but also to carefully prepare the way for it. This is necessary to allay people's fears, fears easily exploited by opponents of European monetary union by creating the impression that monetary union is actually monetary reform, leading to concerns about the value of their money and their purchasing power.
By preparing the way, we must make it clear to people that EMU involves bringing together equally sound currencies, so that we can pay all over the European Union with equally sound money.
And this will reassure citizens, who are worried about the stability of their money and who want to see their savings and income safeguarded, that their concern is being taken into account in the run-up to EMU.
That is why it is so important that we as a European Parliament should take up arms for consumer protection as part of the debate on EMU.
It is also high time the Commission brought forward a further euro regulation, to ensure that there is no cost to the consumer in converting from national currencies to the euro, that any kind of conversion fraud or abuse is ruled out, and, above all, this regulation should provide for dual pricing.
We really must take our citizens with us on the road to EMU, not stir up their fears.
This will only be possible if, during the euro's introductory phase and during the phase when the euro and national currencies are used side by side, it is really possible to check and to understand the cost of goods, services and even charges for public services, both in euros and in the national currency.
Commissioner, the European Parliament requested this last year.
I think it is in the interest of a successful monetary union, which will be judged not only by the reaction of the markets but also by the reaction of our citizens, that the Commission should finally present us with a regulation of this kind.
After all, the euro is for everyone, and we need to speed up the process through European legislation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to continue where Mrs Randzio-Plath left off, that is on the issues dealt with in Mr Pérez Royo's report, the euro and consumer protection.
I think it is right for the Commission to pay sufficient attention to consumer protection from the Commission's point of view, but we must not overshoot the mark.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, you yourself know as well as I do that if dual pricing is to extend - as suggested in Mr Pérez Royo's report - from the beginning of the third phase, that is from 1 January 1999, possibly on an optional basis initially, but then if this is not satisfactory, backed up by the force of a regulation, this will of course have a big influence on costs in commerce and may push them up.
So I should like to sound a warning note about the extent of consumer protection.
Paragraph 14 of Mr Pérez Royo's proposal, which is right on many points and which I generally fully support, asks the Commission to establish regional observatories. What kind of suggestion is that?
Do we need regional observatories? Anyone suggesting this, and they may indeed get a majority for it in the vote at noon today, has failed to understand that the EU regulation under Article 235 of the EC Treaty already deals with all matters of civil law: continuity of contracts, the conversion from ECU to euros at a 1: 1 rate, rounding rules and so on.
I believe that wherever there is competition, and that is the case in commerce throughout Europe, and wherever suppliers have to prove themselves on the market, there will not be any funny business, because consumers would soon notice.
I am rather unhappy about the idea of everyone engaged in commerce being labelled as potential criminals and all consumers as potential idiots.
Every consumer will have only one conversion rate from his or her old national currency to the euro.
Just one rate!
Consumers will be told that rate on 4 May 1998, and there is no question of that being settled by some voluntary arrangement.
There will be pocket calculators with an extra button - they already exist, in fact.
So that simply will not be a problem, and I am willing to bet that within 48 hours, perhaps just 24 hours, consumers will have caught on to the conversion rate, and nobody will be able to hoodwink them after that.
There is one exception, namely monopolies, especially public sector monopolies.
In that area we will have to watch that the introduction of the euro is not used to sneak in price increases.
But, necessary as consumer protection is, we must not overdo it.
Mr President, first of all I want to congratulate the various rapporteurs on their reports.
I believe that the success of economic and monetary union will largely depend on the way in which our citizens are prepared for the introduction of the single currency.
We have only to talk to our constituents to recognize this.
Our people have concerns.
There is therefore a need to ensure that the euro is explained and that any misunderstandings are dealt with.
This obligation is naturally on the Union and the Member State governments.
I call on the Commission today to agree to, and to finance, a national and European 'euro hotline' to protect consumers' and business' interests as we embark on this great initiative.
It is essential that information, training and education campaigns are put in place for all our citizens as well as businesses.
European citizens need to be convinced that the single currency will not be against their interest, nor that of their country.
They need to be reassured that the euro will strengthen our economies and that it will demonstrate the real strength of Europe in the world, resulting in lower interest rates which will put more money into our peoples' pockets.
On the introduction of the euro it will be essential that there is an assurance that the cost of introducing it will not fall on the consumer.
There must be a rounding down in favour of the consumer.
When prices are converted consumers must also be shown how to easily calculate the conversion from the Member State currency into the euro.
Dual pricing is essential and should be introduced prior to January 1999.
It is important that consumers become accustomed to the pricing before 2002.
It is vitally important that counterfeit money be detected, including the use of counterfeit coins in machines.
One of the distinctive advantages of the euro is that it will enable consumers in my country and elsewhere to compare the prices of goods and services, including tourism products.
The cost of a holiday in the west and north of Ireland indeed will show up very favourably.
It will also help cross-border sales.
I believe that the euro will provide a positive boost to competition.
It will ensure transparency in pricing; it will ensure exchange rate and interest rate stability; it will stifle currency speculation and will stimulate growth in employment.
I believe that the national authorities must ensure that there is adequate and intelligible information on the real cost of introducing the euro, together with adequate information for consumers in order to guarantee competition and to detect and stop unjustified price rises - hence my call for a 'euro hotline' .
In conclusion, as I have already stated in this House, the euro notes must be friendly to the visually impaired.
There is an obligation on all of us to ensure that.
I would like yet again to clear up one thing.
I understand that it is impossible, in one minute, even for an orator like you, Mr Nordmann, to develop your thoughts.
However, I have repeatedly requested the political groups not to allocate their members one minute of speaking time.
I regard this as a matter of dignity.
Unfortunately, you are given one minute of time and we are in a difficult position, both you and the presidency.
We also have a programme which is not being adhered to.
But one minute must not turn into two minutes.
Mr President, all four reports under debate are characterized by a general euphoria about the introduction of the single currency.
However, we must not lose sight of the fact that our effort to promote and secure the euro as an international currency and to ensure its stability on international markets is being carried out in the context of the implementation of austerity programmes, strict monetary discipline, the dictates of the stability pact and, finally, in the context of total upheaval in the jobs market and the dwindling of workers' security and social rights.
At the same time, developments on global money markets simply confirm the intense anxiety regarding the economic progress of those countries that do not conform.
The Commission is under an obligation to study the repercussions and the powerful side effects on the weaker economies, such as in Greece for example, but also in other countries outside and inside the euro which are more vulnerable to international speculative pressures.
The workers and people of Europe cannot accept having to mortgage their future for the sake of the euro and the aspirations of European credit finance capital to obtain a hard currency in order to win speculative games on the capital markets of the world.
For this reason, Mr President, they will react, and for this reason account must be taken of their anxieties.
Mr President, we need to say something here about the economic substance of the revolution which we are signing up to on all sides.
I have in mind the immediate de-localization of credit money, whose localized vulnerability we are currently witnessing.
The fact that credit money is now being jeopardized all over the world by the present crisis in Asia is just one indication of this.
We are thus witnessing a new degree of separation of monetary cycles from the real economy and from the primary income that can only be derived from that economy, and accordingly also from the material reproduction capacity of economic structures as a component of a complex world society with increasingly global problems and planet-wide responsibility.
This is the context in which we are preparing to introduce the euro.
Mr Ruffolo, a stable and credible euro will not, in the medium and long term, be a consequence of monetary policy, either solely or even primarily.
It will be determined by the credibility of the European Union, by which I mean here the extent to which it can find democratically workable answers for the future.
I am still not convinced that the neo-liberal plan for a revolutionary micro-economy society which Mr Stevens has presented to us, which tries to turn all interaction into buyer/seller, creditor/debtor or quite simply market-related interaction, is the right model to guarantee this future capability. We cannot just see our citizens as consumers.
Mr Donnelly, we know that the plan has now become unstoppable, and that the euro will be introduced.
What is at issue now is what is still possible, even if Luxembourg I and Luxembourg II have only yielded unsatisfactory results, by revising the conditions for the introduction of the euro.
I can only describe this in headlines here.
We need an effective European employment policy.
We need economic policy coordination which amounts to more than generating paper but instead establishes a real framework and sets real objectives.
We need to end all forms of dumping and competition for the location of investment projects in the internal market, whether it takes the form of taxation, environmental standards, social security arrangements or subsidies.
We need to allow the European Central Bank and also the European Central Banking System to establish themselves as part of a wide-ranging social and economic policy process.
In other words, instead of a micro-economic revolution, we need the courage to introduce greater democracy, especially in economic and social policy, so that our citizens, who are now becoming more active, are given greater power and fresh perspectives.
Mr President, this Parliament might be able to make a good impression with this debate on EMU.
In an economic sense Europe is flourishing, after all.
The number of nations forecasted to join EMU has never been so high.
For Italy, Spain, and Portugal, membership is on the horizon.
France and Germany have to pull out all the stops, but will manage, as they are indispensable EMU participants in a political sense.
The jubilant mood about EMU is very understandable, but also very dangerous.
It is politicians, civil servants and bankers who primarily feel that way.
But Dutch voters think differently: 47 % of them expect it to be delayed, while only 18 % expect EMU to start on 1 January 1999 with a large group of countries.
This means an enormous gap exists between the decision to be made on 2 May 1998, and what the people think the decision will be.
Those who think EMU will go ahead because there is proper economic convergence are wrong.
Formal Treaty criteria are met.
But in reality, there are big differences in economic and conjunctural developments.
Nor by any means are all results in the sphere of public finances based on structural measures.
EMU will not take place as a result of convergence having been achieved, but because important politicians have thrown their lot in with it.
Four German professors recently made public their opinion on this point.
They warn of unstable exchange rates if the euro loses its credibility as a result of the participation of economically weaker countries.
The effects on employment are also painted too rosily.
They will be positive for prosperous regions, but for weaker regions a negative effect is more to be expected.
Likewise, other economic risks of EMU are ignored.
If these become manifest, then EMU has a problem.
Faith in the euro will be tested.
It will be difficult as an MEP to explain why the euro is good for the European consumer.
Mr President, my comments are limited to Mr Stevens' report.
I consider the initiative underlying this report to be extremely valuable, but it should not be viewed simply in connection with introducing the euro.
Europe is a leader in the field of smart-card technology, and we must exploit that situation.
Increased use of electronic money would be a further step in the information society, and would have a positive impact on our citizens' lives.
The versatility of smart-card technology could also be used to rationalize administration in the public services sector, allowing substantial budget savings to be made in the medium term.
It would have extremely important consequences if this Parliament initiative boosted willingness to cooperate within the Council, and if the various national initiatives in the field of smart-card technology at least became compatible.
Promoting electronic money is an investment in development in tune with the spirit of the times.
So it is even more amazing that this technological revolution in the payment systems our citizens use has so far scarcely featured in the overall strategy for introducing the euro.
Developments in information and communications technology will also soon have an impact on the way we use money.
Progress in electronic payment systems affects the very idea of money, and we shall have to face up to the consequent fiscal, legal, economic and even political challenges.
I accordingly welcome Mr Stevens' report.
However, it would be helpful if at least part of the budget set aside for advertising the euro could be used to prepare our citizens for the imminent technological change in our money system.
Mr President, in 11 months time 11 countries will enter economic and monetary union here in Europe.
The goal of our single currency aspirations will be scored by this first team of 11 players with four countries on the substitutes bench, limbering up, ready to join the fray later, perhaps before the next World Cup in 2002.
But even at this eleventh hour there is much to do to ensure that the goalposts are up and not moved, that the pitch is level and fit for play and that the ball is hard enough to score goals for Europe right from the kick-off.
These four reports before us today deal with some of the last-minute anxieties and hopes.
The Pérez Royo report rightly identifies concerns of some of the single currencies-watching spectators.
Consumers will need to be assured, for instance, that once the ball of the single currency is in play, the double pricing in the euro and in the home money is the rule, not the exception.
If retailers are not prepared to help customers orient themselves to these historic changes, then Parliament should blow its whistle and be prepared to legislate to ensure double pricing.
So too with potential conversion costs associated with the advent of the euro.
Whether we are talking of phase B where national currencies might be exchanged, or phase C where the new euro coins could be exchanged for dying denominations, charging the man or woman on the street or boulevard for exchanging currencies will be a disaster, especially since we have sold the euro to the citizens as the currency which eliminates such wasteful exchange costs.
We must guard against just such an own-goal.
In addition, it is imperative that the public authorities monitor closely the change over to the euro.
Suspicions by the consumers that the euro will be used to mask price hikes must be zealously tackled and tripped up.
There are many older people in Britain today who recall 1971 decimalization as a time to cry foul against the ticket touts making money out of those unfamiliar with a new currency.
I hope that the Commission will agree to draw up proposals for regulations concerning cost reconversion of such coins and notes.
If the Pérez Royo report deals with the near future, Mr Stevens' essay on electronic money treats of a future which is fast moving towards us.
Using smart cards and electronic purses will soon be second nature to us all.
Perhaps, as the rapporteur has argued in earlier debates, acceptance of EMU might have been promoted by linking it to new technologies like electronic money.
Less sound is his proposal that a single private sector organization might have been entrusted with the responsibility for issuing such encrypted money.
Whatever the future of such developments, Parliament should insist from the issuers of electronic money, as with a bank or other institutions, that the requirement of public confidence, interoperability and the continuing stability of the financial systems should be met by the competent authorities.
With reference to the Ruffolo report on certain external aspects of the euro, I would corroborate the rapporteur's concern regarding the external representation of the European Community on bodies like, for instance, the IMF.
Clarification of the responsibilities between Ecofin and the Central Bank is required sooner rather than later.
One concluding comment: the current severe disruption of the Asian financial markets makes it all the more imperative that EMU is launched on a solid basis.
A stable euro will be good for Europe and good for the world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to refer to the Friedrich report and congratulate the rapporteur for dealing with one of the most important areas of institutionalization of the capital market.
At the moment, it is fragmented and there is competition between each of the European financial markets, and between these and the world financial markets.
This report indicates that the introduction of the euro in stock exchange transactions and listings as from 1 January 1999 will solve all the problems and distortions which exist between the various investors of the Member States of the Union, and marks an important stage in the harmonization of the process of establishing the European market.
It is a very optimistic report because not all the problems of the financial markets will be resolved.
We do not fully share this nominal and formal view, but we share the idea that the various convergences must exist.
And in fact legal and tax barriers still exist that cannot be overcome, as the report recognizes and which, on that account, cannot mean that only the euro can overcome them.
With regard to the tax barriers, we wish to point out that each country handles and wants to continue to handle internal taxes and the respective collection systems for withholding at source or, finally, solely on the basis of their needs to attract public loans, through State securities or debentures.
Will the euro answer this question? I think not.
They will say: "It is a result of the rule of unanimity' .
Will it be? Since when have common interests been unresolved, even if consent and unanimity are required?
What is happening, and this report does not deal with this issue, is that each of the countries attracting investment raises its interests above those in need of it.
When these objectives are met, the aims of this report will then be achieved.
Mr President, electronic money is a serious issue and it really deserved separate consideration rather than being lumped in a general debate about the euro.
I am pleased that Mr Stevens and the Group of the European People's Party eventually felt able to accept the Liberal amendments, which were endorsed by the committee, because without those changes, it was doubtful whether we would be in a position to support his report today.
This report comes at an important time in the development of electronic money.
The new technology, already under development in many Member States, is the subject of discussion within the Commission, the European Monetary Institute and the Member States.
But by adopting his report now, before the other institutions, the European Parliament can send a strong signal that the development of electronic money must not be impeded by excessive regulation and incompatible standards.
The purpose of my amendments was to send that signal and to remove anti-competitive elements present in the rapporteur's first draft.
The report now provides a regulatory framework which will ensure the confidence of the public in electronic money, the stability and the soundness of issuers and the smooth functioning of the single market.
We must ensure that such a framework allows all appropriately regulated entities, banks and non-banks, to issue electronic money on a competitive basis, and does not restrict competition through a franchise system or by limiting the market to banks alone.
Interoperability will be a crucial factor in the development of electronic money.
We must ensure that different electronic purses and smart cards are based on interoperable standards, to prevent fragmentation of the market and the development of an anti-competitive cartel.
Finally, a regulatory regime must not interfere in pricing policies.
If companies have invested in the development of this money, they must not be obliged to issue products for free.
The market should determine the pricing, leaving customers free to choose.
With those provisos, I am happy to endorse this report.
Mr President, I have three comments to make.
Firstly, with the euro, crises and disturbances in the economy are going to spread more rapidly on the capital markets, and Europe risks having an Asian situation.
Secondly, democracy is being eroded.
Elected politicians are being converted into lackeys with the task of serving and facilitating movements on the capital markets.
We are getting a system which nobody will control and which will never control itself.
Thirdly, this debate shows a massive conformity of views.
What kind of parliament is it where 95 % of the debate consists of eulogies to one and the same idea? There is no room here for a deeper critical scientific analysis.
This orthodoxy is frightening in view of the fact that all attempts from 1873 to 1993 to create these kinds of currency structures have led to depression and then collapse.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the prior question has not been dealt with.
Before coming to technical aspects, we would need to be assured that the peoples of Europe really wish to join the euro.
This would require national referenda in all countries on a reform of this importance, if only out of respect for the electors.
Furthermore, the consequences of the extension of the deutschmark to the former East Germany are only too visible in the shape of unemployment in the East and rising taxes in the West, at enormous cost down the years.
This is what happens when a single currency is imposed on two countries which differ in competitiveness.
And I am not talking about the moral aspect of this experiment, the scorn of the East by the West in a society where money is the measure of all things.
The scenario risks being the same in Europe.
The countries in which companies have competitiveness problems will experience rising unemployment. The more productive countries will sooner or later have to sign up to giving a minimum of assistance in solidarity payments, and taxes will rise.
Changing the denomination of the currency will also hit the consumer's pocket with inflation.
In eastern Europe, the creation of national currencies in Estonia, Slovakia and Slovenia or in other countries was experienced at the time as a liberation. It enabled these countries to move over to the market economy in the best conditions.
Curiously, in western Europe, people are doing the opposite.
However, the sound monetary health of Switzerland or Norway demonstrates all the attractiveness of national currencies.
In a word, it serves no useful purpose to get into a technical debate without resolving the prior question of the creation of the euro in principle, a question which can only be truly settled by democratic debate, in the form of the organization of referenda.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, albeit to the displeasure of the extreme right and its allies, the euro is now into the home straight.
In a few weeks, everything will be in place, and in one year the euro will be the legal currency for more than 200 million Europeans.
This is the reason why today's debate is very important, and I would like thank and congratulate our rapporteurs for their work and contribution.
Like Mr Friedrich, I believe that we have to permit a complete integration of the financial markets.
But I also say that it is necessary to harmonize the tax and legislative framework, and take care that we do not restrict ourselves to giving satisfaction to speculative markets.
As regards ourselves, which must be a prime concern, we need to favour direct investment, which generates employment, while we need, if not to eliminate, at least to reduce the tax breaks and havens which are in the very heart of our Europe.
This is one of the conditions of acceptance of the euro by citizens.
As regards the euro and consumers, I agree with the proposal from Mr Pérez Royo on dual price display, but I would like this to happen as soon as possible, and the system to be introduced in as short as period of time as possible.
Still on the question of the citizen and the consumer, I support the very firm and very clear demand for home currency to euro conversion to be free of charge to the citizen.
This requires careful supervision, as we have heard from certain banking quarters that there was a real temptation to make their customers pay for this service.
With regard to the Ruffolo report, on behalf of the defenders of European industrial competitiveness, which is the dossier on which I am currently working, my sincere wish is that everything be done to avoid an over-valued euro, which would have a negative impact on employment.
Of course, the politicians will not be fixing parities, but the decisions that we shall be taking may have an effect, whether upwards or downwards, on the exchange rate.
Furthermore, I am of course in favour of democratic control of the European Central Bank, and hence at the very minimum of control by the Ecofin council on the exchange rate policy.
Finally, regarding relationships between money and new technologies, which is the subject of Mr Stevens' report, I wish to say that I too wish and hope that this will lead to a reduction in the time required for the minting of coins and printing of banknotes, and hence to the bringing forward of the date of 1 January 2002.
Three years is really too long.
Before concluding, I would like to take advantage of these reports to ask Mr de Silguy, who is present, to outline to us his position on the consequences of the Asian crisis, as regards the prospects for growth and the euro timetable.
Does he not believe that the crisis might bring the timetable forward? Does he still think that we can wait until 1 January 1999 to fix the euro parity, when the euro zone and monetary parities will be fixed on 2 and 3 May?
It would be nice, Mr Commissioner, if you could say something here to us all, and not just to the radio and television stations where you feature so frequently.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have already heard a lot of words, and we shall hear a lot more this morning and this afternoon.
This Parliament's Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs and its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have done some excellent work in recent years.
The insight shown by the chairmen has always made it easy for us to deal with representatives from the financial sector, those with an interest in policy affecting finance and also with associations, including consumer associations, trade associations, and so on.
The information we have acquired is exemplary by the standards of this Parliament, and the general accessibility of today's debate is important if it is to lead to positive decision-making by the middle of this year.
I think we can allay people's fears here.
There is nothing to be gained by frightening people, either by what we say here today or through the attempts of the professors in Germany to frustrate the introduction of the euro.
What we say and do today must serve to build up trust.
We have four reports before us.
The report on the euro and world markets and the Ruffolo report have become highly relevant because of the turmoil in south-east Asia.
I believe that we must press for a further, more thoroughgoing debate on monetary, interest-rate and subsidy policy in the context of the world economy.
It is in our hands what we do here in the European Union, and must do because of the Maastricht Treaties, and we do it gladly.
Developments in south-east Asia have affected our labour market and competitive situation for years, and trends there in subsidy, low interest and monetary policy have cost a great many jobs.
We have not paid enough attention to this topic, and now we are deeply involved, as we are having to pump massive amounts of money into those markets - both from Europe and via the IMF - in order to avoid even greater turmoil, if that is possible now.
Quite a lot has already been said about the Pérez Royo report.
Werner Langen made it very clear in his speech what consumers want and the respect we should have for their wishes.
But he was equally clear - and I am sure Mrs Thyssen will support him in this - about the steps we must take to inform our citizens.
It is important that with 50 % state participation and the options open to Member States over the next three years, they should make dual pricing clear now.
I also consider it highly important, as stressed in the Pérez Royo report, that standard quality paper and printing should be used to reassure consumers that there is a minimal risk of counterfeit banknotes.
This a serious issue on which we can ask for action.
Mr President, the joint debate on these reports presupposes the citizen to be a Europhile, but to my mind this is not by any means yet the case.
It is true that the introduction of the euro is the crowning glory of the internal market.
It is true that with the euro Europe has gained itself an important role on an international plane.
It is true, competitive relationships will be clarified and the consumer will be able to take advantage of this.
But the rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo, rightly pointed out that success as far as the people is concerned depends on the public's perception of the euro, and the wellbeing it adds to their lives.
What I pick up from discussions with people is that they see the euro primarily as a technocratic measure which politicians, us in other words, want to push down their throats.
So, Mr President, the issue at the moment is primarily the information of the public.
The public already finds globalization difficult, as well as loss of identity.
Proper support of the euro process by the national governments is an absolute must.
The success of the euro offers the opportunity for very necessary and increased political cooperation within Europe.
Failure may mean chaos and an end to harmonious common cooperation in several areas.
In other words we should stick to the criteria, informing the public, and taking them along the euro road, especially those, like myself, who enjoy or will soon enjoy pensions.
Then I will be able to recommend the euro to our citizens with confidence and enter the twenty-first century as a Europhile, although we might need a euro hotline, as suggested by Mr Gallagher.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I will limit myself to the Pérez Royo report.
My colleagues have already discussed other points, or will do so.
In his meritorious report Mr Pérez Royo has pointed out various facets related to the euro and the consumer.
The Commission meanwhile, in its statement on the practical aspects related to the implementation of the euro, has promised to make a number of proposals.
Commissioner, I quote two important points which still raise questions and have not been given an adequate response, namely dual pricing and the cost of conversion. As far as dual pricing is concerned, I would like to know what stage decision-making is at.
The Commission was to determine before the end of 1997 whether there was a need to introduce a common regulation in all participating countries.
I agree with those who think that dual pricing must not be imposed in a compulsory fashion.
Let the market do its work; leave room for flexibility, voluntary agreements, or codes of conduct.
Mr Commissioner, I have a second question.
To what extent will the banks charge conversion costs to the customer? On this subject this, too, the Commission promised to determine before the end of 1997 whether either a common regulation or national legislation is desired, or on the other hand whether the issue can be left to market players.
Could the Commission prohibit charging for possible conversion costs? Our preference would be for the banking sector to formulate a code of conduct itself.
I would like to thank the Commissioner in advance for his reply.
Mr President, one of these reports is dedicated to consumers.
And, despite the justified concerns it reflects, the report does not clarify how consumers will not have to bear the costs.
It seems right that consumers should not be asked to bear them but, as these costs will exist and will be substantial, who will bear them?
It is not enough not to want the consumers to bear them, and to approve resolutions containing this religious statement.
Nor should we forget that consumers are mainly employees, and in this process it is more important to study the impact on actual wages and on the transparency resulting from better comparability.
There is a whole problem of credibility and trust that is well equated in the explanation of reasons when the warning is given that people may have the idea that the euro is just for the rich, or that it will only be of use to them, whether at consumer or company level, with the small and medium-sized businesses having greater difficulties with regard to administrative and accounting management and managing the costs of introducing a single currency in several countries.
On the other hand, no serious thought has yet been given, at least here in Europe, to the consequences of introducing the euro in the countries and regions with monetary areas set up as a result of motherland/colony relationships, even extended to former colonies of other motherlands, as is the case with the CFA area and Guinea-Bissau.
One final point: we are late in devising an offsetting mechanism that could deal with disproportionate shocks, necessarily different from those created by the IMF, which has consequences worldwide and is usually unaware of the causes and makes them worse.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the introduction of our new single currency calls for optimal accompanying monetary-policy measures. We must also bear in mind the impact on the capital markets of all the relevant parameters, and make due allowance for the effect of the external aspects of economic and monetary union.
But in addition, and most importantly, we must make the euro as acceptable as possible to the people of Europe.
The euro will be all the more acceptable if it can be made obvious how it is going to function. In this respect it is particularly important to ensure in the capital market that profit distribution and repayments - in the case of pension funds for example - are subject to workable investment principles.
We also need to take account of the competition principle, according to which a major part of funds has to remain inland, in the European Union - I am thinking of the Friedrich report now - and all the more so right now, because investment in the European Union is more important than ever, if we are to get a grip on our employment situation.
That is a priority.
Quite simply, that is how the euro and the future of our money economy will be judged.
The money economy cannot just be something abstract.
Furthermore, the consumer policy aspects are also highly important.
The introduction of the euro should not cost consumers anything during the transitional phase.
Conversion costs - in both senses of the word - should not be charged to consumers.
The continuity of existing contracts must be guaranteed, and accompanying measures are needed for this purpose.
One of the key accompanying measures is dual pricing.
Dual pricing also requires a legal framework, a regulation.
This kind of regulation is necessary to provide consumers with transparency and means of checking.
It is not a question of not being able to trust the market, it is a question of getting consumers to trust the euro, and the force of law has a part to play here too.
We also need to encourage people to feel good about the single currency.
This will provide credibility and will also contribute to the reputation that our institutions, particularly the European Central Bank, need to have.
If stability is to be achieved, it will require many accompanying measures, but above all enormous sensitivity.
That is the essence of the political challenge.
It cannot just be left to the money technocrats!
Mr President, a very important debate is being held this morning that highlights the active role played by the European Parliament in this stage of development of the final, definitive stage of economic and monetary union.
I would like to raise a few points, which to a certain extent relate to the excellent reports presented by Mr Friedrich on the capital markets and Mr Ruffolo on the external role of the euro. I want to start with a question: is it enough to establish the objective of stability as the fundamental mission at the basis of the independence of the future European Central Bank, to insist on the requirements of accountability to have a good system of governing the European economy?
There is no doubt that monetary policy interacts with the rest of economic policy and is conditioned by it: it interacts in particular with fiscal policy, budgetary policy, tax policy, with what we can call the non-monetary government of the economy.
And so the basic subject we have before us is that of the future system of economic governance for the European Union in economic and monetary union.
I believe that the decisions taken at the recent Luxembourg Summit, generally in favour of the formation of the socalled Eurocouncil, are going in the right direction and summarize the requirement for a non-monetary government authority for the economy, which to a certain extent matches the monetary government of the European Central Bank. This will be a system based on two independent economic-policy authorities, which are inevitably interconnected in the link that exists within the economic policy in general in a system such as the European one.
Not only that, they will be two authorities with the same dignity and authority that have to establish the need, particularly for the Eurocouncil, to speed up the solution to several basic issues presented.
Economic and monetary union consists of two essential sides, like a medal: the monetary side and the non-monetary side. Within the latter, I will point out the subjects relating to the internal market, the need to speed up the implementation of the so-called action plan, and the tax subjects.
From this point of view, the decisions taken by the Ecofin Council on 1 December are very encouraging and I think the European Parliament will have the opportunity to come back to these and stimulate further progress.
To conclude, I would just like to mention one aspect that interacts with the point raised by Mr Friedrich, that is the agreement on a directive on the taxation of financial income for non-resident natural persons, a subject of fundamental importance to enable the future capital market to operate appropriately in the presence of the euro.
Mr President, I welcome the main thrust of the Pérez Royo report because it recognizes that real and tangible measures must be implemented to protect consumer interests in the run-up to the introduction of the single European currency.
May I say from an Irish perspective that we do not want to see the errors which arose when decimalization was introduced in the early 1970s and when there was vast confusion all over the place.
While I recognize that the actual euro notes and coins will not be put into the pockets of the 340 million consumers until the year 2002, time is still of the essence with regard to the European-funded information campaigns which need to be orchestrated in this regard.
In advance of the date of 2002 many banking and commercial transactions can be carried out using the euro denomination.
The European Commission, together with the national governments, must fund information campaigns relating specifically to the pricing of products in both the euro and the currency of the host Member State in the run-up to EMU.
Dual-pricing campaigns must be part of this process, and such campaigns must take place in all key supermarkets and shopping outlets across Europe.
Finally, the prices of products should be displayed with the price denominated in euros and in the national currency.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the external aspects of economic and monetary union are often overlooked in the discussions on the euro.
Wrongly, because the external implications of EMU will have important consequences for both the EU and for our direct partners, as well as for the entire web of international economic monetary relationships.
The euro will undeniably play an important part as an international currency, and will create more balance within the international monetary system, especially in relation to the dollar.
EMU will enable the EU better to offer resistance against external shocks such as the ones caused by speculative capital flows.
EMU means an important step towards a new and more balanced international monetary system, from a unipolar to a multipolar system, in which the European Union will be able to play a leading role, and, it is to be hoped, will actually do so.
EMU will give the European Union a greater responsibility within the international financial economic organizations.
Concrete interpretation of this, within the IMF and the G7 amongst others, is therefore urgently required.
Finally, I would like to point out the danger of wishing to regulate and frame too much in advance of the start of the third phase of EMU.
In particular the market, influenced by a convincing and effective macro-economic policy, must determine the rate of the euro, rather than our advance management of it - a rate which has a positive reverberation in the outside world as well as on Europe's economic position and its global, economic and monetary cooperation and stability.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, ten years ago the political will for this ambitious project of the euro came into being.
During the past years economic convergence has improved rather spectacularly, despite sometimes difficult conjunctural effects.
Today we are on the eve of a transitional period which may be important and of great significance for the credibility of the new European currency.
For the present, the ball will soon be in the court of the national governments.
They will give the new currency more credibility by not only issuing new loans in euros, but by converting the outstanding national debts as much as possible into the euro.
Secondly, the euro will offer an answer to several countries who would like to differentiate reserves more.
I am not saying that the euro will take the place of the dollar, but I am saying that the euro may become an important factor of diversification.
Thirdly, it is clear that the sum of the reserves of the participating countries is greater than the sum necessary to support the European currency.
I therefore support Mr Ruffolo's request that the European Commission should look into how these surplus reserves might be best used.
Fourthly, during the transitional phase everything has be to be done to inform the public.
The time of uncertainty will be over once 2 May has passed.
We must direct all resources, all budgetary resources that we have for information, towards informing the public about the introduction of the euro.
Fifthly, an important role awaits banking, which in the recent past has proved in my country, too, not to have earned any trust in its behaviour towards the customer.
I therefore do not rely on market forces, as Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens and Mr De Clercq just said.
I think that the European Commission and, if necessary, the national Member States must make legal provisions and guarantee free conversion of national currency into the euro.
Lastly, the introduction of the euro offers new opportunities and perspectives in a broader sphere.
Let us try today to make a start on European coordination, as agreed on 1 December.
Let us use this beginning of economic coordination to map out one route which may incur the risk of the disadvantages and consequences of the crisisridden Asian markets today.
This is the first test case, as far as I am concerned, for better economic coordination which has to be linked to the introduction of the euro.
Mr President, the smaller the amount, the higher the costs are.
This summer I was on holiday with my daughter in Italy, and she changed 100 schillings in a money-changing machine.
It gave her 9, 600 lire.
When we got back to Austria, I gave her back the money, rounded up to 10, 000 lire.
Commissioner, just guess how much money she got from the Austrian machine - she got exactly half, just 50 %!
I think this sort of thing costs a lot of money in tourism and in other areas.
When you consider that we have about 50 % more bank employees than in America, and at higher staff costs at that, and that all this is partly necessary to grapple with the whole area of foreign currency exchange and risk, then we will certainly have to keep an eye on our banks in Europe and consider what banking supervision arrangements we shall need in future.
The fact that the banking system has been one of the main reasons for the crisis in the ASEAN states means that we need to be particularly attentive about a healthy banking system in Europe when we switch to the euro.
At the end of the day, the larger the amounts are, the greater the risk, and I believe that one of our chief tasks should be to limit that risk.
If you consider that between 1985 and 1995 the dollar led to the loss of some 1.3 million jobs in Europe, according to a study by the Austrian Institute of Economic Research, then you will appreciate just how important a single currency is for us.
As for the strength of the euro, I have to say that it is perhaps stronger than many exporters would like.
Mr President, I will focus on Mr Friedrich's report, and on behalf of my group I can say that we agree with Mr Friedrich that it is conceivable that, once the euro has come into being, Europe will have the second largest bond market in the world.
So there are opportunities for Europe in this field.
But it is not enough to observe and note this.
Particularly in the area of condition-creating policy, the Union will still have to initiate a great deal, for example, in the sphere of company law, regulations for accounting, and stock market rules.
It is truly scandalous, and I have said so before in this Chamber, that we still have not managed to bring about a statute for businesses.
Enormous effort has also been made by the Davignon Committee, and yet it continues to drag.
Finally, I, like Mr Friedrich, would like to call for attention to be paid to pension funds in the various Member States.
As a result of existing obligations whereby they have to invest the largest part in the country of residence, opportunities are missed.
I will personally call for attention for this point in my report to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the Green Paper on pensions.
But here, too, I believe the European Commission will have to take action to make the Member States see that they can no longer hang on to outdated policy on this front.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the euro must be strong and dependable.
Confidence of the markets is not enough.
We need the confidence of the people.
That means better democracy and monitoring of the Central Bank, which is responsible to the democratically-elected bodies.
Major companies in Finland will be switching to the euro at the start of the third stage.
Already 64 % of the larger Finnish concerns have said they are getting prepared for the switch.
But the situation is more problematic for small companies.
Only 7 % have begun preparations.
And the situation is even less promising in the service sector.
The SME sector is Europe's most important employer.
The SMEs, however, do not have the resources to create new information systems nor always the staff skills or money to acquire them.
The Commission should therefore produce an advice pack for them.
In order that the costs of transition do not overburden the taxpayer, the introduction of the euro must not mean consumers having to pay for it.
The euro may be the project of the century, but it seems to be making a very sleepy entry among Member States.
Education and information on the euro is absolutely essential for ordinary people, and it has come late in many areas.
Confusing and inadequate information has led to an image of much dithering and secrecy, and in times of mass unemployment this has increased opposition to it.
Memories of massive postWar devaluation lead us to regard money seriously.
It is more valuable the less there is of it.
That is why the information on the new money must be solid and comprehensive.
I suggest that every Member State has a popular-style series of programmes on television, to follow on from the news, showing the latest on the euro.
It cannot be possible that the appeal of a common currency is harder to get across than the absorption rate of babies' nappies.
I agree with Mr Pérez Royo that the electricity, gas, water and telephone companies must get involved by stating their customers' bills in euros as well as local currency.
We cannot, however, suppose that commercial companies, for example, - and I do not mean supermarkets - would be able to train up staff members as experts on the euro, as has been hinted at here.
That is the duty of the government, and it is obviously ours too.
Mr President, the introduction of the euro will obviously bring about change for all market players, and we are convinced that the positive effects will amply outstrip the negative ones.
We should not worry too much about the positive effects, but we should explain them to the public.
A great deal still needs to happen on that front.
As far as the inconveniences are concerned, we have to make sure that they remain as few as possible, even if they are principally a transition issue.
In order to succeed, we have to inform the public, but we also have to realize that information is indeed necessary, but not enough.
We must realize that we need a legal and balanced framework, a framework which ensures that notes are not counterfeited; that conversions take place at the right rate, and according to the right method of calculation.
We have to make sure that the introduction of the euro does not affect the continuity of contracts, that the period of concurrence of charter money in different denominations is as brief as possible, and that information is given in such a way that the consumer knows there are reasons to be confident.
Most of the issues, Mr President, are arranged by law, but unfortunately, not optimally.
My group is convinced that accession contracts should not deviate from the continuity principle.
We have therefore submitted an amendment in which we ask the Commission to submit a proposal to amend Regulation 1103.
I would be interested to know if the Commissioner is prepared to consider an initiative to this effect.
Then there is the issue of dual pricing.
The polarization of the interests of the consumer on the one hand, and retail trade on the other, is in our opinion not realistic.
These interests run much more parallel than some people would have us believe.
It is out of this philosophy that we have submitted Amendment No 8, an amendment in which we ask to wait and see for a bit - wait and see until after 1999 to see what the markets will do spontaneously.
Then, on the basis of actual reactions from the market players, we will be able to determine what is needed, whether we need detailed regulation for dual pricing, and if so, how we can make these fit the realistic needs of all the players.
Mr President, we have heard four very interesting reports on a subject of fundamental importance.
The future credibility of Europe will be staked on the euro and the arrival of the single currency.
The single currency is both a means and an end to make the citizens understand that they form part of a community in which they can travel, buy, move and so on, thanks to the single currency.
The rapporteurs have to face practical problems, and we thank them for their speeches.
There are other problems which have not yet emerged and which the single currency will inevitably clarify better in the next few months, if not in the next few weeks.
The euro is a peaceful end-of-century revolution; it is an essential condition for providing a uniform and collective economic system which the European Union has to use as a great means of making its function understood.
There are practical problems obviously connected with the functioning of the relationship between those circulating the euro and the final user, who is the citizen, particularly as consumer.
It has been recalled by other colleagues that it will be in the banks that the citizens will discover the euro, but particularly in the commercial distribution system. It will be in the shops, supermarkets, restaurants and travel agencies that he will encounter the euro, and he will have to have a commercial contact there - a small businessman, an assistant - prepared to explain, and enable him to understand how the euro operates.
And so we will have to work together to provide information for the consumer and training for business.
In the same way, we should not make the citizens bear any bank charges in switching from national currency to European single currency.
Finally, we would like to recall several aspects that are connected with the operation of the single currency.
It is in the commercial system that the euro will be most widely circulated and known by the citizen as a consumer.
Business will have to deal with the requests for information on this great monetary innovation in brief, clear, concise terms.
We should therefore enable the small or large trader to provide clear answers, otherwise the cost of introducing the euro will end up becoming disruptive for all parts of the economic system: industry, production and consumer.
What we want to avoid - and indeed must avoid - is that the final cost of introducing the single currency should fall on the consumer alone.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the present debate follows on from the last European Council in Luxembourg.
It has been particularly rich: I counted 48 speeches, which I classify as falling into two categories. First, speeches of a general and political nature, raising questions as to the appropriateness of the euro, and second, speeches of a practical nature, in response to the aims of the four reports discussed by yourselves.
I shall therefore content myself with replying to the practical questions, although I shall make two exceptions, since Mr Caudron and Mrs Torres Marques are right in front of me.
With regard to the Asian crisis mentioned by Mr Caudron, the Commission considered that it should not have any impact on growth other than marginal.
Of course, we must remain vigilant, as we are not crystal-ball gazers.
However, we must note that the foundations of the European economy are still sound.
The euro has already been allowed for by the financial markets and plays its protective role, as testified by the stability of the European monetary system, which dates back several months now, contrary to what happened in 1995.
In my view, the Asian crisis - although developments must of course be closely watched - will not have any effect on the launch of the euro on the scheduled date.
Mrs Torres Marques raised a question of a general import, which appears to me of considerable value, alluding to a plea laid by German academics before a German court. It is not the business of the Commission to interfere in a debate on internal policy.
In our countries, every citizen fortunately has the right to seek legal redress before the courts.
But I can assure you that the euro will see the light of day on 1 January 1999.
The decision will be taken on 2 May by the Heads of State and of Government.
This will follow on from a sitting of your parliament, and the decision will be taken on the basis of the strict application of the one or more treaties.
I believe that a majority of Member States should be in a position to participate in the euro on 1 January 1999.
Having said that, the present debate shows that this House is, quite rightly, concerned with the practical procedures and consequences of the introduction of the euro, and with the proper conduct of economic and monetary union from 1 January 1999 onwards.
Rightly so, because this is the point at which the real problems and the real debate take place.
I shall make every effort to reply briefly to all the problems raised, by successively reviewing the four reports presented to your Parliament.
Firstly, the Friedrich report on the impact of the introduction of the euro on the financial markets.
Yes, Mr Friedrich, the Commission, like you, considers that the introduction of the euro and the development of a true European capital market should go hand in hand.
That is why we have asked the Giovanini Group to draft a report, resulting in the communication of 2 July last, which you mentioned.
This document from the Commission examines a number of changes which, in the final analysis, will affect the financial markets, and describes the technical preparations necessary.
These changes should guarantee the transparency and optimum fluidity of the euro markets.
Among the questions raised, I would like to cite the conversion into euros of the commercial paper traded in national currencies, and of market conventions, for example, the calculation of interest due or periods of settlement, as well as benchmark issuances.
In these fields, regulations are above all a responsibility of the national authorities, and of course depend on the markets as such.
The Commission has drafted recommendations, in response to a request frequently raised by market operators.
Furthermore, if I have understood your rapporteur correctly, this was also his wish.
The harmonization of capital markets must be carried out by the markets themselves, on the basis of the two regulations on the legal status of the euro adopted in the wake of the European Council in Amsterdam in July.
The operators have already reached a considerable degree of consensus. Here I am in particular thinking about market practices.
Progress has also been made in the field of debt conversion, on the basis of benchmark indices.
In my view, it is now accepted that tradable public debt will be converted at the beginning of January 1999, across all of the euro zone. That is also the wish of your rapporteur.
Furthermore, the organizations with responsibility for calculating national benchmark indices have made every arrangement to implement the necessary changes on 1 January 1999.
The European banking associations and the international foreign exchange association are in particular, at this very time, defining the future European money market benchmark index.
This index will I believe be known as Euribor, the European interbanking offered rate.
Other questions will require further in-depth examination.
I am thinking in particular about investor protection, the regulatory framework on new financial products and the typology of financial institutions.
All these questions will be given an appropriate response in the next few months.
It is very important indeed to create a regulatory framework which will allow for effective market operation. This is what the Commission is working on at present.
I now turn to the second report, from Mr Ruffolo, on external aspects of the forthcoming economic and monetary union.
Since the Commission, on 23 April last, put forward a communication on the consequences of the introduction of the euro on the economic and monetary relationships of the Union with third countries, the European Council meeting in Luxembourg in December clarified the procedures for the implementation of the provisions of the Treaty, and here I am thinking of Article 109, relating to exchange rate policy, the definition of the external position of the Union, and the representation of the euro zone.
As regards the exchange rate policy - and here I take advantage of the situation to respond to questions which have often been raised outside Parliament on this subject - the European Council, by emphasizing the responsibility which will be laid upon the Community due to the introduction of the euro, is insistent on the necessity for full application of the provisions of the Treaty to ensure that, as between the Council and the European Central Bank, there is an exchange of views and information on the euro exchange rate.
The Commission will provide for the permanent tracking of market developments.
The question will be regularly examined in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy which, from 1 January, will take over from the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs.
On the recommendation of the Commission or of the European Central Bank, the Council may in exceptional circumstances formulate general orientations for exchange rate policy with regard to non-Community currencies, in accordance with Article 109 Paragraph 2 of the Treaty.
Similarly, on a proposition from the Commission, the Council will be required to draw up the Community position on international questions which have a particular bearing on economic and monetary union, pursuant to Article 109, Paragraph 4 of the Treaty.
I believe the conclusions I have just formulated very broadly answer the question raised by your rapporteur on the interpretation of Article 109.
After hearing this morning's debate and the opinions from various quarters, I wish only to lay emphasis on two aspects of Mr Ruffolo's report.
Firstly, with regard to the need for evaluation of the surplus dollar reserves of the European central banking system, I would say that the existence of this surplus has yet to be proven.
At all events, the Commission believes that it is not its responsibility to give instructions to the European Central Bank on the manner in which it is to manage currency reserves, as that could well be perceived as an attempt to limit its independence.
The second aspect which I would wish to emphasize relates to the particular wish expressed by some of you this morning to fix a benchmark value for the euro to dollar exchange rate. I would remind you that the parity of a currency cannot be decreed.
Of course, there is no question of setting up an over-valued or under-valued currency, Mr Rübig.
What we should work hard to introduce is a stable currency. I agree with Mr Ruffolo's speech, and I also agree with the comments made by Mr Fourçans and Mr Harrison on this point.
At all events, the Commission considers that the introduction of an exchange rate regime based on bands of fluctuation seems to be more than premature with regard to the current configuration of the international monetary system.
I agree in this respect with Mr Fourçans' comments on target bands.
I believe that current developments in Asia should prompt us to be particularly prudent in this field, and we should never forget that the exchange rate is the result and not the prime object or instrument of economic policy.
Nobody here this morning, it would seem, raised the representation of the Community at the international level.
I wish nevertheless to say a word about it, because it is an important point. The Heads of State and Government emphasized in Luxembourg that the Commission would be associated with the external representation insofar as this was necessary, so as to enable the Commission to exercise the role assigned to it under the Treaty.
These conclusions of the European Council, in accordance with the wish of your Parliament, confirm the need for a common approach to the euro zone on the question of its representation in international monetary meetings and authorities.
The European monetary union must speak with a single voice. This objective, which in my view has been reaffirmed by the European Council, needs to be translated into reality, by determining on a case-by-case basis the best possible representation of the Community in each of the international bodies, depending on its interests.
This is the work of the next few months, and I can assure you that the Commission has not been idle, and will continue to spare no effort to ensure it has a proper place within the representative bodies - in spite of contrary attempts from certain Member States, I might add.
The third report is from Mr Stevens, on electronic money and economic and monetary union.
The reflection proposed by Mr Stevens on the concomitance between the emergence of electronic money products and the introduction of the euro is particularly interesting, although I do not share his pessimism.
I would say to Mr Nordmann that it is not possible to shorten the three year forward period between 1999 and 2002.
I shall not go into details. Simply remember that there are seventy-two billion coins to be minted, and twelve or fifteen billion bank notes to be printed.
Materially and physically, we need the time to do this.
Mr Stevens' thinking appears to me to be very much in line with the current work of the Commission.
It is an observable fact that the development of electronic money is a matter for market choice and, like your rapporteur, the Commission believes that the most important questions are the following ones.
Firstly, there is the question of control and supervision.
Mr Scarbonchi emphasized this point and rightly so.
The development of electronic money raises the problem of the scope and procedures for supervision by the competent authorities, particularly with regard to monetary policy.
An appropriate framework for supervision must be defined. In 1998, the Commission will make a proposal for a directive on this subject.
Then the question of acceptability is an issue.
It is essential to ensure public understanding and confidence in the new means of payment. Similarly, the stability and integrity of existing systems must be guaranteed.
Then there comes the question of free competition. This principle, which is the basis of the proper operation of the internal market, should also prevail here.
Any potential prerogative, granted on a de facto or de jure basis to an institution of one kind or another with regard to the issuance of currency should be very attentively examined.
There is no question of restricting competition, Mr Watson: it is a question of being clear about the application of competition rules. This will also be the subject of a proposed directive next year.
Finally, there is the issue of security. The development of electronic commerce and security of payments requires products to be reliable, user friendly, efficient and secure.
In these four fields, as your rapporteur suggested, we need protection against fraud.
Such protection is mentioned in the Commission communication of April 1997 on the European initiative in the field of electronic commerce.
Like your rapporteur, the Commission is in favour of the principle of a regulatory framework for interoperability and stability in the financial system, while also assuring public confidence and guaranteeing the plurality of issuers of electronic money.
In July 1997, the Commission adopted a recommendation setting out a number of rules in the field of transparency, responsibility, and avenues of legal redress in the context of the relationship between the issuer and the holder of an instrument of payment.
While promoting electronic commerce and the information society, the Commission intends at the beginning of 1998 to draft a proposal for a directive on the issuance of electronic money, which will be a response to the criteria I have just alluded to.
Furthermore, we are thinking about questions relating to fraud and forgery in the field of new means of payment. Some of these questions are delicate.
Discussions are continuing.
They are taking place not only in Europe, but also in the United States and Japan. Having said that, the existence of transparent and reliable electronic money products will undeniably make the move over to the euro easier, and constitutes a positive aspect.
Finally, the fourth and last report, from Mr Pérez Royo, concerns the euro and the consumer.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, I agree with you: the euro is not a currency for the rich; the euro is not a currency for the financial markets; the euro is a currency for Europeans and for all Europeans. They must be able to identify with their currency.
This is why the report from Mr Pérez Royo is a useful part of the current work being undertaken on practical aspects of the euro. I would draw particular attention to a twin concern expressed in Mr Pérez Royo's report, regarding consumer information and the risks involved in moving over to the euro, which have been raised very often this morning.
I want you to know that the Commission shares the same concerns as your rapporteur, and that is why it decided to hold a new round table on 26 February, with all the social partners and interested organizations in Parliament, the Commission and the Council, in order to reach a consensus approach to a solution to the problems and positions which are still pending.
Let us look at the first concern, consumer information. Mr Gallagher, Mr Fitzsimons and Mrs Cardona raised the problems of information campaigns.
These campaigns, which were launched by your Parliament with the Commission, are precisely a response to the concerns raised with regard to satisfying the requirements and requests of consumers, and in these campaigns, all sorts of ideas could be dealt with, such as the telephone lines which you mentioned.
Mr Paasilinna, if nappy manufacturers are as good at selling their wares as is suggested, we could perhaps call them in to rescue us and help us promote the euro! We need to be able to draw on goodwill from every quarter, but, like Mr Hoppenstedt, I believe it is important to underscore the need for trust.
In this respect, your rapporteur has raised three questions: training, education and information. In addition to its recommendations to national public administrations, the Commission will present the recommendation on the euro and the educational world.
This will, I believe, reassure Mrs Torres Marques.
This initiative will indicate to the Member States the type of actions that could undertaken.
Dual price displays were much mentioned this morning.
Of course this is important, but this is not the only means of consumer information.
Having said that, the Commission has taken note of your suggestion, according to which legislative measures should be taken if voluntary dual price displays were found to be lacking.
Even so, at this stage, I wish to state clearly that we have a preference for a voluntary and non-bureaucratic approach, for the voluntary one is the only one which can take account of the special features of each business sector and retail distribution system.
Of course, there must be no unnecessary disruptive burden on small retailers, due to the imposition on them of costs which might in the final analysis, at least in part, be passed on to consumers, or which might cause consumer confusion.
You should also be aware that at present retailers and banks are intending to use dual price displays, using methods which differ according to the products and technologies used.
This morning several of you spoke about observatories, whether local or national, and the Commission will examine this proposal, with which there was not unanimous agreement, if Mr Langen's words are anything to go by.
These observatories would track the introduction of the euro from the point of view of price developments, and the provision of proper consumer information.
I nevertheless wish to state that these observatories and their remit lie within the scope of the national legal systems.
Therefore, some care must be taken to ensure that the observatories are compatible with individual Member State structures.
Finally, I come to your rapporteur's second concern.
This morning many speakers emphasized, many times, the need to keep down to the minimum the costs to the consumer of moving over to the euro.
This is of course the Commission's objective, and we proposed it in May 1995 in our Green Paper.
Consumers should not in any way be adversely affected by the introduction of the euro. I agree with Mr Harrison on this point - and there should be no cost to the consumer with regard to anything which is in the nature of being unavoidable in the move over to the new currency.
The Commission notes your suggestion of an approach based on legislation for all matters involving the exchange of coins and banknotes, the number of states participating in the transitional period, and the swapping of national banknotes and coins into euros on 1 January 2002.
The Commission has set up a group of experts to study the question of the banking expenses relating to the conversion of home currencies into the euro.
At this stage, while I share the objective of your rapporteur, the group is moving towards a more flexible solution, based on a commitment from the professionals, and particularly on the eventuality of a code of conduct subscribed to by the credit institutions, on the basis of a recommendation of the committee on credit establishments, and which the banks might agree to on a voluntary basis.
However, on all these questions, the approach of the Commission is a pragmatic one.
The players must be offered the possibility of devising the appropriate solutions themselves.
This a principle of devolved responsibility, and it is only if solutions are tardy or are unsatisfactory, that stricter measures should be envisaged.
Finally, consumer protection was mentioned many times this morning.
With regard to criminal sanctions, I would remind you that there is no European criminal law. For this reason, the responsibility for sanctions lies essentially with the Member States, even though the third pillar opens up new perspectives in this field.
The two regulations on the legal status of the euro, in the unanimous opinion of the Member States and the competent professionals, offer every necessary guarantee in the field of contract law.
It is now necessary to see to it that transparency and the prohibition of unlawful contractual clauses are assured and, if consumer protection directives have to be adapted, let us do so - which is something I suggested and proposed in October 1996, by the way.
In conclusion, permit me to say that the Commission is delighted at the active participation of your Parliament in the analysis of the practical consequences of the introduction of the euro and in the search for appropriate solutions for citizens. The Commission will take great account of your ideas and suggestions in its continuing work.
We need to set ourselves the target that, by 2 May, when the Heads of State and Government draw up the list of countries, all European citizens will have had comprehensive information on all the consequences and all the solutions to be brought to the practical problems which they are raising.
Commissioner, I would just like to emphasize again that in the course of this debate all the speakers who have called for dual pricing in the interests of consumer protection have in no way been suggesting that the interests of consumers and the interests of small and medium-sized companies and individual retailers should be played off against each other.
Although we consider it fundamentally important that practical and inexpensive arrangements should be put in place with a minimum of red tape, the Commission also has a duty to protect consumers.
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner a very specific question, and I do not believe I received a reply.
I asked specifically whether the Commissioner is prepared to take an initiative to amend Regulation 1103 of 11 June 1997.
This regulation makes a number of provisions on the introduction of the euro.
It establishes the principle of continuity, but it does leave space for accession contracts which deviate from this principle, for accession contracts which affect continuity.
We have problems with this. We submitted an amendment to this effect.
Parliament requests that this regulation is amended, and I would be grateful if the Commissioner could tell me if he is prepared to take an initiative in this direction.
I think it is absolutely vital if we want to keep or win the customer's trust.
Mr President, I have taken good note of Mrs Randzio-Plath's comment. I am in agreement with her on the objective and, I hope, on the means to achieve it.
I would like to respond to Mrs Thyssen.
I believe that today we need to realize that, firstly, the regulations on the legal status of the euro - adopted unanimously - are in my opinion beyond all amendment, as there would be no unanimous position within the Council for any amendment.
Secondly, I note that there is convergence of opinion from all quarters regarding the satisfactory nature of the regulations, and on the necessary guarantees they offer in terms of continuity of contract.
Thirdly, Mrs Thyssen, if this raises a problem with regard to unlawful contractual clauses, I believe I have said that I am ready to look into a modification, or an adaptation of the consumer protection directives, in such a way as to ensure the transparency of contracts, and the prohibition of unlawful clauses contained in them.
If you have practical problems, do not hesitate to lay them before us in writing.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 noon.
Votes
Madam President, I have to say that concerning paragraph 17, the Greek translation contains certain errors which I would ask the Parliamentary services to correct.
The same is true for paragraph 31.
The Greek translation of the text must be corrected.
Consequently paragraph 17 and paragraph 31 require a corrigendum as regards the Greek translation.
I would also like to make an oral amendment to Article 33 to correct an error there: in paragraph 33 the text that the Members of this House have says: "I remind you that the aforementioned joint agreements between rail companies 'must contain provisions'...' .
I would ask that this be corrected to "must not contain provisions...' .The Committee on Transport and Tourism voted on the text as I am proposing it to you now, that is "must not contain provisions...' .
Now the text says "must contain provisions..' , which totally changes the sense of this sentence.
I therefore propose orally that paragraph 33 be amended by adding the word not .
In English it is "must contain' while it should be "must not contain...' .
Mr Sarlis, we have all understood, and in all languages.
Simply, when you say to us that it is just a question of adding a negation, everybody is fully aware of the fact that this totally changes the way we are going to vote.
I would like to know, and Mr Wijsenbeek will certainly enlighten us on this point, whether this is a correction, that is to say, whether what should be submitted to the vote does effectively include the negation, and that therefore the text that we have has no negation simply as a result of an error, or if this is an oral amendment, the aim of which is to introduce the negation, in which case the oral amendment is a very substantial one.
I am in total agreement with the rapporteur.
Are there any objections to taking into consideration the oral amendment of Mr Sarlis, supported by Mr Wijsenbeek?
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
The report embraces the deregulation and liberalization of access to the railway infrastructure.
There is no way that we can support the political line which the report depicts.
Deregulation would adversely affect employment, reduce efficiency, damage 'public service' interests, destroy a supportive division of costs between rural and city consumers, and adversely affect the legal employment position of the personnel concerned.
As Social Democrats, it is totally impossible for us to support such a political alignment of society.
Railway transport is a social service where the profit motive should not be everything.
The obstacles to the free movement of persons in the European Union have been progressively eliminated. The move towards the dismantling of borders has accelerated.
To accompany this irreversible legal process and complete it, we need today to develop an ambitious and high quality policy in the field of rail transport in Europe, for persons and goods.
Here it is no longer possible to reason on the scale of our national companies, which are often heavily in debt.
Trans-European networks, branching out as extensively as a nervous system, must be developed on the European scale, in the spirit of Directive 91/440, involving the interconnection of existing networks (including in the Scandinavian countries), the extension of the great axes, transit and access to traffic.
All this will only be possible in practice if orientations supplementary to the current provisions are defined.
A more flexible management better adapted to customer requirements, with open competition in a free market, must gradually be introduced.
Unless these measures are rapidly taken, we will not be able to guarantee European citizens the survival of their rail transport, under financial conditions acceptable to the taxpayers.
I therefore share the conclusions of the European Commission's White Paper, and I approve both the orientations and the provisional timetable for the Sarlis report.
The introduction of a minimum of competition, in particular for long-distance freight transport, would rebalance the single market, and create the conditions for rail which road already has in its favour.
With its White Paper on the revitalization of the railways, the European Commission is returning to a philosophy which is dear to its heart: only immediate and unconditional liberalization will ensure the viability of the rail sector.
We cannot subscribe to such an analysis.
Competition must not be an absolute criterion, or an end in itself.
At the time of the publication of the White Paper, very strong reactions were heard in condemnation of the determined pursuit of free-market objectives by the Commission.
In my view, the report which is submitted to us for our scrutiny has not taken legitimate measure of the concerns of professionals in the rail industry.
This report recommends liberalization by stages - as has been done in the air sector.
However, this approach is not appropriate.
By forcing the pace of liberalization - even if it is staged - there is a risk of damaging the rail sector rather than revitalizing it.
The Commission must - in collaboration with the interested parties - undertake an assessment of the application of the basic directive before envisaging its modification along more free-market lines.
Finally, I am concerned at the absence of provisions relating to the social and labour relations dimension.
In ten years, the sector has lost 500, 000 jobs.
To accept the principle of liberalization, as set out in this report, would only increase job losses.
For all these reasons, I can only condemn this report.
The report by our colleague Pavlos Sarlis is a serious one, but I can absolutely not subscribe to the proposals that he is submitting to us today.
Indeed, I do not believe that the future of rail transport requires increased liberalization.
The example of Great Britain in this field shows us the hard and stark reality of liberalization for passengers, in which the only objective of the private companies is profitability, at the expense of a universal service reduced to the purely notional, and which will be completely sidelined.
Creating a European network of railways by liberalizing them is in practice to take them just a little bit further away from the less favoured regions, whose lines are not very profitable, and 'breaking up' what little remains of proper town and country planning.
A network is only properly European if its branches stretch out across the whole of Europe, and not simply into the rich and profitable areas.
If we do not go in the direction of an extensive and widely accessible service, we shall be condemning rail transport.
How can we imagine that private companies could commit the colossal amounts of investment which appear necessary for the future high-speed networks without passing on the cost to the users, and without eliminating the lines which are in book-keeping terms less profitable.
Finally, while I cannot vote for the report in its current state, I ardently desire the introduction into it of the obligation of service to all regions of the European Union, and for the respect of national special features and statutes, so that the railways become a true public service, enabling the all-round improvement of the environment, by reducing the preponderance of road transport.
As a French socialist, I cannot vote for the Sarlis report, just as I cannot approve the European Commission's proposal.
Indeed, we grant an essential priority to the development of the railways, particularly for social and ecological reasons, and for reasons of planned use of space.
That being the case, how can immediate or even staged liberalization be accepted, which would inevitably bring with it its load of redundancies and exclusion?
This is a purely economic vision, which absolutely fails to take into account the human dimension, and in this respect I cannot accept it.
The SNCF is just beginning to climb out of the abyss, and this is certainly no time to push it back down again.
Can we still take the risk of increasing the unemployment figures in Europe? I am raising the question, but in my view the reply is clearly "no' .
The report raises several important structural issues relating to railways and transport as a whole within the EU.
It is quite clear that railways must be expanded and improved to be able to meet competition.
There is everything to gain by increasing rail transport in EU countries, in terms of both freight transport and passenger transport.
On the other hand, I do not think deregulating the market is the best solution to the current problems of rail transport.
Instead I believe that people should put some concrete action into all the empty words about favouring the railways which we are always hearing from the Commission and the Council.
Turn these empty words into action by, among other things, greatly increasing financial support so that railways get as much financial support as roads, and by letting road transport pay for all its costs - including environmental costs - as we in the Green Group have previously proposed.
Railways are a superior form of transport when you want minimal environmental impact, particularly where freight transport is concerned, and the cost of the railways today would be easily recovered if you included what it costs to restore the environment after all the pollution from road traffic.
Despite the alarming loss of jobs on the European railways (around 500, 000 in ten years, one third of total employment in the sector); despite the fundamental role this means of transport may play in the preservation of the environment; despite the loss of importance of the railways, with the increase in options available, with the increase in unfair competition from road transportation and with the lack of investments, at national and Community level, that have made it impossible to improve or renovate infrastructures, that have disregarded management adaptations to the new requirements and allowed the quality of services rendered to decline deliberately; despite indicating the situation and some of these causes, the Commission wants the "strategy to revitalize the European railways' to study and speed up the privatization and liberalization of the sector.
The Commission does not propose to attack the causes, nor is it thinking of proposing any alternatives.
It is not paying attention to the social consequences of the direction it wishes to take, although it admits that unemployment will get worse.
It is basing its strategy on the enthusiastic support given by the great patronage of the sector, eager for the enormous profits in sight, broadened with the prospect of the Union's expansion eastwards.
It is advocating the immediate amendment of Directive 91/440/EEC, refusing to make the balance, to permit not only an accounting separation between the management of the infrastructures and the management of the transport, but also a legal separation speeding up the privatization of transport operation - the profitable sections of the current railway companies.
It does not wish to reflect on recent experiences of privatization of the railways (in Thatcherite England) where, along with unemployment, no improvements in quality have been recorded and public services have got worse despite the fact that the private companies have received subsidies for their respective implementation.
The Sarlis report, in turn, limits itself to supporting the strategy of the White Paper.
It does not study or propose alternatives that might pass through an increase in public investment at all levels, an increase in cooperation from the national companies in the establishment and operation of high-speed passes and in an improvement in the quality of the supply.
The Sarlis report limits itself to introducing phasing into the Commission's privatization strategy and advocating further social measures to reduce the disastrous consequences on employment.
In this context, we can only vote against the report and reject the strategy proposed by the Commission, hoping that it will not be approved by Council.
It is satisfying to note that the corresponding committee has succeeded in reaching a sensible and balanced line on the Commission's White Paper on a strategy for an efficient and modern railway system.
It is gratifying that Parliament and the Commission are already united from the outset in wanting to ensure the survival of the railways.
The railways are now on the verge of losing the fight against cars, lorries and buses.
But Europe cannot afford to lose rail as a means of transport, out of consideration for the environment and because of the increased freight transport between the EU, eastern Europe and central Asia.
First, I would like to congratulate Mr Sarlis for his report. He has put his finger on a number of problems which should prompt reflection by all interested parties.
It is important to push on with the railways policy inside the European Community, and well beyond.
It is absolutely necessary to accelerate rail transport if it is wished to develop it as a means of transportation.
For this reason, there are 'freight corridors' , and I am delighted that, for once, some of the European railways have been able to get ahead of the political world, by creating 'freight corridors' .
As we now discuss this report by Mr Sarlis, some of these 'freight corridors' are already operating between Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Italy, with extensions towards Spain, and it should be pointed out that a similar agreement between Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden has been signed. It should come into force in a few months.
This new approach of collaboration between railways presages well, and I would like to congratulate the managers for their courage. I hope they will receive the support of governments and also the trade unions.
I continue to believe that the White Paper on the revitalization of the railways recommends a liberalization which I cannot accept.
When you read that since 1985, 500, 000 jobs have been lost in the railways, and that the intention is to eliminate still more jobs, I think we have reached a point where the railways, till now a very dependable means of transportation, see their safety put at risk.
On the other hand, I regret that the Commission has limited itself to a sketchy outline of the repercussions of restructuring.
I even believe that the Commission considers these repercussions as a lesser evil, when compared to the possible alternative of continued deterioration in the sector.
Consequently, the Commission passes over in silence the fact that the repercussions risk being very different in the various Member States, as liberalization benefits companies working in environments where the social benefits of the workforce are curtailed.
The result will be a substantial flight of rail business away from the countries where the levels of social and worker protection are high.
I therefore believe that the Commission should provide for support actions for liberalization in the EU rail sector, with bottom-up harmonization of conditions of competition, and in particular of social and labour conditions.
In spite of these comments, I shall vote in favour of Mr Sarlis' report.
Mr President, I am supporting this report today as it can help our railways survive and prosper into the future.
This is vital not only for those who work in the rail sector, but also as part of our efforts to move freight traffic from our congested roads onto more environmentally friendly rail.
The report strikes a sensible and fair balance between granting free access to railways for companies operating international freight business, and ensuring decent working conditions and training for staff.
The report is also right to call for equal VAT treatment for all forms of transport, so that rail gets a fair chance to compete for transport business.
In future we should also ensure that there are connections between the various freight freeways so that a genuine network for international freight can be created.
Our economy, our environment and the jobs of our railway and transport workers can all benefit if we act now to ensure the viability of rail freight business.
Desama Report (A4-0384/97)
I would like once again to congratulate our colleague Claude Desama for the quality and readability of his report, for the pertinence of his analysis and for the interest of his proposals.
There is no doubt that we are at a turning point in space activities, and hence for our European space industries.
From a pioneering epoch we have now moved straight on into an era of commercial warfare, where the strategies deployed offer financial risks associated with opportunities for profit in equal number.
Like the rapporteur, I believe that increased synergy between the various players in the space industry is imperative.
Faced with American and - in the longer term - Asian competition, it is important that we move towards greater concentration in order to maximize the enormous investment required for research and development in this sector.
It is also important not to reduce public funding of research, but rather to increase it.
The future depends on our political will.
I share the declared determination of Claude Desama to include in his report the necessary environmental dimension of space technologies, both in terms of prevention of natural disasters, and in terms of cleaning up space debris.
In this field, the awareness which came to the fore at the Kyoto summit has attracted a great deal of attention, and it now behoves the European Union to take the lead, both in competitiveness and in environmental terms.
The generations to come cannot but be grateful. Space and associated fields can make a useful contribution.
The European Union, in space as in other fields, must go in the direction of renewal and modernity. To go forward, we must be able to anticipate.
It is important that, right now, the proposals put forward by Claude Desama should be rapidly put into practice.
Space projects should not be carried out if they require the use of nuclear material, if they could involve effects on the climate through the destruction of the ozone layer or problems with waste products in space.
Friedrich Report(A4-0383/97)
Sweden has decided not to join EMU, even though it qualifies for membership.
This is a decision which we support.
The single currency project is an immense gamble being made with the employment, social security and welfare of the citizens as the stake.
The Commission communication on the impact of the introduction of the euro on the capital markets, like the European Parliament's Friedrich report, is somewhat disappointing, as it deals with this vast subject from a rather over-simplifying technical angle.
No-one doubts that there will be problems 'redenominating' debt in euro, in ensuring the continuity of benchmark indices, in harmonizing market conventions and in altering the values of securities. But there is no doubt either that the technicians will be able to solve these problems.
We would have wished that the documents submitted to us today contained a wider vision of the impact of the introduction of the euro on the capital markets.
It is clear that if the single currency is introduced on schedule, the work of the professionals in the financial industry and in the operation of the capital markets, and the centre of gravity of the financial marketplaces, and the European financial landscape itself, will all be changed.
Of course, this will not mark year one in a new era of the European management of savers' investment portfolios, as some pretend.
For many years now investors have been diversifying their investments, and OPCVM mutual funds have ensured that diversification is within the grasp of each individual.
Many owners of investment portfolios, even on a limited scale, now own European SICAV mutual funds.
What is true, on the other hand, is that the introduction of a single currency can be a spur to financial innovation, and make diversification a little easier, by eliminating exchange risks and providing an incentive to the levelling down of legal and tax differences between markers.
For this reason, I was expecting the European Parliament's report to contain, as in the past, glowing demonstrations of the ability of a wider and more liquid capital market to reduce the cost of borrowing, for example.
No such thing!
If we try to adopt an even broader viewpoint, we are forced to the conclusion that the financial innovations and economies of scale in the management of the capital markets, after the introduction of the euro, will be of little interest if, at the same time, the economy falls to pieces. That is the real question.
We need to guard against the illusions fostered by the technicians, as reflected in the Commission communication and Parliament's report.
When all is said and done, monetary union will make us more losers, in terms of new rigidities and economic turbulence, than we are gainers, as a result of technical simplification.
From today's report and the subsequent debate it is clear that engineers and economists are working flat out to solve the practical problems caused by the structure of EMU.
This is in spite of the fact that the idea of a single currency is unwanted and very abstract for the people of Europe who are instead concerned about social welfare and the possibility of establishing an environmentally sustainable society.
The only right thing to do would be to immediately stop the process and instead initiate an in-depth debate with the citizens.
Changing to a single currency is an issue of such magnitude that it should definitely be the subject of a referendum.
Because the above-mentioned reports concern the - in our opinion - mistaken introduction of a single currency, we cannot vote for them.
In conclusion, I would like to say that we share the view of the Swedish economist who compared watching the introduction of the single currency with standing on the quay and watching the Titanic sail off into the distance to its fate.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the report by Mr Friedrich concerning the impact of the introduction of the euro on Europe's capital markets.
When EMU is implemented it will create the third largest stock market after the USA and Japan, which will therefore be a very attractive market for investors both inside and outside the EMU area.
The report mentions that there will be a flourishing share culture as a result of the euro.
The Danish Social Democrats are able to support the report, but point out that Denmark is not taking part in the third phase of economic and monetary union.
Economic and monetary union is a high-risk project.
The EU is not an optimal currency area, and the economies of the different Member States are far too different to be able to implement a single currency.
The single currency is also more of a political project than an economic one, leading to increased centralization in the direction of an 'EU State' .
There is also a high risk that EMU, with its one-sided preoccupation with fighting inflation, will lead to increased unemployment and increased regional imbalances.
In the accompanying resolution, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has said no to participation in EMU.
Against that background, I have abstained or voted against the four reports on the euro.
Ruffolo Report (A4-0338/97)
Madam President, I wish to speak more generally on the problem of the euro at a time when, in a world market, the currency will be regional, and even so not completely regional, as Great Britain at least will not be participating.
In other words, we will be dealing with continental currency, a sort of monetary Anschluß, and I would remind you that, in the case of the Anschluß, there was at least a referendum.
Currency is rather like Buddhism, it is a small vehicle for the transmission of information.
In this particular case, the euro will be a vehicle for conveying information for a society of 17 million unemployed people, 50 million impoverished people, on an ageing continent which is subservient to the United States. Just look at the World Trade Organization.
How will the euro change the position of the European Union in the world commercial negotiations of the year 2000?
Basically, Mr de Silguy is a little bit like the Africans: he confuses the symbol and the symbolized.
If you are a consumer of powdered rhinoceros horn, your virility is not thereby improved.
The symbol may be heightened, but not that which is symbolized.
The euro, at root, may in hormonal and media terms prompt a degree of fantasticism. But in economic reality, nothing will change.
It is interesting to note that this report reinforces our argument in Sweden against joining EMU.
Economic and monetary union is going to lead to increased demand for a more common financial and tax policy.
In paragraph N the report raises the need for a coordination of tax policies, and in paragraph 8 it talks about the harmonization of tax obligations.
We are convinced that a coordination of the common financial and tax policy would result in the Scandinavian model of universal welfare losing out to the Christian Democrat policy of a low tax burden to provide a 'freedom of choice' which is only going to benefit the well-off in society.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report by Mr Ruffolo concerning the external aspects of economic and monetary union.
The report points out the desirability of conducting a monetary policy which moderates long-term interest rates without weakening the demand for price stability.
The rapporteur has stressed that the value of the euro against the currencies of third countries shall correspond to the real intrinsic value.
The Danish Social Democrats support this report, but point out that Denmark is not taking part in the third phase of economic and monetary union.
Stevens Report (A4-0417/97)
Madam President, the Stevens report draws our attention to the twin revolution facing the European financial environment in the years ahead.
One of these revolutions, under the control of the authorities, is likely to be the single currency. The other, and spontaneous, revolution is electronic money.
This second revolution, a private enterprise initiative, could rapidly gather pace if it were given an appropriate regulatory framework, as the services it will render in everyday life are great.
A single chip card can make everyday payments in several currencies, and provide a number of other functions.
In fact, however, the two revolutions are, in the eyes of the European authorities, far too ambitious an undertaking if pursued simultaneously. It was too risky, as they saw it, to fundamentally change citizens' habits, and make so many demands on people as to provoke rejection.
The authorities therefore preferred to concentrate all efforts on the single currency, even at the expense of a delay in the introduction of electronic money.
This choice appears to be highly regrettable, as the developed countries are at present locked into ferocious competition for leadership in this market.
Europe has a great deal going for it.
It is even at the cutting edge of smart card technology.
But in the absence of mobilization by the authorities, we risk being overtaken by the Americans.
There is worse to come.
If we had encouraged the development of electronic money, we would have realized that it provides an answer to the many questions that the single currency is intended to solve, notably problems of foreign exchange for people travelling from country to country.
While eliminating the practical difficulties of handling many currencies, including currencies well beyond the euro zone, the electronic purse would ensure the continuing flexibility of national exchange rates, which in our view is indispensable if our economies are to adjust flexibly, which is precisely what the euro is intended to prevent.
Hence, the single-currency mistake may well delay the revolution in electronic money in Europe, for the sake of a single currency which will, with hindsight, be seen for the illusion it is.
Since Sweden is not going to participate in the introduction of EMU, we have decided to abstain from voting on this report.
The introduction of the euro will greatly benefit consumers, leading to greater competition and ultimately lower prices for goods and services.
It will also obviate the need for currency transactions and costs.
Greater efficiency in financial transactions will also be inevitable.
As a consequence, the single currency provides an ideal opportunity for the greater use of electronic transactions and smart cards.
I therefore welcome Mr Stevens' report as a useful contribution as to how a proper regulatory framework can be established to ensure a smooth transfer for the introduction of electronic money on a Europeanwide basis.
However, it should be acknowledged that despite the benefits of the single currency, some consumers are considerably apprehensive.
The one way to assuage these fears is to ensure in relation to the use of electronic money that the most stringent safeguards exist to prevent fraud and abuse of privacy.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for John Steven's report concerning electronic money in the countries which take part in the third phase of economic and monetary union.
The report deals with the problem of who should have permission to issue payment cards with electronic money within the EMU area.
The view in the report is that institutions other than banks should be able to issue these payment cards, which shall, however, be done according to specific rules which the Commission is being asked to draw up.
The report stresses that the European Central Bank together with the competent authorities should keep a close watch on the electronic money market in Europe.
The Danish Social Democrats agree with the above points of view, but point out that Denmark is outside the third phase of economic and monetary union.
Pérez Royo Report (A4-0415/97)
This report does not mention the great risks consumers are being exposed to by a single currency in an area which is not optimal.
Nor does the report mention the high conversion costs which the introduction of a new currency involves with regard to the conversion of vending machines, computer systems etc.
It is clear that it is the consumers, the citizens, who will have to pay for all this in the form of higher prices and taxes.
The Pérez Royo report presents the consumers with a balance sheet of the costs and benefits of the euro, but is short on inspiration.
In practice, the personal benefits are apparent only for persons living on national borders (some 40 million out of around 370 million across Europe) and for people who frequently travel as part of their work.
For others, who go abroad on average once every five or six years, the savings on foreign exchange appear to be of less interest.
The same applies to the 'easy comparison of prices of goods and services in the various Member States' , as the Pérez Royo report puts it.
Although a degree of acceleration in cross-border purchases with the euro can be expected, we should not lose sight of the fact that the financial and other intermediaries are already well acquainted with price differentials between countries, and exploit them insofar as they can.
Finally, the report cites a third advantage: the low interest rates resulting from a sound monetary policy.
On this point, the sales pitch needs to be rewritten, because this benefit, although attractive at the time of Maastricht, seems to be somewhat off the point today, when interest rates have fallen to a very low level.
Overall, however, the euro will certainly be an incentive to competition, and the consumer, at least initially, should gain.
But it should not be forgotten that, as far as the consumer is concerned, the balance sheet does not stop here.
On the one hand, the consumer is being asked right now to give up his or her national currency, at some personal cost, something which apparently had not always been understood.
On the other hand consumers, who are also producers, and unfortunately sometimes unemployed, wonder what will be the impact of the euro on the overall economy.
On this point, the claims which were so enthusiastically made at the time of Maastricht, when we heard promises of millions of jobs, are being prudently watered down.
Very serious economists are publishing cautions against the risk of disorganization between countries, and increasing unemployment, as a result of the euro.
It is therefore likely that the closer we are to the switch-over date, the more citizens will raise questions, and the more they will express their qualms.
The difficulties imposed on them by the transition period may well be a focus for all their discontent.
The European Council in Madrid decided in December 1995 on the scenario for the move over to the single currency.
These demands are before us now, as we prepare the citizens of the European Union to the best of our ability.
As the rapporteur has emphasized, we have every right to expect many benefits from the single currency, and one in particular: increased transparency in the pricing of the various goods and services in the Member States.
This transparency should result in an acceleration of competition, and as we hope, a fall in prices.
On the other hand, consumers who go to another Member State will benefit from the elimination of foreign exchange costs.
Even so, we must be conscious of the fact that introducing the single currency raises a number of questions about the way it is implemented.
Moving over to the euro will actually result in fundamental changes in the lives of each and every one of the consumers in the Union.
It is within a context of some scepticism from our fellow citizens that we enter the most delicate phases of the introduction of the single currency.
We must bear in mind the emotion and affection felt for their national currency by citizens in their respective Member States.
It is fundamentally necessary to ensure that the euro does not, in this period, become a scapegoat for all the evils in our society, and here I am thinking in particular about unemployment.
The fact that some may, during the transition period, have access to the euro on the financial markets and in the stock market, at a time when other citizens are unable to do so, may give rise to a certain frustration, and the feeling that there is a two-speed currency.
The report before us today lays particular emphasis on the directions we need to go in, and on the measures which are absolutely essential.
Firstly, emphasis should be placed on the critical components of education and training in all sectors of social life, beginning with schools, universities, consumers' associations, associations of older people, etc.
Secondly, like the rapporteur, I believe that the dual price display system of the euro alongside national currencies should be introduced as soon as possible in the retail trading environment.
We should accustom our citizens to think in euro terms.
Thirdly, during the transitional period we need to pay close attention to keeping down expenses related to currency conversion between national currencies.
In this respect my wish is, as has been emphasized by the rapporteur, that the Commission should propose regulations laying down that the conversion of bank notes from national currency into euros should be cost-free for citizens.
As a symbolic act of unification, the euro requires of us European parliamentarians, more than ever before, to be out in the field, as the advocates of a Europe that is on the move.
The report of Mr Perez Royo makes a cogent and convincing case for the introduction of the single currency.
However, the European Parliament does not need to be persuaded on this issue.
It is European citizens at large who need to be informed about the benefits of the euro and we must do more to present the arguments and issues before them.
I am alarmed at the widespread ignorance and lack of preparation that exists, including in my own country and especially among SMEs.
We must rectify this immediately.
I agree with Mr Perez Royo's proposals, especially the early introduction of dual pricing in retail outlets and the use of 'dual billing' by major service providers and banks.
Educational institutions also have a role to play, and I believe we could do much more by way of providing information in our schools and colleges.
Consumer confidence is vital to the success of the single currency.
However, the message at the moment is that we need to do much more if we are to achieve this.
We in the Swedish Left Party have voted against this report.
We are opponents of EMU and the introduction of a single currency.
We think the advantages of EMU for consumers which are being pointed out are greatly exaggerated.
We are also opponents of the EMU propaganda which the EU is conducting through its so-called information campaigns.
EMU is an anti-democratic project whose fate should be decided by the people themselves in referenda.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the report by Fernando Pérez Royo concerning the euro and consumers.
The report stresses that the changeover from the national currencies to the euro must not cost the consumers anything.
The rapporteur recommends that the conversion of notes and coins in the national currency into euro notes and coins should be free of charge for the citizens.
The Danish Social Democrats support this point of view, but point out that Denmark is not taking part in the third phase of economic and monetary union.
In spite of Denmark's reservations about EMU's third phase, there is no doubt in my mind that the euro should be welcomed throughout Europe.
There are many small and medium-sized companies, especially in Denmark, which have problems with the uncertainty which trading between different currencies entails.
But, of course, the consumers and citizens of the European Union also need to get used to using the euro.
I therefore agree with the rapporteur when he calls for better transitional arrangements and, for example, recommends that invoices be written in both euros and the national currencies.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.53 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Transatlantic relations
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0410/97, by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council - Europe and the United States: the way forward (COM(95)0411 - C4-0411/95); -A4-0403/97, by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on transatlantic trade and economic relations.
Mr President, it is always nice to speak to a big audience.
My short term as a European diplomat in the United States revealed some peculiarities in their relationship to Europe.
Here are some observations.
US foreign policy is based on the fact that Europe does not speak with one voice and acts even less as one country.
No common European policy exists except in folklore.
US foreign policy does not want a strong European involvement in the Middle East or anywhere else despite some verbal assurances.
On the West Coast of the US where I was stationed, China and the Far East were the primary concerns for the US.
Being the only military superpower in the world investing nearly US$ 300 billion yearly in secret and not-so-secret operations, the US wants to retain its military leadership and does not intend to renounce it.
With regard to the economy one can say the following: American business, having heavily invested in Europe, will welcome the advent of a single currency in Europe.
On the other hand, in the US itself protectionist thinking is still rife.
The US intends to keep its dominance in computer software, audiovisual software, films and TV.
The European Union maintains a high profile in Washington and New York but, except for occasional visits to the West Coast, there is no presence there.
Hence the amendment to the Souchet report about a West Coast presence.
It seems to me that few Europeans understand the fragmented nature of American society.
Compare Florida, Texas, Alaska, Minnesota and California; they are very different worlds.
Last but not least, Americans in general have no knowledge whatsoever of the European Union.
I understand that very well after having experienced the sloppy way in which many of the many Union diplomats in Washington manage their tasks.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, there is no doubt that Europe owes much to America.
Nor is there any doubt however that America owes much to Europe.
As both share the basic principles of the free world, they worked together to defend them and to preserve them throughout the long and dangerous period of the Cold War.
Their relations have not always been honest.
The United States often complained that it was shouldering very heavy burdens without receiving the appropriate understanding.
The countries of Europe often detected a certain arrogance in America's behaviour towards them.
With the ending of the Cold War, bipolarization and the rivalry between the two superpowers, after the earthquake of 1989, the need to free Europe and the United States from what has stood in the way of a more open relationship is becoming more and more insistent.
God help us if the United States, as the only remaining superpower, were to step up what the Europeans - and not just the Europeans - describe as arrogance.
The arrogance of power had already been denounced, during the Cold War, by a famous American, Senator Fulbright.
And, quite aptly, it was recently invoked in Washington by the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel.
God help us if, on the threshold of a new globalized era, the United States believed it had sole responsibility for the whole world, and a duty to play the role of police constable of international order and security.
Because neither is it legally entitled to do this, nor is it possible for it to act in this way.
Fortunately the signs that emerged from the 1995 Summit Meeting in Madrid between President Clinton, Mr González and Mr Santer were that enhanced cooperation between Europe and the US, rather than rivalry and the crushing of efforts, can strengthen the institutions and the conditions of international law and order to everyone's advantage.
The report we are debating today, after quite some delay, specifies - perhaps in rather too much detail - the issues on which we will be able to judge the development referred to above: the honesty, reciprocity and parity of European - US relations.
And over and above the smoothing out of the current economic problems in which these contrasts are revealed, it will emphasize the tremendous importance assumed by the general framework which must contain long-term efforts for an honourable understanding, from the other side of the Atlantic as well.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the new world geopolitical framework following the fall of the Berlin Wall, relations between the United States and Europe can and should be strengthened.
The United States enjoy world leadership in the four strategic sectors - economy, military power, technological competence and culture in a broad sense, but, both for geographical and for idealogical reasons, their leadership model is based on networks of cooperative and competitive alliances across the world.
The alliance with Europe has been and is the strongest and most stable of all, particularly owing to the common foundation values of our societies: the protection of human rights, the model of a free society based on equal opportunities, market economy and free trade.
It is therefore of interest to the United States that Europe should grow stronger, for example, with the single currency, which is extending eastwards, broadening the area of democracy and market economy.
It is in the common interest that the NATO region should expand in line with the expansion of the Union, increasing the undertaking and the European position in the Alliance, and for positive relations to be established between the European Union and the Russian State.
There is therefore a convergence of global interests between the United States and the European Union, which we can try to rebalance in a more united fashion, and which should not encounter obstacles in the bi- or multilateral disputes connected with specific economic interests of the two parties.
For this reason, the draft New Transatlantic Agenda, enriched by Mrs Mann's report, broadly indicates and covers the many sectors in which cooperation needs to be intensified.
I would now like to mention two particularly topical points, along with cooperation in the traditional sectors (the campaign against organized crime, the settlement of commercial and customs disputes and dialogue between companies).
Firstly, I would point out the commitment to build the information society together, this as yet not wellestablished society that represents our future: the rules on the networks, infrastructures and accesses, standards, intellectual property protection, electronic trading procedures, and rules on investments and cooperation between companies.
Secondly, I want to mention the commitment to monetary cooperation between the United States and the European Union, all the more so in the now well-advanced stage of the European single currency, to ensure stability for markets and to reinforce the common prospects of growth and development.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the second time in two months this Parliament is adopting a resolution about the relationship with the US.
It is extremely important that we remain consistent in the line of our policy with regard to the US.
In its present form, the Souchet report does not contribute to this.
Quite wrongly, the report concentrates one-sidedly on the problems in this relationship. Instead, we should make use of the opportunities for cooperation, and solve differences of opinion in a dialogue, not through threats.
This Parliament should first and foremost welcome the intensification of the transatlantic relationship. The New Transatlantic Agenda and the joint action plan constitute useful instruments to make this happen.
We must seize the opportunities which these instruments offer.
One voice from both sides of the Atlantic may have a decisive impact.
Where Mr Souchet blames the Americans for the fact that a European security and defence identity does not yet exist, he should really search his own conscience.
Europe itself did not take the opportunity during the Council of Amsterdam.
The Liberals argue for a strengthening of the relationship between this House and the United States Congress on the subject of human rights.
Finally, Mr President, there is the arms trade.
Now that the British Presidency is developing plans to step up common export regulations concerning arms, we should intensify our dialogue with the US in this area, too.
Arms export policy is an integral component of foreign policy.
Individual attempts from both sides to regulate the arms trade will have more chance of success if they are attuned.
I call on the British Presidency to include this topic in the transatlantic dialogue.
To conclude, Mr President, the Liberal Group has submitted a fair few amendments, and I hope these amendments will be approved.
Otherwise we will have to withhold our support from the Souchet report.
Mr President, the overall clarity, depth of analysis and foresight of these reports on the communication from the Commission on Europe and the United States are such as to overcome some of our initial reservations and objections.
We cannot but appreciate the pragmatic, critical approach to the growing imbalance in the transatlantic relationship.
The remedy suggested the urgent need to rethink, on more equal terms and on more serviceable parameters, the great design of a properly functioning partnership between Europe and the United States of America: particularly at the present juncture where the dogma of globalization is producing social and economic upheavals; the Asiatic flu is turning into pneumonia for the financial markets of the world and the usual formula of privatizing profits and socializing losses through the International Monetary Fund does not seem to work and presents costs unacceptable not only to Europe but also to the United States Congress.
The Souchet report should be highly commended for its criticism of some egregious cases of American unilateralism in many fields that are already regulated by international agreements or where cooperation with other partners should have been the order of the day.
The most ominous case is the arbitrary and unilateral decision by Congress, accepted by the Administration, to cancel a large part of United States arrears in financial contributions to the United Nations and to subject its operations to the control of American institutions like the General Accounting Office (GAO).
This is, of course, the work of Senator Jessie Helms of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.
The main purpose of the amendments we are presenting is to formulate unequivocal European support for the alternative reform of the United Nations promoted by the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to preserve independence in the universal role of the organization as enshrined in its own Charter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, dialogue is certainly one of the most important and finest political tools.
So I can only say how wholeheartedly I support our having the New Transatlantic Agenda on our agenda instead of NATO.
World peace, social justice and economically sustainable development in a world where links are becoming closer every day cannot be achieved by deterrence. Instead, what is needed is careful joint negotiation.
Because of their economic power, the EU and the USA have a special responsibility for wellbeing on this planet.
They are also in a position to take practical initiatives.
But it is not a question of circumventing international fora such as the WTO and the UN, and thus undermining their credibility.
The Helms-Burton affair is an extremely negative example of what dialogue can entail.
The EU should denounce this example, loud and clear, as an example of the extraterritorial application of national legislation.
What we need is legal certainty, not the arbitrary use of power.
The EU should also use the NTA to make it clear to the USA, that economic giant, that on issues like bananas or BSE it is not economic growth or the interests of companies that should count, but the health and social welfare of our people.
The WTO, which is without doubt a fruit of the union of the EU and the USA, certainly needs considerable reform in this respect.
The WTO is in urgent need of social and ecological restructuring in view of its new areas of work, and must be made transparent for all members.
The NTA could do some useful preparatory work in view of the forthcoming ministerial conference.
The NTA should not be a club for major industrialists who dictate the agenda to politicians behind closed doors.
Quite the contrary, it should open up means of transatlantic communication to civil society.
In an era of multinational companies, workers should also be able to communicate, to promote their ideas about education and training, social protection and healthy jobs.
Erika Mann's report shows which direction we should be heading in, and we shall be supporting it with a clear conscience.
Unfortunately, Mr Souchet's report on external relations does not reflect our views, in particular the parts concerning crisis management and the use of the armed forces, even if the latter are euphemistically described as peace-keeping operations.
The human rights field could certainly have been given more attention, and not just on the death penalty in the USA.
We hope that the relevant amendment will gain sufficient support here.
Nor can we comprehend why measures such as those taken by the State of Massachusetts to counter human rights abuses in Burma will be prohibited in future - quite the opposite.
State regulation mechanisms relating to human rights must also remain a legal option.
As I have already said, human rights should have priority over business interests.
It is misleading to give the impression that the freedom to choose between 27 different kinds of headache pills is the same thing as the freedom to opt for an affordable health care system with equal and unrestricted access for all.
We shall be abstaining on the Souchet report but very firmly supporting Erika Mann's report.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to congratulate Mrs Mann and Mr Souchet for these two very good reports.
I would like to say that personally, I rather agree with Mr Bertens insofar as I rather think - and here I differ somewhat from Mr Lambrias' suggestion - that we owe our American friends a little more than they owe us, at least in the course of the last 40, 50 or 60 years.
I think it is important to remember that.
I believe - unfortunately I fear this may make my friend Mr Manisco a little more irritated with me than he already is - that we cannot reproach the Americans with their unilateralism.
I believe that, only too frequently, they have found themselves facing important responsibilities alone, and fortunately they were there to do so.
The problem, here again, is that we lack a Europe with the ability to speak with a single voice, a Europe with a single policy. We saw this again with important cases such as the attitude towards the People's Republic of China, where the position which still prevails is the pitting of one European Member State against another, and that is the real problem.
I would like to hold Mr Souchet to his words quite literally when he says that we should not hesitate to deal with delicate subjects head on.
I believe - and I think that here Mr Manisco will agree with me - that there is one delicate subject which is of great concern to me and at all events to many of my colleagues in this House. This is the question of the death sentence in the United States.
My group has put down two amendments, one to Mr Souchet's report and the other to Mrs Mann's.
The amendment to Mr Souchet's report invites the United States to abolish the death penalty, not that the death penalty is incompatible with democracy - I believe that, and we say in the amendment that it is important to emphasize it - but because the abolition of the death penalty would be an extension of the sphere of fundamental rights, and it would be desirable for our American friends to integrate this into their constitution, which remains an example of democracy.
I also believe we owe this to ourselves and to our Parliament.
We cannot allow ourselves to make this sort of request only of the so-called poorer countries, the developing countries: we must also have the courage to make such a demand of a great country such as the United States, and I therefore most vigorously invite Mr Souchet to accept this amendment.
The amendment to Mrs Mann's report is a little more complicated.
There are ten or twelve states in the United States which have abolished the death penalty, and here we would need to go down a more difficult road, namely to favour not only investment by our enterprises, but also the presence of our institutions and of representations from our Member States, and through these representations from our regions, promote cultural and economic relationships with those states which have abolished the death penalty, in order to make others understand that abolition is a matter of importance to us Europeans.
Mr President, in 1963 President Kennedy spoke the historic words: "Ich bin ein Berliner!'
They conveyed the flavour of the special relationship between the United States and Europe during the Cold War.
The United States safeguarded the defence of freedom in western Europe.
This automatic identification with our interests is over, although this is no cause for alarm.
The United States and Europe will continue to be closely involved with each other.
Neither economics nor security can do without American partnership.
In order to optimize the relationship with the United States, the following priorities could be set: the New Transatlantic Agenda, especially the lifting of barriers to trade; harmonization in new areas such as the environment, health and energy; solving trade differences by both the United States and the European Union whilst respecting the WHO pronouncements; and finally, drawing the line against evil regimes, without European countries putting their own trade interests first, with the risk that the European Union and the United States are played off against each other.
A greater contribution of European nations to the security of our continent is best achieved by transforming the Western European Union into a European pillar within NATO.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Souchet is presenting us here with good, balanced work. Its merit is, while keeping to diplomatic forms, to reject the current bond of subservience of our nations with respect to the United States.
This happens infrequently enough in this Parliament for it to be emphasized.
Who, indeed, with the exception of my elected colleagues of the national right, rejects such subservience?
In France, the self-proclaimed inheritors of General de Gaulle, just as they have rallied to Eurofederalism, now wish to place the French army under US command, at a time when the Soviet threat has disappeared.
They are furthermore followed in this by the communists, who clearly cannot do without foreign supervision.
Thorès and Marchais went to Moscow for their orders.
Hue now goes to Washington.
We, the French patriots, have no trouble distinguishing between the real American nation, among whom we have many friends, and the Government of the United States, which is directed by believers in the ideology of globalization.
This Government, with, alas, the complicity of our own Governments, intends to lay down a new world order in which nations and families would be crushed, and human beings become objects to be cloned at leisure.
To impose this best of all possible worlds, the United States leaders are ready for anything.
They have been starving the Iraqi people for nigh on eight years, and in reality are doing so to preserve their oil interests.
Similarly, it is hardly surprising that Clinton and his administration are supporting the bureaucratic and supranational Europe, which bends to his every diktat.
This federal Europe of the regions destroys nationhood, and is in tune with the wishes of the supporters of the global economy.
Of course, the reality of the relationship between the United States and France is not quite that described by François Mitterrand when he said: ' France does not know this, but we are at war with America, a war without fatalities' , and added heavily, ' apparently.'
Those hard words, as reported by Mr Georges Marc Benamou and cited by Arnaud Aaron Upinsky in his remarkable work 'The Ortolan Syndrome' , nevertheless contain a considerable element of truth.
What are we to do?
Continue the current policy of subjection? Certainly not.
But to advocate total separation of the United States and Europe would also be a deadly error, a mistake first made by the United States, whose leaders from 1776 onwards have never ceased to want to sever their links with European civilization.
The Monroe doctrine in 1820 forbade the American continent to Europeans.
Then there was the War of Secession in 1863.
Today, in addition to its goods, the US is exporting all its worst aspects into our countries, although the real American people reject them: fast food, rap, ethnic bands, and to sum it up in a word, the 'raptaglang' culture.
However, the two Americas, North and also South, have for 500 years been linked, willy-nilly, to the European nations by a community of civilizations.
Our peoples were those who created the New World, and in particular the Spaniards and Portuguese in Latin America and the French in Canada.
On the other hand, as Dominique Souchet notes, balance must be re-established in our relationship with America. This must, of course, be a relationship of equality, but dependent on a balance within America itself.
America has become a world under Anglo-Saxon domination.
However there are other Americas, with whom we must reinforce our links and help them to free themselves from Washington rule. There is a French America, which has been able to keep its identity in Quebec from 1763 onwards, thanks to its faith and vitality.
There is a Latin America. Permit me to say that with our Latin sisters, Spain, Portugal and Italy, France must take the lead in this policy, which is based on both reason and the heart.
Mr President, the European Parliamentary report on commercial and economic relations between the European Union and the US cannot fail to incite special interest, much more so indeed since it has been elaborated with such great care by our discriminating colleague, Erika Mann.
It is a fact that the new reality emerging from the globalization of the economy and of politics imposes new ways of working together, multilateral agreements and the strengthening of economic, social and cultural ties between peoples.
From this standpoint, no-one has the right to oppose the bridging of the Atlantic, if indeed there is to be a common perception of viable development and social cohesion, promotion of peace and democracy, equality of the sexes, guarantees of prosperity and security in the world, progress in science and technology, and protection of life and the environment.
However, our partner on the other side of the Atlantic does not give a good external account of itself, since it is weighed down by a whole host of deeds from the distant and more recent past which demonstrate that it often contravenes international conventions while at the same time seeking and generally obtaining leonine agreements at the expense of less developed countries.
With great ingenuity on a world-wide scale, the US is still attempting to impose its law and order on third country operations.
I am talking in particular of the extraterritorial Helms-Burton and d'Amato-Kennedy Acts, which find their best implementation in the economic embargo of Cuba, and this in spite of a world-wide outcry and the condemnation of the US by the UN General Assembly.
However, not only is the United States Congress unmoved by these protestations, but on 11 June 1997 it reinforced even more this preposterous web of legislation with eight amendments that were approved by its part-session.
In addition to the above, it is attempting to dodge the overruling of the commercial policy of the US by the mechanism of the World Trade Organization for the settlement of disputes.
These actions are indicative of the mentality of the US, a mentality which has been recorded in all its international dealings, even with its neighbours, its next-door neighbours, Central and Latin America.
It is clear that the US is accepting and adopting for itself a double system: legislative protection for its own operations and interests, while at the same time demanding respect from others for the rules of competition and the free market.
How can we therefore not be mistrustful of such a partner?
At a social level the increased polarization caused by the US labour model is driving large sections of the population to become marginalized and the society of the USA, slowly but surely, to become a third-world society.
There has also been another paradox: the rate of unemployment in low-paid work has increased in parallel with the number of those who live below the poverty line.
This is yet another American paradox which we hope will not be exported to Europe as one more transatlantic product among the many which are flooding into the Union.
There is also the issue of the death penalty. I would like to say that it is impossible for the European Parliament to ask for the abolition of the death penalty in the Gulf States and to vacillate about asking the same of the United States.
Finally, I would like to say that Parliamentary control should be exercised in matters relating to the relationship between and to cooperation between Europe and the United States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the two rapporteurs for their reports.
I am delighted at the optimism expressed by Mrs Mann, and I essentially agree with her, so I need not repeat anything there.
Anyone who complains about the US should be fully aware that annual trade between the European Union and the US is over $250 million.
Just try converting that into jobs!
We are the most important investors in each other's markets, and the European Union and the US have derived the greatest benefit from the liberal world order.
On the other hand, it is clearer with EU-US relations than in any other area of policy that a Common Foreign and Security Policy for the European Union is of momentous importance.
With all due respect to the efforts made by the European Parliament and by the Commission, be it by you, Mr Bangemann, by Sir Leon Brittan or by many others, the importance of European institutions in the foreign policy of the US is only secondary.
As long as individual EU Member States are competing with each other in the US, and as long as the US has the impression that on matters of substance it is hard for European politicians to speak with one voice on current foreign and security policy, it will be difficult for American politicians to recognize our political will.
Conversely, we have had ample opportunity in recent months to witness the smugness and even arrogance with which the US Congress in particular approaches important decisions on foreign trade policy, without caring a jot about what the rest of the world thinks.
Helms-Burton-d'Amato is just one example.
But it is not just we Europeans who are shocked by this kind of policy; the US can also pick on Canada, Mexico, South America or anybody else without meeting any resistance worth mentioning.
Since the collapse of communism, the behaviour of the US has become increasingly high-handed, not least because it has become the only remaining long-term world power and automatically assumes responsibility for solving problems, as if it is expected of the US.
We even call on the Americans for help in solving European problems, because we are so reticent.
We must agree to speak with one voice in future if Europe's interests are to be defended in the numerous transatlantic organizations.
We proved how good this can be at the WTO meeting in Singapore, but by the time we had reached Amsterdam we seemed incapable of finding an answer to foreign trade problems that went beyond the immediate, and instead fell back on tolerance and experience.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of the options, and Mr Donnelly is pushing for some kind of contact between this Parliament's delegation in the US and the US Congress.
But we really have to ask ourselves if any country or organization has any chance of influencing Congress' foreign and foreign trade policy, if even their own US President has the greatest difficulty in getting his views heard and implemented.
Experts on the US would say that Europeans' greatest mistake in the past was to be too respectful and too quick to compromise in various dealings.
I believe that we should realize that with 370 million consumers and with the interests that the US has in Europe we can take a firmer line than in the past and say quite brutally what our interests are, and not be too hasty to compromise, which gets us nowhere fast.
The fact remains that the US and Europe are dependent on each other.
The third world, Asia and Africa need us to take a common stance so that we cannot be played off against each other or approach our responsibility for events there differently.
I hope that both the reports before us will contribute to this recognition, that we can undertake much more together than we have in the past, and that the Commission will succeed.
Mr President, George Washington bequeathed to his countrymen the principle of not allowing anyone to become involved in their internal affairs, and not becoming involved in the affairs of the rest of the world.
This was the famous doctrine of American isolationism from which the Americans emerged for the first time during the First World War, and which they completely abolished with the Second, which resulted in the United States, following the fall of the walls, becoming a world-wide and ubiquitous superpower.
We have often spoken of the imbalance that exists in Euro-American relations.
It is true that the United States takes the decisions and Europe pays enormous bills.
And not only in regions such as Yugoslavia or the Middle East.
The lack of a common foreign policy and the lack of political security in the Union is, to a large extent, at fault, but it can also be blamed on our inability to establish parity of economic relations with the United States, perhaps because there are such great differences between us.
These weaknesses are all underlined in Mr Souchet's report, which stresses the need for strengthened and equalranking cooperation, as well as the need for there to be a European identity on security and defence.
There is a proper emphasis on Europe's obligation to express its opposition to the one-sided way in which the new members of NATO were chosen, to the unwillingness of the United States to sign the Ottawa Declaration on landmines, to the undermining of the UN on the part of Congress, to laws such as the Helms-Burton and d'Amato-Kennedy Acts, as well as to the unwillingness of the United States to accept the decisions taken for the protection of the environment.
The crucial point to which the European Commission is now called upon to address itself is the demand to wipe out this imbalance at all levels of EU-US cooperation, as far as possible of course.
And, if it is unavoidable, at least at this historic conjuncture and until further orders, that the United States must take precedence world-wide - and we do not know what will happen as the next century approaches - at least Europe must at this moment in time be able to have the decisive word in matters concerning its own affairs and play a greater role at a global level.
Mr President, Mr Suchet's report is in many respects a creditable one, and I agree with much of its content.
The report is, however, less than perfect in that it dwells on the problems we experience in our relations with the US.
For this reason I have drafted, on behalf of the Liberal group, certain motions for amendments, which contain positive and constructive attitudes towards the development of cooperation between the European Union and the US.
On another note, I would like to mention such cooperation in the Nordic regions.
The US and three EU Member States have been collaborating on the foundation of an Arctic Council, and we are now creating a Nordic dimension to EU policy, in accordance with the Luxembourg Summit resolution.
The report before us cannot, however, be improved upon in any fruitful way. That is why I would, finally, like to express the hope that in future reports we endeavour to get to grips with relations between the US and the EU.
The EU and the US together must take the main responsibility for the future of humanity.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
It has been well thought through, with full regard to the many issues that affect European Union and United States relations.
The collapse of communism in eastern Europe was welcomed by democrats everywhere, not least in western Europe.
We realized that unless international relations were adapted to take account of the situation, it would pose great problems for world stability.
With the end of the Cold War the established order of European and US relations was bound to change.
We are currently going through this change.
At times it is rather difficult.
We should recognize that the goodwill of national governments in the European Union and that of the American administration has ensured that developments have been generally positive.
However, in Europe there remains a perception that the United States continues to dominate the relationship of what should actually be a partnership of equals. Too often it appears that the US prefers to put self-interest before good relations with the European Union.
This is most obvious in terms of international trade, where we contrast US policy with the determination of other Member States in the European Union to contribute to a fair international trading environment.
The US can certainly do more to build fair trading conditions.
I would hope that we, along with them, can work in conjunction to achieve that.
Mr President, as probably the only Member of the European Parliament with dual residence in the US and in Europe, I would like to sound a note of warning about clichés and the arrogant assumption that Americans understand nothing about Europe.
That may once have been true, but it is certainly no longer the case today.
The basis for improved cooperation between the EU and the US is our common interest in economic policy and security.
That means fair competition in the world market on a level playing field, and it implies special responsibility for exchange rate stability between the dollar and the planned euro.
Poorly planned introduction of European monetary union would result in the dollar extending its present dominant position still further.
The inferiority complex that Europeans feel towards the US, which has repeatedly come through in the various speeches here, cannot be talked away: we can only overcome it by real economic strength and an unambiguous security policy.
As regards linking economic relations with individual countries to their human rights record, we Europeans should not be criticizing this, we should instead join forces with the US.
Mr President, George Bernard Shaw once remarked that England and America are two countries divided by a common language.
I increasingly believe that the EU and the US are two political entities divided by a common political and economic system.
Far too often our relationship is characterized by misunderstandings and confusions.
I agree with Mr Donner that this is perhaps more so from the American side than from the EU side.
We saw this during the enlargement debate where the American approach to the speed and nature of EU enlargement, particularly to the role of Turkey in this, was, quite frankly, extremely simplistic.
I was amazed to hear senior American politicians talk blithely about Turkey joining the European Union, as if it was a very simple matter.
I suspect that part of the reason for Turkey's total over-reaction to the conclusions of the Luxembourg Summit was that it has been encouraged by some American politicians, at least, to believe that it would get more out of the European Union.
It is for this reason that this dialogue is so important.
I would endorse Mrs Erika Mann's remarks about ensuring there is an effective parliamentary element to this dialogue, so that we can make clear to each other exactly where we stand.
This is certainly true of the foreign affairs field where the old certainties of the Cold War are now at an end and have been replaced by a situation of much greater uncertainty and insecurity.
Clearly we need closer cooperation, although that cooperation has to be within an international framework.
Some of today's debate has smacked, quite frankly, of EU-US imperialism.
We should be operating in a security situation which is multinational and international, and not simply bilateral.
Bosnia, more than anything else, showed where things can go wrong, unless we get this relationship right.
It also showed that once we get the relationship right we can actually make considerable progress.
But for that to happen, Europe has got to stop spending so much time developing strong rhetoric and a little bit more time acting in the foreign affairs field.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like many previous speakers I would like to say that transatlantic relations now have to be seen in a new light.
This is generally recognized, but the corresponding conclusions have not always been drawn.
In this century, transatlantic relations have been notable for the United States of America playing a decisive role in preserving order in Europe.
The question is how the Americans will continue to use their power in Europe and how we can use our own power to become a partner of the US on equal terms.
I consider that the Souchet and Mann reports provide some good starting points.
Things are not as simple as in the past, when the fear of danger in the minds of our two peoples welded together the nations on either side of the Atlantic.
This awareness of danger has dramatically declined since 1990, and there is accordingly now a danger that minor trade policy disputes will escalate to such an emotional level that they could widen the gap between Europe and America.
For this reason we need to link the great community of values based on the rule of law and on democracy with a renewed community of interests not limited solely to security matters.
That is why I believe that the Transatlantic Agenda, the efforts of the Commission and the American administration and the initiatives that you, Commissioner Bangemann, have kicked off in recent years in the field of commerce and industry, in order to achieve progress towards a Transatlantic Market Place, are all important signs that differences of interest need not lead to a widening of the gap. On the contrary, they demonstrate that in a world based on multilateral trade we see each other as partners on equal terms engaged in fair competition, not as opponents.
We accordingly need not only to develop our ability to act as equal partners through improvements in foreign and security policy, but we also need the US to understand this.
The use of extraterritorial legislation, as with HelmsBurton or NATO, proves that the United States have still not discovered how to play their role as the sole world power in a fair manner. Indeed, it suggests that they think they can now play a dominant role.
It is my belief, therefore, that besides trade policy initiatives, we must also seek to strengthen the means available to us at political level, but not as an alternative to NATO.
I believe that the Washington treaty and its provisions must endure, and that we must ensure that all this complements NATO, in accordance with the new, wider powers of the European Union.
And for the same reason I believe we should take advantage of the momentum generated by the Transatlantic Agenda, the Transatlantic Business Dialogue and the development of a Transatlantic Market Place.
We should exploit this momentum in order to enter into an EU-US treaty which binds the US Congress, because only then, if Congress and the entire political machinery in the United States are committed, can we succeed in bringing about such a treaty via a cooperation and consultation mechanism, a treaty that would unite us Europeans and Americans in such a way that we could jointly exercise our values in this world.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on producing an excellent report.
As an Irishman I am mindful of the work carried out by the United States in promoting peace and stability in the world, not least in its support for the peace process in Ireland.
I should like to take this opportunity to commend the work of the United States, and President Clinton in particular, in seeking to resolve the tragic conflict on the island of Ireland.
I have a particular concern, however, regarding differences in agricultural policy between the European Union and the United States, which have served to put European agriculture and European farmers at a disadvantage.
For example, the European consumer is firmly opposed to the use of hormones in meat production and European agriculture has adopted its practices accordingly.
Similarly, there seems to be more vocal opposition to the use of genetically modified organisms in Europe than in the United States.
There are differences of emphasis on the use of biotechnology in food production also.
In addition, the common agricultural policy places certain restrictions on production which do not apply to American farmers.
In the context of the application of world trade regulations, I call for greater transparency in the application of these measures.
America always seems to be very well - if not too well - briefed in relation to what is happening in European agriculture, and I am not always sure if we in Europe are aware of what is happening at all times on that side of the Atlantic.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Mann on her excellent report.
For years and years there have been strong ties between the European Union and the United States.
The bilateral economic ties generate the largest trade flows in the world.
In addition, the Union and the United States are each other's biggest investors.
The EU represents 58 % of foreign investments in the United States, and 44 % of American investments are made in the European Union.
On both sides of the Atlantic these investments are worth 3 million jobs.
It is a pity, therefore, that there is so little awareness amongst the European and American people of how crucial our cooperation is for their employment, and thus their prosperity.
American and European citizens should be much better informed on the importance of our trade relations for both economies.
Consultation at government level is essential, but without support amongst the public and their representatives - the United States Congress and the European Parliament - this will not produce any results.
That is why parliamentary control by the European Parliament is so necessary.
The building of bridges in the context of the New Transatlantic Agenda, as aimed at and already achieved by the Ties project, involves the public directly in transatlantic relations.
The quality of this relationship has great impact on world trade, now and in the future.
That is why it is extremely important that the Union and the United States settle their differences.
Under no circumstances should the Union accept the extraterritorial operation of US legislation.
I will make this clear again during the talks with the American Members of Congress next Friday in Brussels.
Mr President, of course the different aspects of the relations between the European Union and the United States are not at the same level.
There are aspects such as the commercial or the economic aspects where we can see that the European Union does have a claim. There are aspects such as the environment, where we saw in Kyoto the attempt of the European Union to formulate a separate strategy.
But in central position, in the nucleus of the relations, where we find the political and strategic relations, we can say that the United States is totally dominant and that there also exists American hegemony.
This hegemony is fuelled less by the feeling of power of the United States, by its nuclear arsenal, by its global presence, and much more by the inferiority complex of the European Union which is due to the fact that top-ranking leaders in Europe operate as employees of the United States, by the inability of the European Union to fashion an identity of its own and to formulate a strategy of its own on the basis of which it can have talks with - and not be compared with - the United States.
I agree with Mr Titley that we have seen this recently mainly over the issue of Turkey.
What was the position of the United States with respect to all that happened in Luxembourg? To insist that Turkey could accede to the European Union in spite of its lack of democracy, which indeed exists.
What was the position of the United States on the important issue of the Kurdish refugees? Total silence, tolerance and the shielding of Turkey.
What was the position of the United States on Greek-Turkish differences? The other day we watched in amazement as the representative of the US Government supported the most extreme expansionist ambitions of Turkey in Aegean air space and spoke of Greece's lack of right to a 10 mile air exclusion zone.
I would like to hope that the European Union will have a stronger presence and, Mr President, I think that the absence of the Council in such a serious political matter shows the seriousness with which the European Union takes this issue.
Mr President, I thought this had been a reasonably well-informed and intelligent debate, until I heard the last contribution.
I would like, particularly, to address the report of Mrs Erika Mann, but to thank both rapporteurs for their work.
I would like to address some comments to the Commission.
The first thing I would like to say to Mr Bangemann is: I think it would be very helpful if the Commission could provide some information packs for all Members of the European Parliament about the New Transatlantic Agenda. It was established in 1995 and some of us who are very interested in US-European affairs have followed it very carefully.
But I suspect that many Members of this House do not realize the depth of participation and, indeed, the leadership role that the European Union has played in many of these negotiations.
Similarly, on the new Transatlantic Business Dialogue that Mrs Mann referred to in her address, it would be very helpful again if, in that pack of information, we set out exactly what has happened and, again, the important leadership role that the European Union is playing in this sphere, too, and the leadership role we played particularly on the mutual recognition agreements.
That would not have been possible without the leadership role of the European Union.
To those people who seem to say that we are slaves of the United States, I say please read the information and understand the crucial role that we are playing in pushing forward this agenda.
I want to look to the future rather than looking to the past.
We have had a relationship in the past based particularly on security policy. That will continue with the enlargement of NATO.
But I want to refer to a couple of other issues. For example, the collapse of the financial markets in the Far East will mean that the stable and balanced trading relationship between Europe and the United States is going to be absolutely pivotal over the next few years.
The Americans, who have perhaps been turning their attention to the Far East - and indeed some investors in the European Union who turned their attention to the Far East - are going to come back and rely very heavily on the stable relationship between the United States and the European Union.
We should use that as an opportunity for deepening the transatlantic business dialogue and also deepening the investment relationship.
We then have the creation of the euro.
Within about 4 or 5 years, 40 % of all invoicing in world trade will be in the euro.
We need to look at the relationship between the dollar and the euro.
What mechanisms are we going to establish in order to have this relationship? Let us look to the future and make sure that this is the sort of dialogue we have in the future.
Regarding Third Pillar issues - fighting drug trafficking, fighting international crime - how can we strengthen the dialogue in that area too? What suggestions has the Commission to deal with that question?
I should like to talk briefly about the transatlantic summit meeting.
That is a very special summit meeting that is held twice a year.
We need to find a way of making it even better.
I suggest to the Commission today: please find a way of involving parliamentarians in some dimension of that summit.
There is absolutely no reason why representatives of Congress and the European Parliament should not be involved twice a year in the summit.
If we do that, then it means some of the nonsense that we have had out of Congress on Helms-Burton and the ILSA legislation can be countered because Congress representatives would have to sit at the table and take part in that dialogue.
Let us, in May, invite Members of Congress and of this House to the transatlantic summit meeting in London and make sure this special relationship extends beyond just the Commission, the Council and the administration to involve the legislators, too.
Mr President, the end of the Cold War and the growing strength of the European Union inevitably has led to a redefinition of the relationship between ourselves and the United States.
For historical and cultural reasons there has been a common bond between the United States and Europe, particularly where there was a common foe to fight or a common objective to pursue.
Nowhere is it more true than in the case of my own country where the US has consistently supported the Irish and British Governments in their quest to find a peaceful resolution to the age-old conflict in Northern Ireland.
We in Ireland sincerely appreciate the personal commitment given by President Clinton to the Northern Ireland peace process.
However, as regards the relationship with Europe in general, it must be acknowledged in all truth that it was a relationship of unequals.
In the past, for perfectly understandable reasons, Europe was overly dependent on the United States and, as a consequence, our independence and freedom to act differently from our US allies was seriously compromised.
Any future relationship, if it is to be successful, must be based on a genuine partnership between equals, irrespective of whether the joint action is in the field of world security, peace-keeping, crisis management, tackling the international drug barons or combatting terrorism.
It must be joint action jointly agreed on the basis of mutual respect with full consultation.
The EU cannot simply play the role of a subordinate paymaster.
Furthermore, given the United States policy of reducing its military presence in Europe and other parts of the world, we have to reassess the new European role and responsibility.
We need to develop a European identity in security and defence.
Although a decision on this issue was regrettably avoided in the recent Amsterdam Treaty, we cannot run away from making such a decision for much longer.
A European defence pillar must be established in the context of the Western European Union which should ensure that we have available in the event of a crisis our own military means of intervention, independent of the stance adopted by the United States.
Europe must continue to maintain a warm, constructive and cooperative relationship with the United States.
We must proceed to put in place the institutional mechanisms which will copper-fasten this.
However, we must also feel able to pursue the policies which give Europe the freedom to disagree with our US friends in areas, for example, where we must act to protect European Union trade, not least in the field of agriculture; or foreign policy areas - such as our differing views on banning landmines, abolishing capital punishment or the role of the United Nations.
Friends should be able to disagree with one another on the basis of mutual respect, while at one and the same time, working together on global issues such as the preservation of world peace, security and democracy and the protection of human rights.
When we can do that then we will have achieved a true relationship of equals.
Let me conclude by paying tribute to the two rapporteurs for producing these reports and contributing to this debate.
Mr President, the transatlantic bridge is showing cracks.
The US, as a federal state with one voice towards the outside world, is awaiting what the outcome will be of the institutional reforms in Europe, and what will become of the euro.
That is why it is a good thing that the rapporteurs, Mr Souchet and Mrs Mann, emphasize active interpretation of the Transatlantic Agenda.
It is clear that the contrasts between the old and new world will come up with increasing frequency in the economic and trade areas, especially when the euro appears to be a success, and the adjustment of the Common Agricultural Policy and enlargement are successful.
The European Parliament resides in Brussels in a building which, in its design, at least to my mind, has clearly been inspired by the Capitol in Washington.
How nice it must be for our American colleagues to be able to have further talks with us in this building about how we can prevent a repeat of extraterritorial legislation.
Why can we not agree here that before the end of 1998 we will discuss with our American colleagues what the future of SFOR in former Yugoslavia should be, or discuss with them and convince them of the fact that allowing European audio-visual cultural products fits in with free global trade?
The relations between the United States and Europe still constitute a substantial basis for stability in the world.
This relationship can be developed.
I am in favour of Atlanticism.
Having been born before 1950, I still consider guaranteeing international peace and stability as the most essential element of our relationship.
The Transatlantic Agenda, as worked out in the Souchet and Mann reports, to my mind offers a good opportunity for this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, the debate on transatlantic relations always contains elements of great political interest.
As has been shown this evening, giving transatlantic relations a political, economic and commercial framework which will allow the development of cooperation in as many areas as possible needs to be one of our objectives for the near future.
Nevertheless it is worth remembering, firstly, that the European Union is the foremost commercial power in the world. Secondly, the establishment of the euro should be a stimulus to negotiations on the New Transatlantic Agenda.
Thirdly, against a background of globalization - which will particularly favour the most competitive economies - the European Union cannot forget its obligations to those countries which face difficulties. Nor can it alter its traditional system of bilateral negotiation, cut its cooperation budgets, or shield itself, as the United States does, either as a means of external reprisal or as the result of hypothetical internal pressures.
We all recognize the important role the United States has played in the defence of democracy.
However, that does not mean that their concept of democracy has always been the same as ours. Their legitimate eagerness to help people gain their freedom has sometimes resulted in unusual laws, claiming national security or external threats as a sacrosanct excuse, and leading (in the case of Cuba for example) to bilateral relations being placed in a delicate situation.
We have to realize that the European Union has a certain disadvantage compared with the United States when it comes to making decisions in exceptional situations.
It is difficult to implement trade defence mechanisms in response to external pressures, as we have found, but it is not impossible.
As the European Union becomes more widely seen as a political entity, our negotiating position in the international institutions will become stronger. This will be particularly important in the case of the World Trade Organization, which is the body to which all disputes should be referred, instead of trying to resolve them through the back door, with the Europeans always giving in for the sake of pax americana .
The European Union cannot give up and cease to play its rightful role as the world's most important commercial power. We should include other - possibly unpleasant - questions in the agenda, such as environmental or social matters.
Finally, I want to congratulate Mrs Mann for her magnificent piece of work. And I should like to remind the Commission that, on our part, the New Transatlantic Agenda should also take account of the development of the whole American continent, to which we are bound by a wide range of agreements, of varying importance, which will facilitate the great Atlantic market.
The United States is also interested in this, and wants to stimulate it. What can never be included in this agenda, but has sometimes been suggested, is the supposed distribution of political power, in the form of zones of influence, so that South and Central America becomes yet another area under the clear influence of the United States.
Mr President, having first congratulated the rapporteurs, as my colleagues have done, I want to say that we are all aware of the European Union's real importance on the international stage, and of the inadequacies in this area which the Treaty of Amsterdam has not yet been able to rectify.
While we in the European Union are discussing our positions in strict and long-winded procedures, the United States is capable of making an overnight decision and summoning the conflicting parties, whether it is a question of Bosnia or, as is due to happen next week, the main players in the Middle East peace process.
In fact, Mr President, the European Union still provides most of the financial contribution, and most of the overall development aid to the rest of the world - and nobody (or hardly anyone) realizes that we do so. The truth is, we are restricting ourselves to the honorable role of footing the bill for the great dramas of the modern world.
However, although we are small in political terms, in the economic sphere, when we act in unison, we are the greatest commercial, financial and industrial power on the planet.
And as other speakers have mentioned before me, this role can be increased following the introduction of EMU, with the advantages it will bring.
I think this fact - our economic strength - should be the basis of our relations with the United States. These relations must be put into a global context, with a new perspective on the contested objectives, based on the different form in which today's threats present themselves.
Thanks to the rapporteurs' hard work, the report describes these objectives perfectly, and I agree with the rapporteurs that they are a little vague.
I think it is time for the European Union's diplomacy to stop being purely declarative in nature.
On the subject of turning words into actions, I want to mention one of the most revealing cases: the Helms-Burton Act.
Showing the utmost warmth and friendship at all times - as befits loyal colleagues - the United States has been relentless in the banana panel and the hormone panel. Let us not be naive.
Let us act with the same determination as they do, because unfortunately where matters of trade are concerned the only language they understand is the exploitation of all the available legal loopholes.
We have the example of certain mergers and concentrations currently being examined by the European Commission's Directorate-General IV: the codes of conduct for the computerized booking systems in the case of American Airlines, or the recent dispute between a major energy company within the European Union and the American giant, Arko.
Friends and colleagues, yes, Mr President, but when it comes to defending our interests, we must be as resolute as they are.
Mr President, this is a timely debate because it is at the end of this week that the United States Congress is coming over to Europe for our twice-yearly meetings and a good pair of resolutions, I am sure, will help to give the American Congress some idea of our feelings.
Although I hope they will not take too much notice of some of the rather intemperate remarks that have been made by participants in this debate so far.
However, I think the Americans will take us slightly less seriously if they read carefully Mr Souchet's resolution, particularly paragraphs 10, 11 and 14 thereof which refer to a bit of legislation of which I had not previously heard called the Amato-Kennedy act.
May I appeal to the rapporteur to put that right in verbal amendments tomorrow when we vote because otherwise the Americans might think that it is some form of new-style cohabitation between Democrats on the one side of the House of Representatives and the Congress and Republicans on the other side.
Of course cohabitation is not entirely unknown here in the European Parliament.
When references were being made earlier on to hostility on the part of people in the United States towards the European Union, I did not expect to hear quite so much hostility to the United States on behalf of Members of the European Parliament, particularly from Mr Antony who sits behind me and Mrs Ainardi who sits opposite me.
Is this some form of cohabitation à la française I ask myself?
The dangers that arise from the relationship are ones which have been quite rightly drawn attention to by Mrs Mann in particular.
Those are protectionism, and we are both equally guilty of that, as can be seen by anyone who looks at the reports produced every year by the European office in Washington and by the United States trade representative on European barriers to trade.
The curious thing about those barriers to trade is that they often complain about the same thing, wine for example.
The Americans complain that we will not allow Californian champagne, Californian claret, Californian sherry and so on to circulate freely here in the European Union - quite right too you might say, because after all these are special names which we all very much cherish.
Then if you read the account of barriers to trade by the European Commission office they say: ' Do you know the Americans have the impertinence to produce Californian champagne and Californian claret etc.?' It just shows in other words that we are equally guilty of protectionism.
I hope that there will be a sensible conclusion to our debate.
The relationship is vitally important for both sides but, please, a little less arrogance by 'us Europeans' towards 'those Americans' .
Mr President, like others I should like to congratulate both our rapporteurs who have contributed excellent documents to this debate.
In making my comments I should first like to look at the historical perspective of this debate.
We have two parallel lines for our relationships with the United States today.
The first - the NATO relationship - is based on political security and has the highest profile.
It is the one which preserves US dominance and where there are significant problems as we come to NATO's 50th anniversary: for example how we deal with Bosnia, our relationship with Russia, NATO enlargement and arms industry procurements.
All these are difficult questions.
It is interesting that the large part of Mr Souchet's report deals with economic matters and although NATO is dealt with in the explanatory memorandum, nothing is said about our approach to it in the future.
Erika Mann's report is much more concerned with the philosophy of partnership, with political and economic matters where the European Union has the capacity to act and where we are, in effect, building a new transatlantic bridge for the twenty-first century.
It is not surprising that those involved in this kind of debate are more optimistic than those involved in the NATO debates.
Secondly, what are the chances for the New Transatlantic Agenda to succeed? I would say that they are very high.
We are dealing with issues which affect the political and economic communities on both sides, with the arguments of globalization and with common interests.
The Transatlantic Business Dialogue is moving towards the idea of the new transatlantic marketplace.
The summary by the senior level group given at the EU - US Summit of 5 December is so full of priorities and ideas that I will be surprised if the administrations can make much headway within six months.
There are statements on the Ukraine, climate change, electronic commerce and regulatory cooperation.
It is all to be done and no one quite knows how to do it.
As speakers have said, we shall next be dealing with the monetary dialogue, to try to get a new consensus between domestic and international monetary policies on both sides of the Atlantic.
Lastly, where do we head to next? Both EMU and enlargement of the EU and NATO are going to bring a new dimension to transatlantic relations.
Post-Cold War, there is a clear and developing linkage between economic, political and security aspects and policy-making.
Inevitably, therefore, NATO and EU are condemned to have a dialogue even if - as an American ambassador said - they live in the same town but actually on different planets.
We have to have an effective transatlantic partnership in the twenty-first century based on a coherent institutional framework involving greater parliamentary cooperation and the concept of the new transatlantic marketplace.
Ironically, the more that Europe is capable of bearing its responsibilities, the stronger the transatlantic relationship in the twenty-first century will be.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 1989/90 was a turning point in world politics.
During the Cold War era, we were concerned with managing the status quo - now we are trying to manage change.
All aspects of transatlantic cooperation are affected by the dynamics of this change.
That is why it is right and proper that we are debating relations between Europe and the US here in the European Parliament today.
There are critical questions to be addressed: for example cooperation on security policy or in the field of foreign trade and the world economy.
It is both desirable and necessary that Europe should play an independent security policy role.
But it has never been so clear in recent years as in the Balkans how important US participation is.
The US will also need to play an active role in resolving the conflict between Greece and Turkey and the Cyprus situation.
A more effective common foreign and security policy for the EU Member States is also important here in the context of strengthening transatlantic relations.
We Europeans are also united with the United States by a common interest in open markets and free world trade.
We should work on the assumption that the world can only achieve economic growth and prosperity if we do not revert to the old ways of protectionism and isolate ourselves from each other, but instead open ourselves up to competition and develop our economies in open, competitive markets.
Listening to today's debate, it is obvious that there is no future for Colbert here.
Our weak point is often that Europe is not competitive enough.
Cultural, spiritual and religious bonds tie America and Europe together in spite of any economic and political tensions.
We should take care to nurture these common roots more carefully in future, because they serve to bind us together and will do so all the more in the future.
A transatlantic community needs to be based on our community of interest, not our conflicts of interest.
If the western world's societies, and I mean the whole western world, cannot lend each other support based on their varying experience, and tackle the new order of the world economy and world political relations together, then we will be squandering invaluable political, economic, social and cultural energy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are at present witnessing an enormous crisis in the ASEAN states, that is bound to have global consequences.
The question I ask myself is just what rapid action the European Union and America can take in this case. I believe we need to develop joint mechanisms to stabilize the situation there.
Maybe we can help as quickly as possible with convergence criteria, benchmarking and best practice.
I am afraid that if we do not help speedily, the consequences for us could be dangerous.
The second point that particularly concerns me about relations between Europe and the United States is that Austria put a very valuable art collection, which belongs to a foundation, at America's disposal. Now, two pictures from this collection have been unilaterally seized, and I can honestly say that I cannot personally imagine how, if a collection is made available to someone, a collection belonging to a foundation, they can thank you by seizing two important pictures.
Mr President, I would like to thank the two rapporteurs on behalf of the Commission and at the same time on behalf of Sir Leon Brittain, and hope you will understand that Sir Leon cannot be here today because he is otherwise engaged in Japan because of the summit.
He has asked me to present the Commission's views and his own here today.
I am delighted to do that, but first I would like to give my impressions of the debate I have heard.
There are various issues that we need to resolve internally in a debate here in Europe, before we start adopting positions in our discussions with our American partners.
First, I have the feeling that there is a difference - and Alan Donnelly pinpointed this very clearly - between the extent and the intensity of the discussions between the executives on the one hand and the parliamentary bodies on the other.
It is perfectly obvious from what I have heard today that the representatives of the Commission and the US administration who are not only participating in trade negotiations but also in broader political discussions, see things in a different way to some - but not all - of the Members of this House.
I certainly do not mean that this debate presented a picture of unanimity, but nevertheless, chiefly because of experience with the Transatlantic Business Dialogue, I have the impression that many of those who have spoken here today have done so without making due allowance for the extent of agreement achieved in the discussions which have taken place between the executives.
Let me take Helms-Burton-d'Amato as an example.
Considering that our discussions in the Transatlantic Business Dialogue were actually held with representatives of the American executive, it seems to have been more of a Congress problem than an American executive problem.
I am saying this very cautiously, because of course you can never tie anyone down on the basis of conversations which are not always intended for public consumption, but that seems to be the problem.
Consequently, I can only support what Mrs Mann in particular said when she called for greater parliamentary participation in the dialogue.
It can only help.
I can remember, although it was a long time ago, when we first established contact between the European Parliament and the House of Representatives, which was very fruitful.
Every year there were several meetings between leading members of the House of Representatives and the European Parliament.
I recall that we were invited by the speaker of the House.
We accepted the invitation and of course informed the speaker of the House of Representatives that we had a Communist Group chairman in the European Parliament, Guido Fanti, a committed European and a very important member of the European Parliament.
We had great difficulty in explaining to the House of Representatives that our delegation of European Parliament political group chairmen would therefore quite naturally include a communist.
At first it was inconceivable, even for progressive members of the House of Representatives!
But they finally accepted it when I explained to Tom Fowley, who was speaker at the time, that there was only one political difference between myself as the chairman of the Liberal Group and Guido Fanti, namely that Mr Fanti was much more pro-NATO than I was!
So it goes without saying that we must establish contacts between parliamentarians on both sides to prevent misunderstandings of that kind.
The Commission constantly strives to maintain and defend the position of the European Union, where that is absolutely our right and duty.
We have, for example, never recognized the principle of extraterritoriality.
And right now we are of course reserving the right to appeal to the WTO panel if necessary, that is should some action be taken against European companies that is incompatible with multilateral commitments.
I shall now come to the second point that struck me during the debate.
We can and must defend multilateralism, because it is the only way of arranging global economic and political relations so that no-one can exercise undue dominance.
But if you demand that, you must apply the same yardsticks to yourself.
It seems contradictory to me if in the same breath you say that the Americans are inclined to a unilateral approach but refuse to accept that we might be in the wrong on agricultural policy, for example on bananas.
We cannot have it both ways.
We cannot say that the Americans have to bow to multilateral commitments but when the same commitments work to our disadvantage try to deploy high-flown arguments about consumer and health protection and so on, and shirk our commitments.
That is not on.
It would also considerably undermine our credibility in these matters.
I confess that on the banana issue I have felt right from the beginning that our actions - and this is a personal statement now, I cannot speak for the Commission - were nonsensical, as they were not even to the advantage of our own banana industry, but I do not want to start a debate on that.
I simply want to point out that anyone who defends multilateralism as a principle has to be prepared to suffer its consequences if things do not work out as he might perhaps wish.
A third very important point, in my view, is that we have a lot more catching up to do on mutual understanding than a lot of people realize.
This goes for both sides.
It would be very useful - and Mrs Mann made a series of very interesting proposals to this end - if we were to consider how we could achieve this.
Mr Martinez has once again expressed his particular views on the backwardness of American culture as compared with the elevated manifestations of culture which we see in Europe. If I may be so bold, I would say that this is a prejudice, a viewpoint, that is absolutely erroneous, if you consider what has been achieved in America in terms of cultural values, partly with European assistance, and if you consider what has happened to culture here in some instances.
As a matter of fact, that also applies to the culture of democracy.
I remember very well how long it took us here in the European Parliament, and in Europe in general, to agree on a common approach to the death penalty. I have been against the death penalty all my life, and my whole political career has been significantly shaped by my fight against the death penalty.
I remember very clearly the bitter debates that we waged in the European Parliament in those days, with Members from Member States who claimed that they represented an extremely high level of democracy and culture - and still do - whilst at the same time, they maintained in all seriousness that the death penalty was not only compatible with that high level, but even an expression of it!
So might it not be appropriate for us to allow others the same time to make these advances as we took?
I now come to my fourth point. We should not make the mistake so aptly described by Freud of turning our own weaknesses into accusations against others.
This applies, for example, to defence and security policy, and to the European Union's involvement in attempts to solve international problems peacefully.
We sometimes quite rightly complain that the US is involved in various European problems where we should be the ones involved, and this is often because we have not managed to arrange our own involvement.
In many cases - for purely political reasons that I do not wish to criticize, I am just commenting on the end result - we are not in a position to supply a military presence to end a conflict that cannot be resolved in any other way.
So I would beg you not to make the mistake of letting us be distracted from our own shortcomings by criticizing someone for taking on burdens that we ourselves do not want to shoulder.
But putting aside these comments for the time being, I would say that we have scored some positive results recently.
It is not as if the European Union's relationship with the US gives cause for any fundamental concern - we have achieved a great deal.
Alan Donnelly and Mrs Mann have made that clear, and I am simply supporting it.
Considering the extent to which we have managed to get our viewpoint accepted in these discussions, and bearing in mind that we have not conceded anything, then it would be quite wrong to suggest that we have gone down on bended knees because the US somehow used their superior strength, their position as a world power, to force us to do that.
Boeing-MacDonnell/Douglas is another case in point. I cannot understand why that criticism has been brought up again.
It certainly has nothing to do with the proposed merger between American Airways and British Airways, which we have not approved yet. Or take the case of the OECD consensus on subsidies for shipbuilding: we achieved that jointly with the American administration.
That is another example that demonstrates that the problem lies with the democratic representative wing, with Congress, and not with the American administration.
We agreed that jointly, and even if it is impossible to get Congress to ratify it, that has not forced us to concede our position. Just the opposite, in fact: we have initiated a new policy in this area, clearly recognizing that it has not been possible to get this ratified in the US so far.
The suggestion that Europeans have always lost out when they have been unable to unite seems wrong to me. The reports contain some very reasonable ideas and we are happy to take them further, especially the concept of Members' participation.
I found Mrs Mann's and Mr Donnelly's speeches very positive.
There must be a way - and this applies to the whole issue of globalization - for parliaments and their members to play an increased role in preparing and agreeing such agreements.
If we cannot manage that, this is what will happen, not just in relations with the US, but with globalization in general.
There will be many people in government, in parliaments, in international organisations - the WTO, the ITU, and so on - who want to take things forward, and actually achieve that, but then find themselves blocked by parliamentarians who will quite rightly ask what has happened to democratic checks and balances, and to citizens' involvement, which can only be safeguarded by parliamentary participation in decision-making.
We must avoid such a situation.
So we must develop a process, and I believe Sir Leon and the whole Commission are more than willing to do this, to ensure that we are not divided into two camps: on one side those who can advance matters by virtue of their executive powers and have a totally different view of issues, and on the other side parliamentarians, who will rightly complain that their control and participation in decision-making is being eroded, and who are then inclined to react emotionally, which is bound to be negative.
I view this as a very serious problem, and the Commission is more than willing to tackle this problem very positively.
So I would like to express my thanks for both reports.
They are positive, and they contain some enterprising ideas and numerous recommendations, that we will take up.
We have some strengths.
It is wrong to assume that the European Union is in a position of weakness, and we should also remember that the globalization process means, especially with the end of East-West conflict, that it is not military power that will be critical in future, but rather economic and cultural matters, and open cooperation with others. That is an important contribution that the European Union can make to the global debate.
That should be our strong point!
Once we become aware of that, we need not approach negotiations with an inferiority complex, but rather with a calm assurance that the outcome will be positive.
Mr President, I just wish to say briefly that I realize Commissioner Bangemann could not give a clear response to my request regarding the transatlantic summit meeting.
I should like to ask that he would at least take the idea back and discuss it with the President of the Commission and the Council, because I see that as one way of changing some of the misunderstandings on both sides of the Atlantic in both legislative bodies.
As Mr Donnelly has rightly recognized, I cannot at this stage commit the Commission as a whole.
However, I am quite sure that he has touched upon a current problem which needs to be resolved now and, as I said, I have no doubt that the Commission as such and the President will be much more open to that request than maybe was the case in the past.
I will convey the message to the Commission, and Sir Leon Brittan will give you an answer to it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Foodstuffs
The next item is the report (A4-0401/97) by Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposals for Council Directives relating to foodstuffs intended for human consumption.
Mr President, we shall be debating breakfast products at the wrong time, but I think we are all concerned at the quality of these products. I am sure our debate will be of an equally high quality.
I would remind you that the Commission's objective, when it presented the five proposed modifications, was to modernize two directives dating back to the 1970s, on the basis of a single principle: specifying only those things which are essential to ensure the free circulation of the products in question, in particular sugar, honey, fruit juice, jellies and preserves, and totally or partially dehydrated preserved milk.
This is certainly a praiseworthy objective, provided consumer interests are seriously taken into consideration.
The reflection of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is that substantial amendments are required to the Commission's proposals. In this respect, we have based ourselves on two principles.
The first is to get a dynamic of ever-increasing product quality going. The second is that the consumer has a right to correct information, that is, avoiding any misunderstanding over the name of the products, and the adoption of clear labelling.
I am putting my finger on a number of gaps or weaknesses in the texts, which have given rise to amendments broadly adopted by the Commission, the overall report having been adopted unanimously.
The first comment relates to information.
As with chocolate, in the case of fruit juice and preserved milk, we are confronted with a situation of differences in national legislation, particularly as regards the possible addition of vitamins.
As these legislations are different - and should remain so according to the Commission's proposals - consumers will find themselves potentially, in each Member State, faced with two types of slightly different products which are labelled in the same way, or at least given the same name.
We believe this is not acceptable, and the name should be slightly amended, by the addition of the word 'vitaminized' , if that is the case.
The second comment relates to the quality of products.
There are a number of apparent gaps in the texts, particularly as regards sugars.
Account should be taken of the technical changes which make it possible to reduce the residual content of sulphur dioxide, which is a constituent which is really not desirable in sugar.
It is possible to reduce its content from 15 mg/kg to10 mg/kg, as is confirmed by the industrial manufacturers.
This second comment also relates to fruit juice.
You know that fruit juice can be either unadulterated juice from the pressing of the fruit, or a juice obtained by rehydration after dehydration.
In this case, the quality of the water added to obtain the final product, known as 'rehydrated fruit juice' , should be clearly codified, and this is not the case in the proposal.
An amendment from the Committee on the Environment intends to close this loophole.
Furthermore, as regards the possible addition of sugar to fruit juice, there is cause for surprise that no limit value is stated in the proposal.
That is why the Environment Committee proposes setting down a limit value, which is quite simply not to overstep the sugar concentrations which occur naturally.
Finally, I insist on a more important point, as this is the matter of a debate which has already stirred this Parliament on a number of occasions - the problem of honey. In January 1995, Mrs Lulling's report on the quality of honey, and the major problem of imported honey, contained a number of requirements adopted unanimously by Parliament.
I would remind you that half the honey consumed in Europe is imported honey, which therefore comes from outside the European Union, under conditions of quality which are absolutely not guaranteed. We therefore believe that for imported honey, labelling should be compulsory and not an option left in the hands of the Member States.
Hence, an amendment has been put forward to this end, and the country of origin must be stated.
Also, we believe it is time to define a serious, analytical method for honey, which we still do not have. Finally, we also believe that the excessively grand term 'baker's honey' should be removed, as it applies to a product which is in fact denatured and would be more appropriately termed 'industrial honey.'
These are the two main amendments.
I would like to raise two questions with the Commissioner. First of all, what does he think about what I consider to be some of the most important amendments - namely Amendments Nos 19 and 28 on honey, and Amendment No 42 on fruit juice?
Secondly, what is his position on the legal basis proposed, in the knowledge that several colleagues from the Group of the European People's Party have put down amendments with the aim of modifying Article 100a? Personally, this modification is acceptable to me, but all the information at our disposal to date indicates that it is coming up against great hostility from the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on his - what shall we call it? - fivefold report, and I would like to wish the Commissioner a happy New Year.
We would have liked to have wished him a happy Christmas with reference to the chocolate debate, but we were not fortunate enough to see him.
A little belatedly then: happy New Year.
The rapporteur has elucidated the most important amendments very thoroughly.
I would like to ask the Commissioner a question in connection with the legal basis.
In our group we were a little surprised, Mrs Schleicher, that these amendments appeared during the discussion in the plenary session.
But do not worry; we are not opposed to these amendments a priori , but we do have a question, because this matter has been dealt with principally by this Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Both have come to the decisive answer that in these five cases which we are discussing today, the correct legal basis ought to be Article 43.
As individual Members of the European Parliament, as members of Parliamentary committees, or as Parliament, we are obviously always in favour of a procedure which is subject to codecision, as this obviously means that the rights of Parliament are better safeguarded.
We believe that as the only democratically elected institution, we are closer to the consumer and therefore better placed, we think, to protect the interests of the consumer.
On the other hand, we should also exercise a little honesty.
We must make sure that such an amendment, if we want to enforce it, is legally on tip-top solid ground, because otherwise we might be doing a bit of window-dressing for ourselves, and deluding ourselves in the process.
I am under the impression, Mrs Schleicher, Mr Lannoye, ladies and gentlemen, that this problem is like the one concerning Article 43 or Article 100a.
The problem is that Article 43 is not subject to a codecision procedure, and sadly enough, the Treaty of Amsterdam has brought no solace.
Nonetheless we do not want to condemn the amendments.
If we want to go some way with you, then we would like to receive a legally-founded answer to the amendments from our colleagues in the Group of the European People's Party.
The rapporteur has very clearly explained a number of comments with regard to the amendments.
If you look at the package of the five products, they are not really amendments which have all been inspired by extreme concern for the consumer, protection of the consumer and information for the consumer.
Evidently, this Parliament is not divided over this.
When it concerns the origin of honey products, we definitely think this should be labelled overtly.
If vitamins have to be added, we definitely think this should be labelled overtly.
The cohesion here in this Parliament shows a marked contrast to our lack of cohesion when it comes to chocolate.
Here, the information we should give the consumer is almost unlimited.
When it comes to chocolate, this Parliament is suddenly very modest.
I will keep up the New Year's atmosphere and conclude that in the country of milk and honey we all agree, but the moment we discuss chocolate we become extra bitter.
My colleague Mrs Graenitz will explain the amendments relating to honey shortly, and for the rest I think we will be able to vote on all amendments in close consultation and in great agreement.
They represent progress.
Let us hope that in addition to the amendments surrounding the legal basis, the Commission will also approve the other amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Lannoye report was adopted in committee by a large majority, and my group supports the amendments before us.
Mr De Coene, you have just reminded us how illogical people can sometimes be.
I think it is human nature not always to be logical.
Nevertheless, I think we should try to proceed logically, and that is why I think we keep encountering a particular fundamental problem more and more often recently. I am referring to the legal basis.
Article 43 is normally taken as the basis for draft directives concerned with the production and marketing of agricultural products, as listed in Annex II to the EC Treaty, and therefore relates to the achievement of Common Agricultural Policy objectives.
Alternatively, there is Article 100a - the codecision procedure.
This legal basis relates to the establishment and functioning of the internal market by approximation of the provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States - that is, harmonization.
Harmonization directives should guarantee the free movement of the products in question.
The Commission proposal which inspired Mr Lannoye's report is concerned with five products, namely sugar, honey, fruit juices, milk and jam.
These are all pre-processed products derived solely from agricultural products.
Even the milk referred to is condensed or dried milk.
The Commission has taken Article 43 as the legal basis.
We consider Article 100a to be the correct legal basis, even if things have not always been done this way in the past.
But things have also moved on in terms of legal precedents, not least the amendment of the treaties, and, unfortunately, current events.
Because of the BSE crisis, the Commission has undertaken that in future all legal instruments relating to foodstuffs and health protection should be based on Article 100a of the EC Treaty.
It is therefore very much to the point that the Commission proposal on sugar, honey, fruit juices, milk and jams includes provisions on consumer and health protection, namely labelling, the residual sulphur dioxide content of sugar, packaging, flavouring and vitamin content, water quality in fruit juices, limit values for nitrates, sodium, calcium, and so on, and labelling requirements for fruit juices, milk products and jams with added vitamins.
The whole area of Community law on foodstuffs is now dealt with under Article 100a of the EC Treaty.
We are therefore requesting in the strongest terms that the correct legal basis should be taken for this Commission proposal, that is Article 100a, and I would like to ask you again, Mr Bangemann, as a representative of the European Commission, whether you will support this European Parliament proposal.
Failing that, I shall request referral back to committee, if the Commission is not yet able to agree.
We are effectively fighting against Article 43 here, and if we are to change our position, we really need some form of reassurance.
We cannot just stand back and see what happens.
That is our request, and I hope the Commission will not only carefully consider it, but will also act consistently, and thus logically, in this matter.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Lannoye on a good product.
Food is not such a simple matter.
In the proposal from the Commission it says that the directive should be simplified, but simplicity is often opposed to safety.
We know that when markets for all goods grow, especially for food - that is, when food is transported further and further away from the place of production (one of the ideas of the EU and a free market economy is that this should be possible) - something else also happens.
The direct information which in former times was linked to the person who sold the food, the person who produced the food, disappears.
Instead, we buy something without knowing what it is, unless it says on it what it is.
Therefore I believe we must find a balance between simplicity and safety which is more on the side of safety than the proposal which the Commission has put forward.
If we do not do that, we take the risk that consumers will not get sufficient information.
I would also like to point out something which is in one of the amendments, namely that regardless of whether a product has been produced inside or outside the EU, it should be subject to the same rules, not least in view of the preceding debate we had in this House.
Mr President, I have requested leave to speak in order to emphasize an extremely important, fundamental element in the report on this food directive, in which the rapporteur gives the Commission a welldeserved rebuff.
It concerns two paragraphs with essentially the same content, in which the Commission wants to establish that 'to avoid creating new barriers to free movement, Member States should refrain from adopting more detailed rules.'
Mr Lannoye, on the other hand, wants to give Member States the right to adopt or keep more detailed rules.
According to Mr Lannoye, it is not necessary for the Commission to approve these kinds of tough rules.
Nor is it necessary to have a number of other limitations contrary to what is said in Article 100a 4 of the EU Treaty, which, through a number of modifications in its new form under the Amsterdam Treaty, has totally lost the character of a so-called environmental guarantee and has shrunk to a kind of limited opportunity for exemption.
But in the Lannoye report something has been drafted which begins to resemble an environmental and health guarantee - that is, a right (not just a possibility) for individual Member States to take a lead in tightening rules aimed at protecting health, the environment and consumer interests.
I have decided to emphasize this because it is so important.
I hope this important principle will also have an impact on other EU rules.
Certain shared minimum standards are certainly justified, but to forbid Member States from taking a lead and adopting better rules out of consideration for freedom of movement is a manifestation of the worst side of the EU.
I therefore hope Parliament adopts this report and that it also has an effect on the EU's official policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, over the last few months I have discussed legislation on foodstuffs with people from a wide range of areas and Member States, and have been unable to find anyone who could see why chicory extracts should be covered by a vertical directive with a different legal basis as compared with jams or fruit juices or sugars.
So I think we need to look at the legal basis a lot more closely than just simply saying that these are products derived from primary agricultural products.
Processing is indeed involved and there is also a supra-regional aspect to this, which recently emerged in the debate in committee on added vitamins, and which needs to be examined in much more detail within the Commission.
I do not think we can allow vitamins to be added to fruit juices or milk products, or even jams, without consumers being given adequate information, nor should there be different arrangements in the individual Member States, because I am sure this has got nothing to do with regional customs or local specialities.
I would like to make a few more points about honey.
For one thing, we must not forget that honey is a natural food and it should therefore be analysed in the same way throughout the Union. Furthermore, the directive should refer to the fact that honey does not just consist of various sugars, chiefly glucose and fructose.
It is possible to create imitation honey using these two sugars, but it would not be the same honey that bee-keepers get from bees.
Beekeepers' work should be highly rated in the European Union, not only because they are involved with honey production, but also - and I think that Mrs Lulling will have more to say about this - because bee-keepers make an important contribution to preserving nature, and to growing the fruit that we enjoy so much in fruit juices and jams, which would not be possible without bees.
Mr President, the European Union pays for expensive two-page advertisements in magazines, in which it extols the virtues of quality honey marked with an EU Member State as its place of origin.
The advert features the question: ' Do you treat honey with as much respect as Saint Ambrose did?' .
Saint Ambrose is the patron saint of bee-keepers, because he was a great honey-lover, an archbishop enthusiastic about the industrious activity of bee colonies.
Unfortunately, in preparing the proposal before us today, which is intended to simplify the directive on honey, the Commission has not followed the advice which it has spent so much money on giving to consumers in its adverts in glossy magazines.
Mr Bangemann, your proposals do not accord honey, a natural product, the respect it deserves.
I am very grateful to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and its rapporteur, Mr Lannoye, for incorporating in its report the many amendments which I submitted in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The main thing is that the honey produced in our Member States, a highly nutritious agricultural product, should be protected against lower quality cheap imported honey, and it should therefore most definitely be compulsory to state on the label whether the honey is produced in the Union or in a third country.
Unfortunately, in some Member States there is honey on the market which is up to 80 % adulterated. Furthermore, honey filtering, which destroys genetic fingerprints so that its regional origin can no longer be identified, should be absolutely banned.
We should be listening to the bee-keepers, not the bottling lobby, to make sure that as many bee-keepers as possible are prepared to produce high-quality honey despite the much higher costs involved.
This should also ensure, as I have always preached in my reports on bee-keeping in Europe, that the European Union will have enough bees, which pollinate over 80, 000 different plant varieties.
I consider it essential that our amendments should be accepted.
They mean that the statement of origin would make it clear that the honey does not just meet a fair number of the quality requirements, but the majority of them.
I have run out of time now and will say the rest when we vote.
Mr President, whenever we discuss food regulations in this House, we end up having to decide what compromises to agree upon.
No doubt that also applies to national parliaments.
I have the impression that we have forgotten something.
I mean, we should remember that for thousands of years humanity managed without chemical additives.
It seems, and the debate here has confirmed this, that we have lost something - respect for food.
I have in mind genetic engineering in particular: it seems that we feel we have to play God.
The second point is that food production, and above all production of high and superior quality food, is all about jobs - not just in agriculture, but also in retailing.
This applies especially to remote regions with little tourism.
That is why it is important that the Member States should have the option of giving individual regions special designations, and thus apply a higher quality standard than the general European standard prescribed by the Directive.
It should go without saying that consumers should be able to see all the additives in a product, as well as its geographical origin, both of which must be clearly and unmistakably labelled.
We owe this not only to consumers, but also to those producers who rely on producing quality products which are naturally somewhat more expensive than mass-produced food.
Mr President, I think the best way I can thank the rapporteur is to follow his suggestion and comment on the various amendments, as the dossier is so technical that it is very difficult to deal with the philosophical considerations raised in the debate.
As far as sugars are concerned, Amendments Nos 1 and 4 would reintroduce regulations on the range of prepacks.
We consider these proposals to be unacceptable for the same reason that we rejected the proposal on coffee and chicory extracts which was discussed.
You were recently involved in the conciliation procedure concerning the directive on unit price labelling.
That directive can also be applied to sugar products, so that regulations on the range of pre-packs are no longer needed, as the consumer gets information on the unit price.
Amendments Nos 7 and 8 seek to reduce the residual sulphur dioxide content in certain sugars from 15 mg/kg to 10 mg/kg of dry matter.
We come up against institutional barriers here, as the 15 mg value proposed by the Commission corresponds to the value stipulated in the general directive on additives based on Article 100a, on which Parliament was accordingly consulted.
Mrs Schleicher will remember this, and as she herself voted for that proposal, I am sure she will warmly welcome my comments!
Regarding Amendment No 10 on the analysis of sugar, we agree with you that the analysis method, which dates from 1969, is outdated, and that a solution must be found so that newer methods can be used.
We now come to the proposal on honey.
I am sure Mrs Lulling's comments would greatly please Mr Aigner, whom she probably remembers.
This demonstrates that there is a continuity in the representation of important interests in Parliament.
Mrs Lulling has repeated the same points that Mr Aigner made over the years.
(Heckling from Mrs Lulling) Yes, but your comments were very impressive.
But I have to tell you that the proposal on honey is chiefly concerned with rules on marketing and labelling these products.
The objective is not to deal with matters concerning the quality of the products, or to take measures in support of bee-keepers.
That is an entirely different set of problems, and has to be dealt with in a different context.
Several of the amendments proposed are either very technical or concern drafting, and I do not intend to go into these.
However, Amendment No 19 addresses a fundamental question, which Mrs Lulling also raised.
It deals with compulsory labelling of the country of origin of honey, regardless of whether it was produced in the EU or in a third country.
This amendment is partly acceptable in principle.
The country of origin of honey can be useful information for the consumer.
However, a European Court of Justice ruling means that it is not permissible to make it compulsory to show the country of origin of honey from within the EU.
We must of course comply with the Court of Justice's ruling, as our Community is based on law, and I am sure that Mr Martinez would not argue with that.
On the other hand, I am in favour of the origin of honey from the Les Deux-Sèvres department being correctly labelled, as that is the purest honey that exists.
I do hope that Mr Martinez knows where the Les Deux-Sèvres department is!
It is for exactly this reason that this kind of labelling was not stipulated in the 1976 directive.
However, the Commission can agree to the addition of information concerning the country of origin of honey from third countries.
We must of course do it in a way that does not conflict with our international obligations, but it is possible.
I have already said what needs to be said about the analysis method.
That brings us to fruit juices and condensed milk.
The issue here is the labelling of these products where vitamins have been added to them.
We are looking into this at the moment.
On the one hand the body cannot normally absorb excess vitamins at all, but on the other hand there are particular cases where it can cause problems.
So we shall have to see what we can do here.
That brings us to jams. Amendment No 55 is on the labelling of jams produced from sulphur-treated fruits.
This is information which consumers may find useful.
We can accordingly accept this amendment, and also Amendments Nos 53, 64, 65, 67 and 68, but not No 62.
That brings us to the vital question of the legal basis.
I have a lot of sympathy for Parliament's position.
Mrs Schleicher has once again pointed to the basic declaration by the President of the Commission.
On any issue where we need to convince the public, it is of course right and proper that Parliament should participate in the decision-making process.
Except that our hands are tied here.
My hands are tied.
As I have already said, I have the greatest sympathy on this point.
However, the entire Commission has agreed, after discussion, upon Article 43 as the legal basis here, and not without good reason.
I would like to refer to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I do not know if you trust them, Mrs Schleicher; more than you trust the Commission, no doubt.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights quite rightly referred to the Court of Justice's ruling, which was not overridden by the Amsterdam Treaty, and which clearly indicates that Article 43 must be applied whenever agricultural products listed in Annex 2 to the Treaty are being dealt with, even if it is a marketing matter.
That is the permanent ruling of the Court of Justice, and the Commission has accordingly taken this legal provision as the legal basis.
Of course, it is open to Parliament to refer this question back to the committees, if it considers this matter that important.
But I must point out to you, Mrs Schleicher, that you would not solve the problem that way, quite the opposite!
All the improvements which we have proposed would then not be implemented.
However, you must take responsibility for that yourself.
I cannot relieve you of that responsibility.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0001/98).
As the author is not present, Question No 44 lapses.
Question No 45 by Clive Needle (H-0988/97)
Subject: Funding HIV/AIDS therapy in developing countries
Could the Commission state its position on recent proposals made by a Member State Health Minister at a conference in Côte d'Ivoire in December 1997, to establish a "fund for pharmaceutical drugs for people with HIV/AIDS in developing countries' ?
Does the Commission agree that such a politically "fashionable' but potentially disastrous idea has no place in the excellent EU policy guidelines on HIV/AIDS in developing countries, which were recently presented to the European Parliament by Commissioner Pinheiro?
Can the Commission provide Members with a clear guarantee that no EU support to this scheme will be considered without a detailed analysis of its implications and that the outcome of such an analysis should be put before the European Parliament?
Mr President, before answering the question, as this is the first time I have attended Parliament in 1998, allow me to wish all Members a prosperous year.
The recent proposals submitted by a Member State during the Abidjan Conference on Aids held in December 1997 on setting up a fund to improve access to treatment for persons contaminated with the HIV/Aids virus in developing countries have the merit of starting a discussion on a real problem.
In fact, at the moment there is an obvious lack of justice between taking responsibility for Aids sufferers in northern countries, where anti-retrovirus medicines are available, and, at the other extreme, in the southern countries, where most sufferers do not have access to basic health care.
However, setting up a fund of this type raises a series of very important questions that need to be answered.
According to the request put forward by the European Council in Luxembourg last December, the Commission's services are going to study ways of setting up a treatment solidarity fund under the aegis of the Aids-UN, intended to combat Aids in the developing countries.
The results of this study should examine the various scenarios possible and the respective consequences, as regards both ethics and fairness, and at technical, economic and financial levels.
I wish to assure the honourable Member that the results of this study will be communicated to the European Parliament.
I would add that in my opinion setting up a fund of this type raises three fundamental questions.
The first question is that of the size and access to this fund, taking into account the annual cost of treatment for tri-therapy, which is estimated at $10, 000 - $20, 000.
The choice of sufferers inevitably raises ethical problems and problems of not discriminating between persons contaminated by the Aids virus.
A second question relates to the ways of gaining access to the treatment, to the extent that there is a real danger in setting up a parallel system aimed solely at Aids sufferers, which would be ineffective and onerous at the same time, and could prove counterproductive for other sufferers with malaria, tuberculosis, measles, and so on.
The third question to be answered is the fact that the long-term efficacy of anti-retrovirus medicines has not yet been fully proven.
Beyond that, the necessary accompanying measures for anti-retrovirus therapy still do not exist in most African countries, such as the provision of laboratories and training for medical and paramedical staff.
For all these reasons, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we await this study that the Commission is going to undertake with some prudence as to the conclusions that might be drawn.
Thank you very much, Mr President, and can I join Commissioner Pinheiro in wishing you and he both a happy New Year.
Can I also thank the Commissioner for what was a very good and full response to that question which went a long way towards meeting the reasons for which it was tabled.
There is concern amongst non-governmental organizations as well as several Members, and we will be partially reassured by your answer about the study.
We certainly look forward to the report returning to Parliament.
I think you are right to be cautious about sudden initiatives of this sort however worthy or well-intentioned and however massive we all know the scale of the problems are.
Can I just briefly ask you: would you further agree that the question here is not whether people in developing countries should have equal access to HIV/Aids treatment as people in developed countries - everybody agrees that is necessary - but how to achieve that end?
As it stands, the vertical approach in favour of people with Aids as proposed by one of our Member States could seriously jeopardize existing public health systems by creating parallel systems.
That would arguably benefit developed world pharmaceutical companies and shift the emphasis from prevention to treatment.
I wonder, do you see that as being something that the study will give us a clear response on?
I would just like to stress that broadly speaking the Commission always suggests in regard to the health sector or the health situation in developing countries that we should strive for what we call a horizontal approach.
We try to reinforce the system itself, the training of doctors and other health personnel, to try to develop a flow of medicaments based on the ownership of the country, and so on and so forth.
Perhaps HIV/Aids is the only exception to this approach, mainly because of its relationship with certain types of behaviour.
A recent study undertaken by the Commission, the United Nations and the World Bank found a clear correlation between sexually-transmitted diseases and the transmission of the HIV virus.
That means that education and prevention are perhaps the best way in which to try to reduce the incidence of the disease, at least in Africa.
For all these reasons, we hope that the study which the Commission will undertake together with experts from the Member States and other countries that might help us will be of great assistance either to formulate a new strategy or to confirm the one we have been following.
One thing is certain: if you take into account the current costs of treating a patient of $10, 000 - $20, 000 this would mean, if I am not mistaken, something like over $100 million per year just for this which is obviously outside our capacity.
Thank you Commissioner for your response, and a happy New Year to you in the eleven working languages of the European Union.
First of all, can I say that both Mr Needle and myself submitted similar questions to the Council and the Council grouped them together.
It is strange that the Commission has not done the same.
However, coming back to this fund, Commissioner, if such a fund were to be established, would it be new money? Because if it is not new money then it is difficult to imagine how it could possibly function without displacing existing funding to equally essential projects.
I would certainly look forward to the study and I hope that it will address this point.
Can you tell me, will it be new money if such a fund is established?
As far as I know, the fresh money would come from Member States since the Commission budget is well defined, and unless the Members of this House decide that we should have extra funds, there will be no new money available.
At any rate, responses from political leaders in the Member States indicate that they are prepared to put some new money into this fund.
However, at this stage I think it is premature to draw conclusions on whether the fund will be established, its dimensions and the way in which it would function.
I tried to say this in my answer to Mr Needle.
Question No 46 by John Cushnahan (H-1018/97)
Subject: Single market
What measures is the Commission considering to ensure that there is no further disruption of the single market in light of the recent Court of Justice ruling against the French Government and the recent beef blockade of UK ports?
Mr President, on 18 November the Commission adopted a draft Council regulation that established a mechanism for Commission intervention to abolish certain obstacles to trade.
This draft answers a request made by the European Council in Amsterdam last June, recording its conclusions on the action plan for the single market.
This draft also answers the concern expressed by the honourable Member in his question as to the follow-up the Commission intends to give to the judgment passed by the Court of Justice on 9 December in the Commission vs. France proceedings.
According to the proposed intervention mechanism, the Commission will ask the Member State in question, by means of a decision, to take the necessary measures to end an obvious, classified and unjustified obstruction to the acceptance of Articles 30 and 36 of the Treaty, seriously hampering the freedom of movement of goods in the internal market.
I would add that, based on past experience, the cases most representative of this situation might be, for example: the untimely and unjustified prohibition of importing products from other Member States; measures establishing or restoring import formalities, such as licences or technical approvals; destruction of large quantities of products from other Member States, for example, on the roads, in shopping centres or in warehouses; or even the immobilization of products by not permitting access to the national territory or movement within it, for example, blockading means of transport at the borders, on the motorways, or at the ports or airports.
By making a decision, if Council approves this regulation, Commission intervention gives binding power and has immediate effects on the legal system of the Member State in question, enabling individuals with grievances immediately to assert the rights they feel they are being denied.
That, Mr President, is the answer I would like to give the honourable Member.
I should like to respond to the Commissioner's good wishes by wishing him and his colleagues, especially my Irish colleague, Commissioner Flynn and the President of Parliament a happy New Year.
I think you would acknowledge, Commissioner, that the Court of Justice decision against the French Government was a landmark decision which will help you pursue the policy you agreed at the Amsterdam Summit.
I want to ask you a number of questions relating to that.
First, can we have an assurance that when there is any further disruption to the single market, the Commission will act urgently and swiftly to ensure that Member States discharge their obligations to ensure that the single market is not disrupted.
Secondly, what action did the Commission take in making its views known to the UK Government regarding the recent illegal blockade of UK ports which affected Irish farmers, hauliers and exporters? Thirdly, what action will the Commission take to ensure that compensation will be forthcoming to Irish farmers, hauliers and exporters who suffered a great deal because of this illegal action?
With regard to whether the Commission will act swiftly, that is the objective of the regulation we propose.
If we were to follow traditional procedures, it would take such a long time that some foodstuffs would be totally lost.
With regard to events that have occurred in the past, I should like to differentiate between two situations.
The first is where there is a blockade but where the Member State does its utmost to eliminate the blockade.
Then there is no need for the Commission to act.
The second is when there is difficulty in fulfilling the terms of the single market due either to the failure of a government to act or to the deliberate action of a government.
It is in the latter type of case that the Commission acts
With regard to compensation, it is implicit in what I said that compensation should be applied for by private individuals who feel their goods have been destroyed, or whatever.
Thus - if the Council approves our proposal - the fact that a decision has been taken will allow private interests to be directly sustained in court.
It will enter into immediate legal effect in the Member State concerned.
So, compensation is not a matter for the Commission but for the competent authorities in a Member State, and it is they who are required to act.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the proposal for this directive the Commission has drafted has raised some eyebrows in Finland, because it is seen as restricting workers' right to strike. The issue here is not only making the common market work perfectly, but also the right of the citizen to strike, which is held as sacred in my country, Finland.
I would respectfully ask the Commission this question: are you endeavouring to have a person's right to strike eclipsed by the needs of the common market, and do you intend to do so without consulting the trade union movement and in total disregard for the tripartite system - as we call it - of industrial negotiations?
Mr President, I would like to say that, for the Commission too, the right to strike is inalienable and that under no circumstances could the Commission permit any exception to a fundamental right held by the workers in a democratic state, on account of the single market.
For that reason, I can specifically say that under no circumstances will the right to strike be affected by this regulation, or any other regulation derived from it, for similar reasons.
Question No 47 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0977/97)
Subject: Blood transfusions
According to press reports throughout Europe, there are fundamental suspicions that Creutzfeld-Jakob disease affecting humans is transmitted through blood and blood products.
Will the Commission say whether the Member States test blood used for transfusions and which Member States carry out those tests?
Will the Commission immediately propose the compulsory testing of blood to be used in transfusions in all the Member States?
Before I specifically address the issue of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), I want to inform the honourable Member that Member States do screen blood and plasma for a variety of pathogens.
A recent survey conducted by the Commission on the regulation and practices in the Member States of the European Community as regards the suitability of blood and plasma donors and the screening of their donations confirms that all Member States routinely screen for antibodies against the hepatitis C virus, the human immunodeficiency virus type I and II and the surface antigen of hepatitis B virus.
With regard to the increased concern that blood and blood products may transmit the agent responsible for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a distinction first has to be made between classical or sporadic CJD and the new variant of this disease, nvCJD, which has been strongly associated with BSE.
From studies so far undertaken, especially in the United Kingdom and the United States, there is no evidence of transmission to patients of the agent responsible for classical or sporadic CJD by blood or blood products.
The advice that has been given to the Commission from the relevant scientific committees, in particular the Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products, on the risk of these forms of CJD, is that there are no specific grounds for possible recall or quarantine of batches of plasma-derived products.
However, this issue will be re-evaluated at regular intervals, depending on the availability of epidemiological data and their scientific evaluation.
As regards nvCJD, there are indeed concerns that a new and additional risk may be posed by blood and blood products prepared from donations from infected donors.
Because of these concerns and as a precautionary measure, the CPMP has advised that batches of plasma-derived medicinal products should be withdrawn from the market when a donor to a plasma pool subsequently has been confirmed diagnosed as nvCJD.
Member States are already in the process of complying with this advice.
The United Kingdom also follows the advice of its Spongiform Encephalopathy Committee in this respect.
Moreover, a rapid alert defective product recall procedure is in place in the Community.
In the United Kingdom a risk assessment has been initiated to ascertain the possible transmission of nvCJD through blood transfusion.
This is being carried out in parallel with an appraisal of the operational and scientific aspects of introducing leucodepletion removal of the white blood cells.
With regard to the compulsory testing of blood for nvCJD, I am sure that the honourable Member is aware that at present no screening test exists.
Scientists and industry are currently working to develop such screening and diagnostic tests.
Members of the European Parliament will be interested to learn that an ad hoc specialist workshop on nvCJD will be held on 15 January under the auspices of the CPMP.
This workshop, which will bring together experts in this area, will focus on the infectivity distribution between new variant and classical CJD, the risk of transmission by blood and blood fractions, a review of the published and ongoing work, and the identification of any new studies required.
A report of the meeting will be forthcoming.
The Commission is seeking advice from the Scientific Steering Committee and the Scientific Committee for Medicinal Products, and has already presented a proposal for a Council recommendation on the suitability of blood and plasma donors and the screening of donated blood in the European Community, which seeks to establish a requirement of permanent deferral for persons in whose family CJD has occurred.
In the light of the results of ongoing evaluations and assessments and the advice received, the Commission will give consideration to proposing measures specific to nvCJD, concerning blood and plasma as source materials for medicinal products.
As regards blood for transfusion, however, there is, at present, no legal basis on which binding requirements can be laid down at Community level.
I hope that this unsatisfactory situation will change with the coming into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and Article 152, in particular.
I am sorry for taking so long, but this is a very sensitive and very important issue.
I wanted to give as full a reply as possible.
Mr President, I should like to wish a happy New Year to you and to Commissioners de Silguy and Flynn.
I should also like to wish for good health for you and all the citizens of Europe.
But you know, for there to be health, wishes and good intentions are not enough: specific measures are also needed.
Thank you very much for your answer, Mr Commissioner, which indeed was very full.
I would just like to remind you that in 1980 there were simply suspicions, as there are suspicions now, that the AIDS virus was transmitted by blood and blood transfusions.
We did not take then the necessary measures that we should have taken.
We took them in 1993. We are all unfortunately aware of the results of this three-year delay.
This then is my fear.
Moreover I am telling you this as a doctor: although there are only suspicions, as indeed you said, I would prefer that the necessary measures be taken now, which may in the future prove to have been unnecessary, rather then allow to happen what happened with AIDS, when it will be far too late.
I appreciate the honourable Member's good wishes to the Commissioner.
I have to say to you that, yes, this is a matter that receives our considerable and considered opinion at all times.
We are, of course, as you know, entirely bound by the scientific evidence available to us at any particular time.
But, certainly, preventive measures are being considered and being put in place in the Member States.
We are talking here about the donors, the question of screening, evaluation and testing and also the question of research and diagnostic tests.
All of the matters that would give you concern are being taken on board on a continuing basis, and that is the reason why we are having this very special meeting on 15 January, which will bring all that information together to enable us to do whatever is necessary on the good advice of that committee.
I, too, would like to express my appreciation of the proposal which is on the Council's table and to which the Commissioner referred.
I have studied this recommendation and understand that through it we shall obtain a ban on people who suffer from this illness being allowed to give blood.
When does the Commissioner think this recommendation is going to be adopted by the Council, and how did the discussion go at the Council's meeting in November when, according to reports, this question was discussed?
I also wonder whether the Commission has any estimate of how much risk blood has been found on the European market, blood which must now be withdrawn.
Is the Commission convinced that all risk blood has been withdrawn?
Thank you, Mrs Thors, I am pleased that you support the meeting that is to take place on 15 January under the auspices of the CPMP.
This will be a very valuable workshop that will bring together the experts in the area and will focus particularly on the infectivity distribution, and that will include tissue distribution, between the new variant and classical CJD.
I should also like to say that, yes, there is an amount of risk blood - no question about that.
Our understanding is that it is quite limited.
The Commission is only able to intervene directly for medicinal products that have received a Community marketing authorization through the centralized procedure.
No medicinal products derived from blood or plasma have received such authorization to date.
The situation is different so far as decentralized procedures are concerned.
There we act under Article 12 of 75/3/90/EEC, whereby we can propose, via the comitology procedure, a decision to withdraw the marketing authorization and therefore withdraw the product.
With regard to the products you mentioned that are implicated with nvCJD, the CPMP has discussed this and it has recommended that batches of implicated products still on the shelf be withdrawn.
That has happened.
The vehicle is there in the decentralized procedure but as yet no licences have been granted through the centralized procedure.
Question No 48 by Sören Wibe (H-0964/97)
Subject: Stability Pact budget balance requirement
The Stability Pact contains a requirement that budgets should balance over the economic cycle. Does this requirement relate to real or nominal balance?
Has the Commission taken into account the impact on employment, for instance, of the real squeeze on demand which is bound to result from requiring nominal financial balance in the Member States? Mr de Silguy, you now have the floor, and may I wish you a happy New Year.
Thank you, Mr President, I take advantage of this opportunity in my turn to express to you and your colleagues, for both yourselves and your families, my best wishes for health, happiness and success.
The Commission thanks Mr Wibe for the opportunity he has given us once again to specify the content and meaning of the Stability Pact.
The Stability Pact, approved by your Parliament, is neither more nor less than the translation of the provisions of the Treaty of the European Union.
It is in a manner of speaking the internal regulations of the euro zone.
Adopted by all the Member States, its aim is to ensure the proper operation of economic and monetary union, by specifying the operational procedures of Article 103 and Article 104c of the Treaty.
I would add that it is also a credibility factor for the euro.
In order to re-establish the margins of budgetary manoeuvre in the Member States, this Pact invites Member States, and I quote: ' to respect the medium-term objective of a budget which is close to being balanced or in surplus.'
The Stability Pact therefore does not make mandatory any extra constraint.
It sets an objective.
This is of course a balanced budget or budget in surplus, in the meaning of the national accounts, that is, a balance expressed as a percentage of GDP, and therefore calculated on the basis of nominal magnitudes.
This objective was accepted by the Heads of State and Government for the purposes of, I quote 'reinforcing the conditions favourable to sustained growth in production and employment.'
Indeed, the search for medium-term national budgetary balance can only have positive consequences for employment.
Only healthy budget situations are of such a nature as to promote sustainable growth, and hence the creation of significant employment.
The creation of healthy public finances is a prior condition for benefiting from low interest rates, which favour investment, and hence growth and the creation of employment.
I would add that Europe has got its public finances into better shape in the years after 1993, and it is beginning to reap the real rewards of that effort.
The figures themselves provide a cold illustration of that reality: in 1996 the deficit was -4.2 %, and growth 1.8 %, while in 1997 the deficit was -2.6 %, and growth 2.6 %. The forecast for 1998 is deficit of under -2 % - and the deficit is continuing to shrink - and growth of more than 3 %, and it is continuing to increase.
I would add that according to Commission forecasts, Europe will be creating four million jobs in the three years between 1997 and 1999.
No, I do not think so.
I believe the experience of these last ten or fifteen years proves the contrary.
When the public deficit reaches excessively high levels - and above 3 % it is excessive - we witness firstly a significant increase in the level of debt, and secondly a rise in interest rates.
I shall take a clear and simple example.
When we note that some eighteen months or one year ago in Europe, 50 % of household savings was being used to finance public deficits, you have to come to the conclusion that savings would be better employed in financing productive investment.
Consequently, the reduction of public deficits must mean that savings are released for productive investment, and that internal demand will benefit by this, in terms of either investment or consumption, and at the very least in the purchase of semi-durable goods.
Mr President, I would like to return to the issue of employment since I think it is a fact that the policies are deflationary, and we should take heed of the United States which is talking of the danger - not of inflation or overheating - but of the freezing of the economy, and I do not know where EMU is taking us in today's conditions.
However, on the subject of employment, I would like to say that here in Strasbourg, New Year's Eve was celebrated with deeds of desperation by tens of hundreds of young people.
And today in Greece the main news item is the suicide of someone, 60 years old, who left a note which said "I am committing suicide because I am unemployed' .
And from this standpoint I would like to ask: within the framework of this explosion of new data on unemployment in Germany, of suicides, of the aggressive behaviour of young people who are in despair, are there any new deliberations in the Commission?
I am convinced that the euro will create an economic framework which will generate more growth and hence more employment in Europe.
I am furthermore perfectly aware that the euro will not solve the problem of unemployment, and that this means we have to attack its deep roots, which arise from a whole series of reasons and causes with which you are familiar.
In the final analysis, 1997 enabled us to make a breakthrough, at least at the conceptual level.
The November European Council in Luxembourg set up a new method.
I believe that this method, which is target-based, is a method based on objectives, and one that we can place our hopes in.
We shall be jointly fixing a number of concrete objectives at the European level, for example that within five years, there should not be any young person who, after six months of leaving a university or school system, is out of a job.
That is an objective fixed at the Community level.
Then, each of the Member States should, in the light of its own special features, traditions and rules, implement and propose plans for how to reach this objective and then, once a year, at head of state and government level, an assessment should be made, and multilateral supervision be exercised.
At this stage, the governments will have to answer for their actions before public opinion, before their partners, to see whether or not they have reached their objectives.
Therefore, I believe it is necessary to attack the problem of unemployment by in-depth reforms, which are not directed against the employees, but carried out along with them.
For this reason, social dialogue is an important factor in the long-term success of the fight against unemployment.
Commissioner, do you consider that the ASEAN crisis will affect the budget balancing process?
Question No 49 by Tommy Waidelich (H-0968/97)
Subject: EMU
It was decided at the most recent summit meeting in Luxembourg that Member States not participating in the third stage of EMU will be able to take part in meetings of the Euro-X committee (Eurocouncil), except when issues relating directly to the euro are being discussed.
Will the Commission explain what sort of issues are meant?
The Eurocouncil was effectively set up by Heads of State and Government at the European Council in Luxembourg last December.
Ministers of states participating in the euro zone can meet among themselves in an informal manner to discuss questions relating to the specific responsibilities which they share in the field of the single currency.
These are questions relating to the common management of the single currency on a basis of solidarity, provided they involve only the euro states.
Examples would be the euro exchange rate, dissuasive aspects (that is to say, sanctions under the Stability Pact), or the preparation for readjustments within the new European monetary system.
But these are only examples.
Additionally, in line with the wish expressed by your Parliament, the Commission will participate in all the meetings of the Eurocouncil and, as the case may be, the European Central Bank may be invited to these meetings.
As the honourable Member has noted, the Heads of State and Government nevertheless specified that 'each time questions of common interest are concerned, they will be discussed by ministers of all the Member States.'
I believe that questions relating to the coordination of economic policy, questions relating to the major orientations of economic policy, should be discussed by the fifteen Member States.
The same applies to everything relating to the single market, tax harmonization or social problems.
Furthermore - and this is essential - the European Council drew attention to the fact that the Ecofin Council, the Council of the finance ministers of the fifteen Member States, unlike the Eurocouncil, is the only body with the authority to take decisions according to the rules and procedures laid down under theTreaty.
The central role which the Ecofin Council is called on to play - at the express request of the European Council, with the support of the Commission and on the Commission's proposal - this role is the consecration of the unity and cohesion of the Community in the economic field.
I would like to thank you for your reply.
I shall do no less than everyone else and also wish everyone a happy New Year, not least the Commissioner.
We all have an exciting year ahead of us, now that we are going to launch the euro, and the Commissioner is going to be very much involved in that.
I am one of those Swedish parliamentarians who are very positive about this event, that we are now getting a euro, and can have the chance to prevent currency speculation, and through that actually get more independence for countries to conduct an economic policy under the protection of the euro.
In the reply we also found out that a lot will depend on informal meetings in the so-called Eurocouncil.
That means, if I understand correctly, that there are no formal discussions about majority decisions and such.
The Commissioner could confirm whether that is the case.
I would just like this Eurocouncil to develop into a forum where there could be a more political counterbalance against the European Central Bank, more democratic control, and also a coordination of economic policy.
Thank you for your good wishes, which I also accept on behalf of the success of the launch of the euro.
What I can assure you is that we are sparing no effort at present to ensure the success of this operation.
Yes, the Eurocouncil is a useful body, insofar as we can never talk together enough.
We have a common monetary policy, a federal policy (let us use the right words) and faced with that, we have national economic policy which remains subject to national competency.
It is therefore necessary to reinforce our coordination and common action. Hence the interest of ensuring more contacts between finance ministers.
However, all that does not mean that we should overturn the balance of the Treaty.
I believe that the Eurocouncil will be useful for awareness-raising and analysis purposes, but we shall have to be very careful (and the Commission will itself be careful with regard to its own concerns) that all the powers laid down in the Treaty, under the conditions set out in the Treaty - that is, Commission proposal, advice from the European Council, Council decision - that these powers should be exercised within the bodies laid down for that purpose by the Treaty, that is to say, the Ecofin Council.
I also join in the goodwill wishes for the New Year expressed by previous speakers.
Like Mr Waidelich, I am among those in Sweden who are very positive about the introduction of the euro and hope that all of this very difficult process will go well.
When this Eurocouncil is formed, it is natural that it is the countries participating in EMU which also participate in this council and in the informal meetings.
However, those countries which have decided to remain outside could still have an interest in being informed about what is happening and the Eurocouncil's meetings.
Are there any thoughts about how the few countries which remain outside EMU, when it is implemented, are going to be kept informed?
Firstly, Mr Andersson, since you are a euro supporter from a country which has expressed a desire, at present, not to be a part of the euro, allow me to give you two arguments and two avenues of reflection which might well be usefully pursued in your country.
Do you reasonably believe that a country which is not part of the euro could conduct monetary policy which is totally independent of the euro zone, which by definition will be something extremely powerful? Personally I do not believe that there can be any question on this point, because it means that, as part of the euro, one is obliged to follow monetary policy, but without having taken part in its definition.
The second area for reflection is enterprise.
Even if the national administrations of countries outside the euro allow them to work in euros, will they nevertheless not have to bear extra costs? Indeed, in one way or another somebody will have to bear the costs of the foreign exchange risk between any euro and non-euro currency.
This foreign exchange risk will disappear for countries within the euro, and hence (and this applies to both banks and businesses) they will no longer need to invoice for that.
The problem, it appears to me, remains wholly outstanding for the non-euro countries. However, Mr Andersson, these are just two ideas or two avenues of reflection which, in my view, would merit further examination.
To give a precise answer to your question, I would say that while this organ is clearly informal, it is nevertheless a fact that its work must be transparent.
The presence of the Commission and the fact that the decision-making body will be the Ecofin Council, provide every guarantee that information will be given in a transparent manner in all the European countries, whether or not they have joined up to the euro.
Nobody can prevent the euro countries discussing things among themselves. But even so, the interest of this European Council resolution is that the discussion is kept within the framework of a procedure and within a system which make it possible both to ensure transparency and to guarantee the unity of the European Union
Question No 50 by Jan Andersson (H-0970/97)
Subject: Prospects for establishing more criteria for economic and monetary cooperation
At present, economic and monetary cooperation is entirely geared towards achieving price stability.
However, many ideas concerning the possibility of introducing other criteria have been put forward during the debate on the future development of EMU.
One such criterion under discussion, and one which deserves serious consideration, is growth.
What prospects does the Commission see for making growth a criterion for economic and monetary cooperation?
Mr Andersson's question provides an opportunity to dissipate misconceptions regarding criteria, means and objectives, which must be regarded as different concepts.
Indeed, there are criteria, for the achievement and proper operation of economic and monetary union.
And there are objectives and means, for the coordination of economic policy.
The criteria for passing into economic and monetary union are defined in Article 109j of the Treaty of the European Union.
I would remind you that those criteria must enable the Commission and the Council to check whether, and I quote: ' a high degree of sustainable convergence has been achieved between the various Member States '.
Among these criteria is included, I quote: ' the achievement of a high degree of price stability.'
This is also the principal mission assigned to the European system of central banks.
This is Article 105 of the Treaty, and this article lays down, and I quote: ' the principal objective of the European system of central banks is to maintain price stability. Without prejudice to the objective of price stability, the European system of central banks provides support to the general and economic policies of the Community, with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objective of the Community, as defined in Article 2.'
Well, what does Article 2 say? 'Among such objectives' , and I am still quoting, ' are sustainable and noninflationary growth.'
Growth cannot be decreed.
It is the result of economic policy, and is necessary if there is to be substantial job creation.
Employment policy is furthermore the priority policy of the European Union.
However, price stability is essential to ensure the sustainable nature of growth, and hence a high level of social protection.
The best proof of that is the return to growth in Europe, which has gone hand in hand with the reduction of inflation.
I remind you that in 1996, we had 2.6 % inflation and a growth rate of 1.8 %.
In 1997, inflation fell to 2.1 %, the growth rate rose to 2.6 %, and inflation should broadly remain stable in 1998, with growth rising to 3 %.
The social partners have fully understood this strategy and they support it; witness their repeated joint statements, in particular those that they issued at the last European Council.
It is therefore not envisaged, under such conditions, that these very satisfactory criteria should be modified.
Only sustained growth and controlled inflation will provide an appropriate framework for job creation, notwithstanding that the fight against unemployment requires the introduction of other measures of a more fundamental, I might say more structural, nature.
This is the way opened by the European Council in Luxembourg in November, and which I mentioned earlier in response to a previous question.
Let me first comment on what the Commissioner said in connection with my previous speech, namely that countries outside EMU cannot conduct an independent monetary policy.
I share that view. It is a fallacy to believe that you can conduct an independent monetary policy outside.
I also share the view that companies in countries which are outside EMU are, of course, dependent on what happens within the euro zone.
There is, of course, still criticism of EMU, and it has weak popular support in Europe.
That cannot be ignored.
One of the reasons for this is that at the same time as EMU is to be implemented our unemployment is much too high.
You cannot ignore the fact that a role may have been played by the fact that there has been an overriding goal of creating price stability which has been placed above all other goals.
I would like there to be more balance between price stability and growth.
I am not against price stability - on the contrary.
But the balance between growth targets and price stability targets should be better.
Very quickly, my answer is that as far as I am concerned, the convergence criteria or stability criteria are not obstacles to growth.
On the contrary, they are so many supports for and means to growth, an economic growth we wish to be rich in job-creation opportunities.
Public opinion in Europe will not accept the new process, the new events, if it is not explained to them.
I believe that a very substantial explanation effort must be planned.
Secondly, there must be reassurance. For that reason it is essential that the fight against unemployment, which has become a priority within the European Council, within the Council of Ministers, should be given content as a policy and put into actual practice.
This is what the European Council in Luxembourg committed itself to in November.
Now the framework must be fleshed out.
I think a promising avenue has opened up.
It reflects the approach which was successfully used for economic and monetary union, an objective-based approach.
We need to persevere down this road.
Unlike the previous questioners, I belong to the critical part of the Swedish representation in Parliament as far as EMU is concerned.
I ask why people cannot imagine developing criteria other than price stability. Employment has not been mentioned at all, while growth has been mentioned.
The US Fed has all of these three criteria in its definition of what the Fed should be concerned with.
The other week I took part in a hearing in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, of which I am a member.
It was a very interesting hearing in which precisely these questions were raised by the participating experts on the lack of balance in the European Central Bank - in other words, that price stability is the only thing that counts.
The question which then also arose was the lack of democracy when we were not really sure who is in charge of the ECB.
My question to you would be: can you say whether it is Parliament or the Council or someone else who is in charge of the ECB?
I will reply very quickly, Mr President, because I believe you are pressed for time, and we have overrun the time allocated to us.
It was no surprise to me to hear what Mr Lindqvist said.
I believe he is ferociously opposed to the euro, as he has every right to be.
Under these conditions, you can understand that I cannot share his analysis.
I wish only to note - as he cited the example of the United States - that the United States had set themselves the target of a balanced budget for the beginning of the next decade, and that from this year on they will be in equilibrium and probably in a budget surplus.
This is another example which tends to show that there is no incompatibility between a balanced budget, growth and job creation.
A second comment relates to the European Central Bank.
You will, I imagine, be putting questions to the future directors of the European Central Bank at your leisure, as I know you will be auditioning them before they are formally appointed by the European Council.
I think this would be a good opportunity for them to explain to you how they expect to conduct their monetary policy. But as things stand, I believe that the fight against inflation is a prior condition of growth.
I agree with the Commissioner that good public finances and low interest rates are good for growth.
I also believe that through currency stability the euro is good for growth and employment in the EU, particularly in the euro countries.
However, I also believe people may need to consider other possibilities.
I believe that a growth target, such as the Federal Reserve has in the United States, could be a way to proceed.
I wonder whether I have interpreted the Commissioner correctly, and would like to ask the following: is it formally possible to add a growth criterion later if the heads of government are agreed on it?
Personally, I do not believe it is possible, in the medium or long-term, to contrast the policy of the Federal Bank in the United States with the policy of the Bundesbank in Germany.
If you look at the figures over a period of 10, 15 or 20 years, you will see that in the final analysis their results are not very different, even if at certain times differences in appreciation may effectively appear.
Secondly, growth cannot be a criterion in the meaning of the Treaty, because once again growth cannot be imposed by decree. Growth is the consequence of good economic policy.
What we can say is that growth is an aim we pursue in conducting our economic policies, going hand in hand, at the heart of these policies, with employment.
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
Since the allotted time for this series of questions has now expired, Questions Nos 51 to 55 will be dealt with in writing.
I want to thank the Commissioner for his long answer, which was so positive and encouraging.
I would be even more reassured if, in view of the inadequacy of the policy implemented so far, we could pay special attention to the innovative aspects. Subsidiarity must not be a hindrance in the next stage.
I would like to ask whether, in order to reach those prestigious orchestras which have not yet received sufficient assistance, you envisage setting up agreements with different bodies to make sure that subsidiarity itself does not prevent us from attaining that objective, through lack of musical culture. The problem is that what we have done so far is no good, because it has not managed to promote music.
Exactly - I think we have to try those agreements.
What I would like to ask of Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, whose sensitivity on these matters is well known, is that she should contribute any ideas she may have on the subject, since now is the time to try to put them into effect.
We are going to start writing the draft on 1 February, so until then we are keen to hear suggestions, especially about our planned forum.
We do not want the Commission to succumb to the temptation of locking itself away in an office to prepare this draft.
We do not want it done like that. That is not the right way to work on anything, but especially not on culture.
Therefore, we want to talk to actors, creative people, poets, artists, parliamentarians and governments, so that we can get ideas from them all, within the context of that forum.
You can also rest assured that before the formal presentation on 1 May, I will try to have a meeting with the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, so that we can exchange views on the matter.
I think the question you have raised is important, and I would like to deal with it specifically and give precise solutions once we have sketched out the framework programme, which will be finally presented on 1 May.
Commissioner, I would particularly like to thank you for your reply to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
But I would like to ask two supplementary questions.
Since I have been a Member of this Parliament, there has only been one notable success in the field of music.
That was the European Year of Music, which took place following an initiative by Mr Hahn.
It was a great success.
Have you used that to prepare plans in readiness for 1 May?
My second point is this: I am deeply concerned about the decline in our folk music.
Folk music is undeniably gradually being killed off by the various mass media.
Will you be taking these very important points into account in your programme, and will you be promoting folk instruments by supporting this music? This is very important for the future!
Mr von Habsburg, the folk music you mention is something I particularly care about.
In fact, I think Europe's rich diversity is one of our most characteristic features. What is Europe, after all?
What is European unity? It is the sum total of the diversity of its different peoples, traditions, life-styles and customs.
That is the big difference between Europe and that melting pot, the United States.
The basic difference is that we must safeguard our rich diversity.
Music and popular songs are, of course, part of that diversity and must be safeguarded.
As for the European Year of Music, I remember when that was launched. I was here at the time, but in a different capacity - in the Council of Europe.
It was a great success, for the very reason that it did not just involve highbrow culture, but tried to promote respect for that cultural diversity.
We will bear that in mind, and as regards the programme we are going to present on 1 May, I have taken note of the wish expressed here, which I absolutely agree with.
Question No 57 by Hugh McMahon (H-1001/97)
Subject: Transmission of major sporting events by terrestrial television in the EU
Can the Commission inform Parliament of any progress made in discussions with Member States with a view to drawing up a list of major national and international sporting events, such as the Five Nations Rugby, the Open Golf and Wimbledon, which remain available to all EU citizens?
In the codecision procedure for the amendment of the "Television without frontiers' directive, Parliament approved an amendment aimed at guaranteeing public access to specific sporting events of special importance through open-access television throughout the whole European Union.
I had not included that in the draft directive.
I presented a draft directive on 22 March 1995, and did not include a proposal on access to specific sporting events.
Nevertheless, when I heard Parliament's idea of including the possibility of guaranteeing public access to such events, I thought it was interesting, and made a note of it immediately.
Because agreement was not reached following the second reading, there was a conciliation phase, during which it was established - and I agreed - that it was not possible to obtain what could be termed a harmonized list of major events at Community level.
It was important to acknowledge in some way the opinion of those in favour of open-access retransmissions of events, but some of us (myself included) thought it was impossible to have a harmonized list of events at Community level.
For that reason, the new Directive contains provisions to guarantee that Member States can adopt measures to protect the right to information, and ensure wide public access to television coverage of national or non-national events of major importance to society.
The examples we usually give are the Olympic Games and, in football, the World Cup and the European Championship.
These provisions appear in a new article of the Directive - Article 3a.
They consist of a system known as mutual recognition, which is designed to prevent evasion of national measures to guarantee access to television repeats of important events.
The system comprises three phases:
Firstly, Member States can draw up a list of major events and adopt measures to ensure that large sections of the public are not prevented from following these events, either directly or as repeats, on open-access television.
Secondly, the Commission has to be informed of these measures.
The Commission will check that they are in keeping with Community law, and seek the opinion of a committee set up under this Directive, known as the Contact Committee, made up of Member States' representatives.
As long as they are found to be compatible with Community law, every set of national measures has to be communicated to all the other Member States and published in the Official Journal.
Thirdly, Member States must ensure that the television broadcasting organizations under their jurisdiction comply with the lists of events drawn up by other Member States in accordance with this procedure.
Lastly, I want to remind you that the new Directive was published and came into force on 30 July 1997, and Member States have until 31 December 1998 to incorporate it into their respective national arrangements.
In the Contact Committee, there has been much discussion about the application of Article 3a, and so far the Commission has not received any official notification from the Member States.
Nevertheless, the Commission is aware that the vast majority of Member States - if not all of them - have adopted or plan to adopt measures to guarantee wide public access to television coverage of major events, and we hope to receive the relevant notifications during 1998.
To conclude, I will give Mr McMahon an answer to his very specific question. As far as the three events you mention are concerned, the United Kingdom will need to propose them on the list it presents to the Commission, and the Commission will have to judge whether they are indeed major sporting events.
That, therefore, is the method set out in the Directive. It is not, I repeat, a harmonization - a single list - but depends on the lists provided by the Member States, and the fact that each Member State must accept the others' lists, on the principle of mutual recognition.
Finally, the Commission must give its approval and make sure Community law is not contravened.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his very full explanation - 6 minutes 47 seconds worth of an answer; a very full and comprehensive answer.
What is obvious from his answer and, perhaps should be underlined, is that no Member State has sent him any information.
Is he going to put some pressure on Member States to give him information, to give him a list? How often does he envisage this committee meeting and would he invoke the infringement procedure if Member States do not give him a list?
Mr McMahon, a Member State does not have to present a list and may choose not to.
That is its own decision.
If a Member State presents a list that is, for example, over the top, because of the number of events included, or their nature (all football matches, for example) then obviously the Commission would not accept that.
However, there is nothing to prevent a Member State from deciding it does not want to put any event on the list.
That is perfectly acceptable.
Therefore, I am not going to do anything.
All I am going to do is wait for them to send me the list.
I am sure that nearly all the Member States are going to do so.
But it is possible that some may not. I know of at least one Member State which so far has no intention of presenting a list (which, I would point out, is not the Member State with which I am most familiar) - and that is entirely possible.
As for the Contact Committee, we thought it was a good idea for the Commission to be able to consult, rather than act in isolation. Whom should we consult?
A contact committee was the obvious answer.
In the end, however, it will be the Commission which adopts the decision.
And obviously, if a Member State fails to respect the Commission's decision, the appropriate steps will be taken.
I have a very brief question.
I would like to know where the Ryder Cup fits into this.
The Ryder Cup which, as you know, was held in Spain for the very first time recently, is probably the only competition where almost the entire population of Europe actually cheers for Europe.
You might cheer for England, France, Germany or whoever, in other competitions, but the whole of Europe taking on the United States at golf actually brings the people of Europe together on that occasion for two or three days, where everyone is supporting the European team.
Yet in the United Kingdom it was on satellite television, where the majority of people could not even watch it.
So where does the Ryder Cup fit in to this particular scenario?
Mr Cunningham, I may have my own opinion about what you are asking - I think it is an important event - but at the moment I would prefer not to answer you in a personal capacity.
At the moment, we have to wait for the various Member States to send in their lists.
Once the lists have arrived, the Commission will consult the Contact Committee, and having received their reply and taken account of it, will adopt a decision.
It is a question of restrictive criteria, but that does not mean that important events will not be included.
And something else I think is important is that an event which is important in one country may not be so in another.
Think of the Derby for instance.
Obviously, that is a very important event in the United Kingdom, but it is probably of less interest in Spain or Greece.
Well, the criterion to be used is that each Member State decides which are its important events, and the others respect that decision - hence the mutual recognition.
Question No 58 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-1009/97)
Subject: Commission study on children and advertising
This is the third time I have asked Commissioner Oreja a question about the study, repeatedly promised by the Commission, on the effects of advertising on minors.
Other independent studies have shown that children cannot be classified as consumers, on the grounds that they are unable, until the age of 12 on average, to distinguish an advertising message from objective information.
Can the Commissioner say what stage the Commission's study has reached? When will he be able to report, even informally, to the Committee on Culture, for example?
I think I can give Mrs Ahlqvist a brief reply.
It is not the first time this question has been raised, and I know how concerned Mrs Ahlqvist is about this matter.
I should like to remind her that, in response to a petition from a delegation in the Council during the revision procedure for the "Television without frontiers' Directive, the Commission promised to carry out a study on the effect of television advertising and telesales on children, with a view to re-examining this question at the next revision of the Directive.
I want to repeat what I said to Mrs Ahlqvist last time.
I fully appreciate her concern, which I share.
However, I am subject to certain limitations, and the Commission has undertaken to do this within a given timescale.
That is, the Commission has to carry out this revision by 31 December 2000 at the latest.
It has to produce a report on how the Directive is being implemented, which will include appropriate proposals for adjustment, if necessary.
So, that is what we have promised to do.
The report will also be presented to Parliament, of course.
Unfortunately, the study cannot be started in 1998 (although that is what I would have preferred) because the budgetary authority (and Mrs Ahlqvist knows what I mean by that) has cut the appropriations proposed by the Commission for this sort of study.
At the moment, the Commission has another priority, which I am sure is also of concern to Mrs Ahlqvist.
It is an investigation into the anti-violence chip, which is mentioned specifically in Article 22 of the new Directive.
We had to choose, and since our priority is the chip programme, the Commission will not be able to start the study in question until the beginning of 1999.
Therefore, I would hope to have results during that year, or very early in 2000 at the latest.
I repeat what I said last time: I want this to be done before the deadline, if possible, preferably by the date I have mentioned.
Therefore, we should complete this study in time to include it in the application report mentioned in Article 26.
If the situation were to change (with regard to the Notenboom procedure, for example) I can assure the honourable Member that we would take the appropriate steps to try to relaunch the study.
As I said, I fully share the honourable Member's concern.
I shall be very brief.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I know the Commissioner is in favour of carrying out this study.
I have never before received an answer which is so definite about the timing as that it will be done in 1999.
I am therefore grateful for the reply.
However, in Sweden there is growing irritation about and criticism of children's advertising.
People are calling for boycotts and think that something must be done.
Now I have got this answer about the year 1999.
Although it is negative, it is at least clearer than the two previous answers, so I thank the Commissioner for that.
Question No 59 by Maj Theorin (H-0965/97)
Subject: The situation in Burma
The situation in Burma is very serious.
In 1990, the NLD (National League for Democracy) won the free parliamentary elections and over 80 % of the seats contested.
The result of those elections has not been respected.
The military regime is still holding on to power, thanks to the state of emergency.
The NLD held its first officially authorized congress on 27 September 1997, shortly after which a large number of the delegates were detained by the SLORC military dictatorship.
What steps is the Commission prepared to take to support the opposition's struggle for democracy in Burma?
As regards the European Union's political position with respect to the Burma question, the first thing I want to assure you is that the common position adopted in October 1996 has been renewed.
In that sense, the European Union is maintaining exactly the same position with regard to what has happened in that country.
Secondly, we have continued to exclude Burma from the benefits of the system of generalized preferences, and are still doing so. As Parliament knows, that was a Commission initiative.
Thirdly, in November the Commission presented the Council with a proposal to postpone the high-level meeting with ASEAN, because ASEAN was insisting that Burma should be there.
The European Union did not accept that, and the meeting was postponed.
I think it is an extremely positive step for us to refuse to continue to work with ASEAN until Burma's position within that group is clarified.
With regard specifically to human rights and democracy, the Commission has set up a Europe-Burma office in Brussels, with the aim of raising public awareness about what is happening in that country. Another aim is to train future leaders, if possible, and to help the Burmese opposition.
Overall, the funding is approximately ECU 950, 000.
Let us hope this office can provide permanent proof that the European Union is firmly committed to Burma, and the situation there.
I am grateful for this clear position from the Commission.
We do not have a difference of opinion. We do not think Burma fulfils the criteria which must exist in order to be able to have economic and trade relations and to have customs privileges for this country.
This is very important since there are European companies, probably also in my own country, which are currently considering whether to start investing in Burma, which would be very serious if it happened.
In the US there has been a ban on new investments since May 1997 because the situation in Burma has not changed.
The EU now has access to the legal framework and the possibility of using economic pressure.
It is therefore important that the EU now leads the way and shows the political will.
It is good that the Commission is entirely in agreement with me that we cannot of course allow European companies to profit from the oppression to which the Burmese State now subjects its inhabitants.
As Mrs Theorin knows very well, the Commission has taken a very firm and clear measure regarding the Burmese Government, which I think Parliament appreciates.
In a globalized economy, we do not have the power to determine where a private company should make an investment. In any case, in view of the situation in south-east Asia, I think it is a bit risky to talk of European investments at the moment.
Not because of the situation in Burma, but because of the general market situation in south-east Asia at the moment.
I should like to ask the Commissioner whether he accepts the legitimacy of the 1990 elections in Burma in which the NLD led by Aung San Suu Kyi were the clear and legitimate winners.
If that is the case, would he agree with me that any new elections likely to be convened by the military junta in Burma would not be accepted as legitimate and therefore would never be accepted as capable of overriding the 1990 results?
The answer is obvious.
Any elections which fail to be free, democratic, transparent and open to international observation will never be recognized, either in Burma or in any other country.
The Commission shares Parliament's concern over the human rights situation in Colombia.
I think there is widespread recognition of the attitude taken towards this issue by the Commission and the European Union in general.
As for the UN Human Rights Office in Bogotá, Colombia at the moment, I should say that the very existence of that office is due to the intervention of the European Union, not just because of the political support we have given, but also because of financial support. Bear in mind that because of the difficulties the United Nations is experiencing, we decided to extend Community funding for the coming year, to allow that Office and Commissioner Mazarrosa to continue working.
As regards the paramilitary groups, especially the so-called Convivir cooperatives, I myself, at a public press conference during my latest official visit to Colombia, made clear what the European Union's position is.
We do not consider any paramilitary activities (specifically including this type of cooperative) to form part of the normal responsibility of a state to guarantee a normal situation, in whichever country.
We think the main thing is to promote peace and peace negotiations, between now and the general elections in May. As I had the chance to say in Colombia, we think that no matter who wins in May, the new government's main political objective must be to negotiate and seek for peace, in a country which is suffering the ill effects not just of drug trafficking, but also of the paramilitary guerilla warfare - which is also partly responsible - and of the internal political situation itself.
It is a very complex and difficult situation, in which I think the European Union can do quite a lot to help the peace process and internal negotiations.
Thank you for your reply.
I agree that the situation in the country is, to say the least, difficult.
So I cannot say that I was particularly pleased to hear that we have an office in the country.
I have also asked a question about a specific person.
I wonder whether I would have an answer to that question.
I also intend to return to this question.
It should come as no surprise to you that the European Union should be the main provider of finance, and should have been responsible for setting up a Human Rights Office in Bogotá - the first of its kind in Latin America.
It was a decision made by the Human Rights Committee in Geneva, together with Mrs Robinson, the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, who is working with us extremely well.
I cannot remember the address now, but it is a well-known public fact that that Office has been in existence for a year.
In autumn 1997 I had cause to criticize a Parliamentary resolution which gave onesided praise to the peace initiative of the Columbian Government without taking a position on the fact that at the same time the Government in Columbia was also bombing civilian targets.
We have now had another reminder of the Columbian Government's duplicity through its arming and use of these paramilitary groups.
It therefore means a lot to be able to interpret the Commission's answer as meaning that it does not share the former Parliamentary majority's illusions and its somewhat naive view of the Columbian Government, but has a more critical attitude towards that Government.
We can be grateful for that.
I agree with the Commissioner that we are all responsible for our own actions, but he seems to have made general statements of concern about human rights in Colombia without responding to any of the specific questions put to him.
I asked you, Commissioner, what you were going to do in terms of direct discussions on the issue of the formation of armed groups to combat the paramilitaries.
I asked if you would seek to increase funding directly to Colombian human rights organizations.
You did not respond to either.
Frankly, your words about support for the UN Office would be a little better received if, during one of your press conferences in Colombia, you had not said that you believed that the Convivir could be steadied and that they could continue to exist on some terms.
Either the report I have read is wrong or you have gone directly against what the person who runs that UN Office is actually recommending, and we finance him.
Please give us some specific answers now and not just general areas of concern.
We are all responsible for our own actions.
I will be very brief, Mr Howitt, because I am not sure whether I have not understood you, or whether you do not wish to understand me.
The one thing I will not do is present a programme to combat the paramilitaries by means of NGOs.
I do not know if I have understood you correctly.
I am not sure if you know what a Colombian paramilitary is.
I get the impression you do not know.
In my opinion, to imagine that it is possible to combat paramilitaries or the paramilitary phenomenon - in Colombia, Algeria or anywhere else - by financing or not financing NGOs, reveals a naivety beyond all political discussion.
I am sorry to have to put it so bluntly.
Secondly, I do not believe I attacked the Human Rights Office in any way at all.
There must have been a misunderstanding here. On the contrary; we are funding it.
Therefore, I would ask you all to follow very closely the policy we are operating towards Colombia, and the progress we are making in a difficult situation.
But please, do not suggest that the Commission should do things that are frankly difficult to accept.
Since the time allocated to questions to the Commission has now expired, Questions Nos 63 to 82 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.30 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Emissions from organic compounds
The next item is the report (A4-0406/97) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on limitation of emissions of volatile organic compounds due to the use of organic solvents in certain industrial processes (COM(96)0538 - C4-0139/97-96/0276(SYN)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Cabrol report on the reduction of VOC emissions is a critical document.
The fact is that the present draft directive will impact on many areas and will have far-reaching effects.
The Commission report states that this initiative will apply to some 400, 000 businesses, including many SMEs, representing a total of 30 branches of industry, and will naturally affect many more consumers.
The cost of this, as we have already heard, will amount to billions of ECU.
The significance and scale of this issue should therefore not be underestimated.
The proposed aim of the directive, namely a two-thirds reduction in VOC emissions, certainly justifies the cost involved.
A reduction of this magnitude over the next few years is a truly ambitious goal.
It is one which deserves our full support and we should not be tempted to soften its impact.
Nevertheless, I would warn against any regulations which overshoot the target in certain areas.
After all, what is the point of imposing stringent limits on ethyl alcohol, a relatively mild surface cleaner, when the use of alternative products, such as non-volatile solvents - which pose a much greater threat to the environment - is left out.
We are all of the opinion that environmental protection should be promoted not primarily through compulsion but rather by incentive.
Let me give you an example from my own country. The switch to low-solvent paints and coatings has meant that solvent consumption in Austria has fallen by about 50 % since 1990.
I therefore advocate this kind of incentive scheme at European level so that limits can be applied in a more flexible way in these areas.
This week we are discussing employment and job migration.
I believe that we should seek to achieve our environmental objectives while at the same time attempting to promote our environmental policy in a moderate way, so that we can continue to sustain our existence in the years to come.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists I would like to give my support to Mr Cabrol and also give him my thanks for his report on the Commission proposal.
This directive to control the emission of VOCs from industrial installations has the support of my group, and I would like to give my personal thanks to the rapporteur for the hard work that he has undertaken and what he has achieved so far.
It is increasingly clear that VOC emissions have an adverse impact upon human health and the environment in general, whether it is by their contribution to creating photochemical smog, ground-level ozone in our atmosphere or stimulating asthma or even cancer in our people.
We have good reason to seek to reduce and control and even eliminate their emission from the industrial installations in which they are used.
Their use is indeed wide-spread and the activities in which they have a role are many and various, so we have sought to set new, stronger limits on their emission in a whole range of larger industrial installations.
As for their wider role in smaller installations, we hope the Commission will come forward as quickly as possible with a proposal to ensure that new low-solvent paints and coatings are used, and other less harmful substances are introduced.
We clearly recognize the difficulties in some industrial sectors in reducing the use of VOCs or changing to effective alternatives and consequently we have allowed a generous time-limit for compliance, which we believe will give adequate time for the necessary change to take place.
We think that the vote of the Environment Committee fully reflected our views and we will be giving our support to all the amendments passed by that committee, particularly those which clarify the provisions of the directive and reduce the scope for the use of national plans, so making the proposal more European-wide and more single market orientated.
Therefore we are unable to accept the additional amendments tabled by some colleagues to the report in the part-session.
In conclusion we hope that the Council and the Commission will accept our views, incorporate them into the proposal and make them a truly worthy part of the European Union's effort to protect the environment, and indeed a shining beacon to the whole world.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, we are discussing an extremely important contribution to the subject of environmental and climate protection.
Professor Cabrol and Mr Bowe have sought to emphasize that volatile organic compounds are chemical substances which easily escape into the atmosphere.
These so-called forerunner substances react naturally with other substances and in doing so they both form and destroy ozone. They therefore participate not only in the formation of the ozone layer but also in its destruction.
We could say that too little of it higher up forms the hole in the ozone layer, while too much of it lower down causes the greenhouse effect.
By reducing these substances at source we can also make a major contribution to climate protection.
I would like to add to what my colleague Mr Rübig has said with the following comments. Approximately 51 % of VOC emissions stem from solvent use.
About 400, 000 EU businesses are affected by European legislation, of which 90 % are SMEs employing around 10 million people.
These figures demonstrate the importance of European regulations for environmental and climate protection, but they also indicate the financial impact which this legislation will have on European industry.
VOC emissions in the European Union are to be reduced by 1.4 million tonnes, or about 67 %, by the year 2007.
The most important measure in this respect is the industry-specific emission limit for new installations.
Existing plant are to be included on a progressive basis.
Exceptions, in the form of reduction schedules, will only be allowed when it can be proved that low-solvent and solvent-free substitutes can be used.
The Commission proposal is therefore a step in the right direction.
The problem facing us is certainly enormous.
National schemes, which the Commission has designated as a third possibility, have in the past proved to be less than effective.
There is a real danger that these are being used as a means of getting round the strict emission limits.
A large majority of the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has therefore elected to remove this option.
It is the opinion of my group that the European Commission has, in other respects, submitted a proposal which is very acceptable to all sides.
We therefore oppose any fundamental amendment to it, whether this be a dilution or an unrealistic tightening of its provisions.
Of course a number of national peculiarities still exist, especially in Austria and Spain, and I would be grateful if the Commission could look again at these issues, since we do not want to see unreasonable developments in this respect.
In recent years all Member States, as well as European bodies, have gradually become convinced of the fact that not all problems can be resolved quite so rapidly.
We now also attach great importance to non-compulsion.
Businesses which act more quickly and with greater spontaneity than is required under the law should also receive appropriate concessions.
I therefore ask quite specifically that we should think about scaling down the amount of administrative bureaucracy applied in this area.
One of the motions which I have submitted concerns this very point.
I would be very grateful if this House could lend its support to our amendments.
Mr President, in this "packed' Chamber, I note on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party that the European jigsaw puzzle of directives which is supposed to improve air quality in Europe is slowly but surely being completed.
The Car Oil programme is at quite an advanced stage.
Last month in Kyoto tough agreements were made.
Today we are talking about the reduction in emissions from organic compounds.
With a jigsaw puzzle, it is important on the one hand that the pieces are all there, and on the other hand, that you have the right pieces.
With respect to these organic compounds this is not quite the case.
What is missing in the puzzle is the piece that regulates paint thinners.
We submitted Amendment No 8, and I would like to ask the Commissioner whether she might be able to repeat the promise which, to my knowledge, she made in the Council: to come up with a proposal for paint products this year, because these thinners are too harmful to health to be sold any longer.
We must be careful when discussing the directive for organic compounds not to reject existing successful national programmes in advance, as suggested in Amendment No 22.
In my country, the Netherlands, there is a voluntary agreement with industry for reducing emissions, which is showing good results.
It would be a pity if this House were to reject these kinds of national programmes, when both the Commission and Council have given them their approval.
My group will therefore not support Amendment No 22.
I ask my colleagues to agree with Amendment No 3.
Requirements for smaller installations should not be less stringent.
VOC emissions are far too serious in these countries.
I note that with this amendment the European airquality puzzle is nearing its completion.
Mr President, it certainly shows the incompetence of European environmental policy that we are now setting limits for VOC emissions some 20 years after one of our Member States, namely the Federal Republic of Germany, introduced laws to control this very problem. I have heard a lot today about the problems facing industry.
Many speakers have mentioned the competitive economy.
Why are we not talking about those whose health has been ruined by chemical products?
Indeed, the fact that we are not doing so is equally disgraceful. I know many people whose lives have been affected by solvents.
Surely it is time for us to create standards which will ensure that fewer people will have their health damaged in the future. After all, we should not forget that costs do not just apply to industry but to our public health service as well, not to mention the many cases of personal suffering and other problems inflicted on those whose health has been impaired in this way.
We are very concerned indeed about the substances being used in the chemical industry and I would ask you, Madam Commissioner, to look into this matter.
Such substances are used a great deal.
We know that they are carcinogenic and we also know that endocrines are involved - and these are quite specific issues which Parliament has also been looking into. It is precisely because of the carcinogenic and oestrogen-like effect of such substances that we must make a start on restricting their use as far as possible and on giving industry incentives to find replacements for them.
This too is a question of competitiveness.
We need to exert pressure for the withdrawal of products which are dangerous and which constitute a threat to health and to the environment.
This would ultimately give us a competitive edge since we would be supplying the market with less dangerous products.
At the moment our primary concern should be to reduce the range of substances used by the chemical industry.
I would ask you, Madam Commissioner, to examine why the Commission is not prepared to follow the European Parliament's tougher approach and why it continues to hide behind the coat-tails of industry.
Let me close with the plea for an immediate reduction in these toxic substances so that appropriate incentives can be offered to the industrial sector.
We should not forget that the European Union has many citizens whose health has been impaired by chemicals, and our concern for them should be equal to - or even greater than - our concern for the interests of industry.
Mr President, I want to start by congratulating Professor Cabrol on his report. In his report he has significantly deepened some of the points in the Commission proposal.
Reducing the amount of organic compounds is necessary for two reasons.
Firstly, because these chemicals cause ozone pollution to the earth's surface, with all the unpleasant consequences for people with bronchial problems.
Secondly, because it has become clear by now that these chemicals are by no means harmless to the people who work with them daily.
Painters, upholsterers, people who work with glue, people who have to clean using acetone are all seriously threatened by these chemicals.
They will have to face psychological illnesses which are often diagnosed too late, and ruin their lives.
These include concentration disorders, insomnia, dizziness, and in the worst case even loss of memory, personality disorders and depression.
These syndromes, which are now known under the name of OPS, organo-psycho syndrome, were for a long time not recognized.
A stop ought to be put to this.
The aim of this draft directive is not to regulate the working conditions within the companies in which these organic compounds are released.
Yet I hope that obligations to reduce them will also make a contribution to combating OPS.
All the same, I would like to call on the Commission to pay attention to this problem as part of EU social policy.
I am less happy with one point in the draft resolution, namely the deletion of implementation of the reduction through national programmes.
The regulation about national plans in Article 5 of the Commission document was by no means worse than the general regulation.
Often national plans are much more effective.
For the rest: excellent advice, which the Council can capitalize on.
Mr President, I am pleased that we have here a proposal which focuses on organic solvents.
These liquid chemicals have a particularly toxic effect on people and the environment.
We should therefore strive to limit their use as much as possible.
For many years, solvents have been suspected of causing brain damage.
As Mr Blokland said, this is seen to a large extent among painters who are in daily contact with these chemicals.
That is where the term 'painter syndrome' comes from.
This experience should be included in the directive which we are considering today, because public health is not just a leisure concept, but is indeed also a topic for the work environment.
In other legislation the connection between the internal and external environment is recognized, and it is therefore a little mystifying that the Commission does not want to recognize the connection in this text. But hopefully the Commissioner will explain that more fully.
I also see a clear connection with the directive on chemical agents for which Freddy Blak is the rapporteur.
I fully support the amendment which was proposed by Mrs van Putten and adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which includes health risks from occupational exposure, and also the amendment which clarifies that Member States which are ahead of the Community with regard to the substitution of dangerous organic solvents can maintain tougher restrictions.
It can only be an advantage to have some who lead the way and so gain experience which benefits everyone.
Mr President, I would like to make one or two supplementary points to what has been already said by my colleague Mrs Breyer.
My first point is that the Commission was heavily insistent on the problems of atmospheric pollution and the role of CFCs as the precursors of tropospheric ozone, but as several colleagues have already pointed out, the risks are multiple.
The negative effects of volatile organic compounds are many.
I lay particular stress on the risks at the place of work, but also on diffused risks, particularly the effects on the reproductive system, which have until now been very widely underestimated.
In brief, this directive is coming at the right time.
It is a shame that these proposals should be so weak, but I shall come back to that in a few moments.
Secondly, the rapporteur rightly drew our attention to the fact that 40 % of waste is the result of do-it-yourself - people working on their homes at the weekend.
Perhaps we should envisage a measure which would promote the use of low solvent-content paints, or at least less harmful solvents, involving, for example, the introduction of an eco-tax.
My third comment is that the Commission's text also raises the question of the costs of the operation, which are enormous.
However, little is said about health expenses.
I would like to give a figure.
On consulting recent literature, I realized that in most European countries, constant franc expenses on health have increased by a factor of 3.5 over 25 years.
This is enormous, because the level of health is by no means clearly better than twenty-five years ago.
Consequently, and here there is no real risk of getting things wrong, we can say that the damage caused by environmental pollution is increasingly having an adverse effect on the health of Europeans. This is ample justification for emergency measures.
I would like to make my last comment in the form of a question to the Commissioner, Mrs Bjerregaard.
It would appear that the Council has already decided on its common position.
This is rather surprising, as Parliament is now in the process of a debate.
Is that true? If the answer is yes, the present debate would itself be a surprising event.
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mr Cabrol for his excellent work, and I would primarily like to go into an issue a number of my colleagues have already discussed, namely the effects of thinners on employees who work with them.
As far as we know, they are used in approximately twenty economic sectors, including the chemical industry, decorating businesses, the metal industry, printing and allied trades, even food, stimulants, and textile industries.
Exposure to these chemicals can lead to tiredness, nausea, palpitations, and other symptoms.
Long-term exposure can lead to irreversible damage to the nervous system, which can manifest itself as forgetfulness, concentration disorders and even loss of identity - in other words, the organic psychosyndrome, OPS.
In the autumn of 1997, the Dutch Government took measures to protect employees in some of the sectors where thinners are used.
In other Member States, namely Sweden, Denmark and Finland, clear legislation for the protection of employees also exists.
Since the introduction of this legislation the number of OPS victims has decreased in these countries in particular.
In some countries OPS is recognized as an occupational illness, but in other Member States no attention is given to OPS.
That is why we amended this directive.
In fact, I submitted a number of these amendments myself, and I am delighted that they have been adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I therefore think that the protection of these OPS victims will have to be incorporated into the Commission's proposal, which deals with public health, but in which this element does not feature at all.
It is an opportunity that the Commission has to grasp now, in anticipation of what the Commission has yet to do between 1999 and 2003, a common programme for the illnesses related to pollution, I understand.
I also hope that the Commissioner can respond to our amendments, and I would be grateful if she could give a reply.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and especially their rapporteurs, Mr Cabrol and Mr Rübig, for the very thorough work on the preparation of this complicated proposal.
What is said is correct: this is a very important proposal, but it is also a very technical proposal.
The main purpose of the directive is to reduce VOC emissions from a long list of industrial activities in which solvents are used.
The emissions of many of the VOCs, as has also been emphasized in the debate here, are directly harmful to human health and should therefore be reduced as much as is technically possible.
The solvents are used, as we have heard, in paints, for cleaning, in the printing industry and for many other things. In all, 20 sectors are affected.
For most sectors, the requirements consist of emission limits and limits on diffuse emissions.
However, businesses may be exempt from these requirements on condition that they achieve the same reduction in emissions in another way. For example, by replacing products with a high solvent content with products containing low levels of solvents, or none at all.
And the proposal also allows Member States to achieve the same targets by methods which are best suited to their national conditions, and which are set out in a national plan.
The Commission has considered the 32 amendments proposed by the Committee on the Environment, and the 15 new amendments proposed by Parliament.
The result of this was that the Commission is able to accept 11 of these amendments either wholly or partly.
The Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 4, 13, 15, 17, 18, 21, 25 and 31. It can accept Amendment No 23 in principle and Amendment No 26 in part.
And, finally, it can partially approve Amendment No 37 (footnote 1). These amendments improve the text with additional background, sensible and logical additional requirements, the removal of possible misinterpretations, improved transparency and an increased level of protection.
I shall not go into details for every one of these amendments, but I would like to give a reason for our attitude to some of them, and so explain the Commission's thinking.
The Commission believes that the Member States should have a certain freedom of action with regard to how they achieve the directive's environmental objectives, which is something several of the speakers here this evening have touched on.
Therefore we cannot support Amendments Nos 6, 19 and 22, which completely remove the possibility of making national plans.
However, as Parliament is no doubt aware, the Council is flexible on reducing the scope of the national plans, and so the Commission can continue to work on that basis, and we will of course take it up in the continued procedure.
Amendment No 16, concerning a duty to replace R40 substances with less harmful substances as soon as possible, is not supported by the Commission because R40 substances are not sufficiently dangerous to require such measures.
The Commission believes that the very strict emission limits which have been set out for these chemicals are a sufficient incentive to seek substitutes for R40 substances.
Since the risk of occupational injury - a question which was raised by Mrs Jensen and Mrs van Putten among others - does not fall within the scope of this proposal, Amendment No 2 and Amendment No 20 cannot be accepted immediately.
On the other hand, the Commission is going to arrange an exchange of information, and I think we should definitely consider using information about this important aspect in this exchange of information, and so Amendment No 17 is acceptable.
Amendment No 7 is not acceptable because the Treaty already contains the necessary provisions to allow Member States to adopt more stringent requirements.
Most of the amendments concerning procedural aspects can be accepted, but two amendments propose that the approval procedure should only be used for plants covered by the IPPC directive.
They are Amendments Nos 10 and 14.
In line with the principle of subsidiarity, Member States should be able to decide freely which procedure - approval or registration - shall be followed in the case of non-IPPC plants.
In two new comments the Commission is called upon to take supplementary initiatives.
The first comment is Amendment No 8, in which Mr Eisma was involved among others, and it concerns the question of a directive on solvent containing products such as paints and DIY products.
The Commission agrees that such an approach could be useful, and intends to set the preliminary work in motion this year.
However, in our opinion it is too early to enter into any commitments before the investigations are complete.
In the other comment, Amendment No 9, the Commission is called upon to examine how plants under the threshold values set in the directive can be regulated at the EU level.
It is not the Commission's intention to supplement this proposal with further measures for small plants.
The Commission has been particularly careful to ensure that unnecessary burdens are not placed on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Consequently, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3 and 28-30, which introduce tougher emission limits or change the scope of the proposal.
Amendments Nos 36, 37 (apart from footnote 1), 38, 42, 43, and 45-47 will either reduce the environmental protection planned in the proposal, or limit the scope of the proposal.
Therefore these amendments cannot be supported by the Commission.
The Commission is certain that its proposal, improved by the addition of many of Parliament's amendments, provides an effective and balanced basis for limiting the pollution of the troposphere by ozone.
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Epidemiological surveillance
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0004/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0437/97-96/0052(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision setting up a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the European Community (Rapporteur: Mr Cabrol.)
Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteur for his detailed explanation of the situation which faces us at the second reading, which I do not intend to duplicate tonight.
Instead, with respect to the few diligent souls still left in the Public Gallery at this hour, I would like to illustrate in a way that is particularly relevant to Members why we need to make some real progress both tonight and in the coming weeks to create a meaningful European network for surveillance and control of communicable diseases.
There is something that most Members do more often than most of our fellow citizens: we fly in aeroplanes.
Put any two Members together and very soon they will start discussing departure lounges and airline schedules.
We do not just fly around Europe, we often move through most of the corners of the globe.
Throughout that globe there are some very risky places, and some of the risk for the unwary or the unprotected is caused by disease.
The disease could be carried in the air, in liquids, bodies, articles or by insects.
Yet in some of the European Union Member States, there are health rules at points of access, in others the rules are very different, despite frequent cross-border transits.
On some airlines measures are taken to protect passengers - for example by spraying cabins - on others they are not.
Information is made available in some states, sometimes accurately and accessibly and in a range of different languages based on a wide range of data.
In such circumstances a close degree of cooperation and coordination makes common sense, not just for travellers and parliamentarians but for all our citizens who need protection in many more ways than the very simple small example I have just set out.
However, the common position returned to this Parliament offers a number of low common denominators.
While agreeing the surveillance network means obligations on Member States, the Council has agreed unanimously only a more general flexible framework for information exchange and coordination of efforts.
Even allowing for Treaty limitations, there are severe concerns that this will be completely insufficient.
After all, the poor status quo brought about these proposals after initial reports showed the weaknesses.
Five years later we still need progress.
Hence the strength of the near unanimous votes in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for the recommendations of the rapporteur.
Mr Cabrol has pursued his extra proposals with his usual vigour and diligence.
It will be of great interest to see whether, assuming Parliament as a whole adopts the recommendation, as I hope it will, in the subsequent conciliation negotiations the minimal stance of the Council and the more progressive and realistic approach of the Commission - which I know places considerable importance on these proposals to the extent of unusually reserving its position - can be reconciled with the more forward-thinking proposals from this Parliament.
It may be that some are too far ahead of their time, and specific European structures may have to await the lessons of the future reports which we will now receive at even more regular intervals than we suggested at first reading.
I am pleased that at least some of our suggestions have already been incorporated.
However, my group will be supporting the argument for a more clearly defined role for the European Union, which goes beyond a couple of officials keeping an eye on development of diseases within our boundaries, or simple supplementation of wider WHO or state networks which may or not be effectively implemented.
The Commission wants the power to be proactive, to study and act upon significant outbreaks wherever they occur and, given the draft Treaty commitments on coherent public health policies across Europe, to take proper coherent action where and when it is needed.
It needs to be sure of accurate, fast, comparable data and that there are no weak links in the chain.
Finally, I hope the whole House will thank Mr Cabrol for pursuing his case.
I now look forward to both the Council and the Commission negotiating seriously and urgently on all the amendments we support to help a meaningful, practical and effective network to be put in place, not to expand bureaucracy but to help tackle some of the worst diseases in the world.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, all the political groups, in keeping with the position already assumed on the first reading, have declared their agreement, in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, with Mr Cabrol's excellent report on the decision to set up a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
As the rapporteur reminded us, the common position is unacceptable and, in fact, the Commission stated that it could not accept its current wording because the text proposed by Council does not have the necessary means to achieve the objective of this programme, which is to collect information on communicable diseases from surveillance networks in the Member States.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has adopted the 22 amendments proposed by the rapporteur almost unanimously, which gives us every hope for a strong and united commitment on the part of the Parliamentary delegation to the conciliation procedure upon which this report is inevitably embarking.
As rapporteur on the health monitoring action programme which ended last year, I noted the Council's hard and short-sighted position on that occasion too. Real force had to be applied during conciliation at that time, because of the Council's opposition to the idea of conducting a feasibility study into setting up a permanent structure to act as a European health observatory, and because of the scant funding proposed.
A central and permanent structure at European level for a network for the epidemiological surveillance of communicable diseases is essential in view of the outbreak of old and new epidemics, and in order to have a fast alarm system that enables Member States to take the necessary and properly coordinated measures.
Unfortunately, Article 129 of the Treaty is contradictory, even in the new Amsterdam wording: on the one hand, in the first point it declares that it wants to ensure a high level of human health protection, but then, further on, the same Article prohibits any kind of harmonization of the laws and regulations of the Member States, thus eliminating the means for any incisive intervention.
However, as we know, pathogens, microbes and viruses do not stop at state borders, and do not observe regulations.
Nevertheless, the proposal made by the rapporteur, whom I congratulate on his clarity, commitment and decision, does not actually imply any amendment to the regulations, but only asks for a structure to be set up to collect available information on communicable diseases, to pass it on to the Member States for the better protection of the health of European citizens.
For these reasons, the Group of the European People's Party will vote in favour of the amendments and the programme.
Mr President, I am delighted that the Amsterdam Treaty on the future of the European Union states that the new provisions on public health protection will be introduced with particular focus on committing the European Union to improving the level of human health.
This provision - Article 152 of the Amsterdam Treaty - is clearly a recognition that the European Union must introduce confidence-building measures in the field of public and human health, in the light of difficulties which arose as a result of the problems relating to BSE and blood-contaminated products in many European states in recent years.
Indeed, Community action which complements national policies shall be directed towards improving public health, preventing human illness and diseases and obviating sources of danger to public health.
Such action shall cover the fight against the major health scourges by improving research into the causes, their transmission and prevention, as well as health information and education.
The Community shall complement the Member States' action in reducing drug-related health damage, including information and prevention.
In particular, the European Union shall adopt measures setting out the highest standards for the quality and safety of organs and substances of human origin, blood and blood derivatives.
However, European Union measures adopted in this sphere shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or introducing more stringent protective measures on this subject.
Finally, I am indeed pleased that the European Parliament has been given the power of codecision by the Amsterdam Treaty, with the European Council of Health Ministers, on all new proposals for European legislation in the area of public health and human health.
I should like to compliment Mr Cabrol on his detailed and excellent report.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I should first like to say that the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left fully supports Mr Cabrol's report. It is an excellent report, which has demonstrated profound and serious contradictions in this area, which is such an important part of the building of Europe.
Now that we have the opportunity to implement Community policies, instruments and responses to problems suffered by the people of Europe, it is unthinkable that we should fail to take advantage of that opportunity, because of difficulties totally unrelated to the matter.
Faced with a problem of this nature - the problem of the growing risk and increased incidence of all types of communicable disease emerging in Europe and elsewhere - we do not see how the Council and the Commission can fail to agree with Parliament, so that we can design appropriate Community instruments.
We also think Professor Cabrol's report states very clearly the relevant points which have to be considered in order to make progress in this respect.
He has the backing of our whole committee.
Therefore, we do not understand why there has been reluctance expressed about this aspect of the building of the European Community, in these areas which do not present a great problem. In fact, both the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam already recognize the European Union's competence in the area of public health.
Therefore, we think efforts should be made to respond to the needs of the European public.
Finally, I think it needs to be stressed that the European socioeconomic model is adding to the difficulties, by creating these problems both within Europe and elsewhere. It should also be revised, to create a model based on solidarity rather than competitiveness and inequality.
Mr President, anyone involved with health knows that the best way to save financial resources and, obviously, human life is prevention. Prevention is not just a question of vaccines, but also requires health education, with information.
Also however, and obviously particularly with regard to communicable diseases, it involves recognizing the danger in time and seeking to reduce its consequences. Curiously enough, the Council is not aware of this, preferring to save a bit of money today, making the Member States run the risk later of having to face an epidemic with possibly huge expenses.
This is obviously very serious, particularly as we would once again miss the opportunity of providing Europe with the image (which is the only thing of interest to citizens) of a supranational organization that deals with their wellbeing.
We can go ahead and make the citizens pay the consequences of the Maastricht parameters for the euro by saying that we cannot spend money to ensure their health. I think this would be a serious mistake.
I am delighted that in our vote in committee we were able unanimously to appreciate Mr Cabrol's report and all its amendments.
I hope that this House will do the same, and that the Commissioner will support Parliament's work and manage to convince the Council this time to do what has to be done in our Europe.
Mr President, I think at this stage in the debate several things have become clear.
One is that this Parliament is fortunate enough to have an excellent rapporteur who combines his professional abilities with the political authority to have been able to prepare this report, with contributions from all sides of the House.
I also think this is a very important message for the European Commission.
We all have great faith in Commissioner Flynn's negotiating skills. He has often demonstrated his strength of mind and capacity for hard negotiations with the Council.
Parliament will not fail to give him its support here.
We must also send a clear message to the Council.
We do not understand why they should be so little inclined to increase these demands, which represent a practical and heartfelt necessity which would benefit all our citizens.
The Council should not view the transfer of powers as a loss. They should see it for what it is, as defined in the Treaties: a way to share these powers, the better to help and protect the right to good health of every member of the public.
That is one of the obligations of all governments, and appears in our constitutions.
This should also be a call to governments as regards their budgetary provisions for preventative medicine, which are very low at present. In the best cases, the proportion is 2.4 % of the health budget, and in some countries only about 0.4 %.
That is very little.
Furthermore, the public has lowered its guard, because it has too much faith in the effectiveness of pharmacological methods, especially antibiotics. Even in the hospitals, the medical staff themselves had failed to attach enough importance to cross-infections, which has led to a major increase in this problem.
In view of all this, it is our duty to let our citizens see that the European Union can be efficient in this field.
The example of the exponential growth of AIDS shows that the principles of preventative medicine and compulsory safety measures have not been properly applied.
Mr Commissioner, I beg you when the time comes to approve the agreement on the common external frontier - if we are ever able to approve it - to please make sure that the compulsory external health ruling is included. It is an essential component of the network currently being planned.
Mr President, I wish to pay proper tribute to Mr Cabrol whose work in committee has been outstanding.
He is, after all, a man who has today only asked for a railway network, and we are offering and the Council is offering not even a green light on the signal.
It really is not good enough.
I do not think the common position of the Council in any way seriously reflects Parliament's amendments.
I should like to draw the lessons which we should already have drawn from the CJD and BSE crises.
That was something we had no foreknowledge of.
We suddenly found ourselves confronted with a disease, or a variant of a disease, which hitherto had been apparently unknown to science.
Where were we? We were in a muddle!
We were in a mess! We have seen the destruction of the European beef industry and justifiable undertaking of protection for the public health of Europe's citizens.
That is something we ought to learn lessons from, and the obvious one is that there should be a surveillance network.
As Mr Cabrol says, information collected about communicable diseases will not come together by magic: there has to be a mechanism by which this is achieved.
I contend that should be by a centre, and that is fundamental to Mr Cabrol's report.
We need that centre to coordinate information.
There is also Mrs Marinucci's point on costs and comparative costs. What if we do nothing?
Are we going to wait yet again for another CJD-type outbreak and take all the consequences again? What kind of criticism will be made of us as parliamentarians, of the European Commission and indeed of the Council?
We ought to learn that lesson and give the green light to Mr Cabrol's report.
Firstly, I thank Parliament for the work that it has done on this issue.
I particularly want to express my thanks to you, Mr Cabrol, for the very valuable work that you have undertaken, right from the very beginning of this process.
We are all convinced of the necessity for the European Union to develop its activities in this field and, in particular, to introduce a formal mechanism to share not only information on communicable diseases, but to ensure that a coherent approach is taken with regard to control measures.
We are all clear that the European Community needs this network.
The need to have comparable and reliable data on the evolution of diseases such as CreutzfeldtJakob Disease through all of Europe is an obvious example of the importance of having a comprehensive network properly put in place.
But let me give you another example taken from the latest issues of many European newspapers which reflect the anxieties and fears of our citizens: this is the new Hong Kong chicken flu.
Although, until now, this has affected only a limited number of people, there is much concern about this new flu strain.
It is called influenza AH5N1.
It appears that nobody is immune to this particular strain. It is not covered by the 1998 vaccine produced with the advice of the WHO.
Without a Community network, there would be no possibility of monitoring new cases at Community level and no possibility of defining and coordinating control measures for travellers coming from the Hong Kong region.
Moreover, should there be an epidemic, we do not know how quickly a vaccine could be produced on a large scale and whether we would have to distribute, on a preventive basis, the only specific drugs available.
This example illustrates why we strongly believe that this network must not restrict itself just to surveillance, but also encompass control measures.
We want to create a system which makes it possible to take rapid and effective action.
We want a system which enables the Community to define protective measures which have to be taken, particularly in situations of emergency.
We want a system which is not only comprehensive on paper but, in fact, which works in practice.
This means that it has to be built up in a gradual and pragmatic way.
In view of this and despite some specific improvements added by the Council, we have had to enter a general reservation regarding the common position, as the text did not give us the means to respond effectively and in a coordinated fashion to epidemics or outbreaks of communicable diseases in a Community without internal borders.
So the Commission has been very carefully examining the proposed opinions and all the amendments.
I am pleased to see that they accord very much with the views of the Commission on how the final text of this decision should look.
I can inform the House that we are willing to accept either wholly or in part 17 of the amendments; 14 can be accepted in full.
They are: Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 19, 20 and 22.
For the other three - Amendments Nos 14, 18 and 21 - the Commission will follow Parliament's suggestions, but with an improved wording.
Let me explain the reason why we consider the remaining five amendments unacceptable.
Amendment No 1 refers to one recital which, in our view, does not reflect properly the variation in surveillance capacity in the Member States.
Regarding Amendment No 3, the Commission, as it has stated on the very first reading, believes that rather than restricting the choice of methodologies to the established ones, the possibility must be left open for the development of new and more effective methodologies.
As to Amendment No 16, the Commission feels that it is necessary for the coordination of measures by the Member States to come under the comitology procedure mentioned in Article 6.
Therefore a reference to that effect must be made in the fourth paragraph of Article 5.
Concerning Amendment No 17, the Commission feels that two representatives from each Member State must sit on the committee so as to ensure coverage of both the surveillance and the control branches of the national authorities.
Let me turn to Amendment No 5, specifically mentioned by the rapporteur, on a European Centre for the surveillance of communicable diseases.
I fully understand and appreciate the motivation and concerns that have been expressed.
I share the aim of wanting to reinforce the capacity of the Community to deal with communicable diseases.
However, this aim has to be achieved in the most practical and straightforward manner and, in particular, it has to take into account the work which has already been undertaken and the structures which already exist in the Community.
There are already national centres in existence, many of them with considerable experience and expertise in this field.
There are also several effective disease-oriented networks which are capable of swinging into action quite quickly - something which is crucial for the control of communicable diseases, especially in certain local settings.
In our view it is much better to build upon and strengthen what already exists and has proved to be working well, rather than to start from scratch and construct a totally new and untried organization.
This is especially the case with the advent of powerful information technologies which improve our capacity to communicate effectively.
The Community is investing heavily in linking the national administrations for a variety of joint functions. Communicable diseases surveillance and control is one of these.
For these reasons we cannot accept the amendment.
Let me just repeat once again my deep appreciation to Parliament and to you, Mr Cabrol, for your efforts and for the close collaboration with the Commission on this particular issue.
I hope I have explained the Commission's position.
I trust that before very long we will have this new network. It will certainly be a great advance in the development of public health in the Community as soon as it is brought into effect.
Mr President, it is a point of information arising from what the Commissioner has just said.
I would like to know from the Commissioner how this network is to be coordinated and by whom across the Union?
Mr President, it will in the initial position be coordinated by the Commission.
I do recognise the point you make, Mr White, that later on when we have further experience it may need to be developed further in the way that you have suggested.
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Biocidal products
The next item is the report (A4-0011/98) by Mrs K. Jensen, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the placing of biocidal products on the market (C4-0679/97-00/0465(COD)).
Mr President, when the European Parliament hopefully approves the Conciliation Committee's report on this directive, we will ensure risk assessment at a European level of chemicals which have so far not been covered by other environmental regulations.
You could say that it is the last major link in the chain of chemical directives which the EU has embarked on introducing, but it is also the last chemical directive from the time before people really began to take a position on chemicals which act like hormones.
It is a matter we shall return to with the report on hormone-like substances.
The reason I am mentioning this problem is, of course, because I have a little nagging doubt about the extent to which the directives we have now are sufficiently comprehensive in their environmental protection.
The biocides directive will provide more safety because it will be easier for citizens to handle these chemicals correctly, and water and soil should also be positively affected by the environmental protection which will come into effect.
Transparency in the EU should also win with this directive.
The Council was caught red-handed when it sent the common position to Parliament without the declarations, 14 in all, on the protocol adopted by the Council or jointly by the Council and the Commission.
That sort of thing is not acceptable in an EU which is open and where legislation is adopted jointly by the Council and Parliament.
Under the conciliation procedure it is clear that these declarations have no value with regard to the biocides directive, and in future it will be the case that legislation appears in the Act and not in another place beside it.
That is an obvious advantage for the public, including industry.
Under the conciliation procedure we have obtained an assurance that a complete technical dossier for the socalled low risk products will be presented, and that this will not be able to include substances which in themselves may give cause for concern.
At the same time, we have been given an explanation of what is meant by basic substances which are sometimes used as biocides and should be labelled as such, namely carbon dioxide, nitrogen, ethanol, 2-propanol, acetic acid and kieselguhr.
We have also had our requests granted with regard to the filling in of the new annexes which the Council sought to introduce with the common position.
The annexes can no longer be called blank cheques because the institutions' modus vivendi on informing the European Parliament in full will be adhered to, but you may of course wonder whether it might take some time to get this confirmed.
The directive is a pioneer in one area in particular - the assessment of alternatives.
This ensures that very dangerous substances do not come onto the market if there is a less harmful substance which can be used for the same purpose.
This approach should be introduced into all the chemicals directives because it safeguards our surroundings and health at the same time as promoting technological development.
The biocides directive has been criticized in some parts of industry for being too expensive.
To that we can say that industry has a lot of the information about chemicals and products anyway.
Long transitional arrangements have been built into the directive, and Parliament has even had a "fast track procedure' inserted which should not compromise the necessary environmental requirements.
Mr President, firstly I want to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, for this work, which has taken her months and has always had our support.
She has mentioned the subject of Council declarations, which are becoming frequent in codecision procedures.
And once again in this Parliament, we must reject them outright, because they contravene the spirit and the letter of the Treaties, and are an obvious misrepresentation which this Parliament will never be able to accept.
Secondly, I think all the institutions have things to learn from the negotiations which arise from codecision.
Here in Parliament, perhaps we should have presented fewer amendments at the first reading, in order to focus more attention on the essential points.
The Commission, for its part, had still not realized the meaning of the codecision procedure and Parliament's new responsibilities.
It resisted meeting Parliament's basic demands right up until the last moment. Parliament could not hand over a blank cheque for something as important as the definition of active substances.
I think the Council will also have to change its working methods. The codecision procedure is pretty revolutionary, and the Council will have to change the way it has been working.
It always tries to keep a low profile, although that goes against the spirit of the Treaties. The Council will have to get used to deciding by majority, even if it is a qualified majority.
In that way, the procedures can be speeded up instead of being delayed.
I also think there is a very clear message which it is important to convey to all the people of Europe. That is, that this Parliament makes use of the powers and responsibilities which are increasingly bestowed upon it by the Treaties.
The promises contained in the Treaty articles on guidelines to provide the highest levels of protection for people's health and for the environment are going to be fulfilled - in each and every one of the proposals. The people of Europe can rely on that.
Of course, the free movement of goods must also be made a reality.
Establishing specific centralized systems, such as for the approval of active substances, benefits everybody. It means that experiments (including animal experiments) are not duplicated; approval procedures can be more easily guaranteed; and arguments and suspicions between Member States can be avoided.
Therefore, mutual recognition is another added value provided by Community procedure.
Finally, I think the message to all the people of Europe is that our procedure may be complex, and we may be asking for the codecision procedure to be improved and speeded up (which the Treaty of Amsterdam has done to some extent), but despite all the difficulties, the relationship between the Commission, the Council and Parliament in the codecision procedure is working better and better all the time. That is a very positive message for all our citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission would like to thank Parliament and especially the excellent rapporteur, Mrs Kirsten Jensen, and the Council for the progress which has been made during the conciliation procedure with this draft directive which adds a substantial new element to EU legislation on chemicals.
The purpose of the directive is, as we know, to harmonize the single market for products containing biocides, and to ensure a high level of protection for people and the environment.
In connection with the second reading, Parliament adopted five amendments.
Three of these amendments were unacceptable to both the Commission and the Council.
But, as has also been emphasized here this evening, the subsequent conciliation procedure has borne fruit, and the Conciliation Committee has reached agreement on a compromise solution which is now before Parliament.
The Council has already given that solution its approval, and I think and hope that Parliament will do the same.
With regard to Amendments Nos 18 and 19 on the simplified procedure in connection with Annex 1A and 1B, I am convinced that the proposed compromise solution will fulfil the aims of these two annexes, namely to simplify the administration of the directive without reducing the level of heath and environmental protection.
Parliament wanted to make sure that the modus vivendi was followed in connection with the comitology procedure for the inclusion of active substances in these annexes.
The Commission is entirely in agreement with Parliament that the decisionmaking process should be absolutely transparent, and it will do its utmost to put this into practice.
The Commission has promised to present a proposal for the revision of the comitology settlement at the beginning of June 1998.
We believe that with this undertaking, which President Santer confirmed on 11 November 1997 in a letter to the President of Parliament, we have accommodated Parliament's reservations in this area, as was emphasized by Mr Valvarde López.
As far as Parliament's Amendment No 17 is concerned, I am satisfied that the Conciliation Committee has reached agreement on a time-limit of 24 months for the incorporation of the directive into national law.
To sum up, I would like to stress again that the Commission can fully support the compromise solution on which agreement was reached during the conciliation procedure, and I would like to end by once more thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Kirsten Jensen.
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Cohesion and the information society
The next item is the report (A4-0399/97) by Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission communication on cohesion and the information society (COM(97)0007 - C40044/97).
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the starting point of any study of the setting up of the information society within the European Union has to be the fact that things are uneven at the present time. In the near future, this unevenness can lead to imbalances in terms of competitiveness and cohesion, thereby cancelling out the benefits which the use of new technologies can provide in terms of cost.
This unevenness occurs in the basic infrastructure of the information and communications technologies, and in the cost and reliability of advanced services.
Such unevenness is producing quantitative and qualitative inequalities, especially in the so-called cohesion countries, where there are basic shortages.
Availability and ease of access are prerequisites for being able to enjoy the benefits provided by the development of the information society.
And availability and cost are precisely the factors which at the moment are tending to widen this gap between the European regions, consolidating a situation of quantitative inequality between rich and poor areas.
This can be illustrated by an example: there is now almost universal access to the public telephone exchange network, but there are still substantial differences in the quality of the services.
As regards advanced services, progress has been made with cellular telephones (including GSM) but there is still great variation in the availability of rented lines or advanced exchange lines, and with the on-line digital network service.
Charges are generally higher in the cohesion countries than in the more advanced countries of the Union. Similarly, the number of personal computers is lower.
In 1995 there were 15.2 PCs for every 100 inhabitants in the most developed regions of Europe, compared with 3.1 in Greece, 8.6 in Spain, 6 in Portugal and 8.9 in Italy.
This structural weakness, and high costs, hinder the development of regional small and medium-sized enterprises, whose capacity for initiative is lower than that of large companies, and who have less opportunity to obtain strategic information.
Telephone, electricity and cable companies, and others, who market ICT applications, have opted to seek the maximum economic return in the short term. This means that the costs to the consumer have little relation to the real costs, which inhibits the growth of new technologies, especially in the less well-off regions - specifically, the cohesion countries.
The skill levels of human resources are also uneven.
The information society opens up new possibilities for people to gain qualifications, because not only does it mean new teaching instruments, but in particular it also means that sources of knowledge can be almost universally available. This marks the end of that unequal situation whereby a student in a small city is at a disadvantage compared with another in a great metropolis, with access to technical, scientific and history libraries.
To a large extent, the opening up of these possibilities promises to lead to the decentralization of sources of culture, and an increasing number of centres for the diffusion of culture. In the medium term, this can contribute to social cohesion.
However, if the structural weaknesses of the school systems are not taken into account, the inequalities may increase.
The possibility that investments may be delayed in certain regions means there may be a polarization between those who have information and those who do not.
To avoid such polarization, we need political action to tackle the profound structural changes imposed by the information society, in working practices, methods of business organization and public administration.
That policy is partly lacking, as shown by the fact that only 2 % of the structural funds are spent on investment in the telecommunications sector.
The cost of the information society should be part of the "mainstreaming' of the structural funds.
In fact, the structural funds have played a central role in laying the foundations of the information society, despite the lack of investment.
But we need an integrated approach, to satisfy public administration, the teaching system, industry and consumers.
In conclusion, I want to point out that for the sake of cohesion, charges to consumers and costs to businesses need to be set at a reasonable level. Similarly, access to modern information tools, particularly the Internet, cannot be based on private individuals purchasing PCs or other equipment, but requires easily accessible work stations for the public to share, and the consequent funding of an open telecommunications network.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the Commission's timely communication on cohesion and the information society has received an important response from Parliament in the form of Mrs Sierra González' report, which is extremely accurate and detailed, and focuses precisely on the set of problems which concern us.
It is no surprise to me that Mrs Sierra González' report logically tackles what I believe to be the crux of the problem - and the aspect that worried the Commission when they sent us this communication about the information society and cohesion.
For Mrs Sierra González begins her report by talking about competitiveness.
And the fundamental idea behind cohesion today (which many people do not understand properly) is the ability to generate competitiveness in those regions which are strategically less well advanced, so they can be brought up to the same level as the other regions.
That is the fundamental aspect, not the almost religious connotations which some people like to attribute to the concept of cohesion.
We are talking about an instrument - the information and communications technologies - which is fundamental to the future development of competitiveness, and to an increased quality of life for our citizens. To achieve that competitiveness, the immediate requirement in the less favoured regions is for small and medium-sized enterprises to be able to equip themselves properly, so that they can rise to the challenges of competition, stabilize their businesses today and in the future, and guarantee job stability.
The net result will be to create cohesion - competitiveness, in other words.
It is hard to see how any small business in a less favoured region can survive the challenge without introducing electronic commerce, for example.
It is difficult to imagine that a small or medium-sized enterprise could engage in research and innovation without having a fully operational system of information and communications technologies.
Well, how effective are all these discussions we hold in this Parliament? What is the basic factor needed in order to plant the information society firmly within European society?
Let us be realistic.
The Commission's wish to include activities connected with information and communications technologies in the structural funds, as a significant part of them, is obvious and highly commendable. However, possible actions by the Commission or using the structural funds will not exhaust the market.
The market has a mind of its own and is extremely powerful. It is a veritable superpower compared with the potential of subsidies from the European institutions.
Therefore, we need to make it quite clear that at the moment the main stumbling block hindering the information society's insertion into society is the charges set by telephone, electricity and cable companies seeking maximum returns in the shortest possible time. And that is what I want the Commissioner to think about with us, although the idea is not new to her.
I would like her to consider the extent to which the European Commission is prepared to sit down at the table with these operators, as one of their most important customers, and make them bring their prices down to realistic levels which will allow demand to increase, and will give easy access to everybody, no matter which European region they happen to be in. I would also like her to consider how far the Commission is prepared to go in fulfilling its responsibilities, not just by making it possible to act through the structural funds, but also sending out a serious message that will persuade these companies to allow everybody to have access to these services, which are so vital for the present and the future.
If that cannot be done, we are just designing the new shape of European inequality.
The Commissioner knows that very well, which is why I am not presenting this as a complaint, but just asking for her help and collaboration.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I was going to say that we are rather a select band of debaters this evening but colleagues are coming out of the background; perhaps the information society is working indeed.
First, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the broad thrust of her report on cohesion and the information society.
There can be little doubt of the importance of information and communication technology - the information society - to our economy and to our lifestyle.
In particular it opens up all manner of possibilities for remote rural areas, for ultra-peripheral islands and poorer less favoured regions with a low density of population and limited transport infrastructure.
In my constituency of Devon and East Plymouth which contains cities and isolated farming communities there are numerous ICT projects in hand: for distance learning, for academic exchanges of information with the universities in other Member States, for training, for business such as a satellite link ISDN video for cattle auction by remote bidding or for telesales operations.
The Internet for both recreational study or for business use is catching on fast in our part of the world.
All of this adds up to the possibility of job creation and business start-ups which do not have to be subsidized, which leads me to say that if I were to find fault with any part of Mrs Sierra González' report it would be where it suggests any intervention in the pricing and the market mechanism of the information society, or where it suggests additional spending in the European budget beyond existing lines for structural funds and the cohesion fund.
The best way to expand ICT in Europe is to let market forces and technology get on with it.
Competition and customers are powerful forces for growth and for better services.
There is not enough money in the European budget to pay for all the items on the shopping list, or should I say "wish list' , of spending proposals in this report.
By all means ask for a greater proportion of structural funds to be spent on this instead of something else, but let us be realistic about not asking for more money when it is not there.
Instead let us agree that ICT holds out great promise for disadvantaged regions, and the forces of competition and technology will deliver.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I think we should congratulate ourselves on the fact that the Committee on Regional Policy is talking about the information society and the effect it will have on European cohesion.
We need to stress the impact the information society will have on the new activities which will be developed in industry, trade and services, and on overcoming the frontiers and borders between Member States.
Nor must we forget what the information society will mean for training, now that we talk of life-long training or continuing training.
The information society removes the need for teachers and students to be in the same place at the same time.
It is possible to be taught in your own home, by a teacher from another place and time.
The information society offers a wide range of opportunities. However, those opportunities must be available to all the people of Europe if we really want cohesion at European level.
The opportunities should exist throughout the whole extent of the European Union, including rural, peripheral and island zones.
There is a lot of talk about information superhighways.
I would prefer to use the term "information roads' or "information routes' .
Superhighways, or motorways, often charge tolls - not in Germany, Madam Commissioner, but in other countries.
If we want information to reach every location, it should travel by roads which do not have tolls, but are open to all.
Therefore, I am very pleased with Mrs Sierra González' report, because it talks about the potential limitations to the information society, in the sense that it may fail to benefit everybody, and that those responsible for its development may seek nothing more than financial profitability.
We already know that such financial profitability, like toll motorways, will only form links between major population centres, leaving many others marginalized. That is not what should happen with the information society we want for the European Union.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, no-one doubts that the new information and communication technologies can have positive effects on education and training, on changing times and the organization of work, on business modernization at the most varied levels, and consequently on people's increased opportunities for free time and leisure.
However, I have several reservations to add to the somewhat rosy-coloured picture painted by the Commission with regard to the relationship between cohesion and the so-called information society, especially because, in a context in which state responsibility is declining, owing to the privatization of companies and services which at the outset might be in a better position to deal with the problems that might affect the less developed regions, it is difficult to see how the prospect of a large and easy profit is compatible with the universality and fairness of citizens' rights and the objects of inter-regional and inter-State cohesion within our Union.
The report draws attention to the dangers that uncontrolled, unregulated growth of such an information society might cause, by creating new and deeper divisions in the economic and social development between rich and poor regions.
Such divisions might relate to: differences in infrastructure and access to information; discrepancies in the opportunities for gaining access to education and training - promoting and accentuating new forms of exclusion; or costs that might affect small and medium-sized enterprises in the cohesion countries and the respective most backward regions.
This could accentuate trends towards industrial delocalization, or even raise doubts as to the consequences, quality and stability of employment. Furthermore, the mass of information available might not relate to the specifically regional and/or national cultures, traditions and requirements, in aspects ranging from the content of such information to appropriate linguistic use.
The recommendations set out in the report drawn up by Mrs Sierra González - whom I congratulate warmly although there are no more than half a dozen of us here - the recommendations set out in the report, as I was saying, for the structural funds to play a far more substantial part in the materialization and construction of infrastructures, in education, training and research-related aspects, naturally deserve our full support.
The same support should be given to the proposal that, in the division and respect for their respective populations, the governments of the Member States should be responsible for defining and regulating the context in which universal access to information and provision of public services should be provided.
Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteur for her excellent report and the Commissioner for her interest and, indeed, involvement in this important issue.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for grasping the importance of the information technologies in reducing the environmental burden of development actions, for example by reducing the need for mobility or the need for transport infrastructures.
In particular, I refer to paragraph 20 which recommends that the total or partial substitution of 'physical' investments by the supply of adequate telecommunications services in such a way as to minimize the cost of investment and the constraints on the environment be systematically included as part of the evaluation process of investments financed by the structural funds and be a substantial part of the national programmes as presented in the framework of these funds.
I should also like to stress that the information technologies should not create greater regional and social disparities: they should contribute to reducing such disparities.
Therefore, existing imbalances and discrepancies between core and peripheral regions should be counterbalanced by giving special stress to the setting up of information highways and facilities in the peripheral regions.
Unless we take action in this regard, there is a risk that these opportunities will not be available in the peripheral regions and that differences will become even greater.
So we need to take proactive measures in regard to this.
The information society should continue to be considered as services of general interest, and investment in information infrastructures should comply with the principles of equality, continuity and affordability so that market logic does not discriminate against the needs for access to information of peripheral regions and vulnerable social groups.
If the benefits that the information society would make accessible to every citizen in the European Union are to achieve optimum advantages, the costs must be set at a reasonable level.
I take the point made by Mr Chichester in this regard, but we must ensure that they are set at reasonable levels.
In particular, I would ask not just the Commission but the Council to be involved here and to ensure that the suppliers of education, particularly to schools, allow free access.
Hardware is one thing, software is another: but the actual telecommunications providers are often either the state or some kind of monopoly.
They can well afford to provide low-level or free access to schools.
It would be an extremely important achievement throughout the Union if our young citizens got free access to these services at a training level.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I come from a country which is not particularly rich, and which is on the edge of Europe.
I was born on an island where the children did not have all the equipment that was available to children born for example in Athens, the capital of Greece, or indeed in other large cities of Europe.
On this island, as on the other Greek islands, illness was and is a much bigger problem than it is in Athens or in any other large European urban centre. Why am I saying all this?
I am saying it because I believe the information society provides some answers to problems of this kind.
Children can connect up to the Internet and have access to information, something which could not even be imagined a few years ago.
Tele-medicine can provide an answer to some serious health problems.
The new prospects for commerce and economic life may keep people in the peripheral regions.
However, this is not something which will happen automatically.
The information society will not suddenly appear in the remote and island regions tomorrow morning just because we are debating it here.
There need to be policies to maximize the advantages offered by the information society and, at the same time, to limit its dangers, making the information society a humane society, a society of equal opportunities. I think that is the desire of all of us in this House.
So what do I believe? I believe that it is necessary to move perhaps even more quickly towards the liberalization of telecommunications, since this will help towards speedier and cheaper access for everybody to the opportunities of the information society.
Nor let us forget that the more widespread the use, the cheaper the purchase.
I also believe that we must ensure that there is information available in as many languages as possible, because this is an issue which is related to equality of opportunity, to enable everyone to have access to this new world which is being opened up.
At the same time, I believe we must make use of the resources of the structural funds, especially in the new period of 2000 to 2006, so that we can introduce information technology into schools and public sector services (an essential step for the modernization of education and public administration), promote the new technologies on the islands and in the inaccessible and remote regions (using it in tele-education and telemedicine), and take advantage of available resources and professional training to bring about familiarization with the new world of knowledge and information.
I think Agenda 2000 is an opportunity for us to take a serious look at the issue, since I think that essentially the second Delors Package has finished - it finishes in 1999 - in view of the Salter Package.
I think we can look at this matter closely, Madam Commissioner.
Thank you, Commissioner Wulf-Mathies.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.00 pm.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Tuesday 13 January have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, it is stated in the Minutes that over the last ten years the US dollar has been devalued by 50 %, causing the loss of 18 million jobs.
In fact only 1.3 million jobs have been lost.
Mr Rübig, I think you are referring to the verbatim report of proceedings.
However, we shall look into the matter.
(The Minutes were approved)
Membership of political groups
I must inform you that Mr Kerr is now a member of the Green Group in the European Parliament, with effect from 1 January 1998.
Mr President, I just wanted to thank you for that announcement and to point out that in yesterday's minutes that I am listed as being part of the Socialist Group.
I know that this will be a great embarrassment to my leader, Pauline, and I therefore would ask you to correct that.
(Laughter )
Thank you very much, Mr Kerr.
The Minutes will be corrected.
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
The next item is the voting on objections concerning the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Mr President, a point of order before we vote on the objections introduced regarding matters of urgency, on the one hand from the Green Group regarding Tibet, and on the other the Liberal Group, regarding Kenya.
Our group is in agreement with these objections, but as the two groups did not announce them at the Conference of Presidents, we have not been able to submit our group's resolutions on the same subject for review.
Thus, if you are in agreement, I would like our resolutions B4-1476/98 regarding Tibet and B4-0084/98 regarding Kenya, also to be submitted to the vote which is going to take place.
We will deal with the matter immediately.
British Presidency and the situation in Algeria
The next item is the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the British Presidency's programme, and the situation in Algeria.
Mr Cook has the floor.
Mr President, President of the Commission and honourable Members, the Luxembourg Presidency demonstrated yet again that the smallest nations of Europe are the equals of the largest.
Its presidency was capable, efficient, and dynamic.
It is a hard act to follow.
I understand that it is traditional for the incoming presidency to begin its speech to the European Parliament by saying that at this moment Europe is at a particularly important stage in its development.
I understand why they do that.
After all, it is always true.
And it is good that successive presidencies approach their task with that sense of excitement, because the advantage to Europe of a rotating presidency is that every new presidency brings its own new national drive, a new range of experience, and a new determination to make its mark.
Britain has the privilege of holding the presidency as Europe takes two real historic steps.
In the next six months our presidency will act as pilot both to economic and monetary union and to the enlargement process with the Central Europeans and Cyprus.
These are momentous projects.
The British Presidency will work closely with the European Parliament to give both economic and monetary union and enlargement the best possible start.
Both of us - Parliament and presidency - have a duty to Europe and to our electors to work together in cooperating for a successful launch of both projects.
When the new Labour Government in Britain was elected in May, we promised we would transform our relations with Europe.
We have done that.
Britain is now a committed player in Europe.
(Applause) We believe that when Europe works together the result is better for every country in Europe.
The problems we face are common problems which demand common solutions.
Problems like global warming and international crime are not ones that any one nation can solve on its own.
Today nations are as interdependent as they once were independent.
The world has changed since the times of Monnet, Spaak and Schuman, but every change has made their vision of European cooperation more compelling than before.
Britain wants to use its presidency to create an effective and inclusive Union that is open to the whole of Europe.
That is why we are so concerned to make a success out of economic and monetary union and enlargement.
We also want to build a Union that responds to the real concerns of the European peoples.
That is why we want to take forward work on jobs, the environment and crime.
We want to make the Union efficient, so we will focus on the reform agenda and start to prepare the European Union for the challenges of the next century.
And we want to make it a more effective voice in the world, so we will be working to improve the performance of the common foreign and security policy.
The new British Government is committed to making a success of European cooperation, and our presidency will be an affirmation of this.
Economic and monetary union will be a most momentous step.
During our presidency the key decision will be made on who qualifies for Stage Three of EMU - which currencies are to be locked together in the single currency.
The European Parliament will, of course, have a key role to play in that decision.
Britain will be in the chair when the crucial decision is made next May.
We will discharge this responsibility to the best of our abilities, fully and scrupulously, in a way that we hope will show Europe at its most constructive best.
We want economic and monetary union to be a success.
Britain itself will not be in the first wave, but that does not mean that we have no interest in the success of monetary union.
Our economy is bound up in that of the continent and we have as much reason as any country of the continent to work for a successful launch.
We are also committed to making enlargement a success.
The Luxembourg Summit opened the road to enlargement.
Now it falls to us to get the process moving ahead down that road.
During the British Presidency we will be launching the Accession Process for all applicants, as well as starting negotiations with those countries that want to join the European Union.
It is a process in which the European Parliament will have a crucial role to play.
We must be sure to work together, because enlarging the European Union is an historic opportunity, both for Europe and for the new Members.
It will give an immense boost to all our economies.
It will create a wider, stronger Europe.
It will fulfil the challenge set eight years ago when the Iron Curtain was brought down and will enable us to create a prosperous, self-confident and more stable Europe.
We have got rid of the Iron Curtain.
It is important that we do not tolerate in its place a velvet curtain which separates the affluent nations of Western Europe from poorer countries on its borders in central and eastern Europe.
The last 50 years of division in Europe have been an aberration in our history.
In the history of Europe its great cultural figures, such as Mozart, Chopin, Goethe or Voltaire, would not have recognized a concept of a Europe that was divided in the way it has been in the past 50 years.
It falls to our generation to have the great opportunity of finally ending that division by opening the doors of the European Union to the new democracies of central and eastern Europe.
We have two important but practical objectives for the British Presidency on enlargement.
First, to get the actual negotiations off to a flying start.
And, second, to help those who have further to travel - to make sure that all the applicant countries feel included in the process.
We will continue to provide support along the way to all those applicants: support to help them to reform their economies, privatize their state-owned corporations, strengthen their public administrations.
That is why Britain itself will be assisting in providing training for some of the negotiators on the side of the Central European countries that are applying.
We are assisting in the training of their negotiators because we believe these negotiations are not confrontational or adversarial.
These negotiations have one common purpose: to make a success of enlargement.
The inaugural meeting of the European Conference will be held on 12 March in London.
It will be a visible demonstration of the inclusive Europe we want to build.
We also want it to be a substantive meeting, discussing issues that matter to all our peoples, both in the Member States and the candidate countries alike - on the environment, drugs and organized crime.
The prospect of Cyprus joining the European Union offers us the opportunity of contributing to peace and the prosperity of all of the people of that island.
The European Union firmly supports the United Nations SecretaryGeneral in his efforts to find a political solution on Cyprus.
We hope the leaders of the two communities will resume UN-led negotiations after the elections.
We welcome the willingness of the government of Cyprus to include Turkish Cypriots in the delegation for accession negotiations.
We would like to see a bizonal, bicommunal, federal Cyprus join the European Union.
But Cyprus is entitled to have its application for membership considered on its own strong merits, and its progress must not be conditional on a solution to the division of the island.
We will also work hard to strengthen relations between the European Union and Turkey.
Turkey matters, both as a major player in an important region, and as a long-time ally of Europe.
We recognize Turkey's European vocation, and the need to draw her into the enlargement process.
We have laid down criteria for all states wishing to join the European Union: the need for a market economy, democratic governance and observance of human rights.
Turkey's candidacy for membership of the European Union must be judged by the same objective criteria as any other country.
Britain wants to reconnect the peoples of Europe with the European Union which their governments are trying to create.
Our peoples need to know that the European Union is relevant to their lives.
To them the European Union sometimes seems to spend too much of its time discussing things that do not touch their lives: abstractions and theories, rather than a concrete agenda.
Our people need to believe that their worries dictate our agenda in Europe.
Three issues are of paramount concern to the people of Europe: employment, jobs and crime and the environment.
I know they are your priorities. They will also be ours.
First, employment.
It does not matter in which country you ask the question.
If you ask people what they worry about most, there is only one answer in all our countries: jobs.
I am sure it is what you hear in your constituencies among your electors.
Over 18 million people are unemployed in the European Union.
Five million of them are under 25.
That means one in ten of Europe's young people are without a job.
Each one is not a figure, but a tragedy, a waste of talent and an alienation from our societies and our economies.
The modern economy is very exciting for those who are prepared for it, for those with the skills and the confidence to flourish in the new market-place.
But many are intimidated by it, and many are excluded from it.
Our task must be to build in Europe a modern market economy but with just, inclusive societies.
I believe it can be done and that Europe can show how.
The Union has a major role in that process.
The Jobs Summit in Luxembourg set an agenda for putting Europe back to work.
Britain will use its presidency to pursue that agenda with vigour. By helping governments find the best ways to help their people find jobs, and by pursuing the four goals agreed at the Luxembourg Jobs Summit, which match well with the new British Government's own priorities.
Employability, so that our people have the skills they need to find work.
Flexibility and adaptability, so that our companies can adapt to a fast-changing market.
Entrepreneurship, so that we can turn Europe's creativity and innovation into jobs and growth, particularly in small and medium enterprise companies.
Finally, equal opportunities, so that all those who want to work are given the chance, not just the young and the able-bodied.
At the Cardiff Summit, one of the top priorities will be to review progress on the Action Plans on unemployment now being drawn up by every Member State under guidelines agreed at Luxembourg.
A key part of staying competitive must be making the single market work and completing the single market.
We will be working hard on the single market action plan approved in Amsterdam and, together with the Austrian Presidency, we aim to get it completed by the end of 1998.
The action plan gives us a full programme.
We want single market rules applied quickly and enforced better.
We want to engage the Commission and the European Parliament in producing better, simpler legislation.
We want to remove barriers so that Europe can benefit fully from the huge potential of the information society and electronic commerce.
Our aim is an effective single market, free from hidden barriers or unfair state aid, which leads to real prosperity.
Then we will have a Europe that can work for the people, and put the people back to work.
The second major concern for the people is crime.
The drugs trade is worth about $400 billion a year around the globe, second only to the oil trade in value.
It is one of the most integrated of trades in Europe.
If we are to catch the criminals who carry out that trade, then we need to match their cross-border work and their international cooperation.
We need to match it with teamwork and international cooperation of our own.
(Applause) As a presidency, we want to get Europol launched as soon as we can, so that Europe's police forces can work together effectively.
We will take a fresh initiative against high-tech crime.
New means of cross-border communication such as the Internet offer tremendous new opportunities for access to information and freedom of expression.
But they are also open to risks of abuse, which we can only fight if we fight it together.
We will attack the drugs trade right at its heart by helping the drug-producing countries in Central Asia stem the flow.
We must show the people that the European Union shares their fears and concerns, and is able to act to tackle them.
The last of those concerns is the environment.
The people of Europe want us to be serious in our duty to take care of the planet and to hand it on to our children in good order.
Right across the board, European Union activities need to secure a sustainable Europe.
We will use the British Presidency to put environmental considerations centre stage in the European Union's decision-making process.
They should be at the heart of all our policies. Not an afterthought or an appendix.
The European Union transport policy has a major impact on the environment.
Let us ensure it is a positive one.
To make this a reality, we will be holding a joint Transport and Environment Council in June.
We will be taking forward the proposals for higher standards on vehicle emissions to create a higher quality of clean air for our people.
By linking the two, we can help to ensure that Europe's transport policy is friendly to Europe's environment.
The British Presidency comes at the same time as three important international projects on the environment: the follow-up to the Kyoto climate change talks, negotiations in the UN on providing clean water, and talks on managing the world's forests.
Kyoto proved that the European Union can be an impressive world leader on the environment.
But Kyoto did not take us all the way to our goal.
Where agreement was reached, we now need to take its implementation forward, and where we did not reach agreement, we need discussion to take forward further agreement with our partners worldwide.
Jobs, crime and the environment.
Those are the concerns of the people of Europe.
Those are the priorities for the British Presidency.
But there must also be progress on the reform agenda for Europe itself.
Tomorrow's fast-moving world belongs to those who respond fastest, those who change fastest and those who modernize.
The people want to see a European Union that works efficiently and fairly for their benefit.
The Agenda 2000 reforms proposed by the Commission make up an exciting programme to modernize the European Union.
The European Union has to change to meet the challenges posed by enlargement, but also the challenges from a changing world.
The European Union has to make some hard choices.
The common agricultural policy is perhaps the clearest example.
It made sense in the 1950s against a background of food shortages.
A common policy is no less relevant today but it needs modernization.
The Commission was mandated at Luxembourg to bring forward legislative proposals.
During our presidency we will want to make sure that work takes place.
I know the strength of feeling on reform of the common agricultural policy, and the divergence of views about it.
But there is much we can agree on.
A new agricultural policy that will still support our farmers, but at a lower cost to our taxpayers and at a lower cost to the consumer, preserving rural communities and also the rural environment.
I know there are many in the European Parliament who will want to see a shift in our policy so we can devote more of our resources to the areas most relevant to today's concerns.
(Applause) We will use our presidency to work with you to ensure that our money is well spent.
The people want to know that the burden is shared fairly, that regional aid goes to help the poorest areas, the areas which need them most.
They want hard action on mismanagement and fraud, to know that their money is not being wasted.
Making the European Union work more efficiently for the people will be our priority.
Another will be making it accessible to the people.
We will propose measures to make the European Union more transparent, including opening up the Council of Ministers still further.
If the people are to believe that the European Union belongs to them, they must at the very least know what is being discussed and how things are decided by us.
(Applause) I also want the British Presidency to help restore the people's faith that the European Union can speak and act for them in the world.
I say both 'speak' and 'act' deliberately.
It is important that the European Union's voice is heard quickly and authoritatively.
But it is also important that we match our words with deeds and show that action by the European Union can have an impact.
The European Union can and should be a major player on the world stage.
We will use our presidency to launch a European Union Code of Conduct on arms exports, to establish agreed standards for all exports of arms by European Union members.
We will implement the new European Union Joint Action on landmines, which reaffirms the Union's commitment to a complete global ban, and to its programme of landmine clearance and help for victims of landmines.
(Applause) We will work for a coherent European approach to human rights, and make sure it has real impact by working in partnership and dialogue with other countries.
We will continue the Union's efforts to strengthen its relations with the rest of the world.
I will be travelling tomorrow to Washington and Ottawa to brief the US and Canada on our plans for the presidency.
In May we will be holding summits with both countries.
I will be going to Latin America in February to chair the European Union/Rio and European Union/San José ministerial meetings.
Tony Blair will be chairing the Second Asia-Europe Meeting in London in April, the first such summit with Asia on European soil and an important milestone in our relations with Asia.
During our presidency we will also aim to reach agreement on the European Union mandate for negotiations on a successor to the Lomé Convention.
Under our presidency the European Union will continue to work with our partners to help implement the peace agreements in Bosnia.
We will seek to improve the speed and effectiveness of the European Union's aid effort to that region.
We will make sure that the European Union continues to make a positive contribution to the Middle East Peace Process.
We are disturbed by the current deadlock, which is a matter of vital concern to the European Union as much as it is to anybody else.
For this reason, we will be working to complement the efforts of the United States to broker talks between both sides and we will be examining how Europe can facilitate progress on practical measures, such as the Gaza airport and seaport.
I should also like to say that we share the deep concern of the European Parliament over recent events in Algeria.
You have made your feelings clear, most notably through your award of the 1997 Sakharov Prize to Selima Ghezali.
Her work, in the most difficult circumstances, is a cogent reminder to the world of the problems that Algeria faces.
The latest massacres, and the scale of the savagery involved, have been appalling.
People across Europe are united in revulsion and horror by the stories they have read in the press from Algeria in recent weeks.
The British Ambassador, on behalf of the presidency, has sought permission from the Algerian authorities to visit the sites of the recent horrific atrocities.
We want to find out how we can help.
We have seen no evidence to support allegations of involvement by the Algerian security authorities.
The world's media have a keen interest in these dramatic events.
It is in the interests of the Algerian authorities to let the press see for themselves what is going on in their country and who is responsible for the terrorism.
The governments of the international community also have a legitimate interest.
We have learnt too often in the past that if we allow terrorism to take root in any one country, it can all too quickly be exported to other countries.
(Applause) That is why the British Presidency readily took up the proposal to send a troika mission to Algeria.
Such a mission will both examine how the European Union can help end the terrorism and demonstrate the strong feelings of the peoples of Europe for the terror and sufferings of the people of Algeria.
I give you an assurance that the presidency will keep the European Parliament fully informed.
In conclusion, I should like to say that in even a long speech one can only provide a snapshot of a programme for six months of a presidency.
It is an ambitious and full programme, a programme that demonstrates the Europe that Britain and the European Parliament want to see.
An inclusive Europe that is prosperous, open and peaceful, an efficient Union that cooperates effectively on the things that matter to our people and speaks for them clearly and forcefully in the world.
The European Parliament has a key role in that vision.
The British Government has been working to build up our links with Parliament - links that possibly were not kept at their strongest by the previous British government - and we have developed our presidency agenda in close consultation with yourself and with other Members of this European Parliament.
We want our presidency to ensure that you are given the best possible chance to play your important role in the crucial decisions ahead of us.
Yours will be an important voice in the debate on economic and monetary union.
You must give your assent to enlargement.
When the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force you will have a much-expanded brief for legislation.
The British Presidency is determined to engage in an equal dialogue with you in all these areas, from the plenary debates to your committee rooms.
But your role goes much wider than this.
I believe that the European Parliament has a crucial part to play in our mission of giving the European Union back to the people, in explaining the key issues to the people of Europe, in ensuring they have the chance to speak and that their voice is heard.
As a government that believes in an open, transparent Europe and in a Europe that reflects the views of ordinary people and acts on their concerns, we believe you have a vital role.
We will not always agree but I can assure you that your views will always be listened to.
We are at the threshold of creating a wider, stronger Europe; a Europe which stretches from Warsaw to Edinburgh; a peaceful, prosperous and confident Europe; a Europe which can speak with one voice in the world but which respects and encourages different national cultures to flourish within the Union.
It has fallen to Britain to take the mantle of presidency when these opportunities are within our grasp.
We need your help if we are to grasp these opportunities.
I know you will give us that help.
(Loud applause)
Thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
Mrs Green now has the floor.
Mr President-in-Office, it is the most tremendous pleasure for me to welcome you to the European Parliament today.
As a British Labour MEP, I take delight in being able to welcome the first Labour Government Minister in this Chamber for over two decades.
(Applause from the left) As leader of the Socialist Group in this House, I know that Socialists, Social Democrats - and some other Members of this House as well - were mightily relieved to see the back of the previous government which was most hostile to, most dishonest about and most obstructive in the European Union.
(Applause from the left) On 4 May, just three days after the British general election, the Observer newspaper carried the headline 'Goodbye Xenophobia' .
The first positive message of the new government and from the President-in-Office in particular was towards the European Union.
The Foreign Secretary is very welcome here.
On 16 December 1992 at the conclusion of the last British Presidency my colleague and predecessor Jean-Pierre Cot addressed the then British Prime Minister and said: ' At the outset of the British Presidency, I looked forward confident in my belief that those traditional British characteristics of fair play and efficiency would make it a success' .
He concluded: ' the British Presidency has behaved less like an honest broker and more like a fervent partisan' .
Today I make a plea to the Foreign Secretary to ensure that this British Presidency will demonstrate that fair play and efficiency and restore British self-respect and dignity in this House and in Europe.
But, more, we hope that this presidency, in seeking to carry out its priorities will demonstrate the drive, the vigour, imagination, flair and vision which has marked the first eight months of the government's stewardship of Britain.
It will be no surprise to the Foreign Secretary or to this House that my group endorses the major policy priorities which he has outlined to us today as his plan of work for the next six months.
Colleagues in my group will deal with that agenda - jobs, drugs, the environment, the foreign affairs agenda, in detail during the course of the debate today.
I want to raise just two issues in particular.
Firstly, enlargement of the Union to Cyprus and central and eastern Europe.
We welcome the President-in-Office's commitment to open the process of enlargement in an inclusive and transparent way in March in London.
I know that the British government believes in making hard choices.
I want to ask the President-in-Office to take up the hard option which in our view accompanies the opening conference and that is to begin the process of discussing the complex issue which was not concluded at Amsterdam and which the Luxembourg summit at least had the grace to admit must be tackled.
It is not popular or easy to raise what is often regarded as the navel-gazing issues of institutional reform.
But the simple truth is that the European Union will not work without greater qualified majority voting...
...let alone the re-weighting of votes, numbers of Commissioners and so on.
Similarly, the word is out that the reforms of both the common agricultural policy and the structural funds which you mentioned will simply not even begin until the end of this year when the German election is over.
Nobody expects that these questions can be resolved in the next six months but please do not pretend that they just do not exist.
The second issue I want to raise is a the decision which must be taken on the euro during the first few days of May of this year.
This Parliament, as the President-in-Office said, has a unique and very particular responsibility.
It is the only Parliament in Europe which can have a direct relationship with the European Central Bank and which already has a direct relationship with Ecofin.
This Parliament can exercise democratic control over the euro and the institutions which determine its success or otherwise.
On this side of the House we are determined that role will be carried out in a very hard-nosed way.
We call on the Council to look seriously at the proposals coming forward from Parliament to give the euro democratic legitimacy.
The attitude of the British Presidency in supporting the right of this Parliament to give its view on the recommendations of Ecofin on which countries should be in the first wave of EMU has given a clear message of democratic commitment for which we are very grateful.
I hope now that the President-in-Office will press his colleagues to support a democratic euro.
This presidency occurs at a crucial time - I have said it if the Foreign Secretary did not.
It carries with it the hopes of those concerned for the future of Europe and, in particular, for our young people.
We wish it well.
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your statement and more specifically, for your promise that you will listen to the voice of Parliament.
You reminded us that your presidency will be marked by two historic agreements.
On the 30th of March the negotiations with the eleven candidate countries will start and during the first weekend of May the decision on the euro will be taken.
These historic steps have been provided for in agreements, and have been prepared in the European Council for a long time. They illustrate once more how the European Community has been able to function on the basis of a gradual and continuous process in which patience but also determination are the best and most secure driving forces.
Also, Mr President, once the course has been set, you will be responsible for setting and settling the agenda, and also and particularly for creating the political climate.
You spoke of the transparency of your decisions just now, and the plea to public opinion.
I think that during your presidency the support of the people will be a key element in the countries where the euro will be introduced, but also in the candidate countries, who finally want to belong to a community of free and democratic nations.
The European Community's decisions have never been as concrete and as influential in the daily life of our fellow citizens as they are now.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we know that the British tradition, permeated with its sense of democracy, attaches much value to the participation of everyone in big, collective decisions.
That is why it is paradoxical that your government has announced that it does not wish to belong to the first group of Member States who will introduce the euro.
Jean Monnet said of the British: we realize that you respect facts, not hypotheses.
History proved him right, when he predicted that the United Kingdom, after a long period of hesitation, would put itself up for the ECSC and the EEC once these two communities achieved their first successes without changing anything in their federal principles.
I, for my part, have confidence in your pragmatism.
Because once the euro is seen to be a strong, stable, attractive currency, your country will join as well, and contribute to its image.
We expect your presidency, during a delicate phase in which fundamental formal decisions will turn over quite a few old habits, to use all its talent and energy to convey a message of hope and trust to the entire population of the Union.
Because, ladies and gentlemen, each new day confirms our conviction that, in defiance of scepticism and resistance, the euro will materialize.
This is a new opportunity to safeguard the standard of living of our people, and a new opportunity for the growth of our economy, an absolute condition for the creation of new jobs.
The hope for sustainable peace on our continent has never been this close and this strong.
Which is why we have to convince our fellow citizens that they should look forward with generosity and with thanks to the enlargement with central and eastern Europe.
And during the Summit in Cardiff, in mid June this year, the first steps towards the reform of Agenda 2000 will be made.
You will have to use your creativity here to stop the fifteen from sinking into powerlessness and from dividing over monetary issues of secondary importance after the historic decision on enlargement and the euro.
Pursuing the general interest will have to prevail over the cold defence of acquired rights, or the populism of national and class egoisms.
That is why the basis on which the European Community was built exists.
Common integration exists, the key to success for the European Community, giving priority to belonging to a strong unit which defends our interests in the outside world and at the same time sticks together internally, so that everyone feels involved.
We have to continue down this road, and we support you in the actions you have announced: job creation, competitive strength, combating fraud and crime, protecting the environment and public health, culture, the information society, the launch of the planning and warning unit by the Common Foreign and Security Policy, renewal of the Lomé Convention, promoting human rights around the world. And I would like to ask you the question, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, will you take actions on behalf of human rights in Nigeria, in Burma, the solution of the problems in Cyprus.
Mrs Green emphasized this, I do it again.
Institutional reform, too, which was not achieved in Amsterdam, is an absolute must for each presidency, including yours.
I was very moved when I recently read an interview with the former President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, who said that European Integration was brought about on the basis of the economy.
Now we are going to tackle a second major enterprise: enlargement to include the countries of central and eastern Europe.
But says Jacques Delors, and I quote:
' This assumes that by the year 2010 all the member countries will have the same ambitions for a unified Europe, and the means to achieve this.
I doubt that very much.
I fear that if we do not consider this question seriously, the European political project will slowly fade away, in favour of a huge free trade zone' .
(NL) We must keep this message by Jacques Delors clearly in our ears and in our brains, in our outlook, in our mind.
I call on you, you who are characterized in your tradition by pragmatism, to make a creative effort also, and to make this European Union live during the next century as well.
(Applause)
Mr President, I warmly welcome the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom as President-in-Office of the Council to Parliament this morning.
I wish him every success in his presidency on behalf of the people of Europe.
I thank him for his very extensive address to Parliament.
I endorse the priorities of the presidency, which he clearly outlined.
I strongly endorse the priority which the presidency proposes to give to the objective of showing the peoples of Europe that the European Union is working for them in practical ways.
This objective will only be achieved if it can be clearly demonstrated to the majority of people that the European Union is relevant to their day-to-day concerns and that the Union can contribute to finding solutions to the problems in our society.
The issue of most widespread concern at the present time is crime.
There are very few people in any of our countries who have not themselves been the victims of criminal acts or whose families have not been affected by crime one way or another.
Practically every night television news bulletins bring stories into our homes of more and more horrendous crimes being perpetrated by evil people, often against defenceless people in our society, such as young children or the very old.
Large numbers of our people are concerned over their personal safety or the safety of their families.
In many of our communities house break-ins, muggings and violent attacks are considered to be more commonplace than had been the case years ago.
The underlying cause for a large proportion of these crimes is drug dependency and the abuse of illegal drugs.
Illegal drugs seem to be readily available nowadays both in terms of quantity and variety, particularly to young people.
The abuse of these drugs poses a serious health risk to impressionable young people who are persuaded to experiment with them.
The drug dependency and addiction which ultimately follows for many of these people can only be satisfied through the proceeds of crime.
It is this type of drug-related crime which is posing a serious risk to many of our communities.
I believe that the European Union can make a major contribution towards tackling the scourge of drug abuse by concentrating its resources in a coordinated manner with the national authorities on tackling the international drugs trade.
The illegal drugs trade is now a sophisticated international business.
The fight against this trade, if it is to be effective, must also be sophisticated and international in scope.
Those of us who participated in the negotiations for the Maastricht Treaty had hoped that Europol would be the agency which would provide national authorities with the intelligence and information on money laundering, illegal drug production and smuggling, which they required to prosecute those responsible for the drugs being distributed to our communities.
Many years later I am disappointed to see yet another presidency having to list as one of its objectives that of finishing the preparations for the establishment of Europol.
The only people who could be happy with these disgraceful delays are those involved in the illegal drugs trade.
Nonetheless, I warmly welcome the British Presidency's commitment to getting Europol established and its interest in promoting international efforts to tackle the illegal drugs business.
I will be supportive of any such proposals which come before this Parliament.
During the British Presidency decisions will be made concerning those countries which will be included in the first wave of participants in the single currency.
While I appreciate that Britain will not be one of these countries, it is nonetheless important that all countries, even those not participating in the single currency from day one, should be actively involved in the preparatory and planning phases for the launch of the euro because of the potential impact of this currency on all our economies, whether inside or outside the single currency zone.
A critically important aspect of the launch of the new currency will be the attitude of individual citizens to the euro.
The President-in-Office will recall the reticence, concern and even fearful response of many British and, indeed, Irish citizens to the decimalization of our respective currencies during the 1960s.
In the lead-in to decimalization the importance of establishing a high degree of consumer confidence was perhaps not fully understood.
I believe that the same risk exists today.
It is vitally important that the European institutions, as well as national governments, undertake a comprehensive process of education amongst all sectors of the population and not just amongst the financial and business community, as seems to be mainly the case at present.
When the euro is launched it will be necessary to exchange money held in present currencies for the new currency.
This requirement may well provide a useful opportunity for the authorities to identify the assets of criminals and to take appropriate action.
I hope that the presidency will ensure that the initiatives necessary to identify criminal assets are put in place and in good time to avail of the opportunity.
The work programme submitted by the presidency suggests that efforts will also be made over the next six months to make progress in the negotiations on the reform of the common agricultural policy.
Clearly the Commission's detailed proposals will need to be tabled before any significant progress can be made in this matter.
Final agreement on reform of the CAP should be preceded by a lengthy and comprehensive debate spread over a number of presidencies.
This reform will have major political significance, not just for our future relations with East European countries, but also for our rural areas, for food policy and for the millions of farmers and workers involved.
Finally, the presidency has identified environmental policy as one of its priorities.
In this regard I would hope that it will give due consideration to resolving a long-time existing environmental problem of major concern to your neighbours in Ireland - the problem of continued discharges of radioactive material into the Irish Sea from the Sellafield complex.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as you so rightly said, the decisions on the euro and the start of enlargement negotiations define the tasks and the significance of the British Presidency.
And what can Members of the European Parliament hope for from a British Presidency? We know what we hope for: a British Presidency which believes strongly in Europe today, and is tenacious, optimistic and practical, with a sense of humour as well, if possible.
And with a Labour presidency, we must also hope (especially those of us on the left) that it has an awareness of society.
For that reason I should like to make a few friendly comments - not at all formal - on some of the things you said.
Because at this time of enlargement, culmination of EMU and forthcoming development of the Stability Pact, when it is going to be so difficult to implement social policies (which will sometimes be hindered by circumstances), we need to say a resounding "yes' to enlargement, but we also need to make clear (as you did) how essential it is to combat unemployment.
The fight against unemployment must not just consist of good intentions, but should be given the same importance as currency and the fight against inflation, which we share.
But we need more than that.
In order to build a balanced, democratic and just Europe, we need to maintain the great objective of economic and social cohesion, and the aspiration to a Europe based not just on liberties, but also on great equality between north and south, east and west. There is an obvious question: how do we achieve that cohesion?
What are our suggestions?
Well, we propose that we continue to use the structural funds in an intelligent and transparent manner, without squandering them, but maintaining that internal solidarity between northern and southern Europe. That does not have to be incompatible with enlargement policy.
You mentioned the common agricultural policy, and I venture to say to you that we need to overcome the imbalances in aid provided for different agricultural products.
We need reform, but a reform which helps to provide more equal opportunities for the different countries and farmers of Europe.
If we want to fund enlargement and internal solidarity at the same time, we cannot agree with the Commission's approach in Agenda 2000.
It is impossible to work with an own-resource limit of 1.27 % of Community GNP.
I will speak in terms which the people of Europe will be able to understand: the Commission is proposing that out of every ECU 10, 000 of the GNP, ECU 127 should go to the Community budget.
The European Parliament, on the other hand, is asking for a further ECU 4 for the budget out of every ECU 10, 000 of the Community GNP (that is, a total of ECU 131), so that we can simultaneously tackle enlargement and solidarity.
How can it be impossible to use an additional ECU 4 out of every ECU 10, 000? I find that incomprehensible, and I am not just speaking for myself, but on behalf of many European citizens.
Furthermore, we want to tackle the problems of money being squandered and lack of transparency, but we support the welfare state as one of Europe's most characteristic features.
The market should be transparent, but it should be subject to democratic values and the political and social rights of the people.
I am sure that a Labour President must remain highly sensitive to this aim of maintaining the welfare state as a mark of European identity, through all the reorganizations and updates required by each political option.
And to finish, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I want to say that we agree that there should be reasonable dialogue with Turkey, but from a European viewpoint, as you said.
Turkey has to fulfil the same criteria as the other countries.
It cannot threaten northern Cyprus, and be constantly opposed to human rights.
We cannot accept a United States viewpoint, shaped by Turkey's importance in NATO.
We see things from a European point of view, and we want the Council to defend that view.
Finally, if Parliament's President will allow me, I would like to say that we are all committed to Algeria.
Perhaps we may have slightly differing views about it, but we agree that the Troika should go there, and so should a major European Parliamentary delegation - not just to try to shed some light on what is happening, but also to promote dialogue between all those forces which condemn the terrorism and are prepared to develop an Algeria ruled by law.
For all these tasks - for a Europe based on democracy, solidarity, and also social aspects - you can count on the support of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
Mr President, this for me is a very historic day because 21 years ago to the day I was the only MP still here who spoke on the first ever UK Presidency - the last UK Labour presidency.
I notice from the Minutes that Mr Tomlinson spoke in the next debate and he is still here, but he was speaking as President-in-Office of the Council, not as a Member.
So it is historic and I would like to start on a pleasant note by throwing a few bouquets at the President-in-Office, which might surprise him.
The first bouquet I am throwing is because of the introduction of PR for euro elections - a long awaited improvement in our lot.
The opting into the social policy shunned by the previous government, the promise today of opening Council deliberations, something I spoke about 21 years ago, suggesting as I do now, that EP committee chairmen be invited to Council deliberations on relevant matters: I wait to see if that will be followed 21 years later.
It is not a case of rock and roll so much as of a slow foxtrot.
I would like to praise also the enormous courage of Mr Cook's counterpart in government, Mo Mowlam, for her very brave actions with regard to Northern Ireland.
I would like to praise the European noises that are coming from the front bench.
But I start now with a criticism about EMU.
It is an irony surely that in the moment when the decision is to be made as to who is to be in the first tranche, the UK has opted out, although it qualifies, and is not going to be in the first tranche.
That to me is a lost opportunity.
I would say to the President-in-Office that the train will start, it will travel well, and will it not be harder to clamber on the train once it is well in motion?
The Trade Union Congress, the CBI, the exporters of whom Scotland has very many, are all in favour of EMU.
So I think that this is a great shame and I wonder if even yet it is not possible for the UK Government to change it's mind?
Here is what President Crosland said 21 years ago today: ' There was always in the context of EMU, a widespread hope that financial policy-making would pass from Member States to the Community and that the Community would transform from a customs union into a fully integrated economic union complete with its Central Bank, a single fixed exchange and a growing harmonization of taxes.'
It is a bit of a slow foxtrot, is it not?
While the UK has dithered, bereft of vision, the clock has ticked on and I think the failure of the UK to join EMU is a present tragedy.
On the social policy side I have another criticism.
Is there much point in getting the advantages of the social policy, which we have always supported in the party I represent here, if Old Labour's stance of defending the disadvantaged is to be abandoned? Disabled, single mothers, students - there is a Euro-speak that people criticize but there is also a New Labour-speak which I criticize.
'Means-testing' is now 'affluence-testing' .
'Long-termism' is meant to excuse the savage cuts of today.
I would like to turn to some practical questions on the priorities.
We all have our favourite environmental issues, but I would urge that we enforce the code of conduct passed by this Parliament for sub-standard tankers which threaten all our coasts and have, in fact, caused enormous damage to many of our Member States.
On unemployment, the EMAC committee on which I served has put forward that there should be a compulsory rule about late payment.
That really would help to solve the problems of small businesses and we should look to the very small businesses where real jobs can be created in great numbers.
The President-in-Office did not mention fishing today. We have had a debacle of decades with the last government's sell-out to Spain on fishing.
But recently we had another one by this New Labour, with the sell-out on the Fraga report.
So, I ask the President-in-Office if he is still committed to the principle of relative stability?
This is the fundamental question.
And are flag-ships to be allowed to continue making a nonsense of the whole of the CFP as it was originally developed? Has he read the Duke of Edinburgh's criticism this week of the one-sided nature of fishing agreements between the EU and poor developing countries?
Members on all sides of this House and from all countries welcome the referendum, which must be another bouquet I throw at this government that the President-in-Office represents.
But there is keen sadness about the broken promises: the direct relationship offered to the new Scottish Parliament with Europe has been watered down, the status of the 'Länder' has been watered down, the right to attend meetings if the Scottish interest was dominant has been watered down.
On enlargement, can we solve it without an enhancement of the funding? I have an interest here as an Objective 1 area.
Objective 1 is just beginning to work to redress hundreds of years of neglect of my area.
Lastly, my 23 years here have seen the reconciliation of the old rivalries of Europe which caused war, horror and devastation and by decades of patient dialogue we have created the habit of cooperation. That is a habit we must never take for granted.
(Applause )
Mr President, I also welcome the President-in-Office here this morning.
I would simply say that the programme he has outlined here this morning is a very ambitious one and for my part I welcome it and I congratulate him.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the present United Kingdom Government on its enthusiasm.
I just hope its enthusiasm is realistic, when one considers how much one can achieve in the very short time of six months available to it.
I am concerned at the continued emphasis being placed on the role of the European Union in solving the problem of unemployment.
I have made my view clear in this Parliament that I believe the only way to tackle this serious problem, which faces us all, is at national level, and closer to the people.
While I do not oppose the involvement of the European Union in addressing unemployment, it must be realistic in accepting the limits of its ability in this area.
What we can achieve at European Union level is better support on training, especially in the area of our young unemployed, and the retraining of those who have been unfortunate in losing their employment.
We can also achieve more by sharing and pooling our achievements through our research and development programmes.
I would ask the presidency to move towards the stimulation of greater research and development to emphasize its importance for the future.
As the President-in-Office said, we are also entering into the crucial phase in the Agenda 2000 proposals.
More especially, there is the matter of the further reform of the common agricultural policy, which is in great turmoil, nowhere more so than in his own country, the United Kingdom.
The ban on United Kingdom beef must be removed as it is destroying the industry.
I trust the President-in-Office during his term of office will work for the removal of that ban and the implementation of the 'born-after date' scheme.
On the same front, he must be positive in redressing the imbalance created by the strong pound and the fact that the UK Government has not applied for the support available to it in Brussels to enable it to alleviate the problem.
I am impressed by the presidency's enthusiasm in environmental protection.
Despite progress, pollution remains at unacceptably high levels.
We in Europe have attempted to face up to our responsibilities by positive action.
We must now persuade other countries outside the European Union to accept their responsibilities.
The President-in-Office has a tremendous challenge ahead of him.
I wish him well and look forward to working with him closely in that challenge.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite difficult for a Member to comment when he has only just heard a speech.
It leaves no time for consideration.
I will give you but a few impressions, the first of which relates to the imprecision of your stated intentions with regard to the themes mentioned: you wish the countries of eastern Europe and Cyprus to become members; you wish to see a Europe of full employment; you wish to see a safe, drug-free Europe; you want a pollution-free Europe, both its water and its air; you want to see an end to terrorism in Algeria.
But then what?
Let us look at these questions a little more closely.
I note that the President-in-Office set the objective of participating in the privatization of the economies of eastern Europe.
This is a significant and perilous objective.
I must note, ironically, that it is quite amusing to hear the Minister for Foreign Affairs of a Labour government sounding the death knell for the statist economic theories of which his own party was for decades the eulogist.
I say this with the best of intentions, for the benefit of Mrs Green.
In reality, as the examples of Switzerland or Norway show, it is not the European Union that creates prosperity but a free economy.
Regarding the accession of Cyprus, it will not be able to find a solution to the political situation there by itself. If a solution is not forthcoming prior to accession, membership, far from bringing about peace may, in fact, risk bringing about war.
With regard to unemployment, the President-in-Office has limited himself to a dramatic assessment and a quite explicit wish.
The remedy for this situation is, however, already known.
We must have the courage to confirm that the absence of reasonable protection for the European market with regard to the importation of products produced under conditions of social dumping in the rest of the world is one of the causes.
Either we achieve a coherent regional grouping based on preferential treatment for Member States only, or we immerse ourselves completely in free trade on a world scale.
The one and the other are completely incompatible.
On an international level, you have mentioned your movements, Mr President-in-Office. I am only sorry that you are starting with Washington.
I am not saying a visit to Washington is not needed, only that you should not start there, because of the risk of giving your other contacts the impression that our policy tags along behind that of the United States.
Finally, with regard to Algeria, I am quite surprised that we need to send parliamentary missions as if our secret services had not already got enough information on the subject.
I would like to restate that all these events started when the victors of the first round of the first free elections in that country for thirty years were imprisoned.
Mr President-in-Office, I believe that your policies are based on good will.
Good will may earn you appreciation around the world, but it is not the basis of good policy.
Mr President, the last time that Britain held the presidency of the European Union was in the second half of 1992.
Then the British Presidency was characterized by drift and vacillation, by lack of purpose and absence of vision.
This time it will be different, very different.
The British Labour Government has a clear, well thought-out agenda, as we have heard this morning, an agenda which is designed to make the essential link to the peoples' concerns and aspirations and European cooperation.
Europe should not be about remote bureaucracy and abstract theories.
Europe should be about joint approaches to common problems.
It is about tackling the issues which affect the lives of ordinary people in all the Member States.
It is because the British Government recognises this that the British Presidency is, I believe, so determined to pursue the priorities which have been outlined.
Quite rightly, at the top of the presidency's agenda is to reach agreement on which countries will qualify for Stage Three of economic and monetary union.
A successful start of the euro is in everybody's best interests.
Also at the top of the agenda is job creation and if there is any issue weighing heavy on the people of Europe it is surely the fact that there are over 18 million people unemployed throughout the Union.
There can never be a true European Union when we have such high levels of unemployment.
Unemployment causes personal misery, it undermines social cohesion, it eats at Europe's very soul.
What we have to do is to take forward the employment guidelines agreed at the Luxembourg Job Summit so that we have concrete action plans.
Plans which will turn good words into practical deeds; encouraging entrepreneurship, promoting education, training and life-long learning, improving employability, increasing equal opportunities.
This is what is needed and I am sure that this is what the British Presidency will promote with vigour and with determination.
If Europe it to succeed in the global economy, we cannot be complacent or conservative.
To win in the world we have to make the process of change a way of life.
To be competitive we have to be innovative and to be innovative we have to be radical and forward-looking.
This means that we have to create a more effective single market, a market which, for example, embraces telecommunications and the energy sector.
It means ending unfair state aids.
It means encouraging small businesses and attacking red tape and it means ensuring that research and development is at the very cutting edge of our economic advance.
Another priority for the presidency is to launch the process of enlarging the European Union.
Let us be clear that this is of tremendous importance to all the people of Europe.
Enlargement will bring real benefits to both the existing Member States and the aspiring members.
It will bring mutual economic rewards and deliver greater security and stability.
But, as we all know, for enlargement to work, the European Union itself has to change.
Agenda 2000 is a good starting-point.
Now we have to have a serious debate about how we can develop a new regional policy to meet the needs of the future, and how of course we are going to reform the common agricultural policy.
If modernisation is needed anywhere it is here.
The emphasis which the presidency will place on enlargement is, I believe, indicative of how the presidency wants the European Union to look beyond its current borders.
In a similar vein the presidency should be congratulated on its determination to improve the Union's common foreign and security policy, the emphasis which it is placing on agreeing an new negotiating mandate for the Lomé convention, and on its desire to give human rights the attention which is required.
The British Presidency has indeed set itself an ambitious agenda.
It includes a wide range of issues, issues about which people are desperately concerned.
In my experience the international menace of the drugs trade is undoubtedly one of those issues of greatest concern to the people of Europe and I for one warmly welcome your commitment, Foreign Secretary, to take up this fight in earnest.
It is indeed heartening to hear also your commitment this morning to work with the European Parliament.
I can assure you that the European Parliament is more than happy to work with you.
Partnership, consensus, cooperation are our joint words, we share a common approach to Europe's development.
Finally, I wonder if I could conclude with a personal note.
At the end of the presidency the European Summit will be held in my constituency, in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales.
I am delighted that this will be the case and I am confident that at the end the presidency we will see a Europe which is more confident, a Europe which is more dynamic, a Europe which is more relevant and a Europe which once again has the full support of our people.
Let us all work together to ensure that the Cardiff Summit is the people's summit.
Mr President, we very much welcome the opening of the British Presidency of the European Union.
Although the Labour Party has changed its mind six times on our membership of the EU since we joined 25 years ago, for the last few years it has been fairly consistent.
I hope the UK Presidency will be a great success.
Before I come back to the presidency, I should just like to deal with one or two remarks made by Mr Cook in his speech.
It is extraordinary that he should talk about bringing the European Parliament closer to the people when his government is about to impose a system of proportional representation on the United Kingdom which is, as I understand it - and we are still waiting to find the definition - a closed list system.
Although this is relevant to the European Parliament and although I know that Mr Cook is a long-time proponent of PR, would he agree with the attitude taken by his colleague, Mr Straw, the Home Secretary, that the electoral regions will be very large, and that it is highly unlikely that an individual candidate will be known by more than a fraction of the electorate in that region? Voters cannot, therefore, be expected to make an informed choice between candidates of the same party.
That in itself speaks volumes about the Labour Party's attitude toward the European Parliament.
I should also like to say that the fact that two Members of the European Parliament have now to leave the Labour Party in order to speak freely, one sitting with the Communists and one with the Greens - one who told me this morning that he was expelled by fax - suggests to me that the control-freak tendencies of the Labour Party are now becoming known to people in Europe as a whole.
I would add that, since we are all concerned about candidate selection, quoting from the Conservative Party's own manual on candidate selection, it says: ' Edmund Burke's words still hold good today.
Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgement and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
Authoritative instructions, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, though contrary to the dearest convictions of his judgement and conscience, are utterly unknown to the laws of the land and against the tenor of our constitution.'
The Conservative Party will stand by those principles, unlike the Labour Party, which...
(Murmurs (of dissent) ) we understand, will allow the National Executive Committee to make the rankings, the order of the list and the selections in toto , in secret and impose those candidates on the United Kingdom.
(Murmurs (of dissent) )I am going to return to the presidency because that is what I am expected to speak on.
Conservatives largely agree with the government's priorities for the presidency: enlargement, jobs, cleaning up the environment and the fight against crime.
These are all important policy objectives that we too would have put high on the agenda.
We hope progress will be made on enlargement.
It is a historic challenge.
We have a moral duty to embrace the people of Eastern and Central Europe who lived under a cruel and alien tyranny for so long.
Enlargement is in all our interests because it will dramatically increase the single market.
Indeed, one of the many reasons why the Treaty of Amsterdam left so much to be desired was its total failure to get to grips with this challenge.
On enlargement, Labour has a clear objective for the presidency and the setting of a detailed timetable for those applicants in the first wave.
I hope they succeed, despite the fiasco of the treatment of Turkey at Luxembourg.
Britain's record on jobs is far better than the European average.
Unfortunately, Labour's approach to this question is likely to lead to more unemployment, not less.
Any party that can contend that signing up to the social chapter and the regulations made, and to be made under it, increases flexibility in the marketplace does not deserve to be taken seriously.
Europe needs to tackle head on the unpalatable truth that unless we cut our social costs and free up our labour markets, we will be out-priced and out-performed by the rest of the world.
Unacceptable levels of unemployment will persist.
Red tape and regulation are luxuries Europe can no longer afford.
I have been distracted during the course of this address.
I have had far more reaction from this Assembly than Mr Cook did earlier on. His speech was heard in almost total silence.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, undoubtedly the European Union will experience in the next few days and in the near future a period of great change and major challenges: the euro, the enlargement, the application of the Treaty of Amsterdam but also the definition of a more appropriate and courageous political and institutional framework, at least I hope so!
In these six months we will be embarking on the first negotiations for the reform of the structural and cohesion funds and for us this is a very important task given that the changed conditions in many regions of the Union, often for the worse, require particularly great attention.
It will also be the six months of the start of the measures decided by the special Council on employment, six months in which the Member States must produce their plans of action for the Cardiff Council; we trust that British pragmatism will be able to banish dangerous demagogic solutions for achieving the urgent employment targets we have set ourselves.
We also trust that, with the same pragmatism, the British Presidency will be able to strive to bring to completion the operational rules of the internal market, by which I mean that deregulation and simplification of the legislation will be amongst the priority objectives to be pursued.
I think this will be the real help which we can and must offer to our citizens, to whom in fact the British Presidency seems to want to direct particular attention.
I wonder if the presidency could not also convince the national governments of the need for general simplification of the legislation which is burdening citizens, firms and civil society in general.
Finally, we agree with the timetable of activities and initiatives of this six months according to the legislative programme which this Chamber has already debated, above all for the intention expressed by the President-inOffice of the Council, Mr Cook, to take serious and determined action against drugs.
But in concluding I must call on the Council to ensure that more decisive and strong action is taken to deal with those emergencies which, as such, are not predictable in a legislative timetable.
I refer to those aspects of foreign and security policy which often find both our respective countries and our Community institutions unprepared.
The absence of the Union or its serious delay in dealing with problems like refugees, genocides, international tensions and conflicts in general, are no longer tolerable in a Europe which we want to have a strong and solid presence in the eyes of world public opinion.
So we also draw the attention of the presidency to the advantages of continuing without delay a serious and responsible Mediterranean policy which can contribute stability to the regions and develop our relations, recalling that this Parliament will also start a Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary forum as soon as possible.
As a Member of this Parliament, as joint leader of the UPE and as a European citizen, I sincerely wish the British Presidency the will and the wisdom to give a strong impetus, more than just a nudge, to Union policy thanks precisely to the proverbial Anglo-Saxon pragmatism, now that Albion seems to have converted from initial Euroscepticism to become a convinced and loyal Europhile.
I myself, being responsible for the international institutional reports of the Mediterranean Laboratory Foundation am happy to make available the results of the second Euromed civil forum, which the Foundation held in Naples last December after having collected the testimony from Spain of Barcelona 1995, and I obviously remain available for an official presentation to the Presidency of the Council and trust that in future above all the Presidents-in-Office, like the other Community institutions, will also give continuity of attention and support to the action of the Euromed civil forum.
Mr President, I welcome the statement by the President-in-Office.
The United Kingdom is neither a large state nor a small one.
It is a middle-sized Western democracy with a complicated historical legacy.
It cannot regain the glory on the world stage which it once enjoyed.
But where it once thought of power, it can now think of responsibility.
The President-in-Office's speech offers hope that is the new United Kingdom approach.
Britain's new approach to Europe will be welcomed in this House.
Britain has been notorious for governments - Labour or Conservative - who have believed that the Atlantic is narrower than the Channel.
That belief has kept us first out of the European Community and then for years on the periphery of its affairs.
But if the UK is eager to join in, to show leadership, then we must recognize that you cannot lead from behind.
The decision not to join the single currency at the start is one much regretted by my party.
If the United Kingdom is so keen to make the single market function properly, to get people back to work as the President-in-Office says, it should put its money where its mouth is.
Liberal Democrats welcome the importance that the presidency has given to Europe's constitution.
If the Presidentin-Office wants to connect the people of Europe with the European Union, we must open the Council of Ministers to public scrutiny.
We must allow Parliament to develop to its full democratic potential.
The President-in-Office is personally extremely well placed to do this.
As a compatriot of mine, he has suffered from the pantomime of misleading Druidic nonsense which passes for a British Constitution.
European Liberal Democrats welcome the UK Government's proposals to reform the electoral procedure in the UK to give us a House where all Members are elected on a common principle.
The President-in-Office spoke of restoring people's faith that the EU can speak and act for them in the world.
It is a pity he did not give longer to the ethical foreign policy he has spoken of at home.
At the helm of the Union, the UK is uniquely well positioned to deliver a powerful moral punch.
The code of conduct on arms exports of which the President-in-Office spoke sounds too much like codes of conduct everywhere which are observed mainly in the breach.
We need a legally binding EU arms export code and we need the establishment of a permanent international criminal court.
We must not let the torturers go unpunished nor lose hope that we can change the course of history, and that the 20th century in which our weapons technology has made the argument of force easier than the force of argument and has brought such human misery, can give way to a 21st century in which the power and the imagination and the skill of Europe can be harnessed to create a stable, just and peaceful world.
Liberals in this House wish the presidency well.
We recognize there is a fresh wind in the highways and byways of the UK, in the main streets of its villages and towns and cities, and that there is in it the warm purpose of the British people to make a constructive contribution to the building of Europe.
As Gladstone said, you must trust the people.
Hope makes a very good breakfast but a rather poor supper.
We in this House will watch the presidency closely to ensure that it has the courage of its convictions.
Mr President, Robin Cook, there are good things in the presidency's programme on openness and quality in legislation, but the task - and the opposition - are so great that it will not succeed unless the presidency insists on new methods.
As far as openness is concerned, the presidency should secure the support of seven other countries in the Council to change the Rules of Procedure so that every meeting and every document is automatically open unless a 2/3 majority on the Council decides otherwise.
Thus it would be those who wanted to close a meeting or a document who would have the burden of proof.
The principle was adopted unanimously in Parliament's Committee on Institutional Affairs and is included in the report by our New Labour colleague who presided over the sitting, Mr Martin, which was adopted by a large majority in this Chamber.
The biggest problem today has to do with the quality of EU legislation.
EU legislation is impossible to understand for ordinary voters.
An EU law typically consists of a directive or a regulation and then a long list of unreadable amendments.
You never know whether you have got everything.
The presidency should insist that no more amendments are made to existing laws, but that the amendments are presented in a special script in a compiled and consolidated edition.
Every department which needs an amendment will thus be forced to make the legislation accessible to people other than those who have specialist legal departments in Brussels.
And the existing body of law, comprising 20 000 directives, regulations and other legislative documents will be halved simply by recording the amendments separately.
You could then go further by compiling laws on the same subject and thin out the legislative jungle.
Finally, about decentralization.
If there is to be decentralization in Brussels, each rule should include an automatic lapse after, for example, five years.
Thus, in order to continue a law would have to again...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, after listening to Mr Cook's statement - and I thank him for its clarity - I would like to be able to repeat what was affirmed recently by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, in an interview given to the Financial Times, namely that the British Presidency represents a great opportunity to demonstrate that the United Kingdom intends to play a constructive role in Europe and for Europe, and an opportunity to demonstrate that the agenda of economic reforms for monetary union is proceeding.
I want my good wishes to convey this message as well, in the hope that the United Kingdom will carry out a constructive role in this six months of presidency.
I believe, the days of British anti-European feeling are long gone; the era of Labour seats left empty in this very Chamber after election by direct universal suffrage is long gone.
More than historical, the episode must be considered emblematic of a certain ideological approach to politics.
The historical processes, as in this case, cannot be suffocated by sectarian and factious attitudes and it is an irony of history - and we are delighted at this - that today it is the Labour leaders who are giving us assurances on the constructiveness of their action to the advantage of Europe.
This constructive role emerges from the fixed priorities of the British Presidency and in particular from the hoped for success of economic and monetary union, from the start of an authentic Union foreign policy, from the struggle against organized crime and from the defence of the environment.
We are sensitive to this commitment for the definition of a common foreign policy and we give all our support to initiatives to end the Algerian carnage which tragically continues to strike tens of thousands of innocent victims.
The presidency will achieve much if it succeeds in seriously committing the Union against the expansion of fanatical and murderous fundamentalism and contributes to bringing peace to a friendly country linked to us by cultural, political and economic ties and establishing authentic values based on the defence of human rights.
The list of things to be done was long and has touched the various sectors of activity of the Union.
Just two comments: the first is about the preparation for enlargement of the Union. Let us act in such a way that the reform of the agricultural policy does not involve penalizing zones and regions privileged because the fruit of the work of centuries gives typical and noble food products.
The second concerns the reform of the structural funds which should not negatively strike zones and regions already burdened by serious social problems resulting from structural situations and the economic crisis.
In both cases the risk of deeper crisis is real and the populations would not understand the operation of the Union as compared with the aims of regional policy. These fears and doubts also betray uncertainty and incomprehension on the part of the citizens, which characterize this phase of the construction of Europe.
The single currency, which we want to be a federating instrument, raises fears in reality. The United Kingdom itself, although operating in favour of EMU, has already decided not to form part of the first euro platoon.
Why? Our voters are wondering.
This uncertainty is born of the fear of the potential risks without the Union having the political instruments to face up to any eventuality.
In any case the question that we are asking, Mr President, is what European Unionism needs to become a reality, and what is still needed to achieve European political union? We have to give an answer to this question!
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as an Austrian - and indeed my country will be the successor of the British Presidency - I thank you Mr President-in-Office of the Council for your clear statements, for a people's Europe, a Europe which wants to draw nearer to its people and citizens and a Europe which treats jobs and the environment as priority issues.
But as a foreign policy speaker for my group, the PSE group, I would like to deal with two trouble spots close to us, but which affect us quite specifically in our own security interests.
I should like to call upon you Mr President-inOffice of the Council, and urge you, to do what you have often announced, today as well in this house, to demonstrate a high level of commitment in influencing developments in the Middle East and Algeria.
This is not a question of interference, but the legitimate participation of Europe in the shaping of a collective environment, in the preservation of our inherent security interests.
The Middle East, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, is certainly also a central element of your presidency.
The peace process has unfortunately been interrupted.
The European Union is paying an awful lot of money, most of which - and this is not our fault - is ultimately having a negative result in Palestine.
We ought no longer be the paymaster following the motto of Europe pays and others - particularly the United States - deliver, as is the case in Bosnia and the Middle East.
I would like to fully support your efforts, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, and especially your efforts at the talks in America, to encourage the Americans to develop a stronger partnership in the Middle East in the interest of peace.
We want to support, not hinder, everything that America has done.
But we also want to do something else, Mr President-in-Office of the Council: with our efforts in the Middle East and Israel, but also in Palestine, we must also turn our attention to human rights as well as taking up the fight against corruption.
This must be our objective wherever our money is used.
With regard to the situation in Algeria, the fate that country is experiencing is particularly tragic.
Here too, we must focus on a common territory, the common economic and political interests and the control of migratory movements; but above all it is a question of a humane outcome.
None of us should be indifferent to the shocking events in Algeria, the brutal and gruesome murders, the horror of the Algerian nights!
It is a mockery for the government to allege it has everything under control.
It has nothing under control!
There are allegations, presumptions, that sections of the government and sections of the military are directly or indirectly behind these murders.
We have no proof, merely anonymous statements.
This makes contacts and discussions in Algeria all the more urgent.
We from the Parliament will have to take the same action as you.
It is our sisters and brothers who are being murdered there.
We must not be indifferent to that!
We must do everything to prevent it continuing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the European Union the spring of 1998 is of crucial significance.
The course is now being set for the third stage of economic and monetary union.
Central features of this are the question of the group of participants, the fixing of the exchange rates between the participating Member States and the personnel heading the European Central Bank.
On 25th March the European Commission and the European Monetary Institute will submit their reports on which Member States fulfil the stability criteria on the basis of the statistical data then available.
The deliberations of the European Parliament and the parliaments of the Member States will subsequently commence in April.
In Germany the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, and probably various regional assemblies as well, will submit their comments.
So in this sense April of this year is the month of the parliaments.
At its meeting on 1st May, on a Friday, after the bourses have closed, the Council of Ministers for Economic Affairs and Finance will adopt a resolution on its recommendation as to which Member States should belong to the smaller grouping of the monetary union .
In the morning of the following day, 2nd May, a Saturday, the European Parliament will give its opinion on this proposal at a special sitting.
This special sitting of the European Parliament is necessary because the Treaty expressly prescribes that the Parliament must render an opinion on the Council's proposal.
The final decision on the group of participants will then be taken in the afternoon of the same day at the meeting of the Heads of State and of Government of the European Union.
Consequently, on the evening of 2nd May it will finally be certain which Member States belong to the smaller grouping of participants in monetary union .
However, the schedule for monetary union also envisages two further resolutions being adopted over this weekend.
On the one hand this involves the final fixing of the exchange rates between the currencies of the participating Member States, and on the other hand determination of the identity of the President of the Central Bank.
Therefore the finance ministers, whose activities are as we know not subject to entertainment tax, will probably meet again on Sunday, 3rd May in order to finally determine the bilateral exchange rates and to submit a proposal on the personnel for the managing board of the European Central Bank.
Since the Maastricht Treaty the European Parliament has been directly involved in personnel decisions relating to the appointment of the President, Vice-President and the other members of the managing board of the European Central Bank.
The Maastricht Treaty granted Parliament these rights, which were formulated according to the prototype of comparable rights of the Senate of the United States and which have no prototypes in the parliamentary tradition of Europe.
The procedure for the appointment of members of the managing board is precisely laid down: proposal by the Council, opinion of the European Parliament and finally the decision by the Heads of State and of Government of the countries belonging to the smaller grouping of the monetary union .
The envisaged hearing of the candidates will take place within the relevant committee of the European Parliament during the week from 11th to 14th May, and the European Parliament will probably put its opinion to the vote on 14th May.
The Heads of State and of Government of the participating countries will then make their final decision.
This means that the managing board of the European Central Bank will be in place at the conclusion of the British Presidency and that the Central Bank will be able, as envisaged, to begin its work in the second half of the year.
This week four German professors appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court against monetary union with the objective of at least postponing it if not completely abandoning it.
Constitutional experts have ascertained that the media interest in this legal action is inversely proportional to its prospects of success.
The Federal Constitutional Court will merely have to examine whether the entry criteria, as contained in the Maastricht Treaty and the appurtenant Protocols, are fulfilled.
In this connection it has expressly allowed the institutions of the European Union scope to assess, evaluate and forecast the situation.
The German Federal Constitutional Court could only make a negative decision about Germany's participation in the monetary union if the Heads of State and of Government were to be in violation of the Maastricht Treaty in their decision about the participating countries.
However, since all participating parties are determined to adhere to the Treaty in all its details, we need not be troubled by such legal actions; they will not be successful.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I must be the only MEP today representing the oldest ally country of the UK speaking here.
We have been allies since John of Gaunt, and so we know the British well and understand their way of thinking.
I would like to thank you for the new position you have adopted, but I should also say very clearly and very frankly that the British Euroscepticism has also helped Europe to reform in many ways.
I want to be sincere in what I say!
The truth is that Europe has not managed to change its institutions to get closer to the citizens.
This is an undeniable fact.
That is what is needed.
It is also true that it has not managed to harmonize its criminal laws for corruption and fraud on financial and food matters to be punished.
It is not enough just to talk about control.
We need to find penalties and punish offenders.
It is easy to talk, but difficult and not always politically correct to punish.
I hope that the current presidency will have the courage to face this problem, which is one of the problems of greatest economic significance, to the extent that it is not just the States that have been robbed or the Union's money, but it is also a way of introducing unfair competition, which is certainly not in line with the economic model we are all aspiring to in a global economy.
However, it has also been easy to make the countries, even the weakest ones, accept all the principles and obligations of monetary union.
Nothing has been done with regard to a convergence of education, vocational training that actually brings the citizens closer to progress and actually makes Europe more open, more able to defend itself against the threats of a global economy.
Finally, the common agricultural policy certainly has to be reformed, it certainly has to be modulated, but, for God's sake, Mr President, let's not sink to the depths of making junk food, which is what we are seeing in those countries which speak on behalf of consumers but do nothing for their health.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, like other groups, my group has already given its opinion on the content of the British Presidency's programme but I would also like to pass in review some of the points which seem to me significant.
In particular, Mr President of the Council, I would have liked you to have developed and gone deeper into some of the other subjects which, to be frank, you often only touched upon, the subject of combating drugs, a subject which moreover is currently under discussion here in the European Parliament.
I think that during the six months we will certainly have occasion to deal with our positions and have a dialogue on a subject which I think is very important, which cannot be taken lightly and which thus increasingly requires, in an increasingly integrated Europe, an increasingly single market, a coordinated approach at the European level.
But in my speech, Mr President, I want to touch on one single point, hoping that it can be received by you and hence it can constitute another front on which to measure, in a certain sense, the British Presidency, also because it is a subject which the European Parliament has very much at heart but on which I want to complement the British Presidency, in particular its government, for the position which it has already taken as a presidency.
I refer to the subject of the permanent criminal court, Mr President, a subject which is, as we know, in the negotiation stage at the United Nations and which this very year, at the end of the British Presidency, from 15 June to 17 July, will be the subject of an international diplomatic conference called in Rome and which must give life to the permanent criminal court.
His government, at the last UN preparatory committee, took a courageous and important position, choosing to sustain with force not only the creation of the court, but also of a just, impartial court, not subject to the veto of the Security Council.
You are the first permanent member of the Security Council to have assumed such a progressive position, which can be called the position of the like-minded countries.
In contrast, we know how much reticence there is on the part of another permanent member of the Security Council and member of the European Union, and we also know how strong is the determination of the other countries like Germany, Italy, and so on.
Will the British Presidency seek to coordinate the European Union to ensure that the voice of the Union should be one voice and only one voice, in favour of an impartial court effective from June 1998?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a pamphlet entitled, "The Status of Monks' by Ibn Taymiyya.
This pamphlet is on sale in Brussels, and also in Paris, in the rue Fossés-St-Bernard.
It justifies the massacre of the monks of Tibéhirine.
The person who translated this pamphlet is Nasreddin Lebatelier: you could perhaps ask Mr Jean Michot, President of the Belgian Muslim community and lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain, what Mr Nasreddin Lebatelier's real name is?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ignorance about Islam is tragic.
I heard Mr Cohn-Bendit earlier talking, all in all rather like Mr Raymond Barre, who told us, "We need a French form of Islam, an Islam where the mosque works according to the principles of the Republic' .
This shows no understanding of Islam at all.
He cannot have read the Qu'ran, for there is no alternative Qu'ran. The Qu'ran does not understand the distinction Christianity makes between the spiritual and the material.
There is no understanding, here, of the reality I lived through in Beirut for fifteen years, where I saw areas of the city changing slowly, where first the police, then the army, and finally even ministers were submitted to identity checks.
In the 400 regions of my country I see the Tahl Zaatar that I knew in Beirut being created. It is the House of Islam which is being imposed and, furthermore, the House of Harb, but you know nothing about all that.
A trip to Algeria probably would not open your eyes, since we have all the information here.
A little Islamic culture would do wonders for the uneducated people of this House.
Mr President, could I just explain to the President-in-Office of the Council that the last speech represents a very tiny minority of people in this Chamber and is not representative in any sense of the views of the European Parliament.
I want to raise the issues of economic and monetary union and economic coordination.
One of the principal roles of the presidency will, of course, be to guide very carefully the final phases of economic and monetary union.
In spite of the decision that the UK Government has taken on Britain not joining the single currency in the first phase I think that the vast majority of people in this House recognise that it is the determination of the new government and of the presidency to safely and securely bring about the final phase of the EMU.
What we are very concerned about in this House is the accountability of the European Central Bank, the role after the establishment of the EMU of that Central Bank and indeed of the euro in general.
We would like to begin a dialogue with the British Presidency and then to follow that with the Austrian Presidency on the role of economic coordination and the accountability of that bank.
We are very concerned that the European Central Bank will be almost beyond the touch of the citizens of the European Union.
While the Maastricht Treaty enshrines the independence of the Central Bank, that does not mean it should be unaccountable to the people of the European Union.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if he will engage in a dialogue with the European Parliament over the next six months to ensure that we have proper accountability of the European Central Bank and to ensure that the aims and objectives of economic and monetary union will promote the objective of employment within the European Union.
We will have monetary union on 1 January 1999 but many of us do not believe that we will have economic and monetary union on 1 January 1999.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council on behalf of my group what steps can be taken during the British Presidency to ensure that it is a proper economic and monetary union.
In his speech the President-in-Office mentioned that employment is a key goal of the British government.
Could he explain to us, perhaps when he replies to the debate, what more can be done during the British Presidency, given that we are going to have EMU within a matter of months now, to ensure that the goals of EMU are compatible with the goals of creating more jobs within the European Union.
We recognise also that selling the euro to the citizens of the European Union is essential.
At a point when we are finishing the technical work of economic and monetary union, citizens in the EU simply do not understand the whole process.
It is essential that the British Presidency gives a great impetus to the campaign of informing citizens across the European Union that this is their project, not only the project of politicians, and that it is something important to their lives.
Therefore in conclusion could I also ask the President-in-Office to say something about the campaign that needs to be organized during the course of this year to make sure that the citizens understand the process of the EMU and realise that it is for the benefit of their lives and the future that this project is completed properly.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, at the beginning of your speech you joked that every presidency says it is facing a historic moment.
That is true.
But they also say something else: they promise to cooperate closely with the European Parliament at all times.
Some of us have been here for some time now, and six months from now we will judge you by what you have done, not by your good intentions.
However, for the time being, I thank you for those good intentions.
Mr Cook, your speech reminded me of some of Sir Edward Elgar's compositions: nice to listen to, elegant and easily hummed. However, we shall see what lies behind.
You say you want an efficient Europe.
So does this Parliament.
And on 19 November this Parliament gave a few recipes, in its statement on the Treaty of Amsterdam, which Mrs Green reminded you of today. In order to have an effective Europe, the Commission will have to be strengthened, codecision and the qualified majority will have to be extended, and there will have to be a re-weighting of Council votes.
Mr Cook, you said you want a strong Europe, which acts and speaks in the world as one.
That is true, and we want it too.
And in order to achieve that, in the realm of international economic relations, you have a weapon: giving the Commission the power to negotiate, as established in the old Article 113 of the Treaty.
You say you want to form a policy to combat drugs, because that is what people are concerned about.
We agree.
Let me ask you a question, Mr Cook. Do you think the report by Mrs d'Ancona (who is a member of your group) addresses people's concerns?
As for the single currency, you - the British Government - have the right to opt out.
There is nothing to object to in that.
You say there are too many risks and uncertainties, and you want to "wait and see' .
Well, as regards the Group of the European People's Party, all the governments are going to take that step on 3 May. We are going to run those risks and meet the political cost of the uncertainties.
You have the right to opt out, but I must point out to you that yours is a comfortable position - waiting until the risks and uncertainties have disappeared - and as with all comfortable positions, you will have to pay for it at the appropriate time.
You spoke of tackling fraud and preventing money from being wasted.
You are right.
We agree, and this Parliament has always been at the forefront of that struggle. However, I do not think it is very clever to spread the suspicion that taxpayers' money is wasted in the European Union.
Investigate it and penalize it by all means, but do not spread the suspicion.
It is not true, anyway.
Lastly, Mr Cook, you had much to say in your speech about cooperation, the market, efficiency and pragmatism.
The world has changed since the days of Monnet and Schuman you said, and that is true. But the ideals of that world have not changed.
Europe is not just a market, Mr Cook.
You tackled that aspect back in the sixties when you formed the European Free Trade Association. Europe is much more than a market.
When you, the British people, decided in 1974 to join the European Communities, by means of a referendum called by a Labour government, you joined not just a market, but an extremely important political project.
I should like to hear the British Presidency saying more about Europe as a political project, not just as a market project.
That is very important, because this Parliament believes that the European Union is a political project, and we do not want the British Presidency to make any mistake about that. To quote Lord Halifax, we would not like you to experience what happens to people who do not know where they are going, and therefore can end up anywhere.
I hope that does not happen, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, and that your presidency is fruitful and productive for everybody.
Mr President, Britain is assuming the Presidency of the Council at a very important time in the Union's history.
It has fallen to Britain's lot to begin the accession negotiations with the new candidates for membership, and this time the candidates all have something different about them.
On the one hand, there are countries which were behind what, in the cold war years, we used to call the 'iron curtain' , and on the other hand there is Cyprus.
The histories of Britain and Cyprus were closely linked and to some extent parallel for several centuries.
As a colonial power and later guarantor in Cyprus, Britain influenced the island's course positively but in some cases also very negatively, and it has an obligation towards Cyprus: it must begin the accession negotiations with the government of the Republic of Cyprus in the spirit of the decisions repeatedly expressed in this Chamber, as well as by the Commission and the Council, namely that a solution of the Cyprus problem is not a prerequisite for accession.
As Commissioner Van den Broek also stressed, this means that Cyprus cannot remain hostage to the Turks for ever.
Besides, if I have understood correctly, that is what the President-in-Office of the Council too implied in his speech.
On the threshold of the new century, the European Union faces many other problems, but entertains many visions too.
After the exceptionally successful Luxembourg Presidency, which proved that so-called institutional arguments for the exclusion of the smaller countries from the six-monthly Council Presidency are simply groundless, Britain has in its hands the file on employment and the obligation to follow up the excellent Luxembourg Summit.
It must work on Agenda 2000 and give new impetus to the Union's internal and external policy, in a world which has become almost without frontiers.
EMU is another huge chapter to which extensive reference has been made.
And that is not all.
Equal opportunities, policy for youth, health, culture, the environment, transport, telecommunications, agriculture, tourism, energy and so many other matters require further impetus.
The British Presidency takes office with the good wishes of us all, for the good of us all.
Mr President, Robin Cook started by recollecting the words of all presidents when they start; the ambition, and so on. It might be slightly amusing to recollect the concluding words of all presidents, namely the lament that six months proved so terribly short.
After this wish list it is perhaps salutary to be reminded of that.
I would like to focus on employment and social policy.
I base myself on a brochure published by the presidency under the heading: Europe working for the people , which contains two priorities related to employment.
The first is the so-called third way in Europe: economic reform based on employability .
The second is education and legislation.
I would like to focus primarily on this second point.
To my mind the significance of the combination of flexibility and security, a combination we here in the European parliament find quite important, is not done enough justice.
Nor is the economic significance of a good social policy with good social rules done enough justice.
This is not a plea for rigidity and bureaucracy; but economic reform occurs most easily and smoothly if individual people have security.
This has been proven in various studies.
These same studies also show, for that matter, how retraining and extra training is best achieved when people are remunerated well.
It is a tragic contradiction; the worse someone is paid, the less their ambition to seek additional training, and the less ambition amongst employers to invest in it.
Britain joining the Social Chapter was a great relief to us members of the Socialist Group working in the social sector.
We saw the signing of the Social Chapter as a choice by the United Kingdom of a different model, a different model for the United Kingdom, too, with a social dialogue, and better organisation and fairer distribution of working hours.
I call on the presidency not to let this vision be overshadowed by a too-restrictive call for flexibility and liberalization.
Liberalization which in my country has led to a gap in health care between the haves and havenots.
I am extremely satisfied with the fact that you wish to make more of Cardiff then a mere deadline .
That you first want there to be an evaluation of the national plans.
But may I start by pointing out that Luxembourg truly meant a lot more than education, education, education, and EMU.
Luxembourg was and is a choice for a policy mix , for a shifting of the burden on labour to other sources, and for a reorganization/redistribution of working hours.
Cardiff should therefore be far more than gathering or even evaluating plans.
In the follow-up of Luxembourg, attention should first of all be paid to the design of balanced economic management in the Union, and the development of a coordinated European employment strategy, including taxation.
I sorry to have to observe that as far as those aspects are concerned, the messages from the United Kingdom are extremely vague at the moment.
I hope some clarity will be given today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, further to the comments already made by colleagues in my group, I should like to draw the attention of the presidency to some of the written resolutions of this Parliament in December, which are of great significance both to the Commission as well as the Council.
In its resolution on the second reading of the budget the Parliament also formulated various criteria which are significant to the working programme of the presidency, and I should like to ask you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, whether you are prepared to comment on these today or to deal with them when the presidency participates in the individual committees.
On the basis of the successful budgetary procedure for 1998 we said that we anticipate an informal collaboration with the Council at the beginning of the year in order to put in motion the setting of realistic common budgetary objectives.
Secondly, we said that in view of the successful procedure for agricultural expenditure we anticipate that this procedure will be institutionalized and that we should have a discussion on this in March 1998 at the latest.
I should also like to say that in the resolution on the working programme of the Commission we urged that on the question of the legal basis we must finally come to an agreement between the institutions, and I think that the British Presidency of the Council should also devote itself to this tiresome subject.
I want to add that along the lines of what was discussed in Luxembourg and what has always been the view of this Parliament, preparations for the reform of the system of capital resources must also be made because this is a very lengthy process which cannot be dealt with within six months.
In view of what we learnt in the BSE Investigatory Committee, for me there is also really something missing from what must already have been discussed in the general Council under the Luxembourg Presidency.
It is good when you say that we want to have public debates in the Council in the interests of openness and transparency, but in the interests of positive and improved cooperation between all the institutions, and irrespective of the legal interpretation of Article 3 of the inter-institutional agreement on the right of the Investigatory Committee, I also expect the Council to formulate a declaration whereby in the future it is made clear that, irrespective of the legal interpretation of this agreement, national ministers will also say that in the interests of transparency and responsibility we will accept invitations of investigatory committees of the European Parliament.
I would be very pleased if you would provide a positive answer to this in your capacity as President-in-Office of the Council as well.
Two brief comments on agricultural policy.
Clearly, here you have also presented the traditional, historically determined agricultural philosophies of the United Kingdom.
I am very anxious to know whether during the course of your presidency of the Council you will - also in terms of the basic philosophy - manage to set in motion the necessary adjustment to the regulation of the banana market and harmonize this with the concepts your presidency of the Council has of agricultural policy.
This will be a very exciting debate and I would add that we must be very much on the alert in this respect.
Improvements are necessary with regard to the Agenda 2000, which the Parliament is also discussing: liberalization on the one hand, increased levies for European agriculture and at the same time a reduction of expenditure, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
This is in fact a crash course which no one can withstand.
What we must agree on is a necessary reform, an adjustment, to achieve a smooth passage enabling the implementation of a model European agricultural policy and at the same time the realization of a consumer protection clause within the framework of the WTO.
Mr President, concrete actions seem to be the leitmotif of British presidencies.
That is why I have several questions for Mr Cook, to whom I wish every success with this weighty and historic task.
First point, Algeria.
It is quite right that the EU should reach out a helping hand, but can the British Presidency indicate how it is to chart the activities of groups from Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, who sent their aggressive plans simply from behind a fax machine in London? And what is the British Presidency going to do about this?
Second point, the Asian crisis. In June last year I suggested to the Council in a written question that it should consider a special EU ambassador for the region.
When will I get a reply? This person should have long been in Asia to help solve the crisis.
Yesterday we discussed the Transatlantic Agenda in this House.
On the eve of your visit to Washington I ask you to discuss the future of SFOR with the Americans and to plead for audiovisual products to be given access to the American market.
Will you be making a start on the necessary adaption of European institutions to make enlargement genuinely possible?
Fourth point, Turkey.
I believe the relationship with the country should not be allowed to become secondary to the Cyprus question.
What are you doing to lift the financial barrier against Turkey? We are using Turkey as a NATO partner, but are not prepared give clarity on their chances of membership.
Mr Cook, you wish to be concrete, not abstract.
You have an opportunity here as far as the stability of Europe is concerned.
Mr President, I cannot begin to express my delight at seeing the presidency here today and at noting the presence throughout this debate of Commissioner Kinnock which recalls the effective cooperation between the two gentlemen in the past - particularly, of course, in a certain leadership campaign in 1983.
I am delighted that the President-in-Office has made a commitment to making the foreign security policy more effective.
I would urge the Council therefore to start work now on those arrangements foreseen in the Amsterdam Treaty for making the CFSP more effective, particularly the planning and early warning unit.
So, as soon as the Treaty is ratified we can get to work on a more effective CFSP.
Clearly the immediate priority has to be Algeria, which seems to be a country currently drowning in its own blood.
But we also have to recognize that we will only achieve something in Algeria by quiet diplomacy, by confidencebuilding and by developing a dialogue.
And that, of course, is precisely what the Parliament has been trying to achieve with its hearing on Algeria and its intention to send a delegation to talk to parliamentarians in Algeria.
That I think shows that the Parliament, when addressing questions such as these and human rights issues in general, can play a responsible and effective role.
I would hope that the presidency would take advantage of this year, the 50th anniversary of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, to have a dialogue or trialogue with the Commission and Parliament to ensure that the European Union's policy on human rights has greater focus and coherence than it has had in the past.
I would also urge him to pay attention to two areas which are likely to be lost in the sound and fury of other debates.
Firstly, in former Yugoslavia we have a potentially explosive situation in Kosovo which appears to be deteriorating by the day.
I hope the presidency can take initiatives in that field.
Similarly, in the Ukraine, I hope that we will push for the partnership and cooperation agreement to be put into effect properly and do all we can to encourage reforms in Ukraine where the situation is also deteriorating by the day.
Finally, I welcome the commitment to enlargement but I hope we can give attention to the European Conference because I believe it offers the opportunity for a genuine European political area which will allow us to develop dialogue with countries who are not yet ready to join the European Union or are negotiating, so that we can make them feel part of our family as soon as possible.
I recognize the commitments to Turkey and I hope that we can bring Turkey on board, provided it is prepared to accept the ambitions and vocation of the European Union in terms of enlargement, particularly in relation to Cyprus.
Minister, I have two minutes in which to address you.
Ten seconds of this I will use to express my sincere hopes for the success of your six month presidency, and to acknowledge your efforts in making your country a greater part of European construction.
That leaves me with one hundred and six seconds to mention four considerations, based on the declarations made by yourself, or your Prime Minister, today or during the last few weeks.
The first is regarding your very commendable concern to bring a united Europe closer.
I think that up until now we have not considered sufficiently the two notions of "proximity' and "subsidiarity' , which do not mean the same thing.
The need to prioritize the issues to be resolved, and the right level of response to be provided, are more important than a Europe which, wishing to be one people, involves itself in everything on a daily basis.
I hope that your pragmatism will enable intelligent progress to be made on this issue.
My second observation: you want to play a leading role in Europe.
Nobody is complaining. But do you not think that by refusing to be involved in the euro, and even the EMS, from the start, when your economy is in a position to do as well as, even better, than some others, that you are considerably weakening your declared will?
If you are too European for London but not European enough for Brussels, you must choose the path of the future with courage and, consequently, not leave others to deal with the teething problems.
Third observation: you judge very harshly the common agricultural policy.
However, you strongly desire a third path to be trodden between liberalism and protectionism.
This means that, faced with globalization, which brings more advantages than disadvantages but whose logic leads, all the same, to standardization, you are in agreement that a project of civilisation should be built, a truly European project.
Do not forget that one of the pieces of this project is a certain concept of agriculture, of rural development and of the environment.
Fourth and last observation: in European construction, each one of the great European nations brings its historic experience.
Often, this experience creates fears and stereotypes on the part of the others.
The continent frequently has the impression that, in the area of international politics, for you the Channel is as wide as the Atlantic.
Think about this, for it is you who is going to steer Europe for the next six months.
In conclusion, Minister, if you take these four observations into account, we French will forgive you the fact that you embarked on your presidency in Waterloo.
Ladies and gentlemen, as I have been trying to indicate all morning, we have a serious problem: we have now 30 minutes' worth of speaking time to fit into 13 minutes.
Clearly it cannot be done.
We have two options.
All the remaining speakers are PPE and Socialist speakers.
Either those with three minutes agree to speak for two minutes and those with two minutes agree to speak for a minute and a half, or we conclude the debate now with the President-in-Office.
Would the groups agree to that? I know it is not very satisfactory but these are the two options.
The indication I am getting is that Members would prefer to have a shorter time to speak in the presence of the President.
Mr President, I will speak rather more quickly and apologise to the interpreters.
Mr Presidentin-Office of the Council, developments over the last few weeks concerning asylum policy in the European Union are causing us great concern.
We recommend that your presidency of the Council pays particular attention to them.
I recently had the opportunity to visit the Kurdish refugee camps in Italy and came to the conclusion that the official portrayal of the influx of refugees into the European Union is not in accordance with the reality.
I say this with bitterness because the public in Europe have been given the impression that we are facing a massive flood of people coming over from Turkey and from Iraq.
In reality this involves a few hundred people who are guarded by the Italian police and strictly controlled by the Italian authorities, and whose asylum cases are being conducted strictly according to legal and statutory regulations subject to the most stringent control and without freedom of movement.
This is my first observation, from which I infer a second: with the constantly increasing development of the economic sphere and the constantly progressive liberalization of the internal market, there is no analogy in the European Union with regard to the legal stipulation of basic civil freedoms and its organization.
There is no clear definition of the external borders and the powers for authorities to protect the external borders.
Nor do we have any right of immigration in the European Union, which leads to the right of asylum constantly becoming the criterion for immigration and ultimately lowering acceptance of a basic right, namely the basic right to asylum.
We do not need a five-year term to harmonize laws relating to asylum, immigration and external borders.
On the contrary!
The events of recent weeks show that this must be brought forward.
We would be very grateful to you if you also took this into account in your presidency of the Council.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I look forward to the new British Presidency which has a positive attitude towards further developments in the Union.
Since 1979 the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major have done everything to stop European social developments.
This led to a lopsided development of the Union, and at a certain point to unacceptable discrimination against employees in Europe.
Fundamental social rights were not applicable in the United Kingdom.
Thankfully the Labour government has ended this, and the Social Chapter is able to operate for the Fifteen, and can be adopted in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have clearly underlined that you would like to make a success of EMU.
For the people, EMU will be a success if, likewise, a social Union is developed.
A social Union which upholds the principles of the social market economy, that is to say, social justice and solidarity.
The problem of the internal market is that the social dimension is not developing fast enough and concurrently.
I therefore fear that the British Presidency's social programme offers too few perspectives on this front.
Too few legislative initiatives are provided to strengthen the social base with minimum standards, both on the areas of labour market policy and the social security.
The shock caused by the brutal closing down of the Renault factory in Vilvoorde a year ago seems to have passed.
The call for a more social Europe seems just a faint echo.
It would be a big mistake to underestimate how urgent the need is now for a more social Europe.
Social urgency which will play a part, when we are discussing the third phase of EMU, when we are discussing accession negotiations, when we are discussing taxes and especially when we are discussing employment, which should not merely be training, but also giving people jobs through transeuropean networks, community services, environmental investments, and so on.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, allow me to say to you: ' I was very pleased to hear that the major environmental spheres of water, air and waste are included in your list of priorities.'
If the British Presidency of the Council assists the European Parliament in this respect it will count amongst the progressive and successful presidencies.
However, I would also urge you to bear in mind that what you refer to in such general terms implies integration in other spheres of policy, and that when you are considering the revision of the structural funds regulation you see very clearly that environmental policy is applied in all structural funds, and also that you keep an eye on this over the next six months and tell everyone else about it as well please.
When I see the Commissioner for Transport nodding, at the same time I also applaud the fact that you link transport and environmental policy, because these are important spheres.
And I will be grateful to you if you can reduce emissions of noxious substances.
It is of course no surprise that I expect you to place consumer protection at the top of your agenda.
You did not mention this but I know that it is close to your heart.
So close, indeed, that on Friday I know you will take very attentive note of how the WTO panel decides on the hormone question, and will definitely ensure during the presidency of the Council that the European Union adheres to its prohibition of hormone and growth enhancers.
I will say something else about consumer protection, and that is what everyone now expects from me: BSE.
Of course I will say something about this.
It is certainly a coincidence that the Commission, right at the start of the British Presidency of the Council, will consider a partial lifting of the export ban, and I know that you, Mr Kinnock, have fought particularly strongly for this.
I am on your side if consumer protection and safety are taken into account, and I ask you, Mr President, to make it very clear that Great Britain - although, and precisely because, you have the presidency of the Council - will ensure in a completely unselfish manner that safety and vigilance are given top priority, that deception in the meat trade and other areas, for example, is combated and that you will not jeopardize the trust that you have also re-established in Europe, in the European Parliament and amongst the people.
(Applause from the Group of the Party of European Socialists)
Mr President, we welcome the British Government's decision to place the fight against organized crime at the heart of its agenda for the presidency.
Whilst all crime is disturbing, organized crime is particularly repugnant because it infiltrates and feeds off society itself.
No civilized country and no union of civilized countries can be complacent or tolerant of organized crime, and the citizens of the European Union, in our view, have a right to expect the strongest action at a European level.
While I do not want to pre-empt tomorrow's debate on the d'Ancona report, to which reference has already been made, I cannot leave aside the issue of drugs on behalf of my group, because we feel very strongly that the drug trade is at the heart of organized crime.
You cannot fight organized crime unless you fight drugs.
Therefore, as a group, we expressed unanimous and vigorous opposition to the proposals in the d'Ancona report to provide for the legalization of cannabis and the freer supply of all drugs under prescription.
If time had allowed, I would have expanded on this aspect but time does not apparently allow.
Furthermore, my group also supports and encourages the presidency's objectives of promoting police and customs cooperation against drugs, of finalizing the establishment of a Europol with real powers and resources, and of cutting the supply routes of drugs into the European Union.
Our message to the Council is that it is not enough to put the right policies and organizations in place: policies and organizations must be supported, coordinated and well-resourced.
Finally, a reference to asylum policy, on which I had hoped to say more.
This is another area where the presidency should be more active, ahead of the incorporation of the Schengen agreement into the European Union.
I have to leave it there but we need to make a clearer distinction between political refugees and economic migrants.
Mr President, in the six months of the British Presidency of the Union, a series of important decisions will have to be taken as regards cooperation with developing countries.
As well as the specific dossiers on which the Council must decide, it seems to me that there is an essential question on which it will be necessary to concentrate attention, that is the definition of the negotiating mandate of the Commission on the future of relations with the ACP countries.
As the European Parliament already expressed by a large majority last October, the renewal of the Lomé Agreement assumes a fundamental importance, both from the symbolic point of view and in its concrete aspects: symbolically, because, depending on what decisions are taken, it will be possible to judge whether the commitment of the Union towards our partners in the poorest parts of the world, will either be confirmed or will be reduced or actually cancelled; concretely, because it is also from how the objectives and rules of European development cooperation will be redefined, and especially its most important instrument, which will depend a great deal on the possibility for the Union to influence the world situation positively.
This House has already said that it would be appropriate to have, after the year 2000, a fifth Lomé Agreement.
But what needs to be done, with much more consistency than in the past, is to bring into the agreement those objectives and concepts which have been affirmed in the great United Nations conferences of the last few years, as well as in our Community documents, but which have only rarely pervaded the practice of cooperation.
The objective is that of human development, participatory and sustainable, giving force to the growth of civil society and human resources in all the southern countries of the world.
But also important is the way in which the legitimate interests of the countries and the populations of the poorest countries are taken into consideration in the drawing up of the instruments of commercial policy and in the international economic agreements.
Decisive is the way in which the European Union participates in the international instances, like the World Trade Organization.
Even up to today some parts of our cooperation have had to beat a retreat faced with the supremacy of other strong interests.
The event of the banana panel is perhaps the most significant example of this.
The Council must pronounce itself on the new banana regulation which, as far as we know, threatens to penalize severely some of the traditional banana supplier ACP countries, particularly Somalia.
It will be necessary to avoid this situation and make it possible to guarantee that such countries can remain in the Community banana group.
We ask that, on all the legislative dossiers, like those on the NGOs, decentralized cooperation, human rights and similar questions, on which the presidency, the Council must express itself, the opinion of the European Parliament should be taken into due consideration.
In general, what needs to be reconstructed is a capacity, which only the European Union can have, of developing a political dialogue and a "strategic alliance' with our developing country partners to be able face up to the challenges of globalization together.
Mr President-in-Office, I will not hide my astonishment from you.
Earlier, when you were talking of the initiatives for Algeria, you did not note that the European Parliament was the first to react to the situation in that country.
Many urgent resolution have been voted for since 1995.
It was through the initiative of this Parliament that in September it was envisaged to send a delegation to Algeria.
For 48 hours we undertook an examination of the hostile forces, in conditions which were, however, calm and healthy, and we have been waiting for several weeks to be able to go to Algeria.
Now the Troika, represented for the moment by senior civil servants, is going to Algiers.
We hope - and tomorrow morning the parliamentary delegation will meet - to be in Algiers as soon as possible, that is, 7th or 8th February next, so that we can meet with all the representatives of the political groups who sit in the Algerian parliament.
We are assured that at this political level, which cannot be considered interference since we are discussing parliament to parliament, we will be able to make various contacts, not only with politicians, but also with civil society, and that we will be able to visit the places where people are suffering.
I would like you to tell us, as President-in-Office, what you think about this initiative.
Amidst the pity and overall compassion, at a time when the massacres are causing worldwide emotion, I believe it is time to recognize that Parliament has been the only institution which, for months, has demonstrated its horror, but we would today like...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, as our group leader has already said, we know very well that the Agenda 2000 debate on on the subjects of the CAP will take us into the second half of the year, partly too because there will be elections in Germany.
However, we confirm, we cannot just play a waiting game on an issue which is, moreover, very urgent.
Our group held a conference on the future of the common agricultural policy on 13 and 14 November. We talked about a new social pact to be renewed, a pact between agriculture and society, highlighting how inertia is the greatest enemy of a CAP which wants to be more modern and renew itself.
We are concerned by the times, because since 1995, when the strategy paper on the future of the CAP was adopted in Barcelona by the European Commission, unfortunately we are still at general statements, perhaps too general and generic, on the European agricultural model.
The Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, has spoken of the taxpayer, the consumer and the rural community.
These are in fact the three basic issues.
I do not think the taxpayer should have to be faced with the dilemma of increasing the financial allocations to fund the common agricultural policy.
It is rather a matter of the better utilization of funding that already exists for the common agricultural policy, with more targeted, more transparent aid which responds better to the requirements of protection and valorization of quality.
This is the issue which also interests consumers.
It is not by dismantling the common agricultural policy, on the wave of a pure and simple thrust towards savage liberalization, that the consumer is best protected, but with a policy of quality which the experience of BSE has taught everyone.
In my opinion, Mr President, these are the fundamental points.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Algeria is a very ill country, whose illness has not been diagnosed, making it very difficult to treat at the moment.
Therefore I think there are two basic matters which need to be tackled urgently.
Firstly, to convince the Algerian Government that it is an absolute priority to supply all the necessary means to stop the dreadful killings of so many innocent people.
The European Union should collaborate and cooperate towards this objective, lending all the necessary material, political and diplomatic assistance which the Algerian Government may request.
Secondly, to tackle this conflict, we need an urgent diagnosis of the disease.
The visits from, first, the European Union Troika, and later the European Parliament (which my colleague Mr Soulier mentioned) should help us Europeans understand a little of what is going on there.
Algeria, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, is not just a producer of gas and oil.
It is a Mediterranean country with great human potential, which is asking for privileged relations with the European Union.
There is a constant flow of Algerian emigrants towards Europe.
The country's history is linked to the history of European countries around the Mediterranean.
Its culture and religion are shared by millions of human beings.
None of the things going on there are irrelevant to European culture, economy and society.
The European Union and the Algerian Government should reflect jointly (within the scope of their respective institutions and powers, and with absolute respect for them) on the solution to a conflict with extremely serious repercussions for the peace, stability and development of the peoples of the Mediterranean.
(Applause from the Group of the European People's Party)
Mr President, the President-in-Office uplifted us this morning.
Now, a practical contribution which the UK Presidency can make towards the goals he enunciated.
One of the unsung success stories of the European Union is cooperation in research.
This research contributes practically and effectively to all the priorities he mentioned this morning: jobs through innovation; combating crime through IT and helping the environment with new forms of energy.
The UK has a delicate and difficult task next month and in the following months.
The President-in-Office must get a common decision on the Fifth Framework Programme.
This is a co-decision matter with big money - ECU 16.7 bn - and different national priorities. Do we need socio-economic research?
How much should we spend on nuclear fusion? There is urgency too - this new programme must start in 1999.
Mr President-in-Office, research is not a show-stopper but it is very important and it is a very positive European activity with considerable added value.
Do what you can to get a result next month and to help achieve the goals which inspired us this morning.
(Applause from the PSE-Group)
I now give the floor to the President-in-Office to respond to the debate.
Mr President, I have found this morning's debate genuinely interesting.
A lot of very valuable points have been made.
There has been a lot of support which I think we can build on in the six months ahead.
I have to confess also to a private fascination in trying to figure out how some people got 1 1/2 minutes, some 2 minutes and some 3 minutes.
As yet I have not come to an explanation of the principle but I am sure I will grasp it during the next six months.
By my count, we have had 37 speakers in the course of the last three hours. I have ten minutes.
Much as I would wish, I cannot attempt to go back through each of the 37 contributions, all of which were equally interesting.
If I were to attempt it everybody would get only ten seconds.
So, I shall try to summarize what has been said and my response to it.
My starting point must be that, as I understand the discussion I have been listening to, my opening remarks got a pass mark.
I hope I am right in saying that, though I will be prudent enough not to put it to the vote!
There were many warm and welcoming contributions.
I even took as an endorsement the remarks that our presidency programme reminded one Member of rock and roll.
Even Mr McMillan-Scott gave a welcome to the British Presidency, although later on in his speech he appeared to move reference back of his own welcome.
(Laughter) If I do not now respond to all the questions that have been raised and the points made, please do not think that they have not been taken careful note of and will not be borne in mind in the months ahead.
There has been a broad degree of agreement among the Members present with my opening remarks on our programme.
First of all, I am very encouraged by the large number of contributions which have welcomed the importance we are attaching to a programme of direct relevance to the citizens and the electors of Europe.
If we want to restore legitimacy to the European project among our peoples we have to make sure that we demonstrate how that project is relevant to the lives of our peoples.
During the British Presidency we will be doing it by means of direct involvement of our people in the presidency.
For instance, we have already involved young children from all across Europe in designing our logo.
We have a scheme to send some of our young people from Britain around Europe as ambassadors for a day.
I am pleased to say that some of my opposite numbers, such as Klaus Kinkel, have agreed to take a British student with them for a day as ambassador for a day.
I will be watching very closely how well they do because we are always on the look-out for another good ambassador!
(Laughter) When we go to Cardiff - which, as Wayne David rightly said, will be a very important occasion for Europe, for Britain but also for Wales - we are also going to host an alternative summit of non-governmental organizations and others, who will be meeting for two days on the eve of the formal summit, so that they can among themselves explore the themes of a people's Europe and subsequently make their recommendations and conclusions available to the Heads of Government summit which follows.
All of this will not achieve what we want unless we demonstrate that on issues of real substance the European Union and the British Presidency can work for the people of Europe.
The most common point made in the many speeches we have heard in this discussion was the repeated statement that Europe must give priority to winning the war against the drugs trade and the drugs barons.
Tragically, last year 6, 000 people across Europe died as the result of misuse of drugs - overwhelmingly young people, an enormous waste.
Nor is that tragedy confined to those individuals.
The prevalence of drugs in our society threatens to corrupt parts of our civil society and all of us have an interest in making sure that we contain that drugs threat.
I give you an assurance that this will be high on the priorities of the British Presidency.
(Applause) Also high on our priority will be the issue of jobs, which many of those who contributed to the debate also highlighted. Cardiff will give us an excellent opportunity both in the Council and in Parliament to review progress on those action plans that were drawn up under the Luxembourg guidelines.
How much progress are we really making in Europe towards training? How much progress towards opening up opportunities to the long-term unemployed?
How well are we investing and using the extra money that was found at Luxembourg to create job opportunities? And how much more have we done to remove the obstacles to the single market, to open up prosperity and opportunities for our people?
But there is another dimension to the people's Europe.
One of the most important benefits Europe can offer its peoples is the benefit of peace and security.
Enlargement will be a key part of that process.
But also, as a number of speakers in this discussion have pointed out, we must take active measures to bring stability to those areas on the borders of Europe which threaten conflict.
I entirely share the point made by a number of speakers that the situation in Kosovo is unacceptable and deeply unstable.
(Applause) There is no other place anywhere in Europe or the Balkans where universities have been closed for six years, and that is not acceptable in the modern age.
The tragedy is that in foreign policy, work to prevent conflict never gets the same public attention as the reaction to conflict when we have failed to prevent it.
That must not distract us from the importance of taking every possible step we can to stabilize the situation in the Balkans and, in particular, to avoid Kosovo spilling over into wider violence.
As part of that general programme of promoting security and stability, I hope that in this presidency we will achieve that agreement on a code of conduct and arms licences for arms exports which a number of people referred to, so that we can have in Europe one clear, firm, common standard on the export of arms and so that none of the countries of Europe find that they take a stand on an issue of human rights only to be undercut by a partner.
Let us make sure that we confront this very important issue together and have one common standard on human rights and on arms exports.
(Applause) It would be right to say that one of the other most frequent themes of the contributions was the worrying and deeply disturbing situation in Algeria.
I accept the observation made by a number of those who contributed.
Of itself, the mission cannot resolve the problem.
But it has to be the starting point.
I hope that mission will go soon.
I hope that mission will be there in time to report to the General Affairs Council on 26 January and that, from there, we will be able to take forward whatever concrete and specific steps Europe can take to end the terrorism.
In the meantime, since I have been rebuked on this point in my opening address, let me say that I fully understand the welcome lead given by the European Parliament on this matter.
The communiqué issued at the end of the Political Committee yesterday specifically encourages more parliamentary contact between Europe and Algeria.
I believe that is a very important part of the way of bringing Algeria to a more open, more democratic state.
Although much was said with which I can agree and little with which I would disagree, it would be wrong of me to finish my remarks without signalling out for disagreement the observation of Mr Gollnisch on trade.
We have to be quite clear that there is no way forward into the next century and a new millennium on the basis of reverting to the protectionism of the last century.
(Applause) Millions of our people in Europe are dependent for their jobs on their exports to the rest of the world.
We cannot demand free trade to the places we export to whilst insisting on protectionism for ourselves at home.
(Applause) Nor should we regard it as a threat that as a result of freer trade in the world, other parts of the world are becoming wealthier and richer.
On the contrary, that is our opportunity.
So long as people remain in poverty we cannot sell them our exports.
If they, themselves, achieve a prosperous economy then there is a bigger market for Europe and for the people who work in our factories.
I am very conscious, Mr President, of the remarkable efficiency with which you shut up people who over-run.
I have no wish to suffer the same fate.
So let me draw my remarks to a close by picking up some of the observations that were made about the position of Britain.
I come to you, not as the British Foreign Secretary.
I come to you as the President of the General Affairs Council.
It is therefore not proper for me to address or to push particular national perspectives.
But let me say one or two things about the points that have been raised about the specific British position.
First of all, we will pursue reform of the common agricultural policy not because it is a British policy, but because it is a matter which is in the interests of the whole of Europe, and on which we have a report from the Commission.
(Applause) Indeed there is an encouraging degree of consensus about that reform.
When the Agricultural Council met in November, 14 out of 15 Member States wanted to take forward the Commission's proposals.
That is a good start on which we would want to build.
Secondly, concerning the single currency, we have looked at the issue very carefully.
The conclusion we have come to from our own national perspective is one firmly founded on an economic analysis, namely that we are at a very different point at the moment in the business cycle to most of the countries of Europe, and that there is not the correct convergence for us to join with safety.
But that is not an objection of principle, nor is it in any way a criticism of those countries of Europe who wish to proceed to a single currency.
Over our next six months in the Chair, we will make sure that we consistently act with regard to our duty as President, to provide impartial, effective and competent arrangements for those countries who wish to proceed with the single currency to do so with the best possible prospects of success.
(Applause) We will also, of course, make sure that we do not allow any difficulties over beef to become a matter that comes between us, as presidency, and our duties as the presidency.
Since one or two colleagues have raised it, let me respond to what has been said by saying this: we have been absolutely open on the situation regarding both the risks of BSE and the health consequences in Britain.
Indeed, I stand before you as a member of a government which reversed the previous refusal to discuss this issue with the European Parliament.
(Applause) One of the very first steps taken by our new Agricultural Minister was to come to the European Parliament and discuss it with the committee in the European Parliament.
I can give you an undertaking, not just on this occasion, as President-in-Office, but also as the British Foreign Secretary, that whether as the presidency or whether as the British Government, we will seek always to cooperate and be open with the European Parliament.
We will never ever succeed if we work against each other rather than sharing openly and frankly with each other what the problems are in the hope that we can better arrive at a common solution.
I close with one last national thought.
I was interested that many of the people who spoke from different countries, and different parties within those countries, nevertheless often portrayed a common national perspective on Europe.
The British are a very open and very honest nation.
We display our disagreements, even in front of everybody else in the European Parliament.
(Laughter) I would hope that the British Presidency might achieve just one national objective, which I do not think any other nation in the Hemicycle will begrudge us: I would hope that the British Presidency may, by the end of it, have gone further to building a national consensus in Britain about our future in Europe,
(Loud applause) and that by the end of that presidency we may have a British public more content with our place in Europe, more at ease with our future in Europe, and recognizing that we can work in cooperation with Europe to our mutual advantage.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Thank you very much, President-in-Office.
Thank you for your cooperation this morning and, on behalf of the House, can we wish you, personally, every success in the next six months.
The debate is closed.
Votes
Mr President, in accordance with Article 60, paragraph 2, as rapporteur I would like to request a postponement of the draft resolution.
Yesterday, M. Bangemann, on behalf of the Committee, gave a very negative opinion on a large number of amendments. Even if he accepted some of them, the balance is, in any case, sufficiently negative for me to request a postponement of the vote.
Of course, the vote will take place soon, but prior consultation with the Committee is necessary.
Please note that for the four other dossiers, my request is identical, but I must formally repeat it.
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote on the legislative resolution) II. honey (COM(95)0722 - C4-0403/96-96/0114(CNS))
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
I am sorry to sound repetitive, Mr President, but I am making the same request as for the previous vote, in accordance with Article 60, paragraph 2.
To clarify, I would like to add that we voted for a request to amend the legal basis, which is in any case an important element of debate.
I would like to insist, for the following dossiers, on the fact that the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was given on the five Directives in September 1996, that is, at a politically different time to today.
Everything concerning the food industry has become clearly more sensitive, and I therefore think our request is justified.
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote on the legislative resolution) III. fruit juices and certain similar products intended for human consumption (COM(95)0722 - C4-0404/96-96/0115(CNS))
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
Mr President, for the third time, I again request the implementation of Article 60, paragraph 2.
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote on the legislative resolution) IV. certain partly or wholly dehydrated preserved milk for human consumption (COM(95)0722 - C40405/96-96/0116(CNS))
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
Mr President, for a fourth time, I again request the implementation of Article 60, paragraph 2, that is, an adjournment of the final vote.
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote on the legislative resolution) V. fruit jams, jellies and marmalades and chestnut puree intended for human consumption (COM(95)0722 - C4-0406/96-96/0118(CNS))
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
Mr President, I once more request a postponement of the final vote.
(Parliament approved the proposal to defer the vote)
Mr President, I voted for Mr Fayot's report differently from my group, because life outside Parliament requires Parliament to take a quick decision on this issue.
Central to the resolution will be the acceptance or rejection of the document.
I am therefore in favour of Mr Fayot's proposal for practical reasons.
This is no precedent for how things should proceed in future.
Regarding secondary issues in connection with the report on the third stage of economic and monetary union we would also like to deal with, the opportunities for doing so will no doubt present themselves.
Along with my colleagues in the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, I voted against the insertion of new Article 79a into the Rules of Procedure, as proposed to us by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
My first reason for this is the numerous irregularities apparent in the text: firstly, there is irregularity in the procedure for adoption since, as I said when I put my preliminary question, the version proposed in the House is not that which was adopted by the Committee and, moreover, corresponds to the text of an amendment which was rejected by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
There is irregularity also in the very content of new Article 79a, which has been drawn up in line with the assent procedure - already anticipated in Article 80 of the Rules of Procedure - and not as a compulsory consultation as anticipated by Article 109 j of the EC Treaty.
Furthermore, the parallel that can be made with the usual consultations of the European Parliament is illuminating.
In fact, the consultation of the European Parliament foreseen in Article 109 j, paragraphs 2 and 4 of the EC Treaty, is a compulsory consultation of a particular type, in which the European Parliament is requested to give its opinion to the Council, meeting in the composition of the Heads of State or Government, on the conclusions presented in the form of recommendations by the Council, that is the "Ecofin' Council.
In this doubling up of groupings within the Council, the "Ecofin' Council, in relation to the European Parliament, is playing the normal role of the Commission and the Council, meeting in the composition of the Heads of State or Government.
The terms agreed by the European Parliament in setting its consultation procedure should have, as with the normal legislative consultations of Parliament in the process of Community decisions, expected a report containing an explanatory statement, along with a proposal for a legislative resolution advocating approval or rejection of the Council's "findings in the form of recommendations' , or proposing amendments to those recommendations.
Similarly, the possibility of tabling amendments to that proposal for a resolution should not have been ruled out.
This solution is so logical that - and this is revealing - it is the very one which the European Parliament adopted on 28th November 1996, when it gave its opinion to the Council, meeting in the composition of Heads of State or Government, on the recommendation drawn up by the "Ecofin' Council in accordance with Article 109 j, paragraph 2, of the Treaty. It was then a matter of the decision to postpone the date of entry into Stage Three of economic and monetary union.
The appropriate Committee had made a written report, drawn up by Mr Alman Metten and including a proposal for a resolution. Twelve amendments were tabled in the House.
How can you accept that what was allowed at the time of the decision postponing the implementation of the euro should be refused at the time of the decision - fundamental for the countries of the European Union - on its implementation properly speaking? This is a flagrant violation of the basic rules of democracy by the majority in our Parliament, who often decry the lack of democracy in the European Union and who ceaselessly demand more democracy in many countries around the world.
Moreover, when it is consulted on a text comprising a number of recommendations, Parliament must be able to express itself, to amend, add, remove, and it is the right of each one of its Members to be able to amend these recommendations and to vote separately on each one of them.
As from today, I wager that when the time comes, Parliament will regret having taken such a strict position that forbids any discussion on the "Ecofin' Council recommendations because of the obligation to accept or reject them as a whole package.
These recommendations could, for political reasons, be quite different from the positions taken by the Committee, on which Parliament will have had time to give a detailed opinion without the Treaty anticipating this.
The European Parliament, which is normally concerned to uphold or even extend its prerogatives - in particular in relation to the Council - has therefore adopted an extremely paradoxical position.
Our group are not satisfied with this, and will do all it can to ensure the preservation of parliamentary rights.
The report on inserting a new Rule 79a, presented by the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, Mr Fayot, has been the object of prolonged and deep discussion within the committee. As a result, wide agreement has been reached, but this is not shared by our Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
We held a different view, namely that the procedure by which the European Parliament should deliver its opinion on the list of Member States fulfilling the necessary criteria for transition to the third phase of monetary union ought to involve the production of a written report with the potential for subsequent amendment.
In contrast, the majority position by far (which produced the wide agreement necessary for its approval) was that Parliament's plenary debate should be based on the oral presentation of a proposal by the relevant committee, with no opportunity to present any amendments.
Our group has decided not to present Parliament with the amendments we fought for in committee, because we think agreement has been reached with regard to another procedure which, although it allows the European Parliament to deliver an opinion, does not do so in the manner and with the hierarchy which we think are necessary.
Therefore, although we have decided not to present Parliament with a series of amendments which we knew in advance would be rejected, and although we realize that Mr Fayot's proposal gives the European Parliament a procedure by which to deliver its opinions, we have decided to abstain. This is because we think that procedure is inadequate, and we believe abstaining is the best way to indicate our overall position.
There is no reason to depart from the Treaty and change the Rules of Procedure just because a timetable has been drawn up which forces such changes in order to be able to take the decision on the euro as planned.
It would be meaningless to talk of the independence of Parliament if we could not make any amendments or propose split voting.
If the Treaty could be circumvented so easily in this case, it would set a precedent for also doing so in other contexts.
on the Ford report (A4-0400/97)
We voted for the Ford report on changes in the Rules of Procedure in order to make the work easier for Parliament's delegation in conciliations with the Council.
The report involves minor improvements of a practical nature.
At the same time, however, we would underline our fundamentally critical view of the procedure itself.
The conciliation procedure means that a central part of the actual legislative process takes place behind closed doors in the form of negotiations.
That is contrary to fundamental democratic principles, according to which lawmaking should always be done in complete openness and by elected representatives.
I have voted against Mr Ford's report for the following reasons:
It does not relate in any way to the question raised by Parliament on the need to increase the number of Vice Presidents from three to five, as raised by the President, Mr Gil Robles, on suggesting the amendment to Article 75(3); this amendment was deemed to be the fundamental requirement for the distribution of votes made by the President and applied since the beginning of the second part of the Legislature.
On making the detailed amendments to the other articles of the Rules of Procedure, leading to a request for the President of Parliament's opinion, the report shows the hypocrisy of changing something so that it includes everything.
Consequently, the appointment of two more Vice Presidents by the President who, in practice, will not have any duties on the Conciliation Committee, is meaningless.
Besides the obvious discrimination in having Vice Presidents to perform the same duties, some by the first and others by the second, in this case irrespective of the nationalities of the new members proposed by the President, which never seems to have been the original intention of the President of Parliament, it must be noted that the overall solution presented is the result of the collective pressure exerted by several MEPs who are sometimes involved in conciliation and who do not want to lose the opportunity they occasionally get.
And also, irrespective of his competence in the office of presidency of the Conciliation Committee, the report reflects a reaction of defending the fortress and the inertia of the status quo which the chairmen of the most important political groups do not have the political desire to oppose or even clarify.
In these terms, the Ford report is an important report for the statistics of the Committee on Government and the rapporteur, but is no of no importance whatsoever for the future of the institution.
on the Lambraki report (A4-0001/98)
The Swedish Social Democrat Group has abstained from the vote on this report.
Our basic position is that the common agricultural policy must be fundamentally reformed.
However, this report proposes an increase in subsidies, although it concerns a very limited area.
The proposal means an increased burden on the EU's budget of around ECU 30 million per year.
We are afraid that a subsidy trap is being made for the producers concerned.
on the Filippi report (A4-0002/98)
The Swedish Social Democrat Group has abstained from the vote on this report.
Our basic position is that the common agricultural policy must be fundamentally reformed.
This report concerns details in the area of rice production.
on the Chesa report (A4-0003/98)
I think that the common agricultural policy must be fundamentally reformed.
This premium for the abandonment of wine-growing areas is also very dubious.
Paying grants which lead to nonproduction does not necessarily guarantee that production will cease.
It can be moved, changed or return etc.
I am abstaining from the vote on this report because I do not think that this abandonment project can be regarded as a good use of money.
on the Cabrol recommendation (A4-0004/98)
We have voted against Mr Cabrol's report on a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
Mr Cabrol wants to replace the proposed network between the Member States with a permanent structure at EU level.
The rapporteur also wants to standardize the Member States' methods and definitions in this area.
We regard this as the expression of an unnecessary centralism.
A direct cooperation between the Member States in network form should be sufficient to solve the problems which arise in this area.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted for the report on the surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
We believe it is important that there is cooperation in this area because of the many diseases which do not respect formal national borders.
Nonetheless we doubt that an actual EuroCentre for communicable diseases is the correct way to go, unless such a centre fully fits into the international picture.
A EuroCentre which operates independently of WHO, for example, cannot be worth very much.
The aim here is of course a good one, namely the setting up of a centre for the control of infectious diseases.
However, I am very sceptical about the value of constantly setting up new institutes at 'Community level' .
Sweden has already developed networks for this purpose, including cooperation with WHO.
If a network is to be set up in Europe, then it should be a pan-European structure.
These constant new EU institutions require resources, and these resources have to be taken from somewhere.
The positive choice of an EU institution may therefore perhaps require negative decisions at the national or global level, especially when we remember the negative attitude towards taxes in the Union.
on the Cabrol report (A4-0406/97)
Cases of asthma have been on the increase, and the cause of growing mortality, for the last twenty years.
There is a human, economic and social cost to this.
The most recent medical statistics collected by the World Health Organisation suggest that the increase in asthma is largely linked to the environment and to allergic factors in the atmosphere.
It all combines to cause an outbreak of the illness when these conditions encounter an hereditary predisposition to the illness.
As a doctor I can say to you that it has today become essential to look into this problem.
This is what the Cabrol report recommends, when it considers the different human, sanitary and economic factors linked to the reduction of solvent emissions.
The ten million jobs affected, in more than 400 European businesses covering nearly 20 different sectors of economic activity, are physically able to adapt to lower emission standards than those currently acceptable.
This is why it is important to harmonize emission levels in this area for all the Member States and for all companies, whatever their size.
If the implementation of this is not strictly enforced, we will leave the field open to the commencement of unfair competition, disguised as subsidiarity or support for SMEs.
I will therefore vote in favour of the Cabrol report, especially as the delay in transposition and application within different national legislations will enable, through its flexibility, an adaptation in time according to the efforts already initiated by companies for the protection of workers, users and people.
As a parent of asthma sufferers I welcome the production of this report and many of the proposals that it makes.
Volatile organic compounds and other industrial solvents contribute to the formation of ozone at ground level.
This unfortunately intensifies problems for those suffering from asthma in particular, but it also contributes to headaches, eye problems and heart disease.
I therefore support Mr Cabrol's proposals to amend the Commission proposals.
He is correct when he rejects the Commission proposal to exempt those Member States which have drawn up national plans.
Harmonization on an EU-wide basis is the more correct approach.
It also ensures a level playing field and prevents unfair competition.
I hope that following today's vote Member States will move quickly to implement its proposals, even in advance of the October 2007 deadline.
One of the objectives of the Fifth Environmental Action Plan was the reduction of atmospheric pollution.
This directive is a part of that policy.
It is known that the increased emission of certain gases is linked to global warming.
Therefore, the Commission also wants to reduce the emissions of volatile organic compounds, which are caused by the use of organic solvents in certain industrial and commercial activities, and are detrimental to people's health.
While we agree with this, it must also be remembered that adopting these new limits will involve a major investment effort, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Therefore, we think there is a need for a cost-benefit study into the predicted effects of reducing these emissions.
That explains the amendments which have been tabled, and my vote.
Rejection of application 40 to amend is completely unreasonable for SMEs.
Therefore rejection of the overall report.
This directive has been created on the basis of a real need to reduce emissions of so-called VOCs.
Especially in regions with a lot of industry it is an important task for public health to combat air pollution, and a task I can support.
The fact that VOCs also contribute to the destruction of the ozone layer and so lay us open to serious climate changes, only makes the need for action even greater.
On that basis, however, it is worrying that by implementing this directive we would subject small businesses and regional authorities to a long list of administrative burdens, the effectiveness of which we cannot be sure of.
In my opinion there are problems with basing controls on spot checks because in that way you punish the businesses which carry out thorough inspections and so have a greater chance of finding breaches of limits.
I think we should consider whether the control and administration set out in the directive are cost-effective and whether there are not possible alternatives.
The destruction of the ozone layer is a transnational problem.
That is why it is good that we are looking for common solutions to the problem of emissions.
However, we must also bear in mind that the emission of volatile organic compounds has regional consequences.
In areas with a lot of businesses which use these chemicals, the discharge contributes to creating smog with its subsequent health problems.
Against that background I can only support the Commission's proposal that individual States may draw up their own plans to reduce this pollution.
The problems are not the same all over Europe.
As long as we stick to the requirement of a reduction in discharges, it is advantageous to allow the authorities which are close to the citizens to find the most effective methods.
I warmly support the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection's Amendments Nos 2, 17 and 20 which point out that there are also health aspects connected with the emission of VOCs.
We must not forget that people who work with organic solvents on a daily basis are exposed to a large health risk.
This directive will also improve the everyday life of these people.
I would therefore like to request that the reduction of emissions takes place by finding alternative products.
Mr President, I am backing this report today.
Asthma is a disease which is now approaching epidemic proportions.
It affects young and old alike.
I know because I am an asthma sufferer.
And my 14 year-old daughter is an asthma sufferer too.
There is mounting evidence to show that this is a modern day curse either caused, or made worse, by the level of air pollution we are forced to breathe.
The move by the Commission to set emission limits on industrial solvents will help to safeguard public health.
It will reduce ozone at ground level, which not only increases asthma, but also headaches, eye problems and even heart disease.
The report is also correct to call for measures to protect the health of workers in companies which make or use solvents.
Given that the Commission proposes a 2007 deadline for companies to meet its solvent emission safety levels, it is only fair to ask for the ambitious target of a reduction of nearly 70 % in solvent emissions from craft and industrial activities.
I hope that Member States will also take advantage of Mr Cabrol's suggestion that they could impose even more stringent restrictions.
Action at EU level should be only a basic minimum which can be improved by any country which wishes to reduce solvent emissions even further.
on the Lannoye report (A4-0401/97)
Mr President, in the reply to our contributions yesterday to the Lannoye Report and in particular to the proposal concerning honey, Commissioner Bangemann replied that it was not the objective of labelling to settle questions relating to the quality of the products, or even measures to support the beekeepers.
I must say that I was rather amazed at these statements because I - perhaps I am naive - have always assumed that the objective of labelling is actually to inform the consumer, including information about quality and origin.
If this occurs the consumer is indeed automatically informed about the quality of the product.
This then implicitly supports the high-quality honey of our beekeepers and the protected designation of origin, which the Commission indeed itself publicises with expensive advertisements and glossy paper.
A good use of European tax monies moreover, especially as the Commission also urges honey to be accorded just as much respect as St. Ambrosius. This is implicitly a measure which can help to ensure that enough bees continue to be kept, thereby guaranteeing the valuable occurrence of pollination.
I am very pleased that colleagues here have lent such massive support to our applications, in order to ensure that the consumer can still distinguish between the high-quality agricultural product of honey from our Member States from the cheap imported honey of inferior quality.
I am also pleased that Mr Lannoye and the Parliament have resolved not to put the legislative decision to the vote.
We are therefore now spared from what happened to me with my report on the improvement of the production and marketing of honey in June.
Actually the Council completely ignored the fact that we had unanimously adopted 22 applications and my report here.
A few days afterwards it adopted as Point A the regulation in a downright undercover action, as the Commission had recommended to it.
In September I then discovered in talks with agriculture ministers that most of them had no idea that they had rejected our proposals.
(Interruption by the President)
As I value your presence in this House, I have granted you twice the allocated speaking time.
But please, do not take advantage of that.
I am not taking advantage.
I simply wanted to tell you, Mr President, how the Council of Ministers has dealt with our amendments.
I did not want to mention it yesterday as I did not have any speaking time.
When it is a matter of important problems concerning nature, the environment, production, we have no speaking time.
We have time to spend on everything that goes on in the world, except concerns of interest to our citizens.
There, Mrs Lulling, I can see that you are touching on a serious matter, but you will have to fight within your group and within the other groups for that to change.
I am obliged to enforce the Rules of Procedure. Unfortunately.
It was you who voted for the Rules of Procedure, not I!
To understand the problem of honey properly, it is first of all necessary to remember that bees play a fundamental role in ensuring pollination of plants, that France is the second largest European producer of honey and, finally, that honey is a traditional product.
Our group has thus voted for a certain number of amendments in this direction, proposed by Mr Lannoye, within the framework of his report.
Regarding preservation of the French beekeeping sector, we know that we are importing more and more honey from China, the East and South America, which is sold at a very low price.
We consider that honey is a foodstuff of agricultural origin, linked to a notion of the land.
We have therefore expressed a wish that indication of the country of origin should be compulsory, so that quality criteria are respected and in order to safeguard European, and French, honey production.
Besides the economic importance of this sector in terms of employment, both at the level of production, marketing and distribution, we must bear in mind the environmental importance of this production.
A large number of plant species, which are not self-fertilising, can only multiply through pollination by bees.
A land without beekeeping is a land in which the biotope is endangered.
I would like to take advantage of this opportunity to warn the Commission about the harmful effects of some insecticides with which seeds are coated.
They can kill bees.
As mayor of Luçon, I have been personally alerted to this by beekeeping professionals in the region.
They have noted that the use of certain coated seeds leads to a reduction in the size of swarms and thus a reduction in the production of honey.
As an experiment, we have forbidden the use of such seed in the Vendée.
I think this example shows the importance of the interaction between certain agrochemical products and the environment.
I therefore ask the Commission to consider this fact when they give marketing authorizations.
Finally, it is necessary, both at the level of community legislation and international agreements negotiated within the framework of the World Trade Organisation, to preserve the very principle of "appellations' and "denominations' , along with the intrinsic quality of products marketed under these terms.
I would like to remind you that we are attached to the principle of respecting the classification of honey in the category of agricultural products.
It must in no case be considered as an industrial product, as some of the amendments proposed by the rapporteur suggested, to which we are opposed.
In fact, if honey was eventually considered as an industrial product, we would very rapidly witness a drift, in terms of administrative constraints - lists of ingredients etcetera, and a misuse of the terms "appellation' and "denomination' to the benefit of commercial brands, which could weaken all honey production links with a particular area.
UEFA Resolution and Coca-Cola Cup
We voted against the resolution because we think that questions of sport are outside, and should remain outside, Parliament's and the EU's areas of competence.
Mr President, as the initiator back in December of the demand for a Commission statement on this matter of the withdrawal of a place in European competition from the winners of the Coca-Cola Cup, and author with my colleague, Tony Cunningham of the Socialist Group Resolution, I am delighted that Parliament will be backing the Football League in their dispute with UEFA.
UEFA's action threatens the well-being of dozens of football clubs in the UK with the prospect of the Coca-Cola Cup losing successively: interest, spectators, television coverage and sponsors. Why?
As a punishment for the failure by the premiership to toe UEFA's line on the size of the division.
But the Coca-Cola Cup is run by the Football League not the Premiership.
This is absolutely illogical and clearly at odds with Community law respecting abuse of a dominant position.
Football is a sport, but it is also an important European industry.
It cannot escape the consequences of European legislation.
The sooner UEFA wakes up to this fact the better it will be for them, football and its fans.
on the Souchet report (A4-0410/97)
The most important details are dealt with in recital B and chapter 8, which requests less asymmetric and unequal relations with the United States. This is in particular true on a commercial level, but also in the areas of security and defence.
I have my doubts regarding recital H which congratulates the European-United States cooperation in the area of the crises in ex-Yugoslavia and the Middle East.
In our opinion, the United States has no role to play in the former Yugoslavia, which is a European issue in the broadest sense of the word and not an American one.
As far as the Middle East is concerned, we condemn the policy followed by the United States in Iraq, which will end up starving the civil population.
Finally, if it is true that there are common values between Europe and the United States, then there are also differences between the two: classic European humanism must be defended against a society exclusively based on money, which is too often the case in the United States.
Furthermore, it seems necessary to include eastern Europe, the Orthodox religion, including Russia, closely in the destiny of Europe.
The strengthening of ties with the United States is only justified if, at the same time, there is a strengthening of ties with eastern Europe.
If not, the world will be unipolar and exclusively dominated by American power.
I will abstain with regard to this report.
The extensive changes which the international landscape has been through since the 1980s have also changed the relationship between the EU and the USA.
The constant American flavour which has characterized most of the post-war period is no longer accompanied by a systematic willingness to intervene in the event of crises in Europe.
The new American attitude requires greater European independence.
The report recognizes the new situation, but also establishes that there is still a need for close cooperation across the Atlantic with a view to ensuring peace and stability in the world and respect for values like democracy and human rights.
The differences of opinion between Europe and America relate in particular to the areas of economics and trade.
As the rapporteur so rightly points out, the EU and the USA will work on reducing these disagreements to a minimum.
I am delighted at the adoption by the vast majority of this House of the report I presented on future relations between the European Union, its Member States and the United States of America.
The success of transatlantic economic dialogue, which will from now on be at the centre of our relations with the United States, seems to me to be dependent on a number of conditions.
It is first of all essential that Europeans are able to discern and clearly formulate their own interests.
It is also essential that common Euro-American interests are clearly, relevantly and realistically defined, that they are concretely identified and that the themes for dialogue are the object of a rigorous and concerted effort to define them.
The two partners will from now on have to show themselves capable of making progress in the satisfying of these interests through dialogue, in particular regarding the question of the remaining obstacles and that of the optimal management of the numerous frictions that such an interweaving of interests necessarily implies.
The management of disagreements is one question which will have to be tackled frankly and deeply, not limiting it to a simple warning mechanism.
Success in transatlantic dialogue also assumes an active participation of Member States and business circles.
Without such participation, this instrument risks being put to the better advantage of Americans than Europeans, given the important differences in the nature and way of functioning which separate the European Union from the United States
The characteristic of transatlantic dialogue is that it is necessary to be better armed than the others in the tackling of all subjects, including the most sensitive, whether it be a question, for example, of financial services, of social or environmental standards, or extra-territorial legislation, which are factors of legal insecurity for foreign investors.
It could be considered that these different issues have, until now, been carefully avoided within the more recent and more delicate dialogues that the United States have embarked upon, in particular within the context of APEC or the Americas Summit.
Transatlantic dialogue can only be truly profitable if Europeans are able to defend firmly and cohesively the interests they identify in common.
Our American partners are able to defend their national interests pugnaciously.
They expect us to do the same.
This is why the Commission must make extremely sure that there is a strict reciprocity in concessions, a symmetry of allowed advantages and a globalization of negotiations when concerning issues of foreign trade relations with the United States.
It is also essential that the European Union is able to have at its disposal permanent instruments which are likely to form, if necessary, a credible threat of reprisal with regard to our partners.
Finally, given the essential role played by the American Congress in the area of foreign policy, and in particular foreign trade policy, interparliamentary dialogue with the United States assumes a particular importance: if managed well and firm in the decision to tackle all subjects, it can play a very useful role in reciprocal direct information and conflict prevention.
If all of these conditions are met, we can anticipate a good future for the new transatlantic dialogue.
That concludes Voting Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Continuing training
The next item is Mrs Waddington's report (A4-0405/97), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission report on access to continuing training in the Union (COM(97)0180 - C40208/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since today is a special one for the UK Presidency it is appropriate to quote from a statement entitled 'Partners in Europe: Learning and Working together' the first words are that 'Success in promoting employability and tackling unemployment will be a key test of whether the EU is making Europe work for people.
Employability is vital both for a competitive labour market and to provide people with security of employment by equipping them with the education and skills they need to adapt to a changing labour market' .
It is therefore very timely that the European Parliament and the Commission are now studying a report on access to continuing training which was produced as a result of the Council recommendation in 1993.
That recommendation identified 15 areas where it was felt that Member States needed to take action to encourage the development of access to training.
However, the Commission's report produced as a result of this recommendation does not provide us with the data which is necessary to determine if progress has been made, nor does it assess the impact made by the European Training Programmes and the structural funds resources on the development of access to training and its impact on employability in Member States.
The report in the main simply provides examples of best practice collected from Member States in 1993.
In fact the latest statistical data that we have on participation by European adults in training was produced by Eurostat in 1996.
Eurostat examined training participation of people aged over thirty during a four-week period in 1996 and they discovered that only 3.6 % of Europeans had been involved.
There were considerable inequalities of access and this evidence of inequality is backed up by many other studies.
People who gain access to training are much more likely to be employed, to be in professional or managerial jobs, to be younger and more highly qualified, to be Northern Europeans and to work for larger companies.
There is, without doubt, clear recognition by the European Union, Member States and the social partners of the need for greater access to education and training for adults in order to increase employability, job security, flexibility and competitiveness.
It is therefore necessary to address the issues of low and unequal levels of participation in training and to determine measures that should be taken to make progress.
Here the Commission has a vital role to play.
The report from the Employment and Social Affairs Committee contains some very concrete proposals which are within the Commission's powers to implement and I believe that the European Parliament expects the Commission to take them up immediately.
In summary, the Commission should present proposals for a common set of qualitative and quantitative indicators in order that a monitoring system can be established on access to training across the EU, to measure progress and provide benchmarks.
Secondly, action research should be undertaken to assess the quality and quantity of training available to unemployed and underqualified workers, including older people and those in a typical and insecure employment.
Thirdly, a dissemination strategy should be developed so that successful initiatives taken by Member States and those taken with EU resources can be shared more effectively.
The Employment Committee is suggesting that 'showcases' of good practice should be presented at education and training fairs across the EU.
Fourthly, pilot projects to encourage individuals to assess their future training needs and receive guidance and to enable firms to develop their skill forecasting systems and training plans should be established using European resources.
Fifthly, and very importantly, the work and programmes and forward planning of the Commission in the fields of training and employment need to be coordinated.
This could and should result in a concerted approach between labour market related programmes such as the European Social Fund and training related programmes such as Leonardo da Vinci.
In future training at EU level should not be considered in isolation from other employment related issues such as work organization and job creation.
Finally, it is time for the social partners to conclude a framework agreement on access to training.
They must be encouraged to do so, since there is considerable agreement between them on the need for progress and the Luxembourg Job Summit has provided them with a further incentive.
However if the social partners fail to make progress, the Commission should bring forward proposals of its own without delay.
Really there has been no better time for the EU to seize the opportunity to work with Member States and the social partners to make life-long learning a reality for European adults, the employed and the unemployed.
The UK Presidency has promised to concentrate on securing progress towards adaptable labour markets which are responsive to economic change and on ensuring that individuals can acquire the skills they need in a modern competitive economy.
I believe that the recommendation of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee on access to training provides an action plan and some new ideas to make progress a reality.
Mr President, as draughtsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights I am pleased with the Waddington report.
The majority of the Commission's proposals have been incorporated into the resolution in close consultation with the rapporteur, and I thank her for this, and in close consultation with the Committee on Social Affairs.
The constructive criticism of the Committee on Women's Rights concerns particularly the following points:
Firstly, we deeply regret the fact that in the European Commission's report no survey had been held within a number of sectors which are so very important to women, such as public administration, health and education.
Secondly, too little attention has been pad to access to training for part-time and other flexible workers.
We regret this, as it largely concerns women.
We would like to see an intensive target group policy, with special courses, amongst other things, aimed at women.
Thirdly, women in small and medium enterprises, and female entrepreneurs must be given more attention during professional training and life-long learning.
Women must be encouraged through targeted training to start their own businesses, and ta take full advantage of new technology.
Finally, the European Commission is always talking about mainstreaming and there some good plans on the table, like the one on the integration of equal opportunities in general policy.
I wonder why then, when reading the evaluation report, I get the uncomfortable feeling that the focus on women's training opportunities is primarily founded on arguments like ageing or demographic factors.
Just like men, women are a valuable human resource who should be used now, and they should be given opportunities for training and life-long learning.
We believe that as long as women have a disadvantaged position, positive action is needed.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for, as usual, a well drawnup and very good report.
Society is changing ever more rapidly.
In the old industrial society it was the person who owned the money who had the power and influence.
In the new society which is emerging, it is increasingly the person who possesses knowledge who is also going to have power.
In the old society power was unequally divided between those who had access to money and those who did not.
There is also a risk of such an inequality in the new society, if we do not ensure that everybody benefits from education.
That is the most important issue.
Education is going to be increasingly important.
If we are to have an equal society in future we must ensure than everyone, men and women, those who are now poorly educated, the unemployed and others can share in the education society, can share in basic education and can share in life-long learning.
That is one factor.
The other factor is that we must ensure that when we obtain an education we obtain one which can be used for a long time.
There has to be a broad basic education, because society is changing ever more rapidly.
It is not possible to have a quick education.
Furthermore, there has to also be life-long learning.
Working life and education must be fully integrated.
Both society and the social partners have a responsibility in this work.
Society has a responsibility by providing sufficient resources, by creating an active labour market policy, by creating a tax policy which encourages education and by creating a social insurance system which also provides the opportunity for education.
The social partners have a responsibility, because in future it will not be possible for people to simply sit down and negotiate about loans and general terms of employment.
It will be increasingly important to include education as part of the negotiations.
I was myself responsible for a report a month ago concerning changes in the organization of work.
There are clear connections.
The most important question if we are to develop new organizations of work is to have a welleducated workforce, and a workforce with a broad education, because organizations of work are going to have to be changed according to the needs of the time.
So a workforce is needed which is also capable of meeting the needs of the new era.
Finally, I would once again like to thank Mrs Waddington.
These are excellent proposals, concrete proposals on best practices , on using the structural funds and on improving the statistics.
I hope that the Commission listens to them.
Mr President, I must firstly offer the rapporteur my very sincere thanks.
Her task was not easy, but she managed it very well.
Access to further vocational training is of crucial importance to all employees.
Conversely, well-trained employees are the basis for commercial success for every employer.
Completely inadequate information and obsolete statistical data cannot form reliable bases for a good and meaningful analysis.
To this extent the Commission's report is unfortunately not very informative.
On the other hand, the Commission has presented no evaluation at all of the contribution of the joint programmes in its initiatives.
Although on a European level the social partners are in agreement about the factors which are significant for the promotion of access to further vocational training, but unfortunately there is a serious difficulty because there is no agreement about the measures to be taken and the implemental levels.
Further action must therefore be taken here because this makes it difficult to establish common prerequisites and the performance indicators proposed by the rapporteur.
In the relevant training programmes the financing of pilot projects must definitely be taken into account.
The measures should in particular include women as well as small and medium-sized companies.
Information events with the participation of the social partners could in fact represent useful aids.
A coordination of the projects in the particular sphere of employment with those in the sphere of further vocational training is required.
A framework agreement on the opening of business enterprises for vocational training is certainly desirable.
However, I would venture to doubt whether our own assessment and advisory services, which would again incur costs, are absolutely necessary.
Allow me to point out a danger.
In the opinion of the social partners the recommendations of the Council in 1993 on access to further vocational training unfortunately scarcely had any effects on developments in the Member States.
And in the opinion of the ETUC there is only a very limited number of successful examples.
This means that the lack of reliable and stable structures and mechanisms is hindering successful work in this area.
The social partners have so far failed to agree as to whether a Directive is necessary.
This must be considered in detail, and it is also a question of subsidiarity.
This question therefore involves the principle of subsidiarity.
There are still some hurdles to be cleared for a successful implementation of the guidelines to this report They must, however, be overcome forthwith in the interest of employees and employers.
Mr President, I also wish to join in the congratulations to Sue Waddington on her report and to say that the Group Union for Europe will be more than happy to give full support to the report and all its contents, because it is a very balanced one.
In particular, I should like to congratulate Mrs Waddington on some of the innovative measures which she brings forward, but also on not being afraid to criticize where the Commission has fallen down on its duty and responsibility to respond to the urgent need for training in our society.
The old saying 'give a man a fish, you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, you feed him for life' is a very wise one.
The necessity now, with the advance of technology, in particular the information society, is to upgrade people's skills, to give new skills to people presently in work, to give extra skills to those who are unemployed and who need to get into new types of work and also to have less regulation on the labour market to allow more flexible access to training.
The examples cited by many speakers here are very relevant and it is important for us to remember that we must give real meaning to vocational training, that is to give people the skills they require to be able to take up the new opportunities that arise.
In Ireland over the last number of years there has been a tremendous increase in the number of companies making use of the ADAPT programme, and this has allowed them not only to give new opportunities to existing workers but also to expand into other areas of technology and to bring in new people who were unemployed or long-term unemployed.
The involvement of the social partners in this whole area is vital because, unless we can get broad agreement between the unions, employers and other social partners, then the essential elements involved in the whole area of employment and training will not be willing to come together to find solutions.
Finally, I wish to touch on two further points.
Firstly, it is essential to the success of any programme that the people who provide the training - the experts, whether they be educational or vocational - should be included in the decision-making on the types of programmes to be involved.
It seems to me to be a total waste of valuable intelligence that a lot of the educational facilities and fora are left out of the negotiations on new programmes.
Secondly, the people who have undertaken courses themselves - whether they be Community employment schemes or vocational training schemes - should be asked how they felt the courses provided responded to their needs and what the long-term prospects were.
In conclusion, the need for across-the-board standardization of responses from the national reports is essential to get a fully clear picture for all of Europe.
Mr President, Mrs Waddington has once again succeeded in producing an excellent report on an important issue.
Opportunities for adult education and training are becoming more and more vital with ageing populations and increased demands at work.
The report also states that training must be targeted at women, the unemployed, the poorly educated, and older workers.
I myself would like to remind everyone particularly of the right older employees have to further education and training.
A 45 year-old person is only pretty much half-way along his career path, and is therefore worth investing in.
The over-45's have generally had a poorer education than their juniors.
This is worth bearing in mind.
Another group it is difficult to cater for as far as further training is concerned is people working in non-standard employment relationships, of whom most are women.
These people particularly need to be better trained so as to prevent the permanent division of workers into two main castes: skilled workers in steady employment, and the reserves, picking up the scraps as and when needed.
Mr President, I would like to join in the congratulations for Mrs Waddington's excellent report.
I would like to congratulate the whole of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, partly on this report and partly on the report which we adopted a few months ago concerning life-long learning Both of these reports are very important.
A lot of good things are written about life-long learning, about further education and about education in general.
There is no great disagreement about the necessity and value of further education.
This issue has also come very much into focus now in connection with the summit in Luxembourg where people also discussed and focused on how important further education and labour market training are.
However, reality looks a little different.
We can really question whether education has improved.
We all know that basic education is a precondition for people to be able to benefit from further education.
But still there are daily cutbacks in basic education in schools.
There are, for example, teacherless classes and a shortage of school materials.
The classes are too large, so pupils who need help to learn reading, writing and arithmetic cannot get the help they need.
These pupils are therefore already excluded when they leave school.
I would like to stress that we all have to accept our political responsibility when it comes to safeguarding a good basic education as a precondition for being able to take advantage of life-long learning.
Where the social partners are concerned, as is taken up in the report, it appears as if their discussions about the level at which decisions about further education should be taken have stalled.
I am a bit sceptical about the wording of paragraph 15, i.e. that if the social partners cannot reach agreement, then they will be overridden and a directive will decide what level this should be.
I do not believe that is a good way to proceed, because it will become apparent that countries, or societies, which do not invest in further education and good education are the major losers.
I think that is also clear from the report.
Mr President, on the basis of the document from the Commission and the Waddington report, this debate on access to continuing training in Europe needs to be considered on three levels, economic, social and cultural.
In the face of the tragedy of unemployment, to which we all give priority, we should more closely examine what the expressions "race for competitiveness in the world market' and "intensification of competition' mean.
In fact, behind this debate there is another more fundamental debate on the very concept of the world market, the common market, the single market, linkages with the world market, a debate which needs to be held. What kind of market economy do we have?
What market economy do we want?
Do we want it more in keeping with the culture, with the personal and social interests of our different countries? I do not unfortunately have time to go into this issue in depth.
For the moment, I would like to follow up the interesting comments contained in Mrs Waddington's report on a particular point.
With this in mind, I address myself to the Commissioner, who was not insensitive to this point when I expanded it in her presence two years ago, in the Committee on Women's Rights.
If it is normal to take into account a break in the careers of mothers wishing to return to the job market, the "re-entrants' as they are called, to use a rather ugly word, then the problem of young women - and this is the point you were open to, Mrs Cresson - who marry young and have children after having started training, even when they were sometimes about to finish that training, should also be taken into account, since they find themselves totally excluded from all the proposals mentioned precisely because they are married and have brought up their children.
Is this not an injustice that should be rectified? They, too, have a right to continuing training.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in our modern giddy-paced industrial society lifelong learning is an absolute must in order to master the new challenges constantly facing everyone.
This trend is most clearly visible in the world of work where the completion of further vocational training courses and the acquisition of specialist skills is a prerequisite for the professional advancement of the individual, but also for the maintenance of the company's competitiveness.
It is a political responsibility to secure access to vocational training and further training and to make it equally available to everyone.
It is not good enough for further vocational training to be reserved only for those who are already the best and most highly qualified.
Must we not rather also offer employees with a low level of training opportunities to acquire further training to give them the chance of a longterm job and open up prospects of advancement? And must we in particular not also take women into account, who often have to curtail their careers in any event as a result of the additional burden of family/occupation, by paying attention to their needs and integrating them better into further training?
Governments are therefore urged to point out these defects and adopt measures to counter them.
Only through widespread information about further training opportunities and promoting further training by creating and extending occupational incentives and by removing all access restrictions can further steps be taken against increasing unemployment and social peace be maintained.
Mr President, I congratulate and thank our rapporteur, Mrs Susan Waddington, on an excellent report characterized - as Susan's work is always characterized - by completeness, perspicacity, and political and social sensitivity.
We are talking about vocational training, its efficacy and its democratic development, in other words about how it can be made accessible to all Europe's citizens, as it should be, and worthwhile for them all.
That effort should be made not just to be of use to us in our own countries or to ourselves in the European Union as a pretext or an alibi, but as a substantial ingredient of a sincere and bold effort to combat unemployment.
New and ambiguous terms are becoming current, such as employability, adaptation, flexibility of labour, terms which are of our times but which need to be freed from sinister connotations and defined clearly, because it is natural that in a climate of unemployment such terms and approaches could create fears in our fellow citizens.
Reorientation of our approach to work and hence to vocational training as well, is a demand of our times.
That is what present-day needs impose.
Of course, the weight of our responsibility here in the European Parliament and in the European Union as a whole, faced as we are by the nightmare of unemployment, gives no cause for celebration.
Yet, I would like to stress the fortunate timing of today's debate on the subject, just after the appearance of the British Presidency's programme in which unemployment has been given high and innovative priority, and just a few days, a few weeks after the special conference on employment and in anticipation of the implementation of special action to deal with unemployment and in anticipation, precisely, of the next Summit in Cardiff.
Here are two fundamental thoughts: I believe that in the effort, which Susan's report mentions analytically, to develop special methods and surveys, we could see, and you too, Madam Commissioner, could look into how to make the best use of Cedefop in Thessaloniki to carry out such surveys.
And as a last additional thought, I would like to mention that in the Eastern European area and in anticipation of enlargement, both during this transitional phase of intensified pre-accession procedures and in the long term with the future prospect of the new countries, we should already be considering how to extend vocational training to make it accessible to all.
Mr President, once again I can comment on a report which originates from Sue Waddington.
I again applaud her precise work and expressly her constructive criticism of the weak spots in the Commission's document.
The approach, Madam Commissioner, is to be welcomed as an initial attempt to analyze progress in vocational training in the Union and Member States.
It is understandable that there are shortcomings wherever systems and measures vary too greatly in quality and quantity.
However, it is not acceptable that there is no clear distinction between business sectors and between target groups - from those actively employed to older people.
In this connection CEDEFOP and EUROSTAT must be incorporated to a much greater extent.
The situation of women should be particularly emphasized.
As a result of their employment often being part-time and seasonal, they are often excluded from learning about new technologies and acquiring new knowledge, although they have just as much intellectual potential as well as a high degree of flexibility.
In the Commission's report there is no review of the joint programmes, i.e. European Year, LLL lifelong learning , or the ADAPT initiative.
Various colleagues have already pointed this out.
The coordination of the training programmes - such as LEONARDO DA VINCI - with the programmes in the structural funds is also still outstanding.
Further important actors are the social partners.
They are in agreement about special support for SMEs, in agreement about new training methods and the better mutual recognition of diplomas, but not in agreement about the decision-making levels.
Right at the top of the agenda must be a framework agreement geared towards the demands of modern work organization.
At times of crisis further vocational training is judged to be the most dispensable area in the public sector as well, a grave error. For how can the shortage of specialist workers in companies otherwise be remedied?
Given increasingly shorter product cycles, changes in production and higher market demands, how can employees keep up to be prepared for the 21st century? In the global competitive environment the consistent promotion of the most important resources - human resources - through further training is essential.
In addition, it is indispensable for intellectual and physical mobility and the personal development of the individual!
Mr President, the extraordinary Council on employment, which took place in Luxembourg, clearly highlighted training as a priority in the fight against unemployment and the Heads of Government committed themselves to improving access to training for the long term unemployed.
It is within this context that we are studying this first evaluation report, which is the first systematic attempt at analysing and facing up to the situation in our Member States.
As Mrs Waddington said, it is therefore important to establish common qualitative and quantitative indicators. The report also proposes paths of action to promote the dissemination of good practice.
Like the Commissioner, I would like to insist on the importance of training for SMEs.
We now know that the creation of ever more competitive jobs needs a skilled work force trained in new techniques, in particular in the area of communications.
It is therefore important that the necessary measures should be rapidly put in place in order to facilitate access to training and that national training systems be created which reply to the needs of innovative businesses which will be the job creators of tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioner, as Mrs Waddington in her excellent report stresses, and as has been often stated here, we need proper information on the feasibility of structural funds and Community programmes for training before we can take decisions on their reorganization and continuation.
Training, employment and competitiveness are firmly interconnected.
For that reason Community actions in these areas must be better coordinated.
The EU must not, however, aim at a united system or programme for further training: on the contrary, I believe that differentials between Member States and the multiplicity of their training solutions is a rich resource that all can draw on.
In place of a uniform system we must strengthen structures of cooperation.
In this way we will be able to effectively spread the word on expertise and exchange experiences to learn from one another.
I would particularly like to emphasize three matters to do with the attainability and quality of further education and training: equality, entrepreneurship and getting prepared for the information society.
There is greater need for further education and re-training to address the needs of women's equality.
Naturally the quality of school education plays a key role in the effectiveness of further education and training.
The skills and will to face the prospect of lifelong training should be the goal of the school curriculum.
Similarly, school should also prepare women for the multi-faceted nature of women's professions.
Those who work in or intend to become entrepreneurs in SMEs need special support in the organization of suitable further education and training.
The right type of training could encourage women to even found their own small businesses and learn production skills.
Upheaval caused by the new information technology is the main challenge to further training at work.
Training has to be extremely flexible and diverse, giving consideration to greatly differing needs and individual circumstances.
Rapid technical development puts adaptability to the test and good-quality further training should, along with providing purely professional skills, strengthen people's ability to take control of change in their lives.
Training should also include cultural elements, and the ability to improve people's skills of participation and interaction.
Mr President, I too would like to say that Mrs Waddington's report is very positive, particularly when seen against the outdated figures presented in the Commission's document, and the bureaucratic and both quantitatively and qualitatively inadequate situation of continuing training in the Member States, or at least in Greece.
Alongside the important vulnerable and particularly sensitive categories, such as women, I want to point to three other important categories, which other speakers too have mentioned.
First, people approaching the end of their productive years, who become unemployed, have problems with training, but also have a very short time during which to continue their productive life.
A characteristic example is radiotelegraphists who no longer work on ships.-Secondly, the very young, who come out of university and tertiary education but without training for employment.-And thirdly, immigrants.
Certain interventions in the area of language, knowledge of the laws and other educational factors would be important in assisting their incorporation into the labour market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to begin with thanks to Sue Waddington for her report, which as we are already aware has been submitted as a document of very high quality.
She has very accurately recognized the shortcomings in the Commission's report and I share her criticism of the Commission.
It is certainly well meant, Madam Commissioner, but in our opinion your concept for the future is too defensive.
All respect to subsidiarity, but the networking of the economy, the internal market and also the euro make a European strategy necessary.
This is no contradiction, but a plea for more cooperation.
The insufficient cooperation of the Member States, which the Commission also ascertained, shows this shortcoming in European thought.
For some sectors no data were even available, including - conspicuously - data for the training sector.
The figures on participation in further training measures are also interesting, and the unemployment figures are particularly negative.
I think, and indeed we all hope, that this will now change as a result of the Amsterdam guidelines.
For we all know - and I should once again like to specifically point out - that over 50 % of the long-term unemployed in Europe are inadequately or wrongly trained and further trained.
This demonstrates the special significance of further training in Europe, particularly in connection with the combating of unemployment.
Formal access to vocational training is certainly guaranteed in all 15 Member States, but the reality - the opportunities for European citizens - varies considerably.
I refer here quite specifically to the demands of Mrs Waddington in points 10 and 11 of the report.
The various sectors are also different: for example the building sector, which quite urgently requires a further qualification, because there as well the working materials and the methods are new and they are developing further.
In the building sector only 15 % are engaged in further training compared to 57 % in the insurance and banking sector.
There are good approaches and opportunities in many countries, including Germany.
However, I discovered that all the projects I saw interestingly have a European context.
They have either been co-financed via Europe through joint initiatives or they are European in-service trainee ships which have been arranged by farsighted teachers.
The German Federal President Roman Herzog recently gave a remarkable speech, which I do not agree with on every point.
But in each case I share his criticism of the provinciality of Germany and other Member States.
We will not achieve competitiveness in Europe by cutting back social rights, but only by promoting lifelong learning.
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate the rapporteur sincerely on the excellent work carried out.
The subject of education and training is certainly one of the most fascinating and important for the cohesion and advance of any evolved society and, on the eve of the Twenty-first Century, I think we must find a new way of dealing with some of the tensions and contradictions we have before us and which only education and training can help us overcome.
First of all the relationship between the process of globalization, increasingly extensive and inevitable, and the defence of the values, the roots of each one, the values of the local Community.
Then there is a need to know how to resolve the conflict between tradition and modernity, because only with a just balance between these two factors is it also possible to govern the more global transformations.
A third central element is the relationship between the need for competitiveness and the preoccupation with equality and guaranteeing opportunities to all, especially the weakest and the excluded.
And at least the correct analysis of these three elements can lead to more focussed reflection on the problem of continuous education and training, which must become a central objective of the action of the European Union and the initiative to be adopted at all levels, European and national.
This concept of lifelong learning may be one of the keys to success in the next century; this has been talked about for a long time, but still too little is done and the Commission's communication, which we are debating today, demonstrates that.
This concept must be rapidly translated into operational choices, contractual incentives, investments.
At the Luxembourg Council a precise commitment was made in this direction; we will check in Cardiff whether the Member States will demonstrate consistency.
I also hope that the Commission will incorporate into its own future work the valuable and important pointers contained in the Waddington report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I highlighted in my address to Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs last July, the Commission is very happy with the particular attention granted by Parliament to this report, which has been discussed within three parliamentary committees, the Committee on Women's Rights, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, which has been the lead committee.
I thank the rapporteurs, Mrs Larive for the Committee on Women's Rights, Mrs Günther, for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and especially, of course, Mrs Waddington for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, for the quality of the debate within these committees, as well as the opinion and the draft resolution from Mrs Waddington.
I can but be satisfied with the support provided by Parliament to the approach taken by the Commission in this first report on the state of affairs in the area of access to continuing training in the Union.
The Commission shares Parliament's point of view when it notes that regular monitoring in the area of access to continuing training is of great importance in the formulation of the necessary policies and that particular attention should be paid in the future to defining common qualitative and quantitative criteria which will enable results obtained in different countries to be compared.
Like Parliament, the Commission considers that Eurostat and the CEDEFOP should play a more active role in this follow up.
From this perspective, the Commission therefore accepts Amendments Nos 2 and 4 proposed by Mrs Waddington, along with the amendment corresponding to conclusion 2 of the opinion established by the Committee on Women's Rights and the amendment corresponding to conclusion 4 of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
The Commission also considers that it is very important to provide a means of dissemination, at Community level, of good practice in the area of continuing training at all levels, within all industries and fields etcetera, by actively involving the social partners in this step.
The Commission therefore accepts Mrs Waddington's Amendment No 6.
Another point of agreement between the Commission and Parliament concerns the particular role of the social partners in the promotion of access to continuing training.
They should be able to define, together and at the appropriate level, a certain number of minimal conditions of access, particularly in the light of the Member States' employment guidelines.
The Commission therefore accepts Mrs Waddington's Amendment No 3.
Furthermore, the Commission is of the opinion that all future initiatives for the encouragement and monitoring of access to continuing training and the development of new forms of skills acquisition, in particular those associated with modernization of the working environment, must be taken at the level of both Member States and the Union, in close collaboration with social partners.
These initiatives should be in coordination with the employment guidelines, taking particular account of the conclusions of the extraordinary European Council on Employment, in Luxembourg.
In this context, I am counting on the British and Austrian Presidencies to widen access to training to an increasing number of our citizens.
The Commission will watch over the complementarity of these different programmes and Community initiatives in this respect.
The Commission therefore accepts Amendment Nos 5, 7 and 8 of Mrs Waddington, as well as the oral amendment regarding point D and Amendment No 5.
The Commission also accepts the amendment from the Committee on Women's Rights, regarding conclusion 1 of its opinion.
In addition, the Commission will give greater attention to the issue of equal opportunities in the promotion and follow up to access to continuing training.
It therefore accepts the amendments corresponding to conclusions 8, 10, 11 and 12 of the opinion drawn up by the Committee on Women's Rights.
Finally, it will take into account, in future initiatives in the area of access to continuing training and skills acquisition throughout working life, the present resolution of Parliament.
As you know, since the meeting of Heads of State and of Government in Essen in December 1994, Europe has given priority to investment in professional training, which was confirmed in the preamble to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The rise and development of the competence of the work force is today considered a determining factor in the employability of individuals, as well as in the adaptability and competitiveness of businesses.
Improvement in access to continuing training and the perspective of training which develops throughout one's working life, enabling continual acquisition of new areas of competence, are at the heart of active employment policies, as the conclusions of the extraordinary Council on Employment on 21st November last and the guidelines for employment policies adopted by the European Council last December showed.
This direction had already been clearly declared in the national reports of several countries such as Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The present report, presented today, has three important results.
Firstly, it shows that the objective of access to continuing training for all workers in the Union remains to be achieved.
On average, in the Community, only a little more than one worker in four has participated in some form of further education during the year, and less than two out of every three businesses could be considered to be developing a policy regarding ongoing training.
These figures constitute an encouraging base, but are insufficient in light of the speed of the technological and demographic developments previously highlighted.
Secondly, Europe must face up to the problem of inequality of access to continuing training.
Large differences exist, both between categories of businesses and workers.
Generally speaking, the countries where companies are at the top of the scale also seem to be the most dynamic.
There is therefore a clear risk of seeing differences forged within the Union.
Finally, the fact that initiatives in the area are numerous is an encouraging phenomenon, which stems equally from State authorities as from the social partners or businesses.
This dynamic of initiatives is an interesting and encouraging opportunity to disseminate best practice and to ensure more favourable development as the whole.
It seems to me important to refer to the follow up the Commission intends to give to the report, in particular the proposal for commencing a process of consultation with the social partners.
The Commission has noted the new dynamic of Community social dialogue with regard to the agreement reached on part-time contracts with a great deal of interest.
In addition, if a new phase of social dialogue commences on the theme of information, of worker consultation at national level, it would be possible for training to be fully a part of this, choosing the themes through consultation with the social partners.
Before any new proposal for follow up to this report I, along with my colleague Padraig Flynn, who is in charge of the issue of social dialogue, wanted to be able to have an in depth discussion with the social partners in the Community on the different paths possible.
We have also noted that the welcome given to this report by the different Community bodies has been extremely favourable.
This process of cooperation between the Commission, Member States and the social partners has enabled the establishment of the necessary bases to put in place progressively at Community level a framework enabling each Member State and the social partners to appreciate better the progress achieved, to situate its own actions in relation to others, and to gain inspiration from the experiences of others.
We therefore have the intention of reconsidering the possibilities for a proposal for a Community instrument which would set up a method of regular monitoring, on the basis of common criteria, established at Community level.
Thank you, Commissioner Cresson.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place tomorrow at 12: 00.
Participation in profits (PEPPER II)
The next item is Mrs Hermange's report (A4-0292/97), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission report on PEPPER II: promotion of participation by employed persons in profits and enterprise results (including equity participation) in Member States, 1996 (COM(96)0697 - C4-0019/97).
Mr President, the report I am today presenting is in line with the Council recommendation of 1992 regarding the promotion of worker participation in company profits, which was a follow up to a Commission report on the situation in 1990.
In this non-binding instrument, the Council made eight recommendations to Member States for the promotion of participation and asked the Commission to draw up a report over four years on the development of participatory systems in Europe.
It is this PEPPER II report which constitutes the basis of our reflection today.
This basis must, however, be improved upon since, if we are delighted at the existence of this report and its contribution to the relaunch of the European debate on financial participation, it has to be noted that it raises, Mr Commissioner, a feeling of frustration insofar as it highlights the weak follow up to the Council's recommendations by the different Member States and proposes no concrete actions for the European Union.
It is for this reason that our Committee wished to present a certain number of concrete proposals with a view to studying the conditions of implementation and the effects of the PEPPER systems, with the aim of promoting them in Europe.
The very diverse methods of financial participation vary from profit sharing to share holding, passing through fixed formulae or business plans.
Furthermore, we all know that legislation varies greatly from country to country. Great Britain and France probably have the most advanced legislation in this area, whilst in many countries the issue is left to the discretion of the social partners.
Financial participation has three associated objectives: to involve workers more fully in the running of the company, to encourage the setting up of collective savings and finally, to develop investment.
In this way, both employers and workers can be satisfied through a well understood mutual interest. On another level, the State is also satisfied.
Why are the employers satisfied? Because they often note an improvement in productivity and competitiveness.
Why the workers? Because they obtain a supplement to their salary, have the chance to build up a progressive capital sum and feel more involved in the success of their company.
Finally, as far as the State is concerned, it can be observed that participation strengthens the competitiveness of the economy as well as worker satisfaction and could possibly be one of the answers to the problem of modernization of the state pension system in Europe through the financing of complementary pension funds.
From this point of view at least, the discussion is worth being had.
Finally, it seems that PEPPER systems may have a positive effect on employment, insofar as worker participation brings about new behaviour and new equilibria within the company.
This question of employment is at the heart of our concerns these days.
It is the reason why we are asking the Commission to carry out rapidly a study on the effects of PEPPER systems on employment, production and flexibility of salaries.
This study should also concentrate part of its analysis on financial participation in SMEs.
With this in mind, I would like to say to Mr Menrad that I am in complete agreement with the amendment he has introduced, apart from one or two inaccuracies in the French version.
In my opinion, the question of participation in multinationals must also be subjected to close scrutiny.
This is the reason why, Mr Commissioner, we in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs proposed the creation of a working group made up of representatives from the social partners, Members of the European Parliament and experts from the Commission.
We would like you to give your opinion on this proposal and, if need be, a timetable along with practical ways in which this working group can be set up.
Finally, we proposed the establishment of a programme aimed at promoting exchange of information regarding good practice.
In this respect, a commentary on this programme has been included in the 1998 budget line relating to social dialogue.
In this spirit, I would like to note that on 7th and 8th May next, a first meeting of worker shareholders will take place in Brussels, which will give rise to the establishment of a European federation of worker shareholders.
We hope that this programme may be financed within the framework of the promotion of exchange of information.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner! Mrs Hermange has drawn up for the Social Committee an excellent report on the participation in profits and equity of employees and on the Commission's PEPPER Report.
Many congratulations!
In this connection I can submit the response of the Economic Committee for which I have been given three minutes speaking time additionally by my Group of the European People's Party.
Therefore, at the end I will emphasize those principles of my group which have been incorporated into the response.
The PEPPER Report contains an overview of the voluntary participation in profits and equity models in the EU and deals with what can be learnt from the collective experiences.
As we heard, major experiences have been gained above all in Great Britain and France.
The successes in these Member States with a large number of models are connected in that the idea of statutory framework conditions to promote the financial participation of employees is inspired by many different political powers there.
Mrs Hermange requests the Commission to reinforce the exchange of information via participation systems amongst the Member States and to start information campaigns in these states, mainly with the social partners.
The report of the Social Committee adopts the idea of a wages policy which is oriented towards productivity.
Since the White Paper on Employment it has been recommended time and again by the EU to employers and employees.
The employees know that in clear text this means restraint in increases in cash wages.
A franc or a mark can only be spent once, in cash or for investment.
The report and the response make it clear, however, that it is not enough to fob off employees with a 'thank you' for their understanding.
They should rather be given interests, on the basis of voluntary models, in profits and investments which would not arise at all without their restraint.
The PEPPER Report relates rather one-sidedly to employees' corporate equity investments, where they are documented through securities such as shares, employees' shares, stock options, bonds and convertible bonds.
The Economic Committee rejects investment alternatives if there are no corporate opportunities.
It also wants to include the promotion of forms of investment in the discussion because they predominantly occur in small and medium-sized companies.
In Austria and Germany these are undisclosed partnerships.
This also corresponds to application 4 to amend.
Application 2 to amend of the Greens Group in the European Parliament seeks to strike from the report the idea of a supplementary retirement pension through property formation and thereby remove it from the debate on capital formation policy.
Indeed, the PEPPER Report is not a legislative initiative but a stimulus for discussion, and this aspect of capital formation policy should be discussed in any event, especially as it in no way relates to a replacement of statutory social insurance.
Mr Wolf, I prefer what the speaker for the Greens, Joschka Fischer, recently said at the budget debate in the German Bundestag.
'A broad participation of employees in the capital gains in a company of coowners is the prerequisite for pension security' .
The concept of property formation in employees' hands belongs to the most important demands of the Christian-social movement.
Nell-Breuning, who undertook the essential preparatory work for the social encyclic Quadragesimo anno , once said that partnership and the participation of employees would only take hold as pincers with two jaws.
One jaw was information and participation.
Here we commit ourselves to the rights of information and consultation of the European employees' councils.
In addition, we demand the opportunity to participate in the planned European limited company.
The other jaw was the participation of employees in productive assets.
The idea of participation of course not only has Christian-social roots, but amongst other things roots in the Enlightenment as well.
Francis Bacon, the great English thinker and statesman handed down the maxim: ' Ownership is like dung.
It stinks in a heap, but brings rich blessings when widely spread' .
Today, the demand for a broad spread of productive assets corresponds to this 400-year-old proposition.
It is not about a backward-looking distribution of ownership.
The objective is to provide more assistance in the future to those who have been disadvantaged in the past, by adopting supportive solutions.
Primarily, the social partners are called upon to provide tailored participation models within a national framework.
The right response of our time is: partnership instead of class conflict.
With this in mind, I ask you to approve the report by Mrs Hermange, whom on behalf of the Economic Committee I would once again like to cordially congratulate and thank.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to cordially congratulate Mrs Hermange for her excellent report.
She assimilated the suggestions of the members of the Social Committee into her report, and so the overall report was never contentious.
My group is therefore against the first three applications to amend which were submitted, and in favour of application No 4 because this is a sensible supplement to the report.
In June 1992 the Council adopted a recommendation to promote systems relating to the participation of employees in operating profits.
It resolved - and I am presenting a summarized account of this - to create legal structures for the introduction of such systems of participation, to examine the possibility of whether tax incentives could be introduced, to promote the systems by way of an information campaign and to take into account the findings from other Member States, to ensure that legal and administrative provisions were formulated in such a way that a broad range of systems would be available and would be the subject of consultations between employees and employers, and in particular to take this into account in tariff negotiations.
After three years all national data were to be made available to the Commission for a new overview.
These national findings are now presented in the Commission's report and they are, to put it mildly, inadequate.
Apart from France and Great Britain, practically no Member State has taken any initiatives and there is a complete absence of an international exchange of information.
Unfortunately, the outcome of this report proves once again that recommendations which have no binding legal force are adopted by the Council only for show.
After the adoption of resolutions the Members of the Council submit cloudy press releases and leave the recommendations to disappear in the bottom drawers of their desks.
But we want to see action!
The participation of employees in operating profits itself is accompanied by improved productivity.
It encourages employees to obtain qualifications, at least these are the experiences from France and Great Britain.
And also, at a time of high unemployment it could, with the introduction of the company participation systems in smaller and medium-sized companies, also ensure better and more secure employment
We therefore expect the Council to adhere to its own resolutions of 1992.
But from the Commission we expect more than merely a report with a description of the facts.
It should carry out investigations on the effects of the PEPPER systems, set in motion a programme for the exchange of information, set up a working party to promote the introduction of PEPPER systems particularly in international companies and consider a Community initiative on capital formation policy to solve the problem of participation rights for migrant workers as well.
Model projects should also be developed for the central and eastern European countries.
However, we expect the social partners to provide information and inform themselves about the PEPPER systems, as well as having regard to these systems when conducting their negotiations.
Mr President, this is a recommendation from 1992, which according to the Committee and the report has not led to very many national measures.
Now the Committee is largely behind this report and the proposals for measures we want to introduce, tax relief via the State, grants etc., to increase profit sharing by companies and worker influence.
That is good, but I think that we should state very clearly that it cannot progress more quickly than the Member States themselves want.
You cannot dictate from above that this is what people should do and expect that things will necessarily be so.
I would particularly like to point out some examples which have worked quite well in my country, Sweden.
We have had cooperatives for a long time, both producer cooperatives, such as in agriculture, and consumer cooperatives which work very well.
There people go in with one share and have one vote, so it does not work in the same way as the share system, where people go in and buy as many votes they like by buying lots of shares.
These cooperatives therefore work well.
Most of them can be developed.
In addition, there is the possibility of also using economic societies, as they are formally called, i.e. cooperatives, for small companies.
I think it is important to stress that, and I would like to point out that perhaps people should concentrate more on measures of that kind.
I personally am also very much convinced that people support companies which are wholly employee owned.
It provides a totally different way of creating a sense of belonging in a company and a sense that this is something people are doing together.
That is hardly mentioned in the report.
However, on the whole the report is positive and we in our group think it is important to strive in this direction.
We also believe that this can create employment in Europe's Member States in future if it is drawn up in the right way.
However, it must happen at the speed and in the way which each Member State itself desires.
On the whole we are also able to support the amendments with some exceptions.
Mr President, I would like to begin by reminding all of us that the left, both the political and the trades union left, has never in any way been against the people working in companies also having a very, very large influence over the business, both over the corporate environment as a whole and over the use of profits.
But I think that to begin one-sidedly to emphasize personal shares and personal shareholdings as a driving force for increased productivity in this way is extremely biased and very blinkered.
What we want instead is a dynamic and creative development with regard to corporate democracy.
It would have been very good, I think, if both the Commission and the rapporteur had included the need for companies to invest in funds for the future and what we recently talked about, life-long learning, so that there is investment not only in personal ownership, but also in short-term training in order to increase expertise, not just for the individual, not just for the company, but also for society as a whole.
Mr President, what follows from this? I believe that this must once again be clarified.
It is not a general question, Mr Menrad, of partnership or class conflict. I cannot help commenting here that anyone who cannot engage in conflict will not be taken seriously as a partner either.
It is a question of how participation systems can be developed beyond the Ford factory, i.e. beyond the large company, with co-management or other means of involving employees arranged by the trade unions.
We know that the low-denomination share is no answer.
The shareholder is torn one way and the other between the shareholder value, which calls for sackings, and his interest as an employee, which calls for employment.
That is the case at Volkswagen, that is the case at Renault and that is always the case wherever low-denomination shares are broadly scattered amongst employees.
We must urgently examine to what extent we can expand the corporate concept which focuses on the functional context instead of the mere formation of property; modern franchise company chains should be examined in this connection.
We must also consider the redefinition of the boundaries of corporate and social democratisation.
In this respect I disagree slightly with the GUE, because local and regional coordination also calls for new forms of incorporation and in that case a reliance on ownership makes complete sense.
However, in particular this is a matter of genuine participation in profits, not of wages being paid out over an extended period of time, and also of the necessity for providing official cover for the employees' shares.
We have submitted the appropriate applications.
We can also support the applications of Mr Menrad, since it seems to us rational to once again support rational privatization with appropriate participation strategies; a specific concentration on small and medium-sized undertakings also seems to us to make sense, provided their particular circumstances are adequately taken into account.
However, the fundamental issue is to deal with the question which has already been raised in connection with the Meitner plan in Sweden in the full bloom of Fordism: how can a mechanism be effectively installed which cancels out the automatic process whereby the holders of capital accumulate the corporate wealth and the dependent workers can at most reproduce their own working capacity? This is the question we are faced with, and in this respect the PEPPER Report is really only a precursor, as much as Mrs Hermange is to be thanked for drawing something positive from it with the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, recognizing the right of subordinate employees to participate in the profits and success of the company has always been one of the priority objectives of the Italian political right.
For fifty years we have been maintaining that overcoming the class struggle and eliminating the conflict between capital and labour must essentially come through the participation of employees in the company capital.
That is why the parliamentary group of the National Alliance is delighted to welcome the reproposing of this subject and congratulates the rapporteur, and we also note the fact that even about six years after the recommendation of the European Council, little or nothing has changed in the various Member States.
We have the clear sensation that in Europe the issues of occupation and industrial democracy, of a different and qualified role for employees, had become commonplaces, slogans to be used only to display goodwill which then do not find any concrete expression.
In fact, excluding France and the United Kingdom, where progress has been made in the last five years on the ground of financial participation of employees, in the rest of the European Union a sterile debate continues about understanding whether these new participation systems should be the responsibility of government or the social partners.
The European Union must demonstrate more courage, more determination in this delicate matter, that is it needs to move from words to deeds, if only through the establishment of a European participation council, with the task of promoting the introduction of participation systems under comparable conditions throughout the Community.
It is necessary to act so that the social partners include this system in their negotiations and operate so that a regulatory framework is available in the Member States.
At a time when unemployment remains the most serious economic problem in the European Community at this millennium end, Europe must make every effort to induce the governments of the Member States and set out down a secure road, already successfully tested but so far only used by few.
Grand intentions are no longer enough!
Mr President, I am very pleased about this initiative from the Commission.
It places emphasis on the advantages there can be in employees sharing in the profits of businesses.
Profit sharing can make employees more satisfied and motivated, put more in their pay packet and create a better psychological working environment.
It can make the profits of European businesses grow if productivity increases and it could possibly help improve employment in Europe, which is needed.
Profit sharing can appear in an infinite number of variations.
Financial profit sharing, financial democracy or employee shares.
Favourite children have many names.
The model which is chosen in the Member States will depend on how the labour market is set up in the country concerned.
When the Commission's report states that there is no profit sharing in Denmark, that is incorrect, Mr Flynn.
Employee pension funds own a large share of Danish businesses.
That means in fact that wage-earners have a large stake in capital in Denmark.
We should not therefore stick to a rigid picture of what profit sharing means or a narrow European model.
We should start with the countries' different traditions and learn from each other's good and bad experiences.
I would therefore support a study into how the various schemes function in the Member States.
It is also a good idea to set up a working group which should include the social partners.
This working group could, among other things, examine questions of a transnational character, such as profit sharing in multinational companies.
In Denmark we do not believe that European legislation is necessary, but we are pleased that in this way we can put the subject on the agenda in the EU.
This is an area in which we should take the voluntary path.
It would be wonderful if we could make businesses aware of the advantages of profit sharing through the exchange of experience and studies, but decisions on the introduction of profit sharing should either be left to the individual business or be made the subject of agreement between the social partners.
Mr President, first of all let me thank Mrs Hermange and the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs on the thorough work that they have done on the PEPPER II report.
The PEPPER II report gives an overview of the way that the Member States have promoted financial participation of employees in profits and enterprise results since 1992, following the adoption of a Council recommendation on this very issue.
Since the adoption of the PEPPER report last January financial participation has, amongst many other topics, been discussed in the context of the Green Paper on partnership for a new organization of work.
The employment guidelines that were adopted in December also invite the social partners to negotiate agreements to modernize the organization of work, with the aim of making undertakings productive and competitive and achieving the required balance between flexibility and security.
In this context, the participation of employees in profits and enterprise results could assume a greater importance.
As the PEPPER report shows, profit-sharing is in all cases associated with higher productivity levels, no matter what methods, model specification and data are used.
Other positive effects of the schemes are on wage flexibility, employment and employee involvement.
The Commission agrees with Parliament that the impact of financial participation schemes on employment, productivity and wage flexibility should be further studied.
We agree with Parliament here - measuring the exact impact of such schemes can often be very difficult, particularly given the different fiscal and social security schemes that exist in the Member States.
The Members will be aware of the great diversity here and it is very hard to get the proper assessment and comparable data analysis in place.
Furthermore, since it seems that the lack of comparable information may be an obstacle to the promotion of financial participation schemes, the Commission supports the idea of launching incentive measures to promote information exchanges between Member States, provided adequate funding is available.
I think this is a key request which the rapporteur and Parliament are making today.
The applicant countries could also be invited to participate in this particular understanding, insofar as exchange of good practice and information is concerned.
As regards other actions proposed by Parliament, the Commission would prefer to wait until the final results of the consultation launched on the basis of the Green Paper on work organization, plus the issue of setting up a working party, could be considered in the context of the possible follow-up to the Green Paper.
Thank you Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Kurdish refugees
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation of Kurdish refugees and the position of the European Union.
Mr President, thank you for your introduction and for the opportunity to address Parliament this afternoon.
This is my first opportunity and it is one that I relish.
This is a very important issue which is being debated today and it is a privilege to take part in your debate.
The presidency shares many of the concerns expressed by the European Parliament.
The scenes we have all witnessed during the last few weeks of large numbers of distressed and vulnerable people arriving on the shores of Europe are deeply disturbing.
Some of these people are genuine refugees entitled to the protection of the international community.
But many are economic migrants in no real danger of persecution in their countries of origin who are merely seeking a better life in the European Union.
Both categories appear to be being exploited by unscrupulous racketeers who take their money in return for attempting to smuggle them illegally into the European Union.
As the presidency we are determined to deal with this difficult and complex problem in an effective but humane manner compatible with our international obligations towards genuine refugees.
This is not just a Schengen problem; it is a common European Union problem.
It is a problem which challenges our ability to act together both in European Union domestic policy terms and in foreign policy terms.
The presidency has drawn up proposals to tackle this difficult problem.
On the domestic front, immigration and asylum policies of the Member States need to be fair and firm.
External border controls need to be rigorously enforced.
We are looking within the European Union at what further steps we can take.
We have suggested that we could be more rigorous in applying sanctions against airlines and other carriers who bring undocumented passengers into the European Union.
We can ensure that our embassies and consulates, where applications for visas are made by Iraqis, have adequate training.
We can train airline staff in the detection of false documents.
But this in itself will not be enough.
We have to track down and bring to justice the organized criminals who are trafficking in human beings by encouraging people to leave their countries and part with their savings for an illegal passage to Europe, often in appalling conditions.
The meeting of police chiefs in Rome on 8 January was an important step in this direction.
Several representatives of those European Union law enforcement agencies most directly affected by the problem were able to pool their knowledge.
The presidency will seek to build on this.
We will continue to ensure our law enforcement agencies have the political support they need to be able to work smoothly together to confront this kind of international crime.
As the presidency we will do what we can to achieve this.
Since some of the people being smuggled into Europe are genuine refugees fleeing persecution in their own countries, our actions have to be consistent with our international obligations towards such people.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees will be kept advised of any measures being planned.
In turn, the presidency has sought - and we will continue regularly to seek - UNHCR's advice on the humanitarian situation in the regions from which the migrants come.
But the measures we take domestically will not be able to stem the human tide unless we are effective on the foreign policy front as well.
We have to look at the root causes of these migratory pressures: the human rights and humanitarian situation in the region and the repressive nature of the Iraqi regime, as well as the fighting in which so many civilians are caught up in Northern Iraq and the south-east of Turkey.
We have to think hard about what we can do together to solve these problems.
In particular, we have to support the efforts of mediators in the reconciliation process between the Kurdish parties in Northern Iraq.
Through humanitarian intervention we need to help create the conditions in Northern Iraq that will remove the incentive for people to leave.
Turkey has a key role to play in handling this crisis.
The presidency has discussed the matter with the Turkish Government which is taking the problem seriously and has tightened security measures at ports.
The presidency has attached the highest priority to work on the action plan on illegal immigration from Iraq commissioned at the Luxembourg European Council.
This crisis is a real test of the European Union's ability to take rapid and effective action within the framework of both the second and third pillars to deal with a serious problem.
The presidency intends to do what it can to see that together we pass the test.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the two statements have shown that there are very many points of agreement between the institutions of the European Union.
Firstly, it is important that the right of asylum is fully safeguarded in this Europe.
Secondly, however, it is important that we put an end to criminal organizations, which cannot be tolerated or sympathized with because they commit the ultimate sin of exploiting human misery out a lust for profit.
Thirdly, I should like to fully support what the President-in-Office of the Council also mentioned: it is a question of combating the causes of migration, as you also stated, Mr Commissioner.
I believe we must all endeavour to solve the problem of the Kurds - the economic, social, political and cultural problem of the Kurds, not only in Turkey but especially in Turkey.
However, I would like to take this opportunity to state quite clearly that to many people it appears to be no coincidence that this immigration occurred a few weeks after the Luxembourg summit - this reaction appears to be no coincidence.
It may indeed have happened with the knowledge of the Turkish authorities.
We must follow up several reactions closely.
We must be patient.
We must continue the dialogue with Turkey despite all the problems this involves, because a problem such as that of the Kurds can ultimately only be resolved jointly, with mutual support and assistance.
We must also convince Turkey that it is not only an internal problem, not only a problem to be resolved politically or even militarily, but a socio-economic and cultural problem which is to be resolved; and that Europe wants to help, not oppose Turkey, and would like to point Turkey in the direction of assistance.
Fourthly: the burdens.
The Commissioner also addressed this matter and others have addressed it - if we want to combat the xenophobia, which there most unfortunately is, and in some cases also the hysteria which accompanied it, we must consider how the burdens and the responsibility incidental to the refugee question can be better apportioned.
We also addressed you on the matter, Mr Commissioner in the Committee for Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
I believe that more must be done to make it clear that in the event that some countries - Italy has on many occasions acted in an impeccable manner in this connection - becoming directly affected by floods of refugees, other countries in Europe cannot say that this does not concern us, that is their problem, or perhaps react in an even more negative manner.
In Europe we must assume responsibility for this jointly, and jointly create a rational asylum policy in this Europe.
This has not yet happened, and there will be other colleagues addressing the subject.
The common foreign policy must ensure that the right of asylum is safeguarded in this Europe, that no fortress of Europe comes into being, but that a rationally controlled immigration policy ensures that xenophobia is eliminated and that we are an hospitable Europe, but for those who really need our help and support.
Mr President, I think the Council Presidency and Commissioner van den Broek are very clear that it is absurd to think that they can stem the Kurdish migratory flood without a radical change in the situation in the places where they live today.
I am thinking primarily of Turkey and Iraq.
The causes of the migratory flood must be understood, it has been said. The causes are simple: war is being waged against the Kurds in Iraq, and the Turkish army has carried out massacres against villages inhabited by Kurds.
Those are the causes of this flight: political causes, primarily political, which make the Kurdish question a political question.
I believe that all this makes it urgent and necessary to hold an international conference on the Kurdish question.
That is a very pressing necessity and the European Union can and must take this problem on board.
A commitment from the Commissioner on this issue would be important.
I only want to add that I too consider important the recognition shown for the positive role played by the government of my country.
It has not been a pretty sight to see other governments say that the problem of migration was just an Italian problem; I think it is now time to pose the question of a common political asylum policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate concerns political responsibility.
It is a question of dealing responsibly with the subject of 'flight' and a coherent European response to the question of helping refugees who are seeking protection.
This debate is about refugees and helping refugees, not about preventing refugees from taking flight in the first place.
We are experiencing precisely the opposite.
Refugees are being criminalized indiscriminately and the medium of Eurodac, Mr Wiebenga, is a means of criminalizing refugees indiscriminately.
They are per definitionem being turned into illegal immigrants, and now an entirely new concept is being introduced into the debate: that of the illegal exit.
I am familiar with this concept from the linguistic usage in the GDR, and Mr Swoboda uses this concept when he demands that Turkey as it were prevent refugees being able to escape from Turkey in the first place.
With the calls for Schengen to be repealed, which is only possible if there is an actual threat to public order and internal security, 2, 000 people in flight are declared to be a threat for 370 million EU citizens.
This is demagogic and represents an exploitation of the misery of people in flight for party political purposes, for election purposes and for purposes quite different from ensuring that the right of asylum is upheld here.
When now above all the Federal German Minister of the Interior, who over the last few days has posed as the taskmaster of Europe, criticises Italy this is an open call to violate prevailing asylum law.
He also calls for the Geneva Refugees Convention to be violated!
He calls for the European Convention on Human rights to be violated!
Indeed, where have we arrived at here if European responsibility now only means undermining the law of asylum as far as possible.
The Kurdish problem is not a police problem
Please allow me to say one more thing: four weeks ago Mr Juncker said here in this room that he would not sit at a table with torturers, and he was referring to the Turkish Government.
Four weeks later these very people are being cooperated with, the Turkish police are being cooperated with and there are discussions with the Turkish police as to how the culprits can combat the victims
(Applause) This is deceitful and cynical and makes it clear how seriously human rights policy is conducted!
(Applause)
Mr President, many colleagues have highlighted the cacophony Europe and some Member States have demonstrated faced with the issue of the flood of Kurdish refugees into Italy.
I associate myself with those criticisms, I say that the Italian authorities have acted properly and have shown, from this point of view, a great sense of responsibility, but at the same time I answer the fact - if I may - that, if we had thought in time that these frontiers and these asylum measures for refugees are measures to be taken henceforward at the European level, it cannot but be recognized that neither in the Treaty of Amsterdam, nor in the action of the Council, which has blocked a draft convention on external borders since 1991, are there encouraging signs.
Europe is there, but when it is needed it is missing and missing too often!
It is a task which the British Presidency will surely have to deal with to bring order to a situation which can no longer be left to the national governments.
Having said that, may I say, Mr President, on the text that we will be voting on, that we are preparing to vote unilaterally, without dwelling for a moment on the Turkish question which was left in suspense in Luxembourg, and voting on a text of this kind risks being another slap in the fact to that willingness to re-open the dialogue on the participation of Turkey in the European Conference which we are all looking forward to and on which we are working, but which, unfortunately, has had no reply from Parliament.
Mr President, once again I am wondering what Europe wants and what role Europe is playing in the face of the daily events of extra-European immigrations of entire peoples.
On the one hand it welcomes the new arrivals and encourages this mass transfer, and on the other it tramples indecently on the rights of the peoples of the Member States: Padania is an example of that.
Turkey and Iraq share the territory of Kurdistan, while Italy and the Member States share the Kurdish people robbed of their homeland.
I wonder if the Union did not have the political strength to react or did not want to react against the Turkish government, which speaks of democracy and in reality bombs and kills Kurds and in its own country obliges citizens to write their religion on their identity cards.
What Europe do we want to build if we fail once again to demonstrate the capacity or the will to combat effectively the criminality which organizes mass exoduses speculating on the lives of desperate people? Of course the criminal organizations know how inefficient Europe, this Union is, better than the Union knows the criminal organizations.
In this way, dear Europe, we will again show our incapacity or, worse, our true objective: doing exactly the opposite of what we say.
Mr President, I think I too must highlight this fact that has shaken all of us: the Europe we have discovered on the occasion of the arrival of the Kurdish refugees in Italy has been the Europe of exposed nerves and ugly conscience.
Exposed nerves because slightly more than two thousand refugees were enough for someone to call for the immediate annulment of a pact, an agreement, a treaty which has cost so many years of work and which built the possibility of free movement.
Moreover, ugly conscience because it is that same Europe, those same forces, which did not want to reach the only possible conclusion which the citizens ask us for and which is a common policy on immigration and asylum; now, not in five years time.
Fortunately facing this Europe there is another: a Europe which we have seen, with a delegation from the Party of European Socialists led by my colleague, Mr Schultz, to Puglia and Calabria; the Europe, that population, those administrators, those governmental organizations, the Catholic church, in the first row, clamouring for common policies on immigration and asylum, calls for Schengen to be experienced for what it is, as a solidarity pact and not as an opportunity to unload the barrel on the other, above all on those mother nature has blessed with a beautiful sea: the sea, not the small internal borders of a state like Luxembourg.
And still they ask us, they have asked us, starting with the Archbishop of Lecce, whom we met, to formulate a policy on the right of asylum. We are no longer in the presence of emigration, we are in presence of migrations which will increasingly tend to resemble what is happening in other parts of the world.
We also ask for something else, they ask for it, but we also ask for it: a fight against crime.
You know that at present, for example in Puglia, other arrivals are expected in the coming months, but not in the great ships immortalized in Amelio's film; high speed rubber dinghies are expected at night, which will land a few people at a time.
To control 120 kilometres of European coastline, is perhaps the case of contributing to the operation of our government in southern Albania to stop the criminals organizing this exodus.
We have talked with Kurdish, Tamil, Singhalese refugees: US$ 4, 000 each to get to Hamburg and Amsterdam.
We explained to them that, correctly, the Italian government, for humanitarian reasons and also for practical reasons, had decided to apply the right of asylum.
I say practical reasons, because with the old law, even facing things that we did not want - expulsions - the way would have been open to reach the north.
From this angle - if you will permit - those who abused our government were twice mistaken, but above all made a grave error: that of demonstrating that this Europe of exposed nerves, of ugly conscience is alive in their person and in their behaviour.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we Europeans will, it is to be feared, more frequently have the opportunity to talk about refugees escaping to Europe.
Therefore, it must firstly be emphasized that what is happening in Italy at the moment does not represent an Italian problem, nor a German problem, nor even a German-Italian problem, but that the movement of Kurdish refugees is centred in Turkey.
Therefore, the first demand to be made to the Turkish Government is that the conflict with the Kurds be settled peacefully and by constitutional means and on the other hand that it be ensured that criminal organizations which also make capital out of human misery and use Turkey as an escape route be rigorously prosecuted.
That is the first demand.
Secondly, it has been said that the Schengen Agreement must be repealed.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, we must refrain from demanding the repeal of European provisions whenever there are difficulties.
Schengen contains all the possibilities of dealing with such situations.
This is precisely why we concluded the Agreement!
I accept that the Italian Government is playing its part in fulfilling these obligations and it must be acknowledged that it is more difficult in Italy than in other countries.
We must also develop an awareness ourselves that with the protection of the external borders, increasingly fewer decisions will be taken on illegal immigration.
Because - in an age of mobility - we neither can nor want to turn Europe into a fortress, decisions on illegal immigration must be taken in the individual countries.
We must decide whether refugees can stay in our country or not, and such decisions must be made quickly and constitutionally.
If we come to the conclusion that they cannot stay, they simply have to be returned to their own countries.
This also relates to the regulation of immigration, not only the protection of external borders which is being discussed at the moment.
A final point: everything we are now witnessing in connection with the situation in Italy cries out for a European ruling.
We cannot pretend that such problems can only always be solved by the countries which are currently affected.
This requires joint European efforts such as they are laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty.
They should therefore be implemented quickly, not only when the five-year term has ended; we should make a start immediately.
This is what the case of Italy, the case of the Kurdish refugees, warns us about.
Mr President, it is very sad that the fate of the Kurds started to preoccupy the European Union more intensely mainly only after a small part of the problem began being exported to the West.
If we had not confined ourselves to pious words when the bombing of whole villages and the annihilation of a nation began at the Iraq-Turkey frontier and on Iraqi soil, Europe would perhaps not now be facing another flood of immigrants from the East.
The suspicions that Ankara itself may be involved in the recent waves of illegal immigration to the West in retaliation for the well-known Luxembourg decision do very little to change the general picture.
The Kurds are still being annihilated in their own homeland, which is divided between four countries.
And as has already been said, we are speaking of 20 million people.
Before the West of Europe began to worry about recent events, for years Greece had already been troubled by the latter-day slave traders who transport the illegal immigrants.
But at first, nobody cared.
At the beginning of the century Europe had and missed the opportunity to solve the Kurdish problem once and for all.
Now, of course, things have changed.
Yet, there are always ways and means for peaceful intervention, both to stop the genocide and to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
The issue is not just a matter for Schengen.
Beyond Schengen, Europe has a very profound humanitarian and cultural tradition, this is a major political and humanitarian issue, and we cannot ignore the humanitarian dimension.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, we Italians are very expert, historically, in the fact of migratory flows.
In fact, for centuries the people of central and northern Europe have crossed the Alps to find in Italy such a happy place they even make it their empire.
I add, also at the historical level, that the present Turkish tragedy is a consequence of the hypocrisy and egoism of many so-called civilized and advanced countries, which have contributed to - and have often connived in - the fact that this people is still denied one country, safe and peaceful.
I agree with those who have already maintained that the problem of the Kurds is not an exclusively Italian problem, even if we are experts in emigration and occupation, but it is a problem which is above all and uniquely European, if for no other reason than that the many arms manufacturers selling arms to those countries so that they can peacefully slaughter each other are European. So the problem is European from that viewpoint as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I was not satisfied either by the explanation of the President-in-Office of the Council or your explanation, Mr van den Broek.
We are talking about the fate of people who are forced to escape because they are threatened life and limb, because their property is threatened, because they are driven out of their native country, because members of their family have been killed and because their basic living standards have been destroyed.
Although what the President-in-Office of the Council tells us, and what you tell us, is right, cannot be denied and holds true in all respects, it is not enough.
We cannot respond to these phenomena merely with a technocratic reaction.
You made it precisely clear what the spirit at the Commission and in the Council of Ministers is when you said 'We must protect people from persecution, but we must also protect the citizens of the European Union from floods of refugees' .
No!
We do not have to!
The citizens of the European Union are not currently threatened by any flood of refugees.
This involves 800 people whom I myself was able to visit in camps and of whom the overwhelming majority come from the Iraqi part of Kurdistan.
Who are the 50 % currently in the camps in southern Italy escaping from then? They are escaping from Saddam Hussein for example, and not only from Turkey but from the Turks as well.
But when Saddam Hussein occupies Kuwait and when this man produces weapons which are internationally outlawed and forbidden, an international alliance comes together to overpower him, which is right.
We talk about the victims of this man here as if we had to ward them off.
This spirit is dangerous, it poisons the atmosphere in the European Union and with this kind of policy and this kind of discussion we help such powers to have the upper hand in the European Union, who want what Mr Nassauer does not want.
We do not want a fortress Europe, that we agree about, but we are not the majority.
There is a whole group of people in this Parliament as well who do not think like you, Mr Nassauer, and do not think like I do, who want a fortress Europe and who construe this kind of debate which we are conducting as a justification and legitimation of what they think is right.
Therefore I hold a different opinion.
We ought not to confine ourselves to saying that we need harmonized law in the European Union, we also need something else.
Do you know what? A ban on weapon exports in such areas, for example.
And we need an international outlawing of countries which pursue their policies in contempt of international law, as Turkey does in northern Iraq, and countries which unscrupulously repress minorities and deny them cultural and ethnic self-determination, because these are the real causes of their having to escape.
Please also allow us to discuss these substantively political reactions here as well, in addition to the mechanical reactions.
Mr President, I thought it was a bit pessimistic of Mr Schulz to say that we do not have a majority.
I think we almost unanimously agree, as we do also, to a large extent, with what the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner said.
I have to say that I was very taken with the fact that they both place the problem in a wider context, and do not give in to the tendency to panic reaction to an incident and shoot, but instead to look at the problems which take place in the second and third pillar, which are really the cause of what is happening.
The strange thing is that, with reference to the enlargement of the Union, the European Parliament stressed only recently that we are a league of constitutional states and democracies, and that only Member States which meet these conditions can join; that the emphasis on the constitutional state is immediately and forcefully proved as being right by the arrival of boats with hundreds of refugees from Turkey and Iraq, countries where there is no constitutional state and democracy for these people.
It has already been said that there may have been a kind of revenge action as a result of the rejection of Turkey's desire for membership of the European Union.
It might be a good thing if the President-in-Office of the Council was to refute this, because it would be a strange situation if this country was to try and join the European Union using this kind of blackmail.
But the story is going around, and I think it might be worth refuting.
Secondly, I would like emphasize the fact that there are of course also problems in the sphere of foreign policy.
My colleague Nassauer has explained the Schengen issue excellently.
Our foreign policy is I think often caused by massive migrations, massive refugee movements.
With Bosnia it was in a direct sense.
Now it may be in a roundabout sense because we do not have a preventative foreign policy.
The same may happen in the future as far as Algeria is concerned.
I think we have to make efforts to create a truly common foreign policy towards these countries.
Only too often the Member States not are always on the same wavelength with regard to problem areas.
I find this a grave danger, which will materialize in large numbers of refugees presenting themselves at our borders, amongst them people who can genuinely be described as refugees who rightly carry the name refugee, because that is far from always the case at present, of course.
I have received seven motions for resolutions , proposed pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
And so I give the floor to Mr Henderson who has also been given permission to say a few words about the situation in Algeria.
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity to make some remarks in response to the debate.
There has been some heat in the debate and I have enjoyed listening to the various views expressed by different Members.
Within the furnace of that heat, I think there has been a lot of common ground on which we can all build with a view to the future.
It has been recognized that there is a need for urgent action at European Union level.
This is not a problem that affects only one part of the Union; it affects potentially the whole of the Union.
It is also welcome that there is an understanding that there needs to be cooperation among the Member States.
We all face this problem and maximum solidarity would obviously be helpful.
It has also been heartening that there has been a complete condemnation of the cynical trade in the human misery which has been perpetrated by those criminals who run the gangs and try to take money from innocent victims by telling them of a future that they might have in the European Union which is not possible.
It has also been important that it has been recognized in the debate that action is also to be taken in the countries where people are fleeing from.
Can I apologise to Mr Alavanos for not listening to the whole of his contribution.
In the old style of the House of Commons in Britain I was trying to do two things at once, being briefed on the next matter while the current one was still under discussion.
But I can say to him that the presidency will report the debate to the General Affairs Council on 26 January. I do not exclude anything from the discussion.
I have not heard of great support for the proposed conference as being the centrepiece of tackling the problems that we face but we will look on 26 January at ways in which these matters can be addressed.
Mr Oostlander mentioned the question of Algeria and potentially of course there could be a similar problem emanating from the troubles and the difficulties there.
I have been asked to comment on reports that the Algerian authorities have rejected the proposed troika visit.
The presidency this afternoon is seeking clarification from the Algerians of their response.
We are surprised at the report since the Algerians had previously indicated to us that they would accept a troika visit.
We are in urgent contact with our European Union partners and will continue urgent efforts to find ways to end, or to try contribute to ending, those appalling atrocities.
We will also take forward a close dialogue with the Algerians authorities in the coming hours and days.
Thank you, Mr Henderson.
A brief comment from Mrs Aelvoet.
Mr President, I would just like to make the point to the presidency that it is surely not unjust of the Algerian authorities to respond to the fact that the troika which was sent comprised diplomats and not ministers, when it concerns such a delicate and politically sensitive matter.
That is the issue, and that is what they responded to.
Thank you.
Does the President-in-Office of the Council wish to respond to that remark?
We will consider different ways of dealing with this difficulty.
We exclude nothing.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0001/98).
Question No 1 by Freddy Blak (H-0940/97)
Subject: Belarus
The dictatorial regime in Belarus headed by President Lukashenko is responsible for ongoing and systematic abuse of human rights.
The opposition is being brutally annihilated.
The leader of the Belarus Human Rights League, Yevgeny Novikov, recently went underground after being subjected to severe harassment without the Belarus police intervening.
His office has been seized and taken over by a state organization and his colleagues have been beaten up.
Is the Council aware of Yevgeny Novikov's fate?
Is the Council prepared to intervene and investigate developments in this case? Finally, how will the abuse of human rights in Belarus affect the country's relations with the EU?
The Council is aware of the events surrounding the occupation of the office of the Belarus League for Human Rights in Minsk.
It is still not clear who was responsible for the occupation.
Mr Novikov was abroad during the seizure of his offices.
He subsequently returned to Minsk and had meetings with the British ambassador in November and December 1997.
Although he had been questioned by the authorities, Mr Novikov had not been arrested.
The Belarussian authorities have now issued a ruling that Mr Novikov's premises should be returned to him and a notice to quit has been served on those currently occupying the office.
The Council sees no need at present to intervene with the Belarussian authorities on behalf of Mr Novikov.
The Council reminds the honourable Member that the Union wishes to see Belarus join the community of democratic nations and that the Union is ready to support the process of democratization in Belarus.
Nevertheless, during 1997, the Council noted with concern that Belarus had not made any substantial progress in this direction and it became evident that numerous violations of human rights and basic freedoms, notably concerning the freedom of the media, had been committed by the Belarussian authorities.
The General Affairs Council conclusions of 24 February, statement of 29 April and conclusions of 15 September reflected these concerns.
The Council, in cooperation with the OSCE and the Council of Europe has reacted to these events with speed and determination and will continue its efforts to urge the Belarussian authorities to respect human rights and democratic principles.
It is extremely happy news which has come from the Council.
The pressure which Parliament, among others, has been involved in putting on Belarus has thus helped Mr Novikov to perhaps get his rights and also his office back.
But the President-in-Office also mentioned the harassment of journalists, and I would like to ask whether he knows how many legal actions there are against journalists, because freedom of expression is being grossly suppressed in Belarus.
It is generally recognized that journalists have been restricted in Belarus in reporting on events in that country.
There are specific instances which I have been made aware of.
I cannot, at this moment, give particular details, but I would be happy to write to the honourable Member at a later stage and give him the information that I have in my possession back in my office.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I should like to make the following enquiry: this is indeed only an individual case which is described here.
There are certainly considerably more cases.
There are organisations whose activity is obstructed or which are simply excluded from Belarus, be it the IRI from the United States of America or also the Pan-Europa-Union from Europe, which have been unable to pursue their activities there.
However, we all know to what extent Russia is itself involved in Belarus and what opportunity it has to influence Belarus.
Do you not think it is time that we, who are pumping so much money into Russia from the European Union, should gradually start knocking at Russia's door and tell them that as they have such an influence in Belarus, they should use their influence there so that these questions of human rights can somehow be tackled in order that we can also somehow exert our influence there
Mr President, I think that the questioner is right in saying that the situation is very complicated and it might be possible for the Russians to have some influence.
In the past the Russians have been able to exercise some influence on events in Belarus.
As I understand it at the moment, there is not a clear understanding between the Russians and the Belarussians.
A lot of the talks that they have had have not been fruitful.
This is something that we would want to raise with the Russians in the Cooperation Council and I would be interested to see what their response is.
I hope that they can help.
I do not have huge optimism in the very short term but perhaps in the medium term the situation will be better.
Actually, my question concerns precisely the same thing.
The fact is that last spring a union was created between Belarus and Russia.
Belarus is strategically important for Russia as a borderland to the West and as a symbol that although the Soviet Union may have been split apart, in some respects has also been geographically restored.
I am of course very keen for the Council and its members to use all conceivable opportunities in their contacts with President Yeltsin and other members of the Russian Duma and government in order thereby to be able to influence Belarus so that the country takes in at least some of our criticism of the undemocratic system which prevails there.
What initiatives is the Council prepared to take in this direction?
Mr President, I am grateful for your help but probably not as grateful as the interpreters are.
I would like to say to the honourable Member that I think she has, in essence, raised a very similar point to the previous questioner.
I understand that there is sometimes a feeling that the Russians can always have their own way in places like Belarus.
At some time in the past that may have been true.
In the period after 1989 Russia was probably still able to have a considerable impact there.
Most recently this has not been the case but I did give an assurance to your colleague that I would raise that point at the future cooperation meeting with the Russians and I hope that they will be able to exercise some influence on the situation.
Question No 2 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0941/97)
Subject: Exclusion of unemployed Spaniards from the benefits of the new employment policies
Will Mr Aznar's solitary self-exclusion, at the 20-21 November 1997 Luxembourg European Council, from the main agreements designed to combat and prevent youth and long term unemployment not be detrimental to the unemployed themselves, who will not as a result be able to take advantage of the employment and training opportunities which will be available?
How many unemployed people in Spain will be excluded from the measures adopted?
Should a suitable timetable for the implementation of the agreements not be drawn up which would enable the unemployed in Spain to benefit from the measures agreed? How will it be possible to ensure that they are not disadvantaged by Mr Aznar's negative decision?
At the extraordinary meeting of the European Council on employment held in Luxembourg on 20 and 21 November 1997, the Member States agreed unanimously on a new coordinated approach to tackling the Community-wide problem of unemployment, whilst respecting the principle of subsidiarity and accepting that different nations' situations will result in differing emphasis.
The measures agreed in Luxembourg, which were formally adopted by the Social Affairs Council on 15 December 1997, will be applied to all Member States across the European Union.
Member States will develop policies to ensure that every unemployed young person is eventually offered a new start in the form of a job, training, retraining practice or other employability measure before reaching six months of unemployment, and that all adults without work are offered a fresh start before they reach 12 months of unemployment.
The European Council agreed that these objectives should be implemented within a period not greater than five years.
It is true that this implementation period may be extended in Member States with particularly high unemployment, but the Luxembourg conclusions will eventually be applied in full across the whole of the European Union.
Thus, the honourable Member should recognize that no exclusion of any kind arises from the Luxembourg conclusions.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is a known fact that the self-exclusion of Spain, as decided by Mr Aznar, will result in unfair treatment for unemployed people in Spain.
In view of that, and since the European Council is not a Community institution, I would ask whether the Council of Ministers will be supporting Mr Aznar's mistake, or whether, conversely, they will recommend that it is put right.
It is not true that the measures will be applied to everybody in the same way.
Being British, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you understand our well-founded fears better than anybody else, since the model Mr Aznar is following in this area is precisely the same as Mrs Thatcher's model, and as such, it means that the benefits of the new employment policies are being denied to the country most in need of them.
I think there is a bit of a misunderstanding.
Although Mr Aznar expressed some concerns about some of the directions of the discussion in the Luxembourg Council, the agreement reached exempts no Member State.
However, the Council recognized that, in particular circumstances, there may be a need for a longer timescale for implementation of some proposals.
At this stage there has been no exemption and, therefore, Spain and Spanish regions like Andalucia where there is high unemployment, will be expected to deal with the decision in Luxembourg in the same way as others throughout the European Union.
I see Mrs Izquierdo Rojo is asking permission to speak.
Unfortunately, the Rules of Procedure do not allow me to let her do so.
Mr Hernández Mollar has the floor.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question - and the way it was put - can only be seen as an attempt, here in the European Parliament, at the irrational, demagogical opposition which her party practises in Spain.
It also shows that she has not taken the trouble to read the conclusions of the extraordinary meeting of the European Council on employment.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, has any country excluded itself from presenting a national employment action plan at the forthcoming European Council in Cardiff, or announced an exclusion clause with respect to the Council directives?
Mr President, please give me some support. I am being interrupted.
Mrs Izquierdo, I would ask you please to remain silent.
You have had your minute, and have spoken.
I now have to ask you to respect the right of other Members of this House to speak, as is customary, and as you normally do.
I find any other behaviour surprising because your manners in this Parliament are normally very good.
Mr President, I also remember that Felipe González' socialist government (which bequeathed 3 million unemployed to the Aznar Government) refused in 1996 to present the multi-annual employment plan decided on at the Essen Summit. That was recorded in this Parliament's proceedings.
Mr Aznar's Government, in contrast, is at this very moment holding discussions with the trades unions on the action plan to be presented at the European Council in Cardiff.
Thank you, Mr Hernández Mollar.
Mr Henderson, you can see we have lively debates here, just like in the House of Commons.
Mr President, I was about to say to you that I thought I was back in the House of Commons in London.
I can only say to Spanish Members that it is quite clear that there are no exemptions from the decision made in Luxembourg.
It has been recognized that there may be a need for extended timescales in some instances, as yet undefined, but that the principles of the conclusions at Luxembourg must apply across the European Union.
Every partner within the European Union is expected by the British Presidency to come forward with action plans, which will allow a discussion of those plans in the organs of both Parliament and the Council before the Cardiff Summit, hopefully so that there is an opportunity for the different partners to learn from some of the suggestions of some of the other partners and also from the reflecting comments of both Parliament, which are very much valued, and, indeed, of the committees of the Council itself.
Question No 3 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0944/97)
Subject: Freedom of movement between Sweden and Finland
Freedom of movement is a fundamental principle within the European Union. It was established in both the Preamble and Article 3 (c) of the Treaty of Rome and has been confirmed on many occasions since.
However, despite its acceptance of the Community patrimony, the Finnish government now intends to charge Peter Enbuske, a Swedish citizen, customs duties and VAT on his vehicle, on the grounds that his frequent visits to Finland (where his fiancée is resident) make him a Finnish resident with an imported vehicle.
The rule referred to is paragraph 1.2 of the information leaflet on the temporary use of vehicles in Finland, which states that a citizen is deemed to be resident in the place where he or she spends 185 days per year.
Peter Enbuske is domiciled in Sweden, holds a Swedish passport and pays all his taxes in Sweden, which makes the Finnish government's action a flagrant violation of the right to freedom of movement.
What measures does the Council plan to take to resolve this situation and prevent its recurrence?
The issue raised by the honourable Member is undoubtedly of considerable importance, not only to the individual named in her question but also in so far as it is likely to have a direct impact on other citizens of the Union in a similar position.
However, what is at issue here - and the honourable Member has hinted as much in her question - is whether a particular Member State is correctly applying the relevant provisions of Community law.
I would point out that this is not a matter for the Council but rather for the Commission.
According to Article 155, first indent of the EC Treaty: ' The Commission shall ensure that the provisions of this Treaty and the measures taken by the institutions pursuant thereto are applied.'
For such purposes Article 169 of the Treaty provides that the Commission may bring infringement proceedings before the European Court of Justice against a Member State which fails to observe any of its Treaty obligations.
Article 177 of the Treaty is also available to individual persons as a remedy, for example by raising a question in proceedings before a national court, which may then be referred to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on the correct interpretation of relevant provisions of Community law.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council of Ministers for his reply.
This is not just a matter for Sweden and Finland alone, but just as the President-in-Office says, it is a violation of the EU's principle of free movement.
As I understand, the European Court of Justice has previously underlined this in a similar case between Denmark and Germany, the so-called Ryborg case.
I am also glad to hear that there are ways to proceed, i.e. that the Commission or the individual can take this to court.
I would like to ask a closing question: What are you, Mr President-in-Office, going to say to these EU citizens?
I should like to say to Mrs Ahlqvist that I cannot give an opinion on the individual case raised by the honourable Member but I should like to point out the ruling, which she has referred to, already made by the Court of Justice in a 1991 case: ' The mere fact that a national of a Member State B who has moved to a Member State A where he has found employment and accommodation has after a certain date and for over a year spent almost every night and a weekend with a woman friend in Member State B, whilst retaining his employment and his accommodation in Member State A, is not sufficient to justify the conclusion that he has moved his normal residence to Member State B' .
I would like to thank the Council for the answer I have received.
I also understand that it is the task of the Commission to ensure that these rules are followed.
At the same time it is a very serious problem.
There are now a lot of examples of almost 'persecution' of Swedish citizens.
There is a couple who have a summer cottage in Finland and have had their car confiscated by Finnish customs because they travelled to their summer cottage too often.
The fact is that it is the Council which once adopted the directive which is the basis for the action of Finnish customs.
The Council must be able to have an idea as to what extent this was the intention of the directive, i.e. that you could prevent boyfriends from meeting their girlfriends and old couples from visiting their summer cottages in this way.
I wonder whether you think that is the spirit of the directive which the Council adopted?
I have to return to the gist of my original reply, which is that this not really a matter for the Council to remedy.
There are avenues open to those who wish to challenge this situation if they believe that Community law is being infringed.
If there is some doubt as to the intention of Community law, it might be wise to raise this with the Commission.
It would be inappropriate for me to make specific comment on that.
This is not going to be an international match, but a combined attempt to work towards the same objective as friends from across the water.
I would like to report that I have personally submitted a complaint to the Commission regarding Finnish car taxation.
The question which I would like to ask the Council of Ministers is whether it would not lay the foundations if the Council of Ministers and the Member States could agree on common guidelines, firstly with regard to car taxation, and secondly with regard to what is a person's domicile according to tax legislation, which is something which has often been raised in Parliament's Committee on Petitions.
This should also be harmonized since we have seen many cases where people are 'persecuted' in precisely the way in which Mrs Ahlqvist and Mr Sjöstedt have described.
Is the Council of Ministers prepared to take legislative action?
I would say to Mrs Thors that free movement is not affected by the levels of taxation on vehicles.
The setting of the levels of taxation does not fall within the Community's powers.
Therefore, I can only repeat that if the current situation is thought to be outside Community law, it is up to those concerned to challenge that in the appropriate avenues.
It is up to those who believe that the current position should be upheld to make their views known and make the necessary representations, which might be opposed to those made by others.
It would then be up to the courts to decide.
Question No 4 by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (H-0948/97)
Subject: Political representation of Greece in the Committee of the Regions
Article 198a of the Treaty on European Union is concerned with the establishment of a "Committee of the Regions' consisting of representatives of local and regional bodies.
Members are appointed by the Council acting unanimously on proposals from the respective Member States.
The Greek Government has proposed to the Council six local government and six regional government representatives for the new four year term.
The members of the Committee of the Regions have formed political groups as in the European Parliament.
However, of the twelve members representing Greece, the Greek Government has proposed ten members from its own ranks and to the left of the wider political spectrum and only two (a mayor and a prefect) from the official opposition party which (according to the most recent parliamentary elections) represent 38 % of the Greek people.
No other Member State has acted in this way and the adoption of such arbitrary and self-serving partisan tactics at European level, merely serves to undermine the fundamental principles governing the political representation of our country within the Committee of the Regions.
What steps will the Council take before 22 January 1998 to prevent the distortion of the political representation of Greece in this European body consisting of local and regional government representatives?
The members of the Committee of the Regions are appointed by the Council acting unanimously.
Nominations for the next four-year term of membership will be considered by the Council in the near future.
Nominations for membership are a matter for individual Member States.
The only Treaty criterion which nominees must meet is that they must be representatives of regional and local bodies.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I know what the Treaty provides and I mentioned it in my question, namely that there are no specific criteria.
However, the European Union is supposedly structured on the basis of the principles of democracy and representation.
It should also not escape our attention that the Committee of the Regions is organized in political groups, as we the European Parliament are too.
So what is happening in the specific instance? Greece has twelve delegates.
The government itself, the socialist government, appointed Greece's delegates four years ago on the basis of the same results of the local elections, in accordance with which our party, the official opposition, had four delegates.
Now, in the new delegation, the socialist party with 41 % has seven delegates and we have only two.
You can see that this is clearly unfair.
I know your position is a delicate one, but I would like to hope that there will be some intervention, even behind the scenes, to correct the matter.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to ask the President-in-Office: does he not think that a precedent is created by this decision so that everyone can do what they like? And could he tell us where else he may be aware that anything similar has happened, anything like what I have reported.
Mr Hatzidakis, I really have to refer to my original reply to the question.
As you yourself have affirmed in the wording of the question, in Article 198a of the Treaty - the establishment of the Committee of the Regions composed of representatives of regional and local communities - membership of regional and local bodies is the only criterion which the Treaty on European Union established for the appointment of members to the Committee on the Regions.
The Council has no locus to question the political affiliation of nominees.
I do not consider that any precedent is being set and as for other examples, I do not have the knowledge of who has been appointed in the past.
I would think that the questioner would have as much access to that as I would.
If he wishes a reply to that he can, no doubt, raise that at a later date when I have had notice of the question.
Mr President, I listened to the answer given by the President-in-Office.
I am not one to encourage interference in my country's internal affairs, especially by English representatives, because we have bitter and painful experience of their interference.
The problem, however, is a different one.
The European Union wants this body to be representative. That is why it says the delegates must be elected.
So what is happening among those elected?
Are some considered 'dirty' and are not, therefore, put forward by the government, while others are 'clean', in other words party members, and those are the ones put forward? In that case representativeness goes out of the window for this Community body and you have an obligation to do something about it, since you act over the most trivial matters and prosecute small producers for fraud.
Here we have a political fraud of the first order, and you must intervene.
Mr President, I really have nothing further to add to my previous two replies which I hope make the position clear.
The responsibility is that nominees be from regional and local bodies and it is not our responsibility to assess political affiliations.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I understand and sympathize with your dilemma in this debate.
Somewhere, Mr Henderson, you said at another stage of today's debate that you felt as if you were in the Parliament of the Communities.
I too could say something similar, in other words it is as if I were in the Greek Parliament.
I believe this is an issue which, if it is as important as Mr Hatzidakis thinks, should have been debated there.
Besides, it is a somewhat strange view that the municipal, local and regional authorities are classified into political and party factions.
I believe that representation at local authority level is different.
At any rate, Mr Henderson, perhaps you can find some way to look into similar questions in the future, when as you said, you become more experienced in these matters.
In any case, I do not think there is a problem about this, as Mr Hatzidakis has tried to represent here, which he ought not to have done.
It is often said that it is unwise to become involved in family arguments but it is sometimes quite amusing to watch from the outside.
I can see that in some of the questions local political differences creep into the debate.
I really cannot add to what I have already said in relation to the original question.
Not so much a point of order, Mr President.
I wondered if the President-in-Office would comment on the fact that this is a problem not just in Greece but in a number of Member States and whether he will commit his own government to review the political balance of the UK representation on the Committee of the Regions?
Question No 5 by Gary Titley (H-0950/97)
Subject: Expiry of the SFOR mandate and the peace process in Bosnia
How does the Council envisage the development of the peace process in Bosnia in view of the expiry of SFOR's mandate in June 1998?
The peace process has made good progress since Dayton was signed two years ago.
In particular many of the military provisions of Dayton have been carried out.
The focus for the coming year will increasingly be on civilian implementation but it is clear that this will continue to require maintenance of a secure and stable environment.
The Peace Implementation Council, in which the European Union and Member States actively participate, considered at the Bonn Conference on 9/10 December a continuing military presence indispensable for this task and welcomed NATO's plans to consider options for a multinational follow-on force to SFOR beyond June 1998.
The European Union has made clear its support for the High Representative in implementing the conclusions of the Bonn Peace Implementation Council.
I wish to begin by extending a warm welcome to Mr Henderson as the acting President-in-Office to the delights of European Parliament Question Time.
I should like to ask him three quick questions. Firstly, is there any indication yet as to whether the Americans will retain forces in Bosnia and, if so, will they actually be in Bosnia or over the horizon in Hungary?
Secondly, is it not the time for European rhetoric on a European defence identity to have some actuality and for us to start to take more responsibility ourselves for the Bosnian peace process in the long term? Thirdly, does he accept that unless we can get the civilian aspects of Dayton up and running, we will end up with another Cyprus where we have a permanent military presence in a divided country?
I warmly thank the honourable Member for his kind remarks and for his question.
I have to tell him that no decision has yet been reached by the American Government though the matter is under consideration.
Representations have been made by a number of Member States on this question and there will be meetings in Washington between the presidency and the United States Government later this week.
I am sure this will be one of the items which will be given consideration.
I would agree that it is important that more responsibility is taken and this is something which the presidency would hope to develop over the coming six months as an important priority in foreign policy.
As to the long term, the honourable Member is absolutely right that it is very important that, in colloquial terms, we 'keep a grip' of the situation in political, diplomatic and military terms.
It is vitally important that we continue to make progress, albeit sometimes slow progress, so that an end is in sight for those who are involved in the situation on the ground, in particular the civilian population, and that they continue to give support to the peace process.
Hopefully, that will produce results if not in the short term, then in the medium term, and not deteriorate into one of these international situations which goes on for many years, rather than being resolved, and where it is very difficult to see progress.
Mr President, it goes without saying that the duration of the SFOR Mandate is also closely linked with internal developments in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
I would like to make two points in this respect.
First the question of returning those who have been expelled.
There are problems everywhere, in all three subdivisions, but most of all in the Republic of Srpska, where there has until now not been any actual return and I would like to ask whether it would not at least be possible to reach a binding agreement with Mrs Plavsic, that opportunities are at last created in the Banja Luka area for the return of expelled persons.
The bishop of Banja Luka was here in Strasbourg a few weeks ago and expressed exactly this demand to us.
The second point refers to the question of war criminals, in particular Mr Karadzic, but also other.
Here too, advances must be made for until these two points are resolved, it will not be possible to terminate the SFOR Mandate either.
The questioner raises the very important point that a key element in the Dayton process is that there should be returns of refugees.
Any influence the presidency can exert will be directed at trying to encourage those involved to follow that route.
Following on from Mr Titley's question to the President-in-Office, I welcome Mr Henderson's confirmation that the issue of US involvement in Bosnia-Herzegovina will be on the agenda of the EU-US ministerial meeting in Washington.
There is another issue that I want to raise.
Will the President-in-Office also indicate the priority he attaches to improving the delivery of EU aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina?
I thank the honourable Member for his question.
I should just like to make it clear that the matter I referred to was not a formal agenda item in the presidency visit.
It is, however, something which has been dealt with on a number of occasions by a number of the Member States and is constantly under review.
The question of aid is an important issue.
Again, I hope I can reassure the honourable Member that we will be doing what we can during the presidency to try to help release the aid which is potentially there for those involved.
It is a matter of getting clarification as quickly as possible from those on the ground of what would happen to that aid - that it was going to be used for the purposes for which it was intended and that there were structures in place which would make sure that would be the case.
Hopefully those reassurances can be given at an early stage and can be confirmed.
Then, I would hope, it would be possible to make the aid donation at an early stage.
Question No 6 by Bernd Posselt (H-0951/97)
Subject: Human Rights in Cuba
In the light of its critical opinion of December 1997, how does the Council judge the political and in particular the human rights situation in Cuba, including the question of freedom of conscience and religion? In this connection, where does it stand on the possibility of Cuba's joining the Lomé Convention?
At the second evaluation of its common position on Cuba in December 1997, the Council concluded that no substantive change in the political and economic situation in Cuba had occurred in the six months since the last evaluation.
The Council reiterated that the objective of the European Union towards Cuba remains the encouragement of a process of peaceful transition towards democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, sustainable economic recovery and improvement in the living standards of the Cuban people.
Freedom of conscience and religion are not expressly guaranteed to citizens under the Cuban constitution and, therefore, their application by the Cuban authorities is a question of practice on a case-by-case basis.
Cuba has not applied for membership of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group.
The Council has not discussed the possibility of Cuba acceding to the Lomé Convention.
Membership of the ACP is primarily a matter for the ACP themselves.
However, it is clear that, if Cuba were to be considered for membership, it would have to abide by well-established provisions of the Lomé Convention which include respect for human rights and the rule of law and democracy.
Mr President, many thanks for your very precise information.
I would just like to address two supplementary aspects.
We had elections last Sunday in Cuba in which 601 out of 601 parliamentary candidates were elected and I wanted to ask the Council where the development towards democracy is to be found!
The second question that I want to ask is this: Next week, I believe, the Pope will be in Cuba and we learn that the international press is to be denied access to Cuba, in other words that the major newspapers will not receive accreditation in Cuba for this event, and I wanted to draw this to the Council's attention.
I believe that honourable Members of Parliament can make judgements that they think are appropriate on Cuba, in the same way as I can, as an individual.
As President-in-Office, I do not see that I have access to any special information that would allow me to make a different assessment.
One thing that is worth mentioning is that in any definition of democracy, clearly elections play a very important part.
They are an important condition of a democracy, but they are not a sufficient condition.
There are other conditions that have to be met in a democracy: press freedom, human rights and other issues.
I was not aware of the particular circumstances that have been drawn to my attention in relation to press coverage of the proposed visit.
I can only say that I will examine what happens in reality as distinct from what is now being suggested might happen, and reflect on such reports as I receive on that matter.
Those reflections will assist the presidency in drawing conclusions on the current situation in Cuba and on how we should respond to the various events there.
I too would also like to welcome the new President-in-Office and ask if he does not agree with me that the trade boycott of Cuba by the United States actually strengthened the links between Cuba and the former USSR?
By forcing economic dependency on that country it was actually counterproductive in terms of democracy.
There are countries benefiting from trading arrangements from the Lomé convention with governments which are actually quite a long way from the kind of parliamentary democracy that we understand in Europe.
Nevertheless, they are given trade preferences.
Surely Cuba is more likely to move towards a more democratic form of government through strengthened trade links with democratic countries and being readmitted to the mainstream rather than being regarded as a pariah state?
Can I thank the honourable Member for the supplementary question.
It is true, of course, that there was an American boycott and Members will draw their own conclusions as to the effect of that over a long period.
I think that it is worthwhile drawing attention to the fact that the European Union never endorsed such a boycott, preferring discussion and persuasion as a means of trying to seek change within Europe.
Indeed I know that there were many visits to Cuba from the nations who make up the European Union to take part in discussions and to try to persuade the Cuban government to take a different view on a number of matters both political and economic.
Can I thank Mr Morris for allowing me this minute.
I wonder if the President-in-Office would agree with me that the human rights of Cuban children were affected by the very same economic embargo which Mrs Hardstaff referred to?
Children have been denied food and medicine because of the United States embargo.
Would you not agree that a major contribution to raising the living standards of the Cuban people would be the immediate lifting of the American embargo? It is against all international treaties, all international laws and indeed has been condemned, as has the Helms-Burton Act, by the European Union.
For Mr Posselt's information he will read all about the Pope's visit to Cuba in the Morning Star.
I understand the plight of poor people in Cuba - particularly children who might be suffering in the current situation - and, clearly, there is evidence of that.
The responsibility for that has to lie primarily with the Cuban Government.
That is not to deny that there are other influences but the responsibility for a situation internally is something which must be accepted by the government.
As I said in my answer to Mrs Hardstaff, I believe that the boycott was not the right way forward, that it is better to persuade, and that if the Cuban Government was more receptive to some of the persuasion, then it may be that it would benefit from greater trade links, perhaps from further help, and that in itself could be a major contributory factor in helping the poorest people in that country, particularly the children.
Question No 7 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0953/97)
Subject: South Africa-EU trade negotiations
Would the President-in-Office confirm that the conclusion of the EU trade negotiations with South Africa is a priority for the UK Presidency?
Does he anticipate that the difficulties related to agricultural products, wines and spirits and fisheries can be overcome?
The presidency would like to express its satisfaction with the breakthrough in the negotiations with South Africa that took place late in 1997, when South Africa presented its detailed trade offer to the European Union.
The Community is now preparing an equally detailed trade offer to present to South Africa as soon as possible.
The President-in-Office can confirm that the conclusion of the trade negotiations with South Africa is a priority for the UK Presidency.
The presidency is aware of the sensitivity that some Member States attach to certain products.
These sensitivities and the interests of the Community in other areas will, of course, have to be taken into consideration when negotiating with South Africa.
The presidency will watch for a satisfactory outcome to all these issues.
Again, welcome to the British Labour President-in-Office.
I should like to follow up on what you said about the contentious products included in these negotiations and ask whether the presidency would consider separate protocols for these products in order to ensure some progress in the negotiations, particularly in relation to wines and spirits and, of course, the prospect of a fisheries agreement?
Might it not be wise at this stage, anticipating the successful outcome as you do of the negotiations, to issue an immediate invitation to President Nelson Mandela to come to the Cardiff Summit to put his personal signature on the agreements which we hope will be reached and, of course, to give him his very first opportunity to come and sample the delights that Wales, in particular, has to offer?
I thank the honourable Member for her kind remarks and for her question.
I, too, believe it is very important that progress is made in trying to reach an agreement with South Africa during the British Presidency, and it is one of our top priorities in that area of involvement.
I wish to say that I do not exclude any way of dealing with the various issues before us in those talks.
I do not exclude the possibility of separate protocols but, clearly, it is something which the Commission would have to give consideration to, and we await with great anticipation Commission proposals, which will then be subject to discussion in the Council.
I hope I can reassure her that we want to make progress as quickly as possible.
In relation to the honourable Member's remarks on the Cardiff Summit in Wales, it would be a nice idea if President Mandela were able to come.
There are five months between now and then and I hope that an answer to that question may be given more authoritatively in due course.
I welcome the President-in-Office's cautiously optimistic response there.
However, I have to say that in this House we have heard endless goodwill towards South Africa since the end of apartheid but there has been relatively little action, particularly on the trade and cooperation talks.
Time, in a sense, is running out because after the British Presidency other events - renegotiation of Lomé, enlargement and so on - will very quickly crowd in on the agenda.
So, if we are to get a settlement, it is absolutely crucial that we get one during the British Presidency.
The problem up to now has been in the Council, not with the Commission and certainly not with Parliament, and if the South African Government comes back to the Council and wants to renegotiate a mandate, the British Presidency will have to give this an extremely high priority indeed if it is going to bring the more reluctant Member States into line.
So I hope that there is awareness that there might be a renegotiated mandate and that the British Presidency will give this top priority if need be.
Thank you for the supplementary question.
I think it focuses on a very important point.
There is a window of opportunity over the next five months to try to conclude an agreement.
After that period there will be many other matters which will be appearing on our agendas.
I myself have been reassured by the statements of negotiators on both sides who have said that an agreement can be reached by mid-1998.
That gives me cause for optimism and I can assure you that we will use all our endeavours during our presidency to bring the Union along with us in trying to seek an agreement at an early stage, so that everyone can benefit from it, particularly those who are in most need of the benefit in the poorer sections of the Community and South Africa.
I welcome the President-in-Office.
For the South African trade agreement this is obviously good news, but I have two possible problems to raise about one of the difficult or contentious subjects to which both he and Mrs Kinnock refer.
Firstly, South African fishing.
I have met the ambassador and the ministers of fisheries from South Africa on a number of occasions and I hope I can be assured that the Commission will not press the South Africans to open their waters to European Union fleets before they want to or before they decide to.
I hope that this will be respected.
Fishing is a terribly difficult subject.
Secondly, there is the problem of South Africa in the region.
It is clearly the dominant, political and economic force in southern Africa and I am concerned about the effect of an agreement - I hope that this is borne in mind - on surrounding states, in particular Namibia and its fishing industry.
I would like to say that I understand the point that was made but, first of all, there is a distinction between a policy for South Africa and a policy for southern Africa; that is one aspect in relation to the matters he raises.
I hope Mr Crampton will understand that in a negotiation it is best not to exclude items at the earlier stages of that negotiation.
That is not to say that some of the points which he made will not be consistent with the final agreement.
But I think it would be wrong of me to try to pre-empt what the negotiators might agree, and that must cover all of the issues.
As I said in my reply to Mrs Kinnock and the original question, I would not exclude separate protocols on certain aspects of trade.
That is something which the negotiators will have to take on board when they address the issue.
The European Council meeting in Luxembourg on 12 and 13 December 1997 underlined the need for the Turkish Government to meet its fundamental obligations in the field of human rights and democracy.
It recalled, in line with the Council position expressed at the Association Council with Turkey on 29 April 1997, that strengthening Turkey's links with the European Union also depended on that country's pursuit of political reforms, including the alignment of human rights standards and practices with those in the European Union as well as respect for and protection of minorities.
The Council regrets the position of the Turkish Government concerning the case of Mrs Leyla Zana and can assure you that the situation of human rights and democracy, including the rights of members of the Kurdish population in Turkey, will continue to figure prominently on its agenda.
Those issues are ever present in our dealings with Turkish authorities.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I take this opportunity to congratulate the British Labour Government, through you, on its assumption of the presidency and on its presentation today, by Mr Cook a few hours ago, of the British Presidency's programme, a creative, dynamic and very ambitious one.
Thank you very much for your answer.
I think it is very satisfactory and complete, to the extent that it deals with general principles.
However, my question specifically concerned the release of Leyla Zana, our parliamentary colleague whom we here in the European Parliament honoured with a major prize, the Sakharov Prize, for her fight on behalf of democracy.
Mr President-in-Office, I know that just 14 days after the beginning of your term in office you cannot have a 'personal' position and view about the matter.
However, I asked the question about the need for Leyla Zana's immediate release in the hope that today, or at some foreseeable time, I will get a specific answer from the presidency.
I thank Mr Papakyriazis for his kind remarks on my answer.
I really have very little further to add, except to say that the presidency will pursue the course with vigour that I outlined in my original reply.
Whilst thanking the President-in-Office for his reply, which is a very good one, will he bear in mind the fact that when we were considering in this House the Customs Union with Turkey, it was conveyed to many of us that, if that were approved, then Leyla Zana and other prisoners would automatically, in due course, be released.
This just has not happened.
At this stage there is not only Leyla Zana, important as she is, but there are many other Kurdish prisoners who are in a like condition.
Will the President-in-Office make it quite clear to the Turkish authorities that, until some movement takes place on this and other issues, it will be quite impossible for us to achieve any real improvement in the relationship between Turkey and the European Union, which all of us would like to see greatly improved?
I hope I can convey to the honourable Member a reassurance that the question of human rights is a very important part of our presidential foreign policy.
There are situations that have been discussed in the past, where commitments have been given.
We will continue to pursue with vigour the course that I identified in my answer to the original question.
I, like he and others, hope that we will manage to be successful.
An improvement in human rights in Turkey is a very important part of the continuing dialogue with the Turkish Government and the Turkish people.
Thank you for the answers we have so far received regarding this question.
I believe the UK Presidency should be able to do great things during these six months.
This includes the question of human rights and imprisoned Kurds, including Mrs Leyla Zana.
However, I thought the introductory address by the Council's Foreign Minister this morning said very little about Turkey.
But it said a lot about Cyprus.
I have a supplementary question which it may not be possible to answer directly, which I understand.
Would you as the representative of the EU for six months be able to propose that a delegation from, for example, the EU, the OSCE or the UN be sent to Turkey to find out what is happening there and to create good relations with the country? That is a straight question to which I would very much like to have an answer.
As I have said to other honourable Members, this is an important priority of the presidency.
It is linked to a number of other important foreign policy matters which will be under discussion during our presidency.
It is a priority of our presidency to try to make progress.
I have no illusions about the difficulties involved in some of these issues, but I hope I can reassure the honourable Member by saying that we have a determination to try to make progress.
I have personally been very closely involved in that; I have been to Turkey fairly recently; I keep a close eye on what is happening and what the situation is; and I have made, in a British capacity, many representations to the Turkish Government about changes that I and others would want to see taking place.
I would hope to continue during the presidency to make similar representations to the Turkish Government in the hope that they would recognize that there needs to be change and that, as change takes place, benefits will accrue not only to those who suffer because of a lack of human rights - and who, in some cases, are incarcerated - but also potentially to Turkey and the Turkish people in building better, stronger and more effective links with the European Union.
Question No 9 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0955/97)
Subject: Eurodac Convention
The Council is to decide on the details of the EU's common system for checking the finger prints of asylum-seekers, Eurodac.
How will registered asylum-seekers be able to correct erroneous information about themselves in the system?
Will the current data in the register be deleted automatically once an asylum-seeker has been granted a residence permit in a Member State?
Does the Member States' obligation to report information to the register imply in the last resort that finger prints should be taken by force?
Regarding the draft Eurodac Convention, I would first of all like to emphasize that the Council submitted this text for the opinion of the European Parliament on 6 October 1997.
The discussions of the Council are currently under way and it is difficult at the present time to predict what direction they will take.
It is even more difficult to say when they may reach completion.
However, at this stage, two things are certain.
Firstly, any taking of fingerprints can only be done in full and complete compliance with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Secondly, the Council awaits with interest the European Parliament's opinion on this draft Convention which was forwarded to it a little over two months ago.
In fact, the Council has not yet reached agreement on the whole of the text in question and intends to continue its discussions in the light of the European Parliament's opinion.
I would like to thank the Council of Minister's for its reply.
I understand that it is not possible to give all the answers today.
However, I think it is important to debate this now because it will be too late to debate it when the decision has been taken.
The draft resolution which existed for the Council of Ministers' meeting in December included a British and German reservation with regard to the possibility of removing personal information on refugees who have been granted residence permits.
I regard this as of central importance so that people who are quite legally resident in a country are not registered.
I wonder whether you reached any conclusion on this point at the Council of Ministers' meeting in December.
The other thing I would like to take up is the experience from the Schengen Agreement which has a similar structure to the Eurodac system.
There you can see that refugees' rights are looked after very badly. They are not informed when they seek asylum and they have great difficulty in practice in appealing against decisions.
How are we going to avoid the same lack of legal rights occurring in Eurodac as now exist in the Schengen Information System?
In addition I would like to express my opinion that I think it is unreasonable to base this on systematically taking the fingerprints of everyone, even children of the age of 14, and that as a last resort force may even be used to do so.
These are not criminals, but refugees, i.e. people who are seeking protection.
I have to refer you back to my original answer.
At the Council in December, agreement was reached to freeze the text of a number of articles.
Agreement has yet to be reached on the rest.
So I can say that these matters are essentially under review.
I can give you a firm commitment that the Council very much upholds the rights of refugees.
That has been made clear on many occasions.
I hope I made that clear in my own contribution earlier today in relation to the debate on the Kurdish issue.
While on the one hand the Union, together with the Member States, has to take measures to protect boundaries to make sure that there is a regulation of migration, it is equally important for the Union to uphold the principles which are incorporated into the Convention on Refugees and for the Member States also to uphold those principles.
I hope that will ensure that when someone comes to any state within the European Union and says that he is likely to suffer persecution and has a strong case for political asylum, that case is given every possibility of being heard and, where the case is established, political asylum is granted.
Where refugees feel the case has not been given proper consideration there should be measures in all the Member States which the refugee or his or her representative can take to try to reassert the rights of genuine refugees.
That is the case in all our Member States' law but that is not to say that on every occasion everything is done in a proper fashion.
There are sometimes slip-ups.
Where slip-ups do arise, I hope it is possible for genuine refugees to seek redress.
I can assure you that the presidency will do everything it can to contribute to upholding those important principles.
I add my welcome to the British Presidency and say how nice it is to have a British Labour Minister answering questions, something I have been waiting for patiently - or impatiently - for fourteen years.
The issue of the Eurodac Convention highlights the way in which legitimate concerns and national security can sometimes conflict with human rights and civil liberties.
Parliament will be debating a report on the Eurodac Convention tomorrow and voting on it later.
I would like to refer to the point about how long the fingerprints will be kept.
I refer to a briefing I have received from the Home Office.
It says that on a domestic level the United Kingdom currently erases the fingerprints of those granted asylum only when they have obtained indefinite leave to remain.
Could I ask if the presidency would not agree to any further extension beyond the period which currently operates in Britain?
This issue comes up in many Member States.
I can only say to him this afternoon that the presidency does not have the power to do what Mr Elliot is suggesting should be done.
That would be a matter for consensus among the Member States in the Council and in other forums.
I can only encourage Mr Elliot to make the important and valid case he makes on as many opportunities as he can to continually remind those who are making decisions in these matters of the importance of these considerations.
That would specifically relate to the question of how long any records are retained.
Question No 10 by Gérard Caudron (H-0956/97)
Subject: Late payment on commercial debt
Late payment on commercial debt is an enormous inhibition to SMEs participating in the Single Market.
What does the Council intend to do in this important area?
As the honourable Member may be aware, the Commission issued a Recommendation on 12 May 1995 concerning late payment on commercial debt, Doc.
95/198/CE and published a Communication on this question on 17 July 1997.
The Commission has also announced that a proposal for a directive on late payments will be transmitted to the Council in the near future.
The Council will initiate the examination of such a proposal as soon as it is received.
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office for his reply, but he was quite right to assume that I knew of the existence of this recommendation, which is two years old, and of the existence of the communication, which is six months old.
But it seems that in spite of these two texts, nothing has changed and late payments remain very much the same, since they vary from 19 to 75 days, with further delays of between 6 and 41 days.
I would therefore like to see from the presidency a timetable and firm commitment, for there are distortions in competitiveness, even sometimes national preferential treatment, which is completely in contradiction with the single market.
Can I say to the honourable Member that I understand his concerns.
They are expressed by many throughout the European Union.
There is often and always a debate within the Member States on action that can be taken on these matters especially in the small company sector.
In some instances clearly action may be appropriate at Member State level but where there are international contracts that is something which should be examined very carefully to see if we can agree the context and the specific regulations that would help those small companies across international borders within our Union.
I very much agree with the point which he has raised and I look forward, like he does, to the Commission proposal.
When that is received I hope that I can reassure him that it will be dealt with as a matter of urgency by our presidency.
I wonder whether the President-in-Office is aware that the British, but Cheshire-based, Forum of Private Business estimates that something like £20, 000 million is deprived from small businesses because of the problem of late payment which might otherwise be used in order to develop businesses and thus produce jobs.
If that is true in the United Kingdom, imagine the situation throughout the European Union.
I wonder what other measures, in concert with his colleague Mrs Barbara Roche and Commissioner Papoutsis, he is proposing to help ensure that the single market is properly completed?
I should like to say to the honourable Member that I was not quite aware of that statistic from the Forum for Small Business in Cheshire, though I was aware of the general trend in that important part of the European Union.
I can only say to him that there are people in my own constituency in Newcastle-upon-Tyne - that other important part of the European Community - who feel equally strongly about this.
I know that it is not a matter which is within one region or one country, it is something which affects companies over the whole of our Union.
That is why I look forward to the Commission submitting regulations which clearly identify that it is better to have a responsibility at European-Union level and perhaps, on some issues, it is better to leave the responsibility with the nation states.
It is important that we get that right so that we reach a formula which is recognized by small business people throughout the European Union as one which will be effective in making sure that their businesses are run more effectively.
Of course, that is crucially important for job creation throughout the whole of our Union.
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
Since the time allocated to questions to the Council has now expired, Questions Nos 11 to 43 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Relocation and investment in third countries
The next item is the second report (A4-0392/97), on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on relocation and direct foreign investment in third countries.
Mr President, the rapporteur has quite rightly presented the difficult relationships which can exist between foreign direct investments and industrial relocations.
He has also placed this theme in a much larger context and this is something which we in Parliament have often discussed when debating world trade in goods and services.
We cannot on the one hand move towards liberalization, globalization and the application of the full potential of modern transport and information technologies without, at the same time, advocating a regulatory system.
This applies just as readily to the European internal market, to trade and commerce, which is so important for us all, and indeed to the world market.
I think that given the current preoccupation for globalization, the connection between trade and direct investment is growing ever stronger, since business enterprises are now able to act globally, irrespective of whether they are multinationals, or whether they are large, small or medium in size.
It must be pointed out that direct investment is not the same thing as simply exporting goods or placing contracts, since it involves a long-term commitment on the part of the enterprise in question.
One is therefore entitled to ask more questions about the repercussions of direct investment projects than one would about the problems associated with trade and commerce.
This is also bound up with the issue of investment outflow, which can inhibit growth and negatively affect employment.
Fortunately one has to say that globalization has not yet taken such a hold on today's world as to create any real lopsidedness in the balance of investments.
Here in the European Union we can still see that we are an attractive investment area and that this will be enhanced by the introduction of the euro and the completion of the internal market.
From a European point of view this is without doubt something which will initially only affect specific branches and sectors of industry, or even individual companies, as far as their employment situation or level of economic activity is concerned.
But just how much more has to be done on our part?
As the rapporteur quite rightly pointed out, there is a need for additional controls, the introduction of social and environmental clauses and greater fairness in competition, but we can also complete the global integration of the economy, commerce and investment, and create jobs - including those making explosives -, by regulating the relationship which exists with private enterprise.
We not only need an international system to regulate competition but we must also have a code of conduct to control the increase in foreign production and the internationalization and globalization of the marketplace.
Finally, transnational groups have created world monopolies in some products; these transnationals not only control one third of all goods and services, but what is more, the one hundred largest of them are responsible for 16 % of total world employment.
I therefore consider it to be extremely important that we seek to prevent any restraint of competition and the setting up of monopolies, and that instead we introduce a code of conduct, together with regulations at both OECD and WTO level, to ensure that the net product of industry, as generated worldwide, and the increase in prosperity are not distributed in a one-sided way.
I believe that this important Sainjon report is a perspective and forward-looking document because the problems of employment and adaptation which face the industrial nations are quite clearly taking on a certain structure, and indeed these are addressed in the report, and also because it does not defend a new form of protectionism - but instead advocates a comprehensive opening-up of the market and the introduction of international controls.
We therefore simply have to support this report and make it a blueprint for the Commission and Council action which is needed at both European and international level.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen. Industrial relocations are instruments which business uses to take account of certain local conditions within the social market economy.
They are not in themselves reprehensible. However, problems do arise when the conditions which apply at the new location contravene legal requirements, such as in the extreme case of child labour and forced labour, when women are subject to job discrimination in the relocated companies and when, for example, money laundering is involved.
But industrial relocations can in some circumstances be necessary in order to open up markets, or produce goods, in new continents which are closer to the point of consumption.
Europe's overall position, as well as that of most of its Member States - including my own country -, continues to improve and the introduction of the euro and other reforms will soon make the EU an even more attractive proposition.
In the medium and long term, companies should in their own interest consider whether relocation outside Europe is an appropriate way of being able to supply the European market from a certain geographical distance.
There are many reasons, including logistical ones, for resisting such a move.
Some companies have already begun to realize the consequences of this and are now starting to relocate some of their business operations from Asia back to Europe.
We support a discriminating free-market analysis of the wide-ranging factors which are responsible for the relocation of industrial production, and we oppose interventionist regulations which would impose a burden on companies.
All measures which seek to restrict industrial relocations should therefore be carefully looked at to ensure that we avoid interventions whose impact would be disadvantageous for the economy.
Specific framework conditions and a certain commitment on the part of the economy for company relocations can, however, be desirable for the rational deployment of public subsidies awarded in accordance with EU rules, or indeed for the prevention of fraud.
We therefore emphatically support the recommendation that the Commission should propose a code of conduct based on these free-market principles.
After the referral of the original report to the REX Committee on 6th November 1997, substantial amendments were introduced on our behalf in the course of subsequent constructive deliberations with the rapporteur.
I would like to express my thanks to Mr Sainjon for the receptive manner in which he has dealt with our proposals and for the fact that he has accepted most of them.
However, I must also refer to the amendment which he has submitted on the subject of the euro, namely Item 22a (new), which suggests that the European political authorities - whoever they are - should, by way of the European Council, reflect on the impact of establishing Euro-Dollar parity on foreign direct investments.
I believe that this recommendation is misdirected and indeed it was rejected yesterday by Commissioner de Silguy during the debate on the Ruffolo report.
The current Article 111, which was previously Article 109(1 and 2) of the EEC Treaty, cannot be interpreted in any way whatsoever to give the European Council currency-policy control in respect of the exchange rate.
The formal agreement on exchange rate systems, which is the issue raised here, is quite a different matter and, if it came to it, would concern a new Bretton Woods institution - but not the price regulation of the Euro-Dollar exchange rate.
In this area the European Central Bank alone has full and sole responsibility and its independence should not be prejudiced in any way.
Article 109 emphatically states that the European Central Bank is not to receive instructions or recommendations from decision-making bodies, from Community bodies or institutions, from national governments of Member States or from any other quarter.
This also applies to exchange-rate movements between the euro and the Dollar, whose regulation, if such is required, is incumbent only on the European Central Bank.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on the 6th of November last year, the report by Mr Sainjon was referred back to the Committee on External Economic Relations at the request of the Liberal Group, and for three reasons.
Firstly, the heading did not cover the contents.
The report was supposed to have dealt with relocation and direct investments in third countries.
Well, a major part of the resolution concerns socio-economic policy within the Union, or recommendations for the introduction of the euro.
I am glad that Mr Swaiger endorses the criticism of in particular the euro.
These issues fall outside the scope of this report and outside the competence of the Committee on External Economic Relations.
The second reason the group had difficulties with this report concerns substantive basic assumptions. Whilst we are all striking out into the digital era with all its consequences, Mr Sainjon bases his resolution on an industrial society which no longer exists.
Thirdly, the greater part of the amendments submitted by me, amendments which were vital to my group, were not accepted.
Much to my regret I have to note that Mr Sainjon has ignored the Liberal Group's criticism, which obviously was shared by the majority of this Parliament on the 6th of November.
He did not even bother to consult me, and did not accept the amendments which I submitted again.
My group believes that the report as it is before us is still not acceptable.
We will abstain, even though a few members will vote in favour.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a trades unionist recently said that come the year 2000, the employers' notion of the ideal textile factory will be one located on a ship which always ties up wherever salaries are lowest and furthermore - and there is plenty of evidence to support this - where work safety and trades union rights are limited, where social costs and social insurance are minimal, where profits at highest and where the market is the most promising.
No-one can do anything about the last of these, namely the market situation.
Businesses will naturally seek the shortest route to the consumer, but surely we do not want to see the European ship operating as a global pirate.
A mechanic working for a European car manufacturer has a right to an uncontaminated, clean and socially-just workplace, no matter whether the factory is in Stuttgart or in Campinas down in Brazil.
Neither can we see why the European board of a multinational company should justify its relocation to one of its branch establishments, where production costs will be cheaper, solely on the grounds that labour costs have forced such a move.
For this reason we need controls and this is why we in the REX Committee organized a hearing and have submitted the report which is to be adopted today at the second attempt.
It is certainly regrettable that at the last vote a number of members of this Parliament allowed themselves to be taken in by the monstrous argument that the report was full of social stuff and that this would have to be amended in committee.
Well, this has now been done.
The reported has been amended and, interestingly enough, the changes which have been made seem to take even more account of the social aspects.
This is now common knowledge.
After all, cars do not buy cars.
But let me just make two points.
Multinational companies need a code of conduct which enshrines the fundamental principles of the ILO conventions and environmental guidelines.
All companies abiding by this code should be listed by name in the EU's Official Journal.
We also call for companies which do not play by these rules to be excluded from EU subsidies and for this reason I would ask you to agree to our amendment.
The same should indeed apply to export credit insurance, for surely those who really take account of human rights should find some reward for their particular entrepreneurial spirit.
Let me just say something to Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel.
It is dreadful in my opinion that someone submitting amendments should a) not be present at the hearing and b) again fail to attend the final vote on the report, when really one should be there in order to present the amendments in question.
You cannot treat our Committee this way.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel can read this part in the Minutes, for I know that she understands German perfectly well.
The Sainjon report is an excellent piece of work.
I can endorse much of what Mr Schwaiger has said.
We in the Committee on External Economic Relations support the report.
Mr President, could I begin by paying tribute to the work done by Mr Sainjon on this report.
First of all, it very comprehensively embraces the subject matter and issues raised at the public hearing organized by the REX Committee last year.
Also it is a pretty fair reflection of the spread of opinion in the REX Committee.
For my part I would just like to highlight and expand upon some of the significant points made by the rapporteur.
I welcome the call for a code of conduct applicable to European multinational companies to be drawn up by the Commission.
We must ensure that it applies to subsidiaries and to subcontractors as well.
To be truly effective there must be a role for the trade unions in monitoring its effectiveness.
I have to confess that I am not entirely a fan of voluntary codes.
I doubt very much if voluntary codes can be effective and I hope that the companies who are involved take note of that.
Additionally, I would reinforce the rapporteur's demand for an inclusion of social and environmental clauses, international agreements and WTO rules.
We have long supported that in the REX Committee.
Given that we are in a period of slow growth and rising unemployment in Europe, it is essential that we address all the aspects of foreign direct investment and relocation.
Mr Sainjon raises some interesting questions on the potential consequences resulting from the introduction of a single currency, I look forward to hearing the Commission's response to that.
There is one other vital issue however which I believe should be addressed concerning relocation and that is the issue of transparency.
I would submit that the big companies who lobby the Commission, who seek benign legislation or even deregulation or benefit from training programmes, have a duty and an obligation to be open and frank about their long term investment relocation plans.
I believe that it is not too much to ask that they inform us well in advance not only where their planned foreign investment is to be but what market it is intended to serve and what impact it is likely to have on employment and unemployment in the European Union.
I hope that when the Commission has discussions with multinational companies, as we know it does, it will raise these points with them because in the absence of such information any plans to systematically tackle unemployment are reduced to mere fire-fighting exercises. As soon as we deal with one incident another one springs up behind us.
Finally, a word about the proposed multilateral agreement on investment.
If this proposed agreement is seen to restrict social or environmental legislation or to hinder the socio-economic progress of developing countries then it will be fiercely and rigorously opposed and I would advise the Commission to take careful note of the growing concern surrounding the MAI.
Mr President, the relocation of investments has to be seen with realism and constructively, seeking to reduce the risks and possible exploitation of the opportunities created, as is duly emphasized by the rapporteur, Mr André Sainjon, whom I wish to congratulate for that, without prejudice to the reservation made by Mr Schwaiger.
We should begin by remembering that, in a worldwide context, the European Union is the most sought-after destination for direct foreign investments (45 % of the total), with an economic impact that is reflected in the broadly positive balance.
For that reason, we have to accept the fact that European investment abroad is also substantial, although we should be particularly sensitive to investments in countries where labour is cheaper with production leading to unemployment in our countries.
However, apart from concerning ourselves with the development of these countries, no doubt with the countries and the multinationals undertaking to comply with minimum rules in the social and environmental fields, the investments made may be converted into opportunities for us, particularly with the opening of markets to semifinished products in whose production we can continue as leaders thanks to the progress made in technology that can give us a unique position in the world.
With the requirement resulting from a broader scope, the rapporteur's reference to the fact that the structural funds should be concentrated, more than in the past, on the promotion of research and technological innovation for companies established in the less favoured regions of the Union is particularly appropriate, in order to increase their competitiveness and ability to face the competition of the developing countries with emerging economies.
In fact, only a balanced Europe, without the costs of great mergers and making use of all national and regional potential, can face the competition of a world we have to be more and more open to, in our own interests.
This is a requirement for the whole Union and for each of the countries, particularly for Portugal, where there is so much to be done in the field of regional development.
Mr President, I begin - like my friend Esko Seppänen - by accepting that we are part of a capitalist system. I should, however, like to draw attention to one aspect of the report to which other colleagues have referred, and which seems to me to be fundamental: that in which the rapporteur, Mr Sainjon, suggests that social justice and sustainable development should be on a level with efficiency and economic stability.
I should also like to stress what other colleagues have said: that the code of conduct should also apply to multinational companies.
In the last analysis, that code of conduct embodies all a community's traditions: the struggle against forced labour, child labour, discrimination between men and women at work, and the encouragement of sustainable development.
All of this, which is theoretically the basis of European policies, must also be a code of conduct for the multi-national companies.
Not long ago, we were informed that nearly 200 million children work from the age of five.
The European Union cannot allow this to happen in the multi-national companies with which it is connected.
It is also necessary to revise EC Directive 94/45, because it seems to us, as the rapporteur put it very well, that it does not stipulate sufficiently clearly that workers should be consulted when a multi-national company moves work somewhere else.
Right now, we in Spain have examples of sectors of the economy with good future prospects, such as telecommunications.
But there is a Swedish company, Ericsson - and others following suit - which sell part of their production to small firms without guaranteeing the workers' rights and without guaranteeing the workers' future in that small firm.
We believe that we should aim to prevent the multi-nationals from doing what they like with workers' rights, and the European Union has sufficient weapons to hand to prevent this.
Mr President, when discussing the first report by Mr Sainjon on this topic, we already expressed our appreciation and our criticism.
Most of the comments still apply, but the resolution has improved on certain points.
The pronouncements on harmonization of tax conditions and a fiscal code of conduct have rightly been deleted during the follow-up discussion in the REX Committee.
It is also a good thing that the idea that multinationals are obliged to advance social development, has been toned down.
Yet the resolution remains characterized by dirigisme.
The European Commission must draw up a code of conduct for European multinationals.
There should be a European social label, and a confidentiality contract between distributers, manufacturers and subcontractors.
Besides, we draw the line between the public and private domain in a very different way from colleague Sainjon.
He obviously sees governments as a kind of solver of all problems.
By mixing the public and private spheres, he ignores the nature and responsibilities of public administration on the one hand, and business on the other.
A business is primarily an economic organisation, even if it has responsibilities in many areas such as environment and social policy.
Yet businesses should not be awarded powers pertaining to public law, and they cannot, nor are they allowed to behave like government authorities.
Because of the nature of public institutions, their opportunities to manage are limited.
Authorities must set up conditions for the functioning of social relationships.
As if it is self-evident, the rapporteur asks the European Commission to take all sort of measures, without considering whether the European Union is responsible for them.
Looked at from within the subsidiarity principle, we are dealing primarily with responsibilities of the Member States.
The European institutions are not state organisations but supernational authorities to whom a limited number of powers are delegated.
The rapporteur loses sight of this, unfortunately.
That is why we cannot support this report.
Madam President. I agree with the rapporteur when he says in Item C of the Preamble that industrial relocation is a phenomenon which follows economic logic and is something which should not be ideologized.
However, limits have to be imposed on economic logic for humanitarian, socio-political and labour-market reasons.
A code of conduct for multinational companies would be welcome.
But when it comes to combating child labour or forced labour, in other words modern slavery, then a code of conduct is not enough.
No European firm should gain competitive advantage at the expense of maltreated children.
As well as combating violations of human rights, which is a top priority matter, Europe should be doing everything in its power to make its economic situation more attractive by a massive increase in research expenditure.
Europe cannot solve the problem of unemployment by way of protectionism and progressive isolationism.
The structural funds should in future be used much more for technological research and innovation.
Our objective in Europe must be to achieve competitive production costs in spite of higher labour charges.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the question of relocation is a particularly burning issue in European public opinion.
We have already discussed it at length here one November evening during a week's part-session.
At that time we had to give our position, at the time of the vote, and it was only a small last minute procedure, quite a poor one at that, which referred it back to the Committee.
Having already spoken on that occasion, I would this evening simply like, firstly, to applaud the rapporteur's proposals in the areas of research and technological innovation in particular for, as he said, these are factors in the relocation of industry in Europe. I say this as rapporteur currently working on a report on European industrial competitiveness.
I would also like to repeat my agreement with the demand for a social clause in the international trading system in order to fight against all forms of exploitation, if not slavery, in the third world.
Thirdly, I want to dispute the validity of the widely accepted belief that it is European labour costs which are primarily responsible for relocation.
Finally, I want to remind you of what I had already said last November, regarding relocation within the Union.
Indeed, this cannot be prohibited, but we must do all we can to speed up fiscal and social harmonization from the top.
It is impossible to accept a single market where the rules of the game, and thus the costs, remain fundamentally different.
Finally, and I will say this again and again, it is not possible to accept that companies which benefit from European subsidies can then relocate, and even less possible to accept that relocations are caused by the subsidies themselves, within Europe.
There are frequent cases of this.
I believe it is time, in this area too, that there should be a true European political will with regard to this.
We could thus very concretely show public opinion that we are fighting uncontrolled relocations, which are economically and socially unacceptable.
Mr President, this report raises an interesting phenomenon which illustrates Europe's difficulties in creating an expansive economy and full employment.
The report should, however, have been able to remind people to a greater extent how total investments in the EU could increase.
That is what is important.
Relocations are only a small part of the whole.
The report's attitude is defensive, trying to preserve something instead of creating much that is new.
That does not contribute to the picture of a dynamic Europe. Rather it reinforces a stagnating perspective.
This impression is reinforced by the proposals which are presented to prevent relocations.
These are based not so much on how we should make Europe more attractive, but how we can make other countries less competitive.
A number of regulations and codes are to be extended to apply to other countries.
It is doubtful how effective this approach is.
With all due respect for negotiations in the ILO, codes in the OECD, rules on aid, rules on unfair competition, structural funds, research subsidies and social clauses, in the end this long line is a list of all the kinds of efforts which many politicians cite in order to appear decisive and involved, but which still do not achieve the desired result.
It is hardly going to reduce relocations and will not in any case increase overall investment in Europe.
It is not possible to order companies and employment into existence, and that should be recognized by the European Parliament.
In order for people to achieve the goal, general measures are required which make things easier for enterprise and new businesses, increase profitability of new investments, improve training and research programmes and make Europe competitive.
Let me take paragraph 15 of the report as an example.
There it says that the structural funds should to a large degree be aimed at creating an innovation and research-friendly environment for large and small companies in the area of information technology and that the Adapt programme should accelerate the training of workers to make them more able to react to technical change.
That is quite excellent and very well intentioned, but it is still a risky thing to confuse such politically-controlled subsidy programmes with real measures to create the foundations for investment-friendly and investment-oriented business.
Paragraph for paragraph, this report contains a lot which is interesting, but together it presents an incomplete perspective.
The 25 paragraphs may in their number give the impression of something large, but there is a lack of basic paragraphs about how European competitiveness can be developed and thus the basis which is needed to counteract relocations and, even more importantly, to promote new investments.
At the November plenary session in Brussels, Sir Leon Brittan commented in detail on the first report.
That allows me to be very brief since the core elements of the report have not changed very much.
I should like to refer to two points that the Commission welcomes.
Firstly, the report identifies the benefits that outward investments bring, both for the European Union and the countries which receive FDI.
It highlights the benefits, as I said, and also underlines the more limited costs.
However - and this is important - it does not simply dismiss these costs, but takes on board the concerns that a large part of public opinion and the industrial sector are expressing about relocation.
It seems to the Commission that the report recommends a useful solution, which will further enhance the benefits of relocation while combating the potential negative effects.
I would refer to two points.
First, the code of conduct.
The Commission welcomes the pragmatic idea of a code of conduct, particularly in third countries, in relation to social standards.
However, the Commission does not consider that its role should be to devise or impose such a code of conduct on business.
This is a job for businesses themselves.
It is a pragmatic and voluntary code of conduct in which information is the major tool, rather than sanctions, which normally do not work.
So the idea of publishing a list in the Official Journal or, even better, on the Internet, seems a good idea to the Commission.
Secondly, I would like to remind you that the Commission has been seeking to improve international labour and environmental standards.
As you know, the Commission proposed the specific initiative on trade and labour standards prior to the Singapore WTO ministerial conference.
This initiative was, unfortunately, not adopted, but the Commission will continue to support the work of the ILO and to look at other means, for example, measures associated with the GSP, to further improve these standards.
I have two further points to make.
One concerns the exchange rate.
I understand there was a major debate in committee.
The Commission notes that Parliament adopted the Ruffolo report yesterday.
We think that is the kind of text in which this issue should be dealt with and possibly solved.
Following a remark by Mr Smith, the Commission can reassure him that we advocate the MAI provision, explicitly saying that countries should not lower their environmental or social standards in order to attract investments.
The chances for the inclusion of such a clause are good.
Having said that, the Commission welcomes this report.
We are looking forward to continuing working with the European Parliament.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Fishery products from Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and Guiana
The next item is the report (A4-0385/97) by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) establishing a system of compensation for supplementary costs with incidence on the sale of certain fisheries products originating from the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and the French Department of Guiana, due to the ultra-peripheral character of these regions (COM(97)0389 - C4-0451/97-97/0200(CNS))
Mr President, it seems that we are already getting used to discussing fishing reports into the small hours.
As you know, many fishermen prefer that time of night precisely because of the good catches they can make then, although I do not know whether they conform with the strictest regulations for protecting the species.
In short, I think it is not very good for the protection of the 'Parliamentarian' species and the species of Commissioner.
In any case, Mr President, this is a report which I do not think will cause Parliament any serious difficulties.
It is a regulation proposed by the Commission which aims to make permanent some support - which already existed on a temporary basis - for the outlying regions of the Community.
I think that MPs are already fully aware of this.
At the Maastricht Conference in 1992, a Declaration was added regarding the areas on the periphery of the Community and, in Article 299.2 of the new Amsterdam Treaty, it is pointed out that these regions have special characteristics relating to their remoteness, insularity, lack of energy resources etc. which justify a series of supportive measures.
Within this context of support there are special programmes for these regions, specifically the Canary Islands, the Portuguese islands of the Azores and Madeira, the French islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion, and the French department of Guiana.
Support for these areas includes help for the fishing industry, laid down initially in a regulation of 1992, postponed in 1994 and 1995 and which should have been completed by 31st December 1997.
I think that Parliament has been industrious in studying this matter.
On the committee in November we approved the proposed regulation with its suggested amendments, and I think that tomorrow we shall be able to approve them at this Plenary session without any difficulty.
On the Fisheries Committee, the European Commission's proposals were adopted without any problems whatsoever.
The rapporteur and members of the Fisheries Committee were concerned about flexibility.
That is, when making a temporary regulation into a permanent one, it would not make much sense to keep to the figures established initially, on the basis of a given situation which might have been valid in 1992.
The development, both of production and fishing activity, together with marketing, changes in consumption etcetera, would justify certain adjustments.
This is the meaning of the amendments adopted by the Fisheries Committee, Amendments Nos 1 to 9, which can be divided into three groups:
The first group of amendments - numbers 1, 2, 4 and 9 - refers to the inclusion of certain products from the island of Réunion.
The island of Réunion is also on the extreme periphery of the Union and there would be no reason to exclude it.
Amendments Nos 5, 6, 7 and 8 are an attempt to adapt the assistance to the Canary Islands to those products which are in effect being marketed at the moment.
Finally, Amendment No 3 is a modest amendment considering that it merely reiterates something which already exists, this being the obligation to enforce the minimum limit of 30 metres depth for fishing on the continental shelf.
As members of this Parliament will observe, the Fisheries Committee acted with the greatest concern for the strict budgetary requirements imposed, in order not to exceed the financial limits.
Our committee may have been too punctilious and respectful towards the authorities at the Budget Committee and with regard to the Community's own budgetary forecasts.
It could be said, perhaps, that since the amendments approved for the Canary Islands, numbers 5 to 8, are so strictly drawn up, they might allow little margin for subsequent development.
Amendment 9, which assumes that in order to be able to give additional aid to the island of Réunion it would have to be deducted from assistance to another outlying French region, would cause difficulties for that other outlying French region.
Probably the most interesting observation - and it was a pity that it came so late - was that made by the representative of the European Commission at our parliamentary committee on 25th November 1997.
He pointed out that perhaps the regulation could have adopted a much more flexible formula, with certain financial controls, but without specifying for each species and at each moment what quantity was subject to regulation.
This concern to combine flexibility with strict budgetary guidelines appears to govern Amendment No 12 from Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations; Amendment No 13 from Mr Baldarelli on behalf of Group of the Party of European Socialists; and my own Amendment No 14, also on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which aim to replace or modify Amendment No 9, which had caused irritation in the French department of Guiana.
The rapporteur thought that these amendments were correct.
In particular, he prefers his own amendment, number 14, but any of these appears to improve the situation so as not to cause a confrontation between the island of Réunion and the French department of Guiana.
Amendments Nos 15 and 16, submitted by Mr Baldarelli, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, attempt to combine this flexibility with the strict budgetary guidelines, and I also think that they are acceptable.
I think that they help to allow for this flexibility in a regulation which is going to become permanent.
On the other hand, the rapporteur considers that neither Amendment No 10, from Messrs. d'Aboville and Aldo, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, nor Amendment No 11, from Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, on species and sizes of fish and prawns etcetera, belong in a regulation about help with marketing.
Their place would be in a regulation on assistance with the protection of fishing species and the rapporteur considers, therefore, that they should not be approved.
Finally, Mr President, I do not know where this regulation will lead once it is adopted but, bearing in mind the remark by the representative of the European Commission and that, subsequently, the Council will have to adopt the final regulation, I hope that neither the Commission nor the Council consider the amendments submitted by the Fisheries Committee - which could easily be accepted tomorrow - as a very tight straitjacket.
On the contrary, when drawing up the final text of the regulation, a clause should be introduced allowing for real flexibility.
That is to say, every time we want to transfer assistance from one party to another, or from one item to another, we should not have to modify the regulations.
Obviously this was not the Commission's original idea.
I do not know what formula could be chosen.
It is possible that the Commissariat could explain whether it has any ideas about this or, simply, if it is going to restrict itself to approving the amendments as they may be approved tomorrow by the Plenary session of Parliament.
I think that the amendments are positive and constructive and, of course, I wish to thank the Commission for proposing this type of regulation, which will doubtless be favourable for the outlying areas of the Community.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to say a word of thanks and appreciation for Mr Medina's commitment to defending the interests of the ultra-peripheral regions, exemplified by the report being discussed.
The EU's recognition of the need to establish fair conditions for the marketing of certain fishery products, in order to compensate for the disadvantages deriving from remoteness, has been co-substantiated since 1992 by means of an aid scheme systematically extended to 1997.
The ultra-peripheral regions of the EU have common structural characteristics, placing them in the group of regions covered by Objective 1, characterized, as you know, by presenting a per capita GDP below 75 % of the Community average.
The great remoteness of the fishery products marketing regions, the small size of the markets for marketing these products and the increase in production costs related to the high cost of transportation, associated with unfair competition resulting from commercial agreements which the EU has arranged with third countries, obtaining commercial advantages in relation to those regions, make the survival of the processing industries and a whole chain of workers directly or indirectly connected with them dependent on the compensatory aid scheme.
With regard to Madeira and the Azores, owing to the incentive policies, it has been possible not only to consolidate but in some cases to increase the industrial fabric harmoniously, enabling surplus local production, mainly tuna, mackerel and black swordfish, to be marketed, giving prospects of sustainable development to the processing companies.
And so we welcome the Commission's motion and the amendments introduced by the rapporteur and we keenly ask for its approval by Parliament and Council, so as to maintain stability in the fishery sector and in this way also stimulate the creation of new jobs.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we, the Group of the European People's Party, find these measures correct and justified.
Essentially, they aim to continue measures existing in previous regulations whose validity ended in December last year.
Their object, as we know, is to compensate the ultra-peripheral regions for the additional production costs and for the processing costs and, mainly, for the costs of marketing species of fish whose market lies outside those regions, which are normally very small and very restricted markets and so they normally have to export to the European continent and to the Common Market.
As we all know, we are talking about fairly poor, ultra-peripheral regions with very low levels of income, all classified in the Objective 1 regions, as stated by Mr Correia, and we are also talking about permanent structural situations, levels of disfavour unfortunately not wiped out, not eliminated in the short term.
On that account, in our opinion, this aid should be regarded as permanent and not just as temporary aid.
The aid should be subject to periodic assessment, which should always take into consideration the development of catches, of existing stocks and, naturally, also, the development of the markets and allow these permitted levels of aid to be increased at any time, if there is a favourable trend in production and catches and a favourable market trend.
Several proposals have been put forward to extend some of this aid to fish from Reunion Island; we can understand this and approve of these intentions, but we understand that financing would have to be found for that island and for that situation, adequate financing, without prejudicing the current beneficiaries of this aid situated, as we know, in Guinea, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands.
The Group of the European People's Party would like to thank M Medina Ortega for the fantastic, highly positive, greatly discussed and highly effective work he has carried out.
It agrees with the amendments approved by the Committee on Fisheries, but is voting against some amendments presented after the part-session, mainly Amendment Nos 10 and 12.
I hope that in the future the Commissioner present today will follow the situation of these peripheral regions attentively, as she always does, and propose special measures aimed at them, as fish is the strategic and endogenous resource for the development of these ultra-peripheral and insular regions.
Mr President, the ultra-peripheral regions suffer from the handicap of remoteness.
Since transportation of their produce destined for the European market causes additional costs, to make this produce competitive with rival products from third countries, it is necessary to grant them certain compensatory measures, as Mr Medina Ortega has noted.
It is precisely because the problems encountered by producers in Reunion are of this nature that we proposed the inclusion of this region within the parameters of the compensation system.
Reunion is the furthest ultra-peripheral region of Europe.
Situated in the middle of the Indian Ocean, in an area where stocks are not over-exploited, an abundant source of tuna and swordfish is to be found, accessible by the local long line fishing method, tradable on the international market, and important, if not vital, in terms of jobs in an area which has been seriously hit by unemployment.
But the marketing, in Europe in particular, of fresh produce is handicapped by the freight costs and packaging costs.
This situation causes the long line fishermen of Reunion to settle for the local market, which brings about direct competition between long line fishing and traditional fishing.
In order to ensure that these two fields of fishing can continue side by side, it is necessary to promote the export of long line fishing produce.
That is the reason why I would like to thank Mr Medina Ortega for his Amendment No 14 which takes account of this situation.
Furthermore, within the context of the discussions on this report in the Committee on Fisheries, we met a delegation of traditional fishermen from Guiana, who came especially to draw our attention to the problems of this region.
There, some industrial outfits do not hesitate to fish for shrimps near the coast, in waters less than 30 metres deep.
By so doing, they put resources at risk by devastating young shrimp stocks, which are found precisely in this coastal area.
Another disastrous consequence is that this practice causes an additional catch whose sale destabilizes the local market.
These are the reasons which have brought my colleague, Blaise Aldo, and myself to propose that the granting of subsidies for Guianese shrimp fishing be made conditional on the product being of a reasonable size, that is, adult, and whose fishing does not put in jeopardy stocks as a whole.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's motion to reintroduce the scheme to provide compensation for fishery products in ultra-peripheral regions deserves our natural support, as does the report and amendments proposed by the Committee on Fisheries.
The Commission's proposal, however, goes to prove today, in 1998, that we were right three years ago when we discussed the same proposed reintroduction for the period ended 31 December 1997.
It now shows that it was possible for an elementary act of justice to be drawn up in 1995 providing compensation for those involved in fishing deep-sea species in the Azores and swordfish and mackerel in Madeira, in addition to the natural proposed reintroduction of compensation for the tuna sector.
The sectors now supported on these peripheral Portuguese islands were already claiming compensation three years ago, and we repeated them, having amendments approved that reflected those concerns.
On that account, we should not forget today that we all agree in 1998 on the responsibility held by the regional authorities that forgot the deep-sea fishermen in the Azores and the swordfish and mackerel fishermen in Madeira three years ago, not giving continuity to the needs of these local economic sectors along with the Commission.
Nor should we forget a certain insensitivity on the part of the Commission which then failed to agree to amend its proposal, although, in my opinion, it could and should have done so.
And, finally, we should not forget certain omissions and obstructions or diversion tactics that appeared or were introduced here during the discussion that then began in this Parliament.
Now is the time for justice to be restored, even if it is three years late.
We cannot fail to congratulate ourselves for this.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this Regulation is in fact based on an extremely strong legitimacy.
This legitimacy has been present in the text since the Treaty of Rome, repeated in the accession treaty for Spain and Portugal, renewed once more in the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Conference of Maastricht and finally taken up in the Treaty of Amsterdam, even if this has yet to be ratified.
In other words, there is continuity in the very spirit of this text and in this system of compensation.
Furthermore, the European Union, and the European Parliament in particular, recognized the need to take the specificities of these remote regions into account and adopted the POSEI programmes in 1989 and 1991.
Finally, it can be noted that there is no particular suspicion regarding these measures, which confers further legitimacy on them.
The European Union, and the European Parliament in particular, can thus take pride in the significant aid it has brought to these territories and to activities which are sometimes the primary source of export receipts.
When you consider this approach, marked both by generosity but also by economic reason and a concern for justice aimed at correcting the realities imposed upon us - particularly geographic realities - it is difficult to understand that from the moment when you include a territory, perfectly legitimately, it implies taking away from others some of the aid you were going to provide.
The previous speeches have clearly demonstrated that it cannot be defensible to consider withdrawing the required finances from the overseas French departments as a whole, even from the ultraperipheral regions as a whole, in order to help the Reunion fishermen compensate for their handicap.
Furthermore, with regard to Guiana in particular, I would like to draw your attention - and I know that the Committee on Fisheries will understand me entirely, because it is an open and dynamic Committee - to the need to consider different approaches.
If we have to perpetuate this system, it is also important to encourage the different economic operators to work together, to understand each other and to organize together in order to manage, in the common interest, resources which are certainly not inexhaustible but which also have their own ethological laws.
We must question ourselves on the results of research, on our knowledge of stocks, on the perception of interests, not only of one single resource - in this case shrimps - but also for other resources, and see under what circumstances contradictions, even antagonisms, can arise when there are superimposed fishing zones for shrimp and fish.
It is thus a long term job that the Committee will take on board but it will carry it out admirably.
Mr Medina Ortega's sober, precise and convincing report can only persuade us that this work will be undertaken in the interests of all.
In the short term, it is clear that this system must be maintained, that justice must be established - that you can certainly not impoverish some in order to establish justice for others - and that we must ensure, in the future, common management of resources, by the fishing professionals to begin with.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with this proposal made by the Commission and this report drawn up with the knowledge and reflection shown by Mr Medina Ortega, the door is opened to a framework of financial aid for the marketing of deep-sea fishery products from the Azores, maintaining support for the tuna industry.
The allocation of aid to deep-sea fisheries was supported by us in February and March 1995, against the opinion of the then rapporteur and the then regional government of the Azores.
On that occasion, the regional government of the Azores placed the responsibility for not including deep-sea fishing on the Commission, stating publicly that the Commission had not agreed to provide aid for deep-sea fishing.
Now, with new governments in the region and in Portugal, what we supported in 1995 is being implemented.
Congratulations to the current regional government for the strategy of dialogue and responsible demand followed up with the Commission, whose proposal now being discussed, maintaining aid for 10 000 tonnes of tuna, for the first time extends the aid to 3 500 tonnes of deep-sea species.
It is always possible to ask for more, but this is already one step forward.
The economic and social impact of fishing, particularly on employment, and the special conditions of the remoteness of the Azores region justify it.
This is also understood by the Council of Ministers, which is now competent to give final approval for this aid, aid reinforced with the inclusion of the concept of remoteness in the Treaty of the European Union as defined in Amsterdam.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the detailed and explanatory analysis of the economic conditions endured by the outlying regions, which Mr Medina Ortega has included in his report, avoids our having to speak at length about the appropriateness of this proposal which was submitted by the Commission.
Anybody who reads the reasons set out in that report will be able to confirm that this aid is justified and needs to remain in place.
Being an island in itself, and more so when accompanied by particular remoteness with regard to the main centres of economic activity, contributes towards creating, in a more or less extreme form, certain peculiarities in the production of islands and their commercial interchange with the rest of the world.
This has doubtless produced a certain specialisation in the products which are fundamental to these islands' economies, amongst which fishing products obviously play a very important part.
Tuna from the Azores, squid from the Canaries or crustaceans from Guiana are some examples of the industries to which the inhabitants of their respective islands have turned in order to ensure their future livelihoods.
As the traditional basis of these peoples' economies, such specialisation should be respected and consolidated.
This cannot be done without special financial provisions which allow the islands to operate within the markets on an equal footing, by compensating for the differences in costs produced, for example, by transporting such products to the centres of distribution and consumption.
On the other hand, the support contained in the POSEICAN, POSEIMA and POSEIDOM programmes has enabled the industries to develop from merely extracting the fish to exporting it in the form of semi- or fully processed products, creating new prospects of development and wealth.
It would, however, be desirable for the Commission to pay more attention to the individual peculiarities of some of these regions whose extreme remoteness in many cases may make their voice more difficult to hear.
This has happened in this case with aid to Guiana which did not take into account, as it should have done, the actual protection of the interests of its local fishing industry.
The presence of representatives from Guiana on the Fisheries Committee demonstrated this region's concern to obtain a system of support which ensures respect for the continuing biological viability of its fishing resources, something which the Commission should defend in principle.
We hope that the amendments submitted by various groups with the aim of resolving this question, amendments which we support, may contribute towards alleviating this situation, which should not arise in future.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the measures proposed for this regulation are simply the updating and continuation of those adopted in 1994 and 1995 within the framework of the POSEIMA, POSEIDOM and POSEICAN programmes.
These measures only set out to remedy the damage caused in the fishing industry by the extra costs incurred by the particularly restricting circumstances of the outlying regions.
And they are measures which, in the course of time, have proved effective to a certain extent.
They seem to be common-sense measures.
There are third countries which enjoy advantageous agreements with the European Union and it would be difficult not to give permanent support to the community's fishing industry when this is provided to third countries which are not members of the Community.
In short, without such measures, the Canary Islands' fishing industry, which is increasingly a minority interest as it is, would end up by disappearing altogether.
The best thing I can say in defence of these measures is that without them a large part of the fishing industry in the outlying regions would be lost and that in such fragile economies no sector is negligible.
Mr President, This regulation, as we have heard, affects regions on the extreme fringe of the EU, such as the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, French Guiana and others.
Because of their remoteness these regions incur additional costs in the marketing of certain fishery products.
We now need to update and maintain the current system of subsidy controls which are designed, quite simply, to balance the additional costs actually incurred in the marketing of fishery products against those of other EU regions.
This proposal has been accepted by the Committee on Fisheries.
An interesting proposal in some amendments is for subsidies to be redistributed along more flexible lines, whereby the total amount of aid remains the same.
The report is very up-to-date inasmuch as it addresses structural policy aspects of the fisheries sector.
We have on several occasions complained of the fact that the fisheries industry is scarcely mentioned in Agenda 2000, while the Commission Work Programme for 1998 only refers to it in passing.
As a result of this we were motivated to focus now on the structural problems affecting the fisheries sector.
The long-running alignment programme and the technical measures agreed in 1997 can only have a positive effect on the lives and jobs of those working in the fisheries sector once the structural problems affecting this industry are tackled and ultimately solved.
But to do this we obviously need money.
Parliament has already played its part in 1997 by drawing up a forward-looking report on European fisheries policy after 2002.
Two further initiative reports are to follow in 1998.
That which deals with industrial fisheries will again produce a passionate debate, but the outcome will show that we are well able to tackle the technical problems affecting the fisheries industry and that we are all set to solve the conflict which exists in this sector, and that this House has the will to achieve its objectives.
Controversial funds have now been set aside under international agreement.
Let us then take a cool and calculated look at the situation and let us employ the full force of the Budget Committee and of all other members of this House so that we can ultimately achieve the longed-for and legislatively necessary decision on strengthening the position of Parliament.
A report on the islands is currently being debated.
A report on coastal areas is to follow.
The aim here is to highlight and resolve the local infrastructure problems so that jobs and production centres in these unstable regions can be maintained and built up to the advantage of the fisheries industry.
To this end we shall continue to work as before, and perhaps in an even more focused way, which I believe was the intended message of Mr Ortega's report.
You can already see, Madam President, that all the political groups and countries support your proposal.
I therefore wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, and yourself Mrs Bonino, for the success and appropriateness of your proposal.
I particularly agree with the proposals made regarding fish-farming and squid, and I understand the concern you express, Mrs Bonino, to the Government of the Canary Islands in your letter of 27th December last, about responsibility for the biological "desert' in the territorial waters of Morocco.
The very heading of the proposed regulation is in itself fortunate.
It speaks of compensation for additional costs.
For years we have been advocating the need for the outlying regions to have their shortages and natural disadvantages recognized so that they can become part of the internal market and benefit from their participation in it.
We have come a long way, not without set-backs, but in the end we have achieved success.
I should like to draw attention to the fact that these extra costs which the Commission wishes to compensate are not only relevant to the present moment but are structural in nature.
That is why I consider it necessary - as the Commission recognises - to maintain this kind of aid in the future as well.
For some outlying territories - for instance the islands of Pico in the Azores or Lanzarote in the Canary Islands - fishing is not just another of its economic resources, but forms part of its very life, culture and traditions.
Because of its economic significance, and the number of jobs it creates, this is not just another figure but part of the strategic resources which are vital for such support to enable the industry to survive in the outlying regions, which suffer from the highest rates of unemployment in the Union and are all areas under Objective 1 on account of their low level of income.
That is why it is necessary to maintain current policies, and this is what the regulation we are discussing today finally proposes.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the excellent report now being discussed relates to the aid to be given to one of the sectors of economic activity of the ultra-peripheral regions of the EU which might not be that of greatest expression in some of those regions.
However, it is not the most lacking in aid, in view of the environmental and social strategic importance of the fishery sector and its production, processing and marketing.
It is a special system for providing financial compensation for the additional costs incurred owing to remoteness, provided within the framework of the POSEIMA.
The achievement made in the last revision of the Treaty of the European Union should be pointed out, as it led to the inclusion in this Treaty of the wording for the ultra-peripheral regions, the recognition of the specific characteristics of insular regions separated from the continent, separated from the European market to which they export most of their products, providing for measures to be taken regarding the fishery policy in Article 229 paragraph 2 of that same Treaty.
Some of the reasons given and others that could be given fully justify the belief that the measures now taken should not be considered transitional or temporary but, on the contrary, should be understood in a logic of constant geographical conditions and not just that but highly penalizing, thus deserving permanent and definitive measures.
It is right for aid to be extended to other ultra-peripheral regions not yet contemplated, but it is essential and advisable to point out that this aid should never be provided at the expense of the ultra-peripheral regions already benefiting in some way.
In the autonomous region of Madeira, tuna, black swordfish and mackerel are the species that deserve the aid granted, which at the moment is no more than ECU 1.6 million.
This incentive policy permitted the consolidation and implementation of an harmonious industrial fabric, enabling the surplus local production to be marketed.
An appropriate revision should be made of the species and the amounts to be provided, based on the development of production and the production, processing and marketing costs.
The report and most of the amendments being discussed deserve our consideration and agreement.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Medina Ortega and the Commissioner for their excellent work.
With regard to Amsterdam, you will understand that one of the most significant changes for me is the inclusion in the Treaty of the European Union of the article relating to the ultra-peripheral regions, recognizing that their specific characteristics require specific measures.
This is the right decision which the European Parliament has been involved in from the outset.
When some people wonder how to convey the new possibilities opened up by the Treaty, the answer is easy.
Successful experiments constitute a good starting point.
Examples of this are the Community initiative REGIS and the POSEIMA, which is precisely the instrument enabling the measure being examined to be adopted.
The POSEIMA has positively but insufficiently contributed towards the Azores feeling more a part of the European Union.
It is in this framework that the measure being discussed is incorporated; it cannot be temporary, as the structural conditions that fail to favour these regions result from the their separation from the European market to which they export their products.
They have to become final on that account, because the geography will not change.
With regard to Mr José Apolinário's speech, I would like to say that he has a short memory, because at the time the European Parliament approved his amendment proposals, which I did not agree with, and the Commission failed to include them in its report.
However, his proposal is not what we are discussing here.
What we are discussing here is far more along the lines of what I supported in his proposal, because I supported that tuna should remain untouchable and that deep-sea fish should increase, but the MEP insisted that tuna should be withdrawn to make room for the deep-sea fish.
So what he said is only half the truth.
One final point: with regard to the ultra-peripheral regions mentioned in the Treaty of the European Union, it is clear that solutions such as this and others, including those relating to the agricultural sector, have to be developed, as they have achieved excellent results.
This is the right path.
And so I fail to understand the lack of references to the REGIS and the POSEIMA in the Agenda 2000, a situation that needs to be changed and which Mr José Apolinário can help to do.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, effectively, as the rapporteur has pointed out, the frequent appearance on the agenda of items relating to fisheries threatens to turn us all into a kind of club of friends of fisheries, a club which is perhaps a little exclusive, with the same people always there, but which also has its positive aspects, in the sense that one is talking with parliamentary colleagues who know this dossier inside out.
This relieves me, for example, of returning to the motivations and the content of this regulation, which, moreover, you have illustrated in detail.
However, I think it is appropriate to dwell on some of the amendments.
The general philosophy of this regulation has been underlined by each of you, both from the fair treatment angle and as a kind of solution.
Other than this, the proposal also mirrors developments over the last few years, hence including new species; it is a proposal then, from a certain evolutional point of view, which is not limited to a pure and simple repetition.
More specifically, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, while Nos 3, 5, 5, 7 and 8 perhaps require a touch of redrafting.
As regards the island of Reunion, the Commission accepts the amendments in principle, but we are not yet in a position to give a technical definition of the methods and quantities because the French request arrived very late; the Commission has however sent a mission to the island of Reunion, but we are still waiting for further information which we have asked the French authorities for.
Your amendments will then be taken up in the modified proposal that the Commission will have to present.
But I must also emphasize that in principle the Commission accepts this inclusion.
So when the Commission presents a modified proposal, on the basis of both the amendments and the new information, we feel that Amendments Nos 13 and 15 will then be superfluous.
As regards the purpose of Amendments Nos 10 and 11, the Commission cannot but share this objective, because they refer to the conservation of resources, but frankly it seems to me that it would be better to deal with this under the implementing regulation.
This does not seem to us the appropriate context in which to insert this type of consideration, above all if it must deal with the technical methods intended to achieve the conservation of resources.
Article 6 seems sufficiently precise about the nature of the report to be presented by the Commission, while Amendment No 16, which concentrates only on the financial aspects, could bring a partial evaluation of the measures in question.
On the final point I am addressing Mr Langenhagen, in particular: I am perfectly aware - we say this every time - of the European Parliament's request to reach a codecision on the agreements in due form.
For the moment we must make a virtue of necessity and live with the existing rules.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, the Commission hopes that, in a situation of temporary regulation which is becoming permanent, this regulation, which you have given a positive welcome, can also give the sector that stability of prospects which is one of the cardinal elements of a vision, also economic, of the entire fisheries sector.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
VAT on telecommunications
The next item is the report (A4-0376/97) by Mr Cox, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC concerning the value added tax system applicable to telecommunications services (COM(97)0004 - c4-0100/97-97/0030(CNS)).
Mr President, this is a short proposal from the European Commission - in terms of reports for which I have been rapporteur during several years, it is perhaps the shortest. It is also one of the most complex.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy believes that the Commission proposal is a timely one and in that regard welcomes it.
It is a useful response to a global telecommunications revolution which in substance has bypassed some of the relevance and nature of the existing VAT system as it applies to that sector.
Certainly the technology has outpaced the VAT design.
The proposal sets out to address a very fundamental problem, namely that European Union telecom suppliers pay value added tax in respect of their EU clients but third country suppliers pay no such tax in respect of their EU clients.
At least that was the case at the point of introduction of the proposal.
It meant that there was an unfair market distortion which was damaging to EU telecom suppliers and that there was a loss of Member State revenue.
It was a dynamic loss because this is a growing sector and, over time, the problems would deepen, especially in the context of the liberalized market we face from now on.
However, the immediate urgency lying behind the Commission's proposal has in part been addressed by 15 parallel, identical derogations agreed by the Council on 17 March last year.
Consequently, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was of the opinion that this affords a pause for thought, a chance to clarify questions and issues, and then to see how to deepen and perhaps add value to the basic Commission proposal which we have been considering.
The advantage of the Commission proposal was that there would be a single VAT registration for suppliers.
But this is counterbalanced in practice - and the report deals with examples at some length - by the cumbersome and costly value added tax recovery procedures under the Eighth VAT Directive.
The Commission has recommended against a reverse charge mechanism and the consequence therefore is, if you look at the dossier in detail, that clients would need, if they purchase from EU suppliers from another Member State, to pre-fund value added tax bills and to wait for a number of months to get those refunds back.
Since the Council has partly addressed the matter - although I know the Commission has argued before our committee that it has not done so in a way that would be satisfactory in the long haul - we believe that time is now available to the Commission to reflect and perhaps to make one or two additions to this proposal.
Firstly we would call on the Commission to revise the Eighth VAT Directive with regard to the cumbersome and costly refund procedure.
It is a timely moment to pick up on that particular concern, which certainly was a major concern of telecom suppliers who spoke to me as rapporteur and who had contact with colleagues in the committee.
Secondly, because we now have liberalization of the market, because the Commission is of the view that the Council's derogations cannot be sustained over the long haul and could, indeed, even create some problems in terms of WTO conditions.
I believe it is worth trying to identify precisely where the weaknesses are and where they need to be filled.
Finally, we explored whether it might not be appropriate to consider for telecoms a pioneering notion of a single VAT rate.
We have asked the Commission to reflect on those elements and then to bring forward a revised proposal which would enhance the current basic proposal.
In essence, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy regards what has been proposed by the Commission as positive, believes what the Council has done affords pause for thought and would like that time to be used to enhance the value of the proposal and to make it more comprehensive and more acceptable.
I would commend the amendments to the Commission.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Cox both on his report and his explanation of it here, in this Chamber.
I think it is a most complex subject and difficult to explain.
I would be most interested, Commissioner, to hear your reaction to the suggestions that Mr Cox has made.
It seems to me that both the Commission proposal and the Council proposal have certain short- and medium-term disadvantages.
Mr Cox has explained very clearly that the technology has outpaced the VAT systems.
There have been most serious handicaps for European Union telecommunications operators and a most serious and disadvantageous distortion of competition.
We can quite understand why the Council has put into place the derogations that Mr Cox has outlined.
Under the Commission proposal - the change to the Sixth VAT Directive - there will be a shift in the place of taxation to the place of establishment of the recipient of the services, the customers' base, and away from that of the supplier, the telecommunications company's base.
The problems that Mr Cox has identified about the cumbersome and costly VAT recovery procedures, on which I and many Members get many letters, clearly is a major obstacle.
I think that Mr Cox's approach is correct, but I would be interested to hear the Commissioner's reaction to the question of how to make progress towards a definitive VAT system and how to recover VAT without undue cost and bureaucracy, to the question of the impact of telecoms liberalization on fiscal receipts - because this is a hugely growing market and the fiscal implications for chancellors really are very considerable. I would also like the Commissioner to comment on the effects of the Council's derogations.
Mr Cox has mentioned possible conflicts, which I think are more than probable, with the GATT clauses and the specific World Trade Organization agreement.
Although, clearly, the Council proposal can hold in the short-term - which, in a sense, removes some of the pressure both on this Parliament and the Commission - nevertheless the problem will exacerbate rather than diminish.
Clear proposals from the Commission would be received with great interest by members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Mr President, my group supports Mr Cox's report and also the amendments proposed.
We had cause for concern: Europe's disadvantage in relation to competitors from abroad.
And so we understand the exceptions established by Council.
Curiously enough, we have gone for a solution along the lines of the "principle of fate' , only in that way avoiding market distortions, besides avoiding the problems resulting from the lack of harmonization of taxes and the lack of an income compensation mechanism, which is essential in taxation on consumption.
Finally, you may wonder whether it is not a question of virtualities that we need to continue using VAT in general, postponing the adoption of the final system according to the "principle of origin' until the complete harmonization of taxes is established and a safe system of compensation is assured.
In this specific case, we are justified in accepting the Commission's proposal with the addition of the new line s) to Article 9 paragraph 2 of Directive 7788/EEC; but as we agreed, its application should depend on a report to be submitted to Council and the European Parliament in which the Commission will have to explain in detail all the progress made in the direction of the final system, the impact of the liberalization of telecommunications on tax receipts and the effects of the exceptions introduced in the meantime.
Mr President, until recently we were working with a VAT regime which was bad for European competition and for the telecom suppliers within the Union.
On numerous occasions attention has been drawn to the future taxation problems in this sector, and I think we will frequently have to exchange views on this issue.
The Cox report contains a lucid analysis of the pros and cons of the Commission's proposal, and of the temporary arrangement made by the Council.
At the moment 15 identical derogations are used for all Member States, which is acceptable in the short term.
The present Commission proposal also contains some traps, such as the costly procedure to reclaim VAT.
That is why it would be sensible to implement in particular Mr Cox's Amendment No 5, in which the Commission is asked to have another thorough look at the problems concerning claims in connection with a definite VAT arrangement without unnecessary bureaucracy; at the effect of liberalization and the effect of the 15 derogations; and to submit a new directive to the Parliament and to the Council on the basis of the analysis.
Mr President, I think we can allow ourselves this amount of time to come to a sound arrangement which will also be able to stand the test of criticism at the next WTO negotiations.
My group is wholly sympathetic to the difficulty in which the Commission finds itself, because no one has yet quite invented the wheel to solve this problem.
The Cox report has given an indication, however, of how we might reach a better solution than we have here before is, and I think it is important to follow the Cox report in that respect.
Mr President, the Commission is basically faced with two different problems. The first of these concerns the fact that we have still not succeeded in developing a definitive VAT system in the EU which really works.
Such a thing would be extremely beneficial for the development of the internal market and for the EU as a whole.
Mr Cox has pointed out some of the disadvantages resulting from this oversight.
Such a situation can lead to paradoxes, for example a third-country supplier is suddenly no longer liable to VAT, while an EU supplier is liable to this particular tax. That is naturally quite unsatisfactory and paradoxical.
The second problem concerns the technical revolution which has meant that telecommunications services can now be supplied practically irrespective of geographical situation.
It is therefore now basically possible to offer such services on a planet-wide basis.
In such circumstances I think that Mr Cox's proposal is intended to gain time.
This may well be a logical move, but I believe that we should try really hard to find a solution which is based on a definitive VAT policy and on the use of telecommunications services from the point of view of greater local inclusion, since local inclusion is still possible in this area.
This would be somewhat along the same lines as the Commission's draft directive.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the interest of Mr Cox's report on the system of VAT applicable to telecommunications services lies in the fact that it raises a much wider question which underlies all world doctrine on fiscal law, as the OECD studies prove.
I myself am supervising the thesis of a young French researcher, Mr Huet, on the issue of international trade and its system of taxation, that is, the whole problem of the risk of cyberevasion, of a taxation of cyberspace yet to be invented, the Internet services, call back, down loading of software, intangible services, and the whole difficulty of the digital influx which cannot be regulated or controlled, and a business which it is said could reach 70 billion dollars by the year 2000.
We know the questions.
Who should enforce this?
How should it be enforced?
Where should it be enforced?
Should we completely exempt it from taxation?
Should there be a specific tax?
Should there be a world conference, about the whole range of taxes: customs duties, excise duties, corporation tax and VAT? With all the different methods of administering corporation tax that exist?
There is the method by which the server should be a stable establishment; for VAT, the distance sales method, or Article 9, first paragraph of the Sixth Directive; or Article 9, paragraph 2, still of the Sixth Directive, which relates to provision of cultural services.
We know the problem: to avoid distortions in competition.
In the first system, it is the service provider who defines the place of taxation, to which has to be added the distortion of competition outside or inside of the Community.
The wish was to combine this with the Commission's system, a relatively coherent one, in which the client defines the place of taxation, before this proposal came about, the March 1997 solution, which has been generalized in all countries - Germany applied it from January 1997, in France we will have a directive on this in May 1997.
However a difficulty arises since it confuses the location of the provider with the location of the beneficiary of the provision, depending on whether the person is liable for VAT or not.
I will therefore, content myself with taking a sample group.
I am not against the temporary solutions which have been sketched out.
I wonder - it does no harm just this once - if there should not be a world doctrinal reflection and if, perhaps, the method of complete tax exemption, with all the risks this means for traditional commerce and virtual commerce, or the method of specific taxation are not worth studying.
I believe that perhaps the solution of a wide conference reflecting on this extremely novel issue may be the right way forward but, in the interim, I recognize that the solutions of a temporary nature drawn up by Mr Cox are acceptable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the VAT system on telecommunication services, which distorts and weakens competition, is driving European telecommunications companies into a worse position than that in the developing world.
Under present legislation telecommunication services are taxed where the provider is based.
This means that telecoms working within the Union pay VAT, and those outside do not.
The Union VAT jungle is also unequal in its treatment, which also distorts competition.
Viable internal markets demand viable structures.
The harmonization of taxation systems is obviously a step in the right direction.
It is necessary to focus on a taxation and VAT system at the European level, and not just at the national one.
With the third stage of EMU and the common currency the public finances of all Member States are in any case closely controlled by the Community.
Why not have the same control for taxation?
On the global level, the biggest problem for current European taxation systems is the imposition of taxes on 'fixed' factors, i.e. the workforce.
For some reason companies that offer employment are pictured as being better off; why otherwise would their tax burden be so unfair compared, for example, to that of automated companies.
Offering employment is penalized, when it should be rewarded.
We have to start straightening out the wrinkles in the tax system.
The minimum requirement is obviously that companies offering employment should at least enjoy equal a status equal to that of automated companies.
The Council now accepts a system whereby all telecoms in every Member State pay VAT directly to the inland revenue office in their customer's country.
If the customer happens to be outside the EU, no tax is due at all.
This defect in the system is a direct invitation for the large telecoms to move to third-world tax havens.
This we all have a duty to put right.
Mr President, on 1st January 1998, the liberalization of telecommunications services became a reality in the European Union.
It is time to complete the regulatory framework which accompanies this liberalization with the VAT discipline.
In effect, both our telecommunications companies, and the firms of other countries, need to know the fiscal obligations confronting them over the next few years.
This is the general objective of the proposal.
Then there are two more specific aims of this directive.
The first relates to the modification of the territorial of Community VAT and specifies that VAT must always be applicable if a telecommunications service is delivered to a Community client: the consumption in fact takes place in the Community.
The second specific purpose aims at confirming the existing law of the sixth directive, by which a Community telecommunications operator has fiscal obligations only in the Member State in which it is established.
To impose registration on it in each Member State in which it has a client, would end up cancelling the greater part of the benefits attaching to liberalization, because the operator would have to keep specific accounts or even have recourse to a fiscal representative in each of these Member States.
It follows logically from this that we cannot discriminate against operators of third countries by demanding that they register in all the Member States; they too should be able to benefit from the advantage of a single registration in the Community.
Your rapporteur, Mr Cox, has carefully examined the consequences of this approach and proposes various amendments in his report, adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
I can tell you that the Commission has no difficulty in accepting Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 4.
By contrast, Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 7 are not acceptable, in the opinion of the Commission, because they would postpone the entry into force of the proposed directive until a report has been drawn up on elements which are in reality linked to the present proposal.
In fact, the progress towards the introduction of a new common VAT system is independent of the creation of a fiscal system for telecommunications services.
The liberalization of these services will certainly have less impact on the VAT yield than the absence of a VAT system will have on the success of liberalization.
The effects of the derogations currently applied by the Member States will certainly be taken into account when the negotiations are going on in the Council, but we also know that these systems cannot be extended or generalized, given their disadvantages and imperfections which Mr Cox has also highlighted with great clarity.
Furthermore, the implications of the application of a single quota to telecommunications remain, at the end of the day, without objective, because I understand that Parliament is not asking for the introduction of such a single share.
Given that the Commission's approach is not in question and, lacking concrete suggestions for improvement, the Commission considers it particularly inappropriate for the signals put out to the operators to seem to deprive them of the possibility of having, in a short time, a fiscal framework capable of allowing them to benefit fully from the liberalization of telecommunications services, to the profit of our companies and all the consumers.
Finally, Amendment No 2, which I have not mentioned up to now, is not acceptable because, in fact, it is not correct.
However, in substance it is taken up in Amendment No 4 which the Commission accepts, as I have already mentioned.
The Commission was asked, amongst other things, to clarify the reasons why it was not possible to maintain in force the principles provided for in the derogations, the 15 derogations, including them directly in the sixth directive.
At bottom, the response is already clear in Mr Cox's report.
There are three disadvantages: the system provided for derogation is not practicable, the control raises concrete problems, and there is also the critical element, raised by some of you, about the contrast between the mechanism of derogation and the structure of the conditions and clauses provided for in the ambit of the GATS.
Finally I want to observe, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that on the question of "why are we in such a rush, we have time' in reality there is not very much time, because the derogations end at the end of 1999 and the new system must be adopted, say, before the end of 1998, to allow for incorporation into national legislation.
So perhaps, there remains between us this divergence of appreciation of the urgency of the matter, on how much time we have available.
Mr President, in view of the late hour, I do not wish to re-open any of the points of substance in the debate.
However, I am intrigued by one remark by the Commissioner which gives me pause for thought as to how we should proceed at voting time tomorrow.
If I understood him correctly he said with regard to exploring a single rate of value added tax for the telecom sector that it may be pointless at the end of the day but that in any event the European Parliament is not asking for it and since there is no proposal the Commission, in a sense, is not taking on the possibility.
Let me put the direct question: it is a hypothesis, I am the rapporteur and not Parliament, but if Parliament was to come to the Commissioner and say: we want in a proposal not just a revision of the Eighth VAT Directive but we also want a single rate for telecoms, could I take it, as implied in the Commissioner's response, that he would answer in the affirmative?
Mr President, in reply to Mr Cox, on rate harmonization it is true that under any tax scheme involving taxation at the place of establishment of the supplier or at the single place of registration within the EU some distortions of competition can occur due to the different level of rates of Member States.
The Commission would be prepared to suggest the application of a uniform rate for telecommunication services which the current proposal does not provide for and could consider in depth, and probably with a favourable disposition, an indication from the European Parliament pointing in that direction.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.07 p.m.)
Madam President, I would like to speak on a point of order.
The Aftonbladet , a Swedish evening newspaper, of 9 January, had an article on its front page which contained three factual errors, two of which could be verified by Parliament.
Seventeen Members of this Parliament from six different groups are accused of being involved in Mafia practices, in particular in the drugs Mafia in the European Union.
Since a system and unit have been set up to act against such scandalous articles, I would like to ask whether the Swedish Information Bureau has produced a fiche d'alerte about this yet, and whether it has arrived at our unit in this Parliament yet, and what this will result in.
Because it is clearly extremely damaging for this Parliament, and moreover complete nonsense that seventeen members are accused of playing a role in the drugs Mafia, and that they appear in the paper, with pictures and so on.
I would like to know whether you, or the unit which was set up to deal with these things, will take action against it, and whether a fiche d'alerte has been issued.
Mrs Van Dijk, to answer the question you have just asked me, I can say that the Bureau did in fact consider, at yesterday evening's meeting, how best to counter this type of accusation or aspersion and that we decided in principle to set up a rapid rebuttal unit, to counter such absolutely inadmissible, unacceptable attacks as effectively as possible.
And I would like to take this opportunity of informing the whole House of this.
Madam President, my sincerest apologies for bothering you with a personal problem.
I tend to start the monthly part-session in Strasbourg in good cheer and in good physical condition, but practically every part-session I end up catching a hefty cold.
I have noticed that many people have similar problems.
I think it has to do with the air conditioning system.
My question is whether you would be willing to ask the relevant services what can be done.
Because, Madam President, speaking for myself, by the end of the week it is really unbearable.
Mr Cornelissen, we cannot start a discussion on this point.
I am not sorry that you have mentioned the problem.
I think that you are not the only person to be afflicted, probably because of the air conditioning, at the end of a sitting.
My answer is that the department responsible will look into the matter, and that we will do everything we can to ensure that a suitable temperature is maintained in this chamber.
I give you my word, and steps are already being taken, because many Members of this House have already said the same thing.
Thank you, Mr Corbett, for your very amusing contribution to this discussion.
On the same subject, Madam President, I haven't actually got a cold here in Strasbourg, but if your maintenance engineers are efficient, perhaps you could also send them to Brussels, because I often leave Brussels with a cold.
We have the same difficulties there... sore eyes... there is a problem.
Drugs
The next item is the report (A4-0359/97) by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the harmonization of the Member States' laws on drugs.
Madam President, my problem does not involve my immune system but the agenda.
You have called for Mrs d'Ancona's report and I should like to request, pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure, that we refer Mrs d'Ancona's report back to committee.
I should like to justify my request on the following grounds: Our Group, together with Mrs d'Ancona the rapporteur, has held intensive discussions with the other groups in this House.
We had 36 amendments to discuss, received between the approval of the draft report by the committee and the plenary sitting.
These 36 amendments, Madam President, include a number of requests which, were they to be accepted, would not simply involve minor changes to the report, but would completely change its stance.
Over the Christmas break...
(Noise) Ladies and gentlemen, there are minimum rules of social courtesy and if you don't known them yet, perhaps you should learn them this morning.
(Applause) The rapporteur was unable to discuss these amendments with the petitioners in sufficient detail over the Christmas break.
Mrs d'Ancona and my group therefore request that we be given the opportunity to do this and to endeavour to reach a compromise on this highly sensitive topic of drugs policy.
(Applause)
Mr Schulz, you have made a request pursuant to Rule 129.
We will therefore apply that rule by the book and I must ask whether there is a speaker in favour this request.
There is not.
Against?
Mr Nassauer did not exceed his speaking time, nor did Mr Schulz.
I can assure you that I am extremely vigilant on that point.
I have already asked someone to speak in favour, in accordance with the Rules.
No one wanted to do so.
I can see Mr Dell'Alba.
Mr Dell'Alba, do you wish to speak in favour?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Nassauer is obviously responsible for his own remarks, even the political remarks he makes.
I do not want to make any more comments on that subject.
I will confine myself to saying that in this House, you have to accept responsibility...
If you want a report to be rejected by means of a show of force by the majority, I would say to you that is not how it is done in politics.
When there are sixty amendments in Parliament...
(Uproar) Madam President, please ask my Italian friends to be quiet.
I will speak in whatever language I choose.
All right?
(Applause) All I wanted to say, Mrs Muscardini, is that, when sixty amendments have been tabled, you have to work sensibly, not just make gestures.
It is therefore in order, in a democratic parliament, for the Committee to whom the matter was been referred, to resume the debate, examine the sixty amendments and present another report to the House.
We have now heard all the speakers required by the Rules.
I shall now invite Mrs Green to make a personal statement.
Madam President, I really cannot resist it.
Thank you for the invitation to speak and also for recognizing me as Pauline Green.
I would just like to say that as Mr Nassauer read out one bit of the British Home Office's brief on this, he did of course fail to read out all those bits in it that express sympathy with the report and what it was trying to do and some of the elements that Mrs d'Ancona is trying to cover.
Mr Schulz, can I presume that Mrs d'Ancona does not wish to speak, as you have expressed her request?
I am asking you this because the Rules say that the chairman of the committee, or the rapporteur, may speak.
So, you have spoken on her behalf.
That is right, is it not?
(Parliament approved the request for referral back to committee)
Fingerprinting asylum seekers (Eurodac)
The next item is the report (A4-0402/97) by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council Act drawing up the Convention concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints of applicants for asylum and the Convention drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints of applicants for asylum (11079/97 - C4-0506/97-97/0915(CNS)).
Madam President, the topic I intend to speak on is extremely important although it may not provoke the same emotional response as the other topic we have discussed this morning.
We can debate this matter in a somewhat more peaceful frame of mind, but I have to tell you honestly that I am discussing it with mixed feelings.
I will explain why.
Yesterday evening we had an excellent debate about the refugee policy and about the situation which has arisen out of the fact that 1200 Kurds have asked for political asylum in Italy during the past few weeks. Again, it was a good debate which did not split the left and right as the debate on drugs did.
From all contributions to the debate it became clear that what we are missing at the moment is a common asylum and migration policy. All our colleagues here expressed their disappointment with the fact the Treaty of Amsterdam did not provide for such a common asylum and migration policy.
Maybe in the long term, but not at the moment.
We then see that when an incident, such as this situation with the Kurds, concerns us, we do not really know how to respond to it.
Well, I certainly have mixed feelings.
I find it extremely difficult to start talking about instruments which have a sound function within the context of a common asylum policy, but in isolation seem to be there to keep asylum seekers out. That is why I thought it was important that we should express an opinion on it.
Firstly, I find it a sign of excellent goodwill by the Council, and I do not mind repeating this here, that it has decided to involve Parliament in the decision-making process concerning the establishment of this Eurodac instrument.
In order to do justice to the idea that it is dangerous to make use of specific instruments outside their context, I have introduced a large number of amendments at the request of the Council, and I obviously hope that my colleagues will support these. They are based on the belief that we must create the greatest possible security for those in distress, those we are discussing here today: people seeking asylum.
Specific instruments can be used positively. Taking fingerprints to stop people from being sent from one Member State to the other is a case in point, because there might be uncertainty over which country is responsible for their application for asylum.
This procedure is effective in such cases, and ensures that this situation no longer occurs.
Secondly, I think that sending people to a third country outside the EU where there are different standards, possibly to the disadvantage of the asylum seeker, is ruled out.
That is also a good thing.
In one of the amendments I have also warned that it must be unambiguously clear that the comparison of finger prints should under no circumstance be used for any purpose other than to determine the responsibility of the Member State of origin.
So it cannot be used for any other purpose than for the one it serves.
I also think it is important that the register of fingerprints is only kept for a limited amount of time, so that it cannot be misused.
The other thing I find extremely important is that the European Commission, and not one of the Member States takes on the management of Eurodac.
I also think there should be a kind of European protector of data, as the number of data bases is increasing, and I think that, in view of people's privacy, we have to treat these with greatest possible care.
I have suggested that the European Court of Justice should continue to be the appointed institution to turn to as a last resort with complaints in these matters.
To conclude, Madam President, I have already told you that I think it is a great pity that this procedure is given priority over the total policy.
It is a pity, but I hope that, once the Council has fine-tuned what is being proposed on a number of points, Eurodac will still be able to fulfil a useful role.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, although the report prepared by my colleague Mrs d'Ancona on the drawing up of the Convention concerning the establishment of "Eurodac' is, in essence, a factual and technical report - as my colleague has already pointed out - the tone is of great significance for those people involved.
The individuals to be registered using this system have left their home countries for a number of different reasons and by a number of very different routes.
For the most part they have done so because they were fleeing terror, torture and persecution, but also - and we must not underestimate this - because they come from hopeless social and economic backgrounds.
They have all chosen flight in the hope that wherever they may one day find refuge, they really will be able to find better and more secure futures, and above all live safer lives.
However, due to the influx of refugees into the European Union, the receptiveness of Member States has declined rapidly in recent years.
On one hand, the many common regulations and conventions existing between the Member States create the impression that fortress Europe is expanding. On the other, Europe is becoming more and more unified, internal borders are becoming increasingly less significant and here too there is a need for a common set of regulations.
This is particularly important in the area of the third pillar.
However, - and here I must agree with Mrs d'Ancona, and thank her for the excellent work she has done on this report - it is essential that when we talk about an asylum and immigration policy, we talk about a common asylum and immigration policy.
There should not, therefore, as is currently the case, be a raft of very different regulations applicable in the various Member States which are then brought together into a minimal piece of legislation by the Council, effectively restricting the level of protection for refugees to a minimum.
I also agree that we should draw up a common framework.
But there are a couple of additional comments which I would like to make about the report, which I think are important.
The most important is that data protection be guaranteed for the individuals involved.
Since it has been laid down that there should be a central organization, but not exactly how this organization should function, it is also important that we agree, as Mrs d'Ancona has stated, that this central unit be based within the European Commission.
I also think it is important that the Member States have only limited access to this central unit, and for a period of only three months, as they are also able to set up their own registers.
Therefore, in my view, it is necessary that access by the Member States to this central register be limited.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the core of this automatic data processing system relates to the fact that, in principle, future applicants for asylum in the European Union should be fingerprinted as soon as they enter a Member State, as long as they are at least 14 years old.
I should like to make it clear from the outset that, for reasons I shall go into later, the PPE Group supports this intention, and that we cannot therefore see the point in linking it to the criticism that, as in other circumstances finger-printing is used as a method of the criminal justice system, it would effectively criminalize applicants for asylum.
In this regard, there are certain technical requirements which I should like to outline briefly.
It is important that asylum proceedings in Europe are decided quickly.
This is the right of applicants for asylum, irrespective of whether or not their applications are founded or whether or not they are victims of political persecution.
Whatever the case, they need to know as soon as possible whether they can remain in Europe.
Secondly, jurisdictions must be clearly defined.
It must be clear which Member State is responsible for dealing with an asylum procedure, i.e. who examines the application.
Thirdly, we must avoid a situation in which applicants for asylum are shunted back and forth between EU Member States.
These are the prerequisites of proper, constitutional and humane proceedings and in order to achieve them it is necessary to establish the identity of applicants for asylum, and where appropriate their family members, and that is what this system is for.
This is, of course, subject to data protection legislation.
The relevant agreement states that the Council of Europe Convention on Data Protection of 1981 is applicable in all cases.
This convention specifies, inter alia , that such finger prints must be deleted if, for example, the applicant receives citizenship of a Member State or is recognised in a Member State as a refugee.
However, not all those seeking asylum are the victims of political persecution.
Yesterday the figures relating to applicants for asylum in Germany last year were published.
They numbered more than 104 000, and of these, just over 5 % received recognition as political refugees.
Of course, there are a considerable number of asylum seekers who make not one, but two or more applications in order to receive several lots of social security benefit.
This is a regrettable fact which should not be overlooked.
In Germany, for example, investigations were carried out covering the period from January 1993 to September 1996 and no less than 46 000 cases of fraud were detected - a rate of approximately 1 in 10.
Since the introduction of an automated finger-printing system in Germany this figure has dropped considerably.
A comparative study has also been carried out examining asylum application procedures in Switzerland and Germany.
It revealed that double applications giving rise to payment of double social security benefits were received from the main applicant countries - Turkey 12 %, Pakistan 19 %, Zaire 12 %, Lebanon 12 % - and this fact cannot simply be ignored.
Similar figures also came out of a study comparing Switzerland and Austria.
Therefore, it makes sense to have such a procedure.
It benefits those who are genuinely the victims of political persecution and for this reason the PPE Group supports this Council Convention and has some reservations about the restrictions contained in Mrs d'Ancona's report.
Madam President, today we are considering the report from Mrs d'Ancona on the proposal from the Council for an automated system for recognizing the fingerprints of asylum seekers.
We agree with the rapporteur that we need to improve citizens' legal position, through clear measures and quick procedures, in recognizing the right to asylum.
Moreover, we support the desire to establish a European data protection system, particularly given the growing number of systems which facilitate the exchange of personal data and the difficulty in defending these systems against possible abuse of the individuals they include.
Asylum is a basic human right.
To grant or deny access to the asylum process may mean the difference between a person's life and death, as is pointed out in the report.
This feature must be there in every instance, and the necessary precautions have to be taken so that the people affected can benefit from the most favourable legal conditions.
In this context I would like to recall the passivity demonstrated by the Spanish Government in the face of asylum and refugee applications from more than 270 Algerian immigrants who are still waiting in Melilla - and have been in some cases for more than two years - for their applications for legal protection to be dealt with in the face of the terrorist threat to which they are subject in their country of origin.
Meanwhile, the Spanish authorities maintain - incomprehensibly - that Algeria is not an area of conflict.
The coordination of asylum policies needed in the European Union must not be allowed to erode the system of international protection.
In this sense, the future political union will have to maintain and develop the traditional European policy of the right to asylum.
We advocate a progressive attitude with respect to the right to asylum, subject to all the international conventions, and through a progressive application of that right to nationals from countries within the Union.
However, when political union is fully achieved this right will only be necessary in terms of nationals from third countries.
Madam President, all over Europe at the moment people are thinking back to the words Emile Zola threw at his government exactly 100 years ago: J'accuse - I accuse.
It was the expression of his despairing resistance against a despotic power which had branded an innocent man guilty in a calculated political manoeuvre, flouted the dictates of justice, ignored the dignity of man and sacrificed him to the opinion of an enraged public.
One hundred years later we are safe in the knowledge that we have finally tamed this kind of power, finally subjected it to justice.
Yet still we are forced to watch just such an accusation levelled against just such despotism reforming in the hearts and minds of thousands of men and women at the borders of Europe who are being prevented from enjoying their human right to asylum with ever new forms of harassment, with denial and perversion of the course of justice.
We are forced to watch how justice and politics retreat in the face of a hysterical public and the mass phenomenon of xenophobia.
No other region in the world has triggered more or larger streams of refugees than did this continent in the 20th century.
Millions of men and women from Europe have been received into countless countries all over the world, very often countries themselves suffering ruin and poverty.
Today, at the time of our greatest historical prosperity, an incomparably smaller number of oppressed and persecuted individuals is taking flight in our direction. And what are we doing?
We are refusing an ever growing number of them the right to shelter. Instead, we are using police methods to monitor them.
European co-operation sees its only duty as being their rejection and, if necessary, their deportation.
In the face of a mere 2000 fleeing Kurds politicians conjure horrific images of an uncontrolled flood of refugees.
Phrases such as "illegal immigrants' are used.
Europe, which owes its cultural wealth to its openness to the world, is becoming a fortress.
If that "j'accuse' forms in the minds and hearts of the men and women waiting at the walls of this fortress, then it is we who are accused.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, recent events have forcibly and tragically reminded us of the importance of the asylum policy to every Member State of the European Union and to the European Union as a whole.
Although it is obvious that inter-state cooperation is not only useful but also necessary in this area, it is nevertheless true that the problem of accepting refugees, and the right of asylum, are essentially, a question of national sovereignty, as moreover, the French Constitutional Council recently ruled.
These principles are reflected in the 'Eurodac' report, which is above all a technical report, but also a political report.
The rapporteur suggests that responsibility for the management of the Eurodac system should be entrusted, not to a Member State, under the responsibility of the Council, but to the Commission.
It seems to us that it would be preferable for the management of such a system to remain under the responsibility of the Council instead of being entrusted to the Commission.
Indeed, the Council, emanating from the Member States, has a more accurate perception of the real, practical issues associated with the problems of accepting refugees, whereas the Commission is likely to have a more 'disembodied' view, more remote from practical problems and real life in each of the Member States faced with an influx of refugees.
That is why we will vote against the Committee on Civil Liberties' amendments.
The refugee problem is an extremely serious human problem, but politics is the art of reality.
A few years ago, our colleague, Michel Rocard said that France could not accommodate all the poverty of the world.
I do not think that Europe can accommodate all the poverty of the world either, and it is a question, as far as we are concerned, of being able to organize cooperation and development policies for poor countries, to enable their inhabitants to prosper at home.
Madam President, the Kurdish refugee case is a current reminder that the problem of the asylum seeker is perhaps one of if not the greatest challenges for Europe in the coming years.
I should add, however, that the Kurdish problem is still very small in comparison to the tidal wave of millions which threatens to come our way if the situation in Algeria escalates any further.
But I am already wondering which European government will have the courage to call a halt to this tidal wave of millions, which, with all respect, would render today's debate on the registration of fingerprints totally obsolete.
We obviously support the Council's Eurodac proposal for a central fingerprints register for asylum seekers.
In my opinion it is one of very few interventions which might alleviate to a small extent, not enough, but to a small event the negative effects of the loss of border controls in the Schengen countries, which, for that matter, we continue to challenge.
We reject the amendments of the d'Ancona report equally obviously, amendments which on the one hand serve to hamper the much-needed fingerprints register, and on the other hand give the European Commission a decision-making position in asylum policy which the Commission is absolutely not entitled to.
Lastly, it is also my duty to broaden the debate a little, and to remind you that experience teaches us that, after investigation, more than 90 % of applications for asylum turn out to be completely unfounded.
This should be said now that so many politicians in my country and outside continue to argue for a kind of Santa Claus politics which is ultimately pursued on the back and at the expense of the less well-off and the poorest amongst our own people.
So to conclude, I repeat that in my view genuine political refugees should be received in countries neighbouring their countries of origin which have on the whole a similar way of life and culture, and therefore not in Europe, and that we are prepared to support this policy materially.
Secondly, we believe that illegal asylum seekers, in other words 90 % of applicants, should be categorically deported, yet in a humane manner.
Only then will renewed support be found in Europe to help all genuine refugees.
Today, sadly enough, yet for understandable reasons, this is certainly not the case.
Madam President, this Eurodac Convention is essential in order to get the Dublin Convention to work.
It is necessary for us in Europe to cooperate on questions of asylum seekers.
The current, tragic situation of the Kurdish refugees is an example.
It is necessary to have an effective and responsible asylum policy in the EU.
The issue is not who should have a right to asylum in the EU.
Rather the issue concerns a better sharing of the responsibility for refugees in Europe.
It is simply a matter of getting better tools to decide which Member State is responsible for dealing with an application for asylum which is submitted within the EU.
On the one hand we should avoid turning asylum seekers into political footballs between different countries because no-one wants to take responsibility for dealing with their case.
There are many tragic examples of cases where asylum seekers wait for years to get their applications processed, or are sent back and forth between different European countries because no-one wants to accept responsibility.
That is not the way for us to treat people who in many cases have escaped from oppression and torture.
On the other hand, we should prevent too much cheating.
It is important that every country is obliged to take fingerprints.
That is the only way that we can prevent asylum seekers changing identity after being turned down by one Member State.
If we have a database of fingerprints, we can uncover cheating and abuse immediately.
This would also be beneficial for genuine asylum seekers.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur emphasizes the fact that the setting up of this database must not mean that the asylum seekers' legal protection is compromised.
Asylum seekers have a right to data protection.
There should be security and control of the data, both in terms of who has access to it and who is able to use it.
Mr President, the recent upsurge of refugees arriving in Europe has had the merit of drawing attention to the problems of asylum seekers in the European Union.
The Eurodac system presented by the Commission is a response to one aspect of the problem.
The Dublin Convention did say that a refugee must apply for asylum in the first host country and comply with that country's decision, which would apply to the whole EU.
The Eurodac system is now trying to transpose that principle into reality, in order to ensure that certain people, without identification, do not travel from country to country, according to the welfare benefits they can obtain, whilst awaiting a decision.
Fingerprinting would make it possible for find out quickly, without having to wait a long time, whether the person in question applied for asylum in the first host country.
The main advantage of this system is its rapidity, which will therefore be of benefit to real refugees, who apply for asylum within the law, and will prevent others from taking unfair advantage of the hospitality of the Member States.
Eurodac is not a tool to be used for repression, to drive out refugees.
As was said yesterday evening, Europe must not be closed to refugees; it must remain open to people in distress.
Eurodac should, on the contrary, help contribute towards our ability to provide hospitality, whilst preventing abuse of the system.
The system is very often abused - as recent events have shown - by extremely well organised and well-informed criminals, who, for enormous sums of money, transport people in distress, and provide them with information about the loop-holes and weaknesses in the laws of EU countries.
Those who cry shame as soon as the word 'repression' is mentioned, disregard the fact that, to Mafias of all types, illegal border crossings are the most lucrative form of criminal activity after drug dealing.
During the debates on the Kurdish refugees, the need for European harmonization, with regard to asylum policy, suddenly became apparent.
Eurodac is one element of European cooperation, a tool to help us handle the arrival of refugees.
Although the Eurodac system must be welcomed as a technical instrument to prevent abuse, we should not lose sight of the root of the problem, that is, the situation in refugees' home countries.
It is here that European internal and foreign affairs policies should meet in order to form an overall, and therefore more effective approach.
The European Union must incorporate human rights considerations more fully into its relationship with such countries, support the reconciliation of people within the framework of the rule of law, and denounce the political, economic and cultural oppression of minorities.
The European Union is one of the largest distributors of economic aid throughout the world.
May we at the same time gain a reputation for our protection of democratic values!
Mr President, Eurodac is part of a restrictive and to some extent brutalizing refugee policy which we can see developing in Western Europe today.
The countries of the EU are closing themselves more and more to large parts of the surrounding world.
Far too often refugees are treated in a shameful manner, as if they were criminals rather than people seeking protection.
The basis of Eurodac is that an application for asylum should only be dealt with in one Member State.
I do not share this basic view and therefore support paragraph 8 of the report, which I believe is absolutely crucial.
Every asylum seeker should be dealt with separately, regardless of whether they are included on such a database or not.
That is a fundamental point.
There are innumerable examples of asylum seekers who have been rejected by one EU country, but have later been able to seek asylum in another country and have had their applications accepted.
I myself have several personal friends who have managed to do that.
One wonders what is going to happen to them when this system begins to work in practice.
Taking fingerprints is an infringement of personal integrity.
An obligatory system of fingerprinting is ultimately based on the idea that people who do not want to give their fingerprints should be forced to do so, by violence in extreme cases.
This applies to children from the age of 14 upwards.
That is a serious infringement of personal integrity.
I believe this is not really necessary.
In Sweden we used to have a system which meant that only those who could not prove their identity in a reliable way were required to provide fingerprints.
That is a method which is entirely sufficient to clarify who the asylum seeker is.
In practice the asylum seekers cannot say no, because it would damage their case if they refused to provide fingerprints.
The draft convention also contains several other weaknesses.
I think the age limit of 14 has been set too low. It should be at least 18 or 21 years, or another age when a person may be regarded as an adult.
The requirement that data should be erased from the system is incomplete.
There are clear risks that people are going to be registered who are resident quite legally in various Member States.
We know that there are British and German reservations about the proposal which was discussed at the Ministers' meeting in December.
In that it is made clear that people who have a residence permit in a Member State should not be included on the database.
I believe it is a quite natural demand that has been made in connection with these negotiations, it is a demand for legal certainty.
It is also unclear, in spite of what is in the draft convention, what opportunities the asylum seekers actually have to get information, to be able to appeal and to assert their rights.
There is a similar system of control for the database in the Schengen Information System called JSA, Joint Supervisory Authority .
At the moment that operates alarmingly badly.
We know that the supervision is poor, the legal certainty is weak and the opportunities to appeal are small.
I believe there is an obvious risk that there will be the same weaknesses in the Eurodac system which exist in the Schengen system today.
It is a system which means that in practice the refugee is always at a disadvantage.
With these words I want to show that I share much of the rapporteur's criticism.
She points out serious defects in the existing system.
I do not share her view that the Commission should have influence over this.
It is an intergovernmental issue and an issue for the Member States.
In spite of this criticism, I am going to vote for Mrs d'Ancona's report because it raises important issues about the Eurodac system.
Mr President, I would first of all like to say to Mr Buffetaut who spoke earlier, that he did not quote Michel Rocard in full.
I would like to finish the quotation.
Michel Rocard did indeed say that France could not welcome all the poverty in the world, but he added that France should accept its full share.
I think that is important.
When we discuss the Eurodac report, we are right in the middle of the problems caused by non-harmonization of our immigration and asylum policies.
Yesterday, we had a debate on the arrival of Kurdish refugees in Italy, and we saw how difficult it is to discuss problems in the heat of the moment.
Although it was rightly emphasized that the Italian government's attitude is perfectly respectable, we also had to recognise that on the whole, the behaviour of EU countries is undecided and questionable, as we have failed to establish any prior agreement, upstream, on measures to be adopted in this type of situation.
The Eurodac project is part of the pursuit of harmonization of asylum practices.
I therefore agree with it in principle, provided of course that we are very watchful with regard to human rights, as Mrs d'Ancona said.
Her report makes provision for this and I support it.
But I should like above all to emphasize the need to progress rapidly towards the harmonization of asylum practices.
Madam Commissioner, you have made a proposal with regard to the temporary protection of displaced persons, which I have already had occasion to applaud.
But as you know, when the Council finally adopts that initiative, it will solve only part of the problem.
Because what have we seen with regard to applications for asylum in the EU for several years? The number of requests for asylum peaked in 1992, and has since decreased every year.
National provisions have been adopted by many Member States to discourage people wanting to seek a better future in Europe, who are unable to enter Europe because of stricter immigration controls, from trying to obtain the status of refugee.
Such new provisions largely explain the decrease in asylum seekers.
But it therefore seems obvious that there should now be a higher rate of acceptance of applications.
But Mr President, Madam Commissioner, what we see taking place is exactly the opposite, the rate of acceptance is also decreasing.
Has the world suddenly become a haven of peace and prosperity? Every day brings us new proof that it has not.
There is a simpler reason, that can be seen, the increasing timidity of Member States and the more and more repressive policies being set up.
The laws of some Member States interpret the Geneva Convention in a spirit contrary to its promoters.
People who are really persecuted are refused the status of refugee, on the grounds that their persecutors are not Government agents, and the Council ratified this restrictive interpretation in a resolution of March 1996.
As of course the risks such people run if they return are well known, they are tolerated within the EU, but without status or rights, in several of our Member States.
Some have already created a complementary protection status, others like my own, are working on it.
Madam Commissioner, would it not be preferable to have a common policy on this point, and to work towards the definition of a status of subsidiary protection at the European Union level?
Mr President, it is the goal of the European Union to devise an asylum policy which helps the real refugees, that is those who are entitled to refugee status under the Geneva Convention, and, secondly, to prevent abuse of the right of asylum.
Amsterdam set the course for a route to a common asylum policy.
The Dublin Convention which is currently in force is a first, quite crucial step towards the development of a common asylum policy.
The tool we are now discussing, the Eurodac system, is a tool which ensures that those who need help actually get it and prevents those who are abusing the right of asylum from doing so.
So it is a good tool.
The proposal put to us by the Council is a tool which is acceptable and which helps to achieve the European Union's goals in terms of asylum policy.
What the committee with its restrictions and tendentious conclusions has made of it, on the other hand, does not help us achieve the goals we have set ourselves.
When you consider that if an application is re-presented, although it has been rejected by only one State, the same applicant and all his or her arguments have to be heard again in all the other Member States, this represents a huge amount of time and money.
Our systems are overloaded and at the end of the day we are unable to offer help or guarantee asylum.
As my second point, I should like to note here that, due to a proposal from the committee, it is not possible to compare fingerprints with those of applicants who have made applications in their own countries, even though this would show us that only a small proportion of the applicants are actually suitable candidates for asylum.
These are single figure percentages in each of the countries, which, in fact, means that very many applications are made without grounds.
I know of cases in which up to ten applications for asylum have been made in different states and yet people still say that the right of asylum in Europe is not abused.
We have to do something about it.
We need to ensure that, in general, those who support the fingerprinting of applicants for asylum are not looked at disapprovingly; otherwise, we would be giving the wrong signals and going down the wrong path.
We need the Eurodac System because it supports a good and proper asylum policy and is designed to stop abuse.
So we will support Eurodac in the form that has been proposed by the Council.
However, I - and this also applies to the European People's Party Group - cannot endorse the proposals coming from the committee.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the opportunity which the Eurodac System will afford us in terms of fighting the current abuse of the asylum application system, for a great number of reasons, must be welcomed.
If it should be possible, through the use of fingerprinting systems and the storage of fingerprints to prevent multiple applications, irrespective of the reasons for which they are: on social, economic or family grounds, because people do not want to stay in one place and decide to make an application somewhere else, that is OK.
But time and time again we restrict these debates which we are having on the right of asylum here today to technical debates.
We did it yesterday, and we are doing it again this morning.
Let us ask ourselves the question once and for all: Why is it that we are obliged to talk about a Eurodac system at all? Why, as soon as the discussion turns to asylum, do we always concentrate on abuses of the right of asylum in a criminal context?
Mr Pirker, for eleven years I have been the Mayor of a German town which lies on the Dutch and Belgian borders.
The town of which I am Mayor has the highest percentage of refugees from the Bosnian civil war.
Most of them came to my town from Srebrenica und Gorazde. We took them in and then we had to beg them to declare themselves asylum seekers because Germany does not recognise a right of asylum for refugees from civil wars.
In Germany there is no legal basis for refugees from civil war.
I have begged these people to claim asylum, though they say they are not victims of political persecution, but are fleeing from a civil war and want to return to their country when the civil war is over.
Which is just what they have been doing since the Dayton Agreement!
I was forced to ask them to consider themselves as asylum seekers, which meant that they were forced to stay in my town.
If they had gone anywhere else, which would have made me for one very happy since it would have meant a little respite for my finances, someone like Mr Pirker would have come along and said: Just a minute, Eurodac, fingerprinting system for asylum seekers, you can't go there!
With this small example, I am trying to illustrate the fact that the European Union's refugee policy needs to be a combination of various different areas of policy.
For time and time again we face a situation in which people say: I want to emigrate to the European Union.
It is possible, in theory.
It might not be advisable because of the great defensive front, but if someone wants to emigrate he is allowed to in principle and so we need to create an appropriate new legal base.
We do not have one.
There is no European immigration law, there are no national immigration laws.
We force people who want to migrate here to assume the status of an asylum seeker.
That is the danger we ourselves are creating for the right of asylum!
In the European Union we always adopt the same approach: we deny the fact that Europe is a continent which attracts immigrants, even though it is due to the poverty gap for which we are in part responsible, in particular the difference in poverty levels between the north and the south as well as between the west and the east, along with the lack of willingness on the part of some EU Member States to share their wealth.
This will be shown very clearly in the remainder of the debate.
Naturally, our wealth has a magnetic effect on the poorer regions which surround us.
The answer to the problem cannot be defence, it must lie in control, and particularly in three interlinking areas of the law: immigration quotas, clear rules for the acceptance of refugees from civil wars needing temporary protection and, finally, the core of political persecution which is then no longer a problem.
And even then you don't need Eurodac!
If you think that you can solve the problem at the inter-state level, colleagues in the PPE, let me tell you today: Forget it!
You have created the European Economic Area, you have created a de facto EU state, but now you want to continue the process, focusing on specifics, dissected for want of long-needed progress in terms of harmonization.
If we do not remove this disfunctionality, Europe will fail its own citizens as a result of this imbalance.
You should be a little more harmonization-friendly in matters of integration, not just in matters of defence.
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs d'Ancona, on a good and thorough report on the Eurodac Convention.
I also welcome the quick reading which the matter has received here in Parliament.
When we discuss the Eurodac Convention, we must do so in the light of the Dublin Convention, because that is where we find the criteria for which Member State is responsible for the examination of an application for asylum.
That is also where to find the rules on how an asylum seeker may be returned to the country which is to decide the application for asylum.
The Dublin Convention was signed in June 1990.
Seven years later, in September last year, it entered into force.
However, it is not enough to have a legal system for the first asylum principle and for it to be able to work.
That is why the Dublin Convention refers to Article 15, paragraph 12, and the fact that we need computerization of information about the identity of asylum seekers.
It is in that context that Eurodac comes in as a complement.
It is, after all, as a complement to the Dublin Convention that Eurodac should be seen.
Through Eurodac it will be possible to find out whether asylum applications are being made in several places by one and the same person.
It is important for us to know that if the Dublin Convention is to function effectively at all.
That is in turn only possible through a computerized system for fingerprints, which is found in the Eurodac Convention.
We are working within an institutional framework which is in a state of change.
The draft Eurodac Convention we are debating here today has been drawn up under the rules of the Maastricht Treaty.
The Commission is aware that the Amsterdam Treaty means another institutional framework, but we do not think that we can wait until this new Treaty enters into force. We need the Eurodac system now if the Dublin Convention is to be able to be credible and effective.
Like Mr Nassauer, I think it is important that we have a quick procedure and that people are informed very quickly about the situation they are in.
I also think this is demonstrated by recent events in Italy, i.e. that we need a different system to the one we have today.
At the same time I would like to emphasize that if the Eurodac Convention is not in force when the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified, the Commission will of course come back and propose a Community instrument.
The Commission shares Parliament's view that the Convention should be entirely in agreement with the rules on data protection, which I think it is in its current form.
During the discussion on the proposal the Commission urged that the principles of data protection should be in agreement with the Community's rules in this area, even though the Regulation on Data Protection is not applicable in the third pillar area.
I think that we have now reached an acceptable level of data protection.
We should therefore support the compromise on Article 6 which requires that after a five year period the Council of Ministers should consider whether it is still necessary to keep data on people who are granted refugee status.
The Commission also welcomes a number of the amendments which have been proposed.
That includes in particular Amendments Nos 1, 11, 16, 19, 20, 27, 29, 30 and 34 which we are now considering.
Amendment No 20 includes parts which we can accept, particularly the principle on decisions with regard to implementation measures and that they should be carried by majority decision.
Finally, I would like to underline the fact that Eurodac's operation is going to be entirely dependent on how we manage the financing, both with regard to setting up the system and the operation itself.
It is my hope that the principle of Community financing will be adopted and that is also what the Commission supports.
If that is the case, the European Parliament will have a decisive role to play in how the future Eurodac shall operate.
The Commission looks forward to being able to deal with the question of Eurodac's financing together with the European Parliament.
Thank you, Commissioner Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Green Paper on the statutory auditor
The next item is the report by Mrs Sierra González (A4-0373/97), on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Green Paper on the role, the position and the liability of the statutory auditor within the European Union (COM(96)0338 - C4-0451/96).
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, a series of recent financial collapses, which have had serious consequences for investors, have brought to the fore the question of liability in financial accounts as well as the role played by the auditor.
The question deserves particular attention for two reasons: firstly, since the auditor has become responsible for the accuracy of financial statements; and secondly, since there is no uniform legislative framework within the European Union relating to the role, the position and the liability of the statutory auditor, to respond to society's demand for better and more transparent information concerning companies' accounts.
With the appearance of new company and business models, as well as new financial products, the auditor's report has taken on not only an extremely important role but also acquired features relating to its independence and professional nature.
In the Green Paper the lack of a common position or joint action within the European Union has been assessed as a negative factor.
In regard to the statutory auditor's role, there is no specific Community directive regulating all its legal aspects.
Such a need is catered for only through reference to prejudiced questions contained in various different directives. In addition to this, the basic national legislation of Member States, where regulations are normally not specific, is normally used when considering this diverse and varied situation.
From the plans drawn up for both the single market and the single currency it would seem appropriate to move towards common action.
However, the Commission expresses doubts in the Green Paper in regard to the fund and as to how the appropriate legal means will shape any joint action.
Sometimes the need to establish minimum principles is referred to, while at other times the possibility of making a single recommendation to the Member States is mentioned.
Given this situation we must call on the Commission to set out its objectives in the short and medium term, for the creation and operation of an internal market for auditing, as well as a timetable and the measures which must be adopted or rejected.
In any case, the need to press ahead with legislative action to harmonize the minimum content of audit reports cannot be delayed.
The Green Paper seems to tend towards establishing a common concept of auditing or establishing a set of objectives to be followed by this entire sector throughout the European Union, and which can then be used to define the obligations or legal requirements which the auditor will have to fulfil in carrying out his role.
The problematic nature of this issue comes from the fact that, although it is recognized throughout the Member States that auditing should have a common objective, namely to guarantee that the accounts, financial statements and assets published offer an exact and fair picture of a company's situation, the legislation, customs and practices of Member States vary considerably, and this affects the efficiency of the audit trail.
There again, I should point out that the accuracy of reports is dependent on the truthfulness of the information the auditor receives.
The Commission's idea to present a draft recommendation to improve the management of companies in Member States is, in this sense, very relevant.
Finally I would like to voice a complaint that we have not had access to the study which the Commission has begun on the impact of different national legislations in the matter of civil liability. Nor have we had access to the provisional conclusions of the conference held in December 1996 to discuss the Green Paper.
It is clear that Parliament will not be able to decide on this issue without full knowledge of the facts. Of course, in every country in the European Union, the auditor is potentially subject to both criminal and civil liability and to professional sanctions.
However, the kinds of liability and time periods allowed vary from one country to another. Therefore, while adequate legal recourse is not available, it seems that to protect users - in the widest sense of the term - we have to study the possibility of every auditor having minimum obligatory insurance equivalent in every Member State or making it compulsory to be affiliated to a guarantee fund.
To conclude, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the technical subcommittee - within the planned contact committee on accountancy directives - must involve representation for a wide range of people who use the audit reports, because the outcome of accounting reports is not only the responsibility of professional auditors.
Mr President, this is an important report on the Commission's Green Paper on the statutory audit, and I wish to thank Mrs Sierra González for the completeness and thoroughness of her report.
This is an important subject: it ensures the solvency and financial probity of companies and it is especially important in view of the limited liability of companies.
It must be in the interests of the consumer, the investor and the company itself that reliance can be placed on the company's accounts.
The report deals with five main themes, in my view: the role of the auditor itself, the liability of auditors, the qualifications of auditors and professional regulation, the mobility of auditors in the European Union, and the need for universal standards for the statutory audit.
I particularly agree with the rapporteur's recommendations in paragraph 11 that auditors should have a minimum level of compulsory insurance and be required to join a guarantee fund.
My group will be supporting the report and, in particular, the amendment by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, which adds to the clarity and certainty of paragraph 7.
I wish to highlight one particular concern: it is believed that Article 51 of the Fourth Company Law Directive has not been properly implemented in Italian law.
It is estimated that 100 000 companies are not receiving a statutory audit in Italy, which puts in danger the reliance which can be placed on the accounts of these particular companies.
It would be helpful if the Commission could address this question, and I understand the Commission has already sent Italy a reasoned opinion in respect of the Eighth Company Law Directive relating to the professional qualifications of auditors.
In conclusion, this may appear to be a dry subject but is in fact of great importance for the proper functioning of the economy in the European Union; it is a measure of protection for consumers and investors and should be supported for those very reasons.
Madam Commissioner, it is difficult to add anything else to what the previous speakers have said in regard to the importance of the statutory audit.
It is difficult because, in an ever more complex society, you will frequently find different interpretations as to the legal parameters of the companies being expressed.
And I am only going to quote two examples, which the rapporteur has pointed out with the accuracy which has characterized all her work. Two of the examples she has mentioned, financial engineering - the socalled financial engineering - or the qualification of credits can spoil the given picture, which is a true and real picture, the one set down in the company's accounts.
Such ambiguity, of course, makes it necessary to look back to the security of mercantile traffic, for society as a whole, between the services of these professionals which, to give them their due, have to respond to the features of independence, free competition, responsibility and clear rules which have been mentioned.
But these are concerns which worry everybody - states, companies, consumers alike.
Perhaps we should also mention that there has been competition since the treaties, that is to say competition to shape the internal market.
Firstly that competition is exclusive; we are not dealing with areas of shared competition where the principle of subsidiarity acts as an authoritative principle for that competition.
Here competition belongs to the European Institutions.
That should be made perfectly clear.
It has been pointed out, but it must be emphasized.
Secondly, without doubt, this has to be set against the question of how far is it necessary to take action.
However much competition is exclusive, no-one considers it appropriate to act more than is strictly necessary to achieve the objectives of harmonization and consolidation of the internal market which the Treaties specify.
For that reason, if spontaneous harmonization of these rules could be produced, which have been shown, day after day, to be completely different in the Member States, this task of setting rules and regulations - that is community competition - would not need to be carried out.
In this case, as in so many others, the best authority is the one which does not have to take action but may initiate the action process.
In this sense I wish to emphasize that the sectors concerned are carrying out an important consultation programme, within the Member States, in order to attain such spontaneous harmonization.
So as it is, we have community competition which must be put into practice.
Indeed it has been put into practice.
Not only the Fourth Directive for accountancy, which has been mentioned, but the Seventh Directive too and the Bank sector and Insurance directives refer to the function of the statutory audit.
And it is certain, as has also been said, that in some cases - specifically in Article 51 of the Fourth Directive relating to annual accounts - it is not administered very well, but today we are discussing about another question: about lege ferenda , for which we must establish norms.
This is a problem.
Certainly, the matter of excessive concentration in large auditing companies is a process in which we are immersed. No longer do we have the big six, but now even less than that and recently we have often had occasion to listen to or read such news in the media - which does not affect the Green Paper; they are questions concerning the Department of Competition in the Commission and, certainly too, it is the Commission's task to monitor the strict application of the Treaties.
Here we are talking about something else.
We are talking about what must be done, about how to establish standards in order to reach such an internal market, to establish coherent and harmonized rules in the different Member States. Mrs Sierra's report, which takes up the idea from the Committee, is one that the Group of the European People's Party - on whose behalf I am speaking - is going to support with the qualification that it puts forward in the amendment set down in paragraph 7, about which I will now speak.
Basically, this concerns the contents of the auditing reports.
It cannot be that in one Member State such obligatory content is one thing and in another something entirely different, regarding the external and internal auditor, the practice of that profession - this is a liberal institution -, the creation of subsidiaries and the guarantee for the free flow of these services.
Likewise the idea from the technical committee becomes clear - as has already been mentioned - and, finally, we need to set clear limits on what are parallel services, which in a straightforward, trading and entrepreneurial expansion auditing companies tend to deliver.
This need to be independent, this need to portray an unbiased view, and to show that they are absolutely unconnected with the company that they are auditing, ensures that they have to guarantee not to prejudge any solutions; this is the point of the PPE amendment . However, the Commission needs to address the problem of how to establish or guarantee such independence, particularly in relation to legal services since, the legal adviser is an independent professional but one who is partisan, who is within the company, who has his own interests.
His role has to be well and clearly separated from the role of the auditor who, and I finish with this, if he is to be anything, must be totally independent.
Mr President, let me start by thanking the rapporteur for her careful and extremely in-depth report.
The previous speaker said that a over-concentration of accountancy firms is taking place.
The rapporteur says the two things are unrelated, but they are definitely related.
Just as the large financial conglomerates, the banks and the insurance companies, have now merged, we are also seeing that in the service industries all kinds of professional groups are now amalgamating; lawyers, notaries, tax specialists, and consultants.
Now it appears that the accountant, previously the prototype of a dry, upright figure working on his own who would only get a look in to see that figures entered in the books were correct, has now become someone who also intervenes in what happens in companies.
Herein lies the responsibility of the Commission given the fact that there is no harmonized European fiscal legislation.
How can we tackle this?
It appears that these international mergers between large accountancy firms and consultants are indeed due to this fact, and that the Commission neglected once again to achieve fiscal harmonization, which plays an important role while the Member States did not get involved because they did not want to. However, the Commission is in favour of it.
This also means that the professional risks accountants run at the moment differ widely. Because they vary between billions in the case of the BCCI to a legally limited risk of DM 500 000 in the Federal Republic.
This is such a big difference, Mr President, that something simply must be done about it.
We do not want accumulation.
That is why we submitted our amendment to paragraph 7.
I think the amendment by Mrs Palacio goes just a little too far; it leaves too much room for manoeuvre.
It is crucial for the consumer and for small companies, that in addition to pure control, a mild form of consultation is allowed to continue.
We would like to retain this for the benefit of the consumer.
Mr President, Mrs Sierra González has tackled a variety of complex issues in her report.
However, in commenting on the Commission's Green Paper I believe it is our task to pose questions and to point directions rather than to deal with it as if it were legislation.
There are micro and macro sides to the problems.
The micro aspect covers minimum standards for the auditing exercise.
Financial reports of any enterprises, including trusts and charities, should be subject to similar rules right across the Community, and there should be mutual recognition of the qualifications of those empowered to sign audit reports.
The Commission has not been very successful in bringing about the implementation of all the directives which have already been placed on the statute book.
Article 51 of the Fourth Directive has been mentioned by two colleagues, and implementation of the Eighth Directive in all Member States also calls for more work by the Commission.
Of course it would be helpful if all the Member States had similar statutory requirements of financial accounts, and that is something which is yet to come.
From the macro point of view it must be recognized that business has gone global during the time that we have been trying to achieve harmonized audit standards.
Multinational companies, international companies and - hopefully one day - European companies will require harmonized audit rules to be in place.
Naturally, the professions have moved with the times themselves and several auditing firms have become global in their activity.
I feel a personal worry about the over-concentration of these firms into too few hands.
It is my belief that there should be at least five multinational audit groups in the world.
This is more necessary now that these firms offer advice and consultancy.
Shareholders need to know that advice being offered to their companies is truly independent.
The theory of Chinese walls is not good enough.
Of course I realise Commissioner Gradin will tell me that the regulations concerning those problems are not part of this exercise, but those problems are looming and need to be ventilated and understood.
Paragraph 7 has caused some problems and the wording of Amendment No 1 by Mrs Palacio does not in fact make absolutely clear what she intended, but her explanation this morning in the debate has made it clear that we can support that amendment.
This group supports Mrs González's report.
Mr President, this debate concerns the future of auditing in Europe.
Auditing and accounting are sometimes regarded as specialist topics which do not deserve any political attention.
However, good auditing increases the likelihood that financial information is reliable. And reliable financial information is important for the single market.
Those who make use of accounts regard the auditor's report as a guarantee that the calculations are reliable.
There are few rules about auditing at the EU level.
We have different auditing systems in the Member States, both with regard to the content of the audit and the standards to which it should be carried out.
In many cases this lack of consensus obstructs the operation of the single market.
It was against this background that the Commission issued its Green Paper, in order to start a highlevel debate in Europe on these issues.
That was received well at a conference which the Commission arranged in December 1996.
More than 200 representatives of government and business expressed their general support for the approach in the Green Paper.
The position of the European Parliament is very important for our analysis.
Your opinions will help us in the Commission to soon be able to draw up a Communication on auditing.
Let me pick out some points of view.
We are all agreed about starting work on creating a mechanism for auditing standards at the EU level.
This mechanism may take the form of a technical sub-committee to the contact committee for the auditing directive.
The sub-committee would consist of representatives of the Member States and professional bodies.
I agree that users of auditor's reports should be closely connected with the work of the technical sub-committee.
The sub-committee will in particular follow the work of the professional bodies and in due time show us whether legislation is required to achieve the objectives.
The amendments tabled here concerning the independence of the auditors illustrate how important this question is, especially at a time when there is uncertainty about the future shape of the profession.
Those who use auditor's reports have to be able to rely on the auditor being independent.
Therefore it is necessary to decide what services other than auditing services which an auditor may carry out, and to ensure that these rules are followed.
If the professional body does what is required, all well and good.
If not we must consider legislation, because we are all agreed that the auditor has a key role in the company's control and supervision system.
The Commission and the new sub-committee shall consider the various proposals which have been made in connection with the Green Paper and, of course, on the basis of the report which we are now debating here in Parliament.
The question of the professional liability of auditors is very complex.
We need to examine more closely how various systems affect the single market.
On this point the Commission is currently carrying out a separate study on how questions of liability are dealt with in different countries.
We are agreed that all current regulations in Member States which restrict the Treaty's fundamental provisions on freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services should be abolished.
The Treaty provisions are fully applicable to trade in auditing services.
We must make greater progress with regard to facilitating mutual recognition of auditors' qualifications between the Member States.
With these points of view I would also like to give thanks to the rapporteur for a good piece of work.
Thank you, Commissioner Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12: 00.
Alpine transit
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-1009/97 - O-0111/97, by Mr Simpson, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on negotiations between the UN and Switzerland on overland transport; -B4-1014/97 - O-0138/97, by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on EU-Switzerland negotiations on land transport; -B4-1105/97 - O-0180/97, by Mr Jarzembowski, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on negotiations between the European Union and Switzerland in the land transport sector; -B4-1106/97 - O-0181/97, by Mr Santini, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, to the Commission, on Alpine transit; -B4-1107/97 - O-0183/97, by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission, on Alpine transit; -B4-1108/97 - O-0184/97, by Mrs Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on Alpine transit; -B4-1015/97 - O-0185/97, by Mr Puerta and Mr Papyannakis, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on Alpine transit.
Mr President, my remarks will be very much tailored towards the Commission.
This particular issue - the issue of a transit agreement with Switzerland - has involved a long-running series of negotiations.
It is rather like climbing a ladder: we seem to go up one or two rungs and then something happens which means that we slip down one or two rungs and end up right back where we started.
At the moment, the problem seems to centre around the level of road tax levy on heavy goods vehicles passing through Swiss territory.
We need to recognize that other problems arise because of this lack of an agreement.
The congestion in Austria and Italy on the Brenner route is now so serious that the environment is being totally devastated and people who are avoiding Switzerland face great hold-ups.
But there is also congestion on the French side of the Alps.
The EU Member States are facing problems because we have failed to reach an agreement with the Swiss.
We must also recognize the need to protect the Alpine environment, including the Alpine areas of Switzerland.
The Swiss Government has, in recent weeks, shown some flexibility in the negotiations. That is to be welcomed.
However, we need an agreement urgently - not at any cost, that has to be stated - that recognizes the needs and aspirations of both the European Union and Switzerland.
I am grateful for the efforts in the past of Commissioner Kinnock and of the recent presidencies of the Netherlands and Luxembourg.
The fact that the UK Presidency has taken on board this issue of an agreement shows how important it is.
We need an agreement.
We can all go to the barricades and defend our strong positions.
The Swiss can hide behind the Alps. The European Union can hide behind its need for this transit.
But if we do that, then the danger is that we will not get an agreement and the people who will suffer are the people of Austria, in the Brenner, of France and of Italy.
Therefore I ask for a redoubling of our efforts to try to get this important transit agreement with Switzerland signed, sealed and delivered.
Mr President, my group would like the Commission, in this case Commissioner van de Broek, to tell us whether the European efforts during the negotiations with Switzerland can be reconciled with the obligations the European Union committed itself to at an earlier time?
I am referring on the one hand to the transit agreement with Switzerland, but on the other hand to the Alpine Convention.
According to the Alpine Convention which was signed by all Member States, and is therefore simply binding on us, the Union has committed itself to making efforts to switch transport across the Alps from road to rail.
It says in the transit agreement that lorries passing through Switzerland must be charged the external costs, in particular the environmental costs.
In the light of the obligations I do not consider it justifiable for the Commission and the Council to resist Switzerland's ambitions for a sufficiently high levy on heavy goods vehicles to bring about an actual transfer from road to rail.
I would like to recall once more the Swiss referendum of 1994 which laid down that transit traffic must switch to rail before the year 2005.
In the current negotiations with Switzerland, the Union is showing disgracefully little respect for the constitution of Switzerland, which is, after all, a sovereign country.
Neighbourliness is cynically sacrificed to the interests of the road haulage lobby.
I have to add, in particular Dutch road haulage, in this case.
To my regret Minister Jorritsma is allowing himself to be used by the Netherlands, distribution country par excellence, as a kind of ventriloquist's dummy.
Last Tuesday, this Parliament, in Mr Sarlis' report, underlined once again that transalpine transport should occur by rail as much as possible.
We must be consistent, we must ensure that we actually realize this, and this means that we will have to take steps towards Switzerland.
Mr President, I cannot entirely agree with the previous speaker, although I would like to.
This is not a question of Dutch interests, if it were I should indeed be on your side, rather it is a question of Greek, Italian, Austrian, German, French and English interests. And I could cite many other Member States.
Quite simply, we need to transit through the Alps.
As far as we are concerned, it is not acceptable for the Swiss to say: We are happy in our isolation.
Do whatever you want in the Brenner. Do whatever you want in France.
We're shutting up shop and going home! My dear colleague, we could also let the Swiss know that anyone who makes it economically impossible for us to transit through Switzerland should watch out that we don't make coming out of Switzerland economically impossible, not to put to fine a point on it!
It is not acceptable that the interests of our businessmen and consumers are treated as if we constantly have to kowtow.
Quite the opposite, we can use a two-track approach.
We want to protect the environment.
We want to move to rail. But I see no evidence that what the Swiss government wanted to do in order to move to rail has actually happened yet.
To be honest, neither can I see any evidence that the Austrians, the Germans and the Italians are making as much progress with the Brenner Base Tunnel as they should be.
But we can't blame the fact that we haven't got further with the railway on the heavy goods transporters and then clout them with exorbitant charges.
Let me say it once quite bluntly: It is not acceptable for the Swiss to expect us to be grateful for dropping their claim for the passage from 410 to 360 Swiss francs.
That is still unacceptable.
We must tell the Swiss this.
We must also tell them that they are part of a larger picture, namely the land transport debate.
There are also many other issues which play a role in the negotiations.
Our colleagues in Switzerland will have to think about what it is they want.
I don't mind taking the part of the Swiss government.
Thanks to their constitution they are in an extremely difficult position.
However, I don't think they can simply announce that they're introducing an output-related heavy goods vehicle tax, say this is our standard and expect the rest of Europe to fall into line, just because they, the Swiss, say so!
We can't work together on that basis.
I hope that the Swiss recognise that workers in Greece and Italy also have an interest in getting their goods to market.
For this reason I believe we must tell the Swiss that we cannot and will not accept exorbitant charges.
I would also say to some of the members of this House, including my colleague Mrs van Dijk: I often hear you say: If you would drop at least as far as the Austrian Brenner rate, we would be happy.
My response is No!
If my memory serves me correctly, this Parliament supported the Commission in its legal action against the last toll increase in the Brenner.
I would like to remind you that the Commission won't forget that.
And so we should both press for a quick agreement with the Swiss.
But, as Brian Simpson said, not at any price.
Mr President, it seems clear that there are two main players involved in this game. On one side there are the citizens of Europe who, when it comes to this type of regulation, tend to defend their own territory, the environment, and thus their own lives; and on the other side - and we cannot dismiss these concerns - there are the needs of, for example, the road hauliers and all economic sectors linked to that activity.
If not lives, there are certainly jobs to be defended on that side.
So the Commission has a delicate role to play in the negotiations between Switzerland and the European Union.
Everyone knows that the results of this agreement will also determine the transit conditions for all the other Community Alpine passes, starting with the Brenner, certainly the most delicate, the key point in the great north-south linkage, above all on completion - as soon as possible we hope - of the great rail axis linking, to take a rather optimistic view, Stockholm and Palermo.
But we must return to the narrow scope of the Alpine passes.
A Commission document says that the level of the future road tax should be directly linked to the effective infrastructure costs, and this also relates to the negotiations with Switzerland. Those costs include the maintenance and modernization of the infrastructure, but not new building or the external costs of road transport.
In parallel, the European Union maintains that the level of road tax in Switzerland should be comparable to that applying to the Brenner.
Clearly there are very close connections between the two dossiers.
Apparently, Commissioner Kinnock actually hoped to be able to conclude the negotiations with Switzerland prior to agreement by the Fifteen on the Euro-stamp.
Austria was hoping so too because, in short, they were waiting to find out what the Swiss toll would be so as to apply a heavier one to the Brenner and thus encourage the largest lorries to go through Switzerland.
They are just keeping to the rules of the game, in sporting terms, and the Commission needs to be very careful to referee properly, because the agreement with Switzerland is at stake and so is internal credibility.
The Brenner has already received special treatment in the great Alpine passes dispute thanks, remember, to a compromise plan based on four main points: a different tariff system, with vehicles classified Euro 0, Euro I and Euro II; a reduction of 50 % for countries like Greece and Ireland which have asked for this special tariff because of their geographic location; temporary derogations, up to the end of 1999, for Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Greece.
But there is also a general Alpine clause, with a specific fiscal regime for the Brenner already identified.
So I would like the Commissioner to explain the purpose of these guidelines, how the negotiations with Switzerland may alter them, as there are also figures given by the Commission: for example a daytime toll of ECU 72 is mentioned for a Euro 0 lorry, that is, a lorry in the four axles and over category, with ECU 165 for a night crossing.
This situation becomes even more acute if we take a look at the statistics, which are important and show that in 2001 only 15 % of transit will be by rail and water and 81 % by road; at the moment the equivalent percentage is 72 %.
So a solution must be urgently found, alongside the one, Mr Commissioner, mentioned here many times, of completing the rail infrastructure to give the road hauliers a genuine alternative.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, it is high time something was done.
Because as long as the agreement has not been signed, there are unnecessary traffic diversions.
This also means that where the lorries cross the Brenner route, we are giving the Austrians an opportunity to squeeze us unilaterally.
It is good that the Commission is presently initiating a procedure against this.
Mrs van Dijk and Mr Voggenhuber may keep repeating over and over again that freight has got to go by rail, but there are no facilities.
There are too few facilities for getting lorries onto the railways.
The height of the Lötschberg and Gotthard Tunnels have not been altered yet, and in Austria, absolutely nothing has been done about the Brenner railway.
This means that we find ourselves in a situation in which we simply have to reach an agreement.
That is also the fault of the Member States, which have left the Commission too little room to manoeuvre in the mandate.
In a word, we agree that in the negotiations with Switzerland we must start with the right measurements.
As a Community we therefore have to contribute to the fact that the Swiss in the new alpine transit tunnel agreement have promised us to alter, and indeed are in the process of, altering the height of two tunnels.
They have stopped the work on one of the tunnels in the meantime, and it is still not possible to get on the train in Basel and to get off again at Chiasso. The Swiss had promised this.
In a word, I would like to call on the Commission once more to enter into the negotiations in all peacefulness and openness.
Mr President, we meet here today to discuss an important question.
For months, negotiations with Switzerland have been at a standstill because of the transport problem.
We therefore urgently need to take stock of the progress of our relationship with our Alpine neighbour.
It seems that the Swiss authorities have agreed to make concessions.
We therefore would like the Commission to give us some specific information on progress, which has been mentioned in the press.
In fact, the problem of crossing Switzerland is of some consequence with regard to road traffic in the whole of the Alps.
For that reason, I and the whole of my group consider that the EU's relationship with Switzerland with regard to transport cannot be isolated from the overall context of Alpine transit, and that the disastrous effects of the increase in road traffic on the environment must be taken into consideration urgently.
Let me give a single example: the level of pollution in the valley of Chamonix is as high as in a large town because of the Mont Blanc Tunnel.
It is therefore understandable that the inhabitants of the Mont-Blanc area, and also the Val d'Aosta area, should express concern with regard to the possible construction of a second tunnel.
However, there are solutions.
First of all, settling the dispute with Switzerland and setting up a pricing system, which will encourage the use of pollution control equipment.
Secondly, and this is a very important aspect, promoting rail transport and developing piggyback transport systems. Of course, the changeover from road to rail will be expensive, and will necessitate large investments.
But do not let us forget that this is a solution for the future.
Within this context, the Lyon to Turin HST link, including freight transport, when the Monmélian to Turin rail tunnel is built, will facilitate combined transport in the Alps.
It is therefore necessary to make this project a reality and for the Member States to commit themselves to building the necessary infrastructures.
Furthermore, special attention should be paid to the rail project linking Geneva via Mâcon, Bourg-en-Bresse or Chambéry.
The new President of the Swiss Republic has made optimistic remarks on the future relationship between the European Union and Switzerland.
Let us hope that it will enable us to sort out this difficult situation.
Thank you, Mrs Leperre-Verrier.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is something I wanted to ask you.
Mr Baldarelli has asked if he can bring his speech forward as he has to leave immediately for Italy.
I do not have competence to change the order of the agenda and the order of precedence in the right to speak, but, if no-one objects, I could satisfy Mr Baldarelli's request with the recommendation that he shorten his speech.
If no-one objects, that is what I will do.
Mr President, I think we should hear the Commissioner and then no one else, otherwise we will have to plan another round.
It is not acceptable that anyone should be given preference.
I suggest that the Commissioner speak, that we finish and take the vote.
No other speakers should be allowed to speak after the Commissioner.
Thank you, Mr Jarzembowski.
Naturally, there is an objection.
Mr Baldarelli, I cannot grant your request.
Mr President, this debate is certainly taking place at an interesting time, both because of the phase which the negotiations with Switzerland have now reached, and because the current phase in the internal discussion within the Union is particularly centred on road transport charging. As the honourable Members of Parliament know, realistic progress was made during the most recent Transport Council last month.
The Commission continues to hope that during the presidency, our work concerning the most important obstacles can be completed in a satisfactory way.
I would like to point out that although this debate is concentrating on transport problems, the negotiations with Switzerland cover a large number of dossiers, and that the agreement within the Union, which the Commission also wishes to retain, is that the negotiations in the different sectors must be brought to a balanced completion, both within the sectors as such, and between the sectorial dossiers.
As far as overland transport is concerned, we have always striven towards laying the foundations for the gradual development of a cohesive policy and the achievement of comparable conditions for sustainable transport across the Alps. We have made considerable progress towards agreement with the Swiss, and agree with Switzerland on the following points.
Increases in the maximum weight of lorries in Switzerland from 28 to 40 tonnes in two phases, which will commence in 2001 and which must be completed in 2005.
This in combination with the introduction of a new charging system on a kilometre basis for road transport in Switzerland.
Second point of agreement: liberalization and adjustment of the promise concerning the infrastructure development for railway corridors through Switzerland.
Also liberalization with regard to railway capacity, and as regards the quality and price of the service, in particular for combined transport, as well as a more liberal promise with regard to the integration of the Swiss railway system within the same legislative context in which it also exists in the Union.
Moreover, on the development of so-called high speed freight freeways.
Suitable protective measures have been agreed to remedy the imbalances within Alpine transport.
Lastly, agreement on a number of improvements which can be made immediately on access and transit opportunities for 40 tonne lorries.
As you are aware, there are still considerable differences of opinion on a number of not insignificant details.
Particularly as far as the tolls for driving on Swiss roads, to be set in 2001 and 2005, respectively, are concerned. Other complex problems relate to the possible levying of tolls on the four most important passes through the Swiss Alps, a ban on night journeys, and transition quotas for 40 tonne lorries.
The Swiss have expressed their sympathy for the Union's concerns, and as the negotiations progressed, have showed themselves willing to make efforts to meet those concerns on a large number of points.
Now that there is a realistic political willingness on both sides, it can be reasonably assumed that the remaining differences of opinion will also be ironed out.
So far as the so-called equal treatment is concerned, the Commission can confirm that the principle of nondiscrimination would form an integral part in the future agreement with Switzerland, and that both parties agree on this point.
Last year during the talks about the proposal for a Commission Directive concerning user rights for the roads, the so-called Euro-sticker problem, the Transport Council was not prepared to accept the opinions of the Commission on the concept of sensitive areas.
The Council is now looking at the possibility of including an Alpine clause, so that within certain obvious limits, and under certain conditions, a higher user's levy could be applied on the relevant Austrian route, a higher user's levy than the average charge.
This clause, combined with a satisfactory outcome to the negotiations with Switzerland, is intended to help spread traffic over the entire Alpine region in a sustainable way, and that this is maintained.
Both the Commission and the Council have pointed out emphatically that, either during the negotiations with Switzerland, or during the talks on the Alpine clause, we cannot agree to an outcome which would make the Alpine route exorbitantly expensive.
To answer Mrs van Dijk, the European Community is obviously party to the Alpine Treaty.
Parliament can therefore rely on the Commission to see to it that the Community will meet its obligations under the Alpine Treaty, and will attune its transport policy to the aims of the Treaty.
The Commission does believe, however, that little will be achieved by designating the entire Alps a sensitive region.
It would be much more useful if agreement could be reached within the Union about the Transport Protocol in the Alpine Convention.
Regrettably one Member State as yet has not been able to agree with the proposals which are acceptable to all parties entering into the agreement.
To conclude, Mr President, it should be mentioned that the Commission was pleased with the result of the Transport Council of the past month in which the Member States asked the Commission to continue negotiations on the basis of Switzerland's most recent proposal, and to prepare an agreement which, amongst other things, will provide for charges based on infrastructure costs, and which provides for an increase of the quota for 40 tonne lorries for the period 1999-2005.
No doubt this matter will be looked at again during the next Transport Council in March, after which the Commission will obviously inform this Parliament of the latest developments via the usual channels.
In view of the magnitude of the issue and the lack of time, Mr President, I do not want to go into all the other aspects.
I hope that the esteemed members of Parliament will understand this, and I for my part will of course try to formulate an answer to specific questions at the end of this debate.
The debate will continue at 3 p.m. this afternoon.
Mr President, on a point of order.
There is a rumour going round that a recent edition of the Official Journal, published in the Finnish language, has had to be scrapped and is about to be reprinted.
I should like to ask the presidency to look into this and report back to Parliament the full circumstances.
It appears that it relates to a Parliament advertisement in the Finnish Official Journal seeking, in the Finnish language, to recruit for our Legal Service an A3, and I quote in as far as I understand Finnish, ' to be in charge of a group of idiots' .
I have described our Legal Service as all sorts of things but that has not entered the vocabulary.
Could you ask for an investigation to see how it occurred and what steps are being taken to make sure that the culprit pays for the reprinting?
Thank you, Mr Tomlinson.
I shall ask the Secretary-General to find someone in the services who is not an idiot to respond to you.
Votes
Mr President, this is a short but very complicated report which generated a high level of consensus on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The committee unanimously backed seven amendments.
Several were acceptable to the Commission, as indicated last night, and some were opposed by the Commission.
I believe from the debate, which was adequately attended at 11.30 p.m. last night, that there is room for further exploration and dialogue between Parliament and the Commission on some sensitive aspects of this.
Rather than develop the point and substance at this stage, my preference would be to take advantage of more time for reflection, to refer the report back to committee and then to return here with something acceptable to both institutions.
(Parliament referred the report back to committee)
Yes, Mr President, after discussing this with my colleague, Mr Schwaiger, I would like to propose an oral amendment to simplify the amendment I proposed earlier, to delete the words 'the setting of' .
So I agree to the removal of the words 'the setting of' from the amendment I tabled.
(Parliament agreed to the oral amendment)
Mr President, once the word "setting' has been removed so that the Council of Europe does not set the exchange rate we can adopt this amendment and the whole report.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
We would like to thank the rapporteur for his report.
We think, however, that there is reason to be sceptical about the structure of the system of compensation which the report has to consider.
It is a position which should not be seen as a lack of understanding of the role which the sale of fishery products plays for the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands and the French department of Guiana, and of the need for solidarity with the peripheral areas of the Community.
However, we believe that structures of the type covered by the proceedings are impeding an essential reform of the common fisheries policy.
The Committee on Fisheries' legislative proposal does not help to change this relationship, rather the reverse.
d'Ancona report (A4-0402/97)
Mr President, the aim of what is called the Eurodac Convention is to set up a European database of fingerprints of asylum seekers, in order to determine, pursuant to the Dublin Convention of 15 June 1990, which is the Member State of first application, and consequently, which Member State is responsible for examining the application.
The Europe of Nations Group is overall in favour of this Convention, under the inter-governmental system of the present Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union.
We should just like to point out that the Council has not clearly explained all the reasons for its actions, and that is rather a pity, as they are perfectly feasible.
There is no reason why citizens should not know about them.
There are in fact habitual false asylum seekers who, having failed in one Member State, are likely to try their luck in all the others in turn, in order to turn a possible loophole to their advantage.
It would be useful to be able to detect them in order to prevent the same application being considered two, three or four times.
But as these people change their names each time, it is difficult to detect them other than by fingerprinting.
However, the Council has had the bad idea of putting a finger into the Community pie, making the Court of Justice responsible, providing funding from the European budget and consulting the European Parliament on the whole thing, although in our opinion according to Article K.6, it did not have to.
The result is that this House has leapt into the breach, voting amendments that have put the system back into the hands of the Commission, which has made sure that it is managed entirely by the Community, and is trying to weaken its scope.
Of course, we are opposed to these amendments.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a thorough piece of work on the report.
We would emphasize that the introduction of a system to compare the fingerprints of asylum seekers is not in itself a guarantee that we will achieve the desired humane and generous asylum policy which means that the Member States together provide asylum seekers a right of asylum.
In order for such an asylum policy to be achieved we need other measures and far-reaching work which will increase the consensus between the Member States on the need for a generous and humane asylum policy.
On the other hand, we think the setting up of Eurodac should be seen in the light of the opportunity to achieve such a generous and humane asylum policy within the European Union.
The amendments to the Council's legislation which are expressed in the report entail a strengthening of the natural right of integrity of asylum seekers, which we see as a good reason to support the report.
We are very critical of the Council's proposal to set up the Eurodac database.
Eurodac could result in a far more restrictive and brutal refugee policy by the Member States in the European Union.
Every application for asylum must be dealt with separately, regardless of whether the asylum seeker has previously sought asylum in another EU country.
We are therefore critical of the grounds for setting up the Eurodac database, which are that an application for asylum should only be dealt with in one country.
Our view is that refugees should have the same right of personal integrity as our citizens.
We take exception to the routine taking of fingerprints of refugees.
The logic of this rule also means that in extreme cases force and violence may be required against people from the age of 14 years.
The rules which exist for the erasing of data from the central database are also inadequate.
In the current computer system the guarantees are insufficient to ensure that all data has really been erased.
It must also be clear that no data on people who have received a residence permit in one of the EU's Member States should remain on the database.
The supervisory authority's powers need to be further clarified.
The same also applies to the ability of asylum seekers to obtain information about their rights and to check the accuracy of the data.
The draft report directs substantial criticism against Eurodac with which we agree.
We are therefore voting for the report in its entirety in the final vote.
However, we have voted against certain parts of the report.
The European Commission is a bureaucratic institution with very weak democratic control.
Secondly, we are strongly opposed to the Council being able to make decisions by qualified majority voting in the implementation of Eurodac.
Our fundamental view is that cooperation on this kind of issue should be conducted at intergovernmental level.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted for a report concerning the setting up of a database (Eurodac) of the fingerprints of asylum seekers.
We believe that such a database is a necessary tool when deciding which Member State is responsible for dealing with an application for asylum presented within the EU.
Eurodac can also help prevent asylum seekers becoming political footballs between the different countries because no-one will accept responsibility for dealing with their case.
It can also help to prevent cheating, i.e. prevent asylum seekers from changing identity after being rejected by one Member State.
We support the d'Ancona report because it emphasizes the fact that the database must not compromise the asylum seeker's legal protection.
We also believe it could be an advantage both with regard to efficiency and data protection to involve the Commission in the administration of the database.
The National Front has always and will always fight against illegal immigration.
Efficient control of asylum applications and criteria is one of the means of stemming the migratory flow.
The Eurodac computerised system of recognition of the fingerprints of asylum seekers, makes it possible to bring together any legal or criminal information about them, and thus enables a Member State to have some control of asylum requests.
On sight of the personal data available on an individual, the Member State can grant or conclusively refuse an asylum application.
In this report, Mrs d'Ancona proposes to take away from Member States their supreme authority in this respect.
She considers that the Eurodac system should be managed by the Commission and not by the Member States.
She also introduces more restrictive limits to the use of the system.
Once again, it a question of the dissolution of the Member States and their authority, in an area which, by nature, should belong to them.
The aberration imposed by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which brings the laws and internal affairs of Member States within the scope of the Community, is once again apparent here, in all its splendour.
The great European 'sieve' is becoming more and more of a reality.
We have had the Europe of Schengen, which removed the internal borders of the European Union, and here we have the Europe of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is removing its external borders.
The undersigned Members are very critical of the Eurodac database which the Council wants to set up.
Eurodac is part of the far more restrictive and brutalizing refugee policy which is emerging within the EU, a policy which often means that refugees are treated as if they were criminals.
We think that every application for asylum should be dealt with separately, regardless of whether the asylum seeker has previously sought asylum in another EU country.
We therefore question the basis of the Eurodac system, the aim of which is that an application for asylum should only be dealt with in one country.
We believe that refugees have the same right of personal integrity as other people.
It is therefore unreasonable to routinely take the fingerprints of refugees.
This is particularly serious because in extreme cases such a rule requires that force and violence may be used against people from the age of 14 years.
We think that the rules on erasing data on the central database are inadequate.
Obviously nobody who has received a residence permit in a Member State should risk having his or her data remaining on the database.
We also think the supervisory authority's powers are unclear and inadequate.
The same applies to the ability of asylum seekers to obtain information about their rights and to check the accuracy of the data.
In Mrs d'Ancona's report substantial criticism is directed against Eurodac, criticism which largely corresponds with our views.
We have, however, voted against all parts of the report which mean that the Commission would be responsible for the database.
The European Commission is a body which is under very weak democratic control.
We also think that cooperation on this kind of issue should be intergovernmental.
Erika Mann report (A4-0403/97)
We have voted for the resolution because we think it would be correct to develop economic and commercial relations with the USA.
At the same time, however, we think that the resolution avoids criticizing the USA on several points where it would have been proper to do so.
For example, on the issue of human rights it would have been appropriate to point out that a majority of the States in the USA use the death penalty.
On the issue of the environment, attention could have been drawn to the USA's opposition to more extensive international agreements in the area of the environment, most recently manifested in Kyoto.
As far as the labour market is concerned, attention could be drawn to the strong anti-union actions which many US employers take, often with the full acceptance of the authorities.
Sierra González report (A4-0399/97)
Mr President, the report by Mrs Sierra González relates to the use of the information society, that is, more clearly, electronic means such as the Internet, in the service of economic and social cohesion and to combat unemployment.
We cannot fail to approve her wish to see the information society of use to all, including and particularly, the least developed regions and the most underprivileged people.
We also appreciate her proposal to increase training throughout people's careers, or indeed the determination to respect multi-lingualism within the information society.
Furthermore, the report rightly emphasizes the positive effect, which the information society can have on rural areas.
Thanks to teleworking, which can enable many types of professional activity to be carried out in the country, it can be an important factor of balanced development of urban and rural areas.
However, it is necessary for us to ensure that the information society does not become a two-edged sword.
Once again, may I emphasize the danger that these new technologies could facilitate the relocation of part of the service sector of the European Union to countries where wages are low and social protection is poor?
European companies are already having their accounts or customer service departments transferred to India or Singapore.
This constitutes a serious risk to employment in the Community, which we must take adequate measures to counter.
We are also pleased to note that the rapporteur has taken a keen interest in our concern with regard to this matter.
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has decided to support Mrs Sierra González's report, and at the same time, applauds its consensual nature.
The report on cohesion and the information society, on which we will vote today, is complementary to the Green Paper entitled 'Living and working in the Information Society - People First' .
This document has the merit of analysing the consequences of the emergence of new information and communications technologies (ICT) on cohesion and on the various regions of the European Union.
For my part, I will confine myself to two areas: the consequences for individual citizens and the effect on regional disparities.
As far as the human dimension is concerned, for several years, we have concentrated our efforts on the development of the above-mentioned technologies from the angle of the development of employment.
As the excellent report by my colleague, Mrs Sierra González stresses, it is not certain that they will create more jobs than they destroy.
However, they must be developed in a manner that puts the individual first.
With regard to training, young people must be able to keep up with the developments of this new society.
We must start by making an effort to ensure that primary and secondary schools and training centres have the right equipment.
Thanks to this new equipment, a qualified, efficient labour force will emerge, and will be in great demand.
We must also make an effort at the level of the economic operator.
I am referring to measures to support SMEs and SMIs.
As they themselves become users of new technologies, they are becoming a source of highly qualified jobs.
As far as the geographical dimension is concerned, it is obvious that the development of ICTs is likely to increase regional disparities.
One only has to consider that in terms of users, the percentage ownership of computers, particularly in rural areas, is low.
We must therefore make an effort with regard to infrastructure and encourage the creation of networks.
As Mrs Sierra González' report rightly emphasizes, barely 2 % of the structural funds have the right finality.
Until now, the action taken has been confined to basic equipment (telephone lines, etc).
The areas in which the structural funds are used must be reviewed, in order to diversify.
Access to new information and communication technologies can be facilitated if we make room for them in schools, libraries and public centres.
Similarly, let us support the innovative experiments of SMEs, and accompanying measures in their favour.
The Commission, which could act as a driving force, must provide encouragement using the resources it has available.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Sierra González on her report.
The basic question is well put.
Will new information and communications technologies abolish the social area constituted by the workplace, when teleworking allows employees to remain in their own homes, or will it give under-developed regions and low density region an unhoped-for chance?
It is a simple question.
The answer is not so simple.
In fact, the probability that each of the hypotheses will be fulfilled begs the question of the impact of information and communication technologies.
In this respect, I agree with the questions raised by Mrs Sierra González.
The explosion of these new technologies can be perceived in our daily lives.
As a mayor and MEP, I already find them very useful in the service of my fellow citizens, for management and as a means of communication.
The European Parliament has discussed the subject of information and communication technologies many times.
Now it is time to let actions speak louder than words, even if the debate is not yet closed, in particular, with regard to the subject of individual civil liberties.
In the introduction to her report, Mrs Sierra González states that the information society is the most significant economic, cultural and political challenge of these final years of the century.
I concur with that statement, although I am very concerned about the current process of globalization and interdependence of economies.
I am afraid that cohesion within the European Union may be endangered by the unequal division of the benefits of technological progress.
In fact there is the risk that the investments will be delayed in some regions.
The spread of technology does not mean automatic sharing of opportunities and the enormous benefits.
The development of the information society absolutely must be complemented by adequate political action which guarantees even development across all the regions of the European Union.
This is because there are countries where the culture of the information society is more widespread than elsewhere, and naturally they have greater opportunities to utilize the new technologies and advance and prosper in this new work environment.
The great challenge for the European Union as a whole is that 30 % of Americans are interested in this development, while only 2 % of Europeans are.
This gives the United States a clear advantage over us, which means we have to trail behind. It is a shame, because we have great potential but we are not succeeding in fulfilling it so, we are losing jobs compared to the USA.
We need to be more united and we particularly need to devote more resources to research and development.
The continuous use of the technology by SMEs will constitute an essential factor for competitiveness.
The information society offers the SMEs the possibility of creating highly specialized new jobs and reducing unemployment.
Above all in the less favoured regions and in the rural areas, the SMEs represent the backbone of the local economy.
The rapid evolution of modern technology and the globalization of markets influences competitive conditions and creates new opportunities for SMEs. They then have an essential role in increasing the economic and social cohesion of the European Union.
Mr President, many of the less developed regions of the European Union suffer from the problem of peripherality.
Technological advance particularly in the context of the information society is one method of overcoming the problem of geographical dislocation.
Information and communication technologies have a significant contribution to make to boosting both the overall competitiveness of Europe and also improving regional cohesion.
Unfortunately, however, different regions are moving at a different pace because of the imbalance in their respective use of information technology.
In order to halt this unequal development it is important that more structural funding is invested in this area.
There is also a lot to be gained from the sharing of experience in this field.
I would like to draw the Commission's attention to an innovative pilot experiment that is being introduced in my constituency in Ennis, Co.
Clare.
Ennis was selected in a competition organised by Telecom Eireann and designated as an 'Information Age Town' and the project will examine the benefits of the application of many aspects of information and communication technology.
I would hope that the Commission will monitor this and similar projects in other countries to discover what lessons can be learnt and applied to other parts of the European Union in an attempt to contribute to regional cohesion.
Mrs Sierra González has given us an excellent piece of work, and I cannot fail to agree with her vision of the utility and shared benefits of the information society.
Indeed, as the elected representative of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region, I can see that the availability of new information technologies and their use, by companies of course, but also by individual citizens, can enable an underprivileged area affected by a high level of unemployment, to catch up economically and socially.
That is what is happening in my region.
Our rapporteur is therefore right to emphasize the need to give all regions an opportunity to invest in telecommunications and information infrastructures.
This sector is as important as training and vocational qualifications and/or the role played by the public and private sectors.
This should be a national priority as well as a European priority.
It is one of the means of combating exclusion.
Once again, based on the practical example of my region - without the help of European programmes such as web for school and net days, our regional and local authorities would not have been able on their own to provide our young people with the information technology equipment which they now have available.
That is why I support the rapporteur, so that the aid she asks for may be generalised and even extended.
The Commission's findings and estimates, and much more so those in the report by Mrs Sierra Gonzáles, reflect today's reality of unequally distributed possibilities for access to and real utilization of the information society among Europe's various regions.
However, the proposals in the Commission's Green Paper do not respond to the needs created by technological progress and the aspirations of Europe's peoples for making the most of it to reduce and eliminate regional inequalities and to improve the living standards of working people.
On the contrary, the proposed liberalization of the telecommunications market will downgrade the services offered, especially in less-developed areas, and will make it more difficult for citizens, organizations and businesses to have access to the networks, so increasing the already existing inequalities.
The lack of infrastructure and appropriate equipment to make the most of the potential offered by today's electronic systems and multimedia, especially in remote areas which have considerable difficulty in connecting up to central networks because of the high costs involved, as well as the lack of education and training in their perfection and use, constitute a negative factor for development leading to an extension of the gap between the information haves and have-nots.
A central element of these proposals is to further the increase of profits for the major enterprises in the sector, to the cost of public services and of the social role which they should play.
The abolition of public services, and of the corresponding obligation of the state to ensure the access of all citizens to the services offered, cannot be replaced by deceptive and false statements about universal services whose content remains unknown, and which are essentially a cover to allow the way to open towards still greater overconcentration of capital and of the means that control the transmission and spread of information, ultimately ending in the creation of a huge industry of news and information production as is already happening in many cases with SMEs.
To promote those aims a tactic is being mobilized to avert social reaction and create a new organization of labour.
An element of that organization is the proposed spread of tele-employment, which will have strikingly detrimental effects on the social, unionistic and employment rights of working people.
How are businesses with 'outdated' means and restricted access to investment capital to compete with the vast multinational organizations? The abolition of state support and the limited Community subsidies, which for example provide financial assistance for telecommunications from the structural funds only to an extent of 2 %, operate to prohibit indiscriminate access to all the information available on the network and equal and impartial conditions of connection and interaction.
However, the people and the workers will not allow the implementation of plans whose result would be to exacerbate the already existing differences.
They will react against the already perceptible dangers of dislocation, isolation and depression of remote and structurally weak areas, and will not allow the ambitions of capital to entrap and bleed dry the 'grey matter' of Europe and bring about the suppression of citizens' rights, acquisitions and liberties.
Waddington report (A4-0405/97)
I was very interested to read the report by Mr Waddington, whom I wish to congratulate.
There is no doubt that whenever the European Parliament has to vote on a subject relating to employment, there is no lack of lively debate between political currents and political powers.
Whereas the Luxembourg Employment Summit in November concentrated mainly on training, the rapporteur has rightly observed that there is a wide gap between the political commitments and the proposals made by the Commission in this area.
I sometimes wonder why some of our Commissioners, always eager to advocate ever more liberalism, suddenly become paralysed, when the question of combating unemployment arises.
I cannot believe that they have no wish to combat this scourge.
So I support the questions Mr Waddington has asked the Commission without reservations.
I hope the Commission will reply.
I approve of the direction of this report, which wants a close connection between access to training and the organization of work.
We cannot and must not isolate the various problems relating to employment.
The solutions are only effective inasmuch as they are interdependent.
I therefore share Mr Waddington's concern with regard to the need for the professional diversification of female workers.
I think that we need to go further in this diversification, which should not be confined to women, equality is obligatory...
We must be wary of the pitfalls of training mainly for jobs relating to new technologies and services.
Many such jobs are of low value and cannot be multiplied indefinitely.
Disappointments are in store for us.
Once again, I should like to congratulate Mr Waddington.
Like him, I would like some serious proposals from the Commission.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted for a report on access to continuing training in the European Union.
It is very important to focus attention on continuing training and further education in the present time, when adaptability and flexibility are of crucial importance for the chances of workers to cope in a constantly changing employment market.
The competitiveness of European businesses depends to a large extent on our efforts in the area of continuing training.
If we do not pay attention to these challenges it will cost jobs in Europe.
We therefore support a report which calls for comparable statistics on continuing training in the Member States and recommends the setting up of a reporting system on access to training.
We are particularly pleased that the rapporteur puts great emphasis on the equal opportunities aspect and the problems women can have with regard to access to continuing training.
Finally, we would also like to support the request to the social partners at the European level to enter into framework agreements on training.
Hermange report (A4-0292/97)
We have reason to thank the rapporteur for carrying out the work on this report.
The report concerns an area which is important for our ability to increase productivity and employment, something which is also emphasized in the Committee's draft resolution.
However, we would like to express a view on one point.
We are critical of government stimuli in the form of tax concessions in line with what is said in the first indent of paragraph 9 of the report.
As far as the opportunity for employees to share in company profits is concerned, we think this is a matter for the social partners, and it is the duty of society to remain neutral and not to intervene through tax subsidies.
We voted against this resolution.
The Swedish Left has always thought that the people who work in a company should have a major influence, both over the total corporate environment and over the application of profits.
We think it is a great mistake to one-sidedly emphasize individual shareholdings as a driving force for increased productivity in this way.
We would instead like a dynamic and creative development of corporate democracy.
We would like to stress the need for funds for the future and long-term continuous training in companies, instead of individual shareholdings.
The National Front always has and always will defend the position and role of the individual within the firm.
We refuse to consider the individual as a variable or piece of economic data, as all policies on the left or the right invariably have done up until now, and without any encouraging or positive future result.
In this report, Mrs Hermange gives employees a real economic dimension, which we cannot fail to applaud.
We should encourage this form of popular capitalism, and develop measures that encourage the participation of workers in the capital of firms.
In order to combat unemployment, it is necessary in fact for workers to regain their confidence, in order to increase productivity, and the flexibility of work and wages.
But in order to achieve the aims of stability of employment and growth, it is necessary to protect the market, to throw out all the false precepts of Maastricht and Amsterdam, to staunch the migrant flow and give consumer spending a boost.
Then and only then will new jobs be created.
Our reservations on this matter do not stem from specific doubts, which we could easily find and which would easily serve to justify our vote.
However, stating these reservations would also be a way of remaining aloof from the real heart of the matter on which our position is based.
It would certainly be a way out of saying what has to be said, substituted by formal observations.
And nor is it a question of whether or not you trust in the goodness of the policies and measures proposed on which reports will be made in this Parliament.
Clearly, our concept of social relations is not compatible with the illusion that other concepts, or the lack of them, insist there are no social classes or that, although they exist, their interests and objectives in private company economic activities are coincidental, converging or simply non-conflicting.
On that account, irrespective of valuable opinions on the intentions of the policies and measures, and also of those signing the reports, which may be excellent, and in some cases are, these policies and measures may have the harmful effect of diverting attention, of diverting men and women from the real questions relating to male and female workers, which will never cease to exist as they have been granted a moderate participation in certain limited areas of management and in the financial results comprising the appropriation of the proceeds of their work.
This strategy is not a new one, and long reflection on this matter reminds us that around 30 years ago, when similar policies and measures were presented as remedies, we read and wrote that participation (of workers in the management and results) was a kind of "red light' at the end of a series of situations formed by a highly degenerated social situation to ask for basic solutions or giving rise to mere diversions, which had precedents and has repetitions.
We would review this position if it were not confirmed by reality.
But reality has proven that it is right.
It will happen again now.
For that reason, our vote is not against the excellent intentions, of those who hold them, but cannot be in favour of an illusion that is revived and that aspires to communicate with those who do not need them, or who should flee from them, like a scalded cat.
Resolution on the situation of the Kurdish refugees
Mr President, on behalf on behalf of the Green Group I would like to protest in the strongest possible terms against the complete erosion of general refugee rights of which we have seen repeated examples in the past few months.
As regards the Kurdish refugees we have established that, on the one hand the EU Presidency and the EU Council of Ministers say in December that Turkey has no concrete prospect of joining the Union, rightly to my mind, partly because of the fact that the Kurdish issue is not being dealt with in a political manner.
On the other hand we then when see small groups of refugees, because we are not talking about floods of refugees, we are talking of a mere few hundred, this same European Union adopts an extremely evasive attitude.
In my own country, in Belgium, the Minister for Foreign Affairs says that because there is a hunger strike, we will investigate the political question which this problem poses, whilst on the other hand it was stated a long time ago that it is a political problem.
In other countries you get the fight between Italy and Germany, for example. But in any case, the fundamental line taken by the European Union was not the recognition of the fact some political refugees from the region might come here.
We find this extremely sad.
The same is happening again with regard to the escalating drama in Algeria.
This morning some German ministers declared publicly; yes, we will have to do something for Algeria, because otherwise the waves will hit us again.
If we are going to conduct international and internal politics in these terms within the EU, we are absolutely on the wrong track.
Europe today is faced with the problem of thousands of Kurds illegally disembarking on the Italian coast, at the end of a voyage obviously organized by Mafia organizations and professional people smugglers. Are they really refugees and if so, are they political or economic refugees?
Also, are they from Turkey or Northern Iraq?
Can people who themselves are (or who have been) persecutors, be recognized as refugees? Let us not forget that the Kurds have always been the great slaughterers of Syrian, Chaldean, Nestorian and other Armenian Christians, and that quite recently (no later than 1984), they perpetrated massacres in Southern Anatolia.
This influx of refugees, or false refugees, poses Europe a problem of incoherence.
Firstly, it is not by chance that this problem has come to light today, when Italy has only been an integral part of the 'Schengen space' since 26 October 1997. It is clear that, to illegal immigrants, the prospect of being able to travel, without any border controls, from the far South to the far North of Europe, is a powerful incentive.
As for the country of arrival of the immigrants, Italy in this case, what incentive does it have to resist them, when it knows that they will not stay in Italy, but are only passing through? Why should Italy earn itself a bad reputation, from a humanitarian point of view, without any benefit to itself, but only to its neighbours?
This experience shows us that Schengen provides an additional incentive for illegal immigrants, and takes away the responsibility of the first host country. The re-establishment of real individual controls at internal borders would already solve part of the problem.
Secondly, we are told that this type of situation would not occur if the right of asylum were harmonized throughout Europe.
It is true that Italy is using it too extensively if, as is being said, even economic refugees are being accepted under the Geneva Convention.
But on the other hand, what is this harmonized right of asylum that we could have instead, at the European level? It is in fact exactly the same, that is, an extended right of asylum, as the proposal on refugees recently submitted to the Council by the Commission, shows.
We do not see the point of harmonization at the European level, if the result is going to be even more laxity.
If a country wants to be laxist, it should do so by itself and under its own responsibility, and not pass the problem on to its neighbours, or to Europe.
Thirdly, the proposals for a European refugee policy (of which the resolution adopted yesterday by the European Parliament is a good example) consists above all, of sharing responsibility between the Member States for welcoming and providing for refugees.
That is not a sensible long-term solution.
What will we do tomorrow if, as is unfortunately possible, hundreds of thousands of refugees arrive from all over the world, attracted to Europe by its welcome, its promise of status and financial aid? If we wish to behave responsibly, we must set up solutions today which will work tomorrow.
That is why the European refugee policy should be:
1) To maintain controls at internal borders in order to ensure Member States accept responsibility;
2) To keep to a strict definition of the right of asylum;
3) To organize cooperation in order to provide financial aid for Member States who play a disproportionately large part in the supervision of external borders;
4) To find solutions other than allowing refugees to settle in the EU, if they are from countries far from our immediate area: on the contrary, such refugees should be sent to third countries able to offer them a suitable asylum, even if we have to provide aid to such countries.
If the European Union adopts a different policy, as it now seems tempted to do, it will do serious harm to the longterm interests of our countries and will be unworthy of its citizens' trust.
The Kurdish problem will continue to get worse and to come up before us so long as the Turkish authorities persist in their flagrant violation of the fundamental human rights of an entire people, stubbornly refusing to progress towards the search for a political and peaceful solution of the Kurdish issue by direct negotiations with all the representative bodies of the Kurdish people.
So long as major economic and political, oil-related interests continue to back Turkey's intransigence, criminal groups favoured by Turkey's tolerant attitude will continue the illegal transport of Kurds under the most inhuman conditions, while 'well-governed' Member States 'sensitive' to human rights try in unacceptable ways to exploit the drama of the refugees in order to intensify their policing and oppressive measures.
It is now urgently necessary to persuade the Turkish government to change its policy, to cease its warlike escapades against the Kurdish people and to recognise their rights.
It is essential for the issue of the violation of those rights and Turkey's attitude to be raised at the next meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and before the Human Rights Commission of the Council of Europe.
All necessary steps should be taken to intensify the struggle against the criminal networks which transport illegal immigrants and refugees, and at the same time all the necessary prerequisites must be put in hand to ensure respect for the right of refugees to request political asylum, pursuant to the Geneva Convention, and to receive immediate and effective material and moral support.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for a resolution on Kurdish refugees.
The unhappy and tragic situation of the Kurdish refugees has highlighted the need for cooperation on refugee policy in the EU.
We would also like to urge people not to overreact.
The Kurdish example shows once more that the debate has become a little overheated.
In reality fewer than 1, 000 Kurds are involved, and the total number of asylum seekers actually fell in the EU in 1997.
It is a shame and a disgrace that people in need are hitched to the anti-EU wagon in Denmark.
There is a clear need for an instrument like Eurodac which we have also voted on today.
It will help us to determine which Member State is responsible for dealing with an application for asylum in the EU.
In addition, there should be a responsible sharing of the burden of refugees between the EU countries.
I have voted against the joint resolution because it follows the Italian Government's approach of taking a favourable view of asylum applications from citizens of Kurdish origin.
This introduces the dangerous precedent of granting political asylum on an ethnic basis.
In the case in point, there has been a classic initial flow of Kurdish immigrants from different countries - together with other clandestine immigrants from the Maghreb, China, Sri Lanka, Egypt, and so on - impelled by economic reasons.
Moreover, after the first major landing from the M.V. Ararat, we are witnessing a daily and constant trickle of landings of small groups of Kurdish immigrants organized by the Albanian "scafisti' .
Political asylum on an ethnic basis amounts to a clear call to all Kurds to come to one of the EU countries, attracted by a blanket asylum opportunity which is based purely and simply on the fact that they are Kurds.
The principle of asylum on an ethnic basis is not manageable either in the case of the Kurds, which constitute an ethnic grouping of over twenty million people, or in the case of the many peoples who, for religious, linguistic, political or economic reasons, are persecuted by other peoples or by other majorities.
Suffice it to mention the case of the Tibetans in China, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, the Tutsi in Central Africa, the Chiapas Indians in Mexico, and so on.
Kurdish illegal immigrants should have their cases dealt with under other criteria, rational and humanitarian criteria.
The ethnic political criterion, with the individual exception of genuine victims of political persecution, like Leyla Zana or Wei Jing Sheng, must be dropped because it will lead to unforeseeable and uncontrollable developments.
The European Union must press for an international political solution to the tragedy of the Kurds, and not fall back on the unsustainable principle of the guaranteed right of asylum but get the problem dealt with through the UN, starting with human rights violations by Turkey, Iraq and Iran.
Sainjon report (A4-0392/97)
The Sainjon report provides quite a dull vision of relocation, perhaps because, from the start, its had chosen to stick to an overly limited definition of this issue: according to the report, relocation only takes place when a contractor - head of a company - deliberately decides to move production, by direct investment, subcontracting or trading, to a country where social costs are lower.
This definition, which is too restrictive, could lead us to quibble indefinitely about a movement, the size of which we cannot calculating - and which we can also quote counter-examples of - but which is carefully interpreted to give the impression of a two-way movement.
That is the maze into which the Sainjon report has wandered.
In reality, if we stand back, we can see that the rise of unemployment in Europe is concomitant with international openness.
Certainly some countries, such as the UK, manage to avoid it, by means of energetic liberal policies.
That is in fact one way to proceed.
But I must emphasize that the British success in combating unemployment - now 5 % - is certainly due in part to having attracted economic activities which were once carried out in neighbouring continental countries.
In other words, the experiment would probably be less successful if France and Germany had also adopted the same policies.
If we want an overview of the whole process of relocation, it should be given a wider definition: relocation takes place whenever the process of international competition results in the creation of a job in an emerging country, and destroys a job in our own.
In our opinion, a healthy process should on the contrary, create a job in both places at once.
When defined in this way, the relocation process shows its true character: we are opposing international competition which works on a distorted basis, as the countries of Europe, paralysed by false notions, are unable to establish even a slightly voluntarist policy in order to defend themselves.
In the hope that, on the basis of its narrow definition, everything will develop spontaneously in the right direction, the Sainjon report therefore makes minimal proposals: a non-binding code of good practice for multinational companies, a confidence agreement between distributors, manufacturers and subcontractors; the creation of a global 'social label' by the ILO, etcetera.
These proposals are interesting but, in our opinion, unlikely to straighten out the situation.
The proposal from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is simple and definite: we should decrease the benefits of relocation by decreasing the benefits of reimportations when they are harmful to us.
For that reason, we must ask the next round of international commercial negotiations, due to start in 1999, to consider the fairness of international competition and the legitimacy of areas of regional preference if they are asked for democratically by the populations concerned.
The report submitted to us overlooks the conflictive dimension of international economics and the effects of the domination of a large power which has an interest in unrestrained free trade.
The real cause of relocation is this policy, whereby the costs of production and wages around the world are extremely heterogeneous.
The report only superficially analyses the consequences of relocations on employment in Europe, and underestimates their negative effects.
It also disregards the role of the tax and National Insurance contributions, which are too high in Europe and are an often-disregarded cause of relocations.
The rapporteur pins his hopes on the signature of voluntary Codes of Conduct, which is obviously inadequate.
It is therefore necessary to re-examine the question of relocations, from a point of view other than that of unilateral free trading.
I shall therefore vote against this report.
Every week, there are European firms that announce relocations, usually without notice, and without consulting trade unions.
These relocations are based on competition between populations, and they speculate on social and wage differentials.
There are also used by employers as a means of pressure and bribery so that they can apply pressure on employees and jobs.
Such relocations often destroy jobs.
In France, the three sectors most affected - the textiles, shoe and electronics industries, have lost half the number of their employees in 15 years.
But other sectors are also affected, such as the car industry, and more and more service industries are being affected by relocations.
Relocations are based on the logic of liberalization and deregulation within the framework of globalization.
Instead of trying to combat and resist the damage caused by globalization, the European Union is contributing towards its reinforcement, by submitting to the dictatorship of the financial markets.
Measures can and must be taken at the Community level, to counter the deregulation of financial markets and the volatility of investments which can be directed at any time towards profitable short term activities, to the detriment of the employees and economies of whole areas.
The taxation of capital movements would make it possible to control and restrict them.
The report by the Committee on External Economic Relations, which I approve, makes other proposals which could contribute towards reducing relocations, or which could at least prevent their most injurious consequences in terms of employment and purchasing power.
I am pleased, from that point of view, that the report has adopted our group's amendments, on the one hand, with regard to the inclusion of social and environmental clauses in international agreements and in the WTO rules, and on the other hand, that the multilateral agreement on international investment currently being negotiated within the framework of the OECD should not hinder the right of States to monitor human rights and the environment with regard to multinational companies operating within their countries.
In view of the seriousness of these issues, it is essential that we do more, that we demand that the multilateral agreement on international investment should recognize the cultural exception, so that culture is not considered a mere commodity subject to the laws of a market dominated by American firms.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the report by André Sainjon concerning the relocation of businesses and direct investments in third countries seen in the light of the globalization of trade, production and investment.
The report calls on the Commission to draw up a code of conduct for multinational companies based on a number of social obligations.
The code of conduct will be based on the following points:
the promotion of trade union freedom-combating forced labour-combating child labour-the elimination of discrimination in employment and careers, and equal pay for men and womenThe Danish Social Democrats are positive towards the proposal, because this proposal can contribute to a fairer labour market in third countries and ensure fair competition in a globalized economy.
The report mentions that social harmonization should be speeded up.
The Danish Social Democrats draw attention to the fact that social policy is a national concern.
The proposals made by the Sainjon report are like putting a wooden leg in plaster.
If you accept the globalization of the economy and total freedom of investment, if you engage the entire fabric of industrial production in an unbridled productivity race, if you persist in the belief that multinational firms are not stateless entities only interested in profit, if you are convinced that efficiency demands international division of work... you should not be surprised when firms adapt to the environment they find themselves in and react in their own interests.
The 'social label' is a huge piece of hypocrisy, which aims to pacify the conscience of European consumers; the Code of Conduct for multinationals is a hoax, generalized freedom of movement of capital will be a source of regional problems, which will imperil the whole of a financial system which has become a global system, and as a consequence, all the economies in the world.
The rapporteur writes, ' relocation is a logical economic development, which should not be approached from an ideological point of view' . But why should we not look at it from an ideological point of view?
We have reached this point, because you consider that economic development is an aim in itself.
We believe that economic development is a means, which should serve the political aims of employment and the well being of the people, environmental protection, and the organization of society.
We shall always oppose our human vision of the world, to your accountant's, mathematician's vision.
The relocations are connected with the dynamics of the so-called globalization stemming from an increased mobility of factors.
But this mobility does not maintain the same rates for the various factors and activities.
Production is relocated at a speed conditioned by all the equipment and requirements of complex combinations, trade may benefit from greater facilities and speed of transport and financial capital benefits from changes that can be described as revolutionary in communications, in a legal framework of freedom of movement achieving licentious privileges.
Consequently, at present, the so-called relocations are the result in particular of the spiralling circulation of capital, looking for places and situations where more and better are reproduced and accumulated, increasing their already disproportionate volume in relation to the requirements of the real economy in a disturbing way.
Substantial production plant, unemployment and deteriorated social situations may remain, abandoned or transferred under insecure conditions and/or under used.
This is a characterization which, unfortunately, is not a caricature and this report deals with this question by analysing what it calls the "foreign investment' and a division of relocations into offensives (connected with direct investment), defensives (connected mainly with subcontracting) and those of "international business' (connected with the dynamics of transnational groups).
It seems to us, however, that this concept of foreign investment has different contours and content from those they began by defining.
With the relocations, an investment somewhere may, as is happening more and more often, correspond to a disinvestment somewhere else.
And it is very positive that the report should indicate (or reveal) the possible bad effects of the relocations, and point out four factors with a social basis that need to be introduced into this problem (trade-union organization and joint negotiation, prohibition of forced labour and child labour, and equal treatment), corresponding to minimum social clauses and to the appreciation of the role of the ILO, as the UN agency which the WTO, in the ultra-liberal drift that gave rise to them, has sought to level and cause to ignore.
Although we are expecting little from the recommendations on codes of good conduct for transnationals, the statement/report of this characterization of the relocations and foreign investment is positive.
As the content of the Sainjon report has remained unchanged, as far as the diagnosis and treatment of relocation is concerned, we were unable to vote in favour.
It reflects an analysis of the problem that is more and more disputed by economists.
And the measures, mostly optional, which it envisages to remedy the negative effects of relocation do not seem equal to the economic and social problems generated in our countries by a procedure closely connected with the whole-hearted adoption of the principle of free trading.
We have seen that, in order to really measure the consequences of relocation in our countries, it essential for the approach to the question to be much wider than the rapporteur's.
It is also necessary to avoid giving an impression that everything balances out and that there is a similar movement in both directions, by mentioning a few cases which have taken place in the opposite direction, but which are not representative of the main trend.
Thus, the highly publicised relocation of Toyota to Valenciennes seems rather like a chance event, or a temporary relocation, whereas most Asian companies which did relocate to Europe are, now that European markets have become much more open, tending to repatriate their establishments and to use traditional export procedures, rather than maintain production in Europe.
The process of relocation is in reality fundamentally unilateral.
Corrective measures must therefore be closely suited to it.
It is strange that the only regulatory policy the rapporteur will not envisage is the policy which would best protect European labour-intensive industries flexibly against unfair competition, and which our partners know how to use: import quota measures.
When forced to use them, the Commission regrettably tends to make them inoperative, by implementing a policy of derogation to the full, as we have seen in the car industry.
Mr Sainjon does not unfortunately propose to correct the present incoherence, as he suggests at one and the same time, that the Community programme ECIP should be developed, which acts as an incentive to relocations, and that structural funds should in the future focus on the areas most affected by relocations, which would mean subsidizing both relocations and the damage done by relocations.
It would certainly be more appropriate to consider how to make it less attractive to re-import, which destroys so many jobs in our countries.
(The sitting was adjourned at 12.55 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, I must report a very serious matter currently occurring in Italy.
After betraying the legitimate expectations of the breeders, the Italian Government is using police methods and repression to damage and harm them, and at this moment, hundreds of breeders are being arrested and having their tractors and any other working equipment seized.
We are indignant and call on the European Parliament to show solidarity.
We want to tell Parliament that falsifying the balance sheet is not sufficient to join the single currency...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Alpine transit (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on Alpine transit.
Mr President, since the failure of Switzerland to join the European Economic Area, negotiations between the European Union and Switzerland have covered various sectors.
So it is important to achieve balanced results both in the negotiations overall and for the individual sectors involved.
Five important negotiations have been concluded successfully and every effort is needed to reach an agreement in the transport sector too.
The Italian Government is strongly committed to reaching a balanced agreement.
The long term objective of a progressive transfer of traffic from road to rail is supported and in this sense the financial commitment of the Swiss government is much appreciated, just as we share the Swiss concerns about the environment - and Parliament has made its views known on that point many times.
But I think some precise definitions are needed in the negotiations overall.
The Italian economic interests involved in the discussion should not be prejudiced as compared with the current situation.
It is not just the cost to the hauliers that is under discussion but the competitiveness of Italian products on the European market, since taxation issues cannot be introduced and hauliers are burdened with external costs before these are precisely defined at Community level.
So we need to take a position on toll systems which brings them into line with Community arrangements and correlates them with the implicit cost of the infrastructure used and its management and maintenance.
Furthermore, while it is necessary and important to pay attention to the environmental problems, and the European Parliament is particularly sensitive to them and has frequently debated them, it has to be recognized that moving the traffic to rail in a short time is illusory, because the necessary infrastructure is not there.
So the planned infrastructure solutions must be speeded up as much as possible and to this end the Government of Swiss Confederation should be asked, in the negotiations, to move in that direction.
Then there is something Switzerland does not mention, and that is its interest in air traffic.
Now if we want to find solutions to the problems, all the interests need to be put on the table so that we have the full picture and can deal with everything.
To conclude, the agreement currently in force expires in 2004.
So we have time to deal with the problems, although personally I think we should try to do it sooner, and find a balanced agreement which takes account of all the aspects and above all provides reciprocity of understanding between the respective regions.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as we are talking about transit today, we are, of course, also going to be talking about the fact that for 40 years in Europe we have supported a common market and that we have therefore always promoted a society based on the principle of the division of labour.
Today we find ourselves in a position where two out of our four major routes through the Alps run through Switzerland and we cannot therefore accept the creation of an artificial barrier which would burden the other two routes, our friends in the Brenner - Mr Voggenhuber, you were quick to pick up on your cue there - with additional traffic.
The European Union has always supported the principle of the shortest route and that means that we need the appropriate transit routes through Switzerland.
In terms of the Alps in general, we have a set of very different rules.
In Austria 40 tonnes, but an eco-point system, in Switzerland a 28 tonne limit and bans on night driving. That does not constitute the uniform policy which we, as the PPE, are calling for and expect from the Commission.
However, we also expect an alpine traffic policy to be based on a set of uniform rules applicable throughout Europe rather than the methods of highway robbery and the robber barons.
I have already mentioned the principle of the shortest route, which must has to be taken into account.
There is also the question of the environment.
No one can tell me that long diversions are better for the environment.
And no one can tell me that rail can be made more competitive by artificially making roads more expensive.
On Monday we had the Sarlis Report on the revitalization of the railways.
The railways also have to get into shape so that they can compete with the roads.
This will not happen simply by making lorries more expensive.
In this spirit, I call upon the Commission to continue its negotiations with Switzerland.
I hope that the matter will be brought to a close under this British Presidency.
Mr President, in the European Union there is a strange obsession with the idea that everything should be harmonized, regardless of geographic, environmental or climatic differences.
That is why people do not want to recognise the difference between heavy traffic through Alpine valleys and the same heavy traffic on the plains of Flanders.
But it should be obvious, just as obvious as the fact that you cannot have the same traffic noise in a residential area as on a through road or drive at the same speed in town as you can on a motorway.
The European Union is also suffering from another obsession, that of wanting to control and dictate the internal policies and relations of other countries, and wanting to force them to accept bad regulatory systems which belong in the Union.
Switzerland is a free and sovereign State.
Switzerland is neither a member of the Union nor the EEA, the European Economic Area .
If Switzerland wants to take care of its citizens' environment, that is a Swiss matter.
To subject a country to pressure to make it take a step backwards in its environmental policy is highly objectionable.
Instead the Union should see Switzerland as an example of environmental and traffic policy, because Switzerland is taking the path which we will all have to take eventually if we are to save the environment in our part of the world.
The fact that Switzerland is advanced in this area and is ahead of the European Union is due in part to the fact that Switzerland is a real democracy where the citizens' awareness of environmental policy can be expressed.
The Union, on the other hand, with its closed institutions, is far too easily influenced, at least in its current form, by internal lobbying on behalf of interests like those represented by road traffic.
That is why the Union currently has an immature position on many important environmental issues.
It is high time that people took a different level of responsibility, both within the Union and in attitudes to other, more advanced countries, countries where the sacred market does not have the same paramount position as it has unfortunately been given in this Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for my country the transit agreement between Austria and the EU was a central prerequisite for entry into the EU.
The people of Austria attached great hopes to this agreement.
Hopes of an end to ecological destruction. Hopes of an end to health damage caused by excessively high noise and air emissions.
But, encouraged by the Austrian government, the Austrian people also hoped that this agreement might lead to a rethink on ecological issues in the European Union, that this agreement might provide the trigger for a new, sustained traffic policy.
Just a few years later we have come to realise that in hoping these hopes millions of people in our country failed to reckon with the Commission.
Millions of Swiss have done the same and voted to changed their law in a referendum.
These two countries represent models of modern traffic policy, not obstacles to it. The Commission on the other hand is not a model of modern traffic policy in Europe, but an obstacle.
It is still entangled in the interests of the transport lobby.
It remains fixed on the idea of an uncontrolled division of labour across borders into which it has failed to factor the costs in terms of either health or ecology of this traffic madness.
Mr Ferber has now left the room.
If he were still here I would have explained the basics of this problem to him once and for all.
For the Alps are not an artificial barrier which some environmentalist or politician in his foolishness has planted in the midst of the internal market, but a natural barrier in a highly sensitive ecological region.
At the time the Commission promised much in its negotiations on transit traffic.
None, I repeat none, of which has been realised to date.
The Commission is taking legal action against Austria over the level of its toll charges, although they comply with the Commission's Green Paper.
It is delaying recognition of the inclusion of external costs.
It has made no attempt to implement the Alps Convention.
What we see here is the almost pseudo-religious worshipping of an internal market without regard to the human principles of life and health.
Mr President, this debate is proceeding in our language, as might well have been expected, given that it is an issue that is particularly close to our hearts.
It therefore amazes me - while I welcome the presence of Commissioner van den Broek - that after having had over two days of the assiduous presence of Commissioner Kinnock while the British Government was here - and I regard the Commission with friendship, take note - at the very moment when an issue falling within the specific competence of Commissioner Kinnock is being discussed, we have instead the authoritative presence of Commissioner van den Broek.
I cannot but emphasize the concern we feel at the slow pace of this agreement, the secret, opaque way we are kept informed, and the way in which this agreement more or less reverberates across the Alpine problem as a whole.
How can I understand - and we are trying to understand it better through this debate - that the agreement is still something to come and therefore the traffic can only find outlets in other areas, on other routes of communication like the very important one which links the Val d'Aosta with France and which is at risk, if things carry on this way, of gridlock and calls for doubling the width of the Mont Blanc motorway which would be catastrophic for the countries, the valleys and the citizens who inhabit the regions the motorway must cross.
I hope the large groups will accept the amendments tabled by the group of the European Radical Alliance and thus take the opportunity - in this debate on the problem of Alpine transit, as we have defined it, but not agreed with Switzerland - to insert two or three paragraphs which broaden the context and highlight the need for combined transport rather than taking a mere sectoral view of the problem.
Mr President, the free movement of goods, services and people is of enormous economic importance to the European Union.
Its policy therefore aims to remove obstacles to traffic, both by lifting administrative impediments at borders, and by building a new infrastructure, the Trans European Networks.
The fact that this policy has been effective is obvious from the large growth in freight transport, in particular on the road.
The problem of Alpine transit traffic illustrates that there are also limits to this free movement of goods.
The ecologically extremely vulnerable Alpine region shows more quickly than elsewhere that the environment's ability to cope is limited.
It is partly for this reason that Austria has multiplied the charges for the Brenner Tunnel, that there are protests in France against road building at the Mont Blanc, and that the people of Switzerland declared in the Alpine Referendum of 1994 that all freight will have to pass through the region by train.
Austria, meanwhile, finds that membership of the EU does not only entail benefits.
The country has been summoned before the Court of Justice for increasing toll charges on the Brenner.
Fortunately, European politicians are not blind to the environmental damage resulting from road transport.
The by now famous Green Paper 'Towards Fair and Efficient Pricing in Road Transport' makes it clear that the 'external' factors around transport have to be included in the price.
The review of the Euro-sticker mentions the so-called 'sensitive' routes.
On these routes extra levies are allowed, to reduce air pollution, for instance.
According to a report in Agence Europe of 12 December the Union does not want to allow Switzerland to apply similar principles as yet.
Commissioner Kinnock and the Luxembourg Minister of Transport Mrs Delvaux afterwards said to the Transport Council that future Swiss tolls must be based directly on the costs of the existing infrastructure.
The costs of the new infrastructure, let alone external costs, are not to be included.
I ask Commissioner van de Broek whether the said report is correct.
In that case I would like him to tell me to what extent these statements are compatible with the Green Paper, and the recent proposals for the Euro-sticker.
Finally, does the Commissioner share my conviction that the free movement of goods, too, must respect the limits set by the environment?
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the starting point for our discussion are the negotiations with Switzerland.
Switzerland has taken the view that by not joining the European Union it can remain in a sort of happy isolation.
Switzerland can see that it is in an isolated position.
However, I would like to reject most adamantly part of what has been said here today - by Mr Ferber and previously - and that is that this is the behaviour of robber barons, of highway robbers.
As has already been said, Switzerland has a very specific, highly comprehensible traffic and environmental policy.
However, Switzerland must also fit into the overall European picture.
There's no way around it.
Secondly: Obviously the basic characteristics of the landscape are a given.
It may be the case that other landscapes are worth protecting.
But that shouldn't stop us giving special protection to this special landscape and to the special situation of the populations in the narrow valleys, whether they be in Switzerland, Austria, France or Italy,
Thirdly: The European Union has a set of traffic policy principles.
Some speakers appear to have forgotten this.
I would reject absolutely accepting the principle of the shortest route, which I otherwise support, without mentioning that there are also other principles, that we have environmentally friendly and environment-oriented traffic, that it is indeed a matter of external costs.
It is not that we want to pass the external costs on to lorries without justification, but rather that the external costs only arose in the first place due to the excessive number of lorries.
The step-by-step transfer of traffic from road to rail is the founding principle of European traffic policy.
And in the interests of our environment and our population we must deviate not from it.
However, we must understand that, as a result, we need to find a way of incorporating Switzerland into an overall concept, that the diverting of traffic which is currently taking place - and represents some 30 % to 40 % of the traffic in my home country of Austria, especially in the Tirol - where it still exists and has not already been transferred to rail, must be stopped.
Our goal must obviously be a general reduction in the level of traffic on the roads.
But this goal cannot be achieved by simply blocking off one country and diverting the traffic into others.
In Europe, at the end of this century, it must surely be possible to create a genuinely common traffic policy.
So, where are the policies which the Commission, the Parliament and the Council should be following? I should also say that I would not lay all the blame at the door of the Commission.
The Parliament too was very circumspect in making it last resolutions and in general terms agrees completely with what Commissioner Kinnock said.
There are certain countries which are represented in the Council and exert more resistance there.
Firstly: The aim must be, step-by-step, to reintegrate Switzerland into an all-European traffic policy shaped by the EU, and to do this as quickly as possible!
Secondly: No traffic should be diverted.
Thirdly: Wherever necessary diverted traffic must be returned to original routes.
Fourthly: No single country in the EU should be placed in a worse position than Switzerland in terms of the levying of charges, tolls, etc.
We accept the fact that charges have to be levied, that there is place for the toll and that it fulfils a control function. But it must be clear that a country outside the EU cannot be afforded more opportunities than the countries within the EU.
If these principles are observed it must surely be possible to create a reasonable European traffic policy and to use the instruments available, including the toll, to create an environment- and therefore people-oriented traffic policy for the whole of Europe.
Mr President, firstly I should like to express my pleasure that Switzerland is moving ever closer to the European Union and that the European Union is making every effort to move this country at the very heart of Europe closer to Europe.
However, we must all share the same rights and the same duties.
I believe that there should be one agreement, not a number of different agreements.
The Alps are, without question, a sensitive area; that is something which is felt particularly by those who live there, like myself.
Although transit is currently having a huge impact, one which we feel on a daily basis, it would be incomprehensible and unacceptable for the population living along the Brenner, whether in Trentino, the South Tirol or in Tirol Province, if Switzerland were to receive special treatment, leaving us worse off.
Quite clearly, the aim of the policy is to protect a sensitive area - whether by toll or by positive support - by providing the sensitive zone with new opportunities such as the expansion of rail facilities or under-tunnelling.
And no doubt there is still much negotiating to be done.
In conclusion, the rapprochement between Switzerland and the European Union, whatever form it takes, is a positive factor, but it should be without privileges, affording the same rights for all.
Again, there is no reason why privileges should be granted for a limited period.
Mr President, the Greens are asking the EU and the Federal government in Germany to strongly support Switzerland's plans for the introduction of an output-related heavy goods vehicle tax and an alpine transit tax in order, at long last, to move forward on the protection of the alpine habitat and the transfer of heavy goods transport from road to rail.
Similarly, external costs - in particular environmental costs - as well as road costs should be passed on to road traffic, taking into account the especially high costs in the alpine regions.
For we have a particular responsibility to the people and their alpine habitat.
It would appear the Messrs Jarzembowski and Ferber, in particular, have not quite grasped this point.
We cannot, as they suggest, try to blackmail Switzerland with the argument that if they don't do what the EU wants them to do, the Swiss will no longer be allowed out of their own country, that they will, so to speak, be imprisoned in their own fortress.
Let me say once and for all and quite clearly, this behaviour is nothing but more imperialist delusions and status craving.
In actual fact, Switzerland's plans support the EU in as far as they are an attempt, at long last, to develop a sustained traffic policy.
That can hardly be described as an attack on the EU!
Against this backdrop, the blockade being operated by Bavaria, the Federal government and the Italians is quite incomprehensible.
The Greens are organizing a conference on this complex question with the representatives of the various countries involved on 1st February in Lindau.
Turning to the Netherlands: If the alpine habitat is destroyed, it won't be the sea that you will need to build your flood dams against, it will be Rhine.
For once the Alps are destroyed, you'll find yourselves under water all year long!
The Alps provide a reservoir of potable water; one which we need.
If we continue to destroy the Alps in this manner, it may well be possible to ski everywhere in the Alps, because there won't be any trees.
But if that's the point, why not go skating in Holland instead!
I advise you to take a completely fresh look at this habitat, and as a farmer, I say to you: We live off 30 cm of this earth, and if these 30 cm are destroyed then we quite simply won't have to worry about free trade, transit and goods transport any more. There won't be any need.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, anyone looking for long-term progress in traffic policy in the Alps today will swiftly come to the conclusion that in Europe everyday is soap-box day.
For the number of soap-box speeches to be heard demanding a common, transnational, environment- and people-oriented traffic policy is large and they all promise great things. However, not much is actually being done.
We are simply trying to stop things happening.
Listening to the discussions and the Commissioner's information today, I have to conclude that nothing concrete is coming of today's debate either.
None of these speeches and statements actually represent a step forwards.
In fact, here in the European Parliament - this is a European Community - soap-boxes are making a great comeback.
What we have heard so far today is the German MEPs who have spoken taking part in a competition to find the most stupid soap-box orator..This is not way to construct Europe.
No way to make progress.
The EU Commission should see itself as the engine of the Community's traffic policy.
Laying out the external costs of traffic is indeed highly commendable.
Drawing up an Alps Clause with the European Parliament is indeed progress. But the Commission doesn't have the courage to implement these ideas, to get anything concrete off the ground.
That is why the EU Commission and the presidency of the Council of Europe are being asked to do something about the situation.
That's why they are being asked to do something in the heart of Europe, in the foothills of the Alps in southern Germany.
And here I also include the Austrian areas.
At the present time the situation is such that most of the accent is being placed on the Munich-Verona route where an impossibly expensive, 20 km long mega tunnel is being proposed.
Unfortunately, we know that the completion date of this much needed project will be a long time coming.
What we must do now is involve the Court of Auditors and, at long last, start to operate a reasonable policy which the people, the economy and also the environmentalists in Europe can understand.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the north-south link through the Brenner is one of the most important routes for road haulage.
The impact suffered by Austria as a result is enormous.
Disproportionately so, in comparison to Switzerland.
Some 30 % more lorries travel through the Brenner than through the Swiss passes.
Many haulage contractors choose the longer routes through the Brenner because they are more financially viable.
This way of thinking on the part of the hauliers must be stopped and the cost advantage involved in using the Brenner must be removed.
The diverted traffic must return to its original route.
In a verbal supplementary amendment we, together with our Austrian colleagues in the Social Democratic Party, are therefore asking the Commission to ensure that in matters of alpine transit no EU Member State is placed in a worse position than Switzerland.
This unfair burden must also be stopped to protect the populations involved.
In order to remove the financial advantage which exists on the Brenner route a common charging system should be introduced for Austria, Switzerland and France.
Lowering the charges in the Brenner, which are already lower than those in Switzerland, sends out the wrong signal and will not help to shift heavy goods traffic to the Swiss routes.
If the burden of charges placed on the haulage contractor were the same on all the routes over the main ridge of the Alps there would be a chance that routes other than the one through the Brenner would be chosen.
For this reason, in its negotiations with the Swiss, the Commission should work towards balancing these charges and securing the admittance of 40 tonne lorries.
The Commission must not shy away from its responsibility to the Member States and to the population, especially in regard to such a sensitive region as the main ridge of the Alps.
Mr President, following on from my contribution during the first part, perhaps I can respond to a few of the speeches made by the honourable Members. First of all, concerning the Brenner, which seem to raise some questions.
Firstly, whether Austria should simply be allowed to maintain these higher tolls on the Brenner motorway. It is generally known that negotiations are still taking place to see whether agreement can be reached with the parties to find a solution on the basis of the so-called Alpine Clause.
If this fails, obviously the Commission will feel obliged to await the verdict of the Court, before whom the case is at present, as you know.
But we would much prefer an agreement between the parties concerned, and we will continue to work towards this.
The next matter, Mr President, the comments which have been made regarding the inclusion of external costs or not.
Let it be clear that at the moment the Commission must base itself on the community law which only allows inclusion of part of the external costs, not the total.
As far as that is concerned we should therefore say that we are acting on the basis of the existing community law, and not on the basis of what the Commission would like to see; which is broader, as is also evident from what the Commission has said about it in the Green Paper.
Finally, Mr President, on the subject of charging for transit transport. As I mentioned to begin with, we do not yet fully agree on the figures.
One of the most important points is the level of the tariffs which will applied from the 1st of January 2005. As we are still in negotiation I am sure this Parliament will understand that I cannot give any further specific details about the strategies pursued by us.
This Parliament will get the opportunity to give its opinion when it is consulted on the Union's decision regarding ratification of the agreement.
For that matter I pointed out, and I am being unanimously supported by the Council, that the levy presently proposed by Switzerland, is still not acceptable.
We are talking about sums of 410 Swiss francs for a 40 tonne lorry travelling from between Basel to Chiasso.
But in view of the fact that Switzerland has indicated that it wishes to take up a flexible position, I trust that we will be able to reach agreement in due course.
To comfort Mr Dell'Alba, who is surprised not to see Mr Kinnock behind this table, let me say to him that it is not possible for the Commission to organize its work in such a way that all questions posed to this Parliament are answered by the Commissioner under whose authority this falls.
But the comforting phrase I wanted to utter is that this Commissioner is responsible within the Commission for the relations with Switzerland.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Community aid
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0388/97 by Mr Goerens, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on improving the effectiveness of Community aid; -A4-0391/97 by Mr Fabra Vallés, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on Special Report No 2/97 by the Court of Auditors on the humanitarian aid of the European Union (1992-1995) (C4-0219/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we now have an opportunity finally to end this House's debate on improving the efficiency of development aid.
To discuss development is to discuss one of the noblest tasks.
However, that does not enable us to dispense with certain elementary principles and rules.
I refer, in particular, to the need to ensure that Community aid and the aid provided by Member States are complementary.
Various players are involved in development, and everything possible must be done to avoid duplication.
Inadequate coordination or even a total lack of coordination between the various players in the field will inevitably lead to negative effects.
Better coordination involving all the players involved in development, good internal coherence between the various instruments of development policy, and better visibility, are certainly not aims in themselves, but they are means to ensure that more citizens of Europe accept the idea of the need to continue to ensure cooperation between the European Union and developing countries.
That is particularly important at the moment, when we are observing a decrease in development aid, a trend to which we should not be indifferent, under any circumstances.
This should therefore be put right.
That is what this report is trying to do, by first of all, raising the question of instruments, measures, and the question of efficiency criteria relating to development aid.
Development aid is efficient compared with what? The Development Assistance Committee of the OECD provides a more or less satisfactory answer to this, by proposing to use as development aid evaluation criteria, pertinence, efficiency, impact of the development and durability.
Pertinence is a result of reflecting on the problems to be solved and the aims of a programme.
The search for efficiency is reflected in the ability to achieve those aims at the lowest cost.
Efficiency is measured in relation to the expected result and the situation of the beneficiaries, and also in terms of unexpected results or negative effects.
The impact of a development programme must relate to the medium term and well as the long term.
Finally, the last criterion relates to the durability and sustainability of the development undertaken.
Mr President, all the evaluations of development programmes to which my written report refers show some interesting trends, and in particular, I will quote three examples - the small but positive impact of European Commission development aid on the economic growth of receiving countries, the increase in the average life expectancy resulting from improved health indicators, which is appreciable, and thirdly, the not very durable nature of a large number of development programmes.
This list is not exhaustive, but I have selected some examples, which adequately illustrate the need to continue the evaluation work.
Another lesson to be drawn from the evaluation is that microanalysis, project by project, is useful, inasmuch as it highlights exemplary achievements funded by the European Community.
I am obliged to note however, that the approach to evaluation by sector is more reliable, as it provides a more global appreciation of the efficiency of the development or otherwise.
It also seems sensible to me to consider another aspect: is there a vision of development specific to Europe?
If so, what is it? The measures in favour of human rights and democracy already undertaken by the Commission, not only send European development policy in the right direction, they also to some extent raise the question of conditional aid.
Indeed, the correct management of public affairs and development does not escape this rule.
It is to a very great extent dependent on the nature of the political system in place, on the honesty and quality of the local authorities, on the level of democratic activity within the local population and on the quality of the policies adopted.
Mr President, I will spare you the details.
Furthermore, the Members of this House who are going to speak have no doubt read my report, which is not disputed, inasmuch as I have not seen any amendments.
I do not wish to end without listing various conclusions that seem important to me.
There are six of these.
First of all, we have asked for the European Development Fund to come within the scope of the EU budget, which is one of this Parliament's previous demands, and which is likely to considerably improve the visibility of European policy on this subject.
Secondly, we consider it essential that lessons are drawn from evaluations, in order to influence future programmes.
Thirdly, the Commission does not have enough human resources to handle and manage the administration of cooperation projects.
This must be put right.
Fourthly, the crucial role of women in developing countries must finally be recognized.
Within the framework of development programmes in particular, the role of women is essential, if only because of the positive influence of women with regard to birth control.
Fifthly, the intensification of the dialogue with NGOs is indispensable.
Mr Fabra, I believe, will have more to say on that point.
We have discussed the suitability of setting up a development agency at length.
We are not yet ready to do so.
During the debate with the Commission, it was considered appropriate to move forward to an intermediate stage.
I refer to this in my written report, and I believe that the compromise we have found is a good compromise.
It will enable us to prepare even more substantial projects with regard to evaluation, which seems indispensable to me, and is the very essence of this report.
Mr President, before anything else I would like to stress that when we talk of ECHO we are talking about a very young organization, which in a very short time has managed to forge an excellent reputation.
ECHO was created in 1992, therefore it can only call upon five years of experience.
Since it began ECHO has faced up to considerable problems: the war in Yugoslavia, Rwanda, the refugees in northern Iraq and here I am only giving three examples which have required outstanding efforts and without ECHO being allowed to enjoy a long apprenticeship period.
In its special report, the Court of Auditors confirms that the outcome has been successful.
ECHO, in the first five years of its existence, has acquired an important wealth of experience which ensures that it will be in the forefront amongst international organizations dedicated to the question of humanitarian aid.
Similarly, that front line role is confirmed by the facts and figures: in 1996, the rate of participation in ECHO was higher than 20 % of the total of the world's humanitarian aid.
If we add to this percentage the efforts of the Member States we confirm that the European Union is, outstandingly, the highest donor in the world.
The European Union has provided about half of the world's humanitarian aid, more than ECU 1.6 billion in 1996.
Unfortunately these endeavours are carried out in a diverse way.
The Court of Auditors has confirmed that, quite simply, there is a lack of coordination and cooperation between the Community and its Member States, as well as between the Member States themselves.
The result is that the Union and its Member States often waste their energy and cannot pull their weight as they might, and ought to, do.
It is in this context in which the proposal from the Court of Auditors, for a charter regarding humanitarian aid, has acquired its full importance.
Such a charter might be useful to stimulate a debate about the need for cooperation between the Community and its Member States, as well as about the principles which ought to govern such cooperation.
All this is urgent and necessary since the Treaty of Amsterdam makes no reference to humanitarian aid, which means at the moment there is a lack of a true foundation document.
I must add that the way to arrive at such a charter as well as the subsequent debate will show, would be as important as the result.
It would be a question of a process with which national parliaments should be intensively associated.
For example, in the framework of an interparliamentary conference.
In a much more general area, it is a question of being aware of the fact that humanitarian aid often takes place in complex, crisis situations.
Those crises do not suddenly happen unexpectedly, as with natural catastrophes.
Rather they have their origins in political, ethnic and economic tensions.
As a reaction to these crises, rapid response aid, although greatly needed at the time, is not enough.
In view of the existence of such crises only an integrated approach to coordinate political, economic, military and humanitarian measures can ensure success.
A Charter for humanitarian aid might be the formula for a greater awareness about this phenomenon.
For all of this, we hope that the Committee makes full use of its powers of initiative and propose as much to the Council, as well as to Parliament, the Charter which has already been referred to so many times.
Allow me to point out that it is the Committee who can and must provide an important political lead.
In the same way there are many other actions which, in addition, we expect from the Committee.
And I will put forward, as I see it, the three most important.
Firstly, the Committee in a progressive way should replace the aid system directed towards single and precise operations by an approach to a more long term strategy with a specific programme.
To this end the services of the Committee ought to establish strategic relations with key partners - of course, the large NGOs and the United Nations itself - so as to jointly produce and put into operation a common global strategy for urgent, chronic and complex areas.
I am referring, for example, to the situation in the Great Lake region of Africa.
Secondly, about 45 % of the credit made available by ECHO is used by non-governmental organizations.
The Accounts Court has made a study of credits as a function of national origin for these NGOs.
The result of this study reveals that there are notable imbalances.
The Committee should strive to rectify these imbalances since there are strong agreements with the NGOs in France and Belgium while these agreements should be made stronger with NGOs in Germany and Portugal, for example.
Thirdly, the Committee needs to put into operation a central evaluation unit for its development programmes including ECHO, MEDA, Phare and Tacis.
This unit should supervise the appropriate quality control as well as comparing results from internal assessment, being involved in improving the exchange of experiences, not only in the heart of the Committee but also with other institutes responsible for development aid.
The key word given by the Court of Auditors in this context of evaluation is independence.
For this independence to be real, and as a result to be credible, this evaluation unit should be placed outside the broad operational General Management.
It is with some satisfaction that I conclude now, Mr President, by underlining that the Goerens report is asking for exactly the same as I am doing.
I congratulate you, Mr Goerens, on your report and thank you for your support in the opinion I have expressed.
What is clearly shown is that if the Development Committee and the Budgetary Control Committee met more often we would have a lot more to say.
All this, of course, with the aid of the Accounts Tribunal's reports.
Ladies and gentlemen, as the time allocated for urgent and topical debate starts at 4 p.m., I will call only two more Members and then we will adjourn this debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Goerens on his report, and on his extremely balanced resolution in particular.
The effectiveness of community development aid regrettably often leaves much to be desired.
Because despite of years of aid from Western nations people in less-developed countries are not able to support themselves, and economic growth is minimal.
In order to increase the effectiveness of development aid I believe changes are much needed on three fronts.
The OECD has pointed out that the best aid for less-developed countries is education for women, not least because there is an inverse relationship between how highly women are educated and the birth rate.
Therefore, colleagues, how can we stop the explosive population growth in these countries? By educating women.
A lower population growth is the only way to break through this vicious circle.
That was the first point.
My second point is that knowledge and information are also important for sustainable development.
To create a supporting base in the country itself and amongst the population, local universities and national research centres need to be involved in the dissemination of technology and knowledge.
Thirdly, investment in the private sector towards entrepreneurship, and especially in small and medium-sized enterprises, and a better development of the market mechanism are crucial to economic and social progress.
In this context too, women should not be overlooked as potential entrepreneurs.
I understand that international banks are cooperating on developing initiatives.
I hope Europe will not fall behind.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this debate gives us the opportunity to examine the unprecedented aid, which the Commission has deployed in more and more difficult areas in crisis with relatively limited means, whereas the Member States are slowly withdrawing, bringing more and more pressure to bear on the European Community.
It also enables us to see the considerable progress made by the creation of ECHO in the management of humanitarian aid.
This is acknowledged by all, including the Court of Auditors in its accurate, methodical and extremely well written report.
And since I have mentioned that report, may I emphasize that it does not bring to light any fraud or serious error in the Commission's management of aid.
So, within the context of withdrawal, caused by the social problems encountered in most European countries, it is true that public opinion is becoming more and more contemptuous.
It is therefore imperative that the aid we provide should be as efficient as possible.
That is above all the point of the Goerens report, which I fully endorse.
With regard to the Fabra-Vallés report and the Court of Auditors' report, I only have enough to time to make a few remarks.
First of all, the Commission urgently needs to increase transparency.
Internal procedures need to be simplified, and the coherence between the instruments of development policy needs to be increased.
In addition, there is a need for various types of aid to be more complementary - we cannot say this enough - with Member States, and the United Nations.
The European Union cannot content itself with being the main investor.
We have a mission to make ourselves heard on the international stage, and the Council and the Commission must take steps to do so.
In order to do so, we must have an overall strategy we are told.
We have been offered a Humanitarian Aid charter, which seems to me intellectually interesting.
But as well as the fact that we would not really know what legal status to give it, I believe that the Council regulations and the Commission communication of 1996 constitute a coherent system.
To conclude, I would personally prefer the Commission to give importance to a real debate on the role of ECHO in the future, on its relationship with all its partners and in particular with the NGOs, on the reorganization of humanitarian aid resulting from that debate and I ask the Commission to ensure that the European Parliament is fully implicated, as we have things to say.
(Applause )
We will now adjourn the debate and resume it at 6 p.m.
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent matters of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0056/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the situation in Mexico; -B4-0057/98 by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, Mr Galeote Quecedo, Mr Soulier and Mrs Esteban Martín, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the killing of 46 indigenous peasants in the Mexican state of Chiapas; -B4-0066/98 by Mrs Karamanou, Mr Newens and Mr Cabezón Alonso, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in the state of Chiapas; -B4-0073/98 by Mr González Triviño, Mr Novo Belenguer, Mr Hory and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in the state of Chiapas; -B4-0085/98 by Mr Carnero González, Mr Wurtz, Mr Manisco, Mrs González Álvarez, Mr Novo, Mrs Pailler, Mr Alavanos, Mr Svensson, Mr Ephremidis and Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the situation in the state of Chiapas (Mexico); -B4-0095/98 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, Mr Tamino, Mr Ripa di Meana and Mr Orlando, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in the state of Chiapas (Mexico).
Mr President, there are no half measures where human rights are concerned and, in the specific case of the right to life, which when you lose it you can never get it back, you know, Mr President, that moderation becomes a vice when it stands back.
Therefore it is important that this Parliament - I said it on 24th of December, I repeated it on 6th of January in the Foreign Affairs Committee, I put it to my political group again afterwards, and today I will say it again before the full session - this Parliament has to speak up to condemn unreservedly this slaughter which has shaken public opinion throughout the world.
As well as vehemently condemning this barbaric act and showing solidarity with the families of the victims, this Parliament should also condemn every form of human rights' violation and violence, regardless of who is responsible for such criminal acts.
Mexico, under the mandate of President Zedillo, is today immersed in a complex and unfinished process of reform.
Many things have changed in that country since the elections of the 6th of July last, but there are other things which have not changed so much: violence, insecurity and impunity.
It is certain that the measures taken by the Government - in the case of the massacre at Acteal and the events in Ocosingo - are an attempt to restore confidence and the country's credibility, within the limits of the legal system and the rule of law, under which all subjects must be seen as equal, beginning with the Government and ending with the citizens.
But this is not enough, Mr President, it is not enough to react, since the loss of life, of one single human life, is irreparable.
These measures should not be considered exceptional as they serve as a model for normal behaviour in any legal system.
Because when freedom is violated - which begins with respect for the right to life - justice must be applied strictly, Mr President, For that reason this Parliament, by means of the resolution, appeals to the Government - which has the prime duty of looking after its citizens - to mobilize all its forces to prevent such shameful and dreadful deeds being repeated.
And it stresses again that dialogue and the eradication of violence, of all violence, form the best path - rather the only path - to reach a lasting solution to the conflict and a just and durable peace for everyone.
Mr President, the wind of change in Mexico towards greater democracy and openness has not yet had any effect, or at least, insufficient effect on the situation in Chiapas.
The slaughter of 45 Indians at the end of December, and the continuing troubles from that moment on show that the problems caused by paramilitary actions and lawlessness have not yet been solved.
The fact that the Home Affairs Minister and the governor of Chiapas are no longer there is a good thing, but much more will be needed to exonerate the authorities and the army.
As there are indications that there are contacts between the paramilitary groups and political circles, the government will have to exercise the utmost vigilance, and will have to take action against the paramilitary groups and punish them.
As a sign of goodwill Mexico should also agree to the establishment of an office for UN High Commissioner Office for Human Rights. We have submitted an amendment to this effect to the resolution.
The Mexican government has already committed itself to this as part of the agreement recently agreed between the Union and Mexico.
To conclude, Mr President, a remark about the situation in Chiapas.
The San Andrés agreement must be complied with, and the dialogue between the ZNLA, the Zapatistas, and the government must be resumed.
A military solution does not exist, and will risk the stability of the entire country.
That is why the dialogue which has been severed since 1996 must be resumed in order to procure a lasting political solution.
Mr President, the violent death of 45 defenceless people, most of them women and children, in the Mexican town of Acteal on 22nd of December last, once again presented us with a Mexico which is showing its deepest divisions in the state of Chiapas, where a rich Mexico and a poor, unequal and disadvantaged Mexico live uncomfortably side by side.
I condemn unreservedly such an extremely serious act and express my solidarity with the victims and their families.
The real situation in Chiapas today needs to be analyzed rigorously and sincerely.
We cannot dismiss what is happening in Chiapas with a simplistic analysis or with western standards because very serious errors may be made.
Rejecting the use of violence as a political instrument, I would like President Zedillo and his Government to find a solution to the Chiapas conflict and to the political, economic, social and cultural causes which are behind this conflict. I would like the Republic's legal system to keep the investigation open until the facts have been fully clarified and to avoid these going unpunished; for the Mexican political parties to reach agreement on national policies and decide upon a common legal approach to native autonomy, as an important step towards implementing part of the San Andrés agreements; for the presence of paramilitary groups in Chiapas to be eliminated and the Zapatista insurgents integrated as a civil organization - sooner rather than later - in Mexican political life; and finally for the Committee, in collaboration with the Mexican federal authorities, to support urgent aid programmes for the Chiapan refugees.
I acknowledge the role of the Mexican Army in disarming the paramilitary groups and its activity in the distribution of aid to refugees; but all their efforts should be increased so that there are no armed confrontations between the Mexican regular army and Zapatista insurgents.
If this confrontation should unfortunately occur, its consequences would be unpredictable.
Today what really matters is to save this delicate mosaic of solutions and the peace we want and should be building.
Mexican society should see in the European Union not just an accusing finger, but instead a loyal ally working with it to avoid conflict.
The resolution which we wish to adopt today represents a modest contribution to that alliance established for the purpose of sharing problems and solutions together.
Mr President, when we tabled this resolution, there may still have been some doubt as to whether the Mexican authorities were responsible for the massacre at Acteal.
There is now no longer any doubt.
It has been proved that the local authorities at least were warned of the preparations for the massacre on 21 December, that they were advised of the involvement of members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party and the police in those preparations.
Far from understanding the feeling generated by the massacre, a feeling that brought 100 000 demonstrators out onto the streets of Mexico, the Mexican authorities are continuing to carry out repression, and another young Indian woman has just been killed by the Police.
That is why I believe that this House should take up this issue, and although many of us do not share the romantic fascination, which the archaic left-wing notions of the Zapatista movement have for some, this House should loudly condemn the Mexican authorities, and exhort them to finally open a debate on the many problems, particularly with regard to property, which they face in the state of Chiapas.
Mr President, the appalling slaughter at Acteal and the previous events testify to the serious problems which the democratic transition in Mexico is going through.
Also they provide evidence for the lack of respect for human rights in that country and, of course, the explosive situation in the state of Chiapas.
Europe should contribute to making Mexico a democracy which fully respects human rights, and we have to demand this, above all else, from President Ernesto Zedillo and his government.
We have to ask the Mexican authorities to detain and find guilty those who are to blame for the slaughter at Acteal; to disarm the paramilitary groups who, as has already been noted, were working in Chiapas before the crime in Acteal, and to discourage them; to cease military operations in Chiapas and to withdraw the Army; to fulfil the San Andrés agreement and set up a real dialogue with the Zapatista Army; to respect human rights and to extend the democratic process as far as possible.
Such a democratic process showed a marked improvement with the fair election of Cuahutémoc Cárdenas as governor of the Federal District capital.
There is no doubt that we should agree with what the majority of Mexicans are asking for - and thousands and thousands have just done so on the streets of their cities - as well as with what most Europeans want too.
Our citizens do not want vague promises about Mexico, they want clarity.
We have to demand the same clarity here for Parliament, for the Council and for the Committee, and we have to ask for an international agreement in respect of human rights in Mexico and for the Committee to inform us about this issue in a regular and organized way.
For all these reasons, good words are not enough; words have to be based on deeds and if we want all these demands to be met we have to use the means at our disposal.
This is the reason why our resolution calls upon this Parliament to suspend the procedure for ratification of the bilateral agreement concluded last December between the European Union and Mexico, until President Zedillo meets the demands which were expressed before, and I think that we ought to ask national parliaments to take similar action.
Mr President, the callous slaughter of 45 people at Acteal in the state of Chiapas in Mexico shocked human rights workers round the world.
This resolution reflects a widely held sense of outrage.
The prompt condemnation of the massacre by the Mexican President and the steps taken to root out those responsible and bring them to justice, as the resolution states, is welcome.
But the Mexican authorities must recognize that any failure of the system which allowed the guilty to evade judgement would gravely damage their reputation.
In the past Mexicans have suffered grievous violations of their human rights without the culprits being detected or punished.
But it is vital on this occasion that those who committed so appalling a crime should not be allowed to avoid the consequences of their acts.
The Government of Mexico must, furthermore, reiterate its declared commitment to a peaceful resolution to the conflict with the ZNLA.
We must strongly urge both sides to renew their efforts to ensure that the objectives of the San Andrés agreements are achieved in full, without any further injuries or loss of life and, to this end, to meet with a will to succeed, come what may.
If the terrible events of 22 December jolt those in a position of responsibility to take the actions required, not only to resolve the conflict, but also to tackle the underlying problems of poverty, deprivation and discrimination which lie behind the Zapatista revolt, the victims of Acteal will not have died in vain.
At this stage I do not think that we should seek to impede the EU-Mexico agreement of December 1997 which includes the issue of human rights since the Mexican Government is taking action on the issues of this massacre.
Inevitably, however, if human rights violations were to increase or fail to be dealt with, it would not be possible to oppose a much tougher line in future.
Mr President, as I have been to Chiapas, and maintained regular contact, both with militant Zapatistas and many Mexican progressives, I can bear witness to the hope engendered, in Mexico, by the San Andrés agreements of February 1996.
The culture of indigenous peoples should be recognized as an integral part of the diversity of Mexico, and their participation in its political life should be guaranteed.
It is my conviction that basically the non-respect of these agreements was the main cause of the dramatic worsening of the situation in the state of Chiapas.
Now, the worst has happened, and in the massacre at Acteal 45 people died on 22 December 1996.
This is a serious indictment of those who, at the head of the State, tolerate such paramilitary groups and what is more, of the local leaders of the IRP who give these murderers their direct support.
It is impossible to deny that the leaders of the country deliberately allowed the situation to worsen in order to try and isolate the Zapatistas or force them to make a mistake, in order to justify their adoption of the military option.
It is within this context that I wish to pass on the express request of many important people in Chiapas and in Mexico in general, that is, that the partnership and cooperation agreement signed on 8 December 1997 between the European Union and Mexico, should be suspended, until the Mexican authorities dissolve these paramilitary groups, condemn the murderers, withdraw the Mexican army from the indigenous areas, and more generally, fulfil their commitments, or in other words, implement the San Andrés agreement, so that the populations of the state of Chiapas may at last achieve peace, justice and democracy.
Mr President, the European Commission naturally shares the horror and dismay about the murder of 45 people in the village of Acteal in the Mexican state of Chiapas.
This means that the hope for a peaceful solution to the conflict in Chiapas has further decreased, but cannot take this lying down, we of course.
On the 22nd of December, in a statement from the Luxembourg Presidency, the European Commission called on the Mexican authorities to immediately set up an investigation into the identity of the perpetrators of the murders and to bring them to court.
The European Union also pointed out that in the agreements between the European Union and Mexico, signed in Brussels on 8 December, both parties undertook to observe human rights and democratic principles unconditionally.
The Commission has meanwhile taken note of President Zedillo's promise to employ all necessary resources at federal level to find and punish the perpetrators, and to intensify the talks on finding a peaceful solution to the conflict.
This promise has been fulfilled.
The Home Affairs Minister has resigned.
The governor has mandated the Attorney General to lead the investigation personally.
The governor of the state of Chiapas has been removed from office, and a number of people who are suspected of being involved in the murders have been arrested.
The Commission has argued before and continues to argue for a peaceful solution which will have to be the result of mutual consultation between the government and the ZNLA.
We will obviously continue to follow the developments in Chiapas closely.
Our delegation in Mexico continues to report all developments and is in regular contract will all parties concerned.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0033/98 by Mr Bertens on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on controls on armaments exports; -B4-0058/98 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the European code of conduct on armaments exports; -B4-0064/98 by Mr Titley, Mr Swoboda and Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the PSE, on the European code of conduct on armaments exports; -B4-0081/98 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the code of conduct on armaments exports; -B4-0086/98 by Mr Wurtz, Mr Jové Peres, Mr Alavanos, Mr Ribeiro and Mr Papayannakis, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on controls on armaments exports; -B4-0104/98 by Mrs Hautala, Mr Telkämper, Ms Mckenna, Mr Gahrton and Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the European code of conduct on transfers of armaments.
Thank you, Mr President.
The Socialist Group warmly welcomes the initiative taken by the British Presidency to seek to establish a code of conduct on arms exports.
We believe this is essential to the future because, of course, you cannot really have a common foreign and security policy dedicated to crisis management and conflict prevention, while at the same time your big companies are arming the very countries responsible for instability.
It is also essential for the defence industry itself, because the lack of a code of conduct is holding back the consolidation which the industry needs and which will make it less dependent on exports, as I pointed out in my report to this Parliament a few months ago.
In this debate we must not let the best be the enemy of the good.
We should concentrate on two essential principles.
Firstly, we need clear and commonly agreed principles governing the trade.
That would mean distinguishing between the sale of arms to countries that would use them to abuse human rights and the sale of arms to countries that may have a dubious record but, nonetheless, have a legitimate external security concern.
Unfortunately, the resolutions before us do not make sufficient distinction between these two issues.
The second issue we have to address is that there should be no undercutting.
Once a country decides on the basis of these principles not to export arms, no other country should be allowed to complete that sale themselves and so undermine the principle.
We also have to recognize three other issues essential for the effective working of a code of conduct.
Firstly, there has to be maximum transparency, i.e. the Council has to report on what it is doing and allow the European Parliament to comment.
Secondly, we need a fresh initiative, particularly in the light of enhanced police cooperation in the Amsterdam Treaty, to stop the illegal sale of arms.
Thirdly, we have to step up our efforts to make this an international code of conduct, not just a European code of conduct.
Mr President, we, the Liberal Group, are delighted with the initiative of the British Presidency to step up the community criteria on arms exports.
The British Presidency has announced a code of conduct, but this code of conduct must not become a feeble compromise. A noncommittal code of conduct is of no use to us.
Agreements must be made which are enforceable and can be monitored.
Bilateral agreements are not the solution, because they offer too many opportunities for secret deals .
To facilitate effective consultation, the Member States must make internal agreements to guarantee major openness and public and parliamentary control on arms export licences.
A UN arms sale register is a useful instrument for increasing global transparency regarding arms supplies.
That is why a new criterion should be included which forbids exports to countries which do not meet the terms of this UN register.
We liberals will therefore support the amendments made by the Greens.
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party thinks that a code of conduct regulating the export of arms is a positive step and, what is more, we should consider it vital if we are to build an efficient PESC.
To regulate and control the export of arms to countries at war, to countries which do not respect human rights and to unstable regions allows us to indirectly intervene, avoiding an escalation of conflict in such areas.
If we also establish a clear, unambiguous code which limits the type of arms and technology which can be exported, as well as agreements with other exporting countries - not forgetting companies and other trading countries - we will have taken an important step forward.
It would be good if the Council, as well as drawing up the code I mentioned, could let us know when it has been completed.
Mr President, the manufacture, sale and exportation of arms are activities which have never had a very good press, but which still make very good profits for those engaged in them.
It is also an industry of some political importance, which maintains jobs, which is not negligible these days.
The adoption of a Code of Conduct within the EU is therefore a necessity.
Actively preparing to extend it to other countries is also a necessity, but I should like to draw your attention to the list of items involved.
Certainly, heavy armoured vehicles, supersonic bombers and highly sophisticated equipment should be on it, but we must also remember that the weapons that kill the most, particularly in countries where there is instability, are small-bore weapons, automatic firearms and hand-held weapons.
Such weapons are used more often than the heavy artillery of a nuclear aircraft carrier to bring down farmers, demonstrators and opponents.
We should at least agree that they should one day be included in the Code of Conduct.
Mr President, we welcome the initiative taken by the British Presidency of the Council in playing an active role in this matter and in finally putting this critical point on the agenda.
Of course, the European Parliament has to be included.
But it must also make progressive proposals which will lead somewhere.
For this reason I would like the European Parliament to concentrate on current developments and crisis situations and, this being the case, for light and small arms to play the central role.
We cannot simply leave them aside; we have to include them.
Anyone who has even been in an area of conflict knows just how important this is.
Cooperation on arms issues requires special consideration of technologies with dual applications.
It constitutes another aspect of the debate.
I am also delighted that our proposal to add a ninth criterion to exclude the supply of arms to countries which do not joint the UN arms register has been taken on board.
Of course, a codex of this nature has to be put into practice.
And that means that arms deals must be controlled by national governments.
Mr President, I would also like to welcome the proposal for appropriate joint action with regard to the EU's arms exports.
The fact that a majority of the EU's Member States have at least signalled their readiness for a code of conduct is gratifying.
However, it is surprising that my home country, Finland, has not discussed this or supported the initiative.
It is surprising because for a small country it is more advantageous to have an arms market which has rules than one which is unregulated.
It is also surprising because Finland was prepared to discuss production cooperation.
Why are people not prepared to discuss cooperation and common rules for exports?
This is serious.
We need new rules urgently because the arms trade grew during 1995-1996.
The code needs to include rules on sensitive areas where we either have a full embargo, selective restrictions or where the States negotiate between themselves.
All countries should be allowed to participate in these negotiations.
Mr President, the European Commission is grateful to Parliament for putting this topic on the agenda once more. This debate is taking place at a relatively sensitive time for the European defence industry, and at a time of rapid international development.
Because of the violent conflicts in many parts of the world, the issue of improved control on arms exports is high on the international agenda, and is being closely followed by the public.
The present EU regulations concerning arms exports, which are based on the eight points agreed in 1991 and 1992, have not turned out to be very effective.
These points are too vague and cannot be very easily managed as a guideline either.
The Commission is distinctly in favour of stricter rules, which make up a clear framework for the discussion about the arms trade.
We also favour an improvement in the exchange of information and consultation procedures between the Member States.
This Parliament has made a significant contribution to this debate on the European arms industry by accepting a resolution based on Mr Titley's report, and he generally supports the findings and recommendations made in a Commission statement in January 1996.
In the resolution the Commission is asked to draw up a White Paper on arms exports, and the services of the Commission are presently working on this.
I hope that this process can be completed during the next few weeks.
This document evaluates the position of the European Union in the global arms trade, and discusses the role of the Union in the arms exports policy up until at the present time, and presents a number of options for future action.
It will also pay attention to the increasingly important issue of illegal trade in small and light arms.
The British Presidency is determined to make active progress on the road to a restrictive and more transparent European Union arms export policy.
It intends to submit a EU code of conduct on the arms trade regulations.
This means a political commitment will be demanded from the Member States, probably in the shape of a statement from the Council.
I myself raised the subject at the recent visit of the European Commission to the British Presidency in London, and Foreign Secretary Mr Cook assured me that he is presently holding bilateral negotiations with a number of Member States in order to speed up the process towards this code of conduct as much as possible.
The Commission for its part is prepared to support any initiative which will lead to such a code of conduct being established, and the White Paper is intended as a contribution to these efforts.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, the general disapproval of a project by an American scientist to clone a human being and the initiatives adopted by the Council of Europe in this respect, have indisputably shown that we and a number of countries have not lost our ability to express indignation.
However, in addition to this case, which no one will deny is serious, there is a need for a fundamental debate on the limits of science, or more exactly on the responsibility of scientists.
It would be unacceptable, whilst the emotion created by this business is still high, in the name of natural morals or ethics, to set a limit to the research which can be carried out on the genome, soon perhaps to include certain forms of cloning.
It is always the same old story.
On the other hand, it would be equally unacceptable if, in the name of absolute scientific freedom, a human being was created to be used for organ transplants, without the human being created by means of cloning having the same rights as a human being born by natural reproduction.
Cloning a human being, need I repeat, is not, contrary to what its authors says, a scientific venture.
First of all and above all, it is a media and commercial operation which shows the danger of research which can no longer obtain from public funds the resources it needs for socially acceptable development.
And that is the real danger.
Commercial pressure is certain to destroy any research, whose aim is above all to promote social wellbeing.
Mr President, it has already been said that the cloning revolution we are discussing is nothing new.
The subject was already widely discussed in March 1997 and in the draft directive on patents.
I think that if we start the same debate every time that a scientist somewhere in the world tells the media he has gone beyond what is morally permissible, all each part-session will have to do is to clone a resolution on the previous resolution.
Because, finally, we do have an instrument in Europe.
It is, as has already been said, the European Bioethics Convention and its protocol, which prohibits, and I quote: ' Any intervention seeking to create a human being genetically identical to another human being, whether living or dead...'
It is up to each Member State to approve the protocol and what prevents some Member States from signing and ratifying the Convention is that it is too inflexible, inasmuch as, for example, it prohibits any intervention on germ cells and any use of embryos for the purposes of scientific research.
By wanting to prohibit everything, we are preventing the implementation of the Convention.
Finally, according to us, I would say that it is certainly necessary to prevent aberrations, but we must not however stop scientific research in its exploration of life.
I share Mr Desama's point of view on this subject.
Although the cloning of human beings is contrary to the dignity of the human being, the cloning of cells or tissues may make it possible to combat hereditary diseases.
People who claim to defend humanity by proposing to stop research on living cells only prevent men and women suffering from genetic diseases, in particular, from having a better quality of life, or even from staying alive.
That is unacceptable.
Humanity needs scientific progress.
Mr President, everyone is against the cloning of human beings, of course, and rightly so.
It is well known that is how things stand, apart of course for certain businessmen, disguised as scientists, who see it as a source of lucrative business.
And the combination of the lure of profit and contempt for mankind should not make us change our minds!
We shall therefore vote for this text, but we would however like to emphasize an important aspect.
That is, the importance of the call for an international conference which Monica Baldi mentioned.
This conference should take place at the end of a moratorium, a determined dialogue between the scientific world, ethics commissions and political leaders on the subject, which is so serious and new to all of us, that many of us are bewildered and have no reliable points of reference on the subject.
Mr President, we are not speaking here of research relating to therapeutic and medical ends, to which nobody objects.
We are talking about the cloning of individuals, human beings, and the most important thing one can say, at least with today's attitudes towards the subject, is that nobody can guarantee the health and natural development of individuals produced in that way, in the Brave New World which some people promise us.
We are therefore right to be concerned for that reason, and to call for a ban.
Yet, Mr President, that decision and that action we wish to undertake for the future would be pointless unless its scope is world-wide, and in particular, unless it extends to countries which have the ability to go down that road, most of all the United States, where there is a legal vacuum on the subject.
Mr Clinton's appeals for prohibition relate only to federal funding and not to the private sector.
On that point I would like to ask: are the Commission and the Council of Ministers disposed, and do they know how and to what extent they could negotiate with the United States, so that we can agree on a common policy over the issue?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament's view is clear and unambiguous.
The dignity of mankind forbids any form of cloning.
In the vote on the 5th Research Framework Programme we also refused the provision of funds for research which amounts to human cloning.
Respect for our fellow creatures as well as other considerations also make the cloning of animals a extremely questionable endeavour at the very least.
Today, reports on a money-hungry madman who calls himself a scientist are forcing us to hold this debate for clarification.
This clarification is required to ensure that one perverse case of abuse does not discredit the entire field of biotechnology which we associate with hopes and high expectations.
But there is also a question which we must ask ourselves. Have we done everything we can to ensure that this new area of research and technology does not slip out of our control and direct itself against men or even mankind?
We have certainly tried.
Today we have before us a network of laws and guidelines which regulate and protect but which also offer loopholes and hiding places which could lead to the abuse of biotechnology.
It is my view, therefore, that a framework guideline is needed which marks out the field and makes the many individual rules transparent.
It must cover all aspects of the issue, including uniform provisions in criminal law which impose severe penalties on the flouting of regulations and violation of bans.
This difficult work is our duty as citizens of the European Union.
We must not dodge it. We must ask the Member States to sign a Council of Europe document today.
On one hand, the so-called Bioethics Convention fails to solve the problem.
On the other, it offers the principle of subsidiarity under which each Member State may decide whether or not to ratify it.
For this reason let us remove Point 2 from the joint resolution.
Mr President, from a scientific point of view, considering the cloning of humans by the method used with the now famous Dolly, it must be said that the experiment of creating her was the only one to succeed among very many failures.
Consequently, the method has not been scientifically perfected, its medium and long-term results are unknown, and there has been no investigation of all the possible consequences for the organism of the cloned animal.
It is therefore shocking when a scientist says, without circumlocution, that he is going to clone a human being.
Because not only is that not justified on scientific grounds, but it is equivalent to dangerous and I would even say criminal experiments with humans.
Mr President, we still have to consider the ethical, legal and social aspects of the problem, because if cloning is applied to mankind this essentially opens the way towards eugenics. Echoes of the creation of the Aryan race and the Superman have still not died down even today.
Who is to do the cloning and under what conditions? Will it be available for all?
Will special permits be needed? There are still very many related questions, which show that the issue is exceptionally complex, and that it harbours the risk of distorting human societies.
It is a fact that in the face of headlong scientific progress the legal systems of our countries have found themselves unprepared.
And consequently, it is important that the laws should be adapted well in time, with objectives such as protection of the individual, safeguarding the interests of the group, and defending society's values.
This nightmare prospect of human cloning must be banned well in time, because it would create insuperable problems in our societies.
Mr President, every scientific revolution brings reactions and creates conditions of insecurity.
Galileo was condemned by the Holy Inquisition.
In-vitro fertilization as a way of producing children was also deplored, and world-wide public opinion still regards euthanasia with mistrust.
Cloning, however, reminds us by association of the Nazi doctor Mengele and his tragic experiments.
It is a repulsive prospect to produce human beings who are faithful copies, because every human is unique and his uniqueness is the nucleus of thought and creativity.
The lack of a simultaneous international legal framework and the evident possibility of unethical and politically dangerous exploitation in the cloning of humans has caused the international scientific community to react with reservations.
The European Parliament's duty is to determine the fine line which defines what is ethically acceptable and socially permissible and beneficial.
The rules, however, Commissioner, must be strict enough to prevent the realization of unwholesome phenomena.
At the same time, they must apply world-wide.
I would like to ask you whether you have considered, within the scope of this effort, trying together with the UN to establish such world-wide legislation in relation to cloning.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are scientists who say yes, we will clone humans.
This is a major affront to human dignity.
It is the irresponsible breaking of ethical dams and taboos.
An absence of ethical boundaries would be a terrifying thing for humanity.
Knowledge without conscience is a horrific scenario!
Yet here we are, faced with a kind of mad and undreamt-of omnipotence.
Unfortunately, the nightmare of a "made to measure' human being or the breeding of humans as a supply of spare parts is becoming more and more realistic, and unimagined ethics are being pushed ever forward.
The international community still has no binding regulations and even in the European Union science has no ethical boundaries.
On the contrary, increasingly it is the scientists who are setting the ethical boundaries for society.
Even the cloning of animals provides expertise for the future cloning of humans.
So what we need - and I ask the Commission if it is ready to do this - is a worldwide non-proliferation treaty for cloning techniques.
We need the worldwide outlawing of cloning because what is technically feasible will one day be done.
It also seems to me to be essential that we exert some economic pressure!
I believe that within the framework of the WTO we should boycott international groups and countries who are not prepared to devise binding rules on the banning of cloning.
In this regard, I should be glad to know whether the Commission is prepared to go beyond non-binding declarations and statements, whether it is prepared to go a step further, to sign a binding agreement and make a worldwide ban on cloning.
Mr President, in the discussion about what is scientifically possible we must first of all ask: what is its feasibility or its moral desirability? This question is also at the heart of this issue.
Considering the many reactions of horror to the plans of the American scientist Richard Seed, the moral undesirability of the cloning of humans in this case appears to be winning against the desire for scientific advance.
And rightly so.
Cloning technology leaves nothing to chance, and makes bad copies.
In actual fact, it adds nothing.
Going a step further and improving a certain gene in the clone, we reach the dangerous zone of racial improvement.
Little good can be expected of this technique, in other words.
What is the situation regarding the clone? During the discussions on human rights our group has frequently remarked that the freedom of one is bounded by the freedom of another.
This also applies here.
The human dignity, the individuality and identity of man is at issue, and man is reduced to a consumer article.
So it is gratifying that, at the Council of Europe, a charter awaiting signature which forbids the cloning of humans.
Yet I still have my reservations about the future.
I recognize God as the Creator of man.
I see the new human life which originates in the conjunction between man and women as a unique gift from God.
As far as I am concerned the lines are very sharply drawn.
It means an absolute ban on the cloning of humans.
Yet to many countries this ban already does not seem to be wholly absolute.
Thus it is worrying that the Netherlands, England and Germany have still not signed the charter.
Pressure must be put on these countries.
I sincerely hope that we decide on an absolute, tough position against human cloning.
It is vital.
Mr President, last April over twenty countries signed the Council of Europe Convention at Oviedo, which constitutes the best contribution Europe can make to the world debate on bio-medicine and medical research, but it only represents a first step towards regulating the matter.
At a time when science and new laboratory techniques are being identified as a power capable of conditioning modern man and the man of the future, it is becoming essential, in our view, for this debate to be open and democratic.
Medical research is indispensable for alleviating suffering and improving human health, but there must be boundaries which cannot be crossed - and I say that as a doctor and not as a politician - and those are the boundaries of the actual dignity and identity of man.
Experiments in cloning, but also trade in embryos, gametes and genetic material, are taking place not only in Europe but all over the world without any controls and this demonstrates that it is now urgent to deal with bioethical issues and find solutions.
The signature and ratification of the Council of Europe Convention last April, and its additional protocol specifically banning human cloning, could be the start of the solution, but the Union's partner countries must be urgently involved.
Determined defence of a people's rights will increase their dignity, freedom, integrity and right to health.
So it is the duty of the Alleanza Nazionale delegation to give its support and approval to the motion for a resolution.
Mr President, I believe that Dr Seed is a buccaneer who is seeking to create a market opportunity which he will then exploit without licence and without responsibility.
It is also significant that when the Commission's group of advisors were asked to look at the question of Dolly the sheep and her cloning, they did so after Dolly had been born and the gravest danger is now that even though we know that human cloning may be scientifically possible we are making scientific advance without the same advance being made in our ethical considerations.
That being the case, we need to establish and ethical committee.
The common position of the Council in response to the Rothley report leaves a great deal to be desired.
I do not believe that common position reflects what Parliament has voted and consequently at the second reading of the Rothley report I will retable Parliament's original amendment thus making it, if we pass it, a precondition of the patenting directive that we shall establish a satisfactory ethical committee.
Failure to do that means that cloning will take place and will take place on an open market.
Mr President, I wonder if there is anything original I can add to this debate when virtually everything has been said.
I think it is right to specify general aversion to cloning of human beings at any stage in their development.
I emphasize "human being' . This does not mean individual somatic cells which might be reproduced in order to cure, say, a skin disease, the reproduction of epithelial cells.
That is my first point.
My second point is that there is no international document or internal document in the individual European states permitting cloning of human beings.
The European Parliament itself repeatedly expressed its view on this issue right up to the final proposal for a directive on legal protection of bio-technological inventions, but it was already very clear on the subject in 1989 with two resolutions on ethical and legal problems of artificial human procreation and genetic engineering.
I am pleased to recall, in respect of the latter, that in the report presented by Mr Rothley in 1989 a very strong expression was used to indicate the legal reason which militates against cloning, and that is the destruction of personality.
In reality the cloning of human beings raises two fundamental principles of law: the principle of human dignity and the principle of equality, equality which presupposes diversity, because equality lies in dignity regardless of the diversity which makes each of us unique.
Making us equal - paradoxically - is actually a way of destroying equality.
My final point is this: we can certainly ask whether it is right for a Parliament to be concerned and take action to repeat things already said in television or newspaper statements.
I think it is right; given the gravity of the matter it is important to be vigilant.
It would have been much better to have talked about the atom bomb before building it.
Science is not at stake, technique is at stake, and technique is in the hands of man, who needs to know which track to go down.
Mr President, first of all I would like to say how pleased I am that we are discussing Ingushetia today.
Many people have forgotten that just a few years ago the conflict in ChechnyaIngushetia was a frequent topic of discussion.
The Ingushetis belong to the same ethnic group as the Chechens.
Today the situation in this country is very difficult, primarily because it is not one, self-contained area of settlement, but two large enclaves, namely Vladikavkaz and Prigorodny.
The Ingushetis formerly living in North Ossetia were effectively driven out as a result of a massive push by the Russians and have had to return to Ingushetia where they now constitute a huge and very difficult refugee problem which we must somehow address because we don't want to see a repeat of the Chechnya conflict.
A further problem, of course, is the fact that the Russians are now claiming that the Ingushetis helped the Chechens and must therefore be punished.
We are acutely aware that severe restrictions - I am endeavouring to avoid the word blockade - are being imposed on Ingushetia which means that the country is devoid of any meaningful economic development, and that the winter is creating a very difficult situation for the population, particularly for the weakest members, the women and children, who are suffering the most.
Today the situation is such that the UNHCR has asked for our help in resolving it, for considerable funds to provide accommodation so that these refugees are not obliged to live and suffer in these conditions and for our assistance in ensuring that these refugees are able to return to their original settlements.
They will only be able to do this if we make our influence felt in Russia and exert pressure, and if we send aid to the right place.
Mr President, there is nothing much to add after what Carl Habsburg-Lothringen has just said.
He understands the situation perfectly.
It is very difficult situation.
I would however like to stress that a whole region is involved, not just Ingushetia.
It is the Republic of Chechnya, and the after-effects of the war waged there.
There are other adjoining areas, such as Dagestan.
The European Union, and for a start, the Commission, should perhaps pay more attention to that area, because in my opinion, it will be a source of further conflict.
We must envisage solutions urgently.
I think that the Russians have shown that they do not have much intention of changing anything and that the European Union should perhaps make certain suggestions.
We still have a serious humanitarian problem, which cannot wait.
I believe that the Commission is able to oppose this type of situation and I hope that the European Union will very soon become deeply involved in this area.
Mr President, the Ingushetia/North Ossetia conflict is a forgotten conflict.
To date, the 60, 000 exiles who have been housed in temporary accommodation since 1992 and the children who have been effectively unable to lead normal lives since then have received little attention in European politics.
Although their return has been agreed, this has not yet proved a practical possibility due to the security situation.
Each incursion spreads renewed panic amongst the waiting population and revives the hatred.
So far there has been no reduction of the potential for conflict in the region.
The Russian ruling power has failed to gain acceptance and the UNHCR remains the only body with any sort of mandate to control the Prigorodny conflict.
Action to prevent the escalation of the conflict is urgently required.
Many times in reports I have indicated the need for the EU to commit humanitarian aid on an ongoing rather than a sporadic basis.
That is why I am calling for the ECHO mandate to be extended to Prigorodny and for the EU to assist the OSZE fact finding mission there in bringing international support into the region in order to resolve the conflict.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr Habsburg and Mr Oomen-Ruijten is rather glib.
It is true that a siege always causes regrettable suffering.
It is certainly not for fun that the government of the Russian Federation has now been obliged to impose restrictions on movement in the Northern Caucasus.
The Russian Federation is trying to prevent another war due to terrorist and Mafia-type activity.
Every one would regret having voted in favour of Mr Habsburg's and Mr Oomen-Ruijten's motion for a resolution if another war were to break out there because of unconsidered removal of the restrictions on movement.
We would therefore have to say like Cassandra, in the poet Aeschylus' words: ' whilst you make vows, they prepare to kill' .
It is therefore up to the European Parliament to trust the Russian government, which is trying, under difficult conditions, to restore peace and public order, which are the main prerequisites which will enable the population to live in that area under normal conditions.
Some seem to be playing the dangerous game of encouraging all sorts of separatism in Russia, for commercial reasons, or in the service of a foreign superpower.
It is not by such means that peace will be restored in the Northern Caucasus.
Democratic Republic of Congo
Mr President, with regard to the arbitrary imprisonment of Mr Arthur Ngoma, Leo Tindemans and I have tabled a motion for a resolution on the political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, firstly because we know and respect Mr Ngoma, who worked for a long time at UNESCO, was opposed to the Mobutu dictatorship, and is one of the main political leaders in the former Zaire to have bravely denounced the politics of repression and violence put in place by the new leadership.
However, as well as the individual case of Mr Ngoma and also of Mr Nsala, Secretary General of the Human Rights Centre, we and the other signatories of this document, wish to draw the attention of this House and of the leaders of public opinion in our various countries to the real character of the regime which is being set up under the deceptive name of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It would certainly have been unrealistic to think that a country, which for very many years, was subjected to an arbitrary and corrupt leadership, would be able, in a few months, to transform itself into a country where the principles of democracy, the values of humanism and respect for human rights would be honoured.
Nevertheless, many Congolese and international observers believed in Mr Kabila's good faith and good will, when after seizing power, he announced a calendar of reforms which would lead the country towards legislative and presidential elections in April 1999.
Now, not only have the first three intended reforms not taken place, but the leadership is becoming more and more harsh: political parties have been banned, more and more arbitrary arrests are taking place, many political opponents, journalists and human rights activists are detained under inhuman conditions, and torture is a regular occurrence.
Under these circumstances, the European Union cannot remain indifferent.
It must show its indignation; it must demand the immediate release of all political prisoners; it must exert pressure (and has the means to do so) to make President Kabila carry out his commitments, re-establish basic freedoms and start a process of democratization with no return.
Many countries, including France, but not only France...
(The president cut off the speaker)
Mr President, I do not wish to speak in this debate to disagree in any way with the indignation at the violation of the most basic human rights perpetrated in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This group, which is furthermore one of the initiators of the resolution on which we shall presently vote, unreservedly condemns the very serious acts of intimidation targeting all those who dare to express the least criticism of the regime set up in Kinshasa.
On this subject, I am in total agreement with Bernard Stasi's opinion.
As for myself, I should like to draw the attention of the Presidency of the EU, and of the Commission, to the fate of two of our nationals, Jean-Marie Bergesio, a French civil engineering contractor and Antoine Declercq, one of his employees, who is Belgian.
Both were arrested on 10 September 1997, and since then have been detained by the security services of the Democratic Republic of Congo, without any reason being given for their arrest.
In addition, they have been systematically refused the services of a lawyer.
I therefore ask the Presidency of the EU to show the greatest determination and firmness, and to obtain clear answers from the authorities of that country on the situation of these two Europeans, and what they are really accused of, their only crime, Mr President, having been to witness the massacre of Hutu refugees in Eastern Zaire.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two fundamental requirements in our approach to the problems raised by recent developments in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
First, it is absolutely necessary to subordinate any international Community aid to this state to the progress actually made in respect for human rights and the real activation of a democratic process in that country.
Second, it is necessary to maintain this democratic process firmly and in particular help the NGOs working for human rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
It is pointless to mince words: we recognize the indubitable difficulties Mr Kabila's government faces, but this cannot constitute, by any title or in homage to any authority including any external to the European Union, a reason for lowering our guard.
Indigenous peoples of Australia
Mr President, this resolution does not just concern Australia but concerns the worldwide problem of the land rights of indigenous people.
The relationship of the indigenous peoples worldwide to the land is perhaps a more accurate description, because the tradition in the part of the world to which we refer is that indigenous people have a collective relationship to the land rather than individual tenure, which is typical of the Western world.
We had experience of that in Scotland when the clan system was replaced by individual landownership.
We have seen it in the Wild West in the United States. You can see echoes of it in the Sami people in the north of Scandinavia.
In Australia the aborigines say that the land does not belong to them or to the whites but that they belong to the land.
You have to be aware that when they say this they are talking about traditional migratory patterns in which the sacred places which give them identity belong.
Let me end with a quotation from the Australian Senate.
Three months ago it said that the Australian Government should proceed no further with the Jabiluka uranium proposal.
I wish to support that proposition.
Mr President, this is my first speech from the Green Group in the European Parliament, and I hope you will be gentle with me.
It is also very appropriate that it is about Australia, because I am a past chairman of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Australia and New Zealand, and I have just returned from Australia, where the issue of aboriginal land and native title is dividing the country down the middle.
There will be an election later this year on this very precise issue, which this resolution today highlights in terms of uranium mining, but which actually concerns the whole country in relation to aboriginal access to their native land.
So this is a very timely resolution.
I hope we adopt it overwhelmingly and thereby send a message to the Australian Government.
The Deputy Prime Minister of Australia will be glad to know it denounced me twice in the Australian Parliament during the ten days of my visit to Australia when I spoke in support of aboriginal land rights right across Australia.
I want this Parliament to be on record that Europe is watching Australia very carefully on this issue, and I hope we can return to it in months to come.
Mr President, in many places in the world we are seeing violations of the human rights of indigenous populations.
It is no coincidence that not long ago, we were talking about indigenous people in Chiapas, that we are now talking about Australia, and that Tibet is on the agenda, notwithstanding all the beautiful declarations which have been integrated into the Union system.
In the case of Australia it is a concrete point we want to raise, namely the fact that the Australian government has decided to start developing the uranium project in Jabiluka, a project situated in a region which is considered a cultural heritage site, and which is recognized by Australian law according as the region belonging to the aborigines.
Besides, and I think it is very important to draw attention to this, the Australian Senate has called on the government to put a stop to this project.
I think it is vital that we have a clear vote here today to ask the government to respect the land rights of the aborigines, and call on the Member States to check from which countries they import uranium in case the rights of the indigenous people are affected.
Executions
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, South Korea is going through a difficult time.
The financial crisis impacts on all aspects of life.
A major political U-turn has brought to power a former dissident.
The mass execution of 23 prisoners which took place at the end of December, was hardly good news.
Fifty other prisoners have been sentenced to death.
It goes without saying that to my group the death penalty can never ever be justified.
At a time when so much is in flux in Korea this is the wrong message to the people of this country and to the people of other countries.
Democratization, openness and humane penalties are the answer to this situation in which a nation has been led into uncertainty on a major scale. Humane penalties instead of the death penalty is one of the most important symbols of the state of law and of true democracy.
Several countries are following this route, and we are calling on the South Korean government to do the same.
Mr President, Mr Bertens has said it with regard to South Korea, but we also have the case of the United States, one of the States in particular, Texas, in which more than half of all American death sentences are carried out.
Like Mr Bertens, I should to remind the house of the slogan of a campaign which my party, the Radical Party, is running, which is, as we cannot save them one by one, we must try to save them all.
That is why we are working, within the framework of the campaign, to set up a universal moratorium on executions.
May I take advantage of the presence of Commissioner Van den Broek to ask him whether in the absence of any initiatives by the Member States, the Commission could not, to a certain extent, become a co-ordinator of those in many Member States in favour of an initiative next autumn, at the United Nations General Assembly, for a resolution, and therefore a vote in favour of instituting a universal moratorium on capital punishment.
Mr President, I think it is a terrible shame that a so-called civilized country like the United States has to be criticized in this Parliament.
It considers itself the moral police force of the world and yet it carries out the most appalling crime, basically a crime against humanity, in imposing the death sentence.
I agree totally with the last speaker about the fact that a woman is being sentenced to death on 3 February.
I call on the Americans and on the Texas authorities to commute her sentence and to put a stay on her execution.
It is unacceptable that such a punishment is carried out in a country that considers itself advanced.
It is quite clear that this form of punishment is not a deterrent to crime.
In fact if you look at the rising crime figures in the United States it is clear that such an abhorrent punishment does not work and it is about time the Americans actually realised that they are way behind the rest of the international community and cannot point the finger at other, what I would call more primitive countries that we criticize with regard to the death penalty.
Until they actually realise that they are totally in the wrong here they cannot point the finger at anyone else.
We have to do everything to ensure that this woman's sentence is commuted and that there is a stay of her execution.
Tibet
Mr President, on this point, I should first of all like to say to the Commission that our dispute here is getting out of hand.
It is obviously not Commissioner van den Broek who is implicated but Sir Leon Brittan.
Over the last three years, this House has accumulated a number of very specific resolutions on the question of Tibet and the People's Republic of China.
We have often received good answers from Sir Leon, but they have not led to any action or follow-up; we have not received a reply with regard to the Panchen Lama; we have not had a reply concerning Mr Hada; we have had not reply concerning Mr Wang Dan; we have not had a reply concerning the very important matter of opening a dialogue with the Dalai Lama.
It is therefore about time that the Commission made full use of its powers.
If Sir Leon Brittan gave to these matters just 1 % of the inventiveness and creativity he devotes to economic and commercial matters, I am sure that he would get results.
I therefore think that it is now urgent for the Commission and Sir Leon in particular to start to give us specific answers to all the questions asked repeatedly by Parliament over the last two years.
One of the central demands of the joint resolution is before this Parliament is that a EU envoy should be appointed for Tibet.
There are two very good reasons for this.
Firstly, the Dalai Lama himself is requesting this, and secondly, and it is important for the colleagues to realize this, the United States have a special envoy for Tibet., He could make a contribution to the normalization of relations, amongst other things, and the Dalai Lama has indicated that he is greatly in favour of this normalization of relations.
We also know that, should an envoy be active in the country, many embargoed dossiers will finally be released.
You therefore get an instrument for a permanent presence.
Finally, I have to agree fully with colleague Dupuis when he points to a number of inconsistencies caused by of Parliament, for example the releasing of funds for the Panam project, whilst it was known that on that front the relationship with the Tibetan people was not being correctly observed.
Mr President, as has been said, the United States Congress and Government have appointed a special representative for Tibet.
I think that is an important political event and I believe that the European Union should also appoint such a figure.
In my view that is the core of this resolution.
The time has come to open direct negotiations between China and the Dalai Lama.
Faced with the tragedy of the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama is not asking for independence, as he has repeated many times, in particular in his speech on the anniversary of the Chinese occupation, but a wide autonomy within the Chinese nation.
I think this position is enlightened and courageous and leaves China no excuse.
Moreover, the changed international situation has eliminated any real or supposed threat to the frontiers of that country.
So, in my view, it is in the interests of a China which wants to become part of the international scene to confront and resolve problems which create obstacles to this involvement.
Taiwan, Tibet, human rights generally, are now the international community's main criticisms of China.
I appreciate the tone of the document which has been prepared and which, for the first time, associates a concrete proposal with denunciation and criticism.
It is a step forward for Parliament which is helping it to be more effective politically.
Naturally this attitude of Parliament - less propaganda and more politically effectiveness - increases the responsibility of European Union bodies, in particular the Commission and the Council.
Actually, with this initiative on Tibet, we are asking both the Commission and the Council - as colleagues have mentioned - to take a more effective attitude.
We are not happy that the general statements of both the Commission and the Council or their spokespersons are critical and, naturally, speak of respect for human rights, while in reality things go on as they have done up to now.
Mr President, I am very grateful to Mrs Aglietta for incorporating the idea of a special EU representative for Tibet in her resolution and for maintaining it in the joint resolution.
I made the same proposal last year during question time under the Luxemburg Presidency of the Council and saw how strongly Mr Wohlfahrt responded to the idea at the time.
He promised to push the issue in the Council accordingly.
We should hold discussions with the British Presidency without delay to ensure that these words become deeds.
It is my belief that we need a special representative of this kind, just as the United States do.
We often have grounds here to criticise American foreign policy, but in this case American foreign policy has set a very important example.
In the case of Tibet we are dealing with a very serious problem of human rights and a very serious problem of a people's right to self-determination.
The Chinese think in very long time-frames and we should not therefore react with short term displays of concern, but rather with a long term strategy, and for this we need a special representative.
Mr President, the elections which took place in Kenya were hardly faultless.
They have never been thus in Kenya since the country's independence.
We have not been able to observe any improvement.
The most remarkable thing about these elections was the enormous enthusiasm amongst the people.
In Kenya, too, the following should really apply: "First feed me, and then you can preach to me' .
Arap Moï has managed to lower the income per capita, and yet the enthusiasm for democracy has not diminished.
I think the European Commission should take advantage of this.
The most urgent issue in Kenya at the moment is how to combat corruption.
The Commission will have to support the newspapers which expose this, in all sorts of ways.
It will especially have to support non-governmental organizations who wish to promote democracy on all sorts of levels.
These are small things which in my view can have great results.
Mr President, within the framework of the so-called urgent procedure, this House is often called upon to deplore, regret and condemn, and although one swallow does not make a summer, we are also called upon to note the positive conditions under which elections have just taken place in Kenya, in a country everyone agreed was on the verge of a social revolution several weeks ago, and which is certainly not out of the wood.
Observers agree, despite a few irregularities, that the elections were free and honest.
Whatever one may think of President Arap Moi, of the long time he has spent in politics, of his idea of a dialogue, or of his regional role in certain recent problems, he has been elected. It is not up to the European Parliament to put itself in the place of an opposition which is incapable of getting together to offer alternative policies.
That is why the Group of the Radical Alliance will confine itself to encouraging the Kenyan authorities to combat corruption and consolidate human rights, particularly the freedoms of association, demonstration and expression, which are often flouted, and which we ask the Commission to monitor.
That is the purpose of this motion for a resolution.
Mr President, the first thing I would like to say is that President Moi must deliver on his preelection promises for constitutional reform.
We know now that the election results were so close that the opposition must be given a role in government to reflect the massive popular support they now hold.
They must also obviously be allowed fair access to the media.
I want to join with those who have condemned the allegations of rigging in the recent electoral process.
I would like to repeat the call made by the presidency on 6 January asking for a public investigation into alleged electoral irregularities.
Massive amounts of money have apparently been spent on corrupt electioneering.
This will have a detrimental effect on the delicate economy there and push up inflation. This is very bad news for the local people coming as it does after last year's floods, the problems of the tourist industry which is affected by ethnic clashes, and the recent weak commodity prices.
President Moi will have to get the message, given that the IMF and the World Bank have already suspended aid.
He must see the clear link between the necessary loan and aid packages, which are vital to the country's economic well-being, and the democratic and constitutional reforms which we all expect of him.
Mr President, at the end of December, President Daniel was re-elected President of Kenya.
With a little more than 40 % of the vote, he improved his 1992 score by 4 per cent.
The fourteen opposition candidates shared the remaining 60 %, but their divisions, maintained by constant disagreements, has brought them in disorder into a Parliament where Mr Arap Moi's party has retained the absolute majority by two seats.
We expected the elections to be contested, and we have discussed the problem of Kenya often enough in this chamber not to be surprised today at some confusion in the announcement of the results.
Having said that, I wish to say that the UPE group will support the joint motion of the Radicals and Liberals for two reasons.
The first is that I note, first of all, the 'satisfactory' stamp given to these elections by national observers, and by the President of Uganda, who said, and I hope he was joking, that if the President of Kenya had cheated, he was not very good at it as he only achieved a majority of two seats.
Paragraph 7 of the resolution partially reflects my first reason.
I therefore suppose that this House will agree to show indulgence to Kenya and for many of us, Uganda's approval will make it possible to withdraw the particular vigilance to which others countries have not been subjected.
The second reason is that, as other elections will be held in Africa in 1998, this kind of moderation with regard to countries moving from a single party to a multipartite system should be extended to other countries and Frenchspeaking countries should not treated more harshly by this House than English-speaking countries.
Mr President, I thank the honourable delegates for their valuable speeches.
I would to like to start with a response to the debate about human cloning.
It is heartening to note that almost without exception everyone in this Parliament dissociates himself from this practice and also cautions us the developments in this area.
The European Commission has given its opinion on this before and has shown its determination to make a contribution to the prevention of any development in this field.
It considers the cloning of humans as degrading, and contrary to human uniqueness.
From the debate this afternoon this also emerged very clearly to be the opinion of this Parliament.
In the research framework programmes, the fourth or fifth, you will find not a single programme which encourages these type of activities, let alone finances them.
We dissociate ourselves very distinctly from this.
The group of advisors on the ethical implications of biotechnology has given its opinion on human cloning, and rejects it.
The Commission is aware that in the context of the research programmes it has no authority on the specific area of ethics, but when it concerns ethical issues, I think the European Commission should at least give its opinion, and that is what we are doing now.
The European Council in Amsterdam in June last year was unambiguous about this, and let it be known that it wishes to dissociate itself from human cloning.
If one observes what is happening internationally on this front in terms of discussions, then we can note we satisfaction that even the G8 Summit in Denver in the middle of last year declared itself against human cloning.
During the debate this afternoon the additional protocol at a convention of the Council of Europe on human rights and biotechnology was mentioned.
This charter has meanwhile been signed by nine Member States.
It appears that the United Nations would be the most suitable forum for this.
The Commission will in any case attempt to stimulate development in this direction.
It will attempt to make a contribution.
The situation in Ingushetia can be called downright worrying.
We are following the developments via our delegation in Moscow and via our contacts with the United Nations, the OSCE and other international organizations which are working in this turbulent region.
You know that over the past few years ECHO has financed humanitarian aid to Ingushetia; in 1997 Médecins sans frontières carried out a programme amounting to ECU 200 000, primarily for homeless communities.
We will obviously continue with these programmes and are in regular contact with the High Commissioner for Refugees about the situation on the spot.
I can only report that during the recent past carrying out these humanitarian projects has not become any easier because of the frequently risky conditions for humanitarian aid workers.
The human rights situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to be closely watched by the European Commission. It is a positive sign that the government of Congo has given the investigation committee of the United Nations the go-ahead to do its work, and has set up a constitutional committee.
In support of this positive development, the European Commission has decided to remove restrictions on certain actions for the reconstruction of the country, to the direct benefit of the people there. But on the basis of the contract entered into with the Commission, these actions will be carried out by non-governmental organizations or businesses.
As far as the aborigines in Australia are concerned, the Commission assumes that stringent rules and monitoring standards, as argued for, by the Australian Environment Minister senator Robert Hill will be attached to the eventual implementation of the Jabiluka project, about which Mrs Aelvoet also spoke.
This concern for the health of the local aboriginal community and concern for the environment is extremely important.
As you know the Commission shares the European Parliament's considerations regarding the death penalty which was also discussed this afternoon.
I am talking about Australia now.
I am talking about the unfortunate executions which happened in Korea recently, and with which the practice of the past two years not carry out death sentences, was altered again.
In its contacts with Korea the Commission will explain clearly its concern about this change in the republic of South Korea's policy.
Now to China and Tibet.
I will limit myself to the following comments, now that the President-in-Office of the Council has clearly indicated how much importance he attaches to an intensification of the dialogue with China, in particular on issues such as human rights.
It is encouraging that in the meetings which took place during the second half of last year, both on ministerial level and on the level of political directors, progress was made on a number of issues.
We now know that China is preparing ratification of the UN social and economic rights covenant, but that it is also prepared to consider whether to proceed to signing the well-known UN covenant on civil and political rights.
In addition there is also a promise from China that the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Robinson, can look forward to an invitation to visit China.
As far as Tibet is concerned, a positive signal has been given with regard to the request from the European Union to send a delegation of ambassadors to the country in the spring of 1998.
They are all steps forward which indicate that dialogue with China on human rights is not blocked.
The European Union, supported by the European Commission, definitely intends to continue this way with China.
To conclude with the situation in Kenya: the large turn-out at the most recent elections in Kenya, and the fact that the observers found that the will of the Kenyan people was expressed in a reasonably reliable way are a reason for optimism.
At the same time it has not escaped anyone's attention that there were some irregularities during these elections.
But according to the observers this did not make it a less representative election.
This in itself is positive.
We wish to underline that constitutional reform in Kenya is an important part of this, and this should be initiated as soon as possible.
It is important that all groups in society are genuinely represented in this process, and that the necessary consultation takes place with all these groups, and that openness is actively pursued.
The importance of human rights in our relations with Kenya is entirely clear to that country's authorities, and has been raised more than once. We also agree with the points made during the debate this afternoon regarding the need to tackle vigorously the relatively widespread corruption in Kenya.
This is also very important in connection with the confidence which must be inspired within the international financial organizations, and for that matter, also within the European Union when it concerns the support which was requested to initiate and develop the economy. It is, of course, extremely distressing that in a country like Kenya the present income per capita is in fact lower than ten years ago.
That says something about the situation there.
These were the rather patchy comments I wished to make about these important topics. Also in view the extremely limited time the honourable delegates had at their disposal, I do not wish to abuse your indulgence any further.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
I should like, as President of this sitting, to abandon my usual neutrality and wholeheartedly approve everything, which has just been said about this dreadful business.
The joint debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Community aid (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on community aid.
Mr President, I would like to thank and congratulate the rapporteurs, both the main rapporteur and the draftsmen of the opinions of the committees involved in this debate, because this is an important discussion dealing with the quality of the European Union's development cooperation and humanitarian aid.
It is an important debate because Community cooperation plus the cooperation of the Member States of the European Union, now represents over 50 % of world public development aid, in which the funds under common management through the instruments of Community action have an increasing role, even if only in relative terms.
Now, when we deal with the issue of effectiveness and evaluation of cooperation and humanitarian aid, we must take account of certain specific characteristics of Community intervention as compared with that of Member States.
First of all, the fact that, also on the initiative of the European Parliament, primarily through the budget instrument, the Community has carried out an extraordinary diversification in the course of the last few years, both in actions and in partners, both official partners, that is, governments of third countries, and international organizations and agencies, non-governmental organizations, people's organizations, firms and so on.
Secondly, there is an extremely important diversification of objectives, which should perhaps be reviewed and reorganized but which has also made it possible to intervene on various issues and in various sectors.
In the third place, the fact that the Community, unlike all the other bilateral donors, now operates in all parts of the world, but also - and I want to emphasize this point - the fact that it is often linked to extremely complex decisionmaking procedures, in which the weight of commitology, intervention and pressure is sometimes excessive and sometimes not brought to a positive conclusion by the Member States, plays a role which is not always positive, in fact often contradictory and negative.
Finally, the fact that the Commission, and in particular the Directorates-General involved in the international aid, have rather limited staffs which are also tending to decrease.
In the last few years there has been a process of definition of new legal bases, in particular that for humanitarian aid, which I think resolves many of the comments made by the Court of Auditors regarding the management of humanitarian aid in the period 1992-95.
There has been and continues to be a process of redefinition of some very important procedures, above all those relating to the ECHO framework contracts and to the new NGO cofinancing conditions, and a process of internal reorganization has started inside the Commission and its departments managing the instruments of external cooperation. Frankly, we would like to know a little more about that and we would like to be consulted.
Certainly, the effectiveness of public development aid is a complex issue, as has been rightly mentioned in the motion for a resolution, and it is made up of intertwined internal and international conditions and not just of the impact of individual projects and individual instruments.
What we are substantially asking for, and these are the important messages for this debate, is greater integration and coordination between aid managed directly by the Community and Member States' aid, to strengthen the structures and make them more independent, both internally and externally, and responsible for evaluation and quality control. We want the institutional capacity of the Commission in the partnership with the NGOs strengthened, management capacity is improved in developing countries and, above all, Parliament should be fully consulted and fully associated in the Commission's internal reorganization process.
As regards the functioning of ECHO - as this is the subject of a specific report - in my opinion we should move in the direction of achieving its potential and not towards a watering-down of the functions for which it was created, and, as regards non-governmental organizations, the use of specific criteria for their needs and for the nature of their action must not only be maintained but eventually strengthened.
Mr President, this is an extremely timely report as we move towards the year 2000.
A new organization is being put in place to administer aid to the developing countries in the ACP.
I must congratulate Mr Goerens on the vision he has shown in how to improve the effectiveness of Community aid to developing nations.
I say 'timely' because, if one looks back and sees that between ECU 40 billions and 50 billions have been spent in aid since 1975, yet many applicant countries are worse off today than they were at the start of Lomé, something must be wrong with the system.
There are many reasons for this: instability of governments, corruption and, in many cases, countries carrying a debt burden that they simply will never recover from.
With many nations cutting bilateral aid and a constant squeeze on EU funding, it is therefore vital that available finance is made better use of.
There is, I believe, a real need for a regional approach to get a better integration of projects to make sure aid is not spread so thinly that it is not being effective.
There are many ways better use can be made of existing funds.
There needs to be a relaxation of the rules to allow EU delegates on the ground to have more say in decision-making powers.
They know the local problems and the solutions without constant referral back to Brussels.
Delegates could organize much better coordination of bilateral aid and Community aid to save duplication.
This would improve the impact - the spending power - and would allow for proper, detailed feasibility studies and impact studies to be done to monitor the situation more closely.
There are many instances where no environmental impact study has been done, with consequential damage to the ecology of the area.
The report also calls for the principle of conditionality to be applied.
I support this. Democracy, a respect for human rights and minimum standards of efficiency and transparency in financial management should be a prerequisite for financial aid.
Developing nations must trade their way out of financial problems.
Only if we have stable and good governments will outside investors help to create the environment to allow industrial development.
Africa is the next logical continent for such development.
Many developing nations do not have the capacity at local levels to carry out major development programmes.
I see a real opportunity to second personnel from Europe to help with this work.
This is a well-balanced report and has many specific proposals, which I hope the Commission will not only look at, but will act upon.
My group fully supports this report.
Mr President, as always Mr Goerens has submitted a report which is well thought through and full of ideas. It is also timely, as a reorganization of development policy is in the pipeline.
But what is the point of such good reports if the framework conditions of the policy aren't right? We are confronted with more and more catastrophes, more and more famines, more and more natural disasters.
The issue of development policy is becoming more and more urgent.
Here in the House, however, we have a situation whereby every year in the budget process we have to fight for funding cuts not to be implemented, just to hold on to the previous year's funding levels.
In addition, every year we are faced with the problem of under-staffing within the Commission.
When I was budget rapporteur two years ago, the Commission promised to recruit more personnel in DG VIII for NGOs.
I believe that the work of the NGOs is of vital importance, particularly for development policy and with regard to efficiency.
They are opinion formers, they know their business, they are based on the ground.
But there aren't enough staff to be able to work really efficiently.
I have just received a whingeing letter from the pharmaceutical campaign in Germany.
They have had to cut three positions because they have not received funding from the Commission.
It's the same story for Mozambique, a cultural event this weekend, or next week in Frankfurt.
And it's no help if personnel are sent abroad, if aid is delivered in the countries themselves.
I believe that the Commission must organise things itself.
It's European development aid and I hope that this will change over the next few years, that we really will become efficient, irrespective of the political framework.
I hope that the burden of debt will stop pushing the countries of the third world further onto their knees, with an unbridled world finance policy, as we are witnessing in South East Asia, making the global market an ever wilder place while we are forced to watch famines and natural disasters.
Mr President, this will not sound very original, because I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent and very comprehensive work, and say that the Group of the European Radical Alliance absolutely shares his point of view on budgetarization of the EDF, on improving the visibility of European aid and its political advantages, on internal coherence, which is still inadequate, between the instruments and various types of action, and our various areas of intervention, and finally on ensuring that the development aid policy and other European policies are more complementary!
We are in complete agreement with the report and with the motion for a resolution, on all these points.
On the other hand, and I already expressed concern on this during the examination of the report made by Mr McGowan on a similar subject, I do not believe that the priority is to make European aid and national aid more complementary.
What is a priority, what is really urgent, in our opinion, is to put aside neo-colonialism, which is often disguised as bilateral cooperation, and to progress resolutely towards the total inclusion of development policy in the policies of the Community.
A majority of us here are committed to the idea of institutional progress of the EU and even greater integration of the main areas of public action.
The European Union is furthermore still looking for a real foreign policy and cannot speak in a single voice on the main questions of interest to international society.
Now we have before us, in development aid, a vast terrain in which the political project of a Europe based on common humanist values could finally find a practical dimension.
Beyond historical and cultural, almost anecdotal divergences, or short-term false calculations, there is no opposition of interests amongst Europeans on this subject.
I would also like to stress this in my capacity as an elected representative of France, and furthermore to express my delight that the President of this sitting is a former French Cooperation Minister.
I would like to stress this in my capacity as an elected representative of France, because it is necessary to recognise that the communitarization of development aid is a thousand miles from the habits, present practice and even the revised doctrine of France.
However, I think that France, taken here as a simple example, would have everything to gain from putting its experience and cooperation resources into the kitty of European aid, so that they can have a significant dimension.
There are a thousand reasons - humanitarian and financial - in favour of doing so.
But if I could only choose one, I would chose the cynical point of view so often expressed, in order to refute it.
What is the national interest, in terms of political influence or economic returns? It is my conviction that, if France's influence is not quickly supported by the impact of the European Union, it will disappear behind the influence of the United States of America, as several recent problems have shown.
So, even though my point of view may now appear rather utopian, and I am aware of this, I would like to say very resolutely to French leaders: it is in the interests of France to give up its little bilateral policy and to become a part of the greater undertaking of European development aid.
Mr President, in the necessary endeavours to make EU aid more effective the keyword should be optimization, but examples of a lack of effectiveness must not give grounds for reductions in aid.
There are unfortunately many other forces aiming for that.
I applaud many of Mr Goerens' proposals.
The changeover to sector-specific analysis means a necessary focusing which also shows the priorities in the recipient countries more clearly.
With the intake of new projects we are shooting randomly from the hip.
Furthermore, it is absolutely necessary to have good pilot studies, increased involvement of NGOs and recipient countries and improvements in capacity in the recipient countries.
Nor should the Commission's problems with undermanning be doubted.
Cohesion in the EU's policies and coordination between the Member States also promote effectiveness.
Coordination is beneficial, but the word samordning (coordination) has the wrong overtones.
EU aid should be a supplement to aid from the Member States, even if it has its own justifications.
The wording of paragraph 5 is therefore unfortunate.
The evaluation requirements are too different and so the Member States should not subject themselves to the EU's methods, even if a rapprochement makes sense.
I must also oppose the idea of separating the political decision-making from the project management tasks.
The organizational problems have to be solved in another way, as has already been started.
Even though I am definitely not a spokesman for committees, I am convinced that the Council's management committees have hardly anything to do with delays in implementation.
On the contrary, these management committees are a quality check.
It is hardly likely that there would have been improvements on the current scale with regard to the integration of gender or environmental aspects, if it had not been thanks to constant pressure from the Member States on these committees and from this Parliament.
Furthermore, the reference to food aid in paragraph 7 is unfortunate because the assessment of this was highly critical and will lead to this kind of aid being restricted.
Mr President, this is a very wide-ranging report and there is much in it with which to agree, including the need for a comparative evaluation between EU development projects and those of individual Member States, our long-running demands for budgetization of the EDF, and the need to publicize the very many positive achievements of European aid programmes.
One omission, which Mr Vecchi referred to, is the expensive, wasteful, secretive and time-consuming operation of comitology procedures, which most certainly diminish rather than enhance the quality of our aid.
However, let me concentrate on two points in the report.
First, let us understand the inconsistencies within European development programmes because of the geographical distribution of responsibilities within the Commission.
Whether a project is in the Horn of Africa, the mountains of Nepal or the Brazilian rainforest, all our aid should observe a common, rights-based approach consistent with acknowledged human rights standards.
Such principles include due diligence, non-discrimination, advisability, participation and accountability.
When things go wrong, there is a need for redress.
I ask the Commissioner to consider how far existing arrangements enable him to be confident that such standards are upheld in all cases.
Second, I agree with my many colleagues who have pointed to the chronic problem of under-staffing within the Commission. This causes its staff to engage in the quaintly titled 'stuffing' with its concentration on large projects to reach budget targets with too little regard for quality.
Last year a third of senior management posts in DG IB, dealing with Asia and Latin America, remained vacant; 40 % of staff in DG I, IA and IB are on short-term contracts, whilst a large number of core tasks are carried out by external consultants.
Britain and Germany employ more than double the staff numbers, pound for pound, mark for mark, in managing their aid programmes.
Until Member States jointly agree a solution to the staffing problem in the Commission, resolutions in favour of aid quality will go little further than the paper on which they are written.
Mr President, the Goerens report primarily concerns measures the European Union can take to improve the effectiveness of development aid.
We can agree with the proposed measures in itself, but the European Commission's Green Paper lays the cause of the poor effectiveness first and foremost at the door of the developing countries themselves.
If the Commission's analysis is right, the feasibility studies and impact evaluations within the Union will not improve the effectiveness of aid, but measures will have to be taken first of all in the developing countries themselves.
To my mind, this concept is not conveyed clearly enough in the Goerens report.
I support the plea in the Fabra Vallés report for improved harmony between European humanitarian aid and that of the Member States.
The European Commission can play a coordinating role in this. But a European charter with general principles for development cooperation policy is something I can do without.
Especially where more structural development aid is concerned, preference should be given to the aid programmes from the Member States.
Many European countries have special relations with certain developing countries.
The Union should respect these special links.
In this context it is remarkable that the Member States are unilaterally blamed for this poor cooperation.
They are alleged to make insufficient use of the expertise of the Commission services.
This may be so, but can we not reverse the issue with equal justification, Has the Commission made sufficient use of the knowledge and experience of the Member States? It seems to me, as a result of their long-standing relations with certain developing countries, the Member States have acquired a wealth of experience, from which an office like ECHO, which with its six years is only just beginning to find its feet, has a lot to learn.
Mr President, I am speaking only to the Fabra Vallés report as a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I would like first of all to remind Parliament that this report is about ensuring that European Union money is spent in the best possible way.
The Committee on Budgetary Control is not trying at all to usurp the role of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
After all, the report is the Committee on Budgetary Control's response to the special report by the Court of Auditors.
Some would say that this is just the committee siding with the Court against the Commission. It is no such thing.
It is a serious attempt to get some common sense into what is a very complicated system. The system has many good points which we should, and do, praise in the explanatory statement.
But it still has failings as far as our committee is concerned.
The Fabra Vallés report is an attempt to bring closer together the expertise, the experience and the best practices, not only of the European Union but also of the Member States to replace the present sixteen different and uncoordinated systems.
Let us not forget that we are talking about humanitarian aid, not development aid in total.
When we talk of humanitarian aid, I am reminded of when I was in Addis Ababa before the fall of Mengistu regime.
It was a time when Ethiopia was the centre of world attention for a variety of reasons.
One senior Ethiopian official said to me: ' The trouble with you Europeans is that your own vested interest seems to be your priority.
You do not consult with us as to what we really want.
You try to ensure that what you want to give us are the things we need' .
And he gave me an example.
'When we needed transport to move water and food around, the Member States of the Union were very good. The Germans gave us lorries, they gave us Mercedes Benz.
The French gave us lorries, they gave us Renaults.
The Italians gave us lorries, they gave us Fiats. And the British gave us lorries, they gave us Leylands.
What they did not give us was any training for our motor mechanics or spare parts.
We had a fleet of lorries all with different needs and a lot of them were no use to us' .
He also said: ' The day that Bob Geldorf came riding into Addis Abbaba on top of a lorry bringing in his food aid convoy, my heart sank.
I looked at the lorry he was sitting on and I thought: that is another one we do not have' .
That true anecdote says a lot about the lack of coordination and cooperation between the Member States and the Union.
That is what the Fabra Vallés report recognizes.
It is understandable why the Member States do this.
They do have vested interests.
But at the end of the day that is not the best for humanitarian aid.
I know it will take a mighty effort to move things along but this is what the report is trying to do.
It is not an attack on the Commission per se - let us get that straight.
As much as anything, it is about getting the Member States to realize that subsidiarity is not always about moving things down a level, it is about doing things at the right level.
When it comes to humanitarian aid, subsidiarity may well mean bringing it up a level and having it coordinated at Community level rather than Member States trying to do it in a devolved way.
My worry is that when we have voted on this, it will remain on a shelf somewhere doing nothing.
That is why I make a plea to the Commission to act upon this report, especially on paragraphs 4 and 7 where we ask for specific action from the Commission.
That is about making a political statement to get real action: not just to bring another regulation forward, but to start doing something.
If we can get our act together between the Member States and the Commission, just imagine what we could do with all the money. It would be far better spent.
Mr President, in this debate on the effectiveness of European Union aid to developing countries and on the much-needed extra aid to developing countries with heavy debts, we have to establish that these themes are very closely related.
After all, poor countries which are weighed down by unbearably high debts, and as a result have to hand over far too much of their yearly budget to interest payments, have far too little money to implement their own policy, and are therefore becoming poorer and poorer, become more dependent on aid, from the Union amongst others.
It is therefore a very good thing that the Union is cooperating in a World Bank and IMF initiative to relieve deb.
This was the first point I wanted to make.
It seems to me important in this context that agreements are made with the countries to prevent them from getting into debt again, or to prevent them from running up new debts in the expectation that, sooner or later, these will be written off.
I would like to know from the Commission whether these guarantees will be given.
Mr President, my comment is particularly aimed at the Goerens report on the effectiveness of aid.
In my belief you cannot paint a black and white picture here.
The reality is that in some cases, aid has had a positive effect, in others it did not, and this is by no means always to do with the quality of the aid; it can also be to do with other things, such as natural disasters, bad management, political destabilization or wars.
That does not alter the fact that it is always good to maximize the effectiveness of aid, and that is why we think the following five points are important.
Aid should not be parachuted in. It should fit in, as one of the previous speakers has said, with the nature and circumstances of the country concerned, and there must be maximum involvement on the part of the population.
Otherwise so-called white elephants are created. These are projects which are put down somewhere and are never used again.
Donors must coordinate the aid programmes effectively, so that everyone supports each other, and is not working at cross purposes.
The multitude of NGO programmes from the various western countries, from the World Bank, the IMF, and the UN sometimes create such a chaotic picture of each country that it is no wonder that joint implementation is not effective; and harmonization at EC level is extremely important.
Sound and democratic management with respect for minorities and human rights is also a necessary condition to increase the effectiveness of aid.
If this is not achieved, we must have the courage to suspend the aid.
This obviously does not mean that no more humanitarian aid can be given, but that genuine development aid is simply no longer an option.
Aid must stimulate people to take matters in hand themselves, and should not become a habit.
In a number of countries too much aid has been disastrous.
Think of a country like Zambia which was dependent on development aid for three quarters of its income.
Finally, when receiving aid, a country should be open to the principles of the social market economy; not to force an ideology on a country, but to help a it chose a positive path in a globalizing world.
Mr President, these are a number of elements to strengthen effectiveness; whether they are laid down in a charter or in other rules is not all that important to us.
Yet we think it is important that these kind of principles are transferred into policy.
We would like to express our thanks for the Goerens report and we would like to wish Commissioner Pinheiro luck with the implementation of the policy, and I wonder if could ask Mr van den Broek to convey these messages to Mr Pinheiro.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in a working document recently distributed by our Budget Committee on SEM 2000, our colleague Mr Colom i Naval states that direct financing by the European Commission should represent an example of transparency, good practice and efficiency.
Unfortunately, this is not often the case.
I should like to point out, in reference to Mrs Fabra Vallés' report - which I think is very good - that this is a comment which we always make in our reports on foreign affairs aid programmes.
Reading the Fabra Vallés report, one could draw exactly the same conclusions as Mrs Hoff writing about the problems facing the Tacis programme: poor co-ordination and muddled division of responsibility between the Commission and the foreign aid organizations, consultants, contractors and Ukrainian partner organizations.
All this applies to a large extent to the criticisms made by the Court of Auditors in relation to the ECHO programme and the Union's aid programme, if we just leave out the work Ukrainian.
I find this particularly regrettable as it is a problem which we are constantly bringing to the attention of to the Commission.
There is really no reason why we should have to read exactly the same thing in the Frankfurter Allgemeiner of 14th January, in relation to the evaluation of the EU aid programme in Bosnia, knowing that a large part of our funds have gone to ex-Yugoslavia. I quote: the evaluation of the EU aid programme ranged from not good, through terrible to dangerous.
This is the assessment of our aid work, so generous in financial terms, which the European public is communicating to our fellow citizens.
Therefore, I should like to request most energetically that Point 16 of the report, the demand that we should at long last create a central unit to take overall control of the evaluation of the development and aid programme, including ECHO, MEDA, Phare and TACI, that this matter be addressed by the Commission once and for all and in a determined manner.
This means looking much more closely at Point 14 in which Mrs Fabra Vallés states that we must finally stop recruiting personnel freely when we know that in some cases there are very close relationships between the services in question and certain aid organizations.
You are aware that every third ECU spent through non-governmental organizations is administered by French aid organizations.
When these things are viewed in this light, we would also be making a contribution to transparency and the successful implementation of this aid programme if we were to fall in line with our esteemed rapporteur on this point.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.15 p.m.) .
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to draw your attention to the Agenda.
Yesterday the Agenda stated quite clearly that after Urgencies, voting starts at 5.30 p.m.
As Members are now going to be electronically tagged as from February, I would very much suggest that this House tries to bring some discipline into voting time.
A lot of Members had to leave yesterday at 6 p.m. when voting should have finished.
Therefore I would ask that in future we start to try to keep some discipline about time.
Thank you very much, Mr Sturdy, but your comments do not refer to the Minutes.
However, we will take note of the comments and forward them to the Committee.
Mr President, my name does not appear on the list of Members present yesterday, although I do appear on every list of recorded votes.
I would be grateful if that could be put right.
Thank you, Mrs Hardstaff.
You are right.
The corresponding Minutes will be put right.
Mr President, that also applies to me.
My name is not shown, although I took part in every vote and attended the Conference of Presidents.
Thank you very much, Mr Pasty.
I repeat what I have already said to Mrs Hardstaff.
You are right, and the Minutes will be put right.
(The Minutes were approved)
Votes
Mr President, this motion corresponds to the fundamental view which this Chamber and above all the committee have always had, and I shall therefore support this motion.
Mr President, it is by no means clear to me what this means.
What has transit through Ireland got to do with Switzerland, for instance? It strikes me as superfluous.
Mr Wijsenbeek is opposed to the oral amendment.
Are there 12 members of Parliament who are opposed to this oral amendment?
(Since there are not 12 members of Parliament who are opposed to the oral amendment, the President puts it to the vote)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr Rehder has asked me for permission to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, please excuse me for speaking very briefly about what I find in the Minutes.
It has unfortunately been somewhat misrepresented.
It says here that I started a competition for the most stupid pub language.
Obviously, this did not refer to the German Members and not to all PPE Members.
I must say, to save my honour, that it referred to only two Members, who tried to practise mediaeval politics in modern Europe, like robber barons.
Second point: this megatunnel, about which I spoke, is unfortunately not 20 km long but 50 km.
That is just the problem, that this tragic tube is so long and impracticable.
Excuse me for interfering, but it was important to me.
I sincerely hope agreement can be reached on Alpine transit.
We have to admit that our Swiss neighbours have expressed concern for environment, which is now widely shared in all the Alpine areas involved.
We could do nothing worse than to cast all the polluting traffic back at our neighbours by increasingly adopting unilateral measures.
The long-term solution is combined transport, not only through the Swiss tunnels, but also through the Brenner Pass and the Fréjus Tunnel between France and Italy.
Priority funding within the framework of the main European networks and a construction timetable are essential.
Adopting these would improve the relationship between Switzerland and the European Community, by means of the joint definition of a solution, which would respect the interests of the populations involved and of the Alps, which form a part of the European heritage.
The current negotiations between the EU and Switzerland give cause for concern.
I think the EU should show more respect for Switzerland's position, especially with regard to the protection of the Alpine environment.
Against the background of the European Commission's Green Paper on the effect of traffic on the environment and the White Paper on the future development of a common transport policy, people have repeatedly explained the necessity of making the EU's transport policy environmentally suitable.
It is now time for the Commission to turn these fine words into practical policies. the EU should therefore adopt the position of making an especially large effort to reduce air pollution by switching transit traffic through the Alps to the railways.
The EU should also support the Swiss proposal for performance-related tolls for heavy traffic and a special transit toll for traffic through the Alps, so that the objective of switching shipments to the railways can really be achieved.
An expansion of motorways in the Alpine region would therefore not be necessary.
Instead there should be an immediate expansion of the railways.
Goerens report (A4-0388/97)
Mr Goerens' report is good.
I approve of its main outline.
I agree with the idea of involving beneficiaries and NGOs in the programmes.
A measure of that sort contributes towards greater transparency and will improve the management of the funds allocated to humanitarian aid.
In that respect, I support the creation of a central unit to evaluate development aid programmes.
I consider that the unit should work in close cooperation with the NGOs on the pertinence of the actions undertaken.
Internal management of projects is also desirable in order to prevent the inertia inherent in any division of tasks.
With regard to Mr Goerens' proposal and the content, I should like to raise an objection and a question.
In fact, I question the concept of 'economic and social value' .
What is the reality behind this? It seems to me important that NGOs should be involved in the creation of coherent indicators, legitimized by themselves.
We shall be able to see more clearly and the quality of future decisions will be improved.
This reflection on the efficiency of community aid is helpful, but we must take care not to adopt a long and complicated approach.
Let us never forget that our final aim is to create balanced forms of development suitable for each country and each area.
Humanitarian aid must make it possible to look forward to the time when people no longer need it.
We will have succeeded when it is no longer needed, that is, when humanitarian aid has disappeared.
The European Union and its Member States are the largest providers of Third World aid.
Our contributions far exceed those of the USA or Japan.
Obviously it is of great importance to those we help and to ourselves to obtain the best possible benefit from this huge effort.
Despite high levels of unemployment and unacceptable levels of poverty in our own countries there is widespread support for aid to developing countries.
This is a welcome reflection of the generosity of the ordinary people of Europe.
Direct aid to governments of the Third World is often wasted through inefficiency and sometimes corruption.
This method of helping the people of the countries concerned often fails and merely enriches a few government leaders.
It is the least effective method of aid distribution and should be avoided whenever possible.
We have seen some very successful European Programmes of aid and we must build on these successes.
We must also make sure that we can verify that the aid has reached its intended targets.
Europe has been very successful in its food aid programme.
Millions of lives have been saved through these efforts and with the high level of expertise that now exists in this area, I am sure that we can build on these successes.
Emergency aid must be given when and where it is needed, without any conditions.
However, as regards general development and structural aid, I believe we must insist on the countries concerned agreeing to respect the human rights of all their citizens, including minorities, and promote democracy.
We cannot allow corrupt and cruel dictatorships to divert aid from the needy into their own pockets.
Our efforts have not all been successful.
Imports into Europe from developing countries have declined substantially over the past 20 years or so.
This phenomenon must be looked at in detail because it is only through trade that poor countries can hope to develop and provide for the needs of their citizens.
Non-governmental organizations are at the heart of development policy generally.
NGOs have a very high rate of effectiveness reflecting expertise gained in the field.
Given the continuing problem with trade flows with developing countries, I believe we should ask the NGOs to examine this area and suggest solutions acceptable to all concerned.
I welcome the Commission's Green Paper on development aid.
It clearly identifies the successes and failures of our policies.
I would like to commend the Commission for this huge contribution to the development of the Third World.
It has achieved excellent results with limited staff resources.
Its efforts are appreciated throughout the Third World.
I am very sceptical towards the idea that the EU should administer the Member State's aid activities.
Experience so far shows that EU aid goes mainly to former colonies of some of the Member States, which means that certain countries which need help are put into another queue.
That is regrettable.
It is however, important to have improved coordination between the EU countries, because that can give better results for the countries/areas which need assistance.
Improved coordination, without being EU regulated, could also help to reduce the administration costs of the aid providers.
As far as the problems pointed out by the Court of Auditors in its report are concerned, it is true that there are problems with irregularities.
We should of course try to avoid these, but we must also have understanding for the fact that it is easy to get irregularities in 'turbulent' areas where the social system has more or less collapsed.
The aid which the EU currently administers needs to be concentrated more on preventative measures to avoid catastrophes.
Finally, I am opposed to the rapporteur's argument that 'improved coordination would help to ensure wider recognition of the considerable efforts being made in the development aid field by the Union and the Member States/.../.
This fact generally escapes the attention of public opinion.'
I do not think that we should try to make political points through aid for people who need help.
'Working without being seen' might be a better watchword.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have just been informed that today it is also Mr Telkämper's birthday, for which I wish to congratulate him as I have already congratulated Mrs Fontaine.
Many happy returns, Mr Telkämper.
Debt relief for heavily indebted ACP countries
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0382/97) by Mr Torres Couto, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission on support for structural adjustment and debt relief in heavily indebted ACP countries - a Community response to the HIPC debt initiative, together with a proposal for a Council decision concerning Exceptional Assistance for the Heavily Indebted ACP countries (COM(97)0129 - C4-0243/97)
I give the floor to Mr Vecchi who is deputizing for Mr Torres Couto as rapporteur.
Mr President, with today's discussion, the European Parliament intends to express its own satisfaction with the fact that, for the first time, the Commission has been able to launch an initiative to begin concrete intervention into the problem of the multilateral foreign debt of the poorest and mostheavily indebted ACP countries.
I would like to recall the fact that we are talking about a request which both the European Parliament and the joint ACP-EU assembly made many years ago now, which until today had not met with the support of the Council or the governments of the Member States of the Union.
It is well-known by everybody that, by the end of the 1970s, the weight of the foreign debt was already having a major effect on the life of very many countries in the southern hemisphere and was actually hindering, and in the majority of cases preventing, the development of the poorest parts of the planet.
The cost of servicing the debt was and still is, for many countries, the principal expense for the public purse, in hard currency, and this has produced a situation which is the cause of a huge "negative net transfer ' of financial resources from the South to the North, that is from the poorer to the richer countries.
Certainly, the debts should be honoured, in principle.
Of course many of the causes of the failure of the southern countries to develop lie with the maladministration which has characterized many governments and power groups in countries in the third and fourth worlds.
However, it is also necessary to recall the fact that these governments have often enjoyed the support of governments and political and economic groups in the more developed countries, and that the management of international credit has not always been characterized by honesty and fairness.
In reality, in many cases, the sums repaid by the countries in the southern hemisphere, in the form of interest payments, are by now much greater than those originally received in the form of loans.
Furthermore, many of the international factors which have made a major contribution to increasing the debt and the burdens of its management, have certainly not been caused by the countries in the southern hemisphere.
I recall these elements in order to stress the fact that the initiatives to reduce the weight of the debt are not a free handout, but a compelling necessity which, from many points of view, is intended to reestablish conditions of greater equality.
It is a matter then of accepting the fact that, under the present conditions, the poorest countries will never be able to pay off their own foreign debt and that, anyway, its persistence or, really, its automatic increase will never make it possible either to tackle seriously the roots of underdevelopment, or less still, to reinstate these countries in the international marketplace and in the dynamics of commercial and economic relations which, furthermore, the European countries have a great interest in doing.
With today's vote, Parliament will be opening the way for the Union to join the international initiative, promoted by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, directed at supporting the structural adjustment and the policies of amortization of the debt, both because it is a positive initiative as a whole - even if it is certainly insufficient - and because we believe that the Union should play an important political role in it.
It is a good opportunity to demonstrate that this more human and rational approach, which must take account of the priority objectives of the struggle against poverty and human and sustainable development, which we always hammer into our Community documents, can become a point of reference for the major international financial institutions.
It is a matter then, even with this instrument, of building a strategy of political dialogue and concrete collaboration, which might see the European Union, together with the partners in the southern hemisphere, and in particular the ACP countries, committed to the relaunch of effective policies of cooperation for development.
The exposure to the Community itself, of the 11 ACP countries for whom the Community initiative provides, is for a relatively small sum.
The initiative provides for the possibility of the flexible use of various forms of remission, amortization and reduction of the debt.
Parliament asks the Commission to keep it constantly informed and consulted on future developments in Community action, to which we give our support, which will be conditional upon the aims of democratic reform, development, and justice in which Europe must be the leading player.
This initiative will have to be the first important step in tackling, in a more comprehensive way, the problems associated with the foreign debt, including the multilateral debt, of the poorest countries on a worldwide level, as a condition for the restoration of the minimum conditions of solvency and economic and financial practicability for many countries in the world.
In this framework, the role of the Union and its Member States, both directly and in international initiatives, is obviously decisive.
Mr President, the report by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on support for structural adjustment and debt relief in heavily indebted ACP states has received the assent of the Committee on Budgets for obvious reasons.
It is the most basic common sense, within the framework of cooperation with these countries, to give them the means to start off on the right foot so that all the work they have done - at least as far as some are concerned - is not cancelled out by excessive debts.
The support we give them by means of this report is therefore intended to provide a lasting answer to their problems, and the European Union, the largest donor to these countries, can act in three ways: by providing additional support for structural adjustment, case by case; by envisaging aid, case by case, to reduce the trade debt and by increasing support for debt management; by taking appropriate measures to reduce the present net amount of the debt of eligible countries to the European Community.
In practice, Article 3 states that the aid in the form of non-refundable aid referred to in Article 1, will be taken out of a single interest-bearing account, which will be opened for the purpose at the European Investment Bank and which from now on will be called the 'debt relief account' .
We would like the Commission to show the amount of the interest earned by that account at the EIB in the financial information on the European Development Fund every year.
Mr President, this initiative - which this House will undoubtedly approve - should allow us to make a first consideration: how community budget needs to be calculated in the European Development Fund.
We would insist on this in the proposal for the Union to make its foreign affairs policy more and more united.
Direct budgetary control of these funds would make the European Union's actions even more efficient.
What doubt can there be about the demand for a sustained or efficient development, in many cases, the cancellation of a debt when it becomes impossible for a country to repay this debt and the interest payments without putting its future economic development at risk.
To insist on forcing certain countries to make impossible repayments renders development aid, as well as economic reforms, unviable.
The high level of debt in some countries has, moreover, a deterrent effect on investment, leads to the flight of capital, makes its production become excessively export-orientated causing imbalances, the abandonment of rural areas and even domestic shortages.
It also has a knock-on effect on the very political stability of these Third World countries.
Let us not talk now about those democracies which are just emerging from what was previously an authoritarian regime.
Therefore, I think that - as the Committee proposes - maintaining aid to countries like Burundi, Ethiopia, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Uganda, São Tomé e Principe, the former Zaire, Zambia and Uganda is something that this House should support.
We cannot demand from these Third World countries that they put the repayment of their debt before their own economic growth.
We have to make sure the debt repayment is compatible with the autonomous development of these countries if we do not want to take with one hand and give with the other, on the basis of increasing humanitarian and development aid.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Union for Europe Group, on whose behalf I am speaking, accepts the EU's participation in the initiative on the debt of the poorest countries launched in 1996, during the G7-Lyons Summit.
In fact, despite the measures taken to reduce the debt already applied to some of those countries, some of them, mostly situated in Africa, are faced with a level of total indebtedness that runs the risk of discouraging efforts aimed at adaptation and structural reforms, which are absolutely essential for their development.
And so the European Union has to contribute towards this concerted effort made by the main international donors, with the aim of reducing the debt, a particularly keen problem for our ACP partners.
We too, as rapporteur, declare our obvious support for the Community response.
As rapporteur, I think it essential to reinforce the EU's commitment to the process of structural adaptation implemented in the ACP countries.
As rapporteur, I think it will be necessary to accentuate the fundamental problem of economic and social development and to take the indicators of human development into account.
Finally, as rapporteur, we believe it important that the Council adopts the draft decision as soon as possible and that the Member States of the Union contribute rapidly with their financial participation to the institutions responsible for taking this initiative forward.
Mr President, the debt contracted by the ACP countries towards the member countries of the European Union, as well as towards the European Union itself, represents in many ways a stereotypical case of the heterogenesis of ends, the mechanism of which the Austrian economist Von Mises showed us so well.
Not only has the level of total debt gone on growing, not only does the weight of interest often exceed the sum of money originally paid out, and not only is it that such burdens finish up hindering the development which they profess to want to foster, but other economic disadvantages have been added to these.
Often it is not the population which is implicated but only the government, and it is the pursuit of the ends desired by the latter, and not by the former, which has been put first.
Often, the intention is even to foster purely and simply the interests of the ruling political class.
This is why we find the ambiguous phenomena of mutual interest between the European political class and the political class of the ACP countries, phenomena which are always to the detriment of the people whom rather they profess to want to favour.
This is why we also find the phenomena of very deep mistrust towards the European countries held by the people of the developing countries, which should be, by consequence, more closely associated with their European brothers. Finally, this is why we find a sort of renewed economic and financial dependence on the part of the developing countries upon the countries of Europe, a dependence which is frankly neo-colonialist in flavour.
The reduction of the debt is therefore imperative, but with certain conditions.
The first is that this should not break the basic rule expressed in the Latin maxim pacta sunt servanda ; the reduction of the debt must serve, in short, to allow the developing countries to be released from their commitments as far as is realistically possible.
The second is that the developing countries should display genuine good intentions, through good management of the finance and structural reforms of their economies.
Only by this will we contribute to helping the developing countries to really leave behind what will otherwise still remain a minority status.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us begin by supporting the claim with which the rapporteur opens the proposed resolution requiring Parliament to be formally consulted on this Commission communication, not only because it relates to Community policy within the scope of the Lomé Convention, but because a Joint Parliamentary Assembly exists between the EU and the ACP countries.
Raising this initial question, another one would then arise from the heading of the communication, but we'll leave that until the end of the speech as it seems important to us to begin by describing the situation this communication is seeking to answer.
There was a time when the image of the time-bomb to wipe out the debt of the so-called "Third World' was used, and the fact is that there has been a need to make safety mechanisms operate for the explosive situation not to develop into an uncontrollable tragedy from the social point of view.
This is more a time when the safety valves or lifebuoys will have to operate as written in the explanatory statement, and the Community response will seek to do just that, after bilateral rescheduling has exhausted its virtues as a remedy, also strengthening the dependence relations resolving real problems of indebtedness to a far greater extent.
An analysis of the situation would seem to be more of a diagnosis as the details available and the same explanatory statement leave several signs of this imbalance the world is suffering.
Only in this way can we describe the increasing gulf between the rich and the poor countries, and between the poor and the even poorer countries, between indebted and heavily indebted countries, countries impoverished and indebted through and through, owing to the deterioration in trade relations, the promotion and stimulation of indebtedness by creditors with a surplus or unrestrained production of surplus liquidity.
The additional diagnoses provide real revelations.
Although the numbers require updating, it is significant that the latest ones referred to indicate the addition of six new countries to what is sadly known as the "heavily indebted club' and that only one of the previous countries has succeeded in getting out of this undesirable category.
The situation has got dangerously worse in some regions, particularly in Africa, reaching technical levels that raise the pressing question of tolerability.
On that account, the Commission's proposal only relates to those countries whose debt vis-à-vis the Community is considered intolerably high.
There are eleven of them, and it is very painful for a Portuguese, and certainly for the rapporteur, that the official language of three of these countries is Portuguese.
But the diagnosis, if static, if it continues for the situation, is always unsatisfactory, and particularly when it fails to identify the causes clearly, and on that account cannot be used to attack the roots of the evil.
This analogy with a clinical picture will be relevant, because while the prescriptions and treatment required by the Commission are aimed at sufferers in the terminal stages, as emergency aid called "exceptional assistance' for those on the brink of starvation so that they do not die of hunger but continue to live in hunger, there is another image in this part-session week, which is also similar to a drug addict who has got into debt and is desperate because he has no drugs or money: "I'll sell you my product on credit, even if you do not want to buy it, and now you have no money to pay me and so I have been increasing my prices as you grow dependent on them.
You are in need but do not kill yourself, do not kill anyone, do not steal, I ask you for part of the debt and I lend you more money so you can buy more doses at the price I have fixed for the time being, and then I'll put it up later' .
It should be very clear that there is no question of wiping out the debt.
It is just a question of reducing it, and so we should congratulate the Commission, and also the MEP who is trying to improve the proposal, when Council failed to give it great priority in the explanation of reasons, although it paid some attention to it.
And this Friday of the part-session of the European Parliament is not seen as a time for an exercise in catharsis.
This prospect does not lead us to stop talking for so long, as we have time to do so this time.
But it means that one fundamental question almost loses significance in this context, which is that, as the Commission makes its proposal and the rapporteur gives his opinion, the cause of the situation is not called into question in the slightest.
However, the entire economic strategy will continue and should continue to be established on the same requirements or even reinforce them.
The entire economic recovery, the entire economic growth of those countries (we cannot even talk of economic development) passes through the receipts of the World Bank and the IMF, which has been tested on many occasions already, with the results we are now faced with that have led to the proposal to increase the doses.
For that reason, we have waited until the end to talk about the communication heading. This heading does not give priority to the Community response to the initiative relating to the debt held by these countries, which is made into a sub-heading.
It gives priority to support and structural adaptation, and only afterwards to the reduction of the debt held by the highly indebted ACP States.
In order: first the treatment, then the diagnosis and finally the patient.
We all know that the time is not one for solidarity and cooperation.
However, nothing is even said about this.
But we just stay here, not making progress.
And perhaps we should consider ourselves lucky that we have been able to talk about a subject for so long with an approach of wanting to finish with it, but which reality and the levels of intolerability make it necessary to make public and to be faced, although the Commission and Parliament have a way of escaping it, which is possibly inconvenient for Council.
There is a Portuguese saying, "Great remedies for great ills' .
The level of awareness of the seriousness of the ills has not yet achieved great remedies.
We would point out once again and to conclude the positive aspect of having to face a situation, although within its limits of tolerability, and only in the search for remedies and continuity and reinforcement of what we consider to be its causes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report discusses the issue of the debt burden of various countries in the southern hemisphere and as we all know, it is a heavy burden on the positive and dynamic development of these countries.
The European Parliament, as well as the equally represented Assembly of the ACP-European Union has often declared itself in favour of initiatives.
In this concrete case it is the European Union itself which is coming up with a very interesting proposal, namely to give the eleven ACP countries which are weighed down by heavy debts a contribution at the expense of the European Union.
We fully endorse the European Union taking such an initiative, especially as we know that the door is shut on many things in a number of ACP countries, because they are tripped up over and over again by heavy debt payments.
We are pleased with the fact that this report fully supports the initiative of the Commission, and we also think it is important that a number of amendments have been incorporated into the report with regard to the original Commission proposal, by emphasizing, for instance, that it is crucial that a manageable level of debt is set which includes social indicators.
The rapporteur can rely on the commitment of the Green Group towards this dossier.
Mr President, I wish to apologize on behalf of my group for the absence of Mr Scarbonchi, who must have unexpectedly been unable to attend.
Mr President, the HIPC initiative on debt relief in developing countries marks a new approach on the part of the IMF and the World Bank.
People have recognized that debt problems are a serious impediment to healthy development in the most indebted countries.
I can only give my unreserved support to that.
It is important that the EU takes an active part in the work to remedy the debt problems, both because debt impedes growth in developing countries, and because it sends a political signal to the Member States and other creditors that Europe is taking the problems of developing countries seriously.
Therefore debt relief should also be followed up by other forms of help to fight poverty.
Against this background the outcome of the Council's discussion is disappointing.
Instead of allocating extra money for debt relief, people have only been able to agree to use funds from the existing budget.
That means that there are only funds for the first five of the eleven ACP countries which need debt relief.
We therefore need to find new funds when the remaining six countries are approved for debt relief.
I agree with paragraphs 6 and 7 in Mr Torres Couto's report because they urge us not to demand strict adherence to the criteria for approval for HIPC.
Of course there have to be structural adjustments in developing countries, possibly with the inclusion of environmental and political considerations.
But if debt relief is made dependent on successful three-year reform programmes, it will exclude the weakest countries.
It is precisely in these countries that a lightening of the debt burden will make structural programmes easier to implement.
I believe that structural programmes should go hand in hand with a relief of debt and not just be a condition for it.
Both structural reforms and debt relief are preconditions for what really matters: relieving the poverty and the poor economic outlook.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who reads the Torres Couto report must come to the conclusion, at least in parts, that the rapporteur's view of the problem is starry-eyed and too much that of the developing countries.
For years, if not decades, the question of the indebtedness of poor countries has been a problem of our cooperation.
On the one hand, it is a great help for many countries to have access to credit.
On the other hand, precisely in these countries, unforeseeable developments are often the reason for them to walk smack into debt traps.
But we must not overlook that in this field too, unfortunately, the east-west conflict has left its traces behind.
The Commission's proposal to set up a fund for relieving the debts of poor countries is to be welcomed.
But the assessment should not be only according to the current debt status, but also the effort for a good administration must always be taken into account.
It should be pointed out that countries with great mineral wealth, such as the former Zaire, get the same support as Ethiopia, among others.
Admittedly we want to give President Kabila in the Democratic Republic of the Congo a probationary period, but the question for us is whether it is being taken into account that only a clear change from a dictatorship to a democracy can be a reason for a generous remission of debt.
It must also be emphasized that debts cannot be reduced unconditionally, because as well as the question of a somewhat democratic form of government there are the questions of corruption and excessive expenditure on armaments.
In Mr Torres Couto's report, the amendments concerning the involvement of the European Parliament must be particularly emphasized.
Admittedly the proposal concerns the money of the Development Fund, but unfortunately it is not subject to the budgetary control of the European Parliament.
Yet the participation of Parliament is an absolute requirement to ensure democratic control.
We will also get into difficulties if democratization plays an important part in the arguments with the developing countries, but on the European side Parliament is not involved.
The draft decision aims in the right direction, if the Commission's standards are not relaxed too much.
I hope that the basic ideas of the statement are put into effect quickly and successfully, to the benefit of the people in the affected developing countries.
Mr President, I can agree with the good intentions of the Torres Couto report, but I would like make a few comments.
Firstly, I wonder whether this approach, which to some extent resembles what we in the Netherlands call never say die', will genuinely get us out of this vicious circle of debt.
We are talking about 5 % of the total debt.
It is true, it is a great deal of money, but I find it a bit neocolonial to link debt relief to sound environmental policy.
You cannot demand this from these countries; not yet, in any case.
Then there is the reference to the 7 % of the gross national product which has been promised for more than twenty years.
We all know that most of the countries, willingly or unwillingly, will never achieve this.
I am not all happy with the idea that countries which have arrears are ineligible for relief.
To my mind it would be better if, slowly but gradually, we worked towards writing off the debts, but then we should be allowed to make some demands.
We will have to open our markets to their products, retain minimum expenditure by these countries on arms, and let experts who are trained in the West return to these countries.
Only then will they have a genuine opportunity to develop.
Mr President, developing world debt is now at two thousand billion American dollars.
The report now being discussed concerns eleven countries with the lowest national product in the world, the indebted and poverty-stricken HIPC countries.
These countries are in debt to the tune of 5.6 billion American dollars and the costs of this initiative to the EU come to some ECU 150 million.
The Commission in its communication is right when it recommends the partial relief of loans.
The poor developing countries are in a grave state.
They have to pay off their loans in the shape of cheap produce, apart from in cash.
The price goes down the more pressed the seller is to sell.
The poor countries are in urgent need of help.
This makes their position all the more difficult.
Investments cannot be made, though the minimal amount of investment could make all the difference.
This impasse hampers even further the development of these countries.
Dire poverty paralyses all development.
And the social structure cannot develop either because there are not enough resources for education and standards are steadily declining.
The situation also jeopardizes the progress of democracy and peace.
It can spark off unrest and weaken opportunities for democratic development when people realize that more of their money is going to lenders in the rich countries than to the sick in their own country.
The situation for agriculture in the poor countries is also bad.
Agriculture has to focus on exports and nonfoodstuffs while the nation suffers from undernourishment.
For this reason I strongly support the ideas contained in the Commission's communication.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Torres Couto, and Mr Vecchi for their speeches, and thank Parliament for its interest and support for the Commission's proposal for Community involvement in the initiative on the debt of heavily indebted countries.
This initiative means an important advance in how the international community has taken on board - until now - the debt problems of the poorest countries.
For the first time there is a framework which allows coordinated global action to take place, on the part of all borrowers, to help heavily indebted, poor countries who are struggling to put into action economic reform programmes.
This framework includes not only debt reduction, in the case of bilateral commercial debt, but also individually adopted measures in each case which are intended to reduce the multilateral debt load in these countries.
The European Community is offering grants to the heavily indebted, poor countries in the form of non-repayable aid packages.
And although the amounts are small, the Community can in no way remain on the fringe of these initiatives.
It is clear that the political importance of Community involvement in this debt initiative is very much greater than its contribution in terms of absolute figures.
The proposal from the Commission has been discussed in depth with the Member States who have shown their full support for the Community's involvement in this initiative.
However, in the debates we have looked for an alternative solution to financing debt reduction on a Community scale, responding to concerns from Member States who do not wish to place additional burdens on national budgets, but guaranteeing, at the same time, that the resources given to the initiative are additional.
I am pleased to announce that an agreement has been reached at this time.
Consequently we hope that the Council will adopt its conclusions shortly.
This agreement has favourable elements.
The Council has committed itself to a full Community involvement in this initiative.
In the case of countries who would fulfil conditions to benefit from this initiative in 1997 - or fulfil them in 1998 - financing debt reduction, on behalf of the Community, will be guaranteed by earmarking annual income stemming from the interest payments of the EDF funds.
Such financing adheres to the principle of providing extra resources and guarantees that the Community will give aid above the present aid levels intended for those countries.
Throughout 1998, and on the basis of the Committee's report, the Council will reconsider the later financial needs and will make a decision with reference to the future involvement of financing by the Community in this initiative, including the possibility of financial measures through amortization of previous loans from the European Development Fund.
Mr President, our two institutions, Parliament and Commission, support Community involvement in this initiative but the parliamentary proposal to resolve this requires a more flexible approach, intending to include a wider group of countries, and to guarantee the quickest and most effective reduction of debt.
In its contacts with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and its creditor governments, the Commission has always fought for this initiative, based on wide criteria, to be applied. This initiative should have appropriate and suitable support for the heavily indebted poor countries who are struggling to apply economic reform, hoping to stimulate economic growth and reduce poverty.
Consequently, it is encouraging to observe that this initiative has continued to evolve and that its targeting has improved.
The initiative may not be perfect, perhaps, but it is founded on a wide, international consensus of helping a group of countries whose development efforts continue to be hampered by their heavy debt.
Moreover, this initiative should be seen as part of an international collaboration intended to help poor, heavily indebted countries.
As a result, the reduction of debt should be accompanied by a level of development aid which will be continuous and adequate.
Thank you very much, Mr Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution.)
Mr President, yesterday we were debating the effectiveness of development aid in this House.
Aid is not only ineffective because the macro-economic conditions are unfavourable in many developing countries.
One of the reasons for this is the enormous debt burden the developing countries are suffering.
In the excellent Torres Couto report, which I have been able to agree with wholeheartedly, the responsibility is quite rightly placed not only at the door of the developing countries.
The lenders have a responsibility in so far as they have too easily granted credit to corrupt dictators or given loans to economically dubious projects.
Although it was generally acknowledged that the developing countries could never pay off these debts, writing them off or rescheduling them was never a matter for discussion, in particular as far the multinational debts were concerned.
Fortunately, thanks to the initiative of the World Bank and the IMF, this has changed; and thanks to the proposal of the Commission and the European Union, this initiative is being implemented.
I also agree with the rapporteur that not only macro-economic indicators must be used to calculate the concept 'tolerable debt', but that social indicators must be included.
The rich nations cannot go on giving development aid to poor nations with one hand, whilst cashing in the interest on these countries' enormous debts.
Moreover, for many countries, writing off debt can signal the beginning of an economic recovery.
It is good that the EU is taking the problems of developing countries seriously and is helping to reduce their debt burden.
However, that is not enough for a stable development in poor countries.
There are only enough funds for debt relief in five of the eleven countries.
However, debt relief is not enough.
The aim should be to remove the whole debt so that these countries are able to get out of the vicious circle in which they find themselves.
Debt relief should also go hand in hand with political structural programmes for growth, employment and long-term sustainable development through mature trade relations.
However, I still voted yes to the report.
Mr President, as my own government is taking a leading role in aiming to cut the debt burden of the world's poorest countries as a positive way to start the next millennium, I am happy to support this report here today.
In Britain Chancellor Gordon Brown and Clare Short, as the first Cabinet level minister for our newly created Department for International Development, have met with church leaders and others to discuss debt relief issues.
I hope that my many colleagues in this House with influence over their respective churches will ask them to lobby their national governments as not all have so far followed the British in our enthusiasm for this important work.
The report is correct to link the need for sustainable economic reform by poorer countries with debt relief by the more developed countries.
Both north and south can work in partnership here so that for example environmental and poverty reduction work by indebted countries go hand in hand with debt relief.
The many constituents who have raised this important subject with me will be glad to see that Mr Torres Couto and Parliament are adding their voices to the campaign for debt relief.
Fisheries relations with Latvia
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0397/97) by Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of Protocol I to the Agreement on fisheries relations between the European Community and the Republic of Latvia laying down the conditions relating to joint enterprises provided for in the said agreement (COM(97)0323 - C4-0364/97-97/0177(CNS))
Mr President, in the same spirit that you are congratulating people on their birthdays, I would like to congratulate the people of Latvia for the achievements they have managed to chalk up on behalf of freedom in Europe.
We should congratulate them, the Estonians and the Lithuanians.
In their own ways, they have helped to keep the flame of freedom and democracy burning in an area of Europe where there have been many difficulties.
It is important that we approach the Latvian agreement in that spirit.
We all want to encourage the people of the Baltic Republics to think in terms of their European identity and in terms of preparing for European Union membership.
This is particularly important when the signals coming from the Commission in recent weeks were somewhat mixed.
The idea that one of the three would be in the first wave of accession discussions while the other two could wait behind was met with some consternation in the capitals of the neighbouring republics.
They could not quite see the logic, nor could I.
What is encouraging is that subsequently the idea of something more of a regatta approach prevailed in the Council of Ministers.
It is very important in that context that we welcome all the moves proposed, including this fisheries agreement, to bring in all the countries of Eastern Europe from Estonia, through Latvia and Lithuania right down to Slovakia and Bulgaria and so on; that we do not say that there are two classes of potential Member States out there but welcome them all to be in dialogue with us.
The background to this report is that there were agreements in 1993 with the three Baltic Republics.
There were separate agreements with Finland and Sweden, which, at that stage, were not members of the European Union.
We are delighted that Sweden and Finland voted to join the EU and are now fully integrated.
But obviously a renegotiation had to take place in which the European Union negotiated on behalf of the original members but also on behalf of Sweden and Finland, which are neighbours of Latvia across the Baltic Sea.
This was duly renegotiated in 1996 and as far as Lithuania was concerned, it immediately proceeded to adopt a protocol which has come into force.
Now it is Latvia's turn.
The Lithuanians have shown the way and the Latvians are next in line.
Latvia has a relatively small fleet.
186 vessels in the in-shore fleet at the last count and 15 longdistance vessels which fish mainly off Mauritania.
We are not talking about a huge fleet and it is important to emphasize that no net addition is being proposed to the fleet of Latvia in this agreement.
The important point is that the proposal will involve joint enterprises between the European Community and Latvia and also that there will be a grant of ECU 2.5 million to assist in the modernization process.
It is perhaps surprising, but worth noting, that the Latvians have not fished their full quota within their own waters.
So, there are some fish available there without doing damage to the overall conservation goals which we all hold dear.
There are provisions in the agreement for a joint committee - which is a very positive signal to send - to talk about the transfer of EC vessels, the modernization of the Latvian fleet and so on.
I should like to emphasize two objectives which could be given more commitment.
One is that there should be an annual report to this Parliament.
We have a special interest in the pre-accession phase in those countries.
Secondly, more resources should be devoted to research.
These are not controversial points and I hope that in his reply the Commissioner will confirm that is in line with the Commission's thinking.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Macartney on his excellent report, setting out very clearly the issues involved in this fishing agreement with Latvia.
I should also like to concur with his remarks this morning concerning all the Baltic countries and their common progress towards EU membership.
It is important that we achieve a balance between enabling the Baltic states applying to join the European Union to modernize their fleets - in the case of Latvia, as has been said, boats are on average 20 years old - and the need to maintain overall fish stocks and not increase overall fishing capacity.
This scheme for the sale of Community ships, which must be at least five years old, to be reflagged as Latvian vessels, should contribute to the achievement of that balance, provided that there is careful monitoring to ensure that such boats are not subsequently reintegrated into the Community fleets and also that quotas are observed.
This is why we need an annual report on this issue.
If joint ventures and bilateral projects can be developed between Latvia and the EU in the course of modernizing and privatizing the ageing Latvian fleet, this can only be beneficial to the progress of Latvia towards full European Union membership.
In this spirit, we welcome the Commission proposals and look forward to a speedy confirmation of the protocol to enable such cooperation to start at Community level, in addition to existing bilateral initiatives by individual Member States.
Mr President, it was almost seven years ago, and like today it was a Friday, when I made my first fisheries speech here in the plenum.
In Germany we say Friday is fish day.
Only on Sunday is there tasty roast meat. What has changed today?
As far as the day of the week is concerned, not much.
I am disappointed about that.
Even when we look at the agenda of the part-sessions of the next six months until July 1998, in general nothing about the scheduling has changed.
That is not right.
Why not? Just look at today's report.
It points to the future of the EU after the year 2000.
How can I convince you of that?
Before the Commission begins the negotiations about a new agreement, and before extending such an agreement, it must present an assessment of the essential elements.
These are the state of the fish stocks, the effects of the agreement on the Community budget or the division of the financial participation of the European Community and the ship owners.
For instance, this agreement with Latvia, in its protocol, goes particularly into this financial participation by setting up joint enterprises.
With the Treaty of Amsterdam, an enlargement of the European Union is now becoming reality.
It obviously includes, of the Baltic states, Latvia as well as Estonia and Lithuania.
Against the background of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the previous fisheries agreements - that is the agreements of the EU with these third countries - gain a new meaning.
The things which matter as far as the expansion is concerned are strengthening basic democratic values, creation of competitive jobs to overcome structural weaknesses in the medium term, encouragement of small and medium-sized companies and improvement of European environmental quality. The last leaves much to be desired in the Baltic.
The experience which has been gained with the administration of EU money, the preoccupation with these Community procedures, and setting up joint enterprises, will - I am convinced - help Latvia on the way to faster privatization, and at least benefit its efforts to prepare its fisheries administration sufficiently for its future accession.
The fisheries agreement with Latvia is virtually a factor in the introductory strategy for this candidate for accession, and must thus not only be seen with goodwill by the present Community, but explicitly welcomed.
I hope that you are now convinced that we should not only approach it on a Friday.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Macartney on the preparation and presentation of his report.
Of course, any report for which he has responsibility is prepared well and this is no exception.
In the fisheries agreement between the EU and Latvia signed on 16 December, the contracting parties agreed to encourage the establishment of joint enterprises as laid down in the protocol conditions.
I think it is vitally important that there should be such enterprises and I believe those contributing from within the EU can play an important role in the development of the industry in Latvia.
This is important to that country and, as in my own country, important to the peripheral coastal regions where there is no alternative source of employment.
The protocol will have important advantages for the Union and Latvia.
The establishment of joint enterprises and financial participation by the Union will assist Latvia to meet some of its industry's main objectives which are: modernizing the fleet, improving the fisheries administration and boosting imports for its processing sector.
The EU will benefit from the transfer of vessels to the Latvian flag and, more importantly, have access to its fishing zones.
This will relieve, even if in a small way, the pressure on the fleets and the pressure on the stocks, taking into consideration in particular the fact that they are under-fishing their quotas.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate Mr Macartney on his report.
This protocol is designed to transfer capacity from the European Union to Latvia by making it easier to establish joint enterprises.
Vessels are to be re-flagged, supposedly with a provision that it does not lead to an increase in the overall capacity of the Latvian fleet.
But the question here is how can this actually be ensured?
On average, the Latvian fleet is some 20 years old, whereas the EU vessels which will be transferred can be as young as five years.
Even if the gross registered tonnage of the fleet does not increase by transferring vessels, such a substitution of younger vessels for older ones will lead, inevitably, to an increase in the effective fishing capacity of the Latvian fleet.
One of the lessons learned from my report on the control of the CFP was that even the EU vessels registries were not accurate.
So how can we be sure of the current capacity of the Latvian fleet and that these transfers will not lead to an increase and more overfishing?
Compared with the agreements with the ACP countries, this is a much more equitable agreement in that it is not an exploitation of the country involved; Latvians will be employed.
This is a very important aspect that should be transferred to agreements with ACP countries as it is much more equitable.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Macartney.
We should always welcome the signing of a fisheries agreement from the basis that they should be beneficial and equitable for both parties.
We regret, therefore, that Article 6 of the Protocol with Latvia will ruin what might be a good start in the phase of fisheries relations with Baltic countries, and even more seriously there is possibly a grave precedent being set for the future.
The Article I referred to, which the Commission should never have accepted as discriminatory and clearly prejudicial to Community interests, establishes that joint enterprises are obliged to have a crew who live exclusively in Latvia.
The present crews in these ships, Mr President, will therefore lose their jobs.
A summit on employment has just been held, which has stressed that this is one of the most serious problems for the Union and its solution should be our prime objective. We cannot understand why the fishing authorities accept clauses to boost the number of unemployed.
On the other hand a new regulation on the Structural Funds, strongly linked to the creation of employment, is in an advanced stage of preparation.
Therefore it might be taken as a contradiction that any employer who showed a real interest in promoting a joint enterprise would have no access to Community funds since, as in Latvia's case, not only would jobs not be created but they would be destroyed with joint enterprises.
The fishing authorities have not only assessed these consequences but in addition intensify them with agreements of this type.
Mr President this is regrettable and dangerous, all the more so when we are talking about a country - Latvia - which is a net exporter of fishery products to the Union with whose production we are in direct competition.
Therefore, Mr President, I think that in future we should not adopt these kinds of clauses and urge the Commission in future not to include them in fishery agreements.
Mr President, in the first place I would like to congratulate Mr Macartney for his report and I am pleased to warmly welcome the conclusion of this Protocol.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you well know, after the expansion of the Community in 1995, the Commission negotiated new fishing agreements with a series of third countries.
The Council's negotiating guidelines were looking at the establishment of joint undertakings and joint enterprises in the fishing sector as a fresh element in the new fishing agreements.
The proposal here consists of a Protocol on the establishment of joint enterprises with Latvia as it applies to the fishing agreement which was ratified last year.
Once approved the present Protocol should bring up to date all the fishing agreements with the Baltic States in accordance with the Council's negotiating guidelines.
In this way we will contribute to the alignment to which Mr Macartney was referring in his speech this morning, in the negotiations for accession to the European Community for all those countries who have applied. I can tell you as well that we look favourably on the proposal to investigate this.
In regard to the speech from Mrs Fraga Estévez I would like to say to her that, in accordance with the plan for permanent joint enterprises, ships will be removed from the Community register and be made to fly the flag of a third country.
Consequently they are subject to the legislation of such a country.
Latvia explicitly declared that the captain and crew of the Latvian ships should be Latvian citizens or permanently resident in Latvia, in accordance with the legislation of that country.
Similar arrangements are included in the Protocol negotiated with Lithuania.
Since this Protocol was accepted by the Member States, and ratified without too many difficulties, the Commission has carried out negotiations with Latvia in accordance with the same approach that was followed with Lithuania.
But I would like to reassure Mrs Fraga Estévez by telling her that the Commission has the firm resolve, when it negotiates similar Protocols in the future, to do as much as it can to safeguard Community employment as far as is possible.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mountain regions and Structural Funds
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-1016/97 by Mr Ebner, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on taking into account the specific nature of mountain regions in the reform of the Structural Funds; -B4-0008/98 by Mr Azzolini, Mr Podesta and Mr Santini, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on mountain regions; -B4-0009/98 by Mr Ephremidis, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on mountain regions in the European Union; -B-0006/98 by Mr Bontempi and Mr Cot, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on mountain regions and the Structural Funds; -B4-0007/98 by Mr Macartney and Mrs Ewing, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on the reform of the Structural Funds and the problems of mountain regions; -B4-0010/98 by Mrs Lindholm and Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on mountain regions and the reform of the Structural Funds.
Mr President, normally when we talk about mountain regions and mountain areas we think about agriculture.
However this is just a part of the problem relating to mountains: there are other problems such as the question of environment, the question of employment and many others besides.
It also needs to be said that the mountains are not just the Alps, as is often stated and as was said yesterday; there are mountain areas in almost all of the countries of the European Union.
The debate about of the reform of the EU Structural Funds for the period after 1999 is already in full progress.
In view of the direct relation to areas and the area effect of regional and structural policy, and of the increasing importance of the regions, which is always emphasized in the context of subsidiarity, it is considered right and necessary to supplement these efforts by formulating and introducing region-specific matters.
A whole series of international and cross-border agreements, arrangements, models - for instance, the Alpine Convention, to which the European Union is a signatory - refers to the special features of the Alpine area, and encourages, in particular, integral actions to safeguard and develop it as an area for living, commerce, recreation and above all nature.
Achievement of these goals also requires that the EU should become active, and the precondition for an integrated, sustained development strategy, which encourages the exploitation of the internal dynamic in the mountain area.
The European Parliament adopted the last report about mountain regions in 1988, that is ten years ago.
The system until now of restricting Structural Funds support to the defined areas has not made it possible to make regulations about a specific target area for mountain regions.
In Agenda 2000, the Commission defined its plans for this reform for the future period 2000 to 2006.
Positive features are that the financial framework has been extended, and that more money - ECU 75 billion - is available for this period than for the period 1993 to 1999.
However, regarding the allocation of resources by the new target definition, it should be observed that the globalization of the agricultural and food markets particularly endangers the small-scale mountain farming businesses, which exercise an absolutely primary ecological function, unless special measures and long-term action programmes for the mountain economy are provided.
According to the speech yesterday by Commissioner van den Broek about Alpine transit, the Transport Council has dealt with defining an Alpine clause.
They want to conclude an Alpine treaty, and to provide a declaration of the Alps as a 'sensitive zone' .
According to the Commissioner, the Commission welcomed this conclusion of the Council of Ministers.
The Commission would thus also be put into a position to watch over Alpine protection.
A change of direction is visible here.
But this thought must be thought out to the end.
In this connection, I ask you, Mr Commissioner, to inform us in what way the Commission intends to take special account of the mountain areas in the next revision of the Structural and Regional Funds in March this year, to safeguard this area for living, commerce, recreation and nature.
Mr President, the discussion under way on the reform of the Structural Funds has two substantial objectives.
The first is to improve the operation of the Funds themselves and to prepare the Union for the great challenges which await it and which we all now know by heart: expansion, the reform of the CAP, policies on the environment, policies on employment, the training and movement of young people, and the fight against this century's ills, such as cancer, AIDS, drugs, including the new sickness, that of trying to legalize drugs.
However, apart from these problems, for which there is room in other debates, it is right, here, to highlight the way in which the reform of the Structural Funds speaks directly a language like that of the mountains.
In fact, the second objective is that of recognising in the distribution of the Funds those so-called areas of hardship or disadvantage.
And certainly the mountains feature among them, especially those mountain areas in which decay, desertion, and the exodus of the young now constitute an endemic and apparently, at least up to now, unstoppable ill.
The European Parliament's last report on mountain regions dates back to 1988.
Ten years is a long time for a fragile and delicate policy area such as that of the mountains.
In the light of the recent approval by the Commission of the Alpine Convention, together with the important reforms contained in Agenda 2000, it really is necessary to get some new ideas into gear, and this task falls to the Commission.
Can the Commission therefore tell us what measures it intends to take to put the Alpine Convention into effect, to recognise the specific nature of the mountain regions, and above all, to create a serious network of specific measures which would at least create the correct approach to the problems of mountain areas?
I say all this in the light of the reform of the Structural Funds which those of us who live in the mountains are watching with great concern; from seven funds we are reduced to only three, and furthermore both of the funds dedicated chiefly to agriculture, 5a and 5b, have disappeared, the second being specifically for agriculture in areas of hardship and mountain areas.
Among the three objectives and Objective 2, which has to be responsible at once for reform and restructuring in the industrial, urban and agricultural domain, of 13 initiatives only 3 remain.
The Leader programme remains, though much criticized, and above all, concerning the annual budget, of ECU 30 billion, 2 billion is to be recovered which constituted the ex-fund 5b.
I therefore ask the Commission, Commissioner Oreja, that you would convey this message to your colleague Mrs Fischl, in order that at least this 5 billion remains allocated to mountain agriculture.
Mr President, we spend a lot of time talking about the Alps and other mountain regions, and there is a risk that we could fall into the self-deception of thinking that there are no problems in the plains, that everything there is getting on fine.
Not so!
But it is indeed true that in mountain regions the problems are more numerous, more acute, and need to be dealt with directly and in an integrated way.
We all know that they share certain common characteristics: despite their variety and individuality, mountain regions have natural disadvantages caused by their climates and the composition of their soil.
On the other hand, they have some positive features, they are environmental storehouses, repositories of historical and cultural traditions, and all of that must be conserved.
The efforts to do this so far have been fragmented and inadequate.
Mountain regions have deficient infrastructures, if any at all, both technical and other, in the sense of social welfare, the social state, education and health care, and this leads to the stripping of those areas, their abandonment and desertion, which will have catastrophic consequences for the environment, not only there but more widely and generally too. The result will be to destroy those roots of historical and cultural traditions.
Our question to the Commission is whether, with the changes now being made to the Structural Funds, these exceptionally urgent and great needs of the mountain regions will be taken into account, and much more so, to counteract the adverse prescriptions and restrictions introduced by Agenda 2000, all the more now since enlargement towards the East will increase the proportion of mountain regions.
Mr President, I speak with the experience of my own country, where there are few plains and many mountain or hilly areas.
Will the Commissioner therefore confirm whether the changes to the Structural Funds will allow for integrated aid in support of those regions.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, my colleague Mr Bontempi (who has asked me to apologize for his absence as he has been held up in Spain today, for reasons indirectly connected with mountain regions) and I have, like other Members, noted the absence of any general debate in this house on mountain region policy, during the last ten years.
Certainly, other institutions have taken an interest in it, particularly the Committee of the Regions, in 1995, but we have seen important changes in the landscape of mountain regions, and in the more general framework which surrounds this question: changes in the common agricultural policy and the new developments foreseeable in Agenda 2000, the Alpine Convention and its 'transit' protocol, connected with yesterday's debate on Alpine transit, and finally the substantial reform of the Structural Funds, the main subject of today's debate, the main subject because the problems of mountain regions are problems of a transcendental, transversal nature and are affected by all EC policies.
First of all, they are affected by the common agricultural policy, because without agriculture in mountain regions, we cannot protect our heritage.
It needs to be maintained.
Our mountain regions must not be invaded by wasteland, or damaged by avalanches and landslides.
Farmers in mountain areas must therefore be sure of an adequate income.
A recent report by the French Planning Department, under the initiative of Mr Bazin, on the effects of the reform of the common agricultural policy on agricultural incomes, asks several questions in this respect.
It notes the on the whole favourable effect of the reform of the agricultural policy, in all agricultural areas, but those who have gained the most, in this respect, are farmers in underprivileged areas but not in the mountains.
Farmers in the plain are in second place.
On the other hand, the research highlights a serious falling behind of farmers in mountain areas, whose average income is increasingly falling below the national average, that is, the handicap of being in the mountains is not being compensated to a sufficient degree.
A slight change in the mechanism of allocation of aid would doubtless put an end to this trend, and would also have a favourable effect on agricultural employment.
I shall do myself the honour of forwarding this information to the Commission.
The second question I should like to raise relates to the policy of encouraging quality.
It is obvious that in mountain regions we need to have a policy of quality production, because it is impossible to compete with the milk factories in the plain.
This also applies to cheese, as well as honey, ham, and arts and crafts.
This policy was encouraged, in France, by the Mountain Regions Act of 1985, which instituted a 'Mountain' label.
The label was declared contrary to the Treaty by the European Court of Justice, in the Pistre ruling of 7 May 1997, which, rightly in fact, detected discrimination against non-French products.
We must therefore find another means of encouraging the quality of production, at the European level, and why not by means of a 'European mountain' label? That is the name that professional people in my country have suggested.
I would like the Commission to consider that proposal.
Finally, the aim of the Structural Funds should be to compensate for natural handicaps.
A specific 'mountain region' objective has now been excluded; it would be contrary to the concentration of the Structural Funds.
But it is at least necessary to confirm the specific identity of the 'mountain regions' , in respect of Objective 2, and to create a firmer link with physical handicap, instead of the simple criterion of income, because some economic activities can have a harmful effect on environmental protection, or agriculture in mountain areas.
That is the case with road transport, or some forms of mass tourism.
The conditions of allocation of aid must be relaxed, in compliance with the provisions of the Treaty, particularly those relating to competition.
Finally, to conclude, Madam President, Mr Commissioner, a word about cross-border programmes, which relate to several mountainous areas, certainly not all the mountain regions of Europe, but several mountainous areas, particularly the Alps and the Pyrenees.
The Commission has decided to develop these programmes and to give them larger grants.
I am very pleased about this and I hope that these programmes will take fully into consideration the specific nature of the mountain environment as it is, because our mountainous areas are part of a heritage which is common to the whole of Europe.
It is a fragile heritage.
It must be protected, that is, the men and women who maintain it must be encouraged, within the framework of a proper sustained rural development policy.
That is what we want and what we hope the reform of the Structural Funds will achieve.
Madam President, I should like to say, first of all, how much I welcome the initiatives taken by colleagues in joining us in raising this issue, which is clearly of very great importance.
Also, the timing is very significant given that we are facing a review of the whole idea of structural and regional funding.
One of the problems that we face is of definition.
Let me just read from the question which I have tabled, along with Mrs Ewing: ' What exactly is a mountain?' . This sounds like something that could be settled easily by a geologist but the economic characteristics of mountains depend on the latitude as much as the altitude.
The key criterion, I would argue, is the tree line.
The trees indicate how high things can grow in the mountains.
I would urge the Commission to bear this in mind when looking at this proposal.
The second definition problem concerns the data which affects the mountainous areas.
It is very easy, indeed, with the sparseness of population of mountainous areas for the disadvantage which the inhabitants of those areas suffer to be lost in a much bigger area of definition.
I know that the Commission is very much wrestling with the problem of defining areas.
I would counsel against losing the disadvantage of those areas in a much bigger area just for the sake of administrative convenience.
That is a battle which will have to be fought, and fought very hard, right across Europe.
I would hope that the Commission would be able to look pragmatically at the whole question and begin to take into account the question of climate, not just some of the macro-economic indicators.
Some people might think that is a tall order, but there is an encouraging precedent, and that is what has happened in the accession negotiations with Sweden and Finland when the Swedes and the Finns quite rightly argued that Objective 6, as we now call it, should be recognized, i.e. that the climatic disadvantages of the north of those countries should be the subject of a special objective.
That is due to be transferred into Objective 1.
That is fine as far as it goes.
But as far as it goes is not enough.
We have to argue for the same principle to be applied right across Europe so that those who are challenged by a very cold climate at certain times of the year or permanently, for that matter, would qualify for the same sort of treatment.
This would have application certainly to the highlands of Scotland.
People go there to train to attack the Himalayas and therefore, by definition, the mountains are seen as fairly cold and challenging.
It also applies to other parts that colleagues have mentioned from France, Italy and South Tyrol.
All this mean that we have to move towards a new approach to the question of redressing the disadvantages which clearly is at the heart of the whole idea of regional and structural policy.
I commend these initiatives to the House. I hope that the Commission will take them on board and respond positively.
Madam President, it is very positive that Parliament is drawing attention to the special situation and the problems which the EU's mountain regions have.
We have several, including the regions in Southern Europe which have been mentioned here, in Greece, Spain and Italy.
We also have mountain regions in Central Europe and mountain regions in Northern Europe.
Apart from that, we will probably also have mountain regions in the new Member States.
Just as Mr Macartney said, it is worth noting that the problems are not the same.
I believe it is very important to define what we mean by mountain regions.
Not least the question of climate is important.
As a Swede I am of course particularly passionate about the problems which the Scandinavian areas have, and which are today covered by Objective 6.
To be brief: what do we mean by mountain regions? I think it is with this definition that we must begin.
The mountain regions are Europe's greatest ecological heritage, but they are a sensitive one whose unique biological character can easily be destroyed for a long time to come, perhaps forever.
They are also in many places Europe's largest reservoirs of drinking water, something which we all know we must be concerned about.
The major threat in a number of areas is mass tourism which wears down and overloads the ecology and the biology.
It is the development of both large and small transport links, roads, motorways, tunnels, which we have talked about here, and not least the trans-European networks as a whole.
Environmental damage in both air and water is increasing.
The problems of sparsely populated areas are making people move; small farming and forestry businesses are being broken up and the particular culture and cultural heritage which is found in many places is being destroyed.
I am thinking not least of the only minority people in the EU, the Sami in northern Scandinavia.
There people have developed an interplay between nature and mankind.
In spite of everything we Greens are not in favour of the creation of special programmes or objective areas for mountain regions.
We are running a clear risk of having an inflation of different objective areas, such as islands, wetlands, mountain regions, cities etc.
We do not believe in that model.
Future regional policy must take account of certain regions in a different way than is done today, but as a whole and not just bit by bit.
That also applies in this case to mountain regions.
We want people to see whether these areas can be supported when people develop an ecological and environmentally-adapted lifestyle and production.
Perhaps people could consider whether it would be possible to put eco-labels on certain areas where people work and live in a certain way, and also provide increased aid via the Structural Funds.
Perhaps it would be possible to develop and expand Natura 2000.
There are a lot of things people could consider, but we would like to know what the Commission wants.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this matter allows the Commission to clearly state its stance on the reform of the Structural Funds and, more exactly, on the way in which it will take into account the specific characteristics of mountain regions.
As we think about adapting the structural and agricultural policy, set down in Agenda 2000, questions put to the Commission deal, fundamentally, with the possibility of producing specific measures for mountain regions.
For example by creating an objective called "mountain' which would join together the remaining structural objectives.
In this regard the Commission points out that adapting to local needs should bear in mind the requirements to keep the structural policy fairly straightforward as well as to assure an enhanced concentration of Structural Funds.
The system proposed in Agenda 2000 allows, in our view, the reconciliation of the necessary simplification with a wider consideration for the specific problems of the mountain regions, and it does so for two reasons.
Firstly, because the reorganization of the rural development policy should contain important decentralization of support policies - a question to which Mr Macartney referred earlier in his speech - and greater integration of the different instruments which are already there, which will allow, through the application of integrated regional programmes, a more suitable adaptation to the specific needs of the different regions in the European Union.
The mountain regions should reap special benefits in relation to their definite needs and be reasonable about them.
Secondly, because attention given to agro-environmental measures in the Agenda 2000 proposals will also allow optimum use to be made of the specific features in the mountain regions.
The growth of conservation and value of the environment which responds to the awareness that society has about threats which endanger these and which finds a single area of application in the mountain regions, can be carried out in two directions; on the one hand by strengthening the mechanism for compensatory allowances which might become a basic support tool for extensive agrarian practices which respect the environment; and on the other hand - here I am trying to answer the concern shown a moment ago by Mr Cot - through the growth in environmental measures dedicated to a few specific objectives.
I am thinking, for example, of the maintenance of Alpine pasturing, among things, which can receive greater financial support and as appropriate higher percentages of cofinancing.
In regard to the latter I should point out that other ecologically sensitive areas, for example wet regions, can also receive greater support.
On the fringe of this general proposal the Committee has put forward two more specific questions relating to the mountain regions; the first refers to the Alpine Convention and the measures which the Commission intends to put into operation to apply this; secondly, in relation to the classification criteria for the mountain regions and, in concrete terms, altitude.
In regard to the Alpine Pact I wish to point out that although the European Community has ratified and signed some of its protocols amongst which mountain agriculture can be found - before beginning the ratification process for the same we must hope to effect a linguistic harmonization of the protocols.
And given the situation the Commission's action consists for the moment in the active involvement in the work of the Standing Committee on the Alpine Convention, and in the system to coordinate what we can see and find out about the Alps.
Finally, as far as the classification criteria for mountain regions is concerned, the Committee prefers to hope that the basic principles for reform of the Structural Funds can be decided before taking on problems of this more specific nature.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the questions and explanations of the various parties have already shown in how many ways the mountains can be seen.
That extends from Scandinavia to Greece, and I assume that the first questioner referred mainly to the Alps.
Since I am also a resident of the Alps, I will concentrate rather more on this area.
However, at the same time I would like to point out - and here I agree entirely with the previous speaker, Mrs Lindholm - that we should be wary of going into detail again, at a time when we are concentrating the structural policies of the Union on the basis of Agenda 2000, even with the agreement of this Chamber.
I believe that we should stick to the fact that the decisive motive force for the structural policies and support in this field is finally the prosperity of these regions, and thank God the Alpine lands are not necessarily the poorest in this Union.
Therefore, in connection with such discussions, the question should finally be raised: Who should pay for it? Where should the money come from, should we deduct it from somewhere, or should we provide extra money, and who is going to provide it?
But what we need, and thank God it has been mentioned repeatedly this week, is a clear Alpine policy of this Union.
In connection with Alpine transit, we hear and get the feeling again and again that for some European politicians the Alps are just something like an artificial obstacle.
There I would like to quote a colleague of the Greens who spoke yesterday, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, who said, directed to the Netherlands among others, I quote: ' If the Alpine biosphere is destroyed, you will not need to build any more dams against sea floods, but against the Rhine, because once the Alps are destroyed, you can report high water and land under water in your country all year' .
I believe that in this example we can see how much things are interwoven with each other, and how much the principle of the free market within the Union occasionally collides with what are in the end the bases of the life of this entire continent.
I believe that we should take the debate which Mr Ebner has opened today as the occasion to have a more intensive discussion of such principles, in the context of the future policies of the Union, and not to maintain this opposition between economics and ecology, but to understand that one is impossible without the other!
I believe that the general public hardly knows that we in the European Parliament have so much work that we cannot even celebrate our national day.
Our members who have birthdays are also very active.
The next speaker is one of our three birthday children today.
Mr Bernard-Reymond now has the floor for the European People's Party.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, the European project is a project for civilisation.
This means that although Europe has accepted the challenge of globalization, it refuses to see that, under the effects of hard and fast liberalism, the mechanism of market forces alone will lead to an unvarying world, built according to the laws of competition alone.
Liberalism, which decompartmentalizes our economies, by stimulating innovation, by leading new countries to achieve growth, is a powerful force with regard to progress.
But we also know what imbalances it can lead to in social and also in geographical terms.
That is why each country tries to make those corrections, which are most suited to its culture.
And it is from that point of view that we must indeed reposition European social policy, and also regional policy, one of the areas of which relates to mountain regions.
Mountain regions are special, rather vulnerable places, and nothing better will ever be found to protect them than to encourage healthy agriculture.
They are places in which the notion of balance between various imperatives is essential.
There is the question of improved access - and I do not hesitate to say that even today, although I may sound very old-fashioned.
Improved access by road and even by motorways, which we should not fail to build where they are still needed.
Secondly, of course, improved access by rail, and by means of telecommunications.
By means of high quality agricultural development, tourist facilities, environmental protection, all ideas which must be included in the plans relating to cross-border mountain regions, at the European level.
In order to do so, it is essential to recognize the specific nature of mountain regions, as a concept, legally and financially.
It is not a question of covering the European area with a patchwork of statutes.
It is not a question of enclosing mountain regions behind shields or privileges.
It is simply a question of helping mountain regions to innovate, to invest in lasting development, and of enabling them to play a full part in the construction of a balanced European society, which will therefore be of a high quality.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I listened very carefully to your answer to those who tabled the joint question on mountain regions.
Permit me to tell you, however, that your answer was very general.
You did not address the very specific questions which Members had put to you, for example Mr Santini, but other Members from other political groups as well.
As a supplement to what we have already heard from the other speakers, which I accept and subscribe to, I in my turn would like to ask you whether the European Commission has considered how it is going to deal with two additional problems which will probably arise in the future.
I refer specifically, first to the problems that are likely to emerge once the postal services have been deregulated, especially in mountain regions.
And secondly, to the problems which are likely to occur after the deregulation of Europe's railways.
You know that on both these issues the European Parliament has tabled very specific proposals and has adopted them within the reports that have appeared, and you know that the European Union has not accepted them all, at least so far as the postal services are concerned.
I would like you to tell me whether you have reconsidered the matter and how you propose to deal with it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the oral questions raised by my colleagues relating to mountain regions and, in particular, to Alpine areas, raise for us a series of problems which are burningly topical.
There are substantially two reasons for such notable interest.
The first is that we are talking about mountain regions, regions, that is, of which the special geomorphological nature, with all its positive consequences in terms of environment and economy - two terms which, as has already been stressed, are not antithetical but complementary - has only recently begun to be acknowledged.
Mountain regions are not something self-contained at all; on the contrary they are of fundamental importance for the regions which surround them.
And this leads us on to the second reason for their importance which is quite close to home for a few of us, and that is the specific nature of the Alpine area, an area which represents, if I may say so, a sort of specific nature of specific nature.
Unlike other mountain regions, the Alps have never been a barrier; on the contrary, they have always stood as a true crossroads, that is, a place of exchange, rich in peoples, economies and cultures, and they are also - I am pleased to be able to stress this - the mother of specific cultures, which are too often forgotten, like the culture of the Walsers and the culture of the sacri monti .
This is why a particular status should be accorded the Alpine area within the concept of mountain regions, even through the Structural Funds, a particular status which could not fail to take account not only of the economy but also of the culture, not only of its belonging to individual States but of its specific transnational nature which is a real paradigm of what we are in the habit of calling a Europe of the regions, a Europe of the peoples.
I would find it rather interesting to know what the opinion of the Commission is on this point.
Madam President, the mountain regions in the European Union - as has already been pointed out in the debate - have similar features, and the mountain regions in nearby countries involved in the enlargement also have similar features.
In many cases they are regions tied closely to rural life, also on occasion with some development of the tourist sector; they are sparsely populated and are difficult to develop and this makes it difficult to keep people on the land with an adequate infrastructure and services by providing grants.
At the same time they are enormously attractive areas due to their natural beauty and because of the possibilities of their heritage environment.
There have been Community initiatives dealing with other European regions with common features, the outlying or maritime regions etcetera, but the mountain regions in the past have scarcely had any specific initiative; if any it was very specifically related to an aspect of agricultural policy.
As we approach the debate for the next reform of the Structural Funds, this question, which we are debating today, is opportune and we have already heard how the Commission has done some thinking in this regard; it would be useful indeed for the Commission to put forward a communication on possible innovations, where the Structural Funds in these mountain regions in recent years have been used, in the different countries in the Union.
This will allow verification of whether there has been any added value when the Structural Funds have been used in these areas.
In reforming the Structural Funds we have to look at the specific problems of these regions, what to do to maintain, protect and empower their own surroundings, making use of endogenous development and bearing very much in mind the very fragility of these natural surroundings when they are attacked by the use or misuse of foreign elements which can spoil the land and its natural features.
The same concern should be present, not only on the Structural Funds, but also in the thinking and reform proposals for the common agricultural policy.
The areas with important mountain regions - I live in one of them, where areas very close to the sea and predominantly mountainous areas live side by side - are an important part of the reality of this European Union.
For this reason, it will be necessary that the regulations which will govern the Structural Funds in the future, in the way expressed by the Commissioner or in an even more detailed way, will deal with implementing them positively and integrally in this common heritage, within the framework of a rigorous regional policy, with the aim of making progress in the cohesion of our regions and our peoples.
Madam President, the truth is that we are at a defining time in the new Community policies for regional development, within the framework of Agenda 2000, and this is the right moment to discuss this topic and formulate proposals so that the specific problems relating to mountain regions will be included in Community policies for regional development.
Regions with a depopulation problem are, in some cases, lacking economic alternatives and needing development which moreover should be balanced with their natural environment, so that they can continue to maintain this balance in the future.
Indeed up to the present time an objective for these zones has not existed.
The Commissioner was discussing the need to keep Community regional policies fairly straightforward but, within this simplicity it would be of more interest to empower these areas as the Commission - I am sure - will try to do in its new proposals.
These should include special integral measures for the development of these areas as vital, through their economic development, the development of leisure pursuits and natural development.
Besides, many of these are cross frontier areas because, if mountain chains have divided such states, on both sides of them there have been areas of coexistence, natural surroundings and population; in this sense the empowering of cross frontier experience in the mountain regions would be of greater interest.
At present there are many pilot schemes which the European Commission might use to empower these areas in their proposals and use them as a model.
I am referring to cases of collaboration in the Pyrenees.
I am sure that the Commissioner who, besides being Basque, knows his country very well, acknowledges them.
Indeed there are models in the Aleves mountain, in the Pyrenean and Navarran valleys or in the French Basque country etcetera that may be taken as a model of what may generate economic activity respectful of the environment.
In this sense I would like to congratulate the Commissioner especially for the report he has made in his last speech about empowerment also for mountain pasturing in so far as, besides generating economic activity, it helps to preserve the natural environment and certain cultural areas.
Madam President, this debate concerns regional policy and an equal Europe.
These are questions which belong to the area of solidarity.
Everybody should be able to live a good life in our Europe.
These are also areas, as many speakers have said, which have very special conditions.
In my case this concerns Sweden, Finland and Northern Europe, 2 0-2 500 km north of here.
It is largely a question of ecologically sensitive areas, very large natural resources and an immense biodiversity.
That is why all discussions about aid should be based on the individual local and regional conditions, because it is very easy for large scale forms of aid and exploitation which do not suit the areas to do more harm than good.
This also applies of course to all other mountain regions.
I shall continue by describing a little of how things look in my home district.
What we are particularly concerned about is, of course, Objective 6 Aid which is now disappearing with the changes being made in the Structural Funds.
What is going to happen with Objective 6 Aid for Sweden and Finland, now that the Objective Areas as such are being abolished and are being included under Objective 1?
This is very important.
We got these opportunities for support through the Objective 6 Area in connection with the negotiations prior to EU membership, above all because the climate is very severe. At the moment it is 30-40 degrees below freezing in northern Sweden.
It is very difficult for those who have not been there to imagine a landscape which looks like this.
It may be 100 km to the nearest built-up area.
The population density may generally be 1-3 people/km2 .
People live by doing lots of different things, farming, forestry on a very small scale which provides a little money.
Swedes, Finns and Sami live in the area. People live close to nature and from nature, and people are dependent on the survival of nature's resources for their own survival.
There is major depopulation and stagnation in many of the areas.
Unfortunately the EU's agricultural policy has concentrated a bit much on large farms, both in Europe and southern Sweden, while small farmers in northern Sweden have huge problems.
I have a question which I am very anxious to have an answer to from the Commission, if the Commissioner is now listening.
My question is: What proposals does the Commission have for Objective Area 6 when new criteria are to be determined after the old period expires in 1999 and the new period begins? I am very anxious to have an answer to that.
Madam President, I must say that I am very happy that we are having a joint debate about the special features of the mountain regions.
In the end the mountain region is the most sensitive rural area, and therefore continues to need our support, if it is to be maintained in its entirety and multifunctionality.
Therefore, the high position of the rural areas must be clearly established in Agenda 2000.
Specifically, we need to extend the differential compensation allowance for disadvantaged areas, intensify the brand and tradition protection of typical products of these regions, and support forestry more strongly.
Another item which deserves support is without doubt better use of renewable energy.
On this point, we must not forget that whenever agriculturally productive land becomes disused, in whatever way, it means a declaration of bankruptcy for our system.
Agriculture cannot be laid down like an industrial business, for instance, and must be considered over a much longer period.
These areas should therefore be particularly included in the consideration of renewable energy.
As well as increased payment for agricultural and ecological efforts, of course there must be compensation for permanent natural disadvantages, to safeguard the cultivation of the mountain areas.
This is not least what tourism means.
Austria is the country of the European Union which has the highest proportion of farmers for whom farming is a secondary occupation.
The vast majority of farmers are active in the tourism business, and in both occupations they ensure that the attractiveness and economic productivity of the mountain regions are maintained, and that continuous migration from the rural areas, and thus depopulation of the mountain regions, is stopped.
This also shows the profound social significance and multi-functionality of agriculture.
In Austria, just 70 %, or 2 323 000 hectares, of the agriculturally productive land comes into the European Union's category of disadvantaged areas. The EU average is 56 %.
In concrete terms, this means that for instance in Austria 150 000 businesses are in a disadvantaged area.
With regard to the enlargement of our Community to the east, the best thing would be to continue the agricultural guideline.
Only this will ensure that it is not only a burden on domestic farmers, but that everyone has to bear their share of this great work of European unification.
Madam President, above all I would first like to thank Mr Ebner for introducing this question, and second, I would like to make a comment.
It shows that the Friday sittings have a purpose, because on Fridays we talk about more serious things, instead of practising demagogy, and besides there is much more consensus between the parties than at other times!
I would like to add to what Mr Macartney said.
He mentioned a very important point, that not only bureaucratic criteria should be applied to defining the regions, that it is not just made to depend on height or depth, but that the climate and social conditions also play a part.
Secondly, I would like to emphasize here that - as we have heard from all sides - it is not just the economy which is crucial.
There is only a social function of the economy, which is the only one which actually means the future.
Particularly for us in the mountain areas - there are very many mountain areas in my home country, although people generally do not know that, but Upper Bavaria consists partly of mountain areas - this means first that the small farmers must be maintained at any price, because without these people there are no more mountains.
Then everything is ruined, as can be seen in all too many places in America, for instance.
Second, in the whole definition of transport we must put always the ecological aspects in the foreground, because when we see the destructive effect which certain roads have already had, through Trentino-Alto Adige for instance, when we know how dangerous certain projects are for us, we have to say that the ecological standpoint must be allowed a quite high status, because only in this way can we maintain the heart of Europe!
Madam President, Austria is famous for the beautiful Alps and also for the newly created national parks.
Yet an enormous structural change is taking place in these areas.
On the one hand, we endeavour to look after the traditions, the beauty of the land, its naturalness and unspoiledness, and on the other hand we think intensely about the future, safeguarding the future, and the opportunities which the future will bring.
I believe that we must do more research in this area.
We must see with what products and services we can look into the future, we must do market research to see what visitors can come into this region, what aspects of the region are treasured, what services can be offered in this region and what products can be sent out of this region.
The second, and perhaps even more important point is education and further education in these areas.
We should think about what education and further education structure we can offer in these areas.
Madam President, two words no more.
Firstly, to say to you ladies and gentlemen that I have noted the speeches made here this morning.
In some of them I found something similar to the speech I made halfway through the sitting, but anyway I will forward them to the Commissioners, most particularly to Mr Fischler who is the Commissioner responsible for all of them.
Mr Kaklamanis has referred to the different topics which are being taken up in this matter, since here we are dealing with the Structural Funds and agriculture, and he has referred to the liberalization of the Post Offices and rail networks.
These are two matters with which we are now concerned and are subjects also of questions in Parliament, and the Commission, being aware of such problems, will provide at the right time corresponding and fitting replies to the same.
On the subject of the Alpine regions I wish to pose two questions: on the one hand everything that refers to increasing compensatory allowances in the disadvantaged areas; and on the other greater support for Alpine pasturing within the agro-environmental measures.
I wish to assure Mr Lindqvist that although I am only wearing one of the headphones I can hear him, and besides with my surname I have no option but to listen.
So you can understand that I follow very attentively all the speeches and especially yours, Mr Lindqvist, when you refer to all the problems posed in the Nordic regions and have clearly shown the contrast between the Alpine regions and the Nordic region.
There is a very specific subject here which has been put forward to which I cannot give you a reply, but indeed I have listened to you - which is what we are referring to in the classification criteria for the mountain regions which have still not been defined.
But we are going to move onto that.
As you know, Mr Lindqvist, we are at this time examining reform of the Structural Funds.
Mr Imaz has referred, for example, to the idea of simplification - he has mentioned, to which I am especially sensitive, some mountains in the area, in the common region, the common country which we have in the Basque area - and he knows that I have travelled over all those mountains, have climbed to the top of them throughout my life and really I am very sensitive to the arguments he was using.
And so, I would like to say to him that if really the Commission's purpose is to look for greater simplification of the Structural Funds, this does not mean that it is impossible to reconcile simplification with a wider consideration of the specific problems relating to mountain regions.
Dr von Habsburg has made a specific mention of this and I wish to join him in that too.
We are going to have to bear in mind, particularly those subjects which I am going to hand over to Mr Fischler and the other appropriate Commissioners in so far as it concerns them.
I think that it is very useful - indeed Dr von Habsburg said it a moment ago - that we can deal with important matters on a Friday.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Parliament, thank you very much.
Madam President, I have a rather disturbing point to raise because, on this day when we are talking about the problem of the marginal areas of Europe, I have just heard that Scotland is to lose one seat on the Committee of the Regions, and the same is going to happen to Wales.
I find this very disturbing and want to register a protest in this House.
I should also like to ask Commissioner Oreja, who I know has a very strong interest in these matters, whether he does not agree that this will weaken the voice of Scotland and Wales in particular at this time when we are talking about the future development of Agenda 2000 and all these vital issues?
Regarding Scotland's seat: The Member States have been informed of the number of people that they can send to the Committee of the Regions, and the composition of these representatives on the Committee of the Regions is a decision of the national states.
But, Mr Oreja, do you want to add something?
Madam President, I can only agree with what you have just said - and I am speaking in my capacity as Commissioner in charge of institutional affairs: this decision affects each of the Member States.
That is the way the Committee of the Regions is made up.
Personally, at the intergovernmental conference, I have always been a staunch defender of the Committee of the Regions.
I think it plays a very important role.
It seems very important to me that a region as important as Scotland should have an adequate and meaningful presence on the Committee.
But this is a decision which affects Member States.
They are the ones who decide who makes up this Committee.
Madam President, I know that Mr Oreja has always defended the Committee of the Regions, its composition and the strength of this institution, and I would like to thank him for this.
I also know that this stance is a question of the powers of the states.
I would simply like to say that it would be appropriate if, from this House and with an eye to the future, in the next set of reforms we could work towards giving the Committee of the Regions greater influence - within all the regions and all the spheres of Europe - on the involvement and presence of those regions which depend upon legislative assemblies and therefore have a democratic power which controls them.
Moreover, I am sure - based on the conviction of Mr Oreja, the Commissioner responsible for this area, who defends these proposals -that we will make noteworthy advances in the future.
The debate is closed .
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.29 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 16 January 1998.
Thank you, Mr Bernard-Reymond.
I think the applause speaks for itself.
Mr President, I would like Parliament to thank His Holiness the Pope for the visit he made to Cuba, to thank this man whose ideal it has been to unite all the peoples of the world to give them the dignity which is their due.
In addition, Mr President, I would like people to stop talking about Italy in terms of "pizza' .
It is because of Italy that people are eating and enjoying it throughout the world!
Mr Mezzaroma, as I am sure you will understand, Parliament cannot make a statement on each and every one of the Pope's visits.
That is not what we are here for.
Mr President, I wish to draw the attention of yourself and Parliament to a recent episode which I consider to be extremely serious.
A delegation made up of a number of European parliamentarians, including myself, from different political groups - although not an official parliamentary delegation, it arose out of the resolution unanimously approved last Thursday in Strasbourg concerning Mrs Karla Tucker who had been condemned to death and was in prison in Texas - was denied access to death row in Gatesville prison in Austin by the governor and prison authorities in Texas.
They barred the way to a delegation which had arrived there on a purely humanitarian mission.
Mr President, I am reporting this fact to the House as a very serious matter which demonstrates contempt, not just for the individual parliamentarians who decided to go on this mission, but for Parliament itself.
Mr Caccavale, I have made a note of your remarks, and I will find out what happened so that appropriate measures can be taken, if necessary.
Mr President, I raise a point of order pursuant to Rules 127 and 52.
You will recall that in September last year, this House decided to refer the whole issue of press intrusion and protection of personal privacy to committee.
At that time it was felt too delicate a matter to be debated on the floor of the House.
This is a serious European problem.
It is now some five months from the date of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and nearly five months from the time Parliament referred it to committee.
As far as I know, no committee of this House as yet has brought that to the floor.
Could you give me an assurance that this important item will be debated by those committees with the utmost despatch?
Mr Perry, I cannot give you an assurance on behalf of the committee.
What I can and will do immediately is remind the relevant committee chairmen of the matter which was referred to them and urge them to take the necessary measures and, if necessary, submit proposals to the Conference of Presidents.
Mr President, you might write a letter to the relevant committee chairman on this point, but does this mean that the relevant committee chairman, or the relevant committee is sanctioned by the Conference of Presidents to submit an initiative?
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, since you leapt in so quickly with your comment on the matter, you did not hear my last remark to Mr Perry, which was in fact that, in his case, authorization could be sought from the Conference of Presidents.
So I can confirm what you have just asked .
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Friday 16 January 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to mention that my name is not in the Minutes of the Strasbourg session on Friday, and I should like this to be corrected, as I added my name to the list and also took part in the voting that day, which can, of course, be checked.
This is a big problem because the press has been handed a copy of the Minutes, unchecked and with my name missing from them.
In Finland there has been a lot of controversy surrounding this issue.
I would like to ask how the Minutes are matched with the names on the list, who is responsible for this, and how we are going to make sure that all the names down on the list also get into the Minutes, which are distributed to the public and the press.
Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, your comment will be taken into account and included in the Minutes.
Mr President, I too have a comment to make on the Minutes, but I am sorry to say that it is a criticism.
On Friday, the last day of the sitting in Strasbourg, I again referred to speakers' contributions on the subject of transalpine traffic, and at that point I introduced a clarification.
Unfortunately, this has failed to appear.
It is not because the comment I made is of special historic significance, but more for reasons of correctness, that I therefore repeat that, after the contributions of two German PPE Members, I was regrettably forced to say that there seems to me to be a race under way for the stupidest armchair tactician.
I pointed this out again on Friday because I know that a large number of PPE Members and German Members - perhaps even the majority - can see further than the end of their noses when it comes to traffic policy and in this respect support a common approach to the problem.
I am pleased to be able to say today that in the latest agreement with Switzerland the European caravan has also been pulled clear of these trivialities.
I would ask that this be placed in the Minutes.
Mr Rehder, in the first place, I have to tell you that what you are referring to is not a resolution.
The Minutes record resolutions and incidents which need to be recorded there, not what the Members say.
That appears in the verbatim report of proceedings, where you will be able to find your speech.
Secondly, I would remind you that when Members of this House express themselves here they should observe the necessary levels of respect and politeness towards other Members.
They can be critical if they feel that is appropriate, but always in accordance with the courtesy which should be maintained here.
So of course, some of the words you used, at least as they were translated to me, are totally unacceptable.
I want to make that absolutely clear.
Mr President, I am sorry, but if my colleague here and in the Neue Züricher Zeitung has been trying to ridicule two honorable Members of the PPE by referring to them as "armchair tacticians' , then I can only say firstly, that the remark has made no impression, and secondly, that what matters is not armchair tactics but the interests of employees and businesses in the European Union - and in this respect he has got it wrong.
If he is taking the Swiss side, then he fails to appreciate that many employees and many companies in the European Union have also been placed in a very difficult situation by the present compromise and it is high time that this was said.
(Heckling: But no armchair tactics, please!)
That is not something which should be included in the Minutes.
It will appear in the verbatim report of proceedings.
(The Minutes were approved)
Financial crisis in South-East Asia
The next item is the Commission communication on the financial crisis in South-East Asia and its potential repercussions on economic and monetary union, followed by questions.
- Thank you for the information, Mr Commissioner, although I do not know whether I should be thanking you or the crisis for having arisen and having been so positive.
One of the concerns which is now increasing in intensity as we prepare for the introduction of the euro is that of inequality of impact and national or sector capacities for response.
In some ways the so-called Asian crisis has proved the relevance of that concern in advance.
For the various Member States, of course, the repercussions are and will be very different. And they will illustrate the difficulties that arise from the imposition of an artificial form of financial stability against a background of potential and existing unstable situations.
At the sectorial level, I would quite specifically ask the Commissioner what he has to say about the present public reaction in Portugal to the effects already being suffered, and likely to be suffered more severely, by a significant sector of our economy, the textile industry, as a result of the Asian crisis, and the measures being recommended and put into practice?
Mr President, regarding sectoral impact, since I was so brief earlier I would like to explain, in reply to Mr Ribeiro's question, that the effects are both positive and negative.
Negative, firstly, in terms of price competitiveness and reduction of demand in these Asian countries.
Within our markets, and third markets, we will have to face up to exports coming from these countries, which will be cheaper.
Consequently, we will be affected.
Secondly, we will also be affected by the redeployment of these Asian countries, towards certain export markets in which we were traditionally present.
There, too, we will have to face up to increased competition.
We will also pay, I think, inasmuch as direct foreign investment in Europe will be weaker, although I do not believe that this will concern the textile industry.
In my opinion, this is of more concern to the electronics and electronic components industries.
On the other hand, from a positive point of view, it must be noted that since these countries are exporting at a lower price, our imports will be cheaper.
In other words, our companies which are involved in the transformation of various products imported from these countries will be more competitive.
Secondly, and this is important for the textile industry, the cost of energy will be lower.
Thirdly, and finally, we must not forget that this crisis gives us the opportunity of seeing these markets open up and making a number of investments there.
So these countries' economies are going to be restructured. They will also probably be more competitive in the long term, but they will, all the same, undoubtedly lose some of their overcapacity, and that may have an effect on the textiles industry in particular.
Mr Commissioner, as you have just stated, not all European countries are affected in the same way by the Asian crisis, that is, neither the same industries, nor to the same extent.
This crisis confronts those responsible for the economic policy of the Union with a choice in the face of the two possible consequences of the interdependence of flexibility and growth - one negative consequence combining Eurosclerosis with mediocre growth and one positive consequence combining liberalization of the economy with sustained growth.
Given these conditions, do you not think that the time has come to consider the possibility of examining the criteria defined at Maastricht and consolidated in Amsterdam, through a global index which would allow each national policy the capacity for rapid adjustment in the case of a new crisis after 1st January 1999?
Welcome
Financial crisis in South-East Asia (continuation)
Mr President, I speak as a Member of Parliament's ASEAN and Korean Delegation returning from Malaysia and Singapore last week.
Are we aware that we need a wake-up call here in Europe to understand that the conflagration and contagion that is talked about in South East Asia could well come to Europe and elsewhere in the world? I believe the Commission is showing complacency in this area.
Secondly, I believe we are punching below our weight as the European Union.
Let me give you two very quick examples: Mr Santer's visit to Singapore sank without trace compared to the visits by American personnel concerned with the financial crisis to that part of the world.
As Mr de Silguy has pointed out, it is little recognized that 30 % of the IMF support comes from the European Union and only 18 % from the United States of America.
When you are over there, all you would understand is that the United States of America is helping that part of the world to resolve this global crisis, not Europe.
When are we going to get off of our backsides and do something about it?
Mr President, I am in agreement with half of what Mr Harrison says.
I agree with him when he says that the European Union is punching below its weight.
On the other hand, I do not agree when he says that the Commission is showing complacency.
I could have great fun with you here, going through all the possible and imaginable nightmare scenarios.
When I was young, I was told, if wishes were horses beggars would ride.
Well, if there were more horses and fewer beggars, maybe beggars would ride.
But I refuse to devote myself to these types of nightmare scenarios.
I prefer to react, to act and to analyse the facts.
On a business level there will be cross-sectorial impacts but with the current state of things these cannot be considered as having a major effect on the European economy of the susceptible industrial sectors as a whole.
Exports from these sectors towards Asia, in total, represent less than 1 % of Community GNP.
A second source of propagation: the financial sector.
Indeed, I spoke earlier about the involvement of the European banks in Asia.
It is clear that those banks are today in the middle of a process of renegotiating and scheduling the debts of these countries and, in any case, most of them, the vast majority even, have the financial muscle to enable them to withstand a certain number of shocks.
Consequently, when I consider that the main part of our banking involvement is in Hong Kong, Singapore and China, that is, the countries least affected by the crisis and which are the soundest and the best managed, and that the other countries, Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, are precisely those which have received conditional aid packages from the International Monetary Fund, I do consider that the crisis is 'manageable', as you would say in your mother tongue, but I do not want to make ambitious plans.
Mr President, I too agree absolutely with all that the Commissioner said about the magnitude of the impact of the crisis on the European Union.
We ought not to exaggerate so far as the facts are concerned, and he is absolutely right to analyse the issue as he has. I would like to ask him to tell me something else since we are talking about South-East Asia, if I may.
What is happening in Japan? There, matters could develop in ways that might surprise us.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if any moves have been made towards coordinated action by European and American financing bodies and by the central banks, of course, to deal in a coordinated way with the eventuality that Japan might start liquidating its investments, particularly those in the form of government or other bonds, especially on the American market? Is that currently the subject of any discussion by the European Commission?
Has any initiative been adopted in that area, in the event that developments might possibly create problems for us?
Mr President, I would like to take up the last remark made by the Commissioner and put it into the context of his initial analysis.
He introduced an analysis of the effects of the Asian crisis on the European economy through the medium of European export shares to Asia as a proportion of our GNP.
Could I ask him to focus some attention on the import side.
There is the question of Asia's exports to Europe and Asia competing with European products in third countries with devalued exchange rates.
His macro-analysis is too partial if he simply sticks to exports or refers to sectoral aspects of imports.
This is a critical issue in respect of the effect on the European economy.
I regret to say I do not share the presumed optimism of the Commissioner's response to the last question.
He said that he hopes the Asian economies will not seek to trade their way out of this crisis on our markets and that they will instead develop domestic demand.
Their quickest fix is to use their lower exchange rates to flood our markets.
He has left that out of the equation and should put it in.
Mr Harrison raised the point that we are punching below our weight.
We have thirty per cent IMF Mr President, zero per cent profile.
Mr President, with regard to figures, I have only mentioned those concerning exports since I said that European exports to Asia represent 2.2 % of Community GDP and 21 % of exports outside of the European Union.
In terms of imports, the exact figure is 26.2 % of imports from outside the European Union.
So you see that in terms of scale, it is about the same level.
I do not want to leave myself open to accusations of optimism.
I merely want to refuse to be pulled into a debate which, in my opinion, has no sense, for it consists of laying out nightmare scenarios for the fun of it, instead of rationalizing the concrete facts which we have.
Since we are talking about trade, and in the time left to me, I would nevertheless like to remind you that amongst the countries affected by the crisis, Hong Kong and Taiwan represent 25 % of our third country trade with these Asian countries, that is, the largest share, and that Thailand, Indonesia and Korea, which are the three most affected countries, represent only 5 % of our foreign trade.
If you add Japan to this 5 %, the total would be 15 %, and this 15 % of all our trade represents only 1.5 % of our GNP.
So, yes, there will be sectoral impacts, I do not deny this.
But what will they be, and on what scale? No-one can currently tell exactly what they will be, because that will depend on the length of the crisis and the date when these countries' currencies will rise again, for I am certain that they will rise.
But I believe we must remain watchful, to avoid a repeat of the process you describe, although today I see neither reasons for, nor even symptoms of it.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the tiger economies have always been presented misleadingly as the sacred cow of neoliberalism.
Now they are proving to be speculative casino economies which have also failed to exorcize the ghost of deflation.
This brings us to the problem of bank supervision as a public responsibility.
All previous talk has focused exclusively on the wrongs committed by public bodies.
But this crisis is all about the private sector.
Should it not give us real cause for concern that in the future area of currency unification, responsibility for monetary policy and responsibility for bank supervision are to be kept separate? The European Central Bank is responsible for monetary policy.
The national central banks, if at all, will continue to be responsible for bank supervision.
Is this not a fundamental weakness in the system and one which much be addressed before we start? Should we not be coordinating our policy of bank supervision and bringing about greater coordination in our economic policy in general, so that we can resolve the problems being posed by currency union?
Mr President, I find it difficult to reply to Mr Wolf.
People will again say that my efforts are being put to things other than my work.
It is really a question for the European Central Bank and the European Monetary Institute.
I would not want to do something other than that which is requested of me as Commissioner in terms of launching the euro.
Your question poses, after all, a much wider problem.
For in Europe, whether control and monitoring is exercised by the Central Bank or by national banks, it is done according to criteria, standards and norms which are satisfactory and very protective.
The problem is to see how these norms and standards can be extended to the countries of South-East Asia and how entities such as the Bank for International Settlements or other mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that the current crisis will end in the adoption, in these countries, of regulatory and supervisory rules which are sufficient to ensure the security of the whole world.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, the Asian financial crisis affects us in Europe.
If we look at exchange rate turmoil and monetary speculation as a sign of the liberalization of capital transactions, then under such circumstances should we in the European Union not be considering, within the framework of the International Monetary Fund, the establishment of a better system of international credit transparency and the possible need for an international credit insurance system? This would ensure that events of the kind we are now witnessing could not happen in economies like the tiger states, which, according to macro-economic figures, are in a healthy state.
Is every part of the world really safe from such events? We await the Commission's answer to this question.
I myself am waiting for the Commission to show greater initiative in the current situation so that we can begin to take this part of the world seriously. Why, for example, is there no EU delegation in Singapore or Malaysia?
Such a body would certainly help raise the EU's low profile in this region. And would it not also serve to enhance our credibility if the European Union could send a special envoy to South-East Asia, as the US President has done?
Mrs Randzio-Plath, I note your suggestion regarding Singapore and Malaysia.
I will bring it to the attention of my colleagues who are directly responsible for this issue.
I would like to reply to your question regarding the IMF: should an international insurance system be put in place?
This really seems to me to be the role of the International Monetary Fund.
You may consider that it acts too slowly, or that it acts too fast; that there is not enough conditionality, that there is too much conditionality.
That is another question.
And this role which it fulfils, moreover, is truly a role of assistance, I was going to say the role of a fireman, in the case of disaster or fire.
I think that the real solution in these countries lies, firstly, in breaking the overtight link that exists between governments and banks.
Secondly, the solution lies in defining ad-hoc standards of financial and institutional supervision which must be the same in these countries as they are in ours.
Thirdly, the solution lies in the recapitalization of their banks, an action which must at the same time be complemented by cleaning up their assets.
Fourthly, and this is essential, the issue must be solved independently of any insurance, to make the system more transparent, in the accounts of these banks.
And finally, it is appropriate - and is, in fact, the path which is being taken, for a lot is said about crisis but little about the plans currently being implemented - to liberalize the financial sectors of these countries, in order to give foreign institutions the possibility of operating there.
Madam President, the Commission's account of the economic crisis in South-East Asia was indeed very interesting, as the replies have been, but I think it is too optimistic as far as long-term effects are concerned. Why is this?
Firstly, their wounded international competitiveness will grow considerably whether their currencies are devalued or devalue automatically. This is also taking place with other Eastern countries.
Secondly, the East has already cancelled orders from certain European countries, including Finland, which might have some considerable effect on their economies.
Thirdly, prices on the stock exchange are jumping up and down, reflecting the general concern. All these effects may be experienced differently in the various Member States.
That is why I would like to ask whether, if the worst comes to the worst, the Commission intends to plan a course of increased latitude, economically speaking, towards these countries which might well be plunged into crisis.
I would like to be completely clear on this point, Mr Ilaskivi.
I repeat, I am not ignoring the consequences of - to simplify the matter - low cost imports coming from these countries on our economies.
But, contrary to what you think, the devaluation of their exchange rates is not only an advantage for them, far from it.
Firstly, they will pay more for imported goods, such as the need, for example in Korea, for scrap iron or iron ore or coal in order to make steel.
They have to import this.
And if you have devalued, you are going to pay more.
You will therefore lose out in terms of competitiveness.
Secondly, they will lose in inflationary terms, because their inflation rates will rise.
Thirdly, they will perhaps be driven to produce less.
Indeed, what guarantee do we have today that they will be able to continue to export at the same level if the financial ties and the credit which they have with their own banks, due to the situation of their financial system, disappears and the possibility of credit dries up. I could continue to give you more such examples.
This is why we must not dramatise the situation and we must remain confident.
We are undertaking a sector by sector study, and in the time left to me I cannot specify the eight or ten sectors in detail. But when this study is finished, I will be happy to ask for it to be passed on to you.
You will see in detail that, sector by sector, there are of course some areas which will be more affected than others, but, I already note that, particularly in the financial field, the overseas branches of certain large European companies have already provided for what they consider to be a loss.
Consequently, this will perhaps affect their profitability a little, but it will not challenge their existence in Europe.
Madam President, we note with satisfaction that the Commission is following the developments very closely, but we cannot escape the impression that the big absentee in Asia today is Europe, and more specifically, the European Union.
This contrasts sharply with the United States' efforts in that part of the world.
We stand noticeably aloof, but I also have the impression that the individual Member States, or at least some of them, obviously the biggest ones, are trying to protect their own interests in the Asian crisis.
Nevertheless, major financial and economic interests are at stake for Europe, to say nothing of the political aspects, because no one will dispute that the divided attitude amongst the European countries and the absence of the European Union as such will hardly reinforce the impression in Asia that Europe is a strong unit and that Europe is a homogeneous entity.
That is not really the impression they have, and we should regret this.
Madam President, I totally agree with Mr De Clercq.
I am in complete agreement with his analysis, and I will even go further by quoting another example which seems to me to be particularly revealing of the situation described.
Last December, at the time of the emergency package for Korea, on Christmas Eve, in the hours before the Nativity, four Member States of the Union, the four members of the G7, were called on to provide bilateral aid to the country in question, which was essential to enable Korea to complete the year.
As far as one can judge, this contribution was probably as important as that of the Americans.
However, the impression is given that it was the Americans who sorted out the crisis.
This is the reason why I said to Mr De Clercq earlier on, Madam President, that inasmuch as the euro offered us some protection even before its existence, when it comes into use, we will need to be strong and capable enough to express ourselves with one voice, in order not only to play a constructive role - not only to be a funder - but to have a role of real influence, which lives up, firstly, to our significant financial contribution, which will continue, and secondly, which lives up to our importance in economic, financial and commercial circles throughout the world.
It seems to me that from next year this will be the major challenge for the euro, for Europe and for Europeans.
Madam President, I would like to ask two questions.
You just said, Mr Commissioner, that it is essential for Europe to speak with one voice when the euro comes into effect.
Does this mean that the Member States linked to the euro will lose their representation in the IMF in favour of one "European Union' representation or one '' euro countries' representation?
My second question is the following: last week, in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, we heard the Director General of the IMF speak of his solution which, in macroeconomic terms, would probably give tangible results.
But the President of the World Bank told us that in human terms, in terms of unemployment and in terms of an increase in poverty, there will also be catastrophic results.
I would like to ask if the Commission is going to examine this problem and if we are ready to participate in the social and human programmes of the World Bank?
I cannot enter into the details here of European Union representation within the different international bodies.
There is no need to change the statutes of the International Monetary Fund to drive out, if I can put it that way, all the Member States and impose European Union representation.
I think we can go about it in a different way without resorting to that, but while still making sure that the European Union speaks with one voice.
In any case, the problem is not so much within the International Monetary Fund as in other fora which are perhaps more informal but where, when all is said and done, and I note this after three years experience here, the real decisions are taken.
I would not want these decisions to be monopolized by a small number of Member States who would decide, not only on behalf of the European Union, but on behalf of all the fifteen Member States.
Personally, this seems unacceptable to me.
With regard to your analysis of the situation, it is clear that the Commission is ready to participate in all exercises.
In particular, I can tell you that in March a conference will be organized at the World Bank to examine all the technical assistance programmes, with the precise aim of correcting and accompanying the streamlining process for the current year in the countries considered to be emergent.
We must accompany the necessary efforts, and make sure that at the level of definition of programmes by the IMF, maximum account will be taken of this human dimension.
That was the case for Korea, I think, where the programme was reviewed in order to integrate that aspect more widely.
It must be the case even more in the future and, of course, other international institutions, like the Community, must integrate this dimension into the framework of their programmes.
Mr Commissioner, I have clearly understood the relative optimism that you demonstrate with regard to the consequences of the Asian crisis on the European economy.
You have already mentioned it several times.
Nevertheless, I sense some variations which leave me somewhat mindful of the balance between autosuggestion and deep conviction.
However, my question is more industrial and related more to international competition.
Competition in textiles was mentioned earlier.
I would like to raise a question regarding shipbuilding.
Do you know that we are currently in a period of extension of a European Directive on aid to the shipbuilding industry, to take into account the non-ratification of an international agreement?
Do you not think that the current crisis will also have important consequences for this problem of agreements not being ratified, and that we should protect ourselves at the level of our own texts and our own decisions on aid to our European industries?
I repeat, it would seem completely unacceptable to allow the situation to deteriorate in Korea but also unacceptable that our shipyards should have to suffer the direct consequences.
This said, with particular regard to shipbuilding, it is now likely that the Korean industry will have to reduce its capacity, because some shipyards may find themselves in difficult financial circumstances if they do not get the required financing.
Indeed, in the IMF agreement certain, rather vague preconditions exist whose terms state that no sectoral governmental agreement on the transfer of financing for such and such an industrial sector is possible.
It furthermore explicitly anticipates that, for Chaebol in particular, the standards, accounts, norms and financial year of that company should be put in order.
A number of preconditions are therefore foreseen, certainly perhaps not enough in your eyes, but ones which move towards both a greater liberalization of the financial markets in these countries, and also the suppression of specific advantages which the Korean shipyards have in relation to other yards.
It will be seen that one of the consequences of the crisis in Korea will be precisely the challenging of the personal, financial, structural and even political links which exist between the industrial and the banking sectors.
This will be the end of the large conglomerates, which must effectively embark upon a process of dismantling, of which we will have to take advantage.
Let me furthermore add that today many owners or shipowners seem, for obvious reasons, rather hesitant to place orders with Korea.
But, in this respect, we are also following the situation closely and it is one of the susceptible sectors on which our current studies are particularly concentrating.
Madam President, the one thing that has come across this afternoon is how the Commission is largely a disinterested observer. We have had a very cosmetic exercise by Commissioner de Silguy.I would like to ask him several questions.
Is there any risk of dumping in the European economy from the devaluation of these currencies in the Far East? Are any specific industries at risk, for example the micro-electronics industry and the microchip industry?
Has there been any representation made to the Commission by any specific European industry about the devaluation? Has the European Commission made any representation to the Chinese regarding the devaluation of their currency which sparked this crisis?
Is there a risk of a further devaluation? Exactly what special arrangements are the European Commission and the European Union making to act quickly in the event of a domino effect in the US markets and indeed in the European markets?
Let me firstly say to Mr Donnelly that I do not consider myself an observer and secondly, you cannot hope to influence the course of events if you do not have the necessary institutional instruments with which to do so.
Nevertheless, to respond precisely to your question, eight sectors seem, at first glance, more affected because they have referred the matter to us.
They are those which our analyses have specified and which we are following more closely.
These include clothing, leatherware, shoes, radios, televisions, telecommunications equipment such as GSMs, watches, furniture, machine tools, computer hardware and electrical goods.
To this could be added capital goods such as shipbuilding, the steel industry, chemicals and cars.
This is nevertheless a large number of sectors which could be affected at one level or another.
China is a special situation.
May I remind you that China exercises extremely strict exchange control and parity checks on its currency.
Secondly, the Chinese authorities always said that they did not want to devalue.
And, indeed, when looked at closely, it is not in their interest.
A devaluation is of no interest to China inasmuch as the bulk of China's growth comes from investment and not domestic demand.
So it is in the Chinese government's interest to strengthen the confidence both of its own savers, that is, its own citizens, and foreign investors.
Confidence is not gained through a devaluation.
Secondly, there is the political position of China in relation to Japan. With the geopolitical context as it is, I do not foresee any Japanese interest in a devaluation either in the short or medium term.
There is no particular risk, but there, too, we are closely following the situation.
As regards a domino effect, I do not want to outline a nightmare scenario, as this would have no meaning.
What now seems to me much more important is to see how the crisis develops and on to Europe to see how the programmes are implemented.
The IMF programmes are being very seriously implemented.
Negotiations with the banks for the rescheduling of private debt are underway.
As I said in my opening speech, it seems to me that there is one country in which confidence has not yet been restored, and that is Indonesia.
For the rest, I looked at the markets again this morning and a large part of last year's fall in prices has been regained or stabilized.
The facts that have come in over the last 48 hours as regards the stock market and exchange markets are more encouraging and move more in the direction of those who think that we are now beginning to manage the crisis.
For all that, I do not want to make ambitious plans.
Mr Commissioner, we thank you for the answers you have given to our colleagues' questions.
The debate is now closed.
Compatibility of political mandate and office of Commissioner
The next item is a declaration from the Commission on the compatibility of political mandate and the office of Commissioner.
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to make a very clear political statement that in our view it is completely incompatible for a Member of the Commission to hold any party political post whichever part of the political spectrum a particular Commissioner may come from.
That is our position.
Mr Santer has said in his statement that Commissioners have a political function; we agree with him.
We do not deny and fully understand that the Commission has an eminently political role.
We believe however that it is entirely incompatible with the impartiality with which we expect Commissioners to carry out their functions that they should take part in party political campaigns for personal election.
Since we requested this statement, the specific issue which caused all of us in this House great concern has been solved.
We welcome the fact that Commissioner de Silguy has withdrawn as a potential candidate from the French regional elections.
We believe that it is entirely right and we hope that in so doing he has enabled the Commission to deal with this very sensitive and important issue once and for all.
In that context I welcome very much President Santer's statement on behalf of the Commission today.
It demonstrates at least some ambiguity in the concept of independence which we all expect from the Commission that any Commissioner should have considered it possible to stand for election in this way.
I hope President Santer that you will use this incident to get complete agreement within the College of Commissioners.
We are looking for a code of conduct along the lines of your interpretation.
Certainly the interpretation that you have expressed here today is completely in tune with the great majority of this House.
I must say that in this Parliament we have learned an important lesson that perhaps we could have well done with when we had the public hearing before we ratified this Commission.
Certainly we have learned important lessons for the public hearing before the ratification of the next Commission.
We will all be asking very important questions of all Commissioners when they come before us for ratification next time around.
We need to be absolutely sure that there is a commitment from them to ensure independence and impartiality in the performance of their work on behalf of European citizens.
In view of the withdrawal of Mr de Silguy from potential candidature in the French regional elections and the statement by Mr Santer this afternoon, my group felt it important to say clearly that we have withdrawn the motion for a resolution which we tabled and we give notice that we will not support any resolutions that come before the House tomorrow.
We very much value the statement you have made Mr Santer; we hope that there will be complete agreement from the College of Commissioners to the interpretation which you have put here today.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I totally approve of the terms of the declaration which the President of the Commission has just made.
I will thus limit myself to three brief observations and comments.
My first observation: I would like to congratulate Mr de Silguy for his honourable decision not to stand in the local elections since, effectively, as President Santer has noted, no text formally obliges him to renounce this.
Mr de Silguy has put his European responsibilities, and in particular the essential role he is currently playing in the implementation of the euro, before his political ambition.
And I think we should pay special tribute to him for his behaviour.
This is all the more so given that some people, previously, given the same choice, did not have the same attitude, nor the same honour.
The situation of another French Commissioner was earlier mentioned, who remained Mayor of Châtellerault, Councillor for the department of Vienne, which is extremely similar to that of the role of a regional councillor, a role which that Commissioner has just resigned from after a very short period of time.
There is another case, perhaps less well known, but which is even more worrying, which is that of your predecessor, Mr President of the Commission.
At a time when he was exercising the distinguished role which is today yours, he did not hesitate to head the list of candidates for the local elections of Clichy, which is an important town close to Paris, only to be elected Mayor. He later resigned, of course.
But he was a candidate and he was heavily involved in the electoral campaign, with all the power bestowed upon him through his role as President of the Commission. I note that on this point I am in agreement with Mrs Green who considers that if Commissioners have the right to continue political activity, if they had it in the first place, they should not involve themselves too overtly in national and electoral campaigns.
I note that, in fact, the behaviour I have just described is not in line with what we should expect.
My third observation is that I am indeed happy that, following Mr de Silguy's gesture and this debate - although I would have liked to have had the same debate regarding the previous cases - we may now come up with a clear rule.
You have expressed it clearly, Mr President, and I hope that from now on, this clear rule will be imposed on all, not only on a Commissioner who is at the origin of this new ethical rule, but that it is a uniform rule which from now on will be followed by all Commissioners.
Madam President, this debate creates an important constitutional precedent.
As President Santer has recalled, European Commissioners fulfil a political function and are not technocrats, since they are politically responsible to our directly-elected Parliament.
For that reason, it is also important that increasingly politicians and not technocrats are nominated.
This Commission only has two Commissioners who have never held a political office; one of them was Mr de Silguy.
Article 157 of the Treaty states - and we all recognise now - that we must have clear independence and that Commissioners cannot accept any instructions, nor should Member States or even Heads of States of Member States give any instructions to this body.
All this is very important because during their term in office that is the only guarantee that they are independent.
For my group the text of the Treaty is abundantly clear.
A political function exercised in the general interest is incompatible with any party political function, whether at national, regional or local level and I am very glad that the President has confirmed it in such clear terms.
The only query one might have is: was it not possible for the Commission to have done this before? It is very clear that this Parliament, and the pressure from this Parliament, was the main reason why Commissioner de Silguy had to withdraw and not pursue this issue, rather than perhaps debate in the Commission.
But let us leave that aside.
I would now like to look towards the future and as President Santer has said, it is important also for future Commissions to take this attitude. Indeed Madam Cresson accepted this principle rather belatedly, which we may regret.
But it is now more important that we in this House establish this as a firm rule for the future with the agreement of the President of the Commission.
Mr Santer, could you perhaps, in preparation for the investiture of the new Commission, draw up a code of conduct as was suggested so that in the future no doubts remain about the composition of the body? Then there would be clarity and that in turn would strengthen the Commission.
One final point: it would be very welcome if Parliament at some stage looked at its own situation.
We should also look at the various aspects of dual mandates in this Parliament for the future.
As the European Union gains strength, as the representative character of the Community gains strength, not only the Commission but also the Parliament must, in certain respects, clarify the position for the future.
So we should not be too hypocritical about the past of this Commission and I hope that this debate has served as an important precedent for us also.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, to us this is very clearly a question of principles, and most definitely not individuals.
In that sense we are satisfied with the statement made by Commissioner Santer, and we fully support its general direction.
It is rather obvious that the mandate of European Commissioner cannot be linked to national, regional or even local mandates, because loyalties are created which lead to regional, local or national loyalties clashing with the European mandate they were given here.
I have to say, totally in line with what Mr Brinkhorst declared here a few moments ago, that we are also the party asking the questions, so that the Commission might give itself a code of conduct which is interpreted specifically enough, because Mr Santer was very explicit in relation to the national and regional mandates, but much less so as regards the local ones.
Yet the precedent was set.
A mandate at the level of mayorship of an important city is in our opinion incompatible with the function of European Commissioner.
As far as that is concerned we are the party asking the questions.
I have one last point, ladies and gentlemen.
I think it is great pity that all groups, apart from ours here, have decided to withdraw their resolutions.
Surely it is not because now that the individual question is off the boil, the fundamental opinion of this Parliament ceases to have any significance?
All demands which have been made in the various speeches I have heard have been perfectly reflected in our motion for a resolution.
We would very much like to urge support, and we are openly in favour of oral amendments, should one or two details not be right.
It is important that Parliament not only speaks, but decides on the basis of a text.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on a personal level.
Indeed, when all is said and done, this deed has been of service since although Mr de Silguy put forward his candidature he has finally withdrawn it, and yet it has enabled us to enter into this debate. However, it does not seem right to me to bring this to a conclusion in only one hour, or by voting tomorrow on a cursory text.
The problem has been raised, the question exists.
The wider question of the status of those elected with European political mandates is also raised.
Our Committee on Institutional Affairs is working on the status of European Members of Parliament and on a uniform electoral procedure, but I personally hope that this important argument, on which the Treaty has nevertheless remained silent, will be the object of a submission to our Committee on Institutional Affairs so that they may examine it.
If the Commission also wishes to reflect on a code of conduct, all the better, but I think that it is in our interests to be clear.
I no longer want to fall into the trap of considering Commissioners as beyond all political commitment, like technocrats fossilizing in the Breydel Palace or elsewhere and who have in no way taken account of their preferences, their political convictions or their commitment, which was what led them to the post of Commissioner in the first place.
So, of course, the incompatibilities must be established, but we must not fall into the possible dogmatism which almost leads us to forget about what we need most at the head of the Commission: political men and women and not an executive of technocrats and bureaucrats.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the question of the exercise of a political mandate by a Commissioner, or more correctly one Commissioner's desire to solicit a political mandate has been raised.
Mr de Silguy has abandoned his ambition towards the mandate in question, for reasons which he explained with loyalty and frankness.
You could be forgiven for thinking that this solves the problem.
In reality, the question raised is that of the exercise, by Commissioners, of functions other than those for which they were appointed, whether it be a question of a political mandate or a professional activity.
In this respect it seems to me that the past or current activities of Commissioners other than Mr de Silguy do, however, pose a serious problem.
Indeed, Commissioners are civil servants, whose duty it is to watch over the implementation of the Treaty. They are chosen by virtue of their overall competence and should offer every guarantee of independence.
This is stated in paragraph 1 of Article 157 of the Treaty.
Paragraph 2 states that Members of the Commission are fully independent in the exercise of their role, in the general interest of the Community; that they neither request nor accept instructions from any government nor body and that they refrain from any deed incompatible with the character of their role.
Do you think, Mr President, that these measures are really respected? Your predecessor, Mr Delors, was a local councillor.
Mr Pasty mentioned it earlier on.
During his mandated period as President of the Commission he actively participated in French political life to the point where it was rumoured that he aspired to become President of France in 1995.
Mrs Cresson was a candidate for a third term as Mayor in 1995.
She has always been very active within the leadership of the French Socialist party.
It is said that one of your Commissioners participates in certain meetings of his government, that many Commissioners participate in meetings of the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, outside of those which take place at the European Parliament, that another is Vice-Chancellor of a university in his country, which leads him to go home several times each month.
Recently, I was offended that Mrs Bonino was able to participate in a Pacific Forum, where the independence of New Caledonia was an issue, which is an integral part of one of the Member States, France.
I would therefore like to ask, Mr President, for a careful examination of the personal situation of each and every one of the Commissioners, to make sure they are fully respecting the Treaty.
Paid out of the Community budget, and therefore out of the taxes of every Member State, the Commissioners must exercise their functions on a full-time basis, as you said yourself, without having any other political activities beyond those of an ordinary citizen, and with no other professional activity.
Madam President, I too welcome Mr Santer's statement.
He has clarified it in the right way, not in the way that Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has just said.
He is wrong to say the Commissioners are simply officials.
Mr FabreAubrespy should read the Treaty and the Statutes.
It makes a clear distinction between officials of the institutions and the Members of the institution.
The 20 Commissioners form a political executive.
They are politicians and, indeed, the title of the debates and statement today to that extent is wrong.
It says that it is a statement on the compatibility of political office with the duties of Member of the Commission.
But membership of the Commission is a political office.
Like Ministers, they are appointed by Prime Ministers.
To take office they need the confidence of this House in a vote of confidence.
When they are in office they have to answer questions before this House and they can be dismissed by a vote of no confidence of Parliament - and only by a vote of no confidence of the European Parliament.
Thus, the Commission forms a political executive accountable to this House and it is important for this House that it is recognized as such.
They are not officials working for the Council as some Eurosceptics would have us believe.
They are politically answerable in their own right.
The debate then is not one of them being politicians but one of what other political offices they may hold.
It is a question of double mandates.
It is a question of cumul de mandats .
There we need to look very carefully, as has been done in the debate.
Nobody quibbles that Commissioners are members of political parties.
They participate in political parties and come to our group meetings.
That is very welcome.
There is some debate as to whether they should be mayors of small towns.
There are precedents on that.
It is debatable and I think the debate is moving against that in modern times.
But there are certainly major questions of them holding the presidency of a major European region which receives funds from the European Union.
And I am astonished that Mr De Silguy even considered that possibility.
I congratulate Mr Santer on having brought order within his team in the Commission and having made a very clear statement today.
Madam President, I also wish to express a personal view.
It seems to me that half the problem has been that each Commissioner has made up his own mind on a personal basis and we now need a set of rules.
You might contrast President Santer's welcoming of Mr de Silguy's decision to stand down as a candidate for the Breton Regional Council which he said 'did him credit' with the position of Sir Leon Brittan, for example, who presented himself by letter to every British citizen in Brussels before the last election asking them to vote Conservative and to contribute money to the Conservative Party.
Perhaps one should give him credit for attempting the impossible but, nevertheless, it calls into question his judgment.
We cannot leave it to Commissioners to decide what they are going to do, and what is acceptable, on a mix-and-match basis.
We have had statements from a number of political groups.
The Socialists say it is incompatible to hold any party-political post or take part in partypolitical campaigns although apparently - we hear from Mr Corbett - it is okay to attend group meetings.
Mr Méndez de Vigo said that the Commission is political but that the Commissioners are not party political.
Mr Brinkhorst for the Liberals said that no party-political role is permissible.
So we have a range of options and it is about time that the Commission got its act together.
The Commission we vote in needs to have the confidence of this House but, more importantly, Europe needs to be confident that these are not part-time politicians being a Commissioner for a few years but people who put Europe at the heart of their job and are prepared to renounce everything else in the meantime.
Mr Macartney was our last speaker in this debate and I give the floor to President Santer to conclude.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would simply like to thank those who have spoken and say how pleased I am with the manner in which this declaration has been discussed.
Indeed, a certain number of questions can be raised, but I believe that the members of the Commission must be independent.
What I do dispute the validity of is the idea that members of the Commission must be senior civil servants.
No, these are politicians, with a political mandate, who are responsible to the European Parliament...
... and so themselves assume political responsibilities.
Furthermore, if after 25 years as a member of a government and 11 years as Prime Minister, I was told that from now on I would be a civil servant, the idea would not occur to me to agree to this, even as President of the Commission.
I would never have agreed to this.
Therefore, according to the unanimous wishes of the European Council who appointed me President of the Commission, I perform my duties as a political representative before a responsible parliament, the European Parliament.
I believe that this is essential.
Furthermore, I also clearly dispute the validity of those tendencies which want to deny members of the Commission even the most basic rights which are reserved for citizens.
Citizens themselves have a right to political convictions, to belong to a political party, to stand as candidates in elections.
Why could civil servants, or even politicians or members of the Commission not do this in the same capacity as any citizen? We do not live in an ivory tower.
I have never considered the Breydel as a palace, as some have suggested.
I have always considered it more like a hospital.
Nor would I like it to become an ivory tower where the Commissioners hide themselves away, out of touch with political reality.
I believe we have a political mandate and we must carry out this political mandate according to our convictions, while exercising our fundamental rights as citizens.
I believe that it is in this spirit that my declaration must be looked at.
On the one hand, there is the duty of the Commissioners and the President of the Commission to be independent, as recognized by Article 157 of the Treaty, but on the other hand, there is the possibility for a Commissioner, or the President of the Commission, to reveal his political opinions and to be answerable for them before you.
Racism
The next item is the submission of oral questions, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, to the Council (B4-1010/97-0-0112/97) and to the Commission (B4-1011/97-0-0113/97) concerning the annual debate on racism.
Madam President, thank you for that kind introduction.
It is a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity of addressing Parliament today on this particular subject.
Having been a Member of this Parliament for ten years, I count myself a keen supporter of Parliament's work and, in particular, I am aware of Parliament's long-standing interest in tackling the problems of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
Indeed, I should like to take the opportunity of congratulating Members for all they have done to get this issue firmly onto the European agenda.
In addition to the essential role which national governments must play in combating racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism within their borders, I am in no doubt that there is also a crucial role for European action.
The Council - and, indeed, the presidency - will continue to work energetically and enthusiastically with you for positive policies in this field at European level.
One of the first tasks is to evaluate the effect of the joint action of 15 July 1996 concerning measures to combat racism and xenophobia.
By the end of June this year the Council will need to assess the fulfilment by Member States of their obligations under the joint action.
You will recall that Member States have undertaken to ensure effective judicial cooperation in respect of offences based on racist behaviour.
The Council which will be held on 28 and 29 May will therefore examine a report on the measures taken or planned by the Member States in the fight against racism.
As you will know, our two institutions took the opportunity to confirm our common concern about racism at the opening and closing conferences of the European Year against Racism in The Hague and in Luxembourg.
We believe that the European Year was an important step forward.
It made a valuable contribution to raising awareness of the problems of racism across the Union and to encouraging work to tackle those problems and to highlighting the benefits of our diverse societies.
I know that in my own country, the UK, events were held on an almost daily basis by a wide range of organizations up and down the country.
When we made government funding available to support projects marking the European Year we received a large number of applications.
The Public Information Unit set up by the Commission for Racial Equality in the UK was inundated with inquiries.
This showed clear evidence of the interest, the enthusiasm and the commitment at grassroots level.
I know that this was also in evidence in other Member States.
Governments must take note of the strength of feeling that the European Year showed.
The Year must not be seen as a one-off.
Its momentum must not be lost.
I agree with what Mr Mohammed Ali just said that we are not interested in just indulging in rhetoric.
We need to make sure that the momentum is maintained over the coming months and years.
Continuity has been well prepared by the Council and by the European Council during 1997.
There have been two declarations by the Council on the fight against racism in the fields of youth and education.
The Council Regulation of 2 June established a European monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia and the Amsterdam Treaty contains measures which are important in this respect.
All are important steps which provide a foundation for further initiatives to combat the different forms of discrimination.
The two declarations which were adopted by the Council and by representatives of the governments of the Member States dealt with the importance of measures in the youth field and in the field of education.
They also stressed the need to build upon the achievements of the European Year.
We will all agree that one of the most significant achievements of the European Year was the agreement to establish a European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna.
I know that this Parliament has long supported the idea of such a centre and that your representative Glyn Ford was a key figure on the Consultative Commission on Racism and Xenophobia which did so much of the groundwork.
I know too, and welcome the fact, that Parliament's involvement with the Centre will continue.
The Centre has the potential to make a real practical difference.
Working closely with the Council of Europe it will contribute to the necessary exchange of information and pooling of experience.
I am sure that it will prove invaluable to the Member States and to the Community institutions.
The Centre has now started its work.
The management board met last week and elected Mr Jean Kahn as its chairman.
This is very appropriate given the enormous efforts of Mr Kahn to bring the monitoring centre into being and I am sure that Members of this Parliament will wish to join me in congratulating Mr Kahn on this appointment and in wishing him a speedy and full recovery from his current illness.
In looking ahead to the future, we have to consider the impact of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
There are two key elements to the Treaty which are of particular relevance to this debate, .
The Treaty introduced into the text of the Treaty on European Union the task of preventing and suppressing racism and xenophobia in the new Article 29.
The new Article 13 provides a legal base for Community action to combat racial discrimination.
These new provisions will facilitate our work to step up the fight against discrimination based on race or ethnic origin.
When the ratification procedures for the Amsterdam Treaty are concluded, the Council will give priority to rapid implementation of that Treaty.
I know that Commissioner Flynn has already announced that the Commission is preparing an action plan to combat racism and xenophobia.
The Council looks forward to the Commission's proposals for building on the advances made in the Year and we look forward to working with the Commission on them.
The UK presidency, in particular, wants to maintain the momentum in this area.
We need to build upon achievements to date and look ahead to the potential of the new provisions of the Treaty.
We need to consider there both legislative and non-legislative options.
The UK will be holding a seminar towards the end of our presidency which will provide an opportunity to focus on these important issues and to look at the way ahead.
We have come some considerable way already but there is still a great deal to do.
The Council is determined not to shirk its responsibilities and looks forward to working with you and with the Commission, not just to tackle the evils which still blight our countries but also to find ways of celebrating the diversity from which we all draw so many benefits.
. Mr President, the honourable Member refers to the efforts of the Commission to combat racism in 1997 and to what has been done to comply with the recommendations put forward by the European Parliament in its resolution of 30 January 1997.
The Commission worked intensively in 1997 to implement the European Year against Racism and to promote non-discrimination.
The official closing conference of the European Year in Luxembourg last December underlined the success of the Year in terms of the political impact it had and the momentum it created, and also its achievements in raising awareness and in forging new partnerships and new networks throughout the Union.
One of the key political achievements during 1997 was the inclusion of the general anti-discrimination clause within the Amsterdam Treaty in Article 13.
Following the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty and building upon what was accomplished during the European Year and subsequently, I can say to you today that it is my firm intention to come forward with proposals for anti-discrimination legislation before the end of this Commission.
Another lasting result from 1997 was the adoption of the regulation governing the establishment of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia which was referred to by the Minister, Mrs Quin.
The first meeting of the management board took place in Vienna on 20 and 21 January and it is expected that the centre will be fully operational in the autumn of this year.
Finally, the closing conference highlighted one of the key results of the European Year which has been the joint action and cooperation between the European institutions.
The presence of the President-in-Office of the Council, the President of the Commission and the VicePresident of the European Parliament as speakers at that event is good testimony to this.
In this context the Commission welcomes the fact that the European Parliament continues to recognize the importance of the fight against racism, including its annual debate as part of this mini-session.
The European Year against Racism had two main strands.
It focused firstly on information and communication, and secondly on the exchange of experience.
In this way a broad range of activities were promoted as recommended by the European Parliament, ranging from essentially local and regional projects to high-profile events with television coverage right across the world.
In total some 177 projects received grant support.
Every effort was made to ensure that funding was provided for projects that reached citizens at grassroots level and involved ethnic minority and immigration groups in defining needs and in developing appropriate action.
Following the Year against Racism the Commission will continue to build on the partnerships that were established or strengthened during the year, including those with anti-racism nongovernmental organizations, with the social partners, the media, sports bodies and political parties.
In particular, 1997 saw the emergence of a European platform of anti-racism non-governmental organizations.
I would like to think that we can work together on this important development in the years to come.
The European Year was just the beginning - a good beginning but just the beginning.
It has shown not only what needs to be done but also what can be done.
It is my firm intention to continue to drive forward the European fight against racism.
I intend very shortly to present an action plan against racism which will build upon the achievements and lessons learned during the European Year of 1997 and pave the way for legislative proposals once the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified.
I look forward to receiving your continued support in this issue which is of such importance to all Europe's citizens.
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mohamed Ali on his report.
Secondly, I congratulate the Commission for the European Year against Racism which in our opinion was an outstanding success.
From Madrid to Manchester and from Barcelona to Berlin there were thousands of different events, some funded by the Commission, some by Member States and some by no one at all.
Some people were so keen to get involved they found the money and organized events for themselves.
I also, in particular, thank Commissioner Flynn for his dedication and commitment to pushing this issue up the agenda.
The promise he made first in Marseilles and now again today to introduce anti-discrimination legislation before the end of 1999 is extremely welcome.
Thirdly, I congratulate the Council for its acceptance in Amsterdam of the amendments which make it unambiguously clear that the European Community has a role in the fight against racism.
I also congratulate the Council on the agreement to establish the European Observatory which, as Commissioner Flynn says, was established eight days ago in Vienna and will be up and running in August this year.
I welcome very much the appointment of Jean Kahn as the President of the Management Board because of the work he did on the Consultative Commission on Racism and Xenophobia.
I hope the European Parliament will send its best wishes to Mr Kahn for a swift recovery from the stroke he has suffered.
We in the Socialist Group have shown a firm commitment behind the Year against Racism.
In fact we are continuing it - in our case it is a sort of Year and a Bit against Racism.
On Friday we have a Europe Football and Racism Conference to be held at Old Trafford in Manchester sponsored amongst others by the football team.
We have a closing conference for the Socialist Group coming up on 2 and 3 March here in Brussels.
So, our Year against Racism continues.
We will be supporting the Mohamed Ali report.
We support the idea that there should be a Code of Conduct.
We believe that democratic parties in this Parliament should sign it.
We ask for the Commission, to quote the Commissioner's own words: ' to see the Year against Racism as a foundation and not a monument' .
We therefore welcome this year's budget lines for the fight against racism and the proposed action plan.
More importantly, we believe it is necessary to avoid a hiatus developing between the work already done and that which is to follow.
As Mrs Quin says, the momentum must not be lost, in particular as the problem continues to get worse with the Front National in its heartlands in southern France stripping the libraries, victimizing the minorities and engaging in chequebook eugenics, as we speak.
We know it will take some time for Amsterdam to be ratified.
However, in the meantime we hope the Commission will prepare itself for swift and urgent action.
What has been indicated today leads us to believe that will be happening.
The presidency of the Council can serve the people of Europe well by helping to encourage and assist the Commission in this task.
I thank them all for what we have received but, to paraphrase Oliver Twist , I have to say that we want more!
Mr President, I would like to start by warmly congratulating the person who has taken the lead in this yearly debate, Mr Ali, on his dedication.
I would also like to congratulate the Commissioner and his entire staff, who made so much effort recently to make true progress in the field of anti-racism, and to combat xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
I am delighted that the Council representative is also here, because we are discussing a policy which is still principally in the hands of the Council.
The resolution we drafted in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has been the subject of very intense debate.
I think at the moment we have come a long way towards reaching a joint opinion.
A few points are still unresolved, however.
Mr Ford has already mentioned one with regard to the code of conduct for political parties. In fact I am pleased with the way he formulated his own amendments.
The amendment does not refer to tightening up this Parliament's Rules of Procedure, because everyone, terrible as this may be, should be allowed to express his political opinion; but it refers very expressly to the parties.
In the future we might have parties which will underwrite this code of conduct and parties which will not.
We will have politicians who are approachable, you will know where you are, and you will be able to keep people to it.
I believe that this is one of the most important results of the Year against Racism.
It has had a very good effect on politicians.
Politicians, in the Netherlands in particular, have declared that they will not play xenophobic games during the next elections around issues such as refugee policies and so on.
This is very important, because this kind of thing used to happen in the past.
I think it is very good that politics is cleaned up in this way.
I myself have two urgent requests, particularly related to the point which was originally in Mr Ali's motion for a resolution: the reference to the report on ethic cleansing.
This is, I think, of great significance for us. It is a piece of self-criticism on the policy which was made in our own departments of Foreign Affairs.
I recently read about a new event in this context, namely that, according to the French press, a highly placed French politician had expressed the view that the genocide in Rwanda was less important since it happened in Africa then if it had happened in Europe.
This is actually a typically racist comment, even though one might not be aware of it.
That is why it is very important that we still include this point in our resolution, in accordance with the original intentions of Mr Ali. I would like to make one remark about the question of the sans papiers .
There is a text in the resolution before us which I can only describe as messy.
In it the NGOs are praised for their commitment to emigrants without documents.
This is a widely held view.
In the Netherlands it is the case that, in particular, large numbers of those who turn out to be illegal, or who do not have a convincing refugee story, have mislaid their documents.
I know of no NGOs which concern themselves with this category, but I do know of NGOs which concern themselves with the special category of emigrants called sans papiers .
I have in fact met delegations of sans papiers .
This is a special state of affairs in the country in which they are staying.
I am indeed glad that some NGOs have made efforts on their behalf, because sometimes it is an omission which should be highlighted in legislation.
In general we cannot say that we, as a legislative body, should be pleased that we can be overruled by a NGO.
Broadly speaking this cannot be said.
I have therefore submitted an amendment for the category of sans papiers which I consider to be clearer than the other amendment on the subject.
I think it is right to talk specifically about this group, and I hope it will be adopted.
For that matter, I hope that the Council will be willing in the future to subject the issue of racism, xenophobia, and antiSemitism to increased democratic control, so that it does not remain solely in the hands of a Council which responds unanimously, as this provides a weak basis for policy.
- Madam President, I would like to welcome the Commissioner's proposal to have a follow-up action to the European Year against Racism.
May I recommend to him that perhaps he looks at the state of racism and xenophobia in my own country.
Particularly in my own city of Dublin there is an extraordinary manifestation of fear at the gypsies and at the other people coming from Eastern Europe and elsewhere, such as North Africa.
We have a very small number of refugees coming into the country, compared to Germany or to Britain and other countries.
Frankly, the Irish people have no reason to be proud about the manner in which we deal with these refugees.
I want to make that point very clearly.
I thank the Commissioner for the excellent work he has done in this area.
He has done a tremendous deal of extraordinarily good work.
He has made people more and more aware of the need for cultural diversity and the richness of cultural diversity in our country.
Mr Mohamed Ali, in my view, is one of the most extraordinary people in this Parliament.
He has been at the forefront of bringing a greater respect and understanding for Islam within the European Union.
It is of vital importance that we do not equate Islam with the Taliban and other fundamentalists.
After all, all religious sects and all official religions have their fundamentalists.
Tolerance of diversity enriches our individual societies.
Mr Mohamed Ali is to be congratulated for his report which I support in its entirety.
For the first time in any Treaty agreed at the level of the European Union, the Treaty of Amsterdam expressly lays down the prevention and combatting of racism and xenophobia as an objective of the European Union.
This is no throwaway objective, it is significant.
It is clearly a fundamental step forward.
It is not only important that the European Union and the Member States are committed to providing our citizens with a high level of safety and an area of freedom, security and justice.
It is important that the commitment is clearly linked to the objective of preventing and combating racism and xenophobia.
It is an objective which must be backed up by countries' actions.
History lays bare the terrible truths of racism.
If we have learned anything it must be that we must use all our powers and strengths to halt racist attacks and abuse.
The Amsterdam Treaty has many other fine qualities but the inclusion of this objective must be the one to which every citizen can rally around.
I would like to see the report from Mr Mohamed Ali circulated to all our schools and colleges throughout the European Union because it is there we must tackle, through education, xenophobic and racist attitudes within the European Union.
Mr President, in his report Mr Mohamed Ali invites us to comment on a number of assessments, suggestions and measures in the fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
My group supports his motion for a resolution which asks us to be vigilant, persevering and active in this area.
Vigilant, for there remain a large number of barriers in our societies which are at the root of a number of different incidents, attacks against human rights, exploitation of differences for doubtful ends and even exclusion.
Persevering, for we must make sure that the fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism is a perennial one, that is, that it should be matched with a strategy based on systematic observation, prevention, legislative action and political action in the widest sense of the term, usefully complemented by the work of NGOs.
You can be vigilant, persevering and superalert in the analysis of racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic phenomena, but you must also be active for there remain a number of initiatives to be taken in this area, particularly in the areas of training and education.
There are still many measures to be formulated with the aim of stemming the poisoning of those who are most receptive, and consequently most vulnerable, to political propaganda in our societies, through the media respectively.
In conclusion, I would like to ask the Council and the Commission what follow up they intend to give to the request repeatedly renewed by our Parliament to institute a remembrance day in memory of the victims of the holocaust.
This would enable us to advance along the path that I have just outlined.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the annual debate on racism must be an opportunity to take some specific steps forward in the fight against racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination. Mr Mohamed Ali has tried to make his report such an opportunity, and I congratulate him on his work.
When that report also refers to the balance-sheet of a European Year against Racism, which 1997 was, it is important to emphasize the significance of the new Treaty of the European Union, which was negotiated and signed in the same year, for that struggle.
As the rapporteur mentions in point 4, we also regret that, in spite of a few statements of good intentions, non-discrimination has not been incorporated into the Treaty as a fundamental principle of the so-called Community Law with immediate effect.
As we see in Article 13, ' the necessary measures to combat discrimination on grounds of sex, race and ethnic origin, religion or creed, disablement, age or sexual orientation, on a proposal by the Commission with the unanimous decision of the Council after consulting Parliament' , are fine words and might look like a step forward.
But that step can also be viewed as a step taken in a minefield, because any number of people have laid booby-traps, and the social situation is an absolute cauldron of racism.
In addition, the area of freedom, safety and justice which is essential to the fight against racism and xenophobia, as Article 29 makes clear, is not going to be created by fine words and timid actions.
Time is short, but even so I would not like to finish without underlining the proposal for the establishment of a European Charter of Emigrants' Rights in the context of a policy of integration designed to promote mutual understanding between ethnic groups.
The title itself is attractive. And particularly encouraging for anyone who comes from and lives in a country of emigrants and immigrants.
This is one of the good proposals in this report which we heartily approve.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Flynn, racism means exclusion.
The fight against racism is therefore the fight against and the control of exclusion.
This is something which Commissioner Flynn has always maintained and we fully support him in his stance.
This means integration rather than forced assimilation, equality of rights rather than legal inequality and equal rights rather than adherence to the misconceived legal division of our society into nationals, EU citizens and non-EU citizens.
This ranking of people into first, second and third class citizens is the cause of racial violence in the European Union, something which is increasingly becoming the norm and which, in this Year against Racism, is terrifyingly demonstrated in a Eurostat survey which has indicated that 30 % of the citizens of the European Union admit to being racist or antisemitic.
Democracy is based on participation and on all citizens having an equal share in their society.
Democratic rights cannot be made contingent upon ethnic origin, skin colour, religion or age. Democracy in the European Union is in a bad way when I look at the amount of racism and exclusion which we encounter daily.
The way in which we deal with minority groups and refuse to accept integration is a disgrace.
All the solemn declarations made in this Year against Racism are of little use when our policies are achieving just the opposite.
We have to overcome the problem of legal alienation and raise the legal rights of citizenship throughout the EU to the level of a democratically constituted society.
This society is to include the new minorities and those who have been invited to join our workforce, for they too are human beings.
These people are fully entitled to normal human rights.
The situation is not helped by the fact that our legal and political systems are unwilling to take notice of these minority groups.
They exist, they are here to stay and they should be allowed to do so.
Let me close by quoting the words of a rather nice song, which we could possibly take as our slogan: "My mother is black, my father is white, my sister is yellow, my brothers are red and as for me, I am ten thousand years old and my name is man.'
Mr President, the fact that the European Year against Racism is nearly over, should not mean, I think, that the fight against racism is over.
I saw a copy of the euro barometer opinion polls recently which were submitted at the conclusion of the European Year against Racism, Mr Commissioner, and I have to tell you I find the results disconcerting.
No less than one third of the interviewees admit to being very or somewhat racist.
In Belgium that group even comprised over half the interviewees.
The opinion poll also showed very clearly that xenophobia thrives best on feelings of insecurity, but above all, and this is important, on fear of the future and lack of faith in democratic institutions.
One conclusion I would like draw from this, colleagues, is that the new study must spur on every democratic party in Europe all the more to continue to create convincing and honest policies and confidence in the institutions which give people faith in the future.
But there are political parties which have made a real breeding ground out of engendering fear, xenophobia, racism, who abuse their mandates to spew freely their spiteful thoughts on all fronts at once, who speak of 'foreign scum, own people first', and if possible, in all languages at once.
In Brussels racist pamphlets are pushed though every letter box, including those of Italians and Turkish people, and of people who work in this Parliament, and of colleagues. I would like to give Mr Oostlander a message.
One thing should be clear to us. The excuse of political freedom, of freedom of speech should never be used or abused to foster racist objectives or discrimination on the basis of colour or origin, whether inside or outside Parliament.
Because that is manifestly contrary to human rights.
A short while ago a reference was made to the charter drafted for political parties in which they commit themselves to combat racism in their own midst, as well as outside it, and in which they vow not to cooperate with groups which incite racist acts.
I hope that all democratic parties will sign this charter very soon, but also implement it, please.
But I still believe, Mr Oostlander, that as a democratic institution of the citizens of the European Union, the European Parliament should also incorporate the charter as one of its principles into its own operations.
It should not be the case that in the name of free speech racist language is uttered in this Chamber.
It will not wash that the European Parliament gives grants to those who spread xenophobia.
What has proved possible in the Belgian Parliament and does not appear to be contrary to fundamental freedoms, should, in my view, also be possible in this House.
I would like to ask the Bureau to make a proposal to the European Parliament with regards to Rules of Procedure or a way of operating whereby we no longer contribute to the hate- stirring messages of some of our colleagues.
Mr President, our advanced technological societies need liturgy and ritual, and very often rational thought disappears in the face of the magical.
The European Union does not escape this.
And here we are today, all institutions together, the Commission, Brussels, the Council of Ministers, Parliament, to commune in the ritual of anti-racism, with its high priests, its ex-communicators, its exorcists and also, it has to be said, its hypocrites.
Allow me, an agnostic, a sceptical spirit, who does not believe in your dogma and who is amused by your rituals, a few iconoclastic remarks. Firstly, how can we talk about racism when we claim that races do not exist?
Is this not somewhat incoherent? Furthermore, in its last meeting, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, always up to date in its political correctness, removed from its discussions the word "race' and the adjective "racial' , as if getting rid of the word meant getting rid of the deed.
Secondly, if anti-racism and the fight against racism were effective, it would certainly not be necessary to keep coming back to it, year after year, and to anticipate, after a year of anti-racism, a millennium of anti-racism.
If you bemoan the deterioration of the situation, perhaps your solutions are not the right ones.
And this leads me on to my third remark.
It is true that in the suburbs of our towns, in France, Belgium and other European countries as well, the situation is becoming more and more difficult, delinquency is spreading and ethnic riots are increasing.
This is particularly true in France, where ethnic gangs, gangs of young immigrants, attack everything that represents the State and nation: the police force, of course, but also the Mayors, whatever their political outlook, even the socialist ones, even the communist ones, and the fire brigade, who more and more frequently are the target of flying objects when they go to put out a fire or to save human lives at the scene of an accident.
There are, and this is my fourth remark, many explanations for this - too much immigration, of course, the unfortunate rootlessness of immigrant populations, lack of success at school, but also, and permit me to say this, anti-racist ideology and policies.
Let me explain.
When a young European national behaves aggressively, in a violent, even delinquent manner, he is cracked down on, pursued and punished, and rightly so.
When a young foreigner behaves in the same aggressive, violent, even delinquent way he accuses the teacher, the policeman or the judge who want to crack down on him of being racist, and from then on the delinquent is no longer the accused but the accuser.
Far from being weakened, he is strengthened.
Yes, anti-racism encourages ethnic gang violence and thus generates what you call racism.
They say that hell is paved with good intentions.
Today, the obsessional and obligatory anti-racism that you want to impose is one of the causes of racism.
Mr President, the phenomenon of racism and xenophobia currently affecting the entire European Union is a matter of real concern to us all.
The greater protection from racial, ethnic and religious discrimination afforded by the Amsterdam Treaty is therefore to be welcomed.
Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that the most effective solution still lies in the power of the mind.
I think that this is more readily understood when one translates the term "xenophobia' not by "animosity towards' or "hatred of' foreigners, which is a common mistake sadly made all too often nowadays, but more correctly by "fear of foreigners' .
This fear, which is felt mainly by older persons, can only be reduced by each of us acting personally as we go about our daily business.
Here it is necessary to convey to our citizens a sense of security which enables them to overcome their fear.
The results of the Year against Racism, which in committee the rapporteur himself has described as the search for an alibi, will not alone be enough to achieve this objective. The additional measures announced by the Commissioner will therefore still be needed.
Mr President, I should like to start off by saying to the last two speakers that they should be a little careful.
Every one of us is the potential victim of someone else's racist attitudes.
If we are not prepared to stand up and defend the rights of others, the day may come when our rights are challenged and there will be nobody around to defend them.
So, be careful.
I want to congratulate Mr Mohamed Ali on his excellent report and to pick out one or two points.
Paragraph 6 is very important and I am delighted to say that the new government in Britain will be enacting legislation which will make any criminal activity which is racially motivated a justification for more severe penalties.
This is absolutely right.
It is also important that in paragraph 14 we condemn unwise and inflammatory statements, sometimes made by certain politicians who should know better, to provoke racial dislike and racial animosity.
We have heard comments about communities being swamped and that sort of remark does no good at all.
People who have influence in society should not incite racial attitudes.
On paragraph 15 it is important that in the ongoing negotiations for accession of the central and eastern European countries, we make it absolutely clear - and I am not condemning or criticizing any particular country - that respect for human rights and for the whole concept of anti-discrimination contained in Article 13 of the Treaties agreed at Amsterdam is a crucial part of what they will accept when they become members of the European Union.
The way in which certain minority groups, in particular the travelling communities, have traditionally been treated in some of these countries is shocking and disgraceful and must be brought to an end.
I support very much the introduction of a code of conduct. I hope this will be in operation for the next European elections and will ensure - as happened at the last general election in Britain - that none of the major political parties are tempted to use the race card to their advantage and that those who are not prepared to sign a code of conduct outlawing racial and xenophobic sentiments are marginalized totally.
Finally, not only must we condemn racism in all its forms but we must extol the positive benefits of a pluralistic multiracial society.
I am proud to represent such a society in West London, where a third of the community or their parents are of non-English ethnic origin and who by and large live together happily and harmoniously together and positively benefit the community.
These multi-racial communities are not only culturally enriching but economically stimulating.
I leave you with this thought.
The 1.5 million people of Asian origin in Britain last year contributed £5 billion through Asian-owned businesses to the economic vitality of my country.
That is a positive aspect which is too often ignored.
Mr President, just one year ago, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media organized a public hearing on the theme of, "Points of convergence between Europe and Islam' , during which one of the guests, Jean Yaya-Michot, Director of the Centre for Arab Philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain, took pleasure in monopolizing the debate and addressing me in insulting terms of a racist nature.
Several months later, the same Mr Yaya-Michot published in Beirut a short work justifying, on the basis of theological works, the assassination of the seven monks in Tibehirine.
I dare to hope that, within the framework of a new Year against Racism, the European Parliament will do its best to spare its Members from verbal aggression by foreign agents, who advocate the extermination, in its most barbarous form, of born and bred Europeans, because they are white and often Christian.
With regard to Professor Yaya-Michot, we will not have to suffer his insults for much longer, but it will have required my intervention at Vatican level for this recently naturalised Belgian to be made to shut up or to leave my country.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Flynn for his support and for all his endeavours and also to express my particular thanks to all Commission personnel for what they achieved in 1997 as part of the Year against Racism and Xenophobia.
I would like to congratulate Mr Mohamed Ali on his excellent report.
Nevertheless, at the end of this year against racism and xenophobia I wish to focus on three aspects which still have to be worked on.
The first of these is the need to continue with the fight against racism and xenophobia, which commenced in 1997.
In view of the comments which we have just heard from three Members on the right of the House, it is apparent that we still have a long way to go before Parliament is able to take a different approach to this issue.
My second point concerns politicians, the media and the scholastic establishment. These groups must become far more aware of their educational role and should be adopting an anti-racist and anti-xenophobic stance.
Thirdly, the European Union has always been a focus for immigration and emigration, and this is increasingly true today.
Those migrants who have settled within our boundaries have helped shape our society, and in most cases they have integrated successfully.
If in recent years this integration has been less successful, that should be blamed not on the migrants themselves but rather on the shortcomings of our political strategy.
We will have to work much harder to ensure that these new settlers can be better integrated within the boundaries of the Union so that we can build up a real sense of community.
In this context I have to point out that female migrants are a particularly vulnerable group.
They suffer from discrimination not only because of their nationality and appearance, but because of their gender.
The UNHCR has developed strategies for protecting female refugees from human rights violations.
I therefore call upon Member States to apply the same measures.
Of special importance to me is a point which we have already discussed in committee and on which we are fundamentally agreed: I consider it to be an error of judgement, and this has been confirmed to us time and time again in various discussions with different organizations, to speak of discrimination on the basis of race.
As Mrs Roth has also pointed out, there is only one race - the human race.
There is no such thing as racial difference.
In order to emphasize this, we ourselves should avoid referring to racial discrimination in any positive context.
I therefore propose that in future we should reconsider our choice of words and perhaps use a different term - such as harmonization.
Mr President, let me use my own area of Essex in the UK to demonstrate the success of the European Year.
In the last 12 months I have personally taken part in a 200-strong business conference on the case for racial equality, a seminar for personnel officers on racial discrimination in employment, a special conference for our county's seven multi-agency racial incident panels and as a judge for an anti-racist poetry competition with entries from over 300 local schoolchildren.
Yet the number of racially motivated crimes in Essex has remained constant at over 100 this year.
Research from the community safety department of Essex Police confirms that racist attitudes held in the Community generally help perpetrators to legitimize their racist crimes.
So I am asking the Commissioner to make sure that he works with us to ensure that every year is the Year against Racism.
It is why the Essex Race Equality Council will this year start a new anti-racist project with young people in Thurrock, host a national exhibition on racial diversity and this very week convenes a first meeting of local women's groups on questions facing minority ethnic women.
It is why the Essex Returners Unit with Essex Tech has launched an action plan following on from the Year which includes new recruitment procedures for local police, race awareness for local training organizations and new support for local minority ethnic associations.
Congratulations to them all.
For us in the European Parliament, let this one local example serve as an example to us all, and let us remember that Europe's fight against racism needs to reach communities at the local level in Essex and in every part of Europe.
Unless it does so, it means nothing.
Mr President, I want very briefly to make one or two remarks in response to the debate.
I very much welcome the positive tone that the debate has generally adopted and the welcome that has been given to the work of the rapporteur on this particular issue.
I will briefly pick up on one or two specific points.
Education was referred to by one or two speakers and I would like to say that the Council fully recognizes the importance of education and work with young people in fostering a society of equality of opportunity.
As Parliament will know, 21 March has been proclaimed as the day when cultural differences will be celebrated and tolerance promoted among young people and in educational establishments.
I know that Mr Goerens who spoke earlier has done a great deal to remind young people today of the dangers of Nazism and anti-Semitism of the past. I agree with him that remembering the victims of the Holocaust remains very important.
Both Mr Mohamed Ali and Mr Andrews mentioned specifically the risks of Islamophobia.
I very much agree with the comments they made.
It is the responsibility of all of us to reject such unthinking prejudice against any one group.
So, on behalf of the Council, I would like to say that I have taken careful note of the various points that have been raised during the course of this debate.
It certainly seems to me that this is clearly an area where the three institutions - Parliament, Commission and Council - can work closely together to promote practical and effective action for the future.
Asylum policy
The next item is the group discussion on the following oral questions:
B4-1012/97-0-0136/97, put to the Council, and B4-1013/97-0-0137/97, put to the Commission, by Mrs Lindeperg, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on rights of asylum; -B4-1017/97-0-0166/97, put to the Commission by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the observance of rights of asylum; -B4-1018/97-0-0174/97, put to the Council, and B4-1019/97-0-0175/97, put to the Commission, by Mr Nassauer and Mr Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, relating to the Dublin Convention on asylum processes; -B4-1020/97-0-0176/97, put to the Council by Mr Schaffner and Mr Caccavale, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on asylum policy; -B4-1021/97-0-0178/97, put to the Commission, and B4-1104/97-0-0179/97, put to the Council, by Mr Wiebenger, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on rights of asylum; -B4-0002/98-0-0162/97, put to the Council, and B4-0003/98-0-0163/97, put to the Commission, by Mrs Roth, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the protection of persons suffering persecution from nonState agents; -B4-0004/98-0-0167/97, put to the Council, and B4-0005/98-0-0168/97, put to the Commission, by Mr Pradier, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on justice and internal affairs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me time to speak at such short notice.
I have asked to be permitted to speak again because I believe that the opportunity must be given to respond to some of the remarks made by the extreme Right in this House.
If we are debating racism in Europe and the fact that racism in its extreme form is actually spreading in Europe at the present time, and if we then see that in its extreme form....
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr Schulz, you requested leave to speak on a point of order.
The debate you are trying to start up again has already been closed.
I am unable to re-open it.
If you are asking for leave to speak on a point of order then you may speak, but not if you want to continue the debate.
Mr President, thank you for finding me out.
Nevertheless, I should like to take the opportunity to finish my sentence.
It is outrageous that those who are claiming for themselves an anti-racism debate are in fact those who represent racism in Europe.
I would ask you, Mr President, in accordance with Rule 131 of the Rules of Procedure, to defer the present debate on the oral questions submitted by the various Groups, to the next plenary session in Strasbourg to be held on Monday at 5.00 p.m.
Up to just a few minutes before this debate began, we in the European Socialist Party tried, along with a number of other parliamentary Groups, to agree a compromise text which would as far as possible incorporate the different political positions.
Five minutes before this plenary sitting began, and for reasons which I do not wish to comment on, the Liberal Group withdrew its signature from that document.
The result is that there will certainly be no majority in favour of our compromise text tomorrow.
But neither do we think that any other compromise can be found which would command a majority in this House.
As a result we are now holding a debate without any hope of a tangible outcome tomorrow.
But because asylum is such an important issue, we as Social Democrats will continue to search for a broad-based resolution and therefore intend renewing our efforts to reach a compromise with the other Groups.
For this reason we ask that the debate be deferred as requested.
Mr Schulz has requested on behalf of the Socialist Group that the debate on the oral questions relating to rights of asylum be deferred.
May I ask whether anyone is willing to vote in favour or against?
Is anyone in favour?
Mr President, I would like to comment on the report, just as Mr Schulz just requested.
Indeed, the problem of asylum is a subject of great importance and the joint resolution, as it came out of the debate yesterday, concerned such a limited point, such a precise point, a point which, furthermore, was part of the Council's programme and therefore not at all controversial, that it would be a shame to make an ideological division out of it.
Consequently, as Martin Schulz said, I would prefer some time to be given to see how it would be possible to come to an agreement on this subject.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I oppose the motion to defer this debate.
Negotiations have taken place on the basis of motions from many individual Groups.
As far as I know, no Group has insisted that its own text should be taken as the yardstick for all.
The Group of the European People's Party, for example, had proposed that the Liberals' motion for resolution be taken as a basis for negotiation.
This was rejected.
The outcome of the negotiations is that from the outset we, in the European People's Party did not sign the motion for resolution.
The resolution proposed by the Liberals and also that proposed by the PPE are at least still available for voting on.
We therefore see no reason, even though the Socialist Group believes that there will not be a majority for their proposal, to delete an item from the agenda and to refer it back to committee.
We want to see the agenda worked through in its original form.
Mr Nassauer, the motion is that this debate be deferred, leaving it to the discretion of the Conference of Presidents to fix a date for it.
(Parliament agreed to the request that the debate be deferred) The debate is therefore deferred to a date to be notified by the Presidents' Conference.
Mr President, I will be voting against.
I am against deferment, because the reasons given by those who are calling for it do not hold up in any way.
These are various manoeuvres unrelated to the need for urgent debate of the issue and for there to be yet another decision by the European Parliament to create as much pressure as possible against extending the conditions and prerequisites for the granting of asylum.
Mr President, I have a question.
When the bell goes, how long do we have to get to the Hemicycle? Because we ran out of the office, leaving people in mid-sentence, but we still did not get here in time.
Could you please tell us how much time we have, so we know whether to gallop, trot or walk?
Mrs Díez de Rivera, according to the Rules of this House I can only have the bells rung when I become aware that the rule for the tabling of a motion has been invoked.
Until then I am unable to do so.
And the time available is the interval between the time of making the announcement and the time at which I have to put the motion to the vote, after inviting Members to speak for or against it.
A procedural vote of this type can take place at any time.
Application of Community law - CELEX
The next item is Report A4-0008/98, by Mrs Thors, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Matters and Citizens' Rights, relating to the fourteenth Annual Report of the Commission on the monitoring of Community Law application (1996) and the working document on the Commission's CELEX 1996 services (relating to the interinstitutional computerised documentation system on Community Law); 1996 Management Report (COM(97)0299 - C4-0312/97 - SEC(97)1082 - C4-0313/97).
Mr President, every one of our Parliament's rapporteurs who examines the European Commission's annual report on the application of Community Law aspires to display his own method and attitude.
The same has happened this year with our esteemed colleague Mrs Astrid Thors.
And I will not disagree with her, because there is perhaps nothing worse, both for the European Parliament's image and in substance, than a boring restatement for the umpteenth time of views expressed many times before in this Chamber. In that respect the rapporteur chose not to deal with the great and more general problems which influence the interpretation and application of Community Law, but to concentrate her attention more on more practical matters which perhaps have a more direct bearing on Europe's citizens.
So she highlighted two basic elements: greater participation by Europe's citizens themselves in the application of Community Law, and the European Ombudsman's interventions, which tend towards the same direction. And Mrs Thors has formulated practical proposals to deal with several problems, with which - naturally - I think most of us can agree.
The European People's Party will therefore vote in favour of her report, which also comprises three amendments that I had the honour to table and which the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was kind enough to accept. I think it might be necessary for me to comment, in order to reinforce those views, on just two or three subjects: it is indicative that out of 1 076 cases initiated by the Commission in 1996, 819 were set in motion following complaints by European citizens.
And it is just as characteristic that 36 % of the complaints made to the European Ombudsman concerning infringements of Community Law again came from European citizens. There are several other positive elements, Mr President, during the period we are considering.
I will point indicatively to the fact that the Commission initiated many more cases, to the possibility of access to Community Law via the Internet and the institution of more proceedings, and if you will, to the establishment of the possibility of imposing financial penalties upon Member States which fail to implement the decisions of the European Court of Justice. On the other hand, however, we must note that, as I fear, the major problems persist and little progress has been made with them.
The process of seeking justice is always very lengthy, time-consuming and very costly.
The teaching of Community Law has not yet even become established in the law schools of the top Educational Institutions in the 15 Member States.
There are still problems with the tendency of certain constitutional courts to wish to dispute with the Court of the European Communities the jurisdiction of annulment for Community regulatory acts without entitlement to any such jurisdiction, a trend which began in the German Supreme Constitutional Court, and one which, for all we know, may be imitated by the Danish Supreme Court which is due to pronounce in a few weeks. So there are both positive and negative elements.
A much greater effort must be made, and I believe that the report by Mrs Thors will assist that effort.
Madam Rapporteur, Mr President, it seems to be a hobby of some of our colleagues to pillory the Member States, who are the cause, according to them, of all the evils which affect the European Union.
Thus, Mrs Thors' report highlights that the average rate of notification - and I quote - "for transposition measures taken by the Member States as a whole is 92.8 %' .
This is truly what legislators dream of and in particular, French legislators who, far too often vote in laws and then wait months, even years, for the regulatory rules to enable them to implement them.
So rather than always complaining about Member States, I personally prefer to commend the zeal with which Community law is being implemented.
The rapporteur also highlights the difficulties of the practical and concrete application of community law and the lack of knowledge of the law on the part of our citizens.
This is a question of training, of legal training and of university training.
This obviously is the role of the Member States and not the European Union which, in this area, can only limit itself to giving encouragement.
Finally, the rapporteur highlighted the delicate question of the powers exercised by Member States' Constitutional Courts on the validity of prescriptive acts in relation to constitutions.
This is a particularly serious question, basic laws being, in a way, the founding basis of the social and political contract of the Member States.
And the French Constitutional Court, by demanding the amendment of our constitution when the measures of draft treaties do not conform to it, indicates that, on the contrary, the Supreme Court recognises the impossibility of applying a European standard which is contrary to our constitution.
This seems to me indeed normal and desirable, our constitutions being the supreme act of our sovereignty.
Mr President, it seems that we do not have "the same procedure as last year' , to coin a phrase.
The rapporteur has done very well and for that I offer her my sincere thanks.
The motion for resolution includes an early mention of the national constitutional courts.
I would like - and I hope that I am proceeding along the same lines as you here - to say something about the Federal Constitutional Court, which has a constitutional appeal pending in respect of the euro.
The Federal Constitutional Court must know what it is doing.
It may be plunging the European Union into a deep political crisis from which the EU may never recover.
But it must know what it is doing.
Let me just single out one of the many practical examples mentioned by the rapporteur, namely the control procedure and the role of the citizen.
I wholeheartedly support the initiative of the citizens' representative and of the rapporteur that, should this control procedure result in a negative decision by the Commission, then this decision must be substantiated.
This has something to do with democracy.
I have followed the midday debate on whether Commissioners or officials are now politicians, civil servants or whatever, with a certain amusement.
From the outside the situation looks somewhat different.
Allow me to quote from a recent edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung , which states: "It is certainly true that without the expert knowledge and diligence of the civil servants in Brussels a century project like the euro would never materialize, because it would be talked to death for years.
It is not true that one of these civil servants will have to take some sort of responsibility if the experiment fails.
One obviously hopes that they have the sense of responsibility which Max Weber demands from politicians, but they are not responsible for their work, they just have to carry it out.'
The western inventors of democracy certainly did not conceive it thus.
It matters that we should establish this public openness between the Commission and its citizens, and for that reason I am particularly thankful for this part of the report.
While I am talking about the basics, let me quote from a very old text which, though penned more than 200 years ago, is still relevant today.
It was written in 1795 by Imanuel Kant on the subject of eternal peace and goes as follows: "All deeds which relate to the rights of other men, and whose maxim is not compatible with publicity, are wrongful.'
This maxim, Kant goes on to say, is one which I may not divulge without at the same time thwarting my own intention, which itself must be kept absolutely secret if it is to succeed and to which I cannot publicly admit, without provoking inevitable opposition from everyone to my design; such a maxim can only have its origins in injustice and therefore constitutes a threat to us all.
My appeal to the Commission is therefore as follows: Please take this matter very seriously.
Something which is not founded on injustice can be made public, can be made accessible to public discussion, can be opened up to public debate.
This establishes trust rather than secrecy.
Mr President, I am grateful to Madam Torres for bringing forward this extremely good report.
The conclusions reached in the Social Affairs Committee were developed as an insight into the citizens' interface with the institutions and the methodology with which we bring about this application of law across the European Union, particularly in the social arena.
We listed many faults.
The conclusions from the Committee dealt with, for example, equal opportunities and the use of structural funds and the inadequate addressing of this point; the free movement of people; the testing of collectively-agreed directives separately and differently from Community law in general; the judicial and legal customs of Members States around the European Union.
We should not just test the letter of the law but the effect of the law as well.
The implication that so much law can apply in such a non-uniform way, should prompt the Commission to respond urgently to the issues Madam Torres accepts.
She accepts only some of the issues raised in the Social Affairs Committee and I regret this.
Particularly the technical/legal customs and traditions which exist in all countries across the European Union should be considered in terms of their effect and not just their letter.
Settlement finality
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0005/98) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0534/97-96/0126(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on settlement finality in payment and securities settlement systems.
Mr President, as the rapporteur has already stated, we in the Christian Democrat and Social Democrat Groups have agreed a common position in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
We support this position.
The rapporteur has done an excellent job.
The fact that we have not restricted the proposal to payment systems alone, but have managed to include securities and settlement systems, is a real achievement.
This was a very important point.
What I also consider to be of great significance is the principle that all creditors be treated equally in the event of insolvency.
Here we have now created a substantial legal framework against a background of maximum publicity and we have done this within the scope of that which can be politically achieved at the present time.
This is all down to Mr Lehne and for this I wish to express to him my heartfelt thanks.
We shall be supporting this common position here in Parliament.
Mr President, I would like to add my congratulations to the paeans of praise that have been heaped on the rapporteur for his wisdom, and particularly to speak in support of his Amendment No 5 which has been co-signed by Mr Rothley on behalf of the Socialist Group.
That amendment goes to the heart of what is a very important problem in this proposal.
This proposal, incidentally, is a major part of the single market programme.
It concerns the dangers of what might happen if a bank, for example, were to be declared bankrupt at the beginning of a payment transaction and the message about that bankruptcy were not transmitted to the rest of Europe until too late.
Amendment No 5 anticipates the difficulties that might arise under that situation, though, as has been pointed out by other speakers, it shifts the burden of proof.
I would just add in parenthesis here that the drafting of the original directive was perhaps not as good as it might have been.
I am not sure that the common position as it has emerged from the Council is necessarily perfect but I hope that we will be taking one step further towards an improved text when we vote tomorrow.
I would support what the rapporteur said in suggesting that the Parliament should accept all of the amendments which have been proposed by my group and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, particularly in the all-important Amendment No 5 which relates to Article 3(1).The whole purpose, of course, is to ensure that the settlement systems operate properly within a single market.
But it is also to make sure that there is an adequate settlement system without too much risk of people being deprived of their due payments under the European Monetary Union settlement system.
This is an important measure from every point of view and to that extent we should, perhaps, congratulate both the Commission and the rapporteur and hopefully the Council - though sadly the British presidency is not present this evening - because this is a very important issue for Europe's principal financial centre which is, of course, London.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive concerning settlement finality in payment and securities settlement systems is born out of the incontestable fact that a few cases where large banks have been declared bankrupt have severely tested the financial system, both at national and international level.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to establish a privilege for institutions that are party to multilateral agreements on netting, collateral security or credit guarantee systems, thereby making all the creditors in the multilateral circuit immune from any insolvency proceedings opened against one of the signatory institutions.
To summarize, the intention is to remove the financial system from the principle of par in par creditorum and give it an advantage over all other creditors in the event of its involvement in insolvency proceedings against banks or other financial institutions.
In fact, a payment made by a credit institution to any third party would continue to be revoked if the credit institution went bankrupt under the common rules currently in force in individual Member States. However, this payment would no longer be subject to revocation if another credit institution benefited from it, even if this happened the day before the insolvency proceedings were opened and, under certain conditions, even if it happened on the actual day that the proceedings were opened.
The reasoning behind this preferential treatment, it is maintained, stems from the need to introduce safeguards within a system which, although subject to few controls, manages enormous amounts of capital obtained, as we know, from millions of savers.
Although these considerations are no doubt worthy of attention, the consequences of the new directive must, nonetheless, be properly evaluated.
Are we sure, for example, that it will not have negative repercussions on the fabric of small and medium-sized enterprises which, as everyone knows, form the backbone of the European economy? They are also the only means of creating new jobs but will obviously be excluded from this system which we can certainly describe as privileged.
As always, our debate is taking place amid the indifference of public opinion which is not informed, until it is too late, of what is being planned in this Chamber.
Perhaps the glare of public opinion would force us to be more cautious.
To conclude my brief speech, while fully appreciating the hard work done both by the Commissioner, Mr Monti, and the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, I feel I must emphasize that creating an insolvency-proof financial zone may also be risky and increase the gulf that separates the Europe of Institutions from the Europe of citizens, all the more so as, at the present time, the Union is not yet engaged in harmonizing bankruptcy law as a whole, despite repeated requests from the European Parliament in many of its resolutions.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his usual, very thoughtful work.
The object of this proposal is to protect the banking settlement systems from the insolvency of the participants.
The reasoning behind this proposal is to prevent creditors from claiming payments already made into the banking system when the insolvency of a bank is opened.
If this were not the case the banking system would suffer from a lack of certainty.
Creditors will still be able to claim against an insolvent bank but without undermining the banking system of payments.
The main issue of concern is at which time should the insolvency proceedings be deemed to have started.
In my view, payments made in good faith on the day of insolvency proceedings being opened should still be protected.
Although the number of time zones in the European Union is fairly limited compared with, say, the United States, nevertheless there is some divergency and certainty is essential in insolvency proceedings.
Consequently, I note Article 3 of the proposal and support compromise Amendment No 5 which, although not perfect, is a reasonably fair reflection of the situation.
Again, although this may seem, as I have said many times in this Chamber before, a rather arid and academic subject, it adds to the protection of consumers and banking laws and systems in general.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lehne, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for their valuable contribution to the consideration of this proposal.
Although, as a member of the Commission, I cannot agree with what has been written in Mr Lehne's report to the Committee on Legal Affairs, I do understand the legitimate concerns that lie behind it.
It is precisely for this reason that I would like to express my appreciation to Mr Lehne and Mr Rothley for introducing new amendments for this part-session to replace the previous ones, which the Commission welcomes wholeheartedly because they help to clarify and improve the proposal.
This proposal will fill a gap in the legislation relating to the single market as it provides legal certainty with regard to cross-border and domestic payment and securities settlement systems.
Until now the uncertainty concerning the legal framework to be applied in the event of insolvency has inhibited the development of these systems. This was deplorable, considering that the efficiency of cross-border transactions has increased substantially since these systems have been in place.
It is also legitimate to expect a reduction in the cost of business transacted through them.
Studies carried out by the Commission have shown that, because of the inefficiency associated with cross-border transactions, the charges for low-value transfers - which are, after all, what interests our citizens the most - may amount to as much as 25 % of the sum transferred.
Another important aim of this directive is to provide a legal basis for establishing collateral security with the central banks of other Member States, a practice which will become even more important with the introduction of the single currency.
Finally, this directive will be an essential back-up instrument - it is on record - for the target, the vehicle through which the European Central Bank will create the common monetary policy.
New Amendment No 5 balances two interests: on the one hand there is the interest in protecting the payment and securities settlement systems and avoiding major crises in the financial markets, and in this respect South-East Asia clearly illustrates the effects of such crises, not only on national economic systems but also worldwide; on the other hand, there is the need to respect the principle of par in par creditorum in bankruptcy law.
This amendment represents a fine balance between the two interests.
Paragraph 2 of Amendment No 6 clarifies what was previously stated in more ambiguous terms in Article 11 of the common position.
The Commission can therefore agree to the deletion of Article 11 and its substitution by this paragraph.
The fact that Member States can impose a duty of supervision on systems may not under any circumstances prejudice the powers conferred on the European Central Bank pursuant to Article 22 of its charter.
In this regard, bearing in mind all that has been said, I would like to recommend the following wording be added to paragraph 3 of Article 10: "in addition to the duty of notification under the first paragraph and without prejudice to Article 22 of the charter of the European central banking system of and the European central bank or the areas of competence of the European central bank, the Member States may subject to supervision or request approval for systems which enter within the respective jurisdictions' .
Finally, the Commission is prepared to accept the greater degree of transparency with regard to the sender of a payment or a transaction concerning securities, which has been introduced in the third paragraph of Amendment No 2.
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted that, thanks to the fruitful dialogue between our Institutions, the Commission is able to accept the two new amendments.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Connected telecommunications - Mobile and wireless communications
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0023/98 by Mrs Read, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on connected telecommunications equipment and the mutual recognition of the conformity of equipment (COM(97)0257 - C4-0275/97-97/0149(COD)); -A4-0027/98 by Mr Camisón Asensio, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the further development of mobile and wireless communications - Challenges and choices for the European Union (COM(97)0217 - C4-0271/97).
. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal concerning connected terminal equipment first came to this Parliament in 1990 and was based on a proposal from the Commission about mutual recognition of type approval for terminal equipment.
That approach was based very much on the test house system and mutual recognition in every country in the Union of acceptable testing.
For a variety of reasons which are articulated very clearly in the Commission document, the Commission feels it appropriate for a new proposal and a different approach, based on manufacturers' self-testing and a unilateral declaration of conformity.
Broadly, I and the Economic and Monetary Committee voted in favour of this approach.
The proposal contains measures about the definition of equipment and essential requirements and about the procedure for ensuring compliance.
One matter which has exercised me, as the rapporteur and other colleagues on the Committee, is the whole question of the ability of terminal equipment either to damage the network or to damage the users.
I listened very carefully to the representations to me about how likely this was and how great a danger it presented.
If it presents a danger - and I was convinced that to some extent it does - then it is right to allow the possibility of the withdrawal of those products from the market or temporary disconnection.
I have submitted some compromise amendments which I hope are going to meet with the approval of other groups in this House which have addressed this issue but suggested that any remedy should be proportionate to the chance of any damage, either to the network, I emphasize, or to the users.
I spent some time too looking at the rights of disabled consumers who traditionally have gained employment in this field of the telecommunications industry.
It was interesting that the Amsterdam Treaty, drawn up at the time we were considering this proposal, makes its own statement on which I draw. I think it is worth quoting from it.
It is a declaration regarding persons with a disability and it reads: ' the conference agrees that in drawing up measures under Article 100a of the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Institutions of the Community shall take account of the needs of persons with a disability.'
For that reason, part of my report and my suggestions cover this very matter.
It is right to stress that we support the Commission approach; we know that there has been a revised Presidency text taking into account many of the constructive points put forward by the many lobbyists and I have tried to take those into account when drawing up my own proposals, even though we were procedurally working with the Commission's original text.
I commend my compromise amendments to you and I very much hope that we can have a constructive and thoughtful first reading.
Before I continue, I would like to make an announcement, and I hope that everyone who is going to participate in this evening's debate or is intending to listen to it, can hear what I am now saying.
As you know, it was the intention to have a break at 8.00 p.m., but because we only have around 1 ½ hours of debate left, I propose that we continue the debate until 8.30 p.m. and then close for the day.
I am pleased that Mr Herman and others look happy.
I therefore consider it accepted.
Mr President, the Commission has brilliantly conveyed the vital issues in relation to mobile communications and new developments in cordless communications.
The intention is to develop more efficient mobile communications systems to meet users' needs.
The explosive development in telecommunications has been changing our world at a very fast pace.
Things go at enormous speed and do not hang around waiting for the slow decision-process to take effect in Europe.
What we now need from the Commission is a clearer plan for the third generation UMTS system, and involvement in the international promotion of European views.
The Commission has to stress its special role as emboldener and researcher. The continued tale of success of the European GSM, and the growth of markets require a strong policy of support.
The outlook for mobile communications is promising.
Markets are growing and, at the same pace, industry's expectations for sales of cordless and fixed multimedia applications are growing also.
International competition for customers is fierce, however.
The keen Asian markets are growing fast, in spite of the crisis.
There are great demands now being made by consumers.
They want to combine mobility, telecommunications and multimedia.
It is vital to see how European and Asian user needs and spheres of development in markets differ from each other.
Unless these needs are understood in good time, Europe might lose its influence and no longer be an important player in this important area of industry.
Computer technology and the communications industry are important for the whole European economy, because they are a meaningful and ever-growing part of industrial activity and because they offer the possibility of more jobs.
Strong domestic markets have given European industry, as far as GSM is concerned, the best conditions for competition in the world market.
This competitiveness in products and services coming out of the production process must be preserved, because it forms the basis of the developing information society.
The social dimension must be brought in here, with the assurance that the sparsely populated regions can also have a share in this future supply of services.
There have been bad experiences from the so-called frequency auctions in the United States.
With them the price can get so high that it clearly affects the operator's ability to get sufficient coverage and provide a decent service.
This would distort competition and hamper the chances of new, innovative, small-sized companies getting into the market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make a few observations regarding the two reports under discussion.
Firstly, on Mrs Read's report I will say that we can largely accept the compromise amendments that she has presented.
I believe that, thanks to efforts on both sides, we will be able to maintain what I call the "bi-partisan' policy of this Parliament, which broadly supports the policy of the Commission in the face of, it has to be said, Member States' reticence.
Thus, apart from a paragraph here and there, which we have thrashed out in the Committee, we will vote for your list of motions, ours will be very similar and Parliament will be, as it has often been in this field, unanimous.
In any case, a very large majority will be behind you.
I would above all like to dwell on the second report, because its implications are more important in the long term.
We have had two interesting experiences in the area of standards in the new telecommunications technologies.
One unfortunate, the other fortunate.
The unfortunate experience concerns the standards we were looking to put in place regarding high definition television.
In this respect, the Commission, the Council and Parliament all wasted their time, and during this period the market overtook us, especially the Americans.
And so, on this point, we were pathetic, even though astronomical sums were spent with the aim of promoting these standards.
On the other hand, with regard to GSM our experience was the opposite, a happy one.
Europeans were able to come to an agreement in time on a quality standard which was easily imposed on the market and which enabled, so I was told, more than fifty countries to come out in favour of the European standard, which was a considerable boost for European industry.
Now we find ourselves faced with the need to move on to the third generation of mobile phones.
In this respect, it is a question of not missing the boat, as Mr Camisón Asensio has clearly explained, for we have some considerable prospects.
The problem is that the large European industrial groups which develop the standards do not defend one joint standard.
It is clear that what happened 2000 years ago between the Horaces and the Curiaces risks being repeated today.
If Europeans become divided in the face of the united Americans, we will be defeated.
So we must put pressure on these two groups to come to a consensus and to impose one single European standard.
In addition, we are expecting a great deal of the Commission, in using all its influence to put pressure on these groups, in order to make them understand that everything is at stake if they are divided.
This is the message I would like to give today.
Mr President, firstly a few words about Mrs Read's report.
It says that there is a need to ease the advent of new telecommunications equipment onto the market.
Since 1991 there has been a principle of mutual recognition where the authorities in one Member State do not need to approve equipment for the market if one other country has already done so.
Now they intend to ease the process still further.
The Greens think this is risky.
We agree with Mrs Read that in the future we should try to work in harmony, in order to ensure that safe and userfriendly goods will come into the market.
We must take care that the work environment is not so confusing and complex as to encourage a growing variety of telecommunications systems, which are not at all compatible for the user.
We especially support Mrs Read in the concern she has expressed in many of her amendments.
Also linked with this is the need in future to demand that this new technology will present no problems for the disabled.
Here there is a very great danger of inequality arising out of the prospect of new telecommunications equipment making it difficult for disabled people to work. I believe the Commission has to address this matter much more seriously.
Finally, the most outstanding thought we had on Mr Camisón's report on cordless communications and mobile phones was that the Commission should give strong support to how this kind of electronic smog might affect our health.
This is an important point when we consider how more and more new wavelengths are being split up.
Mr President, I am grateful for an opportunity to add my congratulations to the rapporteur, Mr Camisón, on his report.
My group is delighted to support it.
I briefly want to draw attention to just a couple of points.
One is that his work is very much about the future, albeit the immediate future as his explanatory statement rightly stresses.
He says in his report that 'the concept of third generation mobile communications is not yet fully developed but the problem is only one of time and progress seems unstoppable' .
Later in his report he and Mr Lindqvist both stress the importance of the competitiveness of this sector and its importance in making sure that we have a viable, competitive European industry to compete against Japan and the United States of America.
His report also talks about the importance of market forces and the balance between that and regulation.
The consumer is less and less interested in the means of making a telephone call or using other telecommunications services.
What they want is to do it cheaply, effectively and efficiently and this is an important part of this equation.
I congratulate Mr Camisón.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Open network provision (ONP) to voice telephony
The next item is report (A4-0013/98) by Mrs Read, on behalf of the European Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the application of open network provision (ONP) to voice telephony and on universal service for telecommunications in a competitive environment (amendment of European Parliament and Council Directive 95/62/EC) (C4-0003/98-96/0226(COD)).
Mr President, I have great pleasure in recommending that the plenary approve the joint text that has gone through the conciliation process.
If I could remind you - and I am sure Commissioner Bangemann and his officials will need no reminding - this is the third attempt we have jointly made to get this proposal right.
It is somewhat ironic, in particular in view of Mr Camisón's report that it is almost in danger - as I am sure the Commissioner will say - of being overtaken by technology.
Certainly many long-distance calls are now made via the Internet rather than traditional telephony methods.
Nevertheless, one of the reasons Parliament rightly placed great emphasis on consumer protection in connection with this report is because this is the basic voice telephone service that most of us use in making our day-to-day telephone calls.
We tried very much to have the needs of the ordinary domestic consumer, the small business, in mind when we were conducting our deliberations.
I want to place on record my own thanks to the Commission officials who had endless patience in the many meetings we had on this, Parliament officials in the conciliation service and, of course, the presidency.
We were able to get a conclusion, not absolutely what we wanted but sufficiently meritorious to command the support of this Parliament on the concept of affordable price.
On the question of the cost of universal service, about consumer protection and service quality, about the protection of disabled users...
I apologise for my cough.
Whisky would be better than water!... about the protection of disabled users and again we use the new clause in the Amsterdam Treaty, about number portability although we recognized that this is also much more appropriate in what stems from the Green Paper and with regard to network access.
It is the best outcome and one that merits the support of this House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after what Mrs Read has just said, there is not much to add.
I too would like to congratulate the Commission and the Presidency of the Council for having had the patience to negotiate inch by inch with Parliament in order to achieve something which was acceptable to the industry, the companies and the consumers.
I believe that the compromise obtained is a good one.
It was due time to reach it, because the deadline had been passed.
Everything should have been ready on 1 January this year.
We are a few weeks late, but I do not think that is irreparable.
The most important thing is to continue along this line, in this direction, and I am pleased that Parliament, I think I am now able to say this, will be supporting the conclusions of the Conciliation Committee virtually unanimously.
Mr President, first of all, I hope Mrs Read's health has improved a little.
I do not think that a whiskey would be a good idea in this House.
We should not drink whiskey, Mr President, so that we can have sober debates.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate Mrs Read on this report and on her efforts to come to a common rule in this field of universal service.
I think that on this point we have had a very important struggle to formulate concepts such as affordable prices and the cost of public services and so on, and to arrive at a common position with the Council and the Commission.
It was worth it in every respect.
What is also very important on behalf of my group, I think, is that we included the notion that Member States may make additional demands, but that they are not allowed to transfer this to the operators.
Because I think this gives telecommunications another opportunity to develop further in a sound way.
I think that the charging principles which we have adopted are good.
It is a pity, therefore, that as soon as than number portability became a reality, and people were having the opportunity to change operators, Deutsche Telekom immediately set itself up to give the customer a penalty discount.
I am therefore glad the Commission immediately responded.
But it does indicate that we will have to be alert when discussing the subject of number portability and carry preselection in this House during a second reading.
I would like to speak up once again about public emergency services.
I know that the Commission is looking at this at the moment.
We have the emergency number 112, but in a number of Member States such as Spain and Greece the number does not work.
In Belgium the police are still driving around with a reference to the old emergency number, and in a number of Member States telephone operators only speak their own language to the great frustration of foreign tourists who are stranded.
I would really like to ask the Commission and the Commissioner to breathe new life into the emergency number 112.
I am glad that on the issue of the disabled we have reached an effective agreement and compromise.
I believe this means that the European citizen has a decent piece of legislation.
It is obviously evolutionary legislation. During the review in the coming years we will have to come back to this.
Socrates
The next item is report (A4-0012/98) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the European Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 819/95/EC establishing the Community action programme Socrates (C4-0002/98-97/0103 (COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is of course a good thing that the Conciliation Committee succeeded in obtaining a modest increase in funding for the Socrates programme, though as Mrs Pack quite rightly says, this is not in fact a real increase.
Nevertheless, we must accept the result.
Unfortunately I fear that this decision indicates that there has been no improvement in the European Finance Ministers' basic understanding of the enormous significance of the European youth exchange scheme for European policy, integration and employment.
If the European Community is only prepared to provide for youth policy actions no more than 1/270th of the amount which it allocates to agriculture policy, then this is simply disgraceful.
As we prepare for the entry of central and eastern European nations we now need more than ever a greater exchange of people and ideas in the field of education and a greater interchange with the young people of those countries, in order to overcome the historical alienation which exists between the different European peoples.
But I would also advise all politicians with an interest in employment affairs, who quite rightly deplore the scandalously high level of youth unemployment, to take a very close look at the correlation which exists between the increased availability of work experience in other countries and the new employment opportunities for young people in the European job market.
More and more employers are including overseas work experience and knowledge of a foreign language as essential job qualifications, and let us not forget the importance of cooperation between schools and colleges in Europe for the introduction of innovative teaching and education methods and for the overall level of qualification being achieved.
There is no doubt that EU education programmes such as Socrates have proved an overall success.
The Socrates programme is a first-class way of promoting integration and, in conjunction with the Erasmus programme, for example, it has certainly promoted the concept of Europe among the young people of the Union.
But the scheme is only open to a few, because it is hopelessly underfunded, and this has had fatal consequences.
Study grants are underfinanced and even here we see social selection taking place.
The average grant is between ECU 50 and 100.
Such a situation is socially incompatible and tends to undermine the impact of the programmes.
We have all heard the complaints of our own constituents and we know of many applicants who have missed out here.
The critical funding situation is even beginning to threaten the popularity of the programmes themselves.
In view of the allocation ratio of 1 to 10 in the case of Erasmus, some colleges and even a number of vice-chancellors' conferences have considered withdrawing from the programme.
We all want to see study periods spent in other EU countries recognised once the student returns to his country of residence.
We therefore need more money to support schemes such as the European Course Credit Transfer.
And we also want to see more students being provided with grant assistance for foreign trips, provided that these are being organised for practical purposes.
I believe that we should fight for a substantial increase in this programme budget.
Mr President, the enlargement of the European Union is important for the whole of Europe and for all Europeans.
What is more important is that this process be undertaken in an orderly fashion.
The membership negotiations which are to commence shortly will seek to achieve this objective.
But the so-called pre-membership strategy also serves to achieve these ends.
Within this strategy one fact which has particular weight is that we quite consciously wish to include the central and eastern European states in one of the most successful Community programmes which we have launched in recent years.
Erasmus is a programme which, in place of neurosis and xenophobia, seeks to establish a Europe-wide network of young people as part of their education process.
These young people have intercultural experience, a knowledge of foreign languages, which is expanding, and are undergoing an expansion and transfer of know-how, from which we shall all profit.
I know this personally as a trustee of one of the Erasmus programmes which brings together law students in 15 Member States, and one hopes that in future this will also include the countries of central and eastern Europe - and the legal fraternity is notoriously difficult to bring together because of the alleged and actual disparity which exists between our various legal systems.
This year for the first time we resolved to extend the Erasmus programme beyond the existing framework.
The Council and the Commission then got out their red pencils.
Criticism has already quite rightly been expressed that, had this House not insisted on its rights of conciliation, then a good idea, and a necessary one for a larger unified Europe, would have seen its progress checked in a way which would have not really been enforceable.
As a university lecturer, I wish to thank all those involved for supporting this initiative.
Good things obviously take time, but this should not be taken to extremes.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate all those involved in conciliation and achieving more for the Socrates Programme than some of us even dreamed was possible.
It is one of the best, most important and most popular of European initiatives.
A recent article in one of the British magazines said that most EU citizens could not even tell you what the EU is for and the British disease of Euroscepticism was creeping across Europe.
There is no better way to counter scepticism than to provide education. Education and opportunities to learn about other countries, other cultures and other people; to learn about the joint history of Europe and to build on what unites us and not what divides us.
Mrs Pack spoke about a Europe of the citizens and this is what Socrates works to provide.
It can be the key to countering the Euroscepticism to which I referred.
With the expansion of Europe, as Mr Rack described a few moments ago, the Socrates programme is more important than ever.
In talking about enlargement of the European Union, it is important in providing exchanges - exchanges of people, yes, but exchanges of ideas and information too.
Countries that are developing and recovering from repressive regimes need extra funding and there are wide differences in the amount of funding available for education.
By coincidence, there is a study being launched today by the National Union of Teachers of England and Wales and the Educational Institute of Scotland which talks about comparisons in education funding across Europe.
In this Chamber we all know about the importance of education and the importance of realistic levels of funding to give young people chances in life and equalities of opportunity.
Somebody said that the trouble with education funding is that it is a bottomless bucket.
It is true that we could always spend more.
Mr Elchlepp spoke about the amount of money the European Union spends on agriculture and the amount that is wasted on the common agricultural policy and abuses in that system.
There are millions of pounds of European money going in fraud.
New Parliament buildings are going up across Europe.
Shortly we will have four hemicycles.
We have fancy offices which most Members did not want and cannot justify.
These - rather than providing education for the young people - are strange priorities for Europe to have.
Education and learning about Europe is a priority and needs funding.
The Socrates funding, as others have said, is always well spent.
Mr Elchlepp said that it is heavily over-subscribed in Germany as it is in other countries.
It is a success and money well spent.
We must address our priorities and this report is going very much in the right direction.
I support it as does my group.
Mr President, I wish to thank Mrs Pack for the splendid work she has done for the programme, especially in her defence of Parliament's view on the Conciliation Committee.
The ECU 70 million addition to the Socrates programme is a positive move.
We must nevertheless remember that even with this additional financing the resources planned for the programme will not be sufficient to do all we need to do.
Article 126 of the Treaty on European Union defines community goals in education and policy on youth.
In the spirit of the treaty let us strive to bring the European dimension to the question of education.
The goal is an extremely clear one and one that is important in structuring a real Europe of citizens.
Unfortunately, not everyone has internalized this as yet.
Each Community-spent mark, franc or crown which helps our citizens to become more mobile in a concrete way, makes the Union seem more real and meaningful in the eyes of our people.
If students and researchers are made more mobile this should be the key project for both close-knittedness in the Union and future enlargement.
It is vital that Socrates money be increased significantly in the near future.
It is a crying shame that some of the exchange programme places have not been filled just because the Erasmus project was so meagre in its funding and so young people have not been given the opportunity to study abroad.
I know of examples from Finland where the Erasmus student grant was 2 000 marks, or around 15 000 Belgian francs a year.
The sum is ridiculous, and is forcing many students to fund their overseas education with loans.
Is this the European dimension in educational development? The Union must try to see that everyone wishing to go abroad gets a basic cost-of-living allowance.
The status of the Erasmus-funded student is of little comfort to the young student or researcher seeking the international experience.
Mr President, going from ECU 25 million to ECU 75 million is a major achievement.
This is all down to Mrs Pack and at this point let me thank her most sincerely for her successful efforts.
As part of the debate on the eastwards enlargement of the EU we must be careful to ensure that these new member countries also have access to the European education programmes.
But this cannot be done without the financial means.
One of the most important points concerns the preparation of the countries in question and the creation of a solid basis for universal education and vocational training.
I am sure that their involvement in the Community programmes will have a positive effect on the participants and that this represents an excellent basis for preparing for membership.
How else should young people better learn about democracy than in an exchange with other young people in Europe? And I am in no way excluding Turkey from these considerations.
Here too, participation in the various programmes will help young people greatly increase their understanding of the democratic processes and I would very much welcome the opportunity to resume this debate in the coming months with my report to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, where I am hoping for support.
Now I am anxious to know how the programmes are progressing.
We will have to carry out a census in order to identify and retain those which are successful.
Admittedly some aspects deserve criticism, such as the amount spent on application procedures.
I also hope that we can count on increased resources for adult education purposes.
Lifelong learning is now more important than ever and we must continue to impress this on the national consciousness.
The 1996 European Year of Lifelong Learning has already proved successful and it would be logical to follow this up by launching projects within the Socrates and Leonardo programmes.
Finally, let me say how much I welcome the increasing emphasis being placed on quality assurance in Socrates.
I hope that the Council will support Parliament in its efforts to set up a European network.
Wild animals in zoos
The next item is report (A4-0010/98) by Mr White, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council recommendation relating to the keeping of wild animals in zoos COM(95)0619 - C4-0103/96-95/0333(SYN).
- Mr President, we really need an EU directive on the protection of wild animals in zoos.
A simple recommendation on how the EU States should keep their zoos would be non-binding, non-enforceable and would just not be good enough.
Some zoos in the European Union are little more than concentration camps for animals.
People who visit them with their eyes open will see animals who are distressed and demented within their confined enclosures.
Minimum rules to protect these animals are long overdue.
From an educational point of view zoos can be highly misleading, as they try to teach children that it is acceptable to keep wild animals in confined spaces.
Educating children about the wide variety of animals in the world is hugely important but if wild animals are put on display in conditions vastly different to their natural habitats, the effect is mis-educational.
It would be far better to use advances in interactive technology to give children an impression about natural habitats and the need to protect these habitats and preserve them.
The argument that zoos are essential to the conservation of endangered species is not borne out by experience.
In many cases there has been a much higher death rate among zoo animals than among their counterparts in the wild.
For example, in Dublin Zoo almost fifty per cent of all the hippos born there over the last decade have died in infancy.
That is a mortality rate several times higher than for hippos in the wild.
Furthermore, the very highlighted role of zoos in conservation of endangered species is wildly exaggerated.
Research by the wild life organization Born Free has shown that only three per cent of animals held in world zoos belong to internationally recognised captive breeding programmes.
There is no doubt that certain species of animals like, notably, large cats, birds, elephants and giraffes experience recurring problems in zoos.
These animals are kept in zoos solely to attract people through the entrance gate and it is wrong and dishonest of people to suggest otherwise.
Finally, I would just like to say that the experience of Dublin Zoo, for example, last year was extremely disturbing.
There were a huge number of events where questions need to be answered.
Eleven penguins died and that has not been explained; there was only one that actually survived.
As well as that, there was a rhino that tried to escape and was shot without using a tranquillizer to minimize the pain; that has also not been explained.
Zoos are unessential in this so-called civilized world of today.
- Mr President, I strongly support this report and I very much hope the Commission will take the view of the Parliament that we want a directive on the management of zoos.
I speak in my capacity as President of the European Parliament's All Party Group for Animal Welfare.
There is a longstanding pressure from this Parliament for a directive.
The sad thing is that some six or seven years ago there was almost a total agreement with the need for this directive from the Parliament, Commission and the more responsible people who manage zoos.
This fell foul of the rather silly argument about subsidiarity.
This is an area where it is sensible that the decision should be made at European level.
We want to ensure that proper standards are maintained right across the European Union.
We have heard one of two speeches this evening by people who question whether we really need zoos at all.
I do not entirely go along that road but I do take the view that zoos that do not maintain the best possible standard and the most natural environmental conditions for their animals are unacceptable and should not exist.
So we want these high standards.
As the rapporteur said, there is a considerable interchange of animals between different zoos. This is often inhibited because, quite rightly, zoos which are responsible organizations and care properly for their animals are reluctant to transfer them to zoos that are not.
Countries that do not maintain the very best standards for their zoos lose out in this way, and incidentally lose out on tourism.
Zoos are attractive from a tourist point of view but tourists will not go to those countries again and visit their zoos if they see the animals are not being properly cared for.
It is in everyone's interests that we should maintain the very highest possible standards and I hope that this report has some success in pushing that aim forward.
Mr President, I believe there is only one issue that is really facing this Parliament and I thank Mr White for bringing forward this report in the way that he has done.
There is a great deal of unanimity in the Parliament on most animal welfare issues.
We have been the main institution at European level that has driven animal welfare forward as an issue at all.
I personally am a staunch supporter of stricter animal welfare laws and this Parliament's leading in the field of animal protection.
Whether it be farm animals, animals in transport or animals in laboratories, it is all part of the same issue.
Zoos which we are discussing here tonight come into the same category.
The issue of animal welfare in zoos has been, as pointed out, under discussion for a decade at least.
It was a predecessor of ours, Sir James Scott-Hopkins, who raised the issue initially.
Action is needed.
Animal slums actually exist in Europe at the present time trading under the name of zoos and that is not good enough.
If we want to do something, we have to do it properly.
A recommendation which people can ignore is just not good enough.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will be able to give us an answer tonight as to what your position will be if Parliament takes a very strong stance on this and calls for a directive rather than for a recommendation, which is what the Commission is currently proposing.
I can foresee that the Commission will be extremely unpopular in this Parliament if they go against the will of the people.
Subsidiarity has been mentioned and of course it is an issue but animal welfare as a subject is seen, in this Parliament especially, to transcend all matters of subsidiarity.
I hope Commissioner that you will spell out quite clearly your own position because we must have a level playing field in this area, otherwise the people of Europe are going to be highly discontented with this Parliament and I believe with the Commission.
Mr President, I was originally rather a sceptic about the idea of having a European directive on zoos but I have been converted to the idea by a number of considerations and I am grateful to Mr White for his generous reference to Sir James Scott-Hopkins when he introduced his report.
First of all, we have to consider whether or not Europe is actually legislating, if it does legislate through a directive on zoos, in response to a popular demand.
After all we do an awful lot of things that most people do not like, including the introduction of a single currency.
The people of Europe must sometimes wonder whether there is anything going to come out of Brussels that they actually do want.
We have heard enough today, at least from the British Members and also from Mrs Redondo and Mr Lindqvist to make us realize that this is actually rather a popular issue and would be sustained by a popular demand that Europe should act.
The second issue, is it appropriate to consider this a European responsibility? Mr White has referred to what happened at the Edinburgh Summit.
My understanding of the chain of events was that essentially it was Chancellor Kohl who came in at one point and said: ' What we do not need is for Europe to go on fiddling around with detailed legislation; for example, there is this proposal for a directive on zoos, surely we can junk that one' and generally threw his weight around.
And when Chancellor Kohl throws his weight around people tend to take notice. I disagree with that idea; I think it is appropriate to consider this as an European initiative and I take issue with the point about subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity does not necessarily mean, as Mr White has realized, that you pass legislation down to a lower level of responsibility.
It means that you legislate at whatever level is most appropriate. It seems to me that in this instance we already have the idea that animal welfare is accepted as a part of the European Union's responsibilities.
We should also take into account a point raised by Mrs McKenna which is that zoos look after part of the general environmental heritage.
There is a sense in which a supranational body is the most appropriate body to look after that. The other question I would like to consider is will it be possible to enforce - I think it will.
This is actually one of the directives it would be reasonably easy to enforce.
My problem with Mr White's report is that I do not see how easy it will be to translate what has been proposed as a recommendation into a directive.
What stance would the code of practice have?
Can you have a code of practice in a directive? Would it be legally enforceable?
I also disagree with the rapporteur on seeking to widen the legal base to include Article 100a for reasons given in the Legal Committee's opinion.
For once, I hope that Mr Kohl will be ignored.
I hope that Mr White will be able to work on his government, which has written to me that they are not necessarily over the moon about the idea of a European directive on zoos, and I look forward very much to a positive response from the Commissioner.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, during the sitting yesterday adjournment of a debate was requested under Rule 131.
The debate covered asylum rights and the adjournment was requested by Mr Schulz.
It can happen, of course, that adjournment has to be requested, but we have a feeling that the Socialist Group plays these kind of tricks every time.
We saw it last week at the part-session in Strasbourg during the debate on drugs policy which was adjourned on the same grounds, and yesterday we had to witness this trick with regard to asylum policy.
We are under the impression that the Socialist Group does this when they cannot win a debate.
It was clear that on drugs policy they were going to lose gloriously in the House.
It was clear that on asylum policy the opinion of the Socialist Group was not going to be shared by the majority of the House.
Mr Nassauer made that clear more than once to the Socialist Group. Using Rule 131 to spring surprises on Parliament does not fit in with the mores of the House.
I have become familiar with the excuses of the Socialist Group, but I do think that on this point we have to make agreements in advance.
It is not acceptable to spring surprises on one another.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, I let you speak for longer than your allotted speaking time, but I would like to ask the other members who have asked for the floor to keep to their speaking time.
I assume that you wish to speak on the same subject, Mrs Fontaine.
Madam President, I would like to address the same subject, that is, referral to committee of the asylum rights issues which were decided upon yesterday afternoon.
Of course, I am not contesting the request for referral which is entirely in accordance with the rules, but rather the conditions under which the vote was taken.
Only 51 Members were able to take part in the vote, and I feel, Madam President, that this number is not very representative of our House, particularly on such a sensitive issue as that.
However, I think that we gained at least one thing from it all; we were able to carry our a very useful practical exercise in measuring the time and distance between our offices and the Chamber.
I hope that this information will be recorded in the minutes.
Many of us were trapped in the lifts which were, of course, stopping at every floor to admit colleagues who were hurrying to get there, and a large number of us arrived just a few minutes before the vote.
Madam President, might I request that the Quaestors provide a rule which specifies that a period of 15 minutes be allowed between the first bell and the time of the vote.
I feel that this proposal is very reasonable, and will submit it to the Quaestors.
Madam President, I agree entirely with what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mrs Fontaine have just said.
On page 15 of the Minutes, I see that the president of the sitting responded to the speakers who raised the arguments just mentioned, saying that 'two Members spoke and this left enough time for Members to get to the Chamber' .
I would strongly reject this, because in fact a number of Members heard the bell and immediately hung up their phones, some quite casually according to their interlocutors, but they were not actually in a position to be able to vote.
This is scandalous.
I would point out that in national parliaments there is not just one bell - some of our colleagues even thought that it was a fire alarm.
As already requested, Members' offices should be fitted with lights, as is the case in some parliaments; these would indicate when the vote is announced to give the Members the time they need to get to the Chamber.
I would ask the Office and the College of Quaestors to tackle this issue.
Madam President, I agree with what Mrs Fontaine and Mr Pasty have said but I should like to broaden the matter rather than narrow it down.
We accept what happened yesterday on the floor of the House because it was under the existing rules.
The unfortunate thing was that time was not allowed for Members to get here.
It is Rules 126, 128, 129, 130, 131 and 132 which need to be looked at.
Those rules say quite clearly that the vote will be taken immediately. What does immediately mean?
When the bells are rung it normally means that we have ten minutes before we get to the plenary for the start of a session. The bells rang yesterday, but as Mr Pasty quite rightly said, there was no other indication whatsoever what was going on in the Chamber.
I recognize that we have just moved into a new building and the full scenes are not yet available on our television sets but it is an issue that the administration needs to address.
Maybe this should go to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities so that the Rules can be changed to accommodate what happened yesterday.
Madam President, I also want to complain about what happened last night.
Not only was I not able to get to the vote but I was out of the House on parliamentary business and came back to speak.
The world was waiting to hear my words on Socrates and was deprived of them.
Changing parliamentary business at the last minute as was done on a very small vote last night is totally contrary to the spirit of democracy.
Speaking on behalf of the Green Group, I utterly condemn what happened last night.
(Mixed reactions)
Madam President, first of all I naturally reject what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten just said about the attitude of the Socialists.
And I would go further than that: on page 14 of the Minutes it says that when Mrs Díez de Rivera - in other words, I - arrived in the Hemicycle yesterday after the bell rang for the vote, I protested there and then because we had not been given enough time to get to the vote, when it was an exceptional vote.
So, Madam President, I agree with what Mr Pasty, Mrs Fontaine and Mr Provan said, but I was late, despite running out of my office.
Therefore, once again I reject Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's criticism of the Socialist Group, and there is the proof that we all tried.
Madam President, as is clearly apparent, the Social Democrats have also had difficulties getting to the vote concerned here.
I am, of course, also sorry about the problems which other groups have had, but we tried to warn them in advance that we wanted to have a vote under Rule 131 because we believe that, after the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party had withdrawn their signature from the joint proposal, we needed more time to draw up a joint text on the right of asylum, which could also achieve broad support in this House.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we are agreed that Rule 131 of the Rules of Procedure was the basis for the vote.
So I am satisfied that the Rules of Procedure were correctly followed.
However, I recognize that those Members who have expressed the view that the distance here is too great have some right on their side.
I think it is the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, and not the Quaestors, who should look at that Rule and consider how we can make sure that this does not happen again.
I have to say that my own office is on the 12th floor, and I also heard the ringing; I got here just as the vote was taking place.
It was certainly very tight and we cannot allow that to happen in the future.
For the time being, I am bound to say that matters were conducted in accordance with the rules yesterday.
During the next part-session, the Conference of Presidents will have to decide where this will come on the agenda.
However, I shall pass on the criticisms that have been made here both to the Bureau and to the Conference of Presidents. We can then decide whether to forward the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, or whether, as Mrs Fontaine has suggested, we can find a simple solution in advance, so that we have acceptable arrangements in future.
Madam President, what Mrs Jensen is saying is terrible.
I like her, but we cannot have a situation whereby. when another group withdraws its signature under a resolution, Parliament no longer votes on a text.
This is happening for the second time now.
First it was drugs, now asylum policy.
The Socialist Group is not going to make it and simply says: well, then we will withdraw it.
This is unparliamentary behaviour.
It does not fit in with the mores of the House.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, someone has already pointed out - I think it was Mr Provan - that we should have been informed that a vote was taking place and what it was about.
I can only say that we all have a duty to look at the agenda.
Everyone had a chance to check what was on the agenda, and everybody knew that according to the Rules of Procedure anyone can adjourn an item at any time.
Those are the rules but I do have some sympathy for what has been said.
Madam President, I would suggest one simple way of overcoming the problem of the distance between Members' offices and the Hemicycle.
It is one that a colleague of mine has already adopted.
It would simply be for Parliament to provide all Members with bicycles.
Thank you very much, Mr Watson!
Training of seafarers
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0411/97) by Mr Parodi, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive amending Directive 94/58/EEC on the minimum level of training of seafarers.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the amendment to the Directive on the minimum level of training for seafarers, which is the subject of the present recommendation, was prompted by the need to adapt the training of seafarers to suit the actual conditions which pertain in maritime transport, in particular the new technological developments which have been introduced on board ships and new methods of occupational training.
Let us not forget that 80 % of maritime accidents can be directly attributed to human errors or omissions.
The objective of the revision of the STCW Convention and the associated amendment to Directive 94/58/EEC is to remedy this situation and, if possible, to lessen the impact of the human factor on maritime accidents.
This goal can be achieved by establishing minimum requirements for the occupational training and watch-keeping certification of seafarers, providing effective control of the application of international regulations and preventing the credibility of the certificates issued from being damaged by a general failure to comply with the provisions of the Convention, as has happened in the past.
In my judgement, therefore, this amendment must be regarded in a positive light, as it represents a step towards increased safety and reinforces the powers of the IMO with regard to procedures, the supervision of training methods and certification.
At first reading, the guiding principle I adopted when drafting my report, with the decisive support of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, was to improve and consolidate as far as possible the proposal for a directive by eliminating any uncertainties in law and legal disputes concerning the obligations of Member States with regard to the issuing and recognition of seafarer's training certificates, thereby preventing the employment of barely qualified crews.
In fact, I believe that a rationalization or harmonization of the criteria used for recognizing qualifications, coupled with the adoption of strict quality requirements, may help to raise seafarers' level of competence, improve the safety and competitiveness of the Community fleet and reduce the number of substandard ships.
As I have said before, safety is at stake; however, I must add that the Commission has amended its initial proposal in light of the first reading.
The Council's common position has welcomed the sense, the concept and the objectives which are an integral part of the amendments made to the provisions of the original proposal.
In fact, the Council has reworded a number of paragraphs in the initial proposal.
It has also introduced new paragraphs which are more in line with Parliament's wishes and whose objective is to increase safety.
The new articles concern the rules governing coastal shipping, sanctions and disciplinary arrangements, quality standards, medical requirements, the issuing and registration of certificates, the liability of shipping companies and the inspection of landing facilities.
These are articles which, together with the other amendments, have the merit of removing uncertainties and simplifying interpretation.
In conclusion, at this point I believe that the common position and the position expressed by the European Parliament which inspired the amendments have been fully taken on board by the Council.
Thanks to these amendments and the present improvements, it will be possible to take a further step towards increasing safety at sea, an objective which Parliament has been pursuing for many years and which we shall continue to pursue.
Madam President, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to begin by expressing my wholehearted support for this proposal for a directive amending the original directive on the minimum level of training of seafarers.
It is another positive step in the improvement of both safety at sea and the protection of our very important marine environment.
Bearing in mind that over the past decade we have lost some 12, 000 lives at sea throughout the world - and, indeed, continue to lose more than 200 ships a year throughout the world, we in the European Union need to be constantly on guard to enhance and improve the standards of safety at sea.
The essential essence of this directive is to address the human factor.
As the rapporteur, Mr Parodi, quite rightly pointed out, some 80 % of maritime accidents are attributable to human error and therefore this key issue should play an important part in our maritime strategy to enhance safety and protect the environment.
It is vital that seafarers receive the necessary high level of training and certification in order to reach the level of competence and skill needed during their service at sea, to be able to communicate effectively with the crew, follow instructions and advice and, on occasion - all too often I fear - deal with crisis situations.
Vessels must be crewed by seafarers who possess the necessary theoretical and practical knowledge.
This current proposal seeks to incorporate the requirements of the 1995 Convention on the standards of training of certification and watch-keeping for seafarers.
I would like to congratulate the Commission not only for keeping pace with international maritime law but transposing it into Community legislation to ensure that it is effective throughout our European waters.
I hope that the Commission will continue to maintain this pace of improving safety at sea.
This proposal for a directive seeks to include the new training and certification requirements, including watchkeeping requirements and to introduce common criteria for the recognition of seafarers' certificates issued by third countries.
Like Mr Parodi, I was pleased that the Council, with the support of the Commission, has incorporated most of the ideas and objectives of the European Parliament in the first reading.
I am pleased to say that Mr Parodi successfully managed to further clarify and enhance the Commission proposal, removing uncertainties and simplifying the text.
I was particularly impressed with the emphasis which the rapporteur put on the need to attract young people into the maritime profession and to promote the employment of seafarers.
In its recent communication 'Towards a Maritime Strategy' , the Commission indicated that there is a worldwide shortage of qualified and able seafarers.
Developing a European policy to bring young people into the profession is a vital means of providing both highquality seafarers and helping resolve the problems of unemployment in Europe, not least in our maritime communities.
I would like to take this opportunity to commend the rapporteur on the importance he placed on having a common working language to be able to work effectively and, in particular, handle crisis situations.
I look forward to the implementation of this directive in Member States as another positive move in our campaign for maritime safety.
I would conclude by urging the Commission to ensure that this amendment to the directive is implemented, is transposed and is enforced by the Member States.
We have recently had a report that some 60 % of all transport internal market directives have yet to be transposed by the Member States.
Perhaps the Commissioner would like to comment on how best we can ensure that this very worthy directive is not only supported here in this House, implemented by the Council but is actually implemented on the ground by the Member States and their enforcement agencies.
Indeed, I would like to see some mechanism whereby we can have a regular reporting mechanism to ensure that safety standards throughout the EU are not only maintained but are implemented and enforced at a high level.
Madam President, on behalf of the European People's Party I must stress that we too support the common position, as amended by the Committee on Transport's three amendments, which we already approved in committee.
I must point out that the proposal being considered amends Directive 94/58/EEC, which was adopted by this Parliament, and also that it is a directive which has largely been incorporated into the national legislations.
Consequently, I am optimistic that the amendments to that first directive, concerning which we have the present common position, will enjoy equally rapid incorporation into national laws.
This new amending directive certainly represents great progress.
Its most important point is that it introduces measures which could constitute incentives to attract new young seafarers.
On the other hand, the new directive clears the picture, because it makes a clear distinction between matters relating to the training and recruitment of seafarers, and those relating to how crews on ships operate.
I must therefore say that while we all welcome this progress achieved by the new, supplementary directive, it should at the same time be noted that the Commission has not adopted initiatives in the area of positive measures on behalf of European shipping.
We make progress with safety issues, we extend the controls applied to ships in European ports and in terms of the ability of the crews that man the ships, any ships, and steer them into European ports, but we have still done nothing to propose positive measures to stop shipping from abandoning European flags.
The Commission has been slow about that.
It seems that there is a dearth of ideas in the Commission, that it has no proposals to offer.
There is of course a proposal on shipping strategy, but because of the many problems it created, that has somewhat fogged the whole picture of European shipping policy.
I should like to say, however, that it is time for, and we are waiting to see, a new spirit, a new approach to the issue of positive measures on behalf of shipping, because we continue to progress haphazardly either via second ships' registers, and now every country is setting up a second ships' register, or by continually running down the European flags to the benefit of other, improbable flags, and I stress this point.
There are tiny islands which have large merchant fleets.
This is not the right time to point out the dangers in that, but from the floor of Parliament I once more call on the Commission to reflect on how it could deal with the problem we know as 'positive measures on behalf of shipping' .
Madam President, I too think that the report by Mr Parodi contributes greatly towards improving the Council Directive amending Directive 94/58/EEC, and our group supports it.
Of course, I would like to mention two reservations or questions, ones that stem at least from our experience of Greek shipping, granted that Greece has one of the largest merchant fleets in the European Union.
The first reservation relates to the statement that 80 % of accidents are caused by human error.
The experience we have from Greece is that while human error certainly plays a major part, a very large proportion of accidents are caused by the operation of old vessels which can only respond to bad weather or other problems with great difficulty. I could accept Mr Parodi's argument if, under the heading of human error, we included neglect, criminal neglect and the criminal cover-ups often associated with the operation of such vessels.
My second reservation relates to the recruitment of young people to ships and this is an orientation that is very important indeed.
However, once again our problem in Greece is not that the young are not attracted into training with a view to having a professional career in shipping, but that the labour market for shipping is constantly being restricted, decreasing and contracting, despite the fact that Greece has a very large merchant fleet.
And that, in my opinion, is because shipowners all too often pursue a policy of recruiting cheap, ill-trained crews from third countries, from Asian countries etc., with the result that, not only is the labour market reduced in the Community area, but there is also a lack of safety in the operation of the vessels.
The three amendments insisted upon by Mr Parodi have our support, in relation both to medical fitness and to watch-keeping conditions on the bridge, as well as the subject of restricted rest periods.
In particular, however, we should note the matter of verbal communication.
There is often a very great problem with verbal communication among the crew, which often leads to accidents.
And I would like to say that Greece has recently suffered two major shipping disasters, with many lives lost at sea, which took place during the holidays.
Madam President, I should like to join in the congratulations to Mr Parodi for his excellent work and welcome the constructive nature of this whole debate.
I would also like to echo the points made by Mr Watts about the dangerous nature of seafaring.
We broadly support the whole thrust of this report.
Like Mr Sarlis and Mr Alavanos, however, I share the concern about crews from third countries which are an increasing phenomenon in the EU shipping area.
It is causing a lot of concern, not only in Scotland where I come from, but over a huge range of European countries.
It will be helpful for the port states to have a role in this.
They will be crucial in enforcing the standards which we rightly expect of the European countries.
I would like to say to Commissioner Bjeregaard that the challenge now from the point of view of the European citizens is to see that the standards that we expect are applied to those third country crews.
Otherwise, there is a grave danger that a lack of fluency in the right language, the failure to be able to communicate could put lives at risk.
In a year when a large box-office draw is a film about the sinking of the Titanic , we need no reminder how terrible disasters are and we want to do everything possible to prevent their occurrence.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there are a considerable number of accidents caused by human error in the domain of seafaring which have serious consequences for human life or for flora and fauna.
In far too many cases, ships show the flag of convenience and are manned by non-Community crews, so ensuring a cheap workforce.
The National Front has always denounced this movement of workers which means using an under-qualified, non-European workforce.
Not only is this harmful to employment, but it is also endangers the safety of ships and of our coasts.
We must oppose the concept of social dumping which pays a Polish or Chinese sailor FF 2500 per month, where a French sailor gets FF 10 000.
We can only relaunch and protect this sector by adopting a systematic policy of national preference for employing sailors, and direct or indirect financial support for its own shipping fleet by each country.
So we welcome the report by Mr Parodi which aims to promote an adequate level of sufficiently harmonized training and professional competence which will increase safety of seafaring within European.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think this is a good example of how the Council of Ministers and the Parliament can work together.
In response to a good proposal by the Commission we have essentially agreed in two readings on how the training of seafarers could be improved, with particular reference to their protection and to protecting our citizens and the environment.
As various Members have already said, substandard ships are the nub of the matter, although I must tell my friend from Greece that I am not quite sure if I would include old ships.
Ships may be very old, yet if they are well maintained and have a good crew, they are highly seaworthy.
I sincerely believe that the human factor is one of the main causes of accidents, and - we are lucky in having the right Commissioner with us this morning - accidents at sea often result in dreadful pollution which put nature and the sea seriously at risk.
Training seafarers so as to avoid accidents can accordingly make an indirect contribution to preventing sea pollution and to environmental protection.
I believe it is particularly important that watchkeeping requirements have been tightened up.
But it is my belief, whether the Titanic is a good example or not, that they knew what was happening.
They just needed to react properly.
However, the economic interests of the company outweighed the need to protect passengers.
We must make sure that never happens again, so I believe that these watchkeeping requirements are very good.
But watchkeeping is not of course the end of the story.
Mr Parodi has once again brought forward a very good proposal from the first reading.
Madam Commissioner, it would be wonderful if you could give this additional Parliament amendment your support, as its aim is even more stringent treatment of exceptional circumstances in relation to watchkeeping, and I believe that safety at sea must come first.
On the latter point, I should like to support what my colleague has said.
It is no good at all if the Parliament and the Council, in conjunction with the Commission, make excellent law, and if Member States implement this law by amending training regulations, if the same Member States then fail to ensure that checks are carried out under Port State Control to ensure that ships are, in practice, only crewed by well trained seafarers.
In this context I think we need to ask the Commission, regardless of subsidiarity, to check whether training regulations are being adhered to, under Port State Control.
Madam President, I am very pleased that the rapporteur, Mr Parodi, is satisfied with the main approach of the Council's common position on the training of seafarers, just as most of the speakers have been.
I therefore also hope that Parliament will approve it at the part-session.
The Commission considers the joint position to be acceptable throughout because it is in agreement with the principles in the original proposal which was supported by Parliament.
In addition, it represents a clarification and, in particular, greater consistency in relation to internationally recognized requirements found in the revised STCW Convention of 1995.
In addition, as Mr Parodi states in his recommendation, account has been taken of the substance of the most important of the amendments which Parliament adopted during the first reading.
I would therefore like to urge Parliament not to insist on the amendments set out in the report, because they are actually contrary to the three fundamental principles of the directive.
The common position has been formulated so that it agrees as far as possible with the STCW Convention of 1995.
Amendment No 1 weakens this relationship because it changes wording which precisely corresponds to Rule 1/9 No 1 of the Convention.
I hope Parliament can recognize that it does not really make sense to deviate from this principle.
Another fundamental principle is that the amending directive must not make the non-binding part B of the STCW Code, which serves as a guideline for the national authorities, binding.
However, the addition proposed in Amendment No 2 corresponds to the wording of the non-binding part B, while the common position is in full agreement with the binding part A. Parliament will in any case be aware that the question of non-binding guidelines is discussed in the seventh consideration in the common position.
The third principle is to maintain the spirit of Directive 94/58/EEC which deals with standards for the training of seafarers.
It was never intended that the directive should deal with watchkeeping conditions as such.
Within the framework of the directive, the Commission and Parliament have succeeded in persuading the Council to incorporate certain rules on watchkeeping conditions in Article 5 H, on fitness for service, into the common position, namely rules on preventing fatigue and the associated safety risks.
These concern minim um rest periods which several of the speakers have also mentioned.
I hope against this background that Parliament agrees that the rule on watchkeeping conditions in Amendment No 3 is not appropriate for this directive.
Madam President, I have tried to explain as fully as and clearly as possible why the Commission cannot support the proposed amendments.
I hereby urge Parliament to reconsider its provisional position on the proposal so that we can get this legislation in place as soon as possible.
Madam President, if the Commissioner is going to ask us after such long discussions to reconsider our amendments again, then I for one believe that it would be much better for us to adopt the three amendments and ask the Commission to consider their position again, because their presentation was incomprehensible!
Madam President, a number of Members raised a key issue, namely that it is all very well for this Parliament, the Commission and the Council agreeing legislation but how do we ensure that it is respected, not only by all Member States but also with regard to ships flying flags of convenience? I understand that this it is difficult for the Commissioner to react immediately but on a future occasion we would like a response from the Commission as to how we can ensure that this very worthy legislation is uniformly applied throughout European waters to ships, irrespective of flag.
Madam President, very briefly I should like to say to the Commission that I have noted a certain hardening of its attitude. Let me explain.
While we make ourselves available to resolve a very serious problem which certainly merits much greater attention, I do not think we should be asked to do a U-turn. Rather, it is the Commission which should be looking more towards the future and taking decisions more in keeping with the wishes of fifteen countries who are asking for this.
Madam President, it is clear that I will pass on the message which Parliament has given today, but as you know it is not the Commission alone which decides whether anything will come of a piece of legislation.
What I expressed hope for in my closing remarks was that we could get the proposed legislation implemented soon.
I feel quite certain that my fellow commissioner, Mr Kinnock, will be very careful in ensuring that the Member States also comply with the legislation which is adopted, and will also make use of the fund we have available for the implementation of the adopted legislation.
But the request concerned the fact that we are very keen to have a piece of legislation adopted soon.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.00 a.m.
Trans-European hydrological networks
The next item is the report (A4-0407/97) by Mr Izquierdo Collado, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the technological feasibility of trans-European hydraulic networks.
Madam President, in Parliament we have had some very important - I would even say beautiful - debates about water, thinking about water as a resource and an essential part of culture, which even distinguishes the cultures of different peoples.
This aspect of water, as a basic resource, is becoming more significant as time goes by, and it is already apparent that in the next century those water resources will become even more important.
The European Union must keep a very careful eye on this fundamental aspect of sustainable development and peaceful coexistence within Europe, and this is what we are working towards in Parliament.
What has the European Union done about water resources? It has done some important things, but always focusing on water quality.
Obviously, at the moment, when we are so concerned about atmospheric pollution, and world summits are being held to protect the ozone layer, the quality of water resources needs to be protected firmly and vigorously.
I think the Commission is clear about that.
At the moment, it is preparing a directive which, unfortunately, is incomplete.
We have received a communication and a correction, and another correction is in progress, which perhaps does not give the best impression of the directive.
However, the European Union is undeniably doing something about water quality.
I believe it is essential to protect our water, and work in that direction must continue.
Well, Madam President, in addition to quality, we also need to talk about the quantity of water.
While we were carrying out a study into this, through STOA, and during the Parliamentary initiative, Commissioner Bjerregaard, who is here with us now - and is not listening to my speech at the moment because she is not wearing her headphones - had the good sense to speak on behalf of the European Union about the amount of water, almost for the first time.
She did so following her visit to Seville, in Andalusia, where she was able to see that talking just about the quality of water will not solve the European Union's many water problems.
And indeed, the European Union can contribute that element of added value so that the optimization of water resources, at EU level, can be a reality.
Obviously, the Member States are working on their catchment area plans, and those plans are necessary in order to rationalize the various hydrological basins so that water resources can be rationalized in those areas where, for geographical reasons, such steps are necessary.
But we have to go a step further and carry out transfers of water between the basins if we want to provide solutions to the structural problems which arise within the European Union, such as flooding, drought and desertification.
Therefore, to a large extent, my initiative report attempts to draw attention to the fact that we need a European hydrological plan, and it is our duty to start designing it now: a plan which considers the overall needs of the European Union, and therefore administers water resources efficiently, constantly and strategically, protecting the environment, of course, and allowing it to be reactivated and improved through the use of that water. That European hydrological plan could be used to do many things, both in areas susceptible to flooding and in areas affected by drought.
In the report I give an example, which could be applied to other areas: connecting the basins of central and northern Europe with basins in the south which are short of water.
This would have no noticeable negative effect on the basins in the centre and the north, and the added value which could be contributed by transferring certain quantities of water could provide the answer for improving the hydrological plans of the southern Member States.
These Member States' plans are necessary but cannot be put into operation, because the prolonged droughts of six or even seven years mean that the basins in the south which normally have an excess cannot transfer water to the southern States' own deficient basins.
I want to conclude by saying that the report is highly sympathetic to the fact that water is an extremely sensitive subject, and makes it absolutely clear that no water could be taken from any Member State without its express consent.
Madam Commissioner, I think there is a chance for us to work in this direction, and people are very hopeful that the Commission may be able to work to further this report, if it is approved by Parliament.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Izquierdo Collado, for his excellent report.
The report underscores the problems of the uneven distribution of water resources in the countries of the European Union, for example, between northern and southern Europe.
So it is important not to ignore the angle of studying the technological feasibility of a given network which could effectively resolve the issue of water shortages in certain regions of Europe.
Of course, the study must show us that a viable solution exists, and this is why I insist that it is important that the European Commission gets this prospective study underway.
We do not have a great deal of experience of this in Europe.
We only know about the draft study between the regions Languedoc-Roussillon, in southern France, and the Barcelona region in Spain.
So as a Frenchwoman, I am particularly interested in this subject.
A prospective study on transferring water between two European regions must define the needs, the possibilities and also the different impacts and the potential which exists in Europe.
It must be a comprehensive study, taking into account any effects of this type of network on the management of water resources.
The rapporteur has of course explained that fully.
At an environmental level, this study must be accompanied by specific investigations which take into account all environmental aspects, such as the impact on landscapes, natural surroundings, ecosystems and human activity.
I would also like to make an important point clear to all our colleagues, as the rapporteur has done: a project of this sort, if it is feasible, cannot come about without the agreement of the country which would be required to transfer part of its water resources to a region suffering from an imbalance in its resources.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Izquierdo Collado for his hard work but also for his astuteness in picking a subject of paramount importance and for approaching his work in a spirit of scientific and technological inquiry.
He used a STOA inquiry which is exactly what we should do in this Parliament to test our views.
That STOA study made it absolutely clear that this is something the European Union should tackle.
Of course, it is an overwhelmingly important subject.
It will dominate us in the 21st century.
We must look not simply at the quality of water but at its location, its availability, and how it is managed. We need a European audit of water in our Community.
Water was identified as one of the key areas when the task forces were set up by Mrs Cresson.
We need studies on reforestation.
We need to learn from the mistakes of the last two or three centuries which have left parts of the world as desert.
We need to look at how water can be retained.
We need to look at the location of water and how infrastructures could be used.
In doing all these studies we must look at the impact they will have on the environment.
The pilot scheme which I commend in Mr Izquierdo Collado's report would be an excellent way of seeing in practice how this would be feasible.
This continent will have to study water very soon.
Let us not wait for more crises.
We need rigorous and exhaustive impact studies before any such scheme takes place.
That is one condition.
The other, as Mr Collado has said, is the wholehearted and informed consent of any Member State whose water supply is involved in such a hydraulic network.
Madam President, the first thing I want to say is that we think this initiative report by Mr Izquierdo Collado is very timely, but, at the moment, it is just a technological evaluation of the feasibility of these trans-European hydrological networks.
In this Parliament, and in the European Union, we are working on the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Development, which places great importance on the question of water.
And that importance, ladies and gentlemen, is due to the fact that most of us in this House are convinced - some are not, but they will soon see - that water is far more important than oil, gas or any other form of energy, because without water there is no life.
However, anything that comes out of this study must definitely be included in the water management policy which, as Mr Izquierdo Collado said, is in its infancy in the European Union.
Whoever does this study will of course firstly have to take into account an analysis of the alternatives.
The first alternative is to use water better.
We can save a lot of water if we use it better.
Secondly, we have to consider other sources, such as the desalination of sea-water, for example. That is essential for the European Union, in order to produce technological equipment which could be exported to other countries, given that the big problem of the 21st century will be water.
It is possible there may be wars over water, ladies and gentlemen.
So we are talking about an enormously important technological question.
Thirdly, there will need to be an assessment of the energy balance-sheet.
It seems to me that this is the big difficulty which these hydrological networks will encounter.
If they use up too much energy or if the results are energetically unacceptable, these networks will not be much use.
In any case, however, there are many hydrological basins which have already been connected, with transfers being made from one to another.
But it is only natural that we should first make these connections and perform these transfers within our own countries.
Madam President, Spain, where both Mr Izquierdo Collado and I come from, has a great deal of water, but it is not very well distributed, either in time or in geographical location.
It is all up in the north, around Cantabria, with very little in the south.
Therefore, we will study these actions in the centre of our country very carefully and, if appropriate, and if the Union makes that decision, we would join in with a water policy based on hydrological networks.
Obviously, the economic aspects will need to be studied.
Water is badly treated and not given the consideration it deserves: it does not receive sufficient financial resources, especially at municipal level.
I think whoever does the technological evaluation work will have to bear that in mind.
Obviously, there has to be an environmental impact assessment - European legislation demands that - but there would also have to be a strategic assessment of the plans themselves.
I want to inform the rapporteur that the Group of the European People's Party will support his report, although some of our members have certain doubts, perhaps because they see this important question in a different light.
However, I congratulate him in any case.
Madam President, this may appear to be a rather out-of-the-way issue for us in the European Parliament.
However, water is vital for everyone.
It is a natural resource which everyone needs for survival, so it is natural for us to discuss it here.
Two questions must, however, be asked.
The first question is whether this is a matter for the European Union.
Or is it a matter which naturally falls under the principle of subsidiarity, i.e. is it the responsibility of the Member States? The other question is whether the proposals presented in this report are good.
Are the large-scale proposals for the interconnection of European hydrological networks good? I shall attempt to answer these two questions on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party.
Firstly, it is currently the case that all rules which regulate natural resources are national. For example, in all countries we have national legislation for forests, land and water.
That is natural, since forests and land lie within the nation states.
Even for water we have national legislation.
But there is a difference: water flows between different countries, rivers flow through different countries and lake systems are shared.
Therefore, there is a common interest in safeguarding water as a natural resource, both with regard to the quality of the water and ensuring that everyone has a share of it.
So the question is this: is the proposal to interconnect hydrological networks good? We must really question whether this is the right way forward.
Is it right that mankind should interfere with natural hydrological networks with large-scale exploitation and solutions? We have no idea what consequences that could have for the ground water, the climate or the environment.
It is also true that many of the problems which exist because of water shortage, droughts and floods, which we are trying to solve here, were caused by our human intervention, such as logging, plantations and earlier water controls.
If we are going to do something, we must first of all optimize the installations which already exist in order to make better use of the water in Europe.
To conclude: water is primarily a national concern, but with some common responsibility to use it sensibly and for everyone to share in it.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party accepts a study, but it should first of all be directed at existing installations.
I myself am going to abstain from voting.
Mr President, this report by Mr Collado emphasizes that within the countries of the EU there are different conditions as far as access to water is concerned.
In one region there may be a shortage of water, while in another on certain occasions there is a great surplus of water.
This is quite simply governed by the laws of nature.
To then suggest, as the rapporteur does, that we should take initiatives to try to restrain the laws of nature and to redistribute the water, so that it is more evenly distributed in the EU countries, is quite alien to me.
The truth is also that it is often mankind that is largely behind the water problems we have, through, amongst other things, agriculture or through the building of various infrastructure projects.
One example of this is Hallandsåsen in Sweden, where the ground water was lowered according to the criteria determined for the building of a tunnel through the ridge.
Mankind's way of living gives us a number of explanations for today's problems with water shortages or surpluses of water.
It seems as if people now believe the solution is to manipulate water courses further.
Such a measure involves interference with nature.
That is generally irreversible and therefore it should not be done, out of regard for the principle of caution.
Of course we should consider the issue of water here in Parliament, because the kind of water we have is vital.
Above all it is water quality that can be an EU issue, and where we at EU level should try to achieve something.
There should be no interference with nature to change or manipulate water flows.
The Green Group in the European Parliament is not going to support this report and will therefore vote against it in the final vote, just as we did when it was discussed in committee.
Mr President, I first want to express our most decided support for the report presented by Mr Izquierdo Collado, and especially for the implicit message contained in that report, which I think everybody has noticed, since the actual implementation of trans-European hydrological networks represents an important way of contributing to economic and social cohesion.
I do not think it is a question of governing the rain, as has been said here, but rather of somehow reusing it, or being well prepared, so as not to lose a single drop of that vital liquid, and to avoid the floods which have also been mentioned here so many times.
I think UNESCO has also made a statement along these lines, saying that 12 million people currently die every year because of a lack of water, and warning that in 25 years' time more than 50 countries will be short of that vital liquid, and that potentially serious situations may even arise as a result.
In fact, we should be aware that international legislation in this area is inadequate. Many countries do not even know the extent of their water resources.
In that sense, I should like to mention the proposal being studied and discussed by UNESCO at the moment, that the age-old Water Tribunal of Valencia could be adopted in the future as an international point of reference, to help avoid some of the potential conflicts which might arise in the 21st century.
The shortage of water in certain areas represents an additional natural problem, and in order to overcome it we should act together, and from this Parliament, to urge all the peoples of Europe to show solidarity and promote really sustainable development in all the European regions. Hydrological networks, Mr President, have a lot to do with that development.
The creation of a trans-European hydrological network would therefore be a good way of contributing to the development of those regions. In that way, a common asset - water - would contribute to a common objective - Europe.
Mr President, the report by Mr Izquierdo Collado deals with a subject whose importance has not yet been fully recognized; in the next few decades, water is likely to become an ever more critical factor in geostrategic terms.
Neither must we lose sight of the fact that if water resources decrease considerably, especially, but not solely in southern Europe, then this is primarily a result of often irresponsible human activity.
Before establishing the feasibility of setting up trans-European water networks, we must first ask if this is what we want.
Of course, not all nations are equal in terms of water resources.
But we would be wrong to believe that water is more or less limitless in some countries.
By seeking to share wealth, we risk sharing shortages.
A desire to transport drinking water over hundreds or thousands of kilometres may be satisfactory for certain industrialists, but for the importing regions this would surely be an admission of failure, and would signify giving up a real water policy.
This policy can only be local, based on safeguarding wetlands, preserving estuaries, and implementing more sparing agriculture and industry, recycling liquid waste, and if necessary, using the sophisticated technology of desalinating sea water.
This resource must be managed as close as possible to the point of consumption.
Rain water should be examined, collected and its drainage towards ground water facilitated.
This is exactly the opposite of what intensive methods of production and national and regional development have done for 50 years.
We must stop tearing down our hedges, filling up our ponds and concreting over our waterways.
We must also redevelop the Mediterranean forest areas, damaged by fires: they have their part to play in restoring water reserves.
On the contrary, a continental network of water transport would represent waste, irresponsibility and could end in shortages if we do not take care.
Moreover, I am surprised by the absence in this report of any mention of using water networks to transport merchandise, where possible, at a time when road and rail networks are saturated, or even for passenger transport within the framework of tourism.
To sum up, I would stress that in order to improve the problems of real water shortages, it is our priority to take action to stem the causes of desertification, and we can do this because most of these causes are human ones.
It is important that priority goes to local action rather than launching a large-scale operation.
Community solidarity should be expressed at this level.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we shall probably only really appreciate how important water is when we no longer have any. That is why it is no coincidence that our Spanish friend has picked this subject.
I should like to give him my very firm support.
Our friends from the northern countries have got somewhat excited about this here today, because they are afraid that the southern countries want to take away their water.
In fact, just the opposite applies, as every tomato or orange from a southern country that we eat in the north actually means that we are taking water away from the south.
Every tourist who travels to Spain or another southern country uses water.
Assuming that everyone uses two to three litres of water a day, that means that tourists visiting Spain alone consume an additional 1 to 3 million cubic metres of water.
So there is already a kind of trade in water, but it is hidden.
Just think of all the bottles of mineral water, Perrier, Apolinaris, San Pellegrino or what you will, that are shipped all over the world.
That is all trade in water, except that it is transported by bottle rather than by pipeline.
At the time of the Roman Empire, they had a 70 kilometre long water pipeline in Cologne, and they also had similar things in other cities.
Why should we not consider transfrontier water pipelines now? It seems quite normal to me.
Mr Pinel's comment earlier was correct.
We need not only to work on water pipelines but also on proper management of available water.
This seems so obvious to me that it is hardly worth repeating, we just need to get on with it.
Water has a role to play in a Europe without borders, not only oil, gas and electricity, the trans-European networks that we already have.
Why should water not play a similar role? In any case, I believe that water can be classified as a product or a service under the EU Treaty, it certainly comes under the EU Treaty and is not excluded from normal goods.
Mr President, there are parts of Europe where there is not enough water, and areas where there is sometimes too much.
Other natural resources are similarly unequally distributed: forest, gravel, ores, oil, and so on.
Would it be right to claim compensation for the unequal distribution of olive oil resources, for example? This region we are in here is a pretty substantial non-olive oil producing region.
Waterway systems have always caused radical change to the ecosystem.
The reference to the canals of Provence and California was made without justification or critical examination.
We could just as well mention the ecocatastrophe that the River Aral waterway system has caused.
Before decisions are made in favour of one side or the other and measures taken, we should carry out a worldwide survey of the effects on ecosystems of waterways, canals and anything else connected, at the same time assessing their socio-economic and financial effects.
In the case of Europe the matter is complicated by the fact that the effects are common to more than one Member State.
There has been plenty of experience of these for a long time now, but hardly any analytical work has been carried out at all thoroughly.
The survey should be undertaken by an independent study group or consultant.
Rights of ownership to land and water differ dramatically from one country to another.
There are countries where ground water belongs to the territory in which it is found, and is thus totally privately owned.
It is not right that the EU should interfere in individual nations' laws of ownership.
A positive feature of the resolution is the mention of the creation of a water market.
This must be made much more of in our efforts to reach a stage where everything will happen within the framework of a free market.
Spain's tourists are drawn by its waters.
In any case an inventory of water reserves should be drawn up and these reserves must be protected through EU directives.
We must, above all, respect national law.
Mr President, Mr Linkohr, who spoke just now, asked why we should not consider trade in water, and added that water is after all just an economic commodity.
He seemed somewhat surprised at the excitement this subject arouses in countries with abundant water.
I am from Austria, and there is great excitement in my country about this, so perhaps I can help him a little here.
Many people in Europe think that every problem can be dealt with by treating it as a commodity.
Everything that there is a demand for is a commodity.
They treat cloning this way, and book price maintenance in Germany - everything is a product and you can consider everything in that light. My question is, how do we consider things?
Why do we not think about the causes of water shortage?
Why do we not think about a European strategy for European water legislation, a legal, political and technological strategy for sorting out water management problems, for water conservation and reutilization? Why do people not worry about the mistakes made in agriculture and the single crop farming methods that are contributing to this water shortage?
What about agricultural reform? I think that the confidence of people in these water-rich countries is important.
It is vital that politicians recognize the value of this commodity, Mr Linkohr, that they should have some notion, for example, of the contribution Austria's centuries-old water laws have made to giving my country its present level and quality of water reserves.
But no-one is suggesting doing anything like this at European level.
Instead, wherever and for whatever reason there is a water shortage or water quality is inadequate, we envisage simply bringing in water by pipeline from places where it is still available, and imagine that we will have solved the problem in that way.
That breeds mistrust, and that is the reason for the excitement we have seen, and we need to have a complete rethink if water is not only to be treated as a commodity, but if people are also to be aware of its value.
Mr President, I can of course understand the problems of countries who have managed their water differently, and where it is now a commodity in short supply.
But whenever we come across logistical and structural problems it seems we try to solve them by interfering with nature on a gigantic scale.
That has to be wrong, it cannot work in the long run.
Before we consider major pipeline systems, we should consider how water supplies can be provided on the spot.
We should call for urgent studies into the effect of microclimates and the effect of vegetation adjacent to water reserves.
I am very much of the opinion that not only can we influence rainfall, but that we are already influencing it through our actions.
I think that there is enormous scope for doing very positive things with our water resources, including in countries where there are problems at present.
I believe that this debate should make us think about specific measures to solve these problems.
These measures should not consist of setting up yet another network and expecting spurious solutions to solve real problems.
We cannot therefore support this report now.
However, we would like to be constructive and stress that we regard this debate as an opportunity for considering decentralized water management structures, and for investing money in them, because every ECU invested in that way will have an enormous medium and long-term benefit, I am quite convinced of that.
Mr President, you will have realized that this report has provoked a debate on a very Austrian subject. I would have been very grateful if the Member from the Austrian Freedom Party who spoke before me had used the same words that he used in Austria in connection with this report, namely that there is a water war in the EU at present.
In that light the whole picture looks quite different, and it is a very long way from the constructive approach that we are accustomed to working towards or appearing to work towards in this House.
We do not doubt the quality of this report.
We know that there is no question of making new EU law in this field.
We also know what our rapporteur has referred to - point 18 in the report stipulates that there can be no transfer of water within the Union without the express permission of the Member States.
That means that the European Treaties come into play, and in view of that I think we will have relatively few problems.
Even if this report seems a bit fishy to me, a fish with a very Spanish flavour, I do welcome the fact, as a number of earlier speakers have mentioned, including both Mr Linkohr and Mr Voggenhuber, that once again we in Parliament are dealing with one of the most important commodities, namely water.
One of our conservative friends has also quite rightly pointed out that there are undeniably ways of using and distributing water more efficiently in the southern countries.
But we need to be aware that the bill for clean water in the future will be a very hefty one.
In dealing with water management problems, we need to bear in mind that we may be talking about new policies, such as a new agricultural policy, as the present one takes no account of water at all, or, for instance, transport policy, which also fails to address water as an issue.
Mr President, I fully accept the need for bilateral agreements in this area, and I wish Spain and France well.
I am also very grateful to the Members in my delegation, and above all to Mrs Grosstête, for agreeing to an amendment to which I attach great importance, as it makes it perfectly clear that any interference with a Member State's water without its express permission is completely ruled out.
We can only give our support if this amendment is accepted.
I understand that all Member States already have very strict and precise internal regulations governing who may access water and how, so surely this is even more important when it comes to bilateral relations.
I would like to say a few words about those states that have their eye on their neighbours' water: do they really manage their own water carefully? How do industry, factories and households behave?
Untreated water is discharged into our rivers and lakes in an appalling, dirty and dangerous state.
That is unacceptable. It is everyone's duty to keep their own ground water reserves clean in the first place, and only then do they have a moral right to even consider looking at their neighbours' water!
I believe that we can only think about trans-European water networks when every country manages its own water with the utmost care.
One thing has to be clear: with the greatest respect, Mrs McNally, we do not want any wars because of water.
So we need to consider rights of ownership very carefully here.
Mr President, before long all the Austrians in the House will have said something on this subject, but we still have not said everything there is to be said.
I would like to tell Mr Bösch that I am using exactly the same words to say in Austria what I have to say here, and this is not scaremongering. I am just expressing concern, despite having great sympathy for the problems of other Member States of the European Union.
This report is based on the dangerous assumption that natural resources unevenly spread between the sovereign states of the European Union can be supra-nationally redistributed.
Water is not a natural resource belonging to the European Union, as suggested in recital D, but rather a natural resource at the sole disposal of the people of those countries on whose territory it is found.
We very firmly reject the notion that quantitative aspects of water policy can be treated as a priority European Union policy.
Nevertheless, the report does address some ideas which could provide an appropriate approach to solving the problems of countries where water is in short supply, such as technical measures aimed at improving the poor condition of water pipelines, reforestation or desalination of sea water.
Above all it is necessary to optimize existing local facilities, which would lead to a greater improvement in regions suffering from water shortages.
But intervention by the Commission in quantitative aspects of water policy would run counter to the principle of subsidiarity, and create additional unnecessary supranational powers, which would inevitably result in tensions between Member States.
Quantitative water policy is and must remain the sole preserve of sovereign states.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to say thank you for the initiative from the Committee.
It reflects the citizens' ever growing interest in the question of water resources.
It is not only about drinking water, but about water in general as a limited resource which must be protected by a joint effort.
I can fully confirm what the rapporteur, Mr Collado, said about the fact that it made a great impression on all the Ministers when they visited Andalusia and experienced the great water shortage.
Fortunately it may be said that later (I have just visited the Doñana area again) the region did get some water, so the situation is not as desperate as it was at that time.
You will therefore understand that I place great emphasis on the questions of water management and the protection of water resources, and, as you know, in February and November 1997 the Commission approved a draft framework directive on water resources which will act as the central element of European water policy.
It was in fact Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection which, together with other institutions, took the initiative for a change in European water policy with the symposium on water in June 1995.
Very briefly, a few comments on the draft framework directive on water resources, because it is currently being discussed by both Parliament and the Council, and because it contains a number of significant innovations.
Firstly, it will expand protection to cover all water resources and also promote sustainability in connection with the exploitation of these resources.
Secondly, its objective will be to achieve a good status for all water resources.
The means will be to combine limits for discharges with an objective for water quality.
Where regions or Member States share hydrological networks, they will set their objectives jointly.
Thirdly, there is the question of water volumes and the protection of water resources.
That is also being considered.
Water catchment shall be subject to a licensing procedure and an objective will be set to ensure that there is balance between water catchment and the natural renewal of water.
Last, but not least, the framework directive on water will increase transparency and ensure the involvement of all affected citizens and parties when management plans or hydrological networks are being drawn up.
That means that significant topics raised in the draft resolution have already been taken up in the draft framework directive on water resources.
Let me give a few examples: protection of both water quality and water volumes, payment for water usage with full coverage of costs, assessment of existing facilities and their best possible use, increased transparency and involvement of citizens in water management.
However, there are some questions raised in the draft resolution which Parliament's Committee on the Environment regarded with a certain degree of reservation, so to speak.
That applies in particular to the interconnection of Europe's hydrological networks with the aid of artificial watercourses.
The opinion of the Committee on the Environment, and I quote, ' insists that at present the European Union does not have the know-how or experience needed to establish such networks.'
I admit that I share the Committee on the Environment's scepticism on this point.
The Commission is convinced that problems should first and foremost be tackled at source.
That is why the draft framework Directive on water obliges Member States and regions to jointly seek to solve their water problems within shared hydrological systems, but does not aim for large-scale transfers of water between hydrological networks.
At the moment, as several speakers also mentioned during the debate, the Member States and their regions show very different patterns of water-related problems and also very different strategies for solving them.
In my view that is one of the reasons why the institutions, Member States and non-governmental organizations are agreed that there is a need for a new European water policy, and I share many of the opinions expressed during the debate that this will be one of the major issues in future.
If, at this stage, the Community was obliged to set up a hydrological network, that would, in my opinion, not comply with the principles of sustainable development and of tackling environmental problems at source which are prescribed in the Treaty, and which are also one of the pillars of the proposed framework directive on water.
In addition, and here I will again point to the Committee on the Environment's opinion, it is still too soon to start on a study which covers the whole of the Community.
The necessary data will not exist until the framework directive on water resources has been adopted, and comparable objectives have been set.
I feel there is support for this position in the opinion of the Committee on the Environment and in paragraph 8 of the draft resolution, which points to the possibilities of, and I quote, ' making the best use of existing facilities' and the fact that it is important 'to improve management before you invest.'
But the proposed framework directive would by no means prohibit such solutions in certain regions where people are clear about the data and assessments, respect the environmental objectives and have achieved agreement between the parties.
During the development of a new European water policy, it has from the beginning been my intention as Commissioner for the Environment to consult with all interested and affected parties.
When I now look back on this process of consultation, I must regard it as extraordinarily successful, both because we have had very valuable input, and because there has been general support for the view that there is need for a new water policy, and for the structure it has been given in the proposal.
And it is also in that light that I see the very exciting debate which has taken place in Parliament this morning.
I am convinced that the proposed framework directive for water resources will form a good basis for cooperation on sustainable water management between the EU institutions, the Member States and their regions.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.00 a.m.
EC- Republic of Yemen cooperation agreement
The next item is the report by Mr Pettinari (A4-0007/98) on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Yemen.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, Yemen is a country which over the past few years has made a number of major strides towards democracy and economic reform and these deserve the support of the European Union.
If we look at the political situation in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen is setting a good example, admittedly with some contradictions, but one which requires a commitment from the European Union side by side with the authorities in San'a.
To this end, I recommend that the economic and trade Cooperation Agreement which is the subject of my report be ratified. The report will be put to the vote shortly.
Since 1990 Yemen has been undergoing a process of reunification between the north and south of the country which has changed its geography and its politics.
With the defeat of the secessionist forces in 1994, the country experienced an acceleration of the democratic process which has resulted in the organization of general free and democratic elections.
A delegation from the European Parliament was even able to monitor the conduct of the elections and testify to the fairness of the electoral process.
Today, Yemen has a parliament made up of 301 members in which the normal interaction between the majority and the opposition are bringing about a population with a maturing democratic awareness.
To understand my favourable views properly, you have to consider carefully the regional context in which Yemen finds itself.
In the Arabian Peninsula Yemen's democratic experience is probably the most advanced and has developed despite external obstacles and opposition, in particular from Saudi Arabia which, for obvious political and economic reasons, has always tried to place obstacles in the path of the development of democracy in Yemen.
What is more, the foreign policy choices made by Yemen during the Gulf War did not help to create a climate in which the country would be accepted into the international community.
Only now is it finding its proper role on the regional and international stage.
In this context I should like to point out the country's constant and determined search for peaceful relations with its neighbouring countries.
This is further evidence of the existence of a deliberate democratic choice which I believe we should be supporting: a global good neighbours treaty has been signed with Oman to put an end to long-standing territorial disputes in the east of Yemen; the International Court of Justice in the Hague has become directly involved in the dispute with Eritrea over the Hanish islands, using peaceful diplomacy to put an end to a situation which must not be allowed to wreck relations between two important countries needlessly; contact is even being reestablished with Saudi Arabia to resolve territorial disputes in northern Yemen.
In my opinion, these are important, positive political choices to which the Union should give its backing.
Admittedly, we all know only too well that Yemen still has a lot of problems.
We only have to think of the unacceptable incidences of abduction which on more than one occasion have also involved tourists from my country.
But Yemen is undergoing a process of change and the context in which this is happening must also be understood by its critics.
In San'a I discussed face-to-face with the country's highest authorities the accusations of human rights violations which have also been voiced by Parliament, and I found they were open to dialogue and were prepared to provide all the explanations asked of them.
Likewise, the Yemeni authorities are aware of the different approach in Europe to women's issues, which must not however be tackled by shutting the country out, but by fostering closer cultural and social relations which, even in Yemen, must lead to the necessary emancipation of women.
I can testify personally to the existence of a sincere and proven desire for dialogue on the part of the Yemeni authorities who are actually asking for help with specific programmes to further improve human rights and conditions for women in Yemen.
Finally, I believe that the approval of the agreement between the European Union and Yemen must be seen as an opportunity to bring about closer Euro-Arab political and economic relations in a region which is of fundamental importance to world security.
The European Union has often neglected the Arab and Mediterranean world and, in light of the current difficulties being experienced by the Middle East peace process, we can appreciate how important it is to have well-established relations with the Arab world.
Yemen is an active member of the Arab League, and the democratic experience which it is undergoing is all the more reason why it should become a political partner of the European Union.
Because of its history and its economic structure, Yemen has a natural inclination towards a priority relationship with the European Union, an inclination which must be frustrated.
In this regard, the economic and trade Cooperation Agreement which I am asking you to approve can only be a starting point for bringing about closer ties between this country and the European Union which, in my opinion, will be advantageous for Yemen and also for Europe.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mr Pettinari very sincerely for his report and to congratulate him on the conclusions he reaches in it.
I know that he has been able to contribute a great deal through his personal knowledge of the situation in the Yemen.
This means, and I must say this straight away, that I find it all the more sad that the Cooperation Agreement was signed back in September and that we are just going through the motions by giving our assent to the agreement, so that the input of Mr Pettinari and the other people who cooperated on the report will have no influence at all on the shape of the agreement.
In this context I think it is particularly important that the agreement includes a future development clause.
This means that the agreement is simply a basis that can be built upon in the future.
Although the agreement is far more broadly based than the one drawn up in 1984, it is nevertheless important that this is just a basis.
It is good that this agreement covers the extensions of tourism and the modernization and restructuring of the agriculture and fisheries sectors, because these are all signs that things have changed enormously in the Yemen in recent years.
We must remember what has been achieved there in just a few years: a country that was once a training centre for terrorists, and which used to be a channel for money destined for international terrorism, has in a few years achieved an incredible process of internal transformation and restructuring, which is of course associated with the reunification of the two parts of the country.
It is logical that the Yemeni people should look to us for clear signs that we intend to offer them support and for suggestions as to how this relationship between the European Union and the Yemen can be developed further in the future.
Mr President, I also want to congratulate Mr Pettinari on his report.
My colleagues from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and myself welcomed the particular agreement with the Republic of Yemen in December.
We all know, and it has been said already, that the Yemen has made great progress recently in democratization and in respect for basic human rights.
The support we are offering today is essential.
Even though it is late it is important that this Parliament should extend this support if the Union is to see itself as a genuine buttress of fundamental human rights and the freedoms which we espouse worldwide.
It provides an example and a message to other countries in the region which have very inferior human rights records and no respect for democratic methods.
Universal suffrage in elections to the Yemeni Parliament is especially praiseworthy in the context of the all-male electorates in neighbouring states in the region.
I was one of Parliament's observers at the elections there last year.
There were shortcomings but our observations were that they were free and fair elections, despite the fact that there were segregated polling stations, and I was dismayed to see that there were separate counts taking place for women voters.
There was also a problem in that we were unable to visit certain areas for security reasons.
A number of other problems remain and some of them have already been alluded to.
For example, the death penalty.
Although it has not been implemented for several years, it remains in the Yemeni penal code.
Existing minimum wage and child labour provisions should be enforced and improved.
Literacy rates need to be improved, especially in the context of the elections where literacy was a huge problem.
Action must be taken against the continued practice of female genital mutilation.
Various NGOs from inside and outside the Republic of Yemen approached me and my colleagues from time to time with criticism about certain corrupt practices and inefficiencies in the judicial system, about individual human rights abuses sometimes perpetrated by the security forces, and the arbitrary imprisonment of many thousands without due process. These people are taken into prison without proper documentation or proper charges being made.
So, there are those problems but by linking the human rights clause in this agreement and the non-execution clause we are provided with further leverage in pressing for observance of these rights.
Finally, despite the problems therefore, I welcome the very positive approach taken by the rapporteur.
I am sure that the benefits of cooperation will encourage further cooperation and democratization.
I consider that Parliament must continue to press for ratification by the Yemen of important international human rights conventions and continue to take up individual cases of human rights abuses as they are presented to us.
The Yemeni Government is listening to us and is taking note of what Parliament says.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Pettinari on his report and, like Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, I regret that we are only debating this now after the ink has dried.
Yemen is an interesting country in that it is one of the world's divided countries and a country which is now trying to overcome the problems of division.
Indeed, the reunification process has not been without its setbacks and difficulties in the Yemen.
The agreement we are discussing today is the culmination of valuable cooperation between the EU and Yemen, dating back as far as 1979, as support given to Yemen for economic and development projects totalling ECU 58 million has gradually put the country into an economic and strategic position which suggests that further positive developments are guaranteed.
I believe that another aspect of this positive situation, which Mrs Malone has already described, is the prevailing pluralistic democracy, which seems to be on the right path, despite the criticisms she mentioned, not to mention the cautious economic policy aimed at avoiding social dislocation.
But I am sure that the whole thing will only become stable once the commitments of nearly ECU 2 billion made by last year's conference of donor countries become a reality, and soon. This agreement will round off, so to speak, the various agreements in the Mediterranean area.
I also believe that Yemen will take this opportunity to prove to us that religious traditions and respect for human rights can certainly be combined.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the resolution on the Pettinari report on the Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Yemen highlights three broad reasons which largely correspond to the areas of political, economic and human activity.
In the political arena, three main elements should be noted: firstly, the unification of Yemen and the attempts to reduce the internal splits between the north and the south; Secondly, also in this area, the democratic character of the regime indicated by the elections on 27 April 1997 which has continued ever since; and finally, the third political reason is the mandatory encouragement by the European Union in this area of personal and collective responsibility.
At an economic level, we have noted the implementation of progressive reforms which seek to avoid internal clashes in an economic context which remains difficult.
Secondly, in this domain, combined economic policies are being sought and implemented.
Finally one last point on the economic front, there are attempts to promote balanced trading; at present there is an imbalance generally in favour of the Union which must allow Yemen to sell its original products better.
Lastly, at a human level, we are taking into account, as necessary, the needs of the Yemeni people; they are extremely poor in comparison to us, and the emphasis is being placed on education and technical assistance, as well as the mandatory continuation of aid which contributes to the improvement of local rural development and the standard of living of the most disadvantaged people.
The combination of these reasons leads us to conclude that total cooperation is essential, and the UPE group will vote for Mr Pettinari's report on the Cooperation Agreement between the Union and the Republic of Yemen.
Mr President, the Republic of Yemen deserves a prize for effort.
The Liberal group will therefore wholeheartedly agree with the Cooperation Agreement between Yemen and the Union.
The new agreement is an important adjustment of the agreement of 1984. This adjustment reflects the altered reality in Yemen.
Whilst the agreement of 1984, as everyone knows, was signed with North Yemen, the new agreement applies to the reunited country.
The unification of 1990 laid the foundation for harmonious development in the country.
The riot threat in 1994, thankfully, strengthened the country.
The report shows that politicians are at last convinced of the need for democracy and human rights.
Yemen occupies an exemplary position within the region.
This is often forgotten, as the region is chiefly dominated by Saudi Arabia in a positive sense, it is said, and by Iraq in a negative sense.
Foreign policy is directed at solving all disputes with neighbouring countries.
Multi-party democracy works and the parliament is elected unanimously.
The April parliamentary elections definitely deserve more than the benefit of the doubt.
In the sphere of economics, too, things are put right in conjunction with the IMF.
But we must obviously remain vigilant about the future.
Yemen is an extremely poor country in which democracy is still showing considerable gaps.
That is why we wholeheartedly support the signing of this agreement which should contribute to the intensification of contacts with Yemen. The agreement should, on the one hand, be used to develop its economy and trade between the Union and Yemen.
On the other hand, much attention must be paid to improvements in the legal and the voting systems and in public administration.
Further strengthening of democracy must remain an important focal point.
The Yemeni government must make efforts to engender respect for human rights, to combat corruption, and to obtain further guarantees for press freedom.
This Cooperation Agreement is a prize for effort, as I have already said, and the government of Yemen deserves support for the reforms, and a boost for further activities in this direction.
The Union must seize this agreement, and intensify and diversify its efforts in the region.
We should not merely focus on Saudi Arabia, but also on other countries, Yemen in particular.
I would like to thank Mr Pettinari and to voice my respect for his excellent report.
I expected no less from him.
Mr President, for many years prior to the unification of North and South Yemen in 1990, development was held back by border wars between the two states and bitter internal struggles which periodically flared into civil war.
Sadly, even since unification, Yemen has been the victim of the civil war of April to June 1994.
Hopefully it will be possible to avoid any recurrence of such events and the country will be able to achieve an improved level of economic growth in future.
This could provide the means of raising living standards for all Yemeni citizens, but in particular those living in poverty, deprivation and squalor, provided that this is not just left primarily to free market forces.
With this in view we should welcome the cooperation agreement before us today.
It could make an important contribution to Yemen's forward march.
This will also, however, require real improvement in the area of human rights. Last year this House approved a resolution which drew attention to serious human rights abuses, despite the fact that Yemen has agreed to some human rights conventions and incorporated them into its laws.
Since April there have been numerous arrests although many of those arrested on unjustifiable grounds have now been released.
One of the problems is that political security acts in a totally arbitrary manner and is responsible only to the President.
There are also Draconic punishments in the penal code of 1994.
Women's rights are restricted although the situation is much better than in some other Arab states.
This House should support the agreement but demand that the human rights situation is kept under close attention.
Hopefully even those accused of participation in the 1994 civil war will be amnestied since this would be a vital step to national reconciliation.
On this basis I support the report and the agreement.
Mr President, the new Cooperation Agreement concluded between the European Community and the Republic of Yemen has to be analysed within its historical context.
The unification of Yemen was supported by a majority of the population in both states, but the new government had to face the obstacles of national reconciliation and the considerable economic deficit created by the civil war.
As you know, Yemen has successfully tackled these challenges.
Today, Yemen is a single country, a unified country, and the government is doing all it can to reconcile public opinion in the south, although certain elements both inside and outside Yemen continue to offer opposition.
A united Yemen represents an important keystone, and the European Union fully supports it.
We consider that the process of democratization in Yemen is irreversible.
The country held democratic general elections in 1993, followed by a second election last year.
As Mrs Malone said, the international observers generally felt that both elections were fair and free, irrespective of whether certain shortcomings may have been detected.
The democratic process is still young and will need help, and I want to stress that the European Commission lent its support to governmental and non-governmental organizations during both elections, and is programming more aid in order to strengthen this young democracy.
The Yemeni government has not only begun the process of transforming a strictly state-controlled economy into a free-market economy, but is also carrying out important reforms within a framework already agreed with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
In fact, during a meeting in Brussels in June 1997, a sum of ECU 1 300 million over three years was promised for this operation, and the international donors expressed their support for and appreciation of the government's efforts.
While these positive changes were taking place, the Yemeni government over the last decade has been exploring the possibility of establishing new, broader, modernized cooperation relations with the European Union.
The new agreement was modelled on the Community's cooperation agreements with developing countries, and in February 1997 the Council approved the negotiation guidelines proposed by the Commission.
Then, on 25 November, the agreement was signed. I believe this agreement can make a considerable contribution to the processes of modernization and economic development to which the Republic of Yemen has committed itself.
The agreement includes the promotion of the private sector and the establishment of permanent economic dialogue in various sectors.
Furthermore, as several speakers have already said, this agreement includes the normal clause on respect for democracy and human rights as a basic principle of our cooperation.
And in that respect, Mr President, I want to emphasize that the Yemeni government has accepted that obligation fully and unreservedly.
I want to thank the Committee on Development and Cooperation, the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy for having realized the importance of this agreement (as does the European Commission), for having shown it this support, and for supporting it with a favourable vote.
Mr Commissioner, thank you for your speech.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a few minutes.
Votes
Mr President, yesterday during the debate on this subject, it became clear that a large majority of the groups are thinking along the same lines.
The various resolutions originally submitted by different groups were also a clear indication of this.
Unfortunately, a majority of the groups decided to withdraw their resolutions, and we know that due to lack of flexibility the groups were no longer able to support our resolution, despite the fact that they largely agree with us on content.
We would find it incredible if this Parliament were to vote in a majority vote against something with which it actually agrees in principle.
That is why we are withdrawing our resolution.
But we do say very clearly that even though it is human, it is not very elegant, Mr President.
The resolution is withdrawn.
The conciliation which is the basis of the present report had reached a number of acceptable compromises with the demands of the European Parliament concerning the concept of affordable price, the cost of universal service, consumer protection and service quality, protection of disabled users and number portability.
We can, therefore, support this report.
It remains to be said, however, that a satisfactory state of the Open Network Provisions is one necessary condition of the liberalization of Telecom markets, and that, without strong intervention from parliament, they would have remained quite below the necessary standards of regulation.
It would be useful, indeed, if the Commission and Council would prepare further action in related fields with more care and with considerably more attention to the concomitant necessities of regulation.
Pack report (A4-0012/98)
In 1994-1995 we held long and difficult negotiations to establish the grant for the Socrates programme.
The European Parliament played an important role in fixing the financial package at the reasonable level of ECU 850 million and in adding a clause for the review of funds at the half-way stage.
The Socrates programme has now shown its mettle.
The promotion of education throughout life has been organized around this unique programme which operates from pre-school age up to the third level of university education.
Thanks to its vast range of activities, the opportunities offered to young people and to teachers have been increased tenfold, with the consequence that a real sense of European identity has developed.
Positive results recognized by everyone have been achieved by a large number of the 119 million people under 25 and the 4 million teachers.
The enormous popularity for the European educational community must not be compromised two years before the end of the programme when eleven new countries are knocking at the door of the European Union and offering the opportunity for mutual enrichment.
We need the appropriate finance and we must widen the programme as far as possible, taking into account the latest technological developments, particularly in the area of information.
I am therefore in favour of the Pack report and the increase in financing, to the tune of ECU 70 million, for 1998 and 1999, which he stipulates for the Socrates programme.
Like most of my colleagues, I only regret that the final compromise could not have been made on the basis of the additional 100 m proposed last June by the European Parliament.
Education and training have become the most important factor in the economic and social future of Europe.
Acting to promote exchanges of students and ideas also promotes Europe and the single currency, and economic and monetary union.
Let us not forget this when deciding on the budget.
If there is one area which unites our Parliament in stressing its importance, it is education, and more specifically mobility within education.
Mrs Pack and others have rightly highlighted that the Socrates programme is a fundamental instrument for young Europeans, both for their education and for adding a 'European' approach to their studies, and, more generally for a more open approach to others.
The programme even represents a point of reference for individuals who often only know about the actions of the Community through things which affect their own world or that of their children.
This is why I am voting for this report and for the budgetary increase finally decided upon by the Council of Ministers, not for Education but for Finance!!!
We should note carefully the irony of Finance Ministers making cuts first of all in the education and culture sectors!
We can only hope that this historic decision is reproduced in other areas and that it can put an end to the general hypocrisy of the speeches.
The Council and Parliament have reached agreement on earmarking an additional sum of ECU 70 million for the Socrates training programme so it comes up to ECU 920 million.
In today's Europe it is important to invest in the exchange of young people, which is why the Socrates training programme is a sensible measure.
It provides an opportunity for young people from the whole of Europe to be able to train in other countries and to meet other young people from the rest of Europe.
I therefore give the report my full support.
Socrates is a classic case of the advantages of Community intervention.
The only lucid policy decision must be to strengthen this scheme for student and teacher exchanges at all levels of education.
Despite this evidence, however, Member States have hesitated for a long time before granting the necessary financial means to make it possible to do something they themselves had decided on: the extension of the scheme to countries that are applying to join the Union.
The Commission proposed a 50 % increase, Parliament asked for 100 % and the Council decided on 25 %.
For that reason the compromise solution was surprising, because in settling it at 70 % the Council finally decided in favour of a bigger increase than the Commission itself had suggested.
How are to we account for this unusual outcome? It is due to two important factors: the agreement between the Committee on Culture and the Committee on the Budgets, who made common cause and brought it into the 1998 Budget; and the committed and well-informed work of one Member, who has not shrunk from bringing direct pressure to bear on governments and stirring up public opinion.
Politics needs passionate personal involvement and well-directed diplomatic activity.
I am therefore delighted to vote for this significant report.
Read report (A4-0023/98) and the Camisón Asensio report (A4-0027/98)
The Commission has drawn up a draft directive on telecommunications equipment which is to replace two Council Directives on telecommunications terminal equipment and ground station equipment in connection with satellites.
In addition, the Commission is recommending increasing the scope of the Directive so that radio communications equipment is also covered by the rules.
However, it is vital to allow for the fact that radio amateurs, who build their own transmission equipment, have no chance of living up to the tough demands for technical standards required by the directive.
But nor is this necessary, because amateur equipment is not intended for sale.
In the light of the fact that I, as protector of the Danish radio amateurs, have received a guarantee from the Commission that the radio amateurs' equipment is not covered by the directive, I give the report my full support.
Recommendation for 2nd reading by Mr Lehne (A4-0005/98)
I should like to comment briefly that this report, especially in view of the present financial crisis in Asia, which is essentially attributable to private debts, is broadly linked to the issue of banking supervision, the coordination and harmonization of which is a matter of urgency in the context of the internal market and the single currency.
This is relevant to the Lehne report given that, especially in relation to Amendment No 2, it may well be asked to what extent the 'duty of supervision or approval' to be imposed by Member States in turn requires a European framework system.
This is, however, no reason to vote against the report, which is itself uncontentious.
Recommendation for second reading by Mr Parodi (A4-0411/97)
The Commission has proposed to update Directive 94/58/EEC, based on the international STCW Convention on the training conditions of seafarers.
At our first reading in May last year, we asked the Council to take into consideration 35 amendments aimed at strengthening the original proposal.
Of these amendments, we are delighted to note that 20 were approved by the Community executive.
Our work involved supplying proposals relating to the training of seafarers.
How can we not take into account the human factor in accidents at sea (80 % of these accidents are due to human error).
I welcome the proposal of my colleague which calls for the creation of a European institute of training.
Seafarers in the European Union are highly qualified as a result of their training; we must extend, preserve and communicate this knowledge.
Our maritime industry which uses this workforce can only become more competitive as a result.
In conclusion, I think about the thousands of young people who aspire to the noble occupation of seafarer.
We must offer them the prospect of serious training.
Our colleague's proposal is a step in the right direction.
White report (A4-0010/98)
We must get rid of the idea that when something is not going too well in the Member States, it is high time for Europe to step in.
Of course I recognize that the living conditions of many animals in zoos are very poor.
I support the position which Ms McKenna recently took, namely that a zoo is a totally unsuitable place for large numbers of animals.
But that is another subject.
Mr White's report is about whether you should make European-wide regulations for zoos.
I categorically believe not, which is why I voted against the report.
The fact is that the arguments for European legislation on zoos are not very strong.
This is one of the topics on which the European Union has overstretched itself.
Quite rightly, the Council in Edinburgh blew the whistle on the Commission.
But in his report Mr White wants to return to the pre-Edinburgh stage: he wants a directive, not a recommendation, and he wants a directive based on legal basis 100A and 130S to boot.
The other day I gave this example to a group of Dutch members of local authorities who were visiting.
They soon agreed that this is an issue Brussels has nothing to do with.
And these people were not even my own grassroots supporters!
From a legal point of view the European Parliament occupies an equally weak position.
According to the subsidiarity principle, the Union has no authority in this area, and should therefore not act in this case.
The discussion about the legal instrument is therefore completely superfluous.
At best we can ponder whether or not to make a recommendation.
In view of the seriousness of the situation in many zoos, it seems to me that a recommendation would be in order.
The Commission's comprehensive draft recommendation (almost a directive) is quite sufficient.
The Member States and the zoos have their hands full with this, leaving aside the cost implications.
I do not doubt their good intentions, but a directive would be too much of a good thing.
The new protocol on the wellbeing of animals which is included in the Treaty of Amsterdam commits the Community and its Member States to bear that requirement in mind, while it also invalidates the decision on the incorrect application of the principle of subsidiarity in this matter.
Everybody knows that as far as wellbeing is concerned, the circumstances of animals in zoos are far from adequate.
Such circumstances are not even guaranteed sufficiently in Member States' own legislation.
Nor is it a simple matter to provide an appropriate environment for many animals, such as killer whales, dolphins, bears, etc. It is also important to bear in mind the suffering and change of habits imposed on the various species by this captivity, which is of a clearly commercial nature.
At the time, I expressed these same sentiments with respect to the report prepared by Mr Scott-Hopkins, whom I had the honour of accompanying on a visit to Madrid zoo.
Today I will of course support everything that Mr White says, because a recommendation alone, as the Commission knows very well, will not solve anything, and what we need is a solution to this problem.
Since this is an urgent matter, I agree with the rapporteur that only a directive is capable of making sure that animals in captivity in the European Union's zoos get the protection they deserve, if the Commission also matches deeds with words and thereby fulfils the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We have chosen to abstain in the final vote on the report.
We do not think that the EU should draw up detailed legislation in all areas.
We therefore reject the Committee's proposal for a change in the legal basis and the formulation as a directive.
However, we do think it is worthwhile to have extensive cooperation on issues of animal protection.
It would be best, however, if this cooperation were formulated through recommendations and conventions at a pan-European level.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of having a directive on the keeping of wild animals in zoos instead of the position which was recommended by the Commission, because we believe it is important to have proper rules throughout the EU.
Zoos are either private or publicly owned and the standards can vary greatly.
Properly run zoos fulfil many functions, such as scientific research, education and the preservation of species.
Zoos which are only run for profit should be watched closely.
There are far too many examples of zoos where the animals suffer, and there is very good reason to check that the international conventions on the keeping of and trading in wild animals, which the EU is a party to, are fully respected.
That is why we are in favour of rules and support the report, even though we know well that there are many who will champion respect for the principle of subsidiarity and say that the EU has no power in this matter.
We would like to see it put to the test.
The trade in or exchange of endangered or vulnerable species is governed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
Zoos are allowed to import, export or exchange any animal in connection with work on the preservation of species.
EU rules in this area could help to check that the international agreements are upheld.
The fact that there is a set of guidelines intended to systematize and harmonize the legislative framework of the various States regarding the keeping of wild animals in zoological gardens is of course a positive step.
Positive as it is, it is equally true that we have been expecting that legislative framework to produce actual laws for some years now, but that action has been delayed a number of times for various reasons.
The report essentially attempts to alter the guideline framework suggested by the Council, by turning it into a directive, with the backing of a wide consensus of opinion among the many associations and organizations in the European Union which work for the preservation and protection of animals.
The report deserves our support, although it might have gone further.
The fact is that it could and should also have covered permanent private collections, even those to which the public are not allowed to have access, since the conditions in which animals are kept ought to be uniform and universal.
Similarly, it might have dealt with aspects relating to educational and teaching elements, in order to discourage the keeping of wild animals outside their habitat.
This aspect should also have been taken into account in the actual licensing of new public and private exhibitions.
I hope our vote in favour will help make it possible to make good the deficiencies and improve the text as soon as the opportunity arises to revise it.
I am voting in favour of the White report on the keeping of wild animals in captivity, since it is time we put an end to the present free-for-all, with its suffering and lack of openness.
Without wishing to question the love of animals shown by the owners and managers of many small zoos, it is obvious that many of these places do not comply with minimum conditions and that the veterinary services available are not of the technically specialized type needed for 'exotic' species of animals.
What the European Parliament now demands, and is reinforcing by voting on this report in part-session, is that compulsory standards should be introduced throughout the territory of the Union - including during transport - and that means of ensuring supervision, openness and animal welfare should be strengthened.
All proposals which improve the living conditions of animals in general and in zoos in particular are worth supporting.
We are basically in favour of the proposals contained in the White report.
However, we think that this is a matter which should be regulated by the individual Member States because of the principle of subsidiarity.
The intention of this report is very proper.
However, I think this is a matter for the Member States.
Democracy and national self-determination are an overriding principle.
You cannot justify restrictions on democracy by the fact that it serves a good cause.
Therefore, I have voted against the report's proposal (Amendment No 1) that there should be a directive in this area.
Recommendation on racism (B4-0108/98)
We voted for the resolution to show our abhorrence of racism, but we cannot support the wording in favour of Greater Union.
The motion for a resolution by Mr Mohamed Ali deals with a serious subject: racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism.
As a secondary subject he has also added the results of the European Year Against Racism, which would seem to be on a different level.
A theme of this type warrants a clear and rigorous elaboration of the moral options and a serious approach in the exposition of the facts and ideas.
The text proposed to us hardly meets these requirements.
There is no mention of the moral and spiritual foundations for absolute rejection of racism: the equal dignity of every human being from his or her conception until his or her natural death, regardless of race, social condition - be it high or low -, religion, state of health or age.
The omission of these founding principles weakens the impact of the resolution.
Furthermore, the text mixes up proposals to which one could not subscribe, for example, the call for exemplary behaviour from teachers, with inadmissible ideological proposals, such as the idea of 'positive discrimination' , which obviously runs counter to the fight against discrimination.
Moreover, the rapporteur mixes up notions which have nothing to do with one another, such as racism and nationalism.
He plays with dangerous notions such as the detection of possible racist, xenophobic or nationalist tendencies which could pave the way towards an implausible inquisition of thoughts.
Certain considerations are obscure, for example, factor H which either expresses an obvious fact, or involves some incomprehensible ulterior motives.
Lastly, he refers to the Amsterdam Treaty, which, for the time being, is not part of the legal order of the Community since it has not been ratified by any of the Member States.
For these reasons, we were unable to vote for the resolution.
It will come as no surprise that, as a socialist and Frenchman, I support without reserve the questions and inquiries of our colleague, Mr Ali.
I warmly congratulate him for them!
I would add my voice to his in the questions relating to the intentions of the Commission on possible demonstrations linked to the European Year against Racism and on putting in place the European Observatory against Racism.
These are fundamental questions.
I would add that they are not politically neutral questions; they are linked largely to the misery which affects an increasing number of our fellow citizens, which is no justification for them.
I believe that under no circumstances can we excuse this minority of Europeans who swear allegiance to the extreme right which is bogged down in xenophobia and highly reactionary nationalism - the situation is much too grave.
I, too, would like to give a warning to the fringe of representatives upholding the right wing who think they can maintain their positions by forming alliances or by aligning themselves with the positions of the most extreme parties.
I hope that they will never forget that they are playing into the hands of the extreme right and will not even recover the voters who have left them.
History teaches us that all parties of the extreme right bear within them the seeds of violence, and this violence always gives rise to tragedy.
This resurgence of hate in a majority of countries shows us that the 'demon' which our fathers and some of us fought against is not dead, and the best way to pay our respects to those to whom we owe our freedom... is to continue their fight.
We have voted for the current resolution on racism.
We fully support the resolution's basic spirit of anti-racism and humanism.
In spite of this we have objections on three points:
1.We do not think the immigration policies of the Member States should be harmonized.2.We do not think that criminal issues, such as the criminalization of racist organizations, should be decided at EU level.3.We would like to stress that work on human rights takes place mainly within the framework of the Council of Europe and that the EU should not try to take over matters from this pan-European institution.
Although the Members from the Austrian Freedom Party will vote for the motion for a resolution in the final vote, this does not signify that they accept the content of all the points.
We reject a European Charter on the Rights of Immigrants just as we reject European harmonization of criminal law or the abolition of the principle of mutual criminal liability for certain criminal offences.
Thors report (A4-0008/98)
The report highlights a number of deficiencies in relation to the observance of Community rules in individual Member States.
It also describes the observance by individual Member States of international agreements entered into by the EU.
The amount of EU rules is constantly growing.
Earlier messages about fewer but better rules have got no further than words.
The amount of EU rules makes the regulatory system difficult to comprehend and is a cause of problems with implementing and applying the rules in the Member States.
Another reason may be that the rules which are not perceived as important or essential, or which are perceived as interfering, are not implemented or are implemented last.
However, in principle, the proposal in the report is good, which is why I have voted for it.
Izquierdo Collado Report (A4-0407/97)
I voted against the Izquierdo Collado report on trans-European hydrographic systems because, as I see it, by recommending a water policy based on transfers, it runs contrary to the sense and scope of the current discussions on the framework directive on water, and the water regulations existing in international law, particularly those contained in the Helsinki and Espoo Conventions, for the protection of states which share rivers.
Apart from anything else, the exclusive option for water-transfer calls into question the European legislation on environmental impact itself.
A water quantity policy, which is highly important in southern Europe, cannot be separated from the aspects of quality and solidarity; and, above all, in hydrographic basins covering several Member States, the achievement of compatibility of interests is the keystone of the policy to be adopted.
This is an initial report.
The European Parliament will soon have an opportunity to decide on the framework directive in the legislative process.
I wanted, however, to be sure of emphasizing this warning from the outset, so that the differences will be noted at this stage.
How could anybody refuse to vote for Mr Izquierdo Collado's report on trans-European hydrological networks?
Those of us who have experience of working on environmental matters know that all ambitious projects require the appropriate impact assessments, which are now unavoidable.
Therefore, to use that as an argument for voting against this report makes no sense.
The fact is that extensive areas of the Community suffer cycles of unbearable drought, and without water there can be no life, progress or solidarity.
The water problem is not just qualitative but also quantitative.
In fact, this problem has only one solution: transEuropean hydrological networks.
It is in that spirit that my positive vote is a vote for solidarity.
The Danish Social Democrats are following the voting list of the Group of the Party of European Socialists for the report by Mr Collado on the technical feasibility of transEuropean hydrological networks.
But we would like to point out that people should be extremely wary of embarking on projects which are aimed at expanding these hydrological networks.
It will always be necessary first to carry out a fundamental investigation of the concrete cases where such a project could be realized.
First and foremost people should make sure that the problem cannot be solved by more appropriate management of existing resources.
This should be understood broadly and should therefore include the consideration of possible conversion of agriculture and industrial production.
Conversion of agriculture is necessary, for example, in cases where certain water-intensive crops are grown in an area which is troubled by drought, and where people also grow these crops far outside their natural season.
That is an example of a wrong way of thinking, and it should be changed before people embark on alternative solutions to the problem of water shortages.
It is certainly true that water resources are unequally distributed within the European Union, as are areas of fertile arable land, iron and coal deposits, the number of hours of sunshine as well as cold and snow.
When Europe's climate and natural resources were created there was no thought of a European Union, which was perhaps fortunate.
Think how monotonous Europe would have looked if the distribution had been equal everywhere.
The Member States, their governments and taxpayers have, through greater or lesser efforts, taken care of resources and evened out differences in the awareness that long-term, ecologically-sustainable investments are worthwhile.
The report proposes the creation of an institutional framework for trans-European hydrological networks, the aim of which shall be a more uniform distribution of water resources within the Union.
The thought alone is absurd.
A country's national resources are and should remain a national concern.
Distribution and economic investments in a Member State or a region should be decided by the country's parliament and be paid for by the taxpayers.
Of course, as always, cooperation, agreements and economic investments between two or more countries are positive.
But decisions and measures should, as is customary, take place through intergovernmental agreements.
The management of the Member States' natural resources is not an area of competence for the EU, unless the EU intends to become a state.
This is one of the most important strategic issues for Europe.
Water will be the fundamental resource of the 21st century.
It will be at the heart of conflicts between countries suffering from drought and those which are still able to irrigate their crops.
In other words, the issue at stake here is the very source of life.
So how could we refuse this source of all riches to our neighbours, and particularly Spain where the hills of Murcia and now even Catalonia once more bear the marks of increasing desertification? The Heurta de Valencia, the Tribunal 'de los Aguas' , or the inspired mastery of water in the Sierra Nevada taking it to the jewel of 'Granada' Spain's history could be summed up as a battle for water.
And so, quite spontaneously, its neighbour, France, and in particular the region of Languedoc-Roussillon would like to help, bring aid, share and offer from its bounty.
Look at the plentiful water resources of the Rhône! It is tempting to siphon some of it off towards the Ebro basin.
And this is precisely the sense of the project for a trans-European water network, from which the LanguedocRoussillon project has come, transporting water from the Rhône over some 320 km to the Pyrenees, before flowing onwards towards Barcelona..
It is a huge undertaking, with investments of over FF 7 billion.
It is a beautiful, grand and seductive project, but yet it harbours many dangers.
There is the ecological danger for the miraculous Camargue region, where it is not yet known if there will be an increase in salinity levels when the pressure from the Rhône water mass is reduced.
But there is also the danger of a casus belli in waiting, the day when France too is touched by drought and turns off the tap to Spain.
Moreover, we are told that 'any schemes for water supplies like this would be 'irreversible'.
They could not be challenged in the short or medium term!'
Tomorrow, France will have no choice but to go to war with Spain over water. The only alternative is to deprive our market gardeners, our tree-growers, our farmers and our people of Languedoc of the water which they need, but which has been given to others.
In the name of the near future and of good relations with our neighbours, we would prefer to say no now.
We must think of our own people before others, even if they are our brothers.
That concludes Voting Time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 12.10 p.m.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 29 January 1998.
Ladies and gentlemen, since we last met there have been renewed acts of terrorism in three Member States of the European Union.
The prefect of Corsica, Claude Erignac, the French State representative in that region, was murdered in Ajaccio on 6 February.
On 30 January in Seville the terrorist organization ETA murdered another town councillor belonging to the Partido Popular , Alberto Jiménez Becerril, and in this case they also murdered his wife, Ascensión García. Similarly, the Northern Ireland peace process has come under attack once more through repeated terrorist acts against the people of Ulster.
Even at the risk of repeating ourselves, I believe it is the duty of our Parliament to speak out in condemnation once more.
All these acts of terrorism must produce the same clear, downright repugnance in us, the representatives of the people of Europe, just as they also provoke renewed interest in increasing antiterrorist cooperation within the Union.
Terrorism, no matter what its political objectives, consists of nothing more than an extremely serious infringement of the right to live, which is the first and most important of all human rights.
I have sent the appropriate telegrams of condolence and solidarity to the respective governments, acting in my capacity of interpreter of the sentiments of this House.
I call on you now to join with me in a minute's silence as a tribute in memory of the victims
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
Tourism
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0040/98 by Mr De Luca, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 3/96 on tourist policy and the promotion of tourism; -A4-0049/98 by Mrs Wemheuer, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission's conduct in respect of alleged fraud and irregularities in the tourism sector.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the examination of the methods of handling the tourism policy has ended up confirming what we have feared or known for some time.
Only too often has the European Union made casual use of the financial resources assigned to it: administrative disorganization, bad management, corruption and even fraud have unfortunately been the rule in the field of tourism policy.
For some time, Parliament had concentrated on that sector with growing concern, giving repeated alarm signals.
The Court of Auditors' Special Report No 3/96 shows shortcomings, bad management and almost embezzlement, particularly with regard to the European Year of Tourism.
In carrying out the task assigned to it by the Committee on Budgetary Control, the rapporteur was amazed and disconcerted to find a level of disorganization and mismanagement within Directorate General XXIII, responsible for that particular sector, that made it hardly surprising to find squandering and fraud prevailing in relation to the amount of funds allocated to measures actually intended for the development of tourism.
Mr President, this is all very serious for the image of the EU in relation to the citizens' opinion of its bureaucratic structures, but is harmful to tourism policy which should be considered a priority and which consequently requires far higher budgetary allocations than at present.
The first comment that has to be made in this respect is, therefore, that the Commission has been wrong in trying to hide the seriousness of the problems and the complicity and extent of the corruption in the sector, to the point of causing times of real friction with Parliament.
In fact, the Commission's entire behaviour has been based on an unacceptable form of reticence aimed at lessening the responsibility of its officials, and the Director General in particular, irrespective of the criminal or administrative nature of such responsibility.
Failure to establish a disciplinary procedure within the periods laid down by the officials' constitution provides clear confirmation of this.
At the same time, the UCLAF's action, which can be assessed from various aspects, is hardly effective because it is involved in a relationship of functional subordination to the Commission that does not provide the necessary independence.
The report I am submitting for your attention does not try to solve the problems at their roots but constitutes an initial specific effort to avoid a future repetition of similar episodes and, above all, to prevent disorder and fraud from remaining hidden from the Court of Auditors, Parliament and the judicial authorities for a long time.
Serious irregularities have been found in the field of tourism, including the abuse of direct subsidies, the choice of unclear procedures for selecting projects in the case of invitations to tender and the inadequate training of employees, both in management and in financial control.
The repeated appeals made by the Court of Auditors and Parliament have only produced a late administrative reorganization of Directorate General XXIII, but there is no certainty that the fundamental problems highlighted by the Court's special report and the thorough analysis carried out along with the Committee on Budgetary Control have been solved.
All that Parliament needs to do is to make the 1996 excuse conditional on an exhaustive and particularly convincing demonstration by the Commission that new, effective administrative measures have been adopted and that decisive action has been taken to recover the sums unduly paid.
The subject of tourism also brings up the topical issue of the professional immunity of officials and the privileged way in which the Commission has handled its power of withdrawal.
At the same time, it is clear how the information supplied to the judicial authorities responsible, including Parliament, has been late and incomplete.
This presupposes the need to introduce a clear obligation, for the future, to provide all the information held by the Commission in full, thus reinforcing Parliament's control.
The remedy cannot be limited to awaiting the outcome of criminal proceedings, that have to run their course in cooperation with the judicial authorities, but should develop into a strenghtening of the disciplinary procedures to penalize behaviour that might have favoured corruption or squandering, through irresponsibility or incompetence, even irrespective of any criminal significance.
We therefore believe that we need a committee of inquiry, not so much to establish the state of corruption in the limited tourism sector, but because we are concerned that a similar situation can also be found in the far larger 20 % of financing handled by the Commission directly sheltered from any real institutionalized control.
That is why, even for the future, we favour the solution presented in a Socialist amendment, that provides for stable powers of control and information, similar to those held by the committees of inquiry, for the Committee on Budgetary Control.
To conclude, Mr President, I wish to thank those who have cooperated in this work; that is why, with a strengthening of Parliament's powers as the supervisory body, I ask for this report to be approved.
Applause
Mr President, this particular fraud in the tourism sector has cast a very dark shadow not only over the tourism sector but over the whole of the European Union.
We must condemn that fraud, there is no two ways about it, and condemn fraud wherever we find it.
Fraud damages not just the tourism sector but the whole foundation of many of our institutions.
So I want to make our condemnation crystal clear.
However I also want to acknowledge the progress the tourism section has made over the last couple of years under its new Commissioner, Christos Papoutsis.
Many of the improvements are due to him and the people working in that sector.
We have therefore to balance the condemnation against the progress that has been made and move forward.
Let us remember that tourism is one of the most important industries in the entire European Union and creates millions of jobs, in many, many countries around the European Union.
So we need now to condemn what has gone on in the past but at the same time to move forward.
We need to work with the Commission to boost the tourism industry.
This has been, to some extent, a Cinderella industry in the European Union for far too long and should be encouraged in order to create more jobs, more stability and more growth in our countries' economies.
It is important that we move forward together for the benefit of all our citizens because jobs will be created by growth in the tourism sector.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Wemheuer on her devotion to her task of preparing the report she has presented to us today.
I am taking the floor to stress that after the detailed debate we have been conducting within the Socialist Group, we found that the old issues of fraud associated with tourism, as our rapporteur herself mentioned in any case, have been dealt with by the Commission both with administrative changes and by recourse to the courts on the initiative of the Commission itself and the responsible Commissioner, Mr Papoutsis. The related decisions are forthcoming.
We feel obliged to make that statement because the report does not just relate to tourism as its title suggests, but more generally to the issue of the essential transparency and prudent operation of the Commission's services.
And those remarks concerning the Commission's modus operandi and the way the Commission cooperates with Parliament find us all in agreement, and we will certainly all contribute towards that direction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the face of the immense fraud problem which is becoming extremely worrying within the Union, a new strategy is gradually being drawn up under the impetus of the European Parliament.
For many years, Parliament has spared no efforts in order to obtain increased means from the Council and the Commission.
In order to fight this scourge and enable the Community to protect its financial interests better, these policies must not be diverted from their objective and the citizens of Europe must be given an assurance that public funds are well used, and used in the public interest.
Mr De Luca's excellent report is an important contribution to understanding the factors which have led to fraud in the tourism sector and related areas.
To deplore and condemn is not enough.
Certainly, the Commission has been caught out in the management of one of its most significant internal policies, but the most important thing must be to analyse clearly the shortcomings which permitted such a torrent of irregularities in operations linked to tourism policy and to put in place constructive proposals to remedy it.
This work has been done by Mr De Luca.
Should we be surprised, scandalised, when we learn that, the way it was handled, tourism policy enabled the payment of aid to bodies having no right to accept it, that people not authorized to do so signed contracts and these contracts were received and accepted, that the identification of eligible expenses was never clearly established and that the real beneficiary of a grant or financing was not necessarily the beneficiary designated on the contract?
Such malfunctioning, such shortcomings are unacceptable!
In order to move forward, we must set out to identify the way in which the normal functioning of this policy has been compromised and the way in which it was possible for anomalies and irregularities to be conceived and developed to reach this climax which has so excited the media.
To recognize the mistake is already one step towards making out the truth.
What is important at the moment is that the Commission should be given the necessary means to put in place the remedies proposed by the De Luca report and by Parliament.
To agree on a position is not enough: it must be converted into action.
We expect significant actions which will demonstrate the determination of the senior officials of the Union.
Mr President, what Mrs Wemheuer says is correct. Parliament will ask questions on this matter until we get an answer.
I think that is a perfectly correct approach.
That is the way we should exercise our supervision.
SEM 2000 is not a good enough answer, even if good work is being done. Instead we must settle this question once and for all.
I believe it is more worthwhile for us to actually concentrate more on investigating the whole procedure of exoneration than to try to find individual guilty parties to such an extent, as has happened.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are other things in the report which cause concern, namely that we have perhaps not really seen clearly enough what we stand for, i.e. whether to continue to demand more supervision and more staff or to demand a more open and transparent administrative system generally.
General openness is the best check on the Community's funds.
I hope that is the route Parliament takes.
For the rest, I must say that we should not draw the wrong conclusions and seek greater centralization of the process.
That would be the wrong route to take.
I also believe we should pay great attention to what role we are thinking of giving UCLAF. There are, you see, signs that this unit is becoming 'a little state within a state' and that its effectiveness is perhaps not as great as we might wish.
I hope that in connection with this we also take the opportunity to create uniform rules for auditing generally within the Union, and more uniformity with regard to accounting legislation and what verification should be kept in future.
Similarly, in other contexts we have touched on collection rules which are too unclear, and reclaiming.
Finally, I hope that we will also learn a lesson from this procedure when we renew the service regulations for all the Union's staff.
Mr President, we are now discussing matters which came about before Finland joined the EU, matters which do not concern us but countries in the EU that lie further south.
I am not referring to any one specific country, as every country in the EU lies further south than Finland.
It would appear from investigations carried out that there are colossal problems in the EU when it comes to monitoring.
Administrative confusion is clearly peculiar to the European Union. This confusion does not only concern tourism, but, in our experience, agriculture and, for example, energy policy.
Investigations show that the Commission is guilty of serious negligence.
The Commission appears to have operated in a way reminiscent of the Belgian police.
It is a serious issue when the Commission stands accused of responding negatively to investigation, that it holds back information from Parliament, and that illegalities have occurred which remain unexplained.
And a basis for not discharging them from liability for 1996 will persist if the Commission fails to provide Parliament with the documentation requested.
It amazes me that there are so many incompetent people working in the service of the Commission.
I think that with the salaries they pay, the Commission should be able to get more capable staff.
The rapporteurs have done a splendid job but, to my mind, have paid too little attention to negligence on the part of national monitoring bodies.
There has been financial negligence both at the distribution and at the receipt end.
I think if we are going to start hunting for robbers, we will be catching them at both ends.
I would therefore hope that national authorities are aware of their responsibility and Parliament will send a clear message to them regarding how ineffectual their systems of supervision have proved.
Mr President, Mrs Wemheuer writes in her report that 'ever since...1989...the European Commission has withheld relevant information from Parliament, and...the Court of Auditors, provided information only after unjustified delays and, at times, provided misleading information.' Can things really be so bad in the Commission?
What is it the Commission is actually trying to hide? It must be something, since otherwise it would not have acted in this way, i.e. trying to protect its own employees and trying to put the lid on publicity by shutting itself off.
Openness in the EU system appears to be in a very poor shape.
Clearly the Commission does not dare look the citizens in the eye and explain that 'this has gone wrong, we made a mistake here, but we tried to achieve this in this way.'
Such admissions from the Commission are very difficult to obtain.
I would like to ask the members of the Commission who are here now whether it would not have been better to have proper publicity in the Commission?
As Mrs Thors said, the best supervisory body we have is publicity and transparency, of which we should have a great deal.
This story has been going on for almost ten years.
It would therefore be best if we made a clean breast of things now so that we do not continue going over this issue again and again.
We in Parliament are not going to forget the questions we have asked.
The European Parliament is only doing its duty as the EU's supervisory body.
The Green Group in the European Parliament is going to support Mrs Wemheuer's report to the letter.
As far as the Committee on Budgetary Control is concerned, we are not content simply to inspect and find mistakes. Instead we also draw up many constructive proposals as to how people can do better in future.
I really hope that the Commission reads our report and tries to do its best in future.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating these two brave rapporteurs, who have set out all these fairly unpleasant facts so very clearly and without beating about the bush.
I should also like to pay tribute to Mr McMillan-Scott, because I remember how, when this started in 1989, he was almost alone - but I always supported him - in seeking the truth of this fairly sordid matter, where pockets were lined and where the people who lined their pockets have not, as far as I know, paid anything back yet or been officially asked to do so.
All of us know we have to go forward and that the present incumbents in office are not the people responsible for these depredations.
We all know the importance of tourism.
Tourism remains a sleeping giant to a great extent in the Member States.
We know it can provide more jobs - mention was made of 100 million, but we know there can be still more with more inter-state cooperation and marketing and with longer seasons in some Member States.
I speak with some feeling there, because I do not always offer the best weather in my particular part of the Community but it is very good for certain holidays.
We do not want to knock our sleeping giant on the head.
But that is a separate matter from trying to deal with the things that have been wrong in the past to ensure that they never happen again.
That is the position of most of us.
We feel there is still a lot of clearing-up to be done and that questions should be asked as to why the information was withheld or was misleading, and why the irregular practices were tolerated for years, due perhaps, as Mr Kellett-Bowman said, to an excess of loyalty.
But when there are criminal or fraudulent acts, an excess of loyalty cannot be tolerated by any elected Member of Parliament.
Is there going to be any attempt to recover the money by way of compensation? Are the criminal proceedings in the two Member States mentioned time-barred or not?
I heard that was a possibility, so that is another avenue that may not be open to deal with this problem.
I have not heard of suspensions, sackings or fining.
Parliament has an interest to know whether that is going to happen.
Discharge provides a very strong weapon for Parliament, but it is very difficult for the job to be done if the information is not before the Committee on Budgetary Control and Parliament.
We really must be sure that we get the information before we grant the discharge in 1996.
It has to be conditional until we get answers to all the questions raised here.
Is there going to be agreement from the Commission for the future? In paragraph 9, Mr De Luca calls on the Commission to submit within three months a progress report on the recovery of undue payments.
Does the Commission agree with that?
Does the Commission agree that there must be total transparency from now on and that such practices should not be repeated even if loyalty is at stake? These are the questions I would leave with the Commission.
I hope we are going to get answers.
Mr President, the issue of alleged fraud and irregularities in the tourism industry is one of the most worrying that the Committee on Budgetary Control has had to examine, because it comes close to a deliberate desire on the part of the Commission to avoid its responsibilities and to conceal from Parliament - an institution which, after all, represents the people of the European Union - the reality and gravity of the malfunctioning of DG XXIII.
Must I remind you that the first suspicions of fraud were expressed in 1989? Since that date, reports, internal audits and special reports concluding that there were serious administrative weaknesses and flagrant irregularities have followed one after the other.
So the Commission has clearly followed a policy of obstruction in order to avoid the scandal being made public and Parliament being fully informed.
How do you explain that the head of the "Tourism' Unit has had to explain his activities only five years after the most senior people within the Commission were informed?
Unfortunately other affairs which the Committee on Budgetary Control has been made aware of show that these events are in no way isolated phenomena.
This is a worrying sign that the Commission is too often a deficient administration, stricken with fraud, irregularities, even corruption.
The Commission must not longer act as if it were a state within a state, to use a French expression, or like an extra state of the European Union, as someone said earlier, which is subjected to no political control, be it internal or from Parliament.
The De Luca and Wemheuer reports represent a courageous stance.
The 1996 acquittal is from now on conditional on the responses that the Commission will give to these two reports.
Our Parliament must remind the Commission that an attitude which consists of avoiding the truth will seriously damage the Union's image, as well as our Parliament's reputation, as we would from end up appearing inefficient and useless.
Mr President, if the so-called tourism affair has become a touchstone for the Commission, then the European institutions, with the European Parliament at their head, must do everything possible to ensure that this scandal does not cause the collapse of the EU's tourism policy.
The rapporteur's proposals, which will help clarify and improve the situation, should therefore be implemented as quickly as possible.
We strongly recommend that a Parliamentary committee of inquiry be set up without delay.
One aim here should be to bring about a general improvement in the Commission's administrative machinery, and not only in the tourism sector.
But in addition, we need to rid tourism of its negative image and poor reputation.
The tourism sector has always been treated like a Cinderella industry by the European Union and has never had its own legal basis in the Treaty.
An intelligent European tourism policy could well provide new job opportunities like practically no other sector of the economy.
It should also be borne in mind that while Europe still leads the world in tourism, it has for years been losing its overall market share.
What is required here is therefore a radical purge which will place the Commission - both in terms of its staff and its budgetary affairs - in a position from which it can really do something for the tourism sector.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. If anyone thought that it was preferable for the European administrators to operate behind closed doors rather than in the full light of day, then the recent submission of the two reports being discussed today will have taught them differently.
We cannot at present quantify the actual size of the loss which tourism in the European Union has suffered as a result of this negligence - and here I am choosing my words carefully.
However, we must recognize at the same time that Parliament is very much committed to both these reports.
Not only are we committed to obtaining a satisfactory settlement on the part of the Commission at the time of the 1996 ratification, but we are also not ruling out the possibility of a committee of inquiry.
And even more importantly, we have entrusted ourselves with reforming the way in which our Committee on Budgetary Control operates.
This has now become an important issue because both these reports have made clear, and indeed this has been done by other reports - such as those submitted by Mr Vallés to the MED Committee and Mrs Kjer-Hansen to the PHARE -, that on the basis of the clearly insufficient flow of data available so far, we are not in a position to fulfil our role as the political representatives of the interests of European taxpayers.
This will certainly not be possible in future for a so-called neutral committee.
We must also ask ourselves, in the light of this and the decisions which we have to take in respect of these reports - and this must be done by Parliament and not by the Committee on Budgetary Control - just where we should locate our secretariat, for example.
These are practical matters which now have to be addressed in the wake of today's report.
We have made appropriate funds available to the European Court of Auditors, as the authority on budgetary control authority, so that it can do a better job in the future.
We in this Parliament therefore have to be able to see this work through to the end.
We are in the middle of re-defining our role as the controlling body of European bureaucracy.
We must make it clear that the interests of the Commission and its members are not necessarily ours, and I think that in this light the two reports which have been submitted can be given our full approval.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the whole thing would be almost bizarre, if it were not so very serious.
We are talking about events which took place years ago and which involved relatively small amounts of money.
The countless investigations into the tourism industry go right back to 1989 and were carried out by the Court of Auditors, the European Parliament, the Courts and the Commission itself, which is being held fully responsible for the whole affair.
Have we really nothing better to concern ourselves with than yesterday's news? I, for one, believe that the real problem lies elsewhere.
Is the tourism issue not much more symptomatic of the cross-dealing which has been going on within the Commission, and which has been suspected, and may still be, in other sectors too.
It is Parliament's duty as a supervisory body to investigate these possible abuses, to point out where mismanagement, irregularity and even fraud has occurred, and to call for appropriate action to be taken and to ensure that this is done.
To do this Parliament requires a continuous and unreserved flow of information, primarily from the Commission, even though some officials may have acted in a negligent or culpable manner.
The mantle of immunity could also prevent their justified defence.
In the case in question, the flow of information to Parliament has been slow and fragmentary, at least in previous years.
It is to the credit of the Court of Auditors, with its two special reports, and also to the credit of our colleague and rapporteur, who has submitted three reports on the subject, that light has now been shed on the dark recesses of the tourism sector.
These reports will not have pleased the Commission.
Mrs Wemheuer has presented the chronology of the events in meticulous detail.
On her own initiative she has uncovered previously hidden sources and scrutinized piles of documents, and I only regret that these could not be equally weighted and incorporated into her assessment.
This information could well be used for preparing as yet unproven allegations of guilt.
Though the European Year of Tourism is at the heart of the report, Mr De Luca refers in particular to further serious abuses at Directorate-General level, but goes on to mention a number of improvements which the Commission has sought to introduce.
However, these measures, as outlined in the various verbal and written statements by the three Commissioners, namely Mrs Gradin, Mr Liikanen and Mr Papoutsis, as well as by the member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, are still inadequate.
Our demands are clear cut: we want greater transparency, the unreserved supply of information - especially when EU officials appear to be involved -, independent powers of investigation by UCLAF, examination of the question of immunity and strict financial control, to name but a few.
As stated earlier, we are very serious about both these resolutions.
Merely threatening to set up a European Parliament committee of inquiry serves no real purpose, in my opinion, if we are not prepared to make use of such an instrument.
It would be much more useful to put our own house in order by strengthening the powers and personal resources of the Committee on Budgetary Control. Let us hope, Mr President and members of the Commission, that by working together we can make a fresh start for a brighter future.
Mr President, Commissioners, Mr de Luca and Mrs Wemheuer have cast a new light on developments as regards fraud, which is a matter that has concerned me since I first came to this House.
On this occasion, we are not talking about national operators, nor about Member States, but about what a little-loved Commission official called "the rotten heart of Europe ' .
What we have here are situations that cannot be played down, dysfunctions that cannot be ignored, legal aspects which are not dealt with and failures to observe what is known as transparency, and which I would call honesty.
Let there be no doubt, corruption and fraud must be combatted, beginning with the prevention of fraud at home.
Where it does occur, it must be punished, the criminal law regimes of Member States must be harmonized so that a manner may indeed be found to severely punish any who act fraudulently.
I consider Mr de Luca's approach to be extremely positive, and he outlines exactly what happened in Directorate-General XXIII in connection with European tourism, which is such an important source of revenues.
Action must be taken on the legal front, upstream, before fraud occurs, as well as after the event, downstream, with a view to identifying a means of severely punishing those who flout the rules of what is known as "good practice' .
I believe that this is where the battle must be waged, and I am confident that the Committee on Budgetary Control has adopted the correct course. Moreover, I consider it a privilege to take the floor here today, since I am acquainted with the Committee's members and with its excellent work to date.
Mr President, the findings of the Court of Auditors on financial management in the tourism sector during the period 1990-1995 are disconcerting.
A clear definition of objectives and acceptable budgets was missing from contracts, as well as a guarantee for the impartiality of the selection board.
Officials did not have adequate qualifications.
Projects were approved without a stamp from the Financial Controller and subsidies were paid out without proofs of receipt.
In short, an environment existed in which there was plenty of scope for irregularities and fraudulent practices.
We are pleased to note that, within the context of SEM 2000, the present Commission is working on improving financial management.
The Task Force for investigation into alleged fraud in the tourism sector, which was set up by the Commission, is worthy of appreciation.
Yet this Parliament is by no means able to close the case on fraud. A large part of improperly allocated sums have yet to be recovered, after all.
The impartiality of the selection boards has yet to be guaranteed and disciplinary measures have yet to be taken against the high officials responsible.
Setting up a committee of inquiry is a weighty political instrument.
But if the Commission does not comply suffieciently with the requests in the De Luca report, Parliament will be forced to use this instrument.
I would like to insist that the Commission has another thorough look at the usefulness of the Community tourism programmes.
The fact that up until now the projects have not been subject to effective evaluation is a serious error.
If the Commission does not start working on this with some energy, Parliament will have to draw the obvious conclusion from this when the budget is set for 1999.
We cannot go on indefinitely allowing credits for projects of which the effectiveness cannot be proven.
In addition to their effectiveness, the question of whether the European programmes have in fact an added value compared to national actions will also have to be checked.
According to Mr De Luca, the importance of tourism as part of the Community policy is undisputed.
I can assure him that this is not the case in this sector.
No one has ever been able to convince me, in any case, of the need and usefulness of a European policy on tourism. And I am not alone in this.
Mr President, today we are debating an old issue.
But despite long familiarity with the matter, I am still disturbed by the way in which it has been conducted.
Issues like this serve to underpin the many myths and untruths that abound concerning EU institutions.
More and more people around Europe believe the Commission to be a closed system that refuses to adjust to its surroundings and citizens' requirements and that it is an enormous bureaucracy where half the officials cheat and deceive while the other half endeavour to cover up the illegalities.
People become suspicious and alienated about European cooperation.
As a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I know that these myths are not true.
I know that the Commission is far superior to its reputation.
It is our job to make citizens aware of the many positive aspects of European cooperation, but we must also take existing problems seriously.
We must be open about problems and respond quickly when they arise.
Unfortunately, there are those in the Commission who have not carried out their work properly in this matter, and here I am not only thinking of those who have taken part in actual fraud, but also of those who have subsequently investigated the matter and whose responsibility it has been to inform Parliament.
Those who have not carried out their work properly bear a serious responsibility.
They are helping to fuel the scepticism and alienation about the EU that is extant in many Member States.
There are also, however, things to rejoice about.
In particular, Mrs Wemheuer's work in this matter has been exemplary.
I would also like to express my satisfaction with the Commissioner for the Budget, Mr Liikanen.
I feel we are speaking the same language as regards administration and openness in the EU institutions.
I believe that the Commission has learned from this regrettable issue of tourism, but that will remain to be seen when the next fraud case comes up.
Let us hope the same mistakes will not be repeated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the motion introduced by Mrs Wemheuer, as amended, is not an accusation against individuals but against flawed and suspect procedures which have nurtured the trade for decades.
Because of those procedures, the furtherance of penal and disciplinary matters has been and is being delayed and claims are being set aside.
The victims of all this delay are productive branches of Europe's economy, in this specific instance tourism, which lack and have been deprived of Community support because of the prevailing mistrust surrounding the funding of those branches.
A classical example is the HOSPITALITY programme, whose funding was secured at the very last moment, last December, precisely because nobody wanted to support a programme for promoting tourism which was in other respects exceptional.
A second matter I should like to mention, ladies and gentlemen, is that the Committee on Budgetary Control cannot properly carry out its task concerning the granting or not of discharge to the Commission in respect of its responsibility to implement the budget, for the simple reason that the Commission does not provide the European Parliament with any figures.
How can we recommend to the House that it should or should not grant the Commission discharge if the Commission itself does not provide us with facts and figures? That is why a related amendment has been tabled, in which we ask that the Committee on Budgetary Control should be given the status of an investigative committee, so that when we ask for facts and figures, the Commission will give them to us.
Another substantial factor, Mr President, in which your own personal contribution will be important, is that the structures of the Committee on Budgetary Control must be reorganized.
It is impossible for the committee to function with the means provided for it today, nor with its present structure. Other speakers too have mentioned the issue.
This should become a matter of the first priority for the Bureau, and for you personally, Mr President.
I would also be very grateful if some corrections could be made, because some of the translations of Mrs Wemheuer's resolution into various languages are incorrect.
I refer more particularly to the Greek translation.
I ask for a number of corrections, especially in Articles 4 and 2.
Mr President, I commend the two rapporteurs and agree with what has already been said here tonight.
My few words are in regard to the De Luca report on the policy on tourism within the Union.
The present tourism operational programme for my own country, Ireland, accounts for IRL 369 million, which is over 8 % of total Structural Fund spending.
According to the mid-term evaluation on the spending of the Structural Funds in Ireland, carried out by the Economic and Social Research Institute, over 30, 000 jobs will be created in Ireland in the tourism sector between 1994 and 1999.
One of the most important issues which must be addressed with regard to the Irish tourism industry is how it will cope with the introduction of a single currency within the European Union.
There are a number of aspects to this.
Firstly, the introduction of a single European currency will result in lower interest rates which, in turn, will lead to higher consumer spending, which means a higher proportion of spending on Irish tourism-related products.
Secondly, a single European currency brings with it a frontierfree zone for capital, where bureaux de change no longer exist.
Finally, the elimination of transaction costs is good news for the Irish tourism industry as the costs of travel and the costs of holidays are greatly reduced.
The future is bright, and the single European currency will bring with it an increased number of tourists, which will mean an increased number of jobs in Irish tourism and a healthy industry into the next century.
Mr President, the two excellent reports from Mr De Luca and Mrs Wemheuer have shown one thing quite clearly: that tourism, although it has been a problem, is also a symptom of a much bigger problem.
We have to tackle both: the problem that was the European Year of Tourism and the systems that are quite inadequate in the Commission - witness the inadequacy with which the report of the Court of Auditors was dealt with.
This saga is nearly ten years old.
It clearly predates the existing Commission.
But the Commission, as an institution, has been slow in acknowledging its institutional culpability; and, I have to say, had the Commission applied the principles of forensic accounting properly, then the saga that was the European Year of Tourism would have been laid to rest in days rather than weeks.
And yet we have had a saga that has continued for years rather than months.
There are institutional lessons to be learnt as well as those that relate to the Year of Tourism itself.
In that process, I have to say to the Commission as an institution - and here I am talking to the last Commission - that it was very seriously deficient in the information that it gave both to Parliament and the Court of Auditors.
In any other context, other than this polite gathering, I would say that it deliberately misled: in plain English, it lied, and there was a process of deliberate deceit of the institutions that led Parliament to the Holzfuss report.
The new Commission has been slow in acknowledging this, but there is much joy in heaven for the repentant sinner even when it comes later rather than sooner.
So we do recognize and acknowledge Mr Liikanen's approach at penitence on behalf of the institution, even though we all accept that he was not directly responsible.
But this saga is a litany of failure. It is a litany of a failed policy, of failure to control a contract, of failed financial control, of failure to disclose the faults, of failure to remedy the deficiencies, of failure to accept culpability and, above all, of failure to come clean at the earliest possible opportunity.
In that process two things have been seriously damaged: the tourism policy itself has been damaged, but so too has the reputation of the European Union in general and that of the Commission in particular.
The attitude of many people has been that if we make such heavy weather out of declaring the results of an investigation into what, after all, is a relatively small case, a relatively simple case involving a relatively small amount of money, how can public opinion express confidence that the same institution can deal with much larger sums of money in a much more complex area of policy with much more complex legislative arrangements?
I believe that the opinion of the public at large says something along the lines that had any commercial undertaking safeguarded its interests and its shareholders' interests with the same degree of cavalier inadequacy as the Commission has protected the taxpayer, then the only thing that would be booming would be bankruptcies.
So we have to examine the lessons to be drawn. They are clear: that systems have to be investigated, examined and improved.
If there is to be any discussion of committees of inquiry, it must be in that area, looking at the system by which the Commission examines allegations of inadequacy, of impropriety, of irregularity against itself and its staff.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has to be reformed, not just in relation to staff, their location and their powers, important as those things are.
We have to look again at structures and procedures so that the Committee on Budgetary Control becomes less some sort of atmosphere of interinstitutional happy families and becomes more interrogative with a sharper cutting edge, possibly sometimes doing less but doing it better.
If those are the lessons that are learnt from the Wemheuer and the De Luca reports, then these two reports will have done Parliament and European taxpayers a great service.
Mr President, this is one of those subjects where the very fact that it comes up so frequently in this Parliament shows that something is not working properly.
And that is so despite the fact that Parliament is fulfilling its control function, the Court of Auditors has produced its reports, UCLAF has carried out its investigations and, Commissioners, I do not even have any doubts that the Commission is making a great effort to improve its control over the matters under discussion.
However, all this will be of little use to us if there still continues to be insufficient coordination between the Commission and the competent national services.
Also, there is still a need for the Commission to guarantee that it will automatically turn to the relevant national judicial authorities in cases of justifiable suspicion of fraud, corruption or any other crime in which officials are implicated.
Neither the Commission nor Parliament can be satisfied until that is the normal procedure.
Mr President, perhaps it is appropriate that I have the last word in this debate before the Commission.
Could I just say that for the first six years I spent in the European Parliament, I was trying to push tourism up the agenda.
In 1990 we had a celebration of that in the European Year of Tourism.
The Commission completely failed to organize it properly and when we discovered irregularities it was also unable to organize a proper cover-up.
This is why we are today, eight years on in the European Parliament, having a debate about two reports which deal with irregularities and fraud.
My conclusions, as a result of this, are that (a) there should be no immunity for Commission officials; (b) that UCLAF ought to be separated from the Commission completely and made an independent body; (c) the Court of Auditors ought to be ashamed of the two reports it produced on the subject.
I believe also that Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee ought to be strengthened.
It ought, like the watchdog committees in the US Congress, to have the power to commission its own inquiries and then to bring in the Court of Auditors or UCLAF as appropriate.
Lastly I am not satisfied that judicial action in the two Member States referred to - France and Belgium - has been quick enough.
It is two years since charges were laid.
I spoke to the Belgian magistrate yesterday who confirms that proceedings are going ahead in Belgium.
In France the proceedings begin on 13 March. This is two years after charges were first laid.
It is far far too slow.
This will not be Parliament's last word on this matter.
In 1994 the door was kept open on the subject of an amendment I tabled.
I beg the Parliament, in its vote tomorrow, to keep the door open this time.
Mr President, the fight against irregularities, fraud and corruption is a high political priority for this Commission.
That message must be perfectly clear to those who consider tampering with the taxpayers' money for their own personal gain.
On this overall objective I agree entirely with the two rapporteurs, Mrs Wemheuer and Mr De Luca.
An efficient system to deal with these kinds of problems is also of crucial importance for the Commission as an institution and for the European civil service.
At the outset I wish to reject the notion that the Commission has provided misleading information in the tourism case.
This Commission has spared no effort in shedding light on the complicated affair.
It has endeavoured to be as transparent as possible, its objective being to provide a reliable picture of events over the past few years.
My services have been instructed to cooperate with Parliament in an open and constructive manner, whether it be tourism or any other area.
I have made it clear that any suspicion of criminal behaviour should be pursued vigorously.
In the case of tourism, my services have been involved from the outset in the investigations.
The results of these efforts have provided the basis for the action taken against individual officials.
UCLAF established immediate informal contacts with the criminal authorities in July 1994 and formally requested in December of the same year that criminal investigations be launched.
Parliament has been briefed on a regular basis.
Obviously there are limits to the amount of publicity that can be given in a case under criminal investigation.
A restriction is normally imposed on the Commission if an ongoing case falls within national judicial confidentiality requirements.
With this in mind, Parliament has, to the best of my knowledge, been offered both relevant and correct information.
Let me now turn to what the Commission has done and to what it intends to do in order to be better equipped to deal with fraud and corruption.
When I took office in 1995 the task of combating fraud was scattered around several different services within the Commission.
My first step was to ensure that all anti-fraud units were brought under one single roof in UCLAF. As a consequence, UCLAF has developed into a comprehensive operational service.
Over the past few years UCLAF has investigated more than 150 cases in the area of direct expenditure. These include investigations into a number of cases concerning irregularities within the Commission.
Since 1995, Financial Control has conducted over 500 audits of beneficiaries and 20 financial system audits within the Commission.
The reports may lead to financial corrections or to proposals for administrative improvement.
A number of new measures in the area of sound and efficient management are presently being implemented in the Theme 2000 exercise.
These measures include the strengthening of preventive aspects and a greater focus on audit and financial follow-up of results.
I welcome a number of suggestions in the De Luca report which go in this direction.
The Commission has outlined in detail the rules, practices and procedures in a document transmitted to you in November 1997.
The same document also announced a number of action lines that would be implemented.
Let me explain how I have followed up the action in my area of competence.
Firstly, I am at present preparing a decision by the Commission that will establish clear and comprehensive rules concerning internal inquiries by UCLAF.
This will allow UCLAF to act more rapidly and without obstruction.
Secondly, the operational independence of UCLAF will be strengthened.
This will be achieved by providing the head of UCLAF with a status similar to that of the independent financial controller. This means, among other things, that the head of UCLAF can request me in my capacity as the responsible Commissioner, to raise a particular case in the College of Commissioners.
Thirdly, the organizational independence of UCLAF will be enhanced.
I will transform the existing Directorate into a task force within the secretariat-general.
In addition, I will propose that cooperation with judicial authorities be strengthened by a liaison unit within UCLAF of experts from the Member States in penal law.
This was proposed in the Tomlinson report on transit.
But it should be clear that this unit can only be a reality if the budget authorities support it.
Fourthly, I will also improve the links between UCLAF and Member States.
In practical terms this means that UCLAF will be the privileged interlocutor of the Commission for dealing with criminal matters in relation to fraud and corruption.
A number of these questions will also be discussed next month in connection with the report from Mr Bösch.
The Wemheuer report requests regular submissions by the Commission of information concerning UCLAF investigations and special audits by Financial Control.
As regards UCLAF's investigation, I intend to review how the flow of information can be improved in a systematic manner.
I will do this while respecting the rights of the individual and the obligations of confidentiality in investigations and in relation to judicial proceedings.
As for a list of special audit reports by Financial Control, I will arrange for it to be provided to Parliament on a regular basis.
I believe that the measures I have outlined will strengthen our capacity to deal with fraud and irregularities.
However, it is my firm intention to continue the dialogue with Parliament on how we can continue to improve our performance in the fight against crime.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control and in particular the rapporteurs, Mr De Luca and Mrs Wemheuer, for their analytical examination of the subject of broader action in support of tourism.
I hope you will appreciate our efforts, in cooperation with Parliament, to bring to a conclusion this exceptionally difficult matter which, nevertheless, taught us many useful lessons and gave us many experiences.
I will first say something about clearing the files of the past.
As you know, we decided to re-examine all the direct action undertaken on behalf of tourism between 1989 and 1995, even though the Court of Auditors had only asked us to re-examine the activities undertaken during the European Year of Tourism.
I want to tell you, then, that by the end of the month this particularly difficult task of analytically examining all 800 of the activities undertaken up to 1995 will have been completed.
Out of total payments amounting to ECU 31.4 million, so far excess payments of ECU 4.7 m have been identified.
Demands have already been issued for the return of payments amounting to ECU 2 m and we have prepared further demands totalling ECU 2.3 m, while in parallel we have already recovered about half a million ECU.
The process we have initiated is made particularly difficult by various factors, such as the time that has passed since then, the nature of the objectives and the difficulty of assessing some of the results.
In parallel, many of these cases may end up in the courts since already 40 % of those ordered to return funds have disputed those orders.
We are, however, determined to continue that work and to present a full account of its results as soon as possible.
However, all that I have said so far concerns the accountancy aspect of the matter.
But there is a series of more political issues which I should like to mention.
A basic question raised by many Members of Parliament is this: ' what have you learned from this affair, what measures have you adopted, and also, what are the consequences for tourism?' Indeed, many speakers today have raised all three of those questions.
I would therefore like to mention our conclusions.
Firstly, the activities on behalf of tourism did not just produce negative lessons but positive ones as well.
For example, we learned, and I believe that most of us learned, that tourism is the largest industry in Europe and one of the most promising fields for the creation of new jobs, and is likely to remain so for decades to come.
Secondly, the objectives of quality and competitiveness for European tourism must be supported by specific and coordinated action, in cooperation with the Member States and the industry itself.
It calls for action with realistic aims, which will be assessed continuously as well as on an ex-ante and ex-post basis.
Thirdly, Community action that influences tourism must be systematically coordinated.
Indeed, in that context the DirectorGeneral of the European Commission's DG XXIII is already chairing an inter-service group that includes all the Directorates which undertake activities on behalf of tourism.
Fourthly, if we want to be effective in acting on behalf of tourism, we need a legal framework which sets out that the tourism dimension must be taken into account when determining and implementing other policies.
Some of those conclusions have been applied, initially in the adoption procedure, but also in the content of the Commission's proposal for the first multi-annual programme on behalf of tourism in Europe, HOSPITALITY, a programme that has been examined repeatedly by the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the tourism industry and 13 Member States.
However, I think it is a serious contradiction for the European institutional bodies to declare that they want transparency, they want effective use of resources, they want and call for the cooperation of the Member States and want Parliament and the Council to exercise institutional control of the activities, while at the same time there are some Member States which are holding up the approval of a programme that safeguards precisely the aims we all agree on.
Some people speak of hypocrisy.
I simply call it a political contradiction, which will have to be resolved at some time.
The second thing we did was to completely reorganize DG XXIII.
The members of the Committee on Budgetary Control have already received a detailed note about all those changes.
And the changes, which began exactly 18 months ago in close cooperation with my colleague Mr Liikanen, include inter alia the creation of two new units, one of which looks after resources and controls while the second looks after contracts.
The strict procedures we apply in relation to the selection, monitoring and appraisal of the activities already reflect the recommendations in Mr De Luca's report.
The result of those procedures is that today DG XXIII is one of the best Directorates in relation to implementing the SEM 2000 programme.
I am sorry, however, Mr President, because, despite the fact that tourism is very important for employment and development, as the rapporteurs also recognise, this affair has unavoidably negative consequences related to the prospects of implementing an effective policy for tourism.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, that is all I have to say at this stage of the debate.
I think I have mentioned the most important matters that fall within my competence and concern the two reports.
Nevertheless, as you know, I am always at Parliament's disposal to keep you informed about the progress of our work.
I just want to add some remarks to the contributions from my colleagues.
First of all, you said earlier that no disciplinary measures were taken in this matter relating to tourism. That is not so.
Disciplinary measures were taken in 1995 and 1996 against Commission officials.
Secondly, what is important is that last year the Commission produced a communication on the financial and administrative measures.
We did so to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
What is essential here is that we have created an established system where every suspicion will be investigated. It will lead to a decision either that there is no basis for further action, or to open disciplinary procedures.
This has not always functioned properly, but our new procedures will make it function properly.
Thirdly, we must also remember, even in this kind of case, that we must respect the rule of law.
There is always the presumption of innocence and the right to a defence. I want to say that here, because there are many Commission officials today who feel threatened by this issue.
We must always be very clear about identifying the problems so as not to create uncertainty for those officials who are carrying out their duties properly in every respect.
Fourthly, the most important lesson to learn from this is that we must put our house in order.
When we decide how to run the programmes, we must plan well: there must be a limited number of targets, simplicity of administration, clear rules of eligibility and, very importantly, transparency and openness throughout all the procedures.
I agree with those who said that openness is the cheapest control because then those who did not get the money control those who got it.
This kind of simplicity, clarity and openness is the best tool we could have.
Of course we need good cooperation with all our controllers.
We have the Court of Auditors with whom we work. It is not always easy, but it is an effort worth making.
We have the Budgetary Control Committee in Parliament which is the voice of the European people and their elected representatives.
We are ready to cooperate with you in the future also.
I hope we can concentrate on these reform programmes.
I have seen draft reports on the SEM 2000 programmes.
There are many new challenges facing us on how we will run the Community spending from the year 2000 on.
We must concentrate on those, taking into account the lessons we have learnt in the past.
The Commission is ready for this cooperation.
Mr President, on a point of information, Mrs Gradin stated that the Commission called in the police on the matter of DG XXIII.
The Belgian police confirm that it was not the Commission but myself who called in the police.
That is a fundamental point and the letters are available if Parliament is interested in seeing them.
Can I repeat a question that I put to the Commission on 23 November: on how many occasions has the Commission called in the police on matters of internal fraud in its 41 year history? It really is time that we had an answer to that.
Mr President, I wish to make a very important point.
Commissioner Liikanen told us a few minutes ago that disciplinary measures have been taken against certain officials; this statement is contradictory to what has so far been affirmed several times by the Commission in the presence of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I would therefore like the Commissioner to be more specific and tell us which officials, when and why they have been penalized.
Otherwise, we will perpetuate an extraordinary situation in which some people go before Parliament to provide information and then the Commissioners state the contrary.
I would not like it to be simply a slip on the part of Commissioner Liikanen.
Mr President, as far as I am aware, the Commission contacted the Belgian police in September 1994, whereas your contact came in February 1995.
Mr President, the text is in French.
I will read it to you, "the authority invested with the power of appointment, through the decision of 22 June 1995, with effect from 1 August 1995, imposed the punishment of dismissal, with full pension rights, on a civil servant.
Later, the AIPN (Appointing Authority), through the decision of 28 July 1995, imposed the punishment of termination of a temporary contract on a civil servant with effect from 1st August 1995.'
I can give Mr De Luca the detailed text.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Macro-financial assistance for Ukraine
The next item is Mrs E. Mann's report (A4-0025/98), on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing supplementary macro-financial assistance for Ukraine (COM(97)0588 - C40614/97-97/0312(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report before us is once again quite a technical one.
But we have managed this before and we shall again succeed in presenting it successfully to Parliament.
What we have to make clear is that even the macro-economic aid which we are sending to Ukraine is but part of an overall strategy which is designed to have a positive impact on the difficult process of transformation under way in that country.
This involves Partnership and Cooperation Agreements as well as an interim agreement, but what is much more important at the present time is the action plan which we have before us and which Mr Titley will shortly be presenting to Parliament.
This report will explain how the plan is creating synergies and will describe how this has been developed within the various EU programmes for the benefit of the people of Ukraine.
Now to the macro-financial programme.
The Commission is proposing that the EU should make a third loan available to Ukraine to offset the country's balance of payments.
The amount involved this time is ECU 150 million and the loan is to run for 10 years.
The Commission announced this back in December 1996 and the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers gave the plan its basic approval in January 1997.
The ECU 150 million loan means that the European Union will be meeting almost one quarter of Ukraine's anticipated financial deficit for the 1997 to 1998 period, which has been estimated at ECU 765 million.
The EU's involvement will follow the customary rules.
The funds which the Commission will be raising on the capital market are to be allocated to Ukraine under normal terms and conditions.
The granting of the loan is conditional upon the abovementioned economic requirements for macro-economic stabilization and continued structural adaptation.
Verification will be carried out at regular intervals, in close cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to ensure that these requirements are being met.
The repayment of the loan is covered by a guarantee from the European budget.
According to the terms of the resolution establishing the guarantee fund, the Member States are obliged to contribute 15 % of the loan, in this case ECU 22.5 million, to the guarantee fund.
Each year the Commission will report to the Council and to Parliament on the continuation of these loan options.
Other important aspects include the fact that outpayments in this case are to be made in two instalments, something which is not usually done, and that the auditing criteria are to be laid down by the IMF and also by the World Bank.
The European Union will be relying quite closely on these criteria.
The first requirement is that satisfactory progress should be made by the macro-economic programmes.
This macro-economic programme has been drawn up with the International Monetary Fund as part of the standby credit agreement.
The second criterion is that progress has to be achieved in the area of structural reforms.
We know that this is a very critical point and that we in the European Union, and of course even more so in the European Parliament, have always urged Ukraine to make greater headway with its programme of structural adaptation than it has done in the past.
As has already been stated, this is the third package of financial aid which the Community has made available to Ukraine for its extensive programme of adaptation and reform.
In 1996, Ukraine decided to embark on a programme of stabilization and reform, in conjunction with the International Monetary Fund, for the period 1997 to 1998; as far as I recall, this programme was to be supported by an extended funding facility.
The Ukrainian parliament failed to ratify this government proposal and the parties could not reach agreement on the fundamental aspects of the programme.
The government then approached the IMF with a new proposal - the one now before us - which calls for additional financing for a short period, namely 1997 to 1998.
The progress being made in respect of stabilization and macro-economic reforms has clearly slowed down. That is all too obvious.
I should like briefly to describe two amendments which the Committee on Budgetary Control has introduced.
I have proposed that we adopt one of these amendments, while I, for my part, have rejected the second.
Both amendments call for the closure of the Chernobyl nuclear plant to be made one of the auditing criteria for the outpayments, this applying to the tranche payments as well as to the overall programme.
I have already said that I find this completely acceptable.
The Commission has indicated the same. The Committee on Budgets has extended this arrangement.
From a general point of view I can accept this extension, but I believe that for the examination of both tranches we should not again be introducing further provisos for checking on the closure of Chernobyl, which is scheduled for the year 2000.
Mr President, I should first like to thank Mrs Mann most sincerely for her report and for the excellent work which she has done generally for Ukraine, including her contribution as a member of the delegation.
Mrs Mann started off by pointing out that the report had a certain technical content.
From the number of Members present in plenary one immediately knows when a really technical report is on the agenda.
On the other hand, this report undoubtedly has a very significant human angle, something which has been given too little attention.
We should not forget the degree to which the stability of Ukraine is dependent on support from the European Union.
Ukraine is without doubt one of those countries of the former Soviet Union which, in spite of the huge economic problems facing it, has succeeded in making the greatest apparent progress from a European perspective.
It is a country which has found its own route, and a relatively stable one at that, out of the complex mass which was the Soviet Union.
That is why it is so important for us in the European Union to show our support for this independent route and to show that we will continue to provide support in spite of all the difficulties.
As Mrs Mann and others have stressed, Ukraine has taken on certain responsibilities in association with the World Bank and other institutions which are ready to lend financial assistance.
I believe it is extremely important that the financial package should include Chernobyl and the Chernobyl auditing criteria.
Mrs Mann also supports this view to some extent.
We used to say at one time that we would support Ukraine in the building of the ROVNO II and CHMELNITZKY IV nuclear power plants, provided that Chernobyl is shut down in return.
I do not think - and I am speaking as an Austrian - that we really intend this to be the correct solution to the problem.
We must support Ukraine and enable it to build up its infrastructure in such a way that it can do away with these dangerous Russian reactors altogether.
Helping Ukraine to take an independent road should now be our main concern.
Mr President, first of all I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Mann.
Secondly, I want to say that, although the report is of course highly technical, its technical nature is interwoven both outside and inside with a very specific political content.
Both my group and I will be supporting this report, in other words we will vote for the motion on the need to grant a new loan to Ukraine, since the new loan has two objectives: firstly, to assist the country's economic development and secondly, to foster political stability there, which is a very important factor.
These two objectives are contributions towards improving the quality of life for the people who live there.
However, regardless of the fact that both I and my group will be voting for the report, I would like to express my disagreement with the prerequisites laid down by the Committee on Budgets, more especially concerning the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
I would like to inform you, Mrs Mann - and I said the same thing to the Committee on Budgets - that three times, in response to questions of mine about whether the money already given to Ukraine for that purpose, i.e. to close down the Chernobyl reactor or to improve its external cladding, was in fact used for that purpose. The Commission, the responsible Commissioner Mr Van Den Broek, told me, very diplomatically of course but very clearly, that there were suspicions that the money was not spent for that purpose at all.
That, if you will, is why the Committee on Budgets has been particularly strict in respect of the prerequisites for granting the second instalment of the new loan.
Recognizing Ukraine's other needs, despite what I have said, my group and I will vote for the report.
However, this will be the last time we approve a loan of this kind without specific answers, not only to the other issues you have rightly raised, but also concerning the Chernobyl nuclear reactor.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would like to start by also congratulating Mrs Mann on her excellent report.
Since its independence, Ukraine has been occupying a strategic position as a bridge between the East and the West.
It is therefore very important that the European Union supports Ukraine where possible on the road to free trade and democracy.
Unfortunately, the necessary economic and political reforms only happen with difficulty.
Economic growth is extremely important to the development of a stable situation.
A reliable energy sector is needed.
Despite a substantial decrease in the demand for energy this sector is wrestling with big problems in Ukraine.
That is why the Union is giving considerable support as part of the TACIS programme.
Many of these European subsidies could be spent more effectively. This concerns first and foremost the choice of projects.
In particular, in the sphere of energy, a diffusion of existing, older technologies, such as nuclear technology, is often chosen, while it is in this area, above all, that the European Union can play a initiating and steering role by promoting energy efficiency and by stimulating environmentally-friendly solutions.
Secondly, when loans are granted, the question of whether the project the money is allocated to offers the most cost-effective solution should be looked at.
My group is still not convinced that the construction of two nuclear power stations in Ukraine to replace the loss of capacity as a result of the closure of Chernobyl is the least cost option economically speaking.
Investments, energy efficiency and clean sources of energy are at all costs to be preferred above maintaining nuclear power stations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, financial aid sounds all very well. But unfortunately we are being asked here to vote for a process which will keep in motion the international money merry-go-round.
This money is not intended for public programmes.
I quite agree with you that Ukraine is in urgent need of major aid programmes to help it achieve stability and democracy.
Yet with this financial assistance we are using public money from EU taxpayers to pay off the debts which the IMF and the World Bank have established in Ukraine.
These so-called stability programmes completely fail to take account of the realities of the social and economic problems posed by this transformation process, but rather promise to plunge Ukraine into insolvency.
The EU's so-called macro-financial aid is therefore simply a transfer payment via the Ukrainian budget to the IMF and World Bank.
The proposal of the Committee on Budgets is worthy of support and we can accept it.
But in view of the actual international finance deal being done here, even this proposal will not be workable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the current proposal aiming to grant supplementary macro-financial assistance of a maximum of ECU 150 million to Ukraine follows the "Ecofin' Council's agreement in principle of January 1997.
The presentation of the Commission's proposal has been delayed for the following reasons.
Firstly, there were considerable delays in the disbursement of the second instalment of the previous Community macro-financial loan to Ukraine, due to legal problems on the part of the Ukrainians.
Secondly, there were changes beyond our control in the implementation of the 1997/98 economic programme, which was supported by an IMF stand-by arrangement of US$ 549 million.
The implementation of this programme has just been reviewed and is now considered satisfactory.
The Ukrainian economy must now face up to particularly difficult internal and external challenges.
Delays in the implementation of vital structural reforms risk reducing the results obtained over the last few years, in terms of macro-economic stabilization to nothing, in particular the drastic reduction of inflation and the introduction, under satisfactory conditions, of a new, stable currency.
Furthermore, under the influence of the monetary crisis in South-East Asia, Ukraine's prospects for external funding have deteriorated.
In this context, the Commission considers that the granting of supplementary macro-financial assistance to Ukraine would send a clear signal that the Community is ready to provide substantial additional assistance if the Ukrainian authorities take the courageous economic policy measures that are necessary to maintain the reform process within the country.
This assistance has the aim of further strengthening Ukraine's position in terms of foreign exchange reserves and of contributing to the reduction of social costs linked to the implementation of the necessary structural reforms.
Complementary financial assistance is also expected on the part of other bilateral donors, in particular the United States and Japan.
Following Parliament's example, the Commission considers a commitment on the part of the Ukrainian authorities to implement the plan for closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power station to be essential, according to the terms supported by the G7 and the European Union.
The preamble to the proposal for supplementary macro-financial assistance contains an appropriate reference to this closure.
In this respect, the Commission is able to adopt the European Parliament's amendment.
In conclusion, I would like to mention that, within this context, the Commission welcomes the Ukrainian authorities' decision to consider the current economic programme as an interim programme and their firm desire, at the highest political level, to prepare a detailed and complete programme of medium term economic and structural reforms likely to put the country firmly back on track towards lasting growth.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
R & D activities (1997 annual report)
The next item is Mr Bloch von Blottniz' report (A4-0031/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Committee's annual report on the research and technological development activities of the European Union (1997) (COM(97)0373 - C4-0435/97).
Mr President, if today we are to debate the 1997 annual report on the EU's research and technological development activities, then we should also be asking a number of fundamental questions.
What, for example, is the point of having an annual report when the measures which Parliament called for in the previous annual report were not put into effect? You know the story - the dogs bark and the caravan moves on.
Obviously the Commission has made efforts in some areas by conducting a statistical assessment of assisted projects and by presenting a clear description of the Fouth Framework Programme.
But some fundamental aspects are still outstanding, such as the links which exist with other programmes and the work of our JRC.
We need an evaluation system for the results of the RTD initiatives and activities, which will serve as a basis for future reports.
We should also have an independent chapter devoted to assessing the role of funding in the case of individual programmes for large industrial enterprises and, in particular, an evaluation of the possible knock-on effects.
Commission statements on personnel and administration costs should also be more precisely quantified and classified, since otherwise we will suspect that the costs involved are too high when measured against what has been achieved.
To sum up, the 1997 annual report is in many respects just a collection of facts and figures.
Only in very few cases does it contain any well-founded or singularly interesting analyses, such as in the description of the scientific and technical results achieved through the Fourth Framework Programme.
Here the Commission refers to major breakthroughs and achievements, including the satellite monitoring of forest fires, new discoveries relating to the volcanic eruption on Iceland and the development of an ocean survey robot capable of operating 6 000 metres below sea level.
Projects like this contribute little or nothing to the common objective of improving the quality of life and promoting economic development.
The study of global climate change, information and communications technology, the development of clean energy technologies and energy efficiency are far more likely to lead to an improvement in the quality of life.
The question which we should be asking at all times is whether the research activities being promoted are likely to benefit mankind, and whether they are ethically justified.
This important point is all too often lost in obscurity and the research work then becomes independent of outside control, serving to benefit only a few specialists and even carrying the risk of becoming antidemocratic and contributing to its own alienation.
Only in very exceptional cases is the lot of mankind enhanced in any significant way by research of this nature.
Let me finish by saying something about the SME problem-child.
There is still an urgent need to come up with a simplified procedure for these companies.
The application and proposal procedures are too complicated and time-consuming and for this reason they usually fail to reach the target group.
In my opinion it would be far more sensible to set up a Commission department exclusively for small businesses - rather than for their medium-sized counterparts, for which we already have a staff of up to 500 - to help them with their applications.
Industry itself has a department for this purpose.
Such a set-up would introduce real innovation, create real job opportunities and prevent the knock-on effect.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the uninformed reader might well ask why we bother to present this report at all.
He will simply get the answer, "because it is part of the Treaty' .
But to me such a justification hardly seems adequate.
I would to like to examine in more detail whether the report is supposed to be a description or an evaluation.
If it is merely a description, then its results can be easily guessed at.
You only need to be a first-year organizational sociologist to know that if you ask an organization how things are looking, you will get the answer, "things are looking good' .
No, ladies and gentlemen, this report cannot merely be descriptive in its purpose.
I wish to see an assessment, an analysis of the EU's research policy.
I want to be given a compass, a chart for negotiating my way through the Bermuda Triangle which is European research policy.
When I compare this year's research report with last year's, a certain trend becomes apparent. We see a whole collection of new listings.
Even the regional allocation of research funds has been broken down according to the various beneficiaries.
In my view three fundamental questions have still to be answered.
Firstly, when we speak to applicants for European research funds, the motto seems to be "frustration not administration' , because many selection procedures are non-transparent and rejections are not explained.
There is no emphasis on European research objectives.
I would like to see an inquiry into why this is so.
I want more than just an assurance of greater transparency and the simplification of procedures.
Secondly, the EU research policy is like a string of lights with 20 specific programmes.
I should also like to know which of these lights is the brightest, which one has the most impact and where can we add a few more bulbs.
We do not want another description. We have had this one and that one and we have spent enough money on them.
No, what we really need is an evaluation of the potential impact of the individual programmes, and for this purpose we really require a coherent system so that proper comparisons can be made.
Thirdly, we need to re-examine the research task forces which were set up at great expense in terms of Commission manpower and also in respect of the official publications, which were an innovation in EU research policy.
When I look at this research report, I see that two whole lines have been devoted to the setting up of the task forces.
I think that we have given these task forces not just a first-class burial but a third-class one.
I think that this aspect, which Parliament fully supports, should definitely be looked into.
There is nothing wrong with different Directorates-General and Commission departments talking to one another - on the contrary, this should be encouraged, as should cooperation.
One can of course criticize the task forces too, but this initiative should be analysed in-depth so that we can obtain guidelines for the future.
Let me again ask the question: why do we bother bringing out this report? Why do we sacrifice so many innocent trees to do it?
Have we really developed the Titanic mentality?
Everything is just fine, the bulkheads are holding, the rivets are okay and we are so happy that everything is doing so well. No, I, for my part, want to know the problems and the risks, and I want to be able to analyse things and to look for improvements and for new ideas.
For, after all, nothing is so good that it cannot be improved on.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, like the two Members who have already spoken, we also think that this report ought to have a very different focus in order to be of use to the Commission, the Member States, research centres, Parliament and everybody.
We are going to support Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' report in its entirety, except for paragraph A, because it is out of step with reality - it involves value judgements -, and paragraph 16, because it is unrealistic.
It will be very difficult for you to submit the report on 31 March because many accounts have not been closed.
We think it would be useful if you were to carry out and include in the report a benchmarking operation - a comparison - of our results compared with those of Japan or the United States.
I also want to mention paragraph 10 of Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' report, which states that there are overlaps between the various Member States' own programmes and the EU programme, and suggests how to be a little more efficient.
There are hundreds or thousands of projects and hundreds and thousands of administrative records, entailing a very high administrative cost.
We realize that this is necessary, because there are so many projects, but it should be reduced.
We trust that the Fifth Framework Programme will concentrate on the more important, larger projects, which are less spread out.
We are not very happy - nobody is - with the budgetary provision, and we will be discussing the funding of the Fifth Framework Programme tomorrow and on other occasions in the future. But this will require us all to be much more efficient and to use the resources much, much better.
The Joint Research Centre, with its seven sites, also needs different guidelines, Madam Commissioner.
First of all, it seems to me we have to give the researchers their freedom, but not to the extent that each one does whatever he or she wants, and there should be an indicative programme, which perhaps could be implemented by the Institute fof Prospective Technological Studies in Seville.
The Fifth Framework Programme offers us many opportunities and I hope that we all avail ourselves of them.
In any case, we will support this report.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on her report and comment on some of the points she made.
In paragraph G there is a certain inconsistency in her comments about profits and competitiveness.
I am sorry that the rapporteur seems not to approve of the private sector firms who make a profit and yet wants them to boost their competitiveness.
It seems to me that profits are the best measure of competitiveness.
I welcome her statements in paragraph I that SMEs are the most important source of technological innovation but we must remember, as other colleagues have said, that participation for SMEs is more difficult and we should not expect too much from them.
I share the rapporteur's views in paragraph 6 about the absence of any review of those famous task forces on which we spent so much committee time.
Perhaps the Commissioner might care to address that point in some way in the near future.
In paragraph 12 the rapporteur sets out a long list of extra administrative tasks for the Commission in making reports, and I would suggest that we must beware of criticizing procedures for being complex and bureaucratic and then in the next breath calling for more of the same ourselves.
Finally, taking up a point made in the explanatory statement, I see no harm in R & D being about economic growth since that is how we improve the condition of life for our citizens.
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe must be competitive in the area of science and research.
In those areas in which it holds a leading position, the Union must hold its place; in those in which it is lagging behind the other world partners, it must make up lost ground.
However, this aim of making technological research and development competitive should not obscure the other three objectives that constitute the very foundation of its policies: to speed economic and social cohesion between its Member States and between European regions in this field; to direct research and priority actions towards achieving a better quality of life; and to open up to cooperation with the emerging economies by adapting strategies to the conditions that prevail there.
While the Commission report refers with satisfaction to the rising percentage of Objective 1 Member State participation in European projects, it neglects to mention the quality of this participation and the assessment of results.
Indeed, of the 25, 000 research partners and the 3, 000 publications and patents emerging from Community research in 1996, how many were effectively translated into concrete results for the weaker members of the Union?
The major difficulty encountered by small and medium enterprises lies precisely in translating the results of research into applied innovation.
This difficulty is particularly acute in the less developed countries.
The work of the six task forces dealing with the major projects developed by enterprises and institutions of the technologically-strong Member States will only produce the desired results for the Union if its weaker members are simultaneously strengthened.
In addition, I would like to see the Commission, in its next annual report, presenting a real state of the Union-type report regarding all technological research and development policies, as opposed to confining itself to Community-funded projects as it has to date.
Such an overview of Europe's scientific and technological capacity is an essential basis for future planning.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report, and I will end by identifying two strategic priorities for the future: reformulating structural policies in such a way as to incorporate SME research as a priority dimension; and helping Member States to enhance the efficiency of their research policy management.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would above all like to thank Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz for the quality of attention she has paid to this 1997 annual report on the research and technological development activities of the European Union and for the seriousness with which she has examined this document.
Her report contains suggestions which will prove to be extremely useful in the future.
But before commenting in further detail on this report, I would like to share with you the recent developments which have occurred with regard to the Fifth Framework Programme, which is currently under discussion within the European Parliament and the Council.
This inspires divided opinions, to say the least.
The positive aspect is that the Council, during the Research Council of Thursday 12 February, reached a political agreement on a common position on the Fifth Framework Programme.
This was not a foregone conclusion, far from it. The risk of breaking the Union's continuity of effort in research - if it still exists - now appears to be eliminated, but we must maintain the momentum we have gained.
Unfortunately - and this is the worrying point - the common position in question is quite far from that which was proposed by the European Parliament and the Commission.
Once more, and hopefully for the last time, the rule of unanimity has demonstrated its negative effects, since, in principle, two Member States forced the others to lower the budget. The adopted decision makes the formal stand of the Commission difficult.
The Commission is obliged to dissociate itself from the position taken by the Council and to express its disagreement and concern on several points.
The first relates to the overall amount.
The Council agreed on a figure of ECU 14 billion, well below the ECU 16.3 bn proposed by the Commission, which remains convinced of the validity of this figure, and even further below the figure of ECU 16.7 bn which Parliament gave in its opinion during first reading.
This amount is ECU 500 million less than a simple renewal, in real terms, of the Fourth Framework Programme.
If it were finally adopted, we would witness, for the first time in the history of the Union, a decline in research efforts.
At a time when the President of the United States, in his State of the Nation speech, is announcing an unprecedented increase in public American research efforts, the citizens of Europe would find it difficult to understand why the Union hesitates to mobilize one of its greatest assets, its intellectual potential and human resources, to the full, in order to strengthen its competitiveness and create jobs. The reduction in resources that would occur in such a scenario would have repercussions on all activities.
However, it would particularly affect the Joint Research Centre, which would find itself deprived of the means to accomplish its mission in the service of the Union regarding policies on which a consensus had nevertheless been achieved.
The Commission would then be obliged to seriously consider stopping certain activities considered to be essential.
The common position of the Council furthermore contains some unnecessarily restrictive measures in the area of committee procedures, and some of you earlier highlighted the complexity of procedures.
The Council text will increase this complexity, if we allow it to go through.
By setting up separate committees for energy and the environment, as well as socio-economic research, the effect will be a virtual de facto creation of distinct programmes in these areas.
Finally, with the adoption of the Fifth Framework Programme and its specific programmes, the Council is, on the one hand, setting out the future financial prospects for the Union, and on the other, establishing conditions which will again bring into question the principle of multi-annual budgets and predictability of resources which is the very essence and interest of the Programme.
Once more, Parliament and the Commission find themselves on the same side, sharing the desire to build up Community research and to provide it with the necessary resources.
The Commission knows that Parliament will in due course fight to set up a framework programme which corresponds to the needs of the Union. We are counting on you to help us make adjustments and to ensure that the final Fifth Framework Programme will be closer to the one proposed by our two institutions.
Let me return now to what is concerning us today, the draft report and resolution on the 1997 annual report on the Union's research activities.
Your rapporteur highlights the very informative nature of this report on many issues.
She notes the improvements made in respect of previous reports, recognising, in particular, that a certain number of the European Parliament's recommendations have been taken on board.
The Commission is happy that its efforts to make this document a useful instrument and to improve it continually have been taken into consideration.
The draft resolution, however, sets out a certain number of criticisms and recommendations which demonstrate a misunderstanding of the very nature of this annual report.
It cannot and must not be considered as an evaluation report.
Basically, it is a document for information.
Its aim is to give, with the help of as many precise factual details as possible, an overall view of the Union's activity in the area of research and technological development over the period covered, including projects initiated, results obtained and developments prepared.
It seems to me that the 1997 report thus gives a fairly detailed and complete picture of research policy during 1996, including the implementation of the specific programmes of the Fourth Framework Programme and the first stages of the preparation of the Fifth.
The point which must be borne in mind is the following: this report must be seen in the context of a wider system which also includes all of the follow-up reports on each specific programme and the Framework Programme as a whole, along with the five-year evaluation reports.
Thus, two series of follow-up reports for 1996 and 1997 have been prepared and published.
The preparation of those relating to 1997 has been initiated.
In the context of the preparation of the Fifth Framework Programme, fiveyear evaluation reports have been prepared for all the specific programmes as well as for Programme itself.
The latter has been drawn up by a group led by an expert on Community research, the former Commissioner, Etienne Davignon.
I share the rapporteur's opinion that a rigorous evaluation of the content of the Programmes and the way in which they have contributed to the achievement of the wider political objectives of the Union is essential.
This assessment will, however, be found in the evaluation reports.
Therefore, the Commission clearly notes the numerous suggestions formulated in the resolution.
It will be able to take them into account when implementing the overall policy.
Undoutably, improvements will be made.
The complementary nature of the three components, the annual report, the follow-up report and the evaluation report, must be strengthened.
The information contained in all of these documents and the conclusions of the different exercises must, moreover, be made available in such a way that enables all potential users, starting with the European Parliament, to become acquainted with it within the necessary time frame and under the best conditions.
The Commission intends to apply itself to improving the system in this way and will gladly welcome any suggestions that may help.
The objective is the same as that of the Fifth Framework Programme.
By definition, the Union's research policy is for the citizens of Europe.
It must be implemented both in their interest and, in their eyes and those of the institution representing them, namely the European Parliament, with complete transparency.
The Commission and Parliament often share the same views and they must fight together to enable this policy to realize its ambitions.
I am sure I will be able to count on you in this respect and I thank you for your efforts.
You have rightly drawn our attention to several points, on the complexity of the procedure, for example.
The Fifth Framework Programme has been designed to concentrate its actions.
Such concentration is essential to improve management.
We have gone from 22 to four programmes, four large programmes which are then divided into a variety of key actions.
Nevertheless, there is a clear effort at concentration, which is in keeping with your requests.
The problems of ethics, which you have rightly highlighted, are truly worrying.
Efforts have been made to mobilize national ethics committees - where they exist since, as you know, they do not exist in all the Member States - so that they demand respect for fundamental ethical principles.
The Commission's proposals for the establishment of the Fifth Framework Programme take up this demand once more.
Many of you have emphasized the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises and it is a problem I am very aware of.
You know that, although it was very weak at the start, the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the Union's research programmes has continually increased.
One essential step was the inclusion, in the Fourth Framework Programme, of what are known as technological stimuli, aimed particularly at small and medium-sized enterprises.
These actions will of course be followed up and substantially strengthened under the "Innovating and helping small and medium-sized enterprises to participate' programme, which provides, in particular, for: assistance in the area of intellectual property; financing for innovation; mechanisms to encourage the creation and development of innovative businesses; new approaches in technology transfer; and, finally, networking and information services.
With a view to facilitating the participation of SMEs in the Framework Programme, increasing the efficiency of actions which concern them and reducing delays, accredited but not exclusive information and assistance networks will be developed by strengthening and rationalizing the existing structures.
You can see that, on this particular issue of SMEs, we have already made progress, although obviously much remains to be done, and that structural and administrative measures will be established, under the Fifth Framework Programme, to enable us to respond better to the expectations of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Madam Commissioner, allow me to ask another question.
Mr Chichester and I raised the subject of the task forces, which have not been reviewed in the report - or at least have only been given a two-line mention.
In its statement the Commission also failed to say anything about the work of the task forces.
In its response to a previous statement on the research report, the Commission said: "the annual report serves to present to Parliament those aspects which are considered to be of prime importance' .
Am I then right in assuming that the task forces are not regarded as one of the more important aspects here?
The task forces, may I remind you, were not provided for in the Fourth Framework Programme since, when I arrived at the Commission, the Fourth Framework Programme had already been adopted; I introduced them along with a number of my colleagues in the Commission, in particular Martin Bangemann and Neil Kinnock.
These task forces have looked into a number of crucial problems that specifically affect the competitiveness of European business in both the sectors where Europe is particularly competitive, as well as those where it comes up against fierce competition, and we have distinguished a number of important issues.
We wanted to draw together researchers, manufacturers and others to consider these issues, in order to have a global vision.
This led us, furthermore, to the multidisciplinary approach of the Fifth Framework Programme, which follows a slightly different philosophy to that of the Fourth.
So the work that has been done by the task forces has not been lost.
On the contrary, it has been extremely useful and has enabled partners with different outlooks, in all of the Member States, to come together and discuss the different aspects of a topic.
This is what guided us through the Fourth Framework Programme.
For the Fifth Programme, there are no longer any task forces, instead we have key actions.
These key actions will work in the same way and according to the same multidisciplinary approach.
Let me take the example of the key action known as "the town of tomorrow' in the Fifth Framework Programme.
In "the town of tomorrow' we encounter problems concerning transport, pollution, housing and tele-commuting, as well as those concerning town planning, that is, socio-economic problems, particularly those affecting inner cities and suburbs.
We have therefore chosen an approach around themes which will bring the different disciplines together.
In other words, the task forces become key actions and we take a multidisciplinary approach.
This is based on the experiences of the task forces and will be developed within the Fifth Framework Programme.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Risks from chemical agents
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0051/98), by Mr Blak, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on the protection of the health and safety of workers from the risks related to chemical agents at work (fourteenth individual directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC) (C4-0531/97-00/0459(SYN))
Mr President, I am pleased and proud to be here today as rapporteur in the second phase of the proposed directive on chemical agents.
I am glad that we have managed to break the three-year impasse in the Council.
I am glad that we can now make progress in creating greater security and better working conditions for employees in Europe.
And I am proud that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has reached agreement on a number of amendments; this will further enhance the prospects of the outcome in the Council in important areas.
Almost four years have gone by since we last debated this proposal.
It is regrettable that we have had to wait so long, because the directive on chemical agents is an important part of a large collection of legislation.
It is part of the process that began in 1989 with the framework directive on improvements of employee security and health at work.
The jigsaw puzzle of directives under discussion here will make Europe even more attractive, particularly for those in employment.
First and foremost, it will be more secure and healthier to work in the Member States of the EU, and companies and workers alike can rejoice about the transparent and uniform regulations in the area of the working environment throughout the EU.
In addition to this, however, a very important incidental benefit is also achieved through the creation of common regulations in this area: it is an effective way of tackling social dumping.
Social dumping occurs when companies cross national frontiers to avoid giving employees decent working conditions.
It is important to take the problem of social dumping seriously, particularly in the light of forthcoming enlargement.
The proposed directive has two important components, to my mind.
On the one hand, it clearly establishes the commitments incumbent upon employers in connection with chemical substances that may be damaging to the safety and health of workers.
On the other hand, the proposed directive establishes procedures for joint initiatives to restrict chemical substances in the working environment.
One of the most important instruments in this area is the possibility of establishing limit values.
Let me be quite honest and say that I dislike limit values.
In principle, one should endeavour to make the working environment so clean that there would be no need for limit values.
Unfortunately, the reality is somewhat different.
It is often very difficult to determine exactly how dangerous a given substance is, and it may be necessary to put pressure on people who do not want to give the employees the benefit of the doubt.
Thus, there are instances when it may be necessary to set limit values.
To my mind, the greatest inadequacy of the Council's common position is the lack of sufficient control in implementing the indicative limit values.
What is lacking is some mechanism to ensure that implementation is assessed and that, if necessary, proposals be made to set mandatory limit values.
Amendment No 4 addresses how to solve this problem.
Major progress would be made if this were to be adopted here in the House tomorrow and subsequently adopted by the Council.
I do not wish to go through all my amendments in detail.
They are already explained in the background to the recommendation and have been discussed thoroughly in committee.
However, there are two subjects that I must address, concerning two amendments in my recommendation.
Firstly, Amendment No 10, aimed at supporting education as a means of minimising risks in the workplace, is a compromise in which a sentence has been mistakenly deleted, even though it actually supports the need for education and information.
Therefore, I would like to encourage everyone to vote for this amendment from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which reintegrates this sentence.
Secondly, there are problems with Amendment No 11.
The English translation states that health surveillance procedures shall be agreed to by the workforce.
This actually means that all workers at a given workplace would have to consent before any one of them could be subjected to a health check.
Of course, that is not what we want, and we would therefore like to table an oral amendment substituting the word workforce with workers' concern .
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to compliment the British Presidency on the work it has done on this subject.
It has been very gratifying to see active and constructive efforts aimed at pushing the directive through.
It is as if we now dare to recognise a social and international responsibility.
I do not know why, but I can hazard a guess. If the directive on chemical agents is adopted by the Council at its upcoming meeting, this will not only be a victory for the British Presidency, but one we can all rejoice in.
There are no losers in the long term when it comes to creating a more humane and more social Europe; there will only be winners.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Freddy Blak very warmly on a tremendous job in preparing this report for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
He has recognized the fragility of the common position that took a very long time to reach inside the Council and, rather than seek to amend everything in sight, he has done the sensible thing and focused on a short list of issues that really matter.
One of the most important, from my point of view, is Amendment No 4.
I understand the logic of the Community laying down indicative limit values, requiring Member States to disseminate information on those indicative values and further requiring Member States to take them into account when they set their own corresponding national occupational exposure limit values.
But that is not the same as requiring Member States to approximate to the indicative values laid down at Community level, or even move towards them.
I was therefore concerned that this might lead to a continuing disparity and I am glad that Amendment No 4 would address that by allowing a regular review, based on the information provided by Member States under Article 15, leading, where necessary, to the Commission taking appropriate action to bring about closer harmonization.
I understand the Commission is prepared to accept that amendment or a form of wording similar to it.
Another important point, in view of recent cases I have dealt with, involving trichloroethylene and the recent exchange we had in committee with the Commission's representatives, is Amendment No 7 concerning substitution.
It seems quite clear to me that some of the difficulties we are experiencing stem from the fact that we are not seeing proper implementation of the risk assessment and related sections of the framework directive.
That is leading, for example, to the situation where in some Member States trichloroethylene, a dangerous solvent, is banned, and in some Member States it is subject to exposure limits far greater than those laid down in others.
We have to work for a full and proper implementation of the framework directive but, in the meantime, the importance of substitution needs to be underlined in this directive, and Freddy Blak was quite right to do so in Amendment No 7.
It is very good indeed to see that this directive has been resurrected after so long.
However, I wonder what the prospects are for a number of other directives which continue to be blocked in Council, for example, the directive on various modes of transport and the directive on physical agents, which covers noise, vibration, optical radiation and fields and waves.
I am particularly concerned about the subject of noise.
The original 1986 directive on the protection of workers from risks related to exposure to noise at work has exposure and action levels which are hopelessly out of date.
The then UK Government was very proud to have succeeded in pressing for a 90 decibel level for the mandatory use of ear-protectors at work.
It held this up as a costsaving measure.
But the cost for many thousands of workers has been paid in terms of reduced hearing and industrial deafness.
That 1986 directive was supposed to be re-examined by the Council, on the basis of a Commission proposal, before January 1994.
It is now February 1998 and unless that physical agents directive can be revived, we must in any case review that earlier noise directive.
I hope we can receive an assurance on that point from the Commission.
It would not be fair to expect Mrs Cresson to respond to that but I hope the point can be raised with Commissioner Flynn.
I look forward to the Commission taking part in committee, at a hearing coming up within the next few weeks, on new emerging health risks.
We have succeeded in dealing with some of the outstanding ones here - the older ones - and we have some new ones to tackle together.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report that is currently under discussion regarding the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive which provides a framework for the protection of the health and safety of workers is extremely important and useful for workers who may be subject, in any Member State, to exposure to chemical agents.
This directive should not and cannot be further delayed.
The matter in question deserves the greatest urgency and the closest attention of Member States, social partners and institutions of the European Union.
The text of the Council's common position currently under discussion is clearer, more explicit and less prone to ambiguities or to any shirking of responsibility.
The structure of the document favours a better definition and ordering of the objectives and scope of the directive.
In this text, the definition of a dangerous chemical agent, and the mechanism for establishing occupational exposure limit values and biological limit values are more clearly defined and occupy a more prominent position.
A clearer definition is given of the duties of the employer, the need for vigilance by workers, and the matter of consultation, information and participation of workers.
An emphasis is placed on the Member States' obligation to enact legislative, regulatory and administrative provisions to facilitate the implementation of the directive.
The report reflects some of the concerns raised at the present time, and no doubt in the future, by the common position.
Meanwhile, however, the amendments now submitted by Parliament complement, improve and clarify the document under discussion.
Many of the amendments proposed by Parliament at first reading have been incorporated into this text, with the result that it has been noticeably improved.
I would briefly like to raise two points regarding the amendments.
Amendment No 1 emphasizes the additional caution to be exercised regarding pregnant women and young people; in such circumstances, as in others, it is essential to protect current workers, but we should never fail to think of the future.
Amendment No 10 relates to the importance that should always be attributed to the training of workers, as opposed to mere information.
For these reasons, and others which have no place here, this report is certainly appropriate and is to be commended.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it has certainly taken a long time for the Council's common position to appear.
But at the moment it is better than the Commission proposal.
I am extremely satisfied with the cooperation which took place with the rapporteur, Mr Blak.
I therefore did not need to submit further amendments, although I intend to support Amendment No 16 by the Christian Democrats.
What is the significance of this directive? Different standards damage regulation in the Member States.
Arguments related to competitiveness will always take the upper hand, after all.
This is bad for the employees and it is bad for the victims. And those victims are often suffering terribly.
One European policy with binding standards is therefore best, and we in the committee and in Parliament call for this in Amendment No 4.
In fact, we should also be prepared to ban a number of solvents such as xylene, toluene and trichloroethylene, and Amendment No 7 points to the direction we must take in this respect, since industry is encouraged to seek substitution, and substitution can be found in the use of reactive solvents.
In this context I would like to mention the solvents which are found in Marigold, for instance.
An experiment has been carried out with this plant, which was funded by the European Commission, in fact, and showed exceptionally good potential.
That is why, Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would like to suggest that we, as the European Parliament, receive a periodic progress report, since I am not entirely confident about the implementation.
I would like to conclude by saying something on educating, training and raising the awareness of people in the workplace.
We have also submitted an amendment on this point.
So the issue does not only involve banning chemical agents, it also deals with the handling of chemical agents.
Once we have a decent package of proposals, I think we will able to take a step forward with this directive to combat the greater problem that lies behind it, for painters and other workers, for example.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank Mr Blak for the work he has done on this very important, but very difficult and complicated subject.
Health and safety at work is one issue where EU legislation has a real effect on a person's normal working day.
It has to do with people's mental and physical health, and their fitness for work.
There cannot be anything more important than this.
The EU must be able to provide a secure minimum level of health and safety at work to prevent sacrificing good working conditions in the name of competition.
Health and safety at work do not just benefit the worker, but also the employer and the whole of society.
This is why it is quite deplorable that this subject has remained on hold for such a long time in the Council, as we have remarked here on numerous occasions.
This directive was featured in Parliament's first reading four years ago.
Hopefully the completion of a common position by the Council means that the health and safety at work log-jam is breaking up at last, now that it is the British term of office.
Mr Blak has proposed some amendments to the Council's common position, most of which I completely agree with.
I am, however, concerned at the negative approach the report takes to setting biological limit values.
The report states that biological limit values may be determined only in exceptional circumstances where other means fail.
We in Finland, however, do not have such a restricted view on the biomonitoring of chemical substances.
On the contrary, we believe that it is often an effective way of monitoring employees' exposure to dangerous chemicals, in order to protect their health.
Naturally, the principle of biological monitoring is always agreed beforehand with workers' representatives.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, this argument really needs to be rammed home. Mr Hughes had to do it too.
There has been much talk of cost saving in the area of health and safety at work, but no mention has been made of the costs which could be saved by those affected, and by our national economies, if we really introduced a proper safety scheme.
As a result, we are again faced with a long-running scandal.
Health and safety in the European workplace is not keeping pace with developments in the internal market and with technological progress.
Mr Hughes has already referred to two directives which are still pending.
In the case of this directive we need to discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the strategy which the Commission has chosen to confront the problem: elegantly-defined principles, progress without protection.
The individual directives can be added later, while we focus on developing the main directive.
But the price will be high.
The problem lies in the content of the framework directive.
We have to ensure that the individual directives do not fall behind the framework directive, and then there is also the problem of harmonizing procedures between the individual framework directives, such as that on explosive atmospheres - which is looming -, for this is creating increasing complications in individual cases and is hampering progress.
I would just like to stress again that Mr Blak has done an excellent job.
I do not believe that Amendment No 16 is better than Amendment No 3, and in the case of Amendment No 18, I would ask Mr Blak why the risk assessment has to be made at the beginning of the information form.
Does this not run contrary to what he has said in Amendment No 6?
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Freddie Blak for the work he has done on this report.
It has been a hard fought for report and his endeavours have been greatly appreciated across the board inside the committee.
While it is technical, it is also very real.
In fact ten million people across the European Union suffer an accident or illness at work.
This is a well-known fact and eight thousand of these people unfortunately die every year within the European Union.
Many other unreported accidents, illnesses and deaths go by the board, of course.
Many of these deaths and illnesses arise from ignorance and the taking of unacceptable risks.
As long as these risks are ill-defined, it is right that the Commission should introduce legislation to mark these risks quite appropriately.
Why do people take unnecessary risks? We all do it now and then.
We all cross the roads, perhaps without looking, and we all take inappropriate care.
This is a bad attitude for life, and definitely a bad attitude for work, but these attitudes can be dismantled and reassembled in a progressive and positive way to stop the kind of problems we face at work.
This is why this report, which is unlocked by the UK Presidency's initiative as Freddie remarked, aims at stopping the inappropriate behaviour of the use of noxious chemical agents which are some of the worst chemical agents that people can use at work.
The hazards of using such chemical agents, must be assessed as to the risk for workers, not just from the immediate effects but the long-term effects as well.
The training notices must have a substantial impact as well as training itself.
This is why such importance has been given to training in this report, to the extent perhaps of widening the framework directive's interpretation of training and that is a welcome move.
In small businesses, for example, workers are 50 % more likely to suffer from an accident at work. Why is this?
It is because there has been better training in larger companies and appropriate notices, none of which are obvious within smaller companies.
Also, in larger companies risk is taken seriously because health and safety is regarded as a productive and profitable element for the future of any company structure.
This is why the Safe Action for Europe project, which unfortunately cannot get past the question of a legal base, would have been quite appropriate for small businesses.
Freddie has also mentioned relocation of chemical production and companies.
I remember the case in Bhopal, India. Low social costs were given as the reasons for this.
This meant that Bhopal is remembered as a major disaster and for total exploitation of the workers in that country.
We must not forget that, if this is a directive which adds to the sum total of European workers' rights, perhaps we could be exporting this type of model elsewhere in the world.
Certainly we must not let capital get away with simply exporting the dangers and disasters which we know beset this minefield in this particular Continent.
It is progressive enough for us to feel that it will be significant in protecting workers and yet it is also realistic enough to produce results.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, speaking on behalf of our group, Mr Mendonça has already presented the technical aspects of this subject in some detail.
I should therefore like to discuss some of the more general issues involved here.
The Council allowed itself three and a half years before submitting a common position to Parliament after first reading. This shows just where the delay is in drawing up European legislation.
The rapporteur has taken pains to ensure that the outcome in Parliament does not deviate too much from the common position, so that the directive on the protection of workers' health and safety from the effects of chemical agents at the workplace is neither further delayed nor threatened.
No blame whatsoever can be attached to Mr Blak for this situation.
He has done an excellent job.
At all events, I expect him to give way to the amendment which I am re-submitting to Parliament.
Let me present some of the important facts surrounding this subject.
Technical directives of this type are very significant for workers and for workers' health, but plenty of even more important directives are still needed, for example, on teleworking and the wider aspects of part-time employment.
When does the Commission think it will get around to doing something about this, or does it hope to divert us from the really important issues by submitting technical questions?
Does the Council intend to brood much longer over the directives mentioned by Mr Hughes? The real victims of all this delay are the working people of Europe and we, as serving politicians in this European Parliament, cannot tolerate this situation any longer.
We expect that progress will ultimately be made in this direction and that the Commission and the Council will take the appropriate steps to see that this is done.
Mr President, the target must be that no people should be injured at work.
The issue in this recommendation for second reading was first raised four years ago.
Minimum rules are a requirement for people to be able to bring about reasonably equal conditions within the EU in this area.
I would like, in particular, to emphasize the principle of caution, that is, that there should be a good margin for workers being exposed to risks.
It is better to prevent than to discover risks afterwards.
There is strong political opinion behind this report. We saw that at first reading and we can see it now.
There is a unanimous committee behind these fifteen amendments.
What we are proposing are improvements to the Council's position.
The three most important which I shall emphasize here are: the evaluation of the implementation by the Member States; information to workers about the risks and the danger of agents; and training in protective measures.
In addition, we must ensure that there is coordination between these measures.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports this recommendation for second reading from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Mr President, in ancient Greek 'the beginning of wisdom is to give thought to naming' means that one should always begin by defining one's terms in order to lend substance to action.
I believe that we are now witnessing such a process in connection with a very important issue, which is reaching a favourable intermediate stage of completion.
In other words, it will go further.
I believe that whether we call it sabotage or just delay, this matter has at any rate taken a number of years to progress from first reading to the second reading here today.
Mr President, it was the previous Parliament that gave the first reading and we are now occupied with the second.
I can justify the fact that, as is being proved, this directive's development has shown that substantive redefinitions were needed.
The directive as such, the rationale of its explanatory concepts and the statements that go with it are, I believe, so important to a degree that I would describe it, if I may, as a historic document.
The question is, how well do the specific articles realize the intention?
I believe that with all this procedure of the common position, approaches have been made which bring hope and lend perspectives to this directive.
I agree with the modest satisfaction expressed by our rapporteur, Mr Blak.
I believe that the amendments constitute an important and substantive step, as we reiterate with persistence and steadfastness to the European Parliament, in the anticipation that they may now be acceptable. They represent a first step, and I believe that we are not just taking a first step but we are making tangible progress in relation to the situations and views that prevailed four years ago.
I echo the call to the British Presidency to speed up, promote and complete this common position decisively, because that will enable us to save time.
It has been said, stressed, and I too repeat it, that the definitions now being adopted are wise ones in that they are not absolutely binding.
I believe that we really cannot, at this point in time, give a complete list of all the dangerous substances, because new ones will emerge which we do not now know, or hitherto unrecognized dangers will be discovered.
This potential extension with the passage of time, precisely in order to prevent infringements of the directive based on today's criteria, is, I believe, one of the directive's strong points.
This, then, is a framework directive which implements the very important Directive 89/391/EEC, but as a framework it allows for further scope and is an important starting point at the present stage.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Blak for the quality of the work he has carried out on this proposal, and to thank him and all of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for their continued efforts to improve the health and safety of workers.
The Commission greatly appreciates the constructive approach that has been adopted with respect to the common position.
Firstly, I would like to highlight the political importance of the Council's common position.
The Commission is convinced that the principles of health and safety protection must continue to be enhanced at Community level.
The Council has recognized this in the common position and, although the text is clearly not perfect, it represents a considerable advance in the field of health and safety.
Most of the European Parliament's amendments to the text of the common position are real improvements and can therefore be accepted by the Commission.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, the first part of 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13 and 18.
I would now like to comment on the few amendments which cause some problems for the Commission and which, consequently, cannot be accepted.
The second part of Amendment No 5 imposes on employers the need to record a risk assessment in a suitable form, taking national law and practice into account.
This measure would undoubtedly weaken the common position which anticipates that the documents should be established in accordance with national law and practice.
I am convinced that it cannot be Parliament's intention to permit a discretionary appreciation of respect for legislation.
This idea cannot therefore be retained.
Amendment No 7 stresses the principle of substitution to eliminate risk.
The Commission is certainly in agreement with this principle, which aims at replacing hazardous chemical agents by others which are not hazardous or which are less hazardous to workers.
Nevertheless, to encourage optimal preventive action on the part of employers, the most practical obligation to reduce risk to a minimum must be maintained when the complete elimination of all risk is impossible.
Amendment No 8 is politically delicate.
It was only after difficult negotiations that the Member States and the Commission came to an agreement on this text.
As the proposed addition goes beyond the compromise reached and, although the Commission understands Parliament's position, it prefers to keep the text as it is, given that on the basis of Amendment No 4, which can be accepted, it is possible to come back to this question at the time of the five-year evaluation.
In the case of Amendment No 10, the Commission considers that the withdrawal of the paragraph on the nature of information would not facilitate the task of the employer on this very important point.
I have one last observation concerning Amendment No 14.
The Commission cannot accept the removal of the term "and the new findings' from amongst the cases demanding an adaptation of the annexes to technological progress.
Indeed, new findings constitute the main reason for technological modifications.
This principle was, moreover, approved by the Council in its common position and on many other occasions.
I hope that Parliament will not thus be looking to limit the Commission's rights of initiative.
It is not a question of the Commission using the pretext of adaptations to technological progress in order to bypass Parliament, as the rapporteur seems to think.
Regarding Amendments Nos 16 and 17, the Commission is not able to accept them, for it considers that Amendment No 3, which it does accept, is better than Amendment No 16 and that Amendment No 17 adds no further information to Article 8 of the common position.
Mr President, I heard that Commissioner Cresson had not included Amendment No 11 among the amendments that the Commission was able to adopt.
However, I have tabled a verbal amendment, in collaboration with the Commission in fact, so I hope the Commission will not retreat at the last moment.
The arrival of this amendment was somewhat delayed, so I hope this was merely an oversight.
I fully concur with you - this is also a gentle hint to my colleagues - that there is no reason to vote on Amendment No 16 when the Commission and the Council already accept Amendment No 3.
We must take care not to hold the banner up so high that we lose our footing on terra firma, so I am actually very happy with your comments.
However, I do hope, Mrs Cresson, that you dream tonight that you want to have a hand in reviewing these matters once again, because then we can get a directive through that has been standing still for four years.
I have bent over backwards, the Council has bent over backwards, and I believe the Commission, too, can come towards us a little.
I am quite sure that you will dream about this tonight, so we can achieve a positive result tomorrow.
It will not be long.
Amendment No 11 is accepted by the Commission, indeed, I believe I said this earlier, but perhaps it is a simple case of a problem of translation.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0017/98).
The Commission would remind the author of the question that, according to the provisions of the new Article 255 introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the citizen has the right of access to the documents of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, subject to the principles and limits the Council has to determine, according to the codecision procedure, within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty.
On the basis of these general principles which are common to the three institutions, each one should draw up its own regulations on the specific provisions regarding application.
The Commission will therefore submit a draft legislation, according to the entry into force of the Treaty.
So far, no decision has been taken on the exceptions to the right of access the Commission should propose.
Without any doubt, the Commission considers it essential to develop the policy of transparency and access to its documents, but the future legislation on this matter depends on the result of the interinstitutional negotiations.
Naturally, the declaration included in the final document will be observed, which allows each Member State to ask the Commission or the Council not to disclose a document originating from the country itself without prior permission.
Mr President, I have three short questions.
I would like clarification of whether this document will concern all or just three - the most important three - bodies mentioned in the Amsterdam Treaty: the Commission, Parliament and the Council. Personally, I think it should be a matter for all to consider.
Next, I would like to ask about very sensitive issues.
Is it understood that Europe's future central bank should be subordinate to public legislation? In addition, Europol cooperation has proved to be an area where there is a need for more openness.
Finally, I would like to ask whether the Commission could not put together some sort of Green Paper on the subject of openness so that all bodies, including Parliament, could discuss in broad terms what should be done concerning this document? I think this would be an excellent way to proceed.
As a general outline to this additional answer, I have to say, Mr Hautala, that the general secretaries of the three Institutions concerned have already held specific meetings to discuss this point and have formed an interinstitutional working party, under the direction of the Commission, which has been given the task of conducting a preliminary study of the problem.
The working parties have already been set up and the group is currently reflecting on the questions to be dealt with in the proposal for the future legislation.
I wish to ask you, Mr Hautala, whether it will be applied to the three institutions?
As I recalled, according to the provisions of Article 255, it is a question of access to the documents of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission and there will be general principles common to the three institutions, on the basis of which each of the three institutions will then draw up its own regulations for specific application.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner whether his studies also cover the internal workings of Parliament, because we have a body, the Conference of Presidents of the various groups, which keeps the Parliamentarians in the dark, and takes all sorts of decisions in secret meetings that we hear nothing about. Could this be sorted out?
The second thing I wanted to ask is this: what is your attitude to the idea of forcing the European Central Bank to make a public declaration of this kind, which would have the effect of opening the doors to American speculators?. It would not take long to wreck our currency then!
With regard to the European Central Bank, I have nothing to say, as Article 255 does not refer to this institution.
With regard to the first question, it seems to me that, as the Member said himself, it relates to the European Parliament's internal documents and it is therefore not up to the Commission to give an opinion in this connection.
I would like to ask whether the Commission supports the principle of reversing the burden of proof which was passed by a large majority of Parliament in part-session and by the Committee on Institutional Affairs by 34 votes to 0.
According to this, the basis for any decision must be that the documents and meetings are open, unless a qualified majority of two thirds of those present at Commission meetings, in Parliament or at Council meetings decides that a meeting or document should be closed for good reason.
In other words, we should reverse the burden of proof, so it takes a qualified majority to close a document.
Can the Commission support this principle which was passed unanimously by our committees?
Thank you for this additional question.
This is a matter I will bring to the attention of the working party formed by the general secretaries of the three institutions.
I have no particular information to offer by way of an answer; I therefore take note of it and will pass on the question to the group composed of the three general secretaries.
Question No 61 by Julio Añoveros Trias de Bes (H-0048/98)
Subject: Internet and Community Law
When will the EuroLaw server be accessible through the Internet?
Does the Commission intend to offer free access to the CELEX database on the Web?
Do the institutions plan to provide a page providing information for the public on the Community legislative process and on the officials responsible? If so, could the institutions design such a page jointly in order to optimize its usefulness?
The EuroLaw server, the provisional name to which the Member refers, will make the whole text of the Official Journals available, both the L and C series, free of charge on the Internet Europa site, which can be found at http: //europa.eu.int, in the 11 official languages of the EU for a period of 20 days.
This site is currently being prepared: the actual date for its opening should be in the spring of 1998 and will be announced officially by the Official Publications Office of the European Communities.
The EuroLaw server will enable users to access the following services free of charge and in progression: the list of Community legislation in force, supplemented by the texts of the documents shown in the list by their title alone, as shown in the CELEX data bank; the collection of EU treaties; the consolidated text of the Community legislative documents; the recent judgments of the European Court of Justice; and the COM documents.
Consequently, all the legislative texts in force will be extracted by CELEX and made available to EuroLaw users free of charge.
For the time being, however, the Commission is not planning to offer the CELEX data bank for consultation via the Internet free of charge.
It should be recalled that CELEX offers a very wide range of advanced research possibilities and that the proceeds deriving from consultation of the base are used to finance part of the considerable work of documentary analysis required to give CELEX its specific added value.
The Commission shares the Member's opinion that it is advisable to inform citizens of the Union's decision-making mechanisms and the functioning of the interinstitutional procedures.
For this purpose, it plans to present the principal interinstitutional procedures in the form of a diagram, in order to be concise.
Moreover, to the extent that resources are available and in cooperation with the services of Parliament, the Commission will try to circulate general information on the state of the current procedures, an objective that will be realized, in particular, through modernizing and putting the APC system that is already accessible to the public on the Internet.
Mr President, I do not want to put a supplementary question, but just to say that the Commissioner gave a very full reply, for which I am extremely grateful.
I thank the Commissioner for his answer.
I would like to put one more question: when is it going to be clear that through this EuroLaw link people will be able to see how far the Member States have incorporated the law into national legislation? We currently have an experiment as far as Finnish legislation is concerned, but what does the Commissioner think of the possibilities of getting information about the situation in all Member States through the same service?
In addition, I think it is important that in future this server has the technology to make it easy to see what is news, so-called 'push technology' , which your colleague Commissioner Oreja has promised to consider, and which I hope can be implemented very soon.
I believe that for easier use it is important that people also get news quickly.
I would like to say to Mr Thors that it had been hoped that the EuroLaw server would be available immediately on the Internet.
This is not possible.
To do that, preliminary adaptations need to be made to all the technical devices, particularly those of the Publications Office; everything will be ready in a few months' time.
We understand the urgency and importance of this tool and every effort will be made to make it available as soon as possible.
I will take this opportunity, and the specific question raised by Mr Thors on the importance to the citizen of knowing whether the Member States have included the Community regulations, to indicate another information tool.
In the wide range of material on the internal market, since November 1997 the Commission has been publishing a scoreboard, a periodic report, that indicates the situation of each Member State as regards the inclusion of directives, the observance of infringement procedures, and so on; this scoreboard is already available on the Internet.
As you can see, we are certainly heading in the direction rightly hoped for by Mr Thors with all the means available.
Question No 62 by Ian White (H-0112/98)
Subject: First-weight mail rates
Would the Commission indicate which EU Member States currently link costs of first-weight correspondence, usually 20 g letters, for domestic and internal (within the EU) mail? At present, the current UK rate is the same for first-weight mail, but there are proposals for this to change.
Would the UK postal services be acting contrary to Article 6 by charging more for non-domestic internal first-weight mail?
In around half the Member States of the European Union, there is a unified tariff for sending correspondence at national and intra-Community level in the faster standard category belonging to the first-weight group.
In the other Member States, tariffs vary according to the destination, usually depending on whether it is national or intraCommunity correspondence.
Directive 97/67/EC on postal services states that the prices of each of the services forming part of the supply of the universal service should be correlated with costs.
This obligation applies to all the correspondence in question, whether national or intraCommunity.
This could encourage some Member States to rectify the current charging system for their own postal services to that effect.
The Treaty establishing the European Community, and particularly Article 6, does not prohibit a similar tariff differentiation provided it is commensurate with costs, as laid down by the aforesaid Directive 97/67/EC.
I think it would be useful for me to explain the background of the question to the Commissioner.
A change in pricing to the structure of the international tariff within the United Kingdom is proposed from 6 April this year.
At present the first-weight rate charge is the same for domestic and EU post.
The proposal is for domestic post to stay at 26p but for EU post to increase to 30p.
There is also a proposal that the non-EU rate be decreased from 31p to 30p which effectively classes the EU alongside all other foreign post.
I would submit that is contrary to Article 6 and therefore there is a responsibility upon the Commission to ask for an explanation from the United Kingdom postal authorities on this point.
Can you please reply in detail?
I wish to thank Mr White for further clarifying the context of his question.
There may actually be an apparent contradiction between single tariff and price correlated with costs, but it is only an apparent contradiction.
Article 12 of the Directive on postal services states, on the one hand, that prices shall be correlated with costs and, on the other, that the Member States may decide whether to apply a single tariff to the entire national territory.
These two statements may seem to be contradictory.
However, the obligation on the correlation of costs does not imply a total coincidence between price and cost and leaves the Member State the possibility of applying a system of making tariffs equal for specific provisions of the universal service.
I would add that applying a tariff distinction based on costs between national and intra-Community post or, possibly, between post to different Member States, does not constitute an infringement of Article 6 of the Treaty, as such a distinction is not based on nationality but rather on the criterion of the actual cost the provision of different services entails.
Question No 63 by Anne Van Lancker (H-0114/98)
Subject: Preparations for integrating the Schengen acquis in the Treaty
According to the Treaty, the Schengen measures on checks at external borders, asylum, immigration and judicial cooperation in civil matters should come under Title IV of the Treaty establishing the European Community, while the provisions on police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters should come under Title VI of the Treaty on European Union, the third pillar.
In the Commission's view, what should the SIS (and later the EIS) come under? Article 286 of the Treaty says that from 1 January 1999 Community decisions on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing and free movement of personal data shall apply to the institutions and bodies set up by, or on the basis of, the Treaty.
What arrangements should there be for the protection of privacy in the SIS? Will Article 286 also apply to personal data gathered under third pillar initiatives?
The question raised by Mrs Van Lancker is fundamental in nature and requires a brief but comprehensive answer.
The principle of the integration of the Schengen acquis into the EU has been sanctioned in the protocol attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
To achieve this integration, various measures have been adopted, including the decision by the Council, as provided for in paragraph 1 of Article 2 of the protocol, based on the relevant provisions of the Treaties, establishing the legal basis for each of the provisions or decisions constituting the Schengen acquis.
Pursuant to the provisions of the Treaty on European Union currently in force, the distribution of the Schengen acquis between the first and the third pillars would have been a very difficult task on account of the unclear distinction between the areas of competence of the two pillars mentioned.
However, the Treaty of Amsterdam provides greater clarity and the distribution should not raise too many problems.
As regards, in particular, the division of the provisions on the Schengen Information System, the Commission considers that a dual legal base should be established in relation to the first and third pillars.
In fact, the Schengen Information System collects data relating to both the first and third pillars.
Article 96 of the Schengen Agreement, on the categories of aliens to be refused entry, refers to external frontier controls and visa and immigration policy and therefore to data belonging to the first pillar.
Other categories of data, such as definitions provided for extradition purposes, unquestionably fall under police and legal cooperation in criminal matters and therefore come under the third pillar.
The establishment of a dual legal base should not be detrimental to the operation of the Schengen Information System.
The dual legal base is not something new.
The Customs Information System is also based on a regulation from the first pillar and an agreement from the third pillar based on the same text.
With regard to specific Schengen provisions on data protection within the scope of the Schengen Information System, a dual legal base should be established, comprising the first and third pillars.
The same regulations should be applied to data protection with regard to sectors coming under the first and third pillars, in the exchange of information through the SIS.
Finally, the question as to whether Article 286 of the EC Treaty will be applied to the Schengen Information System has not yet been resolved.
I would like to start by thanking the Commissioner for his interpretation.
I think it agrees fully with my own.
The necessary instruments for the implementation of the new Community pillar with regards to free movement of people cannot come under the third pillar.
But, Mr Commissioner, I am getting strong indications from the Council, and not only from one Member State within the Council, but from several of them, that the Council has a completely different opinion. It seems that someone in the Council is saying quite forcefully that the entire Schengen Information System, and therefore also the European Information System, should come under the third pillar, with all its consequences for parliamentary and judicial control and for the European Commission's right of legislative initiative in this rather delicate affair.
Can the Commissioner tell me which arguments, legal and political, the Commission can produce to win over the Council, and that it will not start fiddling with the adequate legal base which must be used in this matter so that the Schengen Protocol might be properly categorized?
I have to say that current efforts and the work I have briefly described is ongoing, despite being complex.
In the declaration relating to Article 2 of the Schengen Protocol, the Member States agree that the Council should take all the necessary measures laid down by Article 2 as well as that relating therefore to the distribution just mentioned, by the date of entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
For this purpose, it establishes that the preparatory work should begin in good time to be completed before that date.
I have to say that, after the signing of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Luxembourg Presidency began work within the Council and that the current British Presidency has taken it over immediately.
Various meetings are already planned to observe the timetable which has been established.
Some results have already been achieved, and this allows us to believe that the deadlines will be observed.
We therefore have no reason to be pessimistic.
I well understand the Member's concern, but it is obvious that the Commission has taken an active and constructive part in the Council's work on this matter, to ensure that the integration of the Schengen acquis, within the scope of the European Union, takes place in full compliance with the law of the European Community and the European Union.
It seems obvious to me that the European Parliament is involved in distributing the Schengen acquis, as this distribution will establish the legal base for future proposals seeking to amend the Schengen acquis and therefore relates to Parliament's role with regard to these future proposals.
I therefore propose that the Council duly submits to the European Parliament the draft decision on the distribution of the Schengen acquis.
My question about the Schengen Information System concerns the supervisory function of the JSA, the Joint Supervisory Authority .
This authority is responsible for checking that the rules which exist for this system are respected.
The first report issued by this supervisory authority pointed out major defects in the SIS system, including inaccurate information on those registered.
In addition, it states that there is different information about the same people in different parts of the SIS database.
The JSA also emphasizes that it has totally inadequate resources to carry out the investigation it wants, including budgetary resources and resources for translation.
It also underlines that it has been denied access to the SIS computer here in Strasbourg on at least one occasion when it has tried to carry out an on-site inspection with its experts.
My question is whether the Commission intends to strengthen the JSA's budgetary resources and authority to carry out its work.
Is it the Commission's opinion that this should happen?
With regard to the Joint Supervisory Authority, the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam naturally has to be dealt with.
However, with regard to the other aspects of the question, I believe that only the actual bodies involved in the Schengen Convention are in the best position to give more thorough answers.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think it has become clear how closely connected Title IV of the EC Treaty and Title VI of the EU Treaty are.
I would like to ask you about the connection between the issue of external borders, which is dealt with in one, and the issue of fighting organized crime, which is dealt with in the other.
I think we really need to proceed with the Schengen Information System accordingly and see the connection between the two.
Your comment highlights the very purpose of these constructions: to provide space for freedom of movement and at the same time space for security.
Schengen arose within this perspective and is operating within this perspective; its incorporation into the Treaty of Amsterdam is also moving decidedly within this perspective.
The information structures should reflect this fundamental dual objective.
Question No 64 by Graham Watson (H-0147/98)
Subject: Ticket allocation system for the 1998 football World Cup
The French authorities have proposed a ticket allocation system for the 1998 football World Cup which limits worldwide sales for matches to just 40 % of total tickets, while 60 % of tickets will be restricted to the French market.
In view of the precedent set by the "Cassis de Dijon' judgment, does the Commission agree that the proposed ticket allocation is a fundamental breach of internal market legislation? Does the Commission have plans to investigate the proposed ticket sales operation?
Mr President, the French organizing committee of the World Cup at first envisaged a system of ticket distribution based on territorial exclusiveness which would essentially not have permitted the sale of tickets in other Member States of the European Union.
It also envisaged linking ticket sales to other services such as accommodation and travel.
Following an approach by the European Commission, the organizing committee agreed to make changes which would enable both specific tour operators and travel agencies firstly, to sell either tickets alone or packages of services, and secondly, to sell them in other countries. This ensures competition between various distributors throughout the European Union.
After complaints in the press regarding the infringement of European rules of competition so far as the sale of tickets for the football World Cup 1998 was concerned, the Commission has approached the French organizing committee and five tour operators selected for the sale of tickets in the UEFA area.
Replies to those letters are being awaited and we believe that when we receive them the Commission will be able to form a complete picture of how the French organizing committee set about distributing tickets, and to ascertain whether and to what extent the rules of competition have been contravened.
If Community law has been infringed, that will most probably be due to contravention of the European rules of competition, mainly Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty, rather than an infringement of the law in relation to the Cassis de Dijon affair mentioned by the Member, which covers the elimination of quota restrictions on imports between the Member States pursuant to Article 30 of the Treaty.
At any rate, no such infringement has so far been confirmed where the distribution of tickets for the football World Cup 1998 is concerned.
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
Mr Watson, the Rules of Procedure do not include any rule prohibiting Members from bringing a ball into the Chamber, but I assume there is no trademark or any subliminal advertising on that beautiful football which I can see from here.
In any case, you have the floor to question the Commissioner for one minute.
I assure you that I have no intention to kick this football in the Chamber but it is an excellent example of a souvenir World Cup football.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his answer.
Clearly under Article 7a of the Single European Act, and indeed under Article 85, it must be held that any product lawfully put on sale in one part of the Union cannot be barred from being imported into any other.
Indeed, the Commission has just fined Volkswagen some £68 million for breach of this principle.
It is my information that the French authorities are preventing ticket agencies and tour operators from selling tickets outside France.
A ticket, for example, for the Brazil v Scotland match which would cost £50 in France, has been on sale on the black market in Britain for nearly £800.
Did the French authorities consult the Commission before making their arrangements?
Does the Commissioner not agree that this is outrageous and does he not agree that it contravenes EU principles? Will he take action against France if it is found to be in breach of the Treaties?
Mr President, first of all let me tell you that the ball at the front of Mr Watson's bench reminds me of my childhood years, when I too had the chance to engage in this wonderful sport.
I would, however, like to make some comments on what Mr Watson said.
As I mentioned before, we are waiting for replies to the letters we sent to the tour operators and the French authorities. So far, we have no information confirming the accusations that a specific infringement is indeed taking place.
What I must say, however, as a general principle, is that the Commission believes that competition among the various suppliers and products certainly benefits the consumer compared with a system of exclusive distribution and committed ticket sales.
We will insist that the rules of competition must be applied, and we believe we will be successful.
The next item is a continuation of the joint debate on air pollution by motor vehicles.
Mr President, I should start by saying that the Commissioners' speech gives me the feeling that, unfortunately, there is still very little room for dialogue on these directives between the Commission and Council, on the one hand, and Parliament, on the other, and therefore, unfortunately, we cannot find the openings we were expecting.
However, I believe, as has been said, that the high number of deaths and serious harm caused by air pollution, largely due to vehicle traffic - think of the damage caused by acid rain - mean that we need clear, fast decisions, even if we are convinced that we cannot solve the problem just by concentrating on petrol and vehicles.
Other initiatives are in fact needed, such as the introduction of new fuels, with the use of innovative transport systems.
But above all, we need initiatives encouraging, for example, group transportation, switching passengers and goods to less polluting means of transport. These are all things that are not included in these measures but which, if not pursued, would make it difficult to achieve the objective.
With regard to the two directives in question, the Greens certainly share the problems raised by the rapporteurs and the solutions proposed in their reports.
We believe, in particular, that the level of sulphur in petrol should be reduced, the quantity of aromatics and polyaromatics reduced to non-hazardous values, that lead should be totally eliminated and, with regard to vehicle systems, that a system providing on-board diagnostics should be introduced for all vehicles.
However, it should certainly not be said that the measures to be taken before 2000 are too soon and should be postponed to 2005 and then say that they are not compulsory: either they are compulsory or they are meaningless!
Mr President, this afternoon we were talking about the Kyoto Summit and CO2 emissions.
The debate we are going to have now has a lot to do with what we were talking about this afternoon.
In fact, in the Commission's communication on the Kyoto Summit issued at the end of 1997, reference was made to those sectors which produce the most CO2 - one of the most dangerous greenhouse gases - and it was clearly stated that unless measures are taken, CO2 emissions from transport will increase by 31 % by 2010.
So that is what we are going to talk about now.
I think the rapporteur has the right approach.
He envisages globally integrated measures - in other words, not just using more advanced techniques for engine production, but considering aspects such as better quality fuel, traffic management, the promotion of public transport - which is being neglected -, trans-European transport networks and alternative fuels.
In other words, he proposes a series of integrated measures which are very important to bear in mind.
The report also says that an improvement in fuel quality would have immediate effects if it were brought in - more so than actual progress in engine production - because it would affect all the cars currently in use in Europe. As the rapporteur rightly says, in some countries - such as my own, Spain - most cars are old and would be very expensive to upgrade.
Finally, Mr President, I think this Parliament needs a clear majority to approve these reports tomorrow. Parliament will have more say in the codecision process if its position is firm and clear, like the one approved in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Mr President, this Auto-Oil Programme is nearing its completion.
When the standards for 2005 are laid down in a binding way, industry will be given clarification.
On that point I fully agree with both rapporteurs.
Binding standards for 2005, both for vehicles and fuels, are absolutely necessary.
Substantial investments will indeed have to be made, but technically it can all be achieved and it is vital for air quality.
Only on the point of the NOx catalytic converter, however, is some patience needed.
Amendment No 28 which will reduce the sulphur content to 100 ppm in 2000 strikes me as very realistic.
Once the catalytic converter is in production, low sulphur fuel should at least also be available.
I wholeheartedly support the amendments on on-board diagnostics and cold starts.
I also support a durability test after ten years.
I read that there is some movement on the CO2 demands, even though it does not sound particularly positive.
Now that the emissions of heavy polluting chemicals have been pushed back considerably, it is all the more pertinent to push back the use of fuel in general, especially since it is being demonstrated that with small technological improvements, large fuel savings can be made.
I would draw your attention to the fly wheel vehicle which manages a reduction of 20 %, and the developments in the fivelitre car.
Is the Commission considering binding legislation at European level? We believe the time is ripe for this.
That way the Kyoto agreements might be achieved.
Mr President, the dawn of the next millennium will finally see the start of a European road transport policy aimed at combating the problems of air pollution caused by road traffic. If we had to measure its effectiveness, bearing in mind the large number of measures planned, we would certainly be more than optimistic.
The joint programme drawn up by the Commission and by the motor and oil industries of the Auto-Oil Union has defined a strategy aimed at reducing vehicle gas emissions to improve air quality, establishing two deadlines: 2000 and 2005, the dates by which the quality of fuels and the limit values of emissions should be defined.
With regard to the two reports being discussed, drawn up by Mr Hautala and Mr Lange, the important points of the entire Auto-Oil programme indicate a subtle contradiction between the fact that improving the quality of fuels will have immediate effects both on new and older vehicles and the fact that establishing limit values and improving engines should, however, only concern new vehicles.
We would like to establish three priorities: firstly, to combine respect for the environment with respect for work and research in industry; secondly, to establish the final system by 2005; and thirdly, to firmly establish the principle that the "polluter pays' , providing tax incentives for anyone investing with a view to improving quality.
It is right that the companies conducting research and making large investments in order to supply a less polluting product should be rewarded.
We too believe that the marketing of leaded petrol should be prohibited in all Member States by 2000, apart from the fact that this would lead to some economic problems which, we believe, could be prevented by intervening now.
In any case, we should start with Council's decision to fix compulsory values by 2000 and indicative values by 2005.
With regard to diesel fuel, we accept the proposal made by the Chairman of PSA Citroën-Peugeot, who recently pointed out the possibility of using biofuels at no extra cost to the motor industry, particularly dister, a highly concentrated, environmentally friendly diesel oil.
Important factors in the campaign to reduce emissions include: better engine design, better technical control, more frequent inspections and recourse to new types of fuel, together with more attentive management of traffic and public transport.
We believe that a whole series of new technologies could be developed to combat pollution effectively: I am referring, for example, to the fitting of on-board diagnostics systems.
We also believe it important to improve on the directive on CO2 emissions caused by vehicles, which is currently at a stalemate, together with the proposal to establish a system of tax incentives, that should not mean new taxation but rather an inspection and more effective check of existing ones.
Mr President, all citizens - not just a select few - have the right to breathe clean air and protect their health.
This view, and the increase in air pollution due to our traffic using two fuels, led the European Parliament to vote unanimously at first reading for the amendment to this directive to improve the quality of the air we breathe.
The European Parliament's position and the right to good health, as provided for by the Treaty of Amsterdam, were undeniably echoed by the Council, although that echo is still inadequate since it only takes the form of indicative limit values.
So we are sure that despite the hard-hearted pressure to which they have subjected us, some petrochemical companies will make the necessary investments - as the automobile sector has already done - so that they can offer better quality fuels when the health of their shareholders and clients, and of course the citizens as well, forces them to do so.
It would be a serious matter if private interests were to take precedence over the quality of the air we breathe, especially after the Kyoto Summit. We have all noticed the alarming increase in air pollution in urban areas.
Some cities, such as Paris, Athens and Bologna, have even had to ban traffic on occasion in order to provide a solution to this serious health problem. And I think it is important to emphasize that some of these cities are located in the south of the Union.
Rule 2 of our Rules of Procedure says: "Members of the European Parliament shall exercise their mandate independently.
They shall not be bound by any instructions and shall not receive a binding mandate.' Accordingly therefore, and exercising my own personal responsibility, I shall vote in favour of Mrs Hautala's report - in favour, that is, of health and the environment.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, although Commissioner Bangemann has already gone, I would not like him to get a surprise in the Conciliation Committee.
We are not just talking about the same old proposals for amendments - we too are impressed by how far the Council has moved away from the Commission's position.
I think that is a good sign for the conciliation process.
There is nothing new about attempts to reduce emissions of pollutants from motor vehicles.
A lot of progress has been made in recent years, but not enough.
Complicated measures will be required to ensure unlimited mobility for our citizens in the future, and that is my particular concern.
That is why I welcome the approach adopted in the Auto-Oil programme before us today.
There are two sides to this: first, optimizing vehicle technology so that pollutants are reduced; and second, improving fuel quality so that pollutants are totally eliminated or are reduced, as well as facilitating the introduction of modern engine technology.
The Auto-Oil programme was the first time that had happened, and it is unfortunate that the original cooperation between the oil industry and the automotive industry is not continued in the Commission's proposal. It is actually very important for these two European industrial sectors to work together, given that the competitiveness of European industry is at stake.
So it has to be reiterated that a legislative approach must be adopted to make progress.
It is really a truism to say that improved fuels are needed to reduce emissions from the existing motor vehicle fleet and to ease the introduction of fuel-efficient engine technology in the future.
This House made its position on this quite clear at first reading.
What I find totally incomprehensible is the attitude of some parts of the European oil industry, which is fighting tooth and nail against significant fuel improvements.
It claims that it would involve high costs for the oil industry with little benefit for the environment.
Both claims are wrong.
The most recent calculations indicate that the cost of desulphurizing fuels and other measures are by no means as high as originally assumed, and it will be passed on to the consumer anyway.
I would just like to point out what is involved.
We are talking about just ECU 0.004 per litre for petrol and 0.009 per litre for diesel, based on the strict limits at first reading.
So what are the environmental advantages? They are certainly enormous.
One European car manufacturer recently tested its vehicles in California, where fuels that comply with these limits are already on the market.
The result was a reduction of about 40 % in hydrocarbon emissions and about 30 % in NOx emissions.
I would call that a major environmental benefit.
It is not fair to threaten refinery closures because of the Auto-Oil programme.
A new Commission study has confirmed what is already well-known among specialists: there is over-capacity in Europe's refineries, and this is a structural problem.
At present, the oil industry is investing outside Europe.
Demand for clean fuels would bring this investment back to Europe and guarantee the competitiveness of this sector in Europe, and that is something we all want.
Although the compromise proposal is very much a backward step compared with the first reading, I still firmly support it, particularly as regards the mandatory values for 2005.
Mr Florenz has already said today that industry has to invest.
We know that.
It needs to invest money.
But we can give it a guarantee that this money will be well invested, instead of letting them invest with 2000 in mind and then suddenly coming up with totally different values, so that their investment has been wasted.
We cannot be a party to anything like that, and it is not this Parliament's intention in any case.
Of course, technically speaking it would be possible to go a lot further than we are proposing here.
It remains to be seen whether the legal framework is adequate to achieve everything that is necessary and feasible.
If not, the report before us also allows for further improvement.
Maybe you will take that as a warning.
Mr President, thank you and welcome to the Commissioner.
I want to thank both of the rapporteurs for their input in this very important area.
I also have to declare an interest in this matter because Ireland's only oil refinery is placed in my constituency of Munster, my home county of Cork, and they have approached me with very serious concerns regarding some of the proposals put forward.
However, there are a few things that I want to point out.
Firstly, we must of course - and I think all Members in this Parliament agree - have the best possible environment for each of our citizens to allow them to have full freedom of health and safety.
Any actions that we can take here must seek to enforce best practices and ideas.
Secondly, we also have a duty to ensure that the working environment and the ability to compete and to get a job within our Community is also made available and is as accessible as possible.
Looking at some of the suggestions with regard to the maximum levels permitted under the reports, if you just take Ireland as one example, the air quality in Dublin, the capital city, is already meeting the standards that are set down within this report.
Cork city, where I come from, is 50 % better than Dublin and the rest of Ireland, rural Ireland we call it, is 10 % better still.
Surely imposing a European directive and a Europe-wide legislation will seriously impact on these areas, as Members have already admitted there is a cost factor built into this: costs that will be passed on directly to the consumer and costs that will affect our industrial capacity as well as affecting our competitive edge.
To overcome this, Members have suggested that we bring in differential tax incentives to give encouragement and so on. How does this marry with the idea of the single market?
Rather than taking up any more time, I would like to say that I will be voting against the reports tomorrow and I hope that through conciliation we can reach a more reasonable suggestion.
Mr President, our whole present disposable lifestyle is a threat to future generations, and continued automatization poses a threat to climactic stability.
Vehicle emissions must be cut by every possible means.
Work must be done at their source, with the development of the combustible engine.
Fuels must be improved.
It is important now to develop viable catalytic convertors for diesel fuels and to improve their quality.
The European oil industry represents the old smokestack capitalism, based on the exploitation of human beings and the destruction of nature and the environment.
The oil industry, though not all companies, opposes limitations on emissions, saying that new investment would have to be found for them.
The industry is acting as if it had to meet these new costs itself.
We all know, however, that investment always ends up with the consumer having to pay.
But it is the polluter who should pay.
That would result in just a minute rise in the price of fuel.
If the polluter does not pay, it is the people who are getting sick who pay.
Even if the European oil industry is not proving competitive, the costs of investment should not get passed on to the consumer.
It is the European Parliament's duty to refuse to ensure the survival of the oil industry by subsidizing poor quality oil.
Any oil industry which cannot sell its products except at the cost of the pollution of the natural world deserves to go bust.
Mr President, I think it is vital that both Mr Lang and Mrs Hautala's reports be approved.
It is important if we wish to improve air quality.
Mr President, it is important to remember that, basically, the Auto-Oil programme is about improving the environment and human health.
Many studies have shown that air pollution affects people's health.
So there is a direct link between increasing mortality and air pollution caused by road traffic.
These studies clearly show that clear limits must be set on motor vehicle emissions, and clear standards must be set for petrol quality.
This means it is important that the levels should be binding, and not merely indicative.
Fixed standards are the only realistic way of achieving the air quality desired.
For the same reason, it is important to limit the exceptions to the standards to the absolute minimum necessary.
This does not mean, of course, that we should ignore the economic aspects.
New technology and higher standards mean increased costs, but the first thing to do is to look at all the relevant variables.
Cost-effectiveness cannot be the only basis for assessing individual mechanisms.
We must assess cost-effectiveness in the light of the improvements and savings to society as a whole.
So I agree that the directive's proposals should include the solutions which are best for the citizens' health as well as for the economy.
Experience from California also shows that the Commission's estimates exaggerate the costs which would be involved in the new petrol quality standards and emission limits.
I believe it would encourage innovation if demands were made on industry.
Hopefully, the directive concerned will encourage the industry to develop vehicles running on renewable sources of energy.
I can therefore heartily support the Council's joint approach to all the amendments the Committee on the Environment has made.
Mr President, in ecological terms Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange's reports certainly constitute a shining hour in Parliament's history.
What might at first sight appear to be a handicap for the automotive industry is in practice a great opportunity.
It was the same with the catalytic converter: people originally said it would be the downfall of the car industry, but in fact it resulted in technical progress.
By sticking to its old position, the Commission is spoiling the prospects for constructive dialogue, which would be a vital opportunity.
So the car will remain the number one environmental enemy.
The debate about the true costs of road traffic will have to be stepped up.
Parliament has offered a solution, but unfortunately it has not been accepted.
If there is a confrontation, there will be no winners, neither the environment nor the car or oil industries.
There will just be losers, which is a great pity.
While Parliament will certainly pass the elk test tomorrow, in my view the Commission has already failed it.
Mr President, Parliament made the right choice at first reading.
It enabled the Commission's position to be significantly developed since the Council was making somewhat more favourable proposals.
We can go further though and this is what our citizens expect.
Every day we see in the papers that town pollution is on the increase and that the greenhouse effect is threatening us.
It is now imprinted on the collective conscience that we can use technological progress to resolve these problems of civilization, quality of life and health of our people.
It is therefore essential that restrictive and strict standards be set for the year 2005 because this will be an advantage for the automobile industry.
Of course the manufacturers are somewhat hesitant, but they must understand that the credibility of the motor vehicle rests precisely on the possibility of having standards in line with our expectations.
It is all the more important that the European automobile market understands one difficulty, that is, the replacement of the stock of cars on the road.
Only clean, safe cars can legitimize renewing the number of cars on the road, and thus reviving employment in this sector.
We also know that the question of cars already on the road, which has been raised by many colleagues, is essential.
From this point of view, the efforts demanded of the oil industry are essential, for there are a large number of older cars. I hope that Europe will also consider ways for a speedier removal of older cars from our roads, bearing in mind that they often belong to poorer people.
We need a Community strategy to speed up this transformation of the older rolling stock.
Finally, the environment is not the enemy of employment: the evolution of the car is an opportunity for the car industry!
The oil companies, which are blackmailing us over the refineries, have accumulated considerable profits over the years, profits which must be reinvested in order to modernize their industry for the general interest.
They must not then hide behind the environmental question to justify the closures which they had - unfortunately - planned, whatever we decide today.
Mr President, we in Parliament can note with pleasure that the Council has tightened up the Commission's original proposal on important points and moved in the direction of Parliament's position.
On the other hand, the majority on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection supported Mrs Hautala's modifications concerning fuel.
These amendments were sensible considering the short time remaining until implementation in the year 2000.
It is important to stimulate technical development towards more advanced exhaust gas purification technology and towards more fuel-efficient engines by guaranteeing access to fuel with a very low sulphur content until the year 2005.
During the transition period we would then also see a substantial improvement with regard to emissions from older vehicles.
This is quite simply a short cut to better air quality.
On the other hand, I think that the Committee on the Environment has gone too far with regard to aromatics in petrol in the year 2000.
On this point I think the Council has a more realistic approach.
In a large number of modern refineries there is a conflict between sulphur requirements and aromatics requirements.
From the environmental point of view the sulphur requirement is much more important and should therefore be given priority.
In addition, modern catalytic converter technology takes care of the aromatics.
It is also important for Member States to be allowed to take a lead and to have the right to use economic means of control to improve the environment.
In large parts of Sweden a fuel is used which meets the requirements being made for the year 2005. I can guarantee that the environment has been manifestly improved where this fuel has been used.
It is also easy to use economic means of control and to prevent them from being used in such a way that competition is restricted.
Finally, it is pleasing to note that the development towards cars with zero emissions is moving so quickly.
We can see them, not only as a vision, but also as a reality.
Mr President, the European Parliament will today give its opinion on two proposals for directives in which there is a considerable amount at stake, for the environment, for industry and for employment.
Our position must therefore achieve a fair balance between the desire to improve air quality and to promote new technologies, as well as our desire to maintain competitiveness and employment in the European vehicle and oil industries.
You will tell me it is a little like squaring the circle, and I would like to make a number of observations. Firstly, reasonable time limits must be defined to allow industry to adapt to the new standards.
Secondly, we need to know if controls greater than those strictly necessary would not cause exactly the opposite effects to the ones we are hoping for, in particular an increase in cars, thus provoking an ageing of the cars on the road and a worsening of pollution and safety risks, along with economic difficulties for the manufacturers.
The Council's position already seemed to be an improvement in relation to that of the Commission.
Parliament is calling for more severe standards and it seems as though some of them can be accepted by the Council.
It is therefore possible to find a satisfactory balance which is not maximalist and which shows that Parliament knows how to fulfil its responsibilities, both at environmental and industrial level.
Mr President, economic arguments have long prevailed in debates on this subject.
On the one hand, the oil industry, with highly disparate technical and financial conditions between the countries of the South and North and, on the other, the automobile industry, bombard us with their arguments.
We, however, would like to concentrate on the issue of the environment and public health.
Air quality is essential to public health: 7 to 10 % of cases of respiratory disease in children and 19 % of cases of pulmonary illnesses are but a few figures that may be attributed to air pollution.
It has been proved that the excessively high concentrations of particles in the air originating from lead reduce children's intelligence levels.
In some European capitals, the speed limit is reduced in response to air pollution, when traffic is not banned completely.
We wish here to demonstrate and express our support for the position of the Committee on the Environment because this problem also exists in southern Europe.
But we would like to concentrate primarily on three main points.
Firstly, we must combat leaded petrol: it must urgently be eliminated.
The Union and Member States should launch a major information campaign to make citizens aware of the environmental advantages of unleaded petrol.
Secondly, we need to defending the establishment of binding emission values by the year 2005, contrary to the position of the Council and of the oil industry, because this is the only way to seriously commit the industry to an environmental contract with society as a whole.
Finally, in our view, the role of the European Parliament now, as at first reading, is to raise the benchmark vis--vis the original proposal.
We should also leave the matter of maximum values for sulphur emission for negotiation with the Council, during conciliation procedures. This is because we acknowledge that there are cases, such as in Portugal, where the absence of environmental investment in the sector has caused the postponement of reforms that are today proving to be unavoidable.
Mr President, we face a challenge here today.
Can Parliament coherently defend public health and the environment, maintaining the values of the quality of fuels and continuing to call for better technology in motor vehicles, as stated in the Hautala and Lange reports adopted by the Committee on the Environment? Or will we give in to the numerous pressures from the economic sectors involved?
I do not dispute that what we are requesting here implies financial and research efforts by the oil and automobile industries.
But it cannot be denied that air pollution in our cities, including Lisbon and Oporto, frequently reaches levels that threaten public health, and that recent studies confirm that the lead content in children's blood in risk zones and in urban areas exceeds admissible levels.
There is no doubt that particles, benzine, and other pollutants produced by automobile combustion are highly cancerogenic.
Therefore, we need better cars and better fuels, particularly in view of the fact that no significant technological improvement is possible with the current content of sulphur in petrol and diesel. This is true both for the introduction of a new generation of catalytic converters, or a new generation of engines, such as direct injection for petrol, which has significantly lower consumption which can fall below 25 % in the urban cycle.
Lower consumption means lower spending for consumers, less pollution and less CO2 emissions - the main gas responsible for climate change.
Hence, the calculated annual costs of ESC 1 000 per motor vehicle, and ESC 1 800 per diesel vehicle may not even apply, as a result of the technological evolution leading to the production of better cars with lower consumption.
It should also be emphasized that better fuels immediately mean less pollution, since even today's cars will function better and produce lower emissions.
The individual cases of CEPSA, REPSOL and PETROGAL cannot force the whole of Europe, and particularly the Spanish and Portuguese populations, to continue to breath health-threatening, polluted air.
If these companies experience particular problems, then it is up to their respective governments to negotiate covenants with them which define time frames and mechanisms.
As a Member of Parliament, I am ready to analyse with an open mind any requests for derogation that may be submitted to me.
However, I cannot hesitate in defending the Huatala and Lange reports which are the only possible way of reconciling conflicting interests in a manner which allows this Parliament democratically to state its position in defending the rights of Europe's citizens.
Mr President, although we aim, reasonably and justifiably, to lessen the need for traffic, especially car traffic, in transport and regional planning, the unpleasant truth is that the number of cars in Europe, and more particularly globally, is going to grow.
This means increased risk to vulnerable nature and people's health.
Against this background the Auto-Oil programme is most welcome.
The European Parliament at first reading clearly took a more progressive position than the Commission on which targets for exhaust emissions should be met by the years 2000 and 2005.
Only binding targets on emissions are valid.
The recommendations of the Council do not put enough pressure on the European oil industry to develop their technology to produce better and cleaner products.
Nor has the Council yet understood the power of tax incentives, which encourage consumers to use better quality fuel.
In any case, this has already happened, and with good results.
Employment is an issue in Europe.
Slowing down the adoption of cleaner technology will not serve to aid employment.
It might go the other way.
Consumer demand favours those refineries which make environmentally friendly products.
Unless these products are available in Europe, other companies and products from outside may come to dominate European markets.
The effects on employment of this are unfathomable.
We must ensure that we remain competitive and that oil products in Europe are of the highest quality.
Mr President, we are all concerned about air quality.
Now we are asking the vehicle and oil industries to make an effort.
Let us look first at the vehicle manufacturers.
For the past thirty years we have been asking them to make significant efforts, and they have contributed some 90 % to the improvement of air quality in terms of their vehicles' emissions.
Now we are asking them to comply with even more stringent controls.
I am more in favour of the common position, considering that the constraints imposed it are already significant.
In my opinion the figures must be made compulsory so that our industries can be clear on the issue and define their strategies for development accordingly.
I therefore believe that it is particularly important that the measures be made compulsory by the year 2005.
But technological developments in the area of car manufacture will not be able to truly bear fruit unless there is a manifest improvement in the quality of fuel.
In this respect, it is absolutely necessary that the oil companies make the necessary efforts.
Up until now, it is not they who have participated most in the improvement of air quality.
It is thus important that the oil companies make an effort to reduce the level of sulphur, amongst other things.
We know it is essential for the nitrogen oxide catalytic converter, and in my opinion this is particularly important.
That is why I wish to support fully and vote for the Hautala report, because it seems to me completely incoherent to call for efforts from the vehicle industry and not to ask for significant efforts on the part of the oil industry in order to make the new technologies completely effective.
That is all I wanted to say.
May I add that if fuel is improved, we will immediately see the short-term effects, since this will concern all vehicles and we will immediately note improvements in air quality.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the car is part of our freedom.
We do not want to give it up, and the car is essential for our economy.
But it is a very young means of transport, still at the beginning of its life cycle.
For me, it is fascinating what the car industry is already capable of.
The competition to get a better and more environmentally friendly car on the market first, the car of the future, is enormous.
However, it is certainly not our job as Members of Parliament to protect the automotive industry in its efforts to produce cars despite the impact on the market and the health of our population.
I also find it fascinating that Renault's exhaust gas expert, Mr Hublain, is calling on this Parliament to adopt stricter requirements for petrol and diesel.
Better fuels are the key to reducing emissions, and we must give them our wholehearted support.
The oil companies are worried about their high investments.
For one thing, the fuels Parliament wants to see already exist in various countries.
No-one denies they will involve greater investment, but the oil companies' balance sheets are remarkably healthy; they are making enormous profits.
I am sure they can take these investments in their stride.
To avoid any misunderstandings, I have nothing against large international companies or anyone else making big profits, but it is our job to look after our population's health, and it is also one of the Community's declared objectives.
As Members of Parliament, we are bound to implement the duties of the Community as laid down in the treaties.
We will have a chance to put this into practice in tomorrow's vote.
Mr President, this debate has been something of a battle between the vehicle and the oil industries to woo the European Parliament to one or other side.
I regret that because the position is rather more complicated by the chemistry of this Parliament itself.
It has to be recognized that the European Parliament has built up - and we see this in the persons of our rapporteurs - a certain expertise in this field.
Parliament is reluctant to abdicate a role in the conciliation process which we would do if we simply said 'fine' to the common position.
I would ask you to remember that this is the last open debate to be had on these subjects before they disappear into the Conciliation Committee.
I and my British Conservative colleagues are likely to support the Hautala amendments but we have our doubts over some of those proposed by Mr Lange.
We accept that there are some Lange amendments which require changes in vehicle production that would be very difficult if not impossible to bring about within the accelerated time scale proposed.
On the other hand, we see the Hautala amendments as likely to bring about improvements quite rapidly which will affect all vehicles on the road and not simply the very new ones.
However, I want to sound an alarm over the question of leaded petrol.
We should not look kindly on legislation that, on the one hand, says that all leaded petrol will be banned from 1 January 2000 and then also says that where a country can plead socioeconomic difficulties this ban will not have to apply until the year 2005.
This kind of thing makes it very difficult to argue that we all care equally about Europe's environment.
In some of our more crowded ancient cities enormous damage is being done to people's health by emissions from leaded petrol engines.
The let-out clause for such countries would allow this to continue for another seven years.
We welcome the ban from January 2000 but we owe it to the millions of people who own cars that run on leaded petrol to tell them what happens then.
In Britain there will be 1.3 million cars at least still on the road in 2000 that were designed to run on leaded petrol.
Imagine the headlines: ' Brussels drives us off the road' .
It is now up to the oil industry and to the governments in the countries which have no contingency plan to find some way out to offer people who own these cars, either through the marketing of lead additives or through the marketing of re-formulated petrol.
We owe it to these people and the Commission, national governments and the European Parliament should come up with some solution for them.
Mr President, Commissioners, the citizens of Europe are rightly asking to be able to breathe clean air in their cities, and the Auto-Oil programme, which the European Parliament is preparing to vote on at second reading, proposes a global strategy for trying to achieve specific air quality objectives, in line with the recommendations of the World Health Organization.
We are faced with two very important measures that will certainly have an impact on the environment as well as on the industrial strategies of our countries: the Hautala report proposes to establish new regulations on petrol by the years 2000-2005, particularly as regards the percentage of reduction in petrol, aromatic products and sulphur contained in fuels, that are causing serious illnesses such as cancer; and the Lange report proposes to make certain modifications to engines by those same dates, providing them, for example, with a special on-board diagnostics system (OBD) to control the limit values for emissions.
According to the Lange report, the motor industry is therefore required, in a realistic and technically feasible space of time, to adapt to the specific limits laid down by the directive while, with the Hautala report, we can go further than the common position, maintaining the modifications introduced by the Committee on the Environment, aimed mainly at establishing stricter limits for petrol and diesel.
Italy, in anticipation of the Community directive, has imposed severe limits for some time on petrol (1 %), aromatics (35 %) and oxygenized products (2.7 %) and, apart from several problems with sulphur and lead - for which stricter limits should be achieved by 2005 - has certainly the best petrol in Europe today.
I hope that these directives, improved by Parliament during conciliation, are approved and come into effect as soon as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of a long list of speakers, including many from my group, it is up to me to say something new.
That is not an easy task, but I think I can manage.
First of all, I would like to set out the position of the Group of the European People's Party. Some differences certainly emerged in this debate.
It has been quite a struggle, but I can inform you that my group is in favour of the Lange report and the Hautala report.
We have not been able to support all the details.
However, we are first and foremost in favour of mandatory values for 2005 in both reports, and I think that is the key issue.
I am glad that we have achieved this result and that we will therefore be giving this our 314 votes at tomorrow's sitting.
I would like to make a comment now on competition.
I believe it is right that we have discussed the competitiveness of German industry and industry in other Member States; it is also right that these industries have presented the problems to us and that we are looking at this in a global European context.
But there is an important difference between this and our normal debates.
We often burden our industry with conditions that other players on the world market do not have to comply with, which therefore restricts competition.
This case is totally different, because if a company or a refinery outside the EU wants to sell petrol within the EU, it has to comply with our conditions.
So it is not a question of a distortion of competition that will push up our production costs, but rather a sensible means of protecting the environment and enhancing our capacity for innovation.
Finally, I would like to make a comment to the Commission.
I am sorry that Mr Bangemann is not with us.
I would like to say this to him personally, but you can pass it on to him, Mrs Bjerregaard.
We have a new European Union health policy, thanks to this Parliament.
Even Mr Bangemann changed his view.
He brought forward some good proposals on baby food and the labelling of maize and soya.
Please tell him that we would be delighted if he decided to share Parliament's viewpoint.
Perhaps that will make him realize what is needed, and enable us to get a really good result in the Conciliation Committee.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
European Environment Agency -European environment information and observation network
The next item is K. Collins' report (A4-0030/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EEC) amending Council Regulation EEC No 1210/90 on the establishment of the European Environment Agency and the European environment information and observation network (COM(97)0282 - C4-0363/97-97/0168(SYN)).
Mr President, the Agency regulation which we are, I hope, going to conclude this evening, entered into force in October 1993.
I do not need to go into the history of it.
It was a fairly vexed history at the time.
At the time it provided for a review of the regulation two years later.
However, the review itself was then postponed for a further two years to allow it to be a fully operational Agency.
If it had happened earlier it would not have been operational.
The Commission proposal, when it came, was fairly uncontroversial and the aim of the amendments to the proposal is to strengthen existing provisions and thereby allow the Agency to consolidate its work to date.
However, I think a lot of people still do not understand what the functions of the Agency are.
That came through very clearly indeed when we were discussing it in committee. I would like, therefore, tonight, to lay out the aims of the Agency and then describe how my amendments will further them.
The key reason for setting up the Environment Agency in the first place was to facilitate the collection of comparable environmental data across the Community, across the whole of Europe, indeed.
Until the establishment of the Agency we had no way of comparing the state of each nation's environment, and yet comparable data are clearly a prerequisite for an effective environment policy.
Quite simply put, the Member States all collected environmental data, but you could not compare Spain with Portugal; you could not compare Portugal with Greece, nor Greece with Germany, nor Germany with the United Kingdom.
So we could not have an overall view of the state of the environment in the Community.
That was the reason, in the first instance, for setting up the Agency.
The long-term aim is for the Commission to use the data supplied to the Agency to help monitor the state of the European Union environment and also to implement environment policies more effectively.
The Commission reviews the Agency performance to date. Basically its review is pretty favourable.
It suggests some new areas for Agency action and, broadly speaking, is in favour of further increased cooperation between the Agency itself and third countries, particularly those in central and eastern Europe.
We very much welcome that, with the prospect of enlargement looming.
However, there are certain gaps in the review.
I have attempted to fill these with my amendments to the report.
For instance, the Commission proposal overlooks the very important role of Parliament.
It says very little about it.
It tends to over-emphasize the role played by the Commission and the Council.
I can understand why that happens, but I think it is right that we should correct it.
I also feel that the Agency and the Commission need to put in place a framework in order to facilitate greater cooperation between them and avoid duplication of each other's work.
The Commission should not be doing work that is being done by the Agency, and the Agency should not be doing work that is being done by the Commission.
We have tried to clarify that.
As the Agency plays a key role as information gatherer in the Community in order to aid the Commission's implementation and enforcement of legislation, it should be encouraged to cooperate more with bodies such as IMPEL because enforcement and implementation are key features of the development of environment policy in the Community.
It is clear that in order to provide information to the general public the Agency needs to publish documents in more languages, wherever possible.
That is one of the reasons why I fully support, for example, Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza's amendment.
I believe that the provision of the repository of information and a data register will allow the Agency to disseminate information better to the general public.
That is also a very important feature of environment policy in the Community.
Finally, if we are going to require the Agency, and we do, to produce a multi-annual work programme, then that has to be complemented by a multi-annual budget.
To do one without the other, I think, and the committee believes this, is entirely inconsistent.
That final point is very important because the key challenge faced by the Agency in the view of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection over the coming years will be the budgetary challenge.
Ladies and gentlemen, we would do well to note that simply because the Agency has not had its functions considerably expanded does not mean that it should have its budget frozen or reduced.
We need to consolidate its work.
This, after all, is an Agency that contributes significantly to European Union policy and could contribute even more significantly in the future.
Therefore it needs a degree of autonomy.
It requires the support of Parliament behind it.
The Agency needs to consolidate its work to date and then be allowed to expand if and when necessary.
But it can only do that if it receives the right budget.
Frankly, some of the attitudes displayed in some of the amendments that we received from one important committee of Parliament did not suggest that anybody really understood that properly.
This is a functional Agency. It is not a think-tank.
It is necessary for the Community.
It is a functional part of the Community and needs to be treated as such.
Mr President, this report is part of a five-year review of the European Environment Agency which is based in Copenhagen.
The aim of the Commission review is to decide if the agency's status and tasks need upgrading.
Obviously the nature and substance of its work is more a matter for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection than for the Committee on Budgets.
In the light of the financial constraints which apply right across the whole of the European Union, the budgetary implications for this agency are fundamental to its future.
Before I go any further I should like to congratulate the Director and staff of the Environment Agency on the way in which they have managed successfully to implement the objectives set out in the founding regulation and to express my appreciation of the way in which the agency has supported Parliament's moves towards transparency and accountability and the harmonization of the regulations.
The draft report by Mr Collins has taken over one of the three amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets, the one on Article 1(6).
The initiative recommended by this amendment will provide Parliament, as the political and budgetary authority, with the right to evaluate for the first time the cost-effectiveness of the environmental policy of the Union.
The tasks which are decentralized and executed by a satellite body and the activities run at a centralized level by the Commission need to be clearly defined in order to ensure complementarity and to avoid duplication.
On the other hand, Parliament has stated clear principles for all the agencies within the 1998 procedure.
Since the budget and the establishment plan are published in the budget and therefore belong to budgetary remarks, any change to them needs to be communicated to the budgetary authority.
The Committee on Budgets has been consistent with the Parliament's decision and has tabled its Amendment No 1 in this sense.
This was an opportunity to enable the Environment Agency to draw down resources for alternative budget lines and could have helped the agency to receive extra payments for rented services as its basic regulation allows, provided transparency is assured.
If the Environment Committee had maintained this amendment it would have given legislative coverage to that budgetary position.
We are sad that this has not been taken up.
The Committee on Budgets is also concerned about the annuality of the budget process in the Environment Committee's Amendment No 8.
In the same way, between the link between the work programme and the approved budget, there is now a horizontal principle adopted by Parliament which applies to all agencies and which gives them some sense of flexibility to make a selection of their priorities.
Therefore, the Committee on Budgets has introduced this principle in the legislative proposal.
Mr President, there can be no doubt that we think the Environment Agency in Copenhagen has made a good start to its activities.
We now hope that with these opinions we can make the Environment Agency even better.
The starting point for the Committee on Research has partly been to not demand too many changes, since the Environment Agency has just started many of its new tasks.
However, we have proposed some minor changes.
The Agency's task is to provide us with information about environmental policy so that we can conduct a good environmental policy.
We on the Committee on Research think there should be a unit within the Environment Agency to check the quality of data and assess the uncertainty in the material collected from the various countries.
The main task of this unit would be to continuously monitor the quality of the data being offered and to be expressly responsible for identifying and describing the uncertainty which there is in much of the data collected.
In addition, the unit should also have the authority to question the national data collected, and be given sufficient resources, if appropriate, to seek and obtain alternative information.
It is only with relevant information that we can make the necessary and right decisions in the environmental sector.
Within the Environment Agency a great deal of expertise about the environmental area has also been built up.
It would therefore be a great mistake if this environmental expertise was not used.
Consequently, the Committee on Research recommends that the Environment Agency should not only do work to order, for example where giving advice and expert opinions are concerned, but that it should also be able to initiate various projects itself.
In addition, it is, of course, important for us to be able to disseminate the information which the Environment Agency collects so that everyone is able to use it, not least the general public and non-governmental organizations, the research community, students, etcetera, in order to make the material and thus the EU's environmental policy as good as possible in future.
Mr President, for us, the Members involved in the struggle to create and establish the European Environment Agency, nothing is more satisfying than the Collins report on the assessment and revision of that Agency's responsibilities.
As Mr Collins shows, in the short time it has been in existence the Agency has amply fulfilled the objectives established by the then President of the Commission, Jacques Delors. It has accurately and competently provided objective, comparable information on the environmental situation in Europe, so that Parliament, the Commission and the Member States can all respond appropriately.
Having said that, I just want to spend a moment on one aspect of the new responsibilities: the area of strengthening its information function.
In other words, whenever possible, the Agency should try to issue its publications in all the official languages of the European Union, as Mr Collins said.
Otherwise, the valuable work the Agency does to spread information would be diminished, and it would cease to fulfil its main objective.
I realize, Mr President, that that involves extra expense.
But the cost of environmental damage is greater, and one of the objectives of the European Environment Agency is to prevent that very damage, as I said a moment ago.
An amendment has been presented on this point and I hope the Commission and the Council will see fit to accept it.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, of course the European Environmental Agency wasted a lot of time at the beginning, because it was three years until its location was decided.
We are still making up for that lost time.
Nevertheless, despite all the problems that entailed, the Agency has done some very good functional work, which I would particularly like to acknowledge here.
However, it is also true to say that the amendments to the regulation on the establishment of the European Environmental Agency essentially reflect the functional requirements that have since become apparent, and that only limited changes in its role are envisaged.
The planned widening of the Agency's role relates to supporting the Commission in monitoring environmental impact and in producing reports, disseminating information on environmental research and setting up a repository of environmental information.
We also particularly welcome the proposal that the Agency should support the Commission as regards the reports.
The objective of involving the Agency in reports must, however, be to avoid duplication in cases when the Commission and the Agency separately request data and reports from Member States. We also need to ensure that the Commission and the Agency act on the basis of the same sets of data.
In monitoring the work of the EEA we need to put special emphasis on the need, as a long-term objective, to harmonize national environmental information systems with the European environment information and observation network; to ensure close coordination between the Agency and the Member States on the subject and methods of data acquisition; and lastly, to make sure that we do not create data cemeteries by gathering and archiving unwanted and useless data.
On a formal note, I must once again criticize the Commission for not presenting a consolidated proposal, which made the discussions Mr Collins led considerably more difficult.
Mr President, I congratulate our rapporteur on the studied and calm analysis of the way which the Agency is performing.
It is very good and I congratulate the Commission also on that.
I am bound to say that, until we get some helicopters in the Agency and introduce the concept of people coming from Copenhagen to put matters right, with those helicopters descending upon areas of serious environmental damage, then nobody is going to take it that seriously.
But if we saw a helicopter they would and I am not being entirely silly about this because, although I have had this debate with my colleagues in the Environment Committee, I am conscious that our aspirations for the Agency are completely different from that what has been set up.
As Mrs Schleicher said, it is a tame cemetery for data, that is not really good enough.
What we should be aspiring to - and it would necessarily mean a change in the status and the statute of the Agency - is an Agency which is capable of carrying out international inspection.
That means paying serious attention to the issue of enforcement which sadly, at the moment, is overlooked.
We do not have the mechanism by which environmental law and policy can be enforced throughout the Union partly because that is still done by the nation-states.
Nobody is going to respect nation-state agencies; they would however respect, in my view, an Agency which was international in composition and was an inspectorate of inspectorates.
That is a long way away and perhaps we should not be making that kind of assessment of the Agency work so far, but unless somebody says from time to time that those should be the aspirations of the Agency, then it was surely not worthwhile Copenhagen putting up the understandable fight that it did to have the institution based there.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the decision in 1990 to found a scientifically independent European Environment Agency for the collection, processing and analysis of environmental data at a European level was an important development in the attempt to work out a credible and coherent policy for the environment sector in the European Union.
Four years after that Agency began operating, we are called upon, on the basis of experiences and appraisals, to approve amendments in its founding regulation that will improve its work.
The main aim of the amendments must be to extend and assist the collection and processing of reliable facts and figures, and especially the provision of information both to the institutional bodies and to the Member States for the elaboration of measures and policies.
We therefore favour improved information and the formation of links between the Agency's work and the Community's institutional bodies, especially a stronger link between the Agency and the European Parliament.
This is because Parliament's contribution to the preparation of policy guidelines and its participation in the process of legislation play a definitive and continually increasing role in the final formulation of environmental policy in the European Union.
The Commission should not overlook that fact.
Besides, we must stress that the policy of broader information dissemination via networks and telematic applications to all the decision-making centres, and to the wider public, will also contribute positively towards the appraisal of solutions and help make people aware of the justification and use of environmentally friendly technologies.
We know that the correct application of Community law is today the Achilles' heel of environment protection policy in the European Union.
The Agency can play an important part in collecting data and monitoring compliance with Community law once the use of the IMPEL network has been reinforced and extended.
We are in favour of the Agency incorporating support for the Commission in the process of information exchange and the development of criteria for the assessment of environmental impact into its duties, since important problems have emerged in all the Member States due to the incorrect application of that directive.
The amendments proposed are, I believe, necessary if the Agency's valuable work is to continue at European level, especially with the challenges the European Union will be facing when the forthcoming enlargement takes place.
Mr President, may I start by thanking the European Parliament for having put this amendment to the regulations on the Environmental Agency on the agenda.
I think it is important that we get these proposals passed as soon as possible, so that the Agency can start working under its new operating conditions.
I would also like to thank Ken Collins, the rapporteur, for the work which has gone into the report.
The Agency has got off to a good start, and its work is progressing well, as has been emphasized in the debate here.
This is gratifying, and I know that Parliament thinks the Agency is very important.
In the public debate, we have also been very pleased by the reports which the Agency has published, so we must continue to push on.
And let me start by pointing out an important opportunity for development.
It is vital that the Agency comes to play a role in the development of central and eastern Europe.
We must ensure that the countries which so desire can be involved in the Agency's work, as Mr Collins, the rapporteur, also emphasized.
I think the rapporteur's amendments are very positive, and I am very pleased at the constructive comments on the Commission's proposals.
Amendment No 1 concerns the Agency's support for developing and implementing environmental policy.
The Commission accepts both the proposal to return to the original wording of the regulations and references to other EU institutions.
Nor is there any problem with the reference to the schedule of work.
So we are agreed that there will be close cooperation, and we will work towards that.
Amendment No 2 states that the information records as proposed are to include a data register.
The Commission supports this, but I have been informed that there may be some legal obstacles to the subsequent text on reporting on the Community and national legislation and so we will have to look at this more closely.
The amendment also refers to enforcement, and this really takes us back to previous debates.
The Agency's main role is to provide the institutions of the Community and Member States with information on what is happening with our environment.
This can be achieved by working closely with Member States.
If we start to mix the information role with an enforcement role and incorporate this in the regulations, we risk undermining the cooperation and hence the effectiveness of the Agency.
In fact, this may mean that we risk not getting the information we need, and that also makes it clear that I do not share the view which Ian White expressed in his contribution.
I do not feel we should include enforcement in the Agency's tasks, because it is assumed that the conclusions which the Agency reaches on the environmental situation will tell us more about whether our legislation and mechanisms are being effective.
And, as Parliament knows, I have not been backward when it comes to enforcement.
Amendments Nos 3 and 6 are useful proposals which the Commission accepts.
As far as Amendment No 4 is concerned, we can only accept the wording that the Agency will ensure that environmental information is widely distributed if we can add a note to the effect that, in particular, this includes information on the environmental situation.
This will help focus work on the Agency's skills and knowledge without preventing work in other fields.
We accept the demand for enabling the use of all official languages which both Mr Collins and Mrs Diez de Rivera wanted.
However, we think the reference to a new article 2.14 is superfluous.
As far as Amendment No 5 is concerned, the legal department informs us that Parliament's proposals should not propose amendments to articles which have already been amended in the Commission's proposals.
Having said that, we can support the point on IMPEL which Mr Collins also brought up today, and I can tell you that cooperation is already in place, as was confirmed at the last IMPEL meeting.
I can also state that the Council's environmental working party is considering how this specific reference can be included in the regulations.
Amendment Nos 7 and 8 are understandable, but we believe they are unnecessary.
Finally, as regards Amendment No 9, we can support the comment that the next audit of the Agency's work should be carried out as part of developing the EU's environmental policy in general.
The Agency can help us considerably by establishing itself as an independent, objective supplier of reliable information: this could be on greenhouse gas emissions, coolant tanks and so on.
In view of this, I cannot rule out assessing profitability, and the Commission's proposals therefore include a demand for an assessment of results and effectiveness in 1999.
However, profitability will be examined in terms of the Agency's own targets, roles and results and not in any wider context such as the Commission's targets.
Finally, I would like to say that we can also accept the comment in Amendment No 9 that Parliament should also receive the audit report by 15 September 1999, and I would like to end by giving my thanks once more for the debate we have had today and thanking Mr Collins, the rapporteur, for all the work on the proposals.
Once again, the focus has been on the Agency's work, and that is good.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Ionized food
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0042/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common positions adopted by the Council with a view to adopting European Parliament and Council Directives on
the approximation of the laws of the Member States concerning foods and food ingredients treated with ionizing radiation (C4-0562/97-00/0169(COD))andthe establishment of a Community list of foods and food ingredients treated with ionizing radiation (C4-0561/97-00/0169(COD))(Rapporteur: Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz).
Mr President, eight and a half years ago this House debated the implementing directive on 'the irradiation of foodstuffs' .
We decided at that time, and for very good reasons, to allow only herbs and spices to be irradiated.
It then took the Council eight and a half years to reach agreement on a common position.
An implementing directive for herbs and spices has been published, and a corresponding framework directive.
We are now in the absurd situation of having a framework directive at second reading, without it having had a first reading, which in turn means that according to the President's ruling we cannot table any new amendments, because we did not table any at first reading.
Things are getting positively Kafkaesque.
Admittedly, we did not table any amendments on the control process and the standardized analysis process, but there was no way we could do that, for one thing because there was no framework directive which they might have formed part of.
What is even worse, these processes did not even exist!
How could this House demand something that did not exist at that time?
Of course no-one is arguing with the idea that we need a common regime, because irradiation is allowed in some Member States and banned in others.
We have no regime, so we have no labelling requirements, which means that consumers have absolutely no idea if something is irradiated or not.
But they must have a choice, a chance to choose, because it is well known that irradiation destroys vitamins.
Consumers think they are buying fresh fruit, but it is not fresh fruit at all - it has the same nutritional value as deep-frozen or bottled fruit.
Nor does anyone deny that some nutritional value is lost.
No-one denies that toxicological changes take place whose effects we know nothing about.
It is also worth asking why irradiation is needed at all.
World hunger is then offered as a justification.
Fair enough, but should we buy fruit and vegetables by the tonne to support the market, and simultaneously irradiate fruit and vegetables to make them last longer?
There is something not quite right there!
Anyway, we are scarcely going to reduce world hunger and feed the starving masses by irradiating frogs legs, prawns, shrimps, mussels and so forth.
I believe, and I am sure that you will agree with me here, that it should only be permissible to irradiate food for preservation if it is safe healthwise, if it is essential for consumers, and if we can detect that it has been irradiated, otherwise there is no point in having labelling at all.
If we cannot detect that food has been irradiated, no-one is going to put it on the label, because it is highly likely that consumers would then be put off buying it.
Furthermore, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has ensured that Parliament will play a part in general terms at least with regard to the forthcoming positive list under Article 100a.
It used to be the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs, which as we all know meets undemocratically behind closed doors, so that we would have been kept totally in the dark.
For all the reasons that I have just explained, I implore you to accept the amendments proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
There will of course also be a separate debate when we vote tomorrow about something which, as I said at the beginning, I find quite absurd.
I am referring to the fact that amendments concerning the analysis and control process are being ruled out because we are told that this is the second reading, and there were no such amendments at first reading.
But it was impossible to table such amendments during the first reading, firstly because one did not take place and secondly because the technology did not exist anyway.
That brings me to my last point, the logo to be used. The logo envisaged at present is a joke!
I have tried it out on various people; I have drawn it and written next to it: ' What do you think this is? Is it an organic vegetable, a children's toy, what do you think?' .
I have to tell you that food irradiation was about the last thing anyone thought of! I regard it as the worst kind of deliberate deception of the public.
It really does not help if 'irradiated' is written next to it in tiny letters, because who knows what that really means? We know perhaps, but what about the average citizen?
And does the print have to be so small? I think that we really cannot approve the logo as envisaged at present, because it amounts to deliberate deception, and I have tabled an amendment about this.
As so often, this has been handled badly.
It would be absurd not to approve something that is desperately needed.
We also need to consider what we will do if the Council takes years to agree on a common position!
In the meantime the world will have changed and changed again ten times, the political climate will have altered, new technologies will have emerged and we shall be stuck with two readings that no longer make any sense at all. I beg you to change our Rules of Procedure so that we can get on with protecting the consumer instead of putting this issue on the back burner because of legal niceties.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on her long involvement in this matter which far preceded my coming into this Parliament and may well go on long after I have left it.
Apparently the international radura label is sending Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz blind.
There are many things that might send you blind, but I would not have thought this innocent label is one of them.
It is one of the issues on which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection took a different view in its own debate from the point of view the rapporteur has put today.
Opinion is still divided on when and how irradiation can be used for the preservation of food.
What has changed, of course, in these eight years - and this makes it impossible for us to go back to a renewed first reading - is the arrival of the Single Market.
In many Member States now, which have set their face against irradiation, there is a probability that they will now have to admit irradiated foods whether they like it or not.
Tesco, in my country, has shown that a not insignificant percentage of foodstuffs not declared as irradiated have been found to be so.
So I think one of the first principles which is in the proposals that have come back to us in this long-delayed common position which we have been presented with is that you should put consumer safety - and first, and foremost, information - at the head of our agenda.
The principles which should guide us today have been clear since that first reading debate.
They are: only irradiate when public health gains and the consumer benefits; label with accuracy but not with hysteria; and strictly limit the products which are so treated with additions subject to codecision.
Frogs' legs, which Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz mentioned, are now struck off from the list of products, and quite rightly so.
We are now down to three products.
We do not want to see further additions without a quite specific procedure subject to codecision once more before they are authorized.
This is what the Environment Committee's own amendments have attempted.
The consensus that we have built there, supplemented tonight, I hope, by agreement on the radura label - I look forward to hearing what the spokesman of the EPP says on this because they have been very reluctant to have any proper warning labelling - is the best approach, rather than the skull and cross-bones approach which we have had from the rapporteur.
I do not know which of the amendments will be ruled in order because a number were struck out in the Environment Committee.
So it is hard to argue a hypothesis.
We do not know what you will accept at this stage.
We cannot support Amendments Nos 29, 31, 32 and 33 because the key cautionary words there - what the rapporteur wishes to say - have been absorbed into the other committee amendments or by alternative symbols or the careful wording we have put in our Amendment No 30.
In conclusion, what we want is a precautionary framework and not a prohibitive diatribe.
I appeal to colleagues to support the amendments of the Environment Committee.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can understand the rapporteur's dissatisfaction at the rejection of these amendments which are only made necessary in the first place because of a new report from the Council.
I urge the President to reconsider this, because we really need these amendments.
They concern new issues that we need to vote on, in my opinion.
So I too believe it is high time we made some headway on the directive on the irradiation of foodstuffs. A start was made many years back.
The previous speakers have already mentioned that it took the Council eight years to reach a decision.
Of course national regulations range from a complete ban on irradiation to its unrestricted use.
That means there will naturally be problems in reaching a consensus, but eight years seems a bit too long to me.
At the heart of all this are the people who ultimately consume these foodstuffs, the consumers.
I believe that they should be able to tell if a product has been irradiated or not.
The labelling requirement takes account of this and is therefore an essential component of this directive.
Mr Whitehead, we need to clearly follow the labelling directive here, as it shows us the way forward.
Madam rapporteur, you yourself have seen the problems with new signs and symbols.
They will not work.
Let us stick to what the consumer knows and write it on the label.
As far as I am concerned we could also stipulate the dimensions in centimetres or some other unit.
But consumers are used to the label showing how a product has been treated.
So I would like to make a plea that we should proceed along the lines of the labelling directive, which seems far better.
Another extremely important issue is the detectability of irradiation.
Without it, how can we spot any inaccurate information on labels? If we are to allow foodstuffs to be irradiated, we must ensure that the interests of the consumer are protected and that proper monitoring is possible.
These proposals would guarantee that.
Furthermore, we must stick to the principle that hygiene and health provisions, and satisfactory production and farming methods, in accordance with European standards should always be given priority over irradiating foodstuffs.
We must veto any attempts to rely on irradiation instead because it might be cheaper.
We have our consumers' health in our hands here today.
We take this responsibility seriously and call for compulsory labelling and for checks on irradiated products, in order to protect Europe's consumers.
We in this Parliament naturally want to take part in the important decision-making process that lies ahead.
Nothing inspires more confidence in consumers than open discussion in Parliament.
We will certainly have enough to discuss when it comes to the list of approved foods.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal regarding the ionization of food was presented for first reading in 1989.
It raised so many problems, so many fears on the part of the general public, Parliament and the Council, that the latter did not adopt a common position until 27 October 1997, eight years later!
To clarify the debate, two quite distinct parts have been proposed: on the one hand, a framework directive regarding the general conditions for food ionization, and on the other, an implementing directive establishing the list of food products which may be ionized, a list which currently consists of only one category of product: herbs and spices. This has been agreed on, there are no complaints, but it still has to be implemented in stages until 31 December 2000, in consultation with the Scientific Committee for Food.
We can congratulate ourselves on the adoption of this directive, whose objective is firstly to safeguard health, but also to provide the consumer with sufficient information.
Indeed, all the studies carried out up until now have unambiguously demonstrated that ionization of food products poses no risk whatsoever to the health and safety of the consumer.
The ionization of food, of products susceptible to contamination, for example, must even be considered as beneficial to the consumer by providing safer, healthier food and by preserving the nutritional quality of the product better than other techniques.
However, this method must not serve to cover up defective preparation of a food product, nor be employed when it is not necessary.
In conclusion, this directive brings every possible guarantee of clear information and control of the different stages of food ionization.
It can be voted for without the amendments proposed by the rapporteur, which bring no improvement and which, on the contrary, risk causing detrimental confusion by using a symbol, which is misleadingly worrying, which would label food as "radura' when an unambiguous label has already been provided for.
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur on her work on this report.
In the common position irradiation is accepted as a possible method of preserving foodstuffs.
Even though at present there is only one category, which was mentioned earlier, namely herbs and spices, it is still the idea that it should be possible to use it for considerably more foodstuffs.
I believe that is what people must take into consideration when they decide on this issue.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has put its finger on the health aspects.
I think that is important and would appeal to the Members of this House to support the amendments from the Committee on the Environment.
Then there will be an opportunity to further strengthen the opinions in the common position.
We know that in today's EU it is the case that certain countries allow the irradiation of foodstuffs, while other countries do not allow it, such as Sweden and Germany.
Personally I am of the opinion that radiation does not belong together with food and foodstuffs.
It should therefore not be allowed to happen.
In itself, what has been said here may be true, that it does not present any risk to human health.
There are also tough requirements so that it is not allowed to present any risk.
However, there is another aspect, namely the false impression of freshness which irradiated foodstuffs can give.
Food can look as if it is quite fresh, even though underneath it is old and quite bad.
That is a way to mislead consumers.
In this respect, it does not help no matter how many labels are put on food because the appearance itself misleads consumers.
For my part, I am going to support the rapporteur's amendments in this House, even though my group is limiting itself mainly to supporting the amendments proposed by the Committee on the Environment.
I see it as two steps: first and foremost that we support the Committee on the Environment; but the same time it would make sense to go a step further and support the amendments which have been presented to the parliamentary debate by the Green Group.
Mr President, the fact that several Member States have already been imposing a ban on the irradiation of foodstuffs for many years, and that this has worked very well, shows that irradiation is fundamentally unnecessary as a method of preserving food.
There are also clear disadvantages with losses in nutritional value when you extend the shelf life of foodstuffs.
The best thing in this situation would be if we could decide on a ban on the irradiation of foodstuffs with the exception of herbs and spices, but we do not have that option here.
The choice between the Council's position and the proposals of the Committee on the Environment is simple.
The Committee on the Environment tightens the rules in this area on a number of points, not least with regard to labelling, the view on hygiene and health practices which cannot be substituted by irradiation, and methods of analysis.
My group is therefore going to vote in favour, not only of the Committee on the Environment's amendments, but also most of the amendments proposed by the Green Group.
Mr President, in October 1989 I was amongst those who voted for my colleague, Mrs Block von Blottnitz's report, who at the time was no longer here. She had been replaced by Mrs Quistoudt-Rowohl but in fact it was she who had drawn up the report.
This report, which was voted for by a very large majority, proposed the banning of the principle of food irradiation, with the exception of herbs and spices.
The position of the Council, which is a double one, and which has taken eight years to reach us, is based on the opposite logic.
Now it is setting up this method as a method of food conservation with, firstly, the possibility of irradiating herbs and spices.
Given the enormous amount of time that has lapsed, I therefore find it logical to accept all the amendments which move in the direction of re-establishing the position at the time of the first reading.
I note that some of the amendments will not be put to the vote, unless the Presidency changes its mind before tomorrow, in particular Amendment No 27, but also two amendments which were approved by the Committee on the Environment, numbers 10 and 13.
Nevertheless, there is a problem with this.
The Chairman of the Committee on the Environment rejected certain amendments but accepted others and the Presidency of the Parliament has taken another position.
You must admit that this makes things a bit messy.
In such conditions, wisdom would suggest that all of the amendments are accepted and submitted to the vote, in the knowledge that some will not be voted for.
I would though like to ask for two types of amendment: those which recommend a logo.
I have furthermore cosigned, with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, an amendment requesting that there should be a very clear logo.
Indeed, the labelling as it is anticipated is insufficient, we all know that, and does not enable the consumer to be seriously informed.
In addition, I believe that it is necessary to have a systematic method of analysis.
How can we accept that irradiated products may be put on the market when a standardized and effective method of analysis does not exist? It is unacceptable.
You cannot have a ruling which has no method of verifying whether it has been respected or not.
It is incoherent.
I therefore propose that we vote for these amendments through a concern for coherence, in particular, Amendment No 27.
Mr President, common consumption rules in the EU are good in principle, as there is a considerable volume of goods in circulation.
When goods cross frontiers, we risk having to accept irradiated products in practice, unless this field is regulated.
Irradiating food must not become the solution to long distance haulage and poor storage.
An irradiated apple may look fresh, but actually be old.
Shops can continue to sell food past its sell-by date if irradiation is allowed.
The Council proposes that very few foods may be irradiated - only spices.
I am satisfied with that.
But, unfortunately, gradually extending the allowed list could alter this situation.
The requirements are stringent, that must be admitted, but it is essential that things happen out in the open, with Parliament's involvement and in accordance with important health and consumer principles.
One of the main principles of the EU's consumer legislation is that consumers must not be misled.
They would be if we allowed irradiation, because food would appear to be different from how it actually is.
The need for irradiation as a way of preserving food is also hard to see.
Europe has mountains of food.
If food can be irradiated, it must be marked in any case.
Consumers must be able to choose, even in the cases which pass the health test; I support the studies of the health risks from irradiation.
Nor does irradiation deal with all the toxins in food.
On the contrary, some of them thrive on it.
It is also important to say what methods of irradiation may be used.
This is an aspect the Council has overlooked, but which the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment will be taking up.
Mr President, I can agree wholeheartedly with my party colleague, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
The irradiation of foodstuffs is risky and unnecessary, at least for all foodstuffs with the possible exception of certain herbs and spices.
That is also the official view of the Swedish government.
Under current Swedish rules, irradiation is banned except for certain herbs and spices.
That makes this a very special case for Sweden.
One of the most important promises given before Sweden's membership of the EU was that no rules for the protection of health and the environment would have to be weakened.
I repeat: no such rules would have to be weakened.
If Parliament does not follow Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' amendments, Sweden will be forced to weaken its legislation.
That would further intensify the crisis which exists, for many reasons, between Sweden and the EU.
If that happens, it would be the most serious weakening of Swedish health rules, so I really hope that Parliament supports Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' amendments.
Mr President, I find myself having to take part in this second reading debate and vote, despite the fact that the first reading took place before my country joined the European Union, so that neither I nor anyone else from my country had an opportunity then to bring forward ideas or modifications that could be reintroduced as amendments now.
I really think that in view of all the changes in the European Community and given its enlargement, we need to rethink the rules for first and second readings and conciliation, so that all Member States are on the same footing.
As for the subject matter itself, my view is that we should avoid irradiating foodstuffs, because I am afraid that it will be used to give an appearance of freshness and as a substitute for other hygiene measures, thus misleading consumers.
Nevertheless, I believe that we need to proceed with this second reading and that the vote in the part-session should mirror the vote in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, because information, labelling and above all checks on irradiated products need to be prescribed in the interests of consumers throughout the internal market. That is the only way to guarantee that consumers have a free choice of foodstuffs.
I also think it is particularly important that we should be able to follow the deliberations of the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs in public, that we should have a say, and I do not mean just having an influence on which foodstuffs are added to the herbs and spices already on the list.
We also need to have information on the duration and strength of the irradiation of individual foodstuffs, which is also important.
Only openness and labelling will convince consumers that the European Parliament and the European Union are concerned about preventive health protection and are working on it.
Mr President, the Commission's 1989 proposals were aimed at establishing a system of close checks on irradiated food, right through from producers' use of the process to sales of products to end-users.
To make it easier to get legislation passed on this subject, the Council divided the proposals into two parts, namely a framework directive and an implementation directive, with a list of the foodstuffs which could be irradiated.
The eight category of foods in the Commission's proposals as amended were reduced to one in the common position, namely dried, aromatic spices, including roots.
On the proposal's position on whether it is necessary to use standardised methods of inspection to detect if food has been irradiated, I must point out that controls on many other preservation processes involve administrative and not laboratory checks.
As you will know, the standardisation work is being carried out by an independent body, the CEN.
Like other foods, irradiated food is covered by the control directives, namely Directives 89/397 and 93/99.
This means that Amendments Nos 9, the second part of 11, 13, 27 and 32 to the framework directive cannot be accepted, nor can the corresponding amendments to the implementation directive, namely Nos 2, 3 and the second part of 1.
As far as the selection procedure is concerned, it should be remembered that any amendments of a political nature must be approved at this meeting.
So any criticism of the draft to the effect that the regulatory committee has too much influence on this directive is unjustified.
The Standing Committee can only take political decisions in cases where a Member State has implemented protective measures.
So the Commission must stand by the Council's wording and reject Amendments Nos 8 and 19.
To deal with technical questions, the recommendation states that the Standing Committee should have advisory status, as the Commission originally proposed.
To ensure that the directive is not blocked, although according to the White Paper, it should already have been adopted, the Commission has been forced to accept a regulatory committee.
It is therefore impossible to accept Amendments Nos 14, 16 and 17, which deal with the appointment procedure, or Amendment No 15 on the internal rules of the committee, which it passes itself.
As far as the obligation to consult the Scientific Committee on Food in Article 13 is concerned, this should not be confused with the joint decision-making procedure which the directive lays down for passing further provisions affecting public health.
Amendments Nos 6 and 18 are therefore unnecessary and are rejected.
As marking is now obligatory in all cases, consumers will always be able to make an informed choice between products which contain and do not contain irradiated ingredients.
Amendments Nos 5, 26 and 29, introducing a symbol to indicate food which has been treated, are therefore superfluous and cannot be accepted.
Many of the amendments are designed to supplement and clarify the text.
I am referring here to Amendments Nos 1, 2, the first part of 3, 4, 7 and 12 to the framework directive and the first part of Amendment No 1 to the implementing directive.
Amendments Nos 30, 31 and 33 cannot be accepted, as there cannot be any doubt that the procedure is safe.
Amendment No 10 links the conditions for permitting irradiation of food to the obligation on Member States to provide the Commission with information.
There is no close connection between the two subjects, and so the proposal cannot be accepted.
The first part of Amendment No 11 is unacceptable as the question is covered by section 1 of Article 1.
Amendment No 24 reduces the time available for withdrawing irradiated products which do not meet the terms of the directive from 24 to 12 months.
Such a short period would make implementing the directive very difficult, and the amendment proposed must therefore be rejected.
Amendments Nos 21, 22 and 28 restrict the opportunities for using and exploiting the irradiation of food.
It is difficult to justify why consumers, who must finally decide what is beneficial or necessary to them, should not be able to take decisions for themselves, but have certain conditions imposed on them instead.
This amendment cannot therefore be accepted.
Thank you, Madam Commissioner.
I have heard the statements of several Members in connection with the amendments declared inadmissible by the President.
As I imagine that the matter will be raised tomorrow as well, I would like to remind you of its content.
Article 125 states that, "the President shall decide' : Mr Lannoye, not the Presidency, but the President, in other words, not the President at the time but the President of Parliament.
The end of Article 125 states, "The President's decision...concerning the admissibility of amendments is not based exclusively on the provisions of paragraphs 1 and 2 of this Rule but on the provisions of the Rules in general' .
Article 72 states that, "The President's discretion to declare an amendment admissible or inadmissible cannot be questioned' , on which account the doors seem to be closed.
However, I would also like to read, just for information and out of curiosity, paragraph 2 of Article 70, which states that, "In the light of the conclusions of the Conciliation Committee, Parliament's delegation may recommend that consideration of the common position and any amendments tabled to it be resumed or, in consultation with the committee responsible, propose new amendments for consideration by Parliament in accordance with Rule 72' .
Naturally, behind this paragraph of the Rules of Procedure lies an entirely politico-institutional question relating to the conciliation procedure and the merits of the results of conciliation, but I still seem to sense a slight possibility there, at least in the Rules of Procedure, for later on.
I have also read these articles because I think I will have to chair the conciliation, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, on which account we will have to discuss this problem again.
Mr President, I would like to comment on the point about whiskey; I find that interesting.
I have discovered this evening that whiskey can be artificially aged by irradiating it.
It is not your fault, but I would nevertheless like you to convey the mood of this House to the President, who is responsible for this matter.
I am referring to Rule 72, not to the sentence that you referred to, but to Rule 72, 2c.
It states that amendments are only admissible if they seek to amend a part of a text which was not included in the proposal submitted in first reading, etcetera.
I have checked with various colleagues on a cross-party basis, and they agree that the text does contain new points, because there have been developments in this field in recent years.
What we have before us today did not exist then, probably not even in people's wildest dreams.
So it is not only logical or possible, but urgently necessary to allow these amendments to be tabled.
Everyone agrees on this, there is no dissent.
Please convey this to the President.
Secondly, I would like you to clarify what happens in a situation when the chairman of the Committee on the Environment decides, by virtue of his office and personal views, not to accept amendments, and the President then refuses to admit quite different amendments by virtue of his own prerogatives.
There is a mismatch, a lack of consistency.
What happens then? There is obviously a real muddle between these two gentlemen.
I would be grateful if you could clarify this.
What is the right thing to do now? Do we have to have a total rethink?
Thirdly, I would like to refer to Rule 125, according to which the President has the last word and his decisions cannot be contested.
I ask you seriously, is there a limit to what cannot be contested? For example, is there a limit such as logic, intelligence or doing the obvious?
Are there any such limits, or are we in that Grimm's fairy tale, the Emperor's New Clothes? The one where everyone says, wow, he looks great, the President has got brilliant clothes, until someone comes along - a little child - and says that the President is in the altogether!
Are there no limits to the inviolability of the President's decisions? I am asking you, because I know that you are very democratic, Mr President!
Mr President, I do not want to strain your tolerance further.
I think you are showing substantial tolerance - at least in listening, though not in your rulings.
What I want to say to the Commission representative and to you, as our representative here, is that if this proposal does not go to conciliation in which the view of Parliament is heard, including the views of those Member States who were not members of the Union when this proposal first came forward, then we make a mockery of our right to be consulted and to be absorbed into this discussion.
We have consistently counselled against amendments that simply allow Parliament to meddle.
For Parliament not to be consulted or not to have any appropriate say at the next stage of proceedings would be a total absurdity and I hope that this will be taken into account when you consider the rulings you are giving tomorrow and when the Commission reflects on what it said in removing almost all of these amendments from the book.
To conclude this impromptu debate, I have to add that I understand Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' state of mind, because her previous comments have received a reply from the Commission that has certainly not been entirely accepted on its merits.
We all know what it means when the Commission does not agree to any amendment: the entire conciliation stage becomes more complicated for Parliament.
With regard to the Rules of Procedure in the strict sense, I would like to tell Mr Roth that President Gil-Robles is as democratic as I am, and that he will obviously be informed of the debate this evening.
It seems I should tell you that the issue raised by Mr Graenitz and Mr Whitehead should not be emphasized repeatedly because it is of no significance, other than of a general nature, and certainly not with regard to the Rules of Procedure.
New Member States have joined since then and this has not had any effect from the point of view of the debate we are holding on the Rules of Procedure: the Rules of Procedure do not change with each new accession.
You should remember, not for now but for the future, that a discussion is underway for the post-Amsterdam period. The Committee on the Rules of Procedure is already discussing its amendments to the Rules of Procedure after and as a result of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz has already pointed out that reference will be made to Article 62, and there do not seem to be many margins; however, it is obviously within her rights to raise this problem with the President tomorrow, when it is put to the vote.
I repeat, however, that the President will be informed of this debate to make the appropriate decisions, for which there are no limits, other than those of the Rules of Procedure, Mr Roth!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Landfill of waste
The next item is Mr Jackson's report (A4-0026/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the landfill of waste (COM(97)0105 - C4-0160/97-97/0085(SYN)).
Mr President, the European Union's waste policy is at an earlier stage in its development than European policy on air and water quality.
We see the characteristics of what is still rather an experimental policy in the landfill directive.
I must ask some rather fundamental questions about this directive in the hope of getting some answers from the Commission.
Firstly, it is important to recognize that this directive, if it is fully implemented - and that is a big 'if' - would result in a switch of emphasis away from landfill as a means of waste disposal.
This is because it incorporates the progressive introduction of limits on the volume of biodegradable waste going to landfill set out in Article 5.
This is a new section of the directive, new since its rejection by us in 1996.
In many countries the limits will mean a switch to incineration.
My fundamental question here is whether a directive which would impel such a universal switch in emphasis fully respects the principle of subsidiarity.
I do not believe that it does.
The targets set out in Article 5 are very precise even if they are national ones and not designed to apply to specific sites.
One consequence of ignoring subsidiarity is that a universal solution is proposed for very different situations in the Member States.
Some countries now have sophisticated landfill systems and geological structures which make landfill a sustainable option and perhaps the best practicable environmental option.
In others unregulated landfills in inappropriate places are a health hazard.
For all its protests about local option, the directive removes far too many key decisions to the European level from the national and the local.
Secondly, it is important to recognize that the directive, if fully implemented, would mean that several Member States would need to spend very considerable amounts of money on finding alternative means of waste disposal and putting in place the systems of control that would enable them to prove they are abiding by the directive.
My fundamental question here is whether there is any hope at all that the Member States will be able to comply with the directive, as drafted, within the time limits set?
The clear answer is no.
99 % of Ireland's waste goes to landfill.
There is no prospect of any rapid switch to an alternative there.
54 % of Portugal's waste goes to an 'unknown destination' .
In Greece the Commission tells us that there are from 3, 000 to 6, 500 illegal landfills.
None of these countries will be able to comply with the directive as drafted.
If it is agreed as drafted, they will be pursued through the Court of Justice for years by the Commission.
In my own country, the United Kingdom, the Department of the Environment, Mr Prescott's department, has estimated that as many as 70 waste incinerators would have to be built at a possible cost of as much as £7 billion.
Where will Mr Blair find that? As rapporteur, I have to report that my committee has supported the directive and in one respect has strengthened its detailed provisions by making the 2002 limits mandatory rather than optional.
If that were all, I might have had a problem in continuing to represent my committee's point of view but the committee did something else.
For the first time the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has at every stage passed amendments to tie the Member States down to the commitment they will make by agreeing such a directive.
We want them to put their money where their mouths are.
In our amendments we want to use the directive first to make the Member States apply the existing law by shutting down illegal landfills which do not comply with existing directives.
We want to use the directive to ensure that the Member States report frequently on implementation of the law, in particular during the progressive application of targets to reduce the amount of biodegradable waste going to landfill.
We also want to make sure that we do not forget the exempted sites where the directive will not apply.
Information on them too should be sent to the Commission and hence made available to Parliament.
Finally, we should not forget that the Member States voted unanimously for the former version of this directive which effectively excluded 50 % of EU territory from its scope.
If it was acceptable to them then, how can we realistically hope that they will fully implement this much more stringent directive.
I do not believe that Parliament should connive at the passing of laws which are little more than the self-indulgent aspirations of environment ministers.
I hope Parliament keeps a very tight check on what happens to this directive and I look forward to doing so.
I also hope that at some stage Mrs Bjerregaard might actually involve herself in a debate on this directive, perhaps with us here tonight.
There is very little point in coming all the way to Strasbourg to act as a sort of sophisticated speak-your-weight machine, which is all we are getting from Mrs Bjerregaard when she simply reads out lists of amendments which are acceptable and not acceptable to the Commission.
This is a parliament and a parliament expects debate.
Mr President, we all know the significance of this proposal to the many industrial sectors within the economies of the states of the Union which is perhaps one of the reasons why we have taken so long already to reach an agreement about the provisions of the proposal and why we find ourselves at this point in the legislative process.
I do think, however, that we are near the beginning of the end rather than the end of the beginning.
The new Commission proposal meets many of the concerns expressed by Parliament the last time it was presented to Parliament.
It has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and Parliament must congratulate the Commission, in part, on the proposal.
At the same time, I would extend my congratulations to the rapporteur, Mrs Jackson, for the work that she has done on it.
In response to some of the points that she has made I would say, first of all, that European-wide standards that can be enforced are absolutely necessary to regulate what is, in truth, a European-wide business in many cases.
Incineration is not inevitable.
There are many other technologies available and, in particular, steps in the development of large-scale composting as an alternative to dealing with organic waste in the last few years have meant that this is a real and genuine alternative if energy and effort - and other resources - are put into bringing this into regular practice across the Union.
I have to correct her by telling her that the last time this proposal was dealt with by the Council of Ministers it did not vote it by unanimity, which was why when we rejected it in Parliament they could not reinstate it.
They agreed it by a majority.
This time, when you look at the political agreement they have arrived at - which looks astonishingly like a common position already - we will possibly find it harder to change it.
Nevertheless, I and the Socialists think that we need a set of practicable, sensible, enforceable Community-wide standards which will deliver us a landfill industry which gets rid of many of the evils of the past.
We should also recognize that this is not just an important economic directive, but also one that is important for the protection of the environment and public health.
In particular, the harmful impact of bad landfill practices on groundwater resources and on global warming by the emission of methane from landfills is, in itself, a very good and strong reason why we need to take the actions that we are proposing in this proposal.
I would urge Parliament to support the Environment Committee's amendments that we will see in front of us tomorrow.
It is a step forward in what has already been a very long process, but it is a step forward towards what I hope to see will be a completed proposal before the end of this year.
Mr President, waste disposal must be based on a certain hierarchy, the Ladder of Lansink, as we call it in the Netherlands, as Mr Lansink, a member of parliament came up with the idea that this hierarchy must be actively applied.
This hierarchy comprises above all prevention, then re-use and subsequently treatment, and in this treatment phase landfill is the last option.
To achieve this and cut back the amount of biodegradable waste going into landfills, Mr Jackson's report contains important targets.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has expressed its confidence in the original standards set by the European Commission.
This is the only way we can arrive at uniform European measures.
Some Member States will have some catching up to do if they want to meet these targets.
This is the only way we can offer the high environmental protection the European Union professes to aspire to.
Economic incentives are also a part of this.
All this does not mean, of course, that there may not be any exceptions.
Non-harmful dredged material is a good example of this.
Certain countries, including my own, the Netherlands, have very effective environmentally friendly treatments which make an exception possible.
To conclude, Mr President, we support the report.
Environmental policy occupies centre stage in European legislation.
This directive on the landfill of waste should most certainly form part of this.
Mr President, this proposal on the landfill of waste has taken a long time, but hopefully the end is in sight now.
Still, I think it has been worth the wait, because what the Commission has put on the table is a considerable improvement compared to the rejected common position of 1995.
In all sorts of ways, new developments have been taken into account.
Separating biodegradable waste has been given a place, and the territory to which the directive applies comprises virtually the entire Union.
These are big improvements.
Likewise, the introduction of the cost aspect and after-care of landfill sites are positive points.
And now the reality.
How will it all work? The packaging directive contains incentives to stay as highly as possible within the waste hierarchy, but real life is often more unmanageable than the theory.
In other words, it will depend on the efforts of the national and local authorities whether prevention and re-use will be given genuine priority.
What concerns us particularly is the transport of waste to the cheap incinerators, and to the cheap landfill sites.
The introduction of new costings for landfills must get under way very soon in the Member States.
Although this directive looks a lot more pleasant than the earlier versions, we have to acknowledge the fact that billions of tonnes of waste are still dumped illegally, or are burnt with too many dirty emissions.
Implementation is therefore urgent, but there is still a big hiatus in the waste treatment chain.
In the very short term there must be a review of the directive for the incinerators with new standards for emissions.
My question to the Commissioner is: when will the proposal for this be ready? There is far too great an incongruity between incinerators.
It is pleasing to see the Council of Ministers taking note of the European Parliament's amendments in its otherwise slightly doubtful political agreement.
The Commission's original proposals exempted about half of Europe from the directive's aims, which was rather absurd.
Dumps are well down in the waste hierarchy, and there are specific rules dealing with restricting dumping, restricting waste tourism and ensuring environmentally sound dumping if that is the only option available.
The Committee on the Environment proposes that groundwater is the main factor to consider when finding new dumping sites.
As groundwater resources are the drinking water supplies in some countries, it is essential that they be protected as far as possible.
In Denmark, about 90 % of drinking water comes from groundwater.
It is pleasing to note that the proposals include demands for processing biodegradable waste.
This can produce gas at landfill sites, and in fact this kind of waste should be sorted and some of it composted.
It is also pleasing to note that the proposals are now on their way through the decision-making process, as waste is one of the areas where legislative protection is still incomplete.
Mr President, the Liberal group favours reducing the amount of waste and making the treatment of waste safer.
There are two approaches to waste disposal: incineration where geographical conditions and population density mean that landfill is inappropriate; and landfill itself.
Both have their problems.
Incineration can cause air pollution, landfill can cause groundwater pollution and the production of methane, a greenhouse gas.
But technology is minimizing those problems.
In my view this directive is biased in favour of incineration but it allows both approaches to continue.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has made it rather more one-sided and some of its amendments would effectively change policy to incineration only.
My group favours a gradual move towards incineration, particularly of waste which is not biodegradable.
But we do not wish to overlook the new, green growth industry which involves methane collection and the production of energy from waste.
The Commission document published recently on methane gas recognizes the importance of this.
The Liberal group will vote against certain amendments put forward by the Committee on the Environment: those which would effectively outlaw landfill; those which we regard as over-prescriptive; and those which we regard as impractical.
Nonetheless, we support the aims of this directive and the work the Commissioner has done on it.
We regret the position taken and the somewhat uncharitable remarks made by the rapporteur in this debate tonight.
We believe this directive constitutes a move forward for the Union in terms of disposing of waste more effectively and taking greater care of the environment.
Mr President, this directive is a fine example of how the European Parliament's influence on environmental legislation is increasing; our rejection of the original proposal led the Commission to amend it, for the better, and prompted the Council of Ministers itself to adopt a new approach and strategy.
The need for such a strategy was particularly pressing given that, as mentioned previously, in Member States such as Portugal, 54 % of waste until very recently went to unmonitored tips, approximately 10 % to controlled tips, and only 36 % to landfills.
Meanwhile, however, a new government has taken office, a new majority has assumed legislative power and executive power, and a new strategic orientation has been adopted, as the Commission is aware. This includes the submission of a national waste administration plan, which is currently being implemented and under which some regions of the country, particularly the Algarve - Portugal's leading tourist region - will be depositing all their waste in landfills by next summer.
In connection with the proposal currently under discussion, I would like to draw attention to the objectives of reducing methane gas emissions, prohibiting the combined disposal of dangerous and non-dangerous waste and the pre-treatment obligation which I consider to be very positive aspects which deserve to be highlighted.
I would also like to emphasize the discrepancy between the position of the European Parliament which advocates a reduction of 25 % by the year 2002, and the Council's position which refers to the year 2006.
Finally, I would like to draw attention to the temporary exemptions granted to the islands; for example, in the Portuguese case, the islands of the Azores and Madeira which are exempted from the pre-treatment of waste in the main landfill on each island up to a ceiling of 15, 000 tonnes.
But I would like to stress the temporary nature of these regimes because, since the islands constitute an immense natural heritage of great value for tourism and the environment, they have everything to gain from implementing environmental policies that are not based on dispensations.
The main landfill in the autonomous region of the Azores' application to the Cohesion Fund constitutes a policy that could well serve as an example to be followed.
Mr President, I thought I would congratulate everyone tonight as well.
Let me start by congratulating the smiling Mr Bowe, whose courage in the last Parliament in rejecting the former landfill directive had to be experienced to be believed.
He did a very good job on that occasion in saying that we would not accept a defective directive.
He was right to do that.
I also congratulate the Commission as well.
They have come forward with something which is necessarily stronger than it was the last time round.
I congratulate Mrs Jackson.
I do not know whether she wants to be congratulated by me.
From the tone of the contribution she made at the beginning, I thought that there was some reluctance on her part in the presentation of the report.
However, it is right that she should be congratulated because she has accepted wholly now the principle of abolition of co-disposal.
That is something which is an argument made and accepted both in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and by Parliament as a whole.
However, it will mean in the United Kingdom a massive change in landfill practice.
One of the reasons why it is important to stress that is that the European Parliament, when this is finally seen through to a directive, will have been responsible for a change in domestic practice in the United Kingdom about which so few people yet know.
Therefore it is important when Mrs Jackson, in the explanatory statement, asks for a cost estimate for us in Parliament to provide that to those landfill operators and local authorities in the United Kingdom who are going to have to look at this as a progressive proposal.
Mrs Jackson tells us rightly that in committee we are always met with the response that it is a greater cost if we do nothing than if we do something.
Despite the uncharitable remarks made, as Mr Watson said, about the Commissioner being a speaking weight machine, I ask the Commissioner to be more charitable herself and tell us how much money there is in the landfill bank and what the cost of this proposal will be.
Mr President, in general let me say that in its present shape the directive on waste disposal at landfill sites is satisfactory.
There are, however, far too few proposals coming from the EU on how the targets can be achieved.
A separate waste tax or payment is a necessary device for consumers, whether small or massive producers of waste, to cut down on the amount of waste they create that has to be taken to landfill sites.
The tax or payment should be such that clean, sorted waste will be cheapest, and unsorted waste to be taken to landfill sites will be the most expensive to produce.
This will obviously mean that local authorities and other responsible bodies will organize proper methods of sorting waste.
The EU must go further and take examples from the more enlightened Member States.
We must support the use of landside waste, for example, as a source of energy or soil improvement agent, but at the same time new technology must be developed to ensure that the process will not harm the environment or health.
We must make sure that seepage from both old and new landfill sites is handled in such a way that it does not pose a threat to both groundwater and surface water.
I think it is very important that the proposals for amendments concerning the protection of water, approved in the Committee on the Environment, be carried in tomorrow's vote.
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to see that the European Parliament has put waste disposal on the agenda for today.
The Community should long since have passed a directive to ensure that waste is disposed of in an environmentally responsible way.
As has been mentioned, this is the second time we are dealing with a proposal for a directive on waste disposal.
The Commission put forward its first proposals in July 1991, and as we remember and have been reminded during the course of the debate, the European Parliament rejected that proposal in May 1996 on the grounds that the level of environmental protection was not high enough and that there were too many exemptions.
The proposals we have before us today have been completely amended.
That was not a very easy task, but I think we can be satisfied with the results.
The new proposals contain a lot of new elements reflecting the developments which have occurred since the Commission's last proposals.
There have been major changes in the procedures, methods and strategies for waste processing in many Member States.
In line with the Community's waste processing policy, some Member States now believe that dumping should be the last resort when it comes to disposing of waste.
The main new points in the Commission's proposals are as follows: reduction targets for disposing biodegradable municipal waste with a view to reducing the global greenhouse effect; pre-treatment - that is, not incineration, but pre-treatment of all waste prior to disposal; an increase in the costs of waste disposal - as proposed by Mrs Myller; a ban on dumping toxic and non-toxic waste together, which was of course part of the previous proposals which Parliament criticized; and finally more stringent conditions on existing landfill sites.
I am convinced that the new proposals will make it easier for us to prevent and reduce the effects of waste disposal on the environment.
And we need to take action in this field as soon as possible.
The many complaints which the Commission receives concerning the disposal of waste emphasize that the Community needs to act.
I have of course looked with great interest at the draft report which the Committee on the Environment adopted.
There are many important and useful amendments which will tighten up the Commission's proposals and make the procedures clearer.
I am therefore pleased to be able to say that the Commission can accept 16 of the amendments.
But I must also admit that I am concerned about some sections of the report, and I will need to take some time over them.
I am pleased to see that the European Parliament is able to support our efforts to reduce the landfill of biodegradable waste.
We have established long-term reduction targets for Member States: these targets must remain unchanged, however, to ensure that Member States have the best possible conditions for planning and implementing alternative methods of dealing with this waste.
The Commission cannot therefore accept Amendment No 16.
As far as Amendments Nos 12 and 31 are concerned, I would like to emphasize that the Commission does not believe it would be right to grant more exemptions than those already proposed.
I am particularly concerned about exempting underground disposal.
There are no environmentally responsible grounds for exempting this kind of disposal.
All landfill sites - whether above or underground - should meet the directive's conditions and so be safe and controlled.
I cannot agree with the current approach in Germany where 1.7 million tonnes of waste, including 350 000 tonnes of toxic waste, was stored in old mines in 1994.
In Germany, this is defined as recycling, not as disposal, and so waste disposal legislation does not apply.
This is not environmentally responsible practice.
I am not against storing waste underground in general, but I think we should be certain that the underground storage facilities in question are covered by the provisions of the proposals on landfill sites.
And so I cannot accept that exempting regulations should be introduced for underground disposal.
It was precisely because of all the exemptions that the European Parliament rejected the Council's previous common position, whereas Parliament now wishes to introduce more exemptions.
In the case of Amendment No 13, Parliament is trying to introduce yet another exemption.
I cannot at this stage accept that spreading limestone and gypsum should be exempted, but I can promise Parliament that the Commission will take a closer look at this amendment and consider the possibilities.
Today, the Community has serious problems with landfill sites which are not monitored: this is clear from the large numbers of complaints and applications which the Commission receives.
This situation must change.
Existing landfill sites must meet the new requirements of the Commission's proposals and so obtain new licences before they can continue to operate.
The approval requirements of the old framework directive on waste are not in line with developments in this field and cannot ensure that waste is disposed of under safe, controlled conditions.
So the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 25.
This brings us finally to Amendments Nos 27, 30, 33 and 36, where the Commission believes that the provisions of the annexes should be laid down by the technical committee referred to in Article 16 of the Commission's proposals.
As regards Amendment No 7, the Commission cannot be obliged to forward Member States' reports, but wishes to be able to produce reports based on information from Member States and pass it on to the European Parliament.
Some people may see this as being rather semantic, but we believe we can handle problems this way.
As regards Amendments Nos 2 and 3 on changes to the views that the Commission should present new proposals within a period of time to be specified, we already have plans to submit a proposal on incinerating non-toxic waste and we intend to produce a composting proposal as part of the work schedule.
I cannot however approve of the way in which this amendment formulates the Commission's obligations.
There are a whole host of other amendments which ought to be commented on, but it is now late in the evening so I will leave it at that, unless there are any specific amendments which other Members of Parliament present wish to comment on in particular.
Ian White asked me if I could say anything about the overall costs, but I am not in a position to do so as yet.
That of course depends on developments in the Member States which are now under way.
And may I say to Mrs Jackson that I think the remarks she made at the end of her speech were particularly unkind.
Having been here in Parliament since 3.00 p.m. today, which I set aside solely for discussing with Members of Parliament, I fail to understand her comments at all.
Mr President, I wonder whether I could ask for your help on Amendment No 16.
Amendment No 16 was one of those which Mrs Bjerregaard said she was not prepared to accept.
In fact there are two elements to Amendment No 16: one is the question of the targets for 2002, and Parliament and the committee would like to remove the words 'as far as possible' so that the 2002 targets become mandatory and not, as it were, optional.
The other parts of that amendment deal with reporting.
There are two distinct bits to that amendment, I wonder whether Mrs Bjerregaard could clarify which bits she is not prepared to accept.
I think it is very sad if the Commission does not accept - even at this early stage - amendments regarding the reporting requirement where essentially, for once, I agree with her advisor, in other words that Parliament should reinforce reporting.
I would beg the Commissioner to accept that but if she will not accept it, I hope that Parliament will stick to its guns and go into conciliation on those points.
I would be grateful just for clarification on that.
I would like to ask the Commissioner, Mrs Bjerregaard, for clarification.
In fact, both Amendment No 16 and Amendment No 23 contain parts that relate to the altered texts.
I would like the Commissioner to clarify whether she is referring to the entire Amendments or to just a certain section, when she says that the Commission does not accept Amendments Nos 16 and 23.
Mr President, in fact I was actually making a distinction, because I referred to Amendment No 16 twice in my answer.
As far as the reporting is concerned, I said that we were concerned about the way the question on reporting was worded.
But I will be happy to see if we in the Community can find some other wording.
As far as the question of making it mandatory in the year 2000, we do not believe we are in a position to decide this at present.
We feel this would force Member States into a policy - in that sense, this is in line with the arguments which Mrs Jackson used herself - and we are not therefore in favour of making it mandatory in the year 2000.
As far as reporting is concerned, we are support the idea, as has been said.
What was the Commission's opinion on Amendment No 23.
This is vital because these are the sites which would not have to comply with the directive.
It is very simple.
Does the Commissioner agree with Amendment No 23 or not?
I hope that she does.
I am almost minded to take back my earlier remarks but I do not think I will.
I had already asked the Commissioner for her opinion on Amendment No 23, but she did not have her headphones on, nor does she now, and so she could not hear me.
That was one of the amendments I missed out because I thought time was getting on a bit.
We can accept Amendment No 23.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I refer to pages 12 and 13 of the English version of the Minutes and matters that were raised subsequently.
This refers to the concern expressed by Members about the impact in the Chamber of the new arrangements for tying the payment of Members' expenses to voting requirements.
I am not challenging this whole question of whether this is a proper system or not.
I do not think it is, but that is not my purpose.
Mr Falconer raised a number of points of order, and I was very concerned that the President in the Chair yesterday seemed to give him some kind of blanket exemption from the rules I understood had been decided.
Mr Falconer quite properly asked for the opportunity to state his intention before every vote in which he did not participate.
The President declared that should not be the case.
He gave him a blanket exemption, which would make nonsense of the whole system.
All I ask is that all the Vice-Presidents follow a consistent policy, observe the rules that have been laid down for Members and give Members an opportunity at every stage to raise the question of whether they vote or not.
If this system is to work, it has to be seen to be working properly and with the agreement of all the Vice-Presidents.
Mr Megahy, I would not want to begin a new discussion about yesterday's debate.
You are a former Vice-President of Parliament and you can well understand that when a new measure is first applied, it is impossible for us to have sorted out all the details in advance.
What I can confirm, and I saw it yesterday too when Mr Jean-Pierre Cot was in the Chair, is that there is every intention to apply it in the best possible way.
Mr President, after the intervention of Mr Megahy and the events of yesterday I would like to ask you to take the opportunity to discuss in the Bureau how such occurrences can be prevented in future in the interests of the entire Parliament by using the agenda.
That would mean that the whole Parliament has to decide on a rule which prevents such occurrences.
I request sincerely that this should be moved forward very quickly.
Mrs Hoff, I have no doubt that the Bureau will look at the problem you have mentioned.
I hope it reaches the right decisions.
Mr President, the Conference of Presidents was in favour of this reform and the Bureau approved it with a small majority, as we know. Yesterday we witnessed the effects which this could have and we are all well aware that we need to review the voting conditions.
I believe that the solution proposed by our colleague would not be very effective and would risk slowing things down; since only some group chairmen in particular - not all of them - wanted this reform and the Bureau approved it with a small majority, it is essential to review the situation.
Pending the Bureau's re-consideration of the issue, I am tempted to propose that prior to votes, all Members who do not wish to participate in certain roll-call votes should have us make a note of their name, thus avoiding undue delay in the voting procedure.
Members could therefore let us know that they will not participate in all the votes, and would thus not be involved.
This is merely a temporary measure, pending a satisfactory solution.
Mr President, that is my proposal.
Mr President, I have one or two very simple corrections to the Minutes.
I refer to the first paragraph of page 12.
I did not say that I did not intend to take part in the vote.
I agreed with Mr Falconer's position but said that I might or might not take part in the vote.
On page 22 it states that I did not vote.
In fact I voted every time, except once when the machine did not work.
On page 11, my name should be alongside Mr Macartney's as abstaining in the roll-call vote.
I called to the attention of the Chair the fact that my machine did not work.
I got a nod and thought it was in order but, quite clearly, the nod did not mean that it was in order.
Lastly, on page 17 - which is a little more complicated - I am wrongly described in the last paragraph as requesting 'that the matter be referred to the Rules Committee' .
What I said was that this change amounted to an amendment of the Rules and, therefore, would have to be referred to the Rules Committee.
I also corrected what the Vice-President said when he declared that we had a duty to vote.
I said that we do not have a duty to vote, we have a duty to understand what the votes are about.
We have the right not to vote or vote, as we wish.
I would like the Minutes to be corrected in that way.
Mrs Ewing, I take note of what you have said.
Mr President, it is important that we try to clarify this.
Everybody in this House, yesterday and this morning, has been desperately trying to shuffle off responsibility for what happened here yesterday.
I am not ashamed to stand here and say that I have been one of the group leaders, and every one of them in this room with me should perhaps stand up so you can see who we all are.
We have been driving the process of reform in this House.
We are not ashamed to say so.
Let us be clear how this reform came about.
The idea of linking attendance with roll-call votes came out of the working group established under the chairmanship of Nicole Pery.
That was where these proposals came from.
Every group in this House was represented on that working group.
The Conference of Presidents does not establish these proposals or the way in which they are carried out.
We kept pursuing the need for reform and putting pressure on the President and his predecessor, Klaus Hänsch, who have both been supportive of the process of reform.
That is our role and we stand here absolutely and take our political responsibility for insisting that reform is carried through.
Yesterday, Mr Killilea stood up on behalf of the Quaestors and said: ' It is not us, the Quaestors, the Bureau is responsible' .
The Bureau, I understand, is trying to say it is the Conference of Presidents.
I accept my responsibility for the reform.
We did not lay down the detail of these proposals.
(Interruptions) If the detail is wrong, it needs to be adjusted.
But I do not back down or retract one bit on the need for reform.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the working group mentioned by Mrs Green had spent a long time preparing this reform.
When Parliament's Bureau had to take a decision in Luxembourg, it asked for our assistance.
The group leaders did indeed take part in the Bureau's discussion.
We worked for and promoted a reform in anticipation of a statute for Members of the European Parliament.
It is clear that after what happened yesterday the concrete implementation of this measure ought to be discussed anew.
But I also wish to say that I was in favour of a reform in anticipation of a statute, and that this does not alter the responsibility which I have taken on this issue in the past, and which I maintain.
I also believe, and on behalf of our group, that after the events of yesterday, the system needs to be looked at again, adjusted and perfected, without detracting from the responsibility we all have to accept.
Mr President, it is obvious that the technical system which became operational yesterday, does not function properly, and it is provoking debates which damage the dignity and standing of this House.
It is therefore obvious that the concrete measures which were decided must be reviewed.
I would like to remind you that the deputy chairman of my group, Mr Haarder, made a proposal to the Bureau which was simple, transparent, clear and not bureaucratic, namely one check per voting period, and not an average of a number of checks.
I would like to ask the Bureau to have another look at this.
But I would like to say to the colleagues: the implementation of the reform must be reviewed, but not the principle of the reform measure.
This House does many things well.
We are having an increasing legislative influence.
Our delegation's visit to Algeria was a success.
The committees of inquiry this Parliament set up into BSE and cigarette fraud were a great success.
But the media does not see us as an important, successful and authoritative Parliament.
Why not? Because the media quite rightly continue to reproach Members of this House who are somewhat casual in their financial mores.
We should have the courage to search our consciences.
We should have the courage to review matters that damage this House.
Yes, colleagues, that includes you!
Mr President, the details of the regulation should be reviewed.
But I refuse to bring the principle up for discussion.
This House must reform itself so that the voters can have the confidence that everything that happens in this House is correct and pure.
(Applause)
Mr President, the incidents of yesterday could easily have been foreseen; and I would contest the method.
I think we could have avoided these incidents if we had proceeded differently, in other words, if we had sought a greater consensus within the House.
If the system had first been applied experimentally, we would have noted its shortcomings before putting in place a permanent solution.
Furthermore, I would suggest a joint meeting of the Conference of Presidents and the Bureau after the group chairmen have held in-depth debates within their groups, and that together we settle on methods which are practical, acceptable, transparent and which do not damage the image of Parliament.
Mr Pasty, I would like to point out that the President of the European Parliament will of course be informed of the views both of the leaders of the political groups and of the Members.
All of us here have listened very attentively to what has been said, and I have no doubt that we will look into the matter with the intention of reaching the best possible result.
Mr President, I admire this House's form of elitism, when someone stands up to make a point arising from the Minutes and then leaders of groups are called into some kind of confessional in order to admit their sins.
Mrs Hoff made a point when she said: ' Let us look at the Rules to see if we can prevent what happened yesterday' .
Well, let us look at the Rules to ensure that any changes which affect Members are brought to the Members and that Members have a right to vote on those changes.
That would prevent the nonsense that went on yesterday.
I return to the business of today - the Minutes.
Page 12 is wrong.
As far as I am concerned, I asked to be called, as Mrs Ewing quite rightly said, on each roll-call vote.
I was not given that opportunity by the President.
Page 22 states again that I did not vote.
I remind the President that I did participate in certain votes, particularly human rights.
I participated and am recorded as such.
The Minutes are wrong in both areas.
I ask that they be corrected.
Lastly, if we are to have a rule that comes down on high from the Bureau, then it has to be carried through by the House.
The Bureau's ruling was that, prior to each roll-call vote, the Members would indicate whether they wished to participate or not.
That is what I hope we will continue to do until such time as this House begins to grasp some sense of reality and reverts back to some normality.
Mr Falconer, I understand that the President in the Chair yesterday did not give you the floor every time you asked for it.
But it has been noted in the Minutes that you did not participate in the vote every time.
So, in practice, the result was exactly the same.
Mr President, I just wish to state that I was here yesterday but did not vote.
On page 22, Mr Cassidy pointed out that the members of this group would not be voting in the final vote.
My name is not included in the list of Members in the Minutes.
I would ask you to correct that, please.
Mrs Jackson, I take note of your comment.
You are of course aware - and there is no need for me to remind you, since you are an old and experienced colleague - that if we cannot have that explanation, it is open to you, as rapporteur, to react.
Mr President, on the same point in the Minutes.
As somebody who was there throughout the debate on Mrs Jackson's report last night and who was the last person to leave the Chamber, I do not recall those words from the Commissioner.
I suggest to Mrs Jackson that if she is really doing her job as rapporteur, all she has to do is to ask for the Commissioner's speaking note.
Mr President, it is an oddity of the system that the Vice-President was here yesterday and led the discussion, but cannot be paid because his name does not appear on the list.
I would suggest on his behalf that his name be added to the list of those present who did not vote.
Mr President, I request that my name be added to the list of those present.
Well, that is the best I have heard yet.
Mr President, I would like to make a suggestion.
It would perhaps be useful to add to the end of the Minutes a list of Members who do not meet the criteria, so that, on the following day, we are aware of what is before us and could justify any problem and sort things out. This would mean that we would have the results earlier than the end of the month, or after several weeks.
Mr President, I have slept on the problem and think this is an excellent idea.
So I propose that at each desk we should install a little device and when we vote, coins would fall.
This would be very pleasant and would encourage us greatly.
Mr President, I asked if I could speak twenty minutes ago; I pressed the button, and it is still alight, so I can prove it.
I would like the debate about money to stop, so that we can start with the debate on Iraq!
That is what we are here for this morning!
Secondly, I would like to say that I am 100 % behind what Mr de Vries said.
I have to conclude that the courage to put through reforms is lacking in this House, especially amongst the Members.
I note this with shame!
(The Minutes were approved)
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
Mr Rübig, I must tell you, since you are one of our more recent Members, that this is not the first time an objection has been declared unacceptable.
It has happened several times before.
The President of this Parliament informed me by letter that the question I submitted, also on behalf of our group, is inadmissible on the basis of Rule 47(2) of the Rules.
The President adds: "I share your concern, and promise to take the necessary steps with the Belgian authorities to reach a satisfactory solution for the problem of security of the Members and the personnel of the European Parliament' .
Mr Martens, in his letter to Mr Rübig, a copy of which I sent to President Martens, the President of Parliament did indeed say that he would make all necessary approaches to the Belgian authorities to find a satisfactory solution to the problem of security, and that he shares the concern of the Members who have raised the matter.
Situation in Iraq
The next item is the statements by the Council and Commission on the situation in Iraq, followed by the debate.
Mr President, the Commission's view on this conflict is that we all think the international community's first priority at the moment is to be able to reach an agreement with the Iraqi Government within the next few days, in order to avoid military intervention which basically nobody wants.
There is no doubt that the correct authority for resolving the dispute is the United Nations.
Therefore, as the President-in-Office of the Council has just said, the Commission also fully supports the activities of the United Nations Security Council, and especially its Secretary General, in their efforts to ensure that the Iraqi authorities comply fully with the Security Council resolutions.
We hope the Secretary General's current negotiations can prevent the conflict, so that UNSCOM can resume unrestricted and effective inspections in accordance with those resolutions.
Mr Marín, I have not seen so brief a statement for some time in this House.
I think others too will be amazed by the European Commission's brevity.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the brevity of the speech by the Commissioner Marín should perhaps be a symbolic expression of the fact that we have not much time left.
I believe Mr President-in-Office of the Council that we should not lose sight of one thing: if the European Union were able to work out a common position then perhaps the message to Saddam Hussein would be clear, that he cannot play around with the world community.
This is further proof that our inability to formulate common foreign and security policies does not lead to the avoidance of war but in fact makes it even more probable.
Therefore, a greater ability on the part of Europeans to take action on such questions would be a gain for peace.
I hope that will finally be understood by political directors and foreign ministers, so that sensible mechanisms can come into force for a common foreign and security policy.
We would all like to have diplomatic solutions.
A military conflict should be avoided.
Therefore my group, too, is totally convinced that the mission to be undertaken on Friday by Kofi Annan must receive full support, in order to render a military conflict impossible.
We wish him every success with it.
But it must be clear that this must result in all United Nations resolutions being complied with and that there can be no compromise in the implementation of inspections designed to remove all weapons of mass destruction from Iraq.
Iraq has biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, associated with the development of rocket programmes which represent a danger not only to the immediate locality in the Middle East but in the medium and long term can be a great danger to ourselves and our peoples.
For this reason there is great interest in their removal.
We have the difficulty of choosing between options, not all of which are pleasant.
But in my opinion, to do nothing and to let Saddam Hussein carry on ducking and diving as he has done for seven years with the world community, would lead to the spread of weapons of mass destruction and we sit there like paper tigers, who have lost any claim to authority in this world.
For this reason it must be possible, if the resolutions of the United Nations are not fully recognised and implemented in the near future, to take further steps to compel Saddam Hussein to comply with the resolutions.
If this should lead to military conflict it will not be the responsibility of those who want compliance with the will of the international community but of those who do not comply with decisions of the United Nations, that is Saddam Hussein.
We should make this responsibility quite clear and stand behind these decisions.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to give an example of consistency, but also one of cohesion, by both emulating Commissioner Marín and confirming everything that has been said, word for word, by Mrs Green. We have supported his resolution while preparing our own resolution on the same subject, because the appropriateness and validity of the things he has said are inevitable.
Moreover, on certain subjects, we in this House must be determined, informed and responsible.
Despite the exercises in dialectics and the ability we all have to provide our colleagues with comments and appraisals that certainly make the debate richer, at the end of our conversation there can only be one solution: to make everyone respect the resolutions of the UN Security Council.
I believe that Saddam Hussein's violation of such a resolution would seriously jeopardize the balances of civilian life and would bring further harm to a nation that is already suffering restrictions and facing uncertainties: this is another aspect we need to consider.
On another occasion, we will have to assess such aspects, but at the moment, we should, above all, confirm that the resolutions of the UN Security Council will be respected by everyone.
The occasion of today's debate and in-depth consideration of the matter also leads me to make an additional assessment that will not be the first and, unfortunately, I fear, not the last: the inadequacy, pointed out by Mrs Green, of our common foreign and security policy.
This is a serious deficit which our institution should be able to face up to, particularly on account of the complementarity evident within the Union.
We should invite each Registry of our Member States to reflect and to realize that this is a necessity, often highlighted for us by the events which occur from time to time.
So what should we do? On behalf of my group, I hope that the Annan mission will be successful and, above all, I hope we will reflect on how we can rectify this inadequacy.
We can reflect all the difficulties experienced by our continent, but we can also provide a significant, definitive example of what dialectics and, above all, peace and political and social cohesion mean.
Mr President, the Liberal group attaches great importance to respect for international rule of law, and to the opinions and resolutions of the Security Council.
This does not only apply to Iraq, but to other cases as well, in particular those near Iraq.
It should be made clear to Saddam Hussein, persuasively, that he must allow unconditional and unrestricted access to the inspection teams.
The integrity and independence of UNSCOM must be fully respected by Iraq.
Saddam must have realized - yet he still manages to get away with it after years of obstruction - that we have reached our limits.
The international community must act as unanimously as possible to give diplomatic pressure maximum effect.
It would be better if military intervention were avoided, but effective pressure on people or dictators such as the one in Iraq is not possible without a credible military threat, and it is this military threat which can make a diplomatic success possible.
Europe must play its part in this successful international approach.
I must confess that it is just a touch embarrassing to note yet again that Europe is deeply divided on this.
With all respect to the British Presidency, their role has not quite been played as we thought it should.
The General Affairs Council will not speak about Iraq until Monday, and up until now the Presidency clearly did not think it was necessary to make the Union the forum for this matter.
Of course, we still have not got a CSFP, and this kind of European unity might have made the difference.
In the meantime, Iraq and Saddam are laughing up their sleeve.
Let today's opinion in this House be a first impulse towards a policy for joint European action which is propagated effectively and credibly, including within the context of the UN.
France and Russia will have to understand that we cannot wait indefinitely for Iraq concessions which are not forthcoming.
This undermines the international rule of law, creates a dangerous precedent, and saddles the world with large numbers of weapons of mass destruction.
That is why the Union as a whole must support the US explicitly, exert credible pressure on Iraq and provide a clear strategy and contingency planning in case of military intervention.
A longer term strategy therefore also requires that attention be focused on other countries in the region.
There is no need for a new UN resolution for such intervention.
Mr President, during the Gulf War in 1991, the USA and its allies dropped 277 000 tonnes of bombs over Iraq in 42 days.
That did not dislodge Saddam Hussein's despotic totalitarian regime.
Over the following seven years, Iraq has been subject to a massive international blockade.
That has also failed to dislodge the military dictatorship.
On the other hand, according to UNICEF, these measures have led to 4 500 children under the age of five dying each month.
The infant mortality rate has increased from 24 to 98 per 1000 births.
Cases of diseases like cholera, polio and jaundice have increased several times over.
In a new survey, the Middle East Council of Churches says: ' The West wants to punish the leaders of Iraq, but the ones bearing all the burden are ordinary people' .
Now the USA wants to hide its President's domestic problems through a new bombing war against Iraq, a war which is going to increase the suffering of the civilian population without solving the problem of weapons of mass destruction, and without paying any regard to the UN, which the USA systematically sabotages.
Of course the Green group supports Kofi Annan.
Of course we think that Iraq should comply with the UN's resolutions, but the same also applies to other states which are the subject of UN resolutions.
Of course we want weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq. They should be out of all other countries too.
We seek a just world order in which there may be a need for policing actions.
However, that should be done by the UN, not unilaterally by the USA.
How often have representatives of the party groups, which are now supporting the wishy-washy, war-mongering majority text, complained about the USA's world hegemony? How stubbornly have they demanded an effective EU alternative?
But now, when the moment of truth has come, when the American master whistles, Green and Brok, Bertens and the others obediently wag their tales.
That means that the EU is now helping the war of the civilizations: the West against the Arab-Muslim world, because that is what it is going to be. The whole of the Arab world is now supporting Iraq, even its arch enemy Syria, not because they like Saddam Hussein, but because they see what is happening as an attack by the West against all of Arab-Muslim culture.
The EU could have played an important, strategic role for peace.
The EU could have come forward with a real alternative to the USA's 'gunboat diplomacy' .
But when it comes to the crunch, certain EU countries' old colonial cloven hooves peep out.
The historical hatred of the Arabs wells up.
The stale religious prejudices against Islam reach out and transform the EU's powerful elite into obedient slaves on the American triumphal chariot.
That also means that the EU's good name - it has actually had a good name in the Arab world - will disappear.
The trust in the EU in Palestine, where we have made a constructive contribution, will be sacrificed.
The whole Mediterranean cooperation will be put at risk.
It is tragic, it is deplorable, it is shameful.
Support for the joint resolution from the Green group and GUE/NGL would be able to avoid all this.
Mr President, we are all aware that the political groups within our House are weighing up the exceptional responsibility they bear.
Parliament has real power to influence peace or war, and I want to tell you why the Group of the European Radical Alliance took the decision unenthusiastically, but in full conscience of the various implications, to add its voice to the resolution which four groups have already supported.
We have three motivating factors.
Firstly we reject the caricature description of the Iraqi dictatorship on one hand, and the American imperialism on the other hand and do not come out in favour of either.
Secondly, we believe that the European Union is not neutral in this conflict which has its beginnings in 1990, and that the question of our basic conception of liberty is at issue.
Thirdly, whatever the cost to us, we consider that if Iraq does not fall into line with the UN resolutions as a result of diplomatic efforts, we should resort to military action, for if we do not, international law is no longer valid.
And yet we are reluctant to go down this road, as are a number of Member States, as well as the Arab and Turkish allies of the United States.
We know that those who are seeking to disarm Iraq were those who armed it in the first place, and that those who condemned the Iraqi exploits in Kuwait put up with the double protectorate imposed on Lebanon. We are also aware that the UNSCOM mission, in the eyes of many observers, is an American venture rather than a tool of the United Nations, that the current embargo and the future war influences or will influence the ordinary people much more than those in charge of them, and that the allies of the United States would suffer much more than America from a new international crisis.
We know all this and we also deplore the British Presidency for believing it could express, without even a formal meeting of the General Affairs Council, its national prejudices and thereby stress the vacuity of the diplomacy of the Union.
We know all this, but we take responsibility by voting for the resolution and insisting on the following points.
Firstly, the UN alone has the power to force Iraq to observe the resolutions it has made.
Secondly, any military intervention would only be legitimate if preceded by a decision by the Security Council.
Thirdly, the Union should wholeheartedly support the mission of the UN Secretary General and reaffirm the absolute priority which it accords to diplomatic efforts.
It is on the condition of these three points that our group will approve a text which explicitly includes the military solution as the only one capable of lending credibility to diplomatic pressure.
Mr President, nations must be respected and peoples must not be humiliated; this is the basic rule of international life.
This should be applied to all, and particularly to more fragile and less assured nations which the international community should not set out to weaken or destabilize but rather to strengthen, and which, in the Arab-Muslim world, are the best counterweights which can be set against the development of Islamism.
Beyond the person of Saddam Hussein, the international community must take into consideration above all Iraq and its integrity, the Iraqi people and its sovereignty.
The international community must take care not to launch irresponsible actions which would be perceived as singling Iraq out with a suspect determination in a disproportionate violation of its sovereignty.
It would strengthen the bonds between the Iraqi people and a large part of Arab opinion surrounding Saddam Hussein.
It would provoke very hostile reactions towards the West from the Arab world and would risk stirring up the occupied territories.
These consequences would be entirely out of proportion with the objectives of the inspections which, moreover, would not be met by a military strike.
If, in fact, the real objective is the full application by the Iraqi authorities of the United Nations resolutions which call for the complete disarmament of the country, we must first note that Iraq today no longer represents a threat to the security of its neighbours.
It no longer has any nuclear capability and its ballistic potential is under control.
If the Security Council thinks it necessary to reinforce the inspections and controls to detect as far as possible any chemical and biological weapons which Iraq has in its possession, it should be possible to settle this residual question by political dialogue.
This does not rule out pressure on or threats to a wily and disturbing dictator who remained in power in 1991, elements which could be useful in negotiations.
This pressure would be all the more effective if Iraqis were encouraged to cooperate positively with the United Nations. And how better to do this than by proposing to put an end in a structured way to the unhealthy imprisonment of Iraq, caused by an embargo which for seven years has hit the population hard and whose complete failure we would now do well to acknowledge.
The embargo has destabilized society, but not Saddam Hussein, nor the political and military elite of the regime.
It has destroyed production and trade channels and at the same time reinforced the links between Saddam Hussein and his people.
Lifting the embargo is essential and I am delighted that some European diplomatic efforts are proposing just that whilst they are actively participating in the political dialogue with Iraq. At the same time, they recall that it is up to the Security Council alone to judge the degree to which Iraq has adopted its resolutions and to draw the appropriate conclusions about this.
Of course, these diplomatic efforts do not all speak with one voice, but they speak loudly, and this is how Europe in all its diversity comes to be an important player in this crisis.
Europe makes itself heard and intervenes with the aid of its most active Member States in such a way as to be much more effective than if it had tried hard to define a common position for all. Any such position would have risked being too weak and too slow to emerge when a crisis, such as the one we are facing at the moment, calls for a swift judgement and a rapid reaction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to have to point out that, once again, we are called upon to repeat a useless practice that risks, if it has not already done so, lacking any specific confirmation, owing to the total lack of a credible foreign policy common to the fifteen Member States.
We realize that it is not easy to make the political strategies followed by the states in past decades compatible, with histories and interests that are often different if not hostile, but we regret the absence of any effort to minimize differences on the basis of common, irrenounceable principles.
Firstly, as regards respect for international treaties and agreements, the American ally cannot be used when it is convenient and then discarded when appropriate.
There is a saying in Italian: "clear agreements and long friendship' .
So, we need clear agreements with all our allies.
Secondly, we need to consider respect for human rights, a flower in the eye of Parliament. We should ensure that the bilateral agreements between individual states and countries which do not offer any guarantee to that effect, should no longer take place, particularly when they have to be made with countries such as Iraq that have destructive military arsenals which place the populations of an entire region in danger.
Thirdly, the UN should have an ever more significant and important duty, particularly at diplomatic level, to ensure that its prerogative remains intact and that its resolutions are accepted without any hesitation or delay by all those who have signed the accession.
Having said that, it is obvious that the National Alliance delegation can only hope for the successful outcome of the current diplomatic initiatives, particularly the initiative whose deadline is nearly up, led by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, whom no-one can consider to be under any influences.
This is particularly so to avoid the catastrophic effects of a conflict that would force the civilian population into great discomfort, particularly the weaker sections - the children and the elderly - who are still paying harshly for the effects of the previous war.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Vice-President Marín, I believe that each and every one of us in this House feels revulsion for Saddam Hussein and his regime.
There can be no doubt about that.
Nevertheless, we must be clear, in view of the political climate, especially in the Arab world, when and on what conditions a military strike can be successful.
In my view, Europe must insist on three things, in solidarity with but certainly not in subordination to the policy of America.
Firstly, the aim of any military strike must be clear.
So far, it has not become clear to me.
We must be as sure as possible that after a military strike the situation will be better for peace and better for the development of the whole Middle East region.
Secondly, there is no question that the situation in the Middle East is not improving but deteriorating. This has been pointed out frequently by the EU and in particular Commissioner Marín, as well as the President-in-Office of the Council.
A few years ago it was still possible to organize as many Arab countries as possible in a coalition against Saddam Hussein, which is impossible today.
It is a fact that we have a policy of obstruction by the Netanyahu government; it is a fact, without making comparisons, that even Israel does not recognise and does not implement a UN resolution concerning the Lebanon.
This produces a negative atmosphere in the Arab world and we must be clear that any strike which is not properly thought out, extremely well considered and well supported will make this atmosphere even worse.
Europe must bear that in mind.
Lastly, as regards the role of the United Nations, I would not like to say now that it is essential to have a Security Council resolution.
There are various legal interpretations there.
But we must all be clear about one thing: the weaker the consensus in the Security Council and the United Nations, the more negative any effects will be, particularly on the relationship between the West and the Arab world.
It must be Europe's task to get America to support the United Nations fully, now in the case of this mission, but also in the Security Council, to ensure as broad a consensus as possible; otherwise, the military strike becomes a slap in the face of the Arabs and ultimately also a slap in the face of the Europeans who seek a good relationship with this region.
Mr President, I would like to say how nice it was to hear the President-in-Office of the Council give us an informative statement on the situation.
We had already read this in the papers.
We would rather have heard a few different things, because the more important and more critical the topic, the less visible the Foreign Affairs Council is.
This is a dangerous situation.
When something does come out of the Council, it seems to be fragile compromises which may be different again tomorrow and which are not really shared.
As the world expects something a little better from the European Union since we are an economic giant, it is extremely dangerous that the Council is this invisible.
The European citizens, according to the opinion polls, think that the European Union is above all responsible for foreign affairs.
This is a very logical thought, really, but sadly a misunderstanding, because the Foreign Affairs Council and the Union do not really accept this responsibility.
That is why the Council is usually not part of the solution, but part of the problem.
The British Presidency - from which we had expected a fresh, new approach - could have made an attempt to avoid this being part of the problem.
Unfortunately, the British Presidency has only acted nationally, and has actually forgotten its duty as leader of foreign policy of the Union.
Like a proud terrier, Great Britain is walking next to the American elephant, and is saying: listen to us making all this noise.
If there is anything that can contribute to avoiding war, it is a solid European Union action.
This can achieve something.
We need a solid European Union action that leaves no room for false hopes or manipulation by tyrants.
There was certainly none of this clarity in Bosnia.
The British position is clearer now; oil is involved.
In Bosnia, British officers told me at the time, oil did not play a part.
That was a terrible position, but it is clearer now.
Thank God.
But only as the position of the country itself. There is no European Union, or Council position regarding Iraq or regarding Algeria.
Parliament's resolution must now add something to this unusual situation in order to fill the vacuum a little.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a euphemism, I believe, to state that the legitimacy of the Baghdad regime, suspected of crimes against humanity, crimes of war and crimes of genocide is doubtful at least.
In a more general context, it is a fact that Saddam Hussein is trying to justify himself in the eyes of world public opinion, and the developing countries in particular, as a symbol of the combat against American imperialism, and Western imperialism more generally, in a black and white view of the world that belongs to another era.
The point should be made that no-one in Europe wants or can want war with Iraq.
The diplomatic solution to the crisis is certainly far more preferable. But it is for this precise reason that it is absolutely necessary, as already confirmed by several parties, that the European Union and the individual Member States should make up for the guilty and self-interested inertia of some authoritative members of the international Community with all their authority.
At the same time, the European Union should not leave the United States and the United Kingdom the monopoly on handling the crisis on the Western side.
For this reason, the elusive nature of the General Affairs Council and even the brevity of the declarations made by the representative for the Commission amaze me somewhat.
Politics, particularly international politics, abhors a vacuum; we will not contribute towards creating it.
Otherwise, if this vacuum is occupied by others, we will have to deal with it ourselves.
Mr President, we are all quite clear that Iraq must comply with international resolutions.
However, I would like to know whether we also share the view that the United Nations should be the only ones to make that happen, and whether we also agree that they should do it peacefully, through political and diplomatic means.
Of course, we support the efforts of the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, but I hope those efforts do not end up being the victim of friendly fire.
In other words, Mr Annan's trip to Baghdad might end up being the excuse for US military action, which is unacceptable from every point of view, both because of the consequences it would have for the civilian population and, of course, because of the effects it would have on stability in the Middle East.
The role of the European Union in this matter is quite frankly regrettable.
The British Presidency is embarking upon an exercise in confusion in order to guarantee their national policy which, quite frankly, is to do what the White House says.
And what can we say about other Member States of the European Union, beginning with my own country, Spain, where the Head of Government has witnessed his citizens receiving an explanation of Madrid's participation in a hypothetical US operation via Tony Blair through the CNN?
The Union should of course have a common position on this matter, which should include opposing any unilateral US action and, of course, lifting an embargo which is causing indescribable suffering to the ordinary citizens of Iraq. They are being punished twice over: they have to endure a brutal dictatorial regime, and they lack the foods and medicines to cope with daily life.
We should support the democratic opposition in Iraq, of course.
And this Parliament ought to make sure that if Clinton undertakes a military operation without the support of a United Nations Security Council resolution that he will not be able to end up finding support in a resolution from this Parliament.
What a sad state of affairs that would be!
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am sorry that the British Government has unilaterally and immediately declared that it is prepared to take part in a military action, without consulting the European governments and seeking a common position.
At a time when it is responsible for the Presidency of the European Union, this is a harsh blow to the role and credibility of the Union.
The joint resolution of several political groups calls us to this responsibility today; it calls us to define a common position, to support all diplomatic means, particularly the missions of the UN and its Secretary General, and its proposal of oil in return for food directed at the population.
Finally, and this is the central point, the resolution asks for any further action that is not diplomatic to require the formal decision of the UN Security Council, the sole interpreter.
This is an essential point.
We are convinced of the extreme danger Saddam Hussein poses and the need to force him to observe the UN resolutions.
However, the Security Council has to decide how and when, assessing the situation which is different in both military and political terms today than it was during the Gulf War.
The situation is different today as regards military resources.
I can give two examples of this: what effects will striking chemical arms deposits have? Minister Primakoff talks of devastating effects over the entire region.
This is a point that should be assessed.
Another example is that UN sources indicate that Saddam has hidden chemical missiles and arms in Algeria, Libya and Sudan.
If that is true, what does he intend to do with those countries and how can it help to bombard Iraq?
The situation is also different in terms of politics.
All the Arab countries, and first and foremost our allies, are against this. Why?
We can take action against them, but with what consequences throughout the Middle East? The Security Council should assess all this and then its decisions will be applied.
Each of us will then do our parts.
Madam President, we cannot but express astonishment and dismay about what we have heard today, particularly from the British Foreign Office gentleman.
We read the same papers he reads about the weapons of mass destruction, British-developed anthrax and the inflated threats against humanity.
We also know the role his government has played, first to block, then to hinder the mission in Iraq of the Secretary General, Kofi Annan.
We learn that the use of incredible force to produce a diplomatic solution has long ceased to be a threat to achieve anything at all, as the juggernaut of American military power moves inexorably and with devastating force against the Iraqi people: there are one and a half million victims of the embargo, an embargo that somebody in this House wants to prolong forever.
On this side of the House, we nurture no sympathy for the Baghdad dictator.
We still hope that Mr Annan might perform a miracle.
We deplore, in the strongest terms, the veil of hypocrisy and mystification drawn over this pre-planned massacre, over this tragedy of major proportions and, more than anything else, over the attempted use of this Union to support blind instruments of Anglo- American military and foreign policies at their worst.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is totally disgraceful to claim that Iraq would really threaten its neighbours with what remains of an arsenal which has been voluntarily overestimated by Israeli-American disinformation.
There can be no doubt that this country, if it were to launch a war of aggression, would suffer dreadful destructive reprisals from Israel and the United States immediately.
Having led Saddam Hussein into the trap of recapturing Kuwait, the United States hammered the derisory Iraqi army with their might.
And since then, they have been starving the Iraqi people and causing the deaths of children by the hundreds of thousands, soon to reach two million, using a procedure which constitutes a crime against humanity. It is all the more terrible in that it is perpetrated coldly, calmly and clinically and has operated down the years under the cover of moral pacifist motivations which claim human rights as their inspiration.
We know that the reality is that with cynicism covered in a thick layer of hypocrisy, Mr Clinton is obeying first and foremost the cold interests of oil mercantilism which Iraqi production must not threaten, not to mention his own murky personal motivations.
Finally, and above all, if Saddam Hussein did not exist, he would have to be invented.
Israel and the United States think they need a constant virtual enemy and a war which might always break out.
Today Saddam, tomorrow someone else.
Comprehension of this is the key to the whole situation, but it also brings understanding of the danger for world peace.
So who could negate the legitimacy of Palestinian exasperation and the rising anger of the most moderate and responsible Arab movements?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in my contribution I would like to say something about the role of the European Union and our House in this conflict.
The question is, do we play a part at all, or do we do it justice?
The fact is that we do not play an active role, but nevertheless I think that our debate and the joint resolution which we present today are an important contribution, for we in the European Parliament will reach a decision before the Council and the Commission have been able to work out a common position.
This is the umpteenth time that the Council and the Commission have not been able to find a common position and if the Commission, as we have heard this morning, limits itself to wishing and hoping then the Commission appears to be in a bad way.
In our resolution we demand a common position on a common foreign and security policy, but we also say in this resolution how we view this.
In any case, it involves a resolution put forward by a majority in our House and, as already mentioned, adopted before the Council and the Commission are in a position to put forward some kind of common text for discussion.
I would like to make a comment on the UN resolution. The Americans hold the view that we must intervene if all diplomatic efforts fail, and that we shall intervene.
In our House, and this has been said, there are some who dispute this.
It is to be hoped that further measures against the dictator will be supported by the whole international community.
It would also be desirable for the UN Security Council to confirm such a measure.
But this effort must not lead to some members of the international community, such as Russia and China, bringing the Security Council into a position whereby the pressure on Saddam can be reduced, which would mean state terrorism being victorious in Iraq.
We do not want that.
We want, if possible, a peaceful solution, and hopefully a common one, which will mean that all those things indicated some time ago by the British Presidency disappear from the world.
Chemical and biological weapons cannot be accepted anywhere in the world, and certainly not in a country where there is state terrorism.
Mr President-in-Office, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the refusal of Iraq to comply with the decisions of the UN can only be condemned firmly and without ambiguity by any country or parliament.
Respect for international law is the condition for peace, all the more so because in this case we are dealing with highly dangerous weapons.
But who could refuse or regret exhausting all possible diplomatic and political efforts before using force to put these weapons out of action to prevent them causing harm in case negotiations failed? I congratulate and approve of the efforts of those who push negotiation to its limits, especially the French government and the Secretary General of the UN.
We could already make a number of observations about this crisis.
Firstly, was Iraq capable of manufacturing these terrible arms on its own, or was it aided by other members of the UN? Secondly, once again Europe is incapable of adopting a European position.
In terms of international politics, Europe does not exist, and this shortcoming can only be compensated for by the Member States.
They do this in the light of their individual histories and respective sensibilities, and these are not identical.
And so they are forced to draw up policies, not in terms of their common analysis, but which relate to those of the United States.
Your attitude, Mr President-in-Office, that of your government, was of particular significance in this respect, and I would like to know what you have done in your role as President of the European Council, and not as the British government, with regard to the Arab countries, with regard to the Soviet Union, with regard to China, with regard to the UN and in general within the European Union.
Thirdly, must we go to war with Iraq every ten years, or will we learn from the first Gulf War and from the present situation to reflect on the issues of the balance of forces in the region, the law of each country and its security, the role of oil in this crisis, the influence of blocking the peace process on the general situation in the Middle East, the use of an embargo on Iraq, and the situation of the Iraqi population which is hostage both to its dictator and to the West?
If Europe existed, it would certainly have been able to do something to direct the situation during the past ten years in order to avoid the current tragic deadlock.
But we persist in deploring our impotence without taking decisions which are of the same order as the stakes.
Do you not agree, for example, that the election of the President of the European Council for a period of four years would be a first practical step in drawing up a real common and foreign security policy?
Madam President, Mr Clinton has lit the pipe of war, and, accompanied by the drumbeats of the armaments industries and the oil multinationals, he is doing what he wants.
I fear that we are talking too much here and looking for excuses that there is no common foreign policy, and that is why there is none or rather, through the current Presidency, that it is a party to Clinton's war games.
Madam President, I think that notwithstanding the above, this Parliament could pass a resolution which firstly categorically opposes any military intervention in Iraq - regardless of the situation, whether reprehensible, etcetera - and secondly, defends in the same integrated way a political and diplomatic solution.
Instead of that, however, the four groups have a resolution which in one way or another very cunningly creates the prerequisites for its use as a fig-leaf for military intervention by the Americans. Meanwhile, the resolution by the Greens and our own group totally condemns, in fact, any military intervention and supports a political and diplomatic solution, which is the best form of support for Annan in the mission he has now undertaken by going to Baghdad.
Madam President, the hope kindled in these last few hours does not lessen the gravity of this Iraqi crisis and I believe that, as it is impossible for Europe to have a common policy as such, the duty of the European Parliament is to express the requirements and needs of our nations, which seek reassurance on many points.
This is worrying, a very worrying crisis!
Just think that seven years ago Saddam Hussein could have been calmly removed from power and yet the power that could have done so did not do it; things have progressed over the years and now we are in this situation.
We have the duty to reassure our nations that there will be no ecological disasters; we all know how bombardment starts: it is hoped to be surgical but then becomes devastating.
We cannot even hold a nation hostage in the hope that this nation will cause the dictator to fall, because this is not the right way of seeing things.
Unfortunately, there are too many people like Saddam Hussein and the dictators who oppress the rights of their nations in the world today.
In this specific case, as well as the risk of bacteriological or any other type of warfare, Saddam also has the grave responsibility of holding one-fifth of the population of his country, the Kurds, under a humanely unacceptable regime.
I ask Parliament to declare this and, with regard to the people I represent, the people of the Po Valley, we are against the use of any base that is situated in our territory.
From this House, I warn the Italian government not to use bases in the Po Valley for attacks which we cannot accept.
Mr President, it is a good thing that the European Parliament is defining its position on the Iraq crisis.
It appears that the Council has not really managed to do so.
The starting position as regards Iraq is fairly clear. We have a pariah state which does not take any notice of the international community, and refuses to meet UN declarations which demand that the weapons of mass destruction be inspected and destroyed.
This is simply unacceptable.
It requires international action: that is what we are discussing here.
What action is the world taking to rid Saddam Hussein of his deadly arsenal? This issue concerns everyone, not just America.
The compromise resolution before us deals with a number of fundamental questions. Should you threaten violence in a situation like this?
Should it be used as a last resort, if diplomacy fails?
Yes.
Should you use all peaceful means for a solution? Again, I believe so, and I am also glad that there is agreement about a last attempt by Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary General.
Should you be prepared to use violence if a diplomatic avenue does not lead to the concessions demanded of Saddam Hussein? My answer is, albeit reluctantly, yes.
Should the Security Council approve such an action? It is desirable, but not an absolute condition.
The Security Council should play a part, but there is a difference of opinion about the interpretation of the UN resolutions on Iraq.
Saddam Hussein should not be allowed to benefit from the confusion.
The compromise resolution before us is a perfect expression of this notion.
Our aim is not war, but there are limits to the international community's patience.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say first of all that I find it extraordinarily regrettable that Commissioner Marín has already left the House.
In any case, he was here for the commentary.
He could easily be here and speak in somewhat greater detail in a final speech on certain humanitarian measures and suchlike; I very much regret that he did not feel that this was necessary.
On the other hand, I am of course very happy that the discussion is being held here today, since it is simply high time that we in Europe speak with one voice - I am very happy, Commissioner Marín, that you are again with us -, that we speak with one voice on a subject that has already been described by CNN as the "showdown in the Gulf' .
I sometimes wish that this one voice were rather more harmonious and somewhat louder.
Nevertheless, it is good that it is actually happening.
I am also sure that many colleagues present yesterday saw two things on television which were interesting: on the one hand, the permanent members of the Security Council dispatching Secretary General, Kofi Annan, and the good advice which he has taken with him; and on the other hand, the speech which President Bill Clinton made to officers in the Pentagon, in which he very clearly threatened Saddam Hussein.
We must be clear on one point: the journey of this Secretary General must undoubtedly not turn into a flop like the one made by the Secretary General in 1991, which was practically the introduction to the Gulf War.
I can only hope that lessons were learned from these mistakes.
We should also make our opinion clear in the sense that only on the basis of clear concessions can we really exhaust all diplomatic possibilities of preventing this war.
However, we must make quite clear our attitude to those states which are using biological weapons.
Here I would point out that Iraq itself has anthrax at its disposal as its main weapon.
Anyone who has observed in our own continent the effects of anthrax over 50 years ago in Scotland on Anthrax Island, understands that it is really necessary for us to speak with one voice here, because we cannot foresee these effects, nor do we want to foresee them.
Madam President, coming from Northern Ireland as I do, I have to say that there is hypocrisy in both President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair.
They tell the IRA terrorists in my country that they can hold on to their weapons which have murdered my constituents, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, and be welcomed at the White House and Downing Street.
Yet they tell us today that Iraq must have its weapons destroyed.
I want to put on record that none of us dare forget that Saddam has proved by the murderous slaughter of his own people that he would use mass destruction weapons if he had the chance.
I do not know whether an air strike can take out all these weapons, but for us to start again without finishing would be disastrous.
That is what happened before.
It must not happen again.
Madam President, after "Desert Storm' here we are again on the brink of a new intervention in Iraq led by the United States of America.
The Iraqi dictator is flouting the international community once more.
He refuses to comply with the UN resolutions.
He has brought about plans for a formidable threat to the region.
There my parallel ends.
In 1990, the UN authorized force to be used under Chapter 7.
Intervention was implemented by a broad coalition which included in particular neighbouring Arab countries and also many non-aligned countries.
And Europe as such was present, active notably through the voice of the Presidency and of the troika which did not carefully handle its efforts and turned up in Baghdad in spite of certain reservations shown particularly in this Parliament.
Today I note that Europe has been obliterated, as spectacularly indicated, Mr Marín, by the terseness of your remarks earlier.
I note especially the obliteration of the British Presidency, Mr President-in-Office.
Prime Minister Blair is doubtless very active and omnipresent, however President Blair has disappeared.
It seems as if the common foreign and security policy no longer exists when things become serious.
I would add that the coalition comes from the West alone and that the United States seems to have decided to act without any mandate from the UN, despite a half-hearted blessing given to the last chance mission of the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, which we obviously hope will be fruitful.
Under these conditions, an intervention would indicate a serious weakening of the authority of the United Nations and of the presence of the European Union, which has become a negligible quantity in world terms.
Some of us are not prepared under these conditions to give carte blanche to the United States of America for this operation.
Madam President, it is quite clear that there is a consensus emerging in the Chamber, which gives me no pleasure, and that is the criticism of the Presidency.
We have just heard from a leading French socialist the sort of words I might use myself.
There is confusion.
I remember the last time we debated Iraq in substance during the Gulf War.
At that time, all but six of the Labour Members signed a resolution condemning the military action in the Gulf.
This time, only six would sign up to one.
So, this is the sort of changing pattern one sees on the socialist side of this House.
It is regrettable and deplorable that, so far, the Presidency has failed to arrive at a common position.
But it reflects the lack of certainty in foreign policy, both in Washington and London, and, I regret, elsewhere in Europe.
The sort of certainty that was so evident in the days of Mrs Thatcher and President Bush; the sort of certainty that was brought to the European Union by Douglas Hurd, when he was Foreign Secretary; the sort of certainty we actually need today.
I regret, therefore, that Robin Cook has not found it possible to come here, although he spent the whole of yesterday afternoon in the House of Commons.
These are shifting sands.
We do not know how the next few days are going to turn out.
We know that in that part of the world there is little to choose between two despotic regimes, one in Iran and one in Iraq.
Criticism has been made of the supply of material to the Iraqis.
In the case of the United Kingdom, that stopped in 1988.
But we are dealing here with a dictator, who has at his disposal weapons, some of which were invented as far back as the First World War.
It is First World War technology with a barbarian mentality, and this needs to be dealt with by the international community.
Therefore, we feel that the present diplomatic mission by Kofi Annan needs every support.
We understand the position, reflected here on my own benches: by Mr Castagnetti and Mr Bernard-Reymond, from Italy and France, and other Mediterranean countries in particular are deeply concerned about the dangers of the present situation.
But we cannot allow Saddam Hussein to continue to have the ability to threaten not only his own people but those neighbouring his country and even much further afield with the technology he has been trying to develop.
We deeply sympathize with the people of Iraq.
We hope the humanitarian efforts will continue and if it is necessary in the coming days to take further measures, as enjoined by the resolution we are about to adopt, then I believe the House here and the people of Europe should stand behind those forces, as I do, whether they are American, British or others, if the time comes - and the time is coming - when we must finish the job we began in 1991.
Madam President, in my nine years in this Parliament I have never before heard a speech of such distorted, selfindulgent drivel as that which Mr Kerr gave a short while ago.
I now know that care in the community in the United Kingdom does not work.
I ask this Chamber to consider for one moment the effect of just one Scud missile with chemical weapons aimed at Israel.
The conflagration in the Middle East resulting from that Scud missile is beyond imagination.
We must be clear in this Chamber that international law must be adhered to.
There should be no comfort for Saddam Hussein in our debate.
He is the person not adhering to UN resolutions.
It is no good claiming that in other areas the UN has been less rigorous.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
I am also perturbed by the weeping and gnashing of teeth by Members of Parliament over the CFSP.
CFSP does not mean, as Mr Bertens says, that we should be united on every issue.
It means that we should have a common strategy towards common threats to the European Union.
It is clear that the European Union has been moving in that direction.
The common text we have before us is united in making sure that Saddam Hussein is clearly identified as being in the wrong; that there has to be implementation of UN resolutions.
There has to be an exhaustive search for a diplomatic solution.
We have to support the UN Secretary General in his mission.
Can Mr Henderson confirm that, in fact, that is also the common position of the Council? Could he also confirm that the Presidency has acted entirely in conformity with Article J.5 of the Treaty on European Union and, in addition, that the British government has adhered to its obligations under Article J.5, paragraph 4, as a member of the Security Council?
We must be clear: Saddam Hussein must be stopped.
We must have a diplomatic solution to this problem.
But at the end, if there is no possibility of a diplomatic solution, the military option must be considered as a very last resort.
Madam President, Saddam Hussein has inflicted vast suffering on huge numbers of people.
Full pressure must be maintained to deprive him of all weapons of mass destruction.
It would, however, be a massive mistake for the United States to bomb Iraq.
It is not certain to eliminate the weaponry; it could inflict casualties and further suffering on innocent civilians; it would alienate supporters, divide the European Union and inflame Arab opinion, already aggrieved at the different standards applied to Israel; fundamentalism and terrorism will gain and could escalate.
No military action should be taken anyway without the explicit and full agreement of the United Nations Security Council, which must meet again on this issue.
We also need to increase food and medical supplies to the Iraqi people by extending the oil-for-food programme.
The European Union must formulate its own foreign policy, not supinely follow the United States, particularly when the United States is wrong.
Madam President, I welcome the mandate of the Secretary General of the UN to seek a peaceful solution to this dangerous conflict.
Any attempt to restrict this mandate, as is happening on the part of the USA at the moment, must be rejected.
The task and the obligation of the European Union, and specifically of its British Presidency, will be to strengthen the Secretary General's hand and to show confidence in his negotiating skills.
The military option must really remain the undesirable ultima ratio and this only when the following conditions apply: firstly, a military strike must not be a punitive action and must offer the guarantee that all weapons of mass destruction will be eliminated by this strike; and secondly, the formal discussions in the Security Council must lead to an appropriate resolution.
Mr President of the Council, in recent weeks I have admired the determination with which your government has demonstrated its solidarity and loyalty towards the USA.
This strengthens me in my hope and desire that the other 14 members of the European Union will soon be able to count on this same solidarity and loyalty.
Madam President, please permit me one more point of order.
I very much regret that this morning I did not have the opportunity to speak on the roll-call vote and its financial implications.
Then I would have also had one and a half minutes speaking time like my 15 colleagues who this morning took away half an hour from this important debate on Iraq in order to talk about the new regulation and the roll-call vote.
Madam President, I welcome the joint resolution supported by my group which is before the House today.
It gives a clear signal to Saddam Hussein that Europe is united in its condemnation of Iraq's failure to comply with UN Security Council resolutions.
This House seeks a diplomatic solution to the Iraqi crisis and welcomes the work Kofi Annan is undertaking to resolve it.
But Iraq should know that if it does not allow UNSCOM to continue its vital work, the real threat of military action will remain.
Saddam must destroy all remaining stocks of chemical and biological weapons and the potential to develop other weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.
This includes some 31 000 chemical weapons and 45 missiles unaccounted for.
Saddam has used these weapons before, as we have heard, both against his own people and Iran.
He must never be allowed to use weapons of mass destruction again.
Madam President, countries should be founded on law.
That also applies to the international community.
International law must be respected by everyone, not just by some.
Saddam Hussein should, of course, comply with the Security Council's resolution.
The UN Charter permits the use of force as a last resort, but only after a resolution by the UN Security Council. Therefore, it is important that no green light be given for any military bombing by the USA.
Every intelligent general should ask himself this question: what is the objective? Is it to remove weapons or to remove Saddam Hussein?
Will this be achieved through bombs? The answer is certainly no.
What will happen after the bombing?
What will happen to Iraq's population? Will Saddam Hussein's position not in fact be stronger after a bombing?
It is excellent that all five permanent members of the Security Council support Kofi Annan's journey to Iraq and diplomatic solutions.
Diplomacy works slowly.
The UN has removed a lot of weapons and will also be able to do so in future.
We must, as former President Carter said, have patience, patience, patience.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the unfortunate matter we are discussing should lead us to reflect on certain things. It is true, none of these things are particularly useful as regards the actual situation, because it is not in our power to decide, or almost not even to comment.
However, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I think there is one aspect which we should be very concerned about: the way we Europeans have acted so ineffectively in regard to this serious issue.
In your speech, Mr President-in-Office, you spoke several times of a united Europe.
There can be no doubt that this has been a disunited Europe.
I have the impression that the Council, under its worthy Presidency, has not taken the necessary steps to achieve a certain common position, far less a joint action.
And it seems to me - and to many other Europeans - that this has been a wasted opportunity in that respect.
It would have been perfectly feasible to have formed a common opinion because the interests of all Europeans are largely the same, apart from the natural entrepreneurial exploits which may sometimes be inspired by lust for Iraq's oil, for example.
I think the Council - its President - should take advantage of this opportunity to analyse why, when faced with such dramatic and urgent circumstances, it was really not possible to formulate a rough outline which a truly united Europe - that united Europe you have mentioned so often, Mr President-in-Office - could have used to respond to the crisis situation we are all so worried and upset about.
Madam President, thank you for the opportunity to reply to this very important debate.
I would firstly confirm that our Presidency has fulfilled its obligations under Article J.5(4) in the Treaty of Maastricht in that we have kept other members of the Union fully informed of positions on which we have expressed a view and, where it has been possible to identify European Union positions, we have defended those positions in our representations.
Secondly, I confirm that many actions have been taken by the Presidency to try to build a common position within the European Union.
In my introductory address I outlined a number of initiatives which have been taken, including those by the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, myself and many of our officials.
That process has taken place over a period of time in the build-up to this week.
In Panama last week the Foreign Secretary, in his capacity as President-in-Office, held a meeting with other Member States who were represented there.
This informal meeting was to go over the ground where a common position could be identified.
As it was not a formal Council, it was not possible to have formal conclusions but the Presidency, in representing the European Union in the various forums where the problem of Iraq has been discussed, has stuck to the text which was agreed at the end of that meeting, as one on which the Presidency could express a common view.
If one had listened to this debate from outside Parliament, one might have the impression that there were huge divisions among European Union states on how to deal with Iraq.
One might also have the impression that there are substantial divisions within this Parliament.
But it is worth identifying the very large areas of common ground among the European Union states and in this Parliament, as is identified in the joint resolution which will come before Parliament at a later stage in the proceedings.
That resolution covers the same ground which has been identified as important common ground by European Union members of the Council, such as the need for international law to be upheld.
Otherwise the whole order in the international world comes crumbling down.
That is a crucially important objective where we all agree.
In that regard, Security Council Resolution 687 has not been adhered to and that is a clear breach of international law.
Further, we agree that Saddam Hussein has very many dangerous weapons of a biological and chemical nature and that those dangerous weapons are a danger, not only to neighbouring states in the Middle East and to the international community, but also the people of Iraq.
Any settlement must include unconditional and unrestricted access for the representatives of the United Nations through UNSCOM.
And, importantly, every effort must be made to try to seek a diplomatic solution to the problems we face.
That is a very large area of common ground that will be shared not only by the European Union members of the Council and the Members of this Parliament but will be seen outside by the peoples of Europe as a very important, reasonable position in trying to face up to the dangers in Iraq.
I want to conclude by mentioning the other important common position, namely that we all recognize the crucially important role that Kofi Annan will play on behalf of us all in taking the backing of the Security Council to Baghdad to identify all those common positions and to say to Saddam Hussein that we want to negotiate a diplomatic solution.
Nobody wants war but if a solution is to be achieved, there has to be movement by the Iraqi government to guarantee those important points which I have identified and which I know are included in the backing Kofi Annan has from the Security Council.
I hope by the time the General Affairs Council meets next Monday we are able to see that real progress has been made.
We will then be able to understand how important those common positions were in achieving what I hope will be a settlement.
In accordance with paragraph 2 of Rule 37, I have received seven motions for resolution.
Madam President, if the President-in-Office has a strong standpoint as the representative of the Council, why does he not publish it? Everybody is asking for a strong standpoint but it has never been seen.
Madam President, I asked Mr Henderson to make a statement on whether, as the Foreign Office officials reported in The Financial Times today are saying, that Britain is prepared to use nuclear weapons in Iraq.
Would he give a confirmation on that?
Madam President, Mr Chairman of the Council, I would also like to know what concrete proposals the British Presidency has presented within the European Union to support the mission of Kofi Annan and not to undermine it.
Madam President, there are a certain number of issues on which we would have liked the President-inOffice or the President of the Commission to speak.
Why this conflict so suddenly now, when we are told that it is some three years since a son-in-law of the Iraqi president revealed the existence of these armaments? Why did an American minister appear on American television with a box of sugar to say that a box of this kind would contain enough germs to destroy an entire town?
Does this mean that we must forever inspect every cupboard in Iraq?
What proof, what hint of proof do you have of the existence of the weapons which are said to have been discovered now?
These are the questions of interest and on which we would have liked some clarification both from the Commission and from the Council.
I am very happy to try to deal with the four questions which have been raised.
In relation to the last question raised by the Member opposite - why now? - the answer to that is because it is now seven years since the commitment was given by Saddam Hussein in 1991 that he would honour the terms of the UN resolution that concluded the military activity.
UNSCOM have been trying to do their work.
They have been obstructed.
There is all this evidence that I referred to in my opening address, and other evidence, that there is a great danger that those large stockpiles of very serious weapons could ignite a problem.
Therefore, action has to be taken.
I hope that a diplomatic solution can be found to it.
In relation to the point raised by Mr Kerr, the Foreign Secretary - in his British capacity - made a statement to the House of Commons ruling out any use of nuclear weapons in the context that was raised.
I would have thought that Mr Kerr might have been aware of that.
Regarding Mr Oostlander's very valid point, it would have been preferable to have had a text after the Panama meeting but because of the nature of the informal Council, it was not possible to have a binding text.
That will be possible from Monday's GAC.
I hope that the basis, which was understood and recognized at Panama can form some of the substance of what might be agreed on Monday.
Events are moving very quickly.
On Monday, many of us will be concentrating our minds on Kofi Annan's mission and how that has resulted.
Regarding the question by Mr Wolf on which specific points arising out of Panama have been raised by the British Presidency at the United Nations, the answer is that all of the points which were covered are part of the British position in the United Nations.
As I said in my winding up, I believe that we have honoured our obligations under the Maastricht Treaty in that regard.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to have your full attention.
As you know, this morning we have a sitting and vote which is rather difficult to manage in that, as announced, we must break at midday precisely to welcome the President of the Republic of Portugal and then resume afterwards.
It is all the more difficult since, as you are aware, we have a number of highly sensitive votes.
So, in order to organize the situation as well as possible, I would like to take up the proposal again which I made this morning and which has been amended very timely by the considerations which some Members have forwarded to me.
So, for this morning and this morning only, I repeat while we are waiting, we should reorganize things - I am sure everyone is aware that this is necessary and, furthermore, the suggestion made by a colleague this morning that the group chairmen and the members of the Bureau meet to review the whole situation is an excellent one. So before we reorganize things, I propose that this morning only, following the votes - I hope you are all listening - that those among you who believe in their heart and conscience that they do not need to participate in some of the votes should indicate this quite simply in the course of the day to the Clerk's Office.
This would allow us to vote in a dignified way on this morning's very important reports.
It goes without saying of course that if Members prefer to indicate their intention at each roll-call vote, they have every right to do so and I will respect this right.
So again, the aim of my proposal is to allow us to work as effectively as possible this morning.
Madam President, I can understand your desire to speed up the agenda, but my problem is that if we accept what you are proposing then it will be a set precedent for the future.
I do think that the Bureau, in its wisdom, after hearing this confession this morning would wish to reconsider these matters.
We would like an assurance that this would be for this session only and that we would have the right to return to the Bureau's previous guidelines.
Secondly, we would like an assurance that the Bureau will not wait three months to review these matters but will review them within the next three days.
That would be another assurance which I think would go a long way to pacify this House and allow us to proceed.
Mr Falconer, I thought it was clear, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify once more.
The proposal which I made to you, whilst I am aware that it is not perfect - although no system is perfect - applies only to this morning, and also, taking into account the exceptional situation this morning, requires us to interrupt our votes for half an hour for the reasons everyone is aware of.
Madam President, you are absolutely right, there is no point pursuing the debate but there is a very easy solution to this.
You can remind Members who feel that they cannot vote in favour of or against a particular proposal that we do have in fact a third button on our voting machine that they can press, namely the abstention button.
It is very easy to reach out and press this button, it should not be difficult for any Member.
No, Mr Corbett, abstention and the fact of not participating in the vote do not have the same significance.
I think this is very clear, and everyone should be aware of this.
Madam President, I wish to speak about the events of this morning, during which our emergency resolution on crime in Brussels was rejected.
The fear of Members, employees and the public should be taken seriously.
About 50 Members have signed for this motion to be dealt with in Parliament.
It was rejected.
I therefore ask the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to concern itself with this matter in order to evaluate how this situation is to be assessed.
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
I am happy to formally record your motion.
(The President noted that there were no objections to her proposal)
Votes
Madam President, we submitted a request yesterday to vote on the Hautala report first.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have received a request to amend the order of votes on the Lange and Hautala reports. I will put it to the vote.
The Parliament is sovereign.
(Parliament gave its assent to changing the order of the votes)
Madam President, I wanted to inquire if the fact of having listened to the excellent speech by the President of Portugal can be taken into account when calculating allowances and how the Presidency intends to deal with this.
For example, those who applauded will be registered as being present and those who did not applaud will not.
Mr Dell'Alba, I am sorry, but we have exactly twenty minutes to hold some very important votes.
Madam President, during the speech by the Portuguese President, telephones rang within the Hemicycle on at least two occasions.
One of them even rang nine times.
I think this is disgraceful. It is a lack of respect for this House to allow phones to ring while it is deliberating.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué, you are absolutely right, to the extent that I can tell you that the Quaestors have already made a recommendation to all the Members.
They heard what you said and will certainly repeat this recommendation even more firmly.
Thank you, Mrs Marinucci.
I think I can say your confession has been heard and you are pardoned.
Madam President, you will not have expected otherwise than for me at this point to make the sharpest possible protest, not against you, dear Madame President, but against our President, because I regard this procedure as absolutely unacceptable.
I shall explain why.
I quote paragraph 2© of Rule 72: " An amendment' , and that is what we are talking about here, ' shall be admissible if it seeks to amend a part of the text of a common position which was not included in - of differs in content from - the proposal submitted in first reading and which does not amount to a substantial change within the meaning of Rule 62.'
Allow me to refer to the fact that firstly, we are in fact at the second reading of the Framework Directive, but that there has never actually been a first reading, because at the time no framework directive was even on the table, That is the first thing.
Secondly, if we had at the time introduced amendments to the implementing directive on spices, containing the stipulation that the irradiation should be analytically provable or that we would have to have standardized methods, then everybody would have been justified in thinking we were stupid. And they would all have said - I was also the rapporteur at the time, of course - that that Blottnitz woman had gone crazy, for at that time, eight and a half years ago - and many still think so today - these methods did not even exist.
Consequently, we cannot demand them.
It is absolutely necessary that we demand them today; it is a Framework Directive.
We cannot allow irradiation to take place without then stipulating analytical test methods. Why do we need a label if we cannot check whether there has been irradiation or not?
This is extremely important.
For spices it is not important, but it is important for the positive list which will be established after the Framework Directive is drawn up, and which will then apply.
It can never again be rectified, whether they protest now or not.
It is a question...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, we have heard what you say and everyone understands the problem we face since the Council took several years to produce the common position following our first reading.
I think this is where the difficulties started and we are all well aware of it.
I would like to hear the President of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Mr Kenneth Collins, if he is in agreement of course.
Madam President, I must say that one cannot but admire Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's tenacity.
Without going into the substance of the matter, the problem lies in Rules 72 and 62.
The relevant part of Rule 62 states: ' where, through the passage of time or changes in circumstances, the nature of the problem with which the proposal is concerned substantially changes' , then we take a particular course of action.
It was my judgement in committee that the nature of the problem had not changed between the first reading and now: we still have problems with radiation, we know what these problems potentially are, and we need a directive in order to control this.
So the nature of the problem did not change.
Then we come to Rule 72, which concerns amendments to the Council's common position.
We are not allowed to take amendments that did not receive majorities at first reading unless these are new items that are raised by the Council in reaching its common position.
It was my view in committee that, sad though it might have been for Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, the amendments she was seeking to table did not receive a majority at first reading, were not reintroduced, were not introduced freshly by the Council, were not relating to changed circumstances or changed problems since the beginning and, therefore, they were inadmissible.
Mr President, I wish to draw the House's and your attention to one of the most wonderful sentences in the Rules of Procedure.
The very end of Rule 72(2) states: ' The President's discretion to declare an amendment admissible or inadmissible cannot be questioned.'
I commend that sentence to the House and to you.
Madam President, I do not wish to delay proceedings but having heard both speakers before me with regard to the problems associated with the amendments and so on, I propose to the House that we refer this report back to the committee until such time as they come up with a proper text that we can all accept.
Mr Crowley, I have not received any request of this nature.
(The President declared the two common positions approved (as amended) )
We support the initiative to increase checks on foodstuffs in production and at the place of destination.
The focus here should be on consumer safety; but it is essential that these checks do not replace border controls.
Border controls are important, as the BSE affair has shown amongst other things; they cannot be replaced by checks during production or at the destination.
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0038/98) Hautala
We Swedish social democrats welcome the initiative to reduce air pollution from motor vehicles which the whole Auto-Oil package represents.
The outcome is of the utmost importance both for human health and for the environment.
Both the Commission's and the Council's decisions on limit values for the sulphur content of petrol and diesel are a long way from what is possible and desirable.
It is therefore with disappointment that we note that Parliament's rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, has felt obliged to compromise with the values proposed by the Council.
We would have preferred Parliament to stick to the decisions made at first reading.
In addition, we think that the very strict proposals on aromatics, which are unchanged in spite of the compromise on sulphur content, are very misleading.
We consider the limit values for sulphur to be much more important and fear that Parliament's decision gives the wrong signal to the oil industry. This is not the right priority when considering the question of health and the environment.
I have studied in detail the report by Mrs Heidi Hautala.
I would congratulate her on the broad scope of her work.
However, I am inclined to distance myself from certain clauses which I consider to be a little maximalist, despite the fact that I consider the protection of the environment to be very important.
And so I do not agree with the examples given by the rapporteur since the cost borne by industry would be much too great compared with the environmental benefit gained.
I am convinced that there are other solutions.
So what we must do is keep the proposals made by the Auto-Oil programme, as they set out a restrictive framework for the short term.
What is most important is to implement them.
We must take into account the impact of these measures on the oil industry, which, although likely to adapt to the initial requirements, could run into difficulties if Parliament toughened the provisions of the programme.
It is not a question, as far as I am concerned, of accepting the use of employment as blackmail, but only of confirming a desire to preserve industrial competitiveness in a sector which experiences fierce global competition.
I believe we must take into account three factors: cost, effectiveness and competitiveness, and it would be best to apply these within a fixed time frame.
Furthermore, we must not lose sight of the fact that the result depends greatly on the number of cars on Europe's roads, and that if extra expenditure is to be made, the priority would be to increase the proportion of newer cars on the road.
Regrettably I cannot support all the recommendations on this report because of the cost implications for Irish consumers.
The original Commission proposal supported by the Council was acceptable but, as amended by this report, would increase the costs by a factor of six.
I should also point out that Ireland is already operating well within current target limits, although I am certain we will still want to improve upon this provided the financial burden is not too heavy.
I fail to understand the vote from one of the southern parts of the Union, since nobody put forward a single line of reasoning in support of this negative position during last night's debate.
That position was notable for its absence.
Why?
My vote agrees with the opinions expressed yesterday.
On the request of the European Parliament and the Council, the Commission adopted the Auto-Oil programme to improve air quality by reducing pollution from road traffic in the years to come.
With this in mind, the Commission presented two directives which aim to reduce car emissions and to improve the quality of fuels.
At first reading, the European Parliament adopted a large number of amendments which aim to strengthen the standards proposed by the Commission.
The Council retained some of these but did not go so far as to go back to the restrictive clauses demanded by the European Parliament for 2005.
At the moment we are at second reading and trying to work out an agreement on the common position of the Council.
The Committee on the Environment, which thinks that the Council's progress is still not sufficient, has repeated almost all of the amendments adopted at first reading by the European Parliament.
I am in favour of strengthening the measures to reduce pollution and improve air quality, but I think that some of the amendments by the Committee on the Environment do not sufficiently take into account economic and social factors.
The application of these amendments runs the risk of having a high cost and bringing with it job losses.
In my opinion, the Council's common position represents a fair balance between the need for better protection of the environment and safeguarding jobs; measures which are overly restrictive and expensive risk compromising this.
I also propose that measures are taken to speed up the replacement of the oldest cars and to increase research, notably on engine design, engine improvement and maintenance and the use of new fuels.
It would, of course, have been best for the environment and for the inhabitants of the EU countries and the world if the European Parliament's proposals at first reading had been adopted.
Unfortunately, the Council and the Commission yielded to pressure from the oil industry and did not accept these necessary requirements.
At second reading, the rapporteur has also been forced to modify a number of the requirements, particularly under pressure from the conservative party groups in the European Parliament, in order to be able to achieve the required majority in the House.
Therefore, the proposal is not absolutely ideal from our point of view, but it is still quite acceptable.
Today's vote clearly showed that the compromise has a lot of support in the European Parliament.
Hopefully the outcome will also encourage the Council and the Commission to abandon their opposition to the European Parliament's proposals.
We assume that in the Council of Ministers the Swedish government will support and vote for the European Parliament's demands.
The improvement in the quality of petrol will have immediate and major effects on the environment.
Mrs Hautala's proposals will reduce pollution from cars by more than 20 %.
We cannot accept what large oil companies say when they try to make their employees believe that they will close refineries because our organizations are exacting ambitious standards.
The assessments these companies have carried out are clearly overvalued.
All the studies and ministers concerned considerably reduce the inferred costs.
But one thing is certain: the large companies have made substantial profits which enable them to make investments to modernize refineries, which at times were left to become more or less obsolete, in response to environmental needs.
They also know well that, from now on, the global petrol market will not be able to escape these developments - they are already underway in the United States.
All too often our fellow citizens see Europe as being too distant or too restrictive.
Today, in dealing with a subject of the future which affects all our daily lives, Europe can bear the hope of the people, the well-being and the progress of the majority.
We must vote for the Lange and Hautala reports.
In this way the European Parliament will mark its place in history.
This matter involves the same political situation as in the question of emissions from motor vehicles.
The Commission is putting on the brakes while Parliament wants to press on towards more long-term sustainable environmental requirements for petrol and diesel fuels.
The same situation also applies to industry. When requirements have been tightened for reduced emissions and additives, such as lead in petrol, these have quickly been met by the petrol and oil industry.
The Commission's proposal is not sufficiently far-reaching and needs to be strengthened.
We need better quality standards for fuels, tough requirements for urban traffic and different tax rates which encourage the use of electric cars and new, environmentally friendly fuels like ethanol.
As Mr Lange's report stated, the limit values and times must be obligatory for the year 2000 and 2005, and exceptions should be very strict.
Requirements for limit values should be as tough as possible.
For sulphur it should be 30 mg/kg for both petrol and diesel.
I consider the rapporteur's proposal to be realistic and entirely feasible, which is why it could have great significance for environmental policy.
French and European public opinion is very sensitive to the effects on health of pollutant emissions from cars.
In order to reduce this pollution, we must both improve the technique of engines and strengthen the standards set for fuel.
A real reduction in the contents of sulphur and aromatic compounds permitted must be encouraged through the introduction of oxygenated compounds which come amongst other things from biofuels.
The addition of biofuels enables immediate reduction in pollution thanks to their zero sulphur compound content and their capacity to improve combustion.
The production of renewable raw materials destined for the production of biofuels is providing an important channel of diversification for the agricultural sector, thus facilitating the use of rural areas.
For these reasons I have voted, like most of my colleagues, in favour of strengthening the standards set for fuels, thus allowing the development of biofuels, on the condition, of course, that the European Union accepts that the Member States can adapt their indirect taxation in order to promote cleaner energy.
If we are to combat air pollution from cars, we must act both on the technical standards for vehicles and on the composition of fuels.
Putting vehicles into service which meet the new technical standards will only have staggered effects in the medium term, and means the progressive renewal of all vehicles on the road in the Member States of the European Union.
However, the use of fuels which meet standards which are more respectful of the environment will have an immediate effect.
In this light, a real reduction in the levels of sulphur and aromatic compounds - notably benzene - allowed in relation to the levels currently recorded must come top of the research list.
The introduction of oxygen from fossils or plants should also be encouraged, given its positive and immediate effect on air quality.
As a source of renewable energy, biofuels or oxygenated compounds from plants - ester from vegetable oil incorporated in diesel oil, or ethanol derivative incorporated in petrol - can provide a suitable response to the problems of pollution immediately, particularly in sensitive urban areas, whilst limiting the greenhouse effect whose effects were highlighted at the Kyoto conference in December 1997.
Finally, the agricultural sector can benefit from this important channel of diversification by producing renewable raw materials for the production of biofuels, and this could contribute to preserving an important use for rural areas.
The production of renewable raw materials should be considered as an economically viable activity for agriculture and can contribute to changing the negative image some people may have of agricultural activities in terms of respect for the environment.
The development of biofuels will respond to the needs of the cities, whilst also favouring the expansion of agriculture which is more respectful of the environment.
Madam President, it is essential to have tough targets for reductions in car emission limits.
Rapid and real progress must be made to protect the environment.
Whilst the modern car is 40 times cleaner than its equivalent in the 1980s, air quality will be greatly enhanced by the implementation of the proposals before the House.
Improvements to car standards and cleaner fuels are a necessity.
Along with my two colleagues from Northern Ireland, I recently brought a representative of a company in Northern Ireland to meet Commission officials about a new product which can significantly reduce emission levels now, with the additional benefit of reducing overall fuel consumption.
This shows the concern in Northern Ireland to ensure action is taken on this issue as quickly as possible.
I welcome the initiative of those in my constituency who are proactively working on developing a product to meet the necessary stringent demands of European legislation.
The report by Mr Lange is interesting from more than one point of view.
This report will really shed light on the technical progress of the European car industry, especially in the area of engine output.
These developments have undeniably had an impact on the reduction of harmful emissions, both for diesel and internal combustion engines.
Our desire to legislate in this area is legitimate.
However, we should be careful to avoid the pitfall of wanting to do too much.
As regards air quality and emissions from new vehicles, most of our work is done. There is the risk of eventually heading towards a reduction in air quality by wishing to impose standards for emissions which are too severe.
An increase in these standards would lead to a rise in the costs borne by the consumer. This, in turn, would decrease the chances of the renewal of cars on the roads today, which are already too old throughout the world.
This additional ageing would have a negative impact on the environment and would oppose the fixed objectives which we all agree on.
So when we have set new standards, we must reach them before proposing more.
We must also devise a financial plan of action to increase the proportion of younger cars on the roads throughout Europe: this would benefit both employment and the environment.
These two reports set out the European Parliament's view of the Auto-Oil programme drawn up by industry and the Commission.
The point of this programme is to determine the best possible fuel mixture together with secondary technical measures in the manufacture and maintenance of car engines in order to maintain clear air.
In the EU at this time, there are about 200 million cars of all different varieties.
They represent an enormous burden on the environment, now as well as in the future, and they reveal the great economic concerns which have arisen with the vehicles.
There has therefore been intensive lobbying activity relating to Mr Lange's reports, particularly by the car industry and the fuel producers.
In my opinion, these reports represent no acceptable compromise between environmental policy and economic interests.
Mr Lange rightly emphasizes the need for coherent exhaust gas legislation, Euro-3, with the deadline of 2000 for the first stage, A, and 2005 for the second stage, B. Industry is said to be complaining about the excessively high costs of conversion to new higher values; not included in these are of course the entire economic costs and the harmful emissions which are bad for the health of the people.
I am also convinced that high environmental standards present technical and economic challenges to industry.
Since 8 % of the overall motor vehicle fleet is renewed every year it is of course going to take years before the innovations to engines and exhaust systems take full effect: hence the necessity for an immediate improvement in fuel quality which has a direct effect on the whole stock of motor vehicles.
As for the specific problems of the on board diagnostic systems, there is a concern that such systems could be used by the vehicle manufacturers to restrict, by means of secret codes, the maintenance and repair of cars to those who have access to these codes.
This would seriously restrict the maintenance and repair market, which have called, for instance, service organizations like those of the Luxembourg Automobile Club into action.
Here too the European Parliament wants standardized and free access to the OBD systems, which I fully support.
This report shows a strong political opinion in favour of tightening emissions from new cars.
Here the Commission represents the old world which supports the vehicle and oil industries, while Parliament is making environmental and sustainable demands of the companies and industrial products of the future.
Earlier requirements on industry, such as in the introduction of catalytic converters, clearly showed that if the requirements are clear, industry adapts to the reality and converts its production to meet the requirements.
That is also going to be the case for emission requirements for new vehicles.
It is therefore very important that the requirements are clearly given in figures and years.
In this case, demands for binding legislation are justified.
Financial means of control, such as tax concessions to support the production of vehicles with low emissions, are positive, and controls and monitoring in the Member States are necessary for the regulations to have their desired effect.
This is one of the areas of environmental policy in which EU decisions could have a major impact.
This is a welcome report which underscores our endeavours to reduce pollution.
Reducing environmental destruction is one of the priorities of the British Presidency and so it is timely that we are discussing this report now.
In Parliament there is a broad consensus, representative of the views of the public, that damage to the environment caused by vehicle emissions must be severely reduced.
The motor industry themselves accept that there must be improvement and it is a welcome sign that their arguments have moved on to the detail of time scales for reducing pollution.
The Union should be as proactive as possible in encouraging the development of means by which pollution by emissions can be reduced.
One way of doing this would be to make the Commission more user-friendly towards organizations and individuals who feel that they can contribute to the battle against pollution.
I have recently been involved in assisting a Northern Ireland organization, which is trying to develop a European market for an emission-reducing additive, in finding its way around the maze of Commission bureaucracy.
The additive is widely used elsewhere and has recently been positively assessed by experts at Queen's University, Belfast.
We are well aware that the Commission cannot approve or endorse any individual products but I believe that means should be sought whereby it can be made easier for those working in this field to have their products assessed with a minimum of bureaucracy.
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0038/98) Hautala and (A4-0043/98) Lange
These two reports are absolutely inextricable since there is a close technical connection between engines and fuel and this explains my joint explanation of vote.
How could we build vehicles with a "clean' engine which would have to operate using pollutant fuel? I cannot imagine it.
The European Parliament must be consistent and strengthen its vote from first reading.
It is essential that fuels are "depolluted' and that the sulphur content is reduced.
We must go further than the Council's common position and demand mandatory, not indicative limits for emissions in 2005.
This is what will improve air quality.
In line with this, we must call for a similar effort from car manufacturers.
From the year 2000, all cars must be equipped with on board diagnostic systems, whilst manufacturers must also monitor the conformity of services.
These are heavy demands and we are aware of the efforts required, but we have waited for too long. After all, this affects the future of our planet and our children!
I am in favour of the two reports by Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange as they represent a coherent and ambitious response to the problem of car pollution.
It is a matter of great urgency that we combat the greenhouse effect and atmospheric pollution in our towns.
It affects our planet and the health and quality of life of millions of Europeans.
Our developed societies must put into use all their scientific and technological know-how and make available the necessary financial means in the name of this cause.
At first reading, Parliament rightly indicated its intention to toughen standards by the year 2000, both for petrol and for exhaust gas emissions, along with its commitment to establishing a restrictive framework for 2005.
This position of our House enabled the Council to improve the Commission's initial text.
But the technical situation and social and environmental urgency enable us to go further; it is up the European Parliament to go one step further within the framework of codecision.
As all too often is the case, a certain number of voices were raised in the name of defending employment and competitiveness against standards going as far as possible.
But in this case, these arguments have no foundation.
Looking first at the car industry, which is of great importance for employment and our economies, technological innovation is imperative and it also represents an opportunity.
Moreover, we must pay tribute to the efforts and the results which have been achieved for some time now by the manufacturers.
They know that environmental quality will be a decisive stake, as much in terms of world competition as in terms of the expectations of buyers.
The car industry in Europe is faced with the relative saturation of the European market.
So it needs the rate of renewal of the cars on the road to accelerate.
But this can only really be justified by a significant technological change of course towards cleaner and safer cars.
The demanding and restrictive standards for new vehicles proposed for 2005 in the Lange report provide a definite form for this movement and allow research measures to be implemented straight away - essential developments given full knowledge of the facts.
The clarity of the framework and of the objectives acts as a guarantee for manufacturers.
European institutions must give greater attention to the pollution caused by the number of old cars on the road.
So in this sense, a meaningful improvement in petrol quality is an important point, and the proposals in the report by Mrs Hautala alone would bring about a reduction of over 20 % in car pollution.
Improvements in petrol affect both new and old vehicles.
But I believe that the European Union should also look into the support which the Member States could provide to help get rid of old vehicles on the road which are severe pollutants.
Owners of these dilapidated vehicles often only have a modest income, so it is essential to find effective solutions which do not penalize them, such as a scrap subsidy.
I would genuinely like to see the European Parliament committing itself to promoting this type of proposal.
During the conciliation which could take place following the vote, we should also closely examine the two questions of the durability of the standards imposed and monitoring in use, taking into account the prospect of an accelerated renewal of cars.
The new procedures we have retained will also help create jobs in sectors such as chemistry, catalysis, etcetera.
This phenomenon has already been observed with the introduction of standards for lead-free petrol and the catalytic converter.
I am in favour of the Lange report.
With increasing numbers of cars in Europe and increasing air pollution, the reduction of exhaust gases is quite definitely in the interest of consumers.
Both reports seek to address two aspects of this complex problem: fuel quality and the reduction of exhaust gases.
The improvement of fuel is rejected by the oil industry on the grounds of cost.
Against this it must be said that a few years ago the industry resisted the catalytic converter, but these are to be found in all new cars.
The reduction of exhaust gases, however, is also significantly influenced by the technological equipment in the vehicles.
In this, the on board diagnostic systems (OBD) will play an important role by checking the exhaust emissions and drawing the owner's attention to defects.
It cannot be sufficient to buy years of freedom from environmental worries by purchasing a new car with a catalytic converter. The OBD systems will require greater discipline on the part of the consumer, who must keep his vehicle constantly in tiptop condition.
If the OBD discovers a defect in the exhaust system, the fault must be removed.
As a countermove the marketing of this technological progress must be so regulated that no hidden monopolies can be created which harm the consumer. We must prevent the encoding of diagnostic systems precluding independent workshops from carrying out maintenance and repairs.
In addition, these systems must permit the incorporation of parts which are not made by the car manufacturer but which meet their quality standards.
This will guarantee that the consumer will have the choice of having his vehicle maintained at a favourable price and to a high standard in the interests of the environment.
Atmospheric pollution has become a political issue quite simply because cities and the large European metropolises have experienced or are currently experiencing this type of problem.
Now the most visible enemy and the one which everyone points the finger at immediately is, of course, the car, forgetting in that instant factory fumes, aeroplane discharges and so on.
I do not want to deny the problem - it is a real one - and Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala were right to take a firm line regarding the car and oil industries, both at first and second reading.
Car manufacturers and oil magnates were quick to draw our attention to the effects which these decisions could have on employment.
But they must also understand that in responding to the expectations of public opinion on pollution, they will benefit from a better image and this could lead to them gaining new sectors of the market.
This is why we will defend the emission limits proposed by Mr Lange.
This is why we will also support the standards proposed by Mrs Hautala.
Taking the example of diesel, it is clear that its commercial success in certain countries in the Union condemns it to reducing its pollution levels simply in order to preserve its image and its sales.
For example, the injection technique ought to resolve this type of problem.
It has also been proven that diesel oil has an important role to play in reducing exhaust emissions from diesel engines.
Car manufacturers who were not much in favour at the start have decided to make considerable efforts to respect emission standards.
It is true that there is still some disagreement particularly concerning durability: it is unrealistic, even irresponsible, to raise the durability of vehicles from 80 000 to 160 000 km, and I would like to make clear my formal opposition to this.
This represents a much too stringent requirement on top of the implementation of the necessary limits and will generate additional costs.
Other contentious points include on board diagnostics and service monitoring.
I think it may be possible to resolve this type of issue in the Conciliation Committee.
I am aware that oil magnates are very unhappy with last week's unanimous vote from the Committee on the Environment last week.
Clearly this sector is suffering from an overcapacity for refining and the ageing of its production equipment.
But this difficult situation is not at all due to environmental standards.
I have to say that the use of employment as blackmail has not succeeded, simply because Parliamentary representatives, just like public opinion, are highly mobilized.
We must not wave the red rag on this issue, but should first inform opinion about the consequences of the measures we are recommending would have, and especially on the following subject: in people's minds for some time now as well as in the press, even diesel causes pollution which causes asthma or causes cancer.
This was true of old diesel, but, with these new measures, diesel will be less polluting than lead-free petrol, thus turning the whole situation on its head.
Lastly, and I will end here, the key point which Parliament must deal with is the issue of increasing the proportion of newer cars on our roads.
This is the most effective way of greatly reducing the degree of pollution in Europe.
Estimates indicate that 20 % of the cars on the road cause around 80 % of the pollution.
Any measure aimed at speeding up the process of renewal would have an immediate effect.
What we must do is think of both the original measures and of new ones which have not been one of the long line of errors made in France.
It is not a question of dressing up a way to facilitate the purchase of a new car, but a way of replacing an old one, all of which would be financed at national and European level.
This will be the subject of future discussions.
In my opinion, the European Parliament, which always tends to go further than the other European institutions, is going too far this time with the measures aiming to reduce road traffic pollution.
In their reports, both Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala call for more restrictive clauses for the protection of the environment.
But my difficulty is when Parliament's Committee on the Environment goes further, much further than the common position of the Council.
Of course I, too, am convinced that the critical thing for Europe is to find a balance between the various proposals for cleaning up the air and their real impact on the environment, and with this in mind, I have to say that the European oil industry has done a great deal to improve air quality up to now.
But we must recognize that in order to reach the fixed objectives for cleaning up the air, the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment is proposing standards which are certainly amongst the most ambitious in the world.
But if we consider the costs of the different proposals, ECU 11.5 billion for the Commission, ECU 20 billion for the Council and ECU 60 billion for the European Parliament, I think that in the current state of affairs, it would be unreasonable to go beyond the measures in the Council's common position.
I agree on supporting the Commission's second Auto-Oil programme, which must serve as a basis for establishing limits for fuel emissions for the year 2000. However, I think that car drivers in most European countries already do enough via the high rates of taxation on using their vehicles, and we must stop once and for all increasing taxes or constantly inventing claimed new ecological costs for cars.
This Parliament has always responded very sensitively to the problems of climate change and the need to limit emissions and achieve healthier air for the people of Europe.
Nevertheless, when it comes to taking concrete measures, the European Union is less resolute.
It is not easy for the Members of this House to adopt a position.
The situation we see is complex and not reassuring.
All our cities, both large and small, are full of traffic jams.
On some days, certain European cities exceed all the health safety limits.
On the other hand, fuel quality is essential for engine performance and to reduce vehicle emissions.
In Parliament we have always defended the view that economic development and the protection of the environment are not two opposing objectives, but are complementary.
However, the automobile and refinery sectors seem to do little to help achieve these objectives.
We must demand the greatest possible technical effort in order to protect the health of our citizens.
Otherwise, there will be a blatant clash of citizens' interests.
Faced with this situation, the governments have reached a difficult common position, showing that changes are not easy at the moment, as Mr Lange has confirmed.
The European Parliament does not have many alternatives left.
All we can do is hope that the Council is on the right track on this occasion and that it will look on this common position as a temporary stage on the way towards stricter measures.
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0042/98) Bloch von Blottnitz
Madam President, I must say that today we have done a great disservice to the cause of consumer protection.
It is really incredible what has happened in this House.
I would just like to read something which a section of the House has rejected.
Afterwards, I do not know how we will be able to take part in an honest election campaign in which we keep saying: Europe is working on behalf of consumers.
I would just like to tell you what has been deleted. The treatment of goods with ionizing rays, we have said, must meet completely the requirements of human health.
Their use must be absolutely safe in terms of health and may not act as a replacement for health and hygiene measures or for good manufacturing or agricultural methods.
That is surely the minimum and the most logical requirement.
We have not even stated in the document that there must be no loss of nutritional value or loss of vitamins.
It is already bad enough that this happens.
But we have demanded the simplest solution and it was not accepted.
Nor has it been accepted that analytical control procedures must be carried out.
I wonder, why are we bothering to insist on compulsory marking?
This is utterly monstrous; what are we supposed to tell our people.
It is not even true to say that the Standing Committee on Food meets in public; it meets far more undemocratically behind closed doors.
I ask you: what are they up to?
We always say that we want the best, and most of all we want to protect health.
We spend huge amounts of money on better health provision and then we make mistakes concerning the most basic matters!
For a start, legalistic nitpicking drives normal motions into secondary importance, in other words, they become inadmissible, and this then leads to the most logical proposals being rejected.
So I really do not understand the world.
I cannot tell you how embarrassing that is or how we are going to go into a public election campaign.
They will all keep saying: Europe makes everything worse, it makes our food worse, etcetera.
I must admit, when I see something like this, I unfortunately have to agree!
Madam President, although I am of the opinion that the irradiation of food is to be avoided in principle, I have made up my mind to vote for the Bloch von Bottnitz' report, so that in the Single Market there can be better information, better monitoring and thus better protection of the health of consumers.
I am extremely sorry that not all colleagues have followed this path and that the required majority has not been achieved.
I am afraid that we have thereby done a great disservice to the consumers of Europe.
I am in favour of the very restrictive conclusions of this report, which will allow the irradiation of foods exclusively as a method of preservation for spices.
In Luxembourg, the irradiation of food with the aim of preservation is actually forbidden.
In only three countries - Belgium, the Netherlands and France - may irradiated foods be sold.
Whereas the EP, since it was first concerned with this problem, that is, since 1987, has been determined to gradually ban completely the irradiation of foods, the Commission has tried to regulate jointly this kind of preservation.
A compromise has thus become an opening to more foods being allowed for irradiation.
For the present common position, the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has drawn the abovementioned conclusions, which are similar to the Swedish position in the Council; consequently, food other than spices cannot, in principle, be irradiated.
I share this view, which I already put forward in this House in October 1989 and in December 1993.
I am deeply concerned about the plan contained in the common position of the Council and the Commission to issue both a framework directive and an implementing directive containing a positive list which is gradually being extended - it currently includes only the aforementioned aromatic herbs and spices.
In this way, under the guise of regulating something positively, we are simultaneously allowing for the possibility of extending radiation to as many foods as possible.
The excuse that no regulation is worse than a minimum regulation is unacceptable, for the regulation we have before us will gradually lead all the EU countries to tolerate irradiated foods on their markets.
The report by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz accepts a limited use of irradiation for certain foodstuffs, including dried herbs and certain spices, with a suggestion of a further increase in products.
It is appropriate that it is stressed that irradiation cannot be used as a substitute for good, hygienic handling of products, but irradiation of foodstuffs in general cannot be accepted.
To start with, I am against treating foods and food ingredients with ionizing radiation.
So it is good that Parliament's requirements for approval are so stringent that the positive list will be limited to spices and roots where no other method of preservation is available.
We must ensure that fresh foods are preferred and so restrict irradiation to the absolute minimum.
Because the European Parliament takes the same sceptical approach to ionising radiation, I am in favour of Parliament being given the authority to assess any extension of the positive list of foods which may be irradiated.
It should also be possible for individual Member States to impose tighter rules.
I cannot support the Committee on the Environment's amendment to approve an analytical method of control only.
There are a number of different methods available and it is essential that the method used depends on what is to be examined.
On the other hand, it would be beneficial to limit as far as possible the number of different methods of irradiation.
This would make controls easier.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that the marking of the foods irradiated must be transparent.
If we cannot ban irradiation completely, we can at least ensure consumers have a proper opportunity of selecting these products.
First of all, I would congratulate the President of the European Parliament for his responsible attitude in refusing to incorporate at second reading new amendments to the proposal for a Council directive, as provided for in our Rules of Procedure.
Some Members who wished to burden the legislative process and administrative restrictions have tried in vain to cloud the issue and to penalize ionization technology by creating a great deal of fuss.
Now it is important that this debate on ionization of foodstuffs takes place with transparency and with serenity.
We must take care not to put up with ambiguity in this process whose aim is not to improve the initial quality of agricultural products, but rather a conservation technique like others which enables perishable foods to be preserved.
Its advantages are that it makes foodstuffs more reliable, enables them to be used more widely and makes harvests aimed for human consumption last longer.
This process destroys pathogenic micro-organisms, eliminates insects and parasites, prevents the germination of bulbs and tubers and increases the life of fruits.
The World Heath Organization, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the FAO are therefore encouraging the development of this technique.
However, a number of Members in our House do not seem to be familiar with the scientific analyses which the judgement of these international organizations is based upon, and they tend to deal with the issue of ionization of foodstuffs at an emotional level, even though the political decisions must be made using reliable scientific data.
The Commission is proposing to set up a specific independent committee which it will be able to rely on when proposing to the Council amendments to the current directive on the ionization of foodstuffs.
Personally, I believe that this procedure is adequate and provides all the necessary guarantees, on condition of course that the committee is genuinely independent.
We have suffered enough from the problem of BSE not to be particularly attentive to these critical issues in connection with any malfunctioning of the Commission.
I recall that on the issue of mad-cow disease, the Commission did not take the necessary measures because it did not wish to take them, and it did not see to it that the ad hoc scientific committees were functioning properly.
As a result, the procedure proposed, which gives the Council the final decision, seems entirely satisfactory, because the governments of the different Member States are best placed to protect their own consumers.
The adoption procedure for the current directive has been exceptionally long - eight years have elapsed between first and second reading - and this shows that the Council wished to adopt a cautious approach.
So it was particularly inopportune to use this second reading to slow down the administrative and legislative process still further.
Some Members wanted to include the entire application procedure, incorporating the list of products which could be ionized within the text of the directive.
In this way, the European Parliament itself would have had to reach a decision on this list in the name of codecision. But is this not simply confusing different roles and an attempt by Parliament to increase its powers by seeking to take the place of scientists?
This was a dangerous direction to take. The Members do not have enough scientific knowledge to authorize or modify the standards and technological procedures.
We can therefore be glad that the proposal to create a specific independent committee was approved by the majority of our House; this means that those with political responsibility will be able to take decisions on the future of the important issue of ionization of foodstuffs based on the argued opinion of scientists.
The environment has gradually taken on an increasing importance in the construction of the European Union.
Regulation (EEC) 1210/90, which is to be amended through this report, had allowed us, in this respect, to comply with the initiative taken in 1989 by Jacques Delors to create a European Environment Agency.
Today's report must present us with the opportunity to debate what lies at the root of all changes in European legislation on the environment, that is, the collection and distribution of objective and accurate information gathered in all the countries of the Union.
Established in 1995, the EEA has until now undertaken valuable work concerning the environmental situation in the countries of the Union in terms of the collection and distribution of objective data and perfecting techniques to aid forecasting and prevention.
I am therefore taking the opportunity that this report has presented to congratulate the Agency on its progress in fulfilling its duties.
The Agency has notably drawn up reports on problems such as climate change and taxes on the environment, and has established several networks to collect and distribute information in this field.
But the Agency cannot work alone!
As the rapporteur points out, the Agency has still changes to make and it must move towards greater cooperation with all of the Community institutions, in particular the European Parliament. This would improve the transparency of information among the different countries of the Union, thereby showing the Agency to be a true instrument in helping to make political decisions in this area.
Moreover, in future, the Commission should systematically ask the Agency for reports before implementing even minor new Community policies.
In this sense, I agree with my colleague, Mr Collins, who, wondering why there is no mention in the Commission's report of the importance of Parliament's role in the legislative process, asks that the obligation to report its results to Parliament be included in the draft revision.
The European Environment Agency must also, within the framework of its duties, take into account other aspects such as forests, waste products and chemical products on the one hand, and on the other, the Union's future time scales, particularly its enlargement and the environmental problems that this will undoubtedly entail.
Finally, I would like to highlight the fact that while some people are discussing the dismantling of environmental standards or clauses on the planet under the draft Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), to the benefit of multinational companies, I, on the contrary, am defending the enhancement of environmental cooperation with third countries.
I welcome discussion on this report.
Obviously the Committee agrees with the Commission assessment that it would be unrealistic to allocate the European Environmental Agency any major new tasks at the moment.
The Commission is nonetheless proposing to extend the scope of the Agency's activities with a view to establishing a European Environment Information Centre.
It is also important that greater cooperation is achieved between the Agency and Member States and of course applicant states.
I would hope that there will be a positive response to the rapporteur's proposal for a closer working relationship between the Agency and the Commission and also for the establishment of a data register by the Agency which would include legislation and information to improve the enforcement of EU environmental policy including a cost/benefit analysis.
Finally it is important that the Agency's multi-annual work programme should be complemented by a multi-annual budget in order to enable the Agency to plan its work more effectively.
Madam President, I have asked to speak on a point of order, as follows: yesterday, at exactly this point of the proceedings, I submitted an explanation of vote in writing, specifically on the Blak report.
Madam President, today, with great surprise, I saw in the Minutes that there is no mention of my written statement.
As I consider that explanation of vote to be particularly important, I ask you to look into the matter.
We will indeed check that, Mr Papakyriazis, and if, as you say, this was not done, we will insert your explanation of vote in writing.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Mr President, before the debate starts I need to put on record a rather banal matter, namely that I was not able to vote at all this morning - and the new Rules presumably apply - the reason being that my plane was due to leave at 7.55 a.m. from London Airport and, in the event, it left at 10.30 a.m., so I arrived just as the vote was finishing.
But I feel sure that you, Sir, as a distinguished member of the Bureau, having taken a most wise decision, will find it possible to adjust the situation to meet cases like mine, and that is why I rather expanded on the position.
Thank you, Mr Moorhouse.
You may rest assured that the Bureau has taken note of what you say and that it will take the necessary steps to ensure that you do not suffer any disadvantage.
Nigeria and Burma - UN Human Rights Commission
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0012/99 - O-0009/98 and B4-0013/98 - O-0010/98, by Mrs Maij-Weggen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council and the Commission, on the EU's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0020/98 - O-0028/98 and B4-0122/98 - O-0029/98, by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council and to the Commission, on the EU's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0123/98 - O-0030/98 and B4-0124/98 - O-0031/98, by Mr Müller and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the European Union's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0127/98 - O-0035/98 by Mr Carnero González and Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council, on relations between the European Union and Nigeria; -B4-0128/98 - O-0036/98 and B4-0129/98 - O-0037/98, by Mr Macartney and Mr Hory, to the Council and to the Commission, on the European Union's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0134/98 - O-0042/98 and B4-0135/98 - O-0043/98, by Mr Andrews and Mr Girão Pereira, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council and to the Commission, on the European Union's attitude to Nigeria; -B4-0137/98 - O-0046/98 and B4-0169/98 - O-0051/98, by Mrs Kinnock and Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council and to the Commission, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0014/98 - O-0011/98 and B4-0015/98 - O-0012/98 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council and to the Commission, on human rights violations in Burma; -B4-0018/98 - O-0026/98 and B4-0019/98 - O-0027/98, by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council and to the Commission, on human rights violations in Burma; -B4-0126/98 - O-0034/98 by Mr Pettinari and Mr Vinci, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council, on relations between the European Union and Burma; -B4-0131/98 - O-0039/98 by Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on human rights violations in Burma; -B4-0133/98 - O-0041/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on human rights violations in Burma; -B4-0136/98 - O-0045/98 and B4-0141/98 - O-0050/98, by Mrs Kinnock and Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council and to the Commission, on the situation in Burma; -B4-0139/98 - O-0048/98 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council, on the human rights situation in Burma; -B4-0011/98 - O-0182/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council, on the EU position at the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva; -B4-0125/98 - O-0033/98 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council, on the United Nations Human Rights Commission; -B4-0130/98 - O-0038/98 by Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council, on the EU's position at the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva; -B4-0132/98 - O-0040/98 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council, on the EU's position at the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva; -B4-0138/98 - O-0047/98 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council, on the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission; -B4-0140/98 - O-0049/98 by Mr Barros Moura, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council, on the EU's position at the 54th session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Mr President, with increasing frequency the European Union is acting in a divided manner towards the outside world in crucial foreign policy issues.
This is unfortunate.
We saw it in the Iraq affair which was discussed at length here this morning, and we are seeing it again in a number of human rights issues.
Again, this is unfortunate.
Last year, during the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights we saw a terrible display of 15 EU nations towards China.
Whilst the Netherlands as President rightly tried to get European support for a critical stance, four EU countries pulled out.
It was a sad spectacle of disagreement and Europe was exposed.
This is why we are making an urgent plea to the United Kingdom to be very active during the coming weeks, so that the ranks of EU Member States will be united in Geneva in March, and so that serious violations of human rights will not be sacrificed to the golden calf of economic interests.
We wish to draw particular attention to two countries, Nigeria and Burma.
On the subject of Nigeria, the elected President has been overthrown and put into prison during a military coup.
It was followed by massive intimidations and a great deal of violence during which the supporters of Abiola, relevant politicians, soldiers, officials and other citizens were tried in often secret tribunals and killed, or treated so badly in prison that they died subsequently.
We all know the story of Ken Saro-Wiwa, and we also know that Adua died in similar circumstances.
Now there is another general standing in front of a secret tribunal, and we all know how that will end.
Meanwhile, the rulers get rich at the expense of the ordinary people, and the number of people living in absolute poverty in Nigeria has increased from 35 to 44 million.
50 million people are illiterate, and 70 million are without drinking water.
The average life expectancy has fallen from 54 to 47.
Mr President, we believe that Nigeria needs a firm approach, and in spite of all earlier statements we are asking that we should steer towards an economic boycott.
This is the wish of our group - and we are no radical left wingers - and is the wish of a large section of this Parliament.
As regards Burma, Mr President, there, too, a President who was elected by 80 % of the population was removed by military force.
There, the opposition was also imprisoned and killed.
There, parts of the population are also terrorized and - worse still - sections of minorities are used for slave labour.
Mr President, the United States have introduced an investment ban.
Dutch companies, such as Heineken, have also withdrawn, but we are seeing, to our annoyance, that other firms, such as Total, are establishing themselves in Nigeria to fill a gap in the market.
Here, too, we are asking for tough action, and as far as we are concerned for an economic boycott, and most definitely an investment ban.
Mr President, I would like to conclude by saying that we believe that the European Union should speak with one voice on human rights issues.
We believe that the Presidency should do its utmost to get the Member States into one line.
We also believe that those countries that do not wish to cooperate should be seriously called to account on this.
We do not wish to see a repeat of last year in the next session in Geneva, and we hope that the British Presidency will manage to see to it there is one line, and to see to it that there is tough action, especially as far as the two countries mentioned earlier are concerned.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union has far too often been accused, not entirely wrongly, of being strong with the weak and weak with the strong, in other words, of energetically pointing out the violations of human rights in countries of little geopolitical significance and of closing its eyes to the violations of the stronger countries.
This is certainly not the case with Nigeria.
This is a great regional power with economic and military strength; and so, if possible, it has greater responsibilities towards the other States in the region.
We should not forget that Nigeria is constantly seeking to assert its political weight on the other countries in the region, and on the developing countries in general, to oppose the constant appeals of the international Community to restore democracy, an independent legal system, the lawful state and respect for human rights.
It is therefore impossible to remain silent in view of the arrests of those opposed to the current regime, the most authoritative members of the civilian society of that country, nor can we tolerate lightheartedly the fact that several international oil companies are still working in the Ogoni region, despite the violations of human rights and environmental pollution.
As I said this morning, politics, particularly international politics, abhors a vacuum.
The European Union and its individual states cannot fail to exert strong pressure on the Abacha regime to make it perform a serious about-turn, not hesitating, in the extreme, to deprive the current military junta of its principal financial means, by applying a total embargo on the oil trade of that country.
Faced with extreme situations, such as that of Nigeria, we can only use extreme measures.
Mr President, I would like to echo the points made by colleagues and it is good to see the House uniting.
Mrs Maij-Weggen said that her group was not radical, my group is called the Radical group and naturally we associate ourselves with radical policies.
I think what is important is that we have compromised to produce a joint resolution which I hope the House will pass overwhelmingly.
I also agree totally with the remarks made by my colleague Mr Fassa.
We have to remember sometimes just how big the prize of Nigeria is or how big the challenge.
This is the giant of Africa, the country with one hundred million people which dominates the continent.
As my colleague Mr Fassa has just said if we ignore the giants and pick on the pygmies then people will conclude that the European Union is not serious about its foreign policy.
We have all been exercised about the problems of Iraq and the dictatorship there, but it would be a lot easier to bring about the overthrow of the Abacha dictatorship than that of Saddam Hussein.
Sanni Abacha overthrew the elected government.
He rules with a ring of steel around him but he is not supported by the people of Nigeria.
They are looking to us for a lead to see in what ways the European Union is prepared to put democracy first and its own economic short-term interests second.
In the long term, I think we have an interest in a free, democratic Nigeria with which we can trade as a full member of the ACP Lomé Convention.
In the meantime, we have set out in this resolution a series of practical steps which the European Union could take and I hope that the Council of Ministers will respond to this and see whether they will go along with each of these.
This is a very carefully calibrated practical series of proposals from this Parliament and I think that they are a very fitting response to the challenge.
But at the end of the day the final sanction which has got to be contemplated, and this Parliament has already supported it in the past, is an oil embargo.
That is the one thing which Nigeria above all fears.
It is the one thing which could bring down the regime so we have to keep that up our sleeve as the last resort and in the meantime put the pressure on the regime to transfer to democratic government which is what the Nigerian people deserve.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of my colleague Mr Andrews who was unavoidably detained, but who would like to make clear his position on Nigeria.
Many condemnations of the Nigerian regime have been issued within this House and within the Commonwealth, notably since the day of November 1995 when Ogoni activists were hanged despite repeated calls from the international community for the sentence not to be carried out.
In the aftermath of this dramatic event, sanctions were adopted by the Union and have been regularly extended since then.
No less than 11 resolutions have been adopted by this House since 1993, when the democratic process in Nigeria was brutally interrupted by the cancellation of the presidential elections and the establishment of a military regime under General Abacha.
We are of the opinion that diplomatic pressure on the military rulers must be increased and that a clear signal must be sent to them.
The Union and the international community should take them at their word.
General Abacha gave an undertaking to transfer his powers to a democratically-elected civilian president by the end of this year.
Let us take him at his word and, as the present resolution rightly states, we must clearly set out a number of prerequisites that we consider essential to guarantee the credibility and the viability of the promised transition to civilian government.
The European Union must make every effort to bring the Nigerian leaders to fulfil these preconditions for a smooth electoral process and to convince them that it is the very credibility of the transition process which is at stake.
In this context, we think the Union must act in close cooperation with the Organization of African Unity so that a concerted effort is made to convince Nigeria's leaders of the need for a spirit of genuine openness towards democracy.
If this is achieved, then the European Union and the international community will have to draw the appropriate conclusions.
Mr President, Burma and Nigeria are obviously, geographically, thousands of miles apart.
However, the people in those two countries both endure the most tyrannical military juntas and suffer systematic abuses of human rights.
Unfortunately, as others have said, Europe's response is often perceived as being guided too much by our own commercial advantage, rather than the need to respond to the misery of the people in those countries where we risk undermining the very credibility of any claim that Europe is, in fact, genuinely committed to human rights.
Democracy and good governance and our commitments to those two issues are also called into question by people in Burma and Nigeria who say that fine words will not, in themselves, assist their struggles.
Should we not respond to the calls that have been made repeatedly by Aung San Suu Kyi for political and economic isolation of the SPDC. Is it not time other Member States followed the initiative undertaken by Britain, that has at least outlawed trade promotion in Burma?
Would the President-in-Office of the Council please give me some information as to whether it has made any progress on this matter? Also, will he report to me whether the European Union is doing anything about the large numbers of Burmese people who are being forcibly repatriated into Burma, from Thailand, as a result of the financial crisis?
Similarly, on Nigeria, will the Council give us a commitment that it will implement the measures already agreed in the common position, particularly on visas, which have been regularly flouted by generals? The sports boycott has been flouted due to pressure from the French government to allow the Nigerian football team to take part in the World Cup in June.
That is an extremely regrettable initiative.
The President-in-Office will be aware that at the Commonwealth Conference the foreign ministers agreed that if the promised return to civilian rule in Nigeria was not credible, then a mandatory oil embargo, a ban on airlines, an arms embargo and a freezing of financial assets would take place.
Will the President-in-Office confirm that the Council will take similar actions at such time? Will he spell out the terms and the timetable on which the proposed transition would be acceptable, including the unimpeded registration of genuine political parties, the release of Chief Abiola and other detainees and international monitoring of elections?
Would the President-in-Office agree with me that if the Council were to set these clear benchmarks, which we have laid out in our resolution, then we would avoid risking acquiescence in the process which Abacha is so clearly engaged in and that will result in a civilian glove covering the military fist that Abacha has applied for so long?
Mr President, the regime in Burma may have changed its name, but the policy has stayed exactly the same.
The State Peace Development Council, as it is called now, continues its policy of suppression. It is the same old story.
I invite the British Presidency to make it clear that human rights policy is a joint policy, and that it forms an important part of their political thinking.
How does the President-in-Office of the Council think he will do this? How does the President-in-Office of the Council think he will respond to Premier Oil's decision to invest in Burma?
What instrument does ASEM offer this situation? The Liberal group hopes that the President-in-Office of the Council will stick to the Union policy not to invite Burma to London.
Only what I would like to call pariah treatment will have effect.
How are the ASEM partners responding to this? How does the President-in-Office of the Council think he will convince the ASEM partners of the need for a policy which is based more on respect for human rights?
Finally, has the dialogue with ASEM countries yielded any results yet, and will this be brought up during the coming meeting of ministers?
Mr President, we asked for this debate with the Commission and the Council on topics of major importance concerning the specific principle the Community institutions and the EU countries should adopt in the presence of countries which are very seriously violating the most fundamental human and democratic rights of their citizens.
The case of Burma is certainly today one of the most serious in the world.
The "list' of problems is, unfortunately, sadly known and runs from generalized political and social repression to the exploitation of forced and child labour, from drugs trafficking to violation of human rights.
This situation is constantly deteriorating and the government is not showing any signs of finally wanting to begin a process of democratization in the country.
In the Burmese State's budget for 1997-98, defence costs officially amount to 43 % of the total.
These resources are used for internal repression and in the interests of the military establishment in power.
The Burmese civilian society has shown its desire for democracy on numerous occasions that have always received our firm support, as shown when the Sakharov Prize was awarded to Aung San Suu Kyi several years ago.
However, the amount the international Community can do, starting with the EU and its Member States, becomes a deciding factor.
For this reason, while supporting the measures already adopted by the Commission and Council, we ask for pressure to be increased on the Burmese government, accentuating its political and economic isolation.
It is from within Burma itself that the EU is asked to block any economic relations with the government, ending investments, trade and tourism and taking restrictive measures on entry visas, as well as strictly controlling the embargo on arms sales.
The attitude of the large private companies, with numerous direct or indirect interests in Burma, is decisive.
A pressure policy should be applied to these companies to freeze their business in the country, business that is only beneficial to the Government.
The opinion the citizens of Europe and those of the rest of the world will have on the European structure also depends on the firm and responsible way in which we manage to deal with the Burmese question and the other democratic emergencies throughout the world.
Thank you, Mr Vecchi.
Meanwhile, the Bureau has noted that Mr Telkämper, whom I had said was absent, has just entered the Chamber and it is therefore with great pleasure that I invite him to take the floor, if the House has no objection.
My questions relate to Burma.
We have presented and discussed various resolutions on Burma and we were usually in agreement with the Commission and the Council that we must do everything to push forward the democratization process.
This, however, has just not happened.
My question is therefore how the British Presidency intends to present a common foreign policy position on Burma and perhaps to get this process in motion.
The question relates in particular to how the Presidency intends to deal with adherence to the ILO Convention on slave labour.
We know that slave labour prevails in Burma.
How can we ensure this directive is successfully implemented?
I also have a specific question concerning the oil company Premier Oil, which in September 1997 announced its intention to buy the shares of the US firm Texaco from a natural gas company.
Will the British Presidency support that or do you advise them, on the basis of resolutions passed here to desist from doing so?
The third point is that, as we have said, whilst the circumstances in Burma remain as they are, we will be against Burma being included here, on the basis of the treaty arrangements between the European Union and the ASEAN countries. This is because, as we of course repeatedly emphasize, human rights must be respected and this is also a condition or a part of the treaties.
What will be the attitude of the British Presidency in the continuation of relations between the EU and ASEAN?
Mr President, as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I must confess I am more familiar with human rights violations of the fundamental rights within the European Union, which, as you know, come under the authority of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, rather than human rights violations outside the European Union, about which my colleagues know a lot more than I do.
But as I know the region quite well, including Burma, I was suddenly asked to speak.
I have tried to catch up on human rights violations outside the European Union, because situations in my own country prompt me to a certain degree of modesty in this respect.
If you consider that the Netherlands had been denounced by the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for not having an independent judiciary, for not having a perfectly organized defence system and for not having properly functioning freedom of speech, then I say that I am quite willing to consider human rights as a problem, but rather as a "we problem' than a "you problem' .
This is my first point.
When Burma joined ASEAN, I immediately paid a visit to Rangoon for strictly personal reasons, and used the opportunity to lay a wreath at the British war cemetery for those who died on the railroad during the Japanese occupation.
I was very impressed with how civilized the people in that country were - and I can fully see why the British considered it as one of its most advanced colonies, when it was still a colonial power.
I therefore went back over Christmas, and I also visited the Anglican Church - and I can recommended this to my British colleagues - where the war chapel has a handwritten record of all the British people who gave their lives for the freedom of this country, and for my own church, the Anglican Church.
And I am now delivering to you a plea from the bishops of the Anglican and Lutheran Church, regarding the fact that all economic measures affect first and foremost the poor members of the population.
That is the message I wanted to pass on.
It has to be said, and this struck me yesterday during my intensive research of human rights violations, that we apply a kind of selection process - and I must ask my expert colleagues about this -, because a country like Brunei, which has no parliament at all, one of the nine ASEAN members, has never been on our hit list.
I have one last comment, Mr President, and that is that religious beliefs, which do exist, as I experienced in Burma, are always judged harshly by this Parliament.
These are my last words; maybe we can pay some attention to this from within Christian circles.
Mr President, I only want to point out that the country's President elected by 80 % of the population asked for economic measures.
I think that should suffice.
Thank you, Mrs Maij-Weggen, for your clarification.
I will give the floor once more to Mr Bertens and I would take this opportunity to explain to the House that, as I am sure you are aware, we are conducting a joint debate on a number of oral questions.
That is why Mr Bertens appears on the list of speakers a second time, and indeed, he will be taking the floor for a third time later on.
Mr President, Mrs Maij-Weggen already made the point at the beginning of the debate that the UN Commission on Human Rights, which took place when the Dutch held the Presidency last year, was a black page in the Union's human rights history.
Unfortunately, international attention was focused on how extremely divided we were; this division was chiefly based on economic advantage.
The Council promised better, and why not in fact?
The Union, acting jointly at UN level in this area, might achieve something.
This applies especially to larger countries, and in this respect, I would like to mention China.
The balance between open and silent diplomacy is right, but what will the result bring? I do not think we should be obsessed with China.
We must also remember Nigeria, Burma, Cambodia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Algeria, and perhaps Cuba, because the Pope does not sanctify everything.
UN resolutions should be followed up to the letter.
My question to the Council is: does he think he might achieve a better system for monitoring UN resolutions and for strengthening the follow-up structure?
This year the opportunity to reinforce the UN position must be seized, since it was fifty years ago in Lake Success that the United Nations was founded.
Any attempts to not take the United Nations resolutions seriously will obviously achieve the opposite.
How does the President-inOffice of the Council think he might give the decisive push for the realization of a powerful UN declaration on the protection of human rights defenders?
After all these years there should at last be a powerful agreement on this.
Defenders of human rights deserve a declaration as an appreciation of all their work, and the Member States are morally committed to that in this important year for the UN.
I hope that this Presidency will interpret that in the right way in any case.
Mr President, as the chairman of the delegation for relations with China, I am the first to admit that it is not easy to know how to influence this huge country.
We often discuss that within the delegation. We are even going to have a special seminar about it.
It is clear that we should not break off relations. And it is clear that we should continue to strengthen our contacts and continue with dialogue.
But should we really stop criticizing China completely? That seems to be the Council's view, since it is now going to dispense entirely with proposing a resolution in Geneva.
It is true that things have happened in China.
It is true that certain laws have been changed. It is true that a convention on social rights has been adopted, or at least signed.
It is true that Mary Robinson has been invited there and it is true that the Sakharov prize winner Wei Jingsheng has been released. But is that really enough to give China approval?
Human Rights Watch does not think so.
Nor does Wei Jingsheng, whom I had the occasion to meet in Brussels a while ago. They think that pressure should be maintained too.
I would like to ask this: is it really the case that the Council has a strategy for human rights in China? Or is it just commercial considerations that have led to this new passive approach?
Mr President, this Parliament resolution is important.
I have the same doubts as Mr Gahrton as regards the Council's desire to adopt a position which I hope will be Parliament's position tomorrow.
There are certain precedents, particularly that of the past year.
I also have some doubts as regards the Commission.
There are some issues concerning China which are quite worrying. Some projects have been blocked for two years and I have just learned that, following a restructuring of the services of the Commission, the projects which DG VIII had examined and organized were transferred to DG 1B.
This will force us to restart the whole process and lose more precious months.
Some projects have been blocked for two years. The Council may have reservations, but so too has the Commission.
There is one point as regards the United Nations resolution on which I absolutely do not agree: that of "Algeria' .
This morning, Parliament succeeded in adopting a dignified stance on Iraq although this is not the case for other institutions.
Thanks to the subcommittee chaired by Mr Soulier, in Algeria's case, Parliament is moving in the right direction towards adopting a dignified position, so it will not contradict itself by adopting a paragraph which demands that an international committee of inquiry be set up on Algeria tomorrow.
It was a huge job to get Parliament to move on this; I hope and I am fairly convinced that we have succeeded.
Now we must try to influence the Council and the Commission.
Parliament will not go back on its word by calling for an international conference; that would be absurd.
Mr President, sadly, I could fill the minutes allocated to me listing countries which flagrantly violate human rights, but I will mention a few which are not often highlighted.
Firstly, I would like to mention Angola. The government rules over the largest part of the country now and, sadly, murders of the opposition leaders are increasing, including in the Cabinda region.
The international community is doing nothing, tempted by oil and the generous sale of arms to the country.
Secondly, I would like to take the case of Cuba. Seven prisoners have been released, who incidently were forced to leave the country immediately, but that still leaves 500 political prisoners.
Because of the internal split in this Parliament, we rarely discuss this.
No Cuban dissident has ever been important enough to this Parliament to receive the Sakharov Prize.
This is incredible and selective, Mr President.
Apart from looking critically at this Parliament, I also want to look critically at the Council. How has the Council put into effect the human rights resolutions which were accepted in the UN last year?
What has been done to promote and guarantee the work of the special rapporteurs?
How is the Council going to organize a strong and cohesive EU position for the coming 54th Session of the UN? Is the Council prepared to give clear signals during the Session to countries like China, Mexico, Nigeria, Syria and Cuba, countries which are totally obstructive during the negotiation and decision-making process?
Will the Council not let itself be influenced by China's one step forward, two steps back policy?
Does the Council really see the exclusion of Burma at the coming ASEM summit as a useful contribution to compliance of human rights?
To conclude, for over a year some resolutions in this Parliament and some political factions have been calling for an oil boycott in Nigeria.
Is the Council truly prepared and does it intend to raise this with the Security Council? Because otherwise we are sitting here producing hot air, and that is not what this Parliament is here for.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the honourable Members for their questions and their interventions.
I am pleased to address the questions they submitted.
I would like to deal with this in three parts plus an addendum.
The first part will deal with Nigeria, the second with Burma, the third with human rights and I will then make an announcement in relation to Azerbaijan on human rights.
Firstly, on Nigeria, the Council has been following the situation in Nigeria with concern since the annulment of 12 June 1993 presidential elections.
It has had measures in place against the Nigerian regime since then as a mark of its concerns about the lack of respect for human rights and democratic rule.
This concern intensified throughout 1995 which saw the trial and harsh sentencing of 43 alleged coup plotters, including former Head of State General Obasanjo and a number of other high-profile civilians, Abacha's announcement of a three-year transition to civilian rule and finally the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his eight co-defendants after a flawed judicial process.
The two common positions adopted on 20 November 1995 and 4 December 1995 strengthened the European Union measures to include, among others, visa restrictions on members of the Nigerian regime and their families, including those in possession of long-term visas, a full scale arms embargo and a sports ban.
As the honourable Members have noted, on 28 November 1997 the Council of the European Union extended the common position on Nigeria of 4 December 1995 until 1 November 1998.
At the same time the Council reiterated its concern about the abuse of human rights in Nigeria, including the detention of political prisoners as well as the slow pace of democratization.
It also underlined its willingness to support the transition process.
Since then the Council has followed with considerable concern developments in Nigeria, including the tragic death of Shehu Yar'Adua in detention, the further arrest and detention without charge of journalists and pro-democracy activists, plus the arrest on 21 December 1997 of General Diya and a number of others in connection with an alleged coup attempt.
On 26 December 1997, the Luxembourg Presidency issued a declaration on behalf of the European Union appealing urgently to the Nigerian authorities to treat those arrested in accordance with the legal principles corresponding to international standards.
This declaration also made clear that the European Union could not accept a repetition of the events of 1995.
The Council has noted that a seven-man military tribunal has been constituted under the chairmanship of Major General Malu to try 26 people held under suspicion of coup plotting.
On 14 February the press were allowed to witness the inauguration and see the accused but we understand that the proceedings will be held in camera .
The European Union successfully co-sponsored further critical resolutions on Nigeria at the 1997 sessions of the United Nations Commission for Human Rights and the United Nations General Assembly.
The UNCHR resolution led to the appointment on 16 October of a special rapporteur on Nigeria with a mandate to make contact with the Nigerian authorities and people and report on the human rights situation in that country.
His first report will be submitted to this year's Commission.
We will be pressing for a further tough resolution based on his report.
I want now to move to Burma.
I applaud the sustained interest which Members of the European Parliament continue to take in the appalling human rights situation in Burma.
The Council strongly shares Members' concerns.
Its working groups at all levels regularly discuss ways in which to promote change in that country.
The Council's message on Burma is simple.
The people of Burma have expressed democratically their wish for a fairer deal and their voice must be heard by their government.
To reinforce that message and encourage reform, the European Union has introduced a package of tough measures against the Burmese regime.
The common position on Burma first adopted in October 1996 includes a full-scale arms embargo, a ban on the issuing of visas for members of the regime and their families, a ban on defence links and aid except for humanitarian aid and a ban on high-level official visits.
The European Union has also suspended preferential trading terms for Burmese exports to the Union of agricultural and industrial goods.
Some Member States have introduced additional measures on a national basis.
The Council regularly reviews whether there is a consensus for them to be adopted by all Member States.
There is no question of any relaxation of these measures without a substantial improvement in the human rights situation in Burma.
We are conscious that in some circumstances such sanctions can hurt the very people they are designed to help.
To help relieve the suffering which Burmese government policies cause to ordinary Burmese people, the European Union partners are considering a package of positive measures to strengthen civil society in Burma and to reinforce the excellent humanitarian work which is already being done there.
I want to pay tribute to the many European and other non-governmental organizations which work tirelessly to improve conditions on the ground.
The Council is working with non-governmental organizations to tackle the problem of Burma's refugees from both sides of the border.
European Union ambassadors in Bangkok are in touch with the government of Thailand about the need to provide shelter and protection for refugees.
We continue to monitor the situation closely and stand ready to take swift further action if necessary.
We also work to promote improvements in Burma through close coordination of policy with our international partners.
The Council keeps Burma high on its agenda for intergovernmental discussions.
We firmly believe that governments in Asia have a particularly important role to play in using their influence with the regime to press for reform in Burma and we continue to urge them to do so.
Our international partners cooperate closely in the UN.
For example, the United Nations General Assembly in December adopted by consensus a tough resolution on human rights in Burma.
Several European Union Member States were co-sponsors, and the text is stronger than last year's resolution in key areas.
We look to the Burmese authorities to respect their obligations, as a UN member, and implement the resolution immediately.
The Union will also introduce a resolution on Burma at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva next month.
The Council has taken concrete measures to address human rights abuses in Burma.
It is keeping the situation under very regular review and stands ready to consider further measures, positive or negative, as the situation on the ground demands.
I should like to move on more generally to human rights.
From mid-March to the end of April the Presidency will lead the European Union at the 54th session of the UN Commission of Human Rights in Geneva.
Those rights are an issue for the whole year, not just for the annual sessions of the Commission.
But the Commission is certainly the most important single opportunity in the international calendar to demonstrate our commitment to human rights and to work towards a realization around the world.
We are conscious though that the Commission is not always an easy environment: many different viewpoints are represented.
There will be those present who will seek to hamstring the work of the international community to promote human rights.
Many countries automatically oppose intrusive mechanisms and the realization by their citizens of their inalienable rights.
We will do our utmost, with other like-minded countries, to ensure that such disruptive and indefensible opposition does not prevail.
A major focus of this year's Commission will be the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Declaration established universal standards of human rights.
Fifty years on, the standards remain as relevant as they were when the Declaration was adopted.
But we remain a long way from their full realization.
The 50th anniversary is a time for implementation of those standards.
It is not a time to unpick existing texts, and we will resist firmly any attempts to do so.
We will pay particular attention at the Commission to ensuring that it takes effective action to promote the rights of children.
So often children's rights are forgotten or ignored.
Children's rights must be a cross-cutting element in all the work of the Commission.
There is near-universal ratification of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, and the time has come for implementation.
Another key cross-cutting issue for the Council is the human rights of women.
We will ensure that women's rights are given their due place in the work of the Commission, not just in the resolutions which specifically cover women's rights, but in other Commission action.
The EU will play a full role across all the work of the Commission.
In particular there is already agreement within the Union that the Presidency, on behalf of the Union, will table resolutions on Nigeria, Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Israeli settlements, Iran, East Timor and Iraq.
We will also take the initiative on Colombia, where the welcome decision to set up a human rights office in Bogota stems from Union action.
The Union will, in addition, make an intervention setting out our position on other countries where we have major human rights concerns.
The Council is still considering how to address other countries' situations at the Commission, including China.
We regret the breakdown of the European Union consensus on a CHR resolution in 1997.
We are still considering action at the Commission on Human Rights.
But it will depend on developments and progress made in the bilateral and European Union human rights dialogues.
We expect to make a decision shortly.
We have concerns about the human rights situation in China and are seeking to address these in a cooperative way with the Chinese government.
China has demonstrated a willingness to discuss human rights with us and the European Union as a whole.
China has also entered into a dialogue with others.
These discussions have produced results, information on individual cases and agreement on technical cooperation programmes.
The Presidency will also make interventions in debates on racism, democracy and development, detention and rule of law issues, women's rights, advisory services, the rights of the child, human rights' defenders, as well as on Israeli settlements.
We will support the Commission's various independent mechanisms, including special rapporteurs and working groups.
They play a crucial role in monitoring violations and advising governments on human rights improvements.
The Council, as you may imagine, does not expect an easy session.
But we know what we want to achieve: real progress towards the realization of all human rights for all people, and we will be working hard to make sure that we achieve it.
As I indicated at the beginning of my contribution, I can today, as a result of pressure by the Union, announce that Azerbaijan has abolished the death penalty.
I believe it is a helpful step forward in promoting human rights, and we call on other countries to follow that example.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Bureau has received a number of requests for the floor from Members who have already taken part in the debate.
Given that some ten more speakers are already down for this joint debate, the Bureau's criteria will be to avoid disturbing the normal course of the debate.
The Members who have now requested the floor in connection with the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council will be able to put their questions at the end, because I do not think that this will be the last time that the President-in-Office of the Council takes the floor.
Therefore, he will have an opportunity to answer any questions later.
Mr President, can you assure me that the President-in-Office will be here if we want to ask him questions because I specifically wanted to ask for an answer to a very specific question that I asked.
Mrs Kinnock, it seems that you did not hear what I said earlier.
Like yourself, others have requested the floor in response to the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council.
Moreover, we have a list of speakers and a series of speakers who have not yet had the opportunity to take the floor, and who have as much right to receive answers from the President of the Council and from Commissioner Marín as those who have already spoken.
Therefore, I would ask for your understanding and ask you to present your question to the President-in-Office of the Council when the debate has ended, because we still have another ten speakers on our list, and we cannot favour any Member to the detriment of others.
I hope you understand that I cannot proceed in any other way.
Mr President, in general terms the Commission completely accepts the position expressed by the British Presidency with respect to Nigeria and Burma.
I just want to explain a few points.
It is true that Nigeria is at a critical juncture because presidential elections are due to be held in the next six months, and we hope they will lead to the installation of a civilian government in that country, under a civilian president.
So there is a lot at stake.
If, for whatever reason, the process of democratic transition were to founder, it could result in a reappearance of the spectre of violence and bloodshed, which could perhaps spread to other countries, with very serious human and economic consequences.
We are convinced that the Nigerian people would not peacefully accept another military regime.
On the other hand, the many questions which Members have raised about the Nigeria issue show the concern within the European Union to see the democratic process firmly established in that country, and the economic benefits of its resources finally distributed fairly amongst the population, which is increasing all the time and becoming poorer and poorer.
As has been said, Nigeria is too big and important a country, both within Africa and globally, to be marginalized.
Let me state quite categorically that the Commission will do everything within its power and the limits of its authority, to assist and mobilize the necessary resources to strengthen Nigerian civilian society, and particularly its most vulnerable groups.
Twenty-seven years of successive military governments have left an indelible mark on Nigerian civilian society, which will take a long time to disappear.
The apathy and fatalism which characterize a large part of civilian society should be reversed somehow. We are convinced that Nigeria's well-known spirit of enterprise and dynamism can be reawakened for this purpose.
Finally, I want to say that the Commission intends to continue its efforts towards dialogue with the Nigerian government, giving special priority to measures designed precisely to combat human rights violations, strengthen the independence and training of the courts and the legal professions, improve governability and assist the process of supporting democracy.
As for Burma - and this is not the first time we have discussed these matters in Parliament - the Commission wishes to clarify the following points: to the best of our ability, and following the common position adopted by the Council, we have tried to establish what is known as "critical dialogue' with the military junta.
Apart from the ASEAN meetings at the United Nations in New York, our attempt at critical dialogue has not worked and is still not working, for the simple reason that it has been rejected.
At the moment there is no significant contact between the Commission and the military junta.
It is true that the common position calls on us to initiate that political dialogue but, I repeat, with the military junta this has not been possible.
With the democratic movements it is a different matter, and we have set in motion a whole series of decisions.
I do not understand how Mr Dupuis can talk about delays.
That is not true.
The Commission has set in motion a programme of support for the opposition, for the Burmese dissident movement which has been established in Europe, and in that sense we have launched a project with the aim of strengthening the democratic movements and training members of the opposition and future leaders.
We have opened a Europe-Burma office in Brussels.
In other words, we have made contact with the opposition and with the dissidents within that opposition living in Europe, and we are helping them.
As for the military junta, I cannot tell them anything, for the simple reason that we have no form of contact with them.
The only chance is the forthcoming visit by Kofi Annan's special envoy, Mr Álvarez Soto, the aim of which is precisely to attempt that critical dialogue, on behalf of Kofi Annan.
Finally, the European Union's position on the ASEAN question is very clear.
Firstly, the fact that Burma has been accepted into ASEAN's regional framework is a matter for ASEAN itself.
They accepted that country in the belief that by means of what they call "constructive engagement' - which turns out to be the English version of the Asian translation of "critical dialogue' - they would demonstrate that dialogue really has been strengthened.
As far as the Commission is concerned, I first want to point out once again in Parliament that Burma is not included in the 1980 cooperation agreement which was extended to Brunei and Vietnam.
In any case, the Commission does not intend to propose to the Council that the ASEAN-EU regional cooperation protocol of 1980 should be extended.
In that sense, we are maintaining our position, apart from the fact that it was confirmed in the Council's common position.
Furthermore, Burma is also excluded from all the cooperation programmes being implemented with ASEAN.
So there is no need to worry, because as things stand and until such time as the common position changed, we are strictly complying both with what the Council called for in its common position and with what this Parliament has so often called for.
That is the latest news I can give you on these two problems.
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
I have received twenty motions for resolutions, submitted pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, over two years since the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa, when his son, Ken, came to Brussels three days later and generated total and absolute support from every part of this House for a return to democracy and human rights in Nigeria, we are forced once again to ask the European Parliament to condemn the Abacha regime's continuing disregard for these principles.
Abacha's presidential candidacy from four out of five parties and the continued house arrest of Chief Abiola do not constitute a transition to civilian rule, Commissioner Marín.
The arrests of alleged coup plotters last December, threats against journalists who report them, and the arrest of 30 perceived activists preceding the Ogoni Day celebrations last month are all testimony to the abandonment of even token efforts by the Nigerian government towards democratic transition.
I ask the Commission and the Council to respond to Mrs Kinnock's points about clear benchmarks for this transition process.
We say again, today, that oil sanctions remain the only instrument available to the international community which will guarantee change; oil earnings, which account for 96 % of all Nigeria's export earnings, with 40 % of all federal government revenue provided by one European company: Shell.
The European Parliament should condemn the Nigerian government for its announcement this month that it is seeking to resume oil operations in Ogoniland by force.
We should join calls on Shell to publicly denounce this.
Last year we held discussions with Shell in this House on their business principles.
We accept that they have the potential to be a force for good in Nigeria, but they must accept greater responsibility in response to the latest crisis.
Batom Mitee, brother of the acting president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (Mosop) told The Times : ' Farmers are struggling for land and space with oil exploration.
They do not see the government.
They see Shell.
They want Shell to show some concern.'
On 3 January this year, Batom's car was stalked and searched by members of the same internal security force set up to repress anti-Shell protests.
A report about the struggle against Shell was found on the back seat.
Batom was dragged out of his car and severely beaten.
He was detained and severely tortured, denied food, medical care or access to a lawyer.
Ken Saro-Wiwa believed he would die 'all for Shell' .
Let us, let Shell, let every Member State who trades in oil act now to save the life of Batom Mitee, of the thirty others arrested with him, and of all oppressed Nigerian people who they represent.
Mr President, as one of the co-authors of the resolutions on Nigeria and Burma, I am particularly pleased that we are having this debate this afternoon using the oral question with debate rather than the normal urgency procedure.
I am grateful to the President-in-Office and to Mr Marín for their respective statements which I think probably take the matter as far as possible, bearing in mind in particular that the President-in-Office has, so to speak, to represent the fourteen other Member States.
On Nigeria, he referred to the sports ban.
This has to be considered somewhat ironic in view of the fact that Nigeria has been given the go-ahead to take part in the World Cup.
It tears a hole in the whole system and allows a number of Nigerians to come to Paris and other places to take part in the World Cup.
I do not know whether he is able to offer an explanation but it is an illustration of how one Member State can drive a cart horse through the whole system.
On Burma, the only point I can make in one minute, since I was not able to be present this morning for reasons beyond my control, is the extent to which investment is still going on there.
A company like Total, for instance is making substantial investments. We correspond with them and they send an arrogant reply that they will have nothing to do with us and give no information whatsoever.
I wish that the President-in-Office could ask some very pointed questions of certain Member States and of certain companies.
There are a lot of others involved as well.
I have made my two points concerning the World Cup and the extent of investment in Burma.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I listened attentively to what Commissioner Marín had to say, albeit in a cool manner, and attentively because this shows, once again, how Europe is totally powerless on two contrasting issues - Nigeria and Burma.
What is happening in Nigeria? The military power of this bloodthirsty junta - for it was called a junta by Commissioner Marín, rather than a dictatorship - with a president who had been elected and of whom we know nothing, with Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Ogoni representatives who have been executed, is now extending to other African countries.
And now we have news that the Nigerian military have invaded Sierra Leone; refugees are already escaping from their land on account of this military intervention, brought forward under the pretext that they, the Nigerians, are the peacemakers in Africa.
I have not heard you say anything about this, Mr Commissioner.
I would like to know whether, in this critical dialogue the Commission intended to hold with Nigeria, the possibility that Nigeria may become the peacemaker with the arms of Africa and the African region is also implied.
The second question relates to Burma.
It is true that we cannot allow this country to join the ASEAN, and therefore there is no dialogue between Europe and Burma, but it is also true that there is a creeping legitimization of the Burmese dictatorship, although it has wiped out, tortured, incarcerated and summarily executed the opposition, while putting Nobel Prize winners under house arrests and so on and so forth.
We have not had much reassurance on this either, Mr Commissioner, from you or from the Commission.
Mr President, I am just back from Algeria where I went to discuss human rights. This is a country in the grip of terrorism, and I would like to pay my respects to all the victims of the barbarous acts there.
Clearly, I do not agree with Mr Dupuis. I am not at all reassured as regards the fate of the numerous people who have disappeared, nor as regards the practice of torture and the secret detention camps.
I call on the Council and the Member States to list Algeria amongst the priorities for debate at the next session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and remain convinced that sending a special rapporteur does not represent a punishment or a condemnation of this country.
On the contrary, this mechanism, which was provided for by the United Nations and used for countries where the situation is less worrying than in Algeria, will enable us to shed light on the situation and break the deadlock.
Algeria is really on the road to democracy - we have noted this before.
So it should be able to accept that transparency is brought to those areas which remain opaque, at least for the moment.
And it is also up to us to encourage this country to accept the promotion of universal values and respect for individuals.
In clarification, the joint resolution does not mention the call for an international committee of inquiry, contrary to what Mr Dupuis says.
Mr President, Nigeria is a particularly bad apple in a basket of not too sound fruit.
Democratically elected presidents are deposed and political opponents imprisoned or hanged.
The Nigerian regime is also active outside its own borders.
Under the ECOMOG flag, Nigerian soldiers are fighting against the military junta in Sierra Leone, supposedly to reinstate the democratically elected president, but Sierra Leone's diamond fields must be the primary reason.
The question is, what can the EU do against the regime in Nigeria?
In November 1995, the Council suspended military cooperation and development aid.
In December of that year these measures were strengthened.
Now that three years later these measures have had not any effect, some people in this House are arguing for an oil boycott.
This would hit the regime hard, because oil exports account for 90 % of its income.
However, the experience we have gained with boycotts of this kind shows that it is above all the people who suffer, whilst the regime the boycott is targeted at, is often able to keep its position for years to come.
Because of the largely poor majority in Nigeria, I question the use of an oil boycott.
That is why I am investigating the feasibility and consequences of an oil embargo.
After that, it can be decided whether an embargo of this kind should be imposed.
I do believe that the existing sanctions the Council introduced against Nigeria should be closely observed.
Mr President, the people of Burma deserve a vote in favour of the statement being debated here today.
The Burmese regime is one of the most unpleasant dictatorships in the world.
The people are being brutally suppressed, and the military dictatorship has not the slightest respect for human rights.
Burma is the centre of the Asian narcotics trade: it produces more than 2 000 tonnes of raw opium a year, and another 250 tonnes of heroin, which are exported to the West.
The dictatorship uses the income to tighten its grip on power.
The proposal we are debating here today demands in very clear terms that foreign companies stop investing in Burma immediately and that the EU introduces economic sanctions against Burma as soon as possible.
Aung San Suu Kyi, who was awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov prize, has called on the EU take this action.
During the era of apartheid in South Africa, it was again those who spoke for the oppressed who demanded that the rest of the world should put economic pressure on the regime, but business in the West fought against this.
Now business is making profits in the country where the anti-apartheid movement has gone furthest.
People must understand that investing in Burma amounts to direct support for the military regime.
It would be better for the Burmese if this regime were overthrown and economic sanctions have proved to be more effective in the past than critical dialogue with someone who does not understand the meaning of the words.
I heard Mr Marín say that critical dialogue has failed, so I am expecting a statement from the Commission saying that, now that we have totally failed in this area, economic sanctions will be applied.
That would suit both the Commission but also, in particular, the Council because I think Mr Henderson's answer on Burma was rather meaningless.
Mr President, I have a preliminary remark to make.
I would like to ask the Bureau to try to arrange even joint debates as thematically as possible, for it is rather complicated to trace a common thread of meaning between Burma, Nigeria and the 54th session of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
I say this in view of the fact that we have an audience.
But allow me to say something about the 54th session of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
For many people it represents hope, but it also disappoints many people.
For us, however, for the European Union - and therefore I would like to underline this very clearly here - it is a test case, to show to what extent the Union is serious about its own human rights policy and how it converts its own theories into practice.
Many countries, particularly Denmark, were all the more dismayed when some states of the European Union no longer supported the resolution on China introduced with great difficulty a year before.
Of course, no country is prevented from improving the situation of human rights in their own territory.
If that is really the case then we shall not be the last to confirm it.
This year, too, another proposed resolution is before the European Parliament, which calls on the Council to define joint priorities in Geneva.
The list of countries criticized because of their human rights policies is still very long, much too long, in fact, and just a few examples are Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In addition there are problems such as the international trade in human cargo, namely in women and children.
Nevertheless, we are not abandoning hope that the European Union will show a common strong front, for only then can we do anything.
This is directed equally at the President of the Council and the representative of the Commission.
Given, in particular, the enlargement towards the east of the European Union, we should take these questions very seriously and measure our own attitude against the criteria which we apply to other countries.
This applies above all in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which we want to see extended by an international Court of Human Rights.
In my opinion it is an exhortation to ourselves.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have so often taken up the question of crimes against human rights perpetrated by the military junta in Burma, but we must return once again to the subject.
We are not alone in our criticism.
Both the United Nations and the USA along with many other countries have recently made renewed protests in this respect.
Aung San Suu Kyi was democratically elected by an overwhelming majority of more than 80 %, but is being prevented from taking over responsibility and is still under house arrest.
Many politicians are in prison for political reasons and are being denied their democratic rights.
Political meetings are banned and there are continued attacks on ethnic minorities.
Among other things, 400 villagers were killed in May and June last year.
There is also a strong link between the military regime and drugs producers: most of the world's heroin comes from Burma.
On several occasions, Aung San Suu Kyi has asked the international community to introduce political and economic sanctions against Burma, which is something President Clinton decided on in May last year when new investments in Burma were banned.
But multinational oil companies, including European ones such as Total, continue to support the military regime.
The oil companies' investments account for the largest amount of foreign exchange in the country.
Therefore, it is important that Parliament again strongly condemns the dictatorship in Burma and demands that human rights are guaranteed so that Aung San Suu Kyi is released from house arrest and the UN's inspectors can unconditionally carry out their assignment.
It is appropriate that the Council has decided not to accept Burma's participation in the meeting between the EU and ASEAN until the human rights situation has improved in Burma.
But Parliament now demands that the Council respond to Aung San Suu Kyi's call for economic sanctions against the military junta by breaking off all trading and tourist links between the EU and Burma, and by stopping investment in Burma by European companies.
The Council's representative, Mr Henderson, said earlier that the Council was prepared to adopt further measures.
What initiatives is the Presidency prepared to take for effective economic sanctions and to promote democracy in Burma?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, here in the European Union we are neither the government of the world, nor the policemen of the world.
At this particular moment in time, this government and policing falls to another union.
But, within our bounds, the European Union and, more particularly, the European Parliament have contributed a great deal to the policy of defending human rights.
However, this policy has not been coordinated in such a way as to represent a consensus of the parties of the European Union during the United Nations debates on this subject.
Often, a chorus of small voices carries less weight than a single, stronger voice.
This is not the example that has been given by the European Union.
Moreover, the United Nations resolutions are frequently flouted, which often detracts from the credibility of its decisions.
This attitude is exemplified by the current situation in Iraq and Portugal's own historical case of East Timor.
I could cite dozens more, but you are better acquainted with this subject than I am.
I consider that the European Union has the right and, indeed, the duty to work actively to enhance the prestige of the United Nations, by drawing attention to these facts.
The questions submitted by some of my colleagues to the Council and to the Commission have that positive end in view.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, what effect do European Parliament debates on human rights actually have?
Do they just make people aware of problems and then disappear into archives or do they emphatically pursue attempted solutions far beyond the shores of Europe? Do they prosecute regard for human rights, do they contribute to the elimination of deplorable situations, do they offer any encouragement at all to those forces whose humanitarian, ecological or economical work needs to be supported?
The abuses of human rights in Burma continue unabated. There is illtreatment, imprisonment, enforced labour and slave trading.
The woman who won the democratic elections over 9 years ago, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Madame Sun Kyi, is still de facto under house arrest.
Burma is today probably the biggest producer of opium in the world and is miles away from cooperating with other countries in the fight against drugs.
I can therefore only repeat the demand I made in my speech of March last year: cancel the tariff preferences for Burma.
Even if this measure is financially very small it must be extended for the fourth time.
But it will not be enough on its own.
The European Union is and remains a Community of values.
The maintenance of democracy and human rights is one of our highest principles.
We are not a movable object which allows itself to be misused for tactical ruses.
Anyone who gets involved in the battle against the abuse of human rights is in no way subject to the law of non-intervention in so-called internal affairs.
We must use economic pressure to exert political pressure on the revolutionary government.
We must impose more far-reaching sanctions.
Like the Americans, the Europeans must get companies to stop investing in Burma.
This gives rise to three questions to the European Commission.
Commissioner Marín, firstly, what chance do you give such an embargo on investment?
Secondly, in your view, are firms in Europe ready to take such measures? Thirdly, what possibility do you see of preventing European firms from filling the vacuum caused by the withdrawal of American firms?
Thank you, Mr Thomas Mann.
As agreed, I will now give the floor to those who requested it although, since this is a relatively novel process, I would ask Members kindly to frame simple, concise and clear questions relating preferably to matters that the Council has not yet addressed.
Mr President, I would just like to ask the President-in-Office if he would please be so kind as to answer my question regarding the importance of benchmarks by which we will judge the transition process in Nigeria.
I enjoyed the history of what has occurred but I would really like to know what the Council intends to do next.
I know that the Commission is very keen that we have these benchmarks, and I wonder if the Council supports this view.
I would also like to ask the Commission whether it understands what it means to say we are going to have a great deal of new NGO activity in Burma.
I find that deeply worrying and I would like the Commissioner to explain exactly what that means.
Mr President, the President-in-Office has attractive surveys, facts, figures on the countries we have discussed, but he has not given any answers.
I hope he will read the Verbatim Report carefully, and, having done so, will respond differently.
I think it is a shame that it all ended somewhat unfortunately this way.
The specific question about Burma I did not receive an answer to was: what is the Presidency intending to do with the invitation to the ASEM countries for the ASEM ministerial meeting? Or at least what he is intending to do with Burma in this respect?
My additional question is also about Burma.
It seems as though the United States have decided to introduce a investment ban, in other words a run up to an economic boycott.
The result is that European companies are beginning to take over the contracts the Americans are leaving behind.
Where American companies are withdrawing, European ones are entering.
What is the minister going to do, together with his colleagues in the European Council of Ministers, to stop this, and to come into line with America on the Burmese issue?
Mr President, I must repeat a part of my question because the Council has not answered it.
I had asked whether the British oil company, Premier Oil, announced in September 1997 its intention to buy shares in a natural gas firm in Yetagun from the US firm Texaco after the latter decided to pull out of Burma.
Now of course we have again universally confirmed our condemnation of the regime.
What is the attitude of the British Presidency of the Council - this was my question before - to this possible purchase?
We really would like an answer on this issue.
Equally - this is a supplementary question to the Commission -, on the issue of the compulsory return of refugees from Thailand to Burma, is humanitarian aid continuing there, guaranteed by the EU?
Mr President, just to revert to the points I made earlier, how does the President-in-Office reconcile a sports ban on Nigeria with the go-ahead for the World Cup which has opened up a whole plethora of contacts with Nigeria? It must be very pleasing to Abacha!
In regard to Burma, would he care to volunteer some explanation about European companies investing with fervour in Burma? I cited Total as one example.
How does that tally with the statement of Mr Robin Cook in regard to new ethics and human rights?
Mr President, I would like to back up the questions asked by Mrs Kinnock over benchmarks.
There were also in the resolution, which we have agreed amongst the groups, a series of measures which we want the European Council to agree to take.
I am referring in particular to paragraph 9 of the resolution which I am sure the President-in-Office has in front of him.
I want to know whether we are going to have some action or whether we are just going to talk about prolonging the present situation.
I should like to make a procedural point.
I was told that Parliament would like me to answer the written questions and that there was an opportunity for debate on those matters.
I answered the written questions but then, supplementary questions were raised by the original questioners.
I was given no notice that I would be required to answer them.
I am not complaining about it, but I suggest I take the questions as we do in Question Time and answer them like that, as I do not propose to give any written answers in future, for the rest of the Presidency.
I do not want to bind future presidencies to this procedure, but I am not going to do both.
I am either going to answer the questions as they are asked or I am going to answer the written questions because what I am being asked to do is to go over the same ground again.
I am happy to do it today, but I will not be doing it again in the future - with your support, Mr President.
I would like to do one or the other.
It is an extension of Question Time.
If Parliament wants Question Time to be longer and have less time for debate, that is fine with me.
But we really have to smarten up the procedure.
I shall now take the various issues which have been raised, and there are quite a large number of them.
I will try and link them where I can.
Firstly, as regards the sports ban on Nigeria, an exception has been made for Nigeria in the World Cup because the French government had a prior arrangement with FIFA which contractually bound them.
They supported a sports ban on the basis that the prior agreement with FIFA would continue to be upheld.
That was agreed by the Council.
The next question put on Nigeria by Mrs André-Léonard was: would Nigeria be top of the human rights agenda? The answer to that is that it should be, and I hope it will be.
We will endeavour to put it at the top of the agenda in discussions in Geneva later this year.
On the question from Mrs Lenz on enlargement, the Copenhagen criteria make it quite clear that meeting democratic targets and meeting human rights commitments are part of the enlargement process.
The Treaty of Amsterdam takes the whole question of human rights further in the preamble and reinforces the need for upholding the highest standards of human rights for all EU countries.
That is part of the enlargement dialogue.
All the countries who wish to accede to the European Union are aware of that procedure.
When I visited some of those countries that wish to accede, in preparation for the UK Presidency, I raised those issues with them.
If they were not aware of them before, they are certainly aware of them now.
On the question of Burma, there is no investment ban.
There are a number of policies which are in place.
I did, in my initial introduction, refer to the suspension of preferential trading for Burmese agricultural and industrial exports into the European Union.
In as much as that is a ban, it is an encouragement to Burma to mend its ways.
There are no further bans in place though I can mention, from a UK point of view, that we would certainly be receptive to toughening-up our approach to Burma.
If other colleagues wish to join us in the Council on that, then it could be carried further.
Discouraging tourism and stopping trade promotion is a starting-point here.
We would certainly want to push that agenda at the Council and hope to achieve in the future support from our other colleagues.
Again, as regards relations with the United States, we would want to cooperate with them so that any initiative which was taken by the European Union would not be undermined by the United States.
It is important to have that dialogue.
I now move to the question of benchmarks, which was raised by Mrs Kinnock, Mr Macartney and Mr Howitt.
That is a very sensible proposal.
I can let the House know that the issue will be on the agenda at the next EU-Nigeria experts meeting, which is being convened by the Commission in March in Brussels.
The outcome of that meeting will be a basis for the Council to take decisions in this matter at a later Council meeting.
Regarding the question that was asked by Mr Bertens on ASEAN, I do not believe that Burma is attending the ASEAN conference, so the matter does not arise.
Mrs Maij-Weggen raised the question of the US link.
I have already covered that point.
Regarding the question raised by Mr Telkämper about whether aid will be affected, the answer to that is 'no' , but I would want to consult officials and then I can give a definitive answer to him in writing later.
Indeed the Commission may be able to provide further information on that.
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Situation in Albania
The next item is the Council and the Commission statements relating to the situation in Albania and the results of the visit by the tripartite delegation.
Mr President, the European Union is committed to helping Albania achieve reconciliation and a return to normality.
The Union's political dialogue meeting with Albania last month is an important sign of this.
But the primary responsibility for this recovery rests with the Albanians themselves, the government, the opposition and, indeed, the people of Albania.
The Union welcomes the positive steps taken so far by the government and its commitment to restoring law and order and political and economic reform.
The agreement with the IMF is an important step forward.
The Union encourages the continuing process of democratic reform including the judicial system.
It is important that a new constitution is adopted after a wide-ranging discussion and the Union welcomes the constructive approach Albania is playing in regional issues and, in particular, in Kosovo.
It is important that the government works to build a genuinely non-political civil service.
The necessary cuts in public administration agreed with the IMF should be even-handed and aim to promote a high degree of professionalism and impartiality.
But the European Union is concerned at the continued refusal of important groups within the Albanian opposition to engage in the democratic process and to contribute to a common approach to rebuilding their country.
The Union calls on the Democratic Party and its allies to participate fully in Parliament including the adoption of a new Albanian Constitution.
The Union welcomes the visit of the troika parliamentarians to Tirana last month and urges the government and the opposition to live up to its recommendations.
It is important that the cooperation offered by Berisha is fulfilled.
The Albanian authorities must work closely with the European Union to ensure the most effective delivery of aid.
European Community assistance to Albania between 1991 and 1996 amounted to ECU 557 million.
The European Community pledged around ECU 100 million more at the October 1997 international donors conference.
The PHARE Programme of 1998 will make an additional ECU 42 million available.
The European Union Humanitarian Office has contributed substantial amounts of humanitarian aid to Albania.
Last December it announced projects of more than ECU 10 million to help vulnerable sections of the population.
This is in addition to the hundreds of millions of US dollars pledged nationally by European Union Member States at the Brussels donors conference.
Mr President, the Commission is of the exact same opinion as the UK Presidency with respect to the situation in Albania.
It is true that there were great improvements in the second half of 1997 as regards economic stabilization and public order.
However, in questions of security the situation is still worrying, and the collecting up of weapons has not been very effective so far.
Most important of all, there are still major political tensions between the main parties, and it must be realized that, for the moment, Albania is still a long way from being a genuinely democratic culture.
Nevertheless, it is critical that the main opposition party, the Albanian Democratic Party, should participate in the Albanian Parliament and in the drafting of the constitution. Without the necessary political stability, all the country's forces for recovery and reform, both those from Albania and those from the international donors, would be seriously threatened.
In that context, the Commission is pleased with the recent joint mission of the European Parliament, the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and the OSCE. We think that mission was necessary, and it has confirmed acceptance of the June-July 1997 elections and the legitimacy of the current parliament, and has given ample support to the process of drafting the constitution, which the government has set in motion.
As a result of the mission, the Democratic Party is finally considering returning to parliament, and the government seems to be firmly committed to helping with political normalization, but the pressure will certainly have to be kept up on all the parties in order to further political and parliamentary cooperation.
The Commission completely agrees with the proposals made by the tri-parliamentary mission.
And in the context of the third joint European Community-/Council of Europe programme for Albania, with a value of ECU 1.5 million, there is a desire to support the work of the Venice Commission towards the preparation of the constitution.
This programme also includes aid for training judges, developing the legislative framework, maintaining law, progress in human rights law, and reforming the judicial system and local administration.
All this has an obvious link with the administrative reform programme, which is another key option in the PHARE programme.
As regards the agreed measures, an encouraging first result is the government's approval of a law to transform the state service into a superior auditing institution.
Also in preparation is a law concerning the basis of the reorganization of the Ministry of Justice, and a constitutional budgetary law. These two advances - concerning the judiciary and the budget - will be fundamental in reforming public administration.
On the other hand, it is important that personnel cuts are carried out as part of the public administration reform process. These cuts have already been agreed with the Bretton Woods institutions, and maintain the necessary criteria of professionalism.
In this context, a decree is being approved which deals with transitional measures relating to contracts and dismissals, and it will be revised by experts.
If implemented, all this legislation - which I am describing in detail because it is a condition for budgetary aid through the PHARE programme - would release a first sum of ECU 9 million.
Just last week there was a Commission identification mission to see how the country's political normalization is progressing.
As for the dramatic problem created by the pyramid scam and the bank fraud in Albania, administrators and auditors have been appointed for those companies which suffered bankruptcy, within the framework of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and they have started work already.
Nevertheless, it must be realized that there are quite a few problems in applying the measures being taken to remedy this situation, which was created by the pyramid fraud.
It is difficult to carry out inspections and audits because the companies are not keen to cooperate with the administrators and auditors.
This issue, which is very sensitive and has a huge social impact, will be thoroughly dealt with during the next coordination meeting, to be held on 23 February and due to be chaired by the World Bank in collaboration with the International Monetary Fund.
The Commission is insisting that the Albanian government should facilitate the work of the international administrators, and it is very important that these audits should produce results. That would allow the International Monetary Fund's emergency programme and the negotiations with the Fund to become a reality, which would of course set Albania into a pattern of normalization, at least with respect to its international economic relations.
Mr President, I had the honour of taking part in this mission with Mrs Pack, which I believe was the first tri-parliamentary mission in the history of our Parliament.
It is an extraordinary event and we can certainly be satisfied with it, but satisfaction with the result of this mission should not be confused with a calm state of mind in relation to the internal situation in Albania because, as Commissioner Marín has just recalled, the situation remains worrying from an economic and safety point of view.
We have to realize that a race is taking place in Albania and we do not yet know who the winner will be.
On the one hand, there are those who want a process of national reconciliation and an effective democracy and, on the other, there are those who still want revenge over the electoral process.
It is true that in Albania, compared with a year ago when there was a kind of civil war, there is now a parliament and a government and constant efforts are being made to put things back in their places.
It is true that the situation has improved, but if the government and the opposition do not soon work together to cooperate and complete the new constitution in the parliament and if there is no cooperation within the parliament itself, then conflicts will emerge outside parliament, throughout the country, and the arms used will not be those of deliberation and democracy.
Every day, the press reports news that, luckily, does not end up on the international pages, because it concerns local incidents of deaths and injuries, and fights for which those responsible are often not easy to trace.
The constitutional block in Albania was the fundamental reason for this mission.
The cooperation of all the political powers is required to draw up a constitution.
The opposition, however, has not yet participated in the work of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, giving as a reason, the fact that the parliament does not have the moral authority to rewrite the new constitution, and this gives us cause for concern.
With our tri-parliamentary mission, we sought to convince all our partners that a parliament, formed as a result of a laborious response from the ballot-boxes but also universally recognized as acceptable, is a parliament that is also legitimized to draw up the new constitution.
We said, however, that we needed to overcome this block; it seemed to us that our words had been heeded with renewed attention and we had the feeling, as Commissioner Marín pointed out a short while ago, that in the days immediately following our visit, new political events took place.
Nevertheless, there was no specific or material follow-up to the declarations made immediately after our visit and, since our return, there has still been no follow-up within parliament and the Committee on Institutional Affairs as regards working together on the new constitution.
Simple declarations must be made: we need to insist that the Council and the Commission follow our tri-parliamentary mission with further measures.
I have heard positive comments in this respect.
We, as members of this Parliament, will have to comply with two commitments we have assumed in this respect: firstly, the formation of an international group of advisers with the task of contributing towards the definition of the status and content of the new constitution; and secondly, the observation of the parliamentary work in Albania. This is a somewhat unusual commitment, but if we take the situation into account we can easily understand why it has been established.
In a fairly delicate context, we wanted to illustrate the requirement that the three organizations should dedicate themselves to observing the parliamentary work, with the agreement of the Albanian parliament.
Having said that, other things are also useful.
To give an example, and addressing Commissioner Marín and the President-inOffice of Council in particular, I believe that we should establish roots in the territory because, although the national government has good intentions, we cannot take it for granted that its supporters throughout the country have the same good intentions of working towards national reconciliation.
To use an image, there is still fire smouldering under the ashes!
We therefore need to ensure that democracy flourishes in the territory, at local level.
I have heard talk of initiatives the Commission would support financially.
In this context, I would suggest that financing be assigned to a particular twinning project between the Albanian local authorities and the local authorities of our Member States. This would create a network of connections that would allow democracy to exist at local level throughout Albania, and would help overcome the temptation to resort to arms, by establishing a common desire for reconciliation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can subscribe fully to 98 % of your statement.
That does not happen very often, that our two sides are in such agreement, but on what you said about Albania I am almost completely in agreement with you.
The fact is, Renzo and I were the two participants from this Parliament in this tripartite attempt at reconciliation.
The fact is, however, that reconciliation in this country between the two hostile camps has not yet been achieved and will not be achieved for some time to come. It is constantly being undermined by both sides.
The language alone is revealing.
There, the leader of the opposition calls the parliament a Kalashnikov parliament.
The Prime Minister publicly calls the opposition a terrorist group and their leaders are called criminals with immunity.
It is therefore hard for a fruitful coexistence to flourish.
As the then socialist opposition did two years ago, the conservative opposition is now boycotting the Parliament.
We have always made it unmistakeably clear that a return to parliament is absolutely essential and it is also important for the opposition party, for it is only there that we shall listen to them.
The joint action, as Mr Imbeni has said already, was important.
It was unique in its cooperation and therefore it was of major significance to the Albanian public and the political representatives.
We all listened and our conclusions took into consideration all points of view on the internal politics.
The results included the fact that, firstly, amongst other things, the democratic place for decision-making was in the parliament and therefore the Democratic Party should finally return there.
Secondly, the parliament must, however, observe the dignity of the individual member and adhere to the democratic rules of the game, and in this respect the observation carried out by representatives of the OSCE or the Council of Europe should be helpful.
Thirdly, we also of course expect that the middle management staff, particularly in the legal field - and you referred to this earlier, Commissioner - which in recent years was trained with our money, are not arbitrarily thrown out into the street, but that use is made of their experience.
Fourthly, Albania needs a constitution, particularly for important investment projects.
According to existing law, the parliamentary committee should draw up the draft constitution, it should be accepted with a majority of two thirds and them - as they have committed themselves - a referendum by the public should decide.
I think that the composition of the committee destined to carry out all these procedures must be somewhat improved.
News in recent days reports, on the one hand, illegal police attacks on supporters of the Democratic Party, while on the other hand, the same event is represented as deliberate provocation of the police by the Democratic Party.
I find myself unable to say which of these is right.
It is very difficult to know from here but it proves one thing, that the fronts between the political camps are very firm and appear almost insurmountable and that force is the language of the politicians.
A joint action, such as we have undertaken can only be implemented once.
We do not churn them out on a conveyor belt.
As you have rightly said Commissioner, it is the job of politicians in Albania now to take their own fate into their hands at last and, if it is at all possible - and I address this both to the Council and the Commission - I would make a heartfelt request for pressure from both sides. I do not mean gentle pressure but really energetic pressure, so that they finally get together in reconciliation and in the interests of the tormented people of Albania.
Mr President, the situation and lot of Albania has often been debated in this House, and frequently with some intensity.
Today, we are here with balanced and constructive common positions.
These are mainly due to the successful mission of the ad hoc delegation which, with Mr Imbeni and Mrs Pack, recently visited Tirana. hey tried to bring the opposition back into parliament and succeeded in a first approach on issues of exceptional sensitivity, such as the working out of the new constitution amongst others.
Special congratulations are due to them both.
In any case, we have all expressed them on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and we meant it very sincerely.
As has already been said many times, the situation in Albania remains fragile and fraught with tensions, even though some progressive steps have been taken.
There are always incidents, as Mrs Pack also said earlier.
Democratic awareness according to the Western European model is not yet the main factor in public life, and never has been, to this day.
As for the European Parliament, regardless of any preference we may have for one side or the other, we must continue to support truly democratic procedures in Albania, offering our experience and assistance to the extent that we can, to help that country find its European orientation as soon as possible.
In this respect, our joint motion expresses that intention and wish, and defines the objectives that must be achieved.
Finally, Commissioner, I would like to ask whether the European Parliament is to be informed about the talks you said were to take place on Monday regarding Albania at the World Bank.
I have received six motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I must say that the joint resolution which has been circulated is a text which, I think, will attract wholehearted support from Parliament because it is well balanced and reflects not only common positions but also the common anxiety of us all about what is going on in Albania.
In my view, the problem has become focused solely on the restoration of normal relations between the political forces in Albania.
My opinion is that this can only be achieved through the correct operation of the Albanian parliament.
Events or investigations which concern penal injustices that took place before the events of last year can often be used as a means to persecute political opponents, and that must be avoided.
I must say that a very important proposal is the one included among those agreed by the tripartite delegation in which Mrs Pack and Mr Imbeni took part with parliamentarians from the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, that is, the proposal that an advisory group should be formed.
I would like to go still further and say that the advisory group in question should comprise not academics, not ex-cathedra specialists, but Members of Parliament who would alternate and could advise, in my view, on a day to day basis, how the Albanian Parliament ought to function.
Albania must be approached very carefully, mainly because of the religious differences that exist.
Despite its various religious persuasions, however, the people of Albania have lived for centuries as a single entity.
Having lived in that area, I think that if the advisory group is set up it will be able to achieve a great deal on a day to day basis, giving advice about the operation of parliamentary committees, about what issues to put before the plenary Chamber, etcetera.
It will also have the opportunity to make contacts, and most importantly, to offer advice about the formulation of a constitution which, as we have been told, the present government intends to submit to the Albanian people in a referendum.
I hope all will go well.
I hope this, because I am an optimist.
Those people deserve better luck and wholehearted and devoted support from Europe's peoples and governments.
It is not enough for the Commission and the Council to tell us how much money they are giving, they must also back the European Parliament's initiatives.
Mr President, I think we all agree on one point, and that is that Albania is still in an emergency situation: the problems remain serious, arms are widespread - around one and a half million -, the Mafia continues to benefit - it is calculated that US$6 billion are handled by the Albanian Mafia - and the situation is still precarious from the point of view of reconstructing democracy.
I believe that the road to be followed, as indicated by Mr Imbeni and strongly supported by Mr Pack, is to insist that the transition to democracy, which has just been delicately begun, can be followed, starting with the parliament, and therefore the insistence that the parliament explains its own tendencies.
I would like to tell the President-in-Office of Council that we can also help a return to normality with a more complex, more fundamental policy.
The Albanian question cannot be separated from the other questions in a particularly delicate area.
When, at the recent Madrid Summit, the Balkans and Albania are, so to speak, cut off from a policy of safety, a policy of attention, that should be considered globally, mistakes are made.
We are not without the means: the means are there. NATO is assisting with the rebuilding of the Albanian fleet, the WEU and the OECD are helping the police regain a professionalism they had lost, and there are means of creating the conditions of impartiality to which Commissioner Marín referred.
The other economic and financial questions should be aimed at implementing the programme presented by the government.
They relate to socio-democratic infrastructures that should be established and I believe that, with the means we have made available, we can pressurize all parties into bringing Albania into a greater period of normality.
Mr President, there is no doubt that, as the Members have shown, the state of emergency is, unfortunately, not yet over in Albania.
The situation is anything but resolved and, for these reasons, we have to say that the action carried out by our representatives, Mr Imbeni and Mr Pack, together with the OECD and the Council of Europe, has been excellent, and the agreement signed by the parties, namely, the government powers and the opposition, is an important starting point.
Unfortunately, however, we cannot be under the illusion that this is the answer to the problems.
I repeat, it is an essential starting point for drawing up a new constitution, which is necessary at the moment; but a new constitution is not drawn up without the involvement of the opposition and, at the moment, the signs are unfortunately anything but favourable.
One opposition party is currently saying that the agreement is a partial agreement, an agreement that can only be observed provided the Fatos Nano government nullifies all the measures it has taken since it came to power.
This is obviously an impossible condition for the government to accept when the government has been prepared to ensure maximum transparency in the parliamentary action so that every right is provided for the opposition, an opposition which is entitled to one-third of the chairmanship and two-thirds of the deputy chairmanship of the parliamentary committees.
The signs are not favourable at the moment: incidents and further use of arms have been seen in the north, while in the south the territory is still not under the control of the police force; the region around Tirana is beginning to show signs of intolerance owing to the shortage of adequate consumer goods and the lack of solutions to the economic problems it was hoped the new government would be able to resolve.
In view of all this, the EU should commit itself much further to offering economic aid and aid aimed at restoring democracy and control in the region.
Without this, there is a further risk that civil war will break out again.
Thank you very much, Mr Tamino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.15 p.m., while awaiting Question Time scheduled at 5.30 p.m.)
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0017/98).
Question No 1 by Jens-Peter Bonde (H-0001/98)
Subject: Ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty
Is it true that the Amsterdam Treaty can enter into force only if all the Member States ratify the agreement? Will the Council of Ministers respect referendums held in several Member States?
In accordance with the provisions of the Treaty on European Union, specifically Article N, the Treaty of Amsterdam shall come into force after being ratified by all the Member States, in accordance with the respective constitutional requirements.
In certain countries this will indeed involve a referendum.
I would like to thank Doug Henderson for a very clear reply, which I can recognise as a repeat of the reply which Mr Henderson gave to a previous question in the British House of Commons.
It is of course enlightening that the Treaty has to be accepted by all countries to become law, and if a country does not ratify the Treaty, the countries which are interested in doing something new must call an Intergovernmental Conference. Then, 15 countries must sign to do something new, as has already happened when it was impossible for all the countries to agree to have a social protocol, but 12 signatures established closer cooperation for 11 countries.
But everyone must sign to amend the Treaty.
I am grateful to Mr Henderson for giving such a clear answer today.
You say that the Treaty has to be ratified in accordance with the constitutional requirements of Member States.
I would like people to know that in Ireland we will have a referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty and already the EU Commission is interfering by sending out propaganda to members of the public.
I would like some sort of assurance from the Council that this will not actually happen because it is an interference in the democratic process of a Member State.
There should be no undue influence using European taxpayers' money to promote propaganda forcing people to vote in favour of the Treaty.
It is up to the Irish people themselves to decide whether they want to vote in favour or against.
I would like an assurance from the Council that the EU Commission will actually step aside from the process on this and allow the people to make up their own mind and that it will be in accordance with the constitution of Ireland which prohibits the use of public money to promote one side of the argument in a referendum.
Can I say to Ms McKenna that this is not a matter for the Council; this is a matter that persons in Ireland including the government or the political parties who felt affected by it should raise with the Commission.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 2 by Mihail Papayannakis (H-0004/98)
Subject: Information gathering by the Member States
A number of authoritative European newspapers have reported that the British secret services gather information of a diplomatic, economic, technological and commercial nature in other Member States of the Union which is used, among other things, to improve the Government's negotiating position at meetings of Community bodies.
In the Council's view, to what extent and in what manner are the final outcomes of meetings of Community bodies and their decisions, including those of the Council itself, distorted by such practices which enable certain Member States to be briefed in advance of the negotiating positions of their partners? Can it confirm that such sensitive information is not passed on to third countries, particularly in the context of international trade and other negotiations or final preparations for the euro (e.g. ideas and proposals on the definitive rates of exchange of Community currencies against the euro), since if such information became public knowledge, it could have a huge impact on the international money markets?
In the Council's estimation, how many other Member States, and which, engage in similar information gathering?
Question No 3 by Nel van Dijk (H-0035/98)
Subject: Is MI6 spying on Britain's European partners?
Is MI6, the British foreign security service, spying on Britain's European partners with a view to collecting information which the British Government can use to its advantage in international negotiations? Does MI6 record confidential conversations, and does it tap telephone calls ?
In what way are MI6's espionage activities directed at civil servants from other EU Member States consistent with the British Government's aspiration towards "moral leadership' in Europe?
Does the Council share my view that a government which uses its security services to gather confidential information on its EU partners and their positions in international negotiations undermines the trust which Member States might have in each other and abuses the solidarity which the Member States might expect from each other in an "ever closer union' ?
Are there other Member States which instruct, or allow, their security services to spy on their European partners?
Can the Council give an assurance that the European Parliament and the Commission are not the target of activities by MI6 or any other security service of any other Member State?
I am glad to link the questions.
In my Presidency capacity, I have to say that intelligence matters are within the exclusive competence of national authorities.
The Council has no information on such matters and is not in a position to respond.
Mr President, brevity such as that of the President-in-Office's answers was characteristic of the Spartans in my country in ancient times.
The Spartans were not regarded as models for civilization, nor for dialogue and debate.
I ask the President-in-Office, and not of course in his capacity as a British minister, to tell me the Council's assessment of such practices, whether they take place, whether he has ever heard of that in his life. What is the Council's assessment?
How does he characterize such activities and how can I, as a Member of this Parliament, have faith in the accuracy, seriousness and untaintedness of the debates taking place in the Council? I was not a Spartan, I am much more an Athenian.
I can only say that this is not a matter for the Council, whether it be from the Spartans, the Athenians, the new Spartans or the new Athenians.
It is not a matter for the Council, and I just reiterate my previous response.
You will understand that I can only interpret Minister Henderson's remarks to mean that he wishes to neither confirm, nor deny.
Perhaps I should interpret this as a tacit confirmation of what is happening.
But surely it cannot be the case, and I would really like to hear Mr Henderson's view on this - that the Presidency of the European Union has nothing to say, and has no opinion about the fact that one of its Member States is spying on the others to determine its strategy during negotiations?
I would really like to have a very clear answer on this.
If Mr Henderson thinks the Presidency should have no opinion on this, then I would like know what the other ministers in the Council think about it.
Secondly, much commotion has arisen over the échalon in which the United Kingdom and the United States are creating one strong line in order to eavesdrop on the whole world.
Is this related, Mr President? Does this échalon exist?
It is not a matter for the Council to speculate whether there is any new alliance between the United Kingdom or the United States.
I can only say that the matter raised is not a matter for the Council and that Members of the House should not believe from my previous reply that a confirmation or denial was involved.
Question No 4 by Angela Kokkola (H-0008/98)
Subject: Human cloning
Public opinion is disturbed at the decision taken by the American scientist, Richard Seed, to undertake experiments aimed at creating human clones, which is morally and scientifically unacceptable.
In view of the above, will the Council say whether the necessary legislation exists at EU level to ban the cloning of human beings?
Even if it does, this is still not enough.
Will it therefore also say whether it intends to launch an initiative to establish an international convention banning the cloning of human beings in order to protect citizens from the "brilliant discoveries' of scientists who sacrifice the ethical dimension of the issue on the altar of scientific research and prestige?
I am pleased, in relation to Question No 3, to acknowledge the important influence and responsibility of the Council on this matter.
The question of bioethics, and in particular protection of human dignity and of the individual, is a key consideration in Community research policy.
Research into modification of the human gene is among the most sensitive ethical issues in the field of science and therefore requires constant scrutiny and clear limitations.
This fact has been well understood in the European Union and its Member States for many years and has given rise to arrangements for the ethical supervision of human gene research, as well as to legal safeguards and limitations.
The Community's Fourth Framework Programme on research contains an explicit provision that no support will be provided to projects which may contravene the European Convention on Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations or the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.
The provisions on biomedical ethics provide that no research into modification of the genetic constitution of human beings, or into human cloning, may be carried out.
The Commission's proposal for the fifth research Framework Programme would extend the scope of this exclusion.
The proposal is still under consideration in the Council but the honourable Member may rest assured that the rights and dignity of human beings will continue to be the guiding principle behind all decisions.
As regards international initiatives, the Council will consider with interest any proposals which the Commission may make on this subject.
My thanks to the Council's representative for his answer.
With all due respect, allow me to say that I find it a little vague.
You refer in some way to future plans.
We see in the press every day how rapidly such experiments are progressing.
And with all my esteem for research and biology and for the development of science, when these issues touch upon ethics and we may be approaching the cloning of humans, I do not hide the fact that it frightens me and I am not alone in this respect.
Very many people and many scientists have expressed their opposition.
I would therefore like to ask you, to the extent possible during your Presidency, to speed up the use of the means at your disposal, because otherwise I think it will be too late.
I am aware of the concerns of the honourable Member on this matter and, indeed, of many others in this House and elsewhere.
I can only draw attention to a sentence in my previous reply where I said that the provisions on biomedical ethics provide that no research into modification of the genetic constitution of human beings or into human cloning may be carried out.
I hope that provides the assurance the honourable Member was looking for.
I would like the President-in-Office to give the Council's position on the existing Commission arrangement whereby a group of advisers has been established to advise on the ethics of biotechnology and has already formed an opinion on cloning.
Does the Council support the principle of a Europe-wide ethics committee being eventually established? I say 'eventually' rather than 'immediately' , which gives some scope for the Minister to reply in a positive way.
I can say to the honourable Member that I do not rule that out.
It may be that is one way we can proceed on this matter.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 5 and 6 lapse.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 7 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0017/98)
Subject: Arms trafficking in Burundi
What steps are being taken by the Council to halt the flow of arms from the European Union into Burundi, where they are likely to be used for the continuation of fratricidal fighting between armed groups and the perpetration of further massacres of civilians?
Question No 8 by Tony Cunningham (H-0018/98)
Subject: Arms trafficking in Burundi
Is the Council aware of allegations made in the Human Rights Watch Arms Project report: "Stoking the Fires - Military Assistance and Arms Trafficking in Burundi' about the export of arms and military equipment, frequently originating in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, to the armed parties in Burundi via western Europe, and will it make a statement?Question No 9 by Arthur Newens (H-0019/98)
Subject: Arms trafficking in Burundi
Will the Council investigate allegations that arms manufacturers based in the European Union have supplied Hutu or Tutsi armed groups in Burundi and that the ammunition factory at Eldoret in Kenya, which was originally built by the Fabrique d'Armes de Guerre, a subsidiary of the GIAT Industries Group based in France, supplied ammunition to the Hutu militia in eastern Zaire?
The Council shares the honourable Members' concern about the effect on the situation in Burundi of the flow of arms from third countries and has noted the resolution on Burundi adopted by the European Parliament at its 15-19 December 1997 part-session.
The Council has issued similar statements and declarations about the situation in Burundi, most recently on 7 January 1998.
The Council has also noted the resolution on a code of conduct on arms exports adopted by the European Parliament at its 12-16 January 1998 part-session.
The European Council in Amsterdam on 16-17 June 1997 underlined the vital role of concerted international efforts towards proper regulation of arms exports and called for the development of a coherent arms export control policy throughout the Union on the basis of the common criteria identified in the conclusions of the European Councils of 29 June 1991 and 26-27 June 1992.
These criteria include, notably, respect for human rights in the country of destination.
To this end the United Kingdom, in conjunction with France, has put forward a draft text for a European Union code of conduct setting high common standards for arms exports by Member States.
The text is in two parts.
Firstly, an elaboration of the eight common criteria agreed in 1991 and 1992 in line with the United Kingdom's national criteria which were then announced by the Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom on 28 July 1997.
Secondly, a consultation mechanism providing for partners to circulate information about denials of export licences and requiring a partner to consult the denying partner before coming to a decision on whether to issue an export licence for essentially the same goods to the same client.
Initial reactions have been strongly supportive and the aim is for the code to be adopted by a Council declaration during this Presidency.
I thank the President-in-Office for doing a sterling job all day here in Parliament.
I am not sure it has been entirely easy or pleasurable at all times.
I should like to return to the issue of Burundi, which my question addressed.
It is a fact that 36 % of Burundi's budget is currently being spent on defence; far more than they spend on health and education combined.
Could the President-in-Office confirm that a Member State which has colonial links with that Great Lakes region of Africa is still unwilling to agree to either an international or a European arms sale embargo on Burundi?
Also, I should like to ask the President-in-Office whether it might not be a good idea to reactivate UNICOI, which was a commission of inquiry set up when we had the crisis in Rwanda?
Would it not be appropriate for us to extend its mandate to Burundi? In my view - and I hope it would be the Council's view as well - it would assist us in our efforts to stop arms trafficking into Burundi and, indeed, within the Great Lakes area.
I thank the honourable Member for her kind tribute.
It is always particularly pleasurable to attempt to answer her questions.
On the specific question that she raised, I am not aware of any European Union country that knowingly exports arms to Burundi and would block any measure taken to prevent such sales.
If Mrs Kinnock has any information that could confirm the point that she was suggesting, then I would be very pleased to look at that information with a view to giving it further consideration.
I should also like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I would like to ask him if he has seen the information provided by Human Rights Watch showing that a great deal of activity has been going on, based in Ostend?
Does he not think that it is important that drastic action should be taken immediately to prevent any further arms from being supplied from Europe and that those people who are involved in this deadly trade should be brought before the courts forthwith? We have spoken early today about the difficulties of arms suppliers to Iraq.
They are just as bad in this case.
Will the President-in-Office agree to pursue this matter directly?
I thank the honourable Member for his question.
I can only refer him to my previous reply to the previous questioner.
We are not aware that any sale of arms in the manner which he is suggesting is taking place.
If he has information I would be very willing to look at it and make an assessment of it for further consideration.
I know there are other questions on the agenda today about the overall question of arms control and I may be straying into that territory, but the reason why the Presidency believes that the conclusion of a European Union agreement on arms is particularly important is, among other things, to attempt to deal with the situation which has been suggested by the honourable Member.
As regards this proposed code of conduct, there are quite a number of deficiencies in it, for example the fact that only arms exporting countries will be able to call the shots on who buys their arms if this code of conduct is adopted.
That means countries like Ireland, which has no major arms industry, will have little say in how the EU arms policy would be implemented.
This seems to be a version of 'honour amongst thieves' in that it is the countries involved in the arms industry which will make the decisions, and countries which have an ethical position as regards arms exports will have no say.
As well as that, there is a need for transparency, because commercial confidentiality means this subject will remain secret.
With regard to the delivery of arms, they would be allowed into countries which have not signed international human rights conventions.
The export to regimes with poor human rights records would be allowed if the weapons were to be used to protect the police.
There are many oppressive regimes, such as Turkey and Indonesia, which could take advantage of this.
I should like the President-in-Office to say that the Council is going to address these issues and will bring these points of concern into a code of conduct, otherwise it is just window-dressing.
There are a lot of points raised in the honourable lady's questions.
I do not accept that there are any major deficiencies in the code that is being proposed.
This code is a major step forward which concentrates the minds of European Union countries on what their responsibilities are in relation to the sale of arms.
It provides for a transparency so that those countries know what is happening in relation to the arm sales of other European Union countries.
It also provides a mechanism for preventing one country selling arms to a third country when that third country has already been denied an importation facility by another European Union country.
In other words protecting the integrity of the policy.
People will always look for ways of circumventing regulations, codes and so on.
That will always be the case.
There is now a huge moral pressure on all the European Union Members, assuming that a satisfactory code is concluded, to deal with this matter in a completely new fashion.
The question of the criteria which decides whether or not an arms sale takes place is essentially a separate matter.
Where the arms are likely to be used, for example, for internal repression or external aggression, then those arms sales should not take place.
The problem at the moment is that it does not prevent another country making the sale if one country decides that the potential importer does not meet those criteria.
There is a period of consultation which is now taking place within the Union.
It is an opportunity for any Member State, or any lobby within a Member State, to look at ways in which the code can be more effective and make their views known.
I believe that the Council will have an open mind on how the code can be improved.
I invite all Members of the Parliament, if they have views, to submit them through the appropriate channels so that they can be made known.
The purpose is to ensure that we have a system with an internal integrity and I believe that what is currently proposed is a major step forward.
Mr President, I am rather disappointed by the Council's answer, because we submitted our questions in writing in good time.
These questions were very much more concrete than your answer, which you have just repeated for the third time.
It is in fact a matter of whether, for example, it is possible that in future the Turkish government will as ever get weapons to fight the Kurdish population and to bombard the Kurdish population.
Is that, as ever, possible? This specific question was asked and we would like a specific answer.
We have also asked you, what is more, in writing, whether you provide a check on the route and also a check on the end user, and how this looks in real terms.
I would like to ask you to answer these questions, which were before you in good time, in terms as specific as those in which they were asked.
I have one final question. You said there are positive reactions.
From whom did these positive reactions come? From the arms industry, perhaps?
I thank the honourable lady for her question.
The aim of having a policy at European Union level is to try to have a consistency across the Union with a view to eventually having a wider consistency outside the European Union which is equally as important.
At the moment I understand there are some European Union countries who have taken a decision that where there is a likelihood that arms sales to Turkey would be used for internal repression, then those sales will not be made.
As mentioned earlier, the aim of the code is to try to bring about a consistency across the European level.
There will be arguments about what is internal repression and to what extent there is internal repression.
It would be impossible to eliminate arguments among European Union Members on an issue like that.
There will always be borderline decisions on which there will always be arguments.
The important thing about the code is that it establishes a common criteria and a way of ensuring that those common criteria are applied, although it must always include an element of judgement.
I think those who are involved in the detail of those decisions will recognize the need for that judgement.
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I congratulate him on the fact that the British Presidency now wholeheartedly agrees with what we have been requesting here for so long.
Yet there was one question you did not answer: which role does he think he will give to the European Parliament when a new export control policy comes into being? On that point I wanted to ask - because I know that the Italians have made a proposal to draw up an annual report on arms exports - if this will be adopted by the British Presidency?
If not, why not? If so, then I think this would be excellent.
I would like to say in conclusion that it would seem better to me, when it concerns consultation about which countries does what with another, that this should not be so much a bilateral consultation, but a multilateral consultation, because only then will the code of conduct become a code for all countries.
I can say to the honourable gentlemen that I agree with him that it is important to have a multilateral approach which is why this code has been proposed by the Presidency in the first place.
I have also indicated that eventually it has to have a wider application than purely within the European Union.
Otherwise it could still be undermined.
It is important, as a first stage, that those who have strong views on those matters, including the honourable gentleman who clearly does, should concentrate efforts on persuading the governments within the European Union to support a strong code.
Once this has been established we can then look at where else there could be consideration of some of these matters within the institutions of the European Union, including the Parliament.
Mr President of the Council, above all I would like to thank you for these clear and precise answers which you have given, which show how Westminster is a good apprenticeship for all parliamentarians, especially, when you have one of the best Presidents of the current Presidency of the Council.
Therefore I would like to say - and pardon me if I also make this remark - that in fact if it carried on like this we could finally get rid of stupid rule we have, whereby we can only ask one single question for each general sitting.
My question is as follows: would it not be sensible, when we see that the major proportion of arms exports really do go again and again to the developing countries, to finally link development aid to arms purchase and inform the developing countries that development aid will be reduced as long as they use it for arms purchases.
Thank you very much, Mr von Habsburg.
I must say I sympathize with your concern about the two questions.
I have raised this matter with the Bureau, who will examine it during their March meeting.
In any case, I am grateful for your cooperation, as always, in improving Question Time. I now invite Mr Henderson to reply to Mr von Habsburg.
I understand the point that has been made about developing countries.
It would obviously be a misuse of aid if aid given for other purposes were used to purchase military equipment.
There is bound to be an element of military equipment in the purchasing portfolio of a developing country.
They need to have law and order internally and there is a need for defence externally.
A judgement has to be made about that.
Clearly if a developing country is spending all of its other resources on the purchase of military equipment and then relying on a certain amount of aid for social expenditure then there is something wrong in the balance of that country's use of resources.
I think it would be right to have a dialogue with that country to make it clear that a reasonable balance of resources for legitimate law and order or external defence expenditure is something which is acknowledged.
Aid directed to that country should not, in normal circumstances, be used for that purpose.
In some developing countries where there has been a period of crisis and anarchy one of the first things to establish any economic recovery is to bring about a degree of law and order and it may be appropriate for aid expenditure to help to bring about that process.
It may be that some hardware has to be part of that and indeed I know of some examples where that is the case and I would say it was legitimate.
But that would be the exception rather than the rule.
I wonder whether this really is a job for the EU.
Is there not a great risk that this could involve a militarization of the EU cooperation?
I do not think that is in line with what most citizens consider to be our job.
I would also like to ask what this means for neutral states like Sweden which have tough rules on weapons exports.
In the EU there would be different rules to those we have, not necessarily worse, but certainly different and with a different basis.
I also have some additional questions: What rules are going to apply?
Will they call for majority decisions or unanimity?
Who will make the decisions? Finally, is it intended that the EU regulations should replace national regulations on weapons exports to other countries, or will the national regulations even be taken over?
I can say to Mr Lindqvist that there was in fact a discussion on some of those matters in the working group which took place yesterday.
Clearly, for a framework agreement to come about there would need to be unanimity among Union Members on the way that the code would work.
If the current provisions are eventually agreed, and this is repetition to some extent, a country which felt that the export of arms would mean the likelihood of those arms being used for internal repression or external aggression and which therefore blocked the sale of those arms would then be able to say to other countries 'this is a position which we have adopted' .
If another country then decides that they wish to take up those export orders they will be bound by the Court to come back to the original country which would then stimulate a dialogue on the rights or wrongs of the arms sale taking place.
The criterion should be the purpose of the arms, not the state of the domestic arms industry and that is a very important criterion which is built into the code.
The problem of the current situation where there is no code which is effective arises when one country says 'we do not believe that arms should be sold to a third country because of the likelihood of internal repression or external aggression, but if we do not sell them somebody else will and it will be trading our jobs for somebody else's jobs and therefore we should not make the decision initially to block the sale' .
The purpose of the code is to get over that very important issue because the arms industry is a big industry in a number of European Union countries.
The workpeople in that industry are saying 'why should it be our jobs that are sacrificed if someone else is going to jump in and take the order up in another country?' .
This code is intended to answer that question.
It does not mean it is the end of the matter.
There need to be other industrial policies which Member States adopt, or which might be part of an employment strategy for the Union itself, which would also address the needs of those workers who are no longer able to get employment in handling those export orders and who have to look for redeployment conversion and so on.
It is an important starting point but it is not the end of the matter.
Can I say to the President-in-Office that I welcome as a good first step the code of conduct for the arms trade which is designed to prevent arms being used for either internal repression or external aggression.
The President-in-Office has answered my question about how undercutting can be prevented in Europe between EU Member States when they are selling arms to a third country, but perhaps the President-in-Office would like to consider the question of end use which has often created problems in the past in tracing the eventual recipient country.
Would he like to perhaps give a response on the issue of end use?
I am grateful to the honourable Member for that question because it raises another very real problem which has to be addressed in the code.
My current thinking - although I do not have a completely closed mind on it - is that there has to be an element of discretion.
Judgments have to be made not only on the likelihood of those arms being used for internal repression or external aggression but the likelihood of where that will happen.
In other words, will the arms be resold to some other party and, when they are resold, would there be a high likelihood of internal repression or external aggression?
It is probably extremely difficult to deal with that other than on the basis of giving discretion to the nation which would initially be making the export order.
However, it may be that there can be some facility for an exchange of views on this matter so that as full information as possible is always made available to all European Union Member States.
It may be that an obligation should be written into the code that where a Member State believes there is a further follow-through trade in arms, that information should be made available to European Union Member States.
I too welcome the UK Presidency's proposal for establishing an EU Code of Conduct on the arms trade.
It is the logical development and follow-on from the United Kingdom's new ethical foreign policy and, although nothing is ever good enough for the Greens, I wanted the UK President-in-Office to know that the majority of Members in this House think this is a very serious and historic first step.
I want to know if the Presidency will take back to the troika the eagerness this House has for consultation, for being able to follow the guidelines, for being able to see where best practice is developing as the code is progressed throughout the year.
This House may want at some point to establish an annual debate on the code.
Would the President-in-Office assure us that our eagerness to be involved is taken back to the troika?
I am very grateful to the honourable lady for her recognition that the general thrust of the proposed code would be broadly supported across the political divide of Parliament.
That reflects a very practical understanding of some of the very difficult issues.
I am very aware of them myself, as there is a large tank factory on the edge of my old constituency back in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in northern England.
The people working in that factory and the sub-contractors are very aware of this difficult problem.
They have as ethical a view of foreign policy as any one else but it is their job which is at stake.
I have always believed that people like them and in other similar positions will be prepared to make a sacrifice, to look for diversification, if they know that their efforts are not going to be undermined by others.
That is where the code is, in a very practical way, extremely desirable.
I wish that those in this House who have doubts would recognize the importance of that point.
I can assure the honourable Member that I will come back on the matter she has raised as I think it is an important issue which should have the widest consideration.
Question No 14 by Mark Watts (H-0022/98)
Subject: Slaughter of sheep in France for the Eid-El-Kabir festival
In the light of previous infringements of Community legislation, and in particular those occurring in April 1997 when the mass ritual slaughter of sheep in France for the Eid-El-Kabir festival caused enormous public outrage, what efforts will the Council be making to ensure that no further infringements are allowed to take place either this year or in subsequent years?
The Council has no knowledge of the events referred to in the honourable Member's question.
It would, however, take this opportunity to point out that it is primarily for the Member State concerned to ensure compliance with Community legislation in its territory and, where appropriate, for the Commission, pursuant to Article 155 of the Treaty, to take the necessary measures to ensure that any infringements of that legislation are duly punished.
As the honourable Member will no doubt deduce from these remarks, this is a question which clearly falls within the competence of the Commission and not primarily of the Council.
I thank the President-in-Office for his most helpful answer.
I know that the Presidency shares my concern about animal welfare but I recognize its dilemma which is that it operates as the Council while the Commission is the guardian of the Treaties.
Nonetheless, I would invite the Council to become familiar with this outrage that took place last year.
We fear that it will occur again on 7 April, although the Commissioner himself informed this House that the infringements that took place last year were in breach of regulations and promised to act.
So far he has failed to do so.
I urge the President-in-Office to do his utmost to put pressure on the Commissioner to do his duty.
Mr President, after your kind remarks and further kind remarks from the honourable Member I am going to have to have a rather large dining-table the next time I am in Strasbourg.
But all the better, I suppose, for the restaurant trade in this fine city, and the fine restaurants in it.
I believe there is an awareness already of the issue he raised with me this afternoon and, on the basis of that information, it should be possible for action to follow.
I would be delighted to have dinner with Mr Henderson.
I am not so sure that Mr Watts is going to want to have dinner with me after my supplementary.
While, of course, we are entirely opposed to any form of unnecessary animal cruelty, I welcome the President-in-Office's caution in this matter.
The Minister is well aware that much of the public outrage in the United Kingdom over these kinds of issues is synthetic indignation manufactured by groups on the extreme right.
Last year in France there were problems around this festival but they were much exaggerated by people like Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front national , a man who has more concern about animal welfare than the death of 6 000 000 Jews in the Second World War.
So I urge him to proceed with care.
Yes, we need to ensure that these things are dealt with, but let us not allow them to be used by political parties beyond the democratic pale as an excuse to beat the immigrant population.
I thank the honourable Member for his contribution.
All I can say to him is that when we next have dinner, I know one item that we will not be discussing, if it is going to cause such terrible division among good colleagues.
This is a very difficult issue because it brings into conflict concern for animal welfare and the need to respect the religious views of ethnic minorities.
But there has to be a limit somewhere.
I would ask the President-in-Office to assure us that the Council, bearing in mind what was agreed in a new article in the Treaty of Amsterdam on respect for animal welfare, will make clear that if minority groups expect that we should respect their religious rights - and, of course, we should - then the views of those who hold that deliberate cruelty to animals is morally offensive and unacceptable will also be respected.
It was very encouraging when we had the British minister responsible for animal welfare, Mr Elliot Morley, here last month at the Intergroup for Animal Welfare and heard the positive view he expressed on the initiatives that will be taken under the British Presidency.
So I hope for a positive response.
I say to the honourable Member that the Treaty of Amsterdam is not in force yet, but the Treaty does - as he rightly says - include a commitment to improving animal welfare.
The Treaty also has a provision for the recognition of cultural tradition.
In coming to a decision on legislation in these matters a balance has to be struck on a number of issues.
But once that balance is struck and once the legislative position is clear, then it is incumbent on all of us to make sure the law is adhered to.
The Commission has an important role to play in relation to European law in that regard.
Question No 15 by Jaime Valdivielso de Cué (H-0026/98)
Subject: Consumer protection
In view of the announcement that one of the priorities of the British Presidency will be consumer protection, can the Council state what measures will be proposed and what their orientation will be?
The Presidency has three key priorities for the Consumer Council: the Consumer Guarantees Directive; more effective enforcement of existing consumer protection; and improvements to the European home and leisure accidents surveillance system.
Progress in these areas will help consumers in all countries.
Firstly, the Consumer Guarantees Directive will give basic rights to consumers faced by unsatisfactory goods.
The remedies in the directive - repair, replacement, reduction in price, refund - are easy to understand.
People need to understand their rights if they are to exercise them.
Consumers should thus be able to take full advantage of the single market in the way businesses can.
In some countries consumer rights would be improved by the directive.
In the rest, existing high levels of protection would remain.
We await the European Parliament's first reading on the directive and are aiming for a common position at the April Consumer Council.
There is no point in having consumer protection rules if they are not properly implemented and enforced.
We want the April Consumer Council to examine this on the basis of a Commission report.
To give one example, mechanisms for Member States to share best practice should make it easier to act against trading scams and to identify unsafe products.
Our third aim is to improve the European home and leisure accidents surveillance system.
This is used to gather accident data on which to base health and safety policy.
Doing that European Union-wide means a larger population sample and more useful data.
We are committed to ensure the system's continuation and to improve it, building on the best current national practice.
I hope that we can count on the European Parliament's support to achieve these goals.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I think it is interesting the way a framework has been developed for possible consumer rights or measures, as regards guarantees, basic rights, legislation, improvements to the system and consumer advice.
But could you please state what specific measures the British Presidency plans to take in favour of consumers?
I am grateful for the question from the honourable gentleman but I have to say that I am not pleading guilty to his allegation.
There is a very positive agenda.
There is certainly a very heavy agenda for the April Consumer Council.
The general thrust of all the proposals is that there should be minimum standards.
This does not prevent any particular Member State deciding that they want to have better standards.
There needs to be discretion on some of those matters.
The important thing is to make progress and to bring in improved minimum standards so that all European citizens across the whole of the European Union can benefit in the way that businesses can from the single market.
This is a very important principle and I believe it is one that will receive a large area of support from consumers and citizens throughout the whole of the European Union.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 16 by Sören Wibe (H-0029/98)
Subject: The end of tax-free sales and its impact on employment
Tax-free sales on journeys between EU Member States are to end in 1999.
A study has shown that this will result in a great many jobs, about 50 000 altogether, being lost throughout the EU.
Has the Council discussed this matter and does it intend to do anything about it? Can it, for instance, try to obtain a derogation for tax-free sales on ferries or, even better, seek to have the entire decision re-examined?
Question No 17 by Jan Andersson (H-0062/98)
Subject: Tax-free sales
The Council has decided that tax-free sales should end in 1999.
When this decision was taken, a commitment was given to carry out an analysis of the impact on employment.
However, no analysis has been forthcoming.
Does the Council intend to ensure that the promised impact analysis is carried out before the decision ending tax-free sales enters into force?Question No 18 by Pat Gallagher (H-0157/98)
Subject: Job losses because of indirect tax increases
Representatives of those employed in the duty- and tax-free industry claim that a considerable number of jobs, up to 140 000, are at risk should the planned abolition of this trade proceed as is currently planned, and stressed their concerns to MEPs during a demonstration in Brussels in December of last year.
As the Commission continues to question the validity of these claims, and at a time when unemployment is a priority throughout the European Union, would the Council confirm what steps it is taking to quantify the number of jobs at risk and to evaluate possible remedial measures?
As the honourable Members will know, when the Council adopted directives abolishing fiscal frontiers from 1 January 1993, it decided to put an end to tax and duty-free sales for intra-European Community passengers because retaining such sales would be inconsistent with an internal market without frontiers.
Knowing this decision would require major changes in the sectors concerned, Council provided for a lengthy adjustment period from 1 January 1993 to 30 June 1999 during which tax and duty-free sales for intra-EC travellers could be retained.
The Council currently has no plans to revisit its decision.
The effect on jobs of ending intra-European Community duty-free is hard to estimate accurately and depends in part on the nature of the successive regime.
Some estimates probably overstate the effect.
Whatever the successive regime's nature, operators will still be able to make sales on a duty and tax paid basis.
I would like to thank Mr Henderson for his answer.
It is quite correct that the abolition of duty-free sales is a step towards the creation of the single market, but the single market is being created to provide economic benefits.
Whatever we say, it is still the case that the question of the existence of duty-free sales has extremely little to do with economic benefits.
If we abolish duty-free sales, to begin with we would incur costs in the form of 50 000 to 100 000 lost jobs.
Secondly, a number of ferry lines would be closed, including one which runs between Finland and Sweden and affects my home community, and which in turn has repercussions for tourism in both countries.
On the positive side we have some abstract economic gains which perhaps amount to a hundredth or a thousandth of a per cent of the gross domestic product.
I would like to ask Mr Henderson the following: Is it really worth it for the sake of this small gain to see so many people made unemployed, and to anger a large proportion of the Union's population?
I thank Mr Wibe for his question but he is not really introducing any new information.
These matters were discussed thoroughly in the early 1990s when the debate took place.
I cannot really add more to the debate than I remember hearing at the time and which no doubt the honourable gentleman heard at the time.
Thank you Mr President-in-Office.
Since it is the case that different countries in the EU have different duties on alcohol, tobacco and perfumes, I wonder whether you could tell me where the duty should be paid when a vessel travels between two or three countries. Should it be paid in the country which has the highest duty or in the country which has the lowest duty?
Or could people even buy goods in a third country in the EU and pay the duty in the country which has the lowest duty? It that is the case, is there not then a risk of tax dumping, and is it in that case a desirable development?
I listened to John Prescott yesterday.
He said that as an ex-seaman he was concerned about the consequences of abolishing dutyfree sales.
On that basis I would like to put the following question: would it not be reasonable to investigate the consequences in the area of employment and in the area of taxes, so that we really know what will happen before the decision comes into effect?
Mr Andersson, like Mr Wibe, is asking me to revisit the issues that were all very well aired when these matters were first discussed in the early 1990s.
There is no intention, currently, on the part of the Council to reopen these matters.
Regarding the question of taxation, yes, there are, as the honourable Member will know, different levels of consumption taxes in different countries within the European Union.
The answer, in theoretical terms, is that the tax which was appropriate would be paid on the purchase of the product.
There will no doubt be books and more books of Treasury and commercial law on those definitions.
At the outset I should like to say that I am extremely disappointed at the response of the President-in-Office who continues to say that this will not be revisited.
I believe a new Presidency coming into office - a new government - should at least look at this.
He referred to the major changes, the long derogation period because of the changes.
He must also remember that there were commitments given over the years that a study would be carried out.
It is rather alarming that the President-inOffice is not in a position to give us a clear view of the effects that this might have.
It does not surprise me.
I do not think any politician or any President-in-Office will be able to do that without a study.
We have been given that commitment and we have a duty towards the European citizens to give them that study.
But it is now becoming patently clear that considerable difficulties will arise should the abolition of duty-free sales within the EU proceed as planned in mid-1999.
The rules for applying and collecting VAT, excise duties on products sold and consumed, duty and tax paid on board the few remaining ferries in existence on intra-EU routes - that he referred to - are unclear.
New arrangements are required.
Let the President-in-Office tell us what arrangements are required and will be made in view of these changes.
I understand how strongly Members feel about this issue.
But on a technical level, the way in which the regulation will be introduced - the notification of which has already been given to Member States - it would be possible to find out the details from them rather than from me.
The Presidency has no intention to revisit this issue.
There have been a number of new governments elected throughout the whole of the European Union in recent months.
It would be open to any of those new governments to raise the issue at the Council of Ministers.
It would then be a matter for the Council as to what kind of response would be given.
Duty-free income is of major importance for ferry traffic between Sweden and Finland in the Baltic.
North of the Stockholm area - you could say that Stockholm is in southern Sweden - there is only one scheduled ferry link.
That goes between the beautiful city of Umeå in Sweden and Vasa in Finland.
It is most uncertain whether this ferry traffic will survive a removal of duty-free sales.
That would mean that the heavy lorry traffic which takes this route would have to travel hundreds of kilometres extra with great economic and environmental costs for this area in northern Sweden and Finland.
In addition, old historic ties between these areas would be broken.
Furthermore, interregional aid is being received for cooperation between these areas in Sweden and Finland.
My question is this: does the Council have any objection to the Swedish and Finnish governments intervening and providing direct state aid to maintain this traffic if it cannot survive when duty-free sales are abolished?
I can say to the honourable Member that it would be a matter for the operators to decide whether or not they felt that a subsidy was necessary.
It would then be a matter for the Finnish and Swedish governments to decide if a subsidy should be given to them, and it would then be for the Commission to decide whether or not the subsidy was in accordance with the rules of the European Union.
This is really funny.
Back home in Sweden the Social Democrats love to raise taxes both on work and alcohol.
I am therefore a little surprised by the argument which we are listening to here.
I would just like to tell the Council to stand firm.
There should not be tax advantages for certain sectors. Instead, we must have competition on equal terms.
It should not be the case that Europe should try to create new jobs through people getting drunk on a load of ferries.
I have interpreted that as a comment rather than a question.
I wish to congratulate the President-in-Office on the brevity with which he answers questions.
If only colleagues were as brief in asking their questions.
My question is brief.
He will be aware of the status of the President-in-Office.
Indeed he has used the very words Gordon Brown used when he attended the Economic Committee: ' no plans to revisit this issue' , he said, and I hope that the Presidency will long stick to that.
My question, however, relates to the statement yesterday by Mr Prescott, also President-in-Office of the Council, that he is concerned about duty free and the consequential effects of its abolition.
Who is speaking for the United Kingdom Presidency, Mr Prescott, the President-in-Office present today or the President-in-Office of the Economic and Finance Ministers?
I am not sure that brief answers will help me in future if it means I get these kinds of questions.
I am speaking for the Presidency today, and on any occasion where there is an official event the responsible minister speaks for the British Presidency.
The British Presidency's position is determined by the British government through its relationship with other European partners at all levels.
Our colleague, Mr Sjöstedt, mentioned one of the most threatened ferry lines and spoke of the beautiful city of Umeå. I hope that you think the city of Vasa is equally beautiful.
I would like to ask the Council if it is true that in the Commission there is a list of the most threatened ferry lines. Has there been a discussion about whether the Council could take up these issues?
In addition, I would like to ask the President-in-Office what attitude the Presidency has towards contributing to an extension if other countries raise this issue in Ecofin? For example, the Irish government has expressed a desire to take such an initiative.
I hope that you take into account that the situation has changed compared with the situation in 1991, particularly as far as unemployment is concerned, which is something Mr Wibe also raised.
I can say to Mrs Thors that I am not aware of any list but we have a transparent Presidency and if there is a list I will be happy to see it.
We are always happy to discuss any issue that any responsible Member wishes to raise.
In view of what the President said earlier, I must declare an interest, in that I had dinner with the President-inOffice last night.
I hope that will mean I get an even more detailed answer.
The President-in-Office mentioned that the decision was taken some years ago leaving operators six or seven years to phase out duty-free.
Does he therefore not agree that it is highly irresponsible of the tobacco and alcohol industries to be lobbying the way they have and spending millions to try to have this decision reversed? They are also trying to whip up consumers to take part in their campaign.
Does he agree that if governments have money to spare they should not use it as a tax break for the alcohol and tobacco industries, especially a ludicrous tax break which is only available to frequent international travellers, such as myself, who benefit disproportionately? Does he not agree that would be a total misuse of public funds?
The clear conclusion for me is to take people for dinner after they have asked the question and not before.
I have to say to the honourable Member that, like colleagues who raised matters at the beginning of this discussion - albeit from a different viewpoint - he is revisiting issues which were discussed in the early 1990s.
The Council has no further comments to make at this time.
I will try to be helpful to the President-in-Office by providing him with some arguments as to why this matter should be revisited.
Firstly, excise duties have not been harmonized as promised.
Secondly, independent studies are now showing that thousands of jobs will be lost throughout the Community.
Thirdly, unemployment is now our top priority; it was not back in 1991.
Although I accept that he cannot change the Council's position tonight, but could he not tonight agree to find space on a Council agenda to allow an opportunity for our Irish friends to put this issue to the Council with that fresh information so that it can be reviewed in the light of that information?
If abolition goes ahead, what advice would he give to the ferry companies operating in my constituency between Dover and Calais? What tax rates do they apply?
French rates, British rates or international rates?
The Council has yet to really think about the post-1999 situation. I invite the President-in-Office to do that if he can.
There were a number of issues raised by the honourable Member, most of which were returning to the debates, which took place in the early 1990s and have been covered in the past by the Presidency, and positions adopted.
As far as I am aware, there was no link in the decision between the change in the regulations on duty-free and any consideration of taxation.
They are two separate issues with no link.
So I do not think that argument can be put.
That is not to say that the issue of different levels of taxation should not be examined as an issue worthy of some consideration - but not linked to this particular issue.
Different Member States within the European Union will have different views on those taxation questions.
It would be open to any government within the European Union to raise the issue in Ecofin or at the General Affairs Council if they were so minded.
It would be up to the other Members of whichever Council it was to make whatever response was appropriate at that time and in the circumstances of how the issue was being raised.
But unless that happens, I can say that the Presidency has no intention of reopening this issue which we believe was settled.
Mr President, this is something which cannot wait.
I have been invited to Aberdeen Airport next Monday and I wondered whether the President-in-Office could give me advice as to what to say to the people there, or would he like to accompany me to explain to them what is going to happen to their fare structure and to the jobs they fear they will lose?
Ladies and gentlemen, I would request you that private invitations be made outside the Hemicycle, otherwise it wastes time.
We have only four minutes left, and I hope we can deal with one more question without the President-in-Office missing his plane.
Question No 19 by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0030/98)
Subject: Environmental quality of EU overseas aid
What plans has the UK Presidency of the Development Council to address the need to improve the environmental quality of EU overseas aid, particularly for projects in sectors such as energy, mining, transport and the private sector? What means would it propose to achieve this improved environmental quality, in the light of the existing fundamental lack of capacity within the Commission?
The Presidency considers that environmental protection is an integral part of the development process.
Lasting elimination of poverty requires environmentally sustainable solutions.
Poor people are most reliant on natural resources and most vulnerable to environmental degradation and mismanagement.
If natural resources are not managed sustainably, continued economic growth will not be possible.
We need to help developing countries integrate environmental concerns into their decision-making.
In particular we will support their efforts to prepare plans and policies for sound management of their natural resources and national strategies for sustainable development.
The intermediate targets for sustainable development, based on United Nations conventions and resolutions, anticipate the implementation of these national strategies in all countries by the year 2005 so as to ensure that current trends in the loss of environmental resources are effectively reversed at both global and national levels by the year 2015.
Relevant action planned under the Presidency of the European Union will include endeavouring to secure commitments from the Commission and Member States to promote national strategies for sustainable development in developing countries and to adopt measurable targets, especially in sustainable development and poverty reduction, and to help increase the effectiveness of these funds.
A Council regulation was recently adopted on environmental measures in developing countries in the context of sustainable development, along with a resolution on environmental assessment in development cooperation.
This provides for the mainstreaming of environmental concerns in project and programme preparation, as well as at the strategy and policy levels.
In that case, I would like to repeat the last part of my question: ' What means would it propose to achieve this improved environmental quality, in light of the existing fundamental lack of capacity within the Commission?' After all, it is not we who cannot agree whether the programmes should be designed like this so that the environment forms an integral part of them - along with many other fine ideas.
But I do not think that I was given any actual indication at all of how to remedy the situation, given the Commission's lack of capacity at present.
In a nutshell, how can we ensure that priority will be given to integrating the environment in implementing the EU's overseas aid programmes and, in view of this, will there be incentives which will be sufficiently effective to ensure that integration also takes place in practice?
I thank the honourable Member for her question, but I can only refer her to my previous answer which is that there are a number of different ways in which improvement can be brought about.
The Commission has an important role in identifying how they can monitor schemes where there is an environmental aspect to them, and how they can ensure that the best environmental practice is involved.
All of us have an opportunity, when we begin to renegotiate the Lomé mandate, to include a consideration of the important matters which she raises.
Since the time allocated to questions to the Council has now expired, Questions Nos 20 to 59 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Air transport liberalization
The next item is the report (A4-0015/98) by Mr Seal, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the impact of the third package of air transport liberalization measures (COM(96)0514 - C4-0602/96).
Mr President, as rapporteur for this report, I have to say that it is a disappointing report; not in the way it is written - because that is very good - but because as rapporteur I cannot examine the success or failure of air transport liberalization fully without examining the social consequences.
The Commission promised to publish results of a study they commissioned last October.
I understand it has just been issued this week.
So I ask the House to review the results of this report, to review the apparent results of liberalization, bearing in mind that the social effects of that liberalization have still to be taken into account.
The rest of liberalization in the air transport industry is a bit like the curate's egg: it is good in parts.
We have some cheaper fares, but we have also some increased fares.
We have some increased competition; we have some new airlines coming forward; but we have a decline in safety and we have some frightening alliances on the horizon.
If we look at cheaper fares, then several no-frills airlines are offering cheaper fares such as Easyjet, Debonair, Virgin Express.
Even British Airways has set up a separate company to offer such no-frills deals.
These, however, are mostly based around the United Kingdom.
We need to extend some of these companies to the rest of the European Union.
I wish them luck and I commend what they are offering.
However, these lower fares must not be at the expense of cutting safety or worsening working conditions.
That is why we need to examine the social effects of liberalization.
Even with the larger airlines, business fares have dropped on routes where there is competition.
But when you look at these fares, even though they have dropped, they are still too high.
There is still an unbelievable complexity of fares.
We have got PEX, superPEX, Euro-fares, economy, full economy, business class, and so it goes on.
Buying an airline ticket should be simple; it should be straightforward.
It is not.
Passengers should be able easily to find information on the various service provided for different fares.
They cannot.
Even though we have got air traffic increasing globally by 7.9 % a year, most people flying are having more difficulty getting the right fares.
Safety must be assured.
If we look at some of the examples: British Airways removed safety doors from some of its planes to put in more seats.
This was not a good move in terms of safety and it was a disastrous move for them as far as PR is concerned.
We have a situation now where pilots are flying longer and longer hours.
Some of them are flying 17 hours in a day. That must affect safety.
Cabin crews are working longer hours for less money and that must compromise safety.
This is the unacceptable face of liberalization.
Liberalization does have its merits but it is not defect-free.
We need controlled liberalization.
By that, I mean we need to put in place preventive measures to avoid the cut-throat competition that would lead to monopolies the way it did in the United States and in Australia.
Their services, consequently, deteriorated.
We need a balanced liberalization that will benefit passengers, shareholders and workers in the industry.
We need to encourage new entrants and to ensure they are not wiped out by the larger companies before they can get going.
To do that we need to solve the slot problem - the problems at airports which they have too much traffic.
This is the subject of a separate report that has come into this House, but it needs solving if liberalization is to continue.
We need to ensure that the newly emerging airlines and the ones that are offering the reduced fares can get slots so that they can continue and can also fly between some of the regional airports.
We also need to look at the alliances that are proposed and in place between the US and European carriers.
We need to ensure that these alliances do not destroy our European airlines.
Global arrangements must allow the European airlines to compete and passengers to enjoy the benefits of this competition, but not at the expense of their workforces.
Liberalization has not been as effective as promised.
But the slower, controlled approach is desirable and must extend to all parts of the European Union.
If it is to continue, we need to solve the slot allocation problems and to protect new entrants.
But we cannot - and I, as rapporteur, cannot - assess the impact of the third liberalization package until we know the social consequences of this stage of liberalization.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as draftsman of opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I agree with the basic statements in Mr Seal's report and I thank him sincerely for his report.
In addition, even if, as he has rightly commented, the Commission knowingly, unknowingly, consciously, or unconsciously has concealed its report on the social consequences, his report is nevertheless a valuable one and I hold Mr Seal in very high esteem.
It is true that the air transport liberalization finalized in the past year has completely opened the Single Market to this field and all of us, the actual consumers, are gradually noticing the advantages.
National air transport markets were opened up, competition is allowed, even if it is sometimes a little bit strange that an airline from country A has flown cabotage for years in country B without covering its own costs, without making a profit and survives.
Well, we shall see if this is actually possible in the long term.
Also, the number of routes serviced has risen, the number of operating airlines has risen, yet nevertheless the planes have to a large extent been filled.
In that respect, I believe that liberalization has succeeded.
My dear Mr Seal, I do not believe that the safety of passengers has been put at risk in any way by the liberalization of the air transport market.
All the accidents which have occurred have been outside the area of the European Community and not within it.
Of course, the Commission also offers us a glimpse into the areas which have not yet been dealt with, into tariffs, the limitation of capacity, the cost of flight services and access to the market.
The Commission is surely right when it says that on many intraCommunity routes, and above all the internal domestic routes, there is still no competition.
But Commissioner, I believe that in the case of many routes which today are not even profitable for a single airline - particularly those in peripheral regions - we cannot expect competition, because nobody as it were wants to lose money.
That is what we must realize.
In that respect, I believe that the Commission has come to the wrong conclusions.
I believe that many internal routes are simply not profitable because of insufficient passenger numbers and will not attract competition.
What I also agree with in Barry Seal's report is that the tariff structure is something over which the normal consumer can have no overview.
The various cheap and cheaper tariffs and special offers which the airlines offer are simply too difficult to understand.
For clever business people and people who have a good travel agent, maybe they can cope, but not normal citizens.
That, I believe, must change.
I would also like to say something about competition and about the alliances.
I do not completely share the view of my colleague, Barry Seal.
I believe the European airlines only have a chance in alliances with other partners in other continents.
I do share his view that we must be watchful that American partners do not drive our European lines to the wall in these alliances, but we also cannot let the Directorate-General IV see the Single Market as a total area in which it will judge the competition situation.
We must look globally at the question of market restriction, competition and cartel rights, because air traffic also takes place globally in alliances.
You all know that the airlines make most profit on the North Atlantic route and not on internal European routes.
In this respect, we must ask the Commission - and Karel Van Miert will probably take this into account - to regard the alliances not only as a danger but also as an opportunity for the European airlines to join in global competition. I hope that Neil Kinnock will also say something on his view of the alliances.
Finally, I would like to ask the Commission: when will we get the proposals for discussion and decision which are still outstanding?
I am referring here to the question of the slots.
I am not yet sure when the long-since announced package on the slots will be placed before us, Commissioner.
It needs to be discussed.
We should, Mr President, also discuss the question of flight management.
There are in fact still too many problems for the passengers and for the airlines, because air control in Europe is simply organized on a pre-Europe basis.
That must be changed.
Perhaps you can also say something about this, Commissioner, since the free market can only be effective for environmental protection and our citizens if the air space is used efficiently.
Mr President, we welcome this opportunity to discuss the impact of the third package of our transport liberalization measures and, in particular, I wish to thank Mr Seal for the work he has done on this communication.
I accept that some progress has been made but I would point out to the Commissioner that there is still no level playing field and the market remains distorted.
The British Presidency of the Transport Council talks of a people's Europe.
So perhaps within this people's Europe we could see a stop to state aids now to ensure that there is a level playing field and fair competition between the carriers.
In their reports both Mr Seal and Mr Sindal have referred to the problems of slots, and it is recognized that generally the overall capacity of slots both in the air and at airports is a problem.
I would make a plea to the Commissioner tonight on the question of new entrants.
While I personally accept the priority should be to encourage new airlines on existing routes, I would argue that where there is no new airline which wishes to compete, an existing airline should be allowed to operate a new route.
Perhaps the Commissioner could consider that in the context of his slot-allocation proposals.
As the Member representing Stansted Airport in North Essex and South Suffolk, I particularly welcome the new entrant, the British Airways carrier which is to be called 'Go' , to operate from Stansted Airport.
We are not sure yet where it is going but I am sure it is going to mean greater choice, lower fares and be the airline that we all welcome.
All of us would like to see a people's Europe and true liberalization in air transport and I hope that both this Commissioner and the British Presidency will complete the single market by June, giving a greater choice of routes and carriers and lower fares for travellers.
Mr President, I would like to welcome the Commissioner and to thank the rapporteur for his report.
I wish also to state that I speak this evening on behalf of Mr Niall Andrews who wanted to speak on this subject but had to return to Dublin unexpectedly.
The free movement of labour is one of the basic tenets on which the European Union relies and it is therefore up to us, the elected representatives of the European Union, to ensure that all our citizens have assess to affordable and speedy transport between the Member States of the Union.
Airport charges play a pivotal role in allowing airlines the financial scope to offer customers low cost travel.
The issue is one of particular importance to Ireland, as it is the only island state in the Union and relies heavily on the availability of low cost airfares.
Through the air transport liberalization programme the European Union has taken steps to create the climate necessary for airlines to offer competitively priced airfares to the citizens of Europe.
The air transport liberalization programme, which culminated in full liberalization of the market in 1997, has undoubtedly brought many benefits to consumers both in terms of access and cost.
However, a commercially successful Irish airline competing in the European market, Ryanair, is currently engaged in a protracted trade dispute with its employees arising from the company's refusal to recognize or negotiate with the trade union chosen by some of the employees to represent them or to cooperate with the national industrial conciliation procedures which have been established to resolve such disputes.
Ryanair, whose owners and senior managers had been very substantial financial beneficiaries of air transport liberalization, must immediately enter into dialogue with these employees who seek to be represented by a trade union of their choice and to utilize the resources of the national procedures that exist.
I am concerned that this employer's behaviour may be symptomatic of a wider problem whereby the rights of vulnerable groups of employees are being abused in the aftermath of market liberalization and in the absence of adequate corresponding enforceable social protection.
Could I call on the Commission to conclude and publish as a matter of urgency its promised assessment of the social impact of liberalization of the air transport sector, including the right to free negotiation, free association and collective bargaining.
Mr President, it is a pity that the rapporteur has sung his own praises because otherwise I would have done so and coming from me that would have been even more exceptional.
However, I have to say that his report is excellent, even if in his contribution tonight he possibly concentrates a bit too much on the social consequences given that aircraft crews and pilots are among the best paid workers in the world.
Mr President, I would like to draw the Commissioner's attention to a few things which to my mind require some improvements in this sector.
Firstly, there is the issue of state aid.
I recall the discussion Mr Kinnock had with us in the Committee on Transport and Tourism when he took office, and in which he promised emphatically - I would almost say, with his hand on his heart - to put an end to state aid.
Well, Mr President, state support is still continuing, and I want to state this emphatically, unfair competition in particular is perpetrated by companies such as Iberia, which allows its subsidiary Viva Air to work below cost price, and in doing so makes the market situation almost impossible for all sorts of other commercially operating companies and companies operating without government support.
It should also be said that Air France, time and time again, cannot resist making life very difficult for new entrants onto the market in France.
But on that, at least, the Commission took some action.
Secondly - and I here I would like to ask the attention of the Commissioner's staff, who are excellent, incidentally, because I would like a reply to my question if not during the next few days, then in writing if necessary - I am being told that in Italy the use of the seventh freedom, - I am not talking about cabotage, that is going reasonably well - the transport of a Community company to a third country, is alleged to be impossible.
This is because the Italians are demanding that this should only be an option when a company is established formally and legally in Italy, and not only has a company there, but also permanent equipment, in other words, aircraft and staff.
This contravenes what is being requested in the seventh freedom.
If we have to meet these kinds of conditions, we would rather grant the transport to companies from third countries, such as Egypt and Senegal, for instance.
Mr President, I would like to raise a last point, and this concerns airports.
I believe that if in Europe we are going to have competition in the aviation sector under the kind of circumstances we have at the moment, and in particular the environmental circumstances, where there are no common standards on noise levels on and around airports; companies start to compete with each other at the expense of the people because certain airports can take on extra passengers, because they ignore environmental and noise standards, while others do not.
I would also like see to some harmonization in this area in Europe.
Mr President, I have one final point. I would ask the Commission to pay more attention in its competition policy to networks rather than to specific lines.
Mr President, the report by Mr Seal provides a qualified account of the liberalization of air transport, which has meant restructuring, mergers and privatizations, without the user drawing any real benefits from it.
On the contrary, deregulation has had serious social repercussions with thousands of job losses, a decrease in security, decreases in salary and attacks on the status of staff.
So I can only support the call in Mr Seal's report inviting the Commission to publish the study on the consequences of liberalization on employment and the social field.
It is obscene to devote only nine lines to this subject as the Commission has done.
In the air transport sector, as elsewhere, the criteria of financial viability and its corollary of reduction in costs, lead to solutions which are often limited and do not ensure the best conditions, either for equality of access for all, the essential issue of security or for town and country planning.
So we must take care that the imbalances concerning the peripheral and island regions in the Community do not increase.
In a context which is subject to strong competitive pressure, notably from the United States, the European Union should aim to give priority to cooperation in joint developments, rather than using the logic of economic warfare.
In this context, I welcome the fact that the two amendments from my group have been taken into account: one calls for bilateral agreements to be founded on real reciprocity, and the other draws attention to delocalization and social dumping.
At a more basic level, I believe that we need a different dynamic in air transport, based on public management of this sector, in order to promote mutually advantageous cooperation, to encourage balanced national and regional development, to develop social rights and employment, to lift the restrictions on unions, in short, to guarantee everyone's right to transport provided in good conditions.
In order to promote democracy and transparency, an organization should be set up to facilitate public dialogue and to enable all the social players to participate in the orientation of and decisions concerning this sector.
This is the line taken in the amendments we have tabled.
Mr President, we would like to place the environmental considerations at the heart of the European Union's decision-making process.
Integrating environmental issues into all policy areas of the European Union will be a major task, but one that we have to face.
We believe we can deliver a more sustainable transport policy, and we are all agreed that it is essential to cut CO2 emissions from transport, which are growing faster than in any other sector.
This is of course the Green group droning on about the environment again, is it not?
The Committee on Transport and Tourism is quite happy to integrate the environment into transport policy, as is rapporteur Seal.
But let me tell you, Mr Seal, that I did not make up my first four lines: they were spoken yesterday by your fellow party member Mr Prescott, who was here as President-in-Office of the Council, and he mentioned transport and the environment as the most important environmental issue of the British Presidency.
But you, on the other hand, Mr Seal, do not manage to mention the word environment even once in your report.
You, who blame the Commission for devoting a mere nine lines to employment, seem to have quite a blind spot when it comes to the environment.
And let no one claim that air transport liberalization and increase in pollution from aeroplanes are not related.
Competition has made flying cheaper, and Mr Seal points this out in his explanatory statement.
That is nice for travellers, but bad news for the descendants of the travellers, because cheap tickets lead to more passenger kilometres and that leads to more pollution.
The resolution predicts an annual increase in air traffic of 6 or 7 %.
If we assume optimistically that half of this growth can be absorbed by technological progress, then we are still left with an increase in CO2 emissions from aeroplanes of at least 3 % a year.
Did we not agree in Kyoto that CO2 emissions should come down, and that aviation should do its bit towards this? Clearly this all remained in Japanese to Mr Seal and my colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I would like the Commission to tell us whether it has proposals to reduce CO2 emissions from aviation.
And, by the way, how are the studies on kerosene tax and other levies progressing? Are environmental agreements part of the additional measures which, according to page 22 of the Commission's statement, are missing in the present aviation agreements between the Member States and the US?
Will the Commission ask the Council for a mandate to negotiate with the US not only about open skys, but also about cleaner skies? I would also like to know if the subject of aviation and the environment is on the agenda of the next two Environment and Transport Councils.
If not, then I will have to conclude that although we may be trying the tame the car, the aeroplane has become Europe's holy cow.
Mr President, on 1 April 1997, liberalization of the internal market for civil aviation was completed - at least on paper.
This occurred without as much as a whimper, so that the Dutch press spoke of a 'whispered Big Bang'.
No cutting competition broke out between the big carriers, and ticket prices did not drop dramatically.
Still, the structure of the aviation market in Europe has altered fundamentally over the past ten years.
In the European Union market the large airlines are regrouping.
A number of associations have grown modestly, and the market has become more dynamic.
This is evident from the emergence of low-budget companies, amongst other things.
Tickets on routes where there is competition have now also become cheaper.
The fact that liberalization passed off peacefully is also the result of the spectacular growth aviation has sadly undergone over the past few years.
This meant that there were no large scale job losses, despite a constant drive for more efficiency.
The Commission's report deals primarily with efficiency and competition in aviation.
The Commission rightly states that substantial savings can be made in groundhandling and air traffic control.
But I believe that in future fair competition between different modes of transports must be looked at.
Compared to passenger transport by rail or bus, aviation is still subsidized in disguise through duty-free sales and cheap kerosene.
I think it is right that duty-free sales are soon to be abolished for flights within the European Union, but more efforts are needed as regards fair competition between different means of transport modes.
That is why the introduction of a tax on kerosene within the Union is urgently required.
Tax-free kerosene in an internal market, with apologies to the interpreters, is truly "swan mad' .
Mr President, Commissioner, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for his work.
I believe that the report enables us to give a sound opinion on liberalization and to deal with the relevant subjects specifically.
I would like to point out several aspects I believe to be important.
It was said that numerous companies have entered the market, remaining there without being competitive.
In actual fact, many have not survived.
Although, from an economic point of view, this may be considered negative, from the point of view of security it may be considered positive.
Liberalization has not completely shattered the security and social guarantee mechanisms.
However, there are contradictions and problems, particularly as regards working hours, the relocation of companies - which can have a negative effect on human resources from third countries -, and the management of services with agencies outside the EU which we naturally have to monitor carefully.
In effect, the system has had positive results.
I am convinced that we should take into account the reorganization process begun by the national companies.
This reorganization process has been favourable and has made it possible to face the competition specifically, even leading some to highly innovative ideas, such as the company Alitalia, whose operators and workers are personally committed to the company management and also take part in company activities.
These are highly important and significant aspects. State aid has made this reorganization process possible.
I believe that proper aid has been provided and that they now possess a market opening and the ability to withstand the competition.
However, I would like to deal with another aspect that needs to be highlighted. In some ways, competition has been more focused on the ground services and airport services than on the specific system of airline liberalization.
It has to be admitted that we still have major problems as regards the airlines: I am not convinced we need to continue in the same way, for example in relations with the USA.
The open sky treaties should continue far more specifically because we need to extend the reorganization of the European airlines to the global market, to include therefore the competition within the American market, which we are prevented from doing at the moment. I believe that provides a strong limitation to the mechanisms of international competition.
That is why the liberalization of the open sky systems and the ability to liberalize air space are important.
We are faced with an air space that is strongly conditioned by the military systems, even today.
Unfortunately, nowadays, we are still talking of war and the obstacles it might establish - I am referring to Iraq, of course.
We will still have a complete violation of air space available.
This is a dramatic point. It would be advisable for air space for the civilian system to be increasingly more available.
The aspect of air traffic control has also been pointed out.
We cannot go on like this any longer! It is possible to make marked savings and establish strong coordination in the control sector.
To conclude, Commissioner, I am in favour of the measures and I believe that the next action relating to airport duties will provide us with further capacity to face the market and to support the social mechanisms providing guarantees for workers.
Mr President, the liberalization of the aviation industry has been taking place for decades.
It is a positive and necessary development to satisfy the desire of a growing number of passengers.
In the assessment now being made, the Commission does not see any dramatic changes in the development after liberalization.
That means that the large airlines still remain and that foreign competitors have not ousted domestic operators to any large degree; nor have there been any dramatic price reductions.
Clearly, if that is what we want to bring about through liberalization, we can say we have succeeded.
But if prices have not been reduced and accessibility for passengers has not increased, I am drawn to the conclusion that liberalization needs to be taken further.
There is a need for more competition and more operators in the European air transport market, not fewer.
Today there are far too few airlines dominating far too many routes, and these airlines are constantly entering into increasingly sophisticated cooperation agreements.
In practice, this continues to disable competition in the air transport market.
I am convinced that the necessary development has only just begun.
Satisfying the passengers' demands calls for increased accessibility and lower prices.
We need to open up to competition and create the conditions for substantially more players than there are today in this sector.
Together this will enable the development which will allow us to satisfy passengers' demands by the year 2000.
Mr President, unlike Mr Stenmarck, I do not have the same faith in the possibilities of liberalization with regard to airlines and air transport.
I think there is considerable over-confidence in what can be achieved through deregulation of air transport.
Swedish domestic air services have been open to competition for a number of years, and this initially led to much price competition.
However, today we have a quite different situation.
There are sometimes two airlines on the most attractive routes, but these usually compete with the same timetables, the same prices and roughly the same service too.
On the less attractive routes, however, there are higher prices and poorer services, and this strengthens the regional differences which were already considerable.
Unfortunately, this is all happening in a country which is highly dependent on domestic air transport since there are often no alternatives.
I also think it is important to ensure that an increase in air transport is not a goal in itself.
It is in fact environmentally unsustainable to maintain the rate of growth which we have today.
I have proposed a special amendment, Amendment No 3, which is based on the idea that competition must take place through socially acceptable methods.
I have made particular reference to the Irish airline Ryanair, which has distinguished itself through its anti-union policies.
The airline refuses to enter into agreements with unions, and this has led to a conflict which is currently taking place with baggage handlers at Dublin airport.
The airline has refused to cooperate with the Irish Labour Court.
I think it is quite unacceptable to employ such methods in competition between airlines.
We must show that we do not accept anti-union attitudes or social dumping as a means of competition.
It would be interesting to hear whether the Commissioner has any views on Ryanair's behaviour.
Against this background I would like to say I support the GUE/NGL group's amendment as well as that of the Green group.
Mr President, this obviously is not Ryanair's evening.
I would also like to draw attention to the regrettable situation that has developed there.
Mr Seal's report highly recommends many of the positive aspects of the aviation industry in recent years.
Among the blessed, he mentions Ryanair, now the most profitable airline in Europe, more profitable as a percentage of turnover than the giant BA.
As several previous speakers have mentioned, they have been locked in dispute on what many of us would regard as one of the basic human rights, that of the workers to join a trade union and be represented by a trade union.
These workers were willing to work for considerably below the going rate when the airline started, recognising that the company could not afford the higher wages at the time.
This is an airline that has made £IRL 35 million profit in the last year.
Their chief executive recently earned a personal bonus of £IRL 17 million.
Another company much smaller, much bigger are paying considerably higher wages than Ryanair.
Let us not hand out kudos to a company whose industrial relations practices are unjust and whose profits are built on the generosity of their employees.
This has been a very interesting debate.
I should like, first of all, to thank the rapporteur, Mr Seal, for his account of the evolution of aviation liberalization in the European Union.
Producing a fair assessment of a new and ongoing process is always likely to be a testing experience. I compliment him on the approach that he has taken.
As the House will know, civil aviation liberalization in the Union has been an intentionally progressive process, partly in order to take account of the conditions from which it started in the mid-1980s, and partly to avoid disruptions and losses of the kind which liberalization produced in the United States of America.
In other words, it has been and is what Mr Seal is seeking: a balanced liberalization that has taken some pains to try to ensure that the interests of all legitimate concerns are taken into account.
It is inevitable that while some of the main effects of liberalization were identified in our 1996 communication, others have only become clearly apparent since, as airlines have increasingly taken advantage of the possibilities offered.
As we acknowledged in 1996, much remained to be done to ensure that the potential created by liberalization was fulfilled and fair competition conditions were achieved.
That is certainly true of state aid.
As the House will know, in the Commission's view, aid to airlines from Member State governments can only be justified, and must only be authorized, as an integral part of a consistent and timelimited programme to restore the financial viability and competitiveness of the recipient companies.
I am certain that this approach has directly contributed to making the restructuring programmes credible and successful.
I noticed Iberia's results in The Financial Times this morning and took some satisfaction from that.
Our careful monitoring of the implementation of restructuring plans and the way in which they comply with the conditions laid down shows the productive results that are being achieved.
It was on that basis that we were able to authorize final payment by the French and Portuguese governments to Air France and to TAP.
Regrettably, it is also on that basis that we had to conclude that Olympic Airways was not complying with the essential conditions set out at the time of the agreement with the Greek Government in 1994.
We consequently had to reopen the procedure on that case.
In recent weeks we also had to take a very strict attitude towards the Italian Government and Alitalia who were in breach of basic conditions that were included in the Commission's state aid decision of last July.
I am glad to say that we received a swift and effective response from the Italian Cabinet and, within a few days, further and binding undertakings were given which resolved the issues.
On the other issues that I have listened to, in the claims made during the course of the debate, and relating to state aid in competitive conditions, I must say that if honourable Members have evidence upon which complaints can authoritatively be made, they are doing the complainants no service if they do not encourage them to make the appropriate complaint to the European Commission.
I can say this: we respond with speed to all substantive complaints.
The recent experience in the case of Alitalia is a further demonstration of that.
If Members believe, therefore, that they have heard of complaints that have not been notified to us, they should say so; not to us, but to those who have voiced concerns to them.
On the issue of globalization, we are now turning our efforts to ensuring that the consolidation of the market does not produce adverse and counterproductive effects.
The rapporteur identifies the multiplication of mergers as being part of the globalization trend.
It is worth noting, however, that because of the restrictive clauses on ownership and control in most existing bilateral agreements, mergers are practically impossible, and that is why we are witnessing a proliferation of airline alliances instead.
The diversity and the disparity of regulatory regimes clearly inhibits the effective operation of the market and that, of course, is a major reason for the Commission's efforts to gain a negotiating mandate on market-access agreements with third countries, particularly the United States of America.
It is obvious that if the Community does not take the opportunity to negotiate a comprehensive air-service agreement with the USA, United States Airlines will, by design or default, be disproportionate beneficiaries of our single market, of our liberalization, when our airlines have no effective comparable rights of access and operation to the United States' single market.
I hope, therefore, that Member States of every kind will heed the reality and respond with alacrity to the challenge so that we can get on as a Community with negotiating a fair and balanced open-skies agreement across the Atlantic and on both sides of it.
It would be extremely alarming if, by the cumulative effect of current bilateral agreements and future bilateral agreements, United States Airlines were effectively able to operate at will in our single market when there was absolutely no reciprocation to speak of in the United States' single market.
Meanwhile, as the House will know, we opened investigations into three existing transatlantic airline alliances and into one proposed alliance in 1996.
Far from having adopted a dilatory attitude, as the rapporteur appeared to suggest in his report, the Commission has been very vigilant about the developments in a market which, by becoming global, could, in turn, create fresh constraints on the full benefits of liberalization.
Recognition of that has, for instance, prompted the Commission to take initiatives on air-traffic management - which was mentioned by some honourable Members -, on groundhandling services - mentioned by other honourable Members - and on airport challenges - again referred to by some contributors to the debate.
Our proposal for the revision of the current airport slots regulation will become public within the next few months.
Mr Seal is right to point out that our communication did not devote much space to the social aspects of liberalization.
Although it would also be true to say that the Commission has in other respects been particularly attentive to the social impact of liberalization measures.
The House is aware - and there were references to this - that we commissioned a study to address this issue.
And since we received the results of that study within the last week, I can firmly express the hope that the final report will be available to this Parliament and to the general public in April.
It is already clear, of course, that civil aviation has been the only transport mode in which employment increased between 1990 and 1995, and although the total growth was modest - about 0.4 % per annum over the period - it is worth noting that was achieved despite general economic recession and despite extensive airline restructuring, which has, in some cases, caused what turns out to be a temporary reduction in staff.
The increased effectiveness and competitiveness of airlines has the effect, of course, of again stimulating demand for employment - and that is good news for everybody.
As the House might anticipate, I totally agree with Mr Seal's view that liberalization should not, indeed must not, be achieved at the expense of safety, and we will therefore continue to be active and vigilant on safety issues, not only at Community level but globally.
To give practical evidence of that: we have in recent months proposed a directive to establish safety assessment of thirdcountry aircraft operating in the European Union, and we have published our proposal for the establishment of a European civil aviation safety agency.
In addition, outside the Community the Commission makes sustained efforts to secure and to maintain the effective implementation of ICAO standards.
Meanwhile we are also addressing environmental aviation issues, which were referred to by some of the contributors to the debate, through the communication on carbon dioxide emissions and transport which we shall be publishing in the spring and, in addition, more specifically in our study on the implication of the impositions of a kerosene tax for civil aviation and the environment.
The House may know that we have for the first time joint environment and transport councils convened under the United Kingdom Presidency - one informal, one formal - and we look forward to very positive results for transport and environment from those initiatives.
As far as the protection of consumers is concerned, the Commission has recently presented a proposal concerning denied-boarding compensation, whilst the current code of conduct on computerized reservation systems, as well as the amendments proposed to it, already provides for the operator of a flight to be clearly identified and for the passenger to be properly informed.
We have had some passenger complaints on this issue and I hope that honourable Members, as frequent flyers themselves, and as users of liberalized air services, will take pains to ensure that if they experience difficulties in this respect, they communicate those difficulties both to the airlines concerned and send a copy to me.
I would be pleased to have such information from the front line.
I will certainly act upon it.
These actions, in so far as consumers are concerned, should reinforce the requirements of information and transparency that Mr Seal's report is rightly seeking.
The list of different actions, which I have given this evening, is not exhaustive but it shows clearly that the Commission does not consider that its work was completed when we presented our communication in October 1996 or when the single market in civil aviation was formally and legally completed on the 1 April last year.
On the contrary, we acknowledged that further work was necessary and since then we have been actively pursuing further necessary advances.
Against that background, Mr Seal's report is of great help in emphasizing priorities and in highlighting the significance of the social dimension.
He will, I hope, be pleased to know therefore that in order to give full attention to the social impact, and also to take account of new developments and the changing environment in which airlines operate after the full completion of the aviation single market, we will be publishing the report that I referred to earlier which should be available for debate in this Parliament in the near future.
I hope that I can say with complete confidence that the report will provide a full response to those aspects of Mr Seal's report which relate to the matters that were not dealt with by our previous communication.
I look forward to considering that and indeed other matters with this House but hopefully not at such great length in future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Cabin crews in civil aviation
The next item is the debate on the report by Mr Grosch (A4-0018/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on safety requirements and attestation of professional competence for cabin crews in civil aviation (COM(97)0382 - C4-0460/97-97/0212(SYN)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the safety training of cabin crews in civil aviation is almost a component of the subject which we have just discussed, or a consequence of it.
The Commission could in this respect have taken the terms of the JAA changed or unchanged and transferred them into Community law - quite simply in accordance with Regulation No 3922/91.
It has, however, chosen another route, namely the form of a directive.
It is of course clear that we as Parliamentarians explicitly welcome this decision, and the fact that we as a parliament are involved in the lawmaking process.
But in my view that is not the most important reason point. The Commission's proposal - and this is the most important element - puts the work of the cabin crews in the correct light, that is, it covers their safety functions.
It is very important therefore to provide more transparency in terms of the fact that the crews must undergo basic training, a general further training and additional training related to various types of aeroplane.
That is, in our view, an important part of this work.
There is in fact a risk, which has just been discussed, that the airlines in the thick of the competition battle will regard these very training costs as variable costs and correspondingly perhaps try to economize in this area, which in my opinion would be unfortunate.
Therefore, we also see the programmes proposed in the Annex as minimum requirements.
In our opinion, both the basic training and the type-training indicated should form part of basic training, in which really nothing may be left out. This would mean that the cabin crew enjoy the social protection which exists in every similar profession, and that entry to the profession or employment in this job is no longer possible without training.
If we compare the programmes of one airline with another then we soon discover that this directive is necessary. Although most airlines take training very seriously, the further training, particularly the typetraining is somehow neglected.
The Commission's proposal also respects subsidiarity.
It therefore takes into account the desire of Member States to continue to define their training themselves, although there should be an obligation to keep the Commission informed.
In short, the proposal is an ideal response to technical and administrative questions, to social challenges in the free market and to safety claims associated with the profession of cabin crew.
Although it is not as important, we must not forget in this document that with some form of recognition - here known as certification - mobility in this professional sphere can be increased.
The amendments submitted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism in this respect are therefore to be regarded as no more than fine tuning.
They regulate amongst other things transfer conditions, they regulate or fix the obligation of the Member States to supply information and they regulate medical monitoring somewhat more clearly.
In the Commission's proposals only regular checks are suggested: we however propose a periodic cycle of inspections.
The amendments tabled later by Mr Simpson are in my view also worthy of support.
Although the Commission's text, my amendments, and the amendments proposed in committee maintained the distinction between cabin crew with and without safety functions, these amendments from Mr Simpson are designed to remove this distinction, so that all cabin crew must meet the same training requirements.
In my opinion, this has the important advantage of ensuring that there will no longer be cabin crew with varying qualifications and that in serious situations any member of the cabin crew will be able to fulfil his task completely.
Finally I would like to remind my colleagues - and perhaps that could have been said from the start, for thus far the whole thing sounds rather unanimous - that this directive is of course not welcomed by the JAA and the airlines.
For me this is not yet particularly worrying.
I am far more concerned about the scepticism - to put it mildly - of the Council on this subject.
I hope that even those accidents which have been avoided, to say nothing about the tragic reality of the actual aircraft accidents, will convince the Council, so that this document does not end up in a drawer somewhere but is instead dealt with effectively and also fulfils its objective.
Mr President, first of all, just to clarify: we are tonight debating safety standards for cabin crew and not air traffic controllers.
At least I hope so.
I know it is very late but I believe that is the directive we are discussing, otherwise I am in the wrong room.
I think we have a problem with interpretation, with all due respect to Mr Grosch.
I wish to thank him for his efforts in endeavouring to steer this report through Parliament and doing such a comprehensive job, and also to congratulate the Commission on having the foresight to bring this forward, particularly in the light of what we have just been saying about liberalization and the very important comments the Commissioner made about the need to underpin liberalization with a very strong social framework.
This is clear evidence that is actually happening, and this is a measure which commands the full support of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
One point we have to stress is that we need to get over to the Council and, indeed, the wider community why this measure is so important.
One thing we have to make very clear is that, contrary to accepted beliefs, if you are involved in an air crash the likelihood is that you will not actually die.
Indeed, many aircraft accidents are survivable.
Around 75 % of aircraft are involved in accidents during approach, landing or take-off.
Research indicates that around 90 % of all aircraft accidents could be survivable.
It is estimated that of the 1 500 people on average who die each year, some 300 a year, on average, could survive if evacuation measures within aircraft were improved.
I am confident that if we had better, faster and more effective evacuation, we could save lives - as many as 300 a year.
How do we do that? There are a number of methods by which we can improve evacuation measures.
Firstly by the behaviour and crowd-control skills of cabin crew during emergency evacuations, and, secondly, by passengers' knowledge of safety procedures and their motivation to get acquainted with them.
We all know from our experience in flying that no-one takes any notice whatsoever of cabin crew when they are giving us the safety demonstrations and yet all the evidence suggests that information they are conveying to us could make the difference between life or death.
There are a number of reasons why evacuation is a key issue, and training is clearly a means by which we can enable and motivate the cabin crew to provide effective information to the passengers, before, during and after an incident.
That is why we believe this measure is so important.
The large majority of air crashes are survivable technically, and effective evacuation is so important.
Current regulations, for example, specify that an aircraft must be evacuated within 90 seconds with just half the exits open.
In 1994 research was carried out by both the CAA and the FAA which clearly indicated that the difference between getting out of the aircraft or not depended on assertive, highly-trained and highly-effective cabin crew.
Tonight we should reflect on that.
It underpins the work of Mr Grosch and the proposal from the Commission.
The results show clearly that trained cabin crew make the difference.
That is the reason why we are very pleased to support this proposal for a directive on the training of cabin crew.
We have a number of concerns which we have identified via our amendments.
We think that in an incident you cannot differentiate between some cabin crew who may have safety training and others who do not.
All the crew should have the skills necessary to ensure that the plane, for example, is evacuated as quickly and effectively as possible.
That is why we have tabled Amendments Nos 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17, to ensure this measure applies to all the cabin crew.
If you speak to the cabin crew themselves, they do not want to create a situation where, possibly, some airline operators could differentiate between cabin crew and create a two-tier system.
In Amendment No 13 we propose annual medical checks for cabin crew.
Again we think this is perfectly reasonable, when your life is effectively in not just the pilot's hands but also in the hands of the cabin crews.
An annual medical check is the best way forward.
Leaving it just to the wording 'regular' is not sufficient.
Finally, Amendment No 18 talks about annual training for cabin crews, including things like fire-fighting and the use of life rafts.
Again, it is extraordinary that a basic requirement like using fire-fighting equipment or life rafts is not checked annually.
That is why we are tabling this amendment, to ensure that training is given on an annual basis.
In conclusion, as travel demand increases, the number of aircraft increase, the number of risks increase, it is vital that safety standards throughout the Community are harmonized.
We believe this directive will ensure that and could make the difference between life and death itself.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking Mr Grosch, on behalf of the PPE group, for a thorough piece of work.
This is a very important report.
Setting safety requirements is one of the most important tasks for all of us who are concerned with questions of transport at European level.
With the deregulation and liberalization of air transport, it is essential that safety should not suffer.
We know today that safety rules vary greatly from one EU country to another.
The JAA, the Joint Aviation Authority, has concentrated on this and approved common requirements both for basic training and for further training.
This is all of the utmost importance, and the more players operating in an increasingly liberalized air transport market in future, the more important it will become.
I am quite convinced that there really will be more players operating in this market.
In this context, one of our biggest and most important tasks is to help ensure that safety requirements are increased and not reduced.
That is a precondition for liberalization to have a real and lasting impact.
In this context, I do not want to make a big thing of the issue of certification at European level.
But it is worth giving encouragement to cabin crews, who are a group of employees who work across borders to a very large extent, so that they also have the possibility of changing jobs to another airline in the EU.
This could happen in various ways, such as through a licence of this kind. But I think it seems extraordinarily important to encourage this.
Mr President, Commissioner, the completion of the internal market for civil aviation has increased the need for international agreements on safety standards for European Union countries.
Increased competition sadly only increases the temptation to cut down on safety.
The proposal on safety requirements for cabin crews has been prepared and accepted within the Joint Aviation Authority to which eighteen European countries belong.
The Commission believes it should add to the JAA proposal a competence certificate for cabin crews.
Recognition of training in one Member State by aviation authorities in other Union Member States was meant to improve the mobility of cockpit crews.
This concession to the unions ignores the reality that all airlines have different safety procedures which even differ between aircrafts within each airline.
That is why, to my mind, such a certificate will not promote staff mobility, whilst the Member States are burdened with an extra administrative commitment.
Moreover, the addition of safety certificates has made the Council proposal controversial.
It looks unlikely that this will be discussed within the near future.
For these reasons it would have been better if the Commission had limited itself to the JAA proposal.
We have a similar objection to the amendments tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
They claim that every crew member is responsible for safety duties, and should therefore receive training.
I believe that it is possible to maintain a proper level of safety on aeroplanes without seeing all members of the crew as safety personnel.
I will therefore not be able to support the PSE amendments.
I support Mr Grosch's amendments which clarify the proposal where the Commission text is too vague.
Mr President, firstly we all know national provisions on safety training for cabin crew vary widely across the European Union.
With the liberalization of the whole air transport sector, it is imperative that we have common standards on training and licensing of cabin crews throughout the Union.
As you have heard earlier, in Ireland we have the situation where Ryanair baggage handlers are on strike simply because they want to be represented by a trade union.
They are low paid with poor working conditions and their legitimate demand is that they be represented professionally with regard to pay and health and safety conditions.
Serious questions have to be asked about the operation procedures and indeed the training provided by low cost airlines such as Ryanair, Translift and others.
I am also very concerned about reports on the hours that these cabin crew work and the consequent fatigue they suffer with no breaks allowed between shifts and 25 minute turnaround time during which they are required to carry out cleaning duties.
Cutthroat competition in the air seems to be leading to a lowering of safety standards and we have seen a lot of accidents recently which I know will be investigated and we will see what turns up.
The latest media reports that airlines are reducing fuel costs by recycling unfiltered air into passenger cabins are equally alarming for all of us who travel frequently and, more particularly, for the cabin staff and pilots.
Cabin crew are the only safety professionals with dual responsibilities.
While safety is their primary responsibility, they are mainly engaged in other tasks.
Safety refresher courses must take place on an annual basis.
Finally I would ask this particular question: is it because the vast majority of cabin crew are women that licensing was not introduced a long time ago?
Mr President, this proposal is obviously linked to the measures to support the process of liberalization in the air transport sector with the aim of ensuring high safety standards.
I congratulate the rapporteur for his excellent work, and the Commission for its excellent proposal.
My concern with the directive proposed is, will it actually improve safety in air transport?
Our aim should surely be to set the best safety practices across Europe.
Currently, the joint aviation authorities seek to achieve cabin crew safety by placing responsibility for safety throughout an airline clearly on the operator. Currently that operator must ensure comprehensive safety throughout the company and that cabin crew are trained to fit in with that company's specific system.
The directive waters down this responsibility and, therefore, may just possibly undermine cabin crew safety.
The Commissioner, this evening, referred to a number of proposals, including that to set up the European Civil Aviation Safety Agency and efforts to improve the implementation of ICAO standards throughout the European Union.
I would make a plea to the Commission this evening to reach an early agreement with the Council on the setting-up of this European Civil Aviation Safety Agency to ensure that safety both in Europe and worldwide is secured.
The figures show - and were discussed in a conference in Maastricht today - that over the last ten years 70 % of all accidents have involved carriers accounting for only 16 % of total air traffic.
Those airlines from developing countries appear to be mostly at risk.
Without this European action which is so urgently required, experts predict that quite possibly there could be one air accident a week.
So please, Commissioner, and the British Presidency of the Transport Council, act now.
We must set up this European air transport safety organization with proper safety checks at all European airports to ensure the safety of those European passengers using those carriers and those European residents near Community airports receiving them.
I am delighted to support this report.
But I hope that the Commissioner can satisfy me that urgent action will be taken by the Council of Ministers and through his good offices.
First of all I would like to thank Mr Grosch and the Committee on Transport and Tourism for the work that they have put in to considering this particular proposal, and for the generally supportive attitude that they have taken.
In a growing and changing environment such as civil aviation, it is obviously essential that the highest possible safety standards are maintained.
It is equally obvious that the people responsible for fulfilling those safety standards must be well-trained and wellmotivated.
The purpose of the proposal before the House is to achieve those outcomes.
I know that honourable Members share that objective, as they have demonstrated again in the course of this debate.
I should like to make two other points by way of introduction.
First, this draft directive sets down minimum, not maximum standards.
Our constant desire is that Member States will seek to exceed these minima, even though they are of a satisfactory level for the general purposes of maintaining the safety of aircraft and passengers.
Secondly, just as a point of reassurance, but certainly not in any spirit of complacency, our region of the world sees 30 % of the world's air traffic movements, but only 10 % of air traffic accidents take place in this region.
Everybody responsible works to try to ensure that the level of accidents is even lower than that.
We strive for nil, naturally.
But it is important to put the matter into perspective so that the general idea is not spread that somehow there is a deterioration in standards, inadvertent or deliberate.
I would say to Miss McIntosh, for instance, that there is absolutely no conceivable way in which this draft proposal, inadvertently or deliberately, could possibly lead to the dilution of standards in air safety.
I will deal with that point at greater length later on.
I should also say to Mrs Malone, though unfortunately she has left the Chamber, probably on pressing business, that if she has evidence of an increase in accidents, as she claimed, I want to see it most urgently.
Secondly, if there is evidence that any aircraft operating in European Union airspace has been recycling unfiltered air into the cabin, I want evidence of that too because we most certainly will make an active response.
In response to the amendments proposed by Mr Grosch, Amendments Nos 4 and 5 add clarity to the text.
The Commission can therefore accept them.
I am also glad to say that the Commission shares the desire of the rapporteur to uphold the established rights of experienced cabin crew.
We can therefore accept Amendment No 8.
I understand the motivation behind Amendment No 1, but it appears to me to be somewhat superfluous since the content of the training programmes is laid down in the Annexes to the directive and will be universally applicable.
To centralize each and every programme at Community-level seems to me to be unnecessary.
That problem of otiose bureaucracy also applies to Amendment No 6.
As far as Amendment No 7 is concerned, I do not see what added value it gives.
In practice, cabin crew automatically receive conversion training when changing from one aircraft type to another and the obligations for and the regulation of recurrent training are laid down in Article 5 and in the annexes to this directive.
While I fully appreciate the rationale behind Amendment No 2 as well, it would, in practice, extend the provision of the directive to staff such as beauticians, secretaries and medical companions who are on-board an aircraft for purely commercial reasons and have neither the training nor, in general, the competence to provide useful assistance in the event of an emergency in the air.
In many respects they are effectively passengers themselves.
I do not believe it was the intention of the rapporteur that this should be the case - that people should be allocated responsibilities for which they have not been professionally trained.
This point applies equally to the series of amendments put by Mr Simpson: Amendments Nos 9-12 and 14-17, which have the same objective.
I understand it to be laudable, but I cannot see how it can be practicable.
So I cannot accept any of those amendments.
The Commission cannot support Amendment No 3 either, nor the new Amendment No 13, which specify the regularity of medical checks.
When legislating, we have to bear in mind the costs of our legislation and also have to recognize who will meet the bills.
If the result of implementing the provision on medical checks appeared to be very costly, there would be resistance and that would undermine the very basis of the proposal.
Decisions on precise frequency of checks are therefore best left to national authorities who, I am absolutely certain, will not let great gaps appear between medical checks of air crew of any description.
There remains just one amendment, Amendment No 18, which, again, I regret to say I cannot accept.
This amendment seeks to increase the required frequency of recurrent training and to so well beyond the requirements of JAR-OPS from which our proposal originates.
I would say to Miss McIntosh, when she considers that there is a possibility of reducing the level of requirements below that of the JAA, I would refer her to page 2 of the proposal.
The common safety training standards, as laid down in JAROPS compare favourably with international recommended standards and the better training practices of industry. They are adequate to ensure a high level of safety.
This proposal is entirely in conformity with that.
Making a further change would add an unnecessary burden on operators without bringing any greater safety guarantees.
In conclusion, I would like again to thank Parliament for its work.
The adoption of this Commission proposal, with the amendments that I have indicated will, I am sure, contribute directly to maintaining motivation amongst staff and sustaining high levels of safety standards in civil aviation.
I know that honourable Members, together with the Commission, strongly support both objectives.
Mr President, if I can try be helpful to the Commissioner I accept his point about other auxiliary cabin staff, beauticians etc.
But his own proposal, his own directive Article 2(b), with its definition of a cabin crew, already addresses this point.
It actually specifies that it does not apply to crew members solely assigned to non-safety duties.
So the answer lies in your own text, Commissioner, I hope perhaps we can review this in that context.
Secondly, on the point about annual health checks, I understand that all staff of the European institutions are required to have annual health checks.
Surely if it is good enough for us and our institutions, it should be good enough for cabin crew members.
Mr President, if all airlines were as willing as the European institutions to meet the costs of ensuring that their employees had annual medical check-ups in common with many other employers in the public and private sectors, I could share the honourable Member's confidence.
But that is not the case.
As I have said, if there were resistance based on the idea of unnecessary cost then the consequence would be that we would get even less adequate standards than those set down in this draft.
I take the point that the honourable Member made about other staff referred to in this draft.
I think that is a very good debating point.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Transport of dangerous goods by road -Distinguishing signs for motor vehicles - transportablepressure equipment
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism:
by Mr Le Rachinel (A4-0014/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to motor vehicles and their trailers with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by road and amending Directive 70/156/EEC in respect of the type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers (COM(96)0555 - C4-0665/96-96/0267(COD)); -by Mr Le Rachinel (A4-0024/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the recognition in intra-Community traffic of the distinguishing sign of the Member State in which motor vehicles and their trailers are registered, (COM(97)0366 - C4-0419/97-97/0199(SYN)); -by Mr Camisón Asensio (A4-0039/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on transportable pressure equipment (COM(96)0674 - C4-0068/97-97/0011(SYN)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am attacking my first report.
The proposal for a directive and the report which I submitted have as their objective the establishment of technical requirements applicable to motor vehicles and to trailers, guaranteeing transport by road.
Certain requirements were already put in place by the 1994 directive regarding the construction of vehicles which transport hazardous goods by road.
However, the recognition and acceptance by all Member States of the characteristics of construction of this type of vehicle is not guaranteed.
This new directive sets down specific clauses for the construction of vehicles.
It also provides the technical specifications for electrical equipment, braking systems, fire risks and speed limits.
This harmonization has the advantage of preventing a Member State from prohibiting the sale, registration or entry into service of motor vehicles which have already been approved in other Member States.
Only one amendment to this proposal has been tabled by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
It relates to fixing a date for the entry into force of the legislative, regulatory and administrative clauses necessary to conform to this directive.
This deadline has been set for twelve months after the publication of the directive.
No other amendment has been tabled and I think that this report does not represent any particular problem and, Mr President I think we have a broad consensus on this subject.
Mr President, it is very clear that this proposal for a directive has been in the process of formulation, basically, to plug the two most blatant loopholes in the legislation referring to the manufacture, transport, commercialization, use and maintenance of all transportable pressure equipment which will fulfil the requirements of the ADR and RID agreements.
Such agreements, as you know ladies and gentlemen, are intended to strengthen safety in the transport of such equipment and ensure free circulation of the same in the common Community market.
At the same time an orderly transition is needed from current transportable pressure equipment to that of the future and this can be done through periodic inspections and conformity assessments following the modular approach, although the process requires inspection bodies to comply with adequate quality criteria, such as those based on the CEN standard in the EN 45000 series, since basing such criteria solely on the content of the directives concerned may not be sufficient, as both these directives deal almost exclusively with transport, with the result that there is a shortage of specific provisions on certain other matters.
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it seems clear from recent experience that mutual recognition of inspections, which is essential for making progress towards completion of the internal market, can not be fully achieved, through the application of annexes A and B of the ADR directive, which only seems to ensure freedom of transport, and which, because it includes no provision for distinguishing marks, has little impact on the use of such equipment in the country of destination.
Hence the need for the present directive.
Consequently, one of the major advantages of this proposal is that products can secure a higher market share, with the inherent advantage of securing economies of scale and lower administrative costs for the relevant approvals.
For this purpose, the equipment concerned must be easily identifiable and the best way of doing this is clearly to give them a distinctive mark different from those currently in force for stable pressure equipment or gas bottles.
However, the main dilemma posed by this proposal concerns the question of experience as opposed to independence.
I am referring, of course, to the inspection bodies.
It is well known that for many years, the European industry has been able to carry out proper inspections on this equipment, including ADR class 2, by means of type B or even type C bodies belonging to the users' sector.
This has been possible because they have been able to accumulate an advanced level of knowledge through daily contact with the problems concerned.
They have therefore achieved a lot in the last few years.
On the other hand, it may be that the experience because of their centralized nature, of type A bodies is confined to new products on the market, with the result that their experience and skills are more general.
For these reasons, the Committee on Transport and Tourism unanimously approved this report and its corresponding motion for a resolution.
Mr President, I support the Rachinel report and I must say that one of the hallmarks of this Commission has been its overriding concern for safety, especially on our roads.
This directive is designed to enhance existing legislation in the motor vehicle sector by ensuring that the construction characteristics of vehicles carrying dangerous goods are harmonized throughout the whole Community.
It will be welcomed, in my opinion, by the industry that one set of rules will apply across the EU for the design and construction of vehicles carrying dangerous goods.
This is a necessary step to develop and enhance safety on our roads.
We need technical provisions to ensure that dangerous goods are safeguarded during the time they are in transport.
This means possibly adopting standards of electrical equipment, braking systems, fire risk prevention provisions, etcetera, just to name a few.
All will help to create what I regard as a safer environment on our roads.
Accidents have happened and accidents, of course, will continue to happen.
Let us not allow dangerous goods, which would pollute and damage health, to be carried in vehicles which are not up to what the Commission regards, and what we regard, as the highest possible standards.
Let us minimize the risk of horrific accidents on the roads where hazardous materials are involved.
Let us make this applicable to the whole of the EU.
Finally, just one last appeal regarding distinguishing signs.
I hope that the Commission will give some account to the symbols that might highlight smaller nations like Wales.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since all of us here are experts I shall, in view of the late hour make just two basic comments on the Le Rachinel report on the type-approval of vehicles and on the report of my colleague, Camisón Asensio, on transportable pressure equipment.
Firstly, it is clearly insanely difficult really to make a reality of the Single Market.
It is technical and is getting more and more technical, but we shall not be able to get out of the work.
Perhaps we shall one day manage to deal conclusively in committee with the kind of report which does not have particularly great political importance, if the Commission presents us with well-prepared reports, so that we no longer have any need to argue about slots at this time of night.
Secondly, it is nevertheless important for our colleagues in the committee to study these reports carefully themselves.
Mr Le Rachinel was, as it were, in the fortunate position after careful checking to be able to say: I need only one amendment.
And everybody agreed with him.
Colleague Camisón had more difficulties.
He had to deal with 28 amendments because on the important question of inspection, he had become involved in discussions with those in the industry who were directly affected and came to a different point of view.
I am very grateful that he worked out this complicated point so well.
But it is important that we bear in mind that both reports are not only reports for the Single Market, for more business and for more trade.
Rather both reports, as the previous speaker has also said, are quite important for people's safety on the roads and thus for the protection of the natural environment, since accidents which occur can not only kill and injure people, but accidents with dangerous goods can cause incalculable damage to nature, in the water and in the soil.
Therefore, I thank you sincerely for these good reports.
We shall take the trouble to study these reports carefully.
I thank the two rapporteurs and we will await the opinion of the Commission.
I hope that the Commission does not immediately discard 20 of Mr Camisón's 28 amendments, but we shall wait and see.
Mr President, the merits of the regulation concerning the distinguishing signs for motor vehicles is that they put an end to the practice of drivers being fined because one Member State does not recognize the distinguishing sign of another.
The recognition of the registration plate comprising national registration and the European flag will obviously become increasingly important as more Member States start introducing this, and, perhaps, a Community registration number.
The Dutch government, for instance, plans to include the European flag and the letters NL on the number plate.
It might be possible, of course, that in a wave of Euroscepticism, the flag will be a disaster in the Netherlands.
The European Parliament's popularity, and by implication that of the European Union, is not exactly furthered by the kind of scenes which took place here yesterday and today during votes, when European Members of Parliament declared they were not being paid to vote.
I wonder then what they are paid for.
It bothers me very much that our European flag is allowed to grace vehicles which should not really drive on the European roads; cars without catalytic converters, for example.
I would like to see Member States, mindful of the subsidiarity principle, be given the right to withhold the flag from the most polluting cars and engines: watch out, environmental pirate!
Unfortunately, parliaments do not seem to understand my graphic amendments, which is why I was not able to submit them.
Mr President, I will restrict myself this evening to Mr Le Rachinel's report on vehicle registration signs and of course I congratulate him on his efforts in producing the report.
There is clearly a need across Europe to clarify the situation, which is incredibly complicated for the average motorist trying to travel around the Continent, and indeed UK and Ireland as well.
The signs referred to by Nel van Dijk which the Dutch may or may not adopt in the year 2000 are currently compulsory in Ireland and Portugal, they are optional in France and Germany, where they may make them compulsory, whilst all the other countries have the Vienna Convention white ellipse except the UK, Spain and Portugal which do not have anything.
There is a need to make life simpler for the motorist.
The Commission's proposal does just that and I commend it.
However, as the Commission will be aware, motorists throughout Europe are much more European than perhaps we think.
They are of course rebelling against the Vienna and the Geneva Convention, and indeed his own proposal, by adopting their own symbol of European unity.
Therefore I would like to draw the attention of the Commissioner and Members to our Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6 and 7 which recognise the reality that many motorists do not like the Vienna Convention symbol, the rather boring black letters on a white background, but prefer the European symbol of the white and yellow letters with the gold stars on a blue background in accordance with their particular national registration.
I hope that the Commissioner will agree with our argument that we should give the motorists a choice.
Why is it that motorists in Greece or the UK - it could be my car, Commissioner -have to remove their European symbol and replace it with a white sticker with black letters when they travel to France? That to me seems a backward step.
Our amendment is trying to be helpful by giving motorists that choice, that additional right to display a European symbol if they so desire rather than the white ellipse.
I commend it to you, Commissioner, and I commend it to the House.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to talk about the second Le Rachinel report.
The present proposal for a regulation remedies the lack of similarity between the separate national legislations.
The Community model for the distinguishing sign of the Member State licensing of vehicles and trailers in internal Community traffic, let us call it the European nationality plate, is long overdue.
Such a measure directly helps to include and raise the awareness of the citizens of the Union in the creation of an area without internal borders and to form and establish a feeling of European identity, while contributing indirectly to n increase in road traffic safety.
In particular, the demand that the proposed Community sign must be located both at the front and at the back on the left beside the registration plate will be an advantage for the police and other administrative and judicial bodies.
Although on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party I completely support Mr Le Rachinel's report and thank him for his work, it seems to me personally that the Commission's proposal for a regulation is not completely logical.
Let us just consider: in a few weeks the third phase of European economic and monetary union begins, which will lead to a domestic market, the formal external appearance of which will be the single currency. What a magnificent achievement, proving our great farsightedness!
With the distinguishing sign for vehicles and trailers the Europeans are failing to achieve logical standardization in the form of a common, standard design principle. Thus, with reference to the principle of subsidiarity, the EU Member States are obliged in fact to recognize the proposed Community model, but the validity of existing nationality plates remains completely unrestricted and continues to exist, independent of the Community model.
There is not even a reference to the fact that in the Member States the Community model should preferably be used.
In view of this fact, I could even understand if citizens from third countries were doubtful of the ability and/or seriousness of the efforts of EU to build a political union.
For the vehicle owners of the Member States who have already accepted, on a compulsory or voluntary basis, the use of the Community model - it is of course not a new invention -, the present proposal for a regulation takes up a long-standing desire for legal certainty and is recognition - let us call it personal - of the costs they often willingly incurred when buying this combined vehicle registration plate.
For me, too, it is desirable that third countries, above all the countries of the European Economic Area but also the associated countries of central and eastern Europe give legally binding recognition to the Community model.
I recommend that we accept this report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like briefly to express an opinion on Mr Le Rachinel's report on the transport of dangerous goods by road. One of the Union's aims is the completion of the single market.
We should do everything we can to guarantee its successful operation by implementing suitable measures.
In this sense the free passage of vehicles transporting dangerous goods should be possible.
Above all, I believe it is very appropriate to harmonize design features and technical specifications, for example on brake fittings, speed limitations or electrical equipment, to guarantee free passage within the Community.
The creation of a European type-approval system will help ensure that in future no Member State will be able, on grounds which relate to design features, to prohibit a vehicle manufacturer from offering it for sale, or to refuse its approval or use.
The Member States should thus be obliged to produce the necessary legal and administrative regulations within 12 months of the publication of this directive.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at this late hour we are once again discussing transport policy questions.
Let me make just two short remarks.
Firstly, I would like to look at the issue of transportable pressure equipment which unfortunately has figured too briefly in this joint debate.
This is a very important matter, not only from a technical viewpoint - although to me as an engineer it appears thoroughly interesting, - but it also as regards the question of safety of everything which travels on our roads.
It concerns the question of regular monitoring and the capability to carry out this monitoring and I think that here it is the rapporteur, whom I would like to thank sincerely, who has succeeded in presenting a balanced report.
I can only ask the Commission to listen carefully to Parliament.
Secondly, I would like to consider the distinguishing sign of the Member State of registration, that is, the national registration plate.
I consider that, too, to be an important proposal and Mr Koch referred to the problems which we still face.
Here at last we have a regulation with which we can bring Europe to life. As well as the standard driving licence, which has already been decided on, it is a further symbol to make Europe come to life.
It is a citizen-friendly decision which makes administration simpler.
I would just like to ask you, Commissioner, to take this up perhaps in negotiations with Switzerland too, because it is not sensible or logical to introduce it throughout Europe, and have it recognized in the European Economic Area, and in the associated states, while right in the middle of Europe we have an Island of the Blissful, where we still have to have our stickers.
I ask that you take this up in the negotiations.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Le Rachinel for his two reports, firstly on the proposal relating to the type-approval of motor vehicles and trailers intended for the transport of dangerous goods by road and, secondly, on the distinguishing sign for vehicles.
On the first report, I am pleased to say that the Commission accepts Mr Le Rachinel's single amendment, since the additional wording he suggests on Article 6 provides the correct legal term for the date of implementation and does not in any way contradict or change the intention of the Commission proposal.
This legislation, as the House will know, is an important step towards harmonization of the laws of Member States on typeapproval procedures relating to vehicles carrying dangerous goods.
I am therefore grateful for the constructive approach taken by the rapporteur and his colleagues.
Colleagues, indeed, like Mr Morris who, in an erudite and convincing speech, would not only have demolished any doubts at all about the transport of dangerous goods but probably have persuaded everyone that Wales should have its very own distinctive number plate.
That would, of course, be permissible, as we see evidenced by the fact that in the Republic of Ireland the name of the region is given on the numberplate in Erse and in Germany the Land badge is also shown conventionally on the numberplates.
So I am looking forward to seeing a draig goch , the red dragon, on Mr Morris' numberplate.
I am sure that would be a very popular step.
Not that I would dream of intervening in subsidiarity to advocate it publicly.
Mr Le Rachinel's second report concerns numberplates.
Because of press misreporting, which has on occasion misinformed public opinion on the issue of vehicle numberplates and distinguishing signs, I think it wise to begin my short response to this very constructive report by saying what the proposal does not mean.
Firstly, it does not have any suggestion that Member States must provide numberplates which incorporate the symbol of the European Union.
Secondly, it does not have any suggestion that all vehicles must show the symbol of the country of registration.
I specify this because Mr Jarzembowski will I know be interested to be informed that a couple of years ago the Daily Mail - not a newspaper that I customarily buy - incredibly printed a front-page story about me going to impose Euro-numberplates on all unsuspecting citizens of the Union.
The story was so inaccurate, misleading and mischievous, that I sued the Daily Mail and, I am happy to say, successfully.
I hope that they will record, with precision, what this proposal does and does not do.
The aim of the proposal is simply to ensure that where the rear numberplate on a vehicle shows the distinguishing sign of the Member State of registration, on the background of the symbol of the Community, the distinguishing sign is recognized by the other Member States as a valid identification of the country of registration, without further need for the vehicle to show any other sign.
That includes the elliptic sticker, the rugby-ball-shaped sticker specified by the Vienna Convention.
It may be, of course, as far as Mr Morris is concerned, that shape of sticker would do for Wales, but I understand that too.
I know that Members of this House understand that and I would like, therefore, to respond to the amendments tabled by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
First, we welcome Amendment No 2 and the first part of Amendment No 3, which extends the coverage of the regulation to trailers.
We can also accept the second part of Amendment No 3, which refers to the position of the distinguishing sign on the left-hand side of the numberplate.
In addition, we can accept in principle the last part of Amendment No 3 that refers to other official signs.
But we believe that the wording and the purpose of the recognition, which is to identify the state of registration of the vehicle, could be more specific.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 1, which is intended to introduce a requirement to affix the distinguishing sign of registration on the left-hand side of the plate.
However, the amendment actually changes the legal term distinguishing registration signs, which simply means the official abbreviation used to denote the Member State.
The term itself and the definition are consistent with the Vienna Convention, which is as it should be.
As in the case of the Convention, the size, shape and location of the distinguishing registration sign are specified in the Annex, although that provision is now also covered by the second part of Amendment No 3, which, as I said to the House, we have accepted.
Amendments Nos 4 to 7 have been tabled by Mr Simpson with the purpose of sanctioning or regularizing the practice of using stickers in the form of the European symbol containing the abbreviation of the country of origin.
I have to say that Mr Watts did a job of which any salesman would be immensely proud in the course of the debate tonight.
As a consequence, I have some sympathy for the idea.
However, I have to tell the House that these amendments do not meet the need to lay down the technical specifications with sufficient detail to achieve mutual recognition.
Well I can always mutually recognize Mr Jarzembowski even if I cannot hear precisely what he is saying!
Our proposal makes mutual recognition possible precisely because the sign is issued under the control of the national authorities as part of an official numberplate, and that would clearly not be the case for the separate sticker.
The eighth and final amendment by Mr Cornelissen is unnecessary since the regulation, once adopted, will be automatically applicable in the European Economic Area.
Incidentally, I think history is being made.
It is ten past eleven on a night in Strasbourg.
We are having a transport debate and Mr Cornelissen is not actually here.
This must be the first time in history and I am sure there is a very good reason for it.
I now turn to the third report and I would like to thank Mr Camisón for the time and effort that he spent on this complex technical proposal related to safety in the movement of transportable pressure equipment.
As the House will know, by adopting Directives 94/55 and 96/49, the Council has already ensured a high level of safety in the movement of transportable equipment by defining common rules on design, materials, filling and periodic testing of such equipment.
However, one further demand needs to be met.
The current situation is that transportable pressure equipment, for instance gas cylinders, moved from one Member State to another and then used cannot be refilled in the receiving Member State and then transported back to the first Member State without being retested, inspected and approved in the receiving country.
This threatens the very existence of the single market and so obviously has to be changed.
In the absence of mutual recognition of the conformity procedures and of markings of the inspection bodies in different Member States, these conditions will continue.
The proposal before the House therefore seeks to rectify that.
A further effect of this proposal is to ensure free circulation of transportable pressure equipment in the internal market, a facility which is not possible now because Directive 97/23 on pressure equipment excludes transportable pressure equipment from the scope.
Since Amendments Nos 4, 6, 7, 11, 12 and 19 are consistent with the aims of the proposal, the Commission is able to accept them and, as a consequence of accepting Amendments Nos 6 and 19, the Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 10 and 20 in so far as they relate to the date.
When I conclude my time in the Commission, I can always get a job as the person who announces the lottery results on BBC television on Saturday nights.
I have been training for that for some time.
Señor Camisón's report provides me with the unique rehearsal in this number reading skill.
Amendment No 9 deletes Type C inspection bodies and there are related editorial changes in Amendments Nos 5, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28.
They can all be accepted by the Commission if the definition of Type B inspection bodies is modified.
We will therefore frame our revised proposal accordingly.
And people say that DG VII functionaries do not earn their money!
The other amendments, however, are not acceptable.
Amendment No 1 is rejected since that 'whereas' clause is limited to the main objective of the proposal: transport safety.
Amendments Nos 2 and 3 are primarily editorial changes but they are rejected because the original text is more accurate.
Amendment No 14 is rejected because the limitation solely to existing Type B inspection bodies is too restrictive and would prevent new Type B inspection bodies from entering the market.
Amendment Nos 16 and 20 are rejected since the Commission considers that frequency of controls upon relevant bodies and the details rightly fall under the competence of the Member States.
Amendment No 22 is also rejected because it would not allow the same undertaking to be engaged in maintenance and periodic inspection and is therefore, in the view of the Commission, too restrictive.
As I said at the outset, this is a technical proposal which is nevertheless a further contribution to safety in transport and I am grateful for the fact that it has the support of the rapporteur, Señor Camisón, and indeed of the House.
Naturally I am pleased to note that the large number of amendments manifests the attention to detail that the proposal has received from the Transport Committee rather than any real differences of substance between European Parliament and the Commission on the issue.
Dealing with three different proposals in one debate is obviously not easy and this is even more true when the proposals and the discussion are particularly technical.
I know, however, that the House is well able to cope with such situations, apparently better than the Commission, and I look forward to progress on all three measures now before the Parliament.
I must say that history is being broken for the second time in the course of this debate.
Not only is Mr Cornelissen not here but I have managed, having been given 15 minutes of the Parliament's precious time, to finish in 13 minutes and 58 seconds.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I did not intend to spoil your future as announcer of the lottery numbers on the BBC, but you also, of course, have a past as a parliamentarian, and I had asked a question which certainly did not come up in your speech, that is, the question of how this nationality plate will be treated in Switzerland.
I think it is in fact an important point if we introduce it in the European Economic Area but not in Switzerland.
Is the Commission considering the possibility of finding a standard regulation in Europe which includes the Swiss authorities?
I am grateful to the honourable Member.
I must say that some of my friends say that I am quite gifted in some respects, but I am not yet gifted enough to be able to read what is not written.
Consequently, since the Swiss references are not part of this report, I am sure that the honourable Member, who is very understanding, will comprehend why I have not made the response.
In addition, whilst I take full account of the difficulties that can be caused because Switzerland takes a different view, I am not anxious to enter any new material in the negotiations on land transport with Switzerland which we have just concluded very satisfactorily for the Union.
I will discuss it very readily with him under other circumstances.
It astonishes me, Commissioner, that you do not have a simple answer for a simple question, for normally you have an answer for everything, prepared or otherwise.
I assume that you will follow up the question asked by Mr Ferber.
In my opinion, as a stimulus we could say that we would perhaps be prepared, in exchange for recognizing this distinguishing plate, to fix the transit fee through Switzerland at 236 Swiss Francs.
But maybe it would be better to discuss this over a whiskey!
First of all, I am aware that Switzerland is party to the Geneva and Vienna Conventions, so there is some reassurance there.
I am also, as a special concession to Mr Jarzembowski, prepared to call the Swiss Transport Minister and recommend that in order that Mr Jarzembowski can wear any plates that he likes, he do so for the small consideration of paying double the Swiss vignette in order to pass through the country.
Maybe it is a privilege he would not want to take advantage of.
I certainly will see Mr Ferber on the specific issue that he raised.
Mr President, I would not like to conclude this debate without offering my hearty congratulations to the Commissioner for his marvellous ability to trivialize this topic.
Indeed, I have to put on record here that his frivolity contrasts greatly with the seriousness and concern which many sectors of European industry display, and it should go on record that this marked contrast has caught my attention.
If the honourable Member cannot tell the difference between passing amusement at some of the text that I am obliged to read out to this House, and trivializing a proposal, then his wisdom is considerably less than his years.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.20 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
Madam President, I would just like to say I was present although I am not included in the list at the back.
Madam President, this also applies to me.
I am not on the list either.
But there is I something else I would like to say, Madam President.
Yesterday the debate on the various oral questions was chaotic.
We had a number of debates: Nigeria, Burma, the United Nations.
These debates, and the speakers, were taken randomly.
This throws Parliament into chaos, and is not very courteous towards the Commission representatives or the Presidency, who have difficulty making sense of anything from the different remarks which are made at cross-purposes.
Madam President, I would therefore ask you whether in future, when as a group we submit to you the list of speakers per subject, you could keep to it.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, I have taken note of your criticism.
We shall discuss it amongst the few people who are leading the session here, and then it will certainly be possible next time to proceed in a more orderly fashion.
Madam President, the Minutes of Wednesday Part I, page 1, sub-paragraph, ' the following spoke on the new rules' .
That is in the official record.
I have been arguing that it was a new rule but have been assured by the Chair that it is not a new rule. It is something other than a new rule.
I note the last sentence of the next paragraph which states 'The President replied that the new rules were being applied for the first time' .
If there is a procedure for new rules, this House has to agree to them.
One gets a little tired of raising points of order on something so clear but it nevertheless is in the Minutes and it is incorrect.
Mrs Ewing, in logical terms you are, of course, right.
If it were a matter of changing the agenda that would have to be decided by the plenary.
But it is not.
It is a new rule, but it is not a change to the agenda.
That was incorrectly noted in the Minutes.
We must check it.
You are right in your criticism; the item must be corrected.
Madam President, I raise the report of the speech of Mr Titley in the report of proceedings of yesterday on the debate on Iraq.
I ask the President to give a ruling as to whether this requires a personal statement from me and from the Member concerned, Mr Titley.
He said in his speech 'I have never heard a speech of such distorted self-indulgent drivel than that which Mr Kerr give a short while ago.' Clearly many Members would agree with that and that is decent political debate.
However, he goes on to say 'I now know that care in the community in the United Kingdom does not work' which is clearly an indication about my mental health.
You may think that is true as well, but I suspect, under the Rules of this House, you are not allowed to cast aspersions on Members' mental health.
I would ask you to make a judgement on whether I can make my three minutes' personal response.
Can I also indicate that, as shown on page 25 of the Rainbow, I asked Mr Henderson, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, whether it was true that the Financial Times had reported that Britain is preparing to use nuclear weapons against Iraq.
He said in his reply to me that Mr Cook, Foreign Secretary, had denied this in the House of Commons.
I have the transcript of Mr Cook's speech in which there is no denial.
The Foreign Office officials are still briefing that Britain is preparing to use nuclear weapons on Iraq.
Mr Kerr, I followed that myself yesterday.
I was not in the Chair but remained in my place and heard what you asked.
I also heard the answers given by the representative of the British Presidency.
It is true that he did not answer this question precisely, but I wonder why you did not yesterday make your point, whilst the Presidency of the Council was still present.
I take note of your comment, but in such cases it is wiser to rise to speak up immediately.
Madam President, if Mr Kerr were to read Hansard of 10 February, he would see that it states: ' Will my Right Honourable friend, the Foreign Secretary, rule out the possibility of a nuclear attack on Iraq? Mr Cook: Yes, I can rule that out straight away.'
Madam President, I wish to remind you that, two days ago, on 17 February, the German writer Ernst Jünger died at the age of 102.
He was one of the main exponents of the conservative revolution in Germany and certainly, as pointed out by the international press today, an important author of European political thinking and twentieth century literature.
He died at the age of 102 and is, therefore, an excellent witness of the twentieth century, a century full of contradictions; Jünger, a free spirit, remained loyal to the principles of freedom and intellectual consistency, refusing any subjection to the totalitarian regimes of his time.
And so, Madam President, it is the duty of the European Parliament to pay homage to the memory of this man.
Mrs Angelilli we all regret the death of Ernst Jünger and know that he was a great thinker and writer, but what you have just said is not really a comment for the Minutes.
We are still approving the Minutes.
Madam President, I apologize for returning from the heights of Ernst Jünger to the quite ordinary parliamentary level of yesterday's Minutes.
On page 8 under the heading "subcritical nuclear tests' is a note saying that there is an objection by Mr Rübig. As a result, the heading "safety in the Leopold District of Brussels' is to be dealt with instead.
I want to make a correction here.
It is not "safety in the Leopold District of Brussels' but "crime in Brussels' .
There is, I believe, a major difference between the two, since we are not fighting here for our own benefit, but in principle for safety in Brussels.
Furthermore, it states here that the President informs us that he has declared the objection to be inadmissible in accordance with Article 47, paragraph 2 and that he intended to send Mr Rübig a letter with an explanation.
Mr Rübig has received this letter.
I have seen a copy of it.
In the letter there is no more explanation than here in the Minutes.
It would, I believe, be very appropriate, if he could pass on the information he has on to the Bureau.
We would be very grateful if the President could tell us with which offices in Brussels he has had contact, what the concrete results of these conversations were and if he will also inform the House about them.
In any case almost 50 Members have signed the resolution.
They are really concerned about what is happening in Brussels and would therefore like to know what is going on.
I believe the House has a right to be told.
Would it not at least be possible for us to learn this week when we can expect to get this information?
(Applause)
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, as far as I know, the President has said that he will take up these contacts.
He has not done so yet and probably the details about whom he will contact are not yet fixed.
I am quite sure that he will report on the matter.
I will, nevertheless, pass this on to the Bureau.
As regards your first comment, the Minutes can contain only what was said.
If the wrong description or wrong terminology is used then that is unfortunate.
However, thanks to your comment the item has now been corrected indirectly.
As far as the agenda is concerned, Mr Killilea, we shall keep to it.
Anybody can point matters out and if there are any problems, they will be corrected.
What you have just discussed relates to events which go back as far as last July.
Then this report was submitted.
I remember very well that we discussed it in a session in Luxembourg.
I cannot check it quickly this morning.
I will, however, have it checked and then we shall return to it.
Madam President, on the same subject: item 5 of the Minutes, which is on page 9 in the English version, and your reply to Mrs Ewing.
Members have a variety of names for this attendance-checking procedure - some of them rather rude - but you mentioned a new rule and change of rules.
Vice-President Nicole Fontaine actually refers to them as 'implementing measures' .
Which are they?
I do not have that is not in front of me at the moment, but we are, of course, all aware of the incidents in question and we know what we are talking about.
I believe it has been said several times that there have been renewed discussions in the Bureau about the way in which attendance can be confirmed in future.
Please let us wait for that and discuss it when the Bureau hands down other rules which are more easily applicable to the House or to the groups.
I find it simply futile that we have now referred to this matter for the hundredth time in one way or another.
This robs us of time for other more important discussions.
It is now agreed that the Bureau has decided to deal with it again, to correct any possible mistakes and to ensure that it will be simpler in future to confirm attendance.
Perhaps we can wait until we receive new proposals.
Madam President, concerning Mr Kerr's remarks, I would like to draw to your attention an open letter sent to all Socialist Members.
I will quote a small part of it: ' We would ask all Socialists to support this, particularly British Labour Members, who will be glad to know that we shall be circulating the names of those Members who voted for this amendment and therefore against the war throughout the Labour movement in Britain' .
I am not sure whether that is a carrot or a stick, but I have to inform the two individuals involved that I know my conscience and my duty on Iraq and how I will vote.
I do not need instruction from a pair of political opportunists.
Madam President, I share Mr Smith's viewpoint on these matters but I would like to return briefly to the Rules, the implementing measures, the procedures or the diktat from the Bureau.
Yesterday the House agreed to allow Mrs Fontaine as President in the Chair then to conduct the sitting in a rather abnormal manner.
All I seek are assurances that we will return to the instructions from the Bureau and that, when a roll-call is called, you will accept my wish to speak and note my presence at that time if I so desire.
I hope and trust that you and future Presidents today will implement that particular measure without heeding the ill-advice that comes from your advisers.
Mr Falconer, you have heard what I have said on this matter.
I think that will suffice!
Madam President, I would simply like to remind Mr Falconer that this matter is perfectly clear, although I am sure he knows this from the Minutes.
I had stated that yesterday's conduct was exceptional, due to the exceptional situation in which we found ourselves, since the voting time was divided in two to allow for the speech by the President of Portugal.
Moreover, the first thing I did this morning was to ensure that the Minutes referred to this exceptional procedure.
Mr Falconer could see, as I could, that they did.
I therefore believe that this matter is completely clear.
Madam President, I hope we are now moving away from the matter discussed at the last two sittings which brought Parliament into disrepute.
Along the same lines as Mr Cot, may I have an assurance from you that when the changes to the Rules are drawn up, they will be put to the House so that the House can endorse or reject them?
That is all we are asking for.
Madam President, I have just seen that my name does not appear in the list of Members present.
I cannot rule out that I might have forgotten to sign in.
In view of the many roll-call votes, I believe that can be entered later.
Madam President, I notice that my name is missing on page 26 of the English version of the roll-call vote on Lange.
It was a report I was particularly interested in and I voted on it.
I said on Tuesday how important it was, with the new roll-call system and the new proposals coming out from the Conference of Presidents, that Members should understand all the regulations and that we should circulate these regulations to Members.
It must also be made quite clear that Members themselves must hold a certain amount of responsibility for making sure they check that their names are recorded.
Mistakes can be made.
That will be corrected, Mr Sturdy.
Madam President, I had made a suggestion in keeping with the Minutes.
I had asked that a list be drawn up of Members who do not fulfil the criteria for the payment of allowances.
I have not had any response concerning this matter nor have I seen any such list.
However, I think that the most important thing should be to inform Members what to expect!
Mrs Guinebertière, miracles take a little longer!
I have this morning said several times that the Bureau will discuss this question again.
Please be patient until we get an answer since this is all part of the matter which did not really have to be discussed in such depth in the context of the Minutes.
However, we have done so.
(The Minutes were approved)
Animal feed
The next item is the report (A4-0020\98) by Mrs Poisson on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the proposals for European Parliament and Council Directives amending:
I.Council Directive 93/74/EEC on feedingstuffs intended for particular purposes and amending Directives 74/63/EEC, 79/373/EEC and 82/471/EEC (COM(97)0408 - C4-0409/97-97/0208 (COD))II.Council Directive 95/69/EC laying down the conditions and arrangements for approving and registering certain establishments and intermediaries operating in the animal feed sector (COM(97)0409 - C4-0408/97-97/0213(COD))
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposals for directives submitted by the Commission are aimed at amending Directive 93/74/EEC on feedingstuffs intended for particular nutritional purposes through the integration of a new mechanism which would allow its field of application to extend to a new generation of products called nutritional supplements for animals. They are also aimed at amending Directive 95/69/EEC on the approval and registration of certain establishments and intermediaries operating in the animal feed sector.
One important factor must still be underlined.
In fact, having made commitments to the Committee of Inquiry into BSE in feedingstuffs and foodstuffs intended for human consumption, the Commission is proposing for the first time to apply the codecision procedure, in accordance with Article 100a of the Treaty.
The Commission hopes to regulate the use of a new generation of products which have appeared on the market in all the Member States, with a view to defining a strict framework covering the nature of these products and their use.
These new products, known as nutritional supplements, cannot be likened to complementary feedingstuffs or additive premixes.
They must not contain medicinal substances, must be used under clearly defined conditions and for a short period only.
Nutritional supplements are intended to adjust an animal's nutritional intake in response to a temporary increase in its nutritional requirements brought about by critical breeding or living conditions, such as during calving, weaning or at point of lay.
Animal nutrition plays an important role in the human food chain.
It is therefore necessary to ensure that the Directive's scope is clearly apparent from the definition of the term "nutritional supplement' , so as to avoid a legal vacuum in the products used in the animal feed sector between straight or compound feedingstuffs and nutritional supplements.
As regards Directive 95/69/EC, the Commission lays down certain obligations applying to operators in the animal feed sector, with a view to providing sounder guarantees of the quality of products destined for this sector.
Nutritional supplements should be subject to the same rules as additive premixes, given that both categories of products generally contain the same proportion of additives.
However, the Commission's position as regards the obligation to register gives rise to some reservations.
In fact, the registration system proposed by the Commission for users of nutritional supplements would in practice create a register of breeders parallel to that provided for in Article 9 of Directive 96/23/EC, which has the aim of ensuring the correct use of substances in stock farming.
It would create an additional administrative procedure which would be a burden for both operators and inspection departments without bringing any real practical benefits.
This is why, in the desire to maintain clarity and simplification, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 11 and 12 from Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf relating to the list of components and their proportions, since obligations are already defined in this area.
In conclusion, I support the new provisions put forward by the Commission which will provide consumers with an extra guarantee of the quality of products.
Madam President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Poisson, for her very clear report on the proposal to amend the Council directive on feedstuffs intended for particular nutritional purposes.
Over the last two years we have all become very much more aware of the need to ensure that anything entering the human food chain via animal feed is carefully controlled and presents no dangers, either to human or animal health.
I have more than once drawn the attention of this House to the dangers of indiscriminate additions of substances such as antibiotics or other medicaments to animal feed, not to deal with a particular, temporary health problem of an individual animal, but as general prophylactics.
I therefore welcome the precautionary note clearly set out in the Commission proposal to regulate the use of new products with high concentrations of vitamins, trace elements, fatty acids, etc. as food supplements to normal animal feed.
Of course there are times in an animal's life cycle when such dietary additions can be very valuable, such as when a cow is in calf.
The rapporteur's proposal that there should be very clear definitions as to when such products should be allowed for use, should be supported.
The Commission's proposal requires stock farmers to register if they use such products.
This was regarded in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as being excessively bureaucratic.
But it is important to set clear guidelines to stock farmers to ensure that they understand the parameters within which such products should be used.
Prime among them is the stipulation that they should only be used for a limited period and for a very specific purpose, to ensure that no possible residues from such products could remain within meat or other products which eventually are sold for human consumption.
Furthermore, the precise composition and quantities of such products should be clearly stated on the label.
Never again should farmers be able to say with truth that they are unaware of exactly what they are feeding to their animals.
Madam President, animals, like humans, are entitled to good and healthy food.
Our legislation should serve this aim.
Furthering this aim, and certainly not standing in the way of it, is what we should focus on with this directive.
The directive deals with nutritional supplements which serve a particular nutritional purpose; it concerns dietary feed which should not contain any medicinal substances.
The national legislation which will have to be based on this directive must be clear.
It should be possible to hold the companies manufacturing and launching these products onto the market responsible for this part of the food chain.
In the meantime it appears that several directives, and consequently also national legislations in this area, are in force, and it is difficult to see any overall coherence among them.
For example, a registration requirement exists for manufacturers of ordinary compound feedingstuffs, or for so-called premixes, but there is no system of approval for these firms.
It therefore makes no sense and it is wrong to lay down an approval system for the manufacturers of nutritional supplements, which contain no pharmalogically active substances.
This is unnecessarily bureaucratic, especially if these nutritional supplements are only used in-house at the stock farm.
The rapporteur's proposal to delete the suggested approval procedure for manufacturers of nutritional supplements has our support.
Yet in the report by Mrs Poisson - whom I would like to congratulate on her clear presentation of this complex matter - there is one bit of unnecessary centralist meddling in the use of nutritional supplements.
In Amendment 3 it is noted quite rightly that it is vital that the notion "temporary use of nutritional supplements' is not to be taken as a reference to a random limited period, but that the length of use should be determined case by case.
A duration stipulation of this kind will have to be supported by a bibliographic case, underpinned by scientific facts which justify the nutritional objective and the period of administration.
Using this as a starting point, the condition in Amendment 6, which covers the legal text, stating that nutritional supplements intended for pets should not be administered for more than eight days, is completely wrong and contrary to good animal husbandry practice at many stock farms within the European Union.
It should be possible for this maximum period to differ according to the type of farm and type of animal.
Thus, the eight day condition must be deleted.
I am convinced that the regulation of sensible animal feed in all its aspects should never be a subject of controversy between farmers, consumers and organizations promoting animal welfare.
I therefore think that the Commission might be able to embark on a codification of all legislation on the matter.
Many would see the importance of this.
It could come about in a codecision procedure with the European Parliament, as is the case with this directive.
Madam President, I have been able to note this week that not only does Mrs Poisson write a very good report, she can also write a good newsletter.
I am familiar with both.
Firstly, my group is looking forward to the fact that the proposal will collapse over the co-decision procedure.
We think it is extremely important that after the BSE crisis, this Parliament will have to deal in all kinds of areas with the food that people, consumers, consume daily within the European Union.
Like the rapporteur, we believe that the use of drugs, nutritional supplements, and so on, should under no circumstances become a habit in animal feeding.
Since the BSE crisis we have learnt how careful we should be with animal feed.
That is why we support the proposals of the Commission in principle, as well as the rapporteur's amendments.
Yet, like the Christian Democrat Group, we have the gravest objection to the eight day period.
We find it difficult to insist for all eternity that a certain product can only be used for eight days.
When used under expert supervision, it might benefit the health of the animal if it is given for nine or ten days.
This should be possible, so in our opinion the eight day restriction should be removed.
I would like to make another remark on something quite different which does not relate to the proposal as such.
In Europe we are improving our standards.
We are making food healthier, we are making meat and animal products healthier.
But what happens to imports? What is the use of introducing strict conditions in Europe, whilst we import, under WTO rules, increasing amounts of products over which we have no control.
I would like to advise the Commission, when the occasion arises as part of WTO, or in any forum with America, to state that we as Europeans have every right to know what our food contains, and that we can demand this from the imports which end up on our table from other continents in the world.
This is a view which cannot be found in the Commission proposal, and which is not discussed in the report, but which our group believes does require attention.
Mr President, this is a question of food additives which are not medicaments.
These are not the main problem with regard to people's health in the European Union.
The biggest problems are the use of hormones and antibiotics, the use of substances that are prohibited.
We cannot, however, fully rely on the chemical industry in this matter when, under the guise of added ingredients, they produce substances harmful to humans.
Whenever there are regulations people always try to get round them.
A good example of that is the use of asthma medicines at the Olympics: sportsmen and women appear to be severely asthmatic.
In exactly the same way it may be that some animals need added ingredients in accordance with the regulations.
I think we must therefore monitor the use of additives; Mrs Poisson's recommendations are far too wishy-washy.
The Commission is being more responsible in wishing to establish how these substances are being used.
Mr President, Mrs Poisson, I am finally beginning to feel reassured as regards the animal feed sector, since we are going to take into consideration that what we feed those animals destined for human consumption also ends up on the consumer's plate.
It is evident that the Committee of Inquiry into mad-cow disease is beginning to produce tangible results.
This is none too soon and it proves that financial interests have always taken precedence over human health and the state of the economy.
We must consider all the elements involved in the production of solid and liquid feedstuffs destined for animals for breeding and rearing, but we must also look at the administration of substances through injections, be they medicaments, mainly antibiotics, or hormones, even if they are for therapeutic relief.
Nevertheless, we must take an overall view of livestock farming rather than looking at its separate compartments.
In this field, there were a certain number of managers and senior players in industry, finance and politics who were guided only by the bait of financial gain. They preferred industrial breeding rather than harmonious breeding which allows the animal to stay in its natural surroundings and which, for example, allows ruminants to be bred using vegetables rather than meat meal made from recycling animal carcasses.
Moreover, during this time, millions of hectares of good land were unused, jobs were being lost and the economy of the rural world was being destroyed.
And what can we say about the practice of using low doses of preventive antibiotics in industrial units producing pork, poultry or eggs? We are still playing the sorcerer's apprentice.
Already, some paediatricians who care for children from the poor areas in Europe are finding it increasingly difficult to treat simple cases of dysentery among infants.
There are still lessons to be learnt from the epidemic of mad-cow disease.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased with the warm welcome which the Commission's proposals.
Like any other product destined for animal consumption, nutritional supplements must be subject to strict regulation, with regard to the needs of the breeding sector.
Therefore, I would like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and in particular its rapporteur, Mrs Poisson, who has been rightly praised by various speakers for her constructive motion for a resolution as well as for the amendments she has proposed.
For the most part, the Commission agrees with the amendments proposed concerning the draft amendment of Directive 93/74: Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7, aimed at strengthening and clarifying the proposed measures can be included in their entirety; in the same way, Amendments Nos 1 and 6 can be approved, on the condition that a slight change is made to ensure that there is greater coherence between the provisions of the regulation concerned and some of the amendments which have been taken over.
In addition, the Commission can approve Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10, aimed at simplifying the amendment of Directive 95/69 as regards the approval and registration of certain establishments and intermediaries operating in the animal feed sector.
The Commission cannot include Amendments Nos 11 and 12 which require a qualitative and quantitative declaration of the ingredients used in both dietetic feedingstuffs and the nutritional supplements given to animals.
As regards Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's speech, the Commission points out that it has already begun a study on the possibility of monitoring this declaration using analytic methods and, as promised, will inform Parliament of the results of this study as soon as they are available, as well as of its intentions in this area.
Finally, as regards Mr Mulder's reference to the World Trade Organization, the Commission is opposed to those who would like more flexible regulations, and support the adoption of strict rules. We feel that this criterion should remain in place.
Madam President, can you ask the Commissioner if my statements, made in reference to the Commission's statements, are correct? Then we need rather more clarification of the question.
The matter of the study is a completely different one.
This relates to the open declaration in the vase of feedingstuffs and we have agreed to wait for this study.
I want to know whether my statements are correct: then these amendments must be accepted.
This conclusion here is based on false statements by the Commission.
Madam President, I would like to point out that we believe the information presented by the Commission to be correct, but that we will complete our study in order to allow us to clarify any doubts that might exist.
In any case, the Commission's position is clear, and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf is now aware of it.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, that obviously cannot be clarified in the way you mean.
The discussion is closed.
The vote takes place today at 12.00 noon.
Impact of biotechnology on agriculture
The next item is the Report (A4-0037\98) by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the impact of biotechnology on agriculture.
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mrs Keppelhoff for her work which, while being brief, is very serious and balanced and does not omit any of the fundamental points of the impact of biotechnology on the agricultural sector.
Her report is inspired by a positive view of the biotechnology and their potential for the agricultural sector.
I take note of it and agree with what it has to say.
A positive view is not an idyllic and illuminist view that ignores the problems.
On the contrary, I believe the report we are preparing to approve illustrates all these problems extremely clearly, including those of an ethical and moral nature that need to be faced by trying to provide a way of offering the consumer every guarantee and, at the same time, a favourable framework for the development of this sector, which has great potential for agriculture.
There are three aspects of interest to agriculture.
The first is environmental.
Using genetic techniques, we can reduce the use of plant protection products and chemical synthesis products and obtain considerable advantages in respect of greater ecocompatibility of the crops from the point of view both of pollution of the strata and of product safety.
The second aspect of interest is that of development of food products worldwide to face the problems of food safety resulting from the population increase.
As rightly observed by Mrs Keppelhoff, so far we have dealt with the increase in the arable and irrigated areas and the increase in production with the use of fertilizers and manure.
Today, the responsible use of biotechnology can enable the use of these to be stopped.
The third aspect is the development of biomass, as sources of renewable energy.
We know that the Commission is active in the sense, that work programmes and proposals exist that are aimed at this sector.
However, all these opportunities are not being developed in a consistent and painless manner, it cannot be a question of working shut up in a laboratory and then leaving it convinced that a miraculous solution had been found for everything.
Dialogue with the consumers is decisive and their attitude is of the utmost importance.
However, I have to admit that there has often been a great deal of joking, with thoughtlessness or improvisation, or because, as Mr Happart has suggested, the interest in consumer health has been sacrificed to financial and economic interests, and sometimes those opposed to biotechnology have aroused consumer concern in bad faith.
Europe cannot withdraw into a useless dispute between those in favour of and those against biotechnology.
The conditions are there for doing more than that!
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work on this report.
I would also like to compliment her on the very clear way in which this complicated and very emotive subject was discussed, not only in general terms but specifically in relation to environmentally-friendly and sustainable production, world food supplies, economic aspects and the future prospects for genetic engineering.
During earlier debates in this House I said the purpose of modern plant breeding is to improve quality and increase the resistance to disease while also increasing the yields of cultivated plants.
Genetic engineering makes it possible to achieve these aims more efficiently and in a much shorter time than by conventional propagation.
I agree with the views set out in the EU White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment that biotechnology is one of the technologies which will determine the future of European competitiveness.
Unfortunately, surveys show that at this stage more than half of European citizens are opposed to the release and marketing of genetically modified foods.
I believe the vast majority holds this view because of the influence of scare stories and theories which are completely without scientific foundation.
The full benefits of biotechnology will not be manifest unless public trust and approval are first secured.
The only way this can be achieved is through continuous research to ensure absolute safety and maximum transparency in that research, including explanations to consumers of the technical details should they wish to avail themselves of them.
The compositional quality and indeed the bacteriological quality of foods are more accurately measured today than ever before.
Consumers can feel at ease that this technology, which is highly monitored and tightly regulated, will ensure that Europeans continue to be the best fed people in today's world.
Madam President, I would firstly like to thank our colleague for her excellent report which reasserts the fact that biotechnology should come under a specific and individual programme within the Commission's 5th Framework Programme.
It is important to point out that the European Union has already made significant efforts in research and the application of biotechnology in agriculture and the agro-food industry.
These efforts must therefore be maintained.
This report also underlines the economic importance of the introduction of biotechnological products in the field of agriculture, while pointing out that it is necessary to inform and educate the public effectively.
Modern agriculture will have to face up to the major challenge of providing for a world population which, according to forecasts, will double over the next 30 years, and this at a time when we are experiencing a global reduction in the amount of land available for cultivation.
Over the past 30 years, the productivity of agriculture has improved due, amongst other things, to a significant increase in the use of additional products such as protective agents and pesticides.
In the years to come, modern agriculture will have an additional challenge to face: respect for man and for the environment.
In order to maintain the competitiveness not only of agriculture but also of its related industries, it is important to supply it with the means necessary to participate in the game of world competition, particularly within the controlled framework of reducing Community aid to agriculture, as laid out in Agenda 2000.
Biotechnology can provide solutions, but we obviously cannot accept them at any price.
Consequently, we must adapt the regulation system, which will have to accept a double challenge: it will need to be flexible enough not to hold up any initiatives in this field, and it will need to be rigid enough to respect both the primary principle, that is, consumers' sanitary health and the principle of ethics.
In conclusion, if we allow this technological revolution to take place outside the boundaries of the Union, we will be left with many concerns for the future, not only for the economy, but also for European agriculture.
Therefore, the major challenges now are to encourage the use of biotechnology in creating an agricultural industry which is productive and durable and which respects man and the environment, to help companies involved in this field to become established within the Community and to continue efforts made in the areas of research and innovation.
In order to overcome these challenges, Europe must also ensure that its consumers are better informed and better educated and that they are reassured with accurate, scientificallyproven arguments.
Madam President, my group does not share the optimism with regard to the impact and benefits of gene technology.
We have major concerns with regard to the health of consumers and we have major concerns about the impact on the environment.
We hold the view that unlike the sphere of medicines, where possibly the side-effects of a product can be tolerated the sphere of food cannot tolerate any side effects.
As long as this is not guaranteed we must treat this technology with very great caution.
We do not share, Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, the hopes you expressed with regard to feeding the world.
We must teach people how to run agriculture so that they have enough to eat.
The satisfying of people's hunger will, in my view, not come from the key industries of gene technology.
In the matter of factually accurate information, this is exactly what we require and our amendments are aimed at obtaining this factual information from science, but also from the Commission.
For example, science has always told us that genetechnologically modified organisms would not transmit further, not skip generations.
However, we do have the case of the herbicide resistance of rape, where the generation skip to a weed took place, and I find that this contradicts the certainty which is being dangled in front of us.
We therefore demand first and foremost that science must create certainty in this matter o that we can move into this risk technology.
There does remain a ray of hope: the Commission will accept Parliament's proposal and exclude the biosphere of gene technology.
We shall have a statutory regulation whereby bioproducts may not come into contact with gene technology. That urgently requires precise labelling of the use of gene technological processes in food.
I look forward to the conflict between these two areas and the competition in the positive sense.
Then we shall see which foods will be accepted by the people and I think that in the long term the bioline will be the line which secures the feeding of the world.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert's excellent report on the application of biotechnology to agriculture seems to me, nevertheless, somewhat moderate given that it is a topic which is often the subject of heated debates.
However, we must recognize that it forms a good basis for discussion because Madame rapporteur has objectively presented us with the opportunities and challenges of biotechnology applied to agriculture.
Faced with expectations and with concern on the part of the public, we, the lawmakers, and the consumers outline what exactly is expected from these new technologies.
There is no doubt that the enormous potential that exists for developing biotechnology could lead us towards a new green revolution.
It is we who must decide what it will be like.
The image of the world farm providing for an overpopulated planet is more like a nightmare than paradise.
Although excessive concentration and specialization lead to an increase in productivity, which are important in the short-term, they also lead to more fragile surroundings and more vulnerable populations.
Can we imagine the dramatic effects we would see if a single seed which had become the only standard in the world became diseased? These choices are at odds with our convictions and with our European way of conceiving durable development.
The green revolution must be mastered rather than endured.
This means guiding agricultural policies so that they are based on the advantages their surroundings offer.
It also means that at an international level we must establish a coherent, legislative framework in order to avoid concentrating cultures and technologies in the hands of a few privileged people.
Rather than trying to provide for the world population from giant, highly specialized centres of production, we must ensure that these new technologies are made as widely available as possible.
The rules to be established at an international level must be based the highest levels of safety for man and for the environment, and aim to avoid the setting up of any sort of free zone fearing neither God nor man and permitting everything, particularly in terms of genetics, to the benefit of certain sorcerer's apprentices greedy for profit.
Money is money after all!
My own belief is that biotechnology must not take over from nature, but should allow us to profit from its diversity on a longterm basis.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must take up a strong political stance and take action so that the WTO takes these demands into consideration.
For the good of public health and consumers it is the duty of the European Union to acknowledge that European agriculture is an exception. If we fail to do this, we will eventually have to find the political courage to reject unjust compromises in the future.
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent report in a very difficult field.
Certainly developments in the field of biotechnology bring a tremendous challenge to the agricultural industry and beyond.
The question is whether we move with the new developments and new technologies or stand aside and allow others to set the pace.
I personally have to admit that I have terrible concerns about a lot of the new technologies and things that are happening now.
I would also like to ensure that we in Europe do not lose out if we say no.
That is the bottom line as far as we are concerned.
We must proceed with extreme caution.
There is a very clear concern in the mind of the consumer and, taking into consideration past events, I think one has to sympathize with that concern.
Consumers are sceptical and will require convincing that the legal framework that is put in place to control and act as the safeguard will ensure the most stringent monitoring of the new arrangements.
Whatever is put in place cannot be seen to be weak and lacking the ability to control the harmful aspects that might develop.
To this end we must make doubly sure that all genetically engineered food should be clearly labelled, in a transparent way, so that consumers can see what they are purchasing.
In this way there can be no ambiguity or reason for any concern in the mind of the consumer.
I have no problem in principle with the continued research and development in this field.
But, as I have said, we must have maximum transparency, control and full knowledge of the ultimate objectives.
As long as we are assisting society and the consumer, and not using and abusing technology to increase the profit margins of the major multinationals at the expense of consumer confidence, then I am prepared to give tentative support to current developments.
We must give a clear warning that any abuse of these new developing technologies by those involved will be dealt with in the most severe manner.
Although I have my reservations, I hope I am also realistic and it is that realism that forces me to give my qualified support at this time.
I feel I speak for many when I say that it cannot be taken for granted.
Madam President, the proposals before the House reflect the lessons that have been learned across Europe from the BSE crisis.
That crisis taught the value of caution where foodstuffs are concerned, especially as regards animals and meat eaten by human beings.
Everyone involved in this crisis has suffered: producers, consumers and the ancillary industries.
The proposals that we are talking about now are a necessary step, but this step has to be taken - as my colleague from Northern Ireland has said - with great caution.
There is a clear need to lay down a strict, enforceable framework of rules governing the nature of the products we are discussing.
Animal nutrition plays a crucial role in the human food chain, so this is a vital report.
Confidence is of the essence.
Without confidence in the standards of foodstuffs, the entire basis of our agricultural industry is put in jeopardy.
I would underscore again that extreme caution is needed in biotechnology.
It is high-risk and there are unknown risks which lie ahead.
Great care is essential.
I might add, in concluding, that the recent outbreak of BSE in the United Kingdom affected Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland has been unfairly penalized by having all beef exports banned by this Union.
This was despite the very low incidence of BSE in the province and our excellent traceability system, which is better than anywhere else in the whole European Union.
The Commission has proposed a lifting of this ban in Northern Ireland.
We welcome that, but the standing veterinary committee seems to be engaged in delaying tactics.
I call on those Member States which, for political reasons, are continuing to block the lifting of the ban, to start looking at the objective, scientific evidence.
The beef ban for Northern Ireland is unjust and should be lifted immediately.
Any further delay would rightly be regarded as political.
As our beef industry is worth over £50 million per year, agriculture is our biggest industry.
The Commission has decided that the time for action is now, and I endorse this view.
Madam President, for the balanced and, above all, convincing report I would like to thank the rapporteur Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert.
I am sure that in future there will be much discussion of this subject.
The discussion on biotechnology is indeed usually a very controversial one and like many other Members I, too, see advantages and positive effects in this field.
Possibly the result will be an increase in jobs, but in spite of all this we should not be so blue-eyed as to see only the advantages.
There are certain risks.
I can only support the rapporteur explicitly when under point No 2 she demands an optimal control framework which includes the impact on the environment, on every single animal, on the health and well-being of people and all the ethical aspects. Do we really know everything about the interaction of gene technologically modified organisms in the overall ecological system?
How do we deal with waste and residual matter?
Where does the residual risk end or where does the risk begin even? What is the long-term impact on the metabolic and other natural processes in the living organism?
Anyone who has read the article about the Monsanto report "Green Gene Technology' , Volume 39 of 9.2.98, No.6, learns there are only positive results and effects.
There do not appear to be any risks, or at least they are not mentioned.
There are obvious advantages, but precisely because of that the responsibility-awareness of all those involved must be alerted to the not least very profitable possibilities.
Therefore it can only support explicitly the announcement by the Commission in its proposed Amendment to Directive 90\220\EEC that it will undertake a broad evaluation of the direct and indirect risks to human health and the environment.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is in the interests of the farmers and the consumers of the European Union to study critically the use of gene technology and to consider both the advantages and the risks.
The use of gene technology cannot be excluded out of hand, but we need clear rules and a clear administration.
It is a concern of all farmers that the confidence of the consumers is fostered and that can only be ensured, through the greatest possible transparency and unambiguous marking of food and animal feedstuffs which are produced by means of gene technological methods.
It would be wrong to negate these new developments, since in many parts of the world they are already being used professionally.
In my view it is nevertheless necessary to orientate the statutory framework conditions to the greatest possible extent to the needs of the consumers and the farmers.
An optimal framework of control must be created in order to make possible a biotechnological sphere which is aware of its responsibilities.
In other words, we need a statutory framework which is efficient, quick and transparent and at the same time meets the requirements of the most comprehensive clarification possible of all safety questions.
For me the essential element in this context is the situation and management of imports from third countries.
I therefore demand that this is dealt with immediately.
A step by step procedure in the release of gene technology modified organisms is a necessary condition and we must not allow a general go-ahead to small and large-scale open experiments.
Each case must be tested separately, in the same way that our decisions here must be made.
At any rate there must be the greatest possible degree of safety and all questions about any procedural step must be clarified before a further stage in the development can take place.
I am against the general shortening of the testing periods.
I would like once more to emphasise how extremely important it is to ensure that when gene technologically modified organisms are used, neither the health of the people nor the environment is impaired.
Madam President, I wish to thank Mrs Keppelhoff for her work in bringing forward a report which represents a reasonable balance between the importance and potential of biotechnology in the development of agriculture and food production, on the one hand, and on the other the understandable concern of citizens about possible ethical implications, which is shared by all who wish to see technology developed for the benefit of mankind.
For farmers, who are the custodians of our land resource and responsible to society for guaranteeing food security and quality, it is of the utmost importance that the benefits of science and research are available and applied to this sector.
It is to the credit of those who manage our land resources that they have been at the forefront in the application of modern technology.
Hence the remarkable progress in agricultural production, in food quality and safety.
I am a supporter of the concept of sustainability and the development of renewable resources but I also live in the real world.
I am realistic enough to know that those who would keep agriculture in the dark ages have little to offer in the way of solutions to the threat of world hunger, a reality which future generations of farmers will be called on to address.
It must be borne in mind that the world's productive land resource remains constant and much of it will not respond to established agricultural practices.
It is only through ongoing research, the application of new science, including safe and tested biotechnology, that the full potential of land resources can be harnessed for society.
We need, however, as other speakers have said, a balanced and sensible approach.
I fully share the view of those who have expressed concern with regard to the application of genetic engineering to humans which I strongly oppose.
It must also be acknowledged that biotechnology has made a significant contribution to the development of modern medicine.
Biotechnology is not a recent discovery, it has been applied, as the rapporteur has said, in varying degrees since 1970.
There is now a greater understanding of its potential and benefits for mankind.
It is one of the key technologies of the twenty-first century and there is an obligation on us to use this in a careful and planned way.
As should be the case with the application of all new research, transparency and consumer information are important.
To this extent I fully support the case made by other speakers in this debate that labelling of all genetically modified food is important so that the consumer can make a choice.
Finally, I say to those who hold positions of influence in society and who, for their own good reasons, oppose the development of biotechnology, that they should be careful not to overstate or exaggerate their position.
The future of world agriculture, the profession of farming, the health of our citizens and employment in the food sector are dependent on the development of a sustainable agriculture based on the benefits of ongoing research and the application of carefully tested new technology.
Madam President, some interesting things can be learned from the latest Eurobarometer on Biotechnology .
It appears, for instance, that the European citizen feels less optimistic about biotechnology, whilst his knowledge of modern biotechnology has in fact increased.
The interviewees on the whole have little faith in their governments, as these restrict themselves to a risk analysis of new products for the safety of humans and animals.
The general opinion is that governments should pay much more attention to the ethical aspects of biotechnology.
I do not wish to play down the positive aspects of gene technology, but I do wish to remind the national governments and the European Commission of their responsibility.
Government must curb man's laxity.
Legislators have the responsibility to indicate clearly which limits should be observed.
An essential part of this is a thorough deliberation of the values and standards against which new techniques are tested.
The Bible teaches us that in nature we are dealing with God's creation.
The Biblical concept of custodianship is therefore a central factor for me.
It means we should build and maintain.
Only if we use creation as God intended, is it able to serve man.
Plants and animals must not be degraded to production factor, which can be manipulated to our heart's content.
If no thorough deliberation of the limits of biotechnology is initiated, I fear we will be relinquishing control to research and our trade partners.
I therefore cannot support the plea in the Keppelhoff report for the harmonization of European testing legislation with those of Japan and the United States.
It is to be expected, of course, that technological companies will locate in countries with the most flexible preconditions.
The fact that 27 out of 43 registered products are in the name of the United States says something about the ease with which they handle such techniques.
But that should be no reason for Europe to opt for a less careful testing procedure.
Madam President, gene technological manipulation has nothing whatsoever to do with conquering world hunger.
We can only combat global hunger by offering those countries in which it prevails fair social development possibilities.
Sociologically it has long since been proved that there is a close connection between the population explosion and social emergency.
To use population growth as an argument in favour of the need for gene technologically manipulated foods is a pure and simple deception.
The same applies to the assertion that gene technological manipulation enables us to reduce the use of fertilizers.
I regard as particularly questionable Point 16 of the report which declares cross-frontier open experiments to be appropriate.
The promotion of communication for gene technological manipulation must also involve promoting the communication of information about the dangers of gene manipulation.
Madam President, I also wish to thank Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert for her own-initiative report on the impact of biotechnology on agriculture, which sets out in a very balanced way the opportunities and risks presented by the rapidly expanding development of biotechnological processes.
There are huge vested interests involved.
A number of large multinational companies are investing heavily in biotechnology, developing products which could be of great value to the human race, particularly in helping raise agricultural output and thereby tackling food shortages in parts of the world where they exist.
All too often, however, the aim is to establish a monopoly position over important market sectors to maximize profits, and the poorest farmers in the world are either further impoverished or put out of business completely.
Of course, companies need to make profits to survive, and many jobs are provided by the biotechnological industries.
However, as previous speakers have pointed out, these profits should be made within a basic ethical and regulatory framework to ensure that new biotechnological products are beneficial, rather than harmful, to the health of human beings and other living creatures, and also to the wider environment.
Governments and the Commission of the European Union have a role to play in encouraging beneficial application of biotechnological products by supporting research, basic research, which is independent of commercial concerns and has at its prime purpose the discovery of biotechnological applications which really will benefit the world rather than company profits.
It worries me greatly that agricultural and horticultural research organizations and university departments which used to be publicly funded are now increasingly reliant on multinational companies for their finance and are thereby prevented from pursuing basic biotechnological research, independent of the need to make a rapid financial return.
Commercial concerns should not be allowed to dominate this vital area totally.
Madam President, today, world food problems are more complex than they were twenty or thirty years ago, in terms of volume of production in some parts of the world, such as like Africa and Asia, or of quality, as in the case of the European Union.
Biotechnology has been able to offer solutions to these various situations, creating varieties with higher yields and others that are disease-resistant, and by reducing the use of chemical products which are usually harmful to the environment.
As our rapporteur suggests, the time has come to end the demagogic vilification of biotechnology and genetic engineering, because these techniques can in fact provide consumers with supplies of adequate quantity and quality and protect environmental quality.
Moreover, if the European Union does not use these technical and scientific resources, it will find it quite impossible to respond to increasing world demand for food, for which it must contend with the major exporting powers.
For European agriculture not to use these techniques which are employed by its main competitors would be like taking part in a bicycle race against competitors driving cars.
We cannot, therefore, be afraid of using biotechnology and genetic engineering, although we must be realistic, disciplined and cautious.
Consequently, the European Union should draw up a clear and operational legal framework that covers such important issues as the environmental impact of these new products, their effects on human health and on the well-being of animals and, of course, the compliance with previously-defined ethical standards.
Finally, I would like to say how important it is that the next round of GATT should include clear rules in this regard, without which unacceptable distortions of trade could well be created.
I would like to thank Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert for her excellent work.
This is a very sensible and balanced report which will be extremely useful to the European Union.
Madam President, with the problem and the report by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, we are getting into the myths of Prometheus or Demeter, and it is true that biotechnologies will go through both good times and bad.
Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert rightly informs us that through this technology we can obtain a whole range of modified plants (potatoes, soya, rice, cotton, rice, tobacco, etc.), that 32 million hectares have already been cultivated, that 6, 000 experiments have already been conducted and that there have been positive results.
We can fight against viral diseases in sugar beet, the European corn borer, fungus on potatoes which can lower harvests by 20 % and we are even building plant factories.
So we have brought about the third industrial revolution whereby the mylolepine in potatoes has increased adhesive capacity, gene technology allows an increase in the content of oleic acid in oilseed rape, we can manufacture detergents, lacquers and cooling liquids and we even have larger fish and transgenic poplars which produce more wood.
Finally, the dream of having heaven on earth is to become a reality.
However, there are still risks involved.
Firstly, there is trickery involved in the terminology.
The word "bio' is a favourable word and the word "techno' reminds us of a sort of natural music which would be modified.
As soon as the words "techno' or "bio' are used, young people are likely to be supportive.
In addition, there is a contradiction: a contradiction between fallow land and the genetically modified organisms.
We cannot use the fallow land because of world overproduction and then produce GMOs in order to fight hunger, since, if there is a hunger problem, we might as well recultivate the fallow land!
There is also a contradiction between the GMOs and the MGQs, because we cannot increase the yield of oilseed rape and then have maximum guaranteed quantities under the GATT for rape if we do not have enough.
There is obviously a very real risk from the multinational monopolies seized by Novartis, Cargyll or Monsanto, since these multinationals in the Arizona desert have stockpiled more than six million plants for which they possess the patent.
Resistance to antibiotics has been discussed.
My colleagues have not seen any mechanical factors, or dare I say quantum factors, which are much more dangerous and which involve the molecular composition of plants.
All plants and all life are made up of four sugar sticks: ATCN.
This is the elementary alphabet and this alphabet vibrates in quantum mechanics.
Changing one of the elements of this molecular composition is the same as changing the atomic vibration of the plant, and we do not know what the consequences of this would be.
There is therefore a risk involved in the great universal harmony and the great universal division; there is the risk of a false, yet to be found, molecular note.
In other words, the "mad-cow' lesson seems to have been forgotten.
I believe that Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert is right: we must not work against progress.
However, time is not yet running out!
There could be at least a moratorium before there is widespread dissemination!
Labelling is still an illusion.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must find a balance, an ancient balance which comes from Greek mythology, between the need for progress and the need to respect natural harmonies, because life is beautiful and we should not play with it!
Madam President, the principles of a computer are actually quite simple.
Basically it is a question of adding zeros and ones.
The mechanical adding machines of the 1800s were actually far more complicated, but because computers can add up so quickly, they can carry out infinitely more tasks that the adding machines of the 1800s could do.
As we all know, computers have opened up entirely new areas for mankind and science.
Biotechnology is old in the sense that for many hundreds of years we have deliberately changed the genetic make up of animals and plants.
However, this relates to the old methods in the same way that computers relate to the old adding machines.
Biotechnology is opening up entirely new possibilities, partly through its speed in creating new species, and partly through making combinations possible which nature herself cannot create.
At the university I come from, for example, people are working on using genes from fish which are implanted into trees to get the trees to grow faster.
With these words I would like, apart from thanking the rapporteur for an excellent piece of work, to underline the importance of always putting the principle of caution first.
Modern biotechnology makes it possible to manipulate nature in ways people could not do in the past.
In these new areas we must move with great caution.
Nature can hit back!
Madam President, we have received reports about which we can be pleased and Mrs KeppelhoffWiechert has written a report which has a great future, which deals with a very responsible subject and is very ambitious.
I believe that food technology and in particular biotechnology have enormous influence on the people who sell food, on innkeepers and consumers.
Mrs Schierhuber has already referred to the fact that we need a good legal framework which makes it possible to produce these products without risk.
Labelling is a very important topic and I believe there is also a consensus here that marking must take place.
In principle we must say that there is no such thing as gene-free food.
In every food we consume there are genes and when today we eat various foods - vegetable, fruit, milk or meat - then these genes come together in our stomach and are digested there.
We also know that from foods which are made on a purely biological basis many illnesses can occur.
Dr Flande has shown in his latest book that food allergies can trigger off problems such as migraine, neuro-dermatitis, fungal infections, colds, asthma, chronic tiredness, obesity, itching, swelling, palpitation - all due to perfectly naturally produced foods.
We must see to it that we find foods with which we have a chance of remaining healthy.
That is an important task in which agriculture, the food distributors and ultimately the consumers must cooperate in order to be able to remain healthy in their old age.
Madam President, genetically modified food is on the agenda once again.
This is about food which is processed not by old-fashioned methods but by changing the inherited basic characteristics of vegetables, for instance.
The results can be apples which do not turn red and types of corn which do not need so many insecticides.
Seen in environmental terms, it is essential that there should be research into biotechnology, because this may also allow us to reduce our use of insecticides.
But there is also some reason to believe that this technology will not solve all our problems.
There is also some reason to stop and think about whether this technology might at some point not go beyond the limits of what is ethical and correct.
Are we fully in control of the consequences of what happens if we alter foods so drastically?
Labelling of foods containing genetically modified products is therefore essential.
It is important that consumers themselves should be able to decide whether they want to eat these products.
Consumers have the right to know what production methods are used, not just for square bananas and blue tomatoes, but also for natural products and the ingredients which go into them.
I therefore welcome this initiative.
The report recognizes that genetic engineering is a tool which can have both positive and negative effects, so we need proper legislation in this field to protect consumers against the adverse effects of this new technology.
Finally, I would like to emphasize once more that it is essential to mark these new products so that consumers themselves can decide what they want to eat.
Here in the European Parliament, we have passed a proposal that ecological products must not contain any genetically modified organisms.
This would guarantee consumers products which are produced in a healthy, environmentally friendly manner.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes the initiative taken by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to present this excellent report on biotechnology to the European Parliament, and I would particularly like to thank Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert who has laid out so clearly the challenges that this new technology presents to the world of agriculture.
Despite everything said by its critics, biotechnology is now a reality which we cannot avoid. To surrender to it would mean that Europe would experience an accelerated loss of competitiveness, to the advantage of the great economic powers who have understood very well over the last decade the benefits they can obtain through exploiting the enormous possibilities offered by this new science.
As the report rightly points out, European agriculture must show itself to be less conservative and must take advantage of this new technology, since its many different applications would allow Europe to face up to the constant impoverishment of its natural resources and the continuous rise in its population's needs.
Since the beginning of this decade, the Commission has shown that it is clearly in favour of biotechnology through the creation of a regulation framework for genetic engineering.
The adoption of Directives 90/219 and 90/220 on genetically modified organisms reflects our Institution's constant desire to welcome innovation, while at the same time endeavouring to control it in order to better protect the environment and the population.
I have noted with much interest that the Commission's attitude towards biotechnology is shared by those responsible for the report, who advocate a style of agricultural production which is open to this new technology, as long as it respects the environment.
I also share the opinion that considerable efforts should be made to provide consumers with information about genetically modified foodstuffs.
The reservations still currently felt by many consumers towards genetically modified foodstuffs and agricultural products will only change through objective dialogue and accurate information.
In my view, the only way to change fixed, negative attitudes regarding genetic engineering is through total transparency on the labelling of transgenic products which then allows the consumer to choose freely.
In relation to the question raised by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, I would like to say that I have read very carefully the recommendations put to the Commission and I can already tell her that some of these are about to implemented.
The Commission will soon submit new proposals for a more adequate regulation on genetic engineering and an improvement in the procedure set out in Directive 90/220 for the authorization of established genetic organisms.
In addition, with the aim of perfecting the existing regulation, the Commission, probably during this first semester, will submit a proposal concerning the raw materials destined for the animal feed sector that have been genetically modified.
I can assure you that the Commission will study with extreme care all the recommendations set out in this report, as well as those presented orally here this morning, with specific questions, and it will endeavour to take them into account in its future proposals.
Madam President, I have no questions but I would like to sum up by saying thank you.
Time has moved on.
Most speakers have expressed themselves very positively indeed.
I hope that this is reflected at 12.00 in the vote.
I just wanted once more to reply to those who keep saying that it does not help the people in the developing countries.
Only yesterday afternoon we had a broad discussion here in the chamber in which the scientist Dr Klaus Amann refuted that very argument.
So, for example, in cooperation with research bodies in Europe and with organizations in the Philippines types of rice are being developed which promise the people there a better future.
To that extent I must again, being logical, reject it.
I must also say that for me ecological agriculture and gene technological do not represent a contradiction.
Thank you very much for all your work!
Thank you, Madam Rapporteur.
The discussion is now closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Confidence in electronic means of payment
The next item is the Report (A4-0028\98) by Mrs Thors on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Monetary Institute and the Economic and Social Committee: "Boosting customers' confidence in electronic means of payment in the single market' (COM(97)0353-C4-0486\97).
Madam President, I am pleased to see that you, Madam President, are a true friend of Finnish jewellery.
This report is part of a long series of initiatives which the Commission has already taken and will continue to take in order that we shall eventually have a set of rules to apply to the numerous new means and methods of payment which are being rapidly introduced.
During the suppliers' strike in Brussels we had practical experience of what living in a society free of notes and coins is really like.
The euro is just around the corner and we have these new means of payment whose limitations not even we are aware of.
Central banks will no longer regulate the money supply.
I think it is time for us to prepare ourselves, because the new situation will be very different.
We need to be prepared with a set of rules, but we should not legislate unnecessarily.
The communication which we are now discussing and the recommendation which it contains are not particularly dramatic.
It is a minor modernization of a ten-year-old recommendation which actually has minimum requirements for terms of agreements and legislation in the Member States.
It will be more exciting this spring, I expect, and we hope that we shall soon have a proposal from the Commission concerning when, where, how and whether we should supervise those who have the right to provide means of payment.
Although I am a very experienced user of the new means of payment, and although I often make my payments by Internet, it is still unclear to me whether this recommendation is about that.
We have also noticed that the Economic and Social Committee was very critical of the definitions in the recommendations.
If recommendations which are supposed to increase consumer confidence are unclear, that is worrying.
We have no need for unintelligible language in this matter.
On the other hand, I would like to express my appreciation of the fact that in the recommendation the Commission says that the terms of agreements should be in a clearer language.
Unfortunately, the recommendation has still not realized that several of the Member States are bilingual, because it refers to the official languages of the Member States.
Something which I also consider to be important, and which we stress in the report, is that all customers should have access to the terms applicable to the means of payment they are going to use.
It is far too common to just have framework conditions; the small print is somewhere else, and the consumer is not really shown what the agreement will entail.
I hope that the Commission will be strict and will monitor how the recommendation works.
In addition, we know that flaws in this area include the fact that sometimes there is a lack of effective procedures to compensate consumers, that there is a lack of clarity about liability for theft, that the rules on the burden of proof are unclear, i.e. who must prove what, and that the position of customers in bankruptcies can be vague.
We should also be aware that when new means of payment are introduced, a long time may elapse before consumers become aware of the new problems which can arise.
Instead of somebody stealing your card, it could happen that someone breaks your code or spies on you when you use it.
It takes longer before you discover this loss.
I think this problem requires new consideration by all of us.
I must also say that a few weeks ago we had an unfortunate example of what happens when there is a lack of clarity about means of payment.
Here I refer to the payment card VISA Electron.
It appears that the issuers of this card did not follow the principles in the recommendation, and in particular Article 8.1 b.
And so to the future timetable. During 1998 the Commission shall monitor what happens.
I hope that this will be done in a more active way than with the previous recommendation, when a very mechanical study was carried out.
I hope the Commission will invite consumers and issuers of cards to a round table conference, so that people can go through problems and see how things work in reality, and that the Commission will also be prepared to always have a line always open for feedback from the consumers.
In that way we shall get a speedier and proper understanding of how the recommendation is working.
Madam President, I would like to add my voice to that of Mr Martin on behalf of the Socialist Group, in praising the rapporteur for a very thorough and, on the whole, uncontroversial job on a very important subject.
As has already been pointed out both by the rapporteur herself and by Mr Martin, this is a consumer protection issue, an area in which we should all be concerned to protect the interests of our constituents and citizens.
There is only one amendment to Mrs Thors' report in the name of my group. It was an amendment which I put down in committee.
Because Mrs Thors, as rapporteur, was unhappy with it - she considered that it did not have much relevance in that particular context - I withdrew it before it was put to the vote, largely because I sit at the front of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and I could not see what was going on behind me.
I understand that my amendment would have been passed had I put it to the vote.
I would like to ask, in this instance, that all other groups in the House support that amendment, which is designed to ensure that where a partner to a financial transaction goes bankrupt, the consumer does not suffer any loss as a result.
I understand, from the rapporteur, that she may well be prepared to leave the decision to the wisdom of the House.
She is nodding, so I take that to be the case.
I hope that all the other groups, today, will be able to support the PPE amendment.
That is all I need to say at this stage on behalf of the PPE.
We shall support this proposal wholeheartedly.
Once again, many congratulations to the rapporteur.
We shall now interrupt the discussion so that the vote can start punctually.
The discussion on this item of the Agenda will continue this evening at 6.00 p.m.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I am pleased to welcome a delegation of seven Members of the Swiss Parliament, headed by Mr Peter Biere, seated in the official gallery.
The delegation has come to Strasbourg to meet the members of the delegation from the European Parliament on the occasion of the 17th European Parliament-Swiss Parliament interparliamentary meeting.
Several meetings have taken place, yesterday and today, and topics such as the enlargement of the European Union, the forecasts for European Monetary Union, the bilateral negotiations between the European Union and Switzerland, the prospects of a common foreign and security policy and future relations were discussed amongst others.
I hope that the discussions have been productive for the delegation and that they have had a pleasant stay in Strasbourg.
Mr Kerr wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order.
At the outset of the sitting this morning Mr Alex Smith raised the question of a letter which Mr Coates and I had sent out concerning the vote on the debate today.
The letter was intended to draw attention to Amendment No 12 tabled by the Green Group, asking him to vote against the war.
But Mr Smith was offended by the letter, so I withdraw the letter today and apologize to Mr Smith.
Votes
Mr President, according to the correspondence, implementation measures and rules we have received from the Bureau, could you please note my presence in the Chamber.
Mr President, I would ask for the following Members to be exempt from the need to be present for this vote as we have just attended a very important conciliation meeting on transferable securities: Cassidy, Wijsenbeek, Bourlanges, Corbett, Florio, Caudron, Oddy, De Giovanni, Gebhardt.
After the vote on Amendment No 33
Mr President, pursuant to the rules brought in by the Bureau, I wish to put on record that I am present but did not partake in the vote.
Mr Crowley, this was not a roll-call vote, it was a simple electronic verification.
When there is a roll-call vote you can raise this point or make it directly to the Bureau.
After the roll-call vote on Amendment No 2
Mr President, could I again have my presence noted in the Chamber?
Very well, Mr Falconer.
(Through successive votes, Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
Mr President, as regards Amendments Nos 11 and 12, the Commission would like to make the following statement: in terms of the composition of feedingstuffs, the Commission wants to point out that current legislation lays down that all ingredients used must be declared in order of importance, but without any indication of their respective quantities.
In this respect, the Commission is carrying out a survey in order to see if it is technically possible to include not only the ingredients in their order of importance, but also an indication of their respective quantities.
Mr President, after this declaration by the Commission we must ask the rapporteur if she still has reservations about the matter.
For now, both our amendments make sense because they demand that the percentage share must be indicated.
Hitherto this was disputed by the Commission.
After this statement it is clear that our amendments are appropriate.
Mrs Poisson, could you let us know if you accept the amendments?
Mr President, I wanted to reply to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
I am not sure that the amendments he is proposing in any way provide more clarification.
Therefore, I am still sceptical about them.
Thank you very much, Mrs Poisson.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, in Article 11 the following technical amendment is necessary: a new, correct figure was inserted, but the old figure of ECU 3.3 billion was left in by mistake.
For the sake of correctness it must now be deleted, since it is the figure of 2.5 billion.
I also request the insertion, after "by the year end 1996' of "in the context of the EFRD' , so that this sentence now reads "Criticizes emphatically the state of affairs whereby by the year end 1996 in the context of the EFRD, funds still need to be carried through from the period before 1994 amounting to ECU 2.5 billion' , etc.
This is not a substantial alteration but a purely technical one.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, can my presence in the Chamber be noted.
I would simply like to point out that when a Member has shown that he does not want to take part in a vote, but has established that he is in the hemicycle, the Bureau will obviously take this into account for the following roll-call votes.
Very well, Mr Falconer.
Most of the Members prefer not to have to rise each time.
It is logical that if they do this is taken into account during the rest of the voting.
But if you would prefer to rise, then we will take note of this each time it happens and only then.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Those of us concerned with environmental matters know that landfills are an unacceptable method of eliminating waste, especially if we are looking for viable solutions.
For this reason, this Parliament rejected the common position in 1996.
The new proposal sets out both clearer and stricter criteria which integrate some new elements into the process of eliminating waste: reduction, pre-treatment, control of methane gas emissions, recycling and recovery, etc.
This new regulation will provide for the closure of illegal landfills and the improvement of existing ones without necessarily having to resort to incineration.
It will oblige the Member States to draw up a national strategy aimed at reducing biodegradable waste by 50 % by the year 2005 and to ensure that only pre-treated waste, with the exception of inert material, is deposited in landfills.
There is no doubt that costs will be incurred in fulfilling these requirements and that a tax will have to be imposed on waste destined for landfills.
It would have been logical for the Commission, when presenting this Directive, to have included a financial estimate of the costs involved in implementing it.
However, it is a step in the right direction and will receive my vote.
We must take note of the long delay before the Commission's re-introduction of its proposal to establish Community laws governing the hygienic burial of waste, granted the importance of the problem for the protection of the environment, the conservation of and respect for the ecosystem, and for the protection of our citizens' health and quality of life.
However, the Commission's new proposal, after the important changes it underwent thanks to the European Parliament's decisive intervention and to the addition of new elements, is clearly along more positive lines than the initial draft.
For one thing, there is a smaller number of exceptions in its field of application, and less scope for the deviations that made it substantially ineffectual - if not burdensome - for exactly those regions which are supposedly facing particularly acute problems.
It is positive that the proposal finally includes the fact that along with the establishment of high standards for hygienic burial, there should clearly be an impetus towards preventing the production of waste, towards alternative waste management methods such as recycling and other ways of recovering materials, and against combustion and other ways of recovering energy which burden the environment.
This a very important improvement because it establishes the clear priority of recycling and composting as opposed to combustion, pyrolysis or gasification.
We must, however, draw the Commission's attention to the need to adopt all the measures required to ensure that extensions of the transitional period will be granted for adaptation and modernization of existing landfills so that those extensions will have a constructive effect, and to ensure that there are no delays with adverse results for the environments' viability and people's health, so that all the prerequisites are secured for the best possible organization and support of the programme.
To achieve such a target, as much account as possible must be taken of local environmental needs, geological and hydrological conditions, and the solutions adopted must be individualized and adapted as much as possible towards achieving the best overall results in each particular area.
The problem of waste is a result of the lifestyle and throw-away mentality which a majority of the inhabitants of the industrial world have today.
That is why the issue of waste has become more and more alarming.
I therefore have great sympathy for the proposals which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has put forward, demanding tough measures, partly to reduce the waste mountain through more recycling, and partly to ensure that what is dumped has a minimal environmental impact.
However, I am not sure that the question should be decided at the EU level.
Since the question does not concern environmentally dangerous waste, but just waste, it should still be a question for the national Member States to decide.
At the same time I am aware, however, that the rules which already exist at EU level are not being complied with to the desired extent which is very regrettable.
It would therefore be best to have minimum rules in the area of waste, so that individual countries can introduce tougher rules if they so wish.
I think, of course, that the EU should do all in its power to encourage the Member States to get to grips with this issue.
The proposal from the Committee on the Environment should without doubt form the basis for implementation at Member State level.
Through measures which encourage recycling and the minimum creation of waste, the waste mountain can be reduced, which is necessary.
Naturally, I think the question of environmentally dangerous waste should remain subject to international rules in future.
We have decided to support the Jackson report, as we believe its basic views are well-considered and sensible.
But we would like to point out that it contains a serious weakness: in its proposed amendments to the Council Directive (COM(97)105), it does make any provision for Member States to be able to put a brake on the transport of waste across national borders.
It will still be lawful to treat waste as a commodity which enjoys free movement within the single European market.
In effect, this prevents parliaments in Member States from passing stricter national rules for handling waste.
Those who produce the waste will still be able to choose the 'cheapest' solution if their national parliament decides to go further than the EU's minimum rules and send their waste products to an EU Member State which only applies EU rules.
So, although in formal terms it is a minimum directive, the Directive should in fact be regarded as a maximum directive.
This report offers constructive proposals for the regulation of the landfill of waste.
Landfill can be a useful means for the disposal of waste but it must be properly regulated in order to avoid water, soil and air pollution.
In Northern Ireland we have had recent experience of the problem.
It was planned to locate a landfill waste disposal sit next to a lough of scientific interest even though it was believed that substance listed under current EU legislation would be discharged into the lough.
Fortunately the matter went to a public inquiry which ruled against the application.
However, it did highlight the problem of unsatisfactory regulation.
Part of the problem appeared to lie in poor implementation of legislation at national level.
I trust that national governments will do more in future to implement EU legislation in this regard.
Indeed, I would argue that national governments should be taking the initiative.
In regard to the disposal of tyres through landfill, there should be an exemption made for large tyres such as tractor tyres.
These can actually be of some use in landfill and are difficult to dispose of by other environmentally friendly means.
I must congratulate Mrs Jackson on her report on the European Commission's proposal on the landfill of waste which has just been considered during first reading.
I would like to remind you that this current proposal for a Directive is actually the European Commission's second attempt.
In fact, the common position adopted by the Council had been considered much too lax, particularly due to the numerous derogations it provided for, our Chamber rejected the proposal during the second reading, at the part-session in May 1996.
I am glad that this new proposal incorporates much more precise and rigorous criteria as regards the derogations to the Directive's field of application as well as some new elements, such as the pre-treatment of waste before sending it to landfills, a ban on the joint-disposal of dangerous and non-dangerous waste, etc...
These new elements will undoubtably contribute to the application of higher standards in the elimination of waste throughout the European Union.
The work carried out by the rapporteur in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is nevertheless important.
Some of the amendments provide necessary clarification, particularly as regards responsibility during and after the exploitation of sites.
I therefore support this report and sincerely hope that the European Commission will be able to respond favourably to the amendments that Parliament has just adopted.
Grosch report (A4-0018/98)
With the proposal for a directive we are considering, the Commission is trying to establish uniform specifications in respect of safety requirements and the professional competence of cabin crews in civil aviation.
That issue, however, is only one aspect of the more general problem of air safety. Others include the competence of the flight cabin crew, the technical specifications and maintenance requirements for aircraft, the safety policy and priorities of the air carrier, the rescue equipment available, the work rules and labour policy applied (which neither the proposal nor the report mentions at all), etcetera.
From that standpoint the EU, with its policy of liberalization and the prevalence of full competition in air transport, combined with the world-wide opening of the markets after the GATT agreement, is in practice undermining the safety of flights, while the headlong race to maximize profits and cut operating expenses in every possible way has a high cost in human lives, as is proved by the worrying increase in the frequency of air accidents.
A basic prerequisite for safety is to employ permanent flight crews.
The special nature of their duties must preclude the use of seasonal or part-time crews, which inevitably cannot offer the requisite guarantee of adequate training and experience.
That, too, is something we are worried about, since we are witnessing procedures in which collective agreements are being broken and flexible labour relations are being imposed, as shown by the recent amendment passed by the Greek Government concerning Public Corporations and Organizations, and the plans to make Olympic Airways 'healthier' .
We agree with the establishment of a minimum training level, and consider it necessary that aircrews should undergo periodic training whenever they are to transfer to a different type of aircraft (this training being regarded as working time), to be concluded by appropriate testing for the renewal or award of a new certificate.
However, the responsibility for the programme and the assessment and awarding of the training certificate must lie with the Civil Aviation Authority in each state.
We oppose the concession of training in a field of particular public interest to private or other 'approved' bodies, which are difficult to monitor in practice and can easily be drawn into competition.
Subject to that precondition, the principle of reciprocal 'attestation of professional training' recognition which would guarantee that appropriate training had been given and the necessary requirements had been satisfied, would be a positive factor.
Owing to the strict health requirements which cabin crews must satisfy, they must undergo special annual medical examinations explicitly defined at EU level, confirmed by the issuing of a medical certificate guaranteeing that they are capable of doing their work.
In the event of a health problem (defined homogeneously throughout the EU) the crew member must be re-assigned as ground crew.
No provision has been made for monitoring the implementation of the directive.
We consider that monitoring should be carried out by a single independent authority to check requirements related to the cabin crews of all air carriers operating in the EU, without exception.
Infringements should result in sanctions amounting if necessary to the suspension or revocation of the operating licence.
The same requirements should apply to air carriers of third countries to the extent that they operate flights within the EU.
Le Rachinel report (A4-0014/98)
Various recent events, to be deplored in all 15 countries of the European Union, increasingly prove that it is necessary to strengthen Directive 70/156 on the regulations concerning some 18 million motor vehicles and their trailers with regard to the transport of dangerous goods.
The current system of national approval of vehicles is undesirable.
Now that harmonization is taking place across the spectrum, it is necessary to do the same in this sector connected as it is to the safety of those who transport dangerous goods and the unfortunately high number of victims of road accidents.
The trial which has just begun in Andorra (outside the European Union) is a sad reminder of the fact that almost two million people are killed or injured in the European Union every year.
Significant progress has already been made, particularly in terms of having more standardized dimensions and maximum lighterage for vehicles and their trailers.
The economic consequences have also been taken into consideration.
We can no longer be lax on issues such as braking systems, fire risk prevention and speed limitation, which is why we are interested in the harmonization proposed today.
Therefore I support Mr Le Rachinel's report.
The harmonization of vehicles grouped into five classes is very logical.
In order to ensure that there is satisfactory interconnection between existing road networks and to eventually allow for the improved use of major routes, we must improve the safety of all vehicles, starting with those which transport dangerous goods.
Le Rachinel report (A4-0024/98)
We have abstained from voting because we are opponents of centrally imposed EU labels and see this as a step in that direction.
We think the explanatory statement, which refers to a 1998 European Parliament resolution which demanded that the European flag should be on vehicle number plates 'in order to increase the citizens' awareness of Europe' , partly confirms this, and is absurd.
I am glad that, for once, the European institutions are taking up an idea which comes from the smallest country in the European Community.
In fact, in 1985, Grand Duke Jean suggested to his Minister for Transport at the time that he design a European registration plate for cars registered in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
In response to this suggestion, two proposals were submitted to the government: one which corresponds to the Commission's proposal and the other which, in the interest of European unity, does not incorporate any distinctive national sign.
The latter was approved by the Luxembourg government and, after a change in the highway code, introduced as the official plate for Luxembourg cars.
Since some European countries do not want to abandon a national sign on their registration plates, there should be no problem if the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg accepts the Commission's proposal or if Luxembourg cars also have a registration plate with an L in the middle of 12 stars on a blue background.
It will then be up to the Commission to find a way to ensure that this European initiative is recognized in the other countries, which still want to keep a distinctive, white, oval sign for the different countries.
I also believe that, now that European membership is clearly indicated externally, we should get rid of other registration plates such as the green or blue plates that we see from time to time, and why not have registration plates that show we are officials of the European institutions?
Poisson report (A4-0020/98)
On behalf of the Danish Social Democrats, I have tabled an amendment to the report on foods for special nutritional purposes.
This amendment, which the committee has adopted, says that these kinds of foods which are given temporarily to meet specific animal requirements must not under any circumstances contain antibiotic growth agents.
This amendment is an important step towards guaranteeing consumers healthier foods.
In matters like this, the EU should be out in front in world terms, so that consumers can feel secure about the foods they eat.
The reports received on the possible implications for health are far too serious to ignore.
There is a risk that people will become resistant to important drugs if they eat products treated with growth promoting agents.
It is also a recognizedd fact that if farmers ensure good stall hygiene, using growth agents is totally unnecessary.
This is an important step in the right direction towards imposing a ban on using antibiotic growth agents in connection with foods for special nutritional purposes.
Producers should not be able to use such substances as part of temporary additives to animal feed.
The WTO recommends that all growth promotors should be banned.
I therefore call on the Commission to support this amendment, and at the same time I demand that the Commission conduct a risk analysis into all antibiotic growth promotors.
Saying no to the use of antibiotic growth promoters in this context will hopefully open the way for us to obtain a general ban in the EU on using these toxic substances in the long run.
Berend report (A4-0016/98)
Mr President, I have voted in favour of this report although the parts containing the evaluation of the grants appear to be too slight.
Nevertheless I consider the report to be justified and voted positively.
The report emphasizes that under-implementation of the Structural Funds is mainly due to incomplete planning and the administrative fragmentation to which they are subject.
We support the rapporteur in welcoming the concentration, simplification and reduction in the number of forms of intervention proposed by the Commission in Agenda 2000.
However, this simplification should not lead to a reduction in regional aid to Sweden (also in view of the fact that Sweden is one of the largest net contributors to the EU's budget), particularly to the Objective 6 area.
On the other hand, we cannot support the content of paragraphs 32 and 38, which involve trying to avoid any repayment to the Member States.
A reform of structural funds is currently under debate within the framework of a timetable which provides for a new plan from the year 2000.
It is natural and normal, given the experiences of the 89-94 and 94-99 plans, to reconsider the criteria and conditions of application of these structural funds and I agree with the demands for more transparency, coherence, decentralization and precision.
I am concerned about the risk of a reform which would in fact be designed to face up to the consequences of the Union's enlargement and the budgetary austerity of the Member States, in helping the new Member States from Eastern Europe, without sufficiently increasing the European budgets.
Since I represent a region which has benefited from having Objective 1 status since 1994 and Objective 2 status since 1989, I know the importance of such aid. There would be dramatic consequences if this aid were to brutally disappear.
We certainly need new criteria but only on the condition that they are aimed at improving the new system and not turning it upside down.
In all cases, if there are modifications for certain areas, then provisional measures will be called for in order to avoid "cut-off' and threshold effects.
My final concern is to ensure that the construction of Europe continues to be based on solidarity and harmony.
The dominant liberal ideology must not destroy our devices on behalf of principles and an ancient law which only represent "the law of the strongest' and its consequences.
I welcome the production of the report by Mr Berend.
Obviously the teething problems that resulted in only 75 % of funds being spent in 1994 have been resolved to the extent that this figure has risen to 95 % in 1996.
Part of the problem is due to the unnecessary red tape that exists and I welcome the fact that the reform of future structural fund regulations lays great emphasis on reducing this further.
I also support Mr Berend's view that devolution to the regions will provide further improvement.
From an Irish point of view, we have always been efficient in spending structural funds.
The generosity of our EU partners in this regard has played a significant part in the performance of what is now termed the 'Celtic Tiger' economy.
Although we cannot and should not expect the same level of structural fund aid in the future, it is nonetheless important that there is a reasonable transition period.
A too abrupt turning off of the 'EU tap' could jeopardize the very successful performance of the Irish economy.
This report is important because we are on the eve of a new period of structural programming, the period 2000-2006.
We must make use of it to learn lessons from mistakes made in the past.
I would like to thank Mr Berend for his meticulous work which provides us with a clear and precise analysis of the problems experienced during the period 1994-1999, as well as a description of the improvements noted.
These problems are due to many, varied reasons according to the administrative organization of each Member State.
As regards my country and my region, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, one of the main recipients of Community aid, it must be pointed out that the delays are for the most part caused by France and by the Commission: delays in the presentation of SPDs by the Member State, delays in the co-financing for which the Member State is responsible, delays in the forwarding of appropriations to final recipients, etc.
However, the Commission is no longer free from all reproach in this process!
It is responsible for the numerous regulations and the lack of transparency in the funds as well as for the complexity of the procedures and the difficulty countries experience in responding to the criteria laid down.
We should learn from these errors and draw up a new regulation which gives priority to the partnership between the Commission and Member State as well as to decentralization, particularly within the Member State, with the participation of all the social, economic and environmental partners in order to make all the players aware of their responsibilities.
We should take advantage of this occasion to draw up a new regulation with clearly defined rules on cofinancing for which the Member States will be responsible.
This is what the Berend report is inviting us to do.
Let us hope that the Council and the Commission are listening!
We all appreciate that negotiations are under way at an advanced state with regard to the share-out of the next EU Structural Fund round 2000-2006.
Some general yardsticks have been put in place by means of the 'Agenda 2000' document launched by the European Commission last year, but extensive fine-tuning remains to be carried out with regards to specific allocations of Structural Funds to each Member State.
I fully welcome the statement of Regional Affairs Commissioner Monika Wulf-Mathies when she stated that countries which presently are in receipt of EU Structural Funds will continue to be in receipt of such monies under the next EU Structural Fund round.
From an Irish perspective, the border county region and the province of Connaught merit to be designated Objective 1 status for the period 2000-2006.
This will entitle these regions to the maximum amount of European Regional, Social, Agricultural and Fisheries funds.
The province of Connaught and the border county region are not as wealthy as the east coast of Ireland and should not be put in the same bracket when it comes to the disbursing of EU Structural Funds monies.
I furthermore would like to welcome comments of Jacques Santer, when he stated that he supports the continuation of the Leader II Rural Development scheme and the INTERREG II cross-border scheme during the period 2000/2006.
The Leader II scheme is a highly successful programme, worth £100 million to Ireland, at this juncture, in terms of the jobs that it assists in creating in rural Ireland.
The Interred II Cross-Border programme is similarly an important initiative in terms of the jobs that it creates in border regions.
The European Commission will shortly table its proposals for the future operation of the structural funds.
It seems likely that the Commission will propose a reduction of the amount of funding available to some parts of the Union because of the progress made in recent years in generating economic growth and development, notably in Ireland.
I believe that the Commission must ensure that its proposals for transitional arrangements for countries such as Ireland do not undermine the progress made over the last few years.
The phasing-out of maximum grant aid should occur over the longest possible period of time with a view to minimising the impact of this reduction on the Irish economy.
Secondly, despite the fact that the Irish economy as a whole has exceeded the threshold level for Objective I status, many parts of the country are still well below the threshold level and should still qualify for maximum aid rates.
The different situations which exist in the different parts of the country should be taken on board by the European Commission in formulating its proposals.
Regions of the country which have still not reached the threshold level in terms of their economic growth should not be penalised because of the strong growth level recorded in other parts of the country.
The Commission must recognize the importance of appropriate transitional arrangements and the need to differentiate between regions with strong growth levels and those with weak growth levels within individual countries, prior to formulating their proposals.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Berend Report on the Structural Funds comes just at the right time.
Particularly now when we are discussing the continuation and future form of the structural fund the report offers a good basis upon which we can build the future constructively.
European structural policy must support effectively and efficiently the efforts of the Member States, the Regions and others involved in order to contribute to the reduction of the backlog in the development of the economically weakest areas.
It is, however, no more than a supplement to local initiatives in the process of necessary innovative structural change.
This supplementary factor becomes clear in the relevant co-financing of the Member States.
We know that it is precisely the raising of local resources which inhibits applications for EU resources.
Nevertheless we must continue to adhere to this criterion in the future.
For only someone who pays his share of something ascribes any value to the project, and things which we get for nothing are also known to be worth nothing.
When considering the table of applications for funds we find that in 1996 100 % of the funds for Objective 5b were applied for.
Objective 5b is one of the objectives which concentrates in particular on rural areas.
The rural area thus, as I see it, has its special place of value in the Member States, in the regions.
Therefore we must draw up a specific and comprehensive initiative for the future of the rural areas, in order to promote their positive development.
That means creating infrastructure and jobs.
I come from the rural area.
We educate our children as best we can, send them to schools and universities.
But we do not only educate them, but we send them away because, with their good education, they cannot find jobs in rural areas.
Let us leave more decision making authority in the use of funds in the regions and let us give the regional committees more say.
The people on the spot know where the shoe pinches and how it can be made to fit.
The report gives a clear picture of how the Structural Funds have been managed.
It also describes the initial difficulties the Member States had which resulted in an under-implementation of appropriations.
The proposal to start the next programme planning period in a different way is therefore welcomed.
What I think is missing, apart from a quantitative analysis of the economic means, is a qualitative analysis of how the money has been used.
Such an analysis should also investigate any dynamic effects and side-effects in various areas, both negative and positive.
I have voted in favour of the Berend report because it is a comprehensive analysis of the causes of under-implementation of resources.
Structural fund actions are the key budgetary tool which Europe has to tackle unemployment, support job creation and underpin the Treaty objective of economic and social cohesion.
The Socialist Group amendment to paragraph 32 was tabled in order not to give carte blanche to the Commission to penalize or sanction Member States for the non-utilization of resources.
Our prime objective must be to improve the flow of resources to the final beneficiaries and to support those regions in most need.
The arbitrary removal of resources without a defined set of criteria potentially undermines our actions in achieving economic and social cohesion and tackling unemployment.
Reinforcing the Commission's power of sanctions to arbitrarily reallocate resources is not in the spirit of decentralization and subsidiarity.
Any financial penalties or sanctions with an impact on programmes in regions and local areas therefore needs careful consideration by all partners.
I am pleased that the rapporteur and the PPE Group chose finally to support the PSE Amendment No 8 in plenary vote.
This is a well-written report which addresses the urgent need for improvement in the implementation of Structural Fund appropriations.
Those of us who represent regions where there is a strong Structural Fund dimension to economic and social development have been calling for improvements in the implementation of the entire programme for a long time.
If funding is to bring real benefit then it must be implemented efficiently and transparently.
I support the case for decision-making being taken as far as possible in the regions.
The closer decisions are taken to the people, the more efficient and transparent the programme will be.
I make the same point in regard to structural funding as I do on most social issues which is that the expertise at national and local level should be used as much as possible.
My primary concern in regard to the funds is under-utilization.
By failing to utilize all the available resources, we are failing our regions.
However, we should note that the Commission has endeavoured to ameliorate this problem with some success.
The presentation of this report on the implementation of the Structural Funds presents our group with the opportunity to make a brief point on the very future of the Structural Funds.
In fact, within the framework of Agenda 2000, it is the European Union's duty to welcome in some of the CEECs and Cyprus, which, as I recall, will all be eligible for Objective 1 status, while respecting the inescapable financial framework of the 0.46 % of GDP laid down for Member States of the European Union.
The proposals drawn up by the Commission in its Agenda 2000 communication are deceptive since they underestimate the economic consequences of enlargement.
The future of structural policy would therefore seem to be uncertain and will have to undergo significant reform.
In order to provide the Structural Funds with the efficiency they are lacking, it is essential to simplify the administrative procedures, to stop spreading funds too thinly and concentrate efforts on the only integrated, Community policies, that is, the CAP and the CFP.
Moreover, there is a fear that the rural regions, although they are affected differently by the effects of the CAP and the CFP, will be the main victims of this bitter pill.
According to the Commission, the new Objective 2 should only benefit 18 % of the Community population.
Nowadays, it is the rural regions in the European Union that benefit from having Objective 5a status.
In future, the percentage of rural regions benefiting from aid will be minimal.
It is essential to remind ourselves that structural aid to help the rural world was developed in 1992/1993 in order to compensate for the reform of the CAP and to respond to the devastating effects of internationalization and the GATT.
This is why we are once more calling for the creation of specific secondary objectives within the future Objective 2: one for rural areas and the other for maritime and shore areas.
The stakes are even higher than those concerningagriculture: we must maintain a model of European economic development which encourages the balanced development of our territory so as to preserve our natural and cultural heritage which is both rich and fragile.
In his report, Mr Berend presents a detailed analysis of the implementation of Structural Fund appropriations; however, many of his conclusions, as well as certain underlying postulates, cannot receive our support.
For example, the rapporteur tries to highlight the reasons why some appropriations are not always fully used.
In reality, there are two obstacles to using all the Structural Fund appropriations.
The first is due to the administrative constraints imposed by the Commission.
In fact, the administrative process generally takes between one and two years to allocate the funds.
Many of those responsible for projects are therefore discouraged by this procedure since it leads to both additional internal, administrative costs as well as financial costs in releasing appropriations.
The second obstacle, in his opinion, is much more political.
In fact, to make better use of the funds, the European Commission demands that they be co-financed by Member States and/or local or regional authorities.
In addition, these Member States are obliged, given the convergence criteria they must fulfill to be part of economic and monetary union (single currency), to bring their budgetary deficit under control.
Consequently, they prefer not to commit to programmes so that they are not obliged to get involved in co-financing.
Finally, we must remember that the portion of the European budget which is not spent is returned to the Member States in accordance with their contribution to the budget, thereby leading to some "pocket receipts' which themselves allow the Member States to somewhat control their budgetary deficit.
In conclusion, if the Structural Funds are not being distributed to an acceptable level, we should maybe look further than the end of our noses and analyze the real consequences the single currency will have for the decisions made by the Ministers for Finance from the different Member States.
Joint motion for a resolution on the Kyoto Summit
Just a few months after the Kyoto Conference, the first signs of that agreement's inadequacy to deal with the serious environmental problems faced by our planet and mankind are beginning to emerge.
The desperate cries about the rapidly approaching destructive consequences towards which the economic policies pursued today are leading us with mathematical certainty, echo in the ears of those who will not listen.
The multinational companies and, more generally, multinational capital do not permit any changes that could cut profits and control the markets.
Thus, any half-measures decided upon are essentially based on the opportunities created for those enterprises to increase their profits and consolidate their dominance.
The same factors characterize the effort to commercialize pollution rights, which will further delay measures for the reduction of environmental pollution in the more developed industrial countries and will directly influence the development capabilities of the less developed countries.
As we approach the Fourth Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climatic Change, we must not forget that the European Union, with 6 % of the world's population, produces over 14 % of CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.
The reduction of those emissions by 15 % in the European Union should be regarded as a minimum contribution, which alongside the application of appropriate policies and technology, could result in lower costs.
Support for programmes promoting the use of renewable energy sources must become a prime objective of the Union and its Member States, as well as appropriate planning of the reduction of emissions in each sector, for example transport, industry, energy, etc.
The European Union must not take advantage of the options provided by the Kyoto protocol to distance itself from the targets it set itself and must not have anything to do with agreements on the trading of pollution rights.
The need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is now a matter of urgency.
The more highly industrially developed countries, which are mainly responsible for the phenomenon, must assume the responsibilities that fall to them and not use it to perpetuate their dominant economic position.
In the context of a different policy for the benefit of mankind, it is now necessary to assist the development of third countries and transfer resources and technology that will enable them to combine their development with their contribution towards reducing pollution.
Such action must constitute an important factor in the orientation of preparations for the Fourth Conference in Buenos Aires.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the resolution putting pressure on the EU Commission and Council to get them to go furthest and provide a good example at the climate negotiations.
The EU's original proposals contained a 15 % reduction of greenhouse gases by the year 2010 for three selected greenhouse gases.
At Kyoto, it was decided to reduce six different gases in our part of the world by 8 % between 2008 and 2012.
The Danish Social Democrats think this is a good idea, but there are two things which should be emphasised.
First, it is essential that the EU put pressure on the USA, other OECD countries and Russia to avoid delays in ratifying the Kyoto protocol.
Second, it is essential that the EU should go furthest: we have the resources to do so, and we have the opportunities.
There are many areas the EU could get involved in - transport, energy supplies and the like in the EU, but also via the EU's programme of assistance to Eastern Europe, with a view to more energy efficiency and developing cleaner technology.
Joint motion for a resolution on Iraq
Mr President, I cannot in all conscience vote for the resolution we supported here today, primarily because of paragraphs 4 and 5 which I find to be totally offensive and repugnant in the way in which they seek to disguise their intention.
These weasel words are designed to cover up the legitimization of military force and only compound the shame of launching an attack which, far from achieving any military objective, will result in the death of other human beings already suffering under the yoke of Saddam Hussein and economic sanctions.
Of course I would insist that Iraq respects the UN resolutions but why are we so selective?
What of other nations such as Israel and the United States of America which defy UN resolutions at will?
Why do we feel entitled to adopt a moral tone? The possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction is morally indefensible no matter who is the possessor or who poses the threat.
After 2000 years of Christianity we still revert to bomb, to maim and to kill.
Suffer the little children indeed!
We cannot support a military intervention against Iraq.
However, the UN Charter does provide the possibility of using military means as a last resort when peace is threatened.
However, such a decision must be taken by the UN Security Council.
Therefore we have voted for Amendment No. 1.
Like my colleagues, I, too, sincerely hope that a diplomatic solution can be found to resolve the crisis in Iraq.
I fear, however, that Saddam Hussein's recent attitude has not been moving in this direction.
The UN experts must be able to carry out their work in accordance with Resolution 687 of the Security Council.
As long as Saddam Hussein does not accept this, no compromise can be made.
He must firstly abandon his projects to develop chemical and biological weapons.
This is a service which must be carried out for the Iraqi people who have been living under economic conditions which are worse than critical, since most of the country's budget is devoted to weapons.
Only Saddam Hussein can be blamed for the deplorable living conditions they experience and we must not consider them to be a direct repercussion of the international embargo.
If Saddam Hussein continues with this attitude, there will only be disagreeable solutions involving constraints which will obviously not be totally satisfying.
I therefore embrace the total support given to the Secretary General of the United Nations for the mission he has undertaken in Iraq.
However, if military action was attempted, only Saddam Hussein would be morally responsible.
We are glad that the Secretary General of the United Nations is making a visit to Baghdad tomorrow, a visit which we sincerely hope will be a success for multilateral diplomacy.
However, irrespective of the outcome of these negotiations, we would not accept any actions against Iraq that are not authorized by the Security Council of the United Nations.
Any other solution would be harmful both to the principle of international law and, more importantly, the credibility of the arguments that the Western powers employ against Iraq.
We are still very uncertain about the effectiveness of a military option which should not be envisaged unless all diplomatic instruments have failed.
We are convinced that unilateral action, and potentially a military response, is neither effective nor justified.
Unfortunately, in this matter, we can only regret the fact that we lack a real common foreign and security policy.
Europe is running the risk of continuing to be an economic giant who is only a political dwarf.
During the first Gulf Crisis, after the invasion of Kuwait, I supported military intervention against Iraq.
We had a mandate from the UN and enormous international support, including Arab support.
Europe was active and present.
We won "that war' , but we saw its consequences and limits.
There were many victims in both camps and Saddam Hussein remained in power.
This is why, today, if we wish to ensure that the UN resolutions are respected, we need to do all in our power to avoid a military adventure which would set the region ablaze.
We therefore demand a clear mandate from the UN.
It is still necessary to explore as well all the diplomatic routes and, above all, to avoid a confrontation between the West and the Arab world.
Until then, we must not follow Mr Clinton's strategy whose domestic origin is much too obvious.
Europe must assert itself and Tony Blair must move away from his visceral Atlanticism and remember that he holds the Presidency of the Union.
France must continue to play its own role, which it does very seriously.
If, in order to achieve peace, we need to know how to make war, then this must only ever come as an extreme and last resort.
This resolution on the situation in Iraq can only lead us to regret the fact that the European Union lacks a common security and defence policy.
Every time there is a serious situation, Europe seems to be absent.
We deplore this fact.
Thus, as a French socialist, I cannot favour the diplomatic route nor give my entire support to the mission undertaken by the UN's Secretary General.
We are placing all our hopes in his trip.
For us, the military option can only come as a last resort, after the failure of all other diplomatic efforts.
It must only be contemplated on the basis of a formal and written mandate from the United Nations.
Besides, if military action were chosen, what good would it serve? I doubt that Saddam Hussein would be the victim.
Seven years ago, the Americans were responsible for a horrible massacre of the Iraqi people on behalf of their President, Mr Bush. It was a slaughter that was presented to public opinion by a unanimous media - and this is a prime example of Anglo-Saxon humour - as a clean, surgical war.
Today, American arrogance is intact and the Iraqi people, who have already lived through seven years of misery, deprived of medicine, electricity and food, watching their children die from hunger and disease, are about to experience this new tragedy.
There is absolutely no proof that Iraq represents a military threat, either to its neighbours or the world.
However, it is essential for Mr William Clinton to make us forget his pitiful macho behaviour when playing the fascist and, a few months before the next presidential elections, to satisfy the demands of the Israeli extreme right and the aggressive Mr Netanyahu.
It is our duty as Europeans to stop Israel and the United States of America in their murdering madness.
It is time to provide us with the means to do this.
The motion for a resolution on the situation in Iraq determines the framework for a positive compromise on the attitude which Europeans should defend within international bodies, in particular the idea that military intervention should not be used to ensure that international law is respected unless all diplomatic options have been explored and exploited.
However, we should have highlighted better the essential requirement that the only body authorized to decide what action should be taken to settle this conflict is the Security Council of the UN.
This is why I would have like the amendment aimed at replacing the phrase "formal deliberation' by the Security Council with formal "decision' , since it is out of the question that the USA can intervene or decide to act while the Security Council is content to exchange views or to indicate its reservations.
The European Union show that it is determined to ensure that the UN is recognized as the decision-making body, and refuse the de facto leadership of a single country, in this case the United States of America.
In this crisis, the European Union should have acted more coherently and we regret that certain heads of state rushed to the side of the American President to support his plan for military intervention.
Unfortunately, we can clearly see here the terrible and harmful consequences of the lack of institutional progress as regards the CFSP: Europe is powerless on the international stage!
Apart from the disastrous human effects military intervention in Iraq would have, we have the right to question the effectiveness of such a decision if the desired aims are actually those stated: the respect of international rules and the refusal to allow Iraq to arm itself with chemical and nuclear weapons.
It is frightening to think that after such intervention, the Iraqi regime might still be anti-democratic, inspections more difficult and the country might continue to arm itself on its own territory or elsewhere.
The only people to be punished will be those who had no choice: the country's inhabitants.
The diplomatic options should therefore be explored with conviction until they are exhausted.
Finally, the policy of double standards should not be applied within the framework of international law and of the respect for agreements signed.
Our Parliament and Europe must endeavour to ensure that the peace process in the Middle East continues as expected and, along with the UN, take useful steps in respect of the commitments made.
We must not be taken in by the allegation that there is an urgent need for a massive counter-attack in Iraq.
The USA suddenly became more alarmist only after the UN's decision to establish the "oil for food' process, which would have affected the price of petrol, and when considerations regarding internal policy seemed to push President Clinton towards a spectacular external initiative.
Europe must, whatever the circumstances, maintain its autonomous assessments and its independence.
Peace in Iraq, in the Middle East, is the result of sustained, balanced action based solely on the application of law.
The route chosen by the United States is not the right route.
Military intervention is not acceptable.
On behalf of my colleague, Mrs Ewing, and myself, I wish to state that the Scottish National Party condemns the actions of Saddam Hussein in flouting the will of the international community and seeking continually to evade the completion of UN arms inspections.
Iraq must abide by the terms set up by the UN, and the SNP accepts that the UN has the right to use force in order to secure acceptance as a last resort if all other means fail.
However, the SNP questions the clarity of the present war aims as enunciated by both the US and British Governments.
The SNP fully supports UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in his mission to Baghdad.
In addition, the SNP commends proper consideration of the proposals to establish 'no drive' zones to augment the existing 'no fly' zones, and to set up in these areas a provisional administration as the first step to bringing about pluralist and democratic government for the whole of Iraq.
These proposals would also alleviate the plight of the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs, who have been persecuted over decades by the Ba'athist regime.
The SNP believes that such proposals would weaken the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, rather than run the risk of strengthening it, and would avoid the civilian casualties which could result, for example, from air strikes against military targets near civilian centres.
Joint motion for a resolution on the 54th United Nations Assembly
It is very disappointing that although the EU will be taking effective action on Nigeria, Burma and the rights of women and children, there will not be a similar initiative on human rights abuses in China.
It is appalling that there is no consensus within the Council on this issue.
The obvious reason for this state of affairs is that too many Member States consider that commercial and trading interests should take precedence over human rights concerns.
How can we speak with moral authority on the issue of human rights elsewhere in the world if we choose to ignore the situation in China? Those Member States which are prostituting themselves for thirty pieces of silver should be ashamed.
Their lack of action on this issue makes a nonsense of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy.
We have voted for the resolution in all its parts.
However, we would like to make some comments.
Paragraph 1 names a whole list of countries in which breaches of human rights take place, and which the report particularly wants to point out.
We agree completely that all of these countries should be criticized for these breaches, but at the same time we think that a number of other countries could have been included in this list.
Cuba, for example, is mentioned in the statement.
We agree that breaches of human rights happen in Cuba, but in Latin America there are also a number of other countries where these breaches are considerably worse than in Cuba.
Mexico, Brazil and Peru are examples of states in which defenceless union and farming activists and other civilians have been murdered by various paramilitary groups.
For this and other reasons, the choice of states on the list is somewhat misleading.
In paragraph 2 special priority is given to Algeria.
We agree that this is necessary in view of the serious situation in the country, but some other states could also be mentioned here, such as Colombia, where the state-sponsored terrorism against large parts of the country's population is getting worse.
Finally, we agree with the statement's severe criticism of the situation in China.
We think it would be correct to say that no progress has been made in China as far as human rights are concerned.
Seal report (A4-0015/98)
I wish to place on record my support for Amendment No 3 in the name of the GUE/NGL Group.
This amendment expresses support for the right of Ryanair workers to join a trade union and have that trade union represent them in negotiations with their employers.
As a strong supporter of the Social Chapter I am disappointed that the body of EU legislation that emanates from it does not enshrine this right and this is something we should remedy as a matter of urgency.
The downward slope of unrestrained competition and deregulation seems to have no end.
Even before completion of the third liberalization package, the Commission, within the scope of its 'justification' , is announcing a further hardening of its attitude, provocatively ignoring any social parameters and concepts of public interest and service, and emerging in essence as the official agent of the powerful multinational interests of the air.
Thousands of redundancies, the overturning of collective agreements in the name of competitiveness, the invocation of the Damoclean sword of company closures, the abolition of routes or concession of flights to private capital, accelerated privatizations, the appearance of companies with doubtful guarantees which call into question the quality of their services, flight safety and labour relations, all these are what makes up the landscape of a liberalized air transport market, even before the attempt concerned has been completed.
For the Commission, of course, all this does not represent an 'explosive' change.
It is simply aware of the 'possible consequences' for employment and is 'preparing a study' .
As for the celebrated argument that competition leads to price reductions, it acknowledges that this has not happened and denies that wherever the newly arrived competitors have led to a minimal proportional differentiation, this is because costs are being cut as never before, with adverse consequences for the safety of working people who are employed under third-world conditions, and for the quality of the services offered.
In its statement it ignores the consequences, for airports and those working there, of the directive on the liberalization of handling and of the regulation on the liberalization of cabotage.
It calls for more rapid privatization and for restructuring in the branch, it demands 'strict' application of the rules of competition, it announces the further restriction of state aid, it directly calls into question the principle of an overall service, speaking about 'excessive use of the obligations to provide a public service' and about the need to examine 'the extent to which those obligations are a hidden means to restrict access to the market' .
Needless to say, it does not bother to explain how the demands of management based on the private investment principle are to be reconciled with the increased and specific obligations of national air carriers to provide means of communication, connection and development for remote areas.
Nor is it worried by its finding that such lines are usually unprofitable and consequently of no interest to anyone acting on the basis of market forces alone.
The rapporteur fully accepts the EU's entire policy and rationale.
Indeed, he urges the Commission and the Council to accelerate 'decisively' the furtherance of matters still outstanding, calls for stricter application of the guidelines on state aid and for the rejection of any 'special treatment' for national carriers, asks that the turnovers of 'strong' companies in Europe should be improved - obviously, to the cost of the weaker companies, which risk bankruptcy because of the public interest obligations they have -, and accepts the liberalization of cabotage while admitting that most internal routes are unprofitable operations.
We cannot accept the contradiction between the complete acceptance of unrestrained competition and simple 'concern' lest that might entail some risk to safety and employment, favouring social dumping.
We refuse to be content with 'noting' or 'expressing concern' about the retrograde steps which some wish to impose.
We consider that the interests of the people, the workers, the users of air transport are more important than the interests that are trying to maximize the market share of the powerful groups of air transport companies.
We will therefore vote against the report.
The liberalization of air transport has certainly had some good effects on the market.
However, at the same time, in spite of the fact that it is 'controlled' , it has led to several negative effects, which I think are far too lightly dealt with in this report.
The rapporteur states clearly that liberalization has led to an increase in size of the whole air transport market and that the forecasts for the coming decade are an annual growth rate of 6-7 per cent (observations J and L respectively).
Personally I see this as disturbing, partly because it means an additional burden on the environment because aircraft are not a particularly environmentally friendly means of transport, and partly because the airspace over Europe is already congested. This could lead to a decline in air safety if traffic increases.
Social issues are not often referred to here or in the Commission's document, which is regrettable.
It is clear that in certain cases liberalization has led to reduced influence for union bodies and therefore for employees.
Keppelhoff-Wiechert report (A4-0037/98)
We are now aware of the consequences of using genetic engineering in agriculture.
Using genetically modified plants in open natural systems can have damaging effects which we have no way of assessing today.
In this report, the rapporteur demands that this practice be supported.
We cannot support it.
It has been shown time and time again that using plants which have been made resistant to diseases or toxic to pests has had directly the opposite consequences.
Using corn which was toxic to insect larvae, for instance, led in fact to those pests becoming resistant to the plants.
In this case, the advantage of spraying that the pests are only affected for a short period and so cannot become resistant.
Without wishing to defend this method of pest control in any way, we wish to point out that it has also emerged that using genetic weapons has made the problem of pests harder to deal with.
This report wishes to encourage research into genetic engineering in agriculture, and says this should be done to encourage people to use it.
This is by no means unproblematic.
Apart from the environmental implications and risks which genetic engineering involves, we cannot be sure that genetically modified organisms will not have an adverse effect on human health, even if no such health problems can be shown in connection with such organisms today.
We know that using genetic engineering can threaten biodiversity and that using it will lead to a monopoly of the crop market.
We cannot allow the profit motive in agriculture to take precedence over human health and the environment.
Instead of putting resources into researching methods as uncertain as genetic engineering, we should focus on an area which is largely unresearched: that is, we should put more resources into finding out how Nature's own mechanisms combat pests and plants.
Agriculture in the next millennium must face up to a two-fold challenge: feeding a world population which will double over the next 30 years while respecting man and the environment.
In order to maintain its competitiveness, European agriculture, as well as related industries, must be able to benefit from technologies adapted to global competition.
In the Commission's proposals in Agenda 2000, we clearly see a desire to advance the globalization of European agriculture by lowering administered prices and decreasing the level of aid.
We need to have a coherent position.
It is, in fact, the same people who want both to decrease aid to agriculture and delay the development of technological agriculture.
Personally, I do not believe that the globalization of European agriculture is the right solution.
However, in this context, where the Commission, along with a certain number of Members of this Parliament, hopes for further advances, I do not see how we could miss out on the development of biotechnology.
To allow this revolution to pass us by outside European frontiers, while at the same time abolishing Community preferences, would lead to the total destruction of our agriculture.
As regards legislation, the European Union and the Member States must guarantee both a certain flexibility to allow the development of private and public initiatives and health safety for consumers.
The principle of precaution must be the main element behind legislation and evaluations must be carried out on a strict, scientific basis.
I voted against the Keppelhoff-Wiechert report.
I fear that it is too sanguine about the possibility of controlling biotechnology and about the part biotechnology could play in feeding the world.
Biotechnology is being promoted by huge, inadequately controlled economic interests.
The likelihood, at present, is that an expansion of biotechnology will serve those interests, not the environment and not humanity.
Mr President, we see in the Chamber today that at one point it was a very important matter for the individual concerned to explain to the rest of the House why he was voting in a particular way.
That right has been removed.
If you look round you will see that there are only two or three Members present, four including yourself.
Is it not a disgrace that the right of Members has been taken away in this manner? The only people who are suffering are the interpreters who stay here loyally to hear one explanation of vote.
It is a disgrace how the President and the Bureau are handling these matters.
It is time that you, who was elected to look after Members' rights, start to exercise your authority in the Bureau and give the Members back their rights.
Otherwise this Chamber will fall into further discredit.
Very well, Mr Falconer, I will pass on your opinion to the Bureau.
In addition, they will be noted in the verbatim report of proceedings.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
B4-0189/98 by Mr Dell'Alba and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Afghanistan; -B4-0191/98 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the V Group, on Afghanistan; -B4-0211/98 by Mrs Lulling and Mrs Oomen-Ruitjen, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Afghanistan; -B4-0220/98 by Mrs André-Léonard and others, on Afghanistan; -B4-0228/98 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on Afghanistan; - B4-0233/98 by Mr Sornosa Martínez and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Afghanistan; -B4-0253/98 by Mrs Hoff, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Afghanistan.
Madam President, Mr Vice President of the Commission, I am very pleased that, every so often, our group is the first to be able to talk about the situation in Afghanistan.
We have before us the rare tragic pictures of the earthquake that has affected thousands of people and the difficulties encountered by the humanitarian organizations, such as ECHO which is currently in the region to provide aid for the population; we also have before us the dramatic and rare pictures of events under the medieval Taliban regime, equally illustrating the situation of women in particular.
This debate is also a tribute paid by Parliament to the cause of Afghan women, a cause which the Commission has so admirably sought to resume by launching the campaign, "a flower for the women of Kabul' .
This campaign is probably the most significant gesture that could be made to show that we are not ignoring or accepting as inevitable as inevitable the many evils afflicting this society: racial segregation and, according to some, a sexual apartheid that offend the conscience of both the western and the Islamic world.
The best way forward is a vote for a resolution that not only firmly condemns the Taliban regime and all its supporters, including trustworthy western powers, but also asks forcefully for support for the Commission and that all possible measures to be taken to overthrow the Taliban regime, contrary to what some organizations are doing, such as the UNDCP, which is trying to reach an agreement with the regime.
Madam President, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is using religious arguments to suppress the rights of women; worse still, they try to make it impossible for women to take part in public society.
Education and health care have become taboo for women, and they are not allowed to show themselves in the street unless they are accompanied by their brother, their husband or their father, let alone voice an opinion in public.
This is a flagrant violation of human rights, and therefore also of the rights of women, which has become a daily occurrence in the region of Afghanistan where the Taliban rule.
There is no other country in the world where this type of human rights violation is as acute as in Afghanistan.
But the Taliban are in fact a bunch of common scoundrels, power-mad men who want complete control of the entire society, and they keep their regime going through international trade in heroin.
This has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with religion.
We should realize that women in Afghanistan enjoyed much more freedom in the recent past, and that women from all strata of society are affected.
How would the international community react if somewhere in this world women were muzzling men the way the Taliban muzzle women in Afghanistan? It is unthinkable that this would meet simply with mild toleration
Mr President, I would like to draw your attention once more to Article 11, because the Taliban regime is partly kept in the saddle by a number of nations which recognize the country.
With these countries we, the European Union, maintain political and economic relations without too much difficulty.
A stop should be put to this.
Humanitarian aid should continue, in particular now that the effects of the earthquake have become so obvious, but the regime must be isolated.
Madam President, women - as I am sure you will agree - have been used to all types of discrimination for centuries.
The imagination that certain men, certain ideologies and certain regimes have developed over thousands of years in order to bully women, individually or collectively, deserves a place in the Book of Records.
But the way in which they are treated by the odious Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a country which has been ravaged for many years since it was occupied by the Soviet Union, far surpasses the limits of our imagination now at the end of the 20th century.
Unfortunately, we have few illusions as to the direct consequences of the initiative we launched as the Committee on Women's Rights, in conjunction with the Commission, under the auspices of International Women's Day.
We want to make use of this day, 8 March, to make public opinion aware of the distress of Afghan women, who are deprived of the most fundamental human rights by the Taliban regime.
In depriving the Afghan women of their freedom of movement, freedom of expression, access to education and basic health care, the Talibans are turning them into the most deprived, pitiful and unfortunate human beings on the face of the earth. God knows, in this world there are already thousands of other women suffering discrimination, but none to this extent.
We cannot remain silent in the face of such misery.
We must denounce this hateful regime and try to find a way of getting humanitarian aid to them, particularly to the Afghan women, without it being regarded as a recognition of the Taliban regime
We want them to know that they are not alone in their exceedingly difficult and dangerous opposition.
Having lived through the monstrosities of the Nazi occupation during the Second World War, I know how much value those who are resisting such a regime place on moral support.
Let the Afghan women know that we are suffering, that we are struggling with them and that together we will manage to free them from a regime whose leaders are not worthy of being called human beings.
Madam President, can you imagine a woman not being able to work because it is against the law to earn a living? Imagine you had to tell your daughter that she could no longer go to school.
Imagine you had to live in a house where the curtains and windows had to remain closed.
Imagine you had no longer any right to health care.
Imagine the only use women had was to bear children.
I would like to address the Afghan women, who are the target of an apartheid regime which is without precedent, and who are today deprived of fundamental human rights.
While the international community prepares to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, when discussing these women we need to take another look at ourselves and all around us.
If we want more than just the usual cooperation, then we must manage to highlight the inescapable problem of these women.
The questions this discrimination raises are at the heart of the debate on the vision of law and the rule of law.
I would like to express my solidarity with the Afghan women who, despite the oppression they suffer and the unspeakable threats of the Talibans, continually demonstrate against the violation of their fundamental rights and for their right simply to exist.
Mr President, we have already heard a great deal.
We know about the situation of women unfortunate enough to have been born in Afghanistan and now living there.
This debate is taking place a short time before the festival for women.
In the Committee on Womens' Rights we had decided to adopt an initiative on behalf of the women of Afghanistan. I also think, however, that this movement taking place here is very appropriate.
Womens' day is approaching; we all know that each year we celebrate women with various events, some meaningful and others not and we say various things which are very often never followed up.
Of course, anything that awakens public opinion is important and anything that can make us aware of the huge problems that exist is important.
In that corner of the world, appalling things are going on right now, which we talk about when the occasion arises and then forget until the next time they reappear, while the fate of women in Afghanistan is perhaps the worst fate of oppressed women anywhere in the world.
The Commission's initiative is very praiseworthy, and the slogan a flower for the women of Kabul is also a very kind and somewhat romantic one.
Let us ask, however, what our own responsibilities are - I mean in the broadest sense - in the matter.
Because we often speak about illiberal regimes, we often speak about the fate of people living under such regimes, but seldom do we think that many of those regimes would never have seen the light of day, that much of the misery of people living in those countries would not exist, if the countries of the so-called free and civilized world did not have a share of responsibility for those misfortunes.
It is an open secret, it has appeared throughout the press, and no theory has been put forward to question the hypothesis that the United States played a very 'good' and specific part in putting the Talibans into power.
Feminists in the United States have recently tried to block investments in Afghanistan.
Perhaps the feminists will find a solution, because although we often speak about human rights, we frequently do all we can in the free world to prevent human rights from flourishing.
Madam President, Afghanistan has become a strategic challenge on the international stage, thanks in particular to its proximity to oil resources in Central Asia.
This is what explains the tolerance, not to say the complicity, of the United States which, with the support of Pakistan, has allowed the Talibans to take power there.
In the name of a totally mistaken, obscurantist interpretation of Islam, the Talibans inflict every kind of discrimination on the Afghan women and deny them the right to live normally.
They do not have the right to participate in civil life, they have no access to education, or to medical care.
They have no freedom of movement or expression.
To go out, they are obliged to wear a veil which is like prison bars; their clothes are only shackles.
It demonstrates an unprecedented hatred.
This situation is intolerable.
We must increase our efforts in order to lift the veil of silence.
I am therefore glad that the International Women's Day on 8 March is being devoted to Afghan women, as a symbol of our solidarity and to raise the awareness of international opinion.
This Day should not be a last-ditch struggle but the starting point for a campaign to express our support for the Afghan women who struggle for their freedom and their dignity, by applying in their own way the belief of the Algerian poet Jean Senac, that a hunted life invents another life.
Ladies and gentlemen, please imagine for a brief moment - above all the gentlemen - that you may no longer show your face in public, that boys may no longer take part in lessons at school, that public buses may no longer be used, that you may walk down the street only with your nearest female relatives and that you no longer have any claim on the medical services.
That is exactly what is happening to Afghanistani women - a horror scenario forced on them by the Taliban Militia ruling in Kabul.
With fanaticism veiled in religion the women are deprived of their most elementary human rights and the Taliban are not the slightest bit timid in sweeping away all international conventions and humanitarian agreements with unimaginable brutality, financed and supported by the international heroin trade.
The women of Afghanistan have been robbed of their voice.
They need our solidarity.
If they attempt to denounce abroad the violation of their most elementary rights they do so - on pain of death.
The courageous Roses of Afghanistan, as I would like to call these women, need our solidarity, and the European Parliament, above all the women, supports all organizations, all projects which might improve the situation of women in Afghanistan.
The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission must combine their forces and use the humanitarian aid just agreed on worth 34 million German marks in particular for the women, who are especially burdened and needy.
The Taliban have denied foreign aid for women.
We should not allow that!
One emphasis of this year's International Women's Day on 8 March will be to draw attention to the glaring violation of women's rights in Afghanistan and exert international pressure on the government in Kabul.
The Mullah dictatorship must be ended.
The sexual apartheid must disappear from the world stage like a passing nightmare!
Madam President, "life under rubble' was the name of a television documentary after the earthquake in Afghanistan.
Life under the veil - as we have already heard - is the fate of Afghanistan's women.
Not only is this veil extremely unusual even for Islams, but it is a walking prison; those who wear it can see the outside world only through a double grill.
They may not go out alone, they may not go to school, they have practically no access to health care.
This is all because - and I do not like to say this - fanatical men have enslaved their own people, the mothers of their own children, a people who knew about education, whose women practised academic professions.
They are destroying their own dignity along with the well-being and the education of their own children as free people.
What on earth is going to become of these children?
If on 8 March the International Women's Day really has any meaning, then it is for these women who cannot fight against their repression.
Flowers for Kabul must mean many voices for the women of Afghanistan.
We can of course argue about the differences in cultures, but not about a culture which for reasons of gender puts half a nation in prison, simply because the fanatics - the men - see themselves as bearers of their culture, but at the same time earn their money through drugs and weapons.
What kind of concept of honour is that? Not only all the women of this world but also all the men should rise up against it in the name of the dignity of every human being.
We appeal to the Commission to see to it that the humanitarian aid for Afghanistan goes directly to the women.
For human rights, which are also women's rights, as we know, will remain hollow and meaningless if this does not happen and will lose their impact. And, ladies and gentlemen, this is all taking place in the year of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Madam President, the case of Afghanistan leads us to further reflections than those already made.
Often, when we are dealing with the problems of the developing countries, we unintentionally mistake the perspective. We have passed from a critical over-assessment of the western civilizations and their values to just as critical an acceptance of everything that takes place outside Europe, owing to a misunderstood sense of respect for other cultures.
The west has values that really belong to the whole of humanity: the rule of law, democracy, respect for human rights and, in this case, in particular, women's rights.
We therefore cannot accept the lack of respect for these principles by the current Kabul regime, particularly with regard to respect for women's rights.
We should not forget that the tolerance and recognition of other people are a common wealth of the three large monotheistic religions and therefore that of Islam too, whose distorted interpretation cannot be adopted to justify any political or other measure contrary to those principles.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the European Union, concerned about the prolonged civil war in Afghanistan, has recently delivered a common position on the ongoing struggle, the continuing instability in the region, the human rights situation in the country as well as the drugs and terrorism which come from Afghanistan.
As can be seen in the common position, the European Union wants to ensure that there is no sexual discrimination and that the donating of aid takes place in accordance with the needs of the most vulnerable sections of the population.
Faced with possible discrimination in new or ongoing projects, the Commission will put a hold on these projects.
As regards the situation of women, the Commission is very much in favour of a coordinated approach with the other donors in order to create sufficient incentive.
In this respect, the European Commission's position is the following: recently, Angela King, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and special adviser on women's issues, visited Afghanistan and her report has just been published.
The Commission proposes that all positions on this sensitive matter conform to the guidelines set out in this report.
This does not mean that the Commission is abandoning having its own view on the Afghan problem and, in particular, the problem of the situation of women. However, we believe that, taking into account the situation in the country, and the war, it is much better to concentrate all efforts by using the guidelines that have just been set out by the United Nations as a basis.
The European Commission warmly welcomes the solidarity maintained by Parliament with respect to the situation of women in Afghanistan, as well as its support for the campaign on the 8 March, "A flower for the women of Kabul' , which it is organizing to mark International Women's Day.
As regards the drugs situation, which is a very sensitive topic, heroin and opium are at the moment a major concern for the whole society, since we are certain that in Afghanistan the cultivation of opium is becoming more and more popular, precisely in order to manufacture heroin.
Nevertheless, we ourselves, along with Parliament, share the doubts concerning the viability of the programme aimed at substituting large-scale cultivations proposed by the UNIDCP (United Nations International Drug Control Programme).
This does not mean that the European Commission is against alternative development - we practise it in other parts of the world, such as in the Mediterranean with Morocco, Latin America, Bolivia, Colombia and Peru.
We agree with alternative developments but we do not believe that, at the moment, the situation in Afghanistan, currently at war, is capable of implementing a programme of alternative development to fight against the cultivation of opium, at least until things change radically in the country.
As regards the earthquake in Tajar, we are working via ECHO and through emergency operations with the Red Cross and Médecins sans frontières (Belgium), and when there is a bit more breathing space, the Commission will have no problem in moving on to rehabilitation efforts.
In terms of some of the questions just raised by Members here, the global plan for humanitarian aid to Afghanistan for 1998 comes to ECU 17 million.
This will be the course of action the Commission will follow and naturally, to answer some of the questions raised, we are aware that the situation in Afghanistan is very difficult.
Finally, we should not deceive ourselves: what is happening in Afghanistan, as in other conflicts, comes in response to a new form of geopolitics, a series of interests linked to drugs, terrorism and discrimination, which are converging. But they are also linked to Afghanistan's geopolitical position, basically due to future gas and oil projects.
You know exactly what I am saying: the Cold War in that part of the world has been replaced by a war of interests.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0184/98 by Mr Bertinotti and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Cermis tragedy; -B4-0187/98 by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the Cermis tragedy; -B4-0209/98 by Mr Bianco and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Cermis accident; -B4-0210/98 by Mr Azzolini and Mr Santini, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the accident in Italy caused by an American military plane; -B4-0221/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Cavalese catastrophe; -B4-0243/98 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the Cermis tragedy; -B4-0250/98 by Mr Colajanni and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the death of 20 people caused by an American plane in Cavalese (Italy).
Madam President, Commissioner, what happened on Mount Cermis was a tragedy that has been widely reported.
It has been reported by the repeated accusations made by the local authorities which, on several occasions, had presented the danger of the aviation games that started from the Aviano base and, through the Trentino valleys, tested the bravery of the pilots from the US base who tried to fly under bridges, under electricity cables and under cableway cables.
A tragedy had to happen sooner or later, and now it has done.
We are faced with a basic problem, which is that of the meaning of the bases of a foreign power in the territory of an EU Member State. In my opinion, this needs to be discussed.
There is, however, an immediate problem: we need to prevent, immediately, a repetition of low-altitude military flights and revise the regulations governing military flights, which I believe should be carried out in specific and fairly restricted areas, and at least in uninhabited regions.
There is one further point I would like to bring to the Commissioner's attention, a point on which the Commission ought to have an opinion, if not an initiative.
I believe it is necessary to ensure that the United States waive jurisdiction on the proceedings over the tragedy and allow the proceedings to be heard in Italy as soon as possible.
I would like to remind you that the victims of this tragedy belong to six European countries, five of which are part of the European Community.
I think it would be too much if, after such a tragedy, responsibilities were not even identified, not for revenge or punishment, but to ensure that such tragedies do not recur in the future.
Madam President, I would like to tell Mr Pettinari that, just a few minutes ago, I heard from a news agency that this morning the Italian judiciary formally asked for the file, in a certain sense asking the Americans for release from the London Convention.
If that were the case, it would be my intention, at 17: 30, on agreement with the other authors of the resolution, to submit an oral amendment to note this important fact.
On the same lines as the previous speaker, I would like to say, and I don't know how much the Commission can help us in this, that provisions which in 1951, in the midst of a cold war, could be justified (with a kind of extraterritoriality, a bit like that enjoyed by the Church in the Middle Ages and in other times) now seem obsolete and constitute an offence to the victims and to the judiciary who have every possibility of investigating and doing justice where it is very often a case of acrobatics in the air rather than real military requirements.
Madam President, it has already been said but I wish to confirm that, on 3 February, twenty innocent citizens of German, Belgian, Italian, Polish, Austrian and Dutch nationality in an Italian tourist spot, Cavalese, enjoying a few days' rest and leisure, lost their lives owing to an accident caused during a military exercise from a US air base in Aviano, which cut the cables of the Mount Cermis cableway and caused the tragedy.
The draft resolution presented seeks not only to express due sympathy to the relatives of the victims, but also to bring to the attention of the European Parliament questions ranging from the establishment of the causes, the truth, to respect for the international regulations governing training for civilian and military flights.
In confirming what has been stressed several times by the local Trentino-Alto Adige authorities on the dangers of military flights in low-altitude exercises over territory in the Trentino and Alto Adige valleys, and therefore on the need to suspend them, the draft resolution asks the US civilian and military authorities to cooperate fully in the investigation aimed at establishing causes and responsibilities, with the transparent use of all sources of information and evidence.
A further agreement on safety procedure is requested between the US and Member States of the EU involved in the NATO, with a total prohibition of low-altitude military flights in regions at great risk of safety to the civilian populations.
Madam President, when a tragedy happens in which many individuals lose their lives, the International Community is dumbfounded, upset and often takes measures to provide aid.
When the tragedy is absurd, like the Cermis tragedy, the first reaction is one of anger and disbelief.
There is no reason justifying what happened on 3 February in Cavalese, in Trentino-Alto Adige, where, unfortunately, there was a further demonstration of the terrible consequences of men's stupidity when it is applied to powerful means, built for our defence, but capable of being transformed into means of destruction, if used incorrectly.
In Cavalese, a US military aircraft, probably involved in a crazy game played by its occupants, flew at a foolish speed several metres from the ground, in a region used for sports tourism, and, in so doing, cut the cables of a cableway, causing the cabin and its unfortunate occupants to crash to the ground. I do not wish to accuse the Atlantic Alliance forces, whose historic merit should be recognized for defending the free world when the planet was divided into blocks and for continuing to defend it today.
However, we cannot tolerate absurd and tragic accidents, such as that on Cermis, caused in the best of cases by atrocious thoughtlessness, and in the worst by malicious stupidity.
For this reason, the Union for Europe group supports the compromise resolution brought to the attention of Parliament today and hopes that, if it is approved, it will be followed by specific measures resulting in its implementation.
Madam President, an incident like the tragedy on Mount Cermis should be firmly condemned.
No political consideration can be higher than the protection of human life which any political action and therefore any armed forces have the specific task of serving.
That is why the US authorities should cooperate with every means and as far as possible with the Italian authorities for clarity to be established.
I have to point out that this requirement is reinforced even further by the status of a great power enjoyed by the USA; real power is not, in fact, measured in military but above in all in moral terms; the US first have to prove this morality, of which they have so often been the champions!
Madam President, I think that, as pointed out by previous speakers, everyone is aware that non-observance of the rules laid down and agreed for military aviation exercises has led to a serious tragedy.
This tragedy also highlights other aspects, such as the fact that, although the South Tyrol and Trentino authorities have often reported aircraft flying over inhabited regions at very low altitude, at the limits of suicide and homicide, as we have finally unfortunately witnessed, these flights have continued unperturbed for a very long time.
What is puzzling is that, despite the fact that exercises of this type have been reported as dangerous for a long time, no solution has been found.
The solutions are for training to be provided in areas suitably chosen for that purpose, areas in which there is no danger to people or property, that are defined as safe aerodromes.
But nothing of the kind has been done.
It is therefore obvious that, to safeguard the physical safety of people and property, strict regulations need to be established at European level, or the States need to be asked to do so, with regard to the use of aircraft in exercises.
This accident also shows another aspect, which is the problem of the limited sovereignty of the European countries with NATO or American bases.
In fact, not only do these bases not fall under the jurisdiction of the host countries, but any offences committed by the American personnel at these bases lie outside the jurisdictional scope of the country in which they have been committed and fall into the sphere of competence of the American judges.
We therefore urge a revision of Article 7 of the London Convention governing jurisdictional competence.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is a good thing that the European Parliament is taking a position in response to the accident in Cavalese, because not only should there be stricter rules, but it appears from an investigation which has progressed a little further today that the existing rules have not been complied with. The crew may say it feels sympathy for the relatives of the victims, and it may declare, I quote, that they would never do anything to endanger the lives of others, but it has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that the aeroplane did not respect the primary rules.
It was flying at barely 150 meters where the permitted minimum flying height is 300 meters, or according to Italian standards, as much as 600 meters.
Moreover, witnesses have stated that they saw the aeroplane involved in a kind of joy riding , and for years the local population has been complaining bitterly about the genuine nuisance of these flights.
It also turned out the pilot was flying with American ordnance survey maps which do not even show the ski lift, instead of using Italian ordnance survey maps which do show it.
Talk of arrogance.
From all of this, ladies and gentlemen, we can only draw the following conclusions.
From now on the American authorities must cooperate with the Italian judiciary, in an atmosphere of great openness, otherwise the investigation cannot move forward.
Low level military exercise flights must be forbidden where there is a danger to civilians.
Stricter rules coupled with enforcement must be introduced, and stricter rules for all air force units, anywhere in Europe.
To conclude, the local Italian judiciary should be authorized in this case to set up complete investigations, and moreover to administer the necessary justice.
It would be even more dramatic if we were not to draw the necessary conclusions from what happened.
Madam President, I wish to express profound grief on the part of the Alleanza Nazionale for the victims of the Cermis tragedy and accuse the sharks and the intellectuals of making an outward show of antimilitarism, jumping at every opportunity to flaunt their sentiments and their sermons against the armed forces which, if they are not reformed and if they do not continue to operate as they are doing in Italy, we too are convinced will be useless and out of time.
We wonder, however, how the Trentino and Alto Adige valleys can have become a exhibition theatre for the supersonic military aircraft flying at very low altitude, without our authorities intervening, with the authorization of the Ministry of Defence, despite the protests of the populations and the local authorities.
We are certainly asking the American authorities to cooperate with the Italian judiciary to establish responsibility and penalize non-observance of the safety regulations that would otherwise have averted the tragedy.
We believe it is necessary for the work of Council to give greater authority to the governments of the member countries, to ensure observance of the rules laid down by the regulations in force so that military exercises do not jeopardize the daily lives of the citizens.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I find myself in a very difficult position because, naturally, the European Commission shares the sorrow felt by the Members for the victims and understands the irrationality of the accident, which should never be repeated.
However, as you know, the Commission has no authority in this matter to implement many of the measures you ask for in your resolution.
Nevertheless, to the best of our ability, we will forward them to the two parties concerned - the American government and the Italian government - with the aim of ensuring that, at the very least, they pay fair compensation to the victims. In addition, of course, as regards the use of the Aviano base, which is a NATO base and thus outside the Community's authority, we will try to ensure that they review all plans for flights at low altitude.
Having said this, we believe that the best solution is for the Italian courts to establish the facts, to decide who is responsible for the events and to determine what type of action will need to be taken in the future.
Madam President, I support the statement of the British Council Presidency that the fatwa against Salman Rushdie is null and void because it is a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it is illegal because it is an attempy to interfere in national sovereignty.
I would add on behalf of my group I request the suspension of the critical dialogue with Iran.
A dialogue presupposes a common basis of the parties talking to each other.
Between those who are convinced of the tradition of human rights and bound by a religious tradition, one of the core precepts of which is "Thou shalt not kill!' , and those who call for the murder of writers or seek to force a prisoner to accept a religion with death threats, there can be no dialogue, only an unconditional condemnation.
Madam President, time again criminal justice in Iran is arouses our aversion.
We as Europeans have, rightly, I think, have respect for Islam and Muslim culture, but political Islam as it reaches us from Iran, damages the reputation of Muslim culture, an damages in my view the respectable position of Muslims within the European Union.
For that reason I would like to say that I fully understand people getting annoyed with people who overstep the limits of courtesy, or who insult someone's religion on purpose, but the punishment which is administered from government beats everything.
We are thinking of Salman Rushdie, of course, it was said earlier, who even abroad is heavily persecuted.
This literally oversteps all limits.
The punishment imposed on Helmut Hofer, who oversteps the limits of courtesy in Iran, is of course out of all proportion.
The punishment of a publisher who publishes matters which are not agreeable to the government, is another example of something of which it can be said that a country which has signed the United Nations Charter cannot inflict punishment of this kind.
I am also thinking the 99 strokes of the cane for the lady who was involved in the incident with Helmut Hofer.
It is truly out of all proportion for a civilized nation to do something like this.
The fact that Iran is nonetheless open to criticism and to an urgent call to turn from its ways, is demonstrated by the release of editor Faraj Sarkouhi.
I think that from within this Parliament we need to make an urgent and civilized plea to the Iranian government to turn from the path that we consider damaging to Muslim culture and Europe's reputation.
Madam President, the election of Dr. Khatami as president showed great promise in principle.
At least he spoke out about the need for reform and democratization.
But if you have nothing, it is difficult to measure the degree of such reform or democratization.
He was given encouragement by the Union to put his ideas into practice, and not for nothing.
The actions of the Iranian regime appear to be heading in a different direction at the moment.
The official reaffirmation of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, as Mr Oostlander said quite rightly, and the subsequent proposals to raise the price on his head, incredible as it sounds, are clear indications of this.
Vigilance is called for and the internal political events will have to be followed carefully.
The Union must naturally turn itself forcefully against the human rights violations in Iran, this we already know, and this will act as support for the country's reform minded forces.
International attention must also be paid to the individual cases as mentioned in the resolution, so that this may save the lives of citizens.
Madam President, the editor of Iran News , a German national, an Iranian woman, and a writer all have the death threat hanging over them in a country with a centuries old civilization in which religious dictatorship lays down the law.
A few thoughts on this, Madam President.
The editor of Iran News did not receive a public trial.
How can one threaten someone, coincidentally a European citizen, with execution because he fell in love with a woman? During its final phase, the previous government in Iran declared that it would not carry out his execution.
For a long time attempts were made to propagate this as a positive step during the 'so-called' critical dialogue which never amounted to anything.
But now it has been very clearly stated that the fatwa against Rushdie is irrevocable, and there are even reports that the price on his head has been raised.
If you are familiar with the fact, Mr President, that the current President Khatami was the Minister of Culture nine years ago and the fatwa against Rushdie came under his responsibility, then one has to seriously question the call this same Khatami now makes as President for dialogue and relaxation in the sphere of culture.
When, moreover, official government officials compare the Rushdie affair with pronouncements made by Roger Garaudy, who denies the genocide of six million Jews, then we may conclude that we are a long way off from any relaxation with and within the Iranian regime.
All these horrific events are taking place in a country which offers enormous economic potential.
Apart from the d'Amato Law, absolutely apart from this, which badly frustrates and hampers the EU, apart from this law, one may ask oneself if one should invest in such a dictatorship.
We are told that the government's story is for internal use, and that it has another story for external use.
But what is the true face of Iran? With so much oil in the back garden, the production of long-range rockets, the export of terrorism, and religious terrorism, well, Mr President, this true face of Iran, I feel very uneasy about this.
If Iran does have good intentions, and if the positive signal of the release of the editor really does mean something, then the concrete step-by-step dialogue will start, and today's resolution in which we ask for these people not to be executed, might be a good example of this.
Madam President, Commissioner, for the umpteenth time we have to deal with serious cases of violation of human rights in Iran.
We were all under the illusion that the new course of Khatami would have made it unnecessary, but that was an illusion!
Reality is dramatically different.
Only in recent months have tens of death sentences by stoning been pronounced in Iran. Stoning is not just a death sentence, but something more, a barbarous and unacceptable method for any civilian society.
One of these sentences by stoning was pronounced against a girl who was still breathing an hour after being stoned and died later in hospital.
As recalled, Morteza Firouzi, the editor of Iran News, has recently been sentenced to death.
The citizen Helmut Hofer has also been given a first-degree death sentence.
Another barbarity is that of the 99 lashes inflicted on the young woman accused of having sexual relations with the German citizen.
Finally, the death sentence against Rushdie has been confirmed and the reward for killing him has been increased!
I think that these incidents show that the Iranian regime cannot offer any guarantee today, not so much with regard to democracy but over the minimum values of human civility.
I think that Council and the Commission should exert all possible pressure, at all levels, to guarantee at least a minimum level of civility.
Commissioner Marín, do you not think that the critical dialogue the Commission rightly undertook should at least be subject to this minimum level of civility and should now be reviewed?
Madam President, you are a woman and I am speaking to you as such.
Who would have believed that love would become a political topic worthy of our Parliament's intervention?
A man and a woman have an intimate relationship and suddenly he is sentenced to the death penalty, while she receives 99 lashes with a whip.
Evidently, this remarkable love story is taking place in Iran; the man is German, the woman is Iranian, and although their feelings of affection were mutual, it seems, on the other hand, that the accommodating attitude often shown towards Teheran by the German authorities is not being reciprocated.
Apart from this example, the joint motion for a resolution points out how consistently and cynically the Iranian regime scorns human rights and continues to defy the international community, by going against the fundamental democratic rules on which our public, international law is based.
When we think we detect a hint of liberalization, a gesture of good will or the beginnings of some kind of democratization, Teheran immediately carries out new arrests, new fatwas, new executions, thereby contradicting the forecasts of those who are mistaken about the nature of this regime which is profoundly hostile to all humanist values.
I myself believe that we should place no trust in a power which is so unsure of itself that it is capable of condemning love as some kind of subversive act.
Madam President, my colleagues from the various groups have reiterated the concern we all have.
Far from having improved, we all have the impression that the human rights situation in Iran is getting worse and that, despite the countries of the European Union holding out their hand, the Iranian regime is answering with provocations with respect to the two European citizens that have been mentioned.
In fact, in the case of Mr Rushdie, they are even threatening to increase the reward for whoever kills him on behalf of the Iranian regime.
Individual cases have been mentioned here, but we do not how many other cases and situations we are unaware of, due to the situation in the country where the regime does not permit the basic rules of democracy and transparency.
We should devote our solidarity and concern to them. I also support the points which have been made here.
It seems to me that, rather than improving, the human rights situation has deteriorated; the Community institutions must therefore reflect seriously and set out the reasons why they believe that this is the case.
I get the impression, Commissioner and Madam President-in-office of the Council, that the situation has deteriorated, and I believe that reflection on our political relations, whether it be called critical dialogue or something else, must also be reviewed.
I would like to mention a point made by Mrs van Bladel, because I believe that mixing human rights and economic interests or economic relations is tremendously cynical. We here in the Parliament are left with the impression that this reflection - that the situation has not improved - should lead to a more critical reflection on the policy favoured by the Council and the Commission.
Mr President, the election last year of Dr Mohamed Khatami as President of Iran was expected in a number of quarters to herald a substantial improvement in the state's attitude on human rights issues.
Sadly, these expectations have not been fulfilled and it is becoming increasingly clear that the influence of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and of the most fanatical sections of the revolutionary guards is continuing to shape the regime's policies on human rights and that the new president is apparently in complete accord with this.
This is demonstrated most clearly in the reaffirmation of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and the death sentence by stoning on the German businessman, Helmut Hofer, which has already been referred to by many Members in this House.
In the last six months, there have apparently been seven official executions in which individuals convicted by an Iranian court have been stoned to death.
In the last 12 months, some 200 executions are estimated to have taken place in all, 9 in public in the last week alone.
At the same time, there has been no let-up in policies which have led to other violations of human and women's rights by the regime and the case of Morteza Firouzi is referred to in our resolution today.
The conclusion must therefore be that there has been no improvement in the human rights situation in the Iranian Republic.
In some respects the situation is actually getting worse.
In these circumstances, it is important that Parliament reiterates its appeal to the Council and to European Union Member States to maintain and increase the pressure on the Iranian regime on human rights issues.
This has been called for from every quarter of this House and I hope that the Commission will in fact respond positively to our appeal today.
Mr President, I would like to thank the different groups that supported the European Radical Alliance's initiative concerning Mauritania and I would like to give you some details about the resolution.
The Mauritanian authorities were disturbed at the fact that our text, according to them, exposed the practice of slavery in Mauritania.
Our text does nothing of the sort.
It condemns slavery in general and points out, on the contrary, that, according to the Mauritanian government, slavery no longer exists in their country.
We hope that these declarations correspond to the reality of the situation, and we note that, in all cases, neither the Mauritanian authorities nor foreign observers have been in agreement on this point.
Moreover, if slavery has disappeared, why do they refuse to accept the legal existence and right of expression of organizations trying to ensure that slavery is effectively and definitively abolished?
The aim of our resolution was precisely to defend this right of expression and, in the case of legal proceedings, to ensure that everyone receives a fair trial.
It is clear in this matter that the Mauritanian public authorities, in pursuing people who had expressed their opinions on a French television programme, wanted and obtained the justice that it denied political opponents and supporters of human rights. This is shown perfectly through the type of accusations they made, that is, the membership of unauthorized organizations and the propagation of false news abroad for shameful political ends.
You can see right through it.
I believe that our Parliament must firmly reiterate through its vote that all signatory countries to the Lomé Convention must submit to the democratic rules that form the basis of our partnership. It should also point out that the Mauritanian government would stand to gain if it abandoned the legal proceedings it had begun and the sentences it had imposed, and that all forms of slavery in all countries should be universally eradicated.
It is now up to the Mauritanian authorities to demonstrate, through a liberal attitude, the truthfulness of their statements on this last point.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 12 February four Mauritanian people were convicted.
People who are all active in human rights organizations, or in an organization called SOS Esclavage.
But the strange thing is, and I would like to draw my colleagues' attention to this, that these two organizations are recognized and have observer status with the African Commission on Human Rights, and with the nations belonging to the Organization of African Unity.
If they are given recognition on this level, it must mean that these organizations mean something.
The only thing I wish to draw attention to in this debate is the severity, the weight of the punishment which was pronounced, compared to the facts.
Because only one out of the four people made declarations during the broadcast in question.
The others did not even do so.
Yet they have been sentenced to thirteen months unconditional imprisonment and extremely high fines.
This does arouse suspicion.
I believe the Mauritanian authorities when they say that they have legally abolished slavery, but then they should be interested in cooperating with all those who also want to see the last remote corners of this practice removed.
Commissioner, it is already quite some time that here in Parliament we talked about Mauritania, and I am afraid that this is because this country is spiritually so far away from us and also unfortunately because we have to some extent expelled it from our minds.
I am fully convinced that we, as Europeans, bear much of the responsibility for the present situation in Mauritania.
Of course, what is condemned only in cases of emergency must be condemned absolutely.
But we should consider what we can do better.
If we look at the situation and consider that in the 1960s Mauritania - on a very low basis - was still a relatively wellfunctioning nomadic state and really only the great famine and our utterly wrongly applied development aid led to the situation there which we now see, namely that all the nomadic inhabitants have gathered around Nouakchoff, the capital, just waiting for the aeroplanes which came with aid, which has led to the situation that they no longer in any way lead their normal lives with their normal social structure, this should really give us food for thought and we should consider how we can manage things better in future.
The fact is, - and that has been appropriately documented on television - that there still exist horrors such as slavery.
But we must also consider and say that the international community of states is really called upon to do everything in its power - and this applies not just to Mauritania, but also to other states where slavery still exists - to bring this situation to an end.
The old slave route still of course operates in Africa unfortunately.
There are of course other states - I am thinking for example of Mali - which have a similar situation, with which we must all be concerned, but then please in cooperation with the Arab League.
For we cannot do it alone, we must work along with our partners on the spot in the appropriate manner.
If a country like Mauritania wants to meet its obligations, keep the Lome-Agreement and accept appropriate standards, then it must also take full heed of certain standards which we set.
Madam President, Commissioner, the shocking images on television have revealed that slavery does exist in Mauritania. This is contrary to the official statements which say that slavery was abolished in 1981.
The government's response leaves no doubt.
Instead of tackling abuse the messengers were detained.
The present reaction from the Union is right.
You are aware that Mauritania belongs to the Lomé Convention, so human rights ought to be respected and slavery naturally banned.
The arrest of anti-slavery activists must be rectified immediately. The Commissioner knows what I am talking about.
He has often witnessed this in ACP situations. During the next session of the ACP Assembly, Mauritania will have to have its obligations with respect to the Lomé Convention clearly spelled out.
Quick changes are needed, and I obviously call on the Council, but also the Commission, to follow the developments in Mauritania closely, and to come up with proposals if the problems in Mauritania turn out to be structural.
I hope as they do that this is not the case.
Mr President, like other African countries, Mauritania is in the process of institutional reform.
Compared with several years ago, several significant steps have certainly been taken, although they are anything but perfect, on electoral matters and on the organization of the institutional and political system.
Our resolution, however, rightly seeks to point out and denounce a series of events and situations, that have been echoed in the international press in recent weeks, that risk jeopardizing this process and that highlight several disturbing aspects.
Firstly, we should note that, despite being abolished by law, the practice of slavery still exists, at least in certain parts of the country.
What we are asking is that, in addition to the existing legal regulations, the Mauritanian authorities should firmly undertake to eliminate any situation of unacceptable limitation and degradation of the dignity and individual rights involved in slavery.
For this purpose, the role that can be played by the associations and organizations of civilian society is very important, both in denouncing existing situations and in providing specific, moral support for past and present victims of slavery.
From this point of view, the position of the Mauritanian authorities therefore seemed surprising and unacceptable to us, for they have begun a campaign of repression against the exponents of associations committed to the defence of human rights.
What the militants of these associations are accused of (those who have been arrested and, in some cases, sentenced to long prison sentences) solely comprise expressions of opinion as an offence.
The fact that activities carried out for humanitarian purposes is considered a prosecutable offence casts a fatal shadow on the nature of the process of institutional reform and on the wishes of the Mauritanian authorities.
We well know that Mauritanian society is based on a delicate ethnic balance between the various members of the population.
It is precisely for this reason that we are urging the application of the basic principles of any democratic regulations, including freedom of association, abolition of expressions of opinion as an offence and, naturally, the total abolition of any remains of slavery.
The first gesture we are asking of the Mauritanian authorities is the immediate and unconditional release of the exponents of the humanitarian organizations imprisoned and the end of all proceedings brought against them.
Chile
Mr President, it is with much regret that the whole world has heard the news that in March the Chilean dictator, Pinochet, will be able to become a senator for life.
As also stated in the resolution of the Partito Popolare, it is true that a basic constitution still exists in Chile whereby all former Presidents of the Republic, democratically elected, become senators for life; it is amazing, however, that this political group here present has nothing to say, either on the fact that Pinochet may be considered a former President democratically elected, or on the torture he has practised.
At the moment, Pinochet is accused of genocide, not just in his own country, but also in an EU country, Spain, as genocide has been committed against the populations of Spanish origin, as maintained by a Spanish court.
For these reasons, we cannot accept logic of this kind and we believe it necessary to help the Chilean population and the Chilean MPs opposed to this initiative.
In particular, we believe it necessary to amend the Chilean Constitution, not as an act of interference but as political support for those suffering the consequences of a criminal dictatorship.
Mr President, I am sorry to bring a little spot of bitterness into the current enthusiasm over the question of our relations with Chile, for a quite simple reason.
We should just ask ourselves the question: What is the point of all this? Look, Pinochet today is no longer a very young man.
I admit he is younger than I am, but nevertheless he will try to catch up with me and so he will not be a danger for very much longer.
In addition I would like to underline one fact and that is that experience always shows, amongst proud people, and the Chileans are a proud people, that interference from outside is something which always rebounds because it leads to a kind of closing of ranks against the interferer.
Therefore I would like to ask that careful consideration is given to whether this resolution really has any point.
It is understandable, but I can only say one thing: I have experienced much in my life and I have always been able to learn two lessons from it.
The first is that when one is victorious one should not take revenge for that has always had a negative effect.
Secondly we should not interfere in things in which we more or less make the others into enemies.
I can give you a concrete example: I was from the beginning in this Parliament in the Animal Protection Group and am, God knows, no supporter of bullfighting, but I have always been against interference.
It should be the Spaniards themselves who put an end to bullfighting.
We should not talk them into it.
This should also apply in my opinion in this case.
Mr President, we are all aware of the complicated transition process experienced by Chile, that the progression from an awful dictatorship to democracy has not exactly been easy and that it caused many scars which still remain.
I would like to point out two of them: some of the sections of the current constitution, and the fact that General Pinochet has been active as head of the Armed Forces and is trying to continue in the same way as a senator for life.
Pinochet is today the clearest example of the impunity in Latin America, and I would say in the world.
Can you imagine, Mr von Habsburg, having to sit alongside Mr Karadzic in this House for the rest of your life? I think that many legitimate, Chilean representatives feel disgusted, not only at a personal but also at a political level, at the possibility they face.
A large section of Chilean civil society is opposed to this situation.
This includes the Christian Democrats, whose political judgment in this matter is support by socialists and supporters of other tendencies.
There is also the application from the Communist Party to have Pinochet brought to trial for genocide.
We do not want interference from here, but we do want to help the democrats in Chile to complete their transition period and to put Pinochet in his place, because human rights are inviolable, indivisible and have no boundaries. How, for example, could this House not help the family of Carmelo Soria, who is calling for the two murderers who are free, despite it being known that they carried out that terrible crime against an international official of Spanish origin, to be brought to justice?
How can we not come out in solidarity with Judge García Castellón's initiatives, which are trying to find justice for so many murder victims and missing persons, who also came from my country? In the European Union, there are unfortunately still some people - for example, Attorney General Cardenal or the prosecutor for the National Criminal Court, Mr Fungairiño - who do not understand that in Chile there was a dictatorship and that those responsible for it are still active.
In effect, this is not interference; rather, we are supporting the democrats, and I hope that everyone here in this House understands, precisely because credibility is becoming easier to win every day and in every case.
Mr President, it is obvious that this is a democratic Parliament which makes democracy the focus and objective of its actions and which has always displayed enormous interest in and concern for the evolution of countries which have come out of a dictatorship, and particularly in Chile.
We have showed such interest in Chile that during the time of the dictatorship and over the following years we have been able to have a budget heading devoted exclusively to Chile's transition to democracy.
In addition, at the same time, we gave our support and approval to the process of democratization, and we can today gladly state that Chile is a democratic country.
I am totally against those who argue that this type of intervention is interference in external affairs of another country.
I believe that in the global village the world has become, we all have the right and the obligation to give our own opinion, particularly when there is a case of interference in human rights.
Through this resolution we are showing our support for the Chilean government, the political parties, the institutions and the citizens in general who are looking for justice.
We know how difficult it has been for them on many occasions and how they have had to overcome many obstacles.
However, we believe that it is illogical and incomprehensible, as well as the fact that it presents a bad image of the country to the outside world, that the greatest representative of the dictatorship and of the attack on the government and on the people be appointed a senator for life without a vote, particularly when there are clear judicial grounds against it, as laid out here.
Whatever the result of the vote may be, and I hope it will be positive, it will not upset the relations between the European Parliament and the people and democratic government of Chile.
I believe, as stated here, that it is a direct action against impunity, and the best way to prevent future dictatorships.
Mr President, the European Parliament has a strong record of condemning violations in Chile under the former military dictatorship of General Pinochet and of welcoming the return to civilian rule and the genuine progress which is being achieved in the observance of human rights in that country.
This is why we cannot allow the appointment of Pinochet to Chile's Senate, due on the 11 of next month, and subject to protest by all the main political parties in Chile, to pass without international protest from ourselves.
We do not forget the 3, 000 people killed at the hands of the military despots.
We know that today there are still 542 outstanding cases of disappearances, of which no evidence is known.
We were watching, when just last September, political activist Gladys Marin was jailed for five weeks, simply for speaking of Pinochet's human rights violations.
So why, when this House voted to debate this question yesterday, did the Christian Democrats vote against? It was only by the narrow margin of 206 votes to 200 that we were able to hold this debate at all.
It cannot be, as Mr von Habsburg says, because this is regarded in Chile as international interference, when the main political parties and civil society have communicated to us in advance that they are supporting the terms of this resolution.
It cannot be because this would be injurious to the process of national reconciliation in Chile.
What could do more damage to that than the continued public office of a man with one of the bloodiest records in Latin America's bloody history? And it cannot be out of some misinformed support for constitutional principles in Chile, which Pinochet is seeking to exploit, because critics have long known how the military wrote the rules of transition precisely to protect Pinochet from being removed as chief and to allow him to serve now as a non-elected senator.
Europe understands only too well how the tools of democracy can be seized by dictators to undermine democracy itself.
We should condemn Pinochet with a single and united voice, and I hope the Conservatives and Christian Democrats will examine their consciences before they decide to do otherwise.
Mr President, when you ask the man in the street in the Netherlands who is the president of Chile, you will get a deafening silence.
When they say, well, is it not Pinochet?
Yes, that rings a bell , because it links in with what we experienced, or at least Chileans experienced as one the darkest periods in their otherwise illustrious and democratic history.
That is why we show solidarity with the actions, the amazement and the protest against the appointment of presidents or senators for life.
It is a good thing we do not have this in the Netherlands.
So be it, because we are very modest, as you know.
To get to the point, I do not think it right that the Chilean people, the Chilean government, which has been on the right path to democracy for years now, award this honour to this man who was the model, the negative model of the terrors of the time.
Belarus
Mr President, the resolution before us is long overdue.
It was discussed for a long time and is a compromise..
Many suggestions and alterations from various groups in the House were incorporated into it before it was submitted.
Therefore I do not claim that it is a green resolution but I believe that it is a resolution of this House.
The news about arbitrary arrests and deprivation of freedom, about repression of the free press - for example the film maker Saschewatzki was attacked in his apartment because he showed a critical film on German television - requires a response from the European Parliament.
We have been exposed for a long time now to the questions; why is the European Parliament silent when faced with the fact that there is practically a war against the media in Belarus? Is it perhaps that we do not care about the fate of people?
Is there maybe a creeping acceptance of Lukaschenko's policies? I hope that with this resolution we give a clear answer.
Lukaschenko has long recognizedd the isolation into which he has driven his country and its people, and he is very interested in international recognition.
But he is not prepared to make concessions in the direction of democratisation.
Therefore any demand for international human rights is a precondition of recognition.
I hope that we do not betray the trust of the Belarus people and that the resolution receives the broad agreement of this House.
Mr President. Thank you, Mrs Schroedter.
Of course I must say that you have pointed out that we have worked it out together.
You are right.
We have discussed it, of course we have not at this precise moment spoken about this resolution.
But we do not want to debate it now, that is not important.
It is certainly important to mention that the European Parliament is not silent.
The European Parliament has several times pronounced on Belarus.
Moreover it has always been you who, with others, have pointed out very emphatically that we must do something, and we are naturally very grateful to you for this.
Allow me to refer briefly to a few points.
The European Parliament is not silent and something is being done in Belarus.
Not driven by the government, that is true, but we are pleased to note that there is once more an opposition which is re-forming, which is finding its feet and which clearly has the chance, with the aid of the international community, with the aid of the European Union actually to become a political force.
We confirm that we have succeeded in equipping the OSCE mission, that the government has made concessions and that is a step towards a positive future and we want and ought to do everything together with the Commission to ensure survival and hope that we quickly achieve positive results.
We confirm that hopefully - the Commission will perhaps be able to say something about this - we have re-established the TACIS Democracy Programme.
Mrs Schroedter has rightly referred in her resolution to the fact that we must extend it to the exchange of young students who can come to us to gain experience.
The programme which we have now is too narrow but we are grateful that we have been able to set it up.
Something is being done, and we must do everything possible to show Lukaschenko again that democratically stable and healthy circumstances must be created so that the integration of Belarus into the European context can finally succeed.
The European Parliament has moreover always said: "The door is open and it will remain open' , but of course on condition that general, universal human rights are recognizedd, and I hope that we in the European Parliament can continue to speak positively in favour of this.
Mr President, I too would like at this point to thank Mrs Schroedter for her efforts on behalf of White Russia.
I believe that, simply because it is one of the last major dictatorships on European soil, it is necessary to give appropriate signals and to say that we in the European Parliament do not want such a regime in our immediate neighbourhood.
I would however also like to thank Mrs Mann and say: Something has undoubtedly been done in White Russia, something has changed for the better.
Organisations today can become active, albeit on a restricted basis, which was not all that long ago really not the case, and we should admit that here in this Parliament.
Of course it is clear that these steps do not go far enough. I believe we must also cast a glance at the conditions under which Belarus exists at the moment.
The fact is that the relationship of dependency on Russia is a very close one, that the cooperation between Belarus and Russia is very, very close.
I once permitted myself at question time - if I remember rightly it was two months ago - to ask the responsible Council Representative the question, whether there might be a possibility during the next negotiations with the Russian government to insist that Russia makes its influence on Mr Lukaschenko tell, to improve these circumstances.
This was accepted at the time very positively.
I would also be very grateful if Commissioner Marin would take this idea further and say: we cannot apply the lever in White Russia. We must undoubtedly apply it in Russia in order to achieve a better result there.
Nevertheless the resolution is necessary and it is important that we state our case.
But we must also be quite clear that as soon as something really changes for the better we must also honour it appropriately.
Congo
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when Mobutu's dictatorial regime fell in May 1997, the international community expected and hoped that in an era of pacification and democratisation would finally dawn in the Congo (formerly Zaire).
However, almost a year on, it appears that a very different situation has emerged.
As stated yesterday in Geneva by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kabila has done no better than his predecessor Mobutu.
A number of facts bear out this statement, in particular, frequent public executions by firing-squad following summary trials by military tribunals, as occurred recently in a number of cities including Goma, Kizangani or Kinshasa, the banning of all political activities and of all parties (the Minister for the Interior has stated that they will be severely castigated), beatings and all forms of corporal punishment, obstruction of the United Nations mission responsible for investigating the massacre of Hutu refugees in which Kabila's's troops participated, with the result that last December the mission was obliged to leave the country at a moment's notice, imprisonment and deportation of prominent members of the political opposition.
A few days ago, the opposition leader Tshisekedi was imprisoned and removed to an unknown destination, as reported by a number of news agencies, prompting fears for his personal safety and offering further unequivocal proof of the new government's intentions.
It appears that this climate of violence is spawning an internal guerrilla movement which could spread to other central African countries such as Rwanda, Burundi or Uganda, causing a renewed upsurge of refugee movement.
In addition, the long and painful peace and democratisation process in Angola could suffer further set-backs on account of instability in neighbouring Congo, thereby jeopardizing the stability of the region as a whole.
For these reasons, the draft resolution submitted by this Group urges the Council and Member States to make every effort to guide the Congo back to the road of democratisation, and the Commission to review the terms and conditions of EU aid.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I had hoped that in this European Parliament I would never have to speak again about what we call the Republic of Congo, the country which until recently had been called Zaire for a long time.
The change of regime and Mobutu's disappearance offered an excellent opportunity for this potentially rich country to finally be governed intelligently, honestly and ably.
What was required was of course trustworthy, reliable, and able people to help govern the country.
What needs to be done is not difficult to describe. It is clear that attention must first be paid to public health, food supplies, to agriculture in other words, to transport which is in a state of chaos, improvements in education, if economic development is to be achieved.
In addition to political issues, the rule of law, human rights and reconciliation with the population. This presupposes people working together to achieve this peace, this cooperation.
Under the Mobutu regime cooperation existed between the able opposition people.
They called the association within which they cooperated l'Union sacrée : the holy union.
The holy union produced remarkable texts; a draft constitution, a plan for a transitional regime and so no.
If these had been followed up, another regime could have assumed power without bloodshed.
But Mobutu never understood this, and now, to our disillusionment, we note that Mr Kabila has not really understood this either, and that he is not taking up the opportunities to work together with positive opposition powers of former times.
Mr Tshisekedi has expressed his willingness to cooperate, but Kabila has rejected this.
Worse still, Tshisekedi's offer is not only being rejected, but he was arrested, as well a few young leaders and they are now - the terrible phrase crops up again - political prisoners.
Well, this Parliament must not let something like this slip passed, and must point out in all its relations that we defend the development, but also human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in this big African country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Congo Democratic Republic, which had given rise to so many hopes at the time it was established, is profoundly disappointing and disregarding the legitimate expectations of the International Community.
The brutal arrest and unlawful internment of Etienne Fishekedi, in Kinshasa on 12 February are just the latest episode in a deliberate design of the authorities of that country to destroy any real opposition.
The restoration of the rule of law and the real commencement of a process of genuine democratization are the minimum conditions for maintaining EU aid.
The European Union, but also all the Member States, should send the Kinshasa government a firm reminder before it is too late for the Congo Democratic Republic as well, as has often happened in the past.
Just over ten years ago Tshisekedi was imprisoned on a number of occasions.
He was also banned to the interior, to his place of origin.
These are scenarios which repeat themselves.
I must say that I am not surprised that we are witnessing a repeat scenario, because the way in which Kabila came to power had little or nothing to do with a real uprising form within, but more with several countries surrounding the former Zaire wanting to settle something.
So we are having a situation which starts off with someone with weapons coming to power, who promises elections at some point in the far future, but in the meantime forbids political activities, creates problems with regard to free media and deals with political opponents in a completely impossible way.
I think what matters now is that measures and actions are taken, that we not only take note of what is happening, but try to gain influence, for example through the pressure which can be applied by the European Union and the Member States.
Mr President, I would like to clarify some of the various points on human rights put forward by the different speakers.
As regards Iran, the Commission is extremely concerned about the violations of human rights, which are clearly documented in the reports by Mr Garretón, the United Nations' special rapporteur on human rights in Iran.
The Commission would be prepared to urge the Iranian government to permit the special rapporteur to enter the country as soon as possible, in order to allow him to draw up a report on the human rights situation in Iran.
As the Union has reiterated many times, the Commission still deeply regrets the existence of the fatwa against the British author, Salman Rushdie, which has already been in place for nine years.
I can confirm that this situation is contrary to international law and puts not only Mr Rushdie in danger, but also the people connected to him.
The Commission is seriously concerned about the recent measures taken by the Iranian authorities against a German citizen, Mr Helmut Hofer, and a publisher of an Iranian newspaper, Mr Mortesa Firuzi, who have been unjustifiably sentenced to death for crimes allegedly committed in Iran.
The Commission has already made its opinion known, and is counting on the Iranian authorities to ensure that these cases are reconsidered.
We welcome the recent liberation of Mr Faraj Sahouhi and we hope that his case will set a precedent for more liberal individual human rights policies on the part of the Iranian government.
The Commission also warmly welcomed the decision by the Council of General Subjects on 26 January to reconsider European Union relations with Iran under the current circumstances, and this question - relations with Iran - will in fact be one of the main points at the meeting of the Council of General Subjects next Monday.
As regards Mauritania, the Commission has, through the usual channels, followed with great concern the arrest and sentencing of Mauritanians who were demonstrating in favour of human rights, and it has informed the Mauritanian ambassador in Brussels of our concerns and also that we want to be kept informed about the situation.
In general, cooperation between Mauritania and the European Commission has been aimed at consolidating democracy and the rule of law, as well as respect for human rights and fundamental liberties, and we must recognize that, at least in the case of Mauritania, very positive efforts have been made in recent years with respect to the country's situation and a significant process of democratization has been started.
Naturally, in terms of the laws and the constitution, we all know that slavery is forbidden, but we must realize that traditional practices still survive - as reported - where, in certain regions, although not actually slavery, similar types of work relations are still practised.
We can therefore state that we are making the necessary political gestures to reveal this situation to the Mauritanian authorities, in order to resolve it through the normal diplomatic channels.
Having said this, however, the Commission, as you know, is financing a whole range of activities aimed precisely at promoting the rule of law by way of the Mauritanian Indicative Programme.
As regards Chile, as most of the Members have pointed out, the process of democratization is - or has been - one of this Parliament's concerns and I believe that it was Mr Pons Grau who noted that it is one of the rare budget headings in the Community budget where there has been constant financial support for political parties, trade unions and civic organizations during recent years in the country.
Nevertheless, the Commission must admit that it is a complex process, and consequently it is inevitable that it will involve contradictions which may seem difficult to understand from a European standpoint. Objectively speaking, we all know that there was a dictatorship - who would deny that? - but in the case of Chile, the country is undergoing an internal process which must be understood in all its complexity, and by this, I am in no way excusing the crimes or abuse which took place under the dictatorship.
In fact, you know that the Chilean government has already made it known that it will not accept this resolution.
It is a matter which must obviously be considered with much subtlety and delicacy.
But I am here to represent the institutional position of the Commission.
I have my own opinion on the matter.
And, in the same way as if don Otto were here, I would have no problem saying - because he used to point out that he was older than General Pinochet - "long live Mr don Otto' , but I would not dare to say "long live the other younger veteran' .
I would never say that.
As regards Belarus, the violations of human rights of individuals or groups opposed to the Belorussian regime are unfortunately true.
However, European Union relations with Belarus depend on two delicate matters. I admit, as one speaker pointed out, that an element concerning working in Belarus is that it also means operating in cooperation with Russia.
But I also have to take into consideration the Commission's institutional position.
The two delicate matters are: firstly, the creation of an OSCE inspection and advisory group in Minsk, in the field, which is planned, in principle, for the end of February, and the execution of its mandate; and secondly, the possible adoption by the Belorussian authorities of the TACIS programme for the development of civil society, expected, in principle, in March.
If Belarus - either the government or the President - cooperates constructively with the OSCE and accepts the European Union's programme, we will reevaluate our relations with them, since we are allowed to do this under the Council's resolutions.
Therefore, these two conditions are going to be set out in February and March.
If, on the contrary, instead of receiving a positive response, we received a negative one in this respect - if there was no group set up in Minsk, if obstacles were put in the way of the development of the programme to support civil society -, the European Union would consequently apply the Council's decision and we would have to declare that it was not possible to work with the Belarus government.
For that reason, you will have an answer regarding the OSCE in Minsk after February, and regarding the negotiations with the government after March, and the Commission will present its evaluation to the Council and Parliament in April.
As regards the Democratic Republic of Congo, I must point out that we all need to show - particularly given the concern of a veteran of the Lomé Convention such as Mr Tindemans for the country- that we thought that, with the fall of Mobutu, things were going to change. Arbitrary arrests are taking place and certain leaders of the Congolese opposition are moving outside the city.
In this respect, the Commission, along with the Member States, and certain ones in particular, is in contact with the new authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo to inform them of our point of view on this matter.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p. m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following draft resolutions:
B4-0185/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on sub-critical nuclear testing; -B4-0195/98 by Mr McKenna and Mr Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on sub-critical nuclear testing; -B4-0237/98 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on sub-critical nuclear testing; -B4-0245/98 by Mrs Theorin, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
Mr President, I am pleased that what we started in the Subcommittee on Security and Disarmament, a treatment of the so-called sub-critical testing, has a follow-up, a sequel in an urgent debate.
It is vital that the European Union makes efforts to convince America to abandon these nuclear tests.
These sub-critical tests - I will briefly explain, they are tests to see whether one's nuclear material is still in good condition - are not contrary to the letter nuclear test ban treaty, the CTBT, but they do violate its spirit very seriously.
This treaty will only enter into force with difficulty, because it requires the ratification of countries such as India and Pakistan.
And it is these countries which use their resistance against the American tests to not ratify the CTBT.
These developments might mean the entire house of cards of international disarmament might collapse.
The nuclear nonproliferation treaty is linked to the CTBT and will therefore be under great pressure.
The opportunities offered by the end of the cold war to get rid of large categories of weapons of mass destruction, are thus lost.
It is very unpleasant and very peculiar that this is the result of American actions at the same time that this big America is coming down so strongly on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and rightly, by the way.
The Member States of the Union are wrongly keeping very quiet. Instead, the EU Member States should lodge a protest with the United States, and invite them to end these tests.
Moreover, the Union should make a joint effort to get other countries to ratify the CTBT Treaty.
European efforts are needed to save this treaty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, classical case for the EU to prove that it is serious about a common foreign and security policy, for the comprehensive banning of these tests has been signed by all EU Member States.
Thus the Member States assume the responsibility for ensuring genuine adherence to this treaty.
The danger that it will be surreptitiously undermined - Mr Bertens has already said this, - is very great if the USA continues to test and, above all, confidence in this treaty will be greatly undermined.
It must therefore be made clear: this treaty is valid and it must not be secretly destroyed by the USA's tests, for there is no international verification system by which it can be determined whether or not the test is subcritical.
Atomic weapons are weapons of mass destruction and the USA is demonstrating to us right now the methods it would use against weapons of mass destruction.
I am in any case of the opinion that it is absurd to use military methods and I prefer a diplomatic solution.
The EU must in this case prove its qualifications in the diplomatic sphere.
I hope that it now puts massive support behind making the agreement work.
I believe Mr Marin owes us an answer about exactly how this is going to happen.
Mr President, after many years of negotiations and strong opposition both from nuclear powers and threshold states, it was finally decided to have a comprehensive ban on all nuclear weapons testing.
In September 1996 the treaty was opened for signature and all the countries of the EU have signed up to this treaty.
The intention of a comprehensive test ban treaty was to stop further development of nuclear weapons.
After the end of the Cold War this was an obvious thing, even if France, against strong world opinion, first reserved the right to carry out a series of nuclear weapons tests to improve its nuclear weapons.
Many citizens were not convinced of the goodwill of the nuclear powers and warned that development of new nuclear weapons could take place through laboratory testing.
In the treaty the signatories commit themselves to refrain from any action which would defeat its object and purpose .
Unfortunately, we are now forced to note that the USA has carried out a series of subcritical nuclear tests and intends to carry out four more before September this year.
Some of the world's leading nuclear weapon scientists have strongly questioned whether these tests are indeed subcritical , not least because they are taking place underground and are not verified.
The argument that these tests have to be carried out in order to be sure about the safety and reliability of existing nuclear weapons stocks fails on its own absurdity.
It is true that tritium slowly deteriorates after many years, but not in such a way that there is no longer any risk that nuclear weapons will explode and cause the devastation for which they are intended.
Many countries and a large number of members of the American Congress have expressed their concern over these tests.
The crux of the matter, however, is that these tests and new nuclear weapons development seriously jeopardize the international test ban treaty.
Even if, contrary to expectations, they did not contravene the letter of the test ban treaty, it is clear that they contravene the spirit of the treaty.
This is one of our most important international treaties, and it is unacceptable for the USA to seriously undermine the treaty through these tests.
Our resolution therefore demands consequently that the American government should stop these tests, that it should state in an official declaration that these tests are not part of a new weapons development programme and that the development of new nuclear weapons is not part of the USA's policy.
Mr President, the position of the Group of the European People's Party's on the other resolutions of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons is well known.
This is the first resolution to be presented on the topic of nuclear weapon testing and sub-critical testing.
We have submitted no motion for a resolution, we are not going to table any amendments and, in fact, the Group of the European People's Party intends to vote against all of these resolutions.
It plans to do this for one reason only and that is because we believe that it is not the right time to submit them.
At the moment, there is a serious situation in the Gulf, and we are talking about a weapon whose main strength is deterrence. Taking into consideration the fact that the only thing which can change the situation in the Gulf is dissuasion, we believe that it is the worst possible time to talk about such things.
That is why the Group of the European People's Party is going to vote against all the resolutions.
Moreover, it would be better if we gave it some time and the United States Senate ratified the CTBT Treaty.
Mr President, I can immediately follow on from what the previous speaker has said and I also share his estimate relating to the choice of time and agree with him that it is not necessarily a matter which requires great urgency.
I also have doubts whether the authors of these resolutions have really taken the trouble to find out exactly what subcritical tests are, for they are tests in which no chain reactions ensue, in which no radioactive substances are released above the tolerance limits.
Here the question arises why the reasons given by the USA cannot be accepted, namely that this amongst other things serves to check the safety of existing stocks.
Each of us would prefer if we could do without all these things, but since we have people in the world like Saddam Hussein and the like we cannot in my opinion afford as it were to divest ourselves completely of all our defence capabilities whilst Saddam Hussein for his part has no thoughts of following a good example which under certain circumstances could be given here.
Nowhere have I read that one of the countries which even today still produces weapons of mass destruction including anti-personnel mines would consider supporting the test ban treaties and destroying its own weapons of mass destruction if these subcritical tests were now halted.
Again I ask for this proof to be offered.
It might perhaps be appropriate to explain to Günther that the reason for our criticism is precisely that it has not been possible to check that these tests really are subcritical.
We base this on information from the world's leading nuclear weapons scientists.
That is what we are demanding, i.e. that these tests should be stopped until it can be proven that they are subcritical.
There is every reason in the world to question these tests. The Americans still have nuclear weapons.
All the nuclear powers still have nuclear weapons. But we should not develop new nuclear weapons.
Mr President, the Commission supports the work carried out by the European Union and participates in it in order to convince third countries which have not yet done so to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
In this respect, within the Union, all the Member States have begun national procedures to quickly ratify the Treaty.
The entry into force of this Treaty will undoubtedly lead to a crucial stage of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation at international level.
And any element which obstructs this ratification or any delay which might take place in any of the ratifications, as Mr Fabra Vallés pointed out, would cause great concern.
That is the Commission's view on this matter.
We want a rapid and unanimous ratification of the Treaty.
Mr President, I had asked the Commissioner to tell us in concrete terms what the Commission plans.
Will the Commission make a proposal to the "Foreign Affairs' council, about how this test ban , on the assumption that everyone is ready to ratify it, even on w worldwide basis, can be implemented really effectively by everybody? Is there in this respect a concrete proposal, is there a plan?
And when will the Commission present this to the Council?
Madam speaker, I am as in favour of the suspension of nuclear testing as I can be, but the fact is that it is very difficult for the Commission to make a proposal since, as you all know, it has no authority to do so.
This is why I did not respond; if I could do it, I would, but, as you know, we have no authority in this matter.
Thank you, Commissioner, Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, on 2 and 5 February catastrophic floods of unprecedented severity afflicted many parts of Eastern Macedonia, Thrace, and some islands in the East and North Aegean.
They caused the death of 4 people and injured many others, resulted in great damage to buildings, vehicles, crops and to the infrastructure of the areas, such as roads and bridges.
With this motion we are calling for an expression of solidarity and expressing our deepest sympathy for the families of the victims and the dwellers in those areas who have suffered.
We are also asking the European Commission and the Council of the European Union to contribute towards the effort to make good the damage, with urgent economic aid.
I think the natural disasters which unfortunately take place every year in various parts of the European Union provide us all with an opportunity, and the European Union's bodies as well, to demonstrate our presence at the side of our citizens who sustain such damage and trials as those brought about by the recent disastrous floods in Greece.
Mr President, as a subject, natural disasters repeatedly come up in the European Parliament and every time that a Member State or even a third country is afflicted by weather conditions, fire, earthquake or whatever else, there is a lot of debating.
This time it is parts of Greece which have been hit, and it is natural for us to ask the Commission and the European Parliament to express solidarity with those affected, and therein lies the problem.
Because each time, we decide unanimously that those affected must be helped - and the Commission too agrees about this aid - and we ask that the often enormous damage caused should be made good, each time we in here vote for all that unanimously, but the aid often remains confined to words alone because thereafter the matter passes into the hands of the governments involved, of course, and then grinds to a halt.
So besides adopting specific resolutions - and there are clearly no objections to that, which is why we are debating it here -, perhaps we ought in future to examine another more effective way not just of expressing solidarity but of becoming more effective in substance.
Because in this specific instance, in Eastern Macedonia, Thrace and the Aegean islands and elsewhere where entire regions were flooded, not only were estates destroyed but there have been human victims and enormous damage was caused. So in this case something more is needed besides an emergency resolution.
What we vote for and decide upon must come to pass. Perhaps, besides the legitimate appeal for aid and for its approval by the Commission, this is an opportunity to re-think the whole procedure and see how we can act more effectively.
Mr President, my colleagues have told us what happened as a result of the floods, it is stated in the resolution, and I do not want to spend time needlessly.
I just want to draw Parliament's attention and that of Mr Marín who is present today, to the type and manner and timing of aid.
It must be direct, and must be enough to make good the damage and help those people who have been left without incomes, whose products have been destroyed, who have been left homeless, with no water supply, no trace of transport and communications and other infrastructure.
All that must be made good at once.
But that, Mr Marín, is not enough.
Such disasters take place every so often, usually in border areas among the poorest in the Community, and they must be given special treatment.
There should be a scale of aid in the sense of the Community's structural policy so that such natural disasters will result in less damage.
They need special protection.
Instead, what do you do? You exclude the islands of the North and East Aegean from the operational programmes of the structural policy.
Energy, transport and other such programmes.
And consequently you leave them unprotected while they are the most vulnerable to natural disasters.
Since these are border regions, there towards the Aegean, towards Evros and Turkey, they also fail to attract investment because everyone is uneasy about stability in those areas because of the notorious policy of the Turkish leadership.
Consequently, Mr Marín, please look to those two phases, immediate aid and a scale of regular aid for the protection of those areas by means of structural programmes, so that disasters will not cause such widespread damage.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the severe bad weather that has recently affected many countries in Europe and all over the world is the result of man's ill-considered intervention in the environment.
Huge areas of forest have been destroyed, lakes have dried up, rivers have been blocked up.
Nature warns but also takes its revenge.
The same thing has happened in Greece, where last week enormous destruction was caused by severe rainstorms.
People lost their lives, crops were destroyed and people who had toiled to create their estates lost them.
We express our sympathy to the victims and to all those who suffered destruction, and Mr President, we ask the European Commission to express its sensitivity in practical ways by providing financial aid as soon as possible.
Storm in Malaga .
Mr President, I presume that you, as a neighbour from the region, although from another country, are aware of the heavy rains and violent winds experienced in Malaga from 31 January to 5 February. This damaged farming and livestock products, land and woodland infrastructures and capital assets of all forms.
The damages represent more than 21 000 million pesetas.
I, on behalf, I would say, of almost all of the Spanish delegation, regardless of the group they belong to, would ask the Commission, through this resolution, to secure emergency aid to relieve the damage in the province of Malaga.
I am sure that Vice-President Marín will have the same degree of interest in the problem in Greece and the problem in Spain, but the truth is, Mr Marín, that in this case we have you as our defending counsel.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission shares in the suffering of the families of the victims in both Greece and in Malaga, and it regrets the physical damage caused. But I must tell you that you have put me in a difficult position, since the problem we have is that the budget heading relating to emergency aid for Community citizens who have been the victims of catastrophes has been cancelled precisely on the initiative of the European Parliament.
Therefore, it seems a bit dramatic for the Commission to have to remind you of it and maybe ask you to include it in the budget again for the coming year.
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended for 15 minutes while awaiting Voting Time)
We shall now proceed to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
During the vote on the accident caused by a plane in Italy:
Mr President, as the news has been published today that the Italian Government has asked the US Government to allow proceedings to be heard on the incident in Cavalese in Italy, we believe this new fact should be included in the resolution and, with the agreement of many colleagues, I would therefore like to submit the following oral amendment: "notes the formal request made by the Italian Government to the US Government to allow proceedings to be heard in Italy' .
If everyone agrees, we can approve it.
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment and adopted the resolution)
After the vote on floods in Greece :
Mr President, concerning the four resolutions on floods which the House has just voted for, three-quarters of an hour ago an insult was offered to the dignity of Parliament.
After the toil and trouble taken to prepare the resolutions, and after we took the trouble to listen to them for over half an hour, the Commissioner responsible, Mr Marín, rose and though he is not a cynic, told us most cynically that none of all that was worth a groat, because the budget line providing compensation aid has been abolished, for which Parliament shares co-responsibility.
I raise the issue as a question. In that case, why did the Bureau accept that we could table resolutions that can have no force?
For what reason? Besides, even when that budget line had not been abolished, such aid was non-existent, very limited, or it never reached its target.
Now, he tells us most cynically that it is no longer even provided for.
Then why this debate? Why this trick against Parliament?
Mr. President, I am not raising the issue personally, nor out of national egoism.
Today it concerns Greece.
Tomorrow it will concern other countries.
Are we to continue playing this game? And if the budget line in question has been abolished, it is impossible for us to tolerate that and as a body with special responsibility for the budget we must bring it back, because it is unacceptable that fellow-humans should be suffering, afflicted by floods and natural disasters, while the Community sits there twiddling its thumbs.
Mr President, this House should know that Mr Marin is absolutely right: we were party to removing that budget line.
That is one of the reasons why Mr Avgerinos, your colleague in the Bureau, is in the process of re-examining the system of urgencies.
So it is no news to most of us.
What is ridiculous is that we keep tabling motions asking for money to be spent when there is no budget line, and Members should know that when they table resolutions.
Mr President, our Greek colleague is partly right.
Mrs Green is also only partly right.
In the resolution on Greece we are not asking for money from the Diaster Fund, but from the Structural Funds, and therefore not the ECU 5 million from before.
That was my first point.
Secondly, Tuesday afternoon, but perhaps Mrs Green did not receive a complete copy of the report, the man sitting behind you, myself and a number of colleagues agreed to ask the Presidency to consider once more whether we should discuss these resolutions on calamities in future, and to come back to this point the next time we are re-examining everything related to urgencies.
The Greek possibilities continue to exist.
In fact, before the vote, I had to explain, particularly to Mr Ephremidis - and I believe I did so calmly - that I was sorry to have to say that we cannot secure any aid for natural catastrophes because the budget heading B4-3400 has been removed.
Secondly, as regards the Structural Funds, there is another problem: the Structural Funds Regulation does not allow for payments to cover natural catastrophes.
Consequently, there is no legal basis for doing so.
Mr President, clearly there has been a misunderstanding by the interpreter.
I, on the contrary, said quite clearly that Mr Marín, though he is not a cynic, ... etc.
I did not say he is a cynic, but indeed, said: ' though he is not a cynic' , but that with cynicism, in other words with extreme composure, he said that the budget does not provide for it.
I want to state that, Mr President, because I have served in this Chamber for about 20 years and never have I directed personal comments against a colleague and far less against holders of office in the Council or the European Commission.
That concludes the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance
Mr President, I would simply like to point out that, to my knowledge, the bell did not ring to announce the votes, or else it did not ring everywhere.
I arrived ten minutes late.
I was listening very carefully for the bell because I had a meeting.
I should have looked at my watch, but I believe that, given the stakes which have become quite significant during voting time, it would be better to ensure that the bell does ring.
Thank you.
We will check that but your presence will be recorded.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.50 p.m. and resumed at 6 p.m.)
Confidence in electronic means of payment (continuation)
We are now taking the continuation of the debate on confidence in electronic means of payment.
Mr President, it is possible to keep the interests of consumers very clearly in view and yet at the same time be fully open to the possibilities of new technical developments.
Madame rapporteur has given us convincing proof of this by shedding bright light with her report on legal problems arising from the Commission's communication, - for example the question which has not yet been solved satisfactorily, about the definition of the methods of payment covered by the communication and\or a directive still to be drawn up.
Is this now to include only physical or also purely electronic payments - for instance via the Internet?
No less urgent are the liability problems dealt with in detail by the rapporteur, which are of prime importance for the consumer.
On both questions I consider a response from the Commission, also with regard to any directive which might be issued, to be urgently necessary.
The Committee on Legal Affairs passed the report by Mrs Thors unanimously.
It would be desirable if this high House could do the same - in the interests of the modernisation of our payment systems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Thors' excellent report tackles with determination an extremely new and complex field in which the traditional psychology of the consumer plays a significant role.
The current market economy is still largely based on the consumer's physical assessment of the materiality of the currency and the quality of the retailer.
This assessment also determines to a large extent the consumer's confidence, with attitudes which, in addition, are quite different throughout the European Union.
Indeed, we are currently undergoing a revolution which is vastly upsetting our traditional attitudes.
It is a revolution of a size similar to that which, in the past, saw the introduction of physical currency and the substitution of the barter economy with the market economy.
It is clear today that physical currency is disappearing and being replaced by a simple electronic record; in particular, the sector known as cybereconomy is developing and the retailer is disappearing to be replaced by a network of electronic exchanges which are no longer represented by the faces of millions of shop assistants, but by a few multinationals which face up to the consumer and which are out of his reach.
It is this change which is leading to the consumer's distrust.
It is therefore the consumer that needs to be taken into consideration if we want to instil new confidence in modern, technological procedures.
In a few years, as President Clinton said in a speech on 1 July 1997, billions of dollars will be exchanged in this way.
Thus, it is not enough to worry about organizing consumer protection in terms of electronic payment cards. We must firstly create the conditions for emergence of a legal framework in order to allow for competition in the provision of exchange of procedures, by establishing rules which prevent the setting up of monopolies providing software and servers through discriminatory procedures.
Certain societies are in fact already trying to control this burgeoning cybereconomy.
Moreover, many people are amazed at the success of Bill Gates, for example.
These companies are so powerful that they already elude the reach of most of our governments.
The United States seems to want to establish only those rules which will be necessary from now on to best serve the interests of American societies simultaneously.
The European Union must assume its role as a great world economic power.
It must therefore, in our opinion, establish a directive, which defines, classifies and standardizes the exchange procedures, as well as organizing them into a hierarchy.
That will be a first defining step in the setting up of a competition law in this new field and in forming consumers' confidence in the new technologies.
It is in this spirit that the Group of the European Radical Alliance will give its support to Mrs Thor's report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say how satisfied I am with the report and to emphasize its many positive elements.
Firstly, the report agrees with the Commission's policy in respect of new payment methods, including electronic methods.
The Commission also believes that it is advisable to avoid imposing unnecessary administrative requirements which hinder innovation, growth and competitiveness in the sector.
Therefore, faced with the arrival of this new generation of products - particularly electronic money - which is still at a relatively early stage, the Commission decided to propose a non-binding recommendation.
Before the end of 1998, the Commission will carry out a study analysing the extent to which the principles included in the recommendation have been applied.
If it appears that their application is unsatisfactory, it will propose a directive.
The Commission will, of course, keep Parliament informed of the progress in this matter.
Secondly, the Commission agrees with the principle stating that a free and open market economy must prevail in the sector, as provided for in the Treaty, and that, in principle, it must not thus be unduly regulated.
Thirdly, the Commission believes that the main objectives should be to increase confidence and consumer acceptance as regards electronic means of payment as well as to promote the single market and encourage electronic commerce in this area.
Fourthly, the Commission considers that, for the single market to work at full capacity and for electronic commerce and the information society to develop, then electronic money products and electronic payments must be solvent, easy to use, efficient and safe, as the Commission highlighted in its communication on a European initiative on electronic commerce.
Finally, the Commission believes that transparent and safe electronic money products would make the change to the single currency easier, particularly during the transition period.
Mr President, I would like to move on to make a few points about the follow-up planned for the communication and Parliament report.
As we stated in the communication, the Commission is prepared to draw up initiatives in the field of new means of payment with a view to promoting electronic commerce and the information society.
In this respect, the Commission issued a recommendation in July 1997 where it pointed out that transparency, responsibility and compensation for damage were the principles which should govern the relations between the issuer and the holder of the payment instrument.
And, in the future, the Commission intends to clear up the application of the Community competition standards in these markets with a view to achieving a balance between an adequate level of interoperability and healthy and vigorous competition. It also aims to propose a draft directive on the issuing of electronic money whose aim would be to guarantee the stability and the solvency of the issuer of electronic payment instruments, since we believe that this also serves to promote consumer confidence.
On the other hand, to respond to a specific solution from the Amsterdam European Council, the Commission is also studying different possibilities in the field of fraud and the falsification of the means of payment, including, of course, electronic money.
In conclusion, as outlined in the report, the Commission intends to study specific initiatives in the field of the digital electronic sector whose objective would be to establish a Community framework in this area and thus do away with any obstacles within the European Union.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Simpler legislation for the internal market (SLIM)
The next item is the report (A4-0033/98) by Mr Crowley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on simpler legislation for the internal market (SLIM) and the results of the second phase and the follow-up of the implementation of the first phase recommendations (COM(97)0618 - C4-0660/97)
Mr President, in the absence of my colleague, Mr Crowley, I wish, at the outset to place on the record of the House his appreciation to the Secretariat of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for all its assistance and advice in preparing this second SLIM report and also, to thank the other draftsmen for their additions to the text.
He also wishes me to put on the record his thanks to the Commission for taking on board some of the committee's concerns with regard to prior consultation.
I am sure that it is obvious to all Members of the House that the easier and more accessible we make legislation the greater the opportunity for real business and commerce to expand which will lead to bigger growth and more employment.
We must take seriously our responsibilities under the Treaties not to impose unnecessary administrative or financial burdens on smalland medium-sized enterprises which are recognized as the greatest engine for growth in employment terms.
Within the report there are a number of areas specifically mentioned: extension of the scope of SLIM actions in the agricultural area; use of plainer and simpler language; it also points out that codification is a useful tool to improve the situation - for example, 16 fertilizer directives being reduced to a single directive.
The report also recommends that Member State governments should establish SLIM teams as there is evidence that some of the hindrances to the internal market are a result of the non-implementation or non-transposition of EU legislation.
It suggests that the duration of the SLIM teams should be extended to a minimum of six months and that the third phase of SLIM should address freedom of movement and social security for migrant workers.
It should also address health and safety at work, public procurement and directives on the maintenance of dangerous substances.
For the fourth phase the rapporteur suggests a machinery directive, an environmental waste management directive, a telecommunications equipment directive, an electromagnetic compatibility directive and the implementation of pollution controls.
Finally, as all Members will know, many times Member States use the European Union as a scapegoat for unpopular national rules.
This practice must not continue and must be responded to vigorously by the European Parliament offices in each Member State.
The rapporteur wishes me to commend this report to the House.
Mr President, I would like to commence by apologizing on behalf of the draftsman for the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Like Mr Hyland I have been asked to step in and it would seem that Mr Hyland and I are the godparents of this report in the European Parliament while the real parents are elsewhere.
I would also like to note the success with which the Luxembourg Presidency really kicked off the SLIM programme.
As a British Member, I am optimistic that the British Presidency can maintain the momentum that was picked up originally by the Luxembourg Presidency and that will be carried on through the Austrian and German presidencies because there is much to do in this particular area.
At issue is improving the environment for business.
It is an essential part, as the single market action plan pointed out, of the completion of that programme.
Red tape, when it is reduced and when those rules are simplified, will make things much clearer for businesses and much easier for business to operate within the single market.
It will be a particular help to small and medium-sized enterprises who must spend more money proportionally in order to comply with EU legislation and national legislation when it has been transposed.
In particular, more money must be spent on decoding some of the complex texts when they arrive in their language in their respective Member States.
It will also promote enhanced economic activity which can only be good for the single market because the outcome would be an increased number of jobs.
Some of the prime examples of the areas that have been covered are, in particular, directives that can be codified into a single directive - in the case of fertilizers, for example, or, clearly, machinery, environmental waste, telecommunications equipment and electromagnetic compatibility across the electrical equipment and, indeed, pollution control.
The other issue is transposition which needs to be dealt with effectively.
Much of the legislation, when transposed at the Member State level, is transposed into very weighty legislation.
This is partly due to some of the complexity in the original text but it is mainly, I believe, due to bureaucratic interference at national level as civil servants wish to include bits of their own interpretation of legislation as well as their own pet projects in national legislation.
SLIM is a plan meant to reduce the bureaucrat's appetite for legislation and to propose wholesome legislation which will provide a healthy framework for the operation of the single market.
A healthy single market is one which will create jobs and therefore I commend Mr Crowley's report to this House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the activities of the Commission in the context of the SLIM programme started back in 1996 are extraordinarily welcome.
The report now before us represents a further step towards improvement and simplification of Community law, even if it is only a small step, considering the massive and urgent necessity to create simple regulations for the single market.
Of course I wish that the SLIM programme would be reflected very much more quickly and more clearly in solid results which everyone can see.
Then in addition a less important role is played by the series of projects subjected to the SLIM procedure.
I wish this programme would lead to perceptible relief for the medium, small and very small companies, but also for the big ones, thus strengthening their ability to compete and bringing more jobs.
The monitoring of Intrastat and the sphere of value added tax are really worthwhile objects in this respect.
I wish the SLIM programme to be perceived as a real blessing and that it would inspire the Member States to thin out their laws in the same way, voluntarily or even perhaps subject to deadlines.
Our laws must no longer be perceived to be the expression of blind legislative madness on the part of Brussels or national bureaucrats.
The legislature must not overstep a mark still recognizedd as reasonable with its frequently compulsorily burdensome effects on the citizens and companies.
These wishes and demands can of course be addressed only to the Commission. The legislators, Council and European Parliament were and are also asked.
We, the European Parliament must ask ourselves self-critically: What is our contribution to the achievement of the goal which has been set? When I measures our resolution which we have put to the vote, with the same criteria of clarity, legibility, conciseness and focus then I am disappointed.
This is by no means a reproach for the rapporteur, absolutely not at all.
It is primarily the result of our own internal parliamentary voting procedures, at the end of which frequently many unconnected points are lined up together.
This statement applies quite generally.
Independent of this I find it hard to see what sense, for example, points 10 and 11 make in this resolution.
I of course unreservedly support the demand for a European form of company.
These points 10 and 11 really have very little to do in my opinion with the aims of the SLIM programme to improve and simplify the existing legal arrangements.
If Parliament is trying to implement the SLIM programme then I cannot quite work out why it wants to be included in point 15 and 16 even during the individual monitoring procedures of the Commission in the context of SLIM.
As co-legislator it should concentrate on cooperating in the conclusions and not drag out the process in its initial stages.
SLIM is a worthwhile undertaking.
I thank the rapporteur, the Commission and in particular Commissioner Monti for his perseverance and I am pleased that the current Council Presidency accords the SLIM programme a particularly prominent significance.
Mr President, the Dutch word 'slim' means 'clever' in English.
The English 'slim' means 'thin' in Dutch.
Neither qualification applies to the programme the Commission has put before us.
Because the Commission has as yet failed to meet its promise.
I think this is a pity that Commissioner Monti is not with us here tonight, because I would like to have a seen a firmer commitment from the Commission to get serious about both deregulation, simplification and consolidation of European legislation.
We have one actual example of consolidation. This is Community customs legislation.
Those who see the fat volumes this consolidated legislation occupies, and those who know that relatively rudimentarily educated people throughout the Union have to work with this, know that we have failed to simplify Community legislation and make it more manageable.
When we see the tasks we set ourselves in Community legislation, for example, returning Tdocuments within 14 days, and when we know that over 85 % of these documents to not arrive back in time, what kind of legislation are dealing with, if we know that people cannot keep to it?
When we know that, on driving and resting times for instance, we have only now, at the beginning of 1998, the figures for 1993 and 1994, whilst four Member States actually manage quite simply not to submit any figures at all, and the Commission is just sitting here, saying: yes, we are going to simplify, deregulate and improve legislation, then I would like to see genuine results!
The Commission will have to give its word.
Mr President, Mr Wijsenbeek, I would have thought that SLIM means slim in German - in any case I see that written in the shirts which unfortunately have long since ceased to fit me - slim also in the sense of slimming down the legal and administrative regulations which are obligatory throughout Europe.
The Austrian Economics Minister described this task, in agreement with the British Council representative, as a major theme of the Austrian Presidency.
We shall observe carefully whether and how the Austrian Council Presidency in the second half of the year 1998 comes to terms with mastering Parkinson's Law, and we are already looking forward to positive effects of the initiative announced by the Austrian Economics Minister entitled "Better regulations are better for jobs.'
SLIM is one of the initiatives by which work we have started can be continued, and simplification can be pushed forward; the financial burden due to the costs of bureaucracy is extremely high particularly for small and medium companies and its limitation by means of simplified legislation is therefore a necessity.
We are of course of the view that the general mandate proposed in point 21 of the report means a transfer of authority for the Commission, which we reject.
Of course we are in agreement with the report, which we think is excellent.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would of course like to join in the congratulations to Mr Crowley for the really great work which he has done towards the simplification of the administration in the context of the single market.
If one looks at what is required in terms of economic statistics even from some small and medium companies one gets the feeling that the strangers to reality who invented these statistics obviously believe that customers primarily pay their prices for the filling in of forms and not for a product.
This therefore requires something from a company which it cannot give.
The logical result is simply that jobs are lost.
Would it not be considerably better if the state, instead of as usual threatening fines if companies do not meet their statistical obligations, were instead to offer incentives, e.g. certain premiums, and then otherwise leave it up to these firms whether or not they produce statistics in the context of economic statistics.
For a historically-aware person this system inevitably calls to mind the compulsory labour of the Middle Ages, but in those days they had the advantage that they just had to supply one tenth, whereas today the State usually requires considerably more than 10 % of the income of the working time.
When we hear how for example today in Austria the Finance Minister thinks aloud about a reversal of the burden of proof in cases of suspected tax evasion, one can scarcely imagine what this would mean in terms of extra work for our small and medium firms and how this would be reflected in astronomical unemployment figures in Europe.
It is small and medium firms in particular where jobs are created and maintained.
In this sense the SLIM programme can really do some pioneering work on behalf of the individual European citizen, and I very much hope that the various parents and godparents of the SLIM programme continue their efforts to drive this SLIM programme forward and keep it alive.
Mr President, I wonder how long we are going to continue to speak in appreciative terms about the SLIM programme.
It is now 1998.
The programme was launched in 1996, but, as my colleague Mr Wijsenbeek said, we have still not seen a single proposal.
That is the first serious objection.
I would like to issue a final warning: don't come back again and speak about the SLIM programme if we have not got any concrete proposals.
I am beginning to tire of this 'SLIM liturgy' .
Secondly, I really hope that the message reaches the whole Commission, i.e. that we want these principles to be extended to cover all legislation within the Commission, since there is a need there also.
Furthermore, I would like to underline what Mr Murphy noted at the hearing of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, namely that one of the SLIM proposals which has been put forward, regarding the keeping of statistics, is not feasible.
I hope the Commission takes this seriously and that it revises it, since this proposal would lead to double bureaucracy and double nomenclatures for companies, and go in precisely the opposite direction to what all of us here wanted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the SLIM initiative is a very important initiative because it makes Europe pleasant.
Pleasant because people are thinking about how existing rules can be made simple and how they can be made more useful.
When one considers that we have about 50 000 single market regulations then one knows the magnitude of the task which has to be faced.
When they talk about new public management then we know that SLIM has a very significant role here.
In addition to FICHE-IMPACT which is to try to simplify new legal regulations and to make them clear for the benefit of citizens then SLIM is designed to simplify the existing statute book.
We also need the bench marking system, so that we can see how the quantity, the quality, the various spheres develop, in other words so that we get comparable criteria for how efficiently we work.
We need these SLIM programmes so that the single market does not just exist on paper but can also be experienced in practice.
Simplified and standardised single market regulations will benefit not only the companies, no, particularly the Consumers, because they will make it possible for products to be cheaper.
The firms can then be more concerned with delivering the service or manufacturing the product instead of with the entering of statistics.
It is in fact possible, to obtain the documents and the necessary data for the statistics from other spheres.
We give sufficient information to the Treasury, the banks can measure turnovers, the social security offices get the data.
I believe that in this sphere we have some scope.
I would also suggest that for example the Economic and Social Committee should concern itself more intensively with these problems, for relieving the load on business leads to more jobs.
Mr President, people may well think this is a step in the right direction, but I believe it must be looked at in a much broader way.
It is good that people are dealing with legislative area by legislative area and can extend it to cover more areas if that should be of importance.
It is also good that the level of detail is examined properly, so that more of the principles are left to EU rules and EU law and more details are left to individual Member States regarding whatever may be concerned in agriculture, such as cucumbers, bananas or strawberries, so that this debate is avoided.
I have a serious objection, namely that we are starting with such a rule about SLIM, which in itself is good, but are not tackling the big problem - the constant flow of new EU rules.
In 1992, when the principle of subsidiarity was introduced, there were around 8 050 EU rules affecting the Member States.
In 1996 it was 14 000 and the number is increasing year by year.
It is the mass of new rules and details which makes the problem so great.
That is where we must begin by leaving more of the principles to the EU and more details to the nation states.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Short-term statistics
The next item is the report (A4-0047/98) by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on short-term statistics (COM(97)0313 - C4-0417/97-97/0171(CNS))
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the topic we are looking at - the legislative resolution on a proposal for a Council Regulation on short-term statistics - has a technical dimension, but it also has a dimension which concerns the completion of the European Internal Market and the single currency, with the introduction of the euro.
It is becoming more and more evident that our economic reality at European Union level is already exceeding what the mere effectiveness of the Member States could be, since it is clear that with the Internal Market and especially with Monetary Union, it will be essential to have a political orientation for the economic and monetary policies of the Union, and this orientation will thus have to be based on statistics which are reliable.
This proposal for a regulation tries to ensure that these statistics are reliable, that is, that those aspects and economic quantities to be considered at economic and monetary level in the Union are comparable and reliable: that is the hope and the intention of this regulation.
It is important then that there have been two types of consultation before this regulation was drawn up: one in the European Monetary Institute - the embryo of what is to be the European Central Bank - in order to give the Union's monetary policy the correct orientation; and another in the Commission, in order to determine from its economic guidelines the type of shortterm statistics needed, the type of clarification needed and, therefore, the type of demands which must be established.
This leads to a range of proposals which are set out in the explanatory statement.
Eleven different characteristics are noted including monthly production indicators, manufacturing orders information, monthly information on stocks, production broken down by activity, employment and hours worked and, from the Commission, a range of indicators referring to small and medium-sized undertakings and to some specific sectors, such as construction and services.
These indicators are established through different types of modules which allow this comparison to be made.
This question was debated in committee and there was a large consensus. I, as rapporteur, put forward two proposals: firstly, that we took into consideration the indicators at regional level, among other things, because there are regions which are of equal or superior weighting to some countries.
In addition, if we abandoned this regional dimension, we would be losing a type of indicator which is also very necessary for the orientation of a range of policies of the European Commission itself, for example in cross-border cooperation, in some aspects of the application of the Structural Funds, in the follow-up to the changes in economic activity and in the fight for jobs. There was then another much more complicated proposal which involved defining some modules in terms of the accounts concerning, for example, the number of hours worked by part-time workers, which is one of the questions which is now being studied most carefully.
Under this second heading there was a series of observations on the part of some PPE colleagues in reference to the SLIM programme stating that we should not excessively overload businesses when giving them statistic questionnaires to fill in, and in the search for agreement we dropped this second aspect.
We agreed on the remainder and this makes me, as rapporteur, very happy since the amendments that I am proposing to the report - accepting the initial Commission proposal, they are proposals or amendments which I see as improvements - received the unanimous support of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, so I am, therefore, presenting a report without discrepancies at committee level.
Mr President, a misinformed man or woman, a misinformed official and a misinformed population reacts badly and decides badly.
This statement of the obvious especially affects those who take the decisions in our European Union, who, if they are misinformed, or if the information they receive is false and, more particularly, incomparable, run the risk of taking bad decisions which could end up being to the detriment of the Union's citizens.
This is why a regulation on short-term statistics is not only a question of statisticians or technicians, but also takes on a significant political importance.
That is also why Parliament is looking into the matter.
Following the evolution of businesses in order to be able correctly evaluate the evolution of the Internal Market, so as to define monetary, economic, social and industrial policies is, in fact, very important politically, in particular during this transition period we are currently undergoing, as we prepare for the single currency.
I learnt at university that using statistics can be the most sophisticated way of lying and that, after all, we should only trust statistics that we have fixed ourselves.
But since, in the European Union, we must trust the statistics provided by the 15 Member States, which have the responsibility of collecting the data, we must define standards, rules and definitions which are necessary in establishing comparable statistics.
We therefore agree with the regulation's objective and with the approach proposed by the Commission.
We particularly approve of its desire to reconcile the burden on businesses, which must supply the data, with the increase in information needed to satisfy at the same time, for example, the European Monetary Institute and businesses themselves.
I am rapporteur on an aspect of the SLIM programme, namely the statistics on the exchange of goods in the Single Market. Therefore, I know that we are torn between, on the one hand, the desire to lighten the burden on businesses, particularly the SMUs, which must supply the data, and on the other hand, the needs of the users, including businesses themselves which also need information, who often need very detailed information since it is essential for trade and investment policies.
We certainly understand some amendments to the Commission's text, in particular as regards comparable statistics, not only at national level, but also at regional level, given that the short-term statistics will in future have to cover both the industrial and services sectors.
However, we must not exaggerate and guarantee that we cannot identify where the data collected at regional level comes from.
Nor must we exaggerate in another sense, like the amendments from the Greens, which, in terms of the variables, exceed what is necessary and useful.
We must not forget that we are talking here about short-term statistics which are not destined to replace the social statistics and those on the employment market.
If we try for too much, we will end up with less.
We must guarantee the availability of comparable short-term indicators for the European Union, no more and no less.
The superfluous is always very necessary, but it is not the path to take in this field and the rapporteur, whom I congratulate, has not done this.
We will follow his lead.
Mr President, the availability of statistical data is particularly important at times like these.
The introduction of the euro should also give us the opportunity to observe closely how the economic situation, in particular business activity, develops.
Therefore I very much welcome the report and I also congratulate the rapporteur - it is an excellent piece of work - and I am particularly pleased that he has pointed out that there should be no additional burden for the CMU but just the opposite, that in future we are striving for a reduction.
Reduction means that we are not starting a paper war, as in the Middle Ages - as somebody has already said today - but that we should try to collect data as automatically as possible.
It should be our aim to make available computer software so that the data can be piped as quickly, as up to date and as directly as possible into our systems.
If you travel round companies, and I myself am a smith and spend a lot of time out at my customers' premises, and they often show me 20 page statistical declarations which they have to fill in - then you can understand the fury of these people against the statisticians and against this Europe that just loads red tape onto them for which they can see no immediate use.
I believe we should really try to create an incentive system in order to have data automatically, if possible with a modem, immediately and quickly available, so that no mechanical work is involved and not much paper gets sent backwards and forwards - that is of course a mammoth burden for the Central Statistics Office, when it is confronted by tonnes of paper.
Instead we should find an intelligent, clean solution, which makes it possible for our firms quite simply and if possible without cost to supply this data, whilst we at the same time receive exact and appropriate data for our really good future in Europe.
Mr President, the initiative taken by the Commission with a view to improving company performance statistics deserves our strongest support.
The introduction of the single currency and the enlargement of the market in line with the current action plan render such objectives all the more important.
This is the only way to obtain an accurate and continually up-dated perception of on-going developments, thereby permitting the necessary adjustment measures to be taken.
In this sphere, we cannot confine ourselves to the principle of subsidiarity, when the advent of monetary union means that responsibilities relating to the Union as a whole must be assumed.
I would like to congratulate Mr Gasòliba I Böhm on his report, which deserves our fullest support, particularly as regards the need more clearly to distinguish between internal and external movements and to provide regional statistics.
Indeed, these issues are connected, to a certain degree, since it important to be familiar with extra-Monetary Union movements, between Member States and, also, between regions.
Over and above such movements, it is only with an accurate and up-to-date knowledge of all indicators at the regional level at a given moment in time that it will be possible to take action that is appropriate for such diverse circumstances, with differences sometimes proving greater within countries than between countries.
I will not here discuss the survey of structural differences between regions, which are not covered by this regulation, but where a great deal remains to be done under the responsibility and with the support of the European Union, in order to guarantee the rigour of a policy which should occupy an increasingly important place in a stronger, more cohesive Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the regulation you are considering today is trying to provide the Community with harmonized short-term statistics for all economic sectors.
National statistical practices differ in this field between the Member States, so that the information available is often incomplete or incomparable.
Through its Decision of 18 June 1992, the Council adopted a programme aimed at developing the statistics on services and particularly the trade sector.
The definition of new policies relating to the economy, competition, social affairs and businesses, calls for initiatives and decisions based - as Mr Gasòliba was saying - on statistics.
In addition, the sources of the statistics need to be complete and reliable in order to make the most exact calculation possible within the quarterly accounts system.
Moreover, we are moving increasingly quickly towards the next phase of Monetary Union and the Treaty on European Union has created a new, extremely important user of short-term statistics, the future European Central Bank.
And to apply an effective and objective monetary policy, it is essential that the ECB has complete short-term statistics which are totally comparable between the Member States and that it can also get hold of them quickly.
The draft regulation we are discussing on short-term statistics is trying to respond to all these demands.
However, the previous directives referred exclusively to the manufacturing industry and construction sectors, while the draft regulation rectifies this situation by including in its field of application all sectors, including services and trade.
I must warn you that the draft regulation does not try to satisfy all the needs of the Commission and the European Monetary Institute - since this would entail a massive burden for businesses - but it does try to fill the most obvious gaps, for example, those related to such an important aspect as the consumer price index.
As regards the greater harmonization of the results, the draft regulation sets out, for the first time, the level of breakdown of the results and the time limit for data-transfer.
The advances which have been made in data capture techniques lead us to believe that already it is no longer necessary to draw up costly and exhaustive lists. The draft regulation also allows the Member States to use sampling techniques and administrative information, thus offering them the possibility of relieving the burden imposed on businesses.
The Commission believes that Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are acceptable.
However, we have problems in adopting Amendment No 8 since, in our opinion, it is redundant as a result of the adoption of Council Regulation No 322 on Community statistics, which defines the confidentiality standards applicable to all Community statistics: the so-called statistical confidentiality.
As regards the remaining amendments, Nos 9 to 26, the Commission believes that they deal strictly with technical precision and, given that we do not want an excessively long-winded text, these amendments might mean that the normal work of companies would suffer.
Consequently, we include the majority of the amendments from the parliamentary committee and the rapporteur, Mr Gasòliba, apart from the difference we have in that we consider that the question of statistical confidentiality was already resolved in the previous regulation, and the fact that the other amendments seem, particularly to Eurostat and the Union's statistical services, to concern details which are excessively technical and which would create more problems than benefits.
I would like to thank, then, Mr Gasòliba and the other members of the parliamentary committee for this favourable vision of the essential elements of providing security for and harmonizing short-term statistics while making them more reliable.
Commissioner, is the Commission prepared to offer a software package which in all participating States offers the same standard and the same data collection facility and makes possible the fully automated management of statistical recording?
The Eurostat officials tell me that this would not be a problem.
Moreover, in fact, when this regulation enters into force, as with all the measures involving the Internal Market, there will be an almost inevitable harmonization.
And I do not believe that there is any difficulty with the technical advances, so it should thus be possible to have access in real time to any type of short-term statistics which can be recorded within Eurostat.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to make a short point about Mr Marín's speech on the Commission's position. I would obviously like to express my satisfaction at the position he outlined and the inclusion of the amendments to which he referred.
Amendment No 8 did not include the regulation I mentioned, but surely it makes this amendment redundant; as regards the others, my position as rapporteur is that they should not be adopted.
Therefore, during voting time tomorrow, I recommend that we do not vote in favour of them.
I wanted to mention a matter on which we were in agreement with the Commissioner, which seems to me important to consider, namely the fact that there will be a monetary policy and monetary management on the part of the European Central Bank, and that this will oblige us to review and analyze the precision of short-term statistics.
In other words, there is a monetary policy which, in economic jargon we can call fine tuning - that is, almost immediate and precise adjustment - and which can obviously not work if the statistics are not extremely precise.
Thus, we will be forced to look for a new balance between not placing an excessive burden on businesses in terms of the data needed, and not forgetting that the European Central Bank will demand more precise information, and so we will have to come back to this matter.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.05 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
Mr President, having spent the previous twenty-four hours agonizing over how I should vote on Iraq, I was rather concerned to see that my vote was wrongly recorded on Amendment No 12.
In fact I had voted against Amendment No 12 rather than for it. Can that be corrected please?
Mr President, it is indeed true, as Mr Habsburg-Lothringen and Mr Posselt said yesterday, that there has been no debate on crime in Brussels, but I would nevertheless like to draw Members' attention to the fact that President GilRobles Gil-Delgado said in his letter to us: "Please rest assured that I share your concern and I shall press the Belgian authorities for a satisfactory solution, as far as the safety of Members and staff of the European Parliament is concerned' .
Mr President, you will note from yesterday's Minutes that I asked the President-in-Office to rule whether Mr Titley's personal attack on me casting aspersions on my mental health was a crime against the rules of the House and I ask you to rule on that point.
You may share his opinion but, of course, I trust that you, as a good guardian of the rules of the House, can say whether under Rule 108 I am entitled to make a personal statement on that response.
Mr Kerr, it is a matter of interpretation whether Mr Titley questioned your mental health.
From reading the contribution it is not clear that was the intention of his remarks.
Mr President, in the Minutes it says that I asked for confirmation that Parliament would be able to give its views when the instructions were modified.
I think there has been a lot of editing, because what I said was that the changes in the rules - because I believe that is what they are - should be brought to this House for confirmation before they took effect.
That is a very important correction.
Mr President, in relation to Mr Kerr, all I said was that I was now convinced that in the United Kingdom care in the Community was no longer working.
There is a saying in the United Kingdom that if the cap fits you should wear it!
Mr Kerr, do you wish to make a personal statement?
Mr President, thank you for that opportunity.
Of course it is all good political banter in a way.
In response I would say that the fact that I voted yesterday with six of my colleagues from the British Labour Group and the Independent Labour Members against the bombing of Baghdad, while Mr Titley with 43 other British Labour Members voted in favour of the bombing of Baghdad, indicates that my mental health is perhaps rather sounder than his.
(The Minutes were approved)
Votes
Mr President, there seems to be some confusion as to why I did not record my presence in the last vote.
The reason for it is quite simple.
I am not recording my presence when I indicate a roll-call vote out of solidarity with yourself and other colleagues who come here Monday to Friday regularly.
In any case, votes do not win prizes on Fridays.
The roll-call vote does not count on a Friday.
Mr President, on a number of occasions this week mobile phones have again gone off in the Chamber; this was particularly embarrassing when the President of Portugal was here.
I wonder if the services could put notices on the glass doors reminding Members to switch off their phones prior to entering the Chamber.
It is very easy to walk in having forgotten that, and it might just help to eliminate embarrassment in the future.
That is a very good suggestion.
The rapporteur has done his job well.
I have no comment to make in that respect, but I think reports of this kind should not be considered by Parliament.
Members of Parliament do not have the competence as far as competition statistics are concerned (in this case), and anyway this is a question which should be referred to an administration and not to a parliament.
I do not think there is any other parliament in the world which concerns itself with detailed questions of this type.
Thors report (A4-0028/98)
There are many problems with the rapidly growing use of electronic means of payment.
Technical developments in this area are moving very fast, and legislation cannot keep up.
This applies, for example, to rules on liability when cards are lost, and the growing retail trade on the Internet.
However, people can lose their cards in countries other than the 15 EU Member States, and Internet selling is also not limited to EU countries.
In order to achieve good consumer protection, international rules are required.
Crowley report (A4-0033/98)
The quality of EC and EU legislation needs to be improved.
However, the question is whether SLIM is the right method to achieve this.
If you disregard the use of complicated language, the inability to find political solutions to problems, and bad compromises which leave legislation far too open to interpretation, SLIM can be critically examined from the following angles.
Firstly, simplification as such should not be an end in itself if it leads to legal certainty being jeopardized and complicated questions being oversimplified.
Secondly, we know what the flaws in Community legislation actually relate to, namely:
a lack of codification; -endless references to other directives, regulations, treaties and rules of various kinds - apart from being user-unfriendly, if the contents of the reference are not always particularly well coordinated with what is found in the texts referred to, this also leads to problems of application and interpretation; -an unwarranted use of annexes, which regulate substantial parts of the legislative areas in question, but whose contents may often be decided by other expert committees whose work nobody appears to have an insight into or responsibility for (for example BSE).On the other hand, SLIM is itself something of a technocratic empire. A group of 'experts' , five from national administrations and five from 'representatives of those who use directives' (it is not said who these are), slim down a directive.
It is thought that the outcome should be 'processed' quickly and painlessly through Parliament and the Council.
My colleagues and I did not in fact succeed in finding anything apart from the packaging and packaging waste directive which could perhaps be in need of simplification according to the SLIM model.
Perhaps more could be found, but what is needed is better standard legislation rather than new special procedures.
System of own resources
The next item is the report (A4-0041/98) by Mr Bardong, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC, EURATOM) amending Council Regulation (EEC, EURATOM) No 1552/89 implementing Decision 94/728/EC, EURATOM on the system of the Communities' own resources (COM(97)0343 - C4-0395/97 -C4-0575/97-97/0188(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know the financing of the European Union is carried out neither through credits nor by means of European taxes, but through the so-called own resources, primarily duties and adjustment levies, proportions of VAT and GDPs.
The European Community sets the Common Duty Tariff, but the raising of the duties is carried out by the Member States, that is their civil servants.
The Member States must, on the basis of their legal and administrative regulations, take the required measures to guarantee the establishment, bookkeeping, inclusion and allocation of these own resources.
Of course, for doing this they get back 10 % of the duties, which really belong to the Community Budget, to cover their administrative work.
For a long time now the annual reports of the General Accounts Office have made it clear that there are significant defects in the collection process.
Also, the Investigating Committee on transit fraud uncovered considerable infringements and abuses in the dispatch procedure, which have not yet been satisfactorily eliminated.
In the context of SEM 2000, the European Council of Madrid planned an intensification of the collection of the own resources, and the Commission is now presenting here a proposal for an order to amend Basic Order 55/89 relating to the system of the EU's own resources with the intention of meeting this goal.
This does in fact mean two amendments.
Firstly, the own resources order has not so far dealt with the following cases: that the establishment of own resources has become impossible due to a mistake by the customs authorities; or that those owing customs duty have not been informed of the amount due within the specified time limit.
The Member States should be liable for these mistakes, and beyond a certain level they should therefore even be expelled.
Such sums can then under certain conditions be claimed from the Member States.
Secondly, within the various Member States the cancellation of indebted sums is governed by widely differing regulations.
The readiness of the Member States to issue communications about such cancellations is expressed in quite different ways.
The Court of Auditors discovered that in 1995.
Of course, the Member States do not need to declare to the Commission amounts of money which have become resistant to inspection because of greater force or for reasons for which they do not themselves have responsibility.
But the Commission must be in a position to be able to assess the care taken by the Member States, and in certain circumstances be able to require the payment of sums of money.
We are absolutely convinced that the Commission could be somewhat stricter in this matter, according to our own resolutions, for instance for the approval of the Commission for the financial year 1995, and according to the view of the Court of Auditors on this amendment.
This proposed amending order is simply not a contribution to the reform of the finance order which everyone expects and recognizes as necessary.
It is only a considerably delayed completion of this existing finance order.
As far as the task of reforming the finance order is concerned, the Commission considers itself to be fully covered on the whole line.
Meanwhile, in some Member States the front lines are being drawn for the so-called net-payers' discussion.
Several states complain that they are paying more into the Community budget than they can get out of it.
However, the Commission also does absolutely nothing to correct publicly the false impression that individual Member States could get out exactly as much as they pay in.
Many Community payments flow directly to third countries or cannot clearly be attributed to a specific Member State.
Therefore the net-payer calculations are often based on false assumptions.
The duties should not of course be included in the netpayer calculations.
They are not even something achieved by the country in which they are collected - at most they are an achievement of the end-users who then pay the prices, in some circumstances, in a completely different country.
The Commission has hitherto constantly refused requests from Parliament and the Council to publish its own calculations or assessments of the net-payer items.
It is therefore to a considerable extent equally guilty of creating the current disarray in discussions on the financial order of the Community.
It is high time the public was better informed on this matter.
Mr President, the Community's own resources are made up of gross domestic product, value added tax and customs duties.
Of these, the most open to interpretation is customs duties, because the Community does not have its own monitoring mechanism, but has to rely completely on that of individual states.
I agree with Mr Bardong, the rapporteur, that there is no justification for reckoning customs duty as net contributions from individual states.
For example, Holland charges a considerable amount of customs duty for transit traffic, adds it to its own net contribution and says it is paying money to the EU, although, in actual fact, it is EU money which it is only accounting for to the EU.
Thus these customs duties, which are collection items very hard to categorize, are also distorting the picture we have of net payments.
So in this regard it would be a radically better idea if customs payments were not accountable to the EU at all, but were kept by individual countries themselves.
A corresponding sum could then be due to the EU in the shape of GDP.
In this way, the Member States would have a keen interest in collecting all these customs duties, as they would keep them themselves.
So there would be no malpractice arising from whether to collect duty and account to the EU for it or not.
It would solve the problem, but it would be a very radical solution.
Member States do not gain from the fact that they do not collect customs duty according to common regulations.
From the point of view of the common interest, however, we are justified in making regulations so that Member States will suffer if they flout them.
In assessing depreciation in bookkeeping, Member States might thereby try to shake off responsibility for mistakes.
That is why these depreciation laws cannot be free, and the business of each individual country alone.
Because of growing administrative costs it is right that we should not start to examine minor depreciation laws, and should endeavour not to inherit areas of malpractice. It is important to focus sufficient attention on big issues like this.
Mr President, as part of the work on SEM 2000 it is intended to improve the financial administration of the EU's own resources.
This report by Mr Bardong on the EU's own resources, which the Member States are responsible for collecting, says that the Member States have a duty to take greater responsibility for what is required in matters of bookkeeping, collection and so on of the funds, in order to ensure that it works.
However, there are significant weaknesses in the system, as has been shown by the European Parliament's ad-hoc committee of inquiry into questions of customs transits, among others.
The Commission's proposal that the Member States should be financially responsible for serious administrative errors is logical and welcome.
Not everything is the fault of the EU, even if it often is.
This technical report is not going to solve all the problems, but it is a simple first step in the right direction.
It is important to note that at the same time as the Commission is trying to strengthen the legislation, the proposal also contributes to making the legislation even more complex, which is less good.
The Green Group is going to support the report in its entirety.
Personally I think that Seppänen's contribution on a total reform is interesting, and something which the Commission should look at in future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the amendments in Mr Bardong's report on the Commission's proposal to tighten up the rules relating to the administration of the Union's own resources reveal the extent of Parliament's interest in the own-resources system, and the importance it ascribes to the transparency by which these resources are administered.
On the amendments, the Commission has adopted the following position.
The amendments which aim at both editorial simplification and a more transparent and just procedure are accepted.
This applies firstly to that part of Amendment No 1 which aims to specify the cases in which the Member States must take financial responsibility for mistakes which result in a loss of own resources; secondly, to that part of Amendment No 2 which aims to clarify the conditions under which amounts are not recoverable or are declared to be non-recoverable; thirdly, for that part of Amendment No 4 which provides that amounts included in the cancelled debt, which are not accepted by the Commission, should be calculated according to the book.
Likewise, the Commission will change the procedure for cancellations which it has allowed.
In this case this agreement should no longer be implicit, but the Member States should be informed in writing.
On the other hand, the Commission cannot follow the European Parliament on certain amendments or parts thereof.
This applies particularly to the amendment relating to the retention of the threshold value of ECU 10 000 for the notification of cancellations, that is, Amendment No 3.
If this amendment were accepted the result would be an enormous increase in the administrative costs.
The suggested rise in the amount to ECU 50 000 would have the effect that about 69 % fewer cases would have to be checked, but 90 % of the income at stake would be covered.
Mrs Wernheuer, I must say to you in this respect that this does not mean that these cases below ECU 50 000 are not subject to any kind of inspection.
Of course these would also be checked under the usual system of inspection.
It is just that they would not be included in these specific procedures.
Even the reduction of the threshold value for the cases in which the national administrations will be held financially responsible would result in excessively high administrative costs and therefore cannot be accepted.
That is part of Amendment No 1.
Amendment No 5 on the other hand appears to the Commission to be superfluous, since the information requested about cancellations is already given to Parliament in the Four-Year Report, that is the 1993 to 1996 Report, and for the latest year it is in the next report which will, according to the planned sequence, be in the year 2000.
However, information relating to cases of fraud is already available in the Annual Report.
The Commission understands and fully shares the concern of Parliament to subject the Community's own resources to a strictly precise system of inspection.
It does however seek understanding for its requirement of a reasonable cost-benefit ratio.
In conclusion, the Commission thanks Mr Bardong again for his report.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I cannot support this report.
The rapporteur rejects the Commission's limit of ECU 2 000, and wants instead to keep the unofficial limit of ECU 10.
However, in my opinion that will lead to an unreasonable number of small cases of no economic significance having to be considered by the national authorities.
The costs of this increased bureaucracy are not compensated for by the income.
The Union should not be small-minded in its relations with the national authorities.
Development finance
The next item is the report (A4-0050/98) by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the draft Financial Regulation applicable to development finance cooperation under the Fourth ACP-EEC Convention amended by the Agreement of 4 November 1995 (COM(96)0676 - C4-0101/97-96/0307(CNS))
Mr President, this is one of those Friday morning reports, with no amendments.
It went through committee quite smoothly and, I suppose, no-one is going to lose any sleep over it.
It is interesting to be heckled by Mr Falconer, because I have just looked at yesterday's voting record.
Some things do change: I notice that he has actually voted for nuclear power!
I am very pleased about that, Alex.
It is extremely good that you have been converted at last.
This report in effect is saying that there comes a time when Parliament has to say enough is enough (' sod it' in colloquial terms); we go so far and we can go no further.
We are not going through the motions any longer of trying to give some legitimacy to something that we have no part in.
Let us stop the pretence; let us stop kidding ourselves that if we were to give an opinion on this Financial Regulation, things would be any different - they would not.
The eighth European Development Fund, and our reaction to it in this report, cannot be considered in isolation.
You have to know the history to it, and that is quite simply that Parliament has always advocated the budgetization of the EDF.
It has been a consistent approach that we have always taken.
If we look at what has happened in the past, at the scenario to see where we are at present, we base our case on Article 199 of the Treaty which states that 'all items of revenue and expenditure of the Community... shall be shown in the budget' .
We have said, therefore, that the EDF should be budgetized and Parliament should have some say in the matter.
In fairness to the Commission, it supports us in that.
In fact, when I first came here in 1989 the Commission made it quite clear then that it expected the eighth EDF to be budgetized and it made the case at Amsterdam.
So our criticism is not of the Commission but of the Council, which has resisted the inclusion of the EDF.
Proposals were put to the Council at Amsterdam and they were ignored.
When the seventh EDF came before Parliament, Parliament was once again consulted and we said that, because of Article 199 of the Treaty, it should be budgetized and we therefore delayed somewhat in giving our opinion.
Because of that delay the Council then adopted the regulation without our opinion.
That was bad enough, so we went to the Court of Justice and said that the Council should not have done this and we expected the Court to rule in our favour.
However, the case hinged on whether the EDF was Community expenditure or not.
The Court said that the EDFs were not Community expenditure: it was Community financial assistance that was paid in the Lomé Convention.
In other words, the Commission was a subcontractor for Member States which were paying money into the Lomé Convention and the Commission administered that money.
As someone said at the time: ' Never expect the Court to rule against the Council in a dispute with Parliament' .
It is the Council, of course, which appoints the judges but, more importantly, reappoints the judges.
Therefore, although we thought it was a logical argument, we were not surprised when the case went against us.
When we come to the 1996 discharge in the next month or so, it will be seen that the sixth and seventh EDF monies are actually being used already to finance the eighth EDF.
We have no financial regulation for the eighth EDF but the Commission is taking monies from the sixth and seventh EDFs already without a legal base.
I have to say that I am glad we are not associated with that practice.
But you can see the root cause of this.
Even when we had the 1994 discharge, and we refused to give discharge in 1994 to the EDF, the Court of Auditors said that the legal framework for the EDF was directly responsible for many of the failings in terms of sound financial management.
We have a problem, and it is a big problem.
But you have to look at the statement from the Commission in the explanatory statement which states: ' The Council must give its opinion by a qualified majority, having first received the opinions of the European Investment Bank and the Court of Auditors on this draft ' .
It does not ask for our opinion.
Then so be it, we are not going to give it!
Mr President, I should just like to draw to Mr Wynn's attention the fact that I took part in the vote on Amendment No 3 on the Kyoto Summit.
This was the amendment from the Green Party which, if you voted for it, was actually saying that nuclear power could not be regarded as a safe means of energy.
I, along with the majority of the Labour Members and my socialist colleagues, voted for that particular amendment.
Mr Wynn, unfortunately, was in the minority on that occasion.
Mr President, I should like to tell Mr Falconer that in the Minutes it says that those who intended to vote against Amendment No 3 included Mr Falconer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our colleague Terence Wynn has said what had to be said and he can say it very much better than I could.
There will no doubt be other things said on the subject.
It is a long story.
It is to one very particular point in this long and unhappy story that we shall return.
I speak on behalf of my group in order to thank Terence Wynn publicly for his work, for only what is said publicly finds its proper place and is not completely forgotten.
Terence has looked after this report for a long time with great commitment and he will continue to do so.
Terence Wynn has refuted the prejudice that housekeepers are people who concern themselves with figures and nothing else.
He has done so much work in this sphere and shows that he was always a committed housekeeper, but also a man who was personally committed in development politics and who has been very successful in bringing both together.
This can be seen from his speeches, from his report and from his commitment.
I know we can support him here in only one way, and that is by accepting his report unanimously and also by supporting him in the future.
But I would just like to say this clearly in front of this House: simply, personal thanks, Terence Wynn, and please carry on the good work!
We need people who can so convincingly combine the thrifty and the substantial!
If only other Members of this House would see for once that we are not just concerned with figures and narrow-minded bookkeeping, but there is always also a political aspect in the background, and we can sometimes represent this even with passion and emotion. Maybe then the acceptance of our work, and also of the work of this Parliament, might be somewhat greater than it is.
Mr President, if it does not embarrass Mr Wynn too much, I would like to heap further praise upon him.
(Laughter ) It is nice to see him blush.
The Committee has been entirely behind Mr Wynn in the stand he has taken over the years on this particular point.
It seems odd that the Court of Justice rules that our opinion may not be necessary. But if we look back to the isoglucose case, it says that no legislation can pass unless Parliament has given its opinion.
Here, Mr Wynn is proposing to Parliament that we should not give an opinion.
How does this silly situation arise between Parliament and the Member States? I think it is due to two rather simple things.
Firstly, donor countries look for gratitude of some form for the fact that their national money is going to help in a particular part of the world.
That argument might fall away when every currency is called the euro, and no longer the franc, pound, peseta or lira.
We shall wait and see.
The other is the rather interesting point that the civil servants in the Member States have convinced their ministers that there is a better cost-benefit for national aid going to developing countries than for aid from the European Union.
I think this is wrong, but I would not expect the civil servants, whose jobs are involved, to say anything different.
We come up against these two rather simple things and get into a very complicated, legalistic argument with the Member States and the Council.
It is about time the Court of Justice saw a little bit of sense in this and argued that money which is being handled corporately on behalf of the Member States should be considered a part of the European Union budget and be budgetized accordingly.
I support Mr Wynn's report, and my group supports it too.
I would be amazed if any Member of this House voted against.
Mr President, Mr Wynn's proposal that the European Parliament should not express an opinion on the Commission's draft Financial Regulation, applicable to the European Development Fund in the question of development cooperation with ACP countries, is a logical consequence of the absurd situation which is prevailing.
The Green Group does, of course, support Mr Wynn's proposal.
This Financial Regulation is going to be adopted with or without the European Parliament's opinion.
That is quite clear. The EDF is outside the European Parliament's budgetary mandate, but we are still expected to grant exoneration and give our views on possible legislation concerning budgets.
This procedure is absurd!
The only reason for this absurd situation in the Regulation is to try to get a democratic alibi for this 'story' .
The European Parliament should not cooperate in being a democratic alibi.
On the other hand, there should be no doubt that the Green Group supports and is strongly committed to the development work with the ACP countries.
Mr President, Mr Wynn takes a very unusual position in his report.
The Council asks Parliament for its advice, but if it was up to him Parliament would refuse to give it.
His reasoning is: "We want to integrate the European Development Fund into Community budgets.
We will not put up with a meagre little recommendation on financial regulations' !
Parliament proves itself a bad loser when it takes such a line.
The European Treaty contains no provision for the inclusion of the EDF in the Community budget.
Nor was this altered in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Court of Justice has completely ruled against Parliament with respect to the nature of the expenditure. The Court does not think it is Community expenditure.
The Council is therefore not obliged to ask for Parliament's advice on the financial regulations of the EDF.
Refusing to give one's opinion reminds me of a petulant child which does not get what it wants, and therefore pushes aside everything it does get.
By refusing, Parliament is not applying any political pressure, otherwise I might understand it.
As a Council, I would not lose any sleep over this kind of attitude: "You do not want to give your opinion?
Fine, we will sort it out without you.'
My criticism of the report is not only procedural, but also substantive.
It is true that Parliament has been arguing for years for the budgetization of EDF expenditure.
But there are quite a number of arguments against it.
We have to realize that in the Lomé Convention we are dealing with the Member States' contractual obligations towards Lomé countries.
The Member States fulfil an important role in the implementation of this agreement, which is by nature intergovernmental.
Bearing that in mind, there is much to be said for not letting the funding go via the Community budget.
Of course, coordination between the Community and the Member States is necessary. But this necessity does not disappear when the EDF is included in the Union budget.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this week we have already had several opportunities (on the occasion of reports on tourism) to reconstruct above all how seriously this House takes its task of representing the interests of taxpayers in the European Union.
We have also seen how necessary it is that we perceive these interests solidly and with great determination.
We see here - and our rapporteur stated it at the end of the arguments he put forward - how the Commission regards our concern for greater involvement in development policy, namely, and I quote: "The Council must give its opinion by a qualified majority having first received the opinions of the European Investment Bank and the Court of Auditors on this draft.'
We are talking about development policy, in theory, because it is not present in the European Budget. It is the fourth largest Budget item, the fourth largest expenditure item which the European taxpayers have to make.
At the same time, we see ourselves confronted by the fact that the Council - and in this connection apparently also the Commission - really places no value on being appropriately inspected by the institution which ultimately is responsible for monitoring the implementation of European policies.
Mr van Dam, I believe we shall have no problems at all, not even in public, in following our rapporteur's arguments.
As Mr Pasty has said, we should stop frittering away our time with things which they obviously think are nothing to do with us.
The only thing is, the taxpayers are sitting there and we have to say to them quite clearly that the gentlemen of the Council - and probably those of the Commission too, as I deduce from this document - will open themselves up to inspection when we, supported by the votes of our constituents, force them to do so. Not otherwise.
We should perhaps be guided by this thought when we deal with the reports before us, which we have to adopt in this house in the near future, relating to the monitoring of European policies.
We should not allow ourselves to be led astray by any chalumeau sounds - which even I as the rapporteur for the 1995 approval clearly followed, for in contrast to Mr Wynn I proposed approval at that time.
Instead, we should make sure we fulfil to the letter the task given to us by our constituents.
Mr President, I must firstly say that I disagree with Mr Wynn, but I disagree with him on the only thing we could disagree on today: whether this debate is going to be boring or not.
I do not think it will be, because the fact that we all agree on this matter does not necessarily mean that the debate will be boring. This is shown by the fact that, although there are no amendments and we are all in agreement, if we look at the list of speakers we can see that not only are there speeches from all the groups, but, in fact, there are several speakers from every one of the groups.
And I believe this, Mr Wynn, proves we are all united in the belief that this matter is extremely important.
I would suggest that it is one of the most important topics, since we are talking about the budget and the budget is what allows us to implement all the Union's policies.
We now find ourselves with the special provision - as you rightly said - whereby, although we are allowed in all policies to contribute to the budget, we are prevented from contributing to the budgetary procedure in spite of the fact that we are nevertheless asked for our commitment when the management of the budget is being approved or rejected.
So I believe Parliament cannot accept this role, since it is so significant.
Nor can we say, moreover, that this is an unimportant subject.
We know perfectly well that the sixth and seventh EDFs required more than ECU 18 billion.
This is an extremely significant amount and Parliament must place on record that it is not prepared to play the role it has been assigned.
Of course, I believe we must also explain that this does not mean we are against development cooperation.
This is certainly not true.
Nor are we against the Commission's work.
I am saying once again that what we require is a more solid basis for this policy, within the budgetary framework of the Union.
Mr President, I too would like to compliment the speaker, Mr Wynn, and the Committee on Budgetary Control for their work on this subject and for their proposal, which I believe should be approved, to refuse to give Parliament's opinion on the proposed financial regulations for the Eighth European Development Fund.
I firmly believe in cooperating towards the development of the EU and, for me, this is a positive and useful provocation and an act of political and institutional responsibility on the part of the European Parliament.
We are now in an inexplicable situation in the sense that it is difficult to explain it abroad, and substantially untenable, from both a logical and a political point of view.
This obviously relates to the characteristics of the EDF and the fact that it is not included in the budget.
I would like to remind you that, with regard to cooperation in development, the EDF's inclusion in the budget was almost the only request made by the European Parliament to the Intergovernmental Conference, but was hardly mentioned.
This highlights the fact that Parliament's consultation is purely optional on many measures and that, on implementing measures and even on negotiations on the Lomé Conventions, its prerogatives are simply shown to be a power of political influence - being able to give its opinion which, however, is never binding.
Consequently, in many cases, Parliament does not have any influence on the definition of significant aspects of the Convention itself and subsequently, above all, on its management.
By way of example, the proposed regulation on which we will not be giving an opinion does not provide for any Parliamentary role, even in the procedure for justifying the budget, even when this concerns the resources of the EDF managed by the European Investment Bank, which comprise an ever greater part of the EDF itself.
Who is asking Parliament not to give this opinion today? Obviously, those more concerned with the outcome of the cooperation policies and the institutional and managerial correctness of the measures taken by the Community institutions.
Rather than legal, the problem is therefore a political one.
Our opinion is therefore all the more important as we are dealing with the debate on what to do after the year 2000 - that is, after the Fourth Lomé Convention.
We obviously have a problem, and despite the fact that the Lomé Convention has been and continues to be a unique means of exceptional importance today, the fact that Parliament has been unable to exercise its role on control and on the definition of managerial means to the full is obviously a problem, and has certainly limited its scope and impact.
Mr President, I would like firstly to echo the thanks to Mr Wynn, particularly as regards his point that we should give a clear signal here. The budgetization of the European Development Fund is a permanent topic in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and we also know that we have the Commission on our side there too.
The disappointment over the fact that it has not gone further in the negotiations in Amsterdam has just been expressed by Mr Vecchi.
Gradually we are perhaps making a little progress, for only recently the German Bundestag made the cross-party decision to move closer to this budgetization of the EDF, particularly with respect to an effective monitoring system.
I am beginning to find it somewhat amusing that precisely those institutions which deprive us of budgetization, on the one hand complain that it would above all be a question of inadequate monitoring, but on the other hand do not supervise the use of European development funds with the care which we really want.
Seen from that point of view, I think this criticism collapses somewhat, because a more effective monitoring system than the one we can offer through Parliament and the Committee for Budgetary Control, which covers the entire field and does not restrict itself merely to the section which might at times be part of a national budget - in other words a better system - is therefore scarcely conceivable.
So I do not understand why the Council and our governments do not make more effective use of this instrument.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation had also stated in its argument that the draft before us really offers no improvement with regard to monitoring, and that is broadly unsatisfactory.
We have already underlined this here.
I can only repeat it again, loud and clear.
Mr President, I would like to concern myself primarily with what Mrs Wemheuer said in her very nice speech to Mr Wynn, in which she emphasized that there are also human aspects to housekeeping. Occasionally, as an emigrant from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I take part in sections of the Committee on Budgetary Control - unfortunately much too rarely, because our committees always meet at the same time, which is something I very much regret.
I can only say that I have experienced in the Budgetary Control Committee just how highly this work is valued, and that there is a human element there.
However, I would like to take issue with Mrs Wemheuer on one point.
She said this Friday sitting is somewhat less important.
No, look around, Mrs Wemheuer, and you can see that at least the quality is here. The fact that there are spaces here and there is of no interest.
I am happy that we are finally deciding to send out a signal.
If you go out and talk to people, you see a growing suspicion of what our Community, our Union, is doing with the taxpayers' money.
I, too, share this suspicion, for why would someone refuse to accept our monitoring if they had nothing to hide?
The Council should be told.
I thank Mr Bosch, who raised this question earlier.
In that context I would say that this rejection is a clear signal sent by us to those gentlemen up there in the Council, and a policy which is correct, and we should of course ensure that it is made well known.
There is no doubt at all, this is a sign that the administration of the Fund is not working as it ought to.
Moreover, we should in no way give these unilateral Council decisions a dubious democratic legitimization, for the Council is the most undemocratic element in our Community.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the finance regulation for the eighth European Development Fund is a question of a document in which the implementation rules (that is, the financial order, the management of resources, the implementation measures and organs which carry them out, as well as the checking and the statement of accounts) are fixed as an internal agreement between the Commission and the Member States.
The financial regulation is adopted, as you know and as was carried out here, with a qualified majority when the agreement comes into force.
According to the internal agreement, the European Investment Bank and the Court of Auditors give a non-binding opinion on the draft of the text drawn up by the Commission.
On the other hand Parliament's opinion is facultative, since the EDF, as we have frequently stressed, is not part of the budget plan, and yet it was called for as early as the draft stage of the financial regulation for the seventh EDF.
The Commission fully understands your great dissatisfaction here in Parliament over the continuing failure to include the EDF in the budget plan.
The Commission has in fact already taken initiatives of its own accord in this respect in the past.
Nevertheless it does regret Mr Wynn's proposal, supported by the Committee on Budgetary Control, by which Parliament will refuse to adopt a position on the draft financial regulation for the eighth EDF as submitted by the Commission.
However, that does not mean that I would not like personally to express my admiration for Mr Wynn.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
The EDF should be incorporated into the EU's ordinary budget work where Parliament also has insight and influence.
I have voted for the report, but more constructive efforts are needed than refusing to give an opinion on EDF legislation.
Community cereals trade
The next item is the report (A4-0021/98) by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 5/97 on management of the Community cereals trade involving export refunds, special import arrangements and regional aid schemes, together with the Commission's replies (C4-0351/97).
Mr President, since for good reason he cannot be present today, Mr Giansily has asked me to draw your attention to his text, which he wrote in his capacity as rapporteur.
I thank the House for accepting this rule whereby, as Chair of the Committee, I represent the rapporteur.
The Court of Auditors' Special Report on management of the Community cereals trade with regard to export refunds, special import arrangements and regional aid schemes has been the subject of numerous statements in recent years, at the centre of which were the three main parts of this report.
First there is the Community cereals trade, for which export refunds are guaranteed - an area in which the Court's monitoring has brought to light several problems which impair the effect of the rules.
The first problem, raised by both the Court of Auditors and the Commission, concerns the quality of the data submitted to the Commission.
It has been shown in fact that some national disbursing offices do not list the individual amounts refunded for the export of cereal products under the individual KN-codes.
This has probably contributed to the fact that a status quo has been created which does not favour a proper functioning of the system.
For it was shown that the flat-rate conversion coefficients had remained unchanged for 24 years before they were reduced to 1.37 % in 1991.
In the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control, the failure to correct the coefficients may have led to considerable additional costs, which is why in future care should be taken that these coefficients are checked at regular intervals.
A similar problem was also discovered in the case of export refunds for barley malt.
Here the implementation of the relevant regulation in France and the United Kingdom was unsatisfactory.
The Committee on Budgetary Control therefore calls upon the Commission to recall sums which were improperly paid because of a failure to check the origin of malt exports, and to clarify the regulation which fixes the export refunds for mixed fodder.
As far as the quality of physical inspection of cereal exports is concerned, there is a clear lack of coordination in the monitoring of multinational companies by the competent national authorities.
The Commission is requested to take measures to eliminate these defects as quickly as possible, and to inform Parliament of the results achieved.
Secondly, the Court of Auditors' Special Report is concerned with special arrangements for the import of maize and sorghum to Spain and Portugal.
It will be recalled that after the entry of Spain and Portugal into the Community an agreement was made between them and the United States in order to guarantee the annual import of two million tonnes of maize and 300 000 tonnes of sorghum to Spain, and 500 000 tonnes of maize to Portugal.
The Spanish authorities - according to the rapporteur - impeded the proper implementation of the regulation by submitting inaccurate import data to the Commission, and this submission, moreover, was late in arriving.
Meanwhile, Portugal bought maize directly on the world market and then sold it at intervention prices on the Portuguese market.
These practices led to considerable additional costs for the Community's budget.
The Committee on Budgetary Control demands that care be taken when the regulation is implemented in future, so that no additional costs for the budget of the European Union are incurred.
Finally, the third aspect of the report concerns the supply of cereals under the POSEIMA scheme.
This applies primarily to Madeira and the Azores, and the relevant comments of the Court of Auditors reveal a whole series of operational failures and weaknesses, which a rapid check of the programme might confirm.
In this sad business it must also be mentioned (as emphasized by Mr Engwirda, member of the Court of Auditors, in a letter to myself as Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control) that it is not possible to recall the excess amounts paid, since the profits improperly made by the importers are due to a mistake by the Commission.
So there needs to be a reform of the POSEIMA Programme on the basis of the comments from the Court of Auditors, in which, of course, the requirements of distribution between the islands are taken into account.
Mr President, I have a worry about my own mental health (since this topic was mentioned this morning) when I can get excited by something that says "Special Report 5/97 of the Court of Auditors on the management of the Community's cereals trade involving export refunds, special import arrangements and regional aid scheme together with the Commission's replies' .
But it is one of those reports which are worth reading.
It is succinct and to the point.
The Court of Auditors have done a really good job in highlighting the problems that we have in this area, as Mrs Theato has stated.
However, it is not as good as previous special reports on the very same issue.
The one that caught everyone's attention was when we were giving extra export refunds for exports from Germany, and ships were coming with grain into Germany, unloading, reloading the same grain, going away and getting monies for it.
That showed the total folly of the system, but the flaws persist.
Here we have export refunds from the period 1991-1994 totalling over ECU 11 billion.
That amount was actually more than the total spent on training, social policies, research and development, and anti-poverty programmes.
These monies were going through that scheme with a number of mistakes as well as a number of unsatisfactory practices.
There are two points I want to highlight.
Firstly, on the POSEIMA schemes where we had monies going to the Azores.
When you read the report it is absolutely incredible how such monies could be spent in that way.
Flaws and defects in the programme were revealed which would warrant it being overhauled.
I am sure the Commission would agree with that.
One can only endorse the Court's finding that with the current system, factors irrelevant to the special requirements of the POSEIMA scheme will dictate aid levels.
It is absolutely unbelievable that we could have been paying money out in the way we did under those conditions.
I now wish to dwell on the area which covers comitology, an area in which I have quite an interest.
This ECU 11 billion was actually managed by a management committee over which Parliament has no control, no right of scrutiny and about which we have great difficulty in obtaining information.
Not too long ago, when the price of cereals actually reached record highs on the world market, the management committee stopped export refunds.
Fine, but we were never consulted or asked whether it was the right thing to do.
After all, it is only a couple of billion ECU!
During the couple of months when it was suspended, that money would have served to finance the rural development which Commissioner Fischler is trying to promote, and to reconvert our spending in CAP.
When the refunds returned, once again Parliament was not consulted.
No consultation, no information, just a fait accompli .
I do not think this is the right way for Parliament to operate when it comes to agriculture, but I know I am digressing on that.
The Commissioner may ask what that has to do with this report?
It has a lot to do with the report. It is about the way the management committees operate.
I have to laugh that the opinion from our Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development says that Parliament is not in a position to monitor the activities of the management committees.
If that is the case, it shows the inadequacy of the present system.
We have 79 agricultural management committees.
That was the figure given when I did the budget.
In 1994 alone, the management committees took 4, 679 acts.
That is a lot of legislation and money.
The report is calling for transparency, and that is exactly what we should be doing.
I am pretty sure the Commissioner would support that approach.
We have to change our method of operating.
We have to change the way we spend our money in agriculture - away from export refunds, away from this comitology structure which deals with these large amounts of money.
We need a system that is more transparent, with fewer loopholes, fewer shortcomings.
I honestly think that the next special report should be a darned sight better than the previous ones.
Commissioner Fischler will, of course, have a lot to say about that and how that comes about.
He knows that he will have the support of this Parliament when he tries to bring about those changes because they are essential.
Mr President, I am somebody who generally supports the Common Agricultural Policy, so I hate to admit this in front of Terry Wynn, but I agree with some of the points he makes about the complications of the policy which have led to so many opportunities for fraud.
That is one of the things about the proposals for reform.
The aid that we pay out will be better targeted, will find its way to the farmers, the farms and the rural areas where it is supposed to go, and there will be fewer opportunities for abuse. Less will go to middlemen and traders, who by comparison with the farmers we hope to assist, have a great capacity to cream off vast amounts of money in some of these areas.
The direct aid will solve a lot of the problems we are talking about.
Insofar as the POSEIMA programme is concerned, we have to admit that you could not think of a more complicated or indirect or inefficient way to aid islands or remote regions, because in the first place there is no guarantee whatsoever that this money is going to the aid of the people who need it or for whom it was intended.
Again, the subsidies can be creamed off by people in the middle as well as creating immense opportunities for irregular practices.
The only question I have about the Giansily report is paragraph 5, which talks about importing products without any cost to the European budget or disruption to European markets. Of course, as long as these products are cheaper on world markets than they are in the European Union and as long as we have surpluses, there is no possibility that anybody can comply with that order, because it will obviously mean cheaper cereals from outside.
The one area where I have a slight disagreement with Terry Wynn is over the whole question of export refunds, where I think he went a little bit astray.
Because this is an automatic mechanism, and if we have surpluses in the Community and a policy designed to get them out of the Community to sell them to markets where prices are lower, then it is obvious from day to day and month to month as world markets change that we need an order to get these surpluses out of the Union.
We need to employ a flexible system, and the subsidies we pay will go up and down.
Similarly when prices on the world markets are higher than they are in the European Union, as has happened thankfully recently, we save ourselves that cost and the money is retained in the budget and we can use it for something else.
As long as we have surpluses this system will be necessary.
I agree that the sooner we can get to a system away from all these complicated measures to assist the regions, the better, just like in the case of the structural funds.
We have made such complicated regulations that I do not believe they are helpful to the regions they are intended for, and they create immense opportunities for the sort of abuses that have been identified here and which we hope will be corrected.
Mr President, it is a pity Mr Giansily cannot be present, otherwise I would have been able to congratulate him, but I would like to congratulate Mr Fischler who I expect has given up his Friday morning especially to hear the debate on this report.
I am also a supporter of the Common Agricultural Policy, but I am convinced that when there are rules they have to be implemented properly.
I believe this Parliament has a special role in this area, and this is really all Parliament can do.
I think the most surprising thing about this report is that while everything in the world is changing, and everything in the agricultural policy is changing, a number of things have remained constant.
For flour made from cereal the coefficient has not been amended for 24 years, and for malt which is made from barley, the coefficient has not been amended for 18 years! How is this possible?
How has it been possible for the committee which decided on these things, and for the representatives of the Member States making up this committee, to have been able to calculate their own advantage from it for so long? What conclusions is the Commission drawing from this?
Another of the things I found unusual in the report from the Court of Auditors is that it states clearly that not one Member State has the ability to exercise the necessary physical control on implementation restitutions.
This strikes me as a serious observation.
Billions of ECUs are spent on this, and then the Court of Auditors makes the observation that not one Member State is able to check this.
What is the Commission doing with this knowledge?
I want to make one last point. When Spain and Portugal joined, special arrangements were created - to ease the transition, I take it.
It has now become clear that these arrangements are very disadvantageous to the European budget.
I wonder whether they are advantageous to Spain and Portugal.
Could that be looked at again?
To conclude, Mr President, what measures is the Commission going to take on the basis of these conclusions? What will the reclamation of the wrongfully paid out sums be?
One of these days we will be discussing payment for the 1993 budget.
This one here goes up to the year 1994, if I understand correctly.
To what extent is the Commission charging the Member States for their errors? Are the extra tariffs used, which have been introduced at the insistence of Parliament?
For instance 25 %, when it has been occurring for so many years.
Does the Commission intend to do this? Furthermore, what is the need for special arrangements for Spain and Portugal when, if I have understood correctly, they have served absolutely no purpose, at least not during the past ten years?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, it is our view that some aspects of the motion for a resolution in Mr Giansily's report are unbalanced.
The explanatory statement contains certain considerations regarding the possibility of Portugal and Spain importing given quantities of maize from the world market, but which are not reflected on an equal footing nor in an appropriate manner in the motion for a resolution.
The fact that one of the two Member States belatedly submits data that is not only late but also inaccurate is mentioned nowhere in the political resolution.
Meanwhile, the other Member State is required to exercise the right to import without any consequent adjustment of the Community budget and, ultimately, without affecting Community production, when such a requirement is not even justified, in that this right was created precisely to bolster the processing industry of the Member State in question.
This reference in the political resolution is all the more unjustified in that it appears at a time when it is already known that the Portuguese Government has decided to substitute direct importation, to which it would however have continued to be entitled by means of a public competition.
Extensive references are made to the supply of cereals under POSEIMA.
As we have repeatedly stated, and not just in connection with cereals, the Court of Auditors' report confirms that the impact of subsidies to the end-user lacks clarity (since there is no clear definition of who or what the end-user is). The extent of the effect on the end-user is not readily identifiable (on the basis merely of the accounts of importing companies) and, finally, the monitoring system introduced by the regional authorities is not satisfactory.
We are waiting to see what measures will be implemented by the regions to change this situation and to render the system of subsidies transparent, as well as to ensure that the overall allocation of funds to the recipients for whom it was intended can be monitored.
The report also discusses the fact that the dispersed nature of islands considerably raises delivery costs, as does the absence of appropriate port infrastructures. It further states, correctly, that the level of subsidies must be stipulated in specific provisions in POSEI based on the difficulties to which the regions are subject and not on the fluctuating world prices of cereals (the drop in which has considerably reduced the level of subsidies, while the difficulties with which they must contend remain unchanged).
In this context, we naturally support the request for a reform of the POSEIMA programme regarding the supply of cereals, and urge that a fair mechanism for fixing cereal import subsidies should be introduced, and that inter-island transport costs should be clearly specified and quantified, as part of a series of amendments which should go hand-in-hand with the necessary allocation of the respective additional funding.
This is the only way in which we can give substance to the formal recognition of the ultraperiferal status recently enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mr President, the Court of Auditors' Special Report contains several observations which are both interesting and startling.
One of these, as several speakers have already mentioned, is that the flat-rate processing coefficients have not been changed for a full 24 years.
How is this possible? The Commission's reply leaves this question unanswered and suggests a serious omission on the part of the Commission.
This omission has doubtless led to substantial additional costs for the EU through the years, which is more than regrettable.
During the years 1991-1994, export refunds for cereals amounted to ECU 11 billion, a substantial sum.
The Court of Auditors' observations have revealed several serious flaws and defects which mean that the system does not work satisfactorily.
The same is true in the area of exported cereals.
These flaws (it may even be a matter of out-and-out fraud within the sector) are encouraged so that payments of these export refunds become incorrect, which in turn leads to increased additional costs for the EU.
It is absolutely essential that the Commission does something about this fact.
Flawed control systems are also found in other areas, such as the much criticized POSEIMA scheme.
As far as the malt sector is concerned, where the Court of Auditors has taken up the unsatisfactory application of the rules in France and the UK, the Green Group supports the rapporteur's call for the Commission to demand the return of the amounts which were unduly paid.
In addition, I assume the Commission is going to change the rules in order to prevent a similar problem occurring in future.
Finally, I would just like to draw the attention of my Swedish colleagues to the fact that there is a mistake in the report in paragraph 1, where it says in the Swedish version that Parliament regrets (beklagar) the flat-rate processing coefficients. It should actually say that Parliament deplores (beklagar djupt), which is a further sharpening of the text.
Mr President, the Court of Auditors' report analyses a number of aspects of the importation and exportation of cereals, including the implementation of the export refunds mechanism in terms of administrative management and fraud.
European agricultural producers have rightly emphasized the problems caused by special import systems for maize and sorghum in Spain and Portugal.
In fact, these systems were established at the time of accession by those countries to the European Union and are still in force, and have even been consolidated within the framework of the GATT agreements.
Two million tonnes of maize and 300 000 tonnes of sorghum imported each year by Spain and 500 000 tonnes of maize imported by Portugal, mainly from the United States, are affected by the measure.
As the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has pointed out, it is necessary to prevent these imports from causing serious problems within the Community market, due to irregular commercialization.
For example, it was observed recently that maize imported by Portugal under this system was being sold at a lower price than Community maize.
These distortions cause cost price differentials for food processing manufacturers and can therefore lead to the relocation of food processing companies.
Therefore, these zero-rated import quotas associated with the accession of Spain and Portugal, which the Commission has allowed to become institutionalized within the framework of GATT, not only benefit the United States to the detriment of European producers, but also cause distortions due to non-compliance with the rules of competition within the single market.
Finally, I would like to highlight another real problem: the difficulties experienced by some operators when exporting their cereals.
Paradoxically, in recent years the Commission has imposed European export taxes on cereals, although we subsidize farmers for obligatory fallowing.
This year, at the beginning of the season, when world cereal prices were high, the Commission only granted export contracts in homeopathic doses.
Since then, the market has fallen and the European Union is going to lose market shares because of the limitation of the volume of refunds.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, neither farmers nor manufacturers understand the logic of this, and I must admit that I myself do not find it very easy to follow.
Mr President, for the EU taxpayer much of what this report contains must be really hard to swallow.
The simple fact that with astronomical amounts of refunds, like ECU 11 million from 1991 to 1994, the quality of data submitted still leaves much to be desired, is a revelation that really must not be described as a problem but rather as a scandal!
The problems of the Common Agricultural Policy, with all its weaknesses and susceptibility to improprieties of all kinds, are highlighted once again.
It is shocking that additional costs of ECU 9.3 million were incurred because Portugal buys large quantities of maize on the world market and then sells it on the Portuguese market at intervention prices, thereby giving the imported maize a considerable price advantage over that produced in the Community.
Equally shocking is the fact that the conversion coefficients pertaining to the level of export refunds were not changed in the period from 1967 to 1991, and the fact that the export refunds for cereals are paid even though the Member States are not in a position to carry out physical checks.
This contradicts the relevant regulations and proposals of the European Union.
This report once again makes clear how necessary it is to reform the Common Agricultural Policy in terms of ecologization and renationalization, and above all to ensure that these drastically deplorable abuses are eliminated.
Mr President, it is an undeniable fact that there has been malpractice in the area of grain export subsidies in the Union area.
This is one of the cankers in our agricultural policy, quite apart from cases of malpractice in the meat trade.
It is, for example, quite unbelievable that free market grain and intervention grain could have been stored together.
As Mr Giansily's report suggests, we should look at the maize quotas for Spain and Portugal.
It is obvious that imported maize is, at least in Portugal, being mixed with EU maize at considerable profit.
The fault in the system does not end there but also crops up in Agenda 2000 negotiations.
We obviously try to eliminate the possibility of malpractice there by making the cultivation of maize more profitable in the European Union area.
When it is a matter of zero-sum games being played with agriculture in the EU or a spiralling dive to fund enlargement, we pass the problem of maize quotas in Agenda 2000 talks on to Finnish dairy farmers.
It will not do.
We cannot make our farmers pay for other people's abuse, Mr Fischler.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Special Report No 5, for the year 1997, from the European Court of Auditors deals with three particular problems.
Firstly it considers the cereals trade and especially the question of guaranteed export refunds; secondly it deals with the import of maize and sorghum to Spain and Portugal; thirdly it concerns the supply of cereals under the POSEIMA programme.
The Commission welcomes the Court of Auditors' report and also the rapporteur's proposed resolution, on which you will vote today.
Even though the Commission does not share the Court of Auditors' opinion on all points, the report will nevertheless be of very valuable assistance to us in our efforts to improve the arrangements for the management of the cereals market, not least the improvement of monitoring.
I think Parliament is justified in complaining about the fact that the flat-rate coefficients for the conversion of export refunds for processed products were not changed for 24 years.
The Commission, however, places value on the statement that during this period it several times requested and suggested changes, but that this was on each occasion rejected by the Member States.
Only when we updated the coefficients in 1991 did matters improve somewhat.
In any case, it can be pointed out in the European Union's defence that our coefficients are stricter than those of our trading partners and competitors.
In connection with the export refunds for malt and mixed fodder, the Court of Auditors indicated some differences and difficulties in the interpretation of regulations.
In the Commission's view, these terms are intrinsically quite unambiguous.
The problems which arose in two Member States with regard to the origin of exported malt have been solved in the meantime.
As the Commission states in its response to the Special Report, the financial consequences are drawn in the context of the procedure for closing the accounts, which are necessary because of inadequate supervision of the applications for export refunds.
The difficulties in the interpretation of the combined nomenclature for mixed fodder are being checked at the moment by the Commission's officials.
We think that it will soon be possible to find a satisfactory solution.
The Court of Auditors' findings in relation to physical inspection of exported cereals to a large extent concur with those of the Commission.
I am pleased to be able to tell Parliament today that the committee on trading procedures is currently working on a consolidation of the basic refunds order, that is Order 3665/87.
This should mean, as suggested by the Court of Auditors, that the rules governing the guarantee of export refunds are phrased considerably more strictly.
The notice of export must in future be handed in at the point at which the goods are actually loaded.
As regards inspection of the exports made by international firms, the Commission has in my view already given the Member States very clear instructions.
We shall however pursue this matter even further.
Finally, I would like to mention the fact that by the time we have presented proposals for the reform of the whole cereals sector, most of these rules will really be obsolete, because we would then, de facto, have to claim for hardly any export refunds for the export of cereals.
However, the Court of Auditors also criticizes the special rule for the direct sale of maize on the world market for import to Portugal.
The fact that part of these imports were arranged by the Portuguese interventions office is the result of a compromise reached in the Council in December 1993.
I would not conceal from you the fact that the Commission was aware from the outset that this rule would lead to distortions.
Because of this, and because of the Court of Auditors' comments, this regulation was not renewed in 1997.
The rules for supplying regions on the extreme periphery under the POSEIMA programme are by their very nature difficult to implement.
Nevertheless, the Commission regards them as necessary.
It has therefore carefully noted the comments and recommendations from the Court of Auditors on the aid programme for supplying the Azores and Madeira with cereals.
The aim will be to develop the programme further and very much more precisely, to adapt it to the needs of these actual regions.
The Commission is striving to make progress here, within the parameters stipulated in the corresponding Council orders.
The Commission is of course keeping to the September 1996 agreement between Parliament and the Commission on the comitology process, addressed in point 7 of the resolution.
Certainly, the administrative committees sometimes work with very short deadlines.
But the agendas and reports on the committee meetings always go automatically to Parliament, and in the meantime the reports of the meetings can also be called up on the Internet and are thus made accessible to a very wide public.
Finally, I would like to inform you that the report you requested from Parliament on the consequences of the Court of Auditors' findings will be with you shortly so that it can be included in Parliament's formal acceptance of the statement of accounts.
In conclusion, please allow me to say that this Special Report and its concerns are in my view a good example of how the Community bodies, namely the Court of Auditors, the Parliament and the Commission, can cooperate here in order to be able greatly to improve the implementation of various EU policies.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Before the vote on Amendment No 6
Mr President, I did vote, but somebody has removed my card.
I did not look, and I have no idea where my card has got to.
My colleague can confirm this.
I always sit here.
I did vote.
Firstly, I must remind you once again that votes on Friday are free.
So you have no cause for concern.
Secondly, the House will note that you have voted and, thirdly, I would like to know which way you are voting.
So would you like to tell us how you are voting?
In favour? Thank you.
Mr Posselt, the House knows, because you have repeated it many times, that your card has been the target of wrongful removal.
We hope you have recovered your voting card because I see you are ready to vote.
You must be more careful now and look after it well, since you have seen that your card is obviously especially valuable.
Mr President, it is just very specifically on what you have said, because you are the second Vice-President this morning who has referred to the different system.
Mr Martin said that the roll-call votes on Friday did not count and you also have made a distinction.
I wish you would make it very clear to the President and the Vice-Presidents that these votes count: they are very important indeed.
Thank you, Mr McGowan, but if you had listened to me you would have heard that I did not say these votes do not count.
I said the opposite, and you know I am always here every Friday to give them the value they deserve.
Mr President, on the same lines, I was going to say that all of us here have heard what you say, but there is a group of Europeans above, who are quite young in fact, for whom I think you would need to clarify exactly what you wanted to say.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, it means that on Fridays the votes have exactly the same importance as they do on any other day of the week. I thank Mr Fabra Vallés for asking me to explain this, and I am happy to do so.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The rapporteur takes up much of the criticism which the Court of Auditors has directed against administrations in the above-mentioned matter.
I think, however, that criticism could also have been taken up against the Spanish authorities (concerning the late reporting of the import of maize and sorghum) and against the management committees (concerning the lack of information about their activities).
However, I freely concede that this is an observation and not a major criticism.
I would firstly like to say to you, Mrs Theato, that, luckily, Friday mornings are quiet and relaxed.
So we can even slightly prolong the votes at times, because, as I say, Fridays are quiet, relaxed days with a pleasant atmosphere.
I would also like to ask you to congratulate Mr Giansily on the favourable vote his report received, since it was voted for unanimously by the House.
Participation of Poland and the Slovak Republic in Community training, youth and education programmes
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the involvement of the central and eastern European countries in the education and youth programme is well under way.
The proposal submitted to us by the Commission today is a perfect example of this, and we should be pleased to see Poland and the Slovak Republic join the ranks of the countries taking part in the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes.
Last July we gave the go-ahead for the involvement of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania.
They were able to take advantage of the programmes during the 1997 financial year.
It is now the turn of Poland and the Slovak Republic.
I should like to say a few words about the origin of this decision.
Further to the signature during 1996 of additional protocols with a number of CEECs, the Association Councils defined the method for these countries to participate in Community programmes.
They decided to make education, training and youth the first link in the chain of actions undertaken.
Other agreements should be signed at a later date in the areas of culture, the environment and health.
This aim of this policy, defined at the Dublin Summit, is in particular to familiarize applicant countries with Community policies and procedures.
So we cannot fail to be pleased that cooperation with regard to education and youth has been selected as a priority.
It is true that these are essential for bringing people together and for the creation of European citizenship.
Furthermore, exchanges in this field have been taking place for many years, and the three programmes in question were already able to support actions involving CEECs.
Similarly, the Tempus programme set up in 1990 within the framework of Phare and Tacis has established the foundation of cooperation between universities.
It is obvious that this process has been reinforced by the adoption of Agenda 2000 and the decisions of the Luxembourg Summit, which have brought these pre-accession procedures into the operational phase. In this respect, we can see that there is synergy not contradiction between the actions recommended in Agenda 2000 and the procedure adopted by the Association Councils.
Furthermore, the choice of countries involved is in full compliance with the wish expressed by this House to avoid discrimination between applicant countries.
So although not selected amongst the first countries, it has been possible for Romania yesterday and now the Slovak Republic to be amongst the associated countries.
Under the terms of this agreement, Poland and the Slovak Republic can take part in all the actions falling within the scope of these three programmes.
Furthermore, these two countries will be involved in the monitoring of their participation in these programmes, and will be invited to coordination meetings.
However, they are responsible for setting up the national structures and mechanisms required for their participation.
On a financial level, the complement to these countries' contributions which must be provided by the European Union has been included in the 1997 budget.
This expenditure must be made without fail before 31 March, which explains the urgency of this debate.
In addition, Poland has been offered the opportunity of using up to a maximum 10 % of its Phare allocation.
Note that the financial contribution of the Member States must cover the grants and aid given to their participants, and that it is obvious that the cumulative amount of grants and aid received must not exceed the financial contribution paid.
Ladies and gentlemen, a participation agreement is therefore signed between partners, not an aid contract.
This is an extremely important point, because the CEECs have sometimes felt themselves to be like poor relations in their relationship with the European Union, and that at least is how it appears in the evaluation of the Tempus programme.
It would therefore be a good thing to avoid that problem today.
Although there are no major obstacles to the participation of Poland and the Slovak Republic in these programmes, and although - as we have emphasized - this process represents a major political step forward, some questions remain.
The Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes, voted for under the codecision procedure, were set up during 1995.
They are now almost coming to an end and because of this must be evaluated and redefined.
We must be aware that these three programmes operate in synergy with other European Union actions in the field of education, training and youth.
Article 126 of the Maastricht Treaty has given the European Union competence in this respect, and however limited, they are proof of a real determination to take action.
So it can be stated that young people and their employment has become one of the main concerns of the European Union, and we can only regret the lack of accompanying measures as far as the signatory countries are concerned.
Also, the problem of resources must be mentioned.
Certainly the budget of the Socrates programme has been substantially increased thanks to the tenacity and efficiency of our colleague, Doris Pack, whom we should once again congratulate on her activities, but there is now a real demand for the education and youth programmes, to which it would be a pity not to respond.
Secondly, there is a need to ask questions about the CEECs' needs with regard to education and training.
Poland, like the Slovak Republic, cannot escape the need to adapt its educational system, not only in relation to the European Union, but also in the context of globalization and the development of the new technologies we are seeing today.
These three programmes can provide answers and not inconsiderable help, but the nature of their activities is multi-directional, which means they do not have an obligation to respond to these objectives.
Now the enlargement procedure, and its corollaries - the principles of free movement and mutual recognition of diplomas - presuppose real progress in education.
Furthermore, the Commission itself has emphasized this in the opinions it has issued on these two countries' applications for accession.
With regard to Poland, the Commission has highlighted that country's spectacular progress with regard to education, whilst observing that efforts still have to be made.
In fact, we must recognize that Poland has allocated 16 % of its budget - that is 6.2 % of its GDP - to education, and aims to considerably increase the number of young people receiving secondary and university education, so that 20 % of 20-24 year olds in particular, can receive higher education.
The Slovak Republic is developing a less aggressive strategy as only 3.2 % of its budget is allocated to education, that is approximately 1.5 % of its GDP.
As well as the need to increase the number of secondary-school pupils and students here too, considerable efforts must be made to give minorities the same educational opportunities, and I am thinking of the Hungarian minority, in particular.
That is why, in order to evaluate how involvement in our education and training programmes can help these countries to modernize their educational systems, I have recommended the creation of a specific steering committee.
I know that the Commission is not really in favour of such a measure.
However, I have to say, Mr Commissioner, that the answers I have received have not been entirely convincing, with regard to the refusal to set up an evaluation structure, and I must say I regret it.
In fact, the enlargement process means that many bridges have to be crossed. Socrates, Leonardo, Youth for Europe are all steps in the right direction but, ladies and gentlemen, we still have a long way to go.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we decide to include Poland and the Slovak Republic in the Youth and Training Programme of the European Union, this is an important step.
But this step is also a logical result if we want to go further down the road which we took with the decision to enlarge the European Union eastwards. Why?
A politically stable and peaceful Europe is the goal we have in our sights when we open our Community to the states of the former Eastern Bloc.
We hope to achieve this goal by helping the future Member States strengthen their democratic structures and reinforce their economic power.
But how can we achieve this? Only by learning from each other; by exchanging experiences, knowledge, ideas and concepts; and by trusting each other.
The more citizens of the Union are involved in this process of growing together, the more successful it will be.
The younger the people are who take part in this process, the more deeply a feeling of belonging together can take root in their hearts, and the less susceptible the future Community will be to breaking up.
The Leonardo, Socrates, and Youth for Europe programmes seek to prepare the ground for such a development.
They help people to cross linguistic barriers, and encourage the transfer of training and the exchange of students, employees and young people in Europe.
They work towards helping young people in existing and future Member States learn to conceive democratic values as worthy of protection.
The Slovak Republic is not a member of the circle of countries which will initiate the eastwards expansion by their entry.
The judgement that democratic culture in that country must make further progress has led to the postponement of its entry into the Community.
The estimation, however, that the population of the Slovak Republic is open to further democratic development of its political system has led to our desire to see the participation of that people in our programmes.
In July last year, the European Parliament had already decided to include the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania in the programmes. The Slovak Republic and Poland had to wait, since we first had to see whether we got additional Socrates resources.
We have achieved this and so I am pleased today that after Hungary, the Czech Republic and Romania, the Slovak Republic and Poland will come into our programmes.
Thank you, Mrs Leperre-Verrier, for your fine contribution.
Mr President, the involvement of Poland and the Slovak Republic in a joint action on training, youth and education, as proposed in the report by Mrs Leperre-Verrier, is a good thing.
It is another small step on the historic road which will be taken with the European Conference at the end of March to make countries in central and eastern Europe full partners.
In reality this is also a useful method to familiarize the candidate countries with the various policy areas and procedures within the Union.
The choice of education, training and youth is a good one to start with and to gain experience, and the role of Commissioner van den Broek in this choice is to be applauded, because those who have youth have the future.
A good basis for future cooperation with these countries can be found in the shared financial support for the relevant programmes, as well as the Phare programme.
I can therefore be satisfied with the fact that the total sum of subsidies and other financial support will amount to no more than the financial contribution.
It keeps matters neat, does not arouse excessive expectations, and can be monitored.
But to my mind it is clear that the substance of this initiative far exceeds the financial limitations as far as the significance of the initiative is concerned.
Poland and the Slovak Republic, like other countries in central and eastern Europe, will have problems adjusting their education systems, not only in relation to the Union, but also in the context of the new information technologies.
On that front, the Member States often have barriers to overcome too.
As a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I wanted to express my appreciation for the initiative, as the way the programmes is tackled offers a contribution to rapprochement between the Member States and the countries in central and eastern Europe.
This is a strategic political goal which serves stability and peace in Europe.
This is ultimately what our work here is meant to do.
Mr President, I think this is one of the European Parliament's most important tasks: to strengthen the cooperation between the professions, youth, countries and people.
So it is a good thing.
Language training is a part of this process.
It is important that consideration is given to the languages which exist in the EU today, but at the same time people should ensure that dialogue is developed with the central and eastern European languages, and that they get the same opportunities to develop as the current EU languages.
As far as influence is concerned, I think both Poland and the Slovak Republic should be included from the start and should help decide the shaping of the programme.
This is important because it is in fact an agreement which is being made between the EU and these countries, and means that these agreements will be financed approximately equally by the two countries and the EU.
We should see this within the framework of the partnership between the Commission, the Slovak Republic and Poland.
The programmes concerned here are mainly Leonardo, Socrates, Youth for Europe, Tempus and Phare.
They should be implemented regardless of what happens with the negotiations - that is, however quickly or slowly they progress.
However, I have an important point to add: namely, I think it needs to be very clear that the programme should not only be about a one-sided adaptation to the EU's institutions, to our approach, our level of training and our training requirements, but it should be a versatile, mutual exchange between the EU and the countries which have now applied for membership.
Only then will these programmes be good.
So the EU should not appear as some kind of big brother, but should always recognize that this is a dialogue between independent countries which have reached an agreement.
Under these conditions this will be good, and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party supports this proposal.
Mr President, Community training and education programmes are of the utmost importance.
I therefore welcome this report on Poland and the Slovak Republic.
If you want to contribute to increased youth exchange over national borders and contribute to young people learning more about other cultures, traditions and countries, these programmes are a good start.
The Green Group is therefore going to support this report.
Personally, however, I have two observations to make.
Firstly, I do not think the Youth for Europe programme should be included in this agreement.
It is not an educational or training programme, but rather a one-sided propaganda organization.
That is the case in Sweden.
So I think it should not be included as a part of the agreement.
Secondly, I think that in a spirit of solidarity the EU should pay for the larger share of the costs of these agreements, because the part of Europe in which we find ourselves is very well-off compared with both Poland and the Slovak Republic, where there are shortages of many things.
If we are serious about support for central and eastern Europe, we should also pay for the main costs in this politically important area.
Mr President, we vote in favour of this report, although I regard it as unnecessary automatically to attach the label of eastwards expansion to every sensible measure concerning our eastern neighbours.
I consider it important to emphasize that it is a matter of an agreement on participation between partners, and not a treaty on guaranteeing aid.
From my own experience I know that Austria's neighbouring country, the Slovak Republic, is especially very unhappy to be treated as a recipient of aid.
I am genuinely pleased that the rapporteur also deals in her statement with the very worrying situation of children in these countries.
It is particularly the children there who represent the population sector most at risk.
The UNICEF Report discussed last year by the European Parliament put this very forcefully and provided proof.
Socrates and Youth for Europe should therefore be used very specifically to improve the prospects and quality of life of children.
The most intensive cooperation between the educational institutions and the improvement of training systems will certainly contribute to the realization of the enormous intellectual and educational potential of Poland and the Slovak Republic, and ultimately of the citizens of the European Union.
Mr President, I also thank Mrs Leperre-Verrier for her excellent report.
My group welcomes this report and the gradual opening of the programmes to the countries of central and eastern Europe prior to the entry of these countries.
Most of all, this represents another real door being flung wide open for young people to gain new experiences.
However, these programmes also offer the opportunity to exchange experiences in education and careers and to initiate an innovative dialogue, for these countries have something to offer us too.
So the principle of "Learn Your Neighbour's Language' does not just apply to the countries of western Europe, but it must also apply to our eastern neighbours.
This money is very well spent. The transfer of knowledge and experience takes place nowhere more effectively than through personal experience and residence in the other country, and I very much hope that personal meetings eliminate prejudices which unfortunately exist today or are being preserved as in the olden days.
I could imagine that educational cooperation will one day lead to common teaching materials - perhaps even to a common European history book.
Mr President, I would very much like to join in the dance of those who are thanking Mrs Leperre-Verrier for the report and the work which she has done here.
One must indeed point out that this report belongs in a greater context.
Everything started with a report by Mr Posselt who at the time said that these reports must be extended to all the central and eastern European countries.
This is also worth mentioning, and very important.
We need only imagine the terribly short time available to these countries of central and eastern Europe, who were held back for so many decades under a Communist yoke, for making their short dash to catch up.
They are doing it in a really great way, inspiring us with enthusiasm.
One of the great philosophers of our century, the Dalai Lama, was once asked how he came to terms with the fact that there was still so much destruction and annihilation in the world - especially in his own country. "At the moment we cannot do anything about it' , he said.
Really he is a very positive person indeed, and all his listeners were astonished.
Then he looked up and said, "Yes, but there is a possibility: we must win over the young people, for he who wins over the young people, to him will also belong the future.'
The same applies to this report.
This report turns to the young people - in this case in Poland and the Slovak Republic, previously (in fact last year) in Romania, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
If we win over the young people in these countries then the future of Europe belongs to them, which is what we want for them.
It is our task to show and suggest to these young people our European values, granted to us by 50 years of peace which have provided us with great prosperity, a great epoch, so that they can accept them of their own free will.
This report helps this to be achieved.
Mr President, I also wish to thank Mrs Leperre-Verrier for putting together this balanced report.
The European Union education and youth programmes are crucially important channels for improving European integration at the level of the people and bringing eastern and western Europe together.
The experience that individual citizens, students and people doing research derive from multi-cultural colleges throughout Europe is far more valuable than any of the diverse proposals for projects from the Commission with the name of Citizens' Europe.
It is vital to stress that the problems of cooperation in education between the present EU Member States and the applicant countries will not be solved merely by increasing funding.
Although, for example, the Socrates programme funding has been increased for the next round of funding, the money will certainly not be enough even for the needs of the internal programmes of the present Member States.
So the greatest challenge rests with the applicant countries.
They themselves must be able to modernize and adapt their educational systems and colleges so that they can guarantee the quality of their exchange programmes regarding course content, administration and the external aspect.
Practice has shown that facilities for foreigners studying in many eastern European countries are still very borderline.
To take just one example, I am afraid I can cite the University of Tartu in Estonia, where Finns studying there have already taken the university authorities to court right in the middle of term over massive fee increases.
Funding foreign students has no part in the exchange programmes.
Countries preparing for EU membership have to grasp this notion.
The exchange programmes rely on reciprocity, which cannot in all reason be based on decisions made in court.
There is therefore much scope for improvement.
Mr President, Karl Habsburg-Lothringen kindly mentioned that I am, as it were, the grandfather of this report, because I had the honour at that time of presenting here in Parliament the supplementary protocols relating to the association agreements.
I believe the report on which we are voting today is a significant step forward.
Firstly, it deals with the cultural and linguistic diversity in present-day Europe and in the future EU.
I am very grateful that the regional and minority languages, the Slavonic languages and Hungarian are given appropriate dignity in this report.
Secondly I am happy that this report is a step towards greater partnership.
We have grown accustomed to a certain arrogant paternalism vis-a-vis the candidates for entry in central and eastern Europe and it is the amendments which were put forward today which bear witness to a great spirit of partnership.
Quite simply, we are seeing here the future Member States.
In this connection I would like to take issue with Mr Lukas, for I am of the opinion that he should campaign energetically in his own country for eastwards enlargement.
Thirdly, I would like to say that in this report we are considering two countries which are particularly important to us: Poland and the Slovak Republic, which are closely linked together by their great histories and culture.
The Slovak Republic is in fact in danger of being isolated.
I have spoken with the President of the Slovak Rectors' Conference, Professor Stern, who fears that because of the politics in his country which we have justly criticized, the people themselves are isolated, the educational institutions are isolated, and the students, young scientists and specialist workers are isolated.
We must work against this.
We should place a financial emphasis on the Slovak Republic, for none of the associated states requires our support as urgently as the Slovak Republic, which is a profoundly central European country.
That is why I welcome this report and the emphasis it places on Poland and the Slovak Republic.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, research, infrastructure and education are the bases for success for an eco-social market economy, for success, for employment.
So I welcome these programmes.
We members of the eastwards enlargement delegations did in fact have some very intensive discussions in the last week in Strasbourg with Commissioner van den Broek, and we made it clear that we particularly welcome the importance of this European agreement to include the central and eastern European states.
Of course, this applies especially to cooperation in the realm of education.
I would also like to emphasize, like the previous speaker Mr Posselt, that this is of very special significance for the aspect of integration, particularly from the time when the political situation in that country makes entry possible.
It is a well-known fact that the deadline for applications for the office of President expires today at 4 p.m. and the President is likely to be elected on 5 March.
It is interesting that President Kovac has applied, and that he will also arrange the referendum decided by the Constitutional Court.
So at the moment a very interesting development is unfolding in the Slovak Republic.
Precisely for that reason, we must do everything we can to give valuable assistance for this rapprochement.
Of course, many adaptations can be made from the outset.
Immediate integration into the Community's programmes should also be an expression of a strengthened introductory strategy.
The treaties of association with those countries which wish to join must be strengthened immediately, particularly with regard to the Slovak Republic.
The fact that we commence with cooperation in the fields of education and youth is not only to be welcomed but also well thought out.
I agree with the rapporteur: a common future in a common house called Europe can only be constructed in cooperation with young people.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all sincere thanks to the rapporteur Mrs Leperre-Verrier, and sincere thanks also to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for their cooperative attitude and extremely rapid procedure in this matter.
On the eve of the opening of negotiations for entry, the Governments and people of the central and eastern European countries and the Member States displayed a perceptibly heightened degree of sensitivity and receptiveness towards this matter.
As we have recently seen from the Luxembourg conclusions, participation in these programmes offers the central and eastern European countries the possibility of becoming familiar with the policies and instruments of the Community, not only on a political and administrative level but also on a much-quoted basis.
Many students, teachers, young people, professors and freelance workers will thus have an opportunity to make connections, via networks with their colleagues in the Member States.
Such exchange is really extremely important for the consolidation of democracy, which is of special significance, particularly in the case of the Slovak Republic.
The concrete fulfilment of the promise made so long ago regarding participation in these programmes is highly valued amongst the Governments and the future promoters of projects.
Moreover, participation in Community programmes in general but particularly in the spheres of general and professional education will contribute significantly to the institutional structures in the applicant countries.
The central and eastern European countries accord participation in these programmes a high priority. They include an appropriate level of resources in their education budgets, and make them available.
Also, in the strengthened introductory strategies special emphasis is placed on the opening up of these Community programmes.
The European Parliament inspired the opening up of Community programmes for these countries, even before the European Council decided this in 1993.
It also supported the conclusion of supplementary protocols for the European agreements.
It is now called upon to permit the rapid passage of Association Council resolutions, and thereby allow the selection of the first projects on which partners from these two applicant countries can cooperate even before the summer.
As far as the last amendment is concerned, I would like to say that we completely agree that there should be a follow-up in relation to participation in these programmes.
But this should take place within the existing structures, particularly because this is the only way we can guarantee that we remain coherent and that we treat all central and eastern European countries equally.
I would like once again to thank sincerely the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and the rapporteur for her work and flexibility, and above all for the fact that we have come so quickly to the first reading of this report, and that this furthermore has operated so smoothly.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Mr President, I am sorry, I have no wish to hold things up, but I see from repeated readings of Amendments Nos 3 and 8 - the text is the same for both countries- that a slight error has crept in.
It says there that some of these languages already enjoy the status of official languages within the EU and it mentions, for example, Slovene in Carinthia, Styria and Italy.
That is unfortunately not true.
I would therefore request as an oral amendment that the following is written in instead: "also enjoy the status of an officially recognized regional language within the EU, for example Slovene in Austria and Italy' . In other words, not Carinthia and Styria but Austria and Italy, because the Slovene minority is not recognized in Styria, though it is in Carinthia.
The expression "officially recognized regional language' is correct, but not "official language.'
Thank you very much, Mr Posselt.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to know Mrs Leperre-Verrier's opinion.
Can you tell us what you think of this oral amendment?
Mr President, I would like to say that I am in complete agreement with the proposal which has just been made, which is of course in the form of an oral amendment, as the deadline for tabling amendments has now elapsed.
Is anyone opposed to this oral amendment? No.
(During successive votes, Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
We think the message in the report is very positive.
We regret, however, that the Council is not allocating sufficient resources.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have completed the agenda.
I would like to express our sincere thanks to Parliament's services, the ushers, the interpreters and the Bureau services, not just as a formality but because they deserve it. Before taking my leave, ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to say that I am sure that if you have had a chance to stroll through this beautiful and hospitable city, in spite of how much work we have, you will have noticed the first somewhat premature signs of spring and revitalization.
The trees are covered in buds which are about to explode. I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that those are the only explosions we hear over the next few weeks.
In other words, I hope the visit by the UN Secretary General bears fruit, that rationality prevails over irrationality and that good fellowship imposes itself on the confrontation - in other words, that peace wins over war.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you have a good journey and that when we meet again next month, those from the most northerly regions will tell us that the thaw has taken place, and that we will all have seen thousands of leaves explode in peace and harmony .
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 20 February 1998.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Friday, 20 February 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Thank you very much.
As you will appreciate, that matter does not relate to the Minutes, nor is it a suitable subject for debate here and now.
I will be very happy to inform you in writing of the steps we are already taking with the Belgian authorities to guarantee security, as far as possible, in the vicinity of the European Parliament buildings, since Brussels is a very big place.
Thank you very much, Mr Rübig.
I would refer you to the answer I have just given Mr Habsburg-Lothringen.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, unfortunately, at the opening of almost every Parliament sitting, you are called upon to express the Chamber's grief over the victims of despicable terrorist attacks.
Only a few days ago, a Catholic and a Protestant fell victim to the fanaticism that uses the language of arms instead of ideas.
Recently, in a declaration made by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, the French government declared its intention not to grant the extradition, requested by Italy under the Schengen agreements, of 200 Italian terrorist refugees in France after the lead wars that caused so much grief for Italy.
This refusal can be interpreted as indirect encouragement of the impunity and immunity of the terrorists of yesterday, today and tomorrow.
At the moment, France also risks coming within the terrorists' sight...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr Tatarella, the European Parliament is not competent to deal with questions of extradition law between Member States.
Furthermore, you have exceeded the time of one minute allowed for these matters.
Mr President, last Friday there was a disastrous train crash in Finland in which ten people died and almost forty were injured.
On behalf of the Finnish delegation from the Group of the European People's Party I would respectfully ask that you, Mr President, on behalf of Parliament, might express a few words of sympathy and consolation.
It will be done.
Resignation of a Vice-President
Ladies and gentlemen, I must tell you that Mr Capucho has written to inform me that he wishes to resign from his position as Vice-President of Parliament, with effect from 10 March 1998.
I would like to thank Mr Capucho for his work throughout his vice-presidency.
The deadline for tabling candidacies for the vacant post of Vice-President is 6.00 p.m. today.
The election will be held on Wednesday, at 11.30 a.m.
Order of business
The report (A4-0073/98) by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on negotiations in the framework of the OECD on a multilateral agreement on investments (MAI), should be taken at 4.00 p.m. so that the Commissioner concerned can take part.
The PSE Group and the PPE Group support this proposal.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
The PPE Group requests that the debate on the report (A4-65/98) by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on road safety in the European Union, which was originally scheduled for Wednesday, should be reinstated on the agenda for Tuesday, before the other three reports from the Committee on Transport by Mr Watts, Mr Novo Belenguer and Mr Bazin respectively, so that the Commissioner responsible can take part.
(Parliament approved the request)
Wednesday:
I would remind you that Mr Cornelissen's report has been added to the agenda for Tuesday.
Thursday: no changes.
Friday:
The ARE Group has requested that Mr Cunha's report, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission's annual report to the Council and the European Parliament on the results of the multiannual guidance programmes for the fishing fleets at the end of 1996, be taken off the agenda.
Mr President, I rise to support this request, not just because the issue is important but because this Parliament is in danger of making a fool of itself by saying that Friday votes are not important.
We have a report from my good friend Mr Cunha which I think makes some fundamental mistakes, and in particular challenges the legal base of the common fisheries policy in an own-initiative report.
There is no other mechanism for challenging this and I believe it has to be dealt with by Parliament as a whole.
I would therefore move that we postpone this report until we can be sure of a full House, which, as you know, is not the case on a Friday.
I note that the Commissioner for fisheries is here.
I hope she will take note of this, because it is an important point.
If this Parliament were to give the impression that it does not care about the Treaty basis of the common fisheries policy, that would be a terrible signal to send out to the industry and to the Commission.
I beg to move.
Mr President, we have discussed this report sufficiently within the Committee on Fisheries; we are convinced that Parliament should give its opinion now, and so we fail to understand the reasons for a postponement.
Mr President, I would like to rise in support of Mr Macartney.
All too often this Parliament and those who arrange its agenda seem to put fisheries debates on a Friday.
It is time that was ended.
This is a very important report and fisheries are extremely important to the regions of this Community.
I would agree with and support Mr Macartney on this issue.
I put the ARE Group's request to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
Mr President, I asked for the floor earlier to raise two issues.
With regard to the statement on Kosovo on our agenda for Wednesday, the contact group is meeting this evening to discuss the situation.
I wonder therefore if we could have an extension of the deadline for the submission of resolutions until midday tomorrow, which would allow us to take into account the outcome of that meeting.
That is my first request on behalf of my group.
Secondly my group has informed you that we would like to vote in the plenary on removing from the agenda the oral question on the Mediterranean programme which was scheduled for Friday.
I gave notice of this in the Conference of Presidents last week.
As I said in the Conference of Presidents, the Budgetary Control Committee of this House is dealing with exactly the issues raised in this oral question.
It seems entirely incongruous that certain groups are raising it in exactly the same way on the floor of this House before the Committee has completed its deliberations.
My group would like it to be removed from the agenda for this week.
If the plenary decides not to support that view - although I very much hope it will - it is my group's view that this is a very important and sensitive political issue and I would like to ask that the gentlemen's agreement on taking such issues on a Friday morning should be adhered to and the vote be held at a later date.
Thank you, Mrs Green.
On your first point, the services say that it is perfectly possible to hold over the deadline for resolutions until noon tomorrow.
Mr President, as Mrs Green said, the matter is still pending and has not been finalized by the Committee on Budgetary Control yet.
We therefore think it is quite inappropriate that it should be raised as an oral question in the meantime.
We know that during the most recent sitting there was a disagreement between Mrs Fabra Vallés and the Commissioner, who, we should add, gave a rather crude reply, but that should be no reason to devote a rushed debate to it here on Friday morning.
We request that the matter be completed by the Committee on Budgetary Control, and not hastily on a Friday morning amongst other things which have nothing to do with the core of the issue.
Mr President, I fully agree that this is an important matter.
But it is also important for Parliament to come to some decision about the way we are being blamed. When the Commissioner appeared before the Committee on Budgetary Control, he blamed Parliament for blocking the MED programmes.
The following day, on the 26, a DirectorGeneral spoke at a MED-MEDA conference and in front of twelve ambassadors from the Mediterranean zone he said that the European Parliament was responsible for the fact that the MEDA programmes were blocked.
In the evening of that same day, in Madrid, the Turkish Ambassador took me to task, as a Member of the European Parliament, because he thought we were responsible for having blocked the MED programmes.
All we are trying to do with this question is make it quite clear that Parliament is not responsible, and that is why I think it is urgent.
The responsibility lies with the Commissioner, who has been blocking the programmes since 17 July.
So we cannot accept that we are responsible for blocking the MED programmes. The reputation of this House is at stake.
Mr President, I hope Mr Fabra Vallés made that case to the Turkish Ambassador and others who raised the issue with him.
We can deal with this issue in the Committee on Budgetary Control. There is no reason why that cannot be dealt with there.
It is as much a...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if the item stays on the agenda we agree that we should not vote on Friday, but at a later date.
I would like to add that I do not really understand why this cannot be discussed in a democratic Parliament, even though it is a sensitive issue.
A democratic Parliament is in essence a place where difficult and sensitive matters can be discussed.
We submitted an oral question and we wish to hold a debate.
We are calling on Parliament to give us this opportunity, but we are prepared to vote on it at a later date.
I put the request from the PSE and GUE/NGL Groups to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request)
Women's rights
The next item is the joint debate on the following statement and oral question:
statement by the Commission on International Women's Day and the violation of women's rights; -oral question (B4-0177/98 - O-0044/98/rev.) by Mrs van Dijk, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, to the Commission, on International Women's Day - 8 March 1998: combating violations of women's rights.
Mr President, every year we celebrate Women's Day and every year we come to the same sad conclusion that equality, if it exists and where it exists, concerns a minority of women in the world.
For the majority of women even the most basic human rights are an unattainable goal, for the simple reason that they were born women.
This year we decided to dedicate Women's Day to those women who are oppressed by religious fundamentalism.
It is therefore not by chance that we should be paying particular attention to the unprecedented oppression that is taking place in Afghanistan: the women held by the Taliban are in the worst position of all.
For this reason, the initiative of the Commission is worthy of our congratulations.
Mrs Bonino also deserves our congratulations for the very fine poster she produced for the occasion.
We spoke at length about these women during the previous part-session.
Bearing in mind their hardship and the fact that we must never cease in our efforts to help them, we must not forget that a great deal still needs to be done for the women who live in more developed societies, where religious fanaticism, imported or not, is nevertheless very real.
In addition to this fanaticism, the exploitation of women by international crime networks and the violation of basic human rights against women who, for a variety of reasons, are more vulnerable and unprotected than others, are events which still occur throughout the world, and we must not forget, in my opinion, those regions of our planet where women are not allowed to go on living, simply in order to solve the problem of overpopulation.
There are very many women for us to think about today.
We must think about the women who have become refugees of the recent wars.
We must think about the women who are threatened by exclusion, by unemployment and by poverty, and all those women who are unfortunate enough to be treated as unequal.
We must continue to demand again and again, perhaps monotonously, what is self-evident to all, that is, basic human rights, which are women's rights too.
Mr President, women's rights are human rights, and therefore universal rights, and all women derive rights from these, whether they live on European Union territory or not, and whether they are Member State nationals or not.
The international community, including the European Union, has made moving statements about this.
But what can and must we, the European Union, the Commission, the Council and the Member States do to actually implement these paper tigers, these paper rights, these statements of principles? My group, the Liberal group, is presently focusing its attention on nonEuropean Union nationals.
Firstly, as regards non-European women living in the European Union, I think it is essential that the Commission and the Member States pursue a much more active and much more accessible education and information policy on what their rights are.
These non-European women who live within the European Union must be actively supported in putting their rights into practice.
This means a ban on sexual mutilation in Europe and the enforcement of this ban, but it also means that they should receive the same treatment Member State women are entitled to, and that these rights should be asserted in all areas.
Secondly, in terms of the many millions of women outside the European Union whose human rights are being violated, Mrs Bonino, what would the Commission do without you?
I need say no more, we totally support your initiative.
The women of Kabul are a metaphor for all countries in which human rights are violated.
International political pressure is needed, in particular towards the fundamentalist regimes, and, Mrs van Dijk, it is not just to do with clothes, that is too narrow a view, nor is it to do with the Koran, it is to do with the interpretation of the Koran.
The Commission, as Mrs Bonino pointed out, must use its powers much more consistently.
You would like to do so, but we would like the entire Commission to be permanently behind it.
This means consciously and critically putting to the test the human rights clause in the association agreements, and to draw the necessary conclusions from this.
The same goes for development cooperation.
Mrs Bonino would support this, but I would like the entire Commission to do the same.
I think Mrs Bonino could use a great deal of support from Parliament to turn fine words into practice, so that human rights are actively asserted, both in association agreements and in development cooperation, otherwise we will just keep on talking and no one will take the slightest notice of what we are saying.
Mr President, Mrs Bonino, I am very pleased that you are here today because we have a lot to thank you for. Your work helped to ensure that all of us in the European institutions had a very positive, very active attitude towards the celebrations on 8 March, and that the public all realized that the denial of rights to women in Afghanistan is a denial of rights to all the women of the world.
Anyway, I wanted to say that here in the European institutions we are still experiencing difficulties and this year, once again, we are seeing that the problems suffered by women in matters relating to work still amount to a lack of rights. Furthermore, domestic violence continues to be a blot on our society, which also merits some self-criticism.
Since I have barely a minute's speaking time, I especially wanted to say to you, to the Committee on Women's Rights and to all the Members of the European Parliament, both male and female, that we should work to make 1999 the year against violence against women.
Because if, by commemorating a single day, the European institutions have made society come to that realization and support us in our defence of women's rights, then I think there will also be a lot of public support if we manage to designate 1999 as the year against violence against women.
Since we need to keep on fighting, that is an appropriate objective.
Mr President, first of all I would like to say how pleased I am that after all these years Women's Day has taken on a real importance; this is an important step forward from some time ago.
Remember the half smiles, the scepticism, the derision with which it was greeted back then.
Have those working women won at last who, on a certain March 8, marked in history with their sweat and blood the day to day fight of women?
Unfortunately, despite obvious advances and considerable efforts, we note the inadequacy of the results so far which, in come cases, are the exact opposite of what we were hoping for.
Sadly, there is a long and familiar list of the ill-treatment to which women are subjected nowadays.
The European Union must continue to fight on a daily basis for the respect of the equality of rights, even within its own territory. This is why my group strongly supports the compromise resolution which has been presented today.
I think we ought to use Women's Day to place the emphasis on the fight of some women who are particularly in need of our active support.
Here I am referring especially to the women in Afghanistan.
In this respect, I would like to pay tribute to and thank you for the remarkable work which you, Commissioner, are leading on behalf of the women of this country to restore their fundamental rights.
I would also include Algerian women and their exemplary fight, and I do not want to forget the women of Kosovo, who came out into the streets yesterday to protest against the repression which they are suffering at present.
In addition, allow me this display of chauvinism in paying tribute to the Corsican women who rose up with courage and dignity against the terrorism which is still rife in that region.
There too, the women expressed the need for enlightenment, hope and freedom, which are as universal as human rights which, as everyone knows also encompass women's rights.
I have received six motions for a resolution pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, women are the victims of many forms of violence, either invisible and silent, through pressures, threats or dependence, or glaring forms of violation, aggression and total oppression.
There is an ever-present terror experienced by women when they witness violence inflicted on themselves, on their children and on the elderly, so often without even knowing why!
Their lives, and the lives of their loved ones, are constantly threatened, although they have never done anything to deserve it, and can do nothing to prevent it.
We must do all in our power to condemn this situation, and particularly what is happening to the women of Algeria, Afghanistan, and Timor, so distant and yet so close to our hearts.
We must be the voice of the women who have been denied the right to have a voice.
I asked Commissioner Emma Bonino to lend me the cloak that the Afghan women are forced to wear as they live their daily lives, so that everybody here may see with own eyes the nature of the prison in which women are forced to confine themselves.
Putting on this garment made more of an impact on me than any number of speeches.
I felt like a prisoner, isolated although surrounded by people, looking out onto the world through bars, able to see no further than my own feet, with barely enough air to breath, unable to move my arms far enough to write the words that I am reading to you, unable even to make the woman's natural gesture of picking up a child in her arms
We must cry aloud: free these women from this prison, from this torture, from this violence!
Our cry of alarm, our solidarity, our friendship must reach these women. They must know that they are not alone.
They have been deprived of everything: the right to study and to teach, the right to health care, the right to a free and responsible job, the right to respect as individuals, the right to live freely and in peace, even the right to see and breathe freely.
No human being can remain silent in the presence of this inconceivable violence.
We certainly will not, and we will do all in our power to designate 1999 the year against violence towards women.
Madam President, human rights are the foundation of each national constitution and a major benefit for every man and woman.
Yet at the end of the 20th century, the distance between professed intention and reality is still great, despite all the successes achieved.
International Women's Day, which yesterday saw not only women take to the streets, but also a substantial number of men, including myself, has focused attention on Islamic fundamentalism.
The joint campaign launched by the European Parliament and the Commission 'A flower for the women in Kabul' condemns the reign of terror in Afghanistan, in which women - as we saw today - are robbed of their personal dignity and status.
They must wear veils.
Their view is limited by a guard of fabric, as if they were looking through a cage.
They have become second-class citizens who are no longer able to express themselves publicly, and Afghanistan was once a progressive country!
They are no longer allowed to practise their previous activities as doctors, teachers, members of parliament.
The Islamic regime has degraded women to second-class citizens.
You, Madam Commissioner, have experienced it first hand.
Our respect and all our sympathy goes out to you.
We will do our utmost to mobilize international publicity against the Taliban regime and conduct a sustained campaign.
Nor let us not forget today that the idea of equality has still to be realized in Europe.
A start has been made through the directive regulating the burden of proof in questions of discrimination, the new equality article in the Amsterdam Treaty and the Marshall judgement supporting women in promotion.
The advancement of self-assured women is unstoppable.
The support for women at the Luxembourg summit is a good basis for further integration in professional life, yet picking up a career after child-caring is still a vital problem.
Careers at management level are the exception, and we are miles away from equal payment for equal work.
Hence, 8 May is an incentive to implement the concept of main-streaming in all areas of society.
If I had one wish, it would be that in May the flowers for the women in Kabul blossom in full view throughout the world, in both the western and the eastern hemispheres!
Madam President, yesterday thousands of women and several hundred men, so I believe, were out in Sweden's towns and cities supporting the campaign 'A flower for the women of Kabul' in various different ways.
On the same day there were almost as many who lit candles for women who had died during the year either from injuries caused by or directly at the hands of men who claimed to be the people who loved them most in the world.
I therefore agree with Mrs Gröner and others who have said that we would convince both the women and the men in the EU that we must also carry out a campaign against violence against women in the European Union.
Madam President, I would also like to thank Mrs Bonino wholeheartedly for her work on behalf of the women in Kabul.
Not only has she finally put the spotlight on the women in Afghanistan, but she has given International Women's Day a new impetus, and made the women's movement stronger than before.
You said yourself, Madam Commissioner, that Afghanistan was a symbol of the suppression of women throughout the world.
So I presume you will not mind us expressing our particular sympathy towards the thousands of women in Algeria who for years have been the victims of barbaric rapes and massacres by the fundamentalist terror groups of the GIA.
These are religious fanatics, not ordinary Muslims, who, through the massacre of more than 80 000 people, including many women, children, and elderly people, want to do away with peace and democracy in Algeria once and for all.
Violence is indeed the instrument of fanatics, of terrorists, but let us not forget that this violence is thriving in a country where democracy has been suppressed for a long time and which suffers from extremely high unemployment and great poverty.
It is a country where a large section of the population is not accorded any human rights, and I am referring here in particular to women, whose rights have been suppressed for years because, since 1984, Algeria has one of the most backward systems of family law.
It degrades women, treating them like creatures without rights, wholly governed by their men and guardians and, for that matter, it contravenes international conventions which Algeria has signed, but does not implement.
There is a very broad movement of women's organizations in Algeria which is pursuing a non-violent battle for peace, democracy, human rights - and women's rights - and which is therefore opposing this family law, with exceptional courage.
I hope we can count on you, too, Madam Commissioner, in this battle for Algeria, for Algerian women, for perseverance.
Barbaric violence can only be fought when democracy is supported.
But a democracy cannot exist without respect for human and women's rights.
I think we should give our full support to this women's movement in Algeria.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, Parliament has designated this Women's Day, on which particular attention is drawn to the situation of Afghan women.
We express our solidarity towards the victims of this particularly extreme manifestation of discrimination which lends full weight to the designation of this day and to the struggle that gives it meaning.
However, although nothing must be allowed to detract from this solidarity, it cannot overshadow the need to be fully aware that Women's Day originated as a result of the working hours of female textile workers in New York and that, closer to home, other particular gestures of solidarity are essential, as in Portugal, where abortion is made a factor of the party political struggle, to the detriment of the rights of women in defence of the perpetuation of a situation that is unacceptable in legal, health and moral terms, with the hypocritical justification of moral principles that are declared to be unassailable.
The defence of women's rights is a struggle to be waged by all, men and women, and in all areas.
Madam President, 50 years since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, too often women's rights have still not been affirmed, are still not being applied and are still being violated.
More than three years since the approval of the Beijing action platform, should we be satisfied with the actions taken by the EU and its Member States with regard to European women and women throughout the world? Unfortunately, no!
It is not the fault of this Parliament, nor that of the Commission, that the fourth action programme which, while including the Beijing guidelines, does not have a budget that is able to finance the many, necessary initiatives planned by the women's associations in our countries, often in vain.
In many countries, either the national action plans intended to make the Beijing platform into a national reality have not even been presented or the action has not followed the presentation.
The years go by and women continue to suffer various forms of violence, ranging from physical to sexual, including harassment at the place of work.
Violent practices connected with cultural and patriarchal traditions continue.
Discrimination continues over access to education, training and the world of employment, careers, access to justice, health services and playing a part in decisions.
It could be said that some of this discrimination concerns women in developed countries and some concerns those in developing countries, but that is not the case, because it all concerns all women on the whole planet, even if we should remember that those most affected are women from poor countries, countries with violent dictatorships and countries at war.
To this depressing view we should add phenomena we are already aware of, but which have become of enormous numerical and social significance, such as trading in women for sexual exploitation, and the greatest problem of all, unemployment.
There has been no shortage of initiatives and it is only fair to recall, as others have already done, the great undertaking made by Commissioner Emma Bonino, that has been made by the European Parliament and by national and international organizations, by women's associations in many countries, not only in the EU, in favour of Afghan women, as well as Commissioner Gradin's active undertaking against the trade in women for sexual exploitation, of which the victims are women in the southern hemisphere, but also European women and those from countries once oppressed by the Soviet Union.
Today, however, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of 8 March, we should tell ourselves, the Commission and the Council, that we need to do more to affirm and establish the principle that women's rights are the rights of human beings and should be interpreted, recognized and, at all costs, established as such.
Madam President, during the course of this century important advances have been made for women's rights, but there still remains a great deal to be done as regards gaining complete and total equality and recognition of their place in our societies.
So, in many countries within the Union, they must fight against discrimination at work, disparity of salaries and tackle unemployment and the uncertainty of work, which affects them in particular.
They must also resist regular attempts to challenge the fundamental experience of controlling fertility.
I am delighted that demands for equality are on the agenda in France.
This could prove to be a lever to firmly establish the desire for full and unrestricted citizenship for women and their access to the full range of political responsibilities.
The plight of the women in Kabul has shocked us all, and I welcome the initiative which the Commission has taken on this.
Their situation provides a clear, if horrifying, illustration of the conception which the Muslim fundamentalists have of women.
And again it is Islamic fundamentalism which is responsible for the rape and murder of courageous Algerian women.
Unfortunately, the list of countries where women are looked down on and ill-treated is much longer than this.
It has been said that you can judge the degree of civilization by the situation of its women.
This gives us a measure of the fight which is still ahead, far beyond the symbolic day of 8 March.
Madam President, once again everything seems to be conspiring towards helplessness.
The institutions of the European Union are more and more coming to resemble some great machine carefully prepared to promote helplessness. Meanwhile, we in those institutions hypocritically split ourselves in two between our wishes, on the one hand, and the facts, on the other.
So, Madam President, remembering the case of Ana Orantes, the woman from Granada who was tragically burnt to death by her ex-husband, and in view of the scandalous statistics of male violence against women in my country, Spain, where there were 91 cases last year - far more than from ETA's violent acts of terrorism -, I wonder whether today's discrimination, today's hypocritical non-discrimination, is any better than yesterday's discrimination.
It is also hypocritical - ridiculous even - that even at this stage we are unable to recognize discrimination in terms of salary.
How is it possible that we can detect water on the moon, but cannot see that discrimination at work is tolerated and permitted in this hypocritical Europe, without us even acknowledging it? We agree to it.
It is not allowed, but we prefer not to notice it.
Madam President, yesterday millions of women asked us to do something about it once and for all - to follow up our words with deeds.
Madam President, before we finish the debate I should like to bring to the House's attention the many women whose children have been abducted to countries where these women have no rights whatsoever before the courts. Many of them have lost their children for ever.
This is an ongoing human rights issue and I agree with Mrs Larive that when looking at our relationships with many of the countries to which these children have been abducted, we must regard this as being one of the essential human rights.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Sale of consumer goods and guarantees
The next item is the report (A4-0029/98) by Mrs Kuhn, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees (COM(95)0520 - C4-0455/96-96/0161(COD)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, where consumer goods are concerned, we have a single internal market.
In 2002 we will have the euro in the majority of EU states.
This will allow consumers to make price comparisons much more easily.
Teleshopping, cross-border mail ordering and Internet selling could all profit from this.
However, according to a survey, consumers generally have reservations about purchasing goods outside their own country because they fear problems, should a product be defective.
This fear is completely justified at present.
Within the European Union, not only does the statutory guarantee period vary in length, but the concept of a defective article is also defined differently.
Both the legal claims for remedying a defect and the terms for claiming on a guarantee are not standard.
The Commission has highlighted the differences between the Member States in its Green Paper 'Consumer Goods Guarantees and After-Sales Service' .
In a resolution on the Green Paper, the European Parliament has called on the Commission to produce a draft directive for the minimum harmonization of the statutory guarantee and for a legal framework for the commercial guarantee.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten was the rapporteur at the time.
The proposal put forward by the Commission is to be welcomed from the consumers' point of view.
It provides for the minimum harmonization of individual state provisions for the statutory guarantee and greater transparency with the commercial guarantee.
This statutory guarantee should be for two years.
During the first year consumers can choose between four types of redress which they can assert with the vendor: free repair, replacement, reduction in purchase price or cancellation of contract.
In the second year, they have only the right to free repair or a price reduction.
As rapporteur, I have said from the outset that this freedom of consumer choice is too consumer-friendly and unreasonable for retailers or manufacturers.
Many consumers would not have defective products repaired, but instead choose an alternative product or cancel the transaction altogether.
The retailers would then be effectively sitting on virtually new, used goods, which would have to be sold as second-hand products.
Hence, both the advisory committees and the main committees are proposing a hierarchy for the two-year guarantee: free repair without depreciation, if sensible and feasible, a replacement if repair proves to be neither sensible nor feasible, and should both not be possible, cancellation of contract or reduction in purchase price.
This proposal should help to remove the serious reservations normally expressed by the retailers.
Therefore, false cost accounting should no longer end up with the elected representatives, as has happened again today.
With the greatest sympathy for certain representatives of industry, some of whom have even furnished us with a complete voting list - another novelty since presumably parliamentarians are not considered capable of independent thought -, the consumer has a right to a defect-free product.
You almost get the impression that defective products are the general rule.
The draft directive also applies to second-hand goods.
Automobile clubs have welcomed this. The Committee, however, is proposing that buyers and vendors should be able to impose contractual restrictions on second-hand articles.
I have one other point: most Member States want second-hand goods to come under this directive because so far this has been the case under national law.
Affected parties have also criticized the fact that the manufacturer's public declarations are also included in the defect definition.
In my opinion, this is only right and proper since it is often the statements in advertisements that cause consumers to purchase a particular product.
The Commission's proposal assumes that any defect that occurs in the first six months after parting with the product must have been present at the time of sale.
This is only of limited application, however, if the vendor is able to prove the contrary.
Hence, the buyer may not, as is sometimes suggested, complain about his canvas shoes five months after buying them because these have since developed a flaw through wear.
Nor can I present the glaring crack in a new expensive vase that was there when I bought it as a fault some six months later.
I would ask critics of the directive to consider that, in contrast to the commercial guarantee, claims under the statutory guarantee can only be made if a lack of conformity with the contract was evident at the time the product was surrendered.
The same critics should also kindly consider that the internal market has brought suppliers great benefits, while the consumer still needs to make up for lost ground.
I am of the opinion that consumers have a right to expect that the statutory guarantee claims are not dependent on the country of purchase, but instead that they have the same minimum rights across the Union.
The directive should lead to a balanced relationship between suppliers and buyers because consumers in many Member States, including my own, are better placed through it and consumer confidence in cross-border purchases is enhanced.
In this sense, the proposed directive represents an important step towards increasing the level of consumer protection in the European Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I share in principle the opinion of the rapporteur, who has told us that this directive is basically pointing in the right direction.
It means that we will be able to coordinate an important area in the European Union, which is also crucial for the smooth-functioning of the single market.
I am thinking of the problems experienced in the area of cross-border traffic, where today a customer who lives in Germany, say, but would like to shop in the Netherlands or Belgium, is not so certain which rights he has as a purchaser in these countries.
To this extent, the directive is a genuine contribution towards achieving harmonization.
I do not wish to deny either that I am sympathetically disposed to the possibility that, through us now getting this European legislation, the debate surrounding the law of contract, which for some time has been dormant, will start up again, in my native country of Germany as well.
Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that this proposal which the Commission has made is unbalanced in a lot of aspects.
Hence it will require the necessary changes being made by this Parliament. This particularly affects - Mrs Kuhn has said so - the question of maybe limiting the right of option.
Under the Commission's proposal, it is theoretically conceivable that, for example, a buyer might buy a car, drive around for months in it, clocking up some 50 000 km, park up and claim once there is damage to the engine, ' I'd like to have a new car, please.'
That would be unreasonable, without question, since such an expensive item normally should be repaired first.
Let's take a second, reverse scenario: I buy a hair dryer for 30 marks in a cut-price supermarket.
According to the wording of the directive, in theory the consumer could insist on the hair dryer being repaired eleven months later.
That would be absurd, too, because such cheap products are not repaired but replaced.
That is why I actually think this change in the right of option is crucial.
I also believe, and this is a proposal from my group, that we need to provide exemption clauses for the low-grade products sector as well and not just for second-hand goods.
I do not consider it prudent of us to create a directive at the end of which is the possibility that certain low-grade products might need to be raised so much in price in order to cover the risks incurred by the warranty.
Ultimately that would be a disadvantage for the consumer.
That is why we will also be requesting through an amendment that the low-grade products be included in the exemption provisions that allow this to be circumvented.
We have problems too with the manufacturer's liability decision made in the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We refuse to go along with this as the Group of the European People's Party. It failed to meet with support in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, too.
On the question of shifting the burden of proof, we have come up with a solution in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights that is better because it does not envisage the drastic ruling of the directive, from which there is no possibility of deviating, even in cases where injustice has occurred.
Against the background of the changes I have partly addressed - there are more amendments in the motions file - we are nevertheless of the principled opinion that this directive is heading in the right direction and therefore support in principle the Commission's proposal, albeit with the corrections which I have outlined and which proceed from our amendments.
Madam President, my group warmly welcomes the fact that this directive is now at long last before Parliament, and congratulates our colleague, Mrs Kuhn, on the sustained work she has put in to achieve a desirable result.
This proposal will give a minimum standard for sale of goods right across the whole of the single market.
With a fair wind, it will come into effect by the time that the final fruition of that single market is achieved with the currency reforms at the end of this century.
If that is so, consumers will, for the first time in all Member States, have the opportunity for redress and restoration of what properly should be theirs, which all too often is denied them.
In the 1993 Green Paper on guarantees and after-sales services, this Parliament called on the Commission to present a proposal for a directive.
We are extremely glad that this has now come before us.
In my own country the legal provisions are already running strongly in this direction so under the UK presidency there will be a mood to move to bring this into law very quickly indeed.
We have found over the past six years that in trans-European transactions, which are now becoming an increasing part of our intra-Community trade as individuals, 70 % of cases brought concern faulty products.
52 % of consumers mention the difficulties they encountered in exchanging goods or having repairs done as the main barrier to purchasing goods across borders.
Far more people quoted that, rather than language difficulties, as a reason.
Surely, therefore, something is wrong.
Mrs Kuhn has done a remarkably good job in addressing this issue, with the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, to look at ways in which compromises can be found.
We have a reasonable compromise now over the length of time of the guarantees.
One year is not long enough, and those who propose five and six years are unrealistic.
They were voted down and the reasons will no doubt be put once again by Mrs Bonino.
We believe in a hierarchy of remedies which is rational. A hierarchy of remedies which is rational, of course, attempts to maintain and protect the rights of the consumer whilst at the same time not burdening the seller with entirely unrealistic propositions, like having to replace a motorcar which is brought back with a few scratches after a couple of months on the road.
The wording of Amendment No 45 is actually better than EMAC 9 - the amendment which was adopted in the Environment Committee - because it sets out a form of words where the natural economic interest of both the buyer and the seller must coincide if the hierarchy of remedies must mean repair rather than replacement.
It also looked again at the question of the timetable for a rescission of the contract or a reduction in price.
There are one or two things where I think we need further time and perhaps further consideration.
This is, after all, only the first reading.
One is the question of second-hand goods.
There are areas where this directive ought properly to apply to second-hand goods and areas where we can all see, despite all the complaints in this field, it would be inappropriate to apply the full rigour of the directive as though the goods were new.
My last point is that, on consumer information, the area where industry complained bitterly about offices being set up in each Member State, we think we have found an appropriate amendment which suggests exactly the right level of information which the consumer needs state by state.
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Kuhn wholeheartedly for the excellent way in which we have been able to arrive at a satisfactory result for this directive.
I hope that our cooperation will last until the vote on the first reading tomorrow, because our group sees major advantages in this directive. The consumer will become a major player in the market.
This is necessary if we believe there should be an internal market which should ensure that the consumer is able to buy products throughout Europe, and that there should be a service attached to the products he buys.
Our group recognizes this, but when I say that the consumer should be a major player in the market, this does not mean that we should start laying the burden disproportionally on small and medium enterprises.
That is why we have tried to improve some aspects, in particular with the amendment to Article 3, Clause 4, where we are introducing a hierarchy in the way the consumer can claim or recover his losses when his agreement is broken.
I believe that with this hierarchy we have solved many of the problems for small and medium enterprises.
This means, and a journalist has asked about this, that with respect to the hierarchy, we have removed some rights from the original European Commission proposal.
But I can back this up, because it means that we have ensured that the ecological, energy-consuming, throw-away economy which we would end up with if people just took everything back, is removed from the draft in Amendment No 45.
I therefore believe that from an energy and environmental point of view, we have achieved something with this amendment, but that it is also good for small and medium enterprises.
It is a heavy burden for small and medium enterprises that when selling goods to consumers from abroad, they have to produce whole lists for the consumer in case they want to make a claim. I therefore ask Mrs Kuhn if we could have another good look at the amendments on that front.
We would in any case advise you to vote against.
There is one problem: the trapped small retailer. The trapped small retailer, who might be dependent on products delivered by the manufacturer in a faulty condition, or with faulty information, must be helped.
I think that, when the amendment to this section, Amendment No 31, is supported by this entire House, we will have a solution to these problems.
Reversal of the burden of proof.
The text as it is before us might pave the way to abuse, and I therefore think that the amendments submitted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is much better.
Mr Lehne has already mentioned this a short time ago.
Then there is the issue of the second hand market. We would like our amendments to be taken over.
We would like second hand goods to be included in the directive, but in a reasonable form.
This means that when you pay a high price for a car, you should be able to get a guarantee.
An organization such as BOVAG in the Netherlands would concur with such a view.
Let expensive goods come under the scope of the directive, but allow for exceptions.
I have a few more amendments of which I would like to ask the Commission, Parliament and other groups to have a look at.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 6, 8, 9 - I am using the Dutch text - 22, 25, 28, 29, 34 - I just mentioned these, 35, 36, 37, and the new amendment replacing Amendment No 41.
If this can be arranged I believe we will have a decent text which will show us in a good light to small and medium enterprises, but also most definitely - because that is who it is intended for - to the consumer.
Madam President, there are provisions in the Consumer Credit Act (1995) which ensure that consumers are made aware of the nature and content of any credit agreement or financial accommodation which is advertised by banking institutions.
In addition, advertisements of consumer credit must contain details of any charges additional to payment of capital and interest; a statement of any security which may be required; a clear indication of any restrictions on the availability of credit and the cash price of relative goods and services; the total cost of credit; particulars of the number, amount and timing of instalments; the amounts of any deposits and the number of any instalments which must be paid before the delivery of the goods.
The content and requirements relating to credit agreements are defined and set out in the legislation.
Consumers are able to assess any agreement before they enter into it and are made aware of the type of agreement involved: for example, hire purchase and hire agreements etc.
In the light of the forthcoming commencement dates for our economic and monetary union, all these provisions must be analysed, reviewed and updated in the context of future banking transactions for the Irish and European consumers.
From 1 January 1999 all non-cash transactions can be carried out in the euro denomination.
Mortgage-holders and those consumers seeking mortgages at a future date must have confidence in the terms they are given in the new euro denomination from national and European banking institutions.
I congratulate Mrs Kuhn on her report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group is in favour of harmonized rules on after-sale guarantees, but is a little disillusioned with the Commission proposal, and for the following reasons. Firstly, for the time being the problem of the internal market will not have been completely resolved for the consumer.
Secondly, the proposal will lead to additional costs for shopkeepers, costs which are disproportionate to the protection of the consumer.
At the same time it could result in job losses in the labour intensive repair services sector.
Finally, it will cause more waste, and this while the Commission is working on a document on competition in the recycling sectors. In this document it apparently expresses its concern about the scrapheap of electronic equipment.
In order to arrive at a transparent and balanced piece of legislation, my liberal colleagues and I have drafted a few proposals, first and foremost with respect to means of redress.
My group cannot agree that a consumer, in the case of a fault in the purchased item, is given four means of redress.
We therefore propose a hierarchy.
In the case of a fault the vendor is obliged to repair the product to full working order within a reasonable period.
How this is done is his business, as long as he guarantees that it is the quickest and most efficient method, and as long as the customer is satisfied.
If this fails, then the consumer has every right to demand a price reduction or the cancellation of the agreement.
Secondly, the consumer should be able to turn directly to the manufacturer in three instances, namely when the vendor is located abroad, has ceased trading, or when he cannot be reached.
I am referring to our Amendment 25 which was approved by a large majority in the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Finally, we believe second hand goods should be excluded. They do not belong in this directive.
We would like a clear and explicit exception for these goods, but do not rule out that they will be subjected to separate regulations at a later date.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our group wants to work towards a clear and balanced text, which not only benefits the consumer, but also employment, business and the environment.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the draft directive from the Commission in so far as it envisages at least a two-year guarantee.
That is a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.
It would be an improvement for countries at the bottom end of the EU like the Federal Republic, which only provides for an extremely short warranty period of six months.
But what we want is actually a breakthrough to sustainability in production, and that is why five years would be better in our view.
We need to get away from the disposable product mentality and the short life of goods and move towards sustainable production.
Manufacturers and distributors should not be released from responsibility either.
I have absolutely no sympathy with all the whining and whingeing letters we receive from industry.
Industry is always telling us it is prepared to accept responsibility.
I think manufacturers and distributors need to be called to account.
We therefore need to stem the flood of rubbish and demand a longer life for products.
That is why we have introduced an amendment providing for a 5-year guarantee, so as to finally achieve this breakthrough to sustainability.
This also enjoys the support of Finland, by the way, which makes it clear that even in the Council of Ministers there is support for sustainability in production.
We want to see that both the average life and the rate of consumption of products is disclosed with the manufacture and use of the product.
It is quite clear to us that repair must come first.
We want to put an end to the wasting of resources and create an incentive for curtailing production of non-recyclable goods.
We believe that with this directive the European Parliament needs to come clean at the vote tomorrow as to just how serious it is about sustainability in production.
Madam President, most Member States already have some legislation on guarantee periods and consumer rights, but it varies considerably.
Now that goods are produced and consumed on an increasingly international scale it is high time we had harmonization and consumer protection.
We therefore support the drawing up of a European directive on after-sale guarantees.
Each time a product is found to be faulty, the question will arise: was it already faulty or did the user break it?
In practise it turns out that it is sometimes impossible to answer this question.
Sometimes the consumer will lie.
He knows he was responsible for the defect, but acts dumb.
In such circumstances should an extensive procedure be undertaken to establish proof? A company will not want to do so if it concerns a relatively low-cost item.
Sometimes the fault was already present at the time of purchase, or occurred shortly afterwards through no fault of the consumer.
It is clear that an arrangement must be made to indemnify the consumer.
But the first case is of course the most difficult.
The report by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection clearly takes the side of the consumer when it comes to burden of proof.
He is not to blame.
This comes back to an imbalance in power between buyer and seller.
We back this choice. It will occasionally lead to an increase in cost for the manufacturer.
But on the other hand a good reputation will benefit him, both with respect to the product and to his service.
Nothing is better advertised than the quick replacement of a product.
I am therefore not terribly impressed with the many letters from the business lobby saying that it will all be so expensive and that in the end the consumer will have to pay more.
The shopkeeper will need right of recourse which he can use to recover his costs from the manufacturer.
If the legal guarantee is used too often to make claims, then there must be something wrong with the product.
We can therefore support many of the amendments in the Kuhn report.
Madam President, the draft directive before us is an example of how standardized, trans-European rulings can antagonize the people and shake their confidence in the Union.
Open borders and an open market demand uniform consumer protection guidelines.
This also applies to the buyer's statutory right to protection from defects in acquired products, in short to a standardization of warranty law.
However, if a proposal for a directive is presented, as it is here, where the periods within which the seller is liable for defects in his product are quadrupled - as in the case of Austria, for example - this is hardly indicative of great tact and sensitivity.
There is little fine feeling too in the arrangement planned for allowing the consumer a free option in the first year of warranty between repair, price reduction, rescission of contract and replacement.
It seems reasonable to suppose that, in the majority of cases, the buyer will prefer to receive a new product rather than have the old one repaired, a solution which, we believe, is neither economically nor ecologically sensible.
And if one brings the proposed change in the burden of proof into the equation, i.e. the supposition that the fault was already present at the time of purchase, this overall arrangement represents an increased burden on the small and medium-sized enterprises in particular, who would in no way be in a balanced position in relation to the improved consumer protection brought about by this change.
It is precisely in today's difficult employment situation that this additional imposition is not acceptable and will in the long term reduce the number of consumers protected.
We therefore share the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, of waiting for the study into the impact of this directive to come out, which has been commissioned due to the contentious nature of the subject matter.
There is no reason to be overhasty in approaching this issue.
It would do the cause more harm than good.
Madam President, I do not have a script, just two observations.
There is no competence of the European Parliament for coordinating civil law.
There is no coordination taking place, as it happens.
Only minimum standards are being set down, i.e. we will probably be left legally with a patched-up job.
Where then is the coordination that might perhaps be still justified?
I do not believe, incidentally, that within the European Union of the single market there has ever been a cross-border purchase made or omitted simply because another warranty system operates in the other country.
That is an utterly ridiculous assumption.
One other word, on the shift in the burden of proof, since I cannot say more about the substance.
This has become something of a magic formula: ' shift in the burden of proof.'
It is quite clear that we can do nothing to change the facts of the matter, namely that the one who asserts a claim has to prove the facts justifying the claim, and a reversal in the burden of proof can only come into it if the one making the claim has absolutely no access to the information justifying his claim.
Only then can shifting the burden of proof be considered.
This clearly is not the case here.
This shift in the burden of proof means that fundamentally the seller can never produce the proof.
He took his iron that was all packed up down from the shelf and gave it the customer - and then three months later he is expected to prove that this iron was in order. Legally this is rather suspect.
Madam President, in the internal market the consumer is free to obtain products and services from other Member States, and he sees this as one of the biggest advantages of that internal market.
But an important obstacle stands in the way of his being able to enjoy this freedom fully, namely uncertainty about after-sale guarantees, and about what he can do when a product he bought turns out to have hidden defects.
I welcome a proposal for a directive to harmonize a number of things in this field.
It is also positive that this directive offers the consumer a high degree of protection.
But a degree of protection is not the same as absolute cover against a host of things at the expense of something similar.
Consumer rights must also be economically and legally justifiable. Sadly, this balance is lacking in several places.
It is lacking where the Commission systematically gives the consumer complete freedom of choice as to the means of repairing a defect. It is also lacking where there is resolute reversal of burden of proof.
I fully agree with the comment made by Mr Rothley on this issue; on both fronts it is necessary for some serious adjustments are made.
But unfortunately the lack of balance is reinforced by some of the amendments submitted by the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I would mention only Amendments Nos 6 and 34 on the contact addresses in the other Member States.
In our group we are really amazed at the misjudgment of the economic and legal reality as far as distribution in the internal market is concerned.
But, if we think it is good we say so, too: Amendment No 31 receives our approval.
This amendment should prevent the seller, often a small or medium enterprise, being squashed between the devil and the deep blue sea, between a non-reducible liability towards the consumer on the one hand, and liability shifted onto him because of the supplier on the other.
We insist that the seller's right of recourse can be exercised effectively, and we would like to emphasize this as one of the essential conditions for our ultimate approval of this resolution.
Balance does not stand in the way of a high degree of consumer protection.
Let us use this notion as a starting point for consultation between the groups so that we will arrive at consensus.
Madam President, let me first of all make it clear that I am not at all enthusiastic about this proposed directive, neither as presented by the Commission nor with the proposed modifications of the Environment Committee.
Even if the Environment Committee's policy document appears to improve on and clarify some points, there are nonetheless many uncertainties and problems remaining in relation to the consumer, the seller and the Danish legal tradition in the area of the Sale of Goods Act.
It is worrying when even someone who is not a lawyer is able to find several unclear formulations and other problems in the text. What, for instance, is 'appropriate after-sales service' ?
Moreover, these proposals for a directive appear excessively intrusive as touching the Sale of Goods Act, which, indeed, lies at the heart of transactions.
We have vastly different trading cultures in the various nations of Europe and therefore, in my view, this is not an area that either can or should be legislated on.
Incidentally, the proposed directive does not solve the problems the consumer experiences with cross-border transactions.
There are huge gulfs separating consumers and sellers in different countries, both in terms of geography and in terms of language.
Therefore, it could be asked whether harmonization serves any purpose whatsoever and whether it will have any effect on this area.
I am, in fact, against the idea of harmonization for harmonization's sake.
Here and now I can only point out one single specific problem of the policy document, that is, the rights of the consumer in the case of defects or deficiencies.
The proposal of the Commission is completely unacceptable on this point.
It would be horrendously expensive if a large number of consumers required agreements to be waived when not strictly necessary.
And at the end of the day, these costs will have to be borne by the consumer.
Moreover, this is also completely untenable from an environmental point of view.
Conversely, the proposals of the Environment Committee are unacceptable from the consumer's point of view.
We are really talking about a right to repair and replace for the seller without taking into consideration whether this is a great inconvenience to the consumer.
As a minimum requirement, the consumer must be given a choice where there are recurring defects, and the consumer should under all circumstances be allowed to opt for replacement rather than repair.
Therefore, this motion should be rejected in order to allow us to achieve a reasonable sharing of the burden between consumer and seller.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, following the Green Paper published in November 1993, on 18 June 1996 the Commission adopted the draft Directive on the sale and guarantees of consumer goods.
The draft Directive seeks to guarantee for the consumer a minimum common basis of rights that may be exercised under identical conditions, irrespective of the place of purchase of the goods in the EU.
This is simply to enable consumers and economic operators to make full use of the benefits of the single market and to guarantee a high level of protection of consumers' economic interests.
It is somewhat surprising, by the way, to me at least, to note in this debate how consumers are regarded as irresponsible or incapable of understanding what something reasonable is, or of being consumers, i.e. citizens who, as described here, should benefit or want to benefit from knowing what's what.
If we want to talk of a balance between industry and consumers, frankly I would not want to waste more time explaining to this House where the balance lies between the producer or the seller and the consumers.
Without any desire to always want to regulate everything, we are simply talking about establishing minimum rights for European citizens and consumers, equal for everyone, irrespective of the place where the consumer goods in question were bought.
In November 1996, the Economic and Social Committee gave a favourable opinion of this proposal.
However, I have heard references to high costs echo in this Chamber.
You are familiar with the final report on the study which the Commission has begun on the economic impact of this proposal, which has been forwarded to the Parliament in its provisional and final versions: you can all see that these costs are not so huge.
However, the Commission would like to point out that the consumer's trust is of value to the seller, and is specifically of value in a competitive market, so this value probably merits investment in some cases.
With regard to the amendments being discussed and voted on, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Kuhn, for her work, because I believe it is thanks to her work that the Commission can accept many of the amendments drawn up by her.
To be more precise, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23 and, if Amendment No 46 is not accepted, No 29; it also accepts Amendments Nos 30, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 42 and 45 and Amendment No 46 as an alternative to Amendment No 29, as I said earlier.
Amendments Nos 12, 16 and 40 will be accepted provided there are amendments to the wording, while Amendment No 33, in the Commission's opinion, requires a fundamental change.
With regard to Amendments Nos 41 and 54, the Commission accepts their logic and accepts them provided there are a few amendments to the wording.
Finally, Amendments Nos 2, 13, 24, 26, 31 and 41 will be partially accepted.
I would now like to make a few comments on Amendment No 45, which seems to me to be the key factor in this debate, to emphasize the importance the Commission attributes to the possibility of giving the consumer a choice at two different levels in the hierarchical scale, enabling him to apply these rights: it seems essential to us that this choice should not be with the seller failing to observe the contractual obligation to provide goods as stipulated in the contract, but rather with the consumer.
For example, if I bought a camera for a trip and I find there is something wrong with it three days before the trip, there is no point the seller repairing it if the repair will take three weeks; in this case, it seems logical to me to demand a replacement before leaving.
The same applies to a whole series of other examples we can give.
The British Presidency intends to reach a political agreement at the end of the "Consumers' Council on 23 April.
The Commission, for its part, will endeavour to present an amended proposal to the European Parliament and the Council on the basis of Parliament's amendments, according to the procedure I have just described.
Finally, I hope that this legislation, which I consider important, will make fast progress to enable the European Commission to establish a key aspect of the single market and consumer protection.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Green Paper on food law
The next item is the report (A4-0009/98) by Mrs Graenitz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission Green Paper on the general principles of food law in the European Union (COM(97)0176-C4-0213/97).
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Green Paper on the general principles behind food legislation in the European Union has, after lengthy discussion, been presented at a point in time which is marked by changes in the organizational structure of the Commission's services and in the economic debate.
This became clear not only from the lengthy discussion I mentioned, within the Directorate-General concerned, but also through the fact that, whilst in the original version of the Green Paper the prime aim of legislation was formulated as being the free movement of goods within the single market, priority was given to safeguarding health and to food safety following the submission of the report from the BSE committee of inquiry and the assurances given in this regard by the Commission President, Mr Santer.
The priority of health protection is something that has greatly shaped our debate on food law from this time on.
The principle is self-evident - for the European Parliament, for the other parliaments, in fact for every individual: each item of food legislation should guarantee that the permitted foodstuffs, including all additives and methods of production, are consistent with good health.
This is a sine qua non, and it would seem unnecessary to keep stressing it.
Yet the events of the last two years have shown just how much the market relies on consumer confidence and how dangerous, and ultimately expensive, it is for all concerned to permit lax standards in food safety.
Equivalence of procedure is easier to verify and calculate in the mechanical and technical field than it is when dealing with organic materials.
So it is in this context I think that Parliament -we will be having a further debate on this area tomorrow -welcomes the amendments to Articles 129 and 129a adopted in Amsterdam, and I hope that ratification by the national parliaments will take place in a short while.
We all know that perfecting the single market requires clear, plain legislation, where compliance can be suitably monitored.
Not only your rapporteur, but the majority of Member States and very many of those who have commented on the Commission's Green Paper, are of the opinion that a framework directive on food law would be the very way to create concise legislation and a clear framework, and thereby adapt, if necessary, existing legislation, removing or coordinating overlapping or conflicting sections and to design the legislation in such a way that consumers and producers alike enjoy stability of the law and know how to proceed in which circumstances.
Such a framework directive for foodstuffs should, of course, mirror the legislation on hygiene so that it is clear exactly which hygiene belongs to which food legislation in a particular area.
I think that the submission of a framework directive may be the very thing the Commission has in mind in the foreseeable future.
I believe there is already some work in progress, and I think that there should be no need to wait here for further findings and deliberations or for additional reports to be submitted by the Commission.
I also consider it necessary in this context to come up with an arrangement as to how vitamins are added to foodstuffs and this has then to be labelled, and - as the Commission proposes and can then be adopted by Parliament -how one should deal with health claims, that is to say claims regarding the effect on health of certain foodstuffs.
A very important area is the HACCP.
I think this area, which has not yet been universally recognized in terms of its significance and effectiveness, should be investigated further and that a lot of assistance needs to be provided, especially for small and medium-sized firms, chiefly agricultural enterprises.
I believe that this would be a lot easier if consumers were involved.
Where consumers are concerned, information is the most important aspect.
Here it is a question of giving the consumers clear and easy-to-understand labels and information on the food.
Proceeding from the labelling, more information can be provided through other media, perhaps on the basis of voluntary arrangements too, because it is apparent to everyone that labelling has its limits.
The area is very broad, and I do not have the time in my six minutes to refer to all its significance in detail, what sort of economic relevance it has and how important the question is in connection with the World Trade Organization and the Codex Alimentarius.
I also think it necessary to continue to discuss, albeit through a further report, how a food and health policy can be promoted by the Commission as part of an overall nutrition policy and general health education.
Finally, I would like to voice my conviction that legislation should contain a clear declaration of preventive consumer protection, that this would be the political dimension to strengthening consumer confidence in the single food market and that food safety is definitely necessary as a counter-balance to the economic dimension and internal dynamics of the single market in the food sector.
Mr President, on behalf of the Agriculture Committee I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent report and thank her for her acceptance of most of the points made in the opinion from the Agriculture Committee.
It is a measure of just how far we have moved over the last two to three years that there is such a large degree of unanimity between the Environment and Agriculture Committees on the principles which must form the basis of European food legislation.
There is now widespread recognition of the need to reassess some aspects of modern farming methods, particularly high-tech, high-import intensive production, which can lead among other things to the loss of many jobs in rural communities.
What exactly should be put into high-protein animal feeds? There must be clear labelling of the contents, which should also be appropriate to the animals to which they are fed.
How densely should animals and poultry be herded together - something which could lead to the rapid spread of disease? The answer must not be the routine administration of antibiotics which then find their way into the human food chain, but ensuring that animals and poultry are kept in humane non-overcrowded conditions.
There must be strict rules in abattoirs to maintain the highest levels of hygiene.
Furthermore, rules on collection and collation of animal zoonosis need to be improved to ensure best practice throughout the European Union in dealing with animal diseases presenting risks to human health.
High use of artificial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides can lead to harmful residues in fruit and vegetables and other plant products and must be carefully controlled and monitored.
Good farming practice and animal welfare cannot be considered in isolation from food legislation as a whole.
Wholesome raw ingredients from the farm gate are the basis of good-quality safe food.
I welcome very much the acceptance by the Environment Committee of the recommendation from the Agriculture Committee that producer liability should only go back to the point in the food chain where responsibility for any defects actually lies.
This will allay the anxiety of many farmers.
Likewise, whilst welcoming the proposals for hazard analysis and critical control points systems, the Agriculture Committee is concerned that there should be an assessment of their impact on small farmers and food processors, who should continue to be guided by clear regulations.
What is important for consumers is to know that their food comes from healthy plants and animals and that all along the food chain at each stage there is sensible, comprehensible legislation in place with effective monitoring and that the food eventually sold in shops carries clear informative labelling to ensure a wholesome quality product.
We have all become only too used to food scares concerning salmonella in eggs, risk from BSE and e-coli in beef and pesticides residues in carrots. I hope that the revision of EU food legislation incorporating the European Parliament's proposals will help to consign such scares to history.
Mr President, on this very day the Phillips inquiry into BSE and its relation with CJD opens in London, in my country.
It is a great tribute to Mrs Graenitz that she has brought these clear and lucid proposals before Parliament at a time when we are reminded of the dark side of food production in the BSE tragedy, and also of the high hopes that we had after the Treaty of Amsterdam was passed, that we would take an entirely new view of our responsibilities for health and safety in the food field.
It is in the spirit of Amsterdam, Commissioner, that we are all addressing you today.
The progress of this Green Paper through the European Parliament has been accompanied by detailed conferences and major debates.
I think it is timely that we now hear the view of the Commission.
There are just two or three points that I would make, briefly, from the consumer point of view of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Firstly, we want the Commission to state here that there will be a framework directive on food and to tell us what the timetable for that directive would be.
We support - and hope to hear a robust view on this from the Commission - the notion that primary products should be included in any product liability directive.
Whilst I hear what my colleague, Mrs Hardstaff, has said, we hope that our colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development will listen to what we say about the need to encourage consumer confidence in foodstuffs, which is also in the interests of the primary producers themselves.
We also wish to see the consumer voice integrated into European Union policy-making procedures.
In the wake of BSE, DG XXIV was given a significant role in the whole area of food policy.
But we still see the agriculture and industry directorate taking the predominant role.
We do not for a moment question that all these directorates have their own responsibilities, but we would ask Commissioner Bangemann and his colleagues to tell us that the consumer voice and the consumer interest should always be taken into account - formally so - when legislation concerning food and food safety is before the Commission and this Parliament.
My last point is on labelling.
We had a great march of the farmers a couple of weeks ago in London.
But the petition that was handed in to Downing Street this week, bearing a million signatures, referred to the need for proper food labelling, which can counteract the misleading claims that are often made.
We believe that the labelling provisions currently buried in myriad different directives need to be drawn out and brought together if we are to have a proper and effective control of this area.
We have to sustain the European Union as a major food producer and a major exporter.
The best way we can do that is by setting standards that can command the admiration of the whole world.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are all delighted with the Green Paper and all of us sitting here would wish to have - and we would also like to hear this from the Commissioner -a framework directive.
Please allow me to say that the present report can be judged very positively.
I, too, would like to congratulate Mrs Graenitz on it, though I would also like to clarify one particular point of her report, namely paragraph 59, in which Directive 79/112/EEC is addressed.
The European Commission envisages in its proposal to amend this directive that the Advisory Committee on Wine of the European Commission will be responsible for determining appropriate labelling requirements for wine, and not the food committee permanently set up by the directive.
In its first draft, the Economic and Social Committee still intended the food committee to be responsible for the labelling.
In its final opinion, the ESC comes out in favour of the Commission's proposal. Parliament too declares itself in favour of the Commission's proposal in a draft opinion.
Please allow me to state at this point that beside the practical reasons for a special approach to the labelling of wine and wine products -where all wine producers and all wine-producing regions are of a like mind -there are many arguments in law in favour of the Commission's proposal.
And I would not want the opposite view to arise through any misunderstanding in the present report.
In March 1997 the Legal Service delivered an opinion on the legal base for the proposed regulation introducing a system of labelling and registering of cattle and for identifying beef.
The issue centred on whether Article 43 of the EC Treaty (agricultural policy) or Article 100a (Single Market) applied as a legal base.
The report concluded from reference to numerous judgments of the European Court of Justice that Article 43 of the EC Treaty is the correct legal base.
Legal instruments on the production and marketing of the agricultural products specified in Appendix II of the Treaty may contain provisions for the harmonization of the national regulations without Article 100 or Article 100a of the EC Treaty being referred to.
In pursuing the aims of the common agricultural policy, the demands of the general interest, such as consumer protection or the safeguarding of the health and life of man and animals, should not be overlooked.
Health protection should be regarded as being paramount with any agricultural measure.
Hence we have the European Court's embargo on British beef.
Because of the reservations I have cited, the respective market organization provisions and the procedures contained therein should be adhered to where the more detailed labelling requirements for additives in wine are concerned.
I can only hope that a majority of this House shares my view, and I would not want this report to give a false lead in any way.
Mr President, after thirty years of food law harmonization, the European Commission quite rightly wants to start a debate on "whither now' , by means of a Green Paper.
Does the present legal situation surrounding food law still meet the needs of today? In view of the BSE crisis in the United Kingdom and the outbreak of swine fever in my own country, the Netherlands, this is very much a relevant question.
The Graenitz report is a serious attempt at giving the debate more substance.
More attention must be paid to labelling, and consumer confidence will increase as a result of the farm-totable approach, which means that complete information on production methods must be given.
It is also important that the issue of liability is developed further; a proposal for this is ready and waiting at the European Commission.
Attention is quite rightly drawn to the provisions made by World Trade Organization, the Codex Alimentarius, although this should not lead to lower levels of food protection.
The report is also about transparency.
Of course it is essential that results and proposals made by special forums and scientific committees can be monitored, but the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is against the proposal of a forum to monitor the conversion and implementation of Community regulations which includes Members of the European Parliament. The European Parliament has a different responsibility, and should not get involved in such a forum.
After all, by not being represented on such a forum, the European Parliament's independent position is guaranteed.
That is why we oppose the last sentence of paragraph 18 of the report, and this we already made clear by way of preparation in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Finally, Mr President, despite that one reservation, I would like to express, on behalf of my group, our support for the Graenitz report.
Mr President, very briefly I should like firstly to thank the rapporteur, and secondly to welcome this proposal for a Green Paper. It has opened up a debate which is necessary for two reasons: firstly because of the results of the committee of inquiry into BSE - and also the follow-up committee -, but most of all, because of Agenda 2000 and the common agricultural policy reform.
So we need to know the results of this debate and put them into effect.
Nevertheless, I think there are already some clear ideas, which are included in Mrs Graenitz' report.
Examples include: the need for clear, transparent labelling, especially for new products and foods; secondly, the consumers' organizations should have a clear role in this debate; thirdly, we need a very clear idea of what Community law should consist of as regards food, given that at the moment there are so many regulations, sometimes contradictory - as in other sectors -, which need to be simplified and clarified; and lastly, we have to welcome the relative speed with which the Commission has implemented the new scientific committees and the new type of inspection.
Only experience will tell whether these measures are effective, but the work of the scientific committees will need to be clear and transparent, and they must also have a clear agenda for each of their sessions.
Mr President, Mrs Graenitz has drawn up an excellent report.
All in all the Green Group supports these proposals; Mrs Graenitz has highlighted particularly the different elements at stake in the area covered by her report.
I would like to draw the attention of the Commissioner and the House to an important point: the relationship between community legislation and the rules of the World Trade Organization.
Some days ago, we learned that the beef growth hormone, which is prohibited in the European Union, has just been approved by the FAO and the WHO, which concluded that the growth hormone is harmless when administered correctly.
So we should expect a new offensive by the United States to the European Union's legislation prohibiting these substances.
Now, it happens that the agreement on sanitary and phytosanitary measures, which has been in force for some years now, will be against us.
In reality this agreement is not at all based on the principle of caution and we must demonstrate the relevant factors and information which would point to the conclusion that there would be health risks, thus going much further than simply pointing out the scientific doubts which remain on whole subject.
This is a serious problem particularly in terms of genetically modified foodstuffs and irradiation of food.
But to get back to mad cow disease, I would recall that it was primarily the uncertainties which caused the problems.
If these rules are not changed, I think that sooner or later all European legislation will be threatened by the World Trade Organization.
Mr President, I am speaking in place of Mrs Barthet-Mayer who was due to make this speech but is unable to for health reasons.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to read her speech to you.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Graenitz on her hard work on this report.
In fact, by publishing the Green Paper, the Commission officially recognizes the huge shortcomings in the Community food system.
Although the Union has a strong agricultural policy, its policy on food remains to be defined.
Over and above what appears to no more than anecdotal, there are real economic, political and public health issues at stake.
The presence of hormones in beef, the fat content of chocolate, the consumption of cheese made from milk straight from the cow, the use of genetically modified seed, all these are not insignificant questions for the public, their elected representatives, the producers and especially for the legislators.
The main difficulty lies in the actual definition of security and quality, for without a common definition there can be no harmonization. What criteria do we use, which scientific basis is our point of reference?
How do we make allowances for the irrational or the emotional? Where do cultural differences stop and protectionist manoeuvring or commercial opportunism start?
The Commission is proposing to sort out the multitude of regulations and directives which deal directly or indirectly with food. This is absolutely necessary, for at the moment it seems that, without having succeeded in defining a real food policy, the Union has drawn up too much legislation, which paradoxically has not resulted in better harmonization.
So we can only welcome this initiative in the more general context of efforts undertaken to guarantee food safety.
Mr President, the Commission's Green Paper should have been used to present an in-depth critical analysis of the situation, but all it does is describe the problems.
They are all presented at some length, but none of them is examined in any depth.
This is in direct contrast to the reality of the situation we are all experiencing day by day.
Public opinion still has no faith in the Commission's ability to exercise control.
The European Parliament has not been given reliable answers to the many criticisms it has raised during the past few months. Even international bodies such as the World Health Organization have expressed great concern and alarm at the risk of the spread of epizootic disease within the European Union, because of the lack of an effective coordination system at local, regional, national and Union-wide levels.
Faced with this social alarm among the citizens of Europe, the European Commission has failed to offer a guarantee of food safety. It has even withdrawn its proposal to create a food safety agency, to this House's surprise.
All it has done is implement an administrative reorganization - which will not achieve anything - and increase the number of scientific committees which, unless they are co-ordinated, given muscle, and balanced one against another, will not be at all effective either.
We still think there is a need to set up a European food safety agency, and to coordinate and stimulate the great potential of the Member States as regards scientific ability and, of course, inspection. We must not forget that more than 45 000 inspectors throughout Europe are a great deal more than the small handful of inspectors which can be created from scratch, and would be much more efficient.
What we need is to create high-level inspection, and boost the abilities of the Member States, because that will increase consumer confidence.
Mr President, the European consumer needs to have increased confidence in food, not least after the BSE crisis.
In this context I would like to congratulate Mrs Graenitz on a good report which raises many issues, perhaps even too many sometimes.
However, there is one thing I do not agree with: Amendment No 28.
We must have food production which means that there are no residues of chemicals or medicines, for example, in our food.
However, we must also have food production and a production system which means that we do not handle foods in the wrong way during production.
On this point there is a mistake concerning the use of antibiotics as growth stimulants in our food, not because there is any problem with the food, but because it means that antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria will also become a problem for human health.
This should therefore be added to the text.
Mr President, I would like to ask a rhetorical question.
How do you explain a situation in which ECU 1.5 billion worth of animal hormones are sold in the EU every year, although their use is prohibited? I will provide an answer to my own question: an insatiable thirst for profit.
We were once in a position to avoid animal and plant disease through border controls, preventing the importation of vermin and pests.
In our common market we are at the mercy of others, and Mrs Graenitz' observations are mostly quite justified.
I do wonder a little at the attitude of the European National Party when it intends to revise and thus weaken them.
In Holland and other countries the original nature of national identity is being stripped away in the name of chicken and pig feed.
We possibly need antibiotics for the prevention of salmonella and other diseases.
And how can we explain away the fact that genetically altered maize, soya and other natural produce may be used in the production of food without notifying consumers?
The same goes for irradiated food.
Choice means being able to make conscious choices.
The Green Paper is not enough.
We must dare to face up to the reality of the matter.
Mr President, a major problem with the EU's food legislation is that from the beginning it was not actually aimed at producing better food, but at guaranteeing free movement of food products.
Mrs Graenitz has a completely different approach, a consumer-friendly approach, which is quite admirable, but she has not dealt properly with the question of the extent to which harmonization for the purpose of securing the Single Market is perhaps not always such a good method for bringing about the highest possible food standards.
As an Austrian, she knows that this has created problems for the newest Member States.
For example, because of EU rules, Sweden has already been forced to permit banned feed additives, relax controls against salmonella and relax labelling requirements, especially with regard to allergy risks. And we now risk being forced to permit irradiation of food and the use of antibiotics.
If instead we had made use of minimum standards , giving the Member States complete freedom to go further, developments could have been aimed more unequivocally at promoting good food quality.
I would therefore like to put the following question to Commissioner Bonino: would it not be a good idea if the Commission concentrated more on minimum standards which raised levels everywhere, but which did not prevent some countries from going further? Would that not be better than total harmonization, which is fundamentally a commercial rule aimed at promoting commercial interests, not food quality?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all congratulations to Mrs Graenitz.
She has handled an extremely wide-reaching area very well, because it is clear that food law in the European Union has gained considerably in importance with the realization of the Single Market and the pursuit of an active consumer policy.
In view of the large number of regulations and amended provisions, as in relation to BSE, to say nothing of changed expectations, we cannot avoid thinking about simplifying and rationalizing food law, of reviewing the existing provisions.
Certain basic aims, I think, need to be taken as the starting point of the discussion.
All foods must be guaranteed to be both safe and harmless.
The consumers must be able to rely on foods being safe and harmless, and do so in the full knowledge that the diversity and quality of foods in the European regions has been preserved.
This involves both a healthy and competitive agriculture and food industry.
A few points about the key words 'simplification' and 'rationalization'.
It should be the obvious aim of European policy -and we have been fighting for this for some time now - to make European law clearer and easier to understand.
Inconsistencies need to be eliminated, and above all the comprehensibility of the legal text needs to be improved in the interest of consumers.
It is also a question of greater transparency for the citizen.
This is not anything new, but in the area of food law the creation of confidence is vital for people.
They need to understand what they read.
Hence a framework food directive is necessary here, which includes both a unified definition of central concepts and the regulation of the general principles governing food law in one outline text.
Let me quote a second example: the directive on the labelling of food has been in existence since 1979 and has been amended six times since then.
In addition, there is a wealth of special provisions that make reference to the labelling of individual foods, such as wine, fresh fruit and chocolate.
The subject of wine has already been addressed today, and I must say to you quite simply, Commissioner, that we are striving for another position to Mrs Flemming's, who is no longer here incidentally.
I do not find it proper that a Member of Parliament should not claim their vested right to codecision in this matter.
I think we need to agree that codecision applies to wine every bit as much as to chocolate and fruit.
That is the way to make progress.
Mr President, I would first like to thank not only the rapporteur, but also everyone who has taken part in the debate, because it is clear from the general tenor that Parliament is thinking along the same lines as the Commission.
We have 150 opinions on the Green Paper before us.
We want to summarize our own opinion on this in a statement before the summer.
That is all I can say on the timetable.
We agree with Parliament that we should present a framework directive, but I cannot say when.
It all sounds very nice to demand that such a framework directive should include a general definition of the various terms and so on, but that is precisely where the problem lies.
We obviously need to proceed with caution when doing something like this.
We need to ensure we make it clear, too, where individual provisions need to be amended.
That is to say, I cannot tell you exactly when we will do this; we will do it as quickly as we possibly can.
Certainly, we want to implement a clear overall concept. The framework directive is part of this process.
It is quite clear to us that this tangle that has arisen needs to be removed and that the recent deliberations on consumer and health protection need to be taken into account more than they have been in the past.
It might not be our intention to depart from our successful horizontal regulations, because these are good for innovation and encourage consumer choice.
Yet there is to be no conflict with quality assurance requirements either.
Here you find, I hope, the common interest of consumers and producers alike, especially agricultural producers.
We have already made it clear on various occasions that European industry is essentially competitive through the quality of its products, and agriculture should be the same.
There should be no unnecessary inconsistencies.
If the aim is to ultimately arrange things legally, then you can bet we will fall out over this.
It is always funny to observe how someone who wishes to defend their particular little interest quickly sets up a committee for the purpose, which no-one can look into.
Things really should not be this way.
Simplification is a very important goal we are pursuing, as is transparency.
We will probably be able to rescue ourselves from the dilemma that has so far existed with a series of modern information options.
The more transparent and comprehensive information you wish to give a consumer, the more the labelling overlooks the consumer's interest in having simple, clear and easy-to-understand rules.
That is the dilemma in which we find ourselves, so to speak.
Since today, in the age of the information society, we have very easily accessible information facilities at our disposal, you could imagine that labelling should include the most important information and actually go into detail if particular consumer interests need to be taken into account. However, the great mass of information needs to be available in other ways or else we would run the risk of the labelling not being looked at all.
As regards genetically modified organisms, I said months ago that, if we take this as far as certain sections of Parliament envisage, then practically 90 % of all foodstuffs will have to carry an appropriate label.
I recently heard - to my amazement as well as to my satisfaction -the same opinion expressed, if I am not mistaken, by a German member of the Green group, who said: well, if 90 % is labelled, what significance does that have for the consumer?
I have always made a point of saying this too at conferences we have held and I hope we will be able to agree on what is really in the interest of the consumer and what does not amount to simply translating quasi-religious convictions into practice.
I would like to note on the question of food control that we want to build up our own team of inspectors and begin training European veterinary and foodstuff controllers.
It goes without saying that inspectors from the Member States can be included in this too.
I think those are the main points.
I have just another brief comment on the foreign trade aspect.
There are two reasons why we share Parliament's view that we need to be careful here.
Firstly, the proposals for the legal provisions will obviously need to bear in mind the international obligations.
There is no other alternative.
If we are a member of an international rights community, then we must stay with it.
We cannot take our leave when it suits us.
Secondly, we should try to implement the things we believe to be right at international level and actively collaborate on the work programme of the Codex Alimentarius and the World Trade Organization, instead of simply reacting defensively towards them.
We have been actively involved in this sense in trying to get other legitimate factors, besides the scientific findings, included in the elaboration of food standards within the framework of the Codex, because, as we have all bitterly experienced, scientific findings merely epitomize the state of knowledge at a particular point in time and become dated at another.
That is to say, it is possible to do more for the consumer in terms of prevention.
And this is precisely what we wish to do!
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
Decentralized Community institutions
The next item is the report (A4-0035/98) by Mr Kellett-Bowman, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposals for Council Regulations amending: I. Regulation (EC) 40/94 on the Community trade mark (COM(97)0489 - C4-0601/97-97/0253(CNS)) II.
Regulation (EC) 2100/94 on Community plant variety rights (COM(97)0489 - C4-0602/97-97/0254(CNS)) III.
Regulation (EEC) 2309/93 laying down Community procedures for the authorization and supervision of medicinal products for human and veterinary use and establishing a European Agency for the evaluation of medicinal products (COM(97)0489 - C4-0603/97-97/0255(CNS)) IV. Regulation (EEC) 1210/90 on the establishment of the European Environment Agency and the European Environment Information and Observation network (COM(97)0489 - C4-0604/97-97/0256(CNS)) V. Regulation (EC) 2062/94 establishing a European Agency for safety and health at work (COM(97)0489 - C4-0605/97-97/0258(CNS)) VI.
Regulation (EEC) 302/93 establishing a European monitoring centre for drugs and drug addiction (COM(97)0489 - C4-0606/97-97/0259(CNS)) VII.
Regulation (EEC) 1360/90 establishing a European training foundation (COM(97)0489 - C4-0607/97-97/0260(CNS)) VIII.
Regulation (EC) 965/94 setting up a translation centre for bodies of the European Union (COM(97)0489 - C4-0608/97-97/0261(CNS)) IX.
Regulation (EC) 1035/97 establishing a European monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia (COM(97)0489 - C4-0609/97-97/0262(CNS))
Mr President, this report proposes revised financial rules for the statutes of the nine decentralized bodies or agencies.
It is complicated because it deals with all nine separately and it is necessary to submit amendments in nine sets.
It was passed in Budgetary Control with one vote against.
This is explained in the minority opinion which suggests that on three of the agencies Parliament is not clawing back as much power as it should.
The amendments from Budgets are contained in Mr Tappin's excellent opinion which was supported unanimously in the committee, and the amendments were all taken on board in Budgetary Control.
So much agreement, Mr President, that there have been some criticisms.
Perhaps it would helpful if I explained what the report is not: it is not an attempt by Budgets and Budgetary Control to do the work of the appropriate spending committees; it is not an exercise which is being carried out without consulting the agencies themselves; it is not an attempt to turn agencies into milch cows which will feed the EC budget.
The second-generation agencies were put in place by the Commission with statutes which did not contain the financial safeguards which exist for the two first-generation ones.
Upon which safeguards are we insisting? First, European funds should be expended only with the positive approval of the Commission's financial controller.
With the help of their financial controller proper arrangements will now be legislated for.
Secondly, there was no provision for discharge to be granted by this Parliament.
The Director-General for the EC budget has cooperated so that EP grants discharge for six of the agencies; but three of them, those that are fee-earning, will be allowed to grant themselves discharge on the recommendation of this Parliament.
Thirdly, the same three agencies, which can be funded by fees, are to be controlled by the rules whereby income should be considered Community own resources.
Mr Tappin will explain how it is proposed to deal with possible problems in his area.
Faced by a united front of the Budgets and Budgetary Control Committees, the Commission has been very helpful in assisting Parliament to regain control over the agencies.
Unwittingly, this Parliament conspired to assist the Commission in its original proposals.
The founding documents were passed to the spending committees but the Budgets and Budgetary Control Committees were not asked for their opinions.
Much extra work could have been avoided if European Parliament officials had not been blind to the financial aspects of the Commission's proposals.
More care should be given to the task of allocation of reports to committees. Failure to do so clearly weakens Parliament's position.
All the agencies but one seem happy with our proposals, and it is very much in the area of Mr Tappin's opinion that their opposition is founded.
But, in the main, that agency resents the fact that Parliament considers itself responsible - jointly with the Council - for providing funds.
Its own responsibility for dealing with the matter of discharge is a matter which has raised a lot of correspondence, often ill-informed, and when I have had to deal with correspondents, the first question I asked them was: ' have you read the report?' .
And of course, they have not.
That is the problem: you cannot comment on things that you have not read.
Mr President, I invite the house to support this report.
Mr President, I also take this opportunity to thank not only my friend Mr Kellett-Bowman, the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgetary Control, for his excellent report and also for the great support he has given me as draftsman for the Committee on Budgets but also to Mr Mingasson and his team for the very positive approach they have adopted in this matter.
The background to this report goes back several years when both the Committee on Budgets and Committee on Budgetary Control were concerned about the lack of clarity in the founding regulations of the nine satellite agencies with reference to own resources, financial control and discharge.
The report you have before you is the culmination of two or three years' work behind the scenes by Mr Kellett-Bowman, myself and the Commission to bring forward a document which will harmonize the regulations for the satellite agencies.
We have had a number of disagreements on the subject but at the end of the day, while I could wish for some tightening of the proposals in certain cases, on the whole I feel that we have achieved a reasonable workable compromise.
The work carried out by the agencies of the European Union which currently employ over 1 000 people is of great importance.
They were set up by the European Union for a specific purpose.
In fact, it is clear that although these bodies have legal personality, they would have no existence if they were not required to serve the EU and its citizens.
So, it is necessary that they are able to carry out their tasks efficiently and with all the independence of action required to make the sort of operational decisions necessary to complete their assigned work programme.
Equally, because they are not independent commercial organizations but part of a public corpus, they must be held accountable and responsible to the public through democratic and transparent processes.
That is why this report has come about.
It is to increase the levels of transparency, accountability and efficiency of the decentralized satellite agencies.
It is not efficient to have a hotchpotch of different organizations and it is not accountable to have half a dozen different types of accounting, report-back systems and discharge processes.
We also wanted to improve partnership relations between the decentralized bodies of the EU and those at its heart.
Our research has shown that these agencies do not need more controls.
They, in fact, need fewer but more efficient ones.
I shall concentrate on the own-resources part of the report since the discharge and financial control aspects have been covered excellently by Mr Kellett-Bowman both in his speech and in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Despite the scare stories generated by one agency, what we are proposing is that self-generated resources - the own-resources component - which are surplus to requirements of that year's budget, after the needs of the reserve to cover the obligations of the coming year have been taken into consideration, and fully respecting the fact that fees shall quite rightly be renegotiated as a matter of course, shall be returned to the European Union budget.
This should be done in line with the Financial Regulations which apply to all other generated resources.
It does not indicate that Parliament intends to turn for example the Trademarks Agency or any other agency into a milch cow for the European Union, as Mr Kellett-Bowman has said.
Nor do we intend to make the ordinary business of those who wish to register an EU trademark subsidize singlehandedly the common agricultural policy or the enlargement of the Union.
Such stories are irresponsible.
But what is also irresponsible is the commitment of one agency in Alicante to purchase an ECU 24 million building without properly informing either the budgetary authority or the Commission, which have responsibility for it, or without making any mention of that project in the budget estimates passed by the Commission and Parliament.
If ever there was a case for mandatory transparency and accountability, I have to say that the director and the management board, including the Commission representatives, of the Alicante Agency have made it admirably.
If this or any other EU agency ceases to be able to fund itself, there is no question that, according to the current regulations, the EU must have a responsibility for the bodies we establish, just as they have a responsibility to the institutions of the Union.
We do not set up monopoly businesses and turn them loose to stand or fall.
This report is about safeguarding those responsibilities. I urge the House to support it.
Mr President, the agency is a matter for the initiated.
That is why I would like to congratulate Mr Kellett-Bowman and Mr Tappin on their report, for the agencies are indeed something for specialists particularly from a budgetary point of view.
As general rapporteur for the 1998 budget, I had the pleasure of gaining an insight into the activities of the agencies.
I would like to report on this. We had a meeting with the agency director in March of last year.
We reached agreements on the needs of these agencies in the 1997 budget and the 1998 budget, and we discussed the problems already mentioned here.
We agreed on working together and developing the greatest possible transparency in order to create trust between the agencies and the section of the budgetary authority representing Parliament.
Today I have to say that the majority have adhered to this, but some have not.
The translation centre, for example, decided to increase its staff from 68 to 115, while Alicante - Mr Tappin has just spoken about this - and London quickly allocated ECU 300 000 from surplus income before the end of the budget year so as not to have to justify this in principle to the budgetary authority.
Those are actions in themselves, which perhaps have their own reasons, but to take action without informing the budgetary authority is the surest way to generate mistrust.
I consider Amendment No 1 in the Kellett-Bowman report to be the key element for the agencies in London and Alicante and for the Trademarks Agency.
Here both the Commission and the Council should take the position of the European Parliament very seriously.
For three years we have constantly decided in the budgetary procedure on zero growth for the staff of the Commission, as well as the other European institutions.
Where the agencies are concerned, there has been an average annual growth of 17 % in staff.
I ask myself whether this is an honest or dishonest game the Commission and the Commissioners responsible are playing, or have the agencies already escaped control here if such abuses are able to occur?
The Group of the European People's Party will not tolerate the EP being deprived of its rights through the formation of agencies and all that comes with it.
I am not bothered about the work of the agencies; observing the Financial Regulations and respecting the budgetary authority is what concerns me.
We cannot fight for the full democratic control of budgetary expenditure in the European Union, whilst the agencies continue to evade the Financial Regulations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the financial control of the activities of the decentralized Community agencies was simple when there was only a few agencies and they managed activities which had limited impact and small budgets.
But the situation is very different today.
There are now many more decentralized agencies which meet much more widespread needs.
The difficulty in terms of financial control is that of organizing this diversity in order to arrive at a standard method which is simple and efficient.
Mr Kellett-Bowman has proposed to include in one report the eleven discharge procedures which cover simultaneously the three agencies which are not financed by the European Union budget, but from financial resources resulting from their own activities, and the eight other agencies which are not self-financing.
Basically, we want common standards applied to all Community agencies in terms of financial control, and to offer similar guarantees in terms of the legal and administrative management of credits.
The proposal by the European Commission responds to this concern.
However, the rapporteur proposes an approach which is more pragmatic and efficient in order to avoid the delays in unfreezing credit and payment commitments caused by the waiting period required for the approval of DG XX in Brussels.
The rapporteur's solution has the advantage of side-stepping the pitfalls both of financial management which is too centralist and which could lead to freezing or at least blocking of the activities of the Community agencies, and a dispersal of financial control under the pretext of autonomy, running the risk of an upward drift in the use of public funds.
The law must adapt to reality, and it is essential to give agencies which are undergoing full expansion the means to develop.
I will quote only one example, that of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market in Alicante which has been hugely successful and whose achievements are generally greater than expected.
Experts were expecting an annual volume of 15 000 registered trademarks in 1996. It received 40 000.
Currently, the office publishes 1 000 registered trademarks each week, that is, twice as many as predicted.
This sort of progress should be encouraged for other agencies too, and the control of their financial activities should not stand in the way of their development.
So in this spirit, myself and my group welcome Mr Kellett-Bowman's proposals and we will vote for them.
Mr President, we in the Green group have fought for and supported several of the decentralized EU bodies to which the report applies in various different contexts, for example, the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen and the European monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia in Vienna.
Since these bodies are financed partly by the EU's budget, it is both logical and desirable for the European Parliament to be involved in granting freedom from liability through our role as a supervisory body.
It is also necessary and logical for any income of these bodies to be shown in the EU's budget so that we can get a complete picture of the financial situation.
These amendments are a step in the right direction, because they increase transparency and openness concerning EU bodies.
It is a goal for all institutions and bodies in the EU to have increased openness, not least so that irregularities are prevented.
The best system of supervision is openness and publicity.
The Green group is therefore going to wholeheartedly support the KelletBowman report.
Mr President, I wish to say that the report that is being submitted for approval by the part-session is one that we must support since it is the culmination of long and assiduous research and debate in the Committee on Budgetary Control and, I assume, in the Comment on Budgets.
I would also like to say that, as a general principle - and this is also proposed by the Commission - there must be provision for a procedure of discharge for those independent organizations which are funded exclusively by Commission funds, as is proposed for the two formerly independent organizations, one of which is the well-known CEDEFOP.
The problem arises for those independent organizations which are fee-earning and which are partly funded by the Community budget.
In these cases the Commission simply requests in its proposal that there be a recommendation on the part of the European Parliament.
I wish to say that, in this case, there are grounds for a minority opinion, and this is contained in the explanatory statement of the report.
The grounds for this minority opinion are justified but they must not lead us to solutions other than those proposed by the rapporteur, Mr Kellett-Bowman.
However, we must recognize this issue and it should be of concern to us.
The fact that an independent organization can have self-generated resources does not mean it should be unaccountable in terms of its expenditure when, at the same time, it receives a part of its funds from the Commission and, most importantly, it intends to serve a Community purpose which is one of the aims of the European Union.
I will finish with a request and a reminder, which I am constantly repeating: the European Parliament, the Presidency and the political groups must consider and must face the problem of the reorganization of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
This committee has developed into a major organ of Parliament and it cannot function with its present constitution.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report.
In bringing all the strands together he has responded to the Commission proposal, which I also warmly welcome.
I was in the House when the Commissioner gave his promise some two years ago - if I remember correctly - that he would come forward with this because it was an element which had been forgotten in the shaping of the operation of these agencies in the first stage.
Our rapporteur is absolutely right that there is a need for financial safeguards for the second-generation agencies, but I am not convinced, myself, that we would have actually got to this particular point in dealing with these agencies if we, as a parliament, had not used our powers for putting money in the reserve to actually compel the agencies to do what we had wanted to do in terms of parliamentary accountability.
So, looking at the substance, the rapporteur is right in terms of the proposals on discharge.
It is not just desirable; I think it should be a prerequisite, as he suggests.
Secondly, in terms of financial control, we should make sure that we avoid, if possible, the need to put a financial controller in every agency.
Let us hope, therefore, that the proposals of the Commission will be sufficient to make sure this job will be done effectively.
The last point I would address is the question of the odd man out - of the agency in Alicante, where it pretends that it would like to be dealt with in a different fashion because it is not quite the same as all the other agencies.
Once you have an element of an agency being controlled by European law, when you have the staff which are part of the European institutions, you cannot claim that there is an exception.
You have to be treated in the same way as others.
I conclude that our rapporteur has shown us the way to go, but that we, as a parliament, need to rest vigilant in the way in which these agencies will be operating.
It is an entirely new area of activity. So we will keep our eyes open as the future comes along.
I would like to thank Mr Elles for reminding me that two years ago I was already busy with that proposal.
In fact, by chance, I am here today to answer your concerns over the report of Mr Kellett-Bowman.
To a certain extent, this reminds me of my previous activity in the Committee on Budgets and in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
We have no objections at all to the proposals which have been made with discharge and financial control in mind.
I think this is already important common ground.
The only area in which we are not in agreement is the amendment proposals affecting the inclusion of all revenue of the decentralized agencies in the budget plan and, with that, the right to supervise the amount of the fees.
Everyone here knows why things are this way.
The Commission believes that this would interfere with the management autonomy of these institutions, at least in that it involves the agencies' own, original rights and they are also obviously controlled by the respective administrative bodies - naturally, they do not operate without any control at all.
That is why we would like to recognize the legal personality of the agencies while allowing a maximum of public control and transparency in the management of funds.
We do not see any reason in encroaching on the regulation of fees and duties that are paid by companies for services or on the regulation for amending the scale of fees.
We agree with Parliament where improved control of any surplus income produced by the self-financing agencies is concerned.
In this way, some of these agencies could be prevented from regarding themselves as purely economic enterprises, which they are not.
Insofar as such surplus income arises, control obviously needs to be guaranteed.
On behalf of my colleague, Mr Liikanen, I would like to express to you once again our regret at the actions of the Alicante agency, which has already been addressed.
We regret this and reaffirm our commitment to inform Parliament of all important agency decisions that have a financial impact.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 12 noon tomorrow.
Closing of the session
I declare closed the 1997-1998 session of the European Parliament and announce that, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty, Parliament will meet at 9.00 a.m. tomorrow, Tuesday, 10 March 1998.
(The sitting was closed at 8.10 p.m.)
Opening of annual session
I declare the 1998-1999 session of the European Parliament open.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Monday, 9 March 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to refer to Item 2 of the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, and return to the subject of crime in Brussels.
It states here that the President said this item should not actually have been in the Minutes, although it was certainly in the Minutes for the Friday of the last part-session.
The President also mentioned that he would inform the two signatories of the request for a topical and urgent debate in writing.
Could the Bureau please consider whether this could not be debated here in plenary?
We know that over a third of Members have been victims of criminal acts in Brussels, so that this really affects everyone and not just one or two people in this House.
I really think it is high time something was done about this in Parliament.
As you know, this matter is not on the agenda.
Moreover, I have nothing to add to what Mr Gil-Robles GilDelgado said yesterday.
The Presidency is very concerned about the problem and has taken all the necessary steps with regard to the Belgian authorities.
We will report any concrete news immediately.
Are there any further comments?
Mr President, my point concerns page 15 of the Minutes. There is a list there of the questions for Question Time to the Commission.
My question, which is on structural funds and eligibility for structural funds, has been put down under 'Any Other Questions' , and yet earlier in the afternoon Mrs Wulf-Mathies, the Regional Affairs Commissioner, is answering questions.
I would ask your services to look at that and see if this question about the structural funds could be transferred so that it gets an answer from the Commissioner concerned.
Thank you.
Mr McMahon, we will see if this correction can be made but, as you know, this is a task that normally falls to the Commission.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, on a point of order.
I want to bring to your attention the fact that the campaign to release Roisín McAliskey has come to an end, thanks to the goodwill of the British presidency.
I would like to thank the British presidency, and in particular Jack Straw, for bringing about a compassionate and decent end to this saga of injustice to Roisín McAliskey, and pay tribute to the British presidency for its generosity of spirit.
(Applause )
The euro: public administrations, tourism and legal convergence
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0061/98 by Mr Arroni, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication 'Practical aspects of the introduction of the euro' (COM(97)0491 - C4-0524/97) and the Commission working paper entitled 'Preparations for the changeover of public administrations to the euro' (SEC(97)2384 - C4-0025/98); -A4-0078/98 by Mrs Torres Marques, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the euro and tourism; -A4-0070/98 by Mr Wolf, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report of the European Monetary Institute on legal convergence in the Member States of the European Union (as at August 1997) (C4-0560/97).
Mr President, 11 Member States have already presented transition plans.
The euro is now a reality that is becoming more and more concrete every day, but that does not mean we can regard it without particular apprehension and attention.
Consumers, small traders and small businesses require a lot of attention, and we have taken them into consideration in drawing up the report and presenting the amendments. However, we must not forget the other operators who will also be involved in this important transition: the large financial institutions and large businesses which provide work for millions of European citizens, and which will manage to absorb the economic repercussions of the entry into force of the euro with greater ease.
They are all involved, and public administrations will be the first to set the example: dual pricing will create a snowball effect which will then be imitated by the world of private business. Together they will meet the concerns of our citizens, who will not have to bear the cost of the transition.
I congratulate the Commission for setting the objective of reaching final decisions on the practical aspects of the euro on 2 May.
Then everything will be clear and transparent, not only for the large operators but for the small traders as well.
The administrations, trade unions and consumer associations of the Member States will be responsible for making these decisions known and making these choices understood, so that the transition to the euro takes place under the best conditions. They must ensure that the banking system observes its commitments and that businesses respect dual pricing, which will be essential in enabling the citizen to understand the transition.
To do this, I believe it is very important not to forget the aspect of communication in these decisions, because these decisions have to be understood and accepted by the citizen.
And for that to happen, the Parliament and the Commission need to reflect together to find the best means of making the euro popular.
For this purpose, I have proposed a round table for all major European professional communicators to contribute towards explaining all the innovative aspects, not only to the large industries and banks, but above all to us, the consumers, and to our small traders, the local trade we need to protect and save.
On 26 February, the Commission also organized a round table that developed well and broadly answered the concerns set out in my report.
Once again, however, I wish to recall a few brief points.
Particular attention should be paid to the disadvantaged social groups among the population, including the elderly, those on low incomes and people with disabilities.
We should ensure that small and medium-sized businesses do not risk becoming less competitive compared with the larger businesses that can access information more easily.
Dual pricing will have to be optional to give the markets greater flexibility.
The period of dual circulation of bank notes - of national currencies and the euro - should be as short as possible to avoid complications for consumers and to limit additional costs to the financial system.
The banking and financial sectors should adopt a code of good practice on conversion charges, observing the principle of free compulsory conversions between national currencies and the euro.
The information sector will play an extremely important role as it will constitute an important vehicle for increasing public awareness about the euro.
The transition to the euro is the most important challenge Europe has faced this century, and the wellbeing of we Europeans in the first century of the new millennium will depend on correctly and carefully meeting this challenge.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, legal convergence of national central banks is not just a technical detail.
It is essential, institutionally speaking, for the introduction of the euro.
This is not the right time to be discussing problems about the overall concept of the euro project.
We will have a chance to do that when we discuss Mrs Randzio-Plath's report and when we debate the outcome of the Cardiff Summit, which will once again be considering how to match the single currency with an effective and coordinated European employment policy.
But now to specifics.
As members of the left, we have had to learn the hard way that institutions are not like Lego bricks that you can put together and pull apart however you like. They have their own history and must enjoy the confidence of the people they serve.
The European Monetary Institute's report, which quite rightly takes as its theme the two key issues of the independence of the European Central Bank and of the European System of Central Banks, and the proper functioning of this system as a unified whole, goes somewhat beyond compatibility issues. The report more or less envisages standardizing all the various forms of anchorage found in the national central banks.
In Austria this takes the form of participation in managing boards, in Germany consultation rights, and in France very close links with government as regards consultation and objectives.
So there are wide variations in practice, and I think we need to approach all this very carefully. We have to decide which of these practices are genuinely incompatible with using the ESCB to develop a single monetary policy for Europe, and which are incompatible with the proper functioning of the ESCB as a single system.
I have in mind various forms of consultation with governments and parliaments, and an inclusive approach towards civil society and social dialogue.
We also have to take national economic policy into account.
We should be advocating a basic strategy in all these areas, with a focus on eliminating incompatibility and providing a clear basis for single monetary policy.
This also applies to the relationship between the ESCB and the tasks that will still be performed by national central banks, notably banking supervision in some cases and collateral business in all cases.
Of course it is vital to guarantee compatibility here, but there is no call for standardization or harmonization.
We should not embark on this process lightly, as it genuinely represents a great challenge and involves many uncertainties. We should treat the various existing forms of anchorage as a chance to construct a kind of network of anchorages for national banks, so that the European System of Central Banks is firmly rooted in the individual Member States, in much the same way as happened with the Bank deutscher Länder .
Monetary policy is simply too important to be entrusted to a small group of bankers in a democratic nirvana.
That would be tantamount to making it subject to the whim of the financial markets and removing it from any kind of joint political decisionmaking arena.
The various forms of integration that have shaped our national banks over the years, and which still exist today, could help to avoid this sort of mistake.
So where existing systems work, we should allow them to remain, instead of trying to agglomerate and standardize everything.
If we can approach this matter in this spirit, I believe we will be doing the euro project a great favour.
If we take the opposite approach, we will be doing it a great disservice.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like the Peres Rojo report, the Wolf, Torres Marques and Arroni reports demonstrate that the days of theoretical debates about monetary union are over: the problems before us now are highly practical ones.
I welcome the extent of progress on legal convergence, and the trend towards greater independence for national central banks in the European Union. At the same time, our discussions with the presidents of the central banks suggest that there is an increasing willingness on their part to enter into a dialogue on monetary matters with national parliaments.
All this progress on monetary union is to be supported.
The independence of central banks is certainly an important aspect of legal convergence.
However, the panoply of practical questions surrounding the introduction of the euro is also important.
Mrs Torres Marques has quite rightly pointed out that the first people to notice that something has changed, that they are living in 'Euro-Land' , will be tourists.
As the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs' hearing demonstrated, that it why it is so important for us to explain that the advent of the euro will cut costs, and this will in turn result in savings for people travelling in the European Union.
We know because of things like the International Tourism Fair that Europeans are especially fond of travel. Not only is travel a growth sector, it will also give a great many people their first experience of the euro and monetary union.
However, all the other practical things involved in introducing the euro are also important, and it is therefore our duty as a European Parliament to express our regret that neither our citizens nor our small and medium-sized businesses have been given adequate preparation or information.
The European Parliament must appeal not only to the European institutions to prepare people and SMEs for the euro - national governments and administrations also need to play their part.
This is fundamental, as we cannot prepare ourselves without information.
Consumer protection also has to play a greater part in the run-up to monetary union. I am therefore specifically requesting, and not for the first time, that there should be a period of dual pricing, that there should be no conversion costs, and that the transition period should be as short as possible, so as to minimize the burden on both companies and ordinary citizens.
SMEs particularly need help, because the euro will enable them to take full advantage of the internal market for the first time.
If this is to happen, the authorities absolutely must play a more positive and constructive role, and do what the European Parliament has specifically requested, and lead the way in introducing the euro, even if finance ministers have agreed to delay conversion in public administration until 1 January 2002.
We need cooperation from public authorities at local, regional and national level, and I particularly want to see the tax authorities converting to the euro!
Mr President, from our understanding of what the rapporteurs have said, the euro is a small, peaceful, end-of-century revolution, which in practice will obviously change our entire modus operandi, whether as businesses or as consumers.
But behind every revolution lie the specific psychological aspects.
The great problem we will have to face in the next few years, particularly in the six months of coexistence between national currency and single currency, will be that of making businesses and the public understand that the euro is a means of building Europe - and a strictly economic means.
We are hoping for an economic and social Europe, but at the moment the euro is the fundamental means of making people understand that Europe can be built with something that the citizens can actually touch, see and find in their pockets. Then, as the rapporteurs rightly said, there will be financial involvement on the part of the banks.
However, the banks have broad shoulders and are organized to send us, as from 1 January, a statement in national currency and in single currency at the same time. The banks are organized with a computer system they have been using for some time, while the real problem of the euro is that of calmly getting it to the citizens as consumers.
The commercial system, in particular, will perform this arduous task.
The citizen, as consumer, will go into a bar, a shop, a supermarket, a restaurant or a travel agency and pay in national currency. He will receive the change in euros and it will be there that he actually meets the single currency.
There he will find an operator, a small businessman, a cashier or an assistant who is familiar with the single currency system because, otherwise, the effect on us will be terrible psychologically.
A confused consumer, or a small businessman confused over the commercial system when purchases are being made, will cause purchases themselves to slow down - a fall in psychological consumption that, at the moment, is precisely what we do not want.
There is already a fall in physiological consumption in this continent, and if we add the psychological consequences of a fall in consumption owing to the uncertainty of purchases, we will create problems that are not easy to resolve.
We should therefore take measures with regard to both information and training.
Information should obviously be aimed at the public, training should be professional and aimed at different categories, particularly traders. By trade I mean commerce, tourism and services, in other words the tertiary market, the market that will physically meet the single currency.
French colleagues will recall that in their country, 30 years on, the elderly are still today thinking in terms of old francs and new francs.
Thirty years ago, two zeros were simply wiped off, and still today they talk in terms of old francs.
Just think of multiplying the euro by a different figure in each of the 15 Member States when it becomes real currency, on 1 January 2002.
By that date, it will be essential to have carried out this information and training action jointly, and to ensure that the three market components work together - namely industry, commercial distribution and, above all, the sector forming the vertex of this triangle, the consumers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate is really very important, in the sense that it offers us various practical prospects for the application of the euro process.
We are no longer talking about its chances or viability, because the predictions are that in May a very broad and stable group of Member States will be members of monetary union. Instead, we are talking about specific matters, and the three reports (by Mr Arroni, Mrs Torres Marques and Mr Wolf) deal with specific aspects of its application.
I think we must stress the need for a major effort to inform the public and small and medium-sized enterprises, to promote awareness within consumers' associations, and to structure the preparations as well as can possibly be done in the two key areas which have been mentioned here: the financial area and the commercial area. Also, we must not forget that the European Commission needs to step up its support for small and medium-sized enterprises.
That support has been developed over many years and will be strengthened by economic and monetary union.
It is perhaps in the area of tourism that monetary union will first be noticed, because of the facilities it will provide. Also, the fact that there will no longer be any differences in exchange or currency within the European Union will have positive effects on the sector.
There is also a more technical but equally important matter, which Mr Wolf spoke about: namely, accountability - in other words, the real transparency which should characterize this whole process, both at the level of Member States' national central banks and at the level of the European System of Central Banks and the European Central Bank.
Mr President, I take this opportunity to extend a warm greeting to you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, these reports are paving the way for the post-euro period.
The subjects they discuss are so important, and time so limited, that I must be all the more selective and succinct in my remarks.
The tourism sector accounts for a sizeable share of the economies of some Member States.
To the complexity of that sector, with intricate upstream and downstream links, is added the complexity of the different situations existing in individual Member States.
This complex complexity (if I may put it like that) is not reflected in Mrs Torres Marques' report, which I consider to be excessively optimistic and, if I may be so bold, excessively monochrome - that is, rose-tinted - imbued as it is with the author's unshakeable faith in European construction as it is currently proceeding.
Tourism, and some individual tourists, will no doubt receive debatable advantages from the introduction of the euro.
However, we cannot but doubt that there will be nothing but benefits and the benefited.
Some tourists and, more particularly, some types of tourism, will experience increased difficulties with the emergence of a single currency designed to be strong, losing the ability to use the instruments and mechanisms they have employed in the past.
It is true that such instruments have not always been applied to best effect. But if we deprive people of those instruments they have won but used wrongly, we will all end up empty-handed - and without coins, banking systems and financial policies.
In the virtual reality of a single, strong currency, shared by countries with different tourism policies, whether complementary or competitive, we cannot ignore or underestimate the tendency for tourism flows to switch to destinations outside Europe, which make themselves more competitive through measures based on exchange-rate policy.
For our part, for these and other reasons, we thank Mrs Torres Marques for her work but have serious reservations regarding her optimism, her "tourism at the service of the euro' position, and her appeal for the creation of a European policy for tourism or, more accurately, for the modes of tourism that coexist within the confines of the European Union.
Finally, I cannot end without briefly referring to Mr Wolf's report, if only to express my satisfaction on reading his explanatory statement in which he lists real problems in a balanced, thoughtful manner which counters a climate of intransigent, blinkered thinking and direction.
Since I cannot at this time say what I think is necessary and right on this subject, I will reserve a number of comments on this report for an explanation of vote.
Mr President, this spring the European Parliament is to conduct a very important debate on the democratic monitoring of the European Central Bank.
It will certainly be a noteworthy occasion, as we will soon be going over Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, which the Green Group in the European Parliament fervently supports.
Today we are discussing how national central banks and national political institutions can get involved in the democratic monitoring of a central bank and a central bank system.
This is a subject which has, up till now, been given scanty attention, but now Mr Wolf has produced a very interesting report on the subject.
He says that given the unfortunate absence of any common economic policy in the Union, the role of the central bank is a vital one as, in a way, it will have to use a certain kind of economic wisdom when taking decisions on funding.
The European Monetary Institute has completed a report on how compatible the various national laws on finance are with the Maastricht Treaty.
We are of the same opinion as the rapporteur that the EMI is too much concerned with emphasizing the independence of national central banks from national political institutions.
We believe it is essential that individual country's parliaments and governments alike maintain links with a system which aims to create a stable currency and stable prices for Europe.
But, as the rapporteur remarked, price stability is not a neutral concept.
There has been no mention of what level of inflation would be harmful to the economy.
In this respect, the EMI should certainly not go it alone in debating this matter.
It is neither sensible nor proper that the European Monetary Institute should condemn certain national laws as incompatible with a central bank system.
I shall give an example of this, the same one that the rapporteur also remarked on.
The EMI is judgemental about Finland's central bank law which states that the President of the country can fire the managing director or any other member of the management if these prove to be unsuitable.
It is our belief that this must be allowed to continue.
The European Union is not one homogenous economic area: there is a lot of variation contained within it and that is why, when it comes to a central bank system, the national voice must be heard.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to say that our Group agrees with the reports by Mrs Torres Marques and Mr Arroni, and we fully support the direction they take.
However, Mr Wolf's report calls for a number of comments.
The rapporteur in fact allows himself to give a criticism of the EMI report on different levels.
We would like to point out at the outset that we believe the EMI is perfectly within its remit when it attempts to identify the clauses in national legislation which appear to be incompatible with the requirements of the Treaty on European Union, and that, even if it does challenge this Treaty and all those which have gone before it, it would not be a question of leaving to the political bodies of the Union the task of interpreting and defining the demands and objectives of the Treaty.
Basically, as regards the functioning of the ESCB, Mr Wolf stresses the demands for transparency and information, which we think are in fact necessary to gain the confidence of the citizens of the Union in the way their currency is managed.
We share Mr Wolf's concern to prevent the ESCB becoming an ivory tower cut off from its institutional environment and public opinion.
To ensure that the central banks have adequate information, they need in particular to be able to listen to the representatives of governments or national parliaments.
It is also essential that the ECB presents and explains to the democratic institutions of the Union, and to the public in general, the decisions taken in carrying out its duty.
But we believe these demands for transparency and information must not on any account compromise the independence of the ESCB, be it the independence of its members or that of the decisions it takes.
We believe in this necessary independence, not through any anti-Keynesian convictions, but as a result of our European conviction.
This conviction leads us to the opinion that it would be dangerous to relaunch the debate on the possible role of the monetary instrument in the implementation of national economic policies.
In the Treaty on European Union, the Member States renounced the use of this sort of tool. For some this was for economic reasons, and for everyone the fundamental reason was political.
Whatever the economic preferences of individual countries, it is clear that the choice of a single currency for Europe implies that it evades any national political pressure or manipulation, either directly or indirectly, even if this produces tension between the countries, which could be fatal for the European Union.
There can be no single currency unless it is an independent currency.
This is the true general consensus which Mr Wolf wishes for elsewhere.
From that point on, we cannot follow him; for example, when he reproaches the EMI for considering incompatible with the treaty any legislative clause in which a central bank must take into account the economic policy of the government when implementing its own monetary policy.
Of course, the independence of the ESCB would not mean that the democratic institutions of Europe were impotent.
That is why we feel it is urgent to define, alongside the single currency, other means of joint economic action, and those other means would be in the hands of the democratic institutions of the Union, and called the European budget, European tax and European structural policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in both the communication from the Commission and Mr Arroni's report, the players in economic life have been called on not to moderate their efforts, but are we taking them into consideration other than to ask them to accept the euro, or in other words, to ensure the euro gets the best possible welcome?
In reading these reports it is thus clear that the rapporteur and the Commission constantly vacillate between uncertainty and contradictions.
First and foremost physical persons are targeted, and at the forefront of these are those particularly exposed categories for whom the entry into force of the euro means the addition from now on of new problems to already considerable difficulties.
The report states that these categories require particular attention, but what specific solutions can be proposed to deal with their practical problems? In the light of the exponential increase since 1996 of the costs of media promotion of the euro, which are becoming extremely high, how much will this promotion finally cost for Europe, for the Member States and for each citizen?
Despite the investment of considerable sums of money, the citizen as consumer risks being the victim of permanent confusion.
Mr Arroni recommends a transition period which is as short as possible, unlike the consumer associations which envisage that a short transitory period would mean total confusion for the most vulnerable clients.
So, which of the options should be chosen: a short transition period which would cost less but create errors and confusion; or a long transition period - we should remember that it could be up to six months - which would allow better understanding thanks to a smooth adaptation, but where the high cost will lead to an increase in consumer prices.
In terms of the second category of economic players - companies and tradesmen - if two incomes can be difficult to manage for a housewife, what about traders and others who will have to maintain two accounts systems and two cash funds, who needed no increase in the burden of management?
On the other hand, although Mr Arroni is proposing to take steps to help SMEs, at the same time he wants to make dual pricing obligatory, under the false pretext of bringing competitive advantage to traders.
And if it is a matter of wanting to help companies, it turns out that the first possible aid - tax aid in the form of deductiblity of VAT on expenses generated by the changeover to the euro - has already been denied them.
To sum up, I think the Commission, supported by the Arroni report is currently navigating visually.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Arroni report does not present new ideas, but requires some comment.
How can we talk of confidence when the whole European monetary structure is built on lies, at least lies of omission?
The name of the currency has been changed in violation of the treaties which clearly named it "ECU' .
Our colleague, Mr Berthu, has rightly tabled an appeal with the Court of Justice against this untimely change.
No-one, neither the Council nor the Commission, much less the European Parliament, has risked the task of trying to evaluate the practical cost of changing over to the euro and to figure out the macro-economics of the move.
Of course, no-one can hide the fact that there will be a cost.
The report only mentions this once to say, in passing, that it should be minimal.
In reality it will be the citizens who pay the hundreds of millions of francs, marks or lira for dual accounting, dual pricing, and the constant conversion between the euro and the national currency which will be required for three years.
They will pay through increases in retail prices and bank charges.
As an aside, everyone is very careful not to mention the consequences for individual savings, especially in France.
All administered savings, savings bank books and building society savings plans are set to disappear.
People content themselves with constantly trotting out the false old adages of the European structure: "without the single currency, the single market does not work; without the single market, we will have a crisis and war' and then the next logical argument: "without a single European state and integral unification of legislation, the single currency will not work' .
The single currency is not an economic necessity but a political wish.
Everyone knows that but many people pretend not to realize it.
Our technocrats are not evaluating very well the psychological consequences of the monetary upheaval they are proposing.
We can inform the public as much as we want, but currency brings about scales of value which it is very hard to get rid of.
For example in France, almost forty years after the new franc was brought in, television journalists would still rather refer to billions of centimes than hundreds of millions of francs, to stress the enormity of the sum.
Old people, and some not so old, continue to convert everything into old francs, because in this form they can better understand relative values.
Mr President, I believe the euro will electrify Europe, and these three reports demonstrate why.
In the case of the Wolf report on the legal convergence of national central banks and their relation to the ECB, the essential point is to ensure the transparency and democratic accountability of the ECB and its relations with the national banks.
Such democratic exposure is not at odds with ensuring the functional independence of the ECB; such ideas are complementary.
In this regard it is pertinent to mention Mr Wolf's reference to the UK's Bank of England where, under the new Labour Government, the bank's independence and public accountability have both been strengthened.
In the case of the Arroni report on the practical aspects of the euro, there is common agreement on most items, including the need to encourage Member States to publish changeover plans and, more excitingly, to publish the euro designs of the national face of coins.
Where I part company with the rapporteur is in my belief that we will need European action to ensure that banks do not pass on to customers conversion costs in stage 3 of EMU.
A code of conduct might not suffice.
Finally, regarding tourism, I should like to congratulate all the rapporteurs, and especially Mrs Torres Marques for her report.
Tourism is Europe's and the world's biggest industry, yet here in Europe we have lost 10 % of market share since 1960.
Tourism is classically an industry of the single market.
The advent of the euro will be a tremendous supply-side fillip to that market, and to tourism in particular.
I believe there will be three sets of winners as a result of introducing the euro.
First, all those who work within the industry.
Not only will the euro generate more jobs, it will bring transparency to wages and salaries, which in turn will be improved.
Secondly, tourists - the consumers.
Instead of giving away their hard-earned money to the money-changers at airports or ports, they will keep more of their holiday money to spend after window-shopping, made easier by the transparency of costs.
This will make comparison of retail goods in shops easier and consequently, increase competition.
Finally, entrepreneurs in the travel and tourism industry will make Europe's top industry more competitive, as the transparency of the euro will drive down costs.
In addition, they will invest and expand in the industry because low inflation will breed lower costs of money.
Remember this: the European Tour Operators Association reckoned that 3 % more American tourists were liable to choose Europe as their holiday destination because of the euro.
To conclude, tourism and tourists will be the shock-troops of the euro, bringing the benefits of the euro immediately to the attention of all Europe's citizens.
Mr President, one of the previous speakers mentioned the costs we will face in changing over to the euro.
However, we must not forget the costs incurred now because the euro does not yet exist.
For example, if I were to take my family on holiday to Spain today, I would have to travel through Germany, Italy and France, and get five currencies to pay for food, drink, petrol and hotel bills.
That means going to the bank in my own country and getting the five different currencies.
Often, you cannot get them straight away, they have to be ordered.
This creates a lot of work for the bank, as various employees have to deal with it, and the currencies have to be kept on the spot and be readily available.
The total cost of all this for tourists is enormous.
Tourists pay an average of 3 to 4 % in commission and other charges alone, money that could well be spent on something more sensible, such as a slightly longer holiday.
But my figure of 3 to 4 % is just an average.
There are also extremes, of course.
For example, last year my daughter put 100 Austrian schillings in a money changing machine in Jesolo and got 9 600 lire.
When we were back in Austria I gave her back the money, and even rounded it up to 10 000 lire, and she got just 50 schillings back in Austria.
That means she lost 50 % of the value just by changing it and changing it back once!
I am sure that this is an extreme case, but when you consider that just changing back and forth once can involve amounts of this order, you will soon realise how much is at stake when millions of tourists are changing money.
Not only that, but there is also an exchange rate risk for tourists.
Parities can change during a holiday, and people booking well in advance are even more likely to be hit.
We even know that patterns of tourism follow exchange rate movements, so that tourism in Italy is rocketing, while it is falling in Austria and in France.
So tourism is plagued by uncertainty.
We have to struggle with these and related problems every day.
We must resolve the currency situation for tourists, and there are international implications as well.
Tourists travelling to Europe want clear price comparisons.
They need to know how to convert.
Of course a lot of tourists have enormous difficulties with conversions.
We often find that a product's value is not immediately obvious when we have to convert to and fro.
It is also necessary to standardize VAT regimes.
I often find it very hard to grasp when I can reclaim my VAT, how much VAT I pay here, in short exactly how the whole thing works.
Lastly, duty free is another area affected by these regulations.
Tourists want clear arrangements so that they can travel simply and without too much hassle.
We are well aware - and this is particularly important for Europe - that we do not just have tourism inside Europe, but also beyond.
We have about 60 % of the world market in tourism, so we are a real competitive force in this sector, and this represents an enormous opportunity for us.
Mr President, after the Madrid Summit, at which the date for the introduction of the euro bank notes and coins was fixed, the Commission took a number of initiatives to speed up the necessary preparatory work for both the public and private sectors.
It is evident today - and I must add that this is to be welcomed - that most sectors of the economy have begun to prepare for the changeover to the single currency.
However, it must be pointed out - and this is the purpose of Mr Arroni's excellent report - that more information needs to be made available on the practical arrangements put in place in the different sectors of the economy.
We need to identify the areas where decisions have not yet been taken and to know what level of harmonization is desirable.
Initially we need to know which areas should be dealt with at national level and which at European level.
Among the priorities for the Member States was the need to ensure that they presented their transition plans before the end of 1997.
This included the requirement to make known their position on the statement of public accounting, reporting and tax declarations in euros.
Decisions on redemptions of existing debt were to have been taken before the end of 1997.
The Commission should inform us whether or not the various deadlines set for the end of 1997 in its communication have been met and fully respected.
As regards the practical aspects of the introduction of the euro for those who are going to use the single currency on a daily basis, I want to underline the need for information on the changeover to be targeted on all users, just as it already is on small and medium-sized enterprises.
This is the biggest single economic event in European history, and it would be a disaster if it were allowed to fail because of an information deficit.
As regards dual pricing during the changeover period, we need to keep our options open.
The small and medium-sized businesses should be assisted in their efforts to provide dual pricing.
The proposals made by Mr Arroni in relation to fraud and adapting the information technology sector to the euro are a step in the right direction.
This also applies to the need for continual assessment of how small and medium-sized companies, including small shopkeepers, are coping with the introduction of the euro.
Finally, it is accepted by all that the euro must be consumer-friendly if it is to be successful.
As Mr Arroni says, the Member States must show particular concern for vulnerable social groups in our society, such as the elderly, the visually impaired, the disabled and the low-income groups, with a view to ensuring that the coins and particularly the notes are user-friendly for them.
I say this as an Irish Member because we in Ireland have practical knowledge and experience of this because of the changeover to decimalization, when prices in our country increased.
Schools should be closely involved in pilot projects regarding the introduction of the euro, particularly at the early stage.
Mr President, here we are facing what has been described as the biggest challenge, the biggest economic event, and here am I, a reluctant Member of a Member State called the UK, unable to be other than an onlooker instead of a participant.
I feel rather like the child in the Pied Piper story whose progress was so slow, who could not keep up with the other children and did not enter the promised land.
I wish that we had another report before us today to tell us what is going to be the relationship in practical terms between the Ins and the Outs.
My mind boggles when I think about it.
There is irony in the fact that the UK presidency will be in the hot seat when the decision is made as to who will be in and who will not, yet the UK is staying outside.
I say to the UK Government that it would be better to board the train at the beginning of the journey than to clamber on later.
The latter option might be very difficult.
I am disappointed that the Council is not represented here today for this big debate.
Perhaps it is too embarrassed.
The attitude of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, to this matter was described as if he were proposing marriage but putting off the event for five years and saying that there would be conditions but not saying what they would be.
That is a ludicrous position.
The other main British party's position is no better.
Its leader has closed the door, despite the fact that many of the Conservative Members here are rather pro-Europe.
My party and my country are pro-Europe on the whole.
A Eurosceptic north of the Scottish border is quite a rare bird.
When I go around speaking about the euro - sadly, as an onlooker - I find enormous support from business, exporters, industry and potential tourists.
I welcome all that has been said about the vulnerability of small businesses and I wonder if the UK is going to introduce any measures to ameliorate their situation.
Tourism is still the sleeping giant industry of Europe.
Inter-state tourism could be much larger.
Recently I addressed a conference of the heads of youth hostel associations for the whole of Europe, outside as well as within the Union.
They are all in favour of the euro and see it making a tremendous improvement in the lot of their type of tourist, who is relatively poor.
Tourists will be the first to have this magnificent experience, an experience which I believe will weld us together - at least those fortunate enough to be in the system - and make us true Europeans, when the money in our pockets is the same as we cross the borders.
I applaud Ireland's performance as a tiger economy and its determination to enter monetary union.
In conclusion, this is a magnificent piece of European history. I am very sad that I belong to a Member State that is keeping me out.
Mr President, one section of the Commission communication on the practical aspects of the introduction of the euro is devoted to the preparation of coins, but nothing is said about notes.
So I would like to return to this question which the institutions are trying to pass off in silence, and where I have so far had no response to my many requests.
Basically, the Council has decided that future coins will have one European side and one national side - but nothing of the sort for notes.
An obscure decision by the European Monetary Institute, wrongly applied from article 109 F, states that the notes will not display any distinctive national sign.
So the Council seems to have chosen to discard this issue which is not at all technical, but which calls into question some very important principles, and leave it up to the officials at the EMI.
Ladies and gentlemen, this House has been very concerned in recent times about the lack of democratic control in monetary union and we are going to discuss this during our next part-session.
Well, here we have an excellent example of this lack of democracy.
We must act now, for if we do not our protests will not sound sincere.
The question of having a national symbol on one side of euro notes raises a number of points of principle.
It is a question of whether or not we want an undifferentiated monetary union, or a monetary union which recognizes national identities.
It is also a question of whether, at a later date, if there is a serious crisis, we will accept a country's departure with equanimity, or if we will seek to keep it forever within monetary union, even against its will, and even despite the conflicts this would inevitably cause.
In this regard too, we must prepare ourselves for a serious problem of democracy.
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations thinks the Council should accept its responsibilities, make use of the powers it holds pursuant to Article 109 L.4, and decide that euro notes will have a national side.
Mr President, on behalf of the National Alliance, I would like to congratulate the three rapporteurs for their truly excellent work.
The achievement of monetary union and the introduction of the euro as a single currency is one of the most important steps forward along the road to Europe, and tourism is undoubtedly one of the sectors most concerned by the imminent change.
Tourists, including anyone travelling in European territory for any reason, will no longer have to change their currency and so will not bear the useless charges connected with it.
They will certainly have a more stable currency and a greater transparency of prices for goods and services purchased in their own countries from abroad.
Along with these individual advantages for the customer, there are advantages for tour operators, agencies, and everything produced by the tourist sector, certainly facilitated by the ordinary financial management of their business.
The point I wish to make is that, although these advantages may be obtained, we need to draw up and duly implement a preliminary strategy for this change, for the euro to have the desired effects right from the outset.
I therefore agree with Mrs Torres Marques when she insists in her report on the need for the national governments to begin a joint action to promote and spread the euro within their respective countries.
Some examples of early widespread measures to increase awareness are already present in Europe, but we need these operations to be intensified and real simulations of the use of the new currency to be made, both by consumers and by businesses operating in the tourist sector, with adequate information and training for staff and a due adaptation of the computer support to the new financial management.
These actions are all the more important in those less developed regions of Europe, where the tourist sector is often an economic lever of fundamental significance, where the lack of a timely and effective preliminary strategy for the euro could involve the loss of competitiveness on European markets, with undoubted negative repercussions on the respective local economies.
I am therefore concentrating not so much on the large tourist centres, which certainly have the necessary infrastructure to control the change, but on the small countries of Europe, rich in culture and tradition, in which the interest of the average tourist is tending to increase.
It is these countries that have to find adequate support, and to which particular attention should be paid, with appropriate structures to handle the change with a reduction in costs.
We should not hide the fact that we are proceeding in a random fashion.
There is no single strategy: if we proceed in a random fashion, the costs will increase and there is the risk that consumers will then bear the brunt of them.
Those who, like me, have experience of the reality of public administration management are well aware of the need for a preliminary and timely strategy for the transition to the euro. The new currency should provide the local authorities in particular, and the community in general, with an opportunity for growth and development.
For this purpose, we could perform a sample analysis of the European public authorities, taking care not to choose just the medium-sized to large municipalities, but also introducing into the survey the small municipalities whose requirements are different but no less important.
To conclude, conducting a pilot project involving several European municipalities could lead to the creation of a real network of cooperation, with the possibility of extending the results of the analysis to other municipalities which are not the specific subject of a study.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's joint debate on the euro based on reports by Mrs Torres Marques, Mr Arroni and Mr Wolf is particularly important in that we are only a few weeks away from the famous weekend of 1 May.
Of course, I agree completely with the report and conclusions by Mrs Torres Marques.
Like her, I think the impact of the euro on the Union will be beneficial, not only for tourists coming from outside into Europe, but also for tourism within the Community.
I also agree that it seems urgent to put in place programmes which would allow the completion of information on the euro for companies and staff in the tourism sector.
The sooner they are ready, the sooner they will benefit from the effect of the euro.
As regards the Arroni report, I recall that following our profitable debate in January, we voted together for measures to facilitate the transition from national currency to the euro.
Today Mr Arroni has submitted a proposal concerning the optional nature of dual pricing, which I feel runs the risk of causing problems for the so-called vulnerable social groups.
On the subject of conversion charges, I cannot help noticing a certain amount of backing down compared with the text produced by our colleague Mr Pérez Royo.
Of course, in my capacity as rapporteur on industrial competitiveness, I can understand the concern of my colleague to preserve small and medium-sized enterprises.
So we must identify specific measures in this regard to minimize as far as possible the cost of their changeover to the euro, but it is not a question of abandoning consumers.
Finally, on the subject of Mr Wolf's report on convergence, although I can relate to his views on the fact that achieving the euro implies economic convergence and compatibility between legislation, the central banks and the European Central Bank, I must again voice my opposition to certain ideas which smack of excessive liberalism.
The role of the Central European Bank and the central banks cannot be absolute, not more so than their powers.
Setting up a dialogue between these economic bodies and political powers is the least we could do before very quickly constructing that political Europe which is the only guarantee of democracy and the voice of the people.
To conclude, I would repeat that, for me, the euro is a great hope both in economic and employment terms, and above all, an excellent motor for European citizenship.
There are three conditions for this: it should not be another motor for unbridled liberalism; the public should be informed better and more quickly; and consumers should be the first to benefit.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I would like to speak mainly about Mr Wolf's report.
It is our firm belief that the Central Bank should be as independent as possible, and that means complete independence, both for the bank and its president.
That does not mean we are not strongly in favour of transparent decision-making processes, nor do we think the bank will exist in a kind of laboratory situation, determining its policy in some kind of 'clean' mechanism.
We assume it will do this through dialogue with the entire social framework which is jointly responsible for such processes.
Mr President, some Members of this Parliament keep wanting to link issues relating to social disadvantage to the euro.
Our group believes that these are matters which should be dealt with separately.
All the same, both the Member States and the European Union have a responsibility to talk about policy competition after the introduction of the euro.
In our opinion, this means we will have to strive towards a certain degree of convergence both in the field of taxation, and in employment and social security.
We will also have to determine which issues we leave as subsidiary and which ones we come to a unified joint approach on.
That is extremely important for the success of the euro in the long term, and for placing Europe on the world map.
Mr President, the advent of the single currency will certainly create many changes and, at times, not for the better.
I still believe we are going forward into the unknown with undue haste and without clear knowledge of the longterm effect.
I listen with concern to those who are driving relentlessly towards the creation of the single currency in their own Member States, regardless of the views of their electorate.
Some of the countries which are striving to join the first wave will be in for more than a mild shock.
I would be grateful if someone could answer me one question: if countries that meet the Maastricht criteria become members in the first wave, will some of these countries then turn around and demand Objective 1 status? Surely these two positions are totally incompatible?
I wish to refer to one problem I can see looming on the horizon between Member States which enter in the first wave and those which remain outside.
My own part of the European Union, Northern Ireland, is the only part of the United Kingdom which has a land frontier with another Member State, and the fluctuation between the pound and the punt has caused extreme difficulties on both sides of the border on many occasions over a long period - sometimes one way and sometimes the other.
I would certainly ask that this should not be allowed to spell disaster for business and agriculture in both jurisdictions.
At present we can do nothing to improve the situation.
But can we be assured that unfair trading advantage will receive consideration and equality will be ensured within the European Union?
Mr President, today we are discussing practical safeguards involved in introducing the euro, which means we also need to address the protection of consumers' rights.
Dual pricing during the transition period is an absolute must, and should not be optional as envisaged in the report.
Businesses' concern to have as much leeway as possible with labelling should not mean that consumer interests are pushed to one side.
By ensuring transparency, dual pricing can reassure consumers during a period of uncertainty.
Dual pricing can even give businesses a competitive advantage, if it means they can gain consumers' confidence.
Even if the European Banking Association and the European Savings Banks Group recently agreed not to pass conversion costs on to their customers, we must watch that this promise is honoured.
If you read the text carefully, you will in fact see that the banking associations are only talking about ensuring a smooth and fair changeover for customers.
So the message is not really that the changeover will be cost-free for consumers.
I therefore welcome a code of behaviour for the banking and finance sector.
I was struck by the rapporteur's statement that special tax treatment for investment in connection with the introduction of the euro could lead to distortions in competition within a given sector or in relation to other sectors. I say this because just a few days ago, I was reading in an Austrian newspaper about precisely that point being made by an Austrian bank.
I therefore think it is important to demand equal rights for all, to coin a phrase.
But it will also be up to Member States' legislatures to safeguard this.
Mr President, can I start by congratulating the rapporteurs Arroni, Torres Marques and Wolf on three excellent reports dealing in great detail with the euro.
To date we have been very much concerned with technical questions such as budgets and convergence.
It is very important that we deal with the practical aspects of the introduction.
In particular the preparation for citizens and companies is essential.
If they wish to continue to trade in the single market, SMEs need to make the conversion very quickly so that their software can handle the euro.
That is even true for countries that have not indicated that they wish to go to stage 3 of economic and monetary union.
In the UK the previous Tory government cast a great deal of doubt on whether or not the euro would actually happen.
Many sceptics said that if the euro happens it may end in tears.
That has led to many small and medium-sized enterprises not having made the preparation required.
Many of those enterprises trade internationally and will have to deal with the euro as a foreign currency.
I agree to some extent with a code of conduct on the conversion costs.
I do not believe that the conversion costs, certainly as far as banks are concerned, should be passed on to the consumer directly because from 1 January 1999 the euro will only actually exist in electronic form.
This essentially means that there will be no physical costs of actually exchanging currencies, notes and coins, for other currencies.
All that will need to change is what happens anyway with banking institutions: an extra currency needs to be added to the list of currencies that the banking system deals with.
At the same time eleven currencies will be wiped out so I would guess that actually simplifies matters.
I therefore ask what cost? The costs will be significant after the notes and coins are introduced, not before.
SMEs will have costs but there is a level playing field across the European Union.
Therefore I do not see any competitive disadvantage as far as any companies are concerned because all companies will have to make the same changes.
For tourism it is extremely important that the euro is introduced.
I say that coming from a constituency which is very dependent on tourism.
My constituency stretches from the Blackpool coast through the Ribble Valley into the Pendle Hills.
With tourism now accounting for something like 20 % of economic activity across the European Union, either directly or indirectly, it is important that the euro is introduced and that those areas which rely on tourism for their prosperity take advantage of it.
, chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy. (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, most Member States seem to have largely met the criteria for introducing the single currency on 1 January 1999.
This applies above all to the inflation rate, where the EU average is now at a historically low level.
Two aspects continue to give cause for concern.
The first is government debt, where there is in fact every sign of a gradual improvement in the position. The other is something that I feel has scarcely been debated publicly, namely safeguarding the independence of the Member States' central banks.
This is a really crucial issue.
The independence of the European Central Bank can only be guaranteed if the national central banks are an integral part of the European System of Central Banks, free from state intervention.
The European Central Bank Council will determine the Community's monetary policy.
It comprises the members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and the presidents of the national central banks.
It is therefore vital that Member States should ensure that the presidents of the national central banks are genuinely independent.
I regret to say that Mr Wolf's report, in its present form, does not adequately address this issue.
There are a number of outstanding concerns.
First the good news.
All the relevant national central banks are now independent as regards setting interest rates.
That is the first and most important step.
But there are also certain problems about the personal independence of central bank governors.
For example, we have been told that the President of Finland can still remove the President of its central bank from office, which would be contrary to the Maastricht Treaty.
Then there is the matter of freedom from state intervention.
For example, in one Member State that I know well, the central bank's decisions could be deferred for 14 days.
That would also be contrary to the Maastricht Treaty.
Arrangements of this kind still exist, and they must be changed.
There is also the question of administrative independence, which is an important aspect of central banks' independence.
There are a number of question marks hanging over that too.
Let me be clear: the European Monetary Institute will be presenting its report to us on 25 March, and that is sure to include a detailed analysis of the independence of the central banks.
To be precise, the Commission will give its assessment on 24 March and on 25 March Mr Duisenberg will present his report to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
We will be very closely examining this aspect of central banks' independence in both reports, Commissioner.
Mr President, now that the introduction of the euro is approaching, we are getting more and more positive as well as negative views, not only within the Union, but also in the United States - witness the opening article in the Herald Tribune.
I quote: ' what is good for Europe is also good for America' .
There is also the view that the euro is a potential troublemaker.
According to American economists, there is even talk in the US of the euro leading to more conflicts and friction, and less stability.
I will leave this view for what it is.
It is more important to look at what the European citizen thinks.
The European citizen is by no means convinced yet of the benefits of the euro, nor of the practical aspects of the introduction, as argued for specifically in the Arroni report and by the Commission.
Information programmes are starting far too late, sadly mostly dictated by motives of political electioneering, in my country as well. This is in fact anti-democratic.
Not one single party, not one single political programme in my country leaves any room to be against the euro.
I must say this is very strange in a Europe which proclaims that it wants to be transparent.
It is beginning to look like a monetary dictatorship.
Many elderly people - a considerable part of the European population - are wondering whether, under pressure of the euro, their pensions will be able to retain their value.
We should treat these questions seriously.
If we do not, the euro will become a disaster, and there will be no public support for any of the subsequent steps within the Union - and I am thinking of enlargement and changes to the agricultural policy and structural funds.
We will achieve the exact opposite of what we set out to do with the euro.
The Commission proposal and the Arroni report cover the practical aspects of introduction, which is fine, but they devote insufficient attention to the issue of public support.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Winnie Ewing on her contribution, which I agree with absolutely.
Tourism is a key sector in Europe, and the euro will definitely provide a huge degree of additional transparency.
But it will also reveal the differences in indirect taxation, value added tax in particular.
That is why I have tabled an amendment on the report on the euro and tourism to highlight that to the Commission and the Council of Ministers.
For example, if we take visitor accommodation in Luxembourg, France and Portugal, VAT is as low as 3 to 5.5 %, whereas, ironically, in two of the nations which are opting out of the euro - the United Kingdom and Denmark - the rates are 17.5 % and 25 %.
This creates a double barrier for those countries and the tourist sectors within those Member States: first of all they lack the convenience of the euro zone and, secondly, they will become out-priced within the single market.
I was delighted to hear yesterday that finance ministers were setting up a committee to look at harmonization of indirect taxation.
They must give priority to the tourist sector.
Failure will result in the loss of jobs in this precious sector.
Mr President, declaration no 6 of the Treaty on European Union stipulates that the Community will commit itself to facilitating the renegotiation of the existing monetary arrangements between Member States of the European Union and third countries with small populations which adopt the currency of a neighbouring country as their national currency.
By a most discrete sleight of hand, the Commission considers that this clause should allow the Republic of Saint-Marin, the Vatican City and the Principality of Monaco to benefit automatically from the euro as official currency.
Although granting the euro to the Vatican and to San Marino does not pose any particular moral problem, the same cannot be said of the Principality of Monaco, which is ruled by an absolute monarchy which does not respect human rights and reigns over a tiny territory where tax evasion on an enormous scale takes place to the detriment of all Member States of the European Union, except France.
I would ask our Parliament to make its voice heard and oppose a decision by the Commission in favour of Monaco which would be iniquitous and immoral.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to look particularly at certain aspects of the euro which are becoming more and more important as the political problems are resolved and people become more interested in the euro.
The first question which concerns me is as follows. Since the manufacture of coins with a national symbol is due to commence at the latest on 1 May or 3 May this year, depending on the decision taken, it would be interesting to know whether the likely participants in the euro zone have already chosen the national symbols to appear on the coins.
I greatly appreciated the measure taken in Italy, which tried to use the choice of this national symbol to thresh out the whole question of the euro and to get the people involved.
I think all countries should do this; it should not be a technocratic choice by a finance minister and some civil servants.
The people, the parliamentary members and the Community should be involved in this choice.
There is another issue which interests me greatly.
Everyone now seems to agree that the period in which notes and coins both of the national currency and in euros are circulating at the same time should be kept to a minimum.
It has been decided that this circulation is to start on 1 January 2002.
Can the Commissioner tell me if any countries have announced their intention so far to limit this period to less than the stipulated six months?
I think it should be possible to limit the period of dual circulation, for example in business, to as short a period as possible - two, three or maybe four weeks - although it may mean that in banks the exchange of national currencies into euros can continue for some time, for example until 30 June 2002.
Some business people could make considerable savings in this way.
I would like to know if this approach would be possible.
Finally - and this is my last question, Commissioner - during the years 1999 to 2002, professional associations, for example in the commercial sector, will need a great deal of money for their communication and training programmes.
Videos must be produced for the training of commercial employees, together with electronically-generated printed matter for communication. We must work more closely with the commercial grass roots and with consumers.
Will the various planned programmes be unblocked soon by our partners in the Member States?
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we note with satisfaction that a consensus is growing in Europe on how the EMU transitional period is taking shape.
Europe has laid down a legal framework for the introduction of the euro, and with that it has acquitted itself well of its most important tasks.
Nonetheless, it had to avoid many obstacles in its path.
Initially the starting date was questioned, later the Madrid scenario for the introduction of the euro was called into question, and meanwhile the discussion on the 3 % level flared up.
Europe has swum in the roughest seas, but the coast is approaching.
Now it is the turn of the Member States to bring the changeover to a favourable conclusion.
We are pleased with this because the constitutions, legal systems and institutional traditions of the Member States differ so greatly that far-reaching harmonization of transitional measures is out of the question.
I am also very pleased that dual pricing will not be imposed as statutory, and that a flexible solution can be opted for.
The Commission insists on codes of good practice and voluntary agreements: give businesses, petrol stations and travel agents enough room to manoeuvre.
My third point concerns conversion charges.
The principle argued for is that people should not have to pay for compulsory conversion to euros, in other words for converting their national currency into the euro and vice versa.
There is no clarity on this yet.
We agree with the rapporteur that this principle might have to be enforced.
Could I ask the Commissioner whether he shares this position?
Mr President, first of all I want to congratulate the three rapporteurs on the reports we are debating this morning, especially Helena Torres Marques, whose approach I agree with completely. There are now only a few weeks left before the first euro countries are selected, and less than 300 days until the start of monetary union.
In that respect, I want to underline some of the ideas which other speakers have already mentioned.
The first thing I want to emphasize is what an important step economic and monetary union is.
There is no doubt that it is the most important advance to take place in Europe since the birth of the Community, forty odd years ago.
Secondly, I want to stress that this fundamental change to our lives will be happening as early as 1 January 1999, even though euro notes and coins will not enter circulation until three years later.
From 1 January 1999, there will be a single monetary policy for those countries in the euro zone, stretching from Lapland in the far north-east of the continent to Lepe or Cape Saint Vincent in the extreme south-west.
Thirdly, I want to repeat something I think is fundamental: the genuine and definitive players in the euro adventure are the citizens, both as economic producers and as consumers - as users, in short, of the new currency.
The success of the euro will depend not just on it being used in the financial markets so that it can reach the famous critical mass, but also - I would even say, above all - on the public accepting it as a means of payment, right from the outset.
On that point, I want to draw attention to a question I think is important, which has already been mentioned, for example by Mr Hendrick: the question of transaction costs for exchange into euros or for exchange between participating currencies during that long transitional period of three years.
The people of Europe have repeatedly been told that from 1 January 1999 the mark, the franc, the lira, the peseta and so on will be united to form the euro, and will become non-decimal fractions of the euro. So they will not be able to understand how they can be charged a commission for changing one of those fractions (say the mark) into another (for example, the escudo), or why they should be charged for having their bill in marks converted into euros.
If the citizens are treated like this they will conclude that they were misled when they were told there would be a single currency from 1 January 1999. They will see the euro not as a single currency, but as an extra currency in addition to the national ones.
So our view is that we need a more determined approach than is shown in the Commission's announcement of a few days ago, saying that all compulsory measures will be free whereas optional ones will depend on the market.
I think we need a more determined approach, and in that respect I want to conclude by reminding people of the vote in this House on the occasion of the report on the euro and the consumer, which I had the honour of presenting to Parliament a few weeks ago. That report tackled this problem directly and proposed a ban on that sort of practice.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Helena Torres Marques on her report on the euro and tourism, which is extremely timely and draws attention to the importance of the sector and to the way in which it will benefit from the single currency.
As the world's third largest industry, after oil and automobiles, Europe's 60 % share of the tourism market is very substantial.
Obviously, the relative decline that has occurred is a consequence of the emergence of new destinations on other continents, although European tourism has continued to grow in absolute terms with the anticipated creation of 1.85 million new jobs by the year 2007.
Moreover, it is a sector with a reasonably balanced geographical distribution and many regions which have no alternatives in other spheres, including many rural regions, are attractive tourist destinations.
The introduction of the euro will remove transaction costs, uncertainty and calculation, which today constitute very significant limitations, as has already been emphasized by a number of Members.
Consequently, a substantial number of European citizens may be expected to start travelling more frequently.
The benefits, moreover, will not be confined to European citizens, since the demand by citizens from other continents will naturally increase, since they can more readily move within a space where they can pay for everything in the same currency.
So tourism operators have no reason to fear the euro.
On the contrary, they will certainly benefit from it, although, as is emphasized in the report, they will be requested to refrain from taking advantage of its introduction to round prices up and introduce unjustified increases in the costs of the products and services they supply.
Mr President, Commissioner, the three reports we are debating today have a basic point in common, on which the success of the single currency will largely depend.
All three deal with questions which will determine how well the people of Europe take to the euro.
The European citizens are the protagonists in this approaching change. They are the ones who must steer this transition, which is unique in world history.
Tourism, which has become a mass phenomenon during this second half of the twentieth century, should serve to promote the euro - the currency of the twenty-first century.
At the same time, the euro should stimulate tourism in Europe, with regard to tourists from within Europe and from other parts of the world.
I want to congratulate Mrs Torres Marques on her excellent report.
The prospects for growth within the tourism sector represent a real hope for solving the unemployment problem. The advantages which the single currency will bring for this sector are obvious.
The public will accept the euro if it helps resolve the problems they are worried about.
Unemployment is their greatest concern. Tourism will help to solve that problem.
The euro will help tourism. We should be able to transmit that message to the citizens if we want the project to be a success.
With respect to the Arroni report, I want to congratulate the rapporteur most sincerely on his excellent work.
We must make sure that the introduction of the euro results in as little inconvenience as possible. We must reduce costs, and concentrate on those sectors which are going to experience most problems: small businesses, pensioners, the public and the disabled.
We should provide ample resources for informing and training the public.
Finally, on the Wolf report, about the independence of the European Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks, I wanted to make a slight clarification, a small point.
The independence of the European Central Bank, and the way it is legally bound to the objective of price stability, constitute a guarantee for the citizens.
Economic history is littered with examples of monetary authorities deciding to stimulate inflation in order to lessen the burden of national debt.
That is no longer going to be possible.
It will not be possible to apply that hidden tax of inflation in Europe.
It has been the least well-off who have suffered most from that type of policy.
The future European System of Central Banks will prevent it happening.
When a government or a regional or municipal authority has to repay debts, it will have to do so in full view of its citizens.
I am glad about that, and I am sure the people of Europe are too.
Nevertheless, as we stand on the threshold of introducing the euro, it is essential that the central banks should adapt their legislation as soon as possible. We cannot allow the future Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks to be deprived of all the possibilities for success which would be bound to result from the merging of so many central banks without having such varied rules.
As Mr Herman said, we need to speed up the time limits and say which regulations need altering urgently.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it might seem that everything that there is to be said has already been said this morning.
Unfortunately, not everyone has been able to contribute, not least myself.
There are some important points I would like to highlight. The Arroni report deals with how arrangements for the changeover can be optimized, and it touches on some key issues.
Firstly, for example, it mentions the optimization of information strategies, and I believe that electronic media, via news broadcasts, can and should provide our citizens with precise answers to their questions, and this could be very helpful over the coming months and years.
Secondly, I think it could be very helpful - and I am making a special statement now - if the euro could be used as an electronic means of payment at major events such as the Hanover World Fair in 2000, at which 60 million visitors are expected.
That would be a marvellous pilot project.
Thirdly, I would like to emphasize again that the public authorities have a special responsibility in the changeover to the euro, and I am thinking of dual pricing here.
I believe, and several people have already touched on this today, that dual pricing could and should be applied for three years by authorities ranging from municipalities, cities, districts and regions to major state institutions, in setting and assessing charges and also in paying salaries and so forth.
In this way people will be able to familiarize themselves with the euro by 2002 and will be able to relate it to their national currency and convert as a matter of course.
It will also allow small and medium-sized businesses, which may not always be so well prepared, to get used to this process and to prepare more thoroughly for the changeover date in 2002.
And it will also encourage trade associations to play a more active part, which some are already doing or trying to do.
I also think it is important that national tax authorities in particular should be geared up to using the euro in tax assessments and suchlike as soon as possible.
Nine or ten Member States who will probably participate in monetary union are already doing this.
I hope that Germany in particular will be receptive to this system, which could be very helpful for the future.
The state should be in the vanguard here with a high level of state commitment and not trailing behind!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I also wish to take part in this debate, referring in particular to Mr Arroni's report and to Mrs Torres Marques' report on the euro and tourism. I am well aware that much has already been said and there is little room for further contributions.
I believe, however, that several concepts should be confirmed.
Firstly, we should start from the fact that tourism provides fundamental scope for a thorough reflection on the methods of introducing the euro.
The sector is characterized by economic activity that plays a unifying role within the Union, and promotes better reciprocal knowledge and a greater sense of common citizenship.
Besides being one of the main sources of creating wealth and employment, it will be one of the spheres (together with the distribution and commercial system, as already mentioned) in which the methods of introducing the euro will condition its success or confirm the difficulties, as these sectors are in direct contact with the citizens and consumers.
The euro will also have a considerable impact on the tourist sector as, on the one hand, there will be a reduction in transaction costs and, on the other, there will be a greater transparency of prices.
This will stimulate greater competition, with the ultimate result of improving competitiveness, even in markets outside the EU.
Consequently, not only is tourism fundamental to the success of the euro, but we are faced with a historic occasion for the revival of this fundamental sector although, as already stated, we should remember with regret that the budget has considerably reduced the funds available for the specific programmes planned.
The practical aspects of introducing the euro are therefore of crucial importance, with the basic objective of making the citizens as familiar as possible with the new currency and reducing related costs to a minimum.
From this point of view, I support the theory (already advocated by other speakers and by Mrs Thyssen first of all) that it is important to insist that the categories concerned should organize themselves with regard to information and the elimination or minimization of transaction costs.
This will stimulate a fruitful interaction in the market between supply and demand in establishing the best possible conditions for consumers.
Only if such self-discipline is absent will it be advisable to lay down compulsory rules from above - rules which should be limited to individual cases, so as not to make the transition process too rigid with excessively complex measures or rules.
Mr President, there is good news and there is bad news with regard to tourism.
The good news is that, soon, the tourist will not have to go through the miserable experience of constantly having to change money ever again.
A miserable experience which also costs a lot of money.
At the weekend I drove past a bureau de change at the border between the Netherlands and Belgium, and I noticed that the difference between the buying and selling exchange rates for the Portuguese escudo amounted to 15 %.
That is a serious figure.
With the introduction of the euro, the holiday-maker in Europe will gain one free day in every 14 holidays.
This is a welcome benefit, because Europe's share in world tourism is steadily declining, and that is bad news for employment.
May I therefore ask the Commissioner what progress is being made with plans to allow Member States to conduct experiments in which labour-intensive sectors such as tourism would be subject to lower VAT rates?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while listening to the debate, I remarked to myself what a change there is compared with the debate just eighteen months or two years ago; there is unanimity and consensus on the changeover to the euro and the single currency. It is good to see that, and to get on with dealing with the real and practical problems which face us in this process.
Today's joint debate on three reports shows the extent to which preparations have advanced for the introduction of the euro, and how they are indispensable for a smooth changeover to European currency and its acceptance by public opinion.
So first of all I would like to shed some light on the results of the last round table organized by the Commission on 26 February on the practical aspects of introducing the euro, which your rapporteur Mr Arroni has covered. I will then look at the real applications of these clauses in a particular sector - tourism - at the suggestion of Mrs Torres Marques.
Finally, Mr Wolf's report will allow me to mention the progress made in terms of what we call legal convergence.
So I will start with the practical aspects of the introduction of the euro.
The Commission communication of 11 February and the round table of 26 February bear witness to the fact that considerable progress has been made since May 1997.
Whether referring to the preparation of public administration or other practicalities, the round table which was organized with the support of the European Parliament provided the opportunity to indicate several reasons for satisfaction which seem to me to respond to a large number of the questions which some of you put to me earlier.
Looking first at preparations in the public sector, today 11 Member States have presented a plan for moving over to the euro, in other words they have forecast possible relationships in euros between individuals, companies and their administration from 1999.
All Member States are offering what is being called a broad "euro 1999 option' for companies, and many of them are also offering it for individuals.
Moreover, legislative work at national level to translate decisions into facts is moving ahead properly.
In accordance with the wishes expressed by your rapporteur, the Commission is monitoring and encouraging these adaptations, particularly in national legislation, and will present an update of the state of preparation of public administrations in the spring.
Mr Fayot asked about the number of countries which had decided to have national sides to their coins.
According to my newly established counting method, seven countries in the European Union have already adopted the national sides: Belgium, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Portugal and Ireland.
On the other practical questions, since May last year all the difficult points have been the subject of an in-depth examination by groups of experts, where consumers were represented together with the professionals involved and public authority representatives.
These studies, the quality of which has been praised by everyone, enabled the round table to produce tangible results on the four specific points which answer your questions.
My first point concerns dual pricing, on which a consensus has been reached.
Dual pricing is an essential instrument, Mrs Raschhofer, but the imposition of an obligation at Community level is not desirable.
Mrs Thyssen, you are right that we must not start by making impositions.
What we should do is ensure that certain rules of the game are respected, as rightly suggested by your rapporteur.
Secondly, a consensus has also been reached on the bank charges for conversion into euros.
Two principles emerged during round-table discussions: firstly, non-discrimination between prices for services provided in euros and in national currency; and, secondly, the rule which says that all obligatory operations must be free of charge.
There is no equivocation on this point, and that is my response to Mr Hendrick and Mr Amadeo.
The Commission is pleased to state that the banking sector has already confirmed in writing its commitment to these two principles.
Otherwise, encouraging progress has also been noted in three areas.
The first concerns the specific situation of small and medium-sized enterprises, which has been raised frequently this morning.
In particular, it has been noted that there have been a number of advances in their relationship with the large groups, and advances in preparations for changeover to the euro.
I think - and time will tell - that this ought to answer the questions of Mrs Peijs and Mr Gallagher.
To Mr Fayot, I can say that SME communication campaigns are being put in place, and to Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, that the 1998 information campaigns give priority to small and medium-sized enterprises.
As regards education, Mr Garosci, you are right; there is not enough information or training.
I often say that to motivate staff you must train them, and to make loyal clients you must inform them.
In view of this, education is essential and I will soon be announcing a specific network derived from the network of existing public administrations within the different Member States.
And finally - it surprised me that nobody raised this point but I will mention it anyway - encouraging progress has also been noted regarding the setting up of local euro monitoring stations, which aim to prevent improper use. That is a desire of this House and of Mr Hoppenstedt, if I correctly understood his words earlier.
The fourth specific point from the round table was the problem of the duration of the dual circulation of coins and notes, and this has been raised several times this morning.
The draft regulation on the legal status of the euro states that this maximum period of six months from 1 January 2002 can be reduced by each Member State.
It is a question of subsidiarity and is a national concern.
Nevertheless, during the round table we managed to reach a broad consensus on the fact that a period of six months is too long and it would be wise to shorten it, and secondly, that the period of dual circulation ought to be harmonized throughout all the euro countries.
It was noted that the Member States are currently reflecting on this since it poses a certain number of practical and technical problems, and it was therefore agreed - and the Commission offered to do this - to proceed to an informal exchange of opinions with the Member States.
But you are right, Mr Fayot, we must forge ahead with this.
However, for the time being we must wait for the result of the national studies and the contacts we will manage and follow up.
In any case, the Member States must clearly make known their intentions on this question between now and the end of 1998.
Only yesterday I gained broad approval at the Ecofin Council which was being held in Brussels on all the points which I have presented to you.
So for the Commission, a new phase is now commencing in the same spirit of dialogue and transparency, and in a few weeks it will result in the adoption of detailed recommendations - and Mrs Peijs, I hope that these will answer your questions.
These recommendations will be forwarded to you, to the Council and to professional organizations, as it is our intention that you should be able to discuss them properly and in detail.
Secondly, I hope that on 2 May, when the European Council adopts the list of countries changing over to the euro, that it will also adopt these guidelines.
Finally, as these guidelines will also be forwarded to the professionals concerned, we hope they will convert them into a code of good management and good practice.
That will be the spirit of the recommendations, to avoid as far as possible the need to pass through a more regulatory and therefore more restrictive phase.
I would add that very particular attention should be paid to vulnerable social groups and, Mrs Thyssen, you rightly mentioned older people and people with disabilities in this regard.
That deals with the practical aspects.
I come now to the second report, on tourism.
You were quite right, Mrs Torres Marques, to draw our attention to the tourism sector.
This sector is an area of very diverse activities which creates jobs and which will profit greatly from the arrival of the euro as highlighted, I think, by Mr Harrisson and Mr Rübig.
The tourism sector has a particular importance to the European economy: 5.5 % of GDP, nine million direct jobs, 6 % of total employment.
Small and medium-sized enterprises make up 85 % of this sector, representing a third of service exports in the Union.
The development of this sector of activities has important knock-on effects on all the local and regional economies.
The introduction of the euro must therefore produce benefits for all the activities in this sector, and we must take care that this is the case.
Mr Ribeiro, it is not a question of limiting the advantages to a few enterprises (the largest ones) in the sector.
And the introduction of the euro must produce effects as rapidly as possible, in other words right from the beginning of the transition period.
What will the impact be? As your rapporteur stresses, I think tourism will be one of the economic sectors, one of the areas of activity, which will benefit most quickly from the positive effects of introducing the euro.
Why? Because reducing exchange risks will stimulate tourism within the Community.
The example quoted by Mr Rübig concerning his daughter is very interesting in this respect.
But the euro will also facilitate tourism from third countries.
I would refer you to a very significant study which the Commission published yesterday, 9 March, concerning (I believe) Europeans on holiday, and which my colleague Mr Papoutsis presented to the International Congress of Tourism in Berlin.
It shows that one person in two from the European Union went on holiday in 1997: 91 % of Luxembourg citizens, 74 % of Belgians and 73 % of Germans go on holiday to countries other than their country of residence.
That shows how much interest the euro will have for them, given that a quarter of Europeans - which could be considered few, but which I feel is still a lot - travel within the European Union.
Even so, this is an ECU 75 billion market.
The introduction of the euro will enable tourists and travellers not only to stop losing money in exchange commission, but to save on travel, accommodation and restaurant costs.
Moreover, the creation of a stable currency will enable the euro to be used as an invoicing currency for international tourist contracts.
This will be a source of economy and gains in competitiveness for travel companies throughout Europe.
Having said that - and here I combine several questions which have been raised - some aspects must be looked into in more depth.
This year the Commission will organize a seminar on methods of changing over to the euro, with all the professionals concerned - and of course you will be involved.
I would make it clear that the fiscal aspects raised by your rapporteur will obviously be examined closely at this event.
I do not want to go into details here and now, but you should know that they cannot be isolated from the general approach which the Commission has specified for fiscal matters.
And to Mr Kaklamanis, I would repeat that I will postpone this to the next debate which you will probably have with my colleague Mr Papoutsis on tourism, because these questions go beyond the sector of the euro and concern tourism as an area of activity based on SMEs.
So, to conclude, I will deal briefly with the report from the European Monetary Institute on legal convergence.
I say "briefly' because it is not up to me as a representative of the Commission to comment on the work of the EMI, but nonetheless, I would like to make it clear that, since its publication last August, legal convergence has evolved greatly in Europe and it is going in the right direction.
Mr Wolf, you are right to say that this is not a question of detail.
Mr Castagnède is also right to call for more transparency and more information.
And of course Mr von Wogau is right too, saying: yes, but all that with respect for the independence of the European Central Bank.
Mr Caudron says that the independence of the European Central Bank does not mean it is isolated, and this leads to the need for links as well as instruments of procedure, dialogue and discussion.
That is what the Commission presented last week in its proposal concerning the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee which will prepare the work of the Ecofin Council.
Numerous national legislation and central bank statute reforms have been completed or undertaken by the Member States since publication of the EMI report, in order to make them compatible with the requirements of the Treaty.
I can tell Mr Herman and Mr von Wogau that they will have the answer to their question in the convergence report which the Commission will present on 25 March.
Having worked on it fourteen hours a day, I can tell you I know what I am talking about when I say you will have your answers to this question, because the Commission must proceed to its own evaluation of the compatibility of national legislation with the Treaty and the statute of the ESCB.
Mr Chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I will see you on 25 March about this.
I apologize for having exceeded the time allotted to me by two minutes, and to sum up, I would simply stress that, like me, you are aware that the preparatory work for the introduction of the euro is coming to an end and that the key issue now is better to acquaint our fellow citizens with the euro and to encourage them to accept it.
The task of mobilization and persuasion before us is without precedent.
In view of this, Mr Arroni, the Commission notes with interest your suggestion to organize jointly, if Parliament so wishes, a round table with people from the world of communication to think about the psychological aspects of the arrival of the euro.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have not organized our efforts so as to meet the schedule or comply with the clauses in the Treaty for the introduction of the euro.
So let us not yet relax our efforts now, when it still remains to inform the European public about the advantages of introducing the European currency and to disperse the fears which may still exist amongst some of us.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner, and thank you to the three rapporteurs and all the speakers.
Mr President, I asked one question.
Would the Commissioner like to respond to it now or later? What is the situation on allowing Member States to carry out trial projects for lower VAT rates for labour-intensive sectors such as tourism?
Mr President, the Commissioner mentioned those countries which have already decided on the euro's national side.
I would like to point out here that Spain has also now adopted the national side - last week, in fact.
I have taken note of your question.
We will respond directly to it.
I do not have the details to enable me to respond to you today in detail, and I would prefer not to give you any wrong information.
Thank you for the information on Spain.
Sorry, I thought I was up to date, but the euro is progressing so fast that it is impossible to be totally up-to-date.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Promoting road safety in the EU
The next item is the report (A4-0065/98) by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission "Promoting road safety in the EU - the programme for 1997-2001' (COM(97)0131 - C4-0180/97).
Mr President, on Friday night my wife and I were invited to dinner with some friends.
During the meal our host was called to the telephone, and he was asked to come to the hospital as quickly as possible because his eldest son had been involved in a road accident.
On Saturday morning we visited our hosts again.
Their son had died.
They looked ten years older. Their life will never be the same again.
This was one of the 45 000 lives which are lost every year in the European Union as a result of road accidents - 45 000 a year!
That means 900 a week.
In other words, every week a traffic disaster takes place on the scale of the sinking of the Estonia.
More than 2 million Europeans are injured in road accidents every year, and many of them will remain permanently disabled.
The grief and human suffering behind these figures is immeasurable.
Furthermore, road accidents cause great economic and social harm.
Experts estimate this at more than ECU 150 billion a year.
This distress, and this waste of human life and financial resources, are not acceptable in a civilized society with all but unlimited technical capabilities.
Having looked closely at various studies I would even go so far as to conclude that, despite the expected growth in traffic, the number of road casualties could be halved over the next fifteen years.
That means reducing the number of road deaths to less than 25 000 in the year 2010.
The Road Safety Programme presented by the Commission last year is an important first step.
I recognize Commissioner Kinnock's great concern for road safety in this, and his determination to do what he can, bearing in mind the limited powers of the Commission.
Nonetheless, we would like to go a bit further.
We believe a numerical target which has the aim of halving the number of road casualties during the next fifteen years is essential and achievable.
It is clear that, in the light of subsidiarity, meeting this target is not just the responsibility of the Union.
I would like to point out, however, that those countries which have expressed their targets in concrete figures have achieved good results.
I would like to mention the United Kingdom, the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands.
A numerical target will also act as a signal to the public, and will give all those involved an objective to aim for.
In order to fulfil the targets, priorities will have to be set for the 65 measures in the Commission programme.
Allow me to mention a few.
Firstly, legislation for safer motor vehicles - safer for passengers, but also with better protection at the front and rear to reduce injuries to cyclists and pedestrians in the event of a collision.
The road, too, should and can become safer.
We would like to see a safety impact assessment of all EU-funded roads.
The introduction of 30 km/h zones in residential areas and around schools saves many children's lives.
Irresponsibly high speeds destroy road safety.
Drink-driving is not only anti-social, it is criminal.
Is the Commissioner prepared to bring up for discussion again the Council proposal for a Europewide maximum driver's blood alcohol concentration of 50 milligrams, which has been on the table for years?
Recent studies show very clearly that the use of drugs is also responsible for thousands of road deaths.
Many medicinal drugs, too, have negative effects on the ability to drive.
Can the Commissioner, in consultation with the relevant organizations, check how these problems can be best tackled?
Could I also ask for particular attention to be paid to the opportunities offered by technological developments, such as systems which disable the start mechanism of the car when the driver has drunk too much?
Driving with the lights on during the day, and wider use of seat belts, lead to significantly fewer accidents.
Improved first aid at accidents is also important.
Finally, safe behaviour on the road - more than 90 % of accidents are caused by human error.
Better training for drivers, road safety education in schools, information campaigns, enforcement of traffic regulations such as those relating to rest and driving times for professional drivers (with a serious chance of getting caught) are indispensable if this reduction is to be achieved.
We think the introduction of a penalty-point system is desirable.
Can I ask the Commissioner how he will proceed? Following this debate, will he present a further stage of his plans, and can he promise that in 1998 and during the following years there are, or will be, sufficient resources in the budget?
Mr President, road safety is a joint responsibility shared by the Union, the Member States, car manufacturers, educators, road safety organizations, road users of course, and many others.
To achieve success, a joint approach is needed with sufficient popular support.
The subsidiarity principle must be respected.
The EU must concentrate on measures where action at EU level leads to added value.
Road accidents are not a natural disaster in the face of which we are powerless.
On the contrary, we make the traffic and we can make it as safe as we want to. Mr Commissioner, you will be able to count on us in this fight, but we also count on you.
Mr President, I sincerely thank the rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, for both his speech and report.
Mr Cornelissen speaks from both the head and from the heart in terms of his commitment to road safety.
I pay tribute to the way he has skilfully steered this report through Parliament, embracing as many opinions as possible and reaching a conclusion which will be endorsed overwhelmingly in Parliament tomorrow.
We should also pay tribute to Commissioner Kinnock.
He has rightly brought this issue to the top of the agenda in the Commission's work programme.
Why has he done that? He is aware that 45 000 people - as Mr Cornelissen has already said - are killed every year and more than one million are injured.
The cost to society is probably at least ECU 100 billion.
He has set out in his communication the appalling figures.
One in 80 of us will die as a result of a road accident; one in three of us will be hospitalized because of a road accident; the main cause of death amongst the young is road accidents.
So I pay tribute to him for so graphically making the case for action in this area.
Let us not underestimate the scale of the task that we face.
It is very easy to do that because these incidents are often very individual, but collectively they represent the equivalent of two or three jumbo jet loads of passengers in Europe dying each and every week.
If that happened to one, two or three jumbo jets each and every week, those particular aircraft simply would not fly; we would not tolerate it.
And yet for some reason, society tolerates a similar toll of people being killed and many, many more being injured on our roads.
Therefore we have a collective responsibility to ensure this issue receives the attention it deserves from Parliament, the Commission, the Council and society as a whole.
We support, therefore, the ambitious but realistic target set by Mr Cornelissen - namely, a 40 % reduction by the year 2010.
Commissioner Kinnock's proposals give us the tools to achieve that target.
People may say it is unrealistic but we cannot tolerate a situation where thousands of our fellow citizens die needlessly on our roads every year.
Something must be done on an ambitious scale.
That is why the socialists are very proud to be associated with Mr Cornelissen's report and Mr Kinnock's communication.
We would highlight six priorities for action.
Many of these priorities reflect the views of the rapporteur and the Commissioner, but they highlight very clearly where action can and must be taken.
Firstly, we must combat drink-driving.
There are some 9 000 alcohol-related deaths every year on our roads.
We have the means to address that problem by supporting the Commissioner's proposal for a 50 milligramme limit - a proposal, I understand, that has been on the table now for 10 years.
Let us see some action.
We would applaud the Commissioner's efforts to try and secure agreement in the Council as soon as possible.
Secondly, we want to see the associated issue of drugs being examined by an EU research programme to make sure people cannot take drugs, drive and contribute to accidents as they do, on an increasing scale.
Thirdly, we want to endorse the view of the rapporteur that a new vehicle design directive must be published to make sure vehicles are as friendly to pedestrians and cyclists as is humanly possible.
The technology is there.
What is lacking is the political will.
Fourthly, we want to curb speed and introduce more 20-miles-per-hour limits.
Fifthly, we want to see the mutual recognition of driving bans and finally, more research into driving behaviour.
All these measures will contribute to our common goal of tackling this unacceptable, appalling, disgraceful figure of 45 000 deaths every year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are delighted to see that you have arrived safely, Commissioner.
Like the previous speaker, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, on his excellent report.
He has put an enormous amount of work into it.
We appreciate his commitment to road safety, which has spanned several decades.
So it is perhaps no wonder that he was asked to be rapporteur and that he has produced such a first-rate report.
However, as it would be monotonous if we all agreed on everything, I shall highlight a problem: the Commission's communication on promoting road safety in 1997-2001 contains 65 proposals, and many of the proposals have to be presented by 1998/99.
So my first request to you, Commissioner, is to speed up all the individual proposals.
You know as well as I do that nothing will happen after spring next year.
We will go on the election trail and Commission will either retire or seek reselection.
This means that anything urgent must have a first reading in Parliament by autumn at the latest.
Otherwise the proposals will just gather dust for two years until the Parliament and the Commission are up and running again.
For that reason, Commissioner, I would urge you to encourage your people to present the individual proposals to Parliament and the Council as quickly as possible.
Secondly, I would like to know if you support the list of priorities set by the rapporteur, and probably by this House when we vote tomorrow.
Mr Cornelissen has quite rightly said that it is no good presenting 65 proposals if they are only implemented in a trickle.
We need to have a substantial body of priority projects adopted to improve road safety.
That is why we are so interested to know if you really support Mr Cornelissen's list of priorities, which we will no doubt vote for tomorrow, and if you are ready to pledge your support to them.
I would also like to address a few points that my group considers urgent, as well as two or three points in the report that we will reject.
We think it is important, as Mr Watts has so rightly explained, to make the car a safer means of transport, because can kill and injure people.
Secondly, the majority of my group firmly supports European legislation reducing the legal alcohol limit to 0.5 mg/ml.
We absolutely must jump this hurdle.
In November 1993 we agreed in the Maastricht Treaty that measures can be adopted by the Parliament and Council.
I believe that measures to combat drink-driving are crucial and that we should act jointly in this area.
My third point is this: I think it is important to establish a European penalty point register or at least agree to this step.
In some countries drink-driving is viewed as a trifling offence that your friends in the pub will virtually congratulate you on. So we must not just set an alcohol limit but also ensure that by maintaining a Europe-wide penalty point register and by enforcing penalties, we can change people's attitude and behaviour.
I want to mention two other points that we cannot vote for.
In my view, the requirement for daytime running lights for cars and not just motorbikes cannot be justified throughout the Community.
It may be appropriate in Scandinavia because the light is different there, but what is the point of having car lights on in Spain during the summer? We should respect the principle of subsidiarity and take account of varying weather conditions in the Community before we adopt such fundamental regulations.
My last point is a curious one. I think it is unreasonable to call for a ban on selling alcohol at all service stations.
Yes, we need to target drivers themselves, but it would be excessive to punish bus passengers who want the odd beer at a service station by banning alcohol there, and we do not want that!
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, it is important for these problems to be discussed clearly, even if we have already found that words alone are not enough to reduce the number of victims.
We talked about it intensely last year at the Pan-European Conference in Helsinki (I myself drew up a report on the safety and use of telematics) but, unfortunately, we have not made any impact on the statistics.
Statistics, I agree, are very important for assessing problems: 45 000 deaths a year is certainly an impressive figure, as is 45 000 million lire spent by the community.
But statistics would be a mathematical exercise, an end in themselves, if they were not used to stimulate ideas and to help us draw conclusions.
Alongside the proposals to catalogue accidents and assess their effects in order to assist the injured parties, I consider more interesting and important the analyses of the means and initiatives to try to prevent them.
We have already seen that the simple accessories we all have in our cars are no longer enough: safety belts, airbags, helmets and intelligent speed control systems are just additional factors to accompany something else we still have to invent.
I think one good idea contained in Mr Cornelissen's excellent report is to try and convince the car manufacturers to change the fronts of the vehicles, to make them safer for pedestrians and cyclists and, at the same time, more resistant to impact.
It would appear that this measure alone could mean 20 000 fewer deaths a year, and it would therefore be worth trying.
I still believe in means of assistance and behavioural measures, such as telematics as a means of control but also of assistance. However, I particularly believe in educating school children.
It is useless to create different means if they are then used incorrectly.
So we need to start at the beginning and include in the school curriculum the genuinely educational subject of behaviour on roads, and civilized behaviour in general.
Mr President, road safety concerns us all, and this has been proved again this morning, not only by the Commissioner, but also by the rapporteur, whom we support in all aspects of this case and for the way he presented it.
We also sympathize with him: all of us can, because we all have to battle continually with the terrible consequences of these kinds of traffic accidents.
I would like to mention that in my family we are still suffering the consequences of an accident which took place in Belgium between a Dutch and a French driver.
When it turns out that it is often human error which is to blame, then surely better measures could be taken, instead of just saying that people should take better care and learn more.
When we see that in more or less exactly the same circumstances and at the same time, an accident similar to the one the year before happens on the A17 at Kortrijk, with at least as many people killed, then we might well ask when we are finally going to learn and do something about it.
I submitted an amendment on behalf of my group pointing out that when young people are learning to drive, they should know a few things about what to do in the event of injuries.
This amendment was suggested by the Red Cross, and I commend it to this House.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I can also say that we are mostly very satisfied with Mr Cornelissen's report.
It touches a sore spot, and repeats for the umpteenth time that the figure of 45 000 fatalities a year, and many times more casualties, is unacceptable, and measures will therefore have to be taken.
Two important issues are behind the huge number of casualties: namely speed and alcohol.
It is on these issues that I would like to see the report sharpened up.
As far as the 30 km/h zones in towns and cities are concerned, we do not need any more studies.
The existing 30 km/h zones have more than proved their effectiveness, so let us start taking action.
On the subject of alcohol levels, 50 milligrams seems a decent compromise, but I can tell you that large, heavy people still think they can drink more than others.
It would be much clearer simply to ban drinking.
It saves people having to think how much more they can have, how much they have already had, how much they can drink generally.
What gets into these drivers' heads, that they insist on drinking before they get behind the wheel? Twenty milligrams strikes me as quite enough.
Mr President, we regularly express our sympathy with the victims of disasters.
On our European tarmac 45 000 people die each year, and more than 1.5 million are injured. These figures have been mentioned many times today.
Yet this is not the inevitable price of progress, but the result of our choice of unsafe transport modes.
It is to the credit of the European Commission that it has placed road safety at the top of the agenda, and I can wholeheartedly support the action programme, whereby, to my mind, the emphasis should be on protecting vulnerable groups such as cyclists and pedestrians.
The Commission thinks that, in view of the cost of one road death, a measure which costs ECU 1 million and saves one life should be taken on economic grounds alone!
The use of such economic arguments shows once again what little value human lives are accorded on the road.
As a point of principle, I oppose valuing a human life at ECU 1 million.
As the crowning glory of God's creation, every human being is unique and invaluable.
This criterion could even lead to unfortunate choices being made, such as protecting working people in preference to the elderly.
The rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, rightly points out that the figure of ECU 1 million can lead to abuse, as the cheapest measures might be the ones to get priority.
Regrettably, the Commission only focuses on making traffic safer.
I think we must give some thought to the issue of reducing mobility.
Less mobility instantly saves human lives.
I also wish there were incentives for safer modes of transport, such as the train and the bicycle.
All this does not alter the fact that I think highly of the action programme. I would like to thank Mr Cornelissen for his excellent report.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I think the figures are alarming. One person in eighty becomes the victim of a road accident and the resulting economic costs amount to 1 % of the GNP of the EU.
It is also said that these costs are underestimated and may even be twice that amount.
I do not think road education alone is enough, although it is important, nor do I think we need simply deal with the subject of the amount of alcohol consumed.
We should develop more community and public transport services, and we should give people the opportunity to use them, especially during holiday periods and week-ends.
Consideration should also be given to monitoring.
One proposal could be to harmonize the times at which alcoholic drinks are sold, which are currently not harmonized at all in Europe.
We have already talked about the possibility of using innovative technological methods.
Telematics applied to transport undoubtedly produces significantly positive effects, such as satellite navigation in the event of particular weather conditions.
We also need to weaken the resistance of the car manufacturers, particularly with regard to safety standards.
To that effect, there should be an assessment of the pilot projects already being implemented by DG XIII and DG VII, providing for direct measures to improve the safety of means of individual and collective mobility.
In this case, I believe telematics can play an important role with regard to both visual and oral communication.
From this point of view, I think pilot projects involving the cities also need to be developed. Above all, however, if we want to take everybody into consideration, I believe we need to think of safety measures as being connected with the quality of life.
Quality of life is measured with awareness, also taking into account a harmonic concept of people and objects.
From this point of view, I think it is even more necessary to develop a real European concept of increased responsibility towards the citizens, which is fundamental if we want to provide a model and an advanced point of reference.
Mr President, I very much welcome the extension in the Maastricht Treaty to joint competence for safety between the Member States and the European Union.
I also give a warm welcome to the Commission communication and to Mr Cornelissen's excellent report.
However, the real way forward to improve road safety is to ensure compliance with existing regulations.
Currently the situation is that some countries fail to apply the regulations in force, while other countries, like my own, gold-plate the regulations with additional conditions.
If you take the particular example of reducing the maximum amount of drivers' blood concentration to 0.5 mg/ml, this is only tinkering at the margins of road safety.
We should instead take tougher action against persistent drunk drivers who are currently offending and causing road accident deaths and injuries where they are three or four times over the existing limit.
I hope the Commission will contrast that with the proposed action against insulin-dependent diabetic drivers in the United Kingdom, which is out of all proportion to any likely danger they would pose on the roads.
These drivers are now going to be banned in the United Kingdom and will lose their right to drive goods vehicles up to seven and a half tonnes.
They will, however, still be entitled to drive such vehicles in any other Member State but the United Kingdom.
I ask the Commissioner today, is this compatible with road safety in a single European market? I urge the Commissioner and this House to take action.
Mr President, this debate on the future of European road safety takes place at a time when mobile phone usage in Ireland and across Europe is rapidly increasing.
The use of mobile phones in cars must be legislated for at a European level in the interests of better road safety.
The European Union should ensure that car manufacturers construct all cars for the European market equipped fully with mobile phone kits.
The European car manufacturers must assume the costs of equipping all new manufactured cars with car phones in the interests of the medium to long-term future of road safety for car users and their passengers.
In Ireland car users utilizing mobile phones when driving can be prosecuted for careless driving under the Road Traffic Act of 1961.
The European Union must complement Irish legislation on this matter, especially as there will be one million mobile phones in Ireland by the end of 1998.
Finally, phone penetration in Ireland, which presently stands at 15 % of the population, is set to double by the end of the year.
With so many mobile phones in operation in Ireland and Europe, mobile phone car kits in the future will come to be viewed not as a luxury item but as a necessity in the interests of safer driving and road safety, and the European Union must act on this issue immediately.
I compliment Mr Cornelissen on his excellent report.
The debate is now adjourned and will be resumed at 3.00 p.m.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Madam President, on a point of order, I would like to say that two anti-crime procedures are currently under way.
The first is the request for urgent debate before Parliament and the second is the referral to the Council.
The request can be signed here in the Palais in Room 1155, next to the Documentation Service.
Thirdly, I would like to ask if the Committee on the Rules of Procedure has already dealt with the refusal of the request for urgent debate at the last sitting.
Mr Rübig, I can inform you that the necessary steps have been taken and the President of the European Parliament will be in constant contact with the Belgian authorities about this serious problem. The College of Quaestors, which meets tomorrow afternoon, has added this matter to its agenda.
In other words, we have treated your request with all the seriousness it deserves.
Votes
Madam President, please note that my colleague Mr Smith is ill today.
Otherwise he would have been present in the Chamber.
In accordance with the Bureau's instruction, please note my presence in the Chamber.
Madam President, could my presence in the Chamber be noted. I will not be participating in this vote.
I would also advise those Members in the House who are interested in protecting their rights that these are appropriate votes in which to do as I am doing.
The majority is overwhelmingly against the Green motion and no political causes will be lost in any protest.
After the roll-call vote on Amendment No 67
Madam President, I am sorry that I must rise.
I am usually kind to your good self but I have to protest.
The Bureau's instructions were quite clear.
When a person asks for the floor prior to a roll-call vote, it is for that person to indicate whether he or she will participate in the vote and not for you.
I ask you to carry out the Bureau's instructions in these matters.
At the last session you said that you were following a course of action which was not to be used as a precedent.
Therefore I hope and trust that you will carry out the Bureau's petty instructions.
Mr Falconer, I scrupulously respect the Bureau's instructions.
When I said earlier that you were at the sitting, I meant you were free to vote or not to vote, and that I had noted your presence.
I think that is all entirely correct in accordance with what we decided.
- After the roll-call vote on Amendment No 58
Madam President, I wished to indicate that I was going to participate in that vote.
Would you please follow the Bureau's instructions!
Mr Falconer, I fully respect your freedom.
As I said earlier, you may vote, or you may not vote.
The main thing is that we have taken note of your presence.
Madam President, in this Parliament we vote to adopt texts or amendments or not to adopt texts or amendments.
If you wish to adopt a text or an amendment, you vote in favour; if you wish to reject a text or an amendment, you vote against; if you want to do neither of those things but show that you are present here, you can always press the third button - the abstention button.
(Mixed reactions) I know that some people claim there is a difference between abstaining and being present in the Chamber and not voting.
I personally fail to see the difference.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will appreciate that we are not going to start a debate on this.
Personally, I think there is an important nuance between abstaining and not participating in the vote.
It is quite clear.
I think Mr Falconer agrees.
Madam President, I would have hoped that Mr Corbett, with his long experience as a senior staff member on the Committee on Institutional Affairs, would also recognize that difference.
Before the roll-call vote on Amendment No 59
I will not participate in the vote on this report, Madam President.
Very well, we will take note of that.
(During successive votes, Parliament adopted the 9 legislative resolutions)
Madam President, before we proceed to the vote, I would like to point out that in the voting list two amendments have not been allocated to the correct paragraphs, and that Amendment No 19 tabled by the Group of the European People's Party would not relate to paragraph 18 but to paragraph 19.
In that case, I shall vote against, as it would replace paragraph 19.
The vote on Amendment No 28 tabled by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party should not be taken after paragraph 36, but as an addition to paragraph 45, because the issue is dealt with in that paragraph and it fits very well there.
Please keep an eye on this during the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I do not wish to delay the vote.
May I ask you to have a general correction made to the text, of which the original is in Portuguese, because in the languages I can understand I have detected unacceptable errors.
I have received many requests for this report which must be sent out in languages that I cannot read.
I would also like to request the floor regarding Amendments Nos 11 and 5.
On Amendment No 11
Madam President, this is not a linguistic problem.
This is the same text that was submitted by Mr Paul Rübig of the Group of the European People's Party.
This text was rejected in committee, and I have used it because I consider that it best expresses what we want to say.
Therefore, this is indeed the text that Mr Paul Rübig submitted previously.
On Amendment No 5
Madam President, I cannot accept this amendment because it has nothing to do with the euro.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I tried to catch your eye before this last roll-call vote.
I would like my presence in the Chamber recorded.
I did not vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, I did not wish to delay proceedings earlier but your answer to me was that an abstention was not the same as not participating in the vote.
I would like this to be referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
That ruling is tantamount to creating two different forms of abstention.
You will have Members who wish neither to vote in favour of a text or against a text, but who wish to indicate their presence in the Chamber by pressing the button of abstention.
You will also have Members who wish neither to vote in favour of a text nor against a text by not pressing such a button and indicating to you orally which, as we have seen today, causes a number of problems.
I would ask this to be referred to the Rules Committee.
Mr Corbett, as there are not many of us, I will tell you my opinion.
It has often been the case that I have abstained from a vote because I did not wish to take a stance in favour of or against it but I accepted that it had been put to the vote.
However, it sometimes (but more rarely) occurs that I do not participate in a vote in order to show a firm intention, which is very different from that of abstention.
We will not debate this just now, but the question is very interesting at a constitutional and institutional level.
We could submit it to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and open up a very interesting debate on the subject.
Madam President, this particular matter has been debated long and hard in this Chamber over the last session and this session.
It has also been debated within the Socialist Group.
The line is quite clear within the group.
If Mr Corbett wishes to change that, he should take it back to the Socialist Group.
The line is quite clear that when Members do not wish to vote, then they do not have to vote.
They do not have to press any buttons to abstain or anything else.
They just express the view that they do not wish to vote.
This relates to a decision handed down by the Bureau. It was never brought to this Chamber.
If Mr Corbett wants to push anything, perhaps he might support my call - which I made in previous Parliaments - for the Members of this Parliament to have a vote on this issue to clear up the matter once and for all.
I would be quite happy to participate in that vote.
Once we have got rid of the anomaly which the Bureau has created, we can then get back to the business of this Parliament.
Until that time it would be far better for Mr Corbett to leave aside his institutional matters and put his political hat on.
Perhaps then we can have politics entering the discussion.
Ladies and gentlemen, although there are not many of us, but since we still have some time left - even though we have to count the interpreters' time and the explanations of vote still pending - we could prolong this debate. However, since it is not on the agenda, that is not possible.
Mr Falconer, I am sorry but other Members are waiting and are hungry and have meetings and I must proceed to the explanations of vote.
I think I really have properly respected your right to vote or not to vote, Mr Falconer.
It has all been noted very carefully.
I really could do no more.
(Several Members requested to speak on a point of order) Since you insist, we will first have the explanations of vote, since we are concerned to behave properly towards our colleagues.
We will then stay here to sort this issue out.
It is really very interesting.
Madam President, it is not on the questions raised by the Socialist Group.
I simply wish it to be recorded that I was not here to vote on some of the earlier motions because of air traffic control.
I regret this particularly since I drafted an opinion on Mrs Kuhn's report.
It was simply air traffic control that prevented me from being in Strasbourg on time.
Despite some reservations, we have chosen to vote for Mendiluce's motion for a resolution on the Western Sahara.
We give our full support to the content of the resolution, particularly because the peace plan in question has been presented to and adopted by the UN Security Council. We also give our support to holding a fair referendum on self-determination.
However, we are concerned about how the resolution is to be put into practice, since it forms part of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, which we oppose in principle.
The CFSP is only one of the tools used by the EU in the construction of a new state.
Kuhn report (A4-0029/98)
The primary objective of all legislation should be to draw up fair, clear texts which are easy to implement and which guarantee considerable legal security for the public.
However, neither the original Commission text on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees, nor the amendments proposed by the Kuhn report meet these criteria.
On the one hand, they are unbalanced and place too great a burden on the vendor, and possibly the producer.
On the other hand, they bring about legal insecurity in which litigation procedures flourish, which if not favourable to consumers, will certainly benefit lawyers and legal experts.
Three examples clearly illustrate the unbalanced nature of the texts proposed.
Firstly, the length of the guarantee, which varies from two years - in the original text - to five years - in the amendment by the Green group -, when a legal duration of one year would seem sufficient, especially since the range of goods guaranteed is very large - from hairdryers to cars.
We should remember that we are talking about a legal minimum here and that contractual guarantees, which are a factor in competition and promotion, can go well beyond this.
A second problem is the inclusion of secondhand goods within the scope of this directive, when some of the clauses are ill-suited to these goods, for which the idea of flaws is difficult to define since they have already been used.
Thirdly, there is the reversal of the burden of proof to the detriment of the vendor, when it is a general principle of law that it is up to the person with the allegation to produce proof of it.
Roman lawyers had already given this type of reversed proof the name "diabolical proof' , since it is so difficult to establish.
The legal insecurity which is a source of endless legal disputes is a result of the inaccuracy of too many definitions, which are nevertheless essential.
During the Parliamentary sitting, certain amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection were adopted as additions to the notion of consumer expectations and the buyer's right to an alternative option, thus making the text extremely vague and favouring the development of litigation.
For these basic reasons and reasons of legal practice, it was not possible for the French members of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations to vote in favour of this text.
Furthermore, it deals with basic principles of civil law, which is not one of the areas of Community competence.
Any political action or legislative initiative in favour of consumer protection is a good thing and should be welcomed.
However, that does not mean that such protection should be seen as an objective for its own sake, in isolation from the general context in which it should apply.
It is well known that all rights have their limit, at the point where they come into conflict with the liberties and rights of other people.
The Kuhn report, on the proposal for a directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees, aims to safeguard consumer protection but because of the nature of some of the amendments which have been approved, that consumer protection in many cases conflicts gratuitously with the rights of the other agents affected by such a proposal. This could potentially result in unnecessary legal in defensiveness on the part of sellers and producers, and could also constitute a particularly significant burden for small traders and small companies, at a time when SMEs need all the help they can get to become competitive, so that competitiveness can allow new jobs to be created.
Therefore I have voted against the Kuhn report, in the hope that for the second reading it may be possible to reach a balance - which does not exist at the moment - so that consumer protection can be made compatible with protecting the interests of producers, which are also legitimate.
The idea that consumers should have a clear conception of their rights as regards guarantees when they buy goods in countries other than their own is an important one.
If the common market is to have real meaning, then one aspect of its benefits is that people should feel confident about such things as guarantees when they buy goods in other European countries.
The question is to what extent the European Union should not only seek to ensure that consumers have a clear idea of their rights, but should also harmonize the law so that the same rights obtain everywhere.
To my mind, an approach which involves this degree of harmonization is the wrong one.
It ignores the principle of subsidiarity.
It interferes to an unacceptable extent in national laws regarding the sale of goods.
These are laws which, in the case of my own country, the United Kingdom, have been established and built up on case law over a long period.
The directive proposed is a very blunt instrument indeed to try to incorporate the detailed provisions of the 1979 Sale of Goods Act.
The directive itself has caused great alarm among the people who will be most involved in dealing with its consequences.
This is because the Commission text would allow the consumer to ask the seller either to repair goods free of charge or to replace the goods, or to demand a price reduction or rescission of the contract.
The right to repair would operate for two years from the date of purchase; the right to replacement would operate for one year following purchase.
No wonder sellers of goods affected by the directive are worried.
Mrs Kuhn's amendments further complicate this situation.
They certainly do nothing to resolve it.
In drawing up the directive the Commission has loaded the dice in favour of the consumer.
It is surely unlikely that a consumer who complains about what is described as a 'lack of conformity' existing in the goods he has bought will accept repair if replacement is on offer? As one of my Swindon constituents asks: ' The scope for argument about what is a 'minor lack of conformity' is limitless and unscrupulous consumers might be encouraged to exploit the uncertainty created by these proposals, resulting in the courts having to cope with an influx of cases.
Who will foot the bill for these legal costs?'
The answer to that question is, ultimately, other consumers.
That is the foolishness of this proposal, a folly we see repeated again and again in the half-baked proposals produced by the consumer directorate in the Commission.
Consumers will pay in two ways: firstly, because the price of goods will rise to take account of such extra costs.
Secondly, because this kind of legislation acts as a disincentive to smaller retailers to stock products which might give rise to expensive legislation - or it adds that last straw which breaks the camel's back and brings the shutters down on the business once and for all.
So what kind of legislation would help in this situation? I believe it is probably the kind of legislation which the European Commission is least likely to provide.
The Commission believes in big legislation - major directives and regulations which entail big changes across the commercial community.
What is needed here is light-touch legislation.
What is needed is an arrangement which ensures that when a consumer, coming from one Member State, buys goods in another, he or she is then informed about the consumer's rights under guarantee pertaining in that country where the purchase is carried out.
It might also be desirable, if it is relevant, to inform the consumer of the agent of the company producing the goods in the country of the consumer's residence so that there is an information channel about the consumer's rights under guarantee in the country of purchase.
That is a far cry from trying to draw up completely new EU-level laws regarding consumer guarantees and imposing these on the very different legal structures of the Member States.
It would be a real help to consumers and it would be legislation that shows that the Commission is living in the real world.
The Commissioner's feeble reply to the Parliament debate on Monday night shows that this is, in fact, very far from the case.
I and my fellow British Conservatives oppose this directive and the Kuhn report.
I am delighted that a European directive is devoted to improving consumer protection in Europe regarding the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees.
The draft directive, amended by Parliament, is devoted to finding the best balance between the interest of the consumer and the responsibilities of the vendors and producers, without going as far as the wastage which could arise from a systematic exchange of all goods which have a fault, however minor, and which could in any case be repaired under the conditions of product quality maintenance.
If it is worth having more guarantees for the buyer and more transparency for the secondhand market, we should question the basis of enacting rules which belong to the "first hand' market in this case.
I fear that this assimilation would in fact be difficult to implement.
Furthermore, I would prefer a specific directive for secondhand goods to take account of the complexity of this area, whilst offering effective consumer protection.
I have abstained on Amendment No 24, because in view of Austrian national law, which provides for a guarantee period of just six months, I am opposed to a quadrupling of the period to two years.
Extending the period in this way would not only hit business, but also, above all, consumers themselves.
They would be faced with price increases because of the higher risk factor that businesses would have to build in.
Furthermore, legal proceedings become more onerous and costly the longer the time since the product was purchased.
Lastly, it is totally contrary to the principle of good faith if the vendor has to assume liability for lack of conformity although the purchaser may have recognized the defect in both abstract and specific terms.
It would be difficult not to agree with the aims of the draft directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees: to strengthen consumer protection and promote the quality of products.
Unfortunately most of the means proposed by the text under examination, far from responding in an appropriate way to the declared objectives, on the contrary seem excessive, inappropriate and dangerous.
By inciting the consumer to get involved in dangerous procedures in a whole range of areas, we may contribute to the fortunes of lawyers, but we will not protect consumers any better. Above all, we will overwhelm with even more obligations those small industries in the production and distribution sectors for whom the constraints of exploitation are already very great.
This will increase the legal insecurity of manufacturers and business people, so the initial good intentions will actually have a negative effect on the economy and employment in the end.
So we will vote against a whole series of dangerous clauses which risk opening up endless disputes and creating a general climate of legal insecurity which would be negative for everybody.
We are opposed to the inclusion of secondhand goods within the scope of this directive.
The concept of a legal guarantee does not seem to us to apply to a secondhand product such as a vehicle, whose characteristics vary depending on its usage, its age, its maintenance and so on.
Under these conditions, how could a secondhand product be replaced by a comparable product? Quite simply this does not make any sense.
We are also against extending the guarantee period to two years. This is excessive, particularly given the increased level of consumer protection which the directive is targeting.
A period of one year would seem reasonable and balanced, and therefore completely sufficient.
The transfer to the producer and vendor of the burden of proof for lack of conformity also seems unacceptable to us, and contrary to the general principles of law.
Article 3, paragraph 3, creates a presumption of imperfection at the time of delivery of the product if the fault is discovered within the six months following the actual delivery.
We will vote against this clause, which we think is exaggerated and dangerous.
The very notion of lack of conformity is defined in a very subjective way in the draft directive.
The amendment by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection only aggravates things by introducing the term "of consumer expectation' , which is even vaguer and therefore more likely to lead to many disputes.
As regards the possibility of offering the buyer a replacement of the product when there is a fault of conformity, this opens up dangerous leeway, especially in high technology sectors such as the car industry or sailing.
We think it is up to the vendor whether to offer repair or replacement, and failing that, the buyer can demand a reduction in price or termination of the contract.
The other area showing dangerous leeway is the one being opened up by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection by proposing that the consumer can act directly against the manufacturer when the latter is not party to the sale contract.
We would reject this proposal absolutely.
Setting up a "service to the client' network in all European countries for cases of direct purchase of a product in another Member State also raises problems and must be reexamined.
If it is legitimate to seek to protect consumers adequately, this must not be at the expense of SMEs, by imposing unbearable constraints on them which would risk upsetting their permanently fragile financial balance.
In France these small companies, which number 800 000, are currently the best job creators.
In the period 1988-1995, they created 1.75 million jobs throughout the European Union.
So we should be particularly careful not to endanger their equilibrium by imposing unreasonable constraints on them: this should be a priority for us.
The proposal for a directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees has presented us with fundamental problems because there is not enough information about relevant law in the Member States.
I have requested the European Commission more than once that alongside its proposals, it should carry out a comparative study of the law as regards the specific situation in the various Member States.
Similarly, the Commission should provide Parliament with the key documents upon which its proposal is based.
Of course, this support documentation only needs to be placed in the library, or made available in the form of some technical medium that can be copied easily.
The second difficulty lies in the very varied interpretations which have been made of the proposal's content.
The proposal fails to differentiate between two of the basic agents: the vendor and the producer.
This has led to a regrettable state of confusion.
Nor is any distinction made between perishable and non-perishable goods, which is an essential aspect when defining guarantees.
The different responsibilities of the manufacturer and the vendor are not made clear either.
The vendor can only take responsibility for those contract requirements which differ from the manufacturer's responsibilities.
Furthermore, the fact that the proposal fails to describe the basic principles which regulate these matters in the national legislations has led to a veritable diaspora of amendments.
The proposed text and the amendments which have been presented are unlikely to provide a clear result in favour of the consumer without hindering commercial relations.
I am voting for this report on the condition that what is in the explanatory statement is correct.
This explanatory statement clearly states that it is a question of a mini-harmonization of the Member States' national legislation.
It is clear that the mini-harmonization to be carried out shall be subject to the respective national parliaments. That means it is up to each national parliament to decide at what level it wishes to adopt.
So the mini-harmonization is a recommendation.
My condition is therefore that Swedish consumer protection is in no way weakened through this harmonization.
Directive on ornamental plants (C4-0044/98)
This matter is highly sensitive. To just vote for a Council Directive without debate is wrong because the Members have so few opportunities to acquaint themselves with what the Directive is about.
Seed growers who sell vegetable varieties not registered by the EU are threatened with prosecution if they do not stop the sales.
Only plants which are included on the EU's common varieties list are allowed to be sold. For a variety to get onto the list it needs to have an owner.
Ownership costs SEK 20 000 per variety.
In view of the above, especially the limited opportunities to get acquainted with this directive, we are choosing to abstain from the vote.
Kellett-Bowman report (A4-0035/98)
Madam President, first of all I would like to thank you for humouring two of the passions of the honourable Member now speaking; namely, the greed which makes us want to go for lunch, and the laziness which prevents him from writing his explanation of vote.
I would like to say one thing about the Kellett-Bowman report.
I did not vote for this report for one simple reason. The report intelligently organizes the discharge and the conditions under which discharge is granted for a certain number of specialized agencies.
Insofar as it concerns agencies which do not have financial autonomy, the system set out in the proposal is satisfactory.
However, when it comes to agencies which have independent income, the system set out by Mr Kellett-Bowman, which was approved unanimously except for one vote by the Committee on Budgets and broadly by this Parliament, is highly unsatisfactory, because it actually ends up giving the power of discharge to the administrative council of the agencies concerned, which would be justified, but only gives firstly a simple power of opinion to this Parliament.
I think it is a serious matter if we are going down this road and turning this Parliament into a sort of consultative body, subject to the superior arbitration of a technical body created by laws and regulations which we vote on here in this House.
What we should have done was either to give up all participation by Parliament, or reverse the procedures and give Parliament the last word.
I just wanted that point to be made.
Graenitz report (A4-0009/98)
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted for the report on general principles for the European Union's food legislation.
It is very positive that the Commission's Green Paper recognizes that an extension of the product safety directive could improve overall consumer protection.
The Danish Social Democrats are of the opinion that the acts in question should be revised in order to ensure they are based on the principle of caution and the principle of regard for consumer health and safety.
The premise of food legislation in Europe should be environmental protection, and the aim should be sustainable food production.
These proposals are all part of the same report, to which we give our support.
With the new Treaty of Amsterdam, the EU seeks to secure minimum requirements in consumer policy, including giving appropriate consideration to consumer health and safety when legislating in the area of food.
However, this will not affect the ability of Member States to retain or introduce regulations that provide better protection than the joint regulations.
The Danish Social Democrats regard the European Parliament's report on food legislation as a step in that direction.
There is no doubt that the present Green Paper on the current food law situation is very timely, in view of the crisis in food safety and consumer protection caused by the BSE scandal.
Articles 129 and 129A of the Treaty of Amsterdam extend the legal base for more effective protection and precautions in policies directed at the consumer, which means that Community food law must be clarified and rationalized, together with its application and monitoring.
We must not forget that many chronic diseases have their origin in food, and food products are not just another commodity like any other.
So, as Mrs Graenitz rightly requests, the responsibility aspect has to be established with complete transparency, so that damaged consumer confidence can be strengthened.
Finally, product labelling is very important for the consumer because it is the main source of information - indeed, almost the only source. It is therefore essential that such labelling should be complete, clear and truthful.
In the aftermath of BSE, I believe information should also be provided (depending on the product) about the pesticides or animal feedstuffs used in its production and manufacture.
Food is an issue of vital importance for the health and safety of consumers and for the quality of life of our citizens.
However, it is a complex issue which requires the coordination of parallel policies and actions in order to safeguard and upgrade it.
BSE has once again opened up the debate on the safety of foodstuffs and the health of consumers, which are problems resulting from an inadequate legislative framework and a lack of control over its implementation by the relevant bodies. The latter serve specific interests and are indifferent to the criminal repercussions on the health of our citizens.
The events themselves, the fatal incidences of these serious "unprecedented' diseases, should have forced us to confront the crucial questions about the quality of our foodstuffs and the enormous risks to consumer safety.
The elaboration of clear, lucid regulations and directives is of course necessary in order to determine quality standards and to ensure the monitoring of foodstuffs.
However, before any legislative intervention we must get to the root cause of the downgrading, distortion and alteration not only of our foodstuffs but of the whole of the food chain.
It is not just the absence of up-to-date guidelines which places the burden of responsibility for this lamentable state of affairs on the foodstuffs sector. Those that already exist are also contravened in the most blatant manner.
When the concept of food is commercialized and its administration handed over to the law of profit, and when the market determines the quality of foodstuffs on the basis of the cost-profit relationship, there will never be effective safeguards for the health of consumers.
It would be naive to claim that liability for the disturbance of the food chain rests exclusively with the farmer or the cattlebreeder. Nor would this allow the problem to be confronted at source.
On the contrary, liability must be sought in the intensification of production and in the pressures that producers face from traders, mass producers and large food multinationals to squeeze costs and increase the volume of production. This imposes on them the lavish use of fertilizers, pesticides and animal feeds, the composition and consequences of which they are for the most part unaware of, or have been misinformed about.
Even more important, however, are the liabilities of those industries which process and mass-produce primary products before they are put on the market, using substances which not only downgrade the quality of the foodstuffs but also damage the health of consumers, who are used as guinea pigs.
The policy relating to foodstuffs, and the safeguarding of their quality and of consumer health, require the reorientation of the policies implemented in the primary production sectors - agriculture, cattle breeding and fishing - and the effective monitoring of the manufacture and use of chemicals and other substances in food production, preservation and processing. They also require constant monitoring of the results of research carried out into the production of such substances, and the institution of measures and regulations, especially in the context of trade agreements formulated within the framework of the WTO and the Codex Alimentarius , which would prevent the unaccountable activity of multinational food companies.
It is good that the rapporteur has adopted a consumer-friendly position.
I would just like to stress three important areas which are urgent, and which the rapporteur has not emphasized sufficiently.
Firstly, there is the question of antibiotics.
It is important that we reduce the use of antibiotics in animal feed, especially since the derogation which Sweden has from the EU's weaker legislation is almost certainly going to expire.
The EU must recognize the danger of using antibiotics.
I therefore support Amendment No 28.
Secondly, the rules on food labelling must be improved substantially so that consumers know what they are eating.
In Sweden, the EU's rules have led to big problems for people with allergies, amongst others, because now they cannot get information about what products contain.
The rules Sweden had before were better and clearer than the current EU rules.
Thirdly, I also have objections to the legal framework being proposed.
I would like the EU to lay down minimum rules rather than harmonizing rules.
Minimum rules are better because you then give individual Member States an opportunity to introduce tougher rules than those set out by the EU.
With the EU's harmonizing rules the levels are fixed and the development of better, tougher rules is prevented.
This is bad, to say the least, and inhibits the development of environmentally-friendly rules.
Future food legislation must be based on producer liability - grower and supplier liability.
The main aim should be the protection of the health and safety of consumers.
Product labelling should be obligatory and apply to all the ingredients in a product.
Every country should have the right to allow considerations for the environment, health and safety to take precedence over the free movement of goods.
EU rules on food and other consumer protection should be minimum rules; that is, a Member State should have the right to apply its own tougher rules.
In international organizations, Member States should have an unrestricted right to promote food and consumer requirements which go further than those of the EU.
With its Green Paper, the Commission has taken an important step towards much-needed rationalization of Community food legislation.
This implies that existing EU legislation in this area must be reviewed with an eye to simplification.
I give this my full support.
However, it is also clear that future food legislation must guarantee consumer protection, while the internal market must be able to function without barriers.
In its report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has added to those important aims by requiring responsibility on the part of the producer and the authorities, to provide safe and healthy foods as well as thorough consumer information.
In my opinion, this is well-justified.
I therefore give this report my full support, and I look forward to the concrete initiatives that the Commission will be taking based on the Green Paper.
Our group has tabled six amendments which target three main objectives.
The first stipulates the need to label foodstuffs sold in bulk clearly and legibly, so that consumers have clear information on their denomination, price and, if necessary, their origin.
In fact the text proposed by the rapporteur discriminates severely between products sold in "consumer units' and products sold in bulk.
Regardless of the type of packaging, it is essential that the consumer has clear information.
Our second group of amendments specifies the role of the Community scientific committees.
These committees exist and should therefore serve as a point of scientific reference for drawing up regulations, directives and recommendations.
Thirdly, our group rejects the principle that farmers and growers have the ultimate responsibility for the "scientific' proof of the sanitary quality of their products.
In fact, it is the operators in the farm produce and supply network who must produce this scientific proof.
We must not forget that agricultural products can undergo intrinsic changes in their sanitary quality as a result of the technological processes used for their transformation, particularly with the use of biotechnology.
Furthermore, farmers cannot have an in-depth knowledge of the sanitary quality of all the elements used in the production of their goods.
I am thinking in particular of the cattle fodder they use and of the sanitary and environmental quality of slurry which they are likely to spread on their fields.
Our group calls for respect for the principle of a specific vertical regulation on labelling.
In fact, a number of agricultural products are subjected to specific transformation processes - I am referring particularly to the wine growing sector - or are sold directly in their original state to consumers (the fruit and vegetable sector) and should therefore come under a more restrictive vertical regulation than the horizontal directives which apply to the labelling of all food products.
As regards genetically modified organisms, our group recalls that it is necessary to inform the consumer clearly on the possible use of GMOs in the composition of food products.
The Commission has still not published the methods of application for this special labelling, and consumers are presently consuming food products with a GMO basis without being aware of it.
That is unacceptable.
The lesson of mad cow disease has been learned by the consumer.
A recent survey in France by Sofres shows that 69 % of French people are against transgenic cultivation.
So it is up to us to allow the European consumer to exercise clearly and easily his or her free choice between products with GMOs and products without GMOs at the same price.
Clearly in this case is important that the GMOs are traceable from the field to the table.
The principle of labelling has been retained.
It must be applied to all ingredients whose DNA has been manipulated, not just to some of them, including both imported products and products from within the Community. I would remind the House of the scale of imports: for the farm produce industry in France alone, this amounts to 5 000 tonnes of soya and 8 000 tonnes of lecithin annually, mainly from the United States.
However, the conditions of harvesting, storage and transport result in mixtures such that we cannot identify the presence or absence of GMOs in these imports.
And it is this fundamental question we must tackle, because the European consumer who does not want to consume GMOs should not have to pay a surcharge for the privilege of exercising free choice because specifically non-GMO channels have to be set up for products which are difficult to find and identify, and which are therefore more expensive.
This surcharge should be payable by those who change the rules of the game and who would like to impose a new mode of consumption.
We should ensure that they can propose but not impose it.
The idea of a supplement payable by the end consumer in order to avoid the ingestion of genetically manipulated foodstuffs is absolutely unacceptable.
We consider this to be the food safety priority which the Community legislator must tackle if he wishes to do a useful job.
Turning now to SMEs and farmers, the Commission must evaluate their capacity to integrate all the Community standards.
We must remember that a regulation is only relevant if it can be applied by all operators.
Finally, our group is opposed to multiplying structures, and therefore to the creation of a European agency for food safety, because it would mirror the work of the Community scientific committees and the monitoring bodies in the Member States, which have a key role to play. Some would like the Commission to be present as such in the Codex Alimentarius , a scientific body recognized by the WTO.
Our group considers this to be a bad move, because the 15 voices of the Member States will always be heard more loudly than a single European Community voice. As we have seen during the international fishing conferences, when the Commission takes the place of the Member States, it weakens their positions instead of strengthening them.
Food safety is an extremely important issue.
I think there are some things missing in this otherwise excellent report.
For example, it is unacceptable that we currently find that consignments of meat imported into Sweden with certificates of health turn out to be contaminated with salmonella.
Similarly, measures should be taken to ensure that the routine addition of antibiotics to animal feeds ceases.
In paragraph 36 of the draft report the Commission is urged to bring an action against the Council because it has not observed the deadline set for 1 January 1995 for a decision on measures required to combat salmonella in laying hens.
It is, of course, a serious matter that the Council has not observed the deadline, but it is not appropriate to involve the European Court of Justice in this matter.
Arroni report (A4-0061/98)
Since Sweden will not take part in the introduction of the euro in 1999-2002, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
This is a question for the Member States which will be included in the euro zone.
However, it should be mentioned that the report does not touch on the high conversion costs which the introduction of a new currency entails in relation to the conversion of coin-operated machines, computer systems, etc.
It is clear that it is the consumers (the citizens) who will pay for all this in the form of higher prices and taxes.
On the whole, Mr Arroni's report on the practical aspects of introducing the euro is satisfactory.
He correctly stresses the need to inform consumers and prepare them for the arrival of the single currency.
He does not omit to highlight the difficulty which this monetary revolution could represent for vulnerable population groups such as older or disabled people.
As the need for information on the euro has now been largely acknowledged, it would be wise for this to be implemented effectively and quickly as our rapporteur rightly stresses.
It would also be advisable to pay particular attention to SMEs, as they represent an important source of employment.
I am in favour of Mr Arroni's idea of asking Member States to attach particular importance to the impact on companies of introducing a single currency, so that they will be able to benefit from all its advantages.
This would mean that the impact on employment would be as favourable as possible.
However, I would like to make two points, the first concerning dual pricing.
If this is necessary, particularly in the phase when the euro and national currencies are circulating in parallel, it does not seem wise to me to make it mandatory, as the rapporteur proposes.
The imposition of dual pricing would entail costs and inflexibility which would no doubt damage the proper functioning of the single market.
However, it would be beneficial to install a code of good practice, at least for retail trade.
My second point concerns the handling of the conversion of national currencies into euros.
As the rapporteur says, it is desirable to call on the banking and financial sector to set up a code of good practice here too, to respect the principle that compulsory conversion should be free.
In this respect, the proposals by the Socialists and the Greens to make this mandatory by means of a regulation do not seem wise to me.
Healthy and honest competition between all those involved in exchange operations seems to me to be sufficient to deal with this.
The fate of these proposals will determine how I vote on the report.
Economic and monetary union is a centralist, high-risk project with a weak democratic basis.
It prioritizes price stability and low inflation.
There is a high risk that our already high unemployment will increase further.
The regional differences between growth regions and depopulated areas could be increased.
EMU leads to a strong centralization of monetary and currency policy which ultimately could also include fiscal and financial policy.
EMU is a political project which increases the federal aspect of the EU and strengthens the trend towards the formation of a common state.
To try to increase popular support for the EMU project, the Commission is now proposing information campaigns targeted at the general public and companies.
Among other things, an invented cartoon character - ' Captain Euro' - is going to get people to change their views on EMU and the euro.
This is unacceptable and a provocative use of taxpayers' money.
It only risks further increasing the gap between the EU and the general public.
Against the background of the above we have voted against the report.
The Commission's report outlines the basis of a number of initiatives designed to facilitate preparations for the introduction of the euro both in the private sector and in public sector administration.
In ten months' time, the euro will be an economic reality, and in three short years, the greatest monetary changeover in the history of the world will take place.
Even so, the nations of Europe do not as yet have anything resembling a full picture of the tremendous impact the introduction of the euro will have - even in countries not immediately participating in the common currency - on all aspects of finance.
It is therefore most gratifying that the committee's Policy Document acknowledges the obvious need for users of the new currency to be well-prepared and well-informed.
Another crucial initiative, featuring prominently in the committee's Policy Document, is a code of conduct between financial institutions to pave the way for the smooth introduction of the euro. To this I give my full support.
The introduction of the euro will undoubtedly give rise to very serious issues, only some of which seem to concern the Commission.
The central element which is absent, in my view, from the deliberations of the Commission and from whatever preparations are under way at the level of the European Union and its Member States, is who will bear the brunt directly or indirectly.
In other words, who will be called upon to pay the cost of conversion? We think that under the conditions of a free market and deregulation, this will be the end user - that is, ordinary working people.
It is not by chance, as the Commission itself points out in its communication, that this threat is being brandished by large corporations in order to gain tax advantages and exemptions. Furthermore, they hope to gain new privileges in order to prevent the institution of what was initially widely supported as the essential element in the transitional period of conversion to the new currency: namely, mandatory dual pricing.
We regard mandatory dual pricing, at least in the retail and distribution sectors, as the basic and minimum means to limit the profit-making tendencies which are characteristic of any changeover from one currency to another.
With regard to the rapporteur's reference to the need for flexibility in the market and to the optional nature of dual pricing, we stress that, left to their own devices, markets have never led to 'better solutions' and there is no guarantee whatsoever that inflationary tendencies will be avoided.
In parallel, there must be a strengthening of efforts to wipe out cases of profiteering, by means of direct governmental and criminal sanctions. Provision must also be made for the institution of the right for consumer organizations to sue for the protection of collective statutory interests.
We are particularly concerned about the special problems faced by SMEs. Under the pressure of competition from large multinationals and also in the context of the conclusion of subcontracting agreements, they will be forced, from the very start of the transitional period, to undertake the necessary technical convergence (public accounting, infrastructure, etc.) which may prove fatal for many of them.
In such cases we could agree on certain special measures of positive discrimination in favour of SMEs, particularly for the smallest ones employing fewer than ten people, to enable them to cope with the increased costs of conversion to the euro.
These measures might relate to public accounting (e.g. speedier redemption of existing debt) or might take the form of special finance programmes or easier access to credit.
We are categorically opposed to any attempt to turn the technical preparations for the introduction of the euro into a pretext for large corporations to increase their profits through tax deductions on the costs of investments and of restructuring brought about by the establishment of the euro, ' as well as the profits which arise from the abolition of the dangers of exchange rate fluctuations' ! However, these solutions are being examined.
We would like to take this opportunity to repeat our request that the Commission issue a report on the effects of the euro on countries which will not be taking part, and also on the removal of the uncertainty surrounding the relations and exchanges between the 'Ins' and the 'Outs' . More generally however, we request information on the Community costs of the euro, which the members of the Commission officially accept as a fact, but which they assiduously avoid specifying, as do the other defenders of EMU.
We wish to point out the disgraceful discrepancy between the policy of tough financial restrictions and sanctions in the event of infringement, and the waste of budget resources on "information' campaigns and campaigns which manipulate working people into accepting a policy from which they have nothing to gain, as is shown by the tragic circumstances they are experiencing today and by their future prospects.
Torres Marques report (A4-0078/98)
It could be said of Mrs Torres Marques' report on the euro and tourism that the proponents of the euro are scraping the bottom of the barrel.
I do not know precisely what significance should be given to this, but I am sure they would have done better to leave this text where it was.
It is based on a complete misinterpretation.
According to the rapporteur, tourists will be happy to have their lives simplified by economic and monetary union and at the same time save on exchange charges.
Throughout the report, it does not hesitate to make even more extravagant affirmations.
For example, it states that the euro would represent for tourists - and I quote - a huge advantage if one considers that currently up to two-thirds of the value of their currency must be lost in exchange transactions before they even spend anything.
Here we have evidence of old reading which has been badly digested, really very badly digested.
In any case, it is highly likely that a tourist regards changing his or her national currency to that of the country visited as part of the charm of travelling and does not regard it at all negatively.
Applying the same principle of unification, the rapporteur calls for complete abolition of border controls, doubtless so that tourists no longer even notice that they are going from one country to another. And tomorrow are we not going to be asked to use Esperanto in order to make tourists' lives easier?
It is not far off. Have we not already invented the virtual European monument which has no particular national characteristic and which will embellish future euro notes?
All in all, the Torres Marques report completely bypasses the subject. Tourists come to a country to appreciate its identity so if, by facilitating things for tourists we assassinate identity, it is really a very short-sighted policy.
Furthermore, since I see that Mr Corbett is still in the Chamber, I will take this opportunity to thank our British friends for refusing to subscribe to the euro because, as a tourist, I would be really disappointed if the Queen's face no longer appeared on your bank notes.
Since Sweden will not take part in the introduction of the euro in 1999-2002, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
This is a question for those Member States which will be included in the euro zone.
However, the report does contain some rather optimistic calculations with regard to growth in tourism thanks to a common currency area.
In this context, we should remember that a big tourist industry in Europe is founded on a high level of general prosperity and has very little to do with a common currency.
In spite of everything, conversion costs are marginal in this context.
This prosperity could well be jeopardized through the creation of a common currency area in a region which is not optimal.
Tourism is an important sector which is going to be greatly affected by the introduction of the euro.
However, I am sceptical about the wording of this report, in particular the wording of paragraphs 17 and 20, which seek to interfere with issues of national importance where the EU does not have the right to act.
This concerns national taxation and, as paragraph 20 states, that measures should be taken to harmonize taxation, especially VAT.
This shows that the introduction of EMU is the first step in the building of a federal EU in which tax rules will also be harmonized and decided by the EU instead of being managed by the national parliaments.
I cannot go along with that and I am therefore going to vote against the report.
Nor do I think the Commission should introduce information campaigns before the introduction of the euro.
But if that should happen, which could be justified for certain groups within society, then I think the national consumer organizations should be responsible for them.
There would then be a significantly greater chance of the campaigns being informative rather than propaganda.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the Torres Marques report on the euro and tourism.
In the report, the rapporteur proposes a number of measures to facilitate the tourism industry's transition to the new currency. She urges action to harmonize taxes and duties applicable to the tourism sector, specifically value added tax.
The rapporteur focuses strongly on settling and harmonizing national levies.
It is not clear whether it is a question of harmonization within the euro zone or throughout the entire Union.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament oppose in principle any harmonization of duties and taxes, since this would undermine the financial basis of the Danish Welfare State.
The delegation has, therefore, chosen to vote against the report.
We agree with the rapporteur on the strategic nature of tourism in general: as a sector for the creation of thousands of jobs; as the sector par excellence for the development of SMEs; as a means of economic development and recovery; and as a means of communication between different peoples.
However, we would like to express our concern about the significant reduction over the last few years in the share of the European tourist industry in the international market. We are also concerned by the fact that, from the viewpoint of industrial relations, we are witnessing redundancies in their thousands, the widespread use of part-time employment, and the misery of limited contracts of employment and social dumping.
More generally, and in contrast to the euphoria with which the rapporteur describes the situation in the sector, we are seeing the generalized use of flexible work patterns and the de facto promotion of 'elastic' labour relations.
As for the hundreds of thousands of small SMEs, mainly family run, they are simply scraping along in an attempt to cope with increasing competition from large organized chains.
No consideration has been given to these facts. The report simply proposes the establishment of a common policy on tourism with the insertion of the relevant chapter into the Treaty on European Union.
It appears that the supporters of this proposal are inspired by those areas of Community responsibility such as the hundreds of thousands of devastated households in the agricultural sector, or by deregulation, redundancies and doubt as to the possibility of national intervention - for example in air transportation and telecommunications.
In such circumstances the anticipated introduction of the euro will lead to the widespread restructuring of the sector.
This is because the problem in the tourist sector is broader, given its international nature and its many complexities, compared with other sectors where participation or not in the common currency will initially concern a limited range of people in relation to transborder transactions (chiefly relations between traders and a limited number of consumer agreements).
Even in relation to this sector the Commission provides not the slightest information as to how the countries outside the euro will evolve, nor what the inevitable repercussions will be.
Indeed, the existence of a unified currency could contribute to the simplification of certain procedures and to the saving of certain resources through the abolition of foreign currency transactions. However, under no circumstances should we delude ourselves about the results.
Neither increased competition nor reduced indirect costs will lead to a substantial reduction in prices, as is demonstrated by the experience of liberalization and the granting of tax and other, financial, advantages.
In parallel, increased competition leads to the consolidation of capital, to the reduction of employment, to the intensification of exploitation and to the failure of small businesses.
With regard to small businesses, many of them are certain not to be ready for the full introduction of the new currency.
Nor will they be able to cope with the cost of converting to the euro and with competition. This is even more true when they have very little access to information and to the capital market and when, as early as 1 January 1999, the application of the principle of "no obligation, no prohibition' is being pushed forward in relation to the circulation of the euro as electronic money.
Under these circumstances, we regard it as essential that special support be given to the smallest of the SMEs, either by making it easier for them to gain access to credit and to participate in finance programmes, or by means of preferential tax treatment.
We believe that the deciding factor for the development of tourism is the financial position and standard of living of working people, since tourism, as the 'elastic' expenditure par excellence, is the first victim of political austerity.
Moreover, the 'gradual reduction in working time and the corresponding increase in leisure time' will simply result in the search for additional employment, if it is accompanied by a reduction in already low incomes.
With the policies imposed by Maastricht and EMU and with the ever intensifying worries about the effects of the introduction of the euro, we find it impossible to understand the rapporteur's vision of an 'expected improvement in the standard of living of consumers' .
If the EU really does desire the expansion of tourism it must formulate its policies with working people and the amelioration of their standard of living in mind and abandon its tough monetaristic stances which, as has been demonstrated, can only lead to dead ends.
Wolf report (A4-0070/98)
Madam President, my group is very concerned about the impact of the introduction of the euro on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Up until now this issue has been treated very lightly, as if it were only a question of supply.
But that is not the case.
The equilibrium of SMEs could be seriously destabilized by the introduction of the euro, and clearly that is very worrying since this category of enterprises provides about two-thirds of the jobs in our countries.
The advantages and costs of monetary unification, if it finally takes place, will be very unequally spread between enterprises.
The advantages will be felt first by the big companies and larger SMEs which work at a European level.
But the costs will affect everyone, and they will be all the more difficult to bear because the enterprises will not have access to adequate computer and accounting services, they will not be very well organized, and they will not have reserves available to finance transition costs. In fact, these are all the properties which characterize SMEs.
Under these conditions, small and medium-sized enterprises risk suffering a serious loss of competitiveness compared with large enterprises.
And this effect will be all the more pronounced if the euro does not produce all the benefits expected.
If, as my group believes, the stimulating effects of suppressing both the costs of conversion and the internal uncertainties about change are cancelled out by the recessive effect of the new monetary inflexibility and transition costs, the fall-off in growth will strike the most fragile enterprises first, and again these are SMEs.
All in all, the new euro zone will be soft on large enterprises but hard on the small ones.
How can we redress the balance? Those responsible for the transition are still discussing increasing awareness and better information for the public.
That is very inadequate, but how can they do better? The Member States will obviously not be able to subsidize everyone.
That would be disastrous.
In reality, what we have here is a practical inconvenience which follows from the very concept of the system, that is, the universal and mandatory changeover to the euro.
If we had chosen the path of a common currency with a progressive and optional development, all these problems would not exist.
Since Sweden will not take part in the introduction of the euro in 1999-2002, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
This is a question for those Member States which will be included in the euro zone.
We can only point out that we consider it a mistake in Sweden's case that the Swedish Central Bank is now independent of political influence.
We do not think it should be.
The report by Mr Wolf on legal convergence in the Member States in terms of the euro indirectly poses the question of the role of the European Central Bank and its independence.
I regret that the report does not sufficiently demonstrate the need to form a European economic government which should act as a counterbalance to the ECB to prevent purely monetary logic dominating in certain arbitration, when support for growth and employment should be guaranteed.
Although the creation of a Eurocouncil allows an exchange on economic and monetary policies in a positive attempt at coordination, it does not have any powers.
I would have liked the proposals which aim to strengthen the role of the Eurocouncil to be included in the report.
While the report mentions the democratic duty of the ECB to report at Community level, it would have been a good idea to clarify and reinforce the role and power of the European Parliament in dialogue with the ECB.
If the explanatory statements - which are meant to be the basis of the draft resolutions - were put to the vote, then we would happily vote for the text of Part B of this report.
The explanatory statement compares three levels for convergence between the legal provisions of Member States.
The first level, which still exists, relates to Member States themselves and their legislations. The second relates to what is already enshrined in treaties entered into between countries which keep pace with, promote or facilitate 'European construction' , while the third derives from the position of the European Monetary Institute, as discussed in the report covered by this explanatory statement and draft resolution of the European Parliament.
It is clear that the EMI could apparently resolve the thorny task of making compatible and articulating the different national and supranational levels without difficulty, engaging in tasks of drafting and enforcement which far exceed its powers in a democratic context.
It even goes so far as to acknowledge that specific national features may continue to exist , provided that, as stipulated in the Treaty, each Member States must ensures that, at the latest, by the date of the establishment of the ESCB, its national legislation including the statutes of its national central bank is compatible with this Treaty and the statute of the ESCB.
Indeed, Portugal has already done this ahead of time with its constitutional review, which transfers responsibility for defining the competences of its central bank to commitments entered into in international organizations.
In his report, particularly in the explanatory statement, Mr Wolf draws attention to this difficulty and denounces the expeditious manner in which the EMI resolves it.
In doing so, he raises a number of issues which are fundamental in a democratic process.
We could quote many of his views, but we will concentrate on the question: "What exactly is meant therefore by the requirement of central bank independence?' His reply is: ' The definitions given by the EMI in this report and, in particular, in the 1996 report (...) emphasize too one-sidedly 'independence' at the expense of 'openness' and democratic transparency.'
Inevitably, the draft resolution is less specific.
It was the only way in which it could escape the steamroller process which countenances no doubts, questions or alternatives.
Although it is drafted less clearly, and despite a significant number of votes against, it was nonetheless passed at the committee stage. And it has our vote in the House, although our support is really for the explanatory statement.
Arroni, Torres Marques and Wolf reports
The three reports on different aspects of the impending monetary union did not get my approval.
The resolution on the practical aspects of the introduction of the euro is the one I object to least.
However, it is extremely undesirable to let public information programmes about the euro deteriorate into advertising for the euro, as suggested in paragraphs 10 and 17.
Nor can I agree with the position obliging retailers to use dual pricing during the transition to the euro.
The Torres Marques report looks very much like a blown-up balloon.
The enormous advantages for tourists are highlighted with a great deal of verve.
But these apply primarily to the tourist who travels through various countries in the European Union, and not so much to holiday-makers visiting a single country.
And those who use electronic methods of payment will hardly notice the euro.
Furthermore, various costs relating to the changeover will lead to higher prices.
The 'enormous' advantage will thus be largely undone.
I am therefore unable to see the usefulness of this report, all the more so because tourism policy is a national affair.
Mr Wolf's report - which is supposed to deal with legal convergence in the Member States - shows that the European Parliament lacks the right perception of monetary policy.
The target of price stability is judged one-sidedly in this report, as well as elsewhere.
Conversely, the European Parliament appears to be so preoccupied with welfare growth and job creation that it believes this can be realized through monetary policy.
My first objection is that establishing price stability as the only target will have a negative effect on economic development.
My second objection concerns short-sightedness: the economic development pursued will have to be sustainable in an ecological sense if it is to be of use to the next generation.
If these objections are not taken into consideration, a democratic responsibility owed by the ECB to the European Parliament will not do much for the European citizen.
Madam President, Mr Falconer is absolutely right that there is no obligation for a Member to take part in a vote.
There is no obligation to vote for or against a particular text, nor even to express a view on a text.
However, if a Member wishes to indicate that they are present in the room, despite not wishing to take a view, then they have the option - not the obligation - to press their abstention button which shows that they were there, even though they did not wish to take a position on that particular text or amendment.
You say that there are different types of abstention.
Maybe an abstention can mean a different thing.
That is precisely the objective of explanations of vote, that we have just sat through now.
If you want to indicate that you voted for or against, or abstained for a particular reason, this is the opportunity afforded by the Rules of Procedure to explain that nuance.
But what we do not need is two separate and different ways of not expressing a position for or against a particular text.
I would submit to you, and through you, to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, that only one way is necessary.
That would simplify our votes greatly.
Indeed there might be further ways of simplifying them when we are not having an electronic or roll-call vote.
It might be sufficient for the President to say who is in favour, who is against.
We do not, in those circumstances, need to know who is abstaining when a simple majority is required.
But that is another matter.
I would finish by returning to a remark by Mr Falconer who implied that this was an institutional question and not a political question, or something along those lines.
I wonder whether those who have been making repeated remarks in successive votes in successive plenary part-sessions on this issue do not have a political motive behind them.
Mr Corbett and Mr Falconer, you have asked to speak.
I would point out that it is 1.29 p.m.
We cannot impose on the interpreters.
I will permit you to speak for just one minute.
And if you wish you can then continue this conversation over a glass of brandy or a glass of water, whichever you prefer.
Madam President, I agree with you.
I do not wish to take up the interpreters' time.
The interpreters should have left long ago.
It is Mr Corbett who is taking up the interpreters' time.
As he is challenging something I have done, I have the right to reply.
I will reserve and protect that right.
Any Member who sits in this House and represents the Presidency should also protect that right to reply.
Mr Corbett says you have the option to abstain, which is a form of participation.
The question of not participating in the vote means that you do not wish to participate in the vote, so that is not an option.
This House decided to deal with explanations of vote a long time ago.
That is the way the matter would be best served at the present time.
I would like to see them returned to the way they were previously, but we dealt with them a long time ago and this House voted on them.
Lastly, I say to Mr Corbett: yes, I have got a political point of interest in this matter.
I refuse to be treated as a child.
I refuse to be treated in the same way as people who do not come here Mondays and Fridays.
I normally come here Monday through to Friday and am a diligent person, as are 99 % of this House.
I refuse to be treated as a child for the minority's sake.
Therefore the quicker the Bureau reviews these rules - as I understand they are doing - the better.
I would urge you to disregard Mr Corbett's request to refer this to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
The Bureau has already handled this matter.
That is where the matter should rest until the Bureau reviews the silliness that it has put us in at the present time.
Your words will be recorded carefully in the Minutes.
I would thank the interpreters for their patience.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.) .
Promoting road safety in the EU (continuation)
The next item is the report (A4-0065/98) by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission "Promoting road safety in the EU - the programme for 1997-2001' (COM(97)0131 - C4-0180/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, any discussion of safety on Europe's roads inevitably involves talking about ignorance, repression, dangerous negligence and criminal complacency.
And that goes for politicians just as much as drivers!
Any debate about improving safety is bound to turn around the facts that we have already heard several times today: 45 000 dead and 1.6 million injured every year, or 123 deaths every day on Europe's roads.
The deaths alone are equivalent to virtually wiping out a medium-sized European town every single year.
So it is good that the Commissioner and the Commission have brought forward a programme to promote road safety.
Pam Cornelissen deserves enormous respect for his very comprehensive report and the details it includes on the causes of accidents.
Indeed, I would not have expected anything else from him.
Improving road safety implies a whole range of measures - life-long road safety training for young and old, all kinds of technical measures both on the roads and in vehicle safety - airbags, safety belts and lights are just the headline issues - and special protection is needed for the most vulnerable road users: children, the elderly, pedestrians and cyclists.
However, in my view there are two things that are absolutely central, two issues on which our fellow citizens need to be more aware and politicians need to have more courage. Alcohol and speed.
The following rule of thumb seems to apply: the more you have drunken and the faster you drive, the more people are killed and injured.
The opposite also applies of course.
That is why we need a radical approach to alcohol limits and pan-European speed restrictions.
However, I find the Commission's call for speed limits too vague and too open to interpretation.
Back in 1990 Parliament voted clearly for the following speed limits for cars in EU Member States that at present have no limit: 120 kmph on motorways, 100 kmph on ordinary roads, and 30 or 50 kmph in residential or built-up areas respectively.
This Parliament has to stand by the decision it took in 1990 and fight for it to be implemented.
If individual Member States decide to introduce even lower speed limits, that is something we should applaud and support.
Anyone who says comprehensive limits will not work should look at the limits for lorries, that has been a success story for Europe.
If we can have a speed limit for heavy goods vehicles, why not have one for cars too?
We should leave no stone unturned to achieve the Community target of reducing deaths on the roads to 25 000 by 2010.
Every victim of a traffic accident on the roads is a victim too many, and I therefore urge you to support my amendment.
Mr President, firstly I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Cornelissen, for his magnificent work in drafting this report.
I hope his work will serve to raise the awareness of all the players concerned: institutions, vehicle designers and manufacturers, users, safety experts, traffic agents, transport companies, insurance companies, vehicle maintenance and repair workshops, driving schools, and so on. They should all draw unbiased conclusions about the real cause of the accidents on our highways and city streets, so that they can take measures to prevent them, or at least reduce the number of accidents and victims to the absolute minimum.
We are very sensitive to disasters of all kinds - as we should be - but for some incomprehensible reason we find it exasperatingly easy to resign ourselves to accepting that enormous disaster which takes place week after week on the roads of the European Union, resulting each year in nearly 50 000 deaths and more than 1.65 million injuries. The report quotes the figure of half a million hospital admissions, of which 25 % end in disability.
So, Mr President, a greater effort needs to be made in this area, both by the Community and by each of the Member States, which are obliged to promote technological development in safety matters and to make imaginative efforts when it comes to producing road safety plans. The standard excuse of not having enough resources should not be accepted any longer.
The economic and social costs of these accidents are extremely high - not to mention the human cost, which is immeasurable. Indeed, the cost is possibly greater than the expense it would take to avoid such accidents, if the political will existed.
For all those reasons, Mr President, I welcome the Commission communication and Mr Cornelissen's magnificent report.
Mr President, as 45 000 people die each year in traffic accidents in the EU area, we might be tempted to view traffic as one colossal catastrophe.
We do not take this view, however, seeing that contemporary society could not survive without it, and given that accidents do not all happen at the same time and in the same place.
In a way, traffic safety is comparable to the protection of the environment.
Everyone says they think it is important, but only a few want to do anything about it in practical terms.
Because it is undeniable that the cause of a very large number of accidents is speeding, apart from tightening up the law we should look at the reasons why motorists drive too fast.
One certain factor in this is car and motorcycle advertising that focuses on high speeds and other features which are just not viable for the normal motorist.
The success of a given make of car in competitions, rallies or circuit racing, is very often used to advertise a vehicle intended for everyday use.
This must be one of the reasons why car manufacturers invest very large sums in competitions.
In this way, people are lured into a driving culture that only befits the race track, and not always that either.
We must support a system of specific and uniform speed limits for the whole of the EU area.
In that way dangerous drivers would no longer be so able to use ignorance of traffic regulations as an excuse, still less a justification.
Even today there is still opposition to speed limits, in the name of civil liberties.
But it is a question of people's right to use the road network as safely as possible.
The right to endanger life cannot be a part of the civil liberties lobby.
On the same principle, we should have common European legislation to enforce the use of driving lights even during daylight hours.
The idea is that a driver can see oncoming vehicles and vehicles behind in sufficient time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, road safety is a complex, interdisciplinary business, encompassing a wide variety of technical and above all human factors.
My main reaction to Mr Cornelissen's excellent report is a very positive one, but I do have some concerns.
I am pleased at the number of important and fundamental suggestions and practical proposals for improving road safety.
I personally feel that an improvement is urgently needed not just because it can be shown that the annual economic cost of road accidents is over 100 billion ECU, not to mention the unquantifiable and immeasurable human suffering involved, but because like anyone else I would like to feel safe on the roads of neighbouring countries.
This also applies when help is needed after an accident.
I have had very good first-hand experience, in a state that fortunately no longer exists, of doing a first aid course as part of learning to drive.
I am concerned to see signs that the proposed action programme may lead to powers not provided for under the EC Treaty, with legally binding decisions being taken at European level.
Surely voluntary agreements would do the job just as well without a flood of red tape and regulations.
I would only recommend voting for the report if six of the seven amendments to be voted on tomorrow are rejected, and only if I am sure that Paragraphs 7b and 7e, which can be summed up as 'rigid maximum speed limits' and 'introduction of a panEuropean penalty system' , do not get through.
Mr President, I wish to begin by welcoming the report and certainly the intention behind the Commission's concern to see action in this matter.
I cannot add much to what has been said already, except to highlight perhaps two areas of concern.
One is the relationship between alcohol and accidents.
Fewer than 5 % of motorists drive over the legal limit but they alone cause 20 % of the fatal accidents.
I strongly agree with the proposal to limit the level of alcohol to 0.5 mg/ml, along with proposals to ban the sale of alcohol in service stations and the standardization of the apparatus of breathalysers.
My other point is this: now is the time to consider the harmonization of penalties and their application throughout the whole Community, so that drivers penalized, say, in England, Wales or France are not still able to drive in Germany or Belgium.
I would hope to see such legislation coming forward from the Commission.
I wish the Commission every success in its endeavours to make our roads safer.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I very much welcome the Commission's initiative to launch an action programme to promote road safety in the EU.
The high death toll on Europe's roads is appalling, and something must be done about it.
We should all be interested in cutting the number of accidents.
Drunken driving is one of the most common causes of accidents.
That is why there should be a maximum blood alcohol limit of 0.5 mg/ml for drivers.
Austria has already introduced such a limit.
However, it is not just alcohol that impairs people's fitness to drive, medicines and drugs can also affect it.
This should be reflected in legislation and we must adopt measures to tackle this problem.
Strict and consistent controls on road-users are essential.
Monitoring of speed restrictions is a priority here.
With regard to the disqualification of drivers and Europe-wide recognition of this disqualification, we need to remember that there has been no pan-European harmonization of legal systems, which is an essential requirement for this.
Unless administrative and legal provisions are harmonized across Europe, there can be no question of reciprocal recognition of disqualification, as the conditions for disqualification vary so widely from one Member State to another.
Mr President, there is no doubt that it is sensible for us to make an effort to handle this matter at the European level.
I want to express my thanks to Mr Cornelissen, to the Commissioner and to all who have contributed to making this a European issue.
The number of people being killed on the roads has been mentioned several times today.
A ferry disaster always creates a sensation.
May I point out that 45 000 people die on the roads each year, the equivalent of the Estonia disaster 45 times over.
What we must look at jointly is the construction of cars, crossborder traffic and the increasing amount of traffic on our roads, so there is plenty to be getting on with.
I agree with my colleagues, but I would just like to point out that there are different traffic cultures, so we would be doing ourselves a service to allow development from below and not so much from above, if we want to create joint regulations.
My recommendations are no different from those of my colleagues.
I would simply like to point out that when alcohol and medication are mentioned, then fatigue - that is, driving and rest periods - should also be mentioned.
So in order to achieve the objective, the action plan must come from the Member States and not just from the Commission, even though I support the Commission - and Parliament - in taking the lead.
Traffic safety is something that affects us all.
Let me say something about speed.
It is important for us to agree on frameworks for speed limits and not have speed limits that are too different.
Some accidents are caused simply by driving from a country with high speed limits into a different country with lower speed limits.
I would also like to mention an issue that the Red Cross is not alone in having raised.
Professional assistance is not the only thing needed on the roads when an accident happens.
We should also do something about providing first aid on the spot.
Whether it should be part of qualifying for a driving licence I am not sure, but in any case it is something worth considering.
In closing, I would like to underline the importance of having secure frameworks for traffic, the safety of citizens, and so on.
Finally, I would like to say that we are all very concerned about not being killed by a serving of British beef.
If we could be equally aware of what is going on in the area of traffic, we would come a long way in a Europe whose future is based on cohesion and mobility.
Mr President, I should first like to apologize to the House and in particular to Mr Cornelissen for the fact that I was slightly late getting here today.
As Mr Cornelissen will know, this was entirely due to the fact that I was held up by a horrific multiple car crash on the French motorway system.
This, tragically and graphically, underlined the great significance of the subject we have under consideration today, namely Mr Cornelissen's report on the Commission communication on road safety in the Union in the coming years.
I congratulate Mr Cornelissen on the thoroughness of the report which he and his colleagues in the Committee on Transport and Tourism have produced.
I am pleased but not surprised that there is strong concurrence between the opinions of Parliament and the Commission on the matters under consideration, not only the desirability of enhanced standards of performance in terms of road safety but also the general strategy to be adopted at Union level in order to achieve that improvement.
I am glad to note in particular that there is agreement on some of the new elements we have introduced in the most recent communication, such as the development of an integrated European Union information system on road safety which will assist with the identification of particular problems and be available to Member States to encourage further efforts by them for road safety strategies.
There is agreement on the need to improve enforcement of road safety laws, no matter what other changes we make.
The need for stringent enforcement will be universal and will continue.
The need for strengthening road safety education has been commented on in the report and in this debate.
We would endorse that fully.
The need to achieve better and wider use of safety belts, not only in the front of vehicles but in the rear seats of cars where appalling casualties still take place, even in the countries with the highest level of conformity with the seat belt laws.
The need to moderate speed has been emphasized by several speakers in this debate.
There is no question but that speed is a killer in all road conditions and weather circumstances and that is worth emphasizing.
The need to combat drink-driving is evident and I welcome the support given by Parliament yet again to the Commission proposal, which is now nine years old, for the universal introduction of a lower tolerated level of blood alcohol content.
There is increasing awareness of the need to develop technical and legal means to combat more effectively driving while under the influence of drugs.
So far as the harmonization of penalties is concerned, as an individual I would most certainly endorse those sentiments expressed by Members that would favour the harmonization and universal enforcement of penalties across the European Union.
However, as Parliament will understand, this is a question that arises under the so-called third pillar and largely remains an intergovernmental issue.
Unfortunately the Commission is not yet in a position to take an initiative on this matter.
I am sure the day will arrive, through sheer practicality and out of common interest, when a change will be made.
There is broad agreement too on the efforts being made to develop safety rating systems in order to provide consumers with accurate information on the safety standards of their vehicles in any particular category of cars, and broad agreement on the need to take full account of the very high economic and financial cost of road accidents and to use a cost/benefit approach on road safety measures.
On this issue there will be a specific communication from the Commission in the very near future.
It is inevitable that a report which is as thorough and comprehensive as Mr Cornelissen's will diverge in some respects from the approach taken by the Commission.
I should like briefly to respond to those points of often quite mild divergence.
Firstly there is the question of whether it is appropriate to establish at European Union level a numerical target for the reduction of the annual number of road deaths from the current awful level of 45 000 a year to a maximum of 25 000 by the year 2010.
I do not agree with such a target for three reasons.
Firstly, Member States vary to a considerable degree in their practices and their views on the establishment of targets.
Some already set targets which they would be reluctant to review.
Others do not favour targets at all.
It is therefore not really credible for the Commission or Parliament to set targets when we have no legal means of compelling Member States to attain those targets.
Despite these considerations, we could set indicative targets with all the best intentions in the world of achieving them.
Then, when circumstances beyond our control prevent the targets from being met, all that would be recalled is our over-optimism.
The criticism that would come from that does not concern me at all.
The distraction from the serious efforts that had been made to reduce deaths and injuries would be a real matter of concern.
Given the predilection in some parts of the European press, including the British press, to trivialize even the issue of road deaths and appalling injuries, I prefer to avoid the problems that would attend target setting and concentrate instead on the main basic issues.
Taking all of these considerations into account, I do not think it would be realistic to set a precise target at European Union level.
I would, however, remind the House of the Commission's conviction that if the measures proposed in our communication were followed and implemented, the Community could reasonably look forward to the number of deaths being reduced by 7 000 by the year 2000 and by around 27 000 by the year 2010.
Those figures and the reasoning behind them will I hope spur greater efforts in Member States and among drivers to make changes in provision and behaviour, changes that can save many lives.
That approach does not carry with it the problems that might arise from target setting.
A second point of divergence from Mr Cornelissen relates to the budget allocated to road safety by this Parliament and operated by the Community.
Like Mr Cornelissen, I deplore the 50 % cut in the budget line B-2702 and I agree that serious consideration should be given to the utilization of money from the B-2704 line in 1998.
However, line 2704 covers other important priorities for our transport policy which are shared by this House and following the suggestion made in the report would mean robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I am sure that on reflection no one in this House or in the Committee on Transport and Tourism would want that.
The budget reduction will inevitably cause delays for some of the measures we had hoped to support this year.
That is highly regrettable but realistic since our future actions will have to be based on the money available to us.
I hope those responsible for calculating and setting the budget will in future heed the fact that there are few issues more important to the general citizenry of the European Union than trying to advance safety on our roads.
The budget should reflect that priority.
Thirdly, and finally, I agree with Mr Cornelissen's view about the need to establish a clear list of priorities and to rank measures according to their casualty reduction value.
However, in addition to that criterion, other important factors should be taken into account, such as the cost/benefit ratio of the measures, their added value arising from the European dimension or the state of progress already made at Community or Member State level.
As far as the remainder of the report is concerned, I can confirm that we stand foursquare with the views expressed.
We will continue to work as effectively as we can to make every possible reduction in those terrible figures of 45 000 fatalities and 1.6 million injuries each year, and, of course, the human misery and economic cost which those casualty figures generate.
In these efforts, we are clearly strengthened by the active support and interest of this House and by Members like Mr Cornelissen and his colleagues who have shown and continue to show consistent dedication to improving road safety as they have for many years.
Mr President, whereas this is an own-initiative report, could the Commissioner please comment on the fact that where we have a directive on the European driving licence, I made a proposal that we include some education on first aid in difficult circumstances like he was in this morning; that is, to give first aid and include it in the driving licence education.
I can certainly see the virtues of such a system.
However, I offer a caution to Mr Wijsenbeek that while there are people who are very proficient in giving first aid and can contribute towards saving life and saving pain and further injury, that is not universal.
We have to be very careful, therefore, about putting any form of education or instruction in driving licences or other documents that might encourage people who, with the best intentions, would try to give first aid without the necessary expertise.
Appalling additional injuries can be caused by people who have goodwill but are inexpert.
So we would want to examine that very closely.
Mr President, we differ in opinion about whether a concrete political target should be set.
We will have to discuss it further.
I would merely like to point out that those countries which have had the courage to set numerical targets achieve better results than others, and I believe this to be an extremely important argument.
Secondly, Mr President, the budget.
The Commissioner knows that it is not unusual for the Commission to come up with an additional budget during the course of the year, and my concrete question on behalf of our committee is, if this happens this year, if it proves to be necessary - and we have indications that it will be necessary - will the Commissioner take the opportunity to obtain enough money for the necessary research?
Mr President, it is not enough merely to say how important road safety is.
It will have to be reflected in the budget.
Noblesse oblige .
Thirdly, Mr President, did I understand correctly that the Commissioner is coming up with further details on his package of measures.
We think it is very important to know which measures will be proposed by the Commission, so that we can keep a finger on the pulse.
I would be grateful for a specific answer from the Commissioner to these three points either now or later.
Mr President, there is a check list in our communication and we are happy to receive questions, demands, correspondence and contacts of various kinds in order to try to ensure, virtually on a week-byweek basis that we can provide reports on the progress being made in the implementation of the 65 or so different measures that are at the back of the communication.
Not only do we readily respond to those questions, we actually welcome them simply because they are a way of keeping up the pressure and drawing public and political attention to the need to make progress on that.
So far as the budget is concerned it is not so much a matter of noblesse oblige as of vitesse oblige .
We are capable any time of the year of finding really good use, highly productive use, without a penny being wasted for any supplementary budget resources.
I would simply urge those who are already arguing for additional resources for the safety budget line to keep up their work, knowing that if additional resources become available to the Commission - which has very limited influence and power over these matters - then anything directed to our safety programme will effectively be used.
The first part of the question related to targets and I certainly applaud those Member States that employ a target-setting system.
The difference between them and us working at Community level is, of course, that they have direct sovereignty and charge of enforcement systems and an assortment of other means of trying to ensure that their targets are actually fulfilled.
Those means are denied to us for all the obvious reasons and that is why there is a difference between trying to set a target at Community level covering some 350 million citizens affecting 45 000 road deaths and setting targets at the national or indeed the local level which are more capable of being attained simply because of the reinforcement action that can be taken.
The difference of dimension makes a difference in strategy and I hope that honourable Members will acknowledge that reality.
Mr President, I am most disappointed that the Commissioner simply ignored the very simple question that I put.
Does the Commissioner not share my concern that whereas people who persistently drive with two or three times over the legal limit and who cause death and injury are allowed to continue to drive after quite a short prison sentence, innocent diabetic, insulin-dependent drivers are being prevented from driving now in the UK? Would it not be better for the Commission to concentrate on enforcing existing rules before applying new ones?
Mr President, I just wish to point out one or two things.
First of all, I did not ignore the point made by Miss McIntosh.
If the normal rules of order are applied, she was quite out of order in introducing the subject into a debate on a report on road safety.
Secondly, however, far from ignoring her, I already took over ten minutes when I had been allocated five, and I could not get every response in.
Thirdly, far from ignoring her, I know I have written her a very long letter explaining exactly the meaning and the letter of the law and what it implies in the United Kingdom.
Fourthly, she inadvertently misled the House in her original contribution this morning, because it is not true to say that the rules concerning insulin-dependent diabetic drivers are only being applied in the United Kingdom.
They are being stringently applied elsewhere.
We can each of us have our own opinion about the significance, the relevance, the effectiveness and the proportionality of that particular law.
As I pointed out in my letter to her and to many other honourable Members and others who have communicated with me on the subject of diabetic drivers, the basic power to interpret and apply the law rests with Member States, not with the Commission.
The Member States are acting on the basis of the most informed medical expert advice.
Their judgement is that the law should be applied in the way in which it is being applied.
It is not for the Commission to make an interpretation.
We do not have the power to undertake the enforcement of this law.
I would be obliged if honourable Members, before accusing me of ignoring their questions, were to take into account what I have provided them with at length on previous occasions, as well as the time I have available for answering questions.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Registration of ships' passengers
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0068/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships operating to or from ports of the Member States of the Community (Rapporteur: Mr Watts) (C4-0620/97-96/0281(SYN)).
Mr President, before we investigate the detailed proposals before us we should perhaps just recap why we are discussing passenger registration and outline the key objectives of the proposal.
Members will need no reminding of the full horror of the Estonia tragedy back in 1994 and will recall that the December Council meeting took a number of very important steps forward on maritime and in particular passenger- ferry safety, including a unanimous decision to call upon the Commission to bring forward a proposal on passenger registration.
I for one - and I think many of us in this Chamber - am delighted that this is exactly what Commissioner Kinnock did, in a very speedy and efficient way.
Therefore we are very much responding to the Council, which is quite rightly reacting to the full horror of the Estonia tragedy.
What we, the Council and the Commission are seeking to do is to ensure that every passenger who departs from a port located in a Member State on a voyage of more than twenty miles provides the authorities with their family names, forenames or initials, sex and indication of age category and, where volunteered, information about any disability.
There is overwhelming support for such a measure throughout the European Union.
Indeed in some Member States these provisions are already complied with.
It is also important to remind us why this information is so necessary.
Firstly, to ensure that ships are not overloaded - and sadly that is the case in some Member States.
Secondly, so that, in the awful event of an incident, the emergency services have to hand as much information as possible and can make effective use of their resources.
You have only to speak to the emergency services themselves to get confirmation that this would help them.
I quote for example the Coastguard Agency of the United Kingdom, which supports this measure.
Thirdly, in the aftermath of an incident, it is obviously only right and proper that we should be able to inform the relatives of the latest circumstances that prevail.
The case is therefore overwhelming.
We will support it at second reading as enthusiastically as we did at the first.
There are however a number of important points where we depart from the logic set out in the common position.
Firstly, we have made some progress in our concern that the information should be compiled up to 30 minutes after departure, in that the counting must have been concluded prior to departure.
We welcome that step in the right direction.
But we feel that Article 8 is still ambiguous as regards full information being provided to shore before the ship departs.
We would therefore commend to the Commissioner our Amendment No 6, which ensures that the ship cannot depart until that information is transmitted to shore.
We also have concerns regarding competition and safety in competing modes of transport.
Although it has generally been accepted throughout the EU that this measure is a satisfactory one, the key issue I bring to the Commissioner's attention is one that I am sure he will be familiar with, that is, competition on the English Channel.
This proposal is based on a SOLAS requirement for 30 miles.
It has deliberately been reduced to 20 to include the Channel.
I accept that.
But the implications have to be considered, and they are that the ferry companies themselves will be put at a distinct and real competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis the Tunnel, something this Parliament would be concerned about in terms of the proper functioning of the single market.
We also draw to the Commissioner's attention the fact that there is, we believe, ample evidence that application of such a measure to the Tunnel would be justified on safety grounds.
I would in particular like to draw his attention to the Fire Brigades Union report into the Channel Tunnel fire on 18 November 1996, in which they say that their crews' lives were endangered because they simply had to send them back in again and again to make sure that all the passengers and crew had been rescued.
On safety grounds, as well as competition grounds, Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 7 should command the support not only of this House, but, I hope, of the Commissioner as well.
Finally, we restate our continuing concerns regarding ferry safety.
I am not in any way denigrating the work of our Commissioner here - he has done us proud, and has probably done more than most people in Europe to advance the cause of ferry safety.
However, we do not believe we can be complacent.
Hence our Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3, because we must sustain the progress we have made.
In particular I would again draw the Commissioner's attention to the rather worrying report in the recent Which publication (Spring 1998), which catalogues a whole series of failures in ferry safety throughout the Community, but particularly in the Mediterranean.
I am sure this is an issue we will return to.
I would commend the proposal and the amendments to the House.
I look forward to a positive dialogue with the Commissioner on extending the scope of the directive to include the Channel Tunnel and the shuttle operation.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate my colleague on his very serious attempt to achieve the necessary convergence of opinion between Parliament and the Council on the institution of directives which aim in good faith to ensure ferry safety.
However, I would like to take this opportunity to put forward my own personal view of the way in which the Council is attempting to strengthen the conditions that are essential to ensure ferry safety.
After the tragic accidents at sea over the last few years, and especially following the shipwreck of the Estonia , the Council, and to a large extent the Commission, were reduced to a state of near panic and, with a succession of proposals, directives, or recommendations, set about restoring some feeling of safety in the minds of the citizens of the EU, who were justifiably anxious about the level of ferry safety.
But whatever and however many measures are taken under the pressure of such events, I am afraid that they are spasmodic, occasional, piecemeal and consequently ineffectual.
I would like to believe that neither the Council nor the Commission, nor indeed Parliament, wishes to take measures simply to satisfy public opinion while essentially having very little to offer to improve the level of ferry safety.
The proposed directive on passenger registration will, I feel, remain a measure purely on record. Beyond the total number of passengers, which is easy enough to ascertain and to announce before the ship sets sail, the detailed registration of the remaining particulars will simply establish an extremely bureaucratic procedure which, a few months after the measure comes into force, will either fall into disuse and be forgotten, or will be by-passed and become a sham.
Those obliged to enforce the directive, under pressure of time caused by disembarkation and embarkation of passengers, will end up giving inaccurate details. Measures should be taken, but they should be taken calmly and coolly and should tackle the problem as a whole.
We must, however, enforce the observance of already existing safety regulations and guidelines which, thank goodness, are extremely numerous but which are being systematically violated in more than 60 % of cases. That can be achieved through the setting up of a system of strict controls by registers and port authorities.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Watts, for the ambitious work he has done throughout the discussion of this report, a piece of work which means that we will now have passenger lists for ferry traffic throughout the EU.
I also think it is appropriate to say thank you to Commissioner Kinnock for the commitment he always shows when it comes to proposing measures to increase safety.
Around Europe there have been several very big ferry disasters in recent decades.
After these disasters an attitude has emerged that people should do everything in their power to prevent this from ever happening again.
Parliament has made demands for extensive measures, and in various contexts the Commission has put forward proposals to improve safety.
With one voice, the EU is more clearly promoting the work on improving safety within the United Nations maritime body, the International Maritime Organization.
The decision we are going to take today is another step in this direction.
Just as it has always been a matter of course in the area of flying, it is now becoming so for ferry traffic.
Every single person who travels on an aircraft on a regular service receives a boarding pass and is put on a list of passengers on that plane, regardless of how long the flight is.
There have been international rules about this for a long time. Anything else would presumably be totally unacceptable.
Now we are getting the same rules for ferry traffic.
There should be a list which clearly shows who is on board and how many passengers there are.
There has been a debate between Parliament, the Council and the Commission about exactly where these lists should be submitted.
The Council's common position says that the information should be collected before departure, but not necessarily communicated to the registrar until 30 minutes after the ferry has sailed.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism says that this information should be submitted before the ferry leaves port.
I believe that is a necessity.
Nor should there be any great problem getting it to work that way.
With the help of computer technology an immediate registration will go to the registrar.
That does not, as far as I am concerned, remove the need for this amendment.
I would be grateful for a comment from the Commissioner on this point.
With the proposal which has been put forward there is in fact only one limitation: the length of the journey.
It is limited to 20 nautical miles between two ports, below which passenger lists are not considered necessary.
In this regard too, the Committee on Transport and Tourism is making a minor addition.
I would like to stress that even though this is a minor change, it is still necessary.
I think it is very positive that a consistent framework for the EU's policy with regard to safety at sea is now emerging.
The European Parliament has been demanding this for a long time.
It would be gratifying if we could continue this work to achieve a level of safety which is acceptable to passengers.
Madam President, the directive on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships will impose serious constraints on the Calais-Dover sea crossing, given that it does not apply to rail transport through the Channel tunnel.
The fact that these two different modes of transport are being treated differently is unfair from the point of view of security, equal competition conditions, economic and social cohesion and regional equilibrium.
That is why I support the amendments proposed by the Committee on Transport and Tourism and our British colleague, Mark Watts, in which he proposes to reestablish equal treatment for ferries and trains despite the initial refusal of the Commission to do so.
The Commission feels that to increase security, new embarkation procedures for passengers are required.
It considers there to be greater risks in navigating the Channel than in using the Channel tunnel.
However, this argument is contradicted by two factors.
The account of the intervention of fire-fighting teams during the fire in the Channel tunnel on 18 November 1996 indicates that rescue operations were hindered by the lack of precise information on the number of passengers travelling on the train.
So the tunnel has its risks too.
Moreover, studies on the average height of waves in the Channel which have been carried out by the French and British meteorological institutes have produced results which do not justify special treatment, even according to the Commission's own criteria.
So the hypothesis which states that the waters of the Channel are difficult cannot be accepted as a means to justify more stringent controls.
There are three possible solutions which would guarantee the safety of these two modes of transport and reestablish balanced conditions for competition in those areas where the opening of the Tunnel seriously weakened the position of the ferries.
Firstly, the Commission and the Council should accept the amendments which, I hope, Parliament will adopt and which impose the same obligation on both modes of transport.
Secondly, if stipulated by legal requirements, the Commission should propose a new directive specifically devoted to hazardous rail transport.
Pending this new text, the application of the text on cross-Channel sea links currently under discussion ought to be postponed until the second directive is adopted.
The third and most pragmatic solution would be to exempt cross-Channel sea links from the arrangements set out in this document.
Bearing in mind the fact that 57 % of passengers on the Calais-Dover ferry complete their return journey within one day, it is easy to understand how the introduction of new arrangements, such as those we have seen today, would mean that this mode of transport would be penalized, thus upsetting the equilibrium of entire regions.
Mr President, the background to this report is clearly the two devastating accidents involving first the Herald of Free Enterprise and more recently the Estonia and the international obligations which Member States undertook in the SOLAS regulation agreed in 1995.
Ferry companies in the UK already register the number of passengers.
The main problem with the proposal in its present form is that it will pose practical problems for ferry operations, particularly crossChannel operations, to process the details of names, addresses and special needs in the event of accident, in what is already a very competitive market.
The Commission has made a very strong case that the background to this proposal is to increase safety.
Mr Watts has highlighted the fact that if this is to increase safety, this precaution must also be extended to passengers travelling by Eurotunnel.
In the event of fire it is just as important to record the details of passengers travelling by Eurotunnel to ensure their safe evacuation in the event of a fire.
I remind the House that there has already been one serious fire that could have led, sadly, to an even bigger disaster.
Even more necessary is the requirement of names, addresses and passenger details in the event of death so that the next of kin can be informed in the event of such a Eurotunnel disaster.
My message to the Commission is very simple: the minimum must be a level, competitive playing field ensuring maximum safety for passengers, regardless of whether they are travelling by ferry or by Eurotunnel.
A situation in which passengers travelling by Eurotunnel were placed at a disadvantage would be totally unacceptable.
Mr President, there is always one person who is on the other side of the argument and today it seems as if it is going to be me.
I personally always have difficulty when it comes to restricting the rights of the individual.
The measure that is being proposed today - the recording of names, sex, age, children, and so on - is in fact a stab in the back for the free movement of people within the European Community.
I recognize the need for safety.
Safety is of course a high requirement.
Everybody wants it.
But I believe that any legislation that is brought forward for safety should be simple, practical and easily implemented.
This measure is going to add - as far as the UK is concerned - a cost of 2.5 million a year.
For checking-in, whether it be at the Tunnel or at a ferry, it is going to add, perhaps, at least another hour to that journey and it is going to make any surface or undersea travel less competitive as against air travel.
So what are we trying to do in what we are proposing?
I am concerned about the sheer bureaucracy; I am concerned to see that because we need greater safety at sea we are actually including other forms of transport as well.
That is not good legislation.
I believe it is bad legislation.
The Road Transport Association has said in a statement that registration of passengers on ferries on the Dover-Calais route in particular will cause considerable inconvenience.
It could harm our trade when people are trying to meet deadlines.
This, lumped on top of the loss of duty-free, will put the ferries out of business and will have a seriously damaging effect on freight to and from Britain.
This is not necessary.
A head count is all that is required so that people know the numbers that are on the ferry and not necessarily who is on the ferry.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that I am very grateful to Mr Watts for his characteristically thorough work and for his recommendation to approve the common position on this measure.
I am also naturally pleased that the House continues to support the harmonization of passenger registration throughout the Community, both for the sake of safety and in order to deal effectively with the aftermath of any accident.
I also wish to say that, whilst I agree entirely with Mr Klironomos on his view that proper enforcement of all rules is essential, I fundamentally disagree with his description of the way in which this issue has been approached.
The Council and the Commission were accused, in his word, of 'panic' .
It is ten years last week since the appalling disaster of the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise at Zeebrugge, and it is three-and-a-half years since the Estonia went down with a loss of over 950 lives.
Nothing we have done could be described as being panic-stricken or panic-driven.
What we have is a comprehensive set of rules which we are adding to, in order to ensure that the security of passengers and crew travelling on ferries is as high as the sea will ever allow it to be, and we will persist with that.
Since most of the amendments reiterate suggestions made in the first reading debate, I feel obliged to clarify the reasons for the Commission's support for the Council's common position and also to reassure the House that the specific concerns addressed in the original report were properly taken into account.
Amendments Nos 1 to 3 in Mr Watts's report refer to limited progress in advancing the safety of maritime transport.
I totally understand the feelings which underlie that view: they are the feelings of a zealous and committed Member of the European Parliament, and we are all impatient for further improvement.
But, in fairness, we should not lose sight of the achievements at International Maritime Organization level and at Community level, which are now in their implementation phase, and which will, I hope - indeed, I am sure - produce progress.
Meanwhile, I agree that it is essential that internationally agreed principles should apply to all roll-on/roll-off ferries sailing to European ports.
I agree that should include the necessary stability rules, where appropriate, and I agree that all of this should be properly checked.
To achieve this and to reassure the public that roll-on/roll-off ferry services in Europe are provided with the best possible safety standards and to sustain public confidence in ferry services, I am glad to report that last month the Commission adopted a new proposal relating to the operation of regular roll-on/roll-off ferry and high-speed passenger craft services in the Community.
I sincerely hope that this proposal will encourage the House and, more important, further reinforce maritime safety.
I have to say to Mr Provan that I totally understand his resistance to any unnecessary bureaucracy or unrealistic limitations on the freedom of movement.
In this case, none of those problems arise and neither of his concerns will be justified when the system is in operation.
Naturally, the concerns he expressed, which have been expressed by others, will continue to be borne in mind.
Articles 8 and 9 of the common position will ensure that information on passengers will always be available when needed, while allowing for the proper handling of journeys of less than two hours and, at the same time, providing the necessary flexibility for those who have to set up registration systems.
Consequently, I cannot support Amendments Nos 6 and 8.
Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 7 address the issue of the shuttle and safety in the Channel Tunnel.
As I promised in May of last year, I asked my services to examine the merits of a Community measure to apply passenger registration principles to vehicles using undersea railway tunnels. Our conclusions are as follows.
First, to introduce provisions that currently govern the operation of train services in the proposed legislation on ferries would risk delaying its implementation because it would involve trying to achieve a mixture of two distinctly different sets of provisions.
Secondly, there are no convincing arguments for introducing rules for rail tunnels which differ according to whether they go under the sea or under the land.
Thirdly, there are serious doubts as to whether a passenger-registration scheme of the type proposed for ferry operations would add sufficient value to the detailed safety regime developed specifically for the Channel Tunnel by French and British authorities and currently in operation.
On these grounds, I cannot accept the amendments relating to the Channel Tunnel.
I would say to Mr Watts and to Mrs Berès that safety in the Channel Tunnel is an issue which is specific to that location and, quite properly, a matter for France and for Britain to consider on a bilateral basis.
I really believe that the issue is best pursued with the two Member State governments that are directly and uniquely involved, and Community action on this would not be appropriate.
Some Members, Miss McIntosh among them, have raised the question of a possible distortion of competition between transport modes arising out of the implementation of this directive.
Naturally, the Commission seeks to achieve equitable conditions of competition between transport modes by a variety of means, but for very practical reasons, that cannot mean legislating for one sector simply because another mode has become subject to a law which imposes new obligations.
As the House will recall, the need for passenger registration on ships arises from the tragic experience of ferry disasters, such as the sinking of the Estonia and the Herald of Free Enterprise and from obligations under the IMO Safety of Life at Sea Convention.
Neither these experiences, nor such international rules, apply to Channel Tunnel operations.
One final element I wish to add relates to the capacity of ferry operators to cope with this legislation.
The European dataprocessing industry has the technical means to implement these requirements and the proposed date for implementation deliberately gives adequate time for preparation.
The Commission is convinced, therefore, that Channel operators, who are committed to high levels of safety and service, will be able to apply workable solutions based on these technologies while, at the same time, safeguarding their competitive position.
While the Commission is not able to support the amendments proposed in Mr Watts's recommendations today, I know that he and the Committee on Transport and Tourism continue to give their full support to the specific measure relating to passenger lists for ferries.
I welcome that, of course.
I am also confident that the true commitment of Mr Watts and other honourable Members to advances in safety legislation will ensure that support will continue when we debate the new proposal on ferry and fast-passenger-craft licensing, which I mentioned a few moments ago.
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his statement.
The differences between us should not obscure the general agreement that exists on the principle of this measure applying throughout European Union waters.
I want to emphasize that.
I welcome his measure on licensing, which I am sure we all look forward to debating.
However, I have to warn him that, unfortunately, I am sure we will be returning to the issue of Le Shuttle.
I am afraid we must agree to disagree on his analysis of that problem.
I am sure he respects us for that and that we will be hearing more from each other on that and other issues.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11: 30 a.m.
Multilateral agreement on investments (MAI)
The next item is the report (A4-0073/98) by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, containing Parliament's recommendations to the Commission on negotiations in the framework of the OECD on a multilateral agreement on investments (MAI).
Mr President, first I want to congratulate the Committee on External Economic Relations for having taken the initiative in concerning itself with this report. I also congratulate the Committee on its choice of rapporteur.
I totally agree with what he said. I should also like, Mr President, to underline one of the ideas emphasized by the rapporteur: that this agreement is being negotiated in a secretive manner.
I do not want to go into what has been said by the representatives of national parliaments. The Commission just needs to know that this Parliament is not happy with the level of information about and participation in these negotiations, towards an agreement which has been termed the economic constitution of the world, and the most important document we will be discussing in the near future.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has drafted an opinion and come up with several observations, some of which are my own, while others were added in committee. I will defend them all with the same enthusiasm.
Firstly, we stress the need for this binding agreement to apply to "lower' governments with competence in investment matters: in other words, subfederal or subcentral governments. Basically, I am thinking of the United States and Canada.
Secondly, non-OECD countries which may wish to accede to this agreement in the future must be kept informed of how the negotiations are progressing, and that their right to formulate reservations is being respected.
Our third point is obvious: for the sake of coherence, the multilateral agreement on investments should respect the Treaty on European Union and the decisions of the Uruguay Round and other international treaties.
Fourthly, and this may be the most important clause of all, this Parliament requests the inclusion of the so-called regional economic integration organization clause, to provide that countries who are members of such organizations - and I am specifically thinking of the countries of the European Union - will not be obliged to extend to non-member countries the favourable treatment reserved for members.
If a clause of this type were not included, the whole process of commercial integration which we Europeans have implemented would be cast to the winds.
Fifthly, we ask that the multilateral agreement should include a clause to forbid any of the signatories from applying measures which have extra-territorial effects. It is no secret that I am thinking of the Helms-Burton Act.
Finally - and I am just finishing - we ask that labour and environmental standards should under no circumstances be lowered within the framework of this agreement.
Mr President, I also congratulate the REX Committee and the rapporteur on bringing this to the attention of the European Parliament.
The investment under the terms of the MAI is extremely extensive and far-reaching, indeed so far-reaching that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights could consider it as deconstructing the acquis communautaire .
We must be very wary of this.
It could force Member States to treat foreign investors as favourably as EU companies, and this could mean that environmental protection, employment protection and other Community laws could be considered illegal and therefore deconstructed.
The role of the European Parliament is very important in this.
It has an obligation to influence the contents of a treaty as important as the MAI, which runs the risk of being negotiated and concluded without any democratic participation.
Secondly, it has to safeguard its powers and those of the Union in general, which might be curtailed by the conclusion of such an international convention.
In its conclusions the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights calls on the European Parliament to state that it cannot agree to endorse any agreement which would have the effect of rolling back EU legislation and insists, therefore, on the use of exception clauses and on the insertion of a regional economic integration organization clause.
It cannot agree to endorse any agreement which would have the effect of preventing further harmonization of EU legislation, and insists therefore on the insertion of a separate regional economic integration organization clause permitting new harmonized measures, such as environmental legislation adopted within the framework of such an organization and replacing measures previously applied by these states.
It demands that the proposals should be compatible with international conventions already ratified by the EU, and draws attention to the serious problems of consistency and legal security that may be engendered by including intellectual property within the scope of the multilateral agreement on investments, given the complexity of the subject which falls within the remit of the WIPO and, more recently, the World Trade Organization.
Finally, it would call on the Commission, the Council and the Member States to submit, pursuant to the procedure provided for in Article 228, the whole of the definitive draft of the MAI to the Court of Justice for full examination before it is ratified.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for his excellent report on this extremely complex subject.
It is not just security of employment and the environment that are at stake, it is our European identity.
While there may still be justified reservations about this draft agreement and assent cannot therefore be signalled for the time being, this does not mean that the need to establish transparency and legal certainty for international investment in all areas is being denied.
However, a number of other issues remain to be resolved: vital social, ecological and cultural issues.
As a member of the Committee on Culture, I would like to speak about the possible threat the agreement poses to EU culture and media policy.
A derogation for the audiovisual industry and for the protection of intellectual property is essential.
Cultural creativity is not a purely economic investment.
For example, if the national treatment principle was applied in the cultural world, US media companies would qualify for EU funds created specifically to support the European cultural industry.
The Television without Frontiers Directive and the Media II programme would then just be fit for the shredder.
If the EU does not protect its cultural policy by seeking derogations from the MAI, it will be defeating its own policy of safeguarding quality and the promoting diversity in European audiovisual production, which in turn maintain Europe's identity.
I therefore urge the plenary to follow the recommendations of the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on Culture when we vote, and exclude audiovisual policy and intellectual property from this agreement.
Mr President, one of the most alarming aspects of the MAI is the lack of public debate and this runs counter to the principles of democracy, transparency and public participation.
The MAI could have very profound consequences for the fisheries sector both from the social and environmental perspectives.
Although the Common Fisheries Policy has not been terribly successful, at least it has the merit that the EU bears responsibility for the policies and for the current mess.
The Fisheries Committee was concerned that the MAI could force the EU to alter its approach to fisheries management so as to conform to the wishes of some other countries or indeed even companies.
For instance, if, as a conservation measure, the Community decided to reduce fishing in order to allow the recovery of fish stocks, would other countries or indeed big business be able to claim that this was unfair and so overrule the Community? Would the EU lose control of its own resources?
The Committee was adamant that the EU must maintain its ability to establish and implement policies for the conservation of fish stocks and the management of Community fisheries. The Commission assured the Committee that these concerns were groundless, that the appropriate reservations would be lodged to ensure that the EU maintained its independence.
But how foolproof will these reservations be? The world is rapidly changing; one wonders if it is possible to foresee all the implications of the MAI and to lodge reservations which will ensure that the management of EU fisheries will remain a European matter.
Let us not forget that the effects of this agreement will last a minimum of twenty years and that there will doubtless be much pressure to phase out reservations.
Although the opinion of the Fisheries Committee considers only fisheries it is easy to imagine that the situation would be similar in other resources: for example, in the extraction industry, forestry, agriculture, mining, and so on.
Similarly, the concerns of the EU are probably similar to the concerns shared around the world.
Finally, the opinion by the Fisheries Committee was adopted unanimously, it is very complex and it is important that the conclusions of this opinion be included entirely and not simply summarised in a short, almost meaningless amendment.
Mr President, firstly I would very much like to thank the rapporteur, both personally and on behalf of my group.
He has done excellent work, and the report was also his initiative. Had it not been for him, if we - by which I also mean the Committee - had not acted promptly, this report would probably not only have bypassed the European Parliament, it would also not have given the appropriate signals to national parliaments.
It will now!
My group has tabled an amendment, and I hope that all the groups have given it their attention.
We are calling on national governments and thus parliaments to withhold their consent to the completion of the negotiations and the conclusion of this agreement in May.
Sir Leon Brittan is with us today, and I hope that he will convey this signal to the Commission.
We think it is important to give a signal now so that governments, national parliaments and the public are alerted to this, and so that it is made crystal clear to them what the agreement is all about, and that it is vital to carry on negotiating to achieve a satisfactory package.
It is quite possible that it would then no longer be meaningful to continue these negotiations in an OECD framework, and that it would then be advisable to pursue the negotiations through the WTO instead.
I know, Sir Leon, that you will probably not be very happy about this, because you think is perfectly appropriate to have a package for OECD member states which provides certainty for investment, and above all for investors.
We do not have any quarrel with this, but would it not be wiser to pursue it via the WTO?
We share a healthy scepticism about a number of points with most of the parties to the negotiations.
One point I would briefly like to mention is the definition of investment.
The investments protected include direct investment, portfolio investment, and everything which can be categorized as intangible investment, including intellectual property.
The third category in particular goes way beyond the results of WTO negotiations and I have grave doubts about that.
The second point is that in the context of continuing liberalization, an arbitration procedure would be introduced giving investors the right to take legal action against Member States. However, the reverse would not apply, so Member States would not have the right to take action against investors.
This is another crucial point.
I have a whole string of other points of criticism that I will unfortunately not get to now.
I would be very pleased if you could take these on board in your negotiations, and I know that the Commission is already aware of this. Once more, I urge you not to conclude the negotiations this May.
Mr President, I want to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, on his excellent report.
There is no doubt that the conclusion and signing of the multilateral agreement on investments will provide the signatories with the first multilateral framework to broadly regulate the conditions and treatment of international investments. This broad concept covers direct investments, loans, intellectual property, licences, authorizations and the whole wide area of rights and obligations in the world of commerce.
Considering how important foreign investments are to today's economy, and given the globalization which increasingly affects us, we can think of the framework agreement on investments as representing in the investment area what GATT meant in its day for trade. In other words, it creates a stable, global frame of reference, to replace more than 1 800 existing bilateral agreements.
In fact, to coin a phrase, the multilateral agreement on investments will change the world.
It will become one of the great achievements of the OECD and, in the future, of the WTO.
This agreement offers guarantees to companies and states, and its rules are expected to be applied globally.
We must bear in mind that in recent years world investments have risen to over $10 billion - all direct international investments - and we are in a period of growth, with an annual increase of about $500 000-$600 000 million. Furthermore, that growth is very uneven, since there is hardly any investment in so-called "black' Africa.
I would like to make a plea that investments should not just be made in those places where we expect immediate returns. We must think about the solidarity aspect of investing throughout the world.
Anyway, having experienced what an intense process it was to draft this report (because of the many amendments presented - more than 80 amendments in the Committee on External Economic Relations), and despite the fact that it in no way reflects the view of the Group of the European People's Party, we request a vote in favour of this report because we think it represents an unavoidable compromise.
We hope that a vote of confidence from this Parliament will mean that this report is taken seriously by the European Commission in view of the forthcoming negotiations and the signing of the Agreement in April. As the rapporteur said, we will see if anybody takes any notice of this Parliament.
We in Parliament often have the impression that we try to do our work, we try to produce agreements and reports, and in the end, the Commission ignores them. I think that is a view shared by a lot of people, in Parliament in general and, especially in this case, in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
I am pleased that Sir Leon Brittan is here, so we can ask him to listen to us, take note of what we say, and bear it in mind.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we look favourably on the idea of a liberalization of investments stimulating competition and promoting the European economy.
Naturally, an agreement to this effect will necessarily have to observe the principles and foundations on which Europe is built.
The public should be informed of negotiations with clarity and transparency, particularly the national parliaments that play a decisive role when applying international agreements.
The multilateral agreement on investments should, however, take EU legislation into account without preventing any further harmonization, and cannot radically change existing agreements and policies on development.
The Council should be consulted on the conclusion of the MIA on behalf of the EU, according to Article 228 paragraph 3 section 2 of the Treaty, according to the assent procedure.
However, I consider it fundamentally important for the national governments and parliaments to be vigilant at the time of presenting the project.
This vigilance is absolutely vital to the cultural sector as a whole; the cultural policy needs space for itself, special provisions which cannot be provided by purely economic mechanisms.
Such spicial provisions will be hard to guarantee within the multilateral agreement on investments, at least at the current stage of negotiations, and it would therefore be advisable for the cultural sector to be excluded from the MAI.
However, this should not be confused with a protectionist attitude: we should stop being afraid of the USA, for we will not save European culture by keeping it enclosed.
We should undertake to identify and support those initiatives that stimulate and reinforce European competitiveness and creativity, and this can also be achieved by some form of liberalization that will have to be developed ad hoc, made-to-measure to safeguard the principles of support for the diversity and peculiarity that strengthen and shape the wealth and identity of European culture.
Our group is therefore in favour of the report.
Madam President, ladies and gentleman, Mr Commissioner, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party thinks it is extremely important the MAI should come to pass.
International investments represent thousands of billions of dollars a year.
World trade increases at a rate of 7 % to 8 % a year, but investments increase twice as fast.
International investments are becoming more important than international trade.
Trade is regulated by various WTO treaties.
However, there are no neat, uniform rules for direct investments.
At the moment there are more than 1 800 bilateral treaties.
The MAI is a successful initiative for multilateral agreements on investments, initially between the OECD countries, but with the ability to extend the treaty to include other countries.
Although in the course of the negotiation process many serious political dossiers were brought within the scope of the MAI, agreement has been reached on most points.
Yet the US is stepping on the brakes.
They claim they need more time.
Is this out-and-out free-trade nation losing faith?
My last point, ladies and gentlemen, concerns the powers of the European Union in entering into international treaties.
Article 113 offers the Commission no explicit authority to sign the MAI on behalf of the Member States.
Yet the European Communities do take part in the negotiations as partners on behalf of the Member States.
I request the honourable Members to support our group's Amendment No 11, so that unfair competition within the Union and unfair treatment with regard to investments will be ruled out.
This amendment aims at full EC membership of the MAI.
We are therefore asking the Member States not to approve the final text as long as the European Communities are not guaranteed full membership of the MAI. I ask Sir Leon Brittan: did he check this with the Member States in the Council?
What in fact is the exact procedure which must be followed? I would welcome Sir Leon's response to this.
Madam President, the resolution the European Parliament is preparing to vote on, contained in Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's excellent report, is of great importance, for reasons of method and substance.
It is, in fact, a question of providing guidelines on these negotiations of enormous consequence that have been taking place in a semi-clandestine manner for almost three years.
The agreement was to be concluded, in fact, without either public opinion or the parliaments being in a position to be fully aware of its implications.
It is quite true that, once it was concluded, the agreement would have been submitted for examination by the parliaments, but too late, only at the time of ratification, when it is only possible to say "yes' or "no' , when it is no longer possible to affect its direction.
I think one great merit of our Parliament is that of having realized for some time the scope of the current negotiations within the OECD and of having taken the initiative to vote, pursuant to Rule 90(5) of the Rules of Procedure, on a resolution with the ability to affect negotiations while they are still open, to offer the thoughts of a representative democratic institution. This Parliament was the first to do so, and so far the only one.
This timing is all the more important in the case of the negotiations in question, given the enormous implications of this MAI. It does not ask us for an opinion on the advisability or otherwise of foreign investments, but on the rights and powers of states to regulate direct foreign investments and, therefore, to direct them according to their own priorities, to subject their operations to specific procedures, and to regulate their ability and the use of any profits made.
The MAI could give rise to a substantial erosion of the sovereignty of states, which would be transferred to businesses able to challenge any choice of country in which they are investing, denouncing it as discriminatory, as a form of a priori expropriation of a potential future profit. Any regulation aimed at protecting the health of its own citizens, at protecting the environment, at protecting the social standards guaranteed for workers by laws and collective agreements or (a very important aspect of the problem) at safeguarding its own identity and culture could be considered discriminatory.
Not to mention another dramatic consequence: the prohibition of establishing any incentive designed to reduce regional imbalances or direct resources towards certain aims. This is a particularly serious problem, especially for developing countries exposed to the risk of increased volatility and instability of their own financial markets, without any power to control their own balances of payments.
It is paradoxical that after decades of laborious Community construction and harmonization of regulations within the EU, and after our efforts to make the east European applicant countries assume the acquis communautaire , we are preparing to dilute everything. This calls into question the very notion of regional economic integration organizations, although they are respected within the framework of the WTO, under the "REIO' clause, which, in the draft MAI, seems to be extremely lacking in efficacy.
Finally, another worrying question: why was the OECD chosen for these negotiations? It would have been far more appropriate to examine the matter within the WTO, since the OECD has an entirely different function.
The suspicion that the choice was made because only the 29 richest countries belong to the OECD is sufficiently strong and widespread to seriously risk the very credibility of the institutions seeking legitimation as regulators of globalization, starting with the WTO itself.
The mobilization generated by the "discovery' of the MAI in European civilian society, particularly in the world of culture, and in the USA, where the NGOs have begun a real campaign of denouncement, has already had the effect of postponing the conclusion of the agreement.
The unanimous vote, apart from one abstention, in the Committee on External Economic Relations and the committees called upon to give an opinion, whose amendments have been included in full, will I hope serve as advice for the European negotiators in their measures designed, if not to reject the agreement itself (as not just our group but also many others in this Parliament would like) at least to drastically review the wording of the draft under discussion.
Madam President, the exponential world increase in foreign investments surely justifies setting up a global regulatory framework, not to place the emphasis on liberalization, but to direct the initiatives of transnational associations towards socially and ecologically durable development.
The current draft does not tackle this issue at all for three reasons.
The draft under discussion, in which the Commission is actively involved, aims to provide maximum security for investors and only takes into account the interests of the populations concerned as a secondary issue.
Secondly, all the basic principles and conditions proposed result in political institutions being deprived of the normal prerogatives they would have in a democratic regime, and also result in legally subjecting democratic institutions and governments to the strategies and interests of transnational companies by the specific creation of arbitration bodies in which these very companies could have the countries condemned.
Thirdly, as Mrs Castellina has just said, the discussions currently underway in the OECD obviously belong to the wealthy club; the most vulnerable countries - developing countries - are excluded, when in fact they are the ones most at the mercy of the multinationals' strategies.
This is a draft which cannot be corrected superficially or content itself with exemptions, but whose very principles must be fundamentally reviewed.
I would like to illustrate my point with three examples.
Firstly, one of the basic clauses, the prohibition of performance requirements, completely contradicts the idea of a specific targeted policy against severe unemployment in the relevant regions.
In granting permission to an investor, the condition could not be made that regional staff must be employed, or that there must be preferential contracts with regional companies, or anything of that kind.
In the end, it is in fact European structural policy which will be called into question.
My second example concerns expropriation and the subsequent compensation.
The adoption of new legislation on fiscal, environmental and social issues could be seen to have the same effect as expropriation, which UNICE calls rampant expropriation, in that it would cause a gradual erosion of the conditions on which the decision to invest was taken and would automatically bring with it a right to financial compensation.
My third example concerns the principle of non-discrimination, or national treatment.
What would happen in the former countries of eastern Europe or in a country like Brazil if, in the process of land redistribution by privatization of collective farms or to meet the requirements of the indigenous peoples or landless peasant farmers, the same priority was given to multinationals as to the populations concerned?
The answer is self-evident: it would be unacceptable to us.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report is an excellent one because it puts its finger on these very issues, and I think Parliament would promote its own cause by voting in favour of it by a very large majority.
Madam President, doubtless there were a thousand good reasons why the representatives of the OECD devised this multilateral agreement without the slightest degree of transparency. But some of these reasons, and certainly not the least of them, oblige us to reject this new economic order which they want to impose upon us.
Of course we can easily understand the advantages of such an agreement for the multinationals, all the more so since this draft, which could be summarized by the principle "the countries fulfil their obligations and the investors reap the benefits' , offers them definite guarantees.
It is doubtless a good thing to remove obstacles to investment, but even so the principle of non-discrimination, or this broad conception of investment, must not have harmful effects on any country.
For by creating a real threat to national sovereignty this agreement risks eventually calling into question the rights of peoples and their social and environmental demands.
The developing countries, which are excluded from the negotiations, will have clauses imposed on them which often oppose their own real interests.
We all know that if economic interests gain ascendancy over political ones, democracy will suffer.
The only proof I need is the way in which this agreement has been negotiated.
So it is critical that, as Members of the European Parliament, we reject this agreement since it would represent a grave blow to the European structure at a time when enlargement is in fact on the agenda.
What would become of our common agricultural policy, our European social model, or even our cultural identities, if the MAI were to be applied tomorrow? So we must welcome the initiative taken by the Committee on External Economic Relations and thank Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for his excellent work.
Furthermore, our group will not hesitate to vote for his report, but it would also be good if the Council took a stand.
In the same way, Commissioner, we expect the Commission, which is participating in the negotiations, to continue in its efforts, but always using reason and wisdom, for it is our European Community at stake and it is critical that we defend our cultural exception.
This exception was gained thanks to the mobilization of cultural professionals, who again recently raised awareness about the risks of the MAI.
This cultural exception, acquired at a high price during the GATT negotiations, must be extended to the MAI.
Also, the agreements which govern intellectual property rights must be maintained because, ladies and gentlemen, it is high time we realized that the world is not a huge game of Monopoly and that our cultural fate should not be determined by the throw of a dice.
Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Faced with the secrecy surrounding these negotiations, which are already at an advanced stage, the Committee felt it was essential publicly to make known the opinions of those who realize what is at stake in the process of drawing up a multilateral agreement on investments.
So, three years after negotiations started, we in the European Parliament are today having the first debate on the MAI to be held in a parliamentary setting.
I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, who kept the text coherent despite attacks by large groups for which the taste for compromise at any price and the weakening of any proposition have become second nature.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler shows clearly that what is at issue with the MAI is not just the defence of a sector of activity as important as culture: it is a method, a logic, the division into hierarchies of the players on the international scene.
Organizing protection for investors is essentially a national responsibility and should remain so, even if close coordination between the Fifteen ought to allow the pursuit of a number of common goals.
Here I would mention in particular: the condemnation of legislation which has an impact beyond a country's own borders; the banning of any form of competition which aims to attract investment by lowering social standards or rules for environmental protection; and the inability of an investment arbitration body to dismantle the clauses of a common policy, such as policies on agriculture or fishing, to attack cultural exception, or to challenge the decision of an internal or community jurisdiction which has the strength of having had judgement passed on it.
It is critical that the legitimate right of the investor to have his investment protected is not transformed into an absolute right to invest without any restriction applying in terms of legislation and regulation, to the detriment of responsibilities and countries.
Within the current logic of the MAI, countries would be limited to guaranteeing investors the full use of their investments, while national and Community legislation which aims to preserve the environment and social conditions would be considered a priori as potential obstacles to investment.
This is the logic on which the current MAI negotiations and its framework are based, with developing countries being excluded. We feel duty bound to challenge it rather than sticking to a tactic of exception and reserve, which would only serve to designate the scene of tomorrow's negotiations.
The GATT and WTO processes should be a lesson to us.
In that sense, this report is sounding the alarm bells and that is why we will support it.
Madam President, we too welcome the debate on this report.
With a few exceptions we also find it a very interesting and highly intelligent piece of work.
Of course it would be good if the environmental, social and structural conditions prevailing in Europe and the West applied to the rest of the world, so that investors had to respect them worldwide.
Unfortunately it is somewhat arrogant of the West smugly to ignore the needs and living conditions of the third world and dream up obstacles to investment that ultimately prevent economic conditions from improving elsewhere on our planet.
There is no denying that modernization of infrastructure and communications systems throughout the world has created enormous competition for inward investment.
Investors acting on behalf of their shareholders will always pick those locations which promise the most profit.
Trying to protest or legislate against this process would be the modern equivalent of smashing up machines during the industrial revolution.
The question that the report does not resolve is how Europe can play its part in securing an economic upturn in the third world without laying down the law to how this upturn is to be achieved.
The restrictions that would apply in the area of culture are a problem.
I can only refer to the Dutch government's report, which says 'Don't get yourself a suit of armour, stiffen your backbone instead' .
The measures for regulating foreign investment called for in the report must not, however, be allowed to generate a situation in which open competition is possible in every area of culture.
The same people who were critical of American companies getting their hands on EU money would certainly have nothing against American companies putting money into European films.
I particularly welcome the part of the report on the threat to copyright.
We have a lot of catching up to do in this area, and this needs detailed examination.
Madam President. It is a pleasure to be speaking in the Chamber and not noting my presence.
I and my group support Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report.
We support in particular paragraphs 5, 14, 23 and paragraph 15 on OECD guidelines.
May I say at this point, irrespective of where future discussions on investment procedures are held, whether it be at the OECD, the WTO, or UNCTAD, we would appreciate it if those who are in charge of our affairs would be a bit more transparent in their handling of them.
We parliamentarians should be at the forefront of the discussions, not at the tail-end.
Parliament has to be congratulated on producing this report.
The main support comes for the voluntary code.
It comes from the OECD countries.
We apparently cannot agree to change the voluntary code of guidelines into a compulsory one.
A statement from Mr Charles Bridge of the DTI, on the voluntary status of the OECD guidelines, says that the emergent majority view is that the voluntary status should be unchanged.
But he goes on to say that the OECD countries have, since 1991, been under a binding obligation to set up national contact points for undertaking promotional activities, handling enquiries and discussing with parties concerned on all matters related to the guidelines.
We may want to consider exactly what these national contact points have achieved.
According to the trade union advisory committee from the OECD, the results of their studies suggest that with a few notable exceptions the national contact points are reactive rather than proactive and do little to fulfil their terms of reference.
Some national trade union centres which did not respond to the survey stated that there was little to report due to the fact that the national contact points in their country had fallen into abeyance.
It was also reported that requests for information on the guidelines were often ignored and this has led to a high degree of apathy amongst many TUC affiliates towards the NCPs, that is, the national contact points.
The report goes on to ask: ' has the national contact point in your country consulted the trade unions on its terms of reference?' .
The Swedish national contact point is the only one to consult trade unions proactively.
The Belgian national contact point does so reactively and all other affiliates replied negatively.
So perhaps the Commission could advise us of what steps it can take, if it is going to pursue the voluntary code, to actually beef up the national contact points to make sure they become relevant to those people who are meant to be served by the multilateral agreement on investments.
Can I also ask the Commission to look at the question of portfolio investment, because whilst we are talking about foreign direct investment many of these companies have their results as a result of the portfolio investment of shareholders?
Can the Commission advise us if it is going to consider at these negotiations, and encourage the Member States to take up, assurances that the trustees of many of the pension and occupational funds and insurance funds are actually consulted prior to any investment taking place in any of the companies operating under the multilateral agreement on investment in many of the countries which, at present, are not being served very well by the voluntary guidelines?
This would be a step towards democracy and the Commission should embrace it.
Madam President, the marked annual increase of 11 % in direct foreign investment is impressive, and far in excess of that of the other basic economic variables, standing at twice the growth of trade and four times the growth of products over the past decade.
It is, therefore, surprising that no multilateral code of conduct exists in this connection.
Since the free movement of capital is one element in making maximum use of resources, the growth of trade has not been hampered by the free movement of products and services, as might have been feared and would be undesirable.
Furthermore, in terms of space, having channelled investment towards the more disadvantaged areas, it has served as an equilibrating factor by anchoring labour that would otherwise have been obliged to emigrate, with heavy human and social costs. In this regard, the multinationals' strategy of locating subcontracting units in different countries and regions has been important.
Despite all these characteristics, stringent codes of conduct must be established to prevent direct foreign investment from being used as an unacceptable form of exploitation and infringing the rules of competition.
In particular, as correctly emphasized by the rapporteur, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler - whom I congratulate - social and environmental rules must be respected to the letter.
Otherwise our workers and businessmen will have cause for complaint, if investment is relocated elsewhere.
As we have repeatedly emphasized, this is a requirement which simultaneously renders service to workers and to citizens of the most backward countries, by ensuring that they are not exploited and that their quality of life does not deteriorate.
Finally, we regret that advances in monitoring subsidies have not gone hand-in-hand with progress on the tax front. Competitiveness is being boosted by reducing taxes on capital, which ultimately exacerbates the existing imbalance whereby the tax burden on labour is excessive.
On only one point do we diverge from the rapporteur and some Members who have spoken before me: we fear that the exceptions proposed in the cultural sphere might lead us towards protectionism.
We think that European culture should stand on its own merits and not be propped up by protectionism that will ultimately weaken it.
In that connection, I agree entirely with the Dutch point of view.
Madam President, I would like to say that I too share the concern that has been expressed over the multilateral agreement on investments.
This concern is felt in the parliamentary committees of the European Parliament and in artistic and academic circles alike.
Reports in the European press are equally justified in sounding the alarm concerning the likely and indeed hasty signing of this agreement.
In the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, of which I am a member, we have fought long and hard against attempts to downgrade and to harm the cultural industry of Europe and to change our varied cultural identity, which this agreement threatens to do.
European cultural policy was threatened during the GATT negotiations, when we achieved, in part, cultural exception. This exception must not only remain intact but it must be enforced.
I remind you that there are other national representatives who are seeking their own exceptions, such as the Americans for certain sectors for which they have special regulations which are favourable to its citizens within the framework of the OECD.
We must ward off any attempt to fragment European policies and European structure as a whole in areas of cultural products and services, including new technologies, intellectual ownership, and all the other rights of our artists and creators. But we must not forget that other areas are also at issue, as has already been mentioned, such as transport, fishing and agriculture.
European solidarity must remain unshakable, despite being under intense pressure and attack. At this point I would like to stress that unfortunately there are Member States whose representatives wish to proceed more quickly to the signing of this agreement, without examining the problems this will create.
We do not deny that the negotiations need to come to an end, but certainly not before crucial matters concerning Europe are settled satisfactorily.
Mr President, I welcome this agreement very much in that it works for non-discrimination as far as investment is concerned, for application of the rule of law in terms of signatory Member States, and it is there to increase international investments and thereby also international trade.
All of those things are exceptionally good and I welcome them.
What concerns me is that when one starts to look through this agreement - I have tried to read it on several occasions, although it is far from finalized at present - it raises a large number of questions.
Clearly, because international investment is an area that is extremely competitive, one of the things that will happen is that, although it is an OECD agreement, there will be severe pressure on other nations looking for international investment to become signatories as well.
Again, in principle, I welcome that.
I am concerned about the level of involvement of developing countries in particular within the decision-making process, even though it is primarily an OECD document at present.
Along with Mr Falconer, I also would point to the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises.
Although the OECD makes a lot of its own publicity material, I would like to have seen it have greater prominence in the context of this agreement.
Again, if you read through the agreement, it raises more questions than it perhaps answers about how well the area of environmental standards will be dealt with in the final version.
My other comment, which I make somewhat wryly, is to ask whether there will still be discrimination against home companies in terms of incentives for investment made by some countries which tend to discriminate in favour of foreign investment.
Finally, I wish to ask when the agreement will now be signed - it was supposed to be in May, and it looks as though it is being delayed - and whether it will go through the assent procedure in the European Parliament?
Madam President, the MAI treaty is a real weapon of war against peoples, countries and states.
The interests of foreign investors have been favoured to an excessive extent, their rights extend into all domains since they can by law pursue governments to gain damages and compensation interest for any measure they consider to have a negative effect on their profits.
So, social rights, environmental protection, national and regional development, the preservation of natural resources, concern for the collective interest, and freedom of unions are all subjects which could justify sanctions, as would community preference.
In the current process of globalization, the interests of the people are being trampled underfoot; with the MAI, the governments themselves are held up to ridicule and they have nothing more than obligations towards the multinationals.
This sort of approach is totally unacceptable, and has been widely refused.
Whereas since 1995 negotiations have been held in the utmost secrecy, the reality of the MAI has now burst upon us, triggering a huge protest movement in the United States, Canada, India and Europe.
Even in France, artists and creators are finding that our culture has everything to lose through this concept of merchandizing and they are up in arms about it.
Through the Prime Minister, the French Government has indicated that an agreement of this kind cannot in any way challenge the freedom of governments to implement their choices.
Apparently, France is calling for restrictive clauses, prohibiting competition between countries in order to attract investments by lowering social standards and weakening environmental rules.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report sets out a number of justified criticisms and rightly calls for a public debate and transparency in the OECD negotiations.
However, he does not go as far as he could, and finishes with the simple recommendation, and I quote, not to sign the MAI until an in-depth analysis has been held.
It is my opinion that the European Parliament - the first elected body to debate the MAI, thanks in particular to its REX committee - should call on the governments of the Member States not to sign the MAI, to adjourn negotiations and to allow for a preliminary broad public debate involving national parliaments.
The same demand could be made regarding the transatlantic single market project, known as the "Brittan project' which takes its inspiration from precisely the same ultraliberal principles as the MAI.
As French elected members, we intend to support the development of the social movement which aims to thwart these projects which threaten jobs and freedom, and bring to bear an approach based on cooperation and lasting development, which is what civilization really needs as we enter the third millennium.
Madam President, I would like to say a warm thank you to my colleague Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for really giving us something to think about - not only us, but also the national parliaments - so that our eyes have really been opened to this.
People say this will be the basis of the global economy.
But they also say that it is not just economic interests which are at stake here, but also environmental interests, social interests, national rights to self-determination, and so on.
I would like to ask the Commission why we in the European Parliament have not been informed that this has been discussed? Where is the dialogue with the citizens and the democratically elected parliament?
I am extremely disappointed with the Swedish Trade Minister who has sat in on these negotiations since 1995 without giving the slightest sign that they had taken place.
He is also a member of the Social Democrats, who said before the last election that they would 'bridle market forces' .
Now we can see what happens with such promises.
So we want more democracy. And as the previous speaker said: ' Stop the agreement until we have had a proper dialogue' .
Madam President, it seems to me that it is time for those like us endowed with political responsibility as a result of universal suffrage to put an end to the technocratic drift of certain international institutions.
One particular question needs to be asked and I will ask it clearly: who is the OECD working for? Is it to support the economic, cultural and social development of countries and their peoples, or is it working on behalf of the powerful multinationals?
The multilateral agreement on investments provides the answer.
How can we allow certain countries to carry on secret negotiations behind our backs in the corridors of the castle of silence, headquarters of the OECD in Paris, on agreements which will apply to countries which are less well-off than they are? These agreements are drawn up without any democratic control, by officials who have but one aim - to eliminate all cultural, social and environmental defences.
The MAI is a real lesson to us.
It is no chance mishap; an entire ultraliberal concept is rearing its ugly head and intends to ride roughshod over all social and democratic progress, frequently obtained by a hard-fought struggle.
Saying no to the MAI is basically saying no to the current notions of the OECD, but perhaps it is also an opportunity to set the ball rolling on the question of whether to retain an institution of this kind. At the very least, it may be a chance to redefine its mission.
Would it not be much wiser and more efficient to strengthen the role of the World Trade Organization, which will be called upon to deal with the subjects currently being debated in the OECD? In any case, the question this raises more than ever is the issue of the democratic control of international institutions, if we wish to avoid harmful consequences for the people.
Madam President, there are currently approximately 1 800 bilateral agreements on direct foreign investments.
This leads to a lack of transparency and contradictions between agreements.
A multilateral agreement on investments in an OECD context makes sense, therefore.
The OECD nations are responsible for most of the direct foreign investments, and agreement is reached much more quickly and efficiently within the OECD context than within the WTO context.
Like Mr Kreissl-Dörfler I have some questions.
Is there not a risk that an international umbrella agreement of this kind places the interest of multinational enterprises over the general interest? Do developing countries have any room to negotiate when they join the agreement, or are they presented with a fait accompli ?
The rapporteur quite rightly devotes a lot of attention to this in his valuable report.
This agreement will limit sovereign powers considerably, and this is something which worries me.
On important policy areas such as the environment, and in the social and cultural sphere, it could have a negative effect.
It would not be the first time - we have hit our heads against this brick wall during the GATT negotiations.
We have to steer clear of Scylla, an agreement which is too liberal, and Charybdis, over-regulation and protectionism.
In the Netherlands the codes of conduct on the environment, human rights and social provision, drawn up by businesses themselves, appear to be working better than government regulation.
The report puts a little too much emphasis on 'overprotection' , for instance in relation to culture.
The Commission has had many suggestions, but was it really necessary to include everything in the report? You can have too much of a good thing.
This position will be reflected in the way I vote.
Despite a few minor flaws, I would like to give my full support to this report, and I offer the rapporteur my sincerest congratulations.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this agreement has very serious implications for the future of the European Union and our people.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report clearly shows all the risks and conditions which must be met to make an investment organization more transparent and simpler, but also to ensure that it works for the people.
All the same, our group tabled an amendment which would finally make the message from this Parliament clearer.
We do not want our governments to ratify this agreement as it has been debated and with its underlying logic. Parliament should say that loud and clear.
This agreement would in fact remove from our countries and the Union - indeed from the Community institutions - the ability to act efficiently, to set social and environmental standards or to operate policies favouring local development and employment.
I will give you some examples to demonstrate this.
Without doubt, the most scandalous point is the clause stating that countries can be censured if they take any measures liable to reduce or hinder the potential profits of a multinational enterprise.
This implies that the profit of a multinational is more important than the interest of the people.
Now why is the United States Congress slightly reticent? It is because this clause exists in NAFTA and it has led to an American association in Canada called "Ethyl' demanding to be reimbursed by the Canadian Government because the latter set a standard prohibiting a product which damages an organism indispensable in fighting pollution.
So Canada was going to be censured because it was combatting pollution and was depriving a company of its profits.
The Americans can see the danger, or at least some members of Congress can see it.
Let us not ignore the danger; it is great, not only in the environmental but also in the social context.
I would like to conclude by saying that of course we need to set up a global organization which is more transparent and more rational about investments, but several conditions must be met in order to do this.
Firstly, the framework of this organization must not only include rich countries, but the WTO or even the UN.
Secondly, social and environmental clauses must be possible, and even enacted at a global level. Thirdly, countries - and the European Union itself - must retain sovereignty and the possibility of taking action, because even if security is necessary for investors, it is much more indispensable for people.
Madam President, the prime role of the economy is to serve the people.
That is why I think it so important that we are debating the Multilateral Agreement on Investments today.
Nevertheless, the Kreissl-Dörfler report contains several statements reminiscent of the campaign being run by various interest groups for some time now to use the MAI to stir up people's fears about globalization.
I am being quite open about this criticism, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, because you know that I rate your work very highly and want to carry on being honest with you.
Of course as a parliament we find it hard to accept that the negotiations have to a very great extent been kept secret from the public and from parliaments, as the report notes.
However, this criticism should be levelled at the Council, not the OECD, as there is a meeting of the Council's ad hoc working party on this very subject today.
Your report includes a call for a socially and ecologically balanced economic policy, and the other side of the House - I see Mrs Castellina is here as well - takes this to mean that the MAI would circumvent existing environmental and social standards.
The Austrian Ministry of Economic Affairs said in its opinion that the MAI does not impinge on a country's right to have its own environmental and employment protection standards, as long as foreign investors are not subject to stricter requirements than domestic companies.
It envisages outlawing social and environmental dumping, which means a ban on lowering environmental and employment standards as a means of attracting foreign investment.
Nor will the MAI lead to any limitation of EU law.
A proviso to this effect is included.
The arrangements for intellectual property are such that the MAI cannot affect TRIPS.
Furthermore, the OECD agreement is already subject to a democratic ratification process.
If we really want people to benefit from the economy, we cannot cram an investment agreement with conditions that only an army of lawyers can make sense of.
After all, it would also hit small and medium-sized enterprises, which do not have huge internal organizations.
Of course we also want the Council to keep the Parliament promptly informed about the progress of negotiations.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Kreissl-Dörfler on his excellent report. It shows that even if liberalization of investments is an essential objective, the text as it stands is dangerous and on some points unacceptable.
It is dangerous because it is unbalanced; the investors have all the rights and the countries have all the obligations.
It could happen that countries would even have to answer to an international pseudo-jurisdiction regarding the motivation behind taking certain measures, for example on social or environmental issues.
The text is also unacceptable in terms of intellectual property rights and the cultural sector, especially the audiovisual sector.
In this Parliament we have fought to help establish a strong and dynamic cultural industry, notably by the 'television without frontiers' directive.
And now the text of the treaty risks wasting all these efforts.
However, I would add a new problem, Madam President.
Today I have learned that the Commission is going to negotiate with the United States within the framework of a transatlantic single market or New Transatlantic Market Place. We have never been informed about this, and it too could target intellectual and artistic copyright.
It is taking on a lot.
And these negotiations are shrouded in complete secrecy.
It is high time the Commission provided us with clear information about the MAI and NTM treaties. It is also high time for the Commission to renegotiate several points in the MAI treaty, to exclude the entire audiovisual sector and royalties from the field of international treaties, and for our Parliament, like its national counterparts, to finally accept its responsibilities with respect to these texts.
Mr President, it is at this point that I should congratulate the rapporteur, but I shall put off doing so for lack of time.
The rapporteur, however, considers it a good thing that it was the European Commission that negotiated the MAI treaty and not the Member States.
That means a shift of power to a federal stronghold.
It gives the Commission power over my country's social security system, environment, labour laws, health policy and psychology, which, according to this report, we should not be prepared to yield up to a supranational entity.
From a small nation's viewpoint, the Commission can also seem like such an entity.
The MAI treaty deals with ridding capitalism of all hindrances to exploitation, in the new regions and in the spiritual sphere too, including those countries that have not been invited to participate in OECD negotiations.
The MAI imposes global standards on state activity, but not on that of individual companies.
The MAI is thus one-sided.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler has prepared an excellent report, although he has too much faith in the power of the EU and its benign nature.
The EU is capitalism's answer to Europe. But what will evolve from the MAI treaty will be a new form of capitalism for the world.
Mr President, I must point out to my colleague, Mr Seppänen, that my government and his were independent negotiators in the treaty.
But let us press on. We are in the presence of something of a scandal.
The Commission has negotiated a treaty that truly frustrates the cohesive strengths and ideas of a very large part of the EU.
Many forms of grants and aid are called into question because of recommendations for certain concerns at the expense of others, and it is hard to imagine that exceptions could in any way be long-term.
I am certain that in the end everything will be cast in the same mould and it is not worth hoping in vain for problems to be solved by exception.
That is a temporary solution at best.
We need strongly binding provisos for legislation and the protection of the environment.
Commissioner, I do not baulk from saying that if the European Parliament were able to dismiss individual Commissioners, then that might well be the situation here, and your future would be hanging in the balance.
Madam President, the objective of reaching multilateral international agreements favouring the spread of investment is of great importance.
Providing a framework of certainty for investors may certainly be one of the fundamental conditions for enabling them to pay greater attention to non-traditional recipients as well - in other words, countries considered less reliable than others by the international investors themselves.
However, this should take place under conditions which are fully acceptable to all the countries concerned and consistent with the objectives of a balanced development that can be maintained by those countries and their populations.
Hence our criticisms of the method and contents of the agreement which has been under negotiation for more than two years within the OECD.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report confirms those criticisms in a strong and convincing way, which is why we are in favour of it.
We would like to raise three issues.
Firstly, there is the problem of democracy and transparency.
Negotiations have taken place and are taking place in great secrecy, without any parliament in the world being minimally informed and, so far, with most governments having little knowledge of the scope of the agreement.
This is unacceptable, as the outcome of an agreement of this type are intended to have profound, long-term effects in every country of the world.
Secondly, we dispute the view that the OECD is the appropriate place for an agreement intended to be extended to almost every country in the world.
In this way, the requirements and problems of the developing nations in particular will once again not be given the slightest consideration, despite the fact that the poorest countries will suffer the most serious consequences.
Finally, the contents of the agreement seem to be totally unacceptable, as they would actually rule out any possibility of individual states and regional associations such as the EU being able to develop policies on social and environmental quality, public services, or protection and optimization of cultural differences. They would also be a serious threat to the active policies of planning development.
It is for these reasons that we are asking for the MAI not to be signed, at least not before its contents and nature have been profoundly amended.
Madam President, I note with pleasure that organizations have had more success than the negotiators in trying to create debate about this agreement, which the negotiators have also tried to do.
But what has been said on some points about the consequences of the agreement is very exaggerated.
I think that first and foremost we should establish that a set of rules is needed when globalization in fact happens, and the EU and Parliament have an important role to play.
Also, I hope the Commission supports the Member States who have strongly demanded that the agreement should forbid a relaxation of environmental and social standards in order to attract investment.
How do things stand with this, Mr Commissioner? The MAI could actually lead to an increase in standards rather than a decrease, as is maintained.
I also hope it puts an end to the 'shopping' for subsidies which can be observed in many places.
It could also lead to smaller companies daring to invest abroad.
What is unclear is how the arbitration procedure will work. Will it be public or closed?
What are the rules on evidence? I think this is something we must draw attention to.
On this point the agreement is not ready to be signed.
In addition we must think about the position of the OECD Council.
I also think this agreement is necessary in the long term, so that developing countries can join voluntarily if they meet the standards required.
Madam President, I am pleased that Sir Leon Brittan is present at this debate, because many things have been said about the MAI agreements, and the only part I will reiterate is the necessity to remain vigilant beyond the problems of culture.
Yes, there is a risk of a serious attack on royalties, but beyond this, who can touch agriculture, the environment and social rights which have been spoken about at length.
And anyway, what does the notion of culture include for us? We in this establishment and in the Commission know very well that culture is shrinking constantly, to the point of only including the less strategic sectors and leaving behind the audiovisual sector, publishing and anything involving information highways.
I am glad to be able to speak to you today, Sir Leon, because you have devised a project which is to be adopted tomorrow. I think the MAI will let you put to the test the fact that people and parliamentary members and a good number of the groups here do not want any more secret negotiations.
They do not want any more of these attacks of neo-liberalism in our institutions and in Europe, which are often inspired by the United States. I think the New Transatlantic Market Place project should be reviewed, given the welcome accorded to the MAI by us today.
But that is not all.
Mr Bangemann should be here today, because the Green Paper on convergence also poses this type of problem.
In conclusion, I would just like to say that this treaty is not a treaty, but rather an ideological text.
It is a real manifesto for neo-liberalism. My group will propose an amendment calling for postponement, to ensure that a real public debate is held with all due respect for public opinion, which increasingly influences international policies.
Madam President, I would like to begin by saying that this agreement should not have been negotiated only in the OECD.
It is far too important for that.
What I wish to comment on is that workers' rights have been relegated to the preamble of the MAI agreement.
It is a matter for concern that in the OECD's draft multilateral agreement on investments there is a large discrepancy between the rights and obligations of the investors.
It is important for investors to be bound to keep certain commitments in the countries in which they operate.
I would like to emphasize that it must be a cause for concern that the MAI has chosen to refer to workers' rights and environmental considerations in the introductory text.
This implies that the references to workers' rights are not legally binding, but are more in the nature of a statement of intent.
In my opinion, it is reasonable to add to the text the stipulation that countries must have ratified the International Labour Organization's seven conventions on the basic rights of workers.
Countries must recognize the ILO's regulations on working conditions and the protection of the right to form unions, the prohibition of child labour and so on, so that such matters cannot become a competitive consideration used by states to try to attract investors. It is important to avoid either the state or the investors speculating in social dumping.
It is important to bear in mind that the relaxation of provisions relating to direct foreign investments should not just be to the advantage of the investors and the country of origin.
It should also contribute to securing sustainable economic development in the host country.
This Parliament is the only parliament - as far as I know - to have discussed the MAI.
It is important to initiate debate in the Member States and the national parliaments about this agreement.
Madam President, the Director-General of the World Trade Organization, Renato Ruggiero, has called this agreement 'a constitution for a single global economy' .
That gives an idea of the unprecedented consequences the MAI could have.
Who has the right to draft global constitutions? Of course, it is obviously the 29 richest industrialized countries in the world.
The other countries are in practice excluded, as is the intention, because when similar agreements were discussed in the WTO there was far too much opposition from other countries in the world.
The only reasonable thing, of course, would be to discuss this agreement in the UN, or possibly in the WTO, instead of in the OECD.
In the OECD countries negotiations have taken place in secret with the minimum possible parliamentary supervision.
However, the agreement is unacceptable not only because of the way it is being negotiated, but also because of its content.
The agreement gives rights to transnational companies at the expense of states.
It is totally unreasonable for companies to be given the ability through the courts to overturn democratically made decisions concerning important areas such as the environment, the management of natural resources and social conditions.
I do not like everything in this report. For example, I do not like paragraphs 7 and 8.
However, the report does contain a lot of important criticism, not least in paragraphs 5, 14 and 23, which is sufficient for me to vote for it.
Madam President, all praise is certainly due to Mr Kreissl-Dörfler who had the initiative to write this excellent report.
The fact that the negotiations currently under way have given rise to such intense debate and opposing views demonstrates that a global economic issue of such vital importance needs plenty of time for exhaustive dialogue under conditions of transparency and continuous parliamentary supervision.
When the Director-General of the World Trade Organization characterizes the MAI as the constitution for a global economy, this naturally provokes justifiable concern and unease as to the likely restrictions that will be imposed on the rights of Member States in relation to national policies and, more especially, in the areas of industrial, social, environmental and cultural policy, and in the domain of intellectual ownership.
Of course, no-one can be opposed to the laying down of regulations to stimulate and safeguard foreign investments in order to prevent conditions which would distort international competition.
Nevertheless, we have every right to be puzzled by the study and by the urgent character which the issue has taken on.
We do not discern such study in relation to other serious issues which also stem from the globalization of the economy, such as labour rights, child labour, the tax position of multinationals, the protection of the environment, the promotion of viable and regionally balanced economic growth, and the preservation of cultural diversity.
Fortunately, multinational companies and international groups of enterprises already have enormous power and it is not permissible to give them any priority over national enterprises, such as the automatic right of recourse to international arbitration or the right to bypass legislation aimed at ensuring equal treatment.
Finally, I believe that the European Parliament must defend and protect its own rights and powers and those of the European Union from all attempts at curtailment through this agreement on investments.
Madam President, very simply, the European Parliament must demand the immediate rejection of the multilateral agreement on investments.
This agreement was drawn up in secrecy by large financial interests without including the national parliaments and the European Parliament and even without including the governments themselves.
It is a multi-faceted ideological assault by large multinational corporations and, as has already been said, the first step in the formation of a global government of multinationals.
Its implementation will have tragic repercussions for the peoples and economies of less developed countries.
This new manifesto of global capitalism will lead to the complete overturning of the social freedoms and labour rights of working people. Together with EMU, it will lead to a totally deregulated market where the margins for exercising national policy and the national sovereignty of Member States will shrink dramatically in favour of multinational groups, international banks and international capitalist organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the OECD.
I repeat, the European Parliament makes only one demand - the rejection of the agreement. Furthermore, the amendments that have been tabled must be voted on by our Parliament.
Mr President, the compatibility of the MAI with environmental protection has not yet been sufficiently addressed by the negotiating parties.
It is of great concern.
As we move into more and more multilateral environment agreements I feel there is an increased chance of running into difficulties should the MAI, as presently formulated, come into being.
A paper from the OECD secretariat on the legal aspects has noted that: ' The absence of any evident legal incompatibility does not necessarily dispose of all concerns about the potential inter-relation between the MAI and MEAs' .
In particular there is some concern that the transfer of clean technology agreements contained in the Kyoto Protocol to combat climate change could be at risk.
The clean development mechanism is essential to that protocol's success and has the potential to run directly contrary to the MAI.
A binding environment clause should be included which will offer at least similar safeguards to GATT Article 20 and not prove to be an inadequate voluntary clause, such as Article 114 in the NAFTA agreement.
Furthermore, there needs to be provision for environmental reviews of all foreign investors.
Without these safeguards for sustainable development, we must have great cause for concern about the agreement at this stage.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the draft multilateral agreement on investments, or MAI, has been negotiated in the utmost secrecy; it is a recognized symbol of the absolute triumph of unbridled liberalism; and it aims to ensure the domination of multinational financial groups over nations and to support the supremacy of rich industrial countries over developing nations. Clearly this agreement is completely unacceptable as it stands today.
Consequently, without fundamentally prejudicing my final opinion, I fully agree with the call by the rapporteur, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, and I would like to congratulate him on his work.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am in favour of the rapporteur's request to the Member States of the European Union not to sign the MAI without a broad public debate, for that is the only way to ensure the total transparency essential in this case.
Otherwise, without going into detail, I broadly agree with the questions asked and the remarks made by the rapporteur, which again prove the need for a detailed study and absolute transparency.
If by some unfortunate event the MAI were to be signed as it stands, we would no longer have any means to halt globalization in its most negative form, that is, the law of the most powerful.
I hope and believe that all the governments of the European Union will realize this.
I have one last word to say on the issue of European culture and audiovisual production.
Although I agree with the rapporteur's fresh demand for a special exception, I would insist that it is not solely within the framework of the MAI, but has reference to GATT.
This issue is much too serious for us to give any sort of an impression of backing down, no matter how small.
Finally, I repeat once again that on this issue the European Parliament should display its avant-garde role.
I think we are in the process of doing that this evening.
Madam President, I would like to raise a few concerns I have about developing countries in relation to the MAI, particularly, as others have pointed out, that they have been excluded from the negotiations even though those negotiations have a very significant impact on them.
They also need to raise the issue of the effect of the liberalization on the ability of developing countries to adopt the poverty focused programmes which are essential to their progress.
It is also the case, as others have said, that employment, environment and labour rights need to be an integral part of the process, not bolted on as some kind of afterthought.
I am also concerned about the increased powers which MAI will give to multinationals in developing countries, where they will be given almost nation-state status within developing countries.
There is far too much emphasis on their rights rather than on their duties and responsibilities.
They contain no binding enforceable obligations for corporate conduct and the level of liberalization required would be inappropriate for developing countries.
The rules on investment should be about more than economic liberalization and should include a very clear commitment to sustainable development and to long-term quality investments.
I would like to see a substantial revision of the current proposals and a delay pending a much more inclusive process.
I would like to see a legitimate international forum where developing countries can be included and where international institutions like UNCTAD can be involved.
Only then will we be satisfied that we have a fair process in place on multilateral investments.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I firstly thank the Committee on External Economic Relations and its rapporteur Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for an excellent report on the negotiations on the MAI.
I would also like to thank the other committees and their rapporteurs for their efforts in preparing the present report.
This is a timely debate.
The negotiations are not completed.
The European Parliament's decision to hold this debate has the importance that Mrs Castellina ascribed to it.
I share that view and I can also assure Mrs Schörling that we have had a real debate and that this will play an active part in the course of the negotiations.
The European Community is the biggest outward investor in the world, sending half of our investment to the OECD and half to non-OECD countries.
At the same time we are the most open to inward investors in the world.
The Community therefore has a big interest in the establishment of transparent, non-discriminatory and enforceable rules for foreign direct investment at the plurilateral as well as at the multilateral level.
That is why I very much agree with Mr Valdivielso de Cué, Mrs Baldi, Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel and Mr Teverson, all of whom stressed the importance and potential benefit of this negotiation.
There has to be a balance between the opportunities provided for investment and also the necessity for there to be national possibilities to regulate and control certain matters.
That is what the negotiation has been about and this debate has contributed to that balance.
I can assure Mrs Plooij-Van Gorsel that this will be a negotiation in which at the end of it the EC will be a member.
In the Commission communication on a level playing field for direct investment worldwide, we made the case for starting negotiations in the OECD and launching discussions in the WTO.
Let me remind you that the Council and the European Parliament, in its resolution of December 1995, supported this approach.
I still consider that the successful conclusion of the MAI negotiations is the best possible starting point for multilateral rule-making in the WTO in order to achieve a worldwide level playing field for FDI.
Let us not forget that it is the view of the vast majority of developing countries that it is in their interest that foreign direct investment should be encouraged and not discouraged.
Therefore a proper agreement will help them as much as it will help the investing countries.
The relation between what we are doing in the MAI negotiations and what we want to do in the WTO is the key, as Mrs Mann has rightly stated.
That relationship was something very relevant to the remarks of Mr Lannoye, Mrs Leperre-Verrier and Mrs Kinnock.
We have been very conscious of the importance of the interlocking relationship.
The MAI negotiation is one between essentially developed countries.
It is a negotiation which nobody need participate in and nobody need join and the results of which nobody need accept who is not a party to that negotiation, although it is open to them.
It is because of that and because of my view, which I very strongly hold, that to have an agreement that adequately reflects the interests of the developing countries as well as the developed ones, there should be discussions in the WTO leading to a negotiation in the WTO which will take account of the MAI negotiation but which need not be the same.
That is the best way of ensuring that the MAI does not exert unreasonable pressure on developing countries to adhere to it.
However, we have some barriers to deal with there.
So far we have only reached agreement on discussion in the WTO and the obstacle to going beyond that to a negotiation in the WTO is the fact that some developing countries have resisted that.
I hope very much therefore that those - and there are many in this House - who have an influence on the developing countries will encourage them to move to a position in which they will welcome a negotiation in the WTO as well as a negotiation in the OECD, precisely in order that the agreement which will eventually come into effect in which they can participate will be one that fully reflects their interests and that they will not simply be faced with the alternative of signing up to the MAI negotiation or not signing up to anything at all.
As it happens, I do not believe that the MAI negotiation need result in a conclusion that is inimical to the interests of developing countries.
However, I can understand their feeling that they have not been parties to that negotiation.
The best thing for them to do is to supplement the negotiation in the OECD with a negotiation in WTO as soon as possible.
The failure of the OECD negotiation will not help them because that will be used to oppose the beginning of negotiations in the WTO by people who are bound to say: ' if the developed countries cannot even reach an agreement on this, how can you expect there to be a world agreement?'
If there is no world agreement on this, then the balance which attracts investment to developing countries, that they desperately need on the right terms, will not take place and it will be counterproductive on the part of those who seek to defend their interests to have opposed the OECD negotiation.
It is with these considerations in mind that in May 1995 negotiations in the OECD context were launched, and in December 1996 at the Singapore Ministerial Conference we achieved the setting up of a WTO Investment Working Group.
The deadline set for negotiations in the OECD to come to a conclusion is the end of April 1998.
Anybody who has ever been involved in negotiations of this kind will know that a month and a half at the end of a negotiation is a very important and crucial time in which much can be done.
I cannot tell you whether we will reach a conclusion.
If we do, it will be much informed by what has been said today.
But I can tell you that we will only reach a conclusion if we are able to accommodate the legitimate interests of the European Union.
I agree with most, if not all, of the recommendations made in the draft resolution which is the subject of discussion today.
We agree on the need to safeguard in the MAI the right of contracting parties to take action to protect the environment, not only now but in the future.
Therefore, I have no difficulty at all with what has been said by Mrs Pollack.
In the field of labour, we think it is very important that the respect of labour standards should be protected in this negotiation.
So I agree with Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and, indeed, with Mr Habsburg-Lothringen on that.
We also insist on a provision to cover present and future policies related to European integration.
That is why I welcome the words of Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, Mrs Ahern and Mrs Castellina about the importance of a regional economic integration clause which allows both for further harmonization among existing Members of the European Union and a progressive alignment on EU policy of the laws and practices of our Europe agreement partners.
I would say to Mr Falconer that this agreement - if it goes through - will reinforce the status of national contact points, and that the guidelines he referred to as being inadequate are due for review.
The draft resolution also deals extensively with the aspects of culture and intellectual property rights under the MAI, and rightly so.
I wish to say a word about that.
The objective of preserving European cultural identity through specific policy measures and actions, in particular in the audiovisual sector, is fully shared by the Commission.
I share the concerns expressed by many, especially Mr Elchlepp and Mrs Daskalaki.
Among negotiators there is now a consensus that the MAI should not undermine the GATT acquis , excluding audiovisual services, that is to say, the conclusion of the Uruguay Round.
It is only a question of exactly how that should be done.
Our view is that a general exception, which seems superficially attractive, is not the best solution.
A Europe-specific detailed reservation actually gives greater legal security for present and future policies than a one-sentence general caveat.
There is one thing I want to assure this House of beyond a doubt: I had the privilege and the honour of conducting the Uruguay Round negotiations on the part of the European Union.
On the last day of those negotiations, when the whole of the world was standing by and wanting a conclusion to those negotiations, we were under intense pressure from the United States to agree to provisions relating to audiovisual and cultural matters which would have weakened and put at risk our own audiovisual and cultural policy.
I had absolutely no hesitation in resisting that pressure and in saying that we would not agree to the whole Uruguay Round agreement if we were forced to succumb to such pressure to reach such an agreement.
And we succeeded.
It was the United States which blinked.
I can assure this House that, faced with a situation of that kind, if the European Union, through its negotiator, the Commission, was prepared to resist that pressure, do not think we are going to be so naive as to give away in the MAI negotiations what we resisted successfully in the Uruguay Round negotiations.
There is absolutely no question of that happening and any disagreement can only be about the way in which we are most effectively protected.
On IPR let me say we are still looking for a solution which would respect European and WIPO rules in the area while, on the other hand, providing value added mainly in the field of dispute settlement.
I can assure Mrs McKenna that the reservations on fisheries will be effective, but all of these issues are still under negotiation.
With political will, taking account of the points rightly raised in this House, we can reach a conclusion which will be in the interests of the European Union as a major investor outside the European Union, in the interests of the developing countries and in the interests of all the policies that we hold dear.
We shall only sign up to an agreement if we reach that.
I do not myself think that there is any necessity or value in obtaining the opinion of the European Court of Justice.
We negotiate habitually on matters of great importance, we have our legal advisers, and if every time there was a negotiation we ran to the European Court of Justice that would undermine the institutional balance.
Of course I can happily confirm, as Mr Kreissl-Dörfler invited me to do, that the Commission will recommend to the Council that if there is an agreement that the Member States and the Commission support, we will request the assent of the European Parliament before its enactment.
In presenting the MAI to the Council I can assure Mr García-Margallo y Marfil that the Commission will analyse the compatibility of this agreement with the important international agreements to which we are a party, including multilateral, environmental and social agreements, and with our own legislation and policies in areas such as fisheries, transport and development, as well as with the European Community Treaty itself.
But at this stage I do not see any incompatibilities and in the continuation of the negotiations we will ensure that this remains the case.
At the present stage the negotiations are in a difficult phase.
Our American partners have indicated that given the need for continued negotiations on a number of crucial issues they think that the April deadline cannot be met.
They tell us that they are not in a position to suggest an alternative date for conclusion of the MAI.
That sends a bad signal concerning our determination to hold the OECD countries to their current economic policy course despite the recent crises in, notably, Asia, and to respond to the challenges of globalization by enhancing the present open system for trade and investment.
We cannot accept the American announcement as a fait accompli .
In the period ahead important progress can be made if the political will is there.
It will then be for ministers to decide on the fate of the MAI reflecting the wishes of democratically elected governments.
It is now up to us to test in the weeks to come if the political will is there.
We are determined to do everything we can to achieve a successful conclusion of the negotiations, but an agreement at any price is not what we are looking for.
It is also important to stress the need to find a suitable arrangement with the United States inside and outside the MAI, to deal with the problem of extraterritorial legislation which Mr Souchet referred to in general and the Helms-Burton Act and ILSA in particular.
The OECD ministerial meeting to be held at the end of April has to set out the course.
We will seek to make substantial progress between now and that date.
In the meantime the Community and its Member States have a clear interest in having an MAI that protects our interests, protects the interests of developing countries and secures our ability to continue with the policies which we hold dear.
We shall seek to achieve that; we shall not yield to any seeking to destroy our interests.
If we proceed boldly but coolly, ready to defend our interests but also recognizing that the right kind of MAI on the right conditions is in the interests of the European Union, then we shall be doing something that reflects the will of the peoples of Europe.
I asked a very specific question.
I asked Sir Leon Brittan to shed some light on the procedure because there might be a conflict of interest between the European Communities and the Member States that want to become partners.
I would like to know about a decision procedure.
Will there be unanimity in the Council on this before signing, or is it possible that there is...
(The President cut off the speaker )
I thought I had answered the question.
There has to be unanimous support of the Member States and there has to be assent given by this Parliament, as I said in my speech.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Question Time (Commission)
Ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to begin questions to the Commission, 35 minutes later than stated in the agenda.
Please excuse this delay, which is not my fault. I have spoken about it with the President, and I hope that in future we will be able to take appropriate measures in order to keep to the timetables set by our agendas.
Mr McMahon requests the floor on a point of order.
I raised a question this morning about my own question which I submitted about the NUTS nomenclature and eligibility for a designation under the various funds.
As you well know, I take Question Time very seriously.
I saw that Commissioner Wulf-Mathies was down to answer regional and structural fund questions this week, so I decided to table this question.
Unfortunately it appears to have been tabled at the end, under 'other Questions' .
It should be in its rightful place.
The then President undertook to find out from the service what had happened.
Could you give me an answer, please?
Mr McMahon, I was present myself this morning when you raised that question, and in accordance with Parliament's services, we contacted the Commission.
I should remind you that the Commission is responsible for deciding which Commissioner replies to a given question.
The Commission explained to us that your Question No 102 is a matter for Mr de Silguy, since it concerns Eurostat figures.
So it does not fall into Mrs Wulf-Mathies' remit.
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0260/98).
The 1993 structural funds reform incorporated equal opportunities for men and women on the labour market as a policy goal, and equal opportunities in the Social Fund is defined in Art. 1 (1)(d) as a specific priority.
Member States have chosen to implement this priority of the present ESF regulation with a dual approach.
The majority have adopted specific equal opportunities programmes whereas the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom are using a mainstreaming approach.
Even though approaches differ the measures undertaken are very similar: promotion of greater participation of women in fields where they are under-represented, training and vocational training of unemployed women and women returners and the promotion of female entrepreneurship and other related measures.
In the preparation of the new draft general structural fund regulations one of the goals is to reduce existing disparities and to promote equal participation of women and men in economic and social activity through a mainstreaming approach.
The intention is to have the mainstreaming strategy permeate the whole implementation process from the programming phase right through to reporting.
At all phases and levels of decision-making the aim is to have a) balanced participation of women and men and b) a partnership which includes representatives of competent authorities and bodies in the field of equality between women and men.
It is foreseen that the European Social Fund activity will be based on five policy fields: active labour market policy, promotion of social inclusion, lifelong learning, anticipation and facilitating economic and social change and equal opportunities for men and women.
In addition to the specific equal opportunities priority in the social fund regulation it is intended to implement the mainstreaming approach through all policy fields and to build on actual experience in the regional and local development context including local employment initiatives and territorial employment pacts.
I hope that a clear message in favour of positive action will be given in the new regulation.
Finally, I should remind the honourable Member that the employment guidelines which were adopted at the special job summit in Luxembourg last November are constructed around four pillars and one of these is strengthening the policies for equal opportunities.
In this connection Member States are required to take measures which will reduce the gender gap in unemployment as well as in occupational segregation, to raise the levels of care services which very often represent a key barrier for women who would like to return to work and to facilitate the return process.
The Commission expects that particular attention will be paid to these guidelines in the action plans which are being prepared by the Member States just now and which will be presented at the Cardiff European Council in June.
Commissioner, my precise reason for asking this question is my wish to see women become the subject and the main object of the new employment policies. So thank you for your magnificent reply, which was so thorough and encouraging.
I would just like to ask if you really believe these benefits are going to reach all Europe's women, even in Granada. Also, financially speaking, what is the exact amount involved?
I should also like to know if these benefits are going to reach the places where women most need them.
Lastly, are efforts going to be made to ensure that there are more programmes, and that they are better funded in those places where there is most male chauvinism?
Thank you for your question, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, and for keeping to time.
Mr Flynn has the floor to answer the supplementary question which, as you will have realized, mentioned the women of Granada.
I do not know whether you are familiar with Granada, Mr Flynn, but if not I recommend that you visit that magnificent city.
I take up your invitation Mr President and I should look forward to the visit very much.
I have been there on a few occasions privately but perhaps I can go on an official visit and I am grateful for your interest.
I should like to say to the honourable Member that I am not just full of hope but I am full of expectation as well, and of course you will appreciate that all these changes will depend on the programmes that are submitted from the Member States when they look for assistance insofar as the promotion of equal opportunities are concerned.
Bear one thing in mind: it is a Treaty obligation, and since the job summit all the Prime Ministers and the Presidents of the 15 Member States have signed a personal commitment to advance equal opportunities and to provide specific activities to deal with this.
I will be particularly interested in what the social fund does because I foresee a framework there that will provide employment aids and aids for the self-employed.
It will develop new sources of employment and will give assistance in the provision of services for beneficiaries.
Here I am talking about care services which I think you will agree with me are very often a fundamental matter in accommodating women returning to work.
I look forward with quite a lot of expectation following the commitments of the job summit.
Commissioner, the autonomous region of Valencia has Objective 1 status but it has still not been decided if it will retain that status, because it is a few points above or below the figure of 75 % of Community income.
Of course, unemployment certainly is above average, and not just the Community average but the Spanish average too.
That, in its turn, is twice the European figure, or three times in the case of women.
Given that employment is a priority objective in all the European regions, and that training and new jobs are both absolutely essential, especially for the women who make up 30 % of the unemployed in the Valencian Community, does the Commission think that region should retain its Objective 1 status?
Very briefly I should just say to the honourable Member that Valencia does have certain particular problems.
A decision has not yet been taken concerning the particular areas that will qualify for Objective 1 under the new tranche from the year 2000-2006.
That will all have to be negotiated between now and some time early next year.
I would like to point out that the regulations that will apply to the structural funds will be up for approval before the Commission on 18 March and after that we will see how things progress.
Thank you, Mr Flynn, for your presence here today, for your answers, and for having accepted the suggestions that you visit the two lovely Spanish cities of Granada and Valencia - for different reasons, but both very interesting.
Question No 42 by John McCartin (H-0176/98)
Subject: Beef market
The five main supermarkets in Britain have monopoly control over the sale of meat; they have over 80 % of the total market.
Can the Commission prevent these retailers using their market domination in an anti-competitive manner by excluding Irish beef from their outlets?
The retail market for meat in Britain contains a number of supermarkets with significant market shares but the Commission has no information to the effect that they are collectively or individually in a position to dominate the market.
Currently we do not have sufficient concrete information to make an assessment of the situation on the market.
Commission services are currently trying to verify reports that Irish beef has been excluded from supermarkets and find out, if it is the case, whether the exclusion is due to restrictive practices or for other reasons.
If the Member or anybody else has relevant information the Commission would be interested in receiving it.
I understand there is plenty of information that some supermarket chains in the UK have publicly declared that they have excluded Irish beef from their shelves for the moment.
In those circumstances, I understand, considering that this is a market which has traditionally been supplied with Irish beef, that this is a deliberate discriminatory act which has been declared and confessed by the people concerned.
I would like to ask the Commissioner - assuming that he can verify that - if he has the power to prosecute the people in question for this declared and confessed discrimination.
We will have to look into the facts.
Much will depend on whether the exclusion is due to restrictive practice or whether it is a unilateral exclusion.
So I cannot really say whether anything can be done, and whether anything should be done, until further information is obtained and analysed.
Question No 43 by Simon Murphy (H-0192/98)
Subject: Sport and Alcohol Sponsorship
Following recent speculation in the British press, will the Commission confirm whether the Green Paper on commercial communications in the internal market will result in an imminent decision on sport and alcohol sponsorship within the EU?
What are the Commission's plans regarding the future of drinks advertising in the EU, especially in view of the French which limits alcohol sponsorship and has resulted in the effective banning in France of the retransmission of televised sporting events benefiting from alcohol advertising/sponsorship in other countries?
The honourable Member refers to recent press articles which have speculated that the Green Paper on commercial communications in the internal market will result in an imminent decision on sports sponsorship by the alcohol industry in the EU.
That is not the case: the Green Paper, whose proposals were adopted on 4 March, sets out a methodology to assess whether the effects of restrictions on crossborder commercial communications are proportional to the public-interest objectives that such measures are intended to achieve.
The communication has also established an expert group of Member State representatives to examine the differences in national regulations with a view to exploring the scope for agreement on mutual recognition in this field.
The communication sets up a framework where the issue that the honourable Member has raised could be discussed openly in order to resolve internal-market problems that may arise.
The press are confusing this consultative exercise with an infringement case that the honourable parliamentarian has referred to against a provision of the French loi Evin .
This provision bans TV transmissions by French broadcasters of certain sports events held outside France, but mainly of interest to the French public, which are sponsored by alcoholic beverage producers.
This restriction on retransmissions has led to sports bodies in other Member States breaking their sponsorship contracts with alcohol beverage producers, for fear of having their events not transmitted in France, and therefore losing their TV rights.
The Commission sent out a reasoned opinion in 1996 underlining its doubts as to the proportionality of this restriction, and is currently discussing the issue with the French authorities.
I would stress that, in this case, the Commission is not contesting the loi Evin as such, but the consequences of the application of the law on televised events held outside France.
The Commission seeks to ensure the highest level of public health protection and to that end is taking the utmost care in assessing the proportionality of this restriction.
With regard to our willingness to take harmonizing measures in this field, that will depend on the outcome of the investigations.
It would be in our power to propose such measures but, at this point, we have no intention of doing so.
I have no further question, other than to thank the Commissioner for that very clear and straightforward answer.
We look forward to developments in the future.
I want to ask you whether you do not agree with me that what we have here in relation to the loi Evin in France is in Europe what we are protesting against over the laws which are blocking trade with Cuba.
In other words, this is an international intervention which has no justification whatsoever, and we would weaken our position if we really carried this out within Europe.
We could no longer be fighting against the American legislation on international trade.
I certainly agree that in considering what we are saying about what other people outside the European Union do we should be very careful to ensure that we are consistent in not objecting to what happens outside the European Union and not at the same time objecting to anything similar within the European Union.
I have already mentioned that the Commission sent out a reasoned opinion in 1996 underlining its doubts as to the proportionality of the restriction in the loi Evin and to go further than that would go as far as I am tempted to go but further than I would be wise to go.
Like the speaker, Sir Leon, I am pleased with the statement published last week on commercial communication.
In view of the fact that the many recent complaints, particularly on the loi Evin , have not been dealt with seriously, my question is whether it was President Santer's office or the President himself who considered it necessary to wait until the statement came out.
Also, will the expert group which is soon to be set up investigate the complaints thoroughly? Could you give this Parliament and me some more information about the various positions within the Commission on the treatment of the complaints we have before us?
It would not be normal to give details of every kind of discussion that takes place within the Commission, apart from the fact that I am not aware of them all.
But the normal position is this: you send out a reasoned opinion expressing doubts as to the legality of what has been done and you then engage in discussions with the French authorities if they are prepared to do so, which they are, and that is currently the stage that we have got to.
I am not able to go beyond that.
Question No 44 by Graham Watson (H-0257/98)
Subject: Ticket allocation for the 1998 Football World Cup
Following the request made to the French World Cup organizing authorities by the European Commission to recast its ticket allocation for World Cup football matches, will the Commission make a statement on the steps taken by the CFO?
Does the Commission believe these steps bring the ticket allocation system into compliance with Community competition law?
The Commission wrote to the World Cup Organizing Committee on 20 February outlining its objections to the current ticketing policy and asking the committee, within two weeks of its receipt of the letter, to inform the Commission of the steps which it proposed to take to ensure that its system of ticket distribution did not discriminate against football supporters resident outside France.
This request followed a preliminary assessment of the current ticketing arrangements, which led the Commission to believe that the organizing committee might be abusing a dominant position on the World Cup ticketing market, contrary to Article 86 of the EC Treaty.
The Commission met the organizing committee on Thursday, 5 March to discuss its concerns over the current ticketing arrangements, and, in particular, the CFO rule which requires all those wishing to purchase tickets directly from the CFO to provide an address in France to which the tickets can be sent.
Does this mean that the Commission will take no action to forbid the issue of tickets which have already been sold, even though many of these tickets have not yet been issued but merely applied for? Can the Commissioner guarantee that if the Treaties have been infringed, then formal infringement procedures will be initiated?
Or is the Commission seeking merely a sop to football fans stitched up with the CFO in a cosy compact in the changing rooms?
I do not envisage anything cosy of the kind that the honourable Member describes.
If there has been a breach of the law then action will be taken unless that breach is put right in a very specific way.
That will be the position of the Commission.
As I have said, there were discussions as recently as last Thursday.
I cannot give a specific answer to the point the honourable Member has made because, in fact, the outcome of those discussions is being considered and my colleague will be making a statement in a debate on Thursday at which I have little doubt he will convey the outcome of the meeting, the conclusions the Commission has drawn and the action that has been taken.
With the situation as the Commissioner has described and the restrictions it places on the distribution of tickets, there will undoubtedly be people who will look for a way round it.
Has the Commission had any communications with the French authorities to look at the potential for problems when it comes to the resale of tickets? There will always be legitimate travel companies who, one way or another, get hold of tickets and start offering alternative packages but there will also be ticket touts who will get hold of tickets and be reselling them at inflated prices.
This could create massive problems from the point of view of policing, from balance and the whole potential for crowd problems.
It could throw the whole scheme into disarray.
It might create a very free market, which I am sure the Commissioner would support, but it will be one that could lead to problems.
Has there been any contact with the French authorities regarding this?
I am sorry that I cannot give a definitive answer as to exactly what is happening.
I can assure the honourable Member that as a result of the discussions that took place last Thursday, the whole issue is being looked at.
The Commission will certainly not agree to any solution which permits very obvious abuses and can be got round in a very easy way.
Those considering these matters have adequate knowledge of what people might get up to not to be fobbed off by a solution which has obvious holes.
Question No 45 by Gary Titley (H-0229/98)
Subject: Anti-dumping duties
In view of the repeated anti-dumping complaints by Eurocoton, does the Commission intend to revise its procedures so that serial complaints will no longer be possible?
The current Eurocoton complaint followed the rejection by the Council of the Commission's proposal for definitive anti-dumping duties on unbleached cotton fabrics in May 1997.
This complaint also concerned unbleached cotton fabrics but, unlike the old proceeding, it was based on evidence of dumping and injury in a different time period.
Following receipt of the new complaint the Commission examined whether it was lodged by a sufficiently representative proportion of Community producers and whether it contained prima facie evidence of dumping and resulting injury.
Since these requirements were met the Commission decided to open a new investigation on 11 July 1997 as it was obliged to do under EU anti-dumping legislation which is in conformity with WTO rules.
Consecutive anti-dumping complaints are extremely rare.
Grey cotton fabrics is the only case in the history of the EU anti-dumping regulation where a second complaint was lodged after the rejection of a Commission proposal by the Council.
In these circumstances the Commission has not yet formed a view as to whether a legislative change that would prevent consecutive complaints is warranted.
In order to investigate anti-dumping complaints, the Commission has to come to a view on whether there is injury to the European Community cause.
Is it not the case that serial anti-dumping complaints are themselves damaging to the Community interest given the cost of dealing with the investigations, given the uncertainties which companies are then placed under, which makes it very difficult to engage in any sort of forward planning? Does the Commission accept that serial complaints are themselves injurious to the Community interest?
Does he have a view as to whether serial complaints are fundamentally undermining the EU's commitments to the World Trade Organisation, given that they can be seen to represent trade harassment of importing countries?
I certainly accept that any complaint that is made imposes a burden on the interested parties but I do not accept that the receipt of a second or a third complaint is contrary to the rules of the WTO.
I am a bit reluctant to regard the lodging of a complaint as something that itself should be looked at in the context of Community interests.
But I assure the honourable Member that in the case of this complaint the whole question of Community interests and the balancing of any Community interests - in an opposite sense compared to the damage done to the producers who have made the complaint - is something that will be looked into and has been very fully looked into.
I tabled a question on this and it did not come up in today's session.
I would like to follow up on Mr Titley's question.
In the light of tomorrow's debate on the competitiveness of the EU industries generally and Commissioner Bangemann's action plan on the competitiveness of the European textile industry, would you not agree that Eurocoton's complaint belongs to the past for our industries? Does the Commissioner not accept that the Community interest is not served, nor is the competitiveness of the EU textile industry served, by the imposition of such duties?
Indeed we already have evidence that this will lead to job losses not only in the finishing sector but also in increased imports of finished goods at the end of the day.
Therefore, I ask you, Commissioner, what proposals will you make to the Council of Ministers and to the expert group for enhancing and strengthening Community interest in this area? Will you be making a strong case for Community interests?
Are you prepared to put forward proposals in this area in future?
In terms of representation, 30 companies producing cotton are not representative of the whole of the EU textile industry.
There is really no mystery about this.
We have looked to see if there has been dumping or injury - and we all know to whom injury is alleged to have been done.
Against that we have balanced all the points made by another section of European industry that says that injury would be suffered if there were anti-dumping measures taken.
Indeed, it has said that the net effect of the measures would be beneficial to the European economy as a whole.
That is a legitimate argument.
There is a procedure for considering it.
It is important that the question of Community interest should be considered properly.
We have done so in this case.
I am not in a position to announce a final outcome yet but I can assure the honourable Member that all the points she has raised have been taken very fully into consideration.
I have received complaints against the anti-dumping measures.
They have been from small companies who feel they are going to be very severely disadvantaged if they are no longer able to import the cotton. I would like to ask: are not both developing countries and some small companies who depend on imported cotton being disadvantaged very considerably?
When you are looking at the balance of interest, you take on board those issues as well. In the answers you have already given, you have given some indication of that.
I am very grateful for what the honourable Member has said about my initial response.
It is very difficult.
There is no doubt at all that there are people within the European Union who complain that they are suffering from dumping and there are others who complain that they would suffer even more if anti-dumping measures were taken.
So, leaving aside anybody outside the European Union, we have to balance those interests.
That is why this has proved to be one of the most difficult and controversial cases we have had to deal with.
I am sorry I cannot say just at the moment where it is all going to end but I can say that I have been personally involved in a serious examination of the arguments that everybody has put forward - the producers outside the European Union and those represented by the honourable lady.
It is impossible to please everybody.
Therefore, the only thing to do is to try to be fair and that is what we shall try to do.
Question No 46 by Inger Schörling (H-0007/98)
Subject: Salmonella
Salmonella-infected products may be sent back to the country of shipment provided prior authorization is obtained from the competent authorities of that country.
It seems peculiar that the competent authorities in the country of shipment must grant authorization for the contaminated meat to be returned when it should be the supplier's responsibility to take back such consignments while the relevant authorities are informed.
The background to my question is that inspections of meat imported into Sweden have revealed far too many cases of salmonella, despite all the certification from the country of shipment being present and correct.
This gives rise to complications, not only for people who consume the contaminated meat but also for importers and retailers who, apart from the financial implications, are also embroiled in bureaucracy.
A question of interpretation has also arisen as to who should be considered to have handled the product first? Is it the importer, the distributor or another party?
Is it possible for the competent authorities in the country of shipment not to authorize the return of contaminated meat?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Schörling's questions relate to Article 7 of Council Directive 98/662 of 11 December 1989 on Arrangements for veterinary checks on intra-Community trade with regard to the single market, with particular reference to the checks to be carried out at the relevant destination.
It is necessary to distinguish between two different scenarios in this context: in more serious cases the consignment delivered must be safely disposed of or treated in accordance with the relevant Community rules to eliminate any further risk.
In other, less serious cases, the appropriate authorities in the country of destination can give the shipper or the shipper's authorized agent two options, depending on the animal health and sanitary conditions.
The first is to safely dispose of the goods and the second is to use the goods in some other way, including the option of sending the goods back, subject to permission from the appropriate authorities in the country where the production unit of origin is located.
This permission from the authorities in the country of dispatch was regarded as essential for these authorities to confirm the whereabouts of the contaminated consignment and ultimately prevent its being placed on the market.
If the check is carried out at a later stage in the marketing chain, and the result is unfavourable, the relevant national regulations apply.
For products originating from another Member State, the same regulations apply as for products originating in the Member State concerned.
When Sweden became a Member of the EU we were given a unique derogation because we do not have any salmonella in Sweden.
The derogation was that all meat imports from other EU countries should be accompanied by a certificate to say that the consignment of meat was free of salmonella.
It now appears that this was much more complicated than our authorities ever thought because, among other things, it appears that many of the certificates are false or incorrect.
No less than 25 % of all beef, pig-meat and poultry consignments have incomplete certificates, and 20 % of the meat consignments which have the correct certificates prove to be contaminated with salmonella.
No less than 85 % of the tests on poultry from France showed that the meat was contaminated.
So you will understand that this is not a question of having to deal with a few small consignments.
Another problem is that people do not know and cannot figure out who is responsible.
I think the Commission is responsible for ensuring that the derogation Sweden has received works .
I do not think Commissioner Fischler's answer really explained things, although I am certainly grateful for it.
I would therefore like to hear a bit more about how the Commissioner thought this would work.
Mr President, Mrs Schörling, first of all I can confirm that Sweden was indeed granted derogations as part of its accession to the European Community.
In accordance with these derogations - and this also applies to Finland by the way - Sweden can apply special guarantees to various products, namely fresh meat, eggs and poultry meat, as the Commission authorized operational programmes for combatting salmonella submitted by Sweden.
The Commission approved these programmes in its 1995 decision.
We will be coming back to the subject of checking in the next question, but the essential point is that a procedure certainly exists under which countries of dispatch are responsible, as the Commission cannot check every consignment shipped from every Member State on the spot.
The Commission can only ensure that appropriate rules exist.
The Member State concerned is of course then required to ensure that these rules are observed.
Commissioner, today the Commission has been presented with questions on contamination, meat hygiene, BSE, brown rot, and so on.
I want to point out to the Commissioner that the FAO has called on the European Union to increase and strengthen its prevention and monitoring systems for the transformation and transmission of diseases in the area of agricultural health.
Also, there are eleven central and eastern European countries at our door, and as things stand, their safeguards in that area are dubious, to say the least.
In order to guarantee the health of consumers and of our agricultural producers in the face of this worrying situation, I want to ask the Commissioner what measures the Commission is taking to ensure that Member States comply with this legislation - since there is plenty of legislation - in matters of both veterinary and phytosanitary health. Also, are the same measures going to be demanded of third countries and other countries?
Mr President, I am pleased to answer this question because it leads on to the Commission's general policy in this area.
As you will probably know, we have started to review the whole area of meat hygiene and all legislation in this field. Our goal in doing so is as follows: on the one hand, we want to establish clear Community rules governing checks necessary from the beginning of the production chain for a foodstuff right to the consumer's table.
But in doing so, we want to break new ground with the HACCP system.
Under this system, private processing companies are involved in the actual checking work, while they in turn are subject to checks by the appropriate authorities, so that the checking work stipulated is also monitored.
This is the approach on which the FAO has agreed.
It is an approach supported by the World Health Organization and I think that we are definitely on the right track here. Of course we must ensure that the requirements we are imposing on our own farms and factories also apply to third countries, so that exactly the same criteria are applicable to imports.
For example, exactly the same system will be required for imports under the bilateral agreement currently being discussed with the USA.
I would like to ask Commissioner Fischler what advice he has to give to a Member State if the certificates continue to be inaccurate in future, and if in future meat contaminated with salmonella also enters the country, in this case Sweden.
Is it not the case that it should be every country's natural right to be able to protect itself against products which are harmful to health? What advice does the Commissioner therefore have to offer to Sweden if these inaccurate certificates and contaminated products continue to enter the country?
As I have already explained, special arrangements are in place to prevent shipments of meat which do not conform with the special standards applying to Sweden and Finland.
If shortcomings are discovered when these arrangements are implemented in practice, that is if checks reveal that the consignments being shipped do not comply with the requirements of the directives, it is then open to the country of destination to destroy the consignment in serious cases, or in other cases to decide on an appropriate course of action after contacting the country of origin. The outcome may once again be destruction, or alternatively sending the consignment back.
With regard to shortcomings which have actually been discovered, especially in shipments of poultry from one Member State in particular, consultation involving that Member State and the Swedish government is currently in progress, and it is hoped that this consultation will yield agreement on how such shortcomings can be avoided in future.
The parties concerned are expected to reach final agreement on this in the near future.
Question No 47 by Sören Wibe (H-0210/98)
Subject: Salmonella inspections
Since joining the EU, Sweden has discovered on several occasions that meat imported from other EU countries has been contaminated with salmonella despite the existence of a certificate from the exporting country stating that the consignment in question was salmonella-free.
In reply to a written question by myself (P-3933/97) the Commission stated (19 January 1998) that this may be due, among other things, to cases of manipulation or incompatibility between different inspection techniques.
Is the Commission here seeking to indicate that there are shortcomings in Sweden's inspection arrangements or is it confident that the Swedish tests are entirely accurate? Furthermore, has it analysed this question (i.e. the problems of salmonella infection in meat imported into Sweden) and reached any result?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Wibe has asked for more detail in my reply about certain aspects of Written Question No 3933.
These issues, like the question just asked by Mrs Schörling, relate to the broader subject of compliance with the additional guarantees given for salmonella in meat during Sweden's and Finland's accession.
I would first like to describe the checking regime established by the Swedish authorities for imported meat.
According to our information, meat imported into Sweden from another Member State is checked by the recipient under a self-checking regime.
Any irregularities in certification are reported to the appropriate authorities.
The consignments concerned are then officially tested by a laboratory authorized to test for salmonella.
These tests are quite separate from the routine tests which producers and the appropriate local authorities themselves carry out.
The sampling method used in all these tests is that prescribed by EU regulations.
The Swedish authorities have used their own analysis method, known as the Nordic method, whereas the other Member States use the ISO method for checks in the country of origin, as stipulated in the EU regulations.
Furthermore, the Swedish authorities carried out special monitoring on a trial basis between 1 March and 1 September 1997, in order to check that the supplementary guarantee regime was being correctly applied.
In all, 569 consignments were tested and salmonellae were found in twelve.
In addition, according to our information the problems, that is the detection of salmonellae, were mainly with poultry meat, to be specific poultry meat from a particular Member State.
In such cases Article 8 of the 1989 directive applies. This stipulates that as a first step bilateral discussions such as I have already described must take place between the Member States involved, and these discussions are currently under way.
As also stipulated in the directive, the Commission is awaiting the outcome of these discussions before taking any further steps.
With regard to analysis methods, the Council committees responsible are now considering whether the 'Nordic method' can be recognized alongside the ISO method as a reference method, with the objective of allowing the Nordic method to be used throughout the European Union as a second routine method.
We have just discussed this in the previous question, so perhaps not so many comments are needed.
It is clear, Mr Commissioner, that in this area we have two different methods.
In the same consignment using the Swedish method we find salmonella bacteria, while using the other method we do not find any salmonella bacteria.
Now there are a hundred different ways to make a mistake and not find bacteria where there are bacteria, but there is no way to find bacteria where there are no bacteria.
In this case these results must clearly point to the fact that of these two methods the Nordic method is superior, because when it is used people clearly find bacteria when the other method fails.
I interpret the end of your reply to mean that you will also use the Nordic method as a routine measure and that it will at least be given equal status with the current method used under the relevant EU directive.
Is that a correct understanding of your reply?
Let me just explain again exactly what we have in mind and what is now happening in the Council committee responsible. Firstly, under the present system the reference method for the European Union is the ISO method.
Secondly, the Nordic method has up to now been used in Sweden, and Sweden wants this system to be recognized as a reference method as well.
There are no doubt certain differences between these two methods, and the aim is to take account of this so that the Nordic method will also be a valid reference method in future.
That is the objective.
However, as that is a Council requirement, or rather as it is stipulated in the regime adopted by Council, the Council must consider whether to accept this.
Until it has done so, should there be any disagreement, that is if a genuine legal dispute should arise, the present directive will apply, and the ISO reference method will prevail.
Question No 48 by Mark Watts (H-0032/98)
Subject: Reform of the common agricultural policy and farm animal welfare
Is the Commission in favour of including the need to ensure high standards of health and welfare for farm animals among the principal objectives of a reformed common agricultural policy? Is it also in favour of reforms to encourage mixed farming which will lead to more animals being kept outdoors or, because straw is available from the crops, in good straw-based indoor housing, and reforms to the beef and dairy regimes to discourage over-production of cattle, thereby allowing the European Union to abandon schemes designed to dispose of surplus animals, such as the calf processing aid scheme and export refunds on the export of live cattle to third countries, schemes which are both expensive and cause widespread animal suffering, and reforms to the dairy regime which discourage the pursuit of ever higher yields per cow which lead to serious animal welfare problems?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to emphasise that the Commission intends to take the Protocol on protection and welfare of animals annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam very seriously.
According to this protocol, and I quote, ' in formulating and implementing the Community's agriculture, transport, internal market and research policies, the Community and the Member States shall pay full regard to the welfare requirements of animals' .
Of course this protocol also has implications for the future development of the common agricultural policy.
The most important agricultural policy objectives are, first, to ensure that agricultural production reflects the wishes and requirements of consumers, and, second, to increase the competitiveness of European producers on international markets as well.
The approach set out in Agenda 2000 in July last year specified that the Commission wishes to improve the competitiveness of European agriculture both within the internal market and on the international market, whilst preventing the formation of new surpluses like the butter or grain mountains of the past.
Not only does the Commission propose a reorientation of the CAP with less focus on price support and more on direct income support, it also anticipates that production will in future be geared more to consumer demand, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
This should prevent new surpluses from accumulating and it should therefore also eliminate the need to export surplus beef.
But market orientation is not just about price.
It is equally important for consumers that food should be wholesome and of good quality, and that its origin should be clear.
Animal health and welfare naturally have a part to play here.
We therefore proposed in Agenda 2000, as part of a new policy for rural areas, that there should be more funds for agroenvironmental measures as a second arm of agricultural policy, and also more funds for animal welfare.
We hope that this policy too will have a positive effect.
However, please bear in mind that the Community has already adopted a panoply of animal protection and animal welfare measures, and that the European Union is undeniably doing a good job in this area by international standards.
These rules are subject to constant monitoring and will be developed further if necessary.
Regarding transport, measures in this area are concentrated more on improving transport conditions and less on a complete ban on transportation, as transport will always be necessary, whatever happens.
With a view to improving animal protection for cattle exports, the Council recently approved a proposal which will make the payment of export refunds conditional on compliance with EU animal protection and transport rules.
The Management Committee on Trade Mechanisms recently approved the corresponding implementing Regulation, so we can now adopt that Regulation.
I wish to begin by welcoming the Commissioner's clear commitment to taking the protocol very seriously.
I genuinely thank him for that.
Secondly, by way of example, perhaps he could comment on whether he would be willing to contemplate schemes to help intensive pig or poultry producers to switch from current intensive methods to extensive methods in the future.
Would he envisage such a scheme under his reform proposals for the CAP?
Finally, whilst I understand what he says about high standards of animal welfare already being regulated by EU legislation, this is not always enforced, as he is aware.
I give you one example: on 7 April this year we fear that in the Eid-El-Kabir in France the French authorities will not be enforcing the animal welfare regulations he quite rightly points to.
It is all very well having these regulations but we must surely all work together to ensure they are complied with.
As Mr Watts said himself, there are two parts to his question.
Firstly, under the new rural development policy package, investment aid for agricultural holdings will be linked to certain conditions.
In the two instances you mentioned it will in any case be necessary to observe the relevant minimum animal welfare standards when building new poultry or pig housing or converting old housing.
Secondly, farmers prepared to convert their existing livestock housing or build new housing in such a way as to appreciably improve animal welfare, will receive more investment support than others.
Turning to the question of poultry housing in general, a proposal will be presented to the Commission tomorrow in which we report on experience to date with poultry cages and provide for a whole series of measures for improving poultry housing.
However, these measures will also have to apply to third countries, because we cannot accept a situation in which we honourably stick to worthy rules and create good conditions, only to find our producers competing with importers producing under quite different and far worse conditions.
Commissioner, in relation to your answer on animal welfare, which you yourself consider to be closely linked to animal health, I would like to ask whether the Commission does not think it would be a good thing - and necessary - to also extend the measures to protect animal welfare (and therefore animal health) to the process by which animals arrive at the slaughterhouse, when it is necessary to observe appropriate hygiene.
That would contribute greatly to improving animal health and improving the quality of the hides and therefore, I would say, is the first link in that chain you mentioned in your reply to Mrs Redondo Jiménez.
The hide is the first link and, at the same time, its quality is essential to the tanners.
Thank you, Mrs Ferrer.
Allow me to congratulate you on the skilful way you expressed your question.
You have the floor, Mr Fischler, to reply to Mrs Ferrer's clever supplementary question.
Mrs Ferrer, this issue not only relates to your actual question, it also goes somewhat further.
Firstly, I would like to comment that the developments we are aiming at, and in particular our proposals for reform, should mean that the repeated accusations that we subsidize exports of live cattle to foreign abattoirs will certainly not be true.
The transport subsidy element has already been eliminated, and there is already a lower subsidy per animal for livestock than for meat export, so that only 10 % of total exports are now in the form of livestock.
This will apply even more so in the future, and the reduction in price guarantees in particular will enable us virtually to eliminate export subsidies for livestock.
However, to return to your more specific question about the condition of animals when they arrive at abattoirs, it is certainly not true that all animals reach abattoirs in poor condition.
Above all, it would not be in the interest of those doing the marketing, as you are quite right in saying that quality suffers when animals arrive in a poor state.
What interest could marketers possibly have in paying a higher price for poorer quality when animals are delivered?
On the other hand, it is true that a number of cases of disease transfer were reported recently in circumstances suggesting that inadequate hygiene was to blame.
In order to tackle this problem, the Commission - having taken advice from the relevant scientific committees - has decided to amend Directive 433 so as to minimize the risk of contamination of animals on arrival at abattoirs.
A proposal to this effect is currently being considered at Commission level.
Since we have now used up the time assigned to Mr Fischler's block of questions, Questions Nos 49 to 61 will be dealt with in writing.
Mr President, Miss McIntosh, in Agenda 2000, the Commission suggested cutting the number of objectives for Community initiatives and concentrating measures on transnational areas of Community interest, with the aim of preserving or enhancing their innovative character, the value added by the Community, and the role of partnerships.
Three fields were chosen: cross-border, transnational and interregional cooperation; rural development; and human resources, paying special attention to equal opportunities.
The fact that the Commission has not proposed any new initiative in favour of areas particularly affected by the decline of the armaments industry and the pruning of military bases does not mean that these areas are not to receive support as a matter of principle.
In fact there is continued scope for assistance under Objective 1, Objective 2 and Objective 3, as well as under the proposed new Community initiatives I have just mentioned.
Outside the targeted areas, measures for adapting and modernizing education, training and employment systems with a view to improving competitiveness and cushioning socio-economic change are also eligible under the new Objective III.
While I thank the Commissioner for that response, I have to say I am deeply disappointed.
In areas like Essex, Suffolk, Yorkshire and Cumbria, substantial job losses through the peace dividend have been suffered in defencerelated industries.
In particular, if you were to take two towns - Witham and Chelmsford - where the companies of Marconi and EEV operate, the substantial reduction to the workforce is quite worrying.
What assurance can the Commissioner give me tonight that areas like these, where they have benefited substantially from a programme tailor-made to defence-industry job cuts and training schemes to help those people who have lost their jobs through the peace dividend, will continue to benefit to the same extent as at the moment? That is the question.
They are going to be competing for a smaller pot of money under three broad objectives with no direct funds for defence cuts.
I am not in a position to give any answer at all to questions about a specific region and its future level of support, because we have not even agreed the proposals for the new Structural Fund Regulations within the Commission yet, and even then the support system will be far more partnership-oriented, and thus based on both European and national criteria.
I cannot tell you now what proposals the British government will choose to implement.
I am afraid I therefore have to disappoint you.
My constituency has benefited considerably from the KONVER programme.
The London Boroughs of Hounslow, Ealing and Richmond have all benefited at some time and I am very pleased about that.
But a problem has arisen which I wonder whether the Commissioner would agree to take on board, in whatever changes and variations are to be made in the future, and it is this: in areas like mine where the population is extremely mobile, it has been very difficult under the rules of KONVER to direct the assistance precisely to the people who have lost their jobs, because many of them have whizzed off to other parts of the country or even abroad to find other employment.
Local authorities have tried to put forward proposals to reinvigorate the area using KONVER funds to generate more employment, but they have run into difficulties with the existing programme rules.
I wonder whether we could, in the future, whatever changes are to happen, take on board this difficulty?
Yes, I think the Commission's proposals might well solve your problem, because our experience has been that isolated programmes are a lot less successful in structural policy terms than programmes related to regions in a somewhat broader context.
That is why we are also planning to have larger regions for Objective 2 areas in future; the programmes would be designed to ensure, as far as possible, that there is a tailor-made option on the spot for people who lose their jobs, with infrastructure and investment dovetailing with training measures for the unemployed.
Anyway, I am pleased to take your point on board.
I notice the Commissioner smiling, but it is not the first time we have debated these issues and I will not ask her about any particular region.
However, I will ask her this about the future of the KONVER programme: if the answer from the Commission is that the areas are going to be eligible under the new Objective 2, we have yet to really understand what the mechanism is going to be which enables them to qualify.
It seems that the Commission is not minded to have a special arrangement such as it intends to have over Objective 6.
If I am wrong about that, please tell me.
If that is not the intention, I still do not understand why there are not going to be transitional phasing-out arrangements for KONVER areas and other Community initiative areas, as there are going to be for Objective 2 areas that fall out of the net.
If the same need for structural change based on unemployment and low growth exists for Objective 2 areas, why not for the KONVER areas?
Finally, 50 % of KONVER areas Europe-wide are not Objective 2 - or other regional fund - eligible areas at the moment.
Does the Commissioner not agree that there is a special case here for her to study carefully?
I know that the European Union cannot clear up all the problems in the Community with Structural Funds money.
I am also all too well aware that a few changes in the regions can also lead to problems.
But I hope you will understand that in proposing generous measures for Objective 1, 2 and 5b areas for phasing out regions that will in future no longer be eligible, we really want to do what is necessary to consolidate existing successes.
Again, I want to make it quite clear that KONVER areas, like all other initiatives, will continue to qualify for Objective 3 funds, that is for the training of the unemployed and people faced with unemployment.
I assume that in future this could be of real help in precisely this area.
One last comment. Community initiatives as a whole, as you can see from the utilization rates, have not been as successful as we hoped, which is another reason for integrating such measures.
The defence industry is also 'industry' , of course.
As long as the relevant criteria are met, Objective 2 support is also available.
If these criteria are not satisfied, there is still horizontal Objective 3.
Question No 63 by Ian White (H-0172/98)
Subject: Urban II
What are the Commission's rules for the establishment of programme Monitoring Committees, and where are such rules published?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the general provisions on monitoring committees for Structural Fund applications are in Article 25 of amended Council Regulation No 4253/88.
Implementing rules governing the use of monitoring committees to keep track of programmes carried out under the URBAN initiative are drawn up by the Commission in conjunction with the Member States concerned.
They are to be found in the Commission decisions granting approval to the individual URBAN programmes.
I should have listened to the original answer rather than the interpretation but I did not understand where the documentary sources for the rules governing the URBAN programme can be found.
I will tell you why I am concerned about it.
It seems to me from reports I have received from interested organizations that there is a degree of anarchy amongst those who wish to apply for URBAN funding.
Naturally I assumed that there would be rules and regulations governing this.
What the Commissioner has just said does not appear to give me a source on which I can rely.
I would like to go to a booklet, to a regulation itself, so that I can decide for my own purposes whether the Member State concerned and the Commission and the United Kingdom are operating on the same basis of an agreed rule book that I can check for myself.
Is there such a rule book? Is there such a regulation, apart from 25(2) to which you have already referred?
The Commission decisions granting approval to individual URBAN programmes also contain the rules for those programmes.
I will also briefly mention them by name, because I think it is better to talk about specifics than regulation numbers.
URBAN has Objective 1 and Objective 2 monitoring committees, which are the general monitoring committees for Objective 1 and Objective 2.
Outside the assisted regions, and this is where Bristol comes in, I understand that there is an independent monitoring committee.
I have to agree with you that the process is somewhat complicated, as this monitoring committee is advised by the URBAN management committee, which is a sub-committee for monitoring the management of non-Objective areas, and there is also an URBAN partnership group, which brings together local partners and non-governmental organizations.
I noted that the Commissioner said in her earlier reply that the Community initiatives had not had the success that was hoped.
But I hope she recognizes that URBAN has provided an ideal opportunity to develop the sort of bottom-up Community initiatives that the Commission has promoted in its economic development plans and has provided a very good vehicle for promoting the Community with the citizens because of its very local, neighbourhood-level focus.
I hope that in URBAN II that local element will not be lost and will, indeed, be recognized in the monitoring committees, however they are constituted.
I hope she can reassure us on that point.
I have to agree with you.
Even if the utilization rates are not always very encouraging, URBAN is one of the more successful Community initiatives, because it is particularly close to local people and above all because it involves citizens from various local groups and has thus been a strong motivating force.
There have been no changes in the management process compared with URBAN 1, but it can be taken as read that the positive aspects of URBAN 1 have been incorporated into URBAN 2.
Because URBAN has been such a success, we want to incorporate assistance for sociallydeprived inner-city areas, the most deprived areas, into mainstream assistance, that is into the new Objective 2.
This demonstrates that URBAN has paved the way to providing Community assistance for inner-city problems on a larger scale.
Question No 64 by José Apolinário (H-0173/98)
Subject: Application of Interreg II C
Can the Commission say what aid was granted via the Community funds to the regions in the Azores, the Algarve and Alentejo which were affected by storms at the end of 1997? How does it account for the proposal to grant financial support via Interreg II C to certain Member States but to withhold it from Portugal?
Mr President, Mr Apolinário, the Commission is of course distressed about the storm damage in Portugal, particularly in the Azores, the Algarve and the Alentejo region.
It therefore declared its willingness to make a transfer of appropriations straight after these catastrophic events.
When the interim assessment of the Community support framework for Portugal was completed in February, the regions affected were granted further appropriations not as yet committed together with appropriations from the annual indexing, which were prioritized for environmental improvement measures.
The Commission successfully sought a higher level of appropriations for the reinforcement of the programmes claimed by these three regions than originally proposed by the Portuguese authorities, so that these regions are to receive an additional 73 million ECU instead of the 44 million originally proposed by Portugal.
It will be recalled that part of the funding available under the Community's INTERREG 2C initiative is intended for regional development measures to prevent floods and combat droughts.
No Community financing for the prevention of floods was granted to Portugal in 1997/98, because the Portuguese government did not submit an application to that effect.
On the other hand, a programme to combat drought in Portugal was approved by the Commission on 29 September 1997.
This programme has an indirect bearing on structural measures to prevent flooding, given that it contributes to improvements in water management and hydrological research, and assists with prospecting for water resources and with improvements in ecological balance.
The Commission is willing to consider an application by the Portuguese authorities for an INTERREG 2C programme on flooding, within the general guidelines and within the budgetary appropriations already allocated to Portugal.
Mr President, may I begin by thanking the Commissioner for her answer.
I agree with her that the priority of the environment and national development planning should be protected.
I would, however, emphasize that the part of her answer relating to the Portuguese Government is erroneous, in that the Interreg II C allocation of funding clearly states that Portugal, Spain, Greece and Italy can apply only in connection with drought, while Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Netherlands could make applications in connection with floods.
This is the point I cannot understand because I feel that the services for which the Commissioner holds political responsibility have adopted an excessively technical approach.
However, my question relates to the ultra-peripheral regions, and specifically the Azores.
I would like to know how the Commission intends to act in situations that have unfortunately reoccurred, given that in the future the REGIS initiative will cease to exist, particularly since while the Commission increased its technical justifications, the United States army, for instance, offered cooperation in carrying out the technical restoration of the Ribeiro Quente area.
It is merely a difference of approach.
Firstly, as an ultraperipheral region, the Azores will continue to be part of the most heavily assisted group of regions.
Secondly, I assume that the other regions you mentioned will also continue to receive financial assistance from the European Union.
The problem with the Structural Funds is that they are not an emergency aid mechanism and that the European Union has abolished emergency aid within Europe.
So we have no means of offering specific emergency aid.
However, what we can do in the case of an emergency, and have in fact done in Portugal, is to divert money available under the Community Support Frameworks and to use it for economic regeneration and to mitigate the environmental damage caused by such disasters.
That is what we have done in this case.
We certainly need to discuss how INTERREG 2C can be used more in the southern Member States in future to combat flooding.
I would ask you to remember how long we discussed how to combat droughts effectively, and that despite that neither the Commission nor perhaps the Portuguese government were farsighted enough to incorporate appropriate preventive measures in their plans for INTERREG 2C and Portugal.
I hope, however, that this will not be needed in the future, and if it is, we should be flexible enough to reconsider our programmes.
I do believe, however, that the funds we are making available are really an enormous extra help to these regions in coping with the aftermath of the emergencies.
The Commissioner is quite correct in saying that drought and floods in Portugal and Spain are connected.
It is well known that the sources of all Portugal's major rivers lie in Spain, and half Portugal's water comes from Spain.
As the Commissioner knows, all the hydraulic works in progress in Portugal and Spain are being carried out with Community funding.
And as the Commissioner is also aware, there has been a disagreement, a conflict, between Portugal and Spain in connection with the Spanish hydrological plan.
I think this could be overcome with common sense, while the intervention of Brussels and the Commission is essential in view of the fact that the funding of hydraulic works in Portugal and Spain comes primarily from Brussels.
Now that negotiations are resuming, what role do the Commission and the Commissioner intend to play?
The Commission normally has no right of say in bilateral negotiations, not only because of subsidiarity, but also because in the interests of sovereignty Member States do not normally welcome Commission poking its nose into things that Member States can sort out better themselves.
However, we have not been mere bystanders here.
For example, we financed a joint Spanish/Portuguese study to get the facts on their common water resources.
Furthermore, when authorization for the dam was being sought, we took the opportunity to ensure that joint water management was proposed as part of the plans to ensure that sufficient water of acceptable quality reached the dam.
I assume that the authorization and the precautions taken were helpful in this respect.
Vessels carrying dangerous goods
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0069/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Directive amending Directive 93/75/EEC concerning minimum requirements for vessels bound for or leaving Community ports and carrying dangerous or polluting goods (Rapporteur: Mr Novo Belenguer) (C4-0621/97-96/0231(SYN).
Madam President, the report we are going to debate this evening is the second reading under the cooperation procedure and refers to the proposal to amend the directive on the minimum requirements for vessels bound for or leaving Community ports and carrying dangerous or polluting goods.
To briefly review the process described in the report, I should first mention that in April 1997 this Parliament approved eleven amendments in first reading. These could be divided into three main groups.
The first group reinforced the requirements for information to be provided by the operators of vessels transporting radioactive goods.
The second group concerned measures designed to extend the requirements of this Directive (93/75/EEC) to ships in transit through Community waters.
Finally, the third group involved amendments to the directive's annexes.
The Commission and the Council accepted the amendments allowing the inclusion within the directive of future amendments to the international code on irradiated nuclear fuel, and concerning the obligation on vessel operators to supply a list of crew members to the port authority in advance, in case of any possible accident.
The report we are currently debating and will vote on tomorrow proposes three things: firstly, to bring Directive 93/75/EEC up to date, by requesting the inclusion of certain maritime transport safety requirements, especially with respect to irradiated nuclear fuel, plutonium and high-level radioactive waste; secondly, to increase the amount of information to be supplied when transporting these types of goods; and lastly, to facilitate future amendment of the directive's annexes, by simple recourse to the committee procedure, in order to bring national regulations into line with established international regulations on maritime safety.
In this respect, the present report proposes four amendments, which were all approved almost unanimously by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
The first amendment refers to the fifth recital of the directive.
We propose a change in the wording of the Council text. The new text is wider and more general - at least that is how we interpret it - and expresses our concern about the advisory committee being able to make significant or substantial changes to the directive.
Amendment No 4, which refers to paragraph 2 of Article 1, is directly related to the one I have just mentioned, and aims to prevent subsequent modifications to the directive weakening the existing provisions for safety and the protection of the marine environment.
In other words, we are introducing a minimum to prevent the guarantees which the directive itself recognizes from being weakened in any way.
Our second amendment refers to Article 1. In it we propose that the INF Code defined in the directive should be the updated version, as in force on 1 January 1998 rather than 1996.
Our reason is that apart from being much more recent and up-to-date, in November 1997 the International Maritime Organization adopted some amendments to strengthen the Code, and not to include them by that date would provide the advisory committee with a motive for amending the directive.
The third amendment repeats a proposal we made at the report's first reading.
Specifically, we request that when vessels of the type referred to in the report are in transit through a Member State's waters, it should be compulsory to notify the authorities of that state of the contents of Annex 1.
Furthermore, Madam President, as regards the content of this report, I think this proposal is appropriate and advisable, although we hope the provisions can also be applied to vessels in transit.
We must bear in mind that in effect this system is covered by the 1993 EUROREP proposal, but it has made hardly any progress.
So in view of the difficulty of changing this directive's approach, we suggest that the Commission, if it sees fit, should withdraw that original EUROREP proposal and present a new one, to include the legislative changes which have been made and approved by the International Maritime Organization.
I am just finishing, Madam President, and I hope the honourable Members will bear these amendments in mind when it comes to the vote on my report tomorrow. What we are requesting is the implementation of a series of Community regulations, to try - among other things - to improve maritime safety and protect the marine environment for future generations.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at second reading we are concerned today with the minimum requirements for ships which are using the Community's ports and carrying dangerous or environmentally harmful goods.
I think we are dealing here with an extremely important subject, which causes people to react once something has happened.
The aim of our legislation is to ensure that there will never be a catastrophic accident, or if an accident should occur, that possible damage is kept to a minimum, so that the people are not preoccupied with this subject.
I think there has rarely been a better starting point for European legislation.
I would like to thank the rapporteur explicitly for dealing so seriously with this subject, both at first reading and now at second reading.
The Group of the European People's Party shares the rapporteur's view.
We support all the amendments tabled, especially the request that appropriate information is also made available about ships which transport dangerous goods, do not use EU ports, but which do sail through the territorial waters of the European Union.
It is not just a question of accidents associated with the entering or leaving of ports but of the broadest possible measures to avert risks, even if it is only territorial waters which are affected, because experiences in recent years show that there really can be problems on European soil without a ship having initially entered a European port.
I would therefore strongly urge the Commission to take up this matter of concern.
We are unfortunately only at the cooperation stage.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is not yet in force, otherwise we would be more deeply involved in the legislative process.
I therefore request that you really do take up this matter, so that we can find a solution to the benefit of all the people in Europe.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for dealing with a sensitive and difficult issue.
I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur for continuing to resist the pressures of the Council and the Commission, which may have endorsed some amendments, ladies and gentlemen, but which endorsed the insignificant amendments.
The essential amendments which you had proposed and which we had voted on during the first reading were not endorsed.
I am also very pleased that the matter has been raised again.
We will support these amendments since it is clear that the Council and the Commission have forgotten (or rather, do not wish to remember) that nuclear waste is not simply a question of protecting the environment, it is a question of laundering black money. It is also, under certain conditions, a question of certain nuclear waste, after it has been enriched with plutonium, being used for other purposes, Mr Commissioner, for military purposes.
So the Commission and the Council should not only have accepted the rapporteur's original amendments, which imposed strict conditions for the control and safety of such loads, but the Council should have proposed even stricter conditions.
You all know very well what is happening with the trade in nuclear waste.
I am talking about the trade in nuclear waste by countries of the former Soviet Union. And you all know very well that this nuclear waste goes to certain countries which, as we discovered, are a danger to their neighbours, and in which we decided to intervene either in the guise of NATO or in I do not know what other guise.
It is our opinion that we supplied them with this nuclear waste because we had not imposed conditions of control and safety.
Madam President, I would first like to remind people that the Green Group in the European Parliament considers it highly positive that this directive has been proposed to amend the earlier Directive 93/75/EEC, to incorporate into the scope of the old directive the conditions for the transportation of nuclear fuel, plutonium and high-level radioactive waste on board ships.
This is certainly a positive fact, just as we believe the rest of the directive to be positive.
However, we believe Parliament's proposals are serious and credible, which is why we do not agree with the Council amendments which fail to include them.
For these reasons, we believe all the amendments proposed by the rapporteur should be firmly maintained, particularly Amendment No 3 because we believe it is of vital importance that ships in transit through our waters should inform us of the presence of toxic or radioactive substances on board even if they are not stopping in a Community port.
This is very important for the future of our seas and for the ecology and health of our peoples.
Commissioner, this recommendation we are debating, which is attempting to fix minimum requirements for vessels carrying dangerous goods and entering port within the European Union, is experiencing a situation which is all too common. That is, on the one hand the Commission makes efforts to ensure that Community legislation is obeyed - in this case concerning maritime safety and the protection of the marine environment - but on the other hand, some Member States do their own thing completely.
In this case there are still four Member States which have not even transposed the original directive.
In view of this situation, Commissioner, we support the Commission.
As has been said, this really is an extremely important matter.
For example, passenger transport should be incompatible with the transport of dangerous goods, or it should be compulsory to present a passenger safety certificate.
Let us not forget, ladies and gentlemen, that we are talking about highly dangerous substances, such as irradiated nuclear fuel, plutonium or high-level radioactive waste, which persist in many cases - and I am not exaggerating - for more than 30 000 years, which is really saying something.
So there is an enormous responsibility to the future.
And if due attention is being paid to the risks of transporting these substances by road - another terrestrial mode of transport - the same should be done with maritime transport.
For all those reasons, we are going to support the amendments presented by Mr Novo Belenguer, the rapporteur, and we congratulate him on them.
Madam President, I would simply like to say that I agree with the rapporteur's amendments but I would like to underline another aspect of the problem. The Council publishes directives and regulations which are not implemented by the Member States.
A classic case of this is the report that we are debating today.
I have to say that Directive 93/75/EEC, amended by the new Commission proposal, has not yet been incorporated into the body of law of four Member States, including Great Britain, which currently holds the presidency of the European Council and the Council of Ministers.
At international level, the IMO decisions have not been incorporated into internal law by a large majority of Member States.
We must, however, protest against this state of affairs, at least within the European Union. In this debate and tomorrow's vote, when the rapporteur's amendments are voted on, we must show that the Council and the Member States themselves cannot endorse and publish directives and then, at a national level, fail to incorporate them.
This is a very serious issue.
It is not about the safety of maritime transport per se ; rather, it is about the safety of the population of our planet. For that reason, we all need to show sensitivity to each other at all times.
Madam President, the House is certainly considering an important piece of legislation here on the maritime transport of dangerous goods.
I wish to begin by saying that I am naturally very pleased that, in its common position, the Council endorsed those amendments of Parliament which were accepted by the Commission at the first reading debate.
I must also say that the Commission shares the concerns underlying the second reading amendments that have been adopted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Amendment No 2, for instance, proposes reference to the version of the INF Code that has been in force since 1 January this year, instead of that in force on 1 January 1996.
The Commission welcomes this useful proposal, which embraces the amendments to the Code adopted by the IMO Assembly last November.
The Commission can also accept Amendment No 4, which states that changes to the annexes adopted through the committee procedure shall not weaken safety of maritime protection provisions.
I can reassure Members of this House that the Commission, which has the right of initiative under the committee procedure, would not submit any proposal which weakens its own initial legislation.
The Commission can understand, in principle, the concern behind Amendment No 1, which aims to clarify the scope of the committee procedure, notably in the light of Amendment No 4.
However, the Commission cannot accept this amendment for two reasons.
Firstly, it repudiates the express provision which reaffirms that ships in transit cannot be brought within the scope of this directive.
The text was added by the Council in its common position, and in the light of the pending proposal on EUROREP, accepted by the Commission.
Secondly, this amendment is, in any case, unnecessary because the existing common position text already states that amendments adopted through the committee procedure shall not alter the requirements of the directive.
This applies equally to any weakening or broadening of the scope of the directive.
Finally, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 3, which introduces notification requirements for vessels in transit off the coast of Member States.
As I said at the first reading, the provisions of the proposed EUROREP directive makes the amendment redundant and, for reasons of consistency and coherence, therefore, the Commission maintains its position.
I know that the rapporteur fully understands this position, since he set it out in his own report.
I would ask him, therefore, to consider again withdrawing his support for the amendment since I can assure him that the Commission shares his views.
We are consequently examining the options in order to ensure that discussions resume in Council, if necessary, on the basis of a modified version of the EUROREP proposal.
This is a view shared by Mr Ferber and Mr Kaklamanis.
We share the view expressed by them on this particular point.
To sum up: the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2 and 4 but cannot accept Nos 1 and 3.
I wish to thank the House, in particular Mr Novo Belenguer and the Committee on Transport and Tourism, for their consistent support for the proposal.
I would like to say to Mr Camisón Asensio and Mr Sarlis that there have been some significant delays in the transposition of this particular original directive but infringement proceedings are proceeding: there are four proceedings at present for nonconformity of national measures, and we look forward to an early solution, in the legal sense, dealing with these matters.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Statistical returns on carriage of goods by road
The next item is the report (A4-0072/98) by Mr Bazin, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the draft Council Regulation on statistical returns in respect of carriage of goods by road (COM(97)0443 - C4-0514/97-97/0233(CNS)).
Madam President, I trust you will excuse Mr Bazin's absence owing to the regional elections in France, and that you will appreciate that Mr Bazin has been granted the opportunity refused to Mr de Silguy to stand as a candidate for the beautiful region of Brittany.
We would all like to wish him the greatest success.
Statistics are essential for transport.
Therefore we have not only to collect the statistics but, more especially, we have to deal with them in a way that is consistent throughout the Community.
To be more exact, the Commission made a proposal whereby the statistics on road transport are brought more into line in the different Member States.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism submitted two amendments.
Or rather, Mr Bazin did so with our full support.
Therefore it is not too difficult for me to stand in for him here tonight.
Mr Bazin's report is not just a technical report.
Because we are moving in the European Union towards a durable mobility we have to know exactly what our transporters are doing and where they go to and from in the Community.
This is going to be a more difficult task with the rivalry of the free internal market and, more specifically, this year with the arrival of free cabotage.
When we look at the statistics of road transport it will be more difficult to tell whether lorries with foreign licence plates - from countries other than the country to where they transport goods - are engaged in local transport or international transport.
Inevitably short-haul transport will, for the main part, take place by road.
Nowadays, more than three-quarters of Community transport is carried by road.
Transport is growing by about 7 % to 10 % per year.
That means that if we want to move to other modes of transport - as Members from all groups want - such as rail, inland waterway or short sea transport, we will still have to reckon with the fact that short-haul transport is being carried out by road.
Therefore, if we want to move from one modality of transport to another, we have to know exactly which transportation is intermodal and which is solely road transport.
We need a more precise system.
Commissioner, you know better than anyone else, since you deal with the social side of transport as well, that the reports we get from the Commission on the driving and rest hours are worse than we expected them to be.
We have just received the reports from 1993/94 which show that several Member States do not even have those statistics.
That is a great failing.
One of the Member States that did not supply its statistics is one of the founding members of the European Community.
Fifty years should be enough to bring them into line.
We count on the Commission to do its utmost to put these things in order.
In the meantime, realizing that most of the work is going to be done by the national statistical offices, thanks to the Committee on Budgets we have tabled an amendment which slightly lowers the amount of money available.
Madam President, let me begin by thanking Mr Bazin, who is himself absent, for the work he has put into this report.
The intention of the proposal is to round off the annual harmonized statistical data for the carriage of goods by road to ensure the availability of information for the monitoring and evaluation of the common policy.
The regions of origin and destination will be recorded in the same way for journeys between Member States as for those within them.
The legislation will also cover cabotage which will now be possible within the Union.
For this there will be a codification of regions of origin and destination and of the distance travelled.
Of course, there always have to be statistics to some extent.
Nevertheless, I think that each time this kind of proposal and this kind of issue comes up there is reason to question whether it is really necessary, since it involves new information having to be submitted, and therefore additional bureaucracy.
It is always companies, often small companies, which have to submit this information.
Far too much of this is already an unnecessary burden being placed on companies around the Union, which has resulted in the difficult situation in which enterprise currently finds itself.
However, there are two positive things in this context.
One is that no special European bureau of statistics is to be set up just for this business. Responsibility for this extra work will fall to the statistical services of the Member States.
The other is that the regulation expressly exempts small vehicles.
That means that vehicles with payloads of up to 3.5 tonnes or maximum permissible laden weights of up to 6 tonnes are excluded.
The reason for this is that these kinds of journeys are often local journeys for own-account transport.
Both these exceptions are positive.
Still, there is reason to question what would actually have happened if we had not got a regulation like this.
A constant criticism is increasingly being made of the EU, a criticism about bureaucracy and excessive information being required of companies.
I think we need to understand that every time a new proposal like the one we are to decide on here is put forward, however worthy the intention, it increases bureaucracy and paperwork in a Europe whose companies already have far too much of it.
Madam President, as the House will know, the relevant 1978 and 1989 directives enabled the Community to develop a set of basic statistics on the carriage of goods by road and they have proved very useful in framing and developing the common transport policy.
Several developments have taken place in Community policies, however, making it necessary for us to improve our system of compiling statistics on road transport.
That is particularly true of the changes relating to the liberalization of cabotage from 1 July 1998 to the development of the trans-European networks and to advances in environmental policy.
Against that background, as the House will be aware, this new regulation will establish a more up-to-date statistical system which is based on a list of variables geared to existing information needs, particularly in regional policy and environmental policy, on the collection and transmission to Eurostat of data on individual vehicles and journeys.
This will allow much more detailed analysis than in the past and it will facilitate the essential monitoring, fine-tuning and understanding of relationships between different policy outcomes.
The new regulation could obviously impose additional statistical reporting obligations on some transport businesses.
I would stress that Eurostat has made every effort to minimize any extra burdens by making provisions for the statistics to be compiled by sample surveys on a small proportion of road vehicles and for modern computerized techniques to be used for transmitting data wherever that reduces the administrative burden.
The similarity of the approach taken by Mr Bazin, the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the Commission happily means that I can readily accept both the amendments.
I therefore thank Mr Bazin and his colleagues for their support and for their great help in these efforts to develop changes which will make for greater transparency and more efficient operation of the statistical system.
I can readily accept Mr Wijsenbeek's point that statistics are essential for transport and should be consistent.
Madam President, unfortunately the Commissioner, who is not responsible for transport as such but who is responsible for the social side of transport, has not made any helpful comment on my request that all those Member States who did not hand in their statistics on driving and resting hours - which I would say are the complement to the statistics on road transport as such, or which are part and parcel of it - will be improved, especially by those Member States who do not hand them in at all.
Madam President, to respond very briefly to the honourable Member, this particular point is not relevant to the Eurostat situation, it is a matter for a DG VII question.
Perhaps the matter can be taken up there and hopefully he will get a suitable response.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Injury prevention - rare diseases - pollution-related diseases - health protection - Alzheimer's
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports and oral questions:
Report (A4-0067/98) by Mr Trakatellis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action from 1999 to 2003 on injury prevention in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (COM(97)0178 - C4-0229/97-97/0132(COD)); -Report (A4-0074/98) by Mr Viceconte, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action 1999-2003 on rare diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (COM(97)0225 - C40236/97-97/0146(COD)); -Report (A4-0075/98) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action 1999-2003 on pollution-related diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (COM(97)0266 - C4-0276/97-97/0153(COD)); -Report (A4-0022/98) by Mrs Flemming, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the second report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the integration of health protection requirements in Community policies (COM(96)0407 - C4-0663/96); -Oral question by Mr Poggiolini, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission (B4-0170/98 - O-0018/98) on the Community programme to combat Alzheimer's disease and related syndromes; -Oral question by the following Members: Gutiérrez Díaz, González Álvarez, Papayannakis and Ojala, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission (B4-0171/98 - O-0027/98) on the Community programme of research into and prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease; -Oral question by Mr Kouchner and Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission (B4-0172/98 - O-0040/98) on combating Alzheimer's disease; -Oral question by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, to the Commission (B4-0173/98 - O-0050/98) on Alzheimer's disease; -Oral question by the following Members: McKenna, Lannoye, Breyer and Tamino, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission (B4-0266/98 - O-0066/98) on Alzheimer's disease.
Madam President, most of us have often been in danger of being injured or have actually been injured during our day-to-day activities or in our free time.
We therefore have a lot of experience to go on.
Unfortunately, such injuries happen all too frequently.
Indeed, together with suicides and self-inflicted injuries, they contribute significantly to our annual death rate.
This proposal is therefore very timely, and the programme for the prevention of and reduction in the number of deaths must be adopted.
Today in the European Union the injuries covered by the present programme are one of the most basic causes of death, damage to health and disablement.
They are mainly due to accidents in the home or during leisure time.
The most vulnerable are those between 1 and 34 years of age, and people over 75.
The need to address the problem initially led the Community to create a scheme of research and information, the EHLASS scheme.
Recent statistics provided by the scheme point to an annual death rate from accidents of 83 000 with approximately 22 million people injured each year, 20 million of whom require medical assistance, and 2 million of whom need hospital treatment.
We must also point out that approximately 300 000 of those who are injured will be disadvantaged for the rest of their lives or will have health problems at some point.
The second category of injuries results from suicides, which must not be overlooked, since they account for the deaths of 43 000 people and for injuries to around 700 000 people each year.
The direct financial cost of treatment is ECU 7.7 billion, while the total cost of injuries amounts to ECU 23 billion, which does not include the cost resulting from deaths.
The need for a programme of prevention and epidemiological monitoring of injuries at a European Union level is all too evident.
It remains for us to examine whether the programme, as it has been formulated, is effective.
The Commission identified particular areas as spheres of action, such as accidents to children at school and suicides, with intentional self-inflicted injuries as a sub-category.
However, there is no reason to exclude other age groups, such as for example adults who injure themselves in the home or during their free time.
It would also be a good idea to include injuries caused by the actions of a third person and those arising from cases of people who attempt to injure themselves.
For this reason, it is proposed that a distinction be made between a) intentional and unintentional injuries, with special reference to vulnerable categories, and b) suicides and self-inflicted injuries.
Moreover, we must include in the vulnerable categories those women who, with their children, receive injuries as a result of violence.
In parallel, there must be action on behalf of those injured as a result of violence during sports events.
With an epidemiological study, injuries and suicides could be recorded and analysed statistically, over time, and according to age group and category. As a result, the causes will become clear and subsequent actions will be based upon the findings of the analyses.
The programme consequently focuses on the possibility of collating and processing all the relevant data.
Such a scheme, the EHLASS scheme, already exists and has yielded results, on the one hand pinpointing certain products which are implicated in accidents and, on the other, undertaking information and awareness campaigns.
Unfortunately the Commission did not incorporate this scheme into its proposal, although it would be very useful in achieving the goals of the programme.
For this reason I regard it as imperative that the EHLASS scheme be incorporated into the programme and that it form the basis for the development of actions with regard to both intentional and unintentional injuries. Moreover, the scheme should be expanded and coordinated with other networks that may ensue.
With regard to suicides and self-inflicted injuries, a different system of collating and processing information is needed, and intervention actions require a different approach.
The reason is that the causes of suicides and the necessary preventive measures are completely different from those of accidental injuries.
The only common features are the injuries, the deaths, the treatments and the financial burden.
The programme being created must address itself to the challenge posed by the problem.
The Commission is proposing only ECU 1.3 million for 1999 and I regard this as totally inadequate in relation to the aims of the programme.
For this reason it is proposed that the financial framework for 1999-2003 should comprise ECU 14 million.
We believe that this programme, as changed by our amendments, will play a fundamental role in protecting the health of the citizens of Europe, by significantly reducing the number of deaths and the financial losses caused by the injuries to which it refers.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the action programme on rare diseases which we are here to debate is part of the Community action in the public health sector. This is a sector in which it is the EU's duty to adopt preventative and protective measures in the interests of all its citizens, not only when fighting great scourges but also in cases of very small numbers of people affected by uncommon, or even rare, disease conditions.
In fact, it is in a context such as rare diseases that Community action becomes more necessary than ever.
In most Member States there are usually too few cases of rare diseases for them to be considered a priority from the health point of view, and they are often neglected.
The concept of "rare diseases' covers more than 5 000 different diseases or conditions that do not have a common definition.
The problems of classification raise difficulties with regard to the recognition, identification, treatment and prevention of such diseases.
The five-year programme planned for 1999-2003 provides for a series of actions in three key sectors: information on rare diseases, favouring the establishment of a European database; promotion and reinforcement of patient support groups; and progress in the creation of response groups for clusters of rare diseases.
The financial allocation proposed by the Commission amounts to ECU 1.3 million for 1999, while funding for the four subsequent years will be determined later, based on the financial prospects.
I would like to draw your attention to this point before continuing with the presentation of this programme.
There is doubt as to whether the Commission has any intention of adopting an effective action programme on rare diseases.
But how can we think of proposing actions and implementing projects if the minimum financial resources are not available? So it is better to devote ourselves to other initiatives and make better use of the resources available.
Although we need to do something specific to try to help a section of the EU population that is suffering and whose quality of life is compromised (both patients and their families), we need to start from serious premises.
The proposed budget is meaningless.
By way of information, I recall that in the last three years the USA has allocated a good $ 3.2 million to the operation of the rare diseases database and France alone has spent 3 million francs in the first year of operation of its database on orphan drugs.
For all these reasons, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection voted in favour of a financial allocation of ECU 14 million to implement the rare diseases programme, to be spread over five years, to enable the programme not to be purely symbolic.
In making a more thorough assessment of the action programme in question, one aspect of prime importance which must be taken into account is international cooperation: the coordination of Community activities with those of the competent national and international organizations allows the work to be rationalized, useless duplication to be avoided, and the time required to achieve the pre-established objectives to be reduced.
One further essential point of the programme relates to information.
The establishment of a Community database listing diseases, symptoms, causes and available treatments is fundamental.
One further aspect to which I would like to draw your attention is that of the definition of clusters, as indicated by the Committee in its proposal.
The definition is certainly not unambiguous. For the sake of greater clarity, I would specify that a so-called cluster can be defined as any irregular increase in the incidence of a rare disease and that, as such, it requires rapid control measures.
For that purpose, it is therefore advisable to promote the creation of a system of monitoring and controlling rare diseases, permitting a fast and effective reaction and enabling rare diseases to be identified, assessed and treated.
I would also like to add a couple of words about committee procedure.
Considering the peculiarity of the case, the consultative committee may have two representatives from each Member State, provided one of them belongs to a patient support group.
Finally, allow me to make one last comment on the need to coordinate and rationalize the arguments at Community level.
The Commission must undertake to coordinate the work on rare diseases currently being conducted by three Directorates-General: DG V, DG III and DG XII.
The action programme on rare diseases, regulations on orphan drugs and the research programme on rare diseases are closely linked and require a consistent overall approach.
The adoption of this programme is a step forward towards a better knowledge and understanding of rare diseases and enables sufferers to escape from the marginalization and isolation they find themselves in, offering them therapeutic, moral and psychological support.
Moreover, the commitment to research into rare diseases could also lead to specific discoveries to help with the treatment of some of the far more common diseases which have not yet been eradicated and affect large sections of the population.
In this case, the benefit to the whole of society would certainly not be questioned.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is a very important document from the Commission.
It is well written, serious, clear and concise and highlights the priorities which we also stressed in Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
Unfortunately however its impact is limited because it only deals with the issue of respiratory illnesses linked to air pollution.
We fully understand the criteria which have led the Commission to choose diseases indisputably linked to obvious individual pollutants - those pollutants with the worst noxious effects and which are most easily prevented, and pollution where Community action is likely to complement insufficient action by Member States.
We have three main comments arising from this communication.
Firstly, we believe it is important to broaden the communication's sphere of activity, and here I would refer you to our Amendments Nos 4, 11 and 12.
As regards air pollution, and without wishing to detract from the role of traffic-related pollutants, the noxious effects of tobacco must be emphasized both to the smoker and to his or her companions - in other words the passive smoking effect. A large part of the population does not fully appreciate the dangers involved.
In addition to air pollution we should also address the issue of noise pollution: from companies whose normal working activities are very loud; from badly soundproofed buildings; and also from excessively loud music from some night-clubs and the high volume levels of young people's Walkmans.
In addition, water pollution passes on infections and poisons; food pollution causes infections and poisoning, as noted in Amendment No 16; homes are polluted thanks to asbestos or paints and especially lead - which can be highly poisonous, as can the smell of certain paints and glues.
We will not harp on about pollution of the upper layers of the atmosphere destroying the protective ozone layer and resulting in an increased risk of skin cancer, as observed in Australians of northern European origin.
My second comment concerns the type of action which the Commission aims to implement in order to reduce the extent of pollution-related diseases.
Naturally the Commission does not seek to combat pollutant emission directly since this phenomenon has been the subject of other directives on air, water and soil pollution, amongst others.
In the present case, the Commission intends to act in a very different way, in four main areas: persuading the Member States to find out about the nature of the pollutants (and we would highlight our Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 13 in this context); compiling a register of pollutants; identifying them and evaluating their often serious consequences on health (both disease and allergies); and collecting relevant and comparable data so as to avoid confusion between the different terms which may be used by the Member States to refer to the same product or the same illness - this is the line we take in Amendment No 3.
Finally, the Commission would like every Member State to inform its citizens about the dangers of pollution, to ensure that people are clear about it.
We cover this in Amendments Nos 9 and 10. It must be made clear to people that zero risk is not possible, that the dangers are not always those presented complacently by the media, but that certain personal habits - and I stress tobacco again - can be much more dangerous.
The Commission envisages the evaluation and monitoring of the recommended actions.
We fully support this proposal and would highlight Amendment No 6 in this respect.
Our third and last comment concerns the budgetary basis for these measures.
The current communication only allows for a budget of ECU 1.3 million for 1999 and does not provide any details of subsequent funding, although the Commission has been heard to promise ECU 1.3 million for the programme for the next five years, in other words a total of ECU 6.5 million.
We therefore oppose the amendments which would limit the duration of the programme, as we cannot imagine the Commission would allocate the same sum for three years as it would for five.
In any case, we consider this amount insufficient which is why we are emphasizing Amendment No 5 which provides for a larger sum.
It goes without saying that a much larger budget will be needed if we really wish to combat pollution-related diseases, even in terms of the actions presented by the Commission in this communication.
So, Madam President, we would ask all the Members of the European Parliament to vote in favour of these amendments which were approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
. (DE) Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there has already been in this House a report on the health protection requirements and a quite outstanding opinion was delivered by Parliament on the subject.
The Commission's second report also appears to me to be excellent, so that as a result I found the task I was given to be very difficult.
In addition, there is the fact that in the area of health, in particular, the matter of breach of the subsidiarity principle constantly hovers over one's head.
Permit me, despite these short remarks, to make a few critical points on this report by the Commission.
That agriculture makes a quite decisive contribution to the health of the population is undisputed.
Nevertheless, the Commission's statements here remain general and, in my opinion, incomplete.
Related to this, of course, is nutrition.
The Commission's statements on this do not correspond at all with the significance of this area in current health policy.
I should like to cordially request that in the next report, which will be available very soon, the Commission pays particular attention to this area.
Likewise I expect a statement from the Commission on the situation regarding vitamins and mineral products within the EU, before legislative measures are proposed here.
As long as we express ourselves in such a general way in terms of health, we can always expect everybody to be of one mind.
But as soon as we are specific, then the harmony rapidly disappears.
Let me illustrate this with point 10 of my report on the subject of tobacco.
We all know that tobacco is harmful to people's health; lung cancer, circulatory and heart diseases, cancer of the larynx, cancer of the tongue, cancer of the stomach and of the intestine are very frequently the scientifically proven consequence.
We all know that the nicotine from tobacco is addictive and we all want to protect young people from becoming involved with this drug.
Each of us has his own ideas as to how this can best be achieved.
It is only on how to reach this common goal that we are not at all in agreement.
Many believe that simply banning the advertising of tobacco will solve the problem.
Well, I share the opinion of those who believe that if a product is so dangerous that it should not be advertised, it would be much better not to produce it in the first place, nor buy it, nor sell it.
In no way should this product be financially supported and promoted year in year out, as happens in our case with the growing of tobacco.
I thus believe we should first submit a plan for a reform of the existing grant system, similar to that which the agriculture ministers have also already made a start on.
I consider it necessary to check whether it is possible to convert to other agricultural products and, thirdly, to check how and if the livelihood of many farmers and many thousands of families can nevertheless be secured.
I believe we should tackle the problem at its roots and in our case this is to be taken very literally.
There is still a whole series of other points which appear to me to be very important; for example points 22, 24 and 25.
I consider it to be important that the Commission is still committed to a ban on growth promoting hormones in the fattening of animals.
I should be very grateful if the Commission could impose the same health requirements on all food imports as those placed on Community production.
I also believe that the Commission should commit itself to a very strict atomic liability law, again in the interests of the health of the population.
If we take adherence to the treaties seriously, then we must see to it that in all Community policies, as it is so beautifully expressed, a high level of health protection is guaranteed.
It is a big job, certainly a difficult job, which we should regard as a challenge!
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, and the very few but highly valued ladies and gentlemen present, almost two years have gone by since this House unanimously voted through its resolution on Alzheimer's disease and related syndromes, urging the Commission to present a specific action programme for combating this terrible disease as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, there has been no follow-up.
There is no point in once more presenting one of this century's real scourges which, as it affects the elderly, will grow in proportion to the increase in the very high life expectancy that fortunately characterizes our present-day society, as clearly illustrated in the Commission's 1997 demographic report.
If current trends continue, changes in the European population over the next 30 years will mean that the number of people over 60 will increase by 50 %.
Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible, incurable degeneration of the brain mainly affecting those over 65, leading to a gradual mental decline until the sufferer loses all self-sufficiency, and leading on irremediably to death. So we cannot fail to be alarmed at what has become a great human, social and economic problem for all Member States, with no exceptions.
The figures are dramatic and disturbing: at the moment, there are a good five million people suffering from this terrible disease.
Considering that 80 % of patients live with their families, and in the vast majority of cases the greatest burden rests on the shoulders of the families - and therefore the women - in the EU today, a distressing number of citizens are subjected daily to indescribable emotional, psychological and financial suffering.
Keeping faith with the commitment undertaken for those who are in the front line today, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I once again call on the Commission to provide the Community with a specific programme for Alzheimer's disease as a matter of urgency.
We therefore ask that initiative-holding institution to present a specific programme against Alzheimer's disease, a separate programme from the public health programme in general and the relevant budget, proposing precise and specific objectives: a means to provide temporal continuity for the many projects presented every year by so many non-governmental organizations representing Alzheimer's sufferers and their families, within the scope of the Commission actions.
With the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the new wording of Article 129 on public health, the Union has certainly given it a higher profile.
In the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development for 1998-2002, in the context of the thematic priority of quality of life and the management of living resources, specific reference is made to Alzheimer's disease in the key action on the ageing of the population, which aims to promote the health and independence of the elderly.
To face such a challenge properly we need to try to propose remedies of all types.
So we welcome research.
We need to continue work in this sector, but we should not forget the social aspect of the problem, the more specific problem that thousands of families are combating every day.
We have a duty to answer those who are suffering today and those who, unfortunately, will be suffering tomorrow.
I am sure that, unfortunately, many of those present in this Chamber have known families affected by this terrible disease.
I would also like to say a couple of words about the Viceconte report.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I would like to declare my full support for the Viceconte report on the 1992-2003 Community action programme on rare diseases.
We cannot fail to agree that the Community should have a similar means of trying to deal with these terrible diseases which, precisely because they are infrequent and therefore have a limited impact on society as a whole, with very low illness and death rates, will have considerable importance from the economic and particularly human point of view.
We need effective means for diagnosis and welfare.
Unfortunately however, the pharmaceutical industry for example has little interest in this sector, as it is not considered very profitable.
In fact, from a commercial point of view the pharmaceutical industry has no interest in committing to research costs, given the low number of people affected by these rare diseases.
They do not think there would be a market for drugs for rare diseases, so they do not conduct the research.
That is why Community intervention is essential, intervention with a high moral, social and human value.
Madam President, I think we must welcome the fact that we are debating such an important set of public health matters today in this Chamber, although it is perhaps a pity that it is during the evening session when fewer Members take part and there is less chance of other people listening.
Nevertheless, it is important. Starting where Mr Poggiolini left off, I must congratulate Mr Viceconte on his report and thank him for including most of the amendments presented by the other groups.
Mr Marset Campos will speak later on and will have plenty to say about some of the proposals we made in the amendments which the rapporteur has very kindly accepted from us.
Anyway, in the short time allocated to me I do not want to say much more about Alzheimer's disease than Mr Poggiolini has already said.
However, those of us who have seen this disease at close hand know how catastrophic it is for the patient (who does not understand quite so much) and, especially, what a tragedy it is for their family and carers.
So we agree with what has already been said here: we are convinced that there has to be an action programme, like in other areas such as cancer and so on. The Viceconte report talks about rare diseases but unfortunately Alzheimer's disease will be common by the year 2000, with 8 million potential patients.
It will be very important for the various countries of the European Union to share their experience, and for specialist staff to be trained. It will also be very important to investigate the causes of the disease, study the risk factors and stress preventative aspects.
If there is a worthwhile aspect to the European Union's work in the field of public health, it is that practically all its action programmes are directed towards prevention, to stop the disease developing.
So we stress that aspect, and also the need for help for non-governmental organizations and relatives who work closely with this type of patient.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Alzheimer's disease is a serious threat to the population of the European Union where the number of older people most affected by it is steadily on the increase.
According to statistics, 8 million people will be affected in the European Union in the year 2000, which represents some 2 % of the population over 65.
Aside from these figures, the significance of this illness should be measured in terms of the great suffering and serious consequences for the families involved, which are obliged to provide 24-hour care for those affected.
Another major concern about this disease is the lack of medical knowledge about its causes and treatment.
For this reason, Parliament has taken a first step by adopting a budget line specifically aimed at combating Alzheimer's disease.
But we must go further, and in the framework of its future communication on public health the Commission should follow up our resolution with a specific programme against Alzheimer's and support for the associations actively involved in fighting the disease.
These initiatives should be combined with those already undertaken by the World Health Organization and any other organizations working in this area.
The fight against this illness would also benefit from an exchange of data within the European Union and from coordination at Community level.
We would also do well to take this opportunity finally to create that indispensable European centre for epidemiology which we call for in every report on public health, and which is rebutted each time by the Council and the European Commission.
I see Mr Flynn is smiling, but it is true!
So I hope Parliament will support this request, which is so important in ensuring that Community actions on health yield the results we all want.
I do not think that the EU has taken Alzheimer's disease seriously.
In 1997 it allocated under ECU 2 million to research in the disease.
Eight million people are affected with Alzheimer's in the EU, so in effect the EU has spent less than 13 Belgian francs on each sufferer.
A properly resourced EU action programme, like Europe Against Cancer and Europe Against AIDS, is needed to raise awareness about the disease and coordinate activities against it.
Furthermore, national authorities should examine ways of improving their services, and attention needs to be paid to improving early detection so that victims can be informed early that they have Alzheimer's and decide if they wish to be cared for at home or placed in residential care before acute dementia sets in.
Governments also need to understand that carers need more help and more staff need to be employed by health boards in Member States to provide carers with respite care, day care and other supports.
With more help of that kind, people could actually keep their affected loved ones at home with them longer if they wanted to.
This Parliament has to call for a number of things: recognition of Alzheimer's disease as a major health scourge within the meaning of Article 129 of the Treaty; establishment of an action programme to combat Alzheimer's disease and related disorders within the priorities of the new Community public health programme; recognition of the important role played by family care givers, Alzheimer's Europe and their national member organizations; and finally, the establishment of a European network and support for existing networks working with people with Alzheimer's.
Madam President, I am very encouraged to see so many health issues on the agenda this evening.
It certainly gives me satisfaction that my promise to Parliament to present eight health programme proposals has now been fulfilled, and Parliament has been a very great help in delivering on the promise.
The three proposals for action before you complete the 1993 framework for action in the field of public health.
All eight health programmes for action in the field of public health have been endorsed by Parliament as priorities in considering what kind of public health policy the Community could develop under the Maastricht Treaty.
I hope they will receive your support.
Thanks to the hard work of the rapporteurs and the committee, the Health Council should be able to adopt common positions at its meeting on 30 April.
I wish to give the Commission's response, starting with the programme on injury prevention.
Excellent work by Mr Trakatellis and the committee is evident in the very high quality and good sense of the amendments, which will add very considerably to the potential of the programme.
In total, 23 amendments are acceptable to the Commission, either in whole or in part.
The five amendments which are not acceptable to the Commission refer to comitology - that is: Amendment No 21, which is not in accordance with the wording of the comitology decision; to the consistency and complementarity of the Community actions - Amendments Nos 10, 14 and 20, which are not in line with the wording used in previous decisions on the other public health programmes; and to an action outside the scope of Article 129 - Amendment No 27.
I turn now to the proposal on rare diseases.
I am particularly pleased to see the progress that has been made on a rather neglected and forgotten side of human suffering.
Indeed, support for the programme is steadily increasing.
Mr Viceconte's report shows that many Members of Parliament are convinced of the need for and usefulness of this programme.
For the purpose of the programme, rare diseases are defined as life-threatening or chronically debilitating diseases which are of such low prevalence that special combined efforts are called for.
In this area there is much that the Community can offer.
To make matters manageable, however, individual diseases will have to be aggregated to form a larger group sharing the same characteristics.
This provides the opportunity to undertake a wider range of interventions and to initiate coordinated actions with respect to patients who might otherwise be isolated.
The Commission can accept 16 of the 29 amendments, either in their entirety - Nos 3, 5 and 22; or partially - Nos 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9, 12, 16, 17, 23, 25, 26, 27 and 28.
The reasons for rejecting the remaining 13 amendments are as follows: 4 amendments are not acceptable for legal reasons, and they are Amendments Nos 6, 10, 20 and 21.
Three amendments are unacceptably limiting: Nos 4, 15 and 24.
Three amendments are covered elsewhere: Nos 11, 13 and 29.
One amendment - No 18 - falls outside the scope of the programme.
Two amendments are unacceptable because of budgetary limitations: Nos 14 and 19.
I should say a few words about the budget problem, which I know is an issue that Parliament feels very strongly about and has been referred to virtually by every single Member here this evening.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection voted for ECU 14 million for the years 1999-2003.
The financial perspectives as they currently stand, however, do not allow for such a sum.
Although the precise situation has still to be clarified - and I hope the budgetary authority will come to a definitive stand on this - there appears to be no room for a financial framework exceeding the ECU 1.3 million per year.
I am not hiding from you the fact that I am unhappy about the uncertainty over the future financial perspectives and the consequences that this has for the programme.
I can only hope that the situation will become clearer before a final decision is taken on the programme.
Let me turn to the programme on pollution-related diseases.
Mr Cabrol, the ever tireless rapporteur, I might add, has produced a valuable report on this subject, which brings together the main strands of competence of the committee.
Environment and health are indeed, as he says, inextricably linked, and action in this area by the Community is long overdue.
Turning to the 16 amendments, I would like to indicate that the Commission can accept five of them. We can accept Amendment No 7 wholly and Amendments Nos 3, 8, 9 and 10 partially.
The amendments which are not acceptable to the Commission are as follows. Amendment No 5, which concerns the budget, for the reasons I have just outlined in relation to the programme as it affects rare diseases as well.
Amendments Nos 4, 11, 12 and 13: these broaden the scope of the proposed action to an unacceptable degree. Amendments Nos 1 and 2 cannot be accepted as they refer to the Amsterdam Treaty which is not as yet ratified, whereas Amendment No 6 is not consistent with the corresponding wording used in previous decisions on public health programmes.
Finally, Amendments Nos 14, 15 and 16 have to be rejected because they are unacceptably limiting the scope of the programme to preparatory work only.
They would reduce the duration of the programme to three years, which would prevent us from achieving proper implementation and evaluation of the proposed actions.
Nevertheless the House can be assured that action started under a 5-year programme will be rolled-over to a new framework for public health and taken up in an appropriate way.
This was something specifically mentioned by Mr Cabrol.
I should explain why we pay more attention to respiratory disease and allergies.
Firstly, these diseases have significantly increased over the last few years.
Some Member States have acquired a lot of experience in preventative actions in these areas.
We propose to make this experience widely available.
We also propose to link up the most effective actions in the different Member States, notably through self-help and support groups for asthma and allergy sufferers.
This is not to say that other pollution-related diseases are not to be covered.
Parts I and II of this action programme address all pollution-related diseases, without exception.
However, specific actions on cancer, cardiovascular disease and communicable diseases which are linked with environmental factors are already covered by other programmes.
It would have been a duplication to address them here in our specific actions.
Let me turn to Mrs Flemming's report on the integration of health protection requirements in Community policy.
I would like to thank you, Mrs Flemming, for your excellent and very comprehensive report and your very supportive comments as well.
The Maastricht Treaty obliges the Community to ensure that health protection requirements are an integral part of the Community's policies.
The Commission has put in place a set of procedures to implement this requirement.
The annual report on health requirements shows the wide range of policies which are relevant to health and your report concentrates on the second report - the report covering 1995.
The third report, for 1996, has just been published.
It is not always evident how best to integrate health requirements in Community policies or to evaluate the health impact of a particular policy or action of the Member States on Community citizens.
Parliament's report points to a number of directions that future work can usefully take - you mentioned those in your contribution - and contains a range of suggestions and proposals for efforts in this field which the Commission is willing to take on board.
I am now giving you that commitment to take them on board in detail and consider them for our next report.
As the Amsterdam Treaty will significantly widen the scope of the provisions on the health impact of policies, I would welcome an opportunity to continue the dialogue with Parliament on how best to ensure that health considerations are adequately taken on board in all areas of Community policy.
This will certainly be an issue at the heart of our discussions on future health policy.
Indeed I was encouraged to see that Parliament shares my intention to launch a debate on the future public health policy of the Community.
I hope to publish in the very near future a communication on this very subject.
I am confident that it will provide the basis for a proper exchange of views with the institutions and will be circulated to all interested parties in the field.
I should like to say a few words about Alzheimer's disease since very many Members have spoken on this particular aspect.
The gravity of this terrible disease and its growing importance is still not fully appreciated by many policy-makers.
However, Parliament is the exception here.
You have shown through your initiatives in recent years to promote actions on Alzheimer's disease that you are in touch with the serious concerns of European citizens in this particular area.
Study after study has shown that we should be bracing ourselves for a significant rise in the number of people suffering from this disease.
This was brought home very much today by Mr Poggiolini.
We need to act now to anticipate the consequences for our healthcare systems.
Thanks to the money provided by Parliament for action on Alzheimer's disease the Commission is providing some targeted assistance for Member States and is helping to coordinate their activities in this area.
This was a matter brought up by Ms McKenna when she pointed out the need for better coordination in this area.
With regard to your demands to intensify research in this area, the political agreement on the common position relating to the Fifth Framework Programme for RTD attained at the Research Council on 12 February 1998 provides for precise, clearlydefined objectives and the first thematic programme entitled 'Improving the Quality of Life and the Management of Living Resources' comprises a key action on the ageing population, including patients with chronic neurological disorders.
It must be appreciated that the scope for action is rather limited as prevention of Alzheimer's disease is not possible and at Community-level there is no proper legal base in the Treaty to go beyond prevention and research. That causes a lot of difficulties in planning a possible action programme.
But since 1995 the Commission has financed or cofinanced 58 different projects.
These projects enhanced the knowledge base, the exchange of information, the quality of life of Alzheimer's sufferers and gave support to their informal carers.
I attach particular significance to what we can do by way of better assistance and training for carers of those people who are unfortunate enough to have this disease.
From these projects models of good practice have been developed.
I got the very strong message that the sharing of this good practice - the rapporteur made this point quite strongly - should be part-and-parcel of anything we do.
That is what we are hoping to develop.
Finally, as to a specific action programme on Alzheimer's disease which has been mentioned by several Members - particularly by Ms McKenna - the forthcoming communication on the development of public health policy in the European Community will present us with an excellent opportunity to discuss the future place for such an action programme.
I will be coming forward with that communication in the very near future.
So we will soon have an opportunity - I think it should be fully exploited - to develop that point which has been forcibly made by so many Members this evening.
At the end of this debate, I have received seven motions for a resolution.
The vote on these resolutions will take place on Wednesday, that is, tomorrow.
Thank you Madam President, Commissioner and colleagues.
We have just heard a very useful contribution which I am sure we will all welcome and can build on.
Can I say first of all tonight that I am tempted to suggest that we do a study on the health effects of always working in darkness.
Given Mr Poggiolini's comments earlier, perhaps we can make a plea to the services of this Parliament that we occasionally have a debate on health issues that takes place during the daytime rather than late at night.
Nevertheless we should welcome the fact that we have a joint debate of this nature taking place, and together with the debates we shall have on blood safety and on tobacco advertising over the next two plenary sessions, it will raise the profile of the European Union health portfolio quite considerably.
I know that this week there has been quite considerable media interest in these particular programmes.
Professor Trakatellis for example has commented on global television networks, and it will be very important for the public to know what is being done despite the empty Chamber tonight.
It is also timely that we have a joint debate of this sort for the reasons that the Commissioner was expressing during his comments, and I would like to dwell a little on why it is so timely.
It is precisely because the Commission is about to produce a communication on the future framework that will allow for action of the sort that he usefully introduced when, hopefully, Amsterdam is ratified, that we are able to develop these themes.
Parliament is playing its part - a committee hearing in October will seek to evaluate the programme so far and will then play its part in looking forward to a constructive interpretation of what will be the new Article 152.
The irony tonight is of course that however fast Parliament moves the implementation of programmes on rare diseases and pollution diseases and accidents and injuries will not begin until the evaluation has taken place, which shows the slow pace of development of programmes since the Maastricht Treaty.
Many pressure groups working in this field will contend that their priorities have not yet been properly addressed at all, let alone evaluated.
Such an occasion as this is an opportunity to say that public health deserves a much higher priority in the EU within both the Commission and Member State governments as well as in the Parliament.
I know the Commissioner and his team want that but we must help him to convince his less enlightened colleagues of that need, not least at budget time.
I also know that Luxembourg is a splendid state but that when the majority of officials working on public health are physically distant from Brussels that is a tangible problem.
I hope the Commission will address its internal structures again.
The decision regarding multiple sites was of course taken by Member State governments and my purpose here is simply to indicate the consequences of such actions.
Those governments tend to take a minimalist position on the European role in public health and on the whole it has been far too negative and far too blinkered.
Most if not all of the Members here tonight are committed to developing that role and I pay tribute to a succession of rapporteurs who have tried to make a progressive contribution to the debate, including those here tonight.
That is not ideological.
It is an expression of many health professionals and non-governmental organizations who are crying out for commonsense solutions to common problems across the continent.
Many Members here are being invited, as I am, to conferences, some organized by presidents-in-office, full of experienced rational experts who want a European contribution to international problems which cannot be properly tackled at local or national levels.
Member States often cite the World Health Organization as the proper body for that and of course it has a crucial role, one where greater cooperation with the Commission should be encouraged as Members here have often done.
But that neglects the growing economic and social substance of the European Union, the unique opportunity it offers to channel relevant action on health protection and promotion for its citizens.
This is not just a market: it is a community.
Its people have rights and responsibilities.
There is a moral, social, legal and economic case and a commonsense case for good public health policies to be at its heart.
I believe the Commission appreciates that and will soon bring forward ambitious and practical proposals for the new framework.
They will be more horizontal in approach, offering greater added value, and will provide opportunities for the EU and its Member States to work together far more effectively on health issues in the broader sense within the confines of the Treaty.
With specific reference to tonight's proposals, firstly Mr Viceconte has produced a welcome contribution to the growing debate on the needs of people suffering from rare diseases set against the background of other preparations, for example on orphan drugs, plus the development of research principles and priorities.
My colleague Mrs Marinucci will be commenting in greater detail on the specific provisions of the report.
But in each of the three programmes tonight we shall need to wrestle with the need to resource their contents properly and sustainably.
I hear what the Commissioner says.
We need to be realistic, the money must come from somewhere, it must provide useful added value to national schemes and be accountably utilized.
But the other side of the coin is that if we were to have another small European programme where too great a proportion is spent on administration assessment and the very people it seeks to help are put off participating by the lack of cost effectiveness in making bids or building networks, many voluntary organizations could not spare the time or resources to prepare those proposals and would simply opt out.
The rare diseases programme is aimed by definition at smaller groups, even at family level, often faced by vast bureaucracies for whom those sorts of expenditures constitute little more than a heavy lunch.
That is why it is worth fighting for more through this Parliament and also worth including consumer or patient expertise in the committees assessing the programme development.
Those amendments apply also to the excellent reports by Professors Cabrol and Trakatellis respectively and I do not intend to duplicate the comments on the budgets hereafter.
The Cabrol report incisively identifies ailments beyond respiratory conditions which might usefully come within the remit of the programme to tackle pollution-related diseases.
Taken together with other environmental actions which this House is pursuing this report represents a literal breath of fresh air for health policies and it deserves our full support.
I wish to turn to the proposals on accidents and injuries which I believe could offer the furthest-reaching impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.
Whether taking part in sports or just going about normal life, the number of European citizens injured, disabled or even killed in accidents is quite staggering and is recorded in detail in the report.
In that context the Commission proposal is wholly justified and the improvements put forward by Mr Trakatellis represent an excellent contribution worthy of complete support.
In particular the need to strengthen the EHLASS system of research and information sharing is fundamental and exemplifies the need for the internal Commission coherence to which I alluded earlier.
Last year I experienced its operation directly, having broken my hand in Brussels.
Perhaps at my age I should have known better than to play cricket and avoided the risk.
I may have represented a strange statistical blip on the survey carried out in my local hospital, but many doctors approached me later and said that they found the information from these surveys more than useful.
I have received other information on the results of publication of this proposal which suggests that there will be many unexpected benefits from this programme in industrial applications.
I like the scope and the potential day-to-day impact of the programme and the report, and I wholeheartedly commend them, with the predictable caveat on budgets.
Given the often erratic nature of care and treatment in Member States regarding Alzheimer's disease, the growing numbers and proportion of ageing citizens of Europe, and the evidence that increasing longevity does not always bring increasing quality of life, it is absolutely understandable that we should bring forward and demand urgent action on Alzheimer's disease.
What must also be sought is an agreed prioritization of the activities which has resonance within the professional, scientific and social communities.
We all have ardent advocates of various priorities knocking at doors with special needs.
We and the Commission must be able to justify a sustainable development of health policy priorities within a very clear framework to avoid accusations of emotional attachment and vested interest.
That justification is self-evident for Alzheimer's and now that the eight initial programmes are under way, if far from in place, it is appropriate to turn towards the future.
Great challenges are ahead.
This very week a major conference in the United States is expressing fears about the inability of developed and developing societies alike to combat and prevent the resurgence of diseases thought to be beaten.
Fears of blood and food safety arise almost daily.
Questions of diet and life style and environment and medical science itself will demand significant European responses, which is why it is important that we make coherent and consistent progress and is why the scrutiny provided by reports such as that by Mrs Flemming on the integration of health policies across the range of EU competence is so important and so revealing.
Its stress on coherent development and integration is essential and is exemplified by my concluding plea for support tonight.
Its recommendations on the long-term future of reform of agricultural policies, comprising almost half the budget, and in particular the aim to remove subsidies for tobacco production over the next decade, should be strongly supported by this House.
This is not the night to rehearse arguments on the literal ills of smoking.
That will come soon, as will major debates on reforms of our agricultural structures.
The world will demand that and our citizens will expect us to fulfil our role as their protectors for a consistent removal of health threats and risks.
By rejecting all four amendments to Mrs Flemming's helpful report as adopted in committee this House can take a small step forward tomorrow and anticipate much larger strides in the months and years to come.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the significance of health policy in Europe is increasing.
This is stipulated by the Treaty of Amsterdam, and that is a good thing, because for too long the European Community has only concerned itself with the free movement of goods in the single market and too little with other aspects, which are, however, closely associated with this.
The question of subsidiarity is often raised, particularly when the European Union wants to intervene itself and should not just take the health policy in other areas into consideration.
I believe that with the three programmes which we have before us for discussion today, the question of subsidiarity does not arise at all in at least two, because with rare diseases it is clear that, if in a Member State there are only ten people affected, it is not possible to introduce a sensible programme.
If in the entire EU there are well over 100 people affected by the same disease, then it is worthwhile doing something and I believe that the added value of the European dimension is obvious here.
I shall concentrate on diseases caused by environmental factors.
We all know that this is a serious problem and that many illnesses are associated with a high level of harmful emissions.
I have some critical questions relating to whether the present programme is capable of tackling this problem adequately.
I believe, and that is why we in the Group of the European People's Party have tabled amendments, that we must make disease caused by environmental factors a focus of a new health policy in the European Union and that we cannot only deal with it in such a small programme.
Therefore, we believe that we must now undertake preparatory work for a really major programme.
In this way a really strong framework can be produced, which also comprises all diseases caused by environmental factors.
In this way, there can no longer be any distinction made between, for example, environment related diseases of the respiratory system and environment related cancers. These must all come under one umbrella.
Therefore, we should approve the corresponding amendments tabled by the Group of the European People's Party.
It is important however that we do not simply carry out research and collect data; conclusions must be drawn.
We did that as a Parliament for example in the Auto-Oil Programme and we request the Commission to adopt our corresponding tabled amendments.
Smoking is also an environmental problem - at least passive smoking - and therefore I should again like to support Mrs Flemming's report.
It must distress you deeply, Commissioner Flynn. Mrs Flemming makes such a wonderful proposal in point 10, namely that we finally cease subsidising tobacco, that reform is needed there, and you cannot say anything about it, because your colleagues will not let you!
Please carry on the fight for the removal of the tobacco subsidies: you have our support!
Madam President, I would like to make a few institutional points on the future.
In 1984, when I first entered this House, I asked for a sub-committee on health protection to be set up.
I believe this is essential today.
I would like to say, jokingly, that without health we cannot even build the Parliament buildings: so we ought to think of ourselves for a moment.
I would also like to say, and here I agree with Mrs Flemming, that the directive on the freedom of movement of doctors, on reciprocal recognition, of which I was also a supporter, has failed.
We need to review this directive.
Older doctors find it difficult to move, so we need to think of investing in doctors currently in training, as the rapporteur says, trying to get them to travel in the various countries.
I would also like to draw attention to doctor numbers: in the EU there is currently an excess of doctors, an enormous flood, often holding university posts rather than dealing with the needs of patients.
I therefore think it advisable to study this problem, because we need not just medical graduates but trained doctors, and I believe a knowledge of the 15 countries could lead to high levels of competitiveness.
Finally, I would like to recommend an examination of this Green Paper on health.
Please also note that the problem of the elderly needs to be brought clearly to Parliament's attention, by means of a study on the increase in the ageing rate and the fall in growth.
In ten years' time, it will be the EU's greatest problem.
We would do better to remember that today!
Madam President, my colleagues Mr Cars and Mr Lindqvist will comment on the Alzheimer issue, and I would like to say a few things about the Cabrol report.
I agree with the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, that the action programme on pollution-related diseases has too many limitations.
We think more attention should be paid to diseases caused by noise pollution, contaminated food, tobacco and polluted water.
We fully agree with Mrs Flemming about tobacco manufacturing.
We hope the Commissioner can raise the ECU 1.3 million set aside for this programme for the period 1999-2003 to ECU 14 million.
I think I managed to detect some willingness in him, but we shall have to wait and see.
In conclusion, we submitted an amendment which deals with registration points for lodging environmental health complaints.
Such registration points already exist in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The advantage of such a registration point is that it can help to detect health problems earlier.
We do not have a new institution in mind, but we would like to encourage registration networks on a national level.
This will cost no extra money, which is why we do not understand why the Commissioner opposes Amendment No 13 by the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
We hope the honourable Members will vote for Amendment No 13 tomorrow, because it would be a good addition to the action programme.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I want to say that we are absolutely convinced that the reports presented by Mr Trakatellis, Mr Viceconte, Mr Cabrol and Mrs Flemming are appropriate.
Our group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left is going to support them.
My fellow group-member, Laura González Álvarez, said just a moment ago that we are pleased that our amendments have been included in these reports.
I would like to give a few examples and then draw some general conclusions.
We have seen that it is important to stress the need for a scientific information infrastructure, a database, a surveillance system, and - since it is essential to be able to combat these rare diseases - an information distribution network, with the involvement of the relatives, NGOs and bodies which help these patients, so that progress can be made towards better cooperation within society.
It is also important to be committed to research, teaching and training in these matters. Finally, that means we also need to increase the financial budget in order to address all these needs.
That is the specific basis of our comments: it is not possible to address these questions with the inadequate budgetary resources currently available, which calls into question the economic model we are constructing in Europe. We need a different model, an outlook based more on solidarity.
We cannot have it both ways.
We need to modify our existing model.
Secondly, we need common instruments. It is incomprehensible that we are not implementing the surveillance network, a sound epidemiological system, and also the common instruments required for effective action.
Lastly, I also want to point out the need for health services to share common aspects.
Madam President, despite the limited number of Members present and the late hour, I think everyone is aware of the importance of this debate and the fact that the health problem is assuming ever greater political importance for the EU, although still not enough as regards the problems raised today.
Certainly, from the point of view of competence, the EU should try to coordinate the overall policy and, by adopting initiatives, promote systems that ensure prevention above all. Today's reports are headed in that direction.
That there is a link between the various public health issues is shown by the fact that, in today's debate on general health protection, we are dealing with a programme concerning pollution-related diseases and rare diseases.
In connection with the latter, I would like to point out - for, like the Greens, we are in favour of all the proposals presented - the need for a high level of protection with regard to rare diseases. One way or another we also need to gain a thorough knowledge of them for, unfortunately, as shown by the report, the definition of a rare disease varies.
We have examples of this, such as Alzheimer's disease. Until recently it was considered a rare disease; today, unfortunately, on account of the increase in the average age as well, it is becoming a common disease.
At present, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, linked with BSE, is considered a rare disease, but unfortunately it could become common in the future, owing to mistaken choices having been made in terms of prevention.
It is therefore important for us to have a prevention policy on rare diseases, a joint common study, because the small countries cannot have an adequate knowledge of these diseases, and because we also need public intervention, public research, in the field of drugs required to resolve related problems.
Madam President, popular wisdom says, ' Better late than never' .
The European Commission, which from 1986 to 1996 allowed contaminated cattle and contaminated flour to circulate freely, is now concerned with the health of Europeans.
It is as if grace is still possible even amongst the worst of men.
Today we are debating texts on pollution-related diseases, injuries, Alzheimer's disease and rare diseases.
We could have added emerging or re-emerging diseases, considering that free circulation is bringing back tuberculosis, malaria and viral diseases such as the Ebola disease.
The Commission is intervening because Article 129 of the European Treaties assigns it the responsibility of ensuring a high level of health protection.
Doubtless the thirty individuals who suffer from atypical Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease would think Article 129 somewhat ironic.
Turning specifically to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - and my colleague spoke about it earlier - this is at present a rare disease but there is a risk that it will become less so, as others have done.
Leprosy is still rare in our countries, but perhaps free circulation will make it more common.
Moreover, the increase in life expectancy also makes it more likely that diseases such as Alzheimer's will become more common.
We have been told it was not possible to increase funding and, taking into account the budgetary rationing policy, our committee proposes to bring it up to ECU 14 million.
Everyone would agree, even the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, who by the way gave the same report on two different subjects, which surely shows that there were certain difficulties during compilation.
Turning to pollution-related diseases, Mr Cabrol was right to point out that people are only interested in air pollution.
This is the green neurosis - a fixation on nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide and the greenhouse effect.
Haroun Tazieff, who is now dead, devoted part of his career to showing that, scientifically, all of that was witchcraft.
But there are much more serious issues if we consider food allergies.
On this subject, no one ever talks about the right to information raised by Mr Trakatellis, because no one knows if the soya contained in yoghurts is natural or the product of genetic manipulation. There is no traceability, or if there is it comes at a high price.
Here too the Commission bears its share of the responsibility. The same applies to water pollution and BSE pollution.
Furthermore, Mr Trakatellis talked to us earlier about suicides among farmers, coalminers, steel workers and textile workers.
Who is responsible for these suicides, Commissioner Flynn? Part of the prevention may be to guard against ultraliberalism.
Any lack of progress in pharmaceutical research on emerging diseases may be down to budgetary restrictions, or to the foolishness of cure-all medications which reduce the profit margins of laboratories.
As laboratories today are not able to discover molecules, and since it takes ten years for a newly discovered molecule to appear on the pharmacy shelf, it may be that by 2010 we will not have the desired medication to combat the rare diseases which may have spread in the meantime.
Madam President, I will finish now.
With 40 million Europeans in poverty who cannot manage to take care of themselves we may have a very serious clinical indication of the disease of euro-federalism.
Madam President, four important reports are up for debate.
Three of them concern programmes to prevent accidents, rare diseases and pollution-related diseases and the fourth is about the health aspects of EU policies.
I regard the latter two reports as the most important.
All pollution-related diseases must be included, so that people clearly see causes and connections.
Asthma and allergies are on the increase, especially among the young.
It is important to prevent and avoid disease.
I have two questions. One is whether we should really deal with issues like early warning systems at the EU level.
The other is whether we should really set up information databases at the European level.
I think not. I think it would be better to do this at the national level instead.
The most important thing is to describe the health effects of the EU's own programmes and measures, and to permit Member States who wish to do so to keep their environmental requirements if they are tougher than those of the EU.
I think it is good to have variety in the different systems.
Madam President, as I have very little time, I will direct my remarks to the Cabrol report.
We are all aware from numerous recent scientific publications that pollution-related diseases are constantly on the increase.
A report published less than two years ago by the European Environment Agency and WHO-Europe concluded that there was an increase in not only respiratory illnesses, but a whole series of other diseases.
Here I am thinking in particular of diseases linked to food contamination, such as zoonosis diseases, salmonella and infectious enteritis.
The fact that these diseases are on the increase is very worrying.
That is why I regret, like the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, that the Commission will not extend the programme's field of action beyond allergies and respiratory illnesses, because many problems linked to the environment would warrant equally close attention.
Even if the relationship between cause and effect is not very obvious I think we cannot remain indifferent to phenomena as serious as the increase in sterility which is clearly manifested in some countries, mine included.
Studies confirm that sterility is on the increase amongst young people, which places a heavy burden on health expenditure since sterility results in recourse to in vitro fertilization.
We are relentlessly pursuing technology despite all the evidence, and we must stop it at all costs.
It would be infinitely better to take preventative action.
And I believe that thanks to its size and to the means generally available to its Member States, the European Union is better able to tackle this task than our individual countries.
Madam President, Commissioner, allow me to start by making a general comment.
If we want our Union to be a political union - and I am sure that is what the people of Europe want - let us strengthen our internal policies.
To attain that longed-for European Union, we need to overcome the current weakness of the common policies other than EMU and CAP.
And we need to overcome that weakness by means of the budgets, the political will of the Council, debates such as this evening's, and pressure from the Commission, which is what I am respectfully but firmly requesting from you, Commissioner.
There is no better example of this weakness in our internal policies than our health policies.
For that reason, and because health has officially been an area of EU competence ever since the Treaty on European Union (without detriment to the principle of subsidiarity), we welcome the Commission's very timely initiatives, which complete the eight areas for action mentioned in its own 1983 definition. We also welcome the very well-aimed reports being discussed here tonight.
We think the amendments improve the Commission's initiatives.
In some cases this is because of the high incidence of, for example, the injuries or illnesses caused by pollution, or Alzheimer's disease. In other cases, in contrast, it is because some diseases are so rare that they are below the threshold where their research, statistical study and so on become socially profitable.
So, these are some examples of what the joint work of the Commission and Parliament should be, in the search for a final objective.
There are serious differences.
There is the difference in timescales, for one thing.
We would say that such relatively modest programmes of this type should be funded for five years, never for one year. Are the financial perspectives going to start from scratch?
Surely like that they will be committed right from the start? So let us specify five-year programmes.
For another thing, there are quantitative differences in the budgets.
I think the Commission is reducing the general budgets to less than half by planning one-year budgets, by means of reducing the objectives.
All I will say is that the city council of any large European city devotes more budgetary resources to programmes like this than the Commission does.
So, by accepting and standing up for adequate budgets for these deserving and timely programmes, we are strengthening health policy. In so doing, we are reinforcing internal policy and fulfilling that historic mission being requested of the Commission and Parliament - to build the political union, the European Union.
Madam President, I would like to raise a problem that has already been mentioned.
When we are talking about protecting the health of our citizens, with particular reference to the quality of foodstuffs and agriculture in general, we need to overcome the schizophrenia which sometimes exists within the Community Institutions, between the actions of the economic committees on the one hand and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the other. This is because greater cooperation and better coordination of actions at these different levels may also produce a better protection not just of production but also of citizens' health.
In this connection, it seems to me that the Flemming report endeavours to find this balance.
Other speeches we have heard do not seem to have the same sensitivity.
I am referring in particular to the speech made by the official spokesman of the Group of the Party of European Socialists. A month ago, on behalf of his group, he proposed the liberalization of soft drugs, and this evening he has suggested suspending aid for tobacco producers.
This seems to me to be a more typical example of schizophrenia.
I believe that by approving the amendment to paragraph 10 (proposed by myself and colleagues in the Group of the European People's Party), we will find this balance even better. I am sure the rapporteur will accept this amendment as a positive contribution to a statement already made in her report.
I have to say that, personally, I would also prefer paragraph 12 to be withdrawn, because it is clearly contradictory to what was approved by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We will be able to come back to these issues soon.
For example, I would have preferred advertising to be prohibited, but with the Member States nevertheless retaining the possibility of exercising discipline over the sponsorship of major sports events.
To conclude, it seems to me that we should find a better way of working, in the interests of producers and for the protection of consumer health.
Madam President, with regard to Alzheimer's disease I am especially pleased that Parliament has been able, even in a small way, to play a role with regard to this major health scourge.
Adopting a new budget line meant that specific funding was provided to combat this disease.
But this can only be regarded as a first step in the fight against this disease.
The commitment in the Amsterdam Treaty to preventing human illness and disease goes even further than the present Treaty and is therefore to be welcomed.
The way in which the Community responds to Alzheimer's disease will be a further test of this new commitment.
I urge the Council of Ministers and the Commission not to let us down in this regard.
I would like to ask the Commission specifically to state what action, if any, is envisaged for research under the Fifth Framework Programme to fight Alzheimer's disease.
I have two final points.
Firstly, we in the UPE Group are calling for a specific five-year EU action programme to combat this disease, backed-up with adequate resources.
Secondly, the Commission must coordinate future and past research results relating to the disease and be prepared to coordinate with the World Health Organization associations and organizations active in this sector, including families and carers.
Madam President, what Parliament wants to achieve with its resolution on dementia is to involve the European Union more, including financially, in the fight against Alzheimer's disease and other dementia diseases.
As Parliament maintains, it is important that the EU's efforts can be aimed at all forms of dementia including, for example, vascular dementia and frontal lobe dementia.
Finding cures for dementia diseases is the main task of research, but until this happens research must also seek to develop methods to enable those suffering from dementia to retain as much as possible of their normal functions for as long as possible.
Other tasks include developing methods for relatives and carers to relate to those suffering from dementia so that for all concerned existence is given life and meaning.
Madam President, let me make four comments during my one minute. Firstly, the example of BSE shows how quickly rare diseases can develop into catastrophes.
Secondly, one can see from the arrogance of the Commission how quickly it can foster that kind of development, because we received notice that research on BSE had to wait until it was considered appropriate to put together a programme for rare diseases.
Thirdly, when it is a question of rare diseases, industry is not interested, because one to one million is not worthwhile for a medicine.
Fourthly, consequently, we urgently need a programme at European level, which researches these rare diseases and gets to grips with them, thus limiting the possible impact, namely an epidemic, as we have seen in the case of BSE.
Madam President, I would like to focus attention on Mrs Flemming's report on a uniform approach to health protection as part of Community policy.
The report is basically on the right track in calling for better coordination and closer ties in health policy as part of the EU's other policies.
The Amsterdam Treaty, as has been said here, will give more weight to questions of public health than at present.
This aspect of that Treaty should be exploited, so that it will have a genuine influence on promoting health in the Member States in a broader sense.
In that way we would have to adopt a more systematic and far more integrated strategy than now, one that is comprehensive and all-embracing.
The health question should permeate all Community policy.
There is a clear relationship between health and equality.
We know that the socially excluded and less well-off become ill more often than the well-heeled and better educated.
This is obviously also a question of education, one that is linked to diet and living habits, but still more a question of economics.
Europe is ageing.
What effects this will have on different policies, and how we are going to allocate financial resources in the area of health care, are vital questions for the future, not just for the European Union, but particularly for the Member States individually.
The EU should be able to prioritize those factors that are essentially European.
How to achieve the best added value component for the national effort: that should be the European policy.
There should be a clear view on what is important and what is less so.
So although I understand how important the programmes concerned with specific diseases are, I would like to stress how vital it also is for the Commission in the future, in the formulation of its public health programme, to promote health at national level by means of a structured health policy; in other words, by addressing questions of social policy, such as how efficient agriculture is, how different pesticides are used, which is to say, should more ecological prudence be applied?
And how are traffic policy, employment, social exclusion and the rest dealt with? These, I believe, are important structural matters, all of which are relevant to the question of health policy.
Madam President, I wish to make a few remarks and address a few questions to the Commissioner with regard to the Trakatellis report.
My guilt at not hearing Mr Trakatellis is slightly mollified by the fact that he is not here to hear me.
I will go straight into the core of what my questions are.
As I understand it, we have a proposal which may both rescue and prolong the EHLASS project and incorporate it into the injury prevention programme.
That would mean an end to some duplication of resources between two of the directorates and it would put a greater onus on the Member States to contribute 50 %, instead of 20 % of the cost of this project.
My questions to the Commission - and I know he will answer them in his usual genial way - really relate to how this funding package will work.
I very much welcome the proposal, because if we can guarantee the life of EHLASS for another five years, for the duration of the injury prevention programme, that will be an extremely good thing.
I feel that we will then have a database of the kind we need for the reporting of home and leisure accidents.
The problem is that there is really no indication of exactly where the ECU 7 million involved is coming from. Is it to come from the two directorates?
Is it to be from one rather than the other?
Have the Member States been canvassed as to the extent to which they are prepared to make the contribution of 50 % which is needed? It would be nice to have answers to those questions, because one of the problems is that, given the current base for EHLASS has already ended, neither the injury prevention scheme nor the legal framework for consumer policy, on which I would like to see this based, will actually begin until 1999.
In those circumstances, one wonders how we can launch this integrated scheme in 1998.
There was some objection from some of the Member States, notably Germany and, to a lesser extent, France, to the introduction of the EHLASS scheme in the first instance.
I had the job two years ago of monitoring how this scheme was operating for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and I came to the conclusion that it was a worthwhile scheme and we should continue with it.
We can only continue with it on the basis of a sound calculation about funding and a clear indication of where the responsibilities lie.
I can think of no better hands to put it in than Commissioner Flynn's, but I would like answers to these questions.
Madam President, I would like to confine my remarks to Alzheimer's disease.
We know, and we have heard here this evening, that many thousands of our citizens suffer from this disease and related syndrome throughout the European Union.
The Commission should come forward now with the European-wide action programme on Alzheimer's disease.
The Commission has already produced much-needed initiatives against cancer, pollution-related diseases, rare diseases, AIDS and smoking, on the basis of existing public health competencies.
Unfortunately on Alzheimer's disease it does no more than finance research and this is just not good enough.
We need the research but you must go further, Mr Commissioner.
You should draw up a European-wide action programme against Alzheimer's disease.
This programme would include strategies for intensifying research into the causes of the disease, for identification of risk factors, for prevention and treatment and for encouraging specific training of health and geriatric care staff.
It should also aim to change negative public perceptions of the disease.
You should make sure that you use all the budget that is set aside each year already under the existing programme.
An Alzheimer's action programme would be of enormous benefit to the many thousands of Europeans suffering from this disease.
Not only are the interests of the patients afforded insufficient attention but also the carers of these patients are in many cases totally ignored.
My own experience in Ireland is that the real needs of the many thousands of people, mainly women, who care for our 25 000 or so sufferers of Alzheimer's disease, are neglected.
It is disgraceful for instance that they are meanstested for the carers allowance.
I would like to see this situation immediately eased and I have made representations to the relevant minister in this regard.
Finally, small programmes and small initiatives can be very useful.
I have recently seen a programme in a hospital in Dublin, Blanchardstown, where pet dogs are taken in to meet these patients and that has a fantastic therapeutic effect.
We should encourage this sort of therapeutic action throughout Europe.
Thank you Madam President.
Could I just very briefly sum up because I really went through many of the points that have been raised in some detail in my first contribution.
I know I took some time with it, but it was in the hope that I would give a general overview of what we thought of the three programmes and also of Mrs Flemming's report and the question about Alzheimer's.
I have to say that one has to be very encouraged by the quality of the debate in the House this evening on this very important topic of public health.
Even though many have referred to the lateness of the hour and the small attendance in the House it certainly has not reduced the quality of the contributions we have heard and the earnestness with which they have been made.
Certainly there is a very strong commitment in the House to the subjects under discussion by those who have remained here.
I have little to add by way of substance on the various reports and on the oral questions, but I have taken note of the various matters and of what I would regard as the underlying messages which have come through in the various interventions.
They have been similar in many ways but they are worth taking note of because we have to consider them very carefully in the next important period, when we will be considering the next framework insofar as public health matters are concerned.
A lot of the interventions focused on taking a very serious view of and putting a very high priority on the provisions of public health which were set out both in the Maastricht and in the Amsterdam Treaties, and I would like to think that perhaps in the next framework we could take a rather wide interpretation of what is involved in the Amsterdam Treaty in preparing our new framework.
I take particular note of what Mr Needle said, that a new framework certainly needs to be put in place but that it is going to cost money.
When the eight programmes were given the envelope of money, the money was all gone.
The first three or four programmes really mopped up all the money and left virtually nothing for the three hugely important programmes we are talking about now.
But I am not put off by that, because even though the amount of money available is small and even though it is only for the year and on a yearly basis, we should make a start and get on with it, so that when the financial perspectives are being considered again we can show that we had the right attitude, that the programmes were substantial, and that the fact that the money was not there means that if we get it at a later date we can take the actions that we talked about.
I shall say more about that in a moment.
You endorsed the view that the European Community and the institutions can endow a real value added to what is being done in the Member States, and really that is what we are talking about here.
We know the Member States have the prime responsibility insofar as health provision and care are concerned, but what we should do is to focus on issues with a Community-wide basis that citizens are particularly concerned about, so that we can coordinate the best actions and exercises in the Member States and give the lead in that regard.
That can be the added value we can get from these programmes, even though they are small in terms of money now.
Maybe that can be changed by good intention and good practice in what we do insofar as the framework is concerned.
The House has indicated very genuine and encouraging support for the eight public health promotion programmes that we have. We developed those under Article 128 of the Maastricht Treaty.
All the members who spoke - and indeed I myself - share the feeling that the current restrictions on budget do not allow the Community to do all that it could and should do.
Let us be clear about that.
You want to see more done.
That is a view the Commission shares.
There are a lot of things that can and should be attempted.
Perhaps we should set out the possibilities in the next framework programme as to what we should do, then put it to the Member States - set out what the Parliament and the Commission agree should be funded in the best interests of the citizens, then go for the money from the budgetary authority.
Let us hope that the budgetary perspective beyond 2000 will share that view with us, because your view is going to be shared and is going to be brought home very clearly in the communication that I have promised the House on the next framework.
I will be setting out what I think should be done with your cooperation in the areas you have highlighted this evening.
We will see what happens then.
Most of the members point to the importance of the next framework on public health and the need we can see there to expand the horizons substantially beyond those of the current package of programmes.
I would like to go down that road with your support.
You have made it quite clear to me that you expect quite a lot of the Commission.
I am going to take note of that.
When we come back to talk about the elements that we would like to see included and the kind of money we are talking about, there will be support here for that too.
We spend a lot of money on a lot of things here in the Union.
In fact, when one talks about marketing a certain product of recent times, more money can be found overnight here to do a promotional exercise for one product than can be given to the whole of the programmes for five years.
It does not make sense.
I can quite readily sympathize with Mrs Flemming when she makes the point, which she also made in her report, about the difficulty in satisfying herself as to the need to support dangerous products and give subsidies to them. What she is talking about is the tobacco grown within the Union.
I have always found there was a contradiction there and I have made that point on more than one occasion.
The Union can provide almost ECU 800 million per year to support a product that is of virtually no value insofar as marketing is concerned and, at the same time, causes immense damage to public health.
All we are looking for here is a small amount of money to help to promote schemes and programmes that will greatly aid and enhance what people might be able to do to improve their own health.
I believe that the precautionary principle is a matter of public health and that we should pursue it in that way.
I notice that there has been a lot of talk about the whole question of Alzheimer's.
Everybody said how important it was. I have to say that this is supported by the Commissioner and by the Commission.
The ageing population is going to bring about a huge change because this is a disease for which there is no cure yet.
I hear some talk when I visit America about possibilities in the future of developing some medication.
But, as things stand at the moment, there is nothing.
We are restricted, as I said, insofar as the Treaty is concerned, to prevention.
I take particular note that you are anxious to see the action plan, which was talked about here a few years ago, pursued.
Perhaps we could dwell more positively on the whole question of training of carers, and maybe, as Mrs Malone very wisely said, on changing the negative attitude that exists in many of the Member States as regards this particular disease.
I have made the point that I will bring this forward in the communication in the context of the new framework.
I recognize that the House is prepared to give the money to it.
The point was brought home very forcibly by Mr Poggiolini, when he said that the demographic trends are there, we know about longer life expectancy and we know that people are faced with the threat - and it is an increasing threat - that more and more people are going to suffer from Alzheimer's.
Until some remedy is found, then we should be able to focus on a particular illness like that and give a lead.
We can share the best practice and perhaps help out the carers and the organizations responsible.
I will be making that point and it will be for the two institutions to agree as to what we should be doing in the new programme.
Mr Whitehead raised some particular points about EHLASS and, as is his wont, he always focuses on a particular point of very great relevance, and he did so on this occasion as well.
The key point made by him on the funding was: will it work and is there an agreement to make it work? DG V, my directorate, will be taking over ECU 7.5 million from DG XXIV to cover the inclusion of EHLASS within the public health programmes.
So that is where the money is coming from, and that arrangement will be put in place.
The money is secure from our point of view.
As far as the contribution is concerned, at the Consumer Affairs Council, Mrs Bonino, my colleague, indicated a reduction to 65 % this year and 50 % afterwards in an effort to try to spread the benefits of the scheme.
I also wish to say that the vast majority of the Member States have, on the occasions when it was put to them, expressed a clear will to continue the operation of the system in a more developed form and also displayed quite a lot of goodwill of taking on a larger share of the cost.
That commitment is there and was expressed by a number of the Member States when the question was put to them.
So there seems to be no objection raised against such a solution.
I feel positive as far as that is concerned.
I think that both Mr Whitehead and I would wish to see it develop in that way.
There have been many useful points made.
I agree with what Mrs Myller said about having a much more holistic approach to the whole question of public health.
That is what we will attempt to do in the new framework and we look forward to being able to discuss that with you.
Mr Hyland was anxious about the Fifth Programme.
Yes, there is some reference in a generalized way insofar as the fifth research programme is concerned.
Many of the other points are all worth referring to.
But I could summarize it all by saying that public health, as enshrined in the Treaty and widened in the concept of application insofar as the Amsterdam Treaty is concerned, is a matter of great concern to the House.
It is of considerable concern to me and to the Commission.
We would now seek to go forward with our eight programmes, irrespective of the small amount of money available to start them, and to put down the objectives we would like to see achieved, even if we had a lot of money, and then seek to try to finance them under the new financial perspectives and go ahead and do something positive in support of public health in the Union.
I think we have had an excellent debate.
However, if you are in agreement, I have one last speech.
Madam President, I have a question for Commissioner Flynn. If he had applied the logic which he has now revealed in his speech, and which became particularly clear in his last sentence, to the treatment of BSE and that which fell under his responsibility, would we not have been spared much of the scandal created by BSE?
Madam President, I just wish to say in response to that profound statement that before the problem arose it had been contemplated in one of our proposals, even in advance of the BSE problem.
If we could have had the Community network of surveillance and control which was proposed, and is still not finally settled, then we might have been more advanced.
I would still hope that a Community network of surveillance and control would be agreed as a good way forward to settling the matters you have referred to.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.28 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Tuesday, 10 March 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Carnero González, the very applause of this House amounts to a second ratification of that motion, which expresses a view shared by all honest men and women.
So I do not think there is any need for rhetoric.
Mr President, on page 26 of the Minutes, where it refers to Question Time, it says, "Parliament considered a number of questions to the Commission' . It fails to mention that, because Question Time started 35 minutes later than stated in the agenda, the Chair apologized to the Members and the Commission representatives.
Mr President, I should like the Minutes to record that the first words from the Chair were an apology for that delay.
Thank you, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz. The fact that you apologized will be added to the Minutes.
Thank you very much, Mr Sindal.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I would like to point out that we have submitted over one hundred signatures in support of the urgent need for an exchange of views on criminality and I can understand why there will be no discussion on the topic this week.
I should also like to thank you for your letter to the Belgian authorities suggesting that the police presence in the area be reinforced visibly and that a police bureau with an emergency number be set up in the immediate vicinity of the institutions.
I would like to emphasize that security in Brussels is not exclusively concern of the PPE.
Any one of us here could be affected in the next few days.
Mr Rübig, I have already told you twice in writing that it is not a question of the number of signatures. It is not a subject for topical and urgent debate because it does not affect human rights outside the Union.
There are some very serious human rights issues in the world, and that is what our topical and urgent debates are for, not for dealing with our own matters in Parliament.
So no matter how many people have signed the documents, I cannot accept them.
Assistance to the applicant countries in central and eastern Europe - Accession partnerships
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0081/98 by Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) on assistance to the applicant countries in central and eastern Europe in the framework of the pre-accession strategy (COM(97)0634 - C4-0010/98-97/0351(CNS)); -A4-0087/98 by Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposals for Council Decisions on the principles, priorities, intermediate objectives and conditions contained in the Accession Partnerships (COM(98)0053 - C4-0130/98).
Mr President, many inside and outside this Parliament are rightly interested in the reports on enlargement.
I would like to stress that we here in Parliament see enlargement as an extremely important issue, an enormous challenge, the realization of a dream you might say. We therefore would like to guarantee that it progresses in the best possible way.
This means that we want to make sure that over the coming years - and it might be quite a few years before the entire enlargement process has been completed - the European Union institutions, which have to lead and steer this entire process in the right direction, stay together in every respect vis-a-vis their policy.
We want to ensure that at the end of the process, political opinions will have been continuously synchronized and as a matter of course, so that there will be no accidents, and so that the entire enlargement, and the accession of each individual applicant country, can take place smoothly.
Mr President, we have judged the texts, both the proposal for a regulation and the individual partnership agreements with this intention.
We have some comments which follow on from what we have said previously in other resolutions.
Firstly, we were a little surprised that, after the previous discussion, the political criteria which were rightly given priority in Copenhagen, were not given the prominence we might have hoped for, either in the regulation or in the individual partnership agreements.
That is why we have ensured that our opinion on this point comes clearly to the fore in the amendments to the draft regulation.
We wish to give the political criteria sufficient prominence, the more so because, since Amsterdam, a number of clauses have been in force which apply to the Member States themselves. These state that if the Member States are found violating constitutional aspects, which in fact make them members of the European Union, they may eventually be suspended.
So I think that we have to make it very clear to the applicant countries that the European Union is not a congregation of rich countries, but rather a congregation of constitutional democracies; that this is what it is all about.
Moreover, this is an extremely practical view, because how a country develops depends on the quality of its constitution and how its democracy is functioning.
We have never really had to discuss this amongst ourselves because we were all constitutional democracies.
The countries which joined us were either constitutional states already, or had recently become one.
I believe that living under a dictatorship for 50 or 70 years must affect people's intuition, particularly if the dictatorship they suffered under was a severe one.
Mr President, this is why we are tabling our amendments to the regulation on this point.
Yet we also said in the regulation that this is such an important issue and that Parliament wants to be heard when this regulation, the framework for the entire accession, is significantly amended.
This strikes me as a very normal and reasonable request, and we reiterated it with regard to the individual partnerships.
We experienced some disappointment in this, too, in that the primacy of the constitution is not presented clearly in respect of the partnerships.
We think that in the case of the objectives which have been identified for the short term, a few technical easily realizable targets to repair the constitutional state can be implemented.
They do not have to be postponed to the medium term, for example, issues like the respect for the constitution, the independence of the legal courts, equal access to public services, the rights of the opposition, and the role of the opposition. These could have all been decided here yesterday.
There is no need to turn these into medium- to long-term targets.
But in some partnership agreements points like these have, strangely enough, been mentioned with regard to the medium term.
I believe in fact that the whole of Parliament would like to give this a more prominent position.
We are also in favour of developing clear strategies on human rights and the rights of minorities.
These are issues which you will have to get right both in the short, medium and long term.
Mr President, in the partnerships we also suggest seriously that Parliament should be guaranteed a say when principles, priorities and general conditions are substantially amended.
We therefore ask the Commission and the Council to promise that in this area we will be able to use our opinions to influence a procedure which befits the dignity of this Parliament.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Oostlander has already suggested, we have in mind various objectives which need to be achieved in the various accession partnerships.
The first objective, already mentioned by Mr Oostlander, is to ensure a precise, thorough and very specific adherence to the Copenhagen criteria, to which I would add the decisions taken and the resolutions passed in this House - not least those dealt with in September.
Although we did not alter the Copenhagen criteria, we did add some very important, specific environmental and social issues among others.
Secondly, there is undoubtedly the issue - one which was a key element in the committee's discussions - of the exercise of our parliamentary rights.
And here I use the term "rights' not simply in the purely legal sense, but rather in the sense that we, as representatives of the European people, have a right not only to involve ourselves in these affairs, but also to decide which countries can accede and when.
Thirdly, - and this is an aspect which my group, headed by Gary Titley, has repeatedly introduced into the debate - there is the question of setting the tone, and doing so without delay.
That is why we were so inflexible on certain issues: it was important to show the applicant countries that, following last December's decision, we do not intend to become embroiled in long debates on points of order and on formal and administrative matters, but rather that we want to take a decision quickly.
Finding a common position from which to deal with these matters was certainly difficult and the subject of long and extensive debate.
However difficult things sometimes became with some of Mr Oostlander's motions, I do believe that we have now found a common position and established a common framework.
In addition, it also looks as though - and I assume that this will be confirmed today - the Council and the Commission, which are perhaps understandably a little shy when it comes to Parliament having its say, will be able nevertheless to approve our procedure.
Speaking from my position - and I have also found myself on the other side, where things look a little different - the following is important: these accession strategies must help us to avoid the tensions and overcome the divisions which exist in Europe in terms of the economy.
Although some countries are making an effort, in no way can the alignment process be said to be fast or effective enough.
Now to the social sector.
This is very important for us, since social tensions do exist, and there is a social model for Europe with different nuances and emphases.
We do not want to abandon this social model for Europe.
We want to make sure that the other countries too can and do implement our social standards and basic social rights.
This is particularly true, let me be quite open about this, for the border areas.
We need stronger cross-border cooperation, particularly to encourage those people who live in the border areas, and whose concerns are perhaps not altogether unjustified, to speak out clearly in support of enlargement towards the East.
Of course, it is also a question of democracy. In that respect Mr Oostlander is perfectly right.
Our group in particular has always defended democracy, freedom and human rights in all situations.
That includes Slovakia where we are currently experiencing particular problems.
We are not blind in one eye either as regards Slovakia or any other country.
We must give Meciar an urgent warning that he is acting against the interests of his people.
Even if he is observing the constitution, in political terms his actions are unacceptable.
I hope that this contradiction can be overcome.
Quite clearly, as regards these accession partnerships we want to give out a clear signal again today. Our will to enlarge the European Union towards the East, including Cyprus of course, remains unbroken!
We stand by it! We do not want delays.
What we do want is thorough and detailed preparation - the foundations for that have already been laid, and the views of this House supplement these foundations nicely - so that enlargement to the East can proceed quickly, but on well prepared foundations.
Mr President, I wish to welcome the President-in-Office to Parliament.
As he knows, this morning's debate is the culmination of a three-month discussion between all three institutions, and we wait with interest to see what statement he makes on how Parliament should be consulted on the matters raised in the Oostlander report.
He, I know, will have drawn the same conclusion as I did from the second Oostlander report, which is that Parliament is capable of delivering a coherent and complex opinion in a six-week period of time.
It seems to me, if I might say so to the President-in-Office, that consultation without delay is no more than the courtesy which the executive of this Union, Commission and Council, should pay to the legislature of this Union, this Parliament and its sister parliaments in the Member States.
An opportunity for proper debate is all we ask before our quasi-imperial Council takes its decision.
So please do not tell me that, in the event of a political or economic collapse in one of the applicant states, it would be desirable or, indeed, politically possible to ignore the views of this Parliament.
Please do not tell me either that old lie that were we to refer this matter back for three weeks it would frighten the applicant states. The applicant states are adult Europeans like us.
They know what is going on. They, even more than us, value democracy and parliamentary democracy in their institutions.
I want to see in the statement from the President-in-Office an offer of the substance of consultation, even if he is unable to use that difficult word.
I want to hear about a proper procedure, a proper timescale and a proper discussion of Parliament's views before the Council votes.
If the Council wishes to avoid the inconvenience of a three-week referral back, it must allow the Presidency to commit itself to that serious procedure and to do so here and now.
So, please, Mr President-in-Office, I do not want to hear phrases like 'the Presidency wishes' .
The Presidency has telephones; you know how to use them; use them before we vote.
Parliament would neither forgive nor forget if we were subjected to a form of institutional treachery at the start of a 15-year process which has to be robust.
I too believe that, at the moment, the voice of the European Parliament is fundamental in this process of expansion, in this pre-accession partnership.
I believe that the economic progress of the countries applying to join the EU has been talked about for too long, while, and here I agree with the rapporteur, some political aspects have been pushed into the background.
I believe it is necessary to return to the more political aspects.
We need to ensure that we help these countries effectively achieve conditions supporting the rule of law.
We need to ensure effective respect for minorities and correct legal systems based on code books and on serious training for magistrates and lawyers who will be able to ensure observance of the law, obviously guaranteeing defence and protecting the minorities.
We need to recall, as the Oostlander report has done, that we cannot accept that the new EU, which will include these countries, will have room for the death penalty: that is not possible.
We also consider it essential for political progress and improvements to be made alongside economic progress.
The voice of the European Parliament is therefore essential at this time of accession, of integration, of the expansion of the EU and that is why we are asking you, Mr President, to ensure that our voice is taken into due account before the Council and the Commission.
Mr President, the first thing I would like to assure this House is that European Liberals wish in every way to facilitate and speed up the enlargement process which is now being introduced, with the aim of a healed and united Europe.
We Liberals would also like to give a clear signal that all the countries of Europe, big and small, Christian and Muslim, which wish to do so, and which fulfil the Copenhagen criteria, are welcome to join the European Union.
We want the EU to show how to reconcile differences and how democracies working together through voting can solve their problems and become a force in the world.
More than other parties the Liberals have supported the Commission's proposed negotiating plan.
It is not our understanding that this proposal is aimed at delaying membership of the EU for any country which is making vigorous efforts to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria and to implement amendments of laws which correspond to the EU's acquis communautaire .
We are therefore worried by rumours to the effect that the Commission has now started digging trenches between the 5+1 countries and the other applicant countries, trenches which supposedly include, among other things, the fact that the acquis screening will be different for those in the first group and the other applicant countries. The meaning of the decision in Luxembourg was, as we understand it, that countries which make a special effort should be able to catch up, in other words, it should be possible for them to catch up with the first group.
My question to Commissioner van den Broek is this: are the rumours true that the Commission has started digging trenches to widen the gap between the 5+1 and the other applicant countries?
I started by saying that we do not intend to delay the negotiations.
This does not mean that we think Parliament should now be removed from the enlargement process until the time when we have to take a final decision on what has been negotiated - to approve or not approve new members.
Just as we consider it necessary for the parliaments of the applicant countries to be involved in the enlargement process and to participate actively in it - my own experience from Sweden when we negotiated our membership demonstrated the importance of that -, we also consider it a matter of course that this Parliament should participate in the various stages of the negotiations, not as a negotiating party, but as a party whose task is to monitor and give opinions and thereby help to create understanding for this extremely important process.
I can assure you that the European Liberals fully support the enlargement process which is now starting, and that we want to see quick and speedy results.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the challenge set us by the enlargement of the European Union lies in determining whether or not we can shape the process in a spirit of partnership and without tensions.
It requires changes on both sides.
Whilst the EU itself has introduced the necessary reforms in a somewhat faltering and half-hearted manner, the reforms it is demanding of the applicant countries are complex and farreaching and involve a full calendar of legislative and administrative amendments.
However, both sides must play their part in ensuring that the economic and political integration of the countries of Eastern Europe results in a high level of social and economic benefits for all the countries involved.
Enlargement should not be limited to economic integration alone. It must also play a part in consolidating democracy in the newly independent countries and achieving greater social justice for the people living in them.
The first thing that we have to do is put our own house in order and really accelerate our own internal reforms.
The first step towards achieving this - as other members of this House have already clearly underlined - should be the mandatory involvement of Parliament in the enlargement process.
This would also mean that the reform would be structured in a spirit of partnership and that the burden would fall on both sets of shoulders, for we know that the failure of enlargement would not only undermine the economic and democratic development of Eastern Europe, but that it would also do serious damage to the image of the Union as a model of peaceful, economic and political integration.
For this reason, our task, the task of the Council, the Commission and Parliament, is not to allow enlargement to deteriorate and become a one-way street, but to ensure that it is a political success.
Mr President, we are about to start the negotiations on the accession of the new states to the European Union.
At last, the revolution of 1989 has been acted on politically, and the isolation of a number of former Warsaw Pact countries seems at an end.
This places a huge challenge before both the new accession states and the present Member States.
The reasoning that countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary are the supplicants, and should therefore meet all the requirements formulated by the European Union, does not do enough justice to the position of equality between these new accession states and the European Union countries.
We will have to solve this problem jointly, and this means that neither should we be merely the supplicants, nor should we expect the new Member States to be merely the supplicants.
No, we will have to come to a solution for the economic problems together, in mutual consultation.
This is equally true with respect to preparing the new Member States for the acquis communautaire and for the environmental policy which is beginning to take shape within the European Union.
We will have to find the necessary time and dedication to do so, and this will not be possible unless everything is done by the Union to make it possible.
Mr Oostlander, and I would like to compliment him on this, has, of course, pointed to a number of important aspects, such as the existence of fundamental human rights, and the continued development of political democracy.
The idea of the rule of law will also have to be developed further.
We will have to keep track of the issue of minorities. Only in this way will we be able to accept each other mutually, and achieve enlargement of the European Union.
Mr President, everyone is aware of the importance of the decisions we are adopting today to prepare for the accession of the new Member States.
The economic dimension of the measure may be criticized, but certainly not the political validity of this Marshall plan for the central European countries.
Having said that, I believe we should have reservations about the legislative strategy proposed by the Commission, even if it risks being accepted by the Council.
The regulation we will have to vote on, and to a greater extent the proposed decisions relating to each of the applicant countries, are as general as possible. The risks of deviation in the management of measures or of inefficacy are very high.
The echo of the grave criticisms made by the Committee on Foreign Affairs to the Commissioner competent in measures in Bosnia, and today responsible for relations with the applicant countries, is still too recent to be fully reassuring.
But the most scandalous thing is the fact that Parliament has been reduced to a figurehead role and is, de facto and de jure, lacking in any means of directing and controlling a process which, with all the good will in the world, will be anything but easy, both for the applicant countries and for the Member States.
In my opinion, the Union should henceforth work on two parallel scenarios: that of the strictly Community regional policy and that of the regional policy extended to a continent of more than 420 million inhabitants.
How can we expect to define a reliable framework for the agricultural policy or social measures in a Union extended to the applicant countries?
The Commission has promised us the wording of the new measures on structural intervention by 18 March.
Will we be faced with a real reform or with the usual hot packs and cosmetic treatment the Commission has accustomed us to? Will the implications of the forthcoming accession of applicant countries be taken into account?
Mr President, I should like first of all to say that I am grateful to Mr Oostlander and his colleagues for their work on the accession partnerships framework regulation.
I very much agree with Mr Oostlander's opening remarks that whatever happens in this morning's session, enlargement should not be held back by any decisions that may be taken.
Before addressing the details I would like to place these partnerships in context.
Last summer in its Agenda 2000 proposals the Commission recommended that the Union should establish accession partnerships with the ten applicant countries from central Europe.
These partnerships will lie at the heart of our relationships with the countries concerned.
They will provide firstly an agenda for the candidate countries, outlining what more they need to do to prepare for accession.
Secondly, they will provide a framework within which they can plan the Union's assistance and ensure that it is targeted where it is most needed.
They are in many ways the key to ensuring that the candidates are genuinely ready for full European Union membership which involves both obligations and benefits.
We need to launch the partnerships as soon as possible.
If we delay the end result will be to delay the enlargement process itself.
I know this would be contrary to the wishes of an overwhelming majority in this House and, I believe, among the peoples of Europe.
All of us want to see the early and successful enlargement of the Union which can finally end the cruel and artificial division of our continent which has lingered far too long.
The Presidency, working closely with the Commission and Parliament, is determined to get the enlargement process off to an effective start.
Tomorrow Heads of State and of Government will be in London for the inaugural meeting of the European Conference.
That is an occasion which will underline the inclusive nature of the enlargement process.
We do not see enlargement in terms of waves or of countries that are in or countries that are out.
Our goal is to see each candidate country joining the Union as soon as it is ready and to offer all the help we can along the way.
That will be the message of the events in Brussels on 30 and 31 March, culminating in the opening of intergovernmental conferences with six candidate countries.
I hope in the course of this plenary that Parliament will be able to give its opinion on the proposed framework regulation.
This would send a clear and positive signal to the central European countries before they go to London for the inaugural meeting of the European Conference tomorrow.
This would allow us to meet the deadline which was set in Luxembourg in December and would leave no doubt in anybody's mind that the three institutions of the European Union are working together to successfully achieve a process of enlargement.
I am confident that this is possible.
I understand that there have been some concerns in this House that the European Parliament might not be sufficiently involved in the enlargement process.
I am also a parliamentarian in a national parliament and I appreciate the desire of this Parliament to play a full and proper part in the process.
It is the intention of the presidency that this should happen.
We see enlargement as a process involving on the European Union side all three institutions.
In any case, the European Parliament will have a final say on any accession treaty which is agreed by existing Member States.
Parliament needs to be involved throughout, not simply at the end, including on the accession partnerships.
That is why Robin Cook, the British Foreign Secretary and President-in-Office of the European Union, wrote to you on Monday to make the Council's position clear.
We want Parliament to be fully involved and to have an opportunity to express its views.
I am confident that the arrangements outlined by Robin Cook will work well and give all here a sense of real involvement in the enlargement process.
Members of Parliament this morning will want me to be specific in respect of a number of points which have been part of discussions which have taken place in recent days and some of which have involved me and some of my colleagues.
I want to be specific in relation to three points.
Firstly, in line with Article 235, the European Parliament will be consulted when the framework regulation for the accession partnerships is to be modified. Proposals for modifications to the principles, priorities and objectives for these partnerships will be sent to Parliament for information.
Secondly, the Presidency is committed to giving the European Parliament an appropriate opportunity to express its views so that they are available to the Council when the Council takes a decision.
Thirdly, taking into account the exceptional importance of the enlargement process for the Union, the Presidency of the Council and the Commission will provide oral or written information to the European Parliament on the major aspects and developments concerning the partnerships and the accession negotiations.
In practice this could be done in two ways: firstly, by providing regular information to the relevant European Parliament committees and JPCs and, secondly, by having a regular briefing of an agreed and designated number of Members of the European Parliament who would be selected by that Parliament.
This is a statement which should attract the support of Members of this Parliament who want to assist and to help the enlargement process and want to make a positive contribution to that process. I can assure Parliament that the Presidency is fully committed to the enlargement process and that the presidency believes in an open and inclusive approach.
The commitments I have given are reasonable and can provide an effective way for views to be heard, to be taken into account before decisions are made.
I hope that this approach is acceptable to Parliament.
Thank you for the opportunity to say a few words.
Mr President, can I start by congratulating Mr Oostlander on his report, and by expressing my thanks to everyone who has contributed to it.
The Commission also believes that today marks an important moment, when Parliament is giving its opinion on a very significant part of the accession strategy, a pillar on the road to membership for the eleven applicant countries. They eagerly look forward to the official launch of the enlargement process, which will take place on 30 March.
As you will know, the same group of nations will meet next Thursday with the Union, during the first European Conference.
I listened with great approval to the words of the Presidency, because the Commission also believes that the European Parliament must be involved as closely as possible in this whole process towards the accession of new Member States.
At an earlier date the European Commission, building on the experience from earlier enlargement processes, already committed itself, where possible, to inform Parliament as closely, as comprehensively and as early as possible, both on the preparation process and on the state of discussions with countries with which we are actively negotiating.
I am extremely pleased to note that after an intensive and valuable discussion there appears to be broad consensus on the procedures which are to be followed in relation to this.
Naturally, there is absolutely no difference of opinion on the European Parliament's right of consultation with regard to the basic regulation.
But in addition to where it concerns possible proposals for modification in the priorities, principles and conditional nature of the partnerships which the European Commission might like to make, I am also extremely pleased that when they are proposed to the Council, they will get to Parliament at the same time.
As far as we have been able to gather from the Presidency, the Council believes and also promises that Parliament will be given a reasonable amount of time to express clearly its opinions on the matter - or this is how the Commission sees it - to see subsequently how, in close consultation with the Council, these amendments might or might not be incorporated into the final resolutions.
I think this clearly reflects that the Council, the Commission and Parliament agree on the importance of the transparency of this process.
I would like to repeat what Mr Oostlander said on the subject, namely that it is a process which will stretch over many years, and in which not only this Parliament, but a future Parliament, the next Commission and the next Council would wish to be extremely closely involved.
It is a good thing that agreements are made about this today which will remain actively in force for the longer term, because, as Mr Oostlander quite rightly remarked, at the end of the negotiations there will also be a moment when we will have to see whether the time is truly ripe to offer full integration to the new Member States who meet the conditions and who have successfully completed the negotiations.
I would like to take the opportunity to make a few comments about the second Oostlander report, and in particular about the remark he made concerning priorities such as they were included in the drafts, which also reached this Parliament.
I would particularly like to underline that political conditions must obviously be given priority.
It is my modest view that this conditionality has been articulated sufficiently clearly both in Article 1 and Article 5 of the basic regulation. But I would also like to draw your attention to the reality.
We have had discussions together about the political shortcomings, if I may call them that, of a number of candidate countries.
The dialogue we opened with these countries on that matter, as well as what has been included on this in the present priorities, reflect in my view the vital importance of ensuring that the countries which wish to join, qualify first and foremost as democratic nations, nations which respect the principles of the rule of law, human rights, and above all the protection of the rights of minorities. There should be no difference of opinion on this.
In instances where these basic principles are violated, the Commission will not propose even opening negotiations with such a country. Parliament was also assured of this at an earlier date.
In conclusion, Mr Oostlander made a comment about the issue of the short term and medium term.
Is it not the case that, particularly in regard to political shortcomings, we should aim for the short term?
That goes without saying, Mr President.
But what has been included in the partnership agreements under the short term priority are matters which we feel confident about, which we believe can indeed be realized in the short term, say within a year, and of which we believe that they can actually have some effect.
The matters pertaining to the medium term, on the other hand, are matters which will need more time so that we can perfect them.
This is the background to the distinction made between the short and medium term.
I would like to thank everyone once again for their input into this debate and the support they have pledged for to an early fruition of these partnerships.
We hope that, on the basis of the legal foundation which is being accepted today, the Council will be able to accept the priorities, conditions and principles of these partnerships soon, or in any case next week, so that the partnerships can be completed by the time the official enlargement process is launched on 30 March.
Mr President, we have listened with great pleasure to what has been said. I wish to believe, and I have no reason to doubt, that everything will be implemented in the way that has been described.
In his excellent report Mr Oostlander requested the participation of the European Parliament throughout the entire accession procedure. This has been accepted by everybody.
My impression is that the objections that have been expressed from time to time are the result of two concerns. Firstly, the legal framework, as covered by the legal basis provided for in this procedure, does not allow for consultation.
Consequently, another method should have been found. Secondly, there is a possibility of delay, given that Parliament should have had a certain amount of time in which to formulate its positions and its opinions.
My impression is that, from the debate as it is now unfolding and to which I shall subsequently return from the point of view of the Committee on Budgets, both issues have been resolved. The reason for this is that, from what was said by the President of the Council and from what Commissioner Van den Broek to some extent confirmed, if we have consultation with all the characteristics of consultation but without calling it consultation, I think there is no point in our further analysing this issue.
At this point, Mr President, I wished to say, as an aside, that there is a general tendency to exclude Parliament in such procedures and I would refer specifically here to Mr Colajanni's report on the subject of MEDA.
I would hope that there too a procedure can be adopted which will permit the intervention of Parliament and its participation in the entire debate, so that we can remain informed throughout the procedure, since, having started out by endorsing the principles, we must also endorse the results.
The second issue over which there is concern is the issue of delay.
I think that has been resolved.
We can implement different systems, some of which have been mentioned by the President of the Council. I will draw your attention to a system that we are following in the Committee on Budgets.
This is the system of the permanent rapporteur, who is in permanent contact with the competent services of the Council and the Commission. Consequently, the competent committee is ready at any time to present a report, so as to avoid delays and procrastination.
I think that six weeks is enough to cover the problem. The issue, as it remains, is to ensure that what was said takes shape and becomes a specific and clear commitment of the Council and the Commission alike.
I believe, Mr President, that we should focus on the issue of commitment since, as we confine ourselves to oral assurances which subsequently take a different shape due to pressure from other members of the Council or other reasons, I very much fear that we will take the wrong decision if we endorse them.
There must therefore be a clear, specific and committed answer from the Council which must take the responsibility to convert what was said into action. Only in this way will Parliament be able to play the role which everyone agrees it must play.
With regard to the specific issue of the Committee on Budgets, we have made certain amendments to Articles 3 and 5 which refer to the responsibilities of Parliament to the budget. I wish to remind you that Parliament is one of the two components of the Budget principle, with special responsibility for expenditure.
It is therefore in the interest of the Commission and the Council of Ministers alike to have Parliament involved at a financial level throughout the entire proceedings.
It has been established that many delays and unnecessary debates are avoided when Parliament, exercising its responsibility by means of the Committee on Budgets, is involved in this issue from the outset.
Mr President, I wish to ask the competent persons in the Commission and in the Council to bear this in mind when they formulate their final proposal which, as I have already said, will hopefully be committed to the framework we have referred to, in other words consultation, which is not consultation in name only but substantial and full consultation between Parliament and the remaining two bodies of the European Union.
Mr President, the most important political point being discussed here today is the role the European Parliament will or will not be able to play in this entire process.
I listened very carefully to Mr Henderson's speech, and I must say I am not satisfied, as it was the explicit wish of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy that Parliament would also be officially consulted if there were any modifications to the principles and short and medium term objectives.
We are offered information, not official right of consultation. Yet that is what we had asked for.
On the subject of Bulgaria, I have two comments to make.
The national programme for regional development has not been finalized in Bulgaria, so it is impossible to demand that the regional structures required for this should be set up before the end of 1998.
Secondly, we ask very expressly that Bulgaria be deleted from the negative list with regard to the visa arrangements.
Mr President, as the time allotted to me is very short I will just say the following.
Firstly, as regards the Baltic republics, despite their small size it has to be borne in mind that these three republics, and they alone of all the applicants, were occupied by the Soviet Union and considered part of it, as opposed to other central and eastern European countries which at least enjoyed formal independence.
Secondly, security and peace in Europe, which is our main task, depends on finding a fruitful modus vivendi with Russia.
This will be enhanced by the Baltic countries joining the Union.
It will not in my opinion be enhanced by any NATO enlargement.
Lastly, I hope that all three Baltic countries will be able to join the Union at the same time.
Mr President, it is a pleasure to present the report on Hungary, particularly in light of what has already been said.
Thank heavens, in the end, our discussions focused more on security and politics than on economics, because ultimately security and politics are the guiding force.
Whether or not an economic upturn really is a possibility hinges on security.
Hungary is in the fortunate position of already having made great progress in this respect.
The documents I had to go through in the course of my duties as co-rapporteur revealed that since as early as 1982, when Hungary was still operating under a one-party system, its legislation has been structured in such a way that Hungary really can become a member of this European Union.
As a result we do not have the same problems in terms of the acquis communautaire which certain other countries unfortunately do.
Secondly, Hungary has a long-standing tradition of democracy.
I was present at the first sitting of the Hungarian parliament.
I took a good look at the parliamentarians, and I must tell you that they were just as good, or just as bad, as we are.
They already had a long-standing tradition of democracy.
Governments have since changed without problems.
The parliament in Hungary does not include one single representative of the radical parties, either on the right, or on the left, and so it really is the case, since we set great store by democracy in this House, that Hungary deserves to be accepted into this Union as quickly as possible, above all because this Union is first and foremost a community with a duty to offer all its peoples security, because economic prosperity is dependent on security.
Mr President, what Mr Oostlander has said on the general process of expansion of the EU applies to a greater extent to Latvia.
This is a great dream that may become a reality: a country where, until a few years ago, the red flag of the Soviet Union flew, will soon see the blue flag flying with the 12 stars of Europe.
It is a country that has made enormous progress recently: it has achieved a balance, it has reduced inflation, and it has almost completed the privatization process.
Two major problems remain: the problem of the Russian-speaking minority and the subsequent naturalization process - the so-called non-citizens still account for 30 % of the population; and the problem of the judicial and administrative system.
Allow me to say here that what the Commission has written on the division between short- and medium-term objectives is not true.
It is a general problem, as Mr Oostlander said, for all the countries, but it is not true of Latvia.
We should be careful not to press too hard on the accelerator on several issues wrongly regarded as short-term that should be regarded as mediumterm.
, co-rapporteur for Lithuania. (DA) - Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when a Dane looks at the Baltic, it is clear how the sea is increasingly binding the Baltic states into a Baltic Area Corporation .
All this is a network which in reality is trimming and leading the political work, not least to pull the three Baltic states into a European partnership in the European Union.
Every day, we read in the newspapers and hear on the radio that new routes are being proposed for both passenger and freight traffic, and this is a practical expression for the rapprochement which also carries the political perspectives and aims for all three Baltic states, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia.
As Danes, we also usually see the three Baltic states as part of Scandinavia in some way.
We also work together in the special Baltic council, and we in Denmark are looking forward to Lithuania taking over the presidency.
All this is in accordance with Lithuania's hard, determined work to put itself economically and politically and in terms of life as a whole in an integrated European partnership and hence also in the EU. This is heartily welcomed on all sides of politics in Denmark.
No matter who takes over the government in Denmark after the elections being held today, we will be supporting these efforts. The same clear will is apparent everywhere.
I also hope that the European Parliament will give a clear signal here today, so that the peoples and not just the elite of the new Member States really understand and realize that the EU is clearly saying welcome to the new members.
I hope they are not in any doubt about that for a second, for the new states are anxious for clear decisions.
Mr President, in preparing the accession partnership for Poland, I support the short- and medium-term priorities proposed by the Commission.
I would like to make a couple of observations about them. As regards the restructuring of the steel sector, the Commission should pay greater attention to mining; the two go together.
The Commission refers to the administrative reform whereby the number of voyvodships is to be reduced from 40 to approximately 10.
This is particularly important so that PHARE funds can be used and so that greater transparency is achieved in relation to where these funds are going.
It is quite right that attention should be focused on freedom of the press, the restructuring of the civil service and the fight against crime and corruption. These are all important issues which need to be addressed in Poland.
One important point is missing, Commissioner. There is absolutely no mention of social policy.
We all know that this is an area where something needs to be done in Poland.
I do not just mean social networks. We also need measures specifically designed to deal with women's and family issues.
In conclusion, I should like to make a general observation about the procedure, which really does give cause for criticism, despite the explanations you have given.
It is our view that the whole procedure should not be blocked, but it would have been better if you had let democracy prevail.
After all, that is what we are expecting from the applicant countries. We have even made it an accession criteria.
Perhaps we should start by putting our own house in order.
Mr President, I would like to make three points.
As has often been said, I believe that enlargement has to be followed by deepening and, unfortunately, the attitude of the other institutions towards this whole business is not exactly positive.
This Parliament has not been formally consulted about the content of the accession partnerships, which means we are debating a political opinion with no legally binding power.
So we must uphold this criticism, over and above certain intentions expressed during this sitting by the President-inOffice of the Council.
Secondly, many of the accession partnerships consider questions of democratic principles and respect for human rights to be matters for the medium term.
That is absolutely unacceptable to this Parliament. We have always insisted that all the criteria are important, starting with the first condition established by the Copenhagen European Council, which relates to these essential matters.
I now come to my third comment on the Czech Republic. As we all know, that country has suffered a major political crisis.
That is quite normal in a democracy, but it can certainly give rise to a delay in fulfilling the accession criteria when the time comes. Stressing what has already been said, we have no hesitation in pointing out two basic facts.
Firstly, the gypsy minority should be integrated in the short term rather than the medium term. There are still no clear measures, and we can and should demand them immediately.
The other thing to mention is press freedom and the reform of the judiciary. These matters should be included in the agreement.
Mr President, I believe that the main political problem we have to face is that of Parliament's request to carry out its role fully and the requirement that the rapporteurs for each country conduct their roles fully during the course of the accession negotiations.
This is the fundamental question and the Presidency of the Council has often reiterated the word "information' .
Information is a premise to count, to have an effect, but it is only a premise. We will have to see in practice how the European Parliament can have an effect and to what extent the opinions of the European Parliament will have to be taken into account.
I am somewhat perplexed, however, over the replies made by Commissioner van den Broek to the objections to the division into short- and medium-term made by Mr Oostlander.
It seems to me that this division between short- and medium-term is still somewhat vague and imprecise.
Finally, I believe there is a problem of financing, of aid for the countries applying for accession and I believe it is necessary to grant this financing, taking into account the different capacity of each individual country to make use of it.
With regard to Slovenia, it seems to me that this country is preparing itself seriously and so all the conditions are present for important and serious negotiations to commence.
Mr President, as rapporteur for Slovakia I agree with the Commission's approach for the proposed partnership agreements with Slovakia.
It seems to me that the Commission has chosen the right priorities for the short and medium term.
We are having a separate debate in Parliament tomorrow on the actual situation in Slovakia.
This actual situation will obviously also be reflected in the judgement of our relations with the country.
Slovakia's political problems continue to be a priority, and dominate other questions which are of importance in the accession process of this country.
We hope that we will see some progress this year, or at least after the elections in Slovakia, but we will have to wait and see. At the moment the country does not have a president.
The current situation is therefore not very encouraging.
The Meciar problem has been doing a hop, skip and jump of late.
I think that this issue will have to be given the necessary prominence over the coming months during the negotiations and during the Commission's contacts with Slovakia.
We hope that the Commission will do so through dialogue and partnership, because ultimately what matters is not the interests of the present government, but the interests of the people of Slovakia.
I would like to put a very straightforward and specific question to Commissioner van den Broek.
The question concerned whether the acquis screening was the same for the 5+1 and for the other applicant countries.
I would be grateful, Mr President, if you would ask Commissioner van den Broek to answer my question.
Of course I would like to reply, but perhaps it would be better if I did so in my response at the end of this debate.
Mr President, I want to express my support for the Oostlander report and its approval today because I think it is important in politics to give the proper messages at the right time, and the European Conference is just about to start.
Parliament should give a positive message today about enlargement and its own role. I should point out that Parliament succeeded in amending the initial Commission proposal, and gave the Council the opportunity to talk about a joint enlargement process, and an overall process with criteria to include everybody - in other words, breaking the distinction between the 5+1 and the rest.
I also want to point out that, following the same line, I think we must act positively with respect to the strengthened accession process. I do not think we should see our role as a defensive one, like a critic or a Cato.
We have to support and accompany those countries which are conquering democracy, consolidating their economies and learning how to coexist.
We have to act positively.
Some of the speeches I have heard today sound as if we are setting ourselves up as a sort of grand jury where these countries are concerned.
I believe we should be giving a positive message.
On the subject of Parliament's role, I wanted to ask the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner to tell us the precise status of the letters from Mr Cook and from the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, to the President of Parliament, who will have to appear before the European Conference tomorrow. What I mean is this: as I understand it, these letters and the proposal made by the President-in-Office of the Council have the status of what the British call "constitutional convention' , in other words, a proposal for constitutional agreement corresponding to what we in this Parliament and the Union know as interinstitutional agreements.
I understand that if this agreement is ratified by the Council and the Commission, we have to accept it. It has to be done with the due solemnity accorded to any declaration made in this Chamber.
And that should be the standard conduct and behaviour of us all, because I do not think it makes much sense for us to limit our action to a complaint, at a time when Parliament is making a positive contribution to the process of enlargement.
If there has been a response, then that response should have an official status, and in future it should be the standard procedure for such a thought-provoking and complex process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is my belief that the Oostlander report represents an important contribution by the European Parliament to progressing the enlargement process in a constructive manner.
We see enlargement as one of the major tasks in the years ahead and the European Parliament will undoubtedly want to make decisive contributions.
It is also important to stress that we are not only concerned with the economic criteria and that we do not see enlargement as a purely economic phenomenon.
In fact, we are far more concerned with the implementation of the political Copenhagen criteria, namely, democracy and human rights, and with clarifying from the outset in this first round of the enlargement process that the European Union has a political dimension as well as an economic one.
Those leading the negotiations can count on the European Parliament in this respect.
This is a significant point as, ultimately, we in Parliament have to ratify the decisions.
I am grateful to the Commissioner and to the President of the Council for the various clarifications they have given here, firstly in relation to the European Parliament's role in the process within the framework of the partnerships, but also on the enlargement process as a whole.
I am assuming that the Presidency's commitment is such that it will also be brought to bear in the Council.
I shall support it on the assumption that it will then be approved accordingly by the Council as otherwise there would be a crisis of credibility between the two institutions.
I am also sure, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, that both the Council and the Commission will discuss the outcome of Parliament's resolutions as appropriate. In fact, it might be a good idea if this were to be announced formally.
In addition, I have another question to put, Mr President of the Council.
What exactly is meant by an "appropriate opportunity' ? Does it, for example, mean that the European Parliament will have a maximum of six weeks in which to discuss this information, or, as the Commissioner has said, will we be given sufficient time?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, bringing the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe up to the political and economic standards of the EU is essential if, in the long term, we are to allow these states to join the EU without at the same time damaging the legitimate interests of the Member States.
The accession partnerships with the applicant countries are the most important tool in ensuring that this is achieved in the most efficient manner possible for all concerned.
Unfortunately, the Commission and the Council have once again taken a different view of the arguments put forward by Parliament on the form of the accession partnerships and as a result have rated several important factors differently to the European Parliament.
I cannot understand why the accession partnerships have not been structured in such a way that they could deal in greater detail with the particular needs of the individual countries involved.
It is quite obvious that for a number of economic, political and geographical reasons, the problems of Slovenia differ from those of Latvia, for example.
In any case I regard a greater involvement of Parliament as vital.
It would appear that criteria which have been recognized as important and essential for the accession partnerships are temporarily being disregarded, or that the feasibility of farreaching and complex measures is being viewed differently.
I believe it is a common matter of concern in the House that this should be changed and that Parliament's position should be taken into account.
Mr President, the enlargement of the European Union is a historic process.
These accession partnerships are the very cornerstone of the inclusive enlargement process which Parliament has called for.
Given their importance, it is vital that we all move together.
The three institutions have to cooperate with each other.
I welcome the statements made by the Council and the Commission on this subject.
We must also work in partnership with the applicant countries.
Mr Cars is absolutely right; we should be working in partnership with all 26 national parliaments.
So important is this process that we must not allow ourselves to indulge in other bouts of institutional junkieism or go off onto self-serving ego trips during this debate.
Speaking in a personal capacity, I have been delighted in the last few weeks to discover that the British Conservative Party is now the champion of the rights of the European Parliament, although I regret that this has been to the detriment of their former commitment to enlargement of the European Union.
No doubt this is part of Mr Hague's reforms.
We have heard some discussion of delay - delay by a few weeks.
My response to that is to remind Parliament of the words of William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar that: ' There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune' .
This is one of those times.
Or, to put it as the late, great Elvis Presley would have put it, ' It's now or never, ... tomorrow will be too late' .
I would urge just one thing of the Council and the Commission: the biggest problem the accession countries have is the ability of their civil service, their administrative systems and their legal systems to cope with the acquis communautaire .
I would urge that we put maximum emphasis on those aspects of the accession partnerships so that they will be ready to join us as soon as is possible.
Let me remind you of what I have said.
Now is the time, tomorrow is too late.
Mr President, financial assistance to the applicant states to help advance the process of enlargement is clearly needed.
It is right, however, that Parliament should emphasize that the development of democracy and respect for the rule of law is a priority and that steps will be taken if any applicant country displays manifest shortcomings in this respect.
Moreover, it is right that this Parliament should be consulted in advance concerning the principles and conditions for the partnerships which are to be established by the Union with each applicant.
After all, the European Parliament has the final say in whether an applicant country joins or not.
In widening the European Union rather than deepening it and in making it more democratic and diversified rather than more bureaucratic and centralized lies the best way forward for all the people of Europe.
The people want sensible cooperation and not dogmatic federalism.
Mr President, the objective of the many initiatives intended to form the basis of the enlargement strategy is that of ensuring that the applicant countries satisfy the political and economic conditions laid down by the European Council of Copenhagen.
This will make it possible to establish the bases for negotiations on a fundamental principle for the enlargement process, the opposition to any logic that leaves the countries concerned loopholes or exceptions in respect of the political obligations established.
We know that, in the effort to provide greater impetus for this stage of approximation, the accession partnerships and the planning and assessment system constitute the basis of the entire accession strategy and that the assistance provided by the EU should fall into a new framework, an accession partnership with each applicant country.
It seems advisable for the Commission to introduce into the new accession strategy the so-called conditionality clause.
Granting pre-accession aid should be subject each year to the level of achievement of objectives and fulfilment of the commitments assumed and the state of progress of the national accession programme.
The countries of central and eastern Europe should rigorously observe the commitments assumed with regard to democracy and human rights, the protection of minorities, the adoption of the Community acquis, on pain of suspension of the partnership.
Finally, I would like to point out the gravity...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, I would like to make two points in relation to this debate.
We are on the eve of an important development in Europe, the enlargement process, which will undoubtedly occupy us - as Mr Spencer has quite rightly pointed out - for the next ten or fifteen years or possibly even longer since it will not end with the current eleven applicants.
There will always be several countries queueing up to get into the European Union.
It is absolutely vital that the European Parliament, as the directly elected representative of the peoples of Europe, has a continuous and regulated involvement in this process, rather than appearing to give the process free rein initially but ultimately making a pronouncement about whether the outcome is acceptable.
I therefore share the view that Parliament should be involved during the lead-in phase and during the accession agreements.
On the other hand, I should like to prevent the European Parliament giving the wrong signal.
We should not be slamming doors in the faces of the candidates even before the enlargement process has started.
Therefore, I hope that we will be able to reach a compromise in this matter.
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, you have been very generous in the time you have allocated to the President-in-Office.
Can I take up one or two points which have been made in the discussion?
Firstly, there was a query about the status of the letter from Mr Cook to you, Mr President, and also about the status of the remarks which I previously made this morning; this was raised by Mr Barón and also by Mr Brok.
The letter from Mr Cook was a background Presidency paper.
The position which I outlined this morning in my previous contribution is a Presidency statement which has the backing of the Council and therefore has the authority of the Council.
I hope that helps colleagues to give further consideration to some of the points of substance which I have tried to make in my earlier contribution.
A point was raised by Mme Berès about timing and that is an important point.
As to the question of how long Parliament should have to be able to express its view, it would be wrong for us to tie ourselves down to a specific time on every occasion.
Maybe it would be helpful if I were to explain that my interpretation of appropriate time would be the kind of time that allows the normal processes between one plenary and another, between one Council and another Council within the institutional framework which is four, five or six weeks.
I do not see it being longer than six weeks.
It might often be shorter than that and there may be occasions when there are very urgent matters which have to be dealt with in a period very much shorter than four weeks. In the normal run of business it would be that kind of period of four, five or maybe six weeks and I hope that is helpful.
The third point which has been made by a number of contributors this morning is the general question of involving the people of Europe.
Let me make it clear that the Presidency and the Council are absolutely committed to the process of enlargement.
Not everything will be plain sailing.
Enlargement has a large up-side, with the potential of great gains in security and great gains in economic prospects, but there are things that need to be dealt with by the Union in the period leading to that and some of them will involve difficult decisions. It is important that we take public opinion along with us so that the public are fully informed and are aware of the issues at stake in that process.
That is why I believe it is very important that the European Parliament is given a role to be able to express a view, to involve the public in a dialogue and also to take issues to the public.
It is important that Parliament has that opportunity, to be able to express those views which should be expressed before the Council takes a decision on the matters that are before us.
I thank you, Mr President, for again giving me the opportunity to try to clarify some of those points and I hope that there will be assurances given to Parliament which will enable Parliament to give an opinion to allow the process of enlargement to proceed in a speedy and effective way.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Under Rule 60 I am required later this morning, as chairman of the relevant committee, to recommend to this House whether or not we refer back.
This is the last opportunity I therefore have on behalf of the House to ask the Presidency to make one final point clear.
I thank him for the progress we have made during this morning's debate, particularly over timing and the clarification of the position of the Council.
I ask him to take one last step towards us.
I have given him a text, which was circulated to him yesterday, which makes the position clear: after the plenary vote, the Council and the Commission will take the earliest opportunity to consider Parliament's views.
At the moment all you are saying is that we have the chance to express Parliament's views.
Mr President-in-Office, we have that opportunity all the time.
We want a confirmation from you that you and the Commission, as Mr Van den Broek suggested, will consider our views, because that is the way to secure public support, which you rightly referred to, through a parliamentary channel, for what we are trying to do on enlargement.
If he could give me that assurance now, we will have no unpleasantness later in the day.
Mr President, I am very happy to indicate that it is the intention of the Presidency that the views of Parliament will be considered by the Council before a decision is made.
There would be no purpose in having consultation...
... and hearing the views unless they were going to be taken into account.
Of course they will be taken into account.
Mr President, the National Alliance will vote in favour of this report, while making the reservations we have expressed many times in this Chamber with regard to the problem of enlargement to some countries which still do not seem to be fully in favour of an accession to the spirit of the European political union.
I would like to recall how, a few days ago, the Slovenian Ambassador to Rome took an absolutely incredible position with regard to goods confiscated from Italians and victims of dolines.
I believe it is important and correct to expand the European Union to include other countries, but this union should not be established before achieving the political union which is the only premise that will permit peace and progress in our countries.
And so we vote with reservations, to show that the National Alliance is obviously in favour of Europe and enlargement, but against a purely economic union based on the particular interests of the great capitals or some countries of the Union.
Mr President, can I add to this positivity that the Commission on its part is evidently not only prepared, but it will also take steps to study, together with the Council, all of the views Parliament has expressed.
I am merely re-emphasizing something which is already obvious in order to benefit transparency.
I believe that with this, all procedural aspects will have been discussed extensively, as there is a far-reaching level of agreement.
May I confine myself then to responding to one single question which was asked more specifically, firstly by Mr Cars, who wonders whether the all-inclusiveness of the enlargement process is left sufficiently intact during the procedure which we think we will follow at the so-called screening .
It is precisely in order to do justice to this all-inclusiveness, to which so much attention was paid in Luxembourg, that I have decided to open the start of the screening with all eleven countries together.
After that the process will naturally have to be continued in groups, and then country by country. Why these two groups?
Because the evaluation of the acquis for the group which is going to negotiate is intended to identify which matters require negotiations. For those who are still preparing for the negotiations, this evaluation is intended to hasten the catching-up process, so that they will be able to meet the conditions for entering negotiations as soon as possible.
In addition, we will have to look at each individual negotiating country to see to what extent this can be done with all six together, or separately.
I can imagine that soon this will soon have to be on a bilateral basis, because the issues which will be the subject of the negotiations will differ per country.
I will briefly return to the comments which were made about the short and medium term, because I have a feeling that we did not make that quite clear.
Practical experience will tell, I would say, but the prime reason for setting the short or medium term was not to indicate the urgency of the problems identified.
The distinction between short and medium term is primarily made on the basis of what we can actually expect to achieve in the short term, and what on the other hand will need more time to be achieved.
We have tried to explain this is in these partnerships when defining the priorities.
I would also like to assure Mr Titley - as a matter of fact, we have done so during earlier exchanges - that the entire aspect of enhancing the administrative and legal capacity of government bodies in the applicant countries is given a high priority everywhere.
You cannot suddenly place this in the short term, for the simple reason that it usually concerns processes which are so wide that you have to talk in terms of several years, although that does not mean to say you should not start immediately.
That is why a reorientation of PHARE has taken place, in which everything which has to do with institution building and enhancing administration comes under the category of 30 % of the PHARE resources, which has been given as a rough target figure to be spent on this.
It will thus get all the attention it deserves.
Those were a few comments I wanted to make in response to the questions which were asked.
Mr President, this point about the short and medium term was in fact the key point.
The strange thing is that the Commissioner is now saying that it is to do with our expectations of when something might be achieved.
In other words, when we speak of the independence of the legal courts, respect for the rule of law and equal access to public services, which have been mentioned in some cases in relation to the medium term, this means that the Commission does not believe that the country concerned is prepared to achieve this independence, this access and so on, in the short term. This is a completely different position, then; the issue is no longer the complexity of the process, but your assessment of the willingness of a country to behave normally in the short term.
This surely cannot be the intention of this classification into short and medium term, Mr President?
Mr President, by short term we mean those things which can be achieved in 1998.
I am not saying that particular sections of the political constellation or shortcomings in the field of democracy, human rights and so on, might not still be improved this year.
It is difficult to draw the exact line, but I hope that we have indicated clearly that short and medium term does not mean giving an evaluation of the urgency of things which must be done, but the assessment of the time needed to correct these matters in their entirety.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Situation in Kosovo
The next item is the Council statement on the situation in Kosovo.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking those who have tabled this resolution today for this debate, because they have given this Assembly an opportunity to express the very deep concern that, I am sure, we all share at the serious violence which has taken place in Kosovo over the last two weeks.
I know that concern is shared by all the European Union Member States.
Police operations around the villages of Drenica and Prekaz in the last week appear to have left at least 80 people dead.
The authorities in Belgrade claim this was legitimate anti-terrorist action by the police.
But there appears to have been no judicial process before the killings and, tragically, according to local press reports, many of the dead were women, children and the elderly.
Belgrade cannot pass off such repressive acts as purely an internal affair. Human rights abuses are a matter for all of us, and the European Union has a particular responsibility to reduce tension in the region before it causes instability in neighbouring countries.
It is essential that the international response to the crisis is a united and coherent one.
We know to our cost from the early days of the Bosnian war that international divisions undermine our efforts.
The Presidency has sought to provide a firm and clear voice on behalf of the European Union Member States.
What have we done? Firstly, we issued an agreed statement on 2 March condemning unreservedly the use of violence by either side and calling on both sides to resolve the situation through a full and constructive dialogue.
Secondly, Robin Cook visited Belgrade on 5 March, on behalf of the Presidency, to make clear to President Milosevic the disquiet felt within the European Union.
Thirdly, Mr Cook hosted a meeting of Contact Group countries in London on 9 March.
The Group agreed a tough action plan, aimed at stabilizing the security situation in Kosovo, including immediate measures against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; a clear list of the steps we expect President Milosevic to take within ten days to stop the violence and start a meaningful political dialogue; and a commitment to review the situation on 25 March and, if necessary, adopt further measures.
My colleague, Mr Tony Lloyd, is currently visiting the region as a Presidency envoy.
In Belgrade he will carry the message of resolve of the European Union and the Contact Group countries.
Elsewhere, his prime aim will be to listen to what neighbouring countries have to say about the regional security implications of the situation in Kosovo and to discuss what can be done to satisfy these concerns.
Fifthly, over the next few days, we shall be actively discussing with our partners and others what more can be done to bring home the message to President Milosevic that he must change course.
There are a number of opportunities for this: the European Conference with the associated states on 12 March - tomorrow - provides an obvious opportunity.
The EU Foreign Ministers' informal meeting in Edinburgh on 14 and 15 March is a further opportunity, and today the views of Parliament will be particularly timely.
People ask what the European Union's position is.
Let me try to make that clear as well.
We do not support separatism or independence in Kosovo but we insist that Belgrade grants real autonomy.
It is ironic that the Kosovo Albanians enjoyed greater autonomy under previous regimes than under President Milosevic's government.
Getting the authorities in Belgrade, and the leadership of the Kosovo Albanian community, to start a meaningful dialogue about the differences between them is the only chance of reaching a peaceful settlement.
The tragedy is that recent military activity in Kosovo may have served merely to undermine the moderates on both sides and increase support for terrorism.
Clearly a halt to all police operations in Kosovo is a prerequisite for dialogue.
That is why the European Union and the rest of the international community must do all we can to keep the pressure on President Milosevic and keep the pot in Kosovo from boiling over.
I understand from the news media this morning that a statement has been made by the Serbian Government in response to measures taken earlier this week.
I cannot at this time respond to that statement because I have not yet received the full text.
However, I can give a commitment that we will study and fully assess to what extent that statement meets the concerns and worries raised by the Contact Group last Monday.
I hope those remarks are a basis on which a debate will take place this morning on this terribly serious and, in many ways, deteriorating situation in Kosovo.
May I join the Presidency in saying how much we are alerted by the explosive situation in Kosovo.
I had the privilege to attend the contact group in London which was very skilfully presided over by Foreign Secretary Cook, and where we feel that a number of clear signals have been given to President Milosevic in order to persuade him to take initiatives for a dialogue and a peaceful solution clearly setting the parameters of what we can and cannot support.
It was very clear from that meeting that it cannot be taken for granted that President Milosevic is going to act in the direction that is necessary to prevent an explosion in Kosovo, with all the disastrous human effects and other transborder effects and destabilization effects that a lack of solution could produce.
That is why it was very wise that Foreign Secretary Cook proposed to reconvene the contact group - which will probably meet in Washington on 25 March - and also to put Kosovo on the agenda of the informal foreign ministers' meeting which is being held on Friday and Saturday next.
The European Commission is preparing its regular report on regional developments in the Balkans and it stands to reason that under the present circumstances one cannot expect that the Commission would recommend to the Council the restoration of the autonomous trade measures for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia or would go further in recommending the incorporation of the FRY into the PHARE programme or starting the negotiations demanding a mandate for negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement.
We are also studying at the moment the conclusions that were drawn in the contact group regarding other economic and financial measures to step up the pressure on the FRY in order to bring them to constructive initiatives.
I need scarcely repeat, following the Presidency, that the European Commission shares the greatest possible concern as regards what is happening there.
We cannot consider the situation in Kosovo without remembering how it all started in 1991.
We must take into account that more far-reaching measures may become necessary if a disaster is to be prevented.
The European Commission wishes very much that in the first place the European Union and its allies will have the courage to take the necessary measures which may prove inevitable in the near future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, naturally everything you have said merits our full support.
Nevertheless, I should like to preface my short speech with a few critical observations.
Commissioner, at first I gave you my full support in your differences with Mr Oostlander - I am not sure whether that was clear - but I still must question whether the European Union as a whole was prepared for what is now happening in Kosovo.
This is not the first time we have discussed Kosovo.
On one occasion, following a visit from the Delegation for relations with South-east Europe chaired by Mrs Pack, this House described Kosovo as a powder keg waiting to explode.
The European Union took little action.
There was neither any pressure exerted to open a European Union office in the area, nor was a special envoy appointed as we officially requested.
Mr President of the Council, Commissioner, I am ashamed when I turn on the television as I did this morning and see the American representative, the special envoy, in Pristina, but no special envoy from Europe.
Yes, the British Foreign Minister went to Belgrade, yes there is now a representative there, but why - knowing that it is the most dangerous potential flashpoint in Europe, knowing that it could develop into a conflagration at any time - did the European Union fail to do more in the past?
I know that it is not an easy matter since we have no proper contact on the Yugoslavian or Serbian side.
Nevertheless, the Americans are on the spot with their special envoy again and all Europe, and all the world, can see just who is tackling the problem on the spot - not the European Union but the United States!
I do not seek to lay the blame with anyone in particular, but we must acknowledge our failures.
We have been negligent. Once again we have neglected a part of Europe.
Why is it so important for Europe to deal with this problem? Firstly because, quite clearly, fundamental human rights are at stake!
Consequently, we must tell Mr Milosevic in no uncertain terms that we cannot accept his claims that this is a purely internal problem.
No, the protection of a minority, or to be more precise in this case, the majority of the people in the region is a matter which goes far beyond national borders.
Perhaps there is something else, perhaps we have failed to make it clear enough to Rugova and his people that we are simply advocating autonomy within Yugoslavia.
What is currently happening, the fact that Mr Rugova and others are calling ever more vociferously for independence and for a change in the borders, is also unacceptable to us.
We need of course to get our message across not only to Milosevic, but also to Rugova and the Albanians.
But it may be too late at least to change the mood. Fired by frustration, the call for independence are growing stronger and stronger.
I fully support the measures, Commissioner.
We must show that we are trying to quell the fire and that we are helping those, in Macedonia in particular, who are especially affected.
I come now to the second reason why it is so important, why a conflagration could develop: Albania is unstable for unfortunately there are in Albania, too, forces - in particular those led by ex-President Berisha - who are now agitating, who are now stirring things up, who are now trying to pour oil onto this fire thus forcing Fatus Nano, the Prime Minister, who was initially very restrained, to take a more extreme position.
Thirdly, and not for the first time of course, the situation looks like a clash between Christian Europe and Islam.
Once again this argument rears its head.
On Friday I had a detailed conversation with Siljdzic, the Prime Minister of Bosnia Herzogovena, in which that very point came up. This situation is, therefore, particularly dangerous and we have to do something about it.
I agree with you that we must apply political pressure, and economic pressure where necessary, although I do not see blanket sanctions as our strongest weapon.
Nonetheless, I am in complete agreement with the actions of the contact group.
We should consider whether a situation might arise in which we would send in forces of order - such action would naturally depend on the agreement of both sides - at least to calm the situation.
Milosevic must realize that, if the worst comes to the worst and he chooses violence, there is the possibility of military intervention as well.
If we are to avoid military intervention and if we are to force Milosevic to do as the President of the Council suggests, he must be convinced of this.
Mr President, I would like to lend my support to everything that has been said, but also to point out once again that, unfortunately, we missed our chance to set our preconditions in advance and to back them to the hilt.
I would like to see the European Union advocate autonomy for Kosovo, but prevent any changes being made to the borders in the region.
That would lead to another conflagration.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with almost everything Mr Swoboda has said.
I should like to start by pointing out that the international community now finds itself faced with a task whose solution it has put off for nine years, and put off quite consciously.
I raised the Kosovo problem in this House in January 1991 and have raised it again on many occasions since and urged that something be done about it.
At the time, in this forum, the President-in-Office of the Council, who is now a Commissioner and for whom I have great respect, accused me of naivety because I said that what had happened in Kosovo was the beginning of the end for Yugoslavia. Nobody saw it, nobody wanted to see it.
Nobody wanted to admit what was happening and everybody simply turned a blind eye. It was not even included on the agenda in Dayton.
It should have been added to the agenda. Yugoslavia should not have been recognized without Milosevic being required to make some progress towards finding a political solution to the problem.
Our foreign policy exists, quite literally, from hand to mouth. It never takes preventive action.
It is always short of breath and lacking in a proper strategy or vision.
Eight years of peaceful, passive resistance by the Albanians have not persuaded us to come to their aid.
For years the Serbs have been torturing Albanian men and women and arrests have been commonplace.
A parallel school and university system operating underground offers young people but few prospects.
It has taken television pictures of bloody demonstrations to shake up the international community.
I welcome the united stance announced today by the Council.
It is also good that the contact group is finally dealing with Kosovo, even if the results are feeble and the threat of an arms embargo, for example, is quite laughable.
An arms embargo is hardly an effective weapon against a well-armed nation with its own arms industry!
The presence of the OSCE on the spot is essential; financial and economic sanctions are necessary.
Unfortunately, these are the only means at our disposal.
Serbia refuses to tolerate any involvement in its supposedly "internal' affairs in Kosovo.
It has declared the resolutions passed by the contact group null and void since it is a self-appointed group.
This is the price we must pay in the West for years of looking the other way.
If Milosevic does not soon start a serious search for a political solution with Rugova and others within the framework of international mediation, an escalation of the violence will be unavoidable.
After nine years of this apartheid regime, the Albanians have had enough.
There is nothing to stop the Albanians in Macedonia, in Albania and in Montenegro joining forces.
The conflagration would exceed the scale of the Bosnian war.
Milosevic alone is responsible for the internationalization of the crisis.
A tough response is all he understands, so our stance against him must be a united and tough one.
As a last resort there is always Mr Swoboda's option. If all else fails we must help with military or police intervention those being tortured and murdered.
Mr President, the European Union once again finds itself facing a crisis in the former Yugoslavia, which was foreseeable long ago, and once again it has been caught off guard and probably a day after the fair, as has already been said.
Therefore, if we now think with hindsight of what should have happened and what should have been avoided a priori, in order to prevent developments in the former Yugoslavia from following their dramatic course, we are contributing very little to the subject, although what is happening today is not totally unrelated to what went on before.
Indeed, it is not unrelated to the astonishing ignorance shown by the West with regard to the complex historical reality of an extremely difficult region, nor to the ineptness and partiality with which it reacted to much of the tragedy in Yugoslavia.
Once again we are called upon to face a fait accompli, but this time the danger of a new conflagration is becoming very concrete and very visible and we must be able to see this in all its dimensions.
Kosovo is a region with great historical significance for Serbs and Albanians alike, and historical memories are not effaced simply by international intervention.
On the other hand, it is inhabited by an overwhelming majority of Albanians who themselves were forced to move there because of other interventions at that time.
The Yugoslavia of Tito granted them an autonomy which, unfortunately, has since been dispensed with.
It is self-evident that no one can deny the right to speak one's own language, the right to education and free expression, and human rights as we perceive them.
These must be reinstated at the earliest possible opportunity with an immediate undertaking by Belgrade and with the cooperation of the representatives of the Albanian minority.
A new conflagration in this region would spark a chain reaction which risks spreading the crisis to the South, on the very eve of the ambitious enlargement towards the East that has been decided upon by the Union.
Therefore any initiative aimed at avoiding new conflicts and at coming to an understanding with the moderate leaders of the Albanians of Kosovo is more than welcome.
The European Union has a lot to do, as has already been said.
We must also consider the efforts being made by five countries in the region: Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Rumania and the FYROM, as well as the careful and judicious stance adopted by the Albanian government.
The implementation of the Rougova-Milosevic agreement is imperative, but it is even more imperative not to repeat the mistakes of the past, by carrying out another fruitless intervention with the United States taking on the lead role.
Belgrade must understand that closer ties with the European Union cannot come about through violence and that an internal dispute which places the peace of a wider region in danger is much less internal than it claims.
It goes without saying that we unequivocally condemn violence and bloody repression.
However, something more is needed: specific political actions such as all those we are asking for in our common position, many of which have been mentioned in this House. Moreover, there must be a more fundamental attempt to understand the problem and its historical background reaching back well before 1991, reaching back centuries.
Mr President, all aspects which in Bosnia led to war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are present in Kosovo. Once again the Western governments' prime objective appears to be to remain uninvolved.
Military intervention, after all, is an electoral risk. To the governments in the US and Europe, the risk of internal unpopularity weighs more heavily than the risk of new atrocities in the former Yugoslavia.
Have they not learnt from Bosnia that detachment amidst these kind of massacres automatically means co-responsibility?
Have any lessons been learnt from what happened in Bosnia? Certainly, as far as Bosnia is concerned, Europe does not have the monopoly on error of judgement.
The Security Council made a mistake when, at the insistence of Russia, it did not extend the mandate of the preventative force in Macedonia. The American promise to ease the sanctions against Serbia was the wrong signal, as was the comment made by the US negotiator, Gelbard, to the effect that Milosevic was dealing with terrorists in Kosovo, and it was as big a blunder as the remark made by James Baker in 1991 saying that, above all else, Yugoslavia should remain one country.
On Monday, the contact group decided to take a few half-baked and weak measures.
Clearly the most important lesson from Bosnia has still not been learnt.
This lesson was that in the former Yugoslavia violence can only be stemmed with military force.
Political pressure and economic sanctions do not work.
The only language Milosevic understands is the credible threat of military intervention by the US and other NATO member countries. Milosevic will circumvent a possible UN arms embargo just effectively as the existing economic sanctions.
The only effective instrument is the threat of force: a preventative presence of international troops in the region, in this case Macedonia and northern Albania. The response of the European Union to the crisis in Kosovo is one of shameful hypocrisy.
In the Treaty of Amsterdam the fifteen heads of states and governments promised solemnly to make peace-keeping one of the Union's responsibilities.
This promise was, as it turns out, not worth the paper it was written on. In the European Parliament, we have so often called for an effective European security policy.
However, here in Parliament the knees of the Socialists and Christian Democrats appear to be as weak as those of the Council of Ministers, now that it no longer comes down to words but to action
I note with bitterness that the two large groups have rejected every reference in the joint resolution to the possibility of military threats.
Even my group's plea to extend the mandate of the peace force in Macedonia was rejected.
Instead of this the PSE and PPE resolution contains an appeal to President Milosevic to allow journalists into Kosovo.
The European Parliament is using journalists as a threat.
That will really impress everyone in Kosovo.
In conclusion, Mr President, the resolution proposed by the two large groups today is the weakest this Parliament has ever devoted to the situation in Kosovo.
In the shape it currently takes, it is totally unacceptable to my group.
Remove your blinkers, ladies and gentlemen.
The conflict in Kosovo is a bigger threat to international peace than the conflict in Bosnia ever was.
Now is the time to draw lessons from the disaster in Bosnia.
Those who deny the lesson, make themselves equally responsible for the consequences.
Mr President, the developments taking place in Kosovo are giving birth to enormous dangers and to a more general situation of unrest throughout the Balkans, which will not leave Bulgaria, Albania, the FYROM and even Greece untouched.
From this viewpoint the militaristic voices that are being heard in this Chamber are, in my opinion, unacceptable.
We very much fear that we are witnessing the further disintegration of Yugoslavia.
At some point we must draw our conclusions from the policy of the large powers in the Balkans, and we must assume the responsibilities which are appropriate to the dramatic developments taking place against the peoples of the former Yugoslavia.
The rights that the Albanian minority in Kosovo must enjoy, as every minority in the context of existing states and borders, must be respected and safeguarded.
If, however, the European Parliament wishes to honour its role, it must insist on its position, which is opposed to any change of the borders in the Balkans.
It must also demand that all countries, Balkan or otherwise, respect and do not violate existing borders.
It must totally oppose the use of violence, or the threat of the use of violence, and it must denounce the threatened new embargo against Serbia - the people have suffered enough from the various embargos. It must declare that it is prepared to participate positively in establishing sincere and open dialogue between the Serbian authorities and the leaders of the Albanian minority in Kosovo.
Mr President, obviously we cannot claim that the outburst of violence came unexpectedly.
If there was one conflict and one outburst of violence which was heralded years ago, it was the one in Kosovo, and it proves once and for all that in practice we, the European Union, are nowhere when it concerns extending realistic conflict prevention.
Secondly, we obviously cannot claim that the solution to the conflict will be simple either.
It is clear - and I agree with my colleagues who pointed this out - that the present legal status which was forced upon Kosovo is totally unacceptable and that it must therefore be rejected by the Union quite unambiguously.
On the other hand, and we should be honest, well before 1989 the Albanian leaders already wanted much more than proper cultural and political autonomy.
They wanted independence, and this is the basis of the conflict.
In connection with that point, I would like to mention that on 30 March 1993 the then President of Yugoslavia made interesting proposals to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, referring to the need to carry through territorial demarcation in Kosovo with much more authority.
He was sidelined by Milosevic, but neither did he find a response in Parliament.
Thus, a unilateral approach, as far as that is concerned, is out of the question.
What is happening now is totally unacceptable, of course, in any state which calls itself a constitutional state.
It is terrible to have to note the focused manner in which whole families, including children, were massacred in those places where it was suspected they had some involvement in the armed resistance.
That is totally unacceptable.
I share the view of the Members who say that what has come out of the contact group is regrettable and that it is too weak.
I also agree with Mr de Vries that the joint resolution lacks teeth.
But I do think it contains some interesting points.
Firstly, the pressure on Belgrade must be stepped up.
In addition, in case no results come out of the negotiations - because dialogue is obviously not enough, there should be actual negotiations - then sanctions must be tightened, and some quick responses must be implemented.
On that subject I would like the Presidency to tell me how they are going to monitor this in order to take extremely effective action on a daily basis in this situation.
Secondly, I think that it is of the utmost importance that the UN troops stay in Macedonia.
We had a provision to this effect in our text.
Thirdly, we need a temporary ban on the deportation by EU countries of asylum seekers from this region.
There are places where this is happening.
If we are serious in this matter, then I believe we will make much more progress.
Mr President, I will speak on a personal note.
To tell the truth, after the chairman, Mr de Vries' speech, I do not have much to add to his excellent analysis.
In our beautiful language, Mr President, there is a phrase "they have sown the wind and they shall reap the whirlwind' .
I do not know how to translate it, but it is true that we have sown a lot of wind, by avoiding the inclusion of Kosovo in the Dayton agreements. This would have been possible, had it not been for the hypocrisy driving the contact group, the EU and unfortunately today even Parliament.
Had it not been for that hypocrisy, we might not have reached this point, since everyone knew that Kosovo was a dynamite store.
Today, Parliament is not even capable of using the word "sanctions' once, in two pages of text.
It seems to me that this is a clear message to Milosevic to continue in his belief that it is right to analyse those who will refuse to vote on this wording later, although there may only be a few of them.
Mr President, with regard to the Kosovo crisis, European diplomacy must demonstrate that it is capable of acting with as much pertinence and efficiency as it did in the Iraqi crisis.
It is a crisis which could degenerate dangerously, but which can still probably be controlled if European diplomacy is able to show the same judgement and determination that has been shown by the precise actions of France and Germany.
It must show its ability to take all the factors into consideration, in particular the fact that Kosovo is the Serbs' Paris and yet is today populated by up to 90 % Albanians.
It must bear in mind that the disintegration of Yugoslavia began with questions regarding the wide autonomy which Kosovo enjoyed within the former federation.
Since then, the conflict has continued to brew.
Today, the corresponding hardening of attitude of both the Albanian separatists and the Serb authorities is moving the crisis into a new and extremely worrying dimension, with an increase in tension.
The international community must therefore intensify its activity, even if it does not have the same basis on which to act as in Bosnia, whose independence it recognized.
But in the case of a stepping up in the conflict, the risks of globalization are such that the Kosovo issue can no longer be considered a purely internal issue. This is especially true with regard to Macedonia where a quarter of the population is Albanian and particularly since Albania is becoming increasingly nervous.
Even if the most adequate way of expressing the international community's will is currently through the six countries of the contact group - since it is essential that we stick together - the action of European diplomacy within this body must be decisive in order to avoid the sudden turnarounds on the part of some of its members or the refusal of any globalization on the part of others.
It is fortunate that yesterday's meeting of the contact group in London echoed the call for a negotiated solution already heralded by Paris and Bonn. This should lead to a special intermediary status somewhere between that of independence and the current situation, neither of which are adequate options.
It is also a question of finding the means for effective pressure, to the right extent, to convince both sides not to feed the intensification of the conflict.
It is therefore essential, Mr President, to step up the measures concerning positive incentives, considering in particular the different ways of reintegrating Belgrade into the international community.
This is the path that was upheld in London under the influence of the Europeans, who must retain this leadership.
It is the right path.
It must be followed with consistency and determination.
I have received eight motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I would merely like to say that I largely agree with what has been said this morning, that an active position is being urged regarding a situation which can by no means be considered surprising or new.
At the same time I believe that it would be good for us within the European Union not to practise self-pity, in the sense that we are not doing anything.
I would like to say to Mrs Pack in particular that the Kosovo issue is constantly on the agenda of the General Affairs Council, that it is being talked about constantly in the context of the OECD, that former Prime Minister González has been asked again to mediate, but that we do need cooperation from Belgrade for this.
In case dialogue is not started very soon, we certainly agree that mediation by Mr González should be pushed to the top of the agenda.
Personally, I do believe this dialogue will come about in the short term.
More pressure will be needed.
On 15 February the Commission sent a fact finding mission to Kosovo to find out what else could be done.
Tony Lloyd will go there soon and Mr Cook was there last week.
I myself will be going to Pristina and Skopje.
It really cannot be said that Europe is holding itself aloof.
But what it will come down to is how much pressure the international community is prepared to apply when Milosevic - and it all depends on him - does not take the right initiatives.
That will be the crux of the matter.
As far as that is concerned, Iraq has given us some experience.
We will end this debate here and continue it at 3.00 p.m.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Votes
Mr President, I rise under Rule 60 in order to observe that the Commission has indicated that it will accept none of Parliament's amendments.
I regret that.
However, the Commission has not been the problem in this interinstitutional triangle that we have been exploring for three months.
The problem has been the attitude of the Council.
I am pleased to say that in the debate this morning the President-in-Office was able to offer us, on behalf of the Council, sufficient guarantees of what is, in effect, the structure of a consultation process that I am not going to recommend that we refer back to committee.
We have received from him assurances and we noted every single word that he delivered this morning, which offered sufficient undertakings as to timing and to Council consideration of our views to satisfy me, as chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, that we have in essence an interinstitutional agreement that we can make work in a pragmatic way.
I should like to pay tribute to the President-in-Office and Commissioner Van den Broek and therefore not to recommend to Parliament that this matter should be referred back to committee.
(Applause )
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, as you are aware, you and I were elected on the same day in June 1984.
I have always taken it upon myself to remove any burden from your great shoulders.
I wish to advise you, therefore, that my presence is not only in the House today but it will be voting also.
That is most generous, Mr Falconer.
You may disagree but it is the absolute right of groups to submit amendments even to compromise resolutions.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution) Report (A4-0065/98) by Mr Cornelissen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions " Promoting road safety in the EU - the programme for 1997-2001' (COM(97)0131 - C4-0180/97)- Before the roll-call vote on recital O:
Mr President, I would like you to take note that under the new rules by the Bureau I am present but I am not participating in this vote.
I would point out to Members that the note sent round by the Quaestors stated: ' A Member who does not wish to take part in a roll-call vote may arrange to have his attendance at the sitting noted prior to the vote.'
That does not mean immediately prior to every vote.
It means at the start of the session.
You informed me at the start of the session that you were here.
I have noted that you are here. If you do not take part in votes we assume it was on a point of principle that you are not taking part.
Mr President, would it not be simpler if rather than Members rising to advise you of their presence, that they do as I do and simply hand in a note to the sittings service?
It would be much simpler and much more preferable but some Members have their own little games they want to play here.
It is not about simplicity, it is about causing difficulties.
(Mixed reactions) - After the vote on Amendment No 4
(The sitting was adjourned from 12.00 noon to 12.30 p.m.)
Mr President, I rise to make a point of order pursuant to Rule 127(2), which deals precisely with points of order.
Just now an extremely serious incident occurred, which significantly disrupted the vote on Mr Cornelissen's report.
Mr Crowley made it known that he wanted the floor on a point of order.
You deliberately refused to give it to him.
I thus rose, along with my colleague Mr Claudio Azzolini, co-chairman of the Union for Europe Group, to request that you apply the Rules and allow Mr Crowley to say what he wanted.
Quite clearly, you did not allow him to speak, which is a blatant violation of the Rules of Procedure for, in a Parliament, every member who requests the floor on a point of order must be allowed to do so and our Rules are strict since they stipulate that "a request to raise a point of order shall take precedence over all other requests to speak' .
You have not therefore respected the Rules.
I am convinced that if someone had stood up from that side of the Chamber...
(Loud applause) you would not have failed to give him the floor....
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr Pasty, since you are so keen on the Rules, may I point out that you are allowed to make a point of order for one minute.
Please sit down now.
You have exceeded your one minute.
I would just like to say that when I occupy this Chair I forget which political group I come from.
I treat every individual and every group member the same.
(Mixed reactions) I want to make it clear that the Rules say in Rule 127 that a Member may be allowed to draw the attention of the President to a point of order.
In Rule 19 it says that the President shall enjoy all the powers to ensure that sittings are properly conducted.
That is what I was attempting to do.
I have to say that I expect leaders of groups to act with more dignity and in support of the Chair when they are in this Chamber.
Mr President, I rise to make a point of order under Rule 127.
The point of order I wanted to make - even though the issue is no longer relevant - is that in your interpretation of the rules, a Member need only announce his attendance and not participate at the start of a vote.
Under my reading of the rules, which were adopted by the Bureau without consultation with Parliament, I am entitled, as a Member, to stand up at every roll-call vote and state that I am present but I am not participating in the vote.
That is the rule as adopted by the Bureau without any consultation with Parliament on those rules.
Secondly, Rule 19 governs order and the conduct of the House.
However, Rule 127 states that the President must make a decision on whether or not he will accept the point of order, and that he may wait for up to 24 hours before he makes that decision.
You did not do that when I called for my original point of order.
Therefore you are in error as regards the Rules.
It is highly insulting and arrogant of you to be treating the House in this manner!
(Loud applause )
Brian, we have been good friends in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for four years.
I admire the work you do and I hope you will perhaps reflect on your last sentence.
I would just make it clear that the rule distributed by the Quaestors says: ' A Member who does not wish to take part in a roll-call vote may arrange to have his attendance at the sitting noted prior to the vote' .
Not prior to every individual vote but prior to the vote.
I gave you that interpretation.
I answered your point of order.
I was not going to have a procedural debate with you in the middle of a vote.
We were discussing the Cornelissen report which is an extremely important one.
Mr President, I would not impugn anyone in what I have to say.
I feel the House was out of control for several minutes.
That is not an acceptable situation.
I would like you to reconsider your reinterpretation of the rule issued by the Quaestors.
That is what is causing the difficulties.
I would like to suggest that recorded votes during that disturbance should not count in the Bureau's bureaucratic system.
How does one know when the votes are on?
I am sorry.
I take your first point.
I am always happy to reflect but on the second point of course they will count.
I do not speak or read Italian, as you know, but the sessional services have told me that in Italian it is clearly 'may' as well.
Mr President, I am sure with the overwhelming majority of this House I want to say that we have great respect for the way in which you chair this plenary and the integrity with which you do it.
(Applause ) At the last plenary session it was agreed that the whole issue of these administrative regulations agreed by the Bureau would be discussed after three months.
That is to go ahead.
The Bureau and the Conference of Presidents confirmed that there were issues that needed to be looked at.
What we saw earlier was people, once again, trying to make political capital out of that decision.
We would like you - and I am sure my group would endorse this entirely - to get on with the votes.
The Bureau will look at this issue as it has decided.
(Applause )
Mr President, my point of order relates to the use you made of the word 'Rules' .
I have always maintained, in previous points of order when this first came up, that if it was a change of Rules - and it must be a Rule if it has political ramifications which cash-for-votes certainly has - it has to go to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and then be discussed by this House.
You referred to the Rules from the Quaestors.
You have given away the case that I have supported all along.
This is a change in the Rules which has political ramifications!
It should go to the Rules Committee and come before this House in the normal way.
Mrs Ewing, I know you are an eminent lawyer but I have to say that if you look at Rule 5 of the Rules of Procedure it states: ' The Bureau shall lay down rules governing the payment of expenses and allowances to Members.'
There is more than one form of rules: there are the Rules of Procedure of the House and there are other rules.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I was trying to catch your eye during the rumpus.
The reason was I could not hear what you were saying, what votes were taking place, and that was a very confusing situation.
I would respectfully submit that it would have been better to stop the voting a little earlier to restore calm in case colleagues voted the wrong way not knowing what the vote was.
On other occasions, perhaps we could let matters simmer down before we resume voting.
I have some sympathy for that comment.
My only hesitation is that I do not like giving in to mob rule.
Mr President, I personally have a great deal of admiration for your skill and talents.
I regret that you did not respond to the person who appealed to the Rules.
This does not lessen my appreciation for your work, but I do think you should have let those people speak who appealed to the Rules.
Secondly, like Mrs Green I want to say that I would like to appeal to everyone.
We agreed to implement the rules for three months, and in the meantime to keep monitoring it.
I appeal to all Members of this Parliament to respect the decisions for a period of three months.
After these three months we will see to what extent they will need to be modified, if at all.
A lot of Members are still indicating they wish to speak.
In the light of the previous position and comments that have been made, I am going to take everyone who wants to speak.
I just wish to point out that the rule about roll-call votes still applies.
Thank you, but it is not my rule, it is the rule of the Bureau.
Mr President, I support your policy on this matter, but it was my group which clearly pointed out that this system as it is presently implemented by the Bureau is not right.
It was my group which pointed out that it should be reviewed.
It is being looked into at the moment.
It is not right for two Members to try to keep delaying this House before every vote.
It is time the Bureau reviewed its all too bureaucratic rules.
But it is also time this House went back to work and you maintained order in this sitting.
I would be delighted to do so, but the aforementioned Mr Falconer has the floor.
Mr President, I rise on two simple points.
One is in reply to the allegation made by Mr Pasty that you treat this side of the House differently than you are treating that side of the House.
I am sure that your secretariat and others will have noted that I too asked for a point of order immediately after Brian Crowley was refused his.
Therefore Mr Pasty you should withdraw that allegation.
The second point I would like to make is that we cannot continue with an interpretation made by one President and a different interpretation made by another President.
We have a simple note from the Quaestors; surely the Quaestors should stand up and give their interpretation of their note to clarify the situation.
Mr President, you decided to continue with the vote although there was considerable noise in this room.
Since this vote, which contained some roll-call votes, relates to a sensitive area and since it was preceded by numerous discussions, because of the noise neither yourself as President nor the translation could be heard.
I would therefore request that you admit Mr Kellett-Bowman's motion and start the vote again.
It was impossible to hear which vote you called and what the result of the vote was.
I take your point and, in that context, I apologize to Mr Cornelissen.
His report has fallen an innocent victim of this.
But I am afraid I cannot start the vote again.
Just to prove that the chair has some humility - although sections of the House do not believe it - I was responding slightly in anger there, and I would like to apologize to Mr Pasty for that statement.
What I would like to ask you most urgently is: can we please carry on with the votes?
Let us finish this report, and let us just leave everything else.
I agree with you but numerous Members have said that when the Chair sees someone wishing to make a point of order, he has to take that point of order.
We have to have some clarity.
Members cannot have it both ways.
When they want to move on, they do not want the Chair to take points of order.
Mr President, on a point of order.
We should all recognize in this House that one of the most difficult responsibilities that any of us can face in our Parliament is to chair the sittings of the European Parliament.
We all know that there can sometimes be differences of opinion as to the interpretation of the rules.
Those differences of opinion are legitimate and they should be discussed but there is a proper time and a proper place to discuss such matters.
I would like to appeal to all colleagues present not to abuse their rights under the Rules to draw this plenary into a debate which debases the dignity of the entire institution.
Secondly, the place to discuss it first of all is in the Bureau.
That is where the decision was taken.
After three months of implementing the reforms that have been agreed, the Bureau has said it will look again at the practice.
We all know that members of the Bureau are amongst the more experienced Members of our House and I am sure they will take their responsibility very seriously.
Let me echo the comments made by Mrs Green and by Mr Martens.
Let no-one be under any illusion.
This House needs internal reform.
One of the elements in the speech of President Klestil just now was to remind us of public opinion.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are all under the sanction of public opinion and those colleagues who wish to ignore public opinion will pay the price and will make our House pay that price and it is not worth that price.
(Applause )
I would just make it clear that I gave the floor to Mr Crowley.
I did not give it to him on his second attempt to take the floor.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I would like you to put to the vote whether we now proceed to the next business and get on with the vote.
As you are the last speaker on my list we shall do that anyway.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I will also give an oral vote against the Council budget, against the Commission proposal and against the Oostlander report.
These three texts set up an elaborate network of multi-faceted, neocolonialist bonds for those countries concerned, the countries of central and eastern Europe.
This is taking place in the interests of multinational companies, in order to penetrate into these areas by means of neocolonialist methods, to exploit their natural wealth and human resources and to create further imperialistic zones for further domination and expansion throughout the region.
The political and financial mafias which currently rule these countries are guilty accomplices in this, and I want to say that Parliament, in voting for this report, will become a kind of moral accessory to the subjugation and exploitation of these countries, which cannot be allowed to happen. It will create future upheavals and undesirable situations and Parliament must keep its distance.
, in writing. (DA) The June Movement supports the admission of all the new applicant states which meet the basic requirements in terms of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and minority rights and has not therefore voted against the Oostlander reports.
But we cannot vote in favour of them either, because we do not agree with the form of admission procedure which has been passed.
This is because, firstly, the applicant states have been divided into A and B leagues, and secondly, the applicant states have been presented with a number of stringent requirements and conditions for membership which they themselves are not really in a position to negotiate on.
Their only choice is between joining the EU on our terms or remaining outside.
The Amsterdam Treaty laid down a large number of criteria for membership which will make it even harder to join the EU, and which will therefore delay the enlargement process.
We cannot have a deepening without at the same time having a widening.
If we want a European partnership in which all countries are involved on an equal footing, the basis for that partnership must be open to negotiation.
In the June Movement, we believe that it would be better for the future of Europe if we invited the applicant states to a joint discussion where we could create the framework for a European partnership together.
The current negotiations on enlargement do not mean that we ask the applicant states how they propose to work together with us.
The negotiations are simply about finding out whether the applicant states, and not least we ourselves, are ready for the Community law which we have enacted to be incorporated into the applicant states' legislation.
Any EU law is by definition the best possible.
There can be no discussion about that.
Any exceptions and special considerations can only be temporary, and that is mostly for our own sake.
In the June Movement, we believe that the countries of Europe differ too widely to be able to use the EU's total harmonization method, under which legislation would be the same everywhere.
Our vision of a European partnership is not a European state, but a flexible, democratic and free partnership in which all countries are equal and can influence their own legislation.
We have abstained from voting for the Oostlander reports because we do not want to put a brake on the enlargement process, but we seriously disagree with the admission procedure which has been set up.
We have voted in favour of this report.
Several of the paragraphs in the report concern strengthening the European Parliament's right to information regarding the development of accession partnerships.
We think that is appropriate.
Since it is the European Parliament which ultimately takes the decision on the question of approval of new members of the EU, it is also appropriate that Parliament should have full information about the development of the accession process.
However, we would like to emphasize that the final decision should always lie with the people in each of the countries which wants to join the EU.
Therefore, a referendum on membership of the EU is to be recommended for all the states which could be in line for membership.
, in writing. (DA) - The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Oostlander report.
This is because we support the whole enlargement project, which we believe is one of the most important steps which the European Community has taken in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our part of the world.
We are facing a great challenge, which is to see the countries of central and eastern Europe with full democracy, which will enable fast, smooth enlargement.
It is essential that Parliament supports the increase in the partnership principle which will assist the individual candidate states in working towards accession to the European Union.
The framework which has been laid down for the EU's assistance to applicant countries in their preparations for joining the EU is the main tool we have to ensure that the future Member States fall in line with the EU.
Through admission partnerships, the EU will support the development of law-based, effective administrative systems which are essential if society is to operate properly.
It is important for us to point out that the efforts should not merely concentrate on adjustments to the single market, but that support for environmental and labour market legislation should be equally as great.
One problem has been that Parliament has not had much time to come up with a statement on the Council's regulation: we have had just two months to deal with this very important subject.
But we must not use this as a reason to delay the process of working towards admitting the countries of central and eastern Europe into the European Union.
With the partnership principle, we have sent a very important message to the applicant countries, namely that they are all welcome in the European Union.
Even if not all of them are ready to join at the same time, it is important to show them that they are all involved in the process.
The partnership is also a good contract between the individual applicant countries and the EU, as the countries of central and eastern Europe can look forward to being included in the Union once they meet the terms of the agreements.
There is actually very little to say on the Oostlander reports.
Their objective is limited to calling for a systematic consultation of the European Parliament on all phases of the formulation and implementation of the partnerships for accession of each and every one of the eastern and central European countries.
There is nothing new then: we are once more confronted with the usual insatiable bulimia of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, which expects to be consulted and reconsulted permanently on all subjects which touch directly or indirectly on issues relating to foreign policy.
In this case, consulting the European Parliament would have the overall effect of weighing down the already complex process anticipated in the framework regulation and of increasing the delays even more, if the process of each individual partnership has to be systematically reviewed.
Furthermore, the motion for a resolution submitted to us seems to err in its interpretation, since in points 3 and 4 it considers that the medium term priorities to have been postponed.
In actual fact, the Council has explicitly stated that the medium term priorities must be implemented as from 1998.
It is only their results that will not be fully attained until the medium term, although this will in any case be before accession.
Although the Oostlander reports are touchy on the issue of permanent consultation of the European Parliament, they are however careful not to tackle the root issues which the European Conference is going to have to deal with.
There is no comment on the break-up threatened by the simultaneous application of two contradictory policies: how do we enlarge whilst introducing a single currency and whilst maintaining old institutions with an integrationist vocation whose lives have been extended without the will to reform them in any meaningful way?
Nor is there any comment on the persistent ambiguity regarding relations with Turkey.
Turkey will be absent from the Conference even though this method was largely conceived with it in mind. This is a Turkey whose "European vocation' we want to recognize, that is, depending on your point of view, the country's vocation to become a member of the European Union or not.
There are no doubts raised regarding Cyprus, although accession of the island would make the "green line' dividing the two communities an "outer border of the Union' .
There is no confusion mentioned regarding the vocation or not of an enlarged European Union to assure the security of the Baltic states, in particular Estonia, in the face of Russia which will remain outside the Union.
But what does it matter?
The machine is in motion.
This is enough.
We are happy.
The continual building site is an aim in itself.
Perhaps later on, questions will be raised as to the nature and objectives of this new European construction and its geographical limits.
Oostlander report (A4-0087/98)
With the debate and the vote on the Oostlander report today, 11 March 1998, on the eve of the European Summit and, more importantly, before the official opening of the accession procedure on 30 March, the European Parliament is sending out a very important message.
The European Parliament is underscoring and supporting its political choice to enlarge the European Union by incorporating the countries of eastern Europe, and this will guarantee growth and stability in Europe and the rest of the world.
The long and difficult course of this historic venture is, by definition, parallel and bound up with the deepening, strengthening and reinforcing of the present European Union.
The accession procedure is a unified procedure and begins at the same time, and from the same starting point, for all ten applicant countries of eastern Europe, that is of central, northern and southeastern Europe.
All ten applicant countries have thrown themselves with determination into the long and hard struggle for rapprochement, each along its own particular path.
We have ten-plus-one; or rather one-plus-ten.
Cyprus is certainly a completely separate case, with absolute priority as a European Union debt to history.
The European Parliament has, and indeed fundamentally exercises, an equally valued institutional role with responsibility and transparency.
The participation of the European Parliament is a guarantee of the preservation and observance of the decisions and criteria of Copenhagen, in accordance with the requirements of the Treaty of Amsterdam, in the context of the decisions and conditions of the Luxembourg Summit of December 1997.
The European Parliament, by endorsing the principles and conditions of enlargement and, more importantly, because it has responsibility for the final decision on the accession of any country to the European Union, must monitor and give its opinion on all phases of implementation of the accession procedure.
More especially, as chairman of the Delegation to the EU-Bulgaria Joint Parliamentary Committee, I want to underscore the enormous efforts taken by Bulgaria and the creative course that it is following.
To be sure, this country, like other countries, needs pre-accession support which is both positive and productive.
I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the fact that I regard it unacceptable that Bulgaria, as well as Romania, is "black-listed' for the visa. This is a wrong which must immediately be righted.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Oostlander report.
The reason for this is that the report contains many good social democratic characteristics.
We support the rapporteur's statement that structural support should be managed on a more decentralised basis, to make the structural support measures more effective and reduce costs.
We also support the wish that Parliament should then be consulted in the event of changes to the admission partnerships, and we share the view that it is regrettable that neither the Commission nor the Council have wanted any statement from Parliament on the medium-term goals and conditions for the accession partnerships.
There are problems with the Oostlander report in a number of areas, however, including on the statements on the individual countries in the explanatory statement.
The Danish Social Democrats do not believe that the report is objective in its treatment of the different countries.
We would point out, for example, that Poland is only dealt with superficially, whereas there is a more thorough treatment of, say, internal conditions in Latvia.
This gives the impression that Parliament has a preset attitude as to which countries are most suitable for membership of the European Union, which we consider very unfortunate.
We disagree particularly with the way the report deals with the Baltic states; it includes a highly critical statement on those states' protection of minority rights, with special reference to the Russian-speaking minority.
We think this might give the impression that the Baltic states have more problems with human rights and democracy than is the case.
The report stresses that Parliament should be consulted in this area.
It is therefore essential that we should give an objective, considered critique of the applicant states.
We believe all the applicant states are potential candidates, and so should all be treated objectively.
Watts recommendation (A4-0068/98)
As a Member from the north of France, I am aware of the difficulties which the establishment of a new European directive on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships to or from Member States' ports would raise.
Over the last few years, the ports of Calais and Dover, along with the shipping companies controlling this route, have increased their efforts to reduce port transit times in order to be more competitive with the Channel Tunnel.
As they are not affected by this directive, the shuttles which runs through the tunnel between Calais and Folkestone will not be faced with the increased transfer times which will automatically occur because of this measure.
Consequently, it is clear that serious distortions in competition will become apparent between these two means of transport.
Furthermore, this draft directive completely undermines the considerable investment undertaken by the Calais Chamber of Commerce and Industry to modernize its terminal.
In fact, the port infrastructure, which aimed to speed up the loading and unloading of ferries, has been largely financed by the European Community - through the ERDF - which is thus putting itself in complete contradiction with its previous, yet recent decision since the work is not yet completed.
That is why I support the amendments proposed by Mark Watts aimed at maintaining fair competition between the ferries and the Shuttle , whilst staying in keeping with the position within Europe as a whole.
I hope they will be taken over by the Commission and the Council.
A short time ago the European Parliament voted on the Watts report.
In this recommendation for second reading, the European Parliament proposed in Amendments Nos 4, 5, and 7 that as far as the registration of passengers is concerned, companies operating a railway tunnel must meet the same requirements as those operating a passenger ship.
Their argument is that this ensures fair competition between the Channel Tunnel and the ferries.
In its common position, the Council indicated that the above-mentioned amendments fell outside the scope of the directive, although the directive is aimed at harmonizing an important SOLAS regulation and the SOLAS treaty concerns vessels.
Alongside the Council's formal legal argument, the Commission also has objections.
It believes that we cannot simply apply safety regulations which apply to one means of transport to another.
The safety regulations for trains are not the same as those for ferries.
To my mind the Commission's argument is convincing.
Fair competition between different means of transport means that each method can maximize its strongest points.
The registration of persons aboard passenger ships is needed to offer adequate assistance during an emergency situation.
When such a measure does not improve the safety of travel through a train tunnel, it should be omitted.
That is why I voted against Amendments Nos 4, 5, and 7.
Darras (PSE), Bernardini (PSE), in writing.
(FR) This report gives us the opportunity to voice our agreement on a European policy regarding safety at sea concerning security on board passenger vessels, security with regard to the training of the crew and, last but not least, safety of passengers.
The maritime disasters which have occurred to date, in particular the sinking of the Estonia, have led to this motion, which recommends that passengers be registered on ferries travelling distances over 20 miles. This is to ensure that the maximum capacity of the boat is not surpassed, that search and rescue operations can be facilitated and that information can be provided as quickly as possible.
It is a step in the right direction.
This proposal bears the stamp of common sense and safety, apart from the fact that it will cause serious distortions in competition with undersea tunnel systems of transport - particularly the Shuttle under the English Channel - which will not be required to implement these security measures.
As an elected Member of a coastal region, I can only subscribe to the rapporteur's proposal to extend the directive's field of application to include "underwater' tunnels with a rail journey of more than 20 miles.
It is a question of passenger safety and fair application of the rules of competition within the European Union.
I support Mr Watts' report and, in particular, the amendments which are aimed at extending the strengthened security measures for passenger boats to encompass "underwater' rail travel via tunnel.
The European Parliament must be consistent and strengthen its vote given at first reading.
It is essential to extend the measures within this text to include the Shuttle under the Channel.
We must go further than the Council's and the Commission's position.
It is a question of public safety and respect for the rules of competition.
In fact, the recent fire in the Channel Tunnel showed that the lack of detailed registration of passengers made the work of the rescue teams more difficult, both during and after the fire.
Lastly, with regard to the rules of competition, tightening up the rules regarding the registration of persons travelling on passenger ships, through the increase in formalities and the extended waiting time that this form of transport will suffer, will significantly distort competition between the ferries and the Shuttle.
This will mean that the investment made by the Calais Chamber of Commerce and Industry - with a large degree of funding by the ERDF - in the modernization of port facilities with a view to speeding up embarkation was a waste of time.
These are weighty demands but they are necessary for heightened safety, for employment and for the future of the crossChannel ferry business.
The Commission's directive as proposed wishes to make the rules on registering ship passengers in Member States more uniform.
I believe this is a thoroughly sensible and necessary initiative, as it will enable rescue work, medical assistance and legal matters to be clarified better and faster everywhere in the Union.
It is understandable that, in its statement, the committee repeats some of the amendments from the initial negotiations which the Council has not accepted in its common approach to date.
But I would like to emphasize that neither I nor my group can accept the proposal that advance passenger registration should also be used for train journeys through underwater railway tunnels.
Introducing such a rule would remove the efficiency, simplicity and speed with which it is possible to buy train tickets up until a few minutes before the train goes today.
The benefits of such a measure would be far too modest in relation to the damage it would cause to rail competitiveness.
Rail transport has rightly been given a high priority in planning the EU's trans-European network and is enjoying increasing success on the transport market. I feel it would be unwise to impose unreasonable competitive conditions on this sector.
I am in favour of a set of sensible ship security rules being imposed within the framework of this directive, and so I am voting in favour of this recommendation, as I hope that rail will be kept out of its field of application.
Novo Belenguer recommendation (A4-0069/98)
, in writing. (DA) Transportation of dangerous goods requires clear, consistent regulation if the authorities are to react quickly and effectively in the event of an accident.
This is equally true of transport by sea, and so EU Directive 93/75/EEC is a necessary instrument of law.
It is also particularly valuable that, in the amendments to the directive, the Commission wishes to include transport of nuclear fuel, plutonium and highly radioactive waste within the directive's field of application. It is only natural that Parliament supported these aims at first reading, as this will increase safety levels.
The Council has also accepted Parliament's reasonable proposal concerning the selection procedure for adjusting the appendices to the directive. Many other amendments have been rejected in the Council's common position, however.
This was due, among other things, to Parliament's wish that rules covering the transit through EU waters of ships en route to ports in third countries would be given a directive of its own.
However Parliament's proposals are implemented, the amendments to the directive proposed are desirable, and so I support the recommendation for second reading.
Trakatellis report (A4-0067/98)
Due to the economic growth of the last thirty years, the standard of living in Europe has tripled.
At the same time, the rate of suicide in all age brackets has also tripled.
Half of all suicide attempts are second attempts.
Suicide is thus the only cause of death which has not declined in Europe.
The European medical system is incapable of dealing with the growing number of people with psychological difficulties who are thus more likely to attempt to commit suicide.
We must urgently look for solutions to this major public health problem.
Specific and original proposals are needed, given that only 38 % of young people who have tried to take their own lives have had any subsequent follow-up from a doctor.
It falls within the jurisdiction of the European Union to support applied research programmes in this area, in order to set up a network of structures of a personal nature.
Experiments have been carried out, for example, that of Dr. Xavier Pommereau, who set up a special unit for suicidal adolescents at Bordeaux Hospital, which is also where I practise.
There are also collective explanations for this increase in individual tragedy.
We have to help in the search for a method of prevention.
Applied research could consequently be very useful, for example, in the study of the correlation between unemployment rates and suicide rates.
I support Dr Trakatellis' report.
Nevertheless, I would like to draw your attention to the meagre budgetary means anticipated, which will all too soon become clearly insufficient.
The intention of the Commission's action plan, namely, that it wants to prevent suicide and accidents is, of course, appropriate.
The question I ask myself, however, is whether it really is best to let the EU act in this area. I do not think so.
Instead I think that, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, these issues are best resolved at national level or at lower levels in society.
Of course I am not against cooperation between Member States on these issues, but I think this can be carried out, as today, through cooperation between the professional groups which work with these issues.
Such cooperation already exists and I am sure that the EU will not try to take over or interfere with this work.
There is a real risk of duplicating work.
I would also like to see an analysis of why so many people commit suicide and are involved in accidents.
Committing suicide is, unfortunately, increasingly common among young people who have lost hope for the future.
It would have been valuable to have an analysis of these problems before the European Parliament made its decision on the issue.
Viceconte report (A4-0074/98)
Mr President, I rise in support of this report on rare diseases.
The coordinator of a support group of one such rare disease, Action on Tracheotomies lives in Billericay, in my constituency.
I would like to support, in particular, the involvement of patients and families of patients benefiting from the programme.
Given the cut in the original budget proposed and my own experience of the cost and ineffectiveness of the Handinet European Database in relation to disability, I question whether it is a good use of the limited budget to spend so much on the database and only ECU 0.2 million in the first year for support groups.
However I strongly support the proposal for direct representation by patients on the advisory committee.
Finally, I urge the Commission to bring forward its proposed regulation on orphan drugs as soon as possible, to work with the pharmaceutical companies to ensure support for care today as well as cure tomorrow for patients experiencing both isolation and uncertainty from their illness.
Cabrol report (A4-0075/98)
Pollution-related diseases cannot be confined just to those diseases linked with air pollution. Although these are serious, they are not the only ones.
Noise is one of the worst sources of pollution these days, and has a serious effect on the health and repose of the population.
I should like to remind people here today of my report on noise as a source of pollution, and also of the forthcoming meeting on this question in Copenhagen in May, with the participation of representatives from all over the Union.
So this "resounding' omission is surprising, to say the least.
Also, more attention should have been paid to how pollutants relate to the increase in the various allergies which affect us all to an ever-increasing extent in our cities.
Finally, it is also surprising that the Commission made no mention of diseases related to the pollution of drinking-water or bathing-water. For example, nitrates cause cancer of the stomach and oesophagus.
Fortunately, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has made adequate amendments to the proposal, which will have my vote.
If the EU really wants to prevent diseases caused by pollution, it would be best if it stopped a number of the decisions it has taken which will directly cause more diseases because of pollution.
As long as we continue to subsidize environmentally-damaging agriculture which promotes pesticide use, invest in anti-environmental road transport and support nuclear power production, diseases caused by this anti-environmental policy will continue to increase.
Unfortunately, there is no sign of this understanding in either the Commission's or the European Parliament's document.
Instead, people want the EU to start taking action in areas which concern the consequences of the EU's policy.
The intention of the Commission's action plan is, of course, good, but you must still ask yourself whether it really is best to let the EU take action in this area.
I do not think so. Instead, I think that under the subsidiarity principle these issues are best resolved at national level or at lower levels in society.
It is not primarily more studies and comparisons which are needed, but specific measures to ensure that the diseases do not continue to increase.
Of course I am not against cooperation between Member States on these issues, but I think this can be carried out, as today, through cooperation between the professional groups which work with these issues.
Such cooperation already exists and I am sure that the EU will not try to take over or interfere with this work.
There is a real risk of duplicating work.
I agree with the rapporteur's view expressed in his report that the Commission's proposals to reduce pollution related diseases do not go far enough.
It seems that the Commission has wasted an opportunity to bring forward proposals which would deal with pollution-related diseases in general, rather than the specific matter of air pollution related diseases alone.
The rapporteur is right in calling for a broader programme which could deal with noise, food, water and waste pollution-related diseases as well.
One matter which I would like to see considered in a broader programme than that proposed by the Commission is that of diseases believed to be related to the use of organophosphorous sheep dip.
Whereas there has been considerable disagreement among scientists regarding the effects of organophosphorous sheep dip on farmers who have used it, there has been increasing evidence to support campaigners' arguments that use of organophosphorous sheep dip can lead to damage to the nervous system.
I would like to see a Commission programme on pollution-related diseases which is broad enough to include matters such as that which I have outlined.
Trakatellis, Viceconte and Cabrol reports
I would first of all like to congratulate the three rapporteurs for having carried out this work and for having reconciled their points of view. This will enable the adoption of a better approach towards public health at Union level.
A great deal of progress has been achieved compared to the recent past.
I unreservedly share Mr Antonio Trakatellis' desires regarding prevention and the setting up of an information network for the use of victims of all kinds of injuries.
Mr Viceconte's report marks an important stage in the treatment on rare diseases.
I support the proposal inviting the European Community to become involved in research on these diseases.
To increase the effectiveness of this research and improve the diffusion of information, I think that it is essential to establish of a free database, accessible to all who may be able to assist in the provision of knowledge regarding these rare diseases which affect so many families, is a must.
I also want to support Mr Cabrol in his efforts to widen the programme's field of action against pollution-related diseases.
A study seems necessary into the effects of long-term pollution and the possible synergies between the different pollutants.
Finally, given the costs supported by society in the area of public health, an investment of ECU 14 million will work in favour of the well-being of the population in the long term, but also towards a reduction in the budgets which we currently devote to social security.
The Swedish members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left have voted against the reports.
We think that all questions concerning health care and the combating of particular diseases are best dealt with at national level.
There are already a number of structures, including the World Health Organization, for the international cooperation which is needed in this area.
We are also opposed to Parliament's request to greatly increase appropriations for the proposed programmes.
I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the three rapporteurs, Mr Viceconte, Mr Trakatellis and Mr Cabrol, for the excellent work they have done on the Community "Action on Health 1999-2003' programme.
The three reports which the House has just adopted regarding programmes for Community action on rare diseases, injury prevention and pollution-related diseases clearly improve upon the proposals submitted by the Commission.
Rare diseases, which are 80 % genetic, will from now on be the objective of concerted effort on the part of the European Union and I am very pleased about this.
Early diagnosis and the pooling of scientific knowledge at a European level will enable more rapid progress to be made and this is something that everybody wants.
I am thinking, for example, of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease but also many other lesser known, but just as dreadful, diseases.
With regard to the programme on injury prevention, I must stress that Community information systems, one on intentional and one on unintentional injuries, should be set up as the rapporteur recommends.
Similarly, I am in complete agreement with him that absolute priority should be given to the groups most prone to these injuries: children, women - through domestic violence - and old people.
Finally, pollution-related diseases are becoming more and more unacceptable.
The consequences of atmospheric pollution, in particular those linked to transport and water pollution, but also noise and construction materials - asbestos, for example - must be the object of an ambitious programme, as desired by the rapporteur.
I therefore hope that the Commission and the Council will take great note of the wishes of Parliament in this matter.
Trakatellis, Viceconte, Cabrol and Flemming reports
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the Trakatellis, Viceconte, Cabrol and Flemming reports on popular health programmes in the EU.
These programmes will cover research and cooperation between Member States until the year 2003.
We believe that cooperation on health and exchange of experience in particular is working well.
The problem with the programmes is that they are all-inclusive, and so implicitly promise an enormous amount, but when it comes down to the detail, there is no money for very much more health for the citizens of Europe.
We would also like to point out that these programmes come under Article 129 of the Treaty, which calls for cooperation between Member States, although is not mean the same as harmonizing those states' health policies.
An EU health policy is the same as an EU environment and consumer policy where the competence exists.
Integrating health principles where relevant and applying the principle of caution are together worth more than these programmes, which may be more for show.
Bazin report (A4-0072/98)
The report by the chairman of the Committee on Transport and Tourism bears the stamp of good sense.
The legislative proposal aims to complete the production of harmonized statistical data on the carriage of goods by road.
Within the framework of the Single Market it is essential to assure a description of the origin and destination of international transport.
This collecting of statistical returns will enable an analysis of the traffic corridors and of the so-called sensitive routes as well as an improvement in the reflection on a common transport policy.
The achievement of this objective requires a financial effort on the part of the European Union in order to support that of the Member States.
We support the position of the Committee on Budgets, which aims to renew the funding of ECU 300 000 for 1998 and 1999.
Finally, our satisfaction with this proposal must be added to that of the road haulage professionals who participated in its formulation.
Women's rights
It may seem paradoxical to say it, but I would like to see an end to International Women's Day.
To me this would be proof that there was no more inequality between men and women, no more violence against women in any form and that they were no longer the victims of discrimination of any sort.
But we know and we can see, whilst bitterly regretting it, that we are very far from that and thus International Women's Day has "many a good day ahead of it' .
I might add that, this year, with the denunciation of the medieval obscurantism of Kabul - to which Commissioner Bonino has contributed so well - we have reached new heights in the misery which continues to affect so many women around the world.
Afghan women have become the "living dead' and the world seems incapable of doing anything about it.
It is a tragedy!
If you add this to the pain of Algerian women in the face of the terrorism they suffer you can see that perhaps there has never before been such a need to demonstrate our support to the women of the world on 8 March this year.
I welcome the call this Parliament is making to commit all EU institutions to renew efforts to improve the lives of European women at work and in the home.
However, on this particular International Women's Day - 8 March 1998 - we are turning our attention to the terrible pain and suffering being endured by Afghanistan women under the cruel Taliban regime, which has taken away their freedom of movement and freedom to work and provide for their families, as well as their right to proper health care.
We applaud the work of Commissioner Bonino and the world attention she has brought to bear on the plight of Afghanistan women.
We call on all UN countries to bring serious and unrelenting political and economic pressure to bear on the Taliban regime.
Women must be free to make their own life choices, and their lives and health must not be put at risk by the Taliban regime any longer.
The "anniversary' crowns and the celebrations of 8 March will end up by being simply quaint if not deliberately disorientating, since they do not call on women, who continue to be one of the most vulnerable categories of the population, to fight for their rights, which are being roughly trodden underfoot by today's socioeconomic system.
Throughout the length and breadth of our planet, which is being shaken by totalitarian regimes and ideas, cultural and economic backwardness, famine and destitution, where wars and clashes are being played out or even where conservative and regressive social and economic policies are being promoted, women are the first to be called upon to pay the price and face the consequences.
Women throughout the world have made a great many changes though their unrelenting and unstinting struggles, not only for women but for the progress of society as a whole.
Today we must honour the force of these struggles by calling for them to continue while fundamental problems remain unsolved and other new problems come to threaten the rights and achievements of women.
A victim of religious fanaticism, a victim of exploitation by international crime networks, a victim of unemployment and social marginalization, female dignity suffers in the most terrible way the behaviour of a world which offends human dignity and existence just as severely, though in different ways, in Third World countries, in developed countries and in countries of the European Union.
Equal opportunities for women can have no meaning in a society without equality of social outlook, a society of unemployment, underemployment, a society without a welfare state, a society of the commercialization of human worth.
Not only are social rights and social gains not expanding, they are being squeezed more and more as too costly, a fact which places even more burdens on women who have to combine many duties with dual and triple social roles.
Flexible forms of employment, which are being offered to women with great largesse, are not a product of growth but represent the flexibility of the economically strong, which enables them to offset the economic crisis and to safeguard their competitiveness to the disadvantage of working people. The chief victims are women, who continue to be paid less for equivalent work, and who continue to face more problems and unequal opportunities of access to the labour market.
Women continue to hold mainly lower grade and unskilled jobs and to have limited participation in responsible and senior administrative jobs in economic, social and political life.
The institutional protection of women against any form of discrimination and the guarantee of their positive influence in social, economic and political life, cannot be achieved independently of the reorientation and the reorganization, often from the very foundations, of the model of development of our societies.
In the face of plans for war, for exploitation and for oppression, in the face of a tactic of discrimination, women are called upon to push forward their own demands in the context of a broad popular battlefront, in each country individually and at European and international level, to express the common struggle to obstruct this policy, until it is overturned and until the power of the people is established.
In this world there are many inhuman and revolting situations imposed on women and these cause rightful indignation which is largely shared by all.
Other situations are, unfortunately, much less well known, and were not mentioned in last Monday's debate.
UN agencies specialized in population issues, along with the IMF and World Bank, practise a veritable imperialism towards a substantial number of African and Latin American countries, making development aid conditional on permanent or, when it relates to chemical treatments, partial sterilization policies imposed on women who are often illiterate.
Let us also consider the plight of Chinese women, who are subjected to an implacable Malthusianism, to forced abortions, even infanticide if they surpass their "quota' of children authorized by the communist authorities!
Let us consider African women, up until now the linchpin of local economic life, who have been hit hard by structural adjustment policies imposed by the ideology of the world market!
In Europe, women often see a male model of social and professional achievement imposed on them, which brings about a double workload, often to the detriment of their personal well-being and that of their family.
Under the guise of the sexual liberation of 1968 onwards the trivialization of sexuality, which has reduced sex to an immediate consumer object, exposes many young women and girls to problems which compromise a full and lasting life as part of a couple.
There is clearly still a great deal of ground to be covered before women from different societies around the world can be recognized fully, not in a climate of rivalry exacerbated by men, but in respect of their equal dignity and their own responsibility as men or women.
Cornelissen report (A4-0065/98)
We are positive about the efforts which the Commission has made with regard to increased road safety.
Comprehensive measures are needed to reduce the number of road traffic accidents in the EU, which the Commission has also presented in its action plan.
Many accidents are still related to alcohol consumption in connection with driving.
We therefore welcome the proposal which limits the maximum permitted alcohol level in the blood to 0.5 mg alcohol per ml of blood.
This is a step in the right direction.
For reasons of principle we are also going to vote for a lower permitted limit of 0.2 mg alcohol per ml of blood.
I read Mr Pétrus Cornelissen's report attentively and I fully support the desires and objectives set out in the text.
It may seem absurd to try to reduce the number of victims in a text.
Nevertheless, given the extent of the figures at Union level, financial measures are urgently required.
I would like to remind you all that the tragedies which affect thousands of families are very costly to society as a whole.
Mr Cornelissen's text contains many good ideas, both in the area of prevention and suppression and I feel that a correlation between social legislation and safety in the area of road transport is most timely.
The particularly tragic accident which occurred on the Lille-Gand motorway recently makes it necessary to take specific measures when climatic conditions are especially propitious to serious accidents.
Fog is statistically the most dangerous, in particular on the major trunk roads.
I have already asked the Commission to look into specific measures to be taken in particularly dense fog and I would like to take advantage of the debate on this report to encourage all Members to agree to a possible temporary closure of motorways in thick fog.
This proposal will undoubtedly surprise some of my colleagues.
However it can be explained in terms of the price paid by thousands of our citizens, killed or injured in similar conditions.
The number of dead and injured that are sacrificed every year on the roads of the Member States of the European Union is comparable to the number of those who are killed or wounded in a war.
What else could one say about the 45 000 who are killed, the 500 000 who are taken to hospital, or the 160, 000 who are injured!
Unfortunately, first prize for this awful death toll in all probability goes to my country, in proportion to its population, with 2 000 dead, 32 000 injured and approximately 22 000 accidents a year.
However many plans are put forward, however many programmes are implemented, however good are the intentions of those who promote them, the situation, unfortunately, is not going to change significantly. The reason for this is that there is no radical change in the overall transport policy which would transfer the bulk from private individual means to public mass means of transportation.
The aim of this would be, among other things, to reduce or at least to limit the number of traded vehicles and to achieve better control of the safety conditions in which they circulate.
In our view, there are several basic causes of the exacerbation and perpetuation of the problem including the continuing reckless policy of promoting and increasing the sales and profits of large motor car manufacturers without the existence of suitable infrastructures to support the continually increasing volume of vehicles. Here, we also include the ageing fleet of vehicles due to the lowering of people's standard of living, the deteriorating state of the road network and corresponding infrastructures due to policies of financial stringency, and the continuing violation of safety regulations and the rights of working people in the area of transportation for the cause of pure competition and an increase in profits.
To the enormous cost in human lives and the consequences of road traffic accidents we must add the significant social and economic cost, which is shouldered by the population. Instead, those directly responsible should shoulder the burden of necessary expenditure and appropriate measures for the prevention of accidents.
We believe that the report makes positive proposals and improves the Commission proposal by promoting measures for the improvement of the road network and other necessary infrastructures, the safety of cars and the safeguarding of the observance of rules of conduct.
However, we believe that it is more important that those measures become reality, and that they do not face technical and artificial obstacles.
They must be the subject of wider debate and activity and they must be accompanied by education from the very youngest age, passing through all levels and structures of education, to the rules of the highway code. They must lead to social control over the taking of preventive measures; this concerns not only users and people working in the transport sector but also the guarantee of safety specifications for vehicles and infrastructures.
If legislation is to be considered at all at EU level, it must relate to minimum rules.
Every country should have the right to go further by keeping or introducing tougher rules.
Mr Cornelissen's report rightly sets the objective of rapidly and sharply reducing the number of road traffic accidents which each year kill 45 000 people in the European Union and injure another 1.6 million more.
The report condemns the behaviour of some individuals, who put other people's lives in danger, as well as their own.
It also highlights the need for a global strategy on road safety, in both the area of vehicle safety and choice of method of transport.
In this respect I am glad that the comments I made regarding the need to readjust the balance in favour of rail transport, a reduction in working hours of lorry drivers and controls on existing regulations have been taken into account.
We all know how real the link between fatigue and the risk of an accident really is.
As regards road safety, a sense of responsibility will be encouraged through the provision of the necessary financial means to create the best conditions of safety possible.
We are sensitive to the tragedy of road accidents and to the importance of road safety.
Indeed, road traffic is responsible for almost 95 % of all victims of traffic accidents.
Over the whole of the European Union this represents 900 accidental deaths per week and some 500 000 people being hospitalized every year, of whom 25 % end up with varying degrees of permanent disability.
Consequently, we agree with the different objectives put forward by the rapporteur.
Indeed, it is particularly important to protect children at school entrances, to improve the standardization of vehicle safety systems, to assure the safety of cyclists and pedestrians and to give some notion of first aid in driving schools.
Nevertheless, in point 7(c), the rapporteur suggests prohibiting the sale of alcohol in service stations on motorways.
We should remember that it is forbidden to drink alcohol in motorway restaurants, if not accompanied by a meal.
This measure seems largely sufficient to us since it is linked to the maximum level of alcohol permitted in drivers' blood, which is 0.5 mg/ml of blood.
It should be noted that motorways pass through many producing regions, in particular the wine producing areas, and that it is therefore logical for producers to sell their regional goods at service stations.
These products are bought by consumers for consumption at their place of destination.
In conclusion, this ban would bring no improvement to the current situation. On the contrary, it would cause negative effects on the promotion of regional produce and on the preservation of the regional cultures of the different Member States of the European Union.
Given that at present one in three of us in the European Union can expect to be treated in hospital at some point for injuries suffered in a road accident, we should all welcome the Commission road safety programme.
The report rightly calls for priority to be given to EU action to ensure that vehicles are produced with safety foremost in all manufacturers' minds and to give consumers a safety rating system to bear in mind when buying a vehicle.
Given the number of people who now drive in EU countries other than their home state, it is also a sound idea to consider an EU-wide penalty point system for driving licences.
Similarly, the safety of both professional drivers and everyone else on Europe's roads can be increased by enforced rest periods and driving hours limits.
I hope that the Commission will take this report's safety suggestions on board so that all of us will need to worry less in future whether we will be the unlucky one out of every three citizens to need hospital treatment for injuries on the road.
I think Mr Cornelissen's excellent report is a good basis for discussion.
He puts his finger on a number of trouble spots in the area of road safety.
The only part I find disappointing is where he speaks of the need for better driver education by ensuring that driving schools function better.
It has been proved - and the statistics are extremely clear in this regard - that it is, in particular, excessive speed, incomplete and outdated training and a certain lack of concern behind the wheel which are at the basis of this new human scourge.
But if we want to change this situation we have to revolutionize the way driving schools function.
Training must be completed in slow cars, with a maximum speed of 20 kilometres per hour in town and 80 kilometres per hour on main roads.
I can honestly say that it breaks my heart to hear or to read that a certain young person, very often having passed his driving test only a few days, or even hours earlier, has lost his life because our society is not functioning in the way that it should.
It is thus a shame that the rapporteur has not wanted to copy the example of France and introduce accompanied driving.
We have here the categorical proof - and the chairman, Jean-Pierre Bazin, has confirmed it on my request - that thousands of young French drivers have obtained their driving licences through accompanied driving.
These young drivers drive between 3 000 and 5 000 kilometres during their learning period, in place of the 200 to 300 kilometres through the traditional driving school system.
But the most worthwhile result of accompanied driving is that accidents involving these young drivers are far fewer than those who have undergone traditional instruction, and this is statistically proven.
Nevertheless, what seems even more important to me is that this new form of training creates a highly beneficial and new link between the parents and the candidate as they are literally on hand, that is, next to the learner, to advocate caution, give advice and form a sense of responsibility in the candidate regarding his own life and that of others.
How does accompanied driving work? The principle of accompanied driving encompasses three stages.
Firstly, initial training takes place in a recognized driving school.
This training can commence from the age of 16.
Then, practice with one or a number of designated accompaniers over the age of 28 who have held a driving licence for at least three years.
The young driver must, within a time scale of one to two years, spend at least 3 000 kilometres driving under these conditions, with regular visits to an instructor.
The driving test can be taken from the age of 18 onwards.
I would like to make a second comment.
The rapporteur mentions only briefly the penalty points driving licence.
However, I am convinced that the introduction of such a licence would have a favourable and direct impact on road safety and awareness raising, and would certainly reduce the total number of accidents in the various countries.
Increasing fines is perhaps a good thing for the state's finances, but when all is said and done it is an anti-social measure since some are able to pay whilst others are not.
To have a points system on your driving licence would at least have the benefit of putting everyone on an equal footing.
I sincerely think that we must not under-estimate the psychological effect on drivers with problems, for whom a retraining course should be considered and, for the most hardened cases, the withdrawal of their driving licence for a certain period of time.
My third remark concerns the lowering of speed limits in towns.
I fully share the rapporteur's opinion that something must be done.
With regard to how we achieve a reduction of speed within towns, I think that the principle of priority to the right should be generalized in all towns.
It is a cheap but effective method.
Kreissl-Dörfler report (A4-0073/98)
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations firmly supports the criticism of the draft multilateral agreement on international investments on which a vote has just been taken with the Kreissl-Dörfler report.
Indeed, we consider that whereas it may be useful to provide an overall legal framework to these investments, the text of the agreement should establish, in its first article, the inalienable sovereignty of a people and their right to choose the laws and the type of society that suits them.
There is no question of us accepting the project as it stands thus prepared by the OECD, which seems to put Member States in the position of the accused, as if the only result of their actions was the prevention of multinational firms from working for the common good.
Worse still, we see in this the outline of a world where multinationals will be the major players and where individual states are in some way reduced to the role of sub-contractor for questions of local security.
This approach is radically contrary to our concept of the sovereignty of nations and of the distinguished role of synthesis which politics must play.
We are therefore delighted with the European Parliament's sudden burst of resistance and would like to comment on the fact that our protests regarding the GATT have perhaps slowly and finally borne fruit: a good number of the motions voted for today, for example on the need for a clause recognizing the legitimacy of regional preference zones, would have been included in the GATT if our requests had been listened to at the time.
But this sudden outburst from Parliament is insufficient, for the multilateral agreement on investments is only one aspect of a more general movement which is developing on many levels and which tends to distance power from the control of the people and to take away from them the final word in controlling their destiny.
Thus, on a different level, the Amsterdam project pushes us in the same direction, by by-passing national democracies, by reducing the quality of democratic control in Europe and by favouring the emergence of a technocratic European power which obeys the pressures of the global financial powers far more than the needs of its people.
It is for these reasons that we must reject not only the MAI, but also the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Mr President, I am pleased to support this report which raises serious and fundamental concerns about the multilateral agreement on investment and calls on the Member States responsible for its negotiation to respond.
I have been involved in meetings with our UK Government representatives and know they are listening to the concerns.
They have already tabled a large number of exceptions, a proposal for special and differentiated treatment for developing countries, the aim of transferring discussions into the WTO and a study on the development impact of the agreement, all of which are consistent with our resolution today.
I make two further points of principle: first, it is for those who proposed the agreement to justify why there should be a different standard of legal protection given as of right to the investor, in comparison to the responsibility he or she has in relation to human rights, labour, social or environmental standards.
Secondly, in our support for the inclusion of the OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises as an appendix to the MAI, we must recognize that these can and must be made more effective, and that we, in the European Union, have a direct responsibility in relation to promoting appropriate codes of conduct.
We are critical of the MAI agreement in its current form.
It gives far too extensive rights to multinational investors, while the political influence of national governments is severely restricted.
There is a risk that democracy will be greatly undermined.
We are voting for the report which deals with the shortfalls in the agreement, and we would like in particular to stress the importance of Amendment No 1.
We regret that the debate on an agreement which severely restricts democracy such as this has been conducted behind closed doors, and that it has been conducted within the OECD rather than in an international body in which developing countries have an opportunity to participate and to influence the content of the agreement.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for his good work on a very important report.
We think that the criticism of the OECD agreement on a multilateral agreement on investment (MAI) which is made in the report is fully justified.
We think that the existing ideas for MAI contain a number of unacceptable elements which demand that people in the European Union act collectively for major changes.
The issue also shows the importance of strong associations of the kind the European Union represents and the need for the European Parliament to have the opportunity to express its opinion on the Union's participation in this agreement.
The MAI issue requires additional, clear scrutiny, and the role of the European Parliament must be seen as an important element in such scrutiny.
We are the first parliament to discuss the draft multilateral agreement on investments and to give an opinion on this subject.
We believe that governments should not accept the agreement as it stands.
Firstly, we challenge the approach.
Opaque and secret negotiations have been held within the OECD, with no debate on the objectives, the appropriateness or the purpose of this type of agreement.
We challenge its ideological foundations.
Liberalism on a world scale will become the only driving force behind both governments and "non-governments' .
The rapporteur raises a number of questions.
Will the multilateral agreement be incompatible with international agreements such as the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21 or the United Nations guidelines on consumer protection? As the rapporteur notes, what guarantees do we have that the environmental, social and cultural policies of the European Union and its Member States will be respected?
As the rapporteur also notes, what mechanisms must we put in place to protect the cultural sector from unconditional liberalization?
For the Group of the Party of European Socialists, there is no question of accepting such an agreement in its present state.
It is a warning to governments that they must not lose their means of action or regulation.
Citizens often feel dispossessed of their future by an all-powerful economic globalization.
Governments must share this concern with them.
The Kreissl-Dörfler report contains a lot of sensible views, but even so I am unable to support it.
I believe that, in the final instance, this report is superfluous for the simple reason that, as point 8 of the report itself states, the EU is not a member of the OECD.
So I cannot be pleased in any way that the Commission is actively involved in negotiations on an agreement on multilateral investments at OECD level.
I feel it is a bad habit that, as we are seeing more and more, the Commission is being put on an equal position with EU Member States in international negotiations.
There is no doubt in my mind what the intention is here: trying to give the EU the status of an economic and political superpower.
Finally, I would like to say that I am glad that the Kreissl-Dörfler report is against this future OECD agreement -possibly - restricting EU law and making it more difficult to pass new EU legislation on the environment, for example.
On this point, I would merely point out that EU Member States themselves are now subject to the same restrictions when it comes to their own national legislation.
This is a situation caused precisely by the basically rigid, centralist form of the EU treaties.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's report shows very precisely the great risk the MAI will represent in respect of our European social, cultural and political model and, more fundamentally still, for democracy and people's capacity to control their own destiny in general.
I supported the Group of the Party of European Socialist's amendment encouraging the European Parliament to insist that governments and national parliaments do not sign the agreement as it currently stands.
Indeed, it is precisely the currently prevailing logic which must be condemned, rejected and brought to a halt.
As it stands, the MAI constitutes a new stage, a decisive one, one of liberation, of economic globalization with no protective rules, with no democratic rules which, as we know, does not benefit the majority of people, not even in the developed world.
If such an agreement were to be put in place, we would be depriving individual states, the European Union and public authorities of their means of action and authoritative sovereignty to enact, for example, social or environmental rulings, commitments benefiting regional development or employment or to use Structural Funds, incentives and selective measures.
The multinationals would become masters of our world in the name of the sacrosanct free market and free competition. They would hold all power and, in particular, the possibility - and this really is the limit - of bringing a state to justice on the grounds of a "loss of profit opportunity' , a company's profits prevailing over the choice and interest of a people!
What will be left to our democracies but the crumbs of power which these omnipotent forces leave them? If it becomes concrete, the MAI will make European political and social construction all the more difficult and will remove all substance from it.
In short, the project of a community which is master of its own destiny, capable of giving life to an area of solidarity, liberty, creativity and cultural diversity, will no longer have any sense nor the effective possibility of embodying this.
We must therefore put a stop to this deviation.
Of course, we can only subscribe to a better organization of investment possibilities in a transparent and just framework and the report clearly sets out the conditions without which such an agreement cannot be accepted.
The framework of this agreement must be global and cannot be defined by the rich or developed countries alone.
That is why the OECD is not the right body to do this.
The WTO, or better still UNCTAD or the UN, would be in a position to offer a more representative context in which to draw it up.
Any initiative must be ruled out until global social and environmental standards have been set.
The individual states and political and public inter-state organizations such as the European Union must retain their right to act, to ensure that the interest of their people prevails, to regulate the economy with social, fiscal and environmental regulations.
In short, democratic sovereignty must in no way be ceded to the economic interests of the powerful.
The MAI is unacceptable!
We Nordic EU critics support the strong criticism of the MAI agreement in the report.
We believe that the agreement in its current form would have such serious adverse consequences that it should not be signed.
It is unreasonable that an agreement with extensive global consequences should be negotiated solely between the rich industrialized nations in the OECD.
The agreement should instead be negotiated in the framework of the UN or possibly the WTO.
Negotiations in the OECD countries are also characterized by great secrecy and a lack of parliamentary control.
The contents of the agreement are completely unacceptable.
Its proposals mean that transnational companies are given extensive rights at the expense of the states.
That means that companies, through the courts, can overturn democratic decisions in important areas such as the environment, management of natural resources and social issues.
The agreement totally lacks any wording which guarantees the rights of workers, environmental standards and important national interests.
There are also parts of the report which we cannot accept.
These include the positive view of the Commission's role in the negotiations and the demand that the EU should be given the authority to make decisions on questions concerning foreign direct investments.
The multilateral agreement on investments adds one more piece to the puzzle of the world market.
European public opinion will discover that tax aids to investment, budgetary financing of our facilities and the levels financed by taxes borne by our tax payers will all also benefit the multinationals controlled by the United States.
Tax payers in the European Union are going to pay to offer markets, jobs and profits to our North American competitors.
The European Union which, with 350 million inhabitants, should be a power over and above the nation state, thus shows its dark reality: it is an authority submissive to the power of the WTO, to that of the OECD, and to the ideology of global free trade.
The farmers have known this since the GATT agreement in 1994, if not before.
The steel workers, coal workers and textile workers experienced it at the cost of losing their jobs and having their lives ruined.
It is now the turn of the privileged world of cinema and television to discover that globalism, the removal of borders and free trade, is synonymous with a loss of security, a loss of national protection and unfair competition.
The MAI will make actors, directors, producers and other members of the media profession realize that free trade destroys, breaks up and sows misery within nations.
So these privileged people who had not one word to say in solidarity with the destruction of Lorraine, the depopulation of Nord-Pas de Calais, the miners, workers and 12 million small farmers wiped out and thrown into despair, these millionaires of cinema and television, the Taverniers, Brigitte Fosseys, Jeanne Moreaus or Klappichs of this world, these Pontius Pilates of the Maastricht Treaty, are now screaming blue murder.
These children of the world, these white Zulus, shamans of globalist rites, are converting to protectionism, discovering the benefits of national protection and calling for state sovereignty.
Those who used to refuse national preference now call for corporatist preference.
What a turn up for the books!
They have gone directly from Maastricht, Geneva or Hollywood to Vichy.
For us, it would have been enough if they had stopped at Paris.
For this is where the sovereignty of a country which cares for its people and its children lies.
Given its confederal nature, the explanation of vote of the Confederal Group of the European United Left must outline the reasons behind the vote of all its components and members which in this, as in other cases, do not necessarily coincide.
There was a consensus during the internal discussion of the Kreissl-Dörfler report, and in the statements of the members of our group in denouncing the process whereby the MAI agreement was reached. This was conducted virtually up to the time of signing with practically no publicity or democratic debate that would be desirable and indeed necessary in the light of its importance, not only regarding public opinion in EU Member States but also regarding third countries outside the OECD.
I would mention the fact that the Committee on External Economic Relations, chaired by Mrs Luciana Castellina, took the initiative of drawing up a report. It does honour to this House in the manner in which it lends an institutional dimension to the expressions of protest and reservations voiced when the agreement became known, particularly in the cultural and artistic sphere.
And, notwithstanding all the commitments necessary to turn it into a Parliament resolution, Mrs Kreissl-Dörfler's report has succeeded in making a concrete contribution by manifesting an openly critical position regarding the process and its result.
The vote of the components and members of the Confederal Group of the European United Left was also based on their consensus in rejecting a situation whereby multilateral investment agreements, which are drawn up and negotiated between political leaders and major business groups, can prevail over national legislations which are the product of democratic structures and mechanisms and which defend national positions in the economic, social, cultural or environmental spheres.
in writing. (EL) The might of big business, represented by the governments and states of the OECD and headed by the USA and the EU, have decided to launch an attack on national sovereignty and independence, by doing away with the fundamental right of nations to choose the pathway to their own growth and development.
To date, there has been the possibility, albeit limited and on the basis of the correlation of powers, of exercising some autonomous economic policy, since draconian programmes of consolidation have not been imposed by international credit organizations or associations of regional integration. There has also been the possibility of concluding bilateral agreements which, to a certain extent, took account of the mutual interests of the participants.
With the agreement that is being drawn up, the safeguarding of profits and, more generally, of the interests of foreign investors determines every measure of social, environmental, developmental or regional policy, under threat of the severest penalties in the event of a violation of the provisions which protect, wholly and exclusively, foreign investments.
The oppressive nature of the agreement is such that we can talk of a charter of the rights of multinationals and of the obligations of nations and governments.
The fact that only foreign investors have the right of recourse concerning the observance of the agreement, while this same possibility is not given to states, is certainly worth noting.
The agreement gives every multinational the possibility of demanding the state in which it is investing to abstain from any attempt to support national production or some sector or some region through the granting of state assistance or other advantages.
Foreign investments cannot be accompanied by conditions for the support of local production, for the employment of the local workforce or for the respect of labour relations.
States will not be able to negotiate or even impose on multinationals the slightest commitment to reinvest a part of their profits or exchange their technology.
In fact, multinationals will have the right at any time to export the whole of their profits and their capital and to move towards whatever other accommodation they deem to be to their advantage.
Moreover, the implementation of the agreement will allow multinational companies to rescind any previous commitment they have undertaken in relation to the investments they have already made.
The agreement deals a hard blow for the trade-union rights of working people and urges governments to crack down in any way on labour movements by brandishing the threat of compensation for lost profits as a result of strikes, social unrest and even revolts.
At the same time, the standstill principle consolidates any liberalizing or deregulatory measure, given that every new measure to protect social rights could be attacked as being protectionist and could therefore be invalidated.
It is particularly striking that the text, which aims to subject people at a global level to the hunt for increased profits, has been surrounded by the utmost secrecy. Its ratification will oblige developed countries to submit to the method of "adhere or be condemned' .
We have never before seen in the annals of international law the fundamental abolition of the right of release with the planned commitment of states for at least five years from the date of ratification and for fifteen years from the date of rescission.
The central issue of directly thwarting any further negotiation and quashing any attempt to accept such plans is hidden, since attention is focused simply on the exemption of certain sectors from the scope of the agreement.
In the event that this agreement finally comes up for ratification our position must be to reject it unconditionally.
Nations cannot tolerate the planned dictatorship of multinationals and will do everything to overturn it.
The intensity of the euphoria surrounding international agreements may have the adverse result of cancelling their desired positive effects.
The European Union has shown a tendency to produce ever more agreements without stopping to think whether each additional agreement contributes anything new and, more particularly, whether it runs counter to the basic interests of society as a whole, in terms of the future.
The current negotiations with the United States - which have immense implications for the future of a European model of society - is one, although by no means the only example.
Under the MAI agreement, in the context of the OECD, the European Union could exert considerable influence if all its members were united in defending a long-term view which did not benefit the market at the expense of the European acquis in the environmental sphere.
The MAI agreement differs from its WTO counterpart on account not only of the identity and number of countries involved, but also of the type of negotiation involved.
Under GATT/WTO, any countries concerned with defending the interests of the European audiovisual sector had only to refrain from making offers in that area.
In contrast, under MAI, which is approaching its culmination in May, the audiovisual exception must be expressly guaranteed.
This will be an acid-test for the Union.
Let us hope that we are not disappointed.
I am going to vote for the report - assuming that Amendment No 1 is approved - because it is critical of the MAI agreement and in effect demands that it should be renegotiated.
However, I have reservations about certain formulations, such as point 22 of the draft report which seeks to approve a ban on investment subsidies.
That would damage Swedish regional policy which is based in part on investment incentives.
There are also a number of other points in the report of which I am sceptical, and which I would like to see expressed in a different manner.
Flemming report (A4-0022/98)
As a doctor in charge of a hospital ear, nose and throat unit, I witness the damage caused by the abuse of tobacco on a daily basis.
Nevertheless, I do not believe that we need to withdraw our support to tobacco production in Europe over the next ten years in order to guarantee public health.
This kind of tobacco prohibition, which would damage our economy, would have little effect in reducing the annual consumption of cigarettes, since supplies could be obtained from American and Asian producers who are always looking for new outlets.
This prohibition would be matched by financial support to tobacco growers to change to other forms of agricultural production.
This would automatically be an extra burden on the budget, and the extent of this has not yet been assessed.
A real problem of choice would also be raised with regard to the nature of such diversification, given the system of quotas and the surpluses that already exist for many products.
What sort of a situation are we going to put the producers in?
They are already getting worried. Are we not going to destroy jobs without improving the health situation?
On the other hand, the proposal to carry out research into the cultivation of other types of tobacco with lower levels of nicotine seems far more logical in terms of its medical and economic consequences.
It would contribute to a real improvement in consumer protection.
Whilst supporting the underlying principles of the Flemming report, I would like to emphasize the unrealistic and utopian nature of a number of its proposals, should they be translated into fact.
As everyone knows, Article 129 of the Treaty of Amsterdam increases the obligations of the European Union towards the protection of public health and consumers.
That means that in order for the Union to address and properly fulfil its new commitments in these areas and, especially, the demand for health protection to be included in Community policies, new proposals will have to be presented following the ratification of that Treaty.
The Commission's report is correct and detailed.
However, in view of the new step taken in Amsterdam on these matters, the Union now demands new approaches.
We therefore call for a Green Paper, to inform us of the Commission's new actions to fulfil the Union's new health policy, as I mentioned earlier.
The reports from the Commission and the European Parliament are both welcome.
I think it is important that public health aspects are taken into account when the EU shapes its policies, including transport measures and agricultural policy.
At the same time the report surprises me because, in fact, it indirectly criticizes the decisions made in the EU, including decisions taken last year.
Several areas can be mentioned, such as genetically-modified food products, support for environmental poisons in agriculture, an open door for salmonella and antibiotics, support for several infrastructure measures in road transport and support for tobacco growing.
All these areas have in common the fact that they affect public health and so should not have been shaped in the way they actually were.
I fully support point 10 of the report which points out that the aim of today's tobacco subsidies is that they should be phased out and eventually end completely.
I hope that the European Parliament takes this decision, since so many times in the past the majority has continued to support subsidies for tobacco growers.
Just as political decisions which affect the environment should be accompanied by environmental impact assessments, decisions which affect health and consumer protection should be accompanied by health effect assessments.
However, there is no reason to set up a separate control apparatus at EU level; this should be left to the Member States.
Environment, health and consumer issues should be given greater priority in political work at European level.
Majority decisions may be justified, but it should then be a question of minimum rules.
Each Member State should have the right to keep higher standards or introduce tougher rules than provided for by the EU.
On the issue of tobacco growing the approach should be that subsidies for tobacco growing should be phased out within a five to ten-year period.
In order not to increase unemployment, the growers should be offered alternative crops and support to develop them.
I voted in favour of the report.
The importance of protecting health within the European Union must be emphasized.
For this reason, the report that has been approved today deserves our overall support in terms of drawing up a Green Paper analysing the future areas of action for a European policy in the area of health and the need for mutual recognition of professional qualifications in the sector. I also support the points made on the defence of the rights of patients, including compensation in cases of inappropriate treatment, the implementation of high safety standards in the veterinary and phytosanitary spheres and, finally, the reorganization and clarification of responsibilities in this area which is subject to problems at Commission level.
However, as we say in Portugal, there is always a "but' and here it lies in the fact that, on the subject of tobacco, this report echoes others in adopting only a partial approach to the problem.
It skates over the need to promote a pedagogical approach and to introduce preventive measures which discourage tobacco consumption, which is a clear and obvious factor of risk for health. It makes no suggestions for preventing or placing a global ban on tobacco advertising, particularly at sporting events.
It merely emphasizes, in point 10, the need to stop subsidies for tobacco growing in the European Union, and even specifies maximum periods of ten years for this to come into effect.
In a manner that verges on the hypocritical, the report ignores the fact that this policy could put tens of thousands more people out of work in some regions where there are no alternatives in either the short or medium term.
Curiously, it forgets that halting tobacco production in the European Union would simply give rise to higher imports and hence additional profits for the large tobacco-producing multinationals, which retain their empires intact and which are not even mentioned in the report.
We question this partial approach to the health implications of tobacco consumption, and clear protectionism of the interests of the tobacco firms.
For this reason, we voted against those points where this partial approach is most obvious and significant, and for those amendments which sought to minimize them and which, fortunately, were ultimately accepted.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is also aware of the effects of tobacco abuse on health that have been noted by the rapporteur in his explanatory statement.
Nevertheless, if you estimate the number of deaths per year in the European Union caused by tobacco at around 500 000, it is also appropriate to note that various recent epidemiological studies have shown that in the United States the death rate due to tobacco, whilst not decreasing, is remaining constant.
This is true even though tobacco consumption has been falling constantly there for more than twenty years.
Our group has tabled an amendment to point 10 of the motion for a resolution.
The rapporteur considers it necessary to reduce, even withdraw, the system of aid to tobacco growers.
On many occasions over the past few years we have been reminded that the European Union imports 70 % of its tobacco and that we should not therefore link the aid to tobacco growers' incomes to tobacco abuse and its effects on health.
Our group would thus like to see a restrictive policy with regard to the promotion of tobacco consumption.
We must not confuse tobacco abuse caused by tobacco consumption with production.
We would like to remind you that if support to tobacco growers' incomes were withdrawn European production would immediately cease with all the inherent consequences on employment.
Tobacco imports from third countries would increase greatly to compensate for the reduction in European production.
The impact on tobacco abuse would be zero and the European Commission would have thus caused an increase in unemployment within the Union, particularly in marginalized areas already strongly affected by unemployment.
Alzheimer's disease
I fully support this series of questions regarding Alzheimer's disease.
It was high time they were raised.
Indeed, it seems necessary to put in place an action programme against this disease, which affects a considerable number of old and sometimes even young people in the European Union.
It is essential to establish a programme of this type on the basis of both research and on prevention and treatment.
Let me add that any progress in the fight against this disease must be considered as an improvement in the living conditions of the elderly.
It is worth noting that apart from the health aspect there is a social and, quite simply, a human issue taking shape.
A large number of elderly people find themselves cut off from all links with society and Alzheimer's disease only accentuates this sad fact.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank health and geriatric staff for what is generally recognized as the high quality of their work.
Specific training must be encouraged in order to respond in the best way possible to the needs of those affected by this terrible illness which condemns people to isolation.
It is encouraging to see that Parliament is looking into the matter.
It is already two years since Parliament adopted the Poggiolini report, which requested the Commission to present an action programme to fight Alzheimer's disease and other neurological syndromes which affect the cognitive functions.
The text at the time requested that this programme should be implemented as soon as possible.
It has to be noted that the delay has been longer than anticipated.
It is, of course, a difficult issue. The disease is misunderstood, its causes remain unclear, epidemiological studies have been limited to a few Western countries and staff as a whole have been ill prepared to care for the sick.
This is all the more reason for making advances in the scientific areas of neuro-biological, epidemiological and therapeutic work.
The Commission must double its efforts, support research and make special budgetary provisions in order to speed up the improvement in care that the sufferers deserve.
The proportion of those affected by Alzheimer's disease in developed countries, where it has been mainly observed, is already high.
The numbers are significant and high in comparison to other viral diseases such as AIDS.
However, neither information nor scientific research, nor prevention, nor cure, nor dealing with the sufferers has received the necessary, systematic, comprehensive, social and collective attention commensurate with its gravity.
The reason for this is perhaps that this disease mainly concerns elderly people.
To date there have only been research programmes of limited scope, while the funding of programmes does not correspond to scientific and social interest.
The often heavy medical expenses and social burdens continue to be borne by the families of the patients, resulting in significant financial, psychological and social costs.
Alzheimer's disease does not feature in any social security organization funding programme, while neither the Member States nor the Commission have responded to the need to step up efforts to fight a disease which is turning into a scourge, since forecasts predict that it will affect 8 million people by the year 2000.
After the squeezing of pensions and social benefits in the name of profit and competitiveness, a new type of racism is being cultivated by the state and by the organs of social security against a section of the population which is vulnerable to such diseases.
The rules of an unaccountable free market "vote' for death when this costs less than life.
Community policy continuously puts off examining the issue until the future, a future which is however very uncertain for the thousands of sufferers. We should concern ourselves with their present by taking supportive measures and creating infrastructures of therapeutic care, by organizing care centres and programmes for the specialist training of medical and geriatric staff who will look after the patients and who will be able to relieve their family environment of the psychological and social consequences of the disease.
It is necessary in the immediate future to fund research into the causes, the prevention, the timely diagnosis and the combating of Alzheimer's disease, along with the related syndromes.
A society which presumes to look forward to an increase in average life expectancy and indeed under the best possible conditions, cannot possibly allow greedy "profit' to hand over unopposed the spirit and personality of the elderly to the effects of a disease which is so painful and catastrophic for the sufferers and their families.
(The sitting was adjourned at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Situation in Kosovo (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Council's statement on the situation in Kosovo which was suspended prior to the vote.
Madam President, it is rather pointless continuing a debate which seems to have already ended, but let us carry on.
The Albanians who live in Kosovo are asking for something which I think is logical and self-evident and they have been asking for it for many years: the recognition of their right to determine their own fate.
They are asking for respect of their human rights and the leader in Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic, chooses, against all logic, the policy of intensification.
This is a policy which facilitates extremist elements that exist among the Albanian population.
The terrorists of the so-called Freedom Army of Kosovo, with their violence and murder, are not helping the Albanians of Kosovo.
For his part, Slobodan Milosevic does not seem to have learned very much from the still fresh wounds of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia.
Events in Kosovo are creating dangers for the whole region.
Preventing the crisis from spreading to the neighbouring states of Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia must be the prime aim of the European Union.
I think that we must regard the actions of the Presidency and the initiatives of Mr Cook as very constructive.
Serious problems are already being created by the movement of the population towards the south and west of Kosovo.
If several thousand refugees are forced to take refuge in neighbouring countries, the governments of Tirana and Skopje will face serious problems.
All the good work that has been done by Fados Nanos in Albania to stabilize his country will be lost.
Destabilization throughout the region would then be a fact with unforeseeable consequences for peace in the Balkans.
The European Union must not permit any changes to existing borders.
On the other hand, we cannot return to a new bloodbath in the Balkans.
What was said by Mr van den Broek and by Mr Henderson is very constructive.
It is necessary to begin immediate dialogue in order to find a solution.
This must be done by Mr Milosevic.
He owes it to the people of Serbia, who have paid very dearly for his intransigence.
Madam President, once again we have seen the distressing pictures of children and women disfigured by the violence of the Serbian government police and once again we have arrived late, despite the fact that these events were heralded by a whole series of episodes.
Last October, 3 000 Albanians claiming a fundamental right - to learn in their own language - were dispersed violently by the Serbian government police, in the silence of the diplomatic authorities of the EU.
The EU has adopted a document which was mentioned by the President-in-Office of the Council this morning and which I believe is a good document, a text that provides specific information.
But that is not the problem.
Mr President, will we manage to do what you set out in your communiqué? That is the big question!
When the Serbian government representative subjects the beginning of discussions to the recognition of the Serbian constitution, he is establishing an objectively unacceptable condition because, as you recalled, that constitution is the worst obstacle to beginning negotiations.
The situation is becoming objectively more difficult because, instead of drawing closer, the parties are moving apart.
Today, even the most moderate leaders, such as Rugova, have established extremist positions.
The Council's work therefore needs to be extremely energetic, if we want to prevent blood baths and if we want to prevent further outbreaks of war with unforeseeable consequences.
Madam President, during the discussions on the Maastricht Treaty, the war in Yugoslavia started and the country fell apart.
On the eve of the beginning of the enlargement negotiations, the nightmare of a Balkan war is looming over us.
Mr de Vries, Mr Swoboda and Mrs Pack have already given a thorough analysis of the situation, which I agree with.
So I will confine myself to asking the President of the Council a few questions.
Is the President-in-Office of the Council prepared to give the same signal with regard to Kosovo as was given to Iraq? Are there plans to send military observers to the Albanian border?
As you know, the country is full of weapons and it is said it is supplying a small liberation army.
The President appears to consider the autonomy of Kosovo important.
How is he going to get Milosevic to bring this into effect?
Madam President, in spite of the difficulties and in spite of the dramatic number of deaths in Kosovo, I think there are elements which can give us some optimism at least in relation to what happened in Bosnia.
In the case of Bosnia we had a Croatian population in Bosnia and opposed to it was a nationalistic and aggressive Mr Tudjman.
In the case of Kosovo we have an Albanian population but also Fatos Nanos, who is moderate and prudent.
In the case of Bosnia we had divided wholes. In the case of Kosovo we have borders within the framework of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
For this reason it requires prudence and effort.
Naturally pressure is also required, but Yugoslavia, Serbia, needs to be given the security to enable it to make the necessary moves. We must not forget Yugoslavia's fear of a new secession, the fear of a Vodnjan after Kosovo, the fear of a Mavrovounio after Vodnjan.
From this viewpoint I think that assurances of a border commitment would help the Yugoslav government to make the necessary moves.
Madam President, I hope nobody in this Chamber is unaware of, or in any doubt about, the seriousness of the crisis which confronts us today.
After the Bosnian war many of us feared there would be some who would use the peace as an opportunity simply to take breath before returning to their evil work.
I am fearful at the moment that we are seeing those predictions come true.
In Croatia, as we know, President Tudjman's recent speech to his party congress, the situation in eastern Slavonia and the way in which the Dayton Agreement is not being enforced effectively all indicate that the international community must not drop its guard in the region.
Clearly, in Kosovo President Milosevic believes he is strong enough to challenge that international community and its resolve.
We therefore have to send out a very clear message that we remain committed to the permanent restoration of peace and stability in the region.
We must have total unity of purpose amongst the international community.
Any small perceived difference will be exaggerated by Milosevic and used to justify his brutality.
Our condemnation of the brutality of the Serbian repression must be unambiguous while making it clear that we will have no truck whatsoever with terrorism.
I congratulate the Presidency and the contact group on the speedy response they have made to the latest crisis.
But we must ensure that sanctions are effectively enforced on Serbia and we must give support to the efforts of the Albanian, Bulgarian and FYROM governments in trying to stop the crisis spreading and destabilizing the whole region.
Recently the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy of Parliament asked for a high representative to be appointed to Kosovo.
Therefore, we welcome the new mission and mandate given to Felipe González as the personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office for the former Yugoslav Republic.
If we can resolve the short-term problems we must increase our efforts to resolve the long-term problems.
In particular, we must try to have the education agreement implemented and make progress on civil building measures within Kosovo.
Madam President, I wish to highlight one aspect that has not been debated.
Five countries, first among which is Greece - the only member of the European Union -, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey and, on the recommendation of Greece, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia yesterday established a common position on the explosive problem in Kosovo.
These are the five countries which feel more intensely than any other country that a conflagration in that tormented region would destroy in the Balkans the peace that has succeeded, with so much bloodshed, tears and horrific losses, in gaining a foothold after the partition of Yugoslavia.
And these five countries will be the first to suffer the consequences of an uncontrolled upheaval.
These last few days the President of Albania, Mr Meidani, has been on an official visit to Athens and he has heard from the most official sources that the solution to the dramatic problem must be based on a dual position: on the one hand, the exclusion of any change to the borders in the Balkans and, on the other, the recognition of general autonomy, with complete freedom and the real reinstatement of the rule of law in Kosovo.
Total respect for national rights, the tolerance of peaceful assembly and the implementation of educational agreements are the only way towards achieving constructive dialogue and breaking the vicious cycle of terrorist activities and brutal repression.
Anything else would throw lighted torches into the powder-keg of Europe.
Madam President, it is quite clear that Europe and its institutions are once again tragically late over a specifically European problem.
However, it is important for the contact group to have firmly established the terms of a political solution to the conflict; I stress political and not military, as also absurdly requested in this debate.
We now need to reject any accusation of interfering because it is not a question of interfering in the event of military intervention over a political contradiction.
At the same time, we need to reject the illusions of independence established, this morning, by Kosovo.
I believe that Europe should exert very strong pressure to ensure that Milosevic resumes direct talks with the Albanian community.
This is the problem we are faced with and the only feasible path is to have talks between the parties in question.
The objective should be a return to independence for Kosovo which has been denied by the Belgrade government.
I believe this to be a feasible path, which the Council should endeavour to follow, according to the dictates I share that have been established by the contact group.
Madam President, we have the opportunity to use preventative diplomacy to prevent Kosovo from suffering the same fate as that which we were unable to prevent in 1991 in the former Yugoslavia.
In order to do so, we must put pressure on President Milosevic to make him stop the repression immediately, initiate dialogue with the Kososvo representatives and re-establish the autonomy of that region, whose legal status he removed some years ago.
As well as putting that sort of pressure on Milosevic we must condemn terrorism, which does not work, cannot work and can never be acceptable as a means of defending political objectives.
And on those lines, we should support international political action through political means, based on two considerations: firstly, that what is happening in Kosovo is not by any means an internal problem, since in matters of democratic principles, human rights and human life there is of course no right of sovereignty; and secondly, any solution for Kosovo should be developed within the context of the existing borders, if we do not want to create further problems.
So we are going to support the measures adopted by the contact group, call on Europe to play a greater role and, of course, support the mission which appears to have been accepted by the former president of the Spanish government, Felipe González.
I would like to make a number of comments in response to the points which have been raised by colleagues in the discussion.
I reject any suggestion first of all that the Presidency has been inactive in trying to do what is practical and realistic in dealing with the problems in Kosovo.
As I said in my introduction, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, in his capacity as President of the Council, visited Belgrade and met Mr Milosevic last Thursday.
He was accompanied by the Commission.
On Monday the contact group met in London and four areas of agreement as part of political action were put in force: an arms embargo, a refusal to supply equipment which could be used in a repressive way, visa restrictions and a moratorium on financial credits with the area.
That was the basis on which the international community has spoken and has taken action.
Today my colleague, the Minister Mr Lloyd, as a Presidency envoy, is in the area, as he has been since Monday.
He will be in Belgrade.
He will also be visiting other neighbouring countries to find out about their particular problems and concerns so that he can bring that information back to the centre.
Additionally, the European Conference, which is taking place tomorrow in London, is another opportunity for matters to be discussed and again, the foreign ministers' informal meeting in Edinburgh on Friday and Saturday is yet another occasion.
If there are other ideas then they can be debated and acted upon.
There has been a lot of activity by the Presidency involving the Council, and that is also in response to Mr Bianco.
In response to Mrs van Bladel, at the moment the aim is to try to seek a political solution.
The question of any military action has not been raised.
Were it to be raised it would need to be considered whether or not it was in line with international law and whether or not it would be appropriate and effective action.
If the answer to those questions were both yes, it would then need to be decided who would be involved in it, what would be the purpose, how any military action would end, and what political solution would be required.
There are a lot of questions way down the line on all of those issues.
The important thing is to try to seek a political solution to this problem.
As one of the contributors to the debate said near the end: if it is recognized that the conduct of the Yugoslav government in Kosovo is unacceptable to the international community, the situation can be retrieved by giving back sensible autonomy to the people of Kosovo so that they can, as regards their internal affairs, determine their own future.
There has been activity, the Presidency has been active, the Council has been active and indeed the international community has responded to the crisis.
That is also reflected in the very fact that there is a debate in Parliament today and that Parliament itself is playing its role in speaking for the peoples of the European Union on how seriously they regard the situation and, it is to be hoped, how they would be able to seek a solution based on a political settlement.
Madam President, the President-in-Office looked at me when he rejected the accusation that the Presidentin-Office has not been very active.
Perhaps this was because I am one of the few people in the Chamber but I must clearly state that my criticisms were not directed at the current President-in-Office but the Presidency, Commission and even Parliament, which for many years recognized the problem without doing enough.
I hope that the present Presidency will contribute much to solving the problem and the crisis.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
ASEM process
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0174/98 - O-0004/98 to the Council and B4-0175/98 - O-0005/98 to the Commission by Mr Swoboda and Mr Titley, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the ASEM process; -B4-0176/98 - O-0018/98 by Mr Bertens on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council on the next Asia-Europe meeting (ASEM); -B4-0178/98 - O-0055/98 by Mr Jarzembowski and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council on the EU-Asia Summit (ASEM); -B4-0180/98 - O-0058/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council on the second Asia-Europe Summit (ASEM II) in London in April; -B4-0261/98 - O-0061/98 by Mr Vinci, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council on the EU-Asia Summit; -B4-0264/98 - O-0064/98 by Mr Pompidou, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council on the ASEM process; -B4-0268/98 - O-0068/98 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council on the second Asia-Europe Summit in London in April.
Madam President, recently a major company in my constituency announced major job losses because it had lost an order from the Far East.
This reinforced to me the dangers presented to Europe by the current crisis.
Our banks are extremely exposed and our dependence on trade make us extremely vulnerable to this sort of crisis in the world markets.
Clearly, we should be using the ASEM process therefore to see how we can ensure that this crisis is overcome very quickly and to ensure that the crisis does not get any worse.
In particular, we need to notice that at least part of this crisis can be put down to what you might call cronyism and what others might call straightforward corruption, in some of the countries involved.
Too many cosy deals were done with other people's money and people were prepared to turn a blind eye to the weaknesses of those deals.
Clearly we cannot separate out economic freedom from political freedom.
The demands this Parliament frequently makes for respect of human rights is as important a part of the process as the demands for economic freedom.
We must ensure that there is transparency of the political process in the Far East.
I would like to hear from the Council and the Commission how they intend to use the ASEM Summit to bring home the importance of developing projects aimed at good governance in the Far East so that we can build from a stronger economy in the future.
We ought to be seeing a much stronger role for parliaments to play in this process because by having a parliamentary dimension we will ensure that nobody turns a blind eye to cronyism and corruption.
Finally, we must look at a reform of the financial institutions.
Some of us suspect that the rescue packages being enforced at the moment are more about rescuing people who made bad deals than trying to restructure the societies and the economies of countries in the Far East.
I will be interested to hear what the Council and the Commission have to say about how they intend to approach the ASEM Summit from these points of view.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the ASEM Summit is of course extremely important. Europe should have been present right from the start of the uncertain financial situation in South-East Asia.
This should be part of balanced dialogue between that part of Asia and Europe. The Asian countries should implement reforms on a large scale, but the Union should express its support for this, and cooperate with the IMF.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council whether he shares this view, and whether he can indicate how the European Union could have avoided gaining the image of the big absentee in the recent dramatic financial-economic developments? How does the Council envisage putting this right?
We support the joint initiative of the ASEAN countries to set up a joint surveillance mechanism. Together they might be able to prevent a possible new crisis, and keep the famous financial-economic domino effect under control.
Does the Council agree that a supporting role from Europe might be useful? It is a simple question, which might warrant a long answer, but I would like you to bear it in mind.
My group, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, also considers it important that economic and financial topics are not the only topics discussed during the Summit.
In a balanced relationship, political dialogue is at least as important.
In line with the conclusions of the ministerial meeting held at the beginning of last year, I therefore call on the Council to put human rights on the agenda of the ASEM Summit.
Perhaps these can be discussed during the bilateral agreements between various countries.
Can the Council promise me that this will indeed happen?
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, my group is also waiting with bated breath for the answer to the four written questions, for Asia-Europe relations are very important not only for our own foreign relations but also as regards the economic and social situations in the 25 countries involved.
It is our view that the ASEM process should not simply be left to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the bureaucrats, but that the European Parliament and the Asian parliaments, which represent the people involved in the process, must also be included.
We support this process which must encompass a broad spectrum of cooperation ranging from political dialogue, through economic partnership to social and cultural cooperation.
We would also be very interested to find out whether the Council intends to discuss the enlargement of the ASEM with its Asian partners.
We see the inclusion of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, New Zealand and Australia as interesting possibilities.
I do admit, however, that it must be our Asian partners themselves who take the decision, in the same manner as we have reservations in the case of Burma, due to its human rights situation, and are unable to accept the inclusion of Burma.
The London Summit can be successful only if the 25 heads of state and government can demonstrate that we can find common solutions to ending the financial crisis in Asia.
It is a question of creating greater transparency in the international banking sector.
It is a question of finding a mechanism to check short-term currency speculation.
I support those in the Council and in the Commission who hold the view that a country like Indonesia which is not only refusing to implement the reforms agreed with the International Monetary Fund, but is actually choosing to reject them, should not be able to count on the support of the Asia-Europe partners and that, on the contrary, both the Community and the Asian countries should work towards changing the political and economic circumstances in this country.
I share the view of my fellow Members that if it is to address economics, trade, finance and foreign policy, the ASEM Summit will also have to discuss the underlying problems which are common both to ourselves in Europe and to our Asian partners, that is, issues such as the fight against poverty, the observation of human rights, the development of democracy and the rule of law and the environment - let me remind you of the forest fires in certain parts of Asia which have not only local, but also global effects.
Finally, I believe - as some of those speaking before me have already said - that it is important to involve the European Parliament and the Asian parliaments in the process.
This is also an opportunity to support democratization in general and to strengthen Members' responsibility for international relations in particular.
This is why the involvement of the Asian parliaments and the European Parliament is of such great importance.
In conclusion, let me make just two further remarks.
Firstly, I would be very pleased if the President of the Council and Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan would announce personally that they will be making an official statement on the outcome of the London Summit at the mini-part-session in Brussels at the end of April, so that we will have another opportunity to debate the outcome.
Today we are discussing expectations, but it is also important that this House has a chance to debate the outcome on the basis of an official statement by the Council and the Commission.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, may I take this opportunity to wish the Council and the Commission every success at the ASEM Summit in London.
Madam President, the second meeting between the ASEM heads of state and the European heads of government to be held on 3 and 4 April takes place against the backdrop of a serious economic and financial crisis in East and South-East Asia. It is a crisis which is exacerbating and will continue to exacerbate the usual effects of capitalist economic growth in large industrial cities: uncertain and badly paid jobs, the reckless and uncontrolled exploitation of natural and mineral resources and occasionally the infringement of human rights on a massive scale.
Forecasts made by the OECD state that unless the governments of East and South-East Asia can do something quickly, with lasting effect and that unless a recovery takes place, the economies of Europe will also suffer under the effects of the crisis.
Indeed, there are many Members in this House who embraced the tiger economies, the boom and the politics of the fast buck. In my view, we need new mechanisms and, above all, a degree of political primacy.
We need a new framework. It should be established in London.
If we consider that the ASEM states are responsible for over half of the world's gross domestic product, the burden of responsibility carried by this meeting in London becomes quite clear. Over the past few months in this House we have repeatedly demanded democratization in Burma, the establishment of trading relations only if Burma guarantees human rights and makes some progress towards democracy.
In relation to North Korea we have asked that money not simply be poured into the KEDO project, but that we should use the money to relieve or alleviate hunger, that we should promote the development of the domestic market and thereby promote a policy of peace in Korea. These projects must be addressed.
Mr Kinkel spoke of a new policy for Timor. Perhaps the Council and the Commission can suggest something of this new policy to the repressive regime in Indonesia.
Then there are the jungle fires.
The jungle does not burn by chance, someone sets it on fire. I believe that a climate protection programme is required.
We want to know how you intend to approach these various problems which we have so often discussed?
What initiatives you are taking? What is your view, for example, in relation to the economic and financial crisis, on the introduction of a Tobin tax?
How do you intend to explain the new cooperation to the governments? In my view, it would be a good idea if Parliament were to give you a list of recommendations the next time you embark on these negotiations and that, as Mr Jarzembowski has already suggested, you should then report back to Parliament on what you negotiated, how you negotiated and how we can continue to shape our policy towards East and South-East Asia with common perspectives and in a democratically responsible manner.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as regards the ASEM II Summit, in my opinion, it is important to define the role which the European Union can and must play within the framework of cooperation and the development of links with Asia, what its priorities must be, and what steps must be taken to coordinate and target clearly the actions to be undertaken.
Aimed at encouraging dialogue with our Asian partners, the Asia-Europe Meeting can indeed contribute to encouraging reciprocal understanding and to tightening the links between our two continents.
These are links which, in the crucial context of current globalization, must be made concrete through the setting up of a Euro-Asian form of cooperation on regional and international questions of major importance, in particular on economic and financial, scientific and technological, environmental, cultural and humanitarian issues.
Within the framework of a new partnership with Asia, it is therefore essential that the Union plays a predominant role in the development and implementation of the tools which will enable synergies and partnerships to be created in these areas.
I therefore fully support the initiatives identified during the first ASEM Summit and the suggestions drawn up at the second Asia-Europe Business Forum in Bangkok, which should improve the overall climate and develop reciprocal investments.
With regard to the crisis which has affected a large part of Asia for several months, an issue which will certainly be discussed at the London Summit, it is important that the Union participates actively in the implementation of financial and economic measures to curb the recession mechanisms.
The Union will contribute, on the one hand, to encouraging the necessary reforms of the sectors affected by the crisis and, on the other, to giving back confidence to foreign investors.
In conclusion, and with the objective of giving a parliamentary dimension to the ASEM process, it is appropriate to support the organization of an Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership, or ASEP, and to involve the House closely in this.
Madam President, I was privileged to be on the ASEAN delegation that visited Malaysia and Singapore in January.
We did not meet the Prime Ministers of Malaysia or Singapore as they were both away but we met the Foreign Ministers and we were very well received.
The financial crisis was the main topic of conversation and in that regard one thing came over very clearly to the members of the delegation.
Insufficient credit is given to the European Union even though we are partly the paymasters in connection with the IMF.
If Mr Clinton visits he gets a lot of credit in the press.
If EU Ministers visit, very little credit is given.
We must bear this in mind as it is not really fair to the European Union.
We have a deep sense of commitment to this part of the world and to the countries which have been suffering in the crisis.
They were also very interested in EMU and were of the opinion that it would be of assistance in the global monetary situation where they have crashed so badly.
In today's press I notice that one editorial suggests that Indonesia is facing a total collapse and that the re-elected Suharto has said that he is not going to keep to the conditions of the IMF.
This is very serious for the whole process.
We must encourage democracy and human rights in all these countries.
We also visited the Department of Forestry in Malaysia and were rather impressed by environmental concerns there.
I think we could offer more help to their projects.
We want to see the dialogue expanded to culture, social affairs and politics in all the countries.
We also met NGOs and would like to see more encouragement from the European Union to these hard-working bodies.
Madam President, the second Asia-Europe Meeting, to be held in London on 3 and 4 April, will be an important landmark in the development of Europe's relationship with Asia.
The range and depth of the questions by the Members of this Parliament underline the importance of ASEM and the expectations it has raised.
Since the first ASEM in Bangkok in 1996, we have seen results in all three key dimensions of the ASEM process.
Questions have been tabled by Members of this Parliament on what has been achieved.
First of all, in political terms, we have seen a series of ministerial meetings: foreign ministers, economic ministers and finance ministers all met separately during 1997 and, in doing so, increased the level of understanding of the issues we need to work on to bring the two regions closer together.
There have also been less high-profile but very useful contacts between officials which have deepened relations at a working level.
For example, working groups of customs officials have met to put forward proposals on how to harmonize procedures and enforce the regulations to make trade between the two regions work better.
In economic terms, there has been a business dialogue between businesses and government and this is central to the ASEM process.
The Asia-Europe Business Forum has met twice already: in Paris in 1996 and in Bangkok last November.
The Third Business Forum will take place in London at the same time as the ASEM II Summit, and it will be a unique opportunity for business people to have a direct dialogue with leaders on a whole range of concerns, including further trade and investment liberalization.
Thirdly, an investment promotion action plan has been drawn up and endorsed by ASEM economic ministers.
It covers a range of promotional activities and provides for further dialogue on regulatory issues.
Implementation has been entrusted to an investments experts' group which will be launched, like the plan itself, at ASEM II in April.
We hope that the leaders will adopt an ASEM trade facilitation action plan, the framework for which has been endorsed already by the ASEM economic ministers.
The plan aims at reducing non-tariff barriers and transaction costs, as well as promoting trade opportunities between the two regions.
I know that concerns have been expressed about other links, ' people links' if you like, and there have been a number of other developments since the last ASEM.
The Asia-Europe Foundation was established in February 1997 to further links between ASEM members at the level of civic society.
It has sponsored a series of lectures and conferences, including a seminar on human rights and the rule of law held in Sweden in December last year.
Cultural links will have a high profile at ASEM II; there will be a full programme of cultural and arts events taking place to coincide with the summit; some of which will be visited by those attending the summit, and I hope some ideas will be taken back from those inspirations. Events range from an East-West film festival to exhibitions of Asian arts and concerts of Asian music.
A lot of colleagues have raised the question of the financial crisis and what can be done to help to restore stability.
The importance of the ASEM process in general, and ASEM II in particular, becomes even clearer at a time when there is a need for a better understanding of respective economic situations and of the need to help bring stability to the situation in Asia.
It offers an opportunity for us to address any perception in Asia, or indeed here, that Europe has been slow to respond to their problems and to demonstrate that Europe has made, and continues to make, a real contribution to help. We are helping both through the international financial institutions and bilaterally.
It is also an opportunity to stress the need for Asian countries to act on the recommendations of the IMF.
We will want to use the occasion of ASEM II to deliver the message that protectionism is not the solution and that markets must become more, not less, open as part of this response.
What other areas will be covered at ASEM II? The Union will be looking for comprehensive political dialogue at ASEM II.
We hope discussion will cover regional issues in Asia and Europe, as well as international issues, and will touch on issues of fundamental rights.
The Council is committed to the equal importance of the three dimensions of the ASEM process and welcomes the cooperation between European and Asian countries in numerous fields, such as environment, child welfare and education.
We see significant scope for the summit to show that ASEM can deliver results in areas that matter to people.
We expect that environmental issues will be one theme of discussion among leaders at ASEM II.
Given the topicality of the issue and the shared concern of Asian and European members of ASEM, assistance in dealing with acute environmental degradation will, I hope, be among the subjects raised.
The problems of forest fires in South-East Asia, already referred to in the debate, will obviously be a matter of immediate concern.
Questions have also been raised about the future membership of ASEM.
I can confirm that participation in ASEM II will be the same as at ASEM I. But the Union expects membership to be an issue at ASEM II.
Future enlargement will depend on consensus among existing members.
So what lies ahead of us? Important steps will be taken at ASEM II to set priorities for future cooperation between the two regions.
The Union is looking forward to the adoption at ASEM II of an Asia-Europe cooperation framework to focus and manage ASEM activities.
We also expect to see the launch of an Asia-Europe vision group, which will consider the long-term objectives for ASEM.
This will report to foreign ministers in 1999 in good time for the conclusions to be fed into ASEM III in the year 2000.
ASEM II in April has a solid agenda.
The Asian financial crisis will make Asia-Europe dialogue more important than ever.
The Presidency looks forward, with the Council, to a fruitful meeting in April.
Since the first ASEM, progress has been extremely rapid.
In the political field a substantive political dialogue has begun at both ministerial and official level, touching on global and regional issues.
Even the field of human rights has been open for discussion, with an informal seminar in Sweden in December, which is likely to be the start of a series of such seminars.
The recent senior officials' meeting in London has seen a remarkably open exchange of views on Cambodia, Iraq, the Korean peninsula and EU enlargement.
In the economic field, economic ministers and officials have made great progress in preparing action plans for both investment promotion and trade facilitation and in establishing a commonality of views on WTO-related issues as well as on such themes as infrastructure and sustainable growth.
Finance ministers and officials have agreed that considerable scope exists for greater cooperation between financial supervisors in our two regions.
They have also agreed that improved arrangements for exchange of information and sharing of best practice will promote improved financial stability.
Intensive cooperation has been established in the field of customs and the private sector has established its own ongoing dialogue through the Asia-Europe Business Forum and other meetings.
In the cultural and social field the Asia-Europe Foundation provides a flagship initiative seeking to promote mutual awareness between our two regions.
Various other initiatives have also been undertaken or prepared in such fields as technology, the environment, youth contacts and educational exchanges.
Other major events such as the Manila Forum on Culture and Values in Asia and Europe have taken their direction from the road map set by ASEP.
I note that the period since the Bangkok Summit has also seen much thought being given to questions of process, coordination and vision.
In particular, the proposals to establish an Asia-Europe cooperation framework and an Asia-Europe vision group are both likely to be taken forward at the London Summit.
Looking to the future, the preparations for the Summit are proceeding smoothly and constructively.
The coming two years will first and foremost be a period of consolidation.
But we will need to show more concrete, tangible results by the year 2000.
The ASEM process has been and should remain an informal one which should primarily function as a political catalyst for achieving mutual understanding, dialogue and cooperation.
ASEM should not develop into an institution with a secretariat, or anything of that kind; but we will need to focus the process more clearly on a limited number of priority areas.
An effort to do this has been undertaken in the context of the Asia-Europe cooperation framework to be adopted at the London Summit.
The Summit is expected to take a number of important decisions for the future of ASEM, namely, to adopt the trade facilitation action plan and the investment promotion action plan, to launch the Asia-Europe Environment Technology Centre in Thailand, to adopt the Asia-Europe cooperation framework and launch the ASEM vision group, which will consist of highprofile personalities from all ASEM partners, mandated to give an independent view on the medium- to long-term development of Asia-Europe relations in the ASEM context.
The Commission has nominated Mr Percy Barnevik, previously CEO of ASEA Brown Boveri and currently chairman of the Investa Group, as its participant.
The Summit will also launch some new initiatives, possibly in areas like money laundering, child welfare, environment, etcetera.
The ASEM financial crisis clearly increases the importance of Asia-Europe cooperation and of ASEM.
The London Summit will devote a lot of attention to it.
We must give strong political messages and also put forward initiatives to help overcome the crisis.
The UK Presidency has just sent a high-level mission to the South-East Asian countries to correct misunderstandings about the extent of Europe's role in dealing with the situation and to help prepare the Summit's message on this subject.
The Summit will have to deliver a strong political message with regard to the crisis, recognizing that it has global implications, highlighting the contributions that European partners have made, confirming the commitment of ASEM partners to undertake the necessary reforms and underlining the need to resist protectionism and pursue further liberalization as the most effective antidote to any calls for protectionism in both Asia and Europe.
We are considering how to provide further assistance to strengthen financial supervision and to address the social implications of the crisis.
ASEM is intended to build a comprehensive partnership going beyond governments and administrations, which would include a dialogue between parliamentarians of the two regions.
It was therefore appropriate that the first ASEM was followed by the meeting of the Asia-Europe Parliamentary Partnership here, in April 1996.
I hope this can be continued.
It is also notable that the Asia-Europe Foundation is planning a programme to bring together young parliamentarians from both regions.
This kind of informal approach between parliamentarians should be particularly useful.
Finally, I should mention that the Commission will be happy to report back to Parliament on the outcome of the Summit.
Madam President, the answers given by the Council Presidency and the Commission underline the opportunities which exist for a successful ASEM Summit in London.
I believe that it is really important, at this time in particular, that we convey a message which stresses that the two regions can work together successfully.
After all, the ASEM process is not intended to replace multilateral cooperation in any form, but to promote partnership between Europe and Asia on certain issues.
My thoughts on this matter concern not only possible solutions to the crisis in Asia but also the progress that can be made in reforming international financial institutions by developing ideas common to both regions.
I feel, too, that in fact we probably need new supervisory rules and a new definition of public foreign debt.
These are undoubtedly issues which will also be raised in this context and consequently I expect the ASEM summit to make progress in this area.
Undoubtedly, too, this ASEM Summit should be used to emphasize the fact that the euro can help not only to stabilize monetary and economic relations within the European Union, but can also make a contribution towards international monetary stability.
This is an important message which the Summit should convey.
I underline once again just how essential good cooperation is for this important region of the world.
Despite our different traditions and cultures, opportunities for cooperation exist and are also necessary, precisely because we already have such a high level of economic partnership.
This is another reason why we need political stability as well in both regions.
This indepth political dialogue should contribute to that stability.
It can do so because security concerns in Asia are also our security concerns, and good government is a topic which should increasingly become a focal point in political dialogue.
We must not forget, however, that cooperation between Asia and Europe does not only mean cooperation at governmental and parliamentary level. It also involves NGOs and the young people and women of Asia and Europe.
There are many issues which can be discussed and, more importantly, many measures which can be implemented within the framework of people-topeople dialogue.
I would ask the Presidency of the Council and the Commission through its projects and programmes to provide a clear and concrete model of cooperation at all levels.
Madam President, it is a great comfort to me to learn that in the wake of the crisis an exceptional number of things which need to be done has occurred to us.
An analysis of the situation prior to the crisis reveals the comforting fact that we have already done a lot.
I ask that at the Summit in London, the causes which were recognized beforehand but about which nothing could be done should not be forgotten.
If we examine the causes of the crisis in detail, there is general agreement that the main problem was excessive balance of payments deficits in the various national economies in question, high levels of foreign debt, particularly in the private sector, encouraged by fixed exchange rate systems, the financing of unproductive sectors and many other factors.
What we are witnessing at the moment is everyone running scared, pulling out, even cutting lines of credit as is the case in Taiwan where the crisis is not actually as marked and where people should be holding their ground rather than pulling out.
Instead, however, capital is pouring out of the region and the politicians are offering good advice.
The good advice which the politicians must give for the future is a matter of concern for us as a parliament.
That is why we see this debate as just beginning.
I am grateful, Sir Leon - and I imagine the Presidency feels the same - that we are to continue this discussion here in the European Parliament and that we will speak about these events.
But, quite naturally, we are also extremely interested in the political relations between these Asian tigers who were until recently so puffed up with their own arrogance in certain areas that they could hardly walk and were giving us in Europe advice, and who, now that the crisis has happened, are turning to us for help.
Together we will have to learn that one of the causes of what has happened in Asia is the fact that many Europeans who could not invest their money quickly enough to make a quick profit, and were totally unperturbed by the risks involved, are now pulling out and in some instances leaving behind Asian countries in abject poverty.
May I remind you that it is not only the economy which has been damaged. Socially we are faced with a retrograde step, with emergencies, with hundreds of thousands or even millions of people who trusted politics and the economy to do the right thing and who have had their existences snuffed out.
Hunger and poverty are rife.
I ask you, in London, to think too about how we can set up aid programmes to help these people.
Indonesia, currently with the fourth largest population in the world, is demonstrating that when difficulties arise it has little understanding of the need for greater democracy, but has its own view of how a transformation can be affected. I wonder how the world will react to its failure to meet the IMF's requirements and its decision to go its own way.
Asia was already in a learning process when it was successful.
Now it is in a bitter learning process.
I shall watch with interest events in Asia and we will continue to discuss them in this House.
Madam President, the crisis will obviously be discussed in London, as was requested by Mr Pompidou amongst others, but we should like particular attention to be paid to the people of, if I may call them thus, our former colonies.
Japan has a golden opportunity to make up what it has caused in grief and suffering to the people of these areas by its occupation during the war.
I ask you to remember in particular - now that you have been appointed President-inOffice of the Council - that these areas were occupied by Japan and liberated by British troops; this must not be forgotten, Mr President, during the Burma campaign.
The War Chapel in Rangoon has a hand-written list of the British casualties who were killed in action after 5 May and before 15 August.
I have asked the Council - and I would like an answer - to raise flags throughout Europe on 15 August.
This date also marked the end of the World War II for the Netherlands.
Do not forget these people. Japan has already started to make compensation payments to Indonesia.
Madam President, as Robin Cook, Britain's Foreign Secretary, said here in January, nations today are as interdependent as they were once independent.
The same is true of the relationship between Europe and Asia as it is between the Member States of the European Union.
The ASEM II Summit will bring together the heads of state and of governments from ten Asian countries and the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
The meeting in London will be an opportunity, a means to forge stronger economic, political and cultural ties between the two economic powerhouses that represent over 50 % of world trade.
The first summit meeting in Bangkok in March 1996 ASEM I laid down the framework for future relations between the EU and Asia, initiating a series of parallel dialogues aimed at finding common ground where we could work together on peace and stability, creating conditions conducive to economic and social development, political dialogue based on mutual respect, equality and the promotion of fundamental human rights.
Alongside that, we also have the parliamentary dialogue and in 1996 parliamentary delegations from the Asian countries plus the relevant members of the European Parliament met here together in Strasbourg.
We are now preparing for ASEP II, under the auspices of the Asia-Europe Foundation set up following the first Asian summit which I hope will be taking place in Kuala Lumpur in the middle of August following the General Assembly of the ASEM interparliamentary organization when Europe again will be meeting ASEAN without Myanmar.
It is in the interests of both Asia and Europe to cooperate for our mutual advantage.
There are many areas where we are already cooperating.
There are areas where the countries of Asia are helping in Europe.
For example, as the vice-president of the European Parliament's delegation with Japan, I can report that Japan is contributing approximately ECU 500 million for Bosnian reconstruction.
It has a programme of aid and assistance to the Palestinians to help establish a Palestinian settlement.
It is helping with the clean-up after Chernobyl and in recompense we are involved in the very important KEDO project.
The crisis in Asia will have an impact on Europe.
It is not something that can be left to them.
In conclusion, April's AsiaEurope Summit and the August parliamentary meeting are two more steps towards a new partnership that spans the globe.
Seven motions for resolutions have been tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
International criminal court
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0179/98 - O-0056/98 by Mr de Vries, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0262/98 - O-0062/98 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0263/98 - O-0063/98 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0265/98 - O-0065/98 by Mr Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0267/98 - O-0067/98 by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0269/98 - O-0069/98 by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court; -B4-0270/98 - O-0070/98 by Mr Oostlander and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council on the setting up of an international criminal court.
Madam President, it is a very opportune moment indeed to discuss the question of the international criminal court.
We are on the eve of the last preparatory conference before the Rome Conference.
In June we should have finally established the basic principles.
Europe for so many years after World War II thought it was safe as far as the protection of human rights was concerned.
We developed the Council of Europe, the Convention on Human Rights and the whole elaborate system, but it has become very clear over the last couple of years that Europe is not safe as regards the issue of human rights.
Apart from the rest of the world, there were 250 cases of violation which occurred 1500 km from this city.
In Bosnia women were raped, children were abducted, people were slaughtered.
There is no reason for complacency in this House, because indeed human rights can be violated everywhere, including Europe.
We heard from the President of the Council yesterday and today on the issue of Kosovo.
It is very clear that there, too, new violations may occur.
Against that background it is very important that the European Union and at this moment the European Parliament should exercise new leadership.
If we really want to be clear, we can give a signal that we want to have an international criminal court, with a properly independent public prosecutor.
As the resolution states, we have an issue of core crimes, all core crimes against humanity being covered.
We must be independent from the Security Council.
Most of the Member States of the European Union support these basic principles.
There are one or two who are hesitant and it is against that background that it is extremely important that a clear and unanimous signal should be given by Parliament.
I hope that both the Commission and the Council will support the lines put forward by those who presented this resolution.
Madam President, the process of setting up a permanent international court should be supported, and it is the not the first time that I am speaking in this Chamber to support it.
It is an important means of ensuring justice, particularly to judge crimes against humanity and genocide.
It is important for the diplomatic conference in Rome, which will be held in July, to establish the Court's statutes definitively.
In this connection, I hope that the government of my country, the Italian government, will manage to take effective action to prepare adequately for the eve, naturally cooperating with the other Member States of the Union.
In view of the diplomatic conference, it would be useful if the Council were to adopt a common position with regard to the Treaty in support of the Court.
I would also like to say that, in my opinion, the Council should say no to any subjection of the court to the UN Security Council.
I cannot accept that the Council's right of veto, an abuse of power which defies the course of history, should block the judicial activities of the Court itself, preventing it from judging crimes that are committed.
I would therefore like to ask the Presidentin-Office of the Council to commit himself, if he can do so, in this connection too, on this divisive issue: it is very important for the Court to be separate from the UN Security Council.
Finally, I am turning to the Commission and the Council to ensure adequate financing for the Court, and for that purpose a line should be created in our budget to ensure that the permanent international court can work properly.
Madam President, the questions I asked three months ago, when we discussed a resolution here in this House calling for the establishment of a permanent international criminal court, have not been answered.
Regrettably, the ad-hoc tribunals in Arusha and The Hague on Rwanda and Yugoslavia have not managed to catch the perpetrators most responsible for the atrocities.
What is more, it should be noted that in The Hague, very little factual material has unfortunately emerged.
The investigation was focused too much on the first part of the war.
Recently, cases have come to light of EU SFOR soldiers drinking and socializing in a bar with one of these minor war criminals.
Mr President, can the Council tell me whether it will be a tribunal for war crimes, or is the intention indirectly to institutionalize the fight against international terrorism and the drugs trade? What can the Council tell us about that?
There are rumours that the United States would not recognize the jurisdiction of such a tribunal. What does the Council know about this?
Which nationalities with what sense of justice will take on the office of public prosecutor?
Mr President, in view of the mountains of papers on the necessity of this tribunal sent to my office in Brussels, I am becoming a little suspicious as to who is so keen to get through.
Fifty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, more people should indeed be tried in an international context. I am thinking of Saddam Hussein and Milosevic.
But to do that effectively, the structure of such a tribunal must be transparent and workable.
As long as that is not yet the case and as long as we have no thorough evaluation of the ad-hoc tribunals, I continue to have my doubts.
Madam President, I think that when we are talking about the principle of an international criminal court, it is hard to underestimate what far-reaching consequences this might have.
But I agree with Mrs van Bladel that we should say, "might have' in this instance, because sadly there is plenty of evidence that neither the tribunal in Arusha, nor the one in The Hague dealing with the former Yugoslavia lived up to our expectations.
But to my mind this says more about a lack of resources and a lack of transparency and freedom to act, than about the principle of such a tribunal.
On behalf of the Green Group I would therefore like to express my support for the principle of a well-functioning international criminal court, but with the understanding that it should have sufficient resources.
And where will these come from? Moreover, the Public Prosecutor should have the freedom to act, without having to depend on prior permission from the Security Council or anybody else.
Madam President, Mr President of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I have today already endeavoured to indicate what a member of the public can see by turning on his television set, and I have already pointed out just how negative the impression must be as a result of there not being a European Union representative in Kosovo while the Americans are very well represented indeed.
Another thing which any average upright citizen with a concern for law and order cannot have failed to notice at the moment is the great song and dance being made about Mr Pinochet, a man who led a regime of torturers and murderers and who, having been the head of the army for many years, is now taking up an undoubtedly well-paid and comfortable position as a senator in his country.
I am aware of the political thinking which lies behind this decision, but none of us can be happy with the fact that people who kill, murder and torture others are then courted and rewarded with offices of state.
We are still far from happy with the situation in Bosnia, although some progress has been made.
However, the masterminds behind the scenes who, historically, have time and again managed to avoid prosecution, have often been able to avoid all responsibility as well.
This is why the issue of an international criminal court is so important and so hard to achieve.
I know the political calculations which are being made when it is said that these matters are not important, that it is better to make peace than to deliver criminals to justice.
However, war and the arguments continue.
We must pursue a policy which aims to achieve both of these goals: to secure peace and to bring to justice those responsible for mass killings and serious crimes.
I am no moralizer and I also know that politics is not always about morals, but I am nevertheless very happy that Mr Cook's British Presidency, and you too, Mr Henderson, have repeatedly stressed that even foreign policy must find room for a minimum of morality and morals, whether it is in relation to weapons and weapons transfer or an international criminal court.
Foreign policy needs a moral dimension, and the public will only accept such a policy if it comes with a little morality. For this reason, and on behalf of my Parliamentary group, I give my full and total support to this joint motion.
It is exactly in line with our objectives, the creation of an independent criminal court. Politics and courts have different roles, but this court must be free to act independently.
It must be able to call witnesses who are obliged to appear. They must not, as happened in the case of one Croatian politician, be able to avoid testifying.
This independence must be guaranteed, and it is with this objective in mind that tomorrow we will give this joint motion our full support.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, it is not the first time that Parliament has expressed its opinion on the international criminal court.
I believe it will do so tomorrow as well, by a very large majority, perhaps unanimously, as it has done in the past.
That, I think, could be the best possible message we could send to the Presidency-inOffice: that those elected in the EU countries support a text which, as you will have seen, Mr President, is a very specific text, that is in line with and matches the position of the so-called like-minded countries in a prudent version, an open version to be able to bring everyone together on this strong position but, at the same time, including the reasons why some countries continue to obstruct, not the establishment of the Court, but the operating procedure.
I also think that this may help the British Presidency to look for that cohesion which seems to me to be lacking at the moment and lacking in particular because one Member State, which is also a member of the Security Council, continues to doubt this line which we will be voting on and approving tomorrow.
The last session of the preliminary negotiations will begin on 16 March and the Rome Conference will begin on 15 June, in a Member State of the EU, thereby giving the Union a key role.
I hope, Mr President, that in your reply you will reassure us of the attempt you are certainly making to reach a harmonized position and that you will, in particular, agree with us on the extraordinary importance the establishment of the Court may have for the development of international law and, I would also say, for the role the EU may have as such in an initiative of civility, of law, of change, of an end to the impunity so many criminals still enjoy today throughout the world.
Madam President, what started out as a mere palliative, in place of a firm policy on Yugoslavia, namely the court for war crime in the former Yugoslavia, is beginning to grow into an initiative of permanent and general character.
I must say, this is much, much better than we had ever hoped for. I think it is extremely important, because we are seeing that the tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda are working, that they are indeed able to have an influence.
The more successful these courts are, the greater the deterrent will be for people who want to commit genocide and perpetrate massacres, but also perhaps for nations, because it is not unlikely that the phenomenon of a criminal nation will occur with increasing frequency.
In that case we would also need a criminal court, it would seem to me.
The tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, however, had a very clear objective.
We knew what was to be investigated and what was to be prosecuted.
This is not so clear in the permanent criminal court.
I wonder who in fact will instigate an investigation.
You would say it is the public prosecutor, but in an ordinary constitutional state the public prosecutor is part of a hierarchy which includes a Minister of Justice who can also set priorities as to which issues should be investigated and prosecuted, and which issues might get less priority.
In this case there will have to be a body which is somehow linked to the public prosecutor.
Who will appoint him; who will appoint the judges? These issues I presume will all be discussed in the UN Commission, and they will be something for legal specialists to get their teeth into.
What in any case must be avoided is that such a court becomes subject to the vetoes of certain countries who thus try and protect their friends.
I think that our entire group is very strongly in favour of the resolution before us.
But I would like to stress that I believe it is extremely important that the political and diplomatic responsibilities are clearly separated from those of the NGOs, for instance.
I am pleased to note that in the Dutch translation this at least is now well-formulated.
The NGOs are not participating in the diplomatic conference, but they are asked to make contributions which can be used by the conference.
We must be careful, also with the best intentions, not to fall into in organic thinking, not to fall into corporatism in these kind of areas.
I also hope that society and its specialized associations will be able to contribute, along an orderly path, to the success of this international criminal court.
Madam President, the Council fully supports the establishment of the international criminal court to try the most serious crimes and violations of international law of concern to the international community including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The negotiations for a draft text of the statute of the court are of historic significance, and the world community has a particular responsibility to make use of the momentum generated over the past few years.
The court will ensure that those who commit the most serious crimes of international concern will not be able to do so with impunity and thus will have a deterrent effect.
It is hoped that the knowledge that those who have committed atrocities are being brought to justice may help victims to participate in a process of reconciliation.
The European Union is encouraged by the ever-growing number of countries that support the establishment of the court.
This is manifested in the wide international participation and a general spirit of cooperation in the preparatory committee meetings held in New York.
Member States of the Union have themselves been playing an active part in the preparatory committee meetings and we wish to pay tribute to the invaluable role played by Mr Adriaan Bos, chairman of the preparatory committee. The Union looks forward to the diplomatic conference to be held in June and July this year.
We are grateful to the Italian government for offering to host the conference. It is important that the conference is attended by the largest possible number of states.
Several Member States as well as the European Commission have therefore contributed to the UN trust fund for the participation at the conference of the least developed countries.
We also welcome the role being played by non-governmental organizations in the process of establishing the court.
Many of them have by their commitment and expertise contributed significantly and positively to this work.
The Union coordination meetings have been regularly held prior to and during meetings of the preparatory committee. A statement on behalf of the Union will be delivered by the presidency at the opening of the Rome conference.
The British Presidency convened a two-day meeting of experts from Member States last month in London.
At the meeting there was a useful exchange of views on various key issues and discussion of how best the negotiations in the court should be taken forward.
The Union does not seek to agree common positions in advance on the detailed provisions of the court's statute. However, there is a considerable measure of agreement on many issues.
We are in particular agreed on a number of key principles, including the following: the court should be effective, it should stand the test of time, and it should be complementary to national systems of criminal justice.
The court should draw on the experience of the two ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, whose work we also support.
The Union expresses its hope and confidence that it will be possible to achieve a successful outcome to the diplomatic conference that is to finalize and adopt a comprehensive and universal convention establishing the international criminal court.
We urge all states to demonstrate the spirit of cooperation necessary to achieve this task.
Madam President, I believe that, among the many good reasons forming the basis of a vote which I think will be passed by a vast majority, if not unanimously, by Parliament, some should be pointed out in particular.
The first relates to the high symbolic value of a strong initiative assumed by the EU.
From this point of view, I am pleased with what the Minister said on the commitment the Presidency seems to have assumed, and I want to confirm the importance of a strong and decisive message conveyed by the EU in favour of the establishment of a court that represents a clear "no' to impunity, that represents the ability to listen and that meets the requests of the conscience of the citizens who, very often, do not know how to use old, inadequate and inert means to the full.
The second reason lies in the fact that, in this world, we need many rules, but one of the essential rules is that relating to the fundamental criterion of justice and the possibility that all the democratic countries, the civilian society of men, recognize and punish those guilty of serious crimes against humanity.
It is one of the conditions for democracy to remain on its feet, and we know it, and that is why the rules for establishing this court are advanced rules providing a guarantee for democratic systems.
Naturally, the characteristics this court has to assume are those we can import from our model: independence and, in the rule of law, procedural guarantees for those under investigation.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in any society which calls itself civilized, the fundamental principles which form the basis of political action should be the principle of respect for the overriding importance of the individual and his or her dignity, and the principle of the defence of the rights which arise from that dignity.
However, all too often man continues to act like an animal towards his fellow man.
The proof of that lies in the war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide which are still committed with total impunity. Such crimes are an outrage and can never be justified, and those who commit them should be tried and convicted.
That is why there is an urgent need for an independent, international criminal court which can do just that.
For the same reason, we must congratulate ourselves on the diplomatic conference due to commence in Rome in June to finalize the statute which will regulate that court's activities. That conference represents a milestone and can play a decisive role in winning the battle to establish an international system of justice.
We should not forget that to a large extent that milestone has been made possible by the tireless and determined support of all the many NGOs committed to this cause.
If the Rome Conference is a success, the world may be able to enter the third millennium of our civilization with new hope.
The objective of the resolution prepared by the European Parliament is precisely to ensure that hope can become reality.
It is now up to the Council, the Commission and the Member States to say what they think.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is not enough that tomorrow this resolution will probably be voted for unanimously and that all the political groups of this House have a broad and strong political desire to further this initiative.
At the moment, we need a strong political initiative from all the European institutions for this criminal court to be established, which means, as has been said, first and foremost the desire to rule out any possibility of war crimes, international crimes in the last 50 years going unpunished: this means the 250 conflicts and more than 130 million victims of the 50 years, since the Second World War.
It also means that the initiatives of the international community have often proved ineffective, as also shown by the criminal courts of The Hague and Arusha.
For this reason, we need to lay down certain limits, several important rules for the Court to be properly effective. We need an initiative from all the European institutions.
Madam President, it is wonderful news that an international criminal court is to be created this summer.
There is no doubt that creating this court will be the best possible way of avoiding conflicts by means of preventative diplomacy, and of course, the best possible measure for discouraging the criminals who in recent times have failed to show the slightest respect for other people.
The ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda have certainly served to further demonstrate, if that were possible, the need to set up this international criminal court.
However, just creating it is not enough.
This international criminal court should be independent of the Security Council, should be able to undertake its own initiatives, should have wide jurisdiction covering crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes (and therefore serious human rights violations), and should not be subsidiary to national justice.
It is essential for the European Union to have a common position in this respect at each of the meetings of the preparatory committee for the diplomatic conference.
That position should commit all the Member States to promoting the creation of a truly independent international criminal court, which is not modelled on the ancient fossils of international law such as the right to veto in the UN Security Council.
Madam President, impunity is a war of sorts, because the victims continue to feel they are being attacked.
Impunity undermines peace and means that populations which have suffered crimes considered repugnant by the whole international community are plunged into insecurity.
Justice is the only way to combat impunity.
A permanent international criminal court is the only way to re-establish justice, and it will certainly be an invaluable instrument for preventing conflicts.
If those leaders who are capable of committing crimes against humanity - from genocide to aggression, from violation used as a weapon to war crimes, massacres and oppression - were not only faced with the possibility of being cut off from the rest of the international community, but also knew that there was a punishment for their acts, then many conflicts and, more importantly, much suffering would be avoided.
People have wanted a permanent international criminal court for a long time and we cannot pass up the opportunity to make it a reality.
It needs to be an effective independent court with real competences for defined crimes, leaving as little margin as possible for exceptions and national reservations.
To prevent it being an abortive attempt, or just a cosmetic operation on the part of the powerful states, its long-term funding and the obligation upon states to cooperate must be guaranteed.
Experience so far - with Nuremberg, Tokyo, the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda - can only serve to encourage us to perfect what is a shaky system of international jurisdiction, which lags way behind the values of human civilization.
The NGOs are currently organizing an awareness and information campaign, and monitoring the preparatory committee for the diplomatic conference at which the statute will be adopted. I think we need to support them in these activities, because that will be the best way to implement this permanent court.
I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Competitiveness
The next item is the Council communication on the problems in the sector of competitiveness.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, this really is a very timely debate on competitiveness at EU level.
You are quite right to have referred to benchmarking - a term with no precise Spanish translation - in other words, levels of competitiveness applied and established in the different industries.
This has obviously been a step forward, enabling us to determine in exactly which areas the European Union is really competitive, and where we lag a little behind our main international competitors.
Specifically, these include those sectors which are still over-protected - telecommunications, the audiovisual sector, energy, air transport - and in which this Parliament has tried hard to apply a higher degree of liberalization, as established in implementing the European internal market. The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party has been a leader in such efforts.
Unfortunately, this House has not always supported that process of liberalization as it should, for example in the area of energy.
The President-in-Office of the Council mentioned the European internal market several times, but she did not say much about the need to increase levels of competitiveness once we have Monetary Union and the euro.
That is something which changes the whole dimension of the European economy, not just quantitatively but qualitatively as well.
Finally, following on from this, I should like to ask the President-in-Office about the part played by the European Commission in promoting the viability of levels of competitiveness and employment, following instructions from the Council, especially in the wake of the Cardiff Agreement.
Madam Minister, Mr President, the objective of improving the competitiveness of our industry, as set out by the Minister, has the consequence of lowering the cost of work and trade liberalization, which will have serious consequences on employment within the European Union as a whole.
Proof of this is in what happened this morning, with the adoption by the Commission of the draft transatlantic agreement, the so-called NTM, devised by Commissioner Brittan.
Adopted without a vote and negotiated in the greatest secrecy, this agreement favours the business world.
It aims to lift all trade restrictions and to remove all customs duties on industrial goods by the year 2010 as well as to create a free trade zone for services, including postal services.
In spite of growing opposition to the multilateral agreement on investments, which has just been rejected by a large majority in the House this morning, Brussels has thus persisted in this matter and done the same thing again.
The NTM is unacceptable, for it compromises the economic, social and cultural assets of our countries. Since you are honouring us with your presence, Minister, I would like to have your opinion on this subject.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left considers that this project must be rejected, for it does not concur with the interests of the Member States of the European Union.
People must mobilize to thwart these ultraliberal concepts and to promote a form of international cooperation which is respectful of people's rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this has been a very impressive exercise in political semantics.
Not that I wish to say that we managed to decipher all of what it means.
This talk of a third way must be taken seriously.
But where is it leading?
Surely it cannot be the third way between the continental European welfare capitalism of the post-war period and today's deregulated US-style capitalism or, in other words, a pretty term for the further deregulation, privatization and micro-economization of our society.
Here I have some real questions.
I am somewhat surprised that in this context the internal market is so glibly referred to as a success.
Undoubtedly there have been some success stories, but the mass unemployment, polarization of the regions, new poverty, social exclusion and the disenfranchisement - a term for which I have no equally elegant German equivalent -, affecting large parts of our population are surely signs of a structural crisis which we are very far from controlling.
I listened with interest to the talk of a fair deal, even of a new deal.
In the Green group, we have been talking about the sort of socio-ecological new deal which we need for years.
However, our new deal would open up a third way not between the two classical forms of capitalist economy, but between a continued form of capital accumulation and democratic responsibility for the ecological sustainability and socially cohesive development of the societies of Europe. This would represent a model and an incentive for the rest of the world and not a sort of neo-imperialism as the current newspeak would have it.
Mr President, may I say how happy I am to see the President-in-Office here.
She has added some colour and charm to a fairly dull House when all the men are in dark suits.
I think I speak for all the women on this.
I would like to say that I am pleased with the mention of small businesses.
We in Scotland have a lot of these and we have a high exporting rate and success with quality goods, but I would ask if she would look again at the cheap money scheme of the European Investment Bank which involved banks all over the European Union and which was terribly effective, but seems to have come to a bit of a standstill. I was pleased also that the structural funds were mentioned, because here am I with my heart in my mouth being told by the Commissioner, on the decision of whether the Highlands and Islands continues as Objective 1, that there is nowhere unique in Europe.
I am hoping that the President-in-Office supports rather the view of the Secretary of State for Scotland, Donald Dewar, who is arguing for continuation for the very reason that we are unique.
Competitiveness depends in particular on the costs of distance, climate, small communities and sparse population - the sparsest in the Community and often called the last wilderness although it is a man-made wilderness.
We are not dealing with the demise of an industry in our use of Objective 1 money in the Highlands and Islands, we are dealing with the demise of a people.
We have been losing our young generation for decades and only now is Objective 1 beginning to have the correct effect and to retain our young people for the first time in generations.
I do hope, therefore, that you will support the Secretary of State for Scotland in his battle for Objective 1.
I thank Mr Caudron for his kind and supportive remarks.
We very much look forward to the report of his group.
I entirely share his view that it is important for the European Union to play to our strength.
That is where we will find competitive advantage.
I also absolutely share his view that there is no single remedy; that there is no single apocalyptic step that we can take that will somehow resolve all these problems and create prosperity on its own.
We have to seek to address a whole range of issues.
It may be less dramatic but it is likely to be more effective.
He asked me two specific questions about the research and development programme and about the textile observatory.
The decision on Framework V was the unanimous decision of the Council.
It was something of a compromise position because there were Member States - as he may know - who did not wish to see even any increase in the cash sum available from the preceding programme.
But common ground was ultimately reached, and it is the unanimous view of the members of the Council to put forward the proposals we have.
On the textile observatory, I am afraid that it is not on the agenda for the next Industry Council because we have no proposal coming forward from the Commission.
That is what would put it on the agenda.
I fear it will not be debated at the coming Council.
I enjoyed Mr Cassidy's contribution.
Funnily enough, I could have predicted it without any difficulty whatsoever.
He mentioned ritual obeisance.
I thought that was exactly what he was making: ritual obeisance to what the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom would wish him to say.
When they make up their minds whether we are completely different from them and therefore disastrous, or exactly the same, it will be a lot easier to know the terms of the debate.
He talked about innovation and red tape stifling innovation and asked what was being done.
At European Union level there is a proposal, which I very much welcome, to set up a group of business people to look at a very early stage proposals coming forward, to see whether they are practical and constructive. Similarly, at national level, we have remedied a deficiency - as I see it - left by the government he supported.
For example, small businesses were hardly represented at all on the committee that looked at regulation.
We have now put in place that half the members of that commission are from small businesses who are particularly susceptible to the problems of red tape.
Even before the last election we had set up pilot projects with local authorities to try to get some practical moves to tackle such problems at local level.
We are piloting and working on that approach.
He asked about a 35-hour week and also about a national minimum wage in this context.
Member States have to address their own concerns and conditions on issues such as a 35-hour week.
The issue of a national minimum wage only affects the United Kingdom.
We were the only developed country without any form of wage protection.
I believe it will contribute both to innovation and to competitiveness because it is an essential component of a drive for quality and of competitiveness on the basis of quality and not merely of the lowest price to have basic, minimum, fair standards in the workplace, of which a national minimum wage is unquestionably one.
(Applause from the left ) I had not appreciated that the word 'benchmarking' is untranslatable.
I am rivetted to know how the Member managed to describe it.
Perhaps it is time we invented a new word that is translatable in order to ease everybody's difficulties.
I do, however, completely endorse his comments on the value of the process, whatever it may be called.
It was then put to me that freeing-up trade and having liberalization was actually harmful to jobs and the issue was brought up of the possibilities of some form of agreement between the European Union and the United States.
I fear I cannot share that point of view.
The whole history of, for example, the United Kingdom, is based on the development of free trade and on prosperity through mutual exchange or multilateral trade.
Indeed that has been a source of employment and of economic achievement through many centuries in our part of the world.
So the notion that it must automatically lead to difficulty is not one that I could endorse.
With regard to the proposals by Commissioner Brittan, I do not think there is any question yet of a treaty being signed.
I understand that he is putting forward some proposals for moves towards more liberalized trade between the European Union and the United States.
That was, as I understand it, endorsed by the Commission as a whole.
Obviously it has to be discussed by the Council.
If the Member is asking me for my own view, I believe that this has considerable potential benefits.
We are at the earliest possible stage.
It will be very important to look at the detail of what is discussed and proposed and what its effects might be.
But in principle, the notion of greater cooperation between the European Union and the United States is one that I welcome.
Our colleague at the back asked what the middle way was and whether it was a middle way between a United States model and prosperity.
I hope I do not misunderstand what he said.
First, whatever one's criticisms of the United States may be, I do not think it is possible to argue that it is not, in general, prosperous.
I share what I suspect is his concern that this prosperity is not always as widely shared as we would wish to see it within the European Union and its Member States.
He accused me of simple semantics.
With great respect to him, I could return the charge.
I am not quite sure what democratic responsibility for economically efficient social development as a model for running an economy entirely means.
However I suspect that if we worked at it, he and I could find agreement that we both want our economies, our countries and the European Union, as a whole, to prosper; that we both want them to deliver high levels of employment so that people have satisfaction in their working lives and are able to earn enough to give them ease in their personal lives.
I suspect that we both believe that economic efficiency must and should go hand-in-hand with social justice.
Perhaps we ought to work more on the things about which we agree.
Mrs Ewing welcomed the emphasis on SMEs.
I am very grateful to her for that and very interested in the ideas she put.
There is a proposal now before the Council to look at schemes, to provide funding for small- and medium-sized enterprises, including a loan guarantee scheme backed by the EIB.
We in the United Kingdom, and indeed all Member States, place increasing emphasis on the role and importance of SMEs, particularly their role in job creation which is so important for the whole of Europe.
We are eagerly exploring all these options.
We hope this proposal will be welcomed.
She also asked me about the structural funds and raised the particular issue of the handling of the Highlands and the Islands.
We do not yet have the Commissioner's proposals.
All that I can say is that I understand the point she makes and it was not an accident that I described my wish for these proposals as being for a scheme which is fair.
Thank you, Mrs Beckett.
As we only have 15 minutes left, I can only allow a few speakers to speak.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you, Minister, for choosing to speak about the enlargement in such positive terms and as an opportunity.
I would like to ask what you think of the tendencies, which I sometimes find in this Parliament, where people are afraid of social dumping .
How will you in the Council counter this type of argument, which shows a lack of solidarity, is short-sighted and protectionist?
I would also like to ask to be forgiven for leaving now and not staying to listen to your reply.
The reason is that today I am meeting a large number of businessmen here who have chosen to come precisely to participate in the very important debate we are now having.
However, I promise that I will pay great attention to the answer in the Minutes and to further discussions.
I do indeed understand; we all face the same problems about conflicting meetings.
I thank her for the welcome she gave to my remarks on enlargement.
We all understand the anxieties and fears that are expressed.
It is a matter of encouraging confidence in Member States and in all the participants in this discussion and debate, that this is indeed the path forward for Europe.
We have every right to hark back to the principles that inspired the people who first began to create what was then the European Union.
In those days, there were arguments, there was discussion about whether or not a group of countries coming together was Europe.
Increasingly, as Europe has enlarged it is hard to argue that this is not really Europe.
It seems to me that in terms of both the politics and the philosophy of the development and future of the European Union it would be criminally irresponsible - and also unbelievably shortsighted - not to recognize the enormous opportunity that opens up for the whole of Europe if we are able to enlarge and to open our arms to the countries that apply to join us from the east.
It is an opportunity for development for the whole of Europe of a kind which our predecessors could not have imagined.
I cannot believe that we will let down future generations by ignoring or wasting it.
Could I ask the President-in-Office about the question of investment.
One of the problems we face in the European Union is that during the period of consolidation in preparation for the single currency we have had zero growth in investment across the Union, both in the private and the public sector.
Investment now represents only about 18 % of the gross domestic product of Europe.
The Minister referred to the United States of America: they have seen substantial steady increases in recent years in investment.
Frankly, if we are concerned with the competitiveness of the European Union and if we are particularly concerned about job creation then we need to ensure that the growth capacity of our economy is expanded.
Could she set out for us how we can work together both in the public sector and the private sector to boost investment levels in the European Union which we hope will then lead to some job creation?
I share the Member's great concern both about current levels of investment and also the need to improve those levels of investment as a basis for future growth and for future wealth.
The answer lies in the combination of two tools.
The first is the practice of benchmarking, which means that we look to see what others do and then look to see what success it has brought.
That would be particularly valuable between countries, but also between enterprises.
The second tool we can use, apart from the technical step of benchmarking itself, is to use what should be growing relationships and partnership and a two-way flow of information with the business community.
One important lesson we can all learn by looking at what happens in practice is that the most successful companies have a combination of investing for the future, a long-term strategy for growth and for employment, harnessing the creativity and skills of their workforces and working very much in a team spirit with their workforce: all of these are lessons that will be taken on board by businesses and by countries as they see that they bring success.
It is a role which politicians in particular can play, but drawing on the practical experience of business.
I have always believed that while politics is in part a process through which one has the opportunities sometimes to make decisions, it should also be a process of education - and we need to educate ourselves too.
Mr President, I think there are two very important points here. The first point is the SLIM initiative.
SLIM is intended to reduce the burden on business. Do you think it would be possible to get the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy or the Committee of the Regions involved in the SLIM Programme as well, so that these Committees could concentrate most of their efforts on SLIM projects?
The second point is the fiche d'impact . I have the documents for today's sitting here.
We now have an extremely comprehensive set of documents to work through in the European Parliament.
I think it would also be useful to consider items in the legislative process that could be simplified.
Fiche d'impact is, therefore, an excellent operating principle.
Does the Presidency have any plans to launch more initiatives in this area in future?
Mr President, the Member asked me what I think of the SLIM initiative.
I think it is a valuable and worthwhile initiative.
I am not entirely sure but perhaps he was suggesting to me that it is a practice that could commend itself on occasion to some of the bodies in which we participate.
If that is what he meant I hesitate to intrude on private grief.
Certainly if what he is basically saying is that all of us in the different roles we carry out have to bear in mind the implications and the scale of the proposals we make, this is entirely true.
We will certainly endeavour to bear it in mind in the work of the presidency.
Madam President, it is a pleasure to listen to you. It is very enjoyable indeed!
Your political eloquence is very impressive indeed.
I have two short questions. You have given here an impressive description of the model which you call the new model of competition, of fair competition.
In your opinion should this involve an initiative at international level, such as that which Sir Leon Brittan has been seeking for a long time? Would you be in favour of this?
My second question refers to another complex matter, namely to what we call electronic trade.
As you know, there is an initiative at European and American level in this field.
In your view, how far should the European initiative be extended? To what extent should our approach differ from what is happening at US and international level, and what would be a successful model for the future?
I would like to make a final brief remark. I would just like to remind you, Mrs Moreau, that the proposal presented by Leon Brittan this morning was requested by this Parliament.
We have commented on it here in the House and it has been adopted in my committee, the Committee on External Economic Relations. Parliament has approved it with an overwhelming majority.
Mr President, I support moves to continue to develop international trade.
I am grateful to the Member both for her kind remarks and also for the clarification she has given to the context of that debate.
With regard to electronic commerce, it is undoubtedly an area which is going to transform the climate within which we seek to make Europe competitive, the climate in which our companies will operate and, indeed, the background and the framework.
It is only part of a great many developments in the information society, which I believe will fundamentally change all our lives and our ways of work.
The honourable Member referred quite rightly to the moves that are taking place in Japan and the United States.
Both within Member States and in the EU as a whole, we need to consider how we use this tool - because that is what it is - to shape our lives in the way that we choose rather than allowing it to shape our lives for us.
If I dare say so, with respect to our colleague at the back, it is a matter of trying to find the third way of seeing how we can turn such opportunities to our advantage instead of allowing them to drive the agenda for us.
This is a hugely complex issue where we need to assess what the framework of legislation is required to be and the difference that it will make to patterns of employment, to ways in which business is conducted, to exchanges between individuals and so on.
I must admit that I do not take the view that is sometimes put forward that this whole package of information society means that people will never again come together in social groups.
I just do not believe that.
But it is possible that it might be driven simply by the opportunities of commerce without our trying to judge how we can use it to our advantage.
That would be a profound mistake.
This is an issue to which we will return again and again in many different debates.
Mr President, I wish to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for her comments, particularly about the simple regulation - the SLIM initiative. This has been a good example of partnership between successive Presidencies.
Luxembourg started it, the British Presidency is taking it forward, working closely with the Austrian Presidency, and, I understand, the Austrian Presidency is now talking to the Germans, who will take the Presidency in due course.
However, one thing we find frustrating in this House and which undermines the simpler legislation for the internal market initiative is something we call 'gold-plating' , where national authorities add on to the legislation we produce in this House.
Would the President-in-Office like to comment on what can be achieved at Council level to ensure that the red tape we issue from here is helping the situation and is not being hindered by 'gold-plating' by national civil services augmenting for no good reason?
I entirely understand Mr Murphy's point.
First I should like briefly to observe that, not only in this respect but in others, we worked with the Luxembourg Presidency to try to make sure that we were progressing the same issues in the same direction, working together.
We are now working, as he said, with the next Austrian Presidency, and it is working with the Germans.
This is part of a growing recognition among Member States that we will achieve more within the European Union as a whole if successive Presidencies work to the same agenda and try to build on and successfully take forward the programme of work of the Council and of Parliament.
He then asked me about the issue of 'gold-plating' .
When Mr Cassidy asked me about red tape, I nearly referred to it then but I did not want to take too long in that reply.
I am very conscious of how sensitive Commissioner Bangemann is to the suggestion that much red tape comes from the European Union institutions, and of the document he produced some considerable time ago showing that most of it actually emanates from national Member States.
I accept that point entirely.
I suspect, and I hope I do not offend too many Members by saying this, that one of the reasons is because too often these things fall into the hands of lawyers at domestic level.
He asked me what we could do to redress this at Council level.
Apart from the constant pressure to keep red tape to a minimum and to look to what others are doing and to see that to 'gold-plate' directives can be a competitive dis advantage, the more we are able to build up our dialogue with the other social partners and the business community, the more likely it is that we will get a clear and sharp identification of the implications of 'goldplating' of the kind he identifies. In principle, because I strongly believe in a developing partnership, I welcome moves to increase this dialogue.
This is a good practical example of some of the other benefits it can have.
Thank you again, Mrs Beckett.
This has been a very interesting exchange of ideas.
I apologize to those who have not been able to speak, but time is a tyrant!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0260/98).
Question No 1 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0164/98)
Subject: New COM in raw tobacco and promotion of employment in less-favoured regions
Regarding the data supplied by the Council prior to the adoption of the reform of Regulation 2075/92 on the COM in raw tobacco , what effects and consequences will this reform have on employment? Does the Commission's proposal to the Council contradict the new employment promotion policies for the less-favoured regions?
What socio-economic impact will it have on Granada, Estremadura and the most depressed Mediterranean areas?
Mr President, thank you for your helpful suggestion, which will enable me to take back the good news from Parliament today to the European Conference tomorrow morning.
In reply to the honourable Member's question, the Commission's proposal for revision of the common organisation of the market in raw tobacco has only recently been tabled.
It follows up the extensive debates held in both the Council and the European Parliament on the Commission's options papers on reform of the tobacco regime.
Council work on the Commission's proposal is at an early stage, but in examining the proposal we will certainly consider whether changes to the current tobacco regime would have an adverse impact on employment in the Community or on the economic well-being of certain Mediterranean areas.
We will also consider whether changes to the regime could bring benefits such as a reduction in costs or in fraud, an improvement in public health, or an increase in efficiency and competitiveness.
As the Commission's proposal on tobacco is based on Article 43 the European Parliament has been invited to give its opinion.
I am sure that in preparing this opinion Parliament will want to consider the employment issues the honourable Member raises in her question.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, men and women living in the countryside around Granada suspect that, following the brutal attack on the olive oil they produce, the next COM in olive oil and especially tobacco may be a backward step compared with the current situation.
Tell me, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, will you really be able to bring yourselves to cut jobs in the less-favoured areas which need them, when tobacco production in the European Union represents 25 % of consumption, and when you yourselves say that employment is the number one priority?
Can you really bring yourselves to make such a big mistake? Please say something to reassure my voters, the tobacco growers of Granada, because 2 000 families there have nothing else to live on.
What do you mean when you say you are going to examine the matter?
You are the President-in-Office of the Council.
Tell us what you must tell us: that not a single tobacco grower's job will be lost in the less-favoured regions, because you respect the European Union's highest priority - employment.
Please give me an answer.
Thank you, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo.
I can understand why you are so vehement and passionate in defending the interests of such a beautiful area as Granada, but I must ask you once again to do so within the allotted time.
Mr Henderson, I invite you to address Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's concerns about that beautiful province.
I dare say you are familiar with the area, but if not, I am sure Mrs Izquierdo Rojo will invite you to visit it.
I am sure I would want to visit the province of Granada if I can find a space in the presidential calendar.
I have to say to the honourable Member that no government in the world can guarantee that there will not be a single job lost in relation to any economic proposal.
That is unrealistic and the Council of the European Union cannot give that guarantee either.
What I can say is that the Council is working on the Commission's proposal and one of the factors which will be taken into account in assessing the appropriateness of the proposal is the employment effect on the people who work in the area to which you have referred.
I think that you will understand that I cannot go further than that in my response today.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, what Mrs Izquierdo Rojo said about Granada is equally applicable to the Spanish region of Estremadura, including the invitation for you to get to know at first hand the social problem which may arise in these areas.
In a recent resolution from this Parliament on the COM in tobacco, the following aspects were approved by the House: that in a new COM in the tobacco sector, policies to promote employment and combat job losses are the highest priority in the European Union today; and that granting aid for tobacco growing solves structural difficulties in the less-favoured regions.
Could the Council please state clearly its position on the importance of tobacco-growing jobs in Mediterranean areas? The explanation you just gave was not really clear.
I have to say to the honourable Member that I cannot go further than I have already gone in my initial answer and in the supplementary answer I gave to the first questioner.
The position is that there is a Commission proposal, the Council is looking at it and one of the factors which will be taken into account is the employment factor.
That is true for all the tobacco-growing areas.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, this seems to be a debate between Spanish Members and yourself, since it is your turn to represent the Council today.
You told us just now that unemployment will be one of the basic factors taken into account in this COM. In view of the fact that unemployment in Spain is twice the EU average, could you explain to me what other factors will be considered by the Council in their evaluation of the Commission's proposal?
I have to say to the honourable Member that it is not just an initiative that affects Spain, it affects a number of our partners' agricultural areas.
I really have to refer to my original response, which was that employment is an important factor which should be taken into account but there are other factors.
We will want to consider whether changes to the regime can bring benefits such as a reduction in costs or an improvement in counteracting fraud, whether there would be any implication on public health and what impact any proposal might have on efficiency and competitiveness.
So, a number of criteria will have to be taken into account.
The Council will look at all these aspects as it develops its view on the Commission's proposal.
Question No 2 has been withdrawn by the author.
Question No 3 by Carlos Carnero González (H-0170/98)
Subject: The Middle Eastern peace projects and possible suspension of the EU-Israel agreements
The crumbling of the Middle Eastern peace process - largely the result of the Israeli Government's failure to meet its obligations under the Oslo Agreements and other commitments given to the Palestinian National Authority and guaranteed by the international community - is dangerously close to the point of no return, seriously jeopardizing the region's stability and the success of what has been achieved to date.
On the basis of the debates of the last few weeks surrounding the communication from Commissioner Manuel Marín on the Union's role in the Middle East, does the Council not believe it would be appropriate to bring effective political pressure to bear on the authorities in Tel Aviv to change course in favour of peace, and to meet their obligations to the Palestinians, by temporarily suspending the current agreements between the EU and Israel until such a time as Prime Minister Netanyahu adopts such an approach?
On 23 February the General Affairs Council discussed fully Commissioner Marín's communication and proposed a number of ways in which the provision of Union aid to the Palestinians can be made more effective.
On that occasion, the Council reiterated the determination of the Union to make a constructive and effective contribution to international efforts to restore confidence in the peace process and establish a firm basis for a resumption of negotiations.
It agreed that the Union should demonstrate its continued commitment to the peace process through a renewal of its financial assistance to the Palestinian authority beyond the expiry of its current five-year pledging period.
The Council also underlined the determination of the Union to intensify its dialogue with Israel on the removal of obstacles to Palestinian economic development.
We believe that the current framework for negotiations provides the best hope for a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
At present to suspend economic agreements between the EU and Israel would not help break the current deadlock.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it is true that the measure I suggest in my question would not necessarily break the deadlock in the peace process, as you say.
But the fact is that the process is at a deadlock.
For example, I do not know if you are aware that the Israeli Prime Minister, in an interview to the Spanish newspaper El País published last Sunday, said that the Europeans know nothing about the Middle East. What a wonderful comment that is for the European Union and everything we are doing!
I assume you take it personally; I certainly do. That was a comment made by Mr Netanyahu.
The issue is this, Mr President-in-Office of the Council: that any agreement signed between the Union and a third country includes a clause on democracy and respect for human rights.
This very morning we were proposing measures to put pressure on the Yugoslav President, Slobodan Milosevic, because of what is happening in Kosovo.
I realize the cases are not exactly the same, but does Mr Netanyahu have some special status to exempt him from being the subject of such discussions?
The position of the Union is that a range of initiatives are being taken to try to break the logjam in the peace process in the Middle East.
We have been urging the Israeli Government to be more receptive to the need to break that logjam and to be more considerate of a number of factors which will help to build a peace process.
There is no special treatment for Mr Netanyahu.
The Union expects Mr Netanyahu and his government to honour the same principles that are built into other third-party trade agreements.
It is important that the trade agreement with Israel is successful, because part of that deal enables products from the Palestinian sector of their economy to be exported through Israel and, were action to be taken to curtail trade, it would have a damaging effect on the Palestinian people, without necessarily substantially influencing the Israeli government's position.
It is a movement in that position which the world community is now impressing on Mr Netanyahu, and it is there that our main focus will concentrate.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I would like to ask you whether you agree that in the case of Israel we are dealing with a stable democracy which has renounced terrorism, whereas we have not had an equivalent renunciation on the part of the Palestinians, and whether you agree that there is no necessity for us to go teaching lessons to the Israeli government.
It is not my impression that Israel has unilaterally denounced the Oslo process, or do you see a different policy? I would also stress that I would be pleased to see the admonitions addressed to Israel also addressed to the Palestinians.
While I understand the point the honourable Member is making, I still maintain that there is a need for a new attitude from the Israeli Government: there needs to be more of an awareness that the logjam has to be broken.
That means that it has to be more receptive to some of the ideas arising out of the Oslo process - for example the port and the airport in Palestine - to be able to bolster those sections of the population who want to have a stable society, which means they must have more economic stability.
That is a basis, or more of a basis, for political stability.
That has to be recognized by Mr Netanyahu, and he has to move to bring about more change arising out of the Oslo processes.
Of course, where terrorism is a threat in any third-party country, then the Union will do everything it can to help to counter that threat.
I would like to commend the President-in-Office for the Council's support of the Oslo peace process as the way forward.
Does the President-in-Office agree with me that economic sanctions against Israel would in fact inflame the situation? It would be a counterproductive political gesture which would cause more economic harm to Europe than Israel because of the balance of trade that exists.
Does he agree that it does not help to inflame the situation with ridiculous comparisons between Israel and Serbia? Does he agree that, instead, financial assistance to the Palestinian authority should be stepped up and that dialogue with a democratically elected government of Israel and a democratically elected Palestinian authority is the best way to move the Middle East peace process forward by emphasizing the good points in the Oslo peace process to all sides in this sad conflict?
Can I say to the Honourable Member there is no question of the Union ending a trade agreement with Israel.
What we want to see is that trade agreement forming the basis of greater movement by the Israeli government and greater recognition of what it needs to do to push the Oslo peace process along.
The consequence of any trade breach could be that the European Union would suffer in economic terms rather than Israel, but that is a matter of speculation.
It would not necessarily be a factor if it was politically necessary to have a breach of trade.
One of my main concerns is that the Palestinian economy would be very heavily damaged by such a breach of trade.
That would also be in a sense doubly damaging to the hopes for a peace process.
I would also agree that there is a need to continue to provide financial assistance to the Palestinian economy to help it begin to build up strength, which is important if any political moves are to be underpinned by economic stability.
Question No 4 by Christoph Konrad (H-0175/98)
Subject: The Commission's reform proposal for the EU's market organization for bananas
The Commission's recently presented plans for the reform of the 1993 EU market organization for bananas are very controversial as in many aspects they appear to be protectionist and to hamper free competition.
What does the Council intend to do to satisfy the WTO requirement that the reform must be completed by the end of 1998 at the latest, such that the EU market organization for bananas can be considered compatible with the rules of free world trade?
The Council agrees that following the World Trade Organization's finding against certain aspects of the European Community banana regime, the regulation on the market organization for bananas has to be made WTO-compatible.
It is a high priority for us is to reach agreement by the end of June to allow time for implementing regulations to take effect from 1 January 1999.
The Commission presented its proposals for revising the regulation to the Agriculture Council on 20 January.
The proposal is still under examination by the Council and it is therefore too early for me to anticipate the final position of the Council.
In finalizing its position, the Council will wish to be aware of the opinions of both the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee once these have been received.
I should also mention that the consolidation and strengthening of the multilateral trading system remains one of the main priorities of the Council in the field of external economic relations.
The Union believes in the rule of law for international trade and it is to the World Trade Organization that we must look to establish that rule of law.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, many thanks for your concern and for your answer.
My question is as follows: do you not share my view that the Commission's answer, that its proposal still smacks of the spirit of protectionism.
With customs fines set at £50, £200 and £500 per tonne of bananas, it is easy to believe this to be the case.
And do you not share my view that since yesterday's European Court judgement the situation has changed completely? You will be aware that the framework agreement between the EU and the four Central American bananaproducing countries was declared invalid.
This presents us with a completely new situation. Under the terms of the judgement, the market organization must be rectified and as a result I am asking now whether you at long last, and sooner rather than later, intend to stop this madness with an initiative which will look very different from that suggested by the Commission here.
I thank Mr Konrad for his supplementary question.
I am not aware of the Court judgment but will study it once my officials bring it to my attention.
I will reiterate the point I made in my introduction.
The general position is that the Commission proposal must be consistent with World Trade Organization rules.
We are looking at the Commission proposal.
We are looking at whether it is the kind of proposal which is fair and balanced in terms of the interests of the Council.
Once we have come to a decision on that we have also to be absolutely clear that it is consistent with WTO rules.
As far as I am aware, the Commission has made the necessary assessment and would be able to furnish us with its opinion at the time of any continuing dialogue between the Council and the Commission.
It is important that any final conclusion is compatible with what would be necessary under WTO rules.
Thank you, Mr Henderson.
The two supplementary questions I have are from Mr von Habsburg and Mr Medina Ortega.
Mrs Redondo Jiménez keeps requesting to put a supplementary question, but I must inform her that the Rules of Procedure say that each Member is only allowed one supplementary question during questions to the Council.
It is true that thanks to a suggestion from Mr von Habsburg, the Bureau has decided to ask the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to amend the Rules of Procedure forthwith, to allow two supplementary questions to be put. At the moment, however, I cannot give her the floor, although I would like to.
Instead, it is my pleasure to give Mr von Habsburg the floor for his supplementary question.
Is the President-in-Office not aware that the opening of the banana market in Europe is going to be a very heavy burden on the small producers in the Canary Islands and other European territories? Is it not important that we should give them as much protection as we can against the tremendous American interests which with their enormous capital and enormous propaganda potential which we have felt, are trying to invade our market to destroy those bananas being produced on European territory?
I would say to Mr von Habsburg, as I said to Mr Konrad, that it is necessary for the Council to assess the various implications on the Member States.
The Canary Islands producers are one of those factors and the Caribbean producers are another area to which consideration has to be given.
The Council has also to balance those interests with the need for compatibility with the World Trade Organization rules.
The secret of a successful conclusion to this will be to get the kind of deal which meets those criteria.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your answer.
You talked about taking Parliament's view into account.
I would like to ask if you are aware that a large majority of this House has repeatedly declared itself to be in favour of protecting the interests of small producers within the Community, in the West Indies and in other developing countries, against the multinationals' attempts to dominate the world banana market.
To reassure Mr Konrad and yourself, I can tell you that yesterday's judgements do not change anything with respect to the WTO decision, or in any way threaten the protection we owe to those producers.
I can say to Mr Medina Ortega that I understand the point he is making.
Indeed, those same lobbies have been in touch with me in my national capacity, and I am giving consideration to those matters.
I understand that Parliament would want to give protection to those areas of the Union and its territories where there is an important interest.
I would also expect that Parliament would want to uphold the rules of the World Trade Organization as being essential for a trading community such as the European Union.
It is necessary to meet both criteria. As I said to Mr von Habsburg, it is not just a case of being able to meet the interests of the Caribbean producers or the Canary Islands producers or others, we need to meet both criteria.
If we do not, we will fail to get any agreement, because any agreement we have made among ourselves would be incompatible with the World Trade Organization rules and we would find ourselves in difficulty in the future.
That is why it is important that we all devote the necessary thinking and scrutiny to those matters to try to come up with something which is acceptable.
Question No 5 by José Valverde López (H-0188/98)
Subject: Presidency of the Council
In his speech to the plenary of the European Parliament in Strasbourg the President-in-Office of the Council referred several times to the "Presidency of the Union' . This phrase was then repeated by the media.
In view of the fact that to talk of the "Presidency of the Union' is inappropriate and both constitutes a distortion of the terms of the Treaties and misleads the general public, can the Council say what steps it intends to take to ensure that speeches by the Presidency and official statements and documents stop talking about the "Presidency of the Union' and refer simply to the "Presidency of the Council' ? It is important not to create confusion among the general public as regards the nature of the Community institutions.
There is no "Presidency of the Union' .
Each institution has its own president.
I wish to say to Mr Valverde López that it is common practice for the Presidency of the Council to be referred to as the Presidency of the Union.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have just said that Parliament and all the other institutions must comply with our obligations. I would remind you that at no point in the Treaty is there any mention of the Presidency of the Union, only the Presidency of the Council.
I did not table this question in a critical way at all.
On the contrary, it is meant in a positive sense. We must take advantage of each country's term of office to explain properly the nature of the different institutions and bring them home to the public, because that is the time when each country is best able to influence public opinion.
If we use language which is out of keeping with the Treaties we introduce confusion. This is not a criticism, quite the opposite.
We in this Parliament are always happy to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, especially if he or she is British, because we owe this very Question Time to the parliamentary tradition of Great Britain.
Mr Valverde López is obviously an old hand at parliamentary procedures.
When he takes a crack at the front bench, so to speak, he begins by complimenting them, which makes it extremely difficult to be negative in response.
The British Presidency has followed the terminology of previous presidencies.
The French and the Irish presidencies, for instance, incorporated the term 'Presidency' into their logo.
We are using a style of communication that is comprehensible to the population.
If the question was asked in the British parliament, the answer would be that members of my constituency would not understand what the Council, Parliament, the Commission or any of the institutions were, but they would want to know that the European Union was doing a good job and making their life better, and that if the Presidency had a role in that, then it was a positive role. It is the issues we deal with and the values we hold that we have to communicate to the people of Europe.
I am not for a moment saying that we should not be accurate in our descriptions. As a President-in-Office I would be happy to do that.
But there are perhaps greater priorities in forming public opinion and galvanizing public understanding on the European Union.
Question No 6 by André Sainjon (H-0189/98)
Subject: Child labour in the United Kingdom
The situation of many children working in the United Kingdom is intolerable.
Seeing hundreds of thousands of children under 13 doing alienating work without any social protection takes us back a hundred years.
What point is there in asking certain under-developed countries to comply with minimum standards if the European Union for its part does not set an example?
ILO Convention 29 on forced labour is clearly being flouted.
So what decisions does the government which is currently chairing the Council intend to take to put an end to this state of affairs, and is it prepared to ratify Convention 138 on child labour?
Council Directive 94/33/EC on the protection of young people at work includes provisions strictly limiting the number of hours that can be worked by children under 16 and the types of work they can do.
These provisions will be implemented in the United Kingdom through regulations due to come into force in August.
They will reinforce the already extensive legislative protection available to working children in the United Kingdom.
It is the policy of the Union in the Council that there should be protection against child labour in all Member States.
The Council is aware that has been implemented.
Where modifications to legislation are taking place, they are being implemented.
Question No 7 by Maj Theorin (H-0191/98)
Subject: Support for action against drugs
European Cities on Drug Policy is an organization working for the legalization of drugs.
According to reports, it received over 6 m SKR in 1996 and the same in 1997.
European Cities Against Drugs, as its name reveals, is an organization working for a drugs-free society.
It has 180 member towns and cities and is supported by local authority membership fees.
ECAD applied for 1.5 m SKR from the EU for spending on information, training and printing material in several languages, but got nothing.
So the only large-scale international organization working for a policy to restrict drugs gets nothing, but generous help is provided for organizations and countries seeking to legalize drugs.
How is the public in the EU to interpret these decisions in any other way than that the EU has given up the fight against drugs? Is that also true of the Council?
Or is it prepared to act against drugs?
The Council has always been fully committed to tackling the menace of drugs on our streets.
But arrangements for the organisation listed are not within the Council's competence.
The Cannes European Council adopted a five-year action plan to combat drugs.
A complementary strategy focusing on measures to tackle illicit drugs trafficking was subsequently endorsed by the Madrid Council.
In implementing these, the Council has initiated projects both within the Union and within the wider global community.
The activities are too numerous to list here but include: a Council initiative to stem the flow of drugs through the Caribbean and Latin America to Europe; an initiative to begin to create a security belt around Afghanistan by working with the central Asian states to help improve their drug-fighting capacity; the establishment of the European Monitoring Centre in Lisbon to give a clear and objective picture of the nature of the drugs problem across Europe; the creation of Europol, shortly to become fully operational, to ensure that all of our law enforcement agencies have rapid access to the intelligence that they need across the European Union.
Thank you very much for your reply.
The European Union's action plan to combat drugs does, of course, form a framework for the EU's and the Member States' work on preventing the risks connected with drug addiction.
As I see it, such an action plan can hardly be compatible with support for liberal drug projects.
My question, which I have asked indirectly before, is whether it is also the Council's intention that such an action plan against drugs should be incompatible with support for liberal drug projects.
In spite of this action plan, the EU supports the European Cities on Drug Policy which works for the legalization of drugs.
How should the EU's members in fact interpret this? On the one hand, we have an action plan to combat drugs, while on the other hand, there is support for the legalization of drugs.
My main question is therefore: is the EU not sending out contradictory messages?
I have a lot of sympathy for what has been said by Mrs Theorin.
If there were funding of action against drugs and at the same time funding of the legalization of drugs in effect it would be funding two processes which were counteracting each other.
It would most certainly be perceived in that way by the population of the European Union.
The question of funding for the organization that is mentioned in the question is a matter for the Commission and not a matter for the Council.
It would be better if the honourable Member took that up with them.
As is well known we have two different political opinions about drugs; one which represents the conventions which the Member States have signed, and one which represents a more liberal view.
As a Swede it is clear that I would rather see support go to projects which represent the view held by the UN conventions.
But could the Council imagine providing support and thinking that it is reasonable for funding to at least be divided fifty-fifty between these two different political points of view?
It may be a matter of academic speculation at the moment as to which is the best way to try to discourage people from taking illegal drugs and preventing the misery that arises, but the Council's position is quite clear.
There are a number of initiatives which we believe must be taken and which I itemized in my initial contribution.
They are: to try to stop the flow of illegal drugs to people within the European Union and especially our young people; to monitor what is happening in the communities where there are high levels of drug-taking incidents; and to reinforce bodies like Europol who can play a potentially important part in counteracting this illegal trade.
Therefore I think it is right for the Council to build on those initiatives.
I would expect that the Commission, in its allocation of funding, would be guided by the policies which had been agreed on those matters.
I would like to follow up with information which we have just received from Commissioner Gradin in a meeting with the Swedish group.
Large amounts of drugs are seized in the EU which have entered from countries outside the EU.
Talk about legalization gives the general public a completely false impression, an impression which we do not want the EU to give.
On the other hand, we would like to convey the fact that we are making tougher demands on the outside world too.
My question is this: what are the demands the EU makes internationally in relations with other countries, that is, when we have the chance to ask other countries what drugs policies they conduct and are able to describe what drugs policy we want to conduct, such as in the agreements with the USA or Latin America, or in the relations we have through Europol - which the Council mentions - as well as with Interpol?
I thank Mr Lindqvist.
He heard the response I have already made to the two previous questioners about the Council position.
He raises an interesting issue about activity which can be taken in cooperation with other law enforcement agencies outside the European Union.
Indeed, consideration of that question is one of the important items which the European Conference will look at tomorrow in London.
That indicates the seriousness with which the Council takes the need for action to counteract this illegal trade in drugs.
Question No 8 by Richard Corbett (H-0195/98)
Subject: Financial perspectives
The financial perspectives proposed by the Commission in "Agenda 2000' for the period 2000-2006 leave two major spending policies dominating the budget: agriculture and Structural Funds.
Given that, in both these cases, certain states benefit to a far greater extent than others, this creates the risk that some states will see little benefit in enhanced EU spending and will tend to resist any increases in the EU budget.
Does the Council agree that it is important also to develop those spending policies which benefit all Member States, especially where joint spending through the EU budget will, through greater effectiveness and economies of scale, save money for national budgets?
The Council does not accept that agricultural and structural spending is of interest only to some Member States while other spending is of interest to all Member States.
All categories of the financial perspectives are of interest to all Member States and to the Community.
The Commission's detailed proposals for the division of expenditure between the categories of the financial perspectives are expected very shortly, and will then be discussed by the Council.
It would be premature for the Council to take a position on those issues raised by the honourable Member at this stage.
The Council recalls that budgetary discipline and efficient expenditure are essential at Union level, just as they are at the level of the Member State.
The issue of future expenditure flows in the Union resulting from the reform of the Union's main policies, highlighted by the honourable Member, is one which will clearly be addressed in detail over the coming months in the course of the deliberations in the Council on the Commission's proposals.
I thank the President-in-Office for that answer.
The question did not intend to imply that items such as structural funding were not of interest to some Member States.
Clearly, all Member States benefit from a happy and balanced regional development of the European Union, and that is something I would certainly strongly support.
However, there is a perception among some Member States - or there is a danger of such a perception - that they benefit to a lesser extent than others.
As we move to an enlarged Union of nearly 30 Member States in the next few years, we are in danger of entering into negotiations on the future financial perspectives in a situation where there is a gross imbalance in what Member States perceive to be their relative advantage.
Would it not be advantageous in the long term for the European Union to develop, in addition, extra areas of spending other than those two, in order to achieve a better balance of interest to everybody?
I have to say to the honourable Member that it is an interesting speculation that the Union should consider new areas of expenditure.
I would remind him that in most of the Member States there are considerable pressures on governments to reduce levels of expenditure and they are often narrow areas of coverage.
I do not totally rule out new areas within the European Union but it would be against that political background that decisions would have to be taken.
In relation to the current negotiations which the Union will face, the Council looks forward to receiving the Commission's proposals which I understand will be published on 18 March.
It will then be up to the Council to try to make progress on those matters as speedily as possible, recognizing that some of them are very complicated and that time will be necessary.
The different views of the Member States will be put at the Council meeting.
It is important for the Union that at the end of the process the priority for the Union and for its coherence is a factor which all Member States will take into account in submitting their views to the Council to enable it to reach a decision on those important matters.
Mr President, I would like to address in particular the problems faced in the border areas.
Half of the Austrian border is shared with countries wishing to accede to the European Union.
I would like to ask what ideas have been developed in this report.
In geographical terms, frontier countries will have special issues they will have to deal with in relation to the enlargement of the Union, many of which will be linked to the proximity of boundaries and the movement of people and goods across those boundaries.
That is recognized by the Council.
Another major issue which the Council will have to consider at the time of the Commission's proposals is the extent to which support should be given to those countries in central and eastern Europe who seek to accede to the European Union as a proportion of the total resources which are available for expenditure within the existing Union.
There are many contentious issues about how that expenditure will be allocated within the existing Union.
The first decision which has to be reached by the Council is how far the Community will be able to help those new countries who seek to accede to the Union.
That may well have spin-off consequences for frontier states.
I know that states like Austria will be making representations on those matters through the normal channels.
As the author is not present, Question No 9 lapses.
Question No 10 by Brian Crowley (H-0199/98)
Subject: Excise in international waters
Has the Council requested the Commission to specify the arrangements which will apply from 1 July 1999 for sales of excisable products on mobile forms of transport, such as ferries and cruises which take place whilst the vessel is traversing international waters and/or the territorial seas of different Member States during the course of an intra-EU journey and, if not, will it now do so?
This is obviously a matter which Members feel is of considerable importance.
I know we discussed some other implications of this at the last Question Time.
In answer to the specific point raised on this occasion, the Council has made no such request.
Council Directive 92/12/EEC on the arrangements for excise duty sets out the general principle that duty is payable in the country of consumption.
If this issue is raised by a Member State and there is agreement in the Council, the Commission would certainly be asked to advise on what precise arrangements should apply after 1 July 1999.
I know that the President-in-Office spent some time last month discussing this matter very widely.
However, the point I raised is exceptional.
If a ferry, for instance, is sailing from Ireland to France, at one stage during its journey it moves out of EU or national territorial waters into international waters.
Under strict interpretation of the decision which the minister referred to, they would then be entitled to sell duty-free goods on the boat at that particular time.
The other point I want to bring into this is the lack of dialogue between the different institutions and the operators themselves.
I know that the Commission and members of the Council have consulted with the Association of Scheduled Airlines which represents the larger airlines in Europe, but no charter airlines were consulted, no airport managers were consulted and no ferry companies were consulted.
I would like to ask if the President-in-Office could give us an undertaking that wider consultation will take place in the future?
On the issue of substance, the Commission has a responsibility to explain how the new workings will come into operation.
Set against that, there are already provisions in international law, and advice from the Commission will have to be consistent with existing international law.
It will therefore be a matter of interpretation by ferry companies and others as to what their responsibilities are with regard to what they can sell, at what rate of tax, and where.
On the question of consultation, I am not aware of any complaint about a lack of a facility to make representation to the Commission.
If specific instances are referred to me then I am pleased to look at them and see if I can have discussions with the Commission; but I have never found the Commission to be difficult on receiving representations.
It may be that if those who feel their view has not been properly aired were to reapproach the Commission, they might find that a facility was be available to them to put their case.
But that is not really a matter for the Council.
The Council will be looking at the issues of substance, will be wanting to know what the advice of the Commission is, and it will then be up to operators to introduce the new regime.
Could the President-in-Office confirm to the House today that the Presidency is minded to allow a mandate to the Commission to undertake a study of the economic impact and any potential job losses consequent on the current decision that duty-free will cease and excise duties will apply as normal as from 1 July 1999. If he is able to confirm that, it is very welcome news indeed, bearing in mind that in the constituency of North Essex and South Suffolk we have both the port of Harwich and Stansted airport.
Perhaps the Presidency is not aware but KLM, which now operates out of the airport, has announced job losses already consequent on this decision taking place in 15 months' time.
I hope he is able to confirm that to the House this afternoon.
I have to say as a matter of general economic theory to Miss McIntosh that if there is a retail outlet and a job is lost because that retail outlet no longer exists and there is still a public desire to consume the products through another retail outlet it might mean that an additional job created is somewhere else.
I am not saying that there would necessarily be equality in that exercise in that sometimes when change is brought about, companies decide to take advantage of productivity potential which is open to them.
But that general point has to be borne in mind.
The Commission already has that mandate and it has brought forward its proposals.
The Council have agreed a position in the knowledge that a mandate was there.
As you will be aware, many of us are concerned that there will be chaos in European waters if duty-free is abolished.
I give you one example - a service he is probably familiar with between the UK and the Netherlands where you will pay British excise in British territorial waters, no excise duty at all in international waters and Dutch excise, on the final leg of the journey. On the reverse journey that will switch, so ferries operating between the UK and the Netherlands will have to charge six different prices for goods on a single return journey.
How does the minister think that contributes towards the completion of the single market? How can he sell that to the people of Europe?
It clearly makes no sense and the Council needs to ask the Commission to look at this very serious matter because chaos could well result, undermining the very principle that all of us are trying to contribute to, namely the completion of the single market. Abolishing duty-free will not contribute to that one iota.
It is widely recognized that the move towards a single market is something which should be unstoppable and is certainly desirable within the Union.
We all have an obligation to try to do what we can to remove obstacles.
But the tax regimes are quite different in every Member State.
In the perception of moves which can be made toward a single market, at the moment those regimes are outside of that.
That is a political reality.
I am sure the honourable Member will recognize there is not any great prospect of any major change in the immediate political future.
One can never talk about the very long term.
I would be very stupid to try to predict the way in which opinion will move.
If my mother was on the boat, she would know when to buy the stuff.
I think consumers will very much take that view throughout the Union.
Question No 11 by Liam Hyland (H-0202/98)
Subject: Wool
In April 1996, the European Parliament unanimously adopted a motion calling for the development of a European wool industry.
Has the Council now had an opportunity to examine the proposals contained in this motion and, if so, will the Council now initiate discussions with the Commission with a view to taking practical steps to realize the potential which exists for the development of a European wool industry?
First of all, the answer is no.
But the honourable Member will be aware that wool is not included in Annex II of the Treaty of Rome and is therefore not considered as an agricultural product.
Consequently there are no direct European Union support systems for wool and no common organization of the market.
Any amendment to the Treaty to designate wool as an agricultural product would be difficult to achieve and would require the agreement of all Member States.
Assistance is already available for wool producers from the Union's Structural Funds programmes.
This assistance is conditional on the project meeting the aims and objective of the relevant programme, on its not duplicating funding already available from European Union sources, and on conformity with the state aid rules.
Is the President-in-Office aware that failure to address the issue of promoting a quality sustainable EU wool sector is to concede the European wool industry to our competitors, New Zealand and Australia? Is he aware that his colleague, Mr Cunningham, gave an undertaking to Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development that he was prepared to have the matter re-examined?
Is the President-in-Office aware that the Council can change the designation of wool as an agricultural product?
I am asking him today if he is prepared to at least put that item on the agenda for consideration by the Council so that the matter can be progressed.
At the moment this is not on the agenda of the Council.
Any change would require unanimity.
It would be up to a Member of the Council to make representations to the Presidency to ask that a matter like this be placed on the agenda so that a discussion can take place on the way forward and whether any changes should be introduced.
At the moment I have not had that approach.
If I did receive that approach then the matter would be given consideration.
But at the moment there are no plans for any change in current regulations.
Mindful of what the Minister has said, and also of what Mr Hyland has said, Mr Cunningham gave a commitment to have this matter looked into in some detail at the Agricultural Ministers' Meeting.
I should like to ask you, Sir, through your good offices, to see whether you could get it put on to the agenda, because this could be a very important sector for the creation of growth, both in employment and economic terms, and would actually stop jobs leaving the European Union.
At the moment, unprocessed wool is being exported out of the Union.
I have to remind Mr Crowley that I am not here to represent the British government.
I am here as a representative of the Council, as the President-in-Office.
I have not had any approach from the British government on this matter.
Were the members of the British government on the Council of Ministers to be approached by their colleagues in the Ministry of Agriculture, then they might give the matter some consideration.
At the moment, as the President-in-Office of the Council, I have to repeat my original reply to the honourable Member's honourable friend.
I rise to make a political charge, that there seems to be absolutely no cooperation between the British Ministers, Ministers of State and Secretary of State.
Mr Henderson came here last month and answered questions in relation to duty-free, and he was not aware of what the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, had said in this House some time earlier.
Maybe officials are advising him not to respond to me.
I am making a political charge, and I expect a politician to respond to it.
I suggest that there should be more cooperation.
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Jack Cunningham, came here and gave some assurances, and the Minister for Europe is not even aware of it!
I put it to you, Minister, through the Chair, that this Parliament has asked that proposals be put forward.
Has the British Presidency now taken a decision to ignore the unanimous view of this House?
I have been brought up in the school of constitutions and rule books and recognition of one's responsibilities in that regard, and my responsibilities this afternoon are quite clear: I am responsible for reporting and accounting on behalf of the Council and not on behalf of the British government.
It is in that context that my responses are made.
I did not say that I was not aware of a view which had been struck by my colleague on the Agricultural Council.
What I said was that I had not been approached as a national representative, and that the Foreign Secretary had not been approached specifically to raise that issue at the Council at this time.
That is a different matter.
I have to say, in passing, that I have also not had any approach from the Irish government on the Council suggestion that the Irish government would want this matter raised.
It may be that the Irish government does indeed want the matter raised.
If it does, I am sure it will approach me to have the matter discussed at the Council.
Question No 12 by Robin Teverson (H-0203/98)
Subject: 1999 European Parliament elections
Would the Council please state what action it is taking to ensure that ALL citizens of the European Union are democratically represented in the European Parliament following the next European elections in June 1999, especially citizens of Gibraltar?
The honourable Member is undoubtedly aware that Annex 2 of the Act of September 1976 concerning the election of representatives of the European Parliament by universal direct suffrage provides that the United Kingdom will apply the provisions of the Act only in respect of the United Kingdom, that is to say excluding Gibraltar.
Amendment would require the agreement of all Member States and ratification by all Member States.
The 1976 Act was adopted on the basis of Article 138(3) of the European Community Treaty on the basis of a draft drawn up by the European Parliament which made no reference to the particular case of Gibraltar.
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
I apologise that this question was not tabled last month.
While I understand the legal basis of this, it is a fundamental principle that citizens of the European Union should be democratically represented within their institutions.
I do not think anybody could disagree with that.
And yet we have this anomaly which I do not believe occurs in other Member States.
Their territories which are part of the European Union though not part of their main land masses are all represented here.
It is highly regrettable that there is a difference for the citizens of Gibraltar.
Given that the President-in-Office drew a line between his position in the British Government and that of representing the Council, could I invite him, as President-in-Office, to invite the appropriate Member State to start to make appropriate amendments to make sure that all citizens are democratically represented here in Parliament?
I would say to the honourable Member that on this question we are all burdened with history.
If the Council were to invite the Member State alluded to make representations on this matter, the Member State's judgment would be that it would be very difficult to make the necessary progress to achieve any real change.
Mr Henderson, thank you for your clear answer.
Obviously, as President-in-Office of the Council, you are well aware that this is a problem which runs up against historical and political obstacles arising from the fact that, in the fullest and strictest sense, the territory of Gibraltar does not belong to the European Union, because it is a colony. The British government recognized that fact many years ago in an official communication to the United Nations, which has never been amended.
Therefore, I should imagine the President-in-Office of the Council knows perfectly well that until that situation changes, what he wants to achieve - doubtless with the best of intentions - will be impossible.
Gibraltar is actually an overseas territory and not a colony of the United Kingdom.
That does not change the context of the reply which I originally gave to Parliament.
I set out the legal position and some of the history.
I have nothing further to add.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in July 1997 an application was made in the House of Commons by representatives of both main parties examining the method of suffrage used at both national elections and European elections in Gibraltar.
In response to a question which I asked a month ago, I was informed that this matter is still pending.
I am not sure whether this is still the case or what the present situation is.
Am I right in assuming, on the basis of your comments and the legal basis you have just mentioned, that this question is probably invalid in the House of Commons anyway, since the point at issue is not itself legally feasible in practical terms. The second question which I should like to add relates to the matter of Gibraltar which - as you already know from the Treaty of Utrecht - is basically split into two parts, the matter of the rock and the matter of the isthmus.
I would like to know how you regard the two parts.
I cannot see this is a matter for the Council.
The question of the legal position of Gibraltar is something that is clearly designated and entrenched in law.
If the honourable Member wishes to approach the British government, I am sure that they would be happy to take up some of the points that have been raised about procedure within the United Kingdom but it is not a matter for the Council.
Question No 13 by Sören Wibe (H-0204/98)
Subject: The situation in Algeria
Reports of fresh massacres in Algeria appear in the media every day.
It is increasingly unclear who is behind all these acts of madness.
Some people now suspect a number of different political figures of terrorizing the public.
Suspicions have also been voiced that shady elements of the Algerian authorities are perpetrating acts of terror in order to maintain an unstable society for their own political ends.
A European Parliament delegation visited Algeria in February 1998 and, in its conclusions, tended towards the view that the authorities are not to blame for the massacres.
What view does the Council take of such suspicions?
The Council has repeatedly reaffirmed its outright condemnation of those abhorrent acts of terrorism and indiscriminate violence.
As the honourable Member will be aware a ministerial troika mission visited Algiers on 19-20 January 1998.
The Council welcomed this visit as an effective expression not only of the deep concern of the European Union at the situation in Algeria but also of the strong sympathy of the peoples of the European Union with the suffering of the Algerian people.
The Council believes that there is no credible evidence to support the allegations of the involvement of the Algerian authorities in these massacres.
The Council continues to press for greater openness, media access and transparency on the part of the Algerian government.
This would improve international understanding of the situation.
To this end the Council has also encouraged parliamentary exchanges.
It hopes that such contacts will help strengthen democracy and the rule of law in Algeria.
The recent visit of European Parliamentarians is an important step in the continuing dialogue between the European Union and Algeria.
I will try to be very brief.
It is true that there is in fact no credible evidence either way, either against the authorities or against the Islamic groups, not least because the Algerian government refuses to agree to an international investigating commission.
But is it not the case, Mr Henderson, that there are very credible indications from, amongst others, the former Prime Minister of Algeria and from Amnesty International, which suggest that there may be groups within the Algerian authorities which are behind these terrible massacres - as you call them - which happen daily? Perhaps you should not be so sure about who is guilty.
I recognise that the situation is not completely clear which is the point of sending the mission in the first place.
It is hoped that there will be a further meeting between the Algerian Foreign Minister and the Presidency to try to examine the matters that the honourable Member has raised.
Thank you for your answers, Mr Henderson.
We wish you a good journey.
Mr Posselt wishes to make a point of order.
Mr President, I am sorry.
You have probably answered this question already.
I had to attend the meeting of the EU-Czech Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee.
That is why I am late.
I simply wanted to ask why Question Time ended before 7.00 pm today. In principle, Question Time should run until 7.00 pm.
I also wanted to ask whether it started on time.
Demographic report 1997
The next item is the report (A4-0056/98) by Mr Cabezón Alonso, on behalf of the Commitee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission demographic report 1997 (COM(97)0361 - C4-0505/97).
Mr President, as the 1997 Commission demographic report showed, the EU's population pyramid is changing and we must be prepared for the consequences it may entail.
Since 1975, population growth has been slowing down while at the same time the European Union's population is growing older.
Other trends are becoming apparent: young people are studying and training for longer periods and, in general, people are taking earlier retirement.
If current trends continue, the population structure of the European Union will develop as follows over the coming 30 years: the over-60 age group will increase by 50 %; the number of adults aged between 20 and 59 will fall by 6 %; and the number of young people aged between 0 and 19 will fall by 11 %.
These trends were also evident in other demographic reports previously approved by Parliament.
This information means that we must consider certain consequences that are already evident and which are detailed in the report we are discussing today.
Current demographic trends are having and will have effects on the funding and organization of social protection.
The number of pensioners is rising, an increasing proportion of the budget is spent on pensions, health care costs are growing - due to the increase in the population protected and higher life expectancy -, and the greater dependency of elderly people is giving rise to higher social expenditure.
We must modernize the management systems of current levels of public social protection to ensure that they work to the advantage of competitiveness and employment.
It is also important to separate the sources from which benefits under public social protection systems are financed, whether they are universal benefits or those which are to be paid out of contributions from employers and workers.
The demographic changes taking place will not in themselves resolve the employment problems, but they will have effects on the job market.
To protect and preserve the welfare society, the so-called European social model, we must maintain economic growth, increase productivity and improve employment.
The balance of the population of working age over the past 20 years is going to shift in the future and it will therefore be necessary to expand the participation of women in the labour market, since many of them still do not work.
The foreseeable increase in the number of older workers of working age, that is, between 50 and 64, will make it necessary to adjust working conditions, adapt the content and form of vocational training, and, generally, adapt legislation and taxation to the new conditions.
These new conditions are being debated today and will call for constant responses; the basic elements they will involve will be the share or balance of responsibilities and family, professional and educational arrangements.
The new conditions, Mr President, must not be obstacles or barriers to paid employment; nor must they be a disadvantage in terms of social protection for those trying to meet the new conditions and the new family and social needs.
These population trends may give rise to regional disparities, which will have an impact on the labour market, housing, health, and care policies as well as on the environment as a result of greater rural depopulation.
These regional trends must be monitored but there is no doubt that they are certainly evident at the moment.
We must also consider the demographic situation in the applicant countries, those countries which want to join the European Union.
Their situation, the new trends, will be used as reference in the negotiating processes with these countries, particularly as regards the active population, unemployment, levels of social protection, mobility trends, and so on.
Possible increases in migratory flows from the applicant states to the present Member States of the European Union will increase the pressure on social protection systems in both the current Member States and the applicant countries.
Current demographic trends in the European Union are also going to have an impact on the definition of new active employment policies - what they will entail and who they will affect -, on public spending on social protection, on the management of employment and training, on family allowances and on the internal cohesion and balance of our businesses.
In the debate on this report in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I, as rapporteur, accepted for the most part the amendments tabled by our colleagues from the other political groups, the Group of the European People's Party, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, etcetera. I also took up the recommendations of the Committee on Women's Rights.
In any case, I wanted this report to include the opinions and suggestions of as many of the members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs as possible and, in fact, the report was approved in committee with only one abstention.
When voting on this report, I believe we should not accept the amendments tabled by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations (Coordination Group), since all the amendments they tabled concerned an area that was not discussed in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and, therefore, we could not set out our position in this respect.
I believe personally, as rapporteur, that the House should reject these amendments.
Mr President, I would like to end by thanking all the members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs who helped to draw up this report, and I hope that it will receive the full support of the House.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Alonso on his excellent report and to thank him and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for the fact that they included, in the final text, the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights.
It is not necessary to emphasize how important the demographic problem in Europe is.
The population is getting older and women are called upon to pay the heavy price.
Our committee, in its conclusions, insisted on the fact that women are bearing an even greater burden with the care of dependents, usually without reward and social security and at the same time are constantly distancing themselves from the labour market.
We asked the Commission and the Member States to target men and women equally when they promote measures to combine family and professional life, and to ensure the possibility of training and reinsertion into work for those - usually women - who are forced, for the reasons given above, to interrupt their professional life.
Above and beyond that, there is the danger that, if specific measures are not taken, women will be further discriminated against, through increasingly individualized superannuation systems which are basically not optional.
The European Union is preparing itself for an important new enlargement to include the countries of central and eastern Europe, which will have repercussions for our demographic map.
It is significant that the final report makes reference to infant mortality and that the Commission is called upon to provide data, according to sex, on the demographic developments in the accession countries.
The next century will see a Europe where the increased average life expectancy also has its problems, particularly among women rather men, apart from its positive aspect.
A fourth generation, older and more dependent, is taking shape and it consists mostly of women.
For this reason, the future role of active women in European society must be safeguarded and must be reinforced with equal value given to obligations and rights, both in the workplace and in the family. Only in this way can the demographic problem be combated effectively, and only in this spirit can the Commission act and can we support our positions.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on a very good report and to refer to a growing problem within the European Union, that is, the demographic trends and the fact that people are living longer.
These trends present a very strong economic challenge to the European Union, particularly as we are coming up to the new millennium.
As Mr Cabezón highlights in his report, increasing longevity, allied to declining fertility of younger generations, has resulted in a growing number of older people in our society compared with those who are still working or economically active.
Currently, within the European Union there are 48 million people over 65, 20 million of whom are over 75, so that gives some indication of the problem.
At the turn of the century that group will represent one fifth of the European Union's population.
Indeed, by the year 2020 it will be one quarter of the European Union's population.
If we turn to my own country, Scotland, the figures show a similar trend.
In 1996, 20.18 % of the population were over 58.
By 2006, ten years later, this will rise to 24.6 % and by 2036 it will rise to 31 % - almost a third.
So that is an indication of the trends; these figures are not just statistics, ladies and gentlemen, they represent significant challenges for us as policy-makers.
We must adapt to these circumstances.
We must equip European society for this.
We must ensure economic security for older people in the face of growing social costs.
We must ensure that older people remain integrated in society and that solidarity between the generations is promoted and older people are assured dignity and non-discrimination in their twilight years.
In Scotland and throughout most of the EU, older people face a serious threat of economic insecurity and growing inequality.
However, until a few years ago, out of all the European governments only the UK's own last government had decided to cut the level of maintenance to senior citizens.
I am pleased to say that within the European Union the British Conservative government was the exception.
However, since the election last May we have had a change in climate, a change of environment, and we have had measures which help the elderly.
We have had, for example, a halving of the VAT rate on fuel.
We have had additional assistance and practical measures taken to help the elderly population.
Across Europe, not just in the United Kingdom and not just in Scotland, all governments are facing a challenge.
We must introduce policies which recognize the fact that our people are getting older.
The demographic trends are such that there are fewer people in the younger age range and more in the older age range and we must look at these changes.
I am very glad to tell the Members present tonight that we have got the proposals for a pensioners' assembly.
In October of this year, we will be putting forward the Social Affairs Committee's points of view, this Parliament's points of view on this trend, to make recommendations to the United Nations for the Year of the Elderly.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Cabezón, for his cooperation, and by congratulating him on his report.
When we look at the Commission's demographic report we have to note that, contrary to the two previous reports, the European Commission does not confine itself to the Union, but also pays attention to central and eastern European countries; quite rightly, because a significant proportion of the people from these countries who are to become citizens of the European Union have already been born.
It is clear that up until the year 2015, Poland and Slovakia will see a modest increase in both the total population and the working population, but it will be lower than that of the EU.
Nations such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria will even experience a decrease.
Low fertility rates and high death rates, along with considerable migration, are all responsible for the population remaining at a standstill, or for it falling.
Explanations for a number of related phenomena, such as child mortality in Romania, the gap between rural and urban areas and differences between the sexes are missing. These phenomena will exert a major influence over the success or failure of enlargement.
The Group of the European People's Party is therefore pleased that many of our amendments to this effect have been included in Mr Cabezón's motion for a resolution.
A second innovation in this report is the interest devoted to the interregional dimension.
It concerns relevant social and economic indicators of remarkable variances between regions or of differences between the Member States.
In countries such as Belgium, Germany, Italy and Spain the intranational differences are not without significance.
Population growth is irregular, but in many regions appears to be evaporating towards the year 2015. Ageing will be responsible for an increasing divergence in age structure towards 2015.
The fall in the population of working age will start as early as 2000 in certain regions, and in others not until after 2010.
This will lead to a decrease in the labour force, and to an increasing desire for geographic mobility. The working population will age almost everywhere, but not at the same time, and not gradually.
This will in any case lead to a distinct need for permanent education, and the continuous training of largely elderly workers.
I note that my proposals regarding research into the labour market, the promotion of mobility, cross-border vocational training and so on, have all been accepted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe a few additional themes were to be discussed here, but there is insufficient time.
I would like to draw the rapporteur's attention to one further amendment I submitted concerning recital U. But all in all we are pleased with this report, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur once more.
Mr President, I would like to put on record my thanks to the rapporteur for a brilliant report and also to the draftsperson from the Committee on Women's Rights for her input.
The question of the changes which will take place over the next few years concerning the age profile in the European Union and the effect that will have is something which is concentrating all of our minds, not only because of the purely economic aspects - how we can pay the old age pension for people who are over 65 years of age, how we can have a new breed of workers entering the labour market to ensure that they pay enough social security etcetera - but there is also the great question of how we care for those who are elderly.
My colleague, Mr McMahon, has already pointed out that because of better health care and because of longevity the number of people over 75 years of age living within the European Union requiring more personal care and attention has risen.
I would ask the rapporteur, if possible, to take on board an idea which I put forward in this House two years ago and am still trying to get support for, which is a charter of carers' rights.
They are a new breed of people who are mainly women, caring for elderly and disabled relatives on a continuous basis with no recognition for the work which they put in; with no recognition of the savings which they make for the community in which they live; with no recognition of the contribution they are making to social solidarity by maintaining people within the home as much as possible.
On top of that we have the question of how our policies of today are going to cope in 10 to 15 years' time, when this population gets older. Will we have to reverse our decision on a shorter working week?
Will we have to reverse our decisions with regard to making people retire earlier from work? These are questions that Members have already touched on.
Finally, there is the question of rural depopulation.
We have now ended up with a scenario whereby in vast areas of the European Union there are populations where the average age is 50 to 56 because young people have left, migrating to larger urban areas.
This is having a huge knock-on effect.
Members should remember this when we are voting on the budget this year for the Cork Declaration to ensure we can encourage industry and people to come back to rural areas.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, the rapporteur cooperated well with this Parliament and has taken on board the most important issues from all groups.
We have an inclusive report before us, and I hope the European Commission will take serious note of it.
Last year I had the pleasure of being rapporteur on a similar subject, and I think it is terribly important that we continue to draw attention to this issue.
The world population is not decreasing, but what we have to note is that, demographically speaking, Europe's importance in the world is diminishing.
In addition, it has already been noted by other speakers that we are ageing and that the number of young people is decreasing.
How should we deal with this? I do not think we should invoke woe upon ourselves; instead, we should modernize.
I will mention a few examples. Modernizing care for the elderly can save a great deal of money.
The demographic data and studies indicate that as the population's age is shifting, so too are the costs.
People who get older do not necessarily require more care.
There is also a tremendous potential amongst these elderly people which we could use on all sides.
This brings me to another point, namely the labour market.
We have had a long tradition of retiring at an increasingly earlier age, and it is highly debatable whether we should not move towards making the retirement age more flexible in those places where we are living longer, and whether we should incorporate this into our annual report on employment, for instance.
The same goes for pensions.
If we are prepared to look together for creative solutions, then it might well be very possible to keep pensions affordable throughout Europe.
However, we cannot walk away from the facts; we will have to incorporate them.
That is why I believe that the demographic data should be included in the annual report on employment, and that the solutions which are created for the Member States should continue to be discussed in the form of benchmarking.
For the rest, the report contains a number of excellent recommendations.
I think that we will go along with the rapporteur's recommendations in the way in which we vote.
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe's hair is fast turning silver-grey, as we can see.
Mr Cabezón Alonso quite rightly draws attention in his splendid report to the fact that an ageing European population requires a change in the way the labour market operates, to meet the needs of older people more adequately.
In the coming years employers will have to radically alter their attitude towards the elderly and the ageing.
At a time when the young are not coming into the job market in quite the way they did before, it is necessary to start paying attention to the work skills and fitness of older employees in a whole new manner.
It is especially important to try to maintain levels of fitness for work in a preventive way, and not wait until illness or injury has occurred.
The varying strengths and weaknesses of people at different ages should be part of the equation when work is being planned.
Good planning does not merely mean good ergonomics, but also work organization, for example, planning working hours - working time - so that it fits in with the needs of the older person.
In Finland we have developed the notion of "age management' , which means taking age differences in the staff into account when managing work.
Nowadays fitness for work is becoming more and more a matter of psychological well-being and feeling happy at work.
This requires job development, so that older staff can see that their skills are valued, can be enrolled in further training programmes, and can have a say in their working environment.
It is vital that they are kept up to date with changes in their role, and that their opinion is heard.
Obviously, older workers also need training.
We must be particularly on the look-out to see that new technology in the workplace will not displace older staff.
They will learn to use the new technology too as long as hands-on training is provided for them.
Whereas computers are something every young person is familiar with from childhood, older people often have prejudices about them and underrate their ability to use them.
The knowledge and experience that older workers have can be a priceless resource for companies.
Applying age management to a job, which entails taking heed of the individual needs of all staff, means a job that will benefit all, and not just older workers.
Productivity and efficiency are also at their best in such cases.
Unfortunately, Mr Crowley is not here, but I could tell him about the Finnish family care compensation scheme, which makes it possible to get compensation while at home caring for someone in his/her family.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report which raises many important aspects of what we should think about and how we should act when we analyse the population development in the period up to 2015.
We know that the number of elderly is going to increase, and that the working population is going to decline, which means that there are going to be great strains on our social welfare system.
We must, of course, be very creative when we try to reduce costs. I agree with much of what my Finnish colleague said in this respect.
I would like to point out some things which we must especially consider when we design these new systems, including social security.
Those who have borne responsibility for the family, those who have cared for children and the elderly, should not be punished through poorer social benefits. Instead, we should consider doing what a number of countries have already done, which is to include housework as pensionable work.
Mr President, "most of the countries of Europe are in the process of committing suicide without even knowing it, because of demographics' .
These are strong words, a quotation from our former Prime Minister, Michel Rocard, at the time of the first Conference on the Family in France, in 1981.
We are in the process of realizing this, as can be seen from the work of the Commission and that of a number of colleagues over the years, including the reports we have in front of us today.
I would like to go further in encouraging this realization.
I do not believe in the inevitability of such a substantial demographic decline or in the inevitable ageing of the European population.
I do not say this without reason but because I have met an enormous number of women, couples and young people in the lead-up to the Cairo and Beijing Conferences.
Mrs Gisserot, in her well-researched report regarding the situation of women in France prior to the Beijing Conference, which you are aware of, Madam Commissioner, notes with scientific honesty that French women and couples - and I think it is the same in other countries - demonstrate a greater desire than is reflected in reality to have a child, in particular a third child. It seems that there is a real desire there which is becoming apparent and which is perhaps something new.
Of course, policies must never be imposed in either a pro or an anti-procreation direction, and this is not at all my intention, but I do believe that there is a serious responsibility to make citizens' choices possible, in particular when it concerns a desire such as this.
There have been indications from a number of my colleagues, which are perhaps not sufficiently highlighted in your report, Mr Cabezón Alonso, but which are present in your text, Mrs Daskalaki, as well as in the previous speech, which take up what was very clearly stated by a number of experts, including economists, at the International Conference in Beijing, and in particular at the World Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen.
We need to rediscover the meaning of the importance of children and the family once more, including their importance on an economic level.
Children are the wealth of a nation, in terms of their value, their love of life, their culture, their ideals, but also in terms of their economic value to a country.
Perhaps this has been somewhat forgotten.
"The only wealth is mankind' , as Jean Bodin said.
We are rightly tied to the European social model, even though social policies in all of our countries cost a great deal of money.
But is it not time, whilst totally respecting the choice of couples and families - let me repeat that I am in no way in favour of any kind of pressure - to realize that a family policy would be infinitely more economic from all points of view and that we would avoid a great deal of social expenditure further down the line?
Real consideration must be given to the unpaid work a mother does.
Mothers have always worked.
We must not set those who work against those who do not work - I do not like these expressions.
Up until the advent of urbanization women had always worked, in the fields, in crafts, but alongside bringing up their children.
This was done at the same place, at the same time.
Today we are faced with different challenges.
We must weigh them up, but I believe that some creativity is possible so that Europe can once again find vitality on all levels. That would mean that Europe would also become more generous, more capable - why not - of making not only material aid available to the developing world but also young people, young men and women willing to go for a period of their life, to offer the skills they have acquired in their own country.
I believe it is possible to find the meaning of a more generous Europe once again.
Mrs Scillier, I was really afraid that, by allowing Mr McMahon to exceed his time, there would be a problem.
Now, we are all suffering!.
Mr President, every year Parliament receives a report on the demographic situation in the Union.
It is right and proper that population development should be a matter for constant observation, since the policy directions of the future depend on the recognition of current population trends.
Not for the first time, the report points to the gradual increase in the percentage of elderly people in our population. The measures proposed to counter this trend are well known.
We also know that the pension and health systems need to be adapted accordingly.
At the same time, however, we know that the decreasing number of contributors, the increase in expenditure on public health systems and the tightening of budgets in response to the convergence criteria are difficult to reconcile.
But the longer these problems remain unsolved, the more difficult they become and, above all, the more difficult they are to finance.
We must ask ourselves, therefore, whether this is the right approach to finding a solution, given that the inequality between supply and demand in the regional labour markets is to be balanced by means of initiatives to facilitate migration.
My ideas are based on a model of society which places the family at the centre of things and does not therefore see the solution to diminishing birth rates in an increased influx of migrants.
Mr President, may I begin by extending my warmest thanks to the rapporteur for this demographic report 1997, and in particular for his commitment to the social market economy, which is not something which can be taken for granted.
Mr President, with your permission I should also like to take this opportunity to wish the rapporteur, whose birthday was on Monday, belated but nonetheless many happy returns.
Reading this report, one is automatically struck by the idea that the situation of the elderly in Europe is similar to that of the small- and medium-sized businesses.
A great deal has already been acknowledged about them, much has been said, much has been demanded, but there is little to show by way of concrete results.
It seems to me that the same thing could be said of the elderly.
It is true that working age population will continue to decrease due to the slowing-down of population growth.
That will lead to, in fact it is already leading to, higher social costs.
The question of financing is a difficult one to answer.
Various solutions are being considered, none of them ideal.
The effects on the labour market remain.
Neither the elderly nor employers seem particularly keen to take up the option of a gradual transition into retirement.
A switch to voluntary work, taken in isolation at least, has also failed to provide a solution.
It is unfortunate that at times there is no demand for the elderly to pass on their experience to younger people.
Women - and here the Committee on Women's Rights is quite right - find themselves in something of a "sandwich' situation. First they go out to work, then they want children.
This is initially put off because they are working and then later when they are looking after their own children, they also find themselves busy with other caring responsibilities, and so it goes on. This raises the question of the compatibility of domestic responsibilities and professional activities for men and women.
We need simply to ensure that in future family work is more highly valued. To date only two steps have been taken in this direction, whichever countries one looks at.
One is child care and the other is child care leave. We will have to continue down one or other of these routes sooner or later if we do not want to see social policy floundering in the European market economy.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Cabezón Alonso who accepted practically all our amendments in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. This should mean that tomorrow there will be no problems in approving his report.
As he rightly pointed out at the beginning of his speech, within 30 years more than 50 % of the population will be over 60 years old, while there will be a constant reduction in the number of young people. This will have worrying effects on social spending on the elderly, as well as on the role the elderly play.
After retirement, the role that the elderly play in society must be very important.
In a "Senior Citizens' Parliament' held in Luxembourg, one of the main concerns was that their knowledge and experience was not given sufficient recognition and that the community should exploit this experience and learning for the benefit of society.
This demographic change will also affect women, firstly, since we tend to think - and we often hear this in the House - that women should continue to take care of elderly people, dependents and non-dependents, as well as children in the home.
Naturally, the alternative - as has been stated many times in Parliament, and particularly in the Committee on Women's Rights - would be to share the workload in and outside the house.
This would be better for the whole of society.
Women have longer life expectancy and earn the lowest wages; widows only receive a partial pension; elderly women usually have lower pensions. This is an additional problem which must be considered.
In conclusion, Mr President, I agree with some of the points set out in the Cabezón Alonso report, and I would like to mention three of them.
Firstly, real social cohesion should also involve further convergence. We concern ourselves too much with the indices of economic convergence, and not enough with the indices of social convergence.
The rapporteur recognizes this in one of his paragraphs.
Secondly, I share the rapporteur's concern because in Europe many early retirements do not involve replacement contractual arrangements, and I can say this as someone who lives in a region, Asturias, which has lost more than 12 000 direct jobs without any hope of these jobs being filled again by young people.
Thirdly, one of the fundamental aspects of facing up to demographic changes is the definitive and constant creation of employment; without sufficient jobs and without contributions, there will be little chance of meeting the social spending requirements that this demographic change will entail.
Mr President, it has already been said that there has been a tremendous increase in the number of very elderly people in the European Union, with a reduction in the working population and an even greater reduction in the number of young people under 20.
All this means, among other things, that we have a time bomb in our social security systems.
Fewer and fewer working people are supporting more and more pensioners.
What must we do? I would like to discuss three key issues.
First, we must move towards a liberalized social security system.
There must be increased participation of the private sector, increased personal responsibility of the insured person for the amount of their pension, and increased capitalization of the current system of redistribution among the generations, which, under today's conditions, does not seem to be a very efficient solution.
Second, concerted measures need to be taken to combat unemployment among the young, since only in this way will we have an increasing number of insured people.
How can this happen? It can happen through measures to promote flexibility in the labour market, measures to promote professional training and retraining and measures to encourage entrepreneurship among the young.
Third, we must at the same time promote a policy to increase the birthrate.
This must be done at two levels. Firstly as regards attitude, and perhaps here we need a large promotional campaign in all Member States of the European Union, and secondly in terms of basic financial assistance.
This problem is very serious and a national crusade may be needed in all Member States.
I promise on my part that in future I personally will do what I can to help find a solution to the demographic problem.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I say how pleased I am that this important issue is being discussed.
I would particularly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Cabezón Alonso, for his excellent work.
This year's report on the demographic situation of the Union concentrates on three specific areas of action: the labour market, regional disparities and the challenges faced by the candidates for accession.
Let me first of all reiterate what the report says with regard to the problem of the labour market.
In ten years' time, the babyboom generation will have reached retirement age.
From then on, the size of the active population will show a steady decline and we will witness a rapid growth in the number of older workers. We are able to plan for this and we should do so.
In particular, we must adopt new approaches to issues relating to this link between age and the job market.
We must fight against all discriminatory practices which are based on age and encourage companies to take greater account of the consequences of these demographic tendencies. We must adopt new approaches to the way in which work is organized, with the aim of improving the employability, productivity and motivation of older workers.
It is precisely our inability to take into account the age dimension in our concept of jobs and the work place that has led to the growing tendency to lay off older workers in recent years.
Defining an active strategy on the issue of ageing assumes, as an essential component, a greater awareness and the promotion of better practice in this area.
However, policies which aim at maintaining the incorporation of ageing workers into the job market cannot be successful if the qualifications and skills of these people are not adapted to the demands of employers' requirements for workers.
We must put adequate policies in place to improve the employability of the ageing labour force.
For this, life-long learning structures in order to guarantee each worker the possibility of adapting and updating his or her skills, according to developments in the labour market.
The issue of gender also deserves particular attention. We are all aware of the importance of this when considering demographic tendencies.
The report reveals that, over the next fifteen years, women will become the most important source of growth in labour supply.
The integration of this aspect into both general and specific policies must be strengthened.
The perspective of women's growing participation in the labour market also raises the question of the reconciliation of family and professional life.
Despite the progress made in recent years, for many women the birth of a child leads to a cessation of work outside the home or, in certain cases, to alternative part-time employment.
For different reasons, as much to do with the availability of child care services as cultural factors, this change is sometimes a permanent one.
All over Europe, there is significant progress in women's sharing of bread-winning responsibilities in the home.
However, there are few signs that men are progressively taking their share of family responsibilities.
Consequently, there is a risk that the ageing of society could increase the care burden on women in terms of looking after dependants, and this, in turn, could impose constraints on their increasing presence in economic and social life.
In its second part, the report concentrates on the regional dimension.
It shows that the impact of demographic changes varies considerably from one region to another.
The risk of regional polarization is an important challenge for the political decisionmakers.
The regional dimension of these changes could jeopardize overall performance at national, and even European level.
Finally, the report sets out the current situation in the twelve candidates for accession.
These countries also have an ageing population against a background of even greater social and economic change.
They have to face a complex and challenging set of problems, made even more difficult as a result of the sharp differences between urban and rural areas, for instance.
For the Commission and Parliament, demographic changes represent a serious challenge.
Your motion for a resolution highlights a certain number of strategic areas, including participation in the labour market, regional disparities and the development of family structures.
The Commission will go into more detail in the analysis of your resolution, although I must say that we are already working on a number of the issues raised.
I thank the rapporteur, as well as the House, for this report.
It seems that we are all moving in the same direction.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
European Training Foundation
The next item is the report (A4-0032/98) by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending for the second time Regulation (EEC) No 1360/90 establishing a European Training Foundation (COM(97)0177 - C4-0261/97-97/0126(CNS)).
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report on the European Training Foundation which we are discussing tonight, dovetails perfectly with the problem we discussed this morning on the basis of the Oostlander report on assistance to applicant countries in central and eastern Europe.
In this context I am convinced that the Foundation will be able to make a considerable contribution to the development of education and training programmes in the new Member States.
This is the most important political message in my report.
To my mind, the Foundation is one of the most perfect instruments within the European Union's accession strategy, and should be utilized more. Cooperation in the field of vocational training is of strategic importance.
Education and training in central and eastern European countries form the basis for social integration, lasting development and successful processes of economic transformation.
This way these countries will be able to quickly take over the acquis communautaire . The external evaluation of the first three years, commissioned by the European Commission, shows that the Foundation concentrated too much on managing programmes and too little on policy advice.
This must change in the short term. The Foundation must be given a more clearly defined role in the accession strategy on the partner countries from central and eastern Europe.
In order to achieve this, the role of the Foundation as contact centre should be strengthened by intensifying the contacts with the partner countries. In practical terms this means that the Foundation should be involved in the implementation of the accession partnerships.
To support this view I tabled Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8, and I hope that the Commission will implement the spirit of these amendments. At the same time I expect the Commission to clarify the situation with regard to the division of roles between the Foundation and the relevant Commission services, in particular DG XII and DG IA.
There is still a lack of clarity over the Foundation's role in the preparatory stage of PHARE/TACIS measures in the field of vocational training.
As I have stated in my report, I believe the written contributions the Foundation is submitting at the request of the Commission to be unsatisfactory.
The Foundation and the Commission should jointly draft a job description.
General guidelines for policy as submitted by the Commission are fine as long as they are imposed unilaterally.
One of my amendments tries to restore balance on that point between the two parties.
Ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, numerous applications for partnerships in sectors such as environment, health care, telecommunication, not to mention government, are waiting to be carried out.
This is only possible if we handle the Foundation very carefully, and allow it to fulfil the role it is designed for.
That is why, in my report, I am asking the Commission to submit a report before 1 July 1998 on the financial consequences of the modified regulation on the activities of the Foundation.
This will become all the more important now that the Foundation's activities are extended to include the MEDA countries.
Education and training plays an important part in these countries too, in areas such as the economy, the environment, and the strengthening of democracy.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we take each other seriously, and if we take the Foundation seriously then we will have to recognize the financial consequences of this seriously.
One issue which is important for me, however, is to determine the extent to which the Commission intends to adopt Parliament's view of the Foundation now that the Council has already taken a decision on it.
I am not only referring to the amendments mentioned, but also the amendments I tabled with respect to the internal organization of the Foundation, including an improvement in the representativeness of the advisory forum and the guarantee of the Foundation's independence.
I hope Madam Commissioner will be able to give a hopeful reply to this tonight, because, in themselves, the Council decisions did not differ all that much from what we as Parliament want, and that can be taken up very well by the European Commission.
To conclude, I would like to call on the Member States to play a more active role in the work of the Foundation.
In future I believe that the job of the national observatories could be filled by the ministries of the partner countries, so that a larger budget for investments and qualification measures for vocational training would become available.
Europe should not be the only party undertaking this responsibility as far as implementation and funding is concerned.
I thought this was a matter which might be difficult to debate, but at a mini symposium in my country which I had organized, it turned out that the Dutch Ministry of Education thought this was a view which could at least be discussed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Johanna Boogerd-Quaak for the excellent work she has done on this report.
It may appear a very technical report but it covers some important issues and was unanimously agreed by the committee.
Johanna was generous enough to accept the amendments that came from the Socialist Group and although we recognize that it is late in coming to Parliament, we think that many of the proposals that are set out in this report can be acted on by the Commission in conjunction with the Foundation and without reference to the Council which I know has already met and considered this issue.
I would like to outline some of the areas which we in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs felt were very important.
We thought it was essential that we and the Commission should recognize the importance of the Foundation for vocational training, not just to support the market economies of the emerging democracies but also to strengthen democracy and respect for human rights and equal opportunities and for those strands to be present throughout the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
We see the Foundation playing a role in that.
Secondly, we thought it was very important that a mission statement should be established that set out clearly the aims and objectives of the Foundation.
Thirdly, there should be an agreement on a three-year rolling programme and an annual work programme which should be done jointly between the Commission and the Foundation.
We also believe it is vital that there is a monitoring and evaluation procedure that will take into account the extent to which the Foundation has achieved the aims and objectives that are set out for it and has carried out the annual and three-year rolling programmes.
It is vital that the work of this Foundation is monitored, that there are clear guidelines and that it has a wider remit than the narrow market economy.
We want to ensure that issues such as non-discrimination and equal opportunities are built into the programmes for education and training in the new democracies.
Our committee has seriously considered how the Foundation can play a significant and valuable role in meeting the vocational training needs of the new democracies in Europe and our proposals are aimed at careful planning and the need for monitoring.
We are relying on the Commission to implement these proposals and to report regularly to Parliament.
Mr President, I would like to join in with those who have congratulated Mrs Boogerd-Quaak.
I believe she has absorbed this important, yet technical subject well.
Along with her, I am very curious as to what the Commissioner has to say to our amendments, because this is how we discover its judgement.
I believe we should say the Foundation has had a short but successful history. The aim of the Foundation was to help central and eastern European countries in their efforts to restructure their systems for vocational training.
In the beginning, it involved the countries which came under the PHARE programme, then the TACIS countries joined, and now the road is paved for the MEDA countries. This programme is all the more important because, whilst the central and eastern European states are undergoing a transformation, it is the people who experience the workings of the market first.
This kind of cooperation is therefore extremely important.
It is a well known fact that education also instructs people in the way they think. By giving them the basic elements, we can show them that the market economy is not an isolated entity, whilst at the same time sharing with them the perception that the market economy is also subject to preconditions.
In this way young people in central and eastern Europe will be able to familiarize themselves with the market economy as created in Western Europe. The transition from a centralist economy to a market economy comes down to a question of supply and demand.
Again, establishing a new society comes down to making a choice; a choice between the Anglo-Saxon model, the United States model, or the European model. For a stable democracy, the social dimension, wholly imbued in the European thinking, will need to be given due emphasis.
That is why the Foundation in Turin will have to accord it due significance. For the new managers who will become acquainted with the social dimension in particular, support within a new economic order will be important.
That is why the amendment should mention the social dimension, alongside human rights and equal opportunities, as an integral part of the package the Foundation will have to promote in Turin. The Foundation has developed itself successfully amidst the significant problems involved in a foundation, and which are, after all, entirely typical to this community.
As rapporteur on the budget I have been able to see that the financial resources have been spent appropriately.
The fact that the Foundation is to extend its activities to include the MEDA countries is extremely sensible in this context.
It is true that the MEDA countries' problems cannot be compared exactly with those of the PHARE and TACIS countries, but the expertise which has been built up must not be lost, and must not be confined to these countries.
That is why, Mr President, this Foundation is a very good thing, and that is why I believe we will be able to continue along the path we have taken with these amendments.
Mr President, the European Training Foundation, which has had its headquarters in Turin since 1995, is one of the best examples of how the Community institutions can contribute towards growth in the job market through its objectives, which are both economic and social.
It seems as though the main objectives of the Foundation, which was set up only three years ago during an uneasy time in the development of the Community, are within reach and have already been partly fulfilled: to provide assistance for the beneficiary countries, to check the efficacy of assistance provided for training, to spread information and promote exchanges of experience and, finally, to encourage joint ventures aimed at providing assistance for information.
Several corrections are now requested, following an initial analysis of the work, aimed, among other things, at extending the mandate of the Foundation with a view to putting itself in a better position to involve the new Community partners, particularly the Mediterranean partners.
We therefore agree with the proposals made by the rapporteur, whom we thank for her work, which are aimed at providing greater consistency with the political priorities of the Union, and therefore fuller cooperation with CEDEFOP (European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training) and the resulting strengthening of the financial means, in view of the new role the Turin Foundation will hold.
Finally, we call on the Commission, which was so far-sighted and timely in setting up the Foundation at the time, to take into account the obligations to provide vocational training in view of the participation of the MEDA countries in the Mediterranean area, to improve the activities and the objectives of the Foundation.
These choices also pass through a renewal of the trust and independence granted to the Foundation and its Director and operating deadlines planned for five-year periods.
Vocational training is a fundamental means of revitalizing the entire labour market.
Mr President, I too congratulate Johanna on her very good report.
It is very appropriate that we should be discussing this tonight because tomorrow of course the conference on enlargement of the European Union begins in London and the key role of training in preparation for enlargement is very important.
I am a little sceptical sometimes of European foundations in European institutes and I have visited a few in my time.
I always like to see them properly monitored and evaluated. I am glad that this is being done in this case and I hope they respond to some of the external evaluations and the Commission evaluation.
Speaking on behalf of the Green group in particular, I would like obviously to stress the importance of training in environmental management and monitoring given the environmental problems of central and eastern European countries.
Secondly, the question of developing a civic culture for nongovernmental organizations is very important.
Specific training programmes and expertise in that area as well would help in the report.
Naturally, I too would like to congratulate and thank the rapporteur, who has accustomed us to her way of working, on a subject that has proved to be much more difficult than it at first appeared.
This is a report which has finally achieved unanimity in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. It is a report which, in my opinion, is accompanied by an extremely important and substantiated explanatory statement, which sheds a great deal of light on the issue.
Of course I too would like to refer to the coincidence - though I am not sure if it is sheer coincidence - that we are debating it after this morning's debate on the prospects, realization and implementation of enlargement, and on the very eve of and just a few hours, in fact, before the official opening of the European Summit.
Please allow me, Mrs Cresson, to put these days, on which we are debating the Europe of learning, into a more general framework into which, I believe, today's debate should go, since we are of course talking about partners of the European Union and about events surrounding the European Union.
I believe that this report succeeds in complementing, improving, correcting and adding to the work of this Foundation. The amendments do indeed complement a second generation foundation which was only created in 1995 and which, in a short time, has demonstrated the value of its creation and of its work.
I wish to refer to the viewpoint in Amendment No 2, tabled by the rapporteur, which I believe gives a new dynamism to this Foundation, while closely linking its operation, beyond the value of professional training in practice, which is well known, to its participation in strengthening democratic institutions, "the social dimension, respect for human rights and equal opportunities' .
I also wish to mention a special point, which the rapporteur touches on and which we have often debated in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs: the need for cooperation with CEDEFOP, the foundation for the promotion of professional training.
I believe that this is extremely important and that this cooperation may proceed even more constructively than the already constructive cooperation between the Foundation in Turin with the Foundation in Thessaloniki.
By definition, this cooperation is structural and powerful.
I also believe that, in the Europe's progress towards a society of learning, CEDEFOP needs to make an enhanced contribution, and it is ready to do so.
The Foundation in Turin must work even more closely with CEDEFOP.
Mr President, the role of the Centre is to provide education and training as the foundation for social integration, lasting regional development and successful economic transformation.
I thank Mrs Boogerd-Quaak for her report.
It stresses the need to enhance the Foundation's contribution to the EU's preparations for enlargement.
The European Training Foundation can be useful as a tool in helping to implement essential partnerships and will provide the new programmes and the formal frameworks for EU aid to candidate countries.
Both independent evaluations as well as the Commission emphasize the need to enhance the Foundation's role in providing expert vocational training assistance to partner countries.
The policy guidance role of the Foundation should be enhanced.
We need to reinforce that particular point.
The European Training Foundation must prepare adequately for covering MEDA countries.
I support the committee's position which calls for clarity in the structures within the European Training Foundation, with three specific working groups: one for accession countries; one for PHARE and TACIS countries; and one for MEDA countries.
I urge Parliament to adopt the position which has been unanimously approved by the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur very much for her sound report and also for the fact that it takes into account many of the proposals made by the Committee on External Economic Relations in relation to the content and organizational tasks of the Foundation and its role in establishing practical vocational training in third countries.
I would like to say clearly that the Foundation is doing good work.
The recent expansion of its vocational training activities should be welcomed.
The evaluation of the work carried out to date will lead to a much needed clarification of the status of the Foundation and its relationship with the Commission, an issue of great importance to its very committed staff, as I was able to discover for myself on the spot.
This evening, the debate has focused quite rightly on the role of modern vocational training in these countries in terms of new economic and employment structures and improved external trade relations.
In addition to capital aid, they also need to modernize their vocational training and further education systems at all levels, not only in management.
The Commission now needs to make full use of the specialist skills available at the Foundation in the preparation of accession candidates from central and eastern Europe in order to accelerate the alignment process as quickly as possible, and I also hope that in the process an effort will be made to speed up the disbursement of PHARE funds.
The experience gained by the Foundation to date must be used to the advantage of our new Mediterranean partner countries without delay and the Foundation must be given independent responsibility for certain, well-defined areas.
As far as I can see, little progress has been made as yet in terms of support measures for the MEDA programme.
It would be helpful, Madam Commissioner, if the Commission were to report to Parliament on this issue as soon as possible.
Brussels should not be allowed to overly restrict the Foundation's field of activity.
Project-based cooperation between the Foundation and the partner countries should be more intensive.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Parliament and, above all, Mrs Boogerd-Quaak of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, for the quality of this report, which has highlighted important new directions with regard to the work of the European Training Foundation.
As you know, the European Training Foundation was born out of the political will expressed by the heads of state and government when they met here in Strasbourg in December 1989.
The emphasis was placed on training, an essential factor in the development of the eastern and central European countries and their adaptation to a market economy.
The Brussels European Council then decided, in October 1993, to choose Turin as the headquarters for this Foundation.
In the context of the pre-accession strategy confirmed by the Luxembourg European Council, our eastern and central European neighbours will be increasingly included into the "Europe of knowledge' emphasized in Agenda 2000.
This is the European educational territory that we plan to create together with the applicant countries.
The achievements of the Foundation to date confirm its capacity to contribute to a reform of vocational training in our partner countries from eastern Europe and in the New Independent States.
In its report of 18 July 1997 to the European Parliament, the Council and the Economic and Social Committee, the Commission outlined the Foundation's progress and its overall positive results.
The Commission's current proposal aims to extend the scope of the Foundation to cover the Mediterranean countries in response to the conclusions of the Barcelona EuroMediterranean Conference of November 1995, confirmed by the Madrid European Council of December of the same year.
On the basis of the Foundation's first three years of activity, the Commission considers that it offers an exceptional institutional framework with which to enable Community experience to be made available to our Mediterranean partner countries.
In fact, it can provide a flexible response to the different needs in the area of vocational training, one which will constitute a solid basis for the socio-economic reforms of the MEDA programme.
The Commission's current proposal also includes certain accompanying measures which are drawn from experiences gained over the course of the Foundation's work to date.
The Council has already adopted a political agreement, on 7 October 1997, which retains the principle outlines of the Commission's proposal.
The Economic and Social Committee also gave a favourable opinion on 29 October 1997 and the Council should take its final decision before the end of the first half of 1998, during the British Presidency.
I would like to thank the different Parliamentary committees which have examined this proposal for a Council Regulation and for the welcome the Commission's text has received.
I would like to highlight the significance of, and political interest in the comments which the Commission will take great note of when implementing the modified Regulation. We would, however, not wish to take them up in the form of amendments to the Regulation.
The Commission will draw the attention of the Governing Board and the Director of the European Training Foundation to the approaches proposed by Parliament and will try to assure their follow-up on a practical level.
As regards Amendments Nos 1 to 9 concerning the political direction to be followed by the Foundation, its mission and the way it operates, I would like to underline that the points emphasized in these amendments have largely already been taken into consideration in the development of the Foundation's modus operandi within the framework of the current regulation.
To give specific follow-up to the priorities expressed by Parliament, both in eastern Europe and the Mediterranean countries, the Commission and the Foundation intend to draw up a declaration of objectives.
This declaration will be subject to the agreement of the Foundation's Governing Board in October 1998 and will then be forwarded to Parliament so that it can be debated by the relevant committee.
The Foundation's work will draw its inspiration from the Community's vocational training policies, in particular those relating to access to training and equal opportunities.
The Foundation will prioritize innovative actions and transfer of experience and good practice, in particular pilot projects set up jointly with other Member States.
As regards Amendments Nos 10 and 16 relating to the Foundation's budgetary procedures, specific measures have already been taken in response to Parliament's requests.
Particular emphasis will be placed on setting up close links between the Foundation's work programme and its budget.
Between now and the autumn, the Foundation will carry out a detailed analysis of the costs of its activities.
The 1999 work programme will take into account the results of this analysis and the budgetary constraints.
The Foundation's budget already states the number of staff employed.
With regard to Amendments Nos 14, 15 and 17, which deal with the way in which the Foundation operates, we consider that the Commission's proposal already largely takes into account the amendments suggested by Parliament.
Amendment No 14 concerning the procedure for appointing a Director and the definition of his or her mandate, corresponds to existing practice.
Amendment No 15, concerning the Foundation's complementary nature with other Community actions, has been considered within the enhanced strategy for cooperation between the Foundation and the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training.
Similarly, Amendment No 17, concerning evaluation of the Foundation, corresponds to current practice.
The Commission proposes to bear in mind the doubts raised by Parliament and to report to it on the results of any future evaluation.
The Commission is not entirely convinced of the appropriateness of Amendments Nos 11 to 13 which aim to modify and reduce the composition of the Governing Board of the Foundation and to divide it into regional groupings.
On the other hand, the Commission has proposed strengthening the role of the Board through the participation of experts designated by the Commission in order to lay greater emphasis on relevant Community actions.
Although the Commission shares Parliament's concern to see the Governing Board functioning effectively in spite of its size, we consider that the Board has already carried out fruitful work to date.
Furthermore, the exchange of views and dialogue between experts from different regions has been shown to be a valuable asset.
I hope I have demonstrated that the Commission is giving a great deal of attention to Parliament's recommendations, and that it will draw inspiration from these recommendations when drawing up the declaration of objectives, which will be forwarded to you in October 1998.
I am convinced that the new Council Regulation will enable the Foundation to take on new tasks within the Mediterranean region.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for her response, but I would like to reserve the right to have another thorough look at what exactly she said.
We now have the problem that much seems to have been promised, but a number of issues have not really been taken on board, and I wonder if the Council still ultimately has to decide whether a number of aspects can be positively incorporated.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, I think that Mrs Cresson has noted your comments.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Action plan and subsidies for Ukraine
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0059/98 by Mr Gary Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council on an action plan for Ukraine (COM(96)0593 - C4-0103/97); -A4-0063/98 by Mrs Magdalene Hoff, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 6/97 concerning TACIS subsidies to Ukraine (C4-0350/97).
Mr President, the British historian, C.V. Wedgwood, wrote in her definitive account of the Thirty Years War that in the 17th century Germany was the keystone of the arch of European politics.
I submit that in the new Europe which is evolving the keystone of the arch of European politics is now Ukraine.
And the one message I want to get across this evening more than anything else is that Ukraine is important to the continent of Europe and it is an area which we will take very seriously.
Enlargement of the European Union would give us a common border with Ukraine.
The population of Ukraine is 52 million.
It is a big state in population terms.
It is also a big state geographically.
Therefore, amongst other things, it represents a very big market.
Its agriculture made it once the bread basket of the Soviet Union and it is therefore the potential source of future wealth.
Its geographical position puts it on the border between the Black Sea, Belarus and Russia and is therefore strategically very important.
Gas and oil pipelines to the West pass through the territory of Ukraine.
The questions throughout history have been: Where does Ukraine belong? What is its identity?
It has only fleetingly been independent in modern history. It has had two periods of independence: firstly, ironically, after the Thirty Years War and, secondly, in 1918.
Both those periods failed because Ukraine was unable to establish itself outside the sphere of Poland or Russia.
This time the government is looking for a European identity, a European reference point.
It does so, notwithstanding the fact that at least half its population believes that its future is linked with Russia.
Therein lies the challenge for Europe.
We must provide Ukraine with the opportunity of building a bridge to the West should Ukraine wish to have such a bridge.
We must do so without unnecessarily antagonizing Russia and without causing a reaction among the population of Ukraine.
That is why the Commission in its action plan makes the point that one of its objectives is to give a signal of strength and political support to Ukraine and it is doing that at the request of the Ukrainian government.
It has to be said that the rest of the action plan contains nothing new.
Rather, it is concentrating on deepening and widening existing contacts with Ukraine and developing greater synergy between the action of the EU and its Member States in Ukraine.
Clearly the European Union has already done a great deal in this area.
Since independence, technical and financial assistance amounts to something like US$4.6 billion and that is compared to the United States' assistance of some US$2.18 billion.
We now have a partnership and cooperation agreement with Ukraine which has recently been ratified.
As an aside, the European Union must get to grips with the question of ratifying these important agreements.
It takes far too long for Member States to do so.
We have also set out previously an overall strategy for support for the transition process in Ukraine.
As the Commission points out in its action plan, Ukraine has made a lot of progress since independence.
Politically, progress towards democracy has been very real, as we have seen through the admission of Ukraine to the Council of Europe.
Economically, after an extremely slow start, we are now beginning to see progress in macroeconomic stabilization policy, progress with administrative reform, tax reform and privatization.
We have seen in Ukraine the consolidation of independence and its ability to resist the fragmentary pressures which we have seen elsewhere but which nonetheless, as recent events show, remain very real.
In foreign policy Ukraine has emerged, as the Commissioner says, as an element of stability in the region.
It has pursued a policy of nuclear disarmament.
It has adhered to a policy of preventative diplomacy, participating in I-FOR and SFOR, an international police task force.
It is also participating in the UN force in eastern Slavonia.
It has pursued a policy of conciliation towards Russia and a policy of rapprochement towards the West, signing the charter for a distinctive partnership between NATO and Ukraine, and recently refusing to supply turbines to Iran's nuclear power project.
But weaknesses remain, without a doubt.
As the Commission has indicated, Ukraine is at a crossing on the river.
Unfortunately, during the time of my report's production that crossing is getting ever wider.
More work needs to be done on the consolidation of democracy.
We look forward to the elections at the end of this month to reinforce the consolidation of democracy in Ukraine.
But the real challenge remains in economic transformation where progress, quite frankly, has been much too slow.
For Ukraine to make a decisive step forward it has to offer a more inviting environment to foreign direct investment, and failure to get to grips with economic reform is undermining that process, as we have seen from recent statements by the Americans.
In agriculture we need to step up reform.
Only 7 % of land in Ukraine is in private hands, not least because the sale of land remains technically illegal in Ukraine.
That means that farmers are often in the hands of private trading companies who charge excessive prices for their services.
We still have a state monopoly control of storage and distribution which maintains very high prices.
There are enormous problems in the energy sector reinforced by the fact that Gasprom has recently presented Ukraine with a US$900 million bill, which represents in excess of 40 % of Ukraine's foreign resources.
The EU must, therefore, continue to support the reform of the economy.
We must continue to support the transformation of society, particularly legislative and administrative reforms.
We must continue to associate Ukraine with the European security framework.
Tomorrow's launch of the European Conference represents another opportunity for us to offer the hand of friendship to Ukraine because we could offer it a future role as observers or associated partners in the European Conference. Indeed we could offer it a role in the Petersburg Task to be pursued by the Western European Union following ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
We must deepen our existing contractual relations.
Ukraine is important to the continent.
The European Union has a major role to play in the stability of Ukraine and its future. Let us not miss that opportunity.
Let us deepen our relationships. Let us move forward towards a new future, a new relationship between the European Union and Ukraine.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I shall say a few words on behalf of Mrs Magdalene Hoff who unfortunately cannot be here this evening.
She is in London and sends her apologies for her absence. I am sure you will excuse her.
On 15 May 1997, the Court of Auditors presented to the European Parliament its Special Report concerning TACIS subsidies for Ukraine.
If we look at the application of the programme in Ukraine during the period 1991 to 1996, we can see that of the total earmarked budgetary resources of ECU 342.62 million, only 37.5 % were paid out.
If we go on to examine the programme within the framework of nuclear safety, the sum disbursed is only 25 %.
However, it does look as if the disbursement of resources for 1997 will be considerably better.
The reasons for this poor implementation of the programme lie partly with Ukraine itself, but also partly with the Commission.
For example, the Court of Auditors claims that in all the Commission offices involved, in the national offices, and in particular at the Commission's delegation in Kiev, personnel resources are inadequate and unstable.
It also criticizes the distribution of resources to a large number of relatively small projects resulting in increased bureaucracy.
Furthermore, it complains that in the assessment of strategies and priorities, the Commission and the Ukraine recipients are not using the same criteria.
The coordination and division of responsibilities between the Commission on the one hand, and foreign aid organizations and Ukrainian partner organizations on the other, also leave much to be desired.
Of all the Court of Auditors' recent reports, none has made such a lasting impression as the Special Report on TACIS subsidies for Ukraine.
I should like to say a few brief words on behalf of Mrs Magdalene Hoff about the sections relating to nuclear safety as well. The Court of Auditors report reveals that the greatest weakness in the TACIS programme for Ukraine lies in the area of nuclear safety.
Some of the accusations are shocking: unpaid wages, unauthorised absences from duty, missing spare parts and the neglect of day-to-day maintenance.
The situation becomes dangerous when, for reasons of political sensibility, information on nuclear energy and Ukraine's energy policy are withheld and, as a result, experts form diverging opinions.
The Commission claims that it is hardly able to have even a small degree of influence on the country's technical developments.
The conclusions to be drawn from this situation are unambiguous.
The Commission needs a clear strategic vision of what it wants to achieve.
It also needs the necessary technical, financial and administrative preconditions and a programme which can be implemented by an appropriate project manager on the basis of technical rather than political criteria.
In the view of the rapporteur, Mrs Magdalene Hoff, the nuclear situation and safety are so important that the Union must continue to allocate considerable budgetary resources to them.
In general terms, the Court of Auditors report concludes that the delays and inefficiency revealed, in conjunction with frequent differences of opinion on methods and priorities, led to spending that was not commensurate with actual requirements and to the formulation of plans which could not then be realized to maximum effect.
It should, however, be noted that the Commission itself does not escape criticism.
Its office in Kiev is hopelessly understaffed and as a result unable to assume a major role in the implementation of the programme or project development.
All this has far-reaching political consequences.
In terms of Ukraine, at least, TACIS is failing to provide in the transition process the assistance originally intended by the budgetary authorities.
This is particularly true in Ukraine, where there is still so much ground to be covered in the difficult and much needed programme of political and economic reforms, and with its help, the European Union should be striving to achieve the greatest possible level of effectiveness.
Mr President, firstly I should like to deal with Gary Titley's report on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, then I should like to move on to Magdalene Hoff's report.
The most important issues before us at the moment - and Mr Gary Titley has drawn up an excellent report to which we shall be able to refer again in the future - are the three elements covered by the action plan.
Firstly, the action plan advocates the strengthening of the support provided by the European Community.
The second element in the action plan is the further development of existing reforms of Community aid.
Thirdly - and most importantly of all - it highlights synergies between, on the one hand, the individual programmes and treaties and on the other hand, to an increasing extent, the measures implemented by the European Union, the measures implemented in Ukraine by the Member States and the measures implemented in Ukraine by third countries.
This means that there should be far more cooperation, both between the European Union and its Member States and between the European Union and third countries.
As Gary Titley has indicated, the action plan is not a new tool, it is not a new programme. It is instead a package of initiatives and represents a coherent tool and a coherent concept in its own right.
Nonetheless, it does have some failings.
These failings lie in the fact that it contains no vision.
It has no strategy, it has no underlying structure beyond being an enumeration of the various programmes and initiatives already undertaken.
It does not show the logic of a pan-European policy in relation to the countries of central and eastern Europe. It does not go any further than our present enlargement plan.
It does not indicate what will come after that, what will follow the first phase of enlargement, what will follow the second phase of enlargement or what will happen once we have new borders.
Nor does it indicate what will happen if Ukraine and Poland suddenly clash and Ukraine finds itself in a situation in which the borders have changed completely and in which we seek to apply our border policy to Poland. This situation has already arisen.
What happens if the centres of power in central and eastern Europe suddenly shift? At the moment we have no response.
We have no outline of a pan-European economic and trade policy. We have hinted that we intend to set up free trade zones.
When will we start the negotiations for them? Do we already have a plan to work with?
We advocate the inclusion of Ukraine in the WTO, naturally. But what are we doing in terms of preparation?
And what are we doing about letting Ukraine join the European Conference? We know that it has applied for observer status.
Where does the Commission stand on this? What are its views?
What we need is a realistic and effective energy policy, a concept which goes beyond the closure of Chernobyl.
I have just read the new aide mémoire submitted by the Mr van den Broek's office; it is excellent.
Nothing it says is wrong; but it does not say anything about energy policy, or anything about energy policy in the field of nuclear safety in Ukraine.
All it refers to is what we are already doing.
It does not say anything about the future, what the new strategies are to be, what the new development trends are.
That is what we need.
What I would really like is for us in this House to arrive at a new assessment which goes far beyond what we have on offer today.
Mr President, as a member of the Delegation for relations with Ukraine, I would also like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report, and to focus particularly on one point, point 23, in which he urges us explicitly to pay greater attention to the particular conditions of the process of economic transformation in Ukraine.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, Madam Commissioner, as Western Europeans we should not lose sight of the fact that what we are dealing with here is a unique - certainly a first and perhaps even unique - transformation process which has a dimension different from any that we in Western Europe have hitherto experienced.
This is the first time that a process of this type has taken place and none of us can predict or define it with certainty because we are experiencing it for the first time.
Since experts estimate that the national economy of Ukraine is characterized by the existence of a black economy accounting for at least 30 %, and probably even as much as 40 % of commercial activity, the question arises as to how we can move peacefully and sensibly towards its successful conversion - and its success is imperative - into a legally operating social market economy. We do not know either exactly how to proceed.
After several visits there I feel I may suggest that on no account can it be a speedy procedure.
We need patience and our priority must be to ensure that any development is lasting and stable.
To follow on, I would like to say something about the problem of Mrs Hoff's report, in other words, the problem concerning TACIS.
Once again the agricultural sector is involved.
I have had the opportunity to visit with other colleagues several TACIS farming projects in Ukraine.
It is true - and I should like to highlight this specifically in the interests of those people who are the ultimate beneficiaries in Ukraine - that, for the reasons already mentioned, the start-up phase was so lengthy that now there is quite simply no longer the time required to implement the projects in a sensible and lasting way, particularly in the case of farming projects.
At this point I should like to sound an urgent warning. Farming projects at least must be extended and constantly promoted or they will never reap any significant benefits.
I should also like to say something about the manner in which some projects - naturally not all of them - are structured.
We were somewhat disconcerted by the fact that in a region like Ukraine where businesses have operated on a large scale for three quarters of a century, emphasis was being placed specifically and almost exclusively on the setting up of one-man businesses with twenty stalls for pig fattening.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, Madam Commissioner, it is my belief that we would be ill-advised to continue solely with such projects.
Undoubtedly it makes sense to promote other projects which are better suited to the prevailing conditions in Ukraine.
I should like to emphasize this point once again.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who wants a preventive and stabilizing policy in and for Europe must give their full support to the action plan for Ukraine, to Mr Titley's clear and intelligent report and to the opinions of the committees.
The current situation in Ukraine remains complex.
It is an impressive political achievement that the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed between Russia and Ukraine in May 1997 succeeded in ending or easing years of continuous tensions.
This provided Ukraine with better conditions in which to make its contribution towards stabilization in a large and very sensitive region.
In contrast to this, there are still a number of continuing internal political difficulties to be resolved.
Although the tensions caused by the ethnic composition of the population have eased, they are still very much in evidence.
There are still massive secessionist movements in the Crimea.
Cooperation with the European Union is a natural desire in the west of the country, but a topic rarely discussed in the east.
Economic reforms need to be implemented more consistently than has been the case to date.
The pace of reforms must be accelerated, not only in the economy, but also in relation to administration, legislation and the legal system.
It is undoubtedly due to the balanced and rigorous policies favoured by President Kuchma it has been possible to maintain a balance in this difficult situation and that it was even possible to make some gains in terms of external policy.
It is also a result achieved in part by the people of Ukraine, a result which bears witness to their ability to improvise, but also, let me be blunt, to their ability to endure suffering.
In a few days, on 29 March, the people of Ukraine go to the polls once again.
This will lend our opinion greater topicality and greater weight.
Aid was and still is urgently needed; it should be given in the simplest manner possible.
The aid proposed in the action plan can be structured more efficiently.
But this aid should also be provided quickly.
The current procedures raise several questions in this regard.
It took the Commission only two days to submit the plan to the Council and to inform Parliament.
The Council needed only two weeks to confirm the plan but it took almost four months from the date on which the plan was sent to Parliament for the President to announce that the committees were addressing it. We have squandered a little too much time but the task can still be accomplished punctually.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, not only for his report as a whole, but also for his contributions today in which he has so clearly highlighted Ukraine's great significance for the economic and political stability of the whole of Europe.
It is for this reason that we must be prepared to give aid to Ukraine, despite the fact that there are serious problems there as Mrs Hoff's report has shown, and that we also have problems of our own here in the European Union.
In this context, I think it is very important to look in greater detail at two of the points made in the report.
The first point concerns the death penalty in Ukraine.
I find it unacceptable that Ukraine signed the Convention on Human Rights, indeed that it promised to abolish the death penalty and that despite this, as the report clearly shows, 13 death sentences were carried out last year.
It is simply a situation which we should not accept.
We are judging Ukraine by different standards too simply because it wants to look European.
This point is also particularly important because we are currently witnessing a renaissance of the death penalty in many countries in eastern Europe where there is political pressure either to retain the death penalty, or to reintroduce it for certain cases.
It is important that we bring the European Union's role in setting standards to bear in our dealings with Ukraine.
My second point relates to the energy policy.
I am convinced, as point 18 of Mr Titley's report states, that we must help to make Chernobyl reasonably safe.
But I am quite adamantly against point 19 because it is simply an attempt to replace one evil by another, that is, to close Chernobyl but to build new nuclear power stations.
That is completely the wrong route and in my view it is a waste of every ECU invested in this misguided energy policy.
I hope that the amendments which have been tabled on this point will prove successful in tomorrow morning's vote.
Mr President, as many of my fellow Members have already said, the forceful and encouraging words "action plan' refer to an unassuming group of measures which are already in existence, not to anything new.
If we are to develop this idea into more than an electoral aid, if we are to allow it to mature into a plausible concept, in my view, we have to let Ukraine know that the enlargement of the European Union must be a flexible process and it must not be limited to the current waiting list of countries.
As the first country to have rid itself of its nuclear weapons potential, Ukraine must be integrated into a European security system which has as its objective a Europe free of nuclear weapons.
In contrast to the action plan, priority must be given to the strengthening of "civil society' and the building up of democracy.
That is the only proper basis for economic reform.
Finally, in a country which lives every day with the threat of radioactive contamination, European aid must promote alternative sources of energy, not create new dangers.
For this reason we call for the modification of the EU strategy on Ukraine.
Mr President, it is reassuring to note that the Commission and the rapporteur affirm their desire to put an end to the "East-West' division of our continent, whilst taking care not to place the former Iron Curtain a little further to the east.
Mr Titley's report, however, calls for several reservations.
Firstly, I deplore the obstinacy of the majority of politicians in Western Europe to acknowledge the expressed desire of many central and eastern European countries to join NATO.
When will we understand that it is in the interests of all Europeans that our military defence should no longer rely on the President of the United States of America?
Secondly, the obligation imposed on Ukraine to abolish the death penalty leaves me baffled when we know that in Belgium, for example, capital punishment - recently removed from the penal code - can still be used on innocent children by monsters like Dutroux.
One final remark seems necessary.
Ukraine belongs to the Commonwealth of Independent States, which celebrated its sixth anniversary last week in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, and I was honoured to be invited to participate.
Since the creation of the CIS, the twelve member countries have largely contented themselves with declarations of intention, in spite of constructive proposals on the part of the Belorussian President, Alexandre Loubachenko, and evident good will on the part of the participating states.
Ukraine's commendable intention to close the Chernobyl power station quite obviously deserves international and, in particular, European aid, but that must not allow us to forget the suffering of the Belorussian people since the terrible accident at the Ukrainian power station.
I consider it imperative that the inter-parliamentary dialogue, unjustifiably broken with Belarus, should be resumed again as soon as possible alongside, and in harmony with, the good relations we fortunately enjoy with Ukraine.
Mr President, the inappropriate use of European grant aid is doubly damaging, firstly for those in receipt of it, and secondly for those who are providing it.
In the case of the several hundreds of millions of ECU of TACIS resources for Ukraine referred to in the Hoff report, the damage is crucial.
In Ukraine, the objectives which are to be achieved with the help of European aid are not being achieved.
Much of what was planned, and is essential, remains undone.
For a significant part of the TACIS programme for Ukraine, namely the issue of nuclear safety, the gap between the "near' standstill in nuclear safety mentioned in the report and a "near' catastrophe is not too wide.
As for the European citizens whose money is being inappropriately spent here, they are justifiably displeased with the situation. As a result Europe is losing credibility.
What are the failings which are listed so clearly and so impressively - unfortunately in the negative sense of the word - in the Hoff report? What can, and must, be done to change things quickly?
Apart from the failings related to the recipient country, the rest of the catalogue of failings unfortunately reads exactly like the catalogue of failings for which the European institutions, and above all the Commission, have been reproached in other contexts on the same subject of grant aid for many years. These include a lack of clear decision-making procedures, excessive scattering of resources across a range of small projects, excessive and technically counterproductive efforts to involve local partners, a lack of technical expertise within the Commission except in relation to the process itself, administrative overloading of the project manager, time-consuming bureaucratic procedures and, as we have already heard today, a lack of any proper European concept for a nuclear safety policy.
What do we have to do in order to remedy this situation? SEM 2000 is one of the new slogans of the moment.
It stands for sound and efficient management .
Less is more. It advocates a few clear goals with short implementation timespans, a sensible personnel structure, well managed and motivated staff, good coordination with all partners involved.
SEM - "sound and effective management' - yes please! But not starting in the year 2000, starting now so that the two programmes which the European Union is offering to our neighbours in eastern Europe and beyond, TACIS and PHARE, can contribute to positive developments both in the immediate European vicinity and further afield, and so that the process of European integration can become a process which we will be able to regard with confidence in the years to come rather than having from the outset to worry about damage limitation.
Mr President, Mr Titley's report gives a good picture of relations between Ukraine and the EU, for which I sincerely thank him.
The Commission issued a communiqué on the subject some eighteen months ago, and so it was high time Parliament dealt with it.
Many thanks too to Mrs Hoff for her report.
Ukraine is a large country which is an important partner for the EU and, owing to her geographical situation, a major crossroads in Europe.
One problem is that Ukraine has nuclear power plants in poor condition.
The accident at Chernobyl was the world's largest single catastrophe of the decade.
The big question on the agenda is how to improve nuclear safety.
Merely to demand that Ukraine should shut down its nuclear power plants cannot be the only political line to adopt.
Ukraine sorely needs all her energy supplies, whatever the means of production.
That is why the aim repeatedly mentioned in the report to diversify energy production is important and relevant.
But we must approve their interim goal of completing the two plants which are almost ready, Khmelnitski 2 and Rovno 4, while the run-down plants at Chernobyl could be closed down as soon as possible.
This, which was mentioned both by the Commission and Mr Titley, should be done immediately.
With these remarks I am prepared to give my support to the report.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, would you please tell your colleagues in the Commission, in particular Mr van den Broek, that there will be no respite for the Commission in April, and that one of the reasons for this is Mrs Hoff's report which we are discussing today.
I should like to make it quite clear to them that personally I am more involved in Bosnia.
But TACIS in Ukraine is not the only problem.
Reconstruction in Bosnia is not the only problem.
The underspending of PHARE appropriations is not the only problem. In fact, the main problem is GD Ia and the Commission's complete inability to deal with the constraints of time.
Allow me to quote from Mrs Hoff's report, "...motivation is at a low ebb in GD Ia' .
I could say the same thing about Bosnia when I see how my colleagues are working in Sarajevo.
There is no strategic vision.
The same is true of Bosnia!
The Commission has a hopelessly unrealistic approach to the problems of Ukraine. I can only agree!
And not only on that point, but also on may other aspects of external policy for which Mr van den Broek is responsible.
I want to tell you what the consequences are.
It is damaging not only to the reputation of the European Union; it is damaging in terms of both nuclear safety in Ukraine and reconstruction in Bosnia.
But much worse, it is damaging in very concrete terms to the people on the spot who are hoping for our help and who are expecting specific and effective help.
Please, Madam Commissioner, would you be so kind as to ask Mr van den Broek to tell this House when and how he intends to accept responsibility, without making the excuse that the Council of Minsters also has a certain level of responsibility to bear, just like any other project partner anywhere else in the world!
That is certainly the case, but ultimately he is responsible.
Mrs Müller, we said that we would be understanding, but you have doubled your allotted time.
I cannot allow you any more time, unfortunately.
What can we do? As I have said, the political groups should not allocate a time of one minute.
And they allocate one minute!
I confess that I am ashamed to interrupt a speaker after one minute.
But from now on, I cannot unfortunately give you double time.
Please tell your groups to allocate sufficient time to their speakers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps I can pick up where Mr Müller left off.
It really is a very interesting story. Today we have heard in Mr Titley a very passionate rapporteur presenting a good report on the action plan for Ukraine and at the same time we are discussing what is actually happening to all our good intentions for Ukraine.
It is just as Mrs Müller said. These external policy reports which we get from the Court of Auditors have become interchangeable.
Regardless of whether it is PHARE, TACIS, humanitarian aid or the former Yugoslavia, the story is always the same: much ado about nothing!
Hardly a week goes by without some ostentatious announcement or other from the Commission about where they intend to get the money from on this time.
Then, some time later when, as the budgetary authority we look at what has become of these announcements and this money, we find - just as in this case - that only a fraction, and a small fraction at that, has actually been spent on what it was allocated for.
What is particularly frustrating is - as Mrs Müller was quite right to point out - that not all the blame lies with the recipient countries but that it is essentially a state of affairs in which the Commission is conspicuous mainly for its incompetence.
I quote point 2.12: "At the delegation' - in Ukraine, that is - "there is only one local agent responsible for monitoring the nuclear safety projects, yet this involves over 100 projects which take up half the national TACIS allocation for Ukraine' , and so on.
Madam Commissioner, is this how we spend European taxpayers' money? How would you justify it to anyone, let alone to our own electorate.
In terms of staff motivation, the European Parliament cannot be dependent upon whether or not Commissioner van den Broek finally manages to motivate his staff in GD Ia!
Please take these points into consideration. Soon we will have another of these external policy matters to discuss.
It is not the Council, it is not the Member States, it is not Parliament, it is an entirely internal matter which I hope you can solve to our satisfaction and once and for all in the interests of the taxpayers of this Union.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Titley, Mrs Hoff and Mrs Mann on their excellent work and I will just make a few comments.
Firstly, I would like to mention the issue touched upon by Mrs Mann concerning the non-participation of Ukraine in the European Conference which begins tomorrow. I think this is a big mistake.
Because of its geographical position, that is, because of the fact that it forms a bridge with Russia, Transcaucasia, and Central Asia, it is a key geopolitical player and should participate, especially when this European Conference is debating the issue of enlargement. Such an issue cannot be debated fully if it is not accompanied by a European Union policy with respect to third countries.
Secondly, in terms of the enormous issue of nuclear safety, the debate centres on Chernobyl, since Ukraine has already taken a series of steps in relation to the military aspect of nuclear arms. However, with Ukraine at its centre, it will touch on the wider question of the future of nuclear energy, since we must not forget that Chernobyl was a catastrophe resulting from the peaceful use of nuclear energy.
Thirdly, the actions of Ukraine in the field of air transport in support of the Petersburg missions is a sector of activity to which the European Union attaches a great deal of importance.
For Ukraine to play its part it must be given special assistance in this area.
Fourthly, as regards the issue of European Union representation in Ukraine, I agree that European Union representation in Ukraine must be improved and that there must at the same time be more rational use of the resources that are available for Ukraine within the TACIS programme.
For this reason, Mr President, while the action plan of the European Commission constitutes a basis, I would stress that it is only a starting point.
We need an enhanced proposal, a global proposal, a proposal with vision and with objectives concerning future relations between the European Union and Ukraine.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank the European Parliament for its keen interest in relations between the European Union and Ukraine.
The reports we are discussing today are to be commended, as is the work of the two rapporteurs.
Let me comment firstly on Mr Titley's report regarding the action plan for Ukraine.
The partnership and cooperation agreement with Ukraine, which came into effect on 1 March 1998, has opened a new chapter in relations between the Union and that country.
It should enable a strengthening of cooperation in many spheres, not least political and economic.
The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement is a way of bringing the European Union and Ukraine closer. This requires substantial effort on the part of the latter in order to harmonize many legislative and administrative practices.
Closer association with Ukraine could take the form of a free trade area, as provided for in the PCA, when structural reform in Ukraine is sufficiently advanced.
The first meeting of the Cooperation Council between the European Union and Ukraine will take place next June, and that of the first interparliamentary committee as soon as possible.
An independent Ukraine is faced with three major issues: sowing the seeds of democracy; establishing its independence and unity; and putting a market economy in place.
The balance sheet so far is encouraging with regard to the first two aspects and worrying regarding the third.
Ukraine has put in place the foundations of a democracy and strengthened its international position.
The signing of a Friendship Treaty with Russia in May 1997 has contributed to a stabilization of relations between these two countries, whilst the signing of a special partnership charter with NATO in July 1997 has helped the integration of Ukraine into a Euro-Atlantic security bloc. Nevertheless, Ukraine is at a crucial stage in its economic transition.
The European Union and international donors as a whole are concerned about the blockage in economic reforms and hope that the outcome of the elections on 29 March will enable an essential revival of such reforms.
The many commercial problems between the European Union and Ukraine illustrate the inadequacy of its economic restructuring.
A team from the Commission is in Kiev this week to discuss these issues, particularly the situation of the motor market, which runs the risk of being closed to foreign producers.
The action plan for Ukraine was above all a political document in response to a Ukrainian request and its implementation is progressing satisfactorily.
The actions being developed by the Commission largely match the recommendations in the Titley report.
In particular, the Commission is in complete agreement with the importance of the development of civil society in Ukraine.
That is the second recommendation.
A joint mission with the United States is currently working on the preparation of a support programme for Ukrainian civil society, thanks to Parliament's amendment to put ECU 2.5 million aside for joint actions with the United States in the former USSR.
Politically, it is extremely important to move the Chernobyl issue along.
As you know, the agreement with Ukraine anticipates the closure of Chernobyl in the year 2000.
The implementation of this agreement is progressing.
Last year, the Commission proposed additional financing of ECU 100 million for the sarcophagus and we hope that the European Parliament will support us at the next part-session by giving its assent.
At the same time, the Commission continues to provide aid for the reform of the energy sector in Ukraine, which has been a priority for Community assistance right from the start.
This position fits in well with that of the G7, which established a link between actions supporting the closure of Chernobyl and the long term reform of Ukraine's energy sector.
I would now like to share with you our reaction to Mrs Hoff's report, presented by Mrs Mann, which is primarily concerned with nuclear safety in Ukraine.
I would first of all like to thank Mrs Mann for all the attention that she - along with Mrs Hoff - has given to the situation of the TACIS programme in Ukraine.
I can assure you that this report has caused us to reflect internally on both the substance and the management procedures of our programmes, particularly the nuclear ones.
Our reflections have led to the following conclusions. Firstly, as regards substance, actions that are more targeted towards sites must be undertaken, with priority given to the nuclear plants which pose the most problems.
Greater emphasis must be placed on the management of radioactive waste. The Commission is thus in the process of developing a specific programme for radioactive waste in north-west Russia, along with its Euro-Arctic Council partners of the Barents Sea.
We are also in the process of supporting the transfer of know-how and technology through strengthened promotion of industrial cooperation. At this stage, we can already state that, within the framework of this reorientation, the Commission is firmly committed to the closure of Chernobyl in the year 2000, in accordance with the G7 Memorandum of Understanding.
On a procedural level, with regard to management procedures in particular, Mrs Hoff's report has led to a certain number of measures which will enable an improvement in the coordination of the programme.
The Commission will increasingly make use of framework contracts with a view to reducing programme fragmentation.
This approach will have the added advantage of reducing delays in the implementation of projects which are attributable to Commission departments as well as reducing the number of contracts to be managed.
The Commission has also taken on other accompanying measures.
It has created a group of high level advisors, whose main task will be to provide independent advice on the direction and implementation of programmes, as well as on the nuclear risks in partner countries and, furthermore, it has taken measures to strengthen internal coordination in the area of nuclear power.
In conclusion, with regard to the Titley report I would emphasize that there is agreement between the Commission and the rapporteur on the broad outlines of our strategy towards Ukraine. With regard to the Hoff report, the Commission is paying particular attention to the rapporteur's observations, with the aim of improving our assistance.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Consumer protection
The next item is the recommendation for second reading on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on injunctions for the protection of consumers' interests (C4-0585/97-96/0025(COD)).
Mr President, we are now at second reading of a directive which is of great importance despite its modest title.
Consumers have been paid special attention by the European Union and there are many directives granting rights to consumers.
Nevertheless, these have always concerned with what I would call substantive rights, in other words, basic rights which have always been obstructed by the fact that there is a significant deficiency in this respect in the European Union. Judicial proceedings are not unified and there are very different legal and procedural systems throughout the various Member States.
This directive regulates procedural law for the first time and allows consumer associations to bring actions in any country of the Union.
It sets out that as long as these organizations are recognized as such in a country, they can bring an action against the infringement of the directives on substantive rights of consumers in any country.
This, in my view, is a very significant step forward which should be emphasized since I believe it is a great surprise.
The second aspect I would like to point out is that this directive has involved at different levels a high degree of cooperation between the Commission - which drew up the first draft -, the European Parliament at first reading - in close cooperation with the Commission - and, finally, the Council's common position. The common position has recognized the spirit of the work carried out by the European Parliament and, Mr President, I do not mind saying, has improved the technical aspect of this directive.
The Council has carried out serious work and when it does this, we must recognize its efforts in the same way as we usually criticize it at times for its inefficiency in other areas.
Therefore, given the serious work carried out by the Council, I proposed, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights approved this with a majority, not to introduce amendments at second reading and to accept the second reading as presented by the Council with its important aim, taking into account that the directive is acceptable, of speeding up as far as possible its implementation.
Nonetheless, some amendments have been tabled, in spite of this request, in reference to the fact that traders and industrial associations, amongst others, are not included in the directive. It is true that their interests could be defended in the same way as consumers' interests, but they do not in fact form part of the group we know as consumers, which is the subject of the list of directives in the Annex.
For these reasons, Mr President, I recommend to the House that we adopt this directive and reject the amendments tabled, since I believe that it is an acceptable directive and Parliament should be satisfied with the work it has done in cooperating to ensure that this directive progresses.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work on an important Commission proposal.
It is an important plank in the protection of consumers and consumer associations.
It is an important project for the third pillar on cooperation on judicial affairs.
Up until now we have had very few proposals in this area and therefore I particularly welcome this one.
It gives consumers the possibility of obtaining an injunction for an infringement of certain Community directives.
I am pleased that the Commission recognizes the sagacity of Parliament's work and accepts 17 out of 20 amendments tabled by Parliament in the first reading and thus avoids the need for conciliation.
I agree with Mr Verde that the sooner this directive is implemented the better.
With the increased mobility of tourism, educational visits and business travel, the need for cross-border consumer rights is magnified.
There is just one particular point that I would like to flag up.
I know that the Consumer in Europe Group is disappointed that one amendment was not re-tabled.
However, I agree with Mr Verde that it was better to progress this directive as quickly as possible.
However, the directive, as it currently stands, is only applicable to directives listed in Annex 1 and there are a number of directives they would have liked to have seen within the ambit of this directive, such as toy safety, low voltage gas appliances and personal protective equipment.
I would therefore respectfully suggest to the Commission that when this directive is fully implemented it reviews the working of this directive and looks at the possibility of extending the directive in the future to such matters as guarantees and distance selling of financial services, so that the very maximum benefit can be obtained for consumers.
Mr President, I am speaking tonight on behalf of my colleague, Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, and on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
I would like to begin by highlighting, as the rapporteur did, the work carried out by the Council.
In many ways, the common position improves on the ideas thrown in the ring by Parliament at first reading.
This is a fact which must be recognized.
Nevertheless, the Group of the European People's Party has tabled four amendments, which bring together most of the ideas approved at first reading and recognized by the Commission in its amended proposal.
The Group of the European People's Party is presenting them once again for several reasons.
Firstly, they concern respect for the field of application.
Without entering into comments on what Ms Oddy said concerning the advisability of including other directives, for example on toy safety - despite the fact that we agree with her in the Group of the European People's Party - I must point out that Article 1 establishes a limited scope, which could even be described as sectoral in nature. Only the needs of consumers are taken into account and those of businesses, tradesmen and the professions, collective interests which are considered in the list of directives in the Annex, are left to one side.
Mr President, regardless of the legal scope of the different Member States, you will see that this will only serve to create even more legal uncertainty. The interpretation of what the collective interest of consumers is and that of businesses is not going to be the same in Spain as in Germany.
We are now drawing up a new directive on this which, rather than bringing coordination and harmonization, will lead to insecurity, and the Group of the European People's Party is going to retain this amendment even if it is not accepted, as a token and as proof of this belief.
Secondly, also concerning the field of application, I must state that there is no sense in separating the interests of consumers and the interests of other collective organizations recognized in those directives since, in fact, its aim is to enhance the smooth running of the internal market.
Similarly, there is no sense in the other discrimination which is made whereby it is implied that the interests of consumers can only be defended by consumer organizations. This is totally false and incorrect.
Article 3, in fact, which is legally incorrect, at least in Spanish, talks about "finalidad' , or purpose.
It should instead use "objeto' or object.
In Spanish law "finalidad' does not exist.
Purpose has internal scope.
What counts when setting up an association or any kind of body is its object.
Let us take the example of the first directive listed, concerning misleading advertising.
Is it the case that an employers' association from a country, for example Spain, cannot legitimately defend the interests of German consumers against the practice of a company from whatever country is involved, let us say Spain again, or that a German employers' association cannot defend the collective interests of consumers from another country? I believe that in this case we are creating false legitimacy which will also lead to legal insecurity during implementation.
Since the ad causam interest - not the ad processum interest -, in other words, the legitimation of cause, is left to the Member States, nor will we interpret in the same way what the interest of a certain association is.
The third amendment concerns paragraph 1; the fourth amendment concerns Article 6 and is related to the two previous ones.
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party is in favour of this directive. We agree with this report but we must remember that there are problems involved and these will become evident over the next five years.
Mr President, our group also welcomes this directive.
As Ms Oddy and the rapporteur said, this directive on legal cooperation is great news for us.
Personally I have become increasingly frustrated by the fact that we get quick cooperation in the first pillar to protect economic interests, but when we need protection through legal cooperation, often for the express purpose of protecting the citizens, it is difficult to bring about, which sometimes contributes to creating a false picture of the Union and its aims.
I believe, as the rapporteur said, that it is important that the directive can come into force quickly.
Apart from the situations mentioned by Ms Oddy, the whole issue of telemarketing, for example, is important.
The few times when I have the opportunity to watch television, I am increasingly surprised by how even in Scandinavia, in Finland, where such misleading advertising is banned, I can see, for example, advertisements for things which can turn any old clumsy oaf into a nymph using the most fantastic fitness concoctions.
I think it is important for consumer organizations and the authorities, for example, to be able to do something about this.
It is also important for us to include the applicant countries in this process, because I see that marketing of this type also comes via these countries.
However, I regret that the European consumer organizations are not getting the right to represent consumers in the way we proposed, and that the field of application was restricted.
In order to push this directive through quickly, we are supporting the rapporteur.
However, our group does not support the amendments proposed by the Group of the European People's Party.
I also think that we would have just as many legal difficulties defining what type of organizations were taken into consideration in the proposal.
We are therefore going to support the rapporteur's report.
Mr President, on the subject of consumer protection and its legal possibilities, I should like to address a wider issue: the current situation with regard to animal feed.
Since 1 April 1997 it has been obligatory to administer animal feed in accordance with a specific regulation.
Although this is a matter of Community law, it is not being applied by the Member States.
Our view - which I would like to discuss for the first time this evening - is that where consumers' health is threatened the Commission must have the right to intervene and withdraw from circulation any product that might prove dangerous.
In the case of BSE it is clear the origin lies in contaminated animal feed.
However, the Commission is unable to intervene.
We have asked the legal service of the European Parliament and the Commission to do something in this regard so that we can take a political initiative, so that the Commission can take action against the Council which is failing to observe its own laws in the Member States, to ensure that consumer protection measures can be implemented in the various areas.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday during the debate on the MAI, I emphasized that the economy must first and foremost serve the people.
Naturally, this applies to the directives we issue.
At first reading, the European Parliament accepted several amendments to the specific directive which went beyond the remit of consumer interests to include the public interest and the interests of persons carrying on activities in commerce, industry and trade. However, it is unacceptable that, where legal action brought by organizations is permitted, if negative behaviour has an effect in another Member State, only consumer interests are taken into account.
Such negative behaviour, as the Commission established two years ago, is detrimental to the smooth running of the internal market and leads to a distortion of competition to the disadvantage of the great majority of businesses which respect national legislation.
These distortions, in turn, have an adverse effect on consumer confidence and therefore run contrary to the interests of the public.
Time and again in the various reports we see that it is in the interests of the Union, in other words, of the public, to formulate regulations in the general good.
Nevertheless, we are quite resolute in our objection to any form of interference in national codes of procedure under the cover of consumer protection policy.
Various countries, not least Germany, have decided against legal action brought by organizations.
For this reason we wish to ensure that the aim of this directive is the harmonization of regulations in the interests of consumers, persons involved in commerce, industry or trade and the public interest.
However, in order to secure the trust mentioned previously, it is also necessary to include unfair effects on competitors in the definition of infringements against this directive.
To use the language of political opposites, it is not a question of consumer interests in the spirit of the theory of class struggle, but a definition of the consumer as it is used in business where total quality management is the order of the day.
And it is not only a one-way street, everyone involved is included.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is extremely pleased with the progress regarding the proposal for a Council Directive on injunctions for the protection of consumers' interests which, only two years after its presentation, has arrived at a part-session of the European Parliament for second reading.
It is also pleased with the extremely positive results of the inter-institutional cooperation, which have enabled the drawing up of a common position by the Council and its approval by Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which shows a high degree of consensus on the protection of the collective rights of consumers.
Considering the innovative character of the mechanism the directive aims to introduce, an initial evaluation of its impact is anticipated two and a half years after its implementation by Member States.
It will thus be possible to plan for the adjustments which will be necessary in the light of specific experience.
With regard to the last eight amendments, I have to say that they are the same as some of the amendments which have already been discussed within the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Some of these amendments, in particular Nos 1, 3 and 5, hark back to the debate which has already taken place within the said committee.
They could well challenge the extremely realistic conclusions reached by the committee.
Indeed, as the Committee on Legal Affairs concluded, the two-stage mechanism of the common position is balanced and realistic.
This mechanism consists of considering the possibility of including the collective interests of others as well as consumers in the injunctions: businesspeople, tradespeople, craftspeople and so on.
That would take place two and a half years after the implementation of the directive and on the basis of a Commission report, in order to take into account both the current reticence of some Member States and the experiences gained during the first phase of the directive's application.
That is why, on behalf of the European Commission, I consider it appropriate to keep to the conclusions of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which has already rejected these amendments, thereby demonstrating an understanding of the importance of a rapid approval of this proposal for a directive.
With regard to Amendment Nos 2, 4, 6 and 7, insofar as they aim to establish links between national law and the capacity of qualified entities to act, as well as apprehend offenders, these amendments are less drastic than the common position.
Firstly, I find it difficult to believe that Parliament would be less favourable to the protection of consumer interests than the Council.
Secondly, these amendments bring into question the very purpose of the proposal for a Directive, that is to say, the mutual recognition of qualified entities to bring an action against an offender.
Furthermore, the notion of a breach of the measures for implementing European directives cannot be left to national law alone to deal with.
That is why the Commission recommends that you retain the text of the common position, as approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs, by rejecting the amendments in question.
In conclusion, I would like, firstly, to thank the rapporteur, Mr Verde I Aldea, for his excellent work and for his contribution to the rapid progress of this proposal and, secondly, to invite you to follow the move initiated within the Committee on Legal Affairs by approving the common position.
This will enable us to reach an important stage in European consumer protection and to give a significant response to the protection of collective interests which is targeted through this European legislation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, there was quite a bit of commotion yesterday due to the way your predecessor chaired yesterday's sitting.
I freely admit that even I myself took part in the protests, with the result that I was not able to follow what was happening.
I therefore wanted to tell you that I inadvertently voted "yes' in the vote on the Cornelissen report on the first part of recital 0, when I intended to vote "no' .
Please correct this.
Mr President, I have a comment regarding the Minutes.
Yesterday during my speech on the ASEM, when I asked Mr Henderson to reply to a question I had for the Council, I suggested that the date of the end of World War II was 15 May.
It was 15 August, of course.
I would be grateful if the correct date could be added to the Minutes.
Mr President, yesterday I raised a point of order, which is on page 16 of the English version of the Minutes.
I raised two points.
It says here that I asked the President to consider his interpretation of the Quaestors' decision.
I asked him to consider that re-interpretation which is confirmed in the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
The second point I raised was the suggestion that during what could be called a 'tumult' or 'disturbance' , the recorded votes should not count within the system.
If you look at page 15 of the English version of the Minutes it is quite clear that 30 fewer people voted on paragraph 5 and 28 fewer voted on Amendment No 4, against the general pattern of the debate.
It would seem that some people were either preoccupied doing something else or we were not able to hear what was going on.
Mr President, the full report on Tuesday night's sitting, which I only received yesterday, included my speech on the oral question on Alzheimer's disease.
At the start of the speech, I said I regretted the fact that health issues are always discussed at night and this was excluded from the full report.
If it is a full report, I fail to understand why parts should be omitted and who has the right to censor a speech made by a Member.
With regard to yesterday's debate, I would like the Presidency to explain what happened in yesterday's uproar, when he failed to allow a Member to speak on a point of order.
This is a serious fact and the following uproar demonstrates this.
I want an official explanation.
Mr President, before we move on to today's business, I would like to inform Parliament that we still have a Social Democrat government in Denmark.
(Applause from the Group of the Party of European Socialists)
Thank you very much, Mr Sindal.
Mr Gutiérrez Díaz has the floor.
Mr President, as regards the Minutes, under Question Time it states that Question No 2 had been withdrawn, and that it was a question by Mr Carlos Carnero.
In fact, Mr Carnero was not responsible for that question, but for Question No 3, and it was I who had asked Question No 2.
Therefore, I would ask for this section of the Minutes to be corrected.
It will be corrected.
(The Minutes were approved)
European voluntary service action programme
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0077/98) on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the Community action programme "European Voluntary Service for Young People' (C4-0007/98-96/0318(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Fontaine)
Mr President, firstly, on my own behalf and on that of the entire Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her excellent work, which has our full and firm support.
We should be aware that we are discussing a programme which has been at the pilot stage in the last few months and has given rise to enormous interest and great expectations among thousands of young people, associations and local communities throughout Europe.
In the last few months, while in the Council several governments of Member States were vehemently opposed to decent financing of the programme, thousands of young people in their countries were asking for information, getting enthusiastic and submitting their applications to do voluntary work in another European country.
The European Voluntary Service has been strongly desired by the European Parliament and the Commission, but it might not be possible to set it up and it could certainly not be tested without the proposal and support of European cooperation.
If adequately organized and financed, it is destined to become one of the great reference points for the specific development of citizenship and the sense of belonging to the European common house.
It enables the mobility and training of young Europeans to be developed. It enables the energy and intelligence of thousands of young Europeans to be utilized in projects of general interest relating to social solidarity, environmental protection and the utilization of cultural wealth.
The European Voluntary Service can be used to strengthen the ability of young people to understand new realities and to increase their inclination to work, among other things.
At first reading of the European Parliament, we amended the draft programme submitted by the Commission, while essentially sharing its approach.
While accepting some of our amendments, the Council did not want to include a series of developments and suggestions of great importance.
So we did well to have a second reading and concentrate on the amendments to the three basic questions that remain open, on which there is a clash with the Council at the moment.
As rightly recalled by the rapporteur, the first question relates to the status of young European volunteers.
Unfortunately, the Council has so far chosen not to make a choice on this point.
The European citizens should know that some of their governments do not intend to specifically apply the principle of freedom of movement of citizens within the Union.
Without a specific legal status, it would be more difficult for volunteers to exercise their rights and there is the risk of situations arising, concerning tax for example, that would be difficult to tolerate.
The Parliament is asking for a specific proposal to be drawn up on this subject as soon as possible.
Secondly, we need to explain clearly the possibility of developing relations, cooperation and, where possible, integration between the European Voluntary Service and the national civil services.
This will obviously depend on the will of the individual countries, but it is clear to everyone that there is the potential of being able to start outlining a "European system of voluntary participation' , which integrates the European dimension with the national one.
Finally, with regard to the programme budget, several governments demonstrated to the Council an "ideological fury' against the idea of having the programme of the resources required for its operation.
Once again, young people are not a priority for everyone.
What is the point of establishing a limit of ECU 35 million for two years when we have already allocated ECU 25 million of the 1998 budget?
For these reasons, we support the amendments submitted by the Committee on Culture, that outline the position on which Parliament will most probably reach agreement.
Nevertheless, we hope that the Council does not wish to assume responsibility, vis-à-vis the European citizens and young people, for sabotaging the specific establishment of the European Voluntary Service.
Mr President, I would like to thank Nicole Fontaine for the work she has done in preparing her report and also as an active supporter of the European youth movement.
The action programme is a fine example of a practical project in the construction of a citizens' Europe.
It would be useful to consider how the Union's various youth programmes might be given a more solid and broader scope.
One solution is to combine the youth programmes planned for the years 2000-2006.
In that way we would gain considerable benefits.
Many of the programmes come to a halt at the end of the year.
It would be well worth discussing the possibilities of combination very soon.
The young persons' voluntary service programme must aim to bring together young people in Europe through cooperation.
The programme should not operate as an extension of the youth employment programmes other than as a way of accruing skills and knowledge in readiness for working life.
As voluntary work projects tend to be in the no-man's-land between training and employment, their large-scale operation in some countries clash with the Inland Revenue and matters to do with social security.
Because of these kinds of problems the European Parliament must plead the case of the joint-funding of programmes.
The fund of ECU 35 million, born of the common position the Council has taken on this matter, is not enough to ensure that the programmes will remain operational.
The idea of coupling voluntary service schemes with the civil services that young people can opt for in lieu of military conscription is in itself an interesting one, but it seems unlikely to come about, especially in EU countries where there is national service.
At least as far as Finland is concerned, considerations of defence and historical factors make the two incompatible in practical terms, let alone desirable.
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her excellent work as rapporteur.
Special thanks should also go to the Commissioner, Mrs Cresson, because the European Parliament and the Commission are working together for young people.
At the moment, young people are suffering a great deal in Europe. They are experiencing a great identity crisis and this programme is drawn up at an important time.
I would also like to thank the Council, which has accepted the extension of the age limit, which now covers young people aged 18 to 29, which gives us the possibility of operating in a vast field, as young people really need to have a special interest, whether in the social, environmental or cultural world.
It is important at this time to offer young people the opportunity to carry out activities of general humanitarian interest by giving them training, recognized in terms of social, vocational and occupational inclusion.
The programme, which is intended for young Europeans, except for students already benefiting from the SOCRATES programme, and in particular for those without qualifications and the young unemployed, aims to commit them to activities on the spot, relating to European citizenship and the construction of Europe.
Our political group is supporting this programme with great interest and, obviously together with all of Parliament, believes that the financial allocation should be increased to 80 ECU million.
An effort should also be made by the Commission which, in turn, wished to increase that allocation to 60 ECU million.
The issue of the financial allocation is of great interest to us, because it is not possible to develop coordination without it.
We also believe that the Member States should adopt the necessary measures to ensure coordination between the European Voluntary Service and the civil services existing at national level, facilitating the access of young European volunteers to the national infrastructures and contributing actively towards the essential synergy between transnational activities and national voluntary measures.
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Voluntary Service action programme has already aroused, in its pilot stage, much interest and great expectations, which we must now try to satisfy.
Mrs Fontaine's report cleverly focuses on key defects the Council now has to put right if it wants a workable and successful programme.
We really cannot afford to disappoint our European youth by coming up with a long-awaited scheme that, despite good intentions, does not actually work.
I should also like to appeal to the Council to take seriously the demands of the rapporteur and the Committee on Culture, which are all basic preconditions for a viable youth programme.
The first requirement for viability is obviously an adequate budget.
Naturally you can say that there is always a need for more money, but we are not asking for the impossible when we insist on a figure of ECU 80 million.
With a budget any smaller we simply will not be able to meet the targets of the programme even modestly.
Another requirement concerns such things as the social status of participating young people, social security, labour laws, tax exemption, and so on.
In other words, the status of the young has to be organized clearly, and standardized accordingly.
Otherwise they will be prevented from participating.
Voluntary service, however, is only one aspect of EU youth policy.
I am convinced that we are in need of a comprehensive framework for policy on youth, in which valid initiatives may be viably coordinated.
That is why it is also important to set up a tracking scheme so as to document the experience we gain from voluntary work and employ it usefully in future youth programmes.
We should also exploit the expertise that the various current youth organizations already have, when developing EU policy on youth.
But, above all, we should try to raise the value in real terms of the activity planned for our youth so that it will stand out in the budget, because these programmes, at their best, will have an added European value and will increase understanding and support for European integration.
The establishment of the Community action programme "European Voluntary Service for Young People' is essential and must be welcomed as a very important initiative. However, we regret that the Council only took up 18 of the 40 amendments tabled by Parliament at first reading.
The amendments which were not accepted lend the programme more effectiveness and transparency.
These include the amendments the rapporteur reintroduces with a view to extending the resources devoted to the first stage of the programme's development as well as the amendment which proposes coordination on social security and tax relief applicable to the allowances the young people receive for accommodation, transport and subsistence. These amendments are aimed solely at improving the conditions for the young people who carry out voluntary service, rather than discouraging them from getting involved.
In the same way, we should strengthen the complementary nature of national civilian services and European voluntary service.
This is particularly important because we must guarantee that the young people who are conscientious objectors can receive social-welfare benefits anywhere in Europe and that this is based on a legal certainty. If this is not the case, the alternative of voluntary service for military service would be impossible, and what we are trying to do is in fact to ensure that it is possible.
In some countries it is very difficult to choose between one possibility and another, and young people who would prefer to perform community service are often discouraged from doing so.
We must support the mobility of young people and motivate their efforts of solidarity, while always maintaining respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
We therefore congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her tremendous work and we support the amendments, because they encourage work of solidarity on the part of young people in Europe and they contribute to the construction of Europe in general.
Mr President, we would like to thank our untiring colleague, Mrs Fontaine, and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for their excellent, fast work.
The Green group, which supports this programme, supports the idea of concentrating the European Parliament's action on a few fundamental amendments, particularly those giving body and development to this very important programme.
I would mention here the social status of the participants and the complementary nature of national civil services and the European Voluntary Service.
I wish to point out that the European Voluntary Service naturally relates to young women as well.
The information provided on the programme in the various countries should, in particular, focus the attention of all young on the planned work experience which is at the centre of our priorities: environmental protection and cultural wealth.
Mr President, the Voluntary Service tends to assume an ever greater role in favour of the integration of consciences, abandoning any competition with the State.
The launch of the pilot "European Voluntary Service' action has been an important step forward by the Community institutions.
Young volunteers will have a constructive experience that may be useful to them to favour their integration into active, social life.
We hope that with these initiatives, based on enhanced cooperation between the Member States, young people will acquire valid training experience, based on acquiring skills and capacities while exercising responsible citizenship, to strengthen their love for a citizens' Europe.
All this will be useless, however, if we fail to provide a specific legal framework, recognized both in the country of origin and in the host country, aimed at giving volunteers the security they can expect with regard to the right to a residence permit, social security and taxation.
We support the amendments proposed by Mrs Fontaine once again, because there is an urgent need to establish a European status for young volunteers and to coordinate tax and social security systems.
Moreover, we believe it necessary to increase the financial allocation from ECU 35 to 80 million for the first two years of the programme, otherwise we risk frustrating the entire project owing to a lack of financial means.
Moreover, the role of the European Parliament should be increased with regard to information, giving it a right of appeal throughout the programme's implementation period, particularly during the assessment process.
At the moment, with an ever greater separation between the institutions and the citizens, there is a strong need to use as far as possible the legislative means available in a generous way to favour the citizens' participation in the political and institutional choices.
Mr President, the European Voluntary Service is a part of the process of integrating young people into the bigger process of integrating Europe.
It is critical to involve young people because they will be dictating the success of the EU in future years.
Whilst on the face of it exchanging young people for a period of up to a year to undertake voluntary work may seem simple enough, there are major practical difficulties to overcome, as was highlighted during the pilot programme.
Identifying projects and matching them with volunteers is a major task in itself.
It is critical to ensure support facilities should anything go wrong whilst the young person is miles away from home.
Preparing the volunteers linguistically, psychologically and socially, ensuring that they are not exploited, and that they are not taking paid jobs away from local people - all these problems need to be smoothed out.
But at the end of the process the volunteers will have gained a rich experience.
They will perhaps be more fluent in another European language, they will have encountered a new culture and created new contacts.
They will have changed perceptions when they return home, and hopefully will share their new intercultural experience with others.
Most importantly, the process will give volunteers more confidence and experience to find a job on their return and go some way towards tackling the disaster of youth unemployment.
But we have further problems to overcome and I want to concentrate on the issue of finance.
In order for the programme to be a success we need to ensure a critical mass of participants.
This will provide economies of scale in administrative terms and will ensure greater participation, which is why Parliament will be holding out for ECU 80 million for this project.
The European Voluntary Service has not been well advertised as yet, and perhaps at this stage that is not a bad thing: the last thing we want to do to the youth of Europe is to raise their expectations and then dash them due to a lack of resources.
The Committee on Culture will therefore be fighting for more resources during conciliation so as to meet the growing demand for this excellent programme.
Finally, can I thank and congratulate Mrs Fontaine and Mrs Cresson on their continued enthusiasm for this programme.
Mr President, exchange programmes are the most effective means of letting young people experience how enriching it can be to participate in other people's cultures at a personal and even political level.
A major focus of this programme is also to train young people to develop their interpersonal skills.
I would therefore like to thank you, Mrs Cresson, for this initiative.
This programme is attracting an extraordinary amount of interest from young people.
For example, there are 10 000 applications in Germany alone as against a total of only 2 100 available places throughout the EU.
What is striking is that 90 % of the 223 German participants were women. However, we have to be clear about one thing.
The resources provided to meet such a lively interest from young people must be backed up by an infrastructure which can cope with this amount of interest.
This is not yet the case.
In many countries this infrastructure is practically non-existent.
Although it does exist in countries like Germany, as for example in the compulsory civilian services, the traditional providers of the established social services have initially been very reluctant to get involved, with the result that the existing infrastructure could not be used by the European Voluntary Service.
Previous experience has shown that if we want to make the European Voluntary Service a success, it has to be done within a realistic financial framework.
The infrastructure must be further expanded and better employed.
To achieve this it is vital that volunteer services be coordinated with national civilian services.
Parliament's renewed call for the programme to be funded to the tune of ECU 80 million in the period 1998-1999 takes this view into account.
I would like to thank Mrs Fontaine for her commitment.
However, it is only when Parliament succeeds in carrying through these demands that the European Voluntary Service will be able to make the long-term contribution to European integration that we would like to see from it.
Mr President, it seems to me that since 1996, when the European Voluntary Service was first discussed at the Florence Council, great steps forward have certainly been taken and we have to thank Mr Fontaine and Commissioner Cresson, as always, for their untiring work in tandem to obtain significant results.
However, this programme is still inadequate in certain respects, as shown by Mrs Fontaine and all those who have preceded me.
As Mr Baldi also said, the Union for Europe Group will certainly support the amendments proposed by Mrs Fontaine once again. These relate mainly - to give you an outline once again - to the principle of establishing a European status for young volunteers and, something that seems very important to me, the coordination of tax systems for social security.
Other important points are the integration of the civil services into the Voluntary Service, naturally only if the Member States so desire, and an increase in the financial allocation, which is of course of a fundamental issue. This was mentioned a short while ago: ECU 35 million for the two-year period is verging on the ridiculous, particularly since it concerns a series of programmes that, according to all Members - and many other people -, needs to provide young people with importance, belief in themselves and belief in cultural programmes.
This is becoming a more obvious example of how much attention is actually lacking.
Among other things, increasing the financial allocation for this programme - which, we must remember, is an alternative to SOCRATES, and included in the other programmes which have already been accused of being elitist - will manage to disprove the accusations that are constantly being made against the cultural programmes that they are in fact purely elitist programmes.
Why is this the case? It is because they are aimed at young people who have no qualifications or who are unemployed: socially excluded young people.
Consequently, accepting this type of basic request to ensure adequate information and training within the programme itself would finally give a different idea of the trend of the European Parliament and all the Community institutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the idea of a transnational European Volunteer Service is to be welcomed - and I should like to express to the rapporteur my appreciation of all the work she has done -, I fear that the objective set out in the report will not be achieved due to a lack of funds.
I am now in the strange position of having written down several more points which all the previous speakers have already dealt with.
Everyone has been so unanimous on these points that I should perhaps concentrate on points that have not yet been addressed, as it is seldom that there is such unanimity in this House and such a positive attitude.
The only proposal that we could add is that a system which can be verified objectively should be worked out to define selection criteria which will ensure that each young person has the same chance in all the applications in the various countries, regardless of the country they apply in.
It should not be the case that preference is given to young people who already work in existing organizations and have been prepared for the selection criteria.
To sum up, I should like to point out that - if we are to take the words of the American President seriously - America is preparing for a training explosion.
In other words, if these programmes proposed here are not given adequate financial support, in ten years' time we shall be lagging a long way behind the USA.
We therefore support this proposal and appeal to everyone to support it along with us.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Fontaine for her excellent work.
We really cannot blame her for the fact that we have not got any further than we have.
That is due instead to the hesitance of the Council, as we have heard in earlier speeches.
Long before the Cannes Summit people said that one of the EU's absolute priorities was to create good conditions for increased employment.
But what is being done? Each time we in the European Parliament's Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, or even DG X or DG XXII of the Commission, make innovative proposals in the cultural and educational sectors, which are among the most dynamic areas for future business life, the gentlemen on the Council shake their heads and say: ' yes, of course that is good, but you cannot have any money.'
I therefore ask the question: how does the Council intend to create employment without investment?
How do you intend to shape our common future if you consistently undervalue what provides body and soul? When are you on the Council going to realize that money which goes into the cultural and educational sectors is vital investment?
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Commissioner Cresson for her splendid support for this work.
Mr President, this debate is at risk of becoming boring but I will operate on the principle that if you say something often enough and clearly enough you might get the same message through.
It is clear that all of us in this House and, indeed, I suspect in the Commission and Council as well, support the cliché that we want to build a Europe for the future, a Europe for our young people.
It is our job to make that cliché reality.
Somebody once said to me that if you want to see what someone's real priorities are, look at the cheque stubs in their chequebook and you will then see what they really believe in.
If we look at the European Union's cheque stubs we discover that 40 % of our expenditure goes on agriculture for less than 5 % of the population.
You run out of noughts to get to the 0.1 decimal percentage point to work out how much goes on young people, 40 % of the population of Europe.
We must make this a reality.
The finance here is critical to everything.
In Britain we say 'you must put your money where your mouth is' .
We hear fine words from the Presidency, fine words from the Council but we do not see the money.
And that is what we want to see.
I represent Portsmouth in the United Kingdom, the home of the Royal Navy.
There is another saying in Britain: ' do not spoil the ship for a ha'p'orth of tar' .
That is what we are in real danger of doing here.
I would remind the Commissioner and the Council that this Parliament showed its resolve in the conciliation with SOCRATES.
We have heard the cross-party agreement right across this Parliament this morning.
I am quite sure that we will show exactly that same resolve when this goes to conciliation as I am sure it will.
The money has to be there.
Let us have proper funding.
I agree with what Mrs Fontaine has said about the attention to detail.
If we get that right, we will have a scheme that is worth shouting about.
At the moment it is only worth a whisper.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the only response politics can have to the political upheavals in Europe, the greater transparency that the euro will create, the expansion of the EU, greater cultural diversity, increased mobility and the sensitive treatment of minorities is to boost education and mobility throughout Europe.
What is needed is intercultural learning and extracurricular education accompanied by opportunities for service and study abroad for longer periods.
This includes greater opportunities for youth exchanges than we have at present and strengthening the necessary infrastructure.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud that it was this House that took the initiative.
It was not the Council and it was not the Commission.
Rather it is they who have latched on to this House's initiative which Alexander Lange and I introduced here five years ago.
I am very proud that we were able to bring the Council and Commission on board at that time.
Of course, the right conditions for this have still not been created, even now.
I support everything that Nicole Fontaine has said, but I should like to mention one point in particular.
We need a specific statute for this important service. The service will be unacceptable for most people unless it guarantees, in a binding manner, a residence permit, work permit, social security entitlement, tax exemption arrangements and the continuance of any national allowances and benefits.
If it does not, we cannot expect many young people to become involved in this service.
Ladies and gentlemen, a certificate must be issued on completion of the voluntary service for young people.
However, society also has to get to a stage where this voluntary service to the community is rewarded by giving participants preference when taking on employees and not looking at how quickly a person has done something, how quickly a person has studied, but whether a person has also rendered a service to the community.
We can take a leaf out of the USA's book: there anyone who has carried out voluntary service is always preferred over a person who has not.
Let us therefore follow that example and this can become a good achievement.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by complimenting the rapporteur of this exemplary report.
Nicole Fontaine is precise and economical in her words, and bold and pragmatic in her proposals.
I am taking the floor to make merely obvious points.
However, in politics it is the obvious that is least readily accepted.
We have a saying in my home town that "what is born crooked will take a long time, if at all, to grow straight' .
For this reason, I believe it is essential that we should guarantee four conditions regarding European voluntary service from the outset.
Firstly, a programme addressing the situation of young people should be designed to radiate outwards in such a way as to reach all young people, without exception, in the shortest possible period of time.
For this, a generous budget is necessary.
ECU 35 million is neither here not there; it is not worthwhile.
Secondly, the programme's success depends on how it is launched.
From the outset, as opposed to little by little, we need to establish the conditions which will ensure its success.
This includes an immediate consensus between Member States regarding the creation of a common social security and taxation status, and that should be done now, and not in two years time when the experiment has failed.
Thirdly, a programme cannot be created outside the context of other Community actions and those of Member States.
It should seek to link and enhance the effects of other connected programmes.
Therefore, a method must be found to connect it to national civic services, merging it with the "Youth for Europe' programme and linking it with new programmes such as that to create a European apprenticeship status which is currently being debated by Parliament.
Finally, I would like to emphasize the importance of incorporating language learning and support for young people when they finish voluntary service, in order to ensure that, in the context of their daily lives, they find ways of lending continuity to the experiences they have had; these are essential aspects of the programme and a condition for its success.
Thought might be given to creating a European volunteer card which would provide a permanent special status, thereby creating a natural network - I would even say mafia - of transnational citizens who are ready to create the bridges that Europe needs.
Mr Morris, do you have a question or a point of order?
Mr President, I would like to ask a question please. Can I put a very direct question to the Commission, and possibly also to the rapporteur?
Have any enquiries been made of Member States as to whether or not European youth voluntary service could be regarded as an alternative for those young men and those young women who have a genuine conscientious objection to military service? I think that there are many young people within the Community who would in fact welcome that opportunity.
Mr Morris, this question has already been raised and has been given a response.
However, if Mrs Cresson wishes to answer again, she may do so.
Thank you very much, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
Support measures for a Mediterranean Partner
The next item is the report (A4-0055/98) by Mr Colajanni, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1488/96 (MEDA) as regards the procedure for adopting the appropriate measures where an essential element for the continuation of support measures for a Mediterranean Partner is lacking (COM(97)0516 - C4-0635/97-97/0298(CNS)).
Mr President, representatives of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, as my text is very brief, my speech should be as well.
There is no need to digress too much; it is a brief but clear document and deals with a political and institutional problem that is highly sensitive for the European Parliament.
It relates to the duty and role of Parliament and also the balance between the institutions in fields in which the structure of the functioning of the European institutions is progressing. It therefore deals with providing guidance in one direction or another.
This is a problem found not only in the case I am dealing with, but also in cases brought to the attention of Parliament, the Council and the Commission. These include cases where the Council adopts sanctions against a third country, where resolutions passed by the UN Security Council must be complied with, where agreements are suspended or where regulations introduce an embargo.
Today, Parliament is discussing a similar problem with regard to the development of relations with the countries of central and eastern Europe.
It is therefore a series of problems relating to the role of Parliament and the balance between the institutions on highly sensitive points on the development and future physiognomy of the European Union.
In our case, it relates to Article 3 of the MEDA Regulation which states that the programme is based on respect for democratic principles and the rule of law, and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms that are an essential aspect of them, violation of which justifies the adoption of appropriate measures.
The proposed regulation sets out the means for adopting a decision where such an eventuality is confirmed.
This subject relates to one of the most politically complex and difficult areas in the world and that is why the debate has continued for many months.
I would point out briefly that a previous proposal made by the Commission had received a text drawn up by Mr Barón Crespo from the European Parliament tabling amendments which were not accepted and which were postponed until after the conclusion of the work of the Intergovernmental Conference.
The new Commission proposal, drawn up in accordance with Article 16 of the MEDA Regulation, reintroduces the qualified majority decision-making procedure for the adoption of appropriate measures when an essential element for the continuation of support measures for a Mediterranean Partner is lacking.
We are happy about this, because the initial text did not provide for qualified-majority voting but for decisions to be taken unanimously. We believe this is a very important step forward for the Commission's proposal.
However, the proposal still disregards the role played by the European Parliament, both as initiator of the procedure and as an internal factor.
My proposal is very simple: the Commission's text should be adopted with the addition that the Council may establish appropriate measures, deciding by a qualified majority on the Commission's proposal or on the basis of a recommendation made by the European Parliament, adopted in accordance with Article J.7 of the Treaty on European Union and, at all events, after hearing Parliament's opinion.
I believe that this then totally protects the Council's prerogative to decide and enables Parliament to intervene in a matter in which the judgment of possible measures to be made is an overall political judgment, relating to the consideration of many aspects of the matter in one country or another in one of the most complex and difficult contexts in the world, as I mentioned at the beginning.
Mr President, I would like to begin by stating that the Group of the Party of European Socialists supports Mr Colajanni's report.
I am not only speaking for the Socialists but also, as Mr Colajanni already pointed out, as a person who has been involved very directly with this report, since I had the privilege of being rapporteur on the report on the MEDA Regulation and, at the time, put forward proposals - without success, however - which would have given our policies a more European character.
I am also pleased that after the Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission took a step forward, and that we have moved from requiring unanimity to needing only qualified-majority decisions on a topic as important as this which forms part of our overall political philosophy. In other words, it is a step forward in supporting the consolidation of the rule of law and respect for human rights which, at the moment, is of great importance within our increasing responsibility in terms of foreign policy.
Evidence of this could be seen yesterday when, in this very Hemicycle, we held a debate on the enlargement of the Union towards central and eastern Europe. It was a timely debate, because the London European Conference is now beginning and this precise criterion regarding respect for human rights, laid down in Copenhagen, is a criterion which the Treaty of Amsterdam has consolidated as one of the elements which forms the image of the European Union.
Therefore, the Commission's step has been a positive one, but it is not enough.
I would like to refer once again to yesterday's debate because, in terms of enlargement, the Council and the Commission yesterday seriously committed themselves - through letters from the Presidents of both institutions - to consulting Parliament and allowing it to put forward recommendations throughout the process. In Parliament we always persevere and are constantly prepared to fight for our principles.
I therefore believe that it would be logical for the Commission and the Council to take on the commitments in this field that it formally promised in this House; in other words, it should grant Parliament the right, and the obligation, to give its opinion on topics in this area. We must also realize that Parliament is playing an important role in terms of the development of dialogue in the Mediterranean.
This must be taken into consideration and is clearly evident through the experiences of our Delegations for relations with the Maghreb countries, with the Mashreq countries, with Israel and with the Palestinian Legislative Council. It is therefore appropriate that the role Parliament is playing in the Mediterranean context should be recognized by our own institutions, particularly at a time when the MEDA programme is experiencing significant success in that, in spite of many difficulties, the fixed amounts for the last two years have been completely allocated.
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party supports the Colajanni report.
It serves two fundamental principles and insists that the improvement of the regulation on the running of the MEDA programme must be incorporated.
Firstly, this programme is ambitious yet vitally necessary for the approaching 21st century and it must contribute to the establishment of the rule of law in all the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, the cradle of Europe.
Consequently, violations of human rights and basic freedoms, which constitute a virulent rejection of democracy, are unacceptable in European Union cooperation.
Secondly, a proper evaluation - free from self-seeking, opportunistic expedience - of whether this basic condition for cooperation with a country is to be promoted and respected, should come first and foremost from a democratically elected supranational body which expresses the combined understanding of the European people, namely the European Parliament.
This does not mean a reduction in the competence of the Commission to carefully monitor developments and to introduce necessary measures if and where problems occur. Nor does it dispute the final decisive role of the Council in the enforcement of necessary sanctions.
However, it introduces two important parameters into the operation of MEDA.
The first is that final decisions must be taken by a simple majority vote in order to prevent an isolated national policy from hindering the exercise of the imposed common policy through special interests. The second is that not only is it necessary that the European Parliament gives its opinion before decisions are taken, but it should also have the right to recommend the implementation of measures and what these measures should be.
This essential improvement towards a more general strengthening of the common foreign and defence policy, which the Commission omits in its proposal, is introduced by the amendment tabled by Mr Colajanni. The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy unanimously requests its approval.
Mr President, the MEDA funds have been frozen for far too long.
It has had the opposite effect of what was intended; it has meant unfortunately that the serious achievements of the Barcelona process have been entirely undermined.
The Colajanni report has arrived far too late, but better late than never.
I would like to congratulate Mr Colajanni on the way in which he has interpreted the opportunities offered by the Convention.
With his proposal he has not only increased the role of this Parliament where it concerns taking suitable measures in case a Mediterranean partner fails to comply with the agreements on human rights; he has accepted all institutions for what they are, but he has also done the Mediterranean partners a service, and in doing so made a practical interpretation of the Barcelona Convention possible again.
I hope that his proposal will be adopted by the Council and the Commission, and that Parliament will approve it in full this afternoon.
Mr President, I also agree with what has been said and I wish to emphasize the constructive points contained in Mr Colajanni's amendment to this Commission proposal.
It is not simply that it goes towards restoring the balance of the three institutional bodies, in favour of the democratic body par excellence, that which is directly elected by the people. It also has a fundamental significance which goes beyond this.
This proposal touches on the subject of MEDA, fundamental issues concerning the relations between the Community and third countries.
In essence, it is about foreign policy. It is also about the availability of European Union funds, that is, money earned by the sweat of the European tax payer.
Consequently, in these circumstances the European Parliament has both the right and the obligation to intervene in the process.
I could have wished for this amendment to be somewhat more consistent, somewhat stricter as to the fact that the opinion of the European Parliament must in all events be obligatory for the Council and the Commission and not simply academic, as is now the case. The European Parliament gives its opinion but from that point on the Council and the Commission usually take the final decision according to their own wishes.
A second issue is that of qualified majority voting. I agree as far as it goes but there is another side to the issue.
If a measure is taken and MEDA support is withdrawn for a particular country on the grounds that it is violating human rights, in order for MEDA support to be reinstated would a simple majority be sufficient or would it require unanimity? Nor must there be any cheating for reasons of expediency, because, under this provision, we know which will be the only Mediterranean partner with a give and take relation with MEDA - Turkey.
Mr President, I find Mr Colajanni's proposal extremely clear, and it has the full support of the Green group.
We think it is the only way to manage the fund properly, and we think the only way to have a suitable procedure is if the Council decides effectively by qualified majority, if Parliament is consulted and if Parliament is given the chance to draw up a proposal pursuant to Article J.7 of the Treaty on European Union, and obviously if the Commission has the right of proposal, which it can use whenever it so desires.
Those three points therefore seem completely acceptable to us.
However, the reality is that there was not even consensus amongst the Council on whether voting could take place by qualified majority.
I think it is important that Parliament makes it very clear that this is what we prefer, because otherwise we might end up in a situation in which one country with opportunistic or major political objections is able to obstruct the entire process and that would be a bad state of affairs.
Secondly, I would like to take this opportunity to raise the alarm over the way the Barcelona process was conducted.
What Mr van Bladel said about that was correct, of course, namely that finances brought it to a standstill. But we should add, and this is much worse, that the entire political significance of the Barcelona process has lost considerable importance because of the fact that the peace process had reached a deadlock, since it was always seen more in line with the peace process, and moreover as the result of a lack of political input at ministerial level.
Since the declaration of Barcelona there has really been no further decisive political input on a ministerial level. It is sad to note that we are jogging along the bilateral channels whilst the regional dimension, which was a much-wanted extra addition, is not coming into its own at all.
I therefore believe we in Parliament will have to take a clear stand on this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, members of the Commission, the report we are discussing today in Parliament is very relevant since it involves completing a regulation which has the ambitious aim of promoting democratic liberties in the Mediterranean and bringing together the people of North Africa, the Middle East and the European Union.
Before continuing, I would like to emphasize that our group agrees with the report drawn up by Mr Colajanni and with the amendment tabled to the Commission's text. This amendment is aimed at ensuring that the European Parliament's voice is heard when that forum considers that an essential element is lacking in order to continue with the support measures for a Mediterranean partner.
The MEDA programme, which has received ECU 3 500 million for this five-year period, is the most ambitious initiative ever adopted by the European Union to promote security and political stability in the Mediterranean.
To ensure that it has its desired effect, it is essential that the European Union's cooperation with the countries involved in the MEDA programme is based on total respect for democratic liberties and human rights.
Nowadays, the countries of the European Union are separated from North Africa and the Middle East by little more than the waters of the Mediterranean.
But there is an enormous political, cultural, social and economic abyss between the societies on the two sides of the mare nostrum .
We certainly do not believe it is necessary to standardize cultures and social traditions, but it is important and essential to ensure that all of the countries which hope to have close relations with the European Union show permanent respect for democratic liberties and human rights.
The tense situation in Algeria and in Israel's Occupied Territories, not to mention the tensions in the Aegean Sea, sufficiently prove how necessary it is to encourage the countries to move towards a greater respect of liberties.
When the regulation on the MEDA programme was drawn up, Article 16 did not determine the definitive procedure to be followed in adopting measures regarding a Mediterranean Partner and one essential element is lacking.
That deferment showed how delicate and difficult this matter is for the Member States of the European Union.
The delay, among other things, has meant that the MEDA programme has developed slowly.
The initial expectations have been frustrated because of the slowness with which it was implemented, due in particular to obstructionist measures taken by certain Member States whose names I would, at the moment, prefer to forget.
With the adoption of this report, we want to give new impetus to the implementation of the programme and to achieving the desired objective: that the Mediterranean becomes a conflict-free area where all the coastal countries have harmonious relations.
I would like to conclude by congratulating Mr Colajanni.
Mr President, on the one hand, the Group of the European People's Party must congratulate the Commission on the amendment to the MEDA regulation but, on the other, it must point out the right held by Parliament to make its own recommendation or express an opinion pursuant to Article J.7 of the Treaty and the advisability of doing so.
When the Council can give an opinion by a qualified majority and when Parliament can state its thoughts on the nonobservance of human rights, freedoms and democratic principles, then, and only then, will we finally be able to open a serious debate on a country such as Syria which, with European economic backing, accepts an inappropriate blessing for a political system that is totally undemocratic.
There is no risk of the Euro-Mediterranean talks dying because of the exclusion of a country that is failing to respect the rigour established in Barcelona, nor will they die because of the often unfounded exclusion of other applicant countries.
The talks will only fail when Parliament and the other European institutions give their tacit consent to the non-observance of fundamental democratic rights.
Today's discussion on the MEDA programme is included in the problems of the MED programmes and it seems advisable to me to take the opportunity today to confirm that, through the Committee on Budgetary Control, Parliament is not boycotting the unfreezing of the MED programmes, as the Commission leads us to believe.
In fact, this Parliament truly wishes to resume talks on decentralized cooperation with the countries bordering the southern Mediterranean as soon as possible.
Parliament is demanding the Commission's full cooperation, however.
Luckily, this process is already being implemented and, during a recent public hearing, the Commission provided us with a whole series of information.
To conclude, I hope that the interministerial preparatory conference in Palermo next June, and the Euro-Mediterranean forum itself that should be set up shortly, will revive a Euro-Mediterranean policy that started off full of expectations but that has lost its polish and political tension, disregarding the basic problem, namely the blocking of the peace process between Israel and Palestine.
Mr President, this is an opportunity to make a further assessment of the validity of several rules on social and civilian protection present in the MEDA Regulation, that lay down different procedures for the application of the programmes and the possible suspension of cooperation for countries failing to observe the democratic principles and the rule of law.
The violations of human rights and democratic rights in some regions of the Mediterranean are not a cause for concern but, unfortunately, a dramatic reality.
Globalization itself, which has produced significant changes in the market making it easier to match supply to demand and which has established new economic frontiers with the use of new computer technology, risks favouring economic interests and suppressing civil and social rights even more in the developing countries.
The European Parliament has not only confirmed its necessary commitment to the rights of freedom and democracy, but also, and more specifically, emphasized, at first and at second reading, the requirement of a specific direct role in the penalizing procedure for any non-observance of the principles of democracy and freedom in some Mediterranean countries.
I am therefore expressing my full support for Mr Colajanni's amendment, which confirms the role of the European Parliament as initiator of a penalization procedure, but also as a decisive factor in the procedure itself.
Finally, I would like to make one more point. The launch of the MEDA programme should presuppose the EU's strong commitment to southern Europe.
In fact, a full development of the Mediterranean European community may be the true vehicle for a partnership policy with third countries.
I therefore intend to confirm the need for infrastructural intervention to create new entrepreneurial measures and, above all, to provide employment, so as to avoid the serious economic and social repercussions in the European areas of the Mediterranean that really give rise to delays in the difficult path of the MEDA programme.
Mr President, the proposal for a regulation which Mr Colajanni's report deals with is aimed at supplementing the MEDA Regulation which entered into force just under two years ago.
This additional regulation concerns how the MEDA Regulation should be applied to human rights.
It is a question to which both the Commission and Parliament attach great importance.
Under the MEDA Regulation, the Commission should present proposals for a decision-making procedure which would make it possible to adopt measures when violations of human rights or other fundamental rights occur.
It is this decision-making procedure that the current report considers.
The partnership between the EU and the Mediterranean countries began at the Barcelona Conference in November 1995 when the foreign ministers of the EU's Member States and the twelve countries in the southern Mediterranean met.
The partnership is based primarily on the strategic importance of the Mediterranean area.
It also reflects the mutual dependence which has long tied together the EU and the Mediterranean countries politically, economically, socially and culturally.
Our ties are therefore based on a partnership instead of on aid and a relationship of dependency as before.
After the Barcelona Conference, Parliament approved the Commission's draft MEDA Regulation.
The proposal was then adopted by the Council of Ministers in July 1996.
The partnership thus obtained a financial instrument which was well-suited to the new goals and principles of the cooperation.
The aim of the MEDA Regulation is to supplement the measures which the partners themselves adopt to increase competitiveness, prosperity and social stability.
Lasting prosperity and stability can only be achieved if democratic principles, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms are fully respected.
The regulation clearly points out that respect for these fundamental principles must form the basis of the MEDA programme.
However, the regulation does not yet contain any specific rules on how measures could be adopted if these fundamental principles are not respected.
The Commission has proposed that decisions should be taken by qualified majority, and this has also been approved by the Council of Ministers.
The idea is to convey in a powerful way the message that, when necessary, Europe will not hesitate to adopt measures to protect human rights and other fundamental principles.
The introduction of qualified majority voting also ensures that necessary decisions can be taken quickly and effectively.
This strengthens the Union's credibility.
The rapporteur also proposes that it should be possible to adopt these measures on the basis of a recommendation from the European Parliament.
In addition, it is proposed that, in any event, Parliament should be consulted before any measures are adopted.
Unfortunately, the Commission cannot accept the rapporteur's amendments.
The MEDA Regulation does not mean that the European Parliament should be consulted.
Article J.7 of the Maastricht Treaty concerns the common foreign and security policy.
It cannot therefore, as the rapporteur proposes, be applied to the MEDA Regulation, which belongs to the acquis communautaire.
However, on the basis of Article 138b of the Treaty of Rome, Parliament can always call on the Commission to put forward proposals in this area.
Against this background I hope Parliament will support the Commission's original proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Judicial cooperation in criminal matters
The next item is the report (A4-0059/98) by Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on judicial cooperation in criminal maters in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report submitted this morning for the Chamber's attention includes in its principal objectives that of dealing fundamentally with a problem that has existed for some time: the problem of the weakness of judicial cooperation in the international fight against organized crime.
Judicial cooperation is the Cinderella, the weakest and most backward form of cooperation.
Even police cooperation, with which we still have many problems, is more advanced than judicial cooperation.
Faced with a situation that is known and regretted by everyone, the report proposes to draw together the opinions and facts at the basis of this archaic, antiquated situation, to try and radically improve it.
We know that it is very difficult today to explain convincingly to the citizens that, while two minutes is more than enough to transfer enormous sums of money from one financial market to another, and maybe these sums are often the result of the laundering of income from various types of crimes, two judges in two EU countries will hardly talk through months and months of work.
This situation should therefore be changed, and the report proposes to define an operating attitude for the Union.
I would like to point out this aspect: the Parliament is not stating just the principles, not indicating just the problems, but pointing out a very specific path through two types of objectives: one medium- and long-term and the other with shortterm or even immediate measures, that can only be adopted with the political desire of the national governments and parliaments.
With regard to the medium- and long-term measures, I would like to recall here the points that are also offered by the new Treaty of Amsterdam.
We note that interesting points of progress are made in the Treaty: for example, the common minimum rules on several crimes such as organized crime, terrorism, drugs and so on; significant improvements in the ratification and entry into force of agreements; and strengthened cooperation.
Unfortunately, however, we also need to note that the integration of the actual role of democratic control by Parliament and the Court of Justice is still very weak.
We are therefore making positive but also critical assessments which we are renewing with force because the democratic and control aspects are absolutely essential in such delicate and sensitive matters.
A further section relates to the Agreements.
We know that the entire subject is governed by agreements and that most of the Agreements that have been approved for a long time have not entered into force.
Several paths are therefore proposed in the report: one is that of the undertaking to ratify the agreements that have already been established and, from this point of view, we hope we can make use of the Treaty of Amsterdam soon as well.
It should also be pointed out that one of the times obstructing the operation of the agreements consists of the exceptions, of the reservations made by the various States, and it is very clearly recalled that the principle of double accusation, which is now out of use and only valid as a principle, would be definitively abandoned.
Finally, perhaps the most significant part of the proposals relates to the agreements we are proposing. We are proposing agreements for a direct communication between magistrates, for establishing specific times for letters rogatory, and for the automatic circulation of evidence.
In fact, this is a problem that occurs a great deal in Italy, for example, but I think it applies to all countries, judging by the alarming figures.
The figures indicate answers to letters rogatory in the various countries, even over a long period, of around 15 %: a judge or a bench of magistrates ask for 100 % and 15 % reply.
Frankly that is too few, because the agreement we have and the relations between the judicial authorities of the various countries, to achieve appreciable results against international crime, cannot now be radically removed from relations between magistrates in the same country.
This is a point of quality, a leap in quality.
Other proposals then relate to the approximation and harmonization of legislations.
We have already cast votes, on which we are waiting to receive confirmation from the Council, on participation in common organized crime and on corruption.
I think it advisable to make two points here: firstly, we need to identify several common crimes on key issues with regard to organized crime.
We are thinking of corruption, of serious tax offences and of money laundering; with regard to the latter in particular, we need to extend the cases of origin of money laundering: there are too few offences, so dirty money from other types of crime, even those not provided for, is laundered.
Consequently, Directive 308 should be revised.
Secondly, there is the crucial question of fraud which we need to start experimenting on with the advanced forms of unification.
Finally, I would like to consider certain concerns present in some amendments, that deserve a reply.
While we are reinforcing this cooperation, we should also concern ourselves greatly with the guarantees of democracy, fundamental rights, provided for in our Constitutions.
I would like to say, however, that, in this field, it is a question of allowing the judges to cooperate rather than judge.
And I would like to recall that, very often, in this field of organized crime, it is not a question of defending one citizen but great economic forces that are managing to systematically block the letters rogatory.
We should therefore wonder about maintaining these principles, just as the work to establish whether the condition for the democratic system of guarantees respects another right held by the citizen, as well as the citizen himself, which is that of legality.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Bontempi on his excellent report and I should like to emphasize that I have had a very good working relationship with him and the Committee on Civil Liberties for many years in matters concerning the legal protection of citizens.
The field I represent is limited to the protection of the EU budget and therefore the taxpayer, as is my opinion today on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In terms of administrative law it has now been possible to get some protective measures off the ground but, as always, it will take a long time to create a legal framework to protect the Community budget under criminal law, although the need for action is urgent as surveys have shown that 70 % of Europe's taxpayers are much more critical of the fraudulent and improper use of tax money than tax evasion as such.
Among the many obstacles in the way of protecting financial interests effectively is one in particular: the blatant lack of cooperation between the judicial authorities in individual countries, who are faced by an increasingly well-equipped criminal underworld.
As was shown in a hearing in April organized by our two committees, no significant successes have been chalked up either at a procedural level or in terms of international cooperation.
What can be done? Parliament has already adopted proposals aimed at protecting financial interests in a few special fields, for example in the final report of the committee investigating transit procedures, in its resolution on the Mediterranean programmes or its resolution on the combating of fraud.
In all three reports there is a clear demand for a judicial authority at European level to coordinate and cooperate with individual countries' investigative and criminal prosecution authorities and procedures.
Whether it should be called a judicial clearing house or a European prosecution centre for fraud cases involving the Community budget or something else, as stated in the reports, is a matter of secondary importance.
Its primary objective must be to define its most likely tasks and competences in order to make up for current deficiencies, such as investigations that last years, technical and diplomatic procedures or conflicts of jurisdiction, which put a stop to cooperation.
To create a European judicial area an equal degree of protection for Community money must be achieved in all Member States.
This should be done in stages.
First, a European liaison office could be created to cross-match information and advice, conduct investigations and pass on the results to courts in the individual countries.
The new Article 280 in the Amsterdam Treaty is helpful in this regard.
In the longer term this office could be expanded to become a transnational criminal prosecution authority which would be responsible to a kind of European state prosecutor's office, which in turn would pass the criminal case to the appropriate court in the individual country concerned.
The emotive term "European state prosecutor's office' , as characterized in the well-known expert study of the corpus juris , should be replaced by a designation which clearly precludes any confusion of terms and any understandable reservations that may result.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I trust we will have the courage to look to the future in this highly sensitive but very important area and would like to reiterate my sincere thanks to Mr Bontempi.
Mr President, this report deals with a very important political task for the future and I should like to thank the rapporteur for all his work.
It has been very successful.
Of course, this is a concrete political problem.
Criminals have been the quickest to benefit from freedom of movement in Europe.
Much time has already been devoted to the consequences for the police but unfortunately the accompanying constitutional and political measures will take even longer.
In the Committee on Institutional Affairs we have therefore concentrated on the main constitutional and political points of principle.
Firstly we wanted to stress that we have a major political opportunity for integration and an instrument that is much better than the previous agreements, as is demonstrated very clearly in the report.
I think it is important to highlight this.
The second point is that we need specific democratic legitimation in the area of criminal law where civil rights are involved.
We therefore believe that the role of the European Parliament in this area, if it can only act in a consultative capacity, is much too weak.
We criticized this; it is something that must be changed.
Thirdly, I would like to mention the role of the European Court of Justice. The supremacy of the rule of law - especially in the practice of criminal law - requires judicial supervision, but also judicial progression.
We are therefore also in favour of a change in the preliminary ruling procedure, which can now only produce results if the Member States expressly submit themselves to it.
This is simply too little and must also be changed.
Fourthly, the whole political task of fighting crime is something that is of course strongly characterized as a matter for nation states.
We therefore have to exert pressure to ensure that progress is made.
Amsterdam now provides us with an opportunity and that is closer cooperation.
We have also laid particular stress on this opportunity for the further development of political integration.
In conclusion, I should like to congratulate Mr Bontempi once more.
I believe this is a task which can only really be accomplished slowly.
It will take time, but this report is a step in the right direction.
Mr President, I apologize to the Commissioner, but I do not think it right that now, at ten minutes to noon, the Commissioner should give her opinion before all the representatives of the political groups have been able to speak.
This means that, on resuming the debate, some of us will not be able to speak after the vote, which means that the Commissioner will speak without hearing the position of the various political groups.
I consider this incorrect and unfair.
Mr Caccavale, Mrs Gradin will be absent this afternoon.
She will express the views of the Commission now and this afternoon Commissioner de Silguy will appear.
It is something which is very possible.
I have listened to your views; you are right.
However, it cannot be changed now.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mr Bontempi on a very good report on judicial cooperation in criminal matters in the EU.
Effective judicial cooperation in criminal matters is an essential instrument in the fight against organized crime.
In the EU we have 15 different legal systems. We have different definitions of what constitutes a crime and different penalties.
International crime knows how to exploit this fragmented situation.
This creates a need for increased cooperation and greater efficiency in the Union's fight against crime.
Increased judicial cooperation is also important for us to be able to protect the legal certainty of individuals.
I am often asked questions by individuals about why we do not do more to combat international crime.
The citizens demand that priority should be given to EU cooperation in this area.
They have little sympathy for the fact that the relevant conventions have not yet entered into force.
They are right, of course, and therein lies the political challenge.
In order to succeed we must have a unanimous approach to how we should act effectively on questions of judicial cooperation.
I am convinced that this is possible.
Basically we share a common set of values, but it is not possible to turn this set of values into effective cooperation in one day.
I agree with Mr Bontempi that this is about a step-by-step process, a process in which we deepen the specific cooperation, and at the same time work to coordinate our rules.
The Amsterdam Treaty means that we will get a new decision-making instrument in the area of criminal matters and the police.
We will get guarantees that commitments made by the Member States in the Council will also come into effect within a certain period.
I shall try to ensure that framework decisions are mainly used.
I share the view that they should take precedence over other possible decision-making instruments.
Another change is that, in future, conventions will be able to come into effect when they have been ratified by a majority of Member States.
That is good.
That way we will get away from the double unanimity which we have today.
Here in Parliament I have often remarked that conventions which have been agreed have not been ratified.
Some examples include the European Convention on Extradition, the European Convention on the service of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters and the Protocol to the Convention on the protection of the Communities' financial interests.
I therefore welcome the rapporteur's call to the Member States to do all they can to speed up ratification of the conventions relating to criminal matters.
Mr Bontempi points out that there are even question marks about the roles of Parliament and the Court of Justice in judicial cooperation in criminal matters in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I share that view.
My starting point is that both institutions must be given as strong a position as possible.
I am therefore going to ensure that my Commission recommendations are delivered to Parliament immediately after decisions have been taken.
It is my hope that the competence of the Court of Justice in the area of criminal matters will gradually be developed.
The rapporteur also deals with a number of problems connected with the exchange of information between courts in one and the same case.
As far as the fight against fraud involving EU funds is concerned, I have personally witnessed how delays in the exchange of information between different legal systems can directly favour criminals.
I have long argued for the simplification of direct cooperation between courts and other judicial authorities in the Member States.
It is unreasonable that in 1998 these contacts should still be referred to diplomatic channels.
I therefore agree with the rapporteur that there should be a fundamental principle that courts can communicate directly with each other.
This principle permeates the Convention on the service of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters which was adopted in 1997, but which has still not entered into force.
The principle is also true for the Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters which was negotiated in the Council a few years ago.
Another limitation in the cooperation between courts and other judicial authorities is the demand for dual criminality.
As you know, this demand means that the offence must also be punishable in the country to which the request for assistance is made in order for assistance to be able to be given.
In his report, Mr Bontempi recommends that this possibility should be abolished in relations between EU Member States, and I agree with him.
So far we have discussed concrete measures to improve cooperation.
That will take us far, but we must also look at how our legislation could be better coordinated.
This is not about a broad harmonization of criminal law.
However, it is necessary to block the holes in the Union's legal system which are being exploited by organized crime.
Together we must create a high level of protection in the Member States.
Our aim should be to ensure that criminals cannot evade justice because of differences in our legal systems.
We must be able to achieve results, even though the Member States have different penalties for serious crimes.
However, it is necessary for us to define certain serious crimes in the same way, and for there to be similar minimum punishments for them. Typical examples include corruption, money-laundering and the sexual exploitation of children.
There is reason to look at certain rules of procedure in the same way.
In his report Mr Bontempi points to bank secrecy as an example.
Mr Bontempi also mentions the work on protecting the Community's financial interests as an example of what can be achieved.
I agree that there is a lot of experience from this work which could also possibly be applied to judicial cooperation in criminal matters in general.
For example, it is right that we can increasingly see a direct link between fraud in the EU and other international crime.
We should first of all determine to what extent this experience can be used in areas where cross-border cooperation is required. I am thinking of the smuggling of people, illegal arms sales and drugs crimes.
We should also examine whether this experience can help facilitate judicial cooperation in criminal matters in areas which come under EU policy.
The report also makes an interesting proposal to strengthen the role of UCLAF in the work on combating fraud against the Community's financial interests.
UCLAF should have a coordinating and supporting role relative to the responsible national judicial authorities.
I welcome this idea.
It would mean a concrete strengthening of our ability to effectively combat such crime.
I have therefore taken the initiative to create a special unit within UCLAF which will work on these questions.
We cannot discuss judicial cooperation without also discussing cooperation with countries outside the Union.
I share the view of the rapporteur that we must work in parallel for judicial cooperation in criminal matters in relation to central and eastern Europe.
It is clear that the fight against organized crime and corruption and therefore also judicial cooperation in criminal matters will be an important element in the forthcoming membership negotiations.
The action plan on organized crime could be an important element, and we could, of course, also include the Grotius and Falcone programmes.
I therefore share the rapporteur's view that this should very quickly be expanded to include countries outside the EU.
The Amsterdam Treaty will mean that judicial cooperation is raised to a new level, which is important.
One thing I would like to emphasize is that Mr Bontempi recommends that the Commission should take the initiative for an interinstitutional conference between the Commission, the European Parliament and national parliaments.
The aim would be to discuss how judicial cooperation in the EU can be further improved.
I think this is an idea which we should continue to work on together and discuss how it can be realized.
However, we also need a proper overview of the consequences of the new Treaty in the whole field of justice and home affairs.
I am therefore going to initiate a study which I will present during the year both here in Parliament and in the Council of Ministers in the form of a White Paper.
I hope that this White Paper will serve as an important basis for a far-reaching debate on how we could realize the vision of the EU as an area of freedom, security and justice.
Mr Brinkhorst, you are right.
But at this time it is difficult for the debate to continue.
The debate is suspended and will continue this evening, after 6.00 p.m.
With regard to the interposition of the Commissioner, I wished to say that the Commission has programmed her presence.
We can request the presence of the Commissioner. We cannot, however, compel it.
This afternoon Commissioner de Silguy will appear, as I said earlier.
This has happened many times before.
It is not the first time.
Mr President, I fully support what Mr Brinkhorst has said.
What we are discussing here is not a trivial matter.
On behalf of all my colleagues who have worked hard on this report and attach great importance to Commissioner Gradin's opinion, I should like to protest against the conditions under which we have to conduct our discussions here.
To my knowledge, this is the third time that Mrs Gradin has spoken in the early afternoon and hardly anyone is listening, while threequarters of Parliament are talking about other things.
I consider this unworthy of a parliament and an insult to the Commission.
Mrs Theato, the Commissioner has listened to the protest of the Members of this House and of the Presidency.
I hope that a similar problem will not arise again and I am glad that what was said in this House reflects the present concern that the sitting will continue.
Mr President, what the speakers have said is very comforting but is not enough.
Firstly, in protest, I am abandoning my speech this afternoon because, at this point, I believe it totally useless, as I believe this afternoon's debate to be totally useless, as it is constantly being interrupted, which is absolutely wrong.
I am asking you officially, Mr President, at this point, to postpone the entire debate and vote until the next Parliamentary sitting.
I am asking this Chamber to decide that, out of respect for the work of Mr Bontempi and all of us on this report, the entire debate should be postponed, and we should start again at the beginning at the next Parliamentary sitting.
Mr Caccavale, the debate has begun.
It will continue this afternoon at 6.00 p.m. unless at that time Parliament decides differently.
Mr President, I do like the sigh of relief when I rise in this place.
I put a question to you: has the Secretariat been advised in writing of any persons in the room who wish it to be recorded that they will be present in the Chamber during roll-call votes? My reason for asking this question is that I notice in the Minutes of yesterday's meeting that Mr McMillanScott, Mr Janssen van Raay and others had put a written statement into the Secretariat, advising them that they would be present but not voting.
Does not this bypass the very procedure and intent and purpose of the original Bureau's decision? I ask this as a serious point because if the Bureau's decision was to discipline us in some manner then it is quite easy to bypass it by putting a statement in writing and then walking out that door.
The Quaestors' note was quite clear: that it should be on the vote, and the vote means that vote which is about to take place and not to pre-empt that vote in any way whatsoever.
I trust, Mr President, you will carry out the Quaestors' instructions in association with the Bureau's instructions to ensure that Members are present and either voting or not voting.
Mr Falconer, we will verify what you have said.
On the other hand, however, I wish to tell you that we always follow, and I believe that there will be no departure from, the decisions that have been taken.
Mr President, I would like to come back to the point made by Mr Schäfer, Mrs Theato and Mr Caccavale.
We were all agreed that the conditions under which the debate was conducted in which Mrs Gradin spoke were totally unacceptable.
Mr Caccavale has made a proposal to delay the discussion of this report until next time.
I would like to ask you to have a vote on this point because that is the only way in which we can reasonably resume the debate on this most important report.
My question to you is: can you take a vote on Mr Caccavale's proposal to delay discussion of Mr Bontempi's report?
Mr Brinkhorst, you have studied the Rules of Procedure.
Rule 131 states very simply: " At the start of a debate on an item on the agenda, a political group or at least twenty-nine Members may move that the debate be adjourned to a specific date and time.
Such a motion shall be put to the vote immediately.'
This is at the beginning of the debate on an issue.
There is another point in the Rules of Procedure where it states that adjournment of the vote on the debate can be requested when that time comes.
Mr Avgerinos has given an answer. I am sorry, but we will not continue this debate.
Mr President, it is quite noticeable that the people who are now shouting "no' so loudly were the same people who were not listening to Mrs Gradin when she entered the Chamber.
But that is normal in this House.
It is fortunate, Mr President, that some of this heckling is impossible to translate, otherwise the Minutes would show that there are people here who were very badly brought up.
I definitely share your opinion.
Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, if the motion has yet to be tabled it can still be tabled before the vote.
However, I think we would be much further forward if the accompanying circumstances rightly criticized by Mr Brinkhorst had not happened in the first place.
The Bontempi report is an important report.
We have heard the Commission's opinion.
I believe that after months of consultation in committee it is now time that we adopt it.
This should be done tomorrow as the vote is scheduled for tomorrow.
All the Members who are so happy about it should be here tomorrow at noon to join in the vote.
(Applause)
I think that the House has been well and truly enlightened on the issue.
I do not think we can add anything else.
It was unfortunate that such an important report as the Bontempi report had to be interrupted.
Mr President, since a topical and urgent debate on crime in Brussels is not possible and there is a petition here with 100 signatures on it, I would inform you that there is now also a petition in my office which can be signed by everybody, all assistants, staff members and interpreters, and I will pass on this petition to the petitions committee of the Belgian parliament.
Mr Rübig, the Presidency is always willing to listen to Members' comments on the Rules of Procedure, but such comments need to be based on an actual Rule from the Rules of Procedures!
Mr President, would you be prepared to clarify the voting procedure on the Bontempi report because we do have a voting session this evening and I question why you said it would be taken tomorrow?
I would not like colleagues to be under any illusions of when this will take place.
Mr Provan, I will answer you with pleasure.
Mr Avgerinos, who was in the chair previously, has already made a comment.
As you will have seen from the agenda, it is possible there will be other votes this afternoon, if we have not completed this morning's votes. I hope that, with the good will of all of you and with your support, we will finish them.
If we do not finish them, the votes will continue at 6.00 p.m.
But the debate on the Bontempi report will not have been completed.
Consequence, it cannot take place this afternoon.
It will have to be taken tomorrow morning.
Votes
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will be very brief.
I share your concerns with regard to the content, as I indicated during the debate yesterday evening, and the Commission has decided to accept officially Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 16 and 17, along with the first part of Amendment No 14 regarding the length of the director's mandate.
I hope that these changes will not cause further delays in the enlargement of the Foundation's scope to cover the countries of the Mediterranean.
Mr President, there was some misunderstanding yesterday on the Commission's cooperation on this point, but it has been cleared up, and the report is now ready to be voted on.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I would like to ask this House's permission for a very simple oral amendment.
One word needs to be altered in Amendment No 2.
In the amendment the word Macedonia is used.
The Members of the Group of the European People's Party have rightly pointed out to me that it should not read Macedonia, but FYROM, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Could I ask the House to make this correction?
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I put in a request to the previous President.
Can you tell us if you have received notification in writing from any Members in the Chamber to the effect that, while they will be present in the Chamber, they will not be participating in any roll-call votes? A simple answer of yes or no to that question will suffice.
Mr Falconer, I listened to the question you put to Vice-President Avgerinos when he was in the chair.
My reasoning is very simple.
There is a practice that Mrs Fontaine followed and that Mr. Martin followed yesterday, after a comment by Mr McMillan-Scott.
I have no problem in following it as well.
If Members wish to indicate their presence verbally but do not want to vote, they have every right to do so.
I would prefer that they did it in writing so as not to take time away from the vote.
We can see and we can check who is present somehow or other and we have great faith in the honesty of all the Members.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, you did not really answer my question because you said 'verbal' .
What I am asking is: have any Members indicated to your Secretariat and thereby to you, in writing, that they will be present but not participating in any of the roll-call votes? A simple 'yes' or 'no' answer will suffice.
Sorry, Mr Falconer, you are right.
I thought you were asking a question on the general procedure, which I tried to clarify.
To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no.
Mr President, before the vote I found a list at my seat. This list contained the name and seat number of all the members who attended yesterday's sitting.
Could you please inform me in the course of today or tomorrow who made this list, what it is meant to be for and why I found it at my seat while none of the other members of my group had possession of this list?
Mrs Müller, at the moment I am not in a position to give you an explanation about what you referred to.
I have asked my colleagues to look into it with you so that we can see what exactly it is about and, if we need to do something, we will do it.
Our objective is both a simple and a clear one: to give a European dimension to consumer protection by removing all risk of isolation of potential victims.
European citizens currently encounter unquestionable difficulties in the consumer market, the most complex of which are of a legal nature.
In fact, if they are to be implemented, our European directives must be transposed into national law, which is becoming an ever more confusing labyrinth of measures every year.
Not all wronged consumers are certain of gaining compensation and so this report presented for second reading is an important one.
I do not want to argue further over a text which has already been the subject of great discussion, both in committee and the House.
I will simply quote a specific example of the repercussions this issue has on the daily life of European citizens.
Following a large-scale promotional campaign, many French people purchased properties in Spain.
Unfortunately for them, they were the subjects of fraud on the part of the promoter, who was from another country of the European Union.
At no time could a French consumer organization bring a court action against him.
Thanks to these new measures we are going to vote for, a victim living in another country will now be able to defend his interests through his own consumer organization.
It was time, before the introduction of the euro, to make such practices wrong, for they are not in the interests of the consumer.
I therefore support the Verde I Aldea report, which is a big step forward in consumer protection.
The European Union has a duty to work for greater equity and a more accessible system of justice.
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0077/98) Mrs Fontaine
Mr President, I should like to make two very brief oral statements.
The first one relates to Mrs Fontaine's report.
The voluntary service will only be acceptable to Europe's young people if significant financial resources are made available.
In this context, "significant' means at least enough money to allow young people from all fifteen Member States and, hopefully, in the near future, the associated countries as well, to take part in the programme.
ECU 35 million would enable, at the most, five thousand young people to do so.
That is too little.
The minimum is ECU 80 million to take account of the ECU 25 million set aside from the 1998 financial year, so that ECU 55 million will be left for 1999.
I therefore appeal to the Council and in particular to the German Minister for Youth, Mrs Nolte, to speak out strongly in the Council in favour of the sum called for by Parliament.
The room for manoeuvre in Article 3 allows for this increase.
Lack of funds cannot therefore be given as a reason for rejecting this call.
In supporting this recommendation, I am not just defending minimum conditions of viability for the programme and of equality of opportunity for participants by increasing funding from ECU 35 to 80 million for the 1998-99 period.
My intention is primarily to express my support for the potentially powerful instrument of the European voluntary service for young people in creating a European civic awareness, through the formative experience of rendering services to society in a transnational context.
Over and above the free movement of people and the human and cultural exchange that may be offered by the programme, one of its central elements lies in working together with young people from other European countries in the voluntary pursuit of a shared civic objective.
The European civic objective prevails over the mere individual interests of participants and, for this reason, contributes decisively to promoting European citizenship.
As the youngest Member of the European Parliament, I would naturally like to give my full support to Mrs Fontaine's report on European voluntary service for young people.
This is important for many reasons.
It is about finding new ways for meaningful employment which allow people to combine business with pleasure.
The 'business' is that we know young people have a great interest in working in the areas to which the action programme relates, especially environmental and social issues, while at the same time we know that a lot needs to be done in these areas. The 'pleasure' relates to the benefit for young people of being given a chance to visit another country, to experience another culture and another society for a period of time when they also get a chance to learn a new language.
Language is important, since we are living in an increasingly globalized world.
Yesterday the European Parliament adopted a report on how to prevent suicide among the Union's citizens.
Unfortunately it is common for young people especially to have thoughts of suicide because they feel uncertain about the future.
It would therefore be good if the EU showed evidence of creating the conditions for a number of young people to be able to face life.
In this context, voluntary service can make a small, but important contribution.
It does not solve the problem, but it can be taken as something positive.
The position of the Council with regard to funding is disappointing. While billions are put into subsidies for tobacco growing and research into nuclear power, it is not prepared to invest a few million ECU in young people.
That is, to say the least, irritating.
I cannot understand the Council's negative attitude towards the demand that more resources should be provided so that people who get the chance to be volunteers also get an adequate grounding so that they can cope with a new language.
To me it is obvious, because it will improve the conditions both for young people to get something out of their voluntary service and for the project to succeed.
The Council must reconsider these points.
As the youngest Member of the European Parliament, I support Mrs Fontaine's report, as does the whole of the Green group.
Mr President, given the British government's commitment to helping our young people through the New Deal programme at home, I am glad to see this kind of work finding an echo at European level.
The governments of the EU are right to put forward the idea of a European Voluntary Service for 18 to 25 year olds.
However, this report makes some valid suggestions on how to ensure that such a programme could work successfully in practice.
For example, there should be residence rights for volunteers working in other EU countries.
These young volunteers would also need to be able to enjoy the same social security entitlements that they had before volunteering.
We should also look at granting tax exemptions for any payments or allowances made to volunteers - after all, they should not be penalised for showing the public spirit and initiative to get involved in voluntary work of benefit to the wider community - and which also makes themselves more employable.
I agree with the report's suggestion that any European voluntary service programme could be integrated with existing national systems - perhaps a European option could be built into our own countries' voluntary programmes?
I hope that Parliament will give this report the backing both it and our young people deserve if we are to encourage the community spirit and enterprise of future generations.
Amendment No 3 of the report recommends that the financial framework for the implementation of the programme during the period 1998-1999 should be increased from the Council's proposal of ECU 35 million to ECU 80 million.
It is impossible for me to vote for this amendment when at the same time I can see how the Member States are making cutbacks leading to redundancies in the public sector in their respective countries.
Boogerd-Quaak report (A4-0032/98)
The amendment to the regulation on the European Training Foundation is justified and necessary.
It is primarily a question of broadening the field to cover the Mediterranean countries.
But an appraisal of the foundation's first three years also gives us the opportunity to explore the work of the Foundation in more detail.
The most important issue in the analysis is to achieve guidelines in how the foundation can develop to meet the increasing number of challenges that are coming.
I fully agree with Mrs Boogerd-Quaak when she says that the main task of the Foundation is to broaden its scope.
Otherwise, the importance of education and training as a tool for integration and regional development will not have been adequately addressed.
Our partner countries need the competent support and expertise of the Training Foundation in the planning and implementation of training, which is essential for the growth of market economies and democracy.
Staff development programmes, based on the work of the Foundation, for the decision-makers in the EU and the partner countries are an important part of this work.
All in all, the role of the Training Foundation in the execution of the PHARE and TACIS programmes has been significant.
However, ever greater challenges require a change of focus from overseeing partnerships and participation to inspiring further development.
Applicant countries must be able to make progress in the international sense in recognition of examinations, in new training technology, and in the transparency of standards.
In this regard, collaboration with CEDEFOP should be firmly endorsed.
Naturally, the Training Foundation must have sufficient resources to expand and strengthen its operations.
I particularly hope we can push for all instructors involved in vocational training to get further training themselves and for womens' professional training to be encouraged in the same way.
Motion for a resolution on Kosovo
Mr President, I have now been able to vote for this compromise resolution as it has been considerably improved by the Liberal motions.
In fact, I think we are about to be hypocritical as the measures proposed by the contact group and others could have been applied over the past few years - I have brought up this subject here on many occasions - to prevent outbreaks of violence.
By doing nothing we share some of the guilt for the fact that this outbreak of violence has taken place.
We did not even manage to open an EU office in Kosovo and now we want to take the political measures that should have been taken at that time.
This must be pointed out, yet it is once more a case of too little, too late.
The idea of autonomy has probably gone down in a hail of bullets in the past few days, and we have only one more opportunity, namely the deployment of international observers and troops, to ensure that Kosovo gains autonomy under international supervision and can decide its own future in dialogue with Belgrade after a few years of peace.
Mr Posselt, I must congratulate you, not on the content of your speech, which the Presidency has no right to comment on, but on your regular presence in the House.
I wish to abstain in the vote on the joint motion for a resolution regarding Kosovo.
I am clearly in favour of condemning all forms of violence and I condemn excessive repression of demonstrations, when it is proven.
I would, however, like to highlight a number of points which have not been sufficiently considered by Parliament.
Firstly, the problems in Kosovo relate to the internal affairs of Yugoslavia, a fact which prevents us from either judging or interfering.
Yet I wonder how many states would have accepted the multiple political aggressions of which Yugoslavia, a founder member of the United Nations, has been a victim over the past seven years on the part of certain European countries or some sections of this Parliament.
Secondly, it must be highlighted again that the permanent demonization of Serbia does not help in the search for a peaceful, just and lasting solution to the problems of this region.
We have seen this Manicheism lead to war in Croatia and Bosnia, and this risks being rekindled until the Serbs are reintegrated back into decision-making processes.
Finally, it has to be said that, historically and geographically, Kosovo poses some very particular difficulties.
Firstly, you cannot ask the Federal Republic of Serbia to renounce its sovereignty over Kosovo, which is the cradle of its history and of its national unity. Secondly, the re-establishment of autonomy for Kosovo - which no-one questions in principle - risks awakening a desire for independence which would dangerously disrupt international relations between Yugoslavia, Albania and Macedonia, even, indirectly, Greece and Bulgaria.
It is a risk that no-one has the right to take without due consideration.
In conclusion, I believe that we must put greater confidence in the Serbian political forces, whether they be the Belgrade authorities or the Democratic League of Kosovo, and encourage them to renew dialogue with a view to finding an institutional solution which respects the rights of the different communities living in Serbia.
Motion for a resolution on the ASEM process
Mr President, the Greens are an international movement at a global level and therefore, of course, we think that developments in Asia concern the populations of the EU countries, just as the EU's development concerns the populations in Asia.
We are thus in favour of cooperation within the framework of ASEM, but would like to stress the importance of involving elected politicians, including in the framework of ASEP, and referendums.
Unfortunately, the EU's relations so far have been characterized by considerable double standards.
At the same time as public speeches emphasize respect for democracy and human rights, the practical reality is dominated by short-term commercial interests.
A flagrant example is Indonesia, which has been able to buy arms from EU countries, suppress East Timor and hold its own population outside of democratic influence and reasonable legal certainty, which recently has affected not least the Chinese minority.
Relations with other non-democratic Asian countries are also characterized by double standards.
We question the direction and forms of aid to North Korea's suffering population, not least the investment in KEDO.
North Korea should instead be receiving aid to clean up coal mines and power stations and food aid to avert the risk of famine.
The European Parliament's resolution contains a number of our objectives.
As well as several demands which I have already mentioned, there are also requests for a code of conduct for the sale of arms by EU countries and criteria for sustainable forest management.
Nevertheless, I have abstained from voting in the final vote because paragraph 6 shows that the EU's underlying, extremely liberal free trade principles have been allowed to have the upper hand over other principles which are important for social development, such as democracy, human rights and environmentally and socially sustainable development.
Unfortunately, as long as the EU does not reverse its priorities, its international relations, including those with Asia, will always be treated with justified suspicion by populations around the world.
Motion for a resolution on the International Criminal Court
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking you for your kind words and for the way in which you are chairing this sitting. On the subject itself, I would like to say that it is of the greatest importance to set up a criminal court of this kind and to introduce appropriate measures within the framework of the United Nations.
I applaud the fact that the city of Nuremberg has applied to be the location for this court; being fully aware of its tragic history when it was mistreated by one of the greatest criminals in human history, Adolf Hitler, it is putting itself in a position to make a contribution towards the restitution of morality.
I congratulate Nuremberg for taking the initiative to apply to be the location for such an institution.
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
Cabezón Alonso report (A4-0056/98)
Thank you very much, Mrs Seillier.
I allowed you to exceed your speaking time, but I think that you certainly deserved it.
I noted yesterday - we were at the night sitting together - the passion you have for this subject and I am delighted by it.
The figures on the demographic decline and ageing of the European population have been known for years.
In this context, the 1997 demographic report is an important occasion for a thorough examination and analysis of the statistics, to find the most appropriate solutions to deal with future social scenarios in the best possible way.
The priority is to prevent the rights of the elderly, in terms of both social security and welfare, from discriminating to the detriment of young people and women: the former because, being the future active minority population, they will have to bear the cost of providing social security for the majority elderly population; and the latter because the cost of providing social security for the elderly, and sometimes the sick and handicapped as well, is already borne by them to a greater extent.
I am pleased with the rapporteur's opinion on the superficial way in which Agenda 2000 has dealt with the social and demographic aspects of the future enlargement of the Union.
I also agree on the need to adopt a common policy on immigration and on the urgency for new social security rules that take into account the current and future demographic situation and, on behalf of the National Alliance, I will vote in favour of Mr Cabezón Alonso's report.
Population developments in several countries are causing unrest with large movements of populations from the country to towns.
All the counties in Sweden, apart from four, have declining populations, which means that there is a great risk of depopulation in large parts of the country.
I have voted for the report, but the EU's regional and structural policy must be designed so as to stop this unfortunate development.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of a report on the demographic trends in the EU.
We believe the Commission's report points to some very important problems.
If the current population trends continue, there will be 50 % more people over 60 in 30 years' time.
This will have major consequences for the European welfare states and for the make-up of the labour market.
In other words, there will be fewer working people to finance the increasing costs of pensions and healthcare for others.
We are pleased the problem has been put on the agenda.
Quite simply, we need more people actively employed in future.
Hopefully this realization can help give an impetus for some constructive discussions on the need for family businesses which can use women and a new look at refugees and immigrants as a resource for European welfare states.
It would be absurd if there were no demographic trends at all: longer life expectancy, fewer children, changing proportions between the sexes - all of this undoubtedly has far-reaching effects on society.
However, I maintain that a debate on social policy that concentrates on the "demographic situation' is bypassing the real issues.
These issues are bound up with the structure of an economy which forcibly "disconnects' more and more people from its development, makes them unemployed or underemployed, thereby excluding them from society.
This adds to the fact that the economy is demonstrating an increasing trend towards social polarization and exclusion and still relies on an "invisible economy' which distributes the burden of unpaid work according to a gender-based hierarchy. This has the consequence that hatred of women and children becomes embedded in society.
Last but not least there is the quite irrational racism on which the widespread fear of immigration is based in national economies which are growing rapidly and developing transnational links.
It is therefore no accident that all these topics are raised again and again as a matter of fact in the discussion of "demographics' .
But could we not address these matters much more directly without the "demographic illusion' ?
Titley report (A4-0059/98)
The action plan for Ukraine, and indeed for the other countries of central and eastern Europe, is nothing more than the undisguised encroachment of large multinational companies on these countries. They aim to exploit their natural wealth and human resources, to penetrate and take complete control of their markets and to formulate those policies and social developments which will best serve the establishment and unimpeded furtherance of their own interests.
The nature of the conditions that have been imposed for the Ukraine plan serve only to speed up the creation of infrastructures to receive foreign capital and goods, as is clearly spelled out in the report. This same report sets out the need to accelerate privatization and general economic reforms, which aim to strike at the social rights of working people by means of reform of the administration and taxation, reform of the legal system, the creation of administrative structures for the private financial sector and a political transition to a market economy.
However, the conditions of the action plan for Ukraine, which must be seen in conjunction with the TACIS programme, the partnership agreement, and other financial agreements between the EU and that country, are not limited to the financial sector nor to issues relating to the regulation of this sector. They extend to clearly political issues, meddling with the internal affairs of Ukraine and interfering with political developments, especially before the elections.
Conditions are also placed on the country's position and on the promotion of its membership of NATO, by means of the Partnership for Peace and its participation in military missions.
The special feature of all these agreements and of the action plan is the pressure on Ukraine to purchase technology and to accept enormous investments from European multinationals in the energy sector.
More especially, pressure is placed on Ukraine to build new nuclear power stations, using as a pretext the fundamental problems of safety, which were caused and continue to be caused by the nuclear power stations at Chernobyl. The aim is not to avert danger to the environment and to the population, but to redirect the energy policy of Ukraine, to annex it to the energy policy of the EU and to wrest it from its existing relations with Russia.
Hoff report (A4-0063/98)
It is still not clear what the sum effects of the Chernobyl disaster will be for the Ukrainian people and for Europe as a whole.
It is important that we learn from our history and not have the disaster repeated.
It is for this reason that I fully support Mrs Hoff's report concerning TACIS funding for the Ukraine.
It is unacceptable that only 37.5 % overall of the TACIS funds budgeted have been paid out, and disturbing that only 25.5 % of the funds for Nuclear Safety Programmes have been paid out as well.
I agree with Mrs Hoff's assessment that structural changes need to be made within the Commission's DG 1A.
The burdensome amount of work placed on those in the field means that the EU's money is not accurately and fully tracked.
This is clearly a contributing factor to the TACIS programme's lack of success in the Ukraine.
The Commission should remember that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure' .
By making sure that the Union's money is spent efficiently on reconstruction and nuclear safety in the Ukraine, Europe can avoid potential future problems.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.05 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance
Mr President, the presidency of Michael Kovác came to an end at the beginning of March.
With his departure, however, political decisions have once more been taken in Slovakia which give us cause for concern.
Only a few hours after the official functions were provisionally transferred to prime minister Meciar as an interim measure, he had two personal assistants sacked, recalled over half of Slovakia's ambassadors - or at least gave notice of his intention to do so - and suspended the trial of the suspected abductor of the former President's son.
These decisions would be worrying enough under normal circumstances but they become alarming when they are taken by people who are merely temporary stand-ins.
Slovakia finds itself in an exceptional constitutional position.
Yet it is precisely in such a situation that principles such as the rule of law and democracy must continue to be adhered to and, above all, taken seriously.
We are once again confronted with the situation where a handful of people in the Slovakian government are placing the conditions in the country in a questionable light and interpreting the will of the Slovak people, the political culture and the political rules of play in a very one-sided way and are possibly shelving accession to the European Union.
At the end of the day, it is also a matter of expressing our solidarity with the Slovak people and letting them know that we are watching closely the current events in the country's political system.
We are also heeding public opinion in the country as well as in the EU.
In particular, we support the efforts being made to push through the referendum on the presidency as planned, a referendum which was judged to be permissible and constitutional by Slovakia's constitutional court.
All we can hope for is that Slovakia will be accepted as a candidate for accession as speedily as possible, as soon as the democratic situation in that country has moved in a satisfactory direction.
Slovakia has always been a part of Central Europe and we trust that our support here is also strong enough in future to underpin the partnership.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is the fourth time since I have been chairman of the Delegation to the EU-Slovak Republic Joint Parliamentary Committee that we have tabled or conducted a topical and urgent debate in connection with developments in Slovakia, so it is not very original.
It is precisely today, when a new stage in the integration and overcoming of past obstacles in Europe is being introduced at the European Conference in London, that we should be reminding the Slovak Republic that this House was largely responsible for the fact that the Slovak Republic, in the person of its acting President, is able to sit at that table in London at all.
We did this out of a sense of responsibility because we thought we understood perhaps a little better the difficulties that a new sovereign state has to overcome.
However, we also expected the Slovak leadership to understand what it means to be the only country to be portrayed by the Commission ahead of this Conference as a politically immature democracy which is not equal to the task.
We are now learning precisely the opposite.
Obviously this Slovak government did not seek consensus but attempted - probably in the run-up to pending national elections - to achieve the objective of polarizing opinion.
And I can already hear the reactions from the Slovak public and the Slovak government who will say, "we have done everything in accordance with our constitution' .
But today it is not about us somehow being better jurists than the Slovaks, but it is up to us to find out from the President and Prime Minister Meciar if they still want to lead their country into the European Union or do they want to prevent Slovakia's accession for many years to come? One man alone is in fact responsible for the fact that the present government, under the constitutional arrangements in Slovakia, can acquire even more power for itself, and that is Mr Meciar.
We would like to take this opportunity to remind the government of this.
The European Parliament and in particular European integration do not generally lend themselves to internal political games which are aimed solely at keeping certain politicians in power from one election to the next.
Mr President, I would like to commend the remarks Mr Bösch made. He has been to Slovakia leading a delegation in sometimes difficult circumstances and has a lot of respect in Bratislava as well as in this House.
I would like to re-emphasize a lot of the points he made.
The Slovak people are a newly independent nation, they are operating by the constitution and it seems indeed that they are criticized for having operated by the constitution.
One has to say in their defence that if they have operated by the constitution, that is correct.
However, that is not the end of the story, because we have to look at not just the laws of the constitution but the spirit.
We get some rather strange remarks when Mr Blokland talks about 'rule by a minority' .
That might apply to the British government, or many other governments under that system, it does not apply when the HZDS is part of a coalition which has a majority.
The problem is that there is not a three-fifths majority in the parliament for that government to elect a president, so we have to be very careful as to what specific criticism we make of Slovakia.
I would endorse the positive messages which this House should be sending to Slovakia.
One is: yes, Slovakia is a European nation.
We do want them to come into the European Union, we do want them to do everything possible to come and join us eventually in this House and in the European Union of the future.
At the same time we have to look for some guarantees of goodwill so that Vladimir Meciar may be legally entitled to exercise the powers of the presidency.
That is what the constitution says the Prime Minister does if all else fails.
It would send a very good signal if he were to announce now that he is prepared to put the question of the presidency of the republic to a referendum and let the people directly elect the president.
This requires a constitutional amendment and I would thoroughly endorse that proposal.
In summing up, this is one of those occasions where this House can influence events.
We influence them by condemning where the condemnation is correct, but equally by showing we do not want to write them off - which is why I took exception to the Commission's view that they were not suitable to be considered.
I am glad this House has taken a different view.
(Applause )
Mr President, amidst all the fuss about Turkey, Slovakia got off lightly in Luxembourg in December.
It is true, the country has lost its place in the leading group of applicants, but it is allowed to join the European Conference.
To be honest, since then Meciar has done his best to betray the last bit of confidence we had in him.
Cancelling referendums, sacking half of his ambassadors, obstructing the course of justice against the people suspected of kidnapping Kovác junior, Meciar's behaviour can only be characterized as increasingly totalitarian.
It is a pity that the passage referring to this in the Green motion for a resolution did not find its way into the joint resolution.
But this is perhaps sufficient reason for me to repeat it once more.
Under Meciar Slovakia is slipping into, or should I say slipping back into, a totalitarian regime.
Mr President, two resolutions criticizing Slovakia was clearly too much of a good thing.
Regrettably, the motion for a resolution on the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam did not make it onto the agenda.
The Hungarian population's massive protests against this dam thankfully achieved results even without the support of the European Parliament.
Prime Minister Horn will not sign the agreement with Slovakia, it was announced this week.
Quite rightly too, because these works would be another heavy attack on the ecosystem of the Danube and its surrounding area.
The entire agreement between Hungary and Slovakia demonstrates that Slovakia is not prepared to do what the International Court of Justice had imposed on both countries, namely to respect modern environmental standards when sorting out their dispute over the Danube works.
It is about time that a country like Slovakia, which still wants to be considered - or so it says officially, in any case - for membership of the European Union, starts casting a serious glance at European environmental legislation.
Mr President, President Meciar is playing with fire.
A sure sign of this is the cancellation of the planned referendum and the brutal shake-out of over half of his ambassadors.
Although he may well be acting within the framework of his formal powers, he is revealing a problematic relationship with the culture of the constitutional state and democracy in general.
What we want is for the elections to be prepared properly from now on and to be conducted fairly and for the media to have all the freedom they need to cover such an important situation.
Otherwise we would have to join the other groups in calling for the complete suspension of European Union aid to Slovakia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Slovak Republic's request for accession to the European Union gives us the right to remind our Slovak friends, as often as necessary, of the political and economic criteria that were set at the Copenhagen Summit for the accession of central and eastern European countries to the Union.
This does not, however, give us the right to interfere in the internal political affairs of this country.
Yet it seems that by having this debate today we have crossed the line of non-interference in the internal affairs of an independent and sovereign State.
What are we criticizing the Slovak government and parliament for? The Slovak parliament is criticized for not being able to reach a majority to enable the appointment of a new President of the Republic which, in terms of the constitution of the country, means the government must exercise part of the functions of Head of State.
Do I need to remind you that in France, in 1954, thirteen ballots were needed to appoint President Coty, the last President of the Fourth Republic, and that whilst France now has a new constitution - on the initiative of General De Gaulle - it achieved this on its own, with no outside interference?
Of course, the concentration of power in the hands of one man is a potentially dangerous situation, but it is for the Slovak citizens alone to find solutions enabling this political and constitutional crisis to be resolved.
To ask them to organize a referendum which envisages the election of the President of the Republic by universal suffrage, as the paragraph in the compromise resolution proposes, is clearly interference on the part of the European Parliament in Slovak internal affairs.
The head of the Slovak government is also criticized for having undertaken a significant diplomatic shake up, but no-one has mentioned that the nomination of ambassadors is normally the role of any government and that the difficult "cohabitation' between Prime Minister Meciar and President Kovac had blocked all ambassadorial nominations for two years, with the exception of a few posts such as Paris.
The head of the new government is also criticized for having used his new powers of amnesty on behalf of the State departments suspected of having participated in the incredible abduction of ex-President Kovac's son, but no-one has mentioned that before leaving office President Kovac himself had amnestied this very son who was involved in a criminal affair in Germany. The sole justification was to enable him to recover his passport and to give himself up in Germany, which he did, although he was immediately released on bail.
In these circumstances, it seems that the presentation of the facts which have prompted the European Parliament's resolutions has been only a partial, even biased one.
I fear that this inappropriate interference in Slovak life on the part of the European Parliament may only cause to exacerbate the conflict between government and opposition instead of placating it, which would have been the most desirable.
In these circumstances, the Union for Europe Group cannot support the joint motion for a resolution, nor the resolutions tabled by the various groups.
For our part, we subscribe to the recommendations adopted unanimously by the members of the Joint Parliamentary Committee at its last meeting.
We passionately wish the recommendations to be effectively followed up so that the Slovak Republic may join the European Union as quickly as possible, which is what its people and leaders, both government and opposition, desire.
Mr President, may I say that this discussion once again shows that we have a strong responsibility for the situation in Slovakia.
I would also like to remind you of the discussion held in December, when the majority of this House rejected a proposal on the taxation of newspapers. We know that this question of taxation of newspapers is not solved.
We have so many times heard that something is going to happen and nothing has happened.
The same is true of the JPC recommendation.
The question and the message I want to give to the Slovakian people is that they must understand that the Union is a political union where you respect certain rules: the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and also free and fair elections.
The fate of the Slovakian nation and its way to the European Union depend on the decisions that the people are taking.
Our responsibility is to see that the elections will be free and fair, and our main concern is that Meciar is now trying to manipulate access to the media in every possible way so that he will keep power.
It is not only a question of one person.
We also know that in the Slovak National Party very many people hold the same opinion as Meciar; we know that people have also been expressing anti-semitic opinions in the government parties, and we cannot accept that.
Nor can I accept the situation when the European Union has been urging the need for legislation on minority rights and nothing has happened so far.
In this respect, Commissioner, I think that the standpoint of the Commission has been more honest, more straightforward during the whole process than that of this Parliament, which believes in vague promises and does not give a clear message that we support Slovakia's entry into to the European Union by free and fair means.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0320/98 by Mr Goerens and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Cambodia; -B4-0333/98 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, Mr Rinsche and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Cambodia; -B4-0343/98 by Mr Swoboda, Mr Titley, Mr Harrison and Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -B4-0351/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -B4-0364/98 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -B4-0367/98 by Mr Pettinari and Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Cambodia; -B4-0376/98 by Mr Telkämper and Ms McKenna, on behalf of the V Group, on Cambodia.
Mr President, the Commission has announced the allocation of ECU 9.5 million to the Cambodia elections.
We cannot remain silent over the fact that this is our taxpayers' money and that, on that account, we, as their representatives, have not only the right but also the duty to ensure that this money is well spent.
The donation of this amount should therefore be strictly subject to compliance with the many conditions listed in paragraph 3 of the draft joint resolution.
Otherwise, there would be no reason for allocating money to achieve aims, such as, for example, the training of independent local journalists and observers which, in view of the current situation in Cambodia, would be difficult to achieve.
Mr President, on 11 February this year the vice-president of the Cambodian parliament, Mr Son Soubert, let slip in a private conversation that he thought the way the present prime minister seized power last year amounted to a coup d'état.
The result was soon in evidence. Legal action was taken against him, his immunity was removed, the case is being heard and he will soon be on his way to prison.
Today we have learned that the Cambodian government led by Hun Sen has also decided to do more to exclude the smaller parties from the election.
This is the situation we currently have in Cambodia and it is, unfortunately, in the very sad tradition of this country.
However, it would be very questionable if we now took a risk and said that the Commission, and therefore the European Union, was willing to give Cambodia a sum of ECU 10.5 million in aid to fight the elections.
It would be questionable firstly because in practice we would not be maintaining solidarity with a lot of other countries who say that they could not give out money to this kind of dictatorial regime - most other countries do not give out money anyway; and secondly, we would be skating on very thin ice as this could be seen as setting a precedent for other countries. However, the main reason is that the Commission has let it be known that the money will be paid out in any event, even if certain parties - including the party of democratically elected Prince Ranariddh - are not allowed to take part in the elections.
We could be establishing a very bad precedent here and we should be careful.
We should be trying to get the Commission to reconsider the allocation of this money or to write a report on Cambodia in the course of the next one or two months to see whether it is sensible to actually pay this money.
Mr President, it is now two years since Parliament's delegation visited Phnom Penh during a rare period of political stability in Cambodia.
A rise in military and political violence has since ensued, including the flight of some 65 000 civilians to safety in Thailand.
Now a new window of opportunity opens, encouraged by the Japanese: a peace plan signed in Manila.
We can only hope this new initiative succeeds, especially because the EU will be providing ECU 9.5 million to help prepare for the proposed elections in Cambodia later this year.
We have to be sure that we are not being taken for a ride by Second Prime Minister Hun Sen, whose supporters have been largely responsible for the recent violence and political instability.
In this respect it is crucial that EU support for the electoral process is conditional: the elections must be free and fair, with opposition politicians allowed to return and participate; with equal access to the media guaranteed for all parties who wish to participate; with the infamous media sub-decree annulled which outrageously defines any critic of the government as a traitor; with the displaced fugitives able to return freely to Cambodia from Thailand; with the repatriation of Prince Norodom Ranariddh, as provided for by the Manila peace plan.
If these conditions are not fulfilled, then we should be prepared to call for a second postponement of the elections.
It is more important to ensure that these elections are meaningful than to hold deformed elections which ratify the Hun Sen coup.
Peace 'comes dropping slow' to Cambodia.
We can only hope that the Manila peace plan can be made to work.
Mr President, on the eve of the negotiations for a cooperation agreement with Cambodia two years ago, I expressed the hope here that our support would take on a kind of conflict preventative role in the country.
But, as you know, Mr President, the international efforts were of no avail.
The situation is escalating; there are summary executions, and refugees.
Clearly there is no future in trying to influence from the outside a country which is still struggling to recover from genocide and which is suffering from a trial of strength between members of the royal family and those of a different political persuasion.
That is why, under the current circumstances, it is not a very good idea to allocate ECU 9.5 million for the elections.
This strikes me as throwing money down the drain.
It would be much better if, at the coming summit in London, the leaders of ASEAN give a signal together with the EU.
This does not mean that the human rights organizations and the refugees do not thoroughly deserve our support, however.
Mr President, if the recent history of Cambodia had not been so terribly tragic, you could be tempted to say that its political life has truly reached the heights of exoticism. A former dictator disappears, then reappears.
An exiled monarch refuses to pardon his son.
A neighbour who not so long ago made itself out to be the victim of imperialism establishes a protectorate over Cambodia. A joint Prime Minister drives out the other with spells, muzzles the press, puts his opponents in prison and nevertheless claims to be organizing democratic elections.
And hovering in the background is the memory of the excesses of the Khmer Rouge, there to remind us that at any moment Cambodia could slide once more into the worst of horrors.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance considers that the European Union must demand the return, or the unconditional liberation, of opponents, the organization of free and fair elections and the strict respect of agreements concluded in Paris in 1991.
We would like to say to the Commission in particular that, without the unambiguous agreement of the current authorities on these three points, any aid to the organization of elections would merely be a ratification of Mr Hun Sen's dictatorship.
Mr President, as stated, Cambodia is experiencing an extremely worrying time in its history.
After the violence of recent months, that has led to the replacement of Prince Ranariddh in the government of Phnom Penh, the country is currently committed to an electoral process in which the international community holds great hopes.
The 26 July elections should be the real test for the political desires of Hu Sen to allow room for democracy in his country.
For this reason, I wish to express my concern at the political climate in which preparations are being made for these elections.
We are witnessing threats and violations of human rights which are certainly not the best premise for a fair and free election and, at any event, any delays may make the situation worse.
The work carried out by the Commission in Cambodia has been positive, as has been the support plan for the elections. This is probably not enough, however, so the Commission should contribute towards ensuring that, both technically and politically, the elections are transparent and democratic and ensure a balanced access for all the Cambodian political forces, for the national mass media and for the means of propaganda.
The Phnom Penh authorities should be reminded that the full inclusion of Cambodia in the international community and the approval of the Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Cambodia for which I am the rapporteur, an approval which was rightly suspended while awaiting further developments in the situation, depends on the organization of the legislative elections of 26 July.
I also believe that the Japanese peace plan for Cambodia, adopted in Manila, should be supported, particularly with regard to the military truce that would restore a certain amount of peace to the country and thereby favour the elections.
I therefore hope that the Commission can continue to work to this effect and, if democratic elections are held, the money, which is of such concern to my colleagues in this debate, will be well spent.
Mr President, elections should be taking place in Cambodia on 26 July 1998 and perhaps they still will.
The Commission has set aside ECU 9.5 million by way of aid.
Cambodia signed the peace agreement in 1991.
I think we all hoped that these elections would become democratic elections.
Over the past few months we have discussed Cambodia a lot, condemning the increasing violence and condemning the fact that the second prime minister, Hun Sen, seized power.
As things stand at the moment, it looks to me as if he is leading the country into a new dictatorship.
We therefore have to ask the Commission what it intends to do with the election aid, this ECU 9.5 million, which after all is presumably tax money.
We in the budgetary authority had hoped - just as the Commission had hoped - that this money would be used to ensure fair and free elections.
Will this money still be paid, Commissioner, or not? In my opinion, we should link it to political conditions to the effect that the political leaders of all parties can return, their return is permitted, free elections are held, there is freedom of assembly, independence of the judiciary is guaranteed and a debate is held at the ASEM summit among the ASEAN countries and between ASEM members and the governments of the European Union on the future of Cambodia and these elections or the pace of democratization.
Mr President, I will not repeat what other Members have already said, that would be of little use to you, but I have grave misgivings about that fact that the European Union is allocating ECU 9.5 million to elections of which we do not even know whether the authorities have the political will to hold them in the way we wish to hold them.
What are these ECU 9.5 million for? To train people, to install equipment in order for the elections to be held smoothly.
I think this is putting the cart before the horse.
During the gigantic operation of four years ago, at which I was an observer together with former Commissioner and Member of this Parliament Mr Cheysson, Mr Cheysson and I made a plea for Europe to continue monitoring and for it not to assume that once the elections were over, everything would automatically be fine afterwards.
I believe we failed in this.
And we will most definitely fail if, a few months before the elections - for which we are laying down some conditions - we think that they can be held simply because we donate money to them.
I am an optimist by nature and in attitude, but I think it will become an extremely difficult task, and I fully agree with Mr Telkämper that we must ensure that the neighbouring countries discuss what should be done with Cambodia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union firmly condemns the Prime Minister's forced expulsion of Prince Ranariddh, along with the violence perpetrated in July 1997.
May I remind you that the Commission consequently decided to suspend all aid programmes with, of course, the exception of actions directly benefiting the people.
However, in order to stabilize the situation, free, transparent and democratic elections are clearly needed, as Mr Pettinari states.
That is why the Commission and Member States have anticipated a one-off action of support for an amount of ECU 9.5 million.
These funds are aimed at enabling the Cambodian authorities to bring the elections planned for 26 July to a successful conclusion.
If the conditions under which this is carried out do not respect the principles of liberty and equality, the European Commission, after consultation with Member States, could suspend this aid.
The conditions which I have just mentioned are an integral part of this financing convention, as signed and ratified by the Cambodian authorities last January, at the time of its official signing in Phnom Penh.
Furthermore, may I remind you, Mr Telkämper, that the European Union is already working in cooperation with the group of friends of Cambodia, the ASEAN troika and the United Nations in order to set up a system for monitoring the pluralist nature of these elections.
Finally, particular attention will be given to Prince Ranariddh's second trial, which starts on 17 March. Developments in the political situation will be assessed and, if need be, the directions adopted with regard to the organization of legislative elections will be revised.
In any case, I can assure you of the goodwill and desire of the Commission to be scrupulously vigilant regarding the implementation of the conditions linked to the disbursement of aid.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again Colombia is on the agenda and once again this is very painful for us in Parliament given our good relations with Latin America and Latin American politicians, including those in Colombia's.
Let me make two brief remarks on yet another tragic case of a human rights worker being murdered, this time even in his own office.
This is really one of the most dramatic instances of contempt for human rights.
A short time ago, Colombia elected a new government - senate and parliament.
I do not know all the individual results but I do not think there are any significant changes.
At this point we should be clearly saying to the newly elected members that we here will still be watching to see how they support an independent judiciary in their country, capable of prosecuting this crime since that does not just depend on the government, it also depends on the parliament.
They should know that we are monitoring events very closely here!
Yesterday I read in an article in a serious German daily newspaper that the subject of Colombia is also on the agenda in the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
The mandate of the United Nations Observer Mission there, which the EU supports, is to be extended and the number of staff doubled.
While that is a positive move on our part, it unfortunately bears out the negative findings.
All we can say is that the government must be called upon again and again to take action against these murders, as whoever is committing them must know that violence only begets more violence, particularly in a country where violence is a daily event.
The defenders of human rights must be better protected if human rights in Columbia are ever to be given the status they deserve.
Mr President, I know that governments like the one in Colombia follow this kind of debate with great interest, with more interest than they would be followed in my country.
As far as Columbia is concerned were are faced with the problem of who is exactly doing what?
We have a country which is really governed by the drugs mafia, which is controlled, in the military sense of the word, by paramilitary groups and which is run, for better or for worse, by the government.
The murder of the chairman of the permanent commission on human rights, Valle Jaramillo, whom I knew personally, is of course, terrible.
It is going too far to say the government is guilty, but the government is in fact guilty of everything they have not been able to monitor, of what they should have stopped.
But let us at least say from within this Parliament to the Columbian people, the Columbian government and above all to the Members here in this Parliament, as Mrs Lenz has said, that we are holding out our hand, we are trying to help you, so let us help you.
Mr President, on 27 February three people claiming to be members of the Brigade broke into the Medellín office of human rights lawyer Jesús María Valle Jaramillo.
The gunmen tied him and his wife to a chair and, as she pleaded for their lives, the Brigade member told her: ' His time has come' .
Dr Jaramillo was then shot in the head and killed.
Local human rights groups believe Dr Jaramillo died because he had evidence that the army and top politicians sponsor paramilitary death squads in Colombia, a belief backed by the findings of Colombia's own Fiscalía or Prosecutor-General's Office, and that this was an extrajudicial execution undertaken precisely by them in order to silence him.
We welcome the condemnation already issued by the government of Colombia.
But we ask it to note that Dr Jaramillo had been denounced by the Governor of Antioquia for his criticisms of the military and that no local politicians have publicly lamented his death; that the human rights groups recorded 796 cases of extrajudicial executions in just nine months last year and that, despite the welcome bringing forward of the military penal code reform bill and the setting up of the Bloque de Bósqueda to combat paramilitary groups, military courts continue to acquit members of the security forces implicated in crimes against humanity.
In addition to our condemnation of human rights abuse, of violence on all sides, there are two areas where we in Europe must take specific action.
First, we must press to support the work of the United Nations Human Rights Commission Office in Bogotá, to consider its reports, to extend its funding and to request consideration of the appointment of a special rapporteur to work with the office in Colombia itself.
Second, when Commissioner Marín replied to my parliamentary question last year that human rights groups could not contribute to the ending of violence in Colombia, I hope that he and his Commission colleagues have further reflected on that answer.
It is only by rigorous, free and independent monitoring on all sides in Colombia, to which human rights groups provide a courageous and unique contribution, that impunity will be challenged and that a climate of respect for peace and for human rights will be created.
The European Union can, and must, provide more financial support for this work and, in doing so, we will honour the work of Dr Jaramillo and ensure that his death was not in vain.
Mr President, as the last speaker said, the brutal killing of this human rights activist is unacceptable, and the fact that the government there seems totally unwilling to do anything to protect the lives of its citizens is appalling.
The paramilitary groups have to be dismantled, the crimes have to be investigated, and those responsible have to be held accountable.
An average of ten persons are killed per day in Colombia because of socio-political violence.
The strategy of the government is completely unacceptable.
It says that there cannot be respect for human rights as long as there is armed conflict.
These two processes cannot be linked - it is just not acceptable.
Paramilitary groups are a result of clandestine military strategy, and that has to be taken into account.
Parliament also has to insist that the Council and Commission must do more than just send recommendations: they have to state clearly that the Colombian government puts into danger the relations between the EU and Colombia.
As there is a human rights violation suspension clause in cooperation agreements, we should think about sanctions.
It is something that has to be addressed.
The EU Member States present at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva this month should take a clear position in order to undermine the material profits of those who help to undermine the lives of defenders of human rights, trade union groups and environmentalists.
We really have to do something more than just adopting resolutions.
This has come up over and over again and it is about time action was taken.
Mr President, we have received petitions from non-governmental organizations who work on the spot in Colombia and they tell us that 1 900 people were killed between October 1996 and March 1997.
Most of the victims are farmers, trade unionists and human rights activists.
Today we are talking about Jesús María Valle Jaramillo, and we must remember that both he and Josué Girardo have been here in this Parliament explaining the human rights situation in Colombia to the Members. Now they are both dead.
I must admit that I am becoming very frustrated since we continue to condemn the events that are taking place yet we are unable to prevent the deaths of two human rights activists.
Moreover, there is no doubt - according to our friends in the NGOs who work there, in farmers' organizations and in human rights organizations among others - that there is total impunity, and that the paramilitary groups are responsible for 76 % of the murders there.
Mr Samper had said that the paramilitary groups were in fact going to be disarmed. We have also received a note from the Colombian Embassy informing us of the creation of a peace council in Colombia.
However, if the European Union cannot prevent the continuing murders of human rights activists, that will only turn into a jungle.
In the last resolution adopted here, we remembered the murder of a couple, Mario Calderón and Elsa Alvarado, as well as her father who was also killed. They were young university students, and human rights activists who belonged to the CINEP, a very prestigious Centre for popular education and research in Colombia.
I do not know who is going to try to defend human rights in Colombia with all these murders.
I believe that the European Union has ways of exerting pressure and that, as Mr Howitt and others pointed out, it should increase the funds available to our office there and we should appoint a special rapporteur to promote human rights.
In addition, the European Commission should do all in its power in the context of its agreements with Colombia to ensure that no more events like these occur in the future, because every time somebody comes here to tell us about the situation, he is immediately assassinated.
Mr President, we have all followed the violent events that have taken place recently in Colombia, and I mean all .
Of course, we regret the death of Mr Valle Jaramillo, but yesterday 90 soldiers were buried with their faces blown off, and we should also regret the violent acts carried out by military and paramilitary groups.
I remember that the Colombian Minister for Foreign Affairs displayed before this Parliament her government's commitment to combating the impunity there and to arresting all those who encourage and promote the actions of the paramilitary organizations.
This commitment has been confirmed through a series of actions, Mr President. An office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has been set up in Colombia, agreements have been signed with the International Red Cross, a special section has been created within the Office of the Public Prosecutor to combat paramilitary activity, and finally, a national commission for human rights has been set up.
It is evident, Mr President, that all this is still not enough.
The European Union must follow this process very closely and we need to ensure that one of the oldest democracies in Latin America puts an end to this conflict which has lasted 40 years. We naturally regret this situation and must show our solidarity with and support for the victims and their relatives, in this case, those of Mr Valle Jaramillo.
Nicaragua
Mr President, despite the fact that a large proportion of the population of Nicaragua is desperately poor, Nicaragua has the highest debt per head in the world.
Last year 38 % of the annual export earnings of US$700 million was pre-empted for debt servicing.
The Nicaraguan government spent US$17 on health and US$16 on education per head of population, but about one-and-a-half times the combined total, US$47.40 per head, was spent on debt servicing last year.
Meanwhile, tax increases caused by the implementation of the IMF structural adjustment package have increased poverty and, to save money, much-needed credits previously available to poor farmers have been cut.
It is an outrage that people who can barely scrape together enough to keep body and soul together should be squeezed to pay back loans to the rich.
The fact is that Nicaragua cannot possibly meet the interest of capital repayments on its debt in the long term, and its commitments are almost double the 20 % of export earnings set as a ceiling by the World Bank in its highly-indebted countries initiative.
Earlier this year I wrote to the British Foreign Office to ask that Nicaragua should be included in the heavily-indebted poor countries initiative, particularly in view of Nicaragua's success in meeting structural adjustment targets, and to ask that this should be pressed at the Consultative Group meeting in April this year.
This particular resolution follows up that initiative, and pressure must be put on all the parties at the Consultative Group meeting to give relief at last to this long-suffering country.
There are many other needs which need to be fulfilled, particularly in the social sector, and aid needs to be continued.
But the first step is to deal with this question of debt, and action must be taken on that at the earliest possible date.
Mr President, three years ago we visited the European Union's projects in Nicaragua: a health centre in a village for those demobilized from the war, and a school. And both the Nicaraguan authorities - the government is currently headed by Mr Violeta Chamorro - and the leaders of the opposition talked to us about the terrible debt problem they face.
Our resolution states that 38 % of development cooperation is used to pay the external debt.
They told us that at that time the figure was in fact 40 %.
Moreover, and we do not know why, some countries are fashionable for a while and then they go out of fashion.
The general aid that Nicaragua received from countries throughout the world has now been more than halved.
Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries and it has the highest per capita debt in the world.
We know that the European Union is already taking action in this respect and that the development cooperation from the United States and Japan, to name just two world powers, is much lower that than provided by the European Union.
Nevertheless, we believe, when discussing democracies with such energy and Latin American democracies in particular, that democracy will not be possible if, as both the leaders of the government and the opposition told us, 70 % of the population in Nicaragua lives in absolute poverty and there is 50 % unemployment, without any aid or subsidies.
As long as 50 % of the population is unemployed and does not receive any assistance, and as long as 70 % of the population experiences such extreme poverty and the country has such a high level of external debt, democracy there will be purely nominal.
Real democracy is what can and must solve the population's problems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mrs Álvarez has just pointed out, Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in the world.
60 % of the population is unemployed, many people are no longer able to afford a doctor, hospital care, and so on.
What is more, the country is burdened by such an enormous foreign debt that the greater part of most of any new money coming in goes towards paying the interest on the debt.
A meeting is to be convened in Geneva in the near future during which, under normal circumstances, it would be possible to negotiate the cancellation of that debt.
Everything now depends on the spirit in which this happens.
If it is only a classic offer along the lines of this and that debt will be cancelled, but instead you will have to introduce heavy adjustment programmes, it will lead to less money for schools, hospitals, and so on, and that does not get us any further.
Which is why we are making a clear plea to link cancellation of the debt to social aid programmes, so that the real problems can be tackled simultaneously.
Mr President, there is no doubt that of all the Central American countries Nicaragua has long been one of the most pleasant and one of the most tragic.
I myself have been to Nicaragua and have seen the situation there for myself.
Nicaragua suffered a really terrible civil war, of which we were very often shown a misleading picture here.
In spite of this, the people of Nicaragua have actually managed to bring a responsible liberal democrat party to power in the form of the present government and in particular its current head of state, President Alamán.
What is more, the relatively revolutionary Sandinista party have now chosen the way of democracy and freedom, which became evident during the current crisis surrounding Ortega.
From this perspective we can say one thing: it is simply not logical for Nicaragua to be one of the world's poorest countries.
Anyone who has been there knows that there is massive potential there; anyone who has been there knows that the people there are precious and we should do everything in our power to help the Nicaraguans out of this situation, especially under the leadership of its current president.
The only way we can achieve this is by relieving the burden of debt.
I am not saying that it should be written off completely as that would be wrong but we should do all we can to give the Nicaraguans the opportunity to actually build up their country, to develop the great resources that exist there - and these are first and foremost human resources - and, above all, to pursue policies that are consistent with this country's great cultural Spanish tradition.
Mr President, capitalist, oligarchic families and romantic, revolutionary Marxist elites have impoverished Nicaragua.
All the country has is coffee, and that does not get you very far on the world market.
I sincerely hope the donors will save the country.
But this is not the subject we should be giving priority to this morning during the debate on human rights.
It is my view that we should be talking about classic human rights.
That is why my group had wanted to speak about Cuba.
There are over 500 political prisoners in Cuba, and yet this Parliament continues to flirt with the líder maximo from a completely misplaced feeling of solidarity.
If Havana puts it a little bit more effort into it, it will actually manage to join the Lomé Convention with the 500 prisoners still behind bars.
Small wonder the voters have no confidence in this Parliament, which is highly selective in its judgement of human rights violations.
North Korea
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think we simply have to recognize that a massive human tragedy is taking place in North Korea.
It is irresponsible of the North Korean government, in the face of the famine which has long been on the cards, to continue to try to prevent the international community from learning about the suffering of its people.
It is simply a tragedy beyond understanding that at a time when there are food surpluses throughout the world, a people, and in particular small children and elderly people, have to suffer a famine which need not have arisen in the first place if the regime had simply been open about its internal problems.
The North Korean government will eventually have to allow a delegation to enter the country to investigate the extent of the famine and find the best way of helping the people in the country, not only in the large cities but also in the countryside and in the remote regions, as the emergency may be even worse there than in the showpiece regions which the North Korean government is always inviting us to visit.
I also believe that the Commission - and I hope, Commissioner, that the Commission sees this as we do - along with the Member States should provide additional food aid for North Korea and increase assistance for medical care for children and elderly people.
I am not sure that we can use threats to get North Korea to comply with our notions of human rights and accept our normal humanitarian offer of assistance.
However, it is vital that we make it clear to the North Koreans that their country is a country which can and must receive assistance from all over the world and that we find the suffering of its people unacceptable.
Mr President, we are going to help North Korea.
Let us say first of all that the origin of the disasters, the natural disasters which have taken place there, can be partly found in the way the North Korean dictators rule the country.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is of course in favour of humanitarian aid for North Korea.
This should be increased - food, primary medical aid - and I hope the Commission will in any case be able to give me an answer as to how this will be monitored, not in order to be a busybody, but to ensure that the people of North Korea - as Mr Jarzembowski has already pointed out, the children and the needy - do indeed have access to this aid.
I would like to ask the Commissioner to insist that, in future, some kind of cooperation agreement is set up with the government of North Korea. In relation to this I wonder if I could point out to you the three amendments submitted by the Liberal group, by Mr Cars.
For the future the Commission should lay the foundation for more structural assistance.
Strengthening the agricultural sector, for instance, is extremely important, and stable development of North Korea will contribute to this.
Mr President, part of the reason why this subject is back on the agenda again - we discussed the matter as recently as October - is that two things have changed: firstly, it is very clear that the 1997 harvest was as bad as the 1996 harvest; and secondly, for the first time the North Koreans have actually admitted the full extent of the food crisis.
At the end of February the North Korean News Agency announced that, even with the daily cereal ration cut to a starvation ration of 100 grammes per person per day, cereals would be completely exhausted by the middle of this month.
Already prior to this the UN figures suggested that 17 % of the children in North Korea were suffering from malnutrition.
It is true that they have suffered an unparalleled series of natural disasters - flood, tidal waves and drought - yet we are all aware that one of the problems is the systemic failure of the country's economy.
Without Soviet aid and Chinese countertrade the economy is in severe difficulty.
The economy is winding down - lack of fuel means energy blackouts.
That means industrial production is falling.
Fertilizer production is down by 60 %, which means that less food is produced and round the vicious circle goes again.
If we are to avert a natural disaster more help is needed.
Emergency food aid needs to be channelled into North Korea, not only from the European Union - we were the biggest single donors last year - but also from South Korea, Japan and the United States.
One of the problems is that North Korea is still effectively a closed country.
We need to make sure that people are allowed in there - a delegation from Parliament to give some assessment of the needs, both in terms of food, medical supplies and energy.
The Foreign Affairs, Energy and Budgets Committees are currently in the process of preparing a joint report on the KEDO project, in which the European Union is participating with Japan, South Korea and the Americans in helping provide two nuclear reactors to generate power for North Korea.
With Kim Dae Jung taking office in South Korea and with a new leader recently installed in post in North Korea, there is a window of opportunity to heal a political sore which has been festering dangerously for half a century.
We should make sure we exploit it.
Mr President, once again we are discussing North Korea here in the European Parliament.
Unfortunately this will not be the last time, because the report which came recently from the German Red Cross is horrifying.
That organization estimates that 10 000 children under the age of seven are dying of hunger each month, and tens of thousands more are suffering from severe malnutrition.
The situation is more than serious.
The North Korean committee for the restoration of food losses has said that current stocks of cereals are going to be exhausted in the middle of March, in other words, this weekend.
There is no doubt that greater humanitarian efforts are needed in the form of food, and also in the form of medical aid, in order to reach the base level for the existing needs.
At the same time the reality of the EU's actions in North Korea is that while all these people, especially children, are suffering from malnutrition, the EU through Euratom, together with other countries, is going to build two new nuclear power stations in North Korea for a sum which in this case is substantial.
How are we going to justify ourselves to the children who are suffering from malnutrition and are even dying of hunger and who need emergency aid? Where are the social, humane aspects of these double standards from the EU?
The Green group wants the construction of new nuclear power stations through KEDO to be stopped, or at least suspended temporarily until it has been possible to relieve the acute human catastrophe in North Korea.
The Green group supports the text of the joint resolution.
However, we do not want this text to say that we support KEDO, which is not in fact in the text. We simply accept and recognize that there is an energy problem in North Korea which we do not however think can be solved through nuclear power.
Instead there is a need for other energy sources which can represent the future.
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance wanted to raise the following question through the initiative of this motion for a resolution. Must hundreds of thousands of Koreans die of starvation so that the international community can judge the North Korean regime for what it is, that is, one of the worst dictatorships the world has ever known?
We now know, by admission of the Pyongyang authorities themselves, that the population of this country is hit by a terrible shortage of food which forces them to eat bark and other vegetable waste and, if rumours can be believed, in extreme cases, even human flesh.
We pretend to put this human drama down to the weather.
The floods of 1995 and 1996 certainly worsened the structural shortages being caused by the political, economic and social regime of North Korea.
Yet at the same time, the authorities continued to squander exorbitant sums of money on the military budget and on ceremonial expenditure.
Today, it is only the North Koreans' intransigence, verging on autism, which prevents the international community from coming rapidly and effectively to the aid of a civil population which has literally been taken hostage.
In all parts of the world, communism has been finally and categorically judged by history and overwhelmingly held responsible for the ruin of the countries subjected to it.
However, North Korea continues along the path of international isolation, state control of the economy and arrogant warmongering with regard to South Korea.
In the interests of the Koreans themselves, the international community must no longer tolerate this.
I would like the Commission to keep us informed with regard to the initiatives it is taking both to help the United Nations intervene rapidly on behalf of the civil population affected and to break with this logic of collective suicide to which the sinister North Korean regime has committed its people.
Congo
Mr President, the so-called Congo Brazzaville risks no longer being a state, and even, in some ways, risks never having been one.
Since power was forcibly seized by Sassou-N'guesso, the country is, in fact, in a paradoxical situation, to say the least.
On the one hand, the government has essentially become a one-party government and, on the other, many private forces, formed on an ethnic basis, are dividing the territory and fighting interminably between themselves: a situation elegantly described in French political terminology as "un chaos borné' , limited chaos.
The Commission therefore needs to block any aid to Congo not intended for humanitarian aid or the development of the weaker sectors of society until the situation changes in that country.
I am appealing to your prudence, Commissioners, for the necessary, useful and appropriate measures to be adopted to achieve this aim.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, last year Mr Sassou-Ngesso seized power once again, after heavy fighting.
Angola gave him considerable support in this. Meanwhile, the constitution has been suspended, parliament and the constitutional court have been dissolved, the constitutional council no longer exists, and so on and so forth.
It is obvious that there is a move towards further dictatorship and less democracy.
Well, I would like to point out that one of the biggest economic changes which have been implemented by the new president is the lowering of the oil taxes, which Elf Acquitaine have to pay.
So they benefit.
It will come as little surprise that the President of the same country, Congo - and this has evolved entirely as a result of dictatorial practices - has meanwhile been warmly received at the Elysée .
But, it is essentially clear that the European Union, if it wants to be serious, should make a stand. It is also remarkable that there was very little reaction to the coup which took place last year.
That is why the resolutions before us state very clearly that free elections must be organized, that the Council must be able to speak with one voice - although we are quite used to the fact that it is often a cacophony - and that financial aid from the Union to Congo must remain frozen, except for that part which affects people directly, humanitarian aid, so that we are doing something for the poorest sections of the population.
I hope we will manage to obtain a clear position from this Parliament, and that the Commission and the Council will act in response to this.
Mr President, could I remind Mrs Aelvoet that, last year during urgent and topical debates, Mr Hory and I did indeed draw attention to Congo-Brazzaville, but at that time the other Members clearly did not think it was particularly worthwhile.
It is extremely sad that there is so much oil around the equator.
Foreign companies are quick to exploit it, and are particularly keen to do so in conjunction with dictators.
It is the case in Congo-Brazzaville, it was and is the case in Luanda, in Angola, it is the case in the former autonomous region of Kabinda.
The resolution on Congo-Brazzaville would have been useful as a signal last year.
Now we have had a change of government, the old dictator is back, and the Angolan troops and mercenaries are still present.
My group considers it very important that aid for the people of Congo-Brazzaville is intensified, and has submitted an amendment to this effect.
Since Kabila has captured the heart of Africa, a few things have changed in the region, but none of the changes benefit democracy or the people.
Although a peace process in Angola is taking place for the outside world to see, insiders know - as the Portuguese Member of another political persuasion assured me only two hours ago - that the government leader is preparing for a large-scale offensive to destroy the official opposition for good.
The oil profits in Angola are all going into buying arms, and will continue to do so over the coming years.
As far as I know a Lomé country is only eligible for EU assistance if no more than 2 % of its budget is allocated to arms.
Commissioner, could you check scrupulously whether a country like Angola, which is buying so many weapons, is complying with the Lomé Convention, and could you check whether the EU money is benefiting all people of Angola, not merely the elite.
Mr President, there seems to be a little confusion, because the previous speaker kept talking about Angola.
Anyway, I suppose it is near Congo.
I should think only very few people in Europe know where Congo is, what is happening there, and what has been happening over the past few years in the vicinity of the political and military force in Zaire.
What we are observing - and Mrs Aelvoet already gave an indication of this - is the powerlessness of the Council to take initiatives; and indeed, a cacophony of messages comes out of Brussels which may have something to do with resolving the crisis in Congo.
Let us hope that, whilst the authoritarian regime in Brazzaville is still in power, the European Commission is prepared to stop all humanitarian aid, except for the aid which goes to the very poorest.
This is the most important instrument Europe could use to put pressure on the authorities at least; and perhaps we can see to it - as suggested by the previous two speakers - that the European trade interests are given a somewhat more humane character.
Jamaica
This is a very interesting situation, Mr President.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party submitted a resolution on Jamaica's pulling out of the optional protocol to the International Convention on Human Rights.
If a protocol is optional, the Jamaican government must have thought, then we can leave it voluntarily.
This may be right, but the most important thing in this issue is that it gives out the wrong signal.
It has already turned out that the governments of Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago, want to do the same.
I have a beautifully written note from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or from the prime minister of Jamaica, and I can only conclude that this pulling out of the optional protocol is related to the ease with which Jamaica wishes to defend itself on the re-introduction of the death penalty.
I hope that this might be raised at the ACP meeting in Mauritius soon.
In other words, we are not condemning Jamaica, but we are asking, in the form of an opinion, was this really necessary?
Mr President, thank God that Parliament debates the death penalty time and again, in most cases even unanimously, but not always, I am sorry to say.
The good thing about the present case is the fact that we are talking about a theoretical case here and not a practical one which we would have to prevent immediately.
However, in the debate on Jamaica's withdrawal from the optional protocol we should not forget that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. There are a number of Member States of the European Union which, citing the same grounds as Jamaica, have not signed the same optional protocol which we are now calling on Jamaica to sign, for example the United Kingdom, as well as other large countries such as the United States of America, Japan and - as far as I am aware - eighteen other large countries.
I am convinced that we should be consistent in our opposition to the death penalty here in Parliament but we should not be too quick to condemn when we should actually be putting our own house in order.
Syria
Mr President, about a month ago I received a delegation of Lebanese men and women in my office in Brussels who were clearly in a distressed state.
They were men and women with relatives who had been abducted from their homes or offices and taken, apparently, to Syria where they had disappeared without trace.
In one or two cases the families knew more or less the whereabouts of those who had been abducted.
One particular case that I remember was of a lady who came along with the group and said that she had not heard anything about her son for six years until someone else had come to her home and said that particular person had been in a certain prison, possibly in Damascus.
That was a dire situation and the question is what we would do about it.
It is one of the characteristics perhaps of the European Parliament that we are able to highlight or raise the profile of cases of this sort and that is the main purpose of this resolution which has been tabled in my name and also on behalf of the European People's Party.
Remarkably, just a few days ago we had news that quite a large number of people in this situation who had been abducted were indeed released.
I have not referred to the number of abductions by the way; they probably, in total, amount to no less then 200 and the releases account for possibly as many as 121.
It is nice to think that perhaps our resolution has already played a part but we will never know if that is so.
But there are certainly others waiting to be released and so one hopes that the Syrian government, not least in the light of the fact that negotiations are due to start in the near future about a possible further association agreement within the Euro-Med programme, will take note of this and act accordingly to release the people where no charge has been preferred.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will begin with Colombia.
It was with great shock that the Commission learnt of the assassination of Jesús María Valle Jaramillo, President of the Permanent Committee for Human Rights in Colombia who, as Mrs González Álvarez has just mentioned, recently visited this House.
The Commission strongly condemns this act and notes the decision to set up a special committee within the Fiscalía general de la Nación in order to investigate this murder.
It also formally calls on the Colombian government to put all the necessary means in place to identify those responsible for this intolerable crime and to refer them to the courts for punishment.
The Commission fully shares Parliament's concerns, Mrs Lenz, regarding the development of the situation within Colombia which, as you said, has continued to deteriorate over the last few months.
Human rights in Colombia must be tackled not only with words but also with actions, Mrs González Álvarez.
The Commission is also convinced that any initiative aimed at isolating the country would only have the consequence of increasing the violence.
This is why the Commission is providing significant support to the strengthening of the rule of law and its efforts are three-fold in this respect.
Firstly, in reply to Mr Howitt, the Commission supports the work of the local office of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, having this year taken all necessary measures to ensure the office's continuing activity for a further year.
For reference, may I remind you that the Commission finances the costs of five international observers, who make up the majority of the staff of this office.
Secondly, the Commission supports the work of NGOs.
Colombia is considered a priority for resource allocation within the budget line "Democratization and human rights in Latin America' .
Many initiatives are currently being carried out, in cooperation with local NGOs.
Thirdly and finally, the Commission is also currently studying the possibility of providing special aid to the Colombian government with the aim of improving the way in which its legal institutions operate.
Let me turn now to Nicaragua, whose difficulties seem to be of a more economic nature rather than relating to human rights in the strict sense.
Nicaragua's problems therefore fall more within my own sphere of competence.
In three years, Nicaragua's foreign debt has fallen from ECU 10 billion to 5.5 billion. This is a great success, which must be acknowledged.
Nevertheless, in spite of this strong reduction, the level of debt and the situation in Nicaragua remain extremely worrying, for the debt still represents - I am specifying this for Mr Newen's benefit - more than 250 % of GNP and debt repayments absorb the equivalent of 30 %, that is, nearly a third, of Nicaragua's income from exports, which by international standards is a considerable amount.
The Nicaraguan government is going to ask for a reprogramming, a rescheduling, of its debt at the Paris Club.
The Commission shares the concerns of the House regarding the effects of such indebtedness on economic activity.
A solution must be found.
The Commission also believes that Nicaragua should be eligible for the initiative set up by the World Bank to improve debt servicing on the part of the most highly-indebted poor countries.
Nicaragua could thus continue along its rediscovered path of growth, which has occurred only in the last three years, after fifteen years of decline due to the armed conflict.
I would also like to remind you that any possible decisions regarding rescheduling, or reduction of the applicable rates, is a matter for the creditor states.
In Nicaragua's case, approximately US$4 billion of its US$5.5 billion debt comes from individual states, half of which is from Mexico and Russia.
Consequently, the major part of this debt must be rescheduled within the framework of the Paris Club which brings together the principle creditor states and which, Mrs Aelvoet, will meet during the first six months of this year.
I can reassure Mr Habsburg-Lothringen that it is not the custom of Finance Ministers to abandon debts.
They are rescheduled, that is, the payments are staggered.
The rest, of course, is down to the multilateral organizations, commencing with the InterAmerican Bank.
With regard to North Korea, the Commission shares Parliament's concerns regarding the gravity of the humanitarian and food situation in North Korea and this, Mr Hory, is of course independent of the judgement which can and must be made on the way in which the country is governed.
Since the first serious floods in 1995, the European Union has provided aid to the most vulnerable categories of people: children, the elderly and expectant mothers. In 1997, ECU 48 million was provided in food aid and ECU 20 million in aid for public health.
The Union thus became North Korea's principle donor.
ECU 68 million is a great deal more than the KEDO contribution - Mr Ford, Mr Holm - which is ECU 15 million over five years. It is also a way of avoiding nuclear proliferation in this region, as you know.
The volume of aid - both food and humanitarian - to be provided during 1998 is still being considered.
A decision will soon be taken by the Member States and I can assure Mr Jarzembowski that there will be both food aid and support to agriculture.
Indeed, the Commission shares Parliament's opinion, which I have heard here today, on the need to be better informed regarding developments in the situation.
This also assumes the granting of access facilities to NGOs and international bodies.
In any case, and Mr Bertens is right in this respect, aid is not a sufficient substitute for the adoption of structural measures to liberalize the economy. These are the only way of guaranteeing a lasting improvement in the economic, health and social situation of the country.
I can assure you that the Commission is doing its utmost to encourage the North Korean authorities to move in this direction.
Fifthly, I move on to Congo Brazzaville.
A declaration by the Presidency of the European Union on 3 November 1997 set out the Union's position regarding the bloody conflict which has engulfed Congo and regarding the resulting new political regime.
The Commission's action falls within this framework, following developments in the situation closely and paying particular attention to respect for the directions which were set by the National Forum for Unity, Democracy and Reconstruction.
The search for lasting peace and national reconciliation assumes, Mrs Aelvoet, the return of a regime legitimized by free, fair and transparent elections.
To this end, Mr Fassa, the Commission has committed itself to dialogue with the Congolese authorities and with representatives of the main political forces. This is with the aim of encouraging their participation in the reconstruction of the country and also encouraging them to contribute to the success of the transition to democracy.
Since the onset of the conflict, the European Union has provided humanitarian aid aimed only at the people, the poorest people, aid estimated at a total of ECU 11.5 million.
Further aid will soon be mobilized, in cooperation with the NGOs.
The European Union is also preparing a reconstruction programme on behalf of civilian victims of the armed conflict.
However, any resumption of cooperation will be dependent upon progress achieved at the level of national reconciliation and political legitimization of the authorities.
In reply to Mrs van Bladel, who raised a question concerning Angola, although this is not really appropriate to the current discussion, I will say that the aid allocated is dependent on strict conditions set out in the Lomé Convention and that, there too, it concerns humanitarian and rehabilitation aid for the poorest and for the rural population.
Sixthly, I come to Jamaica.
The Commission regrets the Jamaican authorities' decision to terminate its signature of the first optional protocol to the International Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Apart from the unfortunately frequent application of the death penalty, the effect of this decision will be to take away the people's right to refer issues directly to the United Nations Commission for Human Rights.
This precedent could also cause similar action on the part of other states in the region who are current signatories of the said protocol.
The Commission supports the declaration of the Presidency of the European Union requesting the Jamaican authorities to reconsider their position.
I will end with Syria by replying to Mr Moorhouse on the issue of human rights.
For once, we have a result and some good news, even if it is only partial.
The European Union has followed the issue of Lebanese prisoners detained in Syria closely.
The relevant working group within the Council had been asking for a report on the subject from the European Union's Head of Mission in Beirut since 1997.
Diplomatic initiatives taken since, on the basis of this work, have begun to bear fruit.
A settlement of the issue of Lebanese prisoners occurred on 3 March this year, with an unofficial declaration of the forthcoming liberation of the prisoners in the Beirut daily newspaper "El Nahar' .
The information was taken up the following day by the press as a whole and officially confirmed by the Lebanese authorities.
On 5 March, after a telephone conversation between Presidents Hraoui and Hafez el Assad, 121 prisoners were freed at Masna, on the Syrian-Lebanese border. They were taken by the Lebanese authorities to detention centres.
After verification of their identity and their police record, 86 were discharged by the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Appeals and 15 were retained in prison on common law charges such as drug trafficking and terrorism. They will be tried in the Lebanese courts.
This leaves - depending on your source - between 25 and 33 people suspected of breaches of national security.
Although accused of collaboration with Israel, Major Ketel Hayeck benefited from this liberation but remains charged in Lebanon, in connection with the trial regarding the assassination of the Prime Minister, Rachid Karamé.
The Commission will continue to follow this issue with the utmost attention and, of course, will take it into account within the framework of the impending negotiations of the cooperation or association agreement that was earlier mentioned.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0322/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0334/98 by Mr Robles Piquer and Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0344/98 by Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0358/98 by Mr Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0360/98 by Mr Hory and Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0371/98 by Mr Pettinari and Mr Jové Peres, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left, on the situation in Sierra Leone; -B4-0381/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone.
Mr President, President Kabbah, the democratically elected President of Sierra Leone, is back.
This, you might say, means that the military action by the United Nations and Organization of African Unity was successful.
The Organization of African Unity has thus for the first time departed from its policy not to involve itself in a military way in the affairs of neighbouring countries.
The situation is now as follows. The President is occupying his post, his seat.
Meanwhile we have seen that the military action, in particular that of a number of neighbouring countries and especially Nigeria's, was not without bloodshed.
This should be questioned.
It is more important for the future, Commissioner, Mr President, that the Union soon starts to give support not for the things that went wrong during the past year, but during the past decades.
I thank you in advance for your consideration and understanding.
Mr President, the motion for a resolution we have tabled aims to draw attention to a small, distant country - Sierra Leone. It is a country where everything appears to be horrible, except maybe the beauty of its countryside, the wealth of its land - although this wealth hides diamonds which are often the cause of tragedy - and the kindness of many of its inhabitants.
It is this kindness which, for example, led many of my fellow countrymen a few days ago to demonstrate their desire to return to Sierra Leone as soon as possible to carry out their work there as missionaries. They still wish to do this after having been kidnapped and used as human shields for two weeks by the defeated forces of the military junta which overthrew the democratically elected president.
The missionaries' statement was very simple: they said that they had suffered for a few days, but that the people of Sierra Leone were still suffering and were suffering much more.
When we read the terrible reports, as we did yesterday, about very young children who are able to cut off the heads or arms of their fellow countrymen with a machete, we really shudder at the hatred that has been instilled in them.
Therefore, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our motion for a resolution, our request to the Commission, is to ask it to grant significant humanitarian aid, including special aid devoted to retrieving and rehabilitating these criminal children, to give them back the untainted childhood they deserve.
President Kabbah has an extremely difficult task ahead of him.
We must help him, particularly in examining his own conscience, since he must decide what the causes were behind the previous failure.
It is certainly not easy to elevate democracy in Africa, and it seems to be even more difficult in Sierra Leone.
It is our duty to help them, and not only through words.
Mr President, I am sure I am the only Member of this Parliament who was once an officer in the armed forces of Sierra Leone.
Relations of mine are still active in humanitarian agencies in that country.
I give my heartfelt support to the motion from all seven political groups.
Sierra Leone was founded in freedom.
Its capital is called Freetown.
The army barracks where I once served is named after Wilberforce, the anti-slavery campaigner.
It is tragic that it has been debauched and disfigured over many years by a series of military coups.
That of Major Johnny Paul Koroma is only the latest.
Sierra Leone has become a ruined country: it has the lowest life expectancy in Africa; its extractive industries have been pillaged; its people live in abject poverty.
So we welcome the return of President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah.
We want to strengthen democracy in this country.
But we cannot overlook the fact that General Sani Abacha of Nigeria has played a major part in this enterprise and that what has happened is not in accord with the Conakry agreement.
General Abacha made a speech in Freetown this week.
He said that for the first time in the history of the region a government that had come to power violently had been overthrown.
Some of us can think of another government in the region that came to power violently.
What does he think of his government which hangs opponents and jails election winners? The European Parliament should use its best endeavours to see that Abacha's troops are withdrawn and that both humanitarian and military aid are given to enable President Kabbah to re-establish Sierra Leone's independence.
It should also see, by immediate representation to the Attorney-General, who has returned with President Kabbah, that due process is extended to the thousand people or more who have been arrested in Freetown, to avoid old scores being paid off against those who were never involved with the Koroma junta.
Humanitarian aid is now moving toward Bo and Kenema as well as towards the capital.
We in Europe should aid that.
My heart goes out to this beautiful country.
We long for its genuine independence so that Freetown can become, once more, the capital of a free country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if there is one country where it is clear for all to see how dramatic the effects of a civil war can be for a population when the state has fallen apart, then it is Sierra Leone.
Thankfully, there is some momentary improvement, but the question is how long this improvement will last, because it cannot be said that stability is guaranteed.
In the eastern part of the country, the conflict is continuing, and we know that the rebels are assaulting not only the local population, but also the development workers there at the moment.
Our great concern must be that in the short term the problem of hunger is tackled, because many people are now in a dire situation as a result of endless bad harvests.
Parliament is making a strong plea today for the services of ECHO to become active, and for them to ensure in conjunction with the UN that the food reaches the most needy.
For this reason alone it is useful that we are tackling this problem here today, but it is clear that, in view of the future, we will have to keep an eye on the further developments, the stability of the country, otherwise everything will start right from the beginning again.
Mr President, I echo the points Mr Whitehead made.
I did not realize he had such a distinguished past.
But it is an enviable position to have been in - the West African Frontier Force in Sierra Leone.
I would like to echo some of the points he has made about the long traditions of Sierra Leone.
It is a country which has a long and sophisticated political tradition which has been brutally interrupted by the seizure of power by soldiers in the past.
This is a pattern which is only too familiar in many parts of Africa.
What we are now seeing, though, is another example of the new wave of re-democratization, which is something close to all our hearts in Parliament.
My plea to Parliament and the Commission is this: we often make criticisms of various regimes and situations, and we are not slow to come forward with them.
That is right.
But now that we have a successful restoration of democracy in Sierra Leone let us please do something concrete to help.
Let us give some special, extra assistance to that beautiful country so that it can re-establish its democracy on a firm foundation.
Mr President, President Kabbah's return to Sierra Leone is a positive fact of great importance.
An unacceptable coup d'état had put an end to the country's first taste of democracy. Its commitment to the UN and to all those countries working towards the restoration of constitutional order and the re-establishment of a civil government needs to be implemented.
It is wrong to think their problems have been sorted out, there is still a lot to be done and the European institutions have to do their part.
Firstly, we need to resume political negotiations for national reconciliation, which were suddenly interrupted by General Koroma's coup, and we need to do this on the basis of the Conakry and Abidjan Agreements, because the military tension of today certainly cannot form the basis for a political reconstruction of the country.
Finally, I wish to express my great concern over the role played by Nigeria in Sierra Leone for, although it has partly contributed towards Kabbah's return, it risks taking the form of a search for military political control in the region that brings out the antidemocratic dictatorial nature of General Abacha's regime.
We hope the EU will take up a strong and clear position in this respect.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my speech is connected with the previous one - it is a kind of photocopy of Mr Pettinari's speech, although that was not something we had agreed in advance, because we cannot fail to mention the fact that one of the main objectives of the draft resolution we are approving in this Parliament, in connection with Sierra Leone, is, from more than one viewpoint, the current Nigerian government, which, despite the agreements excluding any recourse to force, preferred to attack the capital of Sierra Leone, threatening the delicate political balances of this region it intends to control once again.
I therefore believe that we cannot talk about a common EU foreign security policy if the primary objective is not to ensure the delicate geopolitical stability of this area and I would like to know the Commission's point of view in that respect.
Mr President, the political situation in Sierra Leone is becoming more favourable with the return of President Kabbah.
However, the humanitarian situation remains tragic.
With the exception of the capital, Freetown, the country is suffering an intolerable shortage of food and medical products.
Throughout the conflict, the Commission has continued to support humanitarian aid programmes for health and nutrition through its partners on the ground, by targeting its action towards the most vulnerable groups.
The volume of aid provided by ECHO now stands at ECU 3.8 million in one year.
It was not physically possible to do more than this because, given the conditions noted by some of you, it was completely impossible to send the necessary staff to distribute the aid.
The Commission and its humanitarian partners have now reoriented part of their current action in order to respond to the most urgent needs.
In other words, Mr Whitehead, it is reviewing its rehabilitation programmes following the military intervention which took place on 8 February, which put an end to the embargo on entry into Sierra Leone and which enabled the resumption of movement of equipment, provision of staple foods and medical products.
On 10 February, the Commission allocated ECU 1.9 million to the financing of "seeds and tools' programmes in order to ensure that the local population are able to harvest sufficient agricultural produce over the coming months.
In the immediate future, the Commission is awaiting the conclusions of evaluations being carried out by aid agencies on the ground before deciding on the possible allocation of supplementary emergency food aid. The level of this aid will probably be substantial and will enable the particularly tragic situation of the children, mentioned earlier by Mr Robles Piquer, to be resolved.
Existing programmes have enabled the flow of refugees into neighbouring countries to be absorbed without too much difficulty.
The Commission intends to give priority to measures aimed at encouraging the return and reintegration of refugees to their home villages.
To this end, a programme of assistance to some ten thousand refugees in Guinea should soon be approved.
Finally, Mr Pettinari, let me clarify for you that cooperation with Nigeria has been suspended since 1995 and you know as well as I that many people have said loud and clear that Nigeria has exceeded its role and should not have intervened with military force in this conflict.
Thank you, Commissioner de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0329/98 by Mr Herman and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on discrimination regarding the sale of tickets for the World Cup; -B4-0338/98 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the infringement of the rules of competition by the committee responsible for organizing the World Cup; -B4-0345/98 by Mr De Coene, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on discrimination regarding the sale of tickets for the World Cup; -B4-0365/98 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the system for distributing tickets for the World Cup; -B4-0372/98 by Mrs Castellina and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the distribution of tickets for the World Cup; -B4-0373/98 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the World Cup.
Mr President, we are aware that the Commissioner has had meetings with the French football authorities.
It might be useful for us to have that information before we start the debate, rather than be surprised at the end as to what has actually happened.
I would be grateful if you would ask the Commissioner if he would be prepared to speak at the beginning of the debate.
Mr President, I would like to make a similar request in view of the fact that the Commissioner considered it extremely important to be present during the debate.
The Members' requests and the points of order they have raised are more what might be expected in a statement by the Commission.
This is not the procedure we are following.
However, I can ask the Commissioner if he is willing to open the debate.
If he agrees - although it should be noted that this is not the normal procedure for topical and urgent debate - I will of course give him the floor.
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank Parliament for this initiative. I appreciate the value of being invited to open this debate.
I want you to be the first to know the current position following the meetings and discussions of the last few days and I am now in a position to tell you exactly where we are in this matter.
Before going into a number of details, I would like to remind you that this problem is relatively new.
There have been some problems in the past, in relation to a number of sporting events.
However, in general this concerned the way in which the organizers had chosen the tour operators who would sell the tickets, or the granting of a monopoly to a certain vendor, as in Italy in 1990.
The Commission therefore intervened with regard to the sale of tickets in respect of the choice of stockists, in this instance the tour operators.
We tried to change the system.
Instead of giving the organizers the freedom to grant a monopoly, or to choose the companies that perhaps they were already friendly with, we imposed a selection procedure for stockists in the relevant countries and we also imposed the principle of not restricting the sale of tickets to any particular country.
Buyers were therefore able to contact tour operators outside their own country to purchase tickets.
There was also the problem of linking the sale of tickets to other services such as air tickets, hotel rooms and so on.
These were the sorts of problem that were occurring and which we tried to resolve.
Furthermore, last year the organizers asked what the Commission's position was with regard to these points and we confirmed our previous position.
But now the problem is different. It relates to the allocation system itself, fairness in the distribution and also non-discrimination.
So the problem is much wider, for we have noted - in any case this is the position of the Council - that the system is not fair and that it has a number of discriminatory aspects.
Before moving on to the current situation, I would also like to say a few words on the Commission's reaction.
In fact, the problem became apparent in December, at the time of the draw to decide who plays whom.
It was soon noted, even by the national associations and leagues, that the number of tickets was extremely limited.
It was also noted that, especially if you wanted to buy tickets in France, you had to have an address in France.
So it was from December onwards that we began to receive an increasing number of, occasionally contradictory, complaints.
Following this, the Commission contacted the organizers in January to ask them for an explanation.
As is the rule when there is a clear complaint or information - because a letter of complaint is not necessarily based on precise facts - the Commission contacts the organizers, the company concerned, to ask for an explanation.
Several weeks later we received the information from the organizers and we recognized that there was indeed a problem, in particular one of discrimination.
We sent a letter of warning as quickly as possible.
The procedure was underway and things were being conducted as they should have been with regard to a case concerning the rules of competition.
Having established that there was indeed a problem, the Commission reacted quickly.
Where are we at now? Firstly, I think it appropriate to quote you the allocation of World Cup tickets, as established by the organizers.
I will give you the figures and the percentages.
To be precise, the total number of available tickets is 2 559 241, in other words just over 2.5 million. Of these, 4.8 % are reserved for boxes and hospitality seats, as they are called.
There are apparently quite a few lucky politicians who are going to be able to benefit from these hospitality seats, 200 000 in all.
Please, I am giving you the figures as communicated to us by the organizers.
With regard to direct sales by the organizing committee: general public 22.3 %, local French football clubs 14.2 % and the disabled 1.1 %.
That makes approximately 37 % which will be sold directly to the French public.
Then there are the national associations and tour operators.
Approximately 21 % will go to national associations and 5.4 % to tour operators.
So the tour operators will only be selling a twentieth of the tickets.
Then there are the partners and sponsors, who will receive 14.2 % of the tickets, and the local authorities who have contributed to the investment in stadiums and so on, 2.8 %.
You then have to take into account other ventures - for example, sporting movements, youth groups and others who are also participating in the organization - which will receive 4.3 %.
That leaves just 6.3 % of tickets available for sale to the general public.
It is all that remains, in any case.
You now have a complete picture of the breakdown of tickets.
Within the framework of the action the Commission has undertaken, we have had discussions with the organizing committee to see to what extent the tickets that are still available, about 160 000 in all, could be made available to buyers who have not up to now had access due to the limits imposed - the need for a telephone number and address in France - so that they may obtain a minimum of compensation.
We have therefore asked that these 160 000 tickets be used as compensation.
Out of these 160 000 tickets, approximately one third will be made available to national associations or federations.
This third, or approximately 50 000 tickets, will be sold by the national associations to supporters who wish to attend a match in which the team they support is playing.
The national associations will thus have a few extra tickets available to them.
That still leaves 110 000 tickets, and we have insisted, as I said previously, that they be made available to European buyers excluding France, without discrimination.
This is the stumbling block.
Given that there has been clear and, it seems, unquestionable discrimination, we must do all we can to compensate this discrimination, even though the possibilities are, unfortunately, extremely limited.
We have therefore insisted that these tickets should be made indiscriminately available to buyers outside of France but within the European Economic Area.
It is on this point that there is currently disagreement because the French want to make them available to everyone whilst we claim that, because there has been discrimination, we must do everything possible, no matter how little this may be, to redress the balance.
With regard to security measures, which are very often cited as an explanation for what has happened, it goes without saying that the Commission accepts this argument when it is a valid one.
When we are told, "50 000 extra tickets will be made available to national associations, taking into account also the blocks that have been set aside for club supporters' , we clearly accept the argument.
But it is also clear, with regard to neutral spectators - as those of nationalities other than those playing are called - that there must be no discrimination between Union citizens unless it relates to compensation in favour of those from countries other than France.
So this is where we are at the moment.
Let me now present to you the following few conclusions and thoughts.
Firstly, I dare to hope that organizers of this kind of sporting event will in future agree to consider, jointly with the Commission and well before the sale of tickets commences, not only the strictly commercial aspects as on previous occasions such as the issue of tour operators, but also aspects concerned with a fair and non-discriminatory allocation of the tickets.
There do seem to be signals in the right direction.
I understand that the candidate for the presidency of FIFA has said that, "if I am elected, I will deal with this' .
We have already been contacted by the organizers of the European Nations' Cup which will be held in two years time, who told us, "we are at your disposal to discuss our system of ticket allocation because we want to avoid the current difficulties' .
So, there are indeed signs of good will in this respect.
Of course, another obvious conclusion which I totally approve of is that we must work to avoid this sort of problem in the future rather than trying to patch up the problem halfway through.
My second observation is that I hope the organizers and sports organizations will in the future more willingly accept that it is better to discuss these problems with the relevant Community authorities than to challenge continually the authority of the European Commission and to continue to refer back to a particular government or minister to deal with problems of competition.
They must understand that we are not going along with that.
Like all the others, they must accept the rule of law in a European Union governed by law.
But once goodwill exists, we will of course be available to them to try to find adequate and justifiable solutions, taking into consideration the interests of the sport.
We are ready to take account of the specifics and the needs of the sporting sector, such as security, which is inseparable from this type of organization.
My third conclusion is that I understand that there are a number of national associations which are still extremely unhappy, moaning and complaining bitterly that they have not received enough tickets.
This surprises me, because the national associations are part of FIFA and they therefore accepted the system as it was designed.
So, for pity's sake, pay more attention in the future and contribute to the setting up of a good system instead of criticizing after the event and then leaving it to the Commission to sort out the situation.
Another thought comes to mind.
I believe that it must be understood, both at a national level and at the level of sporting organizations, that both citizens and citizenship of the European Union exist.
It is enshrined in the Treaty.
So there is a principle of non-discrimination.
It seems that some people are unable to accept this principle and its consequences.
From now on, when it relates to sporting events, there must be no more discrimination between Union citizens.
Allow me one last thought, on a completely personal level.
When I earlier noted the allocation of World Cup tickets, I mentioned that it has become extremely difficult for European citizens to obtain a ticket if they have no links with a sponsor or do not belong to a particular organization, for the bulk of tickets is apparently intended for those who belong to such organizations, or who know the right people.
I wonder if this is really wise on the part of the organizers?
Of course, I understand that there are commercial considerations.
Sponsors are needed.
But is it necessary to go as far as they went on this occasion, by setting aside such a minimal number for people who do not have the necessary contacts? I do wonder.
Personally, I think the answer is clear.
I think we should show more concern for the citizen.
For my part, I have no problem in obtaining tickets.
Really no problem at all.
There are an enormous number of sponsors ready to invite me!
But the ordinary citizen has a big problem!
(Applause) So on this basis we should admit the truth and admit that it is also our responsibility to try to improve the situation.
Mr President, this really is a very sorry tale, though I want to thank you and the Commissioner for at least allowing us to have that statement before we had the debate.
At least we get some idea of the full picture.
I certainly note the Commissioner's words very carefully, namely that this system is not fair and has been discriminatory.
And what has the Commission done? It sent a warning apparently back in December, but we are now in March.
It has allowed three months to elapse while the situation has developed, and apparently we are now in a position where very little can be done about it.
I am sorry to have to say to the Commissioner that I do not think the Commission can entirely wash its hands of responsibility for the way this situation has developed.
It is interesting to know that in future we hope it is going to be avoided.
We have to ask the Commission this afternoon precisely what legal action and legal powers the Commission has to take against the organizers so that they face some penalty rather than simply expressions of regret?
The Commission has responsibility to exercise those powers which it has quite clearly and lamentably failed to exercise up to now.
The world championship is of interest to people all over the world and certainly throughout Europe, and the number of seats that has been made available to European football fans is derisory.
The suggestion that to get tickets they have to give an address in France makes one seriously wonder who was awake when that proposal was going through.
If we hear now that other national associations are expressing concern, I ask: were they given the full facts at the time? That needs to be asked if they are now at this stage expressing their concern.
The Commission cannot simply come to us this afternoon an say it is a sorry tale but it is taking no further action.
It must take some action.
Mr President, I wish to say to the Commissioner that Liberals in this House are deeply disappointed with his statement today.
This is the first billion-dollar World Cup.
The organizers have put national restrictions on ticket sales in breach of Article 85 of the Treaties.
They are abusing a dominant market position in breach of Article 86.
The Commission was warned of this in June of last year in a letter from Professor Weatherill at Oxford University.
I am told that the Commission then had discussions with the CFO, who may have been less than honest with the Commission.
Very few football fans from outside France will get tickets to the matches.
Most of those who do will pay vastly inflated prices.
Liberals in this House call on the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, to show the organizers the red card.
To those who say you cannot scrap an entire ticket system four months before the World Cup, we say: if it is illegal, it must be scrapped.
If the Commission decides there are good reasons to let it proceed, it must, at least, prosecute and fine the CFO.
Finding new arrangements to redistribute just 5 % will not do.
It is a sop to fans, stitched up with the CFO, and a cosy compact in changing rooms.
We are calling foul, and if we are not allowed to go to the stadia, then we may go to the courts.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by thanking you for being here today during this debate, for allowing us to be the first to receive information from you.
The lesson, the conclusion we can draw from what you have said is that the football associations and the organizers of the World Cup in France are playing with you, and are playing with us, but above all with all these people in Europe, and that only one conclusion can be drawn from this: we must act.
You, Commissioner, as the person responsible on behalf of Europe, have often compared your role with that of a referee, who has to take decisions, often in difficult areas, and who is therefore, depending on the circumstances, sympathetic or unsympathetic.
Well, we are keeping you to your word, and there is one thing you could do here, namely to show the red card to those breaking the European rules, to those who think they are above the law, to those who act with the greatest contempt toward European matters.
But we can say that of course we will follow the rules for the 100 000 remaining tickets, when more than 2.4 million have already been sold.
That would be satisfying us with crumbs, and it is simply not acceptable.
Secondly, we could say we are going to impose fines.
It would not be all that bad if Mr Platini or the other sun kings in France were momentarily affected financially, because in the end - as you said yourself - this is primarily a question of money, and a lot of money.
Let them pay those fines, but the drawback is of course that this does not benefit the ordinary citizen, and so we, Members of Parliament, should take a look at what is in our powers, what means we have to enforce Community law.
I would also like to address the French Members.
Let us be fair, our friends from France, and let us keep it clean, this is not a game against France.
This is not Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom or Italy against France.
This is a question of elementary respect for European rules.
If we raise this question today then it is not without consequences for the future.
What is the future, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen?
The future is, amongst other things, the European Nations' Cup in 2000, organized by Belgium and the Netherlands.
For that, too, rules will have to be complied with, even if that is not very nice for the Dutch or Belgian football supporters.
Today it might not seem very nice to the French, but if we are not resolute, if we are not consistent, it will be worse for the Belgians or the Dutch tomorrow.
What is most important, however, is that we do not allow discrimination.
I would like to agree with Mr Watson; if we are not allowed into the grounds, we should go to Court.
I can tell you, Commissioner, that we, a number of Members of this Parliament, have already taken on a renowned lawyer.
Mr President, sometimes we in the European Parliament are rather flattered if people come to us asking for assistance and actually take us seriously.
So let me share with you a heartfelt letter which I received from a football fan from Aberdeen, in my constituency.
He says, ' I write to you in the hope that the European Parliament can do something about the ridiculous ticket allocations for the World Cup finals in France.
I have been a member of the Scotland Travel Club for eight years.
I have previously been to two World Cups and two European competitions yet I do not expect to be allocated tickets for the games.'
This man was hoping that, because the World Cup was in Europe, surely to goodness he would be able to go to the first match.
As you know, the opening match is Scotland versus Brazil and you would have thought that the people who above all would be there would be the Scots and the Brazilians.
Instead he finds that he is not wanted.
The allocation to Scotland is too small and he is not going to be there.
He may of course decide to go anyway and try to buy tickets on the black market.
I think this is a very serious situation and one which should have been avoided at all costs.
I take note of what the Commissioner said about the French authorities following the same procedures as in the past.
If the procedures have been wrong in the past that is no excuse for not reforming them.
I welcome the small steps that have been taken to alleviate the situation.
We are talking about something like 160 000 tickets which sounds like quite a lot but in fact is a very small number indeed.
I would make a plea to give priority to fans who are going to see their own team playing.
Obviously if France is playing then it is reasonable to expect them to have the lion's share of the tickets.
But when you have two small countries, Morocco and Scotland for example, then surely it would be quite easy to work out a mechanism to allow their fans to participate.
If there is one thing that makes a game enjoyable it is listening to the fans on both sides cheering their teams on.
I think it is time some common sense was brought into this whole process.
Mr President, there have certainly been delays in the Commission's initiative on this problem.
Nevertheless, I want to give my full support to the action being taken by the Commission and the Commissioner at this stage, because they are actually trying to remedy an unacceptable situation.
I am saying that even though I actually believe that the number of tickets that can be distributed is too small.
It is obviously a very low number compared with the total available.
The Commission is taking the right action and I think it is right and important that the Parliament should take a stance because it is becoming apparent that, behind all the major sports events and shows, lie economic interests and often real abuse, with the sole object of making huge profits, even by speculating.
This is the case we have before us, because it is unacceptable that you need to buy a whole package, including travel, accommodation and tourist services, just to be able to get a ticket.
Although we believe that the major sports events and shows, as the Commissioner said, should involve the European citizens and, I would add, young Europeans in particular, it is obvious that this discrimination is unacceptable.
From this point of view, I believe that, even on the basis of the position assumed by Parliament today, we need to assign the Commissioner a new mandate so that he will not only continue the work he has performed so far, but he will establish new bases for tickets, from the quantitative point of view, and start on the rules.
I appreciate the fact that the Commissioner has been very explicit in this connection: we need to change the FIFA rules that have, until today, obliged the authorities, such as the Commissioner and now Parliament, to intervene on these issues.
Mr President, we all agree on the problems: the shortage of seats owing to the objective limits of supply and demand; the excessive cost of tickets on indirect sale assigned to tour operators; the need to oppose the black market.
We are divided in our replies.
Can we consider the sale of tickets for a sports or cultural event to be an exclusively economic activity?
On reading the text of the draft arrangement, this would appear to be the predominant opinion, with reference to the rules laid down by the Treaty on competition, Articles 85 and 86.
Within this framework, however, there is the risk of moving from an alleged abuse of the national dominant position to an abuse of the dominant position held by the EU, since it is by definition an international event: the football World Cup.
However, having to draw up the accounts with the legitimate expectations of supporters worldwide, the fairest and most effective position seems to us to be that of ensuring the allocation of quotas assigned to the national federations and to the non-profit-making youth sports associations, in addition to direct sales.
Our amendments should be made to this effect; the outcome will determine our final vote.
Mr President, I should like first of all to thank the Commissioner for the efforts he has made.
I thought we were getting close to some kind of solution following a meeting I had with the Commissioner yesterday.
It would appear that solution has now disappeared and that the French authorities are now longer prepared to offer extra tickets in compensation to those people who have been disadvantaged by what is a clear breach of European Community law, namely Articles 85 and 86.
What worries me is the failure to state that the Commission is going to pursue this urgently and with vigour.
We cannot allow these people to get away with it.
There are tickets available.
Anybody round here can pick up a ticket for a World Cup match just like that.
All you have to do is pay about £600 a time through one of those all-inclusive travel packages, exactly the thing we were trying to stop.
There are 2.5 million tickets available.
I do not believe that the French authorities have sold the 22.3 % of those tickets available for direct sales.
I would like to have some figures from them.
As somebody else said, all that seems to be on offer at the moment is the crumbs.
This is a cynical commercial organization - not the people of France and not the French football authorities - that is trying to exploit the special nature of sport in the interests of making money and at the expense of the ordinary people of Europe.
I hope we are going to take this seriously and, as a number of speakers have said including Mr Watson and Mr Cunha, if we do not get far more than is offered at the moment from the Commission or the authorities this issue is likely to go to the Court, and we have to make sure that the Court judges, and quickly.
The World Cup is now less than 85 days away.
Madam President, it is clear that the Commission has lacked vigilance in this matter.
Three years ago, FIFA set out the rules. We all knew what they were.
You should have intervened then.
Nor should 500 000 places have been offered to the sponsors to distribute through competitions and quizzes relating to whether you possess a certain brand of mineral water or tin of peas or not.
We all knew this.
Nothing was done.
Now it is right under our noses; the game is all but lost.
The 50 000 tickets that you mentioned, Commissioner, these are a drop in the ocean.
There are 166 federations, which is the equivalent of only around ten tickets per federation.
You have not even managed to obtain the other 100 000.
This is very serious.
In any case, in conclusion I would ask you first of all to do everything you can to prevent a black market from forming. For the French will sell their tickets for matches such as the Belgium/Netherlands game at twenty times the price at which they bought them, which is unacceptable.
I would also ask you to play the game through to the end. You can still intervene.
You can still try to scrape together places. Indeed, you can still also use all your power to intervene on a legal level as well as on the level of compensation.
Madam President, we believe the concern over having to ensure the sacred principles of free competition and having to ensure the compatibility of initiatives with the rules of the internal market is the main reason for the spiralling increase in prices and offers in relation to the sale of tickets for the forthcoming 1998 World Cup to be held in France.
The Commission has found it necessary to disprove the accusations, according to which competition policy was at the origin of the spiralling increase in the prices of entrance tickets. It sent a letter to FIFA contesting the astronomic prices reported by some press agencies and emphasizing that these increases relate not only to entrance to the stadiums but also to the price of the means of transport and accommodation expenses.
In our opinion, however, irrespective of the real or merely alleged price increases, the multiplication, times 15, of the prices applied by the travel agencies, the only agencies authorized to sell the World Cup package, are the direct consequence of the persistence of the Commission which is opposed to the establishment of a single retailer in each Member State.
Ensuring the principles of free competition, together with the fact of being able to overcome the accusation of abuse of a dominant position, should not be an obstacle to granting authorization to a single retailer in each Member State, specifically to prevent the emergence of the black market and, in particular, to prevent the monopolization of sales by the tourist agencies, thus giving all Community citizens the possibility of enjoying a sports event that is becoming increasingly more popular.
Madam President, the Commissioner has half-heartedly tackled FIFA on this matter.
What use is a slide tackle from Commissioner van Miert when you are dealing with people like Havelange and Lennart Johansen? The same thing happened with freedom of movement: the Commission went very half-heartedly on this issue.
They really have to strengthen their tackling - they really must get to grips with the situation.
We are as concerned as the Commission for the Community citizen.
We are particularly concerned, and I am particularly concerned for the members of the Tartan army who are hoping to come from Scotland to see Scotland play Brazil and the ordinary fan is not going to be given the opportunity at all.
This week two tickets for the World Cup sold for £19 000 in Glasgow.
That is almost more than some of the ordinary people earn in about two years.
What opportunity will there be for ordinary people if these inflated prices are charged by whoever is organizing this World Cup? As other members have said, it is up to the Commission to take strong action.
Madam President, the cultural, the social and indeed the commercial importance of sport is, I believe, beyond dispute.
The way that a football world championship binds peoples together has a quite special significance.
People retain memories of what happened there for the rest of their lives.
I therefore find it completely incomprehensible that the organizing committee for such an event uses a discriminatory ticket distribution system that gives preference to the citizens of its own country.
As the Commissioner has already remarked, the European Parliament is currently dealing with the second report on citizenship of the Union and is trying to find ways and means of making people feel European.
At the same time, sport, which already leads a rather modest existence in relation to its importance within the European Union, is being done a great disservice and a wedge is being driven between citizens of the Union.
In short, I can only regret that, if I have understood the Commissioner correctly, there is no possibility of straightening out the situation pro praeterito .
However, I must agree with the previous speakers and ask that we be informed of what is planned to prevent such things happening in future.
Madam President, I think I should first remind people that in relation to the rules of competition, the Commission is required to follow procedural rules.
When the problem first came to light in December, my departments immediately initiated a procedure, contacting the "accused' by means of letters. There were also the reactions of some Members of Parliament.
But it was just some Members of Parliament, I think there were only two, although you now claim that you have been pleading with us since December to do something.
In any case, we acted promptly, as I said, by contacting the "accused' to ask them to explain the situation and to tell us if what we had heard was correct or not.
As the explanations we received were not satisfactory - by this time it was January - we decided to move rapidly on to the second phase of the procedure and to send a letter of warning to the interested parties.
Such speed in the sending of a letter of warning is extremely rare.
Those who normally criticize the Commission for moving too fast and sending a letter of warning without due consideration are now criticizing us for acting too slowly.
I am sorry but we did what we had to do, rapidly and with respect for the rules of the game.
Furthermore, the accused himself has rights.
This is my position and I stand by it.
You must realize that some things have been said today which I find unacceptable.
Secondly, as you know, we have had serious problems with sports organizations for quite some time now.
When I say "we' , I mean the Commission in particular.
In fact, I think I now clearly understand that when these organizations consider the Commission is getting in their way they merely say to themselves, "we'll go and find some support amongst the politicians' .
This is what happened in Germany. Following a Court judgement, the political world rallied round to exempt sport from the rules of competition, saying to us, "It is no longer your business, do not get involved in this.
You, Mr Van Miert, and you, the authorities responsible for competition at national level, you deserve a red card, go and sit on the touchline.
We are going to deal with this.'
This is the reality of the situation.
So please, keep things in perspective.
On many occasions, I myself, on behalf of the Commission, have reminded everyone that the rules of competition must apply, including with regard to FIFA's behaviour.
Then, one month later, you probably read that a FIFA representative declared, in Singapore, if I remember correctly, that he was going to contact several European Prime Ministers in order to resolve the problem. In other words, they were going to bypass the Commission for they were tiresome, these Commission officials who dealt with such problems.
This is the reality, can you believe it?
I met with more than one delegation of Members of Parliament who came to plead the cause of the sporting authorities.
I read yesterday in the papers that a minister - also in charge of sport - was going to come and see President Santer, my colleague Pádraig Flynn and myself to tell us that the Commission was no longer respecting the Bosman ruling of the Court.
This is the real situation.
But the Commission is holding firm, it is holding its course and it expects to make progress.
By the way, this is all apparently true for Formula 1 racing too.
So I repeat, I find some criticisms unacceptable.
On the other hand, I request your support in this matter.
When we have to tell FIFA that it must not only discuss with the Commission - which it generally refuses to do - but also change its system, can I count on the broad support of the European Parliament?
(Applause) Thank you very much, I appreciate that, but can I also count on your support in my discussions with certain national sports authorities?
(Applause) I am taking note of this.
When it comes to tackling the black market, Mr Monfils, please be assured that we will do all we can!
We will do all we can but, all the same, there is one thing that you cannot ask of the Commission and that is to take responsibility for organizing the World Cup.
This really is not our role.
Our role, on the basis of the rules of competition, is to check that offences are not committed, and to act if we consider they are.
As you know, this is my way and I think this is now understood, not only within Parliament but elsewhere too.
There is one other thing. People have said, "what about the travel agencies?'
I have not forgotten them. There is a problem here, too, for travel agencies must pay fees, they have to pay a great deal to be able to sell tickets.
But this still accounts for no more than 5.4 % of the tickets.
In principle, national organizations can also be contacted.
In principle, and here, too, there is a problem, for buyers should have been able to contact the organizers who should have made tickets available to them indiscriminately.
It is on this point that our action is centred.
As I said earlier, we have still not come to an agreement because, for the moment at least, we are not satisfied with the proposals made by the organizers to date.
We also want to check certain details which have been provided to us.
In fact, it seems that some of the categories I have mentioned are unclear and we would like to know precisely what they cover.
This is what we are going to do. We will see what happens.
Please do not ask me now what our conclusions will be!
Have a little patience.
Either the organizing committee will satisfy our demands as far as possible or it will not and the Commission will then go ahead with court proceedings.
This is the current situation.
If you require any further explanation, as usual I will be only too happy to provide it.
(Loud applause)
Commissioner van Miert, we all know you have a difficult job.
You have told us you could not take on the World Sports Federation but you did not tell us whether you would take it on if you were allowed to!
The debate is closed.
Before we proceed to the vote, Mr Killilea wishes to speak on a point of order.
Madam President, I hope it is a point of order.
I wish to compliment the Commissioner and, for a moment, I thought he was going to assist Scotland to try to win a match or two.
Just as well, after listening to Hughie McMahon.
Mr Killilea, the debate is now closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Before the vote on Nicaragua:
Madam President, I wish to make a point of order.
We are discussing human rights. I am therefore surprised that the motion for a resolution on Nicaragua concerns foreign debt.
Could someone please explain to me how Nicaragua's foreign debt is a violation of human rights?
Yesterday we voted on the composition of the debate.
The House voted for this.
This text has therefore ended up below it.
That is the explanation.
Judicial cooperation in criminal matters (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0058/98) by Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on judicial cooperation in criminal matters in the European Union.
Madam President, let me begin by saying that a majority in the Green group supports Mr Bontempi's report apart from three points.
The first is that the harmonization of criminal law should not be accelerated.
It is and should remain a national concern for a long time to come.
The second point concerns the request to the governments of the Member States to refrain from derogations and to comply with the conventions.
As far as the Green group is concerned, such a general request is unacceptable.
The third point concerns the proposal to abolish the principle that a crime should be indictable in two countries.
In the current situation, to generally abolish this principle could lead to great human tragedies, not least among refugees.
That is the majority view of the Green group.
As a Swedish EU critic, however, I myself represent a totally different view to Mr Bontempi and will therefore vote against the report.
I am in favour of all forms of cooperation, even in the area of justice, if they take place at intergovernmental level and do not infringe on or restrict national sovereignty or national democracy.
The overriding aim of the report is to establish a common European legal and judicial area.
That requires, among other things, a harmonization of criminal law, which would mean the abolition of national self-determination.
The main legal basis is an interpretation of a treaty which has not yet been ratified or entered into force, the Amsterdam Treaty.
I find that strange.
International organized crime is best tackled through international, global cooperation at an intergovernmental level and through a developed cooperation such as in Interpol.
Madam President, I would first of all like to say that I fully support Mr Schulz' preliminary comments.
This said, with regard to the content of the report, it is clearly understood that European cooperation is particularly legitimate when it proves to be more effective than action on the part of individual states.
And with regard to judicial cooperation this is precisely the case.
In order to fight transnational crime, it is clear that we need greater cooperation, albeit simplified, in the legal sphere, particularly in order to facilitate the work of the judicial authorities in the different Member States.
It is very important that judicial authorities should be able to relate directly to each other, and that the Rules of Procedure are simplified in terms of the exchange of information, documents and so on.
Of course, this must take place within the boundaries of respect for constitutional regulations and general principles of law.
Thankfully, within the European Union all Member States respect the rule of law which, in turn, respects the rights of the individual.
In this regard it is time that Member States showed less reticence towards accepting the respective legal systems of Members of the Union.
Mr Bontempi's report has the considerable advantage of not clinging to grand principles but of being, on the contrary, very concrete, realistic and pragmatic.
This approach seems to be the best one in an area which is very sensitive with regard to sovereignty, the rights of the individual and, of course, the rights of the defendant.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations will clearly support this report.
On the other hand, we cannot support the rapporteur with regard to the issue of a European prosecution service, which we believe would only complicate procedures rather than simplifying them.
Madam President, the increasing levels of international crime make it necessary to consider ways of putting a stop to this trend.
The different material and judicial requirements, the complicated provisions of mutual judicial assistance arrangements and the stipulation for punishment in both countries are cited as the cause of problems in connection with cross-border criminal proceedings.
As a practitioner of many years' standing, I support any simplification of intergovernmental relations but because of historical and cultural differences I do not expect anything at all will be gained by harmonizing substantive criminal law.
Unlike Mr Pirker, and Mr Rübig who stood in for him today, we do not want to ask the Austrians, who in any case have been deprived by their government of their favourite toy, "bearer savings books' , in order to combat money laundering, to give up sovereignty in the field of substantive criminal law or redefine the concept of sovereignty.
The demand made in recital K of the report to relinquish dual prosecution and scrap dual punishability indicates a misunderstanding and a misleading confusion of the two terms and a failure to appreciate the principle of the deputizing of the administration of international criminal justice.
To sum up, I do not see any need either to harmonize substantive criminal law or for a state prosecutor with Europe-wide jurisdiction but rather a need for some form of improved cooperation between prosecuting authorities.
Madam President, firstly, I congratulate my colleague, Mr Bontempi, on his report on judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
The EU has seen the creation of the single market: free movement of goods, services, capital and people.
In the words of a dead Chinese philosopher: ' We have seen a hundred flowers bloom' .
Unfortunately many of them have been nasty weeds.
There is increasingly a European single market for the free movement of stolen goods: cars, for example; illegal services - prostitution; dirty capital waiting to be laundered in other Member States; illegal immigrants smuggled in by organized criminal gangs.
And yet we have a two-speed Europe.
While the EU has been pushing ahead with many areas of activity - social policy, environmental policy, economic and monetary union - it has been curiously backward in the harmonization of legislation and practice in judicial and policing areas.
Europol has been a success, but at a very small scale.
It has worked very effectively at exchanging information across the European Union with respect to drugs trafficking, but it has not been extended to cover other areas: terrorism, racism, organized crime.
We need progress.
What distresses people in the European Union is that in spite of the single market, in spite of the European Union, cross-border crime and cross-border criminals continue to escape their punishment.
Murderers, thieves and embezzlers are hiding within the interstices of European law.
Common legal standards are not enough.
We want a common standard of justice.
What irritates European Union citizens are cases like that of Keith Cottingham, in the United Kingdom, a suspected letter-bomb murderer - accused of murdering a housewife, Barbara Holmes - who, for the last 14 years has been living in Spain.
For the last four years he has been living in Spain without a passport - it has expired!
But despite that fact, the British police have been unable to extradite him to the United Kingdom to face the courts.
European Union citizens will not take seriously a single market or a single judicial area while that sort of thing continues to happen.
Madam President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Bontempi on his report.
In the context of this debate, I am taking the opportunity to raise what is, mercifully, still a relatively small area of activity which has in recent years been criminalized.
I refer in this case to the transnational abduction of children by their parents and also the increasing problem of transnational abduction of children by criminal means.
The fact that we are dealing here very often with delicate family matters is very often used by local police forces as an excuse not to become involved in these cases - that these are family matters and should be left to the lawyers to sort out.
But behind the reluctance of police forces to implement court orders on the custody of children in one country when they are abducted into another Member State, very often lies the potential for great tragedy.
Two weeks ago I spent the entire weekend and most of the week trying to negotiate for the handover of children who had been illegally abducted from the United Kingdom and taken to Italy.
If the police had acted as they should have done four months earlier this situation would not have deteriorated to one where the children's lives were at risk and where the parent who had abducted was threatening to burn down the house.
Unfortunately we have to make this a criminal offence because of the frequent reluctance of people to obey court orders where children and the custody of children are concerned.
For that reason I would like to take this opportunity, even though I know the subject is probably more appropriately dealt with in the report on marital cooperation in legal issues which we will be dealing with at the next part-session.
This is, however, a criminal offence, and I would like to see considerably more cooperation between the police forces in all our countries.
Madam President, globalization and the opening of the borders within the European Union have presented us with a problem.
The creation of a single market for the free movement of goods, services, capital and people turn out to have a darker side: increased transnational crime.
This is recognized by both those in favour of and those against a federal Union.
But where are we seeking the solution for the problem?
It is a pleasant experience to find in Mr Bontempi's report a realistic, clear tone.
Even though we take a different line on how the European Union should develop further, we are pretty much on the same wavelength with respect to judicial cooperation in criminal matters.
The judicial area touches the heart of the Member States' sovereignty.
Individual criminal justice systems, and how punishment is imposed and enforced, have over the centuries developed individually in each Member State.
They are tied up with the Member State's view of its constitutional arrangements and its cultural achievements.
As far as I am concerned, this can - and should - not be simply jettisoned in favour of further integration towards European union.
Priority must be given to everyday, practical cooperation leading to quick results.
This report rightly points to this.
Direct initiatives to stop the current growth in organized crime are needed.
In this, I do not shrink from the harmonization of certain notions such as "fraud' .
Mr Bontempi's report offers a basis for proceeding with practical, judicial cooperation in the field of criminal matters, whilst keeping the sovereignty of the Member States in this sensitive area intact.
This report therefore meets with my approval.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Work of ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1997
The next item is the debate on the annual report (A4-0080/98) by Mr Robles Piquer, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the results of the work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1997.
Madam President, Commissioner, the Joint Assembly as usual met twice in 1997 - in Brussels and in Lomé - for its 25th and 26th sessions.
The report I have the privilege of presenting summarizes these meetings.
The report is, of course, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and I would just like to highlight the ten points I believe are most important.
Firstly, we emphasized the Joint Assembly's contribution to the Lomé Convention, and asked therefore that the Joint Assembly be made institutionally independent.
Secondly, we asked for the European Development Fund, to which all Europeans contribute, to become part of the EU budget.
I believe that this is an extremely logical request.
In addition, we called for the necessary solidarity between the North and the South of our planet in view of the inevitable advance of globalization.
Fourthly, we also made the reasonable request that the Joint Assembly should have the opportunity to state its views on future EU-ACP links, particularly as regards the Fifth Lomé Convention.
We also called on the members of the Joint Assembly Bureau, in point 8, to carry out a study on possible alternatives to the current voting system.
We believe that this is very important, and that it is now time to move away from the somewhat absurd situation in which we find ourselves, that is, where we have two separate electoral colleges: the Europeans on one side and the ACP countries on the other. We should instead combine these to have one single electoral college, which is based not on territorial differences but on the individual and personal traits of the members of the Joint Assembly.
It can of course continue to use, depending on the topic, either secret or open votes, but we believe that the European members, to whom we are directing this, should urge their colleagues in the ACP countries to implement this change in regulation.
I would also like to point out that we want to support and do support everything said at the United Nations conferences which affects us, and I hold up Mrs Junker's excellent general report as proof of this.
We particularly underlined the importance of women's rights and pointed to education, health and women's participation in decision-making processes as examples.
We stated that we must pay particular attention to urban development.
In the ACP countries, as in the developed world, cities and urban conglomerations are becoming larger and more numerous.
Moreover, while considering future needs, we should pay as much attention as possible to environmental problems, such as the disposal of waste and the promotion of renewable energy sources.
In addition, the ACP countries should understand - and we are calling on them to do so - that the European Parliament is particularly concerned with defending the values of democracy and the rule of law. The defence and active acceptance of these values are an essential precondition for peaceful coexistence and economic progress.
Parliament should therefore realize that issues such as the location of meetings have a political value in themselves. The previous debate at the Lomé session was very intense due to the abnormal conditions - to put it mildly - that are prevalent in terms of the internal politics of that country, the country where the Lomé conventions were born.
There is no doubt that, for example, the fact that our ACP colleagues did not vote for a very moderate resolution, which only involved a request for free elections, caused a certain frustration on our part, as Europeans, and it was undoubtably influenced by the topographic factor of the location of the meeting.
My final point was a suggestion that the Commission should study with interest the possibility that the aid granted to third countries could maybe be managed by a coordinated service for the allocation of development aid. The ACP countries are very relevant in this respect since there are many of them and they receive a significant amount of aid.
In other words - if I may use a clear analogy - we should establish something similar to the ECHO office which could be used for development.
These are the most important points in the motion for a resolution adopted by the Committee on Development and Cooperation which I have had the privilege to present to the House.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the Joint Assembly is a body that is a forum for discussion and this must be particularly stressed as it is the only model in which development cooperation, which is the link to the principle of parity, is monitored by Parliament.
This in turn gives us the opportunity to discuss its decisions here in Parliament as well and to draw the appropriate conclusions from them.
I should like to refer to the general report which occupied us in two sittings last year.
It was a great pleasure and honour for me to be the general rapporteur and find out and monitor the outcomes of the big UN conferences - ranging from the education conference which was held in Thailand to the recent conference in Rome on food security - and to monitor what happened and what was still outstanding.
All of this can also be seen as part of the subject that likewise kept us busy last year and will continue to do so, namely the future of the Lomé Convention.
There has been a continuous development of the content of the Lomé Convention right up to the present convention, which also has weaknesses.
These weaknesses must be remedied.
Mr Robles Piquer's report also contains proposals which should be welcomed so that some constructive work can be done.
Happily, it has been possible in these past few years to define the role of women as a key role for development; we were able to intensify this work in joint assemblies and it has been a thread passing through the entire ACP cooperation.
The emphasis must be increased in this direction.
There is now great unanimity on this point but the practical activities leave a lot to be desired.
We can convince ourselves of this on a regular basis when we spend some time in ACP countries and take a look around.
There is still much to be done to involve the ordinary people and this means above all giving women a role and letting them participate in the development processes of ACP cooperation - all the way from planning via implementation to evaluation.
Women have the decisive role in all the issues that contribute to the security of daily life including, above all, food security and health security.
In our practical work it must be made clear that no measures may be taken that result in the marginalization of others; this is prepared for by all the discussions we hold, by the working groups that are set up and by all the activities in which the partner countries of the European Union and the ACP community take part.
This situation can arise very easily.
For example, changes in trading patterns conceal the danger that women in particular are excluded from small business and their earning power is diminished.
They do not have as much access to the formal sector and are often thrown back on the informal sector.
The problem is the same as in Europe; ultimately they are also responsible for the home and family and are therefore restricted in their choice of occupation.
Measures must be taken here to compensate for this and, when all is said and done, the best advisors there can be are the women in these countries themselves.
We are well on our way.
We have included this in all the areas that have been discussed, ranging from environmental issues, via issues of preventive health care and economic development to human rights.
In the meantime some very intensive consultation is taking place to find ways of applying human rights as women's rights, of understanding democratic rights in such a way that the equal participation of women is carried through in all of society's decision-making processes - in our ACP partner countries as well.
Madam President, for all its faults and the criticism it receives from various quarters, there are few conventions that have been as long-running and successful as the Lomé Agreement between the European Union and the ACP nations.
As we move forward to the year 2000, and structural changes to the Lomé organization, we can also look back at its successes and failures and build a stronger, more efficient partnership for the future.
I would therefore strongly support everything in Mr Robles Piquer's report on the work of the Joint Assembly.
The only real physical links we MEPs have with ACP members are during the Joint Assembly meetings and on fact-finding visits afterwards.
We are often criticized by the media for these Joint Assembly meetings in developing countries but I would strongly suggest you can learn more in a week on the ground looking at projects than you can learn in a year in a committee in Brussels.
This report sets out the work carried out by the Joint Assembly over the past year and gives the reader an insight into the huge variety of work done by the members.
It stresses the importance of partnership on equal terms. It stresses the importance of our ACP partners having a real input into any future organization post-2000.
It calls for the EDF to be budgetized in order that genuine parliamentary monitoring can be applied, not only to the allocation of its appropriations but to the implementation as well.
It is a sad fact that one third of the way through 1998 there are two countries that have still to ratify the 1995 Lomé IV(2) Agreement.
As yet, no national indicative programmes can be started.
That is ridiculous.
I would plead with the Commission to try to overcome this hold-up.
We must cut the red tape.
The report highlights one area of the Joint Assembly meetings that does need improving and that is Question Time to the Council and the Commission.
Like Question Time here I find it dull, long-winded and lacking in sparkle.
This needs to be looked at for future sessions.
The report also looks at the location of our last Assembly.
I can only hope that our visit to Lomé hastens its rapid return to full democracy and respect for human rights as I was one of those extremely hesitant to support visiting there.
The future of the Joint Assembly is vital to the linkage between the European Union and the ACP developing nations.
If we move to a regional-based organization, representatives from those regional bodies must become part of the Joint Assembly and we should look at having regional conferences.
This is an excellent report and deserves unanimous support.
Madam President, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Robles Piquer, for his excellent work, because he has managed to develop important arguments that relate to the future of relations between the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific and the EU.
I have to stress several points made in the report, particularly the fact that it confirms that the enhancement of women's rights and their adequate participation in all decision-making and political processes form an essential premise for making progress in the field of development, which implies, among other things, literacy measures and access to training and basic health services.
I am also satisfied that the importance of the signature of an international agreement to prohibit anti-personnel mines, as requested by the Joint Assembly at its 24th meeting, has been emphasized.
The recommendation made to the Commission to urgently bring forward the project studying the creation of a service responsible for coordinating aid for third countries, mainly comprising the ACP countries, is of particular importance.
I should also point out the work carried out by the working party, of which I am chairman, with regard to the consequence of the climate changes on the small island states.
I would remind you that, at the moment, they are changing from great heat to great cold, with no mid-season, that in spring and autumn they alternate between very high temperatures, like those of July, and very low temperatures, like those of January, and that the winds are strong and sometimes devastating.
I would also remind you that El Niño will strike hard and scientists are forecasting great disasters.
The whole of the southern hemisphere has been harshly affected by flooding and drought, with epicentres situated close to South Africa, Borneo and Sumatra, where huge fires have spread, capable of destroying a vast part of the forests.
High flooding has scourged south-east China and the western coasts of Mexico and California further north.
In the central regions of Africa, the difficult environmental conditions caused by the rain have given rise to an increase in diseases, such as malaria and cholera, with the deaths of 4 000 people.
The working party has submitted a draft resolution, approved unanimously by the Joint Assembly which met in Lomé on 30 October 1997, on the ACP-European Union cooperation, in view of the Conference of the Parties to the UN framework agreement on climate changes held in Kyoto in December 1997.
The object was for the Assembly to also indicate what the EU had proven.
Progress was certainly made on environmental matters at the Kyoto Conference in recognizing world intervention; nevertheless, the protocol contains results that may be considered sufficient, but not satisfactory, which we obviously have to point out.
The working party is still endeavouring to assess the effects and social and economic implications of the climate changes and the rise in sea level on the small ACP island states and propose a strategy to increase the knowledge at international level of the dangers such changes may involve.
The climatic variability and the rise in sea level cause the erosion of the coasts and the small ACP island states are particularly concerned because they are far more vulnerable than the others at economic, social and cultural level.
That is why this working party has dedicated particular attention to this.
Madam President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Robles Piquer on his report.
Something that was a dull and unexciting event for years is now, thank goodness, very different.
A clear attempt has been made, and a successful attempt at that, to arrive at changes in the way the Joint Assembly operates, in which we, Mr Robles Piquer and I, have been trying to keep our heads above water for years.
Of course, like Mr Corrie, I attach great importance to the existence of the Assembly.
That is why I admire the courage of the rapporteur to offer criticism, difficult criticism in a Joint Assembly.
We should get rid of block voting in the Joint Assembly.
A single electoral college might offer a solution.
The split vote divides the ACP countries and the European countries into two camps.
It is the exact opposite of what we strive for in a Joint Assembly.
This practice has meant that we have not been able to accept the rather sharp and appropriate resolutions on Nigeria, Congo, and Togo.
The Assembly must not and should not be allowed to continue to think in two halves.
The entire ACP cooperation is aimed at long-lasting development.
This means good governments , democracy, respect for human rights and assistance in complying with respect for human rights, on both sides.
ACP cooperation can be halted if this does not happen.
For this, practical measures must be worked out.
I hope, Madam President, that the Joint Assembly can be strengthened through procedural modifications, and I can also see that, with the growing significance political dialogue will be accorded in the ACP over the coming years, strengthening the Joint Assembly will become an issue for discussion, and that this will be achieved.
Maybe in a few weeks time we will have the opportunity, Mr Robles Piquer, to discuss your report in a smaller group, with what might be described as the opposition, although it is also our own side.
Madam President, I would like to join in the chorus of congratulations to Mr Robles Piquer for a very fine report.
I pay tribute to the commitment he has shown and that is shared by a number of colleagues in the Chamber today.
All of us who have become involved with the Joint Assembly have found it a very inspiring and uplifting experience.
It is an institution which has a lot to offer.
We wish that more of our colleagues could experience it at first hand.
The main value is the aspect of parity between the two sides.
However, I would urge caution on the idea of abolishing the right to call for separate votes between the ACP and the EU.
There is a danger that the one thing which keeps some of the ACP countries involved with the Assembly might be seen by them as a threat to their participation.
It is rarely used and with the secret ballot which we have introduced, perhaps we should leave things as they are.
I just mention that as a note of caution.
I have found that in the Joint Assembly there is a genuine respect for everyone's point of view and we should do nothing to upset or threaten that.
I support Mr Robles Piquer's call for help to restore and strengthen democracy, and to see that as a prerequisite for economic growth.
He and I were on the delegation to Ghana immediately after the last Lomé Assembly which was led by the distinguished Member for Leeds, Mr McGowan.
We had a very useful meeting in Ghana with the Speaker of the parliament and the Clerk to the House.
They shared with us the problems they had had in becoming a democracy again.
For me it was a very inspiring aspect of our visit that they were looking to us for help.
They asked what the European Parliament could do to help the Clerk - the Secretary-General of the parliament - and the members to become more expert in the procedures, which had rather fallen away.
I hope we will be able to do something in that particular regard, and to do something proactive, not just reactive, in the Joint Assembly in the future.
Madam President, the most striking point in this motion for a resolution is the difference of opinion in the Joint Assembly between the Members of the European Union and those of the ACP on human rights.
If what constitutes human rights is not viewed differently, then at least whether and how human rights violations are judged is viewed differently.
In order to prevent a small minority in the ACP group from vetoing the condemnation of a country, the rapporteur calls for a study to be conducted into possible alternatives to the current voting system in the joint Assembly.
I would like to add two comments to this.
Firstly, if the voting procedure is modified in the way proposed, then there is the risk that the effect of the Joint Assembly as a body for Members of Parliament of the European Union and ACP to meet, will decrease, because large groups can be outvoted on extremely important issues such a human rights.
What is a condemnation of Nigeria worth if this is happening against the will of the majority in the ACP countries? This question must weigh heavily when the voting procedure is reviewed.
Secondly, the resolution is one-sided as regards human rights, because a disagreement between the countries was not only about human rights violations.
According to the explanatory statement in the Robles Piquer report, the Members were unable to reach agreement on the rights of the unborn child.
The ACP countries rightly point to the rights of the unborn child. Abortion, which is performed in many Union Member States, is a flagrant violation of this right.
But this point does not feature in the resolution itself, and in the explanatory statement it is qualified by being described as the "conflict of views based on the usual ideological differences' .
Democracy and rule of law are rightly expressed in the resolution as an absolute condition for the continuation of development cooperation.
Let us listen to the ACP countries when they point to our violations of human rights.
Madam President, first of all we welcome the initiative, taken last February, with which the Council decided to change the existing procedure for the repayment of the debt contracted by the ACP countries: according to the National Alliance, this decision has certainly been made at an appropriate time because it enables most of these countries, in serious difficulties, not only on account of having to repay the debt but also the interest payable, to breathe a sigh of relief and face the most urgent reforms without delay and with greater calm.
The decision taken by the Council, backing the initiatives agreed by the Monetary Fund and by the Development and Cooperation Committees of the European Bank, clearly shows the obvious desire of the international financial community to bring the debt of the ACP countries to an economically more acceptable level.
The meetings held by the Joint Assembly last year, in Brussels and in Lomé, emphasized that only a consolidation of democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and a responsible use of resources will finally lead to the success of the development policy pursued within the scope of the ACP-EU cooperation.
From the point of view of environmental protection, we believe that the consequences of climate change, such as desertification and drought, should be prevented, and we should effectively combat the excessive growth rate of African cities, faced with a disorganized and unplanned urban development, particularly with regard to the health aspect but also the food and education sectors.
The criteria laid down at the Kyoto Conference, while hardly respecting the general requirements of reducing emissions and too obedient to the American diktat, constitute a valid approach to solving the problems of pollution and climate change, which the large powers will always make the small developing countries pay for.
With regard to human rights, the region of the Great Lakes but, in general, the whole of Central Africa, is faced with the theory of domination that can only be stopped if we manage to prevent conflicts by intervening in their causes, which always include economic crisis, violations of human rights and ethnic problems.
By adopting common positions in particular, supported and observed by all the ACP countries, we will be able to give the Joint Assembly the necessary credibility, as it will finally have understood that the EU considers democracy and the rule of law to be irreplaceable and necessary for the consolidation of a peaceful society and for the achievement of a sustainable development process.
Madam President, I wish to thank Mr Robles Piquer for emphasizing, yet again, the concept of partnership and how this is central to all our work in the Joint Assembly and, in particular, drawing attention in a very highprofile way to the system of voting that is in practice.
I agree with him entirely that it is not consistent with the objective of achieving that partnership.
It is up to us in the Joint Assembly to be seeking an overall view of the whole Joint Assembly on the important issues we face. We know that it would be inconceivable in this Assembly for the Spanish delegation, the German delegation or the British delegation to have some kind of veto on the decisions of this Assembly because of a system of voting in separate blocks.
It is a great service to emphasize this.
I also have some sympathy with what Mr Macartney has said about caution.
I feel that the case for what is described as a single college for voting, is not that we can, as Europeans, be explaining to our ACP colleagues what democracy and human rights and self-determination is about.
In this Assembly and the Joint Assembly we too often see European arrogance going mad.
Despite my complimentary remarks, I am not too happy with some of the wording in paragraphs 17 and 18 of the motion for a resolution, where phrases like 'the ACP partners must be made to understand' what the European views are on democracy.
Mr Blokland has made a very important point that we should not in any way give the impression that we want to impose views that are very specific European views.
I have reminded this Assembly before that we send delegations to many parts of the world.
We send them to ACP countries to ensure that principles, for example of one member, one vote is practised in elections.
Mr Robles Piquer knows that in this Assembly itself we have had an example fairly recently of a leader of a political group in this Assembly and, not so long ago, someone who became chairman of the Group of the European People's Party being involved in an exercise of abusing our voting system - a system which is sometimes, I am told, called 'playing the piano' in the European Parliament, where we have people pressing more than one button and pressing the buttons of absent friends.
Or for example when we emphasize voter education.
I was in Namibia for the independence elections.
There was a 97 % turnout in that election.
Across southern Africa it is usually over 80 %.
I was returned for my city with a 30 % turn-out.
Let us be very clear to maintain this partnership when we talk about human rights, democracy and self-determination.
These are not European values, they are universal values.
The more we make that clear in our work in the Assembly, the more we will achieve a real partnership.
Madam President, let me first of all congratulate Mr Robles Piquer for the quality of his report on the work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1997.
I would like to take up the basic issues in this report and in your discussion.
Mr Rapporteur, you firstly mentioned, as did a number of speakers - and particularly Mr Amadeo - the impact of the United Nations Conference on relations between the European Union and ACP countries.
I can assure you that the Commission has taken this dimension into account in the direction of relations between the European Union and ACP countries in the future.
I am, of course, thinking of the Junker report.
Furthermore, Mr Robles Piquer highlights the importance of respect for democracy and human rights in relations between the European Union and ACP countries, at a time when future cooperation between the EU and ACP countries is under discussion.
This demand must rightly be considered and supported.
In future relations between the ACP countries and the European Union, the Commission, as you know, is emphasizing the need to strengthen the political dimension of this partnership, by highlighting the importance of developing a true political dialogue between the two parties.
This political dialogue will consolidate respect for human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law.
For the Commission, the framework for this dialogue must be the ACP-EU Joint Assembly sessions.
This institution has shown itself to be the preferred forum for the defence of human rights.
Proof of this is in the active participation of ACP representatives during the debates on particular countries at the last Joint Assembly in Lomé in October 1997.
Mr Robles Piquer emphasizes the point that 99 % of ACP representatives at this meeting were democratically elected members.
The content of the debates was strengthened by this, whether it was a discussion on the situation in Togo or Nigeria.
Like your rapporteur, the Commission noted the quality of many of the ACP countries' speeches, talking frankly of the situation of their neighbours or contributing constructively to the debate.
The publicity that surrounded these discussions also helped to strengthen their democratic nature.
How do we strengthen the role of this Assembly even more? In this respect, the Commission proposes calling it a "Parliamentary Assembly' .
It is a question of confirming that this institution, unique in its kind, represents both the people of the European Union and of the ACP countries.
It is a necessity on which the Commission agrees with the rapporteur.
Similarly, the Commission understands the European Parliament's reservations regarding the voting system of two separate electoral colleges used by the Joint Assembly for sensitive issues. This was emphasized by the rapporteur as well as by Mr Bertens and Mr McGowan.
The Commission will thus support all efforts to ensure that the results of votes from this Assembly truly reflect the conclusions of a joint, open and constructive debate between European and ACP members.
However, a strengthening of the Joint Assembly will also be achieved through development of outside contacts, and we must therefore promote meetings with civil society partners.
Encouraging meetings between NGOs in both the North and the South, as Parliament has indeed done, is one way of strengthening democracy.
Meetings between people from the economic and social worlds must also be encouraged.
The Economic and Social Council is currently considering ways of intensifying contacts between the Joint Assembly and the economic, social and cultural players within the ACP countries.
The involvement of civil society will thus also be encouraged.
Let us also consider Members of Parliament at a regional level.
Regional meetings have already taken place between members of parliament from southern Africa and their counterparts in the European Union.
There must be more of these meetings.
We do not want to challenge the principle of holding two plenary sessions per year, but we should strengthen the role of national parliaments in relation to their public opinion.
My colleague Joâo de Deus Pinheiro often says that democracy is a process.
I believe that the Joint Assembly, which we should from now on call Parliamentary Assembly, is one of the best instruments at our disposal to accelerate and consolidate this process.
You also mentioned, Mr Robles Piquer - as did Mrs Baldi - the coordination of aid to the Third World.
Following your request, the Commission has decided to set up a joint service for the implementation of aid to the Third World.
I can also assure you, Mr Robles Piques, that a Commission document on urban development policy will be ready by the end of this year.
With regard to the budgetization of the EDF, the Commission is, of course, in agreement with Parliament.
You are giving your opinion on the future of EU-ACP relations and we have been looking forward to this.
Mrs Junker spoke in some depth on the rights of women and children in terms that the Commission agrees with.
Finally, in reply to Mr Corrie, concerning the two remaining countries to ratify Lomé IV, Belgium and the Netherlands, I believe that this is now progressing and that the President of the Commission and Mr Pinheiro have spoken to the governments in question regarding this.
Thank you very much, Commissioner de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Europe Agreement with the Czech Republic
The next item is the debate on the report (A4-0394/97/rev) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the draft Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and the Czech Republic, of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the necessary rules for the implementation of Article 64(1)(iii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement and Article 8(1)(iii) and (2) of Protocol 2 to the said Agreement on ECSC products (SEC(96)1568-8846/97 - C4-0383/97-96/0237(CNS)).
Madam President, being with each other is better than being against each other; cooperation within the framework of the Association Agreement is better than disputes in international organizations.
This could be the motto for the drafting of the common position which you have just quoted and which deals with the state aid granted by this associated country, the Czech Republic, to the steel industry among others.
Let me explain the problem we now have to deal with in this report with regard to the Czech steel industry.
About 12 % of all steel imports into the European Union come from the Czech Republic.
Production facilities in that country are particularly outdated and in need of modernization.
At present, measures to protect the environment are almost non-existent and energy consumption in this production process is almost three times greater than in the European Union.
The result is serious environmental damage in the border areas of the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.
On the other hand, the conditions imposed by the European Union on its own steel production call for compliance with strict emission standards. It is compulsory to install flue-gas desulphurization systems and exhaust gas filters when constructing or modernizing steel works.
These differences in environmental legislation between the European Union on the one hand, and the Czech Republic and other countries in central and eastern Europe on the other, as well as the granting of national subsidies can therefore bring about a widespread undercutting of existing steel prices in the European Union and result in an unfair competitive advantage for Czech steel which would inevitably lead to further anti-dumping measures by the European Union.
Therefore, at the Essen Summit in 1994 and again at the Cannes European Council in June 1995, it was proposed in the White Paper on preparation of the associated countries of central and eastern Europe for integration into the Internal Market of the Union to put an end to this conflict simply by implementing in these countries parts of the Community legislation relating to concentrations, anti-trust legislation, state monopolies and the state aids we are discussing here when their laws are being approximated to those of the European Union.
The uniform rules which would then also apply to the associated countries would make anti-dumping procedures superfluous and unnecessary; these should be replaced by appropriate implementing procedures in the Association Agreements.
In the Commission's proposal for a regulation before us today, residual customs duties applicable to the Czech Republic being now practically non-existent, state aids will only be acceptable to the European Union if they comply with their own rules as provided in Articles 92 to 94 of the EC Treaty on the prohibition of state aid.
In other words, the Czech framework legislation in this area must be adapted and to all intents and purposes converted to that of the European Union.
The European Union's state aid monitoring authority, the Commission, and the Czech Republic's monitoring authority, the Czech Ministry of Finance, are to work together in close consultation.
The harmonization of this Czech state aid legislation with that of the European Union can also serve as a model for the other Associated States of central and eastern Europe, namely Hungary, Poland, Slovenia as well as other countries where the following basic principles have been laid down clearly and unambiguously in specific provisions.
First, the EC Commission and the respective monitoring authority in the Associated Country are the central players in ensuring respect of the state aid provisions of the implementing rules in the Europe Agreement.
Second, the allocation of competences between the two authorities should be clear and coherent.
Third, the Commission should assist these authorities in the Associated Countries with state aid control by means of a performance monitoring system.
In other words, it should help them to help themselves, and create the same legal criteria in this area instead of reneging on these provisions in the event of a dispute.
The particular problems of a transition should be taken into account for a limited period but it should always be borne in mind when harmonizing legislation that the aim is to achieve approximation to the stricter environmental standards set by the European Union.
We are grateful to the Council for adopting the position put before us in the Committee on External Economic Relations that Articles 92 to 94 are the legal basis for these implementing rules, as they make consultation with Parliament compulsory.
I should like to ask Commissioner de Silguy explicitly to depart from the erroneous legal basis, Article 113, and join with Parliament and the Council in applying the only correct provisions, Articles 92 to 94, in the case of the other Associated Countries.
My family comes from the northern Bohemian town of Gablonz on the River Neisse, whose emblem is an apple tree.
On the one hand, the apple represents the trade war which the Czech Republic is currently conducting against EU apple exports, but on the other it also represents the sin which led to the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, and the infringement of competition rules, and to us anything that infringes the concepts of the legal community is also a sin.
However, I am very grateful to Mr Schwaiger for not adopting a paternalistic stance with regard to state aid in the coal and steel sector but calling for partnership, partnership with the Czech Republic, and in particular for taking account of environmental issues in the Czech Republic.
Totalitarianism was rife there for decades and it is necessary to repair the damage to the environment in the Iser and Giant Mountains, the Erz Mountains, the Beskids and the Bohemian Forest.
I am very grateful to him for wanting to meet the Czech Republic halfway and I would appeal to the Czech Republic to meet the European Union halfway as well by respecting competition rules and avoiding distortions of competition caused by granting state aid which goes against the spirit of Community law and the spirit of the Association Agreement.
Madam President, the Commission would like to thank the rapporteur for recommending that Parliament approves the implementing rules with regard to Czech state aid.
Parliament's approval will enable their final adoption by the European Union-Czech Republic Association Council and I am delighted with your report.
I must clarify, however, that for strictly legal reasons, as far as the Commission is concerned Article 113, remains the appropriate basis.
These implementing rules are a precondition for the harmonious development of exchanges between the Czech Republic and the Community.
That is why the Commission is insisting on the importance of a rapid adoption of these rules by the Association Council.
As the Commission's opinions on the eastern and central European countries' requests for accession show, there remains a great deal to be done in these Associated Countries in order to improve the monitoring of state aid.
Your introduction, Mr Schwaiger, and Mr Posselt's comments, demonstrate that there is a lot of work to be done within their industries in order to put them on a level with those of the Community, in terms of environmental standards, as well as rules of competition.
In its Agenda 2000 proposal, the Commission also highlights the importance of competition policy in the Associated Countries throughout the pre-accession stage.
By adopting these rules relating to state aid, the Union and the Czech Republic will conclude the implementation of the measures of the Europe Agreement in this field.
The Commission will ensure that the PHARE programme for 1998 and 1999 includes aid enabling the Czech authorities to monitor state aid and to come into line completely with European standards within a few years.
Finally, the Commission hopes that the implementing rules relating to state aid will be rapidly adopted by the other Associated Countries.
Thank you very much, Commissioner de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I have just 30 seconds to make a speech in French.
The Council has not answered the questions I put to it on 15 August, or Mrs van Bladel's questions.
So, could you please help us to obtain answers to our questions from the Council?
Mr Janssen van Raay, I quite agree with your request, and think it is a pity that there is no representative from Council present to hear you.
We will of course pass your request on to the Council, not only this time, but whenever necessary.
Madam President, I would just like to strike a certain balance by declaring that you are my favourite president.
I do not think that is really a procedural motion.
It has nothing to do with the Minutes either, although I am delighted to hear it.
Are there any other comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Votes
Madam President, it may be a little too late for this, but my group would like me to ask you to request the House to postpone this vote until the next part-session.
I believe there are a large number of Members who will not be in favour, and as things stand, a vote on an important report will take place with only a limited number of Members present.
Mr Rosado Fernandes, we have already had a debate on this subject. Circumstances have dictated that the vote has already started.
And I am very pleased to see that there are nevertheless a large number of us here to vote on this report, which is indeed very important.
On Amendment No 2
Madam President, I would like to propose an oral amendment that takes the debate and the observations made into account.
After "figure' , I propose that we insert "some type of European attorney' .
This tones down the proposal which, as many have rightly recalled, may have to be studied and tested.
So after "figure' , I would like to insert "some type of European attorney' .
This is the oral amendment resulting from our debate.
Are there any objections to this slight amendment?
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution) I should like to congratulate Mr Bontempi and to thank him for having been understanding with regard to this debate and vote, which have unfortunately been rather disjointed.
I give you my word that we will ensure that it does not happen again.
Madam President, yesterday afternoon and this morning we had a large number of roll-call votes.
There is a new ruling by the Bureau according to which only the roll-call votes up to Thursday noon are counted.
May I assume that the Members who took part in the roll-call votes yesterday afternoon and this morning will get a credit for this?
The Bureau will consider your proposal very carefully, Mr Tillich.
But I would like to point out that the political groups keep detailed records of attendance, and it will be very important for this to be done carefully, especially during the forthcoming elections.
I rise to advise Mr Tillich that he is wrong: the Bureau's instructions were Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday with no time limit set on Thursday.
Therefore the votes last night did count.
Mr Tillich had understood perfectly. That is why he has made a supplementary proposal.
I would merely like to point out to you that the system does not apply today.
Yes, exactly.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I was just contemplating Mr Tillich's excellent point.
Perhaps the Bureau could investigate whether those of us who have stayed here Monday to Friday can recoup some of the bonuses which are withdrawn from those who have not participated in the vote during Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
That would be an excellent way of encouraging Members to come here on Friday.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for a penetrating report.
I think the fight against cross-border crime is an important area which deserves greater attention in the European Union.
However, I would like to point out the importance of showing proper respect for the differences which currently exist between various Member States and their legal systems because of varying legal cultures and traditions, when considering harmonization in the area of justice.
For this reason I have difficulty supporting the proposal to establish a European prosecution service in accordance with the 'Corpus Juris' .
Criminal justice and criminal prosecution differ considerably from one Member State to another, and this is what prevents criminal prosecution taking place outside national borders.
Another obstacle to the harmonization of criminal justice and criminal prosecution is the internal reform by Member States of their judicial systems.
For a long time the Netherlands took no action, for instance, to issue an international warrant for the arrest of the former Surinam army commander Desi Bouterse, suspected of large-scale trade in cocaine.
Bouterse has managed to set up a network in the Netherlands, and has informants to tell him between which steps the judicial authorities are intending to take, and so he is always one step ahead of them.
These kinds of transnational criminal organizations are a threat to our rule of law.
Exchanges of civil servants are taking place in order to intensify cooperation between the Member States' judicial systems.
These exchanges only lead to improvement in cooperation with great difficulty.
Another source of weakness in the field of cooperation is that the training of judicial officers is highly inadequate in some Member States.
To conclude I would like to point out in connection with this report that, in order to enhance relations with countries outside the EU, it is important that both multilateral and bilateral treaties, such as the Convention on the transfer of executions of judgement, are signed, so that judicial cooperation with countries outside the Union can be fine-tuned as well.
We are regularly called upon to give our views on judicial and police matters.
Every report so far has been of high quality. The latest is no exception, which is exactly what we have come to expect from Mr Bontempi.
I am in favour of the proposed guidelines.
However, I would just like to add one thing to the text. If judicial authorities are to tackle contemporary forms of crime, it is essential that their financial margins be brought into line with the cost of instruments that enable them to operate efficiently.
I wholeheartedly approve Rinaldo Bontempi's wish to speed up ratification procedures for conventions within the EU.
Furthermore, I consider that we must also form and expand such relationships with countries outside the EU.
Crime, in all its forms, is becoming internationalized. The judicial authorities cannot afford to lag behind if they are to combat it.
Finally, corruption in public service is both a scourge and a danger, because it calumniates the vast majority of people holding public office who carry out their duties honestly and enthusiastically.
Ladies and gentlemen, in order to combat corruption, this House must rid itself of the far right wing, which is another form of social gangrene.
We have seen, in the recent decade, a significant loosening of our borders in the EU and the Schengen Agreement has opened borders on the continent.
Add to this the trans-border nature of the Internet and we can see how easily people, goods and information can move around in the Union.
While this has made the lives of European Union citizens easier, it has also made it easier for crime and criminals to cross our borders at will.
Unfortunately, the Union's ability to prosecute transnational crime has not been able to operate in a similar fashion.
While the Treaty of Amsterdam, as Mr Bontempi points out in his report, provides stronger recourse for the Union, we need to ensure that our law enforcement agencies can keep up with crime.
I support the rapporteur's call for more interaction between Member States' law enforcement agencies. I welcome his call to allow judicial authorities to speak to each other without diplomatic protocol.
We have removed the red tape from crime crossing our borders.
It is time to remove the red tape from binding those trying to prevent that crime.
We would like to point out that we are in favour of all forms of cooperation, even in the area of justice, if they take place at an intergovernmental level and do not impinge on or restrict national sovereignty or national democracy.
The overriding aim of the report is to establish a common European legal and judicial area.
That requires, among other things, a harmonization of criminal law, which would mean the abolition of national self-determination.
In order to achieve these objectives, there are also, for example, proposals to have uniform definitions of crimes, to permit advanced technical surveillance, such as via satellite or bugging, to recognize the role of the Court of Justice and to consider establishing a European prosecution service, which we strongly oppose.
The main legal basis is an interpretation of a treaty which has not yet been ratified or entered into force, the Amsterdam Treaty, which some may consider a rather strange legal basis.
International organized crime is best tackled through international cooperation at intergovernmental level and by developing cooperation through Interpol.
In view of the above, we have therefore voted against the report.
) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of developing judicial cooperation within the EU.
We have to work together better to deal with cross-border organized crime in the EU.
But we believe this should start with the existing instruments available in the third pillar. This is a good starting-point for future cooperation.
In the Amsterdam Treaty, we have defined and improved legal cooperation, and there is no reason to harmonize any further.
We are against standardization for standardization's sake.
The cultures, traditions and systems of individual countries must be respected, and any differences in penalties and evidence between Member States are not necessarily a problem.
We must ensure that criminals do not escape, and the best way of doing this is by improving practical cooperation between Member States.
The judicial authorities in the EU are already working together very well, which is something we can use in the fight against international crime.
We agree with the substance of the concerns expressed by the rapporteur, and share the view that crime, and particularly organized crime, is on the increase.
In the European Union, and indeed the rest of the world, the traffic in human beings, arms and nuclear materials is proliferating, as is large-scale corruption, fraud and economic and financial crime, which so often go hand in hand with drug trafficking.
We consider that, in preference to the new measures proposed by the rapporteur, it is necessary first and foremost to make the control measures and mechanisms stipulated in existing legislation effective and practical, in conjunction with further measures to be deliberated between Member States, including some proposed by the rapporteur.
Member States must assume responsibility, and encourage other countries to do likewise, for applying existing measures and other measures identified as being necessary to complement them, such as those that are expected to emerge with the imminent introduction of the euro, which, as one OECD body recently stated, "will open the door to the laundering of dirty money' , because tax havens and other forms of easy money benefitting organized crime can only be eliminated by adopting effective and bold measures.
However, we disagree with the proposals in the report concerning the means and scope for carrying out these projects.
They should be put into effect in the context of effective judicial cooperation between Member States of the European Union.
This can and should be promoted and strengthened by means of intergovernmental cooperation, particularly by simplifying procedures and even by approximating criminal law and legislative concepts, without necessarily leading to legal standardization or harmonization.
We cannot therefore agree with the emphasis on suppressing the explanations and reservations expressed by some countries about international conventions, since this right ensures that any country can, ultimately, protect its individual identity and defend its sovereignty.
Robles Piquer report (A4-0080/98)
I fully support the Robles Piquer report and in particular the call made in the report for sanctions against those developing countries that are wasting the benefits of aid by spending huge amounts on their military budgets.
As a first step we must ensure that European development aid, which is the main source of income and a major inspirational support for many developing countries, is not diverted and misused for military purposes.
In addition we must reduce or cancel European aid for those countries who refuse to reduce military spending and continue to spend more than 1 % of their annual income on arms and armies.
Civil wars in several parts of Africa, fuelled by huge spending on arms, are destroying the impact of development aid, making millions of people destitute and generating a massive refugee problem.
The time has now come, I believe, to inform the recipients of our development aid that excess spending on military budgets will be directly reflected in reduced development aid.
Of course food aid must not be restricted where famine exists or is threatened.
The Green Group in the European Parliament supports the report by Mr Robles Piquer on the work of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in 1997.
We also voted in favour of the proposal to draw up a rule to allow representatives of parliaments in overseas countries and territories (OCT) to participate in meetings of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly as permanent observers.
We are very pleased that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the ACP countries and the EU have now been granted observer status.
We believe that NGOs from ACP countries in particular have an important role to play in the struggle for greater democracy, fundamental human rights and the participation of citizens in development work.
NAFO - Monitoring the Common Fisheries Policy
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0086/98 by Mr. Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 3070/95 of 21 December 1995 on the establishment of a pilot project on satellite tracking in the NAFO Regulatory Area (COM(97)0671 - C4-0666/97-97/0346(CNS)); -A4-0019/98 by Mr Teverson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission report on monitoring the Common Fisheries Policy 1995 (COM(97)0226 - C4-0334/97).
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the framework of cooperation within NAFO, a pilot project on satellite tracking of vessels fishing in the regulatory area of this organization was agreed upon in September 1995. It was originally planned, in principle, that the project would be carried out between 1 January 1996 and 31 December 1997.
However, it was decided last December extend the pilot project by one year, until 31 December 1998.
The Commission is now consulting Parliament on that extension. In practice, there is no other alternative since this has already been approved within NAFO and it is now too late to put forward any objections.
We are therefore in favour of the proposal.
However, we believe that we should take this opportunity to look at the various current control and inspection systems used in the NAFO regulatory area. Many of these are experimental and their actual purpose should be explained to Parliament, since this is an area which, as you know, has become the most inspected and controlled on the planet.
We must also look at how the other NAFO contracting parties implement the various measures and if they enforce them to the same extent as the European Union, so that the EU can go to the NAFO annual meeting in September with a solid position supported by Parliament and so that a coherent, unified and comprehensive policy on tracking vessels in the NAFO area can be formulated.
The amendment approved in Parliament's Committee on Fisheries states that this House should support such a policy of accuracy and transparency.
We must also remember that the NAFO Convention regulates fisheries in an international high seas area, adjacent to Canada's Exclusive Economic Zone. This has always had an effect on relations, tensions and conflicts in the area.
After the "halibut war' , caused by the illegal seizure by Canada of the Community vessel Estai in international waters, a number of provisions were agreed upon bilaterally between the European Union and Canada, not without some difficulty, and subsequently at multilateral level in NAFO. As a result, the non-application of extraterritorial Canadian fisheries legislation in respect of Community vessels was also agreed upon.
Due to this conflict, new control measures were introduced at the request of the Canadians, and there is now an extensive inspection programme which includes the compulsory deployment of at least one inspection vessel for contracting parties with 10 or more vessels fishing in the NAFO area, as well as a dockside inspection at each port call.
The Hail transmission system is also compulsory, and each fishing vessel must carry an observer on board.
Similarly, each vessel should be equipped with the equipment required so that they can be tracked by satellite. This is a pilot project which has been extended and which, according to Commission reports, has required significant efforts on the part of the Commission and the Member States, which are partly responsible for the costs, which have risen to ECU 500 000, as 21 vessels have been equipped with the necessary technology.
It seems to be the right time to take another look at this situation and to find a system which does not discriminate against any fleet, which is applied equally across the board, which is operative and coherent, which ensures that systems do not overlap unnecessarily and which in time will have the necessary degree of stability.
Faced with this situation and the European Union's fulfilment of its obligations, we must also consider the fulfilment of bilateral, multilateral and international obligations by the other parties involved, particularly Canada.
Cooperation and good faith are at odds with the maintenance of extraterritorial legislation which has caused so much damage recently.
The greatest danger for fisheries and peace in the NAFO regulatory area, as you know very well, Madam Commissioner, comes from attitudes such as those of the Canadians and legislation, such as the current C-27, which continues to infringe international law in general, and the law of the sea in particular. They make bizarre interpretations of the New York Convention on transzonal species, they call into question the very regulations and functioning of the NAFO Convention and they rashly and unnecessarily flout the principle of good faith which has always been the hallmark of the European Union.
I therefore call on the Commission to intervene in this matter.
Madam President, the Common Fisheries Policy is without doubt the most important instrument for making sure that we have sustainable fish stocks throughout European Union waters.
As we all know, controlling fishing is one of the most difficult tasks.
A part of the problem is the severe mistrust between different national authorities - even, dare I say, among parliamentarians here - not least within the industry about which fleet is doing what and how well, and how the Common Fisheries Policy and its control mechanism are being applied.
These annual reports to Parliament - this is the second one - are an excellent idea.
When I first heard they were to be produced I was hopeful that we might cut through the misunderstandings and rumours and really find out how well the Common Fisheries Policy was being implemented.
We would find out how well the controls were working not only across the Union as a whole but between Member States.
Instead of this, for the second time we have a report that is full of tables and statistics which make it very dry.
These statistics are not comparable between different countries and are difficult to interpret. This means that there is no increase in trust or understanding between Member States or within the industry as to how well the industry is being controlled.
In fact, there is a long explanation of faults and problems and from the two annual reports so far there has been little if any sign of progress or improvement over that time.
Not only that, the report is very late.
This is the report for 1995 which means that we are well behind.
The main faults with this report are that the statistics are not comparable, there is no action plan to try to resolve the problems and no blame is apportioned as to why the Common Fisheries Policy is in the state that it is.
When it reviews the year in question, there has been no improvement and no measurement of the problems.
We all know that illegal fishing takes place and that there are illegal landings.
Yet, there is no attempt to quantify the size of the problem.
So, once again we are left with a report that has no teeth.
One of the real concerns to all of us engaged in the fishing industry, in particular parliamentarians here, is once again the absolute lack of political will by Member States to make this policy work.
If we do not make it work there is no chance of sustainable policies or a sustainable fisheries sector for the future.
That is something this House should be very concerned about.
In fact, the regulation demands that, following one of these reports, Member States should report back on what they have done to take matters forward.
There is no account of any Member State having come back to report after the previous report. No Member State has bothered to do that and that is of grave concern.
I would say to the Commission: Be brave; where there is blame, actually name. Let us name the Member States where the policy is not working.
Let us not be shy.
This report is supposed to make public the problems of the Common Fisheries Policy. We should talk about them.
The Commission has its own inspectors, professional people who understand what is going on. We should have some input from them as to what is really going on.
Let us not pretend that these statistics tell us something. The truth is that there are many problems out there.
My wish is that future reports be on time, that they be clear about where the problems lie and that they be forward-looking.
I wanted to see an action plan come out of this and I am delighted to say that since this report the Commission has produced one. It was published in February and in due course will come to Parliament.
However, although this report goes through all the problems we know but does not quantify them, I hope it represents the start of a new chapter.
This report was an opportunity lost but I hope that the action plan which Parliament has yet to discuss will be a start for real reform.
Madam President, I would like to talk about the Teverson report.
Anyone who looks at the Commission's report can only agree with the rapporteur.
We ought to be extremely worried that since the first report was published a year ago there has been no improvement in controls, and that the political will of the Member States is evidently lacking.
But it is also regrettable that the Commission's report is so feeble and meaningless.
It almost gives the impression that the Commission just wants to relieve itself of a burdensome duty. It is too passive and too hesitant, whereas definite action is what is needed.
For instance, the Commission absolutely must give the Member States clearer rules about what kind of information they are to provide, so as to obtain uniform information, because comparable information can only be obtained if this is done.
Otherwise, the end result will be a report which begs more questions than it answers.
An action plan for improving controls by the Member States is also necessary, covering all sectors of the Common Fisheries Policy, including marketing channels, for instance.
An essential goal of this action plan should be to encourage cooperation between Member States, but also between them and the Commission.
However, the Commission will not be able to avoid giving serious consideration to harmonizing sanctions, because only deterrence provides protection against infringement, and only uniformity of sanctions can help to make the monitoring activities credible to the fishermen of the various Member States.
Credibility is also the key word of my last comment.
I would particularly like to highlight one sentence in Mr Teverson's report: ' The Commission's annual report about control of the Common Fisheries Policy should contribute essentially to maintaining its credibility.'
I fear that this Commission report has not quite lived up to this.
Madam President, we can only overcome conflicts by working together.
The Varela report also says as much.
In view of the disagreements between the EU and Canada, which at their climax in March 1995 resulted in an infringement of international law, the present decision by NAFO must be particularly welcome.
Extending the pilot project for satellite location of fishing vessels in the NAFO regulatory area has set the course for a calm sea in terms of international fisheries policy.
This was probably also the reason for continuing the project.
Which is a good thing, because it can consolidate the present peaceful situation.
Our goal must be to introduce compulsory satellite monitoring of specified fishing vessels in the NAFO regulatory area.
This is required anyway for monitoring stock conservation measures.
We shall be voting next week in the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the first Commission communication on the introduction of a European satellite navigation system for air traffic.
This technology is necessary for Europe and is impressive, and not just in my opinion.
As far as the NAFO area in concerned, three years are enough to make a decision about satellite monitoring.
This decision is urgently required, because at the NAFO annual meeting in September this year a uniform EU line on monitoring and enforcement in the fisheries area should be adopted.
The Committee on Fisheries therefore supports Amendment No 1, because creating uniform monitoring systems in the NAFO area is a further step towards a conflict-free future.
Likewise, the Commission's report on monitoring carried out in that area should finally enable us all to draw conclusions.
Parliament and the Commission are therefore asked to act accordingly.
Turning to the Teverson report, it is certainly true that it is time we had definite and comprehensible monitoring methods for the Common Fisheries Policy.
What is the use of laws and agreements if they are not socially effective? Many of my visitors are amazed that people smoke everywhere in this Parliament, although there are many signs forbidding it.
And what do we see on the European seas? There are no signs, but we all know about the directives on the Common Fisheries Policy.
But they are often ignored, or are inadequately implemented or monitored.
The credibility of a whole system is called into question by such behaviour.
It will only be possible to prevent over-fishing if fisheries activities are tightly monitored and effective sanctions are introduced. It would be even better, as the Commission says, if support - including financial support - were given to those Member States which act responsibly, and the number of them is increasing, thank goodness.
In addition to this principle of carrot instead of stick, a detailed Commission action plan would help to improve the situation. We wait for it to be formulated.
In its report, the Commission praises the cooperation between Member States with the aim of achieving more effective monitoring.
However, it is an open secret that some Member States unfortunately still have the wrong attitude to fisheries policy.
But otherwise, our work would remain unloved and ignored, like the notices forbidding smoking here in Parliament.
Madam President, the Commission's report on the monitoring of the Common Fisheries Policy in 1995 does not make for very pleasant reading.
Some are being selfish when it comes to exploiting common fish stocks.
Some Member States fail to respect jointly agreed regulations, and continually condone quota violations and other offences.
Mr Teverson has dealt frankly with these problems in his report and called for stern action.
I would like to thank him for a bold, impartial and unbiased account.
Fishing is distinct from other means of livelihood in that fish stocks cannot be increased.
The current measures target the conservation of stocks already in existence and their proper use.
The methods used in the Common Fisheries Policy are thus mainly of a restrictive nature, and they cannot do anything to add to the resources we already have.
As fishing activity is concentrated at sea, in scattered locations, it is difficult to supervise. But it becomes all the more difficult if one Member State does not wish to play ball.
The EU's resources in this area are limited.
The regulations in force are complicated and technically difficult to monitor.
Although various schemes have been and are being developed, the results are not very good.
There is mistrust between the major fishing nations.
The way things have gone up till now shows that complicated regulations are threatening to lead to deadlock.
The Liberal view is thus that the regulations should be simple, effective, and easy and cheap to monitor.
The Common Fisheries Policy can succeed in the future only if it has the genuine support of Member States.
More regulations, bureaucracy and intensive surveillance can never be enough to maintain a successful policy.
That is why the future of the fisheries policy depends on whether we really want to improve on it or not.
Fish is an important and nutritious food source.
Stocks must therefore be protected against overfishing and be kept at a good level, for future generations as well as our own.
Madam President, the basic aim of the Common Fisheries Policy is a system of sustainable fish stocks.
There are problems in the Mediterranean caused by drift-net tuna fishing, which is damaging natural resources.
In the Nordic countries we have a special problem, which is economic, ecological, and also linguistic.
It is about salmon fishing.
So-called natural salmon are born in certain catchment basin areas, live in the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, and return to the rivers to spawn.
Owing to their characteristic gene structure these salmon are known as natural salmon. They are classed as an endangered species by the EU.
Apart from natural salmon, the Baltic is inhabited by salmon which have been introduced there, and which do not have the same prized gene-value as the original natural salmon.
Their main prey and source of food is fished using drift nets in the southern parts of the Baltic, but increasing numbers of natural salmon on their way to breed are finding their way into the same nets, and now natural salmon only account for about 10 % of the total salmon population in the Baltic Sea.
The Finnish government is asking the Commission to make an exception of the Baltic in its general ban on drift nets.
That way they are seeking to steer the Finnish salmon prey towards the thirty or forty mainly Åland Island crews at the cost of losing the natural salmon gene stock and effectively destroying salmon fishing in rivers.
If, however, the natural salmon get back to the rivers to breed, they will be twice as large, measured by weight, as the salmon caught at sea alongside the introduced salmon.
The UK, which now has the presidency, must set in motion a determined policy to ban drift-net fishing once and for all, at the conference of Fisheries Ministries at the end of the month.
We must then have reports on the monitoring of the Common Fisheries Policy.
Because this is a Community matter, the Commission must insist on a common principle to apply when governments, and in this case it is mine, violate the policy.
Madam President, we support the report of Mr Teverson and the conclusions he comes to.
We endorse the resolution, especially the comments about the lack of overall analysis, and criticisms by the Commission of the Member States and the lack of progress in monitoring the marketing channels.
As I found out when I was rapporteur on the report for the same subject for 1994, the level of surveillance and control of EU vessels varies widely from one country to another, but nowhere at all is it satisfactory.
The Member States apparently lack the political will to fulfill their obligations. This is a major problem.
If the Member States cannot do what they are supposed to do, then the Commission should get tough with them and consider legal ways of encouraging them to act.
At the end of the day maybe we should consider whether surveillance should become a Community responsibility, because at the moment Member States are not fulfilling their obligation.
It is quite clear that there is a lack of political will there, and something has to be done about it.
Madam President, today we are again dealing with the serious issue of natural resources management.
The dispute between Canada and the EU arose in 1995 when fish stocks emigrated outside the Canadian 200 nautical mile exclusive zone and the Canadians decided to protect those fish stocks in extra-territorial waters.
Unlike the majority of colleagues in this Parliament at that time I fully agreed with the measures taken by the Canadians.
I still believe that the Canadians were right because fish do not realize where the 200-mile zone ends and international waters begin.
Today I am happy that this conflict was resolved around the negotiating table.
Canada agreed on the non-application of extraterritorial fisheries legislation in international waters of NAFO.
Also, several control measures have been agreed upon, amongst them an agreement that each vessel be equipped with a satellite tracking system.
That is what we are discussing today.
My group fully supports the pilot project which has been carried out on satellite tracking.
We think satellite tracking is a serious control measure to prevent over-fishing.
We therefore fully endorse the recommendations from Mr Varela SuanzesCarpegna and Mr Teverson, who we congratulate for reaching unanimity in the Committee on Fisheries.
Madam President, the credibility of the Common Fisheries Policy stands or falls with an effective monitoring policy on the part of all Member States.
The Commission's annual report on monitoring activities in the Member States therefore fulfils a useful function.
But to get a good picture of the intensity of the monitoring done by each Member State, reporting will have to improve considerably.
The report for 1995 offers no more than offering an interesting survey of the various inspection activities in the Member States.
It is not possible to compare the effectiveness of Member States on the basis of this report.
The monitoring systems vary too much and the way the results are presented in the Commission report is too restricted.
The description of actual offences in the report is very brief.
Such information is extremely important to get a good picture of the scale of the problem.
Some Member States do not issue any information on fishery offences at all, whilst others only mention the number of offences, without giving any indication as to the nature of the offence.
Most Member States leave out all details of the fines and penalties they have imposed.
Without advocating European criminal justice, I would like to point to the need to maximize approximation of sanctions imposed by different States as far as possible.
The deterrent effect ought to be comparable throughout the entire Union.
Finally, the problem of illegal landings.
It is important that these are charted better.
There is a serious suspicion that large quantities of fish are landed illegally in a number of Member States, bypassing the quotas.
At the end of 1996 the BBC reported that in the United Kingdom a quarter of all fish reaches the shore illegally.
Up until the present moment the Commission has neither confirmed nor denied this report.
But systematic controls when the fish is landed, combined with a reporting obligation, are needed in many other countries.
In Member States with many harbours, this will lead to organizational problems.
The problem is serious enough, however, to warrant considerable stepping-up of monitoring.
Madam President, I would like to make five points to the Commissioner concerning Mr Teverson's report on the Commission report on monitoring the Common Fisheries Policy.
Firstly, I would like to consider the timing.
In other words, this report is from 1995 and we are now in March 1998. I would like to know if, for 1999, the Commission could join together 1996, 1997 and 1998 in a single report so that we could consider the situation as quickly as possible.
Secondly, Madam Commissioner, the report has not, in fact, given us that much information since what the Commission has done, or the Commission's services have done - as can be seen on pages 10 to 59 - is to collect the national information, put it in a file and bring it along.
The Commission only drew up pages 3 to 8-5 pages - and then only some basic tables.
I will give you an example of how basic they are, which I hope will not be unpleasant. In one of these, it states that "there are 30 inspectors in Spain' .
And, in a footnote - No 4 - it adds: "to this figure, which corresponds to the national inspectors situated in Madrid, must be added 232 inspectors working for the autonomous communities' . In other words, there are 252 inspectors instead of 30.
In addition, as regards Italy, it states: "in theory, 5 200 people are involved in some type of fisheries inspection' .
Given that fishing is not a very important activity in Italy, this gives the impression that each individual fish is inspected by an Italian. I do not actually believe this to be true.
Therefore, I call on the Commission to ensure that the next report is more uniform, and that at least the information is clearer.
Thirdly, there is a lack of Community controls.
What concerns me is that not only is there no Community monitoring, but all the conclusions, which can be found on the last page of the report, are aimed at cooperation between countries. In other words, it supports monitoring on the part of the states.
Entrusting fisheries countries with the monitoring of their own fisheries is the same as asking hunting organizations to monitor their own hunters.
This will not be possible, and it is a point which we would like to make very clear.
Fourthly, there is a lack of funding.
This is rightly conceded in the Commission's report, which states: "as a consequence of fraud, between ECU 7 000 million and ECU 8 000 million is lost every year' , while we spend ECU 300 million on monitoring.
In other words, if we spent more, we would save money.
The question is whether or not it is possible to increase funding to maintain these monitoring activities - I know the Commissioner is going to tell me that the budgetary power lies with Parliament.
To end on a positive note, Madam Commissioner, these new systems are beneficial. The satellite monitoring systems and even NAFO's control system which Mr Varela talked about are all very constructive.
I disagree with Mr Varela on one point and that is that Mr Varela is calling for another report on NAFO.
Would it not be possible to have in the near future a comprehensive report which would mean that, rather than having different reports, we would have only one which would include NAFO and the new systems?
Madam President, I accept Mr Teverson's report as a very honest effort to state clearly the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries.
I listened very carefully to Ms McKenna.
I was interested to note that while she continuously opposes the existence of the European Union, this morning she wants to give it more competence in the area of policing the seas. I certainly agree.
As someone who is interested in the image of the European Union, I sometimes wish we did not have the responsibility of the Common Fisheries Policy.
We could have made it into something useful for the European Union. It could have been a little gem of achievement.
All we can say, I suppose, is that European Union fishermen have not been sinking each others' boats or killing each other in fights over fish, as they have done in some parts of the world.
Apart from that, it has largely been a failure.
There are two considerations. One is environmental: the health of the seas.
The other is economic. We could have improved the marine environment considerably and at the same time, we could provide, at least for the future, a better livelihood and greater profits for fishermen.
But it seems we have ignored all the warnings.
When we come here and complain about fraud in the area of Community spending we get satisfaction, figures and action, but never in the area of fishing.
I do not blame the Commission.
It is entirely due to the lack of political will in the Member States and the lack of trust that exists between fishermen and governments.
We have to try a lot harder at European Union level if we are to convince everybody.
If one fish is found dead in a stream, lake or inland waterway anywhere in the European Union, there is war; someone is taken to court, and people are brought to justice.
Thousands of tonnes of small fish are discarded annually in the seas. No-one takes any notice.
I want to make a specific complaint.
I have to deal with these things in my own constituency: fishermen off the west coast of Ireland complain of gross overfishing by Dutch-registered vessels.
They claim these fish are being landed in Las Palmas and that there is no policing or control.
I do not want to be nationalistic. I believe all fishermen have a share of the guilt.
But I would like specific complaints at least to be reported and commented on.
Madam President, I also wish to congratulate the rapporteurs on their reports.
The common concern of both the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna and the Teverson reports is the need for effective monitoring and enforcement of international and Community fishing agreements.
As has been said, we must ensure that all the measures in those agreements are being carried out if fish stocks are to remain at a sustainable level.
There is, as we all know, deep suspicion among Europe's fishing communities that other countries' fishermen are getting away with flouting the rules and, therefore, they do not see why they should keep them.
This is the main reason for the anger and resentment felt towards the Common Fisheries Policy.
The fact that we are discussing the 1995 Commission report on monitoring the CFP in March 1998 is indicative of the slowness with which action is seen to be taken on enforcement.
I therefore welcome the Commission proposal to extend the pilot project for satellite tracking of vessels in the regulatory area of the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization up to 31 December 1998.
Indeed, I hope that it will not just remain a pilot project which will come to an end at the end of this year, but will be the basis of a comprehensive system of satellite tracking, applied eventually over a much wider area, including the Mediterranean, where Community vessels are subject to quotas and controls.
We need to report back on the effectiveness of the pilot before the end of this year, so that the necessary amendments and extensions can be made to the scheme if it is proving to be the valuable contribution to the conservation of fish stocks we all want to achieve.
I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mr Varela and Mr Teverson.
The truth is that the monitoring of fisheries, as we all agree, is inadequate in several respects, and this is highlighted in the report.
On the one hand, as Mr Medina has already said, this is due to the lack of resources devoted to this area by the Commission itself, and for which, we, as Members of Parliament who have budgetary authority, must also share the responsibility. On the other hand, it is due to the lack of political will on the part of many Member States.
This is a mistake since if we do not adequately monitor the fisheries sector, we are demonstrating weak policies in that we are attacking the resources on which the future survival of fisheries depends.
However, there are reliable fleets, of course.
There are fleets which fulfill all the technical requirements.
Therefore, where monitoring is not adequate, these fleets are becoming less competitive than those which do not respect the regulations.
As we increase the demands for technical measures, we are also increasing the imbalance in terms of the lack of competitiveness of those fleets which do meet the technical requirements.
This is a problem which needs to be solved.
Some measures in this respect are highlighted in the report, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on that.
But this report also underlines another important point: monitoring should not only involve catches, but should also cover markets and marketing.
The Commission should also investigate certain instances of fraud taking place at the moment, for example, in respect of imports of tuna steaks under the GSP-Drugs preferential arrangements.
Madam Commissioner, yesterday you wrote a very nice article on the topic of drugs and the barbarities which sometimes occur.
I believe that fisheries are also subject to fraud, but it is not due to a lack of solidarity in this field. However, the European Union's solidarity must be underpinned by all its economic sectors, and not necessarily just the fisheries sector.
There is another aspect of fraud which I would like to emphasize and which is also pointed out in the report.
I have in mind the possible fraudulent import of cod of a different origin via Norway.
In fact, it is possible that part of the existing 800 000 tonnes of cod from the Arctic, of which practically 50 % belongs to Russia, reaches Community markets via Norway.
Therefore, this report also underlines the need to extend control measures, and I call on the Commission, with the courage it normally shows and in the light of this report, not to mention the policies the Commission is implementing, to expand monitoring of the fisheries policy, because this will undoubtedly be an important factor in preserving our fisheries sector for the future.
Madam President, I rise to speak about the Teverson report, which is one of the most depressing I have ever read.
Anyone who, like me, remembers being told that the sea is our future, that it is a source of unlimited food, that everything is available to us, and who now, just a few years later, reads what Mr Teverson has said, will see a tragic picture emerging.
On the other hand, there are still many reasons for being optimistic, not least because of the fact that we have an excellent Fisheries Commissioner, who has energetically achieved a great deal.
But it is also true that we are still dependent on national governments today, and they have no will at all.
They are much too weak, whether policy or security is at stake.
If our governments are weak, then Europe is weak, and that lies at the heart of the tragic part which our continent has to play in this whole field, quite apart from the fact that we only ever talk about Europeans.
The real criminals of the sea are the Russians, the Americans and the Japanese, with their big industries which actually exterminate whole regions.
We only have to look at the coast of South America and see what is happening there.
I believe that the Teverson report is a signal to us to call on our governments again to stir themselves into action at last, because otherwise they will yet sink Europe.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
The next item is the vote on the report (A4-86/98) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) The next item is the vote on the report (A4-19/98) by Mr Teverson.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Guidance programmes for the fishing fleets
The next item is the report (A4-0046/98) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission's annual report to the Council and the European Parliament on the results of the multiannual guidance programmes for the fishing fleets at the end of 1996 (COM(97)0352 - C4-0393/97).
Madam President, during the early 1980s, the over-fishing practised by a very oversized Community fleet approached alarming proportions.
In 1983, in view of the gravity of the situation, the Commission submitted a first multiannual guidance programme (MGP) which was intended to reduce the fishing effort and which established basic parameters for the tonnage and power of vessels.
MGP I was followed by MGP II and MGP III, covering the period 1992-1996, which finally stipulated differentiated goals for reducing fishing effort, with 20 % for demersal species and 15 % for benthic species.
Thus, the overall reduction of the fleet depended on its structure, the species fished and the techniques employed.
The result achieved by MGP III, which we are currently analysing, was to reduce the fleet's capacity by 15 % measured in terms of tonnage and by 9.25 % in terms of power.
As will be seen from the report, the global objectives have not been uniformly achieved by all countries.
Thus, countries like Denmark, Germany and, in particular Spain and Portugal, have reduced the capacity and the power of their fleets.
Portugal and Spain even exceeded the objectives set.
In other cases, however, the objectives were not met and some Member States even increased their capacity over and above its previous level.
I have a number of comments in view of this.
The information in the Commission communication shows that virtually all Member States experienced technical difficulties in complying with the deadlines set for harmonizing units for measuring vessel tonnage.
It is to be hoped that these technical difficulties will now be overcome through MGP IV.
The situation is more worrying as regards power, since each Member State uses a different method of calculation.
The Commission should, as a matter of urgency, submit proposals to facilitate setting criteria for such calculations.
This is the only way to enable comparative analyses of the different Member States to be made and to be able to ascertain the degree of compliance with the objectives laid down.
However, the Commission report conveys the still more serious impression that some national governments are reluctant to furnish the Commission with reliable data on the condition of their fleets, and appear to have little interest in adopting appropriate measures for reducing capacity in compliance with the objectives established in the MGPs.
Thus, non-compliance with the multiannual guidance programmes is repeatedly carried over to the following programme which, in turn, ignores what went before.
It is worrying that the objectives enshrined in the MGPs should in practice be dependent on the good will of Member States.
The effectiveness of the instruments at the Commission's disposal for enforcing compliance is doubtful and they do not encourage Member States to take appropriate steps to reduce the fishing effort of their respective fleets to conform with the ceilings stipulated in the programmes.
In the light of this situation, and of the fact that a balanced conversion of national fleets is essential in guaranteeing the conservation of resources, and in ensuring that Community fishing remains profitable and competitive in future, it is essential that the Council and, by extension, Member States, should recognize their responsibilities and accordingly draw up enforcement measures with real teeth, in the event that the objectives laid down in the multiannual programmes are not met.
Given the current state of affairs, we should consider penalties including a reduction in Member States' quotas whenever the objectives set are not met and this is obviously deliberate.
Finally, I would like to congratulate the Commission on the quality of its report and urge the Council to take its responsibilities seriously and adopt a regime of penalties including effective measures in cases of deliberate non-compliance with the objectives laid down.
Otherwise, we will just be pulling the wool over each others' eyes and, if that is the case, it would be preferable to put an end once and for all to the charade that this would make of the multiannual guidance programmes.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, multiannual guidance programmes I, II and III from 1983 to the end of 1996 did not succeed in eliminating the mismatch between the over-sized fishing fleets of the European Union and the critical state of its fish stocks.
There are various reasons for this.
On the one hand, according to the rapporteur, there were different measurement bases in the Member States when the multiannual guidance programmes were introduced, and on the other, there was the lenient way Member States implemented the rules.
It is obvious that there were very big differences in implementation by Member States.
Despite the Commission's good intentions - and I hold the Member States equally responsible - there is still a lot of catching up to do in implementing the rules.
It is good that there was progress between 1992 and 1996. A reduction in the tonnage and engine power of the EU fishing fleet was achieved.
But this has changed little as far as the critical state of the fish stocks is concerned.
It is therefore doubtful whether MGP IV will result in any fundamental improvement.
This has already been demonstrated by the resistance of some Member States to the provisional rules under MGP IV.
The rules which were then finally decided are also only half-hearted in my opinion.
If MGP IV is to yield the successful outcome we are seeking - and here I agree with the rapporteur - the Commission must use effective instruments which are not dependent on the Member States' good will.
I would like to add one important point: the socio-economic effects not only on fishermen themselves, but also on the whole coastal region.
I foresee the greatest difficulties for Member States here, and I hope that fisheries will be discussed in the structural fund debates, and not just at the margin.
Madam President, the most interesting aspect of Mr Cunha's report - and I would like to congratulate him on it - is the fact that, although three multiannual programmes have now been finalized, we will still have to be on our guard to ensure that none of the Member States try to avoid meeting the requirements. This would be a selfish attitude which could in itself prevent us from fulfilling the objectives of resource conservation and which, in addition, would create unfair competition with those Member States which complied with the programme.
As Mr Cunha stated in recital C of his report, achievement of the MGP objectives is necessary to ensure sustainable development in this sector.
In agreeing with this statement - as I do - we recognize with frustration that non-compliance on the part of some states hinders such sustainable development for the entire Community fleet.
Moreover, it demonstrates an unacceptable lack of solidarity.
With the approval of MGP IV, we can see that certain progress has been made.
This is particularly true in that there seems to have been a major commitment on the part of the Commission to ensure that this new generation of MGPs can be concluded under fair and non-discriminatory conditions for the fleets of the various Member States.
However, I would like to go further and call for determined action.
We accordingly agree with Mr Cunha's call for the settingup of a system of effective sanctions, which could include the reduction of fishery quotas, and this is one of the reasons why we are supporting his report.
Moreover, the report also addresses the lack of uniformity in the measurement system.
In this respect, I would like to highlight the need to concentrate our efforts on achieving a standardized system of equivalent measurements and provisions which oblige all Member States to supply reliable data.
It is only in this way, Madam President, that we can really discover what measures we need to take to achieve the sustainable development of the Community fleets or, as I would prefer to say, the Community fleet.
Good morning, Madam President.
In his evaluation of the third guidance programme, the rapporteur expresses concern at the lack of interest shown by some Member States in taking measures to reduce the size of their fleets.
We may regret their lack of enthusiasm, but should we really be surprised at it?
In fact, some ports have been literally reduced to their bare bones.
If a balance is not achieved, the whole social and economic fabric is threatened, including fish auctions, shipyards, the fish trade, refuellers, and so on.
Nor should we underestimate the tremendous difficulties experienced in some countries, where procrastination is a way of life.
After all, it ought to be possible to take into account in the calculations those vessels which are more or less stateless or have a borrowed nationality, which fly the flag of one country, when everyone knows they should really be classed as belonging to another in terms of quotas and power.
The rapporteur emphasizes that only a system of effective sanctions will compel national bodies to comply with the objectives set.
Amongst such measures, he proposes the automatic reduction of quotas.
I personally do not think that is a good solution, because it can only be applied if a specific fleet only catches a specific species.
What will be done in the case of multipurpose vessels and what about vessels over 50 % of whose catch consists of non-quota species?
I also think that suspending aids for shipbuilding is a very restrictive measure, and may even be excessive, as it can have an adverse effect on safety and the improvement of working conditions. I should also like to thank the rapporteur for having taking that point into consideration by including it amongst the recitals of his report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the Commission's annual report on the final results of MGP III helps enormously to clarify the way the Community fleet has developed and the role that national governments have played in that development.
For instance, the report demonstrates that my country went furthest in applying MGP III as regards the key issue of reducing the capacity of the fleet's different components and segments, and that it went even further than the levels set. I have to say that I find this totally incomprehensible given the information contained in the report.
I must say that I find it very hard to understand this "good boy' attitude since, at the same time, other Member States were cynically - I can safely say - increasing the capacity of their own fleets in terms of tonnage and/or power.
The detailed information contained in the report should have had a greater influence on the values and strategies laid down by the current MGP IV, which covers the period 1997-2001.
More attention should have been paid to this data both by the Commission, in drawing up the proposals for MGP IV and by the Council, in deciding not to insist on further capacity reductions for Member States which have complied with and even exceeded, to some extent, the programmes under MGP III.
The Commission also has its share of responsibility here, since it has not shown itself equal to the task of enforcing decisions to harmonize the measurement of the tonnage of the various fleets, and nor has it proved able to make progress with the prescriptive framework required to harmonize measurement of the power and productivity of the various fleets.
Thus, these basic requirements for establishing reliable comparisons and monitoring are not met, and there is a failure on the part of many of those who possess the fleets with the highest capacity and productivity in the European Union to comply with the MGPs. It is therefore difficult to persuade many fishermen of the justice, transparency and fairness of the Commission's and some Member States' arguments and theoretical proposals for Community strategies that are obviously necessary to adapt the capacity of the Community's fleet to existing marine resources.
There is also a total absence of firm measures against those who flout the rules.
The rapporteur - whom I congratulate - argues that these measures should include, for instance, the withdrawal or reduction of quotas. Similarly, there is a lack of consideration for those who have met and even exceeded the responsibilities they are required to take on.
This cannot be allowed to continue much longer.
On behalf of Portugal's fishermen and producer organizations, who have been heavily penalized in recent years, I would like to voice an appeal for action without further delay.
The Commission and Mr Cunha have both done very good jobs in analysing the results of the final year of the third multiannual guidance programme.
The Teverson report and the Cunha report both relate to things that are essentially the responsibility of the Member States, that is, control and surveillance, on the one hand, and the size of the national fishing fleets on the other.
Both reports show clearly that Member States are not taking their responsibilities seriously.
Only four countries out of fifteen have met all their objectives under the MAGP-3.
All the others are over the limits, in terms of either tonnage or power, in at least one of the fleet segments.
The four countries that have met the objectives are Spain, Portugal, Denmark and Finland.
The Commission report is quite comprehensive in giving information on the degree to which various Member Sates have met their obligations, but one suggestion I would make to improve the quality of the report is to give some idea of how, for example, Spain and Portugal met their objectives, what happened to the vessels which were removed from the register, how many were decommissioned, how many were scrapped, how many were sunk and so on. Also, how many were simply transferred to another flag: how many vessels continue to fish either here in the Community or elsewhere, under what is in some cases essentially a flag of convenience.
The fisheries agreement with Argentina subsidizes transfers to the Argentine flag.
How much of the reduction of the capacity from Member States has gone over there and what impact is this having on the resources in that area? We cannot just talk about massaging the figures and removing vessels from the national register and putting them somewhere else, we have to see where they are going, what is happening to them.
No Member State can actually pat itself on the back if we do not know exactly the end result of what they are doing.
We need this information to analyse fully what is happening.
Madam President, this is a useful debate, and a lot of things have come out during its course, which is not always the case.
There are, of course, historical reasons, not least the attitude of the last Conservative Government in the UK, why it did not come up with decommissioning funds but applied the principle of subsidiarity and applied days at sea.
So we immediately come up against a real problem historically that certain governments quite legitimately applied a different measure, with which I disagree, but, nevertheless, they did so. You cannot sweep that under the carpet and ignore it totally.
That is one of the fundamental problems.
There are others, to which Ms McKenna has referred, about what precisely is being measured when the reduction in fleets is being talked about.
I say to the rapporteur and others who are talking glibly about eliminating quotas, that they really are playing with fire on this one.
I am alarmed to discover that the support given by the Group of the European People's Party and the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left seems to be conditional on the automatic reduction of quotas.
This is the sort of talk which alarms the fishermen and should alarm the governments of Europe, if people think they can simply apply a measure like this and say that the European Parliament is in favour of it.
We have to be a little more statesmanlike and responsible.
I am very glad that the Commissioner is here to listen to this debate.
I was surprised on Monday, when I moved that we should not take a vote on this very important and sensitive issue on a Friday, to find that I was in a small minority.
The big groups said it was not controversial.
I can think of few things more controversial than threatening the Common Fisheries Policy's fundamental principle of relative stability.
We have to look at this in a very different way, and I continue my plea that we should take a more rational approach to it.
I am just relieved that this is an own-initiative report, which does not have legislative force, because if it purported to do so, it would cause all kinds of havoc throughout the industry.
Thank you, Mr Macartney.
Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, now has the floor for two and a half minutes.
Mr President, it goes without saying that all Member States should keep to the rules which form part of the Common Fisheries Policy.
When the Member States flout these rules, sanctions should be imposed.
On that point I agree with the rapporteur.
But I do not think linking sanctions exclusively to the fleet capacity is the right approach.
Data on the number of vessels and engine power provides an extremely incomplete picture of the actual problems, especially if this data is based on unreliable and non-harmonized measurements made by Member States, as was the case in the annual report for 1996.
To get a good idea of the extent to which the Member States have met the objectives of the Common Fisheries Policy, more issues should be looked at.
I am thinking of the Union's quota policy, which is in fact the backbone of the European policy on the preservation of fish stocks, for instance. The multiannual guidance programmes are closely related to this.
This instrument encourages Member States, after all, to adjust their fleet capacity to the available quota.
In this context it would have been helpful if, in addition to statistics on tonnage and engine power, the rapporteur had given a survey of the extent to which the quotas are complied with.
The rapporteur and other Members would then have seen that in the Netherlands the quotas are respected, despite that fact that the capacity of the fleet has not or has hardly been reduced.
The point I am trying to make, Mr Cunha, is that reducing fleet capacity is not the only way to lessen the pressure on resources.
The Netherlands has managed to stick to its quota by reducing the number of fishing days.
Such arrangements for managing fishing effort must be taken into account in the results of the multiannual guidance programmes.
Fishing methods also have an effect on resources.
In the Netherlands, for example, the overall length of the trawl has been reduced from 14 to 12 metres.
Experts believe this has reduced pressure on fish stocks by 10 %.
No allowance was made for this in the annual report for 1996.
To sum up, I endorse the rapporteur's plea for tightening sanctions, such as a reduction of quotas in the event of infringement.
But then the Member States should not be judged on just one aspect of the Common Fisheries Policy, but on the entire policy.
This means that allowances should be made for deployment of the fleet and for compliance - or non-compliance - with the quota.
I have tabled two amendments to this effect, and I hope the rapporteur will agree with these.
Mr President, I am sorry the Commissioner is not here because, really, without her here the debate somewhat loses its interest.
I actually wanted to congratulate the Commission on the report it has prepared and, since the Commissioner is no longer here, I am disappointed at not being able to do so.
However, at least the rapporteur is here. He has presented a magnificent report and I would like to congratulate him as well.
The rapporteur understands the situation very well and I wanted to emphasize that his report is both clear and accurate. So, apart from the amendments adopted by the Committee on Fisheries, it is difficult to accept any other amendments that would spoil the content of his amendment.
I would like to highlight the same point as Ms McKenna, but with a slight correction.
Ms McKenna said that only four countries had met all their objectives under MGP III, when in fact only three countries have met them as, if you read page 49 of the Commission report carefully, you will see that the Commission has some objections in the case of Finland.
Therefore, only Spain, Portugal and Denmark completely meet the MGP III objectives.
This means that the countries which are more highly dependent on fisheries are those which are most eager to meet the objectives.
Mr Cunha's report sets out a series of points we agree with: the need to continue to establish harmonious criteria, the question of fleet capacity, the power of vessels, etcetera, and, in particular, the need to introduce a system of sanctions.
The Community has begun to introduce sanctions as regards competition and, more recently, as regards convergence.
Mr Cunha's proposal is perfectly reasonable: he calls for a quota reduction for those Member States which do not meet the Community requirements.
However, the issue he raises in recital B is also very important: that the aim of the Common Fisheries Policy should not necessarily be a reduction for the fisheries sector.
Instead it should be to establish a balanced fisheries system since, in the sea, the general rule is that the big fish devours the little one and a certain biological balance has been established so that the human factor (fisheries activity) makes up part of this biological balance.
The adoption of measures aimed simply at reducing fisheries activity without taking this balance into account could, strangely enough, have a negative impact because, for example, if we do not continue to fish for species which are predators, those fish which are consumed by the predators will become less and less common.
I therefore believe that the Commission has taken the right road, that the Cunha report is truly excellent, and that we should congratulate both the Commission and Mr Cunha on their reports.
Mr President, since the start of the 1980s we have known about the damaging effects of overfishing in the seas of the EU.
The multiannual programmes, the MGPs, which are before us today, were introduced as a counter-measure; for instance, this year there is MGP IV, the fourth generation.
The absence of uniform assessment criteria is ridiculous.
Is a brake being deliberately put on progress towards uniformity, or why is it that we cannot get results which suit the whole of Europe, based on either tonnage or engine power?
This problem should have been sorted out a long time ago.
There are also gaps in the register of Community fishing vessels, which reduce its effectiveness.
This issue really should be resolved as well. So a greater will to implement the directives is necessary.
National interests must not take precedence over higher-level European fisheries policy.
In any case failure to achieve the goals will unavoidably result in destroying many fisheries businesses on land, once fish stocks have degenerated too far, if not before that.
We should not let ourselves be deceived about the shortcomings of other countries in this area just because total capacity has been balanced out by particularly conscientious countries.
We cannot allow the countries which comply to become resigned as a result. Their achievement must be a spur to the stragglers, otherwise there will be no progress in future.
It seems that there are not enough incentives to achieve the goals set.
The overhang from the previous MGPs is scarcely motivating.
It must be compulsory to keep within the limits, even if at the moment there are no effective sanctions along the lines I have described to ensure that it is done.
A quota reduction such as the rapporteur has suggested could also be effective.
But - and let me emphasize this again - it is more important to increase the awareness of the Member States.
Because they, the Member States, are responsible. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, Mrs Bonino, and DG XIV for the important discussion this week about Agenda 2000 and the subsequent legislative proposals on fisheries.
It was a good discussion, and I look forward to working together more.
Thank you, Mrs Langenhagen.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Langenhagen's speech has brought us to the end of the speeches by Members of this House and, before handing the floor over to Mrs Bonino, I would like to inform her that during her brief and justified absence, Mr Medina Ortega wanted to congratulate the Commission on its good work.
Therefore, the Presidency would like to repeat Mr Medina Ortega's thoughts, while it understands completely that the Commissioner had to excuse herself briefly from the Hemicycle and, as always, I hand over to her with pleasure.
You now have the floor, Mrs Bonino.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to congratulate Mr Cunha on his report, which I think provides a good analysis of the subject matter.
The Commission believes the multiannual guidance programmes to be important instruments, and so respect for their objectives is an essential factor for the future of the sector.
In this connection, I would like to remind Members that the services of the Commission are examining the possibility of bringing legal actions against Member States that have failed to fulfil their obligations under MGP III, that have consequently not achieved the programme objectives or that have failed to keep the information on their fleets in the Community fleet register up-to-date - this is also in answer to several observations made by Ms McKenna - or have failed to remeasure the tonnage of the fleets in gross tonnage units.
The Commission officials are therefore analysing the possibility of bringing legal actions against Member States that have failed to apply the provisions in these areas.
I have just two comments to make on amendments proposed and a further point with regard to the remeasuring of fleet tonnage.
The latter relates to the Commission's request, which the Parliament is well aware of, for uniform units for measuring the fleet capacity. This has been a great problem.
The Commission has appointed experts to examine the way in which the tonnage of each Member State's vessels is measured. These experts are to assess the quality of the information supplied by the Member States themselves, and then submit recommendations to the Commission on how to speed up this remeasuring process.
The Commission is also trying to find suitable ways of harmonizing the definition and measurement of power throughout the Community and is collecting information available so as to examine the question thoroughly.
With regard to the MGP IV decisions adopted last December, the Commission is examining how to assist fleet reconstruction by means of financial provisions or incentives, as Mrs Langenhagen called them, and these provisions will be applied together with the percentages of incoming and outgoing fishing vessels.
I would also like to remind Members that, for those Member States that have not achieved the MGP III objectives, this backlog has been taken into account in preparing MGP IV. The Commission has not therefore agreed to wipe the slate clean.
For non-compliant Member States, apart from any legal action, the overhang from the past has been taken into account in preparing MGP IV.
Two further thoughts.
One amendment contains proposals for sanctions.
I have to say that the Commission does not agree with this proposal, for several reasons: firstly, because the automatic reduction in quotas for non-compliant countries seriously undermines the basic principle of the Common Fisheries Policy, which is that of relative stability; secondly, because if we embark on this kind of procedure, it is obvious that other Member States will ask for the same type of sanction, perhaps on account of exceeding quotas, inadequate controls, unloading of substandard fish, and so on.
I would therefore ask Parliament to reconsider a reduction in quotas as a sanction because of these possible implications.
Withdrawal of financial aid for the modernization and construction of fishing vessels is already taking place.
I must inform Members that the inclusion of productivity in the measurement of capacity is not realistic.
Frankly we do not know how to measure productivity - it seems an unacceptable measure in the sense that it cannot be applied.
I have already talked at length about the measurement of tonnage and power.
I would just like to add for information that the Commission is about to enter into a contract with the UK Seafood Industry Authority, according to which, as I have said, a group of experts will be given the remit of reviewing the procedures and methods used in Member States to measure tonnage.
Power, on the other hand, involves somewhat more complex issues.
The Commission recognizes that it is essential to further harmonize the measurement of power, because this is fundamental for MGP IV.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
On paragraph 3:
Mr President, if my fellow Members agree, I would like to table an oral amendment to the last line of paragraph 3.
It refers to " an automatic reduction of quotas' .
My oral amendment is to remove the word "automatic' .
Are there any objections to the oral amendment proposed by Mr Cunha to take out the word "automatic' ?
Mr Macartney has the floor.
I am happy to accept that there is an improvement but it does not remove the problem so, no, we have to insist on the roll-call vote against that section please.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Congratulations, Mr Cunha.
This is an important report on an important area for the conservation of fishery resources.
In spite of its bluntness, the MGP is the most important instrument for achieving consistent conservation of fishery resources.
At the same time it is important to recognize that the conservation of fishery resources must be seen in the overall context of fisheries policy.
Conservation of fishery resources must also take account of the actual fishing capacity of national fishing fleets, the need for serious action concerning the threat to stocks of certain species, and the effectiveness of agreements with third countries, that is agreements which the EU signs with countries outside the Community.
Agreements with third countries are an area where there is every reason for criticism of EU policy.
As the situation currently stands, the Union does not pay sufficient attention to the need to develop the role of fishing in global food supply and to strengthen the economic capacity of developing countries themselves in this area. Furthermore, EU support for agreements with third countries involves maintaining national fishery capacity for certain Member States at a time when there is a need for substantial restrictions on all European fishing.
The assessment of MGP III suggests that a fundamental re-examination of the direction of the Common Fisheries Policy is required.
I wish to welcome very warmly Commissioner Bonino's assurance that the European Commission does not support the idea of quota sanctions linked to MAGP compliance.
I am also greatly heartened by the Commissioner's reiteration of the fundamental importance of the Common Fisheries Policy's founding principle of relative stability.
Conservation of fishery resources in the Mediterranean
The next item is the report (A4-0045/98) by Mr McMahon, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1626/94 laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources in the Mediterranean (COM(97)0459 - C4-0510/97-97/0237(CNS)).
Mr McMahon has the floor for six minutes.
Mr President, I take great pleasure in introducing this report on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries on conservation in the Mediterranean.
There is a very serious problem in the Mediterranean. It concerns not just bluefin tuna, which is what the report is about.
The report is about how we work the Community regulation into ICCAT, the International Commission for Conservation of Atlantic Tuna.
The problem is the other species in the Mediterranean. Because drift nets are used in the Mediterranean - as many as 8 000 whales and dolphins are killed annually by the activities of fishermen from various nations in the Mediterranean area.
The proposal in front of us goes part of the way towards dealing with this very serious problem for marine life in the Mediterranean.
The proposal calls for a ban on the use of helicopters and on fishing during the months of June and August, particularly during the spawning season for bluefin tuna.
There is also the activities of third countries.
We are very concerned in the Fisheries Committee about the activities of ships from countries such as Guatemala and Honduras, who are using drift nets in the Mediterranean and catching tuna, porpoises, dolphins and whales. They are destroying the marine ecocosm within the Mediterranean.
As regards traditional fishing and the Italian swordfish fleet, we agreed during the debate on the Baldarelli report to phase out the use of drift nets.
The Commission agreed then, in 1994, to give ECU 100 million to the Italian fishermen as a kind of reconstruction for ending their fishing activity.
Some 2 700 Italian fishermen were offered compensation.
I am sorry to tell the House that only 42 have availed themselves of the offer of selling their licences and moving into other activities.
It is obvious that the current policy of setting a limit of 2.5 kilometres for drift nets is not working.
It is important to look toward a gradual phasing-out of drift nets in the Mediterranean over a period of time.
I am very glad to say that the United Kingdom presidency and, in particular, the Minister for Fisheries, Mr Elliott, are very interested in this portfolio.
Mr Elliott and I have had several in-depth discussions about how it might be progressed. He undertook to have it on the agenda at the next Fisheries Council.
As Parliamentarians we want to conserve and protect commercial fishing.
We want to safeguard communities which depend on fishing for a livelihood.
But at the same time we must try to protect the marine ecocosm.
We must try to protect, safeguard and conserve dolphins, whales and seals.
If this marine life is destroyed, it will affect the food chain. It will mean that future generations will find that not only will there be no dolphins or whales, but there will be no tuna fish and very little fish at all.
The problem is that we are going to exhaust all the world's resources.
As a Parliament, as Europeans, in the European Union, the onus is on us as we enter the new millennium, to take measures so that we can strike a proper balance between the commercial exploitation of fishing, conservation of stocks and conservation of marine life.
This is what this report is about.
It is a very restricted report. It only deals with measures in the Mediterranean.
But, as a Parliament, must adopt this as our general principle for the future.
Mr President, this is a very technical report and it is not necessary to go into a lot of detail because it is just a question of Parliament approving something to allow certain measures to be taken by the Commission which I and my political group wholly endorse.
As Hugh McMahon, the rapporteur, has pointed out, this is really a conservation measure and this Parliament will want to support anything that the Commission brings forward by way of conservation measures
Regarding the Mediterranean as such there are one or two important problems there.
We must recognize the fact that the fish resources in the Mediterranean are maybe not as they should be.
They are currently being over-exploited, rather as has happened in the North Sea and the Atlantic area.
Having said that I would just raise with Mr McMahon and perhaps with the Commission the question of Amendment No 1, because it does appear to me that the rapporteur is trying to pay compliments to his own government back in the United Kingdom.
This is not what should necessarily be happening in a European Parliament report. I accept fully that the British Government is in favour and has made it a priority to try and phase out drift nets but the question I would ask of the Commission is whether the Commissioner views the Council's position as being the same, because there is a great deal of division in the Council of Ministers regarding the phasing out of drift nets which does not necessarily reflect the position of the British Government.
I would suggest to the rapporteur that Amendment No 1 is trying to be congratulatory of one government in the Council when we should be looking at the Council's overall position rather than an individual government.
Mr President, I have come to the conclusion of my remarks but I would just say that we fully support the Commission's endeavours in this area.
Mr President, tuna in the Mediterranean is protected by special bans and regulations.
That shows that the Commission has the administrative means to preserve fish stocks.
But, as Mrs Bonino says, it is the Member States that are largely responsible for surveillance.
The means available to the Commission to control the situation include banning overfishing with drift nets, in collaboration with the various national governments.
This is what Mr McMahon was alluding to.
And, in this way, it could be believed that modern fishing technology is a threat to fish stocks in all our waters.
The problem in the Mediterranean is tuna.
In the Nordic countries, one economic and ecological problem is that of Norwegian salmon.
The EU should be tackling the fishing problems of the northern regions as well as those in the Mediterranean.
The Norwegians breed salmon in the estuaries of rivers where there are stocks of natural salmon.
In this way they are polluting the waters and may be spreading fish diseases, especially into the mouth of the Tenojoki river.
The dumping price of Norwegian salmon is also forcing fishermen in other countries to make ends meet by overfishing.
Reports like the one before us today are also needed for our northern waters.
Mr President, just adopting the ICCAT recommendations on the management of red tuna in the Mediterranean, as proposed by the Commission, is not enough.
In just three years, catches have doubled, from 20 000 tonnes in 1992 to 40 000 in 1995, and we all know that these official figures are far lower than the true level.
If this escalation continues, the Mediterranean will soon have no tuna left.
We are asking the Commission for far more restrictive rules.
ICCAT should submit a plan for the recovery and protection of red tuna, saying "No Fishing' , with no exceptions, for fish under 7 kg, at the same time as abolishing all the current fishing techniques used for young fish.
We believe that, at this point, the Commission should propose an embargo on tuna imports from the states of Panama, Honduras and Belize, which provide flags of convenience for fishing fleets which thereby escape any rules, as these countries do not belong to ICCAT.
Unfortunately, in many cases, these flags of convenience conceal European owners, shipping companies and other economic operators.
It is our responsibility to prevent this rule-bending, this fish piracy, and the continuing and devastating practice of using drift nets, particularly by Italian fleets. The EU also needs a far more strict policy and new restrictive measures.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr McMahon on his report since it supports the Commission's proposal to incorporate management measures to preserve the bluefin tuna into the EC regulation. These measures were recommended by ICCAT back in 1996 and, given the situation of this resource, are of undeniable importance.
I would like us to concentrate on these measures rather than on others which do not directly affect the debate.
However, the report also deserves our support since it highlights other decisions taken at that meeting which the Commission has not as yet incorporated into the EC regulation.
I am referring to the ban on tuna imports from Honduras and Belize due to the fact that their fleets completely refuse to respect the minimum rules of responsible fishing activity.
We know, Madam Commissioner, that the written procedure has begun for the study by committee 113, but we fear that this debate may become overly long-winded before reaching the Council. Therefore, since, according to the different parties consulted, this embargo would not contravene GATT or WTO rules, we call on the Commission to help us, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that this committee gives its opinion as soon as possible so that the embargo can be put in place.
In addition, as you are aware, ICCAT has also recommended a similar embargo on vessels displaying a Panamanian flag, as from 1 January 1998.
The Commission is not drawing up any proposal in this respect, on the pretext that neither Japan nor the United States are imposing such an embargo, but they are not exactly setting a good example!
The Commission is a member of ICCAT, and the Member States of the European Union wish to fulfill all the recommendations set out by this body.
Therefore, I call on the Commission once again to provide for these embargo measures, which are of the utmost importance in ensuring that the contracting parties comply with the recommendations laid down by ICCAT.
Mr President, the number of tuna fished in the last few years has risen dramatically.
There must be an immediate restriction imposed on tuna fishing if we want to guarantee their survival.
At international level, we have ICCAT's recommendations on tuna stocks and measures for their protection in the Mediterranean.
The problem has not so much been with the measures, but in neglecting them.
Drift-net fishing is also responsible for an ongoing diaster in the eco-system, for example, with dolphins and seals.
The Commission's recommendations echo those of ICCAT, and Parliament must accept them.
It will, however, be vital for all nations that fish tuna in the regions under surveillance to be committed to the action proposed and for surveillance to continue to be effective.
If the restrictions only affect those vessels that fly a Community flag there will be no real change in the situation and more adversity for fishermen.
The Union, too, must push for results.
Mr President, Members will probably recall that the Community joined ICCAT last November, and now belongs to the General Fisheries Council for the Mediterranean.
Under international law, the Community was already required to cooperate with these organizations, but now it has become a member it obviously has to comply promptly with all the management recommendations laid down by these organizations.
Ladies and gentlemen, the proposal before us today is a step in this direction limited to two recommendations, while the other ICCAT recommendations are already being worked on under the appropriate legislative procedures, and will form part of other legislative proposals that will be submitted to Parliament for the examination.
For example, I see that the Committee on Fisheries proposes to include in this proposal a ban on transfers from or to ships belonging to non-cooperating countries.
Frankly, I do not believe that Regulation 1626, which we are dealing with, is the appropriate framework for this type of amendment and proposal, because it relates almost exclusively to technical measures for preserving fish stocks.
The Commission, however, intends bring forward a Council regulation on the control of unloading and transfers: this proposal is already being prepared and the Commission believes it should provide a more appropriate framework.
I can say the same about Amendments Nos 3 and 5.
On 30 January, the Commission transmitted to the Council a proposal relating to an embargo on imports of tuna from Belize and Honduras.
So the Commission made this proposal for an embargo back on 30 January, and the proposal is now on the Council's table.
With regard to Panama, which involves several slightly more complex legal aspects, the services of the Commission are examining the question and are drawing up an appropriate proposal.
Finally, two very brief comments on the amendments relating to drift nets.
We are aware of the situation and of the European Parliament's position on the Commission's proposal.
Drift nets come under the regulation on technical measures, in a broader context and not specifically for the Mediterranean, as we all know.
Consequently, I do not want to go into the merits of the amendments, but I believe that the amendments relating to drift nets fall outside the legal framework of this proposal, and so the Commission cannot accept them, because drift nets are not just a Mediterranean issue.
However, as already mentioned, the Council will discuss the issue of drift nets on 24 March, on the basis of a compromise proposed by the presidency.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
On Amendment No 1:
Mr President, I believe I might be able to accept that amendment, but I think that it should be reworded slightly to say: ' whereas the priorities of the Council should be a phasing out' .
You have the floor, Mr McMahon.
Mr President, as rapporteur I have to defend the committee's position, but I will leave it to the wisdom of the House to decide what to do.
I know that Mr Provan spoke on this in the debate and his group actually voted for that amendment in the committee when we made the reference.
Maybe a reference to the Council might be more felicitous than the UK presidency.
I will leave it to the House to decide on that, rather than mention one Member State in the Council.
Mr Medina Ortega has asked for the floor.
Mr President, as you are a Spanish speaker, if you read the text in Spanish you will see that Mr Provan's question does not arise because the Spanish text reads: "having regard to the priorities of the Council with a view to the phasing out of drift nets' .
There is no "is' or "should' .
I propose that we vote on the Spanish version of the text, doing away with "of the UK Presidency' . It then reads: "having regard to the priorities of the Council with a view to phasing out drift nets' , thereby getting rid of the problem concerning "is' or "should' .
That is what we shall do.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I would like to thank the rapporteur for doing such a good job on this report.
The question of conserving fishery resources is of the utmost importance.
It is therefore important to support the measures the Commission is proposing in relation to tuna.
I would like to point out, however, that the question of a possible embargo against Honduras, Belize and Panama should be seen in the broader context of conserving global fishery resources.
Import embargoes against these countries should not be viewed solely as a form of unilateral protection from competition for particular fishermen in the European Union.
Review of Council Directive 85/384/EEC (diplomas in architecture)
The next item is the report (A4-0079) by Mrs Berger, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the report from the Commission containing a review, on the basis of experience, of Council Directive 85/384/EEC of 10 June 1985 pursuant to Article 30 thereof (COM(97)0350 - C4-0487/97).
You have the floor, Mrs Berger.
Thank you, Mrs Berger.
We know perfectly well that we must never miss the train in life, especially to go to a city as beautiful as Vienna.
So, I hope you have a good journey if you have to leave us before the vote.
Mrs Baldi, draftsman of the opinion, has the floor for five minutes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the architects' directive is giving great cause for concern, owing to the attitude of several Member States as well. I would like to report the position of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, which was fairly clear here.
But firstly, I would like to thank the rapporteur for taking the following points raised by our Committee into account: firstly, the need for the Commission to treat this review of the directive on the mutual recognition of diplomas in architecture as an opportunity to highlight the direct recognition of diplomas by professional bodies and to streamline the bureaucratic formalities; secondly, the fact that the competent authority in the host country needs to be clearly designated and systematically notified to the Commission; thirdly, the fact that even the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is amazed that the Commission can consider integrating architecture into the general framework of Directive 89/48/EEC, as it recognizes that, unlike the general system, Directive 85/384/EEC provides for a specific system of simple benefits more favourable to architects and that the results in terms of architects' mobility, which have been achieved thanks to automatic recognition, could be jeopardized.
There is no doubt that we are somewhat concerned that the conclusions we believe to be a priority have not been taken into consideration, such as the strengthening of the Advisory Committee, which should not just be a talking shop.
In fact, thanks to its composition (three experts per Member State - one architect, one teacher and one representative of the competent authorities) and its role in the assessment of diplomas, this committee demonstrates the absolute need for convergence.
By giving it the power to draw up recommendations and prepare studies on the assessment of new training courses, its remit would therefore be extended beyond consultation as such.
The stumbling block is the duration of courses.
We are truly perplexed by what is happening.
In practice, in 1992 the Advisory Committee stated clearly that courses should ideally last five years, plus two years' practical experience.
As we are aware, this has been discussed for over 18 years.
We believe that European professions should provide this type of training, otherwise we will end up with technicians instead of professionals, and, we in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, have emphasized this accordingly.
Training is very important to us, particularly when the main participants are the professions that enable us to play a role in the rest of the world.
Perhaps we are forgetting our cultural and architectural heritage, which is of great value, and also that, to have people at the top of their professions, we need to give them adequate training, and that is why, in our opinion, a study course cannot stop after a few years.
A degree course cannot equip us to practise a profession competitively in a couple of years, if we are to have the benefit of the basic preparation we consider necessary.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media was very clear on this point.
We fail to understand why the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is insisting on a training system more appropriate for another type of profession.
We are concerned because, if this situation prevails, we will only be talking about technicians and surveyors, while several Member States of the EU, such as Greece, France and Italy, have already increased the length of study to a greater number of years.
We want to get things right here; we do not want to fall in line with the position of just one Member State that has quite different needs.
We therefore think it is essential for profession of architect to be properly recognized and for architects to have a corresponding role within the Union.
When we talk about mobility, we are talking about the possibility of moving objectives forward, but we are also talking about very clear training standards, based on an ethical code and adequate preparation.
I am a little surprised, and here I am speaking as an architect, to hear discussion in committee about several specific sectors without any provision for adequate training.
In the case of town planning and restoration, the main sectors of architecture, the limited number of years proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights are certainly not enough.
I beg you to think about this and I ask the Commission to exercise caution when it comes to giving its opinion.
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate the rapporteur, because in her report she has come up with a solution to a problem which the Commission has made for itself.
The Commission report was originally scheduled for 1990 but, for a variety of reasons, it was delayed until last summer.
Whatever the reasons for this delay, what is certain is that in its 1997 report the Commission cited it as a reason not to entertain the problems that Ireland had with the 1985 Directive, despite the fact that, as I said, the delay was caused solely by the Commission.
In 1985 the Irish Government failed to obtain a derogation, as Mrs Fontaine has said, from the strictest provisions in the directive concerning recognition of architects' qualifications.
This derogation would have applied to experienced, able architects with an established right to practise.
Other countries, such as the Netherlands, had obtained such a derogation for architects of a similar status.
The net result has been that a group of perfectly talented Irish architects were discriminated against and their movement in the internal market curtailed.
The Commission must now recognize that these architects must be treated like their European counterparts and those working in other professions with an established right to practise.
Competent authorities, such as the Irish Department of Education, have recognized these architects' competencies.
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur for forcing the Commission to re-examine its position.
I hope that these architects will now belatedly be given the rights that are theirs.
Mr President, the directive on mutual recognition of diplomas in architecture is one of the series of regulations essential for completing the common European market.
The right of establishment and freedom to provide services are a fundamental requirement for a common market, which obviously can only be achieved if the professional qualifications which are gained in one Member State are recognized in the other.
Through my work in the Committee on Petitions, I repeatedly see petitions from EU citizens demanding recognition of their qualifications.
I speak here as a member of the Committee on Culture, and we really have considered this very thoroughly.
It is clear to us all that it will require a great effort on our part if we are to create regulations for mutual recognition of diplomas.
However, in all our efforts it is important that we do not lose sight of the cultural independence of the individual Member States, and remember that regulations about mutual recognition of diplomas must not lead to uniformity of educational content.
For instance, in Germany there is, as well as the classical study of architecture, which is pursued at universities, study at 'higher colleges of technology' .
In spite of the shorter duration of study, there is no question of the graduates being less qualified.
In the design of the course, great value is explicitly attached to efficiency and a high level of practicality, and also to cultural aspects.
The diversity of European culture should be maintained by preserving the cultural sovereignty of the Member States.
This also involves ensuring the diversity of educational systems in the EU states.
We must concentrate above all on achieving comparability of our educational systems.
If we succeed in achieving this ideal, we will arrive at more useful arrangements for mutual recognition of diplomas, and thus advance along the path to European unity.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I support Mrs Berger's explanations and congratulate her on her report.
I would like to add a few brief comments.
The great benefit of all recognition directives is that they make Europe simpler in practice for the individual - as we are always demanding - that they make freedom to set up business anywhere a reality for the first time, and above all that they open up new employment opportunities.
In this connection, I would like to point out that mutual recognition of educational qualifications in the EU is also the logical consequence of the EU educational programmes, which give financial support to measures to give credit for study in other countries, and I would therefore like to call for considerably increased resources for ERASMUS and ECTS in future.
Furthermore, we should resist all attempts to undermine the recognition directives, as has happened for instance with teachers, in case after case, for chauvinistic reasons.
That causes enormous damage to the European ideal in the workplace, and creates a negative image of the EU in the press.
The architects directive as a whole has proved itself in practice, but if more traditional forms of education combined with long periods of practical experience are to be put on a par with more recent qualifications, then that should be made clear again here.
Finally, another important point: Mrs Baldi's demand, which incidentally was against the votes of my party in the Committee on Culture, that the minimum study period should be raised to five years as a condition for mutual recognition, is highly questionable in terms of European policy.
I say this because, as has already been mentioned, it would at a stroke wipe out the mobility of thousands of architecture students in higher colleges of technology.
That would be a big step backwards for European policy, and we here would not want to be held responsible for it.
The proposal is also unjustified and hasty in itself, because the formal minimum study period alone does not decide the quality of education, but the actual time spent studying, which varies from country to country, and the average number of hours per week during term.
I do not want to go any further into that, but I would just like to say that Amendment No 1 with the proposal to introduce means of compensating for different periods of study is dubious and should therefore be rejected, please.
Mr President, the Commission accepts the well-balanced draft resolution submitted by the Committee on Legal Affairs, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Berger, on her work.
The Commission believes that the directive has proved valid and deserves its place among the sectoral directives.
With regard to the delays and timing issues mentioned, I believe that several explanations are given at the beginning of the report; nevertheless, we share your frustration.
Consequently, just a few minor amendments are envisaged, leaving the essence of the directive intact.
The Commission notes, in fact, that the draft resolution allows the substance of the directive to remain unaltered.
With regard to the future, all the options are open and I believe that, from this point of view, there is room for further thought.
Having established these premises, it follows that the Commission cannot accept the amendment submitted, because it would call into question the balance on which the directive is based.
The Commission will consider Parliament's vote but we note that the Committee on Legal Affairs has, after much thought it would appear, also reached the conclusion that a change in the duration of training is not justified.
In addition to these brief comments, I can only repeat that the Commission will naturally consider Parliament's vote but it seems unthinkable to me that it will be given priority.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I rejected Paragraph 8 because for I believe that the quality of education has absolute priority.
Life-long education and continuing education are the basis for successful practice of a profession.
These qualification-related conditions for entering the profession also reflect the world-wide trend, originating in the USA, of setting a high standard for entry to the professions.
Mr President, I would like to associate myself entirely with what Mr Rübig has just said, but I would also like to add that I rejected the amendment because I believe that it conflicts with our basic principle of subsidiarity in the European Union, and since that principle has absolute priority as far as I am concerned, I had to reject it.
Mr Hallam wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order. This has been a fascinating debate today which has been very interesting.
The trouble is that the Friday mornings are the one section of our work as a plenary session which is not televised either to our rooms or for the archives.
It is time we said that if we take Friday mornings seriously - and this has been a serious debate today - then these should be televised as well.
I would ask you to take this up with the Conference of Presidents.
Thank you very much, Mr Hallam.
I will pass on your comments to the Bureau.
Mr Ford now has the floor.
Mr President, on a point of order. I have a lot of sympathy with Mr Hallam's intervention, though I have to say that one would conclude that we do not take Friday mornings seriously.
Yesterday there were over 500 people voting, this morning there are about 60.
It would be difficult to argue that Parliament takes Friday seriously, but maybe if we televised it the attitude would change.
Mr Ford, I must tell you that the Members here do take Friday mornings seriously.
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I wanted to speak on the same point, and I my point is this: for over eighteen years - since the first European election - evening sessions and Friday sessions were reported by our information services in the same way as all other sessions.
For some time now, reporting has been systematically cut back.
It would be good to report on precisely the occasions when fewer reporters tend to be present, and for our information services to take appropriate action to compensate for this.
We should attach the greatest value to the absolute principle of equal status for all debates in this House, whenever they take place.
Mr President, I would like to bring your attention to another problem on a point of order.
I did not ask to speak this morning when the minutes were approved, because yesterday's session seemed to me to be correctly recorded.
We voted yesterday on the Fontaine report, by roll-call vote en bloc on ten proposals from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
The minutes correctly mention multiple roll-call votes.
Since then, I have had the opportunity to see the results of the roll-call votes, where this block of ten is listed as a single roll-call vote.
Given the decisions of the Conference of Presidents, in my opinion there is a need to clarify whether the vote yesterday counts as ten roll-call votes or one.
In my opinion, the former is the case.
Thank you, Mr Wieland.
I have noted your observation and I will ask the Bureau to give it some consideration.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, we are now reaching the end of our work.
I would like to remind you that the Minutes of this part-session will be presented to Parliament for adoption at the beginning of the next session.
If there are no objections, we will begin without delay to forward the resolutions which have just been adopted to their respective destinations.
Ladies and gentlemen, once again I have the pleasant task, as I do every Friday before putting out the lights, of thanking Parliament's services for their cooperation.
As you all know, ladies and gentlemen, without these services it would be impossible for us to carry out our work. But allow me this week to single out in particular the excellent work of those who draw up the Verbatim Record of the part-sessions, because I have had a chance to see in person the diligence and exacting attention they devote to their work.
This morning, at the beginning of the sitting, a Member, by virtue of a very broad interpretation of Rule 126 - as is often the case - made a complimentary speech about Mrs Fontaine.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe many of us - including myself - are envious of Mrs Fontaine's good will as well as of her abilities. But allow me to use a broad interpretation of Rule 19 to thank all of you.
Friday mornings are fruitful, calm, serene and positive days of work. Therefore, allow me to say that, in my opinion, you, ladies and gentlemen, are the best Members of this House.
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.00 noon)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 13 March 1998.
Statement by the President
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of March 13 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mrs Green, no doubt you will realize that as soon as the Presidency was informed of this unacceptable situation, naturally we proceeded to an inquiry, and I am now in a position to tell you what the situation is.
It is true that three flights departing from London were cancelled today, the reason being apparently that the charter company abandoned them at the last minute.
I sincerely regret this situation and we will protest in the strongest terms to the company concerned.
Moreover, I am happy to be able to tell you that the flights have been reinstated for tomorrow.
At least this is what we have been told.
Madam President, I wish to intervene to support Mrs Green in this.
I regret to say that the information you have been given is simply incorrect.
The point I made to Mrs Green is that if we humble back benchers had not been travelling with the leader of a political group, for example, we could have found ourselves stranded.
What particularly concerns me in a year in which France is hosting the World Cup is that there has only been one Member State affected in this way.
The information we have been given, which was confirmed to me by Air France on my arrival in this building, is that all flights this week have been cancelled.
We are in a very difficult situation because Air France operates a complete monopoly to the United Kingdom and it would be a very regrettable situation if British MEPs were prevented from voting and representing their constituencies here through an administrative hiccup with an airline.
I urge you to check and verify the information you have been given because I am told there will be no direct flight to London this week.
Miss McIntosh, one thing is certain, either our information is correct, or yours is.
Of course we will check this as quickly as possible. As we all know, the situation is already unacceptable today; if the disruption continues throughout this week it would be even more unacceptable.
We will continue to monitor the situation very closely. I have already been doing so and therefore received up-to-date information earlier which I was able to pass on to the Members of the House.
Madam President, I understand that part of the difficulty arises because Air France contract out the London-toStrasbourg flight to another airline, which has now withdrawn from the contract.
That might well explain why there are to be no flights directly from London to Strasbourg this week.
We happen to have the Commissioner for Transport here.
I do not know whether he would care to comment but, certainly, we could do with his support.
Mr Kinnock, you are welcome to clarify the situation, if you wish.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
I agree entirely with your sentiments.
I warmly welcomed your account of the misery caused by that bombing but I must press this point on you again, because the misery of the Second World War was much worse and the Council has not answered my question about hanging flags out on 15 August, the day the war ended.
And about Japan's admission of guilt for the misery it caused in those days, with a view to ASEM. I will leave it at that so as not to take up the time of this House, but I would very much appreciate it if the Council could finally start to answer questions of a year ago.
Mr Janssen van Raay, we will take note of your statement.
Madam President, we in this House are all aware of the dangers of smoking, particularly passive smoking.
I am aware, as others must be, that there are now no areas in this House at all - even those that are declared non-smoking areas - which are free of smoking.
I would, therefore, make an urgent request that the opportunity should be given to Members to find, at least, non-smoking recreational areas in these premises.
By mid-week even this area in which we are sitting is frequently percolated by tobacco smoke.
Some of us react badly to that.
Another issue is: are we covered by insurance should someone who contracts lung cancer try to make a case?
That is a matter we should certainly investigate.
Mr Morris, if it is true that someone has smoked in the Hemicycle, this is totally unacceptable.
As far as we are aware, this has never happened.
Of course we will notify the ushers to be particularly vigilant to ensure that, even in our absence, no-one smokes at least within this Hemicycle.
Madam President, the previous Minutes noted that the rejected request for an urgent debate on criminality would be referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Has this since happened?
Mr Rübig, I have already replied to you on this very serious and important issue, and you are wrong to think that the Presidency of Parliament is not giving it the attention it merits.
President Gil-Robles has written to the Belgian authorities and remains in contact with them, pending their response.
We really have done what is necessary and will continue to do so, since it is clear that ongoing action is required.
In any case, I can assure you, Mr Rübig, that you can count on the President and on the Bureau to do everything required to ensure that these completely inadmissible incidents do not reoccur.
Madam President, on a point of order.
The matter of unacceptable conditions for travelling here has been raised.
I witnessed the situation when Mrs Green, Miss McIntosh and two other colleagues were not accepted on the flight from Paris to Strasbourg due to mismanagement by Air France.
When the Commission and Parliament look into this, I ask them to note that we have no direct flights from Sweden or Finland.
Today it took me eight hours to get here, so, in a way, I have already done my work.
I almost did not get on the flight because it was overbooked.
We need to look into this situation as it affects all countries, and the management of connecting flights to this otherwise beautiful town.
Mrs Thors, what you say is right.
We are well aware of the difficulties encountered by many of our colleagues in travelling to Strasbourg.
However, as you know - I will take this opportunity since the question has been raised - in December 1997, the French government published a new invitation to tender in the Official Journal which will lead to regular flights at least from certain cities to Strasbourg, in principle from this week on, if all goes according to plan.
In other words, special flights will be replaced by regular flights, and these will be priced much more attractively and will enable direct links with certain capital cities.
At present, the invitation to tender concerning Dublin and Lisbon has not received any response.
A new invitation to tender has been launched and we hope that it will provoke responses as soon as possible, allowing flights to cover a certain number of capital cities.
In other capital cities special flights are functioning effectively and this arrangement will be maintained.
We will see how things work following these important changes, and if certain destinations continue to experience difficulties, the Presidency will refer it to the companies concerned to enable all of us to be transported to Strasbourg in the most suitable and comfortable way.
I have nothing further to say on this today, but there is in any case the hope of an improvement in the near future, at least for some of our colleagues.
Madam President, I have not had a reply to my question concerning two Dutch procurators general involved in the international arrest of an ex-dictator in Surinam who have been dismissed.
That cannot be a coincidence, but it any case it is a serious blow for the international fight against crime.
I hope you will call upon the Council to give me an answer.
The best replies I have had up to now have been from Commissioner Van den Broek.
Those replies have not been empty but have had some content.
I hope that is also possible in this case.
Mrs van Bladel, we will check and we hope that this is the case.
(The Minutes were approved)
Interpretation of the Rules of Procedure
I would like to provide an interpretation which was requested from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, concerning paragraph 3 of Rule 162 of the Rules of Procedure and the explanations of vote.
The committee found that: ' Explanations of vote should be provided for the final vote for every subject submitted to Parliament.
The expression 'final vote' does not determine the type of vote, but indicates the last vote on a subject.'
This, therefore, is the interpretation of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
If this is not opposed by any political group or by 29 Members prior to the adoption of the Minutes of the current sitting, this interpretation will be deemed to have been adopted.
If this is not the case, it will, of course be put to the vote in Parliament.
Order of business
Madam President, there were more discussions on this issue only recently, in regard to both the Miller report and the Langen report, where it might be possible to reach an agreement in discussion with the Council.
So as not to jeopardize this, I would propose, as Chairman of the committee and in agreement with the groups, that we postpone dealing with both these reports until the next sitting.
Madam President, I am not sure whether we are talking about one report or both reports.
It was a joint debate.
In interpretation I was told it was the Langen report on excise duties.
In fact, the Langen report is on VAT and the Miller report is on excise duties.
My group feels that if the Langen report is removed, they should both be.
Mrs Green, the request which was put to us concerns the two reports, and Mr von Wogau has just confirmed that.
So I think that clarifies things.
Madam President, I would like to advocate that we withdraw both reports.
The question at issue here is whether a regulatory committee can be set up at Commission level for excise duties - that is the Miller report - and for VAT - that is my report.
This regulatory committee, which is meant to bring progress in tax harmonization, can only be set up, however, if the Council gives its unanimous approval, and Professor Monti still needs time to negotiate.
He still does not have the Council's opinion on this. When we conclude our deliberations, the Council can reject the whole issue at the next Ecofin meeting on 22 April.
We want to make the most of the opportunity presented to us and to the Commission by an adjournment.
That is the background.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Madam President, now that Mr Langen's and Mr Miller's reports have been withdrawn, it seems appropriate to us that this gap be filled.
We would like to propose that in any case the Adam report, which is now tabled for Friday morning, take their place.
Mrs Aelvoet, this amendment has not been presented in the correct way. You are presenting it orally.
This is not at all in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, when faced with a new situation, would it not be helpful to try to find an appropriate response?
I agree, however we cannot simply improvise in this way in the Chamber.
It is not possible.
We will see what we can do, but I do not think that we can decide to replace one report with another at will.
Madam President, if you do this, I would like my report, which comes after the Murphy, Miller and Langen reports, to be brought forward.
It will almost be midnight and if the reports by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs take less time owing to the Miller and Langen reports being withdrawn from the agenda, I think my report should be slotted into their place.
Mrs Lulling's words have reinforced my belief that it would not be wise to start a debate on this issue at the moment.
The agenda for Wednesday remains unchanged.
As far as Thursday goes, I have received a request from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations to reinstate the report (A4-0117/98) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, in its initial place at the start.
The report deals with improvements which could be made to the functioning of EU institutions without modifying the Treaty.
Madam President, the Herman report on improving the democratic functioning of EU institutions is missing from the final version of the draft agenda.
For reasons which are not clear, this report was removed from the draft agenda by the Conference of Presidents last Thursday.
The rapporteur, my colleague Mr Herman, writes in the explanation on page 9 that the debate in plenary sitting is urgent and must in any case take place before the decisions are taken on EMU from 1 to 3 May.
May I ask him whether he still holds that opinion? And if not, why not?
This Parliament makes a great song and dance about democratic control of European institutions.
It therefore damages its own credibility if it removes crucial reports from the agenda for reasons which are kept secret.
Is it not our job to represent the citizens of the Member States, rather than to pull the wool over their eyes?
My group now proposes that the Herman Report be debated this week.
We cannot think of a good reason to postpone it.
Thank you for presenting the request by your group, Mr van Dam.
I am tempted to turn to the rapporteur, Mr Herman, and ask him for his opinion.
Madam President, Mr Herman has no opinion on the matter!
Well then, let us say that we will leave it up to the wisdom of the House.
Madam President, I would like to voice my support for the call to reinstate the Herman report on the agenda. This report is important because it presents the grave and urgent problem of the weakness, or rather non-existence, of democratic control procedures for economic and monetary union in its broad sense, and not just for the European Central Bank, which is the subject of the Randzio-Plath report.
The Herman report notably includes the excellent amendments by Mr Gallagher adopted by the Committee on Institutional Affairs which considered it unacceptable that democratic control could elude national parliaments without being replaced by an equivalent control at a European level.
Clearly, we do not arrive at the same conclusions as Mr Herman, since we believe that it is impossible to organize control at a European level when there is no European state.
So once more, this report is worthwhile since it poses a very urgent problem, according to the terms used in the 'avant-première' of the Parliamentary sitting, which is an official document of the European Parliament.
Madam President, there was broad consensus in the Conference of Presidents that the Randzio-Plath Report on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU should be debated in this part-session of Parliament.
I believe that there is also very broad consensus on this in Parliament.
Mr Herman's report on the consequences in the institutional framework of the European Union can, we think, best be debated after the historic decision which will be taken on 2 May.
There is thus no reason why Parliament should not debate the basis of democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
That is going to take place this week.
We think it would be better to debate Mr Herman's report on the institutional consequences after the European Council has taken its decision on 2 May.
It goes without saying, if I have heard the interventions correctly, that the Europe of Nations Group is going to create a bit of a fuss before that.
It seems to me to be an argument for not tabling the Herman Report in this part-session but after the decision on 2 May.
That is the reason we gave in the Conference of Presidents for debating the Herman Report in May.
Madam President, there was a late request last week to take the Herman report off the agenda and there is a late request to put it back on again.
My group is agnostic on this issue.
We have no reason to keep it on or take it off.
There was a strong request from the Group of the European People's Party last week that it should come off.
For us the essential issue is to be discussed in the Randzio-Plath report.
However, I repeat that my group is agnostic and will have a free vote on the matter.
(Parliament withheld its assent)
I have a second request from the Group of the European People's Party, asking for the insertion as the last item on Thursday's agenda of the oral question to the Commission, document 0073/98, on the social and regional consequences of the abolition of duty free.
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party I would like to make it clear that this oral question is not a matter of reopening the whole duty free dossier.
We would, however, like to point out that there are peripheral regions where the abolition of duty free will have a considerable impact on employment and that these regions might be equally affected by the loss of assistance provided by the future Structural Funds.
That is why we would like to ensure with this oral question that the economic and social effects of the abolition of duty free in the peripheral regions is talked about and that these talks are linked to the demand for the Commission to initiate the long overdue social study on this issue.
I would also like to make it clear that we do not wish to encroach on the Garosci report here, but rather believe that the Garosci report, which is to be on the agenda in May or June, can lead to a much better discussion if we receive objective data from the Commission, as we have been requesting from the Commission for years now.
Madam President, I can only agree with Mr Böge.
It is time we had data so that rational discussion might take place and so that we do not have to rely on the data from the associations.
That is why we need rational discussion and a study on the social impact, to which this House must of course be able to give its backing.
Otherwise, I believe, it will not do justice to the situation that will face us in 1999.
Madam President, it is the weight of office!
I ask that Parliament go against the request from the Group of the European People's Party at this juncture.
I would make it clear that my group is not against the social study regarding the abolition of duty free.
In fact, we are very much in favour of instituting that kind of study but I do not believe that this is the right time to do it.
Also, there is a flaw in the oral question, namely that the study would have to be completed by June of this year. That would be impossible.
I would suggest that we go back to our respective groups and come back at a future date with an agreed position.
We can then make progress with the idea that I think everyone is in favour of with regard to the social study, rather than rushing into something which will be impossible to achieve.
Madam President, it is good practice in this House not to ask questions while a report is in preparation.
The Garosci Report is in preparation at the moment.
Madam President, we cannot prepare a report in committee and debate that issue in the full House at the same time.
That would be against all the practices and customs set out in the Rules of Procedure.
Thank you, Mr Wijsenbeek, your speech was at the limit of the procedural motion.
Madam President, I simply wish to confirm the intentions of Mr Simpson and Mr Wijsenbeek, which I clearly share.
I can, however, reassure the party asking for the study because I have included in my report the request to make an in-depth study.
So I fail to see why we need to anticipate Parliament's normal practice.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Madam President, I just wish to point out one mistake in the Italian version: with all due respect to Mr Crowley, I wish to clarify that the second report, on amending Rule 141, was prepared by me and not by Mr Crowley.
I think this small printing error only relates to the Italian version.
We will ensure that your authorship is acknowledged in each of the languages.
(The order of business was adopted)
Madam President, I asked for the floor since we were going to talk about Thursday's agenda.
On Thursday we are going to discuss and vote on something which I believe all of us consider very important, i.e. freedom of movement in the Union.
I am referring to Mrs Schaffner's report on the report from the High-Level Panel on the freedom of movement of persons.
I would like to point out that I think that this is very important, and I hope that everyone else thinks so too.
The problem is just that the report to which Mrs Schaffner's report refers is apparently only available in French.
When I try to read it, which I want to do and I hope many others want to do too, it is impossible.
I think we ought to know what we are thinking and voting about on such an important issue.
In the current situation, I do not believe we can vote on Mrs Schaffner's report unless we get the documents in all languages. They are currently only in French.
Mrs Lindholm, firstly, I am sorry that I did not see you earlier.
I did not see Mr Evans either; please forgive me.
However, your speech is just as important at this stage since we cannot vote on Mrs Schaffner's report if it is not available in all languages.
We will check the situation.
Madam President, Mrs Schaffner's report is not the problem. Her report is, I believe, available in all languages, but what the report is about, i.e. the High-Level Panel's report, on which Parliament is to give an opinion, is only available in French.
That is the problem.
Yes, I see the problem now. I must admit that I was rather concerned by the idea that a Member's report was only available in one language.
I fully understand.
We will look into this and ensure that this report on the report can be provided in other languages.
Tourism
The next item is the report (A4-0071/98) by Mr Aparicio Sánchez, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on improving safety, consumers' rights and trading standards in the tourism sector.
Madam President, Commissioner, this Parliamentary initiative report calls on the other institutions, particularly the Commission, to close the gap which currently exists in our single market from the point of view of consumer protection and tourism policies.
Namely, it calls for new guidelines for the protection of tourists and their rights as consumers - guidelines which are clearer, better developed and more widely disseminated than the current ones.
Those people who are protective of subsidiarity and are always afraid that national policies will be "Community-ized' need not worry, because we members of the Committee on Transport and Tourism have taken good care that our requests do not infringe upon any national competences.
On the other hand, other people might possibly wish we were asking for reception practices to be harmonized.
For example, is it acceptable to have different hotel check-in and check-out times in the various EU Member States, as is currently the case? I repeat, however, that a lot of our requests have been sacrificed because of our absolute respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
Why did I say there is a gap in this area?
From the point of view of consumer protection, it is hard to understand why it is that while there are many measures in place to protect people buying food, medicines, cars and so on, there are only a few measures designed to protect tourists, and most of them are not compulsory. This is despite the fact that the tourist has always been the prototype of the cross-border consumer.
Furthermore, tourists are the most vulnerable of all consumers, and the ones most at risk in matters of commerce, because they are usually ignorant of the laws, language and consumer associations of the country they are visiting.
Neither the Commission's priorities for consumer policy for 1996-1998 nor its working programme for 1998 so much as mention the question of protecting the tourist as a consumer.
Nevertheless, I must admit that the Commission has developed touristprotection measures, as the report recognizes.
It has been said that the EU's problem in this respect is not a lack of legislation but a lack of information. Some of the requests contained in this report address this aspect, and call for better information.
However, the report does not just address consumer protection, but also considers how to strengthen European tourism.
In our opinion, anything which improves the safety of holidays and tourist travel in general represents an improvement in the quality of tourism and makes the European Union more competitive as a tourist destination in the eyes of consumers from third countries.
It must be said that at the moment tourism in EU countries is extremely safe, but the extraordinary increase predicted for the next few years could result in more errors and travel-related incidents.
In fact, we started this part-session with a very timely discussion of an unexpected flight cancellation.
Anything that can be done at Community level to improve tourist safety will make us more competitive in the future. So we are sure that the most dynamic businessmen within the sector will see anything we do in this area as a means of improving the quality of tourism within the European Union.
Holiday safety and security is becoming increasingly important and will gradually overtake the other major factor in choosing a tourist destination - namely price.
So the report contains a series of requests relating to airline and hotel overbooking, the requisites which should be offered by travel agents, passenger flights, slot allocations, Community arbitration arrangements for tourists involved in conflicts, and so on.
It has been said that the relative importance of tourism in the Europe of the Fifteen is greater than that of coal and steel in the Europe of the Six.
Despite that, the Council seems reluctant to develop a tourism policy.
Let us hope things improve in the future, but in the meantime, based on everything I have just said, we cannot put off protecting tourists as consumers.
Madam President, firstly, as a general comment, I should like to say that Mr Aparicio's report is good in that it stirs up waters which had been stagnant for a long time.
But since I want to contribute solutions and not just praise, I would like to point out that although this report's premises are clear and precise, its conclusions probably do not go far enough.
Firstly, when introducing the theme of tourism, the rapporteur stresses its social, political and economic importance, and the analysis ends there.
He then goes on to accuse the Community institutions of having done little work in this area, but in his conclusions he does not dare to question whether we actually want the European Union to be competent in matters of tourism or not.
I am not talking about how or when, but about the principle: whether we want to establish the principle that the Union has to intervene.
Secondly, the rapporteur states quite rightly that the protection of tourism is a central aspect of any policy of this type if we also want to compete against other tourism in terms of quality and safety. He then goes on to state, as a secondary premise, that the 1996-1998 consumer policy says nothing about tourism, although this protection aspect is probably the weakest part of the legal context within which the development of the tourism phenomenon takes place.
The conclusion should be to question whether or not we want a precise, concrete, compulsory, general framework to protect tourism; a policy of clear information; a code of conduct to bind all the agents involved in tourism policy; a statement to tourists about operators and service providers.
As far as fiscal matters are concerned, I would like to add something which the report does not consider. It does not call for services provided to tourists from outside the Union to be considered as export services, with the right to tax repayment.
And it says nothing, Madam President, about something we have discussed before: if the end of duty-free was linked to the transformation of VAT from a destination tax to an origin tax, which has been postponed indefinitely, why are we bringing forward the abolition of duty-free, when the phenomenon which would justify that abolition has not happened?
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Aparicio Sánchez for a well-written report on the protection of tourists. It establishes an important point, namely that tourism is an industry of the single European market despite the failure of the Council of Ministers to recognize that.
Without prejudice to the notion of subsidiarity, there are times when we need to act on a Union-wide basis where action at a Member State level will not suffice to protect tourists.
For instance, in one of my own amendments to the report accepted by the committee I recognize there may be a danger to tourists from economic and monetary union.
I could tell you of the vast advantages of EMU but we should recognize some of the problems: fraud practised, say, on older citizens who will be unfamiliar with the euro when it comes into effect.
Also, the Commission should round up those entrepreneurs tempted to cheat tourists and consumers by unfairly rounding up the euro exchange rate.
I am sorry that a further amendment of mine was not accepted. It concerns single travellers, who are often women.
They are affected in two particular ways.
First of all, they often have to pay higher room supplements than those tourists who travel as couples.
Secondly, their personal protection is sometimes in question.
For instance, some enlightened hotels allocate hotel rooms near lifts to avoid single women having to walk along unfamiliar corridors where they may be subject to uninvited approaches - a very wise idea which perhaps we ought to replicate elsewhere.
I also support the rapporteur's excellent idea of having a single emergency number - 112 - operating throughout the whole of Europe.
That will bring a real benefit. He mentioned, too, a separate problem of overbooking hotel rooms and plane seats, which has been highlighted tonight by the problems of MEPs coming to Strasbourg.
We need a balanced approach to this problem which afflicts 0.04 % of tourists.
The no-shows and the late cancellations suffered by hotels and airlines should also be taken into account in considering this matter.
Regarding children and safety, we ought to do something, for instance, about invoking high standards of safety and protection required at swimming pools in order to avoid the tragic deaths by drowning of children, that too often cast a pall over family holidays.
In my own constituency there is a five-year-old child who has suffered severe cuts whilst on holiday in an unfamiliar European Union country. He slipped on a rug on tiles and crashed through a patio door which did not have strengthened glass.
(The President urged the speaker to conclude ) Madam President, you allowed an extra 47 seconds for the last speaker.
I have been given three minutes. I should like to finish.
Mr Harrison, I should explain. I am very concerned because you have only two minutes.
However, as you genuinely believed that you had three minutes, I allowed you three minutes as I know it is hard to reduce a speech of three minutes to two.
However, I will have some difficulty if you exceed three minutes.
We have thus checked, and unfortunately your group only allocated you two minutes.
I will have to ask you to round off.
Madam President, the citizens of Europe have the right to proper safety as they go about their business as tourism consumers.
This is something we should defend.
I congratulate the rapporteur on his fine report in helping achieve that aim.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, tourist activity is business activity.
Beside the economic dimension, however, we should never neglect the human aspect, that is to say the needs and wishes of the people.
If we only talk about consumer rights in this context, then we should not forget to mention that rights also involve duties.
This aspect has been neglected in the motion for the resolution.
In addition, I should also like to express my reservations about the respect shown for the subsidiarity principle in one or two paragraphs.
The large number of proposals leaves you feeling that tourism is something uncertain today, as if neither the Member States nor the EU had really done anything essential or decisive in this area. That is not the case, however.
The apparent best is also the enemy of the good for us as consumers.
To this extent, I recognize great parallels with the draft directive on consumer goods guarantees.
Now, as then, we need to guard against destroying the balance between egalitarianism, justice and freedom, hence also between the legitimate interests, rights and duties of consumers and business operators.
Employing and emphasizing undeniably positive concepts such as environmental protection, consumer rights and human rights should not lead to blind overregulation, resulting in the hampering of initiatives in the tourism trade too and a risk to the independence of small and medium-sized enterprises!
We will not achieve our strategic objective of increased competition and improved quality through a contrived comprehensive cover approach, but rather through the key concept of 'partnership' .
Let us prove to the Member States that responsibility for tourism at European level does not mean an increase in bureaucracy, but will on the contrary help bring about deregulation and a reduction in bureaucracy.
Madam President, it is truly disconcerting that we are discussing tourism when there are absolutely no laws on this sector laid down by the EU.
Not only are there no laws, but there is no attention and no legislative and financial commitments; it is almost as if we were brandishing a whip without realizing there was no horse ahead.
The rapporteur also has to deal with a mistake, which is forgivable but significant nonetheless, in the second paragraph of the motion for a resolution, where it says "regrets the Commission's failure to operate an action programme for tourism' .
In fact, there was a programme called PHILOXENIA; it was born and then died, it was aborted, or rather killed.
We were not even aware of its existence.
It was later revived by the Commissioner, with a small budget increase, but seems to have disappeared once again.
It is right to confirm the importance of tourism as an economic activity, and the tourist as a consumer, like all other consumers.
It should be said that, between 1995 and 1996, there was a promising flourish of initiatives and undertakings by this Parliament as well.
Then everything disappeared, killed by one word: subsidiarity - clearly a word that has been badly interpreted and badly applied.
Subsidiarity is invoked stating that the promotion of tourism in Europe cannot be generalized: in some cases, that is true, but in others it is not.
Just think that Europe lost 3 % in 1996 and a further 5 % in 1997 to the United States and Japan, as if to say that our customers have moved elsewhere: they are harming us and stealing an activity which, as has been highlighted, is very valuable.
I agree too: a common action will help us catch up on lost time.
For many areas, tourism is not a hobby, it is not an additional activity, but an activity of vital importance.
Madam President, what we lack is a separate Article on tourism in the Treaty.
Not because we urgently need a new European policy for tourism as such, but to create an opportunity for greater consistency in policies on tourism.
Because at the moment tourism is debated under the heading of consumer protection, or transport, or other policy areas, and one disadvantage of that is that tourism has been a bit like a child foisted on DG XXIII, which has led to all kinds of other undesirable consequences.
It would be good if we could pursue a consistent policy on tourism in the European Union, which means we would have to start with harmonisation.
That protects the consumer when he knows what he can and may expect in each of the Member States; it gives the tourist a measure of security which I think we should be promoting.
Mr Harrison's complaint about EMU and the use of the euro within EMU is, of course, completely unjust.
The United Kingdom does not want to join the euro, but once the euro exists tourists will be doubly protected, of course, because then services will be offered to them in exactly the same currency unit as they are used to at home.
That means it will be very easy for them to make comparisons.
I hope that the Commission will take the report to heart and begin with a clean slate to pursue a good and consistent policy on tourism in the future in DG XXIII.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate both the rapporteur and the Committee on Transport and Tourism on their initiative in encouraging the European Parliament to deal with tourism. This approach has been quite different to the tactic used by the Commission which, by totally downplaying this extremely important sector, has not deigned to deal with an action plan essentially rejecting the PHILOXENIA programme.
The effective protection of the safety and rights of consumers in the tourism sector can only come about, Mr President, through the reorientation of the overall tourism policies of the European Union and of the Member States. We must hit out at the current monopoly of the sector by a minority of large tour operators who are overrunning the market and leading tourism in a direction which will bring them greater profit, blackmailing small and medium-sized enterprises and controlling tourist infrastructures alike.
Consumers are rarely informed of their rights and, more importantly, they are often misled about the services provided by inaccurate advertising and conditions of participation in package holidays.
This unacceptable situation affects a significant number of European citizens who travel within the European Union.
However, it also affects those small and medium-sized enterprises which are suffocating under the pressure of the tour operators, who, by creating informal cartels with large hotel chains, airline companies and other businesses providing services to tourists, are squeezing the services provided, especially the quality of these services, for the sake of profit. This has negative repercussions both for consumers and for those working in the sector who are employed under very often appalling conditions, divorced from any regulation of the labour market and collective agreements.
The proposed transparency of the services provided and of prices, which must be offered to travellers, is of course vital, as well as the total reimbursement of costs should the organizer become insolvent or bankrupt.
However, this safeguard should not come about at the expense of the traveller through increased consumer prices and dwindling services and for the benefit of large tour operators, who may see this as a fresh opportunity for profiteering.
Madam President, yes of course we must offer tourists protection and security, and assistance must be available in an emergency.
But tourism is also about adventure, which is why tourists now go to Turkey, Eastern Europe, California and I do not know where else in the world.
I would like to make a couple of observations.
First on subsidiarity.
Look for a moment at paragraphs 13 and 31.
In paragraph 13 we are asking for a guarantee fund at European level.
Have we gone completely mad?
We book the trip in our own town or village and if the guarantee funds operate at national level that is fine.
In paragraph 31 we are asking for compensation in the event of crimes of violence to be harmonised.
Now, that really is going well beyond subsidiarity.
I do not call so readily for subsidiarity, but this is really going too far.
My second point. This report wants to wrap tourists in cotton wool, especially tourists who fly.
Now, I do not really support that.
Look at paragraph 8. It says there should be compensation whenever there is a delay or change of routing.
I can see what would happen. Tourists who are delayed for an hour would get a present of a hundred guilders!
Paragraph 10 states that the slots for tourists must be improved.
I have heard MEPs complaining here about not being able to fly to Strasbourg.
If we improve slots for tourists, then you will have to be prepared for the fact that your slot may be at five o'clock in the morning.
Finally, I do not need to repeat what Mr Wijsenbeek has said already about the euro.
Paragraph 33 is completely absurd and so I have requested a split vote on a number of these paragraphs.
Mr President, I would like to offer Mr Aparicio Sánchez my warmest congratulations on his report.
This is not merely a formality; his report is thorough and well-drafted, going beyond the concept of European citizenship to encompass the right to engage in safe, high quality tourism within the Union and outside it.
A new dimension is added to the quality of European tourism, whereby the services provided to tourists should conform with the commitments entered into between the operator as supplier and the tourist as consumer.
But, beware! This advance, which is reflected in enhanced credibility and quality, simultaneously requires European tourism operators and government bodies to assume new responsibilities.
The number and substance of proposals submitted is so considerable that it has already given rise to two movements which will, I hope, have major repercussions in the future.
Firstly, it has become apparent that the absence of a legal foundation in the Treaty - and in the revised Treaty of Amsterdam - for the tourism industry totally rules out or seriously hampers the execution of any programme that seeks to promote or enhance the competitiveness of the sector.
Meanwhile, however, tourists will be increasingly protected and supported through the Community's consumer protection policy.
As stated in the report, it is necessary only to verify compliance with existing legislation, to update it, and to make it more thorough.
The responsibility for this situation lies, to a large extent, with the sector's associations which, contrary to the position of the European Parliament, encourage their respective governments to exclude the tourist industry from the review of the Union's treaties.
The second particularly interesting aspect of this report is that, no sooner was it approved by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, than the associations connected with the industry themselves approached me, in my capacity as president of the Intergroup on Tourism, to engage on 2 April in a joint debate on this subject with Mr Aparicio Sánchez.
May I take this opportunity to invite the committee in question and Members of Parliament who would like to contribute to this debate to attend, and I congratulate Mr Aparicio Sánchez for the expectation he has generated in connection with his report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, tourism has a long tradition in Austria and has become the economic mainstay of many regions.
For this reason I very much welcome the fact that the European Parliament is becoming increasingly interested in it as a topic of concern.
When I say what a considerable influence the tourist trade has on the Austrian economy, then I wish to point out its significance in this regard for the rural region.
The rural region includes much more than its agriculture: its business enterprises, service industries and especially the tourist trade all form a part of it.
Additional sources of income and an improvement in infrastructure are the result, and a depopulation of these rural areas is thereby prevented.
Tourism can boost the fortunes of less developed regions.
However, cross-border regions can also profit from it.
For a long time now, Austria has been having a rethink, particularly in the area of environmental awareness and consideration for the environment.
I think safeguarding natural resources is essential.
I should finally like to state most categorically that we should unite to combat sex tourism.
Mr President, this is the second consecutive part-session during which tourism has occupied an important place.
During the previous part-session, the subject was tourism and the euro, and today we are discussing the protection of tourists as consumers in Mr Aparicio Sánchez' interesting report, on which I would like to congratulate him.
First and foremost, I consider it important to emphasize that such protection involves familiarity with and respect for contracts entered into by tourists with tourism agencies and agents and with transporters.
In this regard, unacceptable situations exist - which should be prevented - such as those connected with the need for transparent information on prices, validity, alterations and compensation, luggage allowance, etcetera.
Also, for air transporters there is the matter of using aircraft owned by other companies since this is a mode of transport in which safety considerations are extremely sensitive, and such changes therefore deserve particular attention, as I sought to emphasize in my opinion on air transport and company agreements.
Furthermore, as the rapporteur states, measures are required in connection with the practise of overbooking, both for transport and in the hotel sector.
I would like briefly to touch on two points that are also mentioned by the rapporteur and which I consider to be important.
The first relates to the attention that should be given to rural tourism, particularly in the light of its potential positive impact on peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions.
In this respect, I consider it extremely important to draw attention to the matter of cultural information that should go hand in hand with this tourism.
My second point relates to the type of tourism that generates considerable seasonal and/or periodic influxes, of the kind that are considerably in excess of that occasioned by normal flows of tourists which are already irregular by nature: I refer to religious tourism which can attract an annual population of over 5 million to a town intended for a few thousand inhabitants.
Fatima is a case in point, with all the attendant repercussions as regards development planning and basic amenities.
This type of tourism calls for special attention and appropriate protective measures.
Finally, in discussing the subject of tourist protection, thought must also be given to eradicating the types of tourism which threaten society.
I am talking about paedophile tourism which cannot be justified in any light, nor a blind eye turned when foreign currency is being earned.
Mr President, this summer it will be two years since disaster struck the campsite at Biescas in Spain, which sadly led to the death of eighty-six people and many injured.
Last week the President of the Alliance Internationale de Tourisme presented a report to the European Commission with recommendations to improve safety on campsites by developing common safety standards for the location and lay-out of sites, warning systems, emergency lighting and evacuation plans.
My question is: when is the Commission going to respond and come up with proposals for guaranteeing an appropriate level of safety on European campsites.
My second question is: when will we get the results of the study carried out into overbooking in hotels?
Can the Commission also provide an evaluation of the code of conduct in relation to overbooking agreed a few years ago between a group of tour operators and the European Hotel and Restaurant Federation?
Mr President, tourism is one of the Union's major economic sectors.
While I defend the advantages of self regulation between professional sectors, I am aware that the competitive position of Europe's tourism sector cannot be guaranteed without intervention by the Union in certain cases.
The anticipated rapid expansion of the sector in the coming years will necessarily exacerbate existing problems, with the result that the Union will be required to intervene on several fronts, for instance, in ascertaining that existing directives and regulations are enforced.
We should dovetail measures in the tourism sphere with those for protection of the consumer, by promoting cooperation between DG XXIII and DG XXIV, and we should guarantee prompt access for tourists and tourism professionals to justice and create modes of arbitration in intra-Community conflicts.
We should also compile existing Community legislation and disseminate it broadly to all potential users and provide back-up for staff training, including the aspect of tourist safety, ensuring that such workers are mobile and thoroughly qualified.
We should support and lend substance to a "European tourism award' which renders tribute to sustainable tourism, while encouraging the study of measures to promote intra-Community tourism.
Finally, we should formulate measures to increase tourism in the Union's inland and ultra-peripheral regions, such as the Atlantic islands, where tourism accounts for 75 % of economic activity.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Airport charges
The next item is the report (A4-0088/98) by Mr Väyrynen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on airport charges (COM(97)0154 - C4-0362/97-97/0127(SYN)).
Mr President, the proposal for a directive on airport charges is not an attempt to harmonize them. It aims instead to comply with the three principles of transparency, cost-relatedness and non-discrimination.
The directive aims to create a framework for negotiation, in which those who are responsible for the upkeep of airports and those who use airports can negotiate charges and services available.
While I was drafting the report I considered carefully whether the proposal for a directive was useful and necessary.
I think the European Parliament should always remain sceptical when it comes to new Community legislation.
I have reached the conclusion that the directive on airport charges is not essential but, carefully weighing its proposals, it could be useful.
The proposal for a directive is based on a compromise between the airports and airlines, on the one hand, and the Member States, on the other.
Only by achieving this kind of balance will agreement be reached concerning this directive.
This idea is basic in my proposals.
The committee rejected by a narrow majority certain proposals for compromise as negotiated under the stewardship of the draftsman.
As a result the report is now in a form that I consider unacceptable.
In the final vote only a slim majority approved the report. Almost half the committee members abstained.
What is worse, the conciliation proposal for Article 4 on national airport networks and local airport systems was rejected in a tied vote.
On the other hand, the proposal for a directive was approved by a one-vote majority, meaning that higher charges could be levied at large airports for domestic flights in countries having remote communities in order to subsidize smaller airports.
This goes against one of the principles of the directive, which is that of non-discrimination, which holds that charges must be the same for domestic and inter-EU services.
I think it is vital that the directive acknowledges the system in operation in countries like Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Finland and Sweden, where the nation's airports form a national network whereby cross subsidy systems operate for reasons concerning regional policy, with the result that costs seem fairer for smaller airports.
I also consider it unfortunate that the majority on the committee should wish to include a penalty system in the directive, given that it will simply be ignored.
Nor do I think it a good idea that the directive should contain provision for charges to be settled, in cases of dispute, through conciliation or even through the courts.
These do not become the nature of the proposal for a directive, in my opinion, and they are unlikely to get unanimous support with the Council of Ministers.
I appeal to you all, ladies and gentlemen: the report should be improved upon in the part-session.
As many important issues were decided on the committee either by a tied vote or a narrow majority, I imagine the report might take on a more acceptable shape through voting in the part-session.
Finally, I should like to thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism for a constructive job in the handling of the report, but as I have said, I hope the report, through voting, can be changed and improved on.
Mr President, the draft directive on airport charges has proved to be a difficult and complicated report for the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which involved the rapporteur trying to incorporate the different needs and various systems which exist in the 15 Member States.
His solution, as presented to the committee, was a good one.
Unfortunately, as he has said, several key factors were lost in narrow votes in committee.
The final compromise report we have ended up with is in danger of satisfying no-one.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists will, therefore, seek to restore many of the points in the rapporteur's original text.
There are a number of main issues which I would comment on.
Article 1 considers the minimum size of airports to be affected.
There has been a whole range of figures suggested, ranging from five million passenger movements to the Commission's 25 000.
In committee, the Socialist group supported the figure of at least two million passenger movements or 50 000 tonnes of freight. We felt that as this directive is part of a body of legislation aimed at dealing with various aspects of airports there ought to be some degree of consistency, and the figure we have chosen would fit in with those appropriate to the groundhandling directive.
In the same article, we support the decision of the rapporteur to introduce the concept of national airport networks.
I have considerable sympathy for those who oppose the introduction of such networks.
Nevertheless, as the rapporteur has made clear, we have to accept that the system of cross-subsidy for smaller airports in order to support social cohesion is widely present in both the extreme north and the extreme south of the Union.
The way to some agreement is to support national airport networks being included whilst, at the same time, building on and strengthening the conditions which would apply to their use.
Cash subsidies should be allowed in circumstances where either the major airport was congested and the state wished to develop an alternative regional airport or the regional airport is reliant on feeding the national hub for the majority of its business.
I am opposed, however, to attempts by the EPP Group to restrict national airport systems to peripheral areas or to domestic flights.
I shall support the original compromise Amendment No 3, which related to changes in Article 4(1).
It is important in airports which are run as commercial entities that they retain the flexibility to apply non-aeronautical income to subsidise aeronautical charges at their own discretion.
Article 4(1) should therefore include the words 'the managing body of an airport may take account of all or part of the airport's income that is not derived from airport charges when establishing the total level of its charges' .
It is even more important that the other changes between compromise Amendment No 3 and Amendment No 9 are reinstated, specifically that allowing the cost of financing facilities which have the express consent of the majority of users and of their representative bodies through consultation arrangements under Article 7.
Reliance on this original wording, put forward by the Commission, is ambiguous and would effectively lead to substantial delays to development.
For example, in the United Kingdom, BAA is having to fund advance works for the cost of its Terminal 5 inquiry.
The users accept that these can be recovered from charges, whether or not the development goes ahead, because they support the project.
If such costs could not be recovered, there would be a positive disincentive for airports to invest in new development.
Finally, I support the proposals for consultation, as laid down by the rapporteur.
I oppose penalties, and our group will be voting against the idea of penalties, which would only have to be paid by the airports anyway, and on the dates for implementation we support the original Commission proposal.
Mr President, let me begin by saying thank you to the rapporteur, Mr Väyrynen, for the very constructive work he has done on this report.
Airports play an increasingly important role in a world where the number of journeys is constantly rising.
This is a development which is just going to continue.
Today we see a development which means that the number of airline passengers is growing in the order of 4-5 per cent per year. This means a doubling from the current level until the years immediately after the year 2010.
Airport taxes play an important role in this context.
An airport provides airport facilities and airport services.
The tax paid by airlines includes amounts relating to the facilities and services provided by the airport.
The current draft directive includes an ambition on the part of the Commission to find common solutions for the whole of the Union, which is of course a good thing.
There are big differences between the various tax systems in the Union.
There are differences both between the Member States and, in some cases, even between airports in one and the same country.
Because a large proportion of air transport takes place between the Member States, it is natural to try to achieve a common and unified system as far as possible.
There are a lot of things in this report which I think are very urgent.
In different contexts, different countries can have very different conditions.
There are, for example, differences between conditions in a densely populated country and in a country which largely consists of sparsely populated areas.
There is also a decisive difference between a country which is in the middle of the EU and a country on the EU's periphery.
There is reason to take both these different sets of conditions into consideration.
Finland and Sweden are two of the countries which in this respect have different conditions to the majority of other Member States.
The Commission has also provided for this to a certain extent, but in the view of my group and the Group of the European People's Party, it has done so in an unnecessary way. It should only apply to the peripheral Member States and only for domestic traffic.
The latter is seen as very important in principle.
It is reasonable that matters concerning domestic traffic should be something each country can decide for itself.
As far as I am concerned it is quite different when someone starts his journey at Heathrow in London and flies to Arlanda in Stockholm.
If that person never sets foot in another Swedish airport, why should he have to help finance it? That makes the limitation we have proposed with regard to Article 4 seem very important.
Mr President, the principles at work in the proposal for a directive by the Commission are nondiscrimination, relationship to costs and transparency. We have still to agree on the content of these rules and on their application.
Transparency cannot work in one direction only.
The exchange of information between airlines and airport administrations must be based on genuine reciprocity. It cannot come only from the airport administration.
Airlines and airport administrations have everything to gain by seeking to work in tandem.
On this point, Mr Väyrynen's report contains risks by wishing to go further than the Commission's proposals, particularly in paragraphs 6 and 7 which provide airlines with the means to exert pressure on the administration and the investments of airports.
The airlines must be able to retain control of taxes, since for many airlines taxes represent a significant part of turnover.
Further to this subject, the abolition of duty free would deprive airports of essential resources, not to mention the serious consequences it would have for employment.
Duty free should be retained, and I am delighted that the Transport Ministers have called for a study on the economic and social consequences of the measure.
Airports must also make considerable investments spread out over several years and a coherent approach will require greater flexibility and respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
Member States must take seriously their responsibilities towards joint national and regional development and respect for the environment.
In this respect, they must have real power to set taxes in order to guarantee the necessary tax harmonization.
The same step should be taken for all transport infrastructures: rail, ports, motorways.
The same applies to consultation; consultation is necessary, however if disagreements arise between the airport users and the administration, the regulatory role falls to the national public authority.
For this reason we are opposed to the amendments to paragraph 7 which destabilize it in this field.
Mr President, I would like to make a couple of comments.
The first is about Article 1, where the Committee on Transport and Tourism has limited the scope of the directive somewhat by increasing the number of passengers from 250 000 to a million.
I have to say that I cannot see the point of that.
I even think it is counterproductive.
The second is that the Committee on Transport and Tourism has not succeeded in incorporating a stronger environmental component into these airport charges, although Article 5 provides a small opening to do that.
I have tabled an amendment to that end again, because I still think that nuisance really must play a role in the airport charges.
Finally, it has to be said that one airport causes far more nuisance than another because it is located in an area with a far higher concentration of people, so that should play a role.
That is why I hope this amendment will be accepted after all.
Mr President, I am hoping to touch the heart of Commissioner Kinnock.
Sometimes in this kind of debate I feel a sense of unreality come over me.
How many of you have been to the airports of Campbeltown, Islay, Tiree, Wick, Lerwick, Kirkwall, Inverness, Barra, Benbecula, Stornoway, not to mention the feeder airlines on Shetland from many islands that feed into Lerwick, the feeder airlines on Orkney that feed into Kirkwall?
Very few of these feed to a major airport like Glasgow. Many of them feed to Inverness.
So when I read the discussion of cross-subsidization, I am perplexed at Article 4(2) which talks about the peripheral states.
I do not suppose anyone would argue that the UK is a peripheral state but no one would disagree with me that the north of Scotland is a peripheral region of a state.
I beg you to pay attention to the problem of these very small airlines.
I applaud France, Spain, Portugal and other countries that accept the need for social cohesion and have the networking.
I agree with Mr Megahy's remarks in this regard.
I would ask the Commissioner to tell us what he thinks of the UK's opting out of this attempt to produce social cohesion.
I support Amendment No 20 which restores the Commissioner's wording, partly because it adds a new paragraph encouraging the use of smaller, less congested airports.
I am adding a new dimension to this problem.
There are not just regional airports that feed major airports but regional airports that feed other regional airports and this produces an enormous amount of difficulties.
So I would also ask Commissioner Kinnock about subsidies. Can a local authority legitimately decide to assist with a subsidy in special cases?
I understand that an analysis of airport charging systems in the EU reveals that airport charges often do not reflect the real costs of providing facilities.
I would give the Commissioner the following example. Inverness apparently charges the same as Aberdeen but Inverness in no way offers the many facilities to users that Aberdeen does.
At the beginning of the sitting, when Mr Kinnock was present, we heard many examples of people's difficulties of coping with their lives as politicians here.
But their difficulties - with the one exception of the Finnish lady - were as nothing compared to my difficulties.
British Airways cancelled flights from Inverness and to Heathrow and Stansted.
The last flight from Inverness to Amsterdam was on Saturday. It was overbooked.
The last time I attempted to get back to Aberdeen because I could not get to Inverness, it was also overbooked.
In fact, they blatantly said to about ten of us who had paid full fare that it was the airline's policy to overbook, that all airlines did it. They said it openly in front of these very angry, delayed passengers.
Perhaps Mr Kinnock could tell us if anything further can be done on this matter where airlines almost boast about it and make no apology.
It takes me two days to get to this Parliament.
To hear of all these Air France direct flights from London being cancelled has no relevance to someone who dares to live in the north of Scotland and to be a politician in this Parliament.
So I ask Mr Kinnock to let his heartstrings be stirred by my problem and to try to do something.
Mr President, an enquiry conducted by the European Commission has shown that airport charges in the Community are too high relative to the cost of the services provided.
What is more, they are discriminatory and lack transparency.
This Commission enquiry confirms the independent study carried out by Cranfield University, which concluded that airport charges in the European Union are 40 % higher than in the United States.
So there are definitely good reasons for the proposal to base airport charges within the Union on equal treatment for the same level of service, to relate charges to costs and to make them transparent.
I do have a problem with the way the Commission has developed these principles.
The wording 'in reasonable proportion to costs incurred' is too vague, and also it is the Member States themselves which determine what a reasonable proportion is.
This way is not going to quickly lead to airport charges which reflect real costs.
I am even less happy about the differentiation based on external costs which the Commission allows.
I heartily endorse the principle of passing environmental costs on to the user, but then the Commission first needs to create a framework for this method of calculation to prevent unfairness.
I look forward to a Green Paper with the title: ' Toward fair and appropriate pricing in air transport' .
While some blame falls on the Commission as far as the development of the principles is concerned, the Committee on Transport and Tourism does not seem to take them seriously.
The national airport network, which the Committee on Transport and Tourism is asking for, makes it impossible for the user to pay for the use of installations and services.
The system proposed amounts to cross-subsidisation between airports.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy writes with justification in its opinion that this would distort competition between airports even more.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism is also violating the principle of equal treatment for the same level of service if, in amendment no 10, it allows peripheral Member States to make a distinction between internal and international flights.
How can that be reconciled with the internal market?
I also agree with the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on this point, which states that whether the flight is an internal flight, a flight within the Community or a flight from a third country must not play any part in determining the level of airport charges.
Mr President, airports are very important in the economic life of the Union and regional airports are of crucial importance.
In my own country, Scotland, a study of the employment, wealth and economic activities generated by airports, mainly in tourism, came up with the quite significant statistic that in 1996 £1.4 billion was generated by activities at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports. Twenty thousand jobs related to airports and tourism were dependent on this.
So regional airports are of significant importance within the Union.
The report which we have in front of us deals with the question of charges and I agree with Mr Megahy that the report has a lot of faults and failings.
The Commission's original proposal is obviously better and the final report is a bit of a dog's breakfast and really could be amended.
The important thing which some of the other colleagues have touched on is this question of peripheral nations.
Like Mrs Ewing, I think that it should be peripheral airports because if we look at the question of the lower limit which the EPP voted for in committee this would mean that small airports like those which Mr Hume, Mrs Ewing, and Mr Gerry Collins use would each be covered by the legislation; these are all very small airports and yet they are vital to the economy of their regions.
It is important that we go for the higher limit which the Socialist Group is suggesting.
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to support Mr Väyrynen's report and this Commission proposal.
Clearly, such a directive is needed, but the directive should not impose restrictions on commercial operations of airports or unnecessary administrative burdens on airports or those regulating them.
What is particularly important is that we should raise the standards of service but leave commercial matters for airports to decide, in consultation with the both the airlines and any relevant consumer organizations.
The key point I would like to impress on both the Commission and the rapporteur is that the thresholds for implementation in the directive, particularly for passengers, are too low.
Certainly the threshold for passengers should be set at 1 million passengers.
The directive as currently drafted makes insufficient provision for the transparency of arrangements at airports and consultation of users that we in this House would wish to see.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his work which, I know, has been quite difficult and technical.
There is a great problem when you talk about aviation and, in particular, airport charges, in that the airlines always think that the airports are overcharging them and the airports think that the airlines are always wanting something on the cheap.
That is a fact that exists within the aviation industry.
I say to some of the Members who have spoken that it is always easy to look at national situations, but we must, in this whole issue, look at the European situation and what we can do to try and bring together the wide variations between airport charges.
Remember that this is a report on airport charges, not a report on problems that Members might have in getting from A to B on the Monday of a Strasbourg session.
It is a difficult and complicated issue.
It is important to have transparency in airport charges, but we need to ensure that airports do not abuse their position and that airlines - particularly the large flag carriers - do not abuse theirs.
Regional airports are important, particularly in peripheral areas, which is why I think cross-subsidization is, if transparent, acceptable within a national airports network.
I agree with my colleague Mr Megahy's analysis that what has come out of committee is not only unacceptable but, in my opinion, unworkable.
That is why the PSE has submitted amendments to rectify that situation.
Mr President, I am very grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Väyrynen, for his thorough work and his cooperative attitude.
I wish I could be as cooperative in responding to the various interesting points raised in the debate, notably by Mrs Ewing.
If I do not respond, it is not because she has failed to pluck my heartstrings - she did that a very long time ago - but simply because of the shortage of time.
I will, therefore, write to her on each of the questions she raised.
This proposal seeks to establish the three internationally recognized principles of cost-relatedness, transparency and nondiscrimination as the basis for charging for the use of airports in the Union and, naturally, I am glad that the Committee on Transport and Tourism shares these objectives.
For the sake of clarity, I wish to deal with each amendment in turn.
Subject to a certain amount of redrafting, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6.
Amendment No 5 refers to the idea of networks but the main justification for these types of networks - cohesion - is lacking in the amendment, and I, therefore, have to reject it.
I am pleased to note that there is a consensus - though one could be forgiven for thinking that there was not, listening to the debate - around the figure of one million passenger movements as a general threshold for applying the main principles, and I can accept this part of Amendment No 8.
The new reference to networks in Article 1 is, however, misplaced, as the committee itself has acknowledged in later amendments by treating cross-subsidy and network issues separately.
So that part of Amendment No 8, as well as Amendment No 18, has to be rejected.
Subject to some redrafting, but with the exception of the reference to cargo facilities in the definition of airport charges, Amendments Nos 9 and 21 are acceptable.
One of the thorniest issues in this proposal relates, obviously, to conditions for cross-subsidization between larger and smaller airports within the same network, as addressed in Article 4 of the draft directive and in Amendments Nos 10, 20 and 26.
The Commission accepts the idea of defining networks, obviously.
As far as these amendments are concerned, however, the Commission cannot accept the idea of leaving the possibilities for subsidizing - that is charging higher than normal fees at the major airports - completely open with no applicable safeguards or conditions relating to cross-subsidies.
Obviously, such practices could lead to abuse.
However, the Commission cannot accept the idea of completely excluding these types of practices or limiting them only to domestic flights either.
Some explicit and transparent cross-subsidy practices can be important and, indeed in many cases, they can be beneficial for most carriers at the major airport since all carriers receive passengers from feeder flights which plainly would not exist if it were not for the smaller airports.
Furthermore, limiting acceptable cross-subsidy arrangements to domestic flights would contradict the very principle of non-discrimination.
Turning now to modulations in charges, while I can accept the idea of environmental charges only addressing local problems - which is, indeed, the spirit of our proposal - I cannot accept Amendment No 11, because it only concerns specific and tangible environmental costs.
As the House will know, in many airports modulations are used as steering instruments to modify noise, pollution or congestion problems and they are a practical way of ensuring that users pay for the pressures that they impose and the equipment that they choose to use.
Obviously the Commission proposal requires these types of charging variations to be revenue-neutral and not a source of additional income for the airports, so that the interests of users are safeguarded by a transparent and fair system.
In principle, however, I can accept the clarification offered on rebates.
As for Article 6 of our proposal, which is addressed by Amendment No 12, whilst I can accept certain textual clarifications, I cannot support the provisions on obliging all airports in Europe to provide their information in a standard format.
As the House will know, our proposal is not designed to harmonize the airport sector in Europe: it merely seeks to ensure clarity and transparency in the setting of charges.
In relation to Article 7 on consultation procedures, Amendment No 13 is asking for independent arbitration bodies.
There is, however, a legal problem with this type of authority since it could supplant a national court system and would ultimately become an interpreter of Community law.
That is not acceptable to the Commission, although I have to say that our concerns in this article are limited to the notion of arbitrators and the main part of the amendment is an absolutely necessary clarification of our original text.
Amendments Nos 14, 15 and 24 concern timing with the aim of reducing the timescale for the implementation of the directive by two years.
I can only say that we have set the dates so that they do not conflict with the implementation of the directive on ground handling.
I am sure that, on reflection, the House will see the practical sense of that.
I can deal quickly with the remaining new amendments as follows.
I can accept Amendments Nos 16, 17, 22 and 23, but Amendment No 19 is rejected because this formulation dilutes the non-discrimination principle in an unacceptable way.
Finally, I have to reject Amendment No 25 because the objective of the directive is not to penalize the air transport sector but to provide for a balanced framework that guarantees certain basic principles.
The amendments suggested have, in general, been very constructive, even in cases where I have not been able to accept them.
They certainly focus minds on the results that we want this directive to achieve and I am therefore grateful for the views expressed.
I can only hope that the Council will see things as positively and constructively as this House.
I am grateful to the rapporteur and his colleagues, regretting only the time that it took to respond but I guess that is inevitable when there are detailed amendments on a technical issue.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Parking card for the disabled
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0098/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Recommendation on a parking card for people with disabilities (C4-0033/98-95/0353(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Megahy).
Mr President, there are millions of disabled people throughout the European Union, and many of them are dependent on transport by car.
All the Member States grant parking facilities to such people by means of a disabled person's parking card.
The rules and regulations for the issue and use of these cards are made by the Member States.
This recommendation quite rightly respects their right to do so.
However, in a developing European Union, disabled people should have the same opportunity as other European citizens to travel freely throughout the whole territory of the Union.
This recommendation makes that possible for those with parking cards.
At the moment, for example, there is no certainty that a German or a British car exhibiting its own national card and parked on yellow lines in Strasbourg or Brussels would not incur a fine for its owner or, at the worst, be towed away.
When this proposal comes into effect that should no longer occur.
I say 'should ' no longer occur because I think one thing we are familiar with in all countries is the zealousness of parking attendants.
But there will now be a Community model card which can be used alongside regional or national cards for a transitional period determined by the Member State.
The Transport Committee unanimously accepts this proposal and all the accompanying details.
Indeed I can say that the common position is a great improvement on the original recommendation that came before us at the first reading.
Most of Parliament's amendments have been accepted, either word for word or in spirit.
We now have a recommendation which makes it clear that the definition of disability will be left to the rules of each Member State.
It also recommends, however, a wider definition than previously, to include people whose disability can lead to decreased mobility.
Secondly, it allows the new European card to be used in parallel to existing cards for a transitional period.
This is important to disability groups in Member States who fought hard for recognition of their existing cards, and also to local authorities and other bodies that might incur costs in the first case if this had to be altered too quickly.
The recommendation also says that information on conditions of use in the different Member States should be provided when issuing the parking card.
I think that is important. Most importantly, the common position has taken up our suggested changes to the format for the card.
They have taken out the vehicle registration number which was there originally so that the card now relates to a person and not just one vehicle.
In addition they have removed the address and date of birth from the back of the card. This was suggested both by Parliament itself and by various disability groups for very real security reasons.
In my experience in this House it is not always the case that a common position from the Council is better than the original proposal. In this case it is.
It received unanimous support in the Transport Committee.
The fact that it is a recommendation and not a directive of course gives it a weaker legal base.
I do not think, however, on a matter of this kind, that this should in any way impede its speedy implementation.
I see this as a small but significant step towards the recognition at European Union level of the equal rights of disabled persons.
I look forward to seeing it speedily implemented by the various Member States speedily in accordance with the details laid down in the directive, and to the opportunity for disabled persons to use their standard model card in the other countries throughout the whole of the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first of all like to thank Mr Megahy for his excellent work, for we do not often find that the Council adopts nearly all Parliament's amendments - at least in spirit. That is no doubt a sign of the good work that has gone on here.
We can now for our part approve the common position of the Council at second reading and will then, hopefully, have obtained at last the European disabled person's parking card, which has been promised for 20 years.
The Council has agreed in its opinion that the card can be used independently of the vehicle, hence that it is individual and not vehicle-specific, that for security reasons the address should not be recorded on the card and that information on conditions of use should be provided when the card is issued.
The Council is also proposing that the European card be used parallel to the national cards, which makes sense at least for a transitional period.
We shall also be discussing this week the report on the free movement of persons produced by the High-Level Panel.
For disabled people, freedom of movement is basically only a dream.
Reality causes them even greater problems, and there is an even larger number of hurdles for them to overcome than there is for so-called normal people.
Perhaps this European card will provide an opportunity to remove the initial small hurdles.
In my speech in December 1996 at first reading of the report I complained that this card is just eyewash, and I wish to reaffirm this again today.
Because, you see, it is left open to the individual states whether they introduce it or not, and it is only valid according to the particular regulations in the particular country, and these are not in alignment.
Nevertheless, the card is a first step in the right direction, and I hope it will be a benefit for everyone.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, only a few days ago I held a conference on the subject 'So disabled people might have a place in our midst' .
It was interesting to see the great significance that was attached to the aspect of real discrimination against disabled people travelling inside the EU as a result of the non-availability of a European parking card.
The issue of increased mobility through constantly improving technical provisions, on the one hand, and a certain confusion as to the rights and duties of participating in road traffic in the EU, on the other, soon became the focal point of the discussions.
At the same time, those affected expressed their concern over too much regulation, as well as their fears as to whether their hopes and desires, which I convey as their man in Brussels, are being noticed and heard at all.
I recommend that the common position now on the table be given our unqualified acceptance.
The Parliamentary amendments I consider important from first reading have been adopted either word for word or in spirit.
Of particular importance in my view are: firstly, the decision in favour of an individual-based as opposed to a vehicle-based solution; secondly, the special attention paid to security aspects in protecting the holder's personal data; and, thirdly, that our demands for subsidiarity, public accessibility and transparency represent a real basis in that, on the one hand, the community model can be used to supplement regionally or nationally valid cards already existing while, on the other hand, the issuing of this new model card is coupled with a duty to provide information about its conditions of use in the individual Member States.
Unfortunately, the recommendation fails to harmonize access conditions for such a parking card.
Also, and precisely because I come from a city which is to be the 1999 European City of Culture, namely Weimar, I recommend that Member States implement this recommendation quickly so that a place in our midst can really be made accessible to disabled people soon.
Mr President, it would have been a credit to the European Union if it could have taken a decision on a parking card for people with disabilities in less than 20 years; and then we are still not talking about legislation which prescribes something, but a recommendation.
Mr President, it is vitally important to the European Union that ordinary people living with all kinds of problems can have some faith in this Union.
We really must ask ourselves, if it stops at a recommendation and does not lead to harmonization of the parking card, whether this will advance the credibility of the Union.
I actually cannot understand why the Member States have not been able, together with Parliament and the Commission, to quickly see to this simple matter of harmonizing parking cards for handicapped people.
To be honest, I think it is a disgrace.
I hope that this card does come and of course my group agrees with Mr Megahy's report.
Mr President, I fully agree with the rapporteur that this is an important subject, precisely because of the social impact of the proposal before us today.
So I too am glad that the Council, in its common position, has adopted the unusual approach of practically accepting the vast majority of Parliament's amendments, particularly those which say the card should belong to the holder rather than to a specific vehicle and remove the address and date of birth, for obvious reasons of security.
It is also very positive that it has been accepted that the definition of disability should be extended, that the card should be used in parallel with the other cards already in use in certain Member States, and that information should be provided at the time of issue.
However, as other speakers have said, we also regret the fact that this proposal is legally weak, as the rapporteur puts it, despite being so important socially.
In other words, it is just a recommendation. We think it deserves a stronger legal base, in view, I repeat, of its social importance.
Nevertheless, we support the proposal before this House and, of course, we congratulate the rapporteur.
Mr President, first I would like to thank Mr Megahy and all those who have contributed to the debate.
As Members will know, all Member States do grant special parking facilities to people with reduced mobility who, by the very nature of their condition, are more likely to rely on personal individual transport than on public transport.
The right to these special parking facilities is demonstrated by displaying a disability parking card inside the vehicle.
However, the design and the style of these parking cards vary considerably from one Member State to another and this can give rise to problems when users of the card find themselves in a Member State other than that in which the card was issued.
The diversity of the cards makes it difficult for those responsible for enforcing parking regulations to know if someone is eligible for the special parking facilities or not.
Against this background, the Commission gave an undertaking in its medium-term social action programme to submit a draft recommendation on the reciprocal recognition by Member States of a parking card for people with disabilities.
In addition to the mutual recognition of the cards issued in individual Member States, the Commission proposed that there should be a standardized EC model parking card, and details of such a standard card are set out in the recommendation.
The recommendation has been considered by the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and by Parliament.
At your first reading on 13 December 1996 the House proposed several amendments to the Commission's proposal.
The Commission was happy to take most of your suggestions on board and, on my recommendation, adopted an amended proposal on 4 March 1997.
The Council also took Parliament's amendments into account when it adopted the common position on the recommendation on 18 December 1997.
Since then, Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism, at its meeting of 17 March, unanimously agreed the adoption of the common position.
I would like to thank the European Parliament and especially the rapporteur, Mr Tom Megahy, for such a very positive reaction and for your strong support for the proposal at all times.
The final adoption of the recommendation by the Council will of course ensure that people with disabilities will be able to benefit from parking facilities wherever they choose to drive in Europe.
This should help facilitate their greater freedom of movement, thereby improving work, shopping and leisure opportunities for at least some people with disabilities.
A very small move perhaps, but I think quite an important and significant step in the removal of barriers to fuller participation in European society.
It has taken a long time, but at least now this issue can finally be put to rest, and I would like to congratulate all of those who made that possible.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Recording equipment in road vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0116/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) 3821/85 on recording equipment in road transport and Directive 88/599/EEC concerning the implementation of Regulations (EEC) 3820/85 and 3821/85 (C4-0009/98-94/0187(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Wijsenbeek).
Mr President, the Committee on Transport and Tourism has sent me, as rapporteur, limping into the debate.
I know it is sometimes difficult with the amount of travelling we have to do and the planes and trains which are not there, but it is curious, at least, that the late arrival of three Members, two from the UPE and one from the PSE, altered the majority for this report while voting was taking place.
That also reflects the fact that the report is quite controversial, open to different views, because it was very close.
What is it about? In fact, something new has cropped up.
Anyway, I have never experienced anything like this.
The Commission had presented a proposal aiming to improve the existing recording instrument, the traditional tachograph, by adding an extra piece of equipment in which a driver-card is fitted.
At first reading, Parliament, with the greatest possible majority, took the view that the on-board computer or digital tachograph would also be an improvement on the traditional instrument and could simply be used, even with CD-ROM, in place of the traditional instrument.
I have to tell you that I thought that a highly acceptable proposal.
I thought that a useful addition by Parliament and even the Commission was in agreement with it.
Then the Council adopted the common position that only on-board computers may be used in new vehicles.
The Council did that with fourteen votes in favour and one abstention.
As it stands, Parliament could support that common position, it represents the state of the art in the technology now being applied.
However, there are two problems with this.
In the first place, there is the matter of use and control in the other AETR countries which are not yet, or will not become, members of the EU.
Regarding the AETR, the Transport Committee has submitted an amendment, and it could be that something will come of that, but I expect to hear the Commissioner soon on this, saying that we will still have to accept some of the old equipment.
The second problem concerns the retrofit.
Personally, I find it unacceptable that the old lorries, of all vehicles, which experience has taught us breach the rules on driving and rest periods most, should be allowed to continue to run with the old equipment, which is so open to fraud, for ever and a day.
Some say that the problem will be over in five to seven years, but it is still five to seven years, and then most of these vehicles are usually put on the road again, often in some of the Member States around the Mediterranean.
Now to come back to the limping of my motion.
The first three amendments, and Mrs Langenhagen's amendments, Amendments Nos 19 to 22 inclusive, still contain the 1A proposal and the reference to the Annex which goes with it. They were subsequently not included, nor was the Annex.
Obviously I will be leaving it to the wisdom of Parliament whether to accept Mrs Langenhagen's motions but in any case I, as rapporteur, will rise after the votes on Amendments Nos 2 and 4 to indicate the subsequent logical order of the later voting.
I would very much like to hear from the Commissioner about retrofit and AETR, but I also think that the Commissioner owes us some further explanation about the origins and basis of the whole Article, that is a new regulation on driving and rest periods.
At the moment we are only talking about the means of control, whereas, in fact, we also need to examine the Regulation on driving and rest periods which needs to be amended.
The Commission is considering this at the moment, but I think that the two have to go hand in hand.
Now to my conclusions. We have been surprised, and not unpleasantly, by the progressive common position.
We will have to see whether we are still going to consider both possibilities 1A and 1B, or whether as a Parliament we want to proceed further only with 1B.
But no matter what happens: transport will and must become safer and more social in one way or another as a result of this proposal.
Finally, I would like to thank the Commissioner warmly for the cooperation but also, and especially, those in DG VII who helped me, simple lawyer that I am, to master this difficult technical material.
Mr President, since my colleague Mr Wijsenbeek has outlined the technical background so superbly, I can confine myself to considering the political aspects.
It seems so simple. Lorries above a certain weight and buses with a certain number of seats have for years been fitted with a piece of equipment which measures driving and rest periods.
It is a neat bit of technology which has been improved over and over again by smart people in recent decades, but especially in their own experience by smart operators.
Drivers - the good ones excepted, I must emphasize - often literally bend the technology to suit themselves.
A government which takes itself seriously tries to do something about this.
It seems simple but as you know, so many heads, so many minds, a tangle which is difficult to unravel.
Rapporteur Wijsenbeek has pointed us more or less in the direction of the digital era.
Bravo to that.
Fourteen Member States were then able to choose to progress in the same way, the Commissioner and the Committee on Transport and Tourism have endorsed it, though we have to wait for the vote to see whether the same will happen in Parliament.
But my colleague Mr Wijsenbeek has already spoken about that.
Mr President, the Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung wrote nostalgically last month about the good old tachograph disc which will be replaced by a digital system in 2000, also mentioning that the German industry is ready for this.
Kinsel was the first to propose a 1B solution.
If necessary, it said in the same report, the 1A solution could still be taken off the shelf.
Against this background, it is reassuring that the technology for digital tachographs is evidently no longer a problem.
This is not only evident from this report, I also say this because I am assuming that the Commission and the Council are both very wise bodies, surrounded by masses of expertise, which obviously cannot allow themselves to make any mistakes at this point with regard to the technical feasibility of the proposal which lies before us now.
Having said all that, I am not forgetting that there are still doubts even in our circle about the choice that has been made, especially on the points which the rapporteur mentioned just now.
I sincerely hope that they will be dispelled by experience in practice in the years to come.
The broad support that there seems to be for the shift to the digital era should now no longer be put at risk.
Mr President, well before the new digital tachograph is, can be, introduced, we will have to buckle down to further proposals for effective and more harmonized control.
Before the last Dutch Presidency, the Dutch inspection service, the National Transport Inspectorate, took the initiative to map out the enforcement regime within the Union.
What we already knew from the Commission reports, which were often seriously delayed, was confirmed.
The rules are the same on paper, but that is where it stops.
There is insufficient awareness of how badly this undermines the idea of a single Europe with an internal market.
How bona fide operators and drivers who respect the rules can feel daily that they are being treated with contempt, by authorities which are powerless or unwilling to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Mr President, during the Council meeting in which the common position was adopted, the Council asked the Commission to present a report, if necessary accompanied by suitable proposals, on the effectiveness and uniformity of inspection procedures operated by the Member States.
I would not have had that 'if necessary' .
I am therefore assuming that the Commission will come up with proposals soon.
To put it more forcefully, what is the point of a new tachograph if enforcement practice continues with its old ways.
Mr President, what is going on?
In 1994, i.e. four years ago, the Commission presented a proposal which pays greater regard to road safety in general and the social legislation for long-distance drivers in particular, namely through the introduction of a new tachograph, because the current one is considered too easy to tamper with.
Actually the matter is quite simple.
All those affected, be it drivers, trade unions, haulage firms or the road users I interviewed, are in favour of an improvement.
This improvement was presented to us by the Commission in its very sensible proposal of July 1994, but then Parliament wanted more.
At first reading in the summer of 1995 Parliament did not just vote for a piece of equipment which is less easy to manipulate, but also for the development of a super black box involving an extensive infrastructure with the firms and inspection authorities.
Global fleet management was to be a vision no longer.
It was two years later - in 1997 - that the Council's common position was presented to us. This is inadequate in many respects.
I ask you and the Council how it can come about that, in the final analysis, the Council has only voted on the super black box and not simultaneously on the satisfactory, cost-effective, sound, feasible and acceptable solution proposed by Parliament.
Who is hiding something here and why?
When I first heard about the Council's decision, I thought I was dreaming, and I still hope that this is all a mistake and that tomorrow this blunder will not be endorsed by Parliament as well.
I am in favour of a modern, technologically assisted transport safety system, but each businessman should be able to decide for himself in this free market of ours, whether he wants a superbox or the equally attractive, so-called improved solution.
The entrepreneur ultimately knows best what costs he and his business can sustain.
If the common position of the Council becomes a reality tomorrow, then the previous tamper-prone tachograph and the new superbox, which still has not been clearly defined and examined for its legal force - the old and the new equipment therefore - will exist for ten years or more side by side.
Neither have anything in common.
On the contrary, an incentive will be given for a driver to transfer from the old vehicle to the new because he knows that the two types of recording equipment cannot be compared with each other and that he cannot be prosecuted for failing to observe the proper driving and rest periods.
If the Council has voted 14: 1 against the more sensible solution, but in favour of the superbox, this means that there is no wish to achieve increased control and hence improved road safety.
Or how do you see things, ladies and gentlemen?
I hope that our vote tomorrow will not turn into a nightmare and that we will vote as at first reading, because I think like you, Mr Wijsenbeek, 1A and 1B are the correct solution.
Mr President, I thought I was alone, but Mrs Langenhagen has beaten me in introducing some element of caution, alongside this stimulating technological innovation.
Like all technological innovations, this has financial implications, and so caution is needed.
There is a risk, in this case, that it will favour one party, namely the manufacturers of this new equipment, and worry the other party, namely those who have to buy them without total guarantees, not only for the operation, but for the credibility of the checks that can be made with this equipment.
Carriers, and not just Italian carriers, have already been gravely concerned by an investment that could give rise to losses, as it might have to be renewed even in the short term.
I personally, and to some extent my group, are not against the introduction of 1B equipment, but we are asking for it to be done gradually, because not everyone agrees with the results of the tests so far conducted.
We propose that it might be better to allow a transition period, a free choice, firstly for the Member States and then for the businessmen in the countries themselves, of whether or not to use the new equipment or keep the 1A equipment with the addition of a digital reader, at least for a specific period.
It would appear that the costs of either operation are much the same, but the first, the incorporation of a digital reader into the old system, would provide greater guarantees for the time being, while awaiting the official initiation of the 1B equipment.
It is true that this could complicate the control systems, so those working on the road will have to check not only the operation but also the honesty of those using this equipment.
In this case, however, unlike our regrets in a previous speech on tourism, the principle of subsidiarity should be defended, or even imposed, for in this case it is also a question of defending a principle of discretionary power.
In such a delicate framework which might affect a sector already troubled by other factors, such as the increase in motorway tolls, those who will be paying the cost of this reform should be allowed to choose.
Mr President, experts consider non-compliance with the rules to be one of the most serious problems in the transport sector.
I share the opinion that this problem has not been caused in the first place by defective control equipment, the tachograph.
I think the main cause is the inadequate performance of the investigation bodies. The rules on driving periods are also not geared well enough to the characteristics of road transport and that invites infringements.
Even so, I share the Council's view that the tachograph must be replaced by an on-board computer or black box as the means of control.
The technology of the tachograph is outdated.
It is susceptible to fraud and, unlike the on-board computer, cannot be used to improve operations.
When the price of the on-board computer is also comparable to that of the tachograph, with or without smartcard, the on-board computer seems an obvious choice.
Now that the Council has also opted for this, I do not want to hold on to the original choice of Parliament at first reading, which wanted to give transport companies the choice between an improved tachograph and an on-board computer.
The co-existence of three systems, tachograph, tachograph plus and on-board computer, can only make enforcement more difficult.
I am sorry that the Council did not decide to go for a retrofit.
When new equipment is introduced, you cannot avoid using the old and the new alongside each other for some time.
But the Council should have set a deadline for the use of the tachograph.
Now we are going to be faced for a long time with tachograph discs in old lorries which soon hardly anyone will be able to read and, according to the rapporteur, it is mainly the old lorries which break the rules on driving and rest periods.
My amendment to make the on-board computer compulsory after a number of years did not win sufficient support in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, however.
I would rather not have a retrofit at all, than a retrofit which amounts to an upgrading of the old tachograph.
If the Council now, in 1998, votes for on-board computers with a large majority, I think it would be stupid, in the next century, to equip old lorries with technology which is in fact already out-of-date now.
Mr President, who actually still believes in this House that the demands articulated by Mr van Dam - for improvement and harmonization of driving and rest periods and for an improvement in the control systems - can still be achieved?
I have been a member of this Parliament since 1989 and this is a demand that has been made time and time again.
We know that enforcement takes different forms within the European Union.
I can judge this fairly well from a German point of view, too.
Because the system is not working and will not work, we need to have improved recording equipment in the vehicles.
The digital system is a correct way forward, but it should not be introduced without used vehicles being retro-fitted with the driver-specific smartcard at the same time.
The tachograph needs to be retro-fitted; we have the technical facilities to do this.
The periods quoted here, namely until the year 2003, are much too long.
Furthermore, the reduction for vehicles licensed since 1996 is totally absurd because we know for a fact that 10 and 15-year-old vehicles are driven mainly in the countries of central and eastern Europe, and they will be driven for some years to come.
I need to refer to something else, too, particularly where the situation in central and eastern Europe is concerned: it was 1995 when the tachograph was introduced.
I think it is asking too much to now lay down the digital system at one go, so as to transfer to a new cost-effective system after five years.
The interim solution would clearly be more acceptable.
We have - or could have - the following paradox: for example, new vehicles fitted with the digital system from 2000 onwards might no longer be able to enter the countries of central and eastern Europe because the appropriate reading equipment is not available there and their police are not equipped with the necessary apparatus.
You can just imagine the way things might develop for us under certain conditions!
The chance to arrive at a comprehensive solution, e.g. one involving intermediate stages, better monitoring of drivers' hours, the introduction and implementation of better social legislation, has not been seized.
Finally, Frits Castricum: it is not only German industry that is ready; we know that companies in Great Britain, in the Netherlands, in Italy and in France are ready too and possess both the technical and technological know-how to change things!
Mr President, let me begin by saying thank you to the rapporteur, Mr Wijsenbeek, for the many years of work he has done on this matter.
The issue of tachographs goes hand in hand with the unresolved issue of driving and rest periods.
On the question of the latter, the European Parliament is still waiting for the Commission's proposal on what changes are considered necessary.
It would have been good if we had been given the opportunity to discuss these issues in one context.
It is necessary to set requirements for functioning equipment in lorries.
At the same time it is also important that the technology and the systems in which people have invested, perhaps in every company in a country, can also be used for its full service life.
Anything else would be a waste of resources.
It would be quite unreasonable to demand that already heavily burdened companies reinvest in new systems.
It is a different matter to say that, when systems need to be replaced, the best available technology should be adopted and systems introduced that are the same for all Member States.
The longer-term work also includes legislation in this area with regard to the membership negotiations which are about to begin and with regard to bilateral negotiations with third countries in central and eastern Europe.
It is highly desirable that there should eventually be common rules both with regard to driving and rest periods and with regard to technical systems for tachographs.
In a single market and in a Europe virtually without frontiers, certainly taking a somewhat longer-term view, this will become necessary.
Mr President, the last time it met, this Parliament spoke out for a tough approach to dealing with danger on the road.
The measures we propose include measures to promote better compliance with driving and resting periods in freight and bus transport.
This requires better enforcement, and fraud-proof equipment can help with this.
I have six short questions to put to the Commissioner.
First, is it true that the digital tachograph, 1B in the documents, is clearly better in this respect than the improved conventional tachograph 1A?
Second, is it true that both types of tachograph have reached a stage of development which would mean that making type 1B compulsory from 2000 would not result in delays? Third, is there any truth in the statements from some colleagues that countries in Central Europe are prepared to cooperate with the installation of 1A but not 1B?
Fourth, what is the Commissioner's view on the absence of any provision for existing vehicles?
How great is the risk that bona fide transport operators will be subject to competition from operators driving old vehicles without an improved tachograph?
Fifth, I think we have the best chance of finally reaching a decision if we go for 1B, given the views in the Council of Ministers.
Sixth, the key question to the Commissioner, with reference to my colleague Mrs Langenhagen's argument, what will best serve the interests of road safety and responsible social behaviour?
Finally, whatever is chosen, the outcome stands or falls with proper enforcement in all Member States.
Mr President, I welcome Mr Wijsenbeek's report and congratulate him on the work he has put in.
I particularly welcome the fact that this proposal - the common position - aims to improve the enforcement of tachograph provisions.
We all agree that social legislation relating to professional drivers' hours is widely abused under the current system.
However, my concern is that, under the common position that has been placed before us today, there are too many ifs, buts and maybes concerning IB.
I think it would be particularly appropriate to play safe and allow IA and IB to proceed in the interim.
For example, it is not certain that the technical committee will have completed the technical specification for digital tachographs this year.
I understand - unless the Commission can contradict me this evening - that the Commission may have to apply for an extension of the deadline.
I believe that the Commission and the Council should recognize this fact as we do in Parliament.
The technical requirements under IB are rigorous.
Recording equipment in the vehicle must be able to hold one year's driver's hours data and the driver-specific smartcard must be capable of holding at least 28 days of data.
Unfortunately, I do not share Mr Castricum's confidence that the ministers will have sorted this out in time - i.e. the technical specification question.
We all agree that the present tachograph-based system has deficiencies which prevent effective enforcement of Community legislation currently in existence on professional drivers' hours.
However, the most sensible way forward is to propose a transitional phase where IA and IB proceed in parallel until the new technology - which we all agree should be secure and tamper-free - is in place.
I sincerely hope that the Commission and the Council can accept this proposal.
Mr President, the introduction of a new generation of tachographs is obviously a tangible contribution to road safety, as several Members have said in the course of the debate.
It is a tangible contribution to better social conditions for professional drivers, and clearly also a tangible contribution to fairer competition both within road transport and between the different modes of road transport.
I am extremely grateful for the sustained interest of this House and for the continuous commitment shown in particular by the rapporteur Mr Wijsenbeek.
The House will certainly recall that this Parliament wanted the Commission to amend its original proposal in 1995 by adding the possibility of introducing full digital equipment, the so-called 1B option.
Since the first reading technical feasibility studies have been undertaken, a great deal of work has been done with all the sectors involved, including enforcement authorities, social partners and the industry, with the result that the Commission and the Council are now convinced that having option 1B alone is the right approach.
We live and we learn, and we are happy to be instructed by many of the arguments put in the first place by the Parliament.
This House will not be surprised to know that, so far as I was concerned, they were in any case pushing at a fairly open door.
The Commission, consequently, will not support those amendments aimed at reintroducing the 1A option.
Whilst we agree that would be better than the current tachograph, it remains a hybrid solution that does not use the best available technology and does not give the same advantages as the 1B option in terms of security and flexibility for users.
Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4 and 19 to 22 are therefore not accepted.
I would like to respond to those honourable Members who made the point about retro-fitting, by emphasizing that a good control system is very dependent on the proportion of the vehicle fleet that is equipped.
I have therefore argued consistently in the Council for some kind of retro-fitting that would have achieved the right balance between better enforcement and reasonable cost for the operators.
I regret, however, that a large blocking minority could not accept such a compromise.
Obviously no discussion on retrofitting should, however, justify the introduction of the new tachograph for new vehicles.
Therefore, considering that there is a broadly held view that the issue of retro-fitting is - how can I put it politely - ' not ripe for decision' , it should remain on the table of the Council.
This at least will enable the Commission to return to the issue later, as it most certainly will, possibly on the basis of a modified proposal.
So far as retro-fitting is concerned, we had to ensure that we did not let the best be the enemy of the good and we have had to work on the basis not of what we would most prefer but of what we were most likely to get.
I hope that the House will share our view that it was pragmatically better to proceed on that basis.
Amendment No 3 is rejected because it is already covered in essence by the joint declaration attached to the common position which states that the Council and Commission will take steps to adapt the AETR Agreement as necessary in the light of the new tachograph.
In response to other honourable Members on this AETR point, the legal services of the Commission and the Council have made clear that there is no reason why European Union vehicles equipped with a new digital tachograph should encounter problems in the AETR third countries.
Vehicles equipped with a better enforcement tool should be accepted in view of the fact that they obviously aim to apply the same rules as the existing tachographs.
Moreover, the outputs of the new system, i.e. the printouts, will be much easier to interpret than the existing ones.
They will use the same pictograms to show the same information.
That should be more than sufficient, especially when we consider that if the current tachograph is not functioning the AETR Agreement simply requires a hand-written log from drivers, which is worse than nothing.
The real challenge will be to ask the third countries to introduce the new system for their own vehicles.
That might require a transitional period as has been suggested in the course of today's debate; but both the Council and the Commission have committed themselves to take all appropriate steps to achieve that.
On that basis, I welcome the declaration attached to the common position and I hope it will go some way towards reassuring honourable Members who have expressed doubts and concerns on this.
I would like to respond to at least one of Mr Cornelissen's other questions, and that is relating to whether 1B will work.
The answer is most definitely Yes, as repeatedly tested and as demonstrated in working conditions and in very strong simulation exercises.
So he can be sure of that, but I am glad he raised the question, together with several other questions.
I would conclude by saying that I am happy to inform the House that I can accept Amendments Nos 5 to 17, which must be some kind of world record!
They clarify or strengthen operational or security provisions of the common position.
I thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism, and Mr Wijsenbeek the rapporteur in particular, for the work on this proposal which will make a very significant contribution to the further and beneficial evolution not only of the common transport policy but to standards of fair competition, of security, of safety and of honesty in the operation of road haulage in the European Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Social security schemes for persons moving within the Community
The next item is the report (A4-0052/98)by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons, to self-employed persons and to members of their families moving within the Community and Regulation (EEC) No 574/72 laying down the procedure for implementing Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 (COM(97)0378 - C4-0450/97-97/0201(CNS)).
Mr President, I am embarrassed by the annual report and debate on Regulation No 1408/71 on the coordination of social security schemes for employed persons, self-employed persons and members of their families moving within the Community.
As rapporteur, but even more as an elected representative living in a border area, I know the problems which so many have who live on one side of the border and work on the other side.
Problems which, for that matter, get even worse when people stop work, whether they are forced to do so because of illness or perhaps also when they are happy to retire.
Mr President, I cannot explain it at home any more.
People can see for themselves that Europe is expanding, we are getting the euro, fine!
But how does that help me solve my everyday problems?
My point is that the increasing fiscalization of social security rules in a Regulation which merely coordinates social security sometimes benefits employees who commute over borders, but puts the majority at a disadvantage.
In the annual report that we are bringing out, I simply attempt to propose a few changes.
I will come to that now.
Mr President, as the law stands at the moment, the Regulation does not apply to EU subjects who do not have an occupation and are not family members of someone who is working.
The special arrangements for civil servants also fall outside its scope.
In addition, nationals from other countries who are lawfully resident in a Member State and meet the social security and tax requirements are also not covered by Regulation No 1408.
A debate is now taking place in the Council regarding nationals of third countries.
With regard to civil servants, I would like to hear from the Commission: what exactly is the situation now?
We have already discussed your 1991 proposal.
Mr President, that question is answered in this report.
In this report, I explicitly propose an amendment to extend Regulation No 1408 to students and other persons who have the right to reside in the Union and who, if they at least have sufficient means to support themselves, still fall outside the coordination rules, with all the problems that entails.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
Mr President, it is actually a never-ending story in which I, as rapporteur, and many colleagues with me, never get a hearing.
This is about the right of a person who works near a border to obtain cross-border medical care for himself, while dependent family members continue to be excluded.
I propose that retired people and their dependants should be allowed to keep this option.
As far as Amendments Nos 3 and 4, which attempt to tackle this problem, are concerned, I really would like to get a clear answer from the Commission as to why the proposed Directive which was promised to us some time ago has still not been formulated clearly.
Mr President, I would like to put on record - as I have often done before - that the cooperation we receive from the Commission's departments is extremely good.
Your staff, Commissioner, do an excellent job in listening to questions from those who are affected by this and their organizations.
The European Parliament and the Commission are in broad agreement on the technical background to Regulation No 1408, but all the proposals are being blocked by the Council.
So I am asking: can the Commissioner possibly provide us with a summary of why exactly which Member States are blocking which directives.
I think that a summary like that could be put to good use in the various election campaigns.
Mr President, finally I have two further comments.
The rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, Wolfgang Ullmann, - our thanks go to him - argues that the codecision in the Treaty of Amsterdam which applies to this Regulation does not really offer a way forward, because the decisions in the Council have to be unanimous.
Mr President, I am more optimistic, perhaps it is my nature.
This is because the time of decision-making behind closed doors is going to come to an end. With people power, we in the EP must ensure that decision-makers can no longer skulk away without presenting reasoned arguments as to why they are against an early retirement scheme, against extending entitlement to care in the country of employment and against schemes to safeguard the unemployment benefits of working students, pensioners and civil servants.
Mr President, if the responsibility lies elsewhere, we must act together to resolve the matter, but I expect the Commission to indicate clearly, and to this Parliament, why what is being blocked and, together with Parliament, look for possible solutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all thank you very much, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten. You have seen fit to comment on this issue, Regulation No 1408, on occasion before, of course.
I thank you for your tenacity and persistence here.
You know that the Socialist Group - and, I think, the whole of Parliament - support you in this matter.
The technical amendments to the present Directive are all correct in principle and long since overdue. Unfortunately the Commission was once again somewhat fainthearted.
That is why we have supported some amendments of yours.
I also think these were needed in order to send a message to particular groups, such as students, pensioners and the unemployed, and to show generally how seriously we take freedom of movement.
The right to freedom of movement is already anchored in the Treaty of Rome.
However, it is always surprising to discover what obstacles and barriers the Member States put up against this and how reluctant they are to bring about equality of social treatment.
A series of Commission proposals and parliamentary opinions are lying dormant with the Council.
They are not being implemented because the political will is lacking.
I welcome your suggestion, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, that we should be given an overview of which Member States are blocking progress so much.
I welcome it regardless of who the culprits are!
The Commission likewise is a bit too complacent and cautious in several areas.
This is shown in the new action programme on freedom of movement, which fails to represent social security with the same commitment shown for the free movement of capital, goods and services.
It is our aim as a Parliament, as elected representatives, to guarantee workers the right to freedom of movement, to reduce discrimination and to plan and take a courageous step towards further integration, and not wait, as so often happens, until the European Court of Justice has taken the lead.
I think it is proof of how impoverished we are as parliamentarians if the European Court or national courts need to show us the way in the matter of European integration.
This is a political task and not, in fact, a job for the judiciary.
I hope with this Regulation we can move a little closer to the objectives I have just stated.
Though I hope, too, that we can finally record a success, to the extent that an amendment to a Regulation proposed by the Commission, which we have unanimously passed in Parliament, will be implemented by the Council of Ministers.
If this is the case, then I am certain that some of the scepticism of Europe's workers and citizens will be reduced in the process.
Mr President, first I want to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for her excellent report, in which she once again defends before this House the rights of migrant workers, including frontier workers.
For Europe will not truly exist until we have removed the practical obstacles which confront those people who have to cross a border every morning in order to go to work in another Member State.
The report supports the technical amendments proposed by the Commission to update the regulations relating to the coordination of social security schemes for migrant workers.
However, as well as these technical amendments, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten presents some amendments with a greater political impact - basically those which demand concrete actions to correct the existing shortcomings in transfrontier health care.
The Commission should present a serious proposal in this respect, to include what Parliament is about to approve in the amendments to this report.
Basically it is a question of frontier workers, their family members or their survivors being equally eligible for health benefits in their country of residence and in the country in which they work.
Furthermore, this right should extend to frontier workers when they are retired or not in employment, always being based on their professional activities in their country of employment. That is the only way to achieve a Europe which is diverse yet united, in which borders do not represent any loss of citizens' rights.
Mr President, as usual, the Commission is calling on us today to assess the updating of the regulations on social security concerning workers moving from one Member State to another within the Community.
Twenty-five years have gone by since the regulation was drawn up, and the picture has changed almost totally in this sector in a quarter of a century.
In fact, all of us hope we will be able to see European workers move freely within the various Member States, as if they were their own, maintaining, and even strengthening, their social rights.
We therefore agree with the rapporteur, whom we thank for her work, in asking for greater protection for migrant workers and their families.
We therefore support the two amendments requested in addition to the valid amendments presented by the Commission, particularly the reimbursement of benefits in kind provided under sickness and maternity insurance.
The first amendment that needs to be made is the inclusion of students among the beneficiaries of social security.
The second amendment relates both to transfrontier workers and their rights to pensions based on the legislation of the Member States in which they have worked as transfrontier workers and to the social rights of their families and survivors.
To conclude, our task is to make freedom of movement and respect for social rights effective.
Transfrontier workers and students are the present and the future of employment within the Community's single market, or rather what we prefer to call the internal market.
Mr President, Commissioner, every year we hold a debate in Parliament on technical amendments to Regulation No 1408/71.
It is good that we do this, but I think that the main function of these debates is to clarify a number of deeper problems which can no longer be solved by technical amendments and legislation.
I would therefore like to thank the rapporteur, who has tabled a number of amendments which will enable us to debate fundamental problems in relation to cross-border social security matters.
However, I still think that the Council will again not adopt these amendments.
That is actually the crux of this debate.
People appeal to us, as Members of the European Parliament, about their problems all the time, when it is the Member States which could do so much bilaterally.
In the light of this I would like to say something about cross-border health care.
I support Amendment No 3, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's amendment, to give border workers the opportunity to obtain medical care on the territory of the other state concerned as well.
The same goes for Amendment No 4, which guarantees entitlement to medical care in the Member State where a retired person used to work.
This covers retired workers.
The problem of self-employed people who have worked in a lot of other countries has not been resolved yet.
The Member States of the European Union still think too much in terms of regional care areas based on national criteria.
However, change is unavoidable as the internal market develops.
Care areas need not stop at national borders by definition.
Let me offer my own region as an example.
I live in Zeeland, an area which is cut through by a major river, and services in Belgium are much closer than services in the Netherlands.
I take the view, therefore, that solutions could be found, for example within existing euro-regions.
I think the Commissioner ought to put this point high on the agenda of the Council of Ministers too.
At this time when technological innovation goes hand in hand with increased mobility, and where distance is playing less and less of a role, we need to have the political courage to see cross-border cooperation in health care as an opportunity and not a threat.
The arrival of the euro will accelerate this process as it will make it easier to compare prices between the Member States.
The various Member States will have to create more scope for cross-border health care, including the purchase of medicines abroad.
The fact that I am not alone in this view is already clear from the contributions of my colleagues, but also from the submissions to the Court of Justice in the Becker and Kohl cases.
I am absolutely convinced that we must not continue to wait for another judgment from the Court of Justice, but that the politicians should take the lead in matters of this kind.
The arrival of the euro is precisely the opportunity for us as politicians to take the lead.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I can express my ardent support but briefly here, although I have to say that it is tinged with considerable annoyance.
For here realism really does change to minimalism.
It is clear that students, refugees, unemployed pensioners and those about to retire should be included in the scheme.
It is clear too that civil servants, third country nationals and the self-employed who do not have large amounts of capital behind them should also be included.
Yet, Commissioner, what has to happen before the Council finally looks for a solution to these problems? It is not as if we were discussing this issue for the first time.
The single market, ladies and gentlemen, is in a bad way right on the eve of the euro.
I do not know if you have ever had a puppy that has gone romping through the fields - on four legs.
The single market is hobbling badly - and it hurts to watch it - because its fourth leg, the freedom of movement of workers, is lame.
It might not keel over, it can get about on three legs still, but it is painful.
We need to get the single market out of the habit of moving in this way, for it does so at the expense of dependent employment in all its forms. We have not even begun to address the atypical forms of work that are developing.
And we cannot justify this inaction in a situation in which the single market is being consolidated by the euro.
I believe this is a matter of the utmost urgency, and if something is not done about it soon, then something will certainly happen.
Mr President, the proposal for a Council Regulation, on which the report we are discussing is based, is reasonably and substantially supported by the members of the National Alliance.
We agree on the need to update the Community regulations in question, to take into account the changes in national legislation and several bilateral agreements arranged between the Member States on this subject.
The actual freedom of movement of persons within the EU is one of the principal objectives of the construction of the Community and is sanctioned by the Union treaties.
However, this objective has not yet been achieved in full, particularly with regard to the freedom of movement of workers and self-employed persons.
For this purpose, it seems advisable to have a clear and simple framework of reference regulations, a sound basis on which to begin the removal of obstacles and difficulties in the mobility of workers within the EU.
The members of the National Alliance also agree with the amendments included in the report.
Social security beneficiaries should also include students, pensioners and others, providing, of course, adequate resources and insurances for health and maternity.
The essential condition is that persons come under the legislation of one or more Member States and are citizens of one of the Member States, with this condition extending to their families.
Frontier workers should also be entitled to a pension, an income based on the legislation of the Member State in which they have worked.
It is also necessary to regulate the transferability of all pension rights, both those connected with compulsory schemes and those resulting from membership of supplementary schemes.
The latter have continued to develop in size, particularly among the more senior professional workers, who are particularly interested in mobility.
The members of the National Alliance note however that the lack of a European agreement for the protection of workers will lead to industrial firms relocating to regions where the workforce costs less and is less well protected, with the risk that national systems will be brought into line with a lower level of social security and protection.
We are concerned that, while strengthening the prominent positions of the national industrial firms on the market, we will end up ignoring the social themes.
The national governments tend to cut these costs, possibly to be competitive.
If we want to avoid such a dangerous scenario, the EU should play its specific role in the field of social security and protection.
Since we have built an economic and monetary Europe, we have greater reason to establish social standards that can be supported at European level.
Only in that way can we truly maintain the economic and social cohesion of the European Union.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking all those who contributed.
I know how frustrating it can sometimes be for those who constantly referred to the matters that they have approached again this evening.
In particular I wish to thank Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on this matter.
I understand precisely when she says that she has problems on her doorstep dealing with frontier workers.
We are trying to solve them and this is what I propose in that regard.
We welcome the positive attitude of Parliament on this particular proposal, because you share the Commission's opinion that Regulation 1408/71 and, indeed, Regulation 574/72 on the coordination of social security schemes need to be updated in the light of changes made in national legislation.
You also agree on the simplification of the reimbursement system for health and maternity insurance as a consequence of the modification of the implementing Regulation 574/72, 1995.
The Commission also takes note of your concern about the need for a clear and comprehensive statement of the reasons for the future proposals in order to identity their purpose.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten also suggests four amendments. I wish to deal with them.
The first and the second concern the extension of the personal scope of the regulation in order to include other categories of persons not in active employment.
The Commission has already submitted a proposal to the Council on 13 December 1991 for the extension of Regulations 1408/71 and 574/42 to all insured persons.
As this proposal is now being actively discussed in the Council, it would not be appropriate to present a new proposal with the very same object at this stage.
As regards the third and fourth amendments, they seek to extend the right to health care to members of the family of a frontier worker and to former frontier workers residing or staying in a Member State other than the competent Member State.
The Commission is very aware of Parliament's concerns and it shares your view in this matter.
In 1995 it submitted a similar proposal to the Council and that was, unfortunately, rejected.
However, it seems very difficult for the Commission to take on board these amendments in this proposal since the issues dealt with go beyond the scope of the Commission proposal which, of course, is limited in this proposal to updating the current text of the regulations.
However, I should say, and I wish to emphasize this: the Commission supports the ideas expressed by Parliament in its report.
It is the Commission's intention to include them all in a proposal for a fundamental revision of the regulations which we presented at the end of the year.
The important thing to remember here is that this particular proposal is a purely technical one.
We are talking here about updating the existing regulations.
The changes that are necessary because of case law are because of Member States' modifications of their own legislation.
We are not talking about new items in this particular proposal but we will be doing it later on in the year, as I say.
In answer to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, I would like to say that there are indeed delays, which are quite frustrating at times, but she must remember that unanimity is required in the Council to deal with these matters, and that it is very difficult to achieve in anything related to social security.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten asked what the story was about some of the proposals.
Certain Member States are blocking, which prevents us getting unanimity.
Four proposals should be mentioned here.
I am talking about unemployment benefits, that is, the exportation of them. That is being blocked by two Member States.
Then there is the calculation and exportation of pre-retirement benefits.
The Nordic countries plus one other country are against that.
On the question about civil servants, I would like to say that good progress is being made on that particular proposal - that is one of the proposals for the introduction of these categories into 1408/71.
So there is good progress on civil servants.
As far as students and the non-employed are concerned, there is blocking there too by some of the Nordic countries and one other major country.
To Mrs Weiler I would say that I appreciate how important this is so far as the freedom of movement of people is concerned.
But in reply to Mrs Boogerd-Quaak who asked why we do not move ahead of the Court, the answer is that we expect the Court judgments on the two cases pending before the summer.
This will allow us to honour the commitment I am giving here that before the end of the year we will make a proposal covering all these outstanding issues.
But I have to say that the Court is important in this regard. It determines the limits available to us as regards the interpretation of the Treaty.
So if I made a proposal to the college in advance of what is about to come within the next couple of months, and if I got it wrong, I might have to re-do the whole proposal again once the interpretation of the Court was in place.
So, I would say to the rapporteur and to Members that these are matters to which I give my personal attention. We are making some progress in some of them.
Unanimity is denying us the progress we would like to make, but once we have cleared this hurdle, we will be able to make a comprehensive proposal other than what is a purely technical matter dealt with this evening by way of this proposal.
Mr President, I can always say to my compatriot that the Commission is aware of the problems we have.
But I think I need to apply the brake a little when I hear the reply you have just given.
I agree with the first two amendments, but they were already in our proposal.
Parliament is submitting this motion so that part of your own earlier proposal, which leads to even bigger problems and perhaps may not be accepted, may serve as a helping hand to assist you in extending coverage to students.
That is why I say: think about it again and see if you can come up with a better answer tomorrow before the vote.
Secondly, access to health care. I think Mrs Boogerd-Quaak knows far more about this than I do, coming as I do from Limburg, because she lives on an island.
It is absolutely essential that you fulfil the promise you made on this point.
Thirdly, civil servants: progress?
It is actually very simple because there are proceedings before the Court of Justice or the Court has given a judgement.
That is not really progress.
What I would like, and I repeat, is the written info on all these subjects and please tell us which country blocks what kind and what subject of that proposal.
I do not think the Commissioner failed to hear the question. He probably did not want to answer!
The reason I would like to take just one moment to reply to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is this: I want her to be absolutely sure about two things.
First of all, the Commissioner and the Commission support your point of view.
That is important to say on the record.
Secondly, we are going to make a proposal. But this particular proposal here is a technical amendment which is an adjustment in accordance with ongoing amendments that are necessary on a yearly basis.
So this is not the place to do it.
As regards the Member States who are blocking certain of these proposals, I would be pleased to give that information to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
We have taken note of this matter and I shall see that it is looked into.
Madam President, I am sure that Mr Gallagher always tables excellent amendments, however yesterday Mr Berthu mentioned my amendments to the Herman report and consequently on page 9 of the Minutes the name Gallagher should be replaced by that of Hager.
Thank you very much. We shall amend the text accordingly.
Madam President, I just wanted to say that I was present at the session yesterday.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr Poggiolini, you asked to speak on a point of order.
Madam President, going back to what I was trying to say a little while ago, the arrival of spring has given the Italian Members a nasty surprise: flights have been done away with from Rome and Milan, places where the Italian Members used to meet to come to the European Parliament.
Air France has said that the Parliament, the Quaestors and the Presidency are to be blamed for this, as they failed to renew some agreement.
I almost have the impression that, following the judgment of the Court of Luxembourg, there is a desire to punish Members, not just the Italians but the Members in general, as the problem does not just concern Italy.
It is no longer possible to get to Parliament without making incredible journeys from one part of Europe to another.
I would like the Presidency to give us an explanation for this.
Mr Poggiolini, that was not a point of order.
The same opinion was expressed yesterday by Members from other countries.
I believe that we have taken note of this and that the matter will be pursued.
Implementation of the budget and discharge
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0097/98 by Mr Elles, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on postponement of the discharge to be given to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the General Budget of the European Communities for the Financial Year 1996; -A4-0091/98 by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the Financial Management of the sixth and seventh European Development Funds for the 1996 financial year; -(A4-0094/98) by Mr Wynn, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Commission report on the measures taken in response to the comments made in Parliament's resolution accompanying the decision giving discharge in respect of the General Budget for the Financial Year 1995(COM(97)0571 - C4-0126/98); -A4-0093/98 by Mr Blak, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the Financial Management of the European Coal and Steel Community for the 1996 Financial Year; -A4-0092/98 by Mr Kellett-Bowman, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the specific annual reports of the Court of Auditors on the financial statements of the decentralised Community Agencies (OJ C 393, 29 December 1997) - 1996 Discharge Procedure (including the decisions giving discharge to the Administrative Board of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Dublin) and to the Management Board of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Thessaloniki) in respect of the implementation of their budgets for the 1996 financial year).
Madam President, I would like to start by making a few remarks on procedural aspects concerning the postponement of discharge which we have in front of the House this morning.
First I would like to welcome the presidency here amongst us.
It is very nice to see that the presidency has shown full concern at all these issues in front of the House.
In particular, coming to our Budget Control Committee the other day was a 'first' in presentation of the Council's views.
Secondly, I would also like to thank the Council for the way in which it has presented its recommendation.
Inevitably it is not for the Council itself to give discharge on the budget; but it is relevant that it should offer comments which we as a Parliament can not only receive but also read in time and understand.
Last but not least we should remember as we have this debate this morning that it is not concerned with the discharge process itself, but with the postponement of discharge.
Therefore in the issues that I cover this morning I will not for example be referring to the loss of customs duties in terms of the own-resources system or the system of the statement of assurance.
These are issues which hopefully we will come to later in the year, when we come to give discharge on the 1996 budget itself.
Moving to the substantial aspects, we are focusing today on six specific points which lead me as rapporteur to conclude that we should be postponing discharge and therefore be unable under Article 89 to give our discharge to the 1996 budget by 30 April 1998.
The first of these refers to the implementation of recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry into the transit system.
Although these implementations are under way, we feel that more should be done in terms particularly of the computerization system.
Secondly - and this is a serious point for us in Parliament - there is, we feel, a lack of democratic accountability in the fight against mismanagement and fraud.
There is a good deal of procrastination to use a good British term, because we have been looking for information in this sector since 1989 and are still trying to obtain, as paragraph 5 of the resolution says in specific terms, ' the regular submission of lists of all current internal investigations involving allegations of fraud and corruption on the part of officials of the European institutions and lists of all special audits carried out by the Directorate-General for Financial Control of the Commission.'
Secondly, in this context of tourism, which also I think refers to the MED programme, ' measures have to be taken to ensure that the competent national judicial authorities will in future be swiftly and without exception informed of any case of alleged fraud, corruption or any other offence when there is a suspicion that EU officials might be involved.'
Thirdly, there is the question of the external policy areas.
Many colleagues across this House, whether looking at the question of Bosnia or at the question of PHARE, have been asking for measures to be taken to promote a more decentralized approach, most recently in a mission by this House to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
We are still awaiting effective action in this particular area.
Fourthly, in terms of agricultural expenditure, we have the integrated control system.
The Council has referred to this in its recommendations, but when we look into the substance we find that this system is still not working effectively in all Member States, and one wonders why this is the case.
We would hope that the Commission will come up with satisfactory explanations on this particular point.
After all, as we all know, large sums of money are involved in the operation of the agricultural policy and when after a year or a year and a half this integrated control system is still not actually being applied in all Member States, one is entitled to ask why, and why the Commission has powers to withhold money for payments of advances to Member States, which it is apparently not yet applying.
Second-to-last, in terms of the measures applied in the Structural Funds for small and mediumsized businesses, we had a problem in the Budget Control Committee because a major political group did not wish to vote for this particular point.
But it seems to me that we have a programme laid down under which we are going to do something for small and medium-sized businesses, yet, once in the Budget Control Committee or in the Budgets Committee, it has been impossible to get any information from the Commission as to how it is going to be applied or what is happening.
We are waiting for a report and we fully endorse the Council's view that the Commission needs to come forward with some facts on that point.
The last point is the question of audit and control of the European Investment Fund.
We would like there to be greater transparency, and the Court of Auditors has I think noted that.
We would of course like that point to be clarified.
So let me conclude that in terms of all these points added together - whereas perhaps not one of the points taken singly would justify the postponement of discharge, and whereas we recognize that although the Commission has taken several steps and will no doubt be taking steps with us during the summer to clarify each of these points which are in front of us - we in the Budget Control Committee, as has been shown in this report which was voted by a large majority, believe that it is Parliament's prerogative and indeed Parliament's duty to clarify these points before we give discharge to the 1996 budget.
I therefore urge postponement of discharge in this particular debate.
Mr President, I should like to concentrate for my first five minutes on the follow-up to the 1995 discharge and then move on to the discharge for the EDF for 1996.
The 1995 discharge asks the Commission, the Court and Parliament to carry out certain actions.
I am glad to say that a lot of those actions have been adhered to and that we have made a lot of progress in the way that discharge will be carried out in the future.
If one looks at the report we can see that there have been and will be improvements to the system from the way the Commission reports to Parliament on its findings.
We gave additional comments through an amendment by Piet Dankert at the committee stage, asking if we can get a better response, hopefully before the summer recess, so that we can take that into consideration before we look at the next year's budget.
Also, for the first time we have the responses from the Member States, albeit twelve months after they were due.
However, at least we received them.
And this time we have already received them from the UK, which is a major achievement.
One would hope that the other fourteen Member States will give us their responses just as quickly.
Of course we do not give discharge to the Member States, we give it to the Commission.
But when we have that information in front of us it helps us to question the Court and the Commission.
As far as the DAS goes, the Court has once again complied with our request about submitting its findings on the activities within the report.
However, referring to Mr Elles' report, he makes the point: ' If the Treaty of Amsterdam were already in force, the rapporteur would probably no longer in the present situation be able to recommend postponement of the discharge but would be obliged to propose its refusal' .
We have had this proposal since 1994 when the DAS first came into being.
We found a solution for it then with the correct form of words for the 1994 and the 1995 discharges.
If the Treaty of Amsterdam is going to make things more difficult, I would suggest that the institutions involved - Parliament, Commission, Court of Auditors and Council - get together within a very short space of time to hammer out exactly what we expect from the DAS.
This has been an ongoing debate since 1994 and we need a resolution to it.
I am pretty sure that what Mr Elles says is what I have been saying for the last two years.
If we carry on like this we will never get a positive DAS for the Union's budget, and that does not look well in the eyes of the taxpayer.
We need to get a solution to this and it will only be done if we get all the institutions together talking about this.
The report also calls upon the Court to bring its annual report forward to the first October session.
I know this causes problems for the Court, but the procedure we have gone through recently does not do justice to the report or to the work of the Court or the work of Parliament.
It is not acceptable that our workload is such that Members of the Court are allocated only two minutes' speaking time in committee.
If we can bring the process forward it will give us all a lot more time to get into the detail of what we should be discussing.
It will give Members a lot more time to analyse each aspect of the annual report, even though that it may be shorter.
But we need to take that extra time.
If it came forward in the first October part-session, it would also fit in nicely with Parliament's first reading in the second session in October.
Within the report, I accept that there are situations where we asked the Commission for certain actions and it says that it cannot do better than it is already doing.
That applies to paragraph 8 on action necessary to improve collections and recovery of sums due to the Community.
The Commission lays great stress on SEM 2000.
Let us hope that it works.
We expect reports on that.
I also need to mention olive oil and cotton.
This has been ongoing since 1994 when I have been doing reports.
I am glad to see that action will be taken in these two sectors and that sooner or later we may get some monies repaid to the Community.
On Amendments Nos 11, 12 and 13, on classical swine fever, I will leave that to Mr Mulder, who is a far greater expert on pigs than I am!
But it is a serious issue when it comes to taxpayers' expenditure.
I have two final points on this report.
Firstly, the Commission's reply to paragraph 79 of the 1995 discharge resolution does not give the explanation necessary concerning the Berlaymont Building.
I ask the Commission once again to undertake an inquiry to find out where the blame lies for this.
Finally, on this report to the Court of Auditors, we reiterate our request which we voiced in resolutions in 1992, 1993 and 1995 about information concerning the financial controller's lack of approval on refusals of visas.
I am sure Mr Friedmann will take that on board.
Concerning the EDFs, things could be worse.
If Mr Elles is actually saying we should refuse discharge for the general budget, it would have been quite easy to get Parliament to accept that we should refuse the EDF budget also because of the arguments put forward over the last two years and the fact that only recently we voted in this Parliament not to give an opinion on the new financial regulation for the eighth EDF funds.
The reason is because of the arguments we have about our role within the European Development Fund.
The situation is that we have responsibility without authority.
We are supposed to monitor the spending of those appropriations without having any authority to do anything about them.
We have no way of influencing that spending; all we can do is give a discharge at the end of the day.
The easiest thing, following the Court of Justice ruling, is to say: we are having nothing to do with this; if the Commission and the Council want a discharge, then they can go ahead and give it; we are not going to give it.
However, on reflection, that would be rather childish.
We have to accept that Parliament has a role in this and we have to say that we want to see the EDF budgetized.
That is our aim, that is what we wished had come out of Amsterdam, knowing full well that it probably would not.
Until the EDF is budgetized, Parliament will have a great problem in its role, especially in giving discharge.
Therefore, as I have said, we would expect the EDF to be budgetized some time in the future - we have the support of the Commission on this - and the Council should reconsider and realize that it would be far better administered through the general budget.
The choice has not been easy but, at the end of the day, the committee's recommendation to Parliament that discharge should be given is probably the right one.
However, there are three points to raise in this connection.
First of all, the advance payments to the eighth EDF.
According to the report, the Court states quite clearly that payments are being made from the sixth and seventh EDFs to the eighth without a legal base.
The Commission does not contest this.
We get rather annoyed when the Council tells us that lines cannot be implemented because there is no legal base.
Yet here we have a blatant contradiction of that argument, where money is being spent without anything resembling a legal base.
On those grounds alone, we could have said that we are not giving discharge to this report, but we are not doing that because we accept the practicalities of trying to get money to ACP countries.
So I ask the Council and the Commission to take on board that we are not best pleased about this, to say the least, but we would expect the situation to be ratified in the near future.
I have to say to the President-in-Office that it is rather surprising that there is no mention of this in the Council opinion.
The Council's report on the general budget was wonderful but this issue was not mentioned.
On the tendering procedures, there are several things stated within the report and in my opinion, especially on quality control of tendering procedures and the hard currency payments.
We ask the Court to keep an eye on this, and we ask the Commission to make sure the tenders are correct in the future.
Finally, on the DAS, it is good to see a positive DAS but there is one part where 4.5 % of payment transactions could not be assessed because of material obstacles.
That needs to be looked at, even if it is only a small amount.
I am sure we can get over those obstacles in future.
Mr President, we move from discharges concerning large funds of money to two decentralized agencies which are very transparent in that they are dealing with much smaller sums of money.
May I thank the services for finally getting the details of this agenda item correct.
We are dealing with the discharge for the administrative board of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions which is in Dublin and the management board of the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, known as CEDEFOP, in Thessaloniki.
In preparing this report the Committee on Budgetary Control has had the advantage of reports from the Court of Auditors, for which I thank the President, and two very fulsome reports from the Council recommending us to give discharge.
May I say in the presence of the Council thank you because in past years they have arrived very late and have been rather superficial; this year is much more helpful.
We are also helped by an opinion from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
May I first deal with Dublin because I am getting a bit fed up with one aspect of Dublin.
The financial regulations, both a general one for the Community and the one concerning this agency, require correct division of powers between authorizing officers, financial controllers and accounting officers and still the Court is reporting to us that Dublin has not got it right.
If the Court reports next time that it is not right, I fancy that we shall not be recommending discharge for the 1997 year.
When the new agencies, the second generation, were set, up the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control were very wary of the potential overlap between what the various agencies were to do.
We have to specify here that there is an overlap between the Foundation in Dublin and the European Agency for Health and Safety and we must keep them separate.
We cannot have a duplication of work.
The Dublin Foundation has had a good 1996 and if it gets these details right there is no problem as far as discharge is concerned and we are very happy to recommend discharge for the 1996 year.
CEDEFOP in Thessaloniki have had a rough time.
They were transferred from Berlin to Thessaloniki and into temporary premises.
There were difficulties with staff not prepared to move away from Berlin for family and other reasons and they were understaffed.
There was a time when we thought there was a possibility that CEDEFOP might go under, but thanks to the director who resolutely got on with the task they are now carrying out fully their responsibilities.
The Court has drawn attention to the fact that they are not following the financial regulations strictly in obtaining tenders for projects in the research field.
The Court also points out that we still have problems with the contract for the new building which is a unique type of contract in my experience and has got to be watched closely.
Of course, in vacating the temporary premises we must make sure that financial details are covered properly.
Now that CEDEFOP is fully operational I hope that their budget provisions, their forecasts and everything to do with the running of the agency will be more smoothly presented, because the Court has some difficulty with the irregular transfers of money to CEDEFOP.
This is a point which is raised from time to time by the Court because of the difficulty of operating an agency so far from Brussels.
Again, the committee recommends to Parliament that we grant discharge.
In this report there are therefore two discharge recommendations: one for Dublin and one for Thessaloniki.
I now turn to Mr Elles' report where Mr Tomlinson and I have put in a working document in connection with fraud in the transit system.
This subject has occupied a lot of European Parliament time.
The Committee of Inquiry reported in March last year, after a year's intensive work.
Mrs Wemheuer's report recently secured a very satisfactory response from the Commission.
Mr De Luca's report also covered the special report from the Court of Auditors on the subject.
It would be churlish of us not to recognize that the Commission has made a great deal of progress.
There is new legislation being put in place and there are new rules for dealing with transit matters.
I have had reports from users of the system of an improved devotion to duty on the part of customs officials - morale has gone up.
I believe that when reports are submitted to us we shall find that far less money than that which we said was being lost in the transit system is being lost now.
There remain the outstanding debts.
That is a very difficult situation for the customs services and for the Commission, because the rules do not permit the Commission to remit any of these outstanding debts.
They are a matter for separate negotiation by the individual customs authorities with the carriers and freight forwarders themselves.
I hope that those debt burdens will not continue for much longer because they must be putting some of those companies very much at risk.
However, the proposed computerization of the transit system is now three years away when it should be only about 18 months away.
This we do not like.
It is all the more disappointing since the computerization was proposed and planned long before the inquiry first sat.
Nevertheless, we are falling seriously behind.
I do not blame the Commission entirely because five states volunteered to enter the first phase and they are falling behind as well.
It is important that Mr Elles should use this delay as one of the reasons for recommending deferral of the discharge for 1996.
Madam President, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I shall probably not need my full three minutes, Madam President, for I am somewhat pressed for time since I currently have an important group meeting in the House.
In its annual report on the 1996 financial year in respect of the agriculture sector, the Court of Auditors touches on several areas in which irregularities have been discovered.
These include the cultivated-plant compensation scheme, livestock premiums and the organization of the tobacco and wine markets.
I do not wish to go into the abuses mentioned in the report in any detail, but would merely point out that a lot needs to be done in order to eliminate, or at least check, the misuse of those funds which have been allocated to the agriculture sector.
The citizens of the European Union naturally expect these resources to be used efficiently for the purpose for which they were intended and moreover they expect that the process can be audited at any time.
I support the proposal to postpone the discharge.
EU agricultural expenditure tends to be more in the forefront of people's minds when funds are running low.
We have in recent months had repeated debates on individual areas of expenditure.
There are still production sectors which suffer from severe public criticism, even when EU funds are used in a proper manner.
When these sectors are also the subject of irregularities, it is no wonder that serious questions are asked about agricultural spending.
In future it will not only be market-organization expenditure which will have to pass scrutiny, but also and increasingly the integrated administration and audit system.
Here I would just like to recall to Members' attention the cattle registration and beef labelling schemes, which are designed in the long run to win back consumer confidence.
Any irregularities here would have devastating consequences, in my opinion, and would without doubt throw into question the sense and purpose of the whole system.
For this reason the Commission is also called upon to draw the necessary conclusions from the abuses highlighted by the Court of Auditors.
The impending reform of the CAP gives us all the opportunity to draw up regulations which are more transparent and less susceptible to irregularities. This is a real chance for Agenda 2000, which should not be missed.
This also applies to the whole BSE issue, which has still to be fully resolved, and to the various problem areas indicated by the Committee of Inquiry.
I therefore refer in particular to the conclusions, where action is also called for.
Madam President, in the opinion approved by the Committee on Regional Policy, it has been brought to light that, for all the sections relating to the Structural Funds, the year 1996 has been a turning-point in the commitment of allocations.
From this point of view, we must be pleased as all the allocations initially provided for have been committed, not just those for 1996, but also those for 1994 reincorporated into the budget.
However, in our committee's opinion, the same optimism cannot exist for the closure of the programmes.
Many programmes in the period prior to 1994 remain open, with the main problem being the large number of programmes, rather than the amount of the resources.
The Committee on Regional Policy points to a total lack of assessment of the impact of the measures and funds on small and medium-sized businesses, a question which has already been brought to light and which I believe is very important as the Luxembourg Council attaches great importance to this sector.
Finally, it is the third time that the Court of Auditors is using the statement of assurance for this part of the budget.
It might be useful if the Court were to add a clarification on the concepts of formal and substantial errors, irregularities, illegalities and fraud.
I think this explanation will be very useful, not just for our committee and for the sector we are dealing with, but for the entire budget.
Madam President, I wish to begin by thanking you for the chance to present the recommendation of the Council regarding discharge to the Commission in respect of its implementation of the budget for the financial year 1996.
I am also very pleased to have been able to attend earlier this month a session of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and I thank Mr Elles for his kind words.
The discussion we had there on the Court of Auditors' report and the discharge recommendation was of considerable importance to all the parties involved.
I appreciate the important work done by all the rapporteurs, who are prepared to devote their time to ensuring that taxpayers' money is safe.
The reason I attended that meeting, and the reason I am here today, is because the Council makes a recommendation on discharge which it regards as very important.
But it is Parliament, and Parliament alone, which, acting on that recommendation, has the responsibility for granting discharge.
As you know, on 9 March the Council decided to recommend that Parliament grant discharge to the Commission for the management of the Community budget for 1996.
That recommendation is the result of lengthy and serious discussion by the Council, during which a number of areas of concern were highlighted.
The action that the Council would like to see taken on these areas is set out in the comments accompanying the discharge recommendation.
The view of the Council is that to gain significant improvements is to focus on the future and apply the lessons learnt from the report.
To achieve this there is a need for cooperation between the Commission and the bodies, including the Member States.
It is the Commission which is responsible for executing the budget but real progress can only be made if everyone who handles Community funds takes their share of responsibility for achieving the highest standards of financial management.
It is for this reason that the President of the Council has written to the President of the Economic and Social Committee to stress the Council's concern over the audit of the travel claims of the committee.
Both the Council and the European Parliament are determined that financial management of the Community budget must be improved.
The annual report of the European Court of Auditors is a very valuable tool to help us achieve this, and we must use it to the full.
We may have very different approaches as to how we wish to use these opportunities to the best advantage but I know that we share a common goal of achieving improvement - significant improvement at that - in the management of the Community budget.
From the comments accompanying the Council's recommendation on discharge, you will see that we consider that it is particularly important to focus on the lessons for the future at a time, such as now, when the Union is considering policy reforms in key areas, in particular the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
The enlargement process will make this even more important.
Another key lesson from the report is the need to make sure that Community expenditure is actually achieving results.
We must ensure that taxpayers' money is properly spent and accounted for but we also need to ensure that it is being used in the most effective way possible to achieve our policy aims.
For this to happen, the Community needs to assess its needs and priorities rigorously, it needs to legislate clearly, to monitor progress and to evaluate results.
We need a system that tells us not just that money has been spent and all the proper procedures have been gone through but also what the impact of the expenditure is and what has really been achieved with the taxpayers' money.
The Council's comments have highlighted areas where there is a need to focus more on objectives and on the evaluation of results.
The Council is extremely concerned by the excessively high incidence of errors which the Court found when it did work on the statement of assurance.
The Court estimate of substantive errors is barely changed from what it was last year.
The Council considers this unacceptable.
The comments contain a clear statement about the need for reform.
It is happening that there is some indication that the level of errors for the EAGGF Guarantee Section is lower than the average for the budget as a whole, but for the Structural Funds it is higher and this high rate of errors is a cause for grave concern.
You may then ask why, having said that, the Council is recommending that Parliament grants discharge.
The reason is, as I have already indicated, that the Council believes progress will only be made if there is cooperation between the different parties who have involvement in handling Community funds and if they all accept their responsibility for achieving the highest standards of financial management.
The Council is facing up to its responsibilities for ensuring that reform is carried through by working in cooperation with the Commission to achieve this.
As already mentioned, the Commission has made great efforts through the SEM 2000 initiative to improve both its internal financial management and its cooperation with Member States.
These measures are beginning to show results and we will continue to monitor progress closely.
The Commission has also generally responded to the observations of the Court constructively.
In a number of cases, measures have already been taken on recovery of misspent money, on reducing the level of advances and on eliminating dormant commitments.
The Commission's undertaking to submit a proposal on reform of the financial regulation to make this clearer and more appropriate to current circumstances is also a useful move forward towards better financial management.
The Commission is taking measures, but more needs to be done.
I know from the discussions in the Committee on Budgetary Control that Parliament is particularly concerned by lack of progress in certain areas.
These are real concerns which, as you will see from the comments on the recommendation, the Council shares in many cases.
Taking one of the committee's main concerns - strengthening the fight against fraud inside the European institutions - you will see that the Council has called for all institutions to authorize UCLAF to carry out inquiries in appropriate cases.
The presidency is looking forward to the Court's forthcoming special report on the functioning of UCLAF.
The Council also shares Parliament's concern that measures to support SMEs should be more accessible and the results more visible.
Procedures for getting aid to SMEs, the intended beneficiaries, need to be rationalized and simplified.
The Council welcomes the fact that, in December 1997, the Commission launched an assessment of the impact of the Structural Funds on the SMEs and has requested that the outcome be communicated both to the Council and Parliament.
The Council has also commented on weaknesses in the Commission's management of external aid.
The Council has stressed the importance of improving budgetary implementation of both PHARE and TACIS.
The PHARE programme is particularly important in the context of preparation of the beneficiary countries for accession.
The Council has called on the Commission to take account of experience acquired in the evaluations aiming to improve these programmes.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has criticized the Commission for the slowness of progress with measures to update the Community transit system, particularly the computerization project which we have heard about this morning from Mr KellettBowman.
The Council agrees with Parliament that modernization of the transit system is essential.
There should be cooperation, not confrontation, on this difficult project.
No-one realistically expected the wholesale reform of transit to be completed within twelve months, but significant progress has been made in improving customs control measures.
I wish to take this opportunity to pay particular tribute to Mr Tomlinson and Mr Kellett-Bowman for their excellent work on this subject.
There has also been steady progress in agreeing the legislative changes that are needed.
Reflecting the priority given to this matter under the UK presidency, the Council has broadly agreed the legal changes needed to pave the way for more detailed reform of the system.
Further discussion in the Council has been deferred pending receipt of Parliament's opinion on the Commission proposals.
As Mr Kellett-Bowman has said, it is disappointing that the transit computerization project has suffered delays, in part because of the complexity of the project and the way it was underestimated by the Commission.
However, the Commission has given its assurance that the project is now under proper management control, and I am confident that Member States will support the project through to its implementation.
Similarly, setting up the integrated administration and control system was a major technical and administrative task involving considerable investment and administrative reorganization.
Member States and the Commission have cooperated to implement the system as quickly as possible and good progress has been made in many areas.
The Council would like the system to be fully implemented in 1998 and has asked Member States to ensure that checks conducted by IACS are fully operational and comply with the principles of sound financial management.
The Council has made it clear in its comments that it expects the Commission to improve its performance in all of these areas where serious weaknesses have been identified, but progress requires increased efforts and greater vigilance on the part of all the Community's institutions.
The Council has recommended that discharge be granted and has invited Member States to work with the Commission to ensure that the lessons drawn from the report are acted on and, where changes need to be made now, they are made.
Where there are lessons for the future, they need to be fed into the policy-making process.
From the Council's perspective, this is the most constructive way forward and it is on this basis that the Council recommends to Parliament that discharge should be granted to the Commission for the 1996 financial year.
Madam President, your rapporteur, Mr Elles, proposes deferring the decision for discharge to September, and has asked the Commission to take a series of measures between now and then relating to the Commission's various fields of activity.
The Commission has taken note of the report in question.
It will do all in its power to comply with the wishes of Parliament.
A certain number of indications on the major points raised by Mr Elles may, however, already be given.
With regard to the fight against fraud, my colleague, Mrs Gradin, last week sent a letter to Mrs Theato specifying the procedures under which information on internal investigations for the Commission could be made available to you.
Furthermore, as stated in the document that the Commission sent you on 18 November 1997, on improving the fight against fraud and corruption, UCLAF will make the necessary contact with the national legal authorities in case of suspicion of fraud or corruption.
As regards UCLAF authorization by all the European institutions in the pursuit of its enquiries, the Commission is looking at measures relating to the consolidation of the powers and of the mandate of UCLAF within the Commission to ensure its independence.
UCLAF procedures giving the best possible assistance to other institutions confronted with fraud enquiries will therefore be more closely specified.
As regards the basis of the enquiry on the transit system, the Commission has had to change its approach on the new computerized transit system, the NCTS, because of its complexity, which made it too difficult to manage.
The report scheduled for September will outline the state of progress.
We hope that the project will be able to work with five Member States before the end of 1999, but there have been many difficulties, as you know.
In the agricultural sector, in accordance with the resolution of this House of 18 April 1996, the Commission has now strengthened the audit unit (unité apurement des comptes ) by 15 members.
It will also be submitting a composite report on the introduction of the integrated financial control system, and will draw the requisite financial conclusions of any inappropriate operations.
As regards the SMEs, the Commission has launched an overall assessment, the final result of which should be available towards the end of the year.
In the external policy field, the Commission has proposed a review of the regulations on reconstruction aid in the former Yugoslavia, and will strengthen its delegation in Sarajevo.
These are measures which take into account the severe criticism expressed by this Parliament and the Parliamentary delegation which went to Bosnia recently.
Furthermore, the Commission will submit a proposal for a new regulation aimed at creating a unified framework for budgets and procedures.
As regards the decentralization of PHARE activities, the Commission is actively pursuing its consideration of the possibilities, but believes that the complete transfer of the national programme as a whole requires a little bit more time, and will probably not be possible until 1999.
It should be emphasized, furthermore, that on 15 October 1997 the Commission decided to set up a common management service for Community assistance to third countries.
This is an important step toward harmonization, rationalization and transparency in tender procedures, contract award and in the general manner of operating.
This new service will continue the process of decentralization which is already under way.
As regard the audits by the Court of Auditors on the activities of the European Investment Fund, the Commission has always undertaken to respect the Court's right to audit, while respecting the competencies of each of the institutions and bodies concerned.
It will propose a new meeting with the Court for the purpose of reaching an agreement on this issue.
In the field of administrative and budget management, the Commission has undertaken a vast programme of internal reform.
Four major sites have been opened up to this effect.
Launched in 1995, the SEM 2000 initiative has provided the foundations and instruments to build up healthy financial management.
The MAP 2000 project complements this in the personnel and administrative field.
Adopted in 1997, it sets out a framework for modernizing the running of the Commission, based on the principles of decentralization, simplification and rationalization.
In parallel, the Commission has undertaken an in-depth study of its activities and resources.
The results will serve as the basis for a reorganization of the portfolios and the structure of services for the next Commission.
Finally, the Commission is now dealing with the difficult question of the linguistic implications of the forthcoming enlargements.
Mr Elles, in his resolution, has included the European Parliament resolutions relating to tourism, ECHO, PHARE and the MED programmes, following to the various special reports of the Court.
These reports have already been discussed at length, and it would serve no purpose for me to return to them.
The Commission will, of course, respect the content of these resolutions.
Madam President, I believe we are on the right track, and I have no doubt that in September the Commission will be able to present the elements that will allow you to definitely give discharge for the 1996 financial year.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, some time ago the media presented a report which worried a lot of people, gave rise to a number of jokes and became a real talking point.
The story was not about the European Commission nor about Parliament.
A major German-based car manufacturer had carried out trials on a new model, which had reportedly overturned during testing.
What did the manufacturer do?
It re-designed the car and restored customer confidence.
If the Commission had been this same manufacturer, it would have said: "let us first carry out an internal investigation to establish whether the car actually existed and whether or not there were any moose in the area at the time' .
Years later - and by this time the company's shares would have fallen through the floor - we would probably have received a report stating that, while there were moose around, it could not be said with any certainty that a moose had personally been involved in the car overturning.
In the meantime, the Commission would probably have improved the car anyway, but would have said nothing to anyone about this.
On a more serious note, much of what we are debating today has been discussed before on numerous occasions.
Almost everything which the rapporteur, Mr Elles, writes in his report, and which I can support on behalf of my group - in other words, all parts of the report -, are points which we have often expressed.
The question of why we are now postponing the discharge is an obvious one, since much of what is addressed there could well have been said at any time during the past 12 months.
Many of the new issues involved may well have been present a year ago in a different form.
We could just as easily have got together and said "discharge with critical comments or postponement of discharge' .
The difference is a matter of degree.
What does this reveal? It reveals a loss in confidence.
Not only a loss in confidence between a few Members of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Commission.
We possibly still have much more confidence in you than others do.
But it reveals a loss in confidence in European institutions - and not only in this House but with the public at large.
This is a major problem.
I do not think that we can solve it by postponing the discharge, but perhaps we can use this to illustrate what is wrong.
Reports will be appearing this week in the media, or may already have appeared, on the subject of Europe - and not on the discharge or on the granting or postponement of the discharge.
These European themes include enlargement, monetary union and everything connected with the concept of Agenda 2000.
If we want to achieve all these things - and we really want to - then the face of Europe will be dramatically changed in the years to come.
We want this change - and here I am speaking both to the Council and to the Commission.
We want this change and we want to be involved in bringing it about.
But it can only function if the citizens of Europe put their trust in the Union and its institutions: if they feel they are based on clarity and transparency, that there is democratic accountability and that Parliament is not just there to make comments now and again, but is in real dialogue with the Commission - which by this means and this means alone is subject to democratic accountability.
This is the fundamental problem and I believe that it is the reason for postponing the discharge, in order to make it clear that improvements have to be made - and not only in our personal relations, for I do not think that the situation here is as bad as all that, but rather in terms of the external impact involved.
I would like to illustrate this by means of an example, since this has already been touched on by almost every other speaker in one form or another.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I address my remarks specifically to you.
The criticism which has been made of the computerization of the transit system is not to do with the fact that it is a very difficult subject, or that it is a complex process which has lasted longer than was foreseen.
We all know that this sort of thing can happen at any time.
No, Madam President-inOffice, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, we are talking about something quite different. The call for computerization was the central demand of the first Committee of Inquiry set up by this Parliament.
The Commission's undertaking to do this and to make this the central issue has contributed significantly to the fact that in our final report our dealings with the Commission were actually quite harmonious and resulted in a well-balanced report with well-balanced demands, rather than simply succumbing to directing criticism at the Commission.
You met us half-way and you proposed a plan as to how to proceed further.
We know that the unexpected can always happen.
But why did you fail to inform us? You drew up a timetable and you then confirmed it at a time when you already knew that it could not be met.
That is where the mistrust lies.
You informed us that there was to be a delay, but you told us too little, too late and only after repeated inquiry, and I would like to know why.
Hence the misgivings on our part.
It was not that nothing could have happened to delay such a complex project.
We can well appreciate that.
In spite of everything, we still live in the real world and know that things can go wrong, that problems can arise and that sometimes it is not possible to keep to schedule.
But the point I am making is the fact that you again failed to keep us informed; that is where the confidence building comes in. This is the key point.
And for that reason this issue perhaps affected us much more than any of the others.
Then there is the integrated control system. How often have we discussed this subject?
Deadlines were set and then extended and all the time we were told "we are on the way, we will have an impact on the Member States, we will get results' .
We are quite ready to believe this, but I want to know why are we still standing here making the same demands as before - only this time things are worse. The situation itself is not worse - what is worse is the fact that we are not going to believe what you tell us.
This is indeed a dramatic turn of events.
A final point, which Mr Elles did not mention, is one which was introduced through amendments tabled by Mr Bourlanges.
This concerns staff policy.
Here too it can be said that much of what has been criticized in other points, such as the implementation of the programmes and so on, is still connected with the fact that the Commission tells us that we do not have enough staff, that we have bottlenecks and so on.
We accept that.
But at some point there has to be a plan on the table, there must be transparency.
When we are told that there are still efficiency reserves, that restructuring could be introduced, then we have to know how big these reserves are, when they are to be mobilized and how.
If the Commission really believes that we cannot enter the new millennium with many more Member States and an increasing number of duties to perform, since the reserves must run out sooner or later, then it must tell us this and demonstrate it in a plausible manner.
It simply will not do for the Commission to say, when it comes to each and every little programme, that we have five people missing here, three people missing there and maybe even twenty people missing somewhere else.
This is why we engaged some company or other to sort out the problem. Later, years later - as was always the case when we put our minds to it - this company tells us "that really was the reason, but we are on the right road' .
Yes, I really do think that we are on the right road, but we should be doing more than just showing that we are on the right road, we should be doing it in such a way that people can believe us.
I shall say one more thing and this will be my final word on the subject. The European Union has an institution which is responsible for, and which can influence, the people's trust in the Commission - and that institution is the European Parliament.
If you fail to convince us, or if you do not win or regain our trust, then no-one in this European Union will trust you in the future, for you yourselves cannot be voted in or out of office.
We are the middle-men, we are the democratically elected body.
We need a strong Commission for the future and we need a strong Parliament too.
But this Parliament needs a Commission which it can work with and to which it can say "Yes, we can confirm that and give it our full and unreserved support' .
Madam President, in preparing the discharge to be given to the Commission in respect of the 1996 financial year, we had a pleasing new experience.
For the first time the Council complied with a request which Parliament had been making for many years by submitting in good time its position on the discharge, with the result that a detailed debate could be held in the company of the President-in-Office of the Council prior to the vote being taken in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
For this we should like to express our thanks to Council Minister Liddell.
As far as the actual discharge for 1996 itself is concerned, things seem less than promising.
In the excellent report which was adopted unanimously in the Committee on Budgetary Control, and for which I would like to offer my sincere congratulations to the rapporteur, Mr Elles, a proposal is made to postpone the discharge and, I believe, justly so.
On the basis of the report submitted by the Court of Auditors, for which we again express our thanks to the President, Professor Friedman, who is present here today, and to all members of the Court, and on the basis of in-depth information and discussions with the Court and with the Commission, the rapporteur lists five important reasons which justify postponing the discharge.
Then we also have the negative findings of the statement of assurance, which the Court of Auditors delivered particularly in respect of the Structural Funds, while its assessment of the agricultural sector was somewhat more encouraging.
There is still a period of grace for assessing the DAS, but once the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified, Parliament is obliged to incorporate its results fully into the discharge.
I fully agree with the comments made here by Mr Wynn, that our various institutions should first discuss how we should handle the DAS in future, how this is to be set up and how this is to be used.
As far as I know we have never before had such a large number of grounds for postponement.
Does this prove that the deficiencies in implementing the budget are on the increase? What it does prove, however, is that Parliament in its supervisory role condemns these deficiencies and insists that they be eradicated.
If the Commission fails to comply with our demands before the September 1998 deadline, then the refusal to give discharge could ultimately remain in place, and this would be followed by a vote of noconfidence and the subsequent dismissal of the Commission.
But we should not make threats. The rapporteur is quite specific about this and I agree with him.
Our approach is, on the contrary, a constructive one.
By highlighting the weaknesses and by urging that these be effectively overcome, we are in fact contributing to the efficient and rational use of budgetary funds and are helping to build public confidence in Europe and in its institutions.
If we examine the individual points of criticism contained in the present resolution, then it becomes clear that the present Commission can no longer plead that these deficiencies were the fault of its predecessors.
It has been in office long enough to have brought in the necessary improvements.
This applies equally to the transit procedure, where little progress has been made towards the introduction of computerization - though the Commission itself considered this a priority matter - and to the elimination of mismanagement and fraud, as attested by the deficient administration of the PHARE, TACIS and MED programmes.
I will say nothing here about events in the tourism sector. The grievance often expressed concerning the failure to carry through the integrated control system for agricultural spending is in this respect just as significant as the inefficiency in promoting SMEs.
As far as UCLAF is concerned, I am pleased to see that what is being said is very much in keeping with what Parliament has been aiming at for many years.
I freely admit that the Commission has been making efforts to move towards our demands, especially in recent months, and I agree with Mrs Gradin, with you Mr Liikanen and with Mr van den Broek, that we should gradually reduce our catalogue of complaints.
But this must be done by September, and so I would ask that you give us clear-cut answers to clearcut questions.
This is also something which applies to your officials.
Long-winded explanations in unintelligible language obscure more than they clarify.
In conclusion, let me offer the Commission some advice: do not confuse Mr Elles' statement that "the auditor is a watchdog not a bloodhound' with the saying "his bark is worse than his bite' .
In closing, allow me to express my thanks and recognition to the rapporteurs, Mr Wynn, Mr Blak and Mr Kellett-Bowman.
They have done an excellent job and their reports have been unanimously adopted by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I recommend this to the House.
Madam President, the question of how seriously the European Commission is taking this Parliament is central to this debate to our group. This is particularly relevant when we are talking about the Wynn report on the follow-up to the 1995 discharge, and the Elles report on the 1996 discharge.
It has already been said by previous speakers, and I agree that the Commission should take this Parliament very seriously.
This is good for public opinion, and it might also be good for the Commission itself.
I will just say a brief word about the Wynn report.
He was right; I will discuss swine fever. What is the current system?
If there is an outbreak of swine fever somewhere in Europe, the European Union will pay 50 % to 70 %. The remainder has to be found from the national Treasury.
Different countries have different systems.
In some countries the farmers are wholly responsible, in others the government pays.
My question to the Commission is: is this not a clear case of unfair competition?
Should something not be done about it? Is it not an indirect state subsidy when the government pays for everything?
My second question is: should the system not be judged on risk?
The interested parties should make a bigger contribution when they might pose a high risk by the system they use.
My group can largely endorse the Elles report.
It is necessary, particularly in view of Agenda 2000, that the integrated monitoring system for income support is perfected.
If we are to extend this system, it has to work well.
My group will therefore vote in favour of the Elles report.
We hope that, before 15 September this year, the Commission will have presented sufficient arguments to convince Parliament that it should grant discharge after all.
Madam President, I would like to begin by stating that I fully agree with Mr Elles' suggestion that the discharge should be postponed on account of the errors and omissions reported by the Commission in the administration of Community funds. This is more particularly evident in the light of the unacceptable attitude adopted by the Commission in failing to furnish in due time the information required by Parliament to analyse these matters and issue an opinion, as appropriate under such circumstances; in particular, in situations where such accusations of corruption and irregularities exist, as has occurred in the tourism sector.
I mention tourism here because one of the Commissioners responsible for this sector was Portuguese, which prompts me to be even more stringent in this regard.
This is a political signal, an extremely important signal, which the Commission should perceive as such, so that the situation may be improved in the future.
As rapporteur for other institutions, I would like to end by saying that I consider that the same rigour should be observed here.
I consider that the discharge to be given to the other institutions cannot be viewed in isolation from the general discharge that we are now discussing.
Moreover, I also consider it appropriate that due account should here be given to the opinion issued by the Council with regard to the matter of the Economic and Social Committee; it is appropriate that that opinion should be taken into account in the general discharge to be given to the Commission.
Madam President, Mr Liikanen, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of December 1995 the budgetary procedure made substantial funds available for reconstruction in the former Yugoslavia.
Since then I and some of my colleagues, and in particular Mr Giansily, have been looking into why the Commission is finding it so difficult to implement these funds effectively and quickly - after all they are supposed to constitute an immediate aid to reconstruction - and to get them to where they are needed.
My advice, based on what we are doing in the discharge procedure, is as follows: continue to appeal to the Commission to do better, to create a better legal basis, to listen less to the Council and not to be blackmailed by it - for the Council too has played its part in events here.
For a long time this approach failed to have any effect until we brought some real pressure to bear - and this was in the form of the reserve which we provided under the last budget procedure.
This year some ECU 30 million will not be allocated for Bosnia unless the situation noticeably improves through the summer.
We need a proper legal basis for implementing all budget lines thoroughly, quickly and effectively, that is to say we require thorough, effective and well-trained personnel to be present on the spot and, most importantly, we need a decentralized decision-making process - and this is something which is still clearly giving the Commission considerable cause for concern.
We have been reliably informed by the delegation out there that the decision-making processes operated from Brussels, where no-one knows the real situation on the ground and where files are just moved from one desk to another, cannot cope with the task in hand, and that people there cannot reconstruct their parliament or their schools because of some blockage or other at the Brussels end.
This situation simply cannot be allowed to continue.
The pressure brought to bear by the reserve has meant that new proposals are again being submitted, and that is why the postponement of the discharge is so important. I have learned a lesson from all this, namely that the Commission ultimately responds to pressure
The Commission has often said "yes, we too have read the report from the Court of Auditors and now everything is better' .
This time we really want to be convinced that the Commission has learned something, that it is now prepared to improve its own management structures and that it is ready to make amends for the political damage inflicted on us by the Bosnian affair.
The question which arises is not just whether taxpayers' money is being used to good effect, but as far as Bosnia is concerned, centres on the public image being presented by the European Union.
Why are the Americans better at these things? They are not better people, after all.
Nor are their officials any better or worse than our own.
But they do have a clear strategic notion of what is important and they have effective machinery.
When it comes to Bosnia, we could do worse than learn from the Americans.
I would ask the Commission, and in this case Mr Liikanen, urgently to take note of the fact that Bosnia is not the only problem.
My belief is that the Commission also has a problem with DG IA.
We naturally discharge the Commission as a collective body, but as this collective body is able to take part in today's debate, it must be capable of amending its internal structures in such a way that when something nasty occurs in a certain area, then there is a mechanism for putting this right internally.
I am sure that Mr Liikanen and Mr Santer will make good use of the time between now and 15 September to focus on this matter.
Parliament will then be in a position to deal with you in quite a different way.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too support and agree with what has been said so far.
It is a somewhat difficult exercise for Parliament to have to say how the taxpayers' money, the public money, the money we are called upon to use properly - with the European Parliament being first in line to do so - is the subject of this type of application, which is certainly not inspired by any criteria of healthy financial management, which the Treaty lays down as an obligation.
I am referring to one section in particular, that of foreign measures, in the context of which the image of the Union should be irreproachable and something of a "buttonhole' with regard to third countries.
However, apart from the emergency humanitarian aid distributed by ECHO, it seems to me that, for all the other items of expenditure, what is intolerable is not just the accumulated delays but also, unfortunately, the discrepancies in every budget heading.
Every one of us has direct experience of fair, objective and irreproachable complaints made by operators, by NGOs or by other bodies who work in the field and who have to wait 18-24 months for payment, after an undertaking has been assumed and signed by the Commission.
These things are beyond any logic and understanding of our Members.
Many of us on the Committee on Budgets fail to understand, for example, the reason why certain budget lines are so late: one which comes to mind is that ECU 150 million of late payments have accumulated over six years.
These figures cannot fail to lead Parliament to take appropriate measures.
I become concerned when I hear people talking about initiatives in the personnel policy aimed at scorning in any way the European civil service with proposals such as that of limiting senior jobs to five years, plus five non-renewable years.
The basic problem, Commissioner Liikanen, should be treated with an overall approach, which should, first and foremost, make the point on what we want as a personnel policy and as a European civil service and what this should be.
This European public function should be assessed, reforming it where it is lacking, but also praising what was always, at least until a few years ago, a task that was taken on with a spirit of sacrifice and service.
However, although the aim is to renationalize everything, it is clear that the results in the field can only depend on what is expected of the European public function.
Mr President, for the third time, the Court of Auditors has refused to give an overall positive assurance on the legality and regularity of payments made by the Commission.
Hence our rapporteur's statement that, if faced with a similar verdict from an auditor, the members of the board of a multinational company would probably have to immediately resign.
This time, unlike in 1994/1995, the Committee on Budgetary Control proposes that we consider that the trust laid upon the Commission by the Parliament no longer be granted.
The Commission has now been at work for three years; as soon as it came into office, it announced its determination to establish rigorous action to improve financial management. It now no longer deserves indulgence.
Speaking for my group, I am glad to see increasing concern on the part of the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control with regard to the situation of the Community finances, which is more than worrying. I approve the reasons set out in this report, arguing for the postponement of discharge.
How can we do otherwise, if we remember the two resolutions adopted by this House, the first relating to the MED programme - which had emphasized the serious irregularities committed by the Commission - and the second, much more recently, relating to allegations of fraud and irregularities in the tourism sector?
I therefore hope - like many speakers - that the firmness of the rapporteur will not go unnoticed, and that if the Commission fails to give a concrete response to the demands set out in the resolution, a vote of no confidence will effectively be passed, so that our good intentions are not short-lived. This should prove that sweet words from the Commission are not enough to cajole the majority of our Parliament into giving it a discharge.
The watchdogs mentioned by Mr Elles in his report - and I note he has already left - need to be more like bloodhounds than like poodles.
If not, the taxpayers in the Member States would simply continue to be taken for a ride.
I conclude, Mr President - your predecessor was only too happy to give extra time to other speakers - by saying that with regard to the Wynn report, let us, please, spare the EDF, as this is the only body which has received a positive statement on the part of the Commission.
It is not in the budget.
It is under the control of the Member States.
Let it remain there.
Mr President, I would like to address my remarks primarily to Mr Kellett-Bowman's report on the satellite agencies.
This is a momentous report because it is the end of the first tranche of reports on the two older agencies, Dublin and Thessaloniki.
But it also sets out in the appendix the principles which we will move to in the new discharge procedure following the KellettBowman report which Parliament has adopted - and I hope the Council will accept - for discharge for the newer agencies which have been created.
This will give Parliament not only power over the budget, but power over control of expenditure once it has been allocated to the separate agencies.
As Mr Kellett-Bowman points out in that report, a single report is a wonderful idea; themes can be developed across the agencies and horizontal issues can be compared between the agencies themselves.
We can develop themes and get a good control over the agencies in future.
Also, we can look at each agency individually. That is something to be welcomed.
I also welcome the third point made in Mr Kellett-Bowman's report, that there will be an input from the substantive committees themselves, because they are best placed to evaluate the work of the agencies as it pertains to their committee.
Turning briefly to the agencies in the report, taking Dublin first of all, I fully support what Mr Kellett-Bowman has said on this report.
I am pleased at the efforts that have been made by Dublin and Bilbao to limit duplication and minimize conflict between the agency in Dublin and the one in Bilbao. That has not been easy.
The two directors are to be complimented on that.
Mr KellettBowman makes reference to a memorandum of understanding to be signed by the two directors.
I hope, too, that the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control can have a copy of that memorandum of understanding, as well as the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
It is important that we have a working document to work on in future when it comes to budgetary matters.
One issue I wish to take up on the Dublin question is one which is not shown on the Dublin budget accounts: the amount of money that has not been accrued due to exchange rate losses.
I raise this point in working Document No 4 for the Budget Committee and again draw this to your attention, particularly because Dublin has lost some ECU 1 million in exchange rate losses in the year 1996.
Until there is a single currency, with all Member States which host agencies participating, the problem of exchange rate fluctuations will be a real one.
Over the next couple of years it may well be even more acute for agencies in those countries which remain outside the first wave of the single currency.
I would argue strongly for a mechanism to correct both positive and negative effects of exchange rate fluctuations.
After all, if we vote a budget for an agency, we should try to ensure that the agency gets the budget we voted and does not incur losses for reasons outside its control.
On Thessaloniki, I am delighted at the progress that has been made on staffing problems.
Commissioner Liikanen is to be praised for the work he has done to achieve this.
Another point I want to take up is the proposal regarding the building.
This is now seven months behind schedule.
As you know, Parliament forced this issue by putting a payment into reserve.
This procedure shows how we can have an effect and get a building started when we withhold the money.
If that point needed stressing, the signing of an agreement by Alicante - the trademarks agency - with the Spanish Government for a ECU 24 million building without proper control or consultation with Parliament's Budget Committee underlines this question.
This is something to be followed.
I would therefore like to add my voice to the recommendation and add a request for the Commission to report back to us on proposals for safeguards to be applied when any building question arises.
Mr President, I have three minutes and three comments: transit, personnel, EDF.
There is nothing more to be said about transit.
You have acted, the information systems are behind schedule, and you know it.
I would like to draw your attention to a specific fact, which is that once we have improved the situation in the transit field, we shall be seeing classic forms of contraband developing.
Here, we will be confronted with the inadequacies of our overall customs systems, which are lack of information, lack of integration, lack of homogeneity, and also sometimes, lack of motivation.
Here, I am not saying that Community institutions and Member States are lagging behind, but that we should really substantially improve our control of transit procedures, at a time when criminals are returning to more traditional forms of crime, which we may be less efficient at combating.
The second comment concerns personnel.
Let me go into a little more detail - and Mrs Wenheuer mentioned this - on an idea which goes against the flow, namely that while of course the personnel resources made available to the institutions and in particular to the Commission are insufficient, at the same time the number of missions is increasing, the competencies of the European Union are extending and the number of Member States is increasing.
We are managing a European Union which will very soon contain some five hundred million inhabitants, with horizontal operating personnel in the Directorates-General of around ten thousand people. It's pretty laughable really.
And how do you react?
With timidity.
You are considering decentralization, but that will have its own limits, due to what I would discreetly call the growing heterogeneousness of national administrative systems.
You are considering privatization, delegating to third parties.
In principle, we are not against this, but we have the impression, like the Court, that it is carried out on an excessive basis and without many precautions.
It is not acceptable that some of the decisions in the field of the orientation and distribution of funds should be entrusted to third parties.
And finally, you are envisaging Eurodeployment.
We are waiting for you to show us some evidence in this field, but we can see that there are limits.
My third comment involves the EDF.
The rapporteur, Mr Wynn, is right to propose the discharge, even though we are extremely dissatisfied with the conclusions of Amsterdam.
The purpose of the discharge is not to be the Court of Appeal of the treaty, even if the European Council and the heads of states who signed the Amsterdam Treaty have been remarkably unambitious.
But we are very concerned by the problem of the legal bases.
On this point, we are being extremely indulgent towards you, but we will not let that happen again.
If you do not quickly find the appropriate legal solutions to correct the break in continuity from one EDF to the next, we can hardly go on being forgiving.
An evil which has not been condemned, an evil which is tolerated cannot be accepted by this Parliament!
I would like to thank you overall.
I am evidently in agreement with Mr Elles' report and with the other reports.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteurs of all the reports, and in particular Mr Elles for his outspoken and unbiassed report.
The postponement of discharge is a serious measure.
There must be sufficient grounds for it, as, otherwise, Parliament will be guilty of unwarranted action.
I believe Mr Elles has highlighted some serious issues.
The weaknesses in the customs transit system are a big problem, as they cause losses that obviously run into millions.
It is worth noting that customs that have remained unsupervised are doing harm to Member States because they have to be economically supported out of the nation's gross domestic revenue.
That is why developing a computerized system would be of great advantage to Member States, but the Commission has to take responsibility for it.
The administration of EU programmes is difficult because the geographical references are enormous.
For that reason it makes very large mental and moral demands on EU officials.
That is why the least we can ask is that EU internal administration should be in good shape; then we have to turn our attention to the administration of programmes.
Mr President, the European Parliament, in my opinion, all too often criticizes the Commission for its lack of supervision and all too rarely criticizes Member States for its sheer negligence.
Fraud is very possible when the most important task for member countries seems to be to minimize its net costs, while maximizing its income.
If the EU is paying out, it is as if there were endless funds.
The European Parliament rapporteurs, in my opinion, give too much weight to negligence on the part of the Commission and understate their own countries' responsibility for surveillance.
Furthermore, relations between Parliament and the Court of Auditors seem very bureaucratic.
They appear to be living in a different age.
Neither seems to be living in reality.
Parliament has systematically argued for the European Development Fund to be included in the general budget, but to no avail.
This being the case, discharge from the use of resources is now only a formality, rather than Parliament scrutinizing the appropriate use of funds in connection with acceptance of the general budget.
As there is no real alternative to discharge we can only give the Commission our blessing.
And we could endorse that with a rubber stamp, hopefully without arousing Parliament's whole bureaucratic machine.
Mr President, my party colleague has already discussed the group's argument in favour of postponing the discharge for 1996.
I shall not therefore repeat those arguments, but simply stress that the Commission should get a yellow card for the way it deals with some of the issues which are of concern to us in Parliament.
For me personally this applies above all to the question of the lack of democratic control for measures against fraud involving EU funds, which is an important problem to get to grips with.
I know that the Commission is working towards this, and that we in Parliament have given a number of opinions on it.
As regards Mr Wynn's report on the granting of a discharge in relation to the European Development Fund for the 1996 financial year, the Green group entirely agrees with Mr Wynn that the existing procedure is strange, namely that the European Parliament should grant a discharge without being able to have any influence over the budget.
This report points out, among other things, how remarkable it is that funds from the seventh European Development Fund have been used without any legal base to finance measures which come under the Fourth Lomé Convention.
It goes without saying that these funds should be repaid as soon as possible.
In the Kellet-Bowman report on some of the decentralized bodies there are, in spite of everything, small problems both in Dublin and Thessaloniki which we must tackle, including financial control in Dublin and the buildings in Thessaloniki.
Mr President, I congratulate the Council for the serious attention they have shown this year towards discharge.
We have had evidence of a political discussion at Ecofin, of a ministerial presentation in the Committee on Budgetary Control and a ministerial presentation here in plenary.
The Council is deserving of our thanks and our congratulations for those three things.
It has made the discharge debate more serious.
I would like to accompany my congratulations to the Council with a warning to future presidencies about the dangers and the consequences of recidivism.
If they go back to their former ways Parliament will be as irate at a future presidency as it is warm towards the present one.
So, my congratulations!
My second point is in relation to transit.
Here I would take issue slightly with my good friend Commissioner Liikanen.
In his intervention he spoke about the Council changing its approach and dealing with five Member States as if somehow that was an act of planning.
It is not.
It is a manifestation of failure.
It was not a conscious decision to change approach.
It was a failure of the contract we had for computerization.
While I am prepared to congratulate the Director-General and staff of DG XXI, I do not think we can have it as a matter of record that somehow everything was going along quite smoothly and we decided to change our approach.
The approach has changed because it has failed and the transit reservations we have are extremely serious, as shown in paragraph 4 of Mr Elles' excellent report and paragraph 15 of the explanatory memorandum.
There has, indeed, been progress.
But the scale of the progress, the loss of revenue and the impending enlargement of the Community mean that progress is insufficient and not backed by sufficient urgency.
Thirdly I turn to the statement of assurance. In the debate a number of references have been made to the statement of assurance.
There is a feeling that some Members are beginning to doubt its utility because it always produces the same result.
I hope that we will continue to value the statement of assurance.
It is an extremely useful tool that should not in any way be denigrated because it leads to a bad result.
Obviously we have to be able to look forward to an improvement in the results.
But if there is an agreement about the statistical base on which the statement of assurance is undertaken, we have to live with the results.
My fourth point is in relation to our procedures.
I would like to say yet again that we have a fundamental need to examine discharge procedures.
It is my opinion that we spend far too long in the contradictoire procedure between the Court of Auditors and the Commission.
It means that there is too much time wasted, too much long-winded dialogue, too much wasteful use of audit resources so that by the time we come to a discharge procedure, we are dealing with out-of-date information.
I hope that all the institutions will make efforts to obtain a discharge closer to the events to which it relates.
That means reviewing the length of time we spend on the contradictoire procedure.
With those few comments, I support the Elles report and once again congratulate the Presidency for the work it has done in politicizing this important process.
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Liddell, has to leave us at this point, owing to a meeting, a trilateral discussion on marketable securities.
Thank you, Mrs Liddell, for attending this sitting.
Mr President, one of the main reasons Mr Elles is today presenting us with a motion for a resolution about postponing the 1996 discharge has to do with the MED programmes, and from what we are hearing, not just the MED programmes, either.
And it is in that context - of the MED programmes - where the misunderstandings arise.
The first misunderstanding is that the European Parliament, or more specifically the Committee on Budgetary Control, is opposed to decentralized cooperation.
The second misunderstanding is that the European Parliament has blocked the relaunching of such cooperation.
But I want to stress that neither of those things is true.
In fact, the European Parliament gave the green light for the relaunching of decentralized cooperation over eight months ago, with its resolution of 17 July 1997.
Furthermore, that green light will be confirmed when Parliament votes on the resolution which will conclude the present debate.
How, for example, could Parliament be opposed to cooperation between universities in the Member States and the associated countries of the Mediterranean? On the contrary, the European Parliament is not opposed to it, but there was a serious management problem which was mainly located in Brussels, and was discovered by the Court of Auditors.
And it was the European Commission which stopped the programmes.
Once the management problem has been resolved the programmes can of course be relaunched. But - and it is a big but - we need to draw conclusions from the lessons of the past: the European Commission needs to learn from this affair.
The first lesson is that the European Commission needs to take a more significant role in the management of these decentralized programmes.
The second lesson is that those operators who committed themselves to cofunding but failed to deliver should not be allowed to participate in the new programmes.
Thirdly, the sums identified as recoverable must be repaid.
Fourthly, the financial losses, and also the serious loss of confidence, resulting from this affair mean that disciplinary steps need to be taken, because there is no doubt that there has been serious negligence.
And the fifth lesson is that the European Commission should send all the details of this affair to the judicial authorities in Belgium, France and Italy so that they can examine any possible legal implications.
Before I finish, I want to make it clear that I have no doubts about the European Commission's good intentions for the relaunch of the MED programmes but, just as good intentions are not enough to pass an exam, come back in September and show us that you have learned the lessons I have just explained to you - and do not look at me like that!
The Council said exactly the same thing, although it then went on to draw different conclusions.
Mr President, in the resolution on postponement of discharge hardly any mention is made of the Structural Funds, except in relation to small and medium enterprises.
I think there was no justification for this, as the problems in 1995 were exactly the same as those in 1996, and we have had SEM 2000 in the meantime, which means there will be some improvements.
To my mind the new Commission proposals regarding Agenda 2000 comprise far-reaching improvements, even though the problems of combating fraud, the question of who the interest should be paid to, and how this should be calculated has not yet been sufficiently worked out in these proposals.
I would like to focus on another point, Mr President.
People in this House speak regularly about the damaging situation related to the implementation of the recommendations on transit made by the Committee of Inquiry, and the damaging delay in computerization.
I wanted to emphasize that.
But on 25 March I came across a new point in a Dutch newspaper which is on the one hand very interesting, but on the other extremely alarming.
Mr President, in the recommendation, we in the Committee of Inquiry worked on the assumption that transit is only able to function when customs function as one in Europe.
That is not to say that it is one service, but that it functions as one.
This newspaper report in fact concerned Spain; Mr President, I read that the Spanish authorities are going to hold the cigarette manufacturers responsible for the sale of illegal cigarettes.
This is good news, but I think it will throw the entire system into confusion, because the Spanish authorities seem to be saying that the manufacturers are selling their cigarettes knowingly and despite warnings to known smugglers.
Spanish customs are alleged to have registered these smugglers.
Mr President, this raises questions such as what is the legal situation? Because if the customs duties are not transferred, then there is the obligation to seek the guilty party, but the risk liability remains with the carrier.
Mr President, will he be discharged of his liability, or are the fines for the manufacturers an addition to his liability? I think that in both cases we are dealing with a precedent within the European Union.
In that context it would interesting to see whether, now we know that the Spanish customs have a blacklist, whether this blacklist has been brought to the notice of the Commission and of other customs services.
That would make the operation a lot easier.
A third question which arises is why the manufacturers in America and England did not respond to the requests made by the Spanish authorities to suspend their deliveries to known smugglers.
This kind of unilateral declaration might lead to a significant shift in trade traffic.
That is why I see every reason to question the Commission about this.
My final conclusion is that it is high time the Member States acknowledged that these kind of issues should be tackled jointly and in conjunction with the Commission.
As soon as it comes to individual operations, the matter only gets worse than has already been established by the Committee of Inquiry.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the budget control mills grind slowly and still produce the same old bitter grain.
We are now dealing with the draft budget for 1996.
The Court of Auditors presented us with its report in 1997.
We have spent the whole time debating this matter with some intensity.
But instead of coming to our conclusions, we see ourselves compelled to request a postponement.
Anyone watching our efforts from the outside would hardly be impressed by all this.
Nevertheless, we hope that this postponement - and our committee decision was a unanimous one - will produce greater efficiency and bring more pressure to bear on the Commission.
I am sure that something will be set in motion before September.
However, this method can surely only be used once.
I believe that the decisive pressure only materializes according to whether or not there are sufficient votes to refuse a discharge, whether this be today or at some unspecified time in the future.
There are certainly plenty of grounds for this - one only has to think of the lack of trust, which many speakers have mentioned, and the negative findings of the statement of assurance.
On the other hand, the Commission is certainly not refusing to provide us with the necessary information.
The Commission has reacted in a very constructive way to many of the comments which have been made, but this is not enough as far as we are concerned.
In recent years the debates have focused increasingly on the responsibility of the Member States, which account for some 80 % of EU spending and which are then responsible for controlling this expenditure.
The Commission is only responsible for monitoring this control process.
While this explains many a delay, it cannot serve as an excuse for everything.
The Commission remains responsible for failing to reveal the negligence of others and for not proposing adequate changes.
The budgetary control procedure of the European Parliament is still more powerful than that operated by the national parliaments.
We can only improve the effectiveness of our budgetary control system by making it absolutely clear who is actually responsible and perhaps by taking a brave decision once in a while.
It saddens me that we have to have this debate on postponement of discharge at all.
It saddens me because we would be better off expending our efforts on promoting the development of common policies rather than on cursing the Commission.
But the reasons for postponing the discharge are numerous, as Mr Elles' excellent report so ably demonstrates.
These are familiar difficulties and Parliament is simply forced to prevail upon the Commission to take action.
On previous occasions I have made it clear that I find it embarrassing that joint funds are being managed as badly as they are.
And it is scandalous that the Commission has not as yet succeeded in implementing the PHARE area programme more effectively to produce tangible and visible results in the destination countries.
But I would like to express my appreciation that we have now got a positive dialogue underway, and that the Commission is determined to take a number of measures designed to correct the failures and inadequacies found in the programme today.
I would like to note in particular the Commission's announcement today to the effect that the proposals set out in the special report on PHARE will be implemented in 1999, concerning delegating the administration to the destination country itself.
I look forward to hearing that on 1 January the administration of the PHARE programme will indeed have been transferred to a specific country.
I would also like to know the name of the country concerned, and I strongly urge the Commission to ensure that, if any legal changes are necessary, the relevant motions will be tabled, so that we can ensure that all obstacles are cleared out of the way to allow us to implement true decentralization on 1 January 1999.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Elles, who has painstakingly come to the conclusion that we should not at present give discharge to the Commission in respect of the 1996 budget.
It is also commendable that he should point out that if the Amsterdam Treaty were already in force, then we should have no other option but to refuse to give discharge to the Commission owing to the fact that the Court of Auditors was unable to provide a statement of assurance for the third time in succession.
The rapporteur is totally correct when he states that the approach which we have decided on is not at all abnormal, but rather constitutes a return to normality.
Perhaps we have not handled things this way before at European level, but with this move we are also attempting to normalize the degree of cooperation and the responsibilities which exist within the Union and to make these more transparent.
It is perhaps indicative of the Commission's attitude to this postponement of the discharge that we hear that Commissioners' press officers are linking the intentions of this House with the forthcoming European elections.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, I believe that this opinion demonstrates a remoteness and an arrogance which the citizens of Europe call Brussels bureaucracy.
What Mr Elles concludes as justification for the postponement of the discharge is in itself nothing new.
Given the treatment which the special reports from the Court of Auditors have received in this House, the Commission should have had enough time to sort out the deficiencies in the external affairs programmes, in the SME sector and in all the other areas which the rapporteur has mentioned today.
Something which I would also like to touch on here - and I regret that the highly creditable Mrs Liddell has just had to leave to attend a meeting - is the completely incomprehensible position of the Member States vis--vis the recommendation to give discharge to the Commission.
This concerns Agenda 2000, where one hears that Member States are crossing off their net payment assessments with increasingly ridiculous calculations, saying they are still paying more than the others.
Obviously these same Member States can find nothing wrong when money is paid out by the Commission and by a Commissioner in the agricultural sector, despite the fact that there is no basis for this, despite the fact that agreements between the 15 Member States are quite clearly not being kept by certain countries and despite the fact that all that is needed is for the Commission to put the brakes on and say: "that is quite enough, everybody.
You will get no more money until you finally do what we originally agreed' .
The matter is so simple, yet we have been behaving as if we had to make changes to ten thousand regulations.
We need people in the Commission who are prepared to show a little courage and to pursue policies which are in accordance with the wishes of EU taxpayers.
We in the European Parliament have been scraping together money for SMEs - ECU 150 million this year, 150 million next year and so on - so that these small and medium-sized businesses can create job opportunities.
The Court of Auditors says that 80 % of the enterprises lucky enough to have been awarded funding are completely unaware of the fact.
I consider this to be a policy which is quite simply out of touch with the interests not only of this House but also of the citizens of Europe.
It is high time that this House revealed what is really going on.
Mr President, the course of this debate on giving discharge for the 1996 financial year has in my view demonstrated two different things. The first is the fact that the EU and its staff are better than their reputation suggests.
In many respects the content of the various reports under discussion today has shown that a great deal of what Europe and the staff of the EU are doing is progressing smoothly.
However, the reports have also shown that there are many weaknesses and deficiencies which we cannot ignore.
I should now like briefly to say something about three of these issues.
Firstly, it is a scandal that the results of the Committee of Inquiry into the transit system are being implemented at such a snail's pace.
There is some kind of paradox here.
Computers are getting faster every day.
Every six months a new generation comes on to the market and all the while the computerization of the whole system is proceeding ever more slowly.
Now to my second point. In recent days and weeks we in this House have been engaged in an intensive debate on the completely inadequate use of resources in central and eastern Europe, particularly in respect of the PHARE, TACIS and MED programmes.
With negotiations on new membership barely started, this completely inadequate deployment of funds hardly augurs well for the future.
Finally to my third point. We have established on numerous occasions, particularly in connection with the BSE Committee of Inquiry, that we in the European Union - and particularly at Commission level - need a disciplinary code for our officials which will put an end to the Commission claiming with fascinating regularity that its hands are tied by the existing disciplinary code and that therefore there is no point in its even trying.
We have received an undertaking from the President of the Commission, no less, that this Commission will be presenting a new disciplinary code.
We look forward to it.
The postponement of the discharge must be taken seriously.
We do not want the situation in the autumn to be the same as it is now.
Mr President, first of all I must commend the rapporteur on his report.
I agree with his recommendation to postpone the discharge, and I also agree with the reasons he gives in his report about why that should be done.
In this debate I will dwell on two points.
The first is what the report refers to as lack of democratic responsibility on the Commission's part. What does that mean?
Or if you will, what is Parliament worried about? Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Budgetary Control cannot reach an opinion, whether positive or negative, about discharges because the Commission will not give us the figures we deem necessary and have formally requested from it, to enable us to form any opinion at all.
The current regulation on the service conditions of Commission employees bans them from providing the European Parliament with figures without prior permission from the hierarchy.
That largely explains the dearth of figures we get, because as you can understand, we cannot form opinions based on the paroles d'honneur of various Commissioners to the Committee on Budgetary Control, for example 'there has been no deception' or 'the matter was investigated but no figures are available' , etcetera.
In my view, the issue ought to be tackled by adding something to the interinstitutional agreement between the three institutional bodies, which as we all know, happened in the case of the investigative committees.
This Gordian knot must be cut, in other words a way must be found to provide the European Parliament with the figures it must have if it is to exempt or not discharge the Commission for its implementation of the budget.
A second point, one which I am repeating for the umpteenth time and which concerns the European Parliament, is that we ourselves ought as soon as possible to modify the way the Committee on Budgetary Control works.
It is something I always stress, and we must hurry so that we can respond to present-day needs. All this, of course, is related to the issue of the UCLAF's autonomy, a body which has been successful so far.
And the UCLAF cannot be autonomous if its employees continue to be bound by the employment conditions of the Commission's staff.
If UCLAF is to monitor the Commission, then those who are to monitor the Commission cannot be Commission employees.
Mr President, thank you very much for this debate.
I will comment on only two major areas of the expenditure which have been dealt with here.
First, external programmes and then Structural Funds and DAS.
On the external programmes, I will very briefly mention that the Commission took a major decision in the autumn to create a common structure for all external programmes.
This is now being implemented and we hope that it will be completed soon.
It means that management of the PHARE, TACIS, MEDA and other programmes will come under one common structure where we hope to standardize all the procedures and public tenders and simplify the way we run the external programmes.
There are too many different procedures and too many different types of contract.
It is extremely difficult for our clients and also very difficult for us.
If we have simple, transparent and standardized procedures it is much easier to control.
This common structure will be put in place this year and we will be able to keep the Committee on Budgetary Control informed of the process.
Mrs Kjer Hansen referred to decentralization and deconcentration and I can say that the Commission agrees in principle.
It is, of course, true that it is better to run the programmes close to the people who are concerned.
This is something we must do to improve efficiency, but of course the balance between efficiency and control is a very delicate one.
We must, therefore, decentralize and deconcentrate as quickly as possible and the recipient country and authority must be able to re-organize their working methods accordingly.
I have discussed this a lot with my colleagues and in the case of PHARE it is clear that we can move forward fairly rapidly in some sectors, perhaps more rapidly than with whole countries.
As far as DAS and the Structural Funds are concerned it has been suggested that not much has happened.
Perhaps I can briefly mention what has happened with the Structural Funds because we have been working very hard on this issue over the last few months.
We got the first DAS in autumn 1995.
It showed that there had been a high level of irregularities, especially in the field of Structural Funds.
Irregularities, not fraud.
It also said that most of these irregularities, perhaps 90 %, take place at the level of the final beneficiary.
That was in autumn 1995.
In 1996 we established the group of personal representatives of the finance ministers of the Member States to clarify the situation.
We cooperated with the Court of Auditors and asked their advice and there were two key areas.
Firstly, the rules of eligibility were not clear in the existing regulation.
There was no agreement on what was eligible and what was not.
Secondly, financial regulations were not accepted as a principle.
We therefore concentrated on these two issues and were able to conclude our extremely lengthy and arduous work in the space of one year, following which we accepted the eligibility sheets for all the Structural Funds and they entered into force on 1 January 1998.
The whole process took about eighteen months.
The Commission has also said that the financial corrections will be applied from 1 January 1998 in order to clarify the uncertainties and ambiguities of the present regulation which dates from 1993.
At the same time, of course, we have tried to see how we could improve the whole legal framework to avoid this kind of ambiguity in the future.
We fed our experience of DAS into the preparatory work on reform of the Structural Funds.
This reform, which was presented to you in various committees on 18 March, has taken into account a large number of the remarks by the Court of Auditors and our own findings.
We must concentrate more on several objectives.
We must cut down the number of initiatives: there will be only three.
We must simplify procedures concerning commitments.
That will be done.
When a programme is accepted the tranches for the programming period will be accepted at the same time.
We must also agree on how financial corrections are made.
The new regulations are very clear.
If a Member State identifies an irregularity, it can transfer the funds to another project; if it is the Court of Auditors or the Commission which identifies an irregularity, we will withdraw the funds.
The question of financing the regulation is extremely important and we hope that this presidency and future presidencies will work hard to get it accepted in time for it to enter into force on 1 January 2000.
We have made a start on the extremely difficult task of financing spending on the Structural Funds in the long term, and I am very pleased to note the words of the presidency that it is a joint effort.
There are tens of thousands of participants in the Community projects.
Whatever we do in the Commission we cannot solve every single problem in the final beneficiary countries.
We have our responsibilities but we must be able to carry them out together.
I shall be pleased to come back to the Committee on Budgetary Control in the autumn.
We have discussed with the President and the rapporteur the possibility of grouping these issues so that we could have perhaps a couple of meetings before the summer and finalize matters in the autumn.
We are keeping an open and constructive mind.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Criminal proceedings to protect the Union's financial interests
The next item is the report (A4-0082/98) by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on criminal proceedings relating to the protection of the Union's financial interests.
Mr President, I am rather concerned, and I am sorry I did not have a chance to raise it before Mrs Theato spoke, that a corrigendum has been published to the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The corrigendum affects the very issue which was the substance of the only significant argument in committee.
It seeks to replace in paragraphs 7, 9 and 10 the words 'European public prosecutor' with "European judicial authority' .
I have to say as somebody who has consistently opposed the use of the words that do appear in "Corpus Juris' , in English, "European public prosecutor' - and that was the whole substance of my intervention in committee - that I find it amazing that by corrigendum we have now got a major and fundamental amendment to the report.
That is certainly what it is in English and I seek your guidance because I think that this is far too substantial an amendment to be done by way of corrigendum.
Yes, I would just like to explain that.
I have the German text and in this version the term "public prosecutor' carries a certain meaning.
There is nothing comparable at European level.
This term is represented differently in each language.
I have had approaches made from so many sides that I have resorted to the German text as it was submitted in committee.
I am not responsible for the translation.
Clearly, something has been created here which does not yet exist, which takes account of national circumstances, usage and traditions and indeed powers of authority.
What we should really call it ultimately becomes the second question.
I would therefore ask you not to attribute a particular meaning to this word as such, but rather to identify the underlying concept.
I hope that Mrs Gradin will have the opportunity today to comment on this matter, for we are not seeking to interfere in national arrangements but rather are contemplating the setting-up of a new European institution.
Mr President, I should also like to draw your attention to another matter. I am speaking on a point of order.
I do not know what the list of speakers looks like, but if for a third time we find that Mrs Gradin has to voice her opinion and that of the Commission while Members of this House are pouring into the Chamber, with all the noise that this entails, and with the vote soon to take place, then I say that this is simply unacceptable.
I would therefore ask that you organize the sitting in such a way that Mrs Gradin has the full attention of this House and is not disturbed by noise of any kind.
I hope that you will give this matter your attention.
Mrs Theato, if all speakers observed speaking time, we would not run this risk, but they have to observe it strictly.
With regard to Mr Tomlinson, I have to say that the problem has to be examined.
It is a report on an initiative, on which we are not pressed, for we are not in the legislative field, but I understand that the problem is a very, very delicate one.
Mr President, We shall try to help you in this respect so that Mrs Gradin also has enough time at the end of the sitting.
I believe that this conversation has now illustrated right from the start just where the problems lie in this respect.
This report has also helped to focus our minds on a problem which has again been highlighted both by the conclusions of our Committee of Inquiry into the transit system and indeed by the whole episode of fraud at EU budget level. The problem is this: at the end of the day we cannot complete the internal market as long as we are working to 15 sets of national rules.
I believe that from a purely technical point of view we would be taking an important step if we were to distribute translations of the Corpus Juris study to the 15 Member States and national parliaments, so that opinions can be expressed in the various parliaments as to what can be practically achieved in this area.
One hopes that the various comments expressed by the Members of this House would then also move the process forward.
This is a programme on which we shall probably be working for some considerable time in partnership with the Commission and the Member States.
With this in mind our group gives the report its general approval.
Mr President, words are obviously very important things and words can be used either to emphasize something or to conceal it.
I would like to say something about the word "subsidiarity' .
This is a word which gives many of us problems.
In some respects it is difficult to pronounce, but it is clearly even more difficult to understand.
If you look it up in the dictionary, the definitions given suggest that what is involved is the principle of self-responsibility, whereby those above should only be called in, or intervene, as a secondary consideration in the event that those below are incapable of handling the situation for themselves.
The dictionary will often also refer to various papal encyclicals for possible uses of the word.
This is all very well, but it hardly suffices for our purpose.
In a European context the word "subsidiarity' has a third meaning, and possibly an even more important one, in that it is constantly misused by those looking for a reason not to have to do something, or to postpone something indefinitely.
This is exactly what is happening now in connection with the proposed European public prosecutor or judicial authority.
I believe that we reached agreement on this matter in the discussions held by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
We should therefore demonstrate here today in this House that we require better coordination between the national prosecution authorities in those areas involving the control, prevention and sanctioning of fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union.
In far too many areas we see, time and time again, that many Member States regard the improper use of EU funds, and EU funds alone, as a pardonable offence, and that even national prosecution authorities take a very long time to deal with these fraudulent offences by way of appropriate sanctions.
The report calls for a stronger UCLAF to be set up as a matter of urgency to tackle this problem and also demands the establishment of a new institution - call it what you will - and the name European public prosecutor perhaps gives the wrong impression here.
In substance we need something which will ensure that the national prosecution authorities change their nonchalant attitude towards the abuse of the Union's financial interests, which they have displayed all too often.
We need to achieve greater coordination so that this type of offence can be properly prosecuted and, if at all possible, removed from our midst.
Mr President, Commissioner, our course is clear; we all know how we should proceed in providing the Commission with the legal instruments and penal provisions to combat organized crime.
But the discussions I have held here on this subject over the years have always been inconclusive.
Fraud is on the increase, and a friend has compared me to the Sophists who used a race between Achilles and a tortoise to prove that the goal is ever more distant.
Fraud is becoming increasingly prevalent, to the extent that I am beginning to think that fraud has ceased to be a crime and has become instead an economic instrument for boosting competitiveness, used by Member States to protect their economies from each other.
Why is it that monetary convergence - which requires sacrifices by so many states - can be implemented, while crime cannot be effectively combatted?
There is no lack of proposals! We all know how to combat crime: by furnishing the legal instruments and by laying down criminal penalties to ensure that those who engage in organized crime do not go unpunished.
Unless these measures are taken and while Parliament, through its Committee on Budgets, continues to vote against the proposal to spend money on scanners to physically ascertain what is going on at our former borders, then crime will certainly continue to increase and, like Mrs Theato, I will feel like a sort of "Don Quixote' and "Sancho Panza' tilting at the computerized windmills of crime which in fact spread crime and fraud throughout Europe.
Mr President, I think Mrs Theato's report on criminal proceedings relating to the protection of the EU's financial interests constitutes a very worthy and significant contribution to the discussion of how to proceed in this area.
In the debate on tourism, we expended a great deal of effort and a lot of time on the subject of transit, and these examples amply illustrate the crying need for results in this area.
But this also demonstrates how difficult it is to make progress unless all the Member States show the political will to make some concrete decisions in this area with a view to putting in place the systems required for effective collaboration.
Mrs Theato is proposing some very necessary initiatives, but at the same time, I must say that the report is rather ambitious.
It is ambitious considering how difficult it is to come to any decisions in this area, and here, of course, I am thinking of our good old problem of the convention to protect the financial interests of the EU not having been ratified.
The fact that this has still not been ratified in some Member States does present a problem.
This is a serious area and an important one, and I would also like to illustrate this with a simple example - perhaps even a banal example in the wider context - but right now in Denmark we are debating the problem of the loss of many millions of kroner that Denmark incurs because fathers are avoiding their obligation to pay child support.
They move to other countries, and it is painfully apparent that the Danish authorities do not stand the slightest chance of recovering the outstanding sums.
Thus, this topic also affects everyday life; there are many such examples.
I believe the stage is set for some exciting ideas on promoting proper cooperation, to bring about improved exchange of information, to strengthen UCLAF, and then as regards this present public prosecutor - or whatever the term is going to be.
I think it is important for us to have more information on the table, and I am looking forward to June, when it is hoped that the Commission will respond with more detailed material so that we can make some progress in this discussion.
It is an important area.
Thank you for the report.
Mrs Theato's report on the criminal proceedings for the protection of the Union's financial interests raises a fundamental problem which is inherent in the Maastricht Treaty, as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is the transfer of sovereignty between Member States in the European Union in the field of justice, notably though Article 280 of the Treaty.
It is true that in this case good arguments have been used, as the Elles report has emphasized, regarding the refusal to discharge the budget for 1996, but these arguments are also used for purposes which we believe are questionable.
Indeed, if there is no satisfactory outcome to the fight against fraud, corruption and organized crime, we will naturally wonder, as we do for the euro, whether there should not be more integration in the legal and criminal field.
The liaison body between the national and Community judicial authorities would naturally be UCLAF, the Commission's anti-fraud unit, which should, in a manner of speaking, become the European public ministry.
But we forget that the inadequacies, the negligence and the culpable mishandling by the Commission of its lawsuits in the case of mad-cow disease or that of tourism, should be the competence of national courts only.
In truth, in the longer term, there is a degree of risk that, in order to combat the mafioso inclinations which arise from clientelism and organized fraud, we might get to the stage, as Mrs Theato wished, where we wanted to set up a European public ministry or a European judicial authority, to return to the terminological debate between the British and the Germans.
However, this terminological debate is not neutral; it shows that there is a real, fundamental problem with regard to the culture of the various Member States, in terms of the freedom of the states, the freedom of the nations.
And from this point of view, the terminological debate shows just how dangerous the road is down which people are trying to send us.
For our part, we refuse to go down that road, because we do not wish there to be a further, supranational judicial authority to substitute the sovereignty of the Member States.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Theato.
We have a useful report, which clearly underlines the wish of Parliament to enhance the fight against fraud, maladministration and the abuse of European taxpayers.
In that regard everybody is equally committed to the fight against fraud.
I certainly pay tribute to Mrs Theato for the valuable work she has done over the years, both in the Committee on Budgetary Control and as its chairman.
However - and I say the first part absolutely clearly - I have to express some reservations, not about Mrs Theato's analysis of the problem but about the remedy prescribed for the problem.
As I indicated in my point of order my reservations are about paragraphs 7, 9 and 10 and the use in the English text of the words 'European public prosecutor' , and what I believe to be the misinterpretation and the misuse of Article 280 as it is referred to in indents (h) and (I).
Article 280 enables the Union to intervene to take subsidiary action under the first pillar.
But it is not my concept of subsidiary action to have, for example in paragraph 7, the European public prosecutor having the ability to delegate powers to national public prosecutors.
That is the antithesis of subsidiarity and is the basis on which we have wrongly quoted Article 280.
In conclusion, the intervention of the corrigendum, far from making matters easier, makes it worse.
It is one thing to talk about a 'European public prosecutor' , a single official and his/her role, together with the staff, but to turn it into a 'European judicial authority' manages to compound the problems that I have in relation to Article 280.
There are good sentiments in the report; there are merits in the analysis of the report.
The prescription is one that we are a long way away from being in a position to realize, and it is for that reason I will not be supporting those parts of the report that refer either to 'European public prosecutor' or 'European judicial authority' .
Mr President, as you can see, Mrs Theato does not wear glasses, as she is neither short-sighted, nor long-sighted.
The same applies to her report, which is really very broad in the viewpoint it takes, and defines the horizon towards which we should tend, in this case harmonization of criminal law in the European Union, and the setting up of an independent judicial authority, an expression which is I believe literally translated from the German, although it is not the translation of the corpus juris.
After all of that, we shall be voting on the report, and not on the corpus juris.
Furthermore, Madam, not content with being so clear-sighted, you also specify the obligations which must be met in the short and even the very short term.
What are these? In your view, Article 280, although very poorly drafted, can be intelligently interpreted.
We know that some instances of fraud and crime with regard to the Community budget are multinational in nature, as they involve a number of players, and their effects are felt in a number of Member States.
We also know that it is impossible to react appropriately at national level.
A solution would be not to do anything, and this is what Mr Le Gallou is inviting us to do. He is, it would appear, a devoted defender of the national or Community taxpayers, but in this specific context he has decided that he will not do battle.
Others claim that we should do nothing at Community level, if it is impossible to act at national level.
But you, Madam, propose a direct way forward to the establishment of an independent judicial authority, the granting of a legal status, and of operational resources and of powers of enquiry to UCLAF.
It is a first step in the right direction.
Your report, Madam, is a moderate report, but it is, as the saying goes, ruthlessly moderate.
Mr President, it seems to me that we are making Europe into a kind of giant with huge legs, driving the economy it runs with arms just as long involved in the fraud and organized crime that are becoming more rapacious today, but with a brain that is sometimes very small and heads in a very modest political direction and that, finally and unfortunately, has no kidneys or liver, organs which it should use to get rid of the negative aspects.
I apologize for this image, but it seems to me that Mrs Theato very specifically wanted to show this, and I thank her for her persistence in continuing to deal with this problem.
How can we imagine that we can make progress in a situation in which the national states are competing with each other, in a situation of disparity due to the fact that some states regard Community fraud as a specific crime while others do not?
To conclude, going back to Mr Bourlanges' image, I think that Mrs Theato has been far-sighted and specific and that the corrigendum is right.
Mr President, how can we imagine a European public prosecution service without a specific European judicial authority?
Mr President, this report leads me to think that the status quo in the fight against multinational fraud is unsatisfactory.
As I have repeated on a number of occasions, I support any improvement in cooperation between the national prosecution authorities and, naturally, I also support the optimal use of existing databases.
There is no doubt that developing UCLAF into an independent coordination and information body would be a real contribution to the fight against international crime.
But of course we need a clear definition of the role and responsibilities of this special body, and we also need to know what provisions are to be made to protect its independence.
In other respects, of course, neither the principle of an alternate international criminal justice system nor the principle of ne bis in idem stand in the way of an efficient prosecution of transnational fraud; the real problem here is the absence of an effective intergovernmental legal procedure, and this has to be put right.
We reject the idea of a public prosecutor with European-wide jurisdiction in the same way as we reject the Europeanization of criminal law. For this reason we cannot accept any report which would lead us in this direction.
Mr President, the report is a good one because it is moderate, if I can say that; it considers the issues in light of a real situation that exists in the area of the EU's economic interests that are being affected, as we have seen recently. I must come down in favour of medium-term or, if you will, short-term planning in contrast to the long-term planning relating to the cases of paragraphs 7, 9 and 10 which Mr Tomlinson raised.
I must point out that with the corrective action proposed - it matters not how we go about it - a great lack of clarification is removed.
And I must remind us all why such an authority is essential.
The authority must exist, ladies and gentlemen, because - and I speak as a practising lawyer - the Commission cannot arraign any Member State.
A citizen can go to a Member State and lay a charge and the authority can intervene, but the Commission itself is not empowered to approach a national authority so that it can protect Community interests and call for the initiation of criminal proceedings when there are accusations about specific criminal injustices.
So these amendments ought to be supported and I will ask Mr Tomlinson, who helped so much to complete this report, to view the matter in a different light.
Finally, I should like to say that the UCLAF's role seems to have succeeded so far.
However, the UCLAF itself must put its house in order and, mainly, adopt practical measures that will enable it to deal with the problems. One of those measures is that its staff must not be bound by the employment conditions applicable to Commission employees.
This is the third time that this has happened.
I am very sorry that I always have to speak under these circumstances.
The rapporteur, Mrs Theato, and I share the conviction that a well-functioning European judicial area is essential if we want to guarantee freedom, security and justice for all our citizens in the years to come.
This has become even more clear in view of the forthcoming enlargement.
The opening of the negotiation conference takes place today - as you know - in Brussels.
The new citizens joining the European Union will expect the European Union to provide them with guarantees in this respect and so will the citizens of the 15 present Member States.
Mrs Theato's report is part of this much broader endeavour, even if it relates directly to the financial interests of the Community.
In order to move towards an area of freedom, security and justice I favour a gradual and pragmatic approach.
This is necessary because our point of departure is 15 different judicial and penal systems in our Member States.
There are many different definitions of fraud.
The varying level of administrative and penal sanctions, and the insufficiencies of judicial cooperation among the 15 provide a breeding ground for crime and corruption in general, and also against the EU budget.
So far we have used the Maastricht Treaty as best we can.
It has produced some successful results, such as the regulation on the protection of the financial interests and the regulation on spot checks, but clearly we need to broaden the understanding among practitioners of the utility of our work by addressing issues close to the hearts of citizens.
The multi-annual programmes do precisely that.
We now have a number of programmes in operation: GROTIUS for judicial cooperation, STOP to combat sexual exploitation of children and trafficking in women, DAPHNE to fight violence against women and children, SHERLOCK on forged documents and OISIN on police and customs cooperation.
Another two programmes have just been approved by the Council of Ministers: ODYSSEUS on border controls, migration and asylum and FALCONE on the fight against organized crime.
Taken together, these programmes are an impressive start to practical cooperation between the relevant specialists in all our Member States.
They allow practitioners from various areas of the judicial world to come together to compare best practices and to learn to appreciate and respect each other's way of doing things.
The academic work done to prepare the Corpus Juris is yet another example of how to prepare the ground for further initiatives.
Such preparatory work is essential if we want to succeed in improving the legal framework which has to protect citizens.
The protection of the Union budget is of special concern to me, as I am responsible for the fight against fraud.
It is also of great interest to citizens for tax revenue to be well spent and fraud-proof.
The budget of the European Union affects all taxpayers. They demand protection against fraud and corruption.
The only efficient way of doing this is through common action.
This was fully recognized in Amsterdam.
It was decided that the taxpayers' money must be protected in an equivalent way in the Union as well as in all the Member States.
We were also given a legal instrument: the new Article 280, with a qualified majority which provides for a much more efficient decision-making process.
I agree with the rapporteur that in order to ensure that the Union finances are equally protected under criminal law in all Member States, we need efficient cooperation between investigation authorities and the judiciary in all Member States.
One important contribution will be the ad hoc legal interface in UCLAF staffed with legal experts from all the Member States.
This will help to coordinate and assist national investigators and, where necessary, judicial authorities.
We have put such a proposal to the Commission but, as I have stressed on a number of occasions, such an activity needs human resources so I expect the European Parliament to take its political responsibility in this respect.
I am also establishing an anti-fraud unit on external assistance and another dealing with the fight against corruption.
I will also establish a dedicated intelligence cell focusing on customs fraud in particular.
A number of other improvements in the UCLAF organization will also be made, notably in its computer unit, but these are questions I will come back to next month when we discuss Mr Bösch's report.
With regard to the concept of a register or database managed by UCLAF, I wish to report that the Commission has already proposed such a register in the additional protocol to the Convention on the protection of the financial interests submitted to the Council in 1996.
It was, however, not integrated in the final result, so I am still reflecting on the best way in which to bring the idea back to the table.
The role of UCLAF in assisting prosecuting authorities in the Member States is laid down in the second protocol to the convention.
Unfortunately, as was said earlier, not a single Member State has yet ratified the various conventions dealing with the protection of the financial interests of the Community.
This is very disappointing, as many Members have said in the debate.
I hope the issue will be addressed at the European Council in Cardiff.
In the event that Member States do not ratify these conventions, the Commission must seriously consider how to make progress and here we have the new Amsterdam Treaty that gives us some better instruments.
I am thinking in particular of the new framework decisions in Article K6 which will be moved to Article 34.
Or the more operational Article 209A which now will become Article 280.
Moreover, conventions will enter into force when they are ratified in half of the Member States.
Mrs Theato also calls for certain changes in the Staff Regulations.
The Commission has already expressed its positive attitude to certain adjustments in its communication of 18 November 1997.
My colleague Mr Liikanen commented on this at the time.
I also wish to inform you that I am preparing, together with Commissioner de Silguy, a proposal to protect the new currency, the euro, from forgery and counterfeiting.
You will receive a communication on this subject very soon.
This brings me again to the ambitious ideas of the 'Corpus Juris' .
These ideas have, as you know, been the subject of debate in academic circles for some years.
The Commission is committed to looking at all its aspects.
A number of experts are now comparing the legal system of fifteen Member States in areas such as taking of evidence, mutual assistance and admissibility of proof.
So a great deal of preparatory work has already been done and an interim report is being worked on.
I have no doubt that the ideas contained in this document will form part of the future discussion on a European single judicial area - an important discussion that also has to link in with implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Madam Commissioner, thank you for your speech and for speaking in a difficult situation.
In this respect, I think that the Conference of Presidents will have to examine the problem, which has already been raised several times, on the conditions in which the last speech is made before voting.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Votes
I would like, before the votes, to make an announcement.
The Bureau decided yesterday to send a message of congratulations to Mrs Nicole Péry, our former Vice-President, who has just been appointed a member of the French government.
I am particularly happy to make this announcement because I am, as you know, Mrs Péry's successor, although I am in no way trying to replace her.
Mr President, now that all the amendments have been adopted, I would like to ask the Commission, and via the Commission, the Council, to have another look at whether it might be possible for Parliament's wishes to be met.
Yesterday we agreed that Regulation No 1408/71, which deals with frontier workers, who should be getting decent rights, is still being blocked as far the jurisprudence in the Court of Justice is concerned.
We discussed this very thoroughly yesterday, and it turns out that the amendments tabled by Parliament were not adopted by the Commissioner.
I also asked the Commission yesterday to ensure that we would receive written information on all the proposals which are being blocked, and to tell us who is blocking what, and why.
I was given a response by the Commissioner, also after the debate last night, which was negative.
He agrees in substance, but he is not prepared to adopt the proposals.
Mr President, this is why I am requesting that we should not have the final vote on this proposal, and that we should instead refer the report back to committee.
We should have an opportunity to have a proper debate with the Commission and the Council.
I now understand from the President of the Commission that the Council, the British Presidency, wants to discuss this proposal on 6 April, and that this Parliament is being put under heavy pressure to proceed to the final vote.
On behalf of all those who are waiting for improvements, the frontier workers who are for ever left out in the cold, I call on the Council, which always takes the benefits, but never wants to provide any more rules, to give its support to the proposal not to implement in the final vote the modifications to Regulation 1408 as they are before us.
Mr President, I rarely disagree with Mrs Oomen-Ruijten but I have to do so today.
I would oppose referral back to committee.
I have looked at the exchange that took place in the Chamber last night.
I have also seen a copy of Commissioner Flynn's letter to the rapporteur.
I agree that it is a shame that the amendments cannot be accepted at this stage but I note the Commission's intention to accept the two main amendments, Nos 3 and 4, in the context of the general revision of Regulation 1408/71 which will come forward later this year.
I hope the rapporteur will support those amendments at that time.
Also, in the context of Anne Van Lancker's own-initiative report on the issue of frontier workers, the separate question of the position of various delegations in Council is one which would have to be answered by Council.
The rapporteur is fully aware of that.
My final point is that the Council looks to adopt this on 7 April.
That is not the most important issue by any means but it has driven the entire timetable for our dealing with this proposal.
No purpose would be served by referring this matter back to committee.
I therefore oppose it.
Mr President, I also rise to oppose referral back to committee.
What we are voting on this morning is something that the Commission has already taken on board and accepted.
It has shown a willingness to look at other areas also.
As my esteemed colleague Mr Hughes has said, this is a matter for Council and we should not use it as a delaying or blocking tactic.
Let us vote on the issue before us and not mix up other issues with it.
I oppose referral back to committee.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission I wish to reaffirm to the rapporteur that the Commission is very supportive of everything she has said.
The first two amendments you have voted for this morning are already on the table of the Council and are being discussed at this time.
I am quite prepared to give my support to the other two, and will make a proposal before the end of the year.
However, this morning the House is asked to vote on purely technical amendments to the annual adjustment of Regulation 1408/71.
On the other point, which is, of course, related, unanimity is required, and I very much ask for the support of the House in pressing the Council.
These other four items are blocked, although we are making some progress on them.
But this morning you are asked to vote on technical adjustments to Regulation 1408/71, which happens on an annual basis.
This is going to the Social Affairs Council on 6 April, and it would be a great pity if the House could not see the usefulness of doing this at this time.
I say to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that her point is taken on board, the Commission is supportive of her point of view and we will be pressing this matter with whatever support we can get and wherever we can get it.
But unanimity in the Council is involved.
As I say, some progress is being made, and I hope we will be able to address the outstanding two amendments - Nos 3 and 4 - before the end of the year when the case law judgments we are expecting by the end of June are clear so that the interpretation of all of this directive is clearly understood.
I appeal to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, recognizing that the Commission is supportive of her view, to relent and allow this to go to Council to have these technical amendments cleared at this time.
Mr President, I will speak very briefly.
To me the issue is that the Commissioner now wants the Council to have all the benefits, whereas the frontier workers continue to have all the disadvantages.
Who in this House will therefore dare to vote against my proposals for it to be referred back to committee, on account of the British Presidency on 6 April? I would like to discuss this with you and the Council in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
(The matter was referred back to the committee responsible)
Mr President, in our amendment my group has called for the setting up of a Mr or Mrs Reconstruction for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In discussions with the other groups and with the Commission we have reached general consensus that if we withdraw the word Mr or Mrs Reconstruction, then the amendment will be approved, the reason being that it will be moving towards replacing this function with a Mr or Mrs Director-General appointed by the Commission.
We should not burden this initiative with terms which leave us in the dark as to who is involved.
I would therefore ask the House to vote on this amendment without including a 'Mr or Mrs Reconstruction' .
Mr President, our group supports Mrs Müller's proposal.
(The President noted that there was no objection to the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, on the same subject, I certainly think that the replacement, debated in committee, of the words public prosecutor with independent judicial authority is not just a linguistic corrigendum, but is more like a coup d'État .
I believe that the clerk's department should have refused such a change.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have just discussed this problem a short while ago.
I started out from the German version, which was the one also voted on in committee.
The fact that there is no European judicial, prosecuting or investigating authority, nor is there a public prosecutor, makes it very difficult indeed to find a common term which does justice to all the different national systems.
The term 'public prosecutor' was proposed in a study, but it is not an established term as such.
As I encountered a great deal of resistance to the German term for public prosecutor, which is 'Staatsanwaltschaft' , I have tried to find a more neutral expression for my report and then to have this put to the vote.
It was of course not the different translated versions which were voted on.
Since approaches were later made to me that the translation was inexact, and even misleading, I requested that the term be changed to comply with German translation, which is what I started off with.
However, I should like to point out again that what we have to define here is something which does not yet exist.
Some time ago I even asked the Commission for a definition.
The term must be so filled with meaning that the jurisdiction of the Member States is fully taken into account and left intact.
For me, the problem therefore centred around the translated version.
I was slightly amazed that approaches were made to me on this subject late last night.
Yet I would earnestly request that you examine the general content rather than focusing on a word for which we have still to find a definition, which is what I have requested.
Thank you, Mrs Theato.
I must say that, for my part, it is more a question of the concept than the translation.
I shall ask Mr De Luca and Mr Bourlanges, as well as Mrs Wemheuer, for their opinion.
Then we shall make a decision.
Mr President, as you rightly said, the question does exist, and it is not just a question of terminology.
In fact, the term "European public prosecutor' has a meaning.
Perhaps, in the attempt made by Mrs Theato, "judicial authority' is a more comprehensive term that could incorporate both concepts.
Perhaps it is a solution I will suggest to the Chamber: not to use either the term "public prosecutor' or "judicial authority' , but "European judicial body' .
I do not know how this term can be translated into the other languages, or whether it is compatible, but a body is something that is indefinite, that is half-way; that could therefore solve the linguistic problem we are otherwise faced with.
Mr President, there is a fundamental debate, certainly, but here we are simply involved in a procedural debate, and we have to raise the question as to whether the draft which is submitted conforms with what was voted on within the Committee on Budgetary Control.
While open to correction, I think there is little doubt, firstly that the text on which we have voted and which is authoritative is the German text; secondly, this German text included the expression "independent authority' in German and it did not contain the expression "European public prosecutor' , which for its part comes from another source, namely the corpus juris proposed by the Commission.
Therefore, I think that in procedural terms, there is no ambiguity.
We have indeed voted on a draft which spoke of an independent judicial authority.
In the event of disagreement with this draft, it would, it appears to me, have been necessary to table an amendment according to the prescribed procedure, and this being the case, there would have indeed been a translation error between the German text and the other linguistic versions.
I therefore think that we should stay with the vote on the basis of the German text, which is the faithful version.
Mr President, the various groups, including of course my own, have been discussing the report as it was then, namely without the corrigendum, and have formed an opinion on it.
I therefore believe that we can only vote on the text as we knew it at the time.
I would like to ask Mrs Theato to withdraw the corrigendum, since instead of clarifying the situation it has clearly only served to confuse matters further.
If she does not withdraw it, I will propose on behalf of my group that the report be referred back to committee.
Mr President, I agree entirely with the comments made by Mrs Wemheuer.
Like you, we believe that this is not just linguistic; it is a different concept, so if we cannot have the withdrawal of the corrigendum we would like to have it referred back to committee for clarification.
Ladies and gentlemen, we therefore have a proposal relating to the corrigendum and a proposal for referral to committee.
I am thus going to put to the vote the proposal relating to the corrigendum, to see whether or not the corrigendum is accepted or refused.
Mrs Theato, do you agree with this procedure?
Mr President, I should first like to know precisely whether, in the event that the corrigendum is not adopted, you will again allow a vote on the referral back to committee.
I need to know exactly what the course of the procedure is. Is this in fact correct?
Do we first have to vote on the corrigendum? If the corrigendum is adopted, will you still be having a vote?
Madam, we shall first vote on the corrigendum.
If the corrigendum is adopted we shall then possibly vote on a referral to committee, if so requested.
However, at present, I have before me a proposal from Mrs Green, for a referral back to committee if the corrigendum is not adopted.
Is that right?
(Interruption from Mrs Green) Excuse me, Mrs Green, it is the other way round.
I did not make myself clear.
We shall first vote on corrigendum No 1, to see whether or not it is accepted.
I must remind you that this corrigendum in French replaces the expression "European public prosecutor' with the expression "European judicial authority' .
We therefore need, as the amendment applies to the whole, to vote first on the corrigendum.
Then we shall possibly vote on a request for a referral back to committee.
Mr President, I appreciate very much what you are trying to do and I agree with you but this is a procedure which we have not adopted before.
As far as a corrigendum is concerned, if Mrs Theato is prepared to withdraw it then I think that is the appropriate thing and we then vote on the original text.
If she is not prepared to withdraw it then I think we should refer it back to committee.
I should like to thank Mrs Green most sincerely for her contribution which has clearly helped clarify the situation.
I am prepared to withdraw the corrigendum.
I should just like to point out that this in no way concerns me directly.
But I would say that all those Members, wherever they may be, will now be leaving me out on a limb if they vote against the resolution on the basis of the withdrawal of the corrigendum.
I would like to make that absolutely clear.
Let me state quite categorically that the name of this new body, which we are going to set up some day or other, is not the main issue for me.
The most important thing in my view is that we get started, so that the protection of the Union's financial interests is assured.
Mr President, the vote which you now wish to conduct is inadmissible.
The rapporteur said that the original text was in German.
If we are now to proceed to a vote, then we shall be voting on the work of the translators and not on the issue in question.
I therefore consider the vote you are proposing to be inadmissible.
We should be voting on the basis of the German text.
Ladies and gentlemen, I note the fact that Madame rapporteur withdrew corrigendum No 1.
We shall now vote on the text without corrigendum No 1.
We are in agreement on that.
Each person must take on their own responsibilities.
I cannot make any other suggestions.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I would like to congratulate our colleague Tom Megahy for his hard work and the pertinence of the recommendations made in his report, which seem to me to go in the right direction. Like many of our colleagues, I wish to support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur.
Hence I totally agree with the idea of differentiating between the "beneficiary' of the card and the vehicle.
We are indeed well aware of the difficulty of implementing measures aimed at integrating disabled people into a society which increasingly excludes those individuals who have most problems adjusting to ever more demanding circumstances.
I therefore hope that these recommendations will be very quickly taken over by the Member States of the Union.
In this report, the question of a citizen's Europe is once again raised.
I note that reality is always becoming more and more removed from the official rhetoric, and from the stream of stock market indicators, where individuals have no role to play.
Once again, I wish to denounce these blows against the values of solidarity and justice.
The European Union is a model of development and of civilization, and I want to remind you of that at a time when we are witnessing the dismantling of the Welfare State.
I grant that these words are somewhat removed from the original subject, but I fear that the measures aimed at social deregulation particularly affect people with disabilities.
I believe that in this field we have much more to do, particularly in terms of access to employment and the fight against all kinds of latent discrimination, which affects disabled people all too often.
Although my colleague Mr Megahy is right to point out that the Council is only opting for a nonbinding recommendation for governments to follow on this issue, I share his welcome for the idea of an EU-wide parking card for the disabled.
I am also happy to see Parliament's specific suggestions being taken on board - for example the importance of issuing the card to a disabled driver for use with whatever vehicles they will drive, removing the need for bureaucratic renewal of the card each time a different vehicle is used.
I am also glad to find that the definition of disabled drivers will be left to the Member States, allowing this to be as broad as each country sees fit.
As always, EU guidelines should be a minimum standard on which we can build where countries wish to go further.
I hope that governments will do as much as they can to make travel easier for our many disabled fellow citizens, so that freedom of movement applies to all Europeans in future.
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0116/98) Wijsenbeek
We have to bear in mind the following, and Mr Kinnock, the Commissioner responsible, confirmed this yesterday after the debate on modern tachographs:
1.In its decision the Council has only expressed an opinion on the future black box (system mentioned in 1B).
The UK Member and coordinator of the Socialist group had to ask the Commission twice about this matter in the last sitting of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
The Commission representative confirmed that only proposal 1B had been submitted to the Council.2.The new black box has not yet been decided on.
Do we really know what we are voting on?3.The Council Decision is flawed, because the matter of retrofitting has not been settled.
The Council rushed into this in order to force through a compromise.
Do you really believe that, in the absence of a retrofitting scheme, firms will not try anything and everything to preserve the old style of tachograph? A botched-up tachograph will certainly do nothing to increase measurement accuracy.4.Competition is being made very easy for the countries of central and eastern Europe.
Agreement was only reached with these countries in 1995 to put forward any kind of tachograph at all.
If the transport firms and inspection authorities in the European states do not even have the overall infrastructure required for the new device, then, as Adam Riese says, we can hardly assume that our competitors will be very eager to adopt it.5.There is no system in place for checking and recalling the data recorded by the firms in question.
Surely no-one seriously wanted this.After working for four years on this regulation in my capacity as rapporteur for the Group of the European People's Party in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, I reached the conclusion that Member States want for the time being to retain the existing tachograph system, which is easy to manipulate.
The reasons are regrettable but all too obvious.
The Commission has done a complete U-turn and played right into the Council's hands.
The majority of Parliament has done the same.
This does little for the credibility of the European Parliament.
On the plus side, today's decision by Parliament constitutes a technical step forward.
On the negative side, however, it is a matter for regret that this will not be happening today but rather far into the future.
In the meantime, there will be a period of 10 years in which we will be driving through a grey area.
This will not be without its consequences.
It can hardly be reasonable for the EU to regulate road transport in such detail as is now happening with regulations on the design, installation, use and testing of tachographs.
The system also has to be approved by the Commission. The Council is going even further and prescribing the obligatory installation of fully digital tachographs in all new vehicles from 1 July 2000.
The proposal affects small hauliers in particular and those companies which do not always have the possibility of introducing new equipment without high costs.
Questions of this type should be dealt with at national level.
Detailed regulation at EU level must end.
All the nations of Europe are currently making a special effort to provide freedom of movement to disabled citizens.
An important element of this policy is access for the disabled to strategically positioned reserved parking spaces.
Permission to park in such places is granted by means of a special identity card issued by the authorities.
Fortunately, in most cases, these national disabled badges are still recognised when the badge holder travels to the other EU countries.
But it would still be much more practical and much safer for disabled citizens if a common EU badge were issued. Thus, the proposal for a regulation is a positive initiative.
Parliament adopted a number of amendments at first reading, aimed at further improving conditions for disabled citizens, and it is gratifying to see that the Council has allowed these proposals to be incorporated into its common position.
Against the backdrop of these positive results, I give the adjustment my full support.
Mr President, I should like to give an oral explanation as to why the Liberal group abstained in the final vote.
This was because the outcome of the vote on Article 4, on the subject of national airport networks, would be, from our standpoint, unworkable.
Here there was a vote on the committee's proposal number 10, which had two recitals.
Parliament voted to accept the proposal by 251 votes to 243.
As a result, compensatory payments made in respect of national airport networks will be restricted to domestic flights.
As Neil Kinnock said here yesterday, this goes completely against a key principle of the directive, namely nondiscrimination.
Charges must be the same for both domestic and inter-EU flights.
As this essential point in the report has now become distorted, the Liberal group felt they had to abstain from voting.
I would like to add that we opposed the Green group's Amendment No 25 on the basis that our own Amendment No 26 as well as Amendment No 20 tabled by the Socialist group, had already focused sufficiently on environmental issues.
We are in favour of the underlying idea behind the proposal for a directive, namely that transparency and consultation should lead to the differences in tax systems being as small as possible.
European airlines could benefit from a clarification of airport taxes.
However, because we do not think the proposed formulations can be interpreted in such a way that the consequences can be fully assessed, we are abstaining from the vote.
Mr President, as we continue to move forward with the Single Market, the European Union is required to look at each sector of industry and ensure that there are no non-tariff barriers to trade within that sector.
That is exactly what the Council Directive on airport charges intends to do.
Within the context of a single market, it is unconscionable that airport charges should be levied in obscure ways.
Just as consumers want to know what they are purchasing before they hand over payments, airlines (who are indeed consumers of airport services) should receive the same level of transparency.
Airports should be required to disclose what the fees are used for.
They should also reflect the level of use.
The airlines should not have to pay the same amount to land a small commuter plane as a jumbo jet at any given airport.
I agree with the rapporteur that there is no need to harmonise airport charges across the EU, in that different airports have different needs, and airlines that use a specific airport should bear the cost of that airport's services.
It is for these reasons that I support this report.
I think Community legislation on airport taxes is unnecessary.
There are big differences between the situations in the Member States which make it simpler and fairer for these issues to be governed by national legislation.
In addition, it seems as if liberalization and EU harmonization are more important goals than providing for the public good.
For these reasons I am abstaining from the final vote on the Väyrynen report.
This report has considerable significance for small airports and their income could be dramatically reduced as a result.
Luxembourg, which has only one commercial airport, is keen to maintain a reasonable compromise between the airport authorities and the interests of the airline companies. The country is, however, dependent on these charges.
The Luxembourg Socialists therefore support the amendment proposed by Mr Simpson (PSE), which seeks to apply Articles 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the directive only to those airports which have annual traffic of at least 2 million passengers or 50 000 tonnes of freight.
The Commission's proposal was for only 250 000 passenger movements and 25 000 tonnes of freight.
While Luxembourg's freight traffic is well above the limit provided for in the directive, its figure for passenger movements is about 1.2 million - and would therefore not come under the directive with the corresponding amendment.
This will allow us to ensure that our airport remains a cost-effective business.
It is therefore a matter of extreme regret for us that the motion was not adopted.
I have thus abstained from the final vote.
I would like to express my support for the Väyrynen report.
I am particularly interested in the fact that it is possible to include the specifically identifiable external costs resulting from environmental damage caused by air traffic.
I believe that collecting higher airport taxes is justified in the case of noisy aircraft, night flights, or aeroplanes which emit exceptionally strong kerosene fumes.
This extra tax is not only a sanction or a measure to discourage those causing the disruption. The Commission rightly points to the fact that the differentiation should be aimed at bringing in extra revenue for the airport.
It should be intended as a compensation for environmental damage.
These extra receipts should be put into a fund for environmental improvements at the airport itself, or for cofinancing investments which people living nearby have to make as a result of disruption or damage.
Schiphol Airport is to my knowledge applying this principle carefully.
There is the risk that, in the event of extra environmental compensation not being used to cover genuine environmental damage and disruption, certain airports may attract disruptive flights in order to boost their income.
Taking into account these considerations, I supported Article 5 and Amendments Nos 11, 25 and 26 in particular.
The proposal for a directive we are debating is the last of the measures envisaged in the third liberalization package for air transport.
The Commission proposes to establish one set of rules for the payment of dues at airports which it tells us will be based on the principles of non-discrimination, cost relation and transparency.
The proposal is based on strict, rational, financial criteria, which regard airports as simple commercial enterprises and ignore their vital role as a means to support economic development and cohesion, to exercise social policy, and to implement objectives related to environmental protection and the safety of flights, passengers and those working in the area.
The aim, of course, is not to improve the present services and infrastructure at airports and enhance safety, but to reduce costs for the airlines using the airports and once again to give them a boost in the race to share out the liberalized markets.
Needless to say, the last people to gain will be those who work for the airport management agency or the companies that use airports, since all they can look forward to is abolition of their collective agreements under the blackmailing threat of closure - as in the case of Olympic Airways -, aiming once more to cut costs for the companies.
Nor will the passengers benefit, who might have theoretically, since experience shows that under conditions of oligopolistic competition and market sharing, all cost cuts lead as a rule only to increased profits.
On the contrary, this directive will create problems for airport management agencies, granted that their reduced income will undermine their ability to develop and modernize infrastructures, to the detriment of flight and passenger safety.
The income reduction and parallel ban on state aid, combined with the suffocating framework imposed by financial discipline and cuts in the resources for regional policy, will directly affect the smaller airports and consequently the more distant and less accessible regions, which are precisely the ones that need help.
From that starting point, we stress our disagreement with the Commission's proposal, which aims to relate the level of dues to the cost of the services and infrastructure provided.
Those dues cover the costs not only of central and busy airports, but regional ones as well, small and isolated as they are, and which, because traffic through them is limited, cannot meet operating expenses which are to a large extent inelastic, and cannot spend what they need to on modernization investments.
It is extremely important to point out in connection with the discussion of this report that we must see the network of national airports as one system.
Airports which make profits must be allowed to subsidize airports in the system which operate at a loss, since profitable airports would not be profitable if loss-making airports were closed.
Aparicio Sánchez report (A4-0071/98)
With the pending economic and monetary union, as well as the completion of the single market, several barriers to tourism within the Union will be lifted.
The question remains: will we truly have a single market in tourism as well?
Currently, the EU's lack of coherent thinking as regards tourism seems to indicate the answer to that question will be a resounding 'no' .
It is for that reason that I fully support the report by Mr Aparicio Sánchez.
It is time for the Commission to begin considering the effects on the Union's tourists separately when drafting legislation.
Just as we have started to look into consumers' rights in their home country, we should also place an emphasis on the rights of those consumers on holiday.
It is these consumers who are most vulnerable, often in a culture with which they are not familiar, possibly on a whirlwind tour of several cities and not aware of local laws.
I welcome the rapporteur's call on the Commission to increase transparency in the airline industry.
As we move toward liberalization of the Union's skies we should consider how this liberalization (and the airline industry's habit of selective price discrimination) affects the Union tourist.
The practice of code sharing should also be made more transparent so that the traveller knows which company is actually taking him on his journey, not just which company is selling him the ticket.
I also find particular significance in Mr Aparicio Sánchez's call for harmonization of rules in the hotel and group tour sectors.
To truly have a single market, tourists must be protected by similar laws in each Member State.
The Commission, as this report points out, must organize its thinking vis-à-vis the tourist sector, as the areas that affect tourists are spread across DGs within the Commission.
By encouraging the different policy-making areas to work together, the EU can be sure to protect the tourist and provide for the industry to grow.
Improvements in the rights and safety of consumers are always an important goal, even though I think that the current impact of the tourism sector on the environment is the most pressing problem to solve.
The protection of the rights and safety of consumers and improvements in trading standards in the tourism sector are best taken care of at national level, both from the point of view of efficiency and of democracy.
I have therefore abstained from voting in the final vote on the Aparicio Sánchez report.
Mr President, I am happy to lend my support to this report today because I share its commitment to securing proper compensation for travellers who suffer when airlines or hotels overbook.
Too many people's hard earned holidays have been ruined by this practice, whether it is due to mistakes by the companies concerned, or a deliberate act of policy.
The report is also right to point out that air safety needs more attention as the number of flights and passengers criss-crossing our airspace grows each year.
I hope that the Commission and Council will act on the rapporteur's ideas and ensure that consumer confidence in the vital tourism sector of our economy is strengthened as a result.
I think this matter should be outside the scope of this Parliament.
Paragraph 11 of the report proposes that the Commission should present to Parliament and the Council the results of a study of overbooking of hotels and other accommodation etcetera.
Similarly, paragraph 30 proposes that, along with Parliament and sector associations, the Commission should organize annual conferences on the quality of the supply of tourism services.
The tourism industry is certainly of great importance for employment in many parts of the EU, but it is getting a little absurd when the above proposals are presented to this Parliament.
I consider these issues to be outside our area of competence.
Elles report (A4-0097/98)
Mr James Elles' report on the implementation of the general budget of the Union for 1996 shows that the Commission's attitude ends up irritating even those who were originally best disposed towards it. Frauds which have been denounced from year to year are continuing unabated and the institutions tend to protect the officials responsible or at least give that impression, maintaining the lack of transparency which characterizes internal investigations.
Energetic reform is non-existent.
For the third consecutive time, the Court of Auditors has refused to give its "statement of assurance' for the Community budget, and the European Parliament, for its part, has just refused to give it discharge.
The reports of the Court of Auditors make appalling reading.
They show an accumulation of fraud and inertia, without really explaining where this paralysis comes from.
For its part, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations goes further in its analysis and lays the blame on the structure itself of a number of European institutions and policies.
For example, the Elles report is concerned about the fact that more than one year after the conclusions of the European Parliament's Committee of Inquiry on the procedures for Community transit, the computerization of this procedure, which was presented as an appropriate means of making it reliable and operational, has still not begun.
Worse still, as of March 1998, the Commission has not even been able to establish a detailed specification of the system which would need to be installed to allow for a better detection of fraud. Is this by chance?
Should we, like the Elles report, blame only the Commission's inertia? In reality, we have reason to believe that the problem goes far deeper: now that administrative documents concerning goods as well as internal border controls have been suppressed, has Community transit not simply become quite unmanageable?
Could the same question not be raised with regard to procedures relating to Community initiatives in favour of SMEs? They have led to such a fragmentation of appropriations that the Commission seems unable to say whether or not their objectives have been met.
There could be many more examples like these.
Overall, repetitive fraud not only highlights lax management, but the impractical nature of policies which were originally defined with an ideological aim of developing the European super-state, rather than out of any goal of efficiency.
Furthermore, by placing the Commission on a pedestal for so long, as the unchallenged guardian of the European interest, its control has hardly been facilitated, and we see the consequences today.
To truly fight against fraud, the Commission must be removed from its pedestal, and it must itself be subject to control.
It is clear that the refusal to give it discharge for the 1996 budget will have consequences.
If the European Parliament was logical with regard to its own actions, it would vote a motion of censure.
Kellett-Bowman report (A4-0092/98)
I am voting for the Kellett-Bowman (CEDEFOP) report, but with one serious reservation.
I am voting for the draft decision with reservations concerning paragraph 4, which I consider to be outside the scope of the report.
Besides, the specific issue - ' purchase of the new building for CEDEFOP in Thessaloniki' -, is also very strangely referred to analytically in the rapporteur's explanatory statement which, as we know, is not put to the vote but is an expression of the rapporteur's personal views.
That reference is superficial, fragmented, unclear, unfounded and therefore misleading, in a way that could create entirely erroneous impressions.
Today, after the objective - and not just objective - difficulties it faced during its transfer from Berlin, CEDEFOP in Thessaloniki is going from strength to strength and its creative work is making substantial contributions to the EU's needs.
The construction of the new building is proceeding normally, and it is likely to be handed over ahead of the official schedule, May 1999.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as the de facto committee responsible for CEDEFOP's 'policy' , is conscientiously monitoring the whole matter - as is stated in our committee's opinion which is attached to the Kellett-Bowman report.
This explanation of vote is given on behalf of all Members belonging to PASOK ESP/GR - the Greek socialist parties.
Theato report (A4-0082/98)
The Danish Social Democrats are abstaining from the vote on Mrs Theato's report.
We believe that the report constitutes an attempt to prejudge development, since to a large extent it relates to a situation that will only arise if the Member States do not unanimously ratify the convention on the protection of the Union's financial interests.
If such a situation should arise, it is not a foregone conclusion that harmonization of criminal law would be necessary in order to protect the financial interests of the Union.
Moreover, Denmark will remain outside any such initiative on the basis of our reservations about participation in EU legal cooperation.
I do not support the report's proposal on the establishment of a European public prosecutor.
On the other hand, I think it is of course appropriate that those who commit fraud with EU subsidies are carefully investigated and caught at national level.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Financial assistance for SMEs
The next item is the report (A4-0114/98) by Mr Pronk, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision on measures of financial assistance for innovative and job-creating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - The Growth and Employment Initiative (COM(98)0026 - C4-0138/98-98/0024(CNS)).
Mr President, we are dealing with an important proposal, which has appeared thanks to this Parliament, namely as a result of the van Velzen report and the proposal made by the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Tillich.
The Luxembourg Summit adopted these proposals.
SMEs generate new jobs.
In the European Union 6.5 % of all investments are made in start-up enterprises.
In the United States 37 % of all investments find their way to start-up enterprises.
Maybe that is why more jobs are is created in the United States.
The proposal comprises three complementary initiatives.
This plan constitutes the implementation of part of the Tillich package, ECU 420 million out of a total of ECU 450 million.
The first part, namely 40 % of the ECU 420 million, is allocated to the ETF start-up scheme which provides risk capital for SMEs.
I would like to stress that the name should be changed, and I suggest it is called the Euro Start-up scheme.
The new name is needed first and foremost to avoid confusion with other European schemes.
Secondly, the ETF scheme is implemented by the European Investment Bank, whilst the Euro Start-up scheme will be managed by the European Investment Fund.
Thirdly, it is not a very easy name for the European Commission to market.
The Commission will have to do something about marketing this initiative.
Unless the EIB is constantly involved, marketing it will be difficult.
It is also a rather meaningless name.
The Euro Start-up initiative aims to improve access to capital for high-end technological SMEs which are starting up or are in their initial stages.
These enterprises have a big growth potential, but have difficulty gaining access to capital due to the high risk involved.
There are only four Member States where such initiatives exist in practice, and in those countries they are working well.
In other Member States there is a great deal of interest in creating an instrument which provides investment in highend technological SMEs, and which can offer guidance.
With such a scheme the potential which already exists in a number of Member States can be extended throughout the entire European Union.
The second scheme is that of the joint European venture .
20 % of the ECU 420 million is set aside for this.
The aim is to promote the establishment of transnational joint ventures by SMEs within the European Union.
There have been some examples of cooperation between transnational SMEs in central and eastern Europe and in the Third World.
These examples offer hope and confidence that the joint European ventures will work.
It should be realized that these are not revolving funds which will pay themselves back after a number of years, in contrast to the other two initiatives.
The third scheme is the SME guarantee facility. 40 % of the ECU 420 million has been allocated to this.
This guarantee facility enables SMEs which are starting or have just started out to gain access to capital.
One thing I would like to emphasize in this report is the evaluation of these three initiatives.
The European Parliament does not want to add any conditions in advance, other than those proposed by the Commission itself. Otherwise, it could take years for the programme to come into force properly.
What is needed is effective evaluation afterwards, rather like interim evaluation when a political decision needs to be made once a programme comes to an end.
What is also important is the length of the programme.
It was agreed that the programme would run for three years. This was also promised by the Luxembourg Summit.
But three years is not less than three years, so if the programme starts on 1 May 1998, than it should run until 1 May 2001, rather than 1 January 2001.
Evaluating it will become extremely difficult otherwise.
I call on the Council to change its view on this point, and to let the programme run for the full three years, particularly since the euro start-up scheme and the SME guarantee facility are revolving funds which have to run for 16 years.
All being well, these two programmes will cost the EU absolutely nothing after 16 years, and this is a wonderful way to promote job creation, whilst at the same time pursuing a frugal budgetary policy.
A big advantage of the guarantee scheme initiative is that the Member States which do not yet have it, will have to set it up, whilst other Member States will be better able to process the applications which precede the guarantees. These programmes are frequently over-subscribed, after all.
What is also remarkable is that it covers both national, regional and local systems.
In some countries, like mine for instance, the national system has developed further.
In others it is the regional systems which have come to further fruition.
It is good to learn from each other on this point.
I would like to add that, after the talks with the Commission, I have tabled some new amendments, namely numbers 18, 19, 20 and 21.
Amendments Nos 18 and 20 are formal changes.
There is a mistake in Amendment No 19; it should read assessment in the English, not evaluation.
This should be similarly modified in the other languages.
Amendment No 21 has incorporated part of the amendment from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy which had fallen between two stools.
To conclude, Mr President, I would very much like to thank the Members and the Secretariat of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for their excellent cooperation in this difficult case.
I would also like to thank the other Members of the European Parliament, and especially the two committees with which we cooperated, the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
We have also cooperated well with the Council and the Commission.
I have rarely experienced such intense cooperation between the institutions as in this case, but it deals, after all, with a solemn promise made by the European Council, which we have to implement here.
Mr President, the report we are dealing with today, with its legislative proposal, was indeed one of the key issues of the 1998 budget debates, for which I was the rapporteur.
This legislative proposal is intended as an initiative for creating more jobs in Europe.
During the budget debate we reached an agreement with the Luxembourg Presidency which the EP and the Council finally complied with at second reading.
Now the Commission has tabled a legislative proposal.
I must compliment the Commission for having basically adhered to the conclusions of those debates. These have indeed been taken into account in the Commission's proposal.
The aim of the proposal was, and is, to adopt a programme which will quickly and easily help create additional jobs in innovative enterprises, and not in the administrative offices of the Commission and Member States.
The amendments to the Commission's legislative proposal, which have been put forward by the Committee on Budgets, were drawn up with this in mind.
Let me now turn to the content of the report and to the amendments being proposed therein.
I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Pronk, for his efforts in accelerating the procedure normally used for such proposals, which was something also requested by the Commission, for this has meant that we are able to debate the issue here today.
On the subject of the first amendment proposed by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I really have to say that this stratagem is not appropriate.
In the course of the 1998 budgetary procedure and in the decision, we did not set out that this programme should comprise ECU 450 million for three years.
We could not do this because we were deciding on a budget for one year.
The correct interpretation is that we reached a decision on ECU 150 million for the year 1998.
During the deliberations between the Council and the European Parliament it was established that it was our intention to apply this programme for a period of three years with a total allocation of ECU 450 million.
However, this does not mean - and indeed this is the position of the Commission and the Council - that we require a legal basis for the remaining ECU 420 million.
With regard to Amendment No 3, I have to say that it is indeed correct that we should also be taking account of those other small and medium-sized enterprises which are engaged in the social sector and in other areas of public health. However, the same amendment seeks to stimulate the creation of employment, and as this refers to all enterprises it must therefore automatically include all those operating in the social sector.
I have serious doubts about Amendment No 7, as proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and drafted by Mr Harrison.
Perhaps this is why the wording 'if necessary' has been used. I know, and this has already been said by the rapporteur, that Europe has had a very poor success rate with venture-capital funds and with this programme we wanted to provide some stimulation here.
For this reason we should be working with ventures which already exist and, instead of complicating the process by introducing a tendering system, let us therefore first take on those which have been successful.
This would also be in keeping with the content of the document.
I am therefore of the opinion that we should try to ensure that what we call risk capital is also made available to enterprises which are prepared to take the risk, and we should not impede this by erecting administrative barriers.
Mr President, the committee strongly supports the Commission's proposals to help small businesses by making more accessible finance for innovative and job-creating SMEs.
We welcome the involvement of Europe's biggest bank - our bank, the European Investment Bank - and the use of the European Investment Fund.
I know that the lead committee, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, retains certain concerns over the level of the funds to be provided for these three programmes and the timing of their application.
I share these concerns and hope that the full ECU 450 million can be used earlier rather than later.
These fast-moving SMEs are, after all, the speedboats of enterprise on the Lake Geneva of Europe's economy.
Back in calmer waters, however, the committee raised several concerns.
Firstly, the grant should be made to firms offering the hope of providing sustainable jobs, and new jobs to boot.
The European fund should not be used as a substitute for normal business investment.
Secondly, the funds should be aimed at micro-enterprises. They are the little acorns from which some of the biggest oaks in the forest of jobs have grown.
Next, the intermediary institutions should be selected in an open and transparent manner, using competitive tender where feasible.
The committee's final point focuses on the visibility of the European Investment Bank.
Despite its triple-A rating, it has triple-zero recognition amongst the SME community in the EU.
Firms still write to me and ask where they can get hold of EIB funds.
'I have looked up and down my local high street and I am blowed if I can find the EIB' , say my correspondents.
It is time the EIB came in from the cold and told Europe how it is here to help.
Finally, I wish to congratulate Mr Pronk on the drawing up of his report.
Mr President, in his introductory speech Mr Pronk reminded us of the intense cooperation between the three bodies.
This was largely the result of the European Parliament having financed this project out of its own budget.
That is why it was necessary for the others to cooperate with us.
The European Parliament did this to create the opportunity to submit at least one concrete project before the summit on employment in Luxembourg.
I am still extremely satisfied that we ended up doing this, albeit with a great deal of trouble.
The objective of the entire project is obviously to create employment.
I accept the idea that SMEs can play a vital role in this.
I would like to point out, however, that there seems to be a certain amount of hype going around.
Everyone thinks that as soon as a new small firm has been set up, everything will be fine. Yet if you look again a year later, you will notice that quite a number of these new SMEs have disappeared.
That is why I would like to emphasize the request we are making in our amendments to include education and mentorship.
The people concerned deserve top-quality support, whether in the context of entrepreneurship, as was formulated during the employment summit, or else as part of this project, to ensure that the jobs created will last.
Another element I would like to point out is the one expressed in Amendment No 11.
The final assessment should devote considerable attention to the quality of job creation, to social protection and trade union rights for example, as well as to the type of job creation. Is it atypical, full-time, and so on?
If this forms part of the assessment, then it obviously means that this should also play a role in the objectives, at the time when the projects are given approval.
I hope the Commission will pay attention to this right from the start.
Simply leaving it to the Member States is an extremely dangerous strategy, because in some of the Member States hamburger jobs are proving more popular at the moment than a balance between flexibility and security.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that the link with what we refer to as the third system, the so-called social economy, which may be found in public health or culture, is very important to us in the project.
It is my view that there is enormous scope for job creation in this area.
I still believe that this sector has been hugely underestimated, by the Commission as well as others.
I would like to argue for these projects to be linked to the proposal we are discussing today, and which I hope we will approve tomorrow, once the Commission has adopted enough of our amendments.
Mr President, in his report Mr Pronk has clearly presented the problems and concerns in respect of the proposal for a Council Decision on measures of financial assistance for innovative and job-creating small and medium-sized enterprises.
I should like to thank him most sincerely for his valuable contribution and I hope that his proposals will be given due consideration by the Commission and the Council.
For years the institutions of the European Union have been stressing the importance of SMEs in the area of job creation.
All available figures show that SMEs form the backbone of employment growth in the EU and that this situation will continue.
The smaller the business, the more successful it generally is in creating jobs.
Various financial schemes have been devised and introduced continually since 1992, some of which undoubtedly proved successful.
In spite of this, Commissioner, I am constantly aware of criticism that the programmes lack cost-effectiveness because the application procedure for SMEs, no less, is too complicated, too bureaucratic and too protracted.
Many SMEs have to hire expensive consultants just to process their applications.
These defects should all be put right in the new proposals.
The criticism which has been expressed, namely that there is no comparative assessment of the performance of previous measures in terms of cost per job created, is sadly justified.
This lack of transparency makes it considerably more difficult to prepare the new measures which are being planned.
Nevertheless, I hope that what the rapporteur calls the 'ETF start-up scheme' , the joint European venture and the SME guarantee facility, particularly for businesses employing fewer than 100 people, will all prove successful.
It is precisely these enterprises which experience problems when it comes to the provision of risk capital. Parliament wants to promote this through the SME guarantee facility and in so doing to create more jobs.
I therefore expect that the final amount allocated will be something which approaches what has been proposed by Parliament.
The success of the new measures is vital for the unemployed of Europe and is now a matter of real urgency.
The sooner these are implemented, the better it will be.
Our motto must be 'more jobs, less bureaucracy' . I hope that we can quickly achieve this goal, though not, as Mr van Velzen says, by giving employers even more regulations to cope with.
That would be regrettable.
Mr President, I welcome the Commissioner to the House.
At the outset I want to congratulate my colleague, Mr Pronk, for a wonderful report which comes at a very opportune time for us.
Last week in Brussels we discussed the proposed changes to structural funding and to the support mechanisms under the European social fund, in particular those for employment creation, and we saw with some disquiet that the real amounts of money allocated for employment creation and training processes were being reduced overall.
As my colleagues have already said, the SME sector accounts for over 66 % of all employment within the EU.
Ireland is unique in the sense that our criterion for SME status in the European Union is an average of 250 employees or under.
The majority of companies in Ireland in that sector would employ 80 people or less.
This presents us with a great opportunity to send out a very strong message to those people who are putting their own capital at risk that we are willing to act with them as joint partners in creating new enterprises, new jobs and, in particular, new economic wealth.
There are a couple of things we should focus on more than we have done.
Mr van Velzen touched on the fact that a lot of SMEs shut down within a year of being set up.
The main reason for that is that they do not have access to more long-term finance than just a one-year term loan.
Secondly, they do not have the same access to training which would allow them to keep up with the new technologies, with new economic forecasting to enable them to be competitive within the main markets.
I congratulate Mr Pronk on his proposals with regard to the very technical aspect of providing venture capital to these small enterprises, so that Europe once again can be in the lead in creating new employment.
Finally, I do not think it is appropriate that the third sector should be included.
Following on what Mr Schiedermeier has said, it is important to recognize that we can protect workers' rights and social entitlement, but that does not mean we have to add on more bureaucracy and red tape.
Mr President, the previous speakers have already pointed out that it was partly thanks to Parliament that these resources have become available.
It is my view that they were released for a good cause, namely to support those enterprises which are starting out or are in their initial stages and which need capital.
The fact that we are doing this is unique.
On the other hand, we should ensure that no money is wasted, either at the research centres or in the hands of those who are responsible for channelling the money.
For that reason and because we are worried that these resources might be misused, we tabled an amendment to paragraph 3 of the proposal.
We tabled Amendment No 17 for the same reason, because we believe that if you want to evaluate, you should know what you are evaluating.
At the moment there is still some uncertainty over the implementation measures.
I would like to know from the Commission what its position is on these amendments.
Mr Pronk mentioned that we worked together very closely on this point and that we acted unanimously.
Those who have known me for some time know that I normally try to use reason when looking at things, and this includes the debate between the Commission and the Council.
But I think we should both use reason, and, together, take a serious look at each others amendments.
Mr President, Mr van Velzen also pointed out the importance of mentorship for young entrepreneurs and people starting out.
I believe Mr van Velzen is too dismissive in saying that many of those who start out do not continue.
I share his view on mentorship, but I believe there will always be risks and that we should look at the people who have progressed further than the start-up stage.
Because, as it turns out in America, many more new jobs are created than lost through risk.
That is why I hope that we will be able to look at this programme in a positive way.
Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate Mr Pronk on his report, and on the fact that he has succeeded, in quite a short space of time, in coming to grips with the essentials in this matter and making important and worthwhile changes to the Commission's proposal.
Hopefully the Commission will be willing to accept them.
I am particularly satisfied with the report's mention that part of the SME structural funding programme should be aimed at funds for third sector SME's, especially for public health, education and the Arts.
This represents that broad interpretation of the notion of innovation that is needed.
Innovation does not just mean technological invention, but also possible new ways of producing services or care.
Naturally, the main responsibility for the nation's health and other such things rests with the public sector, which small firms in the third sector can only complement, never replace.
The small companies I allude to are often firms in which women mainly work.
I am happy too that the report mentions the need for a report on female entrepreneurs, as a separate exercise.
These companies I am talking about are often very small.
Women are inexperienced as entrepreneurs and they lack information on funding opportunities.
However, women often work in labourintensive service industries, so investment in such companies will lead directly to job creation.
It would be advantageous to all, men and women alike, if information on funding opportunities via the EU were easily accessible at one source and there were no need to search for it among the various authorities.
This is very important.
Mr President, like the others, I thank Mr Pronk for his work.
I am struck by the degree of consensus there usually is on this important subject right across the parliamentary groups.
We in this Parliament all seem to know that this is the hope for dealing with the horrendous joblessness.
This is the bright star shining in that darkness.
I come from an area with a tremendously sparse population and I have to ask: what is small? In many parts of my area small would not be 50 employees; that would be big.
I join with the honourable Member who appealed for a special set of rules for the micro SMEs.
Some of the most innovative schemes in my constituency have started off with five to ten employees, sometimes in quite remote places.
If the idea is good enough remoteness can often be overcome.
There is one in Skye where scientifically skilled people, working in tiny areas, create instruments to measure various parts of the body for various purposes.
The thing produced is so small that it is not costly to despatch it to all parts of the world.
That business started off with two men and now it employs about 30 top scientists who are happy to live on Skye.
It can often be that something starting in a tiny way can become very important to the whole community.
We could all give examples like that.
Mostly these small businesses have the problem of a narrow investment base and that is what we are trying to address.
I welcome the three schemes which Mr Pronk has so ably described.
However, one has to say that once the small business has got over the start-up problem and shown some success in job creation, what happens then?
That is when the test comes.
Very often in my country - and in others - they go into bankruptcy because of late payment and the lack of a code for that.
There was a programme recently on the BBC which suggests that the Commission is about to introduce a directive on this subject.
I hope so.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on which I served for some time, we all unanimously wanted a code for late payment.
It is late payment that undoes all the work we are trying to do here, and often the culprits are big companies, local authorities and, I have to say, institutions of the European Union.
They are all at fault in driving many of these companies - who have managed to get over the hurdle of getting started and creating jobs - out of business.
The old schemes worked rather well, once we managed to get quite a lot of banks to support the European Investment Bank guarantee system.
We have not really had a proper evaluation, as one speaker said, of performance in terms of cost per job.
I put a lot of information around my constituency in Scotland about that scheme and many people wrote to me.
It should not really be me who provides the publicity.
A lot of companies simply do not receive information about the EIB, not even about the important work being done by European Information Centres.
For example, there is one excellent centre in Inverness, but it does not receive enough funds to disseminate the fact that it is there and what it can offer.
I welcome this report with all its merits and hope it will be passed unanimously.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
It is certainly widely recognized throughout the European Union that SMEs are fundamental to the future of our economy.
With that in mind, I certainly welcome this report which seeks to build on Parliament's commitment to creating conditions in which SMEs can develop.
We all know that small and medium-sized enterprises account for more than 65 % of our employment, and it is right therefore that in finding ways of strengthening our economy most effort is put into helping them over the initial difficulties.
I would certainly support the calls for help because I am a little bit like Mrs Ewing in my constituency.
Many of the proposals concern businesses with under fifty employees, indeed under twenty employees, and a lot of these industries are the micro-ones who start from very small beginnings but can flounder very speedily if they do not get that initial help.
Late payment is certainly one of the major problems, and I think we must ensure that we give the flexibility that is needed and that we do not hang more red tape and bureaucracy around their necks.
This is one of the problems I find with national governments, especially when support comes from the EU - that there seem to be more bureaucratic conditions tied in to all new proposals.
Unless we can lighten this up, unless we can find flexibility here, then I think we are not achieving what we are hoping to achieve and that is to get people in the EU back to work.
In my own constituency, we have the particular problem of the difference between the pound sterling and the punt.
The UK government has to date been unable to tackle the high rate which is the most overrated cost of any currency in the world.
The pound sterling is certainly putting many of my small businesses, especially in border regions, out of work and they are experiencing considerable difficulty.
Those are the challenges I think that we have got to face and if we do not face up to those challenges, then I think we will not be doing the job that we are certainly here to do, and we will not achieve in the long term what we hope to achieve in getting the people of Europe back to work.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Pronk on his report.
As all the other speakers before me have said, no doubt all the studies and statistics maintain that the future of European employment depends on small businesses, which in the last ten years have been the only ones able to create most new jobs.
In Italy, for example, there are around four million small businesses, which represent 90 % of our enterprises.
The SMEs have had the highest growth potential and, therefore, the highest potential to create jobs, precisely because they are the best at adapting to market requirements.
However, the SMEs are too often forced to assume all the business risks, without any type of facility, either in terms of tax concessions or in terms of access to credit, as the State normally only favours and helps large businesses.
Among other things, it is precisely the difficulties in obtaining money, other than at often totally unreasonable bank rates, that determine the conditions for an increasingly more worrying spread of the phenomenon of high interest.
Consequently, I share the spirit of the initiative favouring the new financial measures for SMEs.
In particular, I agree with the opinion expressed by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on the need to give specific priority to business with less than 100 employees, establishing accurately and transparently the real potential for growth of the businesses themselves, that have to create new jobs; however, these new jobs also have to be permanent.
To help the more dynamic SMEs, particularly with regard to the small undertakings of young people and women - possibly the most disadvantaged sectors - by making more funding and finance instruments available, will mean not only an increase in employment but also technological innovations, competitiveness on the market and, above all, greater ability for economic operators to face the challenges and opportunities of the imminent European Monetary Union.
Mr President, as recalled by Mr Pronk and by those before me, for years we have been trying to identify effective means, methods and solutions to contribute towards facing the employment problem in a positive way.
The reality confirms that in all Member States the SMEs are the backbone of the business sector in Europe, the only ones, as previously pointed out, that have managed to create new jobs in recent years.
The SMEs are therefore the most able to adapt to fast changes, they are more flexible, but they also have greater difficulties in finding capital on the markets and in gaining access to credit at lower rates.
We therefore need, as we are already doing and as proposed in the communication, to increase the growth potential and the vitality of SMEs at Community level, by facilitating and enhancing access to capital.
For this reason, last year, while preparing for the Luxembourg Extraordinary Summit, the European Parliament called on the Council to adopt strengthening and expansion measures in favour of SMEs and proposed the creation of a new budget heading B-55, job market and technological innovation, to be financed with ECU 450 million over three years, dividing the measures into two sections: initiatives in favour of the job market and technological innovation, in addition to the amount already provided by the EIB and by the European Investment Fund.
In particular, the initiatives favouring the job market are also based on the implementation of the Commission communication indicating the need for local employment initiatives, identifying too 17 different sectors in which pilot projects would be financed as would the spread of the good practices that have produced satisfactory results in terms of employment in recent years.
I am thinking, among other things, of the development and promotion of pilot projects within the third system - not the tertiary system, as it is often incorrectly called or translated - which, in addition to creating jobs, is an efficient local means of participating in and providing positive answers to social, environmental and cultural requirements.
At this point, I have to say that, not meeting expectations, with the proposal we are discussing today, the Commission is allocating a reference sum of ECU 420 million, excluding the initiative of the first section.
Frankly, it seems a little strange to me, as it does to Parliament, and inconsistent with the indications and choices of the European Parliament accepted by the Luxembourg Council.
In addition to approving the Commission proposal, it is therefore also necessary to correct what has been mentioned above and include it in the proposal legal basis, as proposed by the rapporteur, whom I congratulate.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to start by thanking Mr Pronk for the work he has done on his report, which could be seen as ground-breaking as far as this Parliament's work is concerned.
I would also like to make clear from the start that I am in favour of the growth and employment initiative.
The European Parliament has made ECU 150 million available, and all this is primarily for the benefit of small and medium-sized businesses, businesses with up to 250 employees, as set out by the European Commission.
We are unanimous in this Parliament in our support for this scheme.
Yet I would like to put a few objections to Parliament and the Commission, Mr President, in the hope that we will also remain critical when seeing through this entire initiative.
My first objection concerns the fact that 90 % is allocated to the so-called technology facility for SMEs. It concerns sub-sectors which chiefly employ highly-qualified people.
This kind of support should go hand in hand with investments in education and professional training; if it does not, we might see an increase in the shortage of technologically-skilled people.
Today the papers are reporting that the Belgian government is looking for 5 000 computer specialists, and that in Great Britain Tony Blair is looking for 20 000 to tackle the millennium bug.
These people are simply not on the market at the moment.
We need further training.
Secondly, I am pleased with Amendment No 3 which aims to extend this initiative to the third sector, especially to sectors such as public health, education and culture.
These social angles have great value in themselves, and could lead to numerous jobs, which will not so much affect highly-skilled, as semi- and unskilled workers.
The fight against structural unemployment should be introduced in this environment above all.
My last comment, Mr President, is that we must take care that we are not dealing with the phenomenon of the cuckoo in the nest, as when important subsidies are passed on to SMEs with jobs being not the main, but the secondary concern.
That explains why it is so important that this initiative is implemented, and more specifically that jobs are created.
Mr President, I would like to pay tribute to Mr Pronk on the preparation and presentation of a very fine report.
I am particularly pleased that small and medium-sized enterprises have now been placed at the top of the European agenda, recognizing their important job-creating role within the Union.
SMEs are the backbone of industry, commerce and the service sectors throughout the Union, with one third of all jobs in the private sector within the Union in enterprises employing fewer than ten employees.
Coming from an almost ultra-peripheral region in the north-west of Ireland and representing the constituency of Connacht and Ulster, which has a high rate of unemployment and a per capita income less than 75 % the European average, I can very much identify with enterprises with less than ten employees and fully appreciate their importance.
We must create an economic climate which is conducive to investment in such small enterprises.
The creation of an enterprise culture within the Union is absolutely essential.
It is not the responsibility of the Commission or indeed Member State governments to create employment. However, it is their responsibility to create conditions conducive to investment and job creation.
Favourable economic conditions, terms of competitiveness and labour market flexibility are an essential prerequisite to job creation.
Therefore, in conclusion, I welcome Parliament's decision to provide additional financial resources of ECU 450 million and also welcome the proposal for a Council decision to assist SMEs.
Mr President, advertising is dominated by the big companies and multilateral corporations.
Their presence in this sector establishes them firmly in the minds of the people.
Just think of Coca-Cola, for example.
Every child, no matter where, knows the name.
However, the real mainstay of our economy is not the handful of big businesses but rather the many small ones, the SMEs.
These account for 66 % of total employment in the EU and are marked by a strong gross employment growth.
I therefore welcome any initiative which enables us to provide financial assistance to these highly efficient businesses, for one of the biggest problems facing small entrepreneurs is the generally poor availability of own capital.
Only by subsequent assessment will it be possible to establish whether or not the aim of the programme, namely to create more jobs, has actually been achieved.
The earlier we carry out this assessment, and the greater the detail of our reporting, then the greater will be the success of the programmes and the effectiveness of the financial resources used.
I therefore fully support the adoption of Amendment No 10.
Mr President, this report on financial assistance for innovation and job-creating SMEs carries the promise that resources will be made available to encourage the sort of entrepreneurship which will provide for sustainable growth in employment.
Regrettably, however, the Commission's proposal for a Council decision fails to mention the role that women entrepreneurs might have in this process.
This is a serious omission because women probably represent the greatest potential in this field.
Currently only 30 % of SMEs are run by women but those businesses, according to the relevant statistics, are the ones most likely to be successful.
The excellent Mr Pronk has kindly agreed to my suggestions in this regard.
Amendment No 8 draws attention to the need to secure the wide dissemination of information concerning financial assistance, especially to women entrepreneurs, and Amendment No 11 calls for an assessment of the schemes which takes into account equal opportunities.
I hope that the Commission will listen to us on this point and will truly mainstream opportunities for women within this financial assistance.
Mr President, the report we are examining is certainly positive, as well as a reversal of the trend in speeches by the European Community.
But I have the impression that it is like a drop of water in the desert, totally inadequate, all the more so as now, with the entry into force of monetary union, the difficulties of SMEs will increase.
We are faced with a situation where a certain amount of flexibility will no longer be permitted and where the lack of democratic control by an elected Parliament over measures taken by the governments and by the European Commission makes this problem even more difficult.
It is made difficult by the serious discontentment felt in the world of real production.
Take Italy, for example, where I have been elected, a country which has got its accounts more or less into order, intensifying the tax pressure on SMEs and planning to do so even more in the future; the European Commission should pay a great deal of attention to that need.
There are instabilities. There is an area in the north of Italy, where SMEs are concentrated, that will certainly become unstable, precisely because of these policies.
The Italian state has not yet entered Europe. It is already thinking of diverting resources to the south, taking inspiration from the usual practice, that should certainly favour the great capital, that has deindustrialized the north and which creates virtual businesses in the south where there is no independent growth, because the slightest real business activity is suffocated by the Mafia world.
It is therefore right for the Commission to allow the idyllic visions to be dispelled and realize that great instability will be caused by the Italian state, particularly owing to the revolt of the SMEs in the north of the country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Members of the House, Mr Pronk's report follows on from the "growth and employment' initiative which you mentioned, and which Parliament approved by making the necessary resources available during the 1998 budget procedure.
This very clear political signal from the European Parliament made a very substantial contribution to the success of the European Employment Summit last November in Luxembourg.
On this basis, the Commission was able on 21 January to present its legislative proposal, and is both delighted and thanks you for the speed with which your committee has handled the matter.
There is no miracle response, no simple solution to the challenge of employment.
The strategy recommended by the Commission is the continuation of a healthy macroeconomic policy at Community level and the strengthening of the coordination of national economic policies and employment policies.
Within this framework, the growth and employment initiative intends to develop specific actions in favour of small and medium-sized companies which create employment, as Mr Chanterie and Mrs Ghilardotti have just pointed out.
No sector is excluded; all sectors are admitted.
The SMEs are the reservoirs of employment in Europe.
I would remind you that in the United States, it is estimated that 3 % of companies - those working basically in biotechnology, telecommunications and in the cutting edge sectors, have created 80 % of jobs in that country.
Hence the Commission has adopted the mechanisms which are the most efficient in terms of the creation of sustainable employment, and they aim in particular at lightening the financial burdens placed upon SMEs.
In response to your questions, I will look briefly again at these three programmes, which are parallel but complementary.
Firstly, we have the European Technology Force "start-up initiative' which is a venture capital mechanism run by the European Investment Fund.
The EIF will invest in specialist risk capital funds, and the proposed arrangement will strengthen the European Technology Force - the ETF - which has already been implemented by the European Investment Bank (EIB), but this will take place exactly where the EIB cannot intervene.
This new mechanism will set great store on the market segment for venture capital which finances the establishment and start-up of small and medium-sized companies, and where the need for finance is higher and the risk greater.
The ETF start-up is purely an initiative for job creation, irrespective of the field or type of small or medium-sized enterprise - Mrs Ewing, I reply to you on this point - and of course, for the smallest companies, companies which are set up or run by women, there are no constraints or limits in this field.
We nevertheless note that, in spite of recent efforts, risk capital is underdeveloped in European countries, in particular as regards start-up risk capital.
That is why we drew up this proposal.
Why is it not possible to change the name? This is because it is a complementary initiative to the EIB, hence the marketing, by which I mean the advertising and communication which focus on this initiative.
A moment ago, Mr Harrison, you pointed out that it was particularly difficult for SMEs to know when these schemes existed. Accordingly, we have paid special attention to efficiency in our marketing.
That is why this initiative, associated with the EIB, will be implemented in accordance with the EIB.
Moreover, in our opinion it was unnecessary to add the term "Euro' and call it 'Euro Start-up' , as this did not add a great deal.
That is my response to your comments on the first initiative.
With regard to the second initiative, the joint European venture, which was less frequently mentioned by Members of the House, I would say that it will help in setting up transborder SMEs within the Union, enabling them to make better use of the opportunities offered, in particular, by the single market.
This programme provides for contributions to a maximum amount of ECU 100 000 per project, for expenditure on market studies, development of corporate plans, and for subsidies which may cover up to 10 % of fixed capital formation.
This mechanism is based on a pilot initiative which was adopted by the Commission in 1997.
I would add that a similar programme - namely the JOP - is intended for the Eastern European countries, and has already shown its capacity to create new business and jobs.
The third and last mechanism is the SME guarantee facility, managed by the European Investment Fund.
This facility is intended to increase the volume of loans available to small or recently formed companies, on the basis of shared risk with existing guarantee systems.
The Commission is relying on the leverage effect of such an instrument, which will add to the capacity to raise real credit for the relevant small and medium-sized companies.
Overall, these three mechanisms could add up to some ECU 9 to 10 billion of extra investment in Europe, and will be rapidly made available.
In this respect, the Commission has taken up your request for a rapid and in-depth evaluation of the efficiency of these measures.
Mr Pronk, there are no supplementary conditions.
We accept, like you, that the agreement should last three full years, of course, and I would say to Mr Schiedermeier that we are in fact trying to ensure more transparency and accessibility for this proposal.
The Commission has already made a certain number of things available for venture capital.
This programme is limited, but it will significantly improve the availability of own or quasi-own capital to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Having said that, it is not enough simply to provide them today with what they need most.
We have to exploit all the advantages offered by the single market.
In this respect, institutional and regulatory barriers, market fragmentation, taxation and obstacles to as the development of a vast single European capital market will persist, and we will need to tackle these questions too.
I do not think that the growth and employment initiative is, on its own, enough.
That is why the Commission will, this very afternoon, set up a special committee on risk capital, with a view to the 1998 Cardiff European Council, which will, therefore, play a fully complementary role.
In conclusion, allow me to add my congratulations to Mr Pronk on this report, and to say that this is an excellent example of successful institutional cooperation.
In this respect, I can tell you that the Commission can take over most of the rapporteur's amendments, sometimes with certain changes in the wording.
However, it cannot support the amendments relating - as I said a moment ago - to a change in the name of the action itself, nor those which discriminate between the beneficiary enterprises.
Mrs Ojala and Mr Wim van Velzen, any enterprise is acceptable, as any job is worth creating.
In other words, the second part of Amendment No 3, Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6, the second part of Amendment No 11 and Amendment No 15 cannot be accepted.
On the other hand, to Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, I would reply that we can accept Amendments Nos 16 and 17 and Amendments Nos 8 and 10, which were tabled, I believe, by Mrs Raschhofer.
I have a final word about the budgetary aspect, in response to Mr Ghilardotti.
The formal position of the Commission is that shown in the financial statement of the proposal, in other words, ECU 420 million for measures of financial assistance for SMEs.
This amount in entered in the lines B 5-510 and B 5-511; these two lines which correspond respectively to the SME technology initiative and to the joint European venture.
Mr President, I would simply like to ask Mr Commissioner - whom I thank for his replies - whether I have properly understood that Amendments Nos 3, 4, 5, 6 and 11 have not been taken over.
Amendments Nos 3, the second part of Amendment No 5, Amendment No 6 and the second part of Amendment No 11 have not been taken over.
Could you please explain to me what you mean by "not the second part of Amendment No 3' , because that is our own amendment.
May I point out that the collective nature of this project meant that, in addition to the SMEs we also wanted to incorporate innovative actions in the labour market and in the third system?
We added Amendment No 3 so that the original character of the deal would be restored.
I would like to point out that this is not just some marginal discussion.
If Amendment No 3 is a problem to you, then the interpretation we gave to the original accord must have been a problem to you.
If this is the case, then you are making it very difficult for Parliament to approve this proposal.
I therefore urge you to be extremely careful before you cast Amendment No 3 aside.
Very briefly, Mr President, with regard to Amendment No 3, it is proposed to add a sentence to the first paragraph.
I shall say it in English:
'to stimulate job-creation by facilitating and strengthening'
(FR) We can accept it.
In the second paragraph:
(EN) 'A part of the Programme should be devoted to the financing of SMEs in the third system, in particular in sectors such as public health, education and culture.'
(FR) We cannot accept the amendment because, as I said earlier, the programme, as a whole, is not exclusive.
Therefore, there can be no specific mention of one sector or another.
All sectors of activity are covered.
There is no reason to identify one or two of them.In the third paragraph:
(EN) 'In the implementation of the programme, priority shall be given to small enterprises with up to 100 employees.'
(FR) We can accept the amendment, although the idea is already included in Amendment No 2.
It is a little redundant, but we can accept it.
I understood the Commissioner to say that the Commission is of the opinion that as it stands at present the proposal by the Commission makes it possible to provide finance for the things mentioned in that paragraph which he does not want to be part of the legal base.
Is that not correct?
Yes, it is covered.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Follow-up to the world summit on social development
The next item is the report (A4-0105/98) by Mrs Schörling, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission's communication on the European Union's follow-up to the world summit for social development (COM(96)0724 - C4-0142/97).
Mr President, as you just said, this report is about the Commission's communication on the world summit on social development in Copenhagen in 1995 when heads of state and government from 117 states and from the EU signed the Copenhagen Declaration.
They thus agreed that the overriding objectives on which people should cooperate were the eradication of poverty, an increase in employment and the fostering of safe and just societies.
In just over a month, in May, the UN's Economic and Social Council is to hold a meeting in New York at which the question of the implementation and follow-up of the Copenhagen summit will be discussed.
It is therefore particularly important that we in the European Parliament have the opportunity through this report to give opinions before this meeting.
As we know, a new General Assembly is going to be meet concerning these issues in the year 2000.
It will then be time for people to show what they have done to live up to what they have agreed.
I therefore welcome this communication from the Commission and think it is good that we have had the opportunity to discuss it in committee, including with the Commission's presence.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for good cooperation and for their valuable points of view.
At the same time I regret that, unfortunately, the opinion from the Committee on Development and Cooperation came a little too late for me to include anything from it.
However, I believe that most of the points of view of that committee are still covered in the report.
In addition, I would like to say that the main responsibility for the implementation of measures falls primarily to the Member States.
However, EU policy and the EU as an international player have of course a special responsibility.
This may concern the negative environmental and social effects of the single market.
It may, for example, concern the effect of EMU on employment and cutbacks in the public sector, economic convergence but no social criteria, and it may also concern the EU's role as an aid donor.
When I read the commitment which the Copenhagen Declaration entails, I am, to say the least, surprised that in the summary on the first page the Commission writes that at both national and Community level we have implemented a policy which corresponds to the commitment in the Copenhagen Declaration.
I must ask how we are going to get to grips with social and environmental problems if we close at least one of our eyes to reality? Considering how many unemployed and how many poor people we have in the EU today, I think it is a bit of a joke for us to say we have done so well.
In addition, there is not a word about the poverty action programme which has yet to be adopted by the Council.
I am also looking for a strategy from the Commission to encourage and exhort the signatories of the Copenhagen Declaration to really adopt concrete targets for social development and to involve the citizens in decisions and priorities about measures.
It is good that there is such a heading, but unfortunately there are only eight lines of text concerning this important extension of the debate and the involvement of civil society.
An involvement of civil society is in some way fundamental to the success of the policy. That applies not only at EU level, but, of course, also at international level.
In developing countries we must establish a partnership, a cooperation with the local population in a totally different way.
We must replace the old donor/recipient mentality with the idea that we have to solve the world's future problems together.
One disappointment with the outcome of the Copenhagen Summit was that we did not put sufficient emphasis on the necessity of debt relief for the poor countries, and that we did not succeed in arriving at a code of conduct for financial markets and world market trading.
At some stage the rich countries will have to take the initiative to break the trend whereby the gulf between rich and poor just keeps on growing.
In recent years the world's total aid has fallen to its lowest level in modern times.
That is why I am so anxious that we really vote in favour of paragraph 14 which concerns a global tax on international currency speculation, which has been proposed by Nobel Prize winner James Tobin. The income would go into a fund to be administered by the UN's Social and Economic Council.
I think it is time that we accepted such a fund, and time that we in this Parliament repeated yet again that it is now time for the rich world to really take a big step.
Mr President, Mrs Schörling has presented an excellent report.
On behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists I wish to recommend it to the House, for there are clear loopholes in the Commission's communication on the European Union's follow-up to the world summit for social development.
The Commission maintains, and indeed Mrs Schörling also confirms this, that the policies of the EU and of the EU Member States have always been compatible with the commitments of the Copenhagen Declaration and action programme.
Proposals for initiatives within the EU have therefore been of correspondingly meagre proportions.
It is certainly right for the EU to advocate the philosophy of unemployment reduction, social integration in the positive sense and the eradication of poverty.
But as far as real action is concerned, we have had nothing but vague declarations.
We demand that the fight against poverty and social exclusion be given top priority within the EU.
Measures must therefore be taken within the framework of the European Social Fund.
For many years the programme to eradicate poverty has been put on hold because the German government was opposed to any EU initiative.
This German blockade must be broken.
We call upon the Commission to interpret the new article in the Treaty of Amsterdam as a means to combat social exclusion, that is to say, we require a definition of the legal instruments so that after ratification of the Treaty, measures can be taken for the benefit of the long-term unemployed, the poor, the disabled and the elderly.
The Commission's proposal deals in much greater detail with the priorities which have been laid down at international level.
EU policy in the area of development cooperation is actually directed at the eradication of poverty.
We have repeatedly endorsed our call for programmes aimed at debt reduction, after we have fulfilled the commitment to provide 0.7 % of GDP for official development assistance, and after compliance with ILO standards for basic working conditions and with the UN declaration of human rights and the UN child convention.
But we have also called emphatically for a global tax on international currency speculation, the so-called Tobin Tax, in the form of a Parliamentary resolution to the Copenhagen Summit.
Using taxes obtained from this source to create a fund for debt reduction for the poorest countries is without doubt a very practical move.
My group cannot therefore support Amendment No 10 as proposed by the Group of the European People's Party, for we believe that this tax should be imposed.
Mr President, I am standing in for Mrs Glase who has dealt with this issue on behalf of our group and has prepared it in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, but is sadly unable to be present here today due to illness.
Mr President, what we have here is a good statement from the European Commission. I would like to thank Commissioner Flynn most sincerely for this.
I believe that what the statement says is very good in itself, and that it tries to resolve a number of issues which have landed on the European Union's plate.
The suggestions by the rapporteur, Mrs Schörling, whom I would also like to thank for what she has written, contain a number of useful and important additions.
But Mr President, that is about it.
I would have preferred it if we had stayed closer to what the Commission had given us as a statement, and had not gone too far.
Because now we are dealing with a strange situation. Mrs Schörling, a representative from Sweden, takes a rather anti-European Union view.
She is fully entitled to that, but this view implies that her country should remain as independent as possible.
That is also her right.
But now we have the strange situation in which we are going to include a text from Ms Tongue in this report, dealing with very centralized, harmonized measures which encroach on the Member States' autonomy to raise taxes. Mr President, if you understand this, than I must congratulate you.
At the moment it is hardly comprehensible.
It is not possible to do two things at once.
You cannot resist European union, whilst at the same time proposing all sorts of measures which lead to the type of harmonization that really goes one step too far.
And that is a very major problem with this report.
I understand that the Socialist group let this pass rather more easily than we do, but we are not able to accept this under any circumstance, Mr President.
Should we for some reason come off the worst, then we will not be able to support this opinion, primarily on account of this point.
There are a few other points on which we have submitted amendments that attempt to make some improvements to the opinion.
But as to the point in the text by Ms Tongue, there is no room for discussion.
We would have to make a complete volte-face.
In fact, Mrs Schörling has made a complete volte-face herself by suggesting this.
Mr President, one of the most important tasks we have at national, European and international level is to prevent poverty and exclusion and to create social, economic and sustainable environmental development.
We shall do that at EU level together with Member States which also gave their support to the Copenhagen Declaration and its ten detailed commitments.
Parliament also supports this and welcomes the Commission's communication on a more detailed and concrete follow-up of the commitments of the world summit.
However, things are going too slowly and the commitments are too weak.
I think that in her report the rapporteur sums up in a very worthwhile way a proposal which goes further.
Poverty must be tackled through a combination of measures.
There is not one measure alone which prevents poverty, but several, including trade, aid, partnerships, positive economic development, employment programmes, more companies, skilled work and family life on equal terms.
We have now prioritized three measures at both national and EU level.
Firstly, as regards trade and reduced tolls and taxes, the EU has a special responsibility.
Secondly, there must be joint arrangements, such as the 20: 20 initiative combining development aid with social programmes in the recipient countries.
Thirdly, we need social and ethical rules or regulations in international trade, including WTO rules.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party largely supports this report.
However, a majority of the group is opposed to a Tobin Tax and wants to reduce the number of references to ethical regulations in paragraph 17. In other words, we support Amendments Nos 9 and 10.
Personally, I have no difficulty accepting a Tobin Tax, and I believe both the demands the rapporteur is proposing are worth trying in order to get a bit further with the commitment to partnership and the eradication of poverty in the world.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if my memory serves me well, social justice is the central concept of the Christian doctrine.
I believe that Plato was absolutely right when he said that one cannot build a community without justice.
We are now living in a state of globalization and the world is now a global community, even though we may not always be as mindful of this as we should be.
To stand up and say that the world market will take care of this, that the technological development and deregulation actually taking place will somehow solve the problems, is simply unchristian, and what is more it is foolish.
I am therefore simply astonished that those on the Right of this House are saying: no, we cannot do that under any circumstances, particularly since I would like to remind you that even in the run-up to Copenhagen this Parliament agreed by majority vote to do and to call for this very thing.
What matters is whether we succeed in actually using the process of the UN Summit to reverse the trend of blind globalization and ideological globalism, and whether we succeed in steering towards social justice, ecological sustainability and democratic co-determination, even for those living in the poorer countries.
The Copenhagen commitments must be realized.
The Commission has played a very positive role here, though Mrs Schörling has indicated, and quite rightly in my opinion, that there is still work to be done here.
In this respect, we would like to support the Commission, in full recognition of the work which it is doing, but also with the intention of promoting and accelerating this work, for the decision which is at stake will affect the future of the planet.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel as if, with the opportunity of this debate, the European Union as a whole is undergoing a kind of test, a trial.
I believe we talk about globalization every day, we talk about the world society, about the global village, and we must finally grasp the fact, declare and demonstrate what we mean by it all.
Could it be that globalization of solidarity lies beyond and outside this view? Perhaps that is what we, the EU, ought to stress.
Among globalization's many aspects and dimensions, there is also and predominantly the aspect of globalizing solidarity.
I think the great debate that began in the world - and I am being literal, not exaggerating - with this Conference must represent an opportunity for the EU to adopt a responsible stance, to claim the role it rightly has in world society and demonstrate, by its own example, what it is capable of and what it is doing.
As an example by which we will be particularly judged, let me mention too the fourth programme on poverty.
I have no hopes that the programme will eliminate poverty.
It is, however, a sample, an indication, through which we can demonstrate to ourselves first of all and then to the world community what the EU says and does, and I believe that with other similar examples, such as those mentioned in the excellent report by Mrs Schörling concerning what we, Europe can do, that emphasis will indeed be given.
Commissioner Flynn, I consider that the EU now has a real opportunity, with Parliament's support, and I should like to hope that Parliament will express that support unanimously, without small-mindedness and without counting the pennies.
Let us hope that tomorrow the European Parliament will give the European Union the support it needs at this historic time.
Mr President, we believe that economic and social development is not an abstract concept but is combined with the fundamental concepts of peace, safety, respect for the environment and, not least, respect for human rights.
The Luxembourg Summit on employment, in addition to trying to respond to the consequences of the globalization of the economy, emphasized the need to draw up suitable policies to combat the resulting social exclusion and poverty.
We support the Commission's proposal when it hopes for the ratification by the Member States of the UN Convention on the situation of migrant workers and their families, recalling, however, that within the Union itself, workers who have emigrated from the Community countries still do not fully enjoy fundamental rights - which are the "buttonhole' of the Union - and experience real situations of exclusion that need to be rectified. I am referring to the more than five million Italian workers in the world who still cannot exercise their fundamental right to vote.
Mr President, poverty can above all be tackled through economic growth, with rising real wages and growing tax bases.
Economic growth is based on technical development, not least by saving on resources, and so also provides new opportunities for growth with environmental improvements.
For the members of the Green group who see economic growth as something objectionable and technical development as a threat, the only thing left is to cling to the idea that you can eradicate poverty through declarations, conferences, resolutions and conventions.
Mrs Schörling's report is characterized by this idea.
The report does not contain a single word about economic growth as a condition for economic improvement.
The rapporteur's efforts are praiseworthy, but this way of approaching the problem is risky, especially since it awakens the general public's hopes which are frustrated by disappointment over false commitments and declarations which lead to nothing.
In paragraph 14 Mrs Schörling urges the Commission to take the initiative for a global tax on international currency trading.
For a person who represents a party which believes that its own country should leave the European Union, it is surprising to put forward a proposal which means that the EU should introduce such a gigantic and bureaucratic project as a tax on all currency transactions.
The fact that a well-known economist has previously talked about such a system is not a guarantee for the idea's political wisdom any more than that of the person who has an exaggerated respect for the games an advanced theorist plays with reality.
The proposal is also an example of a common finance policy which the rapporteur opposes in other respects.
If you dislike currency trading, you should also be a keen supporter of EMU, since when this currency union is created on 1 January 1999, the scope for currency trading between the eleven Member States will disappear.
However, because Mrs Schörling is an opponent of EMU, this idea is not mentioned in the report.
Mr President, I would have liked the honourable Member to provide the proof that monetary union would effectively give us what all the other commitments have given us.
The social summit of Copenhagen ended in March 1995 with the adoption of ten commitments which fixed as priority objectives the fight against poverty, support for full employment and social integration.
The ink of the signature at the foot of the joint declaration was barely dry when the OECD countries began negotiations on the MAI, which totally contradicts the Copenhagen commitments.
The secrecy of the negotiations made the MAI negotiators blind and deaf to any other concerns than those of the multinational firms, and they have only taken into account the legal, political and moral commitments made in bodies such as the United Nations and the ILO.
They have just received a big slap in the face from the European Parliament.
Following on from the Copenhagen Summit, we have to call into question the heavy trends of current economic and social system of organization and tackle the domination of the financial markets over all human activity, a domination which has not really its progress.
This is what was said in the report on the resolution on the respect of human rights voted through here on 17 February, which considered that poverty and unemployment were indeed violations of human rights.
We also support the principle of the Tobin Tax, and we are happy that Mrs Schörling shows determination, unlike our colleagues from the PPE.
We have time and again called for this within the group.
The governments of the Member States have got better things to do today than to undertake secret negotiations aimed at satisfying the interests of a few investors.
They must implement, as they have promised, the decisions of the social summit of Copenhagen, and take effective measures to fight unemployment and poverty.
And that is a matter of figures, sir!
Mr President, first of all my thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Schörling, and to all of her colleagues who have contributed.
We welcome the Parliamentary resolution, which identifies a number of concrete priorities both at European Union level and at the international level to follow up the Copenhagen Declaration and Programme of Action.
The Commission shares these concerns to a very large extent.
The Copenhagen summit has given a strong impetus to governments, to the Community, to NGOs, United Nations bodies and a lot of others to develop and strengthen their actions in the field of social and human development.
A lot certainly remains to be done but since the Copenhagen summit a great number of actions have been launched and they should be referred to here.
Allow me just for a moment to make the following specific observations, particularly referring to points 2 and 4, dealing with the people-centred approach and the environment.
I should remind the House that the Commission did not wait for the Copenhagen recommendations to adopt the human-centred and environment-conscious approach to development cooperation.
The 1992 Council regulation on cooperation with the countries of Asia and Latin America already stated that 'the aim of the Community development and cooperation policies shall be human development.
The human dimension of development shall be present in all areas of action.'
The same regulation regarding environment issues also stated that 'protection of the environment and natural resources and sustainable development shall be long-term priorities.'
So these efforts, strengthened by the declaration, are being maintained.
All this is absolutely consistent with Article 130u of the Maastricht Treaty which emphasizes sustainable economic and social development, the campaign against poverty in developing countries, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Moreover the Community has committed itself to the implementation of the new Development Cooperation Strategy for the Twenty-First Century presented and adopted by the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD in 1996, which particularly emphasizes people-centred development.
I would like to refer to point 5, the fight against poverty, because the matter has been raised by virtually all of the contributors today.
Yes, we agree that the fight against poverty and social exclusion should be a top priority for the European Union because it remains a serious problem for so many of our European citizens.
The European Union's single main tool for fighting against exclusion from the labour market is the Integra Community employment initiative within the Structural Funds.
The aim of Integra is to promote measures to improve access to the labour market and employability for those who find themselves excluded from it.
After two project selection phases, one in 1995 and the other in 1997, 1 600 Integra projects have been selected.
One of the principal objectives of the tabled proposals for the new Structural Funds is to combat and to prevent unemployment and exclusion.
Point 6, dealing with the legal instruments for combating poverty and exclusion, should be referred to.
The Amsterdam Treaty, once ratified, will create new legal bases for action at Community level to combat exclusion, which can complement the present actions which have a labour market focus.
The Commission will discuss how to make best use of this with all the relevant actors and specifically with the Non-Governmental Organizations.
Mrs Schmidbauer gave this as a top priority and I agree wholeheartedly with her comments there.
The Commission is also actively involved in the work of the DAC to strengthen coordination and coherence amongst donors as well as the work in the Commission for Social Development of the United Nations ECOSOC and other multilateral organizations and bodies.
Some reference was made to debt reduction.
This is point 12 in the document and the Commission has strongly supported the World Bank and IMF Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative which was launched in 1996, and has proposed new measures at the EC level to reduce the debt of these countries.
Given in particular the Asian financial crisis the Commission is concerned by possible effects of instability in world financial markets and the damage which can be caused through it and believes that proposals such as the Tobin tax are worth examining.
I noted the difference of opinion on that particular matter between Mrs Schörling, Mr Pronk, Mr Lindqvist and others.
The difference of opinion is there. However, the point is that it is worth examining what is involved.
As far as labour standards are concerned, the Commission attaches very great importance to core labour standards and their application worldwide.
We firmly believe that public support for increased trade liberalization will be threatened if we fail to address the public concerns on this important issue.
Our new GSP scheme provides for special incentive arrangements starting on 1 January 1998 in the form of additional preferences which may granted to countries implementing core labour standards.
On 29 October 1997, the Commission adopted a proposal for the introduction in the GSP of a social clause on compliance with ILO conventions on child labour and freedom of association, of the right to organize and collective bargaining and of an environmental clause on sustainable management of tropical forests as defined by the International Tropical Timber Organization to ensure that these special incentive arrangements operate effectively.
The proposal for a regulation lays down the methods of monitoring application.
Finally, the Commission fully supports the current ILO proposal for a declaration on workers' fundamental rights and, especially, the need for a mechanism to be put in place to guarantee these rights.
With regard to cooperation with NGOs, I have one final comment.
The Commission greatly values the contribution of non-governmental organizations and citizen-based organizations to the development process and has an ongoing programme of support and cooperation.
Mr Wolf and Mr Amadeo made the very important point about social justice, i.e. that it was needed not just in the EU but also in the global economy.
I share that view and have been saying for many years, as Mr Wolf knows, that it is not just an economic development. It has to be matched and parallelled by the social dimension.
That is important for the Union and it is also just as important in the global economy of the future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Horizontal state aid
The next item is the report (A4-0100/98) by Mr Berès, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on the application of Articles 92 and 93 of the EC Treaty to certain categories of horizontal state aid (COM(97)0396 - C4-0512/97-97/0203(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's proposal on which we have been consulted at one reading relates to regulations enabling the Commission to adopt individual rules for the exemption from the obligation to give prior notification of certain classes of horizontal state aid, which amounts to 83 % of total state aid in Europe.
This is the first truly significant use of Article 94 of the Treaty.
This tool enables the Commission, enriched with the experience it has acquired in this field, to exempt certain aid from the notification procedure.
The Commission's idea is to achieve in this area a procedure similar to that applicable to the control of concentration, which relies on revisable intervention thresholds, and the participation of third parties in the consideration and establishment of a consultative committee.
We fully approve of the Commission's approach, which focuses its attention on the cases of state aid which truly do require consideration, and to accelerate the granting of aid where there is no dispute as to the validity of the cases.
Such an approach is all the more necessary as 11 Member States are going to go into the euro, which will increase competition between territories where unfair practices were an incentive to out-sourcing.
The aid covered by the regulation concerns the aid for SMEs, where it is as effective as it is diligently allocated to research and development, environmental protection and employment and training.
In terms of education and training, the exemptions mechanism should give priority, in our opinion, to the best possible implementation of the conclusions of the Luxembourg Summit.
It appears that we should add to this list local public services, which have only a minor effect on competition policy, and a strong impact in terms of social and economic cohesion within the Union.
The Commission's proposal also stipulates that the Commission will be able to adopt a regulation which allows aid under a certain threshold limit to be exempt from notification.
This would provide a legal basis for a practice which is already longstanding.
We must be pleased about this, although we recognize that the impact of this regulation will vary according to the practice of the Member States.
As rapporteur, I nevertheless wish to make four general observations.
The first relates to the general line followed by the Commission in the field this text comes under, the aim being an undifferentiated reduction in state aid in the European Union.
Such a position might a priori be an obstacle to achieving two fundamental objectives, namely the strengthening of industrial policy, and the search for greater efficiency in public expenditure.
In other words, would it not be better in this field to give priority to a qualitative, rather than a purely quantitative approach, the latter being, it would seem, that which the Commission is seemingly proposing?
The Union should be thinking about a positive approach to aid, be it from the state or from the Union itself. Aid is becoming an effective and appropriate tool for an innovative industrial policy.
A final assessment of aid as used and applied as part of the ECSC Treaty should be drawn up. The Union's approach with regard to state aid as an economic policy instrument should be drawn up and explained.
The assessment of how far aid is compatible with the rules of the internal market should take into account general objectives of Community policy, relating to industrial competitiveness and economic and social cohesion within the Union, but also paying attention to the practice of our major competitors on the global market.
As a second comment, we need to be careful not to pick the wrong target in terms of the inspection and control procedures that we introduce for this aid.
The Commission's proposal can give rise to two sorts of reaction.
The Commission is calling for more powers, or the Commission is accepting the consolidation of the power that it already has in its hands.
It is absolutely clear that the second approach is the one we should follow.
We are not giving the Commission free rein, but providing it a posteriori with a measure of control.
Having said that, in the procedures for implementing this control, we should be aware not to excessively weigh down the conditions set on advertising, as this would run the risk of making for unwieldy control procedures and encouraging a plethora of litigation which would be detrimental to the safety of enterprises before the law.
It would be paradoxical if we were to end up with an obligation to give more information concerning this aid, which a priori does not pose any problems, than is required for far larger amounts of aid.
My third observation relates to the importance of the Commission's proposals with regard to the application procedures of Article 93 of the Treaty.
We will have the chance to return to this when we consider, in this House, the aid procedure.
My last point, Mr President, relates to the place of our Parliament in the implementation of enabling regulations to be proposed by the Commission.
In our amendments, we ask to be involved in this procedure.
I believe this is important, and I hope that the Commission will support our proposals.
We are also calling for the enabling regulations to be more adaptable, and we hope that this regulation is reviewed after three, and not five, years.
Mr President, I would first and foremost like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report. I agree with all her proposals and conclusions.
In particular I would like to point out one amendment which did not achieve a majority on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, Amendment No 11, which proposes that block exemptions should also be granted to local public companies.
I believe it is necessary to make such a point.
I can say that in Sweden we have a large number of companies all over the country which employ disabled people.
I believe there are between 30 000 and 40 000 such companies in Sweden which sell their products on the open market and so compete with normal companies, but they are subsidized by almost the whole wage cost.
It is obvious that these companies receive a lot of public aid, but it is also obvious that they make an enormous social contribution.
It would be very important, I believe, to include the fact that this type of company belongs to the group which is granted exemptions.
In the same amendment, No 11, the rapporteur also removes two categories proposed by the Commission, namely export credits and export credit guarantees.
I think that what the rapporteur is proposing is good because there is doubt that export credits and export credit guarantees really are aid which falls under Article 92 and that they belong in this context.
After this I would still like to say a few words about the fact that the rapporteur and I differ on one point, that is, our attitude towards state aid in general.
I think it often seems in this House as if state aid just means that one country goes and steals work in some way, but that is only one side of the coin.
If the USA, for example, were to subsidize its car exports to Europe, it would mean above all that Europe received cheaper cars from the USA, in other words that Europe's consumers benefited from it.
In this respect there is no difference between state aid and, for example, the USA cutting the wages of the car workers.
It is the same in other areas. For example, if Spain wanted to subsidize wine exports to Sweden, Swedish consumers would just get cheaper wine.
I do not actually see any great harm in that.
The rapporteur points out that state aid amounts to 1.7 % of the Community's GDP.
That may sound like a lot of money, but we should be aware that the socio-economic costs associated with this aid are perhaps a tenth or a hundredth of that amount and so amount to a few tenths or hundredths of one per cent.
I would therefore like us to have a somewhat less rigid view of this state aid.
However, my main point is that this is an excellent report which I hope will be approved by a large majority tomorrow.
Mr President, I want to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Berès, for her report.
Certainly, the control of state aid is a big responsibility for the Commission.
We have on the table today a Commission proposal for a regulation seeking a more practical formula for controlling such aid, by exempting one category of aid and transferring responsibility for it to the Member States, because of a shortage of Commission resources.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has taken a very clear stance on this.
We agree with the Commission's approach, but great care must be taken. We must not forget that it is the Member States who provide this aid, and to transfer control to them is - excuse the expression - like setting the fox to guard the henhouse!
So, we agree with a practical approach, we agree with the list of categories and aid proposed by the Commission - and our group is not in favour of either lengthening it or shortening it, as the rapporteur suggests - but we have made two comments which have been taken up by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The first point is that production can be integrated, which means that by giving small amounts of aid to integrated businesses, the added value of the final product might be over-subsidized.
For example, aid might be given to the research sector, then to another company collaborating in the manufacture of the same product, and so on all down the line.
Integrated production has to be monitored, otherwise we are going to run into serious problems of very large subsidies in terms of a product's final added value.
For that reason, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has included an amendment that I myself presented to them, and I think the European Commission should study it.
The second comment is that this procedure - this new focus - requires the Member States to be monitored at a global level.
As we lose specific control of each type of aid, there has to be more global budgetary control over the total aid given by each country.
This theory has already been approved by this House with regard to the general report on competition policy, and it becomes increasingly important the further we progress with monetary union.
We cannot cease to exercise control over the possibility that a certain budget might in total devote more than a certain percentage of GDP to state aid.
That can and will happen.
Even today there are large differences between the Member States, and once monetary union comes into effect, if the Commission fails to take account of the risk that each Member State might devote a large or very significant part of its budget to helping its businesses, we will have competition problems within monetary union.
Mr President, today we have to decide which type of direction to give to state aid in the future, how to involve the territory and categories as well as the controls and exemptions to be applied.
As we know, the distortion of competition is the most obvious disadvantage of state aid, but it is not the only one.
Just think of the cost for public finances or the cost resulting from the loss of competitiveness for businesses used to state aid, at a time in which it is being reduced or is disappearing.
The globalization of the market and the arrival of the euro will result in totally new scenarios.
In the immediate future, the EU will support the entry of new states, including financially.
Agenda 2000 will then oblige us to give preference to choices of quality over quantity.
So aid will no longer be provided if it is not targeted and the result of projects and programmes based on actual requirements and resulting opportunities.
We obviously do not want to say that all state aid is counterproductive, as clearly maintained by the rapporteur, whom we thank for her work.
Aid can, in fact, favour an industrial policy where it is exists and is correctly applied.
However, it should not just be aimed at large businesses and the industrial sector any more.
We should be looking in particular at small and medium-sized businesses and at new sectors: tourism, trade, services, crafts, the environment and research and development are sectors that are integrated and connected to each other, as recalled by the Spanish Member.
We believe that the Commission, as the body which supervises competition, will adopt decisions and measures in the medium term that will facilitate balanced growth.
For this purpose, we call on it to reassess the sectors and business sizes we have just mentioned.
The future of the Union's economic and social growth inevitably lies with the SMEs.
State aid cannot fail to take them into account.
Mr President, state aid is of course an exception to free and equal competition.
Therefore, it is important to adhere to regulations on state aid, and transparency is especially important in order to enable third parties, namely competitors, to see what is being given by way of state aid.
The Liberal group is delighted that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has supported us in requiring these subsidies to be made public.
Therefore, I hope that the Commission, too, will be in a position to support the committee's Amendments Nos 4 and 5, in which we emphasize the requirement for making public the various subsidies, and in particular Amendment No 5, where we urge the Commission to publish details of subsidies given to the individual countries in the Official Journal of the European Communities to ensure that the average business has access to this information.
Finally, on behalf of the Liberal group, I have to say that we cannot support Amendment No 11, which the rapporteur touched on, and nor can we support the amendment tabled by Mr Wibe of the Socialist group.
Nonetheless, I look forward to hearing the Commission's response on the question of transparency.
Mr President, I agree with the Commission's view that, on the one hand, state aid must be made more public and controlled more effectively, but, on the other, the Commission must be given the opportunity to focus on more important and larger-scale cases, where group exemptions can be considered properly.
But this should not mean that complete transparency must not prevail, as state aid can seriously distort competition.
State aid should also be examined in connection with normal EU Structural Funds because it is awfully difficult at the moment to know what individual projects are being subsidized either through state aid or through EU structural funding.
It is a very serious matter that meagre public resources are causing grave problems, and we should ensure, as best we can, that the EU's basic purpose in public subsidies is being realized.
I can thus give a great deal of support to the rapporteur in her desire to make the state aid process more open.
In fact, I believe there should be a centre in every Member State where every citizen could have access to information on aid for each individual project, and not just state aid but Structural Funds.
This would have a far-reaching influence on the relocation of companies.
As we know, many firms have learnt to get Member States and regions to compete, and this has an exceedingly unfavourable effect on the public economy.
Mr President, I hope my voice is going to hold out.
Let me say that I understand the general thrust of this report is to ensure that we prevent distortion of competition while achieving a fair and level playing field.
I very much commend the work that Mrs Berès has done on this report, but we are talking about transparency.
Let me raise an issue with you in the Commission.
We in the Committee on Regional Affairs are very concerned at the lack of transparency in the document that you have adopted, the draft communication about the coherence of structural policies and competition.
I understand that Commissioner Van Miert has already signed an agreement with Commissioner Wulf-Mathies on making sure that these two maps are indeed coherent, and I wonder when you will refer that document to Parliament.
I believe it is our right to look at issues involving the Structural Funds and I understand you have also written to Member States. I would like to know which legal base you are using to consult Member States on these issues.
Is it not the case that you will predetermine the national priorities of the Member States on where they wish to spend their structural fund money and state aid under Article 92(3)(c)?
Why, therefore, is it the case that we in Parliament are not looking at that? I want to know what flexibility exists for a Member State to defend its own national priorities on state aid and whether you can legally enforce these issues.
Or is it simply a case of a voluntary agreement that you hope to have with Member States?
Finally, I would like to say to the Commission that I do not honestly see the logic behind this.
I believe the Structural Funds have a very different objective to state aid and I would simply refer to the case of rural areas.
In my own constituency in the Peak district, I do not think that we want to attract Siemens actually to come and re-establish itself in an area which is environmentally sensitive, where we are looking to establish small businesses.
The issue is not about actually attracting state aids in those kinds of regions.
I would therefore ask you to decouple and de-link these two areas and let Member States decide on their own priorities on structural fund eligibility maps.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, state aid is one of the main causes of distortion in the single market.
Not only is it costly and an inefficient way to use public funds in the Member States, but it is also delaying an essential structural change which affects not only the individual region, but also the EU as a whole.
It is quite clear that several Member States are currently breaking or behaving in a very suspect way with regard to the rules we have on state aid.
The Commission is now trying, on the basis of existing conditions, that is, in spite of a lack of resources, to improve and monitor compliance.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Berès on her report which increases the chances of better compliance and control of state aid because it makes transparency and greater openness possible.
This is a credibility issue, not least in relation to third parties, that is, companies and their employees who are affected by unhealthy competitive disadvantages.
I would like to warn against Mr Wibe's enticing tones when he thinks that local public businesses in Amendment No 11 should be approved.
Today, local authorities and regions have a lot of different opportunities to exploit the system which means that we get more monopoly and less competition.
I think it was very good that we removed the amendment in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The Commission's credibility now depends on sharpening the supervision of state aid which is talked about a lot in industry.
Since no-one else can monitor our compliance with competition on equal terms, I think the Commission must ensure that it approves the amendments which have now been added to this report.
Otherwise it will be difficult to ensure that we are complying with the demands which are rightfully made on the EU system.
I would like, before anything else, to give my apologies, in particular to Mrs Berès.
The Commission had to deal with a relatively complicated and sensitive issue and its consideration lasted longer than expected.
Mrs Berès knows how interested I am in this problem, and I am always ready to meet her and any other Members of the European Parliament in order to continue the discussion on the proposal and the elements relating to them.
I apologise to Mrs Berès and I take this opportunity to congratulate her, because I know that she has put a great deal of work into this report, along with other Members, in order to come to an opinion based on reality and on actual experience.
At a certain point in time, it became apparent that of the some six hundred aid cases a year that currently have to be dealt with, one third or possibly more, being subject to prior notification, were in reality routine cases.
Was it possible to implement another system which would set aside the routine cases which demand much work from our services, although 95 % or 98 % of them are in practice problem-free? Nobody is unaware of the fact that "state aid' , in the case of competition policy, suffers from a very severe shortage in human resources when it comes to the management of individual cases, which are increasingly numerous as well as increasingly complex.
Consequently, we had to focus our efforts on the more important cases, and to try and set aside the routine, and we would then be able to get rid a part of the bureaucracy; hence the idea, on the basis of Article 94, of proposing a solution which would create draft regulations for group exemption, applying to aid cases where there was already considerable experience, for example in certain sectors such as the SMEs, where the rules are relatively well known and which, in general, do not cause any problems.
This could also be the case for the environment and for research and development.
In other words, it could apply in a number of sectors where there are sufficiently precise rules and a sufficiently broad discipline where individual cases would no longer need to be notified.
Of course, the rules of the game have to be respected.
Furthermore, to ensure no misunderstanding, the Commission will naturally continue to see to it that these rules are respected, particularly in the event of complaint.
It will study any complaint made by a company or other authority, even if this complaint goes beyond the framework of the regulations which are our concern now.
Creating a number of instruments does not mean that there will be no more discipline, or that there will be no more control.
On the contrary, it is quite wrong to claim that they will lead to a more lax policy in this field.
The aim to be able to pay more attention to the most important cases.
This, it appears to me, is the raison d'être of this enabling regulation.
I am delighted that our proposal has found favour within the Council and that the adoption process is on the right track.
Furthermore, ladies and gentlemen, I believe I am right in understanding that a number of Members of this House - and they are not alone - have raised certain doubts and wondered whether or not this system might not adversely affect the required transparency, once systematic notification had been abolished.
I have already said that the Commission will react as soon as the slightest doubt is raised.
I, for my part, believe that the system once implemented, and in particular the annual reports that the national authorities must send us, will as much as is the case today, and possibly even more so, guarantee the necessary transparency.
I now come to the other concerns that have been raised.
Some of you have dealt with subjects somewhat outside the framework of the proposal under consideration.
I would like to rapidly reply to the Member who spoke about the consistency between the state aid policy, notably provisions governing regional aid at national level and the structural policy, that is, the proposal put forward by Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
Insofar as possible, we have made every effort to create a situation of consistency, which is no easy matter.
Indeed, as you know, a whole series of regions, for example the 5B regions, which are eligible for Structural Funds, are not eligible for regional aid funds or national aid.
So necessarily there is no consistency between the two cases.
The map of regional aid covers about 47 % of the population of the European Union, whereas the Structural Funds reach 51 %.
There is no consistency in reality.
Regions eligible for Community funds wonder why they cannot receive regional aid, at Member State level.
The problem is a real one.
Mrs Wulf-Mathies and myself have tried to act in such a way that the future regime is very much more consistent in the period from 2000 to 2006.
Perhaps we will still not be able to achieve consistency at the individual, per capita level, as we will need a slight margin to try to take into consideration specific situations. I regret this, but perhaps we will be unable to do otherwise.
Nevertheless, our aim is to try and ensure that the two maps of aid provision match up as broadly as possible.
I do not know if I have given an answer to what has been said.
In any event, I am available for direct discussion with you.
I hope I have covered most of the comments.
Yet again, many thanks to Mrs Berès and to all those who have contributed to this report, and of course to those who have spoken today.
Mr President, on a point of order. I did not ask about the policy.
I asked about when you intend to consult Parliament.
I understand that the Commission has exclusive competence for competition policy, but in my opinion you are wandering into an area where Parliament has a view on whether it is necessary, in all cases, to have complete coherence of maps.
We would like some flexibility.
Therefore, I would like to know when you intend to consult Parliament and, if you intend to force this, what is the legal base for the Commission to enforce the coherence of state aids and structural fund eligibility maps?
I now understand the precise point of your question.
First of all, I am always available to Parliament to discuss this although it is an exclusive competence of the Commission.
As you know, the Commission has this responsibility for state aids on the basis of Articles 92 and 93, unless we make a proposal, as we are doing today, on the basis of Article 94, when the Council has to take a decision.
As I have already said, the Commission has already taken a decision as far as regional aid is concerned because it is the Commission's responsibility.
But I am readily available to Parliament or the relevant committees to discuss this matter and explain to you why we think this coherence between the Structural Funds map and the regional aid map is important.
It is up to you. If you would like to invite me to a committee meeting, I would be happy to attend.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12: 00 noon.
Shipbuilding
The next item is the report (A4-0101/98) by Mr Sindal, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on establishing new rules on aid to shipbuilding (COM(97)0469 - C4-0527/97-97/02499(CNS)) and on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions entitled: "Towards a new shipbuilding policy' (COM(97)0470 - C4-0548/97).
Mr President, may I begin by congratulating the previous rapporteur on the general discussion on competition policy.
Now that we are embarking on a more detailed debate on shipbuilding, the waters are parting, for it is very easy to agree on a general plan.
For this we owe Mr Van Miert our grateful thanks.
The report is excellent, but as soon as we go into detail, the waters begin to part.
The subject under debate today is fraught with emotion and history.
All of us present here today are aware of why this regulation has gone to consultation.
We are missing one single signature on an OECD agreement - that of the USA.
Now we are venturing a new regulation, perhaps the eighth in the series.
The discussion and the problems are partly internal to the EU and partly external, in that they concern how the EU relates to the world-wide competitive situation.
To my mind, the key elements in this debate are that our future internal policy must not distort competition for shipyards within the EU, and our aid policy must not cause social listing in some Member States and regions, as we have just heard.
There has to be a fundamental belief that the EU would be best served if the OECD agreement were to come into effect.
The OECD agreement is the best way forward for the Community's shipyards to be able to compete on a level playing field.
Since this is not happening, we are best served with an aid policy that is as restricted as at all possible.
We must strive for equality of opportunity for all and avoid creating a situation with competitors losing simply because they do not qualify for aid.
The new aid policy must avert creative book-keeping and speculation in aid systems.
That is not what it is intended for.
But the new aid policy is supposed to create jobs in the EU.
Unemployment is the biggest problem today, and in my opinion regional aid to shipyards is not part of the EU's social policy - nor should it be.
It would be naive to believe that would create more jobs.
That would be throwing good money after bad.
In shuffling jobs from one area to another, we would antagonize citizens who perceive this to be unfair - worse still if jobs are moved out of the EU altogether.
Therefore, at a time when the citizens of Europe are discussing confidence and belief in the European project, it is vital that our aid policy should avoid prejudicing citizens' understanding of justice by giving better opportunities to some than to others.
What is needed is a policy to ensure equality of opportunity.
What we need today is a long-term, visionary employment policy.
The new aid policy, which I support, Mr Van Miert, must not amount to featherbedding.
We must avoid giving support to such an extent that the shipbuilding industry forgets to think for itself.
Strong support may well be beneficial in the short term, but long-term it could turn European shipbuilding into a loser in the global marketplace.
Let me emphasize four things in the Commission's proposal.
Firstly, I support development, innovation, etcetera.
This is extremely positive.
It is the way forward.
Secondly, I find regional aid dissatisfactory.
I find it impermeable and prejudicial to competition.
But if we can agree on regional aid, we should decide whether to change the extent of such aid.
The third point is that we are concerned about how monitoring should be carried out.
That is embarrassing.
But history shows that we must be committed to one another.
The fourth point is the situation in the Far East and the massive aid given there.
This must not be allowed to lead to Korean shipyards becoming more dominant players in the market than they are already, for example.
Finally, Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to say that the three statements from the committees concerned and the statement from the Economic and Social Committee all point towards the need to think twice before implementing this plan unamended.
Mr President, the object of Mr Sindal's report is to reform the complex network of aid schemes in place for the European shipbuilding industry, so that the EU will become more competitive with regard to third country dockyards.
The largest area of current aid is dedicated to shipbuilding itself, which has in fact distorted competition in the common market.
The idea of getting rid of aid, which Mr Sindal mentions in his report, is thus correct.
The ultimate goal of EU policy must be that the shipyards recover naturally through market demand.
The European Community has to guarantee Member States equal conditions for competition, promote research and development in shipbuilding, and motivate industrial cooperation.
The conditions for competition among shipyards in EU countries cannot be distorted by aid action which is different for every country.
I hope the Commission understands this.
The shipbuilding industry employs about 130 000 people in the EU.
Securing these jobs is important.
At the moment the EU share of the world market for shipbuilding is around 20 %.
In recent years, despite improvements, as far as competitiveness and productivity go, many shipyards have fallen behind greater competitors, such as Japan and South Korea.
Furthermore, new shipbuilding nations have begun to come into the world market.
The market share these countries have, with their cheap labour, is also in the region of 20 %.
The EU countries have much scope for research.
The European shipyards should follow the Japanese model and concentrate resources on research and development in order to improve the design and production process and produce safe and efficient vessels.
The development of the shipbuilding industry is closely linked to developments in other sectors of technology.
The use of computerization and telecommunications, in particular, should be regarded as an essential part of developing a modern shipbuilding industry.
Mr President, as we are now debating Mr Sindal's report on the shipyards, I would also like to turn our attention to debating customs and Europarliamentarianism in general. And why?
Well, when the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs was discussing its report, it had, in accordance with good practice, asked for the opinions of others, such as the REX committee.
But what happened? The committee voted in the morning and only received the opinion it had asked for in the afternoon, at least as far as the REX committee was concerned.
I do not know if the committee was in too much of a hurry to adhere to its timetable or if it was a case of the REX committee coming late with the two opinions it had formulated.
My own was actually ready the week before.
My question is: what is the point of asking for opinions unless they can be relied upon to materialize and taken notice of? We should consider this here to ensure that the work of Parliament is actually appropriate at all times.
But that is not all.
When we vote on the report in tomorrow's sitting, COREPER will have already started its debate on the issue; it did so last Thursday, to be precise.
It is still going on, and COREPER's view will be discussed by the Council, but the question remains: should a Parliamentary report not be ready when COREPER starts its own debate? Otherwise, it seems as if each and every body makes its own resolutions without hearing the opinion of others.
The situation is an irritating aspect of Parliamentarianism, especially as it has happened again and again and will happen, I suppose, in the future also.
I wish the Bureau would look into this seriously.
It is a matter of the European Parliament's prestige and credibility.
As to the issue we are debating here, I will briefly state that shipyard aid has come to the end of the road.
This view is in agreement with the Commission's proposal and Mr Sindal's report.
Now that the main shipbuilding nations of Asia are in the grip of an economic crisis, and devaluation of their currency has increased their competitiveness in exports, it is a most opportune moment to embark on global measures to end aid.
The USA, for its part, must accept the OECD agreement.
All interested bodies must set about ending shipyard aid as a condition of Asian financial aid.
The countries of Europe have to get their act together in their affirmation of the fact that we cannot go on supporting a lame duck forever.
Mr President, the opinion I have prepared on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism related only to the Commission's communication to the Council and the European Parliament.
The Committee on Transport never discussed giving an opinion on the proposal for a Council Regulation, with which, however, Mr Sindal's report is mainly concerned.
Consequently, I am here to echo what the last speaker said: why were we asked for an opinion? Because I have found that almost nothing has been taken into account by Mr Sindal's report.
This of course, does not mean that my group disagrees with very many points in Mr Sindal's report.
At the same time, however, we are very worried about why this process has taken place, which is quite unusual, at least during the three years or so that I have been a Member.
At the same time, I heard all the speakers and the rapporteur talking about support and competition, saying that state aid for shipyards must stop, and talking about the globalization of the economy.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is all very well, but we ought not to remember it only when America, Japan or Korea are asking us to bear in mind the globalization of the economy.
The European Union has an obligation, and this is very rightly addressed by the Commission and Mr Sindal's report, to put its own house in order: to care first and foremost for the existence, preservation and if possible the strengthening of Europe's shipbuilding industry, to retain jobs and above all, from now on, to secure a better future than before.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner and Mr Sindal what impact the euro is likely to have from 1 January 1999 on Europe's shipbuilding industry. Will there be consequences or not?
And if so, what?
Will they be good or bad?
Thank you very much, Mr Sainjon.
Ladies and gentlemen, having heard Mr Sainjon's speech, we must now suspend the debate on Mr Sindal's report.
It will resume at 9.00 p.m.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0272/98).
First however, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to read you a series of recommendations from the Bureau to Members of this House.
I am sorry that Mr Wijsenbeek is not going to hear this too, because these recommendations aim to ensure that our work proceeds smoothly.
At its meeting of 9 March 1998 the Bureau adopted the following decisions, to make our current Question Time procedure as up-to-date and politically relevant as possible.
The first recommendation concerns the deadline for tabling questions.
Questions for each Question Time are only to be tabled during that part-session's period for tabling questions.
The relevant services are requested to no longer accept questions tabled before that date.
The honourable Members are reminded that the period for tabling questions for each Question Time begins as soon as the deadline for the previous part-session's Question Time has expired, and ends at 1.00 p.m. on the Thursday of the penultimate week prior to each part-session.
The second recommendation concerns supplementary questions.
The Bureau asks the President of the sitting only to accept requests to put supplementary questions once the main question has been dealt with.
Members are reminded that it is up to the President of the sitting to rule on the admissibility of supplementary questions, which must relate directly to the subject of the main question.
The third point is admissibility.
The Bureau recommends that the relevant services should be stricter in applying the admissibility criteria for questions, as set out in Annex II of the Rules of Procedure.
The Bureau particularly requests Members to respect the stipulations about the maximum length of questions, and to limit themselves to a single question within each text.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will all receive your own copy of these recommendations.
Today, however, with your help, we will begin to adjust to these recommendations from the Bureau.
Mr McMahon wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order. It is on the same issue.
I have a copy of the document you are referring to and I am absolutely astounded by it.
I find it an affront to democracy in this House.
I have been a Member here for 14 years and have taken a great interest in Question Time.
I know we have had problems, and we have had changes.
I remember when we tried to change it before: Mrs Dury put forward a long report from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and there was a great deal of debate and discussion by Members.
What the Bureau seems to be resorting to here is diktat from on high, and it is very anti-democratic.
One of the benefits of publishing the names of the Commissioners who were going to answer questions was that if Members had, for example, an environment question, they could table it well in advance, knowing that they would receive a straightforward and knowledgeable answer from the Commissioner for the environment.
They would be unlikely to get someone else who had simply been handed a dossier, who was unacquainted with its contents and would just give a completely unsatisfactory off-the-cuff answer.
If you knew in advance that the individual Commissioner for that portfolio was going to reply, that would be advantageous.
So I feel this is a very retrograde step.
There has been no discussion on this in the political groups nor with the Members, and I take great offence at the dictatorial and high-handed attitude the Bureau has adopted.
I will raise this in my own political group and would urge other Members to do the same.
Mr McMahon, please listen to me.
I know you can understand Spanish but I would prefer you to listen to me in your own language, through the interpreters. I must inform you that what I have just read in no way suggests that Question Time is going to be altered as far as the Commissioners are concerned.
All these recommendations are trying to do is introduce a degree of order. In other words, questions are not to be tabled way in advance, but within the period established by our Rules of Procedure.
The second aim is to avoid the situation where the President of the sitting already has lots of supplementary questions even before the start, and Members who request to put a question but cannot be allowed to do so because somebody else has already asked.
What is being said is that from now on people will only be able to request the floor once the main question has started.
So these are small rules, Mr McMahon, intended to improve our work.
If in practice we find it is no improvement, I can assure you we will revise them.
I will convey that to the Bureau straight away, but at the moment I would ask that we do not start a debate on the matter, because these rules are designed to help us work better.
If they do not have that effect, we will change them again.
But let us start by respecting them.
It is not a question of being dictatorial, Mr McMahon, but it is the Bureau's responsibility to try to organize the work of this House in the best way possible.
Several people wish to make points of order, but I must point out that all these points of order will detract from the time available for questions to the Commission.
Mr Crowley wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I should like your guidance.
I have also received the same notice as Mr McMahon and I agree with him fully.
In the second part of paragraph 2, it says: ' It is up to the President of a sitting to rule on the admissibility of supplementary questions which must relate directly to the subject of the main question.'
Surely we as political representatives of the European people, must be able to decide whether a matter is related to a question or to an individual Commissioner, or to upbraid a Commissioner or the President-in-Office of the Council when they refuse to answer the question directly and we have to try another tactic to get around this.
I ask you to use your discretion in interpreting that aspect and to give us clear guidance on what latitude you will allow us.
Mr Crowley, you will be able to test out the amount of latitude I am prepared to allow during the course of our work.
But I should warn you that Annex II of our Rules of Procedure states: "The President shall rule on the admissibility of supplementary questions and shall limit their number so that each Member who has put down a question may receive an answer to it' .
In other words, the President is not being given any new power. This is simply a reminder that the President has that power.
You will have noticed, Mr Crowley, that given the existence of that rule, the President has been exercising the natural flexibility which the liveliness of our Question Time demands.
So nothing new is being suggested - it is all there.
Mr Wijsenbeek wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, you mentioned me as the person who initiated the changes to Question Time.
I would like to point out to you, Mr President, that I wrote a report for the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Verification of Credentials and Immunities. It was approved by that committee four months ago, and the Bureau is refusing to put it to the partsession.
The objections by Mr Crowley and Mr McMahon could at least have been discussed in the groups and in the part-session.
Now the Bureau is misusing my report to propose new rules on its own authority, instead of through the usual democratic procedures.
But you and I agree on one thing: if we look around we see that we have managed to kill Question Time, which in most parliaments is a lively affair and the climax of the parliamentary week.
We are sitting here surrounded by a handful of people, whilst the Commissioners and Presidents-in-Office dish out prescribed answers and are not able to enter into a debate with us.
The long and short of my proposal, Mr President, is that we call the questions in random order, so that those who tabled a question six months ago do not have the first turn, but that everyone gets an equal chance to speak.
Secondly, we should have a true debate, in which questions are responded to succinctly.
If you would be so kind as to submit my proposal to the part-session, than we would at least be able to join in the discussion as Members and as backbenchers, rather than be told what to do by a group of vice-presidents who think they always know better.
Question No 41 by Concepció Ferrer (H-0301/98)
Subject: Policy in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises
The results of a survey carried out by the Court of Auditors show that of 33 enterprises considered small and medium-sized, 11 actually corresponded to that category while the remaining two-thirds of the enterprises investigated belonged to consortia, and in one case a business classified as a small enterprise had 2000 employees.
Does the Commission not believe that, in view of these results, the concept of small and medium-sized enterprises should be revised in order to bring it into line with the actual situation?
I have learnt a great deal, I am much more knowledgeable now, and I thank you for allowing me to participate in your debate.
When describing SMEs, the Commission applies the definition set out in the recommendation of 3 April 1996 to the Member States, to the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund.
Under this definition, the purpose of which is to put a little order into the situation you have described, a company must have less than 250 employees, a turnover not exceeding ECU 40 million, and total balance sheet value not in excess of ECU 27 million to comply with the definition of an SME.
To meet the definition of "small, ' a company must have fewer than 50 employees, a turnover of less than ECU 7 million, and a balance sheet of less than ECU 5 million.
Also, small and medium enterprises must be truly independent, which means that they must not be more than 25 % owned by another company.
The thresholds for turnover and balance sheet will be regularly adjusted, normally every four years, to take account of the economic changes in Europe.
Having said that, in certain specific research and technology development programmes, and in the 1994-1998 fourth framework programme, different and other definitions of small and medium-sized enterprises have been used.
But for the implementation of the fifth framework programme, that is, for 1998-2000, the Commission is proposing that the new definition that I have just given to you should be applied with an exception to allow the inclusion of companies with up to 500 employees.
Among the various criteria for this new definition is that of independence, and the Commission is aware of the fact that this criterion has, unfortunately, not always been respected.
As you note, Madam, with regard to the database on the participants in the technological research and development programme, the Court of Auditors' annual report states that of the 33 companies selected for the audit it carried out, 11 did not meet the independence criteria and one even employed more than 2 000.
Nevertheless, the Commission is intent on reassuring you and your House: the quality and the reliability of the databases is constantly being improved and updated.
This improvement will continue, in particular with the introduction in stages of financial and legal viability checks, which will also cover parent companies.
We will also continue our improvement by verifying the criteria applicable to SMEs on the basis of documentary evidence.
The Commission will certainly continue to insist that, in the future, the SME definition criteria are scrupulously respected.
I just want to thank the Commissioner for his explanation, which I think was needed.
It has been very useful because just this morning, in approving the Elles report, we stressed how many gaps there were in relation to the aid available to small and medium-sized enterprises which has not been used.
This is a waste, maybe not of resources, but of the chance to improve not just the situation of SMEs, but above all their job-creating abilities.
I would call on the Commissioner to ensure that, in accordance with what he has just said, the Commission is very aware of this, and turn his words into reality.
I completely agree.
I have taken note of Mrs Ferrer's wish, and I am all the more in agreement with her because it is important that the Commission be able to target these measures at ad hoc companies, for if not, we will see aid being scattered, and allocated less efficiently.
I can, therefore, assure you that the Commission agrees with your analysis and will act along these lines.
With regard to the actual situation, could I ask the Commissioner to look at certain areas where companies of fifty are really large companies and where the concept of a small company is nearer ten.
In areas like my constituency of the Highlands and Islands, it is often these companies that one looks to for job creation.
Would it not be possible for the Commission to consider an additional approach to give even more favourable treatment to the micro-small business?
This question is always a delicate one. On the one hand, we must take into account the need for a more or less harmonized approach at European Union level, for the sake of efficiency, and on the other hand, we must take into account specific situations.
My response to Mrs Ewing is that the Member States have introduced more flexibility than we have.
However, we are introducing flexibility, as we have fixed thresholds for micro-companies, employing less than 10 people, which must be precisely adapted to the situation in the islands you mentioned.
I would even say that in some Member States, flexibility is even greater, as the thresholds given are for maximum limits, and the criterion concerning the number of employees may be applied alone, without reference to turnover or balance sheet figures.
That therefore goes in the direction which you appear to wish.
I want to thank the Commissioner for his response.
I have just two very brief questions to ask him on this point.
Firstly, can he give a guarantee here to us that this Court of Auditors' survey will not be used to try and reduce the amount of money which is being appropriated for the SME sector, and in particular for the employment-creation aspect of it? Secondly, I may have misinterpreted what he said in his original answer, but am I right to understand that the criteria for the definition of SMEs and micro-enterprises will be updated and evaluated every year?
Very rapidly, my answer to Mr Crowley is yes for both questions.
With regard more precisely to the second question, I would point out that we plan to have an update of the criteria at least every four years, and sooner, if necessary, according to the change in economic data.
Question No 42 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0314/98)
Subject: Increase in subsidized quantity of olive oil
Commissioner Fischler is reported as saying on a recent visit to Spain that the ceiling on the production of olive oil subsidized by the EU will be raised by 300 000 tonnes for Spain and Greece.
Will there in fact be such an increase in the ceiling on olive oil production, and how will this quantity be divided between Greece and Spain?
In parallel to the Agenda 2000 exercise, the Commission, on 19 March last, examined the file on the reform of the common organization of the olive oil market.
In this respect, the Commission has very largely taken on board the comments made by the European Parliament.
The reform of the common market organization should come into force for the 2001-2002 campaign.
Until then, and in order to do something to offset the management difficulties of the current CMO, the Commission has proposed urgent modifications to the current regime.
These modifications, as well as the elements that must be taken into account when proposing to reform this sector, will soon be part of a specific debate within your Parliament, and my colleague, Franz Fischler, will answer precisely all your questions on this subject.
I can say to you today that the proposed increases include, among other things, a rise in the maximum guaranteed quantity of 212 400 tonnes, and among the modifications, it is proposed to distribute the increase among the national guaranteed quantities of the producer Member States.
This distribution, among these Member States, of the new maximum guaranteed quantity of 1 562 400 tonnes is as follows: Spain, 625 210 tonnes; France, 3 065 tonnes; Greece, 389 038 tonnes; Italy, 501 172 tonnes; and Portugal, 43 915 tonnes.
The increase in the maximum guaranteed quantity is due to the change in the Community market take-up capacity.
It takes into account the potential for new plantings made recently in Spain and Portugal, and also corresponds to the savings made in the Community budget by the eliminating the regime for small producers and eliminating aid for consumption.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I think perhaps I ought to be pleased by what you told me in your answer, but because we do not have to hand here all those figures you mentioned, at the end of the day I understood quite clearly that, indeed, what I asked about in my question is true, is it not? In other words, I am not so interested in the figures - I am sure that those you have quoted will be correct and I believe them - but is it really true that what has applied to Spain and Greece until now might be increased by 300 000?
Yes or no?
Because I have heard the figures but I do not know what the situation was before. So are they the same, or more?
Although I am not a specialist in olive oil, going on what I know, the current maximum quantity for the whole of the European Union is 1 350 000 tonnes.
This will be raised to 1 562 000 tonnes.
Consequently, this tonnage will be raised and distributed among the various Member States, on the basis of the factors normally used as part of the common agricultural policy.
One of these allocation criteria relates in particular to the average national production over three years, out of the last five years, setting aside the best and worst year for each of the Member States.
Consequently, the usual criteria, which are classic distribution criteria, will be applied.
You will be sent the technical details if you have not already received them; they show that the maximum guaranteed quantity will be proportionately distributed among the various Member States in accordance with the usual criteria.
I just want to remind the Commissioner of two things.
Firstly, he mentioned that the change to the maximum guaranteed quantity is based on five seasons, with the worst and the best being ignored.
However, in the specific case of Spain, the 1992-93, 1993-94 and 1994-95 seasons were all catastrophic because of drought.
That means that if those data are used to fix the amount for Spain, we are being penalized.
The second, very important thing is that the maximum guaranteed quantity for the whole of Europe will also be affected by these unrealistic Spanish data.
It is important for the Commission to realize that, so they can correct the data at some point, even during the Council phase.
If that is not done, the whole of Europe will be penalized, especially the Spanish production.
I have taken note of your remark.
It reminds me of the debate in the Commission when the proposal was drafted.
We had to attempt both to achieve a number of objectives, which can appear contradictory, and to consider the problem caused by the drought in Spain at the time.
The file is now in the hands of the Council. The comment that you have raised is very much in Mr Fischler's mind, and he will be heading negotiations.
However, it is the Commission's job to submit a proposal on the basis of objective and traditional criteria.
Now the negotiations are in the hands of the Council and I have no doubt but that all points of view will be heard and defended.
Commissioner, having heard your replies, I would like to know whether the Commission actually realizes the damage this will do to employment levels in Spain.
If the Commission continues to refuse to increase substantially the maximum guaranteed quantity - as I see it does - employment will suffer.
The fact is, apart from the drought problem which has been mentioned, the latest figure for Spanish production was 947 000 tonnes, which is very different from the maximum being set for that country.
If that difference is not subsidized, there is bound to be more unemployment in Spain, which is the very country with the highest unemployment rate in the whole of the EU.
There is not much point preaching about employment at the Luxembourg Summit if work is being thrown away, and if this threat hanging over Spain's olive groves actually materializes.
I shall make the same reply as before: this matter is still being discussed.
I have explained the basis of the Commission's proposal.
I had explained also that the Commission was proposing to raise the maximum guaranteed quantity, as compared to the current quantity.
I know that, for a certain number of countries, this raises economic problems, and also problems, which we cannot overlook, in terms of market disposal of the olive oil.
However, I believe that all these elements are in the minds of the negotiators.
You have done well to emphasize them.
They will now become part of the negotiation which is to take place within the Council.
Thank you very much, Mr de Silguy.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo wishes to speak on a point of order.
Excuse me, but which Rule does your point of order come under?
Mr President, I should like to point out that in the public gallery, all the way from Granada...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, that is not a point of order.
I would ask you to please sit down and allow me to proceed with my work properly, with the following question.
Question No 43 by Phillip Whitehead (H-0321/98/rev. 1)
Subject: Consumers and the euro
Will the Commission state whether it maintains the view that all bank charges that are compulsory should be free? If so, how will this principle be implemented?
Can the Commission confirm when it will decide whether or not to propose legislation on the question of dual pricing? What does the Commission believe is the final date for such a decision, given the time taken by the codecision procedure?
Can the Commission indicate the timetable for the development of codes of good practice between professionals and consumers?
What will be the role of the Euro observatories, and where will they be located?
The Commission believes that on the basis of the regulations relating to the euro which are currently in force, the banks are not legally authorized to make charges on the compulsory currency conversions arising from the introduction of the euro.
It is therefore not necessary to adopt further legal provisions in this field.
However, the Commission also believes that in order to facilitate the smooth introduction of the euro, the banks should go beyond their minimum legal obligations.
To fully clarify its position on bank charges for euro conversion, the Commission will in 15 days - thus, in the very near future - submit recommendations on the principles of good conduct which will cover both the legally binding provisions and the additional provisions that the Commission believes are desirable.
These recommendations will be sent to the governments, to the various bodies, organizations and consumers' and professional associations and, of course, your House will be kept informed.
I would add that the use of a recommendation is a mid-way course between the adoption of a regulation and the free play of market forces, and that this path will be the most effective way of meeting the target that has been set.
To implement this recommendation, the adoption of codes of good practice accepted by the parties concerned is the best method and the most appropriate way forward.
I believe that progress down this road has already been made, but in the event that voluntary procedures proved inefficient, the adoption of legislation provisions might nevertheless be envisaged with a view to clarifying the situation.
Secondly, as regards dual pricing, which was mentioned in Mr Whitehead's question, I would say that the Commission here too considers that the mandatory imposition of dual pricing through a European regulation is not an appropriate means of ensuring dual pricing which both meets the requirements of the consumers and keeps the cost of the transition to the euro to a minimum.
In this case also, the Commission will present a recommendation in two weeks time and will thus propose codes of good practice in order to provide the necessary clarity and certitude to all the parties concerned with dual pricing.
If, in practice, we see that this voluntary approach is unsatisfactory and ineffective, the adoption of a regulation on the codes of good practice might be a possibility, and Emma Bonino will not contradict me on this.
I have a third comment to make. The round table on 26 February last showed that progress in the practical preparations for the introduction of the euro was to a large extent the result of the mobilization of consumer organizations and professional organizations, and the beginning of continuing dialogue between the players concerned.
This dialogue basically takes place at national level, which is the level where the negotiations should end with the definition and introduction of these codes of good practice on the basis of our recommendations; these negotiations are already well advanced.
Negotiations between consumers and between professionals can also begin at European level.
This has already happened and one of the objectives is to create a "euro' label for retailers displaying their prices in euros and who accept payments in euros.
It is hoped that negotiations be concluded as fast and as satisfactorily as possible.
That will enhance the trust of users and consumers in the process of moving over to the euro.
Finally, I will reply to the last point raised by Mr Whitehead, the problem of national, regional or local observatories.
Indeed, the introduction of such observatories is, I believe, a good thing, as it is a means by which the Member States can promote the circulation of information on the euro and a means by which they can also oversee the voluntary agreements in terms of the codes of good practice I mentioned.
At European level, these observatories might conceivably become a place of informal exchange of information on developments among the Member States.
The form, function and precise operational procedures for setting up such observatories are to be defined, I believe, by the Member States on the basis of their national practices and the existing legal provisions.
Thank you for allowing me in with this question.
I am also glad Commissioner Bonino is here now to hear her colleague's answer. Can I ask two brief questions?
Firstly, how long will the Commission pursue the recommendations for good conduct, which Commissioner de Silguy has just described, before deciding whether they are effective or not and whether it needs to make mandatory provisions given the time for codecision and the 2002 deadline which means that we have to make some judgement on this well before 2002?
Secondly, on the question of banking charges, what has been the response of the banking community thus far? How does the Commission itself propose to ensure continuity of contracts during the switch over from national currencies to the euro?
I shall be very precise on this point.
The Commission will make its recommendations in around two weeks, around 15 April, I hope.
These recommendations will be sent to the governments, with the hope of being able to include them in the conclusions of the European Council of 2 May, in order to give them a major political impact.
These recommendations will be sent to the various professional organizations, and to the consumers' organisations, with the instruction to work together, and draw up codes of good practice.
In the light of the various problems, we shall then consider what to do.
It is more urgent to look at bank charges, as from 1 January 1999 a certain number of questions will be raised in this respect, which means that we will have to move faster.
For questions of dual pricing, we have a little more time.
We should therefore not determine precise dates.
However, we have fixed the date for a meeting with the banking community in Autumn 1998. This will enable us to make take stock of this banking aspect.
I can tell you that the negotiations and reactions are rather positive since the banking community, prior to the round table of 26 February, had sent a letter to Emma Bonino, which I had a copy of, showing that they were willing to work in this direction.
We are now involved in a process which is fairly encouraging, and which operates on the basis of consultation.
We shall then make an assessment of the results.
As regards the continuity of contracts, all the information at our disposal leads us to believe that the current status of regulations is adequate and satisfactorily meets this legal obligation.
Thank you very much, Mr de Silguy.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now used up the time allocated to Part I of questions to the Commission.
Question No 44 will therefore be dealt with in writing.
Question No 45 by Marialiese Flemming (H-0227/98)
Subject: Transport of animals
In June 1995 the Council adopted Directive 95/29/EC on the protection of animals during transport.
At the same time the Council requested the Commission to employ more Veterinary Inspectors to monitor the implementation of these new rules.
In view of the increased resources available to the Food and Veterinary Office would the Commission say how many inspectors are presently monitoring the transport of animals and what plans are in place to increase the number to the twelve inspectors thought by the Council to be the minimum necessary?
As Mr Flemming knows, today the Food and Veterinary Office has a vast range of responsibilities in monitoring the implementation of Community legislation on veterinary, food and plant health matters.
At present, the Food and Veterinary Office has 46 inspectors.
Some of the resources available for veterinary inspections are already specifically intended for controls relating to monitoring animal welfare, to which the Member is referring.
However, in relative terms, these activities still represent a small proportion of all inspection activities.
The Commission is currently increasing its personnel seconded to the Office to enable all its duties to be conducted.
However, the assignment and training of personnel will inevitably take time.
The Commission is certainly aware of the importance of animal welfare and this aspect will be taken into due consideration when implementing future decisions on the allocation of the resources required by the Office to perform its duties.
We also wish to point out to the Member that the Office is currently introducing a system of establishing the priorities of tasks, and this will ensure that the programmes of tasks can reflect a balanced assessment of the various control and inspection requests made to the Office.
The Commission must say that, at least once, all the Member States have been inspected with regard to animal welfare and these inspections are far from satisfactory.
Unfortunately, the current situation of employees and human resources is such that only two of the 46 inspectors deal with this sector.
The Commission therefore considers that a list of priorities should be drawn up, as is compulsory.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
Sorry, Mrs Flemming, I will let you speak, but Mrs Jensen wants to make a point of order and the Rules of Procedure say that I must give her the floor.
You have one minute, Mrs Jensen.
I was wondering whether the President could see me over here.
I asked to speak because naturally enough I find it extremely dissatisfactory not to have my question answered.
But, on a point of order, what I really want to be sure of is that I will be the recipient of the response.
My name is not Kirsten Jensen.
My name is Lis Jensen.
I would like to appeal to the administration to make this change when sending me the written response.
I cannot blame the administration for this mistake, because half of Denmark is actually called Jensen, but I find it unsatisfactory not to be able to receive a response today, because the actual question of the regulation on restraint of trade is of great interest to us in Denmark, not least in the run-up to the referendum coming up on 28 May.
I find this extremely dissatisfactory and I feel the President is being inflexible here.
Mrs Lis Jensen, I am sorry your question could not be answered but I have no control over the clock.
I am its slave, just like you and the rest of the honourable Members.
As regards your name, I have noted your comment, but I should point out that Parliament's services have already made the correction.
So you can rest assured that if I had allowed anyone to speak it would have been Mrs Lis Jensen.
Mr McMahon, you have the floor on a point of order.
On the same issue, it is not just in getting the honourable Member's name wrong that the administration have boobed, in actual fact the question of restraint of trade is a question for Mr Monti because he is the one who has put the paper before the Commission and he is down for questions, so I do not see why it was tabled in the wrong section.
Secondly, why could you not give permission for it to be answered at the time when Mr Monti answered questions later on?
Mr McMahon, ladies and gentlemen, I would warn you all that spending time on points of order means there is less time left for questions to the Commission.
You have your rights, but it is my duty to remind you of that.
I should also point out to you all that Question Time is governed by rules, and when the clock shows that time is up, the President is obliged to go on to the next section of questions. It is not possible to change what has already been established.
I apologize to Mrs Bonino for our having interrupted her interesting remarks.
I also apologize to Mrs Flemming, but please understand that I am governed by the Rules of Procedure.
You now have the floor for a supplementary question.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I am sure that the two previous speakers have just as much interest in the welfare of animals as I and that their points of order do not portray indifference to the well-being of animals.
Directive 95/29 on the transport of animals lays down rules for the provision of food, water and rest-breaks when transporting different categories of livestock, and these regulations came into force on 1 January 1998.
In addition, all Member States are committed to the setting-up of officially approved stopping places which comply with the requirements of the directive.
The question which I would now like to ask you, Madam Commissioner, is this: can the Commission tell us here and now how many of these stopping places actually exist at this moment in time and whether veterinary inspectors - and I learn to my astonishment that you have 46 of them - are also actually checking that these establishments are being properly run, which is part of their function?
As I said to the honourable Member, every Member State has been inspected at least once and the results are available.
We have discovered that some of the rules in the directive, which was implemented on 1 January 1998, are far from satisfactory.
Problems have been found at the following sites: livestock markets of national importance, border inspection posts, ports where animals are transferred from lorries to vessels, slaughterhouses and so on.
I can provide more details in writing.
I would like to tell the honourable Member that I have two inspectors out of forty-six.
There are emergencies such as BSE and classical swine fever and hygiene deficiencies in meat plants.
There are also legal obligations arising from other directives such as third countries requesting approval for exporting fisheries or for exporting fresh meat to the European Union.
I can make available to Members in writing all the obligations, emergencies, what we have done on animal welfare, what we have found and why the Commission itself is not satisfied with the situation.
I am pleased to note that the Commissioner is not satisfied with the existing situation and I am grateful to her for being so honest and open with Parliament about the unsatisfactory nature of the current situation.
I would like to put one further point to her.
Another role of the veterinary inspectors is to monitor the export of trade of live cattle to third countries under the export refund scheme.
Could the Commissioner say what instructions have been given to the team of inspectors regarding monitoring duties when cattle arrive in third countries? Will any liaison be established with those animal welfare organizations which so far, apparently, are the only ones to have exposed the cruelty of this trade?
It is a serious point and some of the Commission's problems could be helped a little by closer collaboration with animal welfare organizations working in this area who, I am sure, would be only too grateful to assist.
This is an exercise we are trying to conduct in an informal way.
As you can imagine, the Commission can only have official relations with Member States authorities.
On top of that, many third countries - even the groups you are referring to - are not very strong.
So, we are faced with these two problems: firstly, the animal welfare groups are not very strong and, secondly, our formal counterparts are the Member States alone.
Nevertheless, I hope that the organizations dealing with animal welfare in the European Union will forge closer links with their counterparts in third countries so that we can establish another form of contact between the people who have to implement the law.
Mr President, Mrs Bonino, I should like to ask you a question, though admittedly you have answered most of it already: what is the situation in the countries of central and eastern Europe, particularly in Poland, where conditions are still pretty dreadful? Is the Commission engaged in direct negotiations with these countries with a view to achieving a commitment that what they are exporting is treated as we would like to see it treated?
If this process does not work there from the start, then it may well not work for us either.
I have already partly answered the question.
In the larger process of negotiation and enlargement due to the acquis communautaire , evidently this rule will be taken care of.
Of course, it is a long way ahead, so we need to find a quicker way of ensuring that the directive is implemented.
Question No 46 by Robin Teverson (H-0281/98)
Subject: MAGP IV: Beam trawler length
The Commission has allowed the Dutch MAGP IV implementation plan some credit for complying with a change to the Dutch national regulations.
A 1986 rule required that the maximum aggregate length of beams should be reduced.
Priority under MAGP IV is for those Member States, like the Dutch, who failed to meet MAGP III targets, to remove the overhang from the previous programme by the end of 1998 and allowance for this change to the rules would make a significant contribution to the Dutch MAGP position.
Does this mean that the Commission believes that technical conservation measures should be allowed to contribute to MAGP IV compliance, and have other Member States' fleets been similarly credited for national conservation measures?
This is a very technical question but I think it has a political more than a technical meaning.
I think Mr Teverson wanted to know if technical measures have to be counted in the MAGP.
I must be very clear.
A reduction in beam lengths reduces efficiency rather than increasing selectivity, and, as such, would not be considered as a technical measure.
I can confirm that technical measures cannot be taken into account for the achievement of the MAGP IV objectives, as their effects on fishing efforts are considered to be additional to those of the MAGP.
No credit was given in terms of capacity for the reduction in beam length in the Dutch fleet.
It was accepted that the reduction in beam length resulted in a decrease in the efficiency of the vessel.
But it was noted that there was an increase in activity during the previous MAGPs, which compensated for any reduction in efficiency.
I hope that is clear.
Since this compensatory effect was recognized and calculated, account was taken of the reduction in beam length by reassessing the appropriate base-line level of activity for the MAGP for this part of the Dutch fishing fleet.
There was then no net increase in the fishing efforts base line for MAGP IV. No Member State has therefore benefited from national compensation measures in the context of MAGPs.
We understand that it decreased efficiency but they increased their activities, so the result was equal.
For this reason, there was no compensation, and the technical measures cannot be taken into account for the calculation of MAGPs.
I thank the Commissioner for that reply and although, as she says, it is a technical subject, it is more a question of the interpretation of how we fulfil MAGP requirements.
I take it from that - although not necessarily agree with the point - that when technical measures mean selectivity they cannot be used towards MAGP targets.
That is understood.
However, from her reply it seems that somehow, even if it is a counter-compensation, measures that might be technical in nature, though not technical measures that reduce efficiency, could and therefore do have an effect on effort, and would actually then be seen as contributing towards MAGP targets.
That seems to me what actually happened.
The Commissioner mentioned that there was a trade-off in the Dutch fleet on beam length which was used as a compensation against increase in effort, which is within the MAGP target.
That seems to suggest to me that we can use decrease in efficiency methods or physical methods to actually achieve MAGP targets.
Is that true?
Maybe I was not clear.
I must confirm that there are only three elements to calculate MAGP which have to reduce overcapacity as a first target.
The three elements that are taken into account are activity, tonnage and power.
The special case that you are referring to, because it was compensated was not in fact taken into account.
They have to reduce the activity, in any case. This is the result of what I am saying.
They reduced the length of the beam but they increased their activity. For us it was a non-starter.
Our request is that they reduce their activities.
Is that clear now? Technical measures are additional but cannot be included in the calculation of MAGP IV.
At the meetings held recently between the Commission and the Argentinean authorities, both before and after the adoption of the new fisheries law in that country, the Commission raised the points mentioned in the Member's query as points of great concern.
The Commission also expressed its concern that several provisions of the new law, particularly those relating to the measures the Argentinean authorities can take with regard to transzonal stocks in the sector adjoining the economic area, are contrary to international law, and the Commission pointed out that, in particular, they are contrary to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
According to the Commission, conservation measures applicable to international waters, such as those provided for by the new law, can only be taken within the scope of regional or international organizations.
The new Argentinean law on fisheries, as the Member knows, is now being considered by the Council, but at the same time the Commission has received the mandate to negotiate the creation of a regional conference or a regional area for the South Atlantic, if necessary, because the type of conservation measure proposed cannot be applied unilaterally.
This is the Commission's formal interpretation of the UN Convention.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for her answer but I would like to ask a couple of specific questions.
This question of the fisheries law is related to the notorious law on baselines for maritime zones, which gave rise to protest in its day.
As you know, that law contravenes the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
A few months ago Argentina made an amendment, and I would like to know whether or not that amendment is in accordance with the UN Convention.
My second question refers to something you mentioned: the famous South Atlantic Fisheries Organization. Mr Provan is here, and he produced a report on this subject some time ago.
I would like to know what stage that project is at, and what Argentina's position is. I understand that since the fisheries law that country has displayed opposition to this international organization, the so-called SAFO.
With regard to defining the borders of the area, the Commission is studying the first documents forwarded by Argentina on the establishment of those borders.
It remains understood, however, that any amendment, accepted by the Commission or otherwise, should be communicated to the United Nations, which, in the cases, or at least in one case we are aware of, was not applied.
So in answer to the first question, I can say that the Commission is studying the new definition of borders and may in the short term say whether the definition is consistent or not.
With regard to the second question, the Council has just given us the mandate to negotiate and we are exploring Argentina's true intentions to determine how the new fisheries law could fall under the terms of this new mandate.
Finally, I have to say that we have worked towards this negotiating mandate for a whole year, because the idea goes back to August 1995.
I think the time has come to confirm the actual availability and the actual willingness of the Argentinean authorities.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Fraga Estévez' question marks the end of the time allotted to this block of questions, so Questions Nos 48 to 52 will be dealt with in writing.
Ladies and gentlemen, you often cannot help expressing your feelings but, as I said earlier, the clock is in charge here, not me.
Question No 53 by Jens-Peter Bonde, which has been taken over by Mrs Lis Jensen (H-0276/98)
Subject: National compliance with social directives
Will the Commission guarantee that the Member States may comply with directives in the social field by transposing them as collective agreements, even where trade union representation is below 50 %?
Article 2(4) of the agreement on social policy provides that a Member State may entrust management and labour, at their joint request, with the implementation of directives adopted under the agreement.
In such a case the Member State must ensure that no later than the date on which the directive must be transposed in accordance with Article 189 of the Treaty, management and labour have introduced the necessary measures by agreement.
This is done in accordance with national law and practice, with the Member State concerned being required to take any necessary measures enabling it at any time to be in a position to guarantee the results imposed by the directive.
This provision is similar to those already incorporated into several directives in the social field and, furthermore, this principle was already acknowledged in the case law of the European Court of Justice prior to the adoption of the social protocol to the Treaty.
As a positive example of how the social partners have been associated with the implementation of directives, I would like to refer the honourable Member of Parliament to the agreement on the implementation measures concluded between the social partners' organizations in Denmark.
I would like to ask Commissioner Flynn a slightly more specific question, if he would kindly expand on the response he has already given.
A survey carried out by the School of Economics and Business Administration in Denmark shows that 50-60 % of employees in the private sector labour market have collective agreements.
The question applies equally to conditions for those in a situation where no collective agreement has been drawn up between the parties to the labour market.
How can implementation be assured for this remaining segment?
Unfortunately, the answer is not quite straightforward.
According to the notification we have received in a specific instance in so far as the Danish authorities are concerned, the working time directive has been implemented by a combination of both statutory provisions and collective agreements.
The services of the Commission are currently undertaking an examination of the implementation measures in the light of the detailed implementation of the directive under both headings.
So we are talking about a global implementation report.
We cannot do that just yet because six Member States have yet to notify us of the implementation measures.
As soon as they do so the Commission will be able to proceed.
The matter is delayed for that reason.
Thank you for the information.
The working time directive is precisely what the question is aimed at since, as the Commissioner points out, the situation is such that the Danish government has announced that a relatively large segment of private sector employees are not covered by any agreement and, thus, the working time directive is not in effect for approximately 40 % of private sector employees in the Danish labour market.
The Commission has been informed of this, and although what the Commissioner states is obviously correct about no notification yet having been received from a number of other countries, it should nonetheless be possible for the Commission to take a stance on the issue and confirm that this level of implementation is not acceptable.
These questions are of enormous fundamental importance in Denmark, where many of us believe conditions in the labour market should be regulated by means of collective agreements, but on the other hand we do not believe that the current level of implementation can be considered adequate when the Danish government has announced that approximately 40 % of private sector employees are not included in any agreement whatsoever and are therefore simply not covered.
I would like the Commissioner to confirm that this level of implementation is inadequate.
I think it must be underlined that different directives sometimes have different aims.
That being said, some of them fall within the sole competence of the social partners, while others are regulating issues and would be the exclusive competence of public authorities.
In other words you have to be quite careful how you analyse the context of the particular directive that is involved.
We cannot take a decision until we have all the information available as to implementation.
Unfortunately we do not have it yet, but I would like to think that if the Member States comply with what we seek from them and we get the information, we will have the implementing report early next year, at which time we will be able to give you a complete answer to the basic point you have raised.
Thank you very much, Mr Flynn.
As the author is not present, Question No 54 lapses.
Question No 55 by Brian Simpson (H-0296/98)
Subject: "Star' Alliance
Does the current "Star' Alliance within the aviation sector fall within the scope of the European Works Council Directives?
If so, what action does the Commission intend to take? If not, why not?
The 'Star' Alliance is essentially a marketing arrangement whereby the members of the alliance have agreed to promote the services of their alliance partners through code-sharing deals.
Code-sharing enables an airline to market seats on a flight operated by the partner airline.
The alliance does not involve any exchange of ownership or control between the members of the alliance. They continue to act as independent companies.
The alliance therefore falls outside of the scope of the Works Council Directive.
Some or all of the companies which are members of this alliance may themselves fall under the scope of the European Works Council Directive if they meet the relevant requirements.
If this is the case, it is up to the individual company and its employees to develop the information and consultation mechanisms provided for them therein.
The Commission has neither the power nor the wish to interfere in the way that the concerned parties define these mechanisms or apply them to particular situations within the context of the Works Council Directive.
As a supplementary, I should like to ask the Commissioner if he is saying that, basically, if this 'Star' Alliance starts to diminish the working conditions and contracts within that particular alliance the Commission will not act? I am particularly concerned about those members of the 'Star' Alliance from the Far East who seem to have lower conditions of pay and service compared to their partners in the EU.
At this stage, the 'Star' Alliance comprises only the pooling of the frequent-flyer programmes - you probably know that - i.e. common use of some lounges, check-in facilities and a better scheduling coordination.
The agreement is not binding and, in any case, it does not fall under Regulation 397/87 which applies to international transport outside the EU.
If the matter changes, perhaps you might wish to come back to the question at a later date.
Thank you very much, Mr Flynn.
As the author is not present, Question No 56 lapses.
Question No 57 by Bernd Posselt (H-0319/98)
Subject: Strengthening the family
In the light of the EU's latest demographic report and the alarming facts it contains, how does the Commission propose to strengthen the family as the basis of all effective social policy, and does it feel adequately supported in these endeavours by the Council and the Member States?
The Commission is aware of current demographic trends and what they indicate about changes in family structures.
However, the European Commission has a limited competence in the area of policies on the family.
Our actions are based on the conclusions of the Council of Ministers responsible for family matters that took place in September 1989.
Since then the Commission has been active in promoting exchanges of information on family matters, monitoring measures taken for families in the Member States and financially supporting the promotion of family-friendly initiatives.
The exchange of information between the Member States is done through a group of national senior officials responsible for family matters, meeting several times a year at the Commission's invitation.
The next meeting will take place on 16 and 17 April.
The monitoring of measures for families in the Member States is conducted by the European Observatory on National Family Policies that the Commission set up in 1989.
A European network on family at work established by the Commission in 1994 has also been engaged in promoting family-friendly employment policies.
Innovative projects, studies and networks in relation to family-friendly policies have received support from the Structural Funds, mainly under the NOW initiative and from the action programmes on equal opportunities.
In the field of employment policy, all Member States have recognized the need for a substantially increased participation by women in the labour market and the 1998 employment guidelines state that Member States should translate their decision to promote equality of opportunity into increased employment rates for women.
At the same time it is explicitly recognized that this must be accompanied by family-friendly policies for reconciling work and family life and policies facilitating the return to paid work after an absence.
I would like to refer to the 1992 directive on pregnant workers, the 1996 directive on parental leave and the 1997 directive on part-time work in particular. They are the main elements of the legal framework at European level which reconciles family and working life.
Parliament has been particularly supportive in its upholding of budget line B3-4108, that is measures in favour of family and children.
Although it is quite modest, the budget line enables the Commission to cofinance the promotion of familyfriendly practices and measures as well as comparative studies between the Member States.
Within the budget line's remit, the Commission performs demographic research analysis such as the demographic report which allows us to link demographic evolution and changing family patterns.
Finally, the Commission's intention is to continue the analysis of demographic trends and deepen the debate on their implications.
We are going to have a major European symposium on demographic change under the Austrian presidency. We will do that in the latter part of the year.
Mr Commissioner, thank you for your detailed answer.
I should just like to put two short questions to you.
You spoke primarily of working women.
I just wanted to ask if there were any studies or programmes - though particularly studies - which relate to the financial support of women or men, though it will mainly be the women who decide to devote themselves to raising children? My second question is this: are there any studies or programmes which deal with the provision of old-age pensions for this particular group?
Briefly, some work has been done on that matter. Mostly it is done by national authorities but there is a certain element of coordination between what they do and what we are doing at Commission level.
Perhaps there is a need to go a little further in establishing the points you have made.
Thank you very much, Mr Flynn.
Mr Posselt's question rounds off the time allocated to this series of questions.
Questions Nos 58 to 62 will therefore be dealt with in writing.
Question No 63 by Mark Watts (H-0033/98)
Subject: Proposed abolition of duty-free concessions in 1999
Is the Commission aware that the proposed abolition of duty-free sales in 1999 is estimated to result in the loss of 9 000 jobs in Kent in the United Kingdom, and a total loss of 140 000 jobs across the EU?
In the light of these independent forecasts, will it at least agree to a full study being carried out urgently to examine the social and economic impact that ending duty-free would cause? Could it also elaborate on its proposals to cushion the impact of abolition?
In recent months, I have set out the Commission's position on duty-free sales within the Community on numerous occasions.
In particular, I was able to explain this position at the public hearing held on 27 October 1997 and at the sitting in November 1997.
Today, I am taking the opportunity given to me by Mr Watts to confirm that the position has not changed.
The deadline agreed back in 1991 by the Council for all those involved in the duty-free sales sector to adapt to the requirements of the single market was an exceptional measure.
This unanimous decision took financial concerns into account, which certain Members had expressed at the time.
As things stand, the Commission has also stated very clearly that it has no intention of undertaking a study into the social and economic consequences the expiry of the transitional regulations agreed by the Council could entail, thereby establishing the definitive nature of its decision.
I thank the Commissioner for his answer, but unfortunately he did not address the particular point regarding the proposals to ameliorate the impact of abolition which he put to the public hearing that he earlier referred to earlier.
Perhaps he could answer that particular point.
Secondly, as regards preparing for abolition, perhaps he could come to my constituency, speak to the company P&O Stena and suggest which particular members of staff they lay off and which ships they suspend from service.
That would be particularly helpful.
Thirdly, on the study, would Mr Monti confirm that, if ECOFIN vote for a study in May, as is possible and I think likely, he will enthusiastically implement that decision.
If I can start with the last point, I have every reason to expect that the ECOFIN Council will not ask for the Commission to conduct a study.
As a matter of fact, the issue did come up at the ECOFIN Council on two occasions, in November 1996 and again in March 1998, and as the President-in-Office of the ECOFIN Council, Mr Gordon Brown, said publicly on a recent occasion, there is no evidence of an emerging consensus within ECOFIN for any reconsideration of the decision taken unanimously in 1991.
In relation to the other two points, I can say that if we compare the solution and the problems sometimes aired by the categories concerned to the solutions provided for other professions affected by internal market legislation, customs freight forwarders, for example, did receive funds for reconversion of about ECU 30 million.
A seven year period allowing for an annual turnover of about ECU 6.5 billion does not appear, if I may say so, to be disadvantageous treatment.
Finally, I have repeatedly stated that, while the Commission is certainly not prepared to propose to the Council that the 1991 decision should be reconsidered, if there were to be proven and specific problems in certain regions or on certain transportation routes connected with the abolition of duty-free, then it will be possible for Member States, in a transparent way, to consider forms of state aid, which would of course have to be proposed by the Member States and in line with Community norms.
Thank you very much, Mr Monti.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 7.00 p.m., the time at which Question Time was supposed to finish. However, in view of the fact that we lost several minutes on points of order, I have asked Parliament's services if they would be kind enough to allow us to extend Question Time by ten minutes.
So we will finish at 7.10 p.m..
Mr Monti, I have two supplementary questions on the question we have just heard.
The first is from Mr Corbett, who may speak for one minute.
Does the Commissioner agree that a study might be useful for a purpose other than that for which many have been asking it for, namely, to reassure the public that some of the wilder claims of job losses that will result from the loss of dutyfree are in fact perhaps an exaggeration? A study would certainly help to clarify that.
A study might also identity the areas of specific problems that the Commissioner mentioned in his answer to the previous question.
Whereas I agree with him entirely that it is very unlikely that the Council, even if the Commission put forward such a proposal, would wish to reverse a decision taken many years ago and introduce a further tax break for the alcohol and tobacco industries - a tax break that is conditional on it being sold to international travellers, which seems preposterous - nonetheless a study would be a useful weapon in furthering this debate.
A study would be counterproductive.
I believe this very sincerely because it might well give false expectations and delay further the adjustments that might well be needed.
In fact, a very long period was given for adjustments, and it would be rather paradoxical and counterproductive if, when less than 15 months are left to the date of expiry of duty-free on intra-Eu travel, we were to engage in a study.
It is for Member States to indicate to the Commission whether they consider, on the basis of studies or any other elements that they might have available, that there is a need for a specific intervention.
Finally, it does not take a study to understand what is increasingly being perceived by public opinion, namely that duty-free is, in fact, a hidden, regressive subsidy, favouring the consumption of alcohol and tobacco to a large extent.
It is hidden because it is passed on to the general taxpayer, who is hardly aware that he is subsidizing duty-free consumption by others. It is regressive because the ordinary taxpayer is normally less well-off than those benefiting from duty-free purchases; and, to a large extent, it sustains artificially and in a non-transparent manner the consumption of alcohol and tobacco.
In view of his last answer, would the Commissioner close down the duty-free shop in the Commission for Commission staff such as himself?
Seriously though, my question is: what confidence will European citizens have in the Commission, given that Commissioner Scrivener promised away back in 1991 to carry out a study? As the Commission has reneged on its promise, what confidence is this going to give the European Union in the Commission's honesty, integrity and determination to listen to elected representatives of the European population?
I understand Mr McMahon's question but I would submit to you that the Commission and the Council, following the Commission proposal in 1991, gave much more than a study. It gave a more than seven-year adjustment period, something particularly long in terms of any adjustment.
I hardly dare touch on the subject of the confidence of European citizens in the Commission but I am sure that European citizens would hardly increase their confidence in a Commission that was to propose the continuation of a sort of hidden regressive subsidy at the expense of the general taxpayers in Europe going to a large extent into subsidizing forms of consumption that Community policies, if anything, tend to discourage.
Question No 64 by Bernie Malone (H-0228/98)
Subject: Abolition of duty-free sales in 1999
Mr Michel Vanden Abeele, the Director-General of DG XXI recently commented, in a letter to one of my constituents, that the Commission's policy of liberalization within the single market had promoted the increased competition that low cost carriers bring to the market.
An independent study by Symonds Travers Morgan has revealed that the abolition of tax- and duty-free sales will damage an otherwise healthy single market in air transport, causing a 20 % reduction in the number of routes that could otherwise expect the entry of low cost airlines by 2003, a reduction of 5 million in expected passenger levels, as well as massive job losses.
How can the Commission reconcile its professed concern for the competitive participation of low cost carriers within the single market at the same time as it presses forward with legislation which will obviously cripple these carriers, costing approximately 3000 jobs?
The expansion of the air transport sector has certainly favoured the development of cut-price flights and, like all others, these flights will feel the effects of the abolition of the duty-free concessions as from 1 July 1999.
In any case, the tax benefit deriving from these sales is relatively small if it is compared with other data.
One aspect that should be pointed out, in fact, is that air passenger transport has seen an increase of around 7 % and this increase certainly cannot be attributed to duty-free sales, but to other causes such as the liberalization of air transport as from 1 April 1997.
It is therefore presumed that this increase in passenger transport will continue and may give rise to broad compensation after the abolition of duty-free sales.
In other words, we want to have and we have got the benefits of the creation of a single market and, in this case, that of air transport, and it is difficult to try and gain the benefits of the single market and maintain archaic structures, which are totally incompatible with the single market, as are duty-free sales.
We also need to bear in mind that, at the moment, air transport benefits from an extremely favourable tax system, in terms of which the duty-free benefits are marginal.
In fact, total VAT exemption applies to all aircraft and the relevant equipment and intra-Community passenger transport is not yet taxed; moreover, supplies on board are currently tax-free and, unlike other means of transport, aircraft fuel and kerosene are not subject to either VAT or excise.
To conclude on this point, the Commission is aware of the fact that air transport is the means of transport which is growing fastest, and in which duty-free sales play a very marginal role.
Any restructuring of the sector should therefore be considered within the framework of the strategies for achieving ever greater efficiency and profits and not just as a result of duty-free sales.
I accused the Commissioner of being obstinate and arrogant at the public hearing which Parliament held.
Today, I have to tell you, Commissioner, that I find you are totally out of touch with people.
In your answer to me you say that the fiscal advantage to the air traveller will be very small.
A study that was carried out in Ireland just recently and published yesterday by SIPTU, a trade union organization, and by IBEC, representing business interests, shows quite clearly that between £15 and £17 will be added on to the cost of an airline ticket for the average traveller. To an ordinary person that is a lot of money.
In the same letter I received from my constituent, your office said that there are a range of measures that the Commission has at its disposal to deal with any threat to employment.
Could you please define these measures, provide an estimate of the total cost of them, specify how they could be applied and outline the criteria for the allocation of these yet undefined measures? After what Mary O'Rourke our Transport Minister has achieved in the Transport Council, you should be more optimistic about the outcome of the Ecofin meeting.
With the pressure on the various Member States from ordinary citizens, the Commission will just have to concede that a study will have to be done in this case.
I wish to thank Mrs Malone for her supplementary question.
I am not sure that the Commission is out of touch with the population.
Of course it holds a view that is different from that maintained by the duty-free lobbies but there are, of course, numerous positions taken recently by - may I say - broader representative institutions and the last one I have here is that of
COFACE, the Confederation of Family Organizations in the European Communities, notes that the current system is of virtually no interest for consumers.
Only a small percentage of consumers have the possibility of regularly buying from duty-free stores.
Furthermore, with the exception possibly of tobacco products, the advantages in price terms are often only apparent, as the competitive advantages of exemption are not always passed on to the final consumer.
(EN) And to the extent that the present duty-free system contains an element of subsidy that enables transport fares to be lower than they would be otherwise, that is the best proof that the present duty-free system implies a subsidy which is hidden and regressive, as I hinted.
In the case of transportation, as my colleague, Commissioner Kinnock, recently stated in response to one of the many letters on this point, no Member State subsidy in the form of continued tax-free sales would be possible.
He went on to say that Community rules provide Member States with the means to pursue legitimate public service goals in cases where no commercial operator will be able to meet these goals without public assistance.
This was the case in the Community guidelines on state aid to maritime transport. I believe this would also be valid for other forms of transportation.
Finally, I stress that the Commission is certainly not insensitive to problems that might materialize from the abolition of duty-free on intra-EU travel, but it will insist that the appropriate instruments be used to tackle any such problems without re-opening an issue which, as I have stressed several times, simply implies having ordinary citizens bear the burden.
Commissioner, it appears that you have set your face against the retention of duty-free sales.
It is interesting that in Brussels airport, at the moment, they are constructing a totally new duty-free shop in the middle of the airport.
I wonder why?
Respecting your request, I understand that the Commission is undertaking a report on commercial and retail activities in US airports. I find it very difficult to understand when the Commission has consistently refused to undertake a similar assessment of EU airports.
Will you therefore make available to us the study done about the US airports?
I am picking up Mr Cushnahan's question here because, unfortunately, he had to leave. I would be grateful if I could have an answer to this supplementary.
There is no such study.
The Commission is looking at the situation in Europe and elsewhere.
We are interested in the shopping malls at US airports although there is of course no duty-free on domestic flights in the US.
We can look at those without any particular studies because they do open up encouraging possibilities for the former duty-free industry in Europe.
Although there will no longer be a duty- and tax-free system there will be captive customers around the airports and on other means of transportation and therefore a substantial demand.
Research by consumer organisations has confirmed that the duty-free prices for many goods are no more advantageous than in other shops.
There is a large captive market, even apart from the duty-free element and it is there to stay.
I have no particular axe to grind. I have nothing against duty-free but I have a duty to implement the single market.
When we are working hard, with the support of this Parliament, to try and eliminate tax havens around Europe and promote employment, it would be illogical for me to crusade against tax havens and at the same time propose -or even consider - the continuation of localised tax havens connected with particular forms of transportation within the single market.
Thank you very much, Mr Monti.
Since the time allocated to questions to the Commission has now expired, Questions Nos 65 to 106 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
Mrs Hardstaff wishes to speak on a point of order.
I would ask you if you could look into the procedure by which the questions are put into the order they are on the order paper.
For example, every question in the first part of this session was tabled after my own question, which is being dealt with much later.
This is even allowing for the fact that it was actually tabled at the beginning of February and got lost.
The same is true of Council questions: at least nine questions which were tabled after my question are ahead of it.
I think there is quite a lot of resentment among Members on this issue and I would ask that this be sorted out, so that questions appear in the order in which they are submitted and there is some fairness.
Thank you very much indeed.
Mrs Hardstaff, I will make sure your comment is taken into consideration.
However, I can tell you now that the first five questions are chosen by the President of Parliament, with priority being given to those considered to be most important.
In other words, the choice is of a discretional nature. The remaining questions should follow in order, as long as they relate to the specific Commissioners due to attend Question Time.
In any case, Mrs Hardstaff, I will give your comment some thought and let you know in due course.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.22 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Shipbuilding (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the report (A4-0101/98) by Mr Sindal, on aid to shipbuilding and a new policy on shipbuilding.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after 9.00 p.m. in the evening, I am almost inclined to greet everybody individually.
I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and have no wish to conceal the fact that I am, of course, also a Member who comes from East Germany. I still remember with gratitude the vote in this Parliament and the proposals by the Commission aimed at rectifying the problems neglected by the East German shipyards and in this respect I shall express myself in very moderate terms about the proposal.
I think the Commission's proposal is very good.
We live in an age when we must consider whether industrial policy can be ruled by means of subsidies alone.
Nevertheless, I have also made it known to my group that I - and subsequent speakers will no doubt go into this - have my difficulties with some of the amendments tabled by Parliament and the committee.
Basically it has to be said that productivity in the European shipyards has increased in recent years.
Of course it must also be pointed out that this was often due to numerous closures, lay-offs and reductions in capacity.
Unfortunately the OECD agreement was neither signed nor ratified, and I have the impression that some Member States are not angry about it at all.
In view of the crisis in Asia and the devaluation of the currencies there, the shipbuilding industry will come under increased pressure.
This has to be withstood and the Commission has submitted proposals which reduce the extent and amount of subsidies, albeit a moderate reduction.
To that extent, this is a reaction to the progress sought in productivity.
I have difficulties with some of the amendments tabled.
I am specifically concerned that in so-called Objective 1 regions, the local shipyards should not be disadvantaged in comparison with other industrial sectors in the Objective 1 regions.
We are strenuously pursuing this matter.
It is not an honour for any Objective 1 region to be labelled as underdeveloped, but more help and some regulations are still needed in order to extricate ourselves from this situation.
In this respect, I consider the proposal which has been submitted to be a good one.
All Members should examine critically the amendments tabled by the committees and other Members.
I nevertheless request that some consideration be given to the fact that our East German shipbuilding industry still has difficulties, and my colleague, García Arias, will certainly also bring up the subject of Spanish industry.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we still share your hope, Commissioner, that the OECD agreement of 1994 will still come into force.
We also appeal to the Commission and to the Member States to try again to exert pressure on the USA, so that this agreement is ratified.
Even if we succeed in this we have a further difficulty.
We really must insist that the new shipbuilding nations, such as the People's Republic of China and Poland, endorse the OECD agreement, as it is no use having only some of the countries sign up to the OECD agreement, whilst the People's Republic of China and Poland continue with their own shipbuilding policies.
We must probably now say, however, that the prospects for the OECD agreement coming into force are very slim and it is somewhat questionable whether the new shipbuilding nations will sign up to comparable regulations.
We therefore need, as the Commission proposes, a new shipbuilding policy.
But it is very important to have a shipbuilding policy which is both inward and outward looking.
I myself come from a shipbuilding city.
It is the very last time, as the Commission says, that there will be a special five-year arrangement for shipbuilding.
After that, the shipbuilding industry can no longer say "another five years and another five years' ; that cannot go on indefinitely.
It is right to propose one more special arrangement now.
We also share the view that order-related subsidies should be abolished by 31 December 2000, even if some amendments tabled in this House still seek to shake our conviction through more and more new studies.
We know what the situation is, Commissioner; we do not need any more studies.
If we look at the shipbuilding programme, there are still subsidies for lay-offs and restructuring, for innovation and environmental protection; that is enough subsidies to apply over five years. And, I should like to say to the previous speaker, you in Mecklenburg really have no need to complain at all that your subsidies are too low.
I say to you and also to my Spanish colleagues, and I mean it very seriously: it is time for change.
Therefore, we also support the original proposal from Mr Sindal - and I hope Niels can listen and will not be diverted by the women again.
So, Niels, listen! Commissioner, we in the Christian-Democratic Group support his proposal to delete paragraph 7.
There must no longer be a loophole for additional subsidies, because it is so difficult in the regions.
It is a sector-orientated policy which we are deciding upon and there can be no new distortion of competition within the European Community.
We regard that as very important, and I hope that tomorrow there will be a majority in this House for it.
Commissioner, I believe we need a clear external shipbuilding policy, because unfortunately there is no guarantee that the other countries will end their subsidies.
At present we are in agreement, and I hope the Commissioner will say something to us on this matter. The whole House is of the opinion that, if the European Member States now help the Asian countries in overcoming their financial crisis, those countries must not be allowed to abuse this in order to create advantages for their shipyards over ours, by ridding themselves of their shipyard debts and through other protectionist measures, especially when it is our taxpayers' contributions which are helping them to overcome their financial crisis.
We cannot allow that.
We must, however, also consider - and Commissioner, I should be very interested to hear your view on this subject - whether we might use the WTO or the instruments of the Union's trade policy to bolster our own position slightly, and add to our ammunition. We cannot indefinitely allow the unfair competition practices of other states to put our shipyards out of business.
I believe - in fact I insist, Mr President - that in this area of the Union's foreign policy we need a new concept, and I hope that the Commissioner will say something to us on this matter.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to reflect on a few points.
After the difficult situation and painful reorganization of the 1970s, today I have the impression that we believe that the European shipbuilding industry, which today accounts for 21 % of world employment, is, at first sight, well positioned in the world.
In reality, in my opinion, the situation is not as bright as we might think, which is clear to those living in shipbuilding cities.
The European shipbuilding industry is experiencing a revival with a great increase in demand and has at least a couple of years' work ahead. However, if we in fact analyse the actual information on the sector and the medium-term projections, we realize that the sector is characterized by surplus supply and by surplus production capacity, owing in particular to the irresponsible doubling of plant engineering capacity in the last four or five years by the Koreans.
This has happened to such an extent that today Korea alone is able to produce more ships than all the European shipyards put together.
The fact that supply exceeds demand is shown indisputably by the fact that the prices of the new constructions have fallen or, when things are going well, stagnated in all sectors.
In current dollars, a new ship today fetches the same price as it did seven or eight years ago.
Along with this worrying situation of structural imbalance, there is the currency storm that has affected many Asian countries, particularly South Korea.
The 50 % devaluation of the Korean won has led to a situation that risks having particularly serious consequences for the Community shipyards and for employment in Europe.
In fact, it has been calculated that the Koreans could reduce the prices of their ships to 30 %, with their current internal margins remaining unchanged.
In this context, I believe it essential for the EU to apply a policy that enables the European shipbuilding industry, which is appreciated throughout the world for its high technological content, to be able to compete with the same weapons with the industries of the other countries in a system of transparent and balanced competition with the same rules for everyone and without any distorting intervention by the states.
Consequently, before the OECD agreement comes into force, before deciding to end the aid, the Commission should check the state and prospects of the sector in 1999, taking appropriate measures, if necessary, to protect the sector so that the European shipbuilding industry can face up to the threats that could undermine its survival.
To conclude, the loan granted to Korea by the IMF should be negotiated with the condition that Korea undertakes to limit its ship production and operate within a system of fair and transparent competition.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are debating shipbuilding policy. This is a real hot potato, because everyone has an opinion on it.
It is almost as bad as agricultural policy. If you get five farmers in a room, there will be seven different opinions.
I think it is important to realize that we must strive towards the adoption of an OECD agreement.
I am also aware that we in Europe are working hard to achieve this.
Until such times as it has been adopted, I welcome the Commission's proposal to establish some ground-rules for a transition period in the run-up to the OECD agreement.
We must remember that state aid to shipbuilding is an exception, and we must ensure that we allow the minimum acceptable level of aid, just enough to put our shipyards on an even playing field with shipyards outside Europe.
That is the balance we must strive to achieve.
Thus, we have to examine the Commission's proposal to see whether it fulfils this, and it does.
I am in agreement with the Commission on many points.
What really matters to the Liberal group is point 1, namely the need for monitoring to ensure that the rules are adhered to.
That is of the utmost importance.
Point 2 basically outlines the need for transparency with regard to where aid is being given, and reference could once again be made to the report we debated this afternoon - the Berès report - when we also touched on the question of transparency.
That is an extremely important aspect of state aid.
A third aspect is also crucial to the Liberal group and that is the question of combining the various types of aid, which actually results in a very high ceiling for support.
I am concerned about the need to prevent shipyards from gaining aid through regional areas.
Thus, I would very much like us to support Amendment No 29 in order to avoid unfair competition within Europe so that shipyards will not in future be located only in areas that are eligible for regional aid.
Mr President, the Commission's new policy on shipyards is not in fact all that new.
It operates within a framework we are already familiar with, and which has had dramatic impacts on Europe's ship repairing industry.
The Commission proposes to place yet more restrictions on the production capacity of European shipyards, with the consequent loss of still more jobs, the complete abolition of operating aid in 2000, but allowing aid to be given for closures and to facilitate the further concentration of production in the few, powerful shipyards that are left.
All this is proposed while ignoring the fact that demand in coming years is forecast to be high and that the European Union's international competitors are continually increasing their production capacity and adopting support measures.
For countries like Greece, such a policy means abandoning and selling off a strategically important branch which has already sustained irreparable damage with incalculable consequences for the fabric of society and for the country's economy.
The European Union has learned nothing, either from the dramatic consequences of its policy or from the stance of the United States, which reserve for themselves the right to use only ships built in the USA for internal schedules.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur too is proposing that aid should be restricted still further, competition should be intensified to extreme levels, and essentially, that shipyards should continue to wither away.
Ultimately, what do competition and the existence of a shipyard industry and jobs mean for us?
We cannot accept these proposals, whose implementation would complete the destruction that began long ago. On the contrary, we call on the Commission to adopt measures to support the European industry, if necessary even ignoring the OECD agreement, so that shipyards can survive the annihilating and unfair competition from third countries.
We ask it to undertake specific initiatives at international level for the adoption of measures which will compel renewal of the ageing fleet - an essential prerequisite for improving shipping safety and bringing recovery to the shipyards - and to have ships checked by the state in which the port is located. It should also ban the entry of low-specification vessels into its ports as a way to bring about their withdrawal, and tackle the problems of taxation and social dumping in the field.
Mr President, we realize that these subsidies are necessary to create a level playing field on the world market.
They can, however, only be accepted if such aid is also transparent.
For this purpose the Commission must, in our view, procure its own right of verification.
It can be seen that there is worldwide over-capacity in the shipbuilding industry and it would therefore be absurd to further subsidise these existing capacities.
It would be much more sensible to subsidise innovative projects in this field, to give more intensive support to research and development and in this way to create an opportunity for genuine future markets in shipbuilding.
I should like to give an example from a very poor region in Sachsen-Anhalt, where a small shipyard, Roszlau on Elbe, had no chance of further contracts.
It initiated a crucial innovation, namely the building of flat-bottomed boats, which do not require rivers to be widened for their use.
The environment creates jobs - that is all I can say - and in this case it succeeded!
We are talking about a new market which is urgently needed throughout Europe, which needs to be provided for, which will also be of global interest and which, at the same time, can secure jobs which had already been written off.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what is the context in which we are considering the Sindal Report?
As has been emphasized by our colleague André Sainjon in his opinion, the OECD agreement whose aim was to eliminate direct aid to shipbuilding was stillborn.
In effect, it had to be so, as the United States Congress did not ratify it. This was only to be expected, as the American authorities have no reluctance whatsoever in subsidising their own shipyards.
At the same time, South Korea, which is going through the economic turbulence that we all know about, is preparing for a future as an even more formidable competitor.
The 'Challenges' newspaper this month emphasizes however that the financial crisis is temporary.
The country should soon return to normal, thanks to IMF funds.
The shipyards will work hard to catch up on lost time, and their sales people will once again be going around the globe to put spokes in the wheels of the Japanese and Europeans.
This is the context in which the Commission is apparently persisting stubbornly in doing away with direct aid in Europe, and strangely enough is sticking to the line which was defended at the time of negotiations on the OECD agreement, although these negotiations foundered.
The position is all the more astonishing since the aid from the IMF, in the final analysis, does in fact boil down to a subsidy paid by Japan, the United States and Europe to begin a high risk economic policy.
We therefore completely agree with the general comments made by André Sainjon and the amendments proposed by the Commission on External Economic Relations.
We believe indeed that it is extremely dangerous to commit to a date to end aid to orders, without prior analysis of the market situation and of whether or not there are non-competitive practices afoot.
Similarly, we are in favour of eliminating any regional aid which would risk introducing unacceptable distortions in competition.
In conclusion, once more, the Commission appears show either an strangely naive commitment to free trade, or an overwhelming ideological blindness.
Industrial policy and commercial policy, on the contrary, require realism and pragmatism.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Sindal for his splendid report.
I agree with its main message that the shipbuilding industry should be left to recover in the longer term without state aid.
Mr Sindal's report, however, is turning into something that is unfortunately dividing the southern and northern European states.
Many of our friends in Spain, for example, have been very concerned about possible cuts to aid, and that is quite understandable.
We in the Nordic countries have already cut shipyard aid though, and we have noticed that the shipyards have actually been coping better since the cuts were introduced.
We have lost some, but the sturdier ones have remained, and they are competitive.
The policy of support had actually been distorting the picture in this sector.
I agree with Mr Sindal that the prompt implementation of the OECD agreement is especially important for the normalization of world ship markets.
The Commission, in its estimation, however, is rather gratuitously optimistic.
The USA, as you know, does not seem very willing to ratify the agreement.
The Commission should put more pressure on the USA as, if the agreement is not ratified, we will have to produce yet another directive on shipbuilding when the old 7th Directive comes to an end at the end of the year.
The present jungle of aid to shipbuilding has led to unfair competitive advantages between one European shipyard and another.
The EU must therefore aim to guarantee similar benefits to the industry both in Europe and overseas.
In this we must obviously be prepared for competition from countries where production costs are low.
Aid that differs from country to country and region to region, like regional aid and aid for structural change, is now making the status of the different European shipyards a variable factor.
I myself proposed an amendment to this report, in which I suggested the checking of the overlapping of aid and variable aid systems for the years 1999-2000.
The Commission has not itemized its aid programme meticulously enough for the years to come and this might lead to overlap instead of cuts.
My proposal for an amendment did not, however, get any response, even from my own group, and thus I did not consider it wise to present it to you here.
I assume that modern vessels are very intelligent.
They thus call for much technological development.
They are high-tech products, and that is what we Europeans have to face up to.
Shipbuilding contracts have to be made in the knowledge that the industry in the Community is being assured of reasonable and uniform conditions for competition.
The ultimate aim of the EU should be that the shipbuilding industry in the longer term recovers without aid.
That would be consistent with the OECD agreement.
Mr President, for a long time shipbuilding has been subject to strong commercial pressure from third countries - such as South Korea, China and others - which are causing serious complications to the market due to, among other things, the competitive devaluations of their currencies, with the passive consent of the International Monetary Fund.
Furthermore, there already is a suitable framework designed to realign the market, born of consensus and backed by the OECD.
Of course, it would be better if the United States and China were to sign it, but as a framework it is good.
In that context, we Spanish Members of the People's Party believe we should oppose any regulation which directly or indirectly might allow a reduction in the current system of aid to shipyards.
In the current market situation, we think it would be irresponsible to commit to withdrawing contract-related aid from shipyards from the year 2000.
We also disagree with the Sindal report's criticisms of any regional aid which the shipyards might currently be receiving.
Everybody knows that if a shipyard closes in a depressed area with a high unemployment level, the consequences for the workers are far worse than when a shipyard closes in the prosperous countries of the north, where there are jobs.
In addition, the Maastricht Treaty states that all the Union's policies should take their inspiration from the principle of economic cohesion.
Those arguments, and others, lead us to oppose the Sindal report.
We cannot support the proposed reduction in aid to shipbuilding, especially in the international context we have just been describing.
The OECD agreement should form the framework for regulating our aid in the future.
Moreover, every time a shipbuilding job is destroyed in Europe, another one is created in South Korea.
This is not the time to commit to any reduction in aid, unless in the context of the OECD agreement, which is good for Europe and good for all shipyards.
So it makes no sense for us to want to be more demanding than the established framework. We will vote against a possible toughening up of the 7th Directive, and we think it would be a very good thing if it were prolonged.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on several occasions the Parliament has drawn attention to the vital importance of adopting common standards for the shipbuilding market which is, after all, the ultimate objective of the OECD agreement.
We share this view and agree that the European Union should not submit proposals that might jeopardize the agreement's ratification.
On the contrary, every effort should be made to ensure that it enters into force.
Meanwhile, since it is impossible to achieve that objective, principally on account of the United States' protectionist measures, we welcome the Commission's proposal to extend the 7th Directive and to draw up a new shipbuilding policy.
We would, however, like to make two comments in this respect.
We consider the 31 December 2000 deadline for operating aid to be inappropriate and premature, particularly if competition is further distorted, for instance, by dumping or by the Far East crisis.
Before a decision is taken to eliminate aid, the most thorough possible analysis should be made of the situation of Community shipyards.
Our second point, briefly, relates to the rigorous compliance, application and monitoring of the new legislative framework.
The regulation should contribute to ensuring that the existing inequalities in competition between European shipyards do not increase.
Professionals in this sector frequently state that the playing field is not level, on account of local subsidies and aid which infringe the rules of competition.
We feel that the Commission has an important role to play in this respect.
Mr President, over the last twenty years, the number of employees in European Union shipyards has fallen from 280 000 to less than 80 000.
In France, the number of employees has fallen from 32 000 to less than 5 000, and many yards have closed.
This situation, which is already catastrophic, would have been aggravated still further if the OECD agreement of July 1994 had been applied, as its aim was to eliminate aid while maintaining the American protectionist legislation arising from the Jones Act and reserving a monopoly to the American merchant fleet shipbuilders.
The proposal for a regulation from the Commission aimed at banning operating aid from 31 December 2000 anticipates the OECD agreement, which has still not been ratified by the United States.
Our group favours neither the early application of the OECD agreement, nor the fixing of a date to get rid of aid.
Rather, it would be necessary to renegotiate the OECD agreement by taking into account changes in the world market, and more particularly the Asian crisis, which very much looks like leading to more dumping by Far Eastern shipbuilders.
Quite the contrary of what has been planned, we ask that measures be taken to promote the shipbuilding and maritime business in the Member States. We should give them a boost, by putting right the unfair competitive practices at global level, by maintaining the system of State aid, and introducing Community preference for shipbuilding, in order to promote the purchase of ships built in European yards.
Mr President, shipbuilding is a global industry and should be approached as such. It should not be viewed from a regional or national perspective.
The relevant market is the global market.
The Commission's proposal unfortunately does not take this sufficiently into account.
Moreover, it goes against agreements which have been made on cutting back subsidies for shipyards whilst reducing capacity.
The sector has been going through a process of reorganization for years.
This proposal increases the risk that capacity might creep up with the aid of government support.
This would wipe out in one fell swoop the organizational achievements which have already been made.
The Commission document does not mesh with European competition policy.
It even flagrantly contravenes the principles of the internal market; one yard may get 3 to 9 % in aid, whereas another may get 60 to 70 %.
Paragraph 7 regarding regional aid should therefore be deleted.
The restructuring aid is also completely superfluous.
With these proposals the European Commission is killing off the best European shipyards, whilst lesser yards are maintained artificially.
A recent study by Ernst and Young highlights this conclusion.
The strategic importance of the European shipbuilding industry is evident.
We want to continue to be able to build our own ships, even if we are forced to help the sector.
But let us not create a mess with all kinds of obscure regulations within the European Union, and squander tax revenue.
It will not be of any help to the sector itself.
The ultimate goal must still be the abolition of all types of government support, so that every yard gets the price it deserves.
Mr President, the report on aid to shipbuilding which we are debating tonight refers to matters of great importance for the European Union and particularly for certain regions. One such region is Andalusia, especially the provinces of Cadiz and Seville, where shipbuilding is virtually the only heavy industry still in existence, although it is experiencing enormous difficulties.
The shipbuilding sector is in crisis, as the honourable Members are well aware. Furthermore, it is a sector which is greatly exposed to competition, especially from Asia, as has been underlined several times this evening.
The production capacity and actual production of South Korea alone are greater than for the whole of the Community.
Furthermore, as has also been stressed tonight, that ability to compete is reinforced by the strong devaluation of the Korean won, caused by monetary instability in Asia.
For that reason it is important to call on the Commission to exert pressure on the US Congress, to get them finally to ratify the OECD agreement on competition conditions in the shipbuilding sector.
And not just in the context of the OECD agreement, either: there is also the World Trade Organization, where the Commission should make its voice heard in order to achieve fair competition conditions for the world market.
In its regulation, the Commission proposes that contract-related aid should cease on 31 December 2000, but the recitals of the same regulation introduce a safeguard clause to cover that eventuality.
It specifically says: "Whereas, one year before that date the Commission will monitor the market situation and appraise whether European yards are affected by anti-competitive practices.
If it is established at that or a later stage that industry is being caused injury by anti-competitive practices including injurious pricing, the Community will consider introducing appropriate measures...' .
Well, Commissioner, we are very worried that if this study were carried out, the conclusion would be that in fact anti-competitive practices are still being used in the world market. If that were the case, we hope the Commission would be up to the situation, and come up with suitable measures to solve this extremely serious problem.
So we are surprised that the safeguard clause I quoted from the recitals nevertheless fails to be reflected in the actual text of the regulation, and we are strongly in favour of it being formally incorporated into it.
We are also in favour of retaining Article 7 in the regulation. Several speakers this evening have said that this article distorts competition, but it does nothing of the sort.
It is founded on the principles of regional policy so it could be said that, even without being specifically mentioned in the body of the regulation, aid arising out of regional policy would still be applicable.
Lastly, Mr President, I listened carefully to the words of my compatriot Mr Pomés Ruiz of the Group of the European People's Party, who expressed clear views on this regulation.
It just remains for me to say one thing: the Spanish People's Party, to which Mr Pomés Ruiz belongs, currently has a seat in the Council of Ministers.
Let us Spaniards hope that the stance taken within the Council by the Spanish Ministry of Industry is as firm as the one we have heard tonight.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the House is today discussing the creation of a new Community legislative framework for the granting of aid to the European shipbuilding industry.
The objective here is to fulfill the principles enshrined in the Treaty by providing the shipbuilding sector with fair and uniform conditions of competition within the Community so that, subsequently, the sector may survive without state aid, in compliance with market rules and conditions.
In this connection, the agreement signed in 1994 between the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Norway and the United States, under the auspices of the OECD, which should have entered into force on 1 January 1996, may today be said to be a dead letter in that, under constant pressure from US shipyards, the US Congress has failed to ratify the agreement.
This position may be understood in the light of the fact that, over and above the many millions of dollars allocated in aid to the opening of a shipyard in Philadelphia, the US authorities wish to add a new payment with which the US Navy may openly finance the construction of non-military vessels.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, shipbuilding today is undeniably a global industry and the European shipbuilding industry should enjoy the same conditions as its international competitors.
Therefore, steps should be taken to extend the standards in force within the European Union to a global level, preventing any distortion of competition.
It is essential to incorporate the existing instruments of economic policy, together with those to be created in the future, within a policy which seeks to achieve a uniform international shipbuilding market without distortions of competition and without dumping of any kind.
The United States' protectionist measures, China's total freedom to ignore commitments of this type, together with the crossed subsidy mechanisms made possible by the vertical and horizontal composition of the Japanese and South Korean shipbuilders undermine the objectives of achieving uniformity.
South Korea's position, which combines its 25 % market share, which it clearly aims to increase, with a devaluation of the won in excess of 50 %, has had and continues to have disastrous effects on the world market.
For instance, the increase in the number of jobs in Korean shipyards in the last decade is equal to the number of jobs lost in my country's shipbuilding and repair yards.
It is therefore urgent to force countries like South Korea to correct the imprudent industrial policy they have pursued and force them to eliminate their excess capacity.
Thus, the 7th Directive should be extended.
The Commission should maintain the 31 December 2000 deadline for eliminating subsidies if it ascertains that anti-competition practises do not exist.
If that is not the case, then it should be extended, until at least 31 December 2003, the date on which this regulation expires.
Mr President, I am glad to see we are joined tonight by the two Commissioners dealing with this matter, in the contexts of industrial policy and competition policy.
It would have been nice if Sir Leon Brittan had also been here, because of the international importance of the subject.
I am not going to repeat here what everybody has been saying about the international situation.
What I want to do is put the following question to the Commissioners: what aspect of the world situation has changed, for there to be this change in attitude in the Community strategy towards defending the shipbuilding sector? So far we have been prolonging the directive while waiting to see what happened with the international agreement.
Also, there has been the crisis in Asia, and all the current phenomena we have just been talking about here. The Commission now realizes, as we all know from the newspapers, that European companies have lost international contracts or tenders because obviously those devaluations, that excess capacity, and perhaps that indirect aid being diverted from the IMF aid, are having an effect.
So, what has happened to make us change our strategy?
Is it because the Nordic countries have joined? That is what can be deduced from what we are hearing here in Parliament.
Is that the international change which has taken place? In the debate on this question, Parliament's position is that we should not set a date for the prolongation of the directives, because as soon as we set a date we are adopting and announcing unilateral policies.
And now it turns out that we have here the regulation which announces that unilateral disarmament on the part of the European Union.
Mr President, in view of what we have been hearing I would like to say two things.
I go a little further than what has been said by my colleague Mr Pérez Royo and the Spanish People's Party.
I would like to hear the Minister declare publicly that he is defending that position at the Industry Council.
I think it would be very interesting and very important for the shipyards and the Spanish regions to know that that position is being defended because, as we are hearing, that does not seem to be the case.
However, at this time of night I do not wish to go any deeper into the question.
I would prefer it if the two Commissioners here - and I wish Sir Leon were here too - would tell us what change has occurred for us now to find ourselves with a proposal for our unilateral disarmament.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, after having as is customary, thanked and congratulated Mr Sindal and the draftsmen of the opinions, and our two Commissioners for their presence here, I wish to begin my speech on the future of aid to shipbuilding by making three observations.
Firstly, in the course of the past five years, every time a job has been lost in the European shipbuilding industry, another job has been created in the Korean shipbuilding industry, and our sacrifices have therefore been perfectly useless.
Secondly, in Korea, it is neither low wages nor industrial organization which has made Korea dominant, but the cross guarantees of the conglomerates, supported by the Korean government, making actual financial backing unnecessary.
Thirdly, in Europe, every time aid is given to a shipyard in difficulty, the European Commission demands a reduction in capacity, whereas of course in Korea, Japan and the United States nothing of the sort happens.
The result of all this can be summarised in four points.
Firstly, Europe has imposed on itself measures which its competitors did not.
Secondly, tens of thousands of jobs have been destroyed with all that ensues in terms of social difficulties and misery.
Thirdly, Europe has lost a substantial market share. Fourthly, contrary to what occurred in other industrial sector, in particular the steel industry, there is no guarantee that what is left of our production capacity will actually last.
Ladies and gentlemen, a few months ago, we nearly hit rock bottom in this area, as aid under the 7th Directive was about to disappear on behalf of an OECD agreement that our competitors had not even ratified.
For once, we all together were able to say no.
Today it is being proposed to us that the European Union should unilaterally apply, to itself, the principles set out in the OECD agreement, although it is not ratified.
And here I say once again that we must be more pragmatic.
If in the year 2000, we see the market is sufficiently healthy for us to be able to do without aid, I will doubtless agree to it being done away with.
But today, who could say as much? The Commission itself acknowledges the need for appropriate measures although it cannot say what these are.
So now, I beg of you, do not shut the doors.
But if we are to shut the doors, let us at least keep the keys, and between now and then we shall be able to study exactly the changes in the market before fixing final dates and taking definitive measures.
Shipbuilding is not an industry like any other.
That is why I call on our Parliament to be cautious, and I call on the Commission to accept the amendments which I hope will be voted through and which will allow us between now and the end of the year 2000 enough margin for manoeuvre.
Once and for all, in this sector, as in many other sectors, we should, Mr President, stop being masochistic.
. Mr President, as I listened to all these speeches, and this time there were many of them, you will have surely been aware, if you listened to one another, of the difficulties with which we are confronted, because the arguments go from A to Z. Some of you wish to stop aid immediately, and in particular operating aid, and a number of governments defend this point of view even today.
Others would like aid to be continued, using the same arguments as have been raised for the last fifteen years.
Everyone seems to forget that the only industrial sector, and I repeat the only industrial sector which has for a very long time benefited from operating aid is shipbuilding.
This is no longer the case for the steel industry, nor for other sectors; shipbuilding is the only one left.
Taking the figures from 1990 to 1995, did you know that in the European Union, more than ECU 5 billion of state aid was allocated to operating aid, and more than ECU 3 billion for restructuring? That is a total of ECU 8 billion.
So those who claim that this sector has been let down are completely wrong.
In spite of this aid, which is at times massive, I knew of cases where the public authorities were paying one third and even more for ships - when I say the public authority, of course I mean the tax payer - often in order to be able to compete with shipyards within the Union itself.
Sometimes even more than one third of the aid was provided.
That was the situation.
So in effect, the question has now been with us for many years: can we continue like this? Increasingly, more governments are saying no.
We have tried to find a solution through the OECD agreement, at a global level, and we have not disarmed on a unilateral basis.
We have tried to find an agreement which everyone would respect, and provided this agreement was ratified, we were ready to immediately put an end to the 7th Directive.
Unfortunately, the Americans did not ratify the agreement.
The problem is not that the Americans are major competitors, because I am not aware that American ships are causing great difficulties to our own shipyards.
The Americans are protectionist, that is true, but in terms of global competition, the problem is not really there.
Our problem is that, as ships are becoming increasingly sophisticated, we need to act to ensure that we are at the cutting edge of technological development and of the development of modern ships.
I shall return to Korea in a minute, but I believe it is useful to go over the global context again.
Once again, more and more governments cannot or do not wish to continue giving operating aid.
Sometimes, from some of the speeches, my understanding was that it is no longer a question of giving aid.
That is wrong, as even in the framework of the OECD agreement, aid for research and development, for the environment and for social support measures and export finance arrangements continue to be provided for.
The OECD agreement allows all this to continue.
Our proposal allows more: it offers aid for the restructuring of companies and aid for innovation.
That is new, certainly, but that is precisely the reason why we have to try and innovate more to remain competitive.
That being the case, I do not understand why we are being criticised for including that in our proposal.
That is where the future lies.
We did this for the automobile industry; why not do the same for shipbuilding?
Let us now come to a highly controversial point, particularly among yourselves, which is aid to investment in eligible regions.
This is the logic of our regime.
Let us take the automobile industry, Mr Jarzembowski.
We can give aid to eligible regions, to compensate for the disadvantage that these regions have compared to non-eligible regions.
That is why a great deal of aid can be allocated to Saxony, as you know.
Not as much as Mr Biedenkopf would wish, but, even so, it is a substantial amount, whereas in other places, nothing can be given, not even a penny to Vilworde.
That is the logic of our regional policy.
Do you wish to keep this policy or not? The Commission believes that we should.
Where your argument does bite, is knowing whether the degree of aid that can be allowed for the eligible regions, be it region A or region C, would also be acceptable in the logic of shipbuilding.
I have just mentioned the automobile industry where aid can only be given for investment in order to make up for disadvantages.
But here I am ready, and I emphasize this, to consider along with the Council of Ministers how to limit regional aid, possibly even by combining it with certain other measures.
However, I believe we should in principle maintain the overall approach in terms of regional policy.
Of course, this investment must not be used to increase capacity.
It may be used to modernize, to increase productivity, but not to enlarge capacity.
From this point of view, this rule can be maintained and rightly so, I believe.
We shall see what the Council of Ministers decides.
I am not sure that it will follow this logic, but I maintain that it is right.
It is consistent with what the Commission does within the European Union in terms of regional policy.
Now I will look at Korea.
Of course many other comments have been made, but my time is limited, and clearly I have to speak on the question of Korea.
Furthermore, Martin Bangemann is here, and he may talk more about the report which was drawn up under his responsibility, in an attempt to contribute to the modernization of our shipbuilding industry.
Who can believe for a moment that the Commission is not in fact concerned about this? It only wants the sector to be able to support itself, as far as possible, through its own resources, receiving aid of course for research and development and for the environment.
All these instruments remain available, but we must, after a certain period, eliminate operating aid, that is, by the end of the year 2000, as we have proposed.
Here too, we shall see what the Council decides.
However, before even the crisis in Korea, Martin and myself included in our proposal a clause stating that if something were to happen at a global level, somewhere in an industrialized country which was developing an aggressive dumping policy with regard to our shipyards, the Commission would reserve the right to come back on this.
We undertook, one year before the end of operating aid, to review this matter in order to make an assessment and present it to you and to the Council of Ministers, with a view to determining whether we should take new measures or develop other elements of our policy.
This door was not only halfopen in the aftermath of the Asian crisis, but was open before it, because that is what had been agreed.
In this light, I have no difficulty in accepting some of the suggestions which were made, with a view to studying extremely closely, as Martin does, as the Commission will do and as the Council will do, the consequences of the events in South Korea, where there is in fact a considerable degree of competition.
Contrary to what many of you have said, the crisis does make it possible for us to intervene.
Before, in practice, we could not.
Before the crisis, the Koreans would not accept a reduction in capacity.
Now, with the crisis, with the operation of IMF aid, we will also have our bit to say.
Although precautions have been taken, we will naturally need to ensure that they are complied with.
It so happens that in the wake of the Industry Council which is due to take place on 7 May, there will be a high-level meeting between Korea and the European Union, and believe you me, we will take stock of the situation there.
In fact, over and above the problem of the shipbuilding sector, South Korea and a number of other countries are facing a far more serious crisis, which also affects their industrial structures and massive aid systems.
Hence, at a time when those countries are in the throes of crisis, nobody is going to try and sell us a policy based on the South Korean model.
Let us take advantage of the situation to try and make some adjustments, since we were not able to do so with the OECD agreement, which provided no commitments from Korea to reduce its capacity.
On the contrary, South Korea continued to increase its capacity.
Now we have at least a possibility of saying to the Koreans that we want to enter into serious discussions about this matter.
Furthermore, the European Union is not the only one to act; the Member States are also able to act through the IMF.
In my view, if anything it is a matter of good fortune that we can now get into a serious discussion with the Koreans and reassess the matter, instead of being in the situation as it was before.
I therefore yet again, make a commitment on behalf of the Commission to come back to this aspect, as well as to others, one year before the end of the regime, in other words, one year before the end of operating aid.
Specifically, this means that we shall continue to discuss among ourselves, but we must find a solution for the future, as the 7th directive comes to an end at the end of the year. Last time, we were able to extend it for a limited period only, and barely gained a qualified majority to do this.
But now this will no longer be possible.
A blocking minority will certainly oppose the continuation of this regime.
We therefore need to find another way forward, another policy, and I believe that the if it is possible to discuss one element or another and the Commission itself is prepared to consider certain amendments here or there, that in this way an agreement will be possible within the Council of Ministers.
With that, ladies and gentlemen, I will conclude.
I have spoken at length, but I know how interested you are in this sector, which is still very sensitive, and as I look at some of you, I can immediately see behind you the region and shipyards in question.
I know this because I understand that because very often the regions are already facing difficulties.
When we speak about the difficulties in the shipyards, thousands of people are affected, and the situation is showing itself to be dramatic.
I therefore fully understand what you have said. But on the other hand, I think that our proposal is fairly balanced, and also aims to ensure that, in the next century, we will have a competitive shipbuilding industry, which will not only be a major industry at European level, but also at global level.
If I could have your attention, Mr van Miert - thank you for your reply and for contributing positively this evening.
This is a consultation procedure, and I think this process is in fact intended to help expose the problems facing not only the Commission, but also the citizens of Europe, and I believe we can all sympathise with one another.
However, I do also look forward to the Commission and the Council coming up with a workable solution.
That was one point I wanted to make.
I am actually speaking in response to criticism from some Members before the break to the effect that the procedure prevents the various opinions from those committees asked to give an opinion from reaching the corresponding committees in time, thus preventing them from being heard.
As rapporteur of this proposal, I would like to say that I have endeavoured to get this put back a little, but the fact is that British Presidency wants the matter settled in May, and the Commission did not want it to be postponed.
I am saying this with regard to the protocol.
At some point, we must learn to deal with matters in their correct order.
This is my response to criticism from my two colleagues this afternoon.
Mr President, I wish simply to make good an unpardonable omission.
I did not even congratulate Mr Sindal on his excellent report.
I deeply regret this, as I know how hard he has worked, and I hope that my omission now has been made good.
I was so keen to give a quick response to the comments of substance, that I forgot to congratulate you, but I do so, believe me, with all my heart and with conviction.
Our congratulations echo yours, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Passenger vehicles
The next item is the report (A4-0113/98) by Mr Murphy, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on special provisions for vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat, and amending Council Directive 70/156/CEE (COM(97)0276 - C4-0545/97-97/0176(COD)).
I welcome Mr Bangemann, who joined us during the previous debate.
Mr President, I should like to begin by putting on record my thanks to Parliament services for assisting with this very complicated dossier, the Commission for its assistance and, in particular, the bus builders of Europe, the bus operators of Europe and those people who use the buses of Europe, for their great assistance in drawing up this report.
Yet again Parliament is making one of its traditional errors.
We spent the whole of this morning contemplating our own budgetary navel.
That is important to us but here we are this evening, as a Parliament, talking about ship-building and buses and coaches which are very relevant to the citizens of Europe.
I know which reports my constituents in towns like Wolverhampton and Dudley would like to see us talking about in front of the media and not here in front of a few interpreters and a few hardy souls such as ourselves.
I welcome the Commission's proposals.
They are an important step forward towards the completion of the single market.
They protect national and regional preferences in vehicles and in this respect, from the United Kingdom's point of view, I am pleased that our traditional double-decker buses - and in London the Routemaster buses - are under no threat whatsoever from Europe.
I am pleased to be able to say that.
Also, very importantly, I welcome the mandatory provision for disabled accessibility to class I vehicles.
This is very important.
As the rapporteur I have spoken widely to various interest groups, as I said at the beginning of my speech.
Not all are going to be happy with my proposals but I can assure you that I did my best to meet all their main aspirations in a realistic, technical and cost-effective way.
There are a few key points from my report that I would like to bring to the Commission's attention and to invite their support.
Firstly, we are widening the single market here.
But I would ask that instead of adopting a derogation approach to vehicles which are not typical throughout the European Union, such as double-decker buses and midi-buses - which are used in certain parts of the European Union, I think we ought to allow type approval for them all, provided they are safe and not a hazard to citizens.
We should grant them type approval.
Nobody has to actually use them but why separate them out? Why not have a complete market in buses and coaches?
I would urge the Commission to look at my Amendments Nos 4, 5, 28, 29 and 41 in that respect.
Secondly, we ought to widen the accessibility provisions to include class II vehicles.
The Commission is currently involved in a study looking at the technical feasibility of accessibility for class II vehicles.
It is my prediction that Commission study will report in favour of mandatory accessibility provisions for those vehicles before the Council has even adopted its first common position.
We, as a Parliament, ought to be looking at class I and class II vehicles because this is technically feasible.
I have seen the vehicles, I have been on them.
Included in that we ought to start a study into class III vehicles, coaches and class A vehicles and minibuses.
The key challenge to this House is to accept that we have a duty here to widen accessibility as far as is technically and affordably possible.
I say to my colleagues in the EPP group on this: please accept this challenge; what I am saying is reasonable and achievable.
I am not coming forward with some super-fantastic idea here.
I would say to the EPP and the UPE groups: please, let us put this in at first reading; let us test the waters.
I believe that by the time we get to our second reading, the Commission will be backing us on class II vehicles.
I would not want to waste what is a golden opportunity.
I myself know how difficult it is to get on and off buses if you have a slight disability.
I had a broken ankle a couple of years ago.
It is impossible to get on and off vehicles with high steps.
A friend of mine told me about a woman at a bus depot in Wolverhampton who had a child in a push-chair.
She had to wait for different vehicles to pass until the right one came along, with a low floor, so that she could actually get on that vehicle.
I am saying here, this evening: let us take this opportunity to widen the single market, to increase the accessibility provisions from class I to class II, with the various bits and pieces of technical amendments we require.
There has been a lot of fuss made about my report in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
That has been based largely on a series of misunderstandings.
As far as I am concerned, this is an important piece of single market legislation; it is an important report for the citizens of Europe.
But what is more, I can assure you it is technically feasible, undoubtedly affordable, and eminently achievable.
I think it is a good response to a good Commission proposal.
I ask the House to support it.
Mr President, Commissioner, the directive on the regulation of vehicles with more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat - generally known as buses - is aimed at standardizing the type approval system in the context of the Single Market and at the same time improving safety.
The whole report is very technical; nevertheless, these technical details have considerable repercussions for the people.
The Commission has fortunately taken into account accessibility for people with restricted mobility, but it is the fine details which are causing the problems.
I have therefore mainly addressed this problem area in my opinion.
I thank the rapporteur for having incorporated to a large extent the opinion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism in his report.
In its proposals on accessibility, the Commission concerns itself solely with wheelchair-bound persons with strong arm muscles.
We intend to extend the concept of "persons with reduced mobility' to include not only all disabled persons, but also elderly people and those who, for various reasons, have difficulty in boarding; for example, passengers with heavy luggage, passengers with pushchairs or bicycles and even pregnant women.
This new definition of the term will entail a whole series of technical changes which will, however, make it possible and/or easier for people to use public transport.
The second fundamental change which I propose is to stipulate accessibility for persons with reduced mobility for all types of vehicle.
We want to have this accessibility not only for local but also for long-distance buses.
Boarding aids should be available for at least one door.
We are not satisfied with a promise from the Commission that it will submit a proposal on this subject in the near future, because it does not want to make a decision at present as to the best technical solution.
We have waited years for this directive and have repeatedly demanded mandatory obstacle-free design.
We do not want to be put off any longer.
In non-binding declarations, demands for the integration of people with disabilities are made repeatedly.
With the acceptance of the amendments tabled, we have an opportunity to make a start on integration, at least in the field of transport.
About 10 % of the population lives with some form of disability.
A large proportion of these people have difficulty in using the roads. They are reliant on public transport.
Because of their reduced mobility it is important for them to be able to get out and about, to be able to lead an independent life.
Public transport must be designed in such a way that it does not constitute an obstacle for this group of people, so that they can reach their place of work, but also so that they can participate in leisure activities, reach holiday destinations or keep up family or social contacts.
Alongside people with disabilities, there are approximately 100 million elderly people in the EU, and this figure - as we know from demographic statistics - is set to climb even higher.
Elderly people are particularly reliant upon public transport.
It is estimated that about 50 % of these people do not have a private car at their disposal.
It must be made possible for all of them to gain easy access to public transport, thereby saving them from the threat of isolation.
However, it also makes sense, from the economic point of view, to invest in the additional costs of removing the various obstacles.
The assertion that this is too expensive is simply wrong.
According to the most recent calculations, it does not even amount to 10 % of the total investment.
Offset against this is a large number of potential new users, if obstacle-free design enables them to use the service.
I appeal to all Members to vote for the amendments to the report, in order to make integration something which is there for all to see and experience.
Mr President, I add my congratulations and approval of this report and I praise Simon Murphy for the assiduous and sensible way in which he has crafted this proposal.
At the same time I acknowledge the work the Commissioner has played in it too.
The details contained in the report, as has already been said, are the result of extensive consultation with all the key interest bodies.
The report has gained approval from very diverse organizations: from manufacturers and industry, trade union representatives as well as consumer and disability groups.
During the passage of this report through EMAC the depth of the research into detail that Simon Murphy had carried out was evident to all of us.
It is a proposal for a Council directive which takes a positive step towards the completion of the single market and at the same time provides a framework for the harmonization of construction standards between all Member States which in itself will engender and encourage trade between them.
Important though these aspects are, the prime reason why the citizens of Europe will recommend the Murphy report is the emphasis it rightly places on safety and accessibility for everyone.
Getting on and off buses is the point at which most accidents happen, especially to those who are vulnerable.
Alongside the recommendations of low-floor buses, buses which in effect kneel at the kerbside to give easier access, many other safety features are contained in this report.
All of these will make all of our travel, on coach or bus safer and more risk free.
Let me underline once again that this directive will only apply to new buses and will not threaten double-decker buses or Routemaster buses.
Tomorrow we vote in this House and I hope we will keep the integrity of the Murphy report with its focus on helping passengers with reduced mobility, disabled people, the elderly, small people, parents with children and pushchairs and - dare I say, Commissioner - nimble grannies-to-be who, in the very near future, could be the beneficiaries of this report and be grateful to it.
Finally, and unsurprisingly, need I remind the Commissioner that very similar transport modes already exist in my constituency of Northamptonshire and Blaby where buses have been pioneered with great success which do just what the Murphy report recommends: low-floor buses which kneel to let people on and off are already a feature of our local travel and much welcomed by the users.
The Murphy report is splendid and prepares the way for better and safer public transport in the future.
Parliament would be well-advised to give it splendid and resounding support tomorrow and I am confident it will.
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying that I am very impressed by Mr Murphy's work.
He is dealing with an extremely complicated directive, but he has clearly mastered it down to the smallest detail.
I also appreciate the rapporteur's clear main thrust for amendments, which is to make it easier for disabled people to have access to public transport.
However, I would still question whether this type of directive should really be dealt with in such a detailed way in this Parliament.
It is still an extremely complicated directive with a lot of diagrams and formulas which are extremely difficult to understand for people other than experts.
I wonder whether the best solution for any similar reports in future would not be to make a statement of principle and then leave it to the experts to work out the details.
I may be wrong, but allow me just as an amateur in this area to point out some things which surprise me a little.
These include, for example, Amendment No 54 from Mr Murphy.
It discusses the fact that the text on buses showing the destination should be white or yellow on a black background and at least 12 cm high.
It is possible that this is the most readable at the moment, but it is quite conceivable that a technology may be developed tomorrow which makes it best for the visually impaired to have a black text on a white background.
I wonder if it would not be better just to say that people should use the best available technology.
The same amendment also says that the destination should be announced by recorded voice, inside and outside the bus, when the bus stops at bus stations etcetera.
In the bus I can understand, but should the destination also be announced by a loudspeaker outside the bus too? I think that would lead to a terrible racket in many towns where there are a lot of buses.
In addition, it says that the voice should be recorded.
In Sweden we have buses which travel perhaps 300-400 kilometres and may stop only two or three times on the route because we have such large distances between towns and villages.
In that case it might be simpler for the driver to do as he does today, which is to say that we have now arrived at Burträsk or wherever it may be.
Another matter which does not relate to any amendment, but which is part of the directive itself and is mentioned in Amendment No 87, concerns the fact that when buses have a wheelchair lift they should have three flashing lights and an audible signal when the lift is in operation.
With current technology such wheelchair lifts cannot be controlled remotely from the driver's seat because it is too dangerous.
That means that the driver must go out and stand by the wheelchair when it is raised.
I therefore wonder again whether it is necessary to introduce a requirement for an audible signal when this happens.
Lights may be appropriate, but audible signals are perhaps a bit doubtful.
As I said before, I am an amateur on the question of such technical matters. They were just a few comments.
I would like to return to my initial point which is that I think that, given the difficult material, Mr Murphy has done an excellent job.
Mr President, it is now two years since we in this Parliament passed the lift directive which was setting a precedent that legislation for Europe's single market could and must be used to enable access for disabled people.
That precedent was then enshrined by agreements within the Treaty of Amsterdam, the draft Treaty of European Union.
Tonight we face our next test in addressing the buses and coaches directive and addressing too an issue which is most campaigned about amongst Europe's 35 million disabled people - the right to accessible public transport.
I congratulate Simon Murphy on this report and the amendments which he has tabled.
These are important amendments which everyone in this Parliament should support.
The amendments ensure that the definition of disability is not just one for wheelchair users but for all disabled people, including blind people and deaf people, and, as my colleague Mrs Schmidbauer has said, for pregnant women, people with children, people with heavy shopping, older people and others.
There are many people who will benefit from that amendment.
I call for support for the amendments which recognize specifically the needs of blind and partially-sighted people, including internal lighting and colour contrasts within buses and, for deaf people, to ensure visual displays for their information needs.
I support Simon Murphy's amendment to extend the provision from Class 1 to Class 2 buses so that double-decker buses and tourist coaches also enable disability access.
Even if the Commission tonight opposes the extension of this directive to inter-urban services, it should give us a clear commitment in advance to implement the study which it has launched.
I hope the Commissioner will respond directly to this point tonight.
I call on Parliament to support our amendments to reduce the initial step height to 24 cm or to ensure a boarding aid.
These are the only standards which genuinely ensure access for disabled people.
After all, this is only consistent with the findings of the research on low-floor buses which was published by the Commission itself as long ago as 1995.
I would appeal to the right of the Parliament, the Group of the European People's Party, to join us in supporting the amendment but I look in vain for its presence here tonight and for its contribution to this debate.
Instead, I send a simple message to disabled people in Europe.
This proposal has been delayed in Brussels because of the long fight which has been engaged to ensure that all new buses in our towns and cities from the year 2001 will offer full rights of access for disabled people.
It is a very significant victory and one that I commend to the House tonight.
Mr President, many years ago the European Community introduced pan-European standards for tractor seats.
We are still waiting for a solution for the electric plug.
We have gathered a great deal of experience in the field of standardization, and we have also been punished very severely for a great deal of our standardization, for example the angle of curvature of bananas.
Today we are talking about standardization in the case of vehicles for the carriage of passengers.
This is a very important area.
At this point, I thank the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, for his impressive commitment and his understanding of the detailed solutions mentioned.
The Group of the European People's Party largely supports these results, particularly as regards persons with reduced mobility.
I myself have proposed in committee that the definition of disabled should be made more specific and that it should be extended.
We are in favour of the use of boarding aids even for Class II vehicles, appropriate forms of handrails, entrances, luggage racks and special destination displays, in order to make the use of buses both possible and practical for disabled persons.
Our concerns lie in a different direction, however.
From today we are no longer regulating just tractor seats.
The European Parliament is about to design the perfect bus.
More than 100 amendments on technical details have been tabled.
There is mention of a radius of between 2.5 mm and 5 mm for corners, of retractable steps, of obvious markings on edges and even of hot drink vending machines and cooking equipment.
In our view, we must, however, distinguish between political initiatives and questions of technical standardization.
The latter should be dealt with by appropriate committees of experts, such as standards institutions - for example, the CEN - in other words, by specialists who build and/or use the buses.
We are therefore also convinced that some important political points must be addressed.
In this area, a SLIM initiative should also be implemented, which concentrates on the essential political aspects.
We believe that, above all, the proposals concerning the safety of vehicles and/or the accessibility of vehicles for the disabled, in Appendix 7, which go beyond those of the Commission, are sensible.
However, we should have a debate where it makes sense to do so; namely, in a technical committee.
That is also the reason why the Group of the European People's Party will tomorrow propose that it should be referred back to the relevant committee.
We believe that the extent of the debate should be clearly reduced, but should be all the more specific, so that it can contribute further to a proper standardization of this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we speak today about a new bus directive which contains special regulations for the carriage of passengers with reduced mobility, we should bear in mind, particularly in view of the recent debate about increasing road safety - after all, 1.6 million people suffer often permanent injuries in accidents - that we could in fact ourselves be one of them tomorrow. We too would then have to cope with living as a disabled person.
At present there are about 37 million disabled people living in the European Union.
But it is not only they who often have problems with the use of public transport.
We must think of everybody: of elderly people with mobility problems, of small children, or of those in particular situations, such as, for example, pregnant women or passengers carrying luggage or pushchairs.
I therefore feel that the broad interpretation of the concept "persons with reduced mobility' is legitimate and should be welcomed.
To that extent, I support the social aim of the directive.
It deals with the right aspect, namely that of safety, but in respect of certain detailed solutions goes much too far in its regulation.
We must not absolve companies from their own responsibilities to seek the best solutions.
Such solutions could be of a technical, but also of a logistical nature.
Bus manufacturers already demonstrate in fact their great capability in respect of safety.
I am at all times very happy to support demands for equality of opportunity for people with reduced mobility.
However, I reject nonsensical and exaggerated regulations on detail.
The responsibilities which lie with the European Committee for Standardization, business and, in terms of subsidiarity, even with local authorities, should not be brought together by us under the umbrella of the EU Commission.
I therefore consider demands for 4 metre ramps at the entrance and exit of buses to be completely ill-considered.
Political demands and objectives which call upon both manufacturers and operators of buses alike to seek, in equal measure, innovative solutions, seem to me to be more suitable for doing something for the disadvantaged than rigid European standards which apply from Finland to Sicily.
Although the problems of disabled people across the European Union are comparable, the Member States must take into account climatic, territorial, traditional and other specific conditions in their efforts to procure a real place in their midst for disabled people.
Mr President, I do not wish to make the same mistake as my friend Karel van Miert and I should therefore like to thank Mr Murphy very sincerely for his work, right at the start.
It has already been said during the discussion that this is a difficult report because it deals with a whole series of technical questions and an attempt had to be made to find a compromise in many respects.
I should, therefore, like to concern myself particularly with the questions which were directed at the Commission and from which it can be seen that a number of demands are being made.
First, I should like to refer to the fact that there are two different starting points for this directive.
One proposal is to create the Single Market by means of a type approval system.
For this we need precise regulations, because only such precise regulations can lead to the approval of a type.
Nothing can be allowed to remain unclear in such type approvals.
We need standardization of the technical regulations at Community level.
With undertakings like this a certain complexity sometimes cannot be avoided.
I am quite sure that our proposal is already being seized upon in the press as another example of over-zealous bureaucracy.
If we were to adopt all the amendments tabled - and I believe there are 120 - we would be at even greater risk.
In this I must agree with some of the speakers.
We can, of course, overdo this sort of specialization and attention to detail and then still not achieve what we actually set out to do.
A certain willingness to compromise is necessary here.
However, we also want to solve the safety problems.
Not only do we want to aim for the highest possible level of safety for vehicles in general, but we also want to guarantee that disabled people - however one wants to define this term, that is, persons whose mobility is reduced - can use these vehicles safely.
These are our aims.
If we now look at the amendments tabled, they can be roughly divided into three groups: firstly, there are the amendments which correct mistakes made by the Commission or propose better technical regulations.
That is, as ever, very desirable and we are pleased that we can adopt all 22 amendments here, without reservation.
I do not wish to read out the numbers of the amendments now.
We have them here; if it interests you, you can look at them afterwards.
Then we have a group, which make alterations or additions to the proposed technical requirements and finally a third group, which proposes fundamental alterations in respect of sensitive points.
Here we may quote as an example the derogation provided for by the Commission for the special situation in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
I should like to thank those British colleagues who praised us for taking this exceptional situation into account. And what is more, against all expectations, according to those well-known serious British newspapers where alarm reports were published, after an attempt to ban fish and chips, we also wanted to ban double-deck buses.
We did not do so.
I hope that we shall be appropriately praised by this press.
However, I draw attention to the fact that this is also a compromise between a national tradition and safety requirements, regardless of how much I can appreciate the pleasure of our British colleagues.
Anyone would probably concede that a doubledeck bus is not exactly the safest kind of bus, and it is clear that this type of bus can only be accessed with great difficulty by disabled persons.
It is evident from this that with all these problems, we are always moving in a direction which represents a compromise.
We have in fact done so.
We did not go as far as Mr Murphy's request, that we should, to a certain extent, recognise it as a type.
We therefore also provided for the possibility that other Member States might not permit this type of bus, which is approved in another Member State, in their sovereign territory, because they do not have this tradition.
We would like to continue to regard this as a derogation.
We then have two further amendments which we can adopt in part, and two amendments where we can adopt the substance.
What we cannot accept - and I want to say this here very clearly - are other technical proposals or an extension to other categories, as it is our opinion that what we have created here can hopefully go through in the Council.
We are not quite sure about that; in other words, we are still talking amongst ourselves here.
I fully understand if Parliament says that at the moment, it should like to assess another position but does not wish to adopt this one.
Whether or not it is very wise to reject this proposal, I leave to the wisdom of this House, in which I have boundless trust, of course.
I should like however to note that we have already come a long way and what is more, after a very long time.
That has also been said.
If maybe the Commission's proposal, apart from the amendments which we can accept, is approved without too many more additions, we shall make even more progress.
On the aspect of safety we have also reached a compromise, as a difference must be made between buses which are used predominantly on short routes, where rapid boarding and alighting is necessary for the bus to make reasonable headway, and other buses.
These buses stop very frequently, because of which accessibility is very much more to the forefront than with a bus which, for example, travels long distances, is mainly fitted with seats and does not stop very often.
Boarding this kind of bus may well require more time.
We want, however, to examine this class too.
I can confirm that we have already put this investigation in hand, so that we can perhaps deal with these further demands.
I would ask you to understand that in our case a role was played by our efforts to avoid imposing financial burdens, arising from excessive demands on the operating companies, particularly those in the public sector.
We must remember that we are not usually dealing with private companies here, but with towns or regions which have to use public means of finance and cannot therefore avoid cost pressures.
We are convinced that with this multi-level concept, we have proposed a solution which is acceptable.
We assume that it is realistic to prescribe access for persons with reduced mobility for all vehicles of Class I from the time the directive comes into force.
Without standardized regulations, there is an acute danger for the Single Market, as some Member States have already begun to put together their own regulations.
As far as the other classes of vehicle are concerned, we shall, as already mentioned, submit a proposal on the basis of the ongoing investigation as soon as possible to the European Parliament and the Council. The proposal based on this study also amends the directive, with technical requirements for Class II vehicles, which are used for both urban and scheduled long-distance transport.
That is our position.
I know that it does not meet all the requirements which have been expressed here.
I do not know what Parliament will decide tomorrow, but we are in the first phase here and we should really do what we always do.
If you believe, with a majority, that you have to adopt a different position, you can do so, but do not shoot the pianists, in other words, us.
We have to play this tune to the Council and hope for its applause.
I do hope, however, that we can then arrive at improvements during subsequent proceedings, which perhaps go more along your lines.
In any case, it should not founder in the Commission.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his comments and I note in particular his comments on double-decker buses being less safe or less accessible.
If he has a couple of hours to spare he could come with me to Birmingham, which has the busiest route for buses and coaches anywhere in Europe, and join me on the only two low floor double-decker buses actually in operation in Europe which would meet these standards and more.
So if you have a couple of hours I will take you on a journey to the West Midlands.
Of course I accept your invitation.
My only point was that, if the situation is as you say, why are you asking for an exception to be made for these buses? Why can they not fall under the general rules?
Mr President, I must just correct in that case.
Under my proposals the derogation would actually be removed and those vehicles would be treated just the same as any other because I happen to believe they are as safe and secure for passengers as other types of vehicle.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Trading of goods
The next item is the report (A4-0102/98) by Mrs Lulling, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) amending I. Council Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States (COM(97)0252 - C4-0248/97-97/0155(COD)) andII. Council Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States, with specific reference to the nomenclature of products, SLIM and Intrastat (COM(97)0275 - C4-0257/97-97/0162(COD)).
Mr President, we all know here that statistics are somewhat unpopular, particularly in the eyes of those who have to supply the data.
In 1993, when the Single Market came into force and border controls were abolished, the consequence was the elimination of the corresponding VAT declarations and of the statistics whose reliability was assured by the customs departments.
Intrastat was created.
Its main objective, for all those involved, namely the national and Community administration companies, is to supply, at least cost, reliable and up-to-date statistics on the transfer of intra-Community goods.
Companies, particularly small and medium-sized companies, were not enamoured with this.
The introduction of Intrastat gave rise to a consideration of the way in which the suppliers' task could be simplified, of how to reduce costs for those on whom the burden of statistical information falls, as the smaller the company, the higher the relative cost of the administrative burden.
As regards reliability, it must unfortunately be said, five years on, that the operation of Intrastat is not satisfactory, in spite of the fact that the total annual cost for the 450 000 companies making declarations is estimated at ECU 500 million to which is added ECU 100 million for operations by national collectors.
This lack of reliability is illustrated by what in technical jargon is known as "mirror statistics' , which comes from the high inconsistency of the results.
Thus, this simulation exercise, which involves replacing the incoming goods for each Member State with the amounts of outgoing shipments to the fourteen others, proved, that for 1996 for example, imports for Germany must be increased by ECU 19 billion, and for France by ECU 11 billion.
For Germany, this means that the balance of trade surplus is reduced to zero, and for France, its deficit increases from ECU 7 billion to ECU 18 billion.
We have before us, Mr President, two proposals which arise from the SLIM initiative.
Unfortunately, they do not represent all the proposals of the SLIM team, which is why it is all the more astonishing that these proposals were favourably welcomed by the Commission and the Council.
Furthermore, the Member States do not even seem to be ready to follow these proposals, which are less extensive in comparison to the SLIM results.
Throughout the drafting of my report I was approached by the lobbies of the major industrial federations who are concerned that the small step towards simplification proposed in the field of nomenclature might result in the loss of information which they believe to be indispensable for their commercial policy, and which they could only procure through a great many costly surveys.
I wanted to highlight these divergent, and even antagonistic interests of the various players. In other words, there is, on the one hand, the small and medium-sized companies who want significant relief in terms of the burden of making declarations, and on the other, the users of the statistics who want detailed and high quality information on intra-Community trade to be made available.
However, things being as they are, and after organizing in committee a hearing on these antagonists, I have proposed amendments aimed at reconciling their interests, amendments which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs accepted, Commissioner, as a block and on a unanimous basis.
We wish to avoid completely the situation whereby these regulations end up having less of an impact in terms of simplification as compared to the Commission's initial proposal.
On the other hand, we do have a great deal of sympathy for the federations and industries whose concern is that the simplification of the nomenclature might end up with a depletion of statistics which will no longer allow an analysis of the markets.
You know that I am very interested in viticulture, Mr Martin.
A reduction in the suppositions from 8 to 6 would no longer effectively give the necessary detailed information, namely the type of wine, red or white, or the region of origin.
What is important for this product, is not the same for others.
For example, for the centrifugal pumps, it is not absolutely necessary to know whether they are intended for aircraft, or whether they are submersible, single-stage or multi-stage pumps, and so on.
Our proposal therefore is to limit the burden of declaration by eliminating unnecessary data, such as the means of transport, and optional data, to limit the number of small and medium-sized companies required to supply detailed statistical data, and to simplify the use of the combined nomenclature, while preserving a single nomenclature for intra-Community trade and trade with third countries. We also propose establishing a partnership with national administrations and the representatives at European level of the suppliers and users of statistical information, as well as preserving, within the framework of this partnership, a sufficient time limit for the provision of information, in order to meet the special requirements of certain sectors, such as the wine sector which I illustrated.
We also clearly accept the need to preserve the level of information on intra-Community trade, and our action is satisfactory in the eyes of the Committee on Regional Policy.
We know that all this is not a true reform of the system.
It is a first step, Mr President, a first package of measures to be implemented pending more radical simplification.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for all of the companies and administrations in the Member States of the European Union, the entry into force of the single market has meant an upheaval for the administrative practices involving the trade in goods between Member States.
VAT declarations and statistics, which were previously dealt with by customs services have been changed. However, of course, the need for such information has not thereby disappeared.
In this report, Mrs Lulling points out that it is essential for the data to be reliable.
Hence the export figures of one Member State should normally equal the sum of exports from the other Member States to the Member State in question.
However, the total discrepancy is in the order of 4.6 %.
Depending on which figure you use, the French trade deficit of ECU 6.4 billion would be more than doubled.
However, given the need to simplify the administrative burden on companies, the Commission is presenting us with two proposals, which enable us to simplify these declarations.
With this goal in mind, we must certainly welcome the Commission's initiative.
The amendments proposed by the rapporteur all go in this direction, and I support them.
However, along with several of my colleagues, I wanted to table a further amendment.
In fact, modifying the nomenclature must not reduce the information which is required, both for companies and professional organizations.
Changing the number of figures in the nomenclature from eight to six could lead to the elimination of an essential element.
In the case of wine, as Mrs Lulling reminded us a moment ago, it would no longer be possible to dissociate intraCommunity trade from one Member State to another Member State, be it Bordeaux, Burgundy, vins de pays, Champagne, etcetera.
The purport of my amendment is therefore to call on the Commission to ensure that these amendments do not lead to any such loss of information.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, I first want to congratulate Mrs Lulling on her constant work in the area of statistics which, as we know, is a fairly thankless task.
But those of us who follow her efforts are bound to appreciate them, because they provide something which will obviously be needed with the new economic and monetary dimension being adopted by the European Union.
As we have discussed in other reports on statistical matters, we obviously need to have reliable information in order to orientate activities and economic and monetary policies.
Mrs Lulling has the unanimous support of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy for the amendments she makes to the Commission's proposals. Her report deals with a situation which she knows how to balance perfectly: eliminating excessive burdens on small and medium-sized enterprises; maintaining the reliability of the necessary figures, so as not to lose the proper information; and maintaining the other information we have at present - also referred to in her report -, namely the regional aspect of statistics.
In other words, as when we were talking about the wine sector, for example, we have to take account of the various grape and wine-growing regions of the European Union - and I could, for example, add Penedés to the list we heard earlier. In those regions, knowledge of the exchanges within the EU markets is obviously extremely valuable, not just in order to establish the appropriate EU trade policies, but also so that companies can decide on their commercial strategies.
So I repeat our support for the amendments tabled by Mrs Lulling, and congratulate her once again on her work.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.00 p.m)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Tuesday, 31 March 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to refer to pages 20 and 21 of the English version concerning Question Time and the conduct of Question Time.
In particular, I would like to hear your views on this latest edict that has been passed down from on high regarding the rules governing Question Time.
It seems to me to be excessively bureaucratic; it seems to me to be excessively undemocratic; and it seems to me that it is imposing censorship on Members and their questions.
So I would like to know what was the rationale behind it, given that political groups have not discussed this; and I am asking you, as the person in charge of the organization here, to make a clear and categorical statement of why you arrived at this decision and whether it will be kept under review.
It is very clear, Mr McMahon.
On the proposal of the Vice-President who chairs Question Time some rules - not new rules, but measures to organize Question Time better - were adopted by the Bureau.
The aim is simply to avoid questions being put months in advance, because then they lose their topicality.
The period fixed in the rules runs from the end of one partsession's Question Time to some hours before the next part-session; and we simply remind you that this is the period fixed, not some months in advance.
These are not new rules.
If anyone thinks there has been a change in the rules, which of course is not the case, I will submit the question to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
It is very simple: the intention of the Bureau was not at all to change the rules, it was simply to have better ways of dealing with Question Time, on the proposal of the Vice-President in charge, namely Mr Gutiérrez.
Mr President. Of course I am not calling the goodwill of the Bureau into question.
But it is a bit odd that the Bureau is giving out instructions for Question Time.
I drafted a report for the Rules Committee, which has been before the Committee for four months and which has not been included on the agenda for the Plenary session.
Yet you change two sets of rules, while Members do not have an opportunity to discuss these new proposals of the Rules Committee.
(Applause )
Mr Wijsenbeek, you are an expert on the rules: you ought to know that it is not the Bureau which places the reports on the agenda, but the Conference of Presidents.
There were many reports from the Rules Committee and two of them have been put on the agenda of this session specially to make up this delay which is due to the many items this House has to deal with.
So your report will come up as soon as the Conference of Presidents can find a place for it on the agenda.
There is no discrimination against any report, and this afternoon I will be seeing the chairman of the committee at his request, precisely to consider the best time for its inclusion on the agenda by the Conference of Presidents.
Mr President, I was interested in your reply to Mr McMahon when you said that if there was any alteration to the rules or the procedures you would obviously refer them to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Given my interest in the voting in this Parliament during lunchtime, perhaps it is too late for that matter to be referred to the Rules Committee.
However, given that this is the last month that this will take place, can you give me and this House an assurance that any changes which are to take place regarding Members' interests will be put to the Members of this House the way the change in the Members' voting procedure should have been put to this House in January?
Of course, if there is any doubt you may be assured that we will refer it to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and we will await its decision before introducing any changes.
Mr President, I rise on another matter but it does concern the role of the Conference of Presidents.
This concerns the Pex report on information policy, which we tried to put on the agenda for this part-session and which was then going to be on the agenda for the part-session at the end of next month.
However, I understand that you, as President, have taken that off the agenda and have refused to have this circulated for translation so that Members can read what the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has decided.
We in the Committee on Budgets are concerned because we need this report to release funds to enable the information policy to continue to operate.
I would like your guidance on what is going on, because, once again, it seems to be a suppression of the interests of the Members of this House.
Mr Elles, you have been wrongly informed.
I have not taken anything off the agenda because I cannot do so.
Simply, this report, like any other report, when it is drafted is examined by the services of the House.
As there was some doubt about its admissibility - taking into account that it was submitted rather late - the Conference of Presidents, the body empowered to take a decision, took the decision to wait until next month, May, so that it could examine it to see whether it was admissible or not.
My view is that this report goes against the rules of the House and the Treaties.
The Conference of Presidents will examine it tomorrow and take what decision it feels appropriate.
You know that no report is circulated until it is put on the agenda.
Until questions on admissibility are settled, reports are not circulated.
So this report has not been treated differently.
Mr President, out of respect for you I have kept quiet this week about this matter, but now that it is being raised I would like to make some comments, otherwise you might think I agree with you.
Firstly, this report was discussed openly; a number of people from your services attended the discussions.
It is therefore extremely strange that its admissibility was not examined until a few days before this part-session.
Secondly, your Secretary-General told me on the telephone last week that the report presents no difficulties.
This was before the Conference of Presidents had their meeting.
Thirdly, I take exception to the fact that it was you who blocked the report, so that I was not able to defend myself as rapporteur.
If you are now saying in this sitting that the report goes against the Treaties, then I would like Members to be able to read the report, so that they can see for themselves what, according to you, is questionable.
Blocking my report makes it impossible for me to defend myself, and I do not think this is a procedure which befits a democratic organization.
I consider this censorship, Mr President.
Finally, the issue here is communication.
I have noted that the Bureau's external communications are extremely poor.
My report therefore deals with improving this situation.
Some will find this very hard to take, but I have to say that I find the internal communications even worse, because everything you have just said I only hear from you today.
Nobody in your services consulted me over the past two weeks, and I find that deplorable.
Mr Pex, I can state categorically that I myself, in the presence of other people, warned you about this several months ago.
You carried on with your report without taking account of either the Rules of Procedure or the Treaties.
Furthermore, I do not need to tell you about the Treaties.
Just like any other Member of this House, you should know them, and the Rules of Procedure too.
However, this is not a question for me to decide on, Mr Pex.
It is a matter for the Conference of Presidents, and they will decide on it tomorrow.
This is not my problem.
All I have to do is advise the Conference of Presidents that, in my opinion, this is an infringement of the Treaties and the Rules of Procedure.
We shall see, that is all.
Your report has been dealt with, Mr Pex, and I am not going to continue this discussion because it is not a matter for the House to decide on at the moment, since it is not on the agenda.
Your report has been treated in exactly the same way as other reports - no more, no less.
No report is granted any privileges, whether it comes from your committee or from any other.
Every report is examined, and if there are problems relating to the rules they are studied and resolved by the appropriate body, which is not the President but the Conference of Presidents. Then, if there is a discrepancy, it is referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
That is all.
If you do not think it is good enough, then present the Rules Committee with a proposal to amend our Rules of Procedure.
You can do that, just like anybody else.
Mr Pex, I am going to let you speak because I do not want it said that I insisted on having the last word on this matter.
Thank you for your explanation, Mr President.
I would like to make one comment on what you have said.
You told me about your objections a few months ago.
I did take these into account.
The text we had, and discussed at the time, is nowhere to be found.
I changed the report, and subsequently 126 amendments were tabled.
That is why it so regrettable that the text is not public, because the report before us now is a completely different text to the one we discussed a few months ago.
So reproaching me for not having listened to you is not right.
Mr Pex, I am not reproaching you about anything.
I do not reproach any Member of this House who acts in accordance with their convictions.
I am simply trying to determine whether your report is admissible or not.
If it is, it will be published. If not, it will be sent to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities so they can report on the matter.
In any case, the honourable Members can quite easily find out which of the amendments to your report have and have not been accepted.
Mr President, I wanted to comment regarding the vote on Mrs Theato's report.
A large majority, virtually all of the House, voted for the report under what were perfectly satisfactory conditions and thus there is not the slightest question of challenging what has already been voted for.
However, it should be noted that the conditions under which this vote took place may raise questions regarding its future interpretation.
As there was some dispute regarding corrections of a linguistic nature, the President of the sitting, Mr Cot, understandably wanted to put those corrections to a vote as he considered they could pose a fundamental problem.
There was undoubtedly a fundamental problem and it would have consequently been preferable to have an oral amendment enabling harmonization of the different linguistic versions.
However, the corrections were put to the vote and rejected, with the result that there is now a significant difference between many of the translations on a point which, although certainly not crucial, is not negligible either.
The President did not use the powers bestowed upon him by Article 102 of the Rules of Procedure.
In the case of differences between linguistic versions, it is within his powers to determine which version should be considered adopted, either the original language version - in this case German - or one of the other versions.
We will therefore be faced with a problem in the future.
I would like to request two things, Mr President.
Firstly, that the question of whether the President of a sitting can or cannot put linguistic corrections of a technical nature to the vote be submitted to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Secondly, that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure be asked to clarify which linguistic version prevails when there are linguistic differences between the texts.
We cannot take texts to the outside world when they exist in different versions.
Mr Bourlanges, it says in the Minutes, and I quote, "the rapporteur withdrew the corrigendum' .
Thus if the rapporteur withdrew the corrigendum, there is absolutely no reason to consult the Committee on the Rules of Procedure since we did not take a vote on it.
Mr President, I think you have covered the point I was going to raise but Mr Bourlanges is being deliberately, or otherwise, disingenuous in the point of order he has raised.
I was the person who raised an objection to dealing with a matter of substance by way of a corrigendum.
To change the words 'European Public Prosecutor' to 'European judicial authority' is not just a technicality, and I am sure you, Mr President, as a jurist understand the significance of those changes.
If the words were incoherent in all languages other than German, it shows how ill-prepared the debate was in committee because we have debated all the way through on the use of those words 'European Public Prosecutor' .
But then, on the matter of substance, Mr Bourlanges is also wrong because it is in the recollection of everybody who followed it that Mrs Theato withdrew the corrigendum.
This incident is closed.
I am not going to give more time to it.
We have a heavy agenda, and I am not continuing something which was closed yesterday by the President in the Chair.
(The Minutes were approved)
Topical and urgent debate (objections)
Mr President, I am only commenting as a matter of interest, given that the vote has taken place, but I was surprised that the code of conduct for arms exports was included within the issue of human rights.
It is not a question of human rights.
It could have been a supplementary point within the framework of a topical debate, but certainly not a point connected with human rights.
In the future, I would therefore like us to make sure that only questions truly relating to human rights violations are included in the category of "human rights' .
Thank you very much, Mr Pasty.
Development policy - Cooperation Agreements with ACP countries - Decentralized cooperation
The next item is the joint debate on the following documents:
Statement by the Council on development and cooperation policy; -Report (A4-0085/98) by Mr Rocard, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission on guidelines for the negotiation of new cooperation agreements with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries (COM(97)0537 - C4-0581/97); -Recommendation for second reading (A4-0096/98), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on decentralized cooperation [C4-0008/98-95/0159(SYN)] (Rapporteur: Mr Vecchi).
Mr Rocard, in future it would be a good idea to ask your group for a little speaking time as well.
Mr President, as you know, I am presenting this report, standing in for Mr Vecchi, who has had to leave for family reasons.
We have had to wait two years for the Council to establish its common position on the proposal for a regulation to provide a legal basis for the budget line with regard to support measures for decentralized cooperation, which was established in 1992, at Parliament's request.
Despite all this, the Council has not reached any positive conclusions. It has expressed a narrower view of the function of decentralized cooperation and has substantially worsened the proposal for a regulation, put forward by the Commission and partially amended by Parliament at first reading.
This is why the Committee on Cooperation and Development has unanimously adopted a package of 17 amendments which we are proposing to the House, in order to fully restore the position on which Parliament gave its opinion more than two years ago.
In accordance with what the European Parliament and Mr Rocard have confirmed, decentralized cooperation is not, and should not be considered to be, simply one more measure in the field of development cooperation.
Decentralized cooperation is a new vision of cooperation as a whole. We want to involve more people in cooperation and the object is to involve those who are not part of the central governments so that the measures taken are closer to the local populations and contribute towards strengthening the structures of civil society.
This is the fundamental point.
It is a contribution towards cultural dialogue, in various situations, and also to the processes of democratization.
Owing to its characteristics, decentralized cooperation is very different from the usual methods of providing state aid for development, and yet the insufficient results obtained in this field have led us to consider new forms of cooperation.
It must be said that the Council does not seem to have accepted this strategic challenge.
It is in fact a question of moving the focus away from individual projects and towards those involved, in order to allow an adequate development of the human resources and the organizational capacity in developing countries.
It would be better to achieve the objectives of cooperation based on the pursuit of human development, participation and sustainability.
Achieving such cooperation includes the full involvement of those involved in decentralized development, such as the local authorities, people's organizations, community groups, non-governmental organizations, etcetera.
This should lead to the development of an effective and widespread partnership between those in the North and the South.
We are thinking, in particular, of cooperation between cities and regions, but also of the development of relations concerning technology transfer, between business associations, cooperatives and centres providing business services.
To conclude, decentralized cooperation seems to be a privileged means of meeting the new challenges of development, particularly the fight against poverty and the development of the private sector, but also the protection of human and civil rights, which is so important.
Contrary to what the Council seems to maintain, it is a sufficiently tested approach.
We therefore believe that we need to move on from a marginal and experimental decentralized cooperation to its development as a priority, be it within the framework of external cooperation - Lomé Convention, MEDA Programme, and so on - or in the direct actions of the European Union.
In this connection, I believe it highly important for the MED programmes to be relaunched if we also want to contribute towards the relaunch of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
These are the considerations which have given rise to the amendments tabled, which are aimed at giving decentralized cooperation a central position in development strategy.
This is the reasoning behind this report and the amendments tabled.
- (NL) Mr President, the Committee on Women's Rights has noted with satisfaction that the Commission's understanding of issues can develop quickly.
Whereas the Green Paper on relations between the European Union and the ACP countries only makes an oblique reference to the issue of gender, the communication which we are now discussing says that gender issues must be incorporated into all macro-economic, sectoral and project assistance.
The Commission recognizes that there is a direct link between improving the position of women and the fight against poverty, that sustainable economic and social development cannot be realized without equality between men and women and that human rights are also women's rights.
But the intention to incorporate gender issues into all policy areas is sadly not being realized.
In those areas which are given most priority in the Green Paper, namely economic, financial and technical cooperation, not a single word is said about gender.
This is unacceptable, and even a step backwards from the Council Resolution on Gender and Development adopted in December 1995 which used "mainstreaming' as a starting point.
The new development cooperation agreements must promote equality between men and women in all areas, not only political and social, but also economic.
It must be clear to everyone that economic equality will exert influence over social structures and the balance of power within a country.
A fairer partnership should therefore not only deal with the relations between the European Union and the ACP countries, but also with the distribution of power within a particular society.
This means that we should have a coordinated and consistent policy of promoting equality between men and women, which is why the Committee on Women's Rights has argued for the ACP Assembly to establish a standing "Women in Development' Committee.
Mr President, may I first of all welcome the Secretary of State and thank her for her excellent overview and also, of course, thank Michel Rocard for his report.
There are very serious and clear messages in this report.
Although the political guidelines proposed by the Commission for negotiating the new cooperation agreements with the ACP provide a starting point for discussions on the renewal of our relationship, in too many areas I am afraid they are not much more than that.
I hope that the Commission and the Council will note in particular the serious reservations expressed in this report about the trade proposal as it currently stands.
We have used very strong words, ' is concerned that the Commission's proposal to negotiate regional free trade economic partnership agreements may be premature, impractical and lead to increased poverty and social tension in the ACP states' .
These reservations are expressed by the ACP themselves.
I fear that the critical poverty targets clearly identified by the Secretary of State could be undermined by the weaknesses of the current trade proposal.
Poverty eradication must, she says, be the overriding goal and should of course run through the entire agreement, including the trade section.
We cannot afford to forget that trade liberalization and economic growth alone are not sufficient to reduce poverty.
It is essential, therefore, that our commitment to poverty eradication, gender mainstreaming and conflict prevention should be fully integrated into the trade proposals, particularly in the context of the middle income countries.
It is all very well for us to argue as we do for integration into the world economy.
Of course we agree that this should happen, but we should also recognize that the preferred means of achieving this, namely WTO-compatible FTAs will carry with it very significant adjustment costs in what are, of course, extremely poor and vulnerable countries and economies.
It is just not good enough in my view to argue that FTAs will eventually stimulate economic growth.
Poor people live in the short term, in a day-today struggle to put food on the table.
We must not therefore promote a solution which puts their livelihoods in danger.
If by doing so we will be standing by the so-called commitment, we will not be standing by our commitments to attack poverty, to prevent conflict, as Michel Rocard says, and to promote gender equity.
That is why I have consistently proposed the idea of a ten-year waiver to cover the current trade arrangements, so I am very pleased that the Rocard report has taken up this point.
Mr Rocard also makes it very clear that the best solution is for the options currently on offer to be improved so that the ACP can be provided with real choices when any WTO waiver covering the current trade options expires.
I urge the Council and the Commission to take on board the issues raised in the Rocard report.
May I remind Parliament that today is 1 April, and as the Bureau has already received some very strange documents, may I ask Members not to start raising points of order concerning texts which, clearly, are traditional April Fool pranks.
Mr President, this very long and detailed report follows on from the Martens report.
For the first time the Commission communication allows Parliament to state its views on the guidelines put forward by the Commission for the negotiation of new cooperation agreements with the ACP.
Much praise is due to Mr Rocard for this superb and detailed report.
Even more pleasing is the fact that Parliament's views are closely aligned with the Commission's thoughts.
Parliament has to consider two major questions: should ACP-EU cooperation continue after 2000 and, if so, in what form? The answer to the first is a resounding 'yes' .
There should be a new and different relationship which adapts to the new world challenges and is based on a proper partnership.
A number of areas have to be considered.
Firstly, the Council agreed that the political scope for the ACP-EU partnership should be enhanced.
This highlighted the fact that the development of ACP countries was first and foremost the responsibility of the peoples in those countries.
This should be based on human development sustainability with sound macro-economic policies, social justice and the rule of law.
The political consensus which has been reached on both sides is an understandable political choice in the face of the worldwide challenges of the 21st century.
Increasingly rapid globalization will steadily reinforce economic, political and cultural dependencies but at the same time there will be a move towards regional cooperation and integration, particularly on the African continent.
This in itself should lead to new forms of economic partnership.
Poverty alleviation, popular economy, micro-credits and gender matters: all lead to conflict prevention within the regions.
It is up to the ACP countries themselves to decide on the speed of change and their criteria for that change.
One of the original features of the Lomé Convention was, on the one hand, including trade and, on the other, upholding provisions in this area designed to encourage the diversification and development of the ACP countries.
The rules of the WTO were drawn up with complete disregard for the needs of developing countries, particularly the poorest, and this must be seriously addressed by both sides in the negotiations.
Sadly, efforts to improve trade have not been successful and many developing countries have much reduced export trade compared with ten years ago.
Regional cooperation should give them the strength to improve this situation.
I am delighted to see that the Joint Assembly is now to be called the Parliamentary Joint Assembly as this will strengthen democracy, and my group fully supports this report.
I wish to begin by welcoming this report by Mr Rocard.
Apart from the normal aspirations, however, it brings us no closer to the future of Lomé after 2000.
I support a strong political dimension to the new cooperation agreements with ACP countries, especially in the areas of human rights, good governance and the rule of law.
I am entirely in favour of the struggle against poverty being the central theme of post-Lomé IV arrangements.
I also support the mainstreaming of gender and the environment in all negotiations as a matter of course.
Ireland has consistently emphasized the importance of the semi-integration of the ACP countries into the world economy and the compatibility of new trade arrangements with the World Trade Organization.
Ireland considers market access to be of particular importance and will, for example, support the removal of remaining tariff barriers to the fullest possible extent.
When negotiating EU-ACP agreements it is essential to stress the need for simplification and rationalization of aid instruments with a view to gradual evolution towards direct budgetary support for ACP countries.
There is one extremely important issue that must be tackled in the framework of the new cooperation agreements and that is the issue of arms sales.
In the European Union there is free movement of goods, services, persons and capital with full regulation and, indeed, competition checks.
Compare this with the lack of European regulation or competition checks on arms movements from the EU to third countries.
There appears to me and to many other people in my country to be a conspiracy of silence on this issue.
A European Union arms export control agency should be set up in order to protect the human rights of the citizens of the ACP countries.
We must recognize economic development, social development, environmental protection and human rights as mutually reinforcing components of sustainable development.
I regret that the issue of arms exports has not been seriously addressed in the Rocard report.
Mr President, the Rocard report before us is a good report on the orientation guidelines of future cooperation agreements.
It is more than a report about the ACP.
It refers to the post-Lomé period, and I think that here we should support a ten-year transition period.
This is basically a report about the new framework for forming a new South-North policy.
Mr Martens made a start on this in his report.
Mr Pinheiro has introduced something new here, something very good, I think, by instituting a broad dialogue in the Member States in the run-up to the Green Paper.
If a good policy is to come from this good report, I hope that we can convince the Council together with the Commission that its content must be put into effect politically.
Mrs Short, this is a major task for you.
However, in development policy, a basic contradiction can be identified in the European Union and also in this House. On the one hand we try to integrate ourselves and the ACP countries into the world market.
We have accepted this with the WTO formula.
We see the consequences at this moment in the discussion on bananas.
On the other hand, we want to take account of the regional situation and drive development forward here.
The regional situation is in the foreground in this report too, and I think that is right and important.
Bilateral free zones are not what we must support.
I therefore consider that paragraphs 59 and 77 of the motion for a resolution are important.
The proposal in paragraph 59 is that the extension of the exceptional regulations for the ACP states is necessary, because development cannot happen otherwise in these countries, the poorest of the poor. We should put this proposal into effect.
Paragraph 77 deals with the aims of development policy, the aims of development, about which we must jointly inform the WTO.
I do not regard the WTO as a democratic institution.
Consistency in trade relationships is necessary and appropriate.
We should take note of that in respect of our fisheries policy, ecology and human rights.
We and the ACP states should note that.
Regionalization is an important starting point.
It is a question of developing new instruments.
I believe that support for the process of African unity is important.
But we are creating our own contradictions there as well, in the MEDA programme for instance.
Here too there is a need for consistency.
I am glad that the amendments have been included in this proposal, that the Joint Assembly is explicitly mentioned, and I think that it must also be maintained to form the political process.
Much too little is said about armaments policy, restriction of weapons sales and the effective control of the weapons trade.
The Commission has made specific proposals here.
That is to be welcomed.
Making a link between the targets of armaments restriction and development in the health and education fields is something very important.
The credibility of countries must be measured by this too.
In view of the imminent failure of the code of conduct, I would like to point out that in Amendment No 18 we put forward many specific proposals, and I ask you to support this amendment, and also Amendment No 17, which concerns the prohibition of antipersonnel mines.
It is a view expressed by this House and belongs in the Treaty.
My colleague Mrs van Dijk has pointed out the problem of women, the role of women in the development process.
There is much more to be added here too.
There is more in it than in the Green Paper.
The role of women must be more precisely defined, because they contribute to the development process.
Partnership is an important precondition, including partnership with NGOs.
Finally, I would like to emphasize again that we have always supported the budgetization of the European Development Fund.
That should also be put into effect.
I would like to have a reply from Mrs Short, on behalf of the Council about whether she will take the initiative, at the latest...
(The President made the speaker stand down.)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it cannot be denied that the results of the cooperation policy between the ACP countries and the European Union measure up neither to the frequently reaffirmed ambitions nor, above all, to the sums of money spent.
You could be forgiven for wondering whether the eighth EDF, which is ECU 13 billion over the period 1995/2000, that is FF 85 billion, is or will be put to better use than the seven preceding ones. This financial aid has been rendered largely useless for three reasons.
Firstly, the socialist model of development, which has been adopted by the majority of ACP countries, based on land collectivization and excessive industrialization. Secondly, corruption of leaders and nomenklatura, which have taken over control of a large part of aid funding.
Thirdly, complexes amongst the European leaders, which render them incapable of commenting on these issues for fear of being branded neo-colonialists. But Michel Rocard himself, far from considering these three points and learning lessons from them, and whilst remaining faithful - let us recognize this - to his socialist ideology, proposes a policy which will be detrimental to the nations of Europe as well as to the people of the ACP countries.
If he will excuse me, I will overlook the commonplace, the popularity-seeking proposals and pious wishes which fill his report for, what concerns us most in this expressed desire to renounce a development policy which remains under the control of Member States, is the substance.
What does the honourable Member want? The budgetization of the European Development Fund, which would thus no longer be under the control of our nations.
Diplomatic and political links between supra-national bodies such as the European Union, on the one hand, and the African Economic Community, established in 1994, on the other.
The importance given to nongovernmental organizations, about which a great deal could, however, be said and the integration of our overseas departments and territories into regional groupings, thus preparing the way for a separation of these territories from their mother country.
We note that Michel Rocard is rightly concerned with the fateful logic that a free trade policy would have on the economic future of the ACP countries.
But, in reality, he only proposes tinkering with the internationalist logic.
His only positive point is the proposal for a productive return of immigrants who have come from the ACP countries, which is completely in line with our own position.
To recap, in general, the Rocard report has unfortunately abandoned, to Brussels' advantage, a development policy which, although not perfect, enabled the Member States to continue to play a major role.
But it is not through continually wanting to establish relations between blocs, it is not through globalization, it is not through bureaucratization that anything will be improved.
The tragedy is that, despite all the failures, Mr Rocard never wearies of his utopia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Rocard and Vecchi reports should be approved with firm conviction.
Allow me to explain a few points.
The aim in Article 130 u of the Treaty of Maastricht is global.
Development cooperation should promote sustained development, particularly in the poorest countries, for the fight against poverty and a harmonious, step by step inclusion in the world economy.
The emphasis here is on step by step.
The Rocard report therefore points out that trade liberalization and economic growth alone are not enough to relieve poverty; there must also be access to resources and participation in decision processes.
That applies particularly to the participation of women, but I am happy to be able to say that we women no longer have to emphasize this point, because it has in the meantime become the common property of this House.
I would like to emphasize that in the course of the Lomé cooperation something like a Lomé culture has been formed, consisting of partnership, equal rights, maintenance of dialogue, mutual contractual relationships and accountability, and this means much more than efficiency aspects on the cost-benefit model.
It is a mark of the Lomé culture that conditions are not just imposed on the contractual partners, but that efforts are made to ensure that the measures proposed are supported by the country concerned, in agreement with the governments and the population.
Certainly participation on the part of civil society still leaves something to be desired.
Above all, the equal right of women to have a say is lacking, as has been mentioned. The correct course has nevertheless been set.
That is all the more important when not just economic but political reforms are concerned, and they must or should be in harmony with each other.
Now, in a mature relationship it must be possible to say critical things, and if necessary to make use of sanctions, including the suspension of cooperation.
The Lomé agreements include this possibility, but for good reasons it is only used with restraint, because it is always better to keep talking than to break off relations.
I think that one particular aspect of cooperation within the agreement must be extended in future: close cooperation with nongovernmental organizations, particularly those which are active in the ACP countries, and not just with our organizations in the Member States.
A cooperation strategy which is tailor-made for each situation must be developed, to pick out the special features of individual regions, regardless of whether their support is national, private or public.
To a greater extent than was previously the case, the supporters of development policy can be part of a concept for the future which promises success.
One of the special features of Lomé cooperation is regional cooperation, which has long been geared to supra-regional development.
The same is true of the demand for the dynamic development of the private sector, to which increasing efforts have been applied in recent years.
I would like to close with a quotation from my general report at the last ACP Assembly, which was accepted with a very large majority: ' By common efforts, development plans which are specific, social, staggered in time, adapted to the current state of development and the problem situation, regionally differentiated and consistent, must be established, with the answers which result for Lomé cooperation arising from the subjects of the big UN conferences.'
This should be our aim.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first, sincere thanks to both the rapporteurs. I regret that we cannot address them to Mr Vecchi in person.
At last we have a debate about development cooperation, and we all know that does not happen often.
In the case of the Vecchi report, it is rather a nuisance that it comes practically at the end of the process, and since the Treaty of Amsterdam has not yet been ratified, we have no possibility of ensuring that a series of proposals which have not yet been accepted will be included after all.
Madam President-in-Office, I welcome very much your firm emphasis on the fight against poverty but I would ask you to include as an essential pillar, so to speak, of your deliberations, the question of a health policy with particular reference to the health of mothers and children.
Year after year - we can almost say day after day - for thousands of women in developing countries, pregnancy is equivalent to a death sentence, because there is no way of combatting avoidable risks. This must not be allowed to happen.
Here in this Parliament, we have a cross-party working party for reproductive health.
So for us this is a special concern.
A further point of which we must certainly be aware is the question of stable currencies.
There is a special passage about it in the Rocard report.
Commissioner, my special plea would be that we ensure with the appropriate structures that increasingly stable and above all convertible currencies are created in the developing countries.
In this connection, I also draw your attention to the question of the CFA zone in the context of European Monetary Union.
A minor error concerning this matter has crept into the report, and I ask the services to correct it.
Paragraph 69 does not fit the context in which it appears.
It ought to be inserted after paragraph 80.
That is its proper place.
This is my final point.
Mr President, may I begin by congratulating Mr Rocard for the high quality of his report, and Mr Vecchi likewise.
We wish to take this opportunity, as we did in connection with the Martens report, and with the 8th EDF, to restate our commitment to partnership between the ACP countries and the European Union.
Indeed, as we approach the 21st century, we consider that a new, exemplary model should be laid down for this privileged relationship to which the countries of Europe have been committed since the outset of European construction.
The Union for Europe Group considers that the overall thrust of the Commission's approach is correct.
I say overall, because we do not consider the proposals relating to trade to be satisfactory.
The UPE Group is of the opinion that the process of adapting and integrating regional markets must be monitored, for which reason it earlier suggested to the Committee on Development and Cooperation, which agreed, that the current trade regime should be maintained throughout a transition period to end no later than the year 2010. The Committee on Development and Cooperation agreed.
The Commission has already agreed to extend the period from 3 to 5 years.
We hope that, vis--vis the Council and the WTO, it will defend an extension of the transition period to 2010.
In addition, our Group supports the Commission's guidelines and, like the rapporteur, welcomes the importance attributed to the regional and sub-regional integration process, provided that the integrity and unity of the ACP as a group is not affected.
In that connection, we direct attention to our group's proposals that the overseas countries and territories and the ultra-peripheral regions should be involved.
We welcome the objective of combatting poverty, which we consider to be a healthy and timely endeavour.
We believe that the time has come to emerge from a rationale of strict conditionality and to concentrate on a more fruitful dialogue, with a view to assessing governments' endeavours in the areas of human rights, democracy and good governance.
I will end, Mr President, by expressing the hope that the Joint Assembly, which is the prime instrument of political dialogue between the European Union and the ACP, will be strengthened.
Mr President, first of all I would like to compliment Mr Rocard and Mr Vecchi on their reports, and the Commission on its guidelines for the negotiation of the new cooperation agreements.
It is good news indeed that we have been able to confirm in no uncertain terms that we wish to pursue agreements with the countries concerned, and it is good news that we have got some of the key discussions under way on reforms - reforms that will be necessary if we are to get away from the post-colonial relationship of dependency between donor and recipient countries, if the position of women is to be improved, and so on.
It is also excellent news that discussions are taking place on this agreement in the various Member States.
However, I do deplore the fact that we have not managed to revise the list of countries covered by the Lomé Convention.
The needs of countries, not their geographical placement or their historical affiliations with Member States of the Union, should be the governing factor in the amount of support they receive from the EU.
The European Parliament should guarantee that in future, poor nations will be competing on a level playing-field as regards the distribution of EU support and access to EU markets.
This should preferably be achieved through revision of the list of countries covered by the Lomé Convention, but could if necessary be achieved by assuring countries not covered by Lomé V that they will benefit from the same conditions in relation to EU support and equal access to EU markets, regardless.
Mr President, could I welcome the President-in-Office here? We are very pleased to see her as a frequent visitor to Parliament's Committee on Development and Cooperation.
We appreciate her commitment.
She started her address by saying that we had to mobilize international political will.
I think that is precisely the task that faces us because there is a lot of easy talk and yet we need to mobilize that political will.
I commend in particular the cause of Jubilee 2000 which I think has caught the imagination of many people and which says, with a new millennium, let us cancel the debt of the poorest countries.
This point is tucked away in paragraph 74 of Mr Rocard's excellent report but should be right up there in lights as one of the essentials in the alleviation of poverty to which his report is largely devoted.
This is an excellent report by Mr Rocard, as there are so many aspects to it, any one of which could make a substantial difference to areas of policy and areas of the world.
For instance, we have paragraph 45 on monoculture, one of the really crushing problems for the Caribbean islands, for example, with their historic dependence on bananas.
We have the problem of the small island states, not just in the Caribbean but in the Pacific, which are totally at the mercy of global warming.
That is a very important commitment that we reiterate.
There is an excellent paragraph on landmines which are such a scourge for Africa and other parts of the world.
Arms sales are mentioned, again an extremely important ingredient in development policy.
Paragraph 77 talks about the need to develop fisheries agreements with a development component instead of a purely commercial one.
If we could achieve that, this again would make a huge difference to the coastal countries off which this Union fishes.
Last but not least, there is the 0.7 % UN target of aid; if we could achieve that for every single Member State instead of just for one or two noble exceptions, then we would be doing something noble.
I would commend the report and perhaps I can finish by saying that 'Nous sommes tous des rocardiens maintenant' , we are all Rocardians now.
Mr President, research into and the implementation of effective measures to combat poverty will constitute the EU's greatest undertaking in its future relations with the ACP countries.
Following the Committee on Development and Cooperation's discussions in Brussels, the overall strategy proposed by the Commission within the framework of negotiations for the renewal of the cooperation agreements with the ACP countries, will be submitted next month, during the course of the Joint Assembly planned in the Mauritius Islands.
Alongside decisive support for a micro-economic approach, which is intended to encourage the poorer countries to invest in the development of micro-credit, the Union hopes to maintain preferential trade with the poorer countries and those which are more vulnerable economically.
As already negotiated within the scope of the Lomé agreements, preferential trade agreements have been renewed for a ten-year period and are incorporated into a clearly political perspective encouraging geographical differentiation, to emphasize regional differences.
The principle of respect for human rights and democracy will be an essential requirement in the philosophy of the cooperation agreements.
Consequently, through the regional authorities responsible for monitoring ethnic, economic, social and religious tensions, the EU should maintain peace and prevent crises and conflicts.
Mr President, on the basis of the work of Mr Rocard and Mr Vecchi, the Group of the Party of European Socialists has undertaken a commitment that has lasted for more than a year: it consists of a working group set up with the representatives of the ACP countries, which has studied this matter and discussed its proposals in Africa with the African leaders.
This is a new way of preparing for the review of these agreements, which must not be called into question.
This special relationship is important and should continue, but should be renewed broadly.
There are many reasons in the Rocard and Vecchi reports for renewing these agreements.
It is a new and global concept that deals with all the issues, from democracy and human rights to conflict prevention, all important subjects on which I will not dwell.
An effort is being made to define cooperation and partnership more effectively, by reviewing the way of working but also looking at the mistakes and inadequacies so far, by looking critically at the disguised plundering by the large European companies, by looking to replace huge projects which are not always useful with a vision that is closer to the work and life of the people and the democratic development of society, by looking at new fields of intervention such as women, civil society, health, education and, as I said, by using more penetrating and effective ways of working.
In short, this approach is an attempt to propose a European alternative to the model Clinton has proposed for Africa, which does not seem to have pleased Mandela too much, precisely because it is a model of liberalization at all costs, when everyone is now questioning the role of the IMF - which has also brought disaster - and wondering how to deal with enormous problems such as the debt crisis with new mechanisms and objectives.
The EU therefore has to find an alternative.
With regard to the composition of the ACP countries, that is, the list of participants, the best plan is to review the possible entry of new countries, given the new problems, for example, in South Africa, within the scope of the current regional areas, maintaining the unity of this long-lasting relationship, which is of great political value in itself but which should be made more effective and reformed in depth.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, cooperation by the European Union with the ACP states must be reformed.
There is much that is positive in this cooperation, but there is also much which does not work.
Simply continuing the status quo is certainly not a model for the next millennium.
The present rules are above all discriminatory.
Countries like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bolivia and Nicaragua are excluded, although these are developing countries which need our help just as much as the present ACP states.
I consider that it is rather schizophrenic that in March Parliament adopted an urgent motion on Nicaragua's debt and pointed out the terrible situation of people in Nicaragua, but the accession of Nicaragua to the Lomé Convention was not even seriously discussed.
At its Congress in Toulouse last year, the Group of the European People's Party demanded that future cooperation should no longer be based so much on colonial links, but on income per head and its distribution, and above all on the willingness of those in government to contribute genuinely to the development of people in their country.
I expressly welcome what Mrs Dybkjær said about the expansion of the ACP states and the acceptance of new members.
It would be schizophrenic to restrict the acceptance of new members to Cuba of all countries. The pre-conditions have not really been fulfilled there.
Commissioner Pinheiro, your mandate for action is a tentative step in the right direction, to make cooperation effective in the future.
Keep at it!
We should support this step and encourage you to take further steps.
Do not be led astray by the protectionists of all countries, but go into the new millennium with a new concept!
Mr President, I briefly want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Rocard and Mr Vecchi.
Development cooperation is undoubtedly the focus of a number of important issues at the moment.
I do not have a lot of time, but I would like to make a few points.
Mr Vecchi has pointed out the importance of decentralized cooperation because it means moving the focus from individual projects to those involved in the projects.
But this transition, which is very important, also needs to be demonstrated from another point of view.
The EU has the task of making countries who want to cooperate with us aware of their own resources.
Often we do not talk enough about the environmental and cultural wealth of these countries, which could be important resources for them, because, if they are aware of them, they can then understand how to use them to improve their economy in terms of tourism, and we too can offer them important support.
Culture, cultural and environmental wealth with the knowledge and awareness of what they have to give us. What is important and fundamental is that, when we talk about development cooperation, we should not forget foreign policy and humanitarian aid.
Just one development cooperation measure, if not in line with humanitarian aid measures and with foreign policy, could undoubtedly produce negative results that we do not want.
The EU should thus have a foreign policy on common security, that will enable dialogue in a field where we can really make substantial impact and a significant economic contribution.
We are still lacking in this, unfortunately.
However, I wish to thank Commissioner Pinheiro for the effort he is making for development and real cooperation, especially bearing in mind the need for the necessary financial means.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two or three years ago we were quite sceptical s to the future of the Lomé agreements, for many reasons.
A decline in the geo-strategic interest of the ACP countries after the end of the Cold War, the need for the European Union to contribute to the economic development and democratic strengthening of central and eastern European countries, the wave of ultra-liberalism created by the WTO along with, of course, a decline in the financial capacities of a Union sharply touched by crisis, can all be given as examples.
All of these factors came together to overshadow the horizon which, at last, seems to be clearing. We are delighted to note an increased awareness within the European Union regarding a growing interdependence with the ACP countries, particularly with the African continent, an interdependence which concerns economic development, security, democracy and the influx of immigrants.
The Commission's Green Paper is clearly the source of this awareness, but we can be proud of the European Parliament's active contribution, and especially that of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, in reflections on the renewal of the Lomé agreements.
The Martens and Rocard reports, which have both been rightly praised, have drawn up a framework and defined the ambitions of a renewed and deepened cooperation, emphasizing the necessary political dimension of the agreements, the promotion of democratic values and the support for a process of regional integration.
I am personally extremely pleased at the importance which has been given to decentralized cooperation - indeed the Vecchi report was dedicated to this - because it responds directly to the needs and aspirations of the populations of the ACP countries and because, through local government and associations, it involves the citizens themselves in the process of cooperation.
Decentralized cooperation brings greater effectiveness and democracy.
Ladies and gentlemen, the game is not yet won with regard to the Lomé agreements for the year 2000, but we will from now on have, thanks in particular to the Rocard report, intellectual instruments which will ensure that we do not miss this great opportunity.
We also have to fight to gain the necessary financial means.
Much will depend on the political will that Parliament shows.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a change is necessary in the way in which we pursue cooperation between the European Union and the ACP countries, with a view to establishing a renewed, real and fairer partnership.
The post-colonial period should be brought to a close.
We must shake off the old donor-recipient relationships and cease to cast the recipient in the role of a child.
The rationale of conditionality must be replaced by contract-based cooperation.
The main feature of this new partnership should be that populations themselves take their place in cooperation, while its main aim should be to eradicate poverty, prevent conflict, defend human rights and promote good governance.
This new partnership should therefore be given a strong political dimension, extending cooperation to include economic, financial and technical partnership, which should be decentralized to include new protagonists, in addition to governments.
We should remember, at this time, that democratization and good governance are, first and foremost, the product of a way of thinking that takes time to become firmly rooted.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sincere support for Commissioner Pinheiro for the intelligence he has shown in presenting and developing the new strategic approach which he proposes for such a very important issue.
May I also offer my warmest congratulations to Mr Rocard and Mr Vecchi for their outstanding reports.
Mr President, I will be very brief, because I fully agree with Mr Rocard's report, and I also greatly appreciate his input.
There is one point I would like to draw your attention to, and this is similar to the one Mr Liese just mentioned.
What I am concerned with is the relationship between the ACP countries and the overseas countries and territories, the so-called OCAT.
In addition to over 70 ACP countries, there are 20 overseas countries and territories, many of which are located in the Third World, often amongst ACP countries.
Their position in relation to the European Union changes frequently, is extremely unclear, and is partly dependent on specific relationships with specific Member States they may be part of.
As we know, this relationship changes from country to country.
In 1957, the Treaty of Rome promised them that they would be treated equally with the Member States themselves.
But this never actually happened. The far-reaching equal status they were granted in 1991 has meanwhile been reversed.
Mr President, what should happen now? Together with the new Lomé Convention a clear agreement should be drawn up for the OCAT.
This would be fair and honest towards the developing regions it concerns.
It would also be good if the links between the OCAT and the ACP Assembly were strengthened, by giving the OCAT a place in the Assembly as observer.
I am delighted that Mr Rocard has included this in his report.
Mr President, I would like the Commission to tell us when it thinks it will have a new OCAT agreement, and perhaps the President-in-Office can add something to this.
I am extremely pleased that the Committee on Development and Cooperation is to draft an own-initiative report to underline this issue.
Mr President, this is what I wanted to add to the debate.
I would like to offer my full support to Mr Rocard's report.
Mr President, in the limited time that I have at my disposal, all I can offer is a few words.
The proposal amounts to keeping the general structure, the foundation of the Convention, upright.
This is the unique and only relationship we have with our southern neighbours in particular.
As far as trade is concerned, I believe the integration of the trade regime into the WTO should be gradual, whereby a transitional regime is developed for precarious markets which are still developing.
The question is whether five years is not far too short.
We really need an impact study on this.
Trade barriers, such as the rules of the place of origin, must be abolished. We therefore need a parallel policy for trade measures.
In addition we should ask ourselves whether the proposed free trade zones do not constitute a threat to the ACP and, in fact, merely provide convenient access to markets for European products.
We should be very conscious of this threat.
To conclude, Mr President, I would like to mention something which has not been discussed yet in this debate, and which I consider to be an omission, namely the little attention paid to complicated procedures.
The Green Paper goes into it at length, and I think this is right.
But I think we should make much more of it.
If we want to make the funds accessible to civil society, then it would demonstrate courage if the Commission and the Council were to look at a proposal, made at an earlier Parliamentary ACP-EU Meeting, to set up a kind of ombudsman initiative in the Pacific and in the Caribbean, initially in a French and an English-speaking country.
This would at least allow women's organizations and environmental organizations, trade unions, the press and the Chamber of Commerce access to EU legislation.
It is imperative that such a scheme is set up, but hitherto no one has taken up our proposal.
That is all I wanted to say for the moment.
Mr President, because of the absurd amount of time the Conference of Presidents has scheduled for this debate - just two hours for a subject which would keep a national parliament busy for several days - I am not going to comment on the initial address by the President-in-Office of the Council, nor on the excellent reports by Mr Rocard and Mr Vecchi.
I am going to spend these few seconds drawing people's attention to the fact that we do not live in a bubble nor in a glass jar, no matter how large the bubble or jar created by the Lomé Conventions may be.
Alongside our bubble or jar, a meteor has appeared - the appearance in Africa of the President of the United States, after twenty years of US presidential silence.
I hope the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council may like to advance some intelligent comment on this phenomenon.
President Clinton has spoken of taking up the Kennedy legacy, commencing a new partnership with Africa - though he does not say what sort -, increasing aid to its former levels - though we do not know if he can do it -, and above all, opening up trade. which has certainly given rise to some significant reservations on the part of President Mandela, for example. He has also talked about creating, or helping to create, an inter-African conflict prevention force.
Furthermore, he has begged forgiveness for the far-distant past - slavery - and the recent past - western indifference to the dreadful Rwandan genocide, which provoked the harshest, most incredibly surprising and painful silence from the international community.
I think the appearance of this North American meteor in the sky of our relations with the ACP countries justifies an initial comment now from the Council and the Commission, and perhaps a fuller explanation to this Parliament's Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Mr President, I wish to devote my contribution to this morning's debate to the report on decentralized cooperation drawn up by its excellent rapporteur, Mr Vecchi.
Our contention is that EU development cooperation should be based on the same principles of partnership, subsidiarity and decentralization which we have put at the heart of the way we organize ourselves within the European Union and which, we therefore argue, must inform our relations with the developing world.
It fits squarely within the approach outlined by the UK Secretary of State this morning in that the biggest stimulus to achieving quality of aid, to which she pledges herself, is the participation by recipients themselves in the planning, implementation and evaluation of development projects with which we seek to benefit them.
It is decentralized civil society organizations within developing countries which have the ability to adapt cooperation policy to local conditions.
It is decentralization which makes our aid more visible, thereby improving accountability.
It is decentralization which leads to better identification of need and support for smaller projects, with quicker funding availability than is possible in traditional programmes.
It is decentralization which encourages cooperation rather than competition between actors and equitable agreement at local level on the proper responsibilities of NGOs, vis-à-vis local and cental government.
It is decentralization which builds the capacity of civil society to monitor and assure norms of democracy, thereby promoting principles of good governance and respect for human rights.
Today's report seeks to agree a legal base for decentralized cooperation for the budget heading specifically created by Parliament as far back as 1992.
Yet I say to the Secretary of State that the Council's position represents two steps back rather than one step forward.
The Council seeks to restrict rather than encourage this approach by proposing a regulation which will remain in force for just three years.
It seeks to subject programmes to the bureaucracy of the restrictive II(b) commitology committee and to limit the finance available to just ECU 18 million over the three-year period.
In retabling our amendments at second reading, we therefore call on the Council radically to review its position.
Parliament wants the legal base for pilot initiatives on decentralized cooperation to be a strong - not a weak - instrument and one which is a starting point for mainstreaming this philosophy as a defining element in all of the EU's development cooperation efforts.
For all my political career, I have been a decentralizer, whether it has been in UK local government or in seeking to open up the workings of the European Union.
I believe the President-in-Office shares this conviction and hope she will do so once again today.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Pinheiro, I welcome this excellent report by Michel Rocard on a new cooperation agreement to replace Lomé 4.
The EU and ACP must reaffirm their partnership by strengthening democracy and respect for human rights, especially the rights of women.
The fight against poverty and illiteracy must form the basis of any new arrangements and the acquis communautaire must be built upon in political economic and financial terms.
In order to ensure maximum development in the ACP regions it is essential to take on board the question of peace and security.
The sale and distribution of dangerous weapons including, in particular, landmines must cease.
Peace is a prerequisite for development; without peace all effort is wasted.
It is also vitally important that developing countries be allowed fair access to the world market place within the WTO, thus helping them to achieve their ultimate goal which is the eradication of misery and poverty in these regions.
GATT and the WTO have done little or nothing so far to make increased trade a reality for these very poor economies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, several people have already pointed out the value of Mr Rocard's report regarding the Commission communication on guidelines for negotiating a new cooperation agreement with Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
Many valuable points, such as the desire to continue with cooperation or the emphasis placed on women's rights, have already been made.
This also justifies the unusual length of the text of this resolution, but greater conciseness in the details might have led to a more correct emphasis on the principles guiding the new partnership agreements between these countries and the EU.
However, since we are emphasizing values, there are several points which, in the opinion of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, should be partly changed.
I am referring in particular to paragraphs 18 and 25.
Paragraph 18 of the text affirms the desire to use contracts instead of applying too many conditions.
We are asking for a clause to be included to ensure that the countries concerned observe democratic principles and human rights.
I do not think we can disregard this fundamental point, which forms a part of our cultural heritage.
The same applies to paragraph 25, where it is proposed that the ACP countries themselves should lay down the criteria for arranging partnership agreements, based on Commission proposals.
We think it would be better to establish a completely equal relationship between the Commission and these countries and we are proposing our amendment to that effect.
Mr President, I would like to say that I think this is an excellent report.
The Commission's proposal and this report represent an important step forwards.
I also think it is good that clear emphasis is placed on increased regionalization and thus also decentralization, since it is clearly difficult to see how else we could achieve effective cooperation between ourselves and 70 states as different as those we have in the ACP agreement.
I think it is good to focus on poverty, the environment and women, amongst other things.
Personally, I think it is also essential for us to pay more attention to the issue of population, which is a very important one.
Whether or not we can solve the problem of rapid population growth depends on issues such as reproductive health and the living conditions of women, but it also depends on the ability of states as a whole to develop in the future.
What I miss in the report, however, and what I would like to have seen included, is a clearer indication of the fact that in the long term we are prepared to adapt the trade preferences which currently exist in the Lomé Convention to the WTO's rules.
I think this is the only sustainable solution in the long term.
I also think that long term protection of European agriculture is not a durable solution.
We must have the same standards for trade and agricultural policy as we have for aid policy in general.
Mr President, like Commissioner Pinheiro, I think what is most impressive about this debate is the amount of shared thinking there is across the Commission, the Council and Parliament - and right around Parliament.
Of course, there are some nuances of difference which we need to discuss further and to resolve.
This is a very powerful alliance and it bodes well for the next phase of Lomé that there has been some very careful thinking and there is a lot of agreement about the direction in which we need to travel.
Mr Rocard is to be congratulated on his report, and it has drawn praise and respect from all quarters of Parliament.
A lot of the thinking in the report coincides with Council thinking.
There are some details we need to discuss further - for example the best way to deal with AIDS in some of the poorest countries in the world - but we can come back to that.
I would agree with the stress on all sides on support for good governance and human rights as a precondition for eradicating poverty.
We only have to look at the Asian crisis to know that is right; you cannot promote and sustain development without democracy and human rights.
The Asian crisis shows that and, therefore, it is not an optional extra; it is part of sustainable development.
I am sure we all regret the fact that Mr Vecchi cannot be here, and we send our best regards to his family and hope all goes well.
I want to make it very clear that there is absolute agreement on the desirability of decentralization in cooperation.
The disagreement is about the commitology, but not about that principle.
So at least we agree about the direction of travel, even if we do not completely agree on everything.
I should like to say to Mrs Van Dijk that there is also now universal agreement that you cannot have development without educating girls and promoting the empowerment of women, because women and children are the overwhelming majority of the poor.
That, again, is now agreed and not just an optional extra.
I should like to say to Glenys Kinnock, who was very worried about the stress on regional free-trade agreements, that what we got out of the last meeting of the General Affairs Council was agreement that regional free-trade agreements are one option but an enhanced GSP is another option that must be at least as good as the existing Lomé access.
There must be better treatment of the least-developed countries inside or outside the ACP alliance.
Within that kind of framework - this, of course, is the area of greatest complexity and needs more discussion - there is room for different countries to choose the way in which they wish to travel.
If we can preserve those options, then it will be possible to go forward in the way that the countries concerned wish.
John Corrie placed a lot of emphasis on regionalization, and we all respect the work he has done on that.
I agree that is the way in which the world is moving but it is for the ACP countries themselves to decide the speed of that movement and not to have a sort of rigid formula that requires them to move in ways that they do not wish to go.
Mr Andrews stressed the need for simplification of the instruments, and we all agree.
The existing structures are far too complex, the agreement is far too complex and it makes rigid the flows of development assistance, and so on.
On budgetizing aid, there is no agreement.
As you all know, the Maastricht Treaty provided for a separate EDF, and that remains the position of some of the member countries.
So we all respect the decision of Parliament but there is not going to be immediate progress on that question.
Mr Telkämper, for the Green Group, stressed that the World Trade Organization and WTO-compatibility are not democratic.
In fact, the WTO is an organization of Member States with one state, one vote, and is potentially democratic.
The problem in this area is that change is so complex that not all states are equal at the table, and what we have to do is spread the analysis and get it shared so that developing countries can come to the table of the WTO clear about what is in their interests.
We need to work together to secure that.
Mr Hory talked about the paragraph in Mr Rocard's report on human rights being defined by the OAU.
I just wish to remind Parliament that all our countries have signed up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Human rights are not regional, they are universal for all people, they cross civil, political, social and economic rights and our aspiration is to realize those rights for all people everywhere.
Methods of implementing and strengthening the OAU is a good idea but there are not different human rights in the south compared with the north.
Mr Antony said that some of the progress under the ACP-EU relationship in the past had not been as effective as we would hope.
There is some truth in that, and we have to face it in order to make improvements for the future.
He stressed that there had been too much emphasis on the role of the state in the past.
We have been through two eras: one that gave perhaps too much emphasis to the role of the state and minimized the role of markets.
We are coming out of an era that maximized the role of the markets and minimized the role of the state, and what we need is a new synthesis that puts both the state and markets in their rightful place to get the properly regulated, international and national arrangements that can promote sustainable economic growth.
That is the challenge of the next era.
Mrs Junker said that we must emphasize sustainable development.
I just wish to stress that in the international poverty eradication strategy there is a commitment that every country should have its sustainable development plan in place so that it can promote development that does not use up its natural resources in an unsustainable way.
Mrs Günther talked about progress on health being part of poverty eradication.
That is absolutely right, and the stark statistics of terrible infant mortality, low-life expectancy or maternal mortality are part of the picture of gross poverty in the world.
Again, one of the major poverty eradication targets is the provision of basic health care to all the people of the world by 2015, and access to reproductive health care for everyone and a reduction in maternal mortality and infant mortality.
So I very much agree that is part of the process of poverty eradication.
Mrs Dybkjær stressed that the least developed countries should have equal rights whether they are inside the ACP or outside.
That is absolutely right.
It was one of the commitments made in a previous General Affairs Council agreement.
We must make sure it is implemented.
I agree with those who say that logically the poorest countries should become part of the ACP.
But in fact the ACP is resistant and a lot of the poorest countries are not seeking to join.
What we need to ensure is that they are treated equally in terms of both trade access and development assistance.
Then we will effectively have equal treatment, even if we do not have it in theory.
I am grateful to Mr Macartney for his remarks.
He raised the question of Jubilee 2000 and debts.
The Council wholeheartedly supports the HIPC initiative.
What we all have to do is speed up its implementation and try to make sure that every highly indebted country is on track for getting the debt to a sustainable level by the year 2000.
Mr Amadeo said that we must give more assistance to the most vulnerable.
That is part of the broad agreement on development assistance - that there should be differentiation between the investment needs of the very poorest and the technical cooperation needs of the middle-income countries, and more resources ploughed into investment in health, education and so on, in the very poorest countries.
Mrs Baldi said not enough importance was currently attached to environmental resources.
Again, I should like to refer to the commitment in the poverty eradication strategy to a sustainable development strategy, including environmental resources in every developing country.
We need to put that in place.
There is a strong consensus that we should strengthen the partnership.
A partnership implies a relationship of equals and yet it was argued by one of the Members that we had to have conditionality in human rights.
Experience with development shows that if conditionality is imposed it is never effective.
The basis for the partnership has to be that we agree on the need to eradicate poverty and this calls for respect for democracy, human rights and good governance; within that framework we can then agree as equals on the details of implementation.
I share Mr Howitt's aspirations towards decentralization.
There is strong agreement in the Commission and the Council that is the way in which our efforts need to move.
I have one reservation: we cannot have all the Member States, as well as the Commission, working with NGOs everywhere.
We need to decentralize our efforts and then we need to decide in what areas the Member States should take the lead and in what areas the Commission should take the lead.
We should not be tripping over each other on the details of our cooperation.
The final point, raised by Mrs Lööw, is population growth.
In 1945 there were 2.6 billion people, now there are 5.7 billion and by 2015 the population of the world will be at least 10 billion.
If we eradicate poverty and improve access to health care and education it will increase to about 15 billion and then be sustainable.
If we do not develop the world economy it will go well beyond that and start to use up the resources of the world in a way that is not sustainable.
That is part of the challenge of development: that we hand on a sustainable world to the next generation and for that it is absolutely essential that we succeed in these endeavours.
I am very optimistic that we are going to make progress in the effectiveness of our development collaboration.
The consensus between Parliament, the Council and the Commission bodes very well for our future endeavours.
Mr President, I am impressed by the breadth and clarity of the President-in-Office's answers but there is one point that I missed and that is the complexity of the procedures.
The procedures are becoming so complex that they are a serious deterrent.
It was one of the reasons for the underspending under Lomé and the inaccessibility of Lomé for chambers of commerce, women's groups and environmental groups in the ACP countries.
Can you, and maybe the Commissioner as well, go into that issue?
May I very quickly touch on the complexity of procedures? If you look at the Lomé agreement, it is enormously complex, with very complex channels of funding, and we are all agreed that they have got to be simplified.
The administration has got to be decentralized so that it is less slow, less complex, more effective.
There is agreement across Commission and Council that we must make those improvements.
At the moment, as you will know, in all areas of European Union endeavour we have difficulty in disbursing the funds that we have available.
We must improve our capacity to do so.
That is agreed.
Mr President, all I want to know is whether the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council plan to say something about the US President's visit now, or to the Committee on Development and Cooperation at a future date.
Mr Robles, perhaps I could ask them to respond in writing because we are out of time for this debate.
Members know the procedure.
We have a debate and a separate time for questions.
I have to move on.
I would like to thank everybody who took part in the debate, in particular the President-in-Office.
EU-Russia relations
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media I should like to congratulate Mrs Lalumière on her excellent report.
The bonds that tie Russia and the European Member States are centuries old.
Russia is also important as a bridge between Europe and Asia.
Europe's relationship with Russia is a chance to further the principle of western democracy, which is a key element in cooperation with other nations.
Russia, as a superpower, however, goes its own way in matters of geography, natural resources, its population and its culture.
Progress in Russia is unpredictable, often chaotic, following no western model or timetable.
For that reason, an understanding of Russia's special features is a key factor in a successful partnership between her and the EU.
The Committee on Culture proposes increased reciprocal understanding and trust through a programme of education and study as well as exchange arrangements.
People should know more about Russia's rich cultural heritage with its many vital minority groups, which are worthy of our support.
Nevertheless, Russian cultural heritage is being threatened by economic problems and indifference.
The EU should be helping Russia to take stock of this heritage, promote information exchange and vocational training in the area of culture, as well as encourage legislative moves in favour of ethnic cultures.
The challenge for us is, above all, to give our support to nationwide and local democracy in Russia.
The countries around the Baltic and Barents Sea are especially well placed to establish more opportunities for cooperation with Russia.
The TACIS-Interreg cross-border cooperation and TACIS-PHARE programmes must be brought more into the picture.
But proper cooperation in education cannot take place just through TACIS projects: it will require a European foundation or an entirely separate source of funding.
In any case, resources have to be increased and cooperation has to be based on the reciprocal dealings of two equal partners.
Mr President, it is now ten years since perhaps the greatest 'tectonic quake' in history, the spontaneous and non-violent collapse of those dictatorial regimes which aspired to the establishment of Soviet-led communism.
The astonishing change was, at the time, rightly hailed as an ideological victory for democracy, along with the end of the Cold War, the rivalry between two superpowers and the life-giving upsurge of freedom among peoples who had suffered the tyranny of dogmatism.
After the initial euphoria, however, the size and acuteness of the problems that emerged were not tackled head-on by the western democracies.
There was no timely, integrated and, above all, disinterested implementation of a far-sighted strategy that would effectively express international solidarity.
Russia's succession of adventures at that time often sounded alarm bells warning of a return to the dark past, and even of bloodshed.
And though extremes were avoided, the dysfunctionalities of the new regime continue to be perceptible in all areas, from the economy and social instability to internal security, from public health to criminality and degradation of the environment.
This was demonstrated by the recent disturbances at a very high government level.
One cannot be complacent about the tremendous difficulties Russia still faces a decade after the change, a vast country with a heroic people and with a rich historic tradition and spiritual heritage.
On the contrary, it is in everyone's interests to contribute to the consolidation of democracy, the development of society, so that Russia can play the role it should, both within and beyond the continent of Europe.
Thanks are due to Mrs Lalumière for the appropriateness and completeness of her report on the strategy that ought to be pursued.
However, there are so many aspects to Russia's problems that they justify the amendments which aim to enrich the overall consideration and specific application of the strategy.
What is of primary importance is that this strategy should commence in parallel with the enlargement process already begun.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, I would respectfully like to thank Mrs Lalumière for her report.
The report shows just how much expert knowledge she gained in her splendid work as Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.
Russia has a key role in EU foreign relations.
She is still a superpower and her development and progress is vitally important for the security and well-being of the Member States.
With enlargement, the Union already shares a very long border with Russia, and one that will grow even longer with the next round of accessions.
Enlargement will mean the strengthening of ties between the EU and Russia.
Enlargement to the east will be on a far larger scale than is generally realized.
All eastern European countries, Russia included, are on the path to democracy and a market economy.
Before long, they will all fulfil the criteria required for membership as laid down at Copenhagen.
Despite all this, Parliament should not yet, in the opinion of the Liberal group, take a stand in any way on Russia's inclusion in the EU.
Mrs Lalumière's excellent report originally gave the impression, and still does to some extent, that there will be a new bi-zonal Europe made up of Russia on the one hand and the rest of Europe on the other.
To rid ourselves of this image we suggest new wording to paragraph 57 regarding the Council of Europe and the EU so that "to act as a link between the two halves of the continent' will read as "to promote genuine pan-European partnership.'
The Liberal group suggests a new paragraph should be inserted in the report, which stresses the importance of the EU Nordic dimension and provides for the start of close cooperation between Russia and the Council of Baltic states, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council and the Arctic Council.
We hope everyone will approve this addition.
Mr President, the European Union must support the greatest possible development of relations and cooperation with the Russian Federation.
It will be impossible to build a stable Europe if we turn our back on that country or try to isolate it.
The enlargement of the European Union to include the central and eastern European countries, and the enlargement of NATO to the east, should be accompanied by a proportional increase in relations with Moscow.
The plan and proposals, presented by the Council and the Commission respectively, should aim in that direction, as of course should the proper application of the 1994 agreement signed with the Russian Federation, which has just come into effect.
Russia is going through a difficult transition in political terms, with a democracy marked by Boris Yeltsin's presidential authoritarianism.
Examples have included the assault on Parliament some years ago, the war in Chechnya, and the most recent government crisis, not to mention the general lack of respect for many human rights.
Some institutions in Russia are weak as a result of that same authoritarianism.
There is a profound economic crisis, caused by ultraliberal approaches. And of course there is an extremely serious social crisis, which manifests itself, for example, as poverty, public servants being unable to draw their salaries, and even - though it is hard to believe - a decrease in people's standard of living and life expectancy.
It is a question of cooperating with Russia on equal terms, to help to ensure that the European Union has a democratic and socioeconomically consolidated partner.
Such a partner is essential for security in Europe. Security and cooperation with Russia cannot just be based on the founding act signed between Moscow and NATO: bodies such as the OSCE also need to be strengthened.
It is a question of having a reliable partner on the international scene, one which cannot be forgotten, as we saw during the most recent Iraq crisis and with the situation in Kosovo.
I want to end by saying that I am worried that countries such as France and Germany obviously might be tempted to enter into bilateral relationships with the Russian Federation, independently of moves from the European Union.
Lastly, I want to express our general support for Mrs Lalumière's magnificent report.
Mr President, the sensitive reactions of the West to the risky government restructuring with which the Kremlin leader Yeltsin has startled his European neighbours in the last few days shows once again how profound the links between Western Europe and Russia are.
There is therefore no question about it: the challenge for Europe after the fall of the Wall is the clarification and restructuring of our relationship with Russia.
Basically, the question of European security will depend precisely on the success of the balance struck with Russia.
In the face of that, what the Commission calls an "action plan for the future relationship of the EU and Russia' seems to be a conglomeration of individual measures; it seems aimless, inadequate and unprofessional.
It is another demonstration of the poverty of our common foreign policy that in respect of what is our continent's key concern, neither a decent joint strategy nor a comprehensive set of ideas can be found in it.
I think I have made it clear: For the Green Group, there is no doubt that Russia can also become a member of the Union if it wants to.
Anyone who does not accept this not only ignores the EU Treaty on this point, but also rejects involvement in this great restructuring task of Europe.
Such a rejection is marked by the same spirit as the provocation which was caused by the expansion of military power systems during the Cold War.
It does not contribute to the settlement, peace and stability of this continent.
We need an investment in the partnership process with Russia, and that means an investment in the peace of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the members of the Italian National Alliance look favourably on the EU action plan for Russia, launched by the Council in May 1996 under the Italian Presidency.
The plan seeks to ensure good coordination between the various actions, both bilateral and Community, aimed at supporting the transformation of Russia.
It contemplates five major areas of cooperation: democratic reforms, economic cooperation, justice, safety and foreign policy.
In this respect, the National Alliance notes with satisfaction the efforts made by Russia with regard to political freedoms, the development of democracy and the protection of human rights.
It is, however, worried about a few uncertainties and a few steps backwards in this area and also hopes for marked, significant and positive developments in this respect.
We should therefore follow developments in this area carefully, helping and supporting them in all ways possible, without forgetting that only a year ago Russia was under the yoke of a communist and totalitarian regime.
We are asking the Russian government to pay greater attention to the control and suppression of local organized crime, which is spreading dangerously to Europe, and to give a strong commitment to environmental protection in order to avert further ecological disasters and repair the damage caused by the previous communist regimes, which were totally insensitive to these problems.
Finally, to ensure lasting peace for Europe and the world, we hope there will be a reinforcement of the political, economic and cultural partnership with Russia, which is undoubtedly a great world power today.
Mr President, allow me to deal particularly with the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement in this debate.
In this agreement, there is already an effective instrument for carrying on a permanent dialogue with our Russian partners about all those questions of a political and economic nature which are central to our mutual relationship.
Let us not forget that it was the parliaments - the European Parliament and the Russian State Duma - which christened the first of the executive bodies of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee which I chair with my Russian colleague, Mr Ryshkov.
In this capacity I would like to emphasize particularly how profitable the work in this committee was last December.
I can assure you that we address the individual problems in the relationship between the EU and Russia very openly with our Russian colleagues, and that we are frank about the difficulties.
Continuity of contacts and regular mutual visits, which create mutual trust, are particularly important, even if the contacts on the Russian side are continually changing.
I think that it is not too much to say that the form of cooperation which we are developing is a future model for Russian-European cooperation.
In this way, the relationship with our Russian partners can be constructed and can be further extended without discussing Russia's EU membership.
Neither side needs to discuss that.
In this context, allow me to point out the importance of the TACIS programme.
In her report, Mrs Lalumière calls on the Commission to strengthen support for these projects, and demands that the priorities in TACIS aid for the improvement of daily living conditions should start with setting up the structures necessary for the rule of law.
I would like to underline this very explicitly.
We know that we must improve this TACIS programme, but we also know that preparatory work is essential for our future cooperation between Russia and the European Union.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mrs Lalumière on her brilliance, because she reminded me of a colleague I once had, Mr Vergès, who was one of the best lawyers in the world, and to whom I once said: If I am ever found with a bloody knife next to a corpse, I would certainly take him as my advocate.
Mrs Lalumière, if that happens to me again, I would willingly engage you as my lawyer, because we must remember one thing, which was not mentioned here in the discussion, and my colleague Mr González Carnero has underlined it, that we must let caution rule in our relationship with Russia.
I would like to point out the following above all else here: Russia is today, in an era of worldwide decolonization, the last great colonial empire on earth.
The Chechen war showed that clearly, and there will be more colonial wars.
At any rate, I do not want any of my 18 grandchildren to die in a colonial war for the defence of Russia.
We do not need Russia in the European Union before decolonization has taken place, afterwards yes, but not before.
But I would like to point out the other fact, that Mr Yeltsin's last press conference has shown us how dangerous it is to leave the keys to nuclear weapons in such hands.
We must all be clear about that, and therefore we must think more about our security.
Obviously we do not want a war or conflict with Russia, but we must see the situation quite clearly.
I therefore have certain reservations about an over-optimistic representation of a situation which must simply be seen as it is.
The danger is still before us.
Mr President, the European Union's policy on Russia is aimed at strengthening democracy, peace, trade with, and the economic development of, this large and important country of 140 million inhabitants.
If Russia's development is successful, a natural further step should be that Russia becomes a member of our democratic union, the EU.
On this issue, Mrs Lalumière is left quaking in her boots in her otherwise excellent report.
The EU was founded by six states with around 200 million inhabitants.
We now have 15 countries with 370 million inhabitants.
When we have accepted the 12 new countries which now want to join, we will number almost half a million people.
Surely a Union of that size which is functioning well could also open its doors one day and find room for a successful Russian democracy.
Mr President, Russia's population is falling and poverty is spreading.
Nuclear waste and environmental pollution are a threat to the whole of Europe.
In the future, the EU will be dependent on Russia for her natural resources, especially gas.
The EU should not be sending any military signals that Russia might interpret as a threat to her national security.
A country like Finland should remain non-aligned, even if the EU were to have a common foreign and defence policy.
Mrs Lalumière's report brings to mind Karl Marx's book on the history of nineteenth century diplomacy.
It was never published in the Soviet Union because it brought up the question of Russia's foothold in both Europe and Asia.
We should not, however, adopt double standards when we look at the Russian issue.
The same criteria should apply in the West to President Yeltsin's dictatorship or the total indoctrination of the media as if that were what was taking place in our own countries.
The Russian people need money, good health, human rights, a clean environment and hope, just as we all do.
An equal basis for dialogue and cooperation requires the EU to look to Nordic policies.
Mr President, I enthusiastically support Mrs Lalumière's report and I pay tribute to her ability and perceptiveness.
On many occasions in this House I have had the opportunity of regretting that the European Union has committed itself to opening up to the west, to international high finance from across the Atlantic, and to the south, to an uncontrolled influx of immigrants, whilst I have dreaded the Union shutting itself off from the east, precisely where the European border remains to be drawn, since Russia straddles two continents.
If enlargement of the Union to the central and eastern European countries is to be brought to a successful conclusion, it must not be done to the detriment of our sister countries of the former USSR, in case we merely rebuild a new wall of shame a little further east.
It is probably unrealistic to envisage the accession of Russia to the enlarged European Union.
I have, however, always attempted to put forward the idea of unifying the enlarged European Union with the twelve member countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States in a structure such as a confederation. They would thus form the two poles of a future binomial partnership which would finally free our people from American protection.
Only as a Europe with a continental dimension can we become winners in a global economic war in which we have already lost too many battles.
Mr President, the report on future relations with Russia is an important one.
I am therefore surprised and find it very regrettable that there are a number of strange deficiencies in the otherwise well thought out proposal.
Let me begin by mentioning paragraph 54, in which the rapporteur makes it clear that Russia is neither suitable nor desirable as a member of the EU, ' in view of the dimensions of Russia and its Eurasian interests and of the deeply integrated nature of the European Union.'
It is quite inappropriate for the European Parliament to make prejudiced comments on Russia's possible future membership, not least in view of the fact that Russia has not actually applied for membership.
It would be quite inappropriate to adopt paragraph 54 in its current form.
If such a statement of principle is to be adopted for Russia, it might just as well also be applied to other countries which could think of applying for membership, such as Belarus, Ukraine, Turkey and so on.
Regardless of whether people currently think that Russia should or should not become a member of the EU, such a point of view does not belong in the report.
It must be more in the EU's interest to establish strong ties with Russia which can develop into a closer cooperation in order to strengthen and guarantee peace and security internationally.
Europe's partnership for peace should clearly include the area from the Atlantic to the Urals.
The other flaw which I would like to mention is paragraph 46, in which the rapporteur suggests that it will only be possible to develop security relations with Russia once it has been decided to incorporate the WEU into the EU.
We must bear in mind that, according to the whole Russian establishment, NATO's enlargement is causing increased security worries for Russia.
The Russian military are now also demanding increased investment in Russian nuclear weapons as a result of NATO enlargement.
It is therefore very important for the EU to help reduce the worries which NATO's enlargement causes Russia rather than increase them.
Finally, I would just like to criticize the incomprehensible wording of paragraph 1 a, namely that the EU should foster the 'emergence of a middle class to provide a firm base for democracy.'
This wording belongs to 19th century thinking not to that of 1998.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me, in the discussion about this report, to say something about the developments in our cooperation within the delegation or within the joint committee which we have with the Russian State Duma and the Federal Council. When I consider the development in the last few years, I detect that there has been a basic improvement.
Whereas in the joint sessions in the initial phase after 1994 we very often indulged in reciprocal statements - whereby the Russian side was sometimes quite emphatic in forcing us onto certain subjects, for example NATO membership of some east European states, subjects which really had nothing to do with the bilateral relationship between the European Union and Russia and prevented a rational dialogue - this has essentially changed.
It is now the case that we discuss many subjects of mutual interest and thus achieve agreement on many points, or can at least have an effective exchange of experience.
Take, for instance, the debate about TACIS, about the development of the partnership agreement, about Russian or European internal questions, such as the development of international crime, the rule of law or the tax system in Russia.
I believe that it is the task of the European Union to encourage the development towards a stable democracy in Russia, but to observe and follow it critically.
Russia is not yet a stable democracy, because there is still no stable combination there of the elements necessary for it.
The clashes and movements in internal politics make this clear, as we have seen recently.
Nevertheless I believe that Russia is on the right path, and we as Europeans should accompany her and be vigilant.
Mr President, despite the over-optimistic tone of the report I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work.
The most important problem with the report is the lack of examples.
Mrs Lalumière mentions as one main goal the strengthening of security for Europe and her closest neighbours, based on equal partnership.
What does this actually mean, though?
The Finnish government aims to put the Union's Nordic dimension on the agenda during her Presidency in the latter part of 1999.
The Nordic dimension is a security project, broad in scope, which focuses, for example, on the TACIS programme, on Russia's commitment to regional cooperation in the areas of environmental concern and nuclear safety, and on the multi-faceted relationship that exists between the Baltic states.
Cooperation with Russia can be a success only by means of a step-by-step policy that addresses one issue at a time.
Russian stability will not be aided by grandiloquent, celebratory eulogies even in this House.
Commissioner, thank you for battling against the noise.
I have to say that it never ceases to amaze or depress me how ignorant this House can be when people are speaking.
It is the same people who session after session stand up and talk about the dignity and importance of this House who treat it like a street market.
It is quite a disgrace.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at voting time.
Madam President, I refer to Article 48 of the Rules of Procedure.
On 9 March we gave the starting signal.
The European Parliament wanted to declare 1999 the European Year against Violence against Women, and to start a European campaign for this.
The initiative from the Committee on Women's Rights exceeded the required number, 314, today.
We have 323 votes.
Never have things moved so fast in the history of the European Parliament.
We managed to reach this number in only six and a half days of sittings.
I now ask the Commission and the Council to make preparations as quickly as possible, so that the women's organizations, churches, associations can start to prepare for this European year.
The women in our countries are waiting for support.
Once again the European Parliament has come forward in the vanguard of women's rights.
Sincere thanks to all my colleagues, men and women, who have signed the declaration.
But it is still possible to sign!
(Applause)
Like you, I am extremely pleased that this resolution has been so successful.
Madam President, I would also like to congratulate our colleague Mrs Gröner on achieving the 323 signatures.
However, as usual I rise on the voting procedure.
I advise you now that I will be present and voting so you will have no problems.
However, I note that the voting list distributed to Members advises Members when there will be a roll-call vote.
There are ten roll-call votes for this particular session.
Two or three could be added to this making perhaps twelve to thirteen.
Therefore, if I stay for seven roll-call votes, I could then leave having completed the 50 %.
These rules are absurd, the way the Bureau treats them is absurd and the quicker they are removed the better.
There are about fifteen roll-call votes, Mr Falconer.
I bring this to your attention for whatever purpose it may serve.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I alerted the services to this point in advance this morning, but it was not taken even though it is relevant under Rule 19(4).
Last month this Parliament passed a resolution in favour of human rights in Nigeria.
In the debate I called for safety for the detained Ogoni human rights activist Batom Mitee, brother of the acting president of their movement.
At the time Batom's whereabouts were unknown, but a released detainee has confirmed on Tuesday of this week that Batom is held in the Delta Rubber Plantation and, after suffering torture including daily beatings, is in deep fear of his life.
I ask you, Madam President, on behalf of Parliament to write urgently to the Nigerian authorities to press for respect for this Parliament's will consistent with human rights law and our February 1998 resolution.
Batom Mitee continues to be refused visits from his family or any medical care and yet he is paralysed on his left side, cannot stand or eat unaided and has lived in the same soiled clothing for over three months.
I would be grateful if you could convey to the President that I have discussed this issue with Mrs Kinnock who also wishes to express her concern.
If the President kindly agrees to write the letter as requested, she will present it with her other colleagues at the EU-ACP Assembly due to take place next week.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Thank you, Mr Howitt.
I will, of course, pass on your comments and your wishes to the President.
Madam President, regarding the document for Mrs Schaffner's report which is only available in French.
Madam President, you promised to come back with information on how we should deal with Mrs Schaffner's report.
I would like to have that information.
Firstly, we verified the facts.
It is true that the document to which Mrs Schaffner's report relates exists only in French.
It is indeed a problem.
One possible solution would be to have the debate but not to vote until the report has been translated into all languages.
Mrs Schaffner is showing her approval of this proposal.
Does anyone have any objections to this? It appears not.
Thank you, Mrs Lindholm, you have an answer to your question and, as you see, we have done what was necessary.
Mrs Berès, do you have a procedural motion?
I would like to draw your attention to a letter signed by the Secretary-General, Julian Priestly, which we have received this morning.
According to this letter ...
(Laughter.
Heckling: ' April fool!' )
Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but procedural motions are an expression of democracy.
You know very well that every Member has a right to express himself or herself, including Mrs Berès.
I am happy to have been a victim of the British sense of humour and I thank the House for its understanding.
Votes
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the noise emission by equipment used outdoors (COM(98)0046 - C4-0122/98-98/0029(COD))
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Madam President, today I do not want to ask for signatures against criminality in Brussels, although we have only until Friday to do so, but I would like to propose, in accordance with Article 129, that the Murphy report should be referred back to the responsible committee, since there are over 100 amendments, which are mainly of a purely technical nature, and to make a SLIM initiative myself. Two additional directives about measurements, dimensions and technical features of buses are added.
We should therefore agree in a working party on how we intend to proceed with these three directives, in accordance with the rules.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as chairman of the committee responsible, I must first inform you that the committee decided by a small majority to bring the Murphy report in this form to a sitting of the European Parliament.
I therefore do not speak as the committee chairman, but as a member of the Group of the European People's Party, and as such I support the proposal to refer this report back to the committee.
Why? It has been my opinion for many years that we as the European Parliament can in future no longer afford to pass technical legislation by means of hundreds of amendments.
Since Maastricht, we have had co-decision in these matters.
The new directives are no longer directives of the Council alone, but directives of the European Parliament and of the Council.
As Parliament, in the case of this legislation, we can contribute to ensuring that the protection of the health and safety of citizens and of disadvantaged people is taken into account.
That is extremely important.
We have always done it successfully in the past.
But what we need here are not 112 technical amendments, which none of those present understands and about which no-one knows what interests lie behind the individual amendments. We need one amendment which states that buses must be designed which are suitable for the disabled.
The execution of this legislative instruction of the European Parliament is then the responsibility of the technical bodies.
(Applause) This is called the legislative procedure of reference to technical standards, which I have always supported and which must always be the way in which we operate in future.
For this reason, I personally would be happy if it was possible to discuss it again in the committee, so that we can find a sensible solution in this matter.
I will now make a personal declaration: If this proposal is not referred back to the committee, I shall stay here, but I shall not take part in the vote.
I ask that this should be minuted, because as a parliamentarian I am not prepared to cooperate in this nonsensical kind of legislation.
(Applause)
Madam President, I hope not to take as much time as Mr von Wogau.
I have some sympathy with what he says that we have been dealing with a technical matter here but I would ask the House to consider this. Are we saying to the citizens of Europe that we are not competent enough to actually legislate on something which will affect people's lives?
I put it to you, the committee had every opportunity to debate this report. They had every opportunity to discuss with me the amendments I was moving.
I accept that there are a lot of amendments but many of these are absolutely necessary.
If it is so technical for members on the other side not to have been able to understand what is going on, why were some 20 amendments actually moved by members from the other side of the House? I would argue that they did understand what the issues at stake here were and I would come back to what the Commission said last night.
Commissioner Bangemann, when this point was put to him, said he could see no reason why Parliament should not actually take a position on the report and, indeed, he gave an indication that the Commission was prepared to accept 22 of our amendments.
So I say to Members on the other side of the House, we have had every opportunity to debate this issue, yes it is complicated, yes it is technical, but let us not abrogate our responsibilities.
We have an important job to do here; let us get on with it.
Mr President, I have just one question for the chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy who was speaking here in person.
There have been three or four debates, and he has had every opportunity to submit an amendment, as just noted.
I would like to know why he did not accept that responsibility.
Madam President, I would like to reply to that personally.
As chairman of the committee, I asked the rapporteur to proceed, as I said, by proposing an amendment about the disabled, but to refer the rest of all of it to the technical bodies.
It was then shown that there were difficulties in doing this.
I therefore proposed setting up a working party to look for a sensible solution.
I proposed this before the vote in the committee.
We then voted on it, but the majority party in this House voted otherwise.
The result was that the Murphy report, which in my opinion was not ready for discussion, came to the House against my will as committee chairman.
I am therefore not now speaking as the committee chairman, but as a member of the Group of the European People's Party.
That is my answer to what Mr Metten has said.
(Applause and heckling)
Madam President, I particularly want to respond to the comments by Mr von Wogau.
I joined this House in 1989 and under his predecessor, Mr Beumer, we dealt with a mountain of technical legislation which went through this House to complete the internal market and it is a nonsense for the Economic Committee chairman to say that we are not competent to deal with this legislation in this House.
The reason why they do not want this on the floor today is because they voted against the amendments to help the disabled in the design of buses and coaches.
That is why they do not want the legislation on the floor of this House.
I tell you, disabled people around Europe now are watching to see how the Christian Democrats vote on this issue because we have passed amendments in the committee to support the disabled and they want this report off the agenda.
(The matter was referred back to the committee responsible)
The next item is the report (A4-0110/98) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
Thank you, Mr Berthu, for drawing attention to these linguistic confusions.
I am sure the ensuing debate will clarify any unclear points, and it is therefore my great pleasure to call upon Mrs Randzio-Plath to speak.
President, what matters in the question of democratic accountability is the creation of transparency and credibility.
It is not a question of the control of the future European Central Bank, because the Treaty of Maastricht establishes the independence of the future European Central Bank very clearly.
This European Parliament, in its decisions and reports, has left no doubt that the future European Central Bank, in the conception of independence, is also a constituent part of European monetary union, which will begin on 1 January 1999.
This leads one to the conclusion that one side of the coin is the independence of the European Central Bank, but that the other side of the coin is transparency of decisions and their context, which find expression in a duty of accountability of the European Central Bank.
Besides, the Treaty of Maastricht and the statute of the European Central Bank already provide for a duty of the future European Central Bank to report.
The place in which this duty to report as an expression of transparency must be fulfilled is Parliament.
This transparency is an obligation in a democratic system for all institutions and establishments, and therefore also for the first supranational, federal European institution, the European Central Bank.
This transparency must be expressed before the only legitimized European body, the European Parliament.
Therefore, what is necessary today is to define in what form this European Parliament wants to see this monetary dialogue with the European Central Bank.
We also make demands on the basis of our experience of the debates with the Boards of Governors of Central Banks, the European Monetary Institute, in the Sub-Committee on Monetary Affairs, and also in the sittings of this Parliament. This experience shows the importance of regular monetary dialogue, which actually concentrates on the monetary subjects which are currently of intense topicality, does so calmly and will continue to do so.
We must also consider the ideas of the Treaty, which says very clearly that the European Central Bank must pursue the aim of price stability and also support the economic policy of the European Union, provided that the aim of price stability is not affected.
It is therefore important that we know all about the definition of price stability, about the decisions and the backgrounds to them, about the monetary aims and how the instruments are used.
That is all part of the dialogue of the European Parliament with the European Central Bank, as is publishing the reports of the European Central Bank.
This publication and this dialogue create transparency, not just in the interests of the European Parliament, the functioning of the democratic system and in the interests of the European population.
No, I believe that this transparency is also in the interests of the European Central Bank itself, which can only gain credibility, acceptance and trust through this transparency of its decisions.
We all know that right now in our Member States important questions are being asked about the start of monetary union.
It will therefore be particularly important that this European Central Bank should gain trust, credibility and acceptance.
It is therefore so important that we as the European Parliament should participate in the nomination procedure.
We are being heard.
I assume, and presumably this is also the view of the European Parliament, that no candidate will become a member of the Executive Board of the future European Central Bank without the approval of the European Parliament, even if this rule has not yet been written into a treaty.
The candidates will surely gain credibility and certainly weight as a result of their competence and by giving evidence of their previous position to the European Parliament.
This new European Central Bank gives us the possibility of entering into a dialogue with its President.
But at the same time, in all Member States, the national parliaments will have to enter into a dialogue with their national central bank presidents.
What matters, therefore, is that use is made of this right, so that Parliament is the place of openness, and above all so that this European Parliament is the place of that European openness, which is still lacking.
That is in the interests of the population, and also of the markets, for as the great economist Schumpeter once said, everything a people wants, does, suffers and is, is reflected in its monetary system.
I hope that the stable community of the European monetary union really will offer possibilities of creating the overall economic conditions within the European Union that enable the euro to contribute to the fight against unemployment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the power to mint or issue a currency is a considerable one, and history shows that those who hold this power have rarely resisted the temptation to abuse it.
People who have been the victims of such abuses of power thus always want to put safeguards in place.
The French, after suffering the "assignat' bank notes issued during the French Revolution, made such a mythical rush for gold that General de Gaulle himself took out a loan.
The Germans, traumatized by two monetary cataclysms, found maximum protection from the political control they rightly feared through the independence of the Bundesbank , which was imposed on them from outside.
You can understand, then, why governments were keen to ensure sufficient guarantees before renouncing national monetary sovereignty in favour of a common currency.
These they gained beyond all expectations.
The independence of the future Central Bank will be stronger than that of any other similar institution, as I explain in the opinion which is submitted to you.
But independence does not imply irresponsibility.
In a democracy, all holders of power must be answerable to those who gave them that power and in whose name they exercise it, in this case the people of Europe who we here represent.
The Randzio-Plath report, as it has been adopted, finds an acceptable balance between independence and responsibility.
In today's world, the credibility of the future Central Bank will depend on its accuracy of analysis and its explanation of decisions.
Mr Lamfalussy and Mr Duesenberg were the first to understand this and this is why they have lent themselves so easily to listening to, and dialoguing with Parliament, rightly considering that they would thus acquire greater legitimacy than that conferred on them by the Treaty.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Randzio-Plath on an excellent report and also thank my colleagues in the other political groups for the enormous amount of cooperation we have had in the formulation of this report.
The EMU, as we know, is the most historic development that will take place in the European Union since the creation of the European Economic Community.
Therefore we have to make sure that we do it right.
We have to make sure that it is particularly friendly to the citizens.
I want to say to my German colleagues in particular, who seem to feel that those who want accountability of the Central Bank in some way want to impede its operation, that the citizens in the rest of the European Union do not have the same confidence and warmth for the ECB that you probably have for the Bundesbank.
The Bundesbank has been enormously successful.
The European Central Bank is a new institution that has to earn the confidence of the public.
The way to do that is to make sure it is accountable to the only democratically elected body we have among the European Union institutions.
There is nothing incompatible in defending the independence of the bank.
The Socialist Group will defend the independence of that bank wholeheartedly.
But we want to make sure that the currency we are creating is a citizens' currency; something that the people in the European Union feel confident with and feel is acting on their behalf.
This is not merely a currency for the large financial institutions and multinationals.
It is for the 370 million people who live in the European Union.
So we need to put in place systems that will guarantee that public confidence.
Those of us who have had the chance to talk privately to Mr Alexandre Lamfalussy and other people who may find themselves on the Executive Board of the European Central Bank have always said that it is essential that the European Central Bank does not simply act as a collection of bookkeepers but that it acts very much as an institution of the European Union acting on behalf of its citizens.
I say to all Members of this House, the Commission and the potential candidates for the ECB: please understand that the success of that bank, operating in Frankfurt, will depend upon its public acceptability and its public accountability.
There is another point which is important from the point of view of accountability: we will have a centralized monetary authority but we will have a decentralized fiscal policy in the European Union.
We have to make sure that when national parliaments are setting their national budgets there is a feeling that there is a democratic body at a European level overseeing the monetary policy that is being set in the name of the citizens of the European Union, on behalf of the whole European Union.
We have to make sure that there is a link between the work of national parliaments and the European Parliament in ensuring that we have the democratic accountability of our Central Bank.
If we fail in this project then I think it will impede any further development we want to see in the future of the EU.
Mr President, after some irritation over treaty changes, a vote of no confidence and so on, the RandzioPlath report is now before us in a version on which we can agree to a large extent.
The European Parliament today shows by a convincing majority - at least in the vote - that it is conscious of its great responsibility for the independence of the Central Bank and for the lasting stability of the euro.
The Christian Democrats have one signal to give today.
It is that we want a European currency which contributes, within Europe and globally, to ensuring that the citizens can rely on having long term political and economic stability. But such a signal must also be demanded from the Heads of States and Governments.
Their task now is to appoint the President of the Central Bank as soon as possible.
Trust in the euro and European monetary union depends on the time and progress of this decision.
But - and I must say this openly - anyone today who, like the SPD candidate for chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, calls the euro a deformed premature birth, disqualifies himself as an interlocutor to be taken seriously.
How will such a man carry through a long term European policy, if he gives way to moods and vague fears and, against his better judgement, deliberately denigrates the greatest project of the post-war period?
I appeal here to the Social Democrats in this House: put a bit more mental effort into finally teaching your own candidate for chancellor the ABC of European politics.
Mr Schröder may manage to buy a steelworks at the taxpayers' expense and to sit on the Volkswagen Supervisory Board, but he is not up to forming a strategic monetary policy or to buying Rolls-Royce.
That needs political heavyweights like Kohl, Waiger and Stoiber, and not SPD lightweights like Schröder and Lafontaine.
If the Socialists in this House do not manage to help their candidate for chancellor back onto his feet in terms of European politics, they remain paper tigers, and the man from Hannover will bring them yet more horror stories about Europe.
We, the European Christian Democrats, want to make our contribution to making the euro into the most important and most stable currency in the world, next to the dollar.
We owe that to our citizens!
Mr President, as rapporteur I would like to ask that the election campaign in certain Member States should remain outside the House at a time of such an important decision for the future of European democracy and for the historical project of monetary union.
I am outraged that this historical hour is being used in this way, that we are squandering this time, which has been provided for the important democratic debate that should really do honour to this European Parliament.
Mr President, I ask you to ensure that it does.
I can assure you, Mrs Randzio-Plath, that this was not an item on the agenda.
Mr President, with regard to electoral campaigns, in France we have already given an opinion and I would prefer that we keep to the subject in hand.
This Parliament, which represents the citizens of the Union, will naturally have a role to play within the framework of the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union, which will necessarily lead to greater powers for certain institutions.
Clearly, the independence of the European Central Bank will be greater than that of any other national central bank and whilst we can imagine enforcing democratic control of the ECB at European level, I am not at all certain that the Bank will be able to draw its legitimacy from a control which is too nit-picking.
This legitimacy will come rather from its success in managing the European Union's monetary policy.
Amongst the interesting proposals in this report, I would like to mention the one inviting the President of the ECB to participate in a general debate regarding economic and monetary developments, along with the relevant Commissioner and the President of the Ecofin Council. This would be on the basis of an annual report from the ECB and the annual economic report drawn up by the Commission, which requests the ECB to give an explanation of decisions previously taken on monetary policy and requests a description of the way in which monetary policy will support the economic policies of the Union.
I would merely like to remind you that some of the initial proposals of the rapporteur were not acceptable, nor were they in accordance with the measures of the Treaty.
For example, the idea of requesting the ECB to publish a summary of the discussions of the Executive Board, which was in direct contradiction with paragraph 4 of Article 10 of the ESCB statutes, which anticipated that these meetings should be confidential, with the board deciding whether or not to make their deliberations public.
It was the same for the idea of giving the European Parliament the right of censure and of joint nomination of the Executive Board, which assumed a revision of the Treaty, in particular paragraph 4 of Article 109.
On 18 March, the initial report was substantially modified in committee and our group is extremely pleased with this.
All of these modifications are good in that they have enabled the report to be more lucidly refocussed.
Thus modified, Mrs Randzio-Plath's report is acceptable to us.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to express the support of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party for the Randzio-Plath report, which addresses a matter which will be of particular importance when EMU and the single European currency come into force.
This process should, of course, take place with full respect for democratic accountability.
Mrs Randzio-Plath's report expresses the very wide majority obtained during debate in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the effort she put into producing the report, and on the broad consensus emerging from today's presentation to the House, all of which leads us to support the report without any reservations or difficulties.
I would just like to expand or emphasize one or two points which I think are especially important.
Firstly, what we are trying to do with this report is guarantee democratic accountability and the participation of the European Parliament, without calling into question the independence of the European Central Bank nor the achievement of its main objective of price stability, which is established in the Treaty.
Secondly, we are well aware of the need to establish an interinstitutional agreement to allow us to participate in directing the economic and monetary policy which, in fact, must provide the background to the management of the euro, and is determined by three fundamental elements: the annual economic report from the European Central Bank itself; the European Monetary Institute's report; and obviously, when required, a report on excessive deficit.
Democratic accountability, and therefore Parliament's role, must be guaranteed throughout that whole process.
Mr President, I think it is plainly dangerous that the world's most independent bank, the European Central Bank, is going to become a sort of ivory tower in Frankfurt.
The danger is that the bank and its directors will withdraw from normal society and that exaggerated price stability will, in the end, pose a threat to peace within EU society.
This must be prevented by the board of the ECB becoming involved in institutional dialogue with the other political bodies.
The decisions the board takes must always be transparent.
They must be stated publicly, and I am totally convinced that public opinion will still accept that the European Parliament has a key role to play in this matter, and in the monitoring of democracy.
Obviously it is not a question of the ECB receiving binding instructions from political bodies.
Rapidly dwindling capital resources simply will not sustain this sort of old-fashioned policy.
But it is quite clear that the European Parliament should propose bold amendments to the Treaty of Rome.
Now, unfortunately, Christa Randzio-Plath's splendid report has little left in it of this courage, and little left of the proposals she originally made.
The Green Group supports the idea that the ECB board should be appointed by the same process as exists with the European Commission, a body to which Parliament has an important role in appointing members.
I think it is essential that everyone should be in a position to remind the Central Bank's Executive Board of its mortality.
This could come about in such a way that Parliament, say by a given majority, could make recommendations to the Ecofin Council in extreme cases concerning the dismissal of even the President of the Bank.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Radical Alliance fully supports the Randzio-Plath report.
I consider it an excellent text which attempts to show what dialogue there could be between the Central Bank, which in fact will be the most independent in the world, and other institutions, especially Parliament.
I would ask Mrs Randzio-Plath to be so good as to take on board the amendments we have presented, which move in the same direction as the report, whilst trying to strengthen it somewhat in order to encourage even greater dialogue.
We must strengthen the possibility of the European Parliament becoming the place of dialogue with the ECB, the place for transparent and regular exchanges - at closer intervals, in my opinion - the place where the President can express himself and where, on behalf of our people, we can question him without challenging its independence.
I think such dialogue would be extremely important to show public opinion that we are not creating an ivory tower but a body required to account for its actions before an institution such as the European Parliament.
The proposal that I have made on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance suggests a monthly meeting for contact and dialogue with the future President.
I leave this on the table for your consideration.
I think this could strengthen dialogue, not only in spirit.
I understand the President of the Federal Reserve appears before the American Congress every fortnight.
Our other proposal is for the President designate, who will be in regular contact with Parliament, to give an opinion on the resolution that we are going to adopt tomorrow, on the basis of this report.
These are the two proposals that I would like you to consider, and I hope that you will vote in favour of them tomorrow.
Mr President, scarcely a month before the choice of countries to be irreversibly, according to the expression drummed endlessly into us by Commissioner de Silguy, blended together in European Monetary Union, Parliament has finally become concerned with the essential question of its democratic accountability.
Many good people, amongst them federalists, some within this Parliament, are beginning to show serious concerns about this dangerous flaw in the European institutional system.
But raising the problem of this democratic shortcoming is not enough, we must also look for possible remedies.
This is what the Herman report, in particular, tried to do, by not evading the "taboo' issues such as lack of a political mechanism to warn us of any abuse of monetary power on the part of the ECB which might be to the detriment of the general interest, or the risk of seeing day to day decisions on the external value of the euro being taken by the ECB and not the Ecofin Council, contrary to the measures of the Treaty.
It would have been preferable to agree to put the Herman report back on the agenda for this part-session, as my colleagues Mr Berthu and Mr van Dam proposed on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, in order to give the debate its true dimensions.
This was not done. The Randzio-Plath report is therefore the only one on the table today.
It limits itself to a number of pertinent comments, it recognizes that the ECB will become the first supranational monetary authority in history and will thus consequently hold unprecedented power, far greater than that of the German Bundesbank or the American Federal Reserve and that, for the first time, an area in which federal political decisions are taken within the European Union will emerge.
But whilst the report admits that this unprecedented independence calls for a similarly high level of democratic accountability, no concrete proposal is made as to how this might be achieved.
The report makes no mention of the essential role that national parliaments have to play in this control.
It contents itself essentially with reminding us of a few powers of consultation that are reserved for the European Parliament, which seem really quite derisory in the face of the central question raised by Mr Herman: to whom are these holders of quasi-absolute power going to be answerable?
Mr President, under such conditions we cannot support this report and we fear that the birth of the first truly supranational institution of the European Union may be synonymous with a decline in democracy.
Mr President, the problem we are dealing with today is both a theological and a teleological one, that is, a question of purpose.
Theological because it is a question of belief, of dogma.
The independence of central banks should be a factor of efficiency.
The Bank of England was the model for the dependent bank, along with the Bank of Japan, and everyone knows that these two countries were inefficient.
Economic literature does not enable this problem to be solved.
For example, France during the 90s did not have any inflation, but their central bank was nevertheless dependent.
If we look at German history we can see there is a German desire to resolve their neuroses: Weimar, independence.
People say that the Germans have been very prosperous and they have had an independent central bank.
But the Germans are also blonde, yet is this a factor in their prosperity?
In this case, let's dye all the Spaniards' hair blonde and there will no longer be an economic problem in Spain. Must all Europeans give up sugar just because its German grandmother is diabetic?
Perhaps the German situation is explained by the fact that they have not been involved in wars in Indochina, or in Algeria? Germany lost the Second World War and has put its efforts into household electronics instead of military electronics.
Is this factor not important?
There are no choices but ideological ones, of the same type as that of Vincent Auriol, "I'll close the banks and lock up all the bankers' .
We have come a long way since then.
It is revealing that Mrs Randzio-Plath has talked constantly of the ECB, rather like we talk about BSE.
First the mad cow, now the mad single currency!
There is a teleological question.
What is the purpose?
Why have a monetary Europe?
Why have an independent central bank?
For monetary stability?
Is our aim in life, man's destiny, the independence of the Central Bank?
The mystery of life on earth, the single currency, are they monetary stability? I believed that Europe was the little Eurasian continent, a model of democracy.
Mr President, when a governing body receives orders from no-one and is made up of a very small number of people, what is it called? Government by a few is known as an oligarchy, and there stands the tragedy of the European continent, the model of democracy, which ends up with a monetary oligarchy, or at least, a Prussian one.
Mr President, in her report Mrs Randzio-Plath rightly quoted Joseph Schumpeter's comments in which he said that the state of a nation's monetary system reflected all aspects of the nation's intentions, actions, vicissitudes and, indeed, its very essence.
There is therefore nothing more important than democratic accountability of monetary policy.
It has to be noted that within our institutional framework - which has been ratified by our people, our parliaments and our authorities - the current Treaty gives the European Central Bank power and independence without democratic accountability.
Within this overall unsatisfactory framework, the quality of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report is that it attempts to see how Parliament may make its voice heard better and how we could use the measures within the Treaty to go as far as possible, not in the sense of controlling the Central Bank, for there will be no control given that there are no sanctions, but in the sense of a dialogue with Parliament and a capacity for transparency.
I thus approve of the proposals which have been made.
It is in this context, above and beyond Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, that it is important for the House to encourage some readjustments in how democracy functions in Europe.
I believe that a Central Bank - if it were independent - would need checks and balances in a number of areas.
It is not normal that it takes its independence from a treaty alone.
As Mrs Randzio-Plath said in her report, whether it be the American Federal Reserve or the German Bundesbank , central banks are usually controlled by parliaments because their jurisdiction is set by legislative acts which can at any given time be amended or changed.
This is unfortunately not the case with the European Central Bank.
It would be appropriate, in the future, to provide national parliaments, and above all the European Parliament, with the means to have an influence in this direction.
Secondly, it is important to highlight the fact that the Ecofin Council now finds itself in a position where it has the capacity to intervene with regard to the exchange rates of currencies such as the dollar or the yen, but with limited powers.
I have one small regret with regard to Mrs Randzio-Plath's report. It is that, when she rightly explains that the concept of monetary stability is a concept which must be tailored to the circumstances of the situation, she gives the Central Bank, rather than the Ecofin Council, the role of fixing the criteria for stability, which could have moved the balance back a little bit in the other direction.
But more fundamentally, Europe needs an economic government. a political government which, a little like the case of the German government in relation to the independent central German bank today, is in a position to make other reasoning, apart from the logic of monetary stability alone, prevail.
I am talking about employment, prosperity and social justice and it is not satisfactory to see the Euro Council be no more than a vague instrument of consultation.
I will finish by saying that my great regret is that Amsterdam has not enabled this institutional readjustment.
Failing this at Amsterdam, let us move quickly on to a new stage, which is essential and which Parliament desires since it wants major reforms to have taken place before enlargement.
Mr President, should the Central Bank be accountable to this Parliament? The answer is "yes' .
Should the bank be corrected by this Parliament? The answer is certainly not.
I come from the Dutch tradition of an independent central bank.
Dutch politicians, and certainly the Dutch parliament, have, as far as I know, never formally tried to exert influence over the bank.
The European people, and this is my firm conviction, have nothing to gain from political influence over monetary policy.
Economic research has shown that independent central banks are more successful in achieving lower inflation rates than banks which are guided by politicians.
Politicians are reelected every four or five years.
This entails, by definition, a markedly short term vision.
Public confidence and faith on the part of the markets is crucial to the EMU.
That is why it must be guarded with a long term perspective in mind.
That is why the President of the ECB will be appointed for a term of eight years.
As he cannot be reappointed, he does not have to please anyone.
One of the bank's central tasks is to achieve price stability and he therefore forms an element of continuity and stability within European monetary policy.
Of course the ECB should not operate from an ivory tower.
Mr Donnelly, I would like to say to you, being independent and having a central position in society does not have to be a contradiction in terms.
That is why a provision has been made for intensive debates between the President, the Executive Board and this Parliament on the annual report or the quarterly reports.
The presidents of the national banks will also start a dialogue with their parliaments.
Finally, the bank will not receive political instructions, but neither will it be blind or deaf to the needs of European society, because it will be in touch with all the important forces in society.
If this is its position, its monetary policy will be supported.
Mr President, as the structures of the single currency are put in place, fundamental questions are coming to light.
Some of them cannot be satisfactorily answered without rethinking some of the measures anticipated by the current treaties.
Today's debate on democratic accountability of the ECB is a significant example of this.
The resolution shows that the objective of European economic and monetary policy must be to assure a high level of growth and employment.
Indeed, this is common sense.
It also notes that in a democracy, there must also be control of the ECB's monetary policy.
This seems unquestionable.
However the statutes provided for the ECB by the current treaties do not move in this direction at all.
On the one hand, its level of independence - unsurpassed in the world - is so far removed from the citizens and their elected representatives that any effective control of its activities would seem to be illusory.
On the other hand, the mission conferred on it by the treaties is to ensure, not a high level of employment but price stability, which is totally different.
As the reports on convergence from the Commission, the European Monetary Institute and the Bundesbank have reminded us, this stability will be obtained by keeping salaries in check and lowering the overall cost of labour.
From within this concept then, the ECB is more ultra-liberal than the United States Federal Reserve itself, which officially has the main objective of high employment.
If one day we should criticize the President of the ECB for being overly concerned with a strong euro and ignoring all social considerations, he will merely reply that he is only doing his job.
This is why I think that if you truly want a monetary institution that does not ration, but relaunches the necessary finances for employment and growth, and one which the citizens' representatives can effectively monitor in this objective, we cannot economize on the reorientation of the construction of Europe.
By chance, the very day that we are debating this question an official report has sent out a warning regarding the levels of poverty and insecurity in France.
It is the same throughout Europe.
Faced with these issues, which touch on the very core of values essential to our society, we cannot let the financial markets make the rules, nor be satisfied with potential control over an all powerful ECB.
European construction has greater ambitions!
Mr President, the establishment of a European central banking system is drawing near, planned for the first half of 1998, following the decision to participate in the third stage of EMU.
The European Central Bank will have the fullest legal status and, as soon as it is set up, will take over the residual duties of the European Monetary Institute.
As specified by the rapporteur, the European Central Bank will have the specific task of controlling price stability, which is achieved specifically by means of a cautious and impartial monetary policy, and by conducting exchange transactions, managing the foreign currency reserves of Member States, promoting the operation of payment systems and, finally, authorizing the issue of bank notes and coins.
Price stability throughout Europe and the independence of the European Central Bank will give rise to trust on the markets and, consequently, we should achieve a fall in interest rates, particularly in the long term.
This will be extremely favourable to small and medium-sized enterprises, which represent the highest percentage of European businesses, particularly in the economically weaker areas.
However, I share the rapporteur's concerns when she notes that, as established in the Treaty, in exercising its powers and performing its tasks and duties, the European Central Bank is totally independent, which means that none of its bodies can accept or request instructions or orders from any government or other organization.
As laid down by Article 7 of its statutes, it is certainly the most independent central bank in the world.
The sovereignty it will hold should, however, ensure an impartial monetary policy for all the Member States, thereby ruling out the risk that, lacking any democratic control, the European Central Bank is free to interfere at will in any questions dealing with the monetary policy of Member States.
I therefore believe it absolutely essential that, in view of the necessary operational independence of the European Central Bank, appropriate mechanisms are provided for consultation with the European Parliament, which is a democratically elected body.
Mr President, the European Central Bank, which will be set up in three months time, will be more independent than any existing bank in the world.
It would be a misconception to think that it does not have to take any notice of anybody.
It will not be operating in a vacuum, and it will have to acquire credibility and authority.
The ECB will find this easiest if it is able to show results, but this will take some time.
Moreover, although the ECB will be born in an era of historically low inflation, no one knows how the monetary instruments which have proved their usefulness on a national level will work on a European level.
During its initial phase, ECB policy will have to be characterized by a cautious, searching approach.
It will be extremely difficult to acquire public credibility through such an approach.
It can only be achieved in one way, namely by reporting back continuously and by explaining what the ECB does, and why.
This is the paradox of the ECB; it will be the largest independent bank in the world, but it has the most to gain from transparency and accountability.
This is where the interests of the ECB and the European Parliament meet, because the European Parliament is the only public forum the ECB has the duty to report to, as laid down in the Treaty.
We therefore think it would be useful to reach agreement with the ECB on how, in the interests of both, this transparency and accountability can be effected in as meaningful a way as possible.
It will require regular verbal or written reports about such issues as which monetary objectives are set and why, the degree to which objectives are implemented and the reason for any possible divergence and the effects of monetary policy on the economy and employment.
The willingness of the ECB to be as transparent as possible and to be accountable in a meaningful way will be particularly crucial during the initial phase.
Without this, it might seem that the ECB is making a false start and is unsuccessful in building up credibility and authority.
That is why Parliament will have to ensure that belief in the principles of democracy and a willingness to be accountable are significant factors in the choice of prospective board members.
We will not only ask those who may not win the confidence of a majority in this Parliament to withdraw their candidature, but we will also call on Member States' governments not to appoint any candidates who cannot rely on the support of this Parliament.
In view of the ECB's extreme degree of independence, the democratic attitude of individual candidates most definitely matters, and this includes candidates for all posts.
That is why the candidate hearings next month will not be a mere formality.
If the ECB is to be imbued with the principles of democracy, it should be done now.
That is what is at stake at the moment.
Mr President, the establishment of the single currency is an unprecedented historical phenomenon.
For the first time in the world's history, independent states and democratic societies have decided to give up a significant part of their national independence - their currency - to a common instrument, to be managed for the benefit of all.
I therefore think the debates now taking place about transparency, about the "absolute management' method, or the fears being expressed about whether the European Central Bank will act imperiously or in ways that do not benefit the societies it represents, are rather unnecessary.
In democratic societies such as ours, public opinion and the democratic process are facts of life. Since central banks everywhere, and especially the European Central Bank, are supposed to be working for the good of all Europe's peoples - and that is the reason why they exist, otherwise they would not -, public opinion will compel them both to operate transparently and to deal with the issues for which they are responsible in the best possible way.
I therefore think that the debates from time to time about lack of transparency, and the concerns expressed by one side or the other, are unnecessary and should cease as soon as possible, since the other extreme, that of complete openness, would make it impossible for the Central Bank to do its work.
Mrs Randzio-Plath's very good report, as it has developed, proposes precisely a balance between those two factors and, I think, expresses a very correct opinion. I hope Parliament will adopt it in a way that protects the interests of Europe's peoples while at the same time enabling the new system to operate as effectively as possible.
Mr President, the full independence of the European Central Bank is quite rightly anchored in the Treaty.
The highest aim of its monetary policy is to ensure price stability.
The decision on how far the European Central Bank supports the general economic policy of the Community thus depends on its assessment of a possible effect on the aim of price stability.
Price stability at any price, even at the price of increasing unemployment!
That is, to come to the point, the public discourse, which in the end means one thing: monetary policy is not neutral.
That is why it is necessary to involve the European Central Bank in a dialogue about politics.
I do not believe that the independence of the European Central Bank on the one hand and the required democratic transparency on the other must necessarily be in contradiction to each other.
But I am certain that monetary union needs the acceptance of citizens to be successful.
This, however, can only be achieved by the transparency of the decisions of the European Central Bank and by their democratic legitimization.
Mr President, Mrs Randzio-Plath's report addresses one of the most important questions facing us as we wait at the door to monetary union, the very central pillar of which will be the independence of the European Central Bank, in the terms laid down by the Treaty and the bank's statutes.
That the issuing institute should be independent is no mere dogma or axiom of economic science, or the result of abstract reasoning. Instead, it is a working method vouched for mainly by historical experience.
On both sides of the Atlantic, in the two best known examples, experience has shown the practical advantages of an independent monetary authority for guaranteeing price stability.
Well, as has been said here this afternoon, independence certainly does not mean irresponsibility.
In a democracy, every power - and the European Central Bank will be a power - even if it is independent of political power, as is the case with the European Central Bank or, in another area, the judiciary, should be able to explain to the citizens and public opinion the reasons underlying its actions and its choice of objectives, and why it chose the methods it adopted in order to achieve those objectives and goals.
All of that should be true both a priori and a posteriori .
For democratic control demands, firstly, dialogue with the parliamentary institution - with this Parliament and the national parliaments - and also transparency of information.
In both those respects, the Randzio-Plath report is realistic and balanced.
I conclude, Mr President, by saying that we have to realize that in setting out along this road, Parliament must show that it is up to its new role as the European Central Bank's main partner for dialogue.
At the same time, it must also be stressed that along that road we should not rule out the possibility of eventual reforms, even of the Treaty itself - as has been called for here this afternoon - in order to give greater depth to that same democratic control of the European Central Bank.
Mr President, as has been clearly stated, the independence of the European Central Bank is a valuable asset and is therefore beyond discussion.
In a federal system, it provides a fundamental guarantee for the participating states and also gives credibility and authority to the Bank on the financial markets.
Accountability, which we have been talking about this afternoon, is not only a democratic requirement but also an essential requirement for maintaining the authority and credibility of the Bank.
Firstly, therefore, it is in the interests of the ECB itself to adopt adequate methods of referral to public opinion, obviously taking into account the enormous difference between explanations given prior to action programmes, which can only be expressed in general terms, and statements after implementation on the lines followed, which should be more analytical.
In my opinion, therefore, it is not a question of laying down rules, but rather of encouraging behaviour towards the European Parliament, a behaviour that can establish a climate of trust through transparency and availability to explain and discuss its actions, which, in the context of our debate, we are calling accountability, and which is in the interests of the authority and credibility of the European Central Bank.
Mr President, unlike all the other people who have spoken in this debate, I come from a country where, prior to the euro, there has never been a political debate on currency.
Luxembourg, united with Belgium in monetary union since 1922, has never truly had the right of speech within this union.
Economic and Monetary Union will give us that right.
With monetary union, the citizens of my country are discovering the importance of everything surrounding the issue of currency.
This is why the purpose of dialogue between the European Parliament and the Central Bank is to raise awareness amongst the general public of the importance of monetary policy within social and economic policy in general.
The ECB's objective has been stated as price stability.
What will the consequences of this be on the Member States' policies?
Let me give you an example. In Luxembourg, incomes are largely indexed to price levels.
It is an important factor in my country's policy of redistribution of income and social policy in general.
If, for example, the ECB were to give an opinion on this, it needs to be possible to discuss this question publicly, along with the choices.
I therefore think that public support for the ECB's monetary policy is essential for the birth of the new currency. The Bank's public presentation of its choices and interventions will also be essential.
I would like to finish, Mr President, by congratulating Mrs Randzio-Plath on her report and above all on the work which she has achieved over the last few years, as chair of the Sub-Committee on Monetary Affairs, in putting monetary union in place and getting it onto the European Parliament's agenda.
Given the weight of the future European Central Bank, I think that the European Parliament should seriously consider creating a Monetary Committee, within the framework of which, dialogue with the Central Bank could be developed.
Mr President, all the speakers have said we are facing the most historic event since the signing of the Treaty of Rome.
That is true, and this Parliament - which has always been the driving force behind European integration - should do everything that can and must be done to ensure the euro is a success.
And in order for the euro to be a success, we are all agreed that we need to guarantee price stability.
I am not going to question that, but I am glad that Mrs Randzio-Plath's report also talks of other objectives, particularly that of job-creation.
We are also agreed that monetary policy should be designed and implemented by a European Central Bank which is independent.
I will not question that either, but I am also glad that the Randzio-Plath report talks about the need to coordinate monetary policy with the rest of our policies, in order to achieve the European Union's great objectives.
I think the institutional agreement suggested by Mr Herman is a clever idea, and I think it represents a first step which we will probably have to evaluate in the future, revising the Treaties if need be.
As noted in the report, the economic government of Europe constitutes a necessary counterweight.
To conclude, I think it is important that the European Central Bank should not just be a bubble in the air, a sort of aristocratic Neoplatonism, and the European Parliament should play its part here.
Mr President, in a few weeks' time the European Union will be choosing the governor of the European Central Bank and Britain's future bank manager.
Make no mistake about it, the setting of interest rates by the ECB governor and his or her board of five governors will profoundly affect the United Kingdom's interest rates, inflation levels and the strength of the pound sterling.
So we parliamentarians had better get it right when we help to confirm the choice of Europe's bank boss, especially when we hold the unique inquisitorial hearings in Parliament in Brussels in May.
To scrutinize the candidates for the ECB is in no way to challenge the independence of the ECB.
Indeed its independence, guaranteed by the Maastricht Treaty, is even more sharply defined and delineated than that of the Bundesbank, its original model.
But Europe and its peoples do demand that we subject the ECB to legitimate, democratic accountability, that we verify that what is done in the name of the independent bank, is done for the people, of the people and is by the people; that the central objective of price stability leads to the palace of prosperity and jobs, not to the den of deflation and recession.
Such accountability is merited, not only to satisfy Europe's democratic needs, but also and more importantly to shore up the credentials of the bank itself.
This point was itself made to me by candidate Duisenberg last week in the European Parliament's monetary sub-committee and this committee, too, must adopt and adapt.
Its fledgling role as banking committee for the citizens of Europe must be developed and essentially the ECB governor should present not only the bank's annual report but also offer regular, possibly quarterly, explanations of its interest rate decisions, and the minutes themselves should be published in summary form showing the decisions made plus explanatory commentary.
Only in this way will the European Parliament perform its task of independent custodian of the independent bank as set out in the exemplary and pioneering report so finely chased and chiselled by my colleague Mrs Christa Randzio-Plath.
Mr President, when the European Central Bank begins operations, it will have immense economic power.
Seriously, it will take decisions on all economic policy, because, for example, the hands of financial policy will be bound by convergence criteria.
European trade-cycles will in the long run depend on the ECB Board being able to take the right decisions and avoid making mistakes during its eight-year term of office.
Whether or not we find an Executive Board for the bank made up of six men and women with practically supernatural abilities is the old sixty four thousand dollar question.
Independence is a proper issue, but we also need to have Parliamentary dialogue.
Unopposed power easily leads to its misinterpretation and abuse.
The Board must work in close cooperation with the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
It must also be able to resolve problems in monetary policy, and growth and employment policy.
A very orthodox monetary policy might very well lead to stagnation.
Ladies and gentlemen, the euro has to create stability for Member States.
The euro should become the third international reserve currency alongside the dollar and the yen.
How well this is to succeed depends on the efforts of the ECB's directors.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the reports by the Commission and the European Monetary Institute have brought us into the finishing straight for the single currency's establishment, an historical event for the building of a single Europe.
For the single currency's management, Europe is at last getting a Central Bank equal to the task, a bank that will exercise Europe's monetary policy in a unified way that takes into account the needs and interests of all the single currency Member States and, I hope, those of the countries which are not yet members of the single currency but aspire to become so soon.
It would be a mistake to think that there has never before been a single currency policy in Europe.
Such policies have existed from time to time, but not with a spirit of cooperation.
They were implemented under a spirit of imposition by one or another powerful central bank in Europe, or even by a powerful bank outside Europe.
That will not happen in the future.
But to be able to implement its monetary policy in a fair and balanced way, the European Central Bank must be sure of its independence.
That independence is not threatened, but safeguarded by the provisions for democratic accountability advocated by Mrs Randzio-Plath's report.
Responsible information of Parliament will consolidate the bank's authority among Europe's peoples, and will enable it to do its work guided only by the general interest and without being influenced by the interests of special groups.
In the process of democratic accountability advocated by the report we are debating, Parliament will be able to point to the general interest, according to circumstances, and so create a climate which provides a framework for the Central Bank to fulfil its duties in the best possible way.
Mr President, although from my point of view there is no question of challenging the ECB's independence, the problem of knowing how to control those who implement monetary policy, their power to do both good and evil - in the field of economics, of course, because it is not a question of preaching morality - is the decisive factor.
It is clear that democracy demands that those in charge of monetary policy should not be allowed to operate without ever having to justify their actions.
It is appropriate that these people should account for their policies and that such policies should be widely discussed, particularly within Parliament as this is the only elected body at European level.
Mrs Randzio-Plath's report more or less respects the balance between independence and democratic accountability extremely well.
The Group of the European People's Party, myself included, are generally in favour.
Nevertheless, I would like to raise one doubt.
It is with regard to Article 3 which points out that monetary policy has an influence on growth and employment.
I do not question this position, but I think it lacks precision.
Certainly, currency influences growth and employment, but it is a temporary and not a long term influence.
To believe that currency has a long term influence on growth and employment, as was the case in the preliminary report, has devastating consequences for monetary policy.
If this were so, there would be no reason to follow a monetary policy of price stability.
On the contrary, it would be necessary to apply a permanent policy of reflation.
It would only be a question of the President of the Central Bank getting into his helicopter - for I am sure he will have one - and throwing tonnes of 500 euro notes down on the heads of the astonished but delighted populations of Europe.
It is in order to avoid this sort of misunderstanding that I thought it necessary to clarify this point, for it must not be misunderstood by the Commission, the Council or public opinion.
Mr President, this report is fundamental to the future of the European Parliament.
The European Central Bank is totally independent, and that is how we perceive it.
However, the legitimacy of its operations and the possibility of monitoring it in a democratic manner are matters that have been widely discussed in all countries.
In Portugal, one of the most controversial and widely discussed subjects is the European Central Bank's lack of democratic accountability.
The European Parliament, which will examine the candidates to the board of the European Central Bank, is entitled to hear the President and respective board regularly.
In our view, in the European Parliament, when we vote for and approve the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, they assume the responsibility of any elected individual to render accounts.
While the European Parliament will not intervene in the European Central Bank's decisions, the Bank itself has everything to gain from explaining its decisions in a regular and systematic manner to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Sub-Committee on Monetary Affairs in the manner previously practised by the heads of the European Monetary Institute.
In Portugal, we have a saying that "if you owe nothing you have nothing to fear' .
Therefore, let the European Bank come regularly to the European Parliament to discuss its decisions with us.
European citizens will then know that the European Central Bank will hear and render accounts to those who legitimately represent them in Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate until now has shown that in this House there is a very broad majority for the independence of the European Central Bank.
But on the other hand, something else is clear: this European Central Bank must not live in an ivory tower because the decisions which are made there will have an direct effect on the lives of many people in the European Union.
In future anyone who wants to build a house, take out credit or buy a car on credit will be directly affected by a decision of the European Central Bank.
Therefore, the President of the European Central Bank must justify his actions, be accountable, explain to people why he has made certain decisions in favour of monetary stability, and he must be involved in a dialogue.
But we now have the problem that there is not yet a European public in the same way as there is a German, a French, an Italian and a British public.
Consequently, the European Parliament is the place in which this discussion with our people must first be concentrated.
For this reason, we demand a constructive dialogue with the President of the European Central Bank. This dialogue must take place firstly here within the European Parliament, when he presents his report once a year and explains how he intends to form the policy of the European Central Bank in future, and secondly in the standing committee, in individual discussions with the Central Bank President, in which there must be no technical talk.
We need a broad dialogue with the Central Bank President, not just about the specialist questions of monetary policy, but also about economic policy, tax policy in the European Union, about budget policy, competition policy, to the extent that these policies have an effect of the stability of the currency.
What we want is a broad dialogue.
The real challenge which faces us is that of carrying on this dialogue firstly with the Central Bank President, but secondly with the European Commission, as we already do, and with the Council Presidency and the finance ministers of the Member States, who have become accustomed to reporting at regular intervals to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy about their stability programmes.
The real challenge which faces us is the necessity, now that we have a common European monetary policy, of also formulating a common European economic policy.
The President of the ECB needs a strong partner when he makes his decisions.
Who should this partner be? I do not believe in the idea of a European economic government, because we have European institutions.
We have the European Commission, which must be an important interlocutor.
We have the European Council, the Heads of States and Governments, who come together twice a year and can provide guidelines for economic policy.
The European Council is without doubt the strongest institution of the European Union.
We have the Ecofin Council, and we have the European Parliament, where this debate must be focused, and where the reasons for certain decisions at European level must be explained to the people.
I believe that it is important, when we discuss today Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, which I approve in its present form, that we are clear that it is not just a question of the monetary policy of the European Union or the control of the European Central Bank, as some people say, but a question of a broad dialogue about the future monetary and economic policy of the European Union.
Thank you, Commissioner.
It is a great pity that the many speakers who have left the House did not hear your excellent answers.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Results of the European Conference in London
The next item is the statement by the Council on the results of the European Conference in London.
It is my great pleasure to welcome Mr Henderson, who will present the statement on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, progress on European enlargement has been one of the key priorities of the Presidency.
We are determined that the European Union should seize this historic opportunity to banish for ever the divisions that have sadly scarred our continent for too many years.
That is why I am pleased to confirm that the remit of the Luxembourg European Council on enlargement has been successfully completed.
We opened the European Conference on 12 March.
We secured European Union approval of the terms of the accession partnerships.
We successfully launched the accession process on 30 March and we launched accession negotiations with the Six on 31 March.
Each of these points represents a vital element in our efforts to secure successful enlargement.
I would like to deal with them one by one.
Firstly, the European Conference.
The first meeting of the Conference on 12 March was a historic gathering.
It was a clear demonstration that all participants are part of the European family.
The day was full of symbolism.
We welcomed the important contribution of President Gil-Robles on that day.
12 March showed how conference can add value.
The 26 countries agreed the chairman's conclusions establishing the broad framework of the Conference.
The Conference will allow the participants to consider issues of common concern and to make their cooperation in the international community more effective.
Discussions will focus on drugs and crime, the environment, foreign and security policy, regional cooperation and economic matters.
The 26 countries also agreed a statement on Kosovo and they decided to set up an expert group on drugs and crime which we are taking forward urgently.
The next meeting will now take place at the level of foreign ministers during the Austrian Presidency.
We are pleased that we have established a Conference as a body which addresses the issues that have a direct impact on people's lives and which enables all the participants to consider issues on an equal footing.
We regret but respect Turkey's decision not to attend on 12 March in London.
But the Conference sent a clear signal that the door remains open for Turkey.
Secondly, we were pleased that the accession partnerships could be adopted on 24 March.
They are a crucial element of the reinforced pre-accession strategy.
We were grateful for the European Parliament's cooperation on the last occasion I was with you in the plenary.
Now we must ensure that the applicants get the help they need quickly and that they use it effectively.
Thirdly, we completed the remit of the Luxembourg European Council by launching the accession process.
The process was successfully launched at foreign minister level on 30 March in Brussels.
It will demonstrate that enlargement is all-inclusive.
The next ministerial meeting will take place on 29 and 30 May at the level of the JHA ministers.
We hope that at that meeting the 26 countries will conclude the pre-accession pact on organized crime.
Fourthly and finally, we have launched accession negotiations with the Six: Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Cyprus.
These negotiations were launched on 31 March by foreign ministers.
Now it is down to the detailed business.
The task ahead of us is a great task.
We must ensure that we carry public support as the process moves ahead.
It will be especially important to explain the benefits of enlargement to our citizens and to win their hearts for this historic project which will at last enable us to spread the benefits of the European Union to the wider Europe.
We look to the European Parliament to help us in this endeavour.
Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I truly believe that this has been a historic month for Europe, because of the European Conference, the discussions about accession partnerships and the first round of negotiations.
Mr President-in-Office, you spoke about symbolism and symbols, and we have also seen many photographs which have documented the start.
But, thankfully, you have also told us that there are matters of substance.
It was this Parliament, and above all this party, which pointed out that the European Conference will become a farce if it is merely a social framework, if occasional photographs are all that matter.
I am very glad that a start has been made with matters of substance, and that perhaps some people who saw things as very open and very casual have now changed their conception, that we are actually talking about subjects which are very important for Europe and the future.
In the short time available, I would just like to mention a few points: First, we must point out in this framework and these discussions at the European Conference that we want a larger Europe, but a stronger Europe.
The enlargement and the larger Europe must not proceed at the cost of Europe's strength.
We see day after day how many deficiencies we have in our common foreign and security policy, and also in other areas.
This is also important because quite a few of the countries which now want to join have only achieved their independence very recently, and are asking themselves whether joining a new community can be combined with their striving for independence.
They may urgently want to join the Community, but they imagine it to be looser and less binding whereas it is important to us that the Community does not develop in this way.
Second, because the negotiations and discussions about accession will continue for a long time, we shall have to set some signals in the next few years, signals which say to the countries: the moment of accession has not yet come, but you are preparing well for it.
You are on the right path.
Such signals are expected.
I say that because I was recently in the three Baltic states with Pauline Green and saw how hungry they are for signals from Europe.
At the same time, Europe has just partially introduced obligatory visas or visa charges.
It is grotesque - to take just this example - that we expect countries and people in Europe to act on the basis of the Schengen rules, and at the same time force other countries - including Austria - to introduce obligatory visas or visa charges.
This practice is incomprehensible and unacceptable, and I believe that we should change it.
Third, I would like to point out that the discussions with Slovakia are very important.
We are very sad that the Meciar regime is operating a policy which damages its own people, and I believe that the European Conference is the right framework for forcing Slovakia into pro-European behaviour.
It is also decisively important to consider today how the European Conference can be further developed, and what the relationship is with Russia, Ukraine and in particular Turkey.
Mr President-in-Office, I thank you for your report.
I believe that it was a good start!
It will be Austria's responsibility to continue this good start.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this first European Conference was an important contribution to the whole field of the enlargement and unification process in Europe.
It can be seen as a preparation, a part of a link in a new European order.
It was developed to involve one country, but I believe that we should make it clear that such a European Conference only makes sense in the long run if it is open to all those who from their own point of view or that of the European Union do not yet want to hold accession negotiations but feel that eventually they belong in the European Union.
If countries like Switzerland and others could find a link here, it would surely be easier for another country such as Turkey to go the same way, and to rejoin this process.
I think that the five points which were discussed in London are essential questions.
I really hope that the group of experts which the British Presidency has put together in connection with the fight against cross-border organised crime will produce in 12 months results which will then have a practical impact on the safety of our citizens.
Questions of environmental protection, competitive economies, foreign and security policy and regional cooperation are in the common interest not only of members of the European Union, but also of those who are holding immediate accession negotiations and those who are anywhere in the neighbourhood of the European Union.
I think that is obvious.
I really believe that in this way this European Conference also offers the possibility of bridge-building beyond the future borders of the European Union.
I hope that the foreign ministers at their first conference under the Austrian Presidency will continue this initiative accordingly.
I believe that if it is begun in this broader and content-based way, it will also be possible to rebuild the bridges to Turkey. Unfortunately they were broken for reasons which we do not need to investigate today, but I hope that they will soon exist and be usable again.
Mr President, I would like to say a word or two of appreciation and thanks to the President-in-Office for his valuable contribution to the European Parliament this afternoon and to take the opportunity of wishing him and his colleagues who are guiding the UK Presidency continued success for the remainder of their term.
The opening of negotiations with six applicant countries this week in Brussels constitutes an historic step in the evolution of the European Union.
I welcome this first step in the process of expanding the Union into central and eastern Europe and I look forward to the opening of the negotiations with the rest of the countries who have applied for membership.
The process of enlarging the Union will be difficult both for the applicant countries and for the existing Member States.
The recent publication of the Santer package of proposals has clearly shown that the existing Member States will have to take difficult decisions concerning the size of the European budget and the future operation both of the Structural Funds and of the common agricultural policy in order to prepare for enlargement.
The applicant countries will also be confronted with a difficult process of adaptation in many areas; for instance, justice and home affairs issues are central to the enlargement process.
It is essential that the applicant countries put into place the body of EU law already adopted to fight organized crime across Europe.
As this area of EU law is constantly evolving, I believe they need to give it top priority and to do so they must take immediate steps to ensure that those who are responsible in their countries for the fight against organized crime, such as judges, police and customs departments and tax authorities, have access to the necessary programmes to improve their skills and operational methods in what must increasingly be a joint effort to combat organized crime.
International criminal groups have huge resources at their disposal in terms of finance, technology, networks and expertise and the European Union must continue to develop the means to put criminals operating with impunity across all borders behind bars.
We expect and demand no less of our future partners.
The Council has just reached a political agreement on making it a criminal offence to participate in a criminal organization in the Member States of the EU.
This will strengthen our hand in combatting organized crime and I do hope that the applicant countries will keep pace with us in this regard, not least in the area of dissuasive criminal penalties.
In the future I want to see more joint EU surveillance exercises such as operation PEGASUS which is aimed at detecting the smuggling of cocaine and other prohibited or restricted goods by passengers arriving by air from certain South American and Caribbean countries and continuing in transit to other EU destinations.
Extending such joint surveillance exercises into the applicant countries should be an early objective.
Finally, I would urge the three Member States which have not yet ratified the EUROPOL convention to do so without delay.
The full extent of the EUROPOL convention cannot be enforced unless this procedure is completed and it is a poor example to the applicant states if we ourselves cannot complete the ratification process.
Mr President, on the walls outside the House there are photos taken 30 to 40 years ago, which symbolize the success of the European Union.
Another set of symbolic photos has been taken recently, and I hope that in 20 years time, these will be another illustration of success.
This will depend largely on what we do during the coming years.
It will entail much homework for candidates, but also for the Union.
The Union must finally start acting as one, and I have to say that the discord which the Union has been displaying, for instance with regard to Cyprus, is downright disgraceful, and worse still, harmful to our relations with both Cyprus and Turkey.
The threat made by the French to exclude Cyprus is tactically extremely unwise, because no negotiator gives away his bottom line before the negotiation process has even started.
The Union needs to stick to earlier pronouncements, as the British Presidency finally did at the start of the negotiations.
The work can start now.
I can of course get all worked up about the Turkish warnings that there might be a new war.
I can also get worked up about the refusal of the Turkish-Cypriots to take part in the negotiations and about the continuing annexation, at least verbally, by Turkey of Northern Cyprus.
Perhaps we should just put this down to attempts to block the negotiating process.
The Union must learn its lessons and be brave enough to act as one with respect to Cyprus.
The Union should rethink its policy on Turkey.
We cannot pursue the policy suggested by Greece without looking at what lies behind it.
Turkey, too, is a candidate which deserves intensive cooperation.
I therefore welcome the Commission's new statement on this.
What policy has the Council in mind, Mr President-in-Office? And my last question is: will our Greek friends drop their resistance to financial cooperation?
Mr President, I think the President-in-Office of the Council has adopted a restrained position with regard to the London Conference, and it must indeed be restrained because we ought not to forget that the London Conference was largely planned to accommodate Turkey's presence.
We, too, are sorry that Turkey was not there, and believe that as a country it will take the necessary steps in relation to democracy and respect for its neighbours that will soon allow it to upgrade its relations with the European Union.
We view the fact that the process of the Republic of Cyprus's accession has begun as important, with talks about accession which not only represent a beginning but must promise an end to that process.
There are many obstacles and there is a real danger that the island may be partitioned, as we see from the extreme statements in Ankara which regards Cyprus as one of Turkey's provinces.
Ankara's attitude to the part of Cyprus occupied by Turkish troops is the same as its attitude towards its Kurdish provinces.
I think the European Union, working together with the Republic of Cyprus, has a responsibility to ensure the integrity of the Republic and this should be made clear to Ankara, at the same time, of course, as the wish of both the European Union and the Republic of Cyprus that accession should include representation of the Turkish-Cypriot community with full rights, with respect for its special claims and problems but within a framework of the Republic of Cyprus's existence as a single and undivided entity.
Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, with merely one minute's speaking time I am compelled to confine myself to one point, namely Cyprus.
The accession negotiations alone will under no circumstances lead to a resolution of the political conflict which is tearing Cyprus apart.
On the contrary, without a solution to this conflict, a successful accession is highly unlikely.
That is why the European Union should invest time in simultaneous negotiations with Cyprus, but also in seeking a way out of this political impasse.
Furthermore, it is obvious that the Turkish community should be able to participate in the negotiation process with a clear mandate, so that they do not feel the odd one out.
Two pitfalls must be avoided. The Union must not bow to threats from Turkey, but it must offer Turkey a better and more concrete perspective for accession.
Secondly, the Union must, in conjunction with the United States, ensure that the arsenal of long-range weapons in Nicosia is defused.
If this does not happen, we will be in a new phase of military build-up and that is most unlikely to lead to a solution.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, there is a saying which says that if you are at the ball, you must dance.
This is indeed the situation we find ourselves in and when I hear Mr Brok say that everything is going well I have the impression of hearing, "things could not be going better, ma'am!' .
I believe that the Europe in preparation, the Europe of fifteen, of nineteen, of twenty five, is certainly not the Europe which the founding fathers wanted.
It has no ambition.
It wants to absorb the countries of eastern Europe with a mere 1.27 % of the budget, when we know how great were the sacrifices and the ambitions of the American project at the time of the Marshall Plan.
We should keep this very clearly in mind.
I think we should very rapidly envisage a federal Union of a few states and continue to work on this great project.
It is urgent for a certain number of Member States, undoubtedly not that of the President-in-Office, to come to an agreement to bring about as quickly as possible a federal Europe.
I would like to say something to Mr Brok.
It truly shows great optimism to think that following this conference in London we are going to be able to resolve the drugs problem in twelve months when thirty years of prohibition have done nothing but aggravate the situation.
It is time to give up this rather blind optimism.
Mr President, first of all can I say I welcome the President-in-Office's statement this afternoon in which he underlined the British Presidency's commitment to a successful programme of enlargement.
When I last spoke on enlargement in this Parliament, I said that I understood the disappointment felt by those countries which had failed to make it on to the list of the new Member States.
I was therefore pleased that the London conference brought together existing Member States, the fast lane applicants, and those in the slower lane.
The conference itself may have appeared to be more cosmetic than substantial in terms of what it achieved, but I believe the value of the conference will become more apparent as time goes on.
From the point of view of the applicant countries, it must be encouraging for them to see their Heads of Government and foreign ministers now with a high profile and able to deal directly with the Heads of Government and foreign ministers of the existing 15 Member States.
I do not think that the concluding statement from the conference, claiming that a new era had begun for European cooperation, was an overstatement.
The more that representatives of the applicant countries are involved with us, the more likely we are to achieve the goal of stable democracy and respect for human rights and economic development throughout Europe.
Most of us in the Parliament support enlargement.
The more difficult question is how much we are prepared to pay to achieve it.
We heard this week that the 10 eastern and central European countries are to be offered 1.8 billion a year in new grants to help them to prepare for membership of the Union.
I welcome the fact that this offer is to be subject to the condition that recipient countries must keep to an agreed timetable for political and economic reform.
We should of course remember that democracy has only come recently to some of these countries and that the timetable should reflect the need to move forward cautiously.
That may cost more in grant aid in the short term if we are to achieve permanent stability in Europe in the long term and the cautious approach must be followed.
We are now halfway through the Presidency, a Presidency which has adopted an extremely ambitious project in getting the European conference under way; it is fair to say I believe that ambition has been fulfilled.
I have only one slight reservation and that is the position of Cyprus.
I must question the wisdom of the approach and I am concerned by your actions; you could well have made a protracted problem more difficult to resolve.
Mr President, the emphasis placed here on the conclusions of the London Conference seems to be inversely proportional to the attention given by citizens to what is considered an historic event by the Council.
The decision to begin the overall expansion process can certainly be considered an historically significant fact as the reconciliation between states that were enemies and the consolidation of stability in freedom are factors of extreme importance for the commencement and continuation of European cooperation.
But why is this importance not perceived by European citizens?
Is it because of the inability of the media to convey a positive message or is this feeling of indifference the result of the employment crisis and fears of monetary union caused by the restrictive measures imposed by governments?
It is a fact, however, that even if the expansion is historic, it does not rouse enthusiasm but creates fears for various reasons, including the fact that the average wage in the new states applying to join the Union is, at best, one-third or even one-sixth less than the average wage in the 15 current Member States of the Union, which will certainly affect the problem of employment and unemployment and that of company relocation.
The achievement of political union between 15 countries, which has not yet happened, will become even more difficult with 21, owing to the still unsatisfied need to establish the new institutional organization of the Union and the problems connected with common foreign and security policy.
The recent declarations made by the Slovenian Ambassador to Rome show how, in that country, at least one line of thought is quite different from the spirit of the governments and member nations of the EU.
The Italian National Alliance therefore believes it is necessary, before Slovenia joins the Union, to define the problem of compensating Italians for confiscated goods and the final condemnation, and all its consequences, of the annihilation that took place during the notorious feuds.
Cyprus' accession is very positive for us. Its territory is still divided and the problem of the Islamic unitary policy obliges the Union to work with greater commitment and good will to strengthen relations with Turkey, a necessary step to achieve greater protection of human rights and for Turkey to join the Union, a Union which needs to be rebalanced between north-east and south.
Finally, the Kurdish problem cannot be considered a problem of the individual states with regard to immigration control, but a Community problem.
The National Alliance therefore wishes to remind everyone that political union should be achieved.
Mr President, we started off with the President-in-Office of the Council giving us a report on the London conference, which showed that the European Council - and it is not a precedent - has in some way taken up some of Parliament's earlier proposals.
It was a joint ceremony involving all the countries and had a certain solemnity, which is especially important at times of historical significance.
There was acceptance of the idea that this process should be of a global, inclusive nature, involving all the countries and ending to some extent the division into two groups. There was also acceptance that this is a process which is open to emulation and competition between the countries.
Based on what I have just said, my comment relates to my experience as a member of the European Parliamentary delegation, headed by President Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, to the Bucharest Conference, where we met with the heads of parliament of the candidate countries.
We talk a lot about public opinion and the participation of civil society, but basically it has to start with a decisive participation on the part of the parliaments.
And I must point out, Mr President, that in those countries there is a profound historical aspiration - which I think we should take up - to be reincorporated into a process from which they were brutally cut off, as a result of the division of Europe. That means we must provide the impetus, and a political vision which goes beyond discussions of accounts and what could be termed "shopkeeper's book-keeping' .
In other words, it is important for us to calculate the sacrifices we have to make, but we must also remember the advantages we already enjoy.
While on the subject, I should also like to point out the concern which can be observed in some of those countries that they may be relegated to a sort of "second division' .
I think it is important for us to be able to admit, again with that political impetus, that many of those countries can even speed things up during the marathon process that incorporation will turn out to be.
Finally, Mr President, I have a comment about Turkey.
I believe the British Presidency and the Commission are making efforts to reincorporate Turkey into this process, but I also think we must remind ourselves and our Turkish friends and partners that we currently have a customs union with them, and that to enter into a verbal escalation with one of our Member States is not the best way of conducting relations with us.
I think that is a message which, I repeat, our Turkish partners and allies can and should accept.
Mr President, the British Presidency has made a good start with the two-track approach. This has been expressed through symbolic events.
One was the strengthened accession partnership which it tackled in a highly directive manner. The other, which is clearly related in spirit, but does not form part of the accession process, was the multilateral consultation and the European Conference where everyone is more on an equal footing.
This is a good thing, and has been effectively put into practice.
The Presidency emphasized that priority must given to good governance, democracy and human rights.
It did not just confine itself to economic issues.
It also talked about the environment, and so forth.
I believe that this is an important issue.
The third pillar is becoming increasingly important for the European Union, because we are characterized by the fact that we are an association of democratic constitutional states.
In order that accession countries achieve this as well, it is of extreme importance that they undergo cultural change.
In this context I am a little surprised at what is sometimes said about Turkey.
My question to the President-in-Office is whether Turkey has in fact made clear, substantive policy changes, so that it becomes obvious that we have been wrong? Is there no need for Turkey to take any further steps, and will it be increasingly received with laurels the more arrogantly it approaches the discussions surrounding the European Conference?
I think it is a little strange to pretend that the usefulness and value of the European Conference depends on the presence of a state which is not a constitutional state.
It is much easier to talk about the third pillar with countries which are constitutional states and full democracies. I would like to ask the President-in-Office what his thoughts are about this, and whether he is getting any signals that Turkey is making substantive steps towards us, instead of our being forced to make steps towards Turkey.
The second point I wanted to make is about the foreign policy convergence of which the President-in-Office spoke.
Will some kind of action plan be developed during the British Presidency to achieve convergence in foreign policy? We will have to arrive at a situation in which European politicians do not only inspire confidence in their own country, but amongst all European citizens, so that they can see that European responsibilities are dealt with effectively and thoroughly by the European authorities.
Mr President, it was important that the European Conference should get under way and that European integration is a step nearer.
On the agenda were environmental issues and matters to do with regional cooperation.
Dealing with issues of the environment with all applicant countries right from the start is essential.
If this matter is not given the attention it deserves there will be a danger that the Union's short timetable for enlargement will mean the environment getting swept aside in favour of economic and trade agreements.
The environment has to feature in all issues, not least of all transport and agriculture.
The EU's unique and comprehensive process of enlargement makes security on a broad scale an even more urgent notion in the EU decision-making process, and that of its various bodies.
EU enlargement must come about while stressing the concept of sustainable development in the areas of both the environment and social welfare.
Cooperation in matters of the environment must be very necessarily included in the strategies prior to enlargement.
In this we need to make the most of the ISPA financial instrument and derive from it the means to solve environmental problems as far as possible while negotiations for membership are still going on, so that the transition periods involved can be as short as possible.
Another matter that came up at the conference was that of regional cooperation, and the connection with the environment here is important.
Just think: after enlargement the Baltic Sea is going to be an inland sea of the EU.
We know the problems there are with protection of the Baltic.
Without the presence of Russia in all of this there can be no sustainable development or improvement in environmental conditions in the Baltic Sea.
Mr President, all the speakers have said here that the conference was very important and a success, although Turkey did not take part.
Actually this conference was conceived to involve Turkey.
I would like to associate myself expressly with this judgement, and I do not understand why the socialist party is apparently split on this question, because the former President and present Vice-Chairman, Mr Hänsch, said yesterday in an interview that the European Conference could be dissolved, and that it should be made clear to Turkey once and for all that it cannot join.
It would then no longer be possible to fulfil the purpose of the European Conference.
That has not been stated here, and I am surprised that former presidents do not give this opinion here in the House, but in press statements.
Since the decision of the EU Summit in Luxembourg, relationships between Europe and Turkey are in a difficult phase, and likewise those between Germany and Turkey.
I will not mention the reasons, but when we consider how to improve this situation, we must discuss the preconditions which were formulated at the Luxembourg Summit.
I think that parts of these preconditions were such that Turkey could not be a member without loss of face from the start, because border questions which are disputed between Greece and Turkey were made the yardstick, and not, Mr Oostlander, a question of the rule of law or human rights.
I also want to reject decisively your claim that Turkey's status as a state of law is disputed.
He does not listen, but he goes on spreading these inaccurate opinions.
I must expressly point out that in Turkey women achieved the right to vote in 1923, and that many other aspects of a democratic constitution are in place.
I demand that the Commission, the Council and Parliament should start talking again with Turkey, and that we formulate preconditions which enable Turkey to be present at the next European Conference.
It is actually the case that we must have the greatest interest in finding a reasonable basis with Turkey.
It is not the champions of the Christian West, as Mr Yilmaz said, who prevent Turkish accession, but primarily the still unfulfilled preconditions for accession.
But it is precisely because they have not yet been fulfilled that the European Conference was founded, and it would be completely wrong now to make the next hurdles for the European Conference so difficult that Turkish participation is made impossible.
I therefore ask the Commissioner to negotiate with the Council and Turkey to change this situation!
Mr President, there has been much talk of accession today, although actually the European Conference should definitely not be seen as an instrument of pre-accession strategy.
For this reason, Turkey, which I do not consider to be a candidate for accession although I share Mr Langen's political assessment in all points, was accepted into the conference.
But in my opinion this European Conference has an important task to fulfil apart from accession, and therefore it should be opened to other states, as Elmar Brok said.
It should be opened to states which are not yet at the gates as candidates for accession, either because they have been internationally slandered - like Croatia, which is at least as ready for accession as Slovakia or Cyprus - or because, like Ukraine, which still has to live through a difficult time, and which we must help massively, they are not yet in a position to move closer to Europe or the European Union.
However, the London Conference, in spite of the difficult, unclear position in which it found itself, made one specific statement.
That was its declaration on justice and internal affairs.
My report about expansion eastwards and internal security will be presented tomorrow.
But beyond that, the European Conference can achieve a Pan-Europe of law and internal security before the last agricultural problem in the European Union is solved.
People will only accept a greater Europe if it results in more, not less security.
This approach, putting internal security at the centre of this conference, is therefore to be welcomed.
Also to be welcomed is the consideration of Kosovo, one of the most important problems which the whole of Europe will face in the next few years, and there it is important that Turkey as a partly European and Islamic country should be involved in this region, because of its special historical connection.
We must restore the autonomy of Kosovo under international control with international peace-keeping troops, for we have already gone beyond the eleventh hour there.
I am therefore glad that the European Conference has concerned itself with this subject, although the outcome was inadequate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
Aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - post-SFOR strategy
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0123/98 by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation 1628/96 relating to aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (COM (98)0018 - C4-0105/98-98/0023(CNS))-A4-0106/78 by Mrs Daskalaki, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on a post-SFOR strategy in Bosnia and Herzegovina containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if all programmes and budget lines are taken together, more than ECU 350 million annually are available from the European Union for the reconstruction of BosniaHerzegovina and the other countries which were involved in the war.
Our involvement is therefore not just moral and political, but also financial to a very large extent.
But if we take as our basis the resources which have actually been used, in the years 1996 and 1997, less than ECU 100 million, that is about 15 %, were spent.
The USA, with its splendidly organized team on the spot, manages to spend 95 % of the US$ 200 million which are available each year.
What are the reasons for the vast gap between our intentions and the reality which is expressed in these statistics? The activities of the European Union are hardly visible on the ground, apart from a few secondhand tram-cars with European Union written on them.
There are many reasons for this, and they can be divided into objective difficulties on the ground and the behaviour of the Commission and the Council of Ministers.
First, the difficulties on the ground: it is true that since the Dayton Agreement the weapons have been silent, but peace has not yet returned to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Political conflicts continue to smoulder, the animosity of various population groups has been stirred up towards one another.
People around Karadzic and Mladic, and others, are particularly responsible for this.
Intimidation and threats to refugees who want to return still continue in some places, particularly where they form a minority after they return.
The central government of Bosnia is still incapable of acting.
Even the institutions of the sub-republics, such as the government of the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Republic Srpska, are only slowly getting into gear.
In 1996 and 1997 they were either non-existent or ineffective.
Nevertheless the resolute process of pacification of the country continues, under the decisive leadership of the High Representative Carlos Westendorp and his deputy Jacques Klein, with the help of SFOR troops.
Of course, as well as numerous functions to aid the construction of authorities on the ground, they carry out peace-keeping tasks, and do it very well.
The elections at the end of the year may bring further stabilization in terms of concentration on reconstruction and more cooperation between the sub-republics.
The Dodik government in Republic Srpska is gradually acquiring the ability to act.
It is ready to allow its refugees to return and to cooperate closely with the European Union.
But the previous broad administrative and financial paralysis of the Commission and the Council of Ministers can be corrected in important points by a change to Regulation 1628/96, which is now on the agenda.
We therefore support the proposals of the Commission in principle but they do not go far enough.
A new start is possible in which the institutions of the European Union, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament cooperate closely but this depends on a fundamental change to the Regulation.
That is our opinion in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, but also the opinion of the ad hoc delegation which visited Bosnia from 21 to 24 February.
As for the behaviour - unfortunately I must say misbehaviour - of the Commission and Council: neither the Council nor the Commission, through the necessary cooperation, has created suitable instruments and legal bases to meet the special challenge of reconstruction, and to adapt to the difficulties on the ground.
Summarized in one sentence: reconstruction aid for Bosnia with a non-existent or non-functioning administration of the whole state or the sub-states is something different from European legislative procedure or classical development aid with partners which can act and function administratively in the normal way.
The Council and Commission have not adapted to these circumstances.
For that reason, the goal-oriented, coordinated use of financial, technical and material resources on the ground was largely absent.
Success-oriented management on the ground is still not evident enough.
The Council has enforced a complicated and inefficient Regulation.
It forced the Commission to juggle with three different budget lines: ' Reconstruction' , ' Return of Refugees' , ' Europe for Sarajevo' .
They are known by the Bosnian term OBNOVA and only formally combined.
The Council has stymied itself by subjecting all projects over ECU 2 million - that is Article 12 of the Regulation - to a complicated procedure of a governmental committee, which almost always delayed the necessary decisions by several months.
We in the European Parliament are no longer prepared to accept such a situation.
A new start is necessary.
In the name of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I propose today to the Council and Commission nothing less than this new start.
The Commission must have an efficient action and decision summit with a general plenipotentiary on the spot, carrying the responsibility, equipped with the most extensive autonomous powers of action and decision, and provided with a strong management team.
That may cost up to 10 % of the operating expenditure.
The Americans need 15 % for theirs.
If cooperation by the European Union with the Member States and the aid organizations is to be improved, regular coordination meetings, if possible monthly, must be possible.
I would therefore like to put the question to you, Mr President-in-Office, whether you are prepared to accept our amendments, as they are summarized in paragraphs 1 to 23.
If you do not see it as possible at this moment, what procedure do you have in mind? We have a conciliation procedure from the year 1975, and there are other procedures, which give us the possibility of providing and arranging cooperation with the Council - this has already happened with the Commission to a large extent, and the Commission has supported us in our amendments.
Mr President, two years have passed since the Dayton Agreement and all the signs are that although important steps have been taken, the agreement's implementation is still very slow in many areas.
For example, we see delays in the operation of political institutions, there are still problems with freedom of movement and with the return of refugees.
Since the beginning of 1998, there have of course been positive indications that reconstruction could take place more quickly.
The High Representative is particularly dedicated to the agreement's implementation, the Serbian Republic has a moderate Prime Minister whom we have already had the opportunity to welcome in the European Parliament in the context of the relevant Joint Parliamentary Committee, and more generally, there are better hopes for an acceleration of the reconstruction process and the repatriation of displaced persons in light of the September elections.
Those are the optimistic points.
However, we also know, and can see, that the peace is still fragile and indeed over a wider area, where as recent events in Kosovo have shown, focuses of tension still exist.
In Bosnia-Herzegovina mistrust still prevails between the various sides.
More particularly, the functioning of common institutions is always problematic.
At some points, such as Mostar, there are important local government problems.
In some districts the spirit is opposed to municipal elections.
There are no laws about landmines and the disarmament issue has not been resolved. There are problems related to human rights, and monetary and economic problems in a very sensitive, if not fragile economy.
It is therefore common ground that a stable and secure environment must be established so that the peace agreement can be fully implemented and the country reconstructed.
The Peace Implementation Council has recognized and supported the existing understanding to continue the military presence after 1998.
Those of us who went to Bosnia as electoral observers on behalf of the European Parliament had the opportunity to confirm that understanding and wish on the spot.
That presence is deemed necessary to preserve a stable and secure environment and to ensure the prerequisites for action, both by the High Representative and by international organizations, in order to implement the Peace Agreement.
Since December, NATO has been examining the alternative solutions for sending a multinational force after SFOR, whose tenure lapses in June.
The European Union applauds that.
But beyond that point, since the Union's political and economic commitments in BosniaHerzegovina and the military commitment of its Member States are huge, it would be better to have more consistent and visible common action for active Community participation in the multinational force that is to succeed SFOR.
For that reason, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy believes with this report that it should be the WEU's job to coordinate the efforts of the Union's Member States in the context of a NATO enterprise and under NATO's leadership, a thing that would also stress the efforts to build up the CFSP.
A European commitment of that kind would also improve non-military cooperation in the area, aiming gradually to reduce the need for a military presence as reconstruction progresses.
This Community participation should be linked to compliance of all the parties with the agreement and with arms control, and the European Union must insist that there is no rearmament of the contesting parties.
The production of landmines and their export to the country must also cease.
In parallel with what has already been considered, it would be good if the Member States made a commitment to preserve and assist the European Community Monitoring Mission, the ECMM as it is called.
Its members, who have offered a great deal, are the only people who, for the time being at least, are a visible sign of the EU's presence and Mr Schwaiger has stressed that this presence is not very much felt in the area.
Because, that too, is one of the many paradoxes: despite the bundle of money the Union has spent there, despite the real and human sacrifices made by the Union, Europe seems not to be present at all.
With these thoughts, we call for common action for European participation in the post-SFOR force along with the other efforts already being made, such as the training of local police forces in the context of the UN policing mission.
As a recommendation to the Council, this report aims to contribute towards positions that will stress Europe's involvement and presence on behalf of peace and the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina on the basis of the Dayton Accord.
Mr President, this is a very important debate and people throughout Europe and in a wider field will be watching how we conduct our affairs in this matter.
They will want to check that we are serious in our intentions and that, where we believe we can improve our ways of dealing with things, we take appropriate action at an appropriate time to make sure that changes take place.
We have invested a great deal of time and money in Bosnia but the unique circumstances on the ground have clearly shown that the European Community aid effort is less than ideally equipped to deliver aid as effectively and as quickly as is needed to help support peace and reconciliation.
I very much agree with Mr Schwaiger that we need the maximum of cooperation between the Commission, the Council and Parliament to overcome the problems we face.
Last October the Council called on the Commission to review the European Community effort in Bosnia.
As a result the Commission has brought forward a proposal which aims to provide the tools required to get the aid quickly to those who need that aid most.
The Council supports the Commission proposal.
Since the Commission presented its proposal in January, the Council has worked quickly so that measures can be in place when they are most needed, at the start of the Bosnia reconstruction period in April, which I am sure everyone who knows anything about the geography of Bosnia will recognize.
Given the tight timetable, the February General Affairs Council wanted to take a preliminary view pending a parliamentary opinion.
Ministers unanimously indicated a political will to back Commission thinking.
The Council will of course look again at the proposal in the light of the important report from Mr Schwaiger and his committee which highlights some areas where effectiveness could be increased.
The Council will look constructively at the amendments and I can say to Mr Schwaiger, in response to the point he raised about the conciliation process, that I cannot commit the Council to that formal method.
What I can say is that the Presidency will ensure that we keep in close touch with him, as the rapporteur for that committee, on our thinking on timetables and on developments.
The Council shares Parliament's wish to improve the European Community aid effort in Bosnia to better meet the needs of the Bosnian people.
The Commission proposal already recognizes and addresses many of the key areas identified by Parliament's delegation which visited Bosnia in February.
In particular, the Council and the Commission are already agreed on the need to better coordinate on the ground in a regular and structured manner, making the best use of pooled expertise.
The Presidency and the Commission will take steps to put this in place urgently.
The decentralized Commission operation and the ability to deal with local authorities on the ground will give the greater flexibility needed to respond better to real needs in Bosnia.
Direct dealing with local authorities will also give the Bosnian people themselves a more direct stake in aid projects and in their delivery.
I would like to say a few words about the amendments which are included in Mr Schwaiger's report.
I do not think that the Council will have a great deal of difficulty with a number of those amendments.
If one takes, for instance, Amendment No 6, where Parliament proposes that the Commission work with the high representative, I do not see any major problem with that proposal.
Amendment No 11: Parliament defines areas where restricted tendering should apply.
Again, I do not see any great difficulty with that issue.
Amendment No 15: Parliament proposes regular meetings between the heads of the mission and the Commission.
Again, I can see no great difficulty in dealing with that particular issue.
I move to Amendment No 12, in which Parliament calls for the recruitment of specialist staff.
It is suggested at the moment that one of the main reasons why the aid cannot be disbursed effectively is that the current level of staffing is inadequate.
I can understand that there are special circumstances in an area like Bosnia, and the level of staffing appropriate in that situation would not necessarily be the same as in other situations.
I can also understand that once a budget has been set expenditure has to be allocated within that budget and it has to meet all the various claims on resources, including some of the staffing resources required to disburse the main part of that aid.
So I have a lot of sympathy with the committee's views on the need for change.
Indeed, the Court of Auditors has made the same observation.
Clearly the public does not want to see aid wasted because of excessive bureaucratic costs, and a balance has to be struck in getting the aid disbursed effectively and, at the same time, having an efficient system of management.
If the Commission were to look at this again in a revised report at a later stage, then the Council would want to respond.
So I have a lot of sympathy on that point.
I would remind you that Parliament can ultimately have a further say in this matter, because it is Parliament which finalizes the budgetary procedure for successive periods.
On Amendment No 14, I do not have the same sympathy or hope.
Projects over ECU 2 million currently have to be approved by the Member States' committee.
The proposal before us suggests that this should be increased to ECU 5 million and the Council has agreed.
Difficulties would arise if Parliament were to continue to push for a cut-off point of ECU 10 million, because as I understand it that would have a very significant impact on the number of projects on which the Member States' committee had to give an opinion.
A lot of Member States will take a firm view that they believe they should have an input into this process.
Amendments Nos 13 and 18 are really matters for the Commission rather than the Council and they should be directed towards colleagues in the Commission.
It is reasonable to ask why the Council reached a view before Parliament was asked for an opinion.
This was not because of some ideological determination to avoid a discussion with Parliament.
The Council took the decision for very practical reasons: the situation was urgent.
Peace and stability in Bosnia are very much connected with success and the reconstruction of society.
That, indeed, is what the whole aid programme is about.
We would all recognize that the spring is a key period for the beginning of work and if that period is missed it means a considerable delay in any reconstruction process which involves the building industry.
We cannot afford any further delay and I hope Parliament will recognize that this is an important political and practical point.
If Parliament does recognize that, then Parliament can play an important role in achieving what I think are our common goals.
Parliament will recognize that I need to take amendments back to the Council - I am not empowered to reach decisions on that today.
In the meantime, Parliament could approve the Commission proposal and the Commission could then return at a later stage, if necessary, with modifications based on Parliament's observations which have been outlined in the document.
What I have to say to Parliament is that a failure to agree with this approach will lead to delay, it will damage the reconstruction process in Bosnia, it will delay refugee returns and it will undermine stability, peace and reconciliation.
After the words of the President-in-Office of the Council I will be brief.
Firstly, I wholeheartedly thank Parliament and the committees involved for dealing so swiftly with our proposals, in particular the fact that a special Parliament mission under the leadership of Mr Spencer went to Sarajevo to get acquainted with the situation on the ground.
More specifically, I would like to thank Mr Schwaiger for the great effort he has made to publish what is, in our view, a very balanced report which clearly shows that he has an understanding of the situation on the ground.
We need not talk too much about the past.
One thing is for certain: things can be improved on our side.
In the past two years we have been confronted with situations that nobody could have foreseen; be it the lack of coordination in the central authorities; be it non-compliance with Dayton which, in the Republika Srpska, has led to only 2 % of the total aid going to that particular region; or other forms of non-transparent infrastructure at the receiving end which has made the distribution of aid and money a hazardous and often impossible affair.
That has also led to rigorous centralization in Brussels over the past two years for the simple reason that deconcentration and delegation under those circumstances was not feasible.
Mr Schwaiger's report, in combination with the measures that we prepared a couple of months ago and which very much complement each other - the Schwaiger report and the measures under preparation - show that there is a clear, common understanding between Parliament, the Commission and the Council about what has to be done.
We have embarked upon a strengthening of our staff in Sarajevo.
Redeployment is taking place from Brussels.
We are undergoing deconcentration and decentralization.
All of these meet the desires of Parliament, according to the recommendations in Mr Schwaiger's report.
Regarding the proposals for changing the regulations, I would say the same thing: more flexibility, in particular by enhancing the thresholds above which the Member States have to give their approval to projects from 2.5 to 5 million.
I agree with the President-in-Office that there is very little chance - I speak from experience - of the Council agreeing to a further increase from 5 million to 10 million.
Eliminating any Member State's influence in projects up to 10 million is a bridge too far at the present stage.
As far as the operational cost is concerned - the famous 10 % question - with the Council Presidency it is ultimately Parliament that decides this.
I suggest that I talk to my colleague, Mr Liikanen, and that we undertake to make a proposal to the Council for a significant increase in the present percentage, which is 3.5 %.
I have to have an agreement with him on this.
Again, it is Parliament that will eventually decide this.
That meets Parliament's wishes.
In our very constructive preparatory discussions for this debate today we were in agreement that on the basis of further evaluations the Commission is prepared, during the course of this year, to make other proposals that may increase the flexibility and efficiency of our total operations.
We can talk this through on the understanding that Parliament is prepared to accept that we do not encroach on the life of the current regulations, which lapse at the end of 1999, so that we do not run the risk of creating any kind of legal vacuum.
We are prepared to remain in touch to see whether, and what kind of further proposals can be made at a later stage.
With the President-in-Office I say: do not let this delay, in any way, the present proposals that are on the table.
If it is deferred back to the Commission at the end of April - I say with due respect to Mr Spencer - that would be beyond the point where the next General Affairs Council would be able to formalize this modified regulation.
We would lose more time, whereas what we are talking about is a matter of utmost urgency.
In that sense there is no difference between Parliament and the Commission.
All three institutions are very close together in their proposals and understanding of what has to be done.
I hope that ultimately reconstruction and, not least, the return of refugees in Bosnia and Herzegovina will benefit from the results of this debate.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Ladies and gentlemen, the debate is now adjourned to 9.00 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0272/98).
We are starting questions to the Council 15 minutes late, so we will extend it accordingly. I hope Parliament's services, especially the interpreters, will be kind enough to make the appropriate arrangements, because Question Time will end today at 7.15 p.m.
Mr Truscott would like to speak on a point of order.
The Rules of Procedure say that I must allow it, but I must request that you keep within the allotted minute, Mr Truscott, because we must start Question Time.
Mr President, I am very conscious of the time but I do have a point of order under Rule 41 which deals with Question Time.
The problem is that the first ten questions deal with an issue that is not a matter for the Council, i.e. the Elgin Marbles, and therefore I am asking you to rule the first ten questions out of order as they are clearly a matter for bilateral discussions between the Member States concerned and not a matter for the Council.
Mr Truscott, I respect your opinion, but this question has been accepted in accordance with all the established rules, and it is now up to the Council whether to reply or not.
I shall not allow any more points of order.
Mr Henderson has requested to speak.
Good evening and welcome, Mr Henderson.
You have the floor, before we begin Question Time with that block of ten questions Mr Truscott mentioned.
Mr President, can I just make a procedural point before I take up question one?
I am afraid I have to leave at 7 p.m.
I am happy to extend Question Time on some other occasion.
I was not responsible for the delay today.
If at the next occasion you wish to extend Question Time over the lunch period for a little while I would be very happy to cooperate with that by bringing forward the agenda to perhaps a 2.30 p.m. start but I cannot wait today.
I have to leave at 7 p.m.
Mr Henderson, I very much enjoy your presence here but I am not going to make you stay, or turn you into a hostage.
Not at all. You are free to leave this House whenever you see fit; this is an area of freedom.
Now as President of this sitting, my agenda states that there is an hour and a half of questions.
If we cannot count on the valuable presence of the Council during that time, then we cannot have an hour and a half, but I would like to be able to do so.
You may go whenever you want to.
However, I must say that since we have started late, my wish as President of the session is that we should finish after an hour and a half.
Your invitation to move to lunchtime seems a very good idea, especially if the food is Mediterranean.
However, I prefer to keep lunchtime for relaxed, peaceful conversations, not for questions to the Council, which is not so relaxed. Indeed, sometimes there is a certain amount of tension, as now.
Mr David has the floor on a point of order.
But please, Mr David, help me to get started with Question Time itself.
If people ask to make points of order, I do not deny it to anybody, least of all you.
You have the floor on a point of order, but it will detract from the time we have available for Mr Henderson and his invaluable answers.
Mr President, I will be extremely brief.
I just wanted to say that I think we should take up the minister on his very kind offer - giving up part of his lunchtime in a future plenary session.
I am sure that many of my colleagues in the Parliament appreciate that and, if it cannot be done formally, perhaps some of us could meet him informally for a question session.
As I said in my previous address I have to leave at 7 o'clock and I would like to do so with the blessing of the House.
I will be happy to extend my attendance at a future sitting at an earlier time in the day if that would be helpful.
In relation to Question No 1, as honourable Members are undoubtedly aware, although the 1982 UNESCO recommendation stated that the sculptures should be returned to Greece, the recommendation went on to say that they should be returned for reincorporation into the Parthenon.
The Parthenon sculptures are not a matter for the Council as the European Community has no competence in this subject.
It is entirely an issue between the United Kingdom and Greece.
Mr President, Europe is being united, the currencies are being united, Berlin was united years ago, and the Parthenon, which constitutes the cultural identity of a European country and is a unique, ecumenical cultural monument, is divided by a 'wall of shame' .
The Minister's answer is incorrect.
On the first point, the answer is "yes' : the European Union should cooperate in implementing any UNESCO decision.-On the second point, which claims that the issue is not a matter for the European Union: Article 128(2), paragraph 3 of the Treaty says that 'the Community's action shall be directed towards strengthening cooperation between the Member States' -, 'if necessary, to support and supplement their action for the preservation and survival of the cultural heritage important to Europe' .In that sense, since the Minister's answer does not apply and since the Treaty requires cooperation, I want to ask what direction the Council of Ministers could pursue and what initiatives will the government now holding the Presidency adopt?
I say to Mr Alavanos that I do not accept his point about the competence of the Council. Even if I did, there has to my knowledge been no referral to the Council by either the United Kingdom government or the Greek government for assistance in conciliation.
Therefore, I still believe that this is a matter for those two nation state governments to determine.
Mr President, on a procedural matter.
We were given notice that the Minister would be replying to all ten questions at once.
He has only replied to Question No 1.
Before I have my minute, could you tell me if the Minister is intending to reply to all the questions separately or is that the complete answer to all ten?
I thought, Mr Lomas, that I had explained very clearly.
Mr Henderson is replying jointly to the ten questions. In other words, his first comment was an answer to all ten questions.
Mr Lomas, now that I have explained that point, you have a maximum of 60 seconds.
If the Council was to refrain from commenting on matters where it had no competence, there would be very few matters in the world that it would be able to comment on.
Does the Council not feel that, in view of the fact that these sculptures were taken from Greece under Turkish occupation, they are not something in isolation like a painting, but are part of the Parthenon, a building, and they ought to be returned there? Also, given that there is such overwhelming, massive support in the United Kingdom, as shown by the surveys, including a television survey which recorded 94 % of people in favour of their return, would the Council like to give an opinion as to whether this would be a practical and good thing to do, since it comments on matters all over the world on which it has not the slightest influence?
As I outlined, the constitutional position is that the Council has no competence on this matter.
If Mr Lomas wishes to raise this question with the British government, then I am sure that the appropriate minister would be happy to respond to him.
Again I say to Mr Sanz Fernández, he actually can, if he wishes, communicate with the British government.
He will not be able to do that in the British parliament but he would have an opportunity to contact the British government and express his view and seek a response from it and, as I said to Mr Lomas, if he did that then I am sure the minister responsible would be able to reply to him.
I fully agree with the questions which were asked about the return of the Parthenon art treasures to Athens, but I would like to place this issue in a wider context.
This is, of course, not the only looting which has taken place.
I thought it might be worthwhile if I broadened this Question Time into something more general.
Then several countries have bilateral problems.
Under Napoleon, the French took the first mosasaur head, which is now in Paris.
We have tried to get it returned to Maastricht in Limburg.
You know the city.
Up until now we have not heard anything from the French.
I believe true European integration, real European cooperation, can only take shape if this kind of cultural injustice is put right.
Might the President-in-Office and his successors be able to help with this in future? And I do hope that the Elgin Marbles will be returned.
I would say to Mr Bertens that some of those matters were discussed in theory when we were dealing with the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Council has a clear remit which is currently authorized from previous Treaties.
There are authorizations in the Amsterdam Treaty.
If my interpretation is correct, I do not believe that when the Treaty is ratified it will make any difference to the competence on this issue or the issues to which he refers and I can really go no further than that.
It is for each state to give its views on that matter and you should address your questions to them.
I am more than a little disappointed with the answer from the President-in-Office, but it may well be outside the competence of the EU as he has said.
However I asked a slightly different question and I think it might still be possible for it to be answered.
Does the Council agree that the cultural policy in the EU must, or should reflect the feelings of the European people? I think that is a slightly different question from the one you have been answering.
I thank Mr Gillis for his supplementary but he is really trying to make the same point as Mr Bertens, from a different angle.
The question of cultural standards and cultural policy within the European Union is largely a matter for the Member States.
When it is a matter for the Council, it is already established in the Treaties and subject to some modification in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But as I said to Mr Bertens, if my reading is accurate, I do not believe that the Treaty of Amsterdam would give the Council jurisdiction to deal with a matter such as this.
Mr President, I will be brief.
This is a situation that involves two Member States and the specific question posed to the President-in-Office was as follows: is a political will necessary to resolve this issue that involves these two Member States.
Does the British Presidency have the political will to contribute to resolving this matter finally and effectively?
Again I say to Mr Miranda, I am not here to express views on behalf of the British Government, I am here to express views on behalf of the Council and if he wishes to put a question to the British Government, as I said already to two of his colleagues then I am sure that the responsible minister would be able to give him a reply to the matters that he raises.
Mr President, I wish to remind the British Presidency that the Treaty of Amsterdam has in some ways extended the EU's competence with regard to culture, in a paragraph which states that culture should be present in all aspects of Union politics.
It is quite clear that the EU's policy of harmonization and cohesion has to include a cultural dimension. The fact that such a delicate cultural question is present in the Union's internal relations - I am talking about the refusal to restore the Parthenon frieze - can only discredit the rest of the European policy.
Do you not think that the Treaty of Amsterdam also made an innovation from this point of view?
I say to Mrs Castellina that, again, it is a matter of interpretation as to what the Amsterdam Treaty says on this.
My understanding is that it would make no difference to competence in regard to this matter, and any points she wishes to raise on this she should raise with the British Government or the Greek Government.
Speaking as the Member for Elgin - where we are very ashamed of the past history of Lord Elgin - I wish to say to the President-in-Office that by way of follow up to Mrs Castellina, who is chairman of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, I was chairman of that committee in 1985 when it passed a report which included the restoration of works of art in the broader sense of Mr Bertens.
That report was adopted by this Parliament.
No-one challenged our competence at that time.
On the day that Greece took its seat I lodged a resolution to restore the Elgin marbles.
I wish to remind everyone of the excellent precedent created recently by England when it returned Scotland's Stone of Destiny to Scotland.
I am pleased that Mrs Ewing has raised the point on behalf of the town in her constituency which has the same name as the diplomat after whom the marbles are named.
She will not know this but I was an election agent in her constituency in 1970, having been sent up there by the Glasgow Labour Party to help out.
So I know the views of the people of Elgin on these important questions.
I have to say to their representative that if she has very strong views which she wishes yet again to press she should raise this matter with the British Government.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 11 by John Cushnahan, which has been taken over by Alan Gillis (H-0273/98)
Subject: Effects of abolition of duty-free sales
What measures do the Member States intend to implement to deal with the social and economic consequences of the abolition of intra-EU tax and duty-free sales in accordance with the terms of the 13th recital in the preamble to the Directive 91/680/EEC and the 23rd recital in the preamble to Directive 92/12/EEC ?
Question No 12 by Pat Gallagher (H-0368/98)
Subject: Transport Council request for a study on social effects of the abolition of duty free
In view of the decision at the March 17 Transport Council to request Finance Ministers to ask the Commission to undertake a study into the social effects of the abolition of duty free, can the Presidency confirm that this issue will be on the next agenda of the ECOFIN Council?
In the directives referred to by Mr Cushnahan the Council agreed that duty- and tax-free sales on intra-Community journeys could continue for a transitional period up until 30 June 1999.
The intention was to minimize the social and regional difficulties which might arise from abolition by allowing operators time to adjust.
It is for individual Member States to decide whether any further action is required to deal with particular social or economic consequences.
As to Mr Gallagher's question, the President of the Transport Council has written to the President of Ecofin reporting the views of transport ministers on the need for a Commission study.
No decision has yet been taken on whether to put this issue on a future Ecofin agenda.
The answer again is more or less what I expected, because we have been listening to it for a long time.
However, it does not address the unemployment question or the downside, negative aspects of the abolition of duty-free in terms of airports, airlines and, indeed, shipping companies that are already under severe pressure.
It would be worthwhile if we had this study brought forward as quickly as possible, perhaps with a more open mind, to see if it is possible to retain duty-free sales.
I have very little to add to my initial response to the questions.
As I said, the matter has been raised by the Transport Ministers but Ecofin have not yet decided whether to place it on the agenda.
It is a longstanding decision.
To change the decision would require unanimity.
It is up to the Commission whether it decides to produce a report.
As I said at the last plenary when I addressed this subject, there is a lot of speculation as to what the impact of the abolition of duty-free within the European Union will be.
There is speculation that jobs will be lost and speculation that jobs will be gained, speculation that consumers will gain overall, speculation that some consumers will lose.
Individual Member States have to make their own calculations.
They have had a considerable period of time in which to make an assessment.
I can add no more at the present time.
I am pleased that the Transport Council has communicated with the Ecofin Council.
I sincerely hope that the Ecofin ministers will respect the wishes of the Transport Council and commission a study.
However, I am particularly sad to hear the President-in-Office this evening talk about speculation.
There should be no reference to speculation.
It should be fact.
The only way we can establish that is by having an impact study carried out on the socioeconomic effects.
Then it will not be speculation, it will be fact.
From studies that have been carried out in my own country it has been established - not speculated upon - that tens of thousands of jobs will be lost throughout the Union, with no alternative source of employment for those people.
There will be an additional £17 per fare for the many hard-pressed citizens throughout the Union.
I would like the President-in-Office to confirm that unanimity is not required for the Council to call on the Commission to undertake an impact study on the socio-economic consequences arising from the proposed abolition.
Could he confirm that to me?
I can confirm that the Council could request a study without a unanimous decision, but to change the decision which was reached previously would require unanimity.
It would be interesting if every study which was ever produced guaranteed that the facts would emerge.
I am not as confident as that.
A lot of judgment would be involved as to what the impact might be.
I say that as someone who has an airport in his constituency and thus has a vested interest in these matters.
But there are other wider considerations that the Ecofin Council and the Council of Ministers must take into account.
I would hope Mr Gallagher would understand that.
I would like to congratulate the President-in-Office and encourage him to stick to his guns in the face of all the persiflage which comes from those who claim to be concerned about duty-free.
They have swallowed whole the arguments of the duty-free industry.
The President-in-Office is quite right to cast doubt on some of the forecasts of job losses, about which I am extremely sceptical.
However, I was a little concerned because his reply to the earlier question appeared to be rather less forthright and firm than it was last time he came to this House, when he repeated - and I supported him - that there were no plans in Ecofin to return to this subject.
He did not put it quite as firmly this time.
Can we have a firm undertaking that there are no - I repeat, no - plans to re-open the whole debate?
Mr Cassidy's comments show that there are many views on this subject which cross the political spectrum of this House and no doubt other political institutions throughout the European Union.
I said at the last plenary that there were no plans by the Ecofin Council to place an item of this nature on the agenda.
That was the position at that time.
Subsequently, a decision has been taken by the Transport Council and the wording I have chosen today, that no decision has been reached as to whether or not to put this issue on the agenda, is a better way of expressing the kind of response that Ecofin might make to a request from a sister Council.
I will be very brief.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his clear answers, but the questions also refer to the social consequences and social benefits of this matter, and I wonder if he would agree with me that the abolition of duty-free would also reduce the levels of consumption of both alcohol and tobacco and that the consequences of this can only be beneficial to public health in Europe.
Would he agree that the abolition of duty-free, which is, as he says, a long-standing decision, would allow both sea- and airports to resume their primary role, which is to transport people from one place to another.
I think my professor of economics would have told me that the marginal propensity to consume might be pricesensitive and that before giving an answer to that question one should conduct some surveys on whether that was the case.
Just on that last point from the President-in-Office, I think he has answered the point that Ecofin ought to put to the Council of Transport Ministers: some more objective studies are needed.
Is the President aware that this Parliament has had a previous clash with the Council and the Commission on a similar point, when we were insisting on an objective study of safety for users of superbikes.
When we were successful, the people who were opposed to Parliament's position believed that the conclusions defied gravity and that in fact the superbikes were proved to be safer than other machines which the Commission and Council had no objection to.
In that situation the decision of the European Union - or European Community as it was then - was made under very different procedures which did not involve co-decision.
Does the Council accept that there might be a case for considering whether the legislation is satisfactory or whether an over-hasty decision was taken under the old procedures and does it also accept that a study would assist us in reaching a sound decision now?
It is superficially attractive always to allege that legislation which was agreed in a previous circumstance would not be approved were it to be before a political institution currently.
I do not dispute Mr Barton's observation in general.
But that does not mean that we can reverse all legislation which has been introduced in the past.
It is not that long ago that a decision was reached on this but it was still seven or eight years ago and this has given outlets who benefit from duty-free the opportunity to consider the effect on their businesses and to make alternative provisions.
There has been that opportunity in the past.
No decision has yet been taken by ECOFIN.
I cannot say more than that at this point.
I do not believe there is much hope that the finance ministers will change their minds.
On the other hand, it should be possible to provide what the transport ministers have requested, namely an impact analysis, partly with regard to employment and partly with regard to taxes, since the idea was that taxes should be harmonized during this period, which has not been done, and which may in turn have consequences for travel between different countries and consequences for ultraperipheral countries.
It should therefore be possible to provide this.
What Mr Cassidy said is not true, that only the industry has carried out studies in this area.
This was first done in Sweden, and now there has been a government study which emphasizes exactly what the industry's studies did previously, namely that this will have an impact on employment in my country, costing around 2 000 jobs.
I refer to my previous answers that one can speculate as to what a study would indicate and, indeed, on how accurately the study may be able to predict consequences.
At this time, although the Transport Council has taken a decision, no decision has been reached by the ECOFIN Council on whether or not to take this matter further.
Question No 13 by Jens-Peter Bonde, which has been taken over by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0275/98)
Subject: Equal treatment for lesbians and gays
Will the Council amend the legislation so as to introduce full equality of treatment for homosexual men and women and thus to nullify the discriminatory judgment of the Court of Justice in the Lisa Grant case?
The honourable Member who originally tabled the question and Mrs Sandbæk will be aware that the Treaty of Rome does not currently provide the Council with competence in the area of sexual orientation.
However, the Treaty of Amsterdam will, when ratified, provide the Commission with the legal base for future action.
The Council will continue to work with the Commission in bringing forward measures that benefit all citizens of the European Union.
I am, of course, fully aware that the Treaty of Rome does not grant these powers, but I do appreciate the answer and would like to convey my thanks.
However, would it not be possible for you to expand on this and be a touch more specific? In your answer, you indicated that you would endeavour to do something.
This appears to me to be a rather non-specific choice of words.
I am curious to know exactly what you have in mind.
I think Mrs Sandbæk is asking me to do the impossible.
If the honourable Member had wished to ask a specific question then I would have done my very best to answer it.
But I surely cannot be asked to predict a range of specific questions which I might wish to give answers to.
Therefore I cannot really help the honourable Member.
Mr President, I understand completely that you have difficulties in foreseeing the future.
I just wanted to ask you if perhaps in this preparation for the future, for which you are responsible, you would bear something in mind, namely that if this equalization were carried out, an absolute economic inequality would result, in which communities without children would have considerable economic advantages compared to those who have children, quite apart from the fact that it would contribute to our continent slowly dying out!
These are very delicate matters and I understand that, but I do not understand the point that the honourable Member was making.
Is he suggesting that where discrimination is outlawed among people who do not have children, they have an advantage over people who do have children and who are not discriminated against in a particular instance? I do not follow the logic.
Question No 14 by Ioannis Theonas (H-0278/98)
Subject: Severe repercussions for weakest economies of introduction of euro
Opposition is intensifying among workers and experts on economic affairs to the imminent introduction of the euro.
A particularly important issue in this respect is the status of the currencies not forming part of the euro zone, the impact on the economies of those countries, combatting speculation and other pressures and the effects on workers' living standards and social rights.
Has the Council looked into this matter?
On the basis of which studies and communications from the Commission - which has not notified Parliament of any relevant details? What policy decisions will it take to relieve workers of the burden they are enduring in the name of the euro and to offset the severe repercussions which will particularly affect the weakest economies?
Far from intensifying opposition to the introduction of the euro, the most recent Eurobarometer poll shows an increase in support, though I acknowledge that this was not the case in the honourable Member's home country, which is a matter of concern.
The Council has been very conscious of the need to ensure a social dimension to its work.
The Amsterdam European Council underlined that economic and social inclusion are complementary aspects of the more cohesive European society that we all seek.
The policy changes which preparation for the euro has required make sense in their own right and will benefit workers.
They help to ensure the correct macro-economic climate for stability and growth.
In many parts of the Union we are seeking the benefits of those policies now.
These benefits have not been bought at the expense of workers in other parts of the Union.
Growth across the Union is in the interests of citizens of all our countries.
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office, but he gave me a very general answer and I would like to help him with certain specific facts, so that we can see what reactions are being caused.
Recently, Greece decided to bring the Drachma into the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
That entry was accompanied by a 14 % devaluation of the national currency.
That devaluation is already worsening all the Maastricht indicators concerning EMU.
The public debt, and servicing it, demand an additional sum equal to 1 % of GDP, so instead of a 4 % GDP deficit we will have 5 %.
Economists tell us that for every three percentage points of devaluation, inflation increases by one percent.
Here, even if 3 % is too much, even with 4 % or 5 % devaluation for 1 % inflation, we will increase inflation in Greece by 2 to 3 %.
Public debt is increasing by 5 % of GDP.
Are working people in Greece not justified in expecting that the agreement between the Council and the Greek Government will act against their interests, when they hope that Greece will satisfy the convergence criteria in 1999?
I say to Mr Theonas that it is a matter of judgement by the various countries within the European Union how they can best manage their economies.
It looks as though eleven will wish to manage them in a monetary sense by membership of the euro.
Greece has indicated that it intends to join the eleven.
It has joined the ERM.
There are consequences of these decisions and the timing of those issues is a matter for the governments concerned.
The general principle is that it is in the interests of all citizens of the European Union to have a stable economic situation.
The Council believes that to achieve a stable economic situation there must be a stable monetary situation, and that is why many of the Member States within the European Union have tried to put their economies in a position where they can contribute to that stable monetary situation and benefit from it.
The warning in the long term for us all is that if we have instability and monetary disunity, then the likelihood is that there will be significant inflationary consequences in the short, medium and long term.
Those are consequences that an economy which is competing in a global context cannot afford, and that is why the policies of the Union are geared to achieving monetary stability.
It may well be that, although there is pain for the Greek economy in the short term, as the economy begins to restructure itself the benefits accrue in a longer-term perspective.
I wish to congratulate the President-in-Office on his last answer.
I agreed very much and, therefore, it reinforces the problems of those countries not in the euro.
I single out here the British economy and the UK.
Would he not agree that the situation in Britain is that not being part of the euro is damaging British industry? We are seeing high interest rates in the UK, which are having a detrimental effect; we are seeing an overvalued pound, which is likely to lose a hundred thousand jobs in the UK economy next year.
Would it not be better for the President-in-Office to advise the British government that the best way it can bring about stability in Europe and stability in Britain is to declare an early entry into the ERM and an early date for joining the euro? Perhaps he ought to tell Mr Blair to stand up to Mr Murdoch and the Sun and declare in favour of that.
That would be the best thing to help the British economy and help stabilize Europe.
I have to say that Mr Kerr very rarely misses an opportunity to take a pot shot at the British Government.
However, I am here to respond on behalf of the Council and the Council has acknowledged the coherence in the British Government's approach to the euro.
The Council has acknowledged that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, speaking in the House of Commons, indicated that between November 1997 and a time after the next general election a convergence process could take place and the British Government could then decide whether or not it was in the economic interests of that country to seek membership of the euro at that date.
The Council has acknowledged that the other partners in the European Union and industry and commerce in Britain and elsewhere - and, indeed, the workers and their organizations in those countries - have a better understanding of the British position.
The stability brought to the British economy by this relationship to the European economy and the euro has been acknowledged.
I cannot therefore agree that the Council should approach the British Government to give the advice that Mr Kerr seeks, although he knows himself that if he wishes to give that advice to the Chancellor of the Exchequer he is free to do so.
Would the President-in-Office like to comment on the fact that even if it were not for the single currency there was a need for consolidation of the European economies, given the fact that we are now competing in a global environment, in particular in those countries which have weaker economies and could be most at risk as a result of globalization?
Secondly, would he like to comment on the fact that we need to make sure that all countries of the European Union, not just those that will be joining on 1 January 1999, must start preparing, because all their businesses will be affected? Given Mr Theonas' question, is it not the case that those weaker economies need to make sure that they have prepared fully for the single currency, so that their small and medium-sized enterprises can take full advantage of the stable and very large euro area that will be created next year?
Mr Donnelly makes a very valid point that there is a need for all of the economies of Europe to make the changes that are necessary to achieve a more competitive position within a global economy.
There is a strong view, which the Council has acknowledged, that the establishment of the euro will be a major contribution to achieving that.
A number of countries who will seek to join the euro at an early stage will recognize that they need to take further action to reinforce that decision so that they can get the best out of their economy in a competitive sense.
Other economies who will choose not to join the euro or may not be eligible to join the euro at its inception will also recognize that they need to make changes in their economies as well, whether or not they enter the euro at a later stage.
For those who seek to enter, the question of convergence and preparation is of vital importance to their economies.
But even if a country within the Union did not seek to accede to the euro at a later stage, clearly businesses within their economy would probably want to link their calculations to euro calculations.
Indeed, there is already evidence that this is the case.
It is very important for the governments of those countries to do what they can to assist their industry and commerce to make the changes that are necessary.
Question No 15 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0279/98)
Subject: Euro-Mediterranean relations with Algeria
In the context of the Euro-Mediterranean process of cooperation with Algeria, what practical form is the wish for partnership expressed by the Council actually taking? What programmes and projects have been launched in the past two years?
What is the outlook for the immediate future?
To what degree do young Algerians benefit from the EU?
Does our intention to offer protection reach Algerian women?
Will measures and programmes be introduced to combat corruption?
The European Union is developing cooperation with all 12 Mediterranean partners, including Algeria, within the Euro/Mediterranean process launched in Barcelona in November 1995.
A wide range of initiatives have taken place in fields as diverse as the environment, investment, cultural heritage and industry.
The needs of women and young people, as well as the necessity of combatting corruption, are taken into account when drawing up initiatives under the process which is supported by ECU 4.7 b in European Community financial assistance for economic transition under the MEDA programme.
Negotiations are also under way for a new association agreement with Algeria.
The Presidency hopes that good progress can be made in these negotiations during the course of the year.
The President-in-Office of the Council has answered the question without saying anything concrete. It was almost a compromise answer, and overly evasive.
However, I would remind him that at the moment, Europeans want to get involved and do something to support the people of Algeria.
Please give me a more concrete answer, because you have told us absolutely nothing apart from vague remarks.
Do you not think, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that this would be a very good time to establish a specific programme in favour of Algeria, to take effect immediately, before the association agreement negotiations? You must realize that because of its nature, the association agreement is a long term measure, although negotiations have begun.
The reality is that young Algerians are not benefitting at all from the European Union, and neither are Algerian women.
I cannot add a lot more to what I said in my original reply.
What I can say to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo is that there will be a conference of the Mediterranean countries and the EU in Palermo in June.
That will be a further opportunity to discuss many of those issues.
But it is the aim of the Union to seek to build links with Algeria.
Economic links are important and must be accompanied by a commitment to the other things that would be incorporated into any association agreement such as democratic procedures and human rights.
Question No 16 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0285/98)
Subject: The EIB's information policy
The European Investment Bank lends money to a series of projects both in the EU and in the applicant countries.
Compared with other banks like the EBRD and the World Bank, which lend money to similar projects, the EIB provides very little information about the environmental impact of projects.
This applies both before projects are approved and after the decision has been taken.
For example, the EBRD - unlike the EIB - publishes an environmental impact assessment before decisions are taken on various projects.
The World Bank also publishes documentation on the environmental impact of projects before decisions are taken.
Does the Council consider the information provided by the EIB about the environmental impact of various projects to be adequate? If not, what improvements does it feel that the EIB ought to make in this area?
. Since the European Investment Bank's task is to contribute to the balanced and steady development of the Community, it is bound to act in respect of the provisions of the European Community Treaty concerning the environment, in particular Article 130r which states that 'environmental protection requirements must be integrated into the definition and implementation of other Community policies' .
The Council has not taken a view on whether the information provided by the European Investment Bank on the environmental impact of particular projects is adequate.
In general this is for the Commission to judge and the Honourable Member may therefore want to direct his question to that source.
The reason why I asked this question is because I have been in contact with a number of eastern European environmental organizations which are very unhappy about the way the European Investment Bank has acted in certain projects in eastern Europe, that is, when environmental impact assessments are not carried out until after grants have been made to projects which are very suspect from an environmental point of view.
I think the Council itself should take overall responsibility, since this affects the environmental situation in the applicant countries.
They expect major adjustments which could, for example, affect biodiversity which is also affected by these projects.
I think the Council itself should have an overall view about how the European Investment Bank acts in eastern Europe, and about the fact that it has a significantly worse policy than, for example, the World Bank or the EBRD.
I wonder whether you really do not see this as part of your responsibilities, since it is part of the Union's overall policy in the area of the environment in relation to the applicant countries.
I very much agree with Mr Sjöstedt that environmental policy is a very important policy within the Union and that Community policies generally should be taking much more account of environmental matters.
Indeed, in the Amsterdam Treaty which has not yet been ratified, of course, there is an additional Union obligation to give environmental considerations a higher priority.
Currently, under existing Treaty provisions the EIB publishes an environmental policy statement which sets out its general approach.
In relation to the countries who wish to accede to the European Union, environmental matters are important matters for them and from my discussions with them they have all recognized that.
One of the things which can be identified in the accession partnerships is the need to take action on the environment.
I am sure that when those matters are identified by the countries which wish to accede to the European Union the Commission will respond with appropriate funding within their remit.
I think all the countries who want to be on the negotiating line for membership of the European Union - at the moment there are six - recognize that they have to make many environmental changes before they will be able to accede, and that involves very many issues.
One of the key issues is having the necessary regulatory expertise to be able to monitor environmental considerations and make any necessary recommendations for change: from matters relating to power stations, to matters relating to environmental standards in public parks, across a wide range of diverse issues, I agree with Mr Sjöstedt that it must be given higher priority and I am sure that the EIB is aware of its obligations in this regard and I can say that the Council will do everything it can to assist that process.
Only today we have discussed a matter in Parliament relating to the follow-up of the Copenhagen Summit on Social Development, especially in developing and less developed countries.
This included proposals which were approved by Parliament today to introduce ethical rules into trade agreements, rules which move in the right direction with regard to social development and child labour, but also with regard to environmental requirements.
It was very pleasing to see Parliament support these demands.
I see the Council's answer as very positive and would just like to ask a supplementary question.
You say that the rules are such that you cannot always fulfill our requests for environmental impact assessments.
In that case, is the Council prepared to help change the rules for the EIB and other EU institutions in the right direction, so that environmental impact assessments can be made?
The EIB generally has to follow the policies of the Union but it has its own decision-making structure and the Board of Governors is composed of finance ministers from the Member States and they are charged with implementing the policies of the Union in the execution of their duties.
I think in relation to agreements with third world countries one needs to strike a balance.
One cannot expect poor third world countries to immediately meet environmental standards that one would expect to be applied in rich countries within the European Union, but that does not mean that one ignores environmental matters.
I am sure that the first to recognize that would be the governments and the peoples of those third world countries themselves where they genuinely want to develop their economies, but they want to do it on a sensible basis.
They do not want to destroy their environment and I think it is wise to agree programmes over a longer period and those should rightly include environmental considerations, but not exclusively.
Mr President, I would be interested to know whether the best practice model would also be possible for the information policy of the EIB, because listing the most successful projects would have a considerable effect on the future of the other projects.
I would say to Mr Rübig that what he says makes sense.
I hope that the bank would adopt that policy.
Question No 17 by Veronica Hardstaff (H-0288/98)
Subject: Arrangements for the agrimonetary systems for non-EMU states
Will the Council be making recommendations on arrangements for an agrimonetary system for countries remaining outside the "Eurozone' when the decision is made in May as to which countries will be the founding members of EMU?
The Commission has indicated that it will submit draft proposals to the Council for agri-monetary arrangements to apply after 1 January 1999, shortly after decision on single currency participants are taken in May.
The Presidency will ensure that the Council undertakes an examination of the Commission's proposals as early as possible after due consultation of the European Parliament.
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
It is a matter of great urgency and anxiety among the agricultural community in those countries which are not going to be in the first wave of EMU because they are subject, not merely to the vagaries of weather and climate and the changes in CAP reform, WTO and GATT, but will continue to have considerable anxieties about the vagaries of currency exchange.
I would urge that our agricultural communities be given this information as quickly as possible so that they can plan ahead knowing that at least one area will not be as uncertain as many others in the years ahead.
I can give Mrs Hardstaff the commitment she is looking for: the Presidency recognizes the importance of this issue, and a speedy response will be given as soon as possible after the date to which I previously referred.
Mr President, this is of interest both to the countries within the single currency and to those which remain outside.
Can Mr Henderson tell us whether there is a tendency to equalize the green exchange rates with the commercial exchange rates of the currencies?
Thank you for that further supplementary.
That would be a matter that the Commission would need to consider, and the Council would liaise with the Commission on that matter.
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
I fear you want to leave us.
When we started Question Time, I suggested extending it to 7.15 p.m. but you told me that your plane would not wait and you would have to leave at 7.00 p.m.
This Presidency greatly enjoys your company and the chance to listen to the answers you give to the honourable Members of this House, but I cannot keep you here against your will, when you really cannot stay.
Let us hope that in the future we can organize the work of this House better, so we can keep precisely to the time we have both agreed upon.
Thank you for your presence and your replies.
Questions Nos 18 to 40 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia - post-SFOR strategy (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0123/98 by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation 1628/96 relating to aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (COM(98)0018 - C4-0105/98-98/0023(CNS))-A4-0106/98 by Mrs Daskalaki, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on a post-SFOR strategy in Bosnia and Herzegovina containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating Mrs Daskalaki and Mr Schwaiger on their reports.
Admittedly neither of them is present, but I hope that they have not already given up hope that their reports will be considered and decisions about them made.
They are two very good reports, two short but pregnant reports, which also go in the right political direction.
What is more, both Mrs Daskalaki and Mr Schwaiger have worked very constructively with the other groups in the committee.
When we consider the situation, particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina, we must weigh up the positive as well as the negative developments or non-developments there.
On the one hand we must say that the development in Republic Srpska has been thoroughly positive.
We have there a president who is certainly no angel on the political scene, but who has nevertheless begun to cooperate with Europe and the USA.
We have a prime minister whom we have recently been able to receive in the European Parliament, Prime Minister Dodik, whose work is thoroughly constructive.
We can surely record this as one of the positive developments in Republic Srpska.
We have not yet reached the end, and we must be careful, because the nationalists may still gain the upper hand.
Secondly, we have made progress in economic and infrastructural development.
I was recently in Sarajevo, and the picture there today is quite different, not only compared to the war period, during which I also visited it, but also in the period afterwards, up to about nine months ago, when I was last there - and that applies not only to the infrastructure, but also the life of the people and their enjoyment of living, which is becoming evident again there.
On the negative side: the return of the refugees is still faltering.
I do not say that nothing is happening, but much too little is happening.
It's a roundabout that no-one really wants to get going, and they are all waiting for each other.
The Croats are waiting for the Bosnians, the Bosnians for the Serbs, the Serbs for the Croats, or however they want to set the ball rolling.
In any case, it is still unsatisfactory, and I believe that we must do everything we can and that all of us must encourage the High Representative to continue to work there.
The second thing which is very serious is the situation in Kosovo, in Albania, in Macedonia and in Serbia itself.
We get the feeling, and the Bosnians are getting it again, that they are still in a very weak situation.
They are the only ones who have no supporting power in their area.
The Croats have one, the Serbs have one, and there is also the Kosovo problem, which is interpreted at least as a problem of the Islamic minority in a Christian environment.
I therefore believe that it is necessary to continue to have troops on the ground, even at lower strength, and perhaps with a stronger European engagement.
In that I can entirely support Mrs Daskalaki, who is just coming in, regarding her report and the Schwaiger report.
We need more efficiency, more decentralization and more coordination on the ground.
These are also some of those points to which the Commission led by Tom Spencer correctly referred.
I have been able to see these deficiencies for myself in the past few years at the Donus conference, in Sarajevo and in other places.
We have spent a lot of money, but not efficiently enough.
This must stop!
We must spend the money more efficiently.
There must be more coordination, and more must be decided on the spot.
I believe that it is impossible to control things centrally from Brussels to this extent, because we do believe that we have them under control.
We do not have them under control because our approach is a strongly centralist one.
I am therefore glad that the Commission has presented the proposals, and I am also glad that the Presidency is going in this direction.
That is due, not least, to the initiative of this Parliament.
In this way we can hope for a happy ending, the sooner the better.
Madam President, can I add my congratulations to both Mr Schwaiger and Mrs Daskalaki for their excellent reports.
I had the honour of leading the ad hoc delegation to Bosnia some weeks ago.
I have to say I came back very angry and rather ashamed that the European Union should be represented in quite such a way, should be quite so ineffective in a crisis of extraordinary proportions.
I was angry with the Commission; but I would like tonight to pay tribute to the way the Commission has responded in the last three weeks to pressure from Parliament and in particular pay tribute to Hans van den Broek and to everyone involved in the Commission for the agreement they reached with Parliament on Monday night in the vote in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
I have to say that until about 5.25 this afternoon I was also extremely angry with the Council because Parliament had been very critical - the delegation had been very critical not only of the Commission, but also of the Council for its failure to coordinate on the spot in Bosnia, for its insistence on lunatically complicated tendering arrangements.
I want, however, in a rare mood of openness to congratulate Doug Henderson, the President-in-Office, for what I thought was an extremely constructive speech earlier this evening.
I was impressed by the way he commented on Parliament's amendments, and I was impressed by the way he offered talks with Parliament to resolve this matter by the end of April.
I have therefore suggested to colleagues informally tonight a timetable that would meet his requirements and I have circulated that timetable to colleagues so that the groups can discuss it tomorrow morning.
That timetable, which would culminate in a parliamentary vote at the beginning of the next plenary, would allow us to have time for discussions with the Council and with the Budgets Committee so that we could honour our side of the bargain by releasing the ECU 30 million that could be immediately spent in Bosnia.
I think we are very close on this issue.
Everything that goodwill and intelligence and flexibility can do I promise, from my committee.
This is an issue where the cooperation of the three institutions here in Brussels and Strasbourg will actually, at the end of the day, contribute to the cooperation of all three institutions and the proper representation of the European Union in Bosnia where it matters.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first to complain that this debate has been held in two parts, as often happens, unfortunately, in this Parliament, with one Commissioner, Commissioner van den Broek, attending the first part, and then another Commissioner, Commissioner Flynn, a worthy representative of the Commission but someone less interested in Bosnia-Herzegovina: this is something reprehensible, I have to say.
Moreover, the Council is no longer here and what the political groups say is of no interest to anyone.
Having said that, I too want to congratulate Mrs Daskalaki and Mr Schwaiger for their excellent work.
The first thing we have to bear in mind is that with the Bosnia-Herzegovina question Europe has given off its worst impression of the last 40 years, since the Second World War in fact.
We have witnessed a massacre, a massacre a few steps away from home, without the European Union being able or knowing how to say a word.
After giving off this bad impression - the Americans had to intervene to find a solution! - the EU seems to be showing its own inefficiencies, its own inability with regard to reconstruction too.
It is right that attention is drawn to what is happening with regard to reconstruction.
So what is happening?
Simply, the political instability of Bosnia-Herzegovina remains, despite all the expenditure by the European countries, by the EU; the central institutions are non-existent to such a point that we did not even know who to sign undertakings with; the Brussels centralization, which Brussels wanted, which the European Commission wanted for control and transparency, has had negative effects; it has actually been counterproductive.
The more Brussels asked for control and transparency, the more obviously fraud and embezzlement multiplied.
Allocations are already rare. European public opinion is already looking at us because of budget restrictions in every country.
So we can no longer allow ourselves to have this type of attitude. We should learn from Bosnia-Herzegovina to establish an innovative approach to Community aid: no longer non-refundable subsidies, but rather partnerships and returnable loans.
I think that only one independent plenipotentiary representative, with exceptional powers and with specific decision-making powers can help in this respect.
Europe is watching us!
Madam President, let me first stress the importance which the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party and I personally attach to the effectiveness of aid for the former Yugoslavia, so that reconstruction takes place quickly and people can return to their homes.
Against that background we were very concerned when we received the report from the Parliamentary delegation which recently visited the former Yugoslavia and returned home saying that the situation there with regard to aid is not being managed in a good and efficient way.
A large number of proposals were also made regarding how the aid efforts and administration could be improved so that the aid really got where it was meant to go.
As I understand things, the Commission has accepted the line proposed by Parliament and is prepared to ensure that a more efficient organization than the one we had before is created to take responsibility for these aid efforts in the former Yugoslavia.
We think that is good.
I also thought that what Mr Henderson said today gives us reason to believe that the Council is also going to ensure that it does whatever is in its power to make the efforts effective.
Against this background, I recommended to my group this evening that we should support Mr Schwaiger's proposal tomorrow and vote the report through. The group unanimously supported my recommendation.
Let me finish by saying that if any conclusion may be drawn from this, it is that Parliament has performed a very important function, precisely the function which falls to Parliament, namely to ensure as a supervisory authority that when there is cause for criticism, that criticism is made, and to ensure that measures are taken to correct what has gone wrong.
Madam President, the Dayton Agreement was established by military might, by imposing military intervention and interference.
Two years later, our rapporteurs have made an assessment - both of them, and many speakers as well - and have found that something may have been achieved by military means but nothing non-military has been achieved at all.
The refugees have not gone home, arms may have brought peace but it is fragile, millions of ECU remain unabsorbed, the central administration does not function, the system of democratic liberties and human rights is not working properly. So what are the results of this militarily imposed Treaty?
They have assessed the situation and I agree with their assessment.
I disagree, however, with their conclusions because what is it that they are asking for?
An extension of the military presence, and not only that, but its reinforcement too, they are recommending that to make its presence felt the European Union must play the tune of calling for mobile military forces, interventions by the WEU under NATO's leadership, more and more military intervention, and for what? To get the same result, which cannot be cured by military presence and intervention, as we see from the self-evident outcome, from the two-year assessment of Dayton.
What is the issue here? Let the Bosnians, the Herzegovinans, the Croatians and the Serbs bury the dead you are responsible for because of the conflicts you created.
Let them bury their hatreds and passions and find for themselves how to cooperate peacefully, so that economic and social reconstruction and development can progress. That is how the European Union can show its presence - by staying out of it.
Leave those peoples alone, before you spread more general conflict in the Balkans.
Madam President, like Mr Caccavale, I actually find this a rather farcical parliamentary debate when the groups start to speak the moment the Presidency is no longer here, and we have a different Commissioner who is following up these matters.
I have been in this Parliament for twelve years now, but this really beats everything I have ever experienced.
This is what happens when you are in the European Parliament.
As far as the core of the issue is concerned, the Green Group supports the two reports by Mr Schwaiger and Mrs Daskalaki.
I would like to start by speaking to Mrs Daskalaki's report because it is clear that if a continued SFOR presence in BosniaHerzegovina is not guaranteed, anything might happen again.
So it is vital that the presence is continued, and it is clear that there have been plenty of signals from the United States to suggest that it is going to lessen its participation.
What's more, I think it is perfectly normal that the European countries accept responsibility for pursuing peace-keeping operations in what is a European country, after all.
To me, a very important point in Mrs Daskalaki's report is that attention is rightly paid to the force which not only has to provide for a shift towards Europe, whereby Europe finally accepts its responsibilities, but also for a new relationship between the military and the police presence.
The UN group which will be deployed for policing operations will therefore be more prominent, and will focus on training local police, and everyone in Bosnia knows how important it is that this strategy is persevered with.
In conclusion, I would like to say a few things about Mr Schwaiger's report.
To be honest, Mr Spencer, I am not as optimistic as you, because this Parliament came up with exactly the same analysis as the one expounded in Mr Schwaiger's report.
We have known for two years that things are not working out this way, that the situation is untenable.
We also knew which changes were needed, and they have not been implemented.
As far as that is concerned both the Commission and the Council are most certainly not without responsibility, and I think this ought to be stated pointedly here.
I believe there is hope for the future.
I am always an optimist, so I am happy to go along with this and I think it is important in this context that Parliament keeps something in reserve not to give immediate approval to everything we are promised, but to see what will be decided at the Council on 27 and 28 April.
We will not give the green light until we know that what we are getting is what we should be getting.
If together we work towards that, ladies and gentlemen, we know we will have done something for Bosnia.
Ladies and gentlemen, the agenda is set by the party leaders, and this time in the knowledge that on Wednesday evening neither the Commission nor the Council can be present.
I just wanted to let you know this.
That is how it has been set.
I regret that there was no alternative, but is was not a surprise.
It was not evil intent on the part of the Commission, there was an agreement to do it in this way.
Madam President, as a member of the ad hoc delegation I was able to see for myself how difficult the situation for people in Bosnia is at this time.
Mr Schwaiger's report pointed out, in many proposals, what action must be taken to bring about an improvement.
However, for me as a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, it is important that the coordination and preparation of specific projects in the context of an inclusive repatriation programme have the highest priority this year.
For this purpose, the efforts of the NGOs and other organizations on the ground must be more strongly supported and coordinated by the Commission.
Reconstruction has been delayed because mine clearance work is not yet finished.
Also, reconstruction of the whole infrastructure, and gas, water and electricity, and traffic links, schools and health care must be more strongly supported.
For this reason, the return of refugees cannot yet take place this year in some places, but must be properly prepared, so that the refugees themselves can decide to return.
If today too many refugees are sent back too early, the region may be destabilized, and that may permanently prevent the final repatriation.
Madam President, I too was in Sarajevo some time ago, where I heard the story about the parliament building. The parliament building was going to be reconstructed with European aid as a symbol of effective decision-making and good practice.
Since that time it has remained ruined and it is now a symbol of the inefficient decision-making of the European Union.
It is in fact terribly sad that the European Union Ambassador told me at the time, "Look, you have floods of money from the European Union, but you have decisions from the USA' .
Madam President, shortly after the war we used to make arrogant jokes about the Americans in the Netherlands, and we used to say: you have the money, we have the brains.
But now the situation seems to have been reversed.
At the moment it is the Europeans who have the money, so to speak, and it is the Americans who are making the intelligent and effective decisions.
We have to put this down to the fact that the European Union is made up of a number of Member States who are much more interested in their own gains when it comes to construction projects, rather than a union of individual members who are capable of outstepping themselves in order to meet their responsibility.
That is the painful reason why we are lagging behind the Americans and have started to act a bit like a satellite.
That is all we are really.
I welcome Mr Schwaiger's report wholeheartedly.
I think it is excellent and well thought out, in particular when he says we should make ourselves more visible through decentralized decision-making processes, by increasing our presence with a clearer figurehead, with a large, effective staff and a wide remit to coordinate and take decisions.
I think this is a very important issue and I thoroughly welcome the fact that it has been given so much attention in this report.
The return of refugees, and the restoration of order in a strategically positioned enclave in Europe is, of course, of significant interest to Europe.
If this is successfully achieved, then the SFOR force should stay, because if refugees are starting to return to the area, then we will need a SFOR which tries to bridge the gap between military and civil aspects, and which is able to act during riots and to make arrests, if necessary.
I find this an excellent element in Mrs Daskalaki's report as well, and I would like to offer my sincerest congratulations to both rapporteurs on the remarkable results they have achieved on behalf of this Parliament.
Madam President, I would like to concentrate for the moment on the Daskalaki report, which I think is excellent.
I would like to emphasize a few of its points.
First, it makes quite clear that peaceful reconstruction work is obviously a priority after such a terrible war, but that unfortunately it can also be necessary to secure reconstruction militarily, as we are finding in the case of Bosnia.
I believe that it is very important that this is put in writing.
Secondly, this report appeals very clearly to Europe's own responsibility in matters of securing peace and of reconstruction in this war region.
I consider this to be quite important, because the consequence that the Western European Union was activated is a quite excellent development, and since we know how important it is to develop further the common foreign and security policy of the European Union.
One thing has almost been forgotten yet again: that essentially it was the United States which took on liability for the failure of European security policy, and I would not like to imagine what would have happened if the USA had ended its involvement and we had probably left the country in a state of chaos again.
My plea, therefore, is that we should finally work consistently to construct a common foreign and security policy in the European Union, a common foreign and security policy which actually deserves the name.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Dayton peace agreements unfortunately continue to require to be secured militarily.
The Daskalaki report about a strategy for the period after the expiry of the SFOR mandate next June therefore comes at just the right time before the decision of the North Atlantic Council about the new provisional operation plan, which will then be confirmed by the NATO foreign ministers in May 1998.
Securing a peace - perhaps we should rather say a state of non-war - must become more and more a European responsibility.
The demand that the Western European Union should organize military action in the context of a joint SFOR operation led by NATO with Austria also taking part would be an appropriate symbol of a European security policy in the Balkans.
Unfortunately the reconstruction of Bosnia leaves a great deal to be desired.
Not because the European Union has made too little money available for it - on the contrary, it is the biggest donor, with ECU 408 million last year - but because these resources, as the Schwaiger report shows in detail, are not being appropriately administered and distributed on the ground.
A senior official with appropriate power of decision can and must remedy this.
Bosnia-Herzegovina was and is a test case for the influence of the EU in this area, an influence which must be made much more effective, particularly in view of the new crisis in Kosovo.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the two reports with which we are dealing today are closely related, and anyone who, like me and others here, has followed events on the ground for years, realizes that without the presence of the SFOR soldiers the civilian peace process has no chance.
I would recommend to Mr Ephremidis that he should go to Sarajevo and its surroundings; he would come back with the same realization.
He could not do otherwise.
But if you do not open your eyes, you do not change direction.
The soldiers prevent open hostilities, they sometimes help to seize war criminals, they support the reconstruction literally with their own hands, for example, by building bridges.
They - at least the Franco-German brigade - are also actively involved in the repatriation of refugees, because they systematically collect data and facts village by village, which are the necessary preconditions for return, and they then pass them on to the appropriate German authorities.
For our financial help to flow and reconstruction really to start, we need an instrument other than the PHARE programme, which, for its implementation on the recipients' side, assumes structures which do not yet exist and will not exist for a long time.
Just imagine that the Marshall Plan had had to function in these circumstances after World War II.
We would still be waiting for its beneficial impact.
Thank heaven, the Commission is prepared to follow up the discoveries of the delegation which was in Bosnia, so that finally the financial aid is reaching its target.
For egoistic national reasons, the Council shared the guilt for the previous mismanagement, but in the main it passed the buck to the Commission.
The Council must finally accept Mr Schwaiger's proposals, for the sake of Europe's credibility.
We need a truly responsible plenipotentiary of Europe on the ground. Otherwise, we shall lose to the Americans what little is left of our credibility, influence and respect!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Methane emissions .
The next item is the report (A4-0120/98) by Mr Marset Campos on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the communication from the Commission to the Council and to the European Parliament on the strategy for reducing methane emissions (COM(96)0557 - C4-0001/97)
Madam President, Commissioner, the Commission's initiative on the reduction of methane emissions at European level is essentially correct and positive.
However, on the one hand, it is somewhat late given the commitments made and our support, demonstrated in Maastricht and Amsterdam, to lead our society towards a sustainable model.
And, on the other hand, it suffers from inadequacies in terms of the first-hand detailed studies on this issue at European level which could lay the foundations for specific, global proposals adjusted to the actual situation.
Finally, therefore, it is lacking in all the proposals it puts forward.
We in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection have approved this report with the very positive incorporation of the contributions made by both the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. The Commission's communication is appropriate and positive since methane gas is the largest contributor to the "greenhouse effect' after carbon dioxide.
Its impact is 62 times greater than that of carbon dioxide.
In addition, it affects the ozone layer because of the fact that it reacts with hydroxyl radicals.
Added to this, methane emissions increase by 1 % a year - almost 500 teragrammes per year. Since the average life of methane in the atmosphere is relatively short and varies between 8 and 17 years, it is more effective to combine the fight to reduce methane emissions, either through a decrease in emissions or combustion.
This initiative is somewhat tardy, since other industrialized countries - such as the United States, Australia and Canada - have effectively adopted global strategies intended to reduce emissions.
Nevertheless, we believe that the initiative is also insufficient since we do not have a detailed study in Europe on this issue - there has been one on the basis of national studies, but never a specific one -, and there are inadequacies in the proposals.
I would like to look at several of them.
In general, the initiative is positive since it sets out all the undertakings given under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Conference, the Fifth framework action programme on the environment "Towards Sustainability' , as well as the Environment Council of 1994 and the demands of the Council's Ad Hoc Group on Climate, in accordance with the Berlin Mandate.
However, some points need to be added which we believe to be important.
Firstly, we must urgently adopt an ambitious package of legislative, economic and social recommendations.
Secondly, we believe that we should establish a European Climate Agency to coordinate all measures, including those proposed here.
Thirdly, we consider it essential to provide greater access to gas pipelines for the most important sources of methane already mentioned.
Fourthly, we should incorporate three specific issues into the proposal. As regards agriculture, we must study European rice cultivation; we must also look at livestock farming in a more realistic way to ensure that our livestock industry is not harmed in comparison to other livestock industries; and we must thus give more consideration to the CAP in terms of its environmental impact.
In terms of landfill sites, the proposal must be included in our European energy policy, and as regards the use of energy, we must improve the control of leakages from all types of gas pipelines and from coalmines.
There is another aspect which is worth mentioning briefly: the improvement of research.
This is important because we believe that we are missing the train in terms of providing instruments and materials in a growing market, precisely on this issue of controlling methane emissions.
We should also provide economic assistance, tax exemptions and all sorts of benefits for those European companies which are achieving a reduction of methane emissions abroad.
And finally, we need to increase public awareness regarding these issues so that they also get involved and participate in an active way and that we are not merely dependent on legislative measures.
Madam President, I would first like to thank Mr Marset Campos for his really excellent report and also the recommendations which he has presented to Parliament.
But I would also like to express praise for the Commission, because the communication which it has presented to us is excellent and of much help for the debate.
Thirdly, if you will allow me, I would like to excuse my colleague Ulrich Stockmann, who has prepared an opinion for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
I am speaking in his place.
Unfortunately he has had to undergo an operation and cannot be here today.
To get to the point: First, it occurs to me that we are living in a time of great surprises, because who would have thought ten or twenty years ago that such a commonplace molecule as methane would be the subject of an evening sitting of the European Parliament? This puts me in a reflective mood, because it is quite possible that in future we shall discover that other commonplace things are also vitally important.
Research exists to discover things which we do not know.
It is possible that in future we shall make some unpleasant discoveries which force us to reflect.
Second, I would like to note that when I talk about research, we should really do research not just with the purpose of solving problems, however important that is, but also to discover the unknown.
This is something unknown which we have actually discovered.
The problem which faces us in this context is that methane, like other gases which affect climate, has a global impact, but that we have no global decision centre.
I am therefore especially thankful that the idea of a Climate Agency, a European or perhaps even better an international Climate Agency, is really being considered.
I know that at first such a thing raises fears of a new bureaucracy.
But I ask, in a world in which there is no proper decision centre, where can global management be done if not in new institutions which we set up?
We must do the calculations. We must submit a global report, we must discuss in the parliaments and governments, and we must also act globally.
At the same time, and that is the paradox in this situation, we are not just dealing with a global subject, but with a decentralized one, because the sources from which the methane comes are distributed very diffusely over the whole world.
Mr Marset Campos has indicated what these sources are.
At the same time, we also need decentralized action, enlightenment, we need to educate the people who now participate directly or indirectly in the human production of methane.
There are many examples, which are also listed in the Commission's communication.
But that brings me to the question of how these examples can be acted upon?
What is the motive which causes people to carry out such action or to invest money in it? Not everyone reads the Commission's communications.
Not everyone reads the decisions of the European Parliament, and even if people read them, I am not yet sure that they are personally motivated by them.
What moves people? There must be a material reason for taking action.
That brings us to the question: How is it financed? What is the personal profit, in the spheres of agriculture and waste disposal, of acting differently from the way we have had to act until now?
I would like us to put the emphasis on that when we discuss climate in future. How can the good advice that we give, the good analyses, actually be put into effect?
That is in fact the central question, to which until now we have basically given no answer. We always say that the Commission must make a proposal to us, the Commission has the right to make proposals.
It is a splendid right, but sometimes also an unpleasant duty, because the answers are not always immediately to hand.
Nevertheless we hope that in the future the Commission will make proposals to us in accordance with the maxim "We must do it' rather than "We could do it, we ought to do it' , and that it also explains to us how it is to be financed.
That would be my request to the Commission. It is expressed in the decision.
I thank you for listening to me.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and to thank him for the work he has put in on it.
On behalf of my group we welcome the report, although we have reservations over one or two of the paragraphs, particularly the recommendation on the European Climate Agency and paragraph 5.
I do not think we will be supporting that.
We do not see any need to set up a separate agency and I do not imagine the Commission does either, although we noticed that Mrs Bjerregaard is not gracing us with her presence tonight.
The largest sources of methane in the environment are defined by the report and by the Commission document as livestock and landfill.
I wish Mr Flynn all success in pursuing Agenda 2000, which is the only way, as far as I can see, that we are going to reduce the methane emissions from livestock in the end.
I want to concentrate very briefly on this issue of landfill.
The paper emphasizes the possibility of high levels of methane elimination.
I wish whoever had written this in the Commission had had a word with whoever was writing the directive on landfill.
When this point was taken up by the Committee on the Environment, I as rapporteur was told by various officials in the Commission that 90 % or at any rate 100 % elimination of methane emissions via energy recovery systems or flaring was virtually impossible.
Flaring might perhaps produce very high levels of methane capture but anything else, they said, could not go above about 70 %.
They were extremely pessimistic. I now read in the Commission's document - pages 12 and 13 of the English text - ' Several options can reduce methane emissions from landfills, some of them by up to 90 %.'
That was denied by the Commission again and again in the Committee on the Environment, and I think that is very regrettable.
What will now happen is that we have two Community instruments fighting against each other.
The landfill directive will now make it very uneconomic for landfill operators to invest in methane recovery systems because the Commission's own instrument demands of them that they put less biodegradable waste into landfill progressively over a period up to 2010.
The objectives set out in this strategy are therefore combatted by a proposal from the Commission.
I think that is regrettable and I do not suppose Mr Flynn will have anything very constructive to say about it, but I thought I would put it on the record.
I should like to thank Mr Marset Campos and all those who contributed to the debate.
The aim of the communication of the Commission is to examine the problems related to atmospheric methane emissions and to identify the main emission sources and sinks, to review some cost-effective mechanisms for reducing these emissions and to provide some options that could be used in a Community greenhouse gas emission reduction strategy.
The options focus on three sectors: agriculture, waste and energy.
The communication also provides a first response.
In the light of the Kyoto Agreement that aimed at reducing a basket of six greenhouse gases, including methane, by 8 % by the year 20082012, it will be necessary to examine further the contribution that methane emission reduction can make to the Community's overall target.
The report by Mr Marset Campos and the accompanying motion for a resolution show that he is fully in tune with the concerns that are set out in the Commission's communication.
Moreover, the debate on this communication could not have come at a better time since, following the agreement on the protocol at Kyoto, the Commission is now very actively engaged in further reflections on how best to implement the commitments it has made with respect to emission reduction.
Reductions in methane, as the second most important greenhouse gas, will certainly be an important consideration in the Community's post-Kyoto strategy.
Methane is the second most important greenhouse gas after CO2 .
Given that the major proportion of methane is man-made it is vital for these emissions to be restricted and reduced.
All of those who have contributed made that point very forcefully.
In 1990 agriculture accounted for 45 %, waste for 32 % and energy for 23 % of European Union methane emissions.
Calculations in the communication show that by 2010 a reduction of up to 15 %, compared with 1990, is feasible based on current policies.
But a reduction of up to some 40 % or more in the same period is estimated to be the maximum technically feasible, assuming that significant policy changes are made.
The Commission can therefore largely share the views set out by you, Mr Marset Campos, in your report for addressing the emissions of methane.
On the motion for a resolution itself I would like to make a few specific points.
On paragraph 2: the Commission has made some further studies, aimed at obtaining more detailed information on methane emissions.
Specifically as regards methane hydrates I can inform you that the Director-General for Research has an ongoing project on this particular topic.
This will be very welcome news to you.
On paragraph 3: the Commission is in the process of drawing up a strategy to meet its Kyoto commitment of reducing its emissions of six greenhouse gases by 8 % by 2008-2012 compared with 1990.
Mr Linkohr will be very anxious to have that kind of measurement achieved.
That is our aim.
The scope for reducing methane emissions will be an important consideration in this strategy.
That is the point you make.
On paragraph 5: the Commission takes note of Parliament's wish to see a European climate agency as a means of coordinating public and private climate protection.
I note the difference of opinion on both sides of the House as far as this particular recommendation is concerned.
It is an interesting idea. I say to Mrs Jackson, who makes the point very well, that there are a number of implications that need further study in this regard.
On paragraph 9: the Commission recognizes that gas leakage from old pipelines - a point made specifically by the rapporteur - in the former countries of the Soviet Union is an important source of methane emissions.
The deployment of European Union funds for repairs to these pipelines would certainly bring environmental benefit.
Such actions would have to be considered in the overall framework in so far as the overall priorities are concerned and the availability of money.
On paragraph 21: the Commission certainly subscribes to the view that greater public awareness is essential if emission reductions are to be achieved.
This effort needs to be taken not only at Community level but also at national and local levels if it is to be really effective.
I welcome the contributions that have been made.
Even though my colleague Mrs Bjerregaard is not here, she can rest assured that I will bring the matters raised by you to her attention.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Suitability of blood donors
The next item is the report (A4-0112/98) by Mr Cabrol on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on the proposal for a Council Recommendation on the suitability of blood and plasma donors and the screening of donated blood in the European Community (COM(97)0605 - C4-0027/98-97/0315(CNS))
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the current Council recommendation applies essentially to the first section of the previous Commission communication which related to blood safety and self-sufficiency in the Union, for which I was rapporteur.
This first section is devoted to the safety of transfusions and more particularly to the two primary conditions of this safety: donor suitability and screening of donated blood.
Self-sufficiency is mentioned incidentally, when it is a question of volumes of blood donations.
Firstly with regard to donor suitability, the Council wishes to have exhaustive information on these donors, whose gift is clearly a generous one - this needs to be underlined as we are asking, in Amendment Nos 14 and 18, for the application of the principle of voluntary donations - but it is not without consequence for the donor or for future potential recipients of transfusions.
This information must be encouraged - this is the objective of Amendment Nos 1 and 5 - in order to gain a better understanding of, and cooperation from, potential donors.
In order to find a donor who is at the origin of a contaminated donation, it is important to set up a register to include the name of the collection centre and precise identification of the donor in the form of a code number which would guarantee confidentiality of information.
It seems essential to us that statistics should be held centrally on a single register within the Union, with a unique identification code enabling precise traceability.
This is covered by Amendment Nos 8 and 11.
To reduce as far as possible the harmful consequences that a donation could have on either the donor himself or on possible recipients, the Council is proposing a detailed questionnaire on donor criteria.
This questionnaire is in response to the demands of Parliament itself in its previous resolution on blood safety.
There are three points in this questionnaire worth drawing your attention to.
The first relates to risks connected with journeys outside of the European Union.
Of course, many illnesses only exist and can only be caught in some countries, for example, malaria.
Nevertheless, it would be useless to discriminate in this matter and to exclude certain third countries such as North America, where some illnesses are, nevertheless, endemic.
This is the objective of Amendment No 20 which corrects the original text in this sense.
The second point relates to sexual activity.
Wherever there is sexual activity, absolutely wherever, in no matter what country, even in the European Union, there is also the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases.
This is why we recommend voting against the two points in the Council's questionnaire which mention sexual activity.
The first is aimed at Africa, we do not want this included, and the second is aimed at countries other than in Africa, for the same reason we do not want this included.
This removal would render Amendment No 21 null and void.
The third point relates to homosexual practices between men.
These practices still carry very high risks, the rectum holding up much less well to the virus than some other mucous membranes.
We therefore reject Amendment No 29, which would limit the danger to high risk male homosexual relations, as if no other male homosexual relations carried a danger.
I repeat that, medically, all male homosexual relations carry risks, very considerable risks.
The exclusion of donors on the basis of these criteria could be definitive or temporary, depending on the case and the illness.
But in any case, absolute confidentiality must be guaranteed in order to respect the rights of donors and to maintain the generosity of the general public.
Amendment No 10 is intended in this direction.
Full and specific tests must be carried out on donated blood and plasma and we must be continually informed of the existence and validity of new viral markers.
This is the intended direction of Amendment Nos 7, 9 and 13.
But these tests only show positive after a certain period of time in the contaminated donor, a period during which antibodies are produced yet during which the antibodies are still not sufficient to be detected by the tests.
This is where the need for a questionnaire comes in, as it is the only way of removing these high risk donors during this period.
Finally, the Council makes recommendations on the volume of blood to be taken from donors, and the frequency of donations.
The standards advocated by the Council seem a little too high to us and we would rather recommend those of the Council of Europe.
This is covered by Amendment Nos 24 and 25.
In conclusion, Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, apart from the important questions we have raised, we advocate voting for this recommendation and our amendments.
This text will undoubtedly contribute to greater safety in blood transfusions which, without reducing the risk to zero, will enable patients within the European Union to benefit from the lifesaving support of a blood transfusion when they need to.
Madam President, I support and, indeed, salute Mr Cabrol for the breadth of experience, knowledge and compassion that he has always brought to this subject.
I am speaking on behalf of our shadow rapporteur for the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Mr Needle, who cannot be with us, courtesy of Air France, who have done their best this week to make this a shadow Parliament.
All of us here want to see a speedy passage for this Council recommendation. my group is concerned that the proposal before us has no binding force.
We look to the Council of Health Ministers on 30 April.
In Amendment No 17 we call on the Member States to work together and with the Commission on binding legislation by the end of this year, and certainly no later than 1999.
The Commissioner will know of the concern in my country, and probably in his also, at the danger, however remote, posed by new variant CJD in the matter of blood plasma products.
We are deeply concerned that there should be a field of safety and of common practices throughout the European Union in the matter of blood products and their safety.
My own view, and that of my group, on this is that, whilst the emphasis put on donor selection and the appropriate testing of donations is fairly adequate - and it has been outlined by Mr Cabrol in his remarks - we still need to look very carefully at the monitoring of recipients of blood transfusions.
We need to be certain that throughout the Community the same measures are in effect, the same points of contact are available and information is wisely considered, assessed and shared.
One thing that concerns my group very greatly is the issue of voluntary donations, and here I agree with Mr Cabrol.
It seems to me wrong that we should be legislating here on the basis that there is not a marked distinction between voluntary donations and paid donations.
We may be a single market but there is not a market in blood: there is a community in blood.
We are in the most literal sense blood brothers and blood sisters.
The book that has most influenced my life is that by Professor Richard Titmus called 'The Gift Relationship' , which sets out how much the principle of altruism relates to the giving of blood.
We should do nothing in the course of this legislation that makes it harder for people to offer this most precious of donations.
But we should also do nothing that makes it harder for us to trace those who, for whatever reason, might spread an infection and endanger others.
We are wholly in support of Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 18, tabled by Mr Cabrol, and those on the issue of voluntary donation, which have been tabled by my group.
One last word on Amendment No 29: we need to draw a distinction between unsafe practices between men and any sexual practices between men.
There are many unsafe sexual practices between the sexes, as well as between men, and we should not stigmatize the entire gay community in what we say tonight.
Madam President, I think we all agree that this proposal is aimed at establishing a Community strategy to improve confidence in the safety of the blood transfusion process.
And it is not a new proposal, since we already have an excellent directive from 1989, which provided for quality, security and effectiveness in terms of medical products derived from plasma.
However, we must not forget that the Convention on European Pharmacopoeia, with an excellent technical monograph, has also been ratified.
Therefore, this proposal contributes by giving more security to the entire process. For that reason we give our full support to Professor Cabrol's report, to which he has imparted the best of his knowledge and professional authority.
However, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has approved several amendments to which I would like to draw the attention of the European Commission since, if they are approved, they would actually distort the proposal and the Community law which is currently in force.
I will look firstly at the reference to the Council of Europe's recommendation.
It is not that I disagree with it, but there is an accepted Court of Justice doctrine that we should not make cross-references since they are based on different legislation and we would therefore lose legal security.
Secondly, Amendment No 14 refers to the establishment of the legal principle of voluntary and unpaid donations of blood or plasma.
But talking about the legal principle seems to me to be truly absurd.
As a political objective we should move towards self-sufficiency, but establishing a legal principle, if we realize what we are talking about, is unacceptable.
Maybe I should explain in this Parliament that the Community institutions all agree that every policy should be directed towards achieving full employment. But establishing the legal principle of full employment in the European Union would be truly absurd, despite the fact that we all want to see this objective realized.
Confusing a political orientation of an ethical nature with a legal principle is a legal aberration which should not be brought about by any report from this Parliament.
I would draw the attention of the European Commission to this question so that, although it is proposed here, it acts as a sort of filter, it carries out a reasonable job - as the European Commission usually does - and does away with this reference.
In the same way, I cannot accept the attempt to apply the same principles and demands to blood and products derived from it.
I would not need to provide any example here but blood does in fact undergo a determined treatment, while derived products are treated completely differently.
I trust in the European Commission's good judgement to ensure that these amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment are properly done away with and that they are not taken into account. The original proposal would be thus much better with the amendments tabled, which are also original, from Professor Cabrol.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the safety of donated blood is a matter of life and death.
That is why the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports the request by the rapporteur for binding legislation towards the end of next year on blood products, donated blood and blood plasma.
On behalf of my group, and of my colleague Mr Eisma who is not able to be present here tonight, I would like to draw attention to the following points. First of all, we wish to underline that blood should be donated on a voluntary basis, and that donating blood should therefore be unpaid.
It is vital that the principles recommended by the World Health Organization, namely that donations should be unpaid, voluntary and anonymous, are implemented by the Member States in cases of medical intervention to the human body.
This has not been expressed clearly enough in the proposal, which is why we fully support Amendment Nos 14 and 18 which deal with this issue in greater depth.
Moreover, we consider it extremely important for health reasons that the amount of blood a donor is allowed to give per session is reduced from 800 to 650 millilitres.
Finally, we do not wish to refuse people giving blood purely on the basis of their sexual orientation.
We think it is essential that all applicant donors are fully aware of the risk that donated blood and plasma can transmit contagious diseases.
But it would be a form of discrimination to exclude a priori all homosexuals.
Homosexuals might only pose a risk when they engage in unsafe sexual practices.
I ask you to support the Liberal Group's Amendment No 29 which deals with this subject, and consequently not to consider this group amongst the excluded groups in Appendix 5.
Madam President, Commissioner, our group is in complete agreement with Professor Cabrol's report on the Council's proposal on the suitability of blood and plasma donors.
We also agree with the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We would like to highlight three issues which have been sufficiently discussed: confidentiality and respect for donors, regardless of any stigma; the need to create a central identification service in Europe - as already pointed out in other epidemiological reports; and the adoption of all the precautions necessary to avoid the transmission of diseases or new risks.
Nevertheless, there are other aspects which we would like to underline. Firstly, the maximum quantity to be donated should be the same, independent of weight, since volume of blood and body mass are two different things, and there is no direct relation between the two quantities.
Secondly, in our view, it is very important that donations are voluntary since we must remember that AIDS in fact originated in North America due to the abuse of trade in blood from Haiti.
Madam President, faced with the dangers of using blood and blood products, one necessity alone should guide all our actions and attitudes: the safety of the sick and wounded.
This is based on two factors: the competence of the doctor providing the transfusion and the quality of the transfused product.
To treat the issue lightly, or to content oneself with an approximation on the subject is a criminal attitude which has already causes dozens and dozens of deaths, not only in France, I am told.
However, the text proposed to us by the Commission seems to contain, alongside sound demands, some outrageous remarks which I was surprised had got this far without being noticed.
The fact that it is considered far more dangerous to have a sexual encounter in Pretoria than in Bangkok leaves me truly confused.
On the other hand, it is a little ridiculous to make no mention of whether sexual relations are protected or not, whilst male homosexuality is rejected as a whole regardless of the methods practised when it relates to blood donations.
On the other hand, it seems inappropriate to become alarmed when the possibility of setting up a circle of transfusion centres or of tying them into a central body is considered, for in each of our countries national blood transfusion centres collect perfectly confidential statistics, which are coded and permit traceability.
I would like to indicate finally, Madam President, that the centralization of information at European level would seem to be as safe as that at national level - I say that for the benefit of certain worried people, particularly in my country where, as everyone knows, harmful political forces are developing.
Madam President, it is impossible to imagine modern medicine without blood donation.
It saves lives.
Yet there will also be risks attached to transfusions.
These risks should be limited as far as possible, and that is what this proposal aims to do.
Thankfully, we do not need to reinvent the wheel in Europe as far as blood screening is concerned.
Much important work has been carried out by the Council of Europe.
A reference to the recommendations made by the Council of Europe is therefore in order, and I wholeheartedly endorse Amendment No 1.
But there are two things I would like to draw your attention to.
Firstly, I believe that in principle, donations must remain voluntary.
A paid donation is essentially no longer a real donation, because a quid pro quo in the shape of money is expected.
This is a step back.
Neither for the donor, nor for safety is it desirable that blood or blood products are donated for money.
There will be an increased chance of less safe donors coming forward, and the aspect of solidarity with one's fellow human beings will be lost.
Secondly, I would like to add a little explanation to the amendments I have tabled.
In my amendments I point to the ISBT 128 system for the identification of donated blood.
ISBT stands for International Society for Blood Transfusion.
It is a recognized body in the world of blood transfusion.
The system I have just referred to amounts to a standardized, personal identification code which is allocated to each blood donation.
This system is recognized by the United States, Canada, and a number of European countries.
It would be obvious to choose this as the general standard for Europe.
Lastly, I would like to say something about safety.
I see the enclosed survey as an extremely important selection mechanism for donors.
The questions about sexual behaviour may come across as a little inappropriate, but we all know that certain types of sexual behaviour are more dangerous than others.
As long as the responses are well protected, this should not present any problems.
The safety of the people at the receiving end is more important in this case.
Finally, a word of thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol. It is an excellent report.
Madam President, I ask for your indulgence in advance because I wish to take a few moments longer than anticipated as I want to deal with a lot of the amendments which are extremely important for blood and blood safety in the Community.
Parliament has voiced its concern in several reports and resolutions about the safety of blood and blood products and the attainment of self-sufficiency in the Community, and the Commission welcomes the committee's report this evening.
Parliament has noted that the recommendation is a logical sequel to the Commission's communication presented on blood safety and selfsufficiency.
It correctly pointed out that only the first two activities, that is donor suitability and screening of donations, were addressed.
These are the very first two phases in the blood transfusion chain.
The Commission considers it sensible first to focus on them.
But I can assure the honourable Members that steps are already under way to address the other identified activities in the development of the blood strategy.
I wish to thank Mr Cabrol for his contribution and also those others who have contributed this evening.
With regard to the amendments proposed by Parliament, the Commission is prepared to accept fully Amendments Nos 5, part b. of 13, and 23, and to accept partially Amendment No 2 - which requires some editing; No 9, the intention of which is acceptable but will require the establishment of common criteria for the parameters to be collected that are comparable throughout the Community; No 10, the wording of which will have to reflect the fact that much of current practice is experience - rather than evidence-based - and efforts will need to be promoted to obtain good scientific evidence here; No 11: the intention here should be to have a unique coding system with relevant information communicated to all Member States and to the Commission and not a unique and common code; part of No 15: editing here too should reflect that although the risk is still theoretical, appropriate measures need to be taken to minimize any hazard associated with possible transmission of new variant CJD via blood components and manufactured plasma derivatives.
The Commission proposed such measures in its prospective donor deferral criteria.
Part of No 16: we have to reflect here the need for common parameters at Community level and for the collection of epidemiological data.
Part of No 19: rewording is necessary here due to potential legal difficulties with the term 'partner' , which must be linked to legal and administrative provisions in the Member States.
Part of No 20: although acceptable from the aspect of travel outside the European Union, it goes beyond the Commission's intention of recommending Member States to pose certain questions and should, therefore, I suggest, be reformulated.
Part of No 21, which exceeds the Commission's intention of proposing that Member States pose questions if they so wish.
There are some additional amendments as well - Nos 27 and 28 - and that is dealt with under Amendment No 11; and No 29, which is acceptable.
We would like to think a little further about the actual wording there.
The Commission finds the following amendments unacceptable.
I would like to go through them very quickly.
Amendment No 1: it is important to recall that in adopting Directive 89/381/EEC, which governs the placing on the market of medicinal products made from human blood and plasma, the Council agreed that Member States should encourage the voluntary and unpaid donations of blood and plasma as the starting material for the manufacture of medicinal products.
There is, however, no definition of such donations in the directive, and significant differences exist among the Member States as to what it really means in practice.
The definition of voluntary non-remunerative donation adopted by the Council of Europe is much more restrictive than what applies in most Member States and strict adherence to it in the Community may have an adverse affect on supplies.
Amendment No 3.
Because the Commission considers that measures to be introduced at Community level should take into account, in addition to those of the Council Europe, national and international standards, guidelines and recommendations including those of the WHO and our major partners such as those in the Food and Drug Administration of the United States. You must remember that considerable volumes of plasma and plasma products are used in the Community which originate in the United States.
The Commission considers therefore that any reference to international standards should be as general as possible.
Amendment No 4 which is unacceptable as written because the concern is not at the risk of new variant CJD to blood products but the still theoretical risk, not yet scientifically proven, that new variant CJD could be transmitted by them.
The use of plasma as an excipient in medicinal products coming from countries which have had no confirmed cases of new variant CJD is a recommended precautionary measure and the wording used of 'imported blood between Member States' is totally lacking in clarity, I suggest.
Amendment No 6 would only lead to some confusion and final medicinal products like plasma derivatives, derived from blood and plasma, can already move freely in the internal market, as long as they meet requirements of quality, safety and efficacy and therefore may be shared with other Member States.
But the difficulty arises when labile components, for example red blood cells, platelets or plasma prior to fractionation, are prevented from being shared with other Member States.
Amendment No 7 is unacceptable as it implies that there are Member States that are not responsible for collecting blood and plasma, which of course is not the case in reality.
The second amendment is also unacceptable because many donors do not wish to be in registers and we have to bear that in mind.
Amendment No 8 is similar to Amendment No 7 and while a common donor identification and registration system is certainly the ideal, donors themselves, on whom the entire blood transfusion chain is dependent, are reluctant to be even on national registers and a single donor identification and registration system common to all Member States contradicts the Commission proposal for a mutually compatible system.
Amendment No 13 is unacceptable because the Commission uses the word 'blood' in its generic sense.
With regard to 9c, whether the plasma is recovered from a whole blood donation or is collected through the process of plasmapheresis, it is a sample of the donor's blood taken at the time of donation that is tested, not the plasma.
As far as Amendment No 14 is concerned, Directive 89/381 requires Member States to promote voluntary, unpaid donations for plasma used as source material for medicinal products.
The exact wording must be maintained here.
Amendment No 17: first we oppose it because it is necessary to clarify what is meant by 'blood products' .
The labile components that do not come under Community legislation and the plasma-derived products must adhere to existing pharmaceutical legislation in respect of quality, safety and efficacy.
Now with regard to the labile components, there is no legal basis for the Community to introduce binding legislation and Article 129 only provides for recommendations or incentive measures but excludes, of course, harmonization. In future harmonization legislation might be possible if and when the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified.
Amendment No 18: the definition of voluntary, non-remunerated donation of the Council of Europe is more restrictive than the term 'unpaid' as used in Directive 89/381, and there are significant variations in the Member States as to what constitutes such donations.
Amendment No 24 regarding the proposed donation frequency stems from the implicit assumption by the authors that each and every donation is made at the maximum possible abstraction of blood volume.
In Amendment No 25, the whole purpose of course of automated plasmapheresis is to arrive at volumes that may exceed 15 litres but in a way that is safe for the donor.
Now finally may I take the opportunity to make a further comment on new variant CJD because Mr Whitehead brought it up specifically.
For plasma-derived products the issue of the assessment of risk of new variant CJD in blood is under very close scrutiny by the Committee of Proprietary Medicinal Products which advises the European Medicines Evaluation Agency in collaboration with the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee.
The issue is also under discussion in the Scientific Advisory Committee on Medicinal Products.
We are awaiting the advice of these bodies just now.
With regard to blood for transfusion there is no legal recourse, under Article 129, for us to take any action apart from non-binding recommendations.
As I said earlier, we have already done this.
As Members will be aware, this is the first proposal for a Council recommendation from the Commission under Article 129 of the Treaty.
The Commission took the decision that you should be fully consulted even though some Member States in the Council had some initial hesitation, given that there is no formal requirement to do so under Article 129.
Mr Cabrol's report confirms to me that the Commission was right to do so.
I want to put it on record for you, Mr Cabrol, and for your colleagues, that I will insist that you continue to be consulted on all future recommendations under Article 129.
Parliament must have the opportunity to actively contribute to recommendations with a bearing on public health.
The Commission considers that this recommendation is a major step along the road to giving effect to the Community blood strategy that the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament helped to put in place in the years 1994 to 1996.
I regret the length of my reply, but this is a vitally important matter for all citizens of the European Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
1999 budget procedure - Adjustment of the financial perspective
Madam President, since we are having a debate on three reports together, and I am the rapporteur for two of them, we will look firstly at the motion for a resolution which, at first glance, is more technical; that is, the report on the adjustment of the financial perspective, after the technical adjustment, to take account of the conditions of implementation.
I will then go on to look at the guidelines for the 1999 budget procedure in - if you do not mind - a lighter tone to make these late hours somewhat more agreeable.
The process of adjusting the financial perspective to take account of the conditions of implementation refers to the transfer of appropriations for commitments that were not implemented in the previous year from the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund to the new budget year and to the appropriations for payments. This would guarantee, when necessary, as stated in the Interinstitutional Agreement, an orderly progression in relation to the appropriations for commitments.
This year, we must take account of the fact that the adjustment is different from that of previous years, since 1999 is the last year of both the financial perspective and the Structural Fund programming period.
And this has led to the Commission transferring all the unused appropriations from 1997 to 1999.
Taking all this into consideration, and looking at the conditions for implementation in accordance with paragraph 10 of the Interinstitutional Agreement, the Commission proposes transferring to the 1999 budget ECU 1 433 million which were unused for the Structural Funds in 1997, and ECU 101 million of appropriations for commitments unused for the Cohesion Fund in the same year; in other words, a total of ECU 1 534 million.
Taking into account previous adjustment decisions, we find ourselves with an increase in the Category 2 ceiling of approximately 18 % in relation to the 1998 budget.
Until now the Commission proposal has strictly adhered to paragraph 10 of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Nevertheless, this is not the case as regards the proposal on adjusting the appropriations for payments. In this respect, the Commission adopts a position contrary to the strict application of the financial perspective provided for in paragraph 10 of the Agreement, since it proposes no increase in the ceiling for appropriations for payments, on the grounds that it will be perfectly possible to face up to requirements.
Although I know fully well that an adjustment in the appropriations for payments is not limited to Category 2, I believe that the ceiling for appropriations for payments is underestimated and that the increase in Category 2 for 1999 will worsen to an even greater degree the proportion between the appropriations for commitments and the appropriations for payments.
In its arguments concerning the appropriations for payments, the Commission constantly makes reference to the Interinstitutional Agreement.
At one point, it even states that additional payments might have been made to the value of ECU 1 000 million above the appropriations for payments provided for in the budget for 1997.
It is at the least surprising that the Commission proposes not to increase the ceiling for the appropriations for payments.
I believe that the Commission is combining two procedures: on the one hand, the financial perspective, which is a framework in itself; and on the other hand, the 1999 budget, which sets out the estimated actual requirements.
I would insist that we keep these two procedures separate and consequently call for the overall ceiling for the appropriations for payments to be raised by ECU 300 million.
It remains to be seen whether the Council will accept this.
If it does not, there will be a new tripartite dialogue before the presentation of the draft budget.
Having said this, I will move on to a more light-hearted consideration of the guidelines for the 1999 budget procedure.
Since I have been a member of the Committee on Culture, I am taking this poetic licence.
I do not think I am being original when I say that politics is the art of the possible.
The budget is, in fact, the practical concretion of the principles of every Community policy that we debate and approve in this House.
Making policies always involves making decisions.
We will have to adhere to these guidelines which we are going to approve throughout the entire budget procedure which I hope - since we are now in spring - turns out to be a bed of roses, rather than a calvary, despite the fact that we are about to enter Holy Week.
We are therefore now going to approve certain guidelines rather than going into the financial aspects at the moment.
Eventually, when the Council's first reading has taken place, it will be time to earmark a total figure for each heading and line.
I have tried to make this report as brief as possible so that the political priorities can be clearly distinguished.
I understand and am sorry about the fact that the views of certain committees are not reflected but I would thank them all for having made it possible to have clear and concise guidelines.
If we had done otherwise we would now find ourselves with a telephone directory which would prevent us from separating the wheat from the chaff.
As rapporteur, I have taken on board all the opinions of the committees except, of course, those which would contradict the resolution being approved.
The report aims to present the 1999 budget as a bridging budget between the financial perspective which is ending and that which we are discussing.
Since that year marks the end of the current financial perspective and the beginning of the consideration of the new one, with the debate on Agenda 2000, this budget not only brings to a close an era, but also must be considered as a "bridging budget' towards the future.
The millennium is ending and we have the honour of witnessing a historic change in our continent.
This will also be the first budget denominated in euros, our common currency, which will unite Europeans even further and which will promote economic growth.
In the medium term, we will see the enlargement of the European Union to include countries which were always European.
In addition, the Union will have to continue with its objective of economic and social cohesion because it is necessary to have solidarity between the regions, so that economic development and the new technologies do not lead to an increase in the differences between the rich and the poor.
We want to draw up a budget with its own meaning for 1999; a budget for the people and one which can respond to their expectations of the European Union.
This does not simply involve determining income and expenditure, but it must also be able to sound out the opinion of a political union in a changing world.
European citizens, through the Member States, have transferred authority to the Union, including part of their sovereignty, so that we can thus meet their needs more successfully.
In this respect, the report refers to Article F.3 of the Treaty which states that "the Union shall provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies' .
Therefore, the Union's budget should be distinct from, and complement the budgets of, the Member States.
The EU budget and those of the Members States are not comparable since the tasks and perspectives of each one are different, as is their method of facing up to common challenges and problems affecting the citizens.
In order to fulfill its task, the Union must have an influence on those aspects where there is, let us say, a "European Value Added' which justifies strengthened action on the part of the Union.
In addition, we must note that the European Parliament has acted and cooperated responsibly in recent financial years in order to ease the path towards convergence for the Member States.
And it will continue to do so, although it will not lose sight of the budget's political significance.
Parliament is in favour of rigour, in the sense of a more efficient and rational use of financial resources.
I do not want to wave the teacher's stick, but I must in order to reprimand the Council and the Member States for not having done their work, since in order to fulfill the commitments made at Edinburgh concerning the package for Structural Funds, and at Cannes, for the PHARE programme, this 1999 budget must face increases estimated at around 18 % for Category 2 appropriations and 36 % for Category 4.
Moreover, we must condemn the scandalously inadequate implementation of the Structural Funds in certain Member States.
This does not represent a saving for the European Union, but a fraud against the citizens, who are deprived of European intervention which would help relieve their problems.
Nevertheless, Parliament must be clear on the fact that, in the budget procedure, the Council is neither an enemy nor an adversary nor a rival.
We should not mistake this for a war.
The Parliament and the Council share piano and stool in playing a "duet' .
We need loyalty in the interinstitutional dialogue through which the two branches of the budgetary authority come to agreement on the score.
Among the main tasks of the melody to be interpreted are the priorities established in paragraph 3 of the report: the creation of employment through investment in infrastructure and research and development; support for small and medium-sized enterprises; and measures to combat youth unemployment.
We also want to develop the concept of the Europe of knowledge which encompasses education and training as well as research and development.
There is no doubt that Europe's greatest potential is in its people, in the human value of the Europeans raised in an age-old society.
In the same way, the 1999 budget must pay careful attention to the environment, in accordance with the commitments made at the Kyoto Conference.
I will now conclude my speech, ladies and gentlemen.
Music has always united our countries, overcoming all sorts of frontiers and barriers.
I hope that the genius of our great composers enlightens us and that Parliament and the Council can emulate Arthur Rubinstein in the interpretation of this "suite' which is now beginning.
Madam President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the budget for 1999, I greatly appreciated the fact that the general rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop, had started to consult the different sectors, in particular the agricultural sector, at a very early stage.
Both the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development are determined to continue the procedure followed for the 1998 budget as far as agricultural expenditure is concerned.
It is important that this procedure, which in the meantime has been christened the "Tillich-Mulder' procedure, is also adopted by the Commission and the Council in equally positive terms.
The precise description of this procedure can be found in the working document of the Committee on Budgets, namely Working Document 12 of 2 February this year.
As far as the report at hand is concerned, I contributed to the more precise wording of paragraph 13 on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Three points are emphasized in this paragraph. The total figure set by the Commission for Category 1 in its draft budget, should not be taken as a ceiling.
This figure may be based on possible estimates, but these have no normative character as such.
The final figure in this budget category should continue to be adjusted for as long as possible on the basis of more current expenditure estimates, in other words, right up until the second reading.
A possible amendment for the Council and the Commission will then be a rather binding guideline.
Should cuts be necessary in the meantime, these should be made selectively for certain budget items, which must be looked at anew, and not across the board.
Finally, the problem of the reserve should be further clarified.
In the area of agriculture, where more clear-cut estimates will made in future, a reserve provided for by resources, is essential.
The reserve system which will have to be drafted in general terms could be used to fall back on in part, but general uniformity would sell short the specific character of the agricultural budget.
This clear method of approach guarantees a good basis for an effective agricultural budget policy, and gives Parliament a bigger involvement in the agricultural expenses than has been the case for many years, an experience which will be valued by the Commission and, hopefully, by the Council.
Madam President, in the budget for 1999 we are not just preparing for a new millennium, but we are also laying the foundation stone for the greatest challenges to European integration for many years.
Since the announcement from the Commission and the European Monetary Institute about monetary union, we now have fairly precise information about the timetable for a common currency as well as its prospects and the risks involved.
The continuation of the information campaign about the introduction of the euro remains an important matter, to prepare the European population fully for the conversion, because in this field we can look very positively into the future.
On the other hand we are already setting course for the ambitious project of expansion to the east in the next millennium.
There is much for us to do there, too.
So we must strive to accelerate further the completion of the internal market, to remove existing obstacles from our path.
We should therefore pay special attention to suitable measures such as the action plan for the internal market.
We must also strengthen the trust of the citizens in the problem-solving skills of the European Union.
This includes, above all, the ambitious driving forward of the employment initiative, on which we decided last year.
I would like to point out once again the role of small and medium-sized enterprises in creating jobs.
We have already heard this week that the measures to support small and medium-sized enterprises which have been provided are now almost too numerous to count.
Yet the resources are apparently far from exhausted in many fields.
We therefore need a comprehensive, precise evaluation by the Commission, so that suitable measures can be carried out within the next budget plan, and so that the efficiency of support for small and medium-sized enterprises can be effectively increased.
One more thing must be clear to us in this context. The most effective support for companies is the kind which from the outset leaves the resources and effort in the companies.
Therefore, in the budget procedure, we should conform exactly to the principles of SLIM legislation, that is of a SLIM initiative, on which we have already voted today in this House, or to general bench marking.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has naturally considered in detail the guidelines for the 1999 budget.
There are two particular subjects which we regard as particularly urgent.
They are, first, the transition from the fourth to the fifth research framework programme, and second, in the field of energy policy, the conversion of the Kyoto decisions into a clear policy of the European Union.
First I would like to thank the rapporteur for including both subjects in the guidelines. We are conscious of this honour, because not every committee manages to have its subjects included in the guidelines.
On the other hand, the rapporteur promised us that in a kind of new Dührkop Dührkop procedure all opinions of the committees would be included in the decision.
Unfortunately that was rejected by the Committee on Budgets.
We regret that very much, Mrs Müller, because we are already conscious of the problems regarding the financial resources of the fifth research framework programme, and because we also know that, in particular, the question of how we are to handle the year 1999 in terms of budget policy is not altogether easy to answer.
It would have been very sensible if the Committee on Budgets had accepted the proposals of the Research Committee, so that, in particular, we can manage the transition next year in an orderly fashion.
We hope that during the first reading more precise numbers will be available, including those from the Council, so that we can make progress in providing financial resources to the specific programmes.
Regarding energy policy, there is an urgent need to act at European level.
I do not think that the statements in the guidelines do justice to this problem.
We hope that at first reading, which we as a committee will follow very closely, we shall succeed in getting support for our concerns, even in the Committee on Budgets.
Mr President, the 1999 budget exercise is getting under way in an atmosphere of serenity and interinstitutional cooperation.
There are encouraging signs that it will live up to the great challenges of the Union: employment creation, Economic and Monetary Union and the preparation of enlargement.
In 1999 Economic and Monetary Union will enter into its third stage.
The recent reports and the reactions have underlined the continuing determination of the Member States to improve the health of their public finances.
This climate of budgetary rigour cannot be ignored at Community level either.
The guidelines concerning the Community budget for 1999 show that all institutions are ready to assume their responsibilities in this respect.
Bringing the increase of payment appropriations roughly in line with the growth of national budgets - as proposed by Barbara Dührkop Dührkop - indicates a very responsible approach by the European Parliament.
Within a rigorous setting, the 1999 budget must meet the obligations of the Union and focus on growth and employment creation.
With regard to agricultural expenditure, the Commission expects - for the time being - credit requirements at the level of the 1998 budget.
Should these forecasts change significantly during the year, the Commission will follow the successful procedure last year and submit a late rectifying letter.
I take note of this procedure - it is called the Tillich-Mulder procedure in your report.
For the structural actions, 1999 marks the end of the current programming period.
The tentative agreement at the budgetary trialogue yesterday to increase the ceiling of category 2 by EURO 1534 million in commitments and the overall ceiling for payments by EURO 300 million paves the way for correct conclusion of this programme.
For internal policies, the institutions should jointly underline the efforts to contribute to growth and employment creation: the fifth research framework programme - for which a satisfactory agreement must be found well before the end of the year - the reinforcement of the Trans-European networks and the 'employment and growth initiative' are the principal priorities in this respect.
The 'employment and growth initiative' is a joint success of the European Parliament and the Council. It is a three-year programme and should therefore continue to be the focus for the 1999 and 2000 budgets.
On external action, the particular emphasis will be the transformation of PHARE into an effective pre-accession instrument.
The Commission will propose reinforcing PHARE by ECU 150 million in a supplementary and amending budget for 1998 to bring its multi-annual envelope into line with the decisions of the Cannes summit.
Naturally, this proposal will have to be accompanied by a detailed assessment of the scope for implementation.
On these elements there seems to be a convergence of views among the institutions.
It is also encouraging that yesterday's budgetary trialogue agreed to relaunch discussions on the question of 'legal bases' at a technical level.
It is in this framework that the Commission will discuss and adopt the preliminary draft budget for 1999 at the end of this month.
I have every hope that the reinforced interinstitutional cooperation which has permitted a successful 1998 budget will again bear fruit for the next year.
This would then perfectly set the tone for the next interinstitutional agreement which we should discuss in the months to come.
Madam President, if Mrs Dührkop Dührkop can wax lyrical at this late hour I am sure you will allow me a little bit of levity if I say first of all that Commissioner Liikanen has virtually stolen my speech.
He said the things that I was going to say and when he began by saying that this is a budget which is surrounded by serenity, following Barbara Dührkop's analogy with playing a piano. I am reminded of Eric Morecambe, the great comedian from the UK who is now dead.
There was a sketch where Eric Morecambe is playing and is making a real honky-tonk noise.
It sounds absolutely awful and André Previn says, ' you are playing all the wrong notes, ' and Eric says, ' I am playing the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order.'
That has always seemed to be the way we have done the budget in the past, and Barbara's analogy with playing a piano is not too far out, because this year is different.
I said it when Helen Liddell first came to the Budgets meeting.
We do not deal with the Commission like this - we even had a Scots interpreter in the English language booth doing it with a Scots accent for Helen Liddell.
It seems that everything is going so well and that is good.
I think it shows the partnership that is being developed and a maturity towards the budget from the three institutions involved.
On Mr Viola's report, I think we have to say that the fact that it is unamended and went through Committee unamended shows the consensus from all the groups as far as these guidelines are concerned - what we expect from the budgets of the other institutions.
We congratulate Mr Viola on the work he has done and we hope that consistency will continue as we go through the year.
On the Dührkop report on the adjustment of the financial perspective, the trialogue which occurred earlier this week, as Commissioner Liikanen said, has been extremely fruitful, carried out in an atmosphere of cooperation where the three institutions want to get a settlement.
It is not an adversarial situation where we are trying to score points off one another; instead we are actually trying to get a budget which we can all agree to and this adjustment of the financial perspective.
One hopes that when Mrs Liddell goes to the Council she can come back and report to Parliament that the additional resources that have been provisionally agreed can be agreed in total. It would be a major achievement if we could see that.
On the main report, the political group which I represent as coordinator supports it throughout - to such an extent that we wanted it to be kept, like Mrs Dührkop's, as short as possible.
As to the amendments which have been proposed, we agreed last week not to support any amendments, and I say this mainly for colleagues like Mr Brinkhorst.
We see nothing wrong with his Amendment No 1, but we actually think it is better placed within the first reading.
On this occasion we would not be inclined to support it.
Having said that, several of my colleagues see no reason why we should not support it, and I remain to be persuaded that we should support it between now and voting time tomorrow; so do not give up hope yet, Mr Brinkhorst.
If we do vote against, let me make it clear that it will not be because we disagree with the content of that report, but because we took a stand to keep this report as short as possible.
We can apply that to many other amendments, but please try to understand that it is not for dogmatic reasons, it really is a matter of simplicity.
It is a budget, as Commissioner Liikanen said, of prudence: we use the terms 'a citizens' budget' and 'a taxpayers' budget' in the same sentence and I think that is what we are trying to achieve with these guidelines.
When we look at the priorities, as far as our group is concerned the main priority is about job creation, about creation of employment; no matter how we do it, whether it be through infrastructure, whether it be through research and development, whether it be through support for small and medium enterprises.
That is the thrust of our approach to this budget.
We also support the phrase 'Europe of knowledge' which Mrs Dührkop has introduced - one would expect her to give priority to education and training, having known her for many years; and we would want to see European funds spent in the area of education and training and research and development.
The thrust of the report you can find in paragraph 8, and I think we can give our full support to what it says there.
At the end of the day it is about getting that agreement, about making sure that the three institutions are working together.
And who knows, at this rate we may end up with one reading of the budget.
Oh that it were so!
Madam President, I would like to state that I agree with the budgetary guidelines contained in Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's report.
This agreement indicates that, apart from the discrepancies in terms of economic policies, there is a common concern among the groups of this House as regards European problems in fighting unemployment and strengthening the European dimension of the Community budget.
It is hoped that the 1999 budget procedure will maintain a similar procedural basis and form as that used in 1998, when the European Parliament was able to defend its own priorities before the Council, thereby achieving the extension of the ad hoc procedure including that of the late rectifying letter to the PDB, not to mention the almost unanimous commitment of this House to defend appropriations earmarked in the PDB for the Structural Funds in Category 2.
It is true that this year the process is even more complex since it marks both the end of the current financial perspective and the beginning of Agenda 2000 and the problem of using up the remaining appropriations for commitments.
Our opinion is that the appropriations provided for in Edinburgh for 1999 should be strictly respected, and among the existing alternatives we should choose that which guarantees that every last ecu available will be fully committed for the Structural Funds for Category 2.
We will continue to show that the current financial perspective should be the basis for the next perspective, particularly as regards the percentage of own resources: taking 1.27 % as a base and not as a ceiling should be the financial expression of the European effort for enlargement.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a common link between this evening's discussion on the guidelines for the 1999 budget exercise and yesterday's debate on the procedure for discharge of the 1996 financial year which has of course not escaped you.
The link is the importance recognized in the execution of the budget and the fight against fraud, whilst proposing to make the 1999 budget the "taxpayer's' and the "citizen's' budget.
Indeed, having arrived at a crucial and decisive stage in its development, with the creation of the euro and the commencement of accession negotiations, Europe needs to be explained to its citizens and to be understood by them more than ever before.
Europe can only be credible and can only inspire confidence if the tax payers' money is managed soundly.
The rapporteur's second concern is to make the 1999 budget the budget of the people and on this point also, I like the sound of what she is saying.
The public must be convinced that Europe is made for them and it seems to me extremely important to strengthen social and economic cohesion.
Without this understanding they will end up punishing us, there is no doubt about this.
More than a management budget or a simple "bridging' budget, the 1999 budget could, above all, be a pivotal budget which will determine the conditions of the financial future of the European Union.
With the new financial perspective, with a new interinstitutional agreement at the beginning of the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union and within the context of the Agenda 2000 negotiations, the 1999 budget will be seen as a budget for revival, whilst at the same time taking up the already well known priorities which must be continued: budgetary action for jobs - a commitment in the 1998 budget gained support from the European Council of Luxembourg in November 1997 - priority to jobs through investment in infrastructure and research and development, support to SMEs, measures to combat youth unemployment, and to provide education and training for a "Europe of knowledge' .
A pivotal budget, a revivalist budget, but a realistic budget as well, one which recognizes that the increase in appropriations for payment for 1999 must not surpass the average growth in Member States' budgets in relation to the 1998 budget, but within certain acceptable conditions such as respect for the Edinburgh objectives for Structural Funds.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Union for Europe Group and I support the rapporteur's approach, and are convinced that the budget exercise will commence auspiciously well.
Madam President, the significance of the debate on the budget at this stage is, as Commissioner Liikanen said, that it gives joint guidelines for the Commission in its forthcoming preliminary draft budget.
From listening to the debate so far it seems that we are going to have a very easy ride.
The Commissioner has pre-empted matters by referring to a number of points in Mrs Dührkop's report.
During the life of this Parliament we have seen significant progress. When Parliament itself give clear and concise guidelines it will have an impact on the Commission's preliminary draft budget.
I congratulate Mrs Dührkop for being very concise and having the courage to inject useful but limited guidelines on the number of sites.
She has withstood the temptation of becoming a telephone directory, as she herself said.
The ELDR largely share the priorities expressed in the House by many others.
Let me just concentrate on one point raised by Mr Wynn, who was so kind as to say that the Socialist Group, having not finalized its view, still thought that for reasons of principle it should not vote for particular amendments which our group would like to put forward.
I would hope that Mr Wynn could reconsider this point.
It concerns the Treaty of Amsterdam.
That Treaty will enter into force by 1999.
It will be useful for the Commission to understand the signals from Parliament that it is already taking the view that the Schengen information system and Eurodac, which are key elements in transforming the first pillar into an area of freedom, security and justice will actually be incorporated.
We hope, therefore, that you can go one step further so that we can give this guideline to the Commission to introduce it in the preliminary budget.
Madam President, notwithstanding the serenity mentioned by Commissioner Liikanen, we are aware that the current budgetary process is particularly important and complex.
It is the last of the present financial framework, and it also acts as a sort of bridge to the next framework, while some see it as the closing stage of a cycle.
Mrs Barbara Dührkop, therefore, does not have an easy task.
I sincerely hope that this is not the beginning of the calvary that she mentions in her statement.
With regard to the report, I would like to begin by saying that we agreed with much of what it contains.
It goes without saying that we identify with the priorities of employment, education, vocational training, environment, more intensive control of programmes and development policy.
We welcome the clear request that, regarding Structural Funds, Edinburgh should be respected, and we draw attention to the importance accorded to monitoring execution and to the efficient use of funds.
However, there are other points that we also consider to be important but on which we diverge.
Firstly, we consider the pursuit of those priorities to be incompatible with the budgetary restraint that continues to be advocated.
Such restraint is also, although not explicitly, a real priority of this as of previous budgets.
But, in our view, it is not possible to fulfill the ambitious priorities listed with the limited means that will consequently be available to the Union.
Moreover, we do not agree with the proposal contained in paragraph 10 of the report, despite the positive amendment already introduced at the suggestion of the rapporteur whereby this budget will cease to be the sole foundation and become one of the foundations of future financial perspectives.
In this connection, we consider that the proposal of the Committee on Regional Policy, contained in the amendment relating to this point, is much more reasonable.
Indeed, we do not understand how this budget can be even one of the foundations of future financial perspectives.
As stated in the report, it may be a bridge, but not a foundation.
The foundation for future financial perspectives can and should be confined to current financial perspectives.
That is, moreover, consistent with what we earlier approved when we voted for the Colom i Naval report, specifically regarding the ceiling of 1.27 % or, more correctly, of 1.13 % of GNP for payments at the end of the period, as is proposed by the Commission.
Meanwhile, and still on the same point, we have serious reservations regarding the creation of a preallocated reserve.
We are in no doubt that the aim is to contain spending, since the creation of the reserve is explicitly connected with reducing the "burden on taxpayers' .
However, the text does not clearly define either the mechanism whereby this objective is to be achieved, or even its practical consequences.
In all events, we fear that it will certainly have the effect of negating the concept of Community funds as we understand them today.
These are the reasons why we will vote for the report provided the proposal of the Committee on Regional Policy is approved.
Madam President, I would first like to thank Mrs Dührkop and Mr Viola sincerely for their reports.
I believe that they are balanced guidelines, and it seems particularly important to me that we should build a so-called bridging budget, which begins to mark out our vision for expansion in the years 2000 to 2006.
I am particularly glad about the setting of priorities, and that the rapporteur has observed the canon of priorities so consistently, to give it special emphasis, and I am obviously in particular glad about the priority for the post-Kyoto process with the new budget for 1999, which allows us to make a decisive contribution.
At this point I would like to announce to the rapporteur some fireworks, good proposals from my party, fireworks which on this occasion do not produce any CO2.
I would like to make, on behalf of my party, proposals which aim at information campaigns to encourage the use of products whose manufacture uses little energy.
I would like to promote restructuring in the research budget, modern energy-saving technologies which lead to a real breakthrough.
I would like the rapporteur to promote pilot projects in the budget, heating insulation for private houses, offices and energy-intensive industries.
And of course, particularly in view of the newcomers in the European Union, I would like to put through a realignment of the SAVE and ALTENER programmes.
Last but not least, a million solar panels, a programme for the acceptance of photo-voltaics.
I believe that if the rapporteur, as she has shown until now, is disposed to 'putting butter on the fish' , and to allowing the priorities to be followed by deeds, a real contribution to the post-Kyoto process can be made in the next budget.
I hope so, and in this spirit I hope for continued good cooperation.
Madam President, budgetary discussions continue and I am extremely happy that this debate is taking place in Strasbourg and not in Brussels like last year.
I hope I see in this a desire to respect the decisions of the Court of Justice rather than a simple hazard of the calendar.
However, the discussions are being undertaken in an almost grotesque fashion, to such an extent that one wonders if some people are not celebrating April Fools' Day in their own way.
In fact, 24 hours ago, we were rejecting the 1996 discharge because the Court of Auditors could not guarantee the overall regularity of payments in the 1996 budget.
Today, we note once more the continuing irresponsible desire to spend more.
Whatever happens, Parliament has to spend everything and spend more.
It refuses at all costs to relinquish credits, or cast doubt upon certain policies, as if it is in some way a question of honour.
The most flagrant example of this perversion concerns the Structural Funds.
True to itself, the Committee on Budgets continues to state that the decisions taken in Edinburgh on this subject must be applied to the letter and that the budget approved constitutes an objective for expenditure.
But decisions taken in the past should not prevent all political reflection in the present per se .
I refuse to let myself be dragged into the scandalous situation whereby we are constrained to search desperately for a means, a way, a legal loophole which will enable us to spend the money of the Member States' taxpayers.
Furthermore, as is the case with every budget exercise, we will not be able to avoid the litany of demands coming from those who push things just that little bit too far.
One of the main priorities mentioned by the rapporteur is that the budget must continue to be a budget for employment.
It is more likely to be a budget for architecture.
In 1998, Parliament devoted as much money to the acquisition of the ostentatious D3 building in Brussels as it did to the famous "jobs' initiative.
Finally, the Treaty of Amsterdam has not yet been ratified by the Member States and yet we are already applying its financial measures - a good example of respect for democracy, and a further reason for the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations not to vote for this report.
Madam President, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the new buildings in Brussels also created work, at least in Brussels.
But I really wanted to say something about the 1999 budget: Commissioner, your speech was not bad, but the one which you made about the budget ratification was better, because you made it in French!
You yourself classified it as more sexy.
As for the 1999 budget, I would like to make five points.
First: the 1999 budget is a bridging budget, as Mrs Müller has already said, because no one can still be of the opinion that we can discuss the 1999 budget without bearing in mind that the new financial perspective for 2000 to 2006 is being dealt with simultaneously.
Second: this means that we must come to terms with the difficulties that the 1999 budget has produced.
No one can explain away the fact that an 18 % rate of growth in the appropriations for commitments for Structural Funds is of a dimension which is beyond the discussions and the possibilities of a budget discussion.
I would like to quote a sentence: ' This is not of this world.'
It is appropriate here if people believe, as someone once wrote in Edinburgh, that the matter can simply be prolonged.
Third: in the case of the foreign policy programmes, we have a spending situation which is equally haywire.
If resources of ECU 2 300 000 000 were not committed and ECU 3 200 000 000 were not paid out within the PHARE programme alone, it must be clearly said that in 1999 it makes no sense to increase the PHARE programme by 36 %, only to put into the budget cashbox money which was deducted from other foreign policies by 10 % reductions.
Projects in South Africa, South America and Asia, and all sorts of NGO programmes, are suffering as a result, just to present something which actually will not happen in the budget year.
These are the problems which confront us when we discuss the 1999 budget.
We have, that is Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has found a formulation in paragraph 8 of her guidelines, in which, as never before in this House, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, she states in writing that Parliament is only prepared to join in creating a 1999 budget growth rate which is on the level of the budget growth rates of the Member States.
We have never before committed ourselves to such a condition.
But if that is what is wanted, the problems which I have just mentioned must be solved.
And if we want to solve them, we shall have to find ways whereby the future financial perspective can be announced at the same time.
That must be based on more flexibility, and on the principle that no Member State can be forced to effect expenditure that takes money from the Community budget, if it itself is not prepared to take this money.
In the informal three-way discussion, and in the three-way discussion on Tuesday, I said, " The 1999 budget will only materialize - and I say this here very clearly, above all so that it is on record for the Council - if there is an interinstitutional agreement between the three institutions about the questions of the legal bases.'
Please, let no one hide behind the legal process which has been initiated before the European Court of Justice.
We need a solution to this problem in principle.
Parliament is ready for it, and I have the impression that the other two institutions are too.
But prepare yourselves - I am not fooling around - there will be no 1999 budget if this problem is not solved.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we started the 1998 budget procedure during or around the time of the Ajax Amsterdam football match.
This evening there is also a football match, between Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund.
I shall come back to this point again at the end.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy mentioned the first of April.
We would surely rather have seen the football match, but the seriousness of the situation, namely the 1999 budget discussion, keeps us fixed in the House at this hour.
For the first time, information policy is not firmly anchored in the guidelines.
We have assumed that we shall have a viable concept between the Commission and the European Parliament of how information policy in 1998 is finally to be controlled.
However, unfortunately this does not seem to be the case, and I would like to remind at least those who have been elected from this House as representatives to the Bureau or the Conference of Presidents to look again at the budget decisions of 1996, 1997 and 1998 in paragraphs 18 of the 1998 guidelines, 30, 31 and 32 of the 1998 first reading, and 11 of the 1998 second reading, and paragraphs 9 of the 1997 guidelines, 17, 48, 49 and 50 of the 1997 first reading, because precisely in view of the morning discussion today that is certainly not unimportant for the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents.
But now to the content of the guidelines before us.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Dührkop, you have in paragraph 2, I believe, a mistake which only originates in the German version, because again it refers to an employment budget.
That might be a problem for our party, but I know that you mean a budget for more employment, and therefore I ask you to make an alteration, at least before the vote tomorrow.
In the fourth starred point of paragraph 8, again at least in the German version, there is such an unfortunate formulation that I do not understand it at all.
In paragraph 9, I consider that your own formulation is excellent, and I believe that it hits the nail on the head.
Therefore, our party will apply for a split vote, above all on the question of a vote on the critical mass and the policy of the Commission, because in our opinion this does not belong to it in principle.
We consider that your formulation is better.
In paragraph 15, which concerns the employment initiative which was defined and voted on in the 1998 procedure, the second part is at least unclear, if not actually wrong.
We have quite clearly declared ourselves for the three main aims of this employment initiative, and also voted for them.
At midday today we finally voted on the Pronk report as the legal basis, and we also said that small and medium-sized enterprises should be taken into account in the field of the third system together with others, but what it says there now is that they should be given priority.
That is not what we voted for.
As far as the amendments before us are concerned, we agree entirely with the submitter of the first amendment, Mr Brinkhorst, at least as regards its aims, but we have not yet formed a final opinion.
To come back to the football match: today in Spain, in Madrid, the match was delayed by an hour because the goalposts fell down.
Since Mrs Dührkop comes from near Barcelona, and such a thing never happens in Barcelona, I wish the rapporteur, and the other rapporteur Mr Viola, great success in remaining standing throughout the 1999 budget discussions.
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating the two rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola, on having produced guideline resolutions which are just that.
They are guidelines and they have strenuously resisted what so often happens if people try to turn the guidelines into some sort of advance and premature first reading.
What we have here is a very clear view of principle.
I merely want to refer to a couple of paragraphs in Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's excellent report and underline them, in particular recital D where she emphasizes that what we have to concentrate on in the budget procedure is the whole question of the collection of revenues so as to avoid wastage.
We spend so much time dealing with expenditure that we have to prioritize the proper collection of own resources as a major, fundamental and integral part of the budget procedure.
The other point I would highly commend her for is the incorporation in paragraph 9 of her report of the response to the challenge laid down by Commissioner Liikanen some two years ago about the policies of critical mass.
Today in the guidelines motion he has Parliament's response, and we hope that, having had Parliament's response, we get preliminary draft estimates that reflect that response in a way that we can see.
If you read paragraph 9 carefully, Mrs Dührkop has there accepted the challenge that it means looking at those policies which should be continued and even reinforced, but also at those which should no longer be thus considered.
So it has bitten the bullet, it is a serious response, and one which I commend.
For the rest of my time, I want to turn to Mr Viola's report which, again, is excellent.
The points I would underline in his report are as follows: in paragraph 4 he makes the very important point about the European civil service.
I hope when we are talking about the European civil service as we proceed into the detail of the budget, we will perhaps extend some of the thoughts set out there and talk about both appointment and promotion being exclusively actions which should take place on merit.
This should be the only criterion for appointment and promotion within the European civil service.
I note and welcome in paragraph 5 the view that no new post ought to be created in 1999, and I hope that, as we progress into the budgetary procedure, the caveat expressed there is one that can be dropped.
I commend very fully all the points that are laid out in clear chronological sequence in paragraph 8 of the report, where there are a whole series of matters on which this House, as part of the budgetary authority, needs further information.
I particularly turn to paragraph 9 - property policy.
Today, as has already been recalled, is 1 April.
I received, I suppose, what has been the most complicated April Fool's Day hoax in the form of what purports to be a report to the European Parliament from the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, a report that would have us believe that something like ECU 36 million is going to be spent on converting the Belliard I and II buildings to meet their purpose.
I say to them: nice try on April Fool's Day but we look forward to receiving the genuine report on what should be made available for the conversion of those buildings.
Yet there are serious challenges before us in the buildings area, and I am sure that, in the approach that Mr Viola is taking, he will continue with the same level of serious scrutiny as we have had in the past.
The only area that I see seriously lacking in the Viola report - but I think we can take it for granted - is in relation to communications policy.
We have lots of discussions coming up on communications policy.
I just want to add one thought, and I say it with great respect to you, Madam President, as something you can take back to the Bureau.
I am increasingly of the view that to understand what Parliament's Bureau actually does and decides you have to be a Kremlinologist to read their minutes and get any meaning out of them.
So at this time when we are talking about communications policy, you can perhaps translate into the Bureau minutes the same degree of clarity, lucidity and transparency that this Parliament is trying to instil into the European Central Bank.
It would be a great service to parliamentary democracy.
Madam President, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop, on an excellent report on the guidelines.
As you might expect as the Committee on Budgets' rapporteur for the satellite agencies, I would like to concentrate particularly on paragraph 18 in her report.
This has appeared again this year in the guidelines.
The question is why should we have a paragraph on the satellite agencies again.
Many Members of this House and members of the Committee on Budgets will think that with Parliament's acceptance of the Kellett-Bowman report on matters relating to satellite agencies, the matter has been done and dusted.
This is not so.
Mr Liikanen has used the word 'serenity' but, as an Americanist, I would always say that 'eternal vigilance' is the key.
With the satellite agencies eternal vigilance is certainly the key as far as we are concerned.
While we want to pursue our paragraph in the guidelines, there is the question of the annuality of the budget procedure.
Over the last three years, great strides have been made in presenting the budget lines for the satellite agencies.
We have insisted on a number of guiding principles which I am glad the agencies have taken up.
And these have been pursued with the help of Mr Liikanen and his colleagues in the Commission.
What are these guidelines? Firstly, there are prior information and prior spending patterns.
We are looking at the way in which resources have been used for previous years, i.e. the take-up or utilization of each agency's budget.
This must play a role in the future allocation of agency funding in the European Union.
When we look at this year's Kellett-Bowman report on the discharge, we see that for Dublin there was an underspend of ECU 140 000; for Thessaloniki an underspend of ECU 1.28 million.
There are reasons for this, but these come into play when we look at future spending patterns.
I am sure the Commissioner is aware of these.
However, most importantly, we are concerned to look at the work programme which is set out and properly costed.
That work programme must be agreed with the various policy committees.
The second issue is transparency.
What we have tried to ensure is that the agencies come forward with a staffing organigramme.
We have succeeded in persuading the agencies to do this, but the work programmes are costed and we can see horizontally through Title I, Title II and Title III expenditure of the agencies' report, what each project is going to cost.
This is most important for us as a Budgets Committee, more important for the substantive committees, and it will be important for the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgetary Control when we come to look at the discharge later on.
We are making progress here.
My last point concerns accountability.
The key issue is how we allocate resources.
As Mrs Dührkop, Mr Tomlinson and Mr Wynn have said, we are utilizing EU citizens money'.
This must be seen to be done in a manner which is transparent not only to Parliament but also to the client group of the agency and the citizenship itself.
To achieve these goals, we have established and will continue to hold regular meetings with the agency heads and the rapporteurs of the substantive committees.
That process will continue this year.
How can we conclude? Mr Liikanen made the point about 'serenity' .
He said that peace has broken out.
It certainly has. Peace has broken out with the agencies.
We have a new process set up, but that vigilance is going to be important. I know that one of his colleagues, Mr Bangemann, said about Alicante that we must be vigilant.
The Budget Committee of Alicante is spending ECU 24 million on a new building about which the Commission knew very little and about which Parliament was not even informed.
Vigilance is the key, Mr Liikanen! We must tighten up procedures and we will monitor them both through the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Madam President, I too wish to congratulate Mrs Dührkop on her specific and essential report and recall that, within the framework of the rigour imposed by the Union and the Member States this year, the 1999 budget, as the rapporteur mentioned, should be the first budget of the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and should therefore contain choices that relate to the innovations of the Treaty itself.
This means that the budget should favour employment, as has been point out, through investment in infrastructure, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, investment in research and development, but also support for measures within the framework of local employment initiatives and regional pacts for the third system, in line - unlike what Mr Tillich maintained - with the commitment assumed by the European Parliament last October, as precisely stated by Mrs Dührkop in her report.
Training and refresher courses are considered to be two of the key instruments for developing adaptability and entrepreneurship and, above all, for enabling young people and women to find jobs.
These are the guidelines, and they were also recalled at the Extraordinary Luxembourg Summit.
That is why the LEONARDO and SOCRATES programmes and, more generally, education and training programmes need adequate financing.
Social dialogue, which is given an ever more important role by the Treaty itself, should find the necessary corresponding provisions and strengthening measures in the budget.
Mrs Dührkop rightly considers that the 1999 budget should be the citizens' budget, aimed at enhancing and improving economic and social cohesion.
In this context, the activities and networks of nongovernmental organizations, which make a fundamental contribution to the development of the European social policy for the elderly, the disabled and for the fight against social exclusion and which represent an essential means for citizens to take part in the construction of Europe, should continue to receive adequate support.
I wish to conclude by taking up a point, mentioned by Mr Samland, that seems particularly important to me: an essential condition for ending the procedure on a positive note is for the Council to sign the agreement on the legal bases.
I do not think the Council has any alibis any more from this point of view, and so I wish to conclude the debate - as I am the last one to speak - with this commitment: the Minutes of this meeting should be forwarded to the Council so that it knows that Parliament is no longer prepared, this year, not to reach an agreement on this matter.
Madam President, although it might be out of the ordinary in terms of procedure, I would like to say to Mr Tillich - and this is very important - that I am from San Sebastián and that I am a Real Madrid supporter because otherwise I would have problems with my two children when I go back home.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
However, I would like to draw your attention to one more thing.
You still have the opportunity, for 24 more minutes, to play an April Fool's trick or have one played on you.
Be careful!
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Wednesday 1 April have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I wish to comment on the Verbatim Report of Proceedings, to which someone has drawn my attention. I do not usually read my own speeches, but someone read this out to me.
There are two words in it which I would like to have deleted, because they were addressed to another Member and were not part of my speech.
The words are: ' Be quiet' .
Someone annoyed me, and I asked him rather sharply to be quiet.
He really did annoy me.
This was not addressed to Mrs Lalumière, and so must be deleted from the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg.
In any case, that is not part of the Minutes but of the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
The problem will be solved.
Mr President, I have some sympathy with Mr von Habsburg.
Nevertheless, our proceedings are supposed to be recorded accurately and that clearly is an accurate part of the proceedings.
I think he was entirely right in his comments but I think we should have the full rich tapestry of this House recorded rather than some sanitized version that suits us if we want to look holier than thou.
Mr President, it arises from the Minutes and the session news, which record my splendid contribution in which I attacked the British Government for its failure to join the single currency, thereby sacrificing 100 000 jobs in Britain.
Unfortunately it says that I am a member of the Party of European Socialists, and I am sure that they would not want to be embarrassed by that.
Perhaps we could have it corrected to recognize that I am an independent Labour member who sits with the Green Group in the Parliament.
Mr President, we decided yesterday that the debate on the Schaffner report should go ahead, but that we would let the voting wait.
Of course, the delay arose because the High Level Panel's report was only in French.
I forgot to point out something at the time which I hope is quite obvious, namely that the deadline for tabling amendments also depends on when voting is to take place. In other words, the groups should be able to table amendments once we all have the text and can read it.
That is what I would like.
Mrs Lindholm, I think your comment is justified.
I would like to say that the debate will take place, although there will be no vote.
It is only common sense that the deadline for tabling amendments must be extended, and that will be done.
(The Minutes were approved )
Rules of Procedure (new Rule 44a)
The next item is the report (A4-0054/98) by Mr Crowley, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on insertion of a new Rule 44a on other reports and the annual reports of other institutions in Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
Since for some reason beyond his control the rapporteur is not yet here, you will understand if I call on Mr Ford to speak.
So we are starting the debate with Mr Ford's speech.
Mr President, I was going to suggest that maybe we should take Mr Dell'Alba's report first, which is going to be very short and is also on the Rules, but if you wish to do it the other way round, I am quite happy to start.
Maybe it will give Mr Crowley a few minutes to arrive if Mr Dell'Alba is with us.
Mr Ford, your idea is extremely helpful, and I might have suggested it myself if Mr Dell'Alba had been here.
But he is not here either, so I would therefore ask you to open the debate.
I cannot go on to the other report because Mr Dell'Alba is not here.
Mr President, thank you very much.
I was going to rise to congratulate Mr Crowley on this report.
I still congratulate him in his absence.
It is a report that actually clarifies the situation with respect to the proliferating number of annual reports that we have in this House.
There was some difficulty in the Rules Committee initially and this report took some time before it finally emerged from the Rules Committee but when it did emerge it did so unanimously.
We have now got an agreement, at least in the Rules Committee, across the House with respect to this whole plethora of annual reports and it means that we have a clearly laid down procedure that we can follow in future and we will not have the constant debate about what route, what institutional route, a particular report should follow.
The Socialist Group will therefore be supporting the report and I congratulate Mr Crowley on it.
Thank you for your comments, Mr Ford, and for having helped me to get our work started.
Mr President, flexibility is the name of the game in political and economic systems these days and I think that Mr Crowley's report is to be welcomed because it is a contribution to this flexibility.
Mr Ford has already pointed out, and I am sure that Mr Crowley would have done so had he been here, that we lack flexibility in the organization of one aspect of our work: the response we have to reports that come from committees or outside bodies.
Mr Crowley's report restores that flexibility to Parliament, to the Conference of Presidents and to the relevant committees and I welcome it on that account.
There was some suggestion in the Committee that perhaps this report did not formally change the position but simply reordered and clarified it.
If that is so I would welcome it because I think that it is not merely the function of the Rules of Procedure to provide a minimum framework, a simply reductionist approach to the rules, but to encourage the right and rational outcomes.
Over the coming months and years, time in the plenary will be at a premium and it is undoubtedly right that Mr Crowley's report gives us the opportunity to be more flexible, to be more rational and to be more successful.
Since we are having difficulty in getting Mr Crowley and Mr Dell'Alba, let me make a general remark about the work of the Rules of Procedure Committee.
Sadly, with the exception of course of the people who are here today, attendance at the Rules of Procedure Committee is not always of the best, and yet the curious thing is that - like education - the Rules of Procedure are something that everybody has an opinion on, both in the groups and in the plenary.
I would like to think that in future the very interesting matters that we discuss in the Rules of Procedure Committee will attract the attention from all colleagues that they deserve.
Mr President, I wish to thank Mr Crowley for this excellent report and to comment on the utter Irishness of it, because not only is the rapporteur not there but it is a non-solution to a non-problem.
You could not in fact make a better job of it.
It is rather striking that the rapporteur for the next report, Mr Dell'Alba, is not there either.
Oh, he has just come in!
Perfect.
That is timing!
The fact is that we used to have just a single annual report by the Commission.
Now we have a proliferation of different annual reports by different institutions.
It turns out, however, that there is a difference between, let us say, those annual reports that are presented by the institutions as required by the Treaty and the other annual reports.
What I would have liked to have seen in the report by Mr Crowley was for us to do something with the reports, and that is not indicated.
We just have a debate, or we do not.
That is a non-solution.
Mr President, like the other speakers, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, who is not present, for an excellent report.
Of course, the aim of this report is actually to try to simplify Parliament's treatment of all the annual reports we have to deal with.
In his report, I think the rapporteur counted 25 different annual reports which are dealt with in depth in this Parliament, which means that we can handle two or three annual reports at most in each part-session.
Furthermore, this seems to be a growing trend.
If it carries on like this, I think we will find in a few years' time that most of our work involves dealing with such annual reports.
I do not think there is any other Parliament in the world that examines and pronounces in such detail on what different authorities have done in the past year.
I also think there is a link between these large volumes of opinions which are generated on annual reports and the low turnout at voting in our Parliament.
Last year - that is, before we had a financial incentive to take part in votes - the average turnout here in the Chamber was between 50 % and 60 %, which I believe is the lowest in any democratically elected assembly in the world.
When I am out and about talking to people, they often ask me why so few Members of Parliament vote.
The simplest answer is that an awful lot of our work involves expressing views which are virtually meaningless.
If we can simplify these matters with the Crowley report, so that we do not spend so much time producing views on these reports, but deal with the main and most important questions instead, I think we will have done something to make this Parliament's work much easier.
That said, I would like to thank the current rapporteur, and I will be listening very carefully to what he himself has to say.
Mr President, it is a very interesting innovation that this debate be rounded up with a contribution from the rapporteur, and why not!
I wish to welcome Mr Crowley's report.
This is a useful adaptation of the Rules of Procedure.
There was nothing quite so preposterous as to see this Parliament debating time after time reports on reports, especially, for example, the report that comes every year from the Committee on Institutional Affairs - usually with Mr Valverde López as rapporteur - where Parliament receives the annual reports on European Union from the European Council.
It is a report, of course, on the previous year. We usually receive it half way through the next year.
The Institutional Committee then drafts a report on this report, and we end up debating a year and a half later the events of a year and a half before on the basis of a report on a report.
This was, of course, nonsense, and there are many examples of this nonsense.
This change to the Rules of Procedure will enable us to get rid of this sort of nonsense, and where we do not have a very good reason for having a special report on a report, or a special debate on a report, we will no longer need to do so.
So I welcome this change to the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I will not need the five minutes as my esteemed colleagues have covered the most essential parts of the report.
I wish to apologize to you, Mr President, and to the House.
Unfortunately, I had a puncture in my wheelchair this morning and that is what delayed my arrival - I had to get it repaired.
I would like Members to be reassured that this is not an attempt to get certain issues off the agenda and stop them being debated within Parliament or to prevent committees from drawing up reports that they feel are politically important for those committees.
Rather, it is an attempt to try to bring into line the proper workings of this Parliament, to give more time for this House and this Chamber to respond more rapidly to the ever-changing political events that are taking place.
My colleague, Mr Corbett, has already mentioned that with certain reports we are debating a report on a report.
I would go even further and say that in other annual reports that have come before this Parliament, not only are we dealing with a report which may be two years old but we are also regurgitating and recycling information that was put in an annual report three or four years ago, and yet we feel that it all has to be included again each year, year on end.
That certainly wastes the time of this Parliament; it puts the services under tremendous pressure to be translating into 11 working languages huge rafts of documents which every Member does not read, which every Member does not take notice of and, most importantly of all, which the public and the media ignore totally.
The reason why there was some difficulty with this report initially was that certain Members who felt that issues of importance to them - I would cite Mr Ford, who had an annual report on racism in the European Union - were afraid that they would be knocked off the agenda.
I hope that my amendment which was agreed in committee will overcome those problems for them.
It also requires a bit of diligence from the Conference of Presidents to ensure that they do not derive undue power from the little bit of leeway which we have given them in this report.
Finally, I wish to say to the House and to Members that, with all of my heart and all the persuasive argument that I can muster, I commend this report to the House.
I also wish to inform Members that, because of the changes taking place in the Treaty of Amsterdam in the way this House operates, we will be dealing with more reports from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities in this Parliament that will be far more wide-ranging and innovative in changing the way this Parliament operates.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Modification of Rule 141 of the Rules of Procedure
The next item is the report (A4-0111/98) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on amending Rule 141 on subcommittees.
Mr President, I am sorry I was not able to help with a possible reversal of the order of the two reports. Having said that, I would like to start by explaining my report.
I must say, I am very pleased it has finally arrived in the Chamber, because the question is an important one. In particular, it helps to correct a situation we are aware of, which has not prevented our work but which, I believe, should be corrected from the point of view of the Rules of Procedure.
What is it about? The Rules of Procedure, in their current form and interpretation, give us to understand that the subcommittees, of which there are three in this Parliament, can only be composed of full or substitute members of the main committee.
This has led to practical difficulties in application, at the level of the political groups.
We are aware of the complex nature of these subcommittees. I am thinking particularly of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, which deals with human rights worldwide, and the fact that many of those countries, such as those in the third world, fall within the remit, so to speak, of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, for example.
Consequently, there is widespread interest, not only among the members of the main committee - in this case the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy - but also in the other committees represented in the Subcommittee on Human Rights. We have found the same interest in the other two subcommittees, albeit to a lesser extent.
So these rules and this interpretation of the Rules of Procedure have been ignored by the European Parliament which, through its political groups, has appointed to the subcommittees representatives who are not members of the main committee, as shown by the statistics in the annex to my report. This has created a breach, if not of the Rules of Procedure, at least of their interpretation.
We have heard the question asked by the chairman in response to a request from several members of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, and the Committee on the Rules of Procedure was greatly embarrassed. We either had to reassert the right - a right which had been violated - or, I would not say adapt to the reality, but recognize that, in fact, this situation might not be ideal.
Being responsible for this report, I have tried to summarize the opinions on both sides, reaching a solution that may seem to be a compromise but which in fact seemed the best way to guarantee both the fundamental link with the main committee and also the flexibility we consider essential to ensure the greater participation, the greater involvement of everyone in the important activities of the subcommittees. As we well know, such activities very often include reflection, discussion and investigation rather than legislative and operational matters.
So it did not seem to compromise the general rules to propose this amendment to the Rules of Procedure, which we will vote on later.
The formula is simple: that full members of the subcommittees should be full or substitute members of the main committee. In this way we are maintaining the fundamental link I mentioned, and maintaining the principle that the position of chairman of these subcommittees will therefore necessarily fall to members of the main committee, but we are not specifying and therefore leaving the door open to the fact that substitutes who are members of Parliament but not full or substitute members of the main committee may be appointed.
This seemed to be an elegant way of accepting the practice of this House, allowing other members to join the subcommittees and, in so doing, maintaining two principles: the fundamental link, but also the opportunity for greater involvement.
That is the proposal we are making and we hope Parliament will see fit to approve it.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Dell'Alba on his report on the membership of subcommittees.
As he has told us, there are three subcommittees at the moment: security, human rights and monetary affairs.
It has been clear for some time that people outside the foreign affairs remit - such as those involved with development - are interested in particular in the membership of the Subcommittee on Human Rights.
Also, there has been some interest from the committee on which I sit, which is the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and which deals with human rights in the European Union but is rather interested in human rights amongst the applicant countries that technically, at the moment, are dealt with by the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
We welcome Mr Dell'Alba's proposal to clarify the situation as it stands, which means that only full members of a subcommittee must be drawn from the membership of the committee; therefore, by analogy, implying that substitutes on subcommittees can be drawn from other committees as well.
I note that Rule 163(3) says that unless we specify otherwise at the time of the vote - maybe by an oral amendment - these rules come into operation on the first day of the next part-session.
The next part-session will start on 11 May - so that the adjournment, as Mr Corbett has just told me, will be the longest in our history, from March until May - and at that date we will find that the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs is not affected, but that suddenly two members of the Subcommittee on Security and Disarmament will no longer be eligible to be members, along with three members of the Subcommittee on Human Rights.
We need to clarify that.
Certainly the Socialist Group will be happy to accept that this new rule change comes into force at the beginning of the next Parliament.
But that is something for Mr Dell'Alba to propose, or else the consequences will be as I state.
Finally, I thank Mr Dell'Alba again on resolving a problem which, unlike Mr Wijsenbeek's intervention last time, certainly has a political dimension and is one that we are interested in resolving.
Mr President, like Mr Ford, I should like to congratulate Mr Dell'Alba on an excellent report.
In describing it he seemed a little reticent about calling it a compromise.
Perhaps to his Italian radical temperament the idea of compromise is one that is a little more suspicious than it is to the pragmatic British.
On the contrary, I would regard it as a great benefit and advantage of the report that it is a very sensible compromise between two desires, two considerations, one of which is to have a wide range of opinion and expertise working in the subcommittees, while the other is to have a clear line of responsibility between the subcommittees and their principal committees.
I am not entirely sure that, if we adopt it as it is, it will have the effects that Mr Ford fears.
After all, we have ignored the provisions of the interpretation up until now.
It would be slightly surprising if we became more dogmatic and more draconian in our application as a result of what we might adopt today.
One final point: quite rightly, Mr Dell'Alba did not make a strong point of the proposition that in reality the present interpretation is ignored.
I would not want to be committed to the view that if a rule is ignored it should necessarily be changed.
If it is a bad rule it should be changed; if it is a good rule it should be applied.
That is something that is of wider general application than simply to the matter of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Dell'Alba on his report.
It is a short report but also a significant one.
It has been quite a long time in committee, it has had a long gestation period, but even if Mr Ford is proposing - and I think he is correct to do so - that we delay its birth, it will still be very important.
It is always the responsibility of the parent committee to ensure that it knows what is going on in its subcommittees.
The purpose of a subcommittee is to report back to the main committee.
So the parent committee has to be sure that the subcommittees are clear in their purpose, that they are being consistent in the work that they do, and that there is continuity between the subcommittee and the main committee.
The previous rule, which was quite clear, was being ignored.
I take Mr Donnelly's point that just because something is being ignored you should not necessarily change it.
But there was an anomaly in the way the previous ruling was being interpreted, so that you could even have a subcommittee meeting - although it may never have done so - where none of the members of the subcommittee were actually members of the full committee.
Now, with this rule change, it is quite clear that the full members will have to be members of the main committee.
We considered having the majority of the members, but in the end we have settled for the full members.
That will make certain that the committees are not just independent but that there is interdependence between the subcommittee and the main committee.
It is for those reasons that I will be supporting the report.
Mr President, like the other speakers, I would like to start by thanking Mr Dell'Alba for an excellent report.
As I see it, it meets two requirements.
Firstly, it reinforces the links between a subcommittee and the main committee by stipulating that all the full members must also belong to the main committee.
On the other hand, it also permits a certain degree of flexibility by allowing the substitutes to come from another committee.
That may be necessary of course because, as Mr Dell'Alba says, there are some cases where matters need to be coordinated.
So it is a good thing for members from other committees to be included in dealing with such matters.
Some people have expressed fears about this structure, because it could mean that a rapporteur belonging to a subcommittee might be a member of another main committee. In other words, they could be a substitute in the subcommittee and then become rapporteur for a matter which was then taken up by the main committee.
That would mean that someone who was not a member of the main committee could present a report on that committee's behalf.
As I see it, this is a purely theoretical risk, since appointing the rapporteurs on individual matters is still the job of the main committee.
Presumably we can rely on the main committees not to appoint any rapporteurs who are not their own members.
Having said that, I would like to thank Mr Dell'Alba once again for an excellent report which I am certain will be passed by a large majority today.
Mr President, I would like to take up Mr Ford's suggestion, which I think is a wise one.
With the agreement of the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, I would therefore like to propose that it should be recorded in the Minutes that these rules come into force after the summer recess, on Monday 14 September, to allow us to adapt to the situation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Report of the High Level Panel on the free movement of persons
The next item is the report (A4-0108/98) by Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the report of the High Level Panel on the free movement of persons, chaired by Mrs Simone Veil (C40181/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before presenting this report by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on the report by the High Level Panel chaired by Mrs Veil and ordered by the Commission, I would like to make a comment.
I am very unhappy that this text is only available in French. I quite understand the difficulty experienced by my colleagues who, because there is no translation, cannot fully appreciate the finer points of this report on a report.
Furthermore, I am astonished at this omission given that the advisory committees working on this report were represented by Mr Newman on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, who is English, Mrs Todini on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, who is Italian, Mrs Thors on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights, who is Finnish, and Mrs Glase on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, who is German.
This is a complete mystery.
To allow my colleagues to appreciate this report, we agreed that no vote would be taken until a later date.
However, I fear this situation may lead to problems so we shall try to obtain a translation of the report.
The main conclusion of the High Level Panel is that, in general terms, the legal framework for free movement within our Union is in place.
In practice, the difficulties stem primarily from administrative problems relating to its implementation. These are sometimes due to ignorance on the part of national officials, but there is no doubt that at other times they are also caused by a lack of cooperation.
In order to iron out all these difficulties, the High Level Panel has made 80 recommendations which my committee and I have considered.
It is clear that Parliament is very familiar with these problems, thanks not only to the Committee on Petitions and the regular reports supplied to us by the Ombudsman, but also simply through personal experience gained while carrying out our duties as Members, when we are approached by ordinary citizens who have encountered problems.
Furthermore, we should not forget that the Veil report was not able to incorporate the Treaty of Amsterdam acquis since it came first.
Our Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs wanted to take the Treaty of Amsterdam into account by looking ahead to the integration of the Schengen acquis into the community framework and putting the majority vote into perspective.
We felt it necessary to define the free movement of people in a much wider sense than had previously been envisaged.
Free movement by definition involves the crossing of borders without controls, the right to live anywhere and to choose whether or not to work, in particular as regards students and pensioners.
There must be no discrimination on account of nationality.
The right to free movement is not only a fundamental right, but a right associated with nationality. Citizenship of the European Union is acquired through national citizenship and nationality and is also lost along with the nationality of a Member State.
We therefore want legal assistance to enable our citizens to exercise this right. In other words, we want to see advice bureaux set up in at least a hundred EU towns, and we want this move to be accompanied by somewhat less complex laws.
Member States will need to provide the requisite tools and will have to reach an agreement on political asylum, immigration, visas and external borders.
Without such an agreement, resistance to free movement will come from the citizens themselves.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has underlined the difficulty of solving these problems whilst still conforming to the unanimity rule.
We are aware of the need to respect the principal of subsidiarity. We also stress the need to act in accordance with Regulation 1408/71, by distinguishing the social security services which are exportable from the welfare services which are linked to residency, are non-contributory and are not exportable.
The practical difficulties related to permits and insurance need to be alleviated, and the problems of taxation need to be tackled since taxation is also linked to welfare.
The situation must not arise in which citizens are penalized because they are exercising their right to free movement.
Nor must the situation arise in which citizens, and particularly those living near borders, are able to play on the differences between countries to gain an advantage.
For it to be effective, free movement must also assist family reunification with children and dependent older relatives as well as non-dependent older relatives, although I think this last group should enjoy the right to free movement in their own right.
I would like to thank all my colleagues from the other committees whose opinions have been invaluable in formulating numerous recommendations which have lent considerable support to this report.
(Applause )
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the High Level Panel has done an excellent piece of work.
As Mrs Schaffner said, this is of course a problem which we in this Parliament have been aware of for years.
But it is an important task which needs to be carried out now, at a time when I believe mobility must increase and continue to increase with the euro.
We know that progress has been made with the other three freedoms, but that has not been the case in this field, partly because of a lack of legal instruments but also, I believe, because the political will is not there.
Also, we have weakened the position of citizens of nonMember States far too much.
There is a weakness in one respect, and I would like to point out that not even the High Level Panel has really agreed on how tax matters are to be resolved.
The report also reflects the fact that national legislation has ceased to reflect human reality.
We have a number of different kinds of mobility: moving completely from one Member State to another; working in border areas and living in one Member State and working in another; and having permanent links with a number of Member States.
This is a familiar feature of the Commissioner's homeland and my own.
We have experienced cars being seized when the authorities in one of these two countries take the view that the person in question is actually domiciled in the other.
I would therefore like to emphasize the proposal of the working group that, in regard to taxation, we need a common definition of residence.
I would like to ask the Commission what action it has taken in the light of the High Level Panel's report.1 I also think that an important element in the argument is that there is a legal basis in the Treaty, Article 100, which has provided authority for coordinatio on other matters of taxation.
I also think we should adopt the proposal that Member States should be able to read other Member States' so-called "smart cards' when it comes to entitlement to social security benefits.
Only an expert can deal with the jungle of the E111 form and so on.
It is now time to put this on the agenda.
Finally, I would like to point out that there is an error in the Swedish version when it comes to the national ombudsmen's duties, but this does not apply to the other language versions.
Mr President, first of all I wish to express my sincere thanks to the rapporteur.
She had a difficult task to accomplish.
On behalf of my colleague Anne-Karin Glase, who cannot be here today, I wish to present extracts from her opinion on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
The complexity of the overall problem meant that the committee had to restrict itself to questions of access to employment and social and family status.
The objective of the EURES network established in 1994 is to create transparency in the European employment market.
However, the fact that the employment market database has too little to offer is still the weak point of this system.
EURES is not well enough known either to businesses or to employees, and so is not getting enough information or use.
One problem is the recognition of proof of qualifications in the private sector.
As far as the non-regulated professions are concerned, unfortunately neither employers nor employees recognize the value of the qualifications demanded or offered in other relevant employment markets.
Earlier attempts to address this matter failed because of rapid job changes and because only basic educational qualifications are taken into account, not professional experience or further training, among other things.
Meanwhile, the regulated professions have achieved quite satisfactory results, with the exception of a few unsolved problems.
The situation in the public sector is another matter, because freedom of movement is far less well developed. Being a national of the country in question is often a requirement for employment.
Free movement involves the social rights and family status of EU citizens.
The provisions based on Regulations 1408/71 and 574/72 have made effective coordination between very different national insurance models possible, but there are still some matters to be resolved.
Such matters are of two types: those which can be resolved within the scope of existing regulations, and others for which this has not yet been possible because of the differences between national legislations.
The full principle of free movement also includes the right to take family members to the host country, but it turns out that in many cases social benefits are reserved for nationals only.
Another set of problems arises if the spouse is a national of a third country.
A detailed examination should be made of which stipulations based on Regulation 1408/71 apply here.
With regard to divorce, minimum protection should be maintained for a specific period, in order not to create potential pressure on the spouse due to any dependency.
However, I fail to understand why some circles in the European Parliament are trying to make previously unjustified immigration possible on the basis of family status.
This trend is expressed, for example, in paragraphs 9 and 11 of our opinion, and also goes against the vote of the Group of the European People's Party.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, further to the excellent work by the High Level Panel chaired by Mrs Veil, Mrs Schaffner has submitted an excellent piece of work as the European Parliament's rapporteur.
Although I have to say that my opinions differ from Mrs Schaffner's on almost all aspects - I shall explain why shortly - I must compliment her.
She has produced some very careful work, and made it easier for us to understand the essence of the interpretation of free movement on the Conservative side of the Chamber.
So, many thanks to Mrs Schaffner for having made her report so clear.
Clear explanations are easier to handle, and help to highlight distinctions.
Mrs Veil makes 80 proposals and recommendations on how to overcome the difficulties confronting EU citizens, as described by the rapporteur and the draftsman of the opinion, in order to take advantage of the freedom of movement specified by the Maastricht Treaty.
I have the impression that the Schaffner report appreciates what Mrs Veil says, but then describes how the difficulties which Mrs Veil wishes to eliminate could be accentuated.
The crucial factor - and I am grateful to Mr Schiedermeier for having spoken so clearly when standing in for Mrs Glase - is that we do make distinctions. Firstly, who benefits from freedom of movement?
"The citizens of the Union' , everyone says. According to Mrs Schaffner, only nationals of an EU Member State are citizens of the Union.
People who are long-term residents of the European Union, legally and with all the necessary permits, are not citizens of the Union but third country nationals, and must therefore be treated differently.
Let us consider, for example, the US businessman who works for Chase Manhattan Bank in Frankfurt, lives there with his family, earns and spends his money there and participates in local life. He is only allowed to do so in Germany.
If he is transferred to another country, a very difficult phase in this man's life in the European Union begins.
He must overcome a wealth of permit provisos from the European Union against third party nationals.
I deliberately mention the US businessman, because I do not want to make it easy for you always to speak of the people you are really thinking about in the debate about third country nationals.
That is why I refer to this US businessman.
I think it is a good idea to set up information and advice bureaux on European citizenship, although I do not think it is particularly sensible for European citizens to receive advice there from students, Mrs Schaffner.
I think qualified legal advice should be given by fully trained people, though I do not wish to belittle the status of students, who are sometimes cleverer than Members or lawyers, as we know.
The term "freedom of movement' in the Maastricht Treaty concerns people being allowed to exist with equal rights, as well as capital, services and goods.
That is why it is stated that capital, services, goods and persons have freedom of movement in the European Union.
We guaranteed this from 1 January 1993.
Your report shows that you can take goods, services and capital wherever you want in the European Union, at any time of the day or night.
Freedom of movement of persons, however, belongs to the Union of Mistrust, which you want, and which is far from reality.
Mr President, I note with pleasure that you allowed Mr Schulz to speak for a minute longer, and I am sure you will permit me to do the same.
First of all, I would like to say that I quite honestly think even more highly of Mrs Schaffner's report than the Veil report on which it was based.
However, I do not wish to deny the Veil report my appreciation, and I want to make it clear that we were pleased to note the extent to which freedom of movement has already become a reality in Europe, in law and in fact.
The first and most fundamental finding of this report is that we have considerable freedom of movement, to the benefit of all citizens of the European Union.
Further improvement to freedom of movement depends less on laying down new rules than on implementing the existing ones in the spirit of freedom of movement.
This is not least a request to all the authorities concerned, which are sometimes still petty in their actions and give us the impression that European freedom of movement is restricted rather than generous and liberal in its interpretation.
Having said that, credit is due to the Veil report for having pointed this out and to Mrs Schaffner for having highlighted it.
Of course, there are problems.
There are problems, for example, with workers' access to employment.
This is firstly because qualifications and diplomas are not fully recognized.
However, it is also because language in Europe does not just unite us, but can also be divisive when it comes to applying for a job.
I do not know what the solution to this problem is either.
Historically, other multinational systems have often had a common language: Latin in Ancient Rome, or the languages spoken in the Empire, and so on.
I see nothing here to help solve our problem, but the fact remains that there is a problem - we do not have a common identifying language. I mention this as an aside.
Mr Schulz mentioned the legal situation of third country nationals.
Under the Treaty, there is indeed a distinction between third country nationals and citizens of the Union.
That is established in the Treaties, and the fact that third country nationals cannot take full advantage of the rights of citizens of the Union is primarily their own doing.
They are free to acquire the nationality of a Member State, but most do not want to.
So it is up to them to break down the barriers.
This report shows that we have achieved a great deal in the area of freedom of movement. I think that to be able to note this on a day when two Member States, namely Austria and Italy, are joining the Schengen Agreement in terms of freedom of movement should make us feel proud of what we have achieved.
Thank you, Mr Nassauer.
With regard to what you said at the beginning of your speech - could you please put your headphones on - regarding your comment on speaking time, I would like to say that, in the absence of Mr Newman, the Socialist Group merely distributed their time between two speakers: one minute for Mr Schulz and one minute, which has yet to come, for Mrs Zimmermann.
That right is available to the political groups and is not up to the Chair, and that is why an extra minute was allotted to Mr Schulz.
So far as the power of the Chair to allow a little more time for Members to speak is concerned, all the political groups have had the benefit of my indulgent discretion in that respect.
Mr President, Mrs Schaffner's report raises issues which cause financial, political and social problems to those who either live or move within the borders of the European Union.
I wish to offer my warm congratulations to Mrs Schaffner for attempting to provide answers and propose solutions to these problems.
In this sense, the report is extremely forward-looking and not at all conservative.
If it were conservative it would not propose solutions or face up to the problems.
However, it is forward-looking in that it sees the problems, confronts them and proposes solutions to them.
The problem, however, is not whether there is Community legislation on all these issues.
We all know very well that the three institutional bodies have dealt with these issues.
The problem is that national legislation in the Member States either does not exist or has not been harmonized in a common direction, along common political lines which would make it easier to solve these problems.
A third point I would like to mention is that my group will of course be delighted to vote in favour of the report, but we disagree - for very specific and fundamental reasons - with Amendments Nos 8 and 9 and with the second part of Amendment No 11. We are under an obligation, firstly, to solve the problems of the European citizen by strengthening European cohesion and secondly, to deal with the problems of people from third countries.
Mr President, soon the new single European currency, the euro, will be introduced.
This is the finishing touch to the free movement of capital and goods.
Mr Schulz was of course right in saying that the free movement of capital and goods is being fully taken care of with the introduction of the euro, but we are not quite there yet as far as the free movement of people is concerned.
The Simone Veil High Level Panel has done excellent work, and I would like to say to the banks in question that I am proud that Mrs Veil was once the chairman of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party in this House, as well the President of this Parliament.
We can recognize her liberal approach in this text.
But for people to move around freely is not yet as easy as is sometimes suggested.
May I remind everyone that we debated and adopted three guidelines proposed by Commissioner Monti.
Those are now with the Council and everything has suddenly gone quiet.
They deal with the abolition of internal border controls; the unimpeded travel of people from other countries, that is third countries; and the abolition of restrictions on workers' residency.
The ball is now in the court of the Council of Ministers, and I believe Parliament should use the present debate to draw attention to this.
Organizational measures must be taken, certainly, as well as other measures.
I will deal with one of these organizational measures. We believe that in the next European Commission, one Commissioner should be responsible for the entire field of the free movement of people.
Furthermore, complaints bureaux are very important, but it is also important for civil servants, particularly at the European level, to become more helpful and citizen-friendly.
Mr President, I would like to conclude with one sentence.
The Veil Panel has produced good work, and so has the rapporteur; it is now up to European policy makers and civil servants.
Mr President, the free movement of persons in the European Union must be one of the objectives in the construction of a political Europe, taking into account the fact that free movement and its effective implementation are intimately linked to the concept of citizenship of the Union.
Many things must be improved in order to achieve truly free movement of persons in the Union, and the report by the High Level Panel, chaired by Mrs Simone Veil, recognizes this in its conclusions and recommendations. It underlines, in particular, the fact that the main problem in this field concerns the actual application of directives and regulations rather than a lack of legislation.
I would like to point out that both the report by the High Level Panel and Mrs Schaffner's report highlighted the problems connected with the free movement of citizens of the European Union, paying less attention to the problems related to the numerous citizens of third countries.
If we want to build an integrated Europe, but one which both shows solidarity and is open to the social and cultural contributions of other civilizations, we must also take care to improve and increase the transparency of the legal status of nationals from third countries.
In order to have a true citizenship which takes account of people from third countries, the procedures for granting visas must be improved, there must be better information and openness in these procedures, and the right to family reunification must be extended and strengthened, while always ensuring respect for fundamental rights and the right to dignified treatment and privacy.
In this respect, it is also essential to do away with unequal treatment between EU citizens and nationals of third countries, which exists because of certain national laws on aliens.
According to the Treaties, the free movement of persons should also apply to people from third countries who are legally resident in the Union. We must therefore demand that they be treated in the same way as any citizen in the Union in terms of their political, social and economic rights.
Finally, we must support a Europe which believes that its convergence with other cultures and civilizations is socially and culturally enriching and is not a danger for public order or internal security.
We want an open and united Europe; not a Europe which has turned into a veritable fortress.
Mr President, the report on the free movement of persons from the High Level Panel chaired by Simone Veil is well received by Mrs Schaffner.
It is perhaps possible that Mrs Schaffner is right to some extent at least.
But despite the report's very good, detailed explanatory section, it is impossible to relate Mrs Schaffner's report to the High Level Panel document, as this is only available in French.
I sincerely hope there will soon be an end to this unacceptable situation, in which essential documents are lacking in one or more languages. It undermines public support and trust in both MEPs and Parliament itself.
As my French is not that good, I can only comment on the Schaffner report itself.
The main conclusion of the report is that free movement has largely become a reality.
I think there are many EU citizens who would not agree, and who time and time again have problems themselves or meet people who have.
Nor can the problem be reduced to an administrative, bureaucratic matter, but depends of course on whether the Council is prepared to do what it should have done on 1 January 1993.
This deadline has been postponed time and time again, and the question is, when will it end?
What surprises me greatly as a Swede is that no account has been taken of the experience and knowhow which the Scandinavian passport system, which has existed for forty years, has to offer.
This is a different approach, but I believe it has a great deal to offer.
Mrs Schaffner makes a clear distinction between EU citizens and those of non-Member States.
She even argues in favour of discrimination.
In paragraph 23 we read: ' Calls on the Commission to make it clear that workers from non-Community countries are not entitled to the full freedom of movement of Union citizens' within the Union.
We believe this is totally unacceptable.
Free movement must apply to everyone who is lawfully in the Union.
Freedom of movement is not just about showing your passport.
Mrs Schaffner also looks favourably upon the compensatory measures.
The Green Group in the European Parliament has always distanced itself from compensatory measures, and we do so again now.
There cannot be any freedom of movement with them.
We are moving into a grey area of controls.
We are also opposed to the report's assumption that the Schengen Agreement and the Treaty of Amsterdam are already clear and ratified.
Two countries will be holding referenda on the Treaty of Amsterdam: we do not know how these will go.
The European Union and Parliament must not go so far that democracy becomes a sham.
Mr President, the Schaffner report is a good report and the usual congratulations must make way for genuine thanks for the quality of this work.
It covers the conclusions of the report published by the High Level Panel ordered by the Commission, and its text unambiguously underlines the obstacles and reticence which are still hindering the free movement of persons, even though the dissenting voices are somewhat more muted.
But to tell it as it really is, the quite scandalous and completely unacceptable situation in which we find ourselves is the fault of the Council, the Member States and the national governments. Scandalous because the Treaties imposed the establishment of true freedom of movement as of 31 December 1992 and it is now 1998.
Scandalous because, despite the iterative judgments given by the Court of Justice which upheld the Treaties, things have hardly moved on at all.
And scandalous because the governments of the Member States continue to drag their feet when it comes to implementing that freedom which is most important in the eyes of our fellow citizens.
We have actually been very rigorous in making arrangements to allow capital, services and merchandise to move freely yet when it comes to people, the Member States and governments have used all sorts of delaying tactics to hinder the initiatives from Parliament and the Commission, whose aim is to create a veritable union of European citizens free to move about as they choose.
The Council is the main institution responsible for this resistance.
Their timidity, the restrictions and the barely hidden sacred cows are holding back our national officials.
The Member States who are sitting on the directives governing freedom of movement should be sanctioned for non-application of the Council's decisions, however timid.
As for the national governments, they remain faithful to their traditions of conservatism and faint heartedness and refuse to apply the directives, thus adding to the already large number of petitions on the freedom of movement and appeals to the European Ombudsman.
The Commission itself uses a great deal of restraint when applying its right to take action against Member States who are in default.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the initiative to compile all the provisions relating to free movement into a single clear document so that these texts finally become accessible to the citizens and practitioners of European law.
The proposal to hand over responsibility for the free movement of persons to a single Commissioner is in the same spirit and should be actively supported.
However, the report remains tarnished with a worrying failing.
In paragraph 23, it mentions that workers who are citizens of third countries do not enjoy the same freedom of movement as EU citizens.
They are only allowed to stay or work in a different Member State as a result of the freedom of movement of services by right accorded to their employers.
This situation is quite simply unacceptable.
We must arrive at a situation in which anyone legally residing and working in the territory of a Member State of the Union is entitled to do so in any other Member State.
The practice of granting freedom of movement to the employer as opposed to the individual must be completely stamped out.
I believe that the two amendments proposed by Mrs Zimmermann, Nos 8 and 9, should replace the original text.
Whether or not they are adopted by Parliament will determine how the members of the Group of the European Radical Alliance use their vote.
Mr President, the High Level Panel report on the freedom of movement of persons in Europe has perhaps disappointed some of its initiators because it does not put forward any fundamental modifications to the existing legislation, and that is perhaps why it is so difficult for Members of Parliament to obtain a translation of this text.
Anyway, the report seems to say that the general legal framework is already in place, and that first and foremost it is a question of applying the existing texts.
As I am in the fortunate position of speaking and writing French, I have been able to understand the basic report and can inform my colleagues that this text is totally without bias and hence sits very well with all the rest of the literature on the subject.
For example, the report does not systematically wage war on border checks on people travelling between different Member States and even states, and I quote, "that the removal of such border controls should not be done to the detriment of security' .
Similarly, the report painstakingly avoids confusing the freedom of movement of European citizens with that of citizens of third countries, a mistake which is all too easily made in our circles.
Better still, it emphasizes the fact that the right to free movement of European citizens, as set out in the Treaty, should not necessarily be taken to imply the right to move about or stay without completing all the specific formalities.
Finally, the High Level Panel has burst yet another bubble by explaining that the free movement of citizens of Member States does not mean that they should necessarily enjoy the same rights everywhere.
On the contrary, each Member State should be able to retain a certain number of specific laws and the situation should not arise in which, in order to simplify the lives of 5.5 million people voluntarily living outside their own country, they complicate the lives of 360 million other Europeans who live at home and ask for nothing.
We would hope that common sense could be applied in all European policies, especially the single currency.
Once this framework has been reasonably established it becomes easier to examine the proposals put forward, which are not all equal.
Some are contestable at times, such as those concerning public office. Others however are more useful, such as the arrangements for retaining certain welfare benefit rights when working in several Member States successively.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by congratulating Mrs Schaffner on her report, which has proved to be moderate in its approach to free movement.
It is full of good intentions.
Moreover, there lies within it the desire to strengthen external border controls, implement new means of redress for individuals who encounter problems when exercising their rights, modernize social security rights and encourage language training and cultural exchanges. This we can be proud of.
However, this should not prevent us from criticizing certain unacceptable points.
Mrs Schaffner is effectively proposing to narrow the range of public office posts reserved for nationals and thereby, it seems to me, relax public office access criteria.
Under no circumstances can we allow a situation in which public office might be threatened where national preference still prevails.
In France, as in nearly all the other European countries, public office is reserved for nationals, and that is how it should remain.
The report also proposes a more flexible interpretation of the rules governing family reunification.
As far as I am concerned, I have always defended the notion of family because I believe it is the guarantee of our nations' survival.
However, the notion of family reunification cannot be extended infinitely, and it absolutely must not be used as a pretext for opening the flood gates to a wave of new immigrants into a Member State - immigrants who, to meet the entry criteria, merely have to claim to have a distant relative already resident within the territory.
The report also proposes improving the situation of third-country citizens resident in a Member State.
But is it not the case that everything is already in place to accept them and absorb them into the adoptive country? In France, foreigners legally established within the territory enjoy the same rights, the same privileges, as any French person born in the country.
Should they expect more? We do not believe so, for that would be discriminatory.
Finally, this report sets out to favour the free movement of citizens of the Member States of Europe.
All well and good. However, we must not miss the wood for the trees.
It has been clearly demonstrated that the Schengen Agreement cannot yet be applied to the letter because of the catastrophic consequences it has for the security of the Member States.
Removing internal border controls and replacing them with hypothetical common external borders means the free movement, trade and consumption of drugs, illegal immigration, insecurity and international crime, all of which continues to escalate.
We must look at the evidence: regrettably, the uniform conditions necessary for a European space without borders - conditions of national security, full employment and social calm - are not yet in place.
So yes, as it says in Mrs Schaffner's report, we do propose to strengthen border controls but, ladies and gentlemen, this must be counterbalanced by a coherent, dissuasive and harmonized immigration policy, increased cooperation between the police forces and the courts, and harmonization of the methods for acquiring nationality which must be based on affiliation and a restrictive policy on family reunification.
Madam Commissioner, I am glad you are here today.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think we are deluding ourselves if we believe that the free movement of persons in Europe has already been achieved.
Many of us have commented on the many restrictions.
But I think the report of the High Level Panel chaired by Simone Veil also shows how changes can be brought about.
It is quite clear from the 80 points included what the problems are - problems with which I myself have been very familiar for 27 or 28 years, I must say.
I am Dutch and have lived in Germany since 1970. 'So what?' you might think.
"You are a citizen of the Union, so that is not a problem.'
I could tell you of many problems which I still experience.
Of course, I now have a German diplomatic passport which makes things a bit easier.
But I also have a residence permit, which is crazy, but that is the way it is.
This applies to many of us if we want to take advantage of what is actually in the Maastricht Treaty.
The Maastricht Treaty also states that there could be many more people like myself whose nationality is other than that of the country they represent.
But it also states that we are entitled to take up employment in one country and live in another country, for example like transfrontier workers, who live in one country and have insurance in another.
I come from the Aachen border region, and I am aware of all these problems and the difficulties which exist.
But what happens if these people get divorced, as happens in almost one in three marriages? Major problems then arise regarding entitlements to pensions, social security benefits, family allowances, and so on.
I could go on and on.
I welcome the fact that we are tackling this problem and that much of it is addressed in the Veil report.
But I have been talking about people who have a European Union passport.
Suppose we now consider those people who do not have a European Union passport, or who have not changed their nationality, whether consciously or unconsciously, perhaps for the same reasons as myself, but have lived here for 30 years.
We brought them here to work for us.
You could say they have done their bit, and now they are out on their own.
These people have a great many problems.
Mr Schiedermeier says that perhaps they want to come in by the back door, but I would like to tell him about a problem I have at the moment.
The family in question has German nationality. Two children went to school abroad, but were not in Germany when they were 16, which means they have no right of residence.
Six children live in Germany and have a right of residence, as have their father and mother.
The other two must go back.
What sort of a country is that, if we send these people back, if we do not give these people the opportunity of being able to stay with us?
When we see that only Germans are accepted into the public sector - I was in the public sector myself for 30 years - and that many provisos apply to non-Germans, that there are no permanent residence permits, and so on, then I think we still have a very long way to go.
I hope our amendments are accepted, because that would then also let us show the Member States where we are heading at the start of the 21st century, namely towards a common Europe, where all citizens have the same rights and the same opportunities to cooperate in building this Europe, irrespective of nationality.
Mr President, it is not very often that, in order to rightly praise the work of a rapporteur, I can agree with the words of Mr Schulz.
But in fact, Mr President, I believe two things can be said about Mrs Schaffner's report: it is balanced and it agrees with the Treaty in force.
Mr Schulz has said the report is "Maastrichtian' .
Well, if that is what he wants to call it, then it is "Maastrichtian' .
It is in line with the text of the Treaty in force and I am therefore in favour of it.
Mr President, I agree with many of the points raised so far, so allow me to look at two more general points which I believe are relevant.
Firstly, we live in a frontier territory where everything that has been done so far casts both light and shadow.
Of course there have been shadows, Mr Schulz, but there has also been light, and many achievements.
And in response to an excellent speech by Mr Pradier, I would raise my first point. Mr Pradier, in fact the fourth freedom still remains to be developed, but we must not forget that one of the great successes of the Maastricht Treaty is that through Article 8 it bestows a political nature upon this fourth freedom, this free movement of persons and, if that is the case, it must also be the derived law.
So as well as the free movement of goods and capital, as well as the free movement of services - not forgetting, Mr Pradier, that behind every service, as you pointed out, there is normally a person who has the rights that any social and democratic country recognizes - the fourth freedom, the free movement of persons, is the fundamental political crux which transfers the centre of gravity of the European Union from the relationship between consumer and market to the relationship between citizen and rights.
That is a great achievement, and that is how we must highlight it and all its consequences.
Of course, from now on, the Amsterdam Treaty presents us with a challenge: incorporating into the acquis communautaire that which up until now has been, as I said, the frontier territory of the third pillar, in particular the free movement of persons.
That is our challenge and there is no doubt that it will present many problems.
However, it is also included in the Amsterdam Treaty; that is a great achievement and one which will have to be developed with all due caution.
The second point which I believe is relevant and has not been mentioned is the need to guarantee and consolidate the direct effect of Article 8A.
If Articles 8 and 8A are purely supplementary legal bases for the adoption of the rules of derived law, then the right of movement and residence of the citizens of the Union is based on the Treaty itself and not on the directives.
This must be remembered.
These rights are inseparable from EU citizenship, as are the other rights contained in paragraphs b), c) and d) of Article 8.
The report from Mrs Veil's High Level Panel supports this theory of the direct effect, and demands that every EU citizen should be able to invoke it in establishing the application of the principle of non-discrimination.
We would point out that the Court of Justice has not yet given a ruling, and we hope that in the near future, when it gives its ruling, it will help to consolidate this theory.
As regards the Commission, we must point out that in the proceedings brought before the Court, the Commission has maintained this theory of direct effect.
However, in the second report on citizenship, which is being debated in Parliament at this moment, the Commission only makes an ambiguous statement: that it would be logical if Articles 8 and 8A together generated rights relating to entrance and residence.
Nevertheless, in the last analysis it resorts to the legal bases of Articles 49, 54, 56 and 6 of the Treaty.
I will finish, Mr President, by saying that I think we must also point out that we are still lacking a single legal base for free movement.
In my view, these are the fundamental challenges which must be developed, from now on and with the Amsterdam Treaty in hand.
Mr President, of the four freedoms mentioned in relation to the internal market, the free movement of persons still poses some problems.
But that is no surprise.
Did the people who drew up the Treaty realize how broadly this freedom might be interpreted? And could they imagine how far-reaching the consequences of the free movement of persons might be?
The abolition of internal borders was in reality only possible in combination with compensatory measures and a very strong external frontier. Has this really been so useful to the citizens in the end?
All the same, the strengthening of the Union was an unavoidable consequence of the ideal of open borders.
Mrs Schaffner's reports discusses the High Level Panel's contribution to the debate on the free movement of persons.
To my mind, it goes a little too far, for example in its interpretation of the Treaty's regulations and in its exaltation of so-called "European citizenship' , an imaginary concept which is far removed from the people, but is forced upon them through promotional campaigns.
The amendments from both the Green Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the Party of European Socialists are truly unacceptable.
As far as the Greens are concerned, I would like to say this. The reference to the anti-discrimination article in the Treaty of Amsterdam is superfluous in a report on the free movement of persons.
But if you are going to quote, make sure it is complete.
Why table an amendment which lists sexual preference and age as well as disabilities, but leaves out gender, race, and religion or belief.
Through their amendments, the Socialists clearly want to give people from third countries more rights than EU citizens.
The logic of this escapes me.
At present a French citizen can settle freely in the Netherlands, as long as he can support himself. The person concerned is not a Dutch citizen, after all, covered by Dutch legislation.
This is a restriction, but to my mind a necessary restriction, otherwise there would be all kinds of social abuse in the various Member States.
If there are restrictions for EU citizens, than why should these not apply to citizens from third countries?
Indeed, why should they get more freedoms than EU citizens? These amendments are unrealistic, and if they are adopted we will most certainly vote against the report.
Mr President, on behalf of the representatives of the Alleanza Nazionale, in expressing our keen appreciation for Mrs Schaffner, we also wish to say that the High Level Panel's report shows considerable awareness of the vastness of the problems in the field of the free movement of persons.
Even if there have been considerable improvements over the course of the years, there is a need to eliminate the distortions that continue to delay the full application of the rules on the matter.
Reading Mrs Veil's report, we can see how the main problems relating to the free movement of persons are caused not so much by a gap in the legislation but rather by the non-application of the directives and regulations, which are at times obsessively complex.
There is also a problem with adapting Community law to national law, as in many cases the former is only partly included rather than in full.
So we need to put everything in order.
We should try to regulate the various aspects of this question with single directives or regulations, thus avoiding the problem of complex, indecipherable regulations.
At the same time, citizens' rights will be better defined through this process of simplification.
Citizens who decide to settle in another Member State of the Union should be able to benefit from the same treatment as citizens who do not leave their countries of origin, and not be penalized for making that choice.
The fundamental concept should be unique, based on equal treatment and the combating of discrimination out of respect for human rights.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by making an appeal to the European Parliament and all my colleagues.
This Parliament has always been the driving force behind the principle of the free of movement of persons as a fundamental freedom.
I hope this will continue to be the case during the debate and the vote on Mrs Schaffner's report.
The European Parliament must continue to counter the tendency found in many Member States to turn in on themselves and erect institutional and actual barriers to the free movement of persons, and even to discriminate against citizens on the basis of their nationality.
In my speech I would like to go into a particular point, namely the status of third countries in the context of the free movement of persons.
In my country, Belgium, a debate is taking place at present on the local election voting rights of migrants who have been resident in our country for many years.
My party, the Socialist Party, has been won over to this, but it is a terribly difficult debate, which has to cut across people's fears, people's racist reflexes.
However, it is incredible how many other forms of discrimination exist alongside this one against people from third countries, who are in fact permanently resident in Europe.
The right of residence, of being able to work in paid employment, or to become self-employed and even, Mr Schiedermeier, the right to live with one's family - a fundamental human right laid down in international conventions - are not evident to these people, and are even challenged by you.
Even though the High Level Panel had a limited mandate, it makes good recommendations. I believe we should support these in this Parliament.
Or do we think that a Turkish migrant from Genk in Belgium should not be able to look for work in Aachen in Germany, 35 km away, whilst his Italian neighbour is able to do so?
Do we think it is normal that a young Turkish person should have to apply for a visa to follow his football team on a trip to London, whilst his Spanish friend can do so without one?
Do we think it is normal that people from third countries cannot invite their ill relatives to come over here if they can guarantee that they can support them? Or is it humane to make a woman who has been abandoned by her husband leave the country, for the simple reason that she is not a European Union citizen?
My group, ladies and gentlemen, supports the abolition of all types of discrimination between citizens of Member States, and between EU citizens and citizens of third countries who are permanently resident here.
That is the purport of a number of our amendments.
I note incidentally that both the Veil High Level Panel and a number of proposals tabled recently by the Commission take quite a big step in that direction, and I hope you will be able to endorse our philosophy.
But after this debate I no longer harbour any illusions about the attitude of some of the political groups in this Parliament.
I would like to thank in advance the members of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, the Greens, and all the others who will support our amendments willingly.
Mr President, to the citizen, freedom of movement within the Union is perhaps the most concrete expression of what Europe means.
People can live and work in different countries and decide in which country they want to live, in the long or short term.
In the referendum on whether Sweden should join the EU, freedom of movement was one of the decisive arguments in favour of membership, but many transfrontier workers still have problems drawing their pensions and supplementary pensions, and problems when they want to register in another country.
Freedom of movement is on the way to becoming a reality, but some governments are dragging their heels.
There are reasons for showing them up as examples and a warning.
So we will take up Mrs Thors' topic.
The EU prohibits discriminating against citizens of other countries, but is it in accordance with the Treaty to discriminate against your own?
In Sweden, a large number of knowledge-intensive companies are having problems finding well-trained people.
Ericsson, the telecoms company, has threatened to move its entire development department and corporate management to another country if it cannot get foreign people with leading-edge skills to move to Sweden.
But they do not want to do so for tax reasons.
To solve the problem of high taxation, the Swedish Government wants to introduce special tax exemptions on the grounds of nationality.
Ordinary Swedish workers will have to keep on living with income tax at over 50 %, while at the same time, well-trained, highly mobile workers get tax relief - and this, according to my information, with the support of the Commission, which is thus directly supporting tax dumping for localizing businesses.
This exception for highly-trained workers will protect the high taxation policy which otherwise would become impossible.
Otherwise, freedom of movement would lead to lower taxes and equalized conditions between Member States.
The prevailing competition on tax has shown that a lower tax burden favours companies.
But if they are discriminated against if they stay in their country, and forced to pay tax to their homeland if they leave, then confidence in the EU will evaporate.
In our country, we are now seeing the principle of living standards dictated by nationality, which enshrines the principle of unequal pay for the same work.
Scandinavia is a very good example when it comes to a passport union, but it is an equally poor example when it comes to tax.
There is still a lot to be done when it comes to freedom of movement and freedom itself.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, I too would like to thank the rapporteur and the High Level Panel, chaired by Mrs Veil, for their work.
I believe that one of the most important successes of the European Union is the single market, which covers much more than the purely economic field.
This single market also involves new freedoms and opportunities for citizens in their roles as employees, consumers or members of a family.
So today, Community citizenship has taken on a new dimension.
Nevertheless, we must be aware of the fact that there are still many difficulties to be faced in order to achieve the complete freedom of movement which should have been possible since 1993.
The general conclusion is that the existing legislation is adequate.
So the problem that needs to be solved is ensuring that Community rules are effectively applied and, in my view, that is a great challenge.
As a member of the Committee on Petitions and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Unemployment and the Media, I can assure you that the existing problems, mainly relating to the recognition of professional and academic qualifications and residence permits, as well as such day-to-day issues as the use of motor vehicles, have direct repercussions on the private and personal lives of citizens and their families.
Nor must we forget that the lack of available information is to a large extent responsible not only for the obstacles to free movement, but also for a great deal of disappointment when citizens realize that their expectations are not compatible with Community law.
For example, many people are not aware of the steps which must be taken to ensure that their contributions to social welfare benefits are recognized in another Member State. Or to give another example, the costs of transferring money abroad are a serious difficulty for those people - such as pensioners - who live outside their own country for a considerable period of time.
In my view - and I agree with the report in this respect - gaps such as these could be filled by improving the public information campaigns on the rights of Europeans.
In the same way, it is essential to promote administrative cooperation between national and Community bodies and institutions, with a view to achieving transparency and comprehension of Community legislation. That would make it easier for citizens to ascertain their rights and obligations.
It would also be extremely useful to have the opportunity to run training courses for people working in administrative bodies, covering the most commonly encountered problems, so they can be resolved at a level which is closer to the citizens.
Finally, I would like to emphasize the measures presented in the field of education.
The study of foreign languages, cultural exchanges, and a consideration of the difficulties facing trainees and people with grants or scholarships are all problems which must be given special attention.
Ladies and gentlemen, the construction of a common educational territory is, in my opinion, the most important support needed in order to achieve our ultimate objective, the building of an area of true freedom and security within the European Union, towards which we must all strive.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome Mrs Schaffner's report on the report on the free movement of persons produced by the High Level Panel chaired by Simone Veil.
Of the four fundamental freedoms, it is the freedom of movement and the right to reside anywhere in the Union which are really taking a long, long time to introduce.
That was why the Commission set up the High Level Panel.
Their task was to examine any concrete obstacles to the free movement of persons within the Union, and to propose appropriate solutions.
The High Level Panel concludes that legislation on the free movement of persons already largely exists, and that most problems can be identified and solved without the legislation being amended.
The Panel considers that the main problem is the implementation of these rights.
To make it easier for individuals to exercise their rights in practice, the Panel has formulated 80 recommendations, which mainly concern: better information; which rights apply to the freedom of movement; increased cooperation between Member States; better training for national civil servants; and how to make it easier for people to seek work in another Member State.
I think today's debate is precisely about all these problems.
The report touches on citizens of non-Member States.
It mainly deals with how to coordinate the social security system which needs to be extended to cover those citizens completely or partially.
The High Level Panel also recommends more mobility for citizens of third countries who work in service companies.
The report is also in favour of mobility for the family members of citizens of third countries, but I would also have expected it to come up with more statements of principle when it comes to citizens of third countries residing legally in our fifteen Member States.
I believe they expect things of us.
Mrs Schaffner, the rapporteur, supports the many valuable recommendations from the High Level Panel.
A number of these recommendations will also be debated here in Parliament, for example in relation to the proposal on supplementary pension rights for workers moving within the Union, and the proposal to extend the social security system to citizens of third countries moving within the Community.
I share Mrs Schaffner's view that real work is required in the area of information, as regards both the citizens and the authorities.
As Parliament knows, the Commission has also taken a number of initiatives in this field, such as the EU's Information Programme for the European Citizen which was launched in 1996, and the Carolus programme for the exchange of civil servants between Member States' administrations.
The aim here is that the legislation covering freedom of movement in the single market should also be applied in practice by all our civil servants.
In other words, we need civil servants who provide a good service to all our citizens.
In reply to the report's exhortations to the Commission, I would also like to mention two important measures which have been taken and will help to ensure that the principle of the free movement of persons becomes a reality.
The first initiative is a plan of action for the single market.
One of the aims of this plan is to create a single market which will benefit all citizens.
In order to achieve this, work is now in progress to abolish personal ID checks at borders; review the provisions on housing; defend social rights; and make it easier for people to move around in the labour market within the EU.
Action is also being taken to improve dialogue with the citizens.
The other initiative I would like to mention is a plan of action for the free movement of employees, which the Commission of course adopted in November 1997, and which also affects some of the recommendations from the High Level Panel.
The second proposal made by the High Level Panel will be found in the Amsterdam Treaty.
On this point, the Commission is working to implement these amendments to the Treaty in the shape of practical policies as quickly as possible.
I believe both the High Level Panel's report and the Schaffner report provide a good basis for further discussion on what concrete action is needed to achieve real freedom of movement for the citizens of Europe.
Thank you very much, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be postponed until the High Level Panel's report is available in all languages.
Enlargement and cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs
The next item is the report (A4-0107/98) by Mr Posselt, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the implications of enlargement of the European Union for cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs.
Mr Schulz wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I refer to Rule 96 of the Rules of Procedure and would ask you not to open the debate now.
My reasons are as follows. We have 6 minutes left before voting begins.
Anyone who regularly spends time in the Chamber knows what will happen here in a few minutes time: a very undisciplined mass of Members will pour in, with no interest in any debate. They are only interested in the fact that voting is about to begin, and have no interest in the debate.
That is unfortunate for Mr Posselt, the rapporteur, and Mrs Spaak, the draftsman of opinion, and also for those who are still to speak this afternoon.
However, it is our duty to carry out these debates in a reasonably acceptable manner, and that is no longer possible.
Secondly, Mr President, I would ask you to convey the protest of at least the Social Democrat members of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs to the Bureau of the European Parliament.
Every time, we have the extraordinary pleasure of having to debate our reports at a time like this, which I think is inappropriate in view of the importance of the topics.
Perhaps that could be taken into account in future scheduling.
It is up to the Presidency to decide whether or not to postpone a debate.
I can see from your applause that you are in agreement with this, but I will give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Posselt, to allow him to state his position.
Mr President, I regret the circumstances which have led Mr Schulz to make his justified comment.
But I think it is completely justified, and I would like to state quite categorically that I wish to protest at the way this part-session is being conducted, both on behalf of my group, and as rapporteur.
I have absolutely no objection if these reports are discussed on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning.
I will certainly be here, and I think that each day and hour of the part-session is as important as any other.
However, I also think there are specific topics which are of interest to a wide public, and the extremely important matter pertaining to the Rules of Procedures which we discussed this morning, which is very important to us internally but is of no public interest, is quite definitely not one of them.
I wish to protest at the absurdity of us debating matters pertaining to Parliament's Rules of Procedure in the morning, at the most effective time for press coverage, and then postponing the important topics which are of public interest until the evening.
In accordance with what you have just said, I put it to the House that the debate should be postponed until 5.00 p.m. this evening.
(Parliament gave its assent)
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.00 noon)
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of welcoming today a delegation of 12 members of the Maltese Parliament, headed by Mr Spiteri, who are seated in the official gallery.
The delegation has come to Strasbourg for the tenth meeting of the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
Today they have attended meetings with their colleagues from the European Parliament, concerning both Agenda 2000 and Malta's relations with the European Union and its future prospects. There were discussions on the different fields of culture, education, research and development, cooperation on policies concerning immigration and the fight against terrorism and drugs, and the Union's Mediterranean policy, particularly the Euro-Mediterranean process.
I hope they have a pleasant stay and a very fruitful debate.
Mr Chichester wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I wanted to thank you for allowing a gap between the debates this morning and the votes at 12 noon to allow Members to come in and take their seats.
I am sorry some colleagues have been so tardy in doing so but thank you anyway.
Votes
Mr Dell'Alba has the floor to make a clarification about when this would come into force.
Mr President, I simply wish to confirm what I requested during the debate: that this regulation should come into force on 14 September, so as to give the subcommittees concerned time to adapt to these new regulations.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Mr President, I would ask for a revision to be made of the translations in the different language versions, in particular the German version, where I have noted that certain translations could give rise to misunderstandings.
Before the vote on paragraph 8
Mr President, before you call a vote on compromise Amendment No 22, I would like to intervene regarding paragraph 8 in its entirety.
If adopted, this amendment will replace two amendments: Amendment No 11 by the Group of the European United Left and Amendment No 19 by the Europe of Nations Group.
Naturally, as this is a compromise amendment, it is put to the vote beforehand.
Well, our Amendment No 19, which referred to paragraph 8, sixth indent, had two objectives: one, to add the words 'more rigorous use' ; the other, to delete part of the text.
I wanted to say that I am quite prepared to remove the addition of our Amendment No 19, but could we vote separately on the words Amendment No 19 was aiming to delete, in other words, the sixth indent of paragraph 8A - ' the possible incorporation of the EDF into the community budget' ?
That is my request.
You are right, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the compromise amendment does not exclude the amendments to which you have referred.
They will be voted on afterwards.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, what Mr Samland of the Committee on Budgets has just said was obvious to us, of course.
This view is shared unreservedly by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
I think the Council and its Presidency are aware that they now have to act to make funds available for Bosnia-Herzogovina.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy fully supports what Mr Samland said.
Mr President, I do not want a debate but just so that we understand the relationship between what the Foreign Affairs Committee was recommending and what my colleague, the chairman of the Budgets Committee, has just said, can I just for the record confirm that I was impressed by what Mr Henderson said yesterday as President-in-Office of the Council in responding to our amendments from the seat of the Presidency.
I am convinced that there will be time now before a final decision is taken in Council for discussions to continue.
I do not wish to delay, and neither did the Foreign Affairs Committee at any moment wish to delay, the delivery of aid to Bosnia or indeed to delay this regulation.
I think it is important, on the wider issue of our relationship with the Council on CFSP and other matters, that there be absolute consensus among the groups of this House which is why I did not press this matter, as you know we could have done, earlier.
I am content now to rest on the assurances we had from Mr Henderson and I am sure now this will actually lead to progress and I will sit down before you hit the hammer.
Thank you very much, Mr Spencer, but your speech would have been more appropriate during the explanations of vote.
We will continue with the votes.
Mr President, I shall be voting against this amendment which refers to the 128 encoding system, for two reasons.
First of all, the author has been unable to explain to me what this system is, and I would like to say that when someone proposes an amendment with references such as this one, they should at least supply the documents to which it refers.
My other reason for voting against this amendment is that I have finally been able to find out what it is about.
It is in fact a very expensive, primarily American bar code system to replace a very simple Eurocode system which will cost next to nothing.
There is therefore no doubt in my mind that this amendment should be rejected.
After the vote on the text of Annex 2(8)
Mr President, I am terribly sorry to have to point out that there were no voting machines working in this whole row of seats, which can be proved. And we would all have voted against the motion.
They did not work.
I am very sorry.
This will be recorded in the Minutes and the officials will go and test it.
Mr President, on this side too, there was a whole row, an entire block of voting machines which did not work. Could you repeat the vote please?
Because I have a feeling there was a more serious reason for them not working. I have a feeling they were switched off.
Mr Wijsenbeek, since you were once the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, you know that once the result of a vote has been given, it cannot be repeated.
Mr President, please repeat the voting procedure.
The German interpretation gave your words as: ' Please raise your hand clearly' .
No-one here realized it was an electronic vote until it had finished, so the vote must be repeated.
There may have been an error in the interpretation of what I said.
I think that was the case.
(The President repeated the vote)
Mr President, I do not know why, but during these last few votes there was a clear divergence between the numbers you read out and the numbers listed on my group's voting list, which in fact correspond with the numbers some of the other groups have.
That is why there is clearly some confusion over exactly what we are voting on.
Could you please call out the numbers, Mr President?
Because I have votes here, for example, on Amendments Nos 21 and 25, and on a number of original sections of texts, but it is not completely clear what is covered.
I think this is an important subject, so I want to know exactly what we are voting on.
Mr de Vries, we have just put the original text of Annex 2(8) to the vote.
After the vote on Annex 3
Mr President, I would like to inform you that I am present in the Chamber, I am voting and my machine is voting.
Thank you very much, Mr Falconer.
That will be noted.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, on a point of order.
Could you inform the House, before we start Mrs Lalumière's report, whether there are any appels nominaux in the course of the vote?
I believe there is no roll-call vote, Mrs Jackson.
I will announce it as the texts are put to the vote.
Mr President, does not the advice you just issued to Mrs Jackson defeat the object of the exercise? If we know there are no roll-call votes we can all go out now and have lunch!
Mr Falconer, I am sure the Members of this House do not need to be told in advance whether or not there are any roll-call votes in order to fulfil their duty.
Before the vote on Amendment No 5
Mr President, as the objectives of the amendments tabled by the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the Party of European Socialists accommodate each other very well, we also agree with the amendment of the Socialist Group if they agree to insert the word 'democratic' before the word 'Russia' .
The sentence would then read: ' considers that the European Union must develop special links with a democratic Russia...' .
(Parliament approved the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, the air in here is not just very warm, but stifling. It is affecting our concentration.
May I ask to have it checked so that the air in this Chamber is better at 3.00 p.m.
I will pass this on to the House's services so that they can confirm your request and look into the matter.
The European Parliament report on the guidelines for the forthcoming 1999 budget is written in diplomatic language and is at pains to mask the two major contradictions which need to be addressed, that of the Structural Funds and that of the single currency, not to mention the question of enlargement which will come later.
On the subject of Structural Funds, the application of the 1993-1999 financial forecasts, approved by the 1992 Edinburgh Summit, would, given the late payments, give the 1999 budget a figure of 1.325 % of Community GNP in credit commitments and 1.235 % in payment credits, in other words considerably above the ceiling of 1.10 % allocated in January during the orientation debate (which in turn was lower than the maximum of 1.27 % allocated in Edinburgh).
This progression raises the question of Structural Fund inflation and the fund's usefulness, which has already been highlighted by my group in a recent study entitled 'Welfare Europe or Europe of the Nations' .
It also raises the question of the legal nature of the interinstitutional agreements such as Edinburgh which claim to definitively link Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
It is quite clear that these agreements do not have the status of a Treaty and that the Council in particular still has the right to change its mind when circumstances dictate.
The second problem concerns the implementation of the single currency.
We can predict with certainty that this will lead to an increase in Community spending on inter-regional rebalancing.
This guideline will go against Member States' wishes to continue to reduce their public deficits in the years to come (as the figure of 3 % is a ceiling, not an ideal level), and in a wider sense to keep Community expenditure within reasonable limits.
Will this upwards pressure on expenditure be felt in the next year if the euro comes into effect on 1 January 1999? The resolution of the European Parliament suggests that this will come to nothing, and that is perhaps true since the full effects of the new system will not be felt immediately.
However, Parliament is prudently arranging an escape route by stating that the Union's budget must always conform to the terms of article F3 of the Treaty of European Union, according to which: ' the Union shall equip itself with the necessary means to achieve its objectives and carry out its policies effectively' .
The Commission has set out the guidelines for the pre-draft of the budget by highlighting the need to adopt a strict budget in order to alleviate the tasks expected of Member States preparing for EMU.
The budget is intended to increase by 3 % whilst monetary depreciation in the Member States stands at 1.8 % on average.
In real terms, the increase in the budget should therefore be of the order of 1.2 %.
However, when the principal budget items are analyzed, the wide range of the changes becomes clear: namely +8 % for the Structural Funds, +3 % for the programmes aimed at the central and eastern European and Mediterranean countries, +3 % for internal policies and 0 % for the agricultural budget.
We can therefore deduce that the agricultural budget is considered by the Commission to be a secondary item, despite the fact that in 1997, farmers' incomes dropped by roughly 3 % and agricultural expenditure was significantly lower than provided for in the agricultural section of the guidelines.
Our group is asking for an increase in agricultural spending in 1999 of an amount equivalent to that put forward in the pre-draft of the budget and in the draft of the 1998 budget.
It is important to reiterate that the final 1998 budget was reduced by ECU 550 million.
To this end, our group has submitted six amendments to the conclusions of Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's report.
In fact it needs repeating that it is essential to continue to subsidize incomes according to the measures set out in the 1992 CAP reforms, or else the credibility of the CAP - the aim of which is to guarantee a viable rural environment - would be jeopardized.
An examination of the agricultural proposals of the Santer Package, presented to us on 18 March last, raises a great many questions about the future of the CAP.
If the principle of income subsidies is flouted in the draft 1999 budget, our fears will be fully justified.
Given the state of mind of the Commission and the European Parliament, we wanted to reiterate in another amendment the compulsory nature of agricultural spending in terms both of the level of pricing and of income subsidies.
Finally, as rapporteur for the 1998-1999 agricultural prices, I have been able to carry out a detailed analysis of the Commission's proposals.
As Commissioner Fischler said, the package price remains stable virtually in its entirety.
In reality, as I have already told my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, agricultural prices and subsidies will see a twofold drop: firstly due to the 1.8 % monetary depreciation in relation to the previous year and secondly, as of 1 January 1999, a drop of approximately 3 % for those Member States participating in the euro, due to the withdrawal of the green ECU.
There is no trace of any compensation for the loss of income associated with the green ECU in the budget pre-draft.
The farmers are therefore going to get the impression that they alone are financing the implementation of the euro, both through the resultant budgetary constraints and through the withdrawal of the green ECU.
This situation cannot be tolerated!
The 1999 budget will be the last European Union budget before the Council of Ministers adopts the new 2000-2006 financial perspectives and the euro becomes a reality.
Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has found herself on the horns of a difficult dilemma, namely how to maintain the strict budgetary controls adopted by the Member States whilst incorporating into the European budget the financial consequences of the third stage of economic and monetary union, the Treaty of Amsterdam, Agenda 2000, and the pre-accession of the central and eastern European countries.
There is no response to this question in the report.
On the contrary, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop attempts to reconcile conflicting interests without identifying actual priorities and satisfying the various parties and lobbies who enjoy the Community manna.
With the exception of agriculture, which is strictly ring-fenced, there seem to be no strict budgetary controls.
Paradoxically, with the ECU 150 million adopted at the Luxembourg Summit, employment looks like the poor relation in the European budget.
In truth, only simple cosmetic measures have been taken.
This budgetary conformism accurately sums up the budgetary guidelines of the European Parliament for 1999.
It does not break with its bad traditions, which we have challenged on numerous occasions, namely: clientelism, fraud, wastage, politicization and United Nations embezzlement.
Cabrol report (A4-0112/98)
I always pay attention to the work our colleague Mr Cabrol does in this House because he contributes valuable and extremely precise professional help, together with a tremendous sense of responsibility in the area of public health.
I also believe that the amendments proposed by the rapporteur point towards increased safety for both donors and recipients.
In that sense, they can restore confidence to both parties, which is something that is much needed.
However, we must not forget the problems associated with a lack of blood and derived products within the European Union.
The quality and safety criteria are happily taken into account by the Commission.
These measures will be instrumental in wiping out the stigmas caused by the contaminated blood crisis and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in France and in Europe.
Although we might consider that there is now virtually no risk as regards AIDS, it is vital that we take all known measures to eradicate all risks of transmitting the BSE agent.
Mr Cabrol's amendments meet this safety requirement.
As regards imported blood, we must, at all costs, avoid repeating past errors so that the recipients of blood transfusions can once again have complete confidence in the procedure.
There is a heightened duty of transparency and vigilance.
Finally, I would like to insist upon blood and plasma donations remaining free.
That is the only way to avoid corruption.
This point needed repeating, and that has been done in the report.
There are many of us who fight for this - whether blood donors like myself or not - and who support these proposals.
Timely and reliable clinical and laboratory control is a necessary precondition for the collection and provision of blood.
In this connection, the proposals contained in the Cabrol report are especially significant and are a positive step aimed to guarantee the monitoring which must be carried out both on the donors and on the storing and availability of blood supplies and blood products.
We consider that, to avoid a repetition of the defective monitoring procedures that are becoming ever more widespread in the EU, resulting in the spread of serious diseases that have justifiably given rise to social unease, responsibility for the collection and provision of blood and blood products must be assumed exclusively by public organizations which have the necessary experience and infrastructure. At the same time we must ensure that this vital treatment, which offers substantial help to those suffering from serious chronic conditions or diseases which require the immediate intervention of the medical services, does not become a means for unaccountable large multinational corporations to indulge in profiteering.
Moreover, the products of blood donation, which must be voluntary and not undertaken in return for payment, must be made available free of charge for those in need.
The coincidental problem of the long-term lack of blood at national level calls for common regulations to be implemented by national bodies, with a permanent system of continuous intercommunication on the system of blood donation, existing supplies, and methods for storing and transporting these supplies. This will ensure the timely and safe use of these reserves throughout Europe.
We cannot legislate for morals.
However, it behoves us to guarantee all those preconditions that will ward off anything that is opposed to individual and social rights to health and life.
Raising the awareness of the general public, ensuring the highest level of scientific research, and monitoring national and scientific bodies to prevent the production of products which will threaten an individual's health, are necessary safeguards against the criminal phenomena of distributing contaminated blood and blood products.
We accept the need for checks on the blood that is collected, and we demand regular analysis and monitoring of data on the indicators of viral diseases in an attempt to prevent the danger of them spreading. However, we must denounce attempts to create a new apartheid with the proposals that have been made regarding the exclusion of donors who have travelled to Africa.
Moreover, we must express our deepest concern about attempts to introduce, under the guise of health protection measures, the unacceptable measures provided for in the Schengen Agreement concerning the invasion of an individual's private life through the setting up of questionnaires relating to their sexual behaviour and sexual relations. These measures do not avert any danger whatsoever - they are merely being used as a pretext to make the violation of the private life and dignity of the individual both socially acceptable and commonplace.
I would like to thank and congratulate Professor Cabrol on his report on the Council's recommendation concerning the admissibility of blood and plasma donors and the tests carried out on blood donor samples in the European Union.
I would like to make a point of restating that both on ethical grounds and in order to guarantee the safety of blood products, blood donors and blood users, it is absolutely vital that donations remain free and are done on a voluntary basis.
This text should pave the way for achieving the highest level of safety.
The donor exclusion criteria which should prevail throughout Community territory, as set out in Annex 5 - with the exception of the criteria excluding homosexual men which seemed to me to be wholly discriminatory - will help to provide this level of safety, which each citizen has a right to expect.
Furthermore, the setting up of a single donor registration and identification system common to all the Member States certainly constitutes a step forward.
It will be much quicker to consult the resultant centralized database and this will provide an added product safety measure.
Needless to say, this data must remain strictly confidential, and one of the main guarantees of this is the donor identification encoding system which is unique and common to all the States.
It might seem astonishing that a Member should vote against a report whose goals he shares.
Of course, everybody is in favour of improving the safety of transfusions and therefore of surrounding blood donations with precautions aimed at protecting the health of the recipients.
But the guarantee so given must be on technical grounds and must not disguise political, moral or religious beliefs.
It therefore seems to me that the Council's recommendation - barely improved by the proposals of our committee and its rapporteur - distances itself from concerns for public health to give a normative legal value to highly discriminatory prejudices.
In the first place, building a database of people excluded from giving blood is contrary to the principal of confidentiality which must go hand in hand with the detection and treatment of certain illnesses, particularly AIDS.
Even if it were possible to guarantee the confidentiality of the database, it would still supply personal information about these illnesses to persons other than the sufferers and the doctors treating them, which is in contradiction to the rules adopted in most countries of the Union.
Above all, section 5 of the explanatory statement, recitals 21 and 25, and paragraph 5 of the recommendation of Annex 2 of this text are completely unacceptable when taken together.
It emerges that from the Council's point of view, the following are excluded from giving blood and should possibly be filed as such: homosexual men; persons who have had sexual relations in Africa; and persons who have been sexually active in another country - to be specified - other than Africa.
In addition, journeys outside Western Europe and North America should also be declared.
What emerges from these proposals is that for the pseudo-scientists who drew up this text, the threat posed by a person cannot be attributed to risky behaviour - which is something that everybody could understand and accept - but to their sexual orientation, the place where they live and their race.
The European Parliament would be doing itself a service by refusing such proposals a great deal more energetically than has the rapporteur.
We have already seen through other recent reports that the road to hell is often paved with good intentions.
Our very legitimate compassion for the victims of transfusion accidents must not be allowed to eclipse the principles of non-discrimination upon which the European Union is founded, nor should it be allowed to encroach in even the slightest way on essential civil liberties.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of Mr Cabrol's report.
The report, which is a recommendation to Member States, underpins the Danish desire for voluntary and unpaid blood donations.
Article 129 of the Amsterdam Treaty introduces a high level of health protection in Community policy, including measures aimed at setting high standards with regard to quality and safety of organs and substances of human origin, blood and plasma.
This is to prevent blood and plasma from becoming common commodities.
The Cabrol report of course addresses a major problem, namely that of the safety of the supply of blood donations in Europe.
Nevertheless, I believe it is legitimate to question the effectiveness of the principle of creating a donor exclusion database and related European files.
But above all, in spite of the references to confidentiality, the very principle of building such a database poses serious problems with regard to the protection of civil liberties and the individual, as do the exclusion criteria which in places have discriminatory aspects - homosexuals, prostitutes, and so on.
Although the existence of a blood donor exclusion register in each transfusion centre might be acceptable, extending it to cover all the countries of Europe is a very risky undertaking.
That is why I believe the Council should review its position.
I have therefore voted against this report.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Krarup and Sandbaek (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) We the undersigned Members have voted against Mr Cabrol's report on the Council's recommendation on the suitability of blood and plasma donors and the screening of donated blood within the European Community.
We have done so for a number of reasons.
Firstly, we believe it is totally superfluous to introduce a central register, and hence central registration, of donated blood and donors.
In any case, the volume and type of data which would have to be registered is overwhelming.
We believe it would be much better to transmit the information directly from country to country if it is needed.
Secondly, the report and the Council's approach violates personal integrity.
We see absolutely no reason why a donor should give information about any sexual activity in Africa, let alone who he or she may have had relations with and when.
Thirdly, we would very much like to see the Council of Europe, which has been dealing with this area for years, continue to do so.
We cannot see any reason why the EU should deal with this area as well.
I would like to congratulate our colleague, Professor Cabrol, on his report on the Council's recommendation concerning the admissibility of blood and plasma donors and on the screening methods used for blood donations in the European Community.
This recommendation is aimed at providing a high level of safety, and for this reason donations must be both voluntary and free.
Donors must also answer a series of questions which are listed in Annex 2, and must meet certain criteria which are listed in Annex 5 and which, of course, should not be discriminatory.
A single, common system for the whole Community territory for the purpose of identifying and registering donors and related data would provide much quicker access and consultation.
The confidentiality of such information would, furthermore, be guaranteed by an identification encoding system.
Lalumière report (A4-0060/98)
Mr President, I abstained from the voting on the Lalumière report, although it is really excellent.
However, some amendments have diluted the report somewhat.
The report does justice to the task, accurately describing Russia as one of the European Union's major partners and specifying a clear strategy for the European Union's cooperation with Russia.
However, I regret that talking about the question of Russia's membership or non-membership of the European Union gave the impression that this was under discussion.
It was not, and is not, under discussion.
If that is made clear, I think we may be content with the report.
Mr President, I voted in favour of Mrs Lalumière's report.
It is an extremely important one.
However, I would like to point out that some of its content does not entirely reflect my own views on foreign and security policy, especially in connection with EU/WEU/NATO- Russian cooperation.
But I think it is essential that the EU should give its support in any way it can to developing relations and cooperation between NATO and Russia.
That is why this report is an important one.
I voted for it, although I cannot completely agree the solutions which were approved in the part-session.
Paragraph 54 of the proposed report states that the EU will develop close links with Russia through the partnership and cooperation agreement, but also emphasizes that Russia cannot be a Member State in view of its size and its Euro-Asian interests, and in view of the EU's highly integrated nature.
For the European Parliament to pronounce on Russia possibly eventually joining the EU is totally inappropriate, not least because Russia has not actually applied to join.
Rather, it must be in the EU's interest to establish close links with Russia which could be developed into close cooperation to strengthen and guarantee international peace and security.
It would be totally inappropriate to adopt paragraph 54.
If such arguments were adopted in the case of Russia, they could also be put forward if Belarus and the Ukraine applied to join in the future.
Paragraph 46 emphasizes that it has only been possible to develop security links with Russia since it was decided to integrate the Western European Union with the EU.
But we have to remember that, to the Russian establishment as a whole, the extension of NATO means an increased threat to Russia's security.
The European Union therefore has a very important task: to help reduce the unease which the extension of NATO means to Russia, rather than increasing it.
This report, on a subject which is acknowledged to be difficult, and presented by our colleague Catherine Lalumière, is important for several reasons and great care has gone into producing it.
This is no less that we would have expected from its author, whom I would like to congratulate most warmly.
Although everybody can rejoice at the economic and democratic transition which is forging steadily on, real questions and worries remain.
I believe it is vital to enter into real collaboration against organized crime since this appears as an ever growing threat not only in Russia, but in the whole of Europe.
Needless to say, this collaboration will not be possible without the participation of Russia, by means of a frontal assault on the corruption which is endemic to the country.
This effort will also provide a solid basis for lasting and healthy economic relations between the European Union and Russia.
There can be no true area of free exchange without this pre-condition.
We must be able to say this to our Russian counterparts.
But are they capable of listening?
With the dismantling of the USSR and its satellites came the hope of a peaceful and stable Europe.
However, the reality is far from this.
Of course, we might legitimately think that the risk of a major conflict has gone, but Yugoslavia and Kosovo are there to remind us that low intensity conflicts can still arise which could lead to major crises.
Finally, whilst reiterating my support for this text, I would also like to emphasize that I share Mrs Lalumière's position on not inviting Russia to join the European Union.
It seems to me that this is a position which none of the parties want.
It would be far better for another democratic body to be organized in the East around Russia, which could negotiate economic, cultural and political agreements with the European Union.
Relations between Member States of the European Union and Russia can only be based on equality and mutual benefit.
Institutions expressing the interests of large multinational corporations are making concerted efforts to make the people of Russia serve their illegal interests. Unfortunately the European Union, in complying with the dictates pronounced by NATO, is also attempting to form in Russia a developmental model which is consistent with its own interests, while remaining indifferent not only to the repercussions this will have on the Russian people but also to the dangers of destabilization and conflagration in the region.
Following the overthrow of the USSR and the promotion and support, direct or indirect, of the so-called Russian Mafia, which controls a large section of the economic and therefore the social life of the country, plans are being pushed through to strengthen the process of democratization, which aims to completely marginalize the Russian people and to subject them to the geopolitical dictates of NATO and the USA.
The enlargements of NATO and of the European Union aim to create a new border, which will bring NATO forces and interests into direct contact with Russia.
It is to be noted that European Union strategy with regard to Russia promotes reform of the latter's political structure, by means of funding programmes, and especially by means of the TACIS programme, to the point where the need for the emergence of a middle class to support political power is underlined.
In the context of the new carving up of the markets, there is an attempt by large monopolistic interests in the European Union to secure the Russian market for their own economic and geopolitical interests, thereby intensifying the exploitation of working people.
We support proposals which are aimed at direct contact and dialogue between analogous bodies and institutions in Russia, the European Union and its Member States, whose aim will be to look for opportunities and to fashion agreements for the development of cooperation on all sides. Such cooperation will fulfil the need to create an area of peace and prosperity in Europe and to avoid friction and conflict between the various parties.
We are radically opposed, however, to the substance given today by the European Union to the promotion of a dialogue, the sole aim of which is to overcome the resistance of this country to accepting the leading role of the USA, closely followed by the European Union, in Europe and throughout the world.
It is crucial for the European Union radically to change its position, to reexamine the objectives it has set itself and the methods it uses, and to accept the significant role that Russia is being called upon to play in developments both in Europe and further afield. The European Union must recognize the fact that only through equal relations based on mutual benefit will peace and stability be guaranteed in the region, and it must allow Russia to heal the wounds caused by the overthrow of the USSR in the way it chooses.
Russia is an unstable country in terms of democracy.
What we have to prevent at all costs is the construction of an EU and European partnership which Russia perceives as a threat.
This can be done by integrating Russia in European cooperation as far as possible.
This includes NATO, which the report does not cover.
To keep on building the EU up towards a kind of EU state is the worst possible way of establishing good relations with Russia.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted in favour of Mrs Lalumière's own-initiative report on the future of our relations with Russia.
The general tone of the text is correct when it highlights the fact that the current weakening of Russia represents a transition in its history, and that the equilibrium of the European continent will largely be determined in the coming years by the role Russia plays.
Our own development is also linked to that of Russia: we need only think of the vast untapped energy reserves and natural resources in Siberia, which Russia must exploit with our active help.
The priority given by the rapporteur to consolidating Russian society is completely pertinent.
Let us not confuse the Russia of today with an emerging country whose financial difficulties can be alleviated with traditional financial aid.
First of all, the new democratic Russia needs us to take into consideration the huge efforts it must make to overcome the legacy of 80 years of communism.
We must help Russia overcome the traumas left behind by 80 years of a planned economy and abnegation of political and social life by single party rule, the outcome of which is the absence of an elite trained in anything other than nomenklatura , the absence of a middle-class, and the absence of a long period of maturation of a civil society.
Gaps like these cannot be made up in one day!
They must start from scratch: after a very long and painful hiatus, Russia must get back to the dynamism and poise it enjoyed at the beginning of the century, which the revolution of 1917 stopped dead in its tracks.
The Lalumière report has the merit of deliberately placing itself outside the two stereotypical visions of today's Russia, namely the anecdotal and catastrophic view disseminated all too frequently by our media and the menacing view maintained by those who have not yet understood the magnitude of the transformations which have already taken place and who want to think of Yeltsin's Russia as simply a continuation of Brezhnev's USSR.
However, those who knew Brezhnev's USSR and witnessed the first Russian democratic presidential elections are in a position to measure the chasm separating the two eras.
The Russian people fairly and squarely turned the page and rejected the Communist regime in free and open elections.
It is with this Russia, which has emerged from the Soviet Union which had engulfed and disfigured it, that we must increase our ties.
We must renew the old links and develop new relationships at all levels, the main one being, of course, intergovernmental relations, a point on which the rapporteur remains much too discrete.
It is actually up to the heads of state and government and those who want to see an active Russian policy to break free from the attitude of distant observation which has been all too prevalent up till now, to draw up guidelines for intensive cooperation with ambitious and bold objectives, and to resolutely back the Russian reformers.
We should congratulate ourselves on the confident atmosphere surrounding the recent tripartite summit between the Presidents of France and Russia and the German Chancellor.
The Community cooperation programmes can make a useful contribution towards the development of a vast partnership in all domains.
True, as set out in paragraph 31, strict controls over the funds allocated to Russia must be observed, but the rapporteur could have insisted in a symmetrical article on the need for the Commission to exercise equally strict controls over its own services operating on Russian soil, which have not always given the impression of integrity and professionalism which we would all like to promote.
Whatever happens, the Member States of the European Union must guard against their actions being driven by the politics of the bloc which the Russians themselves rejected, which would carry the risk of very quickly erecting a new and completely artificial wall on the continent of Europe.
Certainly, security - our security - now involves cooperation with Russia.
In this respect, it is particularly regrettable that the majority of the European members of NATO allowed Washington to impose an enlargement of the organization upon them, an act guaranteed to further raise the suspicions of the Russian leaders and mar Russian opinion rather than inspire confidence.
It is high time Europeans overcame their reluctance, their mistrust, their stubborn prejudices and the inertia generated by years of the Cold War and fundamentally changed their approach to defence and the way it should be organized by closely linking it with Russia.
(The sitting was suspended at 13.34 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0391/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Eisma, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on the forest fires in Brazil; -B4-0396/98 by Mr Dell'Alba and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the forest fires devastating the north of Brazil; -B4-0404/98 by Mr Azzolini and others, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on tropical forest fires in South America and South-East Asia; -B4-0405/98 by Mr González Álvarez and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the forest fires in Brazil; -B4-0410/98 by Mrs van Putten and Mr Newens, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the forest fires in Latin America and South-East Asia; -B4-0415/98 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the serious problems caused by the weather phenomenon El Niño in particular in Peru and Ecuador; -B4-0418/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the new forest fires in South-East Asia; -B4-0421/98 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the forest fires in Brazil.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, in Latin America, Brazil and Asia the world's lungs are on fire.
Kalimantan and Brazil have been ravaged by massive fires for weeks.
The Brazilian Government is refusing help - let us not beat around the bush - and in doing so appears to be supporting the large landowners.
It is a disgrace that short-term economic gain is pursued this way, at the expense of the most beautiful and most vital parts of the natural world.
Europe should not stand idly by.
It is in our interest that these fires should be extinguished as soon as possible.
We should put pressure on the countries concerned to accept all international support, and the European Union should give technical aid alongside the United Nations towards actually extinguishing the fires.
Existing European Union budget lines are not being effectively utilized, or at least not sufficiently.
Obviously, structural measures must also be taken to prevent a repeat of these disasters.
Countries in South-East Asia and Latin America must implement effective legislation and take different measures to combat the slash-and-burn methods, or manage them better.
The Commission should also move more quickly in drawing up guidelines for importing tropical hardwood into the Union.
More support must be given to the sustainable management of crops, whilst the Mega-Rice project should be examined critically, at the very least.
We must prevent erosion and further deforestation.
The Union could take the initiative and organize an international conference on the issue.
I hope Parliament will support my amendment on this shortly.
Lastly, Mr President, El Niño is blamed for everything.
Let those countries remember that El Niño will have grown up before too long, and that the situation will only get worse. For the moment, they can still control this child.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, I would like to put a preliminary question in this debate on disasters.
The European Parliament has considered this phenomenon, this problem of disasters, with remarkable regularity every month. We take decisions, but most of the time we have no idea how those decisions are followed up.
What I mean is those decisions do not get any further than being mere declarations of intent or solidarity, because any possibility for financial support to mitigate the effects of disasters has been withdrawn from the Budget.
That is why, following up a suggestion we put forward here three or four months ago, we think the Commission should implement a Community strategy defining not only the kind of actions to take but also how they should be followed up, with regular constant monitoring of results.
In this case we are not dealing with a disaster on European territory, but one in a particularly sensitive and important area, namely Amazonia, the very lung of the world.
And the news from Amazonia is worrying.
According to a note I received today from the Brazilian Embassy, the most recent reports indicate that there are twenty fires burning along a line stretching nearly 400 kilometres. Satellite photographs also show fires of similar intensity in Guyana, and of greater intensity in Venezuela.
The note also emphasizes that there are nearly a thousand firemen in the area, particularly from the Argentine Fire Brigade, awaiting the arrival of a further 500 men and specialists from the United Nations.
What happens in Amazonia or the great tropical forests - whether in Indonesia or Africa - is obviously of world-wide concern.
This, therefore, is a problem of international concern and responsibility, which requires an international combination of efforts, assistance and solidarity.
I do not think it is enough to accuse those countries of inertia or negligence.
In our opinion, so far as Amazonia is concerned, there should be an international treaty or agreement involving all the countries of the Amazon, under the auspices of the United Nations, clearly defining a policy of protection and sustained development for the whole of that area.
The international community should contribute to the technical effort in terms of human and financial resources.
In our opinion, the European Union also has an important role to play here.
We support the proposal put forward in the joint motion for a resolution on the G8 meeting.
We think that would be an forum of sufficient importance, with the necessary powers to hammer out a solution to this problem.
Finally, I should like to ask when there will be a clear common EU policy on forests.
We do not think the present policy is bold or supportive enough, particularly as regards the reforestation of the southern regions, which are threatened with increasing desertification.
We should not leave the protection of forests to others.
It is also in the interests of the world that we Europeans should look after our own.
Mr President, for the moment I will speak English and I will read out to you the beginning of an article in the New Scientist of some weeks ago.
'Indonesia's inferno will make us all sweat.
Peat bogs in Indonesia that have been set alight by the country's raging forest fires could release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the next six months than all the power stations and car engines of western Europe emit in one year.
The finding backs up claims that fires could have a significant impact on global warming.' This is Mr Bertens' El Niño.
It goes on: ' Burning peat has far more severe environmental impacts than simply burning the annual accumulation of plant material' .
It brings us a disaster that is a global disaster.
It is not only Indonesia, it is all of us that may be the victims of what is happening.
I want to ask you all for your attention, especially Mr Pinheiro.
I am very pleased he is here because he knows about the south.
Maybe it is not in his portfolio but I am sure he will bring it up.
We are facing in Indonesia - I am focusing on Indonesia, my colleague later on will go into the Amazonian problem - in Indonesia we are facing a situation with this fire where these Mega-Rice projects are in fact against Indonesian law.
There has never been an environmental impact study as required even under Indonesian law.
There are already Indonesian ministers against this Mega-Rice project in which they are burning down the forest in these special tropical forest areas, and this peat is burning, which as the article said, is even more dangerous.
There is also an institute in Indonesia which claims that 70 % of the surface of the land used in these Mega-Rice projects is not suitable for this project and, not surprisingly, the son of Mr Suharto also has a role in it - he is the one who is profiting from it and it is not even very clear whether any rice will be produced.
If rice is produced, it is exported, but at the same time more than a million local people have lost their production in the area.
So he has got hold of money that could have been spent on medicines and food for the next century, so that in the long run it is all of us who are affected.
There is also enormous use of pesticides.
It is tragic, what is going on there.
So I would like to ask the European Commission to put pressure on the Indonesian Government to stop this stupid project immediately and maybe to urge the World Bank to put that condition in their negotiations.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the tropical forest fires in Indonesia were started by criminals and that the Indonesian Government is certainly implicated.
We are familiar with the system of concessions.
There is always a promoter on hand to slip a bulging envelope to a member of the government or a member of their family, then, once the tropical wood has been exploited, the land is turned into plantations.
I think that the NGOs' appeals for a boycott of tropical wood are completely justified, and now more so than ever.
We must find a system which guarantees transparency for consumers, particularly by supporting certification systems such as the Forests Stewardship Council system.
Mr President, first of all I would like to state that I am very pleased that this resolution means we are examining the forest fires in Brazil and Indonesia.
However, our urgency gives rise to a dual approach to a certain extent, because we are combining two elements here: the 'self-induced' if you like, or environmental disasters and forest fires caused by man; and the El Niño phenomenon, which has had a far more widespread effect than the forest fires.
Both must be dealt with, both are necessary, and I would say that these are two disasters which complement each other, but are not necessary connected.
We are currently talking about Brazil and Indonesia.
When we add El Niño to this, it will be many more countries tomorrow, and perhaps even ourselves the day after that.
I received some information from the Peruvian Embassy this morning about the damage caused in that country so far by El Niño.
The number of dead is currently around 300, with 70 000 homeless, 15 000 homes destroyed, 120 bridges broken, the main hydroelectric plant at Machu Pichu completely wrecked by landslides, and about US$ 1.2 billion's worth of damage.
That is about 3.5 % of the country's gross domestic product.
If we consider the scale of the destruction - which affects not only Peru but also Ecuador, and could just as easily affect Brazil or Indonesia - it is very clear to me that far greater international solidarity is required of us. We must discuss in more detail firstly how we can exert influence to mitigate the effects of the El Niño phenomenon as much as possible, and secondly how we can cope with these disasters and also exert a certain amount of pressure on the appropriate governments.
I would like to state in this respect that it is very regrettable that the plenary session of the Earth Summit in New York in 1997 rejected the international Global Forest Convention, which was tabled by the European Union, amongst others.
As we are talking about forest fires so much, I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission and those responsible to table this Convention again at the next possible opportunity, because it is urgently required at international level.
Mr President, on 15 January about 40 000 indigenous people and small peasants lost their villages, provisions and fields.
So far, a quarter of the Brazilian state of Roraima has been destroyed by forest fires.
This is as much as Belgium and the Netherlands put together.
The Brazilian Government, however, has been more than reluctant to help, and even more reluctant to ask for international aid.
The first time it asked for this was only two weeks ago and, by that time, the international press had already pushed the alarm bells and the President finally had to admit that there was a catastrophe in the region.
It is not just a catastrophe, it is also a man-made tragedy.
The Government does nothing to stop the fires because there are big-money interests involved.
Brazil has given large concessions to international mining companies but, as the area is rich in mineral resources, the Indian reservations have always been an obstacle to the mining companies' interests.
As far as they are concerned, the full destruction of the area is welcome because it is the easiest way of getting rid of the indigenous problem.
According to scientists, it will take about a hundred years or more before the people there will have forests and a normal, natural life again.
That is to say that for about a hundred years there will be no Indians to annoy the mining interests.
The Indians have the right to use the land but do not have the right to what is underneath it.
In other words, they will not get a penny from the mining.
What is more, not even the Brazilian people will profit from the mining resources which will be sent out of the country to the industrialized countries.
I really think it is very tokenistic to ask for some aid programmes for the area.
We really need to ask whether the economic model of plundering natural resources, without any regard for the people or the ecology, is acceptable.
What is going on here is neoliberalism, which is very similar to neocolonialism, and it is being done with the help of the Brazilian Government.
If this is the outcome of our international trade agreements, I really think we have to start changing this situation and changing it quickly.
Mr President, destructive fires on a vast scale in both South America and South-East Asia have caused unprecedented damage to the world's rainforests over the last year.
In the state of Roraima in Brazil, reports indicate that 700 000 hectares of pasture and forest were destroyed in three months and, up to very recently, a line of fire stretched for some 400 kilometres.
Mercifully, heavy rain has now come to the aid of the firefighters from Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela who have been seeking to stop the advance of this disastrous conflagration, and many of the fires have been put out.
It is vital, however, that a new strategy be adopted if the rainforests are to survive.
Amazonia is the home of an incredibly rich variety of plant life, terrestrial species and several hundred AmerIndian cultures.
Rainforests everywhere also have enormous importance for environmental and climatic conditions throughout the world.
It is deeply worrying that greater resources were not made available at an earlier stage to fight the fires.
Preparations need to be made for a much more effective and earlier response in future.
The European Union, its Member States and the United Nations should participate.
Perhaps the matter can be given priority at the so-called G8 meeting in May, taking place in Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
The El Niño phenomenon made a large contribution, but the fires were largely caused by slash-and-burn methods of agriculture, and then got out of control.
What occurred this year could be a forerunner of still worse fires in the future.
It is vital that preventive steps be taken beforehand.
Land reform to provide the landless with alternatives to clearing the forests, effective legislation and provision of guidance to prevent reckless burning are desperately required.
As in South-East Asia, logging should be stopped.
Destruction of the forests should be brought to a halt.
In 1995, apart from fires, 29 000 square kilometres of forest were cleared - an all-time high.
Although the Brazilian Government restricted clearing to 20 % of any holding, holdings of less than 250 hectares were exempted.
While we respect the sovereign rights of the people of developing countries, protection of the rainforest and the prevention of fires is in their interests even more than those of the world as a whole.
International assistance has been provided through the World Bank, but the experiences of the last year in South-East Asia and South America underline the need for a new strategy to be adopted now.
I very much hope that the Commission will be prepared to tell us something about the input it is prepared to make in the process of working out and implementing such a new strategy.
Mr President, the environmental tragedies that have affected Brazil and South-East Asia are further proof, if that were necessary, that market forces should not and cannot be the only guidelines followed by the national and international communities.
Many natural and other disasters in recent years, and many of the unsustainable situations with regard to environmental pollution suffered by capitals worldwide, are the result of a lack of self-control of the imaginary market rules.
The market, for example, requires an ever greater number of cars to be produced and sold, but the same market does not care that our European cities are already full of cars, that our children no longer have any space to play in, that the air is unbreathable and the historic centres are sustaining irreparable damage to their cultural wealth.
All this affirms that it is not market forces but politics - and, therefore, the primary interests of the people and communities - that should direct or guide our ways of life.
We now come to the point we are dealing with: the fires and destruction of the tropical forests in Amazonia and South-East Asia.
There is no doubt that these devastating fires are the result of commercial greed and a blinkered outlook on life.
You need to be blind and insensitive not to see the disastrous consequences for everyone, and for the speculators themselves, resulting from these natural disasters: hectares and hectares of forest going up in smoke coincide with the overheating of the earth's atmosphere, with the creation of phenomena such as the greenhouse effect and El Niño causing flooding, hurricanes and extraordinary climatic changes worldwide.
Politics are therefore not dying, and should not die.
Nation states or supranational communities, such as the European Union in part, should do everything possible. They should reach agreements and find the appropriate means of pressure so that these states or speculators with no interest in health or the future of the earth's atmosphere are made to see reason, within the scope of the international community.
If the Black Sea is one of the most polluting seas in the world and this sea flows into the Mediterranean, the coastal countries cannot fail to intervene to end this lethal pollution.
The same applies to the fires in the Asian tropical and subtropical forests.
Mr President, I will use this additional time you have granted me to welcome Commissioner Pinheiro and to welcome the decision of the Commission which, in Solomonic fashion, as we are dealing with Asia and Latin America, thought of asking the Commissioner responsible for Africa to reply.
We are certainly very concerned, and we are pleased that it has been possible to include this subject as an absolute priority among the urgent matters to be dealt with at this sitting.
We are very aware that, beyond El Niño, human responsibility is very high, both in the Asian continent and with regard to the Brazilian authorities, which are still delaying the arrival of the United Nations mission that should have become operational several days ago.
I have to say, however, that we are very concerned, Commissioner Pinheiro, about the state of use of the EU budget line for tropical forests, which was keenly desired by our Parliament, a line which, as you know, in the same way as many lines relating to foreign actions, has sustained considerable delays of execution.
We are asking for one more effort to be made, with this resolution.
Mr President, the European Commission is very closely following the latest developments in South-East Asia, and in particular in Indonesia, ever since the outbreak of large-scale forest fires in 1997.
While rains have occurred in Sumatra and Java, the rest of the country is dry and may continue to be dry until May 1998.
The recurrence of fire hotspots was detected on 19 January with prevailing fires occurring mostly in the northern areas of East Kalimantan where rain has not fallen since December 1997.
As you are aware, the Commission in the short term has no other means of responding than with humanitarian assistance.
I am pleased to say that my colleague, Emma Bonino, through ECHO has allocated more than ECU 1.5 million to alleviate the acute needs of food and health care in Indonesia, in particular in the regions most severely affected by the fires and drought.
The funds have been channelled through the International Committee of the Red Cross and also Médecins sans frontières de Belgique .
A mission will be carried out by ECHO to Indonesia in April to assess further humanitarian needs in vulnerable areas, including Kalimantan.
The mission will enable the Commission to programme its assistance in 1998 to areas where humanitarian needs are most urgent.
Also, and in a more long-term perspective, the Commission and Member States in Jakarta set up in 1997 a joint European Union Fire Response Group (EUFREG) composed of forest fire experts from various Commission and Member State projects in Indonesia.
The task of the Response Group is to provide the Government with relevant information and advice if needed, to monitor and assess the situation on a day-to-day basis and to assess possible needs, for example, regarding fire-fighting equipment, to improve the efficiency of measures taken by the Government.
At the same time, the Commission is working with the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team in order to assess the regional impact on a short and long-term basis of phenomena such as El Niño.
We will continue to fund the project on fire prevention and control in South Sumatra which we hope will be a pilot case that could be extended to other regions.
As regards Brazil, we have heard today that, thanks to the rain that has fallen in the last few hours, roughly 90 % of the fires are now virtually extinguished and this is good news.
As far as we understand, more than 34 000 sq km have been devastated by this fire in Roraima.
In the short term, the European Community Humanitarian Office - ECHO - envisages channelling funds towards the communities affected by the forest fires, namely indigenous communities.
Several European non-governmental organizations have shown their interest in working in the affected areas.
ECHO is proceeding to analyse their requests for funding, and a meeting is being held today, 2 April, at the Delegation of the European Commission in Brasilia.
At this meeting, among others, are participating Oxfam, the Indigenous Council of Roraima and representatives of Member State embassies to coordinate European aid.
However, as several honourable Members have mentioned, the problem is not just a short-term problem: it is also the long-term prospects for sustainable management and a sustainable policy in tropical forests.
I am happy to say that the European Union has been financing some projects in that regard.
One known as PRODESQ concerns fire monitoring and afforestation control and the second one, known as ECOFORCA, aims at developing and applying low-cost monitoring technologies for the detection of fire in forest areas.
Besides these two specific projects, there is a larger one under the acronym of PP-G7 which encompasses not only the promotion and conservation of sustainable forest management but also some programmes on research and some pilot cases with regard to some of the communities.
We think that, regardless of all these efforts, the idea of holding an international conference on this issue would be very much welcomed because the consequences of such fires are not just bad for the countries where they occur but for all humanity.
I wish to say that from 1992 to 1997, a total of ECU 300 million has been committed under the tropical forest financial instrument, which Parliament has granted to the Commission.
Unfortunately, despite this commitment only ECU 130 million has been disbursed during this period.
This is why we have decided to ask for an evaluation of all our projects from an independent external expert because we have to correct this mismatch between commitments and disbursement.
Finally, I wish to say that, even if we do not have budget lines specifically for disasters, the Commission takes the resolutions seriously.
If honourable Members want to follow what has happened, there is one thing that used to come after Question Time called 'les suites données ' which is very boring but you can always identify what has been the follow-up to the proposals that have been made in this House.
Second, it is very difficult to identify beforehand what disasters may occur but my colleague, Emma Bonino, and ECHO deserve our sympathy because they always manage to respond very quickly and effectively in order to mitigate as much as possible all the disasters that have occurred, at least on the humanitarian side.
Thank you very much, Mr Pinheiro.
I hope you will not see my bad pronunciation of Portuguese as an insult to that beautiful language, which I admire so much.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 4.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Arrest of Dino Frisullo in Turkey -B4-0409/98 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the arrest of Italian national Dino Frisullo in Dyarbakir (Turkey); -B4-0411/98 by Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the arrest and detention of Italian national Dino Frisullo in Turkey; -B4-0412/98 by Mr Graziani, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on respect for human rights in Turkey; -B4-0420/98 by Mr Orlando and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the arrest of Italian national Dino Frisullo in Dyarbakir (Turkey);
Cameroon -B4-0392/98 by Mrs André-Léonard and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, on freedom of speech in Cameroon; -B4-0401/98 by Mr Hory and Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on freedom of speech in Cameroon; -B4-0403/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Group Union for Europe, on freedom of speech in Cameroon; -B4-0408/98 by Mr Pettinari, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the United Left - Nordic Green Left, on human rights in Cameroon; -B4-0417/98 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on freedom of speech in Cameroon;
Death penalty in the United States -B4-0407/98 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal in the United States; -B4-0423/98 by Mr Orlando and Mrs Roth, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal in the United States.
Arrest of Dino Frisullo in Turkey
Mr President, we have all seen on television recently the attacks made by the Turkish police on the Kurdish population of Dyarbakir, which was calmly celebrating its feast.
We have seen elderly Kurdish women being kicked in the head, and photographers and journalists beaten.
Three Italians were arrested and one of them, Dino Frisullo, is still in jail.
This is a question of human rights, democratic freedoms and the rights of the Kurdish people in Turkey.
This is the level of respect shown towards agreements signed with the European Union by the political and military leading class of Turkey.
We have also learnt today that the Turkish Government will essentially be responsible for Cyprus joining the European Union with the annexation of the north of the island occupied by Turkish troops.
It has been maintained by the EU, recently and over the course of the years, that the so-called "lay Turkey' should be encouraged to democratize the country and that Turkey should be protected from the so-called "Islamist danger' .
We signed the customs union for those reasons, despite all reservations.
But the tragedy of Turkey is the leading lay Turkish class.
In the name of the modernization of Turkey, the genetic code of this leading class includes military expansionism and ethnic cleansing within the country.
This Turkish leading political and military class only understands the language of force.
To conclude, the European Union should suspend the customs union.
The EU Member States should stop supplying arms to Turkey. Finally, the Member States should formally warn Turkey against annexing the north of Cyprus or other acts of hostility against that country.
Mr President, I would like to say that it is really discouraging to see how, once again, the Turkish Government does not want to understand why negotiations have not got under way for its accession to the EU.
It does not want to understand, to the point that it is attacking a free demonstration on the part of the Kurdish people, in which European pacifists have participated, including my fellow countryman who is currently in jail in Turkey. The Turkish Government does not want to understand how it is impossible for the country to be able to join the European Union if it fails to respect human rights.
It is not that the Christian club does not want an Islamic country.
In fact I agree here to a large extent with Mr Vinci, when he says that it is the lay component that contains something totalitarian and dictatorial, to such an extent that the lay state of that country is guaranteed by the armed forces, an anomaly that I do not believe exists anywhere else in the world.
That is why, Mr President, it will be necessary for people who, like me, support the need to approve the customs union, to review our positions vis-à-vis Turkey, at least until the rights of the people are respected, particularly the Kurdish people.
I recall, Mr President, that after the First World War, based on the Treaty of Sèvres, the Kurds had the right to independence in a country that was to be called Kurdistan.
Then that Treaty, like so many others relating to minorities like the Kurds, became a scrap of paper, and there is no longer any trace of it in our history.
We need to resume this dialogue. We need to tell the Turkish Government and the neighbouring governments that they have Kurdish populations in their countries, and the time has come to restore independence and trust to a people who currently do not have any trust other than that of those visiting the Turkish jails, like our colleague who was awarded the Sakharov Prize two years ago.
Mr President, as those speaking before me said, on 21 March the Kurds celebrated their new year, the "Newroz' , during which demonstrations took place defending the rights of the Kurdish people. Representatives of nongovernmental organizations, pacifists and MPs from several European countries took part.
Those demonstrations were followed by unacceptable action on the part of the police, who tackled many of those taking part, arresting some of them, including Dino Frisullo, who is still in prison.
I would like to say that, as I know Dino Frisullo personally, I can assure you that he has always shown peaceful intentions and interest in non-violent choices aimed at favouring dialogue between the parties.
The Turkish Government, however, rather than try to talk with the Kurdish people, has chosen repression, preventing the lawful exercise of the right of expression and demonstration of Kurdish and Turkish citizens and citizens of several European countries.
Within this framework of failure to respect the international agreements and unacceptable repression of human rights - by a country which not only maintains cooperation relations with the EC and has achieved customs union with the EU, but, from a legitimately certain point of view, is also aspiring to join it - it is essential for the EU, and for the European Parliament in particular, to support the action of the Italian Government, which has firmly requested the immediate release of Dino Frisullo.
I think we should make the Turkish Government understand that European public opinion, together with Italian public opinion, cannot tolerate a country with which the above relations are maintained still being able to oppress human rights in this way.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in all sincerity I believe that we are not so much discussing the problem of the Italian citizen, Dino Frisullo, as the Turkish Government and the role Turkey is playing in its relations with the EU.
Two fundamental questions arise: the first relates to respect for human rights in Turkey, and the second to the support the EU has always given to the Kurdish question and, more generally, to the rights of minorities wherever they are.
Today, Turkey is at a crossroads. It has to choose which way to go.
It is a historic and cultural crossroads that this important country has often reached.
However, its Government has to realize that, if it wants to maintain serious relations with the EU, it has certainly not started out on the right track.
Cameroon
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, Pius Njawé is the director of a private press group known as 'The Messenger' and has been detained since 26 December 1997. He has just been heavily sentenced to two years' imprisonment.
His crime is that he allowed an article entitled 'Is Biya ill?' to appear in his newspaper, which referred to a mild heart condition suffered by the President of the Republic of Cameroon.
Another journalist, Michel Michaut Moussala was condemned to six months' imprisonment.
Pius Njawé, who has been imprisoned several times and is considered to be the father of the freedom of the press on the African continent, has once again paid a heavy price in the necessary fight for the freedom of the press in countries where the tradition of a single party still survives and where no opposition is tolerated.
The freedom of speech is sacred.
It is one of the pillars of the democratic process on which the European Union is founded.
We therefore demand the immediate release of these two journalists and that human rights and freedoms, of which the freedom of expression is fundamental, be respected.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question of Cameroon raises a more general problem: that of freedom of expression, and particularly freedom of the press, in some of the developing countries, particularly some African countries.
In my experience as an MEP, this is not the first time I have had to face such a question.
A journalist has been tried and condemned for publishing false and biased news.
This is not the right way to interpret freedom of the press: you cannot censure the falseness or otherwise of news to impose penalties that go way beyond anything the conscience of any civil people can bear.
That is our problem.
Mr President, I have of course read the joint motion for a resolution on the freedom of expression in Cameroon with a great deal of interest, and I can obviously agree with its recommendations.
Or at least with the obvious position that freedom of expression occupies a prominent position in the list of fundamental freedoms every single human being is entitled to.
I hope you will allow me, however, to point out to this Parliament that freedom of expression is sadly not only being jeopardized in Cameroon.
In earlier resolutions, this Parliament itself wanted to restrict freedom of expression, in particular in the resolutions which have become a boring tradition, which under the guise of combating racism and xenophobia, argue for muzzling legislation against people who do not necessarily and indiscriminately consider the so-called multicultural society as an ideal to be pursued.
I note that on our continent as well, for example in France as a result of the communist Gayssot Law, people were recently awarded heavy sentences, and even reduced to poverty, after simply expressing an opinion.
Only a few moments ago our colleague Jean-Marie Le Pen lost his political rights, and therefore his mandate in this Parliament, for two years because of an innocent election clash.
I wonder what is being said in Cameroon about this kind of situation, and whether the Parliament of Cameroon will vote on a resolution on political freedom in France.
I note - one of many observations of this kind - that in my own country the Minister of Justice is starting a criminal law reform whereby press offences, which is what we are talking about today, will no longer be tried by the Crown jury, but by a college of politically appointed judges.
The Minister of Justice stresses that it is his deliberate intention to curb the freedom of expression of one opposition party, namely my party.
We cannot merely denounce the events in Cameroon and advocate freedom of expression in that country; we should also do so in our own countries and on our own continent.
Mr President, of course I emphatically support the release of Mr Njawé and Mr Moussala.
I also think we must attach more importance to the question of press freedom, including in the Lomé states which are closely associated with us.
However, I think we must view the problem in a wider context.
I am very pleased that Article 5 of the Lomé Convention is emphasized so strongly in the resolution.
I think that the freedom of the press is endangered from time to time in the majority of Lomé states, and that it is true that Cameroon is the one-eyed king in the country of the blind.
If we look around the region and consider Nigeria or the Congo, for example, the circumstances are quite different.
I am therefore of the opinion that Cameroon is one of the states characterized by relative stability, which also affects the rule of law.
Nevertheless, this event cannot be excused.
We should draw conclusions for our policy as a whole.
As Mr Pinheiro, one of our best commissioners by far, is here today, I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to the Commission and also the Member States to use our development aid much more than in the past, to promote programmes in the fields of education and training which underpin the rule of law.
Educating junior political leadership, public sector officials, judges and all those connected with the media, including journalists of course, is necessary, because freedom of expression is threatened from various sides.
I therefore think we have a very great duty in the field of education and training, to educate junior leaders who will break out of the vicious circle and ensure that a policy is pursued in most of the Lomé states which complies with Article 5 of the Lomé Convention.
We have a very great task here, which we must finally face up to.
Mr President, I think Mr Posselt is both right and wrong.
We do indeed have a great task here.
However, we have to carry out this task not as if we were masters of the universe, but as people of solidarity who are not trying to teach the Africans how it should be done.
If we consider the history of the 20th century in Europe or the history of European involvement in Africa over the last 300 years, it becomes clear that we are not in a position to rebuke anyone.
We have a common task of basic solidarity.
Cooperation with non-governmental organizations and democratically elected governments are at the forefront here.
We must work with them to find ways and develop initiatives which no longer make an appeal to civil and human rights seem an empty gesture.
Death penalty in the United States
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although it is true that silence kills, it is not so true that the words, the distress calls, of this Parliament are enough to save a man's life - a fair man, an innocent man, a real fighter for freedom and racial equality like Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has been awaiting his legal assassination in the arms of death in Greene Jail in the State of Pennsylvania for many years.
It happened once, less than two years ago, when the protest, not just of this House but of almost all the Western government leaders and states, had the desired effect: that of postponing - but only postponing - his execution.
On 1 October last year, Mumia Abu-Jamal's lawyers submitted an appeal for the case to be retried by the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania.
Five months have gone by and the Court has still not pronounced judgment, but there is reason to fear the worst as the postponement tactics, under the veil of a concealed, silent indifference that has descended onto the case, could prove lethal for Mumia AbuJamal.
That is why the European Parliament should once again break through this shroud of silence, raise its voice in protest, and ensure that it is not just a question of flatus vocis , of a formality within the framework of business as usual, of an appeal to the heart of the authorities of a state which, since 1982 - since the air bombardment of a district of Philadelphia, the headquarters of the black movement Move - has been merciless to those who, like Mumia Abu-Jamal, have fought for the emancipation and equal rights of Afro-Americans.
That is why there is still all the more reason for our resolution, in favour of Mumia Abu-Jamal and against the death penalty in the United States, to be incorporated, and made clearer and more effective by means of the amendment asking European businessmen to move their investments in the United States to those states where there is no death penalty.
Time is short, and not just for Mumia Abu-Jamal but for more than 3 000 people condemned to death in the star-spangled Republic.
In June, when our Parliamentary delegation meets American Congressmen in Houston, Texas - near Huntsville, known as the executions capital of the USA - another 28, or possibly 35, human beings, including another woman, will be brought to the place of execution, and they will not be able to follow the conclusion, albeit foregone, of the interparliamentary exchanges across the Atlantic.
Mr President, after Mr Manisco's sad but lucid speech, little remains to be said, other than that I agree with him.
I just have a few points to add.
Firstly, I wish to recall the European Parliament's firm opposition to the use of the death penalty, as already stated several times in previous resolutions, including those on the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
We should also remember that, while we are discussing these arguments, other people are in the arms of death and some of them have just been killed under the death penalty, as in the recent case of an American woman.
Then we should mention the terrible deterioration in the living conditions of the prisoners, as we have seen in particular in the Greene Jail in Pennsylvania.
We therefore believe it advisable for the European Union, and the European Parliament in particular, not only to confirm its "no' to the death penalty, not only to ask for the suspension of the sentence against Mumia Abu-Jamal, but also to ask for a retrial of the case, which we know very well is suspect. I just wish to add that we have submitted an amendment to ask all European companies thinking of investing in the United States to give preference to those states where there is no death penalty.
Mr President, a great deal has already been said.
Once again, we have a new case of the death penalty.
This time it is the Mumia Abu-Jamal case, and this time it is in the State of Florida.
What has repeatedly motivated us as Europeans and the European Parliament in these matters is firstly the fact that the death penalty still exists at all in the United States, and secondly the circumstances under which it is carried out.
Each case which is judged or sentenced in this way certainly involves its own tragedy and its own drama.
During the meeting in Geneva recently of the UN Commission on Human Rights, we had the opportunity to speak to a Texan attorney who opposed the death penalty.
He drew attention again to one particular factor which I think we do not appreciate.
First of all, most people in the United States know very little about why and how the death sentence is pronounced.
They do not hear about it and are not even particularly interested.
They usually only ever hear of the dramatic cases.
Also, the nature of the sentencing differs widely from one state to another.
Stepping across a state boundary is practically enough to avoid being sentenced to death for the same crime.
This difference in the severity of the penalty is something which concerns us in all cases, most particularly if it involves the ultimate penalty, the death penalty.
There is no uniform case law on this subject.
The same deed is assessed in different ways.
Sometimes it might be a mass murderer, sometimes a first-time murderer.
Murder is murder and is always dreadful.
But I think we should make it clearer to the Americans why we are so concerned about the death penalty in the United States.
Mr President, the Americans have a great country, a great nation, and are a great people.
All European citizens will be eternally grateful for the fact that they sent over their young people to free us from Nazism, a large number of whom fell on the Normandy beaches and in the push into Germany. They live in a country which vigorously defends human rights - freedom of thought, freedom of expression, the right to association, the right to publish - and yet they allow the most basic right of all to be attacked by the state itself.
This surrender to violence exemplified by the execution of an innocent person twelve years after a highly contestable guilty verdict - exemplified also by the fact that firearms are placed in the most untrained of hands and are made available to the most unstable of people, causing the deaths of dozens of innocent people - this collective surrender to violence has to be pointed out. We Europeans call upon the citizens of Pennsylvania.
Wake-up!
Stop this state-sponsored violence! Demand an end to the execution of human beings, and in particular today of one human being, namely Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Mr President, I hope you do not consider my Spanish to be an insult either.
Mr President, as far as the arrest of Mr Frisullo is concerned, permit me to remind you that on 4 March last, the Commission adopted its annual report on the development of relations with Turkey since implementation of the customs union.
In its report, the Commission notes that the human rights situation and the process of democratization have not made any substantial progress over the past year.
Furthermore, in its communication on a European strategy for Turkey adopted on the same day, the Commission confirmed its intention to continue giving financial aid to the Turkish NGOs working towards an improvement in the human rights situation in Turkey.
The Commission also wants to cooperate with the Turkish authorities, especially on the training of the police force.
Despite Ankara's recent decision to suspend all political talks with the European Union as a result of the conclusions of the European Council in Luxembourg, the Commission still intends to continue informing the Turkish delegation of EU concerns over questions relating to human rights and respect for the democratic principle.
In this spirit, the Commission will not hesitate to take up Mr Frisullo's case with the Turkish authorities, and call for more substantial information and explanations on the subject.
As to the question of freedom of expression in the Cameroon and the case of the two journalists, I would say that I share your concerns over their recent sentencing.
It poses a serious threat to the freedom of expression of journalists, a freedom which we all know is one of the vital ingredients of true democracy and one which is also covered by Article 100 of the Lomé Convention.
Indeed, in recent times there has unfortunately been a tendency for those in power in the Cameroon, as in other African countries, to curb freedom of expression with the help of a judiciary system which lacks independence from the government.
Despite everything, I hold out strong hopes that the Court of Appeal, which is this very day examining the appeal launched by Mr Njawé, will not confirm this trend.
I believe it is important for you to know that, via Directorate-General VIII, the Commission has already made its concerns on the subject known to the Cameroon authorities.
I can assure you that it will continue to strive for adherence to Article 100 of the Lomé Convention by closely monitoring the way the human rights situation develops in the Cameroon, and in particular the situation vis-à-vis the two journalists in question.
To conclude, Mr President, the question of the death penalty has once again been raised in this Parliament.
The Commission's position is in fact well-known because it has so often been repeated.
I simply want to say that as far as the United States is concerned, we consider that it is vital that all guarantees enshrined in the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights and other pertinent instruments are respected.
The Commission believes that the US judicial system will ensure that they are.
It is, however, regrettable that a civilized country such as the United States, one of the major world powers, should continue to pursue such a barbarous practice as the death penalty.
(Applause)
Thank you very much, Mr Pinheiro.
Ladies and gentlemen, as Mrs André-Léonard was saying, our debates have been short, though that does not mean that the quality or importance of the issues covered have been in any way compromised. However, we have reached the end of our debates.
Therefore, I would propose that we suspend the sitting until 4.30 p.m.
Mr Posselt has the floor to speak on a point of order for a maximum of one minute.
Thank you very much, Mr Posselt.
This will certainly be recorded in the Minutes and the group chairmen who make up the Conference of Presidents will read and take note of your comments.
I am a Vice-President and a member of the Bureau, but I am not a member of the Conference of Presidents.
In any case, in my current role of responsibility, I note your comments and will forward them to the people concerned.
(The sitting was suspended until 4.30 p.m.)
Mr Provan, there are two parts to your point.
On the first part, we will continue to press the airlines and the appropriate governments for an improvement in the service.
On the second part, that will be taken into account when we review the operation of the roll-call vote system, which we shall be doing shortly.
We now come to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
VOTES (continuation)
The rapporteur proposes that throughout the French text the term contrôle démocratique should be replaced by responsabilité démocratique.
Are there any objections?
(Parliament agreed to the oral amendment)
Before the vote on paragraph 5
The rapporteur, who unfortunately cannot be with us this evening, has asked me to propose an oral amendment.
Where it currently says 'to hold the ECB to account' the rapporteur is asking for this to be replaced by 'for the ECB to be answerable to' .
(The President established that there were more than 12 objections)
Mr President, I wish to apologize, because I wanted to ask the rapporteur, who is unfortunately not present, whether she could repeat the question.
It concerns paragraph 5.
This is a difficult situation for me.
I am chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and I would have liked to have heard what the rapporteur had to say on this.
I know what was agreed - an oral amendment was agreed with Mrs Randzio-Plath which she wanted to table here - but I do not know the exact wording.
Under the circumstances, I would therefore recommend a separate vote, whereby we are in agreement with the first section to 'must ... be exercised ...' .
I would not vote in favour of the second section from 'and that, as the only directly elected institution at this level, the European Parliament is a particularly appropriate institution to hold the ECB to account' in its current form, but in the form which Mrs Randzio-Plath wished to propose now.
That was the problem.
Mr President, I think it is important to actually say why Mrs Randzio-Plath is not here as there may be some opposition to this because of the fact that she is not here.
You will know that she was extremely distraught at lunchtime that her report was not taken because her husband is ill and she has had to go home.
That I think is something we can all understand and I would ask colleagues here who know she is a very hard working woman to please understand that.
She did try this morning to get the report voted as you know but many other of our colleagues walked out and would not stay on to vote.
That is to be regretted, she was very distraught and I would ask you please to be understanding at least of that point.
Mr President, Mrs Randzio-Plath has informed you of the oral amendment tabled, with which Mr von Wogau is not familiar.
There were colleagues here in the Chamber, unfortunately from your own group, Mr von Wogau, who rose when the President asked whether the oral amendment was approved.
There was a sufficient number of them, which resulted in enough colleagues rejecting the oral amendment.
That is the problem we are faced with.
Otherwise there could have been no doubt.
Mrs Randzio-Plath had expressly submitted the oral amendment to the President in advance because she could not be present today.
I would therefore ask for the vote to be taken again on the existing wording.
It was not we who blocked it, but the colleagues who rose.
Then we shall see who has a majority.
Let us try to keep calm about this.
I have a number of Members who want to make points of order.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I regret that it was not possible to vote on the agreed oral amendment tabled.
But it is those people who actually took a gamble on the whole process, and have now done so again, who must bear responsibility.
Now we should vote on the original text.
Mr President, insofar as it is just Mrs Randzio-Plath's absence which is causing the problem, there is a compromise which we found following an agreement within the committee, which was voted in.
We had honed this agreement to perfection when at the last moment, we found that the term which accurately translated the term we had agreed on, namely 'to hold to account' was felt by some people to be too aggressive towards the Bank.
Two or three words were suggested but our British colleagues did not consider them to be appropriate.
We therefore decided to wait until we found the appropriate wording and this morning, Mrs Randzio-Plath and I found it.
(Mixed reactions) It is deplorable that in order to prevent an agreement being passed, twelve people felt obliged to rise.
That is regrettable.
That said, Mr President, to extricate ourselves from the blind alley in which we now find ourselves, we could start by voting on what Mr von Wogau has proposed, with Parliament then voting on the rest.
I would like to point out straight away that there is practically no difference.
It is merely a question of nuances.
Certain people have become so hysterical over these nuances that they have made a mountain out of a molehill.
Mr President, I would like to say for the Minutes that we should take up the proposal made by Mr von Wogau and Mr Herman, that we all sympathize with Mrs Randzio-Plath, and that no one in our group took part in the boycott of this proposal, which you did not read out, incidentally.
I misunderstood your last point.
I quite clearly read the proposal out.
Mr President, first of all I would like to say that we made great efforts in committee - and I expressly acknowledge Mrs Randzio-Plath's efforts - to help reach an agreement.
We had reached agreement on practically all the points in committee, as Mr Herman said.
It was accepted by almost all the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The fact that the expression '... hold the ECB to account' in paragraph 5 seemed to many members of my group to be too strong remained unresolved.
Then people said: ' We shall reach agreement.'
I must say that I myself took no part in this last discussion, but Mr Herman did.
He says he has now found this word, which is the right one.
However, I have the impression that not everyone in the House understands what this word is.
I must say that I do not have it in writing either.
I would therefore suggest, even if it is not strictly in accordance with the procedure, that we ask Mr Herman again to say quite clearly what the subject of the oral amendment is, as tabled by Mr Friedrich.
I would suggest that we reach some sort of agreement.
I think it is reasonable to expect that we do this.
It is clear that if the oral amendment were put to the vote, it would be carried.
There is no question about that.
But the rules exist to protect minorities in this House and that is the purpose of 12 Members being able to stand up and object to an oral amendment.
No one from the groups who voted against the oral amendment have objected or said they misunderstood.
I now have one person from each of these two groups asking for the floor.
I will hear what they have to say before taking any decisions.
Mr President, I was one of the twelve Members who stood up earlier and I would like to make a small comment.
Mrs Randzio-Plath is absent and the coordinator of our group is also absent.
It is he who was to have given us the information.
I knew this discussion had taken place within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and I knew there had been an attempt at conciliation.
I think it is a good thing that an agreement was reached between Mrs Randzio-Plath and Mr Herman.
But neither our group nor the other groups were informed.
And I would like to take this opportunity of reminding everyone that this Parliament has more than two groups.
It has several.
I am quite happy to say that had I been correctly informed, I would have voted in favour of Mrs Randzio-Plath's oral amendment. However, I believe just as strongly that as a matter of principle, the two large groups should not ignore Parliament's other groups.
(Applause)
Mr President, you have been given the responsibility of presiding over our debates.
I would be grateful if you would do so according to the Rules of Procedure.
It was not right to ask again whether 12 Members were opposed to the amendment, since the first test had shown that there were more than twelve of us, in accordance with Rule 150.
Nor is it right to allow Members to be pressurized.
Pursuant to Rule 2, we exercise a mandate and should not receive instructions from anybody. Those people who stood up did so freely, of their own volition, in good conscience, and in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
We have now been speaking for roughly five minutes about a question which has already been adopted.
So we must move on to the next item, but we must do so according to the Rules of Procedure.
We cannot ask for a split vote less than an hour before the beginning of the sitting.
We shall therefore continue with our work in accordance with the voting list we have in front of us.
That is what sticking to the Rules means.
Mr President, I wonder whether we can make a molehill out of this particular mountain.
You have acted correctly according to the Rules of the House.
Twelve Members stood up; I regret that they stood up but they did.
However, let us return to the original text, which many people tried with great goodwill to modify because there was perceived to be a nuance in terms of the original text being too strong.
My own view is that it is a very fine difference and, indeed, to say that we want to hold the European Central Bank to account is generally acceptable to the majority of people in this House.
I would advise you now to go forward to the vote.
If you wish to take a split vote, all well and good, but my advice to the House is to vote both parts and to vote for them.
Mr Harrison, that is precisely what I intend to do.
After the vote on paragraph 5
Mr President, I formally contest the way you have proceeded.
Rule 116 gives the President the power to fix a deadline other than of one hour.
It does not give him the power to accept at the last minute a split vote which has not been submitted within the allotted time.
This deadline is set at 9.00 p.m. the previous evening for all the groups and all the Members.
You did not amend it before the sitting and you cannot accept a request for a split vote if you have not amended the deadline beforehand.
If you like, I can read you Rule 116...
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I do not know if you were here at lunchtime and I do not know if you were awake at lunchtime but only four hours ago we did exactly this.
It is not a precedent.
It is something we have done regularly in this House.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, throughout the intergovernmental conference which paved the way for the Amsterdam Treaty, a strict rule was adhered to by the negotiators - namely, no mention was made of the single currency - and it is imperative that we do not reopen Pandora's box!
The result is that today, in a month chosen by those taking part and nine months from the theoretical launch date of the euro, some of their number are realizing the dreadful truth that the Maastricht Treaty has stripped the national democracies of their power without creating any equivalent controls at other levels, and that monetary union will be controlled by no one.
People are asking themselves whether a monster has been created which will devour us all.
The European Parliament, in order to give the illusion that it is trying to react - in spite of the fact that it is jointly responsible for the situation - is therefore taking the initiative of adopting a report on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
However, this is a purely cosmetic exercise, for three reasons.
First of all, the European Parliament obviously cannot correct the Treaty.
It therefore works on peripheral tasks such as improving the presentation of the ECB reports or the procedures governing its directors, as it is doing today.
These proposals - assuming they are accepted by the other institutions - will not change the system fundamentally.
Secondly, in order for the ECB to work in a democratic environment like the national central banks, even so-called independent banks, a European state would have to exist. That is a condition which is not and certainly will not be fulfilled in my lifetime.
Lastly, the present situation is exactly what the authors of the Maastricht Treaty wanted.
As there was not and still is not a European democracy, it was decided to make people think that the single currency could be a purely technical matter, one which could be managed without the involvement of politics.
The German leaders have again today latched on to this illusion to keep their citizens in the dark while definitive decisions are taken.
And that is why the Herman report, which made the mistake of putting the question of democratic accountability too clearly, was suddenly withdrawn from the agenda of the present part-session.
The people will therefore have to wait to be plunged into monetary union before they finally discover the true nature of the system.
Mr President, I voted in favour of the report on the European Central Bank, although not until there had been significant corrections by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The attempt to push through amendments to the Treaty concerning the appointment of the ECB presidency by the European Parliament failed.
There will rightly be no vote of no confidence against the president of the European Central Bank, and there will be no 'Banking Committee' as a control body.
We owe our word to the citizens that the independence of the ECB will not be not undermined.
As the future guardian of the currency, it must be able to work without any political interference.
Only then will it earn the same high reputation as the Deutsche Bundesbank has in my country. It will guarantee that there will be absolutely no waiver in stability and budgetary discipline.
The dialogue between the ECB and the European Parliament must be constructive in respect of objectives, specific decisions and coherence between monetary and economic policy, but also social and employment policy.
We therefore say 'Yes' to an open exchange of opinions, but 'No' to mistrust and abstruse control procedures.
Another piece of good news: today the German Federal Constitutional Court has rejected the petition against the euro.
The path for the introduction of the single European currency is now clear.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for a highly relevant report on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
We are aware that the Maastricht Treaty establishes that the ECB is to be independent in terms of personnel, organization, operation and finance, as well as politically.
On the other hand, we do not believe this totally excludes a more pronounced democratic responsibility for the ECB, which is also apparent from Article 109B(3) of the Treaty on the role of the European Parliament.
In view of the single currency's importance for the positive development of the European Union as a guarantee of employment, sustainable growth and social welfare, it is essential to realize the need for democratic accountability and openness for the ECB.
So the report on the strengthening of openness and democratic accountability is very welcome.
We believe that the European Parliament, as being the only one of the Union's institutions directly anchored in the population, should be able to play an active role together with the ECB to guarantee democratic accountability and openness within EMU.
We also believe that strengthening democratic accountability and openness will help legitimize EMU without affecting the independence or credibility of the ECB.
The European Parliament should also play a key role here.
We also believe that it should not affect the ECB's independence to have all the decisions taken and all the reasons for those decisions published soon after they are made.
Equivalent rules apply to the US central bank without significantly affecting its operations.
Finally, we would like to emphasize the need for the Council, the Commission and the European Monetary Institute to consider this report seriously, together with its proposals on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
When it was being set up, the European Central Bank needed an unprecedented degree of independence, much more so than any national central bank, since economic and monetary union was being introduced.
Today, the approach can no longer be so restrictive.
We have reached maturity and on 2 May, in an extraordinary sitting, we shall give our decision on the countries to adopt the euro when the single currency is introduced.
The European Central Bank no longer suffers from a lack of financial credibility.
Monetary sovereignty is in the process of being progressively transferred to it, and nobody doubts any longer that it will be able to contribute to lasting growth.
The ECB therefore now needs the European Parliament to see its operations strengthened and better promoted thanks to the democratic controls exercised by an elected Assembly with universal suffrage.
I am therefore in favour of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report.
The overly extremist requirements presented during the Parliamentary committee debates should be put aside.
The ECB must not become a poor imitation of the United States FED.
By contrast, the Maastricht Treaty makes the European Parliament an essential part of the legislation.
It enables us to play a positive role in the European Union's monetary policy.
Let us therefore build a basis for regular democratic dialogue and a network of mutual information, but let us guard against it becoming a blocking tool.
The euro must be the shared responsibility of all the citizens of the European Union if it is to create prosperity and employment.
At the core of the debate on this report is the notion of "independence' .
In her report, the rapporteur attempts to explore the limits of this notion.
The central question is to what extent monetary policy can be influenced, controlled and possibly even adjusted by political bodies, without affecting the formal independence of the European Central Bank.
To my mind this is not the right starting point for this report, which is supposed to deal with accountability .
In the former, there is the implicit view that, by using monetary policy, it is possible to implement the aims of an economic policy which are considered important, such as adequate investment, employment and increased welfare.
At the hearing held by the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs in the spring of 1997, Mr Duisenberg, the current president of the European Monetary Institute, clearly stipulated that monetary policy can only achieve so much.
As it now transpires, the rapporteur has - still - not grasped this point.
This inspires little confidence for the future, when it is argued that the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs should play an important role in the process known as democratic accountability.
It is for these reasons of principle that I voted against this report.
It was not without a certain amount of pleasure that I learnt of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report. I was glad to see politicians dare to ask for increased democratic controls over those who hold the economic reins and who do not always have the desired legitimacy.
I wanted to highlight this brave act at a time of exacerbated liberalism whose merits are constantly being heralded without opposition.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it needs to be said loud and clear that independence is not necessarily a byword for irresponsibility and that, on the contrary, it is through true democratic accountability, and indirectly through greater transparency, that the European Central Bank will gain legitimacy in the eyes of European citizens.
Naturally, the purpose of our colleague's work is not to call into question the independence of the ECB.
Rather, it is to mirror certain questions regarding the methods used to implement this necessary democratic exercise.
The committee debates were difficult and interesting.
Furthermore, whilst I regret that the vote of no confidence has been abandoned - while also recognizing that this type of amendment to the Treaty would be difficult - I have to admit that we have achieved a worthy compromise, and one which constitutes an important step forward in ECB controls.
I can also assure you that I will be vigilant over the question of legal consolidation relating to the nomination of candidates which is henceforth subject to the approval of the European Parliament.
Faced with a debate of such importance, and on the subject of regrets, I want briefly to return to the question of employment and that of the Parliamentary banking committee.
As regards the latter, I question the deep-rooted nature of certain groups' refusal, especially since this committee clearly has the role of informing and creating initiatives and not of controlling.
Eighteen million people out of work, a similar number of people in insecure jobs, a European Council on employment, and governments fighting to reduce unemployment in their respective countries, and there are still political leaders who believe that the fight against unemployment is not a priority.
That is what I wanted to say in relation to Mrs Randzio-Plath's report, which I support and applaud once again.
The ECB will conduct a single currency policy for all the Member States participating in European monetary union.
As a consequence, the democratic controls must be exercised on a European level.
The European Parliament, which is the only directly elected institution at this level and which enjoys certain powers bestowed upon it by the Treaty, will be ideal as the ECB's privileged political point of contact.
The disruption caused by the introduction of the single currency will occur before political union has truly emerged.
However, in a democracy, legitimacy is born of universal suffrage.
There is therefore a risk that if the ECB acts without political consultation, when all is said and done it will be held responsible for all ills, which in turn will lead to public condemnation of the entire project.
The Central Bank will be independent, but it will not be able to be irresponsible.
Calling it independent involves defining what it is independent from and taking steps to ensure that its political counterpart is as strong as it is, failing which there will be no equilibrium.
Its responsibility implies a dialogue and a transparency between it and public opinion, through the elected bodies of the Council and the European Parliament.
That is why we fully approve of Mrs Randzio-Plath's proposals for codifying this responsibility.
In this spirit, the ECB's annual report should clearly take growth and employment into consideration when covering the way monetary policy supports the general economic policies in the Community.
Ultimately, many of us would welcome an amendment to the Treaty to enable the European Parliament on the one hand to have the same powers in this matter as it does in nominating the Commission, and on the other hand to submit a vote of no confidence against the president of the forthcoming ECB to the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers for their decision, should the Treaty be contravened.
Such a development would increase the legitimacy of the ECB's decisions.
As regards the coordination of economic policies in Europe, the European Council of Luxembourg made progress on more extensive coordination of national economic policies and more especially those concerning employment.
We believe that the European Parliament should involve itself more in this process.
It is in this area that a great deal of work will be done in the coming years, and it is a sine qua non for balanced economic and monetary union.
In the third stage of EMU, the democratic responsibility concerns both the ECB and the coordination of economic policies.
However, the monetary side of the union is today a great deal more structured than the economic side.
To become a reality, the initiative set in motion needs political guidance: operating on a purely economic basis is not enough.
This represents an enormous responsibility for the Socialists in the European Parliament, and an expectation of new proposals.
During the part-session in Strasbourg from 30 March to 3 April, the Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the report on democratic accountability in the third stage of EMU.
The report emphasizes, among other things:
1) the need for the future ECB to provide information on the definitions and operational objectives it uses to achieve the set objective of price stability;
2) the need for publication of the minutes of ECB board meetings;
3) the need to ensure a dialogue between the European Parliament and the ECB on economic and monetary affairs.
The Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the report, based on the fundamental approach of requiring the greatest possible transparency and openness in the institutions of the EU.
In this connection, it should be emphasized that the Social Democrats in the European Parliament are still of the opinion that the four Danish reservations are not under discussion, including the reservation on the third stage of EMU.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Krarup and Lis Jensen (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) EMU is a centralized, high-risk project with little popular support.
The priorities of EMU are price stability and low inflation.
There is a serious risk that unemployment, which is already high, will increase still further.
The regional differences between growth areas and areas of depopulation may be exacerbated.
EMU will lead to a major centralization of currency and foreign exchange policy, which may grow to include tax and finance policy.
EMU is a political project which increases the federal aspect of the EU and reinforces the trend towards establishing a state.
EMU and the European Central Bank, or ECB, will have more independence and power than any other bank in the world, the United States FED included.
The members of the ECB, who will be elected for eight years and cannot be removed, will have incredible power over currency, interest and other economic policy which has a direct effect on people, regions and nations.
EMU will centralize and reserve economic policy to a handful of bank directors, which will considerably undermine democracy.
The proposals for better supervision and democratic control presented in this report can scarcely reduce the democratic deficit in the third stage of EMU.
For this reason, we have voted against the report.
This report is full of good ideas on how the new European Central Bank will be held democratically accountable before this Parliament.
It reflects the criteria laid down in the Maastricht Treaty regarding consultation with Parliament on the implementing measures.
However, I fear that there will be no more transparency and democratic accountability in this regard than there has been in the process to date.
So far the Commission has ploughed ahead with its own strategy without any interest in transparency or accountability.
Consequently, we had the bizarre declaration from the Commission last week that eleven countries are economically strong enough to join EMU, among them Belgium and Italy.
The inclusion of these two Member States in the list of first-wave countries demonstrates clearly that the Maastricht criteria were not adhered to and that massaging of figures is acceptable practice.
Italy and Belgium come nowhere near the condition of restricting public debt to no more than 60 % of national wealth.
Indeed, they are more than double that figure.
I hope that when Heads of Government meet under the British presidency next month for the formal vote they will have a better regard for the criteria than the Commission has displayed.
Given the Commission's commitment to pushing the project forward without regard to the economic circumstances in each Member State, it is difficult not to conclude that it views the scheme in a political light.
The result of this can only be instability within the system and severe economic consequences for those Member States outside it.
The political nature of the project will also surely undermine the position of the Central Bank and make democratic accountability harder to achieve.
Whilst in general I can support the worthy objectives of greater transparency and accountability in the workings of the ECB, I find that this report which continually uses the phrase 'democratic accountability' has, in fact, confused accountability with the giving of an account.
The dictionary definition of accountability says it is being 'responsible to someone or for some action' .
It is wrong therefore to suggest that the ECB is in some fashion responsible to Parliament.
It is in my view a mistake to give the impression that Parliament's right to be informed translates as a form of accountability, in the accepted sense of the word.
I will not therefore be supporting this report as it relies so heavily on the suspension of disbelief.
I have voted for the Randzio-Plath report because the degree of accountability it calls for is better than nothing.
However, it acknowledges - and even welcomes - the fact that the Bank will remain wholly independent.
The Bank will control monetary policy, and will do so with one overriding aim: to achieve price stability.
If this chokes growth or causes unemployment, so be it.
Nothing that Parliament or Ecofin can say will prevent it.
True democratic control of the Central Bank would require the creation of its analogue, a central European government.
Without that, we have the creation of a free market Europe, dedicated above all to the interests of bankers.
This has been described as 'the spectatorship of the proletariat' , though that is only part of the story.
This is not to suggest that we should be trying to create a central European government.
There is no consent for that, and there can be no confidence, on the EU's past form - CAP etc. that such a central government would be successful.
The overhasty rush to create a single currency has left us in a fine mess, and we are left resorting to sticking plaster in a vain attempt to patch things up.
To surrender monetary policy to third parties is to surrender to others a significant part of a country's national independence.
Indeed, the dimensions that such an action assumes when it is carried out by more countries is unprecedented in modern history.
Such an action, even if it should prove to be of benefit to those nations, must be prepared with a great deal of care and attention. All means of ensuring that those who take on this responsibility will be carefully monitored must be scrutinized and safeguarded, so that they can operate and act in a way that will serve national interests and social prosperity alike.
We currently find ourselves faced with a necessary fact of life, which has been commonly accepted.
The European Central Bank is in the process of formation and it will take over the shaping and control of monetary policy. This will directly affect hundreds of millions of citizens, without the people of the countries taking part in the euro - or their governments - having any opportunity to exercise any democratic control.
Nor will the EC and the constituent bodies of the EU be able to exercise control. Why?
Because the ECB has been created with the sole aim of serving large financial and political interests and of safeguarding the conditions in which they can increase their profits. It has not been created to achieve the aims of social prosperity and a higher standard of living for the working people and citizens of Europe, nor to combat the scourge of unemployment and the continuous degradation of ever broader strata of the population.
The report we are debating today constitutes the most irrefutable proof.
It establishes the lack of democratic control by providing evidence, even if indirectly, that the creation of the ECB is an expression of the attempt made by big business to evade national and popular control, and even the completely downgraded control of national central banks.
However, when the supporters of Maastricht voted for the Treaty they were very well aware of what they were creating and what its repercussions would be.
Even if they did not realize it at that time, they should at least have demanded that this Treaty be amended with the revision of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But that did not happen.
On the contrary, any debate on EMU was excluded from the intergovernmental conference on the revision of the Treaties.
The declaration that democratic accountability will be guaranteed or that the aims of the ECB will be broadened to include other aims apart from monetary stability is a conscious attempt at disorientation, when not only is this not provided for in the Treaties but, on the contrary, the Treaties make every provision for the independence of the ECB from any possible national intervention. These provisions restrict the number of people on its board, thereby ensuring that it is not represented by all Member States.
Furthermore, they allow board members to serve a long term in office, thereby ensuring their independence from any political show of force.
We fully endorse whatever measures may bring about transparency, or indeed measures to inform democratically elected bodies of the policy and operation of the ECB.
However, we believe that these measures will not be able to reverse the unacceptable situation brought about by the creation of the ECB.
The only solution is to repeal the Maastricht Treaty and not to ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam.
For this reason, we remain firmly committed to the aim of national referenda on the Treaties, in order to give people the opportunity to express their opposition to this policy and to the surrender of their important sovereign rights to supranational, hermetically sealed, unaccountable bodies.
The question of the democratic accountability and embedding of the European Central Bank is the last major unresolved matter in the run up to the launch of the euro.
It must be made clear that it is not a question of restricting the independence of the ECB and the European System of Central Banks - this is a fundamental condition of monetary operation.
On the contrary, it is a question of interpreting it correctly.
We will counteract the monetary Utopia of 'apolitical currency' , which becomes a dangerous illusion if dogmatists implement it in economic practice, with the realistic concept that monetary policy remains a specific dimension of the overall economic policy in which it is to be embedded by binding, institutionalized discourse.
This report takes a first hesitant step in the right direction.
It is regrettable that the prevailing idea in the House of the 'grand coalition' has resulted in the original report being watered down and becoming much less consistent.
We were never under the illusion that our amendments would change anything in this respect.
Nevertheless, the extent to which the Group of the Party of European Socialists has fallen behind the original approach of the rapporteur must be recorded here.
Daskalaki report (A4-0106/98)
We have voted in favour of the report in question.
We believe a continuing international presence is necessary in Bosnia, under a UN mandate.
We also believe it is important not to add to the tension in the area by exporting arms.
On the other hand, we distance ourselves from the demand to use the articles of the Amsterdam Treaty on military action or the outdated military alliance of the WEU.
The Member States of the Union can contribute to peacekeeping actions with the UN and ECSC as the basis.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against the report on post-SFOR strategy, because Denmark is exempted in the area of the common foreign and security policy.
Marset Campos report (A4-0120/98)
The Commission's communication on a strategy for reducing methane emissions is timely.
It makes some worthwhile proposals and some which need to be reconsidered.
Methane has negative as well as positive claims.
It is negative in the sense that it is a greenhouse gas second only to carbon dioxide or CO2 emissions.
It is positive in the sense that it can be harnessed to provide a cleaner and less polluting energy source.
It can also be used in the manufacture of industrial products such as synthetic rubber and chemical fibres.
The natural sources of methane include animals, wetlands and marine flora while the anthropogenic sources include the burning of fossil fuels, landfill emissions, waste water and sludge treatment.
The latter account for 70 % of existing methane.
While the increase in methane emissions appears to be slowing down, this is not a reason for inaction.
Landfills are a major source of methane emissions which we can turn to our advantage.
Essentially, what is required is an appropriate plan of action aimed at halting or reducing methane emissions.
However, agriculture should not be made the scapegoat.
The Commission considers that to take account of the digestive habits of ruminant livestock, in other words cattle and sheep, there should be livestock reduction.
This is not a feasible solution.
Firstly, this is already taking place because of milk quotas and BSE.
Secondly, it would open the door to competing third countries.
As the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has pointed out, we should call for more research into improving animal diets and better management of livestock effluents in intensive farming regions.
If we are serious about sustainable development, let us look at exploiting the potential of methane for energy and industrial purposes.
Electricity can be produced from the re-use of methane from landfills.
This could also open new opportunities for small companies.
There should be appropriate financial incentives.
We need more research, more public information.
It is a challenge which, if approached properly, can lead to a range of new opportunities.
Enlargement and cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs (continuation)
The next item is the report (A4-0107/98) by Mr Posselt, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the implications of enlargement of the European Union for cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs.
Mr President, the European Union is undergoing its greatest upheaval since its establishment in the 1950s.
Major enlargement, coupled with fundamental reforms, is imminent.
Apart from the question of the single currency, on which a vote has just been taken, there are three principal processes which concern us.
The first is the question of enlargement.
Concrete negotiations on enlargement began this week.
This is a historic moment, because it involves the greatest enlargement in the history of the EU.
The second point is the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is also taking place this year, by which our institutions will be reformed - at least in part, if by no means adequately - and by which a broad spectrum of further development and cooperation will be opened up, particularly in the areas of justice and internal affairs.
The third area is the ratification of the Europol Convention which is currently taking place, under which Europol, the European police force, will at last be able to act.
It is now time to link all these processes together in practical terms, as the communitization of the important areas of asylum, immigration and protection of external borders will be important in the five years following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, the creation of operational authority for Europol is also important, and it would be a mistake if we did not use the simultaneous process of eastwards enlargement of the European Union, and the negotiations on it, to make all these new policies pan-European and involve the candidate countries as fully as possible.
We are therefore of the opinion that we must ensure that the European Union should set the stage for the corresponding integration of these states now.
In the case of Austria - which has thankfully been a full member of the Schengen Agreement, which it implements in full, since yesterday - we had the problem that that country joined first and only then began to create certain conditions.
We should not repeat this mistake during eastward enlargement.
We must use the years between now and 2003, 2006, 2008 or whenever the first stage of enlargement takes place - in a region which suffered from dictatorship and repression for decades - to establish the rule of law and develop criteria for a state in which the rule of law prevails, for which spot-on qualification is just as necessary as the oftquoted single currency criteria.
We believe these states have achieved a lot by their own efforts, by liberating themselves, establishing the rule of law and making great sacrifices.
However, we must of course help them.
One of the focuses of my report is therefore education and training - the training of junior managers in justice and administration, who will then actually be able to apply European law and the acquis communautaire, which are currently undergoing rapid enlargement.
The Czech Minister of Justice has stated quite clearly that she has not been able to implement much European law so far, and the little she has been able to implement in her country could not be applied by civil servants because they had not been trained to do it.
We urgently need to focus our efforts by expanding our programmes to cover the central and eastern European countries and equipping them with the appropriate material resources.
I therefore suggest as a follow-up the establishment of a European Academy for Internal Security, in the existing border area between the European Union and the candidate countries, possibly in Lower Bavaria or the Oberpfalz.
Deggendorf would be a possibility, where there has been a major border control force establishment.
This European Academy for Internal Security should work towards one of our long-term objectives, namely a European border control force, because we are of the opinion that the individual states cannot assume control of external borders in the long term and that this should be under joint control.
Of course, the current situation is that we still have national border control forces which work well and have proved themselves.
Naturally, we shall require transitional periods on the existing external and eastern borders, even after eastward enlargement.
Austria has shown us, however, that every transitional period comes to an end at some time.
We must develop perspectives now for the time following the transitional period.
The idea of a European border control force has thus been developed and has thankfully met with broad consensus in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
In this connection, I would like to thank the other groups in this Parliament for their intensive cooperation on my report, particularly Mr Schmid from the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
I must also thank other Members who have ensured that we reached a consensus in setting an important stage for the future.
I believe there is a broad consensus in the European Union, particularly in the areas of combating crime, drug smuggling and trade in people, and the major problem of money laundering, and that there is also interest in the candidate countries, because this is not a matter of patronage, but of partnership.
Give and take already exists on both sides.
I therefore believe that this can become an engine for enlargement of the Community as a whole.
Mr President, I speak on behalf of Mrs Spaak and rise to present the results of her studies.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs shares the rapporteur's concern that the applicant countries should set in place stable institutions which guarantee democracy, the rights of their citizens, and the ability to take on the obligations of the Treaty and the acquis communautaire.
The first amendment from the Committee on Institutional Affairs highlights three problems: firstly, the five-year deadline for the adoption of measures aimed at the free movement of persons; secondly, their applicability to the procedure contained in Article 189 B; and finally, the decision about strengthened cooperation.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs thus insists that clauses relating to the field of justice and home affairs be revised when the institutional reforms take place, which should occur before the first enlargement.
The Committee is concerned about the risk of fragmentation of the European legal landscape.
In fact, the option which allows Member States to declare whether or not they accept the pre-judicial jurisdiction of the Court of Justice in the area of Title VI is dangerous for everybody, but more especially so for applicant countries, given the difficulties they face in adapting their legal systems.
Finally, I would like to draw the rapporteur's attention, if I may, to Amendment No 4 concerning paragraph 17, which was accepted by the Committee on Institutional Affairs but rejected by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
This amendment deals with the delicate problems of transition periods, which can only result from a precise and concrete evaluation of the existing situation in the new Member States at the moment of their joining.
This modest amendment has the merit of shortening and simplifying paragraphs 17 and 18 whilst still covering the essentials.
Mr President, it would probably not come as a surprise to you if I wanted to begin, like Mr Schulz, by saying that the Group of the European People's Party will vote in favour of this report, though probably not because Bernd Posselt is a hardline right-winger, but because he has prepared a report which tells it like it is - exactly as Mr Schulz has described very accurately - and which demonstrates the necessities which exist in this area.
If we are talking about realities here, permit me to begin with a minor factual correction or small remark.
The term 'eastward enlargement' is used again and again in this House.
As an Austrian, this always surprises me, when I consider that two of the applicant states have their capitals located a good distance west of Vienna.
The enlargement we are considering is an enlargement into central Europe.
If we were going to expand into Belarus and the Ukraine I would be happy to talk about eastward enlargement.
One aspect of this report which seems tremendously important to me is the fact that it reveals that the Community, or European Union, is changing more and more from an economic community into a political and thus a security community.
It reveals the security dimension, namely the security dimension which we must extend to the applicant states.
I think this is tremendously important, because the external - but also internal - image which the Union conveys again and again is, unfortunately, purely economic.
That cannot be correct.
Those states which wish to enter the EU expect certain solutions, particularly in such areas as security.
Each of these states has its own problems with ethnic groups or minorities, just as each Member State of the European Union does, without exception.
I believe this is particularly important if we are referring to the causes of this problem and trying to suggest solutions, as for example in paragraph 4, as regards ourselves - that is, the fact that the field of justice and home affairs must be integrated in the next institutional reform, which must take place before enlargement.
There is a further point in this report which I would like to emphasize because it seems particularly important to me as an Austrian. Mr Posselt has already mentioned it: the need for a European border control force.
In Austria, we have experienced the consequences of exposure to such rapid change, to a very, very great extent.
We have had to make massive changes to our border control units in Austria over recent years.
Thank heavens our borders with Germany and Italy in the south were opened one or two days ago.
This is hopefully the last major step we have had to take for the next three or four years. Then there will be further changes, as soon as the enlargement of the European Union has actually taken place.
I do not regard it as particularly practical for us to demand massive measures in the area of border security now from the applicant states, in whose infrastructure we shall have to make massive investments if they have great difficulty in actually implementing them.
I believe that is also one of the key points of the report.
Mr President, by an unfortunate coincidence, the start of negotiations on the enlargement of the European Union with the central and eastern European countries clashes with the Posselt report on the effects of EU enlargement on cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs.
I would nevertheless like to congratulate Mr Posselt on his excellent work.
This report is born of the desire to create a European space of freedom and justice.
Furthermore, the actions undertaken in this field will be subject to an annual review, which the Commission will pass on to the Council and the European Parliament.
This review will be useful as it will enable us to judge the capacity of the central and eastern European countries to fulfil two of the three Copenhagen criteria, namely the political criteria and the ability of the candidate states to take on the acquis communautaire .
The challenge is just as great for the European Union - and the indefatigable Mrs Spaak unstintingly insists on the absolute necessity of deepening the European Union as a prerequisite to any enlargement - as it is for the central and eastern European countries, who face a double challenge.
In fact, it is not only a question of adopting the measures in record time, which will allow the measures being addressed in the present debate to be transposed into national law. It is also a question of linking up with the cooperation effort initiated by the Fifteen in the field of justice and home affairs.
It is actually more a matter of changing their mentality than a problem of budgetary means.
Although the path ahead of us remains long and the tasks before us remain considerable, we must acknowledge the work already accomplished by the central and eastern European countries.
The remarkable area of individual freedom regained in most of the countries which until recently suffered under communist dictatorship is to the credit of the candidate countries and is a very encouraging sign for the future.
Mr President, Lech Walesa, the former president of Poland, is reputed to have said: ' It is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup' and went on to compare the task ahead of us by stating that: ' The degree of difficulty associated with the transition of a totalitarian state into a democratic state worthy of the name is comparable to the task of turning a fish soup into an aquarium' .
I believe he was not entirely wrong, and it is in the light of this wise observation that we should measure the efforts being made by the central and eastern European countries.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, now that the hardline right- and left wingers have paid tribute to each other - you obviously have to be hardline to be a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and I am very glad to be a member of the Committee on Institutional Affairs and able to do without this attribute, which I find very dubious - I would merely like to remind the members of the Committee on Internal Affairs that they are also members of the Committee on Civil Liberties, which is something which is frequently forgotten.
There are many ludicrous clauses in the Treaty of Amsterdam, but one of the most ludicrous is probably Article 29, which has, of course, also been included in this report.
It says: ' The Union's objectives shall be to provide citizens with a high level of safety within an area of freedom, security and justice by developing joint action among the Member States in the fields of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters and by preventing and combatting racism and xenophobia' .
The word freedom is not repeated.
The word justice is not repeated.
Only the word security - or safety - is repeated.
This imbalance is also reflected in the imbalance of this report.
Anyone who makes an unbalanced policy out of an imbalance of the values of law, freedom and security, and disturbs this balance, is using popular fear to do so.
Fear is not removed, but whipped up.
A major criticism of this report is the imbalance between the area of law and freedom and the security policy.
It may well make demands for guarantees of the rule of law and the stability of democratic institutions, but not, as we might expect, on us, where these things are strained, but on the countries of central and eastern Europe.
As if the rule of law would be guaranteed in the area of security by the establishment of the European Court of Justice, or civil rights protected by a charter of civil rights with the involvement of Parliament.
As if we should not be the first port of call for reproaches about the instability of institutions and the lack of the rule of law.
The report does not include a single word about this.
The report demands a common policy on asylum, but does not say a single word about the Geneva Convention, which is being removed piecemeal precisely by the policy of the European Union.
Reference is made to the rule of law, but only as an obligation for others.
This imbalance represents a serious imbalance in our system of values.
The second imbalance in this report has seldom been expressed so blatantly.
It is the imbalance of the burdens under which we are placing ourselves and the countries of eastern Europe.
With this policy, we are turning the countries of eastern Europe into a buffer zone for security, immigration and refugees for the European Union.
We are turning them into a glacis by telling them to solve our major problems, without helping them to do so.
Schengen prior to entry, a visa policy prior to entry, and adoption of the common asylum policy prior to entry, with nothing in return!
That is no policy to bring about an area of freedom and the rule of law.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the Yalta Conference, the states of western Europe in a way bought their freedom at the price of the servitude and ruin of the central and eastern European countries.
And, unfortunately, it is a cause for regret that the Member States of the Union and the European Union itself did not really contribute to the liberation of these countries, despite which, and thanks to truly exceptional men such as Lech Walesa, Václav Havel and of course, Pope John Paul II - not to mention many others - they liberated themselves.
If, in the words of that great Pope, Europe is now breathing with both its lungs, it is primarily thanks to the resistance and freedom of thought of these individuals and peoples.
We therefore owe a debt of gratitude to these countries and we must help them regain the freedom that comes with a democratic state.
As was mentioned earlier, many judges, police officers and civil servants in those countries have only known the totalitarian and repressive ways of the state.
They therefore have to re-learn that they are now living in a society which respects individual, civil and political rights.
That is why Mr Posselt is absolutely right to ask for greater cooperation with the applicant countries in the name of this moral debt which we collectively owe, to help them effectively set up this democratic state.
The rapporteur was also right in underlining that the measures contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam concerning the crossing of external borders, the abolition of border controls, asylum and immigration will be particularly difficult to implement for these countries in the short term, and again I agree with the Prince of Habsbourg-Lorraine on this point.
Whilst it is true that we have a duty to help in the development of the eastern European countries and to contribute in such a way as to help them fundamentally return to a society which respects the rights of the people, it is also clear that we must proceed with tact and not act like school teachers.
To conclude, I would like to pay homage to the fact that Mr Posselt has reminded us of our duties towards the nations of eastern Europe.
The same thing applies to international relations as to human relations: life is composed not just of rights, but of duties too.
Madam President, Commissioner, there are four matters I would like to raise, but the first thing I would like to say is that I am really glad that it is Commissioner Gradin herself who is present here, given her commitment to the fight against the trade in women and children, which also forms part of this report.
So, moving on to the four matters I would like to bring up: firstly, I hope that the so-called acquis document which will be started with the applicant countries will be applied to all countries equally, irrespective of whether we are negotiating or not.
We have heard rumours of dangerous conflicts.
The second thing is the cooperation which is to take place between administrations - in other words, that the 1 500 people who will be sent from the Member States to work in the applicant countries really will be working in the legal and judicial sphere.
This is a case of people helping administrators in the field, which is what we need more than anything else.
Thirdly, it is not enough to ratify conventions, they must also be implemented, such as the UN Convention on Children's Rights. This is what the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party took account of in our amendment.
Fourthly and finally, I am unhappy that it is not only trade in human beings we are dealing with here, but also the trade in organs in the applicant countries. Unfortunately, we have heard in Finland that this has happened in the applicant countries.
I very much welcome Mr Posselt's report on enlargement and justice and home affairs.
Justice and home affairs will take on much greater importance in this enlargement as compared to the previous ones.
The reasons are many: the existence of a much broader EU acquis ; the integration of Schengen; the increase in cross-border organized crime involving smuggling drugs and human beings; and not least, the serious concerns of European citizens as regards security and justice.
Obviously, there is a link between the security we can offer our citizens against crime and violence and the freedom of movement which we also will offer to the citizens of the candidate countries.
I see the enlargement process in the justice and home affairs areas as follows. Both the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs and myself have worked hard to make sure that high priority is given to these matters in the accession talks.
We now have a good balance between the need to remain in the single framework agreed in Luxembourg and the need to respond to the concern of the public that special attention should be devoted to justice and home affairs.
I wish to draw a distinction between negotiation and assistance.
Negotiation with the candidate countries will necessarily be prepared in the classic structure of the Council.
This structure is known from previous enlargement.
It is composed of the Enlargement Group, COREPER and the General Affairs Council.
The negotiations, as such, are conducted in bilateral intergovernmental conferences with each candidate country.
These conferences were launched two days ago.
The negotiation leads to accession treaties; they are primarily about transition periods.
That means: at what point in time must the acquis be taken over by a new Member State for it to be granted membership?
Accession treaties do not deal with the quality of the transposition and the implementation in practice.
The accession treaties, in fact, assume that the acquis is properly implemented from the day it is taken over.
So issues about implementation have to be dealt with urgently in the form of technical assistance and judicial monitoring.
We are now in the process of identifying the acquis .
This is handled as a joint effort by the Commission and the presidency, with full involvement of the K4 Committee.
First of all, much of the existing acquis in justice and home affairs consists of soft laws such as resolutions or declarations without legally binding effect, even on our own Member States.
These acquis will not require transitional periods.
Secondly, the rule of law itself, within the meaning of the first Copenhagen Criterion is not negotiable.
It cannot be subject to transitional agreement.
Concerning the customs union, which is a First Pillar acquis , unless you can guarantee a safe and reliable customs service at the external border, the scope for transitional periods also seems slim here. A lot of technical assistance is required.
That brings us to the Schengen acquis , in particular, its safeguard mechanism.
These acquis also require an effective border control and a high level of reliability.
The Council is still in the process of deciding how the Schengen acquis will become Union acquis under the Amsterdam Treaty.
When this is done I expect that this acquis will have to be taken on board as a whole.
There is no half-way membership of the Schengen acquis .
Schengen, as such, as well as the benefits linked to it, such as removal of border controls, will only apply in practice as and when all its conditions have been fulfilled.
The conclusion is that the acquis in justice and home affairs must apply from the first day of accession if all the freedoms guaranteed by the Treaty are to be granted.
That is an enormous challenge which will require massive technical assistance beforehand.
The Commission will present the acquis to all the candidates in the context of a so-called screening exercise starting in April.
The presidency will be assisting the Commission in this task when it comes to justice and home affairs.
New acquis will have to be added to this exercise as the negotiations proceed.
The procedures for negotiations were decided by the Luxembourg European Council.
The General Affairs Council and COREPER have to look to the K4 Committee as a consultation and coordination body for justice and home affairs matters during the whole of the negotiations.
This will give Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs an important say in the preparation of the negotiation.
I will be quite prepared to brief Parliament at regular intervals on the progress made.
Let me now turn to monitoring and assistance.
Monitoring and assistance will be at least as important as negotiation.
Here the Commission has always seen a very constructive role for Member States and their experts.
The challenge now is to identify where, when and how the huge technical assistance effort has to be deployed.
I believe that there are many ways this could be done.
First, the presidency has now delivered its opening statement to each candidate country allowed to negotiate.
This will send some key messages to the candidate, including rather forthright language on justice and home affairs.
Secondly, the General Affairs Council has finalized the priorities for the future accession partnership.
Here, too, the Council has used forthright language to cover the concerns of the citizens as regards security and justice.
I would like to recall the decision taken in Luxembourg that a special pre-accession strategy should be put in place for Cyprus.
A strong emphasis was placed on justice and home affairs in particular. Thirdly, in the context of the accession partnership, the candidate countries will very soon be presenting their national programmes for adopting the acquis .
The challenge will then be to identify what assistance they will need for the implementation of the acquis .
For the justice and home affairs areas, that assistance has to be provided mainly by experts from the public administration in the Member States.
The important task then is to identify the relevant experts, to make them available and to finance the whole operation.
The Commission has repeatedly insisted on the essential role interior and justice ministry experts will play in supporting the candidate countries in their preparation for membership.
The Commission, for its part, is ready to finance the salaries and the expenses connected with the secondment of experts.
The process has already started thanks to the network of contact points established last summer.
Among the assistance programmes underway are many of those mentioned by Mr Posselt, and in the new PHARE programme, as you know, 30 % of the funds are set aside for institution-building.
This involves the strengthening of democratic institutions, the rule of law, the functioning of the judiciary, approaches to asylum and migration, border controls and so on.
We also intend to open up existing Community programmes such as ODYSSEUS, OISIN, GROTIUS and FALCONE to the candidate countries.
They are already potential beneficiaries, but their participation in the programmes in their own right requires a horizontal decision which will involve more than justice and home affairs.
As regards police training, I would like to mention that three different police academies are already active in the central and eastern European countries.
I have doubts as to the added value of yet another one.
Fourthly, the assistance to be provided through the accession partnership will be conditional.
A particular project will not be automatically renewed if we are not convinced of its quality.
Furthermore, the various programmes will be adjusted to all the problems that may become apparent in the negotiations or in connection with the regular review procedures decided in Luxembourg.
The regular review procedure is intended for all the ten candidates from eastern and central Europe.
The procedure is based on a report from the Commission, and it will be made for the first time at the end of this year.
Justice and home affairs will be very important in this review report.
I could also mention the pact against organized crime which has to be agreed for the European Council in Cardiff.
All these initiatives support each other and underline the absolute priority for justice and home affairs in the coming enlargement, and that list is not exhaustive.
So the enlargement process will last several years.
Everybody agrees that developments in justice and home affairs matter and that they will play a crucial role in the success of the enlargement process as a whole.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
I now hand the floor over to Mr Schulz who has requested to speak pursuant to Rule 108.
Mr Voggenhuber, we cannot start a debate.
Nevertheless, I will give you the floor for a point of order, if that is the reason for your request.
The Rules do not provide for replying to a Member who has invoked Rule 108.
I will, however, allow you to make a point of order.
Madam President, I would also like to make use of this Rule of Procedure - and I think more justifiably, having been mentioned by name, which I did not do in my speech, in which I did not name the Member.
However, I will happily grant him the right to do so.
I believe that, had Mr Schulz been listening to me, he would have noticed that precisely the point which he uses was one of my major criticisms, namely that the legal guarantees, the demand for the rule of law and the stability of institutions is not directed at ourselves, as the state of affairs would make necessary, but at the countries of central and eastern Europe, with incredible moral arrogance.
I think I made it clear that the precise criticism is that in this third pillar, the position of the European Court of Justice has not been clarified in cooperation between justice and home affairs, that we have no list of basic rights, no parliamentary and judicial control over this area, and that the moral finger should be pointing at us, before we point it at others.
That is an evident shortcoming of this report.
It is significant that it does not mention it once.
Madam President, I have been mentioned twice, so I should really be able to speak twice under Rule 108.
I would like to thank my colleagues most sincerely for their support and positive cooperation, particularly Mr Schulz and others.
However, I would also like to say that Mr Voggenhuber should either read reports in future or change his speechwriter if he has not got the time to do so, because my report struck a fine balance between the rule of law and internal security.
By the way, I have no hesitation in mentioning that I adopted suggestions and proposals from Mrs Roth - not as many as she would have liked, but some.
However, there were some major amendments on which we also achieved a broad consensus.
Mrs Roth abstained in the final vote.
All the other members of the committee voted in favour.
She did not table any amendments during the partsession.
Neither did you. I wonder why not?
Seen from this point of view, I think this is a last-ditch stand to which we should not attribute too much importance.
(Applause from the Group of the European People's Party)
Mr Posselt, in any case, regardless of Rule 108, it is quite obvious that you cannot refuse to let a rapporteur speak when he asks to do so.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Mr Voggenhuber, I think you are out of order.
I would gladly give you the floor, but it does not make much sense.
I believe the explanation was very clear.
Madam President, I hesitate to try your patience.
However, if I am to be not only addressed personally but attacked twice in a debate, I also have the right to respond to both speakers.
I shall not exaggerate, and thank you for your generosity.
I would just like to say one thing about not reading reports.
I do not know if it is possible to write reports without reading them, but in case it is possible for some Members, may I just quote one passage which was also quoted by Mr Posselt as if it referred to the EU itself.
However, it must be expressly interpreted as a condition of entry for the countries of central and eastern Europe.
Perhaps it is possible to be a hardline right-winger in this Parliament, but people should, I think, at least know their own reports, in order to be able to defend them rather better.
Mutual legal assistance in criminal matters
The next item is the report (A4-0122/98) by Mr Buffetaut, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council Act establishing a Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union (5202/98 - C4-0062/98-98/0902(CNS)) and the draft joint action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union on good practice in mutual legal assistance in criminal matters (13300/97 - C40069/98-98/0903(CNS)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the increased cooperation between the Member States of the European Union is completely legitimate under the principle of subsidiarity when it is clear that joint action is more effective than individual actions within the various Member States.
Can there be a more legitimate area for such cooperation than in the fight against international crime?
It would indeed be a paradox if the main beneficiaries of the free movement of goods and persons were lawbreakers, international criminals and gangsters.
The removal of all border controls will necessarily lead to an escalation of such activities.
Now more than ever it is vital that we bring about concrete, practical, realistic and effective mutual assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union.
In their now famous appeal, seven European magistrates underlined the fact that alongside the visible, official and respectable Europe being built - to quote them - there was a hidden and much darker Europe, that of the Mafia and criminal activities.
To combat this, they notably asked for a review of the European Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters, and recommended a series of practical measures such as allowing European judges to directly address judges from other European countries.
It is these concerns which are addressed in part by the draft Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters and the draft joint action on good practice in mutual legal assistance.
As it happens, both these texts are also part of the action plan against criminality adopted by the Amsterdam European Council.
It seems that the Member States encountered difficulties, since the text submitted to us is somewhat truncated and not very definitive.
Indeed, modified versions, with which we have not been supplied, are now in circulation.
It is quite exasperating and unsatisfactory that we should be giving a verdict on texts we know to have since been modified.
It is important to highlight the fact that in addition, last December's Justice and Home Affairs Council decided to suspend dealing with certain particularly delicate questions and instead to refer to an additional protocol about which we know nothing.
This exemplifies the major difficulties encountered by the negotiators in the difficult field of justice - namely the lack of mutual confidence between Member States as regards their respective legal systems.
This is in spite of the fact that all the nations concerned recognize the state of law, although the legal traditions and philosophies differ from one Member State to the next: Common law, droit romain and the Napoleonic code.
Moreover, law and punishment touch on essential elements of the freedom of individuals and national sovereignty.
We must be pragmatic if we are to achieve positive results in these areas.
Inter-state cooperation remains without doubt the most effective way of progressing because it reassures the Member States and avoids conflicts of principle.
That said, what is the essence of the amendments adopted by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs? To make the Council's text more effective, if not bolder.
We therefore believed it necessary to remind everyone of the strategic importance of legal cooperation in the fight against organized crime; to highlight the need to place consistent and easily applied instruments at the disposal of the justice professionals; to affirm that it is important to develop mutual trust between judicial systems; to take into consideration the requirements for speedy inquiries and court cases, whilst still respecting fairness and justice; to try to eliminate the obstacles in the way of legal cooperation; to take into account defence requirements; and finally, to encourage direct communication between the judiciaries.
I would like to emphasize this last point.
This is actually one of the recurrent requests of the justice professionals and a prerequisite for effective administration of justice.
The draft Convention makes provision for this facility, yet immediately grants Member States the option of not joining this simplified mechanism.
However, this direct communication is an essential constituent of an effective procedure.
That is why we believe that allowing Member States an opt-out actually carries the risk of divesting the Convention of one of its most useful aspects.
To conclude, I would like to thank all my colleagues in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs who have provided me with their highly competent and courteous support. I would also like to say that it is a matter of regret to me that the Council is asking us for a verdict on texts which have since been modified.
Madam President, we are once more confronted with legislation which makes us painfully aware of the contradiction between true Union law and mere international settlements.
The Convention and the joint action are only a continuation of the 1959 European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters and a similar Benelux Treaty of 1962, which is to be updated by a link with the Schengen Agreement and adaptation to modern systems.
Has this project succeeded? The amendments tabled by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs shows how much remains to be done here.
The amendments tabled by Mr Buffetaut should therefore be accepted in any case, including the reduction of the limit proposed by this Parliament, as it concerns indispensable refinements.
There is one exception, however - permit me, Mr Buffetaut, to say this.
In Amendment No 23, the Council text, insofar as it concerns part (b), should be given preference.
In my opinion, the amendment entails dilution, which does not correspond to the tone of your remaining amendments.
Have we thus gained legal instruments which are suitable for the contemporary demands of fighting crime and upholding the law? I do not think so, any more than the so-called communitization of the Schengen Agreement was achieved by the Amsterdam Treaty.
What we need is not the continuation of antiquated treaties with more and more bureaucracy, but the real communitization of the legal dimension in cross-border traffic, immigration, refugee and asylum law and the protection of the civil liberties of EU citizens, which have gained a requirement for regulation in the interim.
But where is the political will for such communitization? That is a question which must be put to us, the European Parliament, first!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the draft Convention and joint action go back to the Council's action plan for combating organized crime.
I hope I shall not fall out with listeners or Members yet again if I say that combating organized crime is an imperative.
It is indispensable.
We must therefore also consider that the Convention passed to us on 14 and 20 January initially represents a major contribution by the Council to implementing the objective of the action plans.
Mr Ullmann has just indicated that existing agreements should be developed.
The objective is to develop, expand and facilitate the application of the European Convention on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 20 April 1959, its Additional protocol of 17 March 1978, the Convention of 19 June 1990 applying the Schengen Agreement, and the Benelux Treaty on Extradition and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters of 27 June 1962.
You can see the difficult problem with which we are confronted and the difficult task Mr Buffetaut has had from the list of treaties and the details I have mentioned.
He has had to try to do justice to the requirements emerging from European integration - particularly economic integration - on the basis of old treaties, which were concluded at times when the institutions which now exist were undreamt of.
In one aspect it cannot be helped: the unlimited economic activity which is possible in the European Union also entails unrestricted activity in the underground economy, which is initially being combated by an attempt at intensified police cooperation.
I repeat: an attempt - because Europol is still not getting into its stride to the necessary extent, to say nothing of the millstone around its neck - at least, it is a millstone in the view of the Group of the Party of European Socialists - of the overdue need to grant it operational powers at Union level, which lies in the distant future.
If we assume that this European police force exists, with rights and, of course, powers of control under the rule of law - so the Member who has just spoken need not get excited - this would not mean that the results which such policing would bring could be used judicially to the correspondingly necessary extent.
That is where the debate on Mr Buffetaut's report must begin.
The current draft specifies the procedure under which mutual assistance is granted and the observance of the forms and procedures specified by the petitioning Member State in accordance with which mutual assistance is to be granted.
The return of the proceeds of crime, the procedure required, and cooperation in telecommunications traffic between Member States - a very difficult topic - are described.
It specifies how the transmission and transfer of procedural documents is to take place, including the necessary translations of the procedural documents to be transferred.
Facilities for examinations, how they can take place by video-conferencing, and how the corresponding translations can be made during video-conferencing, are specified.
A host of other matters, which I do not wish to mention at this point, are described, which would be necessary to make judicial cooperation possible between two states in proceedings from the confiscation of the proceeds of crime to video-conferencing, whilst observing the existing institutions of the other respective state.
If this is multiplied to involve 15 Member States cooperating with each other, whilst strictly maintaining their existing institutions, hell will have frozen over by the time we have translated the proposals, I am sure.
We shall not get anywhere like this.
What we need is what Mr Buffetaut has indicated, to our surprise: an intensification of the will to harmonize.
We must begin by harmonizing quite distinct areas of judicial cooperation.
I know I cannot always say this without being punished from within my own ranks.
To me, harmonization means that if the European Union wishes to gain executive powers in the long term - including in the area of judicial cooperation - rights must be transferred to it by the Member States.
We have been transferring rights from national sovereignty to the European Union in stages, including in recent months.
We are all pleased that we shall soon have monetary union in the European Union.
We hope that all the Member States of the European Union will soon have the euro as legal tender.
We know that all the groups in this Parliament who have voted for the introduction of the euro have done so because they hope that it will intensify integration.
On the other hand, as the debate on the Buffetaut report has shown, we are faced with the major difficulty that we are not prepared to transfer powers where the nation state is still at its mightiest: police and the judiciary.
If we go on creating an economic area of this type, as we are doing, equipped with a single currency, but holding on to the idea that only our public prosecutors in the Federal Republic of Germany, France or Belgium are in a position to fight crime on the basis of their respective national law, like a child with a favourite toy, then I am going to turn to crime at some stage. That is simpler than being a law-abiding citizen in Europe.
What we are talking about here is the future capacity of the European Union.
I see all the clever lawyers, including on my own committee, sitting over there saying: "There he goes babbling to himself again, with no idea how the legal system works.
If he knew what all the obstacles were he would not talk like that.'
But, precisely because we need the courage of non-lawyers in order to make progress in judicial cooperation, I will tell you again: in the opinion of our group, the best thing about the Buffetaut report is that he tries to make it clear that we shall only make progress in judicial cooperation and mutual assistance in criminal matters by intensifying harmonization in cooperation within the scope of application of joint actions and in the stronger and stronger application of methods which have proved themselves on the basis of mutual experience. This is astounding for a Member of his group.
One last remark on the procedure of this House.
If we are to be consulted, the Council must appreciate that the consultation procedure forms part of the legislative process.
This is not a courtesy shown to Parliament. It is a constituent part of the legislative process.
If, as Mr Buffetaut indicated, Parliament is discussing the submission from the Council as communicated to us - in this case under pressure, because we want to keep to the Council's deadline - and the Council changes its text in the middle of this consultation procedure, it makes what we do here cosmetic. This is probably not the fault of the Council representative present here, who should tell his masters that this Parliament will not, I hope, permit it to trample all over its rights, particularly in the third pillar.
It is democracy which is being trampled underfoot, which is something which democratically elected governments should avoid if possible!
(Applause)
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I will begin by saying that my group will support Mr Buffetaut's report, which represents excellent work by the rapporteur and admirable cooperation on the part of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
Having said that, Mr President, allow me symbolically to address the people listening to us in the gallery and interpret what they must feel watching us here today debating this issue, and watching the way in which we are doing it.
I am sure they must feel a mixture of confusion and impotence at what we are in fact acknowledging, because, Mr President, the problem is very clear.
We have seen massive demonstrations in various Member States against organized crime, from the demonstrations against terrorism in Spain, to the "white march' in Brussels, and every other type of protest.
In all the Member States, there is a common awareness that this is a common problem that we can only tackle together.
And in the face of this, the political initiative, the political impetus of the Member States is lagging way behind.
When making declarations, we talk about the need to create a single judicial, police and legal area.
However, when putting these declarations into practice, we continue to get lost in a sea of regulations - regulations among which, in many cases, even the most experienced, knowledgable lawyers have difficulty finding their way.
And meanwhile, as we have heard from all sides of the House - because I believe our position in this respect is unanimous - the internal market benefits, above all the criminals, even though this is a macabre irony.
Mr President, this report, which undoubtably puts forward some suggestions, must be welcomed, but it represents progress in only very small steps.
It is almost, if you will allow me a certain degree of irony - although the seriousness of the issue does not warrant it - a "lame' step. Why do I say "lame' ?
Because in this case, Mr President - and I am referring to everything that was also said from the seats here in this House - we have lacked from the beginning interinstitutional respect and, to a much greater degree, respect for the citizens.
Mr President, it is no longer a case of us having been sent a draft Convention which does not correspond with what we are currently debating.
The problem is that this draft Convention is actually nothing of the sort.
We cannot consider a convention which from the very start has been incomplete to be a draft convention.
There are certain articles, for example Article 4, whose only content is "deleted ' . The same is true of Articles 8 and 9.
What sort of way is this to draw up regulations?
What kind of legally binding content does it have? And then there is the usage of suspension points: paragraph 2 of Article 12 has three suspension points; subparagraphs e) and g) of paragraph 6 of Article 12, three suspension points plus three more suspension points, six suspension points in all; paragraph 6 of Article 15 contains more suspension points; and there are also some in Article 16.
There is also the usage - and the Council should tell us what purpose they serve - of "square brackets' which are unfamiliar to us. In the Council's language, these correspond to issues that are being debated by the Member States.
But we do not know what significance there is in asking for Parliament's opinion on those sentences included in the "square brackets' .
Mr President, this procedure is not satisfactory.
We have condemned it many times in this House.
We cannot allow this procedural game.
We cannot allow it, because we must defend our institutional competencies - and here I would like to thank the Commission which, on the contrary, shows a deference in these matters concerning the third pillar which is worthy of praise.
We also cannot allow it because we must defend our authority as an institution.
But, more particularly, we must not allow it because we are representing here the European citizens; citizens who are sitting here today and who, I imagine, will take away a very confused idea of the progress we are currently making as regards the third pillar.
Mr President, I consider the Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union, on which the report is based, to be a suitable instrument for reducing, if not removing, the existing shortcomings in the combating of cross-border crime, allowing for the justifiable criticism and amendments mentioned by the rapporteur.
International telephone tapping, observing the respective internal legal arrangements, must be just as possible as controlled service, the transmission of procedural documents, the audio-visual examination of witnesses and expert witnesses across borders, and the spontaneous exchange of information between prosecuting authorities, on as simple a basis as possible.
These are instruments which have long been available to organized crime, and their extension to prosecuting authorities should reduce the technical lead enjoyed by organized crime.
We therefore agree with the report in full.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Buffetaut on a valuable report on the draft of the Convention and joint action on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.
Both these instruments are necessary in the fight against organized crime.
It also means that we are defending the security in law of the individual in a Europe without borders.
I have long argued in favour of facilitating cooperation between the courts and other judicial organizations in the Member States.
In the work on fighting embezzlement of Union funds, I have seen for myself how delays in exchanging information between different legal systems are a direct encouragement to crime.
The appeals to Geneva from a number of prosecutors are another example of why something has to be done.
We will not be able to meet the challenges which today's organized crime presents unless we have effective legal cooperation.
The Convention on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters is intended to improve and complement the way we work now.
One basic assumption is that the courts in different Member States will in future be able to exchange information and request assistance from one another directly.
This is an important principle.
I think any exceptions to this principle should be kept to the absolute minimum.
Among other things, the Convention will also make it easier to question witnesses and obtain evidence between Member States.
At the same time, the Convention leaves room for further improvements in terms of cooperation.
Mr Buffetaut complains that there are a number of questions which have not been settled in the Convention.
For example, the report states that raids and seizures have been dropped and will be covered by a later rider to the Convention.
The same applies to the question of data protection and the role of the European Court of Justice.
I can understand the rapporteur's concern, but increasing cooperation on criminal matters will not grow overnight.
It is a long-term task which is about a process in which, at the same time as improving practical cooperation, we are also working on harmonizing our various laws.
The rapporteur also proposes that Europol should act as a channel for communicating proposals for mutual legal assistance between Member States.
Europol has a good chance of getting a request to the right address fast, so I think the proposal is interesting.
It is also in line with the discussions already under way on giving Europol's liaison officers a coordinating role for letters rogatory.
Joint action is an important complement to the Convention.
It lays down a number of principles as to how Member States are to handle a request for mutual legal assistance.
I particularly welcome the provisions on set times for action.
Of course it is possible to discuss joint action, as the rapporteur has done, and a convention is not the best way of laying down fixed principles for action.
On the other hand, I believe the important thing for both the rapporteur and myself is that the Member States should apply the principles quickly and effectively.
The annual reports are an important tool here.
They can be used both to assess the situation in each Member State and to make comparisons between them.
Like Mr Buffetaut, I believe the European legal network should be included in the report work.
The network will contribute knowledge and experience on how to develop and intensify mutual legal assistance between Member States.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Driving disqualification
The next item is the report (A4-0121/98) by Mrs Reding, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council Act establishing a Convention on driving disqualifications (5217/98 - C4-0061/98-98/0901(CNS))
Mr President, the figures speak for themselves: 45 000 dead and 1.6 million injured on our roads, and all the pain and suffering that goes with these horrifying statistics. A cost of ECU 1 million to the European Union for each citizen killed.
Ladies and gentlemen, these figures are shocking. In order to counter such a distressing situation, a twopronged assault combining prevention on the one hand and repression on the other is envisaged.
Prevention is achieved through campaigns aimed at alerting people to the dangers of drink driving and educating them about the fight against illegal substances; compulsory technical vehicle inspections; improvements in the provision of signals; and so on and so forth.
These preventive measures are intended to improve road safety in general and remove the cause of certain accidents before they can occur.
Hand in hand with prevention, we must also organize suppression, since even the best prevention campaigns have not stopped some of our fellow citizens from flouting traffic regulations.
Sanctions already exist in our Member States and these range from fines for minor offences to driving disqualifications for more serious offences.
The European institutions have already been very active in the area of prevention.
Under the auspices of this Convention, the suppressive aspects of this European action need to be strengthened.
The Convention proposes to inaugurate the recognition by a driver's country of residence of a decision to ban them from driving taken in another Member State.
To put this more clearly, measures are needed which will bring about a situation whereby a ban in one Member State would also be enforced in the country of residence and, by extension, everywhere that a driving licence is required in order to drive a vehicle.
In future, these cowboys of the road will no longer be protected from prosecution in their countries of residence for offences committed in another Member State.
That said, certain organizations and several colleagues have told me of their concerns over the protection of citizens against the consequences of applying this new Convention.
I can now reassure them on this point.
The Convention has been painstakingly put together and incorporates barriers against all forms of abuse or unjustified complications relating to the people in question and furthermore, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has adopted a number of amendments which will further strengthen citizens' protection.
I do not intend to list all of them but I will mention the most important ones.
First of all, the Convention does not apply to minor offences.
The catalogue of offences concerned only includes very serious offences which endanger people's lives.
It is not therefore aimed at pursuing minor traffic offences. On the contrary, it is aimed at stopping dangerous drivers.
Next, driving disqualification does not rely on a so-called centralizing bureaucracy in Brussels, but on the relevant authorities in the Member States of residence, who alone have the right to choose whether or not to apply the Convention.
It is not, therefore, a remote and ill-known entity which will decide, but an authority close to its citizens.
Finally, the Convention makes provision for a number of cases in which it does not apply, the most notable of these being the situation where the offences committed do not carry a disqualification in the country of residence.
For example, if a resident of Luxembourg is disqualified from driving in another Member State because of a blood sugar level of 5 parts per 1000, this decision would not be applicable in Luxembourg where the limit is 8 parts per 1000.
The Convention is not applicable if it can be established that the person concerned has not had the opportunity of defending themselves correctly, especially due to procedural irregularities or language problems, for the right to a defence is a fundamental right which must be respected.
Furthermore, the Convention also makes provision for several procedures aimed at taking into account the differences in administrative or legal methods in the different Member States.
I am therefore of the opinion that even though the present Convention may not be perfect, Parliament's amendments have rendered it logical, legally speaking more correct and transparent, and therefore better placed to protect the rights of our citizens.
By respecting the law and being transparent, the amended Convention constitutes an important step forward.
I therefore ask Parliament to support the Council in this initiative.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Reding has just spoken most comprehensively about her report and I must congratulate her most sincerely.
I believe that what she has said here, and the content of the unanimously adopted amendments, show that this report was not only prepared very well, but also that its content addresses the points in question.
Nevertheless, I would like to state that this report affects us all, although only a few Members are present, because any of us could commit a traffic offence in another country resulting in disqualification from driving in that country, but not in another.
Although this Convention provides for the respective country of residence to decide whether the driver should be disqualified, there are some cases in which we must ensure that no-one is disqualified from driving when they would not have been disqualified at home.
It is fundamentally necessary that we should get round to making uniform regulations at a European level which are applied uniformly, particularly where traffic legislation is concerned.
As Mrs Reding has stated, a step has been taken in the right direction and I hope that others will follow.
Although there are countries in which the alcohol limit for driving is zero and others where it is 80 mg per 100 ml of blood, these differences should be removed, if we want to have a unified Europe.
I would welcome the introduction of real, uniform regulations in Europe, whether for speeding, the alcohol limit or other areas of traffic legislation, so that we had European rules for disqualification from driving, instead of more rules made under bilateral agreements.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the legislation we are debating affects all European drivers and thus a large number of people, which ensures it will get attention, but this also justifies the need to give it careful consideration, which is our intention here.
Firstly, some misunderstandings must be cleared up.
This is not a matter of harmonizing road traffic legislation in Europe.
It is not even a matter of communitizing the consequences of driving offences.
The objective of the Convention only concerns disqualification from driving, which is a relatively advanced stage for drivers.
That is the sole objective of this Convention.
It has now been asked whether such a uniform ruling can be made, in view of the diversity of laws on driving in Europe. If we, as Europeans, use the entire area of the European Union as drivers, we must also accept that uniform rules apply, in principle.
Should a driver therefore commit such a serious offence in one European country that he is disqualified from driving, it must also be accepted that this will have consequences at home.
To put it another way, road hogs must not get away with shaking the dust of one Member State off their shoes and carrying on driving at home, as if nothing had happened.
That is why this rule is correct in principle.
There have been objections from drivers' organizations.
They are quite entitled to take a critical attitude to such a regulation and we want to consider it.
The question is whether disqualification from driving can be enforced at home, in view of the differences in regulations, but also in view of the different legal systems.
It is the old story: how much Europe do we need? Or, as a major German newspaper recently asked: "How much Europe can we stand?'
This regulation does not apply without restrictions.
It is restricted by safeguards within the rule of law. This Convention will initially only apply to serious offences which are individually listed, not to every offence.
Secondly, it must for example be stated that disqualification can only be enforced at home if, of course, it concerns an offence which is also punishable at home.
The notorious example of someone losing their licence for drink driving in Sweden with 30 mg of alcohol per 100 ml of blood would not be implemented in Germany, because such behaviour in Germany is not normally punishable.
There is thus a host of rules which demonstrate that the principles of the rule of law apply.
However, there is a further objection, namely the differences between legal systems, of which there is a comic example.
In one of the most delightful Member States of the European Union, exceeding the speed limit can be detected by a police officer with the naked trained eye, as it is said.
This would, of course, not be recognized everywhere.
It can therefore be disputed whether it makes sense.
But if we accept that every Member State enjoys the rule of law, we can have confidence that the judicial authorities act within the rule of law in principle.
Should we enter the sovereignty of such a state, we must accept that slightly different rules may possibly apply there.
However, Europe as a whole is subject to the rule of law and we can also put our confidence in it in this area.
Mr President, Commissioner, the way the draft of this Convention has been handled in the European Parliament shows once again that this Parliament is the right institution to protect civil rights and questions of protection in law.
If the Council had listened to Parliament on the subject of Eurodac or criminalizing working in organizations, I believe we would have had clearer rules than is actually currently the case at the Council.
Secondly, I hope this Convention actually becomes a reality, unlike so many others.
Thirdly, I really believe - as I said before - that the rapporteur's amendments will make ratifying the Convention more attractive to the Member States.
I am thinking of Amendment No 13 to Article 8 and also the amendment to Article 9.
What I am slightly doubtful about, on the other hand, is the amendment to Article 4, as we in Scandinavia, for example, have a number of police authorities working together well.
I can imagine we would need this to have the coordination system which is part of any legal system.
So I feel slightly critical of this amendment.
Mr President, the implementation of the free movement of persons within the Union leads to the urgency of the measure being discussed.
We thank Mrs Reding for her excellent work and, while awaiting an approximation of the national laws, we hope the Council's proposal will at least serve to establish, at European level, recognition by the country of residence of a decision to penalize a driver by withdrawing their driving licence on the part of another Member State.
The subject draws attention to identification documents in general.
I will take this opportunity to report a paradoxical situation, which is that of the obligation to hold a passport for various Community citizens within the Union. For example - and this causes them problems - young Italians born in Belgium, but not having Belgian citizenship, do not hold an identity card but simply a residence permit that does not allow them to travel in Europe.
We are therefore asking for a real European identity card to be introduced and for the current, anachronistic Community residence permit to be changed to a residence permit and free pass.
Mr President, in principle we have two methods of achieving road safety objectives.
The first is penalties, which we are discussing today.
I would also like to comment that disqualification from driving is a threat to the livelihood of many people.
We have experienced many suicides following disqualification.
It is really an extreme measure which should therefore be used carefully.
We have a second method, namely using incentives.
We should emphasize training very intensively, particularly on the roads, as lifelong learning.
We should emphasize research to improve the safety of vehicles, their drivers and the roads, and we should emphasize infrastructure, meaning electronic systems, simply to make traffic safer.
I believe that a combination of both methods will ultimately lead to success in Europe.
Mr President, nobody wants road hogs to endanger life.
The tone of this report is therefore welcome.
However, it seems to us that the implementation of its intentions has not succeeded.
Apart from the legally unusual construction of Article 3 in conjunction with Article 5, the main problem is, in my opinion, that errors occur for a wide variety of reasons in proceedings abroad, particularly in the investigation of the circumstances, and remain unchallenged, again for a wide variety of reasons.
The linking of the place of residence to findings in the decision in the state in which the offence was committed does not appear to permit the accused to exhaust the full potential for defence to which he would be entitled under the laws of his country of residence.
The facility for the Member State to reject enforcement in a case in which rights of defence have been breached does not, in our opinion, constitute sufficient compensation, for practical reasons.
We would prefer proceedings to take place in the respective country of residence.
I would like to thank both the Commissioner and the rapporteur, Mrs Reding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Abolition of duty-free sales
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B4-0279/98 - O-0073/98 by Mr Cornelissen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the social and regional consequences of the abolition of duty-free sales in the regions affected; -B4-0283/98 - O-0087/98 by Mrs Ewing and Mr Castagnède, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the duty-free sales system.
Mr President, this House probably knows that, representing the Highlands and Islands, I have a great connection with the Scotch whisky industry with its hundreds of distilleries and hundreds of types of whisky - a very important employer in areas where there is often no alternative employment.
I would like to follow on from Mr Cornelissen: I do not need to repeat what he said but I endorse his demand for a full study.
What annoys me is that this was promised by the tax Commissioner in November 1990 and May 1991.
Commissioner Monti came before the EMAC Committee and I was present on that particular occasion when we put these points to him and he seemed to me unrepentant and rather debonair about the fact that such a promise had been made and that the promise was broken.
I am still wondering if we could get an explanation from the Commission as to why the promise was not kept.
We have had other studies of course.
We have had a study from a research department of Parliament which has caused some of the concern among citizens because, as Mr Cornelissen said, we do not know how many jobs are at stake.
But there are estimates that far more than 40 000 jobs may be lost, and this at a time of enormously high unemployment.
The effect on peripheral areas would be very serious because, as I have said already, such areas have very few employment alternatives.
We have received justifications from the Council for a refusal to reconsider this matter.
One is that it is necessary for the single market; but is it not rather ironic that, so far as alcohol is concerned, we do not have a single market? We have not yet managed to tax in accordance with any sensible rule, for instance alcohol strength.
We have not got a level playing field so far as alcohol is concerned.
So the first justification does not seem to me to hold water.
The second justification - there are probably many others that the Commissioner might be able to put forward - is that ECU 2 billion is the cost of the loss in duties.
But some of the studies suggest there is no proof that amount would be made up even if duty-free is abolished.
There is no doubt of course that, in many cases, duty-free affects the cost of airport fares and ferry charges.
We know that to be true, we do not disguise the fact.
But I go back to the effect of these costs, if they have to rise in peripheral areas.
There is enormous concern among the citizenry.
I know it would have to be unanimous, but please, in view of the concern, could we not ask that the Council look at this again?
Mr President, I am surprised and disappointed at the Commissioner's negative reply.
It is hard to believe that, in 1999, authorities are introducing measures without knowing what the effects will be on employment and regional development.
May I point to the statements made in this House by the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, about how much store he sets by good cooperation with the European Parliament?
The Commission's reply does not square with this.
Nor does it show much respect for the tens of thousands of anxious workers in the sector.
I would draw your attention to the march in Brussels last year in which 5 000 people took part.
The reply is also at odds with the citizens' Europe the Commission is so keen on.
Could I therefore ask the Commissioner in the strongest possible terms whether he is prepared to discuss this disappointing outcome with Mr Santer.
Could I also ask him, partly in view of the recent request made by the Transport Council, and in the interest of tens of thousands of worried people, to carry out the requested study urgently, so that we all know what we are talking about.
We are adult enough, Mr President, to judge whether it is correct or not.
Mr President, I rise to support Mr Cornelissen, Mrs Ewing and Mr Miller. My group supports the resolution.
It has already been said that promises were given in this House by the Commission that it would undertake a social and economic impact study into the abolition of duty-free sales.
Mr Cornelissen has put his finger on the pulse.
The reality is that the Commission representatives continue to refuse to make any analysis even in the face of the decision taken by the Transport Council last March to call for a study of the situation.
Regardless of what position individual Members of this House have on the worth of the continuation of duty-free, my group strongly supports this motion as it addresses the failure of the democratic process whereby the Commission continues to ignore the wishes of those who are elected by the citizens of Europe.
It is they who have the right to expect that their interests are represented wholeheartedly.
So let us have the study and then we can take the necessary decisions on this issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we would not be having this debate if there was not a powerful lobby which has pulled out all the stops to rattle public opinion, and which has even succeeded in mobilizing most of the groups.
We have known for a long time that the Council and the Commission together proposed to abolish duty-free sales at some point.
More than seven years were allocated to this process of abolition, nor does it make any sense in a common market to keep such a scheme.
Moreover it is clear that most of the duty-free shops will not suffer at all, as people do not buy there because it is cheaper - in fact often it is more expensive, as I know from experience - but because people have time on their hands, and they want to buy a gift, and so on.
We are behind the Council and the Commission.
We believe there is something to be said for a study, if only to work out a concrete action plan.
Proof can then be established that there will only be a shift in jobs, and that the possible social and transport problems in peripheral regions will be countered in all earnestness.
This we support; no more, but also no less.
Mr President, I certainly find the present debate on the future of duty-free ridiculous to say the least.
If ever we were trying to remove from the public something they want to keep, this is it.
The vast majority who travel abroad do so either on holiday or on business and they like the availability of duty-free.
It is the one little perk they have.
What are we proposing? We are proposing to remove the small advantage they have.
And what will be achieved? All we will do is anger European citizens who travel, and all in the name of the European Union and the single market.
On top of that, we are going to put a lot of people out of work.
I thought our business was about retaining and creating jobs, not putting people out of work.
I would take this opportunity to urge the Commission and the Council that rather than reply as they have done this afternoon in a very bureaucratic way, as Mr Cox said, they should recognize the deep feeling and concern that is held on this issue by citizens throughout the length and breadth of the European Union.
This will only increase as many people do not yet realize what is going to happen to them very soon.
I urge that, instead of letting that resentment against the European Union deepen, we take positive steps to ensure that this does not happen.
At the close of the debate I have received six motions for a resolution .
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Mr President, having listened to the Commissioner's speech I am of the opinion that the issue was displaced, since we were faced with a double challenge.
Mr Commissioner, the first challenge is this: you said that after a transition period lasting seven years we did not need a report, and that we would not draw up a report.
However, you also admitted that there would be repercussions on employment, on the ports, on travel and on the market.
The second challenge is this: there will be repercussions.
Each Member State will face up to these repercussions and rectify the situation.
However, was it the policy of each Member State individually that caused these repercussions or was it Community policy? This Community policy must be responsible for coming to the aid of each Member State to put these repercussions right.
In the meantime, Mr Commissioner, the people working in the sector say that 145 000 jobs will be lost, mainly affecting young people who work in the duty-free shops.
I want to ask you what these young people will do. Do you know why you are delaying the study?
Do you know why you will never submit it? Because you cannot be bothered to look and see what will happen to these people.
That is why you are avoiding it. If not, it would have been very easy for you to produce evidence to show that such and such would be the repercussions, such and such would be the tax gains.
You do not want to get involved in the issue of what will happen to the 150 000 people who will be thrown out into the streets. These young people will swell the ranks of the 20 million unemployed, made jobless by your notorious, infamous unified market and the policies you implement to promote it.
Mr President, can I start by saying that if somebody was thinking of inventing duty-free tomorrow and they actually came forward with these ideas I am sure they would never be taken up.
However, we are not in that position.
The original rationale behind duty-free is clearly flawed and clearly the people who had the idea never envisaged the single market which we are trying to work towards at the moment.
The same could be true of something like smoking.
If we could have banned smoking before it started I am sure we would have done so, but clearly all we can do for the moment is try and discourage it.
So it is there, we have got to deal with it.
The question is, how do we deal with it?
We all know, because many of us in this Parliament travel as often as we do, that certainly ports and airports use the advantages of duty-free to actually reduce the costs of fares and of travelling to passengers.
In my own region in particular I have two airports, Manchester Airport and Blackpool Airport, that benefit considerably from duty-free and indeed there are jobs tied up in that.
There is a point which has already been made by many other speakers: there has not been an independent study, and we need one.
Jobs are tied up in this.
Whether 140 000 jobs would go, as Mr Ephremidis estimates, we do not know.
Clearly, some of the people working in those shops will continue to work there; some will not work there because the profitability is not the same.
What we need to know is what the impact will be, how many jobs will be lost, and then a decision can be made about what to do.
That decision may incorporate some adjustments of regional funding in order to take account of that fact.
Like Mr Miller, I do not believe there should be a piecemeal approach to this but nevertheless if extra money was forthcoming from the Commission or elsewhere to take account of this fact, I am sure it would not be refused by the regions concerned.
We need a way forward, we need to be objective about this, we must not just bow to vested interests.
What we need is an objective analysis, and I ask the Commission and the Council to come forward with proposals on that basis.
Mr President, must we remain loyal to our single market principles come what may, or are we interested in people as well? Come to the North Sea spa of Cuxhaven, where I come from, which attracts a lot of visitors, not least because of duty-free.
Speak to those who will lose their jobs, according to the shipping lines.
We do not have any other jobs.
We are fighting for our fishing industry and have just one small shipyard left.
The hinterland is rural, arable farmland and pasture, without many SMEs.
All in all it is a rural area experiencing difficulties, soon to be without 5b status or the new Objective II status, Mr Monti.
Agenda 2000 does not provide any security.
The unemployment rate where I live on the North Sea coast is 11 % and rising.
The position is the same in other areas along Europe's 80 000 km coastline.
You can see that the problem is not local.
We are in it up to our necks, though we are working on solutions for the future.
Our long-term goals are lively networks of small and medium-sized harbours, coastal management, protection of salt marshes, the sustained establishment of maritime information and technology systems and attractive tourist resorts.
These could be implemented successfully by the coastal states, if Europe helps them.
We are counting on this.
Our future depends on it.
We are currently expanding our harbour in Cuxhaven, with EU assistance, but you, the opponents of duty-free sales, are blocking the entrance.
A harbour without ships is like a sea without fish.
The symbiotic relationship between the coast and inland areas, between economically weak and economically strong areas, has been successful with duty-free, though seldom sufficiently so.
The volume of business has increased rapidly since 1991 and with it the number of jobs.
Not even a modern economic programme such as the trans-European network has yet provided such economic and social cooperation.
I know it will take a miracle to overturn the Council decision, but I do not belong to the Council.
I represent the people.
What am I supposed to tell the families who are hit by job losses? I do not think that anyone in Europe can be insensitive enough to wilfully destroy these achievements.
The cost of unemployment benefit and restructuring projects will far exceed the tax revenues lost on duty-free sales, and no fiscal harmonization is in sight anyway.
I therefore demand further examinations of the regional effects.
Perhaps there is also a legal interpretation which permits an exemption, as there was for sea travel to Heligoland, the jewel of the North Sea.
The Transport Council has decided this in the meantime.
I would like to ask you, Mr Monti, and those Members who oppose duty-free sales, to follow this route.
Mr President, if the Commissioner says it is possible to get support instead of the traffic which might stop, I would say this to him.
Firstly, ferry traffic is not eligible for trans-European network support, unless both ports are part of it.
Secondly, structural support is not operational support. I say this in reply to your statements that we should look at the support side.
Thirdly, you have said a lot about duty-free sales being an indirect form of support.
But the indirect support which is available today in the form of flagging out rules is much greater and could have much more serious consequences, namely the flagging out which would take place in ferry traffic if duty-free were abolished.
I still wonder why the Commissioner is so against making this investigation while at the same time insisting that the Commission has information about the ferry routes which are most threatened.
I am thinking about what lies closest to my heart, namely the most northerly all year round ferry route in the Northern Straits.
Thousands of signatures were sent in support of this route, well before any lobbying started, Mrs Aelvoet.
Unfortunately, those signatures were not received by Commissioner Monti.
The aim is to safeguard jobs in the area, but there are also environmental reasons for protecting the ferry links.
One study, for example, says that using this ferry link saves millions of marks on the environment.
Mr President, I too am amazed that Commissioner Monti, having had time to reflect on the discussions we had earlier this week at Question Time and having heard the strong feelings that the majority of the House - we, the messengers of the people - have on this issue, is not prepared to relent, even at this very late stage, and give us a more positive response.
By just saying 'no' he is just burying his head in the sand.
The success of the Irish minister at the Transport Council has been documented here.
There are now nine Council members around the transport table who are prepared to ask for a study.
There is no reason to assume that the same majority, or more, would not obtain, if the Commissioner had a study and allowed the Ecofin ministers to look at the issue again in a clear and factual way.
Politicians do not see any shame in this.
The many thousands of workers who marched in the streets of Brussels recently - airport workers, industrial workers, generally from the duty-free industry - should not have to beg for their jobs.
They are entitled to look to our institutions to protect their jobs.
For every measure we take here, we are supposed to have an employment audit.
So how does the Commissioner reconcile that with just getting rid of all these jobs in one fell swoop? The accusation the Commissioner made here that it is for people in favour of abolition and that we who are against it want to support the hidden subsidies to the alcohol, tobacco and travel industries is not true.
It is very simplistic.
What is happening here is that we have looked at all sides of it and we have come down, on balance, in favour of employment.
I appeal to the Commissioner to give us a more favourable response this evening, because the vote tomorrow will go in favour of the study, and it is time for the Commission to face up to that.
I would like, first of all, to thank each of you for your remarks.
The Commission is not making any particular proposal.
Some of the remarks assume the Commission was making proposals.
This was a decision taken unanimously by the Ecofin Council in 1991.
The Commission is not pushing for anything.
As was made clear, the reference made by my predecessor, Mrs Scrivener, to the study was to the effect of identifying whether or not the decision to abolish duty-free should take effect on 1 January 1993 like all the other measures concerning the single market.
You know what the outcome has been: no study, but a seven-and-a-half year postponement.
As to the pretended request of the Transport Council for a study, the outcome of the Transport Council of 17 March was that the presidency of the Council noted the strong support by a majority of delegations for the Irish intervention and decided to report to the Ecofin Council concerning further measures to be decided by the ministers of finance, if appropriate.
The Ecofin Council has repeatedly stressed its unwillingness to ask the Commission to do this study.
There were questions concerning the important issue of whether there are clear rules that are going to be applied after June 1999 or not.
Yes, I can be very positive and reassuring in that respect.
Rules exist in terms of VAT and excise legislation that apply now and will also apply after June 1999.
I refer to Article 23(1) of Directive 92/12 and Article 8 and following of the Sixth VAT Directive.
As to the specific question Mr Miller raised, the mere passage through international waters does not modify the internal market rules.
They will be modified only if the vessel were to touch land on third-country territory.
As you can imagine, I am as sensitive as you are to the issue of employment.
There are serious ways of approaching employment issues.
Some of them have to do with taxation.
As Parliament will be aware, the Commission is - and I am personally - working very hard with the support of Parliament and, in particular, the competent Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, to arrive at some form of tax coordination that is the serious response of tax instruments to the employment challenge.
The Commission is prepared, as you know and as Parliament supports, to consider reduced VAT rates on labourintensive services.
Even much more important, we are engaged in strenuous efforts to fight harmful tax competition.
You know, as I do, that the taxation of capital on this continent has gone down by 10 % in the last 15 years.
Taxation on labour has gone up 7 %.
What is the reason for that? A lack of tax coordination.
In December 1997, for the first time, we persuaded the 15 finance ministers to agree on a package of measures against harmful tax competition.
That is the first step towards eliminating tax havens in Europe so that taxation on labour can be slightly reduced.
How can I go to the finance ministers and press them for the continuation of this serious fiscal policy for employment that Parliament supports if, at the same time, I were to go and ask them to please consider leaving in existence localized tax havens such as duty-free?
(The speaker was interrupted by Mr Cox) No-one can escape logic.
Believe me, I am deeply committed to making taxation policy in Europe favourable to employment.
(The President interrupted the speaker)
Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you please not to interrupt the Commissioner.
I am grateful to those of you - and there have been some - who have noted the constructive approach that I brought here this evening.
A study may have two components.
One is to identify what specific difficulties a particular regional airport or ferry line might have.
No one is better placed than the Member State concerned to identify that.
There is one way in which the Commission can be helpful and that is to identify the appropriate instruments of regional policy, of transport policy that might, in the event that there are serious problems, be helpful.
I have committed the Commission to do that, not the phantom study which by now in the public perception could be associated with a reconsideration of the deadline for duty-free.
Finally, it is not for me to judge whether the Commission is an appropriate political body or whether it gave you bureaucratic answers this evening.
However, I can assure you that the Commission, in its political responsibility, is not prepared to deceive European citizens by doing something that would, in effect, conflict with a serious employment policy based on tax coordination.
The Commission is not prepared to do anything that would help retain a hidden subsidy, in the sense that it is not transparent, that it is regressive because it is paid by the general taxpayer who is normally less well off than travellers with access to duty-free, that goes to a large extent to subsidize the consumption of alcohol and tobacco.
Mr President, in his reply to the debate the Commissioner referred to the pretended wish of the Transport Council for a study.
I should like to read to you a letter from Gavin Strang, chairman of the EU Transport Council, to Gordon Brown, chairman of Ecofin.
It says: ' Dear Gordon, you will be aware that at the 17 March 1998 Transport Council the Irish Minister raised the issue of abolition of intra-EC duty-free under 'any other business' and called for a study to be undertaken into the possible employment and financial effects of the abolition of duty-free in 1999.
Eight Member States supported the Irish Minister's request, including Sweden, Belgium, France, Germany, Finland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.
In my summary of the discussion I agreed that I would forward these views to you as chairman of Ecofin.
Ecofin will no doubt wish to take into account the support given by Transport Ministers to the Irish request that the Commission should undertake a study into the possible employment and financial effects of abolition of intra-EC duty-free sales.'
It seems to me that is not a 'pretend' decision of the Transport Council, it is a decision.
Commissioner Monti may not like it, but it exists.
Thank you, Mr Ford.
We shall not be re-opening the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.05 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Thursday 2 April have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, this concerns item 4 of yesterday's Minutes and Article 24 of the Rules of Procedure, on the duties of the Conference of Presidents.
Paragraph 5 says: "The Conference of Presidents shall draw up the draft agenda of Parliament's part-sessions' .
In other words, the Conference of Presidents decides which reports will be on the agenda, and when.
It does not say that the group chairmen decide whether a report is acceptable to them or not.
This means that the Conference of Presidents should not judge the reports appearing on the agenda on their contents.
This was the case with my report on the partsession which was discussed this week, and it was especially the case with your own report on the voting system.
I really wonder, therefore, whether the Conference of Presidents is in fact blatantly and grossly violating the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Wijsenbeek, you have been chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities for some time now, and you are one of the many people in this Chamber who have a great deal of parliamentary experience.
You know, as indeed we all do - I do not claim any privilege to this knowledge - that, in the final analysis, the Conference of Presidents is elected by Parliament. When changes are to be made to the agenda, the final word is always left to Parliament, which also votes.
Therefore, you need never worry that there is an elected organ of the House which was not elected by the House.
Mr President, this is the text relating to the Randzio-Plath report.
Yesterday, it was agreed during the vote that the words 'responsabilité démocratique' would be used instead of 'contrôle démocratique' . That change has been made in one of the titles, but not throughout the whole text.
For example, paragraph 8 still says "contrôle démocratique' .
The words "contrôle démocratique' must now be replaced throughout the text with "responsabilité démocratique' . That is what was agreed yesterday.
I have made a note of it, Mr Herman, and we shall look at all the texts to make sure that it is done.
Going over the attendance register, I noticed that my name is not on it.
Perhaps I forgot to sign it, but I did take part in all the votes yesterday.
Mr Martens, you may have forgotten to sign, but there are a lot of us here and we can vouch for your continued presence in this Chamber which, I think, holds you in great respect.
Mr President, you just responded to Mr Wijsenbeek and stated that he was chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
May I inform you that my colleague Mr Fayot is chairman of the Rules Committee.
Mr Corbett, you must remember that Mr Wijsenbeek presided over the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities for a long time, and he knows the Rules of Procedure perfectly.
Mr President, I would just like to point something out.
My name does not appear on Monday's record of attendance, although I was present and voted by the electronic voting system, which must be easy to check.
I should be grateful if you would arrange to have it checked.
Thank you very much.
I have made a note of it.
Mr President, there is an omission in the Minutes.
On page 19 you will see that Mr Lataillade spoke.
It does not record his deep concern and compassion for the plight of Mrs Randzio-Plath!
We shall be sure to extend similar compassion to him in the future...
Mr President, I rise not on my usual point of order but on something arising from what Mr Herman said.
I would remind you that the point Mr Herman was making during yesterday's session was exactly the same point Mrs Randzio-Plath was suggesting in an oral amendment.
Twelve Members opposed this amendment.
We then proceeded to the vote and the words were: ' To hold the ECB to account' .
That is the decision that was made yesterday. It is recorded in the Minutes and therefore I hope it holds.
Mr Falconer, you were here yesterday.
Several of us were here yesterday.
Mr President, I would just like to say that my name does not need to be recorded.
The whole House expressed sympathy for Mrs Randzio-Plath.
I am grateful to Mr Ford for acknowledging my presence, but it was unnecessary.
Thank you, Mr President.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I raised the following matter on the Friday of the last part-session. I refer to the discrimination in terms of television coverage of the Friday morning session.
We are here to do a job and it should be recorded both for the archives and for television just like any other session.
What progress has the President made with this request?
Mr Hallam, I totally agree.
I would say there is another reason for Friday morning, and we will look into it.
But I would add that, on the whole, television coverage is not an issue which is regulated by the Presidency. I wish it were regulated by the Presidency and by the House.
Television has its own rules and regulations, and we are not in a position to have any influence over it. I am afraid we are often under its influence, and not always to the good.
We will look into it, however.
Mr President, I was astonished to see that my name is not on the record of attendance.
I really thought that I had both attended regularly and signed the register.
But I may be wrong.
In any case, I think a number of speeches and rollcall votes prove that I was here.
Yes, I believe you made a speech during the sitting.
So it really is a bit much.
Votes
Mr President, I would like to make two comments.
Firstly, the committee deleted Amendment No 4 concerning Article 4, paragraph 1(b) of the Council proposal.
In the meantime, however, we have satisfied ourselves that this Article merely serves to establish that no-one may be punished twice for the same matter.
In other words, it is a question of the legal principle ne bis in idem , and we therefore ask you to vote against this deletion so that the original text is restored.
That is the first point.
The second point I would like to bring to your attention is the fact that the rapporteur's language, the original language, is French, and Amendment No 7, as it is written, is the official version.
It says that when the person concerned has not had an adequate opportunity to defend himself, "inter alia ' because of language problems, the term "inter alia ' which is in the French text, means that it is not exclusive, and other possibilities can be envisaged.
I know that it is not stated in some other versions, but it is more in the citizen's interest.
But it is the French version, which is the official version, and I would be grateful if you would arrange for it to be corrected.
I would ask the House to consider the rapporteur's comments, Mrs Reding.
Mr President, I strongly urge that Mrs Reding's oral amendment should be accepted.
We must point out that we made a mistake in committee, which for once might mean us spoiling a good idea from the Council.
That is why it is imperative that Mrs Reding's oral amendment should be supported.
Mr Schulz, Mrs Reding did not make an oral amendment; she made oral observations which, I trust, the House will take into account.
Please do not cause confusion, as we will have problems if you do.
I am particularly glad that Mrs Reding has noticed this matter, which is important to countries where there is already extensive cooperation between the authorities, for example.
That is why our group decided to vote as you proposed.
Mrs Thors, we will not debate this here.
The rapporteur always has the right to make a comment, indeed many comments. However, we shall not repeat the debate which took place in committee.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I would like to point out that Mrs Thors has introduced a good amendment, by which progress in implementing the rights of the child should be included.
However, we do not want to place more emphasis on this than on other legal concerns, such as human rights and minority rights.
We therefore ask that the text up to 'of the Convention on the Rights of the Child' should be dropped.
We want to insert that between human rights and minority rights without any additional formulations.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
Mr President, I had not intended to slow down our Friday voting, but a short while ago a Dutch colleague drew my attention to the fact that a mistake has crept into the Dutch version of my report, at paragraph 16.
The words 'vis-à-vis third countries' are missing at that point.
I would ask you to check this in all language versions on the basis of the original German text.
Mr Posselt, I have made a note of your comments, of course, and the Presidency will make sure that the language of this report is looked at.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted today for improved legal cooperation in criminal cases.
This is a necessary element in the fight against organized crime.
We support better, more effective, practical cooperation between Member States.
Serious effort should ensure speedier processing, and enable practical difficulties to be resolved more effectively.
This could be brought about through direct contact between the authorities concerned in mutual legal assistance, for example.
However, we remain adamant that as far as possible, national traditions and styles of practice should be respected, and law and order should at be paramount at all times.
Reding report (A4-0121/98)
It is good that the question of revoking driving licences is being dealt with in a convention and not through harmonizing legislation.
However, it is very doubtful whether the home Member State will be responsible for implementing a decision to revoke a driving licence issued in another country under that country's legislation without examining the matter itself under its own laws.
Posselt report (A4-0107/98)
Over the next ten years, the European Union is going to be faced with one of the greatest challenges in its history, when it welcomes the almost simultaneous accession of ten new countries, at a time when the candidate countries are experiencing a difficult transition period.
In fact, they have to deal with the disorder which has followed in the wake of the collapse of the communist systems - social unrest, disorganization of controls, corruption, organized crime, migration of populations - and they must build democratic states governed by the rule of law.
It will be particularly difficult for both sides to maintain a balance between this transition period and accession to the European Union.
To simplify the task, the Europe of the Nations Group some time ago proposed the creation of a Europe of "variable geometry' , on the basis of several cooperation associations, which would enable candidate countries to join the European Union by moving progressively from one association to another, as appropriate.
We pointed out at the time that the first cooperation association to be set up, the most urgent cooperation association, should relate to internal security.
We are therefore delighted that, at their meeting of 30 January, the EU justice and home affairs ministers invited their counterparts from the candidate countries to sign "pre-membership' pacts on combating organized crime.
We saw in this a reflection of our position, or at least a certain fellow feeling.
However, if the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force, it will not simplify matters because it does not encourage flexibility.
For example, in order to prevent international crime, it would be preferable for the candidate countries of eastern Europe to be able to join Europol now.
But will the incorporation of Europol into EU procedures not complicate the problem?
Similarly, it is difficult to understand the aim of the European Parliament's proposal to create a specialized European service drawing on the experience of competent national services with regard to external border control.
If this proposal means that a system of financial aid needs to be set up, at the European level, to support Member States which are experiencing serious difficulties with regard to the control of their external borders, we are in agreement.
We had, in fact, already suggested it.
But we believe it is essential for each country to remain directly responsible for its borders. Otherwise, an integrated system would not motivate anyone, and in fact, it could have the opposite effect.
I have voted against this report, as I cannot support the arrogant attitude which the EU is taking towards the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe.
The EU cannot demand, amongst other things, that the applicant countries modify their visa policies with third party countries to bring them into line with the EU's before they even join the EU, and before the EU's provisions in this area under the Amsterdam Treaty are accepted.
Not all the EU Member States have ratified the Amsterdam Treaty as yet, so I fail to see how reference can be made to this.
When it comes to police work, I do not think Europol should develop and charge the applicant countries at all.
Interpol already exists and is working in the areas which the EU wants to hand over to Europol.
Instead of Europol, I think we should continue to rely on Interpol in the fight against international crime.
As for the situation in the applicant countries, in important areas, I believe the EU will have to accept a number of transitional rules if the countries join.
What I would really like to see is the EU handing over many of its powers in favour of the national parliaments, which would make enlargement easier.
The way things look now, the EU seems to want to annex the countries of central and eastern Europe, as they would have to accept all the EU's laws without having any influence over their substance.
I cannot accept this.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of Mr Posselt's report.
We have done so in the belief that we must ensure that prospective Member States in central and eastern Europe develop sound, democratic communities based on the rule of law.
The report sets the scene for closer cooperation between existing Member States in the field of justice and home affairs.
Denmark has one reservation in this field, but we do not wish to preclude other nations from entering into closer cooperation.
We do, however, retain the right to remain outside.
Our most important consideration is to ensure that the candidate countries of central and eastern Europe should be given financial and political backup in their efforts to develop democratic authorities.
This also applies to supporting projects for the training of administrative officials and police.
To ensure that democratic measures are upheld, the people who will be administering the new laws must be trained for this purpose.
The Danish Social Democrats oppose the view that the institutional changes should be in place prior to enlargement.
Our stance is that Parliament must not put obstacles in the way of enlargement.
Applicant countries should be assured of their inclusion in the European Union once they have fulfilled the objectives set out in the individual partnership agreements.
The enlargement process must not be delayed by a stipulation on the part of the European Parliament that the distribution of mandates and weighting of votes should be in place before the first countries can be accepted.
As the communist regime destroyed every rule of civil life during its rule, the accession to the European Union of ex-communist countries presupposes a type of revival by the applicants, to make their internal structures compatible with the rules and spirit of the European Union.
This also applies to relations with the police, legal matters, the mobility of goods, services and citizens, civil rights and the protection of minors.
When this tedious adaptation process has reached maturity, it will certainly be time for these states to join the European Union.
Joint resolution (B4-0424/98, B4-0426/98, B4-0427/98, B4-0428/98 and B4-0429/98)
Mr President, I can happily live with this resolution which calls for a study, if only because a study might actually show that some of the wilder allegations of job losses are perhaps greatly exaggerated.
In any case, there is no harm in finding this out.
I admire Commissioner Monti and the way he has resisted the pressure from the alcohol and tobacco industries to try and have this decision reversed.
I hope that the economic and finance ministers will be similarly resolute.
From the point of view of a finance minister, there is surely no sense in reintroducing a tax break for the alcohol and tobacco industries: a tax break which curiously is available only to people travelling internationally, usually a group of people who are, on average, better off than the ordinary citizen.
I hope therefore that this resolution, even if it calls for a study which may provide more objective facts than some of the studies that have come from partisan organizations with an interest in this matter, will nonetheless help confirm the decision taken long ago by the European Union.
I am satisfied that the positions you have adopted are not just yours but that they are supported by other Members.
Of course, there are quite a few Members who hold the opposite view.
Global Satellite Navigation System
The next item is the report (A4-0109/98) by Mrs Langenhagen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the agreement between the European Community, the European Space Agency and the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation on a European contribution to the development of a global navigation satellite system (COM(97)0442 - C4-0043/98-97/0231(CNS))
Mr President, in the last few years, satellite-assisted positioning and navigation systems have become increasingly widespread.
The purpose of this technology is the permanent, environmentally compatible, secure and guaranteed mobility of individuals and goods through better traffic and transport management.
This is not just true of air transport.
This new technology is being applied in other areas as well, such as local public transport, the railways, and the transport of goods - but also in cars, farming and the fishing industry.
You do not have to be a prophet to foresee that this technology will progress further.
It will undoubtedly be used more widely in the area of leisure, for example.
Sailing and walking enthusiasts may perhaps only pursue their hobbies in the future with this high technology.
There are already two systems which operate on a world-wide basis: the American "global positioning system' , known as GPS; and the Russian global satellite navigation system called GLONAS.
However, neither of them meets all the requirements of civilian users.
Both systems are nationally controlled, were conceived for military purposes, and have been artificially weakened in some respects for civilian applications.
The accuracy is inadequate, there is an unacceptably high probability of technical errors, and warning times for system failures are too long. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the system will be permanently available, and no-one is responsible for the functioning of the system.
All these reasons compel us as Europeans to launch an initiative of our own. This is the background against which the Commission's proposal should be seen.
As long ago as 1994, the Commission and the Council took the initiative in this area with the support of the European Parliament.
The agreement on which we have to decide today is a consistent continuation of previous developments.
Its purpose is to govern cooperation between the European Union, ESA - the European Space Agency - and EUROCONTROL - the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation.
These three European institutions are to work towards a European contribution to the development of a global satellite navigation system.
In particular, the plans and projects of the participants are to be coordinated and combined.
As a first step, the existing Russian and American systems are to be supplemented, to correct the technical defects and inaccuracies I have just described.
Technical problems can be solved in this way, but the fundamental institutional problem - namely the lack of civilian control and a guarantee for the system - will remain.
That is why a second step is required, with the objective of developing our own independent civilian system with a guaranteed optimal performance at all times and in all places.
We are working away steadily at this.
In a global situation in which the market for satellite navigation could be dominated by the United States, this agreement will undoubtedly help to ensure that European interests are protected, and that it is easier in practice to realize the full potential of satellite navigation technology.
The importance of state-of-the-art technology for Europe as a location for industry is underlined time and again.
With this agreement we can recover lost ground and lay down our own European standards for satellite technology in the future.
Of course, the budgetary aspect still has to be considered.
That is why I referred in my report to an action plan for the financing of such a project.
In all honesty, I must admit that future civilian users still regard the project with scepticism.
It is quite clear, however, that without the participation of European industry and other partners it will be impossible to finance such a project.
So in order to ensure the involvement of a large number of collaborators in the development of a global satellite navigation system, a coherent strategy with a financial perspective should be formulated as soon as possible.
The European Union is today called upon to enter into international cooperation, the major advantage of which is a reduction in costs and investment.
In this connection, potential partners are - and will continue to be - the USA and Russia, whom I have already mentioned, together with Japan.
Therefore the agreement with which we are dealing today has a symbolic character as well, since it underlines the resolution and the will of Europeans to make their own contribution in this area, and that is why I ask you to approve it.
Mr President, let me first thank Mrs Langenhagen for the excellent report she has presented.
New technology is developing rapidly in aviation.
Used correctly, it will make flying safer and also create an opportunity to deal with some of the constantly recurring delays we have to live with at present.
What we have to decide now is whether we want Europe to be part of this developing technology, or if we want to remain on the sidelines.
We are facing a highly strategic choice which could have major consequences for the future development of navigation systems.
The question is, should we develop our own navigation system or should we simply modify those already in existence?
There are a lot of indications that it would be cheaper to be involved in developing the existing system.
At the same time, it means putting a lot into research and development to try to develop our own system and the comfort of not always being dependent on someone else.
I think there are reasons for being positive about further development, and hence for entering into this agreement between the European Community, the European Space Agency and the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation.
This represents an opportunity to be in there and influence future developments, which I think is a good thing.
But there is also good reason to warn that we risk digging ourselves into an incredibly costly project which may not give the results we are justifiably hoping for.
There are also reasons to be alert.
So I believe the plan of action which Mrs Langenhagen has included in her report is extraordinarily important.
Against this background, I would like to mention a letter from the Association of European Airlines.
This letter, dated 6 March, states amongst other things that 'improvements, if any, could be achieved in a much cheaper way' .
I would welcome the Commissioner's comments on whether it is possible to achieve comparable improvements more cheaply than by the route we have to decide on today.
If that question cannot be answered today, I would be grateful if the Commissioner responsible were able to comment in writing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System is an example of the dual value of technologies for military and civil use.
Satellite positioning, which arose in a military environment during the Cold War for the surveillance of ballistic missiles, today offers the possibility, in civilian times, of establishing the position of ships, not by means of the stars, lighthouses or radar, but by satellite.
In fact, the satellite sector is far from being a minor aspect, in terms of value, of the potential services that can be provided on the ground. The satellite signal can be used to help with navigation, assistance, safety, choosing a route by land or sea, and fleet management; even taxis are beginning to use satellite signals on board.
Today's document is not a strategic document, but it creates a useful premise for a European strategy on satellite navigation which we will be discussing in the near future.
The document sets out the rules relating to the cooperation agreement between the European Commission, ESA and EUROCONTROL, and so it seems a fairly positive first step to take.
We are voting on the recognition that the Commission, as a European institution, should provide the political impetus, ESA should play the role of technological architect, and EUROCONTROL should be the first of a number of service providers for those using the air service.
I think two things still have to be recommended in this organizational architecture, and they are taken up by the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen.
Firstly, the three-party agreement should remain open to other partners to ensure that satellite positioning services can be extended quickly to all sea and land services. Secondly, a European authority or agency should be set up - you choose the name - to be responsible for certifying the service and approving the equipment.
With these two comments, which the rapporteur has taken into account, I approve the report and await further debate, which should take place shortly, on the Commission's document on satellite navigation.
Mr Malerba, I think you are more qualified than most people to speak to us about these issues, from the heights from which you have seen these events.
Mr President, satellite navigation is a strategic sector which represents, together with the information superhighway, one of the technological battles of the future.
Europe has a duty, and the potential, to take part in it.
But Europe must express a political determination to do so, and must make a clear choice of strategy.
That is the point of Brigitte Langenhagen's report, which proposes an agreement between the European Commission, the European Space Agency and EUROCONTROL for the development of a global navigation satellite system.
We have a clear choice today between an autonomous, independent European system, at an estimated cost ranging from ECU 400 million to ECU 4 billion, or cooperation based on the existing American GPS and Russian GLONAS systems.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance is in favour of the rapporteur's proposal for several reasons.
The main reasons are as follows.
Why should we entrust our interests to others, in a critical sector, if we have the ability to safeguard them ourselves? Why should we be dependent upon the Americans, yet again, in this technological and scientific area, when we have the means within Europe of ensuring our own independence?
There is no doubt that the high cost of a European system means that partnership between public and private industry in Europe will be necessary.
But if we wish to remain independent, in such an important, essential and potentially profitable sector for Europe, with the prospects it offers, we must not waste any time. We must adopt a real strategic decision quickly, as the rapporteur recommends.
In this respect, I agree with Commissioner Kinnock, who is afraid that if we do not reach a decision soon, we will remain in the slow lane as far as progress is concerned.
In other words, we will be excluded from this technological and scientific undertaking.
That is why we have no time to lose.
Mr President, the agreement between the European Community, the European Space Agency and EUROCONTROL aims to make a European contribution towards the development of a global navigation satellite system, or GNSS.
These parties set certain objectives. The first is the introduction of a so-called European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service, abbreviated to EGNOS.
The current GNSS system will be given additional capabilities for geographical positioning with satellites, integrity and wide-area information for its users.
The second objective is to set up a complete operational version of GNSS-1, and the third is the preparation of a new European navigation satellite system, GNSS-2.
As far as EGNOS is concerned, the European airlines have announced that they have no need whatsoever for such a product.
They believe that if improvements are needed, these might be achieved at much less cost.
I therefore wish to put the following question to the European Commission: which users will benefit from EGNOS, and will these users be prepared to contribute to its operational costs?
If there is indeed little interest in EGNOS, would it not be better to concentrate our efforts on developing GNSS-2 further? There appears to be no controversy surrounding the benefits of these new generation navigation satellite systems.
Lastly, the opinion of the Committee on Budgets merits attention.
It notes that the financial contribution from the Community has not yet been set, yet large amounts of money have already been spent.
That is why the Committee on Budgets requested that the Langenhagen report should not be adopted until the financial situation had been thoroughly investigated.
Nonetheless, the report was discussed and approved in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I would be grateful if the rapporteur could tell us why she dismissed the clearly stated opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
Mr President, I am a pilot myself and have experienced the change-over.
The advantages which the satellite navigation systems provide are sensational.
They represent a significant increase in safety, and the computer capacity and the software which lie behind these systems are also a great advantage for a pilot, because they allow your work in the cockpit to be of a significantly higher quality.
I am also pleased that the Commission has informed us that the funding will come from existing resources - from budget line B5-700, among other things.
I believe this decision will have very important implications for competition in Europe, and that competition in this market is urgently needed on a worldwide basis as well.
We know that economic development in particular is very heavily dependent on three factors, namely education and training, research and infrastructure.
All three areas are addressed in the best possible way with this system, and I would like to congratulate Mrs Langenhagen on this report.
Mr Rübig, I see that the House has the good fortune to have at its disposal a lot of experience, which indeed makes its own contribution to the examination of these issues. We note this with great interest.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the Commission's behalf, I gather that Parliament supports this agreement which permits a European contribution to be made towards developing a global navigation satellite system.
This agreement will be the first formal basis for an agreement to be concluded between the Commission, the European Space Agency and the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation, EUROCONTROL, for the joint development of a global infrastructure for satellite navigation.
A European contribution here is essential for a number of reasons.
Firstly, global navigation satellite systems will contribute to a viable development of constantly increasing air and sea transport.
Secondly, such a system will allow major improvements to be made, in terms of safety.
Finally, the proposal will mean opening up new potential markets for the European industry, which is excluded from these markets at present because of the USA's dominant position.
Satellite navigation is a promising, dynamic area, but progress in this sector calls for a wide, deep partnership.
Hopefully, this agreement will create an effective partnership structure designed to make the best use of the resources of each of the parties involved.
The Commission is preparing another step through the communication which we adopted in January.
This deals with the general strategy for Europe's contribution to the global navigation system.
To Mr Stenmarck, I would simply say that I will pass his question on to the Commissioner responsible, and he will then receive either an oral or a written answer. I am not the person to examine the cost aspects on this point.
The Commission is looking forward to a wide-ranging debate with Parliament on strategy in connection with future discussion of this communication. It is essential that we decide how Europe is to be involved in all this work.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
The global navigation system seeks to organize cooperation between the EU and the European Space Agency and the European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation.
It is our determination to ensure that we achieve above all else total safety.
The existing system permits geographical positioning and navigation control in all modes of transport.
We are now faced with either developing this new mode of transport control or continuing to stand by all the systems of the past.
There are no easy solutions to resolve the problem we face, but we must accept the most efficient and secure proposal, to ensure traffic congestion is eased for all.
Construction of the Chernobyl shelter
The next item is the report (A4-0076/98) by Mr Adam, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision (Euratom/EC) concerning a Community Contribution to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) for the Chernobyl Shelter Fund (COM(97)0448 - C4-0499/97-97/0235(CNS)).
Mr President, the shelter or sarcophagus which was constructed over the No 4 reactor at Chernobyl following the disastrous accident in April 1986 was assembled in a remarkably short period of time.
It achieved its primary purpose of providing protection for the immediate population and enabled the remaining reactors to continue in operation.
However, it was recognized that the construction was not adequate in the long term.
In particular, none of the beams which were put in place to take the roof of the shelter has a reliable support inside the sarcophagus.
There are problems with radioactive dust in the former reactor hall, and there is an accumulation of radioactive water in the basement rooms of the reactor area.
Until now there has been no design acceptable to all the parties to stabilize this structure.
The risk of extremely high radiation doses to workers has been the main problem to be overcome.
The Memorandum of Understanding, which was signed between the G7 countries, the Commission and the Government of Ukraine in December 1995, provided for the closure of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant by the year 2000 and recognized that the structure over reactor No 4 had to be dealt with.
However, there was no agreed plan, nor an estimate of the cost involved.
We now have the Shelter Improvement Plan, which has been agreed as a result of detailed technical discussions, and we should note that the TACIS programme has been particularly active in the development of the plan.
The purpose of the report is to set out the provision of the financial contribution from the European Union, which will not exceed the sum of US$ 100 million, for a total estimated cost of US$ 750 million.
The Shelter Improvement Plan is unusual in that it arises from a political decision of the G7. It will be implemented by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
It is important to note that the final shape will not be known for four or five years, because some aspects of the final design are part of the plan.
The final shape and nature of the shelter; the question of the removal of the fuel-containing material; how to deal with the dust inside the sarcophagus; and the treatment of the accumulation of water will only emerge during the implementation stages.
The final shape will also depend on the ability of the G7 countries to raise the estimated funding that is required, and, at the moment, we are only at the halfway stage.
This report deals with the financial and management issues linked to the construction of the shelter.
There are associated engineering works, such as plant to handle radioactive material, which are essential before work on the shelter can begin.
Therefore, it was necessary for Parliament, as part of the budgetary authority, to be satisfied that the associated works are in phase with the shelter project.
It should be noted, in connection with the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding, that the reform of the electricity market in Ukraine is the most important single issue: whether the electricity is produced from nuclear power stations or thermal power stations.
Unless the electricity market is operating in a manner which will allow funds to be available to the operators, there cannot be the required level of maintenance and improvement which the situation requires.
The text of the Memorandum, the framework and all the legal texts relating to this are produced as an annex to my report.
They are in English only but I hope colleagues will find them a useful reference.
The plan does not exist in a vacuum: as it has been prepared considerable progress has been made by the Ukrainian Regulatory Authority, under Mr Smyshlyayev, the head of that authority, who will have the responsibility for the safety standards under which the work in the shelter will be carried out.
The nuclear industry has been reorganized under Mr Nigmatullin, and Energoatom, the company which operates the nuclear sector in Ukraine, in free market conditions, produced 47 % of the electricity last year.
A high-level working group, headed by the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Reform, Mr Tigipko, has been created to draw up a plan for the modernization of the power sector.
These are not inconsiderable achievements in a country whose economy is still reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Paragraph 54 of my report sets out the conditions for Parliament to agree the transfer of funds from the 1998 budget reserve.
Most of these, and certainly the most important ones, have now been fulfilled.
Paragraph 55 sets out the information which should be made available to Parliament by the Commission and the EBRD during the implementation of the plan.
Paragraph 56 lists a number of activities where, in my opinion, the Commission could, and should, give further assistance to the plan.
I am satisfied that the guidelines in these paragraphs provide a basis for consideration of the budgetary decisions by Parliament in the future years of the project.
The EBRD have taken positive steps to involve Russian expertise.
After all, the reactor is of Russian design.
The Kurchatov Institute, which is known to some of us on the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, will have a role to play.
This is a very technical and complex report but I wish to conclude with one or two more general political observations, and to point out that the nuclear industry in Ukraine is a relatively young industry, in that many of the reactors have a long-life potential.
It is absolutely clear that the national policy is to continue to have a nuclear industry, partly to reduce dependence on Russia for gas, oil and coal supplies.
But we have also got to note that the Russian connection is not something that can be ignored, because through the SYNERGY and TACIS programmes the links between the Union and the Ukraine in terms of oil, gas and electricity are gathering pace and are linked closely with the adjacent countries.
So, for these reasons, it makes sense that we should encourage nuclear standards which are acceptable throughout Europe as a whole and we should recognize that the Russians are intent on developing their own reactors.
The recently appointed Minister for Atomic Energy in Russia, Evgeni Adamov, is known to some of us and we know that he places considerable importance on improving the safe operation of nuclear power stations and attaches importance to collaboration between Russian scientists and those in the European Union.
All these facets of the energy scene in the Ukraine need to be kept in mind.
While the government is firmly committed to closure of the plant, we should remember that this is not supported by all political forces in Ukraine.
It is especially true of the people who represent the Chernobyl area where unemployment is already high.
That is why it is important that in implementing the Plan the EBRD should take every opportunity to ensure that the implementation of the project brings as much work as possible to the local people in Slavutich, the nearby town where most of the workers involved at the plant live.
It is also important to recognize that there will be no complete closure of the plant until the second reactor at Khmelnitsky and the fourth reactor at Rovno are completed.
Recently Ukraine has made arrangements for Russian funding to be available and it is imperative that the EBRD makes up its mind as to the G7 contribution to this project.
To put it bluntly, Ukraine believes that the commitment to complete those two reactors was inherent in the Memorandum of Understanding. They see the failure to help with the loan finance for this work by the European Union as a failure to honour that agreement.
Without that loan finance, K2 and R4 will not be completed to western safety standards, but they will be completed.
The assembly of donor countries has appointed Dr Hans Blix to be its chairman.
Dr Blix is the former General-Secretary of the International Atomic Energy Agency and is well respected in that field.
He has already told me he would be willing to meet the Parliament's committee at a suitable juncture and the EBRD officials responsible for handling the account are also willing to do the same so that we can be kept closely in touch with developments.
The production of a newsletter by the EBRD which will keep Members informed is a welcome development.
Parliament has an important role to make sure that this project goes ahead to time and to budget and I have suggested in the report that it might be expedient that two experts might be appointed to help in our assessment of the work.
That proposal is contained in paragraph 64 and I hope that the Budgets Committee will take this idea up at a later date.
Throughout all the discussions and meetings related to the preparation of this report, I have stressed that the Memorandum of Understanding should be implemented as quickly as possible.
There has been no evidence made available to me to suggest that the agreements relating to the Shelter Improvement Plan could be materially changed with advantage at this stage.
I therefore urge the House to adopt the report in the form in which it was adopted unanimously in the Budgets Committee.
Mr President, this is not actually my statement. My colleague Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz drafted the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy but unfortunately she cannot be here today.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' statement was adopted unanimously by the committee.
The main thrust of the statement involves not just the financial aspect, but also a whole host of the technical aspects which are so important with regard to this subject.
The Commission's proposal is of course primarily about funding, in accordance with the donor conference which was held in New York last year.
It concerns the Shelter Improvement Plan, which aims to build a new concrete shell to seal the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl where the disaster occurred in the spring of 1986.
That the EU should be included in this project, and help pay for it, is obvious.
It is also pleasing that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which manages the fund in question, should be supported by the EU.
However, we still have to decide how much money will be provided from the TACIS funds, as the Commission's proposal merely refers to a maximum of ECU 100 million.
I hope the Commission can clarify what the amount involved might be.
Another thing to remember here is that it would be more appropriate and simpler in organizational terms if the Commission could harmonize its internal criteria for awarding the financial resources with the conditions which the EBRD laid down for handling the funding project.
As far as the reactor itself is concerned, the Commission aims to convert the existing shelter over the destroyed reactor to an environmentally safe system.
This aim is unrealistic.
No-one can guarantee complete safety, even if the plan might lead to an improvement in the present disastrous, highly threatening situation at Chernobyl.
The committee also believes that we must ensure that all the water on the inside of the wrecked reactor is removed as part of the work of building a new shelter, and that steps must be taken to ensure that the new shelter merely seals the wrecked No 4 reactor without affecting the future dismantling work in reactor block 3.
Mr President, I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Adam, on his excellent report. I would like to point out that he took on a very important responsibility in drafting this report.
Not least, he went to Chernobyl in person, in order to see for himself both the progress made and the condition of the sarcophagus in situ .
That represented a certain personal risk for him, of course. We should record that fact here.
There was excellent cooperation between him as the rapporteur for this report and myself as the rapporteur for the 1998 budget.
Because once again, a decision has been taken elsewhere about where the European Union should make its financial contribution.
During the 1998 budget procedure, we were confronted with the fact that the sum of ECU 100 million was to be made available for the safety of the sarcophagus as "front loading' , in other words immediately.
In 1997 we held a hearing on this matter in London, together with the Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, where we were informed about the details of the procedure and the project.
Both from our responsibility for the budget and as representatives of the Group of the European People's Party, we are in favour of the sarcophagus being made safe.
But we must formulate some conditions, of course.
We also made resources available as front loading for the reconstruction of the war-damaged former Yugoslavia.
We know about these problems. We discussed them just this week.
That is why the most important precondition is adherence to the agreement between the Ukraine, the European Union and the USA under the auspices of the G7.
That means that the agreed obligation to provide financial resources must be simultaneously fulfilled by all the parties, and that, in the case of the ECU 100 million which we now want to make available, we initially assume that this sum will be available for the overall project until 2005.
Because we know there is a funding shortfall of more than ECU 300 million or US$ 300 million in the case of this overall project.
We shall undoubtedly be confronted with this shortfall again at some point.
That is why we have explicitly recorded that the European Union for its part is ready to make ECU 100 million available, as contractually agreed, and to do so in the next two years, 1998 and 1999.
We have created a special budget line in the budget procedure. In so doing, our intention was - as we also informed the Commission - to prevent the Commission from on the one hand redesigning the TACIS programme as basically a nuclear safety programme, and on the other hand reducing the large arrears in the TACIS programme with a cheque for ECU 100 million.
We want more transparency here.
At the end of the day, this also offers the opportunity to show the public the value of nuclear safety in Europe, and what we are doing for the sake of achieving it.
That is why there is a separate budget line.
Mr Adam has mentioned the fact that it is very, very important for us to receive competent and adequate information about the proper use of the funds in situ .
In the knowledge that only coordinated action by everyone in the world will bring genuine progress in improving the nuclear safety of the sarcophagus at Chernobyl, and that the Ukraine itself and those of its people with political responsibility are the key to success in this process, the PPE will vote in favour of this report by Mr Adam, and his amendments.
The only proposal from the Green Group in the European Parliament which we shall vote for is Amendment No 17, by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of the use of nuclear energy and the dangers of a nuclear accident resulting from this use has three dimensions as far as the European Union is concerned.
The first relates to nuclear plants within the European Union.
Naturally we speak of these only rarely, and even more rarely do we talk about nuclear waste.
The second aspect relates to nuclear plants in countries which border on the Member States of the European Union, such as the Koslondooi site. The third concerns those nuclear sites located in distant countries, such as Ukraine, and I refer more specifically to the issue addressed by Mr Adam's excellent report - Chernobyl.
However, radioactivity knows no borders.
In the event of a nuclear accident we are all in danger.
In this sense, therefore, the European Commission and the European Parliament quite rightly decided, together with other donors, to contribute towards the construction of a shelter over the Chernobyl reactor.
However, in my opinion two problems remain unsolved.
The first concerns the financial contribution from the other donors who, at least in the past, have not shown the necessary sensitivity and consistency that have been shown by the European Commission.
In other words, Madam Commissioner, there has been a repetition of what happened in Bosnia, where it appears that the European Commission is the only donor to have so far contributed anything.
The second problem relates to the proper use of the money that has so far been given to Ukraine because of Chernobyl.
Total transparency and continuous monitoring are required with regard to the handling of that money.
Madam Commissioner, there is a suspicion that the assistance provided in the past was not put to correct use by the Government of Ukraine.
When I put two questions on this matter to the Commission, the reply from Commissioner van den Broek only served to strengthen those suspicions.
I was far from reassured that the money had been used for the purpose for which it had been given.
Of course, our ultimate aim must be to close down the Chernobyl reactor, and I would like to remind you all that there was already a shelter, even before 1986 when the accident occurred.
We are not now going to construct something which did not already exist.
Nor do I know what political forces in Ukraine Mr Adam was alluding to, which oppose the closing of the reactor.
What I do know, however, is that whatever these political forces are, they have not contributed a single ecu to the issue of the reactor in their country.
So we are to remain ignorant of these political forces and, since we are paying - and, I repeat, quite rightly so - our ultimate aim must be to close down the reactor.
In finishing, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Adam, since it was a technically difficult and politically very sensitive report.
My political group will support it, together with almost all the amendments.
Mr President, Mr Adam has produced an excellent report on the EU's involvement in constructing a shelter which will cover, once and for all, the nuclear power plant at Chernobyl.
I thank him for the report. It goes into the matter thoroughly and the result is a clever and justified proposal.
The report shows just how problematic the issue is.
Besides the destroyed reactor at Chernobyl there are three other old reactors all in uncertain condition.
Repairs to them are continually having to be carried out.
Progress is slow; the work consumes 6 % of Ukraine's gross national income.
Ukraine cannot meet the cost of achieving even a passable standard of safety, and therefore needs outside help.
Because Chernobyl presents a risk to the whole of Europe, it is right that the EU should share these costs.
That is why the report's proposal that the EU should contribute ECU 100 million is justified.
The overall cost of the operation is going to be pretty enormous.
For that reason, the report's suggestion that costs should be shared among different agencies is right.
It is a matter of concern that only half the funding is clearly available.
The proposal in the report that the EU should fund the project as it proceeds is thus a safe and reasonable solution.
In questions of nuclear safety, the best is preferable to the merely OK.
That is true of the Ukrainian nuclear industry.
Two new and reasonably up-to-date atomic power stations are nearly ready for use in the Ukraine.
They are Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4. When they start production the power stations in worst condition could be shut down.
At the same time, the Ukrainian economy would get into better shape as it could focus on more valuable projects than fixing up old nuclear power stations.
That is why we should speed up the financing of these projects out of the European Development Fund and get things moving.
Mr Adam proposes in his report that finance should come partly from the TACIS fund and partly from a specially constructed budget.
This is an excellent idea.
It is absolutely right for the report to urge the Commission to examine TACIS funds in this respect.
On the other hand, it is true that nuclear safety has so far accounted for a full 13 % of TACIS appropriations.
This is quite justifiable.
Possible nuclear accidents could be catastrophic and cause untold destruction.
TACIS has achieved good results in this area. It has supported improved technology and safety.
Communications have got essentially better, as each power station has someone employed by the EU with direct access to information and expertise in the outside world.
Communication delays can thus be avoided, and steps can swiftly be taken to put things right in the event of something unexpected happening.
That is why I should like to express my sincerest thanks to the TACIS body for its good work. I support Mr Adam's report.
Mr President, this matter clearly illustrates the sort of problems any future common foreign and security policy might cause for the smaller nations.
At the meeting of the G7 countries, the leaders of the largest EU countries drew up a proposal that EU funds could be used to build a shelter over the Chernobyl plant.
The decision was the right one. The problem is that those leaders did not have the authority to take such a decision.
In the end, the promise lacks a proper legal basis.
This has led to money for the purpose having to be taken out of the TACIS aid programme, which was not originally meant for the construction of a shelter at Chernobyl.
The EU's Court of Auditors, according to a special report, says we cannot be certain that TACIS funding to develop the Ukrainian nuclear industry has always had the desired result.
There has been negligent monitoring of the spending.
That is why the demands of Mr Adam and the Committee on Budgets are justified.
A watchful eye has to be kept on spending.
Because the unofficial G7 resolution is not legally binding we must ensure that other parties honour their promises too.
We still lack half the money we need.
If the G7 and the EU stop paying out, where is the other half supposed to come from?
The demand that the EU share be a mere ECU 100 million sounds unrealistic, but we have to stick to it.
From the Ukrainian point of view, they need energy there just like everyone else.
That is why the realization of the agreement made in December 1995 to close Chernobyl requires other decisions to be taken on energy production.
Consequently, we have to take a stance with regard to seeing through the construction of the reactors Khmelnitsky 2 and Rovno 4.
If Chernobyl closes down these new plants will go into production, or else the Ukraine will have to be given a massive amount of energy aid.
I personally oppose the building of new atomic power plants.
If, however, we insist that Ukraine shuts down the Chernobyl plant and concentrates on the construction of the two new reactors, the demand seems unreasonable if we do not provide economic aid, which we nevertheless find distasteful.
As Mr Adam says, Ukraine in any case sees the agreement and the new power stations as being part and parcel of the same thing.
If new reactors are going to be built anyway, the question is how they can be made safe.
That means new funding problems, which will have to be solved by the bank.
If the Chernobyl plant is to be shut down and we give aid accordingly, we are reluctantly moving in the direction of support for nuclear power in Ukraine.
Mr President, Mr Adam has really put a great deal of work into this report, as is apparent from the explanatory notes.
However, the Green Group in the European Parliament has formulated a number of amendments, through Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, to make a good report even better.
The Commission's aim is to convert the existing shelter over the wrecked reactor at Chernobyl to an environmentally safe system.
As I said before, this aim is totally unrealistic.
The plans drawn up by the international group of experts may undoubtedly lead to improvements in the current disastrous and highly threatening situation at Chernobyl, but no-one can guarantee complete safety.
There is no way of establishing an environmentally safe system, as there is radiation involved.
To achieve this would require a total cleanup, both of the damaged reactor and its very high radiation levels, and of the environment itself.
This project, which we are forced to employ to improve the safety of the destroyed reactor, is desirable but would be incredibly expensive.
In order to achieve a truly environmentally safe system we would also need a complete, safe, final disposal method for all radioactively contaminated sections of the wrecked reactor, as well as the shelter.
This would also involve totally dismantling the other three reactors at Chernobyl, and safe final disposal of everything in the Chernobyl area which has been exposed to radiation as a result of the accident and the operation of the nuclear plant.
Until now, however, the technology required for this has not been available, either for dismantling the wrecked reactor or for the safe final disposal of the radioactive material.
The radioactivity is still there.
I remember when Chernobyl was destroyed in the spring of 1986, and the Swedish Government's nuclear inspectorate said no radiation problems would remain after six months.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
A few weeks ago, a report appeared which showed that radiation levels have in fact increased in some areas of Sweden.
The problem is enormous and cannot just be swept away somehow.
When it comes to the funding conditions and handling the financial resources, the EU authorities have once again shown themselves to be masters of bureaucracy and unnecessary expense.
Quite why a separate item has to be set up for informing the public is also unclear.
But the exception to precise control of how the funds are used should be that funds are handled in as unbureaucratic a manner as possible, so that large parts of the funds do not get swallowed up in administration but instead go to where they are intended.
A rapid improvement of the unacceptable security risks at Chernobyl must be the absolute top priority, and the bureaucratic expenses required to achieve this aim must be kept to the absolute minimum.
The Commission points out that the Community's contribution to the funds for sealing the reactor will ensure that the shelter plan, under the agreement between the G7 nations and the Ukraine on shutting Chernobyl down, will be carried out by the year 2000.
Apart from the safety of the wrecked reactor being improved immediately, it is essential that the entire nuclear power plant at Chernobyl is shut down.
The EU's contribution to the funding of a new sarcophagus should also be independent of the building of the two Ukrainian power stations which are under construction.
We should make it quite clear to the Ukraine that they must expect significant reductions in the contribution unless the promise to close Chernobyl is kept.
So, even before it is finally closed, we should insist on seeing evidence that the technical and organizational measures required for a shutdown have been taken.
Nuclear power is not safe, either within the EU Member States or outside, such as at Chernobyl.
Nuclear power does not belong to the future.
We need new technology. We must not be negative about the technological developments we can all benefit from, which the EU has so finely stated in the new Treaty of Amsterdam, on the aims of an ecologically viable society.
Nuclear power is not one of them!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree that the technical quality of Mr Adam's report is very high, and I shall vote in favour of the provisions proposed in it.
I can see that we really have no choice, and with regard to Chernobyl, we are obliged, for essential safety reasons, to provide European Union aid, more or less as a priority.
However, it is permissible to question the economic and political rationality of the situation forced upon us, and to look at what alternatives we have.
Certainly, the Government of Ukraine claims that in order to close down Chernobyl, it is necessary to build new power stations as soon as possible.
We are in a situation where the Ukraine Government could request a quite considerable amount of economic and financial aid.
It is a pity that the possibility of considering a non-nuclear solution has never really been envisaged at any time.
However, such a solution exists.
It is much less expensive and more rational in all respects. But it is dependent on increased cooperation between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, as it is mainly the Russian Federation which could, in the short term, supply the gas and oil which Ukraine needs to operate the thermal power plants it could use to replace Chernobyl.
It is a pity the European Union, which usually promotes cooperation between the various European countries, does not do so between the Ukraine and Russia, although continuing to respect Ukrainian sovereignty.
Furthermore, I note that at a diplomatic level some world powers are playing a questionable role by exacerbating the dissension between Ukraine and Russia.
I do not think this is in anyone's interests, either geostrategically or economically. This irrational policy should be abandoned in order to promote cooperation between Ukraine and Russia, which would help to solve their energy problem, among other things.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Adam for this exceptional report.
In 1986 we saw the beginning of a terrible tragedy with the explosion of reactor 4.
The people working on the site and living in the surrounding areas have paid a very heavy price for faulty design, very poor maintenance and a very risky working environment. They are still paying that price today.
Many have lost their children, their health, their homes and livelihoods.
This experience has shown that the environmental damage from such a disaster knows no boundaries and respects no frontiers.
Therefore Chernobyl's problems are our problems, too.
I wish to support the report by Mr Adam on the Chernobyl Shelter Fund and I agree with him that the Memorandum of Understanding between the G7, the Commission and the Ukraine Government should be implemented as quickly as possible.
The principal purpose of the Shelter Improvement Plan must be to close and decommission the plant completely, as quickly as possible.
Unfortunately it is clear that nuclear energy will continue to be Ukraine's electricity plan for the future, so high engineering and security standards must be paramount in all other nuclear sites if a repetition of the 1986 disaster is to be avoided.
Unfortunately, even if all these extensive repairs and the construction of an effective and secure shelter for reactor 4 can be completed quickly, there will be no guarantees and, in my view, no question but the whole project will still be environmentally unsafe because the technology to render the dismantled reactor safe, on the one hand, and to eliminate the radioactive waste, on the other, does not yet exist.
We need continuous research into safer plant design and a fuller answer to these very difficult problems.
Otherwise mankind will continue to live with an unacceptable risk.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe we have an exceptionally good report before us from Mr Adam, who shows that politicians will have to keep their finger on the pulse, and will manage to do so through this procedure.
Mr Adam touches on a number of very sore spots.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development may not have enough experience, for instance.
It remains unclear how the project will be monitored.
It states correctly that a lot of money is going to Western companies. Extremely complex interests are at stake, and for that reason it is crucial that we keep our finger on the pulse.
The procedure, as selected by the Committee on Budgets, is a very astute move.
Nonetheless I continue to have concerns, about liability, for instance.
Is Amendment No 3 enough of a guarantee that the Community assumes no liability?
Nuclear power is difficult to insure, so I assume that if things get out of hand again, it will not be insured, and Western countries will be liable once again since such enormous interests are at stake.
That is why safety controls and monitoring are so absolutely vital.
Mr President, I would like to devote my remaining time to the political subject of Ukraine's independence.
I have been to that country, and it says on the one hand that it does not wish to be independent from Russia.
That is a reasonable argument. But on the other hand, I believe Ukraine is not addressing certain issues sufficiently - energy conservation, for instance.
Huge amounts of energy could be saved in that country.
No other country in the world could achieve so much with a method such as the total energy principle.
During all these negotiations, we did not quite manage to achieve this.
It is therefore my view that the European Union in particular should argue for a new energy policy for the Ukraine.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Adam for his excellent report.
The threat of a nuclear accident is a good example of a danger that lurks outside the borders of the EU but nevertheless threatens EU Member States, which would remain defenceless against it.
I think the European Parliament must make sure the agreement is put into practice as quickly as possible.
It will also diminish the chances of our nations being contaminated by radiation due to a nuclear disaster.
The closing down of the plant at Chernobyl is part of the renewal process for the whole of Ukraine's energy sector.
As the powers that be in Ukraine are obviously not unanimous in their desire to shut down Chernobyl, we should agree with the rapporteur's view on the Commission's responsibility.
The Commission should make sure that, in return for the EU's money, they get proof on a regular basis from the Ukraine Government that the Chernobyl plant is being shut down in accordance with the agreed timetable.
I also agree with Mr Adam that the Commission should provide resources only after the other parties to the agreement have used up their share.
It is reasonable for the European Union's share of the finance to cover the period when the design for the reactor's shelter is being put into practice.
In this way we will be better able to ensure that EU funds are not continually milked for this important project, but that it is carried out within the confines of the funding agreement.
Mr Seppänen's remarks on what money has been spent and whether there will be enough for the future are futile.
The funding situation will most certainly be due for review after 2005, and I think we must share in the responsibility considering the safety risk involved for our countries.
The report is excellent, and I support it.
Mr President, there are undoubtedly a lot of people who, like me, remember 26 April 1986.
I myself was out on an island in the Swedish archipelago, at Sandhamn.
We heard on the radio that radioactivity had leaked from a Swedish nuclear power station close by in Forsmark.
I remember it well.
It was three days before the report was changed, and it turned out to be a Russian reactor thousands of kilometres from the island in the archipelago where I and my friends were staying.
Those of us in central and northern Sweden were hit particularly badly: mushrooms, wildlife, berries and animals were contaminated with radiation.
This made many people who depended on natural products in the affected areas realize that nuclear power is an unsafe and highly dangerous source of energy.
Sweden has decided to stop using nuclear power.
The decision was actually taken before 1986.
Every effort has to be made to ensure that the proposals in this report are implemented.
The shelter, funding, information, training, environmental safety, and so on are all essential.
Of course, we have to provide resources along with Ukraine and the G7 group of countries.
Advice, expertise and money must go to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
It is particularly important that openness, information and close contact with employees and the general public are a constant feature of this work, and that no money is used for operating and extending new nuclear power stations.
Environmental safety, control and monitoring must have top priority for as long as the project lasts, between 1998 and 2005.
I would like to ask the Commissioner how the Commission proposes handling this excellent report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mr Adam on a well produced report.
It supports the Commission's proposals on Community support for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development for the fund for improving the shelter over the Chernobyl reactor.
In setting up this fund, international society has taken up its responsibility to help Ukraine put the 1986 Chernobyl disaster behind it and make that nuclear plant environmentally safe.
Through the Commission's TACIS programme, the European Union has put itself at the forefront of these efforts.
The TACIS programme will be subject to constant follow-up and reporting back.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has also played an important role by taking on the heavy responsibility of managing the project on the donors' behalf, and it has managed to get the project under way quickly.
It is my hope that, after the Parliamentary elections in the summer, Ukraine will see the European Union's contribution as a sign of our friendly relations and solidarity.
The Commission can accept most of the amendments, but one important question remains - namely, when the EU will pay its contribution to the Chernobyl fund.
The Commission is proposing here that the EU's contribution will be paid in the initial years of the project.
This is mainly because most of the project's costs will arise at the start.
The Chernobyl fund operation has got off to a rapid start, which also shows that the project itself will be implemented quickly.
A number of tender procedures for the so-called "early biddable projects' and project management have already been announced, and so the contract will be signed in the near future.
What is even more important is that the Ukraine authorities are planning finally to shut down the Chernobyl nuclear power station in the year 2000.
One express political requirement is that considerable progress be made before then.
Parliament's report proposes that payments should be extended to cover the period 1998-2005.
According to Parliament, this is because the Community will be paying its contribution at an early stage, and then the other contributors will go back on their promises.
I believe I can set Parliament's mind at rest on this point.
Of the US$ 400 million promised to the Chernobyl fund, US$ 178 million of fixed commitments have already been made for 1997-1998.
After the European Union, the next largest donor is the United States: their fixed commitments for the period 1997-1998 amount to US$ 54 million.
The cash already in the fund's account amounts to nearly ECU 50 million: this does not include the contribution from the European Union.
In view of this, the Commission is certain that it is both necessary and appropriate that the EU's contribution should be paid at an early stage.
Thank you very much, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
I would like to delete the word "primarily' from the first sentence, so that the text instead reads: ' With the aid of Community funds, the following technical aims will also be achieved as a new shelter is constructed' .
This means deleting the word "primarily' , which I think Mr Adam can accept.
Ladies and gentlemen, are there any objections to this oral amendment?
Mr President, I would be quite happy to accept the amendment with the deletion of that word.
The important point is that we are approving the plan as a whole and we cannot therefore select particular parts of it as being priorities.
If the word 'primarily' as it appears in English is taken out that would be very appropriate. I would then support it.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have heard the rapporteur's opinion.
Since there are no objections to the introduction of this oral amendment, I shall put it to the vote.
(Parliament approved the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
As Austrian members of the Group of the European People's Party, we set great store, in connection with the Shelter Improvement Plan and the agreement between the G7 countries and the Ukraine, on the closure of Chernobyl by the year 2000. Therefore we have chosen to approach the voting in a way which accords with our consistent anti-nuclear policy within the European Parliament.
On the basis of the community assets, we resolutely defend all measures to guarantee greater safety in the nuclear sector.
In this process, however, any link between the closure of old and highly dangerous nuclear reactors and the possible completion of new atomic energy plants must be resolutely rejected.
In line with these views, we also recognize the need for the European Parliament to proceed coherently in the implementation of the agreement and the solution of the Chernobyl problem, but without thereby supporting the completion of other nuclear construction projects, especially in this region.
EC - USA competition laws Agreement
The next item is the report (A4-0104/98) by Mr Malerba, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision concerning the conclusion of the Agreement between the European Communities and the Government of the United States of America regarding the application of positive comity principles in the enforcement of their competition laws (COM(97)0233 - C4-0559/97-97/0178(CNS)).
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the global economy society we live in, there is an ever increasing number of multinational companies and mergers.
Dominant positions and restrictive market practices are also more frequent and have transnational effects.
The authorities which protect competition have several instruments at their disposal to combat restrictive international practices, the authority par excellence being the World Trade Organization. However, one of the most widely adopted methods is that of the extraterritorial application of national competition law.
This means that penalties are also applied when behaviour within the territory of a third country has negative effects on their markets.
In 1991, the European Commission and the US Government concluded a bilateral Agreement on the application of competition rules between the two parties.
That Agreement was approved by this Parliament and I reported on it a couple of years ago.
Section 5 of the 1991 Agreement introduced the concept of comitas gentium - positive comity - for the first time in relations between the EU and the USA.
This is a rather special concept which should possibly be explained.
When a party is the victim of anticompetitive behaviour within the territory of a second party, the first party can ask the second to take measures applying the second party's anticompetition laws.
The Agreement on which the House is now being called upon to vote represents further progress in relation to the 1991 Agreement. Not only does it provide directives on how to deal with requests for positive comity, but it also implies that when a party considers itself the victim of anticompetitive practice in the other party's territory, the first party should generally suspend the measures laid down by its regulations, in other words stop implementing extraterritorial measures.
The central point, therefore, is the extraterritorial application of competition rules.
From time to time, the USA and the EU try to apply their rules of competition to behaviour in other countries as well; in particular, the USA claim competence to apply their competition rules even when they are prejudicial to their exports, and not only when they are prejudicial to the consumer.
This Agreement therefore seeks to replace international cooperation in the methods of extraterritorial application of the rules of competition to regulate anticompetitive practice.
So the Agreement, even if it is only bilateral, seems to be going in the right direction and I recommend its approval.
A word of caution and concern has been expressed, however, by the economic circles of the EU on the provisions for confidentiality of information exchanged between the competition authorities.
That is particularly the case because there is more information available at the European Commission than at the American competition authorities.
At this point, I recommend that the Commission take this concern into account when drawing up a second-generation agreement, that is in the process of being prepared, as well as the possibility of agreeing to the exchange of confidential information even without the parties' consent.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is not the first time that issues relating to the new EU-USA relations have been debated in Parliament. On each occasion, serious reservations have been expressed on all sides of the House, since there is still a general climate of mistrust on both sides of the Atlantic.
Nonetheless, the laborious efforts of the Vice-President of the Commission, Sir Leon Brittan, to push forward the plan for a new Euro-Atlantic market cannot be overestimated, in spite of the difficulties it faces on both technical and above all political issues, as was discovered last Monday at the General Affairs Council.
It is well known that very serious objections have been raised by France, which of course cannot be ignored.
Reservations have also been expressed by other Member States which, it is true, do not in principle disagree.
However, they put terms and conditions on the promotion of a common Euro-Atlantic market, such as the safeguarding of WTO regulations, and the solution of problems arising from the implementation of the infamous extraterritorial Helms-Burton and D'Amato-Kennedy acts. Naturally, there is also the condition that sectors of the agricultural economy and of audio-visual communication will remain outside the plan.
As regards cooperation in the implementation of competition laws, which is dealt with in Mr Malerba's report, the proposal of the Council and the Commission is of course constructive, and no-one can have any objections to a framework of regulatory provisions.
Nevertheless, the Agreement has serious weaknesses to the extent that its implementation is neither obligatory nor does it have a strong legal basis. Rather, it is a political undertaking to cooperate, which in particular excludes company mergers.
So it is natural that reservations and concerns should be expressed by European businesses, especially concerning confidential provisions and the exchange of financial information.
European businesses are worried about a possible undermining of legitimate interests if the United States gains free access to all secret information. It is only natural for there to be fear and mistrust, since our partner on the other side of the Atlantic is burdened by a host of international violations, which show that it is no respecter of laws and international agreements.
At the same time, the United States' insistence on maintaining extraterrestrial laws, despite the recent relaxing of measures against Cuba, is typical behaviour. It is a fact that the United States demands respect from others for the laws of competition and the free market, whilst reserving for itself the right to violate them.
There is also another serious issue. While we have decided that, in each agreement concluded between the European Union and third countries, there will be clauses to ensure respect of human rights in accordance with European humanitarian values, I have the feeling that this is systematically passed over when it comes to our powerful partner on the other side of the Atlantic.
I am referring in particular to the issue of the death penalty, which is retained by many states. Every now and again public opinion is shocked by an execution, and I am also personally shocked by the public executions in the United Arab Emirates and in the United States.
An equally serious concern is the reduction in US contributions to aid for third world countries.
As a result, child deaths have risen to 12 million a year. In other words, whereas the European Union currently gives 0.4 % of its GDP as developmental aid, the USA gives only 0.1 %, even less than Japan at 0.28 %.
It is also a well-known fact that it is a very bad payer with respect to the United Nations Organization.
These issues do not prevent the creation of a common conception and a common agenda on issues of democracy, international cooperation and a just and viable world order such as we envisage in the European Parliament and the European Union. Therefore, in spite of all this, we will vote for the Agreement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to offer sincere thanks to the rapporteur for his excellent report.
The Agreement presented here constitutes a renewed attempt by the two largest markets in the world - the two most important trade partners - to reach an accord where previously there have always been recurrent difficulties.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I should like to say that we approve of this Agreement.
Admittedly, highhanded US behaviour ensures time and again that US legal regulations are applied in a way which is dubious under international law; Helms-Burton and D'Amato are just two examples of this.
In international competition law as well, people in Texas or elsewhere believe they can apply their own rules and do not have to take account of international law.
But none of that should prevent us from attempting, step by step, to persuade the people of the USA as a whole to enter into agreements which they can then comply with too.
Incidentally, I do not fully understand what the death penalty or insufficient development aid has to do with it.
If you look at the European budget lines in national Parliaments, you will see that development aid is being reduced bit by bit even where Socialists are in charge.
The pot should not call the kettle black.
High-handed US behaviour is one thing we must recognize.
However, we must also recognize that we and the Americans have jointly achieved a great deal in many areas.
If the USA and Europe had not stuck together, there would never have been any expansion of GATT-WTO.
We need to recognize the positive side as well from time to time, not always take a sledge-hammer to the Americans.
So our idea of competition law must gain international acceptance.
If the Americans and Europeans reach an accord, we shall have made a significant step forward.
That is why extension by means of a clear framework agreement is necessary, and that is being attempted here.
The Agreement itself is no more than a statement of political commitment.
As a consequence, however, the agreed trade rules will in any case lead to efforts being made to arrive at a rational outcome in cases of dispute, and this should be warmly welcomed.
That is why there is no need for a special, outstanding effort to give approval to this Agreement here.
With the Agreement, I am glad to say we are advancing into an area which is of decisive importance for the maintenance of a free world economy at a time of increasing globalization.
International cooperation in the area of competition will be one of the main tasks of foreign trade and investment at the start of the 21st century.
Globalization, as we all know, leads to world-wide competition.
Europe is part of this world-wide competition.
After the introduction of the euro, we shall play an even more significant role in international competition.
Our efforts to reach an accord must be all the greater.
The conclusion of the present Agreement is a step - albeit a small one - on the way to the comprehensive liberalization of all areas of transatlantic trade.
From my remarks you will see why the Group of the European People's Party gives its support, and I would ask Parliament to give its approval to this Agreement in its totality.
Mr President, competition and freedom of competition are often said to be non-political matters that global capitalism needs to survive. The USA tries to impose its own laws on other countries.
An instance of this is provided by the Helms-Burton and D'Amato-Kennedy acts, by means of which the USA has enacted political laws.
They are at odds with freedom of competition.
So markets and competition are not at all non-political matters and do not represent complete freedom of competition.
We politicians in Europe must make political decisions and laws: that is our job.
Consumer freedom means not having to buy US hormone-treated meat or genetically manipulated soya.
There is a clear conflict of interests between freedom of competition among US producers and the health of consumers in Europe.
US companies and multinationals want freedom of competition based only on making a profit, with little in the way of social and ecological responsibility.
Competition can harm or kill, so politicians must take responsibility generally and protect people and the environment.
In this whole area, I would like to say that non-political competition does not exist.
The rules can be clarified in the form of the Agreement now being prepared, and it would be wise to approve it.
However, we are already taking the next step: namely, the MAI Treaty.
Politicians are gradually submitting to market dictatorship, which is what constitutes complete freedom of competition.
Thank you very much, Mr Seppänen.
Ladies and gentlemen, so as not to distract attention from the important things being said here this Friday morning, the Presidency would ask the Members of the House to please switch off their telephones during the debate.
This is not obligatory, but it is distracting and it would be better if we could manage without them.
Mr President, Mr Malerba's report recommends the revision of an Agreement negotiated by the Commission in a particularly sensitive sector of our relations with the United States: the extraterritorial consequences of different competition laws.
But the Agreement does not solve the fundamental problem of the extraterritorial nature of recent US federal and local legislative provisions.
The main question today is therefore whether the Commission is going to retract the suspension of the WTO panel relating to the Helms-Burton law, which it requested nearly a year ago, in the unfounded expectation of an amendment of Title 4 by Congress.
The suspension therefore has no purpose today, and if it is not withdrawn before the mid-April deadline the whole procedure carried out by the Commission will be a failure, to the detriment of European interests.
Violations of international law should not, in any case, be negotiable, as the chairman of our Committee on External Economic Relations, Mrs Castellina, has just pointed out.
The Commission's attitude is so laxist that you have to wonder how it would handle the negotiations to create a transatlantic free trade area.
The process would not be unbiased anyway, because a large number of areas referred to in the project fall within EU competence on this side of the Atlantic, whereas in the United States, they are the responsibility of the federal states.
And how can we expect Washington to relax trade barriers when the legislative and supervisory bodies are independent from the political authority?
The United States has always, by various means, tried to obtain a sort of right to take part in the internal operation of the European Union.
If they support Sir Leon Brittan's personal initiative today, it is because they see an opportunity to enter the European decision-making process, in the era of the euro and enlargement.
It is not a question of blaming the Americans for defending their own interests carefully and intelligently.
No, what is surprising is the little resistance to their efforts offered by a divided Commission - which makes you question the principle of collective responsibility - and a timorous Council, which is allowing itself to be led by Sir Leon's personal project.
Mr President, does that sort of European Union really defend the interests of the European people?
Mr President, many companies today are in business all over the world.
Many of them also form strategic alliances to strengthen their position in foreign markets via an international partner.
However, the economic effects of mergers, anticompetitive behaviour and the abuse of dominant positions often affect countries other than those where the companies concerned are based.
One way for the monopolies and mergers authorities to deal with anticompetitive behaviour at an international level is to apply extraterritorial jurisdiction.
This means that a country which is adversely affected by anticompetitive behaviour in another country can try to apply its own competition rules to deal with the problem.
There are many legal systems which allow this, including that of the European Community.
The USA makes considerable use of extraterritorial jurisdiction, which, as we know, has generated political tensions between the EU and the United States.
Using extraterritorial jurisdiction also creates many problems in practice. There is no way of exercising jurisdiction over people outside their own country, and it is also difficult to get evidence from abroad.
In 1991, the EC and the USA signed an Agreement on applying their competition laws.
Instead, the principle of positive comity was introduced, in other words active civility.
Using this principle means that one country can combat anticompetitive behaviour in another country without having to resort to extraterritorial jurisdiction.
Instead, as we know, the country which is being adversely affected can request the country in which the anticompetitive behaviour is taking place to take action.
Although this principle was introduced in the 1991 Agreement, the USA continues to use extraterritorial jurisdiction to a considerable extent.
Enhancing cooperation calls for better and more effective application of the principle of positive comity.
The Commission started negotiations with the United States in 1996.
The new Agreement mainly contains guidelines for dealing with applications to use the principle of positive comity.
It also lays down certain terms on which the parties will defer or break off their own investigations and action.
The country where the behaviour is occurring can be requested to take action instead.
The Agreement does not cover mergers and concentration.
Neither US nor EU legislation allows for such procedures to be deferred or broken off.
Confidential information furnished to the Commission is heavily protected in Community law.
I can therefore calm Parliament's fears on this point: the Commission can only lift the confidentiality requirement if it first obtains the consent of the company in question.
The monopolies and mergers authorities must work together to ensure that anticompetitive behaviour amongst companies in the world market can be regulated properly and effectively.
The Agreement constitutes a commitment by both the USA and the EU to work together instead of using their own anti-trust legislation in the other's territory.
In this way, the Agreement represents a significant development in relations between the EU and the USA.
Mr Malerba also notes this in his well-considered report.
Thank you very much, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr Rübig has asked for the floor pursuant to Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure.
Thank you very much, Mr Rübig.
Mr Manisco has asked for the floor.
Mr President, I simply wish to say that I voted against the Malerba report. You only mentioned two abstentions.
Thank you very much, Mr Manisco.
I am sorry; I did not look towards the left and in my case, ladies and gentlemen, that is even more difficult to understand.
So I apologize both to you personally and to the area where you are sitting.
I looked towards the right, towards the centre and towards the left, but not towards the extreme left.
I am sorry Mr Manisco, and I note that you have voted against.
Mr Schulz wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I have one comment to make in relation to Mr Rübig's remarks, if you would allow me.
Mr Schulz, that is not a point of order.
In any case, this could open a debate.
I would ask you not to open a debate, but that we merely note Mr Rübig's opinions, which were made pursuant to Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure, and record them in the Minutes, as is fitting.
But if you insist, Friday mornings are very special mornings so I will give you the floor for one minute.
Mr President, I knew you were an understanding man.
I am sure you will also find a Rule which makes it possible for me to speak for a minute and a half.
As someone who deals with cooperation between the police and justice systems in the European Union, I support the concern of my colleague Mr Rübig in principle.
Please do not clap too soon.
Mr President, please subtract the applause and the heckling from my speaking time.
I support it in principle, Mr Rübig, because you are defending the safety of our colleagues in this Parliament.
I merely want you to bear in mind something I consider to be very important in negotiations with the Belgian authorities.
Apart from anything else, we play a role in the lack of safety in the Leopold quarter.
In the eyes of a great many people, including criminals of course, we are people worth attacking.
This leads to the situation - you were right to use your hammer in support, Mr President - whereby the people who live in the Leopold quarter on a day-to-day basis are of course victims of crime as well - in other words the Belgians, who suffer at our hands in any case because prices have been driven up because of the European Parliament, as far as rents and land prices are concerned.
So in future please let us not just mention ourselves, but also the people who live there.
The police station which is to be established there is to serve Belgian citizens as well.
I consider it right and proper, Mr Rübig, that we should mention all the affected parties.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you not to open a debate.
Two opinions have been given.
I believe we should now get ready to end this part-session calmly instead.
Parliament has come to the end of the agenda.
The Minutes of this sitting will be presented for Parliament's approval at the beginning of the next part-session.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me once again the satisfaction I have every Friday of thanking all Parliament's services for their cooperation, especially with the prospect of a few days' rest: rest for our throats, rest for our muscles, but especially rest from the tension arising from the responsibility of our daily work in this important institution.
At the beginning of this morning's sitting, Mr Hallam gave me another reason to reflect on the value of the work carried out here by Members on Friday mornings.
On Friday mornings there are no television cameras.
It is an irregularity that I am going to look into and will try to sort out but, in any case, it is also very commendable that you, ladies and gentlemen, are here without the possible gratification of your images and work being transmitted on television.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I declare that you are the distinguished members of the Friday club.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 3 April 1998.
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my sad duty to inform you of the death of our colleague Spalato Belleré on 21 April.
Mr Belleré was a medical doctor and a colonel in the reserves.
He was elected to the European Parliament in June 1994 and was an active member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the interparliamentary delegation for relations with Kazakhstan.
Furthermore, as you all know, on 23 April the former President of the Republic of Greece, Constantino Karamanlis, passed away in Athens.
As a statesman, he was responsible for the restoration of democracy in his country and its entry into the European Union, and he deserves recognition from all Europeans.
I would ask you all to observe a minute's silence with me.
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of 3 April have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, next Saturday, 2 May, in Brussels, we are going to make an historic decision with regard to a number of aspects concerning the introduction of the single currency.
Whatever my personal opinion regarding the euro, or that of my group, we would like to remind you formally that the Edinburgh agreements confirmed Parliament's seat as Strasbourg and it is thus there that we should be meeting on Saturday.
As a Member of this House and a native of Alsace, I protest against the choice of Brussels for this extraordinary sitting.
Yet again, the House is ignoring the treaties and shunning Strasbourg.
(Applause from various quarters)
Mr Striby, as you know, the Treaty that you mention permits extraordinary part-sessions to be held without specifying where they should take place.
Thus, by a large majority, the House decided that this extraordinary sitting would be held here in Brussels, which also enables the unique possibility of holding the session in the same place as the meetings of the Ecofin Council and the Council of Heads of State or Government.
Thus, for functional reasons of an extraordinary nature, it is being held in Brussels.
Mr President, as a European, I would like to say that I am perfectly happy about meeting here in Brussels on Saturday.
Mr President, I would urge you to press for the release of Vincent Cochetel on behalf of the European Parliament.
Mr Cochetel works for the High Commission for Refugees.
Three months ago today he was kidnapped in Russia.
During the night of 29 January he was taken away by armed men and he has not been seen since.
Mr Cochetel is 37 years old and has two children.
He leads the delegation of the High Commissioner for Refugees in Vladikafkas, which is looking after 100 000 refugees and exiles from the Caucasus region.
I would ask you to intervene and urge you to do everything in your power both here and in the Russian Federation to ensure the release of Vincent Cochetel.
Mr President, less than three weeks ago an important peace agreement was reached in Northern Ireland, which we should all be very happy about. We should congratulate ourselves and, especially, the people of Northern Ireland as well as all the political actors who have had the courage to reach this agreement, including the former British Government under Mr Major, the current one under Mr Blair, and the Governments of the Republic of Ireland.
From the Basque Country, a significant majority of the population has watched this agreement with political interest, in the hope that dialogue may soon bring about an end to the sad and violent conflict we are experiencing.
We hope ETA may have the same courage as the IRA, to renounce arms and use political negotiation to try to reach agreement through their representatives. We also hope the Spanish Government will have the same political courage the British Governments have shown, so as to embark on a process of this type.
I hope this House will soon be able to celebrate a peace agreement for the Basque people, and I hope the European institutions will offer sincere support in this matter.
Thank you very much, Mr Imaz San Miguel.
Welcome
Northern Ireland
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the recent peace agreement in Northern Ireland.
It is a great honour to welcome to the European Parliament today Dr Marjory Mowlam, the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Mr David Andrews, the Irish Foreign Affairs Minister, and Mr Santer, the President of the European Commission.
It gives us all great pleasure to welcome them here today.
During my talks in London, Belfast and Dublin, I was able to understand and observe the enormous determination with which both governments committed themselves to the peace and reconciliation process.
Today we have the opportunity to show our unfailing solidarity with them and with the people of Northern Ireland.
Like you all, I cherish great hopes that it may now be possible to turn this sad and bloodstained page of modern history once and for all.
Mrs Mowlam, you have the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure and honour to be with you today to talk about the agreement that was reached on Good Friday and to have a chance to thank people here for the help they have given us in moving the peace talks in Northern Ireland forward to what I hope is a stable and lasting settlement.
Part of that has been the economic help that has very kindly been given by the European Union but just as important is the support given to us by individual Members of Parliament, individual Commissioners, and the Presidents of both Parliament and the Commission over the past year.
The money is most welcome; it makes a big difference.
But it also makes a difference when individuals give of their time and their energy to support what is happening in Northern Ireland.
That makes a real difference.
So I thank everyone who brought with them some hope, some belief in the future, some vision of where we could go and their assistance.
I also acknowledge the help that the three Members of the European Parliament from Northern Ireland - John Hume, Jim Nicholson and Ian Paisley - have given by working together in Europe to get support for Northern Ireland.
I know it is potentially unfair but may I thank John Hume in particular for the work he has put in.
(Applause) It has to be said that the work he did over the years when this was not a popular issue has made a difference today.
I am also very pleased to be speaking alongside my colleague, David Andrews, from the Republic of Ireland.
It is when the two governments have worked together, as people do in the European Parliament, that we have managed to make progress.
We must never forget that.
(Applause) Finally, I acknowledge the work of the Commissioners and not just Jacques Santer.
I say a special thank you to Monica Wulf-Mathies.
I will refer later to the work she has done for us in Northern Ireland.
I would also mention Padraig Flynn and our good friend and comrade Neil Kinnock for their support.
(Applause and laughter) I mean comrade in the 'comradely' way.
We are all comrades in a certain sense and that is how I mean it.
I also, in a 'comradely' way, thank the Council for the endorsement they gave to the historic agreement setting out what we hope is a new beginning, the chance to achieve what we hope will be a lasting peace settlement.
As the Council acknowledged, it is the courage and the determination of the party leaders and the people of Northern Ireland which has been central in making this opportunity for peace happen.
We have been aided by the courage and determination of those party leaders and by the economic help that the EU programmes have given us.
The agreement reached is one that is based on the principles - which were very crucial in the agreement - of consent, cooperation, fairness and justice.
They are the underlying principles that guide the agreement.
It is a unique agreement.
It is unique in the sense that it is the result of talks between Nationalists, Unionists, Loyalists and Republicans.
It is the first time for 70 years that they have been round the table reaching an accommodation.
There is no doubt, as many in Parliament know, that we still face difficulties in the weeks, months and years ahead.
In the immediate future we still have some splinter groups on both sides of the divide that have not signed up to a ceasefire and to the talks.
In fact, they are out to destroy it.
That is a continuing problem with the violence that it entails.
Many of you will have seen last weekend the most recent murder victim was a young 22-year-old student on his way home.
Those are the difficulties we may still continue to see in the future but our response must be, as the President of this Parliament on his recent visit to Belfast said, there will always be attempts to stop the process reaching a peaceful settlement.
It is necessary to be prepared for that and to have a strong determination not to let things be spoiled by them.
I echo your President's words on that.
I do not want to go into a lot of detail about the agreement but just let me say that none of the parties get 100 % of what they want.
But there are gains there for everyone.
It both respects everyone's cultural and political identity and paves the way for a fair, workable and lasting accommodation.
It has been reached because everyone was willing to compromise.
Everybody has moved a little and as a result everyone - and I mean everyone - can be a winner as a result of this agreement.
It includes cooperation within Northern Ireland, within the communities in the North, between the North and the South and between the UK and the Republic.
I want to mention briefly some aspects of the agreement which refer specifically to Europe.
As part of the overall settlement there will be a North-South ministerial council which will seek to build greater cooperation than already exists.
It will bring together members of the Irish Government and members of the new Northern Ireland administration provided the referendum goes through on 22 May, with bodies below the ministerial council to implement decisions.
One of those will be related to the European issues.
EU decisions of a cross-border nature will fall under that implementing body.
There will also be a new body bringing together the British and Irish governments with new devolved institutions in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to consider matters of mutual interest, including European Union matters.
They will also take advantage of what I believe are the radical constitutional changes taking place within the United Kingdom where we have greater cooperation for trade and EU cooperation between Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.
I will not go into the detail but everybody in this Parliament knows the amount of economic help you have given Northern Ireland over the previous years through various programmes.
Over the last six years we have received well over £1.3 billion.
It has made an enormous difference and we thank you for it.
At times when things have been very tough it has been of great help to know that the European Union has always been there.
Some people come late to success and I want to acknowledge very clearly today that when things were tough the European Union was there with us.
I can remember times when, after a particularly horrific weekend, when Monica was due to come over, I would think: ' Will she come, will she cancel?'
And she came. And it shows that if you keep going with confidence and determination you can get to where we are today.
So I thank those who came in person and the help they gave.
(Applause) The Structural Funds have been, and will continue to be, an important aspect of funding to Northern Ireland.
Objective 1 status was given to Northern Ireland because of the special political and economic circumstances that we found ourselves in.
It has made a tremendous difference to us.
Under the proposed post-1999 reforms we recognize that qualifying for Objective 1 status is going to be harder but I want to stress to you today what a difference it has made across Northern Ireland in helping to build the opportunities for peace.
I would also take this opportunity to thank people for the special money in the Peace and Reconciliation Fund which is there to help develop socio-economic policies underpinned by working with Community groups.
It has made an incredible impact in Northern Ireland and one of the reasons it has made an impact is because projects have to be either cross-community or cross-border.
There have been 19 000 applications to benefit from that fund.
The fund has managed to meet 11 500 of them.
What that means on the ground is that many people have benefited from help from Europe.
There is a trauma centre in Belfast where people who have lost loved ones can go when the pain is very real to talk and discuss and come to terms with the pain that has been created.
There is a women's centre in Ballybeen.
That has meant that women can get retraining, can have a future after the children have gone and can also have a voice.
Their voice is not always heard in Northern Ireland.
There is the Ballymena Business Development Centre which allows small businesses the chance to grow and provide what is so crucial to the peace working, namely jobs.
There are some like the Greysteel Community Centre - people will remember the shooting in 1994 in the Rising Sun Pub where six people were shot at random.
Thanks to the European Peace and Reconciliation money we now have a community centre there where both sides of the divide go and we are beginning to rebuild after that hurt.
That is the kind of difference that programme has made and I thank all who made it possible.
I also want to touch on one other aspect of that Peace and Reconciliation Fund which is so innovative and so constructive.
It developed in Northern Ireland but has an impact across many European countries.
The money was not handed out by us in central government, not given by Ministers or departments.
Monica Wulf-Mathies created an environment where partnerships developed - 20 of them across Northern Ireland - bodies made up of community representatives, local politicians, trade unionists, business people who sat round the table and decided for their local community where the money should be spent.
The difference that made was that when we went through very tough times in the talks and people were not playing and not talking, there were 26 tables across Northern Ireland around which people were talking, people from both extremes and regardless of what had happened they kept going.
It will not be up to me but up to the parties after the referendum to decide, but I hope that structure is kept and provides a model for others of what is possible.
We thank you very much for creating that.
(Applause) Finally, I would just mention the International Fund which the European Union has contributed to over the years: the recent ECU 17 m per annum for 1998 will enable the fund to continue its important work.
So the message today really is, thank you for the support.
We would not have got to where we are in Northern Ireland without the help from the European Parliament.
You have been there for long enough that enough people have benefited from the programmes that have been put in place that they have been willing to support and encourage people to reach the agreement we reached on Good Friday.
Europe has been an inspiration to people in Northern Ireland.
You have supported us on a practical level which makes a difference to people and which is what our EU presidency is about: jobs, crime, education; but you have also given us a hope and a belief that we can build a future, that if we work collectively in Northern Ireland we can do so much better than we can as individuals.
You have shown that if we look to the future and believe and trust in a vision we can get there.
You have made a difference in the past.
I know we will continue to work together in the future.
Thank you one and all for your support.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very honoured by your invitation today to join with my British colleague, the Secretary of State Mo Mowlam, in marking the agreement reached in the multiparty negotiations in Belfast on Good Friday, 10 April.
It is fair to say, as expressed by Mo Mowlam, that the immense welcome the agreement has received from our friends across the world and in particular from within the European Union underlines its truly historic and momentous nature.
Like Mo, I would like to express my deep gratitude for your solidarity and for your encouragement.
Both qualities are deeply appreciated and not taken for granted.
It is fair to say that the agreement itself is the culmination not just of two years of difficult negotiation but of decades of shared endeavours by the British and Irish governments and by political leaders of vision and courage.
I must in particular salute a distinguished Member of Parliament already mentioned by my friend and colleague, and 'comrade' from time to time, Mo Mowlam, namely John Hume.
I would like to place on record the pivotal and crucial role at all stages of the process from beginning to end of my friend and colleague John Hume.
Throughout the negotiations the Irish Government has been inspired both by the European ideal and by the real and concrete achievements of the Union.
We are deeply appreciative of the crucial role the Union has played in preparing the groundwork for the agreement.
Europe, in particular, has shown how age-old rivalries and bloody conflicts can be transcended through new partnership structures.
We have also learned the lesson that, to adapt the words of the Treaty establishing the Coal and Steel Community, a new Ireland can be built neither through coercion nor through rhetoric.
It can only come about through practical achievements which will first of all create real solidarity.
Our experience as a small country within the Union has shown that there are many sectors in which there is a true commonality of interest between the two parts of the island of Ireland.
In this Parliament, too, the three Members for Northern Ireland - John Hume, Ian Paisley and Jim Nicholson - despite acute differences between them on political issues have been able to work together on many matters of importance to those they represent.
The EU structures have themselves been a guide to us in the negotiations on arrangements for cooperation and joint action within Ireland, the North and the South.
The European Union's economic support through, for example, the Peace and Reconciliation Programme and its contributions to the International Fund for Ireland has been vital and critical in making the peace process a tangible reality for many individuals and communities, both in Northern Ireland and the border counties in the south of the island.
We are deeply grateful to our partners, the Commission and the European Parliament for their consistent and generous assistance.
I wish to re-echo the expression of gratitude by Mo Mowlam to the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, to Commissioners Wulf-Mathies, Kinnock and Flynn.
And to all colleagues who, one way or another, assisted and supported the peace process.
We welcomed the presence of the President of Parliament in Belfast and we particularly welcomed the presence of Jacques Santer.
As a member of the General Affairs Council of the Foreign Ministers, let me say that his support on Monday was critical to the magnificent declaration which emanated from that meeting.
It is deeply appreciated.
The European Union's economic support for the programmes has been tremendous.
The European example has also been of great moral significance.
The conflict in Northern Ireland which has led to so many terrible and needless deaths and injuries has been an affront to the values of our shared European civilization.
But Europe has shown that no society is condemned by some iron law of history to pace the treadmill of its past.
Just before the agreement was signed the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble spoke about how the accord could represent an epoch-making end to our internal Cold War which would be enormously liberating for the people of the island as a whole.
Within the past decade we have seen the end of the Cold War in Europe and its replacement by an new era of partnership.
We have seen the Berlin Wall torn down and the Iron Curtain collapse.
There are physical barriers between communities in Belfast still.
There is a border between North and South but the true frontier is that which runs through the hearts and minds of people.
The real difference lies between those who look to the future, to new ways of peace and cooperation and those who cling to the past, to the old ways of violence and division.
That is the divide we wish to break down.
The agreement does not pretend to be a final and definitive settlement but it creates institutions within which a new relationship of trust can be developed and offers guarantees both individual and collective of the fundamental interests and rights of all.
As Mo has said, the agreement is complex and complicated and contains many elements which must in their practical operation be synchronized and meshed together.
The transition to the working of the structures and policies contained in it will be a challenging and continual process.
In that sense the agreement is an opportunity as much as an achievement.
The continuing support of the European Union will be critical if we are to meet the new challenges presented by the agreement.
My government, together with the British Government, looks forward to working with the Commission, the European Parliament and our partners and meeting the challenges of peace and reconciliation.
I therefore welcome Monday's agreement at the General Affairs Council that the Union should continue to play an active part in promoting lasting peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland.
As you know, there will be simultaneous referendums North and South on 22 May.
When they come to the ballot box the people of Ireland will be asked above all else to vote for peace.
They should have on their minds the profound example, the triumph offered by Europe's transformation of itself.
I am confident that the people will together and concurrently endorse the agreement and allow its immense potential to be realized.
Again, I extend my deep gratitude on my own behalf and that of my government for the invitation by the President of Parliament to be here and thank you and your colleagues once again.
(Loud applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very honoured to address the European Parliament today in this debate of importance and significance for all of us in the European Union.
Barely two weeks ago agreement was reached in the multi-party negotiations on the future of Northern Ireland in Belfast.
This agreement required considerable political courage and great determination.
Today before this House, on behalf of the European Commission, I would like to pay tribute to all those who are playing a part in this peace process: to the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland, to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Dr Mo Mowlam, and to Ireland's Minister for Foreign Affairs, David Andrews, both of whom we particularly welcome here this afternoon; to the parties in the talks; to the outstanding chairmanship of Senator George Mitchell and his fellow independent chairmen - former Prime Minister Harri Holkeri and General John de Chastelain.
We welcome the Agreement although it is not our role to pass judgment on it.
That is a matter for the people in the North and South of Ireland to decide in the referendums on 22 May.
But we can - as we always have done - continue to support wholeheartedly the peace and reconciliation process.
Surely in political life there is no more noble a cause than trying to bring people together inclusively in the pursuit of peace and reconciliation - from whatever their backgrounds, rich or poor; from whatever their religious or ethnic origins, and to bridge the gaps of intolerance and hatred, to break down fear and insecurity, to build confidence and a belief in a new future and to offer hope, opportunity, freedom, the chance for happiness, the chance for a decent future for future generations.
There is no more noble cause than that.
To try and try again in this task and to be determined to succeed in the end: that is what we applaud today.
Indeed, does this not mirror the spirit that symbolises the whole history of the European Union itself? As committed and dedicated Europeans is this not the credo of our daily lives - to bring all European peoples together in friendship, peace and reconciliation, in a spirit of tolerance and mutual respect, fulfilling the guiding principles of our Treaty.
Yes, this is our raison d'être and our lasting success. So, today, in this House we rejoice in the progress that is being made.
During the talks leading to the agreement I believe the European Union has played an important role in three major ways.
Firstly, the European Union has provided a stable political reference point for both communities, a reference point that has shown how formerly divided communities and divided European countries can work together, trust each other and grow together successfully in the modern world.
Secondly, because our institutions - this Parliament, the Council of Ministers, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - have all provided important political venues where members of the United Kingdom and Irish governments and politicians from Ireland, North and South, have been able to meet and work constructively together on many subjects.
But the European political process has shown that these disagreements can be resolved amicably without resulting in malice or recrimination.
So our institutions themselves have played their part.
Thirdly, I believe we have played a generous part in a deep and continued European involvement to underpin, practically, the efforts of both governments to bring about peace and reconciliation.
We have done this by a twin-track approach of assistance for economic and social regeneration and direct support for cross-community reconciliation.
In 1988 we became a major contributor to the International Fund for Ireland.
Overall we have contributed ECU 135 million.
25 000 jobs have been created.
After the cease-fire in 1994 we launched the Special Programme for Peace and Reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland, a programme that has been unequivocally supported by the MEPs from the Province.
This has been a big success.
On my recent visit to Northern Ireland I saw at first hand some of the cross-community and cross-border projects - such as my visit to the Shankill Women's Centre or when I listened to the Ray of Hope Choir.
They were moving experiences.
Few people know that the special programme is financing no fewer than 11 000 projects - bringing together more than 2 000 people, one-seventh of Northern Ireland's population!
So I am very pleased to announce before this House today that the Commission has agreed this morning in the provisional draft budget to propose a further ECU 100 million for the Peace and Reconciliation Programme for 1999.
This brings the total for this programme to ECU 500 million over five years.
I am sure this will be supported by the European Parliament.
Let us not forget either the role other Community funds have played: the general Northern Ireland programme under the Structural Funds, INTERREG, URBAN and other Community programmes.
Over ECU 1.3 billion has been earmarked under Objective 1 of the Structural Funds for Northern Ireland.
Our practical assistance to Northern Ireland has been constant, committed and additional.
We have provided sustained support for all the communities over a long period of time - and rightly so.
Let me add that the Peace and Reconciliation Programme has been a laboratory for new forms of cooperation and implementation of our Structural Fund programmes and a source of inspiration for more decentralized implementation in the next programming period.
In the future the European Union will continue to support social and economic regeneration in Northern Ireland as we have in the past.
Community funding will be present in the initial phase in 1999 with our proposal to extend our contribution to the Peace Programme, and its effects will be felt for longer still.
And, in addition, I am confident that by working with both governments, all the political parties and all strands of opinion we will be able to find new, creative ways of supporting the fresh opportunities which an agreement will bring.
I can assure you of our commitment in that respect.
Let me conclude my remarks this afternoon by saying that we salute the great courage of the people of Ireland, North and South and all of those who are involved in the peace process.
We support the huge efforts that have been made on the road to peace and reconciliation.
And we continue to pledge our support to underpin this bold and courageous process - now and in the future.
Václav Havel provides me with the words and thoughts I need to express my feelings and conclude my remarks this afternoon.
He said 'Je crois profondément en la coexistence de communautés régionales au sein d'une communauté globale de tous les hommes ' .
So do I.
(Applause)
Thank you very much, Mr Santer.
Mr Hume has the floor, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Mr President, I have to say that I am very pleased that the leadership of my own group has asked me to speak for the group today because I am quite sure that the vast majority of the people of Northern Ireland would want me to speak for them today to express their deep gratitude to all of the European institutions for the powerful strength and support that they have given to the peace movement on our streets.
Could I begin by expressing their gratitude, and my thanks, to you for representing this Parliament and coming to our streets and thereby strengthening the will for peace and the mood for peace by showing the people on the streets, who have been neglected for so long, that Europe and the outside world really did care.
That strengthened enormously the will for peace among the people.
In so doing you are building on the strong foundations, already laid by the European Commission, and let nobody underestimate the strength of those foundations.
When the cease-fires were called, Jacques Delors approached us immediately to ask what he could do to help and he initiated the special programme for peace and reconciliation.
His successor, President Santer, came to our streets to meet with people at local level and, of course, the fact that the President of the European Commission came to the streets was an enormous statement, not only of goodwill but of positive support for the peace process and of strength for that process.
The fact that his colleague the Commissioner for regional policy with major responsibility for Northern Ireland, Monica Wulf-Mathies, has come to our streets many times and has gone to the areas of highest unemployment and has brought together people from both sides on their common ground - economic regeneration - has been a very important factor in the healing process that we believe is now under way.
Of course, the two governments who are represented here today and in particular the two people who are representing them who have been involved in very detailed work during the talks leading to the agreement have put enormous efforts into it, together with previous governments who have also made very strong moves towards peace in our country.
We have, I believe, an historic opportunity now for a new beginning in which we can leave behind us our terrible and tragic past.
It is a new beginning in which there will be no victory for either section of our people because in divided societies victories are not solutions.
What we have is an agreement that underlines and proposes accommodation and respect for the identities of both sections of our people and for the ethos of both sections of our people and creates the circumstances in which both sections of our people can work together in their common interests and by so doing can break down the barriers of the past.
There again, we see the enormous influence of the European Union because, as I have often said the European Union has been a major inspiration to the philosophy of creating peace.
People often talk of European Union as economic this and economic that, but fundamentally, as I have often said on my streets, it is the finest example in the history of the world of conflict resolution.
Just imagine fifty years ago: for the second time in a century, after millions has been slaughtered, who could have forecast we would be altogether today? But we are.
How was it done? How it was done involves the philosophy I am talking about, not just in Northern Ireland but in every area of conflict in the world because at the end of the day all conflict is about the same thing - it is about seeing difference as a threat.
(Applause) The peoples of Europe decided that difference - whether it is your race, your religion, your nationality or your ethnicity - is an accident of birth and not something that you should fight about; it is something you should respect.
Looking at the philosophical principles that create peace, what the peoples of Europe did was to build institutions - and those three institutions are represented here today - which fully respect the differences of their peoples.
No one in Europe has lost their identity but, and this is the important point, make them work together in their substantial common interests which are social and economic, as I often say 'spilling their sweat and not their blood' , and by doing that we can breakdown the barriers and centuries and the new Europe will have evolved.
Those are the principles that go to the heart of this new agreement if you read it.
They are creating institutions within Northern Ireland and between North and South and between Britain and Ireland that respect our differences but which allow us to work together in our common interests based on partnership, on equality, on mutual respect, on consent and agreement.
As we lay those foundations now, as the two governments have laid those foundations for us by their work for this agreement, let us hope that by working together the real healing process in Ireland will begin and we will break down the barriers of prejudice of centuries and the new Ireland will evolve in the way the new Europe has but with no victory for either side but based on agreement and respect for diversity.
Indeed, Mr President, as that is happening I have no doubt that the continued support from the European Union and from the European Commission and Council of Ministers in particular, through economic regeneration, will play a major role in strengthening the common ground enormously and in expressing to our people at grass-roots level the massive international goodwill that exists for peace in the offshore island of the European Union.
The representatives of all sections of our people face the challenge of harnessing that massive international goodwill and translating it into real benefits for our people and in doing it together to break down the barriers of centuries.
We look forward in Northern Ireland to continuing support from our friends in the European Union and we thank you for it.
We are very confident, and I know I am speaking for the vast majority of our people from both sectors of our community when I say we are looking forward to laying our past permanently behind us.
As we move into the next century let it be the first century in our island history in which we will have no killing on our streets and no emigration of our young people to other lands to earn a living.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Mr President, like the other groups in Parliament, my group has followed with great emotion the agreement signed in Belfast on 10 April by the British and Irish Governments and the parties representing the communities of Northern Ireland.
We are very pleased to see Mrs Mowlam and Mr Andrews here together today, sharing the same philosophy and the same commitment.
Their understanding, toughness and commitment mean that the European Parliament can feel proud today.
Our group showed its commitment to peace in Northern Ireland, during the previous parliamentary term, through the members of the Irish Democratic Left, and also through the work of Vice-President Gutiérrez Díaz in his capacity as rapporteur for the International Fund for peace in Northern Ireland and as member and chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy.
His work was a sign of our group's commitment, because we are convinced that in Ireland there are many men and women of good will, many men and women who believe in democracy, many men and women who also think of themselves as Europeans.
So it is easy for them not to fear peace or democracy today.
As the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, said here: there is no need to be frightened of peace. The dangers of peace are always far less than the dangers of violence.
So, as the European Parliament, we want to make a firm commitment.
We want to encourage the Commission and the Council to develop all these programmes and plans for solidarity because we want to share the fruits of peace.
In a few years' time, we want there to be Irish Members of the European Parliament who can greet each other warmly, who are committed to the same political project of democracy for Europe and the European peoples.
For every problem, in every country, there are different solutions.
But the philosophy of renouncing violence in Ireland and making a commitment to peace and dialogue applies to everybody.
We cannot draw any other conclusion.
We cannot confuse one problem with another and propose a single, general solution, but what is clear is that European commitment, democratic commitment, and the renunciation of violence are applicable to everybody. That is why we are pleased today with this agreement and the fact that all the Irish people, from the North and from the South, can be fully European, by regaining peace and democracy for their children and for the future.
Mr President, I should firstly like to identify myself with the tributes paid to yourself, President Santer, Monica Wulf-Mathies and others who have been involved.
For thirty years the people of Northern Ireland have not been able to enjoy or benefit from a normal society.
They have suffered grievously over that time from countless evil and wicked acts by terrorists.
It does not matter what letters of the alphabet the terrorists use to camouflage their atrocities.
We still have a long way to go for there are still those who wish to keep the people of Northern Ireland at each other's throats.
I would like today to put on record my admiration for the people of Northern Ireland who have withstood the pressure and managed to remain in control and calm in the face of adversity.
I would also like to put on record the immense debt we the people of Northern Ireland owe to the security forces and the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Royal Irish Regiment, formerly the Ulster Defence Regiment and the army which on many occasions in the past 30 years stood between sanity and oblivion.
I have to say that on many occasions they never received the credit they deserved.
There is still a long way to go.
Please do not believe that all our problems are over.
There are many deep scars in both communities which will take a long time to heal.
Many families will never be able to forget their own personal loss and I hope we can understand that.
We should not believe that this agreement will be accepted by everyone.
Many of the people I represent are extremely concerned that those who murdered and bombed for the last 30 years have not decommissioned one bullet nor one ounce of Semtex.
There are many people who are extremely sceptical of these unreconstructed terrorists' long-term motives and have doubts about their intentions to follow the democratic path.
The European Union has been very constructive in the support it has provided in recent years.
It will require sustained and positive action by the European Union to ensure that we can rebuild our divided communities and restore that confidence.
The future of Northern Ireland and its ultimate destiny lie firmly in the hands of those who live and reside within Northern Ireland.
This settlement is not and cannot be considered interim; it is permanent.
I know there will be difficult days ahead.
The road to peace will not be easy, it never is.
But there comes a time when one must grasp the opportunity.
The easy way is always to say 'No' , to demolish and destroy.
The difficult way forward is to say 'Yes' and to pick up the challenge and build a new future for all the people of Northern Ireland.
The people of Northern Ireland are a warm and generous people.
They deserve better than they have had.
The future is in their hands.
They will decide, they will vote and I trust they will choose wisely.
I tried very hard earlier today to obtain consensus on a joint resolution.
Unfortunately, because of the Socialist Group's attitude, I was unable to achieve it.
It is a bad start.
I hope it reconsiders and adopts a better attitude in the future.
If we cannot have consensus on a joint resolution in this Parliament, we will have difficulties ahead of us.
Mr President, I rise to speak on behalf of people who have no voice now in Northern Ireland.
They had a voice when they elected me top of the poll - the position I have occupied at every election for this Parliament with the largest number of voters taking part in the election.
And why can these people not speak? It is because they have been butchered and killed by the IRA and other so-called Loyalist groups.
I do not know how many people in this House today have read the Agreement or know what it contains but it does not contain some of the things that have been attributed to it by some speakers today.
They cannot have read it.
It is proposed that all unreformed terrorists will be released inside 24 months.
The Secretary of State says that it is based on justice and everyone is a winner.
Who is winning and what sort of justice is that? I have not time today to talk about some of the people but let me give you one example.
In 1993 - which is not long ago - Paul Magee from Belfast was convicted of killing Special Constable Glen Goodman in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire.
He was also a member of the IRA active service unit, nicknamed the M60 Gang after they killed five security force members in Belfast.
That is the type of unreformed terrorist who is going to be loosed onto the streets of Northern Ireland.
I have before me copies of a paper with every police officer they murdered during their campaign.
Here we have all these young men who gave their lives in defence of both Roman Catholic and Protestant people in Northern Ireland, all murdered by the IRA.
And those who are serving time for their murders are to be released within 24 months.
But there is one exception.
In the South of Ireland where a garda was shot, the government has made it clear that those responsible will not join in the amnesty.
I say: What is the difference between him and the Royal Ulster Constabulary men who fought and died to guard the people of Northern Ireland? What is the difference?
Someone in this House said that this is peace.
These gunmen, once released, will have access to the greatest terrorist arsenal in the whole of the western world - not one gun surrendered, not one ounce of Semtex surrendered - and when they do not get what they want, they will take it out not on this Parliament, not on the people of Europe, but on the long-suffering people of Northern Ireland.
Someone said: Do not be afraid of peace.
Go and tell the widows.
Go and tell the orphans.
Go and tell the slaughtered in Northern Ireland that.
How can they lie in their beds when they know that those who murdered their kith and kin are to be released on to the streets with access to the weapons of murder. This is a serious matter.
Let the people of Northern Ireland speak.
The government is spending £3 million in order to win this referendum.
But the Ulster people will not be bullied and they will not be bribed.
And when they speak we will hear the real Ulster.
Mr President, it is in helping to solve problems such as those in Northern Ireland that Europe shows its added value to the citizen.
The idea which inspired our European Union is not just the idea of peace but the idea that what unites us - our common humanity - is more important than what divides us.
That fundamental creed is summed up in a poem by my fellow countryman, Robert Burns: ' A man's a man for a' that' .
If the proceedings of this House had been heeded fourteen years ago the ideas put forward by our former Danish colleague, Niels Haagerup, might have held sway.
If the proposal taken to Downing Street in the early 1980s for a British Isles Youth Forum along the lines of the Council of Europe's Youth Foundation or the European Community's Youth Forum had been taken up, we would be further down the path of peace.
I welcome the Presidency's recognition of the role that the European Union and others have played in reaching this historic agreement. I hope that the Union might serve as a model to Northern Ireland, that so much more can be achieved collectively than apart.
I look forward to the day when Ministers refer not to the two communities in Northern Ireland but instead to the community.
My party in Northern Ireland - the Alliance Party - has worked tirelessly for the building of a non-sectarian society.
It is fitting that the European Union should complement and underpin the peace process through the Peace and Reconciliation Fund.
Mr President, having served as a politician in both parts of Ireland I am only too well aware of the difficulties in trying to negotiate an agreement which will be acceptable to all parties to the conflict.
The Good Friday Agreement is an historic achievement and I wholeheartedly congratulate all those who contributed to it, both Governments and the party leaders, particularly John Hume who has been praised here today, John Alderdice and especially David Trimble who has had the courage to lead Unionism to an honourable deal with their fellow citizens in Northern Ireland.
Let me say to Dr Paisley, when he talked about the votes he received, one vote for peace and reconciliation and an end of conflict is worth more than a thousand votes for a continuation of the conflict.
It is inevitable, given the complexity of the problem, that everyone will have some significant reservations about some part of the package.
However, it is a package and there can be no cherrypicking by anyone - the choice is either to accept the package in total or to reject it.
If the worst were to happen, and this package were rejected, another 20 years of negotiations would take place, resulting in a similar package and resulting in the same reservations that have been expressed.
A similar deal was on offer in 1974, 25 years past, and thousands needlessly died and suffered and we must not condemn the peoples of Britain and Ireland and especially Northern Ireland to another prolonged period of violence.
I passionately support this Agreement, it is a fair and honourable one and should be wholeheartedly endorsed through both parts of Ireland.
It is appropriate that the European Parliament should have the opportunity of endorsing it; this Parliament symbolically represents the conflict over two World Wars and many other European quarrels and let us hope we can show the way to the people of Northern Ireland.
(Applause)
I have received 8 motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure .
Mrs Mowlam now has the floor.
On behalf of the Presidency, can I just very briefly pay tribute to the work and the commitment of the RUC which I have done on many occasions before and just make the point, that many speakers have this afternoon, that many people on all sides have lost loved ones, many people have gone through pain as a result of the troubles.
What keeps me going is when I get letters, day in and day out, from people that have suffered, that have family members that are injured and that have people that have been murdered.
They say, yes it hurts when you go in the Maze, yes it is not easy but if that means that another family does not have to go through what we have gone through - then let us build for the future.
Can I just say, Mr President, that I think the key words for the future which were mentioned by a number of speakers in the Parliament are respect and confidence.
Confidence and respect in the future, and between us I believe we can have a settlement that holds.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mrs Mowlam.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
European Group on ethics, science and new technologies
The next item is the Commission communication on questions relating to the work of the European Group on ethics, science and new technologies.
Mr Santer has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to be able to present to you today the new European Group on ethics, science and new technologies, which takes over from the advisory body on the ethics of biotechnology.
The origins of this initiative are to be found in the Commission's commitment to all matters relating to science and technology which bring up issues of an ethical nature.
The end of this century has been marked by the spectacular emergence of science and new technologies, mainly in two areas, those of biology and information.
These developments are bringing about profound changes, both at the level of society in general and in our daily lives.
The prospects for progress are huge in areas such as employment, growth and improvement of quality of life.
Nevertheless, these advances create fears due to the speed at which progress has been achieved and the global dimension of these technologies.
This is why an ethical accompaniment is more than ever necessary to ensure that the progress achieved is in harmony with basic values and human dignity.
The European Parliament soon set out to provide an ethical dimension to scientific progress in this field and to the scientific application which has accompanied this progress.
I am convinced that the creation of an ethical group is in line with the concerns of your institution.
I would like to explain to you the new characteristics of the European Group on ethics, which provides continuity to the work of the previous advisory body.
I would also like to take this opportunity to highlight the role and competence of the members of the previous body, particularly its chairperson, Mrs Noëlle Lenoir, who undertook their responsibilities in a remarkable way, in particular encouraging dialogue between our institutions.
Firstly, I would like to mention the characteristics which the former body and the new group have in common.
These are the characteristics of a classic ethics committee.
The new group, like its predecessor, is consultative, independent, multidisciplinary and multinational.
It is consultative in that its main task is to draw up non-binding opinions for the Commission and to prepare the ground usefully for decisions to be taken.
It is, of course, independent: it represents no particular economic or political power.
That is why each one of its members is appointed on a personal basis, according to their reputation and competence, and why it is made up of 12 experts, a number which does not correspond to the number of Member States.
The group is able to organize its work freely.
Thanks to a new rule, the group will also be able to agree on its own internal regulations next May.
Finally, the group is multidisciplinary and multinational.
Each member has a different approach depending on his or her specialization: science, law or humanities.
This pluralism is a source of wealth for ethical reflection.
So, what are the main characteristics of the new group? It seems to me that there are three: the first innovation is the broadening of the scope of activity of the group.
Indeed, historically, the preceding group had been deeply anchored in the sphere of biotechnology.
This one remains at the centre of scientific development, and thus at the centre of our concerns.
Cloning is the most obvious example. However, that is not all.
How can we not be concerned by the development of the information society and the protection of human dignity on the Internet? How can we not respond to the fears that are caused by access to personal genetic information, or human tissue banks?
We wanted to reply to these new challenges by giving the group the task of dealing additionally with scientific developments in general, including research and the information society.
These new responsibilities will require sufficient expertise.
This is the second new characteristic of this group, which has been strengthened and whose membership has been increased from 9 to 12 members, appointed for three-year terms.
Finally, and this third innovation is a considerable one, the group must base its work on closer cooperation with the other institutions.
The group is certainly closely linked to the Commission and presents it recommendations to that body.
Nevertheless, I understand the wish of the other institutions to have access to the reflections of the group, even to be involved in them.
The European Parliament expressed this desire in its resolution of June 1977.
Personally, I want the group to follow the path of dialogue and transparency begun by its predecessor.
Many debates were organized on its initiative, with active participation from the House, which encouraged the establishment of a climate of fruitful collaboration.
I also attach great importance to the fact that every opinion should immediately be passed on to both yourselves and the Council.
In this spirit, and on my request, the Commission has invited Parliament and the Council to specify the different themes which should be the subject of an examination by the group, or even of an opinion from it.
I would like to underline that this new possibility of referral is an unprecedented innovation.
Mr President, we need a European Group on ethics.
Its opinions will be important in the formulation and implementation of Community legislation. In this context, I would like to remind you that, since 1991, the previous group enabled a widening of the debate at European level by involving all parties concerned, including the general public.
It was able to reconcile scientific expertise with the general public's understanding of these issues, which is not easy when it comes to ethics.
I am convinced that the European Group on ethics will continue this important mission.
Mr President, may I thank President Santer for personally presenting this European Group on ethics to us, which is, furthermore, attached to the Presidency of the Commission.
Before moving on to my question, I would also like to thank the advisory body on the ethics of biotechnology, chaired by Mrs Lenoir, for its good work, particularly in the assistance it provided to institutions in order to guide the directive on the patentability of biotechnological inventions to a successful conclusion, through precise, concrete and motivated advice.
The new group which you have just introduced to us, Mr President, is an enlarged group with extended responsibilities.
You are aware that Parliament would have preferred a committee with an interinstitutional vocation, in order to guide our overall work more precisely, not regarding individual demands for patents - we never requested this - but in order that this institution would be of a nature that went beyond simply advising the Commission.
You raised some legal objections to this, which I understand, and which I accept.
My question is, nevertheless, the following: how, in practice, will Parliament be able to submit questions to this new group? Will they, in some way, be filtered by the Commission, which would, I have to say, hinder the collaboration we would hope for from it?
I thank Mr Cot for his question.
Indeed, we feel it extremely important that Parliament should have every possibility of contacting this group and we thus consider that it can, of course, put questions to the group.
It is clearly for Parliament to draw up the practical application of this procedure but, from our side, no filter - as you have called it - will oppose requests for referral made by Parliament.
It is for Parliament alone to decide in what way it wants to submit to the group.
We will not interfere in this regard.
But it is for you to formulate a procedure; it is up to you, for I would not want to interfere in your internal procedures.
In any case, the group is open, and its members have agreed to collaborate as actively as possible with the other institutions, especially with Parliament.
Mr President, I would like to offer an immediate response to the matter just raised.
Last week at the request of Parliament and its President we formed a working group on bioethics in the Committee on Research.
I would like to ask how you envisage cooperation between the Commission's Group on ethics and this ethics group which has now been formally set up in the Committee on Research.
Of course, Mr President, this European Group on ethics is ready to collaborate fully with all the groups which are active here.
As I said, it is an independent group, a neutral one, which is attached to the Commission, but it will of course be open, in order to assure close collaboration with all other bodies created through other initiatives and other legislative procedures.
That seems clear to me.
Coordination efforts must also be ensured in the various groups.
It will thus certainly examine all of these questions, insofar as it is requested to do so by the more particular and specific groups that have been created.
At first reading of the patent directive the European Parliament called for the setting up of an ethics committee to assess all aspects of biotechnology and in particular with regard to patents.
The response of the Commission is not what Parliament demanded; we asked you to submit proposals to the European Parliament but your response has been to expand your previous committee.
Evaluating biotechnology is not the same as evaluating the ethical implications of patent applications.
An example is that biotech produces therapeutic treatments which are intended to benefit patients.
Patenting such treatment may not, however, be in the patients' best interests or may be prohibited on public policy grounds, preserving doctors' rights of treatment without depending on a monopoly supplier or researchers' rights to produce alternative treatments from the same genetic material.
I would like to ask President Santer: how can the committee act as an ethical scrutiny body on biotechnological inventions as Parliament wants, when its remit is only to look at basic ethical principles and not at individual issues raised by patent applications? How much time and resources will be committed to detailed scrutiny of biotech inventions?
What resources will be made available for widespread public consultations on key ethical issues?
We have heard about access but access is not what Parliament wanted; we want to request the committee to give a direct opinion to Parliament on specific issues.
Will the Members have that direct access to the committee to give an opinion on any specific issue, not through the Commission? Thank you.
Firstly, I would like to emphasize that the group is a consultative body with the task of examining general questions on fundamental ethical principles.
Thus, it is not intended to systematically give opinions on individual cases such as, for example, the ethical dimension of a patent request or the authorization for marketing of a specific product.
The group is there to examine all questions, as I said, on fundamental ethical principles.
Nevertheless, it could also be asked to examine other issues.
It is therefore possible to give the European Group on ethics responsibility for evaluating all ethical aspects of biotechnology.
It is already clearly a delimitation of its powers, but we have to ensure that the group is not overloaded with tasks.
Mr President, I am a little afraid that the task of this new committee may be somewhat vague because its mandate has been expanded.
I would therefore like to ask whether we could also conceive of the group giving general advice to others, in other words, a fiche d'impact d'éthique , which could be considered in the assessment of all political questions.
I hope, for example, that we would be able to avoid a situation in which economic arguments are used in assessing human dignity, as has sometimes happened in earlier periods here in Europe.
How does the Commission intend to ensure that the work is well defined and that ethical opinions are included in other areas, such as through this assessment?
Finally, I would like to say that it was gratifying to hear that we will get these opinions from the group immediately and do not have to be satisfied with three-year reports.
I would like to make sure that we will get the opinions from the group immediately.
I do not share the Member's concerns at all.
This group has already proved its experience in the past, under the leadership of Mrs Lenoir, and its work has been much appreciated.
We have now widened it to deal with other issues and its membership has been increased.
Its members are independent, of high quality and well known. The expertise of its new members will enable it to cope with the broadening of its remit.
Furthermore, the pluralism of the group, which is essential, will most certainly enable it to ensure ethical reflection adapted to the range of questions likely to be put to it.
All opinions are passed on immediately, not just in four-monthly reports.
The question you are raising regarding closer relations with the European Parliament can be raised at the next meeting to be held between the chairman of the group and the President of the European Parliament. I believe this will be held on 29 April, that is, tomorrow, and it will then also be possible to discuss all of these issues, if you still have concerns as to how this group will function.
Terminator crops are those crops which when planted are genetically pre-programmed to probably last only one season, at the end of which they die and the farmer in question has to buy new foods from the supplier.
I believe that raises an ethical issue, President, and can I therefore ask you how I, as a Parliamentarian, can obtain the opinion of this new committee?
President Santer, you are aware of my concern about this because of course on Monday of this week I sent you a fax asking you how as a Parliamentarian I could obtain the opinion of the new committee.
I would like to do that and I am aware that there are no current rules in existence and therefore the situation may be somewhat difficult.
Nevertheless, your advice would be very welcome.
I can confirm that you did indeed submit a question on this subject to me and I immediately passed your letter on to the group to give an opinion.
It is now for the group to organize its work in order to give you a response.
What I want to ensure is that the procedure is not an overly complex one and that Members of this Parliament may have direct access to the group.
This is why I replied earlier, in answer to a question from Mr Cot, that it is for the European Parliament to agree on a procedure to enable its Members to contact the group directly.
We have no problem in accepting such a procedure.
Mr President, I would like to thank President Santer for his personal involvement in this issue.
President Santer, we were not entirely happy with the work done by the original group.
The debate here over the last year provided evidence of this.
However, I think that by appointing new members and with the increased plurality of the group we will find the work more satisfactory.
In my view, one problem which was particularly evident in the position on human cloning was that there was insufficient time for consultation with the scientific institutes which work in the areas of ethics and science in Europe.
My question is this: in future how will the group integrate the work which is done in Europe and is in part supported by the Commission with the work done by this advisory group - will there be a first reading followed by a report from the institutes which operate in this field, and then a second reading?
Mr President, from a scientific point of view, the work of this group, like that of the previous group, can certainly be compared to work which has been undertaken by groups on ethics in other countries.
I hope that it will be comparable to the work undertaken at a national level.
So we must not demand more from this group than from those at a national level.
Frankly speaking, some criticism could also be made of those groups but we do not live in a perfect world, so let us limit ourselves to having a procedure and let us allow this group to work in full independence.
We want an independent group, so let us work to ensure that members of the group have this independence.
We nominated and selected them.
I believe there are highly valuable personalities in the group, each specializing in a particular field.
Let us leave the group to work independently without interference, as otherwise they cannot be independent.
On the other hand, there is no doubt that the group will avail itself of as much scientific advice as possible, and it will certainly get in touch with foreign scientific institutes.
Consultation will clearly take place in this respect, and I hope that the results of the work of this group will be useful in enlightening not only the work of the Commission but also that of the other institutions, including the European Parliament.
But please, do not ask about the group's precise procedures, for it will get bogged down in this and will lose its necessary independence.
The value of this group lies precisely in the fact, and I will repeat this because it is important, that it will be able to work completely independently, without being subjected to any internal influence on the part of the Commission, or external influence due to pressure from economic or other groups.
Mr President, President Santer, you are full of praise for the new ethics advisory group in the way that a good father speaks well of his children, even if they have failed.
Bravo!
The range of tasks accorded to the advisory group is impressive.
It now covers communication technology, information technology and biotechology.
But there has been no increase in the work to be done.
Instead, top-class experts have had a muzzle put on them.
It may look fine, but it remains a muzzle which prevents the advisory group using its teeth.
Or do you really believe that twelve top-class scientists, men and women, who are used to being very thorough in their work, will be able to carry on working in the same way if the range of their assignments is extended ad infinitum?
I do not think we have muzzled this advisory group.
I disagree.
It is not a matter either of my being proud of the individuals we appointed.
We believe we have selected those individuals in various organizations who have a reputation that is good, is scientifically justified and can certainly stand comparison with the various scientific institutes and bodies elsewhere.
That much is clear from the work they have done.
Although I am no scientist, recently over the past two to three years I have had to accept various scientific reports.
Mind you, I must admit that even those scientific reports were not always drawn up in the way I, as a legal expert, would have imagined.
So let us show some humility, even before great scientists.
I believe that this group is doing its work.
Allow it complete independence to get on with its work, allow the individuals to develop fully. I am convinced that then in retrospect you will not only applaud the appointment of this group, but will also appreciate properly the work it has done.
In any case, I deny that we have in any way put a muzzle on this group!
Mr President, of course it has everything to do with the patenting directive.
We will return to it at length when we discuss it.
I have made a note of the fact that it will be an advisory and consultative body and that its remit will encompass more than biotechnology alone.
But because we in this Parliament wish to see a strict and strong advisory group, I would like to argue for the remit to be not too broad, but in fact as specific as possible.
If its remit is too broad, the force of the group will be lessened.
I would be grateful if Mr Santer could give his response to this.
Furthermore, science is never free from value judgments.
Has any provision been made for the European Parliament's input into the composition of this advisory, consultative body?
Thank you, Mr President.
Your comments thus bring this question and answer session to a close.
Convergence and the single currency
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0130/98) by Mr von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the opinion of the European Parliament on the Convergence Report of the European Monetary Institute (C4-0201/98) and the document from the Commission entitled "EURO 1999-25 March 1998 - Report on progress towards convergence and its recommendation with a view to the transition to the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union' (COM(98)1999 - C4-0200/98).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in December 1991 it was agreed in the Maastricht Treaty to introduce a single European currency.
In this Treaty the latest date for implementation was set at 1 January 1999.
However, only those Member States with an already stable currency would be members of the inner circle of monetary union.
To ensure that this would be the case, firm criteria for stability were anchored in the Treaty.
Right from the beginning, these criteria were the subject of vigorous debate.
To some they appeared too weak and ineffective to achieve sufficient stability. To others, however, they were much too harsh and restrictive.
As events have unfolded in the years since Maastricht, the criteria have proved to have fulfilled their role superbly.
There is a culture of stability developing in the whole European Union which is of fundamental significance to the success of the single currency.
On the recommendation of the European Commission, 11 countries have qualified for entry into monetary union on 1 January 1999.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy we have looked at this recommendation in great depth.
The report by the European Monetary Institute provided us with a very important basis for our work.
I have aimed to produce as balanced a report as possible, one in which indisputable successes are acknowledged.
However, in doing this, critical points were not neglected.
The actual measurement for the stability of a currency is the rate of inflation.
Even the most strongly stability-orientated central banks assume that inflation rates of less than 2 % actually mean currency stability.
I believe that the public is not yet sufficiently aware that all 11 candidate countries have rates of inflation below 2 %, and therefore have stable currencies.
In 1997, four of the candidate countries had an inflation rate of 1.9 %: these were Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
Two countries had a rate of 1.5 %: Belgium and Germany.
One country, Luxembourg, had an inflation rate of 1.4 %; another, France, had an inflation rate of 1.3 %; and three countries reached 1.2 %: Finland, Ireland and Austria.
The average inflation rate for the 11 candidate countries in 1997 stood at 1.5 %.
This shows that, with a view to monetary union in the entire European Union, a culture of monetary stability is already developing.
Long-term interest rates show clearly that the markets are reckoning on the continuation of this trend.
Interest rates in all 11 candidate countries are markedly below the reference value of 7.8 %.
A year ago, the European Mortgage Federation still held that 10-year fixed mortgage rates would increase around the time of the introduction of the euro. Its assertion has not been borne out.
This, too, indicates that the financial markets are counting on a stable start for the euro. Consequently the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy believes that, for its launch in January 1999, the stability of the euro is guaranteed.
However, to ensure that the stability of the euro is sustainable, it is very important that the Member States provide a stable environment in terms of their budget deficits and levels of debt.
We were particularly careful to check that these criteria had been met.
In all the candidate countries, budget deficits are below 3 % of GDP, and budget plans and forecasts would suggest that a further reduction is likely.
The level of public debt is not so easy to evaluate.
This view is also held by the European Monetary Institute.
Here we should assess whether the reference value of 60 % of GDP has been observed, or whether the total debt of a given country is moving towards this quickly enough.
We must also ask the important question of whether debts are largely financed from within the country itself, or whether it is a matter of short or longer-term debt financing.
It is worth noting here that in the two countries which are most heavily indebted there is also an above-average savings ratio and that debts are largely internally financed.
This was important for our assessment.
Furthermore, it is possible to distinguish an improvement in structural debt with the result that maturity periods are slowly but surely increasing.
The report which I am presenting to you calls for firm undertakings from the governments of these countries to continue the process of consolidation.
The proposal presented to Parliament also requires all participants in European monetary union to observe strictly the Stability and Growth Pact.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has taken these facts into consideration and has come to the conclusion that the European Commission's positive assessment of the ability of all 11 countries to meet the debt criterion should be approved.
One further formal criterion for participation in monetary union is the independence of each country's central bank.
The legislative procedures required for this have not yet been completed in all the candidate countries.
However, I am confident that the necessary measures will be in place by 1 July 1998 in time for the establishment of the European Central Bank.
Unemployment trends may not be a formal criterion of the Maastricht Treaty. However, this is the greatest challenge facing the countries of the European Union today.
For this reason we included questions about employment in our total assessment and we call for consistent implementation of the resolutions adopted at the Luxembourg Summit.
After careful consideration of all these trends, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy agreed by a large majority that all 11 candidate countries should take their places at the starting line for monetary union on 1 January 1999.
On 1 January 1999 the European Central Bank will take over sole responsibility for monetary policy.
However given a single monetary policy, it will be all the more important to increase cooperation in economic policy.
The budgetary policies of the Member States, the shaping of fiscal policy, the decisions of tariff partners on wages and earnings, labour market policies and decisions taken on certain social and ecological conditions will have ever greater effects on growth and employment in all the Member States of the Union.
The European Parliament is the appropriate and democratically legitimate forum for a public discussion on the formulation of European economic policy.
We feel, therefore, that it is our most important challenge to deepen the existing dialogue on these issues with the European Commission, the Council of Ministers and the Economic and Finance Ministers of the Member States, and to develop a dialogue with the President of the European Central Bank.
The European Parliament has already submitted our proposals on this issue.
Now we await this weekend the Council's appointment of a candidate for the Presidency of the European Central Bank, and we hope that the candidate will be appointed for the full eight years of office, as stipulated in the Treaty.
The introduction of the single currency is a milestone in recent European history.
The resolution which we are debating today will prepare for the opinion of the European Parliament on this epoch-making decision, as stipulated in the Treaty.
Appropriately for a decision of this significance, broad Parliamentary agreement must be reached, for only then can we make it clear that the directly elected European Parliament is equal to its responsibility for the future of the European Union.
(Applause)
Mr President, the resolution in the name of Karl von Wogau represents a package and paragraphs 24 to 33 in that resolution form an integral part of that package.
It is a mark of the good working relationship between our two committees, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, that the opinion from my committee has been incorporated as a whole into this resolution.
That shows our joint concern and our concern as an institution to stress the importance of linking sound macroeconomic policies on the one hand with greater coordination of economic and structural policies on the other.
Clearly that needs to be reflected in the overall management of monetary union.
I see the recognition of the importance of growth and employment alongside stability in the resolutions of the Council, and the incorporation of an employment chapter and a new employment guideline procedure in the Treaty of Amsterdam, as good clear signals that the importance of this overall linkage has been recognized for the management of the Union's affairs as we move into monetary union.
In our own opinion we call on the Member States to intensify coordination between economic policy and active labour market policies and to speed up the implementation of the provisions of the employment chapter and the initiatives agreed at the special employment summit in Luxembourg last November.
In particular, we see the need to create a favourable framework for conditions for the strengthening of internal demand and investment as being of paramount importance.
Monetary union cannot be achieved or sustained at the cost of continuing high levels of unemployment.
This Union is founded on the principles of sustainable development and a high level of employment.
The central importance of these principles is clearly recognized in this resolution and, as chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I am happy to recommend its acceptance to the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr von Wogau, we all know that in the long term only a stable currency can guarantee prosperity and jobs.
The European Parliament, therefore, must state unequivocally today that it takes seriously all the provisions and criteria set out in the Treaty and that these must be strictly and closely observed.
The requirement in the von Wogau report that two Member States consolidate their total debt in accordance with the Treaty is, therefore, correct and necessary.
Close observance of the Treaty should equally be one of the requirements for the appointment of the President of the Central Bank.
If the Treaty states that the period of office is eight years, then this must be the case.
To construe the requirements of the Treaty differently or to manipulate them is wrong and must be utterly rejected by the European Parliament.
The undignified tug-of-war concerning the new President must also stop immediately.
Europe needs confidence, Europe needs clarity, particularly in the sensitive questions about monetary policy.
We know that these days the whole world is watching to see how Europe is dealing with these very issues.
Strict observance of the Treaty is the best visiting card the euro could have.
Not only has the euro earned an excellent start, but it has also earned the right to serve as a long-term global anchor of stability for everyone, first and foremost for Europeans.
This will be possible if we adopt the von Wogau report today with as few amendments as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Karl von Wogau has known since 15 April that our group supported his excellent report and that consequently we approve of the Commission's recommendation which provides for the beginning of the third stage of EMU on 1 January 1999 with 11 Member States.
Thus, without dwelling on this extremely interesting report, and after offering well-deserved congratulations to President Jacques Santer, Commissioner Yves Thibault de Silguy and all of the Commission, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, I would like to return to the issue of the absolute necessity for the European Parliament to be closely involved in the European Central Bank's process of democratic accountability.
The euro is the culmination of efforts undertaken since the appointment, by Antoine Pinay on 21 July 1952, of Jean Monnet as the first President of the European Coal and Steel Community, the embryo of a Europe which has constantly improved over the years and whose culmination can be seen in the introduction of the single currency.
But the end of this cycle is also a beginning.
The single currency opens a new era in the monetary, economic and social policies of Europe.
That is why our group has been requesting a new European economic order for a number of years, because with regard to overall economic and budgetary balances, nothing will be the same again.
For this reason, I would like to highlight two extremely important facts regarding French policy towards the euro.
Firstly, for twenty years there has been great continuity in this policy, which has always overshadowed partisan differences.
Thus, whether by the adoption, in October 1986, of the Single European Act or by the plea for ratification of the Treaty on European Union, through the referendum in September 1992, the President of the French Republic, Jacques Chirac, has firmly committed France to the process of implementation of the single currency and, from my point of view, he will have given as much to Europe on this issue as many politicians who have now passed into posterity.
This is why I am happy to propose that the House should make the French National Assembly's recommendation, made on 21 April of this year, its own.
This recommendation was made at the request of Valéry Giscard-d'Estaing, himself a great European, for in June and July 1978 he played an essential role which is at the root of our reality today. He proposed, in fact, providing the Community authorities with a parliamentary committee on the euro, half of which would be composed of Members of the European Parliament and the other half composed of members of national parliaments, members of the finance committees in the member countries of the euro, appointed through proportional representation.
This committee would give regular opinions on the directions of the European Central Bank's monetary policy and would thus successfully complement the triptych which has been behind the success of the construction of Europe. By this I mean: firstly, a high-level technical team responsible for implementing the common policy initiated by the Council of Ministers; secondly, the specific case of Ecofin in its improved form, known as "Euro X' and whose composition is currently being formulated; and thirdly, parliamentary control which, since the creation of the ECSC, has always enabled those elected by Europe's nations to be involved in European policy.
This measure is essential in order that parliamentary representatives of the eleven European nations participating in the euro, along with their representatives - in Strasbourg as in Brussels - elected via universal suffrage to defend the point of view of the people of Europe, may be deeply involved in this historic act of the introduction of the euro.
Mr President, I must say that I cannot help being somewhat bemused by the suggestion from Mr Giansily about what Mr Giscard d'Estaing would like.
I have heard precious little from him since having presided over the Liberal group he got political asylum in the EPP Group some years ago.
I am glad to hear that he is alive and well.
On the issue we are debating here today, I would like to say that we face a weekend that is immensely important for the Union.
We stand on the threshold of realizing a shared strategic political goal in the form of launching EMU.
I agree with Mr Donnelly that the convergence achieved is a powerful recognition of what political will and shared political will can bring about.
As we stand on the threshold of launching this irreversible project, it is important to take stock of some of the unresolved issues.
I want to state, in the clearest possible way, that the Liberal group not only notes with regret but with growing irritation the failure of the Council to resolve the controversy surrounding the nomination of a president for a future European Central Bank.
The Treaty is clear.
The terms of the appointment are clear.
The length of the appointment at eight years is clear.
To interfere with this for political reasons would be an appalling start to this major irreversible strategic project.
We expect the Council to build confidence into this system and not undermine it.
The way to demonstrate that is by making a clear strategic choice this weekend in line with the rule of law and the Treaty in terms of the length of appointment.
What is not at stake is the question of national pride.
What clearly is at stake is the successful launch of the currency.
We have had an interesting debate in producing this report in committee.
My own group has studied with great interest the work of the European Monetary Institute.
It has signalled politically that we need to be concerned in the medium term about some of the pension systems and we share that concern politically.
It has signalled that the need for budget consolidation has not ceased but rather that now, on the threshold of this new system, it has deepened.
We in the Liberal group share that view.
Politically we cannot avoid taking strategic responsibilities.
I like the current shape of the von Wogau report.
I salute the balance and leadership that Karl von Wogau has brought to it.
When we come to vote on this report tomorrow, we will support the candidature of the 11 candidate states.
We want to have a deal that has everyone on board but not at any price.
Mr President, this weekend the ruling powers of the European Union are entering the final strait in the realization of the most important choice of the Maastricht Treaty, the introduction of the euro, the common currency, from 1 January 1999.
Unaware of the dramatic, harmful repercussions - unemployment, poverty, social exclusion - on working people and on the broad strata of the population, the European Commission report and the report by the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy alike celebrate and welcome a convergence that has been achieved in name only.
They are aware, however, that the people and the workers are not celebrating, and that they are not even applauding.
Perhaps from Monday the celebrations will be taken up by others - financial market speculators, international stock markets and those representing large financial institutions, who will see that, by sacrificing the people and their rights, they have gained a strong new currency with which to play their speculative games.
Working people cannot but be worried, especially about the next steps. The spokespersons of financial institutions, encouraged by the visibly imminent inception of EMU, demand further hardening of fiscal policy, the immediate implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact, and measures for the immediate adjustment of the labour market and the commodities market, in order to further strengthen the euro.
Unfortunately, the European Parliament is reserving this role for itself by adopting many of the proposals of the von Wogau report, a report which insists on placing stricter conditions on EMU than not only those of the European Commission but also those of the Treaty itself.
Under these conditions, Mr President, our group cannot vote for the von Wogau report.
We are all sure about one thing however: the people of Europe will not sit with their arms folded. They will fight back, they will overturn this course of events and they will open the way for a different Europe, a democratic and socially prosperous Europe.
Mr President, the vast majority of the Green group agree with the basic view of the Commission that 11 countries can now start the formulation of a common currency.
This view excludes the idea that some kind of European nucleus is going to be created that will keep an important section of the Union on the outside.
We have never supported that and we are happy to see that the euro is starting off on a very broad base.
We do realize just how huge this project before is.
We do not want to create illusions.
There will certainly be problems, but we also recognize the opportunities that a single currency will provide.
We want Europe to grow, socially and ecologically, and we would like to see the euro used to enhance monetary stability on a global scale.
Mr von Wogau's report is a very positive one, particularly with regard to employment and the economy. It appears that the extreme neo-liberalist economic ideas have become somewhat mollified, and this brings with it the hope that we really can create a social Europe.
It is vital to tighten economic cooperation, to act as a counterweight to convergence.
There are, however, problems with the report.
We cannot accept that new demands are suddenly to be made on countries adopting the euro.
Nor do we think it wise or at all acceptable that some should be saying that the Stability and Growth Pact must be strictly applied.
Either it is applied or it is not, but we should like to enquire as to what "strictly applied' actually means.
We do not think these are the sort of signals we should be sending out.
Furthermore, we do not see that the trend in Belgian and Italian public debt is a matter for concern in itself, as the report suggests.
We believe the trend is in the right direction and we trust that things will continue that way for Belgium and Italy.
Another problem is that the report fails to mention the fact that economic development can happen on quite different time scales among the various regions of the Union.
Shock waves occur from time to time that put Member States in difficult situations.
For this reason, it is vital to install mechanisms whereby Union action can ease the burden on Member States in situations such as these.
And finally, monetary policy can in no way be entirely separated from economic policy.
We wish to stress that we need dialogue on these both, and the European Parliament has a very important role to play here.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, provided with two reports on convergence, that of the EMI and that of the Commission, the main task of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was to give its opinion on the outline of the first circle of euro participants, and with regard to this central question, the committee's analysis is completely unambiguous.
There is broad agreement in noting, firstly, the Member States' performance in relation to the convergence criteria and, secondly, in approving the immediate introduction of the euro in 11 countries which want it and which satisfy in general the criteria established by the Treaty on European Union.
Mr von Wogau's report expresses clearly this broad agreement on the fundamentals and this is already a sufficient reason for us to approve it.
The discussions which have consequently arisen have only dealt with incidental elements, which have perhaps been overemphasized due to the fact that agreement had been reached on the essentials.
In any case, it seems vital to us that, by tomorrow, all efforts should have been made to ensure a clear position on the part of the House on what is, once again, the most fundamental issue: the introduction of the euro in 11 countries.
Apart from this, on the occasion of this debate, we would like to note a few concerns.
The first relates to what is called the democratic accountability of the European Central Bank, a subject which was mentioned during the debate on the report presented by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
We had the opportunity of saying that the European Parliament was the appropriate body to undertake this supervision, which should be exercised while respecting the principle of the Bank's independence.
On the other hand, we are worried by the prospect of a multiplication of the places and control procedures which transpired on reading a number of the amendments to be submitted to us tomorrow and which state that the European Central Bank must be answerable to national parliaments.
Such a levelling down of democratic accountability, apart from being impractical, would change that principle itself and threaten, in reality, the construction of a single and independent monetary policy.
It is perfectly desirable that the national central banks should fulfill their duties of informing the national parliaments.
But it seems essential to us that the democratic control of the European Central Bank should remain a matter for the European Parliament.
Our second concern, which I will speak on only briefly since it has already been mentioned, is the issue of the presidency of that Central Bank.
All we would say is that, in order to be a legitimate and effective instrument of a common European future, the European Central Bank must not appear to be something shared between only a few right from the very start.
This is something we hope will be taken into consideration on Saturday.
Other concerns are mentioned by Mr von Wogau in his report.
It is a question of counterbalancing the single monetary policy with other instruments for economic action.
In this respect, we hope that our Parliament and the Commission go a little further than the stage at which common reflection has arrived today and will envisage that, alongside the introduction of a common monetary policy, instruments for joint economic action other than purely monetary ones should, in the near future, be made available to the Union. These must involve taxation and budgetary measures.
Mr President, in the whole of its history, France has never entered into a coalition where it found itself in this minority position.
To claim that Europe is increasing France's power in the world is nothing but a miserable attempt to dress up as politics the outpourings of vanity and the need for personal glorification.
This illegitimate and artificial construction which is known as the European Union is a planned attack against France, against the sovereignty of the people, the state structures and the society.
But all is not lost, for sooner or later, when the revolutionary forces come to power, a referendum will give a voice back to the people to confirm the superiority of French law over the European treaties.
And justice will be served, for we know the disregard for, or even scorn of, the treaties with which Eurocrats from all quarters claim that the convergence criteria are being satisfied.
Little importance is therefore given to applying the criterion relating to overall debt to Belgium and Italy, or applying the criterion relating to annual budget deficit to Italy, which would have fallen from 6.7 % to 3 % in one year, with a growth rate of only 1.5 %.
Unbelievable, is it not?
French people are still unaware of this plot, which is the biggest hold-up of the century, and the fact that the franc could disappear completely in 2002 has been completely hidden from them.
This is an accident of the calendar, in the middle of a presidential election!
The French will thus sanction this President who, instead of raising France up, will belittle her, thus betraying the mission confided in him by universal suffrage.
This will be true unless, in a sudden burst of dignity, he puts to a referendum the issue of the concrete introduction of a currency which, until that date, will essentially be only the unit of the external accounts of the State.
Mr President, speaking also on behalf of the National Alliance, I agree with Mr von Wogau's report where it records the innumerable efforts made by the various Member States to adapt to the Maastricht Treaty.
A lot could be said in this connection about the measures taken and what really needs to be done to ensure that all the sacrifices made this year are not wasted and so that we can remain permanently in the Union.
In fact, the emphasis of the last few days risks leading us to forget that, in displaying a great deal of energy and ability, each state will have to be able to adapt its system of development to the single currency and to forget about the need to inform both the economic sectors most involved and, on the other side, the weakest categories of the real opportunities and risks of the euro.
It is certainly useful to establish the independence of the European Central Bank to enable it to carry out its tasks, but it is also necessary and important to hold periodic consultations with the European Parliament.
I believe the second guarantee in the process of implementing the single currency associated with the Stability and Growth Pact is needed in order to balance national budgets during the economic cycle, with a ceiling of 3 % each year.
I therefore consider it necessary to establish appropriate strategies aimed at resolving the major problem of unemployment, particularly for the less developed European regions, both through suitable macroeconomic policies aimed at containing inflation and through a greater coordination of European structural policies.
The problem of unemployment can only be resolved through coordinated measures that must be taken in the individual national labour markets by means of education, followed by work experience or by a subsequent apprenticeship, by providing vocational training mainly aimed at the demand of companies and at the needs of the region.
In defining and building the European single market, it is therefore essential to support small and medium-sized enterprises, and provide real fiscal harmonization, thereby ensuring that competition is not distorted.
Finally, Mr President, on behalf of the National Alliance, I wish to stress that monetary union must represent a first step towards political union, without which Europe would be much diminished and deprived of its historic vocation.
Mr President, the possibility that monetary union will begin on 1 January 1999 is the realization of a dream: the people of Europe have said yes to more Community spirit and to a degree of cooperation which goes beyond that of previous structures.
Following the promised strict examination of the prerequisites for participation in monetary union, and after checking the convergence reports from the European Monetary Institute and the European Commission, the European Parliament will quite rightly proceed on the basis of the report by Mr von Wogau to follow the recommendations of the European Commission in supporting a broad monetary union.
With 11 Member States, this will be a broad union which will facilitate the smooth running of the internal market; 300 million people are bound together in a strong economic force with considerable economic output which will make up 20 % of global trade and 20 % of the global GNP.
It is important that it is a broad union; this European Parliament has always been in favour of European Economic and Monetary Union starting with a large number of Member States.
Mind you, on occasion we doubted that so many countries in European monetary union could achieve the stability required to join.
Fortunately, the European concept of progress within the framework of European integration proved its worth again: we lay down conditions and set a timetable for meeting them.
This concept has ensured that many Member States can meet the convergence criteria, and we can check this.
This means that the European Parliament can tell Europeans today with optimism and on the basis of a reliable assessment that this European monetary union will be a stable community. The historically low inflation rates are not a nine-day wonder.
Their development over a number of years can be demonstrated. The acceptance of this process by the markets can be seen in the low long-term interest rates; the exchange-rate stability emphasizes how seriously the Member States are taking their commitments and how great have been the political, economic, financial and monetary efforts in recent years to achieve a result culminating in this broad monetary union.
This process was not fixed on 31 December 1997, but this date became the obvious one at the first convergence check, when we had to say that monetary union could not start on 1 January 1997.
Even then we knew that Europe would pull together, that Europe knew it would be a challenge, that we are a small area of the world and that only a united effort, the combination of all our efforts will lead to success and render us fit for the coming century, for the coming millennium.
So today we can confidently say that the European Community will be a stable community, and it is clear that processes which were started in the past are justified in the present.
In particular, those Member States which had to make special efforts because their monetary policy was not as stable as others have undertaken to prove once again through medium-term financial planning that they take not only monetary but also fiscal convergence criteria seriously.
In this way, the European monetary union is uniting us in a community of solidarity with a common destiny.
The success we have achieved so far must be continued.
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on the subject of the public debt: this is an important subject as its level is directly linked to the aim of ensuring that the euro area allows the financial markets to operate well, particularly with regard to the public component.
This is essential to give the euro stability and credibility to ensure that the single currency has the positive effects we are all hoping for.
The question should therefore be seen from two aspects: the fact that the debt should not interfere with the requirements of euro in terms of stability and credibility; and the fact that it allows the euro area to be characterized by great development.
I therefore believe that we should assess the overall financial balance of the various countries and the prospects in question, which, in addition to the public debt, comprise the financial situation of the private sector, the trends in saving, the net external debt position and the recent performance of their financial markets.
I therefore believe that the single currency does not require a static and purely accounting, almost Manichaean, vision of public finance, but the ability to combine fiscal rigour with prospects for development, which is still the basic reason for Economic and Monetary Union.
Moreover, with high rates of growth and a trend towards reducing debt, the criteria for reducing the ratio between debt and GDP will soon be met.
I wanted to illustrate these concepts because I have proposed three amendments, included in the von Wogau report, to paragraphs 13, 14 and 15.
To conclude, Mr President, I wish to insist on the fact that the most important challenge we are faced with at the moment is that of proving that the fiscal rigour and stability that will characterize the euro area will form the basis for establishing a development policy which continues to be the main purpose of Economic and Monetary Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am one of those who have supported Mr von Wogau's report from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, and I believe that, despite the narrow vote, this report deserves full consent on all the fundamental points.
I support the formal confirmation that the European Parliament is preparing to give to the choice of the euro to 11 countries as from 1 January 1999, not only because this includes Italy but also because I believe in the political significance of this very broad participation in monetary union.
Today's Herald Tribune maintains that, by taking this step, the European Union is now something of a federal state: perhaps it is exaggerating, but the political message is clear.
The political impulse of monetary union should now spur on the governments of the states to faster structural reforms, to a reduction in public expenditure, to a lightening of the tax burden, to a reduction in the excessive rigidity of employment and to an effort to make services efficient, and here I am thinking of the banking system in particular.
If these guidelines adopted by the Member States complement the objective of price and currency stability set by the Central Bank, companies will begin to invest again and so create jobs.
Preparation for monetary union has benefited from the virtuous cycle of lower interest rates, which it began itself.
I think that, even without definite orders, all countries, particularly those that have benefited most from the fall in rates, should continue to operate strictly.
Finally, it seems to me that, while expressing satisfaction over this historic stage for Europe, we should not forget the need to strengthen democratic control in the balance of the European institutions, by reviving the Union's institutional reforms and policy.
Mr President, I share in the joy expressed here that Economic and Monetary Union will now be created on an extremely large scale, but there are three issues I would like to mention that are necessary for EMU to be a success.
First of all it is important that the EMU project brings with it a considerable increase in prosperity and employment.
This is something the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs stressed in its report.
The guidelines from the Luxembourg Employment Summit cannot be allowed just to stew: they must be put into action.
Secondly, it is essential that the role of Parliament as a democratic body that will monitor the actions of the Central Bank is given weight, and that we maintain that stance and ensure that the Central Bank justifies its decisions publicly.
Thirdly, it is vital that EMU does not merely remain a tool for EU Member States alone but that it should extend to other nations including those who are at present negotiating membership.
We have to be flexible on this point.
But I would like to express my concern regarding the talks over what sort of new conditions are going to be imposed in respect of the Stability and Growth Pact.
Parliament is unfortunately out in the cold when it comes to these discussions, and we know that the Council will incorporate into their own recommendations the declaration stressing the serious problem of public debt, while we should be talking about growth and employment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the labour pains have started, the birth of the euro is unstoppable.
This undeniable assertion should not blind us to the fact that the single currency is still an infant at risk.
It urgently needs time if not in the incubator, then in the beneficial environment of a socio-ecological reorientation of European economic policy, instead of growing up into a neoliberal, monetarist monster of a supposedly unpolitical currency whose real and exclusive interests are those of the financial asset holders.
This is a highly political decision.
But we need to differentiate politically between two very different questions, that is, the plan to complete the European internal market using European monetary union, and the monetarist, neoliberal plan of the dictates of the financial markets.
Fortunately, we can see that the first phase of the neoliberal monetarist project has largely begun to flag.
The social struggles which in different Member States have produced new governments with new European agendas and sparked off a new debate in Europe had a lot to do with this.
The reforming French government should be given special credit for having placed the debate on an entirely new basis.
The original monetarist convergence criteria are actually being implemented with a great deal more sensitivity.
Tietmeyer thinking has not been setting the tone in Europe.
The idea of a core Europe has foundered in reality.
That is the good news. It makes it possible for us to agree to launching the euro with 11 Member States.
But we must counter all attempts to say what a wrong-headed German Deutsche Mark-nationalism wants to hear by playing an eleventh hour European poker game.
Belgium and Italy should have no further requirements to meet, and the crazy proposal to reserve the windfall profits to reorganize debts and to forbid the French and others their employment policy must also be thrown out. To act otherwise would mean the euro was really being introduced on the backs of the unemployed, and that is something we cannot tolerate!
As we all know, some corrections must be made. We need an employment policy and effective coordination of macroeconomic policy.
The European Central Bank must have a democratic foundation, and this will probably require the Treaty to be revised.
We must speak plainly, Mr Friedrich. The Treaty must be applied, and no arguments!
And no qualifying amendments!
Pacta sunt servanda does not provide carte blanche for a late game of poker!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr von Wogau, for this report, and at the same time express just one criticism and one recommendation to him and to those of you listening to me.
I have allowed myself this small criticism, although I am aware of the difficulties of the work of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
We have obviously reached an historic point in the building of Europe.
We are faced with a transition which seemed impossible and inconceivable a few years ago, even a few months ago.
We are faced with an effort made by many countries to try and catch this train, to try and give life and substance to this hope that Economic and Monetary Union might - necessarily for those who believe in us, for those who think that this is the plan for the future - lead to the political union of Europe.
From this point of view, some countries have had to make greater efforts, while others, and here I am also talking about Mr von Wogau's country, have had to deal with a 3 % ceiling that suddenly became difficult, even for the countries that seemed to be the champions of monetary virtuosity.
At a time when the European family is faced with this fact, and there will certainly be opportunities for insisting on this point, we should not spoil this opportunity, disregarding and maintaining criticisms, doubts and uncertainties that may give rise to difficulties, in respect of one country or another.
I believe we should make an assessment - which we can do better than the European Council because we can give an opinion independently - for all countries, taking into consideration those countries that may not have acted in an entirely crystal-clear manner to arrive at the 3 %. However, this cannot be done in a document that rightly or wrongly has to give a feeling of strong acceptance and also of recognition of the efforts made by the Eleven, for two countries - and one in particular, it would seem - to be more fiscal-orientated than others: not because it is wrong to say this but because there may be other ways.
Moreover, we want this Parliament to be the arbitrator, or at all events the privileged judge or interlocutor of the Central Bank on the policy to be implemented.
To conclude, I believe that the recommendation, or the hope, that I give with my amendment, that will lead Parliament to ask the Council to appoint the President during this European Council, a President in office for eight years, is the recommendation to be made and the request we can make to the people we represent.
Well, now that we have heard Mr Martinez' prayer - sorry, speech - it is time for Mr Metten to speak. He has the floor for three minutes.
Mr President, today, as all the speakers have said, is a solemn occasion; somebody said it is almost religious.
And the von Wogau report underlines that solemnity with elegance and simplicity.
But above all, the von Wogau report highlights the fact that the euro is a leap forward, a big bang, in this process of continental political integration which began 40 years ago.
The von Wogau report thus invites us to preserve the culture of stability, to engage in institutional dialogue - centred on this Parliament -, to coordinate economic policies, to reduce fiscal differences and - more importantly - to do whatever may be necessary to preserve the welfare state, creating jobs and maintaining the social security benefits which are the trademark of the European social model.
But, Mr President, if I believe and hope in religious terms, I also want to say - and I am sure you will let me make a special comment here, since I am the first Spaniard to speak - that for our country, for my country, today is an extraordinarily important moment.
Historically, when Spain stopped looking towards Europe, she turned in upon herself and became selfabsorbed, and a long process of civil conflicts began, creating the image of the two Spains in the eyes of the world.
When Spain once more looked towards Europe - following the teachings of Ortega, among others -, we were able to achieve a peaceful transition, a national reconciliation, culminating in our incorporation into a democratic Europe.
Less than two years ago nobody expected to see Spain in this small family of the single currency, but today our country has made the religious effort to join, because if you believe, you can do anything.
I am glad about that and I will conclude by saying that as a Spaniard I believe in what we are doing and I hope and I pray. And as a Christian by religion, I know just as much as Mr Martinez.
Mr President, only eight or nine years ago, anyone thinking of a week like this would have been taken for a day-dreamer.
Today we have managed to guide the ship carrying all the essential products for a single currency into port: trust, stability, common commitment and a collective logic that goes beyond the individual.
As on all ships that have made a long voyage, a few germs have got on board, such as uncertainty and scepticism, which we are overcoming with the great medicine of hope.
To paraphrase slightly the words of Mr von Wogau, whom we thank for all his work, who states in his report, "For the first time since the Roman Empire, Europeans from the Irish Sea...' - and today Ireland was fortunate enough to be congratulated in this Parliament for the peace achieved - "...to the Mediterranean will be using the same currency' , to my Mediterranean.
The praise for all this, although much remains to be done, does not just belong to us, but belongs in particular to those who have believed in us and who have worked from the outset.
Like the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, our group will support Mr von Wogau's report, recognizing in the work of the chairman of the committee the sum total of the work carried out over all these years by all the European institutions but also, and above all, by thousands of unknown people in our daily lives.
The summary of Commissioner de Silguy's thoughts, whom we thank for his hard work and his patience, is as follows: we have made the euro and now we have to make Europe.
We obviously agree with him, but we also have to take all possible measures to combat the major problems faced by the Community; we have to make the citizens understand that Europe today is about the single currency but tomorrow it will be about political union.
Finally, we have to set up the Bureau of the European Central Bank, in the most logical and complete form possible, to ensure that all the necessary preconditions for granting the ECB total and independent supremacy on economic policy as from 10 January 1999 are created as soon as possible.
Today we have achieved the single currency.
This is a lot, a great deal, but it is not everything.
European citizens are now expecting great and urgent things from us.
They are asking us to fight to achieve these victories we are winning in the economic field, as well as in the social field, so as to help solve the major everyday problems.
But today, for now, we can calmly quote what Gandhi said: "One step at a time is enough for me' .
Mr President, the von Wogau report examines the capacity of the Member States to fulfil the various criteria.
However, there is one criteria which is not mentioned, but which should be the most important, the main reason why my homeland, Sweden, is not joining EMU, that is, democratic support.
The citizens' scepticism towards EMU should make every politician and every member of parliament, finance minister and head of government wonder what they are in the process of doing.
The report says that EMU is perhaps the biggest step since the signing of the Treaty of Rome.
It is a step which is being taken without the support of the citizens.
I do not think this is a test of political will, but rather a simple demonstration of power.
A change in the Member States as radical as that entailed by EMU should only be possible if there is strong support from the citizens.
In Germany at least 60 % of the population is opposed to the euro and EMU. In Sweden the percentage is even higher than in Germany.
The citizens are afraid that the centralization of economic and political decision-making will lead to a policy with increased unemployment and increased difficulty in developing a fair, publicly-financed welfare system.
The report also says we should not forget the political significance of EMU and that it is the first time since the Roman Empire that Europeans from the Irish Sea to the Aegean will use the same currency.
But, ladies and gentlemen, you cannot have forgotten what happened to the Roman Empire, its rise and fall?
EMU is a very risky political prestige project which could create great tensions in Europe. The fact that 11 countries appear to be joining EMU is said to guarantee that there will not be a division of the Union, but will we not get that in any case?
What will happen with the enlargement towards the east?
Does the single currency not create new tensions, just when negotiations have started? Dreams of the Roman Empire or the 'EU dollar' which will make Europe big and strong are being placed above democracy, the will of the people, the demand for jobs, welfare and a good environment.
That is why, amongst others, we Greens are going to vote against EMU.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reports from the Commission and the European Monetary Institute on the transition to the single currency are prisoners of the financial criteria defined by the Maastricht Treaty and for this reason they present a completely superficial analysis on convergence between European countries.
We need to examine more closely the underlying national realities in order to distinguish, over and above financial convergence criteria, three great criteria for divergence.
Firstly, there is the divergence in the economic needs of the different countries. Levels of unemployment, labour costs, levels of tax and social security deductions, social and tax structures and the phases of economic cycles all differ greatly from one country to the next.
At the beginning of next year, for example, the future Central Bank is to apply the same universal interest rate to economies which are about to overheat and to others which are in a state of slow growth.
This seem completely impossible to us.
Secondly, there is the divergence of political conceptions.
On the eve of the launch of the single currency, essential questions regarding the management of the future monetary union have still not been resolved, such as those regarding its democratic supervision.
Some want very little control, as stipulated in the Maastricht Treaty, under the pretext of the independence and even the sovereignty of the Central Bank, according to the extraordinary statement in the von Wogau report.
Others want to put in place a form of control which was not anticipated in the Treaty, at the level of the European Parliament, others still would like that control to be carried out by national parliaments.
Which view will prevail? We are jumping into monetary unification with our eyes closed.
Finally, and above all, there is the divergence of public opinion.
The single currency project does not enjoy massive consensus within Europe, something which would be absolutely essential in order for it to succeed.
Even in some crucial countries, public opinion is clearly hostile.
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is calling on the Council to take a global view of the situation and not to be limited by financial criteria, as stipulated in Article 109j of the Treaty.
We call on the Council to realize that today monetary unification is not possible in an area such as Europe, where a number of different peoples co-exist, without running major risks.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Karl von Wogau's report comes within the perspective of a forced march towards the euro which has been imposed on the people of Europe.
You congratulate yourselves on the success of convergence, but you have to consider at what cost, in terms of unemployment, these results have been achieved.
Monetary union between countries disparate in terms of productivity will cause an increase in unemployment in the less productive countries and will oblige the other countries to pay considerable sums of financial solidarity, thus causing an increase in fiscal pressures.
This model has already been historically observed in Germany: unemployment in the East and an increase in taxes in the West in order to subsidize the East: that was the result of German monetary unification.
In its report of 25 March 1998, the Commission was forced to recognize this.
I quote: "the exceptional costs linked to German monetary reunification continue to be widely felt' .
Thus, monetary reunification was desired, for political reasons which I will not judge, in the knowledge that it was having perverse effects on the economy.
Similarly, in Europe, the euro is the result of a political desire to remove anything that is national, without consulting the people in a referendum, and regardless of the economic cost of the move.
This will create a political situation which will be difficult to handle.
When French citizens understand that the power to create unemployment in their country will be situated in Frankfurt, it will be detrimental to the cohesion of our peoples.
What is more, we are playing with democracy.
Our colleague's report says clearly that monetary sovereignty - he uses the word sovereignty - will reside in Frankfurt.
Fiscal and budgetary sovereignty will be curbed by the Stability Pact put in place elsewhere.
Unemployment and technocratic power, that is what this gives us.
I doubt that people will accept such a policy.
You are proclaiming prosperity and democracy, but you are going to exacerbate the injustice of unemployment and maintain the fiction of a democracy, which increasingly hides the real power of stateless technocrats.
The great Greek orator, Demosthenes, once said that no unjust and untruthful power can last for long.
This is what I foresee for the current governments, who want to force the hand of the peoples of Europe by taking their national sovereignty away from them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are asked to give our opinions on, irrespective of the aspect of greater or lesser rigour in respect of one Member State or another, involves the approval of the forthcoming intergovernmental decision on the entry into force of Economic and Monetary Union.
The electorate I represent have shown that they are against this Europe that is about to be born and believe that is a real swindle for manufacturing in Padania.
At the time, the establishment of convergence criteria gave rise to a race to balance the books, which was often more apparent than real within the individual states.
Italy, in particular, managed to make its fairly contrived accounts credible, thanks to a marked growth in tax revenue, brought about by increasing the tax burden to the detriment of manufacturing industries.
Staying in Europe will now require further belt-tightening and this will weaken the competitiveness of the system even further.
Our competitors, both outside and within the European Union, are rubbing their hands at the thought that businessmen in Padania will be forced to fight in an increasingly competitive market, with the burden of the welfare state, the Italian national political class and the South on their shoulders.
Obviously, in Padania, that is within a self-confident community, tensions will arise with unforeseeable consequences and it is no secret that Padania has already started on an institutional path that will lead it to independence.
I therefore believe that these peoples, who no-one consulted on this monetary union, will soon make the weight of their own opinion felt.
Mr President, we are about to take an historic step in the true sense of the word, that clearly separates the "before' from the "after' .
It is also a step that is beset by problems, not those that a certain type of bigotry sees in the debt of countries that have for several years undertaken a credible, irreversible financial recovery with no miracles - Italy achieved its miracle when, from being a poor, backward country, it became the fifth economic power in the world -, but rather the problems of a political vacuum between the transfer of monetary supremacy and the strict conservation of national fiscal and political supremacy.
We will have to fill this vacuum.
Following the adoption of a single currency, nothing in Europe will be the same again.
Today we can measure the dramatic rift that would open in the Union between core countries, which virtually coincide with the Deutsche Mark area, and countries driven back into an anxious and unstable periphery.
Now they all have to move along the lines of development indicated by monetary union: the consolidation of stability, the guarantee of democratic responsibility taken by the European Central Bank, the construction of a Union macroeconomic policy, the democratic strengthening of its political institutions.
One eminent American economist, known for his mistaken predictions, has seen in the future of the euro the threat of civil war between the European countries.
While preparing to vote for the euro, we see a future of solidarity between the nations of Europe and a more reasonable balance in relation to the domination of the dollar.
I congratulate Herr von Wogau on the efforts he has made in this report.
British Members of the Group of the European People's Party greatly admire his chairmanship of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.
It is with regret, therefore, that we will abstain on his report.
We do so in the first instance because the United Kingdom is not going to be a founder member of the monetary union.
That is a fact, as Members know, which I personally very deeply regret.
But I believe it right to demonstrate that the hope of the British Government that it is possible to be both at the heart of European affairs and evade the resolution of British Membership of EMU is a dangerous illusion.
We also wish to demonstrate that while we understand the desire in this Parliament to achieve the broadest possible political support for this report, that has been achieved at the cost of denying the serious future difficulties that participating governments will have in running their public finances in line with the stability pact.
Let there be no doubt, British Members of the Group of the European People's Party want monetary union to succeed.
I personally have devoted a large part of my time in this Parliament to the creation of the euro.
It is from this standpoint that we support the efforts of Finance Minister Waigel in wishing further undertakings from all Member Governments to run balanced budgets over the cycle and reducing historic debt to 60 % of GDP.
I wish the Parliament had supported Mr Waigel more.
It is a pity that there are those in the Socialist Group and elsewhere who have attacked the absolute independence of the Central Bank which was the cornerstone of the Maastricht Treaty but who are reluctant to enhance our overview of Member States' budgetary arrangements.
This is a particular pity since it would open up the possibility of serious cooperation between the European Parliament and national Parliaments.
Therein lies the best chance of correcting the democratic deficit.
I myself am absolutely convinced that the euro of eleven will succeed in the long run.
That success may be a rougher ride in the markets because we have chosen softer words today than we should have done.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate is taking place at the end of a process which has engaged the greater part of the European Union's energies throughout this whole decade. The road has been long.
It began with the signing of the Treaty on European Union, or even earlier, with the preparatory work of the Delors Committee. The efforts on the part of the Union's institutions and Member States, in order to create the right conditions for entry into the third stage of monetary union, have been considerable.
Today we are witnessing the moment when success will be announced.
Eleven Member States, comprising about 300 million people, will participate in the single currency from 1 January next year.
Thus a broad and balanced monetary union is born, which will allow a solid and stable single currency to be launched, to be joined over the next few years by the other four Member States. That is a complete certainty.
At the moment, votes are being taken and resolutions passed in the parliaments of the various Member States, and tomorrow we will vote on this report here in the European Parliament, as a sort of prologue to the solemn vote on 2 May.
As regards the present vote, I want to stress the following aspects.
Firstly, this vote, like the one on Saturday, has the value of taking place in the only institution of the Union whose legitimacy arises directly out of universal suffrage.
Secondly, as a consequence of what I just said, this vote will allow people to see which of the European political forces support this momentous step in the building of Europe.
As a Socialist, I want to say that I am glad our group is voting positively. And as a Spanish Socialist, I would like to add how pleased I am with the Socialist Party's contribution to Spain's incorporation into the third stage of union, first in government and then in opposition.
Thirdly, I want to emphasize that the resolution we are voting on today is a balanced text, which sums up the fundamental reasons behind Parliament's support for the introduction of the single currency.
I will conclude now, Mr President.
I started my speech talking about the end of a process.
I want to end by saying that we are also at the start of a new epoch, in which the role of this Parliament - as the monetary authority's partner for dialogue, and the guarantor of control over its performance - will undoubtedly be strengthened.
Mr President, the efforts of our Member States to reduce budget deficits, to restrict total debt considerably and to consolidate public budgets have been successful.
It is not only those with political and economic responsibility who have worked hard, which is evident from the historic low in inflation rates and long-term interest rates; our citizens, too, have taken these restrictions on board in the clear knowledge that Europe will only become competitive and have a real future if it steers a steady course for stability.
This course will only be held, and Karl von Wogau's well-balanced report goes into this in detail, if the convergence criteria are safeguarded in the long term.
For this reason, the Stability and Growth Pact must be implemented with all due haste; it should be monitored by the European Central Bank whose independence and authority as the highest guardian of the currency should be preserved from any tinkering whatsoever.
As freely elected members of Parliament, we will be its partners in dialogue.
Our citizens, who have no time at all for the tactical power games in the wrangle for the post of the ECB Presidency, are relying on this.
They are relying on the strength of the euro, which is no sickly premature baby, to bring about more investment and new, employment-creating growth, so that unemployment figures go down.
They are relying on better coordination of the Member States' campaigns and measures for economic and structural policy which were adopted at the Luxembourg Employment Summit, and on the acceleration of initiatives for a more active labour market policy; they are also relying on additional education and training meeting the demand for qualified workers.
Given a complete package like this, our citizens will identify with the new domestic European market and with the euro.
Mr President, the single currency has had many critics, not least in my own country.
Some have said that it is an impossible project which can never be carried out. Others have said that only a few countries are going to be in at the start.
These critics have been proved wrong.
In fact, 11 countries are going to be in at the start.
Everything now points to this being a successful project.
My own country, Sweden, is not going to join from the beginning, which I personally regret.
However, that does not mean that we are not going to work actively to ensure that this is a successful project.
Nor does it mean that my country is not going to join in the future.
I myself am going to work actively for that.
In addition, if you participated in the first two stages of EMU, that was important too.
When Sweden became a member of the European Union just under three years ago, we had a large budget deficit and high interest rates.
Today we have a balanced budget, low interest rates and a stable economy.
That gives us opportunities for the future.
It was therefore important to have participated in the first two stages.
However, I would like to say that we need more than EMU.
The fight against unemployment also needs to be coordinated.
In that respect the Amsterdam Treaty and the Luxembourg Summit are a success.
I can also reveal to you that the Swedish parliament has just voted for the Amsterdam Treaty with 226 votes in favour and 40 against.
But even that is not enough. We need greater coordination of macroeconomic policies, greater coordination of tax policies and more investment in infrastructure.
The fact is that if we are to make EMU and other aspects of economic policy a project of the people, we must see results.
So far, the people have not seen these results.
Finally, I think the Bank should be independent, but at the same time be under democratic supervision.
The natural place for this democratic control is the European Parliament.
Mr President, Mr von Wogau, ladies and gentlemen, as I was travelling from Strasbourg to Austria following the last sitting in Strasbourg, I was delighted to note that the frontier barrier between Germany and Austria had been removed.
This time, when I return from Brussels to Austria, there will be a fixed exchange rate between the Deutsche Mark, the schilling and the Belgian franc, and in fact throughout all the 11 states.
This brings great immediate advantages for our companies.
The risks of the exchange rate are removed, and we can make more precise calculations more easily; we will be able to enjoy these advantages next week.
On January 1, we will have a single currency.
That too will bring with it huge advantages, not only for company balance sheets, but also in the comparability of the various deals on offer. As a result, Europe will become more competitive.
Who would have thought back at the beginning, when discussions about the euro started, that 11 countries would be involved right from the start? The more pessimistic among us thought there would be 6 or 7 countries.
Today there are 11, and I forecast that by 2002, there will be 15!
It is my belief that countries will not be able to afford to stay outside, and we must think about how we can help those countries who are willing to join.
We have many tasks ahead of us, and I am proud that Europe is able to cope with them!
Mr President, on entering Brussels at the moment, you can see a large poster with the slogan, "Let us be concrete and positive' , with regard to a Belgian political party.
I like this slogan because it is reasonable and moderate.
It is, I think, the spirit that we should have with regard to monetary union, in the face of the nationalist demagogy and the gloom-mongering of the extreme Left who rant and rave against monetary union.
I, too, would like to take up this slogan.
Yes, let us be positive with regard to monetary union.
As you know, the Socialists voted against Mr von Wogau's report in committee, not because of the work of the rapporteur, which was excellent, but because of certain amendments which were voted for in committee and which have weighed the issue down.
I do not think that the European Parliament should be more orthodox than the most orthodox of central bank presidents.
The Stability and Growth Pact must be respected; we add "rigorously' to this in our report.
I could propose any number of adverbs to you: formally, absolutely, clearly, sincerely, exactly, and so on. These are just differences in style, nuances which add nothing.
The socialists want to be positive and want to vote for Mr von Wogau's report, on condition that a serious and reasonable approach with regard to respect for stability is approved.
I think this has finally been achieved.
We also want to be concrete.
On a financial and monetary level, the current situation is full of potential.
This is due to the movement towards the euro. The euro has already created, and will create, new potential to respond to the hazards of the economic situation and to create jobs.
It will also deepen political union and curb warlike nationalism.
Mr President, let us therefore have a firm desire to put this potential to good use.
Let us be positive and concrete in the face of the enormous opportunities with which the euro presents us.
May I rebut John Stevens' suggestion that the Socialist Group is soft on the independence of the ECB.
We are not but we are equally passionate on ensuring that bank's democratic accountability.
On the brink of historic decisions for Europe and the introduction of the euro, we should step back and contemplate and celebrate the remarkable achievement of eleven Member States qualifying for EMU.
The benign scenario of low inflation and low interest rates is a resounding tribute to the countries entering EMU.
Sometimes commentators do not see the wood for the trees - two countries in particular have been singled out for fevered attention on the sole question of the viability of their public debt to GDP ratios.
A strict reading of the Maastricht Treaty does permit them to qualify, as verified by the Commission, EMI and by the German Federal Court, an August body indebted to no one.
Moreover, we have the back-stop of the Stability and Growth Pact which will ensure sustainability of this fiscal rectitude and the promise of Belgium and Italy themselves to continue to consolidate their public debt ratios.
Now is the time for us to raise our heads from the minutiae of the convergence criteria.
Let us gaze on the sunlit uplands of the euro which beckon ever more strongly.
The golden prize which is ours for the taking is a dynamic single European market, quickened by the introduction of the single currency.
It is that market, the world's biggest market, which will offer jobs and prosperity for our people and let us never forget we have the market to create the currency for the benefit of the people of Europe and not the other way around.
In the not too distant future, when Britain is emerged from the slough of despond of the Thatcher and Major years, the United Kingdom too will join the long march of Everyman to the city on the hill.
We, too, will apply a single currency in a single market in our singular Europe.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his competent, if brief, extract.
I wish to move the European Economic and Monetary Union in a direction which is more socially just.
A common single currency will strengthen our position in the world, economically and politically.
The euro will become a major currency, but from a major currency like this I urge that we get the opposite of what we did from currency speculation and from certain banks.
Unemployment is our greatest problem, as the report states, and the European Central Bank simply cannot ignore it.
The Bank will be independent, and no one will be able to dismiss its management, no matter what mistakes it makes.
No organization with so much power can be exempt from responsibility.
We in Parliament have fortunately taken a decision to get the ECB to accept democratic responsibility and agree to open negotiations.
It is absolutely vital that common European solutions are applied to any country in economic difficulties.
Hopefully, it will aid the struggle for a worldwide economy based on social fairness.
The single currency of democratic countries will make demands on democracy.
It is not enough for markets to have confidence in the euro: our nations must share that confidence, and that will come about by seeing to the needs of our citizens.
The tone of Mr von Wogau's report is very monetarist.
He takes a harder and less flexible line than many Member States do.
Mr von Wogau does, however, deserve to be praised for the optimism he expresses in his report regarding employment.
That is precisely why an inflexible position on following the Stability and Growth Pact to the letter seems gratuitous in a report that deals with the introduction of a common currency.
Mr President, as we have seen, the decisions which will be made in Brussels in the next few days will be observed by many of us with excitement, and by some with enthusiasm.
However, a great number of citizens of the union are sceptical and concerned about the introduction of the euro.
The fact that in figures for total debt, only three candidate countries were under 60 % and two were over 120 % is in fact deeply worrying.
This makes it all the more important to stress, as does Mr von Wogau's report, that the strict observance of the Stability and Growth Pact by all participants in the European currency union is imperative.
The European Parliament must call for a guarantee that the euro will be as stable as the most stable of those currencies which it will replace.
I would like to use the brief minute I have at my disposal to express in all objectivity my personal congratulations to Mr von Wogau on his well-balanced report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of an historic European Council, given that the Heads of State or Government are going to take a decision on the launch of Economic and Monetary Union, Mr von Wogau's excellent report enables us to measure the distance covered.
For once we can be delighted with this, and I am pleased with the extremely favourable response that the Commission's recommendation for the 11 Member States has received.
Indeed, throughout this long debate, in which some 40 of you have spoken, I have heard no criticism of the quality of the Commission's work, nor of the actual content of its proposals, even if the debate on economic policy is a wide and open one, as is normal in a democracy.
I agree with Mr Giansily, Mrs Randzio-Plath, Mr Rübig, Mr Harrison and Mrs Berès, who have put the debate into perspective, an historic perspective I believe, since in effect it concerns the culmination of the great achievement which Europe has now been working towards for more than 40 years.
It gives me great satisfaction to see what work has been accomplished.
Who could have imagined such an achievement even a year ago, perhaps even in this distinguished House itself?
This is not the result of chance, or even of the Member States' remarkable efforts regarding convergence. This success is the result of a common political will to respect the conditions and the timetable laid out in the Treaty on European Union.
On this subject, and since the debate has been a general one, allow me to reflect for a few moments on the method which has led us to this success and which is worthy of some consideration, before I make a few comments and provide some information on the no less important task ahead of us.
Indeed, we should not now be concentrating on 2 May, but on what lies ahead after that date.
The euro must not be a problem child, but tomorrow it will be a new-born baby, and we must take responsibility for its harmonious and balanced development.
First of all, the arrival of the euro is the success of a method based firstly on political will.
Without this political will, such a venture could never have succeeded.
It has been the essential guarantee of an achievement unique in European history.
Every European Council since 1995 has, in spite of everything, expressed this unshakeable will on the part of the Heads of State or Government.
They have been able to use the political and practical consequences for each of them in order to proceed, for example, - and this is important - towards improving their public finances, and to reducing their deficits to less than 3 %.
I believe it is this very political will which enables me to inform you today that the statutes of the national central banks, mentioned less than a month ago in the convergence report as still not fully in conformity, are so today.
The four countries in question, Austria, Spain, Luxembourg and France, have completed or, in the case of France, should complete this evening, the parliamentary legislative procedures enabling compatibility of all of the central banks' statutes.
With regard to the European Central Bank, since many of you have mentioned this, and in order to dispel any misunderstanding, I would like to say that it is the Commission's position that the Treaty should be strictly enforced.
The Council cannot cut a mandate in two, they must appoint a President for the length of the mandate provided for in the Treaty.
Nevertheless, the less said for the moment regarding the problem of the European Central Bank, the better.
Let us leave it to the Heads of State or Government to do their job since it is they who must decide.
Mr Friedrich earlier said on this subject, "Europe needs confidence' .
Well, I believe that this will come naturally in the meeting, when the Heads of State or Government unanimously appoint the President of the Central Bank and members of the Executive Board.
The second important factor in the method is convergence.
Since you know the figures as well as I do, I will give only one example: improvements in public deficits. Let me nevertheless remind you that in 1993, the average public deficit recommended for the 11 countries was 5.5 %.
This was reduced to 2.5 % in 1997. I really have to say, especially to those Members situated on the extreme right of this House, that these figures have not been fiddled.
They have been verified, they are correct. As a representative of the Commission, I cannot accept the slightest suspicion regarding the quality of work that has been carried out, particularly with regard to statistics and with regard to the information which has been made available to you to enable you to make a judgement.
This result, which is all the more impressive given the unfavourable economic climate, thus means that improvements in public finances have essentially been achieved through an effective reduction in expenditure: given an overall reduction of 3.7 % for the 15 countries, the reduction in expenditure has been 2.8 %.
You can thus see that it is largely a reduction in expenditure which has enabled the reduction in public deficit to be achieved, rather than the economic climate or one-off measures which have become long term measures, or an increase in revenue.
It is this which leads us to say that the improvements in public finances are lasting ones, and the markets have recognized the lasting nature of convergence.
I have heard little mention of the durability of convergence during the debate, and this seems to me to be an essential factor in the transition to the single currency.
The markets have noted it, since interest rates are today at an historically low level.
This permits me to say that from now on there exists a true culture of stability in Europe which now needs to be consolidated, meaning that the commitments undertaken, in particular in Amsterdam, must now be implemented without delay, and without taking on new commitments, I can assure you, Mr Donnelly.
The third element of the method is a systematic preparation for the introduction of the euro.
I would, however, like to remind you, as we have worked closely together for three and a half years now, of the wonderful work that we have accomplished together with regard to technical legal regulations; meticulous work, essential for the proper functioning of Economic and Monetary Union.
Indeed, to ensure a good currency from the start, a good legal framework was required, a good regulatory framework.
This was an essential factor in its credibility and to do this we needed to ensure, with necessary prior warning, the visibility and readability which companies needed in order to prepare themselves in good time.
This is now an established fact, and the House contributed greatly to this.
Within this preparatory work I must also mention the remarkable work carried out by the European Monetary Institute, which will become a reality in a few days from now as a result of the decisions to be taken by the European Central Bank.
Finally, the fourth element of the method, and I am surprised to have heard so little about this this evening, is the mobilization of the life blood of Europe.
Would we have achieved such a mobilization without the initiative taken - primarily by this House - to develop informative action within all the Member States as from 1996, without further delay? Today, if the European, national, regional and local public administrations, banks, companies and social partners are mobilized, it is largely due to this initiative which was jointly undertaken by Parliament and the Commission.
I say all of this because I believe that we should be proud of ourselves.
And why not, for once? The achievement of the euro has been a model of interinstitutional cooperation.
This must continue as soon as the European Council has come to an end, in order to ensure the democratic accountability which many of you mentioned earlier, and to bring about growth and employment as effectively as possible, for that is indeed the objective of EMU, but also of the Union, on the eve of the birth of the euro.
It is on this second point that I would now like to concentrate a little, to share with you my thoughts on what I think our plan of action, our agenda, must be for the coming months.
Firstly, there is the continuation of budgetary improvements.
The return to a balance in public finances in the medium term is the only way to free up savings for job-creating investment and to find budgetary leeway once again.
That is why this is the central objective of the Stability and Growth Pact, although you should be aware that, in relation to the current level of deficit in the European Union as a whole - 2.5 % -, to find a balance once again means freeing up nearly 150 billion euros for investment.
I believe that the current period of economic growth must thus be put to good use in order to speed up budgetary consolidation.
We must not spend the money before we have it; efforts at budgetary improvements must be maintained.
The hardest part has been achieved and Europe is already reaping the benefits, so we must not relax our efforts now.
Similarly, within this framework and in answer to Mrs Berès, I want to emphasize the importance of coordinating of economic policies, not only with relation to budgets but also in the fields of employment and competitiveness.
We have the tools: the broad outlines of economic policy, the stability programmes.
We have the bodies: Parliament, the Ecofin Council, the euro Council.
It is now important for our governments to prove their political will by implementing all of this.
The second absolute priority for economic policy is the challenge of employment.
To Mr Hughes and Mr Paasilinna, I would say that EMU does not necessarily mean more unemployment.
On the contrary, EMU should signify more jobs. This is why, through the Luxembourg Council - Mr Thomas Mann mentioned this - the Union made employment an issue of common interest, a priority for our economic policy.
Beyond the development of a healthy macroeconomic policy, only adequate and concerted structural reforms will be able to reduce unemployment in Europe in the long term.
In this respect, the euro must be the catalyst in the fight against unemployment.
Tomorrow, we will be discussing the broad outlines of economic policy.
This year, a common strategy for employment will be at the heart of the Commission's overall work.
Similarly, the Commission is currently examining national plans which have just been presented and will give its conclusions in Cardiff.
There are two other issues which are important for the future.
I will only mention them in passing, given the lack of time to go into any depth. One is the international dimension of the euro, on which we have said little this evening.
How, with the euro, will Europe be able to speak with one voice? This is also a major challenge to be taken up, if we want to derive all the advantages and benefits that the introduction of its own currency will give to the number one economic and trading power in the world.
Finally, the last challenge is that of ensuring acceptance of the currency by all.
On one point, at least, I am in agreement with Mrs Schörling, that is, the importance of people.
We cannot ignore them, and within this framework each person must be able to familiarize himself rapidly with the new currency and use it comfortably and with confidence.
That is the reason why communication strategies must be accelerated in all Member States.
In conclusion, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me once again to say how pleased I am with the excellent collaboration we have had over the past three and a half years, which has been one of the keys to the success of this historic project.
I would personally like to thank Mr von Wogau, in particular, as well as Mrs Randzio-Plath, for their tireless commitment and their support of the euro throughout these last months, which have not always been easy.
I now believe that the European Parliament is going to see its role extended, whether in relation to the process of coordination of economic policy, in relation to the democratic accountability of Economic and Monetary Union or in relation to efforts to convince public opinion.
I am very happy with our collaboration.
I am also very happy with your sense of responsibility and since Mr Garosci said earlier, "We have made the euro and now we have to make Europe' , I would say that this is a fine ambition to have.
Mr Fayot said, " Let us be positive and concrete' . This, too, is a fine attitude.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
1998 annual economic report
The next item is the report (A4-0133/98) by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm, on behalf of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on "Growth and Employment in the Stability-Oriented Framework of EMU - Economic policy reflections in view of the forthcoming 1998 Broad Guidelines' (COM(98)0103 - C40135/98) (Annual Economic Report)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I wanted to say thank you for all the collaboration I received while working on this report in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and for the fact that it was approved almost unanimously in committee.
So the report was produced not by me but by the committee. It reflects a series of points which were mentioned during the previous debate, but focusing on what must be done - and I stress that - after the euro.
I also want to point out that when my report was being discussed in committee we already had the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and their main proposals have been included in the report.
That was not the case with the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, which arrived later.
But as rapporteur, I would have no objection to that committee's proposals being incorporated into the report's conclusions under the Hughes procedure.
To make sure that Commissioner de Silguy does not complain that we have taken no notice of the Commission's report, I shall point out that, obviously, the report I am defending here refers to the Commission's Annual Economic Report. This annual report is slightly special because it does not conform to the normal structure of that institution's annual economic reports, but is a response to the specific situation of what we could call "the year of the euro's constitution' .
So it focuses on two aspects - growth and employment - and uses a methodology we have accepted.
However, our report points out that it should be different in future. It should consider and offer a different type of analysis from that used in this year's report, introducing, for example, a medium-term analysis a methodology - which exists in economics - based on scenarios; it should not just envisage a linear development of the European economy, but take account of the effects of what we call "asymmetric shocks' , not just at Member State level but also at regional level.
Having made those points to show the Commissioner that we have paid attention to the European Commission report, I want to use the few minutes left to reflect on two aspects.
The first of these is growth.
Growth is a basis - not the only one - for progress, and also for employment.
The present report mentions some aspects which have perhaps been marginalized by the very line of stability and solvency demanded by monetary union and the euro, but which need to be taken up again.
For example, we have to bear in mind the need to boost public and private investment for productive purposes - an essential aspect of increasing the productivity and competitiveness of the European economy; we must pay attention to and strengthen essential aspects of research and development, education and professional training; and, obviously, we must take account of all those aspects which can make this Europe, strengthened by the euro, competitive at an internal level - or in other words, see that it offers more opportunities for the economies which can adapt to the new demands. This is also true at international level, because I agree with Mr de Silguy's statement about the importance of the euro's international dimension.
The second aspect I want to mention concerns employment.
In our report we have been very conscious, based on the European Commission's report, of the euro as a driving force for employment.
We have also talked about the need to make the labour markets more flexible, decrease the indirect costs bearing on the creation of a new job, and take account of the fiscal climate. Obviously, this whole process needs to result in renewal within the business sector, and we especially stress the role of small and medium-sized enterprises as an engine for development, progress and job creation.
Mr President, this is in fact the first annual report since the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Luxembourg Summit.
In itself it is understandable that the employment guidelines envisaged there receive little or no attention in this report.
I hope that in future reports they will always form an integral part of the report, as well as benchmarking in the sphere of labour market strategy.
One of the important objectives of the Amsterdam Summit and also of the Luxembourg Summit was to create coordination, a balance, between macroeconomic policy and employment policies.
I must confess that I do not really understand why scarcely any attention has been paid to this balance, this coordination, in the annual report before us.
You will see in our report that we urge that proposals for coordination are made as soon as possible.
The Ecofin and Social Council should discuss this subject together - I am not saying how often, but it should be at least a few times a year - and not stay put in separate camps.
An article in the European Voice shocked me.
In it, a statement to be put to the Summit this weekend was leaked in which government leaders are asked to say that reducing public debt levels rather than reducing unemployment is their main priority.
The argument often used is that this leaves more room to do something about unemployment in future.
I wonder if you could tell me, Commissioner, when this future will start? Recently, last weekend, appalling elections took place in Germany, in which the right had an unexpectedly huge result.
If you do not link this to the unbridled unemployment there, than you must be wilfully blind.
I would like to stress this emphatically so that you will finally understand that for many people the future must start now.
I would like to stress emphatically that it is madness to expect the euro to mean something if we do not start to take concrete measures which will allow people to gauge whether the authorities are addressing unemployment.
This report does not meet these criteria at all, and in this regard I think that what I have read about the proposals for the end of this weekend is a disgrace.
Mr President, I welcome the report of Mr Gasòliba and congratulate him on the content.
As he has said, it is the result of collaborative work and we in the Socialist Group are largely very happy with the content.
Perhaps even more important today, can I also thank the Commissioner and his services because we in the Socialist Group have long been calling for a better type of annual economic report from the Commission which addresses the real problems facing our citizens.
I am glad to say that for the first time in recent years we now have a report which can not only be read sensibly by people outside the European institutions but which also reflects their concerns.
I would like to thank the civil servants in the Commission for the work that they have done on this.
In particular, I want to draw attention to a number of points that have been highlighted by the Commission and which Mr Gasòliba has taken up in his own text.
The first question is in relation to investment.
The Commission have recognized in the Annual Economic Report the fact that during this period of consolidation we have seen a very serious fall in the level of investment, and in particular public investment, within the European Union and the Commission themselves recommend that Member States must be very cautious that during the period of consolidation not to completely undermine public investment.
We should seek ways to boost that, in particular, by public-private partnerships.
I hope that Commissioner de Silguy will press this point when he meets the Finance Ministers to discuss the conclusions of the European Parliament's report and the Commission's text.
In particular, in relation to monetary policy, we made the point earlier in the debate on economic and monetary union, that under Article 105 of the Treaty when price stability is guaranteed then the monetary authority can address the wider objectives of the European Union.
We want a monetary policy that will help to promote employment and growth within the European Union.
The Commission have mentioned this in their text in a very clear way and we want to make sure that the monetary authorities in Europe, particularly the European Central Bank, address this point too.
In addition, for the first time in the Commission's report they also highlight the fact that the European Union is largely an internal trading community.
90 % of our GDP is generated by internal trade within the European Union.
For the first time the Commission have said that the macroeconomic policy of the European Union must be based upon stimulating internal demand within the fifteen Member States.
In the broad economic guidelines we want specific proposals from the Commission on how we stimulate internal demand within the European Union.
It is not a question of international trade, it is a question of internal demand.
Let me say, finally, I particularly welcome the fact that we have held these two debates today.
I believe we are not only looking at a monetary union but we are looking at an economic union and it is right today that we should address the process of establishing a monetary union at the same time as we deal with the Annual Economic Report of the European Union.
First I would like to welcome the Gasòliba Report on the Annual Economic Report from which I believe it is clear that within the European Union there has been stable economic growth since 1996. Investment growth is estimated to be about 4.7 % in 1998 and, hopefully, 5.5 % in 1999.
2.5 %, of course, of the domestic demand is forecast for the next two years.
A small but stable growth in unemployment has been registered and 1997 is at a new level.
The macroeconomic pillars for the future coordination of national economic policies would, of course, be based on a monetary policy for the stability of prices and reduction of public debt.
What is important about all this is that we can be assured of low inflation and interest rates and in my own country, Ireland, the public deficit has been reduced by 11 % of GNP since the 1980s and the public debt has been reduced from 115 % to 65 % in the same period.
But it is also true, thankfully, that the situation is improving elsewhere within the Union.
It is clear for Ireland that EMU will result in continued growth, job creation, low inflation, low interest rates and elimination of transaction costs.
It is good for mortgage-holders, businesses and a country like Ireland exporting a substantial percentage of our goods to other parts of Europe that we will now have the same currency.
It will be helpful, of course, for tourism which is also so important for our country.
It will stifle, of course, currency speculators and we recall only too vividly the situation which we had a few years ago.
In conclusion, congratulations to Mr Gasòliba on the presentation of a fine report in the Annual Economic Report.
Mr President, the Annual Economic Report for 1998 should have been an opportunity to evaluate the roads we have travelled along and to correct strategies and policies.
Those opportunities have been missed, because the road to the euro has acquired such real and symbolic significance that it has dented, if not destroyed, our ability to evaluate, and, a fortiori , to correct and retrace our steps.
The Gasòliba report adopts the stance that has virtually become dogma, namely that the euro and the Stability Pact are essential tools for growth and job creation, and that the obstacles preventing these tools from doing their work are non-labour costs, lack of adaptability on the part of workers, and over-regulation.
If we could dispose of those obstacles, uncouple the ECB from the economic situation and co-ordinate economic policies under the iron collar of the budget, we would be in 'euro-Eldorado' .
That is not the way we see it.
We are worried about the emphasis placed on wage differentiation in this scenario, in the way it is in the United States.
There is a clear tendency for gaps to widen - and the American 'model' would accelerate that tendency.
That is why we are pleased to note that the rapporteur considers the American case too extreme to be used as a model.
We also want to draw attention to our amendments: a tax on speculative capital profits, a reduction in working hours without loss of pay and an evaluation of how the development of EMU will affect unemployment.
Mr President, this is a question not only of economic growth, but of economic growth which makes sense.
A European economic policy means a socio-ecological market economy.
This requires not only the rapid introduction of the energy tax - and here I would thank Mr Monti for his energetic work - but also a social and environmental situation and also a Union.
What has the annual report to do with the frightening percentages achieved by a right-wing party in Germany?
A great deal. Unemployment and youth unemployment create helplessness, and the right wing parties in Germany and throughout Europe benefit from that.
On 2 May we will celebrate the historic creation of a single European currency here in the European Parliament.
This is good and I am delighted about it.
In conclusion, I would like to say that I am happy because it will be an historic fact and because monetary union, which in ten years' time will be taken for granted, will be rid of its doom and gloom merchants, including those in my own group!
Mr President, I congratulate you on the Gasòliba report on the Annual Economic Report because it showed clearly, on the basis of the Commission's information, major obstacles to European economic growth and employment.
Excessive tax and administrative burdens borne in particular by SMEs in the face of increasingly fierce international competition, inadequate vocational training, excessive rigidity of the labour market, preventing the development of new job opportunities and high non-wage labour costs reduce companies' capacity to invest and grow.
I cannot entirely agree with several points made in the report, however, particularly the assessment of the reduction in working hours, dealt with in paragraphs 39 and 40 of the report.
While in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity paragraph 39 confirms the inadvisability of a compulsory reduction in working time throughout the European Union, the following paragraph 40 provides a series of reflections.
In the first part of the text of paragraph 40, we read that Parliament "is in favour of reductions in the working time...when suitable' .
Obviously, such a definition lends itself to more than one interpretation.
In fact, the general and abstract formulation of a principle of a need to reduce working hours seems destined to generate misunderstandings and ambiguities, for not only is it absolutely general but there is no specific reference in the report to the assumption of a reduction in working hours as a matter of necessity.
In short, paragraph 40 can be read as meaning it is the prerogative of each individual state to identify a general principle of need to impose an indiscriminate reduction in working hours over the entire national territory.
This latter assumption contradicts the considerations expressed in the Commission's report which, indicating the risks of the so-called statutory 35hour week, limited itself to admitting reductions in working hours only at microeconomic level or through negotiations between the social partners.
To conclude, owing to its general nature, paragraph 40 seems to be the result of a confused political agreement.
Consequently, on the basis of the considerations listed, I call on Parliament to vote against paragraph 40 of the Gasòliba report.
In addition to this, I would like to hear Commissioner de Silguy's assessment.
Mr President, those who believe that the euro and the uniform monetary policy which we will have from 1 January next year will automatically yield all sorts of benefits, are seriously mistaken.
A monetary policy requires a coordinated and intelligent economic policy.
Without this a great deal can go wrong.
In short, the lack of commitment to a coordinated economic policy really must be brought to an end.
I would like to give you an example. The European Central Bank will in practice direct its monetary policy at the average rate of inflation within the euro area.
For each individual country this means that internal low inflation coupled with rising inflation elsewhere could lead to higher interest rates, and could act as a brake on economic development.
In short, every country taking part in EMU has an interest in other euro countries keeping their inflation down, otherwise the independent ECB will punish them unrelentingly, with negative consequences for the low inflation countries as well.
Fortunately, the Member States have sufficient instruments at their disposal to keep inflation down, for example by taking specific tax measures when the economy threatens to overheat.
Sometimes pressure will be needed to take these undoubtedly unpopular measures in good time, in the interest of the others as well. The global guidelines for economic policy covering the policy mix at European level and within the Member States will thus be given overriding importance.
If this is to become successful it must have political support.
This means that parliaments must be able to exert genuine influence.
In order to close the existing democratic gap, an interinstitutional agreement, as requested by this Parliament two weeks ago, is urgently needed.
An important characteristic of the Europe of the single currency is that it is dependent on a mere 10 % of external trade.
This means that we can determine our own prosperity or lack of it.
The policy mix at European level should take into account that the euro area must take care of its own growth impulses.
Export growth will make a contribution, but in a very limited way, and this year it is actually zero.
The core recommendations of the global guidelines of recent years, namely continuous cutbacks, strict monetary policy, and wage restraint whereby the wage increase remains 1 % behind productivity increase, cannot continue unchanged.
A time schedule must be set for the cutbacks, or the monetary policy or wage restraints must be relaxed.
Without suddenly breaking with the existing policy, the political message should be that growth and employment are now being given priority.
This will mean in practice that every country must be recommended its own particular policy mix , so that Europe as a whole is able to pursue a policy aimed at growth and job creation which does not jeopardize inflation.
Mr President, I wish to say that the economic policy of 1998 has been sealed by the introduction of the euro and I think that the move towards the euro is pervaded by a broad conflict. On the one hand, we have the unilateral adherence of the leaders of the Member States and of the European Union to the financial criteria, the public debt.
This is now reaching gigantic proportions.
We are talking of stability agreements that will last ten years. On the other hand, we have the anguish of the European communities concerning employment, which, I believe, was expressed with a very strong warning during the elections in Saxony, and we have to take account of the fact that one out of four young people voted for the extreme right.
From this viewpoint, we are in total disagreement with the position of the Commission.
In the report by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm I can see that there is an orientation towards issues of development and employment, but I fear that this positive orientation of the rapporteur is being sacrificed in the name of consensus.
In this sense, there are blatant contradictions: in paragraph 40 we are for the reduction of working hours; in paragraph 39 we are against; in paragraph 25 we do not want a reduction in the wage of unskilled workers; in paragraph 26 we do.
I think that a clearer orientation is called for, that this unilateral policy should be broken and that we should endeavour to make the euro popular rather than detested by the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, in spite of this report's rather over-optimistic slant, it covers all the relevant points with great clarity.
Given that - as everyone knows - Europe's main problem is excessive unemployment, and we must realise that it is essentially a structural problem.
The competitiveness of the European economy frankly leaves a lot to be desired.
We must, therefore, urgently increase resources for research and for the promotion of state-of-the-art technology both at European and national level.
We must place at the top of the agenda measures to promote competition favouring small and mediumsized enterprises, including a decrease in their administrative burden and an easing of access to risk capital.
The issue of occasionally but obviously excessive fringe benefits and the reduction of the tax burden on work will be priorities for European economic policy over the coming years.
Mr President, the report from the European Commission and the report by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm clearly emphasize that we are making preparations for using the opportunities of globalization and of European integration to favour growth, investment and employment, and to contribute to an increase in prosperity and social justice in the European Union.
It is clear both in this Annual Economic Report and in the report by Mr Gasòliba I Böhm that we have come through the period of confrontation, with supply-side policy on the one hand and demand-orientated measures on the other.
We believe that in the European Union we need measures both in the areas of macro and micro policy, and also supply-side and demand-orientated policies.
A range of measures is on the table which ought to be used. We know that we can only follow this approach through to ensure a high level of employment, as is rightly required and emphasized by Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union - as well as through the employment chapter in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the resolutions of the Employment Summit and the strategies during the British Presidency of the Council and the forthcoming Austrian Presidency which we hope will point the way - if, together with structural policy and measures in the labour market, education and training policies, a further basket of measures makes economic growth of 3 % to 3.5 % possible.
The introduction of monetary union on time is certainly indispensable, since exchange-rate fluctuations in the internal market which are economically damaging will then cease, a better policy mix will be possible and it will also be possible to avoid conflicts between budget and monetary policies.
However, above all, and I would again like to express my support for this, at last it will be possible to devise coordinated economic policies worthy of their name.
Up to now, the fundamentals of economic policy have required nothing from any Member State.
I hope in the wake of this Annual Economic Report and this debate in the European Parliament that the coordination of economic policies in the European Union will finally make it plain that political union also means joint economic policy which is in the common interest and which stimulates growth, investment and employment.
I would like once more to stress that the extent of the reduction in public investment is irresponsible!
We must, therefore, take more account of the stimulant of public investments for private investments and move forward in this area; otherwise, it will be impossible to achieve the growth in employment which we urgently need in the European Union.
Mr President, even before it has come into force, monetary union is a success.
It accelerated necessary debt rescheduling which is now leading to increased growth in the European economy, and which has also increased self-confidence in the EU.
In order to take full advantage of EMU and to strengthen our competitiveness and the conditions for prosperity in Europe, policies must be directed at structural reform.
Budget reorganization has affected the everyday lives of the citizens.
Now a correctly designed structural policy can create better conditions for the EU and its inhabitants.
The remarkable thing is that structural reforms which cost nothing appear to be more difficult to accept than budget reorganization, probably because they challenge strong special interests.
That is why I would like to congratulate the Commissioner on a courageous document which discusses the importance of reformed labour markets which work better.
I am pleased about this and would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Gasòliba I Böhm, whose report shows that we in Parliament are prepared to accept and make a constructive contribution to the essential debate and to accelerate the decisions which need to be taken in order for people to be able to reform inflexible markets with far too many left over monopolies.
I also think that the Commission's report is worth drawing attention to as far as the annexes of statistical information are concerned.
The aim of the report is not to assess the development of individual countries, but the columns speak clearly.
We can see how countries whose political leadership has neglected and delayed modernization of the labour market in particular have increased the tax burden and thus reduced levels of employment and reduced common resources.
On the other hand, we can see how other countries which make proper use of the new conditions are able to increase growth, employment and prosperity.
Let these figures and the Commission's reasoning represent both alarm bells and carrots when the work on the economic guidelines is completed.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Gasòliba for listening when he prepared his report.
Despite our differences, even our divergences, he has made great efforts to bring Parliament largely together on a position, a common and strong economic analysis.
This is also what I am trying to do with my report on European industrial competitiveness, which will be considered in Strasbourg in a couple of weeks' time.
I would also like to thank the Commission and to say how pleased I am with the development of our institutions, the Council, the Commission and Parliament, in this field.
In effect, our institutions are now reflecting and working together to bring a strong European economy out of the multiple conditions, avoiding simple but entrenched confrontations, and limited to two or three solid points.
Today, finally, the strengths of the European economy are recognized, the weaknesses are clearly analysed and, consequently, everyone is making an effort to search for solutions to strengthen the former and reduce the latter.
I therefore largely recognize my own views in the Gasòliba report, as amended by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I participated in these amendments, and I voted for the final report.
I would this evening therefore simply like to highlight five points.
Firstly, I would mention the importance of European research.
It is a basic condition and sufficient appropriations must therefore be given to the Fifth Framework Programme, in any case, more than ECU 16 billion should be set aside.
Secondly, there is the social dimension of Europe, which is not a brake on growth, whatever some may say.
It is, on the contrary, an asset.
A worker who feels good is more competitive and makes his company more competitive.
In any case, if social aspects are devalued, Europe will always lose in terms of world competitiveness.
The third aspect concerns initial and ongoing training, which must be ever more closely linked to technical, technological and economic developments.
The fourth point involves our necessary adaptation to technical developments, to developments in the market, in needs and in society as a whole, which does not boil down to the flexibility of labour.
Finally and fifthly, I must mention job sharing and the reduction of working time which are necessary in order to give more time for life and so that the increase in productivity is not translated into further unemployment.
This is why, as a socialist, I am in favour of a reduction of working time in France, and I hope that our positive results in terms of jobs will lead to its rapid extension to the rest of Europe.
This is why, personally, I am prepared to support Amendment No 5 tabled by the Confederal Group of the European United Left.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is all I wanted to say on Mr Gasòliba's report, which I support.
I hope that, in the wake of this report, in the wake of the euro, which is a fantastic vector for federalist integration, we will now be able to develop a political Europe and a social Europe.
Some will say: that is another story.
For me, a diehard federalist campaigner, it is at the heart of today's debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that the Commission's 1998 report is entitled for the first time "Growth and Employment in the Stability-Oriented Framework of EMU' is very important. I also want to underline, as some of my colleagues have already done, the historical importance to all European citizens of the momentous decision we the representatives of the European people are going to adopt in this Parliament on 2 May to introduce the new currency.
It is also true that the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Luxembourg Summit marked a "before' and "after' in the employment policies of each Member State.
But we have to realize that the people of Europe are hoping that our political debates will materialize into concrete deeds, so that our young people, our women, our long-term unemployed and disabled - the sectors suffering the worst unemployment - see a fulfilment of their logical hopes of being able to work and develop personally and socially in the new Europe we are all building.
It is also important, ladies and gentlemen, that we have almost achieved a general consensus on the measures to adopt to improve the worrying unemployment figures suffered by the European Union as a whole.
But along with the nominal economic convergence already achieved, we also need much more progress in the social convergence which facilitates the strengthening of the internal market, the breaking down of language and cultural barriers which hinder worker mobility and the harmonization of social security systems. These, together with a far-reaching reform of education and training systems, can allow our citizens to adapt to the demands not just of the national job markets but of the whole European market.
At the same time, the new European society also has to adapt with almost breathtaking speed to the new technologies which surprise us daily and which call for a radical change in the traditional concept of work and business.
For example, teleworking, electronic commerce, telemedicine or the development of the Internet itself call for a major effort on the part of the Member States so that our young people in particular can adapt to this mutation within society.
In short, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us ensure that the Europe of the euro is the Europe of work, solidarity and wellbeing.
If these objectives fail, it will be the failure of we who on Saturday will be turning European history on its head.
Mr President, the Commission's annual report states that a long-term economic revival has begun.
Exports are increasing and the euro will have a favourable exchange rate with the US dollar.
It is now up to us to shape a European Economic and Monetary Union which is based on employment, public investment and increased competitiveness in Europe.
Although the Commission's annual report ignores the difficulties the crisis in Asia is causing for the European economy, the Commission has succeeded in compiling a very competent and comprehensive document.
It is, however, rather rash to discuss the five-year economic situation without, for example, carrying out detailed cost analyses.
I only hope the future proves as rosy.
The rapporteur says it is important to create a means of making comparisons in investment and employment throughout the Union.
I think the level of public investment at present in the Union is totally insufficient to improve European competitiveness.
Actually, it is quite obvious that public investment gives encouragement to private investment, for example in infrastructure financing.
The Commission's proposal to reduce VAT in labour-intensive sectors is most worthwhile.
I myself have often spoken of a transaction tax on currency trading, which is a very lucrative business.
Furthermore, Jacques Delors and many others have proposed this.
In this way we could introduce tax relief systems for sectors that employ large numbers of workers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to add my congratulations to those being expressed generally to my colleague and good friend Carles-Alfred Gasòliba I Böhm for his report and for the flexibility with which he has incorporated the amendments.
This is a balanced report, which properly identifies the main lines of action in economic policy at Union level and makes well-placed comments or clarifications in relation to the Commission's report.
I want to add a few comments to back up what I have just said.
Firstly, there is the reference to employment, which is treated at length, with the accent placed on growth, investment and structural reforms, including an interesting reference to the concept of employability which was popularized by New Labour - Tony Blair's Labour Party - and is becoming a keyword in the employment debate.
Secondly, the report insists on the need to coordinate the economic policy of the Member States within the monetary union.
We would like to deepen that coordination to the point of having a real economic government of the Union, to serve as a counterweight to the monetary authority. However, it is not just a question of a counterweight, but also a matter of achieving an economic government able to extract the full potential of the new panorama being created with the introduction of the single currency.
Thirdly, I think it is important to stress the insistence on investment as an essential element for growth and to improve competitiveness.
On this point, I completely agree with what Alan Donnelly said a little while ago.
Fourthly, another point in the Gasòliba report which deserves mention is its strong support for maintaining the European social model, as set out in paragraph 25.
Finally, although I could add more, I will conclude by saying that I am pleased with the realistic approach to the question of reduced working hours, that is, the 35-hour week.
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report.
The Commission report was extremely optimistic.
It talked about a renewed upturn in the spring of 1996 which is gathering momentum and is expected to turn into a self-sustained expansion.
I would like to err on the side of caution.
The Commission talks about this being driven by demand from outside the EU and clearly it has taken into consideration the recent developments in Asia.
The developments in Asia have not stopped and Japan, in particular, is in difficulty and I predict its difficulties will increase.
I do not know exactly how much the Commission has revised its growth figures as a result of what has happened in Asia but the potential for catastrophe has not gone.
The Commission also claims a virtuous circle in terms of the economy for three reasons: the favourable monetary conditions, strengthened internal demand and improved confidence.
My criticism of the report from the Commission is that it does little in the form of positive policy support for the strengthening of internal demand.
How can we tackle unemployment if we do not create the conditions for internal demand, in particular at a time when external demand from Asia may be significantly reduced.
The Commission is relying on endogenous growth and it is a leap of faith which I fear many European citizens will not make.
I was elected to this Parliament in 1994 when the Delors report was all the rage and we had a quest to reduce unemployment by 15 million by the year 2000.
We are not being totally honest with the European public because unemployment in the European Union has not been reduced by anywhere near that amount.
People have memories and while we accept that 2 to 3 % growth will take place, it is not near enough to the 4 % that the US has consistently experienced to create the millions of jobs that it has to.
I want to see Europe create millions of jobs, too.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all my congratulations go to Mr Gasòliba I Böhm on his excellent report inviting us to reflect on the options to be considered for the broad guidelines of 1998 economic policy, which the Commission will present on 13 May this year.
The broad guidelines of economic policy will be the first post-euro guidelines and for this reason they are important.
They are also the first to fall within the framework of the Luxembourg European Council's conclusions on employment.
Thus, the Commission's Annual Economic Report is presented this year as a first stage in the formulation of these broad guidelines.
It is an important exercise and I am glad that you organized a meeting with economic experts on 17 March to prepare this report.
I can assure you that the Commission will take your observations and suggestions duly into account when drawing up its proposal.
Since it is getting late, I would like to reply very rapidly to the questions which have been raised and say a few words on the state of the European economy before reminding you of, or outlining, the Commission's principle recommendations.
With regard to the state of the European economy, the recovery which commenced in the spring of 1996 is gaining momentum and should lead to a process of self-sustained growth.
This will have a favourable impact on employment which, nevertheless, remains one of our main concerns, as you know.
Mr Hendrick, I could say to you that we are not over optimistic.
Our growth forecasts correspond in general to those laid down by the large international institutions.
Last March we revised them downwards slightly, to 0.2 points for 1998 and 0.1 points for 1999, in order to take into account the effects of the Asian crisis.
Having said this, growth will nevertheless be 2.7 % in 1997 and 2.8 % in 1998. This is already an improvement.
The Commission is following the situation in Asia closely, particularly with regard to Japan, international trade and sectoral aspects of the crisis, where we have identified eight sectors in particular which seem to be the most exposed.
We are following this closely.
I would like to echo here one of your rapporteur's requests, in collaboration moreover, with what I believe Mr Paasilinna mentioned.
You must not believe that the Commission does not consider the risks which could threaten its central scenario.
On the contrary, the Commission has taken serious note of your suggestion for an alternative scenario and a medium-term analysis.
I can assure you that it will make an effort to reply to this over the coming years.
But today, Europe's growth is based increasingly on its own strengths, on internal demand.
This issue was raised by Mrs Randzio-Plath, Mr Paasilinna, Mr Pérez Royo, Mr Donnelly and Mr Metten amongst others.
Private consumption is increasing, from 2 % in 1996 to 2.6 % in 1998 and 1999.
It is reassuring for the development of domestic demand.
Similarly, investment levels have been supported above what was forecast and capital investment will increase from 6.4 % in 1998 to 7 % in 1999.
This is compared with 4.4 % in 1997.
These figures are the result of a return of confidence.
On this point, I would like to clarify to Mr Donnelly that it is true that public investment as a percentage of GDP has fallen from 2.9 % in 1990 to 2.2 % in 1997, and that this trend must not continue.
The Commission has taken every opportunity of stating this and, in particular, we will insist on this point in the new broad guidelines for 1998 economic policy.
This said, do not underestimate the impact of investment because of the cofinancing of certain investments in the private sector, which can give a slightly distorted view of the figures.
Finally, on this aspect of demand, I will say to Mr Metten that demand must not, all the same, be artificially stimulated by new budget deficits or overly rapid increases in salaries.
This would pose a threat to the recovery which our economy has benefited from over a number of years, and we would lapse into a situation of deficit, with the consequence of higher interest rates and the ensuing negative effects on growth and employment.
Thus, the economic strategy advocated by the Commission, which is also advocated by the monitoring which Member States have been carrying out for a number of years, is beginning to bear fruit, particularly in terms of job creation.
In reply to Mr van Velzen: look at the figures.
Europe created 600 000 jobs in 1997.
On the basis of our forecasts, another 2 800 000 should be created in 1998 and 1999 meaning that, in total, we will have created 3 400 000 jobs over three years.
It is encouraging, even though I am aware that it will not compensate for the 4 500 000 job losses registered throughout the 1990s.
These figures illustrate the need to promote more sustainable, employment-creating growth.
Mr Gasòliba suggests using benchmarks for this.
Allow me to remind you that the Commission's recommendation for the first guidelines on employment contained quantifiable objectives, and it was the Council which did not accept them and which did not follow the Commission in this matter.
But to promote growth which provides more jobs remains the essential objective of the broad guidelines of economic policy and it is the second point I would like to touch upon very rapidly with you now.
At the request of the Amsterdam European Council, the broad guidelines for economic policy for 1998 will emphasize the need for better coordination of macroeconomic policies and structural measures.
These two policies are inseparable if you want to promote growth and employment, as the rapporteur rightly pointed out.
With regard to macroeconomic policy, we had the opportunity of discussing this in the previous report and so I will not go into the details.
Mrs Randzio-Plath is right.
We must avoid confrontation between a supply policy and a demand policy.
The Commission has always tried to do this.
I have noted over the past few years that the broad guidelines of economic policy advocate a stable macroeconomic framework within Economic and Monetary Union, of which the three pillars are, naturally, a monetary policy based on price stability, the durable consolidation of public finances and a salary policy compatible with price stability and a return on investment.
EMU and the euro will strengthen this stable economic framework for all the Member States.
In this respect, I am glad the European Parliament supports that strategy.
But beyond this macroeconomic policy, in order to produce the maximum effect in terms of jobs, this framework must be complemented by structural reforms, reforms firstly at the level of the market for goods and services.
In order to invest, businessmen must not be discouraged from the start by overly bureaucratic regulations.
Similarly, greater growth should also bring about greater demand for labour.
There still exist too many administrative rigidities, too many administrative formalities, access to the capital markets is still too difficult for small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe, as the rapporteur noted.
I remember, nevertheless, that on 31 March the Commission proposed an action plan on access to capital investment on the part of small and medium-sized enterprises.
This action plan will be implemented as from autumn 1998 if, of course, the Heads of State or Government approve it in Cardiff.
Reforms are also necessary in the labour market.
A number of options must be examined including the reduction of non-wage labour costs, it being understood that, for budgetary reasons, only a reduction in non-wage labour costs targeted at the bottom of the salary scale is possible.
In any case, this is only realistic if accompanied by a containment of social expenditure.
The second option is salary differentiation. Is it right that the unemployment rate in 25 regions of the European Union should be less than 5 % whilst in 25 others it is more than 22 %?
This leads us to consider the problem of salary differentiation depending on productivity levels and according to regional skills, even sectors of activity.
The final option which has been mentioned, and I must say a word about it, is the reduction of working time.
I believe it was Mrs Angelilli who particularly questioned me on this matter.
We must beware of ready-made slogans and ideas on this issue.
A reduction in working time could have complex and contradictory effects on employment for, contrary to a generally accepted idea, employment is not a fixed quantity.
It is, on the contrary, an endogenous variable in the economic system, which fluctuates according to all the other variables.
We therefore have to be careful and to weigh up all the consequences of the measures to be taken.
A reduction in working time may encourage employment, but only under certain conditions.
Here, too, we must remember that it must not have consequences for the recovery of public finances and it must be neutral from the point of view of the cost borne by companies.
We must, in fact, avoid a reduction in company profitability, as this could cause a reduction in investment, with negative effects on employment in the long run. It should also be avoided if such a reduction implies a lowering of salaries within the companies concerned.
In any case, with regard to a reduction in working time, I would say that this subject cannot be dealt with in a general manner nor out of context.
It must be assessed within the overall context of work organization.
This issue is for negotiation between the social partners at a microeconomic level - the branch or the company - as I think the rapporteur mentioned.
But beyond a particular interest in specific measures, a reduction in unemployment can only be achieved through the steady continuation over a period of time of global, coherent and specific policies which, as Mr Caudron highlighted, cover aspects of research, education and training.
In conclusion, I would say that this exercise of drawing up broad guidelines for economic policy is set within the structure of the issue of employment, and the objective is clearly to define a framework which is propitious to growth and employment, whilst assuring the smooth running of Economic and Monetary Union.
All of this is not contradictory.
Mr President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission thanks the House for its contribution to these reflections and I can assure you that it will take your recommendations into account in drawing up the broad guidelines for economic policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, the link has been made twice or even three times here between unemployment, lack of hope and right-wing voters, to the applause of the House.
May I ask you kindly what your response to this is, for I believe that you are just as frightened and troubled as we are at the German result of 13.6 % for the German People's Union, financed by one person, a right-wing party without an agenda.
I would like to hear your opinion on this subject.
I can answer very clearly that unemployment is the scourge of Europe.
The problem of unemployment will not be solved by increasing deficits, indeed past experience has demonstrated the complete opposite.
The greatest growth has been experienced in those countries which have reduced their deficit, thus enabling the creation of more jobs.
Take the example of the Netherlands or Ireland.
But this is not sufficient to solve the unemployment problem.
The very roots of the problem also have to be tackled.
That is why coherent structural policies must be pursued.
On a political level, it seems to me rather easy, for populist aims, for the aims of politicians, to look for scapegoats, to look for people responsible where there are none.
Let us not try to lay the blame on Europe when, at the moment, it is through Europe, through greater Europeanism, and through more concerted actions at European level that we will manage to conquer the scourge of unemployment.
But it will take time.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Textiles and the clothing industry
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Council and to the Commission on textiles and the clothing industry, by the following Members:
Soltwedel-Schäfer, Hautala and Wolf (B4-0273/98 and B4-0274/98), on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -Puerta and Ribeiro (B4-0275/98 and B4-0276/98), on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -Ferrer (B4-0277/98 and B4-0278/98), on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -Gasòliba i Böhm (B4-0284/98 and B4-0285/98), on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -Pasty, Azzolini, Kaklamanis, Podestà, Donnay, Girão Pereira, Viceconte, Arroni, Gallagher, Garosci, Mezzaroma and Guinebertière (B4-0386/98 and B4-0387/98), on behalf of the Groupe Forza Europa; -Sainjon (B4-0462/98), on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
Mr President, this will now go forward to the Council and the Commission.
You have before you my motions for an amendment.
Briefly, they concern increasing the ecological awareness of the whole textile industry.
This is not the first time that I have raised this topic.
There are detailed debates and discussions on this subject, including some with Commissioner Bangemann.
So I would ask what plans the Commission has and what procedure the Council intends to implement in terms of urgently increasing the ecological orientation of the textile industry, for example, in relation to the removal of pollutants in textiles themselves which can lead to allergies, and in relation to the danger to employees in manufacturing these products, as well as the danger to the environment through air, soil and water pollution? Mr Bangemann told me here a year ago that there was a working group dealing with this issue.
Guidelines were being drawn up.
That is one thing. My various inquiries to the Commission - in writing, too - have produced no response, in other words, there is no answer to them.
I would like to hear what you have to say about this.
I have one final point about child labour.
As you know, child labour in the clothing and textile industries, particularly in Portugal, is mentioned in a wide range of opinions by the European Parliament.
This is a dreadful phenomenon in Europe, and I would ask you to clarify your position on this too.
Mr President, representatives of the Council and the Commission, the oral questions, and the resolution that has come from them, are an attempt to send a clear signal from this House to the Industry Council on 7 May, which, we hope, will be assessing the Commission's proposal on a 'plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry' .
The purpose of this regulation formula is to tell you that neither by omission nor by mere observance of a ritual abandon will Parliament abandon its duty to state its opinion on the competitiveness of a major industry like textiles and clothing, which is of vital importance to the economy and jobs in some Member States.
It is also intended to express our dissatisfaction with what the Commission has called a 'plan of action' , which it is not.
It may be a strategic reflection document, but if it is to be a plan of action it needs projects, timetables, and the allocation of funds.
Furthermore, it would have been sufficient to give it that status, and allow it to be debated as such, if some of the recommendations expressed by our social partners in their reports had been approved.
Then again, it amounts to a declaration of those things Parliament regards as necessary and urgent.
For our part, we want an approach that is neither fragmented nor unbalanced, one that covers the industry as a whole, as a production line , with special attention to labour-intensive activities.
We want competitiveness in the industry in order to fight against unfair and unbalanced competition, especially where social conditions are concerned, and that means we have to adopt ILO-based social clauses in our bilateral and multilateral planning.
We want certification of social and environmental conditions, and we want national certificates recognized at European Union level.
To make the industry competitive we also want incentives for new products and technology, better access to foreign markets, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, more training, particularly for female workers, but the list and details of these matters, and others, will be found in the report we are in the course of preparing.
Finally, this regulation formula is intended to tell you that we in Parliament are drawing up a report based on the Commission's document.
This is being taken seriously because it has the weight of an institutional statement demanding the right to participate in processes of this kind and have its work taken into account; if only because this 'construction of Europe' would be a poor thing if a matter as important as the competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry went no further than the document the Commission has submitted.
The process must go on, and the European Parliament must take part in it. That is Parliament's duty and it is what the industry demands and needs .
Mr President, I want to begin by saying that I regret the fact that the Industry Council planned to make a statement on the Commission communication about measures to favour competitiveness in the textiles and clothing sector without waiting to hear Parliament's position on that communication.
So the purpose of this debate is very clear: to indicate the main lines of action that Parliament thinks should be proposed to increase competitiveness and thereby guarantee the survival of the European textile and clothing sector.
In contrast to what some people might think, this sector is neither in crisis nor headed towards extinction.
In fact, thanks to the reorganizations which have taken place, the quality of its products and designs and its ability to respond rapidly, the textile and clothing sector is today ready to confront the great challenge of international competitiveness and face the future with optimism.
Therefore, the Group of the European People's Party thinks that the Commission and the Council should place more emphasis on effective reciprocal access to third-country markets. The accompanying action plan does not go far enough in this respect.
Do the Commission and the Council realize that in total it is estimated that there are 600 tariff barriers hindering the free export of Community textile products? If the Council and the Commission really want to favour the competitiveness of the textile and clothing sector, they should demand that third countries respect the rules and disciplines of GATT, propose effective and flexible coordinated measures to combat fraud and the falsification of certificates of origin, protect industrial property, and get third countries to respect basic social and environmental rules.
It is true that many other measures are needed - in the area of research and development, for example, and in training - but no measure will be effective if there is not real access to the international markets and respect by everybody for the same rules of play.
To conclude, Mr President, I want to say how frustrated my group is at the draft conclusions prepared by the Council, which absolutely fail to respond to the needs of a key sector. So I beg the Council to think again and take account of the opinions of this Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is significant that the whole political spectrum represented within this Parliament is worried about the future of the European textile and clothing industry.
I believe that the fact that different political views are united in expressing this concern shows the importance of this sector which, on the one hand, has a very long tradition in European industrial development and, on the other hand, is characterized by something so important at the moment that it has not escaped anybody's attention - something we have addressed in our earlier debates this afternoon: the ability to generate employment.
So the social dimension of the textile and clothing industry should also be taken into consideration.
The crux of the various speeches is a request to the Commission and the Council to do something to guarantee the continuity of the textile industry, under the best possible conditions.
It is not a question of maintaining it in its current situation.
It is not just a question of helping it to survive.
It is a matter of providing it with a series of mechanisms to guarantee its competitiveness in an open market which is becoming increasingly competitive in the global economy in which we operate.
So we are putting a series of proposals to the Commission.
Firstly, we need to ensure that technological innovation, technological improvements and access to new technologies - basically, information technology and electronic commerce - can be applied correctly within the textile industry, and that the Commission analyses it.
Another very important aspect is that the whole production chain should be considered, not just a few specific subsectors of the industry.
And thirdly, it is also very important to ensure that people receive the appropriate training so that - I repeat - the competitiveness of the European textile industry can allow it to survive and maintain the employment level we all want.
Mr President, the textile industry is very important to the European Union but is also very delicate, as my companions have already said.
It is important because it is a basic industry in many Structural Fund Objective 1 regions and provides work for more than two million citizens of the European Union.
And it is delicate because of its disheartening statistics.
More than 600 000 jobs have been lost in the sector over the last six years and, according to forecasts, more than 800 000 will be lost in the short term.
This is a dramatic time for the sector.
We in this Parliament should denounce the situation and announce urgent remedies.
No matter what sector we are talking about, we cannot continue to have unfair competition and constant dumping in the European market, with adverse effects on our businesses and, finally, our people.
The current state of the European textile sector has partly arisen as a result of infringement of international and Community market rules, such as those relating to respect for the environment, and social and intellectual protection.
I have already mentioned the importance of the textile industry in most of the Objective 1 regions, the least developed of the European Union.
Perhaps for that reason, those regions are very vulnerable, not just to the effects of dumping we are complaining about here, but also to the Community market policy itself, with the recent entry into force of agreements with third countries such as Turkey, or liberalization with regard to countries in the east.
The entry into effect of the second phase of the WTO textile agreement is particularly important, since it opens the way for a greater liberalization of the market.
All these factors are hitting our Community textile industry.
At least the Commission's document on textiles in the European Union is necessary and important. However, it lacks a real plan of action which takes account of all the difficulties currently being experienced by the textile industry and the Objective 1 regions and does not include a real policy of economic and social cohesion.
And this is where we must insist and call upon the Commission to implement a Community policy which meets the needs of our textile industry and, above all, the needs of the regions involved.
It would be a good move for the Commission to increase the funding in Agenda 2000 and provide continuity for the Retex programme, which is so important for the sector.
That could only improve the competitiveness of our textile industry and of the regions concerned, while making a positive contribution - as we have already said - to economic and social cohesion within the European Union.
Mr President, I should first like to thank the five honourable Members for tabling and speaking to their questions and the five other honourable Members who have stayed to hear the replies and for giving the Council the opportunity to reaffirm its support for this vitally important European industry.
The Council is very aware of the challenges which face all European industry in a world of increasing globalization and new technologies.
It has recognized that competitiveness in European industry provides the very foundation for growth, creating jobs and raising living standards for us all.
The European clothing and textile industry is a key economic sector in Europe in terms of production and employment.
The Council has always recognized the need for Community support to ensure the competitiveness of this sector of the economy.
In this context it might be helpful if I set out some of the background to the current initiatives.
The guidelines governing the Community's policies in this area were defined by the Council in 1994.
These guidelines established a general framework for European industrial strategy in the textile and clothing sector.
The strategy was devised to take particular account of the specific features which characterize each industry.
These guidelines established a general framework for European industrial strategy in the textile and clothing sector and the current initiatives in the textile sector can be traced back to the conclusions of the Industry Council of 28 March and 14 November 1996.
These concerned, respectively, the impact of international developments on the Community's textile and clothing sector and also on the competitiveness of subcontracting in the textile and clothing industry in the European Union.
These conclusions were followed up on 3 November 1997 by a Commission communication entitled Action Plan to increase the Competitiveness of the European Textile and Clothing Industry.
That communication was prepared in the context of the dialogue which has been taking place at the Commission's initiative between the parties involved in the textile and clothing sector and, in particular, the national and Community public authorities and the social partners.
The Commission's action plan defines a number of priority areas on which the actions of different parties concerned should focus.
It is currently being examined within the relevant Council bodies and it is on the agenda of the next meeting of the Industry Council on 7 May 1998.
At this stage the presidency envisages that the Industry Council will make an initial response to the Commission's communication in the form of conclusions.
These would spell out the Council's position on the initiatives identified by the Commission as areas for priority action.
All the issues raised by the five honourable Members today are highlighted as areas of activity within that plan.
In particular, the Council will want to consider five key questions: jobs and training; the development and dissemination of new products, methods and equipment in the communication and information technologies; the proper operation of the internal market; access to the markets of third countries and strict compliance with the rules and disciplines freely accepted under international agreements; and regional development.
Honourable Members and in particular Mr Ribeiro have raised the question of the precise resources required for training if the competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry is to be improved.
The Commission's action plan does not contain details on which to base an assessment of its financial consequences.
The initiative suggested will be funded from within the current budgetary framework.
I commend the excellent document prepared by DG III in conjunction with Eurotex, the European Textile and Clothing Federation, which details in 91 pages and by sector where in each Member State funds can be accessed.
Although there is no suggested timetable for the initiatives under the action plan we hope to make steady progress.
We would also expect the continuation of the Commission-led dialogue with all those involved in the sector, including the Member States and the social partners.
This would help to ensure constant monitoring of progress and allow us to adapt measures to structural and economic developments.
I will turn now to some of the more specific questions tabled today and which are not directly covered by the action plan.
Firstly, the question by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer.
The matter of child labour is covered by many ILO conventions to which all Member States of the EU are individual parties, in particular Convention No 28 on forced labour and No 138 on child labour.
This question has also been dealt with at Community level by Council Directive 94/33/EC on the protection of young people at work, Article 1 of which states that Member States shall take the necessary measures to prohibit work by children.
Ensuring the correct implementation of this directive is a matter for individual Member States and the Commission.
Honourable Members have also raised concerns about health and safety and the environment.
These are matters which the Council is concerned to take into account in all its policies.
Any measures taken to modernize the textile and clothing industry in the European Union will need to comply with the Community's current rules on workers' health and safety and on protection of the environment.
These would include, among others, the framework directive 80/1107/EEC on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to chemical, physical and biological agents at work, and all the subsequent individual directives.
Framework Council directive 89/391 on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work and all the subsequent individual directives are also covered.
Two other points were raised to which I want to respond directly.
There was a suggestion and a concern that the European Parliament has not been given an opportunity to give its opinion.
I know this Parliament will pass a resolution tomorrow and I will ensure that the Council considers this carefully before it considers its action programme at the Industry Council on 7 May.
Members were concerned about market access.
This is a key target for the action plan which asks for strict compliance with rules and disciplines under international agreements.
In conclusion, the Commission communication has had the valuable effect of instigating a broad discussion around the idea of a genuine European strategy for the textile and clothing industry requiring the full participation of all Community institutions and bodies as well as Member States and social partners.
In that context, the Council will not fail to take account of the opinions delivered here by the European Parliament on this subject.
I look forward in particular to hearing your views during the course of this debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to be able to explain to you the Commission's position on the overall policy it is pursuing, or attempting to pursue, with regard to the textiles and clothing industry.
I will reply successively to the different aspects of the questions which have been raised, either verbally or in writing, whilst trying to be as general as possible.
Firstly, concerning the evaluation of financial aid given to the textiles and clothing industry, this sector does not receive aid from any arrangement which would be specific to it.
We currently have a number of horizontal programmes: Retex, SME, ADAPT and Emploi , along with actions in the field of the targeted technologies and in traditional industries.
The number of applications which are approved depends on the quality of the projects and the capacity for coordination between the industry and the social partners.
With regard to all the Community initiatives, evaluation reports are currently underway, which should enable us to examine the impact of these initiatives on the modernization of the industrial fabric of the regions concerned and of the coherence of these objectives with industrial policy.
Secondly, I want to mention sectoral adjustments, on the eve of the liberalization of world trade.
I would first of all say that this liberalization has already occurred, and it resulted in a deep restructuring and modernization of the sector. However, overall, increases in productivity, the strengthening of competitive advantages, know-how, a high value added and innovation all allow the textiles and clothing industry to safeguard its dominant position in world trade, since the sector is the world's largest exporter of textile products and the third largest exporter of clothing.
With regard to the measures envisaged to alleviate, at regional level, the social and economic consequences of restructuring efforts, let me state that numerous instruments are available to accompany and support transformations in this sector. I am thinking in particular of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, which play an important role in regions where the investment and social costs of restructuring are particularly high.
That is the role of Retex, the role of the frameworks for Community initiatives or Community support frameworks.
In addition, there are programmes for training workers to adapt to industrial change, which enable stable jobs to be preserved within the Union.
On this subject, for the new programming which will cover the period 2000-2006, the Commission approved a draft regulation on 18 March, relating to general measures for the Structural Funds.
In this draft, the Commission proposes, in particular, the implementation of a new Objective 2 which should support the economic and social redevelopment of regions faced with restructuring, especially those particularly affected by textile restructuring.
These actions, which are currently being carried out through the framework of the Retex initiative, could be renewed in the context of the new Objective 2.
The fourth issue is child labour.
Let me remind you that Directive 94/37, relating to the protection of young people, forbids child labour in Member States.
According to this directive, the minimum age is set at 15 or 16, according to the education system in place.
Member States have had two years to transpose this directive into their national legislation.
The Commission is currently examining the notifications of each Member State to see in which states this has been carried out and how the transposition has been effected.
Furthermore, within the framework of social dialogue, the unions and management have signed a charter of good conduct relating to working conditions in the European textiles and clothing industry.
The social partners have committed themselves to assuring the promotion of this code of conduct and to following up its progressive accomplishment, particularly through an annual evaluation.
The fifth matter is the environment and public health.
Clearly, they constitute a key factor in the modernization of the textiles and clothing industry.
Nevertheless, it is appropriate to ensure that national legislations, which are sometimes different, do not create new and possibly unjustified technical obstacles to the running of the Community market.
That is why the Commission is carrying out an examination of this issue, taking the greatest account, of course, of consumer protection and the environment. In certain cases, harmonization at Community level is insufficient, for example, this is the case with azo dyes.
In other cases - I am thinking especially of heavy metals - the pursuit of analytical work is still necessary, and an evaluation of the health risks which could occur through the use of these dangerous substances is underway.
Sixthly, can we quantify the necessary financial resources required for training in order to improve the competitiveness of the textiles sector? The amount needed to restructure the sector cannot be specified by the Commission.
Indeed, it is for the companies themselves to specify their financial needs for new investments and to use the amounts which are set aside for this purpose in the Structural Funds or within the framework of research and development programmes, or within the framework of Community initiatives such as ADAPT - ECU 1 400 000 000 - or Emploi , with the same amount.
All of these programmes can provide close support to the changes in this industry, especially with regard to training.
My seventh point concerns the questions by Mrs Ferrer and Mr Gasòliba to the Commission concerning the timetable set within the framework of Community initiatives, and concerning the action plan.
In its action plan, the Commission described the initiatives which have been taken, and which are going to be taken, as a whole.
May I remind you that these actions are the responsibility of Member States and the social partners, and thus the Commission cannot impose a precise timetable.
The Commission is also in the process of establishing a set of performance indicators which will cover specific actions.
On the basis of these indicators, the social partners, the Commission and the national political powers will evaluate the progress achieved, within the framework of a meeting which will be organized by the Commission's services at the end of this year.
Developments in the sector over the last few years have highlighted a number of strong points and a number of weaknesses.
The problem is integrating this new sector into the technological revolution and giving it a modern character.
That is why, in its action plan, the Commission is convinced that the competitive advantage linked to innovation, creation, quality and know-how enable it to play the role of leader in the international markets, although over the last few years the sector has shown remarkable competitive performance.
It holds the future, and that is why the strategy of industrial policy must take account of the specific characteristics of the textiles and clothing industry, whilst integrating it into an overall industrial strategy.
And I will reply to Mr Novo Belenguer that its impact and its running have been widely discussed within working groups with all the economic operators involved in Europe.
It is on the basis of these results that the Commission has drawn up a communication which outlines the guidelines of an action plan.
This communication has been submitted to Parliament, to the Council and to the Economic and Social Committee, accompanied by an analytical table of the specific actions to be carried out between now and the year 2000.
Finally, the last question involved financial action and support for research and development.
With regard to Community activity, several areas are concerned. One of these is the social domain.
In this aspect, it is clear that respect for basic labour law standards is essential.
The Commission underlines the necessity of respecting these basic standards, whilst of course rejecting the protectionist purposes which some could be tempted to use them for.
Finally, with regard to the environment, discussions are underway in the WTO's Committee on Trade and Environment.
The Union is involved and is in the process of commencing an analysis of the environmental effects of trade liberalization and of the commercial effects of legislation in areas of concern to this sector.
Lastly, in conclusion, let me say that, in the field of intellectual property, the Commission is currently participating in discussions concerning the application of the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights agreements under the auspices of the World Trade Organization.
Pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received a joint motion for a resolution from seven political groups on oral questions relating to competition in the textiles and clothing industry.
Can I say, Commissioner, that certainly the very rosy view that has been written for you by the textile unit in DGIII is not my personal experience of the textile sectors within my region and I am sure Mr Caudron will also have a different view from the French region that he represents.
Indeed, every day I hear of job losses in the textile sector in the East Midlands which I represent and only last month I learned of another 350 jobs that have gone in a women's clothing and child wear sector in Huthwaite in Nottinghamshire.
I have to say that the majority of these problems and restructuring come indeed from the strength of cost competition from developing countries.
The cost advantages that these countries have will not go away.
Markets are becoming increasingly liberalized as has been said by other Members in the debate, and this inevitably means that overseas competition will intensify.
We cannot rely in the EU on traditionally high levels of tariff and quota protection.
The European textile industry has global advantages and these must be developed and strengthened.
Unfortunately, the Commission action plan does not go far enough in this direction.
A recent study by the UK Government, which I am sure the President-in-Office may like to comment on, looked at benchmarking and our partnership with business with the textile industry.
We looked at the world-class strength of the UK, we looked at fashion, design, IT, just-in-time techniques, and supply chains as Mr Ribeiro said, and we discovered that we can actually learn from other countries.
For example, the Italians have successfully moved into overseas markets, based on their strength and customer service, and they have actually avoided competing head-on with low cost imports.
Let me finally say that I believe that the Commission has an inconsistency in policy.
I am very disappointed that the Commission, in its anti-dumping policy, does not always comply with Community interests.
I feel that there must be more coherence by the Commission in how it approaches the needs of the textile industry.
You must listen to the industry and when you take your decisions on anti-dumping you must listen to the Member States.
When Members States vote 10 to 5 against anti-dumping procedures, which they believe will not be in the interest of the industry, then you and the Commission must accept those decisions.
Therefore, I ask Council to take on board those issues in the Industry Council on 7 May.
That is why we, as Socialists, have asked for the European Parliament to be associated with the anti-dumping investigation, for Parliament to have a role in terms of transparency and accountability, and not for the Commission to take unaccountable decisions counter to subsidiarity.
Mr President, neither the Council's nor the Commission's comments correspond to reality, as one of my colleagues has said.
Indeed, since 1992, 100 000 jobs have been lost every year.
The crisis in the textiles industry is due essentially to management decisions to relocate and to an increase in imports, which as well as causing job losses have contributed to significant backwardness in the areas of training, research and equipment modernization.
It is so much more practical to produce in a country with low salaries and a large supply of labour than to make improvements in machinery.
A lack of purchase power has also led to a drop in consumption.
However, the textiles industry is still an industry of the future, with more than two million people employed in 120 000 companies throughout Europe.
Steps must therefore be taken, at both national and Community level, to put a stop to the haemorrhage of jobs and to contribute to the development of the textiles sector.
The support planned for restructuring which Mr de Silguy mentioned does not reassure me.
First of all, we must put a stop to the trend towards relocation, imports must be reduced, for they risk increasing even more with the Asian crisis and the progressive dismantling of the Multifibre Arrangements between now and the year 2005.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left proposes the establishment of social clauses within trade agreements.
They could be in the form of a social anti-dumping tax on products reimported into the European Union by firms established in low wage countries, something which is rightly mentioned in paragraph 5 of the joint resolution.
In any case, national and European public aid must be withdrawn from those companies which relocate.
Indeed, if I have understood correctly, existing subsidies make up redundancy payments, which we cannot accept.
In its communication, the Commission unfortunately follows the employers' recommendations, since its proposals aim at improving the competitiveness of companies, essentially, and finally, by putting pressure on the cost of labour and by developing flexibility, a solution which has been proved ineffective, as tax gifts also have.
Thus, whilst eliminating distortions in competition and combating social dumping - and I would like to have the opinion of the Council and the Commission on the precise measures which are being envisaged in this area - it is also necessary at European level to commit substantial sums of money to encourage investment, research and development, training and equipment modernization.
Preferential loans for those companies creating jobs should be established, European regulations, in particular the OPA, must be reviewed, and clearly at national level, an increase in purchase power would allow for an increase in consumption and would thus be a means of reviving the textile industry.
In response, I would therefore like to have the Commission's opinion on these proposals and also on the level of funds committed, because we have not been given many details in this respect.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I personally noted in my report on European industrial competitiveness that, in spite of everything, the textiles and clothing industry remains, for me, an important factor in European industry, in its power and its future.
If I add to this the fact that this sector is established in areas which are beset by many serious difficulties, which began with the restructuring of the mining industry, the steel industry and now textiles, you can see how important this issue is and thus how serious this debate is in our regions.
Before Mr Ribeiro's report on a textile action plan is even discussed in the House, we need to know the precise intentions of the Commission and the Council with respect to this industry and, by way of consequence, with respect to the regions which are struggling to find a way out from a deep economic and social, if not moral, crisis.
The Commission's response to this question is vital, since we are told that hundreds of thousands of jobs are still under threat, in spite of the past loss of more than 600 000 jobs.
Our regions have today reached their limit.
And under such conditions, strong, clear, specific measures need to be implemented in favour of this sector to reduce the costs which weigh on jobs with a low added value.
I will say this once again, it is also necessary to fight against the savage and economically unjustified relocations which are taking place.
I know there is reluctance on the part of the liberalist purists, alarmed by the prospect of such aid.
But it is the only way to combat the social dumping being practised by certain countries, which constitutes unfair competition for the European Union, its industry, its jobs and its social model.
I am sure Mr Ribeiro's report will be an important document.
It is just as important that the Commission and the Council move in this direction from now on.
It is also a question of putting all the resolutions of the Luxembourg Employment Summit into practice, as well as the necessary and vital fight against unemployment which, we all know very well, strengthens a little the position of anti-European extreme right-wing nationalists throughout Europe.
Mr President, facing the requirement to provide a positive answer to the problem of employment, the Luxembourg Employment Summit last November, and the Ecofin Council in the same period, pointed out, among other things, the possibility of intervening by lightening the tax or contribution burden in the highly labour-intensive sectors.
In the manufacturing industry, textiles and clothing certainly constitute the most highly labour-intensive sector, particularly in terms of female labour.
If we want to protect employment and the manufacturing sector, we need to be consistent with our declared objectives, without penalizing the workers and their wages.
The Commission's action plan should therefore provide answers on how to meet the serious implication of the cost of labour on the overall costs in this sector.
We also need to help highquality products by adopting a policy to support small and medium-sized enterprises in the sector, to increase the fashion content and the quality of the raw materials used.
For this purpose, an integrated policy for spinning should be implemented in the areas involved and in the textiles and clothing districts such as the Carpi region, where I come from.
We have often talked about equal opportunities in this Parliament.
If we really want to promote employment, particularly for women, this is a sector to be defended and consolidated by the extension and positive administration of the Multifibre Arrangement, as well as rigorous controls at specialist points on the frontiers, to avoid the abuse of outward processing traffic.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we have started discussing the Commission's action plan with regard to textiles and clothing, a plan which seems inadequate to deal with the problems in the sector.
The proposals should be revised, improved and made more specific and feasible.
Mr President, this resolution must not be interpreted as an open or covert demand for protectionist measures to reduce the EU's import of textile products.
During the 1960s and 1970s Sweden's textiles and clothing industry, for example, was exposed to competition which led to an extensive shake-up and demands for change.
The countries responsible for strong rises in exports included Portugal, Italy and Finland.
These exporting countries demanded free trade in textile products and did not tolerate any departure from trade commitments, and Sweden also resisted domestic demands for trade restrictions.
If the EU now resorted to trade barriers, such as by referring to social clauses or the need for anti-dumping measures, this would also damage EU countries which have already reformed their textiles industry to benefit from free trade.
It would also reduce the scope for poor developing countries to participate in international trade.
In the long term the whole of the EU would lose from protectionist intervention.
If the EU resorted to import barriers, it would be met with counter measures from other countries.
This would then hit the kind of production in the EU which has a higher processing value than textiles and which will provide more jobs for EU countries in the long term.
Certainly there are cases of anti-dumping, but this argument is often misused when the real motive is pure protectionism. The same applies to social clauses.
It is important to see the challenges for the regions exposed to demands for change.
Coping with competition from new countries requires dynamic companies and flexible labour markets.
The ability to implement changes and create new industries is the dynamic process which provides increased prosperity.
That is our mission, Mr President, not trade barriers.
Mr President, I will be brief, given the time and the fact that my earlier longer response anticipated a certain number of the questions which have been put to me.
It is clear that the textiles industry is a highly sensitive sector.
You do not have to tell me, Mrs Moreau, I am as aware of this fact as you.
It is also a sector which has experienced considerable restructuring but which has subsequently greatly strengthened its competitiveness and is now making sure it is the world market leader.
This said, of course, the future is not all rosy, I agree with you.
That is why efforts must be continued, based principally on the establishment of an environment favourable to the development of businesses, in order to enable them to adapt and to draw on their assets, assets which include a high added value, innovation and quality.
It is therefore up to the public authorities, essentially at national level in this respect, given the lack of content, at least in the French sense of the word, of the so-called industrial policy at Community level.
Secondly, it is important that at European level the single market, the domestic market, is effectively put in place, for it is the size of the market alone which will finally enable each company to have greater potential for outlets at their disposal.
Thirdly, and this seems important to me in relation to third countries, a policy which is both aggressive yet fair must be followed.
When I say aggressive, I mean that when exporting, we must use all our abilities in international negotiations to ensure that the obstacles to trade which our companies encounter when they export may be removed.
This is the challenge of past, and above all, future negotiations.
With regard to imports, it is also vital to ensure that the rules are uniformly applied.
I can assure you that in the area of antidumping, the Commission enforces the rules strictly and takes the decisions that it has to take.
Mr Chanterie, you mentioned Russian carpets earlier.
I seem to remember that not so long ago, measures were taken.
I believe that with regard to Brazil, the Commission is examining the situation.
Apart from that, I would refer you to what I said earlier regarding the means available within Community programmes.
I am not going to discuss this again.
Within the different aspects mentioned, the Community programmes enable the necessary support to be given to those European companies who so desire it and who fulfil the conditions, for them to continue their modernization efforts, which will enable them to develop and to make the most of their assets.
I will end on a point concerning international organizations, that of the social clause.
The Commission attaches a great deal of importance to this.
My colleague Padraig Flynn knows this much more than I, particularly within the framework of the International Labour Organization and, as far as environmental clauses are concerned, as I noted earlier, these are currently the subject of in-depth studies, within the framework of the World Trade Organization's groups.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Apprenticeship training in Europe
The next item is the report (A4-0135/98) by Mr Castagnetti, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the promotion of European pathways for work-linked training, including apprenticeship ((COM(97)0572 - C4-0064/98-97/0321(SYN)).
Mr President, this decision essentially has two objectives.
The first is to promote the mobility of trainees, and in this sense it is included in the subject we are dealing with in this session: the euro helps us to integrate Europe even further, to bring the European Economic Area even closer, to consolidate the internal market, and therefore to consolidate an area in which the free movement of people and, in this context, the free movement of trainees, should actually be promoted.
The other objective is to direct training increasingly at market and industry requirements, to provide answers to the changes requested, to make training a real start in the world of employment, and in this sense I believe that this measure also answers the numerous actions identified by the European Summit held last November in Luxembourg on combating unemployment.
How can these objectives be promoted?
Through mobility: mobility between school and work, training mobility between one country and another, mobility between one occupation and another.
Who are the people for whom this mobility is intended?
It is aimed at workers, young people in training and the training officers themselves, and through the promotion of mobility among young people in training, training officers, workers who lose their jobs and who must, and in some respects want, through training, to find another occupation, we will also achieve mobility, not only of training models but also of cultures and industrial techniques.
Everyone, every young person, every apprentice moving from one country to another, from school to a company, also takes with him skills and cultures that are beneficial to the person taking him on.
We know there are limits to the Treaty; Articles 126 and 127 protect the independence of the academic and training regulations of the individual countries and in this sense this European pathway is seen as a means of training that is applied to existing programmes. It is not a new programme, it is a type of work-linked training, it is a means offered as an opportunity to the Member States and therefore implies voluntary acceptance.
The preparatory work we have undertaken in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs was first and foremost a discussion, to find out whether this decision answered the demand put by the social parties.
We have discussed the matter with other Parliamentary committees, we have discussed the matter with other Community institutions, with the Economic and Social Committee, with Chambers of Commerce, with Craft Chambers in various European cities, with trade unions and with manufacturers' associations, and we have received a positive response.
The Informal Council of Ministers of Education and Employment, held in London last March, confirmed this direction, in the sense that it confirmed the commitment to promote work-linked training through partnership experiences.
In this spirit, the committee almost unanimously presented a series of amendments which I hope can be approved unanimously that substantially aim to create synergy between the incentives the Commission will have to produce and the actions of the national states, not in the spirit of a Commission that is not watchful and is limiting itself to recording what the Member States are doing but one that is encouraging and asking them to accept this proposal.
These amendments aim to monitor, through the EURES network, the experience acquired in the past, its effectiveness and the existence of a network of companies prepared to accept young trainees.
In short, we should use all the means the Community has established over the years.
With these amendments, we also want to encourage an initiative taken by the Commission and the Member States to identify the most receptive production structures, in terms of the workforce, so that vocational training becomes increasingly more effective in creating actual jobs.
With our amendments, we want to promote the actual application of this decision by urging all Member States to take part, even those that have not yet provided for training in their regulations.
We want to guarantee security, the protection of these experiences in work places that are healthy and welcoming for our young people who adopt this system of work-linked training.
We want to guarantee a minimum three-month period for this experience to ensure that there is no breach of the spirit of work-linked training and that it does not turn into educational tourism.
We need actual workplace experience.
In short, with this decision taken by the Commission and Council, our ambition is to start a process of modernization, of real Europeanization of knowledge and training processes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think in German the existence of the two words "Lehrling ' , apprentice, and "Auszubildender ' , trainee, in itself shows how diverse the reality is.
We have expressions which apply to very different sets of circumstances.
In fact, all that they have in common is that they do not involve a largely theoretical university qualification.
However, despite this difference, we can define a few common areas.
A European dimension will be required for all countries and European vocational training is a necessary doorway to mobility within the internal market, especially for those who have not gone to university.
We must create incentives; we need a certificate that people can carry with them and produce when necessary, a Europass.
We must have examinations and assessments to move ahead with this process.
My colleague mentioned a whole range of other problems.
As yet there is no common legal framework, but only a decision to promote one.
We still have to achieve a guarantee of transparent quality.
And, most importantly, we still have to mainstream the process and to guarantee equality of opportunity without discrimination. The Commission is also responsible for providing a regular report on this initiative to guarantee a minimum of progress.
We all know that as long as practical and theoretical training are not integrated - and this may eventually come about - for the time being they are at least complementary access points.
Implicit knowledge acquired through practice does not simply disappear, but it reinvents itself again and again hand in hand with technological progress.
To this extent it is of key significance to offer training qualifications for those who do not graduate from university, and to provide these qualifications with a European dimension in the European internal market.
There is a good deal of merit in what the Commission has so far achieved, but here in Parliament it is up to us move it forward and provide a structure for this process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal has the potential to encourage the development of apprenticeships with an added European value.
It aims to provide opportunities for those who are taking part in work-linked training and their employers to benefit from the trainees or apprentices receiving part of their training in another Member State and for that training to be accredited.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, when considering this proposal for legislation, sought to make significant improvements and in his speech our rapporteur Mr Castagnetti has already explained some of the thinking behind his very helpful proposals.
Perhaps I could highlight some of the issues which we would like the Council and Commission to consider.
We think that this proposal should be seen and implemented as part of the whole package of measures that the EU is engaged in to encourage employment, education and training.
Several amendments refer to the need for synergy between this measure and other Community programmes and initiatives.
It is also very necessary to ensure that such European pathways are open to all groups and that there is real equality of opportunity built in.
Since it is very likely that the majority of those who take up these opportunities will be young people, it is particularly important that health and safety aspects are considered.
Young people at work or training in another European country will need a level of protection.
We would also like to see the involvement of the social partners and small and micro businesses in this initiative.
We want to see the provision of training for the mentors themselves and an agreement on the minimum period for placements of training.
We certainly need effective systems of monitoring and evaluation and last, but by no means least, a Community budget.
With the suggested improvements that have come forward from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, this scheme could improve both the mobility of apprentices and the quality of work-linked training received by apprentices and therefore make a contribution towards raising skills levels in the EU.
Mr President, almost two years ago the Florence European Council called for a report from the Commission on the value of dual vocational training.
In my country, this form of training has a long tradition.
Knowledge is acquired, skills are learnt through training, social behaviour and the ability to integrate are learnt through practice.
The very practical nature of dual training qualifies young people for the ever more complex demands of the labour markets and helps to reduce youth unemployment considerably.
The basis for this is cooperation between schools and businesses.
If it works and is constantly checked for new challenges from the point of view of education, organization and content, then the dual system has a future and offers a future to others.
However, within Europe, dual systems are still different, as indicated by Mr Castagnetti in his excellent report, so we must bring them closer together, aiming for European vocational training channels whilst actively involving employers and employees.
Measures in the Member States acquire a European added value at the same time as subsidiarity and responsibility for vocational training are preserved.
This is made possible through intensive exchanges of information and experience, through implementing model projects and promoting mobility and trips abroad, tailor-made for individuals and financed by Community programmes such as the Leonardo da Vinci programme.
Today we are debating and tomorrow we will adopt two important issues simultaneously.
Firstly, there is the convergence report on the euro and the Member States.
But we are also looking at part of the future of vocational training.
If everything goes according to plan, from 1 January 1999 we will have a single currency and a common vocational training programme. The path from the internal market to the European domestic market involves small steps as well as large ones.
Mr President, I too would like to welcome the Commissioner to the House and to pay tribute to him and to Mr Castagnetti for their initiative on this proposal for the promotion of European pathways for work-linked training including apprenticeship.
There are 18 million long-term unemployed in Europe at the moment.
Yet, in any country in Europe there are employers and businesses crying out for staff and they claim they cannot get them.
This is not just because of low wages nor just because of lack of social protection.
It is because of a lack of skills and a lack of work-related skills.
We are in the process of ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty which includes a special chapter on unemployment and we are introducing this new coordinated path of having national employment plans submitted to Brussels to be assessed by the Commission and evaluated at the end of the first year.
So we must guarantee that we can deliver real skills and real training to people to allow them to get real jobs, not simply massage the figures to take them off the unemployment statistics for a few months.
Between 1994 and 1999 the state-training agency in Ireland received £428 million for vocational training and education.
This had a dramatic impact on improving the available workforce to the growing industrial base and services base in Ireland.
From an Irish point of view it is essential that this funding continue after the year 2000 and up to the year 2006.
It is also essential that we look at new models and new ways of training, and that we create this synergy between the employers, the trade unions and the unemployed themselves to develop the best models for coping for them.
In Ireland at the present time there are 14 000 apprentices of which about 11 400 are in the new system of standard-based apprenticeship and roughly 2 600 in the old system which was time-based.
It is essential that we in Parliament and the Commission, keep our minds, and our ears and our eyes open, for new ways of tackling the unemployment problem.
Finally, I should like very briefly to quote the following: ' Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for life' .
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Castagnetti on his excellent work and also express my appreciation to the Commission for the initiative taken.
One of the problems faced by all Member States in attempting to promote employment among young people is that of promoting and encouraging closer cooperation between schools and businesses, and this is also one of the objectives contained in the White Paper on the learning society.
The Institute of Apprenticeship, while operating under various procedures in the various Member States, is considered a privileged meeting place between these two worlds and therefore a sector for priority intervention by the Union.
The mobility of students, workers, teachers, training officers and trade unionists throughout Europe has had a great boost in Europe on account of the Commission's incentives, provided through programmes such as PETRA, COMETT and FORCE in the past, or Leonardo and Socrates today.
This trend should be supported, or rather encouraged, with particular reference to the placement of students in industry and the requirements of work-linked training for apprentices.
However, alongside the essential quantitative increase in mobility, we also need to provide a counterbalance in terms of quality in the consensual determination of rules and behaviour able to guarantee the educational efficacy of placements and exchanges.
We should therefore welcome the proposal we are debating today on the establishment of the "European pathways' programme and the "EUROPASS' certificate intended to establish specific quality standards for the promotion and achievement of placements and to introduce the practice of certification within a modus operandi that is currently too deregulated and lacking in guarantees for those taking part.
However, this proposal is not enough in itself to resolve all the problems and remove all the obstacles connected with mobility in the area of work-linked training. The Commission has recognized this and has announced that, within the context of the new Leonardo programme, it wants to create an ERASMUS for apprenticeship to facilitate mobility in this area.
Not only do we need to create an ERASMUS for apprenticeship, but we also need to provide the social security resources to enable the mobility of apprentices and set up a monitoring system, as the rapporteur said in his speech.
As the European Parliament, we will ensure that the Commission keeps its promises, in the context of the proposed training and educational programmes for future generations.
Mr President, there can be no doubt that the superb report by Mr Castagnetti is a milestone on the way to better youth employment. The report highlights two core elements.
One is the mobility of young people, which must be increased in order to increase their opportunities.
The second is the actual qualification and the quality of training. This must generally be raised, especially in the area of qualifications for skilled workers, and this is an issue that has been mentioned here many times.
Without doubt, mobility will be increased by the proposals, by means of mutual recognition, documenting vocational training in a Europass and pulling down bureaucratic barriers.
The other element is dual training which will increase quality.
One problem is the fact that we are training far too many young people for the wrong careers.
In my country, we train up to 80 % of young people for only eleven careers, so the chances of finding an adequate job are correspondingly low.
I would, therefore, like to add a proposal to this excellent report, a proposal which might bring us one more step forward.
We should request that the Commission draws up an annual qualitative occupational needs analysis, which highlights what the labour market really requires in the medium and possibly also in the longer term.
This information should then be made available to countries as a service, to give them something to use on a voluntary basis as a point of reference.
This would mean that they could adjust or convert their vocational training systems so that later, young people would really be trained to meet actual demand in the labour market.
That could be an additional incentive: to train young people to meet precisely this demand and give them the opportunity to find their first job.
This would open up a whole new approach.
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mr Castagnetti for the excellent work he has done in preparing this report. There are two dimensions to sandwich courses and apprenticeship training: the financial and the socio-economic, and they complement each other.
On the other hand, it is important to stress that small and medium-sized companies have a special role as employers.
The viability of this sector will have large-scale effects on European prosperity and the employment of the young.
That is why common resources must be put into this sector, enabling it to offer apprenticeships and places for young trainees.
Mr Castagnetti also outlines a process for linking this with the work of the labour market organizations.
The Commission should mention in its proposal just how important the role of the employers' associations is.
This latter has been underrated for a long time now as a fully-fledged participant in social dialogue within the Union.
Harmonizing apprenticeship systems also means broader aims for harmonization in examinations.
Successfully getting the young into work and making the free movement of the workforce viable will require exams to follow a pattern that is common to all Europe in terms of their structure, length, content and degree of difficulty.
The main responsibility for the harmonization of exams and the training and apprenticeship periods that go with them belongs to the authorities in the Member States of the Union.
Only through direct cooperation and sharing information can the necessary confidence be created to form a basis for the general responsibility of the European nations for exams.
It is no advantage to European educational systems that so-called reliable standards have always been, as it were, handed down from on high.
Mr President, let me straight away thank Mr Castagnetti for his great efforts on this report and all those who contributed to the debate.
The aim of the proposal to the Parliament and the Council for the decision on the promotion of the European pathways for work-linked training, including apprenticeships, the Commission's objective is to promote mobility of people in training in Europe whatever their age .
This was particularly remarked upon by Mr Castagnetti and I support him.
This corresponds to three major thrusts of Community policy: completing the internal market, building a citizens' Europe and creating a Europe of knowledge.
In all of these three aspects mobility of people under-going training is so very important.
The Community's experience of bi-lateral and multi-lateral cooperation between Member States, demonstrates clearly that there is a keen demand for training at all levels, including higher education.
Between 1995 and 1997 the Leonardo da Vinci programme has enabled 100 000 people to receive support for a period of training in another Member State.
On this basis of the experience which has been build up and in view of the strong growth in need and demand, it is important for us now to increase this mobility and to ensure that it is as fruitful as possible.
To do this we must agree at European level on a common quality framework to develop real European pathways of training and to increase their visibility.
The proposal which is based on Article 127 of the Treaty has a two-fold purpose.
Firstly, it seeks to define the content and shared general quality principles for periods of work-linked training in another Member State, linked to the training which the person concerned is following in country which she or he comes from.
Secondly, it aims to ensure that the training is more easily understood and has a higher profile thanks to a certificate known as the Euro Pass Training which validates the work or training experience acquired.
As Mr Castagnetti has pointed out, it is also linked of course to the European Union's employment policy and the guidelines which were agreed at the Job Summit last November.
I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the Members of the House, and especially Mr Castagnetti, rapporteur for the Employment and Social Affairs Committee, for your suggestions.
The Commission has noticed, the interest which this proposal has generated in other committees: the Committee for Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for which Mr Kerr was the rapporteur; the Budget Committee with Mr Bösch and the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy with Mr Skinner, all of whom I would like to thank.
Parliament proposed 28 Amendments, 26 of which can be accepted including Amendment No 28 in part.
These amendments improve our proposal and in some cases even reinforce it.
I would mention in particular the amendments which highlight the role of SMEs and crafts in developing work-linked training, because the specific character of these types of business requires particular conditions, and those which stress the social partners and the other parties involved in the apprenticeships.
Then there are the amendments which aim to promote good information and wider based support systems for those European pathways such as health care, safety in the workplace and languages.
I would like to thank Mrs Waddington, who drew our attention to this element which is a key factor for their success.
Thirdly, there are amendments which stress the voluntary character of the implementation of the European pathways.
The Commission is conscious of the diversity of polices in the Member States and this proposal does not seek to modify either the organization or the content of training systems and machinery in the Member States.
On the other hand, the two Amendments relating to duration could pose some difficulties.
I have in mind Mr Castagnetti's Amendment No 19 which specifies that the overall duration should not be less than three months and Mr Ettl's Amendment No 21 which seeks to ensure that the pathways should not lengthen the period of training provided for in the Member State of origin.
I understand the concerns underlying these Amendments, no one wants these European pathways to amount to mere tourism, as was referred to in the contributions.
We must be sure that they provide periods of real quality training.
This is why the Commission proposes that their duration should be closely linked to the objectives of the European pathway and to the skill to be acquired.
All this must be specified in advance in an agreement between the sending partner, host partner and the beneficiary.
The diversity of systems, the specificity of particular branches of activity, but also the wide range of durations suggested in the course of the debate, show the difficulty of fixing a minimum duration.
To conclude Mr President, I can assure you that what you propose for the future, particularly regarding the new programmes, and with a special emphasis on the Leonardo da Vinci programme, will be very carefully considered.
This latter programme must increasingly promote mobility for people engaged in work-linked training and become as my colleague Edith Cresson has said on more than one occasion an 'Erasmus for trainees.'
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Supplementary pension rights
The next item is the report (A4-0134/98) by Mr Ettl, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive on safeguarding the supplementary pension rights of employed and self-employed persons moving within the European Union (COM(97)0486 - C4-0661/97-97/0265(CNS)).
Mr President, I am speaking instead of the rapporteur tonight.
Sadly, he cannot be with us.
He has to attend to important business in Austria.
That is a pity because he has produced excellent work in the form of this report.
In fact, it is a mark of the success of his work as rapporteur that the report was adopted unanimously in committee.
Just one point of difference remained which had not been adequately addressed in the vote and that is now covered here in plenary in the form of Amendment No 18 with the full backing of the Socialist, EPP and Liberal Groups.
That degree of consensus is not arrived at easily; it requires hard work, and I should like to congratulate Harald Ettl for the success of that work.
The proposal concerns the safeguarding of the supplementary pension rights of employed and self-employed workers moving within the European Union.
As such, it concerns an important practical step towards giving realization to freedom of movement.
That freedom of movement for workers is enshrined in the Treaty but in practice a mass of real practical difficulties stand in the way of its proper realization.
One such practical difficulty concerns the shortcomings in the coordination of supplementary pension schemes between the Member States and the fundamentally different weightings of state and supplementary social insurance systems in the various Member States.
These pose very real obstacles to freedom of movement.
This proposal will not remove all the difficulties by any means.
Those difficulties have to be seen against the backdrop of the Commission's 1997 Green Paper on supplementary pensions; that itself arose from the failure of a proposal for a directive on the freedom of management and investment of pension funds which was submitted in 1992 and then withdrawn.
That was followed by a 1995 directive attempting to tackle some of these difficulties.
That was itself stalled after reaching the Commission, much to Commissioner Flynn's frustration at the time.
That in turn led to the establishment of a high-level panel of experts on the freedom of movement of persons chaired by Mrs Simone Weil.
All of these various attempts have focused on three main difficulties facing workers in relation to freedom of movement and supplementary pensions.
The first is the long qualifying periods which are necessary in some Member States for acquiring pension rights.
It is clear that several years' employment in a company is required before an employee acquires rights, that is an obstacle to free movement.
The second is the transferability of pension rights and the third is the issue of double taxation.
An interim report of the Weil Group in November 1996 focussed on an approach which offered at least a start to the solving of some of these difficulties.
The approach suggested in that interim report is followed in the proposal we are considering here tonight.
It restricts itself to securing the principle of equal treatment for migrant workers.
It places emphasis on the preservation of rights of migrant workers as opposed to the transferability of rights from one scheme to another.
There are four main component to the proposal.
The first is in Article 4 which ensures that the vested rights of members of a scheme are preserved when the member of the scheme moves to another Member State.
Article 5, the second component, ensures that members of the scheme who live in another Member State receive payments in respect of all benefits to which they are entitled under the scheme.
The third component concerns the situation of workers posted abroad.
That is dealt with in Article 6 and 7.
The final component - which will be very important - is contained in Article 8.
That requires the managers of pension schemes to provide all relevant information for scheme members wishing to exercise their right to move to another Member State.
All these provisions are important.
The main amendments submitted in the report from Harald Ettl, is Amendment No 4.
It draws attention to the fact that this directive can only be seen as a first step towards the regulation of the supplementary pension system within the Member States of the Union and says that where necessary the Council in future will need to adopt further acts on waiting periods and the general and cross-frontier transferability of vested pension rights.
This proposal is a step in the right direction.
I hope the Commission will take particular account of Amendment No 4 and I congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
Mr President, I believe that, as Mr Hughes said, this proposal can only be considered to be a first step because it is a proposal for a restrictive directive in relation to the significance of the problem, which is to ensure effective mobility of workers, according them status of some importance.
It is true that Amendment No 4 aims at pension rights held, that is, acquired rights; unfortunately, however, one amendment proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has not been accepted.
This lay somewhere between the long periods laid down by some states, and the overly short periods laid down by others, and adopted the solution of the high-level panel, chaired by Mrs Simone Veil, which proposed five years.
However, the Commission's proposal takes its idea from an amendment, or rather adopts it, of the Committee on Legal Affairs on the interpretation of Regulations Nos 1408/71 and 574/72, that is Amendment No 1.
This is very important because it offers an additional framework, from the legal point of view, between this proposal and the regulations the Commission had interpreted too rigidly, providing an interpretation connected with the compulsory pension schemes.
In fact, by replacing "only' with "primarily' , Amendment No 1 opens the way to supplementary voluntary, contractual pensions and therefore an integration that harmonizes the legislation fairly adequately.
In my opinion, this is therefore a positive proposal overall, which we should naturally see incorporated into the Green Paper which this Parliament will soon receive and which will constitute the mosaic in which the central problem will be situated.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the draft directive before us is indeed a minimalist proposal.
It is simply aimed at applying the principle of equal treatment to migrant workers.
It is particularly unacceptable that a worker who, in the course of his professional life has made use of his right to free movement and who has paid contributions towards supplementary pension schemes in various Member States has only limited rights to a supplementary pension at the end of his career.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has proposed six amendments in its opinion.
On the one hand, it wants to stress the importance of the free movement of workers not only between Member States, but also within them, as a precondition for the proper running of the internal market and monetary union.
It also wants to stress that in future we will have to pay attention to the transferability of pension rights and to reducing the long qualifying periods.
On the other hand, it has presented a new definition of workers posted abroad from a Member State and of Member State origin.
The proposal for a directive does not aspire to solve all problems.
It is a first step in the field of supplementary pension schemes.
The group chaired by Mrs Weil argued that Europe should restrict itself to applying the principle of equal treatment for migrant workers.
All the same, the debate continues over the remaining obstructions, for example long qualifying periods and the problem of transferability of pension rights.
The most controversial point concerns the amendment which adjusts the definition of posted worker.
It pointed to the fact that Regulation No 1408/71 refers only to secondment within the company and thus not to workers who go to work in a different company, even if the latter forms part of a multinational group.
That is why we thought that Directive 83/349, which defines the term multinational concern , should be added to Regulation No 1408/7.
The legal department of this Parliament nonetheless prefers Directive 96/71 which refers to the posting of workers and thus covers the secondment of workers.
That is why we gladly support Mr Ettl's amendments on that subject.
Mr Ettl has produced an excellent report and I hope that it will not only meet with the approval of this House, but also with the approval of the Ministers for Social Affairs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to explain the position of the Socialist group.
As our chairman has already said, this report was adopted unanimously in committee and there is broad consensus amongst all the groups in the House on this issue.
I would, therefore, like to start by thanking Harald Ettl for his very hard work on this very complicated issue.
And we should not forget the panel of experts chaired by Simone Veil which deserves thanks for its excellent work for Parliament and, I hope, also for the Commission's legislative proposals, as we are particularly keen to hear these.
At the moment, around 300 000 men and women are working within the Member States of the EU in a different country from the one they previously lived in.
Actually, this figure is much less than we once thought, and we have assumed from the beginning of the internal market that it would increase.
There are many reasons for this, certainly some individual, but also some political ones.
It is our task to look at the political reasons.
They are an issue which we have covered in great depth in recent months, especially in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Women's Rights.
The issue has been debated in detail in recent months in Parliament, and we are becoming ever more aware that national regulations and provisions raise an incredible number of obstructions; I would almost go so far as to say they amount to harassment.
This is one of the political reasons for the situation.
The second reason, Commissioner Flynn, and I will say this openly, is that in the past the Commission was somewhat hesitant and sluggish in dealing with this issue; any progress made was blocked by the Council - the same old story.
However, a small step has been taken and it is a good one.
In any case, it will ensure that employees in Europe will not be worse off if they make use of the freedom of movement which they have been guaranteed.
Of the three pillars of pension provision, the company supplementary pension scheme is still relatively small, especially in my country; in Germany it makes up less than 5-7 % of contracts.
But we know that in future these supplementary schemes will have a more important role than they had in the past.
What must be important to us is that...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I welcome the proposal of the Commission.
I would also like to congratulate Mr Ettl for his objective and balanced report.
He describes clearly the issue of migrant workers who under certain circumstances face reduced entitlement to supplementary pensions if they work in different Member States. This naturally has a negative impact on the freedom of movement and often on necessary mobility.
In past years there were repeated calls for the supplementary systems to be assigned to Regulation No 1408, which previously only applied to the statutory social insurance schemes of migrant workers.
The multiplicity of supplementary pension schemes simply does not permit a straightforward addition of periods of contribution payments, as is the case under 1408.
This proposal for a directive contains only some initial steps - as several speakers have indicated - towards a common approach to supplementary schemes.
I would prioritize their urgency and the need for them as follows: firstly, protection of entitlement already acquired from company or supplementary pension schemes; secondly, transnational payments of pensions from company pension schemes, in other words, exportability of benefits as envisaged in Regulation No 1408; thirdly, the establishment of special arrangements for short-term employment postings to other Member States.
Mr Ettl's report sets out the objectives of the directive better and replaces imprecise definitions.
The directive contains some of the measures proposed in the Green Paper on supplementary pensions.
In addition, the Green Paper places particular emphasis on enabling transnational investment in pension funds, thereby improving freedom of movement.
This type of fund already plays an important role in several EU Member States.
In my own country, Germany, we have just started to develop these.
However a key to the new asset policy which so many parties are striving for is to make shares in this kind of unit trust attractive, particularly to employees with lower incomes, by extending the statutory range of investment facilities beyond asset formation by employees.
In my view, profit-sharing from property ownership for employees is an important way forward, if not as a second pillar alongside statutory pensions, then as supplementary income in old age.
The Ettl report does not cover this perspective of course, but rightly concentrates on the proposal for a directive from the Commission and improves it in some important points.
For this reason, the Group of the European People's Party will vote for the report.
Mr President, this report deals principally with the cross-frontier transferability of pensions, and it has been rightly pointed out by a number of my colleagues that it is a first step and that the directive is in fact a rather limited one.
I was actually rather taken by what Mr Ferri said in his report on the free movement of workers, that this requires a completely different approach to the transferability of pensions.
I think we will have to sort this out when we are dealing with the Green Paper, as the entire issue will obviously come up again there.
Nonetheless, in his written contribution Mr Ettl has pointed to problems, such as double taxation and in some countries the long qualifying periods for pensions, which should be consigned to the past.
You cannot tell workers that their behaviour should be more flexible on the one hand, and tie them down on the other - and I say this to Mrs Menrad in particular - with extremely long qualifying periods.
To be honest, I think this is a form of theft from the worker.
We should have the courage to resolve this from within Europe.
A number of issues have been improved by this report, in particular with regard to the definition of posting, I believe good proposals have been made.
I hope the Commission will want to adopt them.
I would also like to thank Mr Ettl sincerely for his admirable cooperation, and I hope our chairman, Mr Hughes, will pass this on, because I believe that the cooperation in this case has been excellent.
But, again, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, Commissioner, this is really only a first step on the way to solving an issue which we have to solve with regard to pensions.
The Commission can expect a great deal from us if we are able to cooperate as we are doing in this Parliament at present.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Ettl in his absence for a good report.
In general, I can surely say that I believe the pension system is something which is being discussed in all Member States, in view, among other things, of the rising proportion of elderly, which means that more or less all pension systems need to be revised, especially state ones.
We are not discussing that here today, but these systems are the most important, and I would like to emphasize that for our citizens.
It is the supplementary pensions that are being discussed here.
As a previous speaker said, they are becoming increasingly important.
The problem with supplementary pensions is, above all, the difficulties with regard to the single market and the restrictions which exist in terms of the freedom of movement.
This is discussed in part in the Commission's proposal, which says that workers who are sent abroad by their employer should be able to belong to the system which they belonged to before.
Guarantees are also given that they will be informed of their right to a pension and the rules which exist in the EU when they move.
These are of course, as several others have said, important proposals.
However, they are not enough and are only a first step.
The difficulties which Mr Ettl has pointed out, the long earning periods, the problems of transferability and the question of double taxation are issues which must be raised in future and supplemented in future proposals from the Commission in order for freedom of movement to be realized.
Meanwhile, I am of course supporting this proposal, which is a good one, but it is important to emphasize again that this is a first step.
Mr President, I should like to thank all those who have contributed.
I should preface my remarks by saying that you are all quite right.
This is just a start, a very small start, and it must be followed up in due course by further proposals.
In that context I should like to congratulate the rapporteur.
Even though he is absent, Mr Hughes has done an excellent presentation on his behalf.
I thank all of you for the excellent work done here.
We are all allies in the task of removing obstacles to free movement related to supplementary pensions and making progress towards achieving a fundamental principle of the Treaty.
The purpose of this proposal for a Council directive on which your opinion is requested is to provide protection as regards supplementary pension schemes for the pension rights of workers and members of their families who move from one Member State of the European Union to another.
This proposal takes into account the conclusions of the high level panel on free movement chaired by Mrs Weil.
It constitutes a first step in removing identified obstacles in this area.
The proposal will have a positive affect on labour market mobility since workers will be less hindered from going to work in another Member State.
Similarly, the proposal will make it easier for companies who wish to second workers within their organization to work in another Member State.
As emphasized in the 1997 Green Paper on supplementary pensions and the single market, supplementary pension schemes play an important role as a second pillar of social security which complements the protection provided by the statutory schemes.
As more and more Union citizens turn to these supplementary pension schemes as a way of guaranteeing adequate income in their retirement, protection of the rights in these schemes becomes more important.
In this Green Paper the Commission looked at several issues, a number of which are intended to deepen the analysis of obstacles to free movement and are outside the scope of this present proposal.
In particular, it addressed the question of long vesting periods, difficulties with transferability of vested pension rights and tax difficulties linked to acquiring pension rights in more than one Member State.
The proposal before us today, once adopted, should form the basis for renewed political effort to remove the remaining obstacles.
And that is the key point.
This is the start.
It must lead on to further efforts to remove the obstacles.
I can accept eleven of your amendments in the belief that this will enable the Commission proposal to go ahead and to be adopted by the Council.
We hope this is going to happen in June under the United Kingdom presidency.
The amendments the Commission is willing to accept are as follows: Nos 2 and 3 in principle, part of No 4 and Amendments Nos 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, 13, 14 and 17.
These amendments clarify the existing provisions and reflect the concerns of Parliament about legal certainty and its commitment to further action to be taken to remove the remaining obstacles to free movement.
Amendment No 1 raises some technical legal complications that require further consideration.
So I must reserve the Commission's position on this amendment for today.
I must also reserve our position on Amendment No 18 which I have seen for the very first time tonight and which would seem to require some very careful consideration.
I cannot accept Amendments Nos 10, 11, 12 or 15 because these restrict the scope of the proposal.
Amendments Nos 10, 11 and 12 restrict the personal scope of the directive.
Amendment No 15 restricts the material scope of the directive since the trans-border affiliation for posted workers provided for by Article 6 should be limited only in schemes of comparable entitlement in the host Member State and in the country of origin.
As far as Amendment No 16 is concerned, it cannot be accepted at this stage because it goes beyond the aim of Article 7 to which it refers.
You will note that Article 7 deals with taxation aspects of supplementary pensions contributions made on or behalf of a posted worker.
This is the most sensitive aspect of the proposal for which a political agreement in the Council is going to be very difficult to achieve anyway.
The tax aspects of supplementary pensions need a broader approach in order to find suitable solutions to the existing problems and by avoiding additional and simultaneous double taxation for persons moving within the European Union.
These tax aspects are under discussion with all involved parties in the context of the Green Paper.
I trust that on this basis we can consider that we have a political agreement and that the Commission proposal can go forward for adoption by the Council, as amended following the adoption of Parliament's opinion.
I look forward to making further advances on this matter at a later date.
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Mr President, you have chaired this evening's sitting very fairly, so I would again like to point out that my group applied for three minutes for me, otherwise I would have planned my speech very differently.
Secondly, there was no red light after two minutes were up.
I would be grateful if you could take note of this.
I should explain, Mrs Weiler, that according to my notes here your speaking time was two minutes.
So far during this debate, you are the Member who has gone furthest over the allotted speaking time.
That is why I had to interrupt you, because you were already over your time-limit by a third.
We are probably both right, but that is what happened and I wanted to explain it to you.
Judgments in matrimonial matters
The next item is the report (A4-0131/98) by Mr Verde i Aldea, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the draft Convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters (13245/97 - C4-0063/98-97/0918 (CNS)). Draftsman of the opinion: Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs (Hughes Procedure).
Mr President, 30 years ago the then European Economic Community realized that increased international trade meant that the Member States of that Community had to reach a convention to determine competence and how to implement sentences in contractual matters.
Contracts were - and are increasingly so today - international contracts, especially in the Union, and that convention was absolutely necessary.
It was drawn up in the form of a convention because the Community had no competence in that area.
Thirty years later, we can say that that 1968 Brussels Convention, under the jurisdictional tutelage of the Court of Justice, has progressed satisfactorily during that time.
Having reached this point, the Member States have realized that there is another area too - that of the freedom of movement of persons - which has given rise to a situation of transfers and contacts between the different countries within the Union, which has led to increasing numbers of marriages between nationals of different Member States.
At the same time, another phenomenon has arisen - maybe not parallel, but also on the increase: the phenomenon of marriage breakdown, with sentences of divorce, separation, annulment and so on.
The Council has realized this and has now presented this draft convention on matrimonial matters, under the guidelines of what is beginning to be a Community competence - judicial cooperation - which so far involves Articles K of the Treaty on European Union.
This Parliament is just acting in a consultative capacity as regards this convention presented by the Council.
The Council is not here for this debate, so I do not have to make any very profound remarks to try to convince them of the value of our amendments. However, I will say that Parliament and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights have been inclined to accept this convention.
We know it has been debated at length in the Council because this question has given rise to tensions between Member States, - especially between the Nordic countries, which also have a convention and have done so for a long time, and others. The effect has been to make this an extremely delicate text, and any amendment could once again call into question the whole convention.
The amendments presented by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - where they were approved almost unanimously - do not attempt to make any great change to the convention.
There was a proposal from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs to try to achieve a new convention, with a view to the forthcoming implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But obviously, the Amsterdam Treaty is not in force, so it is better to base things on the current competences of each of the institutions.
So I have restricted myself to accepting some of the amendments from that committee.
Mr President, the amendments are certainly not an attempt to change the convention.
They try to clarify some important points. I will only mention one of them, which would create a special article concerned with questions of language and how these declarations have to be notified.
And on that point, which may seem the most innovative, I want to mention that there is a Commission proposal along almost the same lines, which refers to the Brussels Convention.
It seems to me that if the innovation is valid for that convention, it would be a good thing to make use of it for this one too.
Those are the outlines, Mr President, of this convention. I hope the Council will take account of the thoughts we have expressed verbally and in writing - they are thoughts rather than amendments - and that one way or another, and as quickly as possible, the convention will reach a happy conclusion and can be published in the Official Journal and enter into force as soon as possible, because society really needs it.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Verde i Aldea for his studious and thorough work.
This is an important plank in judicial cooperation and a major subject of human interest.
The proposal seeks to alleviate the difficulties experienced by couples in seeking to extract themselves from failed or unsatisfactory marriages and other legal relationships where there is a cross-border element.
It also covers children of such marriages.
This draft convention known as the Brussels II Convention applies to civil proceedings with divorce, legal separation and marriage annulments and civil proceedings relating to parental responsibility over a child of both spouses.
Like the Brussels Convention, it assures that a court order obtained in one Member State should be recognized in another Member State without any special procedure.
Similarly a child parental authority judgment given in one Member State can be enforced in another Member State.
It is especially important with increasing cross-border marriages and mobility of people and the need to protect children of such marriages.
Finally, I should like to thank the UK Presidency and. In particular, a former colleague on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, now a minister in the Lord Chancellor's Department, Mr Hoon, and the Lord Chancellor for piloting this important judicial cooperation reform.
Like Mr Verde i Aldea, in the name of my group I should like to support the amendments he has proposed.
I thank him again for his work.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I should like to thank Mr Verde i Aldea for this very important piece of legislation, in particular as it relates to a very human issue and, one which is increasing and poses problems for many of us.
On behalf of my group I should like to say that my group congratulates Mr Verde i Aldea for his report.
I give my group's official position first, after which I will make a couple of points myself as the President's mediator for transnationally abducted children.
The group considers Amendments Nos 3, 6 and 10 as very important.
They refer to points D, E and F. The group is against the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs because it was adopted without formal procedure.
It was announced as a letter even on the agenda of the Civil Liberties Committee on the day of adoption and no deadline was fixed for amendments.
It is against Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 8 for legal reasons.
The two previous speakers have outlined the history and need for this Convention.
I hope very much that it will get unanimous support from Parliament.
The reason why I have asked to speak particularly tonight is because one of the amendments refers to my role as the mediator for the President of the European Parliament on transnationally abducted children.
Amongst the many difficulties we are facing in this area is the very frequent refusal of courts from one Member State to recognize judgments made in another.
This has a two-fold effect.
It often prolongs very real human misery but as far as I am concerned one of the major problems it provokes is that of the abduction of children.
There is a genuine human fear at the heart of many of these abductions of a child.
We must be able to reassure both parents, either the custodial parent or the non-custodial parent, that they can rely on the support of the courts in their own country and the courts of the country where a child may be living to ensure that they will have access to their children.
Very often this fear of the loss of a child results in an abduction.
Sometimes there is not just one abduction but even two and, in extreme circumstances, even three.
That is to say, one partner abducts, the other abducts and then the other abducts again.
We must arrive at some form of genuine cooperation between the courts; there are a great many areas in the legal systems in all of our countries that need to be carefully reassessed in the light of this very difficult and growing problem.
That having been said, I accept that not only do we need the legal underpinning that your excellent report gives us but we also need considerably more training for the judges in all our countries.
Obviously I would very much like to see it in non-Union countries as well, where we experience very considerable difficulties, in particular in the North African countries, when children are abducted.
The report recognizes pragmatically the realities of a very recently introduced divorce law in Ireland and also historical realities which relate to the annulment of marriages and agreements with the Holy See.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for his work and congratulate him.
Mr President, we are all familiar with the difficult situations people find themselves in when they become the victim of separation, divorce or annulment lawsuits, if they are the respondent and do not share the nationality or residence rights of the plaintiff. Then there are those distressing situations caused by the failure to comply with resolutions accompanied by provisional and precautionary measures, the effectiveness of which depends on the speed with which they are implemented.
Such situations mean that the respondent is put in an almost defenceless position when the plaintiff makes use of their own law, and there is real injustice when the resolutions not complied with involve alimony.
It is our duty to put an end to that situation.
It is necessary and even urgent to put a stop to it as soon as possible. Very well-argued doubts have been expressed about the urgent need for this draft convention, but I do not go along with them.
But even recognizing the urgent need to resolve these flagrant problems, it has to be said that this draft convention is ambiguous and limited, although I think it has been markedly improved by the amendments approved in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, especially those by Mr Verde i Aldea.
It could be said in its favour that "half a loaf is better than none' . However, it would have been better to have been more ambitious in this case, not just clarifying things but extending the scope, to include for example the financial obligation between marriage partners, and between them and their children.
It is regrettable that this has been a wasted opportunity, in part. Nevertheless, I congratulate Mr Verde i Aldea.
Mr President, it could be argued with the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs that this is not an appropriate time for this Council initiative in view of the ongoing ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam and in view too of the current revision of the Brussels Convention of 1968.
However, I take a different view and thank the rapporteur for showing us the merits of this initiative.
The draft has a clear legal basis in Article K.3.
Its definitions are narrow and rigid, but clear, and despite the tight framework - here I refer to Mrs Banotti's speech -, it takes account of children's rights which are particularly worthy of protection.
As it aims to replace existing conventions, it represents an important step towards Union civil law.
Parliament, therefore, should follow the proposal of the Committee on Legal Affairs and its motions for an amendment and support this important Council initiative for a European Union civil law.
Mr President, I am one of those who has long argued that it is unreasonable for it to be possible in the European Union to be regarded as married in one Member State and as divorced in another.
I therefore warmly welcome the report by Mr Verde i Aldea on the Convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters.
The convention is a concrete example of what we at EU level can achieve to improve the quality of life of citizens, families and children within the Union.
It is natural that questions of jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement are brought to a head when countries move closer together.
Closer cooperation leads to increased contact and relationships between individuals, institutions and companies.
Consequently, there is also an increase in the number of disputes which cross the home country's borders.
In 1968 the Member States of the Union decided on a convention which regulates the question of jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of civil law judgements.
It is aimed, above all, at companies and other financial operators.
However, matrimonial and custody questions were entirely excluded.
Since then, developments have gone towards citizens coming increasingly into the centre of the cooperation.
The free movement of persons is an objective which today has largely become a reality.
More and more citizens are marrying citizens from other Member States. More and more are like us in that they choose for various reasons, for longer or shorter periods, to live or work in a Member State other than their own.
This is of course a welcome development.
It is therefore natural to also develop the framework for international civil law.
An objective for us must be that disputes between individuals which involve the legal systems of more than one Member State can be resolved quickly and efficiently.
Matrimonial and custody disputes are both often heart-rending for all those concerned.
It is therefore particularly important that these disputes can be resolved without being complicated by procedural difficulties.
The European Parliament knows better than most the problems which rules of procedure for matrimonial disputes can cause for individual EU citizens.
A large number of petitions have been sent to the European Parliament on this issue.
In practice, the current situation means that a decision on divorce in one Member State is not automatically recognized in another Member State.
This can have serious consequences.
A couple can thus be legally divorced in one Member State while at the same time being regarded as married in another.
For the individual concerned this is of course entirely unacceptable.
It has particularly serious consequences if either of the parties wants to enter into a new marriage.
The result can then be that the new marriage is regarded as bigamy in another Member State, which is a punishable offence.
The draft Convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters sets clear and exhaustive rules on who shall have jurisdiction in a particular case.
The basic principle is that jurisdiction is decided according to where the parties have their permanent place of residence.
In exceptional cases, nationality or place of abode may decide.
The convention also includes a number of rules which simplify and speed up the procedures for recognition and enforcement.
In practice, the rules mean that a ruling in a matrimonial case will automatically be enforced in another Member State.
In the event of divorce or separation, the children are often the most vulnerable.
Therefore, it is important, as far as possible, to create conditions for the children to maintain close contact with both their father and their mother after a divorce.
When more than one Member State is involved, the rules must be formulated so that the question of custody can be resolved unambiguously.
The starting point must always be what is best for the children.
In this regard, the convention is a considerable improvement compared with the current situation.
In future, the court which decides on matters of divorce will also be qualified to make decisions on the question of custody if the children have their permanent place of residence in the Member State.
The court will also be able to decide questions of custody if the children are resident in a different Member State on condition that at least one of the parties has custody of the children and that both parties accept that the court shall have jurisdiction.
In his report, the rapporteur raises the question of the role of the Court of Justice in the interpretation of the convention and finds that it is limited.
A preliminary ruling can only be requested by a court of appeal or by the highest legal authorities in a Member State.
I share the rapporteur's view that it would have been good if the Court of Justice had been given greater scope to give preliminary rulings.
I note in particular that the limitation is more extensive than is the case with the 1968 Brussels Convention.
The Convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters is an important step towards the Europe of the citizens.
It is my hope that the formal decision on the convention is taken at the Council of Ministers for justice and home affairs on 28 and 29 May.
It is therefore important that the Member States also ratify the convention afterwards.
Thank you, Commissioner Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Aspects relating to world trade
The next item is the report (A4-0125/98) by Mr Pimenta, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on environmental, health and consumer protection aspects of world trade.
Mr President, I should first like to endorse the latter parts of what Mr Pimenta said.
I hope not to repeat them.
More and more often we are seeing results of appeal decisions at the WTO which have negative effects on the environment and, despite the provision of Article 20 of GATT, environmental protection seems to be far to the back of the minds of many of the international trade lawyers involved in this work.
In our own work in this Parliament we have watched decision son baby sealskins, leghold traps, animal testing for cosmetics, all coming to grief simply in the face of threats of the WTO, let alone actual cases.
For instance, I do not know if the officials who are developing the post-Kyoto policies and measures are taking precautions against future WTO attacks from, for example, the oil-producing nations.
But I certainly hope they are doing this.
The tuna dolphin and shrimp turtle decisions have increased the anxiety amongst NGOs and the public that the WTO is a threat to socially and environmentally sustainable development.
Yet, none of these cases are intrinsically trade disputes and ought to have simply been mediated.
If we had had more strong multilateral environment agreements, some of these problems could have been avoided.
It would be very sad if NGOs totally lost faith in the WTO because they could use the WTO tools for instance to battle for reductions in tariffs on environmental goods and services.
My group wholeheartedly supports Mr Pimenta's excellent report, including paragraph 8.
It should be an essential input to the main ministerial meeting on WTO and I hope that the Council of Ministers will listen to our concerns about the need to strengthen the WTO committee on trade and the environment.
The Commission has floated this idea of a high-level trade and environment meeting in Geneva in the autumn bringing together top-level policy-makers to push forward the debate on how to strengthen the CTE's work.
This could well be a useful initiative.
Mr Pimenta worries that this might be a delaying tactic and in many ways the work needs to be done beforehand by high level officials.
Nevertheless, it could be a useful step forward.
We are in a world where, to look at one area, increasing biotechnological innovations are threatening farmers' livelihoods in developing countries.
Natural herbal medicines from these countries are being pirated and patented by rapacious multinationals who then want to sell these products back at prices which cannot be afforded.
The Multilateral Agreement on Investment is being negotiated which may not yet contain sufficiently strong social and environmental clauses.
All these problems have a bearing on world trade and the way in which the WTO needs to develop and cope with them.
The WTO must be made to evolve so as to be able to work in a way which respects these important areas.
Mr Pimenta's report contains some very important and sound points and I commend it to the House.
Mr President, starting where Mr Eisma left off, I also hope that Mr Pimenta's report is approved tomorrow. As he also said, it was approved unanimously at the last meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We hope it is approved because, as the rapporteur rightly says, the WTO summit in Geneva in May will really be the last chance to adopt binding, essential political decisions to prevent the constant conflicts between environment and trade, health and trade, and social rights and trade.
We cannot have a repetition of the frustrating situation at Singapore in 1996, of flagrant non-compliance with what was agreed at the 1994 WTO summit in Marrakesh.
The reports by Mr Spencer, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and Mr Pimenta on a different occasion, as previously debated in this Parliament, all repeated the same questions as this one.
Trade rules cannot be given priority over those required to protect health, the environment and the future of our natural resources.
So we are going to support the Pimenta report and, as Mr Eisma said, let us hope it will be approved tomorrow, if not unanimously - which is a very complicated matter in the House - then at least by a large majority which will allow the European Commission to take a clear and forceful stance at this Geneva summit so that, before the end of this century, we can have rules to defend every area we are fighting to protect: environmental rules, health rules and rules for a fairer society.
Mr President, I will not have the chance to say much in one minute, but in any case I will say that Mr Pimenta's report is excellent and we will vote for it without hesitation.
Indeed, Mr Pimenta clearly highlights the shortcomings of the current WTO and the fact that the values given priority at the moment put free trade before environmental and health protection.
The three best-known conflicts which have been settled by the WTO since the adoption of the Marrakech Agreements, those concerning hormones, bananas and fuel in the United States, are all conflicts which have given rise to decisions which are detrimental to both public health and the environment. This seems to me to be a vital point.
If we want this destructive process to end, we must get to the heart of the problem at all costs and not hesitate to challenge the very statutes of the WTO, where clear evidence of the principles of pernicious decision-making can be found.
I am thinking particularly of the fact that, when an individual state, or the European Union, wishes to adopt more rigorous measures in the areas of health or the environment, it is up to them to justify it.
Uncertainties regarding the harmlessness of certain products or processes are not sufficient to justify more restrictive measures, and this is not acceptable to us.
The beginnings of a change must be adopted in Geneva.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must say that the Commission thinks it is very timely to be having a debate on this report before the second WTO ministerial conference and the OECD ministerial meeting, where the Commission hopes ministers will agree on the importance of holding a more open public debate, with better information about the repercussions for the world economy of the liberalization of trade and investments.
The Commission greatly appreciates Mr Pimenta's commitment to this subject.
The new report we have before us represents a fundamental contribution to the debate on trade and environment, both from a general point of view and in the WTO context.
I also think it is an essential element in the process of policy formation, since we are convinced that there can be no major progress in trade liberalization without the active support of civil society, not just in Europe but in other countries too, both developed and developing.
The Commission still believes that continuing the process of liberalization is good for the world in general, and for Europe in particular.
Nevertheless, the Members of the Commission also understand the worries globalization can cause, which have been expressed here this evening, and is convinced that we need to study more carefully how to define a framework for global liberalization which will guarantee that future growth benefits a great many people throughout the world and also represents a benefit rather than a cost to the environment of the planet.
That was the message of Sir Leon Brittan's speech on the environment to the Bellerive Foundation in Geneva on 23 March, and I hope the Commission can count on the support of this Parliament in producing new ideas in this respect.
Sir Leon was encouraged by the initially positive reactions of a large number of Members of this House, who are also following the debate on environment and development closely.
And in the same spirit, after the WTO ministerial conference in May, Sir Leon is going to ask his services to develop a transparent, wide-ranging dialogue about the repercussions of globalization so that, as we move towards the start of a future millennium round at the end of 1999, European public opinion will be not only prepared but also committed to the European objectives in these important negotiations.
Allow me next to deal in more detail, within this general political framework, with the report before us today.
This report poses a series of questions about the relationship between trade and environment.
The Commission does not think this relationship needs to be a source of conflict, and it should not be so.
As stated in our 1996 communication to this Parliament and the Council, we believe that trade and the environment can offer mutual support to each other.
Problems of adaptation will arise from time to time during the process, but that is exactly why the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment was created, as a first measure.
The Commission agrees with many of the comments made in the Pimenta report.
It also understands and shares the disappointment expressed in certain circles about the Committee's limited progress so far.
Maybe it has not progressed as much as some people hoped, but we should also point out that this lack of progress is certainly not due to any lack of effort on the part of the European Community, which has been a leader within the Committee ever since meetings began.
Nor should we underestimate the Committee's work in bringing together the responsible people from the worlds of trade and the environment, thereby helping them to understand the complexities of their respective sectors, or its valuable analyses throughout last year, and the progress made in removing the myths surrounding many problems.
I also want to say something about the shrimp-turtle decision.
The Commission is not in a position to make a specific comment on this case, in which the Community is not a direct party, since, as everyone knows, the WTO has not yet published the conclusions of the working group.
In general terms, the Commission considers that the conclusions of a series of earlier WTO working groups and of the dispute settlement body have, over the years, established a sort of jurisprudence which is developing coherently in the direction the Community has always advocated.
And as regards the specific working group I am talking about, I think we need to look beyond the rather sensationalist conclusions we have all read in the press, such as saying that the United States are losing the battle to save the turtles.
If we take a more technical approach and look at the data and the analysis which the Community presented to the special group, as a contribution from a third party, we can conclude that the question is probably a little more subtle.
The fact is, the United States prohibited shrimp imports from certain Asian countries, inviting them to negotiate an agreement on the protection of marine turtles.
And the special group could probably have reached a different conclusion if the United States had made a more serious effort to reach an agreement with the Asian countries before imposing the ban.
In any case, that special group will stimulate debate within the Committee on Trade and Environment, where the Community has constantly advocated that multilaterally agreed measures should abide by WTO rules.
So the basic reasoning follows the line taken by the Commission.
And while it is possible that the working group may find against the United States' measure, many of its conclusions can represent a step towards recognizing that WTO members have a lot of room for manoeuvre in adopting the environmental and conservation policies they feel are needed, including policies applied outside their own jurisdiction.
Mr Pimenta's report also addresses the question of WTO jurisprudence and Article 20.
Over the years, the conclusions of the various WTO working groups and the dispute settlement body have come to constitute a sort of jurisprudence, which is still making solid progress in the direction advocated by the Community. In other words, the measures adopted by WTO members to protect the environment outside their own jurisdiction should be taken into account when adopted multilaterally rather than unilaterally.
Although there has been progress in this area, the Commission believes it is not enough just to resolve the question of exemptions established in Article 20 of the GATT through juridical resolutions reached within the framework of the dispute settlement system.
Article 20 is so important that it should be dealt with at a political level, perhaps in the form of an interpretation or a general WTO agreement.
And the Commission is convinced that the constant progress achieved by working group resolutions will offer a good basis for any interpretation of this nature.
Moving on to the question of ethics and the protection of animals, which the rapporteur includes in the present report, I think this is an area which calls for a certain amount of caution.
I will just say that, in the current phase, we should avoid giving the impression that we want to lecture other countries about what they should do within their own jurisdictions.
When a problem arises in relation to their policies, the correct attitude is probably to collaborate with them and persuade them of our point of view, even through the use of binding agreements.
In any case, these questions should not be added to the agenda of the Committee which, in the Commission's view, should continue to concern itself with specific problems which really have a bearing on the environment.
Perhaps these are the sort of questions which could be addressed by the eminent persons group.
In principle, the Commission is happy with the idea of creating this group, but before we commit ourselves to it we need more details about what its precise mandate would be.
Obviously, it would be important for its work not to overlap with that of the Committee, and it would need a broad mandate, to include not just the traditional problems concerning trade and the environment, but also questions such as the ethical aspects of animal protection, human health, consumer protection and so on.
To start with however, as indicated in Mr Pimenta's report, our efforts should primarily be aimed at strengthening the work of the Committee itself.
As for what could be called the philosophical debate, the Commission would try to go along with the rapporteur's view, in the sense that the debate on trade and environment has matured sufficiently to allow intervention at a more political level.
This maturity is largely due to the Community's constructive efforts within the Committee, and that work should be increased now.
Nevertheless, as Sir Leon said in Geneva last month, the Commission also thinks it would be useful to have a high-level meeting on trade and environment before the WTO ministerial conference in 1999.
That meeting, under the auspices of the WTO, could strengthen the Committee's work, in the sense of increasing the importance of trade and environment in the eyes of governments, ensuring that the matter remains firmly fixed in the WTO programme in the run-up to the 1999 conference.
More importantly, a high-level political initiative of this type could remove the block which has so far largely prevented us from progressing as much as we would have liked, and could resolve many of the questions raised by Mr Pimenta in his report.
So the Commission wants to work with Parliament on initiatives like this which can allow us to place the environment right at the centre of our trade and ecological objectives, granting it a special place in the global round of negotiations.
To address some of Mr Pimenta's other comments, such as whether the Commission agrees with the idea of an eminent persons group, I have already said the Commission is sympathetic. The ministerial conference in May undoubtedly represents an intermediate phase between two ministerial conferences, and the Commission certainly has no plans to attach special importance to one particular subject or sector, and does not intend to propose anything on its own initiative.
However, it is willing to consider in a positive light anything suggested by other parties.
As for the Commission supporting the idea of a solemn political declaration in Geneva, as suggested by Mr Pimenta this evening, we see the May ministerial conference as an intermediate stage between two ministerial conferences, and the Commission clearly has no plans to place the emphasis on that question. However, we understand that the objective of such a declaration, according to Mr Pimenta's report, would be to regain the political impetus, and the Commission accepts that there is a need to revitalize the debate.
For that reason, as I said before, we have proposed the high-level officials' meeting.
Those are the basic aspects I wanted to comment on.
Also, I want to say to Mrs Pollack, as regards her mention of the Kyoto Protocol, that we do not see any danger of incompatibility with the WTO. As for the multilateral agreement on investments, the MAI, negotiated within the framework of the OECD, the Community is prepared to go as far as may be necessary - and I want to say that categorically - to guarantee that foreign investments respect national laws on environmental protection.
Those are some of the comments I wanted to make in connection with Mr Pimenta's report, to which the Commission is very sympathetic. We think it is very important, just like the speeches we have heard.
Mr President, may I first make a comment for the benefit of the Parliamentary staff: paragraph 4 is wrong in all languages.
It should not read 'the caution principle' , but the 'precautionary principle' .
I would ask the staff to correct the error, because this is an important matter.
Turning to the Commissioner, I would firstly like to thank him for being here, and tell him that I know him well and know from his background and his lifestyle that he is sincere when he speaks on environmental matters and participation in civil society.
Nevertheless - and I hope I can rely on your vote, Commissioner Oreja, as an ally of ours in defending these causes - I would like to make sure the whole Commission knows, first and foremost, that there must be a declaration on the environment in Geneva in May, because there was none made in Singapore.
Because in Singapore, as you know, the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) report was not even ratified, and if there is no declaration in May it will mean another year will be wasted on discussions at official level.
We need a political initiative at the highest level, within the WTO. Otherwise the debate will not be resumed.
Secondly, a high-level meeting should not be a meeting of senior officials.
It should be a ministerial initiative, because it is not the Director-Generals who answer to their national parliaments on policy and receive policy directions, however well qualified they may be technically; it is the ministers.
It is the ministers for trade, the ministers for the environment, as it is the Commissioners here.
I would ask the Commissioner to properly forward to the Commission the fact that this House is seriously interested in political initiatives, and raises these questions at political level, without wishing to detract from the excellent work that has been done by technical experts, and especially European technical experts, in this field.
Mr President, I have certainly taken note of what Mr Pimenta said.
I will make sure I remember it and convey his opinion to the Members of the Commission.
Thank you, Commissioner Oreja.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
European City of Culture
The next item is the report (A4-0083/98) by Mr Monfils, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a Community initiative for the European City of Culture event (COM(97)0549 - C4-0580/97-97/0290(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since 1985 the choice of the European Cities of Culture has been left to the Union's Council of Ministers.
Decisions were not always based on the cultural value of the projects submitted.
Furthermore, in the year 2000, Europe has made no choice since it has accepted the designation of nine cities as Cities of Culture.
The directive presented by the Commission is aimed at giving greater importance to European cities and greater objectivity to the choices made.
At a procedural level, the directive proposes setting up a Selection Panel.
On the basis of its opinion, on the proposal of the Commission and after consultation with Parliament, the Council will designate the European City of Culture by a qualified majority.
The directive furthermore extends the choice of cities to the countries of the European Economic Area.
It also strengthens the demands relating to the content of the projects to be presented.
After a particularly in-depth debate, for which I would especially like to thank the members of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, some of whom are present today, I can say that this committee approved virtually unanimously the amendments presented to you here, which are furthermore in line with the suggestions I made in my report.
There are seven points worth highlighting.
Firstly, with regard to the choice of city, we are proposing to replace the previous intergovernmental method with a Community method.
Thus the cities will submit their applications directly, without going via their national government.
I am aware that there is clear opposition to this method within the Council of Ministers.
There are even some who would like the European City of Culture to be designated in turn by each Member State, or by the state holding the Presidency of the European Union.
Thus, after Great Britain, an Austrian city would be nominated by Austria for six months, then a Swedish one, then Danish, then Belgian and so on.
To do this would be to ruin completely the idea of a European capital of culture, which must not be designated by a State for reasons of circumstance or opportunity, but as the result of a proper cultural analysis of a project presented by the city and an appreciation of the capacity for influence within Europe of the candidate city's cultural project.
I am convinced that a very large majority of this House will share the virtually unanimous view of the Committee on Culture and will not accept the cheap selling-off of the very idea of the European City of Culture.
Secondly, we wanted to strengthen the independence of the Selection Panel and place the emphasis on quality, in particular at the level of cultural expertise.
Thirdly, on a procedural level, we are proposing to implement fully the codecision procedure for choice of city, which implies close participation on the part of Parliament in designating the city, and not simply giving an opinion.
Fourthly, we consider that a candidate city may present a specific cultural project in association with other cities, even if a state does not belong to the European Union - maybe to the European Free Trade Association or the European Economic Area, for example - but that the city presenting the project would be solely responsible to the European Union and would hold the title of European City of Culture.
Fifthly, the Committee on Culture wanted to add depth to the content of the projects to be presented by cities, by placing emphasis on the development of artistic creation. This implies not being satisfied with a simple show of cultural events imported from other countries or cities, but demanding that the cultural project should be rooted in the social fabric of the city, encouraging maximum participation in the cultural project on the part of the city's citizens and groups and insisting that conditions for a follow-up to the year's cultural events be presented in the project.
Sixthly, the new importance given to the designation of European City of Culture and the fact that stricter conditions for eligibility have been set mean that greater financial support is required.
We are proposing a sum of ECU 2 million, obviously without wishing to influence the possibility of receiving other benefits, in particular via the Structural Funds.
Finally, my seventh point, we stand by the proposal for a European Cultural Month for the countries which are not part of the European Union but who would have an undeniable interest in this if it were to be made more dynamic.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Culture and the European Parliament have worked quickly.
As I said, we wanted to make the designation of European City of Culture one of the strong points of the Union's cultural policy.
We obviously want to insist that the procedure should not be delayed, so that everything can be in place by the end of the year and we can thus apply the provisions of the new directive to the designation of European City for 2002. This is also what the European Commission hopes for, and in particular the European Commissioner, Mr Oreja, whose company we have the pleasure of here today.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased that I have been invited to be the first speaker on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, because I think the European City of Culture is a brilliant idea, a real stroke of genius.
I therefore hope we shall not strangle it at birth.
In 2002 this programme must stop being an extended intergovernmental pilot scheme and unreservedly become a Community initiative for which Governments, the Commission and Parliament share responsibility.
This is a change we consider fundamental in order to invest it with a highly important threefold function; the representation of national, regional and local culture, which is naturally dear to governments' hearts, the demonstration of a common European culture, which is naturally dear to the Commission's heart; and the expression of the vital forces of society, which is naturally dear to Parliament's heart.
The future of this important programme will be put at risk if we do not move forward towards the communitization, the codecision-based selection procedure proposed by Parliament.
The proposals in the Monfils report amount to an important signal to the people.
They prove that when a programme demonstrates its worth, European institutions are capable of recognizing it, in this case by proposing to increase the budget and extend the number of participants to enable the programme to realize its full potential.
Let us see whether the Commission and the Member States will match the generosity of Parliament, which is proposing a reference amount of ECU 2 million.
Since the event was first instituted in 1985, the European City of Culture has taken various forms, and in the last few years has shown a maturity which has been apparent not only in the consistency and innovation of most of the programmes suggested by the cities, but especially in the extent to which those cities have in some cases been transformed.
This is a fundamental way of guaranteeing the effect of an investment going beyond the festival year.
After 2002, if Parliament's proposal is accepted, the European City of Culture can no longer be an event that has nothing to do with the people who live there, or with other cities, inside and outside the Union, with which it is called to join hands.
It must not fail to be a link between the past and the future, making good use, as the report suggests, of the relationship between the continued exploitation of its heritage and contemporary creative work.
It must also seek to ensure that local initiatives are publicized so that they reach other cities and regions of Europe.
The future City of Culture must submit itself for selection directly, without having to go through central government. It must be selected by an independent consultative Selection Panel, and must finally be approved by the three European institutions.
In proposing this, Parliament is giving its clear backing to the initiative and responsibility of the cities themselves.
This may help to advance the claims of medium-sized and peripheral cities which would be unlikely to be put forward for selection if they were to rely upon being chosen by their Governments.
Parliament has had the courage to add to this excellent proposal by the Commission.
Let us hope Member States will be able to see the potential of this means we are offering them to achieve our common objective: to reinforce the cohesion of the European fabric through cultural cooperation.
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of my group I would like to thank Mr Monfils for his splendid report.
The notion that Melina Mercouri put forward thirteen years ago regarding the City of Culture event has been an undoubted success.
By the year 2000 all Member States of the Union will have their own City of Culture year planned.
Actually, Finland is the only country that is having to share its designated City of Culture year with eight other cities.
There is nothing there can be done about this in itself, but I seriously think that Finland too, and perhaps especially, given her status as a relatively unknown new Member State, should have had her own individual City of Culture celebration.
Helsinki should have got her own City of Culture year considering her internationally respected, and at the same time totally indigenous, contribution to the Arts, as well as the cultural arrangements that are now being undertaken in preparation for the year 2000.
Sharing the City of Culture among many only serves to water down each city's visible contribution to cultural development.
In future programming the City of Culture status must clearly only be awarded to one city at a time.
The most important contribution the City of Culture project can make is, in the end, its permanent influence on society, and it is therefore necessary to try to get the community as a whole involved in events, to take part in them and get something out of them.
It is then that the influence the event has will carry on in an active and creative way long after the year in question is over.
The City of Culture year must be mainly based on the city's own resources and special features, its history and its challenges in the face of change.
You can then build a selected theme on that individual cultural base, taking advantage of reciprocal action and cultural offerings on an international basis.
The birth of lasting cultural cooperation is one of the key goals of the Union.
Although cooperation among different cities is to be aspired to, it is the essential responsibility of just one city, and, if it likes, that city can adopt a natural partner to help in the formulation of its City of Culture year, a partner that has something in common with its geographical situation, history or culture: one of the applicant countries, for instance.
I hope the Commission will continue to develop the European City of Culture notion, which is a splendid opportunity, for example, for associate countries to develop their cultural heritage and creativity.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a common market, common political institutions and a common currency which we are seeking to set in motion today, are all the results of a European accord.
They should lead to the people within the European Union growing closer together and combining their energies.
Yet the foundations upon which the States in the European Union have been building their Community for almost a half century, and the soil in which it will thrive derive from something which has linked the peoples on this continent for several thousand years: their common culture.
The Community European City of Culture initiative is based on this thinking.
It takes the very thing that could persuade Europeans to consider seeking a political accord in the first place, and uses it to strengthen this accord.
From time immemorial, European cities have been centres of culture.
Art, music, literature, dance, theatre, film, architecture in the past and now thrive best where people meet and are culturally active.
The "European City of Culture' programme should awaken new interest amongst the citizens of the Union for the cultural heritage in our cities, and focus their eyes more keenly on their beauty.
However, in the quest to become European City of Culture there is no place for cities that are inwardlooking.
Cities only have a chance of gaining this distinction by placing their own culture in a European context.
Where are the city's European influences, and in what way has it influenced Europe? It is the task of Europe's cities to illustrate this by means of cultural events.
And, in terms of the initiative we are to adopt today, this will be all the more successful the more cities cooperate with other European cities on their projects and involve creative artists from other cities in their campaigns.
All Member States of the European Union basically agree that, in order to maintain the cultural diversity of Europe, it is imperative to preserve the cultural sovereignty of the Member States.
Yet, in terms of the European City of Culture, it is a question of being aware of the riches generated by this diversity whilst keeping in view its common roots.
The great opportunity of this initiative is that it can reach all citizens of the Union, for everyone can be culturally creative and take pleasure from culture.
Precisely because culture has such a strongly integrating effect, we in the European Parliament would re-emphasize our call as a legitimate democratic body to participate in the decision on the European City of Culture from the year 2002 and to make available ECU 2 million as an annual contribution to finance the initiative.
Finally, I offer my warmest congratulations to the rapporteur for producing a sound report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Monfils on his excellent report.
"European Cities of Culture' is amongst the few projects which appeal to everyone's imagination, yield considerable economic benefit for the city concerned, and can look to the business community for support.
The rapporteur rightly stresses that neither the size of a city nor its political importance within a country is of overriding importance.
In the past we have focused mainly on capital cities.
This new directive intends to give smaller cities a chance. One condition is, however, that the candidate cities present a clear project which is aimed at the future of the city and which has as its premise its individuality and its role in European history.
An important point regarding the participation of smaller cities in the programme is that Europe provides sufficient resources.
My city, Bruges, for instance, candidate for the year 2002, does not have the facilities and infrastructure which capitals have; this is why I support the amendment which provides for ECU 2 million.
In conclusion, I agree with the proposal that candidate cities should be able to submit their candidature directly to the European Commission, and not to their governments.
If added to this there will be an independent panel and a Parliament which can have the final say in the choice of the city, I can see a true democratization of the selection procedure.
We hope that the approval of this directive can be finalized this year, so that from 2002 the selection can be made according to this new directive, as planned.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Monfils for the successful work he has done in drafting this report.
It is important to stress that the City of Culture programme ought also to be used to bring capital cities outside the EU to the attention of the public.
Lasting cultural cooperation can be furthered not just by concentrating on one city but through regional and cross-border projects.
One city should, however, bear the responsibility of coordinating the work.
Sufficient community funding must be found for these programmes, but even more important is the link between business and the events themselves.
The weighty contribution which business can make will guarantee publicity for the events and the region in question, and financial tie-ins can also help to promote the development of sustainable projects in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to congratulate both Mr Monfils, on his excellent report, and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Parliament attaches great importance to the inclusion of the European City of Culture within the Community framework and demonstrates the need to support this event, which has met with increasing success ever since it was launched.
The purpose of the initiative presented by the Commission is to highlight the richness and cultural diversity of European cities and, at the same time, as Mrs Vaz da Silva reminded us a moment ago, draw attention to our common cultural heritage.
And that is in keeping with the spirit and the letter of Article 128 of the Treaty.
The Commission is pleased to accept most of Parliament's amendments, which undoubtedly improve the text markedly.
However, there are some amendments which we would prefer not to incorporate into the initial proposal: specifically, Amendments Nos 7, 10, 12, 13, 14 and part of No 9.
Let us consider Amendments Nos 7 and 14 first.
The funding for the European City of Culture initiative is provided for in the Commission proposal on the framework programme, which has not yet been adopted by the Commission.
So at this stage of the procedure the Commission cannot accept amendments with regard to funding since the budgetary provision has to form part of the framework programme.
As for Amendment No 8, insofar as it concerns the presentation of candidates, the Commission believes that the support and initiative of the Member States is indispensable for the event's success.
This is to avoid what we see as a potential waste of effort and money by cities with no real chance of being selected right from the outset, because of a lack of venues, for example.
In reference to the last part of Amendment No 9 and Amendment No 10, the Commission proposal certainly makes no attempt to marginalize Parliament. On the contrary, we want it to have a greater role in this activity which, from being intergovernmental in nature, is turning into a Community initiative.
The selection procedure proposed by the Commission tries to involve the Community institutions fully, and is flexible enough for the decision to be adopted quickly, allowing the selected cities enough time to prepare for the event.
The legislative procedure of codecision, provided for in Article 189(b) of the Treaty, is generally required when establishing measures to promote the cultural sector, but it does not seem the most appropriate method for the specific designation of the city. Given its complexity and length, it could stop the programme working properly.
As for Amendments Nos 12 and 13, the Commission does not consider their approach to be in keeping with the Community's commitments to associated third countries as regards the possibility of their participation in Community programmes and activities.
Finally, the Commission wants to stress the need for us to conclude all the procedures connected with the implementation of this initiative as quickly as possible. In that respect, I can tell you that the Commission will spare no effort and will do what it can to try to get the different institutions to adopt a similar position, so we can reach a satisfactory solution which preserves or even increases the vitality and success of this event.
To Mr De Coene, who said a moment ago that the Council had adopted a decision, I want to say that the Council cannot adopt any decision until you have adopted yours.
And at this point, allow me to put on my institutionalist's hat.
The Council can exchange opinions, but cannot decide, because first of all there has to be a first reading - which is what you are doing now - and then the Council will make a statement. There will be an opportunity for that on 28 May, which is when the Council will be able to examine a common position, if it wants to, and possibly adopt it.
Very rapidly, Mr President, I would simply like to say to the Commissioner that I am extremely disappointed by his response, in three respects.
I will pass over the problem of financing, one to two million, when the European Union's budget is ECU 900 million or 1 billion - what am I saying! - 100 billion per year, the issue is clearly ridiculous.
But there are two points to which I would like to draw your attention, Commissioner.
Firstly, you cannot accept Amendment No 8, which is the amendment enabling cities to submit their projects directly to the Commission.
I thought you were the defender and the promoter of cultural development in the European Union.
To hand the choice of cultural city over to the Member States is to trivialize completely the role of European City of Culture and, my apologies for saying this, but you are playing into the hands of the Member States and not that of the Community that you should be defending.
Secondly, when you say that codecision will slow things down, Commissioner, may I remind you that you submitted your report to us a little before the New Year.
I commenced my report around 10 January. By 20 January it was being translated.
Any delays involved in this report have been through administrative reasons or reasons of timing only.
The Committee on Culture has completed everything in the shortest time possible.
To tell me that we are not capable, at the level of the European Parliament, of giving an opinion on a European city, that is, of saying yes or no to Brussels, Salamanca, Helsinki or elsewhere, is clearly to make a mockery of the work of Parliament.
We have proved that in less than three months, and with a series of delays which were not of our making, we have been able to draw up a report, discuss it, amend it and vote on it.
Consequently, Commissioner, I have the feeling that in this respect you are making a mockery of the work of Parliament.
I would like to end, Commissioner, in a word, by saying this to you: in your directive, you wanted a sign, a strong symbol for the European Union, in terms of culture, and we agreed with you.
Not only did we agree, not only did we propose it, but we also reinforced it.
Commissioner, do not destroy cultural symbols in a world such as ours.
They are essential in order to experience our culture in all its diversity.
Commissioner, I do not wish to call into question your expertise regarding institutional issues.
I know that you are a specialist on the matter.
I would merely like to say one thing, namely that if, in the common position, the Council was to amend the date the directive enters into force, and say 2005 or 2006 was laid down instead of 2002, this would in fact amount to the same thing.
Promises have already been made to cities, and to countries at intergovernmental level.
Everyone knows this, and it has even been published in non-official publications.
So let us not be naive.
I know that you oppose this. I know that you do not accept this because as Commissioner, you want to oversee the actual procedures.
But let us be honest. Simply through this simple amendment, the Council of Ministers for Culture can undermine your intentions and what we want.
This is what is happening at the moment.
So let us be sensible and let us react immediately and say that this is out of the question.
I only wanted to issue a warning about some demarches happening at the moment.
I really did not want to teach anyone a lesson.
Mr De Coene, I think there has been an interpretation problem.
Since I understood you to say that the Council had decided, all I wanted to say to you was that the Council had not been able to decide, because the Council cannot decide until you have done so.
It was a question of principle.
I was not referring to any other problem.
Obviously, like you, I have read rumours about the positions the Council is currently trying to adopt.
But I just wanted to deny those rumours, because it is an institutional matter which affects me.
The Council cannot decide until you have done so.
That is all I was referring to.
However, I know as well as you that there are rumours at the moment about certain intentions along the lines you mention.
We shall see what the Council says on 28 May, and immediately afterwards - as soon as you invite me to the committee - I will come and tell you what has happened in the Commission and in the Council.
Secondly, I would like to say to Mr Monfils that the Community nature of the initiative does not depend on whether it is the cities themselves or the Member States who present the candidates.
It is a question of preference.
I respect your opinion very highly and you can rest assured that I will look into it.
At the moment, I am not going to accept the amendment, but that does not mean I will never accept it.
I will think about it and study it because I greatly value what Mr Monfils has done.
I am not going to accept it today because I think it is a good procedure for the Member States - not to decide on the city - but to present the cities, and for firstly the Commission and then the panel to decide on the city.
You say the cities should compete directly.
I have my fears about that.
I want there to be some sort of security, and a country provides more security than any city.
There are many cities which would not pose any problem for me, but one or two might do so, and I prefer the procedure based on Member States. But I am not inflexible on this issue.
It is not a question of theology.
You have presented me with an observation, and I am not able to accept it at the moment.
What I can promise you is that I will think about it.
As for the second matter, I believe - and again this is a question of principle - that the general rule has to be adopted by codecision, which is what you are doing now.
You now adopt decisions by codecision.
On the other hand, I think the choice of city is an implementational measure and in such cases I do not think codecision should be used.
It is debatable.
You know that the boundaries between what can and cannot be submitted to the codecision procedure are not always very well-defined.
I am in favour of extending codecision as much as possible, as I said in the intergovernmental conference.
My opinion is well known.
I expressed it in this House after the European Council in Amsterdam.
But in this case, I think we are dealing with an implementational measure.
I was here in Parliament yesterday and spoke at length on the subject of comitology, which is also an implementational measure.
So I have made a note of what Mr Monfils said.
I am in favour of making a distinction between general and implementational aspects, and that is why I have not accepted your amendment.
Thank you, Commissioner Marcelino Oreja.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.05 a.m.)
I rise, Madam President, to seek your support and in fact the support of the President of the Parliament for relief for the devastating floods and the effect of those floods in my constituency over the Easter weekend.
Some two thousand homes were affected and hundreds of families are now living in temporary accommodation.
To make matters even worse: in Northampton, alone, the area that was affected was a socially deprived one where people basically have very little insurance coverage.
I know that you will be aware of these floods; they hit the whole of the Midlands.
I have already written to the Commission seeking support and I seek your support too for some disaster fund alleviation of this really very tragic situation in which there was not only loss of property but tragically also loss of life.
So I seek your support this morning on this very serious matter.
Thank you, Mrs Billingham.
I am extremely saddened by this disaster and will, of course, take careful note of your comment.
Naturally, I will inform the President and the necessary steps will be taken, you have my word.
Madam President, I rise on a point of order that I referred to this House back in September of last year following the tragic death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
I said this raised the issue of a possible intrusion by the press into the privacy of individuals.
At that stage, following a motion from Mrs Pauline Green, it was suggested that the matter should be referred to committee.
I raised the item again, earlier this year; that is a matter that to my knowledge has not yet been referred to any committee of this House although it was the decision of the House, as I say, in September of last year.
I wonder whether you can give us any information at this stage whether there is any intention to honour the wish of the House and refer this to committee, or whether there is somebody attempting some sort of cover up?
In general, Mr Perry, I can tell you that we have the greatest intention to respect Parliament's wishes.
That is quite clear.
As regards the precise matter you are raising, I cannot give you any information at this precise moment, but we will look into it and ensure that, in this instance, the wishes of Parliament are followed. I will make sure of it.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of 29 April 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, my name is not on the register of attendance for yesterday, through nobody's fault other than my own.
I was present at the House and I contributed to the debate on Northern Ireland.
I would appreciate the fact if my name could be included among those who were present.
Of course, Mr Collins. It was a mistake.
We did note your presence and the matter will be rectified.
Absolutely, Mr Rübig.
If a declaration was made but not recorded in the Minutes, we shall look into the matter.
(The Minutes were approved)
Services based on, or consisting of, conditional access
The next item is the report (A4-0136/98) by Mr Anastassopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the legal protection of services based on, or consisting of, conditional access (COM(97)0356 - C4-0475/97-97/0198(COD)).
Madam President, I cannot see a representative of the European Commission in the Chamber at the moment and I would not be prepared to proceed with the debate if there were no Commissioner present to follow it.
I would like to make a request to wait for perhaps a moment or two until the Commissioner arrives, since it is impossible for us to have a debate without a Commissioner here.
Mr Anastassopoulos, I had certainly noticed the Commission's absence.
I was hoping their representative would arrive during the procedural motions but that has not happened.
I am extremely sorry, and not very pleased about this.
It must surely be some problem with the planes.
Communication is not always easy everywhere...
(Mr Martens: "The Commission is in Brussels' ) It was a joke, Mr Martens.
Mr Anastassopoulos has made a request which I personally approve of, if there are no objections.
We shall suspend the sitting for a few minutes, while we wait for the relevant Commissioner to arrive.
I hope we shall be able to resume the sitting as soon as possible.
(The sitting was suspended at 9.10 a.m. and resumed at 9.15 a.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, we can resume the sitting.
Commissioner Monti was delayed due to a strike on the part of the officials at the Commission.
Mr Commissioner, there is no need to apologize.
Given your punctuality and the fact that you are always available to the European Parliament, we were not really worried and we were sure that the reason for your delay was of a pressing nature.
The rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, has the floor.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the question of conditional access is a central interface for the whole range of services in our information society.
What we have here in fact is the question of what are the conditions under which conditional access should be introduced.
It is, therefore, a matter of defining the conditions for conditional access, and this poses a series of fundamental questions.
Firstly, the relationship between fee-payment and private acquisition must be determined, because we could not, of course, allow someone to acquire Shakespeare and subsequently demand a fee whenever Shakespeare's work is performed.
The fact of the matter is that our culture is always a combination of individual and joint achievements.
Corresponding lines of demarcation need to be drawn here.
Secondly, it is a question of the relationship between the information-rich and the information-poor.
We must not allow conditional access to lead to a situation in which essential elements of our culture, essential elements which are public property, are accessible only to privileged minorities who can afford to pay for them.
Ultimately, we are dealing with a segmentation of the public which can indeed restrict people's freedom to form their own opinions.
The appropriate conditions must be imposed here so that, if private acquisition is necessary and sensible, it can indeed take place and rights can indeed be properly exploited as well.
We just need to bear in mind that we shall keep coming back to convergence, and there would certainly be a connection.
But basically, we have here a first opportunity to talk about the problem of convergence at this interface as well.
I have also complained about the regulatory minimalism which the Commission has displayed, instead of using this interface aggressively.
We have been particularly struck by two points.
Firstly, the fact that national boundaries and technical ranges do not coincide.
This leads to all sorts of inconsistencies in practice which have not been satisfactorily addressed.
If, for example, you use a decoder for Sky television as an English-speaking viewer in Belgium, is that structurally illegal? Surely not!
Secondly, there is a very dangerous tendency for those who exploit rights to put themselves in the position of the copyright holders or of the originators, and to some extent to give these rights a subordinate character.
We must ensure that the originators and copyright holders are also protected.
That seems to me to be a necessary condition.
When we talk about conditional access, we are at the same time talking about the conditions that we want to impose on private industry for the introduction of conditional access.
With that in mind, I think that this ought to be our fundamental approach to the subject.
Madam President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur and his colleagues on the Legal Affairs Committee who have brought this matter to our consideration today.
It is our view, on the Culture Committee, that we are quite properly here looking at issues of delivery and not at issues of content.
There are many concerns about content and I will refer to them in just a second.
But, essentially, today we are looking at the protection of certain services from the point of view of the delivery of the signal to the individual consumer.
It is for that reason that we cannot vote for the latter part of Amendment No 20, despite all the real concerns about copyright.
They are legitimate concerns but we need a copyright directive to address them and we need it urgently to move in parallel with the subject we are debating today.
We all agree that the problem of piracy is substantial and it grows day by day.
In the end, content matters in this directive because the funding of content, the provision of the programmes for the increasing number of digital services, essentially relies for many broadcasters on the revenues from remunerated conditional access.
If you allow the pirates to flourish that revenue will be diminished.
If the revenue is diminished there will be fewer services available for the public at large.
Nevertheless, we want to make sure that in attempting to tackle this question of pirates, we very carefully delineate precisely what the actions are that we are prescribing.
We are not in favour of restrictions on the citizen and draconian punishments for the mere possession inadvertently of a smart card published for other reasons, perhaps in another state.
We are in favour of pursuing those who deliberately manufacture these instruments for profit.
That is why we support the phrasing of Amendment No 22.
My final point is that in all of this we need to have regard to the area of public broadcasting and broadcasting which is free to air.
Nothing in this directive should force broadcasters into encryption and into measures of protection not necessary in terms of the purposes which they serve.
That is the point of Amendment No 25 and of many of the preambles which I believe have been properly addressed by all the three committees that have looked at this matter.
I would certainly commend the directive to the Parliament.
Madam President, I think the word "piracy' has been used too much in this morning's debate.
The rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, is Greek and knows that a pirate was a sailor who burnt boats belonging to other countries or other people. This caused people to die, and was a terrible thing to do.
At the moment, people seem too ready to use the term "piracy' .
There is no piracy here: we are dealing with the protection of certain economic interests.
Economic interests deserve to be protected.
On the other hand however, there are other rights which must also be protected, such as the right to information or the right to privacy.
I am saying this because it seems that, at least in the discussions in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, there has been a temptation to protect encoded communications as if they were a fundamental right.
But there are other fundamental rights.
All we are doing here is providing a certain amount of protection, to enable that activity to develop and the providers to be remunerated.
It is a simple question of economics.
In that respect, I think the Commission's proposal is good and well-balanced, because it protects those economic interests but without restricting people's rights.
I want to congratulate the rapporteur for being so understanding during discussions on this subject, because I think the 20 or so amendments which have finally been adopted are reasonable and balanced.
However, in the Group of the Party of European Socialists we have objections to the second part of Amendment No 20 and the second part of Amendment No 22.
As regards the former, Mr Whitehead has already mentioned the difficulties of protecting content which, in the end, might end up as the justification for protecting more than just remuneration.
Secondly, we object to the second part of Amendment No 22 because, in referring to the "sole intended purpose of enabling unauthorized access to a protected service' , it weakens the protection, because it does not cover the case of an instrument with a useful purpose.
In other words, with the exception of the second part of Amendment No 20 - specifically the words "or its content' - and the second part of Amendment No 22 - "for the sole intended purpose of enabling unauthorized access to a protected service' - the Socialist Group agrees with the amendments and, of course, we are in favour of approving Mr Anastassopoulos' report in its current terms We also congratulate the Commission on having achieved a balance in the proposal it has presented to us.
Madam President, I must start by saying - and it is not just rhetoric - that it is an honour for me to be the first member of the Group of the European People's Party to speak following a rapporteur from our group.
It is an honour because the rapporteur has followed in the best European Parliament traditions of Members defending their ideas - their ideas about protecting citizens' interests - with all the energy they can muster, with no effort spared and, at the same time, eager to reach conclusions by means of dialogue.
Madam President, as the rapporteur rightly said, we are faced with a Commission proposal which we in this Parliament see as a response to a resolution passed in this House.
And in that sense, we have to agree with the rapporteur when he says that the Commission has not done everything this House requested. In other words, it has not dealt with the problems of non-remunerated encoded services or the possibility of offering more protection for authors' rights.
Having said all that, Madam President, and speaking now in a personal capacity - since the Group of the European People's Party will vote according to the rapporteur's voting list - I am going to mention a few doubts.
Madam President, I do not agree with some of the amendments proposed by the rapporteur and accepted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
The reason is very simple: in Europe at the moment we want to "legislate less to legislate better' .
There is a declaration in the Treaty of Amsterdam which says that legislation must be clear, concise and aimed at a specific problem.
The Commission proposal meets those criteria.
It is true that the title of the proposal should have specified that it refers to remunerated encoded services.
That reference to remuneration should have appeared in recitals 5 and 12, in Article 1 and elsewhere, to make it absolutely clear which problem was being addressed.
And for the sake of that clarity we advocate, those recitals should also have mentioned that there are other large problem areas, such as non-remunerated encoded services, which should be addressed in other normative instruments.
Having said that, some of the approved amendments are not going to have the effect of harmonizing legislation or solving the existing problems. Rather, if they were included in the final text they would create even bigger problems.
I am not going to repeat what has already been said about the "sole intended purpose' , but blank tapes are not prohibited and, in that sense, there is no reason to think of banning an instrument which has a general use but can also be used for illegal purposes.
To pass on to other things, in Spanish we have a saying that: "He who attempts too much ends up doing nothing properly' .
And by including concepts such as direct or indirect profits, or content, we are creating margins for discretion, to be interpreted in the last analysis by the courts in each Member State. That could give rise to greater differences, if that were possible, in the very matter we are trying to harmonize.
So I hope, Madam President, that along this normative journey, we may reach a good solution which meets the criteria set out by the rapporteur - doubtless in other normative instruments.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, the starting point is important with this directive, namely that we are trying to provide legal protection for the economic values associated with intellectual activity.
That is what should be important, not obstructing access to information, as one of our colleagues also said.
We should recognize that protection of services also creates an interest in developing high-grade products.
The liberal point of view is that private services should in principle have the same protection as public services in this sector.
We should not experience what happens in some places, namely that people are prepared to resort to repressive measures if the public service licence has not been paid, but not to protect commercial television.
The committee and the rapporteur have rightly pointed to the freedom of speech aspects, which are important.
I hope this directive really helps to create a single market for products which are needed for the information society.
We have a problem with the fact that there is no functioning market today, such as in the case of encryption to protect private interests.
It is important that we create rules which do not represent obstacles for the future.
The change we are proposing in Amendment No 22 is so that we can get such a development.
That is why my group is going to support it.
But just as someone from the Group of the Party of European Socialists said earlier, we cannot support Amendment No 20, because it would create confusion and not clarify the directive.
Madam President, I should like to thank the rapporteur and my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and also the draftspeople on this rather complicated directive.
In particular, I should like to thank Phillip Whitehead whom I have worked closely with on this subject.
This is an important subject for the citizens of Europe as television is such a popular pastime.
The directive recognizes that new technology is coming into the industry and that it will be moving towards digital technology.
It provides for protection for the smart cards which will allow access to pay TV.
The proposal is intended to protect the providers of these services.
I have had a huge postbag on this proposal and the reactions to it have been very mixed.
Essentially we need a balance between protection and access to service for the consumers.
The rapporteur has endeavoured to achieve that.
Some of the particular points of concern raised in correspondence from all sorts of sources - individuals as well as firms - has been that the possession itself of a smart card should not be illegal and I agree with that.
There has also been concern on the civil liberties aspect of this directive and some writers have felt that the proposal is draconian. I hope the Commission has received similar correspondence.
It is important that ordinary citizens' voices are heard in this Chamber and by the Commission.
Another point of concern - and I have not had an adequate response from the Commission so perhaps Commissioner Monti could address this in his reply - is why the directive only applies to pay TV.
Some public service broadcast services are remunerated and, consequently, there is going to be a problem with litigation on which services are provided for remuneration and which are not.
In the interests of good law-making we should avoid unnecessary litigation.
In conclusion, I broadly support the proposal and the amendments although I may have some concern about particular aspects.
Madam President, I would like to express my respect for the rapporteur and thank him for his excellent report.
Still, there is one point I would like to draw attention to and that is the protection of the rights of artists and authors.
They need strong legal protection, and they are entitled to it.
That is why I wholeheartedly support Amendment No 20 in its entirety.
Piracy must be combated forcefully.
It is not enough to forbid instruments which are specifically designed and made to give unauthorized access.
It is sometimes also possible to infringe copyright with legal and seemingly harmless software.
This should also be combated.
Amendment No 22 limits this protection to equipment with the sole intended purpose of enabling unauthorized access.
This amendment must therefore be rejected, and most certainly the words "with the sole intended purpose' .
The European cultural world must not only be protected in special directives on copyright, important as this is, but must be protected in all cases, and therefore also in this directive.
That is why I ask the House to support Amendment No 20 in its entirety, and to vote against Amendment No 22.
Again, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, and could I ask Commissioner Bangemann and Commissioner Monti, present here today, to bear in mind the cultural dimension in their policy.
This is an extremely important issue. It determines the cultural diversity of Europe, and that is Europe's strength.
They have to bear that in mind in their policy.
Madam President, I am one of the admittedly small number of members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights who voted in committee against some of our rapporteur's amendments, and subsequently also against the directive that had been amended in accordance with his proposals.
I should like to make it clear here that this rejection did not relate to all the changes.
I do give my full support to all the amendments which are aimed at protecting not only those services which are subject to restricted access for commercial reasons, but also to those which are restricted for reasons to do with the security and integrity of the information transmitted.
However, I believe that, for systematic reasons, the right of originators to bring an action, proposed in the report, ought to be dealt with not in this directive, but in the copyright directive which is also currently being dealt with by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and that it should be considered by them at the same time as aspects which are essentially legal.
Otherwise we shall end up with a proliferation of requirements in a range of different directives, which would be of very little assistance to originators.
However, the greatest substantive problem I have relates, however, to the more or less clearly expressed demand that Member States should also criminalize private ownership of smart cards and similar devices.
This encourages more snooping around in people's homes, and on the whole I also believe that too little consideration is being given to the rights of free access to information.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I first wish to apologize for the delay this morning, owing to difficulties on this particular day.
I am very sorry and I would like to thank Madam President for being so understanding.
I would like to thank the draftsmen of opinion of the various Parliamentary committees and in particular the rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs, Vice-President Anastassopoulos, for the complex and very thorough work done on this proposal, which is both important and difficult.
The proposal for a directive aims to protect radio and television broadcasters and the suppliers of new services in the information society from piracy, that is from the production and distribution of equipment that enables services normally provided for payment to be received free of charge.
It should be remembered that the start of pay television was also the start of a flourishing industry in commercial piracy which, by providing users with pirate equipment, caused huge losses to the service providers and hindered the development of this emerging sector.
Some Member States reacted by introducing a specific legal protection against piracy, while others did not do so for various reasons.
Moreover, the national legislations recently adopted are extremely varied.
Consequently there is no equivalent level of protection, and the Union is thus becoming a refuge for pirates and offers several possibilities for eluding the legal protection guaranteed in some Member States.
The proposal for a directive seeks to resolve this problem by introducing harmonized regulations within the scope of the single market.
I am pleased that the report from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the amendments proposed are generally in favour of the Commission's proposal. It should not be forgotten that this is the answer to a repeated request from Parliament, last made in Mr Anastassopoulos' previous report on the Commission's Green Paper of 1996.
I am also pleased that the Anastassopoulos report, in the same way as the reports from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, contains numerous amendments that mainly help to clarify or reinforce the Commission's proposal.
I am referring in particular to Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 23, 24 and 25 which the Commission will accept in full, if not to the letter at least in spirit.
However, following a careful examination and taking into account the opinions of the various parties concerned, there are several amendments the Commission cannot accept.
This is the case, for example, with Amendment No 20, which aims to extend the scope of the legal protection to services using conditional access systems for reasons other than those of ensuring appropriate remuneration.
This type of amendment goes beyond the aim of the proposal, which is to deal with the fundamental problem of piracy, that is, the desire of certain users to obtain services they would normally pay for at reduced or no cost, and the interest of the pirate industry in satisfying this demand by providing users with illegal equipment.
These amendments, however, seek to extend protection to services using conditional access systems for reasons other than that of guaranteeing payment, such as the requirement to ensure observance of contractual agreements arranged between service providers and content providers, seeking to make it impossible to receive a service in territories other than those for which the rights were requested.
This goes beyond the scope of the proposal and cannot be accepted in the context of this proposal.
In this connection, however, I would like to point out, Madam President, and to the rapporteur, that personally I am convinced of the interest and need to examine this matter. I think it would be useful, for that purpose, to begin a study to establish more clearly the terms of the question, its compatibility with Community law and the possible means available to offer an appropriate solution that takes due account of the interests of all parties involved.
One further amendment the Commission cannot accept is Amendment No 22 for, by restricting the definition of illicit pirate devices, it risks creating loopholes and weakening the protection considerably.
The Commission cannot accept several other amendments which, in our opinion, are not sufficiently clear and could give rise to confusion or incorrect interpretations.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 5, 9, 11, 18, 21 and part of 23.
However, I wish to point out that despite the fact that several amendments cannot be accepted by the Commission, the agreement between the institutions on the objectives and the reasons for combating piracy and on the need to react urgently is broadly based and very encouraging.
I am sure that constructive cooperation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council will make it possible to achieve the objective, and I hope that every effort will be made in this connection.
Just one word, Madam President, on the point raised by Mr Pex, to reassure him that the Commission has taken maximum account of the cultural dimension, the value of cultural variety in Europe. This spirit is reflected in the fact that we accept all the amendments made by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Finally, with regard to the point raised by Mr Oddy, I have already partly explained that the Commission's proposal only guarantees protection for services using conditional access to guarantee payment, as it is only in these cases that there is a legitimate interest and a real requirement for protection.
I would like to add that intellectual property rights are not prejudiced, as simple reception, without reproduction or retransmission, cannot constitute a breach of an intellectual property right.
Moreover, when the service is not paid for, the service provider cannot sustain any direct financial loss as a result of unauthorized access.
This is a subject that should be examined further but, given the time constraints, I will stop here for the time being.
Madam President, I would particularly like to thank the Commissioner and all those colleagues who took part in this difficult debate on a very difficult issue, which has occupied those of us on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - you yourself are aware of this as you are a member of that committee - for many months, with many opposing views and many sides who, in fact, maintained their views right up to the present.
Following Commissioner Monti's speech, I would like to highlight two points.
There is still a fundamental disagreement between us concerning the limits of legal protection.
This disagreement was expressed in the Commissioner's speech and also in his opposition to the basic Amendment No 20, or at least, as I heard, to a section of this amendment, which somewhat attenuates the disagreement.
But I would like to mention the Commissioner's statement, which bore witness to his good intentions, that together with his colleagues in the European Commission, he was prepared to launch a study aimed at discovering whether, in the future, he could go beyond the scope which the Commission itself determined and which, of course, Parliament seeks to broaden.
As a result of the Commissioner's statement, I do not have a problem in allowing the report to be adopted, whereas I would have had a problem had there been no such statement. Perhaps I should ask Parliment to refer it back to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
We shall see how we can solve the problem of disagreement before the second reading.
I must point out of course that the Commission accepted 16 to 17 amendments, which is a detail I cannot overlook. Of course, I think that the efforts of all of us are aimed at finding syntheses that will serve every possible balanced outcome.
We always bear in mind that rights are affected, and one way or another we endeavour to find the best solution. I wish to point out that, for my part - and I have stressed this repeatedly - my intention is that public broadcasting services be covered by legal protection, since I place great importance on public broadcasting channels, for many reasons.
Having made these observations, I would like to thank you, Madam President, since we are now in a position to have a complete picture of this extremely difficult issue, which we shall be voting on at 11.00 a.m..
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11.00 a.m.
The internal market in natural gas
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0140/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position established by the Council (C40103/98-00/0385 (COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas (Rapporteur: Mr Desama).
Madam President, the vote which will follow today's debate brings to an end a file which has been open for six years, that of the internal market for energy, with its two components, electricity and gas.
I would like to highlight the continuity with which this has been handled within Parliament, since during these six years a single rapporteur has been dealing with this issue, yet during the same period we have seen three different commissioners and even more presidencies of the Council.
Having said that, how should we judge this gas directive, and the proposal for a common position which is put to us today? Firstly, it should be recognized that, as with the electricity case, we find in it the main essentials of what Parliament voted for at the first reading in November 1993.
I will not list these points here. I would merely like to mention a number of essential points which give real structure to the future directive.
Firstly, of course, the creation of the new concept of negotiated access to the network.
It was, in fact, the European Parliament which came up with this idea.
It is taken up in the directive, and we are very pleased about that.
The second important factor is the desire for a progressive opening up of the markets, to take into account the large differences in the way the systems are structured. This we also find in the directive.
The third element is the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity, which is necessary not to protect national interests but to give the desired time for a rapprochement in organization and systems, as they are so different within the European Union.
The fourth element, finally, is public service mission.
I think that in the directive on energy, for both electricity and gas, we have probably reached the best solution with regard to the protection of the public service mission.
In any case, these are far better solutions than the ones we jointly came up with for telecommunications.
So we are very pleased with this.
In the compromise which has now been reached, two positive factors can also be highlighted, for which I would like to congratulate both the Commission and the presidencies which persevered with the issue: the Dutch, Luxembourg and British presidencies.
These two compromises are important factors in the safety and supply of natural gas within the European Union, firstly that of the storage and use of installations and also, above all, that of the application of take or pay contracts, that is, long term contracts which guarantee the security of supply to a Union which is heavily dependent on external supplies of gas.
Of course, whether we see ourselves represented in this directive at an 80 % or an 85 % level, there is still a small margin with which we do not agree, but then, as Alfred de Musset said: "The pleasure is all the more intense for not being complete' .
It would be complete if we had today secured the eligibility of distributors and the eligibility of cogeneration.
It is not surprising that a certain number of Members have tabled amendments on this point.
It is a strong demand from the European Parliament that should undoubtedly be answered when the directive is reviewed in a few years' time although, by then, times will have changed and attitudes will undoubtedly be more mature.
With regard to the amendments which were retabled at the second reading, there are essentially three, since two of them are identical.
The first relates to the time-scale within which we are asking the Commission to give an assessment of the development of the issue.
We wanted to remind the Commission of this necessity, but I am perfectly willing to call on my colleagues to vote against these amendments if Commissioner Papoutsis can give us the necessary guarantees with regard to this.
Secondly, the eligibility of distributors.
We had already defended this point of view with regard to the electricity directive.
Today, although in essence I share this desire, as rapporteur I am called upon to recommend you to vote against this amendment, since it could also have the effect of threatening the balance of the compromise and thus preventing both the legal security and the necessary links with the electricity directive.
It is for the same reason that I am opposed to the amendment on cogeneration, even though it has been tabled by my group, for on this issue too it has been difficult to reach a compromise.
To challenge this issue would be to challenge the whole directive, so I obviously call upon you to vote against these amendments.
Mr President, firstly heartiest congratulations to Claude Desama for achieving this uncompleted business for us over the time-scale involved.
Of course he has the support of the Socialist Group.
That is quite obvious.
We shall be pursuing the amendment on cogeneration and I will explain why in a moment.
The timelag is, indeed, very long and during this period of years several things have happened.
For example, the United Kingdom experience of a very rapid liberalization of the market within that country demonstrated that there is some benefit in doing it more progressively, in doing it slower.
The United Kingdom experience was so rapid that the large loss of jobs and the difficulties associated with unbundling came over far too short a period.
That is not going to happen with this directive.
Nevertheless, the experience with the gas directive, as with the electricity directive, will be a faster liberalization than the directive actually demands.
In some ways the six years have made it a little anachronistic and there will be developments which are not foreseen in the directive.
The other thing that has happened in those six years is the development of environmental concerns, in particular expressed in the agreements made at Kyoto where cogeneration plays an important part, as one of the resolutions.
That is why we are representing our amendment.
The majority of the Socialist Group does not believe that Article 18.2 is appropriate.
Indeed, we believe it directly contradicts the Commission's communication on cogeneration.
We will therefore give people the opportunity when we vote to make it clear that they support cogeneration.
Nevertheless, like everyone else, we want the directive speedily.
We do not want to be obstructive.
Madam President, after three legislatures, believe it or not, we are today reorganizing the last large sector of industry in the Union.
The Member States have given the Union the task of bringing their markets together into a single internal market, and of enforcing the freedoms of the Treaty, namely the freedom to trade and the freedom of settlement, in all sectors.
The gas sector must surely be the last one where these two legal objectives have not yet been enforced.
This directive thus represents the keystone of the internal market.
I would remind you of the lesson we have learnt from our knowledge of economics: wherever there are monopolies, it is easier for mistakes to be made because the costs have to be met by captive customers.
On the other hand, competition forces mistakes out into the open, because it puts companies which make the wrong decisions at a competitive disadvantage.
As a result, competition puts pressure on prices and provides a motive for suppliers to come up with the best solutions.
But when does competition arise? At the point when the consumer can choose the same product from different types of supplier.
And that is what this directive achieves, by establishing that state of affairs - namely freedom of suppliers and thus freedom of choice for the consumer.
A different directive achieved this at the level of production at an earlier stage.
The gas directive achieves it in the area of transport and distribution, on a step-bystep basis, by abolishing legal monopolies and making it possible in practice to circumvent pipeline monopolies, since branch pipelines can be constructed, and there is a right to the freely approved construction of parallel infrastructure.
As a result, however, it is clear and important that practical monopolies will be abolished since, by being opened up to everyone, the pipelines can be used by third parties, with adequate protection being given to the owner as he receives a payment which covers his costs, and since the long-term supply contracts are given adequate protection.
A great many Member States were concerned about this point. In my opinion, the degree of protection it receives in the directive is in fact exaggerated.
Finally, there is also protection for Member States who set particular store by the ability to impose public service obligations on the companies.
After three years of discussion, the Council has unanimously agreed a highly skilful compromise, a very wellbalanced and sensitive compromise.
We have decided - I speak for my group in committee and here in Parliament - to approve and support this compromise, because the way to construct Europe is to advance step-by-step. What could have been improved?
In my opinion, the distributors have not been dealt with sufficiently well - but that is not the opinion of everyone in my group - and it could have been further improved in the area of combined heat and power.
However we recognize that important interests on the part of the Member States justify the arrangements proposed.
Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what happens next?
Firstly, we expect clear statements from the Commission about regular and early reports, so that further steps can ensue.
Secondly, in those cases where states make use of the exemptions in relation to combined heat and power, we expect a report to Parliament so that that, too, can be discussed by it.
Parliament would like to follow this issue.
Thirdly, without further delay, we expect Commission reports on the need for harmonization in the areas of the environment and tax.
Fourthly, I want to make it clear that with this directive we are agreeing a level to which the applicant countries of the former Communist bloc in central and eastern Europe will have to adhere, and for which they must now prepare themselves.
Fifthly, I would like to voice my hope that the reformed and more efficient firms in the gas market will also become capable, as a result of this reform, of tackling the world market, where in my view they have so far been inadequately represented.
I thank the Commissioner, I thank the entire Commission, and I thank all the Members - first and foremost, Mr Desama - who have shown such a commitment to this directive over the years.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to announce the favourable position of our group, the Group Union for Europe, with regard to the directive on the natural gas market and Mr Desama' s report.
This favourable position is the result of agreement with the other political groups in the European Parliament and also of mediation within our group.
I would have preferred the directive to be more ambitious, to provide more space for decentralized production, to introduce some more ambitious elements of competition promoting the districts and associations of small and medium-sized enterprises in particular.
However, we have listened with satisfaction to the undertakings given by the Commission in the discussions within our Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy. Consequently, the outstanding aspect that leaves us with most uncertainty is the treatment of the cogeneration plants, in which regard the directive still seems to be ambiguous and retains complete discretion on the input thresholds.
Nevertheless, I have listened to the reasons put forward by the various parties involved and the rapporteur's analysis, and, to conclude, it seems to me that the guideline of good in relation to better should prevail, as in the electricity directive, and that the gas market should be re-regulated well as soon as possible, rather than fight with the Council again, possibly for years, for something better.
Moreover, the amendment introduced by Mr Pompidou and accepted by the Desama report, which requires an assessment of the results of this directive over a certain number of years, offers the European Parliament a certain pathway along which to pursue our objectives.
I would like to conclude by congratulating Mr Desama and the Commission on their excellent work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, my group, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, is very pleased with the directive on natural gas.
At last there will be an internal market for gas with the attendant market functioning and natural competition.
It means prices that conform to the market - in other words, lower prices for European companies and in future also for consumers.
I obviously congratulate Claude Desama on his result.
Although the market opening is still extremely limited, my group can agree with the Council's common position.
We support Mr Desama, apart from two issues on which my group has tabled amendments.
It is our job after all to ensure that Europe has effective legislation.
The European Union Member States are becoming increasingly dependent on gas for heat and electricity.
Although gas is a relatively clean form of energy, CO2 is released when it is burnt.
In view of the agreements made in Kyoto concerning CO2 reduction, it is important that we use our gas as efficiently as possible.
A technology which makes a contribution is cogeneration. Combined heat and power stations have an output of 80 % to 90 %.
This is almost twice as much as a conventional gas-fired power station.
Cogeneration should therefore be promoted and should benefit from the liberalized market.
The Council's position gives only the big combined heat and power stations the right always to buy gas freely.
Yet in reality, more and more small combined heat and power stations are being built, for example for companies which generate their own electricity and use the heat for an industrial process.
In the Netherlands combined heat and power, as well as CO2 from combined heat and power stations, is used in market gardening, a totally closed circuit which is efficient and environmentally friendly.
Did we not agree with the Council that energy-efficient technologies ought to be promoted? My group believes that all gas-fired combined heat and power stations should be entitled to buy gas freely.
We oppose Article 18. 2 and, with the Group of the Party of European Socialists, will support the amendments on this.
My second amendment concerns the position of distribution companies in the gas market.
Distribution companies are able to stimulate initiatives such as the construction of combined heat and power stations at local level.
It is therefore important that these companies can be considered full market players, and are able to buy their gas freely.
Only proper market functioning under equal conditions will ensure that energy is used as efficiently as possible.
If we wish to comply with the Kyoto agreements then this is a necessary condition.
On principle, our group will persevere with this as well.
To conclude, Mr President, the fact that the Council is somewhat casual in curbing the use of fossil fuels, and therefore CO2 , is made particularly manifest by the budget for the ALTENER programme which is being debated after this.
My group fully concurs with the opinion of the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz. The budget is so low that all statements from the Council about greater efforts towards climate protection seem almost laughable.
Mr President, in spite of the absence of a common energy policy, we receive directive after directive adapting the energy market to the principles of free trade and competition.
After electricity, as has been said, it is the gas market which is to be liberalized.
Certainly, a compromise agreement was reached between the different governments on 8 December 1997, a compromise which the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has not wanted to threaten with amendments, judging the Council's common position to be balanced and reasonable.
I, too, would like to congratulate Mr Desama on his work.
Nevertheless, the opening up to liberalization is progressive and not as strong as the Commission initially proposed.
Long term supply contracts are safeguarded and measures relating to public service obligations are recognized, in particular with regard to distribution.
But even if it is progressive and controlled, the opening up of the market to competition is no less real and will not fail to weigh ever more heavily on the development of this sector.
Manufacturers will benefit from price reductions due to competition between suppliers and, in compensation, domestic users will suffer an increase in prices.
This is, moreover, exactly what the president of Eurogaz admitted when he spoke to the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Market pressures will be exerted on the principles and mission of public service, which risks being progressively dismantled in the face of attacks from competition.
Thus, before the directive has even finally been adopted, the French Government has challenged the monopoly of Gaz de France by opening up the market to the private sector in districts which are not currently served.
Furthermore, owing to a rapid return on investment, liberalization risks leading to preference being given to electricity production based on natural gas, to the detriment of other sources such as nuclear energy.
For all these reasons, the majority of our group, in particular the French Members of Parliament, are opposed to this directive to open up the gas market to competition.
In our opinion, in the absence of a common energy policy, there is no justification for the liberalization of the energy market, be it the gas or the electricity sector.
Our position is based both on Article 90.2 of the Treaty, which recognizes the possibility of each Member State organizing its public services contrary to the rules of competition, and also on the principle of subsidiarity, which must enable the special nature of energy to be taken into consideration. It is not a product just like any other and must not therefore be subject to free competition.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Desama, who wrote this thorough report without wasting words, but briefly and concisely, which makes it easier for us.
This liberalization of the natural gas market has a number of advantages, but it also has disadvantages.
Mr Desama has raised some of the critical points.
However, I would like to add that people would like to see decentralized production favoured much more than stated in this directive.
There is also a problem with the existing criteria for entering the market, such as the threshold of 25 million m3 for industrial clients.
As far as this is concerned we must try to bring about some improvement in the future.
In many cases natural gas is better than both nuclear power and coal, but nonetheless it is not the best from an environmental point of view.
We must therefore work even harder with renewable sources of energy in order to live up to the objectives adopted during the Kyoto Conference.
To do so we need a lot more resources.
Mr President, I am happy with this compromise, which I would describe as a flexible one. It will enable each Member State to move still further towards the creation of an internal market in natural gas whilst enabling a controlled opening up of the market and recognizing the obligation of public service as essential.
This compromise takes into account the different comments made by all the actors in this affair since 1993.
Parliament has greatly contributed to this outcome and I do not think, as some Members wish, that we should move towards conciliation at any cost.
This procedure is a last resort which tends sometimes, it is true, to show Parliament's importance and determination.
Nevertheless, a weapon is never truly dissuasive unless used sparingly.
With the issue of gas, it can be said that we have reached a satisfactory balance at second reading.
It is essential, for example, that Member States designate eligible customers.
As with the electricity directive, the future gas directive leaves this problem to the realm of subsidiarity.
It is also essential that this agreement is, as I said, flexible - that is, that the Member States are able to move at their own pace with regard to opening up their respective markets, some wanting to move much faster than others.
Differences in the structure of consumption between countries must therefore be taken into account, and the minimum degree of opening up that is decided upon in the agreement consequently seems acceptable to me.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance would like to thank Mr Desama and approves of his report, which will give rise to a directive enabling clear rules to be formulated for such a strategic sector. Let us not forget that although Europe is going to find itself in a position of surplus supply in the short term, with greater competition between the traditional suppliers, new resources will be necessary from around 2005 and the Union's dependence on external gas sources will increase.
Mr President, after almost ten years of debating the issue, the natural gas markets are now being deregulated.
I would like to thank Claude Desama for his excellent work on this matter.
The proposal for a directive is a good one, but I wish to point out one weakness in all this, which is that in the gas directive the status of combined heat and electricity production is inferior to that of other means of energy production.
Electricity producers will be allowed to pipe gas regardless of the size of the company, but if the company is a producer of combined heat and power, Member States may determine the minimum size of the gas company allowed to pipe gas.
I do not think this is right.
Combined heat and power production is surely one of the best ways of achieving the aims of the Kyoto conference, as it will lead to a reduction in greenhouse emissions as companies increase their overall efficiency.
Besides, I think it is very important that the implementation of the directive in Member States is monitored and that the Commission also shares its experiences with the European Parliament and Council by means of a report.
Mr President, this may not be in keeping with what has gone before, but I feel obliged to say that I am against the directive and the recommendation, and of course I cannot congratulate Mr Desama.
The reason for this is that both the directive and the recommendation operate within the framework of privatization, the most extreme liberalization, and free competition within an unregulated free market.
The directive is targeted towards the gradual exclusion of the public sector while, on the other hand, encouraging and promoting a private monopoly over natural gas in the shape of the integrated enterprise, whether vertical or horizontal.
If integration is horizontal, enterprises trading in other sectors, such as electricity, may enter the natural gas sector. Thus we will have enormous monopolistic business conglomerates which will rule in tyranny over society, holding in their power this most crucial element - energy - which is vital for growth and development, for the provision of social services and for the protection of the environment.
A private monopoly is incompatible with these three factors because it seeks profit and nothing else.
It will therefore rule in tyranny over the whole of society, which will be obliged, through taxation, to pay for structural work on behalf of these enterprises, and even for safety and protection.
For these reasons we will not vote for this action.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as we are all aware, the proposal for the internal market in natural gas is extremely important.
The gradual liberalization of this market, which has an annual turnover of more than ECU 100 billion, is inextricably linked with our aim of increased competition in the European economy, and also of reduced unemployment.
I would like to thank the European Parliament for its decision, first and foremost, to speed up the examination of the common position on natural gas in order to enable the timely submission of the second reading to the Energy Council to be held on 11 May.
The common position on the internal market in natural gas, which is being submitted to the European Parliament for second reading, is the fruit of intense negotiations.
During these negotiations we succeeded in laying the foundations of the new competitive electricity market, as well as those of the corresponding natural gas market, which form the fundamental pillars of the internal energy market.
These important results would not have been possible without the personal contribution of your rapporteur, Mr Desama.
I would therefore like to thank Mr Desama for his excellent work throughout those years.
It is true that the landscape of the internal energy market has changed radically.
The issuing of the electricity directive demonstrated the determination of Member States, the determination of industry and consumers, and also the determination of market forces, to open up the energy sector to competition.
In reality, as is clear from the recent Commission report to the European Parliament and the Council, Member States are opting for the fastest possible opening up of the market, with the widest possible range, in relation to what is called for by the directive on the electricity market.
This fact justifies the choices we made in issuing the electricity directive.
I believe it is in the interests of industry and consumers alike to put the gas directive into effect and not to delay it in relation to the directive on the electricity market.
The opening up of the natural gas market to competition must not be delayed.
The common position on the gas directive, which was adopted unanimously by the Council on 12 February, is a significant achievement and reflects the general agreement that has been established between the Member States.
It includes a large number of common rules which must be implemented by the Member States, in accordance, however, with their own idiosyncrasies.
In accordance with the intentions of the European Commission and Parliament alike, the present directive provides a common framework for the whole of Europe, leaving the definition of the relevant provisions to the principle of subsidiarity.
More especially, it provides for the existence of minimum levels of competition in the natural gas market.
The directive also guarantees that, from the outset, a large number of industrial consumers, as well as all electricity producers, will be free to choose their own natural gas provider.
This eligibility also includes combined electricity and heat producers and is therefore fully in line with the priority that is accorded to this sector.
Only in very special and exceptional cases is it possible for a Member State to institute reduced ceilings, which in any case will be communicated to the Commission and, in consequence, will be carefully monitored by the Commission as to the actual justification concerning the imbalances of the domestic electricity markets.
There are already indications that many Member States will restrict themselves to the basic demands of the directive, but they will open up their markets to competition.
According to these indications, the results of liberalization will be more significant than previously anticipated.
The directive also provides for the protection of obligations to provide a service, which Member States can impose on natural gas companies in their market in the broader economic interest.
Nor must we forget that liberalization of the market does not mean privatization.
Liberalization of the market means that public state enterprises and private enterprises alike must operate within the framework of the internal market, and respect the principles of healthy competition.
These obligations will be defined by the Member States in the context of the community framework and will subsequently be communicated to the Commission, which will monitor them on the basis of the provisions of community legislation.
This mechanism will allow Member States to counterbalance competition with public service whenever it is judged to serve the broader public interest.
As regards storage, we believe this cannot be regarded as part of a natural monopoly, since it is a commercial activity. For this reason, the Commission considers that there is no cause for special provisions in addition to what is already included in the proposal.
As regards the important issue of take or pay contracts, I am very satisfied with the unanimous and widespread support for the solution that has been achieved.
This solution allows the Commission to carry out effective control on the basis of clear and objective criteria.
I am determined to set up an efficient method of cooperation between the Commission and the Member States on this issue.
The Commission and the Member States are now called upon to play a very important role in this regard.
The common position incorporates a large number of amendments which were tabled during the first reading by Parliament and which had already been taken into consideration by the Commission in its amended proposal.
I have to say that these amendments contributed to the clarification of a number of important points, and also to the broader balance of the text.
I especially appreciate the work of Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy in this second reading and I would like to stress that, in principle, the balanced structure and the value of the common position has been acknowledged.
As regards the amendment on the submission of a report after the directive has been in force for three years, I would like to say that the European Commission is willing to accept this amendment if Parliament considers it to be really necessary.
I would like to make it clear that, in any event, the Commission intends to submit reports to the European Parliament and to the Council whenever this is deemed expedient and a de facto imperative.
More especially, it will provide a good opportunity for a regular review of the possibility of implementation by the Member States of the special provision relating to the cogeneration of electricity and heat.
I would also like to emphasize that the Commission recently drafted its first report on the monitoring of the electricity directive, although the directive itself does not provide for this obligation.
I can assure you that what we do for electricity we shall of course do for natural gas.
These reports are of vital importance for the preparation of the next stages in the development of an internal energy market.
And I would like to add that the presidency fully shares this approach.
It is clear that it rests with Parliament to decide whether such an amendment is necessary after what has been said.
In any case, I consider the close monitoring, on the part of the Commission, of the implementation of the gas directive, in close cooperation with Member States, to be absolutely vital.
Moreover, it is the only way to avoid misinterpretation of the various provisions of the directive and to ensure the full, timely and effective realization of this important initiative.
In the case of the electricity directive, we successfully followed this approach, which proved to be effective and received a warm reception on the part of all the Member States.
As regards the other amendments which have been tabled, the Commission is not in a position to adopt them.
We cannot adopt the two amendments which have been put forward in relation to cogeneration since, as I have already explained, cogeneration is already eligible, except under very specific conditions which must always be communicated to the Commission.
As regards the amendment which has been put forward on distributors, this touches upon one of the most sensitive issues which have been debated in the context of the overall compromise.
Distributors are already eligible as regards the supplying of their own eligible customers, whether industries or electricity generators.
Any freedom of choice beyond this falls within subsidiarity, and this touches on the very essence of the compromise, especially in relation to the possible obligation of public services.
For these reasons the Commission cannot accept the amendment.
The Commission considers it vitally important to approve, as quickly as possible, the present directive, which is supported by consumers and industry alike.
Today's debate has clearly shown that this position is shared by the European Parliament.
I would like to finish by once again expressing my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Desama, to all the Members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy of the European Parliament, and to all the Members who spoke today in the context of the debate in this Chamber.
I wish to thank them warmly for their constructive contribution to this extremely important process, which we are completing today.
Thank you, Commissioner Papoutsis.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11.00 a.m.
ALTENER II
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0143/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position established by the Council (C40032/98-97/0106 (SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision concerning a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community (ALTENER II) (Rapporteur: Mrs. Bloch von Blottnitz).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Commissioner, I think I can very largely associate myself with the very clear words of the rapporteur.
The ALTENER programme is the only programme we have in the European Union that is available exclusively for the assistance of renewable energy sources.
By the year 2010, the proportion of total energy consumption to be contributed by renewable energy sources is to double, according to the European Commission's proposal in its White Paper on renewable energies.
They know that in calling for this, they are knocking at an open door as far as the European Parliament is concerned because, in the Mombaur initiative report, in my report on the Green Paper, we called for a significant build-up - at least 15 % - in renewable energy sources because of our profound conviction that, from the viewpoint of climate policy, from the viewpoint of environmental policy, from the viewpoint of import dependence, with regard to rural areas, and with regard to additional jobs, the European Union needs to do a great deal more in this respect.
I also know that it is not only - perhaps not at all, when it comes down to it - a question of European assistance programmes which will determine whether the desired goal is reached.
Political decisions which lead to genuinely fair competition conditions through fair access to the grid, and which lead to the internalization of the costs of different ways of generating energy through European energy taxes, are fundamental preconditions.
A political strategy which leads to a restructuring of taxes in energy policy needs to pervade almost all Community policies, and needs to be implemented through coordination between the Member States and the European Union. Nonetheless, facilitating the use of new technologies for energy generation from renewable energies through financial incentives and through concrete assistance will be of exceptional significance if genuine market penetration is to be achieved.
The Commission has proposed a breakthrough campaign in its White Paper. One million photovoltaic roofs and house fronts, 10 000 megawatts from wind, 10 000 megawatts from biomass.
ECU 4 billion of public funds are required for this.
I know that a good deal needs to come from the Member States as well.
But I also know that the 22 million envisaged for two years here is at best a drop in the ocean, and perhaps not even that.
That is why it has to be quite clear that there has to be some room for manoeuvre over the budget at least for next year, and that we can top it up.
Secondly - and you, Mr Commissioner, can be sure that you will hear from us when the time comes to consider the successor to ALTENER II in the energy framework programme. We expect that there will be a significant increase there as well.
Thirdly, and on this point I give my full support to the rapporteur, it is absolutely necessary that the Council really does reach a decision on 11 May so that measures can begin during the current year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European People's Party is also going to support all Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' amendments, which have already been approved in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
I have to say, Mr Commissioner and Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, that most of them are nothing but good intentions and an academic exercise similar to the squaring of the circle. Not only is there no money - because there really is not - but, as we are always saying in the Energy Committee, where we talk about renewable energy every day, all we are being presented with by the Commission are good intentions far removed from reality.
Perhaps in some cases we do not just need money to support renewable forms of energy, Mr Commissioner, but political decisions too.
If you look at the current renewable energy production figures for the European Union, you will see that we stand at 6 %.
In Spain the figure is 8 % because that country has made a great effort.
But of that 6 %, 90 % is conventional hydraulic energy, which means we have just 0.4 % from other renewable energies, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
You are trying to use biomass in your house and you know how difficult it is.
I think the Member States must make political decisions to favour hydroelectric energy, although most of the groups are opposed to it because they do not want dams. It is the cleanest energy we have; it is truly renewable; and it is the only renewable form which allows us to store electricity.
The rest cannot do that.
We will be laying great stress on research into renewable energies in the framework programme on research and development. I think that is the first step.
Obviously, that includes photovoltaic energy.
I think the future of renewable energy lies in solar photovoltaic energy, but not yet - it is still very expensive. How can we help renewable energy?
Obviously, from the financial point of view, with investment - because all these forms of energy only work for very limited periods of time.
Wind energy is very interesting, but it only operates for 1500 to 2000 hours each year, and sometimes it works at night when we do not need electricity.
So we will need to support investment.
And I do think subsidiarity is important, Mrs Rothe and Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, because each Member State should make the greatest possible effort if they really believe in renewable energy. Otherwise, it is all just words.
In any case, Mr Commissioner, we support the ALTENER programme. We think it has very little funding.
We think Directorate-General XVII has very little money for all its programmes. However, there is something I want to say to you: maybe you do not just need money.
Maybe what you need is more courage and fortitude in your political decisions and more results and clarity with the Member States. Because, by the way, we have a liberalized electricity market which is working very well, and a gas market which is not going to be liberalized to such a great extent because - except in the UK, Holland and a bit in Denmark - nobody produces gas, so it is a very special type of transport liberalization.
That is why this directive was easier than the electricity directive and, in the end, no effort is too great.
Mr President, the continuing debate on renewable energy highlights again the importance of a coordinated and integrated approach to all EU development programmes.
The importance of alternative energy policy is widely accepted in this House.
To the extent that energy based on renewable resources is of significant importance in the utilization of our land resource and, therefore, offers potential to farmers and to job creation in rural areas, I would urge the Council and the Commission to coordinate their efforts in the formulation of long-term energy policy with the development of agriculture and to do so - and this is important - in the context of Agenda 2000.
In my view there is far too much fragmentation of EU policy and certainly not sufficient appreciation of the importance of developing the full potential of our European land resource.
The inevitable reform of the common agricultural policy highlights the importance of producing non-food crops.
Alternative energy programmes based on renewable resources offer a profitable alternative for our farmers and for rural dwellers and rural development programmes. As I have already said, we have prioritized the importance of rural development.
We have identified the European model of agriculture based on the retention of the maximum number of farm families on the land of Europe.
That is widely accepted and supported in this House.
However, if we are serious about achieving our objectives under both headings we must coordinate energy policy with the development of agriculture and with employment in rural areas.
The technology for the production of alternative energy based on agricultural crops is clearly established.
The technology is there.
We now need a coordinated approach and a willingness at EU and national level to adjust policies and create the economic environment for the sustainable development of alternative energy closely related to, and based on, the development of our land resource and agriculture and with the central theme of retaining the maximum number of farmers on the land of Europe and the maximum number of people employed in Europe's rural areas.
So, if we are serious, we must adopt this coordinated approach and I appeal to the Commission and the Council to work more closely together in terms of the final production of European and national policy in the context of Agenda 2000.
Mr President, I want to say that the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left agrees with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' report too. In addition, I would like to express our satisfaction at our constructive cooperation with the Commission - with the Commissioner, Mr Papoutsis.
However, I wish to express our great dissatisfaction with, and protest at, the position adopted by the Council.
I think the Council's position with regard to the annual ECU 11 million basically places the ALTENER programme in cloud-cuckoo-land and thus deprives it of any real significance.
It is something which we, as a Parliament, must fight against and challenge, especially during the budget procedure.
It is very important that these inconsistencies be stopped.
We can see that there are opportunities for the vast exploitation of gentle forms of energy, such as wind power in the Cyclades, for example, and in the Islands of the Aegean.
And in spite of the few steps that have been taken, their exploitation will be much less than could be achieved. I would like to put this question to the Commissioner, Mr Papoutsis: what could be done here - in the context of course of the difficult financial possibilities which exist?
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, for her report.
There is no doubt that the ALTENER programme must continue because it is the only programme in the EU in which people are dealing exclusively with renewable sources of energy, and also in view of all the money which the EU gives to other sources of energy.
The least we can request is that renewable sources of energy also get money.
So it is laughable that the Council is only able to agree to ECU 11 million per year.
But what has happened to all the fine words from the Council, including from the Kyoto Conference? What do these words mean?
Nothing in reality.
How is the goal of reducing CO2 emissions actually being achieved?
How did the Council see this?
Is the Council going to start performing magic or are people going to start juggling the emission figures? There does not appear to be any other explanation.
The ECU 30 million which the Commission is proposing is also low, but it is still acceptable.
However, the Council's figures are totally unacceptable.
You cannot give less money to renewable sources of energy under these conditions when CO2 emissions are constantly rising.
If the emissions were to decrease sharply, then you could perhaps talk about stabilizing the programme, but not in this case.
Furthermore, the amendments are important, particularly Amendment No 3.
If you pollute nature you should also pay for it.
However, if you have a good environmental policy, then you should also pay less.
In that case it is important for the different figures to estimate the emission costs to be calculated in different ways too.
What is cheap should also be good for the environment, and what is bad should be expensive for companies.
Mr President, allow me to give a practical example.
At home, in my local area, just behind my house in fact, a windmill construction project is planned and a private developer is ready to invest between 150 and 200 million Belgian francs into it.
Curiously enough, opposition to this project has come from a cultural association, concerned about the beauty of the landscape and the fact that the nearby castle would suffer visually from the windmills on the plateau behind.
In this context, the ALTENER II project is a very appropriate means to carry out an impact study, enabling it to be proven by computer simulation that, from the castle, the windmills will not be seen and there will therefore be no visual impact.
Of course, I am more worried about the noise, and it is for this in particular that the ALTENER project will give us the means to finance these impact studies.
If you consider that an impact study for a project costs 1.5 million Belgian francs, then the ECU 22 million granted by the Council is exactly enough for 500 projects throughout the European Union.
I find this amount ridiculous and that is why the Group of the European Radical Alliance will vote for the amendments presented by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, whom I would like to thank for her excellent work.
Mr President, like the rapporteur, I would first like to say that waste incineration has nothing to do with the issue of renewable energy. There is no connection.
It would be a fine example of cynicism to keep waste incineration in this report since it would be a question of a real misappropriation of funds to the benefit of large companies who could not care less about renewable energy sources.
Apart from this, "experiments' - I put the word in quotation marks - "experiments' in the field of renewable energy have been going on for years throughout the western world.
For years we have been told of such experiments and the Member States grant a handful of pittances in order to fool public opinion.
I think there have been enough experiments and not enough large-scale efforts.
Apart from hydraulic power stations, renewable power sources continue to be nothing but gadgets designed to amuse people.
You might think this incapacity on the part of countries to pursue an active policy of renewable energy development - an incapacity which is explained particularly by the large economic interests of the energy lobby - would lead the European Union to compensate for these failings, to have an approach far more in keeping with the general interest, to climb above all these mercenary interests.
But no, we remain at a level of pious wishes, fine words and declarations with no follow-up.
Just a few months after the Kyoto Conference, which timidly indicated the path to be followed in order to preserve the balance of our planet, it would seem logical for the European Union to affirm a certain priority for renewable energy, which protects the environment and brings real potential in the areas of employment and technological development.
So, what has become of this priority that the Union should be showing? ECU 22 million, or rather two times nothing, not even a pittance.
In fact, I am truly embarrassed by this report.
I am embarrassed because I think Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' work is remarkable, and I thank her for it.
The issues are expressed well in the document and it is clearly only the budget which does not match up.
To ensure that this work has not been in vain, I will of course align myself with the rapporteur's recommendations, but I am still convinced that we will be a long time yet in this energy Stone Age, especially as we will not have internalized all the indirect costs of conventional energy sources.
Given that the calculations are distorted, distortions in competition remain and no progress is made.
My wish is that there might be a new tax system, as soon as possible, in which as well as economic criteria, social and environmental parameters are finally taken into account within a rigorously accountable dimension.
We will vote for Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz' amendments.
Mr President, rarely do we hear a subject discussed in this Chamber which brings so many groups together in enthusiasm.
That subject is renewable energy.
Renewable energy enables us to keep our promises, the promises made at Kyoto.
It creates jobs, it fits in with our priority of job creation.
I support wholeheartedly the report of Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz; except that I do not agree with her omission of domestic waste and will vote against it.
Colleagues, if you want Europe to matter to the people in your constituency, choose subjects which interest them.
Renewable energy interests European citizens.
We have a multi-pronged approach, we spend millions and millions on research into renewable energy.
We need, at the same time, to create the legal framework through access to the grid which enables it to prosper and we need a programme like ALTENER.
In every single Member State of the European Community ALTENER promotes renewable energy.
I know from the excellent work done by the South Midlands Renewable Energy Centre, the only one in the United Kingdom, that if we go out with the message that renewable energy helps the environment and helps jobs, we get public support.
Comrades and colleagues in this Parliament, we need public support for the European Union.
We need to look at the circumstances relevant in every geographical part of this Union, from Lapland to the Greek Islands and we need the renewable energy that is appropriate for every part of the EU.
The minister representing the United Kingdom presidency, John Battle, is one of the enthusiasts for renewable energy and he has personally reassured me that he will not allow ALTENER II to slip away until it is too late to implement.
He will do everything in his power to ensure that something of interest to all Europeans gets through an appropriate Council.
I believe that the budget in the preliminary draft budget has been much improved.
That is an encouraging sign.
It seems to me that when the European Union started it looked at coal and it looked at nuclear energy; the energy to look at now is renewable energy and I therefore am delighted that the ALTENER II programme will receive support from every party in this Parliament.
Mr President, the Commission's goal to raise the share of renewable energy sources in total EU energy consumption to 15 % by the year 2010 is in keeping with the aims decided upon at Kyoto and Parliament must give it the support it deserves.
Actually, this target has been well exceeded in Finland.
With further development of the markets, the right training and guidance, and the existence of the ALTENER programme, we will be able to promote the use of renewable energy sources throughout the Union.
Owing to geography, circumstances in different countries vary.
According to proposed national quotas, an additional reduction in gas emissions will cost Finland more per ton of CO2 than any other EU country.
We have already begun to adopt all the easiest ways of reducing emissions, such as district heating, using wood for fuel, setting up combined heat and electricity production plants and following energy saving programmes.
It is only the expensive alternatives that are left.
High technology in Finland has a place in nearly every walk of life.
For example, our homes are built for our cold climate, and heat does not escape from them like it does in many other countries in the Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to specially thank the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, for the work she has put in regarding the ALTENER II programme.
Before I come to the amendments that Parliament is proposing in this second reading, I would like to mention some more general developments.
You will of course remember that during Parliament's sitting of November 1997, when I presented the ALTENER II programme to you, I outlined to you the framework for the programme, and I also outlined the aspirations we had to strengthen our policy.
Just five months later, I have the pleasure of referring to the positive developments which ensued.
I announced to you then my intention to propose as soon as possible for approval in the European Commission the White Paper on renewable energy sources and the framework programme for energy.
Both these important proposals were unanimously adopted by the Commission and are now being debated by the institutional organs.
As regards the White Paper on renewable energy sources, it is anticipated that a resolution will be adopted by the Energy Council on 11 May, which will support our proposals.
This is important because the ALTENER II programme is an essential vehicle not only for the implementation of Community strategy but also for the implementation of the action plan, which is outlined in the White Paper.
At this point please allow me to refer to two specific issues, which were brought up by several honourable Members who spoke today.
But first of all I have to say that I fully share the view of Mr Alavanos, that we must strengthen wind power even more.
(The President interrupted the speaker)
Ladies and gentlemen, although I understand why there is a certain restlessness in the House, because the debate has been delayed through circumstances completely beyond our control, I must once again request Members to abstain from private conversations for a few minutes and treat speakers with a modicum of respect, enabling them to be heard with all due dignity, whether the speaker is a Member of this House or the Commissioner.
Thank you Mr President.
I was saying that I fully share Mr Alavanos' view that we must strengthen wind power even more, especially in regions where conditions are favourable, such as the Cyclades, as he himself mentioned, but also in other regions of Europe.
I assure you that we will make every effort in this direction, in collaboration with Member States.
I would like to take this opportunity to stress that the Commission proposes that, from the year 2000, the Regional Fund should include actions for renewable energy sources.
And I hope the European Parliament will support this proposal.
As regards the issue raised by Mrs Rothe and Mr Pinel with regard to waste, in the context of the ALTENER programme and in accordance with Community policy on waste, priority is given to ecological management, such as biomass, chiefly of the organic part of the waste.
I must say, I am especially satisfied that the Council and Parliament alike declared on behalf of the Commission proposal for ALTENER II and approved practically without amendment all the actions provided for in the context of the programme under review.
The importance of ALTENER II is thus confirmed, as is the need for its immediate approval at the Council on 11 May, with a view to its immediate implementation from 1998.
I would also like to highlight something which I mentioned during the first reading: in the opinion of the Commission, the substance of certain amendments places them within the framework of the Community strategy for renewable energy sources rather than within the ALTENER framework.
More specifically, as regards the amendments which you propose, the Commission accepts, in principle, Amendments Nos 1, 2, 6, 7 and 9.
However, as regards Amendments Nos 1 and 2, in accordance with the position it outlined during the first reading, the Commission considers that it is more suitable to place the fundamental principles which are introduced with the respective explanatory statements Nos 20 and 19.
As regards Amendments Nos 7 and 9, they are already covered at other points in the ALTENER II proposal.
The content of Amendment No 6 is better placed with, and is covered in, the proposal of the White Paper on renewable energy sources.
As regards Amendment No 3, the Commission considers the reference to indirect costs and their inclusion in tariffs to be premature.
This possibility must be analysed and it could be introduced in a possible legislative proposal to be submitted later.
Amendments Nos 5 and 8 concern the amount which is entered in the budget.
In this regard, the Commission inserted in the minutes of the Energy Council of December 1997 a communication in which it opposed including in the text of the resolution any amount concerning the budget.
Moreover, the Commission considers that the budget which was approved by the Council for the two years is inadequate.
In consequence, we also consider the budget which was approved by the competent budgetary authority for the year 1998 to be inadequate.
Therefore the European Commission can accept Amendment No 5.
On the other hand, it cannot accept Amendment No 8.
Nor can the Commission accept Amendment No 10 concerning committee procedures.
The Commission has made every effort to incorporate Parliament's proposals as far as possible and as faithfully as possible into the legal text of the proposal we are being asked to decide upon.
I would like once again to thank you and your rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, as well as the Members of the Parliamentary Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, for your support throughout this endeavour.
Thank you, Commissioner Papoutsis.
I apologize on behalf of the House for the way in which this debate was conducted.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11.00 a.m.
Air pollution by motor vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0126/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council on 23 March 1998, with a view to adopting a Directive of the European Parliament and Council relating to measures to be taken against air pollution by emissions from motor vehicles and amending Directive 70/220/EEC with regard to light commercial vehicles (C4-0177/98-96/0164B(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr. Lange).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in February we took a decision in relation to the Auto/Oil Programme on air quality in Europe.
One small component was missing, namely light commercial vehicles.
These are the vehicles which make deliveries in towns - postmen, small greengrocers, deliveries for suppliers.
It is for vehicles such as these that we need to add a component as soon as possible to ensure an improvement in the air quality in the towns of Europe.
This procedure at second reading is a perfect example of Parliament's ability to work quickly and efficiently.
We received the common position on 2 April and having completed our work on it today - at the end of April - we are now able to come to a decision.
That shows how quickly and efficiently Parliament can work. That is why I do not want to make any grand speeches.
I want instead to uphold this tradition and urge quickly and efficiently that we follow this recommendation from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, so that industry can plan with confidence, and so that the air quality in the towns of Europe is improved.
Mr President, I should like to thank Parliament for enabling us to arrive at a result very quickly in this procedure as well.
I should also like to thank Mr Lange, and I would ask you to understand that, although we are now in a position to take this matter forward to the conciliation procedure, the Commission cannot accept amendments which go beyond the Auto/Oil Programme II.
That applies in particular to Amendment No 5 and the other amendments connected with it.
However, it does not mean that we shall not cooperate with Parliament in a very open and positive way, as we have in the past.
Although not many people have heard this remark, that does not matter because it is well known that this is how we work.
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11.00 a.m.
Votes
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I propose to our Parliament that we show solidarity with European Parliament staff, who are currently holding a standing general meeting to defend the independence of the European civil service against nationalization and politicization.
Mr President, lest there be any ambiguity, my group will be voting against all amendments.
We decided this procedurally.
We welcomed a common text which, very unfortunately, Mr Nicholson felt unable to sign.
Our position is to support this text unamended.
This should not be interpreted to mean that we do not agree with the substance of some of the amendments but we are satisfied that the Good Friday agreement contained strong commitments to decommissioning.
Therefore, my group will be voting for the compromise text debated yesterday.
Mr President, I rise on the same issue.
The question of the decommissioning of weapons in Northern Ireland is a very delicate and deeply sensitive question.
I want to make it quite clear that the position of the Liberal Group is that we shall vote for the joint resolution and we shall not vote for any amendments.
I wish to say to Mr Nicholson and to the people he represents that we do so because we believe that the sensitive question of decommissioning is comprehensively addressed within the boundaries of the agreement.
For that reason we do not wish to pick individual items from the comprehensive text.
Therefore, we support what is in the agreement but will not be voting for amendments to the joint resolution.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot have yet another debate.
That is for the explanations of vote.
You are now having a debate which, I confess, puts me in a difficult position.
Other Members have asked to speak.
I cannot let everybody speak, so I will just let two people speak and I will then close this debate.
Mr President, in relation to the amendments, quite naturally I would support the thrust of the amendments which is the active decommissioning of all weapons held by terrorists on both sides of the divide.
But I wish to state that it is very unwise to selectively highlight any one issue which is already covered quite comprehensively in the agreement.
Therefore, we cannot support any individual amendment at this stage.
In relation to amendments which use the term 'Republic of Ireland' , I would like to recall for colleagues that the official name of my country is Ireland.
Mr President, I did not table these amendments this morning to create any trouble for this House.
But I have to say to Mrs Banotti, Mr Cox and Mr Collins that simply giving verbal support to them is not enough.
I say to this House today that you have a chance to say to all terrorists in Northern Ireland: Decommission your weapons!
Vote for my amendment.
That is why I tabled it.
Mrs Green, you are absolutely right.
That is what I said, but you can see that Mr Hume now wishes to speak.
I am in a very difficult position, since this dance has started and I am not being fair in the eyes of the other groups.
I will let Mr Hume speak.
I cannot make distinctions between the political groups.
Mr President, in accordance with the Bureau's instructions, I asked for the floor prior to the vote. You should have called me prior to that vote.
My presence should be noted on this occasion for this vote.
Mr Falconer, I am very glad you keep reminding us of the Bureau's instructions, in case anyone should have forgotten them!
Mr President, given that the implementation of the single currency is nothing but a political fraud, I will not take part in this vote.
Paragraph 11
Mr President, I should like to propose the following oral amendment, namely to replace the final words in the German text, i. e, "zu vertiefen ' by "weiterzuführen ' .
Paragraph 16
Mr President, paragraph 16 is important, but not central to this report.
In order to achieve as large a majority as possible in this House, I am prepared to delete this paragraph, and I would ask those colleagues who have difficulty with this either to vote against or to abstain
Mr von Wogau, since you are the rapporteur and paragraph 16 is your paragraph, you have the right to withdraw it.
We do not need to vote for you to withdraw it.
Paragraph 26
Mr President, in that case I propose as rapporteur that in the second sentence the word 'werden ' should be replaced by 'können ' , that is "will' by "may' .
Amendment No 7
Mr President, we have accepted other oral amendments and so, with your consent and with the House's consent, but particularly with the rapporteur's agreement, I would like to propose an oral amendment because the amendment is incorrectly formulated in terms of the law.
It is - I repeat - a small technical amendment that I would like to read, if you agree: "The European Council is asked to observe its undertakings and to propose a single candidate for the Presidency of the European Central Bank during its forthcoming Summit, on 2 May 1998' .
I would like to hear the rapporteur's opinion.
Mr President, we discussed the amendment in its original form in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and we came to the conclusion that we should not agree to it because it contained two factual inaccuracies and was formulated in such a way that we could not accept it.
As it now stands, the formulation reflects a very broad extent of opinion in this House.
I have asked the different groups in the committee.
They all were of the opinion that what we now have is an expression of the view of the House.
That is why I would recommend that we agree to Mr Dell'Alba's amendment in its revised form.
Paragraph 43
Mr President, in relation to paragraph 43 my comment is this.
We had reached agreement in committee as regards the content of the compromise amendment but, because the formulation was not quite right, we came to an agreement on the following; paragraph 12, on which we have already voted, says exactly what has to be expressed here, and that is why, as rapporteur, I would propose that we vote against paragraph 43 and that those who have difficulty with this - and I would urge this strongly - should at least abstain.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, because there were so few of us present earlier for the debate, I would ask the honorable Members to listen carefully to what I have to say now, for it is an important moment.
I would like to state my position as rapporteur with regard to the different amendments.
In fact, the vote we are going to take today brings to an end a process which has been in progress for six years now.
We are going to vote on four amendments.
I would like to give an opinion initially on the first three.
Mr President, I will ask you to allow me to speak later on the last amendment which, paradoxically, is No 1.
With regard to Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4, I would like to say that as rapporteur I am opposed to these amendments.
I therefore hope that the House does not vote for them, at the possible risk of causing upheaval within my own group, since Amendment No 2 is from my group, tabled by Mrs McNally.
The reason I am opposed to these amendments is clear.
They do not address the fundamentals. Yet the British presidency - which has put a great deal of effort into this compromise - the Commission - which can confirm this, if the Commissioner so wishes - and I myself, are all of the opinion that after six years of work it is not possible to reach a better compromise than the one we have at last reached, as regards the issues addressed by these amendments.
To send us to conciliation for these amendments would really create a major problem of blockage for a directive which urgently needs to be passed now.
All the players in the energy world are calling for it.
I am therefore asking you, please, whatever your position on the basic issues, show some political reason and reject these amendments.
Mr President, just to increase the confusion on the left a little more, Amendments Nos 2 and 4, one from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and one from the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, are identical.
The Socialists intend to vote for the first one, but against the second one.
I have a feeling this will lead to considerable confusion amongst the voters if we have a roll-call vote.
Amendment No 1
Mr President, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy voted for Mr Pompidou's amendment in order to encourage the Commission to clarify its position on the issue, that is, to give Parliament the guarantee that there would very soon be a report from the Commission on the state of application of the directive.
In this amendment, we anticipated giving the Commission a three year period.
Earlier, Mr Papoutsis gave an opinion on this amendment saying that the Commission could accept it but that, in reality, the time-scales set by the Commission were even shorter than anticipated in the amendment.
Consequently, if my colleagues in the Group of the European People's Party will allow me, I think we should not try to be more catholic than the Pope and I therefore request that this amendment from the Committee on Energy be rejected.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the vote on the Desama report I would like to thank Parliament, and especially your rapporteur, Mr Desama.
With today's vote a big step has been taken towards the completion of the internal market.
From a political viewpoint, today is very important because, after six years of negotiations, with the directive on the internal market for natural gas as well as the directive on the internal market for electricity, in less than two years, during this present legislature, we have given a new dimension to the European internal market, a market which represents ECU 250 billion a year or, in a few days, 250 billion euros. It is a market which has important beneficial repercussions for industry, employment, and the citizens of Europe.
For this reason, I would like once again to thank the European Parliament for its particularly important and especially creative contribution to this great effort.
Even if not provided for in the Rules of Procedure, Mr Mombaur, it is impossible to ignore such courteous remarks.
(The President declared the common position approved) Recommendation for second reading (A4-0143/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Decision concerning a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community (ALTENER II) (C4-0032/98-97/0106(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz)
(The President declared the common position approved (as amended) )
Mr President, I would like it to be recorded that I am present from now on and I will not take part in the vote.
Mr De Luca, we have taken note of it.
Amendment No 29
Mr President, even before this vote I indicated my wish to speak for a quite simple reason.
Clearly, a translation has been made that is liable to be misunderstood in several languages, and this ambiguous translation for Amendment No 29 may also lead to a quite different outcome in the vote.
We are dealing here with a measure against youth unemployment.
Many young people are qualified for the wrong occupations, for occupations for which there is no demand.
That is why we have here the proposal that the Commission should ascertain which occupations really are in demand, with a qualitative analysis of occupational needs.
This analysis should then be made available to the Member States, and the Member States will decide whether or not they make use of this information and change their training plans. In other words, we are dealing with the provision of a service, and Member States will decide on a voluntary basis whether or not to make changes.
This appears in several translations as a binding proposal, and as a result it may lead to a distortion of the voting outcome.
I would ask you therefore to allow the voting on Amendment No 29 to be repeated.
Mr Pirker, we will check the translation from German into the other languages.
You need not worry.
Your amendment has been adopted.
I did not give you the floor straight away but we try to get the vote moving, since if we did not we would go very slowly, and I cannot slow the pace down by allowing Members to speak all the time.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
This matter is now closed.
I cannot of course congratulate the rapporteur!
The Spanish are always courteous, and in the case of Mr Medina Ortega this is Socialist courtesy too, for which I am obliged.
Mr President, we would avoid problems like that raised by Mr Medina Ortega if the rapporteur would not preside when we are dealing with his report.
Mr President, I am sorry, but from here I was just not able to see as well as you could that in the case of Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 by the Green Group in the European Parliament there really was a clear majority of votes against.
To be quite honest, I cannot understand it either, because in Question Time on the issue yesterday the Council and the Commission were in agreement with it.
It has been confirmed.
There are already working groups in the ecological area of the textile industry.
Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, as you are aware Parliament, in its wisdom, has the right to vote for whatever position it thinks it should take, without taking into consideration either the position of the Council, or the position of the Commission, or the positions of many of us. That is what always happens.
The important thing is what Parliament decides and what it values, and I do not think comments are necessary.
Parliament has decided.
It has rejected the two amendments and adopted the rest.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The Green Group in the European Parliament is in agreement with the Commission and the majority in Parliament that the further development of the market for electronic services - pay-TV, pay-perview, pay-radio, online access to databases - on the one hand, and the current fragmentation of this market by national legislation, make regulation at Community level indispensable.
The present directive fulfils this purpose insofar as it provides a sufficiently comprehensive and flexible framework at Community level through its combination of definitions of protected services, the application of internal market rules and the exclusion of all unauthorized access technologies.
We share the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media that the importance of copyright protection against exploiting interests, the guarantee of access to public information independent of market interests and the ability to protect the private domain by means of encryption technologies should receive proper emphasis in this directive as well, in spite of regulations in force elsewhere.
We also agree with those who reject any restriction of the definitions in Articles 1c and e.
Resolution on Northern Ireland
Mr President, I really welcome this opportunity to speak.
Yesterday due to the constraints of time, it was not possible for all of us who wanted to speak to speak.
I believe it was very fitting that John Hume, who has played a most significant role in getting the peace process to where it is today, should have been our main speaker.
I want though to reject the criticisms of the Socialist Group made by Jim Nicholson yesterday and again today.
It is very clear to me that the Northern Ireland Agreement has to be accepted in its entirety; there is no question of cherrypicking.
I am glad that the overwhelming vote here this morning was in favour of the joint resolution which was drawn up and approved by representatives of all the major political groups.
I was delighted yesterday to see the Council and the Commission here continuing the support which they have always given to the Northern Ireland peace process.
Our role in supporting Northern Ireland has been a major success.
The financial support that has been given, for example to the partnerships, was the very first time that we saw Republicans and Loyalists sitting down together and working at grass-roots level.
The announcement of the continued financial support from the European Union is exactly what Northern Ireland needs at this critical time.
I am also delighted that our group initiated the proposal to have the debate here yesterday because it is important that Parliament 's views are expressed clearly and that our continuing good will is seen publicly.
I also want to pay tribute in finishing to the role played by the Women's Coalition in the process. I hope that their voice in Northern Ireland will continue to be heard and strengthened.
I allowed you to go over your time because I must say I was feeling a little uneasy as during the morning I gave some of your colleagues the chance to speak.
I was in a very difficult position then as the House was, quite rightly, demanding that there should be no debate.
On the other hand, I had already given the floor to one or two people and I was feeling very uneasy in the face of your request.
So I gave you extra time to recompense you.
Mr President, I would like to make clear today why I vote against this resolution.
I hope Mrs Malone can remain in the House to hear why because it might do her a bit of good.
It was because the Socialist Group were not prepared to include decommissioning.
Mrs Malone, let me tell you I am not cherrypicking.
Can I further tell you that this agreement would never have come to place but for the courage and determination of my party leader in all of this.
Can I say to you and the Socialist Group that I speak in this House for the largest Unionist Group in Northern Ireland.
If the Socialist Group wish to discount what we feel, wish to discount what we say and wish to discount what we really believe in our inner hearts, then you can do so.
But you do so at a price and at a very serious price.
Your comrade, the Secretary-of- State, showed us here yesterday that she could not even be balanced when she came to this House in her contributions.
Mrs Malone, let me make it clear in this House today, I want all terrorist groups to lay down their arms. I want them to give them up.
I know they will not give them all up but they at least should give an indication of how much they will give up.
I would like to say, unfortunately, this House sent the wrong message to the Unionist people that I represent in Northern Ireland.
I will have to take back to my party leader a message that is not a good one.
Fine words are not enough, we need action; if you want consent, if you want consensus you have got to work for it.
I did not see any attempt to create consensus in the Socialist Group here in this Chamber.
I do not have anything against any other group in those negotiations, it was only the Socialist Group.
I would like to begin my comments by saying that I welcome the Irish Peace agreement reached at the multi-party talks in Belfast on Good Friday last.
I would like to pay particular tribute to the political parties who had the courage and the conviction to participate in these negotiations and to have ensured that a balanced and equitable agreement was secured.
This agreement is a balanced and reasonable accommodation which recognizes the different values and cultures on the island of Ireland.
Opponents of the agreement cannot come up with any progress that is being made to foster peace and reconciliation on the island of Ireland.
This agreement needs to be given an opportunity to succeed and a resounding YES vote on both sides of the Irish border would be a sensible step in the right direction in this regard.
I welcome the role and support played by the European Union in assisting the process of peace and reconciliation and I hope that this will continue in the near future.
von Wogau report (A4-0130/98)
Mr President, in the vote on the von Wogau report on convergence conditions for the introduction of the single currency, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wanted to carry out a test in order to clearly demonstrate the wide abyss between the ideas of the European Parliament and the national parliaments with regard to how monetary union should be controlled.
We tabled two amendments, which repeated word for word the demands of the French National Assembly in its resolution of 22 April last.
One was a request that the President of the future Central Bank would periodically give an account of the bank's objectives and actions before the appropriate bodies of the National Assembly. The other was the wish that an interparliamentary committee on the euro be created, composed of representatives of both European and national parliaments, which would have responsibility for regularly and publicly hearing from those in charge of the ECB with regard to future monetary policy guidelines.
The test seems to be completely conclusive.
The European Parliament has massively rejected these two proposals, and has even adopted a contrary proposal by voting for the following text and I quote: "Being the EU's only directly elected institution, the European Parliament has a formal role interacting with the European Central Bank' .The European Parliament text continues by defining an extremely lightweight control over the Central Bank, which does not question its sovereignty.
Those are the words of this House.
So in this declaration, the possible role of national parliaments is completely eliminated.
We were well aware, and I want to highlight this most strongly, that if our amendments had been adopted they would not have fundamentally altered the antidemocratic nature of monetary union, but their rejection makes the lesson that much stronger, a lesson which the French National Assembly should remember: the European Parliament will never allow the slightest real power to be given to the national parliaments of the Union, because what it really wants is their complete subordination, along with that of the nations they represent.
But at the same time, its control will never have the legitimacy of national parliaments, for it is too distanced from the people. Thus, European monetary union is constructed in such a way that the most legitimate parliamentary control is also the most impossible.
We predict a very bad time for democracy if the system is really launched in its current form.
Mr Berthu, I am not in the habit of making comments, of course, but I must say you have taken a really very prophetic tone.
Mr President, I have voted against this report because it follows the line of eurofanaticism, a line obsessively aimed at the sole objective of the single currency, without trying to outline a common economic policy at the same time.
For the future Central Bank, the report also accepts a leading role, a status of inaccessibility, with no kind of democratic control.
By submitting to all this, the majority is unfortunately reserving a subordinate role for the European Parliament.
Yesterday marked the beginning of a historic week.
The many years of work towards economic and monetary union have finally come to fruition, for we have now chosen the first wave of countries who will participate.
During the past months and years, we have been able to examine the strengths and weaknesses of virtually all areas.
There is, however, one issue which I would now like to come back to, and which was the subject of much discussion two weeks ago.
The forthcoming transition to the euro is, in fact, of great concern to the many economic and political players in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions.
At the time of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, the issue was discussed at length.
One of the main concerns is the redistribution of influence in these regions, to the detriment of Europe and to the benefit of a fluctuating dollar.
They also fear the social, ethnic and political tensions which may result, particularly in central Africa, in the short or long term.
The introduction of the single currency must not make us forget our overseas economic partners.
A better integration of Africa and the Caribbean/Pacific regions into the world economy must remain one of our highest priorities.
Monetary cooperation must be maintained in its present form, and will have the result of truly anchoring the euro.
This principle, set out in the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, does not seem to be questionable.
Nevertheless, we must remain vigilant, given the legal ambiguities of the Treaties.
Here too, Parliament has an important political role to play in global stability and the development of third countries.
I approve of the von Wogau report in all its aspects.
However, it must not make us forget that the future euro zone can help to strengthen our partners' economies and offer us wider access to the market in general.
For many people, including ourselves, this report represents the latest political position to be taken by the European Parliament on the basis of the single currency before it is formally adopted.
Obviously other positions may be adopted later, but nothing will ever be the same as it has been till now.
This is why we treat this report as being much more important than its contents strictly indicate.
We still have reservations about 'Euro Now' , especially as regards the fact that the Union has opted to claim that there is nominal convergence between Member States before the event, when we would have preferred to see real convergence coming first.
It has been said, and is still being said now, that real convergence will follow the event, as if in its wake.
Similarly, it has been said and is still being said, that the single currency will be a panacea for the various problems facing the EU, of which the foremost is the problem of unemployment.
Being realistic, we do not agree.
On examination, this is not a bad report in itself.
Some of its statements are true, although it does add some value judgments which in our opinion it could have done without.
It justifies the political criterion for allowing two more countries to join the euro 'vanguard' , which introduces the concept of flexibility as regards the fulfilment of the criteria laid down in a Treaty, which we can only applaud. Furthermore, it affirms the transfer of sovereignty of Member States to the Community sphere, in terms of monetary policy at this stage, which we consider represents a degree of intellectual and political honesty which many people have been unable or unwilling to express for a long time.
A vote in favour of this report, therefore, would be tantamount to saying that we have always agreed with the road we have been travelling along from the beginning, in terms of adopting the single currency, which is not true.
If, on the other hand, we were to vote against this report, we would be casting doubt on the rules of democracy, and failing to recognize the efforts of so many people, particularly the Member States concerned. In a word, it would be to refuse to give the benefit of the doubt.
We have therefore abstained, without intending at any time in the future to make party political capital out of the difficulties we foresee arising as a result of the euro.
The subject is of course much more serious than that ...
That is why our abstention amounts to an additional vote in itself.
Let us hope we are mistaken!
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Karl von Wogau's report on the introduction of the single currency.
The report concludes that eleven Member States - Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland - fulfil the requirements for participation in the third stage of EMU, and that these nations should be included from the beginning on 1 January 1999.
The report by the Commission, ' EURO 1999' , accepts that the eleven Member States mentioned above fulfil the necessary conditions for participation in the third stage of EMU.
The Danish Social Democrats are of the opinion that these eleven nations may participate in the third stage of EMU and we do not wish to prevent these nations from entering into closer mutual collaboration.
This stance is consistent with the position of the government.
We also welcome the following key stances:
The need for democratic accountability of the European Central Bank.
It is important to secure openness in EU institutions.-Lifetime learning based on strengthening the education system is important in countering unemployment.-The report's appeal to the Council to implement the obligations of an active employment policy that were entered into at the extraordinary summit in Luxembourg.The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament do not support sections of the report on the coordination of fiscal systems and rates.
We emphasize that Denmark's four reservations, including the reservation concerning the third stage of EMU, are not affected.
EMU is a centralizing, high-risk project which lacks popular backing.
EMU prioritizes price stability and low inflation.
The EU is not an optimum currency area, and the economies of the various Member States are much too divergent to introduce a single currency.
There is a high risk that EMU, with its one-sided emphasis on controlling inflation, will lead to increased unemployment.
The gaps between growth regions and areas of rural depopulation may widen, resulting in increased regional imbalances.
EMU will bring about a high degree of centralization and a loss of democracy in economic, monetary and exchange rate policy which, by extension, may come to include fiscal and financial policy as well.
This also emerges from the report, which speaks of a "stepped-up coordination of tax systems and rates' .
EMU is concerned with economic affairs, but it has considerable significance as a political project geared to greater supranationality and centralization.
EMU increases federal pressures in the EU towards the formation of a state - the EU State.
EMU and the new currency, the euro, is to be controlled by the European Central Bank, the ECB.
The ECB will have greater independence and power than any other bank in the world.
The members of the ECB executive board, who are appointed for eight years and cannot be removed from office, will have unprecedented influence on exchange rate and interest rate policy and other economic policies directly affecting people, regions and nations.
Democratic control is weak.
The Commission has put forward a recommendation to introduce the single currency in eleven Member States on 1 January 1999.
It is what these countries have chosen.
The Swedish Riksdag has decided not to participate in the stage of EMU commencing on 1 January 1999.
This is a wise decision.
EMU suffers from the same economic and democratic deficiencies, irrespective of how many countries are members of the currency union.
In view of the above, we have voted against the report.
I am in favour of a single currency.
I voted "Yes' to Maastricht.
Yet I am saying "No' to the transition to the euro, as it currently stands, and to Mr von Wogau's report because the minimum democratic and social guarantees are not fulfilled, and because the overall balance presented at Maastricht is not being adhered to.
In its current state, the transition to the euro does not represent a transfer of sovereignty from nation states to democratic European institutions, but a pure and simple abandonment of the sovereignty of the people.
Monetary power is completely transferred to the ECB, which will be the most independent bank in the world.
The ECB draws its powers from a treaty.
The American Federal Reserve or the Bundesbank draw their powers from laws, enabling parliaments and governments to amend them at will, which guarantees the latter the power to be heard in case of a serious problem.
That is not the case with the ECB.
It thus has a free hand.
The absence of a European economic authority makes the situation worse for, in view of this, the ECB will have no legitimate power of EU representation and will therefore not have to "implement government policy' , as is currently the case for the Bundesbank .
Furthermore, Mr von Wogau's report does not even mention the EuroCouncil, which it would be hoped might slowly evolve into this essential economic authority.
Thus, we are delivering our monetary destiny into the hands of an institution with no control and no democratic forces of opposition.
That is unacceptable enough. But the situation is made worse by the Stability Pact which sets in stone all of the decisive criteria for macroeconomic policy, placing our economies under an enduring yoke.
You could discuss endlessly the legitimacy - I would say, illegitimacy - of the levels agreed upon, and the risks they will cause to our social security systems as well as to salaries and the future of public services.
This is part of the normal debate which exists in a democracy.
But the most serious thing is that these parameters - macroeconomic choices so essential for jobs and our daily life - will no longer be controlled by governments or a European government, according to circumstance, decided on by the people through an electoral procedure.
They will be inviolable, decided once and for all, and will even be imposed in a draconian manner since rigorous sanctions are anticipated for countries which contravene them.
From now on, monetary and macroeconomic choices will no longer be subject to political arbitration.
We will pay a heavy price for rejecting the supremacy of democracy, achieved with such difficulty by those who, in the past, had to oppose the forces of money and power in favour of the common good and the sovereign choice of the people.
Moreover, at the time of the vote on the Maastricht Treaty, achievement of EMU was set in a much wider context.
At the same time as setting up a single currency, European political union was to move forward to a new stage, and the IGC was to work on decisive institutional improvements. Yet Amsterdam gave birth to a mouse.
EMU advances at an enforced rate, political Europe makes no headway and there remains only a trace of a social Europe.
The anticipated balance between economic-monetary issues and social issues has not been achieved.
Even at that time, the nagging question of unemployment and growth haunted us.
Jacques Delors presented a White Paper on growth and employment, in which he envisaged, in particular, a reflation of the economy through a large programme of works. This has never seen the light of day.
He recommended changes in taxation and social security payments to put balance back into the relationship between labour and capital, the latter always being more valued, recompensed and favoured, to the detriment of workers and producers.
Neither domestic boom nor a fairer tax system have enabled a significant reduction in unemployment to be achieved.
There is the fear that the economic policies of the Stability Pact as a whole, and the impossibility of being involved on a monetary level, may leave only one parameter with which to influence competitiveness: the cost of labour, which will be dragged down, as is already too often the case.
Similar tendencies towards dumping emerge with regard to taxation, allowing the continued existence of enormous risks for the financing of social security or public actions.
Here, the idea of harmonization emerges more or less on the horizon.
In the area of social issues, that is, defence of the workers or the weakest sectors of society, no significant concrete convergence is envisaged.
Social Europe is on hold, as it was at Vilvorde and sometimes, unfortunately, the orthodoxy of competition at all costs causes unemployment and social decline.
That cannot go on any longer.
Thus, with regard to political and social issues, the Maastricht promises have not been kept.
The euro must happen but, for it to succeed, the Stability Pact must be rejected and a new Treaty urgently drawn up to create a European economic authority that strengthens the democratic institutions and the cohesion of the EU, establishing criteria for social convergence, and harmonizing upwardly.
At the moment EMU is weakening the political and social Europe; a balance needs to be reestablished so that the three pillars of European construction may be achieved in unison.
Because of the poor translation, Mrs Raschhofer, Mr Hager, Mr Linser and Mr Lukas confused Amendment No 11 and Article 11.
We wanted to approve Amendment No 11.
We voted against it in error.
Moreover, Mrs Raschhofer and Mr Lukas wanted to approve Article 12.
With the birth of economic and monetary union, we are living through a sadly historic moment and one of unusual importance.
EMU sounds the death knell for the sovereignty, freedom and independence of our nations.
We are not owners of this sovereignty, we are only its trustees. We received it from our fathers and it is our duty to pass it on to our children intact.
Apart from the disappearance of the CFA franc, EMU also tolls the bell for France's cooperation policy with Africa, and it is to be strongly feared that this loss will not be made up for by a federal Europe.
It tolls the bell for many decades of relations, sometimes inept, but of great wealth and human warmth.
As Dominique Souchet noted, given that the death of the franc is a fatal blow to the CFA franc, it is thus also a fatal blow to the whole of French-speaking Africa.
By accepting EMU, the government and President of France must assume, in the eyes of history, the overwhelming responsibility for abandoning French-speaking Africa.
The Europe of the single currency is a Europe of mercenary selfishness, which ignores and scorns Africa, when it is France's and Europe's duty to help the black continent to develop and thereby enable it to offer a means of survival to all its children.
This Europe of money, which despises men and nations, is not ours.
The von Wogau report recommends that Parliament should approve the Commission's proposal that the third stage should begin on 1 January 1999 with eleven Member States.
Economic developments in Europe in recent years have shown that it is possible for the nations of Europe to stabilize their economies.
Interest rates are low, inflation low and stable, and in many European nations, the level of unemployment is on its way down.
This stabilization will ultimately prove crucial to prosperity and thus to peace in Europe.
With a common currency and one European Central Bank, the foundation for further economic progress will be assured.
The cost of business transactions will fall and pricing levels will be more transparent.
All in all, a major advantage for companies and consumers alike in Europe.
I applaud the section of the report addressing the need for further reductions in large national debt quotas and I give the report my unequivocal support.
Mr von Wogau's own-initiative report clearly has no ambition but to echo blandly and faithfully the Commission's position and to remind us that we should peacefully, and if possible happily, play the role of recording studio for a song which goes: "Let's all rejoice to see the same currency circulating soon from the Irish to the Aegean Sea..' .
We are assured that the euro will be stable, strong and a creator of jobs and that it will strengthen price stability even more.
We are basking in a forced euphoria.
All the real problems that the transition to the euro pose have been carefully passed over.
The only matters of importance are for "monetary policy sovereignty (sic) to be transferred to the European Central Bank on 1 January 1999' and "the immediate implementation of the terms of the Pact for Stability and Growth' .
Amongst the forgotten problems, in particular, is a privileged relationship in terms of development: that which unites France with the countries of the franc zone.
The franc zone is an important factor in development, in particular because it favours direct European investment within a zone of monetary stability and it facilitates the access of African countries to the European capital markets.
What will the impact of the euro be on the future of the franc zone? It is a serious question which must be discussed on the basis of serious and precise economic and financial studies - an obligatory precondition - and not by begging the question in an ideological manner.
Where are these studies? Having noted their absence, I requested that this point be added to the Rocard report, and Parliament agreed with me.
It is, indeed, not right that up until now only the IMF has drawn attention to a certain number of risks that the move towards the euro causes for the competitiveness of the African countries concerned.
The official doctrine is that the franc zone, which was the result of a budgetary agreement and not a monetary one, will not be affected by the transition to the euro. Is that so certain?
How can the franc zone remain a franc zone when the French franc, the national currency of reference, will have meanwhile disappeared? How will parity between the CFA franc and the euro be handled?
The franc zone is regulated within the framework of the French budget and, we are told, will not be a euro zone. But how can you preserve a bilateral framework when France itself will have moved into a multilateral context?
Some of France's partners, such as Germany, suggest that responsibility for these monetary agreements be transferred to European level.
After having objected to this analysis, it seems that the French Government, at least if I am to believe Mr Strauss-Kahn's statements on 25 March to the French National Assembly's Committee on Foreign Affairs, recognizes the need to accept shared management, with France continuing to manage the agreements on a day to day basis, but the opinion of its European partners becoming essential in the event of a modification of the parity of the CFA franc or the admittance of new members into the zone.
What guarantee of stability will this co-management of the franc zone offer the African countries? Does it not risk causing serious disagreements within the EuroCouncil when the time comes?
It would result in great uncertainty about the exchange rates of the franc zone countries, about the way they are set, even about the very existence of the zone, if it occurred to one of the eleven members of monetary union to consider the zone a factor of instability impacting on the management of the single currency, even if the money supply concerned is relatively unimportant. This is an element of uncertainty and trouble which risks weighing heavily on the economic and social future of partner countries which had, until now, placed all their hopes in a close mutual development with France and Europe.
I cannot support the von Wogau report.
It welcomes the introduction of single European currency.
I do not believe that the currencies of eleven diverse economies can be unified without either recession and unemployment in the less competitive countries or a great increase in the political and economic powers of the European Union.
This trend to political union is, of course, the reason that many people support the single currency, but I do not believe that a huge growth in the powers and budget of the European Union has public consent.
Nor do I believe that power can ever be adequately controlled in a democratic way over an area as large and diverse as that envisaged.
The European Monetary Institute's report implies that the eleven chosen economies are truly convergent.
There has, indeed, been an impressive degree of convergence but the decision to start EMU with eleven members is clearly political, not technical or objective.
No one can doubt that if Sweden had wanted to join, they would have been admitted.
If Italy had announced that they did not wish to join, it is unlikely that they would have been told that the terms of the Maastricht Treaty legally necessitated their membership.
The single currency project has been driven by politics and is designed to end in political union.
I do not regard that end as desirable.
Nor can I justify the pain that the journey will cause.
I voted in favour of the report on the introduction of the single currency, and I am delighted with the progress that has been made in Member States of the EU in terms of convergence in readiness for the third stage of EMU. That progress has led to low inflation, low long-term interest rates, a reduction in monetary fluctuations and the clear consolidation of public budgets.
I am especially delighted that, owing to the adoption of the right combination of economic policies by the Portuguese Government, my own country has met all the necessary convergence criteria to enter the third stage of EMU on 1 January 1999.
This has been achieved without any increase in the tax burden, and with a marked increase in both public and private investment. This has been principally due to support from Community funds and a significant increase in the level of social expenditure in the state budget.
I congratulate the Group of the Party of European Socialists on having succeeded in obtaining the removal from the report of the call for the immediate implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact, since this could have been interpreted by European citizens as a sign of a negative attitude to the euro.
EMU is a centralizing, high-risk project which lacks popular backing.
EMU prioritizes price stability and low inflation.
The EU is not an optimum currency area, and the economies of the various Member States are much too divergent to introduce a single currency.
There is a high risk that EMU, with its one-sided emphasis on controlling inflation, will lead to increased unemployment.
The gaps between growth regions and areas of rural depopulation may widen, resulting in increased regional imbalances.
EMU will bring about a high degree of centralization and a loss of democracy in economic, monetary and exchange rate policy which, by extension, may come to include fiscal and financial policy as well.
This also emerges from the report, which speaks of a "stepped-up coordination of tax systems and rates' .
EMU is concerned with economic affairs, but it has considerable significance as a political project geared to greater supranationality and centralization.
EMU increases federal pressures in the EU towards the formation of a state - the EU State.
EMU and the new currency, the Euro, is to be controlled by the European Central Bank, the ECB.
The ECB will have greater independence and power than any other bank in the world.
The members of the ECB Executive Board, who are appointed for eight years and cannot be removed from office, will have unprecedented influence on exchange rate and interest rate policy and other economic policies directly affecting people, regions and nations.
Democratic control is weak.
Desama recommendation (A4-0140/98)
Today we must give an opinion on the Council's common position concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas.
Through our vote, we will endorse all the measures designed to establish the internal market for energy.
Drawing inspiration from the electricity directive, the gas market will have to respect the same broad principles of access to the network, subsidiarity, reciprocity and so on.
Whilst congratulating the rapporteur, Claude Desama, I would like to insist on an important idea: the progressive and controlled opening up of the market.
We cannot accept that a market so sensitive to competition be opened up virtually overnight, and this done in the name of consumer interest.
We do not reject the opening up in itself.
We merely want a period of adaptation for the operators.
We want to avoid an "anarchic' situation, which would challenge the principles of public service distribution.
As far as we are concerned, it is not a question of defending monopolies, but of defending the interests of the citizen in his or her right of access to public service and, in particular, to the broad laws which regulate it.
Finally, I am also thinking of the staff of these companies, to whom I pay tribute, and I hope to be able to reassure them in the face of their fears regarding the opening up of the market.
The Council's common position represents a good compromise; we need to keep to it and not give in to "liberalism at any price' .
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Claude Desama's report.
We have done so in consideration of the desirability of a common position in the natural gas market.
The agreement now in place is a compromise between Member States and we consider it to be the best possible agreement that could have been reached, in view of the material disagreements that exist.
Furthermore, the European Parliament has had a major influence on the present proposal by the Commission.
The Commission's proposal is flawed in that it fails to propose a time-scale for revising the application of the directive.
Thus, we welcome the tabling of an amendment to have the Commission undertake a revision three years after the directive has been adopted.
There should be great restraint in the development of natural gas if the environmentally friendly, sustainable and renewable sources of energy, such as bio energy, bio gas, wind power and solar power are to be able to grow strong.
Bloch von Blottnitz recommendation (A4-0143/98)
The ALTENER II programme is complementary to the framework programme for research and development established by the Commission which, by means of JOULE and THERMIE, provides funding for research and development programmes (JOULE), demonstration programmes (THERMIE) and programmes of technological diffusion (accompanying programmes).
The ALTENER II programme is thus situated downstream from actions undertaken within the context of the framework programme, and aims to facilitate their market penetration by increasing user confidence with regard to renewable energy technologies.
So this programme does not deal uniformly with all renewable energies, but gives priority to technologies which are sufficiently mature for their use to be developed for the market.
Last February, at the time of the vote on the Hautala report on fuel quality, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted for the introduction of environmental standards in the use of bio-fuels.
The ALTENER II programme must therefore include bio-fuel within its list of renewable energy sources and we are happy with the Commission's initiative.
Nevertheless, in terms of consistency, we have a lot of questions.
Indeed, within the Agenda 2000 framework, no specific measure to allow bio-fuel development is envisaged.
On the contrary, within its reforms of the "large-scale farming' COM, the Commission proposes a 0 % compulsory rate of fallow land, along with an alignment of the aid to oil-producing crops with that of aid to straw cereal crops, on the pretext of both the Blair House agreements limiting huge amounts of fallow land and a future possible gain in profitability in oil production using, of course, genetically modified seed.
We therefore request that, on this point, the Commission should plan specific measures to allow the use of agricultural products for non-food use, in particular with regard to renewable energy.
With regard to the Commission's consistency, we raise questions when we find out that it is criticizing a Member State - in this instance, France - which, in order to encourage the use of bio-fuels, and thus fuels which represent an improvement in environmental terms, is implementing the incentive of a partial tax exemption.
In conclusion, on this issue as on many others, we are asking the Commission to be consistent.
Some of the actions pursued by its different Directorates-General are contradictory and cancel each other out.
In this particular case, the Commission plans to develop a programme facilitating the use of renewable energy sources, whilst preventing the Member States from taking tax measures to encourage the use of renewable energy sources and whilst eliminating all the efforts European farmers have made to create and invest in the area of using agricultural products for fuel purposes.
Castagnetti report (A4-0135/98)
We can only be pleased with the Commission's proposal concerning systems and measures for work-linked training in Member States.
This is another approach to the fight against unemployment which hits young people in particular.
I fully support this initiative of European pathways for training, enabling young people to alternate their work-linked training between Member States.
This experience, which has been proven at the level of university education through the ERASMUS programme, must be based on close collaboration between the training establishment or body and the host partner.
The rapporteur rightly refers - within the framework of the LEONARDO programme - to the creation of an "Erasmus for apprenticeships' .
Let us therefore give means to its existence, let us launch pilot projects without delay.
Millions of young people could benefit from apprenticeships.
We must open the European horizon to them, allowing a fruitful exchange of experiences.
Finally, let us not forget to target those who are the most interested, and I mean the SMEs.
Indeed, as creators of jobs they must be integrated into, and committed to, these European pathways for training.
I am pleased with this report, which responds to the Commission's initiative, with the objective of encouraging transnational mobility in the area of education and training.
Furthermore, at a time when the European Council of Luxembourg has committed itself to supporting youth employment and improved training for young people, we can only welcome this proposal.
However, as a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, I would like to repeat the comments of Mr Kerr, our rapporteur.
We must be given the means to implement our policy, unless we want to raise hopes that will not be met.
We must plan strong accompanying measures - financial, legal and social - so that the vital mobility of apprentices becomes a reality.
That is why I support this report, whilst underlining that mobility goes hand in hand with: defining a statute for apprentices, covering their rights and obligations; coordination between the Commission, the Member States and the social partners with regard to awareness raising amongst the general public; the availability of the necessary means - financial, legal and practical - for the people in training; and follow-up to this training.
Monfils report (A4-0083/98)
No tenable reason has been given for abandoning the successful intergovernmental project for the 'European City of Culture' event.
Nor is there anything to support the idea that placing it within the framework of the Community's work on integrated cultural programmes, common financing and so on would be a better arrangement.
However, widening the selection to include cities throughout Europe is positive.
"The European City of Culture is an event which was launched, on the initiative of Melina Mercouri, by the Council of Ministers on 13 June 1985 with the aim of bringing the peoples of Europe closer together.'
Thus begins the Monfils report, as also set out in the preamble to the European Commission document.
As proposed by Melina Mercouri, in 1985 the first "European City of Culture' was Athens, and then, in 1997, the first in the "second round' of the institution was Thessaloniki.
I believe that the initiative and vision of Melina Mercouri have been justified through the general success and favourable impression of the institution, which is regarded as a symbol of the viability of culture in the European Union.
The Monfils report, which we are debating today, as well as the initial proposal of the European Commission, aims to further strengthen and support the institution of the "European City of Culture' .
In this sense, I will gladly vote for the Monfils report, in the certainty of knowing that it will shape an even stronger and more effective European cultural idea and policy.
Anastassopoulos report (A4-0136/98)
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament are voting in favour of the Anastassopoulos report.
However, in our opinion, many of Parliament's amendments are unclear, both in their wording and in relation to their anticipated results.
We have grave reservations about amendments that could imply intent to criminalize the transfer of information facilitating unauthorized access to information services - even when no commercial purpose is being served.
We cannot give our support to this rationale.
We even doubt the necessity for very restrictive regulation at Community level in this area.
Many of the problems addressed are already being solved satisfactorily within Member States.
Ettl report (A4-0134/98)
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of a proposed directive to facilitate the movement of employees and the self-employed within the EU.
Moving abroad would be simpler and easier to grasp if it were possible to maintain supplementary pension schemes set up in the home country.
This proposed directive would enable people to keep their entire pension entitlement in one place - in their home country - and supplementary pensions could also be paid out to persons living abroad.
In common with the Danish Federation of Trade Unions, we have reservations about foreign workers looking like rats in host Member States.
Supplementary pensions are part of your salary, and if workers stationed abroad do not have the same working and employment conditions as workers in their home country, they may indeed look like rats.
However, the problem is that the principle of making payments into an existing pension scheme forms the very basis of the directive.
Thus, we are voting in favour of the proposed directive.
And we hope that a solution will be found to the problem in Council.
This could perhaps be achieved by the social partners recognizing contributions paid in the country of origin and contributions paid in host Member States as equally valid.
The proposal for a directive currently under review is one of the measures announced in the Commission Green Paper relating to supplementary pensions in the EU.
The proposal is part of the more general move to strengthen private employers' supplementary pension schemes, in an attempt to make the cuts in provision and the tightening of the conditions for pension rights through state social security systems acceptable to working people. It is aimed at tackling the extremely serious problem faced by transient workers - who see their supplementary pension rights being fundamentally eroded or lost - and at adapting the Community institutional framework to actual reality.
This proposal for a directive focuses on the issue of equal treatment for transient workers and of safeguarding the rights they have acquired when moving to another country.
However, it does not tackle the problem of the long periods of residence required to build up pension rights, or the problem of double taxation if vested pension rights are transferred to another country.
In this view, it is necessary to take supplementary legislative initiatives and, in this regard, we support the relevant amendments.
We believe that the vested pension rights of an employed person in a supplementary pension scheme must be maintained, if that person moves to another Member State, at the same level at which they would be if that person stayed in the country of origin, having safeguarded his or her pension right.
We believe it is important to ensure receipt of benefits in the country of residence and to provide for special arrangements for those workers posted abroad.
The report correctly pinpoints certain inadequacies of the proposed directive and we agree with some of the amendments.
We believe the rights of workers must be fully safeguarded even when they move to another country, and we support any measure to be taken in this regard.
I am supporting this report today as the pension rights of too many of our citizens are not adequately protected when they take up the EU ideal and move to another Member State.
So it is up to those of us with a say at EU level to put this right.
It is time that the pension rights of people who pay in to supplementary pension schemes were properly protected when they move country.
This protection should include both employees and self-employed people.
The thorny question of how to tax these contributions and benefits whilst avoiding double taxation is one that will have to be examined at European level to ensure fair play for both the public purse and the hard-working citizen.
Such international workers with supplementary pensions are in fact doing two of the things which previous generations of political leaders have encouraged them to do - ' getting on their bikes to look for work' and not relying on the state to provide for all their pension needs.
They should no longer be penalized for following the advice of those they elected to government for so many years, not least in my own country.
Gasòliba I Böhm report (A4-0133/98)
The Gasòliba I Böhm report notes an economic recovery in Europe, and proclaims that the framework of economic and monetary union will be able to increase this in the future by creating the conditions for a zone of stability.
Our opinion is far more moderate. If there really is a recovery in Europe at the moment, fortuitously accelerated by the decline in South-East Asian capital, then on the contrary monetary unification, and the super-state soon to follow it, run a high risk of limiting growth.
Furthermore, I do not believe that EMU is going to give the European economy a stable framework.
By implementing monetary unification when the conditions are not all met, we will instead be establishing a zone of European instability for several decades to come.
Another factor which is unfavourable to growth is that the European Central Bank will clearly set short term interest rates higher than they are today in order to build up its credibility, especially if the euro zone covers 11 extremely heterogeneous countries.
Finally, monetary unification is going to require tax increases, which are never favourable to growth.
The reduction in public deficits over the past few years has largely been obtained through increases in tax and social security payments, which reached a record level of 42.4 % of European GDP in 1996.
But that is not the worst of it.
Monetary unification will structurally require new taxes.
New proof of this is to be found in the Gasòliba I Böhm resolution, approved by the European Parliament which, "strongly agrees with the Commission's view of an enhanced need for structural adjustment - with the active and enhanced use of the European Structural Funds - after EMU' .
Thus the European Parliament, just like the other European institutions and the governments, is convinced that, by removing the possibility of economic adjustments through the flexibility of internal changes, monetary unification is going to require a strengthened European budget with the aim of taking responsibility for a financial redistribution between countries in compensation.
We are thus going to replace the spontaneous adjustments of the money markets with extremely costly bureaucratic adjustments.
We are going to remove uncertainty with regard to internal changes by causing considerable perverse effects throughout the economy.
Thus, the positive effects of simplification achieved by monetary unification will be wiped out, and the final result will not be favourable to growth.
I am, on the whole, satisfied with Mr Gasòliba I Böhm's report.
He holds with the Commission's vision with regard to the economic performance of the European Union as a whole.
Growth is returning, and interest rates and inflation rates are at an all time low.
Overall, most European Union countries have managed to achieve the criteria set out in the Maastricht Treaty.
It covers so many indicators that we can be led to hope for a long term economic recovery.
This being so, as the rapporteur highlights, we cannot show smug optimism and merely drink in the good figures.
For the fact is, unemployment remains high in many of the Union's countries.
And even if we now have the basics to help us resolve the problem of unemployment and to support long term growth, they are not enough.
It must be remembered that there are important obstacles preventing us from successfully completing our venture.
Investment levels remain weak; non-wage labour costs remain high; overly heavy and rigid administrative formalities prevent companies from operating and acting efficiently; the workforce is still not adapted to technological change.
On the basis of this assessment, important reforms remain to be implemented.
They must cover the above-mentioned areas, but also taxation via a minimum platform of fiscal coordination between the Member States in the euro zone and a reduction in the costs which weigh down salaries, in particular those of the less qualified.
Finally I would like to mention my approval of the report's scepticism with regard to a reduction in the working week, which would be obligatory in the European Union and which, moreover, would go against the principle of subsidiarity.
I would also go further and say that it is a bad idea to impose it at Member State level.
Let the social partners negotiate this at the level of the individual company, for this is where the information needed to take these decisions lies.
Unfortunately, I fear that in my country, our leaders do not see it this way.
In conclusion, and following the example of the rapporteur, I will add that we should be careful before announcing our victory.
We may be witnessing a recovery, but it does not mean that it will be a lasting one.
Our economies can be affected by certain impacts, such as strong fluctuations in the dollar, or the still unmeasured effects of the South-East Asian crisis.
It is also for this reason that it would be useful for the Commission to provide a study which covers a perspective of more than two years.
I congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report, for which I will vote favourably.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the report by Carles-Alfred Gasòliba I Böhm on growth and employment in a stabilityoriented EMU.
The report states that the rapid reduction of public deficits in many EU Member States prior to the start of the third stage of EMU has had unfortunate consequences for employment in the EU.
Thus, it is important for EU Member States to intensify their efforts in countering unemployment, just as Denmark has done.
The Danish Social Democrats are of the opinion that unemployment is one of the worst problems currently facing the EU and we welcome the following key positions:
With reference to the Luxembourg Summit, efforts should be intensified to counter unemployment.-Increased mobility of different occupations and sectors.-Benchmarking should be implemented as part of a process to develop monitoring of the labour market.-Drastic wage cuts for unskilled workers is not a viable way to create employment.
It only serves to create a new poverty and could jeopardize social interdependence in Europe.-A need to coordinate minimum levels of taxation across EU Member States to avoid countries stealing jobs from one another by means of tax dumping.The Danish Social Democrats do not support a joint lowering of taxation rates, nor do we share the belief expressed in the report that reductions in VAT would have any significant impact on employment.
This report includes several good proposals to increase employment, such as reduced taxation on work, investment to increase domestic demand and reducing bureaucracy.
EMU is not the right way to achieve sustainable growth, a good environment and regional balance.
Tax changes, shorter working hours, investment in industries of the future, such as the environment and new technology, must take place within the framework of an economy with increased regional and local diversity and reduced centralization.
Once again the Commission is refusing to learn the necessary lessons from the repercussions of the policy which the EU and the Member States are pursuing.
On the contrary, it is demanding even tougher austerity and financial constraints, by further reducing public spending, by reducing the "burden' of state pensions, and by reducing health expenditure and unemployment benefits.
It is becoming increasingly clear that not only monetary and foreign exchange policy but also economic policy is essentially being made in the EU, while national governments are being turned into mere administrators and executors of the oppressive dictates of Brussels.
The Commission has even gone so far as to shift the responsibility for the growth of employment onto workers' trades unions, urging "pragmatic collective agreements' , because, if they did not, they would be responsible for the increase in unemployment and the wave of relocations.
Social dialogue is being used in the most provocative way, as a Trojan horse to quash labour relations and the social security system.
The report does not contain the slightest mention of the living standards of working people and the consequences of austerity, or any specific initiative for productive investments, beyond the well-known theories on the competitiveness and yield of investments, which are non-existent.
The Commission is not even taking the trouble to question itself because, although capital is facing favourable conditions - which the Commission itself has confirmed and which consist of increased exports, increased profits, reduced corporation and property tax, and labour costs per unit of production below 1970 levels - it is not making productive investments.
The report by the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy goes in the same direction.
It accepts the Commission's guidelines and the entire logic of EMU, and calls for the acceleration of the dismantling of labour relations and the state social security system.
The relevant comments, some of which may be true, are nevertheless inadequate, given that, for example, no-one can claim that inadequate domestic demand and private consumption are factors which inhibit growth and development and then call for further cutbacks in expenditure, "continued wage moderation' , a reduction in non-wage labour costs and the safeguarding at all costs of a "high level of productivity' , in other words, high profits.
It is not by chance that the amendments which we tabled in committee were rejected by the Socialists and the Christian Democrats.
We will vote against the Gasòliba I Böhm report because it is part and parcel of the logic which has so far caused the problem of employment, poverty and marginalization to take on such explosive dimensions and which has proved to be detrimental to any notion of progress and real convergence.
Especially today, on the eve of the decision as to which countries will take part in the euro from 1 January 1999 and of the transition of the EU into a new phase of integration, we stress that the only solution for tackling the extremely serious problems faced by the European economy and by the working people of all the Member States is to abandon the logic of nominal convergence and stability and to promote another alternative logic for growth, which, by also exploiting the opportunities offered by advances in technology, will support the income of working people and safeguard and increase their gains. It will promote productive investments, put a stop to the unaccountability of large corporations and open the way for broader changes which will promote the vision of a different Europe, a Europe of peace, progress and social prosperity.
The onset of the third stage of EMU and the implementation of even harsher incomes policies in the context of the provisions of the Stability Pact will make people more aware of the need for such a solution.
We will be the prime movers in such a direction, and we are determined to support their struggle at both national and Community level.
Resolution on the textile industry (B4-0438/98)
The fact that at least 600 000 jobs have been "scrapped' in the textiles and clothing sector in less than five years with a massive, continuous redundancy process is causing anguish.
It is hoped that the Council will outline a new common strategy to encourage the adaptation of the sector, on the eve of new liberalization worldwide.
The dissemination and transfer of technologies, as well as the use of the information technologies, may undoubtedly help the sector recover from the crisis into which it has fallen.
But that is not enough.
To a certain extent, it is very important to revitalize and stop the inequality of industrial growth in the sector in question, because some industries are adapting to the economic changes quickly while others remain frustrated at the starting post.
The European Commission action plan is important and welcome, but does not constitute a real strategy, for the simple reason that it does not contain any real measures that can be adapted to specific cases and, even more seriously, it does not have adequate funding.
This is even more disconcerting as the textiles and clothing sector represents the vital backbone of the development of many regions of the EU, which are already in serious economic difficulties.
We need to reconsider a new strategy in the textiles sector that can aim to achieve one of the basic principles of the very construction of the EU: the economic and social cohesion of the regions in which the industry has strong roots.
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland has a lot of area heavily dependent on the textile industry: Harris Tweed, Johnstone Mills at Elgin, Brora Mills and Shetland Knitwear.
Some of their products are adversely affected by imports and some of the exporting states do not obey international conventions in social and employment conditions.
We support the action plan and the European observatory for textiles.
I voted in favour of the proposed resolution on the competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry because, as a Member for a country where that industry is of major economic importance, it seems to me that the Commission should improve its action plan for the sector, bearing in mind that this is one of the EU's largest industries, with 2.25 million jobs, mainly occupied by women workers, in a total of over 120 thousand companies.
When amending its action plan, the Commission should take account of the fact that many regions of the EU depend on the textile and clothing industry - many of those regions being under-developed or in industrial decline - and of the need to make more financial aid available to render those regions and the sector itself more competitive.
The action plan presented by the Commission on the textile industry is part of its more general strategy to increase competitiveness by reducing non-wage labour costs, changing labour relations and by further promoting "prosperity' .
There appears to be little concern about the fact that this is a traditional industry which is of strategic importance for some EU countries.
Nor does there appear to be any concern about the fact that more than 600 000 jobs have been lost over the last few years, that we see the use of flexible and short term employment, that overall we have a serious fall in productivity, and that those regions which depend directly on the industry are in a state of decline.
Nor indeed is there concern about the fact that it is an industry with a large percentage of relocation in the context of the demand by large corporations for ever larger superprofits.
We are afraid that the directions taken by the Commission portend the negative direction of the debates which will take place in Council and, therefore, the people employed in the industry and the many SMEs have nothing to gain from the planned structural intervention of the EU.
Even at the level of special programmes, the new proposals for the Structural Funds within the framework of Agenda 2000 provide for the abolition of the RETEX programme.
The EU bears the profoundest responsibilities for the US-inspired liberalization of the global market in textiles and for its accession to the GATT regulations.
It has not made any attempt, even in a rudimentary way, to safeguard European production in the face of unfair competition from those countries which practise social dumping.
Now, after the event, it talks hypocritically of the need for protection, when this excellent social provision was not included in the WTO agreement. Nor, of course, is any safeguard provided by the inconsistent and non-binding Singapore Declaration.
The EU must tackle the phenomenon of companies relocating which, in Greece, has assumed substantial proportions and is used by employers to threaten workers into accepting the non-implementation of collective agreements and medieval working conditions.
This phenomenon has other dimensions, if we take into consideration the strong regional character of the industry, the shrinking of which, apart from the problems it creates for the economic and social fabric of entire regions, widens the gulf between less developed economies - such as the Greek economy - and those of the more developed countries of the EU.
The EU also bears the most serious responsibilities for the policy it is pursuing in relation to one of the major raw materials used in the industry - cotton.
Instead of supporting production in this weak area of cultivation, and contributing to increased investments in the textile industry by means of regulations implemented within the framework of the CAP - reduced production and an increase in the limits of co-responsibility - it promotes de facto relocations or the placing of the initial investment in third producing countries with cheap raw materials.
The joint resolution of the European Parliament, although it contains many interesting proposals, especially concerning the funding of the industry, the implementation of international labour agreements and measures against social dumping, greatly limits its horizon and avoids setting out the enormous problems in the sector - the relocations which are fatally affecting the European textile industry, the general crisis within the industry - and the measures for combating it.
The overall problems in the industry cannot be solved without a more general re-examination of the policy of "competitiveness' , and of the industrial and commercial policy of the EU.
Only a radically different policy to tackle the issue of competitiveness from the standpoint of support for production and investments and the modernization of existing units of production, to promote full and stable employment and take measures to combat commercial and social dumping, will lead to growth and development in the industry and increased employment.
Pimenta report (A4-0125/98)
In the last GATT agreements, which gave birth to the WTO, two essential factors were missing: an environmental clause and a social clause.
With regard to an environmental clause, which needs to be the subject of an overall approach, covering not only environmental protection but also consumer protection and bioethical aspects, a few timid advances have been noted with, among other things, the creation of the Committee on Trade and Environment.
The issue of the relationship between commercial activity and respect for the environment began to be tackled at the end of the 1980s, with regard in particular to the formulation of regulations aimed at protecting marine mammals, victims of the drift nets tens of kilometres long used in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.
Faced with this problem, the European Union aligned itself with the standard set by the UN, limiting the length of these drift nets to 2.5 kilometres.
Scientific studies have shown that the number of dolphins caught by European fishermen has been very small since this limit was applied, a limit which does not apply in the Baltic Sea where fishing with drift nets up to 21 kilometres long is still permitted.
It is particularly regrettable that, on this point, the Commission decided to disregard the international rule, by looking for the total abolition of the use of drift nets in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, for this proposal is not based on scientific considerations but in reality stems from political bargaining.
In an effort to overcome the deadlock imposed by a minority, the Commission agreed to the continuing use of 21 kilometre drift nets in the Baltic, with no proven scientific grounds. That is an example of exactly what not to do.
Environmentally friendly control measures must always be based on serious scientific fact, unless one wants to lose all credibility.
In 1986, at the very time when agricultural products were being introduced into the perilous cycle of trade globalization, with no recognition of their specific nature, the question of the relationship between trade and the environment did not appear in the mandate given to the Punta del Este negotiators.
It was only added, in extremis , in the last phase of negotiation of the Marrakesh Agreement, and the Committee on Trade and Environment was only set up just before the Singapore Ministerial Conference in December 1996.
Since Marrakesh, the United States has systematically endeavoured to reduce environmental considerations and consumer protection as much as possible within the framework of the WTO.
Their extremely restrictive attitude during the Kyoto Conference on climate change clearly illustrates this wish.
Issues currently under discussion within the WTO, such as bananas or the use of hormones in beef production, show that the principles of precaution and sustainable production are completely sidelined by American pressure groups.
For example, in paragraph 123 of the decision on hormones by the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body, the principle of precaution is completely overlooked.
It states: "We nevertheless consider that it is useless, and probably inadvisable, for the Dispute Settlement Body to take a position, in this appeal, on this important but abstract issue.
We note that the expert group itself has not established any final conclusions with regard to the status of the principle of precaution in international legislation and that the principle of precaution, at least whilst outside the framework of international legislation with regard to the environment, awaits authoritative formulation.'
With regard to bioethics, international legislation declares itself in favour of the patenting of human and animal genes, even though products derived from nature, including animals raised for agricultural purposes, are all treated as "similar products' whatever their method of production - hyper-intensive livestock farming, environmental degradation and so on.
Consequently, WTO international legislation protects the use and propagation of genetically modified organisms, whilst ensuring that there are no non-tariff customs barriers for meat "pumped up' with synthetic hormones, or for those using production processes which ignore the environment, consumer protection and animal welfare.
Under pressure from the environmental lobbies, the European Commission regularly draws up extremely sophisticated directives on water quality, animal welfare and transportation of live animals, whilst at the same time signing, in a completely contradictory manner, free trade agreements which "forget' to stipulate restrictive clauses obliging imported products to conform to the production conditions imposed on European agriculture.
By way of example, in order to set up a pig farm in France, it is necessary to carry out impact studies and obtain the necessary authorization which requires an administrative delay of several years.
In the United States, this authorization process takes just three days and environmental constraints are virtually non-existent.
New legislation regarding the well-being of laying hens has just been submitted to us, obliging the area per chicken to be doubled, which will paradoxically lead to an increase in the death rate amongst chickens due to cannibalism (CNEVA study) and will increase production costs by 40 %.
At the same time, we are subjected, via the globalization of trade and the dismantling of Community preference, to increasingly fierce competition on the part of producers in third countries who, naturally, are under no obligation to respect this kind of standard.
In conclusion, the legislation drawn up by the Commission will end up penalizing European production, since it will also remove the principle of Community preference.
Even though the European Union wants to develop a "social' component, there has been no request from the Commission demanding WTO recognition of the social clause.
In the case of bananas, for example, the Commission prefers to dismantle European production - in Martinique and Guadeloupe in particular - to destroy the Lomé agreements with ACP countries and to encourage the establishment of the "dollar banana' , quite simply forgetting that bananas imported into the European Union from third countries do not respect the social and environmental clauses which are imposed on our producers.
That concludes the vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 1.05 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 30 April 1998.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Thursday, 30 April 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, in order not to waste Parliament's time, I handed in a change of vote in writing.
It has not been recorded properly.
I ask that it be corrected and that my vote on Amendment No 2 of the Desama report be changed from 'Against' to 'In favour' .
Thank you.
We will do that.
(The Minutes were approved)
Composition of Parliament
The single currency
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, today we are taking part in an event which is unprecedented in history.
After serious efforts to ensure that their economies converge, eleven countries are about to join together in a very important way, by sharing a currency.
They are doing so voluntarily and with the support of their respective parliaments.
However, in accordance with the Maastricht Treaty, the European Parliament, the legitimate representative not only of those eleven countries but of all the citizens of the Union, must also state its opinion.
Today this House must debate the proposal from the Economic and Financial Affairs Council and ratify or rectify our opinion in keeping with the fact that it is a decision which will change the future of our people.
Monetary union is another step along the road we have all embarked on towards an ever closer union between the people of Europe, as the Treaty recalls.
The common currency is a way of achieving that objective.
At this historic time, I would like us all to be guided by clarity and wisdom.
I would like to welcome to the European Parliament the various dignitaries in the official gallery who have decided to join us on this special day for the future of Europe, and the representatives of the press who are taking great pains to make the public aware of our deliberations.
The next item is the recommendation by the Council concerning the Member States fulfilling the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency in accordance with Article 109j(2) and (4) of the EC Treaty (7884/1/98 - C4-0250/98-98/0812(CNS)) and on the proposal for an opinion by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on this recommendation, pursuant to Rule 79a of the Rules of Procedure (Rapporteur: Mr von Wogau).
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, at the beginning of this debate, I would like to move a procedural motion which aims to have this matter refused due to its inadmissibility, pursuant to Rule 128 of our Rules of Procedure.
I do this for procedural reasons and for reasons of substance.
As regards procedure, I would point out that Article 109j of the Treaty on European Union has not been respected and that Rule 79a of our Rules of Procedure, which was adopted hastily, could not be considered to be in keeping with correct procedure.
Today we will listen to a proposal from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs which will be presented to us orally.
We are requested to say either yes or no to all of the Council's recommendations.
No amendments may be tabled.
This is an assent procedure and not an opinion procedure as provided for in the Treaty.
The Council itself was wrong in mentioning in its recommendation the European Parliament's opinion of last Thursday, which complied neither legally nor politically with the Treaty.
This is a real perversion of the institutional process, which means that the Council is not fulfilling its responsibilities, nor performing the role conferred on it by the Treaty, and which will further mean that Parliament too will not respect the debate it is granted.
I know that we do not want to have this debate.
I would add, Mr President, that as regards substance...
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Brown, has the floor.
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, at the start of this day of historic significance for Europe, let me begin by giving, on behalf of the Council of Ministers, our warm thanks to Parliament for their contribution to the conduct of the procedures which lead up to today's decisions.
We succeed by working together.
It is wholly in accord with the democratic conditions and traditions of our continent for this Parliament to play an important role in the historic decisions we are making.
I know I speak too on behalf of the Council which meets this afternoon when I record that your opinion, which will come from this morning's deliberations, will be much valued by all of us.
Fifty years ago when the founders of the European Community began their work the establishment of arrangements for permanent peace in Western Europe was their greatest priority; to set aside for ever age-old feuds and enmities and to establish a framework cooperation and progress for the peoples of Europe.
In their wisdom they recognized that enduring peace in our countries could only rest in the prosperity of the peoples.
So, beginning with the Treaty of Rome, they began to fashion this European Union, a unique experiment in human history which has laid the basis for over half a century of peace in Western Europe and hitherto unknown prosperity for our peoples.
Right from the beginning those founders began to set out the path which has led us to the historic decisions on monetary union which we will take today. For in the resolution passed at the Messina Conference almost 43 years ago they called for the coordination of monetary policies permitting the creation and development of a common market.
So now, after half a century, in which, building from the ruins of war, Europe has moved closer together, Europe today enters a new era.
Our ambition, by creating a single currency of the countries of Europe today, is to create greater employment and prosperity for the peoples of Europe tomorrow.
When the euro is introduced there will be over 290 million people in Europe using it, 5 % of the world's population.
The single currency of 11 countries will account for one-fifth of the world's output, the same as that of the United States.
The euro area will be one of the world's largest importers and exporters and our shared aims - high levels of growth and employment for all - depend critically on its successful introduction.
So, first I want to report to the European Parliament the recommendations of the Finance Ministers of our 15 Member States following their meeting last night.
So that Economic and Monetary Union is sustainable and durable, the decisions we recommend are based on a consideration of whether the Member States have fulfilled the conditions of both legal and economic convergence set down in the Maastricht Treaty.
We have unanimously agreed with the Commission's recommendation that 11 Member States - Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland - fulfil the necessary conditions for the adoption of the single currency.
We have agreed that these Member States have all taken the necessary steps to ensure their national legislation is compatible with the Treaty and the Statute of the European system of central banks.
So, they have met the condition of legal convergence.
We have also agreed that these states have achieved a high degree of sustainable economic convergence; progress on achieving price stability; a high degree of exchange rate stability; convergence in long-term interest rates and there has also been progress on bringing budget deficits under control and reducing debt, although as the EMI report has said, further fiscal consolidation is warranted to achieve lasting compliance with the fiscal criteria.
However, it is important to say also, as we recommend this momentous decision, that the progress countries have made must not represent a one-off commitment to meeting a target for one particular year, but must be part of a continuing commitment to stability and discipline.
On behalf of the Council of Ministers, I also want to report to you on the important declaration which we set out last night.
To lock in our commitment to fiscal discipline and economic reform the new declaration sets out how we should implement immediately and in the period ahead, the commitments already entered into in the Stability and Growth Pact and do so in the most effective and timely way.
It is by locking in our commitment to monetary and fiscal discipline that monetary union can become the platform for long-term stability on which growth and employment can be built.
The declaration also emphasises the need for economic reform.
Indeed, economic reform is now established as the next big challenge for Europe to create employment opportunity for all, making product, labour and capital markets more effective, improving the adaptability of employment markets, ensuring that national education and training systems are more effective, seeking to encourage entrepreneurship, enabling easier access to capital markets for small and medium enterprises, increasing tax efficiency, avoiding harmful tax competition, all to create more growth and jobs.
The declaration reflects the importance we attach to addressing the needs of 18 million unemployed if we are to make monetary union work more successfully.
The declaration emphasizes just how important it is to tackle unemployment by welfare, tax and social security reform as well as by measures for training and education and ending social exclusion if we are to have both a successful single currency and a successful economy.
(Applause) Monetary union is not only an achievement, it also sets a challenge to make the economic reforms essential for the high levels of growth and employment we all want to see.
Fellow parliamentarians, Economic and Monetary Union is born out of our shared objectives for growth and employment.
It is founded on our common commitment to long-term stability.
It is now driven forward by our mutual interest in fiscal discipline and economic reform to secure a society that is both enterprising and fair.
Let me say finally here from this Parliament today that our great achievement, the test of our success, will not be in declarations or in documents or even in new institutions or procedures.
It will be in jobs for people, growth for people, prosperity for people - a People's Europe where everyone has opportunity and everyone has a contribution to make.
(Applause) That, with all of us working together - Parliament and governments - is our task.
That, in time, will be our achievement.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the decisions being taken this weekend are of historic significance for the future of the European Union.
We are deciding which countries will be lining up for the start of the single currency on 1 January 1999.
We also expect to see candidates being nominated this weekend for top posts in the European Central Bank.
And, equally important, major decisions have to be taken which will affect future exchange rates.
As this could well have a substantial impact on the financial and foreign-exchange markets, we have had to choose a time when the stock exchanges would be closed.
For this reason, the three institutions involved, namely the Ecofin Council, the European Parliament and the European Council, have gathered together in Brussels this weekend in order to prepare and take the necessary decisions.
We are today required to give our opinion on which Member States fulfil the criteria of the Maastricht Treaty.
In this respect the Maastricht Treaty assigns an institutional role to the European Parliament.
This House has to hear the proposal of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council before the Heads of State and Government make their decision.
As the Finance Ministers were unable to make their recommendation until yesterday evening, an extraordinary sitting of Parliament had to be called this Saturday morning.
For this same reason it is necessary for us to reach our decision by oral procedure.
The President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, has this morning informed the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that the Council accepts the recommendation of the European Commission.
This means that the European Parliament, in the decision it will take today, can refer directly to the resolution which was adopted last Thursday by a very large majority.
In this resolution the European Parliament made the following declaration on the basis of my report: Since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty each Member State of the European Union has made substantial progress towards convergence.
This is reflected in the low inflation rates, low long-term interest rates, minimal exchange-rate fluctuations and in a perceptible consolidation of budgetary positions.
The Maastricht Treaty sets down that only those countries which have achieved a stable currency will be admitted to monetary union.
This is of particular importance, because a stable currency is a fundamental requirement for the success of a social market economy.
The real indicator for price stability is the inflation rate.
The central banks work on the assumption that in practice inflation rates of less than 2 % produce price stability.
The good news from the reports we have before us is that all eleven participating countries have inflation rates of less than 2 %.
This means that only Member States which at this moment have a stable currency will be lining up for the start of monetary union.
In 1997, the reference year, four participating countries had an inflation rate of 1.9 % - namely Italy, The Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
Two countries had an inflation rate of 1.5 %, namely Belgium and Germany.
One country had an inflation rate of 1.4 %, namely Luxembourg, and one an inflation rate of 1.3 %, namely France.
Three countries even achieved inflation rates of 1.2 %, namely Finland, Ireland and Austria.
The average inflation rate of the eleven participating countries in the reference year was 1.5 %.
This shows a growing awareness of the need for price stability throughout the whole European Union with a view to the introduction of monetary union.
Long-term interest rates suggest that the markets expect this trend to continue.
In all eleven participating countries, long-term interest rates are substantially below the reference value of 7.8 %.
The stability of the euro will be safeguarded when it comes into being in January 1999.
All the reports which have been made available to us indicate this.
The great efforts of recent years and months have borne fruit.
Now we have to secure for future years that which has so far been achieved.
Alexandre Lamfalussy, the first President of the European Monetary Institute, always insisted that we should not ask too much of the instruments of monetary policy.
The budgetary policies of the Member States must also play a part in securing long-term currency stability.
For that reason we have been very careful to ensure that the debt criteria of the Treaty were being fulfilled.
The budget deficits of all participating countries were below 3 % of GDP and the budgetary plans and forecasts point to a further decline in deficit levels.
With regard to the debt situation in the Member States, we established in Thursday's resolution that the overall government debt in some countries continues to give cause for concern.
Here we have to examine whether the debt burden of these countries lies within the reference band allowed by the Maastricht Treaty.
What is important here is whether the debts are financed mainly by the country itself or whether short-term or longer-term liabilities are involved.
It should be borne in mind that the two most indebted countries have at the same time an above-average savings ratio and that their liabilities are for the most part financed internally.
Furthermore, an improvement in the debt structure can be observed to the effect that the terms are gradually, if slowly, being extended.
In addition, we have, in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, held talks with the Finance Ministers of the countries in question.
At this point I wish to mention specifically that the comments expressed by Finance Minister Ciampi on the substantial and successful efforts made in Italy towards budgetary consolidation contributed enormously to the positive assessment made by the Committee members.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy acknowledged these achievements.
We came to the conclusion that we should approve the positive assessment of the Commission and Council in respect of the fulfilment of the debt criteria by all eleven participating countries.
However, in order to provide further safeguards, our resolution of 30 April 1998 called for the Stability and Growth Pact to be strictly applied in all eleven countries.
We also expect the governments of those countries particularly affected to make real commitments to continue the consolidation process.
Unemployment, while not formally one of the Maastricht Treaty criteria, nevertheless constitutes the greatest challenge facing the countries of the European Union.
For this reason we have included the issue of employment in our overall assessment and are calling for the decisions adopted at the Luxembourg Summit to be consistently implemented.
I come now to my oral proposal.
At the sitting of 2 May 1998, the recommendation of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of 1 May 1998 was submitted to the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in accordance with Article 109j(2) of the Treaty.
In its recommendation, the Council comes to the conclusion that the following countries fulfil the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency: Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal and Finland. In this closed session the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, presented the text of these recommendations to the Committee.
This was followed by a discussion of the Council's recommendations.
The members of the Committee determined that the proposal adopted by the Council was in keeping with the Commission's recommendation of 25 March 1998, on the basis of which Parliament gave its assenting opinion on 30 April 1998.
On this basis I asked the Committee to propose that you give your approval to the Council recommendation of 1 May 1998.
My proposal was accepted by 54 votes to 3, with 2 abstentions.
I therefore submit a proposal to this House, under the oral procedure, that the recommendations of the Council of Ministers be approved.
Pierre Werner, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt, Jacques Delors, François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl, these are the eminent statesmen who have stamped their mark on, and who will continue to shape, the great achievement that is European Economic and Monetary Union.
Without their input we would not be able to take the historic decisions which are before us today.
Neither should we forget the many others who have worked towards EMU, many of whom are present in this Chamber today.
If you now accept my proposal, then we shall be advocating the adoption of a single currency by eleven Member States on 1 January 1999.
Let us say "yes' , for the euro represents an important step from the Single Market to a proper European home market.
Let us say "yes' , for the euro will lead Europe into the 21st century and will significantly improve the competitiveness of the European economy.
Let us say "yes' , because the history of a European currency since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty has already been a success in terms of financial stability.
Let us say "yes' , because with the euro we will be creating a major international currency which will strengthen Europe's position around the world.
Let us say "yes' in the realization that this will be the most momentous decision in Europe's history since the founding fathers of the European Community signed the original Treaty of Rome at the Capitol in 1957.
I therefore call upon this House to vote "yes' to the proposal.
(Loud applause)
Mr President, I should first like to thank the President-in-Office of the Ecofin Council for his report to us today.
I cannot let this moment pass without expressing my personal pleasure at welcoming to this plenary a British Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer...
...and to ask him to take back to the Labour Government the congratulations of the Socialist Group for the first momentous year of Labour in government.
(Mixed reactions) As this Parliament takes its part today in seeing in the euro to 11 Member States of the Union, may I also welcome the positive and sensible approach taken by Gordon Brown with regard to the introduction of the euro in Britain.
The careful preparations being made mean that those of us who support British membership - of whom I am one - will be able to conduct a campaign for a Yes vote with some confidence that there is a better balance to the advantages and disadvantages than was even thinkable under the last government.
Despite the fact that Britain is not to be in the first wave of entrants to the single currency, it fell to the British presidency to see the euro to its final stage.
For those who doubted whether a country outside the currency should or could conduct this with integrity, rigour or, indeed, vigour, I hope they have heard yours and Prime Minister Blair's unequivocal statements, many times repeated, that the euro when launched must be a success, not just for those Member States in it - important as that is - but for all those who are not in it as well.
The economies of the 15 are so closely and inextricably linked that any problems of the euro are not the problems of the 11 alone, but also those of Britain, Sweden, Denmark and Greece.
Therefore, the euro must be successful and the British presidency committed itself to do all in its power to make it so.
At this point my group pays tribute to the work of the Commission in bringing this to fruition but also to the inspirational work of former Commission President Jacques Delors who has made such a remarkable contribution to Europe and the euro.
(Applause) The Socialist Group welcomes the fact that today 11 countries will be given the go-ahead to move forward to EMU.
My group has always argued that we want as many Member States as possible to form part of Economic and Monetary Union from the outset.
We do not agree that a euro of the 11 equals a weak euro.
Just look seriously at the phenomenal convergence which has taken place in all 15 Member States, even those who are not joining now.
Never before have so many countries striven of their own free will to reach the same targets at the same time and with such success.
The scale of the project is unprecedented and shows what the European Union is capable of when the political will is there and when we decide to work together.
The EMU project has been immensely successful to date.
It is right to acknowledge that and to pay tribute to the courage of those government leaders who have carried it through.
We must, however, make clear today why it is more than ever necessary to secure a single currency.
Some of our citizens fear the coming of the euro and its economic consequences.
Many believe that the economic stringency of recent years and the consequent rise in unemployment are only as a result of the drive for the euro.
We should accept that, to some extent, we have not given a clear picture of the global context in which the single currency becomes not just a tool for European integration but far more.
As we have seen the global market expanding in the last 8 years, it has become clear that if we want to create a future for our young people for tomorrow, we must develop new, innovative strategies which will combat the negative consequences of the global market and the information society whilst harnessing the positive consequences.
The single currency, with its potential for stability, greater certainty for investors, the savings inherent in transaction costs, price transparency and so on is one very important and innovative European opportunity.
Perhaps we do not often enough say that single currency or no, the economy of the world is changing dramatically and working life as we know it is already different and will be even more so in five or ten years' time.
So, today we begin a new phase. Yes, it is a challenging one.
Yes, it is one with some dangers. But at least we have the courage and vision to imagine, plan, organize and create a new currency for Europe, a new chance for Europe.
We all know that if the euro is to succeed in dealing with unemployment and falling living standards, it must be accompanied by policies for growth, job creation and investment.
My group has argued and will continue to argue for greater cooperation and coordination of Member States' economic and employment policies.
Finally, I want to make two points that are important to my group.
Firstly, this Parliament has been deadly serious about our role in the introduction of the euro.
No one can accuse us of causing harm to the concept or damaging any aspect of the process. Why?
Because the money in our citizens' pockets is much too serious to play games with.
So, we now expect the Council to be just as serious in the next 24 hours in carrying out its side of the bargain and carrying out its obligation under the Treaty.
We expect the Council to nominate the governor and the board of the Central Bank tomorrow in line with the Treaty - one governor for eight years.
That is the first test of the euro and the Council must not fail it!
(Applause) Secondly, the damaging press speculation of the last few weeks about the governor and the political wrangling which is going on has demonstrated the sort of political pressure to which the Central Bank will be subjected.
We all now know very clearly the sort of phone calls the governor will get in the middle of the night and we know where they will come from.
It is even more important, therefore, that the lines of accountability are drawn very clearly from the Central Bank to this European Parliament.
We here endorse the independence of the Central Bank as laid down in the Treaty.
But independence is not compromised by accountability.
The concepts are quite distinct.
The euro must operate for the good of all the Member States within the euro area and all the people therein.
The only body with that pan-European dynamic to hold the bank accountable is this European Parliament.
Any governor worth his or her salt will understand that this Parliament offers a political counterweight to national political pressure and will seek to cultivate a good working relationship with this House as a matter of urgency. My group will clearly have an eye to this during our public hearings for the governor and the board in the coming weeks.
Today is a day for celebration.
The arrival of the euro marks an important step forward for the Union.
It does not mean our work is over but it certainly means that an enormous task has been successfully completed.
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, we are all aware that an event without precedent is taking place here today.
Parliament is taking part in a decision which will radically change the course of European integration.
The Council's proposal which we are to approve is the outcome of a very rigorous procedure and extremely strict timing imposed by the Maastricht Treaty.
Eleven Members of the Union have met the criteria which are to guarantee that the single currency will be strong and stable and will serve the interests of Europe and its citizens.
Due to the resolute will of the governments, it has been possible for this exemplary reform, unique in the history of our continent, to be undertaken.
It is also proof of the triumph of our peoples over themselves.
They have accepted the drastic measures taken to restore public finances to health as security for this success.
We, the Group of the European People's Party, have always defended monetary union as one of the most important objectives of European integration.
It is the logical final piece in a single market which is nearing completion and within which exchange rate fluctuations will no longer disrupt competition.
It may also mean a new phase and, like the Schuman Plan, bring about real unity between the countries taking part.
In implementing and operating monetary union, we want to allow our Parliament to play the role which is its due under the Treaty. On 2 April we argued in the report that we wished to declare our democratic responsibility with respect to the European Central Bank.
In appointing the President and the Executive Board, we are also able to take our responsibility seriously.
We can strengthen our fellow citizens' confidence in the Central Bank, without impinging upon its independence.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I appeal to you and I am counting on it and I think that the whole Parliament is counting on it, that the resolution that we adopted here two days ago will also be adopted by the Council today or tomorrow, so that a single candidate will be appointed to the presidency of the European Central Bank.
Ladies and gentlemen, the eleven countries which are to form the euro area are the pioneers of enterprising Europe. Europe can now justify itself in the world as a partner with a forceful instrument of international sovereignty.
Our relations with the United States, with Asia, with the other major powers, will be radically changed.
We can steer our economies into an era without inflation and government deficits.
We can create long-term jobs.
We can safeguard purchasing power.
In a globalized world, we can continue to build a human Europe based on the principle of the social market economy, not only the economy, but also people and social security for our population.
(Applause) We have enriched the acquis communautaire with the single currency.
It will serve as a benchmark for the countries which want to join the European Union.
It should motivate them to gain stable currencies as signs of restructured economies, able to hold their own against the competition.
The euro area can, therefore, serve as an inspiration to the whole continent.
It can function as an anchor and raise the ambitions of the European Union, so that we will not have to pay for expansion by watering down content.
The institutions need to be reformed and the more closely the countries of the euro area become tied to each other, the more everyone will see the need for this.
I would also like to express the hope, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that all Member States, including - under your influence - your own country, will within a reasonable period join the dynamic, integration-promoting euro area which we are creating today .
I would like to express my appreciation on behalf of our group.
Thinking of all those involved in the construction of monetary union, my mind turns to the past and to Pierre Werner's contribution.
I also have in mind the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, with whom I helped to negotiate the Treaty of Maastricht, in my capacity as the Prime Minister of my country; Commissioner de Silguy; Karl von Wogau; and all the members of our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
But I am also thinking of those who inspired what Time Magazine said, in its articles on those who have been controlling forces in the 20th century: "The European Union is the real political masterpiece of the twentieth century.'
Those inspirational people included Jean Monnet, Jacques Delors for the creation of monetary union, and also President Mitterrand and the German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, inspired by Jean Monnet.
(Applause) They are the ones who have brought off this political masterpiece.
Helmut Kohl who reunited Germany and anchored it in Europe.
The major symbol of the last ten years in bringing this political masterpiece to fruition.
(Applause) That is the significance of the decision we are about to take.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Brecht once said, there is nothing I love more than discontent with the changeable, and nothing I hate more than deep discontent with the inalterable.
A majority of the members of our Green Group will be supporting today's euro proposal.
Our Group embraces a variety of opinions.
But the majority will support the proposal. They will do it with conviction, not in a light-hearted manner but guided by Brecht's thinking.
We have always supported the idea of a single European currency.
But we have from the outset warned of the economic and social risks of a monetarist policy.
The euro is coming, that is an inalterable fact.
It is coming in a form which is better than had been feared and that is down to the fact that discontent among the social forces in Europe has led to real changes.
I only wish that the European Parliament would adopt this desire for change, for we should be playing a bigger role than that of mere film extras.
With eleven countries participating, the euro is not going to be a divisive factor for European integration.
It will not be separating the core from the periphery.
This is a good thing.
We welcome the fact that when deciding on participation the Treaty's margin of interpretation was used to the full.
And that too is a good thing.
No-one should be playing another card, as electoral candidate Waigel - the European ringmaster - tried to do again yesterday.
We want no additional conditions which would restrict the political and fiscal freedom of the individual participants.
Everyone is calling today a historic occasion.
Everywhere you can sense the desire of great men to make history.
I only wish that these same people would learn something from history.
The edifice that is the European Union should not end up like the Tower of Babel.
It remained unchanged, for those who built it were confused.
They did not see eye to eye.
The overall plan had got lost.
There were disputes.
The work was slipshod.
The builders disappeared and the Tower went to ruin.
We have to know what we are building and why.
The history of the European Union does not end here today.
It has to go on, and that will require the coordination and reorientation of economic policy, the strengthening of the role of the European Parliament and the democratic inclusion of the European Central Bank.
The introduction of a common taxation policy to control the damaging competition which exists between the different taxation systems, and more importantly a real and an effective employment policy.
Stability which is much more than just a figure in the accounts.
Democracy and social justice - these are the fundamental requirements for stability.
(Applause) We must work at building something more than just a monetary union, for if we do not at the same time create a social union, a democratic union, then our citizens will look on monetary union as an edifice which they must fear.
They want to feel and experience that this Europe is their Europe, a Europe which gives them jobs, inner peace, bread, fresh water, good wine, in other words a future.
Monetary union is a good thing, but it is certainly not everything.
It would be fatal for Europe to devote all its energy to this alone.
This is not the day for unveiling monuments.
It is a topping-out ceremony for the European Parliament.
The shell of the house is in place, now we have to make it fit to live in.
Mr Brown and Mrs Green have spoken in such enthusiastic tones. Well, Pauline and Gordon, if it's so important, why the hell do you not join?
(Applause)
It is rare that monetary issues arouse passions, apart from the panic we sometimes see when a crisis occurs.
But here today many among us feel positive emotions; there is a serious yet optimistic feeling.
This is firstly because real political will has been shown.
Significant efforts have been made by the eleven countries which were finally chosen.
Some of them have made up for lost time and I would like to express my admiration for our friends from the South.
Nor am I forgetting the efforts made by the successive governments of my country.
Others have been able to overcome their prejudices and reservations; we should pay tribute to Germany and the courageous vote of the Bundestag.
These individual efforts are in themselves a sign of political vitality; it is very exciting.
Our group is equally aware of the fact that the euro also represents a political victory on the financial markets.
At long last, our countries are going to breathe a little more freely, for it will be easier for them to break out of the hold of those who speculate on currencies and put pressure on governments.
Even if external pressure cannot be totally ruled out in future, from now on the more stable single currency will be more resilient.
It is also an important political advance.
Finally, if we know how to use this instrument, the euro should accelerate political integration within the European Union.
As regards the institutions, we are among those who wish to go further than the modest provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We can expect, or hope, that the operation of the single currency will move in this direction, and that will be a good thing.
In particular, the role of the European Parliament should be strengthened, for it is Parliament, and only Parliament, which has the democratic legitimacy to supervise the political approach adopted in the work of the Central Bank.
As regards the content of several policies which are necessary for our citizens, such as economic, fiscal, social - particularly employment - and environmental policies, etcetera, we might also imagine that the euro should have a two-fold advantage: encouraging approximation, perhaps the harmonization of these policies; and compelling the European authorities to take their responsibilities seriously.
Consequently, we hope that with this stage of the creation of the euro having - thankfully - been reached, the European Council and the Council of Ministers will be able to resolve those issues which are still outstanding.
I am thinking, in particular, of the decision on the President of the European Central Bank.
Good sense calls for, or rather demands, a clear and rapid solution; this is the direction taken by Parliament in its vote last Thursday.
Indeed, it would not be very wise to split into two the term of the first President of the Central Bank by appointing two successive presidents; that would be an infringement of the Treaty, and would no doubt create a regrettable precedent at a time, Mr President, when nothing should tarnish this great day.
We can only hope that the countries who today could not or did not want to adopt the single currency will join us soon so that our family can be reunited.
(Applause)
Mr President, reports have been published in newspapers and professional journals in recent months advancing strong arguments that the European Union is not well prepared for EMU.
It is true that the short-term outlook is good due to the economy picking up. There is a danger, however, that participants in EMU will forget that structural reforms are necessary - within EMU - to be able to face a possible recession.
We should take as a warning the fact that the Council does not say a word in its recommendation about the towering public debts.
Why go on with EMU then? If it serves to raise living standards, that is mainly in the strong economies of Western Europe, while the countries of Eastern and Central Europe are ending up in the position of third-rate countries.
Is there no such thing as a moral obligation to admit these countries as full members of the Union as quickly as possible?
There is another moral objection. EMU operates as a driving force for the transfer of powers to other policy areas, especially social and fiscal policy.
This is despite the unmistakeable pronouncements of government leaders in December last year that economic policy and wages policy remain national responsibilities.
EMU leads to an unacceptably high concentration of power in European institutions which are accustomed to judging most political issues by the yardstick of efficiency.
However, materialism and market-thinking do not by any means always serve the good of society and the wellbeing of its citizens.
Mr President, we have chosen to have a European Union of independent, democratic European states which is as broad as possible.
The EMU straitjacket will put cooperation under pressure for a while and put countries which are doing less well at too great a disadvantage.
Furthermore, its citizens are better served by administrations which are based nearer where they live and which pursue policies which do not only take material interests into consideration.
We will therefore vote against.
Mr President, today is indeed a great and historic day.
Monetary union will change the face of Europe.
For the first time ever, a common currency will be in use all over Europe from Flensburg to Sicily and from Dublin to Helsinki. This represents an important step, and a proper one, towards the ever closer union of the peoples of Europe.
Day in and day out we will personally experience the euro as tangible proof of European integration.
For the first time we will see a European federal authority.
For the first time nation states, acting freely and without coercion or the threat of war, have renounced their sovereignty over monetary policy.
But in reality this relinquishment of sovereignty means a greater sovereignty for all, for the European monetary union, with its 300 million people, with its 20 % share of world GDP and world trade, will acquire greater sovereignty and the capacity to shape its own political destiny for the benefit of Europe and its people, and will be able to face the threats of globalization with greater self-assurance.
The introduction of the euro will remove obstacles to trade in the internal market, will eliminate exchange rate risks, will increase certainty in economic planning, will reduce transaction costs and will therefore allow us to make greater use of Europe's scope for growth, its potential for innovation and its employment opportunities.
We know that we are stronger when we stand united than when we stand alone.
Europe is ready for the euro.
The euro will be a stable and a secure currency.
At long last a culture of stability and historically low inflation rates has gained acceptance.
The degree of convergence will transform monetary union into a community based on stability.
In times of upheaval people are happy to look to the future, but all the same they do so with scepticism and uncertainty.
It is our duty as the European Parliament to give them guidance and confidence in the future, for at the end of the day the euro has to be accepted not only by the markets but also by the people.
We have profited from the lessons of the past.
Price stability is essential for social and political stability.
Exchange-rate stability is essential for price stability in an open and integrated internal market.
In the long run both can only be safeguarded by a common monetary policy and an independent European Central Bank is an appropriate means to this end.
But in the future monetary policy will be made for the benefit of all those participating in European Economic and Monetary Union. We are pleased to see that this currently comprises eleven Member States and hope that they will soon be followed by the others.
The Maastricht Treaty rightly obliges the European Central Bank to support the economic policy of the European Union.
In this way European monetary union will contribute to stability in real economic terms, something which is urgently needed to promote investment, growth and employment, and in this sense it already represents an element of political union.
We also need to make progress in the areas of employment and social policy.
Dumping and unfair competition when measured against normal social and environmental standards, not to mention the destructive competition that exists between taxation systems, are irreconcilable with the spirit of the European Community and the internal market.
We therefore need greater progress in the areas of common employment and social policy.
Future generations will ask why we took so long to adopt the euro.
Monetary union constitutes a new European commonwealth.
In this respect monetary union has quite justifiably become an important instrument for Europe's role in the 21st century.
Willy Brandt once said: Europe belongs to all of us.
It is our responsibility to find the right response to the challenges of our time and to do this at the most appropriate moment.
Well, the euro has arrived at the right moment.
Let us make the most of the opportunity.
That is why the euro belongs to all of us.
(Applause)
Mr President, given that the principal objective of Economic and Monetary Union should be to present Europe with a strong common voice and given that, during the last few months, everything has gone unexpectedly well, it would be a great political mistake for us to create problems which may undermine the credibility of EMU.
This must be the unambiguous political message of this important moment.
Petty pedantic speculation or issues of national egoism, such as the issue of the President of the Central Bank, should not obscure the true context of Economic and Monetary Union, the common vision of European integration, which must not of course be a reason for excluding and marginalizing some countries.
For this reason I would now like to draw your attention to the case of Greece which, irrespective of the reasons why it does not meet the criteria - and here I must say that it is due in part to the fact that it has very high defence expenditure - will essentially be the only country which remains outside EMU against its will.
Whereas, due to its relatively small economy, if it did belong to EMU it would not have a negative effect on the economies of the other Member States, it will now suffer all the adverse consequences of non-participation.
And this means that in practice from now on much more effort than before will be necessary for it to achieve convergence in interest rates and in exchange rate stability, convergence which would have been much easier from within EMU.
This criticism does of course not mean that entry into EMU should be free of conditions.
And it has quite rightly been made clear to the Greek government that it must finally take the appropriate structural and other measures, which it must implement immediately and consistently.
However, in parallel, a positive and irrevocable commitment should be made that the entry of Greece will finally take place within the same interpretive framework as the first 11 Members.
Otherwise, I believe that the euro will be all powerful and, in consequence, will not be affected by such peripheral cases.
This must come about so that the people of Greece can share this day of hope and not feel disappointed at a time when the other peoples of Europe look forward with optimism to the announcement of their official participation in the euro.
Mr President, it seems we are not allowed to criticise the euro today, but precisely because the Union is close to my heart, I also want to point out the risks which it brings with it.
The currency which ought to be a powerful symbol of European integration, nevertheless threatens to sow division.
A majority in this House demanded strict observance of the Stability Pact last Thursday.
That was ill-advised, Mr President. Paradoxically enough, that Pact increases the risk that monetary union will disintegrate.
It is a recipe for a political and monetary crisis as long as there is no unity in Europe on the strict budget requirements and draconian sanctions.
Some say that it is precisely monetary union that will enforce unity in the social, environmental and fiscal domains.
But that is wishful thinking at the moment.
There are strong forces working against this, such as the net payers who want to fleece the European budget and in the Netherlands the four biggest parties have meanwhile pledged to make substantial cut-backs in contributions.
Our parliamentary quickie today is a pointless clapping exercise.
Nevertheless I will take the vote seriously, as it is in fact about Italy.
The authors of the Maastricht Treaty wanted to detach Italy from the continent, thereby splitting the Union.
Fortunately they have been disappointed.
Since I don't want to side with the 'spaghettiphobes' , I will vote 'yes' today.
Too much of the debate on the euro has been spent dealing with side-issues.
Should it be the Frenchman Trichet or the model German Duisenberg who becomes President of the Bank? Is Italy ready for the euro?
However, unfortunately the question of whether Europe is ready for the euro has not been asked enough. The market and currency Europe must also become the people's Europe and environmental Europe.
If we do not start working seriously on that, the euro could well end up as so much monopoly money.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are most certainly experiencing an important moment, convened here for an extraordinary sitting on a Saturday, to in fact confirm the death sentence of 11 of our currencies.
That is exactly why this act is important, and particularly because these currencies are the sum of the work of those people who created them and who should have been consulted.
Our citizens, who are indeed the owners of their currency, are being excluded from this decision to expropriate them; they are in fact doubly excluded, both now and in perpetuity.
I say that they are being excluded now, because here in the European Parliament, which represents the citizens of Europe, your vote has no more political significance than a conversation in learned society.
But the exclusion of our fellow citizens, who are in fact sovereign, will also be permanent.
The administration of the future euro is being entrusted to the European Central Bank, whose Governing Council, in its building in Frankfurt, does not take orders from anyone and is not supervised by anyone, apart from a vague and spurious euro Council, which only involves the control of a dozen senior officials.
The euro will be run in an oligarchic manner.
The people are therefore excluded from it; this cannot continue without something being destroyed.
The first thing to be destroyed will be the solidarity that exists within nations.
In a Europe without frontiers, indeed, where there is free movement of goods and people, a single currency will be a bonus for the cheapest product, that is the one manufactured with the lowest social costs.
That is why Europe means less basic social requirements, less social protection, less solidarity.
The Europe of the euro is based on capital, run by capital and run for capital.
By further dividing our societies, where there are 20 million unemployed, Europe is going to destroy the freedom of our nations.
As we know, the aim is to have a single economic and budgetary policy, with a single government; this means the disappearance of our nation states.
However, a currency is alive, it is where a nation's heart beats; wanting to do away with it is a bit like wanting to re-enact Abraham's sacrifice of his son, Isaac.
But God was there to stay his arm. Will he be able to stop the vote when voting for the sacrifice?
I hope so, otherwise it will stay with you as a shameful mark of the blood of the 11 nations you have made disappear, and history will say of you: "Ruont in servitudinem' .
(Loud applause from the extreme right)
Mr President, the European Parliament seems all set to vote by a large majority for a premature birth.
A baby named euro is to come into the world at a time when important conditions for its harmonious development and functioning have still to be met.
Since we consider it wrong to induce a premature birth when this is not absolutely necessary, we Members of the Austrian Freedom Party intend to vote against the proposal.
In doing so I am not speaking against the baby euro as such.
It is in the interests of the citizens of Europe that this premature birth does not become a miscarriage.
But every effort now needs to be made to push ahead vigorously with those stages of the harmonization process which are still to be completed, so that monetary union is put on a secure footing.
As one who intends voting against today's proposal, I should like to express my commitment to support these efforts and to call upon all Members who also intend voting 'no' not to look too much to the past but rather to adopt a critical, yet constructive approach towards the future of our new currency...
(The President asked the speaker to stand down as the speaking time had been exceeded)
Mr President, the Spanish Socialists are congratulating themselves on having arrived at this moment.
During the period of almost 14 years when Spain had a socialist government headed by Felipe González, not only did our country join the European Union but it also cooperated exhaustively in the construction of Europe.
In particular, the name of Spain's capital, Madrid, has been linked to the euro on at least two important occasions: the Madrid European Council of July 1989 adopted the Delors plan on Economic and Monetary Union; and the Madrid European Council of 15 December 1995 saw the establishment of this new European currency.
Accordingly, the Spanish socialist government strove to fulfil the convergence criteria and in 1994 the then Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance, Pedro Solbes, submitted the convergence plan for the Spanish economy.
The change of government which took place in 1996 did not alter the direction of the Spanish policy. The present government has continued with that policy and I congratulate them on that.
Therefore, we have every reason to congratulate ourselves on the fact that we have moved to a new stage in the construction of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the path leading to the euro was, from the beginning, arid and strewn with obstacles.
A great deal of firmness of purpose and courage was needed to get where we are today.
All the players in this performance deserve praise in that respect.
I will not mention them all in my two minutes.
History will remember their names.
Today, however, we are only raising the curtain; there is still much to be done to ensure that the fruit surpasses the promise of its flowers.
If the euro is to enjoy the climate of confidence it requires, the European Council must, even today, put an end to this quarrel from a previous age.
Once we acknowledge that there is only one currency, that there is only one monetary policy and that the Central Bank will be independent, what is the point in indulging in a psychodrama with a whiff of nationalism about it, as to whether the person in charge will be French, Dutch, Finnish or whatever. It does not matter what nationality the candidate is, as long as he is competent, credible and independent.
This obvious abuse of the right of veto, this blackmail, which still exists today, should no longer be tolerated when it comes to appointing those holding important posts.
We will have to remember that tomorrow, when we will be amending the treaties in the run-up to enlargement.
Another task awaits the Council, that is, the coordination of economic policies, which will remain national, and monetary policy, which is federal.
The provisions of the Treaty in this respect are perhaps inadequate, and in particular, the Council's behaviour up to now has demonstrated the need for some impetus from elsewhere, and particularly from Parliament.
Finally, and this is my last remark, we will also need to ensure, given that we now only have one common policy on external matters and within large international organizations, that Europe speaks with a single voice.
Mr President, where is Europe?
Where is the real Europe so much publicized by you as the sole remedy for the great evils that afflict the European nations, starting with unemployment and organized crime? The governments' omnipotence has brought forth the euro, but there is no corresponding will on their part to build the Europe of the people, the Europe of the regions, the federal Europe, the Europe of the nations.
Today we are celebrating the victory of subsidized big money, the victory of the powerful economic states which, helped by disinformation, are making their citizens and small businesses pay the enormous cost of the euro.
The enthusiasm of small and medium-sized enterprises is being stifled every day by an increasingly interventionist technocracy, fed by the interests of the large-scale capital interests that run Europe.
It will certainly not be these financial solutions that resolve the major problems in Europe.
Once again we are forgetting the real origins and foundations of the Union, the role of the communities, the municipalities and the regions.
Today is the death-knell of the dream of a federal Europe!
Mr President, I take the opposite view to the previous speaker.
Today the European Union has taken a decisive political step for the future of our continent and is showing the way for the other great regions of the world, a way of drawing together, of overcoming the nationalist tendencies that bring conflict and war.
It is our most important contribution to a new world order.
We are proud that Italy has believed strongly in this enterprise: it shows the merit of the Italians who have understood and accepted the burden of proof and of the leadership that has been credible and determined.
Now, after an eclipse that has lasted for many decades, Italy can contribute towards the future of the Union with an appropriate role.
We will contribute decisively to ensuring that the Union has a real common economic policy and strong representative political institutions.
As from today, Europe is more credible as an example of supranational union.
It will be more credible to Europe's citizens if it uses the strength of the euro to resolve the problem of employment and the future of millions of young people on this Continent.
Mr President, we are at a turning point in European history.
The introduction of the euro is a symbol for the removal of barriers between countries, it is a symbol of our will to work together, the first sign of unity which our citizens will have in their hands every day.
After the Second World War and even before, attempts were made to link the currencies of Europe to each other, first indirectly by linking them to the dollar, later in the snake and EMS. Tensions arose from time to time, such as in 1992 and 1993, and also in the early stages of EMS.
Incompatible responses from central banks led to countries sometimes being forced to leave the system.
The euro now puts an end to national monetary policies in the euro countries, decades of exchange rate adjustments and disunity on the strategy to be followed for monetary policy.
The time has now come to intensify cooperation and coordinate economic policy.
I want to make an urgent appeal here today to the European Council not to replace disunity over monetary policy with disunity over the President of the Central Bank.
It will do untold damage to Europe if the picture of a harmonious transfer to the new currency is disrupted by the pursuit of national interests.
I reject postponing the choice because it is of the utmost importance that the European Central Bank should go ahead straightaway to ensure that its own establishment is properly organised by 1 July and the Bank is at full strength and able to take the onerous task of European monetary policy in hand.
The candidature of the President of the EMI, which is the forerunner of the Central Bank, brings continuity in the changeover from the EMI to the Central Bank.
That was the reason why Alexandre Lamfalussy left the European Monetary Institute early.
I appeal to the Council to stick to this line.
Finally, in the interests of the citizens of Europe, I wish the euro a stable and safe existence, even when the economic climate is poor.
Finally, we are there, ladies and gentlemen.
Finally, we have reached the promised land.
Finally, the euro is going to exist.
And what about the convergence criteria? Think back to all those prophets of doom who maintained that the criteria were going to deal a fatal blow to our economies.
Exactly the opposite has happened.
They have established the conditions necessary for high and sustainable levels of growth and employment.
So, the euro has arrived.
We must now see to it that it works.
In other words, it must be well managed.
In this respect, we can trust the European Central Bank and its employees, regardless of their nationality.
We cannot emphasize enough that the ECB must and will be independent.
This does not mean that those in charge must be above ordinary mortals.
Without calling into question their independence, they must be the object of a clearly identified system of democratic control, in which our Parliament must have a central role to play.
But the euro will only be a success if we also manage to coordinate our economic policies better.
This is where the importance of the euro Council comes in; not, I repeat, to act as some kind of counterbalance to the Central Bank, but to define with it the common objectives of economic policy.
Having said that, I have a word of warning: it is not a question of deceiving public opinion and making our admiring populations believe that, as if by magic, the euro is going to solve all our unemployment problems, or, even worse, that it will bring fortune and happiness to each and every one of us.
As regards employment, we must be clear.
To put it simply, let us say that in terms of its advancement, one quarter depends on European measures and three quarters depend on national measures.
But the single currency will be of enormous assistance.
It will bring about conditions favouring the introduction of national structural reforms, which I am convinced will become inevitable.
To conclude, allow me to make a wish, ladies and gentlemen: I hope that the euro strengthens our sense of belonging to the same people, the European people, and it will do just that.
It will do so without erasing our specific national and regional characteristics, which also form part of our wealth.
Mr President, the representatives of the Socialist Party of Greece welcome today's decision, which is of historic importance and which ushers in the single currency.
We believe in the vision of a United Europe, without national hatred and conflicts, a Europe based on mutual trust, understanding and political unity among its peoples.
The establishment of a common currency is a decisive step towards the strengthening of European integration.
For this reason it has our support.
However, we do not entertain any illusions.
The cooperation of the Member States at the political level and the single currency do not in themselves solve the economic problems which weigh down on the European worker.
They do not solve the problem of unemployment, of poverty, of marginalization.
They do not in themselves eradicate discrimination in the workplace on the grounds of sex or age.
They are not sufficient in themselves to promote real convergence between the less affluent and the more affluent societies of Europe.
Let us therefore set about constructing a social policy and let us place the single currency at its service.
Let the strong economy be placed at the service of the whole.
Let us bring about the dawn of a great new era for a social Europe, a great new hope, a great new inspiration for all its citizens.
Mr President, today is a day for hope.
Money has often been the reason for conflict between states and peoples.
Today, Europe is turning it into a reason for union between its citizens.
The process has been long and difficult.
The people and governments have made tremendous efforts in the last years of convergence.
The case of the Spanish government has been exemplary and decisive in ensuring that today the euro is coming into being with 11 members.
Tomorrow - and I am using your words, Mr President - our citizens will feel Europe in their pockets, and it is our responsibility, and an important one, to ensure that the currency - the tangible expression of the united Europe - has the necessary credibility, stability and sturdiness that it needs and that we desire for Europe.
To guarantee that, on this historic day which opens a new stage in the construction of Europe, this Parliament must renew a three-fold commitment to our citizens: firstly, it must ensure that the European Central Bank is independent and efficient; secondly, it must ensure the coordination of economic policies which generate employment; and finally, it must promote solidarity and cohesion among all the citizens and regions of the Union.
If we do this, we will leave behind for our children not only a common currency but also the guarantee of a peaceful future, a true raison d'être for the construction of Europe.
Mr President, the whole of my country is proud that Portugal has been confirmed as being among the eleven founding Member States participating in the launch of the euro. This has been the desire of most Portuguese citizens, and strengthens the ties which have bound us to the European Union for twelve years now.
For the first time this century, thanks to a democracy which is not much more than twenty years old and a deep desire to be a genuine part of Europe, Portugal is in the vanguard, side by side with the most forward-looking countries and nations of our continent. It has been a great challenge, and the effort required has been no lesser one.
But it has been worth it, because we have achieved the right goal at the right time.
Through the work of her Government and António Guterres, her Prime Minister, Portugal is now at the heart of the construction of Europe, with the support of the great majority of the Portuguese people.
But history does not end there.
We are now living out the first day of the ancient dream of a united Europe.
With the same determination with which we opted for Europe, and the same prudence through which we succeeded in meeting the convergence criteria, Portugal will go on helping to make the euro credible through the stability of her policies.
We Portuguese, Mr President, continue to need Europe.
And from now on, Europe can rely more than ever on the enthusiasm, the conviction and the hard work of the Portuguese.
Mr President, this is a highly significant day for Europe and the world. We have taken a decision that will make a decisive contribution to progress and bring people and nations closer together.
Since the necessary conditions have been fulfilled, the euro is clearly strengthened and made more credible by being adopted from the start by most of the countries of Europe, both north and south.
Time will show that the fears of those who preferred to limit it to an area approximately equivalent to that of the Deutsche Mark to begin with are unfounded, in the light of the absence of speculation between our currencies over the last few months - when there could have been speculation - which is unequivocal evidence of the mutual confidence that already exists.
And there is a new, strong image created by a currency that is not divisive, but, on the contrary, is beginning to bring together all Europeans striving for the same end.
For Portugal, joining the Euro, and clearly meeting the Maastricht criteria, is also unequivocal evidence that we are both capable and united, having started the journey under our previous Government and continuing it under the present one, which represents a large proportion of the people, maintaining appreciable rates of growth and unemployment levels which are among the lowest in Europe, even though there is an even greater need now for structural reforms, which cannot continue to be postponed.
As we watch the irreversible and desirable process of opening up to an outside world in which the Portuguese-speaking countries to which we are so closely bound are becoming more and more relevant, we are also delighted to be among the first participants in a currency which is not obviously hostile to anyone, but on the contrary, one which will be an important factor for stability and progress both inside and outside Europe.
Mr President, we all know that there are considerable misgivings with regard to monetary union in my homeland, Sweden.
I do think, however, that all of us, both those - myself included - who believe in the euro as a logical consequence of a common market and a way of strengthening economic policy in Europe, and those who are hesitant or quite simply against the whole idea, are nevertheless agreed that a historic decision is being taken today.
We can also agree that it is an important decision, not just for those countries whose membership we shall soon be voting on; it is also very much a decision which concerns those of us who, for one reason or another, will stay outside.
I would like to say here today that, even for those of us who will not be part of it from the start, it is important that the euro should be a success and that it should become a real platform for growth and employment.
I hope that my country can nevertheless contribute to this policy for growth and employment, even though we have opted now to remain outside EMU.
Mr President, colleagues, this weekend is an historic moment for European integration.
The introduction of the euro marks at one and the same time the end of a long process and a historical new beginning.
In theory, the arrival of the euro offers great opportunities, not only economic opportunities but also opportunities in relation to employment.
The low exchange costs, stable prices and interest rate trends which will result from it will promote growth.
The crucial point now is to provide strong support for the introduction of the euro, not only by coordinating the economic policies of the Member States, but also with a voluntary Europe-wide economic policy.
We are especially encouraged by the fact that steps have recently been taken in the right direction since the changes of government in France and the United Kingdom.
An early embryo of economic government has arrived.
We have to continue on this path now.
Employment really has to become the main objective for Europe.
We must also try to use the arrival of the euro like a lever, a lever to achieve better fiscal, social and ecological coordination.
This is necessary to guarantee that the added value of the euro makes a maximum contribution to a Europe which is a better place for all its inhabitants to live in.
Mr President, Denmark has demonstrated that it is possible to combine efforts to secure a sound economy with efforts to reduce unemployment.
This needs to be the EU's objective.
On a day such as today, we must remind one another that Economic and Monetary Union is intended to be a citizens' project.
Employment is not only a matter of economic incentives, it is also a question of having a qualified workforce.
There is no doubt that the euro will have a major impact not only on the eleven participating nations, but also on those watching from the sidelines.
Denmark will no doubt benefit from a successful start to the third stage of EMU.
Denmark will shortly be voting on the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Let me state clearly that Danish reservations concerning EMU remain 100 % solid.
That is a decision made by the people of Denmark.
But on behalf of the Danish Social Democrats, I wish the eleven nations every success with the euro.
We are voting in favour.
Danish reservations do not prevent others from taking part.
Mr President, in formulating solutions for the future of Europe and its citizens we find ourselves in the same situation as the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy amid the complicated series of events in "War and Peace' .
We understand the historical significance of the moment but we have to admit that we still cannot see the matter in its entirety.
Events that prove to be historic develop step by step, event by event, from one moment to the next.
An event in its entirety is visible only when it has fully taken shape and become what is recognizable as the past.
Finland, as a new Member State and following a severe recession at the start of the 1990s, is a country that is politically determined and ready to play a key part in the shaping of Europe's future.
The decisions have been taken consciously and on the basis of current information and the best possible forecasts.
Mr President, Irish Socialists too are very pleased that we have arrived at this moment.
As other speakers have said, this is probably the most historic moment in Europe in the last 40 years.
I think the euro will succeed.
However, in my contribution I want to draw attention to one point I feel has not been adequately dealt with.
I refer to Article 109m of the Maastricht Treaty which provides that the management of exchange rates must be done in the common interest.
In my opinion the Commission and the Council have not yet addressed this issue to a sufficient extent.
There is an onus on all Member States, but in particular those who have decided not to take part in EMU from the outset.
Obviously I am referring here to the UK, Sweden and Denmark.
They have to manage their currencies in the common interest.
This is of vital concern to my own country, Ireland, and to Finland.
I would hope that Britain will not be allowed to engage in sudden devaluations of the pound sterling.
Perhaps the President-in-Office could reassure us on this point.
- Mr President, it has been a privilege, not just as one of 15 Finance Ministers, but a privilege as a citizen of Europe, to have been here in this Parliament today to hear nearly 50 speeches in support of the recommendations of the Finance Ministers.
I want first of all to acknowledge the eloquence, the passion, the commitment and the sense of history that has been brought to bear in these debates this morning.
I want to give an assurance that the rights and responsibilities of Parliament will not only be recognized today but in everything that we do in the future.
I want to join with all those who have thanked the Commission, the European Monetary Institute and thank Parliament's staff for the expeditious and orderly way we have brought ourselves to the point of making this historic decision today.
I also want to thank all those who in these last 50 years, as a customs union became a common market, as a common market became a single market and now as a single market becomes a single currency, have contributed their vision to what is now an achievement which is acknowledged throughout the world.
(Applause) In answer to the points which have been made in this discussion, I can tell Parliament that not only was the decision of the Finance Ministers which we are recommending today unanimous, but we have also followed as we will continue to follow in spirit and in letter our Treaty obligations.
I can state also that in the creation of Euro-X, the coordination role of Ecofin - the Finance Ministers of the 15 - has not only been recognized but is being strengthened in the way we will survey and monitor economic policy throughout the Community.
I was asked about the European Central Bank.
I can report to Parliament that progress is being made and I believe we will soon be able to report to you the progress achieved.
Let me also say, as almost every speaker has done, that the decisions we are recommending today are not only the end of a process of negotiation and agreement but they are also the beginning of a new challenge for our continent.
I would agree with almost everyone who has spoken that the single currency we are creating is being created not for itself but for a purpose. The purpose is the creation of higher levels of growth, employment and prosperity throughout our continent.
(Applause) It is for this reason that the employment action plans and the new guidelines on reform that I bring before you today are regarded as so important by the Finance Ministers.
Let me say one other thing.
The decisions we are making show a Europe that is not only more united in itself but also more able to look outwards, to be internationalist and to respond generously to the needs of the poor throughout the world.
Finally, we are conscious of our mutual interests and our linked destinies.
We are determined together to further the shared objectives through discipline and reform.
We are resolute in our support of growth and employment to achieve prosperity for all.
We are mindful of the needs of the unemployed and those who are socially excluded.
On that basis let us together move forward resolutely with confidence in the future and let us today, with the same vision that was shown over the last 50 years by those people who founded the European Union, approach the great challenges that together we will not only address but together we will meet.
(Loud and sustained applause)
The debate is closed.
Before proceeding to the vote, I would like to thank all the officials of our Parliament and other Community institutions whose work during this holiday period has made it possible for us to take this decision properly.
Our vote on the recommendation by the Council concerning the Member States fulfilling the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency in accordance with Article 109j(2) and (4) of the EC Treaty (7884/98 - C4-0250/98-98/0812(CNS)) and on the proposal for an opinion by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, pursuant to Rule 79a of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament is based on the following:
the Recommendation of 1 May 1998 by the Council, meeting in the composition of the Ministers for Economic Affairs and Finance, concerning the Member States fulfilling the necessary conditions for the adoption of a single currency; -the consultation by the Council, meeting in the composition of the Heads of State or Government, in accordance with Article 109j(2) and (4) of the EC Treaty; -Rule 79a of our Rules of Procedure; -the proposal submitted orally by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.Mr Gollnisch wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I will be very brief.
We have listened to the very moving plea of the President-in-Office of the Council who is, I believe, a British minister. We can only be surprised, when listening to this extremely moving plea, that the government...
Mr Gollnisch, this is not a point of order.
I am sorry, you are continuing the debate which has been closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament approved the recommendation and thereby gave its assent to the text)
(Parliament welcomed the result of the vote with loud and sustained applause)
I will forward Parliament's assent to the Council, meeting in the composition of the Heads of State or Government, and to the Commission.
(In the presence of Mr Brown, President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Santer, President of the Commission, Mr von Wogau, Chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and rapporteur, and Mrs Randzio-Plath, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, the President of the European Parliament signed the letter forwarding Parliament's opinion)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we have managed to guide the ship carrying all the essential elements for a European single currency into port: trust, greater stability, common commitment and a collective logic that goes beyond the individual.
As on all ships that have made a long voyage, a few germs have got on board, such as uncertainty and scepticism, which we are overcoming with the great medicine of hope.
For the first time since the Roman Empire, Europeans from the Irish Sea to the Mediterranean will be using the same currency.
Although much remains to be done the praise for all this is not just ours, nor is it the result of a temporary policy of some Member State's government, but rather the end product of the sacrifices made by the workers and the professional classes and all our citizens.
Our group supports this commitment, and has voted in favour, apart from a few who have voted otherwise on individual grounds.
We have seen in today's document the product of the work carried out over all these years by Parliament and by all the European institutions.
After the euro, we have to make Europe.
We have to take all possible measures to combat the major problems faced by the Community: unemployment, injustice, violence, environmental protection, cultural growth and personal freedom.
We have to make all our citizens understand that Europe today is all about a single currency but tomorrow it will be about political union.
Today the single currency is a reality. This is a lot, a great deal, but it is not everything.
Europe's citizens are now expecting great and urgent things of us.
They are asking us to fight to achieve the same victories we are winning in the economic field in the social field as well, so as to help solve the major everyday problems.
But today, for now, we can without reservation quote what Gandhi said: "One step at a time is enough for me' .
Madam President, the vast majority of the Green group voted for eleven countries embarking on the creation of the euro region at the start of next year.
A broad base is essential for the euro area, without divisions in the EU.
The biggest challenge in the world is the creation of stability, with capital moving freely and globally.
The euro must be used in cooperation with the other major currencies to make for worldwide stability, but at the same time it is important to strengthen democracy in the EU.
Citizens must be able to have considerably more say in Union matters than they do now, so that the gulf between them and the decision-makers does not widen even further.
The political opportunities that await us should not be allowed, however, to obscure the view that the economic effects of the euro are largely unpredictable.
There is a need for better risk awareness and joint responsibility.
The various national economies are still different from one another in character and they are at different stages of progress.
Any shocks and crises an individual Member State may experience in the future must be mitigated with the help of the Union.
We should not be in any hurry to change fiscal policy, as it would have a substantially adverse effect on community peace and employment.
Monetary policy must be open and accountable.
The European Parliament has an important duty to see that the European Central Bank openly justifies its decisions and that it justifies them generally.
The euro must be used to create a social Europe and the Union should dissociate itself from neo-liberal thinking that would harm the structure of a social Europe.
Madam President, I feel like someone standing on the quayside waving farewell to the beautiful, unsinkable Titanic.
I sincerely hope that those in command on the bridge do not keep on squabbling until the ship sinks.
But if sink it must, it is better for it to sink now, while the passengers can still swim ashore, clutching their national currencies like life belts.
The truly perilous voyage begins in the year 2002, when the life belts are to be cast away.
Then there could be a dangerous mutiny, with squabbling and worse between France and Germany.
The euro is a dangerous experiment leading to the necessary international collaboration for hatred, and my group has today voted against it.
I must congratulate the eleven euro nations on their ability to disregard all economic theory.
Which textbook says that a monetary union performs best in terms of monetary and foreign exchange policy alone? Where on earth does it say that exchange rates should be fixed regardless of whether competitivity decreases or improves?
For the sake of the eleven nations, I do hope the experiment succeeds. At the end of the day, its chances of success are greater than those of the Chinese cultural revolution, which also put itself beyond the laws of economics.
But common sense tells us that the EMU in its present guise will either founder when it meets market forces, or it will have to be backed up by a political union with a common government determining income policy, fiscal policy and all other economic policies, meting out precise doses to benefit the people of Europe.
Remember: a common currency is not the purpose of life, but at best, a tool to make people happy.
When currency union was adopted, there were 12 million unemployed.
We now have more than 18 million out of work, so if currency union is to be called a success, there must be something wrong with the yardstick.
Madam President, the Dutch people within the Union for Europe Group are in favour of the euro but have voted against.
For the euro, because the historical necessity is obvious to us.
Against the euro, because the criteria for a stable euro have not been adequately met in the short term and there are no enforceable sanctions to keep us to the criteria.
The best thing to do would be to postpone the euro, which is why we still want to hold a referendum in our country.
Otherwise, the older generation who built Europe up risk being the ones to suffer and there is a danger that there will be no consent for possible further integration of European policy.
None of the traditional political parties in the Netherlands have made the euro an important issue in their campaigns for the coming elections next Wednesday.
That is an extremely bad portent for a democratic Europe, and we want absolutely no part in it.
Madam President, the Treaty of Amsterdam left the European Institutions in prehistory, not least by having a Parliament without any final decision-making powers.
The monetary fundamentalists tell us that the single currency is the only way to anticipate European political unity.
This interventionist orthodoxy cultivates the naïve hope of breaking up the nation states from within.
But the lessons of history tell us that it has always been political bodies that have determined the currency, and not the other way round.
Today we are not proposing that the European State should mint the currency, but that the currency should mint the European State.
The European Union is going ahead with a supranational Central Bank, in the absence of political union, and without a common fiscal policy.
Monetarist integration has been demonstrating its limitations for some time: high unemployment among young people, the absence of a common economic policy, widespread crises in the social state, stagnation of environmental policies, increased poverty and marginalization of the weakest.
People say that the single currency meets the requirements imposed by globalization.
But is it not more a question of creating a regional block to compete seriously with the United States and Japan?
In short, the sequence of European integration has been turned upside-down: instead of starting from the logic of treaties between states, and moving towards that of the European constituent, we are opting for the single currency and taking a leap into the void.
It is a game of chance that involves very high risks without offering any guarantees or rewards.
I have worked for a different Europe for years and I cannot vote for something I believe to be an authoritarian and illogical adventure.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not voting in the same way as the rest of my group as I personally believe that, at this historic stage, none of the issues involved in the single currency amounts to a real question of conscience and so, in my capacity as an MEP who has always flown the flag of the Europe of the nations and the Europe of the regions, I am bound to welcome the advent of the single currency, the first great and real push against the sovereignty of the centralist nation states who are opposed to any autonomy.
For me, this represents the fulfilment of a commitment solemnly entered into between me and the electors of Piedmont, Val d'Aosta, Liguria and Lombardy, who genuinely believe in the reasoning behind political and cultural autonomy.
This is my justification of my personal vote in favour of the proposal, which is at odds with the declaration made by the spokesman for my group.
Madam President, like most colleagues in this House, I would like to join in the general rejoicing at this great historic day.
But my joy is tinged with sadness because my own country, Scotland, will not be part of this historic move forward for Europe.
As a Scot, I would like to put on record that I believe that most people in Scotland would have supported a move towards a single European currency had they had the chance in a referendum.
You may ask why does Scotland not move forward? Mr Bonde used the analogy of the Titanic.
We are like the lifeboat that is attached to the Titanic.
Unfortunately the London Government has been steering in completely the wrong direction and I find it quite ironic that a year to the day after Mr Brown and Mr Blair entered Downing Street, they celebrate by yet again missing the euro-boat.
However, this is a temporary aberration and I confidently forecast that before long a Scottish Parliament will vote to join the European currency and Scotland, along with the rest of Europe, will go forward to our joint destiny.
Madam President, today a vision has become a reality.
The euro will be a new symbol of the unity of Europe.
It will lay the necessary foundations for greater investment, solid growth and lasting employment.
The working population of Europe, in other words the great majority of our citizens, will benefit from a situation in which inflation rates are low, public debt is down, long-term interest rates are falling and exchange-rate fluctuations are no longer to be a factor.
The Commission has now informed us, the European Parliament, of its recommendation for the eleven countries which are to comprise the euro area.
The day before yesterday we delivered our opinion, as we did again a few moments ago.
At this juncture I wish to express thanks to the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, for his tenacity and for the ability he has shown in giving early political impetus to the euro project.
He has demonstrated enormous staying power and has consistently refused to be put off by the ditherers and by those lacking objectivity.
It is this attitude which is the basis for our justified confidence in the euro and in the future stability of Europe.
Madam President, I thank you for allowing a liberal voice to emphasize the historic significance of our vote and this entry into the euro which, through the choice of a stable currency, represents a choice of society. It also represents a sort of wonderful farewell to the 20th century, to the end of this long and grievous episode which started with the First World War, during which monetary fluctuations and the loss of reference points progressed in parallel, due to the lack of cohesion based on confidence in the social contract that currency represents.
It is also a choice of power, giving us the ability to play a part in world affairs, an ability which the World Wars had eroded, and which corresponds to the choice that General de Gaulle had wanted to make regarding a return to the gold standard.
Of course, the instrument will be different.
Instead of a physical standard, we will have a contractual aggregation, defined by administrative rules, but the aims are the same: to prevent a privileged player from acting in an arbitrary way and monopolizing a role essential for the general interest.
Madam President, we should therefore give the praise it deserves to this joint, paradoxical and posthumous victory of General de Gaulle and Raymond Poincaré.
Madam President, in this exceptional case, out of respect for yourself, for my colleagues and for the officials who are here and who are waiting, on this day when a great deal is being asked of them, I would ask your permission to give my explanation of vote in writing.
Madam President, as a Swede I am also relieved, taking up Mr Bonde's analogy, to be left on the quayside as the Titanic sails away.
As a European, however, I deplore the fact that workers, women and the socially vulnerable of eleven countries are being forced to embark as third class passengers on this hazardous voyage.
As the EMU ship sets forth, the helm is locked in position for the voyage; the captain cannot take any advice, whether it be from his crew or the passengers.
EMU locks us into dogmatic monetarism, an established policy of the right.
The price of that policy is already being paid by the unemployed, and in terms of widening gaps between the classes.
EMU is economically risky and democratically deficient, and it is being implemented for political reasons: the dream of a European superstate, a dream which is not shared by the majority of the Union's population.
Madam President, after all the grand words and promises about the excellence of EMU which have been heard here today, I now take the floor to present views from the many millions of citizens who have not been consulted and are not going to be consulted, whether by politicians or by representatives of the media.
On my own behalf and on behalf of my party and our voters I have voted 'no' today, even though Sweden has opted to stay outside for the time being.
I believe that, in so doing, I have voted for several million women and poor and unemployed people in Europe who are oppressed by the economic policy currently being pursued, the policy which has now been ordained as the only one for Europe, neo-liberalism.
I regret this historic event.
Madam President, in declaring my vote in favour of the Council's recommendation, I must give three reasons: firstly, I believe that the single currency is the first significant step towards creating genuine European sovereignty, beyond that expressed some time ago by the states alone; secondly, I believe that the Europe of the euro is an essential means of building a federal Europe, the Europe desired by Altiero Spinelli, open to the active contribution of the nations and the regions; thirdly, the single currency is the most significant answer to all the attempts made today, in my country too, to destroy Europe.
The proponents of statalism and nationalism will not waste a single opportunity to exploit any difficulties, particularly economic ones, which may arise during its construction.
So let us set aside any neo-governmental egoism, not just in the interests of a new currency but also of a new policy, and particularly of a new European society.
Madam President, I voted "yes' , but it is important that no new provisos are created for the Growth and Stability Pact in respect of EMU, but, on the contrary, that we should leave some room for manoeuvre, economically speaking, so as to improve employment and create a social Europe.
Alongside the criteria for EMU there must be equally strong criteria based on the employment objectives that EU Member States committed themselves to at the Luxembourg Summit.
If we want to get the approval of the citizens of Europe for EMU, we must be able to reduce mass unemployment.
The EMU project must promote the welfare and employment of citizens.
The development of internal markets must not be allowed to be at the mercy of the markets themselves.
It is important that welfare and employment are shared fairly among all our citizens.
Madam President, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I do not intend to cast doubt on the intentions of all our colleagues today, but despite the communist experience, I see sadly that Marxism is triumphant in Europe.
I do not believe or accept that monetary and economic infrastructures are determining factors in what Marx used to call political or other superstructures.
In addition, we have seen today what is really a stopgap measure rather than a real study of remedies for the catastrophic situation which affects all spheres of activity and which is present in each of our different countries in Europe.
For what good is monetary stability when social stability does not exist, when we are faced with a real disintegration of our societies? Moreover, in going back to the great intellectual and humanist heritage of Europe, I am appealing for an in-depth review of economic science, which is not a science like any other, but which is a human science.
Today, we have witnessed a defeat of thought, a defeat of economic thought and a defeat of political thought.
Madam President, the two European Members of Parliament of the Communist Party of Greece voted against the single currency because we firmly believe, and are convinced by what we have heard here, that the euro and Economic and Monetary Union will simply deepen and worsen the exploitation of working people both within and outside Europe, and at the expense of certain peripheral regions of Europe.
It will not reduce by even one person the 25 million unemployed, nor the 50 million people who are starving.
The fact that these people have existed for so many years is not because there was no euro or Economic and Monetary Union.
But there are reasons for their plight and these will be exacerbated by the instruments of Economic and Monetary Union and the euro.
Secondly, we voted against the single currency because of a double challenge to democracy.
You all say that what you voted for relates to the present and the future of Europe and of the peoples of Europe.
However, this has been done without their knowledge and without them being able to give their opinion.
You carefully avoided putting it to a referendum so that the people could give their opinion.
And since much has been said about history and historic steps, please allow me, concerning the outcome of your vote, to refer to a historical outcome, that of Cambronne.
This is your victory.
And for this victory you, the winners of this vote, when you find yourselves facing the storm of popular uprisings, you will say "Woe to the victors!'
Madam President, on this historic day, due to the fact that my country has joined the single currency as well, I cannot let the day go by without warning and recalling that in Italy there is and remains what we call the Italian "curse' .
The Secretary of the left-wing Democratic Party, Massimo D'Alema, said a few days ago, "In Italy, there is no freedom of the press' .
It is his party in particular, Madam President, that is stifling freedom of information in Italy, stifling the possibility that, for example, a radio station, such as Radio Radicale , can continue to perform its institutional task, which is to ensure the live broadcasting of Parliament, live broadcasting of the democratic life of our country: a country which is joining the euro, but in which Marco Pannella, our former colleague, and thousands of others are on hunger strike at the moment to ensure the freedom of information that is denied to us today, that is denied to the country, something which really concerns us, and which we want to warn the European Parliament about. Italy has joined the euro, but the Italian "curse' , at least from this point of view, threatens to return into the European limelight.
Madam President, the Members of the Portuguese Communist Party declare, with the solemnity which the occasion demands, but which the euphoric desire to impress public opinion does not permit, that:
their vote is a consistent expression of their opposition to this project, the way it has been conducted and the interests it serves.
It is not a vote against price stability, balanced budgets or the control of debt, mechanisms and instruments.
It is, however, a vote against the use of these things to impose strategies that concentrate wealth, aggravate unemployment, intensify disproportion and inequality, create more and new forms of poverty and social exclusion, diminish national sovereignty and reduce democratic rights; -it is also a vote against the formation of the hard-core of the ECB Executive Board, favouring geographical-monetary zones and sharing out influence among the big political party groups, with an obvious polarisation of power in an institution which will condition all the Member States' policies; -they will hereafter continue to fight the already existing and foreseeable evils inherent in the mechanisms and instruments that have been set up.
They will likewise endeavour to contribute to making the most of their virtues; -finally, they much regret that Parliament should have wasted the opportunity to acquire some credibility as a democratic institution and given way to the pomp and circumstance of a ritual approval or confirmation of the proposals submitted to it.
We have chosen to vote 'no' on this issue.
The reasons are as follows:
It is not our business to decide what countries should form part of EMU.
Those which are to join EMU must decide this for themselves.
EMU means increased supranationality and will restrict the freedom of individual countries to pursue the economic policy they want.
Hence EMU in effect amounts to a restriction of democracy.
Surrendering the power to take decisions on monetary policy to a centralized ECB means that an important means of economic policy action is taken away from national parliaments.
In reality, however, it also means that national parliaments will relinquish the right to decide on financial and fiscal policy, since it is not expedient for these to be out of line.
EMU is a high risk venture whose consequences we cannot easily predict, but it is the weakest in society who have most to lose if it fails.
Another key reason for our voting stance is that there are considerable misgivings with regard to EMU in most of the EU Member States.
Opinion surveys have shown that large sections of the population are opposed to EMU, especially in Sweden.
Politicians have a responsibility to lead and convince, but also to listen to ordinary people.
This is much too important a decision to be rushed through.
We consider that the objectives of the convergence criteria should not focus one-sidedly on price stability and growth, but that some thought should also be given to the individual human being in the form of an unemployment criterion and social criteria.
The Alleanza Nazionale delegation is satisfied with the arrival of the euro and with Italy's participation in it, and at the same time confirms that Italians want to join and stay in the euro family but without any kind of subjection and without going "cap in hand' .
Today, it is not just our government and the powers supporting it that are celebrating the achievement of this objective.
The whole country, and therefore the opposition parties as well, is joining in this celebration.
An opposition which, although it has made various assessments of the strategies aimed at achieving participation in monetary union and although it considers it advisable for the political and institutional union of Europe to be strengthened first, has never put obstacles in the path of the recovery of the Italian economy. Instead, it has preferred this to be carried out by means of structural reforms and lasting cuts in useless expenditure.
Nor has it ever obstructed the two branches of Parliament and, above all, it has never used the increased tax burden as an argument for stirring up hostility in our country against the construction of Europe.
It is our country, Italy, as a whole, that is joining the euro today, free from the dangerous divisions and open hostilities that thrive in other Member States of the Union.
France is, in fact, almost split in two, with the extreme left and the extreme right united in rejecting the single currency, and the centre-right showing signs of uncertainty.
In Germany, the Communist party and the extreme right are rejecting the euro, and the Social Democrats are also critical.
The Austrian right, the Spanish extreme left and the Portuguese extreme left are also hostile; a section of the British body politic and of public opinion is also sceptical, not to mention the upsurge of euroscepticism in Denmark.
The European project, particularly as it will inevitably have to be combined with political union and therefore with a common foreign and security policy, cannot do without the enthusiasm and solidarity of Italy.
For these reasons too, Italy is not joining the euro through the back door but through the front door.
For this and many other reasons, sincere pro-Europeans in Europe should be pleased that Italy is joining the single currency from the outset.
We have voted against the EMU proposal presented by the Ministers of Finance to the European Parliament.
In accordance with the position of the Finnish Central Party, we oppose the creation of EMU in its present form and Finland's entry into the single currency in the first wave.
We wish to justify our opinion by stating the following:
1.Finland's economic structure makes it a very special country, whose sensitivity to movements in the economy is greater than with other EU Member States.
If Finland, as a member of EMU, loses its independent monetary policy and if its financial policies are restricted, we will require new mechanisms to cope with economic problems.
EMU strengthens the development of a worldwide economy that focuses productivity and know-how on heavily populated regions.
The structure of the regions of Finland, the EU's remotest country, is already becoming lopsided, which will lead to local problems in times of economic hardship.
As a counterweight to centralized development, national regional policy should be strengthened.2.Finland is ill prepared to face the stiffening competition and structural changes that EMU will bring.
Joining is a risk that Finland, in her present state of mass unemployment and with her debt-burdened economy, should not be taking.
Taking this risk would require a complete overhaul of her economic structure as an incentive to business and to promote employment.3.The proposed model of the eleven-state monetary union will not be of benefit to Finland.
The fact that we are sliding away from the Maastricht criteria is not a good basis for a stable EMU.
With Sweden, Denmark and Britain staying out, the currency zone will not prove very profitable as far as Finland is concerned.
The risks could accordingly be greater than the benefits.4.People's welfare and employment should play a more important role in the philosophy of EMU.
EMU as it stands would be a threat to Nordic welfare, the stabilizing role of the public sector and to regional and social equality.
The euro will come into force on 1 January 1999.
There is no doubt that it has categorically refuted the negative allegations of its many detractors.
Contrary to the predictions of those who would not have given a brass farthing for her chances, Portugal has passed all the tests with distinction and is in the first rank of the founder countries, sharing with pride in this moment, absolutely crucial as it is in the history of Europe, and a sign of our determination not to grow old or decay.
And we have also confounded all those who swore that the immediate interests of the people would have to be sacrificed to the attainment of the euro, and at the same time predicted a national production crisis. In this last lap of the Euro race, Portugal has refuted all the academic theories and received wisdom: the country's economic growth has accelerated, the Portuguese people's living standards have risen and their export capacity has increased.
All this has been achieved because the great majority of the Portuguese people have identified with this great project, because workers and companies have succeeded in turning favourable economic conditions to the best advantage, and because, and this has to be said, the Socialist Government has skilfully combined expansion in internal demand with public investment and has backed private enterprise, which has been energised by low interest rates.
All this has been achieved against a social background of calm and solidarity of which the introduction of the guaranteed minimum income has been the greatest symbol.
From now on, the critics of integration and the sceptics will have to change their tune.
Facts are facts.
They are already beginning to voice doubts over the capacity of the Portuguese economy to live with the competition in the Single Currency area and the Single Market.
They foresee or prophesy crises on the horizon of our life as a nation.
It cannot be said that there will be no problems or difficulties.
Yet, just as our country has shown itself capable of the unexpected performance levels it has achieved, so we shall also be capable of taking the opportunities ahead of us with the same spirit and dynamism, and catching up more quickly with the average standards of wealth and competitiveness of our partners in the euro, with whom we are setting out on this hitherto unexplored path in contemporary history.
This path does not mean we need not concentrate on the political and social dimension of European integration; on the contrary, that is what it requires.
It is time for Europe to speak as a political unit. Priority must be given to making the European Union work as a democracy with the involvement of its citizens.
We, who have always fought for and dreamed of this moment, sometimes silently fearing that we would never know the joy of actually getting there, know how to thank those who have shown us the way and made it possible for us.
We are living through a unique moment in the history of Europe, a beginning and not an end, and we are conscious that, at this new stage of the European project, this institution will have a major role to play in the destiny of Europe.
I am full of hope for the success of the euro.
This is the most historic day since the end of the war.
The single currency will have profound economic consequences some of which will undoubtedly be difficult - but above all it will have profound symbolic significance for all the people of Europe, both those who are part of the process and those outside.
It has been a slow journey but on that journey we have learnt to know and respect each other and inevitably have drawn closer together - I am so proud that my country is in the front line.
This is due to the prudent management of successive Irish Governments - it augurs well for the future of the youngest population in Europe.
We must ensure that these young people continue to value the great vision and achievements of the past leaders in Europe.
We on our part must reargue the case for Europe in every generation.
The advent of the euro is the beacon for the new millennium.
At this point, for the sake of political openness and responsibility, I propose to make an express statement of the reasons for the position I have taken on the creation of the single currency.
From the outset I have supported the Maastricht Treaty and called for more.
I have supported the single currency and Portugal's adherence to the proposed conditions and dates.
I am delighted with the policies of António Guterres's Government, which have created the conditions to enable the efforts made by the whole of Portuguese society to succeed.
I am also delighted to have been able to take an active part in this change of historic proportions, from which Portugal can be expected to derive wider opportunities and more modernisation and development, despite the difficulties.
I consider that this qualitative change in the EU demands greater political and social integration, on federal lines, to secure democracy and the co-ordination of economic policies, a genuine 'economic government' that will enable us to overcome the ill-effects of neo-liberalism, fight unemployment and preserve the European social model by reforming it.
It also demands a European taxation policy and an EU budget designed to ensure economic and social cohesion.
Finally, it demands foreign and defence policies which safeguard European independence and support development, human rights and peace.
This political dimension will not spring automatically from the euro.
It needs the democrats and the progressive forces of Europe to show the political will and readiness to fight for it.
In European matters, it is always the same: at the time of ratification, fine principles are put forward and their advantages painted in glowing colours.
The citizens only discover the disadvantages later, and among them, the bill.
The single currency will certainly be no exception in this respect.
Just now, during the debate, the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, declared that "with the euro there is no longer the possibility of turning back' .
The President of the European Parliament, José María Gil-Robles, stated for his part that the euro was starting us off "on a one-way road towards integration' .
Also today, all the pro-euro speakers - that is, the majority - have been vying with each other to make new demands, along the following lines: "in order to take complete advantage of monetary union, it is necessary to go much further in the convergence of decisions' .
A Member of the European Parliament, Karl von Wogau, chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, has just confirmed in particular that with the euro we will have to move from the "single market' to the "home market' , in other words, to the transformation of the member countries into simple regions of a European state.
Thus, we can see the total bill for the euro mounting up: in the future, there will be an overload in terms of relinquishing sovereignty, with the addition, every year, of new transfers which we will claim are essential for the smooth running of everything that will already have been agreed to.
It will never be enough.
The conclusion of this spiral of events would in theory be the end of individual nations.
At that stage, we will see that the total bill for the euro has become enormous: the people will have abandoned their autonomous power to choose their own destiny, to the benefit of remote international bodies, indifferent to the specific needs of citizens and impossible to overpower by democratic means.
In exchange, those same people will become aware that they have been given just a few pathetic crumbs: a saving of a few tenths of a percentage point of GDP on transaction costs, and other supposed advantages which, when in practice, will be shown to be limited or spurious.
Moreover, many promises are already beginning to dissolve.
I will only quote you one example, but it is an important one: think of how much official promotion material has been published in recent years, guaranteeing that the euro was going to promote growth and employment!
Gradually, whether it is because we are approaching the final application date of the euro, or because its proponents have the feeling that the people have definitely been won over, we are finally being told that we should not rely too much on new jobs being created.
That was the upshot of a recent speech by Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and all the European federalists have today fallen back on that line.
The reasons behind this turnaround are clear: the federalists are beginning to fear the backlash generated by the false hopes that they have raised.
They have good reason to be wary.
Today, the euro is going to be launched against the people, or without them, or even by relying on consent which was extorted by deception.
When the people realize the size of the total bill, their disillusionment will be enormous.
Eleven Member States have been allowed to participate in the euro.
Incidentally, there was no suspense since the governments concerned had carefully avoided any consultation of the people regarding the final changeover to the single currency.
Everyone knew the list of countries the Council would accept and Parliament's vote was taken as read.
It is essential to make a few comments in order to take stock.
The convergence criteria have been manipulated somewhat to ensure that 11 countries have been accepted for the single currency, for seven would have been excluded from it if the initial criteria had been adhered to.
The Council based itself on very formal convergence criteria, that were also rigged, and deliberately neglected divergence criteria, which are themselves very serious and represent the economic, social and psychological reality of the nations.
The Commission, that hybrid institution without real political responsibility, will exercise, in the name of the Stability Pact, a kind of haughty supervision over the economic policies of the countries participating in the euro, and can even impose fines on them.
Finally, according to the Council and the European Parliament themselves, the European Central Bank will enjoy monetary sovereignty, without supervision or responsibility.
The sovereign Bank with absolute power: that really is an extraordinary innovation in the history of government of the people!
These facts put a worrying stamp on the launch of the euro and our governments, as well as our colleagues, should undoubtedly show a less complacent form of optimism.
But politics is the art of reality.
We must therefore look towards the future.
Tomorrow's battle will be for democratic control of the European Union.
It is now necessary, more than ever before, to send out a cry of alarm, a "democracy SOS' .
The Europe that is being built for us, hidden from the people's view, threatens to kill off the European idea.
We must open the debate on institutional reform by calling for the end of the Commission's hegemonic power, and steer it back towards a purely administrative role.
The Council must take upon itself the initiative for European texts and exercise executive power.
National parliaments must be involved, beforehand, in the legislative work, together with the European Parliament.
We must put an end to the concept of a centralized state, which goes even further than a federal state, as it is applied to the construction of Europe.
It is essential that we concern ourselves with guaranteeing transparent and democratic European cooperation, under the supervision of public opinion.
Europe will not be built despite the nations, but with them, for the happiness and peace of our people.
. (SV) The Swedish members of the PPE Group have been working in the European Parliament to promote the EMU project and have today supported the decision on which countries should join the circle of the first members of this monetary union.
We regret that the Swedish Social Democratic Government, despite its obligations under the Treaty, has not devoted its efforts to bringing Sweden into this group.
We are endeavouring to bring about a greater understanding in Sweden of the great significance EMU will have for the future of Europe.
Swedish opinion has also been developing in a positive direction.
It is our hope that Sweden will soon be a member of EMU.
In voting against the proposition that eleven countries fulfil the necessary conditions for the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union and that it should begin on 1 January 1999, I do not oppose the right of the eleven countries to proceed.
That is, of course, their prerogative and choice.
My principal reason for voting no is my belief that the conditions laid down in the Treaty have not been fulfilled and that the eleven countries will be proceeding on a basis of flawed, fudged convergence criteria as hinted in the Report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the introduction of the Single Currency.
In particular I refer to the paragraphs of the report deleted and therefore suppressed by a majority vote of the Parliament.
My vote is also a protest against the tactics of the French authorities in seeking to subvert the principles laid down in the Treaty concerning the independence and integrity of the proposed European Central Bank both in seeking to subject it to excessive political intervention and by bringing forward their own candidate to be head of the ECB late in the day against the consensus of the other Member States.
This action coupled with the rumours of the private deal to shorten the term of the first ECB President must seriously undermine confidence in the markets and the wider world.
I have plenty of other reservations about the single currency and the possibility of UK participation at some future date which I believe are shared by many of my constituents, in particular the small businesses and self-employed in Devon who mostly see only costs and disadvantages in this project, but I do not propose to list them on this occasion because the issue of UK membership is not under consideration at this time.
There is, however, a respectable argument that, because there is no question of the UK becoming one of the initial members of EMU under our opt-out, UK MEPs should either abstain or stand aside from this vote.
In my view, on this occasion, for such an important vote, it is all the more vital that we British MEPs exercise our right to vote in the Parliament and express what we judge to be the views of our constituents.
Finally, I recognise that my no vote may well be one of only a small number of dissenting voices.
In the consensus, coalition style of politics that the electoral system of proportional representation, predominant in the European Parliament generates, there is a tendency towards an impatient intolerance of any view that goes against the majority because the majority must be right and how could anyone disagree.
This is not good for democracy, in my view, and is another reason why I am voting no so as to be a small bit of grit in the works.
The United Kingdom will have the best of both worlds.
Those of its citizens who want to use the euro, will be able to.
Those who don't won't have to.
They can continue to use our national currency.
The City of London, especially the Banks and its futures and options traders will deal profitably in euros as they deal now in ECUs.
Some British companies are being required by their customers to quote their prices in euros.
Others are insisting that their suppliers do the same.
British holiday makers who travel in the euro area will use it too.
But, for those who are not in business or who do not take their holidays abroad (the majority of my fellow citizens are in that second group) nothing will change.
I could not vote in favour of the Finance Ministers' recommendations because they allow a 'fudge' over the Italian and Belgian public debts and ignore completely the European Monetary Institute warnings over the looming pensions crisis particularly in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
To vote against would be an impertinence towards the eleven sovereign states who have decided to join the Euro.
So, as the United Kingdom will have the best of both worlds, I abstain.
Today, 2 May 1998, I am voting for the euro with enthusiasm and emotion!
Having been a European federalist since my innocent childhood days, I am voting without any reservations or hesitation for this essential federalist instrument a single currency represents, our single currency: the euro.
But, for me, it is only a stage and not an end in itself.
Very soon, following the single currency, we will have to build a political Europe, a social Europe, a citizens' Europe, and a Europe against unemployment.
That is the challenge of the next five years.
Nothing should stop now, everything should accelerate.
For the socialist that I am, the framework exists to move in this direction, on the condition firstly that it is wanted, and then to do everything possible to achieve it.
It is a necessary political struggle and I am optimistic about our chances of winning.
That is why, I repeat, the euro vote today is a rare moment.
It is the result of the action of European militants, who must be thanked.
It is, above all, a new starting point.
I wish to put on the record of this House my full support for the introduction of the euro, and to welcome the decisions of the Council of Finance Ministers on the inclusion of eleven participating countries.
We now have the opportunity to ensure that the financial instability of the past can be consigned to the files of history.
However that is not to say that there will not be problems.
There is still a huge lack of information getting to the consumer despite the enormous amounts of money being spent on promotion of the euro.
This situation cannot be allowed to continue.
Information and understanding are essential to garner the necessary public support for the currency and this cannot be left to chance.
There are other problems which will particularly affect the retail sector, especially small and medium sized enterprises.
The necessary alterations in technological terms must not mean an onerous administrative or financial burden on this sector, governments must give assistance, in either taxation relief or financial terms.
Finally, the present argument over the Presidency of the European Central Bank must not detract from the necessary operational terms for that Bank.
There will be regional disparities in the overall European economy and intervention should not be ruled out at the outset.
This day will be the start of a new beginning in which we will see greater economic stability, further economic growth, and a brighter horizon for future generations.
I feel honoured to be present today and to be a party to this historic decision.
The establishment of the single currency will be of major benefit to the country I represent and Europe as a whole.
We can face the future with renewed confidence.
This is especially important as we export over 70 % of everything we manufacture and produce.
This activity will in the future take place against a background of economic, financial and currency stability.
Irish and European citizens will also benefit because lower inflation, lower interest rates, lower mortgage repayments, cheaper consumer goods, etcetera will eventually follow.
Furthermore, in the context of the euro area, the days of inconvenience and excessive costs relating to currency transactions are numbered.
I am proud that my country met the criteria and is in the first wave of entrants to the single currency.
However, my joy is tempered by the fact that the UK will not join us.
This could cause problems for our economy but it has also fundamental implications for relationships between both parts of Ireland.
Many of us had hoped that Europe would provide the framework for reconciling both parts of Ireland.
A British opt-out regrettably establishes an increasing economic border on our island.
I sincerely hope that the courage shown by the current British government on both the issue of Europe and, indeed, Northern Ireland will culminate in a decision to join the single currency and that they will take this decisions sooner rather than later.
I voted "yes' to the euro because I believe that this is an historic moment in the construction of Europe and, as things have taken shape, "yes' to the euro means yes to Europe.
Even if the Maastricht criteria did not really fulfil the aspirations of the peoples of Europe, a "no' at this moment would mean the rejection of all the sacrifices made by the peoples of Europe in order to arrive at this momentous occasion.
It would also mean the rejection of the enormous sacrifices made especially by the people of Greece, who, in accordance with the agreement, are looking forward to January 2001, when they can come together with their partners in the single currency, to which the latter have already committed themselves.
It would also mean a kind of dangerous isolation for Greece.
Finally, "yes' to the euro means "no' to anti-European voices which can be heard in Europe from the Far Right and from a section of the Left, in a Europe which has been constructed in order to sideline extremist ideologies.
The euro is an instrument.
It is an essential instrument in ensuring that the perverse effects which have accompanied the birth of the internal European market do not continue to deal harsh blows.
Unfair competition, in the form of competitive devaluations, the relocation of firms in search of regions with lower taxation, or lower salaries and employment-related costs, and high unemployment have shaken our citizens' confidence in the construction of Europe.
The euro will help to reduce the differences we have experienced since the approval of the Single European Act.
But that will not be enough; other steps will have to follow quickly. Otherwise, unfair competition, no longer able to feed off the exchangerate fluctuations, will seek out other methods which will cause more damage.
We must tirelessly continue the work of creating a balance in Europe, with a view to restoring Europe's popular legitimacy.
I am glad to use my first vote in the extraordinary sitting to approve my country's entry into the euro.
There is no doubt that with this vote the European Union is entering into a single monetary policy, and this is of great importance.
The introduction of the single currency in 11 Member States marks an historic milestone, overshadowed, however, by the high level of long-term, structural unemployment in certain Member States and also by the high level of public debt in others.
Today is a day which brings us down to earth, from the European dream to the citizens' reality, and while we may congratulate ourselves on this enormous step, we must also call today for better definition and completion of other policies: social, environmental, political, fiscal, etcetera, so that the single currency can truly be a factor of stability, growth and peace.
Without being afraid of finding myself isolated among the performers in this so-called historic day that this meeting is supposed to represent, I have voted against the Ecofin Council's recommendations to the European Council to the effect that the latter should decide to launch the single currency with the participation of 11 of the 15 Member States.
I have done so without any hesitation because I still believe that the single currency presents grave dangers for the construction of Europe and that it does not address the economic and social conditions of the Member States.
We are establishing a European Central Bank whose independent character and sovereignty we are at pains to stress, and which will function without being supervised by any democratic body. We are also imposing on 11 states a Stability and Growth Pact which will certainly deprive them of any freedom in economic, budgetary, financial and even social terms.
Through both these measures, the euro is striking a fatal blow at the sovereignty of Europe's nations.
This brutal attack is taking place without any democratic consultation, in accordance with an approach that can only be described as totalitarian: no debate on the advantages and disadvantages of the single currency has ever really taken place, and the people of the Member States of the European Union have not really been consulted, even though their right to give their opinion on the majority of the policies which directly concern them will be abolished in future.
There is a great risk that when realization dawns it will be a difficult moment, when our populations experience the true trauma that their leaders are imposing on them by doing away with their respective national currencies.
Moreover, the single currency is being introduced in a context where there is still high unemployment, which would require mobilization on the part of all the economic operators, when they will find themselves penalized by the practical consequences of the rapid changeover to the euro.
The undignified rush to comply with the Maastricht criteria, often achieved by accounting or budgetary sleight of hand, has already had a high cost in terms of jobs.
Unfortunately, we can bet that tomorrow the constraints of the Stability Pact will have even more negative consequences.
Ladies and gentlemen, the major stages in the construction of Europe have been achieved with caution and by democratically respecting the will of the peoples of our great and ancient nations.
This will not have been the case in the monetary field.
We should, in fact, have followed the path of the European Monetary System by introducing a common currency, which would not replace national currencies, and would which allow us - since such a choice would not have been irreversible - to take stock of the situation after several years before contemplating, if need be, and with the approval of our citizens, progress to a further stage.
The choice made today is first and foremost an ideological one: it is the choice, imposed in silence, of the federal state, free from any democratic and political constraints.
It does not really take our economic environment into account.
In the light of all this, I therefore cannot give it my approval.
The aim of my explanation of vote in favour of the recommendation by the Council is simply to join in the significant debate which we have just completed and which has made us privileged joint protagonists in the chapter of European history that we are writing today.
It is a debate that opens the door to the adoption of a single currency by 11 countries of the European Union on 1 January 1999 and, with it, the establishment of a platform of economic stability. Thanks to this, we can achieve a level of economic growth which will allow for the creation of jobs and thus achieve one of the fundamental objectives of the process of European integration: the economic and social wellbeing of the citizens of the Union.
Hence the importance of the Stability Pact, since the existence of a healthy and stable economy is dependent on the benefits of the euro being translated into new jobs.
But the euro, and with it monetary union, is also, and above all, a symbol of European unity; hence the historic nature of today's sitting.
This is because the single currency will allow us to take a qualitative jump towards that union of the European people which forms the basis and foundation of the construction of Europe.
The benefits go beyond its undeniable economic advantages, beyond its contribution to job creation and beyond the advances which it will undoubtedly bring in the long term in the fiscal field, in the social field and particularly in the decisive area of political union. The existence of a single currency will unquestionably contribute to increasing, among the citizens of the Union, that feeling of belonging to a single community, which is essential in order to conclude the work of peace and solidarity designed by the utopian architects of the construction of Europe.
I welcome the fact that Ireland is going to join up to a new single currency beginning on January 1st, 1999.
The benefits of a European single currency for the Irish economy are the following:
Lower interest rates which is good news for small and medium sized enterprises.
The elimination of transaction costs which is good news for our exporters and will clearly have an effect of increasing the number of tourists to Ireland.The Economic, Research and Social Institute in Ireland has carried out a report stating that it is clearly in Ireland's interest to join up to the first stage of Economic and Monetary Union within the EU The ERSI further stated that it is to the benefit of the Irish economy to sign up to a European single currency even if Britain opts out of joining the Single European Currency at the first stage.
It is an imperative that extensive and well financed dual pricing campaigns are put in place in all supermarkets and stores in advance of the introduction of a Single European Currency so that consumers and users of the currency are aware of the real value of the euro notes and coins compared to the value of the Punt and to ensure no confusion arises.
The information deficit relating to the Single European Currency is a real issue and must be comprehensively addressed.
The introduction of a Single European Currency is a real challenge.
The mistakes that took place when decimalisation was introduced in 1972 cannot and must not reoccur.
The Single European Currency is a logical step forward from the internal market which recently has been completed within the European Union and which resulted in the existence of the free movement of persons, services, capital and goods within the EU.
This must be welcomed by the Irish people.
It is good news for our economy and good news for our future.
Saturday, 2 May 1998.
This is believed to be an historic day, and it will be.
For the nations of Europe, for the European Union and for the world.
Its raison d'être is the single currency and its prime cause is the determination of the states that have applied to join the euro.
This too will be remembered, as happens with all historic days, whether for good or ill.
Having always accepted that Portugal would not be able to stand alone in monetary competition, however unfair, we have both in the past and in the present offered responsible criticism of the path we have taken to the adoption of the single currency.
If it had been up to us, we would have pushed for real convergence of the European nations, and might perhaps have waited a little longer. We would certainly have involved the people of Europe in our decision.
We voted on the losing side against the Maastricht Treaty in the Assembly of the Republic.
Since we respect the rules of democracy, a decision of our Parliament, even one with which we do not agree, is law.
If it is law, we shall respect it as such.
It is now proposed that the European Parliament should give its opinion on a decision which has already been taken, and not by Parliament: the list of countries entitled to join the third stage of EMU.
Since we do not believe it possible to say 'no' to something that is a matter of record, we Portuguese Members now prefer to emphasize the fact that we belong to a country whose people have managed, through a great deal of self-denial, to overcome the greatest difficulties in order to see the reward of some of its efforts here in the EP today.
It is now to be hoped that solidarity, which also means economic and social cohesion, and is furthermore enshrined in our Treaties, will not be forgotten as from today, Saturday, 2 May 1998.
Some of us in our group, including the Members from the Nueva Izquierda and the Iniciativa per Catalunya , are going to vote in favour of the proposal concerning those countries which are going to enter into the single currency.
However, we believe that the process is getting off to a less than perfect start.
In order to be able to progress with a minimum of stability, economic policy needs fiscal harmonization to go hand in hand with the single currency.
But, in addition, to build a fair Union, along with economic policy it is essential to have a social policy and institutions which are run completely democratically.
None of this is provided for to the extent necessary.
Despite this, we will vote in favour because we believe that you should not cut off your nose to spite your face. No, the answer is to fight to obtain, as quickly as possible, what you are lacking.
We also believe that, from a constructive point of view, in this way we will feel more justified in demanding that we urgently overcome the shortcomings in the system.
The political, economic and social importance of the decision we are taking today, and to which we are adding our vote, could turn into a mere smoke screen, that is, into a failure, unless we all contribute responsibly to the establishment of fiscal equality, social justice and complete democratic legitimacy in the European Union.
I shall not support the motion which endorses the statement that those countries wishing to enter Single Currency on 1 January next year are actually in a position to do so; nor do I support the motion that this Single Currency under these criteria and this timetable is desirable or workable.
I do not doubt the sincerity of those who vote in favour; some are more certain than others, all are aware that there is a risk, but have put off prudent financial and economic forethought in the belief that through an act of political will a desired European integration can be achieved by forcing economic convergence by means of monetary discipline.
I believe this course is fatally flawed.
Those really in charge of the project, and they are not to be found in this Chamber, have the false confidence of the ship's captain now irretrievably committed to put to sea despite the prudent warnings that this vessel has design and structural faults, and believing that a good heart and a fair wind will carry the project off.
Those here are simply rearranging the deck chairs and keeping up appearances, pretending to have more influence than they have, and if I may continue the metaphor, the wider public has wisely refused so far the invitation to share the enthusiasm for the voyage - that alone should act as a warning, for after all, we are as democrats meant to follow as well as lead.
When some countries do qualify, but judge it wise to stay out of the project, whereas others patently do not qualify but are in, we are in the realms of fantasy, where political appearance counts for all, and economic reality counts for nothing.
Let me say categorically that I am not against single currency; there is an inevitability about it, if the single market works.
Nor is the single currency essential for a single market.
The reason for a single currency is to promote political integration and it is folly to try to squeeze as yet very disparate economies into a single unit.
I am certainly not against economic integration, again the single market may bring that about, however it will not be an equitable society which emerges from such market driven economies, and I remain a Socialist who believes that the only sane and humanistic purpose of economic planning is to achieve a fair and just and equal society.
I believe that can only be done, realistically and practicably, by the existing nation states with their accumulated and trusted power acting together, and not by a 'union' still driven by a non-elected Commission, and under this Single Currency, non-elected bankers.
This Single Currency on offer cannot be achieved without further cuts in social expenditure which can only further damage the social fabric of our continent - can only further damage the very structure of social welfare which my own party was called into existence to establish.
At the very best this Single Currency will lock us into the exchange rate rigidities which has seen the western European economies be characterised by low growth and high unemployment.
It is folly to give up the economic tool of varying the exchange rates to encompass the inevitable changing disparities in economic performance between countries and regions, and between the various sectors of the economy.
At worst, this single currency will lock us on a course of collision with the speculators who will be eager to test the real strength of the link between the fictitious European economy and a tradable European currency.
There are still several European economies and keeping several European currencies is prudent for the time being.
But I have a further and fundamental objection to this Single Currency and that is its undemocratic nature.
If I had really wanted to have influence on the fate of Europe, I would not have taken the foolish step of openly declaring my political beliefs, asking openly for endorsement by a political party and then testing those ideas out in freely contested democratic elections.
I would have become a cautious, bureaucratic banker; buried myself in the Byzantine world of intrigue on committees, deliberately hidden behind piles of statistics, caught the ear of the great and good and certainly never ever dreamt of standing for any Parliament.
One person, nor indeed many, can never have the power of one bank, or one finance house, unless that bank is subject to democratic control.
This Central Bank which we are establishing flies in the face of centuries of European democracy - I the elected member am supposed to take the bank's view as binding on my budgeting, whereas that bank is obliged not to take notice of my democratic mandate.
Any Parliament voting 'yes' is renouncing years, decades of effort, aspiration and determination to make economic power accountable.
I shall not; I shall vote 'no' , not negatively, but to have the principled platform then to argue for a different Europe, one that puts permanent social welfare before temporary and misguided monetary orthodoxy.
As an Irish MEP I welcome the Single Currency, which is a further positive step on the road to European integration.
I am particularly proud of my country's success in meeting all aspects of the convergence criteria.
Ireland has demonstrated what can be achieved through planned economic goals and commitment to their implementation.
The strict fiscal policy of EMU provides the long term economic base for continuing growth and will prevent the short term political temptation to base decisions on grounds of political popularity.
Long term today's Parliament decisions will be a major factor in dealing with unemployment and consolidates the economic base of the EU to meet the challenge of world trade.
The PNV is voting in favour of the euro for economic reasons, but also because of its political consequences.
The euro will consolidate the internal market, eliminate exchange-rate costs between European currencies, help to improve the competitiveness of our companies and increase stability, which could assist investment and employment.
For consumers it will also mean improved supply, greater price transparency and less costs when they travel throughout Europe.
The euro gives us access to a positive scenario of competitiveness, but forces us to keep a watchful eye on those who may have more difficulties.
That calls for more territorial solidarity in the European Union and a strengthening of the social cohesion in our societies.
But, above all, the euro opens up a whole political process.
The exercise of monetary power in Europe requires better coordination of economic policies and implies an acceleration of European integration.
This is good news for those of us who are in favour of a federal Europe.
Furthermore, this process of integration weakens the role of the states and presents an historic opportunity to enable people and nations, such as the Basques, to directly participate in a united Europe which respects the diversity of the people it is made up of.
Almost 50 years have passed since the day when the founding fathers of Europe set off on the great journey leading to a united Europe.
Throughout those years many politicians and millions of people have believed in and worked hard to construct a Europe of solidarity, of work, of quality and not quantity, of multilingualism, of a European spirit.
And today, 2 May, just one day after "Labour Day' , the European Council, unfortunately with the blessing of the European Parliament, laid to rest the Europe of our visions and delivered up its peoples into the hands of bankers.
Using the alchemy of book-keeping they even violated the Maastricht criteria, which they themselves set.
No-one has explained to us under what criteria countries like Italy and Belgium are to join the first wave of EMU.
No-one has explained to us when there will be "a light at the end of the tunnel' of unemployment and poverty, which have turned Europe into a "society of the two thirds' .
No-one has told us why the political integration of Europe has been sacrificed to numbers and to the will of bankers, such as the Frenchman, Mr Trichet, who is a candidate for the first President of the European Central Bank and whose name, coincidentally, means "cardsharper' in his language.
Those who, with their vote in the European Parliament (indirectly) and in the European Council (directly), are contributing today to the freakish cloning of an "Integrated Europe' , will soon be called upon to explain their decision to the peoples of Europe.
I hope they will have the political courage, shortly before the coming European elections, to remain faithful to their current positions and views.
Those of us who are truly Europeans and not "Europeans' with a small "e' , say YES to political and truly economical convergence and NO to the spurious, nominal "convergence' of Europe.
For this reason I have maintained a negative stance in the European Parliament, which I expressed by abstaining in the vote.
It is an irrevocable fact that the euro will be adopted on 1 January 1999 by eleven countries in the European Union.
I welcome this unreservedly.
The adoption of the euro by only 6 or 7 core countries of the Union, as is the wish of Bavaria's Minister-President Edmund Stoiber, Member of the European Parliament Ingo Friedrich and Theo Waigel, the German Finance Minister - all of whom are members of the CSU Party - is something which I could not have voted for. Such an arrangement would inevitably cause a split in the European Union and would drive a wedge between the peoples and the countries of the EU.
But this is not the time to put our feet up and to leave future policy making to the European Central Bank.
The EU needs a coordinated economic and employment policy to deal with the extremely high unemployment rate in the Member States, which experts have put at as much as 34 million.
Simply sticking to price stability will only increase unemployment and create unimagined social tension.
This would lead to renationalization and a swing to the right in the EU countries, something which we in the Green Group do not wish to see.
It is therefore imperative for the European Central Bank to be put on an effective democratic footing so that it does not feel committed solely and exclusively to the concept of price stability - important though this is - without any reference to a common European economic, social and employment policy.
We therefore need to set up an Economic Council alongside the ECB, to ensure that the policy of the European Central Bank is bound by the same political objectives as that of the EU as a whole.
We must reject the proposal put forward by Finance Minister Waigel, that the rules be changed during the game and that special arrangements be applied to some countries, such as Italy and Belgium.
We cannot bring the Stability Pact forward and rule that government surpluses are to be used exclusively for repaying the government deficit.
This would severely restrict a government's capacity to act, for example by launching an employment programme, and would constitute an improper infringement of national sovereignty.
EU policy should be dedicated to the well-being of all its citizens, not just the rich.
This makes it all the more urgent for us to have a well-coordinated macroeconomic policy which includes combatting unemployment as one of its most important priorities.
The ECB therefore has to commit itself not merely to a rigid monetary policy, as called for in Mr Wogau's report.
This was one of the reasons why I have voted against the Wogau report, which aims to subordinate the well-being of the citizens of the EU purely and simply to a monetarist neo-liberal policy.
Nor is it my objective to use the euro to set up a European hegemony.
The European Union should use its strength and authority, which will undoubtedly be extended with the introduction of the euro, to develop a social, ecological and solidary world economic order.
The euro must not be misused to build higher and stronger walls around the European Union.
In view of the oft-quoted "globalization of the world economy' , this would be a real mistake, for such a development would only produce further tensions and rifts, both within the EU as well as around the world.
There must be a clear rejection of the monetary policy being proposed by the CSU.
Together with France and other EU countries, and a change in German policy after the Bundestag elections of 27 September, which will again focus on the more than legitimate concerns of ordinary people, the euro can serve as an instrument for the advancement and opening up of the European Union.
The success and stability of the euro, and not least its acceptance by the citizens of Europe, will depend on a social and ecologically-oriented economic policy.
I wholeheartedly welcome the introduction of the euro, especially as regards Germany's political incorporation into the European Union.
However, we now have to get on with making the necessary corrections.
At this stage, the European Parliament's vote, which is being delivered without comments or amendments, can no longer influence the course of affairs or the conditions surrounding the changeover to the euro.
I shall abstain today.
I would have liked to be able to vote in favour at this historic moment because I support the single currency.
But the framework currently proposed carries too many risks for our democracy and for our social model to allow me to approve of this step.
The euro could be a fantastic asset for our people if it allowed for the acceleration of political union and the democratic strengthening of Europe, if it provided economic leeway which enabled unemployment to be eliminated and a new era of social progress to begin, and if it allowed our continent to assert a different concept of our planet's future in the face of American hegemony.
But that is not the case today. The framework for the introduction of the euro does not provide for a transfer of sovereignty from the nation states to democratic European institutions - which would be a positive move - but for a true abandonment of the people's sovereignty.
The ECB, which will be the most independent bank in the world, and considerably more powerful than the American Federal Reserve Board or the current German Bundesbank, will have absolute power and will receive no parliamentary supervision. Nor will it have to implement the policy of a European government, since, by not forming an economic government, the European Union has deprived itself of that essential tool.
Thus, all control over monetary options is being taken away from the people or Europe.
With the Dublin Stability Pact, they have also lost control over macroeconomic options, which are nevertheless of great importance for their life and their future.
Not only does the Stability Pact put our economies in a monetary straitjacket, but, even more seriously, it introduces a true economic constitution, depriving governments or parliaments of any macroeconomic arbitration and even going as far as sanctioning offending states.
What purpose will elections serve if these extremely important decisions can no longer be amended? I refuse to hand over our common destiny to the powers of money and to the supporters of monetarist dogma.
Some see the euro as a stage leading to strengthened political integration in Europe.
There is nothing to support this hope.
The internal market, the free trade area, which currently serves as a European project, does not need a strong political Europe.
If anything, the opposite is true, for we will see that making the economic and financial sphere autonomous, exempting it from all collective and democratic regulation, tends to relegate the political side of things to the sidelines.
Moreover, the Maastricht Treaty provided for the establishment of the IGC to strengthen political integration and improve the institutions.
Thus, the progress with political Europe should have taken place at the same time as EMU was being concluded.
It has to be said that Amsterdam has yielded any significant progress.
Political Europe is powerless and the monetary, economic and political balance heralded in Maastricht has not been fulfilled.
In response to the concerns of the people of Europe in the face of increasing unemployment, the European authorities predicted the creation of millions of jobs and the publication of a White Paper.
Since then, neither major projects nor the improved capital taxation arrangements needed to mitigate imposts on employment have materialized.
Unemployment has grown in the euro area, and this is particularly true if you consider that the official unemployment figures do not take into consideration all job seekers, nor those "poor wage-earners' whose number is increasing.
So, the promises of Maastricht, particularly those on the democratic and political strengthening of Europe and on employment, have not been kept.
More seriously, the Stability Pact only leaves countries one form of leeway - fiscal and social dumping - in order to face up to increased competition.
The current framework for the changeover to the euro threatens to accelerate Europe's liberal drift and its alignment with the American model.
Our people have nothing to gain from that, but they do have a great deal to lose.
I hope that the leap, which was unable to take place before the changeover to the euro, to establish a political Europe and a social Europe worthy of their names can take place in future.
Being a demanding European, I will make that my priority.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), in writing.
(SV) EMU is a centralizing, high-risk project which lacks popular backing.
EMU prioritizes price stability and low inflation.
The EU is not an optimum currency area, and the economies of the various Member States are much too divergent to introduce a single currency.
There is a high risk that EMU, with its one-sided emphasis on controlling inflation, will lead to increased unemployment.
The gaps between growth regions and areas of rural depopulation may widen, resulting in increased regional imbalances.
EMU will bring about a high degree of centralization and a loss of democracy in economic, monetary and exchange rate policy which, by extension, may come to include fiscal and financial policy as well.
This also emerges from the report, which speaks of increased coordination of taxation systems and tax rates.
EMU is concerned with economic affairs, but it has considerable significance as a political project geared to greater supranationality and centralization.
EMU increases federal pressures in the EU towards the formation of a state - the EU State.
EMU and the new currency, the euro, are to be controlled by the European Central Bank, the ECB.
The ECB will have greater independence and power than any other bank in the world.
The members of the ECB Executive Board, who are appointed for eight years and cannot be removed from office, will have unprecedented influence on exchange rate and interest rate policy and other economic policies directly affecting people, regions and nations.
Democratic control is weak.
The Commission has put forward a recommendation to introduce the single currency in eleven Member States on 1 January 1999; the Ecofin Council has given its backing to this recommendation.
It is what these countries have chosen.
The Swedish Riksdag has decided not to participate in the third stage of EMU from 1 January 1999.
This is a wise decision.
EMU suffers from the same economic and democratic deficiencies, irrespective of how many countries are members of the currency union.
In view of the above, we have voted against the recommendation.
The position we have taken is not directed against the decisions or economic policies of individual countries; it is based on an appreciation of the EMU project as such.
I have voted in favour of the decision of the Council appointing the founders of the Europe of the Eleven, including my own country.
For Europe this has created a magnificent symbol of identity, a lever to give us power in the world and a means of economic development, intra-European cohesion and solidarity between citizens. It will be the watchword of 300 million people speaking different languages.
We must, however, move forward to a more unified tax policy, greater democratic legitimacy, an at least adequate social policy, greater mobility within Europe, a more Community-based budget and the solidarity to withstand any asymmetric shocks.
For my country, it means joining the list of the founding fathers of the Europe of the future and making up for decades of isolation or backwardness with our new hopes.
Our responsibility is therefore greater today, but we shall be fully involved in this revolution in European history, the most important since the building of the Community began and the firmest guarantee of its irreversibility.
As a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which has devoted a great deal of time and energy during recent years to the introduction of the single currency, but which has not been allocated speaking time during the debate, I am anxious to clarify that I voted in favour despite the fact that in its recommendation, and particularly in section 1, the Council quite simply skirts round the criterion relating to long-term debt, which should not exceed 60 % of GDP.
Things being what they are in this field, this is still incredible, since the criterion concerning participation in the exchange-rate mechanism, which is less important in my opinion, is given serious consideration, for example in noting that Sweden does not meet the conditions.
It is true that Sweden does not yet wish to form part of the euro area.
Fortunately, there is the Ecofin Council's declaration, which is in fact more solid on a certain number of points which I believed to be important and which, in the resolution adopted following our report on convergence, did not find favour with the Socialist group.
I am therefore glad that the Stability Pact will enter into force on 1 July, which the majority in this Parliament did not dare write; that the Council recognizes that we are sitting on a time bomb in terms of the funding of pensions due to the demographic situation; and that as regards taxation, the main concern should not be to do away with fiscal competition, but to avoid unfair and harmful competition. In other words, this is no more or no less than that decided by the Ecofin Council on 1 December 1997.
I have voted in favour, bearing all these points in mind, and even did so willingly.
The United Left has sufficiently demonstrated its criticism of the current social economic model that has been developing over recent years in the EU under the monetarist discipline of the Maastricht criteria.
In the same way, we have been extremely critical of the content of the Stability Pact, which implies higher unemployment and a precarious welfare state.
We actually need a different economic policy which gives priority to full employment and social welfare.
The current model on which the euro is based represents the hegemony of the market, to the detriment of democracy and political union.
At this stage when only those countries which meet the conditions for participation in the euro are being assessed, we must abstain, as we believe that the euro, the single currency, as it has been introduced, means uncertainty and precariousness for workers. Instead, the single currency should have been formed on the basis of other parameters guided by solidarity, full employment and social welfare.
It's settled!
By 467 votes to 65, the sect of the Euro-monetary temple has just decided the suicide of eleven nations.
We have just witnessed the elimination of the lira of Italy of the cities, the peseta of Spain, whose empire reached as far as here, Brussels, the pound of Ireland of the wild ponies, the escudo of the great Portugal of Vasco da Gama, all these currencies which are the summary, the symbol, the identity of the nations.
Ladies and gentlemen, listen to that; outside, in front of the Hemicycle, you cannot possibly not hear it.
A German army orchestra is playing.
You can hear its drums, trombones, crescents.
What are they playing?
The Preussen Gloria.
Nothing less than that, a goose-step, a march from the Prussia of Frederick II, here in a Parliament, on 2 May 1998, to celebrate the death of the national currencies and the birth of the euro.
What else do they want? The Central Bank in Frankfurt, the goose-step and the music of the German army, Theo Waigel's budgetary rationing pact, the euro; this is the monetary Anschluss of ten currencies, including the franc, by the Deutsche Mark.
We here have forgotten everything.
Our currencies arose from the sacrifice of thousands and thousands of workers from steelworks, coalmines and the textile industry, from Pas-de-Calais or Lorraine to the Asturias, from the sacrifice of fishermen, from Brittany to Spanish Galicia, from the toil of Europe's peasants.
A currency represents all of that.
It is the very blood and the heart of a people.
To do away with a currency is to suppress, to deny this time of sweat and sacrifice.
This is why you cannot do it.
This is why, by doing it, you have become usurpers.
You have gone beyond our powers.
The nations have the right to survive for themselves in monetary terms. Whatever the European Parliament thinks and does.
I am voting against this proposal in order to register a protest against this ill-conceived, undemocratic and economically disastrous plan for a single currency.
I know that many people have been working for years to bring this currency union about, and their euphoria is therefore understandable.
I believe also, however, that in the not-too-distant future they will look ruefully back on this euphoric feeling, much as the passengers on the Titanic must have done as the ship sank into the Arctic Ocean.
We British have been told many times that we should join the euro in the first wave, that otherwise there was a danger of missing the boat.
The case of the Titanic, however, demonstrates that there are some boats which it is best not to be on.
I do not believe that this vessel is seaworthy, and I am sure there are icebergs up ahead.
As with the Titanic, also, it will be the passengers on the lower decks who will suffer.
Most of the people who have pushed this scheme through, with no real reflection or opportunity for genuine democratic debate, will be safely in the lifeboats when the euro ship goes down.
It is working people, the unemployed, and the most vulnerable groups in our societies who will be, as always, the ones who suffer when this leaky vessel disappears beneath the icy waters of economic reality.
The vote that this House has just expressed involves the future of our countries.
It does not lead us to a path lined with roses, but one which is full of traps and sacrifices for our people.
The introduction of the euro will in fact mark a new stage in the ultra-liberal Europe, which already includes - to its detriment - almost 18 million unemployed and 57 million poor people.
Drastic limits are going to be, and already have been, imposed on national budgets by the convergence criteria and the threat of sanctions provided for in the Stability Pact, whose implementation has just been brought forward.
The unique nature of the exchange rate will lead to enormous pressure on salaries and to overexploitation of workers, along with deregulation and flexibility.
Dominated by the financial markets, the Europe of economic war still prevails, and is even on the increase, opposed to a progressive policy.
It is this Europe that we criticize, while we work towards a different Europe.
We want to contribute to the reorientation of the joint development of equal and sovereign nations, to a Europe which shares costs and knowledge, and to a Europe which is open to the world and which bases its relations on solidarity and mutual interests.
In short, we want a Europe that is capable of responding to the challenges of the 21st century: a Europe that is capable of mobilizing resources to combat unemployment and exclusion, which is concerned about an upward harmonization of social legislation and which is able to prevent conflicts and guarantee the security of every country.
In this connection, we have decided to bring many people together in order to, for example: challenge the Stability Pact and replace it with a growth and employment pact; ensure too that the Central Bank's status and mission are reviewed; achieve real monetary cooperation, with a common rather than a single currency, based on the national currencies, which would allow appropriations to be increased to favour employment; and guarantee that the public services, which contribute to social cohesion, have the necessary resources to fulfil their duties in the common good.
In order to exist, that Europe needs the intervention of the people.
The first significant euro demonstrations took place over the last two years; they show the possibility of uniting in the struggle to reject the recession, of loosening the vice of the financial markets and of promoting alternative solutions which make good use of the enormous assets of our people.
In a word, we want to make the construction of Europe more democratic.
We intend to devote all our efforts to this, and our "no' vote today represents our support for the construction of a different Europe.
I have voted for the introduction of the euro because I am firmly convinced that this single currency will bring the citizens of Europe closer together, and that it will do so with greater speed and intensity than any intergovernmental conference could ever do.
As a German Member of this House I of course regret that such a revolutionary move as the adoption of the euro has only been decided on by an intergovernmental conference and that we in Germany were not able to back this decision up by a referendum.
This democratic deficit has meant that many people in Germany have received far too little information about the advantages of the euro.
We in Germany should also have had the courage to organize a broad-based and conscious decision in support of integration.
The citizens of Europe will grow and develop with European provided that they can really see that they are actively involved in these decisions.
A second point which I would like to raise is that there will be no confidence in the new currency for the foreseeable future unless this united, and soon to be extended, Europe of ours is kept in balance.
In this context keeping a balance does not just mean a one-sided emphasis on price stability, but also means fighting for social stability with the same degree of commitment.
The introduction of the euro is therefore not the end of the line for our political vision of Europe, in fact quite the reverse. It represents the starting point for more Europe, more integration, for the more effective coordination of economic policies and for a strengthening of the fundamental social rights of the citizens of Europe.
The decision to proceed with the Single Currency is premature and has been forced along by political considerations rather than concern for economic growth and lower unemployment in the EU.
I am concerned at the effect which this premature decision will have on the people I represent in Northern Ireland.
As the Maastricht criteria have been disregarded in the case of some of the eleven countries, particularly Belgium and Italy, the euro project itself begins on very insecure foundations.
The introduction of the euro will have as much effect on those countries which remain outside the project as those which go in the first wave.
My constituency is the only part of the United Kingdom which will share a land frontier with a participant country.
Therefore I am extremely concerned that the negative impact which Belgium and Italy are bound to make on the project will have repercussions in my local economy.
I am pleased that the UK Government has adopted the responsible position of not participating in the first wave.
The Euro project has the potential to undo the success of the EU.
The UK Government has wisely decided not to throw the British people into the unknown.
I have been in favour of a single European currency to enable goods to be purchased at the same price across the European Union, to do away the cost of changing money to carry out transactions in each Member State and to boost trade.
A single currency should end the possibility for speculators to target national currencies and make huge profits at the expense of ordinary citizens, as has occurred in the past.
However, provisions to safeguard the most vulnerable sections of the people have been gravely neglected in the present proposals.
Jobs, in my view, are as important as price stability.
However, the restrictions on public spending and the tight ceiling imposed on budgets will deprive the Member States of monetary means of helping less competitive areas which lose jobs and investment.
We can see how unemployment has soared in Germany, particularly in less competitive areas since reunification and the achievement of a single German currency.
Much more needs to be done to counter growing unemployment and poverty and I abstained to demonstrate my deep dissatisfaction on this score.
The forging of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe has been the main aim of European integration since the 1950s.
The decision now being taken on the adoption of a single currency and the establishment of Economic and Monetary Union is one of the greatest and most important stages in this process.
Hence EMU is an important contribution to the cause of peace and will strengthen the European Union in its efforts to extend its borders to Central and Eastern Europe.
The decision marks out Europe as a single, coherent and powerful actor in the world economy.
During the debate on EMU in Sweden and in my party, I persistently affirmed the view that Sweden should share in the responsibility for and advantages of this cooperation.
It is also my conviction that Sweden, after a period of reflection, will come to participate in this historic project.
For these reasons in particular, I think it vital to vote 'yes' and thereby demonstrate my conviction regarding European cooperation.
It is up to us, the people and states, and the European Parliament, to make the euro into a great shared house and not an unfinished tower of Babel.
The euro obviously has its advantages and disadvantages as well: that is often the case for things that subsequently end up badly, but it also applies to things that end up well, as a result of ambitious projects.
Monetary integration, yes, but followed immediately by integration of the law and the judiciary, defence, economic development and the environment and, most important of all, social welfare and employment.
Two positive notes: the unexpected participation of Portugal, Spain, Italy and France provides a consistent and specific follow-up to the requirement to build one Europe: both central European and Mediterranean.
The unexpected participation of Italy has blocked separatist moves, preventing a rich north from opting for separatist causes to the detriment of a south "guilty' of preventing that integration.
Now that Italy is a full member of the European system, any local issues certainly can, and with a little imagination will, be solved in an original way. I hope this will be the case for Sicily and Sardinia, and I hope we understand this in the regions, in the islands I have the honour of representing in this European Parliament.
In June, Palermo will host the Euro-Mediterranean meeting of the 27 foreign ministers from the European countries and African and Asian coastal countries. This will demonstrate all the strength and all the opportunities and all the confidence associated with Italy's participation in monetary union.
For a long time, I have chosen Europe, a Europe of employment, of social progress, a democratic Europe, close to the people and respectful of national cultures, a Europe capable of standing up to America's hegemonic business.
I have opposed the Maastricht Treaty, with the single currency as its centrepiece, because I thought that it could not respond to this idea of Europe.
The Europe which has been developing subsequently has confirmed my fears.
Even if they are of some interest, the declarations and resolutions on social matters have not really corrected the heavy ultraliberal trends in the construction of Europe.
The single currency represents both a result and a new point of departure for a European Union which penalises the weak and favours the strong.
Rather than promoting cooperation, it aggravates competition between countries, between regions and between peoples.
I will quote the words of Mr Tietmayer, President of the German Bundesbank, one of the main architects of the euro: "the challenge today is to create conditions which promote sustainable growth and confidence among investors; we must therefore control public budgets, lower taxes and duties to reach a level which can be maintained in the long term, reform social protection systems, and get rid of the inflexibilities of the labour markets so that a new phase of growth will be achieved once again, but only when we make an effort at achieving flexibility in the labour markets' .
The euro will put the economic and social policies of the Member States in a straitjacket - one that Germany wanted to tighten still further with the so-called Waigel declaration at yesterday's Ecofin Council - without any real democratic supervision, either by national parliaments, or by the European Parliament.
This Europe, based on the single currency and its Stability Pact, will represent a significant obstacle to the new stages in the changes desired by the French, who voted for a left-wing government, and will prevent the existence of any truly transforming political will.
I have voted against the euro for all of these reasons.
As the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu recently pointed out: "We must choose between the confidence of the markets and the confidence of the people.
Any policy which aims to keep the confidence of the markets will lose the confidence of the people' .
For my part, I prefer the confidence of the people and to have confidence in them, for I believe that the struggle has not ended.
The increase in contradictions linked to the introduction of the euro could lead the people to impose other demands and other guidelines on the construction of Europe.
I intend to continue with the work of providing information and explanations with a view to contributing to the development and coordination of the struggles at European level, in the hope of putting employment, culture, social progress and democracy at the heart of the construction of Europe.
Today's extraordinary sitting marks the end of a chapter which opened with the Maastricht Treaty.
We are not yet witnessing the completion of monetary integration, which will be complete only when all the Member States of the European Union are also Members of EMU. I wish to add that I welcome the fact that the Ecofin Council has declared its conviction and its hope that my country will also be able to be part of EMU by 1 January 2001, on the same terms as the 11 countries which have already achieved convergence and the adoption of the euro.
However, the creation of the euro is already of historic importance.
It means the completion of the single market, which it serves and promotes.
It opens up extremely important opportunities for Europe to play a distinctive and decisive role in the world, not only in the world economy and in the markets.
Even more importantly, the euro means that a clear and positive political will will prevail over the "natural flow of things' in the economy and the markets!
It demonstrates the scope of European political will when it exists and when it is approached with consensus and determination.
I hope that political will of this kind will also be evident in the fight against unemployment and social exclusion, in promoting continuous growth and, of course, in the march towards the institutional and political integration of the European Union at a federal level.
We now have a fundamental tool, the euro.
Let us decide to use it to these ends.
With this evaluation, this hope and these demands, which are always the demands of the European, radical and ecological Left, I will vote "yes' to the proposal that is being put to us for the launching of the euro.
The most pious supporters of a federal Europe are claiming that Economic and Monetary Union is a miracle cure, boasting about its virtues on every occasion, and often, in the wrong context, happily asserting that the euro will promote even greater economic and social cohesion. They also maintain that it will contribute to the fight against unemployment, while Chancellor Kohl has clearly stated that "the euro will not create jobs' .
In reality, EMU is going to worsen the imbalances between the prosperous regions in the centre of Europe - the Benelux countries, the Paris region, the Rhine and Rhone valleys, northern Italy - and the peripheral regions, disadvantaged by their geographical distance - Finland, southern Italy, southern Spain -, as well as less populated rural regions.
When a market expands, we witness industrial specializations in every region and every town.
Every region and town will try to make the most of the situation.
While the regions which have the benefit of modern infrastructures can hope to pull through, by the same token the regions furthest from the economic centre of Europe, the agricultural regions, have a lot to fear from Economic and Monetary Union.
These areas, which are in fact much less densely populated, are smaller markets which the large industries will neglect, particularly since transport costs there will also be higher.
The effects these imbalances will have on the environment should be a cause for alarm.
Of course, the Structural Funds will be there to put a dressing on the wounds; the Community manna will come down to soothe the discontent.
However, according to distinguished economists such as Professor Rosa, even if the Structural Funds were used effectively, which is far from being the case at the moment, they will "no more be able to alleviate the local differences than aid from Milan has been able to resolve the problems of southern Italy' .
Once more, it has been shown that the Europe of the single currency is a Europe of selfishness, which condemns the weakest for the benefit of the few.
Here, as elsewhere, it is good form to congratulate ourselves on the creation of the euro.
However, in reality, many problems still remain and the promoters of the single currency willingly hide the negative consequences of the euro, particularly those affecting European agriculture.
The first false argument in favour of the euro concerns price stability.
I must firstly remind you, as I have already said and as I wrote in my report on agricultural prices, which will be presented to the plenary in June, agricultural prices and compensation are paid in green ECUs. We are now told that one euro will be equal to one ECU.
Will there be a green euro? There is no response from the Commission.
In the absence of a green euro, will there be a compensation coefficient? There is still no response from the Commission, apart from the fact that this will cost the Community budget ECU 400 million for each percentage point of discrepancy between the green ECU and the euro.
The current average discrepancy between the parity of the green ECU and the euro is 2.5 %.
A simple multiplication shows that the cost of introducing the euro for European agriculture should be of the order of ECU 1 billion, more than FF 6 billion.
Yet nobody is talking about this: neither the politicians in charge of agriculture, nor the professional agricultural organizations.
The euro will therefore hit prices and farmers' salaries.
The second false argument in favour of the euro concerns the abolition of agrimonetary measures.
During the last European Agriculture Council of 20 and 21 April 1998, a qualified majority adopted an amendment to Regulation No 724/97 establishing measures and compensation relating to appreciable revaluations that would affect farm incomes; this of course includes the Member States which would not participate in the euro.
The agrimonetary measures will therefore continue for the so-called "out' countries.
British farmers will have a "safety net' while their government, and many British Members of the European Parliament, continue to fiercely oppose the CAP and try only to ensure the total abolition of the Community preference, to the benefit of the globalization of trade.
Thus, contrary to what the great thinkers behind the euro had told us, agrimonetary measures will continue.
The third false argument in favour of the euro concerns its role as a counterweight to the dollar.
As we can see from the last OECD report on global agricultural forecasts, the European Union's market share in global exports of cereals, milk products and meat products is continuing and will continue to fall.
We all know that global rates are and will always be calculated in dollars.
The Chicago futures market is still there and will continue to be there.
The ECU was a basket of currencies which did not all react in the same way to the fluctuations of the dollar.
The ECU thus had a certain degree of stability.
The euro itself will fluctuate much more noticeably. I would remind you that refund values are defined for periods of two weeks.
In order to continue their work, European exporters are going to have to play poker and actually become speculators.
The Commission authorities will not take that risk; they demonstrated this recently in terms of export certificates.
That will be the greatest curb on European exports.
Some see in these difficulties the possibility of eventually doing away with even the principle of refunds and levies.
European markets will therefore be brought into line with world markets and the Community preference totally abolished.
The fourth false argument in favour of the euro concerns limiting the distortion of competition between Member States.
In his speech of 30 April before the European Parliament's committee responsible for economic, financial and monetary affairs, Commissioner de Silguy stated: "For example, apart from generating high unemployment, the countries participating in the euro with lower than average salaries cannot hope instantly to come into line with the level of wages paid in the wealthiest countries: they will firstly need an increase in the productivity of labour.'
French fruit and vegetable producers will appreciate that.
Spanish strawberries will be able to continue to oust French production.
Regardless of the type involved, specialized agriculture using a labour force will increasingly relocate to those Member States which have the lowest levels of salaries.
In fact, Commissioner de Silguy forgets that labour productivity, in macroeconomic terms, does not have the same value as the analysis of the productivity of sectoral labour.
Besides these false arguments, I agree of course with all the speeches made by colleagues from my group and I am voting against the introduction of the euro. European and French farmers will soon realize that the euro is, in reality, a tool to destroy the common agricultural policy, to this day the only common policy which works.
The Europe of monetary union must also be the citizens' Europe.
Although the term "historic' is much misused these days, it is nevertheless an appropriate one to describe the events of this weekend.
After twenty turbulent years we have now finally fired the starting pistol for the European single currency.
Something so often denounced as a pipe dream, as an illusion, is now becoming reality.
Little Luxembourg has always advocated a common currency.
We have always been quick to recognize the financial and economic advantages of being part of a large European single currency area.
As early as 1969 the then head of the Luxembourg government, Pierre Werner, set out the fundamental concepts for a single currency - in the so-called "Werner Report' - which today form the basis for monetary union.
The Luxembourg economy will profit from the euro.
For our mostly export-based companies the new monetary stability will mean less financial risk and greater savings, which will help improve the country's competitiveness.
In the long term this will certainly have a positive impact on the employment situation.
As Luxembourg is a relatively small country, its consumers are constantly having to deal with other currencies and therefore have to accept transaction costs and the problems of price comparison.
The euro will put an end to these problems - there will be no more irritating conversion costs and real transparency in cost comparisons.
Moreover, we can be proud of the fact that we are the only country to have concluded a consumer protection agreement with traders which guarantees a clear and proper transition period.
This means that there will be no hidden price increases and that prices will be displayed both in euros and in Luxembourg francs.
However, apart from these practical aspects, we must not lose sight of the political objectives and consequences arising from the introduction of a single currency.
The Euro represents a major step towards "the ever closer union of the peoples of Europe' .
The single currency is a powerful symbol of the deepening sense of common membership of Europe.
This deepening relationship will also be enjoyed by the Member States and monetary union will make common political decisions virtually inevitable.
We therefore need all EU Member States to join EMU sooner or later, so that they can participate in this process of merging together.
What is more, the euro makes Europe irreversible and as such it guarantees the security of future generations.
It only remains for me to express my hope that financial and economic cooperation will have its sociopolitical parallel, so that the Europe of Economic and Monetary Union will also become the citizens' Europe.
We hope that this day will go down in history as an "historic' one!
The Council, the Commission and the European Parliament have agreed to apply strange criteria in a peculiar way, by obscuring some of them. This has caused much ink to flow.
The result is that we have 11 countries instead of 15, it is a semi-failure. Monetary union is not unanimous.
Public opinion is hostile or resigned.
I must therefore oppose this premature decision which, right up until the last moment, has not followed any truly democratic procedures.
Floods of propaganda have led us to believe that for the euro, as for "the pudding, the proof is in the eating' .
We must now watch out to ensure that the monetary process does not carry everything along in its wake, thus depriving the Member States of a degree of economic manoeuvre. They will no longer be able to justify this to their citizens, who have agreed to numerous efforts for hypothetical benefits which are still being put off until tomorrow.
Europe's main problem today is unemployment: 20 million citizens are looking for work.
This is not inevitable, as we see the United States announcing at the same time that less than 5 % of its citizens are unemployed. Was it reasonable to omit employment from the criteria?
Politicians' satisfaction should be dependent on the satisfaction of the people.
The euro is a political currency, for which there is little economic justification. It is an important and supposedly irreversible step in the direction of a federal EU.
As EMU leads to closer political union, the basis for a federal EU will be strengthened.
Inevitable institutional reforms will follow on from EMU (loss of Member States' right of veto and increased decision-taking by a qualified majority), as well as a common foreign and defence policy, which will perhaps lead to non-aligned countries being coerced into NATO membership.
Most of the countries opting for membership do not really meet the convergence criteria of the Maastricht Treaty.
A political crime will have been committed in the name of criteria ratified by the parliaments of the various countries if the euro is introduced prematurely, before the correct economic preconditions are in place.
Under the Maastricht Treaty, monetary policy will pass into the hands of the Community, but the Stability Pact, the regulatory agreement entered into in Dublin is also an essential part of the EMU process.
It restricts the economic independence of individual states and deprives them of their own mechanisms for financial policy-making.
EU economic policy will be controlled by the cyclical problems of the larger Member States.
If the introduction of a single currency is to be justified in the various countries, those countries have to start to harmonize and standardize.
That will inexorably lead to deflation in Europe and the resultant continuation of mass unemployment.
Although the fixed exchange rates may be correct at the time EMU is born, and the currency stable, because of historical and structural differences in the various countries, the introduction of the euro could cause enormous problems.
It is because of these very differences between the countries involved that the benefits and disadvantages are unevenly shared.
The EMU will be under the control of the European Central Bank, which will be run undemocratically and in a nonparliamentary fashion.
The ECB will represent a huge step backwards in the development of political democracy.
It will be associated with the inviolable sanctity of markets and the irreversible transfer of power from politicians to so-called market forces.
There are no good economic reasons to have EMU.
There has never been a political solution which has made use of a political currency without corresponding policy-making, supervisory bodies and authorities.
It is not a union of states, that is to say a Europe of independent states, which is being built, but a federation: a political union with its supranational decision-making bodies.
This means that individual Member States will be forced to demonstrate, as a result of the decisions of others, a new kind of flexibility that will most probably prove to be intolerable to the trade union movement and the Nordic countries' model of the welfare state.
For the Nordic countries EMU means greater social inequality and, furthermore, greater inequality on grounds of gender.
My vote, which is in accordance with the views of the Nueva Izquierda party, is in favour of the proposal being made as to the countries to participate in the single currency.
I believe that the introduction of the single currency opens up a new perspective in the construction of Europe through the consolidation of the single market, but which needs, in turn, economic practices involving employment and fiscal harmonization policies, without forgetting that the objective is a Europe of solidarity and diversity.
I am voting in favour because I believe that, given the joint responsibility for the decision, I am entitled to continue to demand a fair fiscal policy which safeguards the entire acquis communautaire , particularly the welfare state, and to continue to work from now on towards political union.
We are here to take stock of the situation.
Faced with the forced euphoria and the streams of propaganda surrounding the 'euro-rush' , some of us, a minority, do not want to allow something we believe and our people feel to be a major political offence against our nations and against Europe to be completed in an atmosphere of general self-satisfaction.
As regards the single currency, we keep hearing about an irresistible and irreversible "sense of history' , which it would be useless to try to resist.
We must beware of utopian ideas: we have no excuses, we know where they lead.
When we are faced with a group of different societies and heterogeneous economies, as is the case today in the Europe of Eleven, or the Europe of Fifteen, and will be even more so tomorrow in the broader continental Europe, the imposition of a single currency, artificially forced on us, is a source of tensions and conflicts, while the fluctuation of exchange rates between different currencies is a source of peace.
Does recent history not teach us that artificial constructions are destined to collapse?
Even those who have limited diplomatic experience know that exchange-rate fluctuations act as an indicator of neutral and depersonalized management which help to take the heat out of conflicts, while in contrast the choices, orders and discriminations of a central authority bring them to the fore and add fuel to them.
How will the nations and the people who remain as distinct and as attached to the respect of their identity as we do, particularly those from the middle and lower classes, react in the face of the sanction mechanisms provided for by the Stability Pact? How will our people react in the face of judgments, condemnations, penalties and exclusions which will be personalized and which will directly challenge the management of the governments they have elected to implement their wishes?
How will they react to orders which from centralized bodies, whose location is clear, but which the citizens do not identify with: the Ecofin Council and, in particular, the "sovereign' European Central Bank?
Will they not consider them an intolerable interference?
When economic, social and cultural behaviour is not similar, the exchange rate seems to be an irreplaceable safety valve for avoiding the spread of a localized crisis throughout an entire geographic area.
Will the inflexibilities of a single currency not, on the contrary, facilitate the spread of local crises, to the point of directly threatening the stability of the whole of Europe, in the case of a major shock?
It is difficult to see, in any case, how such tensions can be overcome in the absence of a totally united European nation, which does not exist at all.
It is easy to see, however, how those tensions could be at the root of a disintegration of European unity, which has barely been achieved, and a resurgence, particularly between France and Germany, of forgotten antagonisms.
Will the euro not poison Franco-German relations over the years to come?
It does not augur well that the history of the ECB is beginning with a bitter quarrel over its president.
What will it be like then when the differences no longer concern people who share the same philosophy, but the fixing of interest rates on which the vitality of specific economies is dependent?
At a time when the nations have just freed themselves at least from the blocs which had tried to break them up, why try to create, in the form of the euro area, a "new type of empire' , according to Mr Moscovici's formula in Aix-la-Chapelle, a new bloc, in other words, a new source of division and confrontation in Europe? The mechanism of the single currency had been directly established by the Delors report, before the fall of the Berlin Wall, in a context where the blocs still existed.
Far from being the symbol of a new post-Soviet Europe, the euro is, on the contrary, the supreme symbol of a construction of Europe which was conceived during and out of the Cold War, and which has not been able to reconsider its foundations and objectives in the light of the new geopolitical situation.
Launching the euro today means launching the euro complete with all its risks.
The adventure is fraught with too many threats to be undertaken light-heartedly.
To try, with a Promethean approach, with the aid of the single currency, to force the homogenization of the present economies and societies of Europe's nations, is to go a step too far, and to risk overturning the entire reconciled European ship. It would also make it impossible to reunite the greater Europe that had nevertheless been destined to replace the Europe which was mutilated at Yalta.
Europe's strength resides in the synergy of the enterprising nations it is made up of, not in the elimination of their sovereignty in favour of central power.
We now talk about the construction of Europe as a kind of self-evident fact, at a time when, through monetary unification, we are setting about destroying the very spirit of European dynamism.
We could say instead that we are embarking on an adventure which will lead to self-destruction.
We will wonder tomorrow about the strange genesis of the single currency. Who wanted to see the end of national currencies and the creation of this single currency?
Which nations?
Where is the democracy?
What economic necessities forced it upon us? Where is the concern for the common good?
In reality, we are faced with a technocratic diktat drawn up by a small conniving circle and blindly adopted by the Heads of State or Government, who allowed themselves to be deprived of the responsibilities with which they had been entrusted by their people.
They have all subjected themselves to the arrogance of experts driven by a dream of power, to which the nations' persistence represents an obstacle and which they have therefore decided to reduce.
Because of this weakness of the Council the people and their wishes are totally absent from this debate.
The inventors of the single currency have found in it a pure instrument of supranationality, without any further trace of an intergovernmental element; this vital instrument will successively eliminate the decision-making national authorities which still remain.
The Stability Pact has already been beefed up by the Ecofin Council and the federalists have declared that the single currency will only be effective if we move very quickly towards greater cooperation and convergence. The process which we are condemning is working at full steam.
But this policy does not address the will of the people.
They do not want a construction of Europe based on confusion, where the Chancellor of the Exchequer presents us with proposals which his government does not agree with, and where the Members of the European Parliament from those countries which are not participating in EMU vote on the creation of a euro area to which their own countries do not belong.
We shall soon see that the people do not want a vague Europe built on a never-ending rush forwards. There are thresholds which must not be crossed.
The adoption of the single currency has established a process which could in fact lead the people one day to reject the whole idea of the construction of Europe.
The burden of responsibility on those who launched and who support such a project, and on those who support it, will then be clear for all to see.
We have rejected the Ecofin Council's recommendation so that the nations can continue to act for the common good, in the interests of the people they represent; we have rejected it so as to preserve the unity and stability of Europe and to ensure the lasting future of Franco-German friendship. In this respect, we believe that it is essential to maintain, in contrast to the "irreversible' process of the single currency which is put to us, the people's right to self-determination.
I abstained on the Council's recommendation.
I acknowledge the work that the United Kingdom Presidency has done, in difficult circumstances, to ensure a smooth transition to the third phase of EMU.
The eleven chosen countries clearly want to move to a single currency from 1 January 1999, and it was necessary that the Presidency did all it could to facilitate their wishes.
Nevertheless, I regret the whole project of Economic and Monetary Union, which has already resulted in great economic hardship and will inevitably cause further upheaval in the future.
The single currency, as most of its supporters acknowledge, is a political project.
It is a means to political union.
Unfortunately, this has not been made clear to the citizens of Europe.
They have not consented to the growth in European Union powers which will inevitably result from EMU.
Nor are the democratic structures of the EU such as to guarantee that those powers will be adequately controlled.
The single currency project has been driven by faith, not reason.
No arguments against it have been listened to since the Maastricht Treaty.
This is a modern 'March of Folly' .
Now that the decision has been made, we must all hope that the single currency is a success.
I fear, however, that it will result either in recession and unemployment in the less competitive Member countries, or in a huge increase in the EU's powers and budget, against the wishes of our citizens.
I could not welcome either outcome.
Personally, I wished to abstain from today's historic vote.
I am aware of the importance of the decision we have just taken.
The idea of a single currency is perhaps attractive, but I have always expressed strong reservations about its introduction by a limited number of Member States.
I have always expressed my conviction that the single currency should have been the crowning achievement of the European Union, and not a means among others of attaining it.
We have just launched the euro with only 11 of 15 countries; I regret this deeply.
The premature nature of the introduction of the euro will have destabilizing economic, political and social effects, and today we still cannot measure the extent of these effects.
That is why I will not be able to reconsider my position on the euro until the day when all 15 Member States participate in Economic and Monetary Union.
The birth of the euro signals the march towards the integration of the notion of a Europe of capitalism, of multinationalism, of despotism and repression.
The road to Calvary is becoming ever steeper and more inaccessible for working people.
A Europe without borders and without discrimination, a Europe of the people, of working people, of cooperation, of peace and democracy, remains the dream of millions of European citizens, of working people who continue to fight tirelessly for their own society of justice and equality, of harmonious development, the centrepiece of which should be mankind and universal values, not profit and money.
The euro will impede this struggle and place yet another foundation stone in a society of exploitation and social injustice.
This common feeling has, however, been crudely brought about by the callous policy of the current leaders of the EU and of the Member States.
Popular opposition to the plans of the multinationals will become ever more intense and they will not allow their plans to succeed.
The introduction of the common currency is accompanied by the breaking up of the so-called European social state, with dramatic repercussions for the employment, social and social security rights of working people.
The stance of the European Parliament has not reflected the responsibilities of those who, with their decisions and their policy, have contributed to this catastrophic state of affairs. On the contrary, it gave the go-ahead to the Heads of States and Government and to the notorious Ecofin Council to continue their reactionary and unpopular policy.
The pacts of stability and financial discipline, of "locking into' exchange rate parities, are the means by which an extreme monetarist policy is being implemented, which seeks to safeguard the interests of the money markets and to force the Member States to adopt an economic policy in the interests of those markets.
The so-called independence of the European Central Bank, which is now being set up, will effectively marginalize people and allow the money markets to make decisions not only without the irksome interventions of popular movements but also without the intervention of governments themselves.
Exploitation and austerity, attempts to overthrow the social security system and the dismantling of labour relations will become even more acute in the context of the draconian measures of the agreements and provisions to promote the euro and the strengthened multilateral control mechanisms.
When the dust has settled after all the celebrations, the phoney image of European integration and the false visions will soon be replaced by the true picture of the human misery which will overrun Europe, working people and nations alike.
The nominal convergence criteria will come into conflict with real divergence within the economies of the Member States, reflecting social conflicts and the relative and absolute degradation to which working people throughout Europe are being driven.
This will highlight even more clearly the consequences for Europe of multiple speeds and concentric circles.
Whatever happens, as long as the power and the interests of the money markets are armour-plated, social opposition will spiral.
The workers will fight to overthrow this stable structure.
They will build their own Europe, a Europe centred around mankind, a Europe of peace, of mutually beneficial cooperation, of progress and social prosperity.
A Europe of Socialism.
I have been the only Portuguese Member on the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in an active capacity from the beginning of the legislative process. Thus, in addition to taking part in the exciting day-to-day work of creating the euro and all the legislative and political measures necessary for its introduction, I have had the opportunity of being one of the Members who drafted one the 14 reports prepared on the subject and approved by the European Parliament since 1995.
It has been a colossal task, but extremely rewarding.
I have held from the start that the euro should be introduced by the greatest possible number of countries on 1 January 1999, and that delaying this step would have enormously serious political and economic consequences for the kind of EU I believe in and for the future of Europe.
The euro will lead to far greater integration of economic, fiscal and employment policies and to a clear increase in support for education, scientific and technological development and professional training for Europeans.
This challenge is not an easy one, nor is it without obstacles; but, just as Portugal has successfully taken it up and for the first time joined the group of countries that is inaugurating an historic change of direction such as the one we are now involved in, so the EU has shown that with political will and determination it is possible to overcome internal and external opposition to change and has moved forward to create a political area that will be carry weight in the world.
That is why I have voted in favour of the decision on the eleven countries to be included in the third stage of EMU as from 1 January 1999.
I have voted for the adoption of the euro on 1 January 1999.
This I have done in the conviction that this decision is in the interests of the citizens who elected me to this House.
Whether this conviction is shared by the citizens of Europe themselves, at least by those in Germany, is open to doubt.
The democratic deficit of the European Union has in turn resulted in a serious information deficit.
The abundant distribution of glossy brochures cannot compensate for this.
Advertising can never be a substitute for forming democratic opinion.
No arrangement was ever made with the citizens of the European Union that the new currency area was to be a political area which would in future compel their governments to speak with one voice in monetary and economic negotiations conducted at international level.
I shall therefore continue to advocate that the opportunity to hold referenda on issues affecting all the citizens of the Union should in future be part of the obligatory democratic conditions of membership of the European Union and that this provision must also be adopted in Germany.
Many people have spoken of an historic moment today.
They are right. The strange thing is that seldom has such a radical decision been taken in such a careless way.
Council, Commission and Parliament have stretched the admission criteria to such an extent that EMU is starting up with a group of countries which is too large and too heterogeneous.
The structural budget deficits of two participants are well over three percent of their GDP, despite economic window dressing.
Ideas on economic policy and the role of the government are in some cases diametrically opposed to each other.
In this context it is irresponsible of Member States to let very important policy instruments slip from their hands to be left to the whims of occasional coalitions in Ecofin and the Euro 11 Council.
The larger groups in the EP are furiously working on the problem of pensions.
The importance of reducing the public debt is obvious, in view of the future ageing of the population.
While a paragraph on this was removed from the resolution, a corresponding passage in the Council's statement seems to command universal support.
Careless? Anyway, hardly confidence inspiring.
I am against the formation of EMU and the introduction of the euro for political reasons.
But the amazingly superficial lack of care is yet one more reason for voting against.
We the undersigned, representing the Finnish Central Party in the European Parliament, support the position of our party, which is taking a stand against both the establishment of a single currency and Finland's presence among the first countries participating in the third stage of EMU.
We oppose the decision to take Economic and Monetary Union into the third stage as well as Finland's presence in the process for both political and economic reasons.
Economic and Monetary Union will lead to a federalized Europe.
This we oppose: we think that the Union should have developed into an alliance of independent states.
The EU will not be able to create an optimal situation where a single currency region could work successfully.
Earlier attempts to create a common currency exchange rate policy for the EU failed.
The last currency hullabaloo took place at the start of this decade when the exchange rates of many key Member States also changed.
It is unrealistic to suppose that the economies of EU Member States could in some way have harmonized since then, and that a single currency could work successfully.
All this aside, when monetary union comes about, there will be a growing need to bring in measures to redress increasing discrepancies in regional development and to support Member States when they suffer particular hardship for economic or structural reasons.
We also oppose the draft resolution prepared for Parliament, particularly because Finland should, in our opinion, have aligned herself with Britain, Denmark and Sweden in opting out of the third stage of monetary union.
Switching to a single currency is an immense political undertaking.
The countries participating will lose their own currency, which means serious restrictions on the independence of their economic policy.
Thus, Finland will acquire a currency whose interest rate level and value against other currencies we shall have no real influence on.
The economic policies and development of other countries will, instead, have a decisive effect on our own economy and society.
Finland is a geographically remote country: we are a long way from the principal EU markets.
The structure of our society and economy differs greatly from that prevailing in core Europe. Finland will surely suffer on account of the single currency, both structurally and economically.
In setting up monetary union no one has taken stock of these problems in any way.
A single currency in the European Union constitutes a huge step towards European integration.
It makes the union of Europe a perceptible reality for all its citizens and creates a new sense of mutual responsibility for all the countries and companies of the EU.
A single currency can therefore represent a significant step towards overcoming nationalism.
The euro will bring a series of economic benefits and in the long term could well become a counterbalance to the global power of the US dollar.
For this reason I am today supporting Mr von Wogau's report on the Council's recommendation.
But this is not the time for Parliament to start cheering about the current state of monetary union.
There have been too many bad decisions in an economic policy which has been one-sidedly monetarist. There was the appalling failure of the Amsterdam Summit to initiate the political union which is necessary for monetary union and finally to give European integration a social and employment policy dimension.
A scandalous ignorance has been displayed in the practical development of monetary union in the face of mass unemployment, the creation of a new type of poverty and the increasingly unjust distribution of wealth and income.
These mistakes make it all the more difficult for the citizens of Europe to accept the integration project and have created serious social problems.
The Green Group has been resolutely opposed to this abuse of the fundamental concept of a single currency by the prevailing and increasingly militant neo-liberal ideology and the undue influence exerted by the financial markets.
In spite of these highly questionable circumstances, I am aware of the reality of the situation which has been created by the established political forces and which at this advanced stage makes it impossible, without undue risk, to make good the failed attempts to establish political and social integration before we finally enter monetary union.
However, I do not wish to ignore the fact that positive developments have been achieved in recent months and that these have clearly helped to reduce many of the risks.
Notable among these is the decision to launch monetary union with eleven participating countries and thus to avert the risk of splitting the Union by creating a "core Europe' .
We also welcome the wide political discretion which was used when interpreting the convergence criteria, in the same way as the tentative, though still completely inadequate, steps towards a coordinated economic policy, the ending of the destructive practice of tax dumping and the creation of a European employment policy.
The development of a political union, which has so far eluded us, the setting up of a European democracy and the creation of a social union are all indispensable and these will remain the crucial challenge for European integration over the next four years.
Adjournment of the session
Parliament has completed its agenda.
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 1.06 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 2 May 1998.
Mr President, a very quick point of order to express the wish that the Commission may rapidly set aside an adequate sum to deal with the serious disaster which hit Campania and the Sarno valley.
Mr President, I had already asked to speak, but you were sensitive enough to open this sitting by immediately remembering the victims in the Sarno valley.
I would like to thank you and Professor Monti for this solidarity.
Parliament must urge the European Council and the Commission to intervene effectively, so that these tortured people - whom I have visited and seen for myself the conditions in which they are living - can know that Europe is not far away.
Mr President, I would like to thank you for the sensitivity you have shown, by dedicating the opening of this sitting to the tragedy which took place in Campania.
I hope very much that the warmth of feeling and sensitivity shown by my colleagues who applauded your initiative and the sensitivity shown by Commissioner Monti, who made some promises, will truly allow Italy to feel that Europe is close at hand at these tragic times.
Mr President, I would like to know if there is anything you can do to find out why Air France has cancelled its regular and special flights to Strasbourg.
Yesterday it took me 14 hours to get here.
When I finally arrived in Strasbourg - which is an enchanting city and the headquarters of this Parliament - I was so tired I felt like I had travelled to India.
I would therefore be very grateful, Mr President, if you could do something to find out why the Air France flights have been cancelled.
Secondly, since you opened this sitting with sympathy for the catastrophe in Italy, I would be grateful if you could also mention another enormous catastrophe - not in terms of human life, but in terms of people's livelihoods, and the unique European habitat of the Doñana national park.
I would be grateful if you could express our solidarity to the relevant authorities.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza.
I shall do so.
Mr President, on behalf of the Spanish Socialists, I want to express my condolences to Mr Pomés Ruiz for the murder of a fellow politician, and join in with the condemnation of this vile attack and the murder of the civil guard, Mr Parada.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our painful denunciation of the assassinations of two more European citizens is not just a ritual. In the face of the murderer's fascist irrationality, we are affirming once again the principles which form the basis for the construction of the European Union: democratic coexistence, respect for minorities, and the recognition of the wishes of the majority.
By saying "no' to attempts to establish violence as a way of imposing the will of visionaries, we are restating our decision to defend democracy, using democratic methods and means.
This is not to be seen as weakness but rather as an expression of our profound conviction that although irrational, fascist violence can kill democrats, it can never assassinate democracy.
The pain we feel for the victims and our sympathy with the people closest to them commit us to the cause they stood for and for which they were murdered.
So, in saying "no' to any form of fascism - though it may be disguised as nationalism - it is worth remembering that while cowards might murder European democrats, they cannot weaken our conviction nor breach our solidarity.
Mr President, while endorsing what my colleague Mrs Ahern has said about the Indian nuclear tests, I wish to draw to the attention of the House that this week in the UK it is Christian Aid week.
I would hope that we could send a very clear message from this Parliament to the G8 meeting in Birmingham that we are all in favour of them urgently addressing the issue of world debt.
This is killing so many millions of people, especially young children, and I do not think that we would wish to neglect sending a very clear message that they must now at last resolve the issue of world debt and the way it is affecting young children in particular in the Third World.
Mr President, I am attending the European Parliament for the first time, and I am also a regional councillor for Campania, therefore I must mention your consideration for the people of our region who were affected in recent days by the mud slide, a tragedy which has destroyed whole communities, and caused victims, while there are still many people missing in the rubble.
I should also like to emphasize that our region is living through, and now paying the price of, an insane policy over recent decades and that an intervention plan is therefore necessary, which the region is preparing through a plan for the monitoring, identification and prevention of natural disasters.
All of this also requires the effort and solidarity of the European Union however, and I therefore thank you and all my colleagues who have asked the European Commission to intervene as quickly as possible to give a tangible sign of European solidarity towards our region.
Mr President, going back to what my colleagues Mr Pomés Ruiz, Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Gutiérrez Díaz said, I also want to express my condemnation of the outrages in the Basque Country and Navarre last week, and our condolences to the victims and their families.
Thank you very much, Mr Vallvé.
Request for the waiver of Mr Ribeiro Campos' immunity
The next item is the report (A4-0155/98) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr António Carlos Ribeiro Campos.
Mr President, it is my honour to present, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, this report on the Portuguese authorities' request for the waiver of the parliamentary immunity of our colleague in this House, Mr Ribeiro Campos.
The conclusion reached by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, by seven votes in favour to two against, is that there are NO grounds for a decision from this Parliament in relation to the Portuguese authorities' request, because the dossier they sent does not provide sufficient reason.
I will return to this later.
Secondly and in parallel, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure has declared itself in favour of Parliament's report making it clear that there would be NO obstacle placed in the way of Mr Ribeiro Campos appearing in court - although this would have to be in the capacity of a witness, without the slightest compromise to his rights - especially those rights he enjoys as a Member of this Parliament - and, of course, without any coercion.
So the measure adopted by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities is in two parts: NO reason for a decision and NO objection on Parliament's part to Mr Ribeiro Campos appearing and being heard in these proceedings.
Mr President, this is actually an old problem, which we have been dealing with in this Parliament since at least 1976, ever since the election of MEPs by direct universal suffrage made people realize that there was a need for a single MEP's statute.
This is a very clear demonstration of the problems caused by not having a single MEP's statute.
Because in order to examine this question, we have to refer to Article 10 of the 1965 Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Communities, the 1976 Act concerning the Election of Representatives of the European Parliament, and the Constitution or legislation of each Member State. The situations in the Member States are very diverse: no parliamentary immunity in the UK, and others with a totally different type of parliamentary immunity.
That creates unnecessary differences.
This Parliament increasingly represents the citizens of Europe.
So there should be mechanisms to protect its Members - because parliamentary immunity is nothing more than protection for the work they do in this Parliament.
And that protection should be provided with full respect for the principle of equality between Members.
In that sense, Mr President, I should like to go back to the second part of the decision adopted by a wide majority in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Notwithstanding the disparity caused by referring to the legislations of the various Member States, as Community legislation obliges us to do, that committee has been trying for a long time to establish a jurisprudence - a line of conduct to constitute a common practice.
And the basis of that line of conduct should be an absence of artificial differences between an MEP and a normal citizen.
An MEP is a normal citizen in the eyes of the law, but he or she is also a representative of the people and, as such, should be protected against legal proceedings which might compromise, not themselves, but what they represent - compromising the citizens of Europe, in fact.
That, Mr President, is the reason for the clarification in the second part of the decision adopted by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
What that committee wants to convey to the Portuguese authorities is that it places no obstacle, but upholds the guarantees to which any Member of this Parliament is entitled, by the very fact of being so.
Therefore, the committee clearly states that at the moment there are no grounds for a waiver of immunity, and requests that we should be sent more information once the proceedings have reached a more advanced stage. Meanwhile, there is no objection to Mr Ribeiro Campos being heard under these conditions.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking Palacio Vallelersundi for an absolutely excellent report, the conclusions of which I entirely agree with.
Let me say also that the matter of principle which we discussed in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities concerns where in the judicial process parliamentary immunity shall start to apply.
It thus turns on a judicial process which can be said to extend from an inquiry via preliminary investigation to prosecution, judgement and sentencing.
The question is therefore where in this process parliamentary immunity shall start to apply.
As we know, there are instances of parliamentary immunity which cover solely the actual penalty; one can be prosecuted and judged, therefore, but not punished.
However, immunity of this kind does not apply to Members of the European Parliament.
We end instead before the point of prosecution.
The principal question is then whether a preliminary investigation, as is involved in this case, shall also be covered by our immunity or not. We have of course decided that it is not covered by our immunity.
The Portuguese authorities may accordingly initiate preliminary investigations in this case, but if they reach the point of prosecution, in the case of Mr Campos, they must come back with a request for the lifting of immunity.
There are two reasons why we do not consider that a preliminary investigation should be included in the requirements for immunity: In the first place, it can be said that a preliminary investigation is needed to clarify the exact nature of any offences which the person is said to have perpetrated; a preliminary investigation can thus clarify the situation for us here in the Parliament.
The second reason is precisely that mentioned by Palacio Vallelersundi, namely that we would like to minimize this right to immunity as much as possible and ensure that it will not imply any privilege for Members of this Parliament.
It shall instead be just what it is intended to be, namely a safeguard for our freedom of expression.
With that I would like to call for this report to be approved.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Request for the waiver of Mr Rosado Fernandes' immunity
The next item is the report (A4-0154/98) by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for waiver of the parliamentary immunity of Mr Raúl Miguel Rosado Fernandes.
Mr President, although the facts, it is true, are different from those in Mrs Palacio's earlier report on Mr Campos, this request is in fact concerned with the same thing.
The Portuguese Public Prosecution Service wishes to start enquiries into the charges which, although not otherwise relevant here, are concerned in both cases with charges of misuse of European Union agriculture funds.
We, in Parliament, have gradually built up a law of precedent and in this case, indeed in both cases, we could say that it is a matter of fumus persecutionis .
Nevertheless, we do not want to do that, precisely because in recent years we have taken the line that we ought not to give the press and public any reason at all to think that we would wish to protect our Members, and that they can do or say virtually anything without sanctions by availing themselves of parliamentary immunity.
Parliamentary immunity is intended, and must be used and continue to be used, so that the institution as such can safeguard itself from the obstruction of our duties as a co-legislator in the meantime.
This means that Members as individuals cannot claim protection against criminal investigation.
This brings us right to the heart of the problem that lies before us today in Mrs Palacio's and my reports.
Article 10 of the Protocol says that Members enjoy 'in the territory of their own State, the immunities accorded to members of their parliament' .
Members of Parliament in Portugal cannot be cross-examined, not even as witnesses - Mr President, I must just explain this - without their immunity being formally waived, whereas we assume that no waiver of immunity is needed for our Members to be cross-examined.
Once again we are having to pay for the lack of a detailed statute of our own and equal immunity for all our Members regardless of their nationality.
It is high time that the Bureau came up with the necessary proposals for this, which have been held up as false hopes for so long, otherwise, yet again, nothing will come of it before the next session.
My committee has tried time and time again to come to an informal agreement with the Portuguese authorities, because this is certainly not the first time that the Member State of Portugal has asked us to waive immunity, in particular with regard to Mr Campos.
We invariably reply that the authorities can proceed with their cross-examination and enquiries as long as Parliament as an institution, or in this case the Members concerned, are able to carry out their duties freely and without disruption.
After all, the question of waiver of immunity cannot arise for us yet, because no charges, criminal or otherwise, have yet been brought.
A delegation from our committee will soon be making a working visit to Portugal to raise this issue once again, when it will be done directly and not only through an exchange of correspondence with colleagues from the Portuguese Parliament and the relevant authorities at the Ministry of Justice.
Meanwhile, we stick to our proposal not to respond positively or negatively to this request.
We ask the Public Prosecution Service to conduct the necessary enquiries, including cross-examining the Members, but to keep us informed and not to take any measures against the Members in question which could prevent them from carrying out their duties in our institution before we have been given an opportunity to express our view.
Mrs Palacio and I ask the House to support this recommendation.
Mr President, I would like to say again that I have no objections whatsoever to the report which Mr Wijsenbeek has drawn up.
As he himself says, the question of principle of course is actually the same as in the previous business, that is whether a prosecutor shall have the right to initiate a preliminary investigation, or whether this requires us to lift Members' immunity.
In this case the same resolution applies as in the Campos case.
However, there is a certain difference between these two cases which may merit attention.
I believe that we are almost completely in agreement in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities as regards what parliamentary immunity shall actually cover, to be precise, freedom of expression for we Members; it must not therefore be able to be restricted in any way.
In principle, this means that we shall not be able to be prosecuted for anything which is said from the rostrums in this House.
We are likewise completely in agreement that when it is a question of "ordinary' violations, that is to say criminal offences, then we Members of Parliament shall quite simply be able to be prosecuted and our immunity lifted.
However, I should like to point out that there is a grey area between these two extremes.
It is thus conceivable for a Member to make a speech in Parliament which he cannot be prosecuted for.
If the Member then returns to his native country and makes exactly the same speech, with a political content, shall he then be able to be prosecuted for this?
Are we thus to lift his immunity for this? This is roughly what applies in the Campos case, but does not apply in this other case, which concerns a possible offence entirely unrelated to work as a Member of the European Parliament.
With these detailed observations I wish to congratulate the rapporteur once again on a quite excellent report.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Legal protection of biotechnological inventions
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0170/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position established by the Council (C4-0132/98-95/0350(COD)) with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions (Rapporteur: Mr Rothley).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I recommend that the European Parliament should not adopt any amendments to the common position.
I have been rapporteur for ten years.
If this directive is adopted, I shall have everything that I want.
The time is ripe for a decision.
We need clear rules: what needs to be protected in the field of biotechnology, and what does not?
Basically, the common position of the Council includes the proposals that Parliament accepted by a large majority at first reading.
We need a decision by the European legislature.
This field is not regulated either by national patent legislation or by the European Patent Convention.
That is why it is our own task to ensure that there is legal certainty in the European Union, and it is our duty to avoid legal fragmentation.
The following points have played a role in the discussion: the Convention on Biodiversity, the so-called Rio Convention.
Incidentally, the Convention gives explicit recognition to patents and other forms of protection of intellectual property.
I want both the European Union and the European Parliament to adhere strictly to the Rio Convention, and want us to do all that we can to ensure that what was intended under this Convention actually becomes a reality.
Next year we shall review the TRIPs Agreement.
If it should become clear that it is really necessary to revise the TRIPs Agreement, I shall certainly be one of those calling for it to be revised and for the directive to be changed.
But we do not know that yet.
I have already said that regulation is also being extended to what does not need to be protected.
The discussion about the human body that has lasted for years has found expression in formulations which the Council has accepted word for word.
As far as cloning is concerned, the Council has adopted a stricter formulation than the European Parliament.
In the case of the gene sequence, which was very controversial in the first proposal, we now have a clear ruling.
In relation to animals, the Council has deleted the following words, "suffering of animals' and "physical impairment' .
I would point out that in the directive on animal experiments, reference is made only to "suffering' .
I cannot believe that because of these words, which have no independent significance, we would give serious thought to actually starting a conciliation procedure.
In relation to the use of embryos, the Council has set some limitations: they are not to be used for industrial or commercial purposes.
But I would only ask you to remember that this was done with the United Kingdom in mind.
We cannot as European legislators decree that something which does not contravene the underlying legal principles of all Member States is a contravention of public order, and we cannot brand something that we do not jointly regard as abhorrent as a contravention of common decency.
That is not acceptable!
It is only exemplary in any case, that is to say, other ways of using embryos may be investigated with the proviso that they do not contravene public order and common decency for other reasons.
What are we dealing with here? We have to rise to the challenges of the 21st century.
We in the European Union have been left behind, in computer technology, entertainment electronics, laser technology, solar technology, information technology, and so on. How can we expect to win the battle for the future?
How can we expect to create jobs? Not by giving each other hair cuts, I imagine!
This is not just a directive for European industry.
No, this is also a directive for research institutes, attached to the State, to universities or to private companies, which are funded by licence fees for the patented results of their research.
Do we want to chop off the legs of this research? Do we really want to destroy the financial basis of this research?
Research means investment.
Investment means jobs.
And if you reject this directive - with respect, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf - then please do not sign any more resolutions against unemployment.
The European Parliament can consolidate its role as colegislator of the European Union with this directive.
The time is ripe for a decision.
We shall take this decision tomorrow.
(Applause)
Mr President, in Europe a directive is required which harmonizes the procedures for patenting biotechnological inventions.
The question has been open for more than ten years.
Finally it can be closed, by approving the balanced and efficient text of the common position established by the Council without further amendment.
I agree with the report drawn up by Mr Rothley.
There is an urgent need for order and clarity in a situation which is chaotic and confused, to avoid disagreements in interpretation and age-old disputes which continue to penalize Europe, leaving the way clear for the large American and Japanese multinationals.
This directive is the result of the urgent need to define European rules, given the framework of standards which is becoming more precise and detailed at international level: the Council of Europe's Convention on Biomedicine and Human Rights and the Rio Convention on Biodiversity, which is now subject to verification in Bratislava.
Anyone who has not accepted from today the establishment of the directive in discussion considers that the patent, in the context of a global economy which does not allow marginal or exceptional solutions, is fundamental to guarantee research, allow control, circulate results, and encourage the consequent widespread economic development.
As for biotechnology, it is a retrograde step, in my view, to state an ideological and prejudicial "no' , although I respect that.
In my view, it is necessary to govern it, direct it, deal with the specific and restricted sphere of patenting methods, fixing precise and insurmountable ethical limits; this is the specific European dimension, on the basis of the proposals which our Parliament put forward at first reading.
I do not recall the features of the text which are stated here.
Much inaccurate criticism was expressed on the agreement reached; it should be confirmed that it is not true that techniques of genome line genetic engineering can be patented; it is not true that blocking patents can be created, because the patent confers rights on the process which refer to a drug restricted only to the function shown.
I cannot underestimate the possible imbalances damaging agriculture and favouring industry and the risks of aggressive exploitation in the South of the world.
Europe must be in the forefront in fighting for effective cooperation and choices which are consistent with the protection of biodiversity, respecting nature and the rights of people, but it must do it with courageous policies, it is not with the ability to give patents and with this directive that one can have an instrument for this purpose.
For this directive we must think positively however, when looking at the future of biotechnology.
To those who call to mind suggestive and frightening images of pig men or new Frankensteins, as Dario Fo stated recently, I recall other monsters, real and not imaginary: serious illnesses which are not yet beaten, scourges such as cancer and AIDS.
This directive can help us to conquer them, giving certainties in terms of regulations to research and industry.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur for his patience, his commitment and his incredible staying power during this ten year legislative procedure.
I would like with wholehearted conviction to support his recommendation that we accept the common position unchanged.
I, too, recognize explicitly that the common position which is now before us represents an improvement over the first text. It presents many things in a way which is textually clearer and more easily understood.
Nonetheless, I cannot refrain from pointing out that in the case of the second draft, which is now before us in the shape of the common position, we are not dealing with any basic change to the result that we achieved in the Conciliation Committee.
At that time, the Group of the European People's Party voted by an overwhelming majority for the compromise reached in the Conciliation Committee, and it is fully behind it.
I would like to point this out in order to counteract the impression that a genuinely acceptable text has become available only in the context of the second legislative procedure.
Nonetheless, as I have already said, the present text is more clearly drafted and for that reason it is to be welcomed.
Any problems in relation to the acceptability of this directive are based on a fundamental misunderstanding.
It is assumed, for example, that all concerns in the area of ethics also need to be regulated in the context of the patent directive.
That is to miss a number of points.
On the one hand, patenting an invention does not in any sense mean that the patent holder is also allowed to deploy it or even to make use of it on an industrial scale.
National laws alone determine this.
In the field of biotechnology, these are, in Germany for example, in the first case the Gene Technology Act, the Embryo Protection Act, and law on medicine.
If standardization is desired in this field, we shall need a European Gene Technology Act and a European Embryo Protection Act, but you cannot make a start on this in the context of the bio-patents directive.
In addition, and contrary to the first impression, the rejection of a patent application, in other words the refusal of patent protection, does not mean that all exploitation of the invention is excluded.
It simply means that it is then freely available for anyone to use, provided that its use is permissible under general national laws.
It is important to point this out in order to gain an understanding of the directive, be it in its first or second draft, and in order to classify it correctly in terms of its legal character.
Only if we bear these aspects in mind will we be in a position to take an objective view in the context of this legislative procedure.
Patent law is not an instrument for postulating a European legal and moral order.
In this respect, I give my unreserved agreement to the substantive explanations of the rapporteur.
We need this directive, and if we adopt it tomorrow, as I hope we do, by agreeing to the common position, we shall achieve a strengthening of Europe's attraction as a location for biotechnology, and as a result we shall be able to hold our ground far better in terms of the law of competition.
Mr President, we will vote against both the common position and the Rothley report since it approaches this issue, which is of vital importance for the present and future of mankind alike, with technocratic and financial regulations. Nor does it provide for and establish rules and strict, pre-emptive, repressive, continuous and effective controls to prevent the risk of causing an affront to mankind and nature and the overturning of social life and of human growth and development.
On the contrary, we believe that, whether the report or the common position wishes it or not, these regulations make it easier for oligopolies and monopolies to lay their hands on these biotechnological discoveries and inventions and to apply them on behalf - always - of their own unregulated and inhuman profit.
For this reason I said that we would vote against the report and the common position and we request that they receive a radical overhaul in a direction and with a content which correspond to the true mission of science, which is at the behest of mankind. Finally science, with its discoveries, must enable mankind to make its life better and more secure and not to make it worse and to place it in danger of being destroyed by a holocaust.
Madam President, the Green Group's opposition to this directive is well known, and our motives are also well known and clear.
The directive proposes to patent living organisms, their genes and parts of their body, including those of mankind.
This is an absurdity clear to each and every citizen: a living organism is not an object, a thing, an invention, even if some of its genes are modified, using biological systems which exist in nature.
At most these genes are discovered, but the discoveries cannot be patented.
We are not prejudicially against patenting techniques which allow modified organisms to be obtained or to isolate and replicate genes: but this does not authorize the patenting of organisms and genes.
Genes are information, information which is written with a molecular alphabet, and this information is the property of the person to whom it belongs; it can be stated at most that it is the collective property of humanity, but it cannot be for any industry to transform it into goods.
To define this information as patentable - for example a human gene when it is isolated and reproduced outside the body - is like stating that the literary writings of Homer, Dante or Shakespeare - today the cultural property of humanity - can be patented if they are reproduced on another system which is the result of human technology, such as a compact disc for example.
I think we all agree that it is the compact disc which can be patented, not the work of Dante or Shakespeare.
And in the same way the technologies can be patented, not the genes and organisms.
This logic may lead to very dangerous consequences: for example it questions the Convention on Biodiversity, and the sole objective is the companies' profits.
For this reason we think that it is not acceptable to patent living organisms, and to do so constitutes above all a dangerous block for scientific research, as stated by the National Institute of Health in the United States of America, which now refuses to patent genes.
In addition, gene therapy will only be available for the most common diseases, given that the companies will not be interested in developing therapy for rare diseases which cannot offer sufficient profits.
The European Parliament has already modified this directive, but the Council has rejected all the amendments which we have proposed, in particular for bio-piracy, concerning the "farmers' privilege' and the mistreatment of animals.
For all these reasons we the Greens state that this directive must be rejected, or at least the amendments which were approved by the Parliament must be reinstated.
Madam President, my group will be voting against this directive.
I would like wholeheartedly to endorse what was said by the last two speakers - Mr Ephremidis and the speaker from the Greens - and re-echo all their points about the debasing of the currency of humanity.
It seems to me we are being asked to give carte blanche to multinationals' profit motive in the pharmaceutical sector.
I do not think that sector needs a lot of sympathy from us.
We are really being asked to be the handmaidens of patent law.
Some of the claims that have been made have been quite false.
We were told that the common position takes into account 66 crucial amendments that Parliament passed, but on examination you find that is not the case.
And yet that has been put about, making people who object to this seem unreasonable.
But in fact some have been changed, some have been deleted.
I give an example of Amendment No 13 where the word 'rights' is omitted and only the word 'obligations' remains.
I take issue with that.
There is also a contradiction in the way the supporters of this directive are putting it forward.
They are able to say 'we are against patenting the human body' , but then they are making it legal to give a patent on an isolated gene on a gene sequence.
There is a certain misleading aspect to much of this publicity.
The claim is that legislation is needed to prevent a patchwork of national laws on intellectual property rights.
It interferes with the single market.
But surely ethical considerations are much more important than that. We cannot leave our humanity behind us just to talk about patent law.
I have a letter from Mr De Clercq, the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on which I sit, who argues that the present lack of protection is causing a brain drain of research towards the US and Japan. I say that is another question altogether.
There are many false claims being put forward that multinationals will not advance this competitive market of drugs unless they get this particular protection.
While I am sympathetic to patient groups, many of the patient groups have come to me and said they were misrepresented.
I really regard this as a very serious matter for Parliament! I appeal to your common humanity to deal with it correctly.
Madam President, unless the amendments are adopted, I, too, will be voting against this directive.
The reasons for this are many and varied and time does not permit me to elaborate on many of them here, but two matters are of particular importance to me.
On the one hand, I do not believe that the Council's common position actually safeguards research into rare diseases, and on the other hand, the common position makes it extremely difficult for us to meet our obligations to the poorest part of the world.
I still have a serious problem with the patenting of genes.
A gene is a piece of information and it does not really make sense to say that you can take out a patent on a copy of a gene, that is, patent a piece of genetic information, because the difference is so slight, if there is indeed any difference at all.
I can agree with the idea of taking out a patent on the information concerning a very specific application of the gene, but only for that particular application.
That should be sufficient to secure potential earnings for the industry, and at the same time, it would also provide a greater incentive to carry out research into rare diseases.
My other concern is that the Council's common position undermines the ability of developing countries to protect the wealth of nature in their countries, and, not least, the moneymaking potential of this.
It was established at the Convention on Biodiversity that ownership of genetic material is nationally determined.
Ensuring that this principle is adhered to is a straightforward matter.
All that is required is to abide by the laws of the country in question, or to obtain free consent from the person at the root of the invention.
This is an effective way of safeguarding the interests of developing countries.
I simply cannot accept the argument that a requirement such as this could be contrary to the TRIPs agreement.
In the forthcoming negotiations on this agreement, the European Union must work towards safeguarding the interests of developing countries, and this House must ensure that in these negotiations, the Commission has a clear position in favour of the Convention on Biodiversity and a fair distribution of income from the wealth of nature in the developing countries.
In conclusion, I would simply like to urge everyone to support these two important amendments, which safeguard our obligations to sick people and to developing countries.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, some here would like to get the directive on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions out of the way with all possible speed.
That is not the task of the European Parliament.
Our task is to ensure that at second reading we do not allow the Council to deprive us of what we agreed at first reading.
Otherwise we shall be creating a dangerous precedent which will undermine the rights of Parliament.
That is why there are some amendments to the common position which we simply must accept.
I shall limit myself to two examples.
Firstly, even if we have decided that the building blocks of human life and parts of the entire animal and plant world may be patented as inventions, we should not be throwing the doors wide open to bio-piracy.
That is why at first reading we demanded at least evidence of the origin of biological material. This will prevent misuse, and if necessary will allow claims for damages.
The Council deleted this.
We must write evidence of origin back in.
Secondly: we must preserve the ethics committee in the form which we agreed.
The new European Group on Ethics appointed by the Commission, whose tasks range from communications technology to bio- and gene technology, is not good enough.
How on earth can twelve scientists, even top-flight ones, seriously cover the whole field of modern technologies, alongside their main activity? In an area which is full of hopes and fears, our fellow citizens are expecting reliable guidance, not a token body.
That is why the European Parliament must hold out for a separate committee on bio-ethics in the context of the patents directive.
Madam President, when we first voted in this Chamber on the common position discussed by the Council, I strongly supported the defence of the common position.
I did it for a reason which seemed to me to be ethical: I simply told myself that the value of human life is the basis of each legal system and must be at the basis of all political programmes, in short that to encourage research, in particular medical and pharmacological research to fight terrible illnesses is a way of safeguarding and even promoting ethical principles.
But Parliament considered that other ethical requirements had not been sufficiently taken into consideration and the first common position of the Council was rejected.
The work recommenced and the ethical requirements were considered in particular by Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
At first reading Parliament voted a series of amendments which made the directive clear and respectful of ethical requirements, even in the new open areas.
The Commission stated that it recognized all these amendments voted by Parliament.
The Council considered, however, that it should make some modifications.
Now, I believe that the key point, about which everyone expresses his own opinion and I believe that this opinion is personal but shared by many colleagues, is that the litmus paper showing the openness of the modifications brought by the Council is the question of the human embryo and on this point the Council made modifications which make ambiguous a language which was previously clear.
To make it comprehensible to all in a subject which is complex legally, I will note that Parliament stated, "the human embryo is never patentable, either as the product of a process or as an instrument of a process' .
The Council has introduced a language which, instead of interpretation, instead of transforming the European directive into internal State law, will allow the patenting of processes which use embryos and the embryos themselves.
This is my opinion as a lawyer.
At least an element of ambiguity was introduced.
I believe that it is the duty of this Parliament to remove this ambiguity.
I shall therefore vote for Amendment Nos 1, 14, 19 and 24 which aim to remove this ambiguity.
I know the fundamental discussion is not a legal one, nor an ethical one, but a practical one.
This directive has been before the European Parliament for too many years, and is a fair directive which will be approved, without wasting any more time.
I agree that the directive as a whole is a good one, but I would like to correct this point. Why did the Council introduce some modifications which made clear language ambiguous?
Or does it mean, as was stated in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and as will perhaps be stated in this Chamber, that these changes are only lexical and do not change the substance? I cannot imagine that an amendment which makes clear what now appears ambiguous to me, may produce delays and prevent the Council from accepting this amendment of Parliament.
Or perhaps there will be a new battle on this point, but to use an Italian expression, it means that behind these expressions which are somewhat ambiguous "there is more to this than meets the eye' , that is, they want to leave their hands free for something which the Parliament does not want done.
For these reasons, while I still express agreement with the basic choice to encourage research to fight illnesses which are serious to human life, I hope that Amendment Nos 1, 14, 19 and 24 - which basically all have the same aim - will be approved.
I trust that this will not delay the final approval of the directive.
Madam President, in my previous contribution to this debate, I acknowledged the importance of carefully managed genetic research and its role in meeting the challenge of world food production and maintaining the commercial viability of family farming.
I am, however, very disappointed that previous Amendments Nos 95, 76 and 78 which were debated and agreed on by this Parliament have re-emerged in the context of the proposal before the House.
I do not regard that as a very democratic system and it is certainly not a system which fully reflects the views of the Members who spoke here.
When this original directive was voted on by the European Parliament, a specific clause was inserted, known as Amendment No 95, which recognized the right of small farmers to freely re-use all patented seed and to save and further develop their own seed.
Fundamental to farmers' practice of constant innovation is free access and exchange of seeds and genetic material.
If Europe is to protect the future diversity of crops, it must ensure that farmers are guaranteed such free access and use.
Farmer privilege must be protected in this regard so as to protect the social and economic unit of the family farm throughout Europe.
Otherwise we may as well hand over the monopoly of food production to large multinational corporations, which would be a very anti-social development indeed.
My final point is that I do not support - and I made this point previously - genetic engineering as it applies to humans.
Life is not a commodity that can be bought and sold.
I welcome the fact that the revised directive excludes the following issues from patentability: processes of cloning human beings, processes for modifying the genome line genetic identity of human beings and use of human embryos for industrial and commercial purposes.
Madam President, Commissioner, as chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I take the view that the current draft directive on biotechnology is a textbook case of European legislation.
Never has the European Parliament had so much influence on European regulations as on this matter.
First the Commission, then the Council, have accepted just about all the amendments of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights, its rapporteur and finally Parliament.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights greatly appreciates this and throws in its lot with the common position of the European Council of Ministers.
I hope that this will also be the case in response to this debate and that, after ten years of debate, the way will at last be open for legal protection of biotechnological inventions at European level.
Indeed, we cannot wait any longer for a European regulation on this, as a lack of protection for biotechnological inventions will result in a brain-drain to the United States and Japan.
We risk losing an important market which is growing very rapidly completely.
Jobs play a role in this too.
Industrial applications also continue to get behind, certainly in pharmaceuticals, which is the area where 96 % of biotechnological discoveries find an application.
Of course, it is unworthy of man to allow animals to suffer needlessly. The common position provides a solution for this.
But it is equally unworthy of man to allow children and the terminally ill to suffer when there is a solution to hand.
I consider, therefore, that the right balance has been found in the draft directive, the right balance between technological and ethical dimensions.
We, as the European people's representation must not be frightened of biotechnology.
On the contrary, we must show that we are equal to the challenge of biotechnology and that we dare to make a start on it through appropriate legislation.
Madam President, both the European Union and its Member States have signed the UN Convention on Biodiversity.
What, then, have we pledged to respect?
It is already laid down in the preamble to the Convention that every state has the right to its own biological resources, including genetic resources. This is developed further in Articles 3 and 15.
It is also made entirely clear in Article 15.5 that the utilization of genetic resources shall be preceded by obtaining the permission of the state of origin.
This is not consistent with this common position which we are deciding on.
It is crystal clear and unacceptable.
Today the majority of genetic resources are found in the developing countries, that is, in the poor world.
A patent system which does not respect the Convention on Biodiversity risks developing into a system in which large transnational companies can take control of the genetic wealth of these countries which they must then buy back in various forms.
I believe that this is wholly unacceptable.
These formulations can be improved if Amendment Nos 25 and 5 are adopted, but it is still not enough.
Out of respect for the Convention on Biodiversity and for other ethical reasons, I feel that this proposal should be rejected.
Mr President, I hope that Members will not be deluded by the rapporteur's assertion that the common position respects this House.
There are 68 changes in the common position text from that adopted by Parliament at first reading. This should demonstrate that this document does not accurately reflect the wishes of this House.
After ten years and one previous rejection we still have not got it right.
I am not going to repeat all Green objections - you have heard them before.
I am going to put on the record the views of some of those sections of civil society whose voices have not been heard in the preparation of this directive.
I have circulated to Members a list of those patients' organizations who oppose the patenting of human gene sequences.
Here is the position of the Official Genetic Interest Group in the UK: ' If a patent is granted on a product or therapy or pharmaceutical product which incorporates or relies upon knowledge of a gene sequence, the patent protection should not cover the sequence itself.
A different product or therapy incorporating or using knowledge of the same gene sequence should be covered by an entirely separate patent and there should be no derivative patenting.'
The Irish Inherited Disorders Organization has complained that it was misled and misinformed and its position misrepresented. It does not support the patenting of human gene sequences.
The German Society of Human Genetics, through its chair, states: ' We are opposed to the patenting of the human genome and the DNA sequences it contains. We support the position of the World Medical Association, the Committee of European Physicians, in opposing the patenting of human genes without any exception.'
The British Society for Human Genetics says: ' Article 5 appears both to permit and to exclude the patenting of human gene sequences.'
The confusion exists because this House adopted in July at first reading a conflicting proposal which both allowed and prohibited the patenting of the human genome.
A sustained campaign by lobbyists financially supported by Smith-KlineBeecham misrepresented and misinformed MEPs about the patients' organizations.
Our Amendment No 22 tries to correct this directive's drafting.
The European Ecumenical Commission for Church and Society says: ' We are still deeply dissatisfied with this directive.
We strongly urge Parliament to reinstate the need for a separate ethics committee able to look at patent application and Amendment No 76 regarding material of foreign and human origin' .
Our Amendments Nos 4, 11 and 12 restate the ethics amendment in full.
The Commission's own group of advisers on the ethical implications of biotechnology, Opinion No 8, paragraph 2: ' An invention based on the use of elements of human origin having been retrieved without respecting the principle of consent will not fulfil the ethical requirements. The common position does not guarantee this' .
I wish to say to my colleagues on the use of embryos: let us be clear, we cannot commercialize the use of embryos.
Madam President, for ethical reasons the Group of the European Radical Alliance is opposed to any form of patenting of human beings or any of their biomolecular elements.
My Group had indicated that it disagreed with the rapporteur, who did not adequately take ethical aspects into account.
Yet the new common position of the Council, which has been taken up by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, substantially alters the actual text which we adopted, and the changes tend to weaken the ethics by broadening still further the field of application of patents.
We cannot condone this.
Even if we weigh up the pressures, lobbies and financial issues against the advances made by the USA in this domain, biological piracy runs counter to the humanist philosophy which I hope a large number of us share in Parliament.
At a different level, the Council has also removed an ancestral practice; the privilege clause which entitles farmers to reuse the seed they produce and resell for agricultural use.
Our group will support Amendment No 28, in particular, which aims to reintroduce this practice.
Moreover, according to the proposal submitted to us, it would also become possible to patent old varieties.
This could have far-reaching effects.
By way of example, I will cite an Indian variety of Basmati rice which has been patented by an American company. This means that it will no longer be possible to export this type of rice to the USA as previously.
We do not wish to campaign on a simplistic anti-American agenda here. We only wish to do our work as politicians and, on the basis of our common values, resist the cold logic of profit for profit's sake, which unfortunately the Member States seem to be unconcerned about having imposed upon them.
Madam President, once again Parliament is tackling a common position of the Council concerning the directive on patenting of inventions derived from biotechnology.
We were unable to support the Rothley report at first reading. This was for ethical reasons.
It is our conviction that human beings, animals and plants are unique creations of God and so can never, even in reconstructed, synthetic components, be called a human invention.
This is regardless of the debate about how genetic knowledge is used.
The directive turns genetic material into a mere resource for commercial gain.
It is also questionable how far patenting will benefit patients: patents are requested for commercial not charitable purposes.
Meanwhile, we have a second common position and Parliament seems to be tired of the struggle.
The economic benefits for industry seem to have completely overpowered the ethical reservations, so much so that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is not retabling a number of important amendments tabled by Parliament which were not adopted by the Council.
The rapporteur recommends adopting the common position as it stands.
Did we adopt these amendments for nothing? We, like a number of others, have retabled the most important amendments again.
It cannot be that the rapid implementation of the directive is more important than achieving a directive which is balanced in its content.
Finally, I would like to observe that the ease with which the economic interests of this directive have dominated and the socalled naivety of the ethical objections cause me concern.
The patenting of genes is not something to be taken for granted.
Only with a great deal of goodwill can synthetic genes be considered to be inventions.
Human dignity, respect for animals and plants within God's creation remain important issues to discuss.
It is too easy to detach this so-called purely technical directive from moral and ethical considerations.
Anyone who thinks that by approving the common position they will be done with these recurring ethical questions has got it wrong.
The debate has only just begun and will not be made any easier by the approval of the current common position.
Madam President, some considerable time ago 1.2 million of my compatriots signed a petition to put on record their opposition to the patenting of biotechnological inventions.
Against this politically explosive background, I have read this report even more carefully than usual.
The observation that the Commission and the Council's common position have taken up amendments from Parliament does not stand up to close scrutiny.
There has been a weakening of significant points by surreptitious means.
The Council's common position specifies in Article 5, paragraph 2 that an isolated component of the human body can be an invention that can be patented.
This provision is a de facto circumvention of the ban on cloning human life forms.
It is further specified that the use of human embryos for industrial and commercial purposes may not be patented.
The exclusion of patentability thus does not cover the use of embryos for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes.
I, however, think that all use of human embryos ought to be excluded from patentability!
The original position of the Parliament concerning the so-called "farmers' privilege' has also been weakened. The derogations envisaged are nonsense, because although farmers are permitted to use crop material for generative and vegetative reproduction, economic exploitation of the application patents is deliberately excluded from the derogations.
As a result, there can be no exchange of seed material between farmers without the payment of licence fees.
Small seed associations will go out of existence for economic reasons. The result will be a market cleansing.
The same also applies to animal breeding.
For these reasons, we reject the draft.
Madam President, I would like to thank the President for all his hard work.
I have followed this proposal with interest and was a member of the original conciliation which failed.
The directive represents a delicate balance between granting a patent and respect for animal welfare and dignity of humans.
It should be noted that pharmaceuticals are a world leader in the European Union and represent a considerable amount of wealth in this Union.
I have letters from trade unions in the UK who support this directive, who fear for job losses if we do not have some kind of directive.
But do not be naive - the rejection of this directive will not prevent experiments in biotechnology.
Research and jobs in this area would simply go elsewhere in the world and the European Union would be the loser.
I broadly support the common position although I share some of the concerns of my colleagues in relation to animal welfare and ethical control.
However, some of my colleagues in this House are being less than sincere by pretending to oppose the directive because of the wording of certain ethical constraints in the proposal.
The reality is that they would never be prepared to accept the proposal, whatever the wording.
I think they should come clean on that.
As for the arguments as to whether or not the lobbying we have had represents patients - I believe this is a sterile debate.
Which organisation have you ever come across which has had no dissent from its members? It is the overall balance of the membership's views which is important.
In conclusion, I broadly support the common position although I have some concerns with the ethical considerations.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the present common position on which we shall be voting tomorrow is better than its reputation.
I see no grounds for euphoria, and, in contrast to Mr Rothley, I am also of the opinion that one or two things could perhaps be even better formulated, but the text on which we shall be voting tomorrow is better than the text which a majority of the Parliament rejected in February 1995.
There have been very many improvements, and I believe that the Parliament had good reasons to vote against it at that time, but now we have equally good reasons to resist calls for the rejection of the common position.
At that time, the clear exclusion of manipulation of the gene sequence was missing.
The common position contains this clear exclusion of the breeding of human beings through intervention in the human gene sequence.
At that time, we had a very woolly formulation on the farmers' privilege.
Now we have a stronger formulation.
As far as patients are concerned, I must really caution against using their support for any particular position.
There are some patient associations which support the directive and there are others which oppose it.
Both have good reasons.
Nobody here in Parliament can claim with a clear conscience that it will have any particular effect on research into medicine X or medicine Y. Certain serious scientists argue for the one position, and other equally serious scientists argue for the other, and we should not let ourselves get carried away with polemics, as have some of our colleagues.
We should see this directive for what it is, an internal market directive and a directive dealing with economic factors and unemployment.
However, we should spare no efforts in pointing out the ethically motivated limits that have been set, to which the Parliament has always attached importance.
Because in contrast to what the Green Group is claiming, it is just not true that we want to create jobs through cloning, but through possible applications in the field of gene technology which are ethically undisputed in the view of the majority in this House and, I believe, the majority of European citizens as well.
However, we must formulate these ethically motivated limitations very clearly.
That is why I am pleased that in the common position the Council has arrived at a very far-reaching formulation on cloning.
The cloning experiment on Dolly the sheep and the publication of this experiment have caused legitimate fear amongst many people in Europe and elsewhere.
The cloning of human beings is not a fantasy.
Unless we remain alert, there will be cloned human beings sooner than we imagine.
That is why it is a good thing that we as the Parliament - and now the Council as well - want to set a clear limit here because what the European Commission's bio-ethics advisory body proposed was not very clear.
What it said was that only the reproductive cloning of human beings should be rejected, and that would have meant that cloning experiments on embryos were to be permitted and only the creation of a cloned baby would be reprehensible.
However, that is a very inconsistent approach, firstly because the right to life and human dignity apply from the very beginning, and secondly because the creation of a cloned embryo is the decisive technical step on the way to the emergence of a cloned baby.
That is why it is good that we have this formulation under which cloning is defined as the creation of human beings with the same genetic information as other human beings.
As a result, our position is stronger than the cloning protocol of the Council of Europe, because in this case the term "human being' is also defined in the interinstitutional file.
Any attempts to weaken this ban on cloning will be resisted by the Group of the European People's Party now and in the future.
As we only have a minute in which to speak, Madam President, I will be brief.
We also regard the improved text as a step forward, if we compare it with the first reading. But it has not gone far enough yet.
I think there are reasons enough to go to conciliation with the Council on a number of points.
One of these points is the European Group on Ethics.
Only very recently, we listened to President Santer's interpretation of this Group and I still do not understand why the European Commission wants to expand that package of duties with the addition of information technology.
Let the Commission provide a good explanation as to why it cannot adopt the tabled Amendment No 11 and why it considers its own text, its own interpretation, to be so much better than that of Parliament.
Finally, Madam President, this is about animal welfare.
We tabled an amendment, not only the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party but also David Martin and 29 others, to exempt animals if it would cause them to have a physical handicap.
Mr Rothley may say that is merely a couple of words but they mean something for the welfare of animals.
I hope, therefore, that this House will adopt this amendment this morning.
Madam President, it cannot be denied that biotechnology can contribute to the progress of humanity in the areas of foodstuffs, the environment, health and lasting development which creates jobs and businesses.
Europe must not be left behind.
In the pharmaceutical research sector, only 15 % of patents are of European origin whereas 65 % come from America.
A directive on biotechnological inventions ought to help Europe close this gap, but not at any price.
Biotechnology poses new problems whose solutions demand transparency, democracy and ethics.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left was of the opinion that the 1995 conciliation report sacrificed these factors on the altar of the economy and of profit, and for this reason we voted against it and helped ensure that it did not succeed.
The Commission's new proposal has drawn some lessons from this failure, but it is still not enough.
Parliament has adopted 66 amendments which have been practically integrated into the Council's common position in order to clarify patenting conditions and exceptions.
As we have heard, the human body and certain plant varieties and animal species are not patentable.
The "farmers' privilege' is affirmed, allowing him to use the products of his harvest for reproduction or propagation by himself on his farm.
However I regret that the Council did not retain the European Parliament's amendment which aimed to protect the rights of developing countries as regards genetic inheritance.
Despite these advances, this text gives rise to legitimate fears, for there are real risks.
Since 1995 these risks have been reduced by protecting the dignity and integrity of human beings and by setting boundaries.
Moreover, the common position states that patent law does not replace or do away with legislation which for ethical reasons limits, prohibits or controls research and the use of its results.
However the critical question remains that of the means of control of the people and their representatives over the area of developing biotechnology.
Human beings will not draw benefits from biotechnology unless they have a say in the details of its development, in place of the multinationals which only see it as a new source of profit.
Madam President, the rapporteur and all those who advocate accepting the common position of the Council have recognized that the present common position contains improvements over the draft at first reading.
Mr Rothley, that is an acknowledgement of criticism, because at that time you wanted to accept the original common position.
If we had followed your advice, we would not have these improvements today, and this report would be linked to your name and it would be worse than the other one.
Let me make myself clear: I am in favour of a directive, but I am also in favour of it being qualitatively sensible throughout.
I am rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and the so-called "farmers' privilege' has been improved in the present common position by comparison with the first draft.
However, what the Agriculture Committee wanted, and what this Parliament voted for, has not been included.
Mr Rothley, you should not give up before you cross the finishing line.
Even if you are exhausted, I can keep going!
We have worked together on this issue for 10 years, and that is why I am in favour of having an argument with the Council and going into the conciliation procedure with this amendment which we have once again proposed.
I am fairly sure that either the Council will not even launch the conciliation procedure and will immediately accept the point, or we will get our way in the conciliation procedure.
Why should we give up the opportunity of an improvement when we both support the same position on this point, because, as has been said, the draft from the Council lacks internal conviction and logic.
So, Mr Rothley, please listen to the critics one more time and show a little patience, then we shall have an improved draft, and then Parliament will be in a strong position in its argument with the Council.
Madam President, many of the earlier speakers have expressed the view that the Parliament now needs to do nothing but accept the common position in its present form.
It has been said that the Council has in any case accepted many of Parliament's amendments, that the directive is now much better than the earlier drafts, and in particular that it is significantly better than the draft directive from the Commission.
I would like to associate myself explicitly with these findings, but not with the conclusion which has been drawn from them.
We must certainly thank our rapporteur for the significantly improved legal quality and consistency of the directive.
However, the fact of the matter is that, contrary to what has been claimed, the Council has not accepted some of the amendments which were agreed with widespread support in this Parliament.
And if it is conceded on all sides that the directive was much improved after its first reading in the European Parliament, we can reasonably conclude that the directive can be further improved at second reading...
if all the amendments which have not so far been accepted by the Council are re-introduced and agreed.
The timing and the deadlines do not militate against the acceptance of further amendments.
The Council agreed the present common position quickly, and the present amendments do not seek to make any changes to those points which were essential for the Council compromise.
We may therefore assume that the directive will come into force rapidly even if we accept further changes and come to an understanding with the Council either in a rapid conciliation procedure or perhaps even earlier.
However, I simply cannot understand why the Council did not accept Parliament's formulations on one matter, and that was the derogations for farmers.
As many here know gene technology, especially in agriculture, is rejected by a large majority, particularly in Austria.
Among our farmers, there have just been the first signs of a greater open-mindedness, and they can see that seed and reproductive material that have been genetically modified might be beneficial to them as well.
However, if they are now forced to recognize that this directive will make them economically dependent again because the derogations for farmers are too limited, this will do nothing to promote the acceptability of biotechnology in agriculture.
Madam President, as the last speaker from the Group of the European People's Party, I think the first thing I want to do is stress my congratulations.
I think the common position will be consolidated into a directive tomorrow, and this Parliament and the Commission deserve to be congratulated.
I think the verbatim report of proceedings should record the fact that Mr Vandergheist, whom I see sitting here, has worked magnificently.
But most of all I want to say that during the last few years, I have come to have great respect and admiration for the rapporteur.
I have not followed this directive for the full 10 years, Mr Rothley, but ever since I arrived at this Parliament, this directive has been on the table, causing problems.
Through it, I have had the chance to get to know a great lawyer and parliamentarian.
It is a very self-centred thing to say, but it has been useful to me.
Madam President, this is not a "lesser evil' directive.
No: this is a good text.
Perhaps it is not what the expert would have produced, and no doubt there are imperfections, but it is a good text.
In that sense, we must contradict the odd statement which has been made, such as that Mr Rothley wanted to accept the text at first reading.
That is not true.
Mr Rothley has fought very hard to arrive at the present version. A compromise is better than the text which resulted from Parliament's amendments.
Those amendments reflected the agreement between the different groups but I insist that, technically, this text is better.
Allow me to give you some examples: firstly, farmer privilege.
Well, Amendment No 28 is an attempt to modify Regulation No 2100/94.
This is a patents directive.
That has been repeated several times, and I can only endorse the words of Mr Barzanti, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, Mr Pompidou and Ms Oddy.
This directive is a patents directive.
If anybody wants to modify Regulation 2100/94 then let them do so, but you cannot make modifications through the back door, by means of the present directive.
The same is true of the piracy which has been mentioned.
The TRIPs agreement, among other international texts, which binds all Member States of the European Union, establishes the three criteria for patentability: innovation, inventiveness and industrial application.
Mr Pompidou reminded us of that.
We cannot introduce a fourth one.
It would be null and void.
Obviously, if anyone obtains an element fraudulently and patents it, the Member State's substantive laws will come into play. It will be a civil or criminal offence, as appropriate, and the whole body of law and justice will be applied so that, if appropriate, the patent can even be annulled.
But we cannot include in a patent law new criteria which do not exist in international agreements, just as we cannot modify substantive laws through the back door.
Madam President, the fact is, as Mr Barzanti and Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn said, there is a lot left to do.
There obviously is, but not in a patents law.
In a patents law, we have to keep to the matter in hand.
And I must make one last comment about what was said by my colleague Mr Casini, whom I greatly admire.
It is not true that Article 6 is unlawful.
Article 6 establishes, for the first time in an international text, protection for the embryo as contained in the Oviedo Convention on Bioethics, which is expected to come into effect subsequently.
And that phrase, which is in fact inessential, is no major impediment because this is a question of an open list in an article preventing the patentability of anything contrary to ethics or public order.
To sum up, Madam President, St Augustine said you have to be wise to know what to change, even wiser to know what not to change, but true wisdom is knowing when you have reached an acceptable text.
I think that moment is now, so I hope it will be consolidated tomorrow.
Madam President, the directive we are debating today will produce harmonized legislation on patents for biotechnological inventions within the European Union. This is essential to guarantee that the biotechnology sector in Europe is able to compete.
It is this sector of all sectors which will provide many jobs in the years to come and only with good legislation will Europe be able to catch the United States and Japan up.
This is a better therapy for Europe than a Treaty text on employment.
Remarkably, the Netherlands has isolated itself within Europe by being the only Member State to vote against this directive in the Council of Ministers.
The Netherlands has actually passed national laws prohibiting the patenting of plants and animals, thus isolating the Dutch biotechnology sector internationally, so that it will be doomed to dwindle to a backward position.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party's Amendment No 9 to Article 26 does not put scientific research on genetic material already obtained at risk.
Not now, nor in the future, as the directive does not come into force with retroactive effect.
The amendment guarantees correct information and the free consent of donors of genetic material, independently of national provisions.
Finally, Madam President, I appeal to my colleagues to use their legislative powers to ensure good, transparent and ethically responsible legislation in Europe and not to be intimidated by the threats of the Council to reject the directive if Parliament tables amendments.
Madam President, the European Parliament is now taking a position on the whole question of human ethics: what is right and fitting from the point of view of life, and what is not.
The proposal is about the patenting of natural life forms on behalf of major European companies, so that they cannot enjoy the same unethical rights that their counterparts in the USA do.
Parliament must now assess to what extent the amendments we approved last summer have been incorporated into the new draft Directive.
A particular area of controversy is Amendment No 76 which we approved, but which was shot down by the Council.
But it goes into every aspect of the problem: whether genetic material is capable of being patented in general, relations between the pharmaceutical industry and the developing countries, and the basic issue itself: can you rob naturally produced material of its secret by patenting it for exclusive use?
It is essential that Parliament reviews the amendments.
If not, this sort of patenting practice may well be compared to the kind of biological gold-digging that goes on in the nonindustrialized world.
Four fifths of the world's genetic polymorphism happens in the developing countries.
I am convinced that this debate has shown, especially to Mr Rothley, Mr Pompidou and Mr Monfils, that this issue is linked to many such problems, which they have neglected to touch on in their speeches.
Madam President, Commissioner, I am afraid that I am not able to follow the rapporteur's recommendation to accept the common position, for the reason that certain minimum requirements which are all in the interest of the matter itself have not been fulfilled.
The first minimum requirement relates to the fact that the freedom of the Member States to exercise their rights under international conventions is restricted by the present wording to the duties which are linked with them.
Secondly, the ethics committee which has rightly been envisaged has neither the necessary specific and comprehensive competences, nor the necessary independence.
Thirdly, no account has been taken of the detailed provisions in relation to the distinction between living creatures and inanimate objects in Articles 3, 4, 5 and 9, which the churches had urged.
I put the following question to those, who are in the majority, that want to accept the common position: do you really believe that you are serving biotechnology well by doing so?
You can bring the debate here to an end with the vote, but in society the debate and the political and moral arguments about this issue will continue all the more vigorously.
Madam President, I do not believe for one minute that this is something that we have been discussing for ten years.
The strict position is that the last time this came before the House we rejected it at third reading after the unsatisfactory conciliation.
My contention is simply that we rejected the previous proposal because it did not include within it an ethical dimension.
Therefore, my Amendment No 78 on the new proposal called for an ethical dimension and more particularly for the establishment of a proper ethics committee.
Can I remind the House that I asked that a committee should be set up to assess all ethical aspects of biotechnology and its utilisation in particular with regard to patents.
The Commission should summit proposals for the composition and terms of reference of that committee before this directive comes into effect. That has not been done.
In my view, and I speak as the author of the socialist group amendment, that is not reflected in the common position that we are asked to debate today.
Accordingly, I do not accept that the proposal on the ethics committee is satisfactory and on this I would expect the Commission to give us some answers. They did not when we discussed the matter recently in Brussels.
I have already asked the new ethics committee for an opinion on terminator crops.
Neither have I had an acknowledgement from the President of the existing committee, nor have I had an acknowledgement of my request from the President of the European Commission. The reason for that is quite simple.
Parliamentarians currently have no access to that committee. That is something we should put right.
How are we going to achieve gender equality?
Why are there so many men on that committee and why are they almost exclusively professional ethicists? What happens when a particular development in biotechnology requires an ethical consideration?
Will there be the possibility of maybe calling for a moratorium in a given development? All of these questions need to be answered.
None of them has yet been properly dealt with in what we have got before the House. I say this to those people in biotech wearing the yellow tee-shirts in the gallery: I am a supporter of biotechnology but I do believe that it must be firmly and properly controlled by a properly organized ethics committee.
Madam President, our rejection of the proposal in 1995 was well worth the trouble.
Today we have a proposal that takes far greater consideration of animal protection, humanitarian and ethical issues.
We must promote research into, and development of, methods of treating people with genetic diseases.
Many are pumped with chemicals all their lives without ever finding a real solution to their suffering.
We must respect our obligations to the original people.
Even though it is already a part of the text, I do support the amendment clarifying informed consent.
We support the "farmers' privilege' , so that the rights of farmers to sow their crops without paying royalties are not restricted.
In my view, the Santer European Group on Ethics seems a bit dubious.
If it is permitted, why is a regulated ethics committee not grounded in the Treaty? Naturally, we welcome the promise of transparency, but I would rather have a right to transparency than be assured of it as a favour by the President of the Commission.
Mr President, as you can hear, we have a huge clash here between ethical and moral considerations of many religions and cultures and the ambitions of the pharmaceutical industries to secure their position in global markets.
I still judge that the draft directive does not provide adequate protection for farmers either here in Europe or in developing countries.
As we know, many new plant varieties patented by biotech companies are based on traditional wisdom handed down through the generations, and now farmers are being asked to pay for these patents.
We in Parliament have exercised a certain amount of power already with regard to this piece of legislation, and it would be a pity if we did not continue to exercise this power wisely.
By voting for the amendments, then going to conciliation on issues such as the patenting of human embryos and provision for a proper ethics committee, as Mr White has just pointed out, we would see the advances we want in medicine and agriculture but with the various safeguards built in.
Mr President, I have great respect for the rapporteur, he knows that, and the text has been improved, but like many others I do not think it is enough.
My country, the Netherlands, has resisted right through to the end on principle the right of people to patent plants and animals, while a great deal of important medical research is done in the Netherlands and biotechnology is, indeed, an important sector.
It was the Group of the Party of European Socialists which tabled Amendment No 76 - I was the original rapporteur on that.
The new text does not contain an amendment giving Third World countries in particular, but countries in general, the right to protect their own biodiversity.
I have to say to you, Mr President, I was shocked to hear that a representative of the Commission in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights expressed the view that the European Commission need not observe the Biodiversity Convention, signed by all fifteen European Union Member States, because it is not legally binding.
Meanwhile, we have a declaration from the Biodiversity Convention in Vienna, where delegates from 34 countries, who are meeting at this moment in Bratislava, are opposing the absence of Amendment No 76.
Thirty four countries, I will not read the list out to you but we will make sure that the Commissioner and the rapporteur also get a copy of that text.
Madam President, Commissioner, the text which has been submitted to us for debate is a new improved text, as we have heard. So I am rather surprised at the conclusions which some people are drawing from it.
In effect we have started with a new proposal from the Commission which at first reading was radically changed by Parliament. The changes relate in particular to the definition of patentable materials, where we have used the wording of the bio-ethics advisory body, and also to the exceptions to patentability for reasons of public utility where we have taken up the proposals of Mr Liese in particular.
In the common position, the Commission and the Council have included all our amendments, with one exception which I will come back to later, without greatly altering their substance.
So today we are discussing our own text. It was drawn up by the European Parliament.
Do we really need to improve it as some Members of this House are suggesting?
The Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights take the line that we should vote for the text as it stands without any amendments, and they do this for two main reasons.
Firstly, in order to retain the coherence of the text, to avoid ambiguity and the one-sided declarations which spoiled the first conciliation.
As you will recall, Parliament quite rightly rejected the result of this first conciliation. Today the text before us for approval is clear, honest and coherent.
It is not polluted with unbalanced statements which could distort or complicate the understanding of it. We must preserve this coherence.
Secondly, we will cause yet further delay if we start a conciliation which we feel is pointless, for this text has already been pending for ten years. If it goes to conciliation, we risk reopening the Pandora's box of the debate within the Council itself.
And if things go badly in the Council, we will not reach a result in the discussion before the end of this Parliament which is fast approaching. This would mean a catastrophic delay for us, blocking economic investments and, more importantly, scientific and medical research.
Madam President, I would like to say a few words here about the patient groups.
Mrs Ewing said they were misrepresented.
Doubtless the patients' organizations have a wide range of views on this issue, and that is as it should be.
I note that the large French organizations are in favour of adopting the directive.
But I would particularly like to protest at the injustice done to these associations in accusing them of being in the pay of the pharmaceutical industry, an accusation which was repeated here by Mrs Ahern.
This kind of attack is not fitting in such an important debate, particularly since otherwise I note that the Commission and the Council have largely taken into consideration the concerns expressed by the authors of the present amendments.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection again tabled its amendment on the origin of patentable materials.
As Mrs van Putten well knows, this amendment poses serious problems in terms of proof before a national judge.
Further, I note, and doubtless Commissioner Monti will confirm this, that the Commission has undertaken not only to respect the Rio Convention on Biodiversity, but also to present an annual report on this to enable us to review the situation.
Mr White's amendment on bioethics was taken from a different subject matter, but above all we had a formal declaration from President Santer, who gave us a number of assurances, particularly that Parliament could refer directly to the new European Group on Ethics which has been set up.
As regards the amendment on animal suffering, I would like to ask Mr Monti here if he can assure us that these two wordings are in fact effectively identical, and that the fact of having removed three months does not change anything in terms of the actual application of patentability on this point.
Finally, I would like to say to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf that doubtless he spoke from a personal standpoint on the problems facing agriculture, but the Committee on Agriculture did not support him and has not re-tabled his amendments.
He is today thus not speaking on behalf of the committee, which was unable to support him.
Madam President, for all these reasons, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I recommend that we vote for this text without amendment.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission and myself, I wish to express my deepest gratitude and admiration for the very important work carried out by the European Parliament during the legislative procedure on this directive.
The Commission is convinced that the text on which you are now being asked to give your views is a good text, clear and of high quality, in which the specific nature of the patent rights and the legitimate concerns regarding ethics are properly balanced.
This text is the result of an intense collective effort, during which the opinions and arguments of everyone, inside and outside the institutions, were openly considered and evaluated to obtain a final result which I am convinced represents something of importance for the Community.
On 16 July 1997, at first reading, the European Parliament adopted 66 amendments.
The Commission included all of them, except one, because it was incompatible with current international law.
And yet, at the moment of adopting the common position, with a further effort to understand the requirements expressed through this single rejected amendment and with an undoubted willingness to show openness and compromise, the Council and the Commission agreed to reconsider the essential points of Amendment No 76.
I consider that to modify them, in the sense shown by some, would be neither useful nor wise.
It would not be useful because it would lead to a clash with the Council, which has current international law on its side and the clarity of the present legal structure, which would be compromised by the requested modifications.
It would not be wise because the distribution between the Community dimension and the national dimension, here established through careful use of the criterion of subsidiarity, would be altered in favour of the Community, but without the Community being able usefully to establish certain rules and being able to bring in any added value.
On 27 April last, during a meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I intended to give some clarification to explain why the common position of the Council could be accepted as such, thus supporting the position of the rapporteur, Mr Rothley.
With the vote of 28 April, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights confirmed that the common position of the Council could be accepted as it adequately included the amendments adopted by the European Parliament at first reading.
I am very pleased at this decision of the committee.
Now Parliament must make known its views at a sitting of the House.
It is therefore up to you to confirm the approval of the text by your vote, thus opening the way to its final adoption.
I do not think it is useful to repeat in detail here, at this time, the reasons - in the opinion of the Commission - in favour of approving the text adopted as the common position.
However, I think, having listened closely to this debate, that there are still four points on which it would be useful, Madam President, to confirm the position of the Commission so that you can make a decision in full knowledge of the case.
Firstly, I should mention the European Group on Ethics, Science and New Technologies, to remind you of what President Santer has already confirmed to the Parliament during his speech on 29 April, and that is that this Group is and will remain independent and will ensure total openness as regards its work.
The European Parliament will be able to question it at will, based on a procedure which the Parliament itself must establish.
I have always stressed fully the important role which the committee already plays and will be asked to play increasingly in this delicate matter.
I am completely convinced of the substantial contribution which Parliament can make, and it is my duty to confirm this today in particular.
Secondly, concerning the embryo.
It can be confirmed here that, in the opinion of the Commission, the essence of the position expressed by Parliament has been reflected in the common position, as it specifically excludes any manipulation to exploit the embryo and as these procedures in favour of the embryo are clearly stated, to protect it, and Parliament never intended to exclude this latter aspect.
Thirdly, concerning the protection of biological diversity. The Community is heavily committed, internationally and internally - the annual report is part of this - to defending this diversity and has no intention of retreating from these positions.
For this reason, the case of the American patent on Basmati rice is a good example for the Commission in favour of its own consistency.
Such a patent could not be issued in Europe simply because the directive would forbid it, because it is not an invention and it is a vegetable variety which is specifically excluded.
Fourth and last point: the suffering of animals.
The objective to prevent, through the patent right, atrocities and acts of cruelty against animals and the legal instrument for this are present in the text because we are all in agreement on this point.
Not having taken up the reference to physical harm has no particular significance: simply it seems that the concept of suffering already includes it, it is difficult to imagine physical harm which does not cause suffering.
It is only for that reason that the Commission does not believe it is necessary to mention this aspect.
Madam President, Mr Rothley, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on the proposed directive within the European Parliament - and I am not saying this out of deference - has been absolutely fundamental and the text of the common position respects it fully.
For all of us the experience of 1995 was a serious and important time and I believe that I can say that we all tried to draw reasons for reflection to recommence our work with tenacity, humility and calmness.
I trust that the misunderstandings which existed are now overcome, because we have discussed them at length and because the text is much clearer.
The part relating to the patentability of elements of human origin is valid for us all, where the common position of the Council includes the text of the European Parliament fully to the letter.
The Commission is convinced that, by confirming the position of the Council, the European Parliament will reap the rewards of its important work.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I conclude by thanking you for this important work and for your kind attention.
Madam President, I am speaking now to express my view that Mr Cot needs to show proper respect for his colleagues in his dealings with them: for example, he voices the suspicion that we are not capable of reading the text because it is identical with the amendments which the Parliament introduced.
It is one thing to say that it is the same in substance - which one might argue about - but it is another thing to claim that the text is the same.
In any case, I am not saying that you have been bought by the gene technology industry. I was not the one who started causing offence!
That is the first thing.
The second thing is that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development cannot introduce any amendments in this procedure nor can it introduce them in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, because that can be done only by individual Members with the appropriate number of signatures, namely 29.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has written a letter to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which is not the subject of the procedure, but in order to express the fact that the position of the Parliament was not accepted in the question of "farmers' privilege' .
As rapporteur, in discussions with colleagues, I gathered these 29 signatures in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and introduced them, because that is what is envisaged by the procedure.
The fact that there were socialist Members on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development who were somewhat hesitant in adding their signatures cannot be taken to mean that overall this was not an expression of the views of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Cot.
I must protest if you seek to give the impression in Parliament that I might mix personal interests with the interests of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development!
I will not put up with that, make no mistake!
If you want a fight, you can have one, otherwise please take matters seriously and show respect for the dignity of your colleagues!
Madam President, I did not hear Mr Monti give an answer, in his response to Parliament, on the Commission's vision of how Europe and the European Union should implement the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity.
I have already commented on this, reflecting on what was said about it in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Is it not rather bizarre that the European Commission flies off to Rio de Janeiro with a plane full of civil servants and then takes the view that there is no real need to incorporate the Convention on Biodiversity into legislation?
Mr van Putten, I can refer in particular to Article 1, paragraph 2, of the directive where it states, "This directive shall be without prejudice to the obligations of the Member States pursuant to international agreements, and in particular the Convention on Biological Diversity and the TRIPs Agreement' .
I believe that, setting aside my opinions, this is the definitive textual reference.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Second banking directive
The next item is the report (A4-0152/98) by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission's interpretative communication on freedom to provide services and the interest of the general good in the second banking directive (SEC(97)1193 - C4-0465/97).
Madam President, we must be grateful to the Commission that it has realized that not much has come of the original intention of the second banking directive to promote cross-border banking services.
We must also be grateful to the Commission that it wished to consult Parliament on the document before us, even though it was not obliged to do so.
Still, and you would probably have expected this from me because I follow the comings and goings of the Commission with a positive attitude but still with "Argus eyes' , I have something to say about the form, namely the communication.
No matter how desirable it would be to have more precise detail, in fact too much is still being left open because there is a statement at the end of the communication to the effect that the communication, which was drawn up in response to a judgment of the Court of Justice, can ultimately only be finally and conclusively judged by the Court of Justice.
Although Parliament as an institution would be the last body to want to undermine the subjection of the effect of legislation to the judgment of the courts, those who use the law, that is the banking institutions of the Member States which wish to operate in other Member States, and in so doing wish and are able to make the internal market and competition credible, are still left in uncertainty.
I would appreciate it, therefore, if the Commissioner would like to clarify for us why they resorted to this instrument of the communication and not a new or amended directive, seeing as that would have force of law and so no longer be subject to doubt and uncertainty.
The greatest uncertainties are twofold.
How can you clearly define the public interest, on the grounds of which Member States can stop a banking institution from one Member State setting itself up in another Member State? When is a service being provided to a client who does not live in the country where the bank was first established, but who is introduced by or from the head office, whether or not with the aid of electronic communications?
The second question is important because it can influence a dispute at law to a large extent.
It is best for the client and cheapest, of course, if any legal procedure takes place in his own country.
Looked at the other way round, it is important to the banking institution that it does not find itself in a disadvantaged position and it is better, therefore, if it can also formally have a branch in the same country as the client.
The first question, in my opinion, ought not to be asked at all, Why is it actually necessary that banking institutions be subject to a notification procedure before they set up in another Member State? Why can the doctrine of the Cassis de Dijon case not also be the underlying assumption for banks?
When a bank is subject to strict supervision by the central bank in its own country, and wants to provide services elsewhere in the Union, the authorities in the other Member State should have confidence that this supervision has been exercised with care and that clients in other Member States are therefore also protected against failings in the area of solvency, liquidity and other requirements. Or is it the case that the Commission has reason to believe that banks will misuse their branches elsewhere in order to escape the requirements of their own central banks?
Does the arrival of the euro, which one can assume will increase the drive among banks to expand their services throughout the Union, not also mean that the supervision of credit institutions and of their supervisory authorities, that is the national central banks, will be centralized?
You see, while the communication was intended to resolve certain questions, you could say it has raised more questions than it has answered.
I hope that the Commission will look into these questions and I would like to thank all my colleagues who worked with me on this report which, in my opinion, brings a free internal market closer.
Madam President, may I remind the rapporteur of the Crédit Lyonnais bank which used its branch in the Netherlands to do things which it preferred its head office not to know about.
This report examines the regulations for credit institutions which are operating in the Member States of the European Union.
The second banking directive from 1989 is required to ensure that the regulations in the different Member States are harmonized to guarantee freedom of establishment and the freedom to provide financial services.
That is an important matter. The internal market in financial services will only increase with the coming of the euro and the expansion of information and communication technology.
The Commission's communication looks at two parts of the second banking directive: the notification procedure and the right of establishment.
Banks have to inform the supervisory authorities of the Member States in which they are operating of any cross-border operations. It was not always clear when they had to do this.
The communication clarifies a number of points in this area.
I think it was too easy to say in the report that the SLIM project would render this communication superfluous.
Not all Member States were represented in the SLIM group for the banking system, which means that not all Member States would want to abolish the notification procedure just like that.
And I think that is how it should be.
So the communication really is important as long as abolition has not been achieved.
The second part of the communication clarifies the conditions under which a Member State can appeal to the public interest in imposing restrictions on banking institutions.
I agree with the view of the rapporteur that the communication could help in the event of conflicts between interested parties. The conditions for an appeal to the public interest are set out in a structured way.
I would like to comment on paragraph 8 of Mr Wijsenbeek's report, which says that the notification procedure is only for Community banking institutions in relation to banking institutions from third countries.
That seems wrong to me.
Banks from third countries have to apply for a licence to operate in the Union and they then come under exactly the same rules as Community banking institutions.
The WTO speaks of national treatment for banks.
So there is no difference in treatment between the two, perhaps just a small observation from a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to a lawyer.
Madam President, I would like to apologize to you, the Commissioner and the rapporteur, because I was attending the public hearing of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy with members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Please accept my apologies that I was unable to attend the whole debate on the report.
Madam President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists will agree with the substance of the Wijsenbeek report.
I should like to comment on the institutional aspect of this problem.
I do not believe that the Commission is competent to place communications on the interpretation of legal documents in the public domain.
Neither the European Parliament nor the Council - in other words, the two legislators in the European Community - expresses views before the European Court of Justice on the interpretation of a legal document which they have enacted.
The Commission has still less authority to express views on the interpretation of legal documents which the European Parliament and the Council have enacted.
In this area there is no competence attaching to the Commission.
That is why such communications, insofar as they are intended to expound legal effects, which is indeed the intention, are unlawful.
I believe this is a profoundly political problem.
The European Union suffers from the fact that it presents a diffuse image to the public.
No one knows exactly who is responsible for what. Who is accountable?
That is why we must take account of such matters, I believe, we must take account of responsibilities.
Moreover, the European Court of Justice confirmed this last year, when it declared such a communication from the Commission - it must have been in February - to be unlawful.
That is why, Commissioner, if we are to maintain this clear responsibility, if we are to ensure that in the eyes of others the European Union has a clear profile and shape, it would be helpful for the Commission to refrain from such communications in future.
Either there is a necessity for a directive to be changed, and in that case the Commission can make a new proposal, or there is no such necessity, and in that case it should leave well alone!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in order to achieve the free movement of services for everyone who wants to make use of this right, it is necessary for there to be clear, unmistakable and reliable Community rules.
The second banking directive made an attempt at this but, as has been shown in practice, this objective has not been achieved.
To this extent recognition should certainly be given to the fact that, with this communication, the Commission has attempted to reduce uncertainties in the interpretation of various terms.
However - and here I agree with those who have spoken before me, Mr Rothley and Mr Wijsenbeek - the chosen route of a communication may be regarded as a suitable instrument only if two conditions are fulfilled.
The communication cannot and must not undermine or circumvent the democratic legislative process - clearly the codecision procedure in this case - in which the Council and the Parliament are legislators with equal rights, and it must in addition be subject to the express proviso of any further judgement by the European Court of Justice.
Given these pre-conditions, I nonetheless consider the Commission's communication to be a practically focused measure which may be extremely helpful.
With the imminent start of monetary union, all the experts anticipate that there will be a significant increase in cross-border services in the banking sector, so we need clarity quickly.
In my view, the main merit is that the communication gives a systematic presentation of the extensive judgements which have already been given by the ECJ in the area of the free movement of services and the general interest clause in the second banking directive. It thus mainly serves the cause of greater transparency and greater information.
I should like to deal with one concrete point, the question of the electronic counter.
I believe that in this case we must await developments with great care, and any premature commitment to the application of the right of settlement or the right of service provision must be left up to further technological development.
In conclusion I should like to inform you that the Group of the European People's Party will support the rapporteur's report in its entirety.
Taken as a whole, the communication will be of use to banks and also consumers.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to express my appreciation for the report presented by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and in particular I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Wijsenbeek.
We are particularly satisfied by the fact that the committee is in favour of abolishing notification in the case of the provision of cross-border financial services.
As is known, the abolition of Article 20 of the second banking directive was recommended by the SLIM task force for banking questions and the Commission supported the recommendation in its report to the Council.
To abolish the notification procedure, in the case of the provision of cross-border services, means recognizing that it is no longer essential to establish with accuracy in which Member State a financial service is provided, making superfluous a distinction which is increasingly difficult to operate, given that financial services are more often provided through electronic means, such as the Internet.
However, it would not be correct to state that the abolition of Article 20 and the consequent irrelevance of the place of provision of a service means that the consumer has a greater choice of place where he can seek legal redress.
Legal redress and the competence of the courts, in fact, are a different problem, governed by distinct regulations.
I would also like to mention some principles of the single market for financial services which should be considered in the examination of points 4 and 8 of the report.
The supervisory authorities of a host Member State are never asked to issue or refuse authorization to a foreign credit institution, either for reasons of general interest or for any other reason.
One of the fundamental results of the single market for banking services is that only the supervisory authorities of the Member State of origin are able to adopt such a measure.
The second banking directive, in fact, states the principle that a credit institution must request authorization from the supervisory authorities of the Member State of origin.
This credit institution can therefore provide, in any other Member State, the financial services for which it has obtained authorization in its Member State of origin.
I would like to demonstrate that the Commission's communication presents a view of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice and expresses the position of the Commission concerning these questions, therefore it does not in any way constitute a binding document.
It is therefore an attempt to contribute to a clear interpretation on the part of the Commission, which is the guardian of the Treaties.
On the other hand, I agree, what is this communication based on?
It is based on a compilation of the relevant case law of the Court of Justice in this field.
If you like, this is the added value brought by the Commission: to collate the material based on the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice, certainly not with the creation of additional pieces of legislation.
We consider that this initiative is useful and essential to increase openness in banking, because we cannot honestly expect that the European citizen is informed - or that all European citizens, if we want to be more optimistic, are informed - of the most recent developments in the case law of the Court.
This is why the Commission has not followed the legislative procedure; if the Commission decides to adopt a proposal for the abolition of Article 20, the European Parliament will obviously be asked to carry out its role of codecision in full.
Finally, Madam President, two points.
The question on the second banking directive and the Cassis de Dijon case is interesting.
In fact, the second banking directive is no more than the pure application of the doctrine of Cassis de Dijon in the sense that it applies the principle of reciprocal recognition, but the idea of having notification within the terms of free provision of services was to have reciprocal information for the supervisory authorities in the respective Member States.
However, in the light of new technological developments, such as the Internet, this request for notification, when financial services are offered in another Member State, seems to be slightly dated.
This is why the Commission will propose the abolition of this need for notification.
Finally, my last point, with reference to the specific request of the rapporteur, Mr Wijsenbeek, ' But why? Would it not be more logical to modify the second banking directive rather than issue an interpretative communication?'
Concepts such as "the general interest' are developing: the Member States may have very different ideas, as regards the specific aspects of the principle of the general interest; only a system of legal re-examination can guarantee respect for this principle with sufficient flexibility.
If we try to define this concept in the directive, the directive will become subject to frequent modifications.
On the other hand, the legislative process is such - and no one knows this better than I - that modifications to directives take a long time.
If the Commission had announced the abolition of Article 20 of the second banking directive, before being able to remedy the legal uncertainty it would have taken a few years from the beginning of the legislative procedure.
We therefore decided to clarify the situation immediately, and in this context, I can also announce that a proposal concerning the abolition of Article 20 of the second banking directive will be examined shortly by the Banking Advisory Committee.
Many thanks, Commissioner Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
Mr President, I would simply like to say that I was here yesterday but my name is not on the attendance register.
Thank you.
Are there any more comments?
Mr President, I have to inform you that although I was here for yesterday's sitting, my name has not been recorded in the Minutes.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Your comment will also be recorded.
Mr President, the same applies to me, I was present, but I am not in the Minutes either!
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr President, I would like clarification on the deadline for tabling amendments to the recommendations we will be considering tomorrow concerning Parliament's vote on the appointment of the Executive Board, President and Vice-President of the European Central Bank.
Mr Giansily, if I recall rightly, you were present in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that met yesterday evening.
I was present too and I recall that the President spoke of a deadline, 8.30 p.m. yesterday.
I have no further information.
Yes, in fact I tabled an amendment at 7.45 p.m.
Given that the deadline was 8.30 p.m., I tabled it in time.
It was just that I was told confirmation was required from the House.
That was why I asked for clarification.
But I am quite happy with your reply, given that my amendment was tabled within the deadline.
There is thus no problem with the House considering it tomorrow. Thank you.
Mr Giansily, I have only mentioned what I witnessed yesterday evening.
Actually, the chairman's reply seemed rather ironic, as he gave it at 8.32 p.m.
That is why he said that the deadline was 8.30 p.m.
But I think the chairman, Mr von Wogau, can explain better than I can.
Mr President, yesterday evening I proposed that the deadline for amendments should be set at 8.30 p.m.
I realized that this would not work particularly well.
But I would like to ask my colleague, Mr Giansily, to consider whether he could not achieve the same thing either by an oral amendment or by a separate vote.
It is after all only a question of the words "for 8 years' , and of whether there can be a separate vote on this issue.
I therefore request that we invite the experts on the Rules of Procedure to examine whether this possibility exists.
This would mean that our colleague, Mr Giansily, is being treated fairly, because it is entirely legitimate for him to make this demand.
The problem was that we had to work exceptionally quickly and a deadline for amendments was therefore not necessary.
The problem we are dealing with here is essentially a political one.
That is why I take the view that my colleague, Mr Giansily, has the right to express his opinion on this issue.
While this does not concur with my own view in this particular case - which is quite an unusual turn of events - I nevertheless consider it legitimate that this opinion should be expressed.
Normally, when voting on an applicant, the vote is a "yes' or a "no' without amendments.
I think that Mr von Wogau's proposal can be accepted by Mr Giansily and by my other colleagues as well, and in this way we can accept a request for separate votes.
Decision on urgency
Mr President, the Commission shares the reasons put forward by the Council in asking for these motions raised by the Commission to be included according to the urgent procedure.
They are, in fact, connected with the Fifth Framework Programme to the extent that the rules on participation and dissemination of the results of research are necessary to implement the Programme.
The Research Council will meet on 22 June next. If the European Parliament agreed to give its opinion during the sitting in Brussels on 27 and 28 May, rather than during the June sitting in Strasbourg as currently planned, the Council would have the information to adopt a common position in good time.
(Parliament agreed to the request for urgent procedure)
Conciliation procedure concerning investment services
With regard to the failure of the conciliation procedure on investment services in the securities sector, in accordance with Rule 78(1) of the Rules of Procedure, I would like to make the following statement.
Since the entry into force of the Treaty on European Union the codecision procedure has proved its worth: it has enabled Parliament and the Council to adopt jointly legislative acts in the interest of European citizens covering a very wide range of subjects.
To date 124 acts have been completed under this procedure, including 77 for which no recourse to the Conciliation Committee provided for by Article 189b of the Treaty was necessary.
Meetings of the Conciliation Committee were necessary to seek agreement for the other 47 texts.
Over the last four years there has only been disagreement within the committee on one occasion: in 1994 on the subject of voice telephony.
Now, however, another conciliation procedure has ended in disagreement.
In a letter dated 3 April 1998, the co-presidents of the Conciliation Committee concerning the proposal for a Directive establishing a committee on securities (C4-0228/98-95/0188(COD)) informed Parliament and the Council that the committee had been unable to approve a joint text in the 8-week period available to it.
Despite considerable efforts, it was impossible to bridge the gap between the two institutions, in particular with regard to the type of committee to be chosen for the act.
As far as the continuation of the procedure is concerned, the Council has said that it does not intend to confirm its common position.
Consequently, in line with Article 189b(6) of the Treaty, the proposed act is deemed not to be adopted.
While regretting this setback in the Conciliation Committee, I should point out that this is a possibility provided for in the Treaty itself.
In deciding not to confirm its common position, the Council has opted not to take up one of the prerogatives it enjoys under the current codecision procedure.
I welcome this decision, which anticipates the application of new procedural rules which will be binding once the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force.
For the first time, Parliament and the Council can establish the lack of agreement within the Conciliation Committee as the final stage in a codecision procedure.
This illustrates the fact that the two institutions are now on an equal footing, two branches of a genuine Community legislature. This equality will be reinforced once the new procedural rules come into force.
Evidently the two institutions are still far apart on the question of commitology.
I hope that this failure to reach an agreement will encourage them to seek common ground when discussing the new Commission proposal due to be submitted at the beginning of June.
Parliament will certainly aim to do so but without dropping its fundamental requirements concerning a simplification of committee procedures and the need to ensure that implementing measures are monitored by the two branches of the legislature in a balanced and efficient manner.
There are three measures planned in this respect, which I would ask you to follow carefully.
Mr President, it will do no harm just this once to admit that the conciliation procedure has failed with regard to the committee on securities, in spite of the efforts of a number of people. I would like to pay tribute in particular to the rapporteur, Christine Oddy, who has taken great pains to bring this to a conclusion in spite of all the odds.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we came up against the Council's stubbornness in wanting to impose a type 3b committee, which we have always denounced as anti-democratic. We sincerely hope this will disappear within the framework of the overall solution the Commission will very shortly put to the European Parliament with regard to commitology.
Mr President, I mention this failure with regret, of course, but with no bitterness, and I also know that Mrs Lidl has personally shown a great deal of availability and understanding with regard to this issue.
In reality, the factor which I have just mentioned was the determinant one for our delegation.
On the eve of the search for a new commitology agreement, we could not accept a solution which could have committed us to an unfortunate precedent, likely even to compromise the issue of future negotiations.
I would like to thank the members of the delegation very sincerely for having been willing to accept that this institutional aspect should prevail in this case, in spite of the importance of other issues. I would like to thank our institutionalists, in particular the chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, Mr De Giovanni, for his enlightened assistance on this sensitive subject.
I would like to emphasize that our delegation's decision was a unanimous one.
The Council chose the option of not confirming its common position.
As the President clearly said in his announcement, it was a wise decision which we must note positively since it anticipates the application of a new Article 251 in the Amsterdam Treaty which, as we hoped, will remove the much discussed third reading.
It now only remains for us to hope that an agreement will be rapidly reached so that conciliation procedures may be once and for all released from this widespread and nagging problem which affects so many issues.
We hope that the Commission will show some understanding - I am looking at Commissioner Monti as I speak - and will help us to make the Council realize that implementation measures must also be adopted out of respect for transparency and democracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission shares the positive opinion you have expressed on the functioning of the codecision procedure to date and, in particular, on the fruitful result of the work carried out by the Conciliation Committee in those cases in which it has taken measures to reach an agreement.
It is in this favourable context that the Commission considers it advisable to examine the conclusion reached by the Conciliation Committee on the proposal for a directive to set up a Securities Committee and it wishes to provide two keys to a reading today.
On the one hand, we regret that, despite the commitment of the parties involved, it has not been possible to reach an agreement.
We are very grateful to the Conciliation Committee which, under the admirable chairmanship of Mrs Fontaine, has devoted time and attention to this matter.
I would also like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Oddy, for the role he has played.
The Commission, allow me to recall, has played its role to favour approximation between the positions of the two parties, particularly by clarifying the technical nature of the implementing duties provided for in the proposal and by proposing several respectful forms of compromise on the political responsibility which the Treaties attributed to the Commission as the authority responsible for the implementing measures.
On the other hand, and this, Mr President, is the second key to the reading, I think that the lack of agreement on the Securities Committee should be seen as an entirely negative result.
This result has enabled the co-legislators and the Commission to note, to see with their own eyes in a specific case, the extent of the basic problems of the decision taken in December 1987 and therefore to calmly confirm the need for a revision.
To conclude, Mr President, I confirm that the Commission is discussing today the final direction to be given to the new proposal on commitology, which will be submitted at the beginning of the summer.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I think this brief exchange of ideas has been useful and interesting for all of us to hear.
This situation has actually never arisen before and we have found that it has not been possible to take the essential institutional requirements of the European Parliament into account.
Control of synthetic drugs
The next item is the report (A4-0157/98) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the control of new synthetic drugs (designer drugs) (COM(97)0249 - C4-0244/97).
Mr President, I wish to express my satisfaction at the rapporteur's work.
I also agree with the analysis made by this House and confirm the gravity of the phenomenon in Europe.
Synthetic drugs have burst onto the scene and we have to take note of the increasingly more difficult situation. It will be increasingly harder to prevent, deal with and suppress drug abuse.
That is why we have to work with great commitment and, in particular, not underestimate the problem.
Unfortunately, as the rapporteur said, some people including authorities in the scientific world, have tried to spread extremely serious attitudes: some maintain that it is possible to live with the Saturday night drug.
These statements do not take into account the serious, even physical, potential consequences connected with the use of drugs, destroying brain cells.
They do not see the extreme gravity of the mental effect these drugs have on young people who, initially in a state of euphoria, suddenly fall into severe depression.
The consequences increase if we take into account the fact that synthetic drugs are often associated with the use of natural drugs and alcohol: this produces a real phenomenon of refined psychology.
These consequences are firstly social: we need simply think of the unmotivated violence of so many young people, gangs of youths, road accidents, Saturday night destruction and, finally, the increase in suicide.
We believe that the spread of synthetic drugs should be taken into great consideration.
We agree with the suppression of criminal organizations, but we also believe that measures need to be taken to reduce demand and therefore to think of prevention aimed at promoting values, not constructed pleasure, but spontaneous pleasure.
Finally, I believe that the European Parliament should ask for a commitment.
Today more than ever, we are seeing this constant change in the world of drugs and, consequently, it is not possible to outline the consumption of the various drugs.
We need to say a decisive "no' to all drugs.
The threat which is posed by synthetic drugs is directed almost exclusively at the health and the lives of young people in our society, and this is where synthetic drugs differ from conventional drugs.
It is natural that as the representative of the Committee on Culture, which is also a committee on youth, I should deal in particular here with the question of how preventative measures can be employed as part of a direct approach to young people.
An essential step must be to inform young people more fully about the risks of consuming synthetic drugs, to ensure that education starts at an early age, and above all to involve parents, teachers, educators, doctors and pharmacists.
Many amendments based on this realization have already been introduced in the Committee on Culture.
A further peculiarity about synthetic drugs is that they are consumed almost exclusively in the techno and rave scene, which is part of the culture of many young people at all levels of society.
That is why it is especially dangerous for this scene to be glamorized in the media, and above all on the Internet - where there is quite literally advertising for certain new drugs.
Not only must we counteract the pernicious influence of the Internet, we must in turn use this medium to launch an educational campaign.
It is important that the dialogue with young people should be conducted seriously, as it is with adults.
In my country, antidrugs discos, as they are called, are now part of the scene.
But at the same time we have to make one thing absolutely clear: taking drugs is never risk-free.
It is self-evident for me, as a pharmacist, to know that no medicine is without its side-effects, and this also applies to the so-called designer drugs.
Even the smallest dose of these synthetic substances can be dangerous, and what one person can cope with may cause serious physical harm in another.
That is why I particularly support Mr Pirker's call for a network of drugs-free schools.
I have been advocating this for 20 years, but I have to say that while the schools may be made drug-free, the students will all too often have taken the stuff before they get there.
Mr President, synthetic drugs have been around for a long time.
The Beatles' splendid, classic number "Lucy in the sky with diamonds' is already more than 25 years old, so it is rather strange that we are only now starting to pay attention to these drugs and that, according to the report, so little is known about them.
What we do know is that large quantities of synthetic drugs are made and consumed in the European Union.
My country, the Netherlands, is among those at the forefront of this.
The resolution before us is a good resolution.
It is right not to speak of legalizing these "designer drugs' .
We have discussed legalization many times in this House and that does not produce much harmony.
Just as with the general policy on drugs, the view of the Liberal group is that we also have to have a threefold policy in this area under the slogan: prevent, combat and treat.
That means a combination policy, therefore.
The approach to tackling synthetic drugs must be part of the general drugs policy, and not become a separate sector.
The principal policy points in the report - to summarize briefly - are more research by the drugs observatory, harmonization of the relevant penal provisions and better cooperation with eastern European countries.
The Liberal group is very ready to agree to the main points of the report and I would like to compliment rapporteur Pirker sincerely.
In principle, as things look at the moment, we will be able to vote for his report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I approve of the Commission's proposal, especially with regard to the fight against trafficking, as it adopts a balanced approach which is fully in line with the spirit of the current negotiations on the United Nations convention.
This, in fact, relates primarily to traditional drug traffickers, but also includes new methods relating to those who supply the products which enable new drugs to be made.
Much as we support this fight against drug trafficking, however, the Confederal Group of the European United Left and I cannot support this motion for a resolution whilst its punitive nature is maintained, as this will have absolutely no dissuasive effect on young people whatsoever.
We already know this for a fact.
For a long time in France now, and against the better judgement of many, people have continued to be punished for drug consumption.
Consumption, however, has not decreased.
We are told that these young people are completely unaware of the risks.
Perhaps it is precisely because they know the risks that they take the drugs.
When will we finally take on board the existence of social suffering in relation to drug addiction, the fact that it is clearly the result of a social disease, that it is also due to the individuals themselves who, sometimes, have no other way of expressing their desire to put their life at stake, to attempt to give it some meaning, when society, their family and parents, have not been able to instil into them a desire for living? So let us put an end to these dissuasive efforts aimed at consumers!
Secondly, my group cannot accept the fact that the preamble states that these people "are not conspicuous in society' .
It is unacceptable and that is how young people are pushed into criminal activity.
My group will not support this resolution unless there are certain amendments removing the strictly punitive aspects linked to consumption and, above all, the contemptuous attitude of a society which produces young people who sometimes feel obliged to seek their future in the taking of such risks.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for the clear description he gives of this phenomenon in his introduction.
I would, nevertheless, add a few minor qualifications.
He says there are five million consumers of synthetic drugs, a number which is far from marginal.
He speaks of the particular social situation of these consumers.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit has just mentioned it.
The rapporteur also notes the little information we have on the levels of danger of this phenomenon.
This seems important to me.
He speaks, and this is important, of the simplicity of producing these drugs.
He also mentions the fact that some states have already established, aside from a system of legalization, controls on the quality of these forbidden products.
However, we do not agree with the report's conclusions on the measures to be requested of the Commission, the Council and the Member States.
You cannot reasonably envisage having five million policemen, one in each kitchen, one in each attic, one in each cellar, for this is where these drugs are made.
We know that these drugs are easily transportable and that they are not detectable using the means normally used to detect other drugs.
Yet the rapporteur proposes penalizing the consumers and the producers - who are often themselves consumers - along with completely ineffectual methods of combating organized trafficking.
Let us say it again, is it not because our friends in the Group of the European People's Party or others in Very New Labour , or the Scandinavians have realized they have lost the first war against traditional drugs that they must invent a new war, one which is already lost, moreover, since there are already five million consumers of synthetic drugs?
What rapidly needs to be considered, in terms of prevention and in terms of information, is the creation of a legal system which will restore the Member States' ability to control this phenomenon.
Because if it is a question of finding new wars then I invite Mr Pirker and my friends in the Group of the European People's Party to make war on parachuting, with a mortality rate of one in every 80 000 jumps.
Ecstasy and synthetic drugs have a mortality rate of one for every 3.4 million times that Ecstasy is taken.
They should therefore begin to consider the fact that those who want to pump up their adrenaline by parachute jumping are far more dangerous to society and themselves than those who take Ecstasy.
I think we should start to see things from this perspective, to see them rationally, whilst endeavouring to bring back under the control of our Member States a phenomenon which, as five million consumers show, is currently completely out of control.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Pirker's report clearly and meticulously describes the worrying phenomenon of the consumption of new synthetic drugs.
I would like thank him for this.
It seems that almost five million young people are taking drugs within the European Union.
These drugs are now even considered as a normal recreational activity in clubs and discos.
Apart from the fact that we know these drugs can have a harmful effect on health as well as self-control - heart problems, increased blood pressure, hallucinations, depression, aggression and so on -, it is also difficult to fight against these drugs because they are constantly changing and easily produced.
It therefore seems clear that we must fight them by using all the measures at our disposal, preventive, curative and also punitive, and to assure better cooperation between Member States in this fight.
It is the duty of the European Parliament to be the best advocates, the best defenders of true liberty, real liberty, that is to say, responsible liberty, the exercise of which increases human dignity.
It would be absurd for this Chamber, in one way or another, to encourage the free consumption of substances whose primary effect on the consumer is the loss of self-control, which is one of the conditions of the dignity of free human beings.
This is why Mr Pirker's report, by recommending both preventive and punitive measures - which in themselves may have a preventive and pedagogic effect - seems to us balanced and worthy of support as it stands.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to mention a recent experience.
I was in Turin last weekend where there is a footpath alongside the river Po, which is known as the junkies' footpath.
The sight of the degenerate youths who hang around there is enough to compel anyone to carry on the fight to free our society from drugs.
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate Mr Pirker on his excellent report, which was very thorough but also very specific.
The report indicates that the traditional subdivision between light drugs, such as marijuana and hashish, and heavy drugs, such as heroine, is not the most realistic subdivision.
The increasingly more extensive and varied circulation of synthetic drugs has completely revolutionized the narcotics scene.
Synthetic drugs are being used more and more by very young people, they are the ones that are most in fashion, but they are also the ones whose long-term negative effects on health are not yet fully known.
We need a wider and stronger initiative to provide information and prevention and particularly a commitment on the part of the Member States to suppress the manufacture and trafficking of these new substances.
Consequently, from my point of view, we need to contest the logic of those against prohibitions firmly for, with regard to synthetic drugs as well, they say that legalization would limit the harm, at least by eliminating illegal profits, as if the problem of drug dependency were only a problem of public order.
In the campaign against drugs, resigned acceptance is unacceptable as it can often cost lives.
As pointed out in the report on the 1996-2000 common campaign against drugs, the only way to actually reduce drugs trafficking is to try and remove the causes establishing demand.
We therefore need to give young Europeans specific answers to their unease and their problems, offer them new opportunities, work, culture and solidarity.
But certainly not legalization!
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Pirker for the splendid work he has done in preparing this very important report.
The question of the control of synthetic drugs is a vital one for the future of the struggle against the whole drugs problem.
If the problem is not tackled seriously, the drug users fraternity, as a result of the existence of synthetic drugs, will extend to those outside the so-called marginalized group.
The protective barriers that prevent a normal young person from becoming a user of synthetic drugs will weaken if drugs are easily and cheaply available and if they are perceived as being a part of modern youth culture, as they are in many countries today.
Give the Devil an inch and he will take a yard, because using synthetic drugs is a step on the way to becoming a user of harder drugs.
The issue of the fight against synthetic drugs, which was raised by the Dublin European Council, needs concrete proposals and prompt combined action.
One particular problem is the control of the trafficking of synthetic drugs in its early stages, as such drugs can be manufactured quickly and close to their markets.
Surveillance operations must be quick to react in the same way all over Europe.
Central to the matter is the creation of a real-time data system which can be used by customs, the police and the judicial authorities, into which up-to-date information on new synthetic drugs that have appeared on the market can be fed.
It will be important to undertake a survey on what kind of technical solutions and systems already in place could assist in the creation of such an operation.
Furthermore, an alliance with eastern European countries in this matter right from the start would lend the process credibility and increase cooperation in such a way that the principles of free movement may be safeguarded.
Mr President, let me, at the outset say that our group is entirely in favour of Mr Pirker's report.
Some months ago there was a move in this House to legalize cannabis.
Now we are suggesting that LSD and Ecstasy are consumer products that should be distributed like sweets.
Perhaps we should hand out landmines to everyone in the House, because it is not dissimilar to saying that drugs are not dangerous.
In my own city, Dublin, we have seen whole communities devastated by the scourge of drugs.
I am not saying that Mr Dupuis, the Greens and the Socialists are not right to open up the argument.
On the contrary.
They are quite right to put their side of the case so that we can reply to it.
While I welcome the debate - I welcome both sides of the debate taking place in this House - I say to the Greens that I am very disappointed at the type of amendments they have put down in the House supporting the regulation and free distribution of drugs.
The overall objective of nearly all the amendments is undeniably dangerous.
Where the Pirker text puts the case for enforcement penalties for trafficking, pushing and consumption of synthetic drugs, the Greens seek to delete the reference to consumption.
They also want these drugs to be regulated.
In other words, they should be available and capable of being sold in machines, supermarkets and other outlets.
I recommend to the House Mr Pirker's report without reservation.
I thank him for his efforts.
Mr President, I, too, would like to congratulate Mr Pirker on his good report and I agree with much, if not all, of it.
To Mr Andrews and others I would like to stress that the Green Group is not unanimous in its view on drugs, there are differences of opinion.
That the fight against drugs will be built on cooperation and will is something on which we probably all agree.
What, however, we do not agree on is the harmonization of criminal law, for example, and whether that should be desirable.
This is, in my opinion, a matter for the separate Member States.
I consider it impossible that Article 129 be used as a basis for harmonizing laws and policies on drugs, and so obviously does the Commission, too.
I am afraid Mr Pirker belittles the addictive nature and dangerous effects of the synthetic drugs and also the social exclusion they prove to lead to.
Nor do I agree that synthetic drugs are mainly to be found only in music circles.
Our objective here in Parliament and in the Member States must be a drug-free society.
I hope Parliament will repudiate the amendments which, directly or indirectly, plead for legalization.
Mr President, I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the work of our colleague, Mr Pirker, because this Parliament's reputation in the field of policies to combat drugs is evidently determined more by a minority in this Parliament which shouts the loudest.
Members will remember that only a few months ago here in the Hemicycle, a report was blocked with great difficulty, which wanted to install a far-reaching policy of tolerance, along the lines of the Dutch model, for drugs which are ten times more dangerous than the synthetic substances we are discussing today.
Mr Pirker, in contrast, very rightly describes the enormous risks associated with all kinds of drug use, confirms the serious criminal nature of drug trafficking and proposes a number of preventive and repressive measures.
The report rightly argues that repressive measures must not only be passed but also actually implemented.
That seems obvious but it is not.
I would also like to add something to the report before us.
I want to point out the essential role of the traditional family in the prevention of drug use.
I remain convinced that a great many of the serious evils of our society today can be ascribed to the decline in the role of the family as the cornerstone of society, as protector, place of learning and example to children.
Perhaps the Commission should come up with a recommendation to file a complaint against putting the family in many Member States at a material, moral and even fiscal disadvantage.
Finally, of course it is extremely difficult to put in place a healthy form of cooperation between sovereign Member States on combating drugs while a number of Member States, principally the Netherlands and now unfortunately by own Member State, Belgium, has put in place a policy of tolerance of drug use.
Mr President, I have just been considering the dangers which would be posed to society by parachutists who are on drugs.
After all, Mr Dupuis did mention parachutists.
But on a more serious note, I should like to give my most sincere congratulations to the rapporteur on his report.
It always reassures me to know that reports on this particular issue are being dealt with by the rapporteur in question, because I believe that his involvement guarantees that our children will not be put at risk by misguided liberalism.
The particular characteristics and side-effects of the synthetic drugs described in the report - and particularly the tendency of leisure addicts, if I can use the term, to seriously underestimate the effects of their habit - account for the special threat which they pose.
The fact that these fashionable drugs are being distributed for profit as part of a new organized-crime network means that the measures being proposed in the report, and particularly those aimed at an effective system of prevention, have now become a matter of urgency.
We shall accept the report for all these reasons.
Mr President, on the whole I do not have too many problems with the Pirker report.
It is important that we do not fall into the trap of giving some form of social approval to any form of drug-taking.
Having said that, hopefully almost all of us now recognize that a purely punitive approach will not work - indeed is not working - and that we need to do a great deal more in the fields of health care, education and trying to wean young people away from the drug culture.
I have one particular difficulty with the Pirker report: it is far too optimistic, far too ambitious to think that we can, at this stage, harmonize or integrate in any way the drugs legislation in the Member States.
Just imagine trying to reconcile the approach of the Netherlands, for example, with that of Sweden.
It just will not happen.
That is why I think we have to let each Member State deal with this issue in its own way.
Of course there should be a coordination of activities; of course there should be cooperation.
But Amendment No 21 in the name of Schulz and d'Ancona, which says that it is impracticable at the moment to talk of harmonization, is a sensible amendment.
If that is carried I do not have any great difficulties in supporting the report.
But I am against Amendments Nos 19 and 22 which do not help very much in this situation.
This is a very serious issue.
I wish this report could have been dealt with at the same time as the d'Ancona report, in a broad ranging debate.
But there it is. The report is before us this morning.
With the qualifications I have mentioned, we should support the line indicated.
Mr President, Mr Pirker's excellent report deals with one of the most important problems we have to wrestle with in Europe today.
We all know how synthetic drugs are now spreading like wild fire among the young people of Europe.
The trend is equally clear in all the Member States within the EU.
That is something we could clearly see already in 1995 at the conference on drugs, jointly arranged by the Commission, the Parliament and the Spanish Presidency.
The two latest reports from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon have also confirmed our worst fears.
No-one can any longer doubt the fact that synthetic drugs have become one of the gravest threats to young people's lives and health in our Member States.
The reality behind the figures is frightening.
We are talking about a conscious campaign here run by powerful international criminal forces.
The purpose is clear: to create widespread drug addiction among a new generation of young people.
New preparations are handed out free of charge outside schools and youth centres to attract beginners to start and experiment.
The effects are dedramatized and minimized.
The tactic is to associate synthetic drugs with a new and attractive youth culture, to associate them with dancing, music and a strong feeling of togetherness.
Gone are the unpleasant needles, the nasty smelling pipes and the give-away smell of smoke.
The strategy has so far been effective.
The EU Heads of State or Government raised the problem at the Dublin Summit in 1996.
Immediately thereafter I and my officials brought a number of proposals forward for concrete action.
One of our starting points was that it takes too long today to ban new substances that keep appearing.
UN conventions are quite simply not enough.
The result is that it becomes difficult for prosecutors and the police to work effectively.
Another starting point was that the input from the Member States in this area needs to be better coordinated, not least making use of one another's resources and expertise.
The conclusion was that improvements were needed on three points. Firstly, we have to create a more effective system of exchange of information between Member States.
Secondly, we need to be able to make joint and scientifically based risk assessments.
Thirdly, we must see to it that synthetic drugs are banned rapidly in all Member States; it is not good enough for one or two Member States to act; joint action is needed.
This is also the significance of the joint action adopted by the Council of Ministers on 16 June 1997.
It has been extremely heartening to see how intensively both Europol and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction in Lisbon have worked to implement this decision.
The result today is that we have a well functioning information system.
Before the end of the year the first joint scientific analysis of a new form of Ecstasy, called MBDB, will also have been completed.
Then the Council of Ministers will have one month to take appropriate measures.
In Mr Pirker's report there is a recommendation to include too the central and eastern European countries in this work, a thought I support wholeheartedly.
During my travels in many applicant countries, it has been repeatedly confirmed to me that the manufacture of and addiction to amphetamine, methamphetamine and Ecstasy is rapidly spreading there as well.
It is therefore, without the slightest doubt, in our own interest to include these countries as soon as possible in the fight against drugs.
The idea to associate the applicant countries with the decision on a joint action to combat synthetic drugs will also be discussed at the Council meeting at the end of this month.
My hope is that we will be able to go further still.
I am in the process of identifying all the agreements reached by the Council of Ministers in the sphere of the third pillar, and to which the applicant countries can affiliate themselves more or less straight away.
Another point that Mr Pirker raises in his report deals with the control of chemical precursors.
This is a question I also mentioned in the 1996 communication on synthetic drugs.
I then pointed out the need for reinforcing the control of chemical base elements, used in the manufacture of the new synthetic drugs.
I can mention here that the Commission has already put forward amendments to the two directives which today regulate the manufacture and trade of these base elements.
These amendments have, by the way, already been forwarded to the European Parliament for opinions.
Mr President, that the EU now takes up the struggle against synthetic drugs is of great importance for our international credibility.
Combating drugs will, as you know, be high on the agenda of the United Nations' special session on drugs in June this year.
Today a frighteningly large proportion of the manufacture of amphetamines, methamphetamines and Ecstasy takes place within the EU circle.
It is therefore about time we swept our own front doorstep clean.
The special session in New York in early June is, to my mind, one of the most important of this year's UN meetings.
The Council of Ministers is busily preparing for it, and, as you will know, the Commission has contributed to that work with a communication presenting our thoughts and ideas.
This communication is at present being scrutinized by Parliament, I hope.
I shall be present myself in New York together with my colleague, Commissioner Marin.
The Commission would welcome the presence of Parliament, too, at this important meeting.
We are therefore in the process of looking into the possibility of including representatives from the European Parliament in the delegation from the Commission.
As far as I understand, the prospects for this look good.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Preliminary draft general budget for 1999 (presentation)
The next item is the presentation by the Commission of the preliminary draft budget for 1999.
Thank you, Mr President and thank you, Commissioner Liikanen, for your thorough presentation of the preliminary draft budget for 1999.
I also want to thank you for having presented your preliminary draft earlier than expected, which means we can work on the budget ahead of schedule this year. This will allow us to hold three-way talks with the Council on 17 July, instead of at the end of that month, and means that this Parliament and the relevant committees do not have to panic about the first reading.
I also want to say that, in broad terms, this Parliament has already expressed its priorities for the 1999 budget and although we agree that it has to be a rigorous budget the Union's commitments should not be compromised just for the sake of the endof-year figures.
In any case, Commissioner, this is not the time to start a debate.
So I will content myself with thanking you for your presentation and pointing out that there are some details we cannot go along with, on which the relevant committees will have to state their opinion.
All that glitters is not gold.
There is one point I would like to stress: you know very well, Commissioner, that your supplementary and amending budget does not solve the problem, in this 1999 budget, of the discrepancy between commitments and payments.
I hope a solution will emerge during the deliberations.
Otherwise, Commissioner, thank you for your collaboration and I hope that between us all - yourselves, Parliament and the Council too - we can steer this budget to a happy conclusion.
Mr President, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop asked whether the discrepancy between commitments and payments remains in 1998.
What we are proposing is to add some ECU 560m to the payment credits of the Social Fund.
That is because of the situation where the payment credits have not been sufficient to cover all the commitments.
At the end of the last year some expenditure in the Social Fund had to be postponed to the following year.
To try to alleviate the situation so that this would not happen to any great extent, we have added this ECU 560m.
We do not know if it is entirely sufficient but at least it will make it a bit easier.
The debate is closed.
Tobacco advertising
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0150/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products (C4-0034/98-00/0194(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Christian Cabrol).
Mr President, as a non-smoker I have others who smoke to thank for my cough.
I agree with Professor Cabrol's passionate plea to drive back tobacco.
He argued the case before the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for a general ban on tobacco to be proclaimed on the grounds of public health.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights did not talk about tobacco.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights did not talk about public health.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights asked itself whether a total ban on advertising would further the operation of the single market, yes or no.
It is obvious that a ban on cars or alcoholic drinks is the antithesis of furthering the operation of the single market, so Article 100a is not the right means.
The German Bundestag has already decided to bring it before the Court of Justice; not Parliament, not the Commission, not the Council, but the Court of Justice, which always follows the rule if there is a special article in the Treaty on the subject.
That will also be used and not a general article. In other words, if this directive is accepted, the Court of Justice will reject it because there is no legal basis for it.
There is a basis.
Since Maastricht, there has been Article 129 which calls on us to promote public health and the route for those who want to ban tobacco is Article 129 of the Treaty.
There are more victims of car use, innocent third parties.
If people want to reduce the use of the car on public health grounds by banning advertising which restricts trade and hinders the operation of the internal market, they should do so on the grounds of Article 129.
Professor Cabrol will get my support on that, but this is absolutely the wrong method.
That is why it is being referred back to the Commission.
The Council's legal service has also said no.
Mr President, on Parliament's own initiative, we have spent nearly nine years, during one presidency after another, trying to ban direct and indirect advertising of tobacco products within the Union, together with the sponsorship of sporting events.
The damage tobacco does to the health of both active and passive smokers is only too well known, and we Members who have spent nearly a decade on this attempt have repeated them endlessly.
Tobacco kills, as Professor Cabrol said.
Its consumption is linked to 30 % of all cancers.
It is also the leading cause of premature death: more than half a million people die in the Union every year because of this fatal habit which has been promoted for years. Additives have even been added in a criminal fashion to increase addiction among adolescents and children, some of them just five years old.
That is really monstrous, Mr President.
I am not even going to mention those irrational arguments based on suspect reasoning, such as saying that cars are dangerous too. What we are talking about here today is protecting people's health and life, not luring them, as the tobacco companies do, towards a process of disease and sorrow for the sake of private financial interests.
There is no doubt that direct and indirect advertising and the sponsorship of sporting events have played and continue to play an important role in the promotion of tobacco consumption among young people. We all know that.
But there are too many financial interests behind it, as was made patently clear by the scandalous attempt at an agreement on the part of the North American tobacco companies.
The common position we are now considering is a first step.
It is the result of a compromise which has not been at all easy. It goes in the right direction, and as such we welcome it, although cautiously too, because it is hard to see why we should continue to allow sponsorship until the year 2006, or why in some regions there should still be subsidies for tobacco products which do such serious damage to health.
Nevertheless, it is still a worthwhile first step in our anti-cancer strategy, and we will vote in its favour.
I do not want to end my part in this historic debate, Mr President, without congratulating the rapporteur, Professor Cabrol, and the presidency, both the current one as well as the previous Luxembourg Presidency. Their work has enabled us to reach this agreement, within the single market, despite the biased interpretation from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which also happened, Mr President, at first reading.
Mr President, Mr Cabrol, ladies and gentlemen, allow me firstly to congratulate Mr Cabrol on his tenacious and sincere commitment to the banning of tobacco advertising and for his report, which clearly recommends approval of the Council's common position on the proposal for a directive on the approximation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions of Member States relating to the advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products.
I would like to assure him of my full support. On behalf of the many direct or indirect victims of tobacco, as Mrs Grossetête has just said, and the 13 000 European doctors - ten of whom are Nobel Prize winners - who have signed a petition in favour of this directive, may I thank him for the courageous position he has taken, which we must follow.
We must be perfectly clear that tobacco kills 548 000 Europeans every year, more than road accidents, alcohol, murders, drugs and suicides put together.
It has also been noted that tobacco advertising has a considerable influence over the behaviour of young people, encouraged to smoke in order to identify with an unrealistic lifestyle.
But it is young people, the life's blood and future of Europe, whom we must protect and inform so that they can consciously and freely make their own choices in life.
In the face of this living reality, the legal arguments being advanced by the tobacco industry through a skilfully orchestrated lobbying campaign seem intended to evade the debate on the substance of the matter by replacing it with a debate on procedure.
For, let us make no mistake, ladies and gentlemen, it is a political decision that we have to make by voting for the Cabrol report.
Let the Court of Justice decide on the issue of a legal basis, if it is referred to them. That is their right.
But we in the European Parliament, the voice of the people of Europe, cannot let this opportunity to defend a healthier Europe, so close to the hearts of our citizens, pass us by. It is an opportunity to defend a voluntarist and pragmatic vision of Europe and - it will do no harm just this once - to ensure that a political decision prevails over administrative circumspection.
Mr President, our group supports the positions of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and Mr Cabrol - which are the same - in the sense that we reject all the amendments which could weaken the Council's common position. Some amendments, while presented with the best of intentions, can only have the effect of changing the Council's position.
And 37 Members in the Committee on the Environment voted in favour of this report's proposal, proving that members of all the groups support the Cabrol report in its present form and the Council's common position.
It is very clear that there are all sorts of pressures.
And it is also very clear that the use of the legal basis is a subterfuge to try to invalidate the Council's common position.
When people say we should use Article 129, they forget that, according to that article, it is not possible to adopt measures to harmonize the Member States' legal and statutory provisions.
So it is just a subterfuge; so much so that we think there has been an attempt to devalue the position of the Council and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We also agree with the recommendations Mr Cabrol makes at the end of his report, where he requests that this measure - the banning of advertising - should not be the only one.
We have to look again at tobacco labelling and the addictive nature of additives. There should also be moves towards the upwards harmonization of the taxes on tobacco consumption.
A little while ago, there appeared in the Spanish press a report that in 1983 a tobacco company - I do not want to mention names, but it is the foremost cigarette manufacturer in the world - got one of its laboratories to do a study into the addictive effects of nicotine.
When the scientists presented it with the results of the study, which clearly showed that nicotine is addictive, the company destroyed the study and dismantled the laboratory.
So they are fraudulently misleading people, especially young people, who enter the world of tobacco without really knowing what they are getting into.
We are in favour of Mr Cabrol's report, so we are going to support it here in this Chamber.
Mr President, the Greens are certainly not in favour of prohibitionist or repressive measures with regard to substances such as tobacco, which are consumed for personal pleasure by a large number of people.
However, when faced with a significant cause of tumours, respiratory conditions and cardio-circulatory diseases - around 500 000 people die in the EU every year as a result of smoking -, we need to adopt serious preventive measures. In particular, we must try to change people's attitudes and give them more information.
On the same subject, it is quite absurd that the EU should spend money on such preventive measures if it then risks being thwarted by direct or indirect advertising and sponsorship.
Having said that, we feel the common position could certainly be improved and the date on which the ban on sports sponsorship comes into force - 2006 - is too distant for many who are concerned by the serious consequences of active and passive smoking.
However, we are aware of the difficulties this proposal has encountered over around nine years and would like to answer the numerous requests made by ordinary people, consumers, associations combating cancer, medical workers and organizations dealing with the prevention of tumours and respiratory diseases, including UNICEF, the European office of the World Health Organization, the International Agency for Cancer Research based in Lyons, and the European Society for Respiratory Diseases.
These are just a few examples to help you understand the extent of the problem, but I could also mention the hundreds of doctors committed to this cause.
To answer these requests, the Greens consider it advisable to accept Mr Cabrol's invitation to approve this common position without any amendment and without amending the reference article of the Treaty.
We therefore support Mr Cabrol's report.
Mr President, we all agree that we must protect our young people against the damaging effects of tobacco.
We all agree that we must thus oppose the flood of tobacco advertising.
We therefore have no problem in voting for the text of the common position.
Having said this, we must be careful, for I fear that this virtuous attitude of protection of the young, although widely shared, fits too well into a moralistic, repressive, prohibitionist, politically correct trend which, in the name of modernity, follows the example of the United States of America blindly, although they themselves lag far behind in dealing with problems in society.
So instead of bans, let us take a different attitude, a more difficult, more determined, more modest one, too: one of educating the youth in our countries.
Pleasure is not forbidden.
Tobacco, bungy jumping, motocross, caffeine, cannabis, alcohol, all of these are dangerous.
But they should all form part of an ongoing educational effort on our part.
We must help our youngsters along the difficult path to knowledge.
Prohibition creates delinquency.
Let us beware of a society in which there are so many bans that everything which has not been banned is therefore compulsory, and that's how all of society's problems are solved.
Mr President, it seems we are reaching the end of a process of almost ten years' tug-of-war.
The ban on advertising tobacco products is almost a fact, at least provided the ship does not come to ground after all here in Parliament, in the Council, or perhaps even in the Court of Justice.
The concept of subsidiarity has played an important part throughout this debate.
That is a principle that I have a soft spot for, so at first sight a ban on tobacco advertising is indeed a matter which should be left to the Member States themselves.
However, if you opt for the economic point of view, things turn out differently.
Advertising is a completely normal economic activity.
It must not be confused with freedom of expression. If we once start on that, we would have to start counting advertising as one of the fundamental human rights.
Noone would be very keen on that.
Advertising, therefore, is a form of service which can sometimes become an undesirable form of service.
That is why this economic activity also has to be subject to boundaries.
Just as industrial operations have to be confined within a framework of environmental legislation, so advertising is also subject to regulations. Of course, it is always the case that, on the one hand you are serving public health, and on the other hand you want to prevent unfair competition.
In the case of the ban on sponsorship and advertising of tobacco products it is obvious, of course, that this serves the interests of public health, and that is no small goal either.
Half a million deaths in the European Union as a result of addiction to smoking is not nothing.
This law on advertising is, to use that lovely expression, a way of creating a level playing field for the advertisement of tobacco products.
I take the view that this common position is rightly founded on Article 100a and I will vote for it.
I will not support any of the amendments.
Even the amendments tabled on behalf of the I-EDN group should be rejected.
If this directive is adopted, the European Union will be giving a clear signal that the free market economy is important but that it is subject to limiting conditions.
Mr President, six years after these proposals were last debated and overwhelmingly endorsed in this Chamber, today we have both new and old voices arguing again over principles and even more over technical issues.
May I suggest that we pause for a moment.
Let us simply ask why rather than how we are doing this.
We are seeking to phase out the advertising of tobacco products, because this is an action which will make a real difference between life and death for some European citizens, particularly those who are most vulnerable.
So let us not fling statistics about like insults at a football match.
One unnecessary death from smoking is one too many if we can prevent the deceptive peddling of the products which may cause it.
Let us not claim threats to personal or press freedoms.
One baby breathing in killer smoke has no freedom to save itself.
The arguments about cars, alcohol or even about sweets being banned next all founder against the reality of the effects of passive smoking, and we have plenty of other safety measures for those products.
Similarly, let us not set jobs against health.
Listen to and see the agony of a doctor who has to tell a non-smoker that she has cancer because she breathed the smoke of someone who thought that smoking looked cool on a screen or on a page.
That is a very different agony to a redundancy notice in an industry where profits often exceed the wealth of states.
Instead let us thank those who have worked to create a modest, serious, legal and practical measure with an important impact, one which will help others to create even more effective measures in future.
We should be proud and grateful to the Commissioners and the officials, our own rapporteurs and ministers and the campaigners and the doctors who have fought for this moment for their determination and courage to do the right thing.
Let the producers and the promoters and their armies of lawyers and apologists also ponder for a moment their shame, their deceit and the destruction they have caused.
Future generations will come to wonder how they have flourished for so long.
Tomorrow our votes for Mr Cabrol's brave and accurate report, for the common position without amendment, will literally bring a breath of fresh air for future generations of European citizens.
So this is that rare incisive moment in a frantic world: it is a market measure which will help save lives.
We should celebrate it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the control of smoking in Europe is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges that we face.
This is something which we should all become involved in.
My colleague said just now that we were again discussing the ban on tobacco advertising six years after our first efforts in this area.
Well, I would like to inform him that, as budget rapporteur, I have tried six times in the last six years to cut ECU 2bn from the tobacco subsidies in this budget, which is an area in which we do have appropriate powers.
I have never been so isolated in this House - not even now - as when I was seeking support for this idea.
And when I was trying to change the system of tobacco subsidies, I got precious little support from those who have been making grand speeches on the subject here today.
No, not everyone, but the majority!
Ladies and gentlemen, every day we spend ECU 5m on subsidizing European tobacco which not a single person in Europe wants to smoke!
And then they have the nerve to sell this tobacco outside Europe, notably in the Third World.
In the same breath, we are raising tobacco taxes from the citizens of Europe - 20bn alone in my own country, for example!
And then we think we can simply decide not to accept advertising for this product.
I once talked this over with my children, who are aged between 13 and 20. They simply could not understand this behaviour.
That is why I think this report is tackling the problem the wrong way.
We all agree about the objectives.
What is more, we all have the same fears, including me.
But if we are to pursue our objectives, then we shall have to adopt a different approach.
What does indirect advertising, by way of a Benelux news agency, have in common with a tobacco firm in Europe? Can we really ban indirect advertising so easily?
I do not believe that it will be as simple as this.
If it were not to go beyond tobacco, then I would understand this approach. But, Mr Flynn, you demonstrated the domino effect some while ago, because the next directive on banning car advertising has been lying in your office for quite a while.
We shall soon be discussing the subject of alcohol, and so on, and so on.
I believe that we must take a more global approach to this subject.
If we really want to tackle the problem, this proposal is too simple in its structure.
We need a concerted campaign to give real protection to our young people, to change our consciousness, to make real progress in reducing subsidies.
And we need a standard of behaviour towards non-smokers.
Of course we need this.
I get the impression that there are many people who believe that they can make progress by throwing the baby - and a cleanly-washed baby at that - out with the bathwater.
But in doing this they would not even be washing their own hands of the matter!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have read with great care the report by the venerable professor, Mr Cabrol.
I do not disagree with the scientific evidence in the report concerning the harmful effects of smoking on people's health.
Besides, I am a smoker and I am aware of them more than anybody else.
However, I have reservations about the following points: firstly, tobacco, as Mr Florenz quite rightly said, is a product which is subsidized by the European Union, circulates freely and the products of which are manufactured freely.
I therefore wonder how strong the legal basis is, which Mr Cabrol mentioned. Or perhaps Parliament will find itself in the difficult position of seeing advertising companies claiming vindication when they seek justice from the European Court of Justice.
Secondly, the best way to reduce smoking is not to increase tax or to ban advertising but through health education, which must take place in schools from the first year of primary school.
And I have not heard a single word spoken about this today in this Chamber.
Thirdly, I do not accept the claim of those colleagues who said that whoever has reservations concerning the report has no interest in public health, because many of those colleagues have given their support to the free circulation of soft drugs, as if soft drugs did not constitute a danger to public health or to society.
Mr President, this directive is unsound for three reasons. The first of these is its legal basis.
As all the previous speakers have demonstrated, this initiative is based on the risks of tobacco addiction for health and thus this directive should have Article 129 of the Treaty as its legal basis.
This article allows only for measures of encouragement rather than binding measures of harmonization, and so the directive could not have been presented in its current form.
The Commission thus chose Article 100a as the legal basis, that is, harmonization of the single market.
But the directive is absurd since, on the one hand, it wants to remove all barriers to competition whilst, on the other, it allows each country to implement the provisions of the directive either immediately or not until the year 2006.
If the market needs to be harmonized, then all the countries must be put on an equal footing and we cannot thus ban the sponsorship of sports and cultural events by the tobacco industry in one country whilst a neighbouring country still permits it.
This is, in itself, a distortion of competition and the ultimate irony is that it is a directive which is allowing this.
Secondly, as regards the substance, it is not acceptable to ban the advertisement of a product which is freely available for sale and which, moreover, is authorized and financed by the European Union.
Thirdly, there is complete chaos and total hypocrisy within the European Union with regard to the fight against addiction.
Tobacco advertising is cracked down on ferociously, smokers are endlessly bullied, and yet at the same time many Member States, including my own, show laxity in the fight against drugs by authorizing individual consumption even, and especially, amongst the young.
So it is dangerous to smoke a cigarette but to smoke a joint is evidently good for your health.
In reality, this directive is riding the waves of fashion and easy virtue.
It is time that the Commission had the courage to define a reasonable and appropriate policy for fighting addiction in all Member States.
As it stands, this directive authorizes nothing but disorder in sporting events over the next six years.
My own region, which is the home of the Francorchamps circuit, will feel the full force of the disastrous economic consequences of this directive and, what is even more serious, as statistics from countries where tobacco advertising is banned show, tobacco consumption will not be reduced.
It will thus be a failure both economically and in terms of public health.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mr Cabrol on his guidelines for bringing into effect a ban on the advertising of tobacco.
At the same time, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Flynn on the common position taken by Council.
I earnestly hope that the Council's common position will be approved as it stands.
It is often claimed that there is no researched evidence as to how the anti-smoking lobby and a tobacco advertising ban leads to a reduction in smoking.
We Finns are very experienced in this matter, however; an advertising ban is an effective means of reducing the consumption of tobacco.
Research undertaken by the International Union Against Cancer has succeeded in showing that banning tobacco advertisements has reduced tobacco consumption in Finland by 37 %.
It has also been noticed that, in a general sense, educational programmes that started in the 1950s show up clearly in statistics: figures for lung cancer in men have fallen dramatically.This is without doubt an indication that an advertising ban is necessary and that it will have far-reaching significance for the issue of public health.
Mr President, Commissioner, you cannot base health policy measures such as the ban on tobacco advertising on Article 100a because that is expressly forbidden in Article 129.
That is the legal position.
That is why a majority of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights considered that the Community had no regulatory powers whatsoever in this matter.
Of course, that is going very wide of the mark.
The Union does have powers in relation to crossborder advertising, and it should make use of them, and in my opinion this should include tobacco advertising as well.
But an outright ban, or a ban on free gifts in the Member States, is not covered by Article 100a.
This is why the Commission ought to act under Article 129 (2) to see that a ban is imposed in the countries concerned - insofar as that is possible - in the interest of public health.
Anyone who does not want to lose the case before the European Court of Justice should at least vote for Frau Roth-Berendt's amendments.
Mr President, it is quite clear that this House has to support this common position or nothing.
I have heard sophistry from various sides of the House questioning the legal basis which is to my mind just a diversionary tactic, questioning the tobacco subsidy in Greece, etc.
It is quite clear that this is the moment of truth when we have to stand up and be counted.
There is a tremendous amount of interest in this debate and this vote today.
I have had a full mail bag, as I am sure many Members have from all parts of their constituencies and their countries.
If I could just quote a professor of medicine who said in twenty years she has never taken up any political activity or lobbying but she is moved to write today to plead because she feels very strongly that advertising bans can reduce the number of people taking up and continuing smoking.
She goes on, ' I was very disappointed with Mr Blair's decision to exempt motor racing from the tobacco advertising ban, as large numbers of individuals, particularly youngsters, watch this sport' .
I think that there are two important things to note here.
Certainly, I think that the British Presidency is shameful in diluting the impact of this common position but nevertheless it is that position or nothing.
If we do not vote for the common position, we are saying to young people, yes, it is OK, it is trendy to smoke.
I think that if we support this ban, there will be quiet relief right across Europe.
If we reject it, the people celebrating will not be those in the cancer wards - they will be those in the board rooms of the tobacco companies.
Mr President, the text we are currently discussing is the result of nearly ten years of conflict.
As Mr Cabrol highlighted in his report, each year more than 510 000 people die in the European Union because of tobacco addiction.
It is thus necessary, as I have already explained in previous speeches, to limit tobacco advertising and promotion. However, it has to be done intelligently.
Let us thus commence this work by applying Article 129 of the Treaty, which stipulates specifically that, "The Community shall contribute towards ensuring a high level of human health protection by encouraging cooperation between the Member States and, if necessary, lending support to their action' .
As a former member of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE, I would like to state that I wish the Commission had also applied Article 129 in that particular case.
But that is another story.
With regard to tobacco advertising and sponsorship, strict European regulations are required, which should be applied to all Member States.
A large number of sporting events, for example, are retransmitted throughout European territory. We must not witness a relocation of advertising towards those Member States with more lenient regulations.
In France, for example, there is already restrictive legislation with regard to tobacco and alcohol advertising.
But what do we see nowadays? Advertising for French brands at European sporting events in which a French team is competing, in another Member State, of course.
This cannot go on any longer, for no-one understands a Europe which lets itself be used for the sole benefit of a few companies.
I would, however, like to add that this directive is just one step in the fight against tobacco addiction in the European Union.
It consequently needs to be placed within the framework of a more general approach to tobacco consumption, which includes both regulations regarding the labelling of products incorporating additives, and the limiting of their use to the harmonization of excise duties, in order to avoid fraud and illegal trafficking.
Let me take this opportunity of reminding you that I am opposed to any reduction in European tobacco production.
The European Union is a strong importer of tobacco, and of high quality tobacco.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, those of you who have known me for many years know that there can be no possibility of me being put under pressure, as Mrs Grossetête or Mr Cabrol seemed to think, for I am a free-acting Member of this Parliament.
Everyone who knows me is also aware of the fact that I prefer to speak freely and unambiguously.
If the views which I am advocating today in this House are not popular, then this only shows that I am speaking out of personal conviction!
I share your opinion that cigarettes are dangerous, and I do not want to argue over the legal aspects of this today, even if I do believe that we shall be making fools of ourselves in the European Court of Justice.
But that is not my concern.
Nor is it my concern that there are tobacco subsidies.
What is my concern is the question of how we can allow a dangerous product to be legally produced if we believe that it is so dangerous. If we are convinced that cigarettes are dangerous and lethal, we ought to have the courage to ban their production.
If we do not have the courage - and none of you has - then we have to think hard about what we should do about legal products which are legally produced, and which are allowed.
How can we restrict their sale if we believe that such restrictions are necessary?
I share the view of some of you that dangerous products ought to be subject to restrictions.
I think we should declare that cigarettes may only be sold in certain places.
We can say that no cigarette machines are allowed.
We can say no advertising in young people's magazines, or wherever.
I am on your side as far as that is concerned.
If you want to say that a certain risk level is to be associated with a certain type of product, and that this will determine how the product can be marketed - in terms of the type and amount of marketing used - then such a risk hierarchy is possible, and it will get my support.
But then we also have to introduce a similar system for alcohol, Mr Flynn!
I cannot wait to see how you will argue against the advertising of Guinness and whiskey in Ireland, because I can give you any number of reasons why whiskey is dangerous, and lots of other things too!
Those of you who are saying today that a ban on tobacco advertising will at least stop someone somewhere from taking up smoking should take a look at what is happening in the former Eastern bloc countries or in Greece.
There are just as many young smokers there, even though there is no advertising.
There were just as many smokers in the Eastern bloc states even when advertising was not allowed.
If we want to be logical, we must allow restrictions and back these up with educational campaigns.
Mr President, nicotine is regarded as a highly addictive drug.
The reality is that very few young people kick the habit of smoking during their lives.
It has become well documented that if people do not start smoking before the age of 18 the chances are that they will not become smokers at all in later life.
Therefore, there is a degree of urgency from the perspective of the tobacco manufacturers to lure and corner the teenage market with innovative and inviting forms of advertising relating to various cigarette products.
In Europe alone, tobacco manufacturers spend a total of £320 million a year on tobacco advertising.
I firmly believe that our young people need to be protected from the scourge of smoking.
The banning of the advertising and promotion of tobacco products within the Union is a positive step in the right direction, so that this very important social objective is achieved.
European governments and the EU institutions must now focus their attention on promoting health education in schools in the area of making young people aware of the dangers of smoking.
The appropriate financial resources must be made available to facilitate this process.
The attention of European legislators must also focus on the need to secure more financial resources for greater medical research into cancer prevention and into the health consequences of passive smoking.
The facts speak for themselves in this regard: over half a million people die in the Union as a direct consequence of smoking each year.
In my country 6 000 people died in 1997 as a direct consequence of smoking.
Decreasing the usage of cigarettes in the Union serves only a positive function in terms of protecting the health of all our citizens.
The report today must be supported as it is a real and positive step in the right direction.
Mr President, I am very grateful to you, but we were upstairs in the Conference of Presidents meeting on the topical and urgent debate and the sun was shining on the screen.
I think that is why I was rather late seeing my name.
Please accept my apologies.
May I begin by saying that, after some hesitation, I personally, and that also goes for a large proportion of my group, and certainly for a large proportion of the Dutch CDA delegation, will support the proposal to limit tobacco advertising.
I think, and many agree with me, that we have to do anything we can to reduce tobacco consumption.
That does not take away the fact that the ban on tobacco advertising, as proposed, brings a lot of problems with it.
I would have preferred it if we could have made do with a code of conduct, which operates very well in a number of Member States.
Having said all that and having clarified our position, I say that the common position lacks cohesion.
The common position, when you read it through, is simply the result of a political compromise.
So I ask myself what possible ways does the European Commission envisage clarifying a number of points either through implementation decrees or through the Council.
I would mention, for example, paragraphs 2 and 3 of Article 3, which are to do with indirect advertising.
I think the way the texts are worded at the moment do not make the issues abundantly clear anyway.
All I want to do is ask Commissioner Flynn: how do you think people can deal with what is currently on paper in this position in a decent manner?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that it goes against the democratic principles of this House to criminalize someone who holds a different view by referring to the influence of lobbyists.
That is a form of character assassination that we can well do without.
I claim the right - despite the risk that as a non-smoker I shall be denounced as a paid agent of the tobacco lobby - to assert that it is the job of the state to protect consumers, not to patronize them.
As regards controlling the contents of cigarettes in respect of toxicity and addictive effect, and restricting sales to young people, the state should intervene and should also try to protect young people.
But the state's role cannot be - as in George Orwell's book "1984' - to patronize its citizens and to protect them by laying down what they can and cannot do.
Mr President, despite the legal guidance underlying the proposal, its actual legal basis is still in question.
I do not believe we can resolve this matter by returning the proposal to the Committee on Legal Affairs. That is still made up of politicians.
No, the matter must be adopted so that it can proceed and be finally determined by the Court of Justice, and I suggest that is where the tobacco industry should present its legal opinion.
I would be amazed to find that the tobacco industry is alone among commercial activities failing to make contact with new customer groups through its advertising.
However, the lobbyists inform us that that is the case.
They maintain that they are only endeavouring to persuade established smokers to change brands.
But really, established smokers are not infantile enough to be swayed by lively, youthful advertising.
There is already legislation banning tobacco advertising on television.
Thus, it stands to reason to ban tobacco advertising in other media.
Tobacco is manufactured legally like many other products that cannot be given unrestricted coverage - medicines, weapons and poisons, for instance.
Tobacco is habit-forming and harmful to health, and it can have catastrophic consequences on the individual, costing society dearly in terms of health outlay.
That is one of the reasons why I have always been against EU financial support of tobacco production.
We do not subsidize imported tobacco, after all.
ECU 1 billion towards tobacco production and a mere ECU 11.2 million to combat cancer!
Half a million people are dying of smoking-related diseases while the EU supports 135 000 tobacco producers!
Mr President, the proper functioning of the internal market requires harmonization of laws on tobacco advertising, and that this harmonization results in far-reaching prohibitions is in line with Article 100a of the Treaty, whether you like it or not.
Since we know that more than half a million people die every year in the European Union as a result of addiction to nicotine, that smoking is a definite danger to public health, and that tobacco advertising and sponsorship are certainly not only about promoting brands but also about encouraging smoking and getting young people to start smoking, as we know, then we have to make a stand against this advertising in a directive on approximation.
We know that, so what could hold us back?
We must certainly not be held back by the legal technicalities which some colleagues are using to knock up legal constructions which have only one purpose: to topple the directive.
I respect their legal expertise but have to say that they have not convinced me to depart from my legally founded political conviction for three reasons: firstly, Article 100a is fine as a legal basis, so we do have the necessary powers; secondly, there is no valid reason to demand further consultation; and thirdly, there is very little scope under the regulations for amendments.
Mr President, we can only come to a different decision if we no longer take our own legal services seriously. I refer to the opinion given by the legal adviser on 1 April this year.
The same is true if we disregard our own vote of 2 December 1993 and act as if we have not yet incorporated the Treaty of Maastricht, and as if we want to send a signal to the world that Parliament does not see the resemblance between its own amendments and the common position, nor do we recognize the difference between minimal and radical amendments to the text.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us continue to take this seriously.
Let us take a deliberate stand for public health by approving the common position and follow the recommendation of the rapporteur in that sense.
We have the opportunity now, later we may not.
To colleagues who advance as arguments the subsidies to tobacco growers or the right to vote in drugs matters, I say: because people behave stupidly twice, or fail twice, does not mean that you have to behave stupidly a third time, or that you should not continue to fight to get a third chance.
Mr President, ten years ago, I represented Italy at a WHO Conference held in Lisbon, entitled "Tobacco or Health' .
On the last day, a journalist responsible for leading the debate between delegates from different countries on the subject of measures to be taken to reduce the use of tobacco, solemnly began by reading the list of political victims of the fight against smoking, in other words, the ministers who had lost their jobs and never regained them, because in their countries they had promoted laws to ban advertising or to ban smoking in public places.
We know that these and other threats have achieved the desired effect, and it is also true that this directive has been waiting for years to be approved.
This is therefore a great day and we should ensure that the approval of this directive is not delayed and that the efforts of the Commission, the Council and the Presidency are rewarded.
Other measures will have to be taken, as the rapporteur rightly suggests: tax increases to discourage consumption; health education, because many young people believe that smoking does not do any harm and many adults, including teachers and doctors, set them a bad example; control of cigarette vending machines, etcetera. The objection will be raised that Italians, Spanish and Greeks in general want to continue supporting the European tobacco growers.
That is true, but it is not a contradiction: why should we penalize our own economies in favour of producers from other continents?
We know that Europeans smoke mainly American tobacco, and the products currently spreading throughout developing countries are not our own. For the same reasons, we are not prepared, nor do we ask, to penalize European producers of beer or alcohols.
The problem is education, dissuasion and non-promotion. We need to prevent people taking up smoking and continuing to smoke.
The same applies to alcohol and all other drugs.
Mr President, I speak as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and spokesman for the Group of the European People's Party on matters involving a conflict of legal basis. And in committee, I voted along with all my colleagues from all the political groups, in a majority decision that this is not the right legal basis.
The first thing I want to do is speak out on behalf of them all against this Manichean approach. It is not a question of being in favour of health or against it.
We are in favour of health and in favour of life.
And we know perfectly well that in all the Member States of the European Union there is a tendency towards restricting tobacco advertising.
But first and foremost, Mr President, we are in favour of the rules on coexistence established by the Treaty, and of respecting them.
Mr President, obviously it cannot be said that this is a minor technical matter, that we are attempting subterfuge through a question of procedure.
There is indeed a technical question, but it is a different one: it is a problem of venire contra factum propium on the part of Parliament itself, which twice pronounced itself in favour of using Article 100a as the legal basis, even in December 1993 after the Maastricht Treaty.
The approach taken by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has been strictly political rather than juridical - juridical too, but strictly political.
And the reason for that approach lies in simple questions such as the following. What are the objectives of the proposed measures in relation to the Community's obligations?
Health, we are all agreed. So we must act accordingly.
Does the proposed action relate to a matter of exclusively Community competence or of shared competence with the Member States? I think the answer is fairly clear here too, at least it was to us.
What is the Community dimension of the problem, and what measures have been taken so far? What is the added value of the action planned by the Community, and what would be the cost of an alternative action?
What type of measures can the Community take?
And lastly, is it necessary or possible to have a uniform set of rules which also prohibit? In other words, what we are doing here is harmonizing the free movement of services which are not going to move because they are not going to exist.
Or, in accordance with the Treaty, do we need to establish a measure - which may be a measure which affects all the Member States - but a measure based on Article 129?
Mr President, this is one of those situations where the Brussels leviathan is being told to do something we cannot often do at Member State level.
We know from experience that that is a bad method which only causes complications.
The complications arise because, in the last analysis, we can spend ten years debating this problem, but it is very likely - and this is up to the Court of Justice - that this directive will be repealed within two years, which means we shall have wasted our time.
I think it would be better to tackle it Treaty in hand and adopt, with the correct legal basis, measures appropriate to the objective being sought.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that Parliament will approve Mr Cabrol's report.
It would be a significant political act which meets the aspirations of our people.
I believe that the issue of tobacco is one of the biggest issues for public health on this planet.
Furthermore, the Director-General of the WHO indicated, at the time of the publication of their annual report, that the fight against tobacco addiction was one of the main priorities of the World Health Organization.
Europe must therefore play a full role.
Of course, there are many actions necessary, and we cannot be satisfied with merely banning advertising.
I am thinking of the price of tobacco, taxes on tobacco and health education.
Many of my colleagues have insisted on these points.
But the banning of advertising is an essential step, which is all the easier to take as we have a legal basis for it: it is in the name of the free market that we can ban advertising, even if our objective is first and foremost one of public health protection.
With regard to the issue of a ban on advertising, I would like to sound the alarm, for some of our colleagues consider that we should go further. They consider that since we subsidize tobacco, we do not ban the product and hence we should not ban its advertising.
Tobacco, in itself, is not a banned product and no one here would want it banned.
This is, firstly, because all prohibitionist policies have proved themselves to be ineffectual and secondly because, by nature, there is no foundation for a ban.
What should be banned is the abusive use of tobacco, and for this we must base our action on the individual responsibility of enlightened citizens.
Advertising deceives the enlightened citizen.
It gives no information about the risks tobacco causes or about tobacco abuse. On the contrary, it projects a positive image with the aim of increasing tobacco consumption.
I thus think that the method chosen is the right one.
In fact, in France there is already a similar law in force which covers alcohol as well.
It has proved effective.
All surveys made of young people show that there has been a considerable increase in awareness about the risks and the need for behavioural change.
I hope the European Union will follow us with regard to this issue.
Mr President, this topic always raises fairly schematic and sometimes radical positions.
I believe that, once again, Parliament, just like the Community institutions in general, risks losing an opportunity to assume a balanced attitude in which, while trying to face serious problems such as the health of the European citizens, it is also trying to understand the social and economic implications of the acts to be decided on.
In my opinion, the proposal we are discussing does not have this balance, in the sense that it does not take sufficient consideration of the practical consequences of the space occupied by sponsorship and the use of marks that refer to cigarette brands in economic and industrial activities.
I come from an area where the impact of tobacco production and sponsorship is already of great significance on an industrial scale, from an area where tobacco is produced, where there are large companies in the textiles and clothing sector that use marks that refer to cigarette brands, in which F1 and motorcycle Grand Prix are held, for which it is not easy to replace the sponsorship of tobacco brands from one day to the next.
I therefore believe that we need to deal with these problems as well.
We do not have any unions asking us not to approve this directive because they know there will be serious consequences for employment, possibly fairly soon.
So why not deal with the fundamental problem in a balanced way? By assuming a drastic generalization and extension even where there is no prohibition from direct advertising, but allowing the Member States the possibility, through recommendation, of using even more restrictive criteria in indirect advertising and sponsorship, that take into account the specific impact of this phenomenon on employment and on the social sector, from this point of view.
I think we need to act in this way.
I am therefore in favour of referring the matter to the Council of Ministers, as this might be the simplest solution, so that it can examine the proposal better, to provide it with the legal basis it does not have at the moment, or in some other way.
My aim is this: subsidiarity with regard to indirect advertising and sponsorship.
Mr President, the European Union has a common fisheries policy.
I am also on the Committee on Fisheries, and I was amazed to discover the other day that the European Union spends more on tobacco production than it does on the fishing industry, and that, even in countries like Portugal, which are largely dependent on it, fishing only gets 40 % of the financial contribution that is provided for tobacco.
This is a serious anomaly, if we also stress what is happening in the field of public health, because it makes no sense to keep on investing in the public health area while at the same time increasing tobacco production subsidies.
So there is a clear message here.
Let us go on gradually reducing production subsidies and adopt the common position of the Council in relation to the prohibition of tobacco advertising.
There are existing, although limited, examples that show that a 14 to 37 % fall in consumption can be achieved through the use of advertising restrictions.
Yes, because the tobacco habit causes 540 000 deaths a year in the European Union, and if we limit this discussion to a legal point, academically interesting, though it is, we are mounting no more than a lightweight assault on an industry which has powerful resources to defend it.
To change the Council's position or refuse to approve the directive through lack of Community powers would mean taking public health back to national level which, when all is said and done, runs contrary to the meaning and purpose of the Treaty itself.
The reference to subsidiarity is a desperate attempt to condition the opinion of the national authorities, when at the end of the day the Council's position represents the guidelines for those same authorities through their Health Ministers, who want the guidelines to be a way of bringing in laws regulating the tobacco market and demanding a high level of consumer protection.
This is why we cast our vote in support of the Cabrol report.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying how much I resent and reject the idea that anybody who stands up in this Chamber and speaks against, or raises questions about, this directive is being manipulated by the tobacco industry.
I am not, and I do not think Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi was, and anybody else who has objected to the directive ought to be given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to voice their doubts without being accused, as I say, of being somebody who is simply speaking on behalf of the tobacco industry.
I am in favour of ending tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
I would also like to end the subsidization by the European Union of tobacco.
One of the interesting things to come out of this debate is that the European Union spends three times as much on subsidizing tobacco production as the tobacco companies spend on advertising their products within the European Union.
The question for people like me who want to see an end to tobacco advertising is: will the directive work? The real answer, I suspect, is no, it will not, because it will end up in the Court of Justice with a lot of doubts and, possibly, no directive at all at the end of it.
There is clearly a legal problem.
This is something which the British government is ignoring in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers because it wants an easy victory.
It would have been possible for Mr Blair to have introduced a ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship in the United Kingdom but he ran into political trouble.
He has therefore run to Brussels to get himself out of it and, as I say, to get what he thinks is an easy victory.
There is a clear problem with qualified majority voting.
I do not like the idea of introducing a ban which is introduced by a very narrow majority.
However, if you want a directive, then you will not really be able to get one under Article 129, because the Member States will never agree.
If you want a recommendation, that will not ban tobacco advertising either, because you cannot square a recommendation with the idea of common rules for the internal market.
The answer is two things. One is to go for a code of conduct on tobacco advertising, as some have asked, but that probably will not give you a universal ban on advertising: it will leave it up to each Member State to do what it wants.
Or you can do what effectively we are doing: we are saying 'yes' to this directive and we are leaving it to Mr Flynn to tidy it up, because, as we have discovered in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, there is a lot wrong with this directive: it does not deal very adequately with the idea of the use of established brand names on existing goods; it does extraordinary things about world sponsorship.
You are looking at Mr Flynn over there as the man who is effectively being asked to do the business that MEPs will not do because we are being subjected to emotional blackmail.
I apologise to the interpreters.
Mr President, a ban on the advertising of tobacco and tobacco products is all about public health on a large scale and the prevention of diseases, and I think this is the direction a common European Union common health policy should be taking: more for its causes than for its effects.
Has advertising any importance, then? I wonder why vast amounts of time and money are spent on advertising if it is not important.
Tobacco advertising has an impact just like any other, and tobacco advertisers are very clearly endeavouring to increase consumption, which means to increase the number of people who smoke.
Can advertising be targeted at just one group?
Can the young be unaffected by advertising? I do not believe so, and when we learn the results of surveys on whether young people are more vulnerable when it comes to advertising, this claim will be even harder to justify.
Advertising that stirs the imagination is what young people are especially exposed to, and the tobacco industry purposely uses this sort of advertising especially in the sponsorship of events, where the aim is to achieve an image of a jet-set lifestyle.
Advertising prohibition has had an impact.
Owing to an advertising ban, Finland has seen a fall in tobacco consumption over twenty years by 37 %.
The ban has been significant, especially for the young: before the ban 35 % of 15 to 24 year olds smoked, a figure that fell to 23 % after the ban.
I do hope that Parliament will show a sense of responsibility and approve Mr Cabrol's report without amendments.
We now have an opportunity to bring into effect a Europe-wide ban on the advertising of tobacco products.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not regard the ban on tobacco advertising as the right means for protecting public health.
The general opinion envisages not only a total ban on the advertising of tobacco products but also a total ban on indirect advertising, for example for Camel boots or Davidoff cosmetics.
The only exceptions apply to Greece, which was the price paid for Greece's agreement and thus for achieving the necessary majority in the Council of Ministers against the votes of Germany and Austria, with Denmark and Spain abstaining.
A ban is the strictest of all conceivable instruments in a liberal economic system.
Before legal requirements of this kind are enacted, they must be considered in the light of whether they are really suitable as a means for achieving the declared objective, namely the protection of public health.
A ban on tobacco advertising gives rise to hopes and expectations which cannot be fulfilled.
No-one can dispute that smoking is harmful and often leads to death.
That is why it would be logical, and here I agree with Mrs Roth-Berendt, to ban the manufacture of harmful products such as cigarettes.
In a liberal economy, advertising does an important job in providing information, and it is a potent instrument for effective competition.
It ought, as a matter of principle, to be possible to advertise products which are legally manufactured and distributed and legally consumed.
A total ban on tobacco advertising is an attack on the liberal economic system.
Once this first domino falls, the rest will follow.
I should like to ask Commissioner Flynn if it is true that there is a Commission document which states that motor vehicles are freely available industrial products which are often prove lethal.
Because there is no European legislation in the context of health policy for such far-reaching interventions, even under the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Council and the Commission often resort to the harmonization instrument known as competition, despite their own better judgement.
We want to construct an internal market, and we want to make a political decision as to who is permitted to advertise freely offered products, and who is not.
This proposal has exactly the opposite effect.
We await with eager expectation the predictable complaints from Member States to the European Court of Justice.
Mr President, I do not usually respond to Mrs Jackson but can I just remind her that this discussion about tobacco advertising has been going on for more than ten years and we were not reconsulted on this until February last year.
Mr Blair, who she suggested has come running to Brussels, has been Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for a much shorter period than that.
What we are dealing with is a European directive.
Can I congratulate Mr Cabrol on the work that he has done on this.
I personally would have gone a lot further and I would in normal circumstances have preferred to have gone to conciliation.
It is only the effective persuasion of the rapporteur which makes me think that we should accept the common position and I shall vote accordingly.
Can I also say, again in domestic terms, that the impression was created in the United Kingdom in the English language press that a decision was made about the ban on tobacco advertising by the UK Prime Minister and by somebody who is responsible for Formula One.
Can I just remind the English language press that what we are considering today is a European Council and a European Parliament directive, and as always in codecision, even at second reading, this Parliament has the final word and so it should.
I would like also to say that in considering my position not only have I consulted industry but I have also consulted the trade unions.
I wish we had not had the argument about the legal basis.
I cannot believe that it is right that the Legal Affairs Committee should come in on this occasion and give a different view and that the Environment Committee, which is the lead committee in these circumstances, should be dissuaded from taking the view that it took on the first reading.
I shall support this and I shall support it unamended on the second reading.
I hope that by the time the afternoon is over we shall see a ban on tobacco advertising within the Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have every respect for those who oppose smoking and want to ban the advertising of tobacco products.
But we are not here to decide on our convictions or on a political resolution, we are here to decide on a European legislative proposal, something which is to become European law.
The European Union is a community in law.
It can only make laws if it is empowered to do so in the Treaty.
In the view of most people who have dealt with this matter, there is no legal basis in the Treaty for this directive.
So the Union is taking upon itself a right that it does not possess.
This was made clear in the expert opinion delivered by the Council's Legal Service in 1993, which states that the Legal Service concludes that the proposal for a directive cannot be accepted either on the basis of Article 100a or on the basis of any other Article of the Treaty.
This opinion has never been revoked.
That is why, in legal terms, this directive rests on shaky foundations.
It could be based on Article 100a only if it concerned harmonization.
But it does not harmonize, it bans.
It is also clear from the procedure that we are dealing here with a health directive.
That is why, quite logically, the Commissioner for Health is sitting here and defending it.
That is why the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has taken the lead in Parliament, rather than the committee on competition.
In short, if this directive becomes law, then we as a Parliament will be doing exactly what we are always reproaching the Commission for doing, namely laying claim to powers which are a matter for the Member States.
That is why we should reflect on this very carefully!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in spite of the legal difficulties which may arise from the approval of this proposal for a directive, which seeks to do away with direct and indirect advertising of tobacco products, I have to say I agree with the premises on which it is based.
Tobacco consumption continues to be one of our greatest public health problems. It is responsible for over 500 000 deaths a year in the European Union.
Nearly 50 % of all deaths from cancer among men aged between 35 and 69 are due to the effects of tobacco, not forgetting the part it plays in aggravating acute and chronic cardio-respiratory disease.
Nevertheless, to ensure that the measures proposed here are rendered more effective we must include them in a wider strategy, and of necessity that means preventing tobacco consumption by means of campaigns drawing attention to its harmful effects - essentially directed at the younger age-groups - and by discouraging tobacco-growing in member countries of the European Union by paying producers subsidies that will enable them to grow something else instead.
Mr President, I have a point of order.
Literature is being distributed outside the Chamber on the biopatents directive.
An attempt is being made right outside this room to influence our voting behaviour.
I would ask you to check whether this is permissible under the Rules of Procedure.
I for one doubt it!
Thank you, Mr Nassauer.
The Chair notes the point and will have it checked.
Mr President, I give far greater weight to the pleas of doctors for the health of their patients than to those of tobacco companies trying to justify their deliberate targeting of their advertising to attract new young customers to an addictive substance to replace the hundreds of thousands of customers they kill every year.
I need no lectures about subsidies to tobacco producers, having consistently opposed them since election to this House.
I also reject pleas from companies advertising other products using the same brand name as major cigarette brands.
Here are depicted beautiful, young, cool and trendy people alongside the logo of a cigarette brand.
Why do they not use an independent logo to promote their goods - a logo not associated with a product that kills?
It is absurd to claim that the rules of the Community demand that young people should continue to be targeted in this way through sports sponsorship and through trendy designer products.
The Treaty of Rome says the Community exists for the well-being of its citizens.
The health of our citizens must take precedence over the profits of multinational companies.
Mr President, I think that this is a very noble initiative and it shows Europe at its best.
It shows us standing up for the common good and rejecting the very well-financed, and at times, almost threatening campaigns of the tobacco lobby and of the medium moguls.
I would agree with Dagmar Roth-Behrendt and others who have spoken here, that adults have free will to take up smoking or to take up drinking, but it is deplorable that young people are encouraged to take up smoking as the result of billboard advertising and advertising generally.
Tobacco advertising tends to glamorize smoking, but there is nothing glamorous about smoking, about cancer, chronic bronchitis and all the other tobacco-related illnesses that kill many millions each year.
Our next step must be to convince young people, especially young women, not to go down this road.
I know from the very impressive representations that I have received from the medical profession - and I want to thank them for that - that more young women are actually suffering now from lung cancer.
So Mr Flynn, our Commissioner, is to be congratulated and I would urge Members to vote in support of the common position.
Thank you, Mrs Malone.
I would ask Members to take their seats and at least make it possible for Commissioner Flynn to be listened to with the respect due to a Commissioner.
Mr President, I would like to thank all those who have contributed to this very important debate today.
The discussion on the proposed directive on tobacco advertising is very significant indeed and there is very big public interest in that discussion here in Parliament today.
It comes after a long period of reflection in Council which finally reached a common position on 12 February.
The text of the common position fully reflects the spirit of the Commission's proposal so the Commission was able to accept it as it stands.
In the Commission's view the common position represents the most satisfactory arrangements possible to deal with the complex issue of tobacco advertising in the internal market context.
As several Member States have already introduced national restrictions or bans on tobacco advertising, practical problems of application have arisen as the possibility of internal market border checks disappeared.
Therefore, as with many other sectors of economic activity, a common solution needed to be found.
Article 100a of the Treaty obliges the Commission to take a high level of public health protection as its basis when making internal market proposals.
I regard the reference to seeking an alternative legal basis as something of a red herring so far as this proposal is concerned.
I would remind Members of Parliament that this legal basis has already been used in the case of existing directives on tobacco labelling and on tar content.
It has also been used to ban TV advertising and indirect advertising.
It has been used to ban the marketing of oral tobacco. It has been used for the advertising of other medicinal products and it is in accordance with decisions taken by the European Court on other issues.
It certainly follows the latest advice given by the European Parliament's legal service.
Some Members made reference to Article 129, but I say that article specifically excludes any harmonization of the laws and regulations of the Member States.
Article 129 is not a suitable legal basis and it must be rejected on that account.
Furthermore, a total ban on the advertising of tobacco on TV was, as you all know, agreed in 1989.
Associated with this principal objective of an internal market nature, the Commission has had to take a high level of public health protection into account.
This is demanded of us by our obligations under the Treaty.
This brings me to the smoking prevention issue which was the subject of a communication in December 1996.
The proposed restrictions on tobacco advertising should be seen as part of a more general approach by the Community to address what is undoubtedly the number one preventable cause of death and disease in Europe today.
I should like to put that on the record just once more.
The question of subsidies to tobacco growing has been raised.
I have always been against giving subsidies to tobacco growers...
...and I look forward to the day when we can stop it.
I was not able to get full agreement but I was able to achieve some progress in that regard.
I look forward to the not too distant future when the whole matter will be reviewed again and when the subsidy to tobacco growing, as part of the policy of this Union, will cease.
I do not have to remind Members of the enormous health impact of smoking.
The World Health Organization estimates the yearly death toll from tobacco at more than half a million European Union citizens - so many victims of cancer because of the consumption of tobacco, be it smoking or passive smoking.
The question for this House is: Can this House do something at European level to reverse that trend? They can, by voting to support this common position and voting down all the amendments, which are only a way of getting around the situation and making it more difficult to achieve the purpose we are all supporting.
Mr Needle made a very telling point when he said that the House has a rare opportunity.
This is a moment of truth for all concerned who support what this proposal seeks to achieve.
And do not forget that industry itself is on record as saying that it sees the 14 to 24-year-olds as tomorrow's cigarette business.
That is what advertising is all about: attracting young people to the habit so that they can maintain their market and maintain their profits.
We have to put an end to that here.
Advertising of products causing such suffering and so many deaths is clearly unjustified as many Member States have already decided.
To act now at the Community level is, I believe, timely, necessary and entirely proportionate to the problem.
By adopting this measure the Community will remove an incentive for young people to begin a habit that will bring illness and premature death.
This initiative of removing the encouragement to smoke is even more vital if we remember that most smokers take up the addiction before they are 18 years of age and indeed, they take it up much earlier.
We have a responsibility to the future citizens of this Union to seek to take the first step to turn the tide against death from cancer produced by smoking!
The rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, has already clearly identified the issues that are involved here in tobacco advertising.
He does that so excellently in his report. It was adopted without amendments by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Many members of that committee remarked on the importance of putting a Community system in place without further delay as envisaged in the Council's common position.
I agree fully that this compromise is a good and workable solution.
It represents a balance - a satisfactory balance between the interests concerned - and allows the necessary transition time for new arrangements to be found for those presently involved with tobacco promotion.
There is no need, there is no logic, in amending the Council's text which indeed takes account of the points raised by Parliament at its first reading.
The Commission will therefore not support any amendments to this common position which, as Mr Cabrol and the Environment Committee have said, is an acceptable text as it stands.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mrs Jackson raised a point about indirect advertising.
The objective of the common position on indirect advertising is a very practical approach to a complicated issue - how to stop other products being used to promote tobacco, or to stop tobacco being promoted using the name of other products.
The common position also takes into account the special case of existing products.
In all of these cases the position lays down clear objectives.
As we know, this directive will be transposed into national law according to the timetable laid down.
It is the Commission's responsibility to ensure that these national rules are in conformity with the intention of the directive.
I should say to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that the Commission will be coming forward with regular reports under Article 6 and it will make Parliament and the Council responsible and take whatever steps are necessary to ensure that the directive is transposed and implemented as it was intended.
I would like, finally, to call upon all the honourable Members of this House to adopt without amendment this important issue which will have such great significance for our young people now and in the future.
It is this common position or nothing!
That is the choice we have here today and tomorrow.
(Applause ) The European Parliament stands to make a momentous and historical breakthrough in the support of its single market and in the protection of its citizens.
I ask you to act accordingly!
(Applause)
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Mr Killilea, I immediately gave orders to control the presence of members of the different lobby groups, but naturally I would like to believe that in the final analysis no Member of this House is affected by any activity of any "lobbyists' .
Mr President, I rise on the same point of order.
There were outside this House people wearing a distinctive form of uniform.
I might very well be sympathetic to their cause but Members of this House really must be free to come into this Chamber without lobbyists outside the door pursuing their case whatever that case is.
We look to you and to the officers of this House to uphold our rules and orders.
Mr President, I would like to echo what has just been said.
It is not the first time that pamphlets have been handed out at the doors of this Chamber, but I think that the dignity of the House is now in danger.
We can stop these comments here.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Votes
Please withdraw the banner from the Hemicycle.
I shall be forced to adjourn if the banner stays; Parliament cannot be turned into a theatre.
(The sitting was suspended until the banner was withdrawn)
Mr Provan, I do not know who gave permission for the filming, but the camera crew has already left.
Moreover, the issue has been covered.
Mr President, I consider requests of this kind to be unjustified, for on many occasions we have seen the television cameras in this House and those television cameras, when authorized, provide a guarantee for the citizens who have elected us to be able to see what is happening in this House: the guarantee of democracy is a price we should know how to pay!
If people are afraid of what they are doing, if they need to hide when they are acting, then I do not think they meet the requirements for the votes they have obtained.
If some people here answer the multinationals' lobby, obviously they do not want people to know what they are doing.
But I believe the European citizens have a right to know!
(Mixed reactions)
Mr Tamino, there is always full coverage of the work of Parliament by cameras in the area provided for them and all of us are always in the spotlight.
Special filming is not necessary and there are regulations which must be adhered to.
Mr President, this is a vote in the European Parliament and, if I understand matters correctly, those who are entitled to vote in the European Parliament are the Members of this House.
There is clearly a troupe of actors in costumes in the Chamber.
I would ask you to refrain from voting...
... or else to acknowledge what you are, namely freely elected Members of this House and not a Punch and Judy show!
(Applause)
Members of this House, this debate must be closed.
I cannot allow more than two or three of you to speak.
Mr President, as President of this sitting, you are the captain of the ship.
Well, this ship has been boarded by pirates.
Do you really intend to permit this act of piracy with regard to our voting time, or are you going to behave like the captain of a triumphant ship and expel the pirates!
Mr Giansily, I, like everybody else, enjoyed the way in which you phrased your comment.
However, the banner has been removed and the way in which Members of this House dress is up to them, and I cannot intervene.
Mr President, what is extremely annoying here is that while the big banner has been removed, it is true, the little banners are still in this room.
I think the members of the Green group ought to know that there are more people in this House who are concerned about the directive as it stands at the moment.
Mr President, I request that you also have the small banners removed.
Mr President, it is a question of the dignity of this House, as has already been said.
I should like to say to one of the previous speakers: you ought to pay a visit to a Punch and Judy show, then you would see that Punch and Judy is one of our cultural treasures.
But there is one thing that I would ask for, and that is an apology from Mr Ferber.
If he thinks that he can call our group a band of pirates, then he knows nothing about dignity, democratic argument or style.
I await an apology from you, and if that is not forthcoming, then we all know what to think!
(Applause from the Green Group)
Mr de Vries, I believe that many of us agree with your comments.
Mr President, what is happening is extremely distressing.
I would propose that you suspend the sitting and ask our colleagues to behave decently.
On Amendments Nos 6 and 28
Mr President, there was a certain amount of bad temper in yesterday's discussion of these amendments.
It was claimed that the amendments had not been submitted by the Committee on Agriculture.
Well, there is not the slightest possibility of any committee introducing an amendment in this procedure, not even the Committee on Agriculture.
That is why it was decided that, as rapporteur in this matter, I should collect the signatures of members of the Committee on Agriculture, and these appear in the list below the amendments.
Our committee has also written a letter to the Committee on Legal Affairs, expressing the fact that our interests are at stake and I am talking here about the right of farmers to continue breeding animals and plants.
I just wanted to draw this fact to your attention.
(The President declared the common position approved)
Mr President, having learned the procedures from Mr Falconer, I tried to give you notice in advance; I was present in this House throughout the proceedings, but did not take part in that vote because I do not think it was a reasonable way to conduct a vote in a democratically-elected Parliament.
I think it would be a great shame if the only way we could attract your attention was to wear pirates' uniforms, and I hope that that is not what this House is going to descend to.
(Applause )
Mr Perry, We cannot keep restarting debates and letting Members of the House speak.
However, your comment has been noted.
(Several members of the Green Group in the European Parliament waved piracy flags)
Mr President, in case you were not aware, the Jolly Roger has a precise meaning in terms of international law.
It represents a refusal of law.
That is why I regret that a number of Members of this House have chosen this method of expression and it is why I find it disgraceful that you have let the vote take place in the presence of such a symbol.
(Loud applause)
Mr d'Aboville, each of us has the right to his or her own opinion and judgement.
Mr President, as Mr Perry has been so kind as to mention my name, may I advise him that, if he is to follow and adopt my principles in these matters, he may wish to go further.
The working people of my country, and I am sure all European countries, can recognize conservative Tories, because they are always wearing the same uniform and it is normally double-breasted pin-striped suits!
Mr Falconer, I do not think that we should carry on with comments on dress code, but I am not convinced of the accuracy of what you have said. There are others who wear suits like those you mentioned.
Thank you, Mr President.
I have a comment to add to what has already been said by other speakers, pursuant to Rule 19 - though at the wrong time, since the vote has already been taken - and Rule 109. I just want to say, let us hope this precedent will not be remembered on other occasions as a justification for using some other symbol in this Hemicycle.
Symbols serve a purpose, Mr President. They are not fancy dress or a fashion statement.
They are symbols, and symbols have a meaning. That is our culture and our civilization.
Thank you.
Mr President, I would simply like to ask everyone who wishes to speak to do so every time.
It is a good point for us, so carry on!
Is there nobody else who would like to lecture us? We have not quite understood what you are trying to say to us!
Explain to us what is wrong so that we may understand.
I am asking colleagues to take their time and to explain to us what is wrong in what we have done.
Mr President, if we vote on an amendment in this House and the amendment gains a majority, it is adopted.
I have never heard of people voting on an amendment and then saying: it is the initial paragraph we are voting on.
That is not how it is done. That is against the rules of the House.
Mrs Aelvoet, a vote has been taken on part of the amendment which does not cover the whole text.
The rapporteur was of the opinion that the original should also be put to the vote.
The Presidency has accepted this opinion.
Mr President, I would just like to make it clear that the amendment, or that part of it which has been accepted here, must be incorporated into the original text.
Mr Swoboda, that was also my assessment.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, if you will permit me, I would like to speak simultaneously regarding two reports, that of Mrs Palacio and that of Mr Wijsenbeek.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supports the conclusions of these two reports, with a number of reservations which I would like to expand on.
This relates to a particular case, that of Article 157 of the Portuguese Constitution, which has a particularly protective system of immunity for parliamentarians.
Paragraph 2 of Article 157 stipulates that Members may not be heard as witnesses or as the accused, without the authorization of the House, the decision to grant such authorization being mandatory, in the second instance, where there are strong indications that a crime has been committed which is punishable by a term of imprisonment of not less than three years.
Following the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities in this, Parliament is anxious to show that, and I quote, "European parliamentary immunity is, in general terms, independent of the various national parliamentary procedures.'
They want to lay the foundations of a truly European immunity, which would succeed in creating equality amongst its Members, whatever their nationality.
With regard to this, I would like to say that, as on many occasions, this is nothing but a pious wish. Declarations from the majority of this House are not currently able to remove the national status of a Member and there is no such thing as European or independent immunity.
It all depends.
Furthermore, this position - and this is my third remark - leads the Committee on the Rules of Procedure to propose a provision, unfortunately accepted earlier by a majority, which is not at all in accordance with our Rules.
Rule 6(4) of the latter only anticipates adoption or rejection of a request for immunity, with the possibility of the recommendation being divided up if the request seeks the waiver of immunity on several counts.
It furthermore stipulates that, "the committee's report may, exceptionally, propose that the waiver of immunity shall apply solely to prosecution proceedings and that... the Member should be immune from any form of detention or remand...' .
There is no provision for the measure we have just adopted, Mr President, that is, to decide not to take a decision on the request and, so that we can support the request for a waiver of immunity, to make no objection to the magistrate concerned hearing Mr Rosado Fernandes in the same way as Mr Campos.
In reality then - and this is what our group approved of - we have lifted the immunity in the sense of the Portuguese Constitution, that is, we have permitted those involved to be heard before the Portuguese judicial authorities.
This is not what we have said, but it does not mean this is not what we have done.
By drafting paragraph 2 of our decision in this way, we have not altered the character of the waiver of parliamentary immunity.
Wijsenbeek report (A4-0152/98)
In its "interpretative' communication on the implementation of the second banking directive the Commission is promoting the further deregulation of the banking sector and the restriction of the sovereign rights of Member States, and in so doing is transgressing the official legislative process.
This communication is bound up with the context of the more general policy of the EU, which is defined by the integration of the single market and the adoption of a common currency.
The Commission, by blatantly transgressing the official legislative process, is overstepping its responsibilities and violating the principle of the separation of powers, thus infringing the rights of Member States.
The right of the Commission to issue interpretative communications is restricted to executive matters which fall within its sphere of competence - such as those concerning state assistance and competition policy -, whereas the right of interpretation of primary and derivative law rests with the Court.
If we combine this with the fact that a similar process is being followed in the insurance sector, we fear that an attempt is being made de facto to go along a certain path and to brush aside the protests of Member States.
Even more questions arise if we consider that, as the Commission itself points out, its interpretation is not binding on the Member States and does not prejudge the possible position of the Court.
It is undeniable that technological progress, especially the challenges posed by the information society, makes it necessary to adapt the law.
For example, the growth of cross-border services by electronic means necessitates the clarification of notions which are susceptible to a flexible interpretation and the adoption of clear criteria in order to define, for example, the "place' of service provision.
However, these criteria cannot be imposed unilaterally and arbitrarily. They must come about as a result of agreement and they must not violate the fundamental principles of international private law, given the enormously significant implications they have for the definition, among other things, of applicable law and the system of taxation.
We are particularly concerned about the direction taken by the Commission and the Court alike with regard to, among other things, the precepts of "general good' and also about the proposed abolition of the notification procedure in the case of the provision of services.
The second banking directive determines that the banking institution which carries out activities in the territory of another Member State in the context of mutual recognition, that is by means of branches or a system of free service provision, must comply with the provisions relating to the general good which are in force in that state.
Ever since then, the competent institutional bodies of the EU have systematically attempted to introduce ever more and increasingly complex criteria to evaluate the rules of internal law in areas which are not covered by Community regulation.
This process, which even violates the provisions and aims of the directives on the liberalization of banking activity, leads to a serious diminution of the sovereign rights of the recipient state, by restricting its supervisory rights and by making its broader legislation conditional upon its acceptance by bankers and organs of the EU.
It also violates the famous principle of equality of treatment and essentially places banks in a more favourable position while exempting them from the obligation to comply with a number of legal rules which apply to banks that are governed by internal law.
In consequence, the banks of Member States which impose fewer and more lax administrative and legislative conditions and formalities are being rewarded.
Under the conditions of an integrated economy this situation leads de facto to a reduction in consumer protection.
At an institutional level this process translates into EU intervention in areas which are essentially regulated by the Member States, such as civil law - especially contract law - and procedural law, without prior harmonization and thus without a legal basis.
We believe that each Member State must be able to judge which rules it is to impose on all who carry out financial activities within its territory, while in parallel it must be in a position to safeguard the possibility of effective monitoring by the competent supervisory authorities, as a means to ensure the sound operation of its banking system and the protection of the general good.
We disagree with proposals for the flexible implementation of the notification procedure in the case of the provision of services to another Member State and, even more so, with any thought of abolishing it.
We also believe that the pursuit of customers for the provision of cross-border services cannot be dissociated from the obligation to notify.
The supervisory authorities must be informed in order to make their supervisory duties and their task easier.
Moreover, the aforementioned activities are usually the prelude to a more systematic penetration of the market of the state in question.
The notification procedure must also be adhered to in circumstances where services are performed with the dematerialization of work without displacement, such as via the Internet.
Although the agency which provides the service is not located in the state of the purchaser of the service, the place of the "typical provision' of the service is that state and, in addition, it is a clear case of the provision of a service to another Member State.
Any other interpretation would lead to substantially undermining the procedure in question due to the continuous expansion of cross-border services.
For these reasons, in other words, due to the unacceptable nature of the process that is being promoted and the directions that are being promoted in the interpretation of the second banking directive, we cannot vote for the report.
Rothley recommendation for second reading (A4-0170/98)
Mr President, the Green Group was united in voting against the Rothley report.
We consider it to be completely irresponsible from an ethical point of view that the way is being opened up for thousands of genes - whether from human beings, plants or animals - to be put to commercial use.
Parliament has given dispensation for a massive push towards the commercialization of the human body.
It is also disgraceful that Parliament has so clearly caved in to the huge lobbying interests of industry.
Only three years ago Parliament had the courage to reject this very same report.
Today it is agreeing to virtually the same document.
It surely demonstrates the inadequacy of Parliament that we are simply swallowing whatever the Commission serves up, or as it would say: let us allow Parliament to go on voting until the result suits us.
I think that the lobbying in support of the patents directive was one of the most aggressive that the European Parliament has ever experienced.
But that should not prevent Parliament from allowing ethical sense to prevail.
Parliament has failed pitifully.
It has failed to create a clear legal framework which sets down ethical limits for industry.
It has legalized bio-piracy and the road which leads there is now ready for multinationals to travel down.
They will be able to re-interpret the genes of plants, animals and human beings, which they have done no more than discover, as their own invention and to designate them as their property.
The patents directive will lead to an enormous privatization of nature, and it is a disgrace that it is also leaving the back-door open for the cloning of parts of the human body and the patenting of human embryos for research purposes. It is disgraceful that the directive has not even succeeded in excluding things of this kind.
I think that today is a black day for human rights since human beings are clearly being debased by this patents directive and will become nothing more than raw materials for industry.
Mr President, if the patents directive which has now been adopted by Parliament is better than the one we debated and then rejected in Parliament the first time around, it is thanks to those who essentially voted against the directive at that time.
We saw to it that improvements were made, and in my view the wording which has now been adopted cannot be compared with what we rejected in Parliament on that previous occasion.
But I am also of the opinion that we should have completed the procedure and should have confirmed at second reading what Parliament voted for by a large majority at first reading.
This would have enabled us to go into the conciliation procedure with the Council armed with real possibilities for putting forward, and having accepted, views which a majority in Parliament voted for at the first passage.
Parliament has not made full use of its potential here and we have ended up badly placed vis-à-vis the Council and the Commission, despite the fact that we are normally anxious to ensure that Parliament's position is strengthened.
This we failed to do on this particular occasion, and that is why I too voted against the amendments.
Mr President, I voted for some of the amendments to this directive.
I find it extremely offensive that Mrs Breyer feels that anybody who supported anything to do with this directive was in some way lacking in any form of moral judgement on it.
No directive has caused me more concern and more anguish in reaching my decision.
There has been considerable criticism of lobbies.
However, for some reason those who lobby in favour of Mrs Breyer's group are not lobbyists and, apparently, those who have a different point of view are lobbyists and thus decried.
I have checked with many of the patients' groups who are alleged to be opposing this directive, and they have told me absolutely categorically that their names were used without their consent.
There are many areas in this directive that have caused us concern.
I do not believe that my vote today has made the world a worse place.
I hope very much that we will recognize that significant medical achievements can be achieved through biotechnology.
I, too, have had reason to be grateful for biotechnological advances as I am an insulin-dependent diabetic and I use insulin.
I am glad that we do not have to kill 50, 000 pigs every time to get the insulin.
Thanks to biotechnology, insulin is now produced in a much more safe, consistent and stable way.
I am grateful for that.
However, I recognize that we have serious ethical considerations in this directive.
Yesterday, listening to Commissioner Monti, I became convinced by his reassurances that the ethics committee in relation to biotechnology will be a serious one with which we as a Parliament can interact on a regular basis.
Mr President, I wish to raise a point of order.
Earlier on I approached the Chair to have my name put down for an oral voting declaration not just on the Pirker report but also on the Rothley document.
I was wrongly informed that only written voting statements would be allowed.
But I assume that what applies to my colleagues applies to me as well, and I should therefore like to make an oral voting declaration.
(The President.
No, no!)
But surely, Mr President, I was given the wrong information.
I was told that there are only written declarations in the case of second readings.
But since Mrs Breyer, Mrs Banotti and many others have been allowed to make oral declarations, I consider it important, on the basis of equal treatment, that I too should be allowed to make my own voting declaration orally.
Mr Posselt, there is no express provision in the articles of the Rules of Procedure.
However there is a parliamentary practice and this was mentioned to you by our colleagues of the President-in-Office.
This parliamentary practice is that there are no explanations of vote in such circumstances.
Since the matter was very delicate and there were colleagues who wanted at all costs to speak, I allowed myself, if you like, one more interpretation than is customary parliamentary practice.
I have this right since there is no article in the Rules of Procedure which obliges me to do it this way or that.
I usually follow parliamentary practice.
In this case however I judged that I should depart from normal practice.
I will therefore allow you to speak as I did for the other Members.
Mr President, firstly may I write into the proceedings of Parliament today that there was a lot of criticism of my colleagues from the Green Group for dressing up as pirates.
However, people were packed into the public gallery, presumably paid by pharmaceutical companies and those who stand to gain by this, wearing uniforms proclaiming the ludicrous slogan 'Patents for Life' .
That was not referred to at all.
It is wrong that people were allowed to display that slogan in that particular way.
This is a black day for Europe.
This is the only European patenting directive and today we have opened a Pandora's Box which our children and our children's children will deeply regret.
We have given the go-ahead for large multinational companies to plunder and play fast and loose with the world's genetic resources.
Time and time again in Holy Scripture we are warned against what is called genetic confusion.
Today's decision gives the green light for the industrialized mixing and mutation of genes from unrelated species.
We do not have an ethical or moral framework which is workable.
We do not even have a basic ethical committee.
For a long time we will pay a huge cost for this while certain capitalist countries will earn huge profits.
Mr President, as I said before, I did not wish to criticize anyone, I simply wanted everyone to have the same rights.
I share the opinion of my colleague, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, that we have succeeded in improving essential aspects of the directive.
I take the view, and this goes well beyond my colleague's position, that we have made major improvements to the directive and I am proud to be one of those who offered strong resistance to it the first time around.
It was said at the time that, if we say no, there would never be legislation, there would never be any directive, and better a bad regulation than no regulation at all.
All this talk has been proved wrong.
The directive before us today is now very much improved.
Nonetheless, I would have preferred it if we had done what my colleague Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf proposed on a number of points, including primarily the four amendments on embryo protection, in other words, I wish we had completed the procedure in full.
I take the view that we should have adopted a series of amendments and for this reason I voted in favour of just such a thing.
The Rothley report is an immensely complex report with considerable implications for the future.
Not only does it contain the possibility to coordinate the patent systems of the EU countries into one system, but also moral and ethical risks which, in our opinion, have been treated in too stepmotherly a fashion.
We wished that the demand for a special ethics committee in relation to biotechnology had been met; we consider that the implications for countries in the Third World remain unclear, and we think that biodiversity has not been given sufficient consideration.
Our hesitation does not imply that we are against the creation of a joint European patent system, we can see the need for that.
But due to the question marks still shown in the report, we are extremely hesitant in supporting this report in its entirety.
We note that a majority of the amendments suggested by the European Parliament at first reading have been adopted by the Council.
We support two amendments in this vote, Amendments Nos 10 and 25 on marking of origin.
We do not consider it necessary to set up a special ethics committee, but share the views of the Council that the tasks can be fulfilled by the existing committee.
Even if these amendments do not get the necessary majority, we shall support the report in the final vote, and thereby the Council's proposal, as we consider it a matter of urgency that the patenting rights in this field now be regulated.
Technical inventions including biotechnological inventions are protected by patent laws in all our Member States.
The purpose of the draft directive before us now is to harmonize these rules in respect of biotechnological inventions.
We have examined the proposals over the past 10 years and insisted on guarantees in a number of sensitive areas.
The wishes of Parliament have now been met.
We asked that cloning of humans be banned. The directive bans cloning.
We asking that commercial or industrial exploitation of human embryos be banned. This has been achieved.
We amended the proposals to assist biodiversity.
Our amendment has been included in the directive as well as references to the Rio Convention on biodiversity.
We adopted an amendment seeking to strengthen the provisions on 'farmer's privilege' , the rule giving legal protection to the practice of farmers using seed produced on their own farms.
The directive reinforces this rule.
We asked for an ethics group to oversee development in the area of biotechnology.
Last year the Commission established such a group and it is composed of eminent lawyers, scientists and theologians.
We have in fact obtained all the changes and safeguards we requested.
For all these reasons I will vote for the directive.
While the common position contains improvements vis-à-vis the first proposal submitted by the Commission, there is still an absence of provisions relating to the safeguarding of evidence of the origin of genetic material, which is especially important for the diversity of species and for animal protection.
There is also a need for improvements to be made in the area of agriculture, more specifically with regard to breeding.
We require a rule on the setting-up of an ethics committee to deal specifically with bio-technical inventions.
I regret the fact that too few Members of Parliament were in agreement with the amendments.
This directive must achieve a balance between the needs of industry and the general population's wider concerns.
Biotechnology has the potential to do much good in the treatment of genetic diseases.
Work pioneered at the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh (in my constituency) is a good example.
The introduction of a human gene into a sheep programmes the animal to produce a human protein in her milk which has great potential for treating emphysema and cystic fibrosis.
The common position will enable scientists, researchers and those who finance them to obtain a reasonable return on their investment. That is to be welcomed.
However, I am not convinced that the common position has done enough to meet the genuine concerns that have been expressed about developments in this area.
I would have liked the common position to be clearer about the need for a firm distinction between discovery and invention.
I believe we should have a separate ethics committee to look at patent applications.
There is need for informed consent in respect of material obtained from human subjects or from Third World countries.
Finally, the common position should have been clearer in stating that any animal suffering must be in proportion to the realistic human benefit.
While I acknowledge its genuine attempt to find a compromise between competing interests I cannot support the common position in its present form.
Once again the directive on legal protection of biotechnological inventions is before us and, along with it, the whole legitimate debate between, on the one hand, the European pharmaceutical industry's wish not to be deprived of its technical resources, which its competitors in the United States are allowed to use, and, on the other hand, the need to avoid the trend towards committing revolting atrocities in order to remain competitive.
In this respect, if people are already nervous about the patentability of life and the intrusion of the market into an area which some see as sacred, can they be expected to accept the use of human embryos "for industrial and commercial ends' , with or without the false smoke screens of ethics committees?
Indeed, the problem is simpler than it appears if the principles and needs in question are firstly listed and then prioritized.
The list of parameters is as follows, in no particular order: not to hinder research, because of the improved well-being it can bring to mankind, as has been confirmed by the terrific progress achieved in the field of medicine since the Pasteur revolution; not to handicap our high-tech industries, in particular the pharmaceutical industry, where all drugs are the product of grey matter; not to withdraw the traditional right of the small farmer to re-use the products of his land; not to interfere with what is sacred, for without these things there is no society and because life is sacred; not to inflict needless suffering on animals.
From then on, once the parameters are listed, prioritizing is easy.
At the top of the list we have life, which is sacred, life and above all the embryo.
We need to study and understand it, of course.
However, we must do everything to stop life being patented, marketed, manipulated, cloned, merchandised.
The market must stop where life, which is sacred, begins!
Only in this way can we prevent the stupidity of the use of babies' corpses for experimental purposes, to test car seats for example.
Secondly, small farmers must have the right to re-use the seeds they produce without having to pay royalties.
If not, it would mean their return to the legal status of serfs, with the agrochemical giants as lords and leeches.
With these overriding standards in place, the remaining field must be opened up to science, to progress and to the beneficial effects which science brings to humanity.
I am voting against this proposal for many reasons.
The Greens have worked consistently to mitigate the worst defects of this directive, but the common position is unacceptable in its present form.
The refusal of the rapporteur, Willi Rothley, to admit any failings in the text, despite the clear evidence that Parliament's amendments at first reading have been ignored or corrupted beyond recognition, is deeply worrying and the democratic process will be seen to have failed if this position is upheld in plenary.
According to doctors and medical researchers, the directive will stifle research and multiply the costs of treatment.
Already the Manchester Regional Genetics Centre has received demands for royalty payments whenever it tests for the cystic fibrosis gene.
The patenting of genes would reduce collaboration between scientists and increase costs for charities fighting genetic diseases too rare to be commercially interesting.
Corporations owning patents will acquire a monopoly on part of our humanity.
Major corporations have been involved in underhand campaigning techniques such as a group of wheelchair-bound protestors who had allegedly received expenses and 'gifts in kind' from Smithkline Beecham.
Life is not a commodity which can be bought and sold.
The industry lobby argues that the directive will increase food production.
Enough food is already being produced, the directive will require farmers to pay royalties on seeds and force more costly monocultural farming methods.
With the current wording of the directive, a patent can only be challenged if the likelihood of physical suffering to an animal can be demonstrated: even proof of a physical handicap would not be sufficient.
Human genes and embryos, animals and plants will all become patentable, legalized theft of genetic resources from developing countries will continue and farmers will be serious disadvantaged.
Article 5 'appears both to permit and to exclude the patenting of human gene sequences' .
That is the view of the British Society for Human Genetics - the clinical practitioners who will have to work with this text - and is a prime example of the way logic and common sense have been corrupted.
The existing patent treaty (European Patent Convention Article 52.4) prohibits patents on surgical and therapeutic treatments and diagnostic methods for reasons of public policy and doctors' freedom.
Although this is acknowledged in one recital (35), it is negated in another (42).
Article 6 will prohibit patents on 'processes for cloning human beings' .
The definition of such processes has been taken out of the articles and inserted into the (non-mandatory) recitals, which is a strange place for such an important and controversial issue.
It leaves the door open for patenting of cloning processes on anything less than a whole human being.
Parliament passed a clear statement in the first reading that all methods in which human embryos are used should be made unpatentable.
The common position text has qualified this to say that it is only industrial or commercial uses which are nonpatentable, leaving the door open for patents on research models using embryos.
BioPiracy is the unauthorized expropriation and commercialization of genetic material without the proper informed consent of the donor.
Consent to donating genetic material for medical research is not the same as consent to commercialization of any resulting products.
Parliament recognized this problem in its Amendment No 76 which introduced a new article requiring voluntary and informed agreement of the person of origin as a precondition for a patent application.
The common position has deleted this provision, substituting only a poorly-worded recital calling for 'an opportunity' to give such consent, citing data protection problems as the reason for rejecting Parliament's text.
There is no guidance on what happens if the 'opportunity' is not taken or is rejected,
Parliament voted to extend the wording of the farmers' derogation to re-use farm-saved seed and to breed from patented livestock because the Commission's origin proposal was technically very limited.
The common position reimposes the same restrictions in defiance of the views of farmers.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights ignored a request from the chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to reinstate these amendments.
While I recognize that the common position is an improvement on the proposal which was put before us the last time we debated biotechnology patenting, I am concerned that ethical questions have not been entirely resolved.
Where there is an issue with an ethical dimension it is not enough to simply argue for a straightforward balance between the needs of a given industry and moral concerns.
The balance must always be tilted towards those moral concerns.
That is why I have supported the amendments, particularly those tabled by Members of my own group, which sought to strengthen ethical controls.
Like every other Member, I have sympathy with the patient groups who have campaigned for adoption of the report without amendment.
It is understandable that those groups want to see the issue sorted out as soon as possible.
I regret, however, that I cannot accept the argument that there is no more need for conciliation.
It is clear from the number of concerns which have been raised that the ethical dimension needs to be watertight, otherwise we will face enormous difficulties in the future, difficulties which would benefit no-one, least of all the people whom the patient groups represent.
I share the view of many Members that farmers' needs are not adequately met in the common position.
There appears to be a fundamental misunderstanding of how farming operates.
It is absurd to impose a financial sanction on farmers simply because they wish to continue innovative practice as they have done for centuries.
I strongly resent those provisions which exclude the 'farmer's privilege' .
Discussions on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions have been going on for more than ten years now.
It is paradoxical that the international institutions, especially the World Trade Organization, consider legal protection of biotechnology possible although only with regard to foodstuffs as such, without taking into consideration the production process.
We have a current example right now, with the banning of imports of hormonized meat into the European Union, which is considered reprehensible.
With regard to agriculture, the legal protection of biotechnology must not be carried out to the detriment of what is mistakenly known as "the farmer's privilege' .
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations tabled Amendment No 6 and cosigned Amendments Nos 28, 29 and 30.
In fact, from time immemorial, farmers have had the right to use their own seed and have developed a specific system known as "farm-saved seed' .
Only recently, the Commission made aid to durum wheat production dependent on the use of certified seed, consequently causing an increase in production costs for farmers.
As a result, a reduction in the area sowed with durum wheat can already be noted in the so-called "non-traditional' production areas, which only benefit from a reduced level of aid to production.
The "farmer's privilege' , that is, production of seed on the farm and self-reproduction of the seed is the best possible barrier to the development of genetically modified seeds.
Indeed, their low production cost obliges the multinational seed companies to abuse their dominant market position.
We voted in favour of a number of amendments to Mr Rothley's report on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions.
We did so in the interests of having the directive sent to the Conciliation Committee because we believe it to be a poor draft.
There are at least three major problems with the directive in its present form, now that Parliament has rejected all the amendments: the requirement of proof of invention has not been included in an acceptable form; the "farmer's privilege' has not been safeguarded; and the potential for patenting genes under Article 5 - not only for specific applications - deserves sharp criticism.
Each of these problems individually constitutes adequate grounds to reject the Council's common position, but regrettably, this was not to be.
We find the decision to adopt Mr Rothley's report quite irresponsible.
I supported most of the amendments to Mr Rothley's report.
I have listened with respect to many of the arguments in support of the common position, including representations from my union, MSF, and from the UK Bioindustry Association, as well as from Mr Rothley and other MEPs.
I recognize the potential that biotechnology has for curing genetic disorders and for creating jobs in Europe.
I also appreciate that granting a patent does not, in itself, allow the patented product to be used.
Much of the lobbying from both sides has been misleading and even, in some cases, dishonest.
This is unhelpful to the lobbyists, as well as to MEPs trying to reach a position in an extraordinarily complex area touching on law, science and ethics, as well as many political questions.
Claims that approving the common position will result in cures that will otherwise be prevented, or that rejecting it will fatally harm European industry are unjustified.
By the same token, many opponents of the directive have exaggerated the practical consequences of granting a patent and have made arguments that imply that any patented product is approved for use.
Nevertheless, I cannot support the common position, primarily because the battle over the directive has become a political battle over whether or not there should be a speedy and lightly regulated expansion of biotechnology.
The significance of the directive goes beyond its specific provisions.
That is why it was important to establish a credible ethics committee, as proposed in Amendments Nos 11 and 12; to safeguard the rights of people in developing countries; to safeguard farmers' privileges; and to protect biodiversity.
Given the powerful economic and political forces now looking to make money from biotechnology in the developing world, there is a serious danger of traditional rights being undermined and the poorest people in the world being further exploited.
Adopting a model on biotechnological patenting close to the US model, we are bringing into being a powerful bloc that may force biotechnology on the rest of the world.
This would be undesirable.
We need to go more slowly.
My votes registered my concern.
Today, companies like Bayer, BASF, Hoechst and Bohringer are trying to ensure that they enjoy legal protection for the gene business.
The Directive on legal protection for biotechnological inventions is designed to ensure that companies like this can make monopolistic claims by way of patents on the use of biological materials from animals, plants and human beings.
While these companies could then assert what are in effect rights of ownership of genetic information in the form of patents, the jobs and possible cures promised by the biotechnology industry are by no means guaranteed as a result.
What is certain, however, is that European biotechnology companies will profit from the directive.
Most of the resources and knowledge for the so-called biotechnological inventions of the northern hemisphere and the resulting patents come from Third World countries.
Indeed, 83 % of genetic diversity is to be found in Africa, Latin America and Asia, and this is a source of enormous profits when combined with traditional knowledge about the use of this biological diversity which has been acquired by the indigenous people and local communities in these regions.
This is particularly true for traditional medicine and agricultural knowledge.
At the moment, one in four pharmaceutical products is manufactured from tropical plants.
These remedies have often been developed from the traditional pharmaceutical products of indigenous people.
As a rule, the knowledge and biological resources of indigenous people are put to commercial use by multi-national companies without the approval or even against the wishes of those people.
The profit margin is considerable: Bayer, Agr.Evo, BASF, KWS and Hoechst are all in the top-ten list of world companies in agriculture, veterinary medicine and pharmaceuticals.
These profits will multiply with the EU patents directive, without any decision, approval, legal protection, control or participation on the part of those concerned.
These industries would also have access to human genetic material in the EU and the patenting of isolated parts of the human body would no longer be excluded.
Isolated genetic information would be regarded as the result of technical processes and thus as inventions which could be patented.
There have already been several attempts in the past to patent cell sequences of indigenous people against their wishes.
The European Parliament is now engaged in a vote on the compulsory expropriation of genetic resources.
For this reason I am voting against the Rothley report.
Pirker report (A4-0157/98)
I abstained on this report for a number of reasons.
The whole drugs issue in Europe and the way people deal with it is very disturbing.
People are refusing to accept that there are drug addicts out there, that there are people suffering from drug addiction and that something must be done to ensure that these people are protected and that they are not criminalized.
They are victims of exploitative people.
We have to deal with that.
There seem to be two different sides in this Parliament.
On the one hand, people are saying that drugs should be liberalized and others are saying that we are refusing to deal with the issue.
People have a duty to address the realities of life and one of those realities is that drugs are available and that young people and vulnerable people are being exploited by this.
We need to deal with this and should not run away from it.
Even the d'Ancona report some months ago hyped up some very cynical arguments.
We have to deal with the realities of life.
We have to deal with the fact that not only are the victims of drug addiction but their families too are suffering.
We should not criminalize these people but look at ways of dealing with the root causes of the problem.
Until we deal with that and stop running away from the problem, we are never going to find a solution.
The reason I abstained on this report was because there were some positive things in it but there was also a reluctance to deal with the reality of the situation.
Mr President, I simply wanted to say briefly that I am very pleased to see such a large majority in support of the Pirker report, for this constitutes a turning point in EU drugs policy which first became evident in the debate on the d'Ancona report, which unfortunately was referred back to committee.
The Pirker report has finally made it clear that there is in this House a large majority in favour of a hard and clear line against drugs.
I believe that what is important now is to ensure that this change of direction is also taken up by the individual Member States.
In Germany, for example, the debate has fallen a long way behind the position we reached on this issue in the European Parliament.
I only wish there were as much unity of purpose over drugs policy and the fight against drugs in national politics as there is in the European Parliament.
It is inconceivable that in a week when the European Parliament will endorse the ban on tobacco advertising, we should not take seriously the threat to life and health from so-called designer drugs.
We all know of the tragic deaths that have occurred amongst young people from Ecstasy but the insidious long-term damage to the brain and nervous system is not so widely known.
It is unfortunate that the proponents of the Amsterdam Treaty have not recognized the downside to the rush to European harmonization.
Crime has also been given the green light.
Customs posts on our Western seaboard, such as Casteltownbere in Cork, have been abolished just as we need increased vigilance concerning the trafficking of all kinds of illegal drugs.
Cannabis is legal already in Holland and there is a drive to legalize it from some Member States in the European Union which will only increase pressures.
We should say NO to the Amsterdam Treaty and NO to drugs.
We would like to point out that the Pirker report is an excellent report supporting the Commission's proposal of an early warning system for discovering new synthetic drugs.
We do not, however, share his opinion that harmonizing the sanctions for the use of drugs would be desirable, as in several EU Member States today the use of drugs is not a crime.
Harmonization would mean that Sweden risks abandoning its present legislation.
We support the amendment that legislation should not only be based on punishment and bans.
We regard the Swedish line which amounts to punishment being turned into care or treatment to be successful and desirable.
Finally, we repudiate firmly any proposal for the legalization and the controlled use of drugs.
As Hubert Pirker highlighted, the share of so-called synthetic drugs - Ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines - within drug consumption as a whole is continually increasing.
Something thus needs to be urgently done with regard to this phenomenon, which affects young people during their leisure time in particular.
The different legislations regarding these drugs, whose exact content we are for the most part unaware of, do not offer a satisfactory and homogeneous defence within the 15 Member States.
They constitute a form of protection, which is even less capable of halting or reversing that increase.
Whilst carrying out preventive actions, we must also rapidly harmonize the fight against drug trafficking, possession and use of drugs.
That is why I support the Pirker report, particularly its dissuasive and preventive aspects.
The progressive ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty gives us new legal means and methods of policing to act against this particularly structured and organized from of crime.
Greater cross-border cooperation, in particular, could help greatly in this area and remedy the development of raves.
We ensure the protection of minors and young adults in many different ways.
This area should not leave us indifferent.
It is a part of the same logic as the fight against organized crime or public health protection, as is the fight against the other socalled traditional drugs.
For the same medical and social reasons, as a Member of this House and a doctor, I could not countenance their legalization.
Mr President, I welcome the production of this report by Mr Pirker.
Designer drug usage has greatly increased and it is vitally important that the EU co-ordinates its activities in response to the problem.
All national legislation should be carefully scrutinized to ensure that no loopholes exist which permit the manufacture of synthetic drugs merely by altering the chemical formula.
This should also be complemented by increased police and customs co-operation throughout the EU which targets criminals who ply this evil trade and who profit so much from the human suffering and misery they create. The profit margins are considerable.
An Ecstasy tablet costs 20-25p to produce yet is sold for between five to ten pounds.
The rewards far outweigh the punishments that are meted out.
It is therefore essential that EU Member States harmonize their sentencing policy to ensure that the punishment fits the crime and acts as a major deterrent.
Action at a local level also has a critical role to play.
It should not be forgotten that these drugs are mostly sold in premises frequented by young people such as discotheques and bars.
Pressure must be brought to bear on the owners of these premises to ensure that they are taking every possible precaution to prevent their circulation.
It is proven that they knowingly allowed drugs to be sold in their establishments then the local police and local courts should proceed to revoke their licences.
It is therefore clear that if we are to successfully respond to the threat caused by designer drop then strong coordinated action at a local, national and EU level must occur simultaneously.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of improved control of so-called designer drugs in the EU.
Since criminal activities do not respect national boundaries, we consider close collaboration between Member States crucial to the fight against these criminal groups.
However, there should be no doubt that we firmly support the Danish derogation in judicial matters.
Thus, we do not endorse the approximation of penal legislation in Member States.
It is high time we became aware of the damaging effects of the production and consumption of both the so-called traditional drugs and the so-called synthetic drugs.
It is also time to envisage, and take, all necessary punitive measures to fight against their production and use.
We are satisfied with Mr Pirker's report which, with regard to the control of these new synthetic drugs - LSD, Ecstasy and amphetamines - upholds an approach based on suppression.
Use of all drugs - narcotics, psychotropic substances, Ecstasy, LSD or amphetamines - must be banned.
Cooperation must be increased between police forces in the fight against drug trafficking.
For all these reasons, as the National Front never ceases to repeat, we must say no to the legalization of drugs, no to their free use and no to a society of and for drug addicts.
There needs to be a real awareness of the risks associated with synthetic drugs.
Indeed, apart from undesirable side effects such as anxiety attacks, hallucinations and confusion, they can cause liver disease, cramp, apoplectic fits, coma and even death.
These drugs, which are for the most part consumed by the 15 to 25 age group at raves, are dangerous.
It is vital, if only for this reason, that they are banned and that their sale and use be severely suppressed.
The doubly black market in synthetic drugs - which are extremely varied and unidentifiable - is one of the greatest threats to our young people.
The Pirker report is an excellent contribution and a fundamental alarm signal in the fight against this scourge.
I would especially underline two proposals that are contained in it - that we appeal to the Drugs Monitoring Centre in Lisbon to intensify its efforts to control synthetic drugs, and, most of all, the suggested creation of a Europe-wide 'drug-free schools' campaign, which indeed has been symbolically launched today in Strasbourg.
This is an idea which I think is a very positive way of encouraging young people to protect themselves against drugs.
Although we have some reservations - especially as regards the creation of special supra-institutional units, a proposal we consider particularly negative, and also as regards the question of harmonizing legislation - we consider the report generally positive, because it faces up to the use of synthetic drugs, which has become a part of the world-wide drugs problem as a whole.
It accepts the principle that users should be penalized - although that never means criminalized - and the need to stop the production and prevent the sale of these drugs, and also highlights the urgent need for further research into questions associated with the use of these kinds of drugs, particularly their social and health aspects.
We should, however, have liked to see a much clearer and more direct approach to the need to attack the production of these drugs and the interests associated with them, preferably using the existing laws on the matter which, unfortunately, have only been implemented to a limited extent.
Synthetic drugs are dangerous even if they are often trivialised.
Because they are "untypical' and consequently cannot be lumped together with popular drugs - heroine, cocaine, etcetera -, they are often alleged to be harmless.
Specialists know that this is not the case.
But young people are also well aware that designer drugs and "Ecstasy' are far from harmless.
According to one survey, 95 % of the young people who were questioned classified the synthetic products as "drugs' , while 90 % admitted that "Ecstasy' damaged your health and 77 % knew that taking designer drugs led to addiction.
Nevertheless, many young people fall victim to these substances.
Because designer drugs have long been part of a certain youth culture, they are taken by young people at public or private dance venues; they are consumed mainly by the 17-25 age group, but some are as young as 13!
In the European Union, 5 million young people are understood to take synthetic drugs on an occasional or regular basis.
The phenomenon is so acute in Luxembourg that the Centre for the Prevention of Drug Addiction has had a report prepared on the problem of synthetic drugs in Luxembourg.
Synthetic drugs are manufactured in kitchen laboratories using chemicals.
That is why it is also vital for us to gain control of these substances, which often come from central or eastern Europe.
A ban on the production of and trade in designer drugs and amphetamines is absolutely necessary, and this must be introduced equally in all EU Member States.
National legislation must be adapted to meet the new situation.
The use of preventive measures and the provision of information are indispensable if the damage is to be limited.
Useful experience has been acquired in some Member States - including disco evenings and the use of the Internet - and this should be disseminated as widely as possible.
It is also important to improve research into the effects and side-effects of these relatively new drugs, so that particularly dangerous substances are recognized in good time.
However, what matters above all is to recognise the new drugs as dangerous substances, to take steps to prohibit their production and sale, and to educate young people so that we can limit the amount of damage done.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Water quality
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0146/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive on the quality of water intended for human consumption (C4-0083/98-95/010(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr K. Collins)
Mr President, this is the second reading on this subject, having had the first reading one year ago.
We can thus be pleased that no time has been wasted between first and second readings, which is not always the case, as we saw this morning.
Consequently, we can be happy that the Council's common position incorporates the factors which Parliament considered to be of particular importance at first reading of this "drinking water' directive, especially the request for the development of a harmonized method of sampling in order to monitor the lead content of water.
I introduced an amendment on this subject at first reading, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, and this point has been taken up.
I am very pleased about this.
There is also another point on which we are extremely satisfied.
It relates to the definition of points of compliance.
The Council took up this amendment, approved at first reading, which defines the point of compliance as the tap normally used for human consumption. This enables monitoring of the conformity of garden taps, for example, to be avoided.
Nevertheless, there remain several points which we think pose a problem and I would just like to raise that of where copper is placed in the annexes.
Even at first reading, I insisted greatly on this point, noting that we wished to see copper moved from Annex B, an annex relating to chemicals, to Annex C which covers iron and manganese.
This change in annex would mean that, if the copper level was exceeded, as for all of the parameters in Annex C, Article 8, paragraph 2 would apply. According to this article, the Member States would have to implement corrective measures, as quickly as possible, to restore the quality of water, if this is a problem.
This, to me, represents a basic guarantee of the quality of drinking water.
I therefore want to insist on this point in particular, and there are many of us who clearly wish to see this amendment taken up.
There are other improvements brought about by the amendments, in particular with regard to the parametric values of certain chemical substances such as trihalomethanes or physical parameters such as radioactivity, which should be considered in the light of the Euratom directive.
On the request for studies concerning endocrine-disrupting chemicals, I insist on the fact that we are waiting for the Commission to put these research programmes in place as speedily as possible so that we have all the necessary information.
With regard to lead, which has also been the subject of a number of discussions, the Member States must provide a statement on the incidence of lead piping, having a period of five years in which to produce a report on how they intend to replace it.
This relates to Amendment No 12, which seems to be a good solution.
According to the text agreed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Member States have five years to reach an initial level of 25 microgrammes per litre; they must then conform to the standard of 10 microgrammes per litre within ten years, and not fifteen, as agreed by the Council.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would simply like to note that the cost of this measure for some countries which have lead piping in use within their water distribution networks has to be carefully considered.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing an important directive on water intended for human consumption: it is important both because it seeks to protect our health from the negative effects of water contamination and pollution, and because it will finally provide the Member States with a more flexible and appropriate framework of regulations than the current one, which goes back a good 18 years.
The directive will enable us to have a Community policy on drinking water and, finally, will enable consumers to be better informed.
The Member States will have to face investment, which will amount to around 100 000 million euros over the entire Community territory.
This is important because control programmes, methods of measuring and analysing the quality of drinking water and widespread control of the entire system of all drinking water supply networks will be implemented.
More than 50 million kilometres of old pipes will certainly have to be replaced as well.
Unfortunately, however, water contamination causes various problems, despite being the source of life, as Mr Florenz pointed out at first reading. Water is no longer odourless, colourless and tasteless.
Measures therefore need to be taken, in compliance with the provisions of the World Health Organization.
It seems incredible to me, and I fail to understand why the values of the WHO are taken into consideration for certain elements and not for others.
I am referring to copper, which is still included in the table of chemical parameters, which lists arsenic, cyanide, mercury, lead and other poisons.
Although the WHO has specified that a level of 2 milligrams of copper per litre of drinking water offers a suitable level of safety; although the European Parliament, you will recall, voted in favour at first reading, including copper in the table of indicative parameters; although the use of pipes with a low copper content could enable considerable savings to be made for the Member States; although there is no alternative system as yet...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, I apologise for not being present when the debate opened.
I was chairing the Conference of Committee Chairmen and I have not yet perfected the art of being in two places at once.
The priority principle that we are tackling here today is the principle of ensuring a supply of good quality drinking water throughout the Community; water that does not harm human health and which is of a high environmental quality.
The directive we have in place at the moment has not really been well implemented.
The previous speaker has made the point: it is complex, confusing and, furthermore, it is sometimes based on scientific knowledge that was perhaps all right at the time but is now outdated.
The proposal presented by the Commission in 1995 - which is what we are dealing with now - established parametric values to be met by the Member States, based on the latest research findings and WHO standards.
We believe that it represented a significant improvement.
The common position was a further improvement on the original Commission proposal largely, if I may say so, due to the work of Parliament at first reading when we secured, for example, a total pesticides limit and concessions on keeping consumers better informed.
The proposal we have on the table today I believe to be a good one. The reason is that it has been the product of cooperative and open decision-making.
I would like to congratulate the people who have taken part in the work leading to the paper today.
That includes the Commission and its staff; it includes many people in the water industry; and it includes many of the NGOs.
Without them we would not be able to have the proposal that is here on the table today.
There are just one or two issues I want to raise.
First of all, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is not at all happy about the common position insofar as it deals with derogations.
We want to tighten up derogations, most importantly on lead, where we have reduced the time which Member States have to implement the lead parameter from 15 years to 10 years.
We have also introduced a requirement for Member States to produce a plan within five years, stating how they intend to meet the lead parameter established in the directive.
I want to make it clear that we are not suggesting that Member States should eliminate lead within five years.
What we are saying is that Member States should produce a plan telling us how they are going to do it, at some time in the future.
Secondly, there is the question of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
We have introduced a parameter for endocrine-disrupting chemicals and we have called for a study.
We think this is necessary given the growing political sensitivity of this across the Community.
Thirdly, there is the question of trihalomethanes.
We have tightened the parameter for trihalomethanes and we have introduced a requirement that Member States must produce a plan, again detailing how they intend to meet this parameter.
Fourthly, there is the question of radioactivity.
The committee has endorsed an amendment calling for the directive to include a radioactivity parameter to ensure that drinking water supplies do not become contaminated.
Fifthly, there is the question of copper.
I have made my views clear on the lobbying activities of some people associated with the copper industry.
I must say that they have been rather less than responsible in the way they have behaved.
Phoning my assistant at night on her home telephone number is not my idea of responsible lobbying.
It is not the whole industry, but some areas of it.
I deplore that.
But the committee decisively overturned the copper amendments, which have been resubmitted to plenary.
I am following the committee's line and would therefore ask colleagues not to support these amendments: Amendments Nos 31 to 34.
Sixthly, we have dealt with distribution and points of compliance.
We have attempted to clarify confusion over the definitions of the points of compliance and differences that exist between public and private premises.
We have tried to remove the ambiguities there.
The last point that I want to make is that the committee has endorsed my call for a stop to the practice of cutting off water supplies to private individuals.
In the part of the Community where I live, this is already illegal.
You may not cut off water supplies in Scotland.
In a civilized Community I believe we should not be depriving our citizens of one of the most basic means of survival - namely, a clean supply of clean drinking water.
Finally, sources of drinking water in this Community are varied.
Some countries rely on ground water, others on surface water.
The drinking water directive has to be able to allow for disinfection of water from all possible sources in order to make water safe for human consumption, while still being flexible and respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
This is a difficult balancing act which I believe this directive manages well.
Amendments Nos 1 to 30 improve the directive.
I commend them to the House.
This directive is an improvement on its predecessor.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Collins, for his eminent work on the directive on drinking water.
It is good to see European Parliament amendments incorporated into the common position.
Clean water in Europe is not to be taken for granted.
Even today, the majority of countries have to purify their drinking water either by proper technical or straightforward chemical treatment.
The strategy for Europe's drinking water should, therefore, be based on pollution prevention and monitoring water quality.
However, the problem of monitoring water is that we only find what we are measuring for.
Therefore, it is very positive indeed that the directive on drinking water sets up monitoring requirements for substances that we suspect may be harmful to humans.
I also believe it is important for drinking water to be free of hormone-like substances, as mentioned by Ken Collins.
The fact that the overall boundary limit for pesticides in drinking water has been brought back into the directive is very gratifying.
We are living in a time when agriculture, in particular, has to take responsibility for its use of chemical substances and the consequences this has on natural resources.
I am glad that the reference to water as a commodity has been removed from the common position.
I concur with the chairman of the committee in advocating that Member States should produce a plan to replace lead pipes and taps for domestic water supplies within the next five years, and it is also my belief that more rapid implementation of the directive will be required.
Mr President, on the whole I can concur with the comments of the previous two speakers - the rapporteur of the Socialist group and the chairman of the committee.
Today, we are dealing with an important motion here.
Looking at the world situation in this area, an incredible number of children die because they really are not able to get adequate, clean water, which is critical to their development.
Thus, it is of course also important for us in Europe to ensure that we are approaching a position where clean water will be par for the course.
As the previous speaker said, in a very large part of Europe, it is not to be taken for granted.
Thus, it is equally crucial that areas where there currently is clean drinking water should be able to ensure an ongoing supply of clean drinking water for the future as well.
On behalf of the Liberal group, therefore, I support the amendment under discussion.
Mr President, we have also looked carefully at the major problems with this report.
And, generally speaking, we share the evaluation and approach adopted by the Committee on the Environment as regards its position on water intended for human consumption.
But there is one aspect on which we differ: I refer to the question of copper.
On that point we actually agree with the majority position on the Committee of the Environment, and prefer the earlier position taken by Parliament in the House at first reading.
This is because there is no current scientific research, particularly by the World Health Organization, that justifies the inclusion of copper in Annex 1, part B. We therefore do not understand the insistence on putting copper in that category, which we also find somewhat surprising when we observe that no precautions are normally taken when using copper for water pipes, although the results of research in that field are public property.
We therefore consider that the appropriate course would be to confirm the position adopted by Parliament at first reading, namely that copper should be included in Annex 1, part C. This, moreover, is the only attitude that ensures that the effects of copper on water will be constantly and strictly monitored.
These are the main reasons why my group, and I myself, were persuaded to sign an amendment, as other groups and smaller groups of Members have done on this subject.
The Green Group in the European Parliament fully supports Mr Collins' excellent report.
The vote at first reading was already a good one and the common position significantly improves upon the 1980 directive.
Having said this, a number of the amendments retabled at second reading seem essential to us.
We are particularly interested in Amendments Nos 25 and 26.
The first relates to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
We are aware of the fact that, according to scientific studies, these substances are likely to have a devastating effect on the hormonal system at extremely low levels.
Furthermore, the second amendment, concerning radioactivity, shows that here too, since 1980, a number of things have changed.
We now know that there is no threshold with regard to the effects of radioactivity.
Thus, even low levels of radioactivity cannot be acceptable in drinking water.
They must be minimized as far as possible, given that it is not possible to eliminate them altogether.
I would particularly like to draw your attention to tritium, which is an extra-heavy form of hydrogen.
Tritium has two properties, that of forming tritium water, but also that of incorporating itself into organic particles.
With regard to this, given its long life, it could play a potentially serious role in the area of cancerization.
Scientists are divided on the subject but I believe that, if we are to observe the precautionary principle, it would be wise to adopt the values agreed on by the Committee on the Environment.
I consequently entreat the Commission to support this amendment and we will thus be voting for a directive which is clearly an improvement on the previous one.
Mr President, when we talk of water or water quality, we need to be clear that there is only one body of water in the world.
Dividing water into two types - one which we can pollute and poison and use as a vehicle for carrying away our rubbish, and one which we need for our vital requirements - is just not a viable long-term proposition.
That is why we must provide the best possible protection for our entire water system in every corner of the globe, because the Earth's water system all connects up together.
This report - and here I repeat myself - naturally constitutes the right step in the right direction.
Wrong decisions taken mainly in the past, such as the use of lead pipes which are a threat to human health, should be corrected as soon as possible.
The introduction of thresholds for radioactivity is no less important.
Given that the disinfection of water is particularly good business for the chemical industry, it will be important in future to ensure that the addition of chemicals is kept to an absolute minimum.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my general support for Mr Collins's report, particularly as regards water quality.
Cases such as those which occurred a few years ago in Cornwall, in the United Kingdom, and in Evora, in Portugal, put water quality on the front page and caused questions to be asked in Parliament, because they were matters of concern to public opinion on environmental problems.
And the viewpoint emphasized here, which gives priority to supplies, protection and the recovery of polluted waters, putting water quality first, is one that deserves our support.
Thus there is clearly greater demand for the control of trihalomethane - I would draw your attention to the fact that there are a number of systems where no such analyses are carried out -, and for the long-term replacement of lead pipes.
The proposal contained in this report is therefore a good one, just as the proposal that came out of the first reading was positive.
As at first reading, however, the point on which I disagree concerns the classification of copper as a chemical parameter, instead of an indicative parameter.
We consider that the Commission has not changed its position.
In its introductory memorandum (COM(94)0612), the Commission stated that the use of copper materials in water distribution systems was not in itself harmful to human health, unless there was any difficulty in meeting a parameter value of 2 mg/litre with appropriate controls on the water treatment process; since then, the Commission has so far shown no evidence of change.
To quote my friend Mr Collins, it appears that there has been greater sensitivity to other lobbies, perhaps those supporting substitutes for copper, than there has been concern to treat the existing research with appropriate rigour.
For that reason we have once again signed an amendment making copper an indicative parameter under this directive.
Mr President, like others I welcome this directive and the report on it.
It is an important directive because it simplifies the original very complicated directive on drinking water and it tightens up some of the limits in a very important way, particularly as regards the content of lead which we allow to enter water.
The question I have to ask is one which has not really been highlighted so far in this debate - I know the rapporteur is very well aware of it - and that is the question of who pays for this.
The United Kingdom is one of the countries which has a problem with lead piping.
Friends of the Earth, which is an environmental organization, estimated a few years ago that there were four million houses in England in which the lead concentration in drinking water exceeded the limit proposed in this directive.
It is worse news if you are Scottish: not only do you have Mr Collins as your MEP - or one of them - but you also have 589 000 homes out of a total of 2.1 million which have lead piping.
Clearly something has to be done about that.
I wonder whether the Commission might like to comment on Amendment No 12, which Mr Collins highlighted.
Mr Collins has added something to the directive which was not in it and which asks that the Member States be required to produce a report and forward it to the Commission on the incidence of lead piping in households within their territories and to come forward within five years with a plan to replace the lead piping in these homes.
In other words, it is the Member States, not the Commission, which are to produce the plan.
It would be interesting to know whether the Commission backs this idea or whether the Commission itself has it in mind to tackle the incidence not simply of lead piping for the water suppliers but the lead piping in homes.
Has the Commission any up-to-date statistics by Member State as to how much this would cost? The figures I have seen relate to 1993 and they came to £2 billion in England and Wales for the replacement of water companies' lead pipes and £6 billion for the replacement of domestic pipes.
That is a very large amount of money and I would be interested to know whether the Commission has any figures on that.
Finally, we have to go into this issue with our eyes open about the likely cost.
We have a terrible record on this: for example, the nitrates directive, which has been on the statute book and is being widely ignored because the Member States cannot afford to implement it.
Mr President, the common position has clearly progressed at Parliament's second reading of the proposal on the quality of water meant for human consumption as the debate has gone on.
For that I am grateful to Mr Collins.
The proposal addresses the current insistence on human health, although, as has been said, things have gone too slowly.
Nevertheless, it is important, and this has also been said here, that we are certain that the plans to get things on the right footing will come into being within the next five years at the latest.
The amended proposal will guarantee greater flexibility with the removal of the limitations of Article 13.
The present proposal also addresses environmental challenges more closely.
As a whole, the directive means the demand for good quality drinking water has been met in its proper proportion in respect of health standards.
We have to be prepared to pay for good drinking water.
In such a vital and influential matter as health and health care, we cannot afford to allow a policy to exist that would end up in the quality of drinking water being bargained over, due to limitations in standards of quality.
Finally, I would like to say, regarding the matter of copper, that it must be regarded as a health issue, and addressed as such.
Mr President, annexed to the directive on drinking water is a classification of substances that can have an effect on the quality of drinking water according to their degree of danger.
After Parliament's first reading, the Council changed the classification of copper and put it in the same class as poisons like arsenic.
Copper has been a good, safe and durable material for making drinking water pipes for many decades in Europe.
If the Council's proposal goes through and copper becomes classified as a poison, a very misleading message will be going out to the consumer.
It is true that copper is dangerous in large doses, but our bodily system actually needs small amounts of it, which is what the Commission did itself acknowledge.
It has also been scientifically ascertained that a copper deficiency is a bigger concern than an overdose of it.
In a study undertaken by the World Health Organization in 1997 it was stated that there was no scientific evidence that the use of copper as a material for manufacturing pipes for drinking water would lead to health-related problems caused by drinking water.
Another study done in Stockholm in 1997 showed that copper is not harmful to babies.
If copper comes into contact with a group of noxious substances it is easily replaced by those other materials, the effect of which is unknown.
In this world of all sorts of additives, colouring agents and preservatives, it is right that the quality of our drinking water is controlled, and this report is on the right track in this respect, but there should be moderation in everything.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to thank the Members for their thorough treatment of the Council's common position.
I also appreciated the comments by the rapporteur, Mr Ken Collins, on the collaboration between the Commission and the European Parliament.
We, too, found this extremely positive, with the entire procedure being handled in complete openness, thus also making it possible to involve too the NGOs Mr Collins particularly mentioned.
Before making my own comments on the amendments, I would like to emphasize that the Council's common position took shape in the wake of tough, long-drawn-out negotiations between the Council and the Commission.
Thus, some of the provisions are not entirely to the satisfaction of the Commission, but on the whole, this is an acceptable compromise, fully endorsed by the Commission.
With this in mind, the following can be accepted: Amendments Nos 6, 8, 15 and 19 can be accepted in their entirety.
Amendments Nos 12, which Mrs Jackson particularly asked about, and 29 can be accepted in part.
In principle, Amendments Nos 13, 26 and 30 are acceptable.
The Commission cannot accept the following amendments: 1-5, 7, 9-11, 14, 16-18, 20-25, 27, 28 and finally 31-34.
Let me briefly comment on the most significant amendments, not least because they have figured in today's debate.
First, I will consider the derogations, that is, Amendments Nos 16, 17 and 22.
The Commission has accepted the proposals put forward by the House at first reading; these have been incorporated into the proposal.
However, they have subsequently been amended by the Council, since this was one of the most difficult issues in the negotiations.
I must emphasize, however, that derogations will only be granted when health is not at stake.
Derogations will be time-restricted, and the Commission will be involved.
Thus, the major reservations of the House have been taken into consideration.
Unfortunately, my impression is that it would be extremely difficult to renegotiate this point with Council.
The rapporteur, Mr Collins, and Mr Lannoye both mentioned parameters for radioactivity, touching on Amendments Nos 23 and 26.
I am delighted to be able to report that the Commission accepts the introduction of parameters for radioactivity in Annex 1 part C of the directive, dealing with indicator parameters.
This is the first time such parameters have been incorporated into a directive not covered by the Euratom Treaty, so I must congratulate the House on this amendment.
Amendments Nos 8, 25 and 30 then deal with hormone-like substances.
Naturally, the Commission has made careful note of Parliament's reservations on this point, and I, too, share these reservations.
The Commission's services are currently investigating the matter and guidelines will shortly be produced on what the policy should be.
I am aware of Mrs Kirsten Jensen's reservations on hormone-like substances, put before the Committee on the Environment on 22 April 1998, because this is also in the works.
The same applies to the question the rapporteur asked the Commission.
Reference to Article 4, section 1(a), is acceptable, but at present, it is too early to introduce parameters into Annex 1 part B. I especially welcome the idea of a study of hormone-like substances, provided, of course, that the necessary budgetary funds are made available and approved by Parliament.
However, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to convert this idea into a directive.
Finally, we come to the provisions regarding lead, that is, Amendments Nos 12 and 28, which Mrs Jackson particularly mentioned.
The rapporteur's idea of requiring reports from Member States on how to tackle the problem of lead is an interesting one. It can be accepted with essential rewording at one point.
Amendment No 28, where a period of 10 years is proposed for complying with requirements on lead, cannot be accepted.
The Commission has proposed 15 years, and this has been accepted by the Council.
It is to be hoped that this period strikes a reasonable balance between considerations of public health and the practical difficulties of complying with the standards, and Mrs Jackson's point about the costs of the existing proposal should perhaps be mentioned.
Finally, we come to Amendments Nos 24 and 29 on trihalomethanes, THMs.
The idea of a report along the lines of parameters for lead has also been accepted.
The proposal for a more stringent limit on THM cannot, however, be accepted.
Let me also state that the reference to Directive 89/106 on building materials is a very useful amendment; it is acceptable in its present form.
In conclusion, allow me to make a few comments on copper.
As Mr Collins stated, all the amendments were rejected by the Committee on the Environment, and yet it seems to have played a part in the proceedings.
This has at least been emphasized by a number of Parliamentarians speaking today.
The Commission's proposal follows the limit value for copper put forward by the World Health Organization, WHO.
This value was not changed in the WHO's ongoing review that took place in Geneva in April 1997.
Since the basis for this value is health, it is reasonable to retain it in Annex 1, part B. Should new documentation be produced warranting a change in the classification of copper, this will obviously be taken into account.
As far as the Commission's services can ascertain, the WHO has not changed its stance so far.
Therefore, we see no reason to propose a change to Council.
The Commission agrees with the section of the amendment dealing with prior consultation with Parliament.
However, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that this is already covered in Article 11, section 1.
Adjustments can only be made to parameters for copper and other parameters following a Parliamentary hearing, since this is a matter of procedure under Article 189c.
Finally, I would like to quote the comments of the rapporteur, Mr Collins, to the effect that many other provisions in this directive are more important than this one point concerning copper.
Mr President, that concludes my main comments on the amendments.
Thank you for your attention.
Mr President, I would only like to focus on the fact that in the speeches that related to the subject of copper there was no intention of changing the limit value of copper, but its classification, from B to C. We all fully agree on its limit value.
That, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, seems to me to be more of a comment than a question.
I therefore think we must let it pass, but Mrs Baldi also has a question she would like to put.
Mr President, I would like to know whether the Commission believes it is right to include copper among the chemical products, or rather the poisons, such as arsenic, cyanide, mercury and lead, despite the fact that the WHO has declared that a level of 2 milligrams of copper per litre of drinking water provides an adequate level of safety.
I would simply like to ask the Commissioner if she realizes the impact her decision may have with regard to copper.
In very many countries, we currently have water mains pipes made from copper.
By classifying these pipes in the same way as arsenic, you could mislead people into thinking that they are dangerous.
I think this is particularly serious.
Mr President, on the basis of what the Commissioner has said, I have a written text from competent organizations to the effect that the 1997 revision of the WTO accepted that there was no scientific basis for the rumoured acute effects on health of copper in drinking water and described the recommendation which it had made at that time as provisional.
And, to finish my question, that same Commission, in document COM(94)612, accepted that the use of materials from copper in the water distribution system was not in itself harmful to the public health. I would therefore like to know, since, from what the Commissioner said, she gave different answers without answering my question: is what I gathered from the documents wrong?
Does it not stand up to scrutiny? Or perhaps the Commissioner was not fully informed and answered in that way in order to stick to the fact that she did not accept the amendments, in other words to transfer copper from 1B to 1C, and remained silent with regard to the failure to mention asbestos as one of the dangerous materials.
Mr President, still on the subject of copper, I would like to raise a question I mentioned in my speech, which has not been answered by the Commissioner.
The question is this: if we accept that the Commissioner's information on the hazardous nature of copper is correct, then some other products will have to be substituted for it.
And I put it quite bluntly: what product are we going to use to replace copper and what research has so far been carried out on the proposed replacement? That is the specific question I would like to have an answer to, inasmuch as no answer has yet been given by either the Commission or the Committee on the Environment, and I think the answer is of the greatest importance.
For that reason I hold all the more firmly to the position I have already stated, namely that the World Health Organization does not, as a matter of fact, recognize copper as being as hazardous as the committee says it is here.
I now give the floor to Mrs Flemming, but may I remind you that these questions must not turn into a second debate.
Mr President, it has been stated that copper presents no risk to health.
That is simply incorrect.
Very young children, for example, can be seriously harmed by this substance if a certain genetic predisposition is present.
There have been actual cases of cirrhosis of the liver in infants.
There was a case in Austria where a mother prepared tea for her child every day with the first water that came out of the tap in the morning. This water contained copper accumulated overnight from the copper piping.
The child died.
This was complicated by the fact that the mother used a copper kettle to prepare the tea.
Very young children can therefore die from the effects of copper poisoning.
People have got to be made aware of this.
Mr President, I have to say that this lack of discussion really ought to be in the form of questions.
So I shall put one or two questions and stick to the normal procedure.
Will the Commissioner agree with me that the copper industry should be congratulated because of the efficiency with which it has been able to persuade people, who otherwise know nothing at all about copper, of the efficacy of the case?
Will she further agree with me that the committee overwhelmingly threw out the copper amendments because it believed that it was not a question of copper being outlawed as a means of conducting water to households, but of a means of making sure that we operated proper health standards?
Nobody is suggesting that copper should be replaced in households.
Nobody is suggesting that it should be thrown away and replaced with something else.
We are introducing parameters relating to lead.
We are, for example, asking for studies on endocrine disrupters.
We are aware that there is no perfect way of making sure that water is supplied to households.
What we are doing is in fact making sure that when households receive that water, these households are healthy.
Will the Commissioner agree with that assessment of the situation and will she agree that the Environment Committee - which, incidentally, was not attended by any of the people who have raised this matter - will she agree with me that the Environment Committee got it right?
Mr President, I do not wish to get involved in a post-mortem on the debate in the Committee on the Environment, who voted and who did not.
What I have noted - as emphasized by Mr Ken Collins - is that the proposal was rejected.
With reference to the many questions asked, I have to say it is obvious that our basis in this regard is the WHO.
It has amazed me that several speakers today have questioned the health guidelines prepared by the WHO.
From all our experience, my political position is that if the WHO adopts health-based guidelines, we would do well to follow them.
I must say that Europe is not going any further than the countries we normally use as a comparison.
The USA and Japan both have extremely stringent standards in this area, and in addition to Mr Ken Collins' comments on the copper industry, I have to say we are not aware that standards in the USA or Japan have had any significant impact on the copper industry in those countries, so I do not share his concerns here either.
Thus, I cannot endorse the amendment switching copper from section B to section C.
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Limit values for pollutants in ambient air - Strategy to combat acidification - Sulphur content of liquid fuels
The next item is a joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0161/98 by Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive relating to limit values for sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and lead ambient air (COM(97)0500 - C4-0662/97-97/0266(SYN)); -A4-0162/98 by Mrs Hulthén, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a Community strategy to combat acidification (COM(97)0088 - C4-0436/97); -A4-0174/98 by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive relating to a reduction of the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels and amending Directive 93/12/EEC (COM(97)0088 - C4-0283/97-97/0105(SYN)).
Mr President, experts suggest that at least 40 000 people across Europe suffer from the effects of air pollution, and those who have respiratory ailments are at risk of early death from the dangerous cocktail of chemicals in the air they breathe.
It exacerbates the suffering of the vast numbers of children who have asthma.
City dwellers suffer most, of course, since pollution from vehicle traffic is becoming a bigger problem every year.
In fact, as pollution from industry declines, the sheer increase in the volume of cars on our roads ensures that clean air is becoming a scarce commodity.
Health problems aside, vegetation in forests, crops and vulnerable eco-systems are succumbing to steady poisoning, and our precious European cultural heritage - buildings and monuments which have stood for centuries - are being eaten away by aggressive chemicals in our air.
The draft directive we are discussing today is a radical and far-reaching attempt to put an end to this tale of disaster.
It is the first time legally-binding emission limits have been set.
I should like to congratulate the Commission on its proposal.
Members should understand that the standards being proposed are the result of unanimous agreement over two years in broadbased working groups and are based on the latest World Health Organization's standards for protection of human health.
They have been subjected to cost benefit analysis and are very stringent.
Four different air pollutants are being tackled in this first daughter directive, and more are going to follow in future directives.
These four: sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and particulates and lead were laid down in a framework directive as the first air pollutants to be tackled.
I cannot go into the details of the proposals here in the short time allotted to me.
Each pollutant has different limit values and the whole thing is very complex but, briefly, the directive sets limits for emissions to be achieved by 2005 and 2010.
It demands publicly-available and government-approved action plans for areas where emissions are at present higher than these limits to ensure that concrete steps are taken to meet the deadlines.
This is very important.
In some cases it provides alert thresholds to inform the public about the air they breathe and it has a built-in review in 2003.
It also establishes uniform measuring criteria and techniques.
Because of the gaps in scientific knowledge of the effects of some of these pollutants, there are plans for more research.
One of the things I have done is to suggest some specific areas where research is needed, where the scientific information is simply not available at the moment.
Briefly, the main amendments agreed in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection do the following: firstly, we have attempted to increase public information at every opportunity.
We have added alert thresholds for NOx and particulates.
I know the Commission has a bit of a problem with accepting the idea of an alert threshold for particulates and I accept that the WHO does not set any safe limit and therefore cannot set a level at which the public ought to be informed.
I still feel that we ought to try this.
The UK has such a threshold.
For NOx, the Environment Committee has asked for the alert threshold which is used by France. It is lower than that existing in the United Kingdom.
We have set a lower threshold excedence for SO2 which I recognize is quite optimistic but, in view of the serious effects on public health of high levels of SO2 over even a short period of time, I hope the Commission and the Council will find a way to reduce their existing figure, even if they feel they cannot go the whole distance.
The working group on this did not recommend an hourly limit figure but I believe it is more realistic to try to reduce excedences than to go for the drastically lower limit value that some colleagues want.
However, SO2 limits need to be looked at again in the review in 2003 and we must be aware that some Member States have a lower figure than that in the text.
There is a slight problem with the Commission's proposal on protecting eco-systems from SO2 .
The WHO guidelines looked at a range of values for different sorts of vegetation - crops, forests, sensitive vegetation and lichens.
The Environment Committee has decided to go for the limit value set to protect lichens which are the most sensitive, and this is considerably tougher than the Commission text.
My feeling is that the Commission and the Council ought to look at this again to see if they can find a better way of setting the appropriate limits.
Opting for an arbitrary number when you are trying to deal with four different things is quite difficult.
Amendment No 32 is a compromise text for the siting of measurement stations in small areas of sensitive eco-systems which I believe is a considerable improvement on the Commission text.
We have also, rather reluctantly, opened the door to some localized tolerance of excedences on lead where some non-ferrous metal smelting works will simply not be able to meet the deadline even with the best available technology.
Obviously that will have to be watched very carefully.
Colleagues from the Green Group want considerably stricter limits on NOx and particulates; these amendments are wellmeaning but absolutely unrealistic and were all defeated in committee.
Nevertheless, we need to look carefully at progress by 2003.
The substances are dangerous, and I share their desire to go faster.
But the levels in the text already mean a big reduction in NOx and particulates and, in order to achieve what they suggest, we would practically have to ban cars and shut down industry.
As a Londoner, I know only too well the problems of air pollution caused by traffic and there are no easy solutions.
But a number of other directives in the pipeline are going to contribute towards this.
Finally, I should like to thank the Commission, the UK representation, the committee secretariat and my own assistants for all the hard work they have done.
I hope that regional and local authorities will be able to implement the very strict limit values which are laid down.
I commend the directive and the amendments to the House.
Mr President, in February we voted on reducing the sulphur content of fuels in vehicles, so that car exhaust emissions might be cleaner.
Now we have a proposal from the Commission which aims to lower the sulphur content of slightly heavier fuels: this is a matter of industrial fuel oil or industrial diesel, where we are talking about a sulphur content which is many times higher.
In the Auto Oil programme we had to reduce sulphur content to values in millionths.
Now we are talking about percentages.
The basic premise is that the oil industry has to be able to rid the process of this yellow stuff so that it does not pass into the atmosphere.
This is technically quite possible, and the costs are not unreasonable.
The Commission's proposal is the first real proposal for a directive to look into the issue of acidification, a matter Mrs Hulthén just spoke of.
This is important particularly for the environment, nature and, obviously, for the preservation of mankind's cultural heritage.
The facades of many fine buildings are now peeling away because sulphurous emissions are damaging them.
We should, however, stress that this measure is also important for local air quality.
This is what Mrs Pollack has been talking about here.
Sulphur emissions from liquid fuels could react with particulate matter and cause harm to people's health.
It must be said that this is really not just a problem of acid rain in northern Europe, but in all communities: in all built-up areas of the European Union there are problems which stem from poor local air quality and sulphurous emissions.
I wished to suggest that this proposal should also cover maritime fuels.
The Commission originally outlined something of the kind, but there is nothing on the subject in this proposal for a directive.
Parliament is, in all probability, going to approve the proposal by the Committee on the Environment that the EU should start to reduce the sulphur content of maritime fuels.
This seems totally justified.
In fact, I have the impression that the Commission's own calculations suggest that the costs of the whole acid rain operation could be reduced by 15 % if maritime fuels were to be included in this directive.
International negotiations have been held at IMO, the International Maritime Organization, but nothing has been achieved, and I think we will have to wait.
In the same connection it has also been agreed that the Baltic Sea should be designated a special area where no maritime fuels may be used which have a sulphur content that exceeds 1.5 %, but obviously someone has fouled up somewhere in the talks because the North Sea and the Irish Sea have been excluded from these special-case zones.
They should be included; there is no doubt about it.
I now wish to turn to the matter of diesel, or light fuel.
This is not only an important issue for the environment but is also one of political interest, as Austria, Finland and Sweden were allowed a four-year transition period during which they were seen to be able to enforce their tighter restrictions on sulphur content for gasoline.
The committee now supports the position that the threshold currently in force in Austria, which is 0.1 %, is the right one, although it is less than the Commission proposes.
The Committee on the Environment has also decided to propose Article 100 as a legal basis for the directive.
As the rapporteur, I must say I differed on this point, as this could very well serve as a measure to protect the environment, in which case Article 130 could be selected.
This might well help Austria to insist on its more stringent limit if the Commission does not bring the Austrian sulphur content figure into the picture.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing here with an internal market problem and with an environmental protection problem.
In this case we are not setting threshold values for fixed installations, refineries or large combustion plants.
No, what we are doing here is setting threshold values for fuels which can be freely traded on the internal market.
We have now heard from a number of speakers that burning these fuels is the cause of the acidification of our forests and countryside.
But at the same time there is also the internal market aspect.
On 18 February, we adopted the directive on diesel oil and petrol by a large majority, and here we also want to see a reduction in sulphur levels.
Now we have to do the same for heavy and light fuel oil, because its sulphur content is still very much higher.
Let us then strive to ensure that there are uniform standards for light and heavy fuel oil in Europe, because in my view there is simply no justification for allowing a hotchpotch of measures, whether this applies to the internal market or indeed to environmental protection.
What does it in fact mean when we say that only the Member States can decide what thresholds they should set? In practice this means that some will go further than others, and that will result in serious distortions in the internal market for light and heavy fuel oil.
I have checked the figures and I would be pleased to let the Commission have these yet again.
In some Member States, more than half of their requirements are met by imports and exports, so we are not talking about small quantities as far as the effect on the internal market is concerned.
And then there is also the environmental aspect.
It may well be the case that one country permits a 0 % sulphur level for light and heavy fuel oil, while others do not.
Sad to say, the clouds that carry acidification do not stop at borders.
The country where 0 % applies may perhaps be worse off than before.
No, we need uniform standards.
That is why this is an internal market problem.
That is why we need Article 100a as the legislative basis.
Secondly, we must include marine diesel, because 14 % of all N and X emissions and 16 % of all sulphur emissions come from the shipping sector alone.
There is a real need for something to be done here, and this also includes the retrofitting of old ships.
So, ladies and gentlemen, let us get to work, let us turn the fuels of Europe into a sulphur-free zone.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal for a strategy against acidification is important and on the right track.
It focuses on a reduction in acidic emissions.
The strategy is still, however, not ready for a decision on it.
Before the plan is approved there are some background details that are out of date and inadequate, and that badly need putting right.
Because of acidification it is essential that a reduction in emissions plays a priority role in the strategies of countries applying for EU membership.
In connection with the issue of enlargement, supporters for the protection of the environment should look at the possibilities of reducing emissions which drift over certain frontiers.
The introduction of new technology to these countries may well achieve important results for Europe both more speedily and more effectively.
Furthermore, the directive on the reduction of the sulphur content of liquid fuels must be extended as quickly as possible to include regulations for solid fuels and factories that use them.
As the IMO have not limited the sulphur content of maritime fuels they will not be included either in the EU directive on liquid fuels.
Some of the Baltic States are not controlled by EU directives.
It thus follows that ships can go to these countries outside the EU to fill their tanks if bunker oils are covered by the directive.
This is of no advantage either to the Baltic Sea or the Union.
Other action needs to be taken.
In connection with oil refining, the nature of the work gives rise to a considerable number of non-commercial by-products, which the refinery uses as fuel.
It is not very appropriate to impose separate restrictions on refinery fuels.
Results can be just as good for the environment by restricting oil refinery emissions as by restricting individual properties of fuels themselves.
It is important for the European oil refining industry to demonstrate flexibility of choice with refinery fuels.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I would like to welcome the reports of Mrs Hautala, Hulthén and Pollack all of which make an important contribution to improving air quality and protecting human health in the environment within Europe.
By setting down these new standards for air quality in our cities we can oblige industry to start to take the necessary measures to tackle the current sources that are causing the problems of air pollution within our cities.
In particular, problems of sulphur, sometimes SO2 and of course nitrous oxides, NOx, in our atmosphere that originate from the burning of a variety of dirty fuels in factories, motor cars and from other sources such as ships.
One should not underestimate the extent of this problem.
In its first stage it is invisible and very gradual in its effect but finally results in lifeless rivers, decayed forests and thousands of early deaths due to respiratory disease.
This is a price that we cannot continue to pay and therefore these reports are absolutely necessary to avoid further damage, decay and death in Europe.
The proposals to reduce sulphur content to 0.1 % by weight in a variety of fuels are technically realizable and within reasonable cost limits.
Other measures of particular note are the proposals to create an SO2 emission control area in the North Sea.
This proposal and its associated measures will tackle a source of emissions previously beyond EU regulation.
In particular Mrs Hautala's report also questions the legal basis of that proposal.
Is it a market measure or is it a measure to protect the environment? My previous remarks demonstrate that to me it is first and foremost a measure for environmental protection.
However, I am prepared to listen to colleagues and accept that there are very real market implications to the proposal which are needed to control sulphur.
Finally, the proposals in this package can only be seen as necessary steps and I would therefore urge the Commission and the Council to accept Parliament's reports and amendments in the sure knowledge that rivers, forests, towns and cities from Middlesborough to Milan will be healthier, cleaner and better places to live in future.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the people of Europe need cleaner air, and I think that the Commission's proposals on air pollutants are splendid.
They are a major step forward.
Anyone who comes from a country which has very strict threshold values cannot expect all the countries of the European Union to fall into line overnight.
We have to set more modest targets and be grateful for any gradual progress made.
However, I hope that you will permit me to offer three observations from an Austrian point of view.
Firstly, in relation to Article 8 on informing the public, I would like to offer a few basic observations.
According to the Commission's proposal, information is to be regularly passed on to relevant organizations.
Experience in Austria over many years has shown that it is not necessary to have an active system for passing on this information.
While there may be a keen appetite for it at the beginning, interest soon tends to fall off.
In Austria, information of this kind can be obtained at any time by teletext, Internet, telephone or fax and, since everyone now has access to one of these information channels, it is proposed that this information should not be actively transmitted but simply made available.
As far as the threshold for sulphur dioxide is concerned, a one-hour limit value of 350 micrograms has been set, which is derived from the WHO's 10-minute average value of 500 micrograms.
Austrian experience has shown, however, that the proposed one-hour threshold cannot guarantee compliance with the 10-minute average value.
We propose that the one-hour threshold should be set at 250 micrograms in order to achieve the right correlation.
As regards nitrogen oxides, it has to be said that, although an alarm threshold is a wonderful idea, a value of 800 micrograms is really much too high, Madam Commissioner.
We propose that this value should be lowered to 400 micrograms.
Even if these proposals cannot be adopted immediately, I would still hope that in due course all European countries will be able to comply with these Austrian limits.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a Council Directive on the reduction of sulphur in certain liquid fuels, in particular fuel oil and diesel fuel, should enable us to fight against certain atmospheric pollutants known as "acid rain' .
The effects of this pollution are well known, above all in urban areas.
Besides, I dealt with this issue in my report on the 19992000 Community action programme on pollution-related disease within the framework of sulphur dioxide emissions.
But this legitimate concern for environmental protection must not let us forget the economic aspect, in particular with regard to the competitiveness of Member States' industry.
Indeed, there are great disparities here.
Some are large consumers of heavy fuel oils, others use less.
I thus tabled some amendments in committee, so that Member States could take the necessary measures to guarantee that heavy fuels could not be used on their territory if the sulphur levels exceeded 2.5 % in weight instead of 1 %, as the Commission specifies.
This would enable greater respect for competitiveness. However, it appears that the standards demanded are increasingly stringent and risk endangering industries which - and I insist on this point - understand the common interest and the need to fix reasonable levels.
This severity leads to a danger of seeing these standards reduced.
Nevertheless, the Commission's proposal seems acceptable overall.
I would ask you to respect this text, rejecting unnecessarily severe amendments to the text. It is already very demanding and should avoid the even more constraining and unrealistic standards of the rapporteur.
Mr President, when I read Mr Hulthén's report about the strategy to combat acidification, it makes me think of my own country, the Netherlands.
The discharge of ammonia by the agricultural sector in the Netherlands has only decreased by half of what it should have done, and that very disappointing result does not, unfortunately, come as a complete surprise.
This makes it clear that extra measures are needed to achieve the desired environmental objectives.
So I am very pleased, as is my group, that the Commission has worked out a strategy to combat acidification and we are in full agreement with the tightening up in the Hulthén Report.
The fact of the matter is that the Commission proposes that the critical threshold of acidification, which was exceeded in 1990, the year of reference, be halved by 2010, but I think that this plan could be tightened up slightly.
I agree with Mrs Hulthén that this target must be brought forward to 2004 and that by 2015 the critical thresholds may no longer be reached anywhere in the countryside.
Furthermore, agricultural subsidies must be coupled to stronger requirements on ammonia discharge.
That is what we call integrating the environment into agriculture.
It is absolutely essential, in this context, that sustainable organic agriculture is encouraged, otherwise we will not get there at all.
I hope that Commissioner Bjerregaard will have enough influence on her colleague Mr Fischler to achieve this target; however, as we read Agenda 2000, Mr Fischler's proposals to the Commission are also encouraging for the environment, including the proposals on agriculture.
Finally, I think it is extremely important that the fight against acidification does not stop at the current boundaries of the European Union.
Candidate countries must be helped, and must be prepared, to meet these standards.
Mr President, alongside the fuel burners in power stations, car engines are a serious risk to people's health.
We have to acknowledge this, even though the people who vote for us may be car owners.
We are now imposing limit values for liquid fuels, apart from kerosene.
This is a positive step.
They must be made more stringent for solid fuels also, especially coal.
In accordance with the EU energy strategy, the exploitation of natural gas and renewable energy sources is to grow.
Improving fuel efficiency and the combined production of electricity and heating will reduce emissions.
As, however, energy consumption is growing by 1 % a year, the same limits must be achieved for coal as those we are now imposing on oil.
The soil is becoming acidic, and I would especially like to remind the Commissioner that the more stringent limit values achieved in the northern regions, in Finland, in Sweden and in Austria must be allowed to be maintained, and the EU should impose the same limits on other countries too.
Mr President, the three reports on limiting air pollution leave me both pleased and infuriated.
On the one hand, they deal with such problems that the EU should pay much more attention to, problems which by their nature cross borders and demand international legislation that is binding.
Overall these reports signify a reinforcement for combating air pollution, even though there are shortcomings, aeroplane fuel, for example, has been left out.
Overall, however, attention has been paid to acidification, for instance, which is a greater problem in my country than in many other EU countries.
This is good.
It has full support from the Green Group and also from my own Swedish Environment Party.
On the other hand, however, the constant ambitions for power among certain EU Parliamentarians has cast an ugly shadow on the Hautala report, against the wishes of the rapporteur.
The Committee on the Environment demands that the legal basis be changed from Article 130s to 100a, which is not based on environmental care, but solely on the wish of the European Parliament to change the decision procedure from cooperation procedure to codecision procedure.
This may of course be justified at times, but in this context it means that the rules be changed from a minimum of rules to total harmonization, which may have negative effects on the environment in countries with stricter rules, Sweden being one.
Besides, Article 100a prevents EU countries from proceeding with stricter rules in future.
Referring to 100a(4) is pointless, as everybody knows it is no guarantee for the environment, but a barely reduced possibility for exemption, which can hardly ever be used; and what is more, the Amsterdam Treaty will make it even worse.
It is a good thing, therefore, that Parliament wishes to sharpen the fight against air pollution, but it is a bad thing that given the choice between environmental protection....
(The President cut off the speaker.)
Mr President, with regard to the directive on the reduction in the sulphur content for certain liquid fuels, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection does not seem to have followed the advice of the rapporteur, who recommended approving the legal basis proposed by the Commission, opting for Article 100a which, if accepted by Council, will make this legislative act dependent on the codecision procedure.
The Committee on the Environment has insisted on the fact that the benefits obtained by a reduction in the sulphur content of fuels would be far greater than the costs borne by the industry to adapt the refinery machinery.
We hope that common sense will prevail in codecision and that, to give an example, the fact that North Sea oil has a very low sulphur content, unlike Mediterranean oil, will be taken into account.
Consequently the southern countries have different problems from the northern countries, for which harmonization will have to take both environmental and employment problems into account.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, among the many types of environmental damage to which people are exposed, air pollution is considered the worst by most people, and is classified as the most unpleasant.
That is why I very much welcome the reports which we are discussing this afternoon: a strategy on acidification, directives on thresholds for sulphur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, lead and particulate matter, and a reduction in the sulphur content of various liquid fuels.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, and I think that her work is well-suited to the task of both reducing air pollution over, or in, the European Union, which complements the legislation adopted under the Auto Oil Programme, and also of making water cleaner, because we should not forget that 50 % of water pollution is caused by airborne pollutants.
Air pollution is a transboundary phenomenon, but it is also a local one, and both phenomena can be effectively reduced by these directives. That is because air pollution which is due to the high sulphur content of liquid fuels, especially in narrow mountain valleys, is the precise cause of pollution at local level, whereas in other places, where the topography is flat, where there are wide valley floors, transboundary air pollution becomes much a more perceptible phenomenon.
I think it is very important for industry, which is confronted with these directives, to choose new technological solutions, and not so-called end-of-pipe strategies, when it upgrades; otherwise industry will not improve, its products will merely become more expensive.
I would like to point out that some 15 years ago the town in which I live had the worst air pollution problem of any town or city in Austria, and that by the introduction of new technologies the emission of industrial pollutants were reduced to a mere 10 % of the previous level. Furthermore, the industry in question is now in better shape than it was then.
The adoption of this directive is an important step towards preventive health care, and I think that it should be accompanied by a strategy for preventing the formation of low-level ozone.
I hope too that the amendments to the Hautala report, where the Committee on the Environment voted for one of the Austrian/Finnish/Swedish thresholds for sulphur and fuel oil, will be accepted by the Commission and that a further step will therefore be taken towards an improvement in air standards in the European Union.
In conclusion I would like to add one more thing. In the Middle Ages it used to be said that "town air makes you free' .
During the twentieth century it often had to be said that town air makes you ill.
I look forward to the day when we can say that everyone in Europe is able to breathe sweet and pleasant air.
Mr President, I am not going to dwell on the already well-known damage which acidification causes to the environment as we have already talked about this in great detail.
With regard to the reduction of sulphur levels and Mrs Hautala's report in particular, I support a change to the legal basis and feel that we could thus adopt Article 100a on the internal market and harmonization of legislations, in order to avoid distortions in competition.
We know very well that sulphur levels differ when it is a question of a fuel coming from the north of Europe, as opposed to one from the Persian Gulf.
Paragraph 4 of Article 100a enables Member States to apply far more stringent national provisions for environmental reasons.
This thus enables Austria, Finland and Sweden to continue to impose much stricter limits.
This would thus not cause a problem.
I must, however, say to Mrs Hautala that I believe she perhaps goes a little too far and that consideration should be given to the economic problems which her report may give rise to.
I am therefore not in favour of widening the field of application of the proposal to include heavy fuel oils and diesel fuel, nor aviation kerosene, which represents only 0.2 % of total sulphur emissions and which only affects the upper layers of the atmosphere.
Similarly, with regard to bunker fuel, I think it is preferable to wait for the negotiation of the MARPOL Convention within the framework of the International Maritime Organization, which should soon be concluded and which should set levels for the sulphur content of bunker fuels and define special protection zones.
I think it is reasonable to wait for the end of these negotiations and not to disturb their progress.
Finally, still for economic reasons, I would like reasonable deadlines for the reduction of sulphur levels to be fixed for heavy fuel oil and diesel fuel.
If a deadline of 1999 is set when we are already halfway through 1998, I think the timescale is too short and that this will be detrimental to the economy.
Mr President, the three reports we are now discussing are closely related.
The Pollack report concentrates on air pollution as a threat to citizens' health.
I am convinced that it is quite possible to set higher demands than the Commission has done, at least in some areas.
Certain countries have already achieved more.
I shall, however, concentrate on the Hulthén report on a common strategy to combat acidification.
It is a good report on a very serious environmental problem.
The Committee on the Environment considers a more ambitious goal to be in place by the year 2015.
In certain areas the critical limit will be exceeded, but those areas ought to be very easily counted.
In Sweden the subsidies towards the liming of lakes in order to raise the pH level have been reduced.
It is calculated that this measure alone may be the reason why a fish stock of approximately 3 000 and one million invertebrates are eliminated.
In many parts of Europe there is significant damage to forests through acidifying emissions.
In 1993 the use of coal was responsible for 60 % of emissions of sulphur dioxide.
The proposal to stop national subsidies for coal is therefore significant.
Instead, penalty fees ought to be levied on coal for the emissions of sulphur.
The rapporteur has also mentioned other effects of acidifying emissions, the effects on health, for example.
Seeing data from the Commission's own external report on different types of energy, it becomes clear that if we replaced nuclear power with coal power over a ten-year period, the Union would have had 20 000 more cases of cancer than we have today.
We should also admit that the safe Western nuclear power provides a considerable contribution against acidification as well as the greenhouse effect.
I am also convinced that calculations of the total costs for air pollution will show that it pays to try to achieve Parliament's objectives, and it ought to be possible to support them with effective economic resources.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, European and national measures to control air pollution have been in force for almost 20 years.
But traffic continues to be one of the main sources of pollution.
Our group has from the outset underlined the importance of combating pollution at its source.
This is also the objective of the two directives which are dealt with in the reports presented by Mrs Hautala and Mrs Pollack.
Our group also supports basic proposals for improvement in this area, although I think it important that the new legislation should be compatible with other basic provisions, such as the IPC directives dealing with plant approval.
In many Member States there is also the problem of inherited contamination, due to the centuries-long practice of ore mining.
This long-term degradation means that greater levels of contamination are to be found in and around lead smelting works, and pollution of this kind can hardly be reduced by the required amount in the period of time prescribed. I therefore think that a tightly drawn derogation is necessary in this area.
The relevant amendment which has been proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection goes too far in my view and would in practice make derogations possible for just about every town and city.
That is why I have introduced my amendment.
Furthermore, I would ask for consideration to be given to a typical problem which is encountered on the borders with the former Eastern bloc countries of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland.
While we should continue to keep a record of the high quantities of pollutants which, for the foreseeable future, will continue to be blown into our territory from these countries, this contamination should not be charged to the EU countries when emission thresholds are being assessed.
I call on you to support these amendments and I would also like to ask the Commission if it is prepared to accept them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, sulphur dioxide emissions represent a major problem in Europe.
For some regions this means damage to forests, for others it constitutes a threat to important historic monuments.
However, for us all it is a matter of the health of the people of Europe.
Measures have to be introduced in different areas.
One of the most important is undoubtedly a reduction in the sulphur content of vehicle fuels.
The Auto Oil Programme, in which Parliament has stated unambiguously what is required in terms of environmental policy, is currently at a difficult stage of conciliation with the Council.
Today's debate concerns an important supplement to the Auto Oil Programme and relates to certain fuels which in some respects constitute a considerable proportion of total SO2 emissions.
This applies particularly to heavy oils.
The threshold values advocated by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection will make it possible to improve the situation without making excessive demands of anyone.
This will be guaranteed primarily by the derogation provision which allows the sulphur limits to be exceeded in cases where SO2 pollution can be justified.
Nonetheless, the Commission's proposal needs to be modified in two respects. The scope of the future directives should be extended to bunker oil and marine diesel.
In justifying its proposal, the Commission itself referred to the fact that we are dealing in this case with a significant source of emissions, especially in the area of the Baltic and parts of the North Sea.
However, it would be wrong simply to await the outcome of international negotiations.
It would be better for the European Union to exercise a degree of pressure by setting thresholds in its own area.
In my view, the same importance is attached to the question of what the legislative basis of the directive should be, that is to say Article 130s or 100a.
We all know that this is a question of law for which the European Court of Justice has developed clear criteria.
The Commission has put forward certain reasons for choosing Article 130.
I do not wish to comment on these reasons or go into details.
I would just say that, in the arguments in favour of Article 130s, there has so far been no discussion of why the directive from the Auto Oil Programme is based on Article 100a.
In this case we have the same conditions and the same legal basis.
Article 100a therefore applies here too.
Mr President, I agree that we have to combat acidification, but I also want to point out that Europe is very diverse and the Swedish lakes are not the same as certain arid areas in the south. So, Madam Commissioner, we need to be much more flexible when producing legislation.
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am worried by the problem we have with environmental legislation.
In general, it is not complied with.
You know that, Madam Commissioner.
It is hardly complied with at all.
And it seems to me that the problem is partly due to the legislation being unsuitable.
I want to repeat that although the strategy to combat acidification is very important - reducing the sulphur content of fuels - we have to take account of certain sectors.
I tabled some amendments - which were not accepted by my group - about oil refineries and cement factories.
Oil refineries are going to be subject to the directive which limits emissions from large combustion sources, so I do not think it makes sense to have a double regulation, especially when this stricter one already exists.
And cement factories burn all sorts of fuel. They do not permit sulphur oxide because they incorporate it into the clinker, and that should be taken into account, Madam Commissioner.
In any case, I welcome the whole set of rules on regulating acidification, but bear in mind that if they are not flexible they will not be complied with, and that will cause enormous frustration.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Eco-label
The next item is the report (A4-0119/98) by Mr Poggiolini, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on a revised Community eco-label award scheme (COM(96)0603 - C4-0157/97-96/0312(SYN))
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, today we are at first reading of the revision of Regulation No 880/92 on the Community eco-label, an ecological quality label for low environmental impact products, five years after its adoption.
In these five years, the system has not operated very well. Very few EU citizens have seen products on their supermarket shelves labelled with the European logo, a little flower consisting of a corolla of 12 stars around the "E' for Europe.
The many difficulties and delays in implementation, obvious problems of conflicting jurisdiction and the excessive red tape involved in the procedures have meant that criteria have been defined for just 12 product groups. For this reason, only 40 licences had been granted to 22 manufacturers up to September 1997.
While the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection fully supports the Commission in its aim of maintaining and improving the Community eco-label, it has nevertheless introduced significant and courageous changes. Numerous amendments have now been approved.
First of all I will deal with the Commission's proposal to set up a legally recognized European eco-label organization with the task of establishing the criteria for each product group. In view of the difficulties of this approach, I proposed the replacement of the new agency by a technical committee for the eco-label within the Commission.
This was made up of competent national bodies but presided over by the Commission itself, whose important role as a political mediator and technical coordinator should be maintained, in our opinion. The consultation forum, which the Commission had inexplicably abolished, was then reintroduced and reinforced, to enable all the parties concerned to have more say in the decision-making process.
The scope of the regulation has also been extended to services. This represents a significant opportunity for small and medium-sized businesses and for craft businesses.
One result of this could be, for example, a car body shop that only uses ecological paints.
Another important factor we now consider is technical reliability as determined by product quality.
We should ensure that ecologically sound products are also of good quality and that consumers are satisfied and prepared to buy them a second time. If they are not good quality there is a risk that no-one will buy them, however eco-friendly they may be.
One change has been introduced that will be appreciated by eco-label users: a 50 % reduction in the cost of annual duties for small and medium-sized businesses and for developing countries.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has chosen a logo showing a single flower, which is much better than the extremely complicated system proposed by the Commission. Additional information on at least one and no more than three factors of environmental impact - such as low atmospheric pollution, energy efficiency and toxicity - may also be added.
The last but no less important obstacle to overcome before we relaunch the European eco-label is its relationship with the numerous national systems already existing in various Member States. These are known and respected by many European citizens: for example, the Blue Angel in Germany or the White Swan in the Scandinavian countries.
Our European flower will have to co-exist with no fewer than eight European systems.
In Article 11, the Commission proposed that national systems should be replaced by the European system within five years of this regulation coming into force, but only for those product groups for which specific Community criteria have been established.
It is not true that we want to abolish existing systems. As evidence of our very real desire to ensure that the various labels can co-exist in harmony and to ensure the European system is as strict as possible, I hereby as rapporteur express my full support for Amendment No 52.
This was submitted by the Greens and by the GUE/NGL as an amendment to Article 11, and it is also supported by many members of other groups.
It calls for an independent study, requested by the Commission, to ensure the environmental criteria laid down for the European label are at least as strict as the standards set by the best national system. For the European eco-label to take off, it must also be properly publicized.
Only then will it at last be recognized and appreciated by consumers as an important means of contributing to a greener and cleaner world. These ideas are perfectly in keeping with a European Union that has given itself a common currency and that aspires to expansion and to increasing economic and political integration.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur.
I remember our interesting and sometimes emotional discussions about the subject in which I was impressed by his democratic and charming behaviour.
But what about the issue?
The European Union's eco-labels scheme is a good initiative to protect the environment within the internal market.
As a voluntary scheme aimed at promoting environmentally-friendly processes of production and helping consumers to make an informed choice about their purchases, eco-labelling is a potentially promising instrument.
I therefore welcome a revision of the EU eco-label scheme, because until now the eco-label scheme has not had the success it could have, as Mr Poggiolini pointed out.
The Commission's proposal, however, will not in its present form result in the success of the EU eco-label scheme.
It has been sharply criticized by, amongst others, stake-holders such as consumer and environmental organizations in the industry.
First, the introduction of the graded label is not supported by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection because of its complexity.
Consumers will not have the chance to understand why more than one flower will be attributed.
This graded label will be too confusing, since it is difficult to understand the reasons behind the attribution of two or more flowers to a product.
Our group will therefore vote in favour of an eco-label with one flower which also gives extra information about the environmental criteria used for attributing an eco-label to that specific product.
Secondly, our group agrees with the rapporteur that the formation of an independent European Eco-label Organization (EEO) will not overcome the difficulties that arise from the complex procedures for establishing criteria for eco-labels.
Our group supports the rapporteur's initiative for a compromise - the establishment of the technical committee for the ecolabel under the responsibility of the Commission.
We also agree with the rapporteur's proposal to bring this in line with Article 100a of the Treaty.
Finally, we cannot agree with the Commission on the total harmonization of the national and private eco-labels for products that have received an EU eco-label.
I should also like to refer - as Mr Poggiolini did - to the Nordic Swan and the Blue Angel.
For the time being they should be recognized as strong labels.
Before we harmonize, we have to create a time schedule so that in the future we can bring them together.
Finally, I hope the Commission will succeed in getting the European public to recognize a strong eco-label.
Mr President, Mr Poggiolini's report is, on the whole, an improvement on the Commission's proposal.
One big problem, however, remains, namely, section 1 of paragraph 11 of the Commission's proposal on the possibility of banning national and multinational eco-labelling systems.
In my opinion there is no disadvantage in having parallel systems.
In Sweden, one of the countries with the best functioning eco-labelling, we have two competing systems, which is all to the good of eco-labelling.
Besides, it is by no means certain that the EU flower will have reached the same qualitative level or will include as many products as the existing system, even after five years.
There is an obvious risk here of destroying an eco-labelling system which is working well, providing consumers with good information.
Why cannot the Commission, which is otherwise so keen on free competition, be so in this case, too?
That is something we would appreciate!
The best thing would be for section 1 of paragraph 11 to be left out, that is, to be done away with.
We have also tabled such an amendment.
The next best thing would be to adopt Amendment No 52.
That would at least limit the potential damage that would be caused by interfering in national systems.
Mr President, we all have good reason to support Mr Poggiolini's endeavours to improve the EU's ecolabels, but the truth is the eco-labelling system is not working at the present time.
The Commission's proposal contains a very serious mistake, which Mr Sjöstedt and Mrs van Putten referred to.
And that is that there is a wish here not to permit free competition between the various label systems, and that the Commission is proposing that in five years' time alternative ecolabel systems will have been eliminated.
The Commission calls this harmonization.
I find this puzzling, as generally the Commission defends free competition and the market economy.
We think that good and successful eco-labels should not be withdrawn in this manner, and I call on the rapporteur to approve our amendment, which is based on the belief that this would be a rash move.
It would be best if the Commissioner for the Environment, who is from Denmark, were to agree to take out of the Commission's proposal the point relating to the proposed withdrawal of the alternative labels in five years' time, because it might mean that perhaps the world's best eco-label system, the Nordic Swan, will meet its death.
I would now ask everyone if this beautiful eco-flower should administer the deathblow to our swan, among others, which works so very well.
It works because national organizations are involved in the decision-making process, and the whole operation is very open.
Mr President, I would like to pursue this theme.
Discovering which eco-label is best in practice depends simply on use and the market.
Eco-labelling is practically the only means environmental policy-makers have that provides the consumer with information on the environment when that consumer makes meaningful purchasing decisions.
The more consumers assimilate the significance of the eco-label and demand it of the products they buy, the keener manufacturers will be to start manufacturing more durable and environment-friendly products.
The Nordic Swan has achieved this kind of consumer confidence.
It is visible and reliable.
Here in Parliament, for example, it is on the photocopy paper.
On the other hand, the European eco-label is still a long way off from being instantly recognized and accepted.
It is not known any more among manufacturers than it is among consumers.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection voted on whether we would get rid of national eco-labels.
The verdict that they would be withdrawn within five years was carried by a majority of one.
Now I hope that debate on the matter in the part-session will result in a decision that the national labels will be replaced only if the common European eco-label proves to be better than any single national label.
Otherwise, it will be a pity if perfectly good systems are ruined in this way, or their impact weakened.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for a good report.
I believe a common European system will also be able to give consumers the guidance they need when making good and correct environmental choices and getting products manufactured in an environmentally friendly way.
I would like to emphasize what Mr van Putten said: that one flower is enough for guiding the consumer correctly; too many flowers would cause confusion.
I also hope that in future this will not only be confined to goods, but that we will be able to eco-label both transport and services.
Like many others here I share the anxiety about removing existing systems, private, regional and national.
I do hope that both the Chamber and the rapporteur take note of this anxiety and ensure that we keep the systems that already exist and work well today.
Mr President, first of all, my thanks go to the rapporteur, Mr Poggiolini.
I will cover the various components of the report.
As has been mentioned, EU eco-labelling is one aspect of a broader strategy intended to promote sustainable production and consumption.
This coincides with efforts by the House aimed at improving the standing and knowledge of consumers.
Even though considerable progress has been made over the last two years with the Community scheme in its present form, there have been practical difficulties with the effect of the statutory instrument.
Based on experience gleaned so far, along with strong indications from the Council, the Commission concluded that it was necessary to improve and streamline the approach, methods and work routines of the scheme in order to make it more effective and transparent.
Thus, on 10 December 1996, the Commission adopted the proposal we are dealing with here today.
There is no need for me to explain the proposal yet again.
The House has, after all, made an excellent job of stating the principles behind it.
However, following various informal discussions with Members of the House, the Member States, the responsible ecolabelling organizations and NGOs, the Commission recognizes that a number of points in the proposal are simply not good enough.
Nonetheless, the Commission's overall attitude is that the Commission must defend its own proposal at first reading before the House.
The Committee on the Environment has proposed some comprehensive changes to the report, and at the present time, the Commission is only able to accept 7 of the 34 amendments approved by the Committee on the Environment.
At present, the Commission cannot accept some of the additional five amendments either, due to be voted on in the partsession.
Nevertheless, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Poggiolini, very much indeed for the considerable amount of work that has gone into this proposal.
I think it is natural to inform the House that at this point in the decision-making process, the Commission can only accept this limited number of amendments, but that the Commission will, however, be willing to consider further improvements to the proposal later on in the procedure.
The Commission has taken note of the points in the financial review.
Regarding the amendments, therefore, my comments today are as follows: with regard to the establishment of the European Eco-label Organization, the Committee on the Environment rejects the original idea and proposes establishing a technical committee on eco-labelling.
In defence of the scheme that we ourselves have prepared, I can say that, to a large extent, the question is whether the structure we are creating can be considered to be a legal entity, and whether it can consequently carry out the technical tasks to be dealt with.
The original Commission proposal to introduce a graduated eco-label has also been rejected, as was mentioned here today, in Amendments Nos 5, 12, 26 and 28.
The idea of having one flower along with a selection of further information to the consumer disregards the original proposal, because the House does not accept the original idea of having several labels to give consumers the information they need.
Thus, this amendment amazes me, but I have followed the line of reasoning set out by the House today.
Finally, there is the amendment to extend the area of application of the scheme to include services as well.
This is covered in Amendments Nos 3 and 14, and I regard that as an interesting possible development for the eco-labelling scheme.
However, that would mean some sections of the provisions of the proposal would need to be reworded, and we will have to come back to that some other time.
The amendments to lower the fee for using the Community label - Amendments Nos 31-34 - go further than the Commission's proposal to set a ceiling of ECU 4 000.
That, too, is an interesting proposal, but the Commission has not assessed the financial consequences of the EEO; consequently, these amendments cannot be accepted.
A crucial element of the Commission's proposal is increasing transparency and streamlining procedures.
Re-establishing the former eco-labelling consultation forum - as in Amendments Nos 16, 17 and 27 - is an original proposal, approved by the Committee on the Environment.
It aims to reintroduce current hearings of special interest groups in the revised scheme.
The current role of the consultation forum is not satisfactory, mainly because its input is only taken into consideration at a very late point in the decision-making process.
The idea of revamping the eco-label advisory forum cannot be accepted, partly because of the unsatisfactory representation of small and medium-sized companies and non-European producers and the need for better technical expertise.
The Commission endorses the principle of financial contributions to non-state consumer and environmental organizations as mentioned in Amendment No 17.
However, since there is already provision for this kind of financing outside the framework of the eco-labelling scheme, the Commission views this amendment as superfluous.
The Committee on the Environment is asking for the legal basis of 130s, part one, to be extended to include 100a.
The two articles together require the inclusion of 189c and 189b as well, and since these two procedures are inherently contradictory - at least, under current provisions - we cannot accept this amendment.
A number of other amendments have been tabled by the House, but, as I have stated, we cannot endorse many of them at the present time, and I will refrain from elaborating on all of them, except for some specific amendments for which the House desires a more detailed explanation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was adjourned for three minutes)
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0464/98).
Before we begin, Mr Wijsenbeek wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I wish to speak in connection with Rule 41 of the Rules of Procedure and Annex II.
I submitted a question on 31 March, directed at Mr Kinnock whose turn it is to answer questions today.
So I was a bit surprised yesterday, when document PE268.631 was given out in which the questions are listed, to see my question as Question No 77 under other questions, not therefore among those which will be answered by Mr Kinnock, so that there is hardly any chance that my question will be answered.
I would like to point out that my question would have been the fourth question if it could have been answered by Mr Kinnock.
I am very pleased now to see that Commissioner Van Miert is here today, who also knows about the subject of my question, that is, ship insurance and the system of ship insurance.
I would like to put the question to you, because my question, normally speaking, should have come up for discussion, and under Rule 41 only the President of this institution can decide whether a question is admissible or not, the President evidently has done that, but I do not see that the Commission can change who my question is addressed to on its own authority and can say: no, that question should not go to Mr Kinnock or you cannot ask Mr Kinnock that question.
Our President should deal with that and, at the very least, the questioner should be informed earlier than the day of Question Time.
I am therefore asking you as a matter of priority whether Mr Van Miert would like to answer my Question No 77.
Mr Wijsenbeek, as a great expert on the Rules of Procedure - I modestly admit you are more of an expert than I am - you know that the admissibility of a question is a matter for Parliament, whereas it is up to the Commission to decide which Commissioner should reply.
So, Mr Wijsenbeek, all we can do is accept the Commission's choice of whichever Commissioner they think should reply, whether they are right or not.
That is the reason for what has happened to your question.
So, now that the Commission has heard your comment, please let us begin Question Time, since this Presidency has no powers to resolve your concern.
So, we shall now commence Question Time.
Question No 39 by Concepció Ferrer (H-0472/98)
Subject: Free movement and transport of goods
Over the last few years groups of French farmers have attacked lorries carrying Spanish fruit and vegetables on their way to various EU countries.
Last December the Court of Justice condemned the passivity of the French authorities because they have been unable to prevent these attacks.
Bearing in mind that there have been a number of road blocks and incidents in Brittany and that such events happen year after year, does the Commission intend to take any steps to remind France of its obligations when ensuring compliance with Articles 5 and 7 of the Treaty on European Union?
In the wake of the judgement pronounced by the Court of Justice on 9 December 1997 during case C-265/95, the Commission called upon the French authorities, on 9 March 1998, to respect the obligations imposed upon them by the EC Treaty - particularly Articles 5, 30 and 171 - and by common agricultural product market organizations.
The Commission also submitted a proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(97)0619/def. of 18 November 1997) with the aim of establishing a mechanism that would enable the Commission to ask the Member State to adopt necessary and appropriate measures quickly in order to eliminate particularly serious obstacles to the free movement of goods.
This proposal is being examined by the Council and Parliament.
In the reply made on 9 April 1998, the French authorities described the measures they considered appropriate for complying with their obligations.
These measures are organized into three levels and provide specifically for a Franco-Spanish agreement, a preventive public order mechanism and a legal mechanism.
Now that French farmers have made further threats against the marketing of horticultural products from other Member States in France, the Commission is insisting once again that the French authorities should apply the new measures with the necessary rigour and efficacy to ensure free movement of agricultural products.
Actually, Commissioner, I do not so much want to ask a supplementary question as to say thank you for what the Commission has done in this case, insofar as there is no question but that real respect for fundamental rights in the EU depends on actions such as the ones which have been initiated. One of these rights is the free movement of goods.
And that becomes much more important now when, together with the citizens, we are trying to build Europe.
Because these rights are not respected, many people feel that Europe is turning its back on its people.
So besides thanking you for these actions, I would like to repeat my request that you should continue to make sure that France fulfils its obligations, so that these regulations, these measures that have been adopted, can really be put into practice in order to guarantee free movement once and for all.
On this point, I also wish to confirm the importance the questioner attaches to this subject.
Freedom of movement of goods is certainly not a peripheral matter, but absolutely central to the credibility of the single market and the entire construction of Europe.
This is why the Commission drew up the proposal for a regulation in November 1997, which I referred to, and why, in executing the mandate assigned to the Commission by the Amsterdam European Council, we are trying to find a satisfactory legislative solution to this subject.
My question concerns the proposed legislation put forward by the Commission to the Council of Ministers to guarantee freedom of movement.
This proposed legislation has met with some criticism, not least from the unions.
A potential conflict has been foreseen between the right to strike and carry out actions on the labour market and the demands for maintaining mobility.
There has, for example, been a strike in Denmark recently.
It has clearly affected the freedom of movement in many ways.
Can the Commission guarantee that the proposal which has been tabled does not in any way limit the possibility of disputes on the labour market and employees' abilities to take proper legal action which could also affect transport?
Thank you for this question which gives me the opportunity to clarify two points.
Firstly, the original proposal for a regulation presented by the Commission clarified, rightly I believe, that we are not questioning in any way the right to strike or other fundamental freedoms guaranteed by Member States' legal systems.
The Commission has also gone on to express its acceptance of wordings that make this concept absolutely clear during the course of further discussions, particularly on the Council. The regulation cannot now be interpreted in any way as implying limitations or interference in the exercise of these fundamental rights.
I can therefore give you every assurance on this subject.
Mr President, Commissioner, I remember that we had the same problem before, and then traffic came to a complete standstill because of the strikes by customs officials.
In your statement or in the rules which you are preparing, Commissioner, you should refer first and foremost to the fact that national governments have the responsibility of ensuring that traffic can move freely in Europe.
However traffic may be restricted, and for whatever cause, ensuring the free movement of traffic is one of the most important responsibilities of national governments.
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg, for your question and your comment, relating to a fundamental freedom of the single market.
The free movement of goods justifies this proposal for a regulation, and the Internal Market Council has confirmed on several occasions, the last occasion being on 30 March, its political desire to find a satisfactory solution in line with the mandate conferred on it by the European Council.
During the course of various meetings held by the Council's working party, the Member States and the Presidency proposed various solutions, while the Commission maintained its initial position on the regulation.
The final proposal put forward by the Presidency took the form of a regulation, again based on Article 235, and on a resolution.
The regulation would comprise three new aspects: firstly, Member States' obligations to take measures to eliminate obstacles, in accordance with the regulation, and to report back to the Commission; secondly, the creation of an early warning system; and, thirdly, Commission intervention in the form of notification.
The Presidency hopes to obtain political agreement on this final proposal during the Internal Market Council on 18 May, that is, next Monday.
In the meantime, the Commission's proposal is being examined by the European Parliament. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have already met once in April.
Consequently, Mr von Habsburg, our various institutions are coming together to look for ways to ensure our other fundamental rights without affecting our right to strike and to safeguard the essential aspect of free movement of goods more effectively.
Question No 40 by Graham Watson (H-0491/98)
Subject: Ticket allocation system for the 1998 World Cup
Is the Commission satisfied with the CFO's arrangements for the distribution of the remaining World Cup tickets via the "hotline' ?
Of course, you know how this matter has developed. We have debated it in this Parliament.
You know that the Commission did not agree with the way the sale of the tickets had been organized and also at the time we urged that the tickets still available, only about 5 or 6 %, should be made available to citizens of the European Union who live outside France, by way of compensation.
Unfortunately the committee did not accept that and that is why, as you know, we are taking the procedure, the infringement procedure, further, and why we are currently working on the preparation, or engaged in drawing up what are known in English as the statements of objection.
More specifically, the question is about the regime, or formula which the organizing committee has worked out to make the remaining 110 000 tickets available, not only to citizens from outside France but to residents of France as well.
There is one bright spot to mention, in the sense that there are another 60 000 extra tickets available.
They are tickets which were given to football associations outside Europe but which they have been unable to sell.
They got more than they needed.
Those extra 60 000 tickets are now being made available to citizens of the European Union and that is a bright spot.
I would like to underline that. This brings the total to 170 000.
Apart from that, as you know, dozens of telephone lines have been made available for citizens who wanted to telephone to try to get hold of a ticket.
I believe it is working quite well on the whole.
Some things have been brought to our attention which we are looking into at the moment to find out whether the system is proceeding in a completely non-discriminatory way.
I cannot tell you any more about this for the time being, but if anything is brought to our attention which could point to discrimination, it will be investigated immediately.
So if you have knowledge of any facts of that nature, let us know.
That is roughly how things stand at the moment.
Commissioner, thank you.
You spoke of bright spots.
If there is a bright spot here it is only insofar as every cloud has a silver lining.
The organization of the 1998 World Cup has been a disgrace: over 60 % of the tickets have been available exclusively to French citizens, despite the intervention of the Commission, the CFO has refused to make even 160 000 tickets available to football fans outside France.
FIFA and the CFO are making a mockery of European Union law. For fear that the Commission would not act, I and other MEPs started a court action.
My questions to you today are these. Will the Commission associate itself with our court action?
What action will the Commission take unilaterally, and how far will the Commission go in pursuing this? It is no good saying that this hotline is functioning smoothly: any British fan trying to get through to France just knows that 'smooth' is anything but the description of how it has worked.
Since we have already had a general debate in plenary we do not need to have one again.
You know very well what I said: that, indeed, we fundamentally disagree with this kind of system and, therefore, it should be reviewed.
I must say that the organizers of the European Championship in the year 2000, which will take place, as you know, in the Netherlands and Belgium, are already talking to the services of the Commission - to my officials - in order to sort things out now before one ticket is sold.
So the message has been well understood.
That is a positive result.
For the rest, as you know, we continue to pursue the appropriate procedure, but we have to do so according to the rules.
Legally speaking we must adhere to them.
Again, I confirm we will do so to the very end.
However, the Commission will follow its own procedure as usual, probably on the basis of Article 86, and, therefore, obviously we will not intervene in what you are doing but we will continue along our own way.
That is the situation.
Commissioner Van Miert, can you tell me what the point was of the expensive studies which DG X carried out in 1993? I was rapporteur on sport at the time and they produced a huge volume about the impact of EU activities on sport.
There were three pages at that time, five years ago, about exclusive ticket sales.
The Commission's position in black and white in that report, dating from five years ago, states that exclusive ticket sales are fundamentally wrong and in contravention of Articles 85 and 86.
I am pleased that you will now be keeping a close eye on the Belgian and Dutch organizers for the European Championships in 2000.
My question is why it had to take such an extraordinary length of time and whether there was any point to those expensive studies at all?
Thank you, Mrs Larive.
Excuse me, Mr Van Miert, but when you listen to the question in one of the languages you understand, you forget that our interpretation system takes a certain amount of time to convey the information to all the Members and, especially, the President.
So I did not interrupt you for taking the floor spontaneously, but because we had still not heard all of Mrs Larive's interesting speech.
I now invite you to reply to her question.
These studies were carried out, as you yourself have indicated, on behalf of DG X. They were dealing with general policy in this area but, as you know, DG IV is looking into matters relating to competition.
Things happened in the past, for example where the sale of tickets was tied to the sale of travel facilities for example, or hotel rooms.
We have always said that that must not be allowed.
If the client wants that, there is no problem, but, for example, a travel agent cannot lay that down as a condition.
Now and then we receive complaints because it still seems to happen here and there.
So we have, meanwhile, tackled a number of problems already.
Here it was about a different kind of discrimination, that is to say that a large proportion of the ticket sales were being reserved for the citizens of one country.
Once again, action was taken when that came to light. Unfortunately, most of the tickets had been sold in the meantime.
I can remember that similar things happened on earlier occasions without there being all that many complaints.
What is new on this occasion is that people will not take it any more and that the citizens of the European Union rightly believe that they are entitled to be treated in a non-discriminatory way.
I am pleased about this and, to repeat, we will keep watch to ensure that such things do not happen at future sports events.
This is a warning to everyone.
However, may I remind you again that sports associations are not too keen on turning to the Commission.
Most of them dispute the authority of the Commission.
There is not much to dispute now, as far as I am concerned, or as far as the powers of the Commission are concerned, certainly with regard to competition, but it is not always so evident that they will take that.
I would just like to remind people of that.
Parliament is sovereign to, as it were, organize its own appeal.
The Commission has to stick to the instruments it has been given.
Either we establish that there is an infringement, for example on the grounds of Article 86, then we can act; or, if that is not the case, we cannot.
But you know what our intention is and I would like to confirm that here today.
Apart from that, if you know of actions which do not fit in with what has been agreed, let us know.
I have also already received, I have to confirm, a couple of letters from Belgium from citizens who tried to get a ticket in the normal way and evidently say: yes, if we do not take the rest as well, we do not get any.
That is wrong.
On the other hand, it must not stop at borders either.
People cannot, for example, refuse to sell a ticket to a German citizen.
That is not permitted; that has been agreed quite clearly.
However, I am afraid, just as you are, that things are going on here and there, bearing in mind what has happened in the past too, which are not always as they should be.
But if we get any opportunity to take action against this, we will take it and I can tell you, we will take it vigorously.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mr Wijsenbeek wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr Wijsenbeek, let me remind you that whereas I will always grant you the floor on a point of order, it means there is less time for questions from other Members of this House.
You have the floor.
I will be brief, Mr President.
On the grounds of Annex II, B(2) of the Rules of Procedure, I am asking you now and I would be very grateful for your reply, to raise Question No 77 since Commissioner Van Miert is still present.
Mr Wijsenbeek, I must inform you that the order has already been established with the agreement of the President of Parliament and the Commission, and it is impossible for the Chair to alter it during the sitting.
I have taken good note of your comment and will convey it to the President and the Commission, Mr Wijsenbeek, but I an certainly not going to change the pre-established order.
Question No 41 by Marie-Paule Kestelijn-Sierens (H-0440/98)
Subject: Sale of drugs via the Internet
In view of the disturbing increase in the supply and unmonitored sale of drugs on the Internet, can the Commission say how it will ensure that European suppliers of drugs via the Internet satisfy all Community and national provisions in respect of permission to market, the advertising of drugs and the sale of drugs requiring a prescription? What action can and will the Commission take, in view of the international dimension of the problem, to protect cyberconsumers from this unsupervised sale of drugs?
Mr President, the question must contain two answers.
One is very formal and relates to what we have already done together in order to ensure that sales of medicines on the Internet are conducted in a proper manner, and the other deals with the practical implementation of these regulations.
For one thing, it may well be a contravention of Community law if, for example, there is no authorization for trading in the medicines sold.
The purpose of such an authorization is, after all, to guarantee the quality, safety and efficacy of the medicine.
There may also be a contravention of the directive which prohibits public advertising, particularly in the case of medicines requiring a prescription, and there may of course also be a contravention of the directive which specifically allows Member States to prohibit the marketing of medicines in their territory through agreements on distance selling.
Moreover, in certain Member States the national regulations, or the pharmacists' monopoly, or other established practices, may be contravened.
These are all clear legal regulations.
But the question of course, and this is the only important question, is what effect do they have in practice? Well, in practice, action can be taken against any company which commits such contraventions from a base inside the Union, because offences committed by one's own citizens can of course be punished.
However, because of the increasing importance of the Internet as an international organization, it is impossible, both in practice and also in law, to take action against companies or individuals who are proceeding in accordance with the laws of their home country while acting outside of EU laws or national regulations.
If they act in accordance with the laws of their home country, then they are in any case legally protected.
If they contravene these laws, prosecution of the offence is a matter for the home country concerned.
In other words, there are only limited possibilities open to us.
We can bring proceedings against our own companies, but not against others.
That is why we have made several attempts to settle this issue at international level.
There would then at least be an internationally valid legislative basis.
We are having discussions with industry about questions of voluntary commitment, with other countries about common rules, and also with international organizations, in this case the World Health Organization, with a view to establishing these rules.
However, I should emphasize here and now that even if we do have international rules, given the technical character of the Internet it will not be easy to prosecute and punish contraventions of such rules.
We must always bear this in mind, and that is why we are looking more to practical measures than to legislation, or at least not just to legislation, for this cannot guarantee the necessary degree of protection.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I would have liked to hear from the Commissioner what he plans to do about these problems within the Union.
Naturally, this is a problem of consumer protection, if a medicine which has to be dispensed on prescription can be bought via the Internet without prescription.
And there have been two notable examples of this. Just consider melatonine, which is freely available in the United States but has to be dispensed on prescription here.
There is also the recent example of the medicine Viagra which can be obtained freely via the Internet, which could have harmful effects on the user.
What is the Commissioner going to do about investigating infringements and has he already been able to investigate specific infringements? In other words, how can control be exercised?
Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens repeats the question which she has already put in writing, and I could now repeat the answer which I have already given.
But that would not get us much further.
I said that we have legal regulations in the Union and in the Member States which afford adequate protection to the consumer.
You have yourself quoted a case where these legal provisions are not effective.
If, for example, a medicine is permitted in the USA, which no-one could describe as a wild and under-developed country where all sorts of things can be sold, then a manufacturer or someone else who wants to offer this medicine for sale is able to do so via the Internet.
That is not prohibited.
While this would not be permitted by our legislation in Europe, the distributor in question is not travelling to Europe, he is in fact selling the medicine from a base in America.
The fact that the Internet extends to every country in the world is due to the technical nature of its infrastructure.
That is why the distributor is in a position - at least under international law - to sell his products in America and, furthermore, to send them to any European consumer who wants them without breaking European law.
Nor does the consumer make himself liable to prosecution or contravene any laws unless he is intending to buy medicines which are clearly prohibited.
But in the case which you have mentioned the consumer does not make himself liable to prosecution.
So the only possible way in which we can settle this is to seek an international agreement under which, for example, the American manufacturer undertakes, by way of a voluntary commitment, to supply his medicines only to countries in which they may be obtained without the need for a prescription.
This is the only solution which will work.
We cannot tackle these problems using legislation alone.
There is also a problem in respect of competition, because if the restrictions we are discussing today apply to European companies or pharmacists, we shall see these pharmacists, traders or businesses being put at a competitive disadvantage vis-àvis other countries where such medicines are allowed to circulate freely.
We therefore have a problem facing our industry and it is one which cannot simply be solved by passing a new law, in fact quite the reverse.
I am convinced that we must review existing laws to do justice to both sides of the argument, namely protecting the consumer while at the same time safeguarding the competitiveness of our industry.
Question No 44 by Richard Howitt (H-0488/98)
Subject: Disability and development cooperation
Over 500 million people in the world suffer from a disability, and the majority of them live in developing countries.
As poverty eradication and human rights are considered vital and integral parts of the Lomé Convention, extra attention should also be given by the European Union to the situation of persons with disabilities in ACP States.
How far has the Commission supported development projects with disabled people in ACP States in the past, and does it intend disabled people to be considered as a special target group for development in the Commission's policies in the future?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Fourth Lomé Convention follows on from the Maastricht Treaty in emphasizing the objectives of combating poverty and encouraging respect for human rights and democratic principles.
This general emphasis is also apparent in the draft mandate the Commission has put before Parliament and the Council, which is now being debated, and which relates to a new partnership with the ACP countries.
To give the Member a direct answer, however, the Community has not so far expressly considered support for the disabled as a specific priority for cooperation.
Nevertheless, within the context of its programme for the reform and rehabilitation of health systems, the Community does support many forms of action, particularly for the benefit of victims of war and, even more specifically, victims of anti-personnel mines and crippling diseases.
This is particularly true in the case of Angola, Mozambique and also certain non-ACP countries such as Cambodia.
These actions in ACP countries are financed not only by the European Development Fund but also from a number of budgetary categories relating to emergency aid and rehabilitation.
The Community also supports numerous non-governmental organizations such as 'Handicap International' , ' Help the Aged' , ' Médecins Sans Frontières' and others.
That support is designed to assist with development, particularly in terms of orthopaedic clinics, medical supplies. infrastructures, professional training schemes and health projects for victims of mines and burns, among others.
So far as the Lomé Convention is concerned, the Commission intends to go on giving priority to this work, since it is estimated that the number of victims, or people affected, by anti-personnel mines is over 60 000 in southern Africa alone.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his sentiments.
But I have to say that I disagree and I think the majority of the Members of this Parliament will disagree when it is said that disability is not a high priority for development cooperation between the European Union and the ACP countries.
I ask him to reflect during the course of negotiations on whether or not we should give it a higher priority when one in four poor families in developing countries have a disabled member; when there are only 3 % of the 500 million disabled people worldwide who are literate; when the mortality rate for under-fives in developing countries is well under 20 % - it is between 60 % and 80 % for disabled children.
Truly, there should be no higher priority than to meet those needs.
Could the Commissioner, in response to my supplementary, give a firmer commitment to actually quantify the assistance we give? He failed to do that in his answer.
Would he give us an indication of how he will deal with this issue in the negotiations with the ACP?
So far it has not been a priority.
I made a factual statement.
We have worked in many areas in which, in one way or another, disabled people were the focus of our attention, namely in regard to the anti-mine action in Southern Africa.
I believe that among the main actions that are being carried out, especially regarding the health system, disability is being addressed.
What is lacking - I will be very honest - is the social integration of disabled people.
Training has been virtually nonexistent in our agreements hitherto.
But I will take on your suggestion because, especially in some countries, the figures justify an explicit statement on those lines.
Question No 45 by Bernd Posselt (H-0463/98)
Subject: Burden-sharing in staffing
What progress is being made with the initiative to share the burden of staffing in connection with sudden refugee movements, and also movements of asylum-seekers?
In March 1997 the Commission put forward a proposal for joint action on temporary protection in situations of mass flight.
Article 5 in that proposal aims at making it possible to offer support in different forms to Member States which receive a particularly large number of people in need of international protection.
The idea is that a decision about such support be taken on the basis of an annual report on the situation, to be worked out by the Commission.
The proposal is in line with earlier positions in the Council of Ministers.
I am thinking specifically of the resolution adopted on 25 September 1995, and which deals with burden-sharing on receiving and providing temporary accommodation for fleeing people.
I am also thinking of the Council's decision of 4 March 1996, and which deals with the way the European Union is to share the responsibility for people in need of temporary protection.
The Commission's proposal has been discussed on many occasions in the Council of Ministers during the past year, particularly during the Luxembourg Presidency.
At the informal Council meeting at Mondorf in October 1997 this question was on the agenda.
The discussions we had then show that the question of burden-sharing demands further consideration.
Some Member States consider Article 5 in the Commission's proposal to be too far-reaching; others consider it too limited.
At the express wish of the Commission, the Council of Ministers also consulted Parliament, of which you are, naturally, aware.
Parliament supported the proposal on 23 October 1997.
We then had 22 amendments; two of these, Nos 12 and 13, were aimed exactly at the need for the article on burden-sharing to be extended, and for it to be made more concrete.
Against that background, the Commission has now considered putting forward a separate proposal on burden-sharing.
The reason is that it would be very sad if the initiative on temporary protection for people were to be delayed because of the question of burden-sharing.
It is now my hope, Mr President, that a separate proposal from the Commission will lead to a solution.
I therefore hope that during the Austrian Presidency we shall not only reach a decision on temporary protection, but also find a separate solution for what is burden-sharing.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, thank you for your detailed answer.
However, I still fail to understand whether or not the Commission has in fact now submitted to the Council a concrete proposal for personnel burdensharing.
I am forever being told that the Commission does not want to submit such a proposal because it does not expect to get a majority in the Council.
I have to say quite openly that the acid test has to be tried, we have to establish precisely which governments may be trying to slow things down, so that we can turn the spotlight on them in terms of their political responsibilities and discuss this both in Parliament and also in public.
But none of that will be possible unless we have a very detailed proposal on personnel burden-sharing in the form of a fixed formula between the Member States.
The Member knows very well that the debate on burden-sharing has been going on for many years.
It is not the Commission's fault that we have not solved this issue.
You could say that there have been such deep differences of opinion within the Council of Ministers that we have not succeeded in finding a solution.
The Commission has tried to find compromise solutions many times, but these have not fallen on good soil.
We are now working on a new set, having sounded out many governments on the issue.
We are trying, among other things, to remove the issue of burden sharing from the proposal on temporary protection and turn it into a separate issue.
Then we await the reaction.
Question No 46 by Eva Kjer Hansen (H-0493/98)
Subject: Protection of the Community's financial interests
As the Commission indicated in its answer to Question P-3615/97, the opportunities for protecting the Community's financial interests will improve following ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Has the Commission, on the basis of the revised Article 209a (Article 280 in the Treaty of Amsterdam), planned any action to harmonize legislation designed to protect the Community's financial interests, including legislation to safeguard against fraud affecting the euro?
According to Article 209a of the Treaty, Member States are to take the same actions to combat fraud against the economic interests of the Union as they would to combat fraud against their own.
The Member States are thus invited to coordinate their actions to protect the economic interests of the Union against fraud.
The Commission will assist with organizing close and regular cooperation between the administrations concerned.
Unfortunately, Article 209a does not include an operational legal basis.
In order to make decisions on joint actions in this field today we have to use Article 235 instead, which, as you will know, requires unanimity.
This will change with the Amsterdam Treaty, when it comes into force.
Firstly, Article 209a will be changed into a new article, Article 280.
This provides legal ground for joint actions to protect the economic interests of the Union.
Secondly, the work will be simplified, as it will be possible to reach decisions by qualified majority voting.
Thirdly, it will establish that protection of the economic interests of the Union be equal in all the Member States.
These changes will strengthen our means to protect taxpayers against fraud and cheating.
While awaiting the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, we do not at present plan any concrete proposal, based on these revised articles.
As regards the question of preventing counterfeiting of the euro, the Commission's working schedule on cheating and fraud of 1998-1999 was adopted on 6 May and includes several measures for the protection of the common currency.
This means that the Commission has already entered into discussion with Member States on how to combat fraud and cheating.
Effective protection must, in my view, be in place before the euro is in circulation on 1 January 2002.
It will then be of utmost importance to build up a stable legal framework for the exchange of information and to set up a common database.
Close cooperation and mutual assistance will also have to be established between the Member States, the European Central Bank, Europol and Interpol.
The objective must be that the measures introduced to protect the euro will act as an equally strong deterrent in all the Member States.
The achievement of this will demand actions within the first as well as the third pillar.
My colleague, Commissioner de Silguy, and I plan therefore to submit a report to the Council and to the Parliament even before the summer on what kind of actions will be needed.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for answering the question and I would like to say that we are of course looking forward to receiving more specific proposals regarding which initiatives are to be put into practice, and I am delighted that this is taking place before the summer recess, because I think it is important to follow up on this matter right now while we are discussing the euro.
With regard to the new Article 280 in the Amsterdam Treaty, I must say I am amazed that the Commission is still unwilling to commit to specifics, because to me, it is a good argument alongside many other good arguments in favour of the Amsterdam Treaty.
For the sake of EU citizens and in the interests of the taxpayer, I believe it is important to come up with specific initiatives to prove that any initiatives are being started at all in this area, and this is, after all, one of the areas in which we urgently need to change the way decisions are made.
Thus, my question is actually more of an appeal to the Commissioner to ensure that specific mandates are given.
I think we should also look at what initiatives to take in order to put this into practice.
I consider it a matter for great regret that the Member States have not ratified one single instrument regarding the protection of the economic interests of the European Union.
Once 1 July is passed, the deadline laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty for ratification in the Member States, there is reason to start discussing whether we should not turn these instruments into first pillar instruments and directives instead.
Question No 47 by Mark Watts (H-0088/98)
Subject: Failure of Member States to transpose EU transport directives
Given that 60 % of the Single Market Directives adopted in the field of transport have not been transposed by Member States - the worst rate of non-transposition in the EU - what action does the Commission propose taking to ensure that Member States fulfil their objectives and complete the single market in this sector?
Mr President, according to the so-called single market scoreboard report adopted by the Commission last November, the rate of non-implementation of single market directives is high in the transport sector, as the Honourable Member indicates in his question.
A partial explanation for that is provided by the fact that much of the single market legislation in the transport sector is relatively recent.
For example, there have been 38 transport directives in the 1990s, compared with just six directives in the insurance sector, the last of which was adopted in 1992, where the transposition record is best.
The main reason for this significant amount of legislation in transport is obviously the evolution of the common transport policy and its application in the changing context provided by the single market.
Despite that practical explanation, however, the Commission is concerned about the non-transposition of law which Member States have after all agreed upon in Council.
In general, the majority of Member States are adopting national transposition measures after a significant delay and only after reminders have not elicited a productive response and infringement procedures have been instigated by the Commission.
For example, infringement procedures relating to two-thirds of Member States have been opened in relation to the 19 transport-related directives for which transposition was due to be completed by the end of 1997.
The Commission will of course continue to pursue these and other infringement cases until the Member States have properly implemented the directive.
At all times actions will be determined entirely by the duty of the Commission to secure adherence to the law which the Member States in Council have obviously endorsed.
I should like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for his answer.
Quite rightly he is stressing the amount of effort the Commission, and in particular his directorate, are putting into ensuring that directives and regulations agreed by Member States are transposed by those Member States.
I am very pleased to hear that much progress has already been made following the publication of the single market scoreboard.
However, does he agree with me that we could, perhaps, further highlight some of the poorer Member States in terms of transposition by producing a league table of those least effective Member States - maybe a list of shame to try to ensure there is public pressure in the Member States concerned to ensure that Community law is complied with?
Secondly, does he agree with me that perhaps Parliament, too, could support his efforts by putting more emphasis on monitoring and enforcement? Perhaps we could devote more of our committee time to these issues rather than examining fresh legislation.
I would welcome his views on both of those ideas.
Commissioner, no doubt you are enticing us into the House of Commons' enviable habits of speed and spontaneity; so it is no bad thing.
On the contrary, we should all imitate your example, having seen the liveliness of the House of Commons.
I invite you to reply to Mr Watts' question.
I would simply say to the honourable Member that I am grateful for his comments.
In his proposition for a league table he has suggested one of the very best uses to which a written parliamentary question can be put.
He can be certain of receiving a candid and full answer.
So far as naming and shaming is concerned, I am not sure that would be the effect but I am prepared to work on the basis that if a law is worth passing in the Council of Ministers, it must be worth transposing and, indeed, it must be worth applying and enforcing in a Member State.
One would presume that we would be assisting the governments of the Member States in trying to ensure that public notice was drawn to the gap between their willingness to pass the laws and their willingness to turn them into domestic legislation.
While I welcome the Commission's commitment to enforcing the procedure in the transport sector, I would draw the Commissioner's attention to the case of a constituent of mine, Salvatore Colucci, who is attempting in vain to operate as a merchant marine officer in United Kingdom shipping.
He has had tremendous battles with the United Kingdom authorities, in particular with the previous administration.
We discovered that the Maritime Marine Agency would not accept his qualifications, although the EU directive said it should.
There is an aliens act in the UK which goes back to 1911, which meant that merchant ship officers had to be UK citizens.
We are waiting for this legislation to be repealed.
I do not know if the Commissioner is familiar with this.
I am prepared to pass the correspondence on to him.
It is very important that we get the qualifications of merchant seaman agreed.
If I can say to the honourable Member I do not honestly know the detail of the particular case mentioned so I would be obliged if he could write to me as he suggests.
He will know of course that under current legislation Member States do reserve the right to stipulate the proportion of nationals who are appointed to offices in certain categories of shipping.
If he would like to write to me I will certainly pursue the matter and indeed if he were to take up the matter with Mrs Glenda Jackson who is the current Maritime Minister in the new United Kingdom government it is conceivable that he would find a cooperative reply.
Thank you very much, Mr Kinnock, for your reply and your willingness to help. I am sure Mr McMahon will convey your message to the individual in question.
Question No 48 by Anne McIntosh (H-0185/98)
Subject: Lorry Blockade in France
Will the Commission investigate why the French Government has now confirmed that the British hauliers who suffered as a result of last year's lorry blockade in France will receive no compensation despite the disruption to the Single Market?
The Commission has made enquiries about the matters raised by the honourable Member in her question and I have to report to the House that we have not been able to find any evidence of any communication by the French government to the effect that British road hauliers would not be compensated following the 1997 strike action by French road transport workers.
At all times the Commission has made it clear to all concerned that it expects the French government to honour any legal obligation it may have to compensate those road hauliers who are directly and adversely affected by the dispute last year regardless of their nationality.
The honourable Member may already be aware that the United Kingdom Department of Transport has informed the Commission that all cases relating to United Kingdom hauliers in respect of the 1996 strike have been addressed and that procedures are in place to resolve outstanding cases from the 1997 strike without undue delay.
If the honourable Member can provide references to justify the assertion made in her question the Commission will of course investigate the matter further despite the fact that, as the honourable Member knows, compensation arrangements are entirely within national law and procedures and consequently not a matter covered by the legal authority of the Commission.
The honourable Member is a fastidious attender in this House and a fastidious attender to the Treaty.
She will know, therefore, precisely what the legal position is.
I repeat that insofar as compensation arrangements are concerned, as she knows very well, the Commission has no power.
There is no juxtaposition of events which could give the Commission power so far as compensation is concerned.
Secondly, the honourable Member will know very well the extent of the authority exercised by the Commission so far as its ability to intervene in domestic industrial disputes is concerned.
Those limitations may frustrate me as someone who wants to safeguard freedom of movement, but I observe the law, as she says, in my role of guardian of the Treaties.
So far as scenarios, real or otherwise, are concerned, she would not expect me to comment on the envisaged possibilities.
But she will know very well - I trust that she will pay reference to this in the forthcoming month or so - that there is no preventative power afforded to the Commission under the Treaty; neither is there any ability in the Commission to preempt the conduct of a dispute.
I hope therefore that whatever other action is taken or proves to be necessary in the course of future months, no one, least of all the honourable Member, will try to give a totally distorted and exaggerated view of what the European Commission can do in the event of any extremely unfortunate, highly regrettable and totally counterproductive action that might be contemplated in some quarters at the time of the World Cup in France.
God knows, people wanting to see that World Cup in France will have enough to put up with in any case.
Unlike the previous speaker, whose petty, insular views were apparently preoccupied only with British lorry drivers, I would say, Commissioner, that only 10 % of all the lorry drivers concerned from all over Europe have been compensated by the French authorities.
Does the Commissioner not therefore think that he needs the intervention mechanism that the Council now seems to be refusing the Commission and that with this intervention mechanism there needs to be some kind of Commission fund from which, before the Member States go over to paying only one-tenth, it could forward the money that is owed to those people who, from no fault of their own, have got involved in these strikes and roadblocks?
The European Community, as I am sure Mr Wijsenbeek will know - indeed, this is a view he will support - is a free association of democracies.
This means that unless and until the Council endorses a proposal relating to intervention of the kind that he suggests, it would be not only inappropriate but highly offensive to everything we believe in as democrats to award to the Commission power to intervene to impose compensation requirements or in other ways to try to dictate the direction in which affairs should go at the time of, or following, an industrial dispute.
Whatever his personal opinions may be, or, indeed, whatever possibilities for action I could contemplate, for as long as the Council refuses interventions of that kind, I will respect the will of the government representatives of democratic administrations.
Commissioner, some of the lorries from my constituency caught up in the blockade in France last year were transporting perishable goods, particularly fruit and vegetables, as, indeed, were many lorries from Spain and Portugal: they suffered complete loss of their consignments, not just the late delivery of goods.
Many of them are still awaiting the promised compensation from the previous, much more long-drawn-out blockade.
Will the Commission maintain its pressure to persuade the French Government to honour also this previous commitment to pay compensation and, incidentally, suggest to them that this would considerably mitigate the increasing irritation felt by other Member States towards France, not just because of their mishandling of the lorry blockade issue but also, more recently, their mishandling of the distribution of World Cup tickets?
Question No 49 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0394/98)
Subject: "Open skies' agreements with the United States
What information can the Commission provide on the infringement procedures against those Member States which have concluded "open skies' agreements with the United States in the civil aviation sector?
Mr President, a short question sometimes provokes a lengthy answer so I apologize in advance for what must unavoidably be a fair degree of detail in response to the honourable Member.
In November 1994, the Commission communicated to the Member States its concern that bilateral air transport agreements with the United States of America would affect internal Community legislation.
It drew the attention of the Member States to the Commission's view that such negotiations could therefore only be conducted at Community level.
Assurances on the issue were sought from the relevant Member States in February 1995 and, when they were not forthcoming, the Commission initiated proceedings based on Article 169 of the Treaty in June of that year.
Discussions on aviation relations with the United States meanwhile continued in the Council and in June 1996 the Commission was given a partial mandate for negotiating a common aviation area between the European Community and the USA.
Since this signified the possibility that an approach that conformed with Community law could be established, the Commission then suspended the infringement procedure.
That mandate awarded in 1996 did not, however, include market access issues such as traffic rights and capacity, which are plainly vital for the purposes of any successful comprehensive air services agreement.
Discussions were nevertheless held with representatives of the USA in accordance with the mandate.
The only tangible conclusion reached, however, was that a common aviation area could only be agreed if negotiations involved all of the relevant issues.
The Commission has pursued its efforts to obtain a full mandate for some years and, at all times, has emphasized its total commitment to taking detailed account of the concerns and interests of all Member States so that none would encounter any disadvantage whatsoever.
Regrettably, the Council has thus far not been willing to agree on any workable mandate and, in recent Council meetings, discussion of the issue has not been substantive, although attention is now being given to the issue at working group level.
The Commission consequently advised the Council that the suspension of the infringement procedure could no longer be justified.
In March this year therefore, the Commission issued reasoned opinions to all of the eight Member States concerned.
As the honourable Member will know from other parliamentary proceedings at which he has been present, the Commission's view and its action are completely consistent with our duty to uphold Community law.
In addition, as you will also be aware, the Commission is strongly motivated by a practical desire to negotiate conditions in civil aviation that will be fair, balanced and certain to uphold the interests of the Community, of all its Member States, of the civil aviation industry of the European Union and of the citizens of the Union.
I must admit, Commissioner, you are acting splendidly in this matter.
And though it may seem you are facing the danger alone - like Gary Cooper - do not believe it! I want to assure you that many Europeans support you and are grateful for your efforts to consolidate our common market.
If this goes unchecked, it will result in the creation of serious discriminations and distortions of competition, causing EU rules to be ineffective and European law itself to be violated.
Also, these "open skies' agreements would make it impossible to be sure of eliminating the imbalances which would result between the national markets and the main companies arriving here from the US, without any reciprocity at all.
So I urge you, Commissioner, to continue fighting in the same direction.
Thank you very much, Mr Camisón Asensio.
Mr Kinnock, you now realize that you are not alone, although there are not many people in this Hemicycle.
In any case, you have our support on this question, as Mr Camisón Asensio said. I invite you to reply to his supplementary question.
Mr President, I am very grateful to you and to the honourable Member.
As he says, this is not 'High Noon' , I am not Gary Cooper and I am certainly not accompanied by Grace Kelly.
I am, if time permits, willing to sing to the honourable Member 'Do not forsake me, oh my darling' - but I won't.
I might indeed lose support if I inflicted my voice upon people here.
What is true, of course, is that Parliament's view - consistently taken - is a source of great strength, so far as the Commission is concerned.
But the good news is that, in addition, there are Member States who increasingly can see the joint and individual advantage of negotiating as a Community with the United States of America.
I am therefore confident that the day will come when the full mandate will be given to the Commission to negotiate on comprehensive issues and gain the best possible deal for our carriers, our citizens and our Member States.
My one concern is that agreement to a mandate may not come early enough for us to be able to deploy our full negotiating strength simply because a multiplicity of bilateral deals could award the Americans nearly all that they want without European carriers being able to get a balanced and equivalent amount of access to the very rich United States market in return.
Therefore, the sooner we get the power to negotiate comprehensively, the better it will be for the whole Community.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is very sensible that a supplementary question can also be put during Question Time.
I frequently make use of this facility, but what we have been witnessing in the course of the last few questions is not the putting of supplementary questions but rather - with all due respect - the exchange of pleasantries. While this may well be good for the mood of the House, it does not help me much because I shall not now be able to put my question since the session will shortly be closed.
Mr President, I would ask you to chair the session rather more tightly.
Mr Konrad, I admire your ability to distinguish in advance between a question, a compliment and a comment.
I cannot do that. In any case, Members of this House have one minute - which I am strict about - to use responsibly in whichever manner they feel is appropriate.
Since you have used that minute for points of order, obviously you cannot use it for a supplementary question, because at 7.00 p.m. we shall be suspending the sitting.
Question No 50 by Jan Andersson (H-0418/98)
Subject: Transport links in the Öresund region
A study, partly financed by the EU, has been carried out into the feasibility of building a tunnel linking the Swedish town of Helsingborg and the Danish town of Helsingør, which are only about 4 km apart.
As both towns are situated in a densely populated region in which cross-border regional cooperation is increasing in a number of areas, there is an urgent need for a tunnel.
Improved transport infrastructure would most definitely boost cooperation in the region.
What could the Commission do to help ensure that a tunnel linking Helsingborg and Helsingør is built as soon as possible?
As the honourable Member points out in his question, studies into the feasibility of building a tunnel connecting Helsingør in Denmark and Helsingborg in Sweden have received support under the European Union's INTERREG IIa programme.
The Commission, is, however, not aware of any decision to construct such a tunnel link and the Commission has not received any request for Community support for such a project.
If such a request were received, it would be considered through the normal procedure.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for the answer.
I would also like to say thank you for the resources the Commission contributed towards making the study; it shows that the costs for this tunnel between two countries are less than the costs for communications on land on the Swedish side and also on the Danish side as regards the link by bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen.
I can very easily understand that decisions are required by the Swedish as well as the Danish governments before the Commission will be able to give further financial assistance, but I would like to put the following question: supposing the Swedish and Danish governments were to agree to build such a link, might the EU then assist in the same way as in the matter of the link between Malmö and Copenhagen?
As the honourable Member will know, the INTERREG Programme does not afford a facility for providing grant funding for infrastructure development.
I can only repeat what I said earlier that if Member States, individually or collectively, were to make a proposal under the relevant funds for support of some kind in the development of a major infrastructure link of the kind that has been mentioned, serious consideration would naturally have to be given to it.
I would not want to mislead the House or the honourable Member into believing that there was any automatic right of allocation.
Every proposal obviously has to be studied very closely and thoroughly on its merits.
Thank you very much, Mr Kinnock.
Ladies and gentlemen, we still have two minutes left before 7.00 p.m.
Taking advantage of Mr Kinnock once again, I propose that he replies to one last question.
Question No 51 by Maj Theorin (H-0430/98)
Subject: Rail transport
There are several major European firms currently transporting goods by road which would like to transfer heavy road haulage to rail, primarily for environmental reasons.
Does the Commission think that this is a good idea and, if so, what is it prepared to do to facilitate such a transfer to rail?
In view of the shortage of time I am tempted just to say 'yes' , but I think the honourable Member would like more detail than that.
We have consistently and actively sought to promote the transfer of goods transport to rail as an alternative to road transport.
The common transport policy contributes to increasing the competitiveness and attractiveness of rail transport through various actions including the so-called PACT programme - Project Action for Combined Transport - the removal of technical and regulatory barriers to international freight transport - which is absolutely crucial - the efforts to complete the internal market in rail, which will enhance efficiency and attractiveness, and also other policies like the development of the trans-European networks which, because it is very substantially balanced in favour of rail, can also make its contribution to increasing sustainability of transport.
I am grateful for the "yes' answer, as that is most important of all.
As the Commissioner is well aware, the problem today is that the railway cannot quite compete pricewise, due to a very peculiar system, with each country setting its own prices.
Today 50-70 % of the railway wagons go empty, at the same time as these large transport companies would like to double their capacity on the railway.
They want to make use of 40 000 wagons.
Otherwise, they would be forced to use 80 000 lorries, which is something none of us would like to see.
It would make me very happy if in some way we could give them the reply that in the near future a concrete initiative may be taken by the EU to help these transport companies which do want to transport their goods by rail.
I will send a full reply in writing to the honourable lady, but I am grateful for her close interest.
Perhaps I could illustrate the point she makes further by saying that if the rail-freight freeways - just one freeway - which the Commission has worked with others to organize, were used, it could mean the removal of 70 000 trucks every year from the roads of the European Union.
That would work to the advantage of competitiveness, employment and a sustainable environment throughout the Union.
When I send her the documents I am sure she will be interested enough to want to set them to music - they are real poetry.
Thank you very much, Mr Kinnock.
As you all know, these 60 minutes are shared out between three Commissioners, and it was Mr Kinnock's turn today for a very long contribution to Question Time.
As is his wont, he has answered as meticulously and thoroughly as we have come to expect.
But I must thank him specially today for all his hard work.
So once again, thank you very much, Mr Kinnock.
Since the time allocated to questions to the Commission has now expired, Questions Nos 52 to 119 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.03 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Towards a Europe of Knowledge
The next item is the report (A4-0166/98) by Mr Perry, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: "Towards a Europe of Knowledge' (COM(97)0563 - C4-0649/97).
Mr President, Britain's Labour Prime Minister, now the President of the Council of Ministers, began his administration by saying that his priorities were 'education, education, education' .
I have observed that he has adopted many sensible policies and priorities from the previous Conservative administration, and I am happy to say that I share with him those priorities and I believe that for the European Union too our priorities should be education, education, education.
Students, however, please note that does not mean I am about to propose the introduction of tuition fees for students across Europe.
Indeed, without seeking to labour a political point, I would urge all members of the Council of Education Ministers to consider how unilateral actions on their part, such as introducing charges for students, can, perhaps unintentionally but nonetheless, do great damage to the task of helping students gain part of their higher education in different parts of Europe.
So when I say 'education, education, education' , I recognize in my report that substantial extra resources are needed.
This Parliament showed its commitment to that in the conciliation process in last year's budget when we fought for and achieved additional funding for the present Socrates programme and the Commission and the Council do not doubt the overwhelming agreement across the parties in this Parliament to put extra money into education.
It is in that perspective that I shall ask Parliament to reject Amendment No 2 to my report, which seeks a doubling of the funding, if possible.
Since we are dealing with what are in reality very modest sums of money, why limit ourselves to doubling? Two times very little is still very little and budgetary policy is always constrained by what is possible.
So I say to the Council: ' put your money where your mouth is' .
I know it is an old cliché often raised in this House but we have put almost ECU 1bn into tobacco growing, ostensibly for employment protection.
Put that sort of money into education for employment promotion and to positively help the people of Europe, help our people prepare for new jobs, not just protect old jobs.
Of course, it is not for the European Union to undertake the responsibility for education across Europe but we need to recognize that Europeans must be assisted to get the best out of the opportunities of the single market, which is where the European Union must be involved.
The Union must provide an add-on extra to the educational provision by the Member States.
I am quite clear in my mind that this means building on the existing programmes.
Keep the existing names for the programmes Socrates, Leonardo, Youth For Europe.
It takes a long time to get public recognition, and constant changes of name make the schemes obscure and little known.
The schemes can be modified and should be modified and updated, but the name should remain.
Those students who embark on these schemes are putting the European ideal into effect.
They must be congratulated and helped and certainly must not be penalized for doing so, which is why it is particularly important to have proper recognition for the study time spent in other EU states.
For the most part this works well, but not always.
On a related matter, I want to raise the question of our redoubling our efforts to get mutual recognition of academic certificates and qualifications.
Failure to achieve this is becoming a real inhibitor to mobility across Europe, and it is a vital necessity in the days of the euro and the single currency to help the labour force to be truly flexible.
I have drawn attention to the need for a European dimension in ancillary education services, such as vocational guidance.
Possible employment opportunities in other countries of the Union should not be a closed book, and with facilities such as the Internet, there is every possibility for students to be made aware of employment opportunities throughout Europe.
That is why in the report I support the Netdays and Netyear projects, which help our students link up to the Internet and put it to good use.
I have touched in my report on elements of the school curriculum and I wish to emphasize in this speech the importance of including in our programme links with central and eastern Europe with the accession countries.
I see this as especially important for a country like Slovakia where we need to help its people develop their fullest democratic potential, and educational exchanges are especially useful in that respect.
Similarly, we need also to develop educational links with other neighbouring countries and cultures.
I would particularly cite our neighbours in the Islamic world where mutual understanding and respect still need much promotion.
To turn to the amendments, I have already explained that Amendment No 2 is too limiting and too precise about funding.
Let us just agree that we mean what we say when we say a substantial increase in funding is needed.
Amendment No 1, dealing with the reformed Structural Funds in the European Union vocational programme, is very useful, and I welcome that.
The third amendment I must leave to the House.
We need to be very careful not to behave like ostriches on the question of language and ensure that we concentrate on a core language so our people really can achieve that flexibility across the whole of Europe.
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my warmest and most sincere congratulations to Mr Perry on his report. I would then like to say that my congratulations to the Commission are not quite so warm because I have good things to say and bad things to say concerning this Commission communication on the Europe of Knowledge.
There are good things in this report such as, let us say, among the principles which govern the programmes, the restricted number of objectives, the focused actions and the emphasis placed on the partnership relationship and the promotion of the principle of partnership.
However, beyond this, a feature which governs this Commission communication is its generality, its lack of detail.
There is no appreciation of old, existing programmes, Socrates, Leonardo and Youth For Europe.
The interim report on the Leonardo programme does not shed light on the profile and the numbers of participants nor on the impact of the programme.
There is a problem with regard to the complementary nature of objective 3 and the new training programmes.
No account has been taken of the interaction of the programmes in question, what objective 3 does, what the new programmes do.
There is a vagueness as to what the outcomes of the decisions of Luxembourg will be regarding the programmes that concern us here.
In relation to the simplification of procedures, it is well known that the Court of Auditors, in its 1999 budget report, decided that there would be two procedures for the choice of schemes under the Leonardo programme and, for this reason, the Commission quite rightly talks of decentralization in decision-making and of a new procedure, but I think that it is going from one extreme to the other.
The Structural Funds and the necessary procedures for the Structural Funds are one thing; Leonardo, in which the Commission must maintain its administerial and coordination duties is quite another.
I will finish by saying what we would wish for.
On the part of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs we would like, first of all, a communication without any of these weaknesses and, secondly, we would like to see importance being given to measures relating to language to facilitate mobility and the promotion of information technology.
This is extremely important in view of the incursion into our lives of the information society.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the communication from the Commission wishes to establish guidelines for future Community initiatives in the area of general vocational training for the period 20002006.
We will discuss these in detail after the Commission has presented its specific proposals on 4 June of this year.
Today, however, I would like, on behalf of my Parliamentary group, to note that increased cooperation in the field of education in Europe is an important prerequisite for the integration process.
The issue of sufficient funds for exchange programmes and the related question of equal opportunity in terms of access to training and culture for all Europeans should be seen in the context of ideas currently under consideration for a more active labour market policy in the EU. We must reach a point where all school leavers can speak at least one language and that all young people have the opportunity to gain experience abroad during their vocational training.
The Commission also considered this context itself in its communication; this makes it all the more incomprehensible that on the one hand, the sums of money being made available for language visits for schoolchildren and young employees within these training programmes are completely inadequate, and on the other hand, the Member States, despite their primary responsibility for educational policy, have done much too little in terms of experiences of other cultures, tolerance and mobility to prepare the youth of Europe for easier access to the common European market.
Only 10 % of schoolchildren, 1 % of vocational trainees and 5 % of students currently take part in exchange programmes.
It is still not bad though!
I appeal to the Commission and the Council of Ministers to consider, when reorganizing the Social Action Fund for a more active labour market policy, ways in which in future resources from the Social Action Fund can be used for employmentoriented training measures and of course ways too in which Socrates and Leonardo could be considerably better equipped to complement in an innovative way the European Union's efforts in the field of employment.
Therefore, as far as the quite excellent training programmes are concerned, I have tabled an amendment to the brilliant report by Mr Perry which not only demands a considerable increase in funding but also requests that, if possible, the level of funding be doubled from the year 2000 onwards; without this, even today's tasks cannot be completed in view of the enlargement of the EU towards the east and the level and availability of individual funds which in socio-political terms are currently unacceptably low.
Vague statements being interpreted in one way or in another does not help young people much; it is in the final analysis the credibility of Europe which is at stake.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in its communication on a Europe of Knowledge the Commission provides guidelines for the next generation of European training programmes.
I think that anyone who is involved in politics, whether at a European level or within the Member States, is aware of the crucial importance which thorough planning of our customary training programmes will have for the European Union in the 21st century.
However, is it a prerequisite of a successful working life to ensure that as many different people as possible have a general education and vocational training?
Do programmes which promote the European exchange of culture and training or look after the education of the young individual contribute significantly to the political integration of the Union?
In this context I welcome the Commission's plan to simplify the administration which will be required to implement the programmes and to ensure greater openness and transparency in its organization.
It also seems important to me, however, to lend continuity to incentive measures in the area of training.
It is specifically in schools and in the area of youth that cooperation structures have been built over the years.
They represent a potential which we should take advantage of.
I therefore consider it important that the three programmes be continued separately in their current form.
We should attempt, in doing so, to introduce improvements into the existing system by building on a careful evaluation of programmes to date.
In any case, the network of solid human relations that has been established with the help of previous programmes and which is also the goal of these programmes must not threatened by changes which are meant well but are not well thought out.
Finally, I would like to offer Mr Perry my congratulations on his very good report.
Mr President, the Commission's communication now being debated by the European Parliament on the working principles and aims of education and youth programmes in the next millennium is of vital importance to the citizens of the Union.
Mr Perry's excellent report provides a good basis for further discussion.
I hope that the Commission pays attention in their forthcoming proposals to the talks both the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and Parliament have had, although inexcusably little time has been allowed for them to have had an effect.
The reform of the education and youth programmes is not just a technical process but a great opportunity to hold discussions on just those European values we wish to base our future on.
At their very best the EU education and youth programmes are the very tool we can use to bring the citizens of the Community closer together and realize, in practical terms, our goals of tolerance, equality and sustainable development.
The Amsterdam Treaty stresses how important it is for everyone to have the opportunity to receive a high standard of education and work as a committed citizen of the Union.
The active participation of citizens is best helped by a motivating European youth policy that offers, furthermore, a variety of learning contexts outside the classroom.
The role of national organizations in lifelong learning should be given more weight.
We should also be able to pull down the old barriers between college, jobs and the so-called third sector.
Through interaction we can achieve partnerships and forms of cooperation that will open up new opportunities for personal development and finding employment.
I believe that we are all convinced of the great importance of the European education and youth policy and the need for its development.
Now is the time to recognize its importance in concrete terms too, and draw the right conclusions which will be clearly translated as increased figures in future education budgets.
Mr President, I want to say that I agree with the position of the rapporteur, Mr Perry.
I would like to mention three obstacles, in my opinion, which relate to the creation of a Society of Knowledge, young people and the role of the European Union in all this.
The first obstacle is - and I think Mr Perry also referred to it - the reduced sums of money utilized by the European Union.
We cannot give, in the name of subsidiarity, such a low priority to culture and education when it comes to funding.
The second obstacle is the difficulty of access to third level education, which has become extreme in some countries such as Greece, where the possibility of whether the child will enter further education or not has become a drama for the families concerned.
At the end of the day this is a matter which affects not only Greece but the rest of Europe.
The third obstacle, in my opinion, is the need to retain a cultural dimension, especially in matters relating to language.
There is a problem with regard to languages which have the support of fewer population groups and I think the European Union needs to put into effect special measures on their behalf.
In finishing I would like to mention the importance of supporting and pursuing the teaching of the mother tongue, such as Ancient Greek and Latin, of many countries of the European Union in the face of what we see happening in various countries.
At a time when society is reflecting upon the issue of transmission of our knowledge and values to future generations, it is particularly reassuring to see the European institutions looking into the concept of knowledge.
I would like to congratulate the Commissioner for the work she has undertaken so far, for she has been deeply involved in the White Paper which the Commission recently proposed to us.
Indeed, at a time when the youth and education programmes are coming to an end, it is necessary not only to be able to evaluate them, but also to give a new direction to their actions according to previously agreed central themes.
In this respect, I understand and appreciate the desire to emphasize training and education and to ensure that it is encouraged throughout life.
Secondly, we know that employment policy is inseparable from education policy and that it is thus necessary to give everyone a chance to be trained.
I therefore support the desires which have been expressed to rationalize the objectives, to develop transnational mobility, to encourage recourse to new educational tools and to promote language learning.
In this respect, particular efforts must be made to help schools enter a new era and to learn to communicate through new technologies.
Apart from these comments, I would like to highlight what some colleagues have already said, in particular the rapporteur, Mr Perry, whom I would like to congratulate on the quality of his work.
Indeed, it is absolutely necessary to keep the current names of the programmes.
The youth of Europe know these names now.
I am thinking in particular of the Socrates programme, so appreciated by young people.
It would be a shame if they lost a little of that recognition because their names were changed.
It is undoubtedly necessary to move beyond these programmes and to create a true status for students in order to encourage their mobility.
Furthermore, I think it necessary to implement youth programmes which are distinct from education programmes.
In conclusion, I would like to remind you that these new programmes must not only help European youth to embark upon the new millennium but they must also mark the opening of our Union towards the east, and perhaps also towards the south and that, in this, young people have an irreplaceable role to play.
These are therefore the challenges which lie before us.
Mr President, the financing issue mentioned again and again here is unfortunately only a part of the solution.
What is still lacking are programmes whose content concentrates not only on learning but also on learning needs.
Also missing are direct links to other areas.
One example of such a link would be the Dutch report, "Culture 2000' , which for the first time creates a link between education, a training programme and the culture market in a country.
So people no longer say that culture requires more and more money and more and more subsidies but that there is a solution to subsidies in the area of culture if we learn more, experience more, buy more books, go to the cinema more often, visit more museums and thus spend more money on the culture market.
This report, however, also mentions briefly the problem of language, which has not yet been discussed here.
The problem of language diversity in Europe cannot be reduced to a purely practical problem; instead, it must take into account the cultural needs of the individual countries.
Mr President, the Europe of Knowledge and learning in the global information society of today and tomorrow must be the main objective, I believe, of the European Union.
Moreover, the Amsterdam Treaty has already given a clear direction to the European Union towards this objective as an obligation in the broader sense.
I would like to remind you that, with the Amsterdam Treaty, the Member States are under an obligation to promote the development of the highest possible level of knowledge for all people.
Naturally the substructure of this attempt can only be the younger generation.
In very simple terms this means that our greatest effort must be directed towards our young people, that is to say, the future of tomorrow and the future of today. This means that any programme which reinforces the natural tendency of children to communicate, the mobility of youth within the Member States and familiarization with customs in other countries must be the foundation of our policy.
I believe that the programme presented to us by the Commission constitutes a real basis, as was demonstrated moreover by the debate which took place in the Parliamentary committees, and I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Perry on the main report and Mr Hatzidakis on the opinion which was drawn up in my own committee, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
The debate which took place in the European Parliament and the debate which is taking place today, as well as the final decision which I hope we will come to, show that such an ambitious, great and difficult attempt can be enriched and pursued in this direction.
I believe, for example, that the proposal which is contained in this programme, that in other words there must be a common axis for action to enable this activity to be better coordinated and supervised, is quite right.
This, in my opinion, does not mean that there is any contradiction in retaining the names of the programmes as they are today.
I would like to make just one comment on the issues related to training, since I am on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as I have said. I believe that, given the direction the new professions are taking and the historic crossroads at which the European Union finds itself with the opening up of the European Union to the countries of Eastern Europe, professional training today must be at the very centre of our policy.
This will not only provide working people with the opportunity of achieving life-long retraining but will enable the unemployed to gain access to the world of work.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, as the Commission says in its communication, the society of the future will be founded on knowledge; knowledge in terms of quantity, but most of all the quality and the up-to-date validity of that knowledge.
And this is true not just for a few people, but for people of all classes and all ages.
I recently heard it said that nowadays 'we need to share out knowledge in the same way as we once needed to share out bread' .
A learning process that lasts a lifetime - not just a few years while we are young - opens the doors to employment, but also, let us not forget, to personal fulfilment.
Education and culture release the potential for freedom that exists within every person.
We must bear that in mind if we do not want to become a society of robots or yes-men.
I would like to mention a few points that ought to be of concern to us.
Firstly, the 'Europe of knowledge' must of course be the whole of Europe.
In the field of knowledge it makes no sense to create exceptions, exemptions and transitional measures for the single market or agriculture. central and eastern Europe are as much an inseparable part of the common European fund of knowledge as Southern or Northern Europe.
Secondly, there must be a European dimension in our school curricula; not as a subject in itself, but permeating the whole system.
And the European languages should not be taught only as foreign languages; they should become a vehicle for teaching the various subjects.
Thirdly, the creation of 'info-points' to be used in common by the Union and other international organizations concerned with education and youth, such as the Council of Europe, UNESCO or the OECD, would be a powerful means of achieving the cooperation that is much discussed but little practised.
And, finally, if the Union recognizes the primary importance of education, it must express that recognition by means of firm political decisions which will enable it to be successfully implemented.
I would specify three: a visible increase in financial resources, indexing them at a minimum percentage of the Community budget immediately; rapid general availability of access to the new technologies from primary school age; and a bold language programme - this is very important - consisting of teaching two foreign languages from the elementary stage onwards, a European language which can be used as a common means of communication between all citizens, reinforced by a second language, not forgetting that non-European languages are increasingly being spoken in Europe.
We are the heirs of '48' , when the idea of Europe was conceived.
Fifty years on, it is our duty to give that Europe fresh impetus by instilling new values and new priorities.
That is what Mr Perry has tried to do in his report, and I congratulate him on his excellent work.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his interesting work, which enables us to alert the Commission once more to the tremendous challenges which education, training and youth represent.
It is vital to the future of the European Union to preserve and expand these proven programmes, despite a low level of funding.
As the rapporteur highlighted, and I quote, "in the context of limited financial resources, European added value can be achieved only by developing the future programmes as real transnational 'European laboratories for innovation'' .
Europe must make use of shock treatment, for tomorrow's society will be one of intelligence, research and knowledge, bringing with it work and wealth.
The emphasis on the need to lay the foundations of an integrated youth policy, as distinct from education programmes, seems extremely important to me.
By stimulating young people's creativity, we can get them involved in the fight against social exclusion and violence at home and at school.
Continuing education, gained within youth organizations, in particular sports organizations, must be recognized and encouraged.
In my region, I support pilot initiatives for young people from inner city areas, which involve them in sport and other activities and encourage knowledge, creativity, and contact with young people in rural areas.
We have an enormous task before us in Europe.
Determination and consistency are required.
Unfortunately, traditional accountancy methods attach little importance to intangible assets.
At a time when the euro is being introduced, is it not necessary to consider the creation of a currency of knowledge?
Mr President, my congratulations to Mr Perry and to the Commission for bringing forward this report which is, as we know, very important and it points the way forward for the future.
Education is a crucial element in building a society for the future, both vibrant economies and successful and happy communities.
It is as important in a European-wide field as it is to individual countries.
Mr Elchlepp has already spoken about funding and I believe that there is no better use of European money, no fairer way of distributing resources than to put it into education.
I think we ought to be looking again at some of the ways we spend our European money.
For example, we put some of it into tobacco subsidies and we put it into bull fighting.
I think we should be redirecting that money into something really useful like education rather than indefensible areas.
Recently a vast amount of money has gone into Monetary Union and we know that there is some opposition to that but there is massive enthusiasm for the education programmes of Europe and by comparison, I have to say, very little money.
I want to talk particularly about three paragraphs: 26, 30 and 31.
Paragraph 26 talks about languages and this, I believe passionately, is the crucial medium of communication and the most vibrant and valuable identity definer especially for smaller countries.
It is true that some languages are more powerful than others but as Mr Alavanos has said we must respect the rich language diversity in Europe and also, I would say, reject artificial languages and resist those who look to suppress variants.
I would like to talk on paragraph 30 but I have not got time and Mrs Vaz Da Silva has said it so eloquently so I will leave that one.
Paragraph 31 is a very important point.
In particular it talks about civic education and this is very important for my own country, the United Kingdom, where there is an appallingly low level of understanding of the democratic process.
We must invest in education of this sort for our young people to build an understanding of the democratic processes and encourage people to understand and participate.
That is as important a factor in building a united Europe as anything.
We must protect those areas, we must develop them and I look forward with great anticipation to the new Commission proposals.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would first like to congratulate Mr Perry on his exhaustive report and say that it has come at a particularly opportune time because, at the moment, we are - quite rightly - not doing anything except talk about the European monetary system and financial issues, and tomorrow we have an important vote to cast.
However, it is absolutely essential to talk about a Europe of knowledge and to resolve to create a true European educational system in which priority is given to knowledge, citizenship and the development of employment skills, all issues requiring effective promotion of education and training.
There is certainly something to be said about Mr Perry's report. The main thing is the way it has been sidelined by the Commission.
On a bitter note, we can see immediately that the document has been forwarded with a certain amount of delay, and this is always a problem: Parliament is called to give its opinion late on the Commission's decisions.
I would like to hope that this will not happen any more because the proposals drawn up by the European Parliament - which is after all made up of Members elected by the people of Europe - are extremely important.
We are all aware of the importance of the topics we are examining, and it is therefore fundamental that we work hand-in-hand.
Mr President, I would like to thank our rapporteur for a very comprehensive report which I think has brought together all the feelings and the interests that we have as a committee.
I will try not to repeat any except the necessity of incorporating the European dimension in education.
In that I think, Madam Commissioner, that you can lead as a facilitator although of course it is naturally up to nation states to build that into their national curriculum.
We talk incessantly about the globalization of the economy and yet we constrain our young people within a very national curriculum; that clearly has to change if we mean what we say about them becoming employable in a global economy and in particular in a European single market.
All that you can do is to emphasize to Member States that they build into every subject that European dimension - that in mathematics they learn who Pythagoras was, where he came from and the contribution that somebody like him made to mathematics as a whole.
Mr Evans picked up a key point in Mr Perry's report on the need for civic education which again is critical in terms of ensuring that our young people understand the society within which they live.
On behalf of the Federal Trust and the Secondary Schools Association of the European Union I would like to thank you, Madam Commissioner, and your Directorate-General for the invaluable support that you have given to a project on citizenship.
It has enabled this project to develop teaching materials on citizenship, and European citizenship in particular, containing a whole module on European democracy and in particular this Parliament.
I believe it should have disseminated across our secondary schools in the European Union as a matter of urgency before the European elections next year.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Protection of minors in audiovisual and information services
The next item is the report (A4-0153/98) by Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Recommendation concerning the protection of minors and human dignity in audiovisual and information services (COM(97)0570 - C4-0670/97-97/0329(CNS)).
Mr President, this is the first substantial debate which we have had since the grand arguments over television without frontiers on the costs and benefits of the new information services.
The services that are offered - more or less, point-to-point, on-line, and now in the wonderful random universe of the Internet - we acknowledge can expand horizons: they cross every border, they enter every home, directly or indirectly they influence us all.
They can multiply almost to infinity the range of information and educational exchanges.
It can be the best of times, but we need to be vigilant that it is not the worst of times too at the hands of those who use these services, not to enable and to enrich but to exploit, degrade and to threaten human dignity.
This is a debate as old as human society itself: the debate about how that society is enriched.
When I was a student I sat at the feet of Sir Isaiah Berlin in Oxford and heard his lectures on the two concepts of Liberty: positive and negative liberty, freedom to and freedom from.
Freedom to expand horizons, to be challenged, to communicate, and freedom from others who invade our space and destroy the integrity of our lives.
It is the balance, if you like, between Article 10 and Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
How do we reconcile these?
I welcome the fact that Parliament and the Commission have come together in this matter and have been given full support by the Council under the presidency of my own country and, indeed, before that.
We are coming together, as the Member States have done, to acknowledge a common aim in pursuing the pedlars of illegal material and the systems through which, freed from restraints of time or scarcity, they can sometimes entrap the young and the vulnerable.
The vulnerable are not always the young and the young are not always the vulnerable.
We need vigilance and we need cooperation between police forces in the Member States who can be effective against illegal material, be it child pornography or race hatred, throughout our Community and, indeed, beyond.
There is much that is not illegal and for which a free society should have tolerance but which can, nevertheless, be harmful to some.
Following very much along the lines of the recommendation from the Commission, and I welcome the fact that two directorates have come together with a convergent recommendation in this matter, and an action plan. This is a wonderful state of affairs, for which we are deliriously happy now.
We call in the report for a process whereby technical development and convergence go hand in hand with a monitoring review of the way in which these different services operate.
That is what the report from the Commission essentially recommends. It should be on the basis of self-regulation responsibly exercised by service and content providers with the maximum linkage to domestic filtering schemes - like the PICs scheme in my own country - and the close involvement of citizens' initiatives like the Internet Watch schemes pioneered in the Netherlands and elsewhere.
The recommendation and the action plan invite the Member States to be proactive, to promote research, to involve teachers as well as parents and to facilitate the exchange of information.
These are worthy aims.
The four-point plan set forth in the proposal for the Commission to bring about definitions of good practice, to facilitate research, the sharing of experience, the linkage with the authorities of law and order are wholly commendable.
The Birmingham assizes under the UK presidency address this issue.
I should like to congratulate my very old friend, Mark Fisher, for his work with our Secretary of State, Chris Smith, to see that this proposal has a fair wind through the Culture Council in May.
Commissioner Oreja, I am delighted to have you with us.
We listened to you with interest in Birmingham a few weeks ago.
We are grateful, also, for the support of your team from DG X who are alongside you tonight, and I am grateful for the work of my colleagues and my two assistants who have worked on this report.
Our recommendations and our amendments are pretty self-evident also.
I pass over the sonorous platitudes which every report has in the recommendations in the preambles and turn only to the more hard-edged recommendations for toughening up the four points at the end of the report.
Commissioner, I hope you can address, in particular, Amendment No 19 which calls for an evaluation report by the Commission to be placed before Parliament and the Council within two years.
We hope you can commend this as a measure of the effectiveness, and not merely the effects, of self-regulation with an indication of what further measures may be necessary.
It is precisely that form of precautionary scrutiny aimed at bringing the best out of the self-regulators of tomorrow which will be a benchmark for those efforts.
They, of course, may fail.
Colleagues have evidence of failures in other fields where it has probably been the hacker rather than the huckster involved up until now.
We hope they succeed.
But whether they do or do not, we have to make certain that Parliament and the Commission together have played their part.
They and we travel hopefully, but warily, down the electronic highway together.
Mr President, firstly we need to applaud the Commission for taking action as much as for its intentions: it does not duck issues in a field where the Community is not really competent to act.
Secondly, I will deal with the request to discuss measures already existing at Community level: we have already adopted the "Television without frontiers' directive which rules that no programme should seriously harm the physical, mental and moral development of minors. This particularly concerns programmes containing scenes of violence, pornography or gratuitous violence.
Various joint actions have already been undertaken.
More specifically, we are encouraging exchange programmes between people responsible for combating the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children. Another joint action within the same field aims to combat racism and xenophobia.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights believes it necessary to extend all three joint actions, and also the Europol Convention to specifically include the protection of minors and human dignity within the audiovisual and information services, and to adapt the legal system accordingly. It believes all this to be very important.
The Commission's proposal mentions the protection of minors and the protection of dignity.
It is not just a question of protecting minors, but also of protecting human dignity. This applies to everyone, not just minors.
Sooner or later we need to make a thorough examination of the present-day pornographic industry, which can reach out to a potentially larger market through new information media, particularly the Internet. We must understand this change is motivated by money and not freedom of thought.
I think these issues must be tackled. Recent news events show that persistent, obsessive pornographic messages are closely connected with serious acts of violence that have occurred recently, which include extreme forms of violence against minors.
For these reasons, while accepting the Commission's proposal, I think that in future we need to emphasize the need for wider reflection on the entire subject of pornography. We should not be content with self-regulation but should implement effective regulations.
Mr President, the report we are now dealing with leads us into a very important discussion of principles.
Two fundamental values are set against each other: the need to protect our children against damaging materials, such as violence and pornography on the one hand, and on the other, the principle of freedom of expression, something we Swedes care greatly about.
It is important to emphasize the value of new technology and the Internet from the point of view of information.
There are not only advantages but disadvantages as well with the new technology.
One of the advantages is that people who, for reasons of geography or culture, have not had access to information, libraries or bookshops can now take in what information they wish.
Once one has learnt to navigate on the Net, it is like wandering around the world's biggest and best library.
The Internet may, however, also be a source of disinformation which can have serious consequences, especially for the weaker members of society.
I am thinking of the children.
Freedom of speech is a sacred principle, but it cannot be applied at the cost of our children's right to grow up harmoniously.
It is very difficult to set up joint rules on illegal material.
It will be even more difficult to agree on how to define the concept of "damaging' .
I support my party friend Mr Whitehead's proposal on joint rules for marking lists of contents with the aim of simplifying the identification of illegal and damaging contents.
I also support a regular review of a system of self-regulation and a review of this action plan after two years.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media we have been very clear about Mr Whitehead's report, so when we examined it on 23 April we approved it unanimously.
I must make two clarifications, following on from what my colleague Mr Casini said, about our views on this protection.
We have to consider on the one hand the protection of minors from certain contents which can affect their physical or moral development and, on the other hand, the protection of human dignity from illegal content, which is banned throughout society, regardless of the age of the potential recipients, and which goes against the very foundations of society: specifically, as I said, our dignity.
As the rapporteur states in his magnificent report, the new communication media offer their content to any user anywhere at any time. That has to be regulated to retain protection for the weakest.
But let us not forget that the Member States regulate this matter, and therefore this regulation is not enough unless it is accompanied by active government policy. Without promoting cooperation between the police and the judicial authorities, it might be possible to limit the excesses, but it would not be possible to put an end to the illegal activities.
There have to be minimum guidelines, based on four key elements: consultation, a code of good practice, national authority and regular review.
Those are the objectives the European Union is proposing.
Will it all work in practice? At least we agree that it is worth a try.
And, Mr President, at least so far, we have an enormous degree of consensus.
Mr President, Commissioner, the subject we are dealing with this evening seems to me to be extremely important and I wish to take up an idea already expressed by Mr Carlo Casini, namely, that the audiovisual and information services industry cannot disregard respect for human dignity and, above all, the protection of minors.
The idea of protecting human dignity is therefore of paramount importance.
Member States should therefore assess their own national systems by applying a procedure drawn up at European level. The idea would be to promote national self-regulation of on-line services while also testing other new means of protecting minors.
Apart from these technical and operational methods, we also need to continue to stimulate and encourage adequate training and education for minors and families in the use of new digital resources. If we fail to adopt a two-pronged approach, nothing will be of any use.
It is therefore important for all Europe to adopt a common moral approach to the information society.
It is right for each of the Member States to be responsible for its own internal affairs and it is perhaps important for states that have already adopted these types of regulations to be able to provide models for others.
For example, Italy has recently adopted a code of conduct that regulates the relationship between the television industry and minors and it seems to me this is moving things along in the right direction.
Mr President, when we speak of preserving human dignity and protecting the under-aged in audiovisual services we are in a very sensitive area.
It is easy to see it as a black and white issue, where there is support, on the one hand, for freedom of expression and a condemnation of censorship, and on the other, for the protection of children and a condemnation of greedy, commercial exploitation.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Philip Whitehead, whose report balances the points of view splendidly and goes into the problem in depth, at the same time skilfully managing not to bring the two attitudes to a head.
I believe that we all broadly agree on the need for protection, as it stands.
The police and the judicial powers in different Member States are becoming aware of the need for closer cooperation in prohibiting, for example, illegal or in any way harmful, offensive or fraudulent material on the Internet.
A new media industry, however, requires a new approach.
The old, paternal-style control from on high simply will not work with the new services, and the Commission suggests self-regulation as a solution to the problem.
In an action plan, governments are urged to promote self-regulation through an extensive network of cooperation.
This really must lead to the creation of an industry, rights of use and services with providers.
An alternative approach is the creation of custom and practice regulations on a national level, and it would then be the duty of the Commission to coordinate and support a network of national self-regulatory systems and information sharing.
Self-regulation is certainly to the benefit of all enlightened service providers, but are all service providers so enlightened? If they were, the problem would be eliminated.
But self-regulation on its own is not always enough.
There must also be the desire to establish international standards that are effective, but which, at the same time, take stock of cultural differences.
No internationally-based agreement can work unless there is practical commitment through ongoing cross-border partnership.
Mr President, information technology is indeed progressing in leaps and bounds and is dismantling the technology of the state of law at national level, while the state of law at European level is simply marking time.
At the moment we are lacking the means of researching and intervening in these issues, as Mr Whitehead quite rightly described, and for this reason we are lacking the organized will to carry it out.
The Commission's proposals are adapted to our weaknesses.
Mr Whitehead put it well and was right in proposing that we strengthen the measures to control the monitoring of self-regulation.
However, I do not believe in these measures, I do not have faith in them; they will not produce any results.
Perhaps the Commission, operating as a think tank, could draw up a scenario, as it has done in the past, on what we would do if, in fact, we had a politically united Europe with a truly European state of law. How would we react to this attempt to surrender our children to the powers of profit and money and to total indifference to anything else?
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Phillip Whitehead on his report.
He has worked with great speed and erudition and shown a clear understanding of the issues and great complexities involved.
On the one hand he has encouraged creativity and commercial success on the Internet, but he has also defended freedom of expression, respecting privacy and reconciling this with the need to defend human dignity and protect minors.
As Phillip himself has said, in a generally literate climate there will always be those who will want to trade in cruelty and fear in order to debauch society.
It seems possible that everyone can go almost everywhere on the Internet.
People can often go where they did not intend to go.
A teacher recently informed me that in her class children were able to access adult material the minute her back was turned.
In another class an innocent search using a pop group's name led them into material that would be illegal for adults to download.
Obscenity is clearly endangering the benefits of the Internet.
Because of fears such as this parents tell me that they may buy their children a PC but not the modem that will give them access to the world-wide web.
This is the real problem that we have to address.
The Internet has a great potential to be an educational tool, a means by which our citizens can communicate across frontiers, bringing Europe closer together, a vital tool of citizenship, a complement to public service broadcasters, a window on open government, a means of addressing the powerful.
But it will never be any of these things unless parents can be confident that they can leave their children alone with a PC and a modem.
What is the role of the European Union? As we advance into the dilemmas posed by online services the European Union has a vital role to play in developing the Internet as a citizenship tool.
It can enable us to maximize transfrontier cooperation.
In a medium that is still developing it can enable us to share the very best practice.
Mr Whitehead rightly places emphasis on a systematic review of how national systems of self-regulation are working.
He is also right to call for an assessment after two years as to whether regulatory action is needed.
Self regulation, as you heard Mr Oreja in Birmingham, always needs oversight of last resort if the self-regulators should falter or even fail.
Most important, I believe, is Amendment No 6 where Mr Whitehead reminds us that competition is not the be-all and end-all of human endeavour.
Industry has a responsibility to the wider society.
If the Internet is to move into every home, we need to look to the communications industries now for effective means of ensuring that self-regulation and maybe regulation exist to ensure that the Internet is both safe and beneficial to all our citizens.
I look forward, thanks to the collaboration between the Commission and Parliament, to an early adoption of this recommendation under the UK Presidency, particularly with the blessing of British Ministers Chris Smith and Mark Fisher.
Mr President, about 20 years ago I was talking to an elderly gentleman about the generation gap.
He said to me: ' Of course there is a generation gap.
The only exposure I had as a child to anywhere outside the street where I lived in Cork was when we went down to a neighbour's house and put our ears up to an old steam radio and heard somebody far away singing 'When the red red robbin comes bob bob bobbing along'.
Look at what my grandchildren are seeing now.'
He was, of course, at that stage referring only to the television.
We are extremely happy to totally support Mr Whitehead's excellent report.
As has already been said, it was supported unanimously in committee.
I am also conscious, as somebody who still has not managed to crack this system, of the difficulty for all of us in legislating for such a volatile and dynamic medium.
Parents are rightly concerned.
Unfortunately, just as with the television set, it is not always possible to leave your children alone.
Many voluntary groups concerned about the material which is undoubtedly appearing and, as Carole Tongue has rightly said, is very easily accessible need to go back to some of the most simple rules when, whether you can understand it or not, you try to accompany your children on some of their journeys into cyberspace.
You might not quite understand what is going on, you might have to pretend you understand, but the mere fact that they are aware that you are interested and with them might in itself be a very useful way in which we can deal with this.
All to frequently almost on a daily basis we see evidence that children have become desensitized by some of the material they have been exposed to, both on the Internet and on our television screens.
Often with deeply tragic results.
I wish to join the chorus of praise for Mr Whitehead.
This was a totally unanimous report.
None of us have any problems in supporting the points he made and we hope very much that the effectiveness of voluntary regulation will be demonstrated as soon as we get the first report.
Mr President, the issue we are debating is something more than just important, as everyone has said, and it behoves us to extend our warmest congratulations to Mr Whitehead on his meticulous work.
I wish to stress that our group fully supports his proposals, which were adopted unanimously in the relevant committee.
The protection of minors and the protection of human dignity in audiovisual services and in information services in general is a very important issue in an age of electronic convergence.
This protection is urgent and necessary, when we bear in mind the type of illicit material which has begun to circulate widely on international networks.
The Commission recommends that the Member States work towards a national framework of self-regulation, encourage the experimental implementation of new methods to protect children and help to make parents aware, and other related measures.
It also seeks a code of conduct from industry, while the Commission itself is called upon to facilitate the networking of those authorities which have undertaken to determine and implement national networks of self-regulation and to facilitate measures against illicit material.
The rapporteur for his part provides significant clarifications concerning self-regulation and judges it desirable to advance European cooperation to strengthen the effectiveness of technical measures and to determine a common ethical approach.
We must see how best to achieve this approach - its weaknesses have already been highlighted by certain quarters - and this is a fundamental aim, since it must be achieved over and against all the other pressures and possible interests.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, some debates are especially pleasing, and this is one of them.
It is pleasing firstly, because this is an important matter which affects the European model of society; secondly, because it achieved unanimity in committee; and thirdly, because it is practically identical to the Commission's earlier proposal.
So I have to say it is with great satisfaction that I am here for this debate, to listen to the Members and see how we are tackling this important matter, with a much-needed on-line programme, and with determination and decision.
We would like to go further, because self-regulation might not be enough, but this is all we can do at the moment.
The truth is, I think this is a good beginning - a good start to what we need to do.
Next I want to congratulate in particular Mr Whitehead.
He has done extremely good work, and has given a masterly presentation of it here today.
It is also important because it is not one of those routine reports that Members have to do. It is the result of Mr Whitehead's conviction.
He has done this because of his conviction, and that is why he has also been able to convince other people. I sincerely congratulate him on the work he has done, both as rapporteur for the Green Paper on the protection of minors and human dignity and in this recommendation.
I also think there has been excellent collaboration between Parliament and the Commission right from the outset.
I hope that continues in the future, as regards this subject and others, but especially in connection with this one.
I think this recommendation is an important step for the European Union for several reasons. My first reason is of a general nature.
On several occasions, I have mentioned the importance of the ethical dimension of the information society.
Things are happening today, such as the euro coming into force, which has now become a reality.
However, together with this and other events, such as the internal market, there is something we cannot forget: a final political project based on ethical limitations.
We would not achieve anything, no matter how much progress we make with economic or monetary problems, without an ethical project to guide our actions.
This is just that sort of project.
It also seeks to provide a high level of protection of general interests, which is also one of the European Union's priorities. It addresses what I referred to at the beginning of my speech: the meaning of the European model of society.
I think that is one of the things which should concern us at a time like this.
The European social model is not the same as others, as we are seeing all the time.
We must stick up for and protect that European model of society, and this recommendation and this report address precisely that idea and that model of society.
Furthermore, it is also essential - nobody could doubt this - to increase the competitiveness of audiovisual and information services, since that helps to create the climate of confidence necessary for their development.
And in that sense the protection of minors - our children and the citizens of the future - is essential, so they can grow up in a suitable audiovisual environment.
I want to underline something many of the speakers here have said. There is concern to protect minors, but it is not just a question of minors, but also of protecting human dignity.
Mr Whitehead said so, and so did Mr Casini and Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes.
Many speakers have mentioned what this concern about human dignity means, not just for the protection of children - which is very important - but also for the individual as such, who has a right to that suitable environment.
Another important aspect of this recommendation is the scope of its application and the nature of the instrument being created.
I think the European Union has managed to provide itself quickly with a legal instrument for audiovisual and information services, as well as for the new on-line services such as those available on the Internet.
The European Union has clearly demonstrated its ability to react.
I think we are sometimes criticized for being unable to react immediately, but we have done so here. We have reacted and we have reacted quickly.
When the Green Paper was approved, in October 1996, the new on-line services scene posed many questions about how to apply the law. The people involved were themselves often defeated by the challenges and legal complexity of on-line services, beyond the simple statement that anything illegal off-line is also illegal on-line, as must be the case.
In other words, it made no sense to treat the two things differently.
And the work that people have been doing has achieved a consensus, which was so badly needed.
At the moment, the new industry demands a high level of protection of general interests. It is not a matter of questioning the existing set of regulations.
The question is how to facilitate the application of the laws so that the new agents can work in an orderly fashion to produce codes of practice, which is something that was mentioned in all the contributions.
And the keyword is selfregulation, a word which, although delimited by the legal framework, always turns out to be indispensable.
Furthermore, the recommendation is the first legal instrument to refer to the content of the new on-line audiovisual services. It is also a new normative focus for the definition of guidelines for national measures, to prevent the appearance of guidelines which might be too restrictive for this new industry or, perhaps, too disparate to allow the free movement of services.
In his report, Mr Whitehead also takes the self-regulation approach. He recognizes its advantages while also stressing of course, in a completely justified manner, its limits.
The judicial and police responsibilities - the competences of the law enforcement authorities - need to be developed in parallel. We must also develop the use of content labelling and filtering schemes.
Most of all, there is a need for monitoring and supervision. We must evaluate how the recommendation is being applied, and do so very carefully.
The rapporteur proposes some amendments to the text which specifically address this aspect and the Commission's intentions. In my opinion, these amendments perfectly reflect the spirit of the recommendation.
I think the last amendment deserves special attention.
It invites the Commission to present Parliament and the Council with an evaluation report on the implementation and effectiveness of the recommendation.
Several of the speakers have mentioned this, particularly Miss Tongue.
I want to say here in this Chamber that I will try to make sure that Parliament's wishes on this point are respected in the final text which may be approved by the Council on 28 May. I must add that in satisfying Parliament, it will also satisfy me, because I fully agree with this proposal put forward by Mr Whitehead.
Also, in the same amendment, the Commission is asked to organize regular consultations with the Member States.
I also want to say, Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Commission and with all the solemnity implied by a statement made in this Chamber, that the Commission intends to hold periodic meetings on its own initiative with the competent national authorities, as part of the regular monitoring of this recommendation's implementation.
Otherwise, I think it would be a little lame.
I think it is important not just to rely on the recommendation. I think we need this evaluation you have mentioned, on the one hand, and also this meeting with the relevant authorities, in order to find out exactly how far we have got and how things are progressing.
In conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, while the United States, for example, has to some extent failed to get over the Supreme Court's invalidation of the provisions for the protection of minors contained in the Communication Decency Act, I think the European Union has managed to provide itself quickly with a coherent instrument for audiovisual and information services, which can only help to guarantee a high level of protection for minors and human dignity on our continent.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Interim agreement on trade with Mexico
The next item is the report (A4-0156/98) by Mrs Miranda de Lage, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the interim agreement on trade and trade-related matters between the European Community, on the one part, and the United Mexican States, on the other part (COM(97)525-11619/1/rev. + 11620/1/97 rev. 1 - C4-0024/98-97/0281(AVC)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, the first comment I want to make is that today the United Mexican States make up a nation which, since the start of this decade, has been turning itself into a forceful and promising economy.
The effort to modernize production and the financial system has been accompanied by institutional modernization. In just a few years, the institutional and party system has undergone spectacular change.
Today the institutions are more diversified and participatory.
And as was demonstrated in the most recent elections, the Mexican people have made their choice without being tied by limitations based in the past, thereby becoming the real protagonists of modernity and change in a nation which is now the thirteenth economic power in the world.
My second comment concerns its ties to the various choices for regional integration and economic blocs.
Mexico plays an increasingly important role in the world economy.
Most notable is its membership of one of the most powerful trade and economic blocs in the world: NAFTA.
Almost 80 % of its exports are directed at the US market.
However you look at it, that degree of dependency is excessive. The reason is that, as is well-known, Mexico's economic autonomy has been reduced ever since 1994, because of the crisis which caused the United States to intervene in that country's economy.
That fact should not be allowed to detract from the good results being obtained with NAFTA, such as increased investment and industrial modernization - in short, economic awakening.
Nor should it be forgotten that in recent years Mexico has joined organizations such as the OECD or APEC.
But it would also be a good thing to have a fairer distribution of the economic boom and the current benefits.
My third comment concerns the relationship between the European Union and Mexico.
Our current ties are based on an agreement signed in 1991, the trade aspects of which are limited, and which is obsolete today for the reasons I have given.
I will repeat two of them: Mexico's links with NAFTA, which have significantly reduced our bilateral trade; and, secondly, the fact that Mexico's export pattern has changed so much that today only 9 % of exports to the EU come from the agricultural sector.
The European Parliament, following the recommendation of the Committee on External Economic Relations, indicated back in 1994 that the situation was beginning to attract attention. At that point, it requested that the Union should place more importance on its political relations and consider negotiating a free trade agreement to provide us with a more balanced presence in the region.
If Parliament ratifies this agreement, the negotiations to open up the markets will be able to start in 30 days' time.
Parliament's recommendations for the final phase were reflected in the explanatory statement and resolution on the communication which were approved in 1995, and should be included in the global agreement.
So we have several months ahead of us, and during that time Parliament will have the chance to follow the negotiations and their progress closely, and make a statement on the final result once negotiations have been completed.
My fourth comment is that this report has been prepared at a time when the situation is rather complex.
The violent events of the last few months, especially in the state of Chiapas, which have been condemned by all believers in democracy, have meant that this debate - of great importance politically and for the future, no matter how you look at it - has not been quite as relaxed as it might have been.
The inclusion of the democracy clause is a new element in the bilateral relationship, and is directly linked with the new Mexican reality I mentioned earlier.
The process announced in 1994 is still not finished but there has been obvious progress. It would be very short-sighted to deny that.
The fight for fairness, more effective justice, equal opportunities and regional development has still not been completed, nor the objectives achieved, but the same is true of our own societies.
The EU-Mexico agreement will contain progressive elements and compromises which can help with modernization, regional development, the fight to overcome inequalities and an improvement in the human rights situation.
We will be able to help with this.
In keeping with Parliament's positions, with the analysis of the current situation and with our policy of cooperation with Latin America, the Committee on External Economic Relations - which has the basic responsibility - the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Development and Cooperation have all recommended ratification, by a wide majority in each case.
However, our responsibility does not end there.
By means of parliamentary dialogue, established in the protocol signed by the chairman of the relevant delegation, Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, we have provided ourselves with an instrument to allow us to monitor the relationship and the progress of the signed undertakings, especially the democracy clause.
Mr President, I conclude by thanking everybody who has helped me: not only the draftsmen of opinions but other Members too, and members of the Committee on External Economic Relations and civil society. They provided elements which are reflected in the explanatory statement, which I believe should satisfy everybody.
Mr President, after congratulating the rapporteur, I would like to say that giving our assent for the interim agreement with Mexico is not the end of the road but the beginning of a new stage in relations between the EU and Mexico.
Because of its population, size and strategic nature, Mexico - which, under President Zedillo, is immersed in an unfinished process of reforms - is one of the powers of the American continent, and is a real bridge between the United States and Central America. It is also a privileged port of entry for all those foreign investments anxious to establish themselves in the emerging market of Latin America.
But like the other countries of Latin America, Mexico is not just a market, no matter how important.
This interim agreement, which concerns trade aspects, fits into a wider and more innovative scheme, such as the one the EU wants to establish in the face of the fickleness of other powers, giving total priority to political will.
The clearest expression of this priority appears in the democracy clause which inspires, or should inspire, all the areas of cooperation in this agreement. Parliament regards this clause as fundamentally important, and it is intended to be mandatory.
Parliament expressed its concern about the human rights situation in Mexico with its January resolution on the tragic events in Acteal. The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy wanted to reflect that concern in its opinion.
The committee also wanted to request that the voice of civil society be taken into account in some way when it comes to monitoring and evaluating this question, which is so sensitive and important.
To conclude, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur again on her work. I also want to remind people, Mr President, that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy unanimously recommended giving our assent for this interim agreement, not as a blank cheque but with the view that it will be a useful, valuable element to give EU-Mexican relations the importance they deserve.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on her work on this report.
Trade between the United States and Canada on one hand and Mexico on the other has been given a very considerable boost by its inclusion in NAFTA, following the Mexican economic crisis.
Without a new agreement with Europe, relations between Mexico would inevitably suffer in political, cultural and other spheres as well as commerce.
I have a strong antipathy to many aspects of what is described as economic modernisation, to neo-liberal policies, to deregulation and privatisation.
However, the globalization of our economies is an inevitable development and we in this Parliament must surely support an agreement which will help to stimulate trade between Mexico and Europe to our mutual benefit and help tilt the balance against Mexico becoming even more dependent on the United States.
In the European Parliament we have quite rightly adopted a strong stand on human rights issues.
We have passed a number of resolutions against suppressing the Zapatistas by force of arms, condemning the massacres of last December and appealing for greater social justice for those who are desperately poor, discriminated against and deprived of the communal rights to land.
We must continue to raise these issues for the very reason that we do care about the Mexican people.
The agreement will strengthen our power to do this; its rejection would lessen the attention paid to our views.
I very much hope that the Commission will fully recognize the importance of monitoring the human rights situation and stressing the deep concern that we feel.
I trust that some indication will be given to us this evening of the acceptance of this notion and how it will be put into practice.
In supporting this agreement I hope that it will assist development on both sides.
Many Mexicans, above all the indigenous population living in conditions of squalor and degradation without access to the means of obtaining a good standard of living, decent housing, proper education, adequate health care or full recognition as equal citizens, are at the present time demanding changes to provide all their citizens with their basic needs and we must express our solidarity with them and oppose attempts to crush them by violent means.
The government must, as it has pledged itself to do, pursue peaceful means to resolve the process by following it through to the end.
It must not blame the problem on foreigners, who are continually being deported at the present time.
We hope very much that the agreement will contribute to prosperity, from which all will benefit, and on this basis I hope that it will get the full support of this House.
Mr President, I want to acknowledge the work and effort put into this report by the rapporteur, Mrs Miranda de Lage.
Back in 1995, this Parliament recognized the need to broaden and deepen the scope of the agreement which still governs relations between the EU and Mexico because that agreement, dating from April 1991, does not satisfactorily address the new needs of the signatories. Parliament declared itself in favour of a negotiation strategy centred on the conclusion of a new political, commercial and economic agreement, to include strengthened political dialogue and the progressive, reciprocal liberalization of trade in goods and services and investment conditions.
I want to emphasize the inclusion of the democracy clause as an essential element of the agreement. This clause did not exist in the 1991 framework agreement.
With this clause, the signatories commit themselves to fulfilling their obligations in human rights, as well as social and environmental matters, which are very important in these countries of the American continent.
If they do not, the clause means that the agreement can become invalid.
In any case, I want to quote what I consider to be the key paragraph in this recommendation: "the imperative need for economic policy to reflect a firm desire to promote greater social equality and a political system that is genuinely democratic and pluralist and which respects human rights' .
That is what we really want for Mexico, a country which is so important for the European Union and greatly loved, especially by all Spanish speakers.
Mr President, my compliments go to Mrs Miranda.
The Liberal group will vote for the interim agreement.
This has not been an easy decision: the human rights situation in Mexico, we know, bloodbaths in Acteal, negotiations with the ZNLA have come to a standstill, the activities of paramilitary gangs go unchecked and unpunished, all these things continue to give cause for concern.
Nevertheless, we will vote for it, as the elections this year are the first step toward political pluralism and, moreover, the interim agreement contains a democracy clause and provisions are now being made for cooperation in the area of what is known as 'civil society' .
However, the situation continues to call for vigilance, as is illustrated by the difficulty the Mexican government had in accepting democracy in human rights clauses.
That is why we have to develop control mechanisms and the human rights clause must not remain a dead letter.
We have to use the clause and the whole agreement as an instrument for the modernization of Mexico.
The Union must insist very strongly that the Mexican government find a peaceful solution to the conflicts in Chiapas.
In addition, extensive cooperation between NGOs must put an end to human rights violations.
I want to put a question to the Commissioner: how does the Commission think it can ensure the dynamic implementation of the human rights clause? I invite the Commission to report on an annual basis on the human rights situation.
Mr President, as is almost always the case with delicate subjects, the decision is a difficult one. In this case, the discussions have been going on for a long time, and information has been received from the Mexican government, the pro-human rights NGOs, and so on.
There are reasons for voting in favour of assent, for example, the role Europe should play in Latin America generally and Mexico in particular; the fact that Mexico should diversify its trade and relations, so they are not, as they have been so far, 90 % with the United States, but so that trade with Europe can be extended; the fact that there are cultural and emotional ties, especially with the people of Spain, who will never forget that Mexico welcomed certain Spaniards after the Spanish Civil War; and the fact that Mexico's democracy is becoming stronger all the time.
Also, one of the paragraphs in Mrs Miranda de Lage's report clearly specifies that this agreement opens the way for cooperation in relation to financial aid for social programmes, programmes for the indigenous communities and programmes in favour of human rights.
Some of the conclusions of Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra's opinion also make it clear that there must be monitoring to make sure human rights are being complied with.
Nevertheless, as I said at the beginning of my speech, there are also reasons for a "no' vote. I have here a report from the International Civil Commission for the Observation of Human Rights.
It is certainly a very serious report. They interviewed not just members of the indigenous population, not just people who live close to the indigenous people - like Bishop Samuel Ruiz -, but also members of the government and the human rights attorney, Mr Madrazo, whom we met on one of the delegation's visits.
The report is dedicated to José Tila López and Trinidad Cruz, who were murdered after providing information about what was happening.
If we also think back to the massacre at Acteal and the circumstances surrounding it, we can conclude that there are also reasons for a "no' vote.
Nevertheless, we think that an active abstention would perhaps be the best approach. That does not mean you do not know what is happening.
It means constantly monitoring what happens after the agreements. Especially, Commissioner, if we manage to set up mechanisms to monitor compliance with the democracy clause and human rights, and if we also manage to get a report before the global agreement, to show us what progress has been made with human rights in Mexico.
Mr President, when we requested that a human rights clause be included in the new agreement with Mexico the government called it unacceptable interference in internal matters.
The same argument is now being used to expel international observers from Mexico.
Such diversions damage our confidence in future improvements in relations.
Yet the people of Mexico have high expectations of the new EU/Mexico relations, particularly where human rights are concerned.
We should not disappoint them.
The clause must not remain an insignificant piece of rhetoric and the agreement must not be a general absolution for the government.
We know that the Mexican government needs the approval of the treaty as a sign of international recognition as its reputation in its own country is diminishing constantly and we would very much like to give this approval if it helps human rights.
An important step would be a rapidly drawn-up report on the human rights situation. Is the Commission prepared to present such a report to the EP at short notice?
Will the Commission present an annual report to the Parliament?
Will it involve human rights groups in the drafting of the report?
Will there be someone in the EU delegation who is responsible specifically for human rights? How does the Commission wish to involve Mexico's civil society in political dialogue?
Without these elements we will not be able to approve a global agreement.
Then the interim agreement would not serve any purpose either.
We therefore urgently require specific information which is not based solely on statements from Mexico's government as, unfortunately, theory and practice have so far been too far apart there.
This is something we owe to ourselves and to Mexican society.
Mr President, Mexico has lived through major changes in recent years, at an economic and at a political level.
For instance, Mexico has become a member of NAFTA. While exports from the United States to Mexico have increased considerably as a result of this, exports from the European Union have decreased.
By and large, Mexico has become extremely dependent on the United States.
There are, therefore, economic reasons enough for the European Union to revise the 1991 framework agreement by means of the interim agreement proposed now.
The general agreement to be approved later will lead to a gradual liberalization of markets on both sides.
However, a number of comments do need to be made on this agreement.
I recognize the economic motives of the European Union, which wishes, of course, to strengthen its competitive position vis-àvis the United States.
I have to point out though that the balance of trade with the European Union still always shows a considerable deficit for Mexico.
It is open to question whether Mexico is ready to take on freer competition with the European Union at the moment.
The European Union really will have to look at home for solutions and really open up the Community market to Mexican exports.
I look forward to hearing whether the Commission and the Council do intend to do this.
In addition, we cannot ignore the gulf between rich and poor in Mexico which despite - or may I say, precisely because of - economic growth is getting bigger and bigger. It is good that the agreement addresses cooperation on social affairs and poverty as well as questions relating to refugees.
Whether this will be enough to allow the whole population to benefit from the agreement is questionable.
Time will tell.
Let us follow this closely and maintain contact on these issues, not only with the Mexican government, but also with social organizations which have to face reality on a daily basis.
That brings me, finally, to the question of human rights.
Social reality paints a harrowing picture.
There is the situation in Chiapas, where death squads have murdered thousands of Indians.
The suspicion still exists that these squads have contact with government troops.
The human rights clause which has been taken up in the agreement is something new which we can be pleased with.
To sum up: approval of the interim agreement is the best tactic now, but caution is still called for, both against too much greed on the part of the European Union and too little democracy and distribution of wealth in Mexico.
Mr President, in March I took part in a UK delegation studying human rights violations in Chiapas in southern Mexico and tonight, as we consider the EU-Mexico Agreement with its human rights clause, I want to describe the situation there.
Seven thousand new soldiers drafted in since December; one village I saw where there was one soldier for every family; where the army sites its barracks illegally and, in many cases, in schools, driving the teachers away and depriving the children of their education; repeated and extensive evidence of paramilitaries operating alongside the security forces, waging a dirty war against the civil population symbolized by the bloody massacre at Acteal where I heard that seven hours of bloodshed took place as the security forces stood doing nothing three hundred yards away; vicious and unwarranted attacks on brave human rights defenders; the Catholic priest accused of raping an old woman, of conducting black masses and of blessing arms when he and his colleagues simply seek to bring humanitarian aid across the lines of bitter division.
Foreign observers are systematically expelled and international aid is deliberately obstructed, and there is an economic war against the indigenous population shifting up to 17 000 people off their land.
I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Miranda, on bringing forward this interim agreement, allowing us to use the democracy and human rights clause before considering the full agreement.
To the European Parliament and the Commission I ask that we establish a permanent mechanism to monitor and report back on the human rights situation in Chiapas and the rest of Mexico - one which incorporates NGOs involved in the defence of human rights and which offers them increased direct European support.
To the Mexican Government I say: you tell us you wish to end excessive militarization, to disarm the armed groups, to welcome bona fide international assistance and to promote the rights of indigenous people.
We in Europe can work with you to achieve those aims.
It is a test of your commitment to this agreement whether you do so.
Mr President, I congratulate my colleague, Ana Miranda de Lage, on her report, and I have no hesitation in supporting her proposal that this House declare itself in favour of the agreement between the European Union and Mexico.
This will contribute to the restoration of the emphasis on economic relations between the two parties, although we must express our concern at the relative loss we have been sustaining as a commercial partner. For example, we have seen trade fall from 11 % in 1990 to 6 % in 1996.
This has been a natural consequence of Mexico's commercial preference for other countries which are her partners in a free trade area, in this case as a member of NAFTA.
But the prospects opening up in this area are in turn an additional attraction, and Europe must be in a position to obtain wider benefits from the effects of the growth expected for member countries.
Apart from an understandable European interest, it will certainly be of great interest to the Mexicans, with greater opportunities in the biggest world market, the European market, and a corresponding reduction in their dependency on a single country, the United States of America, whose share of Mexican trade rose from 69.3 % in 1993 to 75.5 % in 1996.
It should also be emphasized that the agreement with the European Union covers fields such as competitive tenders in publicsector buying, intellectual property and respect for democratic principles, that are not taken into account in NAFTA, which has a strictly commercial philosophy.
Our political concern, as expressed later in Article 1, should serve to dispel the reservations expressed by some in the light of the difficulties experienced by the country's authorities.
It is not, therefore, a question of ignoring the problems. On the contrary, we are trying to open a way which will contribute to solving them.
On the economic side, the rules on public-sector buying should be emphasized, because this is an area of interest to both parties, and may be especially interesting to European entrepreneurs, with good opportunities in a market which we hope will expand accordingly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the interim agreement on trade and trade-related matters between the European Community and Mexico, being considered for ratification by Parliament today, constitutes an essential stage in the ambitious journey we embarked on three years ago now, which should culminate in the approval of the global agreement on economic collaboration, political coordination and cooperation.
Both agreements belong in the framework of European strategy towards Latin America, which we designed in 1995, and which is resulting in the adoption of policies adapted to the different protagonists within the region, depending on their particular characteristics and specific circumstances.
In that context, the new situation in Mexico has stimulated the European Union to define a different relationship of a strategic nature, based on reciprocity and association, built on a basis of shared interests. These include: the interest in helping to build an international community based on democratic principles, the rule of law and full respect for human rights; the interest in reasserting in the international debate that it is possible to conclude bilateral trade agreements which are compatible with the World Trade Organization; the interest in invigorating our economies and thereby promoting the growth of world trade; and finally, the interest in consolidating our respective presences in geographical areas of mutual importance.
That is how Parliament saw things back in 1995, when Mrs Miranda de Lage presented her report, which in the last analysis is what allowed us to provide the necessary political impetus to progress towards more ambitious objectives.
In that sense, Mrs Miranda de Lage, the Commission wishes to congratulate you once again. I must say that as regards the description of the political background and the Motives - with a capital "M' - justifying Parliament's assent to this agreement, the European Commission fully agrees with your reasoning.
I now want to reflect briefly on certain aspects some of you have raised.
Firstly, we are talking today about the interim agreement. The aim of the interim agreement is to enable the Commission to carry out negotiations to establish a free trade area between the European Union and Mexico.
To answer some of your doubts, of course the European Parliament will have to give its final opinion once the negotiations have been concluded, because a decision will also have to be taken on the final global agreement.
Of course it is entirely possible for you to establish a monitoring mechanism, as suggested by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, Mr Bertens and somebody else, I am not sure whether it was Mr Howitt or Mr Newens. You have the opportunity for discussion, dialogue and meetings.
To address the arguments which have been used for or against accepting this agreement, you will not be surprised by what I am about to say, because you know me well enough. Given a choice between dialogue or breaking off relations, I prefer dialogue.
What sense is there in saying "no' ? Will we automatically resolve the Chiapas problem if we say no to Mexico?
Of course not. I would even say to those people who have reservations and propose active or positive abstention that by choosing dialogue and accepting cooperation we can, through negotiation, resolve certain problems in this new framework of political cooperation.
I will tell you something else. I have had a direct meeting with the representatives of CONAI and, in particular, with Bishop Samuel Ruiz.
CONAI is in favour of this agreement.
In other words, the organization which protects the interests of the indigenous people of Chiapas is in favour of this agreement, because it sees this political dialogue as a useful mechanism.
Finally, I want to remind you that the Troika, in the Rio group, has already had a very intense session in Panama, in which Mexicans and Europeans exchanged opinions about the Chiapas problem.
And it was extremely useful.
I also want to remind you that you organized a hearing on the Chiapas question here in Parliament, with the participation of civil society, NGOs and also the Mexican government, and that deserves thanks.
At least with us - the European Union - the Mexican government is respecting the rules.
So regardless of any reservations people might have about human rights and the Chiapas situation - and nobody denies that there is a problem there, not just to do with indigenism but also to do with marginalization and poverty -, this agreement, because of its democracy clause and mechanisms for political cooperation, also establishes elements of dialogue which are extremely useful for our privileged relationship with the Mexicans.
I will conclude by mentioning something I think is important, which most of the speakers have referred to: the Mexico of the Zedillo era is going to be a different Mexico.
I have inherited the 1991 agreement, and the Mexico of the Salinas administration was not the same as the Mexico of the Zedillo administration.
We must recognize that fact.
There have been changes which would have been unimaginable a little while ago.
Mr Howitt spoke of the Acteal massacre, but that massacre, which was carried out by paramilitary forces, has also had political repercussions in Mexico.
The Interior Minister and the State Governor were removed from office.
Knowing the history of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the fact that the President sacked the Interior Minister and the State Governor represents a qualitative change in policy which deserves recognition.
So, with the "yes' with abstention, the "yes' for reasons of political vision and the "yes' because of problems of economic balance, the Commission thinks this is an extremely useful instrument for organizing a political dialogue on the delicate subject of human rights and the problems of indigenism in Mexico, and that if used properly - with respect and a sense of its usefulness - it can be extremely useful for resolving this problem.
As regards the vision of the future in economic terms, I go along with the description given by Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra in his speech.
We find Mexico very interesting for the reason you indicated: it is a solid platform, which is recovering from the "tequila effect' and which, within NAFTA, represents a significant opportunity for the European Union, which is what we want to make the most of.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Community customs code
The next item is the report (A4-0149/98) by Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 establishing the Community customs code (transit) (COM(97)0472 - C4-0489/97-97/0242(COD)).
Mr President, the immediate reason which led to the revision of the Community customs code was the report by the committee of enquiry of the European Parliament into fraud in customs transit.
The approaching completion of the internal market, increasing complexity, the lagging behind of computerization in the customs services and the extremely high indirect taxes on some products create problems in the handling of customs transit.
We are talking here about products like cigarettes, one of the so-called susceptible products on which there is a great deal of profit to be made if they are 'lost' and sold on the black market.
The Commission proposes a number of measures to clarify and simplify the laws.
Parliament heartily endorses that.
Let there be no misunderstanding on that.
The measures which the Commission wants to take can be divided up into three groups: revision of the legislation; better cooperation between the customs services in the Member States; and computerization of the communications between customs services, the new computerized transit system.
It is unacceptable at a time when the Commission is running so many programmes to get business and industry to computerize, that we go into the 21st century with customs services with 20th century technology.
I estimate that we are three years behind, Commissioner, and that it will be 2003 rather than 2000.
Is it true that as important a country as Germany has refused to take part in the pilot project which has already been simplified? How can the Commission solve that one?
The revised legislation lies before us.
I am not going to go into all the details.
The most important point from the Commission's proposals is that they want to trim down the customs code and they want to transfer the formulation of the regulations to the procedure of the customs code committee.
Of course, Parliament can see the advantages of that system for the Commission, namely greater flexibility and speed.
So naturally Parliament would like to cooperate where possible.
However, Parliament also sees disadvantages, for example that the regulations can be changed on a regular basis which involves uncertainty for parties in the market, without any opportunity for Parliament and industry to stand at bay.
In principle, the Commission can take very radical decisions which I, as rapporteur, think should not be left to the committee.
The two most important examples of this are the rules for the provision of security, including the test of reliability, Article 94, and the limiting of opportunities for Member States to introduce simplified procedures, Article 97.
Why is Parliament not completely behind the Commission's proposals which look so reasonable? Once again, Parliament is completely out of the picture in the committee procedure.
In itself, that is no great disaster and it could have advantages.
Still I have opted to continue to include essential points in the code and only to leave implementation provisions to the committee.
My attitude, Commissioner, would have been different if business and industry could have been guaranteed a clear say in any changes introduced by the Commission, for example by being included in the code; not the feeble surrogate say which is now on offer and does not give industry a chance.
Since no better arrangements can be guaranteed anywhere else, I have tried in the report to find the right balance between flexibility and democratic control by the European Parliament.
Apart from this demand, which in our eyes is justified, Parliament has been extraordinarily cooperative, both towards the Council and the Commission.
That is why we are convinced that both these bodies could demonstrate understanding of Parliament's standpoint which is based on democratic arguments.
We know the Commissioner to be a good democrat and so have confidence in the outcome.
There is no shifting Parliament on the issue of democracy.
It became clear during the discussions with the Commission and the Council that the Commission cannot accept Articles 92 and 97.
It appears that the Council stands behind Parliament on Article 92.
The Committee on Budgetary Control of our Parliament let it be known in its letter of 22 April that it wants to follow my proposals.
Since it looks as if the common position will be close to Parliament's standpoint, I urgently request the Commissioner to adjust his standpoint in the direction of Parliament and the Council.
Article 97 is more difficult, I think, and Article 97 above all things is a crucial point for Parliament.
In order to amend this article, the Commission will have to come back to Parliament at some time in the future.
We do not want it to be done in a committee procedure. This is because this guarantees business and industry a fair chance of being heard when real changes are being made.
I am not prepared to compromise on this point, Commissioner.
So I am hoping for your good will.
It would damage the very nature of our people's representation without the European Commission making any attempt at all to put something in its place for business and industry.
Mr President, let me just raise one question of principle which I often tend to do when speaking on issues such as this.
It is about where the lines are to be drawn for the area of competence of this Parliament.
The Commission's proposal aims at simplifying customs procedures.
An important part of this simplification means moving decisions which at present fall within the customs code, that is the constitution itself, to a committee procedure.
The rapporteur is somewhat sceptical about this.
She does point out that it may mean greater flexibility, but there are risks with it as well; on the one hand, the committee may inadvertently make decisions for the economy; on the other hand - and maybe first and foremost - a committee procedure implies that this Parliament will no longer have the right to codecision in matters concerning customs code on transit.
May I say that I take a somewhat different view on this matter, despite standing politically to the left of the rapporteur.
My fundamental view is that Parliament should mainly occupy itself with working out general guidelines, that is, frameworks.
It should then hand over to committees of experts and authorities to work out the details.
One of the problems with our Parliament, I think, is that we occupy ourselves far too much with detail in areas where we really lack basic competence.
I can agree with the rapporteur that there are risks involved in allowing a committee of experts to work out the details.
"The devil is in the detail' as we say in Sweden.
I do not, however, think we should exaggerate these risks, as a committee of experts would, naturally, know all the requirements for commerce and industry.
I do not believe it realistic to imagine that a committee of experts who really know all the details in the case would put forward a proposal that would come as a total surprise to commerce and industry.
As to Parliament's insight, a committee of experts could, of course, turn in the completely opposite direction from what Parliament and the Commission may think, but then there is always the possibility for us to step in and alter the directives or regulations on such questions.
Let me highlight a problem that may occur.
It concerns Amendment No 5 from the rapporteur, dealing with the exemptions from giving economic security.
The Commission wishes to transfer this to the committee, briefly put, and let the committee decide which companies are to be trusted.
The rapporteur introduces a number of rules here.
She says, for example, that transports on the river Rhine or its tributaries should be granted permanent exemption.
I only ask, whether it is really reasonable to write into acts that transits on a certain waterway generally be granted exemption.
I lack expert knowledge in this particular matter, but I wish to use this to illustrate the problems that appear when legal texts are made too detailed.
Apart from that, I have no other objection to the rapporteur's excellent report.
Mr President, first I would like to thank the rapporteur for the very useful suggestions put forward in detail in this report.
One area of transit is the problem of fraud, which is quite a considerable one.
In the last year we have had 5 162 cases with a total loss of ECU 1.4 billion; this is a considerable sum and also represents an enormous cost for the EU budget.
Another area is the huge number of daily goods deliveries.
It is the role of customs to carry out inspections, to ensure smooth handling and to ensure that government revenue is correctly paid.
Senders and receivers want to transport their goods from A to B quickly and as simply and cheaply as possible; the forwarding agent also wants to transport the goods simply and cheaply.
We must bear in mind that in the European Union we are concerned primarily with small businesses, SMEs; for this reason procedures for the majority of goods transport must be as straightforward as possible.
There are of course sensitive areas, such as tobacco, alcohol and agriculture.
Here, procedures must of course be very strict and every care must be taken to ensure that there is no illegal trafficking.
While ensuring these sensitive procedures for an infinitely small sector of goods transport we must not, however, forget those for which procedures must be simple and practical.
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate Parliament, and particularly the rapporteur, Mr Peijs, and thank him for his excellent work and the good report he has drawn up on such a technical subject.
The revision of Community customs code provisions relating to transit is an important question as the new provisions will lay down fundamental principles for a deep-seated reform of customs procedures. Current procedures have led to numerous frauds that have resulted in considerable financial losses to the Community, individual Member States and businesses.
The Commission's proposals for transit reform are in line with the recommendations of Parliament's Committee of Inquiry.
Our aim is to protect public access and to offer businesses reliable means of safeguarding safety, flexibility and a free arena within which they can compete on equal terms.
Most of the amendments proposed by Mr Peijs are consistent with this approach and can therefore be accepted by the Commission, with two exceptions.
The first involves Amendment No 3, relating to release from the transit system.
The current regulations are not sufficiently clear with regard to the obligations of the customs authorities and operators' liabilities.
The Commission proposes that the operator's liability should end when he has performed his contractual obligations, in other words, on presentation of the goods and documents to the office of destination.
Release would thus take place at destination, even if the inspection to ensure that the operation has been conducted properly takes place in the country of departure.
The amendment tabled by the rapporteur does not specify the point at which the operator is released from his obligations and does not therefore improve on the current situation.
Release would, in fact, continue to depend on an administrative document issued by the office of departure.
The second amendment the Commission cannot accept is Amendment No 7.
This relates to a simplified transit procedure, which the Member States can establish through bilateral or multilateral agreements or apply to transit operations within their own national territory.
The Commission recognizes the need to ensure flexibility at Member State level, but considers that the fundamental principles of the transit procedure should always be observed, particularly the guarantees it offers.
The amendment proposed by Mr Peijs suggests that these fundamental principles do not need to be observed in the case of simplified procedures applied to national transit movements.
In other words, goods could be moved under the transit system, for example from Hamburg to Munich, without observing the Community transit guarantee system, or without any guarantee at all come to that.
But in a market without internal frontiers, how can we ensure that these goods do not end up in Vienna or Paris instead? Within the single market, the same guarantees should be applied to transits between Strasbourg and Bordeaux as to those between Strasbourg and Stuttgart, as the same financial interests are at stake in both situations.
The Commission's approach to guarantees is therefore closer to the spirit of Mr Peijs' Amendments Nos 4 and 5, which specifically aim to ensure a more standard approach to the implementation of guarantee provisions.
I will not stop to comment on all the other amendments which, as I have said, the Commission finds acceptable, but I am prepared to answer any questions.
I would like to add two further points. One of the reasons why we can accept most of the amendments tabled is that we share the desire to specify the regulations in detail in the code.
This leaves less room for regulations decided by the committee.
The other aspect I wish to clarify relates to the serious and important problem of computerization. As Parliament knows, and as Mr Peijs is well aware, implementation of the new computerized transit system has been delayed.
This is essentially due to problems with the contractor. It is therefore impossible to begin implementing the new computerized transit system in 1998.
The Commission and participating countries have agreed a new system implementation strategy.
The idea is for the basic functions to be initially introduced in five selected countries - the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Spain -, so that the central services, network and database are available by the end of the first quarter of 1999. This will mean that the system can at least be fully operational for the five countries I mentioned by the beginning of the year 2000.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Monti.
Mrs Peijs requests the floor.
Is it to ask a question?
Mr President, the story is that Germany has dropped out of the pilot project, which would be an enormous disaster, because Germany accounts for the largest share of destinations, arrivals and departures.
If Germany has dropped out of the project, I would like very much to hear from the Commissioner how Germany is going to be replaced or that you are going to put extra pressure on Germany to take part after all.
Now I will mention the refinement of Article 92. At the moment, the time that documents have to be back or in any case known to the customs office at the place of departure is unacceptably long.
All in all the time before the business community knows whether it is susceptible to fraud or that fraud has been committed is extremely long.
We did not want to set a time period, but if the Commissioner wants to have a period, I would suggest three months: after three months the documents must be back.
As regards the Commissioner's last comment on Article 97, I am a bit surprised.
I think there is a translation error somewhere, Mr Monti, because what I wanted to do in that amendment is precisely what you are saying that I am not doing.
What I tried to do was precisely to restrict the flexibility of Member States, as far as difficult cases of security are concerned.
So I think we have done exactly what you would have wanted and that there is a translation error somewhere.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would remind you that you can only ask questions, not open a new debate.
Please ask your question as quickly as possible, Mr Rübig.
Mr President, I have only one question: how much of a saving does the new system represent for the economy of Europe?
As regards Germany, I can confirm that the idea is to introduce the basic functions initially in five selected countries, including Germany, so that the central services are available by the end of the first quarter of 1999. This will mean that the system can be up and running - at least in the five countries I have mentioned - by the beginning of the year 2000.
We are checking this entire operation so that no further delays arise.
The last question on the quantitative benefits of the system is very difficult to answer.
All the technical investigations - and we know that the matter has been discussed with all parties concerned - suggest that the benefits will be considerable.
However, I am unable to offer specific quantitative estimates.
The long delays, Mr Peijs, are certainly a problem and it is precisely for this reason that we are placing so much emphasis on computerization.
Finally, on the point relating to the simplified procedure proposed in one of the amendments, I have to say that the amendment would have been more acceptable to the Commission if it had found - perhaps it still can - a way of offering the same guarantee, a satisfactory guarantee.
As I emphasized in my speech, it is the lack of guarantees that concerns us, particularly in an environment that is no longer able to distinguish clearly between transit within a Member State and transit between Member States.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.44 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I would just like to point out that my vote on the first amendment, which is No 26, in the Rothley recommendation, was not recorded.
I intended to vote against the amendment.
Very well.
It will be recorded, Mr Delcroix.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, I rise on a point of order for a meeting, which will take place on 14, 15 and 16 May in my colleague, Mr Smith's constituency at Turnbury.
It is by a group called the Bilderberg Group.
This is a very strange group because it does not allow any press or interference with its meetings.
My point of order is on the central register of Members.
Could I ask the Bureau to inform Members that, should they be participating in this group, then they should declare that under the 'Members' interests' .
This will ensure that the same transparency and openness exist in this Parliament as in other parliaments, such as in Britain, where members of the Labour Party, i.e. Tony Blair, Giles Radice and Denis Healey, have all declared their interests in the operations of the Bilderberg Group.
I trust that other Members of this House will take note and do likewise.
Thank you, Mr Falconer.
I have made a note of it.
Madam President, I refer to Rule 127 in conjunction with Rules 95 et seq of the Rules of Procedure and welcome the Conference of Presidents' decision to include on today's agenda, in place of the Council and Commission statements on safety in cities, items on the dramatic events taking place in Kosovo and the nuclear tests in India.
Nevertheless, like many of the other members of this House, it is my view that safety in the cities of Europe is also an important and urgent matter.
Just this weekend a jeweller in Vienna was murdered by the Russian mafia.
I therefore believe it is important that we debate the Commission's statement at the next part-session.
Thank you, Mrs Green.
I think the President has already planned to take that action, further to Mrs Roth's speech yesterday, but having said that, I will of course discuss it with him.
Appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank
The next item is the recommendations by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (Rapporteur: Mme Randzio-Plath).
Madam President, on 1 July 1998 the European Central Bank will be able to start work on preparations for a successful and independent single monetary policy for the euro zone with eleven of the Member States.
This is the result of the hearings of the various candidates for appointment to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank held in the European Parliament.
I propose that the appointment of these six candidates be confirmed.
They were each able to convince us of their personal integrity, their professional experience and their high level of technical expertise.
They hold clear positions on economic and monetary policy which correspond to the objectives of the European Central Bank as defined in the Maastricht Treaty.
In short, they will provide the European Central Bank with the Executive Board it deserves.
They all emphasized the priority they would accord to price stability, whilst at the same time indicating that with an inflation rate of 2 % it can be assumed that the goal of price stability has effectively been achieved.
Europe's historically low inflation rates mean that the European Central Bank will not have to start its life with a policy of raising interest rates in order to prove its credibility.
The candidates also implied that there would be no need for an excessively rigid interest rate policy in order to prove the ECB's independence and trustworthiness.
The European Central Bank will be able to build on the confidence enjoyed by the existing national central banks. Finally, the future single monetary policy will be shaped by the European System of Central Banks, not by the European Central Bank and its Executive Board alone.
At the hearings, all the candidates expressed their reluctance to see monetary policy used as a tool in the struggle against unemployment beyond the achievement of price stability.
They stressed that monetary stability represents the greatest contribution the European Central Bank can make to combating unemployment in the euro zone.
Only with a guarantee of continued price stability can further measures, such as the reduction of short-term interest rates, be considered.
However, all the candidates gave fairly clear indications that they are familiar with the provisions of Article 105 and Article 2 of the Maastricht Treaty which, alongside the primary objective of price stability, also bind the European Central Bank to supporting the economic policy of the European Union and the objectives stipulated in Article 2, that is the achievement of a high level of employment and economic and social cohesion.
In fact, their importance is such that they are self-evident.
The task in hand is to examine, within the framework of monetary dialogue with the European Central Bank, how this contribution can be shaped.
The duty of democratic accountability laid down in our resolution on the democratic accountability of monetary institutions in Strasbourg means that we can expect the European Central Bank to report to us, detailing how it is exercising its scope for independent action in matters of monetary policy.
Exercising this scope for independent action in matters of monetary policy will be both possible and necessary.
Unlike American legislation on the US central bank, the Maastricht Treaty stipulates that the European Central Bank must pursue the objective of price stability as its primary task.
The US central bank is obliged to pursue the objectives of price stability and growth and employment.
This results in a different type of monetary policy and consequently creates a different role for monetary policy.
Thus, over recent years, it has been possible for US monetary policy to make a greater contribution to creating an appropriate and balanced policy mix in the interests of investment, growth and jobs.
As has already been mentioned, the candidates made it clear that monetary policy can be used to support growth and employment by preventing interest rate speculation through the safeguarding of price stability and thereby guaranteeing macro-economic stability and, above all, a low level of long-term interest rates.
On the basis of the hearings it was clear that the European Central Bank - and this is something which was stressed particularly by the candidate for the presidency of the European Central Bank - will exercise its scope for independent action on matters of monetary policy once inflation targets are reached and sustained development looks probable.
For the first time, this will allow us to use monetary policy to support economic policy in the euro zone and to pursue the secondary objectives which the European Parliament will consider particularly important in its debate on the annual economic report and the economic guidelines.
These issues will be particularly important in the dialogue between the ECB and the European Parliament.
We must ask the European Central Bank to provide statements on resolutions relating to monetary policy in order to assess its contribution to the creation of a balanced policy mix.
This will also prove to be a useful yardstick by which we can measure the quality of our selection of candidates.
As a result, practical dialogue with the European Parliament will be very important.
The events which took place in the European Council on the weekend of 2/3 May have done nothing to further public confidence in the independence of the European Central Bank.
The hearings in the European Parliament, on the other hand, have helped to redress this lack of confidence and to that extent our hearings were a confidence-building measure which benefited both the European public and the future European Central Bank.
Of course, the Maastricht Treaty provides for the political appointment of candidates. And that is rightly so.
However, the political decision was reached by means of a procedure which has left behind it an unpleasant aftertaste since neither the age nor the nationality of a candidate should be seen as a condition for the success of the common monetary policy and therefore, quite rightly, neither are stipulated in the Treaty as selection criteria.
The sole selection criteria are personal and technical competence.
The President of the ECB's eight year term of office is proof of his personal independence. This is something which the European Parliament had continually stressed.
And this is why, at the hearing, we sought confirmation from Wim Duisenberg that he alone and nobody else would decide when his term of office would end.
(Applause) The candidate made it quite clear that he sees his independence as completely uncompromised.
He was persuasive in his determination, the clarity of his arguments and his plain speaking, thereby underlining the fact that this political nomination and the establishment of the European Central Bank will put an end to the exertion of political influence on monetary policy by individual governments and mark the start of independence from political instructions.
So the hearing showed that there must be no renationalization of the decision-making processes and illustrated that the requirement of unanimity has once again pushed the European Parliament to the limits of its tolerance and the people of Europe to the limits of their patience and understanding of the process of European integration.
This procedure must be changed!
We would particularly like to welcome the fact that the appointment of Mrs Hämäläinen will see a woman on the Executive Board of the ECB, enabling more women than has previously been the case to make their voices heard in important decisionmaking bodies.
(Applause) The hearing, like the future monetary dialogue, has contributed to the credibility and perceived trustworthiness of the democratic European system, but also to the credibility and perceived trustworthiness of a future European Central Bank.
As such, it is to be welcomed that, alongside the debate on the ECB's annual report, there will also be a debate on the annual economic report and the economic policy guidelines and that regular monetary dialogue - on a quarterly basis - was supported by all the candidates.
Of course, the negative response to the proposed publication of the Minutes of the ECB's decision-making bodies after a lapse of five years was unsatisfactory since their publication is necessary to achieve greater transparency in monetary policy.
In my view, these hearings have shown that the end of the confirmation procedure marks the start of a new era in which the first federal European authority will have to justify its actions to the European Parliament in the interests of communication with the European public.
(Applause)
Madam President, this is the second stage of the consultation which began on 2 May, when I addressed the European Parliament with the recommendation that 11 countries had fulfilled the necessary conditions for the adoption of the single currency.
In line with the democratic traditions we value in this continent, it was right that this Parliament was able to play such an important part in this significant event.
Following that debate, to which almost 50 speakers contributed, this Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of the eleven.
The results of this historic vote were reported by your President to the Council and, on behalf of the Council, let me say how much we valued the opinion of this Parliament.
Let me also formally report that, in line with the views of Parliament, the Council unanimously decided that 11 countries should join the single currency.
As a result of these historic decisions, in which the European Parliament has played its full part, the vision of the founders of the Union at the Messina Conference that called for the coordination of monetary policies permitting the creation and development of a common market, will become a reality on 1 January.
It will be a single currency which covers around a fifth of the world's trade.
Let us remember also that this single currency is designed to achieve the stability that will help us meet our shared aims of higher employment and greater prosperity for the peoples of Europe.
Our aim for Europe is high levels of growth and employment, and the precondition of that, in a global economy where countries have to draw their investment funds from all round the world, is stability with low inflation.
It is because of the need to deliver that stability that the debate on the appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank is of such central importance, as was recognized by your rapporteur only a few minutes ago.
The European Central Bank will be established by 1 July; it will assume responsibility for the monetary policy of participating Member States on 1 January next year, and the Treaty, of course, requires the Council to nominate a president and vicepresident and up to four additional members of the Executive Board.
The Council has recommended that Mr Wim Duisenberg should be appointed as the first President of the ECB for a period of eight years.
This Parliament has had a chance already to hear Mr Duisenberg answer questions before it.
The detailed proposals which we have made, including Mr Duisenberg's own personal statement about his intentions, are now before Parliament.
Mr Duisenberg will make his own decisions about retirement, and this procedure is in accordance, and fully in accordance, with the Treaty.
The Council recommends that Mr Christian Noyer should be appointed as Vice-President for a term of four years, and the following should be appointed to the rest of the Executive Board: Mr Otmar Issing for a term of eight years, Mr Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa for seven years, Mr Eugenio Domingo Solans for six years and Mrs Sirkka Hämäläinen for five years.
I say to Parliament that, whatever the evidence you have taken in the last few days on individual members, their views and their comments, this should also be seen in the context of the Treaty's commitment to make for proper and regular reporting, scrutiny and accounting to the European Parliament.
Let me remind Parliament of the importance we attach to the role of Parliament in ensuring proper reporting from the European Central Bank to the people of Europe through this Parliament.
The European Central Bank must address its annual report to this Parliament, as well as to the Council and Commission.
The European Central Bank President must, in future, present the annual report to Parliament, as well as to the Council; the European Central Bank President and other Board members may be called before the expert committees of this Parliament; and this Parliament is, of course, consulted on all future European Central Bank Board appointments.
Your resolution as a Parliament on 2 April included some helpful and constructive suggestions on how this Treaty might be implemented in practice.
In particular, I welcome your suggestion that Executive Board members are invited to participate in quarterly parliamentary meetings on monetary and economic developments.
This is a good way forward.
It is a positive signal to Europe's citizens.
The people of Europe, as the rapporteur said only a few minutes ago, need confidence in their new Central Bank, confidence in its independence, confidence in its proper accountability, and that is what we are seeking to achieve through Parliament and governments working together.
Let me make one other remark that is of significance for the long-term future: the movement for greater openness and transparency in monetary policy is now becoming a powerful movement right across the economic world, an idea whose time has come.
There is now a recognition that the clarity of objectives and the setting of operational rules, that is central to credibility in modern monetary policy decision-making, requires also to be underpinned by greater openness in economic government to ensure that maximum credibility is reinforced.
Last month all the countries represented in the interim committee of the IMF proposed a new code of monetary and financial practice that requires greater openness.
This new momentum for openness, transparency and accountability is now a force for change, being recognized throughout the world.
I welcome the role of the European Parliament in its future dialogue with the European Central Bank, a role that will be important in ensuring that there is proper reporting to a democratically elected institution.
Let me say in conclusion that we should never lose sight of the fact that the arrangements for the single currency are for a purpose: they are to achieve the stability that will give us the high levels of growth and employment that we need and we want to see in Europe.
Let us, as a Parliament and as governments, never lose sight of our duties and responsibilities to include those who are socially excluded and to help back to work the 18 million unemployed who need, deserve and should have our support.
From its beginnings in the search for peace, its birth in the commitments made at Messina, 43 years ago, this movement for greater economic coordination and integration, a movement that has as its purpose greater growth, employment and prosperity throughout Europe, is now reaching a new point of decision-making this morning.
I urge Parliament and governments to continue to work together to make these new institutions work and ensure that this is the opening of another chapter in the progress of Europe.
(Applause)
Madam President, I should like to warmly welcome the Chancellor of the Exchequer's words.
To hear the President-in-Office spell out support for the role the European Parliament will play over the years in the supervising role of the European Central Bank is very welcome to all parts of this House.
The European Parliament behaved in a very responsible way in conducting the hearings for all six candidates.
Our approach was to ensure that all candidates gave a commitment to price stability and independence and, indeed, all six candidates fulfilled that obligation.
But in the Socialist Group we also place great emphasis on full respect for Article 105 of the Treaty which means that when price stability has been achieved the Central Bank helps in the broader objectives of the European Union, in particular in job creation and growth.
We also place great emphasis on the question of democratic accountability.
This played a crucial role for us in the hearings and all candidates were questioned very carefully on this matter.
We have to ensure that beyond the achievement of inflation control at a low level monetary policy can make its contribution towards fighting unemployment.
I was glad that the President-in-Office mentioned that this morning.
On democratic accountability we heard from Mr Duisenberg his views on how we will deal with the European Central Bank in the future.
On behalf of the Socialist Group today, I would like to say that we need to meet with Wim Duisenberg before the summer recess of this Parliament to flesh out and spell out in detail the way in which the European Parliament will in future deal with the European Central Bank.
We cannot allow this to slip later into the year.
We need to start spelling that out now and working out the method of operation in ensuring democratic accountability.
I should like to make a few remarks about the procedure and about the hearings.
On Monday evening the Socialist Group expressed a reservation about one of the candidates.
I know some people in this House were angry about that.
The purpose of confirmation hearings is to hear the candidates and to assess them objectively, not on nationality or on politics but on their views as potential members of the European Central Bank.
Our group did that and we will not suspend judgment on any of these candidates simply because of the historic importance of this moment.
Therefore, on Monday we expressed our reservations about one of the candidates.
Having said that, and I made the point on Monday, our group last night discussed this fully and we feel that all six candidates are competent members of the European Central Bank and we will be voting for all six today.
We believe that this Executive Board has a crucial role to play in building confidence for the euro amongst our citizens.
The way they have to do this is by setting interest rates that are going to maintain stability and also, as the President-in-Office said, setting interest rates that will guarantee growth and full employment in the European Union.
We want an interest rate policy for all of our citizens, not only for the rich heartland of the European Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, some interesting observations were made at the hearings.
The six candidates amply satisfy the selection criteria stated in the Treaty.
They are on the whole well qualified, but they obviously have individual differences, sometimes surprising, of which we should be careful.
Every teacher knows that the most brilliant pupils do not always achieve the most brilliant careers, and we all know of less able pupils who have later turned into real high-fliers.
If Harry Trumann had had to appear before our jury, he would probably not have attained the highest grades.
I shall not be unkind enough to remind my socialist colleagues of their former unflattering opinions of some of our commissioners to whom they pay tribute today.
Secondly, judging from both their oral and written replies, the six candidates have a relatively coherent view of their future roles.
Despite attempts by some of our colleagues to show contradictions in their respective statements, these only appear to be slight, the result of differing experiences, rather than any real differences.
We should not have any serious concerns about the homogeneity of the future management team.
I should like to add at this point that the socialists are not alone in having stressed that once objectives relating to stability have been achieved, the bank must also focus on the other objectives of economic policy. I believe that most candidates agree with this point of view.
This should not be a party political matter.
Thirdly, I will make an interesting observation, positive as far as Parliament is concerned, which is that all the candidates have recognized the need to maintain a special relationship with the European Parliament.
They all believe that the European Parliament is the institution to which they are accountable for their activities, to which they must explain and declare their intentions and announce their opinions on various subjects.
They all agree on the need for transparency, they all recognize that accountability is the normal counterweight of their independence and their considerable power.
All, with some small differences, accept that it is the European Parliament, not national parliaments, to whom they must pay special attention, but they have also emphasized the role that central banks, which will not disappear, will continue to play with regard to national parliaments.
It will therefore be by means of the governors of the central banks, which will still be in existence, that the relationship with national parliaments will continue, which is entirely true to the principles of subsidiarity and the federalist system.
I should like here to address my hearty thanks to the President-in-Office of the Council for having expressed what has now become important in the light of the Asian crisis: ' transparency is central to credibility in modern monetary policy' .
I am glad that this is recognized today and that, at the same time, the European Parliament's role has been recognized, and I hope that we shall be worthy of it and that we will take part in this debate in as responsible a manner as possible.
I should also like to thank all the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, who have helped to make these hearings serious, responsible and objective. Madam President, in order to comply with your request to be brief, I will end here.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on 7 and 8 May, under the firm yet courteous authority of President Karl von Wogau, we conducted a hearing of the six candidates for appointment to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, in an atmosphere of mutual trust and esteem.
It seems to me that we must consider the Council's decision concerning them by asking ourselves three questions.
Are they the best candidates, are they the advocates of stability, and will they form a coherent team?
I answer the first question as follows: the nominee for President is obviously, and above all, the governors' choice.
They have chosen him because they consider him to be the most capable of carrying through this tremendous change in the European banking system.
Everyone knows that in our political groups and parties, we always choose the person we consider will best defend our ideals and our interests.
By analogy, I do not see why it should be any different for central bankers.
In fact, I cannot see why the Peter Principle should apply to such an institution.
I must confess that I have some doubts about the smoke screen that he has raised with regard to the length of his term of office.
But, he has undoubtedly adopted François Mitterrand's motto that to be unambiguous can only be to one's own detriment.
Be that as it may, by the end of the hearing, we could have no doubt as to either his competence or his integrity.
And that remark with regard to competence and integrity is also valid for the five other candidates.
Now for the second question, are they advocates of monetary stability? It seems to me that the six candidates unanimously agree that inflation will fluctuate between 0 and 2 %.
In fact, it would have been surprising if one of them had announced that his model was the Albanian Central Bank, with its formidable loan pyramid system.
Or again, that his greatest ambition was to increase inflation for the slightly sadistic purpose of bankrupting savers.
Having been reassured on that point, we therefore come to the third question: will they form a coherent team? Without doubt they seem quite compatible, but as with all teams, time will tell.
This is why I personally would have preferred, and I think the Union for Europe Group would have unanimously preferred, an overall vote on the whole group of candidates whom, in all probability, we would have massively supported.
We will therefore not object to any of these candidates, as they are all well qualified, remarkably experienced, and have excellent reputations.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on Saturday 2 May this Parliament celebrated the constitution of monetary union with eleven Member States of the Union.
Monetary union brings with it a single currency, the euro.
This decision marks the consolidation of a new and important advance in the economic and monetary dimension of the Union, which also has enormous political importance.
The issuing of a currency implies sovereignty, and the single European currency expresses a European sovereignty which should result in a greater deepening of the political dimension of the Union.
Unfortunately, when the time came for the European Council to propose the president, the vice-president and the other four members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, after the European Parliament had made its decision, elements of uncertainty were introduced.
What should have been presented as a historic agreement was distorted in the public eye by a controversy which should never have happened.
Luckily, the substance proved more important than the means, the international financial community has clearly demonstrated its acceptance of monetary union and the euro, and the proposed team has been warmly congratulated by the most internationally outstanding and prestigious economic and financial institutions.
As regards the hearings held in the European Parliament, I want to say that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports the proposals in the report presented by Mrs Randzio-Plath, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs.
And as for the specific proposal about the president, we stress our full respect for his independence, including the mandate for which he has been proposed.
At the hearing, the current president of the European Monetary Institute confirmed his qualities and personality, which we already knew from the contributions he had made in that capacity.
We welcome his independence from any pressure which might limit the fulfilment of the objectives set for the European Central Bank by the Maastricht Treaty.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a new and very important stage in the consolidation of the euro is now beginning.
The European Central Bank is the keystone for the fulfilment of the objectives set for it by the Treaty and we will watch to make sure this process is complied with in full transparency, and that the obligations the Board members committed themselves to at the various hearings are also complied with.
Madam President, the role and status of the European Central Bank have been defined in accordance with the aims attributed to the single currency: to attract capital to the financial markets, to the detriment of social welfare and democracy. Their absence is becoming critical and less and less acceptable to the people.
Price stability, the main aim attributed to the European Central Bank, was achieved by reducing the creation of money and credit, to encourage better returns on investment.
That has destroyed employment and increased government deficits.
We believe that this system of economic warfare should be replaced with a strategy of cooperation, particularly at the monetary level.
That means that the ECB's objectives should be quite different, based on growth and employment.
Transparency and the democratic control of the activities of the European Central Bank must be achieved, along with accountability to the European Parliament and the national parliaments and a public debate on the main issues.
In this respect, the controversy relating to the appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank is surprising, to say the least.
Judging by some comments on this subject, it would have been better to accept without reaction the coup by the central bankers who had decided that their candidate should be the President of the ECB.
But the Treaty states that the Heads of State and Government are responsible for appointing the Executive Board, and I think that it is useful to reaffirm that the Member States have more authority than the banks.
Madam President, I should like to start by reminding the House that our group voted, by a large majority, for the timely introduction of the euro with eleven Member States.
I mention this fact by way of introduction, since this whole debate is taking place in the midst of a media circus where individual issues are drowned out by the argument for or against the euro.
The question which needs to be addressed is a specific one. What is our reaction to the outcome of the hearing?
In order to assess this, we have to be clear about what we actually are.
Are we a personnel recruitment commission? No.
Are we the board of a central bank? Hardly.
We are a democratically elected political body.
Which means that we have to discuss the political programme advocated by the candidates.
If we were a personnel recruitment commission, we would have to vote for the candidates. They were all competent individuals.
If we were the board of a central bank, we would also have to give a positive signal, because a negative signal at this time would encourage speculation.
As a democratically elected political body, however, we have to look at three questions.
Firstly, what is our view of the nomination procedure which Mr Duisenberg himself described as having left "an unpleasant taste in the mouth' .
As far as I can see, the unpleasant taste is still there.
And whatever efforts are made to get rid of it, the fact remains that Mr Duisenberg felt obliged to assure us that no political pressure had been exerted upon him.
That in itself leaves a rather nasty taste.
Secondly, we need to be aware that this nomination procedure, which is far more restrictive than the provisions of the various treaties require, was rushed through at great speed.
That, too, leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
Then there is the big problem of monetary policy.
The Maastricht Treaty provides for a small amount of leeway which is in fact greater than the candidates like to admit.
Fighting deflation cannot simply be equated to playing down inflation!
Yet that is what most of the candidates - including Mr Padoa-Schioppa - did.
We highlighted this distinction in our amendments and we must not forget it in our responses to the arguments put forward by the populists on the Right that the euro will be weak.
Lastly, we must also see that on matters of transparency and democratic accountability the candidates were arguing mainly with a view to the financial markets and the general public, and that they envisage only a loose form of dialogue with the European Parliament.
For this reason the only response can be a negative one.
In our own group, opinions on the matter are divided, not in terms of the actual analysis, but in terms of the question which is actually being asked.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is the duty of Parliament, when the European Central Bank is being set up, to assert clearly its role as the single legitimate body of democratic control of the new European monetary authority. Parliament must confirm just as clearly its commitment to the construction of a monetary and economic Europe, in compliance with the treaties.
The treaties state that the Heads of State and Government, that is, a political authority, should appoint the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
They also state that the European Central Bank is independent.
The compromise somewhat labouriously reached in Brussels by the Heads of State and Government, and taking Mr Duisenberg's oral statement into account, ensures compliance with these provisions of the treaties.
The information given by the future President of the European Central Bank to this Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, reinforces belief in the independence of the European Central Bank, without jeopardizing the gentlemen's agreement made in Brussels.
It therefore seems to us that to dispute the terms and conditions of that agreement would be detrimental to the efficient launch of the euro.
We hope that today's debate will not provide an opportunity for that.
The democratic control of the European Parliament has been exercised extremely resolutely by means of the hearing procedure during which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs listened to each candidate seriously and at length.
There is no need, in this respect, to look for any form of higher authority to confirm that the body in charge of democratic control played its part responsibly and efficiently.
All the candidates at the hearings showed different, but complementary, personal qualities, and the competence and integrity necessary to their function.
Moreover, they have shown that together they will form a team worthy of Parliament's trust.
We are therefore in full agreement with the relevant conclusions of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report recommending the approval of these six candidates.
It remains for us to express two hopes: firstly, that in future, members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank will continue the debate with the European Parliament as readily as they have done during these hearings.
Secondly, that the European monetary authority which is being set up will be complemented and counterbalanced by means of budgetary and fiscal instruments that will enable the Council of Ministers to ensure efficient economic management of the Union, to promote growth and employment within a context of stability ensured by the European Central Bank.
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations I attended all hearings with the prospective candidates for the Executive Board of the European Central Bank last week.
There were some striking differences in the way both the written and the oral questions were answered.
Some candidates knew exactly how to deal with the questions.
Mr Duisenberg, Mr Issing, Mr Padoa-Schioppa and Mrs Hämäläinen gave clear answers in writing and/or orally, and made it convincingly clear in the time available that they were well to excellently qualified for their job.
The prospective Vice-President, Mr Noyer, and Mr Domingo Solans fell short of this. What conclusions should we draw from this?
If we are talking about an opinion here with a limited judicial review, or about the assessment of a team as a whole, I do not have much difficulty with the rather noncommittal opinion that we are dealing with a strong team.
If we are talking about a serious opinion, and if we are asked to give a thorough assessment of each individual candidate, then a problem does arise.
Can we distance ourselves sufficiently from the nationality and the political colour of the candidates nominated? I rather doubt it.
It seems to me that, likewise, the Council's prime focus is not really on capability and quality, but rather on regional spread; a German, a Frenchman, and an Italian, in any case, and another three members from different countries, but obviously spread out.
Does this provide us with the strongest team? Mr Duisenberg is Dutch and a Social-Democrat.
Neither the first, Dutch nationality, nor the second, being a Social-Democrat, qualifies him for this function.
What is relevant is that he is an experienced central banker, is capable of achieving price stability, and does not shy away from lecturing governments. He did so for eight years in the Netherlands, thoroughly and consistently.
He knows how to inform the public, and communicates in a relaxed and transparent fashion with the European Parliament.
It appears that to the French government the nationality of the President of a bank does matter.
It is a little strange that there should already be consensus as to who should take over from Mr Duisenberg.
The next four to eight years of professional experience no longer seem to matter. Incidentally, it gives us the opportunity to start a comprehensive file on all Mr Trichet's actions.
We have at least four years, hopefully even eight, to prepare ourselves for the hearing with Mr Trichet.
The rapporteur, Mrs Randzio-Plath, chose not to give a differentiated assessment for each candidate.
She prefers a brief, general evaluation which is the same for each member.
On reflection, this is extremely unsatisfactory, and does not do any justice to the candidates. The candidates are not equal, after all.
The only possibility we have left now for expressing this difference between candidates is to do so during the vote.
Madam President, the independence of the Central Bank, of the first truly federal institution of the European Union, should not be the independence of isolation, solitude or irresponsibility.
Nevertheless, the institutional provisions contained in the Maastricht Treaty and the changes made since then, form a minimum starting point.
In this initial institutional balance, the powers of decision given to politicians must be used to the full.
First of all, there is the power to appoint the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Because this appointment is political in nature, the Heads of State or Government cannot and should not merely accept a co-option agreed between central bankers.
They should also take into account the geographical balance of the euro zone.
In the future, it will be the responsibility of the euro Council and of the Ecofin Council to set up a dialogue with the European Central Bank.
Then there is this Parliament's power of consultation.
It seems to me that we have successfully completed that first stage.
The responsibility and professionalism with which we have prepared, conducted and today evaluated these hearings must reinforce this institution's legitimacy and authority as the main parliamentary interlocutor of the European Central Bank.
Our use of this power will be based on a strategy of prevention rather than a strategy of conflict.
I am delighted to say that.
With regard to the actual evaluation of the candidates' proposals, my group has highlighted two questions.
Under what conditions do you envisage a dialogue with the European Parliament? This question relates to democratic responsibility.
How do you interpret Article 105 of the Treaty which, when price stability has been achieved, asks you to support the economic policies of the European Union and its objectives as defined in Article 2 of the Treaty? In short, a high level of employment.
On these two points we must have serious discussions with the European Central Bank.
The evaluation we have undertaken today of these six candidates provides us with a unique opportunity, given that the length of the terms of office of the members of the Executive Board is variable.
Their proposals vary, but they have obviously shown great independence and great coherence of thought.
For the rest, opinions differ, depending on how used we are to this kind of procedure.
Although we are not expected to give them marks, I should nevertheless like to commend Mr Padoa-Schioppa in particular.
Having made such a good start, we must now adapt our schedules and our structures so that, alongside the main orientations of economic policy, we can attentively ensure that our monetary policy is compatible with coordinated economic policies, in order to benefit employment.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, here are some thoughts that stem from the experience gained in these extremely interesting and important hearings.
I would first of all like to say that, with regard to the procedure followed by the Council between Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 May, what is important is to take note of the fact that the markets, that is to say European savers, welcomed the appointments with satisfaction, and therefore the European Parliament - expression of the people's will - must also take account of this fact, which also represents a desire for the euro that is probably much greater than the opinion polls show.
However, the Council's behaviour at the political level will have to be assessed, and thought will have to be given to the inadequacy of a muddled decision-making process that is not very transparent and continually the hostage of the principle of unanimity, totally anti-historical factors considering the gradual assertion of the common European dimension.
Other Members - the rapporteur in particular - have already dwelt upon the issue of commitment to stable prices.
I would now like to make a few observations on another important issue that has arisen, that of the accountability of the European Central Bank.
The problem is of the utmost importance, in that it concerns the need for democratic control and transparency as well as the need to strengthen the reputation and credibility of the ECB.
It is therefore important, in my view, to focus mainly on appropriate behaviours for such purposes rather than on formal rules which would risk providing only a bureaucratic and superficial solution and jeopardising the independence and good functioning of monetary policy.
In the course of our hearings, the problem also arose of the overall strengthening of the management of the European economy, a problem that can no longer be put off, not only because there has to be a better balance between monetary policy and the other economic policies but also in the light of the need - as a result of Economic and Monetary Union - to give a common dimension to problems until now considered national.
In such a context, for example, I could dwell at length - but I will not - on the need to speed up forms of coordination for fiscal policies.
In conclusion, Madam President, I think that not only is it possible to judge positively the team selected to head the ECB but it is an extremely satisfactory one.
That is of course a good prelude to a successful launch of the euro.
Mr President, when interviewing the candidates for the Executive Board of the European Central Bank last week, our primary goal was to assert a principle, that of the need for the confidence and, exceptionally, the right of censure of the Parliament with regard to the Central Bank: for its formation today, for its operations tomorrow.
Indeed all the candidates presented themselves at our hearings with credentials of exceptional value: the candidate for president, Wim Duisenberg, is also an old acquaintance of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, where he has always been known for his expertise and direct language.
It was extremely important, however, to set the precedent of interinstitutional dialogue between the Parliament and the Bank, laying part of the foundations, not yet well defined, of the Bank's democratic responsibility.
I think that the chairmen von Wogau and Randzio-Plath also contributed substantially to the success of the hearing.
The other priority of the hearing was to verify the role and political space that the new institution - the Central Bank - intends to cover in observance of the treaties: relations with the Ecofin and euro 11, with the governors of the banks of the European countries that want to and will want to be part of the euro, since with the Central Bank's creation we find ourselves truly confronted with the first federal-like achievement of Europe.
It seems important to me as well to understand what Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa said - I believe better than anyone else -, which is that even the European Central Bank, though independent and autonomous, will have to have an idea of European construction and take into account the Ecofin and Parliament.
For the Bank too there is a connection between monetary policy and European project, between the need for stability of which it is the guardian and the reforms for employment with which we are all concerned.
This is the ground on which the dialogue between the Central Bank and the Parliament can give the best results. I therefore give a positive reading of this as well and confirm the confidence in the bankers.
Mr President, the hearings in Parliament and the confirmation vote which we have later today on the president, vice-president, and Executive Board members for the Central Bank mark for this House the last significant step in the beginning of a very significant and historic enterprise for Europe.
The quality of the proceedings in the House, I believe, has restored some dignity to the appointment process which unfortunately, because of the prolonged and rather bitter exchanges on 2 May at the European Council, was rather marred at the outset.
The Council recommendation to the House, consistent with the Treaty, commends a term of office of eight years for Mr Wim Duisenberg as nominee for Central Bank presidency.
We will pass a resolution confirming the appointment of the president later today on these terms.
One has no objection to that.
However, I recognize that the reference to an eight-year term for the president is no more for all of us than a fiction, since clearly Mr Duisenberg is unlikely to serve for that length by his own admission.
In a statement on 2 May Mr Duisenberg explained that in view of his age he did not want to serve a full term but added that in future, the decision to resign would be his, and his alone.
Our hearings helped to elicit further understanding of this matter.
The nominee for president intends, health permitting, to serve at least until the switch-over from national notes and coins to euros has been achieved.
Furthermore he stated he did not intend to stand down at a specific moment in time.
On further questioning he added: ' I can assure you that there is no link between the terms of one executive director or vice-president and that of any other.
There is no link that I am aware of - no link whatsoever.'
In terms of the complete independence and discretion that should go with this high office, this latter quote is an important reassurance.
In this light the Liberal Group emphasizes the desirability for continuity of leadership in the Board of the bank and suggests that an early or simultaneous succession of both the president and vice-president should be avoided.
Of course this matter is entirely in the hands of Mr Duisenberg himself.
I accept his reassurance that there is no link whatsoever between the terms of one appointment and those of any other.
But we, in the Liberal Group, think there can be no more graphic way of confirming this in substance than by his remaining in office to ensure a smooth transition from the first appointee as vicepresident to that person's successor in office.
Mr President, with today's proceedings the European Parliament is participating in the constitution of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, a body which, as the preceding hearings have substantiated, will be independent from the instruments of political and democratic control of the Member States and of the European Union itself. It will also be independent of informal centres of power, as was shown by the political accommodation reached in Brussels, a body which regards itself as committed to implementing a tough monetarist policy, aimed at monetary stability and low interest rates, and fundamentally ignoring the effects this policy has on the social condition of the people of the European Union.
In the name of all those who, in the most dramatic way, pay for the consequences of this unpopular, neo-liberal policy, we refuse to use our vote to legitimize this body and the role that has been assigned to it.
Mr President, I hope the procedure used to appoint the board of the European Central Bank will never be repeated.
The insistence on unanimity among Member States is extremely damaging, and only serves to allow one large country to put pressure on others.
The unofficial agreement to share the president's term of office is fortunately only part of an unworthy show, as it will not be legally binding.
Let it serve as a warning, however, that monetary policy in the euro area cannot be subordinate to national interests.
I would like to make a few critical observations regarding the hearings.
Firstly, the nominees displayed a pretty incredible mood of reserve when it came to demands for openness on the part of the Central Bank.
Wim Duisenberg even went so far as to say that the contents of the Minutes of the Board could only be made known in sixteen years' time.
This we simply cannot accept.
The European Parliament must immediately initiate talks on this subject with Board members.
The nominees also stressed the need to fight against inflation, even more than is required of the Maastricht Treaty.
But I would say, let last week's hearings serve as a starting point for future dialogue between the Central Bank and the European Parliament.
Such talks must lead to establishing a balance between targets for inflation and targets for employment.
They must also give weight to the fact that the ECB, described as the world's most independent bank, must in the future operate in such a way that it is accountable both to the European Parliament and to the general public.
This will be quite a challenge for the European Parliament.
But I am convinced that the general public will also agree on how important it is for the European Parliament to monitor the work of the Central Bank.
Mr President, on behalf of the National Alliance, I express approval of and satisfaction with all the candidacies proposed and among these I would like to underline the particularly prestigious nomination of Mr PadoaSchioppa. Nevertheless, I must stress the need to review some of the mechanisms for the future appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Indeed, even though in a context of virtually widespread consensus, there is also widespread dissatisfaction on the part of the Parliament.
With regard to the principle of democracy, in fact, the Parliament must have a more decisive role in selections that like this one have direct consequences on the individual economies of the States.
It must be recognised as having the possibility to re-examine these candidates and submit them to a more detailed verification, candidates who initially do not provide an executive framework of their attitude on monetary policies, on democratic control and on the transparency of the work that they are called upon to do on behalf of and in the interest of the European Union.
I confirm, as already stated at the sitting of 1 April, my total agreement with the autonomy of the Central Bank, but in addition to providing for dialogue with the European Parliament and dialogue at the time of the appointment of the Board and at the time of the debate on monetary choices of particular strategic importance, it is essential that we advance to a situation of political cohesion that alone can guarantee that we will not risk being faced with a giant that is purely economic, but lacking any political dignity.
Madam President, before we held the hearings with the candidates for the European Central Bank last week, we obviously already knew that, legally speaking, we had no veto right against the candidates.
In the meantime it has become clear that, politically speaking, this veto right does exist.
None of the candidates is able to function as a Member of the Board if he or she does not have the confidence of a large majority within this Parliament.
Even this Parliament does not seem to be sufficiently convinced of this important fact.
The discussions about one candidate, who clearly performed less well than the others, have made this clear.
What conclusions can we draw from these hearings?
Firstly, that proper preparation pays off.
A few months ago my group approached leading European experts who acted as advisors and sparring partners for the social-democratic interviewers.
We commissioned independent experts to compile political profiles of all the candidates.
Some of us sought advice in the United States, from the Senate and the FED, on the American experiences.
The organization of the hearings worked well.
Our own approach with one leading interviewer per candidate, always from a different Member State than the candidate, is undoubtedly worth following.
The method used by some of the other groups, whereby the interviewing was preferably done by people from the same country as the interviewee, who, to top it all, prided themselves on their friendship or joint activities with the candidates, clearly does not bear repeating.
Secondly, it seemed to me that there was sufficient awareness amongst all candidates of the importance of openness, active communication and good relations with the European Parliament.
Only a few weeks ago we, the Group of the Party of European Socialists, had to put up a tough fight over the Randzio-Plath report in order to emphasize the need for openness. Many of our conservative colleagues were still associating openness in the ECB with infringement of its independence.
These misunderstandings have now clearly been dispelled.
I can even see agreement being reached on the anonymity of the Minutes of the European Central Bank.
Thirdly, it has become very clear during the hearings that price stability, the necessity of which my group also expressly endorses, is being achieved at the moment. It has also become clear that the ECB will immediately be faced with the question as to how it is going to give shape to its secondary task, namely supporting general economic policy.
Unfortunately I have to note that the answers to this question were always very vague.
It seemed as though, as far as those in the Central Banks were concerned, the interest rates could only go up.
My final conclusion is that the candidates demonstrated sufficient awareness of the uncertainties entailed in monetary policy at European level, and that they did not proffer traditional, national solutions for European problems.
This openness of spirit gives me enough faith in the fruitfulness of the constant dialogue which we will enter into with the ECB.
For this Parliament this dialogue will become one of the most important tasks.
It is a fascinating challenge which we will gladly accept.
Mr President, listening to Mr Peijs leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth.
As if the Group of the Party of European Socialists are the only ones here in this Parliament who defend openness and transparency where the Central Bank is concerned.
Let no one be under any misapprehension, the Group of the European People's Party was only against this Parliament being able to dismiss the Board of the Central Bank.
I would like to remind everyone of Mr Metten's fine words about dismissing one of the candidates, or rather, abstaining from voting, but tomorrow or this afternoon he will be voting in favour again.
Strange, Mr President, I do not think Mr Metten lives up to his fine words.
Mr President, on the subject of the hearing, Mr Duisenberg's replies to my questions reassured me.
He will decide himself, he says, when he should resign his office.
He thinks it is absurd to start talking already about the nationality, let alone the name of his successor.
Despite much tooth-brushing at Mr Duisenberg's suggestion, the bad taste in the mouth caused by the weekend of 2 and 3 May has not yet entirely disappeared.
It also appears that being president requires a truly professional approach in such circumstances.
Some suspicion continues to linger in the minds and hearts of the people.
To remove all their doubt, I call from within this Parliament on Mr Duisenberg to stay in place until 2003 at least, as a way of demonstrating beyond doubt to the political world that the European Central Bank is independent.
The replies to questions about democratic accountability occupy a central position for this Parliament.
The candidate for the Presidency of the Bank is prepared to appear before the European Parliament four times a year. The quarterly report will then be discussed.
The Vice-President, Mr Noyer, says he also sees the importance of this accountability.
The Presidents of the national central banks are able to explain the monetary policy in their national parliaments.
It is sensible of Mr Duisenberg, who is ignoring the wishes of the French Parliament, to make the members of the Executive Board of the ECB appear in the national parliaments.
Just imagine, Mr Duisenberg in the French Assemblée . Marianne would topple from her virginal pedestal.
I have one comment and one question. My comment is the following.
From a Dutch perspective the 1987 Currency Act will have to be amended by law, and this could be an excellent reason for using the new resource of the referendum, as every Dutch person has to deal with the guilder.
This would be the opportunity to ask the Dutch people whether the majority wants to get rid of the guilder or not.
That was my comment. Sufficient mandate has been given to the minimum of 40 000 people who are required by law to initiate a referendum.
The question I wanted to ask is the following.
In the wake of the two previous Dutch speakers I want to know whether we will be assessing a president who will make use of his sovereign will to step down midway? Or are we giving a judgment about a president who makes use of his sovereignty by staying put for eight years, as argued for by Mrs Peijs?
Because this uncertainty exists.
The Prime Minister spoke in this spirit, but the Minister of Finance seemed to say something else.
Mr President, in the talks Members have conducted on the nomination of the ECB Executive Board, it has been frequently mentioned that the Bank must endeavour to achieve the greatest possible openness and always keep Parliament informed of its activity.
I would like to mention another aspect of the matter, namely that such openness will be of benefit to the Bank itself, and even vital at the beginning.
In its endeavour to succeed, the European Central Bank will need the confidence of the public in addition to that of the market.
In this respect the European Parliament could act as one side in an excellent partnership.
Open dialogue on monetary policy with Parliament will furnish the Bank with the feedback from the Community that it needs, and will help reduce the distrust that people have of the Bank.
I hope that the nominees for the Board, all of whom I give my support to, will appreciate the advantages of openness and democracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we should compliment the Council on its excellent proposal for the first Executive Board of the ECB.
Its proposal has successfully met all the obligations stipulated in Article 109 a of the Maastricht Treaty.
It is my conviction that any further debate on the term of office of the future president is unnecessary since Mr Duisenberg has been appointed for eight years and this is in accordance with the Treaty.
However, the Maastricht Treaty requires a unanimous vote in the Council, in other words the appointment is a political decision, and so there must also be negotiations with regard to the individuals involved.
The independence of the Executive Board is guaranteed exclusively by the fact that re-election is not permitted.
This is not a matter which we really aired with Mr Duisenberg, although we did discuss the length of his term of office.
The hearing revealed that the six names proposed are all excellent candidates.
Although there were differences in their statements and in their presentations to the House, there can be no doubt as to their qualifications.
All the candidates explained quite clearly that they would advocate a mixture of monetary control and inflation targets as the number one tool in ensuring the monetary stability of the euro.
In actual fact, contrary to what Mrs Randzio-Plath said earlier, under Article 105 the primary objective is monetary stability, to which the question of employment is only secondary.
Only a stable euro, a coordinated finance policy and strict observation of Article 104 taken in conjunction with the stability pact can offer a guarantee of sustained success.
Inflation is not the key to labour market problems as we heard quite clearly at the hearing.
Allow me to make one further comment on Mr Metten.
The members of the socialist and communist groups questioned the qualifications of one of the candidates.
I have the impression - and this was borne out in the vote - that this was due not to a genuine question of suitability, but rather to the fact that the candidate in question was an adviser to a Christian Democrat prime minister and, in addition, had worked for many years for the Employers' Association.
I would ask you to leave these arguments to one side and to vote together for a good, sensible Executive Board.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has conducted the hearings of the candidates for the administration of the Central Bank in, I believe, an exemplary way, which does credit to our Parliament.
With regard to the candidates, the Treaty lays down that they are pan-European personalities of known repute and professional competence.
Nationality does not and must not play a role in our judgment but, naturally, their conception of economic policy does.
This is something we cannot ignore.
But perhaps these are all issues which take a back seat in the face of the fact that there are now two large central banks in the world; one is the new European Central Bank and the other is the Federal Reserve in the United States.
We hope that these two large institutions will cooperate to stabilize the international money system and the global economy.
However, if we compare the constitutional aims of the two institutions, I am forced to acknowledge the superiority of the American institution.
The aims which are defined in the charter of the European Central Bank are one-sided and somewhat clumsily phrased.
In their haste to emphasize the need for price stability, which we all sympathise with when it is carried out in a logical and responsible way of course, those who drew up the charter forgot the main technical objective of any central bank, which is to supply the economy with money, and relegated employment to the side lines.
On the other hand, the starting point of the charter of the Federal Reserve is the autonomous need for a central bank to supply money to the economy, taking care equally of price stability, employment and a logical level for interest rates.
This one-sided nature of the charter either forced or allowed the candidates to present a united front on the issue of price stability and essentially, like other Pontius Pilates, to wash their hands of the matter of employment.
There were certain undertones to this issue.
The role of Parliament, in the context of the general acceptance of all of the candidates and in the context of respect, naturally, for the independence of the central bank, is to point out to them that, with whatever policy they practice, they must rectify the one-sidedness of the charter and move towards the position of the American Federal Reserve.
I want to believe that this was the meaning of the opinions expressed about the candidates by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and I hope that the voices of criticism which have been heard will be taken into consideration by the future members of the Executive Board.
To date, price stability in Europe has been borne on the shoulders of the 20-30 million unemployed.
It is high time that a part of that burden was borne by an economic and monetary policy which is more efficient and more sensitive, and it is hoped that the members of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank will play their role in this.
Mr President, British Members of the Group of the European People's Party intend to vote against Mr Duisenberg and Mr Noyer.
This is not a vote against them personally: it is a vote against the deal struck at the Brussels Summit on 2 and 3 May.
It is also not a vote against monetary union.
Members know that I could never tolerate that.
On the contrary, it is a vote for the success of the single currency.
That success depends not just on the credibility of the new Central Bank but on the credibility of all the European institutions, not least on the credibility of this House.
We voted on 30 April overwhelmingly against any modification of the President's eight-year term and against any setting in advance of the nationality of the President's successor.
Less than three days later, these votes were just thrown back in our faces by the Council.
Mr Duisenberg's off-the-cuff remarks to us subsequently do not alter this fact at all.
I know many of you share our outrage at this.
Some have spoken out and then gone silent.
Some, to their shame, have sought to hide their submission to the Heads of Government by picking on Mr Solans.
That is the coward's course.
Some of us must have the courage to reveal what this Parliament believes but cannot say.
Mr President, the Treaty, as you all know, contains a clear design for the way the European Central Bank should work. It stresses the autonomy and independence of the Central Bank, which should be immune to all sorts of pressures or political instructions.
At the same time, however, the Treaty reserves a special moment for politics - that is, the moment of nomination.
That nomination falls to the Council, but there is also a provision for Parliament to express its view following hearings or interviews with the candidates proposed by the Council.
Well, at the moment I am pleased to say that the European Parliament has played its part correctly, and has thus been able to correct the bad impression caused by the meeting of Heads of State and Government the previous weekend.
Mr Duisenberg's responses to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have removed the doubts on some aspects which had not been cleared up at the Summit, especially with regard to his possible retirement.
To quote Mr Duisenberg from the verbatim report of proceedings: "I do not intend to stand down at a specific moment in time' .
And he went on to say: "I want to emphasize that the decision to step down will be my decision and mine alone' .
I think that is an important clarification, especially in relation to what Mr Stevens was just saying.
The second point I want to mention is of particular importance to Parliament, especially for those Members of this House who are of a progressive or left-wing persuasion. It concerns the willingness of the candidates to make sure that the basic function of maintaining price stability and low inflation is compatible with the general objectives of the economic policy promoted by the Union - or which should be promoted by the Union - aimed basically at growth and job creation.
In general, we obtained satisfactory replies from the six candidates in this area, although with different shades of opinion, of course.
My third point is especially important for us. It concerns the relationship with the European Parliament, which from now on is going to be - has to be - the privileged partner in the task of democratic supervision of the future European Central Bank.
In this area too, we obtained satisfactory answers from all the candidates, who assured us of that important point: the European Parliament's role as a privileged partner.
The national parliaments will have their role with the governors of the national central banks, which will still exist of course, at national level.
Lastly, there is another matter which is also very important for us: transparency and public information on monetary policy decisions and the reasons underlying them.
That is an essential point, as we have often said. In this area too, we were given satisfactory replies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once before in Europe, 128 years ago, to be precise, there was another position which needed to be filled.
On that occasion it was in Spain.
And on that occasion the French government sent a telegram to Bad Ems which, as a result of a few changes, created the necessary mood to start preparations for war.
Once again there has been a dispute over an appointment. Once again it has involved the Germans and the French in particular.
But this time, two days later, the two main protagonists sat down together in Avignon and made plans on how they would proceed in Europe in the future.
This shows, I believe, how enormously different things are this time. In other words, how much progress we have made in Europe.
Issues which once led to wars are now argued out in joint institutions, then differences are set aside and work is resumed.
This shows the level of political stability we have achieved in Europe today.
This political stability represents a foundation stone for the economic and monetary stability we are endeavouring to achieve within the European Monetary Union.
It is not simply a question of personnel. The Maastricht Treaty, the Stability Pact, stipulates a framework which includes the independence of the Central Bank, the European System of Central Banks and so forth, and, in my view, guarantees that it is built on solid foundations.
However, we should also make it clear that the independence of the European Central Bank will have to be defended.
Mr Duisenberg's paper gives the first possible date for stepping down, but not the final one.
So he is correct in his definition when he says that after four years things will start to look up and that we will then be able to defend the independence of the Central Bank should any national government try to exert unreasonable pressure on its head and his good team.
Allow me to make one final observation.
There is only one reason for the great fuss which surrounded the appointment of the President of the Commission and which has surrounded this case, and that is that these questions still have to be decided unanimously.
For this reason, in the next institutional round, to ensure that the situation is not repeated, Parliament must stress the fact that in future such personnel appointments should be decided by a majority decision at Council level.
Mr President, I wish to thank Christa Randzio-Plath for her excellent work in producing this splendid report.
The Central Bank will have greater freedom than any other institution in the world: its executives will wield immense power.
It is therefore obvious that power cannot be completely unaccountable.
Money, especially monetary policy, is not at all a neutral subject.
It is hot, it is electric, it is all-powerful, and it affects every citizen in the Union.
The hearings were important.
We did not take a position, as if we had there would have been five unsuitable candidates, in our opinion.
One candidate did not fulfil all requirements, in the view of our interviewers.
It must be said that the Bank system must be awfully delicate if it cannot allow one no-vote, not even in Parliament.
Fortunately, the market thinks differently.
The positive side to all this is that we have initiated intensive talks with the Central Bank and you can be sure we will be thorough when we discuss financial and employment policies.
I am wary of the opinion that the European Parliament should be some kind of press outlet for the Central Bank.
Parliament will create a procedure and will present frameworks within which the ECB can practise monetary policy.
I think it is very important that the ECB makes it part of its monetary policy to report back on its assessment of how much monetary policy has given real support to common economic policy.
Its key target should be greater employment.
That is the biggest problem in the Union.
The euro is not always going to be stable if it is based on such mass unemployment as there is.
Certain candidates for the Central Bank's Board have not conceded that monetary policy could have different effects in various parts of the euro area.
It is well known, however, that countries find themselves in different economic cycles at different times.
The economic cycle experienced in small countries like Finland and the employment situation there are different from those in the larger countries.
The European Central Bank must also take account of the possibility of asymmetrical shockwaves affecting the economy when it determines appropriate monetary policy in Europe.
Now we have embarked on a partnership with the Bank, I hope and believe that something good, vital and significant will come of it.
Mr President, on the basis of the candidates' CVs and their written and oral replies to our questions, we have been able to conclude that each of the proposed candidates deserves our support.
I am convinced of the qualities of these five men and one woman, of their integrity, and their determination. I am also convinced that they will ensure that the Treaty will be complied with in all its aspects, and that the candidates possess suitable experience to fulfil their mandate with dignity.
The candidates have all shown their willingness to enter into permanent dialogue with our European Parliament as the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Moreover, the candidates have shown in advance that they have the predisposition to operate as a team.
After having heard the candidates and having read the conclusions of the European Council, we can only conclude that the Treaty and the Statute of the European Central Bank are being respected.
I will therefore vote with pleasure in favour of the appointment of each of the candidates.
Unfortunately I am not able to express the same pleasure about the way the European Council has acted.
The people of Europe have few words of praise for those who are responsible for the poor preparation of this Council. Nor do they have much praise for those who, even at such a historic moment, did not manage to suppress their inclination to give priority to the national prestige of their country over a well-understood general European interest.
But the government leaders who summoned the patience and courage to lunch for hours on end, and in doing so managed to achieve the result which we will endorse today, do deserve our congratulations.
Our congratulations are also due to those who organized the work in our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I hope, Mr Metten, that the groups will retain the political freedom at the next opportunity to each organize themselves internally as they see fit.
The decision-making procedure of the Council must of course be changed.
We can no longer have a situation in which one country is able to exercise its veto when appointments are being decided on.
Mr President, the creation of the euro is an event of the greatest significance.
It will be a new reference currency of great economic potency, and I very much hope the euro will help to turn that into great political potency.
The euro will be managed by an independent Central Bank, and our interviewing of the members we appointed to manage it was among the high points in the life of the European Parliament.
The process by which the Council selected the President of the Central Bank, however, was lamentable.
Yet the credibility of the appointed members, and the solidity of the European economies, were sufficient for the financial markets to erase the memory of some nationalistic decisions which, we hope, will not be repeatable.
Taken overall, this is not the ideal form of governing body we hoped the European Council would present us with.
Nor did I have an equal opinion of all the candidates; that was to be expected.
But the interviews we conducted enabled us to obtain the necessary assurances that all members of the Executive Board, especially the President, Wim Duisenberg, will recognise that the legitimacy and credibility of the European Central Bank and the strength of the euro will depend for their security on the quality of the accounts submitted to the European Parliament and the seriousness of the monetary dialogue they will set up with us.
All the members we interviewed convinced us that they are highly knowledgeable on the subject and have a proven track record of lifelong integrity.
I would particularly congratulate Mrs Hämäläinen, not only on her birthday, which she celebrated on the same day, but also because of the pleasure it gives me to see a woman on the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Let us hope that others will join her in the future, as is natural in a democracy.
Thus, just as we have come to know the Board of the European Central Bank a great deal better, so they have undoubtedly realized that for us monetary policy is neutral, and that, in their dealings with national Parliaments, European Members will be attentive and vigilant in ensuring that the operation of the European Central Bank fulfils all the obligations imposed on it by the Treaty: price stability, but also war on unemployment, support for economic growth, and economic, social and regional cohesion in Europe.
Mr President, I am personally affected since I was unable to distinguish between irony and sincerity in Mr von Wogau's speech, particularly if I take Mr Brok's reaction into account.
Mr President, Mrs Thyssen has attacked me on two points.
Firstly, she says that the Group of the European People's Party has always favoured more openness.
She has a short memory.
I invite everyone to read what she said on the previous Randzio-Plath report.
This provides the definite answer.
Secondly, could I say something about the strength of my backbone with regard to the criticism which I made in respect of a few candidates? I invite everyone to consult the result of the roll-call votes shortly, then it will become clear how strong my backbone is.
Mr President, as Mr Wolf addressed me directly, may I assure him that I would be more than pleased to make available to him a written copy of the speech I have just made.
If he then compares it to the actual events, or asks Gordon Brown whether that is how things actually happened, he will find that the current President-in-Office of the Council will confirm my version of events.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Euro-Mediterranean cooperation (joint debate)
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0466/98 - O-0111/98 by the following Members: Viola, Fabra Vallés, Martens, Friedrich and Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Council, on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation; -B4-0288/98 - O-0083/98 by the following Members: Speciale, Terrón I Cusì, Napoletano, Roubatis, Swoboda and Carlotti, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements; -B4-0290/98 - O-0092/98 by the following Members: Azzolini and Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council, and B4-0383/98-0-0093/98, to the Commission, on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation; -B4-0384/98 - O-0094/98 by the following Members: Elmalan, Carnero González, Papayannakis, Ephremidis, Alavanos, Gutiérrez Díaz and Sierra Gonzalez, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, to the Council, and B4-0385/98-0-0095/98, to the Commission, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements; -B4-0467/98 - O-0112/98 by the following Members: Fabra Vallés, Viola, Theato, Lambrias, Martens, Friedrich and Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation; -B4-00389/98 - O-0099/98 by the following Members: Aelvoet, Cohn-Bendit, Gahrton, Tamino and Orlando, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Council, and B4-0390/98-0-0100/98 to the Commission, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements; -B4-0465/98 - O-0103/98 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Council, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements; -B4-00469/98 - O-0114/98/rev.1 by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, to the Council, on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation; -B4-00471/98 - O-0116/98 by Mr Caligaris and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Council, and B4-0472/98 - O-0117/98 to the Commission, on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Euro-Mediterranean process is today facing the difficult and important moment of resumption after the weakness of Malta, the labourious agreement with Jordan, the delay in the ratification of the Euro-Mediterranean agreements already concluded, the dramatic events in Algeria, the stalling of the peace process, the complex candidature of Cyprus and, finally, the difficult blocking of the MED programmes.
Euro-Mediterranean dialogue will resume in Palermo where, in June, the informal Summit of Foreign Ministers will be held, a summit that should open the way - hopefully downhill - to the forthcoming Conference in Berlin.
This return is beginning under favourable auspices: first of all the resumption of the MED programmes, and therefore a regained confidence in the possibility of once again giving civil society the necessary strength to link the two sides of the Mediterranean and providing it with the adequate funds.
Another positive sign is the imminent creation of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum which is nothing other than the completion of the Barcelona declaration itself.
These good auspices notwithstanding, the risk remains nonetheless that the arduous peace process between Israel and Palestine, which lately has also been showing all its problems and the inadequacy of a European diplomatic presence in the negotiations led by Washington, will negatively affect - as has already occurred in Malta - the European attempt to consolidate a dialogue with the southern rim of the Mediterranean.
The Middle East issues are arising in the Barcelona process, but they are inevitably part of its passage to completion and continue to be perhaps one of the weakest points of this process.
If the Union's common foreign policy is still not up to such tasks, perhaps the future Euro-Mediterranean Forum will be of help in keeping the channels of dialogue open between all sides.
Today, we are also discussing the resumption of the MED programmes.
It is my wish that this be complete and efficient.
There will be complete resumption once the emergency phase is entirely over and if we follow what was voted last year by the Parliament on the report by Fabra Vallés.
Total resumption of Euro-Mediterranean dialogue through decentralized cooperation will actually be complete only when all the MED programmes have been resumed, in particular those aimed at a greater involvement of civil society and the small and medium-sized enterprises along the Mediterranean rim.
There will only be efficiency when the European Commission has enough staff to clearly prevent those operators who in the past had made cofinancing commitments but then did not keep their word, from participating in the new programmes.
I hope that the Commission has understood the high cost - not only in quantifiable financial terms but also in the difficult-to-quantify terms of the loss of trust in the European Institutions on the part of the Mediterranean non-member countries and especially on the part of civil society - caused by the inevitable blocking of the MED programmes, blocking that, mind you, was rightly sought by Commissioner Marín and effectively monitored by this Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control which gave its own positive opinion that decentralized programming could resume only when the Commission provides sufficient guarantees that there will be a resumption of sound programming and financial management.
I have dwelt upon the resumption of the MED programmes because the debate that we are holding today arose from this, anticipating the discussion already scheduled in June on the situation in the Middle East.
The Group of the European People's Party is obviously not avoiding such a debate, considering it in any case useful and timely.
The colleagues of the group following me will address the individual issues more specifically.
In conclusion, I consider it both useful and timely to arrive at a joint resolution on which all agree.
As far as our group is concerned, I believe that such an objective is easier to achieve if an agreement can be reached on the compromise resolution, which could take the form of two simple oral amendments which make recital G positive and update paragraph 10 which today could be objectively surpassed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all allow me to remind you of the importance of the European Union's actions in favour of the associated countries of the Mediterranean.
With the MEDA programme alone, up to 1999, we are talking about ECU 3400 million.
That money is aimed at providing help wherever the worst problems are encountered: that is, in the area of essential basic services for the welfare of the people.
Priority is given to projects in the fields of education, professional training and health.
Although I fully agree with the Commission on the basic principles, there are still some question marks over the implementation of those principles and the way in which the money provided in the Union's budget is spent.
In that context, we all know that the moment of truth has not yet arrived, even though, in an exemplary demonstration of transparency on the part of the Commission, the implementation figures for the budgetary planning for the Mediterranean are currently available on the Internet.
That is good.
The figures are excellent as regards commitments, but the question goes further than that. Will it be possible to respect those commitments?
Will the available money be spent?
In other words, will the promises be kept?
Or will we run into the same problems in the future as we met in the PHARE and, especially, the TACIS programmes? That is the question on which the Commission will be judged in the end.
The Court of Auditors' report on financial and technical cooperation with Mediterranean third countries which was presented a few weeks ago may give rise to doubts, for example about the Commission failing to provide enough human resources to implement the programmes, and about the lack of clarity between the Commission's various services on the one hand, and between the Commission's headquarters in Brussels and the territorial delegations, on the other.
And that Court of Auditors' report ends by saying that these problems could get worse if we lose sight of the importance of the MEDA commitments and the ambitious payment rate. What is the Commission's reaction to this risk?
And remember, we are talking about the MEDA programme, where there was no problem, and everything was done absolutely by the book.
My second worry is about the decentralized cooperation programmes - the MED programmes.
Here we need to know if the Commission is planning to do everything needed in order to follow up Parliament's resolutions on the MED programmes. It is good that these cooperation programmes have been relaunched on a new basis.
Nevertheless, three questions arise in this context. Will the Commission respect all Parliament's conditions?
Will the Commission act in such a way as to allow the recovery of all moneys from those projects which were cancelled because of irregularities? And will the Commission provide the judicial authorities with all the information at its disposal, so that possible criminal responsibilities can be determined?
Mr President, Commissioner, I wonder if people need reminding that this is a sine qua non for authorizing the discharge of the 1996 budget.
Mr President, in 1995 when the Intergovernmental Conference in Barcelona was opened, conference that was followed by other ministerial meetings - Malta in 1997 and the civil forums in Barcelona in 1995 and Naples in 1997 - the government and parliamentary institutions as well as civil society expressed unanimous support for closer and more profitable Mediterranean cooperation.
Indeed we cannot underestimate the fact that the Mediterranean basin, in addition to being a geographical area, is a strategical area in geopolitical terms, increasingly sensitive to migratory flows and of growing interest for economic, trade and cultural relations.
However, after these past three years, we cannot say that we are satisfied.
Having personally participated in a parliamentary delegation led by the Member, Gutiérrez Díaz, at the Intergovernmental Conference in Malta in 1997, we recognize that a lot of problems, including political ones, in certain areas of the Mediterranean basin are an obstacle or at least a brake on the launching of substantial cooperation.
Nonetheless, we believe that these obstacles must not become an excuse to halt a process of collaboration that is becoming increasingly more urgent and pressing.
But I notice from the compromise situation agreed by the Socialists, Liberals, Left and Radical Alliance that there is a desire to relegate the European Union's action to a wait-and-see role or a role of judge.
Instead we believe that the European Union must play a much more important role, especially by developing a capacity to mediate that is more than just passively taking note of the problems that are afflicting the democracies of certain third countries of the Mediterranean basin, not taking into due account the fact that the harmful effects are for the entire Euro-Mediterranean system.
We too strongly condemn the systematic violation of human and civil rights and note with regret that the peace processes are at times rendered more and more difficult; but it is precisely with realism and a sense of responsibility that we must look at phenomena of such scope and complexity, especially since they go far back in history.
It is indeed true that the intertwining of political, religious, economic and cultural reasons can make disentangling this intricate situation seem arduous, but it is precisely here that we measure the role and capacity of our Institution.
Our mediation work and our role of promoting closer and more profitable collaboration must be based precisely on these objective facts, which must not cause rupture and discrimination but lead us to careful reflection to find the most appropriate and responsible solutions.
Mr President, I am going to talk about the main difficulty that is impeding the Barcelona process - the crisis in the Middle East.
Let us not forget the image of Yitzhak Rabin at his last meeting, and what a meeting it was - with moving lucidity uttering the pacifist words he once condemned.
At that time, not so long ago, the prospect of a peace process was in sight, in Israel as well as in Palestine, as a feeling of interdependence had grown up between the two peoples.
One of President Arafat's favourite sayings summed up their mutual interests: territories in exchange for peace.
Mr Netanyahu's irresponsible policy is in the process of annihilating that prospect and that dynamic process, to the point of rejecting a plan by Israel's main ally, which asks for a modest 13 % military withdrawal from the West Bank. So what does the ultra-right want?
To force the United States to withdraw? To push the Palestinians to exasperation point?
Neither side seems prepared to provide an excuse to drop the Oslo process officially. But for how long can this unprecedented situation last?
I hope that the European Union will become fully involved in the vital issues of this serious crisis.
The traditional reluctance of some European leaders to do anything to annoy their American allies is out of place here.
Collective pressure must be brought to bear on those who seriously threaten to break the peace, so that the implementation of the Oslo agreements can be resumed.
Now is also the time for Europe to show those in doubt that Europe can play a useful part in the decisive negotiations, where the most important questions will be discussed, particularly the question of colonies, refugees, Jerusalem and, naturally, the State of Palestine.
This is an excellent example of common European diplomacy which is within our reach.
For the sake of peace and for Europe, I very much hope that it can be put into practice and that it will be successful.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to repeat what has already been said on the subject of the role of the Middle East peace process or on the subject of the Euro-Mediterranean agreements. I believe that we all agree that there is a hard core which is capable of blocking or unblocking the situation.
I believe that, in general, as far as the Euro-Mediterranean problem is concerned, we should understand and accept that Europe will not play a fundamental role in resolving contradictions unless it has the tools to implement its policy.
Therefore, the fact that Europe pays, but is incapable of using political pressure to ensure its objectives are put into practice, shows that there is a need for a common foreign policy with common structures. This applies not only to human rights but also to other problems, and here, if you do not mind, I will turn to the situation in Algeria, as another example.
We can see that there have been extraordinary changes in that area, in Morocco in particular.
At the same time, the Algerian problem forms another hard nucleus. It is, in fact, obstructing the whole process for the simple reason that today, in Algeria, despite all the negotiations that have taken place, there are so many contradictions that Europe has to become fully involved on three levels.
First of all, it must admit that the social and economic problem in Algeria which was imposed by the World Bank is also Europe's problem and that Europe must clear up that problem.
Secondly, it must agree that a policy of prevention of any form of terrorism, in Algeria, can only be implemented in compliance with human rights.
Thirdly, it must take civil society into consideration: in Algeria you must learn to count to three!
There are not only soldiers and fundamentalists there; there is also a civil society, not just a diabolical dichotomy. Europe also needs to get involved.
If we do not understand that, we will not be able to play our part in a vision of Europe based on the concept of social welfare and freedom.
Mr President, I think we can really all agree at the moment that, throughout this debate, we are clearly seeing the importance of making sure that the conclusions of the Barcelona Conference of November 1995 and the Malta Conference of April 1997 are respected, made concrete and put into practice.
That is necessary in order to remove the paralysis currently affecting the proposals contained in these resolutions.
The results of both conferences are vital for preserving peace and economic and social development in the Mediterranean basin, which undoubtedly benefits that region's relationship with the European Union itself.
Furthermore, we applaud the Commission's decision to relaunch and give fresh impetus to the MED programmes - URBS, MEDIA and CAMPUS - as requested by this Parliament. We need these programmes in order to tighten Euro-Mediterranean cooperation.
We must stress that Euro-Mediterranean association is even more important at the moment, if that were possible, because the blockage in the Middle East peace process is threatening the conclusions agreed at the Barcelona Conference.
So the EUROMED parliamentary forum, which will take place all this year, becomes especially relevant since it should strengthen and complement the Barcelona process, ensure that its resolutions are complied with, and increase political dialogue.
Despite everything that has been said, Mr President, and despite being in agreement with the Barcelona conclusions, I want to underline that any strengthening of the Euro-Mediterranean association must take full account of the repercussions for the Objective 1 regions of the European Union. As you all know, most of those regions are located in the Mediterranean basin and their industrial activity is similar to that of the associated third countries.
Specifically, we are talking about textiles, ceramics and agriculture.
A free trade which took no account of these regions would only harm them and endanger economic and social cohesion, which is such a fundamental part of the European Union ideal.
Mr President, the decentralized cooperation programmes, developed by countries of the European Union in order to help improve the structure of partnerships between the North and South of the Mediterranean area and thereby contribute towards the stability of the Euro-Mediterranean zone, are going to be resumed. This will take place after the actions already undertaken and the methods of implementation have been evaluated.
It is important for us to know about these, to know what practical actions the MED programmes have lead to, what stabilizing effects they have had, particularly in the fundamental area of the development of SMEs.
Have they managed to avoid damaging the farming and fishing industries by adopting codes of conduct to prevent possible destructuring effects?
The implementation of the MED programme must be exemplary.
Have the serious irregularities found by the Court of Auditors in its 1996 report on the Commission's management been corrected and, if so, how? Remember that the Commission subcontracted the whole of the financial and administrative management of the MED programmes to ARTM, an international non profit-making association under Belgian law, created by the Commission, whose income comes exclusively from contracts granted to it by the Commission.
This delegation of the Commission's competence to a third party, without legal basis, without a decision on principle, without competitive tendering for contracts, which are mostly awarded by mutual agreement, has created a very serious confusion of interests. The same firms of consultants were involved in the design of the programmes, in the preparation of proposals for financing, in the management of ARTM and in the technical monitoring of programmes.
The delegation of competence, the weakness of the design of the programmes and the unsuitability of the Commission's management and monitoring tools have been rightly criticized by the Court of Auditors.
This type of practice, for obvious reasons with regard to transparency, has been prohibited in most Member States because it is a permanent source of financial mismanagement, corruption and nepotism.
Does the increase in the number of programmes managed at Commission level and the continual widening of their scope not mean that there is often likely to be a lack of control? We would like to know, in this case, what solutions the Council has implemented or intends to implement in order to safeguard the efficiency of MED Community funds and re-establish transparency in their use.
Mr President, now that the euphoria over European Monetary Union has died down, it is only right to turn again to common foreign policy, aspects of which are certainly no more encouraging.
This is especially true for the Mediterranean basin, still marginalised on the edge of Europe and today the source of such potential and existing crises that they eclipse the extraordinary potential which exists.
Moreover, it does not seem out of place to recall how the Holy Roman Empire, frequently held up today as a model for European construction, really failed precisely because it was incapable of combining the reality of Central Europe with that of the Mediterranean.
The past can also serve as a lesson for the present.
In the immediate post-War period, the Mediterranean's marginalization began again and its certainly harmful effects are today palpable.
Barcelona showed that the course had to be resumed in a positive manner, but the meeting that followed in Malta was certainly disappointing.
The bilateral relations between the European Union and the individual Mediterranean third countries have been conducted until now in this context, but it is doubtful that this could be of fundamental importance in the context of general Euro-Mediterranean policy.
Our resolution, which supports resumption, therefore ends up being an over-ambitious cahier de doléances barely offset by some reasons for hope, including the unblocking of MEDA funds, the meeting of the 27 Foreign Ministers and the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum.
Although these steps must not be underestimated, it is certainly not like this that the process of European Monetary Union was approached, and probably if it had been approached in this way, no one would even hear about it today.
In short, without a common foreign policy for Europe, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, little will truly be able to change and resolutions like this one will be repeated without offering great expectations.
I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in this debate to try to respond to the questions which have been raised, although I will leave it to my colleague, Commissioner Marin, to deal with the technical points.
Before I try to set out some of our responses to those points in a more general context, I should like to mention a related matter - the assassination attempt on Mr Akin Birdal, the chairman of the Human Rights Association of Turkey, whom I met when I visited Turkey in the autumn of last year.
I believe that decent people throughout Europe will be shocked and outraged by this tragic incident.
I know that the hearts and minds of those good people of Europe will be with Mr Birdal and his family at this difficult time.
We all wish him a speedy recovery.
The presidency and all decent people in Europe will, I know, want to give every support to the Turkish Government and the judiciary in bringing to justice those responsible for this atrocity.
On the general context of the EUROMED process, I should like to begin by stating that I believe that this partnership is of the highest priority to the Council.
As regards ratification of the Euro-Mediterranean agreements so far signed, the Council can only note that the ratification process by national parliaments of the agreements already signed is indeed a very long one.
The presidency has, on several occasions, urged Member States to speed up their ratifications.
The Council has, however, no power to interfere in the internal procedures for ratification by those Member States.
The Barcelona Conference in November 1995 agreed the goal of the EUROMED free trade area by the year 2010.
We are now working hard to reach this target.
A key element in this strategy is the negotiation of the new EUROMED Association Agreements.
As far as negotiations on agricultural products are concerned, the Council notes that notwithstanding the sensitivity of certain products, negotiations were successfully concluded with Morocco, Tunisia, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.
The Council hopes that the remaining negotiations will soon be successfully concluded.
A new negotiating round with Lebanon took place on 23 and 24 April, and with Egypt on 7 and 8 May.
I can also tell Parliament that negotiations with Syria are scheduled to start on 14 May.
In December 1997 the Agricultural Council adopted conclusions on the Commission's study on the impact of concessions to the Mediterranean countries.
It stressed the importance of taking into account the socio-economic repercussions of the proposed concessions on the Community agricultural market.
It also noted the need to develop a consistent overall strategy when defining the Community position in negotiations with third countries.
As regards the fight against terrorism, the negotiating directives for an association agreement with Algeria, as adopted by the Council in June 1996, do not provide for the inclusion in the agreement of provisions concerning this issue.
In the framework of the European Union/Algeria dialogue the Algerian authorities have underlined their interest in pursuing discussion on what might be done to prevent and combat terrorism.
The Council has repeatedly reaffirmed its interest in a broad-based dialogue to discuss any concerns and proposals that the Algerian authorities might seek to bring to its attention, including on how to combat terrorism.
That is in line with the draft resolution which is before Parliament.
The Council is now looking at the best way to start a political dialogue on this sensitive issue both at bilateral level and within the EUROMED context.
The Council has strongly condemned terrorist attacks against the Algerian population, including massacres, other murders, abductions and rapes.
At the same time, it has expressed solidarity with the Algerian people and, consequently, has repeatedly called on the Algerian authorities to make every effort to actively protect the population from attacks.
Equally important for the Council is the promotion and protection of human rights in Algeria.
To this end, in the context of the 54th United Nations Human Rights Commission, the Presidency, on behalf of the European Union, urged the Government of Algeria fully to respect human rights and to approach the fight against terrorism within the rule of law and international standards.
In this respect, the Council is also concerned at allegations of arbitrary executions, arbitrary detentions and torture and has urged the Algerian authorities to redress these issues.
The Council has encouraged, and will continue to encourage, the Algerian Government to promote transparency through dialogue on human rights with the international community.
It has called on Algeria to facilitate early visits of United Nations' special rapporteurs on torture and extra-judicial summary or arbitrary executions.
The MEDA programme is an essential component of the strategy of cooperation between the European Union and its Mediterranean neighbours.
The Union has committed ECU 4.7 billion for 1995-1999 to assist the process of economic transition now under way.
After in-depth discussions between the Commission and the European Parliament, the Commission has recently announced its intention to relaunch three decentralized Mediterranean cooperation programmes: MED CAMPUS, MED MEDIA and MED URBS.
The MED Invest Programme itself was not relaunched but its main objectives have now been incorporated into the wider MEDA programme.
The Council notes with satisfaction this decision taken just a few weeks before the Palermo ministerial meeting.
This will enable substantial cooperation to be developed in line with the Barcelona Declaration between actors of the civil society promoting better mutual understanding.
The ad hoc ministerial meeting which will take place in Palermo on 3 and 4 June will be an opportunity to assess jointly, with all the Mediterranean partners, the activities undertaken under the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and to give it a renewed impetus in view of the next formal ministerial meeting in Germany in April 1999.
Concerning the risk of contamination of the Barcelona process by the Middle East peace process, the Council stresses that the partnership should be sustained along the lines agreed in the Barcelona Declaration which sets out long-term objectives.
The present difficulties encountered by the peace process should not be allowed to overshadow this perspective.
The two processes are complementary but separate.
The recent visit of Prime Minister Blair and Foreign Minister Cook to the region and the talks held in London on 4 and 5 May are a concrete sign of the Council's close diplomatic engagement in the Middle East peace process.
Again, it is in line with what is contained in the draft resolution which is before this Parliament and we hope that that will be a basis on which the dialogue continues and there is some optimism that there will be a way forward shortly.
Thank you, President-in-Office.
I would thank you, in particular, for raising the matter of the recent assassination attempt in Turkey.
As you probably know, it was raised in this House on Tuesday and again this morning.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Henderson, President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to start my speech by reminding you of something which is sometimes forgotten.
Up until just two and a half years ago, when the Barcelona Conference took place, the European Union's Mediterranean policy was relatively modest and limited in scope.
All we offered to each Mediterranean third country was a series of trade concessions and an amount of bilateral financial aid.
Many very important areas did not even enter into this relationship.
I am thinking of political dialogue, economic transition, free trade, cultural cooperation and cooperation with civil society.
Also, the financial aid was of a conventional nature.
It consisted of financial protocols, normally with a slow disbursement and priorities which were basically decided upon by the Union, with no real spirit of association between the north and south of the Mediterranean.
The Barcelona Conference brought a real change of direction. It was there that we established an association strategy formulated and implemented jointly with our Mediterranean partners, based precisely on commitments freely entered into by all parties.
Association is a far-reaching project which now addresses all sectors of common interest, from questions of politics and security, through economic and financial cooperation, to the social, cultural and human dimension.
So nobody should be surprised if the changeover to this new system has given rise to certain teething problems or problems of implementation, which the Commission cannot hide.
Firstly, it is no secret that the MEDA regulation was blocked in the Council for eight months, for strictly political reasons that you are all aware of.
That eight-month paralysis in the Council was caused by the situation which arose in connection with the problem of our relations with Turkey and the veto of a Member State.
Secondly, the exponential increase in aid at the Cannes Summit came at a time when politically it was not possible to increase even slightly the Commission's human resources for implementing that aid.
The Cannes Summit, which resulted in a very considerable increase in the MEDA programme, was held just at the time when the Council and the European Parliament were deciding on zero growth for the European Commission in terms of personnel.
Furthermore it is true that, because of the management problems we found with the decentralized cooperation programmes, I myself made the decision to suspend them until we could be completely satisfied with their transparency and good management.
Today we have a policy with coherent and ambitious long-term objectives, based on the establishment of free trade, support for economic transition, and the promotion of direct investment.
In short, with the phase we are in at the moment - and it is good to be having this debate in the European Parliament - it could be said that we have reached cruising speed.
Despite the difficulties - and the additional problem of contamination by the peace process, which is causing us many difficulties in our everyday work - the MEDA programme has reached cruising speed, after two and a half years.
In the first place, we have now managed to sign five Euro-Mediterranean agreements. The rest are progressing rapidly, though I cannot hide the fact that there are difficulties in the sections on agricultural trade and the readmission of illegal immigrants.
Those two areas have become the two biggest political problems in the association agreement negotiations. Even so, I have to say we must be consistent.
To ask for Euro-Mediterranean policy to be implemented, or to be in favour of EuroMediterranean policy, on condition that the countries of the region cannot sell a tomato, a lettuce or a cucumber in the Community market, is simply to be against Euro-Mediterranean policy.
You cannot ask for something and its opposite both at the same time.
That needs to be said straight away.
In commercial terms, the Euro-Mediterranean policy involves a cost for the Community economy.
To fail to understand that is to deny the evidence of the process itself.
As for the national indicative programmes, there has been substantial progress now that they have all been approved.
The fact is that, as has been rightly pointed out, there is of course an imbalance between the commitments and the payments.
Naturally, the final balance will have to be found at the end of the process, but I must point out that many of the payment operations are linked to operations of structural adjustment, so the money will be paid if those countries fulfil the objectives of the macroeconomic programme signed with the World Bank and the European Union, as regards privatization law, changes to banking legislation and public sector reorganization.
If they do not comply then obviously those sums will not be paid, because in this specific case the Commission's obligation is, precisely, not to pay.
I have to make that clear right away, because I have already made a negative decision about one Mediterranean country which has not fulfilled its privatization law. That meant I had to say we could not pay for the adjustment programme, although negotiations are underway.
I want to confirm another important point, Mr Wurtz: the problem of the peace process is seriously contaminating the Barcelona process.
You have no idea what miracles we often have to perform to get the Barcelona committee to carry on working, simply because the situation in the Middle East has a very negative influence on the whole process.
Our objective is to remove that contamination from the Barcelona process as far as possible at Palermo, at the summit meeting of foreign ministers from both parties.
We cannot have a repetition of what happened at Malta, where we had to get up from the table without even making a final statement.
We cannot carry on like that, because it is very negative and causes us a lot of difficulties.
I now want to make a few quick remarks.
The Court of Auditors' comment about not having enough human resources is absolutely right.
It is true that Parliament's decision in favour of MEDA - to install what is known as technical and administrative support - is helping us. It has already been implemented at headquarters and in each delegation.
However, in the matter of personnel we once again have a situation where it is very difficult for the Commission to explain what is going on. The Court of Auditors has noticed that we do not have enough staff.
The European Parliament has noticed that we do not have enough staff. If in October this year the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament decide on zero growth, then you already have the answer for next year: I will still have no staff.
So in October I will say once again to the European Parliament and the Council: "If you have observed that I do not have enough staff, then give me more. Otherwise, you already know the answer for next year: I have no staff.'
So, what have we done?
We have relaunched the decentralized cooperation programme. In doing so, as we have explained and will do so again to the Committee on Budgetary Control, as regards Mr Fabra Vallés' report, we have satisfied all the conditions set by the European Parliament, except one.
And that is just because we do not have the staff.
That one condition is the one concerning direct management of the programmes.
What we have done - and there can be no doubt about it because it was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities - is to subcontract with external assistance both technical and financial management.
And that has been done through a process of public bidding, announced in the Official Journal and via the Internet, and is subject to the new strengthened contractual conditions approved by the Commission in July last year.
Why did we decide to do that?
Because we have no staff. In any case, we have taken the greatest possible precaution, which is to separate technical and financial management.
They are going to work independently, besides which the Commission has limited the contract to just two years to see how it works.
Of course, I would like to be given more staff in the October budget so we can run these programmes directly.
As for the decision on whether or not to refer these cases to the judicial authorities, the Commission is going to deliver a report about this to the Committee on Budgetary Control on 20 May during the debate on the discharge of the 1996 budget.
As regards Algeria, about which Mr Cohn-Bendit has expressed concern, we are in a situation right now where we need to decide which approach to take with the government.
This very week, a delegation from my services, from the DirectorateGeneral, is in Algiers trying to find out what we should do.
This is a problem which also concerns not commitments, but payments.
It is no secret that at the moment ECU 400 million from the Algerian budget heading, the Mediterranean protocols and the new MEDA programme have been frozen.
And the problem needs to be stated there.
If we open a tender for a rural development programme in Algeria and nobody puts in a bid because of the security situation, what can the Commission do?
I cannot make the Member States' technical staff go there, because they refuse to do so.
I cannot make the technical staff who normally work in Brussels go there, because they think it is a very difficult country to work in, for internal reasons.
Nevertheless, we are working in Algiers this week, in order to find a solution.
Then there is another reason for the delay in implementing the programmes, which is never talked about but which I must mention: the delay on the part of the Member States in ratifying the association agreements.
I have spoken again to the Ministers for Foreign Affairs, because the average time taken to ratify the Mediterranean agreements in the national parliaments - Tunisia was the first case - is two years, four months.
And the agreement with Morocco has still not been ratified by all the national parliaments.
So that part of MEDA which is concerned with cooperation committees simply cannot be put into operation.
It cannot be put into operation until there has been ratification by the Member States.
And in that sense, I hope our Member States will try to ensure that they can explain their position when they arrive in Palermo on 6 June.
I have to say that Morocco is the most worrying case - not to mention Palestine, Israel or others.
In conclusion, do not forget that while we continue to apply the Maastricht Treaty's provisions in relation to mixed agreements, it is very difficult to work on the implementation of cooperation agreements. I think this is a peaceable debate for another intergovernmental conference.
I am experiencing this with MEDA, but exactly the same thing is happening with PHARE and TACIS.
The average time for ratification by the national parliaments is currently between two and a half and three years. That is very serious indeed from the point of view of the European Union's general image.
We cannot do anything else because of what the Treaty says, but I expect - because it is just common sense - that in the future the whole system of mixed agreements will have to be revised in the context of a new intergovernmental conference. Because believe me, working like this is very, very difficult.
Thank you, Commissioner, for what you have just said.
I want to say that I heartily agree, especially with the last part of your speech. It saves me having to say some things I had planned to say.
I think it is right to begin by stressing how pleased we are that the MED programmes have been put into operation. They are greatly valued by this Parliament, which is always very keen that the citizens of the Union should be able to participate in decentralized Community initiatives.
They have been put into operation - and this needs emphasizing - in compliance with the requests this Parliament made to the Commission.
As pointed out by Mr Samland, chairman of the Committee on Budgets - which, by the way, is not well known in Parliament for being particularly kind or charitable - the Commission is showing an exemplary degree of transparency in this field, and I believe it should serve as an example for the other cooperation programmes we have underway.
The high level of implementation of the MEDA programmes is also very positive.
And I want to ask a question in this respect. Does it make sense, with this high level of implementation, to propose less funding for 1999 to comply with the Cannes agreements?
What effect will this have on the continuity of the programmes after 1999? I think reducing the immediate funding for the MEDA programmes despite the high level of implementation is a negative political signal.
The situation in Israel is worrying for us all.
The Council representative told us that the political situation in the Middle East should not make us forget our long-term objectives.
Obviously, we want the long-term objectives of the Barcelona Conference to be complied with, but if we do not know how to implement the agreements signed with the Palestine National Authority because nobody even knows what territories they will apply in, then it is difficult to deny what the Commissioner said so clearly: that the failure to comply with Oslo is contaminating the Barcelona process.
I want to conclude on the positive note with which I started, by welcoming the fact that the EUROMED parliamentary forum is going to take place.
Mr President, as an inhabitant of Melilla, I live next door to the friendly country of Morocco and a few kilometres from the Algerian border. As such, and as a Spaniard, I consider myself particularly sensitive to the questions which affect the two coasts of the Mediterranean.
Next week, this Parliament's delegation to the Maghreb will be visiting Morocco and Mauritania to promote political and parliamentary dialogue with these countries in the spirit of the Barcelona Conference and the association agreement with Morocco, which certainly has an ambitious development plan underway in the north which deserves our attention.
The problems of debt, immigration, drugs, lack of mutual cultural familiarity, mistrust and understandable concern about fundamentalist movements - which are unfortunately leaving bloodstains on countries such as Algeria - require a mutual effort of collaboration and aid.
For that purpose, various procedures have been developed, such as those arising from the MEDA programmes and the bilateral agreements on economic, cultural and social development.
Whether or not Mediterranean cooperation achieves good results depends on the parties concerned.
The European institutions should put in place the necessary means so that aid can reach these countries as quickly and transparently as possible, and so that a suitable information policy can allow interested businesses, organizations or individuals equal access to the planned programmes.
In the area of regional and local cooperation, it would be a very good thing for the third countries of the Mediterranean to make real efforts as regards the participation of civil society in the field of human rights and freedoms, women's equality, and special attention for young people, as well as making their administrations more flexible, removing bureaucracy and making their actions more transparent.
During the visit of this Parliament's delegation to Algeria, we gained a lot of experience.
We came to the conclusion that together with economic cooperation - with the difficulties explained to us by Commissioner Marín - there should also be a profound political cooperation. That is essential in order for us to be able to talk openly about terrorism, human rights, and social and cultural cooperation.
The European Parliament has offered this political dialogue, which we have already started in the context of the delegation to the Maghreb.
In order to do this, as Commissioner Marín said, we need the association agreements to work effectively.
It is very important, as has been said here, to speed up the process of ratification in the national parliaments, including those agreements currently being negotiated, as is the case with Algeria.
These agreements constitute the basic instrument to act as a framework for political dialogue, which should of course not end with their signing and ratification.
Mr President, in three days time I will be leaving for Egypt as rapporteur on the association agreement, but I realize that the political aim of the Barcelona initiative is in danger, and along with that the development of a zone of stability.
Mr Henderson illustrated the powerlessness of the Council just now when he mentioned that the ratification of the agreements already signed cannot be pushed any further.
Yet this is essential, as Mr Marín has just said.
On the subject of agriculture; what is being done on the eve of enlargement to harmonize the adjustment of the common agricultural policy with the legitimate demands concerning agricultural exports in Northern Africa?
As far as human rights are concerned, Morocco is making great improvements, but other countries are lagging behind.
Something should be done about this, too.
As far as terrorism is concerned, I agree that terrorist activities are carried out in many countries, yet London is constantly mentioned as the point from which terrorist initiatives make their way to the countries of Northern Africa.
London is mentioned over and over again. London keeps quiet.
London should do something.
Only Belgium has done something.
To conclude, it is not right to hang the entire Mediterranean policy on the blockage of the Middle East peace process.
This seems wrong to me.
Mr President, it is obviously necessary to speed up the negotiation process with Mediterranean countries, otherwise there is a significant risk that the United States, already in that area, will have everything their own way.
The area in question is a sensitive area in terms of stability and peace and it is also a vast commercial area.
And although I regret Europe's protectionism with regard to agriculture, which does not really make integration possible, I regret as much, if not more, the attitude of some of the countries involved. Those countries seem to have lost sight of the principles of peace, of respect for human rights and of the rule of law described in the Barcelona Declaration.
It is true that the European Union is partly responsible for the slowness and mismanagement of the programmes, not to mention financial corruption and inadequate supervision of the management of projects.
The differences between the Fifteen, which are sometimes comprehensible but often prejudicial to any real prosperity in the Mediterranean region, do not help to solve migration problems, social, environmental and cultural problems, as well as problems of security and terrorism.
It is clear that Europe must get more involved in the Middle East peace process and in solving the problems that are rife in Algeria.
We have to admit that Europe has not played a major role in the Algerian situation.
Whether that is due to different political positions on how to resolve the conflict or to economic reasons, the result is very disappointing.
Terrorism is more rife than ever, so are violations of human rights. I refer, of course, to torture and to the many missing persons.
The Barcelona Declaration states that all signatory countries must respect the principles of peace, democratization and human rights, in a spirit of freedom and dialogue in civil society.
I sincerely hope that Europe will increase its cooperation with Mediterranean countries and speed up the process of ratification of the agreements.
But I also call upon some of those countries to cooperate more fully with Europe.
It would be of benefit to us all, and would contribute towards stability, prosperity and peace.
Mr President, the process of dialogue begun at the Barcelona Conference represents a new pattern of regional dialogue between the peoples of the Mediterranean, committed to achieving three main objectives: political stability; security, based on the strengthening of democratic institutions; and economic development.
But at the moment, this association dialogue lacks credibility.
It is suffering constant attrition due to the Middle East situation, the infringement of human rights in Turkey and the instability in Algeria.
As regards the Middle East, the peace process has been blocked by the Israeli Government, and by that country's lack of commitment to having a meeting in the near future in order to continue with efforts towards peace.
This attitude reveals obvious contempt for the United Nations Security Council resolutions, the Oslo Accords and the principles agreed at the Madrid Conference on the Middle East.
The European Union must demand that Israel complies with these obligations.
If that does not happen, we should reconsider the limits of our agreement with Israel, whose government is endangering the region's stabilization and integration.
To move on to other questions, we also need to demand an end to human rights violations in Turkey, and support Algeria's democrats.
In planning its future strategy, the European Union should examine its part in the Middle East peace process and its political role in the Mediterranean area, with which we have ancient historical, cultural and human ties.
The European Union should not just be an economic partner, but also a political mediator.
On that role depends not just the credibility of Mediterranean dialogue but also the very construction of Europe as a political project.
The debate will be resumed this evening.
Mr President, I rise on a point regarding the imposition of the Rule on the 50 % voting on roll-call votes.
You will recall that you advised this House that this new procedure was going to run for a trial period for three months.
That three-month period is now over.
May I ask you if you will be putting to the House any change in these procedures so that the House can then take a democratic vote on it?
We are about to discuss the appointment of the Board of the Central Bank.
Much has been made of the openness and transparency of the operations of the European Central Bank.
It is only right for Members of this House to expect the same openness and transparency in the conduct of the work of the Bureau.
I would advise you, Mr President, that while I seem to be alone in my objections to these particular impositions, I can assure you that many Members of this Chamber from all political groups are as concerned as I am about the imposition of Rules from a Bureau which does not make itself accountable to this House.
Therefore, I would conclude by asking if you will be placing before this House any procedures which will authenticate the current, obscene and daft 50 % ruling, as you have done on the current voting system?
Mr Falconer, I shall be submitting this matter to the Bureau during one of the next sessions so that it can review the system following the three-month period.
I have no intention of removing from the Bureau its power to review the system after we have been practising it for three months.
Mr President, yesterday during the vote on the Pirker report there was an amendment tabled by the Green Group in the European Parliament, two parts of which had been adopted by the majority in this Parliament.
These were additions or amendments to the existing paragraph 8.
Afterwards the President of the sitting at the time asked for a vote on the original paragraph 8.
I then intervened in the part-session to say that this could only mean that everything compatible with the already accepted amendments had been adopted.
Now it turns out that a substantial part of an approved amendment has not been included in the approved text.
I must raise a formal objection to this.
It is contrary to every parliamentary practice. It is also contrary to the rules of this House.
I therefore ask for a rectification, so that justice will be done to the decision taken by a majority here.
Mrs Aelvoet, we will check the Minutes to find out what happened, although this is not the right time to comment on the Minutes.
Nevertheless, this matter is so important that it will be checked.
Mr President, I am still not entirely clear.
Are you advising this Chamber that you will be consulting the Bureau to look at the position of the voting system but you will not be putting the decision to the House as a whole? Are you prepared to put any recommendation from the Bureau to the House as a whole?
That was my question. Honourable Members of this House have a right to debate and vote on these matters in their groups and to vote on them in this Chamber.
You cannot change the conditions without honourable Members' rights being abused.
I ask you again if I am correct in my understanding, namely that what you said was that you will put the matter to the Bureau.
You have had the three-month review.
I would have thought the Bureau would have discussed it last month.
If, however, you are going to put it to the Bureau again, are you saying that you will put the Bureau's decision to this House?
Mr Falconer, when a Member of this House or anybody else is calling for their rights to be respected, the first thing they have to do is make sure they know them.
So please read the Rules of Procedure, which describe the rights of Members of this House.
And the Rules of Procedure, as they stand at the moment, bestow that competence on the Bureau not Parliament.
There is a very easy way to change that: by proposing an amendment to the Rules of Procedure.
I will not oppose that.
Propose an amendment to the Rules of Procedure, as any Member is entitled to do, so that Parliament takes these decisions rather than the Bureau.
I am bound by the Rules of Procedure just like yourself and the 626 Members here, and while those Rules say that the Bureau takes such decisions, I am obliged by Rule 5 to abide by that.
Votes
Mr President, Members from the European Right did not take part in the vote because we do not agree with the principle or the composition of the Executive Board.
Mr Martinez, you are an admirable jurist.
You know that this is not the right time for explanations of vote, which are at the end.
After the vote on recital E
Mr President, before we move to complete the vote on Mr Duisenberg, I would like to ask you if Mr Duisenberg is here to declare his respect to the European Parliament when we vote on our position on whether or not he is appointed to the European Central Bank.
Is Mr Duisenberg present?
Mr President, I wanted to speak before the roll-call vote opened.
I am sorry that you did not invite me to speak when I made the request.
It is customary for votes on appointments to be taken by secret ballot.
That is the case, for example, with appointments to the Court of Auditors.
Here we are giving an opinion on people who are nominated for appointment to the European Central Bank.
I think that it would be right for us to follow our usual practice and, even in the event of a roll-call vote, to vote by secret ballot.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, as a member of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, you know that a secret ballot has to be requested by one fifth of the Members before the vote opens.
I did not receive requests from one fifth of the Members.
Furthermore, this is not an election, or even an appointment, it is an opinion on the basis of which the European Council will decide whether or not to make an appointment.
Therefore, the provisions you refer to are not applicable.
Mr President, I do not propose to say what the other Members have said.
Since I voted against this recommendation and the meaning of the recommendation, I wish to justify my position, because I realized that Parliament had made a parliamentary...
(The President cut off the speaker) ... this supreme post was surrendered to a Mr Duisenberg, who despises us and is not even present...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Thank you very much, Mr President.
Because of a seating problem - I still have not found the right place - I want to say that I was here for the last vote and my vote is a 'yes' .
Please take that into account.
I also want to point out that the seats we have been provided with have no microphone, which makes it very difficult to make your presence known.
So, Mr President, please count me among the votes in favour, because I was here and, if possible, please could we have a microphone in these seats.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, that will be sorted out once we have the new hemicycle.
While the seats remain as they are in the present hemicycle, those who arrive first will enjoy that privilege.
Mr President, I do not want to miss this opportunity to make the following remark, which should also be reiterated as insistently as possible in the forthcoming budget debate. We are about to vote through these various proposals for the SAVE Programme for the promotion of energy efficiency without a report.
You must all be aware, however, that in actual fact it is dishonest of us to include these six countries in the SAVE Programme as we do not have a single penny for them!
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, this is not the time for an explanation of vote or a debate.
We shall begin the vote.
(During successive votes, Parliament approved the six Commission proposals)
Mr President, as you rightly reminded us, this text requires a qualified majority.
We have just voted on an amendment to the first indent, which was rejected, but in my opinion the original text of the first indent should now be put to the vote to see if it obtains a qualified majority.
May I remind you that demonstrations in the public gallery are prohibited.
Mr President, yet again we see the services allowing television cameras to film demonstrations in this House.
It is most regrettable, and the Bureau should do something about it and make sure that firm instructions are given that no publicity be given to demonstrations that are illegal in this House.
(Mixed reactions)
Mr President, following on from the proposal made by the previous speaker, may I ask the President to investigate why yesterday during the vote on Mr Rothley's report several journalists, including representatives from Reuters, APE, AFP and Nordfoto, were expelled from the public galleries and why the services of the House refused to allow the Italian television company RAI to broadcast pictures of the vote.
This surely amounts to censorship...
..., and may I implore you to address the question of what is really meant by public accountability and the right of the press and the media to information in this House, which after all calls itself a democratic institution!
Ladies and gentlemen. I apologize to Mrs Muscardini.
I am becoming shortsighted.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the draft decision.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Mr President, I was a little surprised just now.
I opened what I thought were the amendments in Finnish and I saw that inside were Mr Viceconte's amendments on a report on the prevention of rare diseases.
I would now like to put right a basic misconception.
My report in no way deals with rare diseases, but very common ones.
Forty thousand people in the European Union die from air pollution every year, so there has been an unfortunate misunderstanding somewhere.
We will of course check the translations to ensure that everything is in order.
Please note that there are two corrigenda, one in the Spanish version, and one in the Portuguese version.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I would like to invite the Socialist Group, in particular the shadow rapporteur, Mrs Van Putten, to withdraw Amendment No 51.
The reason for this is if Amendment No 52 presented by the Greens, and which has my full support, is approved, we will be certain that the strict criteria of this European eco-label will in no way be inferior to the criteria of national labels.
Now if, as I hope, Amendment No 52 is approved, Amendment No 51, although not incompatible with No 52, nonetheless creates some distortion, since it refers to vague criteria such as recognition, long life; Amendment No 51 therefore creates some distortion in a regulation that is looking quite good, especially if the Commission, at second reading, accepts our amendments.
I therefore invite the Socialist Group to withdraw Amendment No 51, and if this is not possible, I invite the House to vote against it.
I recall that we have already voted for Amendment No 50, presented by the Socialist Group.
I understand perfectly the concerns of my colleague, Mrs Van Putten, whom I thank for contributing to the work and moving this regulation along in the committee, but I will request that she withdraw Amendment No 51.
No, Mr President, as an addition I continue to think that they go together very well, and that it strengthens our hand in respect of the Commission and the Council during the second reading.
I am sorry, I would like to go some way towards it, but in this case I cannot.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, when we voted for the euro on 2 May, in a speech in the House in Brussels I talked about a ship that had finally left to accomplish its institutional duties.
Today we have given that ship the navy officers needed to sail it; I speak of officers because the seamen are all of us European citizens with our work, with our daily commitment.
Selecting the six members of the Board of the European Central Bank and its first president was the main act to render the single currency operational.
Just one minute after this vote we consented to the practical launch of the euro, confirming the proposals of the Member States on the names of the six directors of the ECB for the forthcoming years.
Let us now look to them with confidence, knowing very well that the job that awaits them is not easy operationally or materially speaking; let us look at their expertise which comes from previous jobs and let us especially look at their autonomy in relation to political interference which would attempt to disrupt the work of the Board, as it is clearly written in the treaties.
Similarly, we would like the European Parliament to be more involved in future in the work of the ECB.
It is worth recalling that the Parliament is actually the only elected Community Institution, directly appointed by the citizens to whom it is accountable and whom it must inform daily of the Board's forthcoming activities.
Lastly, we would like to see a rapid solution to the appointment of the new president of the EBRD, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, a job vacant for some months now.
Here too we must await a choice that unfortunately is not made by this Parliament but by the Ecofin Council, a choice coherent with the Community spirit of forming a team whose members operate in harmony to achieve common objectives.
Mr President, the rapporteur of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, Mrs Randzio-Plath, explained to us earlier that the hearings of the nominees to the Executive Board of the future European Central Bank, had led her to a positive assessment.
All the candidates consider that the price stability objective has more or less been achieved in Europe, which should help, in the future, to keep interest rates low.
Similarly, according to the hearings, the financial competence of the candidates, as well as the legacy of seriousness that central banks will bequeath to the ECB, should ensure the latter's credibility and also contribute towards low interest rates.
However, we think that some opposing factors should not be concealed. These are very powerful and will doubtless tend to keep interest rates structurally higher than necessary in the euro zone.
Indeed, given that this zone will be economically heterogeneous, given that it will also be psychologically heterogeneous, as there will be no massive united support by public opinion in Europe for the Central Bank, it will constantly have to face divergences far stronger those within a national State.
It will have to compensate perpetually for this lack of credibility by means of interest rates higher than the potential average national rates if they had still existed.
Furthermore, as the price stability objective will be a priority for the ECB, it will have to react each time any slippage is likely anywhere, as it could cause an imbalance in the whole area.
That is another factor of automatic over-estimation of interest rates.
And, once again, the situation will not be accidental.
It will be the result of the very idea of European monetary unification, which will put a single Central Bank in the centre of a heterogeneous area.
That will be one of the costs of the euro, that we are pretending to be unaware of today, and that citizens will discover when they are thrust into the new system.
Mr President, I voted for Mrs Randzio-Plath's recommendation on the appointment of the six candidates for the Central Bank's Executive Board.
However, I have no wish to conceal the fact that considerable doubts have arisen as to the regularity of the voting procedure.
Of course, we could ask which high ranking politicians - Mr Chirac or Mr Kohl, perhaps - or which second-string politicians, Mr Waigel or individuals such as Mr Tietmeyer, for example, are responsible for the procedure.
In my view, however, the most important issue is to recognize that the provisions of this section of the Maastricht Treaty need to be changed.
I would make the following plea to the Council, and in particular to the forthcoming German Presidency of the Council. If in the future we want the citizens of Europe to regard the euro as a reliable and stable currency, then the individuals serving in this Central Bank must also have been elected by a procedure in which the citizens can have the greatest confidence.
This means, firstly, that we must move away from the requirement of unanimity.
It is unacceptable that a Member State should be able to delay approval of a decision on the question of who should be proposed by the Council until the end of an extremely boring lunch, as was recently the case.
Secondly, it must be made quite clear that the European Parliament is doing more than making a simple recommendation.
In the future, the European Parliament must be able to elect these candidates in the same way as the Council, that is by a majority.
These candidates will then also enjoy the confidence of the general public.
Mr President, the members of the European right did not take part in the vote on the European Central Bank, because we do not approve of the abandonment of national currencies, or of the devolution of monetary sovereignty to a college of experts cut off from the people.
In this respect, I would like to be sure that the very people who are enthusiastic about the euro today will not be explaining to us that it is necessary to replace it with the dollar tomorrow.
What I mean is this: in 1987, the single market was proposed and, in 1992, we were told that because we had a European single market, we needed a European single currency.
Today, Commissioner Brittan and others, particularly some members of the British Presidency, are telling us that we need to create a transatlantic single market.
So, if they get their way, and we do create a transatlantic single market, no doubt the same people will tell us, in 2004, 2005 or 2006, that because we have a transatlantic single market, we need a transatlantic single currency, which could of course only be the dollar.
So, we want to protect the franc today, in order to avoid the dollar tomorrow.
Mr President, I welcome the European Parliament's approval of the appointment of Mr Duisenberg as President of the European Central Bank.
The European Parliament today managed to outvote with a large majority the small-mindedness in the European Council.
In this context I would like stress the importance of the adopted amendment of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, which calls for the avoidance of an early or simultaneous succession of both the President and the Vice-President.
By accepting the amendment the European Parliament is giving a signal that the continuity of the leadership of the Central Bank's Executive Board must be guaranteed.
The amendment emphasizes furthermore that it is up to the President or a Member of the Executive Board alone, and I repeat alone, to decide when to stand down, and that the mandate of the person in question must not be meddled with from the outside; all of this is in the spirit of the Treaty.
In conclusion I believe that the appointment procedure followed on 2 and 3 May turned out to be highly unsatisfactory.
It should be improved in future if we want to strengthen public confidence in the euro.
The sinister political sparring calls for further powers for the European Parliament in this area.
We can assume that the European Council will not voluntarily relinquish the power to appoint. It is therefore up to the citizens of Europe to exact more democracy.
Because Sweden is not taking part in EMU, we are abstaining from the vote on the recommendation regarding the appointment of the above persons.
It is the participating countries that must decide whether these persons' competence and political outlook are appropriate for this commission of trust.
We are unfortunately moving towards a common currency, the euro, and Economic and Monetary Union, with an increasing democratic deficit, an all-powerful and unaccountable European Central Bank and a European Parliament which has a minor role and exists for decorative purposes only.
On 2 May the European Parliament convened an extraordinary sitting, for the first time on a Saturday, to endorse the decisions of Ecofin concerning the 11 countries which were to take part in the euro.
Whether the European Parliament endorsed them or rejected them, nothing would change since its opinion was simply advisory.
I cannot agree with the direction taken by the Chair of our Parliament to participate in these rituals, albeit without powers, albeit without competences, in order to obtain some crumbs from the unprecedented publicity campaign that is being waged for the euro.
We should not have consented to the construction of an Economic and Monetary Europe, without a Parliament with the powers to express the sovereignty of the peoples of Europe.
For this reason I too elected to absent myself from this "school speech-day' which was decided upon at the last minute simply for the media which, in my opinion, made a mockery of rather than supported the European Parliament.
Today, during the part-session in Strasbourg, it is assumed that we will endorse the administration of the European Central Bank.
During the hearing which took place in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and, when asked what he would do in the event that the European Parliament did not endorse his appointment as president, Mr Duisenberg replied that it was not a matter for him but for the Council.
And the Council, under the presidency of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Brown, confirmed this morning that the role of Parliament was "advisory' .
We are moving forward, we are setting up the European Central Bank and in parallel we are going backwards into parliamentary shadow, which is reminiscent of the parliaments prior to the French Revolution which exercised an "advisory' role to the monarch.
Under these circumstances I will not take part in the appointment of the administration of the European Central Bank and I will abstain in the vote.
Of course we are voting for the recommendation on the appointment of the President and other members of the European Central Bank's Executive Board, because the common European currency affects development in all European countries.
We wish to contribute in every way towards EMU becoming a successful project since this benefits all of Europe's citizens, including the Swedes.
What took place on 2 May at the Brussels Summit has caused great dissatisfaction and bad feeling.
The squabbling between Member States has relegated the birth of the euro to second place and has diminished its importance as an event.
It was nevertheless worth holding a debate on who should have the authority to make decisions.
It took place, but it was unpleasant and far too nationalistic.
It must be resumed when tempers have cooled.
Politicians must make the decisions, not governors.
Since then, Parliament has done its job by conducting high quality hearings.
Should we have been less lenient with regard to any particular nominee? The question was raised in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and on Monday evening, I myself abstained from voting for one of the candidates.
It was a necessary warning.
But today we have no major reason for not approving the proposed team.
From now on, we shall have to ensure that Parliament exerts real control and, in particular, works determinedly towards a political Europe.
If administrators are experienced and independent, more responsibility has to be taken by politicians on behalf of the citizens they represent.
That will be our task over the next five years.
The European Parliament's resolution on the appointment of the President and members of the ECB has, at least, made it possible to create a team of monetary experts whose professional qualities are recognized by all.
The main objective described during the hearings was to ensure the strict application of the Treaty, that is, the absolute stability of the euro.
Furthermore, note that the 'independence' of the ECB remains unclear and vague.
Independence with regard to whom?
But, even if the debates organized over the last two days have allowed Members to cover quite a wide range of subjects, from the individual situations of the nominees to their concept of the role of the ECB, including technical questions on the money supply or on the euro/dollar parity, it is still particularly difficult to judge the 'theoretical' competence of each nominee at a single hearing.
We will have to judge the competence of each nominee on a day-to-day basis, within the framework of the implementation and application of monetary policies and the solutions they will have to find in order to react to the fluctuations that are sure to affect the financial markets.
Of course, recommending monetary stability in order to institute a 'healthy' economic environment is commendable, but in no event should we lose sight of the aim, which should be a priority for both politicians and monetarists: to reduce unemployment.
Because, finally, in order to remain credible in public opinion, and remember that our aim as elected representatives is to defend it, it is imperative that the policies adopted provide an efficient solution for the twenty million unemployed, because they have little interest in the independence and supervision of a European institution in charge of monetary matters. They are more concerned about having a decent quality of life and a decent standard of living.
Finally, may I add that it is too early to worry about the ECB President's age.
Why are we talking about his successor when he has only just been appointed? Wait until we have implemented a policy which is operating satisfactorily.
France was the driving force behind the construction of Europe for many years, but little by little has lost its touch.
It still has the ability to make what looks like a compromise but, on the big issues, despite all the jokes prior to the appointment of Mr Duisenberg as head of the ECB, that is where France's power stops.
This soap opera has done little to advance Europe's cause and our country's.
g. (SV) The undersigned have abstained from the vote on the above report for the following reasons:
We oppose the EMU project per se; all previous projects with common standards of value and/or fixed exchange rates have collapsed.-Sweden is not involved in EMU, and we therefore have no reason to consider the appointments of persons to posts within the ECB.
We believe that EMU's policy of economic restraint may lead to social and political unrest within the EU and is therefore an enormously high-risk project.
EMU also rules out an economy that is sustainable in the long term for "green' reasons.
The six candidates proposed for the European Central Bank's Executive Board must follow this constitutional economic policy.
During the hearings none of them have given the slightest hint of an interpretation that takes ecological and social factors into consideration. They all follow the "hard' line.
Furthermore, when asked whether the ECB's operations will be characterized by openness and democratic accountability, the candidates once again answered NO.
The candidates for the ECB's Executive Board all defend the Bank's independence, while at the same time disputing the idea that they should be accountable to the European Parliament for their actions.
They also all underline the need for all of the Bank's business to be conducted behind closed doors, which prevents the European Parliament and the people of Europe from being kept informed of what is going on.
We feel that the 'horse-trading' that has taken place regarding the ECB President's term of office and the manner in which the European Parliament has been consulted is unworthy and degrading.
As a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of the European Parliament, I welcome the key decisions that were taken during the weekend of 1-3 May by the European leaders which have given the final green light to the introduction of a single European currency in Europe.
I welcome the fact that 11 countries are set to join the new currency which will encompass a population of over 290 million people.
If only six or seven countries were to have joined up to the new currency then this would have only resulted in the building of a two-speed Europe.
I am pleased that Ireland has joined up to the new currency because this will result in lower export costs for our manufacturers.
Lower interest rates are certainly going to be a result of our membership within the European single currency regime which is good news for small and medium-sized companies, and the fact that transaction costs are eliminated will be good news for the Irish tourism industry.
The European Central Bank will be run over the next 12 years by two of the most experienced bankers in Europe, Mr Duisenberg and Mr Trichet.
Both gentlemen have impeccable credentials in international banking finance and administration and are well suited for the respective position as head of the European Central Bank.
The debate about the new head of the European Central Bank must not detract from the achievements to date in bringing about a new European single currency.
We must also remember, however, that real challenges lie ahead with regard to Irish participation in a new European single currency.
Interest rates are now controlled by the European Central Bank.
Therefore, if Ireland is to succeed within the arrangement of a single currency then we must remain competitive within the marketplace, keep prices down and ensure that inflation is kept low.
In conclusion, I am confident that Britain will join up to the new currency in the near future because British industry wants it and because Britain will be a big loser in terms of attracting outside direct foreign investment as long as it stays out of the new euro zone.
The Danish Social Democrats are abstaining from the vote on appointments to the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
We voted on the list of countries that are to have the common currency because that falls within Denmark's qualification of not wishing to prevent other countries from having it.
Nevertheless, we find it difficult to take a stance on the quality of the management to apply to participating States.
Moreover, we are abstaining because the result of the nominations of candidates is still under discussion.
Voting in favour would go beyond the stance based purely on principle that we took on 2 May.
The appointment of the President of the ECB has already been ratified by the markets and public opinion - and that is a very important evaluation factor, on the democratic as well as the economic level.
While Duisenberg's half-mandate may devalue the presidency, it can enhance the standing of the institution, the Board of which is, furthermore, competent and has generally shown itself to be convincing.
Apart from this, the suspicions that have been aroused will inspire the institution to be more vigilant.
And it is a positive element that, owing to the statement of superior political will revealed by the appointment process, the ECB's principal objective - the control of price stability - can now be placed in the wider context of the stability, balance and cohesion of the European Union as a whole.
In any event, it is not worth brooding over the past. We should start filling in the 'flesh and bones' of the European Union by completing it politically and socially.
We have been consulted with regard to the appointment of the President of the Central Bank.
But we have only been consulted.
We have no authority to decide, which shows the small extent of our power, and the contrasting large extent of the European Central Bank's.
It has full, independent and exclusive competence.
The total independence granted to it by Article 107 of the Maastricht Treaty really means an absence of control.
Furthermore, it was both revealing and pathetic to watch the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy beg for scraps, at a hearing of a senior official, Mr Duisenberg in this case.
I quote: ' How often, Mr President, would you be prepared to meet the competent committee of Parliament?' .
Note the words 'would you be prepared...'
Furthermore, Mr Duisenberg replied that he would agree to meet the Committee once every quarter.
He will even condescend to accept 'any invitation to Committee meetings' .
But as far as the ECB's accountability is concerned, he considers that it is only accountable 'to the general public' .
In practice, it will only be accountable by means of 'an open and transparent communication policy' , which is unlikely to lead to very severe sanctions by the 'general public' ...
With a sincerity that nobody can doubt, Mr Duisenberg even agreed that the ECB was 'accountable to Parliament' .
Indeed, in response to the Committee on Monetary Affairs' nineteenth question which asked whether he would wish to continue to solicit the appointment if the European Parliament were to recommend his rejection, his answer could not be clearer: ' I cannot adopt a position on that question' .
Is there any real accountability, if a responsible person clearly refuses to leave when his accountability has been questioned?
So it is easy to see that, without control, the ECB will be all-powerful.
So the monetary and economic government of Europe will no longer be based on democracy but on oligarchy.
This will cause the decline of the institutional history of Europe.
The hearing of the candidates for the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and the corresponding vote for their endorsement by the European Parliament is indeed an important political moment in the necessary completion of EMU and the euro.
However, this precise moment reminds us of the political deficiencies of the progress so far towards European integration.
The vote of the European Parliament is purely consultative.
The national parliaments do not have the competence to decide the appointment of the head of the ECB, whereas they do decide the appointment of the president of their own central banks, as the Greek Parliament recently did.
The head of the ECB is thus appointed by governments, often with transactions of low quality, and parliamentary supervision is taken away from national parliaments but is not given to the European Parliament.
This demonstrates yet another of the inconsistencies which arise from the inadequacy of the progress that has been made so far towards the political integration of Europe.
This inconsistency will become even more noticeable the more the evolution of EMU progresses.
We will soon have to face up to it: either EMU does not lead to the political integration of Europe along federal lines, in which case we must worry about its future, or it de facto and inevitably leads towards that objective, in which case we must say so clearly and prepare ourselves appropriately.
On these grounds I prefer to abstain in the vote without naturally calling into question the suitability of the persons that are being proposed to us and even less the historic importance of EMU and the single currency.
We are delighted with the vote, by which the European Parliament has made yet another significant contribution to making the euro credible.
This has followed our work on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in connection with the assessment of CVs and the interviewing of the candidates.
Having freely reached a positive judgment on each of them, we have helped to strengthen the credibility the market has given the euro by consigning to oblivion the less felicitous proceedings at the Brussels Summit; that credibility will not be dented in the slightest by Mr Duisenberg's voluntary early retirement (which constitutes no violation of the Treaty).
The credibility of the euro will be even further strengthened by the rotation system agreed at the Summit, with a date already set for a Portuguese member to be on the Executive Board, together with the permanent participation of the Governor of the Bank of Portugal on the Bank's Board, which will meet at least ten times a year and will take all the most important fundamental decisions by a simple majority vote (in principle), each vote having the same weight.
After the 'foundation' and the appointment of the 'founder members' of the euro, the process of installing the first Executive Board of the ECB exceeded our worst fears, displaying a totally undesirable degree of short-sightedness and opportunism.
The show that was put on to impress public opinion was followed by a spectacle generally acknowledged as depressing, but only one or two commentators stressed the revealing absence of democratic mechanisms and processes.
For our part, we have not discussed personalities, the sharing-out of influence among the 'grandees' , combinations and 'setups' .
As a matter of mental hygiene, so to speak, and of keeping policy exemplary, we abstained from those votes which decided nothing, those 'makeweight' votes which continue the same pretence 'for the benefit of public opinion' , although they cannot hide what they do not wish the public to see.
This must be denounced as a matter of urgency. We must show that the taking of decisions is being removed further and further from the people, even though they are informed and responsible participants.
A majority of our group has voted against all the Executive Board members nominated, because they consider that the monetary policy and the central bank practice that all these candidates stand for, with some subtle differences in Mr Padoa-Schioppa's case, are unacceptable and urgently need to be reexamined.
Combating inflation when there is no inflation is not a sensible option in monetary terms, whereas avoiding deflationary trends is.
Opening up the central banks to the public at large and in particular to the 'specialized public' of the financial markets may appear humdrum, but democratic anchoring of the independence of the central bank in a structured monetary dialogue to be institutionalized at both European and national level is a task that remains to be achieved.
A considerable minority within our group did not consider that it made sense to vote 'No' in such a critical situation.
Now that the European Parliament has approved the nominations by a large majority, we Greens will make full use of the scope Parliament offers to formulate political demands and objectives, and of every kind of institutionalized dialogue, to work towards rectifying political guiding principles in future.
We are convinced that clearly and precisely formulated differences - as reflected in our amendments, which were rejected by a majority of this House, and also in our voting pattern - are the right starting point for the discussions to be held with the Executive Board of the ECB over the next few years.
Accordingly, we must now ensure that the limited willingness to hold a dialogue that the candidates have displayed so far is exploited to the full.
We do not, however, intend to go away and sulk: we will try even harder to make sure that our critical stances and demands make a contribution to the dialogue between the ECB and the European Parliament, which is overdue.
The logic of this explanation also applies to the following votes on the nomination of the ECB Executive Board members.
Cabrol recommendation for second reading (A4-0150/98)
Mr President, the decision taken in this House today marks a great day for democracy and for the health of citizens throughout Europe.
Obviously the Greens would have liked to have seen this directive strengthened, but we know that the tactics of the tobacco lobbying industry were to try to get an amendment put in so that when it went back to the Council the majority there would change it, because of undue pressure by Germany, in particular.
The German Government was pressurized by the print media and the newspaper industry because they were faced with the prospect of losing a huge amount of money from tobacco advertising.
They put pressure on a number of Member States to change their position within the Council.
I think it is appalling that vested interests within governments and countries are totally disregarding the health of people throughout Europe.
It is quite clear that tobacco advertising has an appalling effect on young people in particular.
When you look at the health effects of tobacco and smoking it is quite clear that the number of people who die as a result of tobacco is very high.
For example, an organization in Ireland called ASH estimates that the tobacco industry and its appalling campaign to ensure that more and more young people take up smoking kill six times more people in Ireland each year than road accidents, work accidents, drugs, murder, suicide and AIDS.
It is quite clear that smoking is a danger to health.
Any kind of advertising which promotes something that is a danger to health must be unacceptable in a civilized society.
I am glad to see here today that the tobacco industry did not get its way and that Parliament put the interests of the health of people throughout Europe before vested interests.
Unfortunately in the two larger groups in the European Parliament, many of the German Members caved in to the lobbying by these vested interests and put the interests of money before the interests of the people and their health.
However, we are glad to see that this has gone through.
It is not perfect, but at least it is something.
The Greens were in a difficult position in trying not to amend it because we knew what the end result would be.
It is quite clear that the tactics of some people in this House were very sinister indeed: trying to put amendments in; trying to get people who are health conscious to vote in favour of them.
When the time came, would these same people support those amendments in another situation? I do not think they would.
Mr President, I did not vote for the common position for two reasons.
My first reason relates to its legal basis.
Our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has clearly shown that the Treaty does not contain any legal basis for banning the advertising of tobacco products today or of wine, for example, tomorrow. They are manufactured from agricultural products which are not prohibited.
On the contrary, such products are even heavily subsidized within the framework of the common agricultural policy, which is the case with tobacco.
It is not a question of being for or against smokers, for or against the prevention of cancer.
It is almost psychotic, not to say hypocritical, to vote sanctimoniously for a ban on all advertising of tobacco products.
Nobody starts smoking because of advertising and nobody will stop smoking because tobacco advertising is banned. By the by, the ban will be of most benefit to the government monopolies that manufacture the most harmful cigarettes.
Because the ban on advertising in the Community will probably destroy thousands of jobs, particularly women's jobs, in my country especially, to the benefit of multinationals in third countries, I have decided not be a hypocrite, and have voted against it.
Furthermore, I would like to see Commissioner Flynn show as much enthusiasm and vitality for creating jobs for women as he has shown in this House for the ban on tobacco advertising, which destroy jobs.
Mr President, I voted for the Cabrol report.
However, I would like to draw your attention to the attitude taken by Commissioner Flynn when he closed the debate on this report.
In fact I want to censure this attitude: Commissioner Flynn spoke out against aid to tobacco producers in a rather heated harangue in search of applause from part of this House.
But the problem of aid to tobacco producers was not on the agenda of this debate!
I believe that the two are to be kept separate, as the Commission has done, deciding to maintain aid for tobacco production, something that we will discuss in a forthcoming report by the Parliament.
Secondly, I believe that a Commissioner in this House is always obliged to express the positions of the Commission as a collegiate body, not to express personal opinions.
I know his personal opinion and respect it, but he must also respect the European Parliament and our working rules.
Therefore, Mr President, I ask that you convey my censure to Commissioner Flynn and request, if possible, an answer to his attitude.
I voted for the common position of the Council with regard to the advertising and supplying of tobacco products, since I consider that we must not encourage the use of tobacco products by means of advertising, because of the harmful effects on health, especially for the young.
However, this is a completely different issue from the position of tobacco in the common agricultural policy.
Should tobacco subsidies be abolished, as was proposed yesterday by Commissioner Flynn, this would create an enormous social problem and would lay waste whole semimountainous regions of the European Union.
It would not, however, reduce consumption by even a single cigarette but would simply benefit imports - especially from the USA - to the detriment of Community production.
I voted with the losers on the essential points, particularly on the legal basis.
There is a fundamental reason for this: so long as the production and sale of tobacco products remains a legal activity, there are no grounds for prohibiting them from being advertised.
Advertisements, furthermore, are required to make clear mention of the dangers of tobacco consumption and encourage freedom of choice.
There are also advertisements warning of the illeffects of tobacco.
There is an anti-fundamentalist reason: having given up smoking ten years ago, I do not understand the all-embracing fury against smokers on the part of people who want to impose their moral values.
And I will not tolerate that.
There is a political reason: Commissioner Flynn has expressly associated this decision with measures against the production of tobacco in the European Union and against support for agricultural tobacco producers.
This is an improper position; it takes no account of the unfavourable economic and social effects of such a measure, which disregards European interests vis-a-vis the United States of America, and finally it is not associated with a thoroughgoing reform of the CAP, particularly in favour of agriculture, fruit-growing and oil and wine production in the countries of the South.
After more than 5 years of legislative stalemate, we are about to vote on one of the most difficult texts in the history of the European Parliament.
Our vote today should make it possible to ban tobacco advertising in the European Union.
This decision is fundamental to public health and expresses our determination to prevent all forms of addiction, whatever they are.
Thanks to Professor Cabrol's work, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has finally reached a consensus on banning all forms of tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
With the majority of us in agreement, it is the best possible compromise at the present time because it strikes a balance between the interests of all those involved.
Important temporary sectoral derogations and adjustments have been allowed in order to prevent economic losses in agriculture, the press, and so on.
I therefore formally support the common position adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, as described in the Cabrol recommendation for second reading.
I ask all my colleagues in favour of public health to show the same determination.
As an ear, nose and throat specialist, I should like to refer to some of the aspects that have helped us to make this decision, which is not in the least excessive or disproportionate, in comparison with the public health risk.
The advertising of tobacco products is being aimed at an increasingly young audience.
That audience has become the main target of manufacturers, who thus aim to safeguard their markets for tomorrow and to replace the 500 000 smokers who die every year in Europe.
It is intolerable, under cover of the freedom of expression, to allow the behaviour of young people to be influenced, because they do not consider the risks they are taking.
Since 1995, the United States has adopted severe measures with regard to minors and young adults.
Why should we allow American manufacturers to do in the European Union what they are no longer allowed to do at home?
As tobacco advertising aims specifically to stimulate this type of demand and to increase this type of consumption, it is important that we control it permanently.
Every year, directly or indirectly, more deaths are caused by smoking than by road accidents, drinking, drugs and suicide put together.
We have united to create a single currency.
Now let us unite to limit the use of this potentially harmful product, which causes a major health problem.
On the whole, the content of Mr Cabrol's report is very sound, and we certainly endorse it.
Today we have supported a number of amendments, which, if they had been adopted, would have led to the directive being amended to a recommendation.
We did so because we do not believe there is a legislative basis for Mr Cabrol's report, but because the content is sound we would very much have liked to see it adopted as a recommendation.
Council's own legal service and Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights have both come to the same conclusion and, because we feel very strongly about defending the rights of Member States to make their own laws, we can only support Mr Cabrol's report as a recommendation.
On the last occasion when this was discussed in the European Parliament I opposed the proposal to ban tobacco advertising.
I did so on the grounds of censorship.
I was worried that a ban on tobacco advertising would be followed by bans on advertising other products encouraged by those who have very narrow ultra-conservative views.
While I took the decision on genuine libertarian grounds, I have since changed my mind.
My outrage at the manipulative behaviour of the tobacco industry which shows a callous disregard for ethics and public health concerns far outweighs the previous reservations that I had.
Certain tobacco producers have cynically targeted young people.
They increased the nicotine content of some of their products so as to addict young people for life.
They target young people with seductive advertising without caring about the long-term damage that is being inflicted on their health.
Profits take precedence over humanitarian concerns.
I cannot accept these practices and for these reasons I will support the ban on tobacco advertising.
Tobacco is a poison which kills hundreds of thousands of human beings every year and maims, or inflicts serious illnesses on, millions of others.
We know that from a health point of view, a pure and simple ban would be justified, but impracticable.
We cannot therefore ban tobacco production and consumption.
It is contradictory and intolerably hypocritical for advertising alone to be banned, whilst production continues to be supported by subsidies which are larger than the amounts spent on health.
Over ECU 1 billion per year!
Our decisions should be more coherent.
Despite this hypocrisy, which I deplore, I will vote for the tobacco advertising ban and hope that other measures will be approved in the future.
After six years of discussions, the Council has finally, by an extremely small margin, adopted a common position on a total tobacco advertising ban.
Personally, I am in favour of adopting the project as it stands without any amendments.
In fact, smoking should be one of our top priorities with regard to public health.
Indeed, an advertising ban may only be a first step, but it is a step that we can take now.
So, let us stand firm and adopt the Cabrol report!
Furthermore, I think that if we adopt amendments, we will give people who are opposed to the principle of a ban an opportunity to ensure that the project as a whole fails, and I do not want to run that risk.
Finally, it has in all events been explicitly stated that Member States wishing to adopt stricter requirements more quickly may do so.
Each Member State can therefore act under its own initiative if it considers that the time scale indicated in the text is too slow.
Today's vote is a historic vote.
Today, after a 9 year struggle, this Parliament - the direct representation of the citizens of Europe - by accepting the Council's common position without amendment, has managed democratically to impose its view.
Today is a historic occasion for the health of all our citizens, despite the fact that the Spanish Members of the Partido Popular voted in favour of encouraging tobacco consumption and its dramatic consequences for health.
On a day like this, it is an honour to be a Member of this Parliament, as I said in the debate yesterday, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Although the common position does not clarify all areas completely and the question of the legal basis is disputed, I did not vote for any of the amendments since I take the view that we must give a clear signal at European Union level that the health of our citizens is a matter of great concern.
I should like to congratulate warmly the rapporteur, Professor Christian Cabrol, for the excellent work he has done in preparing the second reading of the proposal for a directive on banning the advertising and sponsorship of tobacco products in the European Union.
I share his convictions on this common position.
In putting health protection before any other consideration, he has chosen to defend a courageous political position.
Six years after the first reading, the Council has finally reached a common position.
The text is the result of difficult negotiations.
Detractors of this proposal for a directive argue that its legal basis should be changed.
I do not agree.
Indeed, although this is a public health problem, it also relates to the approximation of the rules on advertising throughout the Community.
From that point of view, I think Article 100a is eminently suitable.
If the legal basis was a real problem, not just an excuse used by some Members and Member States, it could be referred to the Court of Justice for a ruling.
It is Parliament's job to voice a political opinion.
That is what Parliament has done today, on the very day after the publication of the WHO's annual report, which states that 3.5 million deaths are caused by smoking throughout the world every year, and estimates that there will be 10 million deaths per year by the year 2020.
This increase is directly linked to a foreseeable increase in smoking, particularly in developing countries.
The report also states that the number of cancer victims is decreasing overall.
It should stabilize by the year 2005, with the exception of lung cancer, the only type of cancer that is on the increase.
I am very pleased with the result of this vote, which shows this institution's determination to safeguard the health of young people and future generations.
A great step forward has been taken in the area of public health protection.
The European Parliament can today congratulate itself on giving its support to a ban on tobacco advertising in the European Union.
Although the decision, which has dragged on for some time, is an unsatisfactory compromise, it is the lesser of two evils.
Parliament wisely refrained from proposing any amendment to the decision taken by Ministers for Health last December after years of talks.
It thus also evaded a wolf in sheep's clothing, i.e. mainly German representatives, who are trying to water down the whole tobacco advertising ban issue with arguments relating to health, and legalistic distortions.
The advertising ban is opposed by those who wield massive economic power, such as the tobacco industry and the giant newspaper firms.
EU legislators have brought to light the consistently great pressure they exert.
Now is also our last chance to enact the tobacco advertising ban.
In a few years' time the Union will be joined by countries in eastern Europe, which oppose restrictions on markets.
The Union must show them too that it seriously intends to improve public health.
As an active non-smoker since birth, I am far from being a supporter of tobacco consumption, let alone an advocate of overlooking its possible dangers.
For this reason, I take the reservations which have been expressed very seriously indeed.
Nevertheless, I also want to see an honest and straightforward policy and cannot therefore endorse the proposal for the directive on the tobacco advertising ban.
The decision for or against smoking is a fundamental one and must be treated as such.
It is hypocritical to speak out against tobacco advertising whilst at the same time accepting tobacco subsidies in the European Union.
This debate is taking place on a side stage which is developing a quite different and dubious direction.
One of the fundamental principles of the market economy, and therefore an integral part of a single market, is the provision of appropriate information about goods which are legally available.
This is in keeping with the treatment of the consumer as a politically mature individual who is able to use information correctly.
This advertising ban opens up dangerous issues for our free market economy. What about an egg advertising ban?
Or one for cars? Not to mention alcohol or coffee?
The European Union wants to guarantee the free movement of goods and services and realize the single market.
However, the tobacco advertising ban is the wrong way of achieving these objectives.
Each product which can be freely sold must also be able to be advertised. As a consumer I have the right to know which products are on the market and what these products offer.
There is no legal basis on which to pronounce an EU-wide tobacco advertising ban.
The fact that smoking damages health is undisputed.
The health dangers of smoking are indicated on cigarette packets.
However, these restrictions must be commensurate with their intended purpose.
The tobacco advertising ban as outlined in the Council's common position certainly is not.
I am also afraid of a domino effect that will not stop at a tobacco advertising ban. An advertising ban for alcoholic drinks, fast cars, drugs or toys might be the result.
Where should we draw the line?
Ladies and gentlemen, a sensible explanation to the public of the dangers of tobacco consumption is a far better and more efficient solution for reducing levels of smoking in the European population than anti-competitive advertising bans.
Therefore we should concentrate our efforts on health initiatives such as the "Europe against Cancer' campaign.
g. (SV) Tobacco is the largest single cause of diseases and fatalities that can be prevented.
Within the Member States of the EU, over 500 000 deaths every year can be attributed to tobacco, 200 000 of which are caused by cardiovascular diseases.
Scientific research shows that tobacco advertising has the effect of encouraging people's smoking habits.
Research also shows that banning tobacco advertising, in conjunction with other preventive and informative measures, reduces smoking habits.
One question that has been discussed is whether the proposed directive represents a restriction of freedom of expression and therefore of the Constitution.
Contacts with experts in this field show that this is not the case.
There are no valid arguments against the proposed ban on direct and indirect tobacco advertising and sponsorship of tobacco goods.
I have therefore voted in favour of the report.
While all of us want to see a dramatic reduction in tobacco advertising, it is regrettable that the need for better education among young people has become overshadowed by the superficially attractive argument for a blanket ban on advertising.
If the Commission is serious about its anti-smoking policy then it would serve itself and the European public better by concentrating on education programmes rather than seeking publicity by ill-conceived and badly executed means.
That the matter has not been properly thought through is evident from the fact that Article 100a is not the legal basis on which tobacco advertising should be addressed.
In my opinion, the credibility of the EU is undermined by such manipulation of the Treaty.
It is also unfair to accuse Members, who genuinely believe that the legal basis for this proposal is wrong, of being under the control of cigarette manufacturers.
I have listened to the arguments put forward not only by the manufacturers but also by anti- smoking campaigners and by the trade unions who represent workers employed in the industry in my own constituency.
I remain convinced that a blanket ban is not the answer to the problem of tobacco consumption and that it will not be achieved anyway on a legal basis which cannot be justified.
Doctors are agreed that tobacco smoking endangers health right from the very first cigarette.
And that it affects not only smokers but also passive smokers around them.
Experts have proved that both direct and indirect tobacco advertising are most influential on the young, encouraging them to enter into the "drug' culture of tobacco.
For this reason a large majority in the European Parliament, supported by a majority in the Council of European Health Minsters, has drawn up an EU directive on the banning of tobacco advertising.
Despite the concentrated opposition of the tobacco industry, which in a massive public relations campaign has left no stone unturned in trying to win politicians over to its arguments, reason has triumphed. After a transition period of three years to allow time for the reorganization of the economic structures involved, both direct and indirect tobacco advertising and sponsoring will be banned in Europe.
There are some 548, 000 tobacco-related deaths per annum in Europe.
With 654 victims per year Luxemburg is no exception.
Our task, therefore, is to reduce the consumption of tobacco and to prevent young people in particular - who are specifically targeted by many tobacco advertisements - from acquiring this dangerous habit.
As it is a proven fact that few people start smoking after the age of 20, stepping up prevention amongst children and young people represents a logical political step towards improving public health.
Strong in my conviction and backed by the moral support of the doctors of Luxemburg and the Fondation luxembourgeoise contre le cancer , I will be voting for the tobacco advertising ban.
Whether or not it can be considered desirable to introduce regulations banning tobacco advertising, the proposed directive should not be adopted.
Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and Council's legal service have both concluded that the Community does not have the power to issue the directive - regardless of whether article 100a or any other article of the Treaty is cited as the legal basis.
Should the directive be adopted, a complaint would in all probability be brought before the Court of Justice to the effect that the document should be declared invalid under Articles 173 and 174 of the Treaty.
Thus, it must be up to each Member State to determine whether to introduce such legislation.
I am, therefore, voting in favour of the declaration of intent to reject the Council's common position, tabled by Mr Nassauer and his co-signatories.
As an active non-smoker since birth, I am far from being a supporter of tobacco consumption, let alone an advocate of overlooking its possible dangers.
For this reason, I take the reservations which have been expressed recently very seriously indeed.
Nevertheless, I also want to see an honest and straightforward policy and cannot therefore endorse the proposal for the directive on the tobacco advertising ban.
The decision for or against smoking is a fundamental once and must be treated as such.
In my view, it is incomprehensible that one should speak out against the tobacco advertising ban whilst at the same time accepting tobacco subsidies in the European Union.
This debate is taking place on a side stage which is developing a quite different and dubious direction. One of the fundamental principles of the market economy, and therefore an integral part of a single market, is the provision of appropriate information about goods which are legally available.
This is in keeping with the treatment of the consumer as a politically mature individual who is able to use information correctly.
This advertising ban opens up dangerous issues for our free market economy. What about an egg advertising ban?
Or one for cars? Not to mention alcohol or coffee?
For all these reasons, I will vote for the European single market and against a restriction on the advertising of legal goods.
This question is about much more than the tobacco advertising ban.
I reject the ban on the grounds of basic considerations relating to the procedure used by the Committee on the Environment which has resulted in the European Parliament disassociating itself from an important European legislative project.
Because we are taking it upon ourselves to discuss in this House a draft which was dealt with by the European Parliament over six years ago in a quite different context.
Even more important for our position, however, is the fact that by using the selected procedure the European Parliament is performing a legal act which undoubtedly exceeds the scope of its legal competence.
None of the powers of jurisdiction currently vested in the European Union covers such a wide-ranging ban on the direct and indirect advertising of a product the consumption of which is not only not banned, but - to cap it all - to the production of which the European Union has actually contributed for many years in the form of EU funds, e.g. for tobacco and tobacco products.
We would consider ourselves far more bound by a principle of subsidiarity which does not produce a sort of rarefied EU centralism and in which a European legislator in Brussels does not see himself as authorised to intervene in anything and everything.
Finally, may I say that we fully support the concerns of all those who take the danger to health posed by tobacco seriously.
Above all, we want the European Union and the European Parliament to find other, legally permissible ways of giving this matter the status it deserves.
As a non-smoker, I would have no difficulty whatsoever in joining those who are going to vote today with great enthusiasm for a total ban on tobacco advertising.
But I am not going to follow the recommendations of our rapporteur, Professor Cabrol, because I am not convinced that this ban will have the expected result.
Instead of concentrating all our efforts on trying to persuade our fellow citizens to stop smoking, instead of teaching our young people to make up their own minds with regard to advertising, we have chosen the easy way out, that is, banning advertising. We are showing them once again that they are old enough, for example, to vote for Members of Parliament to represent them, but in everything else they are still children.
Banning tobacco advertising is therefore the easy way out. But where will it take us?
Are we really going to regulate everything which in any way resembles an indirect form of advertisement of tobacco consumption? In my opinion, we have got it wrong.
In order to remain coherent, are we going to ban smoking film stars from cinema screens, are we going to ban the advertising of perfumes because they are named after a cigar, or an actor or a famous sportsman who is a smoker?
I sincerely believe that national legislation gives us enough power to regulate the advertising of any product. I agree here with our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Council's legal service, both of whom say that Article 100a cannot form a legal basis for a ban on tobacco advertising.
I am convinced that banning the advertising of tobacco products will harm small producers. All it will do is redistribute the market shares of the large manufacturers of tobacco products, but it will have no effect on direct consumption.
Furthermore, I am afraid that banning the advertising of tobacco products is a step towards banning other products in the future - alcohol, for example.
Is that what we want?
To conclude, I am against the hypocrisy of subsidizing European producers of tobacco to the tune of several billion ECU on the one hand, and on the other, of banning tobacco advertising, which helps to sell it.
I am sorry that the important amendments to the Cabrol report proposed by the European Parliament did not meet with majority approval.
I can see no legal basis for the common position in the Treaty on European Union.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is well aware of the very harmful consequences of smoking, and cannot fail to support the strict regulation of the advertising and promotion of tobacco products.
In fact, a reduction in advertising and promotion alone will lead to a reduction in tobacco consumption.
Everyone knows that the habit of smoking is very often acquired at the end of adolescence or at the beginning of adult life.
In that respect, we approve the regulation of the advertising and promotion of tobacco.
European legislation will be useful in order to prevent a sort of relocation of advertising to the more lenient Member States.
In fact, various media with audiences located throughout the Member States broadcast sporting and cultural events.
It is therefore necessary to prevent advertisements, which are banned in some Member States from being broadcast without control by the media of other Member States.
Nevertheless, this group wishes to reiterate its position with regard to European tobacco production.
A large number of Members of this House from non tobacco-producing Member States regularly want to withdraw all aid from tobacco production.
Now, it is important to remember that overall the European Union shows a deficit, and that it imports far more tobacco than it exports.
The withdrawal of aid from European tobacco production would lead to its total disappearance.
Imports would increase, with a negative effect on the balance of trade of the European Union, and it would have no effect on consumption.
Tobacco production is extremely labour-intensive.
It would be wrong to withdraw aid from tobacco production, because that would have a devastating effect on particularly sensitive rural areas.
Finally, the Cabrol report raises an important question of law.
Even if the rapporteur's intentions are essentially good, he recommends that the Commission should draft a directive which is totally contradictory to the existing legal system, which interferes with national competences, and obviously violates the principle of subsidiarity.
Public health protection does indeed fall exclusively within national competence, not within the scope of the Community, and should therefore not be the subject of any directives whatsoever.
This is an extremely dangerous precedent: it may lead the way to activist intervention by the Community, on the basis of the majority vote, in practically all the areas that fall within the competence of the Member States.
It therefore creates an atmosphere of legal insecurity, by showing that European institutions have little respect for the laws applicable to them, that they overstep their competence and that they consider that the law is subject to a changeable majority vote.
The scrupulous observance of procedures is a guarantee of democracy, and it is important that we should always be vigilant in ensuring that important decisions, which have an effect on citizens' daily lives, are made in compliance with freely agreed rules.
The question of the legal basis of a text is therefore always fundamental.
In that respect, the intention and, in this case, the use, to which the legal basis argument can be put in delaying tactics, are not insignificant.
The coherence of this Parliament's political decisions reflects on our credibility and our efficiency, and with a political courage dictated by necessity, we must act as scrupulously as possible with regard to public health risks.
Furthermore, the technological environment has an effect on commercial practices, and when information - and advertising - technologies make it possible to cross borders, the de facto approximation of market rules cannot be considered innocuous.
Having made the above statement of principle, we now have a choice. We have a choice between a society in which freedom - of the strongest and most fortunate - is a doctrine and not an achievement used to protect the most vulnerable, and a society in which accountability is a political asset, even if it threatens some financial interests.
Making this choice does not mean evading the culturally difficult problem of teaching young people to construct their own rules of behaviour as consumers. It does not mean evading the usually difficult and politically obdurate question of the financial involvement of Members States in the tobacco industry and in other public health threats such as alcohol, taxation of income from prostitution, and so on.
But 10 years of discussion, reflection and hesitation is the time it takes for a child to become an adolescent and to discover such destructive and fleeting pleasures, without being ready to measure and to master them. It seems preceding generations have been unable to show them any other way of achieving their dreams.
The approximation of the laws regulating this type of advertising does not require all that much courage.
Let us be capable of taking on this responsibility.
Kenneth D. Collins recommendation for second reading (A4-0146/98)
The Council directive on the quality of drinking water is of great importance and its de facto application must be ensured.
It is significant that in the second reading the Marinucci amendment was adopted, which transfers copper from Part B to Part C of the Annex, as prescribed by the scientific facts, but which at the same time provides the opportunity to amend prices and to classify parameters on the basis of the evolution of scientific knowledge.
Who could possibly not be in favour of safeguarding the quality of water intended for human consumption?
That is an objective which Member States, local authorities, companies and individuals should pursue energetically.
But, in practice, in order to achieve the required aims, clear, relevant and measurable parameters must be defined.
It is also necessary for the options adopted during definition and classification to relate to the real world, not to be based on ideological rather than scientific judgements.
The provisions of Annex 1 Part B, relating to copper, in the common position, do not appear to be based on current scientific knowledge or factual information on the effects of copper on the body.
That is why we considered it particularly useful to vote for Amendments Nos 31 to 34, which were submitted to us.
Most of the Members of this House agreed with us.
We cannot help being pleased about this, particularly given that currently there is no easy and safe replacement for copper in the consumers' water supply.
This morning, the European Parliament has shown realism and responsibility with regard to an issue that is certainly technical, but whose economic consequences are not insignificant.
This proposal for a directive has been examined by the co-decision procedure and was already significantly improved by the European Parliament, at first reading in December 1996.
The Council's discussions were completed within a fairly satisfactory time scale.
It only took one year!!
Compared with other texts, it is quite an achievement.
But, above all, the Council's common position has incorporated some of Parliament's basic amendments such as:
the need to develop harmonized methods of sampling for testing the lead content in water, which I introduced on behalf of the PPE group at first reading.
This is essential, because data must be comparable between one Member State and another; -the definition of points of compliance: the Council has taken up my amendment, which was adopted at first reading.
In fact, with regard to the water provided by a distribution system, the point of compliance must be the 'tap normally used for human consumption' , which makes it possible to avoid ensuring the conformity of garden taps.
That will facilitate the enforcement of this directive considerably.Nevertheless, some areas of the common position could still be improved.
With regard to copper, the European Commission and the Council have not taken up the amendment adopted at first reading.
Note that neither has given Parliament a reason to justify that decision.
On behalf of the PPE group, I am delighted that the amendment, which moves copper from Annex B relating to chemicals, to Annex C, relating to iron and manganese, has been adopted today.
This change of annex means that if the copper content, like any other parameter in Annex C, is exceeded, paragraph 2 of Article 8 is applicable.
According to that article, Member States must take corrective measures as soon as possible to restore the quality of the water.
That is a fundamental safeguard of the quality of drinking water.
The PPE group is also pleased that amendments have been adopted relating to:
parametric values regarding specific chemical substances, such as trihalomethanes, or physical parameters, such as radioactivity, which will of course have to be taken into consideration in the light of the Euratom directive; -the request for a study relating to endocrine disrupters.
May I emphasize that it is true that we do not yet have sufficient scientific data?
But I should like the research programmes set up by the Commission to be speeded up immediately.
That would comply with the principle of prevention that the Union has imposed in environmental matters and with regard to public health.With regard to lead, Member States will have to provide a report on the effect of lead piping on the quality of water.
They have five years in which to develop a plan to replace it.
That is a good solution, which provides a reasonable period of time to plan what needs to be done, in the light of the effects of lead.
It would of course be preferable for the cost of these plans to be calculated and programmed, but that will fall within the competency of each of the Member States.
I would like to point out that with regard to 'lead' standards, Member States - mainly the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Ireland, whose water distribution systems contain lead piping, will need huge financial resources - ECU 35 to 50 billion for the whole of the European Union.
Finally, the possibilities of derogation provided by the common position have been reduced and stricter requirements introduced with regard to time.
We should congratulate ourselves on this.
It was nevertheless necessary, in exceptional cases, for Member States to be able to ask the European Commission for a further derogation.
I should like to congratulate warmly the rapporteur, Mr Ken Collins, for the work he has done at first reading, and now at second reading.
g. (SV) The water supply is primarily a national question.
Shortages, environmental problems, natural disasters and such like make it a European and global issue.
I can therefore support a common water policy, providing the Member States are permitted to have higher standards.
This is also proposed in the directive.
I have therefore voted in favour of the report.
Mr President, it is important that water quality is protected and improved throughout the European Union.
The people have a right to expect no less.
While I feel it is useful to set standards, it must be for the Member States to implement, while they must improve and increase their standards - and there is great scope for improvement.
We must look at how best we can remove all contact with lead piping and each Member State should draw up proposals which will lead to the removal of lead.
The directive on drinking water is one of the most significant legislative initiatives of EU environmental policy.
Key aspects of the directive are the principle of prevention and the principle of making polluters foot the bill.
We must stand by these important criteria if we wish to assure consumers of an ongoing supply of clean water.
It is gratifying to see Commission, Council and Parliament collaborating successfully in the preparation of clear provisions for the directive, which is worthy of full endorsement.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted in favour of the common position of the Council on the quality of water intended for human consumption.
However, a hierarchy of water policies must be established in order to simultaneously guarantee the safety of the water supply, restore polluted waters and prevent any further deterioration of water quality.
These three political priorities must be controlled simultaneously in order to satisfy consumers' needs.
It is therefore important to ensure the coherence of the proposals and efficient auditing of compliance, on the basis of reliable data and methods of analysis.
It is therefore necessary for Member States to comply with the framework objectives established, using appropriate techniques and technologies.
In the water industry, like many other environmental sectors, it is necessary to apply the principle of subsidiarity to the full, so problems can be solved more efficiently.
However, with regard to the purification of polluted water in particular, cooperation between Member States must be facilitated, as catchment basins do not stop at national borders, which form artificial administrative limits.
We all know that the Rhine, after crossing Switzerland, France, Germany and the Netherlands, flows into the North Sea.
Any attempt to establish standards relating to the quality of water intended for human consumption will be futile if cooperation between Member States is not ensured.
Rather than allowing European institutions to adopt ever more stringent standards, cooperation between Member States must be encouraged, to enable decision-making to take place as far as possible at a local level, effectively applying the principle of subsidiarity. It is also important to ensure the implementation of the most suitable measures and technologies.
I am glad to support this report by my colleague, Mr Collins.
Water quality is obviously a vital matter of concern for each and every European citizen.
It is good to see that the EU's governments have taken up nearly 40 of this Parliament's amendment since first reading.
This is a good example of people's elected ministers and their elected MEPs working together to improve consumer standards.
However, I support the rapporteur's amendments aimed at limiting the scope for Member States to be let off meeting EU standards of water quality.
He is right to argue that whilst they should be allowed to set higher national standards than required by EU law, countries should still have to apply minimum EU standards for the sake of consumers.
In this House we are often busy legislating on issues which although important to one group or another do not always affect many people in their daily lives.
This report should be backed by the House to let everyone in the EU know that we also act to ensure their health and the protection of their environment - I understand that in Mr Collins's native Scotland the whisky is often called the water of life, but his report shows that he knows the importance of ensuring that drinking water, the real water of life, is as safe as we can make it.
This type of report should not pass through this Parliament.
It does not lie within the competence of Parliament to lay down guidelines on such matters as the level of radioactivity in drinking water.
Parliament should decide on general guidelines but then leave expert bodies to work out specific details.
One major failing with regard to the functioning of this Parliament is precisely that too much time is devoted to details (within fields where Parliament lacks competence), and too little time to general guidelines.
Parliament should set objectives; the expert bodies should decide on the means to achieve these objectives.
Miranda de Lage recommendation (A4-0156/98)
I refused to give a positive vote to the European Union-Mexico agreement because of the human rights situation, particularly in the Chiapas region.
Unfortunately the Mexican government has taken a tough stance and is allowing an act of genocide to unfold in the region in question and is placing obstacles in the way of international observers.
Naturally I must point out that it is significant that there is a human rights clause, which has been by-passed on more than one occasion, according to experiences in other countries.
I am, like you, very pleased that the adoption of the interim agreement to which we have given our assent will enable commercial negotiations between the European Union and Mexico to start soon.
It is understood that the modernization of the Mexican economy and its membership of NAFTA make it necessary to reform the framework agreement on cooperation. It was, however, only signed between the European Community and Mexico in 1991 and is still in force today.
The European Union could, furthermore, not fail to react to the increasing instances of violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, social disparities and poverty in Mexico, after the events in Chiapas and the financial crisis of December 1994.
As our rapporteur says, the new agreement comprises three cooperation arrangements, which aim to encourage the democratization of Mexican society, and which were not included in the 1991 framework agreement.
We are all pleased about them.
However, like the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, one cannot help noticing that, so far, the above-mentioned arrangements, which form part of the political dialogue, are not expected to involve civil society.
That is a shortcoming, which in my opinion, needs to be remedied.
In my opinion, the global agreement should stipulate procedures which ensure the active participation of NGOs and other associations and organizations of civil society in the political dialogue.
More generally, it is important that both parties ensure that democracy has an actual operational role in the final agreement.
With regard to the final agreement, I cannot conclude without saying that I am in complete agreement with the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations.
It is essential that the European Parliament retains the power to give its assent to the whole agreement after the publication of the results of the negotiations which are about to start.
We support extended economic, political and sociocultural cooperation and exchange with Mexico.
In spite of this, we have not voted in favour of this report.
We do not in the present situation believe that Mexico fulfils the requirements regarding respect for human rights.
In Mexico, and especially in the province of Chiapas, infringements of human rights are constantly taking place.
Many tradeunion and human-rights activists have been murdered by paramilitary groups with indirect links to the army.
Mexico also in many cases contravenes human rights with regard to its treatment of several national minorities that belong to its indigenous population.
French Communist and allied Members have declared themselves in favour of the suspension of the partnership and cooperation agreement between the European Union and Mexico.
We have recommended this exceptional measure at the request of many personalities in Chiapas, and in Mexico, for the same reasons that I described to this House, on 15 January, the day after the terrible massacres in Acteal.
We shall therefore not vote for the report.
Since the beginning of the year, serious violations of human rights, the militarization of the area and the presence of paramilitary groups have been common.
The population lives in an atmosphere of violence and constant tension.
The risk of further conflict is increasing, inasmuch as the real instigators of the massacre of Acteal remain unpunished to this day.
Dozens of indigenous people are in prison for demonstrating, or because they took part in the establishment of independent municipal structures in compliance with the San Andrés agreements of February 1996.
The Mexican government seems to want to ignore the proposed reforms of the Constitution based on indigenous cultures and rights, written by the 'Commission for Concord and Peacemaking' , which, however, was legally elected.
This attitude is contrary to the spirit of the San Andrés agreements, which aim to find solutions by means of dialogue.
The partnership agreement between Mexico and the European Union was drafted within that context.
To approve it today would mean endorsing a completely different policy.
If we suspend its application, it may help former commitments to be met: that is what we propose.
Peijs report (A4-0149/98)
The reform of the Customs Code, drafted some time ago, has come at the right time, when the shocking losses in the Community budget caused by large-scale fraud have just been announced.
Europe has to reform this legislative framework.
Indeed, the single market and the free movement of goods were not set up to facilitate large-scale deals by criminal organizations.
The cost of the various types of customs fraud amounted to some ECU 2 billion in 1997.
Within a context of budgetary restrictions in most Member States, the publication of such losses has a very negative effect on the image of the Union and of national administrations.
The reform of the Customs Code is a reference framework for future proposals and initiatives by the Commission in this area, and is therefore welcome and necessary.
Customs administration officials have been asking for a long time for the legislation and procedures governing their work to be simplified.
Firms will find it easier to comply with transparent and simplified legislation.
Furthermore, it should be possible to amend the provisions of the Customs Code more quickly and more easily.
These aspects of the proposed reform are clearly steps in the right direction and will enable opportunities for fraud to be considerably reduced.
Nevertheless, some remarks have to be made.
First of all, it is necessary to ensure democratic control: it is important that speeding up procedures does not lead to a situation in which the European Parliament has lost all democratic control.
The rationalization of amendment procedures must not mean reducing opportunities for consulting the firms involved, or uncertainty about the content of the Commission's implementing regulations, or that decisions are reached without reference to elected bodies.
To compensate for the extra time taken to consult the European Parliament, the Commission's proposals will not only have to be explicit, they must also be detailed and flexible enough to make successive amendments unnecessary.
Secondly, we must prevent confusion: the simplified procedures must reduce the administrations' reaction times in new situations.
In other words, it must be possible to close any loopholes which had not been thought of quickly, and thus to prevent fraud due to grey areas in the legislation.
On the other hand, repeated, frequent changes over a short period of time could cause confusion for the administrations and could be detrimental to the firms involved, which would have to change their working methods continually.
An atmosphere of confusion is as favourable to fraud as the temporary existence of grey areas in texts.
That is why the extra time required to consult the European Parliament will not necessarily have a negative effect.
By adopting the amendments proposed by the rapporteur, Parliament has adopted a position midway between the rationalization of procedures and the requirements of democratic control, whilst considerably increasing the future efficiency of the system.
One day, when the true story of this rush to liberalization is told, if it ever is, there is no doubt that the efforts of the customs professionals to moderate attacks on the regulations and mechanisms aimed at protecting economies based on national territories against the smugglers who have so promptly and rapidly taken advantage of the new ' facilities' and the rush to liberalization, will finally be recognized.
This is quite apart from the fact that as a profession they have been the most immediate and worst affected victims of a process for which, furthermore, they have had no preparation in terms of technical training or equipment.
The current edition of the Customs Code once again reflects the general attitude.
The customs professionals' reservations and suggestions appear to have been overlooked or disregarded, particularly those relating to conditions of representation for declarants, for the sake of the higher interests of the State.
In any event, we must safeguard the customs officials' role as essential operators in the customs area, particularly as regards the collection of duty and the prevention of smuggling.
We seem hell-bent on casting doubt on the very existence of the customs and those who work for it.
We have naturally voted in favour of protecting the public interest, which we still think is served by the customs officials and all professionals involved in the fight against the deregulation of the procedures and indiscriminate access to them, in the context of the urgent need to prevent smuggling, which, for its part, serves interests that transcend all national boundaries.
As a former member of the Parliamentary Committee of Inquiry into Customs Fraud I support, in principle, any initiative designed to make the procedure more effective and resistant to fraud.
However, I can only support this amendment to the Community Customs Code with reservations.
I want to see a reasonable and practicable reorganization of EU customs law.
New regulations must meet both SLIM and Fiche d'Impact requirements.
In addition, it is also necessary to involve all the interested parties - customers offices, buyers and vendors, carriers, banks and insurance companies - in the decision-making process.
Pollack report (A4-0161/98)
Mr President, I wholeheartedly agreed with the three reports on acidification.
We welcome the proposals by the Commission and the amendments from this Parliament.
We can be quite satisfied with the policy against acidification pursued hitherto.
Since the 1970s, measures have been taken in Europe to control the emission of sulphur and nitrogen oxides.
And this policy is working.
Despite the increase in energy use, the emission from these two chemicals has fallen dramatically.
Let us therefore count our blessings!
Thankfully, reductions of more than 50 % since 1980 are no exception in the majority of Member States.
It might even be possible to achieve the planned reductions for sulphur and nitrogen oxides for 2010 as a result of the new standards for car exhaust emissions.
This is hopeful.
Yet sadly we cannot be solely positive. Pollution resulting from fine dust particles and ammoniac is extremely persistent.
Pollution as a result of particulate matter, in other words fine dust, is a clear threat to human health.
That is why I am pleased to see that qualitative objectives have been set for this.
I should add straight away, however, that they strike me as ambitious.
As you know, the particles are released chiefly in traffic.
If traffic continues to grow as it has been doing over the past few years, particle emissions will increase as well.
This is extremely worrying, because one particle is already enough to be fatal amongst certain risk categories.
The limit values in the Commission proposal will thus turn out to be "wish values' .
Ammoniac pollution is an issue in agriculture in particular, and varies from region to region.
We most definitely need qualitative objectives, but a policy aimed at results will have to ensure that reductions are achieved.
Less intensive cattle farming seems the only real solution.
National policies are the answer here, as the intensity of the pollution varies so much from country to country.
My conclusion is that the acidification strategy pursued by the Commission looks good, but I believe we need an additional particles strategy.
I wish the Commission luck, however, because curbing traffic is no easy job.
Those of us who voted for the Hautala report obviously also support Mrs Pollack's report, since the quality of the air we breathe makes a substantial contribution to protecting our health.
We all realize the harmful effects which the pollutants addressed in this directive have on public health and the environment, and the urgent need for binding limit values.
Indeed, one of the merits of this directive is that it relies for that on the new guidelines established by the World Health Organization.
However, since I do not have much time, I would like to concentrate on two points which I do not think have been adequately resolved in the text being considered today.
One of them is that the number and location of measuring stations is particularly important for the smaller islands of the EU, or islands which form part of an archipelago, since that will probably be the only source of measurement and hence public information.
The other point is how these measurements will be made in tourist areas, which at least triple their population during the holiday period, or in areas with fewer than 250 000 inhabitants.
With the rapporteur's agreement, we have introduced various amendments to cover this gap in the legislation, since every citizen has the same rights in all matters and, of course, to the quality of the air they breathe.
I am voting in favour of this report today as the people who send us here to represent them have a right to expect that we back measures aimed at cleaning up the air that we all breathe.
Earlier this century my own constituency in Greater Manchester was one of many parts of industrial Britain to benefit from Clean Air legislation by our own governments.
But today we realize that air pollution can harm not only our own children and our own district, but that one nation's pollution can be carried on the wind to damage the international environment.
This report by my colleague Mrs Pollack represents a classic example of the principle of thinking globally whilst acting locally.
Uniform standards of measuring air pollution across the EU should be used to inform the authorities and the public locally of the air pollution they have to face each day.
This kind of regular information can act as a real incentive to our governments and business to reduce pollution levels.
Alongside national action such as the British Government's commitment at the recent Kyoto Earth Summit to tackle pollution levels, EU law can also add a weapon to our arsenal in the fight for clear air for future generations.
Hautala report (A4-0174/98)
The proposal for a directive relating to a reduction of the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels is one of the aspects of the action to be taken within the framework of the Community strategy for the prevention of the acidification of the atmosphere.
Sulphur dioxide (S02 ) is one of the pollutants that contribute towards acidification as a result of depositing excessive quantities of acidifying substances in soil or water.
The effects of these acid deposits are dependent in particular on the characteristics and the sensitivity of receivers and, of course, on the quantity of the deposits.
I note, by the way, that the combustion of coal is the most important cause of sulphur dioxide emissions.
It is surprising that this fact is not taken into account.
Similarly, I wonder whether it is appropriate to set very low general thresholds with possibilities of derogation or whether it might not be more sensible to do the opposite and set very low thresholds for sensitive areas?
The question of the fuels used in refineries is also important.
Refineries are already subject to strict sulphur dioxide emission limits.
Is it therefore reasonable to impose additional constraints?
To conclude, the proposal for a directive submitted to us will lead to large investments in desulphurization units, when many regulations already limit SO2 emissions. It would be preferable and more efficient to produce a new general strategy of prevention of acidification and establish national ceilings that take into account geographical variations in acid deposits.
We have voted in favour of the report because of its subject matter. However, we are strongly opposed to a change in its legal basis - contrary to the will of the rapporteur - from 130s to 100a, since this restricts the ability of the Member States to take tougher environmental protection measures.
Although I do not always agree with her, I should like to congratulate Mrs Hautala on this report and the work she has done.
I am glad that Parliament has adopted the amendment, which changes the legal basis of the proposal.
In my opinion, Article 100a is a far better basis for a directive establishing limit values for the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels, in order to prevent both acidification and the present distortions of competition in the European heavy fuels market.
In fact, sulphur levels vary considerably between one Member State and another: not only before processing the fuels, because that depends on the area they come from - Persian Gulf, North Sea, and so on -, but also after processing, since requirements vary considerably from one Member State to another.
In this respect, I wish to point out that paragraph 4 of Article 100a allows Member States to enforce more stringent national standards if they are justified for environmental reasons.
I hope the European Commission will take this vote into consideration and will revise its proposal on that basis.
Overall, the European Commission's proposal was well balanced and did not require any significant improvements.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I deplore the fact that the scope of this directive has been enlarged to include bunker fuel oils and marine diesel oil and that the standard recommended by the European Commission regarding gas oil has been toughened.
These amendments are not economically realistic and are not justified from an environmental viewpoint.
I am, nevertheless, pleased with the adoption of amendments intending to involve the European Parliament in information procedures.
Furthermore, by the end of the year, the European Commission will have to submit proposals for economic instruments which may contribute to reducing sulphur dioxide emissions.
That approach would have been worth including in the present proposal.
Poggiolini report (A4-0119/98)
Consumers as well as many producers often experience difficulties in finding their way through the myriad of eco-labels currently on the market (of which there are reportedly over 50 worldwide).
In some respects, in fact, it might be said that this lack of regulation quite shamelessly makes light of the environmental consciences of our citizens.
It would be a good thing if, within the European single market at least, there were one environmental symbol on which the consumer could rely.
However, there are no signs that this is likely to be achieved in the near future.
For the EU not only has to deal with the myriad of existing national systems, it also has to fight against deceptive "ecological' advertising.
This explains why practically no one is familiar with the European eco-label, even though it has been in existence for over five years. There is hardly a consumer who would recognize the flower on the star background symbol.
However, blame for this must be shared with the Member States, where implementation of the first regulation was not a success.
The new approach being taken here should hopefully be more serious, thanks to the creation of a "European Organisation for the Environmental Symbol' .
In the interests of the consumer, we can only hope that this will indeed be the case.
The most important task is the coordination of national and European symbols.
Quite naturally, countries with high environmental standards do not want to give up their eco-labels simply to introduce a weaker one.
Luxembourg, which does not have its own national environmental symbol and imports many of its goods from abroad, would greatly welcome the final implementation of this regulation.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of revising eco-labelling.
A single common label throughout the EU, based on the same strict criteria that apply to successful national labelling today, is the long-term goal.
National labels should be able to function instead until such times as the EU eco-label is properly operational or even awarded.
Choosing from several flowers instead of one flower is unsuitable.
Instead, we advocate giving the consumer more information as to why the flower has been awarded.
We have voted in favour of the motion to prevent eco-labelling schemes currently used at national level - such as the "Nordic swan' , the "peregrine falcon' and the "bra miljöval' ( "the right environmental choice' ) - from being abolished, to be replaced by the EU's "eco flower' .
We believe that existing eco-labelling schemes should be maintained in parallel.
It would be wrong to decide on a common EU eco label that leads to the abolition of labelling systems that are already functioning well and highly regarded.
The "Nordic swan' is an example of a label that currently operates in several countries and has come into being as a result of intergovernmental cooperation.
This type of labelling requires public confidence and a link with the environmental movement.
Eco-labelling systems that have been successful on both of these points should not be allowed to be superseded by the EU's "eco flower' .
From a consumer perspective the proposal is unjustifiable.
Different labelling schemes can exist simultaneously.
In this case, competition is preferable to a monopoly.
Regarding the proposal to review arrangements for the awarding of a European eco-label, I would like to emphasize two points that I consider to be very positive initiatives.
The Commission's proposal incorporates important initiatives towards reducing bureaucracy in the procedure in order to speed up the awarding of eco-labels.
This is the only way the European label can assure increased competitiveness to products qualifying for the label.
The parliamentary report proposes that the area of application of labelling should be expanded to include services as well.
This is a particularly relevant initiative that will benefit small craft businesses, for example - when a small company makes a special effort to use environmentally friendly products, for instance.
Whitehead report (A4-0153/98)
Mr President, Mr Whitehead's report relates to an essential area, complementary to our vote two years ago on the 'Television without Frontiers' directive.
The subject here is the protection of minors and human dignity in new audiovisual and information services.
We have a full consensus on the subject of violence and the need to regulate it by means of a number of procedures. But I should like to say something on the subject of pornography, in addition to what our colleague and indeed all the Members of this House have said.
Some have said that we should have more detailed discussions on pornography.
In fact, we have a full consensus on banning and taking legal action against pornography involving minors, or which is likely to be viewed by minors. But we have no such consensus around the fact that pornography, all pornography, involving adults and viewed by adults, is a violation of human dignity.
However, the subject of this report is the protection of minors and human dignity.
I am not talking about eroticism, which may have some connection with art.
Pornography, ladies and gentlemen, is not freedom of expression, it is not art: it is business, a scandalously profitable business in every society, on an international scale.
I therefore look forward to a time when every society will consider that all pornography is a violation of human dignity. I look forward to a time, when, not only at a European level, but also at an international level, at a UN human rights level, ethical standards will be established prohibiting pornography in international society.
The drafting of a Green Paper on the protection of minors and human dignity is an excellent thing in itself and I read Mr Whitehead's report with great satisfaction.
I should like to congratulate him because his report is not only coherent, it is also discusses the subject pragmatically.
It is one thing to be able exert control over all kinds of audiovisual broadcasts, it is another to expect to control the expansion of the Internet.
With regard to the Internet, all we can do is try to work in partnership with the service providers and hosts of the global system.
But, we must see things clearly.
Protecting individuals with regard to information, is a difficult and hit-or-miss endeavour.
There are many examples, which unfortunately support that observation.
In order to be efficient, we must mobilize all the players involved in the problem of violation of human dignity, with regard to minors, of course, but also with regard to any human being.
Every day new sites are created whose only subjects are hatred and violence.
To fight against this scourge, whose form is not new, but whose means of distribution is, it is necessary, as I said before, to carry out a campaign in the professions responsible for distribution. It is also necessary make Net surfers aware of the fact that they too must take part in this combat to ensure that areas of freedom and tolerance are safeguarded.
The production of this report by Mr Whitehead is timely and opportune.
It is important to recognise that the rapid expansion of the Information Society, especially the Internet, raises serious questions and in particular the abuse of this system by sinister groups.
We need to introduce measures especially to protect children and to emphasize human dignity.
I support Mr Whitehead's proposals for self-regulation involving the industry plus access and service providers.
However, self-regulation alone is not enough.
It must be complemented by national and EU legislation which facilitates prosecution against those responsible for abusing the Internet for immoral and unacceptable practices.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for his extensive and methodical work. I have to agree with him.
As he points out, ' The new services are too pluriform, too novel, to adapt to top-down regulation of the kind familiar in the development of European broadcasting' .
We must therefore think of something else.
The Commission has suggested self-regulation, asking the industry to cooperate on the establishment of codes of conduct, and to evaluate their efficiency at the national level.
The Commission itself has undertaken to support the creation of a system of national self-regulation frameworks, and to encourage cooperation and pooled experience between the police and the judicial authorities in Member States and with their equivalents in other countries.
Furthermore, the Commission has asked Member States to support efficient self-regulation actively amongst service providers.
This proposal should certainly be supported and implemented; nonetheless great vigilance is required.
That is why the rapporteur has my full support when he says that national practices vary according to each country's culture, which means there must be some convergence between codes of conduct.
Similarly, it will be necessary to review these national self-regulation codes regularly, in order to evaluate their efficiency and see whether we can possibly envisage regulation in the future.
Though I shall be voting for Mr Whitehead's report, I am nevertheless aware that it represents no more than a drop in the proverbial ocean.
We all know that today children and young people are exposed to enormous moral and spiritual pressure and pollution through a whole range of violent images and other trashy products on the Internet and other audiovisual services.
We also know that for many of them this causes serious behavioural problems and stunted intelligence which go on to mark them for the whole of their lives.
But we also know that in a liberal system, given the worldwide spread and networking of communications, there can be no effective resistance.
Because no one wants to limit freedom of communication, and no one could do it even if they wanted to.
There is, therefore, no surefire means of protecting young people and children.
However, it would be catastrophic for our modern times if we were forced to lay down our arms without resistance.
So, the Commission's regulation, like Philip Whitehead's report, contains a willingness to choose the difficult route of creating a long-term strategy designed to improve moral standards which will not restrict freedom.
A long-term strategy consists of many small stages: "a soft form of convergence' as the report explains, with internationally recognized standards, evaluation systems, self-discipline on the part of the large producers, but also active legal and police policies at European level.
We are just beginning to realize the enormity of the problem which faces us. Global mastery of communications must be balanced by a joint international willingness to practice self-regulation and control.
The Danish Social Democrats are voting in favour of Mr Whitehead's report.
The Commission's proposal for the Council's recommendation is a positive initiative.
And it is gratifying to see such a strong focus on the principle of self-regulation.
This matter is a good example of a problem that cannot be solved satisfactorily at the national level.
New cross-border media require international solutions.
We are delighted that Council has taken the problem of the legal basis seriously in this matter and has re-worded the proposal to harmonize better with article 130, item 3.
I am delighted that the Commission has tabled a motion in which Member States are urged to practise national self-regulation to ensure basic rights for children in the matter of audiovisual and information services.
Children are a particularly vulnerable group who deserve special measures to protect them in this area which is so difficult to regulate.
Thus, encouraging national self-regulation is the best way forward.
However, for these measures to work effectively, there also needs to be coordination at the European level.
Specifically, these measures must be monitored to check whether they are producing the desired results. Thus, I am also very satisfied with the proposals to this effect in the report.
It is worthy of full endorsement and I am, therefore, voting in favour.
Mr President, I am happy to be voting for this report by my colleague, Mr Whitehead, today.
The threat posed to our children by obscene images and the like being posted on the Internet is one that is now widely recognized.
Indeed, measures to prevent children being exposed to such material via the new electronic media are part and parcel of programmes in Britain aimed at increasing access to the Internet in schools.
Given the number and variety of such new electronic media the report rightly argues that, for the time being at least, a topdown EU regulation would be unworkable.
Instead the chance should be given to businesses working in these new technologies to show that they take consumer worries about obscene material seriously.
The bright minds behind Internet services should set to work to block such material from children's access.
I also back the idea of setting out some common guidelines to make possible the identification and labelling of illegal and harmful content.
However, as Mr Whitehead points out, if problems are seen to exist with these guidelines after two years, we should reserve the right to consider regulatory action.
The industry should know that, whilst we back moves to an information society where technology is available to all, we will be watching to make sure that our children are not exposed to obscene material by unscrupulous operators.
Hulthén report (A4-0162/98)
The Hautala, Pollack and Hulthén reports all relate to the problem of air pollution.
During a previous part-session, we voted for restrictive standards to improve the quality of fuels by reducing emissions of pollutants.
On the same basis, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted for the above three reports.
Appropriate solutions are now available, including biofuels amongst other things, which make it possible to reduce emissions of pollutants.
I should like to take this opportunity to reiterate some of my concerns about the Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal.
In fact, as far as large-scale farming is concerned, nothing is being done to promote the use of agricultural products for non-food purposes.
Biofuels are a possible outlet for agriculture, they are beneficial to the environment, and they must not disappear because the Commission has "forgotten' about them.
European agriculture has developed a biofuel sector and its efforts must not be reduced to nothing by arbitrary decisions.
Finally, on a technical level, I would like to say that European car manufacturers claim that reducing the sulphur content of fuels is technically indispensable in order to operate the new anti-pollution systems with which cars are equipped, catalytic converters, particle traps, and so on.
The reduction of the aromatics content in petrol seems imperative.
During combustion, the aromatics contained in the petrol are converted into benzene, in particular, which is carcinogenic.
It is therefore indispensable to reduce the aromatics content to acceptable technical limits and, thereby, benzene emissions.
As biofuels do not contain sulphur or aromatics, the overall pollutant content of fuels can be reduced, which satisfies the technical requirements of European car manufacturers.
Perry report (A4-0166/98)
Mr President, this report raises interesting questions about the evaluation of former programmes and ongoing programmes, with regard to the Commission's document, but in my opinion it does not go far enough.
The purely quantitative approach is not good enough.
We need to know who is really benefiting from these programmes.
I also think that the rapporteur agrees rather too much with the Commission's opinion that the massive introduction of new information technologies in schools will solve a lot of problems.
I do not really think it will.
I think that we must very positively and attentively study academic failure, which is endemic in all our countries, and ask ourselves why academic failure exists and how to remedy it.
I do not mean that new technologies cannot help us here but I believe that it is a dangerous delusion to think those technologies will be our salvation.
Furthermore, it is quite certain that the highly desirable exchanges between pupils of all ages throughout the European Union are only of use if the young people involved have full mastery of their own language.
So, why do so many exchanges or programmes not have the expected results? Here too, it is because we put the cart before the horse.
We must first ensure that exchanges take place under conditions that are beneficial.
Furthermore, confusion reigns, in all these reports, with regard to the concepts of education, training, a Europe of knowledge, and so on, and one word seems to me to be too often missing.
The word is culture, particularly general culture, which we should be able to exchange between our countries so that many young people, not only from underprivileged backgrounds, have access to the general culture which basically enables exchanges to provide the results we really want.
With regard to the European dimension in education, I am very sorry that more resources are not allocated to meetings, research, and the purchase of modern audiovisual equipment.
All the great events of European history have taken place in the various European countries on a basis of unity and diversity, for example, monarchism, universities, and so on.
It would be very interesting to introduce a European dimension at the level of European culture.
In 1999, three Community programmes relating to education, training and youth will come to an end.
In its communication, the European Commission has presented to us its guidelines for future actions in these areas for the period 2000-2006.
It proposes a limited number of objectives - increased access of citizens to educational resources, implementation of pilot projects, wide distribution of good educational practice.
We realize that its intentions are good although they are evasively drafted.
For my part, I do not think that the Commission has really taken into consideration the positions upheld many times in this House.
What about the needs of underprivileged groups, whom the communication ignores? I agree with the rapporteur that opportunities to take part in the programmes need to be increased.
Too often, candidates find that management is chaotic, and that selection is based on financial circumstances.
The Commission has not provided any solution.
And yet, that is one of Parliament's traditional demands.
As far as the budgetary resources for a Europe of Knowledge are concerned, we still want a significant increase.
But no figures have been given.
We should consider that, by means of an efficient education policy, we can give young people a chance to enter the labour market.
We therefore need substantial resources with which to launch and consolidate our educational policy.
The recent publication of the Commission's proposals for EU educational programmes post 2000 has provided a useful basis for discussion.
I endorse their emphasis on encouraging life-long learning and supporting the employment policies of Member States.
I support also their commitment to developing a concept of citizenship based on common core values and their recognition of enhancing language skills and suggestions for increasing educational cooperation with the countries of central and eastern Europe.
However, I hope that the Commission will take note of Parliament's proposals that there should be a European content to the curriculum, a separate youth programme with a broader based goal to combat exclusion and racism and an EU lead to promote new technology and the information society.
The value of the EU's educational programmes in contributing to European integration was brought home most vividly to me when I had the honour of participating in a Comenius project in a school in my constituency.
The school was St Paul's, Dooradoyle, in Limerick and its partner schools were from Grumbach, Austria, and Trieste, Italy.
The teachers and pupils of this school showed tremendous commitment, displayed many skills, expended much energy and enthusiasm in fostering European cooperation and mutual cultural understanding.
It was indeed a pleasure to be part of this experience and it strengthens my own support for the continuation and expansion of EU educational programmes.
The aim of this communication is to start a debate on the guidelines for future Community actions in the areas of education, training and youth for the period 2000-2006.
It relates in fact to the new generation of programmes or actions that will replace or continue the Socrates (education), Leonardo (training) and Youth for Europe programmes.
The rapporteur has done an excellent job, of which I heartily approve. The subject is vast and important and I am sorry that the Commission has not given us more time and, above all, that the Commission does not have a more specific vision of the future in this area.
Will the three programmes exist separately or will they be joined together in a more general framework? What analyses can we obtain from studying the past?
Can budgetary resources be increased, or must we be content to act within the limited framework of current funding? Our proposals will depend on the answers to all these questions.
These educational programmes are now well known in the various countries, and we must safeguard what has been achieved and increase its repercussions.
Mobility must be encouraged, and new technologies integrated.
The "netdays' experiment has been very positive and I speak here as the elected representative of the Pas-de-Calais where, thanks to that initiative, we have been able to help primary and secondary schools obtain computer equipment.
Such results should be taken into consideration in the new programmes and/or new actions.
It is also necessary to involve the social partners more, to encourage them to cooperate more closely with the world of education and vice versa so that links between education and training are more accessible and more useful to participants.
This means implementing the conclusions of the Luxembourg Summit on youth and employment.
It is also necessary for us to consider young people as a whole, which means actions or a programme must be set up, which are not associated with education and training.
g. (SV) We have abstained from this vote because we believe that the Commission's text was better.
However, we share the approach that is advanced in Amendment No 2, which expresses concern at the socially biased recruitment to the study programme.
We do not, however, feel that this recruitment bias will be remedied by doubling the budget allocation.
The Community's current programmes in the fields of general vocational training and youth policy are set to come to an end in 1999 after a period of five years.
For this reason, the "For a Europe of Knowledge' report is intended to "set out the guidelines for future Community measures in the areas of general vocational training and youth policy for the period 2000 to 2006' .
In my view, it is quite proper that its main focus should be not simply "measures to promote employment' but also, and with equal status, "measures to promote knowledge' . For education is not simply an instrument of labour market policy.
Education is much more than that. This is why the wide-ranging definition of education already given in the White Paper has been adopted for use in the programmes.
We must build on the success of the three programmes, for continuity is particularly important in the field of education.
A forward looking approach and new ideas are important, but both Socrates and ERASMUS as well as "Youth for Europe' have all become highly respected programmes in Europe over recent years and this situation should continue.
I welcome the Commission's proposal to define objectives and measures clearly and above to all simplify administrative procedures.
Nevertheless, it will be necessary to maintain the national coordinating offices for the existing programmes in order to ensure continuity of action at Community level.
Access to the mobility programme must be simplified.
This means more than the appropriate increase in the budget suggested in the Commission's proposal.
In my view, it would have to be doubled in order to achieve an increase in the level of subscription to the programmes and to achieve a subscription level of at least a 10 % in line with Commissioner Cresson's target.
This is the only way in which we can achieve the goal of creating a Europe of Knowledge and improving skills for all.
The Commission will submit its drafts for the new programmes to the Council on 4 July, at which time brisk discussions can begin in the European Parliament and the Committee on Education.
I would be particularly pleased if it were possible to submit the common position on the new programmes during the Austrian Presidency, i.e. by the end of 1998.
g. (SV) Point N of the draft report states the following: ' cultural understanding can be fostered by inclusion of a European dimension within the national curricula' .
To introduce a chapter about such a European dimension into the Member States' curricula in this artificial fashion by order of the EU would be absurd.
In Swedish schools, for example, we have always had a European dimension.
In both civics and history lessons, Swedish pupils read about a host of European topics, including Charles the Great, Napoleon, the Paris Commune, the development of European Imperialism, the rise of the workers' movement and of democracy, etc.
There is today a European and global dimension to the instruction that is given in the EU countries.
I am certain that the Member States are themselves best placed to bear the responsibility for educating their citizens without any pointers from the European Union.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.50 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
I should like to warn all Members and speakers in this debate that our time is severely restricted.
We have already been unable to hear all the speeches listed for this morning in full because the stipulated speaking times have been exceeded.
To enable the first three points on the agenda, that is to say the Tindemans report, the Council's statement on nuclear tests in India and the statements by the Council and the Commission on Kosovo, to be debated before 'Question Time' , in order to ensure that the whole of the proceedings can take place in the presence of the Council, therefore, I would remind all members of the need to observe speaking time limits scrupulously.
Common defence policy
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0171/98) by Mr Tindemans, on behalf of the Committee on External Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the gradual establishment of a common defence policy for the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is noticeable how in Europe since 1945 the problem of security and defence has kept coming to the fore, but it has usually also led to disagreement.
I can only list the instances, for which I apologize.
1947: the Dunkirk Treaty between Great Britain and France; 1948: the Brussels Treaty; the Dunkirk Treaty between the Benelux countries; 1949: the establishment of NATO.
In 1951 the ECSC came into being and in 1954 an attempt was made to set up a European Defence Community. This failed, however.
In 1954 the Western European Union was established amongst the countries included in the Brussels Treaty.
This enabled the incorporation of the German Federal Republic, which was allowed to set up a Bundeswehr .
In the 1960s there was the Fouchet Plan, in three versions.
In 1970 political cooperation commenced.
In 1976 a report was produced, at the request of the European Council, under my name, which contained the sentence: European Union is unthinkable without a common foreign and security policy.
Then there was Maastricht. In Maastricht it was decided to give the European Union a common foreign and security policy.
Then, in 1994 we went up to 15 Members.
Presently, negotiations are being conducted with the five plus one, and there will probably be further pressures on security.
At the Intergovernmental Conference in 1996 - when proposals were expected - the institutional problems were not resolved; nor were they in 1997 in Amsterdam.
This is where we are at present.
In the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy we decided to devote an own-initiative report to security and/or defence.
The Bureau of this Parliament agreed to this.
Obviously the world has changed since the implosion of the Soviet Union and the events in Central Europe.
We had the decision from Maastricht, with much still needing to be resolved institutionally, and we tried to come to an agreement in the Committee.
The members of the Committee will remember that this gave rise to interesting debates, but also to difficulties, to such an extent that it was split up into two parts. The first part was to be devoted to security, the second part to defence.
This first part was approved over a year ago.
At the moment we are discussing the second part, defence, and we are called in this Parliament to give our decision on it tomorrow.
In Maastricht it was said, however, that henceforth the Western European Union should be the European pillar of NATO.
This is why we are faced with big problems.
On the one hand we have Economic and Monetary Union.
This is a great initiative, if you will allow me to say so.
As a result we have a say in the global economy, and we will be on equal footing with the dollar zone, the yen zone.
It is difficult to overestimate the significance of this EMU.
It is therefore unthinkable that such an economic and monetary entity would ignore international developments, even those which influence the economic situation.
This would be absurd and is unthinkable.
We will have to reflect even more on these issues now that the European Union is to be enlarged.
How can we help to guarantee peace in Europe without falling into the old factions or ententes , whilst giving credibility to the foreign policy supported by a security and defence policy. That is the big question.
Amsterdam did not bring the desired clarification.
We are trying to push forward a number of issues, that is, to convey our ideas, especially to the Council, and obviously also to the Commission.
A report was therefore drawn up, and we have already approved it in the Committee.
In my opinion this report stands midway between the actual situation in Europe and the ideal desirability of developing the European personality.
It aims to provide clarity and transparency in the relationship between NATO, the European Union and the Western European Union.
It wants to clarify how this directly elected Parliament sees the objectives of a sound defence, and in which direction a meaningful development ought to go if Europe wants to prevent or resolve crisis situations, even when these concern territorial integrity or the defence of justified interests.
How Europe views peace also affects neighbouring countries and ultimately the whole world.
The report proposes that a White Paper on defence be drawn up every year.
It suggests a European police force is set up, linked to the departments of justice and internal affairs, and with a permanent, but limited planning unit within the European Union.
It calls for closer links between the Union and the Western European Union as suggested in the Treaties, or as is being proposed, at the level of ministers, parliament, assemblée , officials, and for a planning entity for foreign policy through which, according to an earlier decision, this cooperation ought to be realized.
It is obvious that this report does not solve everything, but it lays the foundation for a credibility, a reliability and a selfawareness within Europe.
I venture to conclude this short introduction by saying, Mr President, that those who reject all this - the credibility, reliability and self-awareness in the area of security and defence - are, in fact, rejecting the European idea. These people do not want there to be a European personality, even in this sphere.
Mr President, the Committee on Budgets has taken note of the report by Mr Tindemans with a great deal of interest.
Although we are only here in the second line on this point, it is important, even though much in the Tindemans report will perhaps only be realized in the future, that at this present moment in time Parliament has a clear picture of what this will mean financially and in terms of the budget.
In the context of the Treaty of Amsterdam it is important that the second pillar issues are financed within the framework of the European budget.
We had to fight for this, but it has been achieved.
However, it is also clear that where the Petersberg tasks, the European Armaments Agency, and the integration of new services are concerned, there is obviously not enough room within the European budget.
We see it as our principal task to plead that from the outset, as is the case with the establishment of the European Central Bank, Parliament is fully involved in the preparation and the further elaboration of plans on that point.
It is therefore also an attempt to create the necessary room for this Parliament to exert the influence it is due from the outset, as is the case in other areas.
We gladly agree with Mr Tindemans that after European monetary union has come about, the discussions on the political development of Europe obviously cannot stand still.
It is in this context as well that the Committee on Budgets has drawn up a number of footnotes.
We are delighted that Mr Tindemans has been prepared to submit the two specific amendments which I as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets tabled in the context of his report.
Mr President, this is the contribution from the Committee on Budgets.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this discussion of the Tindemans report comes at a very interesting phase in the development of the European Union.
Since the resolution was passed on 2 May, we have largely completed economic and monetary integration.
We now have to admit that, thanks to the level of internal integration it has achieved, the European Union has become a community of peace unprecedented in world history.
But our ability to secure internal peace has not yet been developed to the same extent outside our own borders.
When talking to our European citizens we often meet with a high degree of disappointment that the European Union is unable - I say unable because it does not yet possess the required instruments - to secure peace outside its own borders.
I believe it is fitting that, at such a vital time as this, a man like Leo Tindemans should have grasped the opportunity to start such a debate, rather as he did in the 1970s with his report on the development of European Union.
It really is in this context that the report should be seen.
With the collapse of Communism and the end of confrontation between the Eastern and Western blocs in Europe, regional wars on the traditional model are once more a possibility.
And we have still to find an answer to them.
Until now we have hoped that NATO, though it was not really conceived for this purpose, would look after things for us.
In Bosnia peace got its chance when a credible military power, the United States, gave its backing to the peace initiatives.
However, we cannot always expect the Americans to be there for us in the future.
It shows great hypocrisy always to be cursing the Americans as some soft of international police force, while portraying ourselves as the great diplomats.
In the interests of burden sharing in Europe and with a view to the credibility of the continued existence of the Transatlantic Alliance, we must develop the relevant capabilities ourselves.
And for this reason we must make the very best of the opportunities offered by the Amsterdam Treaty, though I do have my doubts as to whether the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty will actually prove to be sufficient.
Leo Tindemans points out that the strategy and planning group, for example, is vitally important.
Have we finally managed to get an institution capable of submitting proposals from a community point of view - as is the case with internal community policy? The Council of Ministers may deny that this is the case, but it is forced to argue from a Community position.
Moreover, this strategy and planning unit stipulated in the Amsterdam Treaty must be conceived in such a way that it does not become a COREPER-3 organization or a new organization of political directors and their representatives.
It must be shaped to include the Commission in such a way that it represents a Community position rather than simply a collection of national positions.
The same is evident from a range of other examples.
For example, what is the point of a strategy which has to be passed unanimously in the European Council? If it relates to a fundamental principle which can achieve unanimous support, then all well and good.
But if it goes into detail, it will surely run into difficulties and fail to make progress.
Therefore, it should pass only general resolutions from which the Council together with the Commission can then develop practical measures on the basis of a majority vote.
The potential is there, it just has to be put to practical effect.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I congratulate Mr Tindemans on his truly remarkable and excellent report on the gradual establishment of a common defence policy for the European Union.
At a time when Europe is expanding to reach the confines of the whole continent and the single currency is being established, can we remain unaware of our inability to play a political role on the international stage which is commensurate with our economic power and which, above all, meets all the expectations of the countries bound to us by the ties of history and culture in Africa, America and Asia?
Those countries expect a great deal of Europe, of a Europe that no longer aims to dominate, that aims to promote balance and peace in international relationships.
The European Union will not be able to play that role if it does not gradually establish a common defence policy to safeguard its territorial integrity, its vital interests, and its ability to take part in conflict prevention and peacekeeping operations.
In order to meet that challenge, Mr Tindemans proposes to bring the structures of the Western European Union and the European Union closer together, with a view to long-term integration of the two institutions, with the WEU becoming to some extent the fourth pillar of the European Union.
This approach has the merit of being pragmatic and gradual.
But it will only succeed if the European Union asserts the political will to provide itself with the defence infrastructures, which are at present severely lacking, and which, unfortunately, make it too dependent on the logistics of the Atlantic Alliance.
Although the US accepts, under certain conditions, the deployment of WEU forces without American participation, using the Alliance's infrastructures, it is merely the proof of positive forbearance, to which they hold the key.
Do the Member States constituting the European Union today have the will to move forwards towards the establishment of a truly independent common defence policy? General de Gaulle's European Europe?
Do they have the will to equip themselves with the indispensable resources and infrastructures, particularly satellite communications and radar coverage infrastructures, needed for independence? Above all, do they have the will to provide themselves with democratic and legitimate political institutions capable of designing and implementing a common defence policy?
The proposals to strengthen the WEU and to integrate it gradually into the European Union, submitted by Mr Tindemans, must be discussed in relation to that long-term objective, which probably cannot be achieved quickly.
The majority of the members of the Union for Europe Group support that step, but nevertheless stress that it must not be imposed upon Member States of the European Union that do not wish at present to be associated with it.
The gradual establishment of a common defence policy must take place within the framework of strengthened cooperation, as the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty propose.
The practical proposals submitted by Mr Tindemans are an excellent basis for discussions along those lines.
Thank you, Mr Tindemans.
Mr President, as the former President of the WEU Assembly, I had the honour of meeting the rapporteur, Leo Tindemans, at the end of the Eighties, when he was the Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister.
Since that time, he has given ten years of his life to Europe, and his determination, and the visionary and pragmatic sides of his character remain unchanged. Furthermore, I believe that this is the only way for Europe to move forward in the area of security and defence.
This is an area whose obvious shortcomings become apparent during crises, such as the former Yugoslavia. It is an area, however, in which we do not have the resources to remedy such shortcomings.
We have a long way to go in order to achieve the objectives established in the Maastricht Treaty in this respect. One has to admit that the governments of the Fifteen as a whole and people's mentalities are not yet ready to accept responsibility for what needs to be done to ensure the territorial defence of Europe and prevent conflicts in peripheral regions.
The great challenge of conflict prevention, the indispensable emancipation of Europe in a transatlantic alliance, without cutting the ties that unite us with the United States, the gradual integration of a Europe of defence, of the Western European Union, into the institutional framework, are well covered in this report.
This debate is very useful because it underlines the political nature of the move towards greater security by showing Europeans, starting with the political authorities, where their responsibilities lie. It is their responsibility to consider from now on that the European Union is predestined.
If that concept were unequivocally accepted, the ideas put forward by Leo Tindemans would have greater chance of success.
Mr President, what is very clear to everybody is that the end of bipolar confrontation means we need to construct a new model of pan-European security - a model which can guarantee peace, consolidate stability, prevent conflicts and manage any crises which may arise.
The European Union has an objective interest in the construction of this new model of security on our continent.
But at the same time, we should realize that it will only be possible to build this model if the Union is fully committed to it, and has a real common foreign and security policy.
Now, for that foreign policy to be effective, it is also essential that it should include a defence policy.
It is clear that the progress in this direction represented first by the Maastricht Treaty and then by the Treaty of Amsterdam is positive but insufficient.
We are talking about a defence policy which is not based on a classical concept, but on a renewed definition, guided by the principles contained in the United Nations Charter, the Helsinki Final Act and the Paris Charter.
In short, this should be a defence policy which is not offensive in nature, but cooperative and shared; a defence policy which does not create new costs but maximizes the usefulness of those that already exist, and favours their reduction in any case; a defence policy which is also useful for coordinating the existing arms industries, decreasing their independence with regard to third parties, and controlling any sales outside the Union.
To do that, I think it would be necessary to coordinate the Member States' armed forces, in order to carry out the so-called Petersberg missions.
And of course I am in favour of integrating the Western European Union into the European Union.
I think there is no doubt that we have to see our relationship with the Atlantic Alliance in that context. At the moment, that institution forms part of the framework of security in Europe, as we all know, but it should not be the only institution involved in that security.
Furthermore, in that same direction, we should also think about regaining a balance in the EU-USA relationship, in security and defence terms.
Mr President, the report ignores the fact that there are different views of what constitutes suitable security plans within Europe.
In addition, it is a great mistake for the European Parliament, during the ratification process of the Treaty of Amsterdam, to be dragging out plans which were rejected by the Amsterdam summit itself.
The idea that the EU can guarantee security in Europe with a common defence policy is a throwback to the time of the Cold War. And the Cold War is over.
The EU has enormous advantages over the institutions of the Cold War.
Why do we not want to use them? It has instruments for the integration of good relations between neighbours.
It can create balance, it can build up close economic relations and on this basis offer strong economic cooperation and financial support.
It is also these instruments which will enable the EU to assume the responsibility at world level which it needs to ensure common survival in this world.
With a defence policy, on the other hand, Europe will be living dangerously because the problems of today's world can no longer be solved by confrontations, threats and provocations.
We have experienced just such provocation in the last few days as India triggered a new race for the production of the machinery of destruction with its nuclear tests.
The Greens absolutely reject this form of employment creation measure for the industrial armaments facilities of the EU States and instead advocate the strengthening of disarmament and conversion projects.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Tindemans did not have to show us that he was a visionary, he did not have to show us that he was stubborn.
I do not think he wanted us to know that he was rather disappointed, but I think his conclusions have made that obvious to anyone who was ready to listen.
The report he submitted to us today is certainly not the report he wanted; it is certainly not the report that I wanted and that the Group of the European Radical Alliance wanted; it is a report which has encountered many problems before reaching today's sitting, and may I say that I detected a certain irony in the speech made by our British friend, Mr Titley.
As far as the relationship between the WEU and the European Union is concerned, it is indeed Mr Tindemans' wish that these two institutions should be rapidly integrated, and I believe it is also the wish of a majority of the Members of this House, although certainly not of our Socialist colleagues, as they have shown throughout the amendment procedures. Similarly, a majority of Members of this House wish rapidly to establish a European peacekeeping and peacemaking force, unlike the members of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the members of the Green Group, who have shown their wishes by rejecting the amendments tabled on the subject.
I should therefore really like to congratulate Mr Tindemans on having resisted them as much as possible and I call upon him, and all our colleagues, to accept the remaining amendments to this report, in order to strengthen it at the last minute.
I think that we are all aware that the British are not part of monetary union today, because they hoped, and I think they are wrong, to enter it with the pound sterling higher than the euro.
That will not be the case.
They have no interest today in joining a European Union of security and defence, because they have not yet understood what its benefits will be.
However, I believe that a majority of Europeans, a majority of Members, understood it long ago.
We hope that it will not come to that, but if tragic developments take place over the next few months we do not want Europeans to have to put up with a Europe that is powerless and shamefaced with regard to Bosnia, as they had to put up with it for three years.
In the coming months, we must be able to react. We must be able to stop the dictator, who is still in power in Belgrade, who was responsible for the tragedies of Croatia and Bosnia, from organizing a third tragedy in Kosovo.
With the Amsterdam Treaty, and the Petersberg tasks, we are not only able, it is also our responsibility to obtain the means of intervention to carry out peacekeeping and peacemaking operations.
This is not a wish; it is not a vision. This is something we must do immediately.
Mr President, in the 1970s, the Belgian Premier and Foreign Minister gave his name to the Tindemans report on direct elections to the EU Parliament and a political union.
At that time, these plans were rejected in Denmark.
They were said to stand no chance.
Today, almost all the proposals of the Tindemans report have been adopted.
And today our Belgian premier is giving his name to a report on a joint EU ministry of defence, joint weapons production and joint armed forces.
According to the Danish Foreign Minister, Niels Helveg Petersen, this is "a blast from the past' .
In common with most Danish politicians, the same Mr Helveg has opposed the Tindemans report every step of the way, yet when it comes right down to it, they have voted in favour of every 'blast from the past' .
In the same way, the Danish government will eventually vote in favour of joint armed forces if Denmark votes "Yes' to the Amsterdam Treaty - otherwise, that would be the first time a government had remained unmoved.
The Tindemans report on joint armed forces is serious and dangerous.
It suggests a gradual build-up in line with the Amsterdam Treaty.
If there is an attack on an EU country, NATO must defend us, but all other wars are EU business.
The Union can send troops anywhere and at any time, for any purpose.
The limitation is neither legally nor geographically defined.
The only limitation is political, since unanimity is required for the dispatch of troops.
A simple majority in the Danish parliament could relinquish Denmark's reservations on military matters and a simple majority in the Danish parliament could allow participation in military action following a specific decision.
The Danish derogation expressly permits other States to continue with their joint armed forces.
Thus, Denmark is the only country without the right to veto military action carried out in the name of the Union.
As we can see, the Tindemans report is not simply a paper explaining what is happening.
The Tindemans report will repeat the exercise with the Western European Union.
I hope Mr Tindemans will come to Denmark before the referendum and explain whether he is indeed - in the words of Mr Helveg - simply a 'blast from the past' .
To me, the Tindemans report looks more like an insight into a scenario of the future if we were to vote "Yes' to the Amsterdam Treaty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, India has just carried out three nuclear tests, China is continuing its experiments, others countries are equipping themselves with or developing atomic weapons, yet the rapporteur managed to talk about the defence of Europe, without ever mentioning the concepts of nuclear dissuasion or nuclear armament in his report.
And yet, that is a very crucial area with regard to the security of Europe, because unfortunately goodwill and good intentions will not safeguard the external and internal security of our countries in the future.
I also regret that the report does not show any real determination to emancipate Europe from the United States of America and therefore from NATO.
In a spirit of submission, dependency and weakness, France has, on the contrary, made a public act of allegiance by rejoining NATO command, even though the Soviet threat has disappeared.
We believe that the Western European Union should become a tool of emancipation and not an instrument of the new international order and of domination by the American Government.
But that will require financial, technological and human resources. We must stop dismantling our armies, and moral disarmament must cease.
A number of principles need to be reaffirmed: the creation of a new so-called 'European alliance' treaty, not only uniting the countries of the European Union but forming an alliance of sovereign European States, independent of course from the United States of America but also from NATO structures, the enforcement of the European preference rule in all areas relating to arms, the establishment of a budgetary policy, which enables Europe to regain its security, independence and freedom, taking into consideration new threats such as terrorism and bacteriological threats, the development of training structures, organizational structures, and civil protection structures and finally the establishment of rules enabling French nuclear dissuasion to be used for the joint benefit of the European alliance.
We regret that these considerations were not mentioned in the report.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Tindemans for this excellent report.
The report is the result of some delicate balancing, and shapes a logical future for talks on a common security policy.
The European Union has a clear angle on security, regardless of whether there are elements of military security in future Union operations.
The notions of security and defence partly overlap.
It is obvious that the creation of interdependence in itself will increase security and stability in our continent.
We should remember that European integration is, by its nature, its aims and its fundamental structure, one vast security project, with defence as one of the principles of the Maastricht Treaty.
Specifying the role of the Western European Union as part of a single defence policy is linked to some extent with the simultaneous enlargement process in respect of NATO and the EU.
With NATO about to receive members from central and eastern Europe its membership will become more heterogeneous, but at the same time the organization's so-called European pillar will be strengthened.
Although it might be claimed that the interests of the eastern European countries in NATO membership are ultimately focused on military security, it must also be said that when the countries of central and eastern Europe join, the organization's role as one of regional, collective security will grow.
It is essential that the Union also considers its own role in this manner.
To clarify the future status of the WEU and make its work effective, it will be necessary to reassess the status of its associate and supervisory members.
If it is the specific task of the WEU to implement military operations in the future, the role of the supervisory members in active participation will be hopelessly vague.
I see that in the near future all those concerned, including my country, Finland, must be part of the WEU operation, as a result of equal and fully-fledged membership.
And the same obviously goes for the future members of the Union.
The Petersberg tasks, which were written into the Amsterdam Treaty on the initiative of Finland and Sweden, and which allow all Union Member States to participate in regional peacekeeping operations, will create a supporting structure for a single defence policy.
The development of a viable peacekeeping capability is a precondition of the growth of a single defence policy, although peacekeeping is not always directly linked to defence.
It will also be seen as a step on the way to a more united identity for European security policy.
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Tindemans, and I too consider that he did an extraordinary job, especially given the great resistance that he encountered along the way.
I too believe that he would have liked, would have tried to do much more than he succeeded in doing in the end, and that it was therefore extremely difficult for him to arrive at this point with results that are, honestly speaking, modest from the point of view of whoever considers this issue - common defence policy - an essential point, if Europe is not just thought of as the Europe of the single currency.
The WEU must be integrated into the European Union: this is the first step, and it seems to me that Mr Tindemans was extremely clear on this.
We have before us the shame of what occurred in Bosnia, where American intervention was necessary.
Let us never forget this!
Anyone who says that the Americans are the world's policemen because the Europeans engage in diplomacy is a hypocrite.
This is only the sign of Europe's weakness and the hypocrisy of the European countries which continue to be political dwarfs, continue to only think of themselves internally.
Furthermore, anyone who has said that the Tindemans report should focus more on prevention and less on the matter of interventions has assumed a hypocritical approach because, while it is true that prevention is the top priority - this is clear - it is also true that Europe is forced to just chatter away, to utter useless waffle, because in reality it is not possible to intervene in cases of regional conflicts, like in Bosnia or Albania a few months ago.
At this point the road to common destiny opens for Europe: the European countries can no longer afford not to understand this.
Whoever thinks that the British Empire or the French and German powers can still exist is living under a vain illusion.
We can and we must contribute to Europe's future in peace and stability.
Mr President, a reliable visionary must be a realist, and that is why Mr Tindemans was the excellent rapporteur of a report which was, naturally, excellent.
In principle the Union must be able to take military action on its own.
This does not, for instance, mean replacing NATO, but being an addition to it.
An adult European Union must be able to enforce its foreign policy by military means, including during the times the United States do not support this.
The rapporteur has clearly stated in his report that a common defence policy is pointless without a common foreign policy. Many Member States are still putting up barriers against effective realization of the CFSP.
Realism is therefore called for when we are talking about defence. As many Member States as possible should make use of NATO joint task forces if desired.
By the way, the Union should do its best to avoid constructing a parallel military structure. The people of Europe can do without higher defence budgets.
Concrete steps are rightly argued for here.
The Ministers of Defence should also be able to meet in Union context.
Commission services involved in security and defence must also be strengthened. The European Parliament must have more regular consultations with the Secretary General, the President and the assembly of the WEU than it has at present.
In conclusion, Mr President, as chairman of the relevant subcommittee I support the proposal in the report to change the name of the subcommittee, presently security and disarmament, to Subcommittee on Security and Defence Policy.
Disarmament does of course in principle form part of this.
Mr President, I think that the rapporteur, Mr Tindemans, has produced an important piece of work, despite the fact that the nature of the subject is such that it is as if we were charting unknown waters.
Where the political options of governments and the Council stop, there is room for many scenarios and many ideas.
Perhaps this is the role of Parliament, perhaps this is what we did with Political, Economic and Monetary Union in other eras.
It is my opinion however that we must try and take care to consolidate and integrate what we have achieved thus far, before we open up other roads, such as defence, which are paved with many difficulties.
In my opinion, the problems which are arising in the former Yugoslavia are connected not with the European Union's lack of a defence policy but with the inability to make specific choices or the making of wrong choices such as in the case of Bosnia.
Within this meaning of placing special importance on and consolidating what exists today, I would like to put a question to Commissioner Van den Broek, who has been patiently following this entire debate.
Both at Amsterdam and in the Treaty there is the notion of external borders, the notion of the integrity of the European Union and there is the notion of mutual political solidarity.
I wanted to ask Mr Van den Broek: are there borders between the European Union and the East? Or just the North, South and West?
Is there European Union integrity?
If all this exists, why this apathy?
Perhaps it is more a matter for the Council, but I would like his opinion. Why this apathy of the main organs of the European Union towards a number of disputes currently taking place on the part of Turkey concerning islands which, as everybody knows, belong to a Member State and to the whole of the European Union?
I would like an answer from Mr Van den Broek.
Mr President, firstly, I find it quite incredible that Mr Tindemans is being hailed here as a visionary.
I do not know how someone living in the Dark Ages, who believes in military blocs, global militarization and imperialism can be considered a visionary.
It is a ludicrous thought.
On the issue of imperialism, it is quite clear in paragraph 4 of this document that 'the purpose of a common defence policy is to protect the Union's interest in all areas, including security of supply' .
That is disgraceful.
You are saying that you want a defence policy and defence system, not to protect yourself against potential aggressors, but to protect your fundamental selfish interests.
That such a thing should be true in this Parliament is an absolute disgrace.
Ireland is holding a referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty.
Our government and the main political parties are telling us that the Amsterdam Treaty has nothing to do with defence.
Yet, as Mr Tindemans says, the Amsterdam Treaty makes a common defence policy a more credible prospect given that it strengthens the organic bond between the European Union and the Western European Union, created by Maastricht.
The Western European Union is a military alliance committed to the nuclear deterrent.
Furthermore, Article J(7) of the Amsterdam Treaty, a protocol attached to the Treaty, was an Irish addition and intended to prevent the Irish people from knowing the real implications of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It says that the European Union, together with the Western European Union will jointly consider future requirements in strengthening mutual cooperation within one year following the entry into force of that Treaty, in order to give the WEU, ' as an integral part of the development of the Union' , an organizational framework.
It is quite clear that what you are doing here is militarizing the EU, turning it into a military alliance, the main purpose of which is to protect its selfish interests and get easy access to global resources.
(Applause from the Green Group )
Mr President, before starting any discussion on European defence, an essential remark must be made: the collective defence of Member States of the European Union does not depend on the European Union, but on the Member States and on the alliances to which some Member States belong.
That is why I regret the use that is made, in the Tindemans report, of some inadequate and ambiguous concepts, the concept of the legitimate defence of the European Union, for example.
Having said that, thinking about European defence today means asking a series of questions.
Whether the European Union is really the most relevant framework within which to approach the current defence problems of our continent, in terms of the new threats that have replaced the Soviet threat. Whether the aim of a European defence policy should be to put everyone into a straight jacket or whether it should be organized on the basis of a variable geometric concept, taking into consideration the Member States' very different wishes with regard to defence.
What should be the relationship between the European Union and the WEU?
The Amsterdam Treaty does not propose to integrate the latter into the former and overall, it keeps the existing relationships as they are. It only contains two innovations: the incorporation into the CFSP of cooperation in the field of armaments, and the Petersberg missions.
It obviously goes without saying that arms policy is an intergovernmental matter.
Because of its specific nature, it is important in the defence sector to ensure that sovereignty prevails over market forces.
The objective of the European Armaments Agency must be to maintain the capability for independent research and production at the highest technological level in Europe, in view of particularly aggressive American competition.
The Tindemans report also mentions strategic air transport, space intelligence and satellite communications.
In such areas, the establishment of European poles of competence by Member States who wish to do so will make it possible to gain control, particularly of information, and to put an end to our dependence on the United States.
These are areas in which the scale of the costs involved in the projects justifies the adoption, by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity, of joint programmes, whose funding will have to be provided over a period of time by Member States, which freely decide to take part.
Member States with a tradition of neutrality, which make up one-third of the Fifteen, have accepted the integration into the Treaty of all the Petersberg tasks, but have however clearly refused the collective defence guarantee instituted by the Brussels Treaty among members of the WEU.
Article 17 of the Treaty of Amsterdam also reflects the deep divisions between Member States with regard to defence policy.
Even leaving aside the question of Member States with a tradition of neutrality, it states that common defence must be brought about through the integration of the WEU into the European Union and, at the same time, that this has already been achieved within the framework of NATO.
These legitimate differences form the very fabric of Europe and it is essential that the will of the people and of Member States be respected, particularly in an area as sensitive as defence.
The Tindemans report rightly underlines the fact that any common defence policy is dependent upon the clear identification of common interests and proposes that a Council White Paper should try to outline them.
It also underlines the need to give form to the European security and defence identity which the Berlin Summit....
(The President asked the speaker to conclude) These areas seem important to us and have obtained our approval.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate Mr Tindemans for the work he has done and for the direction given to the report whose contents we fully endorse.
Of course more could have been done, such as asking for the process of common defence to be speeded up more, but the rapporteur wanted to have as much unity and consensus as possible.
Perhaps, with his experience as a man of government, he was not wrong.
The common defence policy cannot advance by relying heavily on majorities that he could nevertheless have sought and obtained.
It is nonetheless extremely significant that this debate is taking place precisely today, the same day our Parliament has expressed its favourable opinion for the names proposed by the Council for the members of the Board of the European Central Bank.
It is perhaps the best way for our Parliament to respond to the rightful criticism of those afraid that the European Union is only an agglomeration of financial and monetary interests.
We must reaffirm here once again that monetary union without political union is ridiculous, a useless effort for the European people.
An essential accompaniment to political union is undoubtedly a common foreign and security policy combined with a common military and arms strategy.
Today, Europe is witnessing an important moment, a happy moment.
The single currency must soon be followed by a common defence policy so that Europe can guarantee peace, including beyond its own borders.
The effort of Mr Tindemans reminds me of the overwhelming commitment in this Parliament of the late Member, Mr Spinelli, who from these same benches from which arise today obstacles on which there is not always agreement, argued and fought for Europe to become a political subject and therefore to have a common, military and foreign policy.
The delegation of the National Alliance, the democratic and moderate Italian party, will vote in favour of the report to reaffirm its own choice for European Unity and in so doing to confirm the need to make those essential choices and give political and international dignity to our Europe.
Mr President, this report once again gives us an opportunity to voice our great appreciation of Mr Tindemans' expertise and commitment.
The distinction between security policy and defence policy has become less obvious in so far as the risk of an armed attack on EU members has, in the phase in which we now find ourselves, diminished. This has been accompanied by an increase in the risk of crises in our immediate neighbourhood.
Crises can, however, escalate into full-scale hostilities.
We must not close our eyes to the fact that developments in Russia, for example, can quickly give rise to a more serious situation with regard to defence policy.
Europe needs both a deterrent protection of its borders and the capacity to intervene forcefully in order to resolve crises.
NATO forms the basis for European cooperation in the field of defence.
A more active defence cooperation within the EU should be developed not as a replacement, but as a complement, for NATO.
Such a complement is needed.
Nevertheless, European defence cooperation within the WEU has lacked strength.
The problem lies not so much in the fact that new countries outside military alliances have applied the brakes, as in the lack of a strong political will at the heart of the EU.
There has been no force akin to the one that has driven EMU forward.
A functional defence policy must also be based on a common foreign policy, but the EU has not yet reached this point.
The Tindemans report gives us an opportunity to reflect on this point.
The question is whether Europe can entirely rely on NATO, and thus on the USA's commitment.
It is realistic to envisage crises and threats of this kind arising in situations where the USA might well be in agreement with the EU, but lacks the motivation to intervene in the way that we in Europe would wish.
Major enlargement of the EU would in all probability reduce the degree of unity between the EU and NATO, thereby reinforcing the need for defence cooperation within the EU.
The European Union aims to promote peace in Europe.
In this respect the EU has been a total success.
The peace initiative is being further advanced through eastward enlargement.
This burgeoning cooperation has already produced significant results.
In order to gain membership of the European Union, the applicant states are striving to promote human rights, settle internal disputes and conflicts between themselves and also with other countries.
This is important.
It is not only in the Balkans that a diverse ethnic mix has the potential to result in serious complications.
Here is a modern, present-day version of the EU's peace mission.
For example in my own country, there is every reason to point to the major role that the EU continues to play in developing peace in Europe.
The tragedies in the Balkans, that is, outside the EU and outside the circle of applicant states, shows how badly things can otherwise turn out.
Dear Mr Tindemans, I have read your report and listened to what you have said and I want to give you my warmest congratulations.
There is no doubt that your report will be voted for by the European Parliament.
Unfortunately, however, for you who have worked so hard, unfortunately for the European Parliament and unfortunately for the people of Europe, the gentlemen of the Council will throw it in the bin.
The gentlemen of the Council did not manage to agree on the President of the Central Bank, making a mockery of the euro before it even gets off the ground.
In truth, do you believe that they will agree on this extremely important issue?
They are not interested in a common foreign policy and in the defence of Europe.
They are not interested in the interests of Europe nor in the people of Europe.
The only thing that matters to them are the interests of banks and bankers.
Look at what happened at Dayton.
The Americans made a decision and Mr Van den Broek, despite his effort, simply pays from the Commission Fund.
In Cyprus, in the Middle East, in Kosovo and in the Aegean, Mr Holbrooke and Mr Miller discuss and decide and Europe simply carries out their decisions.
I do not want to disappoint you.
I wish your report good luck but I am afraid it will not have good luck.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Tindemans on the skill and especially the tenacity and patience that he demonstrated in writing this excellent report: a controversial report, not because of its contents but because this Europe of ours is still faced with the growing difficulty of dealing serenely and seriously with an issue like that of its own security and defence, even though it knows that the success of its own political process certainly depends in large part on finding a solution to this.
Its discomfort can also be seen in the proliferation of institutions to which it delegates this issue that it does not know how to handle.
As has already been recalled by other Members, we have at least four institutions: the European Union, the WEU, the OSCE and NATO which, although in theory should collaborate between themselves, in reality are at odds and interfere with one another.
As if that were not enough, the WEU - which is to become the military arm - is waiting to be integrated in the European Union at that noble moment when, if and when, the governments decide that this operation can be carried out. I would not like it to be like in Manzoni's Promessi Sposi , that is to say that, in the view of someone or indeed of many, ' this marriage must not take place' .
Furthermore, six years ago, almost to the point of convincing the public that it was possible to do better, the Pietersberg agreement was invented to conduct peace missions: not one has ever been carried out, and I wonder when one will be.
I conclude by saying that the Tindemans report is a courageous stone cast in the pond of political indolence.
I hope that it will finally succeed in promoting that debate that until now has been lacking.
Mr President, following the example of the other Members I too will congratulate Mr Tindemans since, with the very fine and elaborate phrases which his long political experience allows him, he manages to reveal what he wishes, that is the redevelopment of the European Union into a military-political, police-controlled terrorist organization.
He is driven not by personal criteria but by criteria of class.
This is what he expresses.
The financial money markets, the huge monopolies and the multinational companies must be able to digest - without inconvenience - what they gain with monetary union and all the other attendant factors which currently govern the European Union.
The NATO - WEU - OSCE trinity aims to create special intervention forces, armament programmes, a military arms industry and aerial information centres etc., all paid for by the European taxpayer. Naturally this poses a question: will this European Union not have a defence policy?
He does not clearly specify, however, who the enemy will be and against whom. There is not even the slogan "Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact' and he implies that the enemy is the people and their revolt under this oppressive policy.
You wish to keep this in check and on this basis you want the freedom to intervene wherever, within and outside the perimeter of the EU, the interests of the European Union, that is of multinational corporations, are - he says - affected.
And one last point, since a lot has been said about Mr Milosevic...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, during the debate last year on Mr Tindemans' first report on a common security policy for Europe, I expressed the wish that the enlargement of the European Union to include central and eastern European countries would not go hand in hand with an identical enlargement of NATO. European and American interests are more and more often divergent and it is high time the people of Europe took charge of their own destiny.
My wish has been fulfilled, and I thank the rapporteur, who argues in favour of the integration of the WEU into the European Union and the accession to the WEU of future Member States of the Union.
This must take place with the close cooperation of the CIS.
Even if, and particularly if, it displeases the Green Group. They are bribed to increase European nations' subjection to the Americans: at the economic level - illustrated as clearly as possible by their attitude, which by the way, was grotesque, to the vote on the patenting of biotechnological inventions; at the military level, as the amendments they tabled on this excellent report by a great statesman, Mr Tindemans, have shown.
Europe will soon have a single currency.
It will also need an army.
That is the price of our independence.
Mr President, I am afraid that after Mr Kaklamanis' Marxist analysis of the European banks and Mr Ephremedis' class-conscious considerations, I shall look a little bland as I just want to make a few comments on the Tindemans report.
I, too, would like to congratulate Mr Tindemans for taking on this very difficult task.
The task was indeed a difficult one, as I know from our work together on the committee.
It was to formulate a common defence policy for fifteen independent, sovereign states and for 75 to 80 parties - I am not sure exactly how many parties are represented in this House, but I know that they represent very different opinions.
These opinions stem from different traditions in defence policy and it is my view that we shall only be able to achieve a successful defence policy if we are prepared to accept and respect these different traditions in its formulation.
I would like to mention three principles which are important as I see it, which go beyond what you have written and which will form the subject of various amendments.
Firstly, we should endeavour to define a new defence policy which is embedded in a new security policy and which is based more on collective security models such as the OSCE than on models from the Cold War like NATO and the WEU.
Secondly, under certain circumstances today preventive conflict solving and the triggering of a new disarmament spiral - a disarmament rather than an armament spiral - can be a more effective instrument of defence than any multipurpose weapons which may be in the pipeline.
Thirdly, if we develop our own defence policy we should do it not to relieve the American budget, but in order to reflect our own identity.
Mr President, I just have a comment on the Rules of Procedure relating to speaking time.
I should be grateful if you would be much more generous in allocating time to Mr Ephremedis in the future, for when otherwise do we have the pleasure of listening to old Stalinist speeches.
I do not think those remarks were quite proper, but, since we are also sometimes lacking in humour, you are forgiven.
Mr President, do I owe Mr Brok anything? Let me settle with him.
If I owe him anything, I will settle it with a cheque.
In euros, when it comes into circulation...
I was going to say that I could invite you to speak, to make a personal statement, at the end of the debate.
But as you have already taken the floor, you no longer need to speak at the end of the debate.
Mr President, during those days when 56 Foreign Ministers and Ministers of National Defence - 56! - from 28 European Countries, 10 of which are Members of our Union, took part in the celebratory sitting of the Western European Union under Greek presidency in the beautiful town of Rhodes, two American envoys, Mr Holbrooke and Mr Gelbard, went back and forth between Belgrade and Pristina in a desperate attempt to find, between Serbia and Albania, some treatment for the bleeding wound of Kosovo.
In the multi-paged text of conclusions which was given out yesterday the many ministers of the WEU expressed, among many other ambiguities, their own concern and their readiness to promote a realistic and clear approach to tackling the problem.
However, the difference between the two simultaneous demonstrations of international diplomacy is telling: in the first, in Rhodes, there is comfort, luxury and the slow pace of ceremony.
There is no sense of time and, above all, no binding nature of specific solutions.
It is quite the opposite with the on-the-spot visits-cum-forays of the American envoys.
Often, because of the study of and demand for practical solutions, they do not avoid dangerous complications and injustices.
Thanks are owed to Mr Tindemans who, with missionary zeal, insists on mobilizing Europe into shaping a common foreign policy.
Since 1975 he has been striving in this direction, proclaiming ever since that only in this way can Europe protect its values and acquire its political substance.
At exactly the time when we are welcoming the inception of EMU and the establishment of the euro, the long and faltering march towards the OSCE, the vagueness concerning the incorporation of the WEU as an arm of defence, despite the wishes of Maastricht and the minced words of Amsterdam, are restrictive burdens which inhibit the integration of Europe.
In a world of rapid developments, such as today's, delays are alarmingly dangerous.
And we have already had bitter experience.
Personally, I can only express a single disagreement with the Tindemans report: the shaping of a common foreign policy must not go forward gradually, as the text says.
It is an immediate priority.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report prepared by Mr Tindemans sends out a very positive signal because it is, at long last, a document which clearly highlights the European Union's responsibility for its own security.
Because what is the question here? In theory, our entire foreign and security policy has been established since Maastricht.
In practice, however, it is a fiasco, as we all know. So what does it mean?
What is the objective? Not just to condemn, but also to invalidate the misuse of force in politics!
That we shall be able to achieve when the European Union is finally able to distance itself from individual national security policies and instead combine the political, the economic and, at the end of the day, the military potential of the Union in the interests of crisis management and peace-keeping.
They both amount to the same thing.
The second issue which I would like to highlight is the following: Since Maastricht, we have been working towards the objective of a common foreign and security policy and we have been saying that we want to make the Western European Union an instrument of the European Union.
Perhaps we should stop talking about it and actually get on and do it!
Lastly, many people would prefer to leave the security of the European Union in the hands of Washington.
In my view that would be a pity!
For, quite legitimately, American security policy is concerned with safeguarding its own interests.
Secondly, American security policy very, very often depends on the prevailing domestic political situation. Under certain circumstances, that could actually represent a security risk for Europe.
We must therefore continue to pursue the goal of a common foreign and security policy, merge the EU and the Western European Union in the interests of crisis management and peace-keeping, not only in Europe, but at world level.
Mr President, Mr Tindemans' s report is a declaration of war by militarists in this Parliament against European peace policy.
It was written by an agent from the weapons' industry, whose home country has never been in the frontline of military threat.
Mr Tindemans and Mr Titley wish to manufacture weapons a long way from the front for those who will have to fight there whenever, according to the report, the basic principles of the EU are made a laughing stock of.
Such full employment is not one of the EU's basic principles.
My country has never been occupied. How many of you can say the same, you who are now planning a common arms industry, a common arms capacity and a common military doctrine?
If it comes to the crunch, will you homefront arms manufacturers be offering to help out those who are joined with you in a union, but against their own wishes, get involved in armed conflict? To all war-mongers now suffering from trauma as a result of occupation or the Falklands conflict I say: do not try to force us defenceless countries into a military alliance via a single EU defence policy.
You are too poor a bunch of soldiers to give others guidance on security.
As chairman of a labour organization I would like to say to Mr Brok that he, in the service of the firm of Bertelsman's , as he is, has no right to advise free European representatives on what they should say.
Madam President, the report is entitled 'establishment of a common defence policy for the European Union' , but the content exudes thinking and rhetoric from the Cold War.
The report is based on the idea that conflicts and problems are resolved by military means.
Foreign and security policy are based on different components: foreign policy, aid, trade, peace and conflict resolution, disarmament policy, refugee policy and military defence.
A security policy is therefore not the same as a military defence.
It appears to me to be out of touch with reality to write a report with the tenor of the study that Mr Tindemans has produced.
According to many commentators, including the WEU's political assembly, the realization of a common defence policy has been removed from the agenda for a long time to come as a result of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It seems to me most remarkable that Parliament, which has no power to decide on a common defence policy, is once again tabling a motion on this matter, quite contrary to the will of the Council of Ministers.
The idea of a common defence policy seems to be a mantra: if it is repeated often enough it will perhaps become reality.
From a modern security perspective, the security of the people is the central consideration.
The threat to the people may be anything from environmental disasters to social exclusion.
At present, conflicts between states are becoming increasingly unusual.
Instead, intra-state conflicts are growing ever more common.
Most of these conflicts have their origins in social antagonisms of an ethnic and/or religious nature.
Such conflicts cannot be resolved by military methods or with bullets and bombs.
Amidst the federalistic euphoria it should not be forgotten that the UK, Denmark, Ireland, Austria and Sweden do not accept a common defence policy as proposed by Mr Tindemans.
In Sweden, 70 per cent of the population are still opposed to a common defence policy.
Madam President, the European Union will only carry any weight if it succeeds in growing beyond its achievements to date.
Here for the first time we have an opportunity to develop the Union on three institutions - the traditional European Community, the Economic and Monetary Union and the political union - freely, that is without extreme pressure from outside as was the case during the Cold War with its threat of nuclear strikes.
This requires a will - as outlined in the Maastricht Treaty - to create a common foreign and security policy and, step by step, a common defence policy.
This is enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty which the Austrian Presidency, aware of its responsibility in its forthcoming presidency of the Council, will soon ratify.
To date, both the common foreign and security policy and the foreign defence policy are rudimentary and vague, not to say non-existent.
This is highly unsatisfactory in view of the regional conflicts currently going on in Europe.
May I point out to the previous speaker that unfortunately security problems in Europe are not restricted to natural disasters.
Our dependence upon the will of the USA to intervene in crisis regions in Europe as a policing force within the framework of NATO not only illustrates the weaknesses of the current European position, it has also become an almost unbearable burden for the USA.
The current trend is for the US to withdraw from European trouble spots, leaving the EU with a still greater responsibility.
The Tindemans report therefore points the way to European independence in the narrower sense of defence policy.
It is therefore logical for Austria to support the complete integration of the Western European Union into the EU and to take part in the creation of a common European defence policy.
However, this cannot and should not take place in opposition to NATO.
Eleven out of fourteen of our EU partners wish to create a European security and defence identity within NATO.
The WEU depends on NATO capacities and NATO logistics in many respects.
The remit of the WEU and the NATO Partnership for Peace are largely similar.
Any unnecessary duplication of existing mechanisms should therefore be avoided.
What we need is solidarity and cooperation in building a common security and defence policy.
The enlargement processes both in the EU and in NATO should be seen in this light.
The Tindemans report forms a good basis from which the Council and the Commission can formulate policy in this area.
Madam President, there are three reasons why I cannot agree with the basic tenets of Mr Tindemans' s report.
Firstly, its view on security is, to my mind, outdated and based on the supposition that there may be a conflict between states, resolved by the use of force.
Of the twenty-seven wars or conflicts that went on in 1996, only one, the dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, was between different countries.
Conflicts, particularly those in Europe, require improved methods of stabilizing crises and improved peacekeeping operations.
In this respect, I believe the initiative on behalf of the foreign ministers of Finland and Sweden is the right one.
Secondly, the report does not sufficiently get to grips with general European security, and especially the development of security between the EU countries and Russia.
This sort of cooperation is required, for example, in the development of the Baltic region and in the Nordic sea regions.
Thirdly, the notion of developing the European Union as a defence organization does little to aid EU enlargement.
An emphasis on EU military endeavour will, I believe, affect the issue of enlargement for the countries bordering on Russia as well as for Cyprus.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, do you remember one of the replies from President Chirac of France to the protests to nuclear testing? It is also for you, he said, your security and your defence!
It is too bad that the other heads of government did not take the President of the French Republic literally, at the time, and did not insist on arriving in Amsterdam at a truly new result for the common defence policy.
It did not happen that way and we had a disappointing result.
Basically, the real significance of the Tindemans resolution is, in my opinion, this: the European Parliament says to the European Council, to the Council of Ministers 'the time has come to include this difficult topic on the agenda' .
Do not turn away, do not try to escape, let us not give the awful performance that we gave with the Bosnia tragedy.
We are about to increase from fifteen to twenty six, we cannot do it without reaching a new parameter, that of the international identity of the European Union, of a common defence policy.
It will be difficult, certainly, it will be very difficult, but there are no alternatives.
Of this at least I am convinced.
The Member, Mr Tindemans, has been defined a visionary; in my opinion he is a realist.
People who are visionaries and also dangerous are those who, looking to the past, are only able to propose again a situation that we have already experienced.
So, from the past let us keep the different languages, cultures, the enormous wealth of our European Union, but let us leave in peace the worst results from the dictatorships, the wars, the racist ideologies and cases of nationalism.
Let us look forward with a little courage.
A short while ago at the funeral of an official of the Western European Union, who passed away too soon, a wreath of flowers was brought by colleagues of the deceased.
Next to an affectionate message to the loved one was a curious signature in French: ' Friends of the Accidental European Union.
There's a small mistake: Accidental European Union.
However, we need a genuine union of the people and the States, not an accident of history!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the WEU is developing its operational capacities on the basis of internal optimization.
This means that, in accordance with the widening of its remit in 1992, it is on the way to becoming an instrument of efficient crisis management in Europe. For this reason it is important that we continue to follow this process in this House, as we are doing today.
In my view, the WEU has two main tasks. Firstly, to oversee the integration of new partners from Eastern Europe and, secondly, to strengthen the European pillar of the Euro-Atlantic alliance.
In this context, it is extremely important that relations between the WEU and both the EU and NATO are shaped with the necessary sensitivity.
This sensitivity is necessary firstly with a view to relations between Europe and America, but also in relation to various EU Member States, such as the United Kingdom, Denmark, Ireland, Austria and Sweden where, for a variety of reasons, the idea of the development of a military arm of the European Union is received with a certain amount of caution at the very least.
But, to address Mr Bonde from Denmark, we have absolutely no intention of influencing the Danish referendum on 28 May with our debate today.
Like every other country, since the Treaty of Amsterdam Denmark is entitled to opt out of any matters relating to military initiatives.
However, I do believe that we would be ill-advised not to take seriously the concerns of the citizens of the neutral countries.
I also have great sympathy for the position taken by the United States which - most recently on Corfu - advocated continued adherence to the NATO agreement to make independent collective resources available to the WEU only where this is required for urgent CFSP operations within the context of a specific crisis.
I am also resolutely against granting the WEU basic and permanent autonomous planning and intervention capacities within NATO, but - and here I direct my comments to the Europe of the Nations group - there can be no question of the WEU organizing European worldwide recognition à la Paris alongside NATO and without transatlantic agreement.
Its future role will be limited to dealing with crises like the current situation in the Balkans with a CFSP restricted to the performance of joint operational, humanitarian and peace-keeping WEU initiatives.
Madam President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs McKenna, Mrs Theorin and Mrs Ojala for their contributions, which I regard as small shafts of light in an otherwise rather dark and gloomy debate.
I find this just as depressing as the other day when I actually read the Tindemans report.
Nor - I regret to say - did the amendments to the report make me any happier.
This is, after all, an own-initiative report from the European Parliament.
I therefore feel that it would be profoundly regrettable if this were to be the signal that this elected Chamber sends out to its voters.
For example, no consideration whatsoever is given to any new aspects, not even to the policy pursued by the four neutral states, which are, after all, members.
I sincerely hope that we shall reject this report.
Madam President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on producing his timely report.
Mr Tindemans is right to point out that not all EU Member States are ready to work towards a common defence policy, despite the fact that at Amsterdam the WEU was regarded as an integral part of the development of the EU.
The Amsterdam Treaty, in developing a more effective common foreign and security policy, stressed the importance of closer institutional and organizational links between the EU and the WEU, including the evolution of the Petersberg humanitarian and peacekeeping tasks.
I welcome the references in the report to the role of Combined Joint Task Forces, the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, the Partnership for Peace programme and the importance of establishing a European armaments agency.
The report also points out the importance of the objective of global disarmament, the Pact for Stability and welcomes the draft EU code of conduct on the arms trade.
However, there are areas of the report that I would disagree with.
The integration of the WEU into the EU is not a realistic proposition in the near future.
I do not accept that the purpose of a common defence policy is to protect the Union's interests in all areas, including security of supply.
Furthermore, I do not agree that security and defence issues should come under the authority of a Commissioner or that a White Paper on defence should be drawn up by the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit for approval by the European Council. Nor should the EU be in the business of signing military cooperation agreements with Russia and the CIS countries.
Amending the Treaty on European Union to include Article 5 of the WEU Treaty is also not a feasible option.
For these reasons, as the report currently stands - I stress as it currently stands - I regret I will not be able to support it.
Mr President, I do not belong to the group of colleagues here who are congratulating Mr Tindemans.
The report as it stands today seems to forget that there are four militarily non-aligned members of the Union and that their consent is necessary to fulfil the dreams of Mr Tindemans and others to integrate the WEU into the Union.
On the other hand, as has been mentioned, one improvement to the Amsterdam Treaty was realized on the initiative of Sweden and Finland, namely the inclusion of the Petersberg tasks.
This implies that the non-aligned countries are as interested as all others in developing a common defence policy.
Common defence and common action will ultimately depend on geopolitics and national interest.
That applies to big Member States as well as small ones, as was shown in the mishandling of the Yugoslav crisis.
I for one would welcome sending troops into Kosovo if other solutions fail.
Finland at present being the only Union member having a common border with Russia sees the development of mutuallybeneficial and peaceful relationships with that country as all-important, in marked contrast to NATO strategy.
Portugal might view this differently.
Decisions on European defence policy should not be made in Washington, as has happened in the past.
The weakness of the present wording of the report is that it combines false dreams with nice words.
If the Socialist proposals for amendments fall, many of us will have to vote against the entire report.
Madam President, I believe I am the last speaker on behalf of this House in this fascinating debate.
It is not the first debate on this subject, nor will it be the last.
It is fascinating thanks to the forward thinking reports by Mr Tindemans, who has occupied himself with this subject for decades.
I was and remain sceptical about the opportunities to develop a genuine defence policy within the Union context.
I am not opposed to it on principle, but consider it sensible to leave NATO on this point for what it is.
What's more, it does not seem sensible to me to put the cart before the proverbial horse.
The discussion on the defence of own territory has been pushed into the background somewhat over the past few years by a much more important discussion on the role of NATO, the European Union and the WEU in crisis management.
I am therefore much more interested in the question of whether the Union will be capable of carrying out the so-called Petersberg tasks should the situation arise. Then we will be dealing with crisis management elsewhere.
This is therefore the crux, I believe, of a military debate at national level.
The realization of this option, for which the foundations were also laid in Amsterdam, and preparing ourselves for the possibility should be given priority over the coming years.
It also concerns the practical interpretation of the relationship between the European Union and the Western European Union in this sphere.
What the Union needs above all, and I have often said so, is positive practical experience.
With such an experience in the sphere of possible crisis management, common defence might also come into view.
So I would like to turn it all around.
The Union must learn to trust itself regarding security issues.
The introduction of the euro will also without question lead to the necessary dynamism in this area.
Economic union leads to political union; this has been said often enough.
As far as that is concerned I believe that the security experts in this Parliament can expect a sunny future.
The last thing I would like to say has been said frequently before. The best contribution the European Union can make to security in Europe is its enlargement.
This does not involve any military instrument.
The proof that the scope of the security instruments of the European Union is extensive must, I think, remain the starting point in the debate in this Parliament on the security role of the Union.
Madam President, I would also like to express my great appreciation for Mr Tindemans' report on the common defence policy of the European Union.
I am not surprised at the quality of the report, nor at its inclination towards compromise, when I think of Mr Tindemans' wisdom, which he acquired during a long period of governmental responsibility and of ministerial office in Foreign Affairs.
I also remember very well the reports made by Mr Tindemans in which he repeatedly argued in favour of activating a clear common defence and security policy as the ultimate objective of a strong European Union.
And certainly after the step which was recently taken towards a common monetary union, the CFSP, to my mind, deserves extra and renewed attention.
We should capitalize on the cohesive impulse which will also emanate from monetary union to arrive at a closer common defence and security policy.
The topical value of this Tindemans report could not have been greater.
I have already mentioned a few reasons for this.
But added to these is the fact that, in the past, during such a discussion on a European defence policy we were able to refer to the tragic developments in former Yugoslavia and were able to point to the lessons which should be drawn from this.
But today it is no longer possible to speak in an abstract way about this topic, because Europe is yet again faced with a situation which, if precautions are not taken in time, might show a repetition of the horrors of an ethnic conflict.
I will deal with the situation in Kosovo separately in a moment.
But it seems to me that it should also be discussed in the context of this debate, as there are so many points of reference with the remarks put forward by Mr Tindemans in his report.
The political, economic and also the humanitarian consequences of an escalation, an overspill of the conflict in Kosovo into other regions, will directly affect the interests of the Member States and those of the applicant countries of the European Union.
And I am thinking not least of the possibility that once again huge numbers of refugees will get on the march.
Absorbing such a situation has also so often been the subject of debates in this House.
Yesterday I spoke with Mrs Ogata, the High Commissioner for Refugees of the United Nations, who told me that inside and outside Bosnia Herzegovina there are still approximately 1.8 million displaced people and refugees for whom a solution is not yet in sight.
But in other areas too we will be busy for a considerable time to come consolidating the situation in Bosnia Herzegovina, which is only improving slowly.
That is why there is every reason for us to reach a state of affairs in which all the resources the Union has, or is able to have, at its disposal are dedicated fully to preventing the situation in Kosovo and the surrounding region from worsening.
And I am most definitely referring to a possible contribution by the Western European Union to initiatives intended to limit as much as possible the risk of the conflict spilling over.
Here I am thinking, of course, about the measures for the benefit of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and of Albania in particular.
As indicated by Mr Tindemans, the European Union last year failed to play a conflict management role in Albania via the Western European Union.
All credit to Italy, by the way, which, only three months after the European debate and with the support of a number of other countries, managed to be present in the country with a stabilizing unit and, indeed, managed help to stabilize the situation.
But it would most certainly have been the European Union and the Western European Union's responsibility, mindful also of what has been laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty with regard to the so-called Petersberg tasks, to take a leading position in resolving the crisis which erupted in Albania at the time as a result of the pyramid investment scandals.
However, a comparable situation is currently arising, but it is by no means certain whether there is enough political will at the moment to implement actively the security aspect of the common defence and security policy.
This afternoon someone, I believe it was Mr Lambrias, already pointed to the WEU meeting on Rhodes which took place yesterday and the day before yesterday.
But the results of this meeting do not indicate that spectacular initiatives have been agreed.
The question then arises as to whether it would not have made sense if the European Western Union had at least been asked to conduct an analysis of the security situation in situ, coupled with a number of recommendations about the way the Western European Union might possibly help to achieve security in the region.
It is right and it makes sense that this issue is also being looked at from within the NATO context.
But why should a specific input from the European Union, from the Western European Union, not be one of the possibilities? The absence of concrete and specific activities is making a debate on the place of the Western European Union in the security architecture really rather theoretical.
The Tindemans report mentions the European security and defence identity; all of this seen against the background of the Western European Union's place in the Atlantic Alliance.
The question is, and I am in fact concurring with the comments made by Mr Wiersma just now, whether it is really all that advisable to start a broad discussion with each other on a common defence policy when we have not been able to make any progress on common foreign policy, and most definitely not on common security policy. Would it not be preferable if the Union was to start by focussing on implementing what was understood by the so-called Petersberg tasks, also in the Treaty of Amsterdam?
Peace-promoting tasks, including peacemaking, humanitarian actions, etcetera. Should this not already be a possibility, or lead to concrete actions, then you may wonder whether we should have any big illusions within the European Union about the defence identity.
When we are talking about defence identity and link this to the protection of independence and the territorial integrity of a territory, I do not believe anyone in this House will dispute that the prime responsibility for this lies with the Atlantic Alliance, NATO, in the foreseeable future as well.
But what we are talking about here, and where Amsterdam has in fact made some progress, is taking action ourselves, with military resources as well, in the field of regional crisis management for instance.
And I repeat my question: having not taken the opportunity a year ago in Albania, should we have been surprised by events yet again this year when there is the threat of a crisis in Kosovo? And will we later be asking ourselves why no timely precautions were taken?
Like Mr Tindemans, the Commission, in its recommendations which preceded the Intergovernmental Conference at the time, argued that the Western European Union should ultimately be integrated into the European Union.
This could lead to matters being better attuned, including the diplomatic, economic and military resources available to the Union.
Should the Union not succeed in formulating and implementing a more decisive foreign and security policy, which is supported by military resources with the aim of crisis prevention, then the credibility of the entire common defence and security policy will in our view be seriously affected. This foreign and security policy was based on what was agreed by treaty, both in Maastricht and in Amsterdam, and which was endorsed by all Member States without exception, with regard to the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Now of all times, when the Union has set the enlargement process in motion, this credibility must not be put on the line.
An enlarged European Union will also and particularly have to adopt a political position which corresponds to its economic size and interests.
It will also have to be able to look after these interests with all the resources at its service.
Many thanks, Commissioner Van den Broek!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Nuclear tests in India
The next item on the agenda is a statement by the Council on the nuclear tests in India.
Madam President, on 11 May the Government of India announced that it had conducted three underground nuclear tests.
The presidency subsequently issued the following statement: ' The presidency expresses its dismay at the news of the Indian nuclear test which was carried out earlier today.
The European Union is fully committed to the implementation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which seeks to discourage the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
The European Union has a strong interest in the peace and stability of South Asia and is concerned about the risk of nuclear and missile proliferation.
The presidency is ensuring that the implications of this test are discussed by Member States at the Political Committee on 12 May' , which in due course took place.
The Government of India has today announced that it has carried out two further tests, which it says complete the planned series.
These tests have been carried out in flagrant disregard of international opinion.
This is a deeply unwelcome step which can only serve to destabilize security in the region.
The tests are contrary to the disarmament process to which the overwhelming majority of the international community are committed.
The Political Committee agreed that the European Union should make démarches to the Governments of India and Pakistan. These are being carried out today.
The watchword in South-East Asia is that there must be restraint.
The European Union will continue to urge Pakistan and India to resolve their differences through bilateral dialogue. This offers the only realistic hope for a solution to the issues that still divide them.
There will be a discussion on the implications for European Union-India relations at the 25 May General Affairs Council.
At that Council the European Union will decide on its response. But it must be measured and proportionate.
Madam President, Minister, I only have two minutes and in two minutes one can only be brief.
The five nuclear tests India has just carried out - we have just learnt, in fact, that there were two more this morning after the three the day before yesterday - are exceptionally serious.
India is, in fact, in a situation of unresolved territorial conflict with two of its neighbours: one is China, a recognized nuclear power and the other is Pakistan, a potential and perhaps even clandestine nuclear power.
But China and Pakistan both signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the CTBT, in September 1996 in New York, although as far as I know they have not yet ratified it, and until now they have respected it.
This is therefore an act of defiance and a step towards escalation into nonpacific handling of the conflict.
It is extremely dangerous.
Unlike many commentators on this subject, Minister, I personally am not surprised.
India's explanatory speech when it refused to sign the CTBT was significant and premonitory.
India now has a vehemently nationalist government, whose establishment almost everyone here regrets, but the fact that it has been possible to carry out these five tests less than two months after that government came to power shows that everything was obviously ready and that the whole nation was committed.
India is a great country with a very ancient and remarkable culture.
One cannot visit India, as I have done, without learning to love it. Perhaps India is expressing the feeling that it has been forgotten or is despised by the international community, and its lack of confidence in the ability of the international community to conduct peaceful conflict-solving processes.
Many nations have reacted angrily, but also seriously and deliberately. However, the Russian Republic has been heard more or less to say, although I exaggerate, ' that sanctions should not be envisaged against India because it is a good customer' !
American strategic leadership of the world is in crisis. It is being made to look ridiculous by India, by Pakistan, which recently tested a missile, and by Mr Netanyahu.
Europe's responsibility, Minister, is therefore becoming overwhelming. Are we capable of together imposing the required diplomatic and economic sanctions?
Are we capable of forcing France and the United Kingdom to launch the complete nuclear disarmament plan suggested by the Canberra Commission? That is the only thing capable of calming regional tensions in the Indian subcontinent, provided that major powers start it.
International events will not await our procedural hesitations.
Minister, the European Union's first great initiative in terms of foreign and security policy must be nuclear.
This is an emergency.
Madam President, the agenda says that we will have a statement by the Council on nuclear tests in India followed by questions.
I, in my innocence, assumed from reading this that we were allowed to put questions to the Council.
I merely wanted to ask the Council to refresh my memory: did it voice the same dismay when France carried out the nuclear tests? Did it condemn France for doing that?
Mr Smith, I assume that we both have the same agenda for today, and my agenda says the following: Statement by the Council on the nuclear tests in India, followed by questions, statement by the Council and the Commission on Kosovo, followed by a debate.
I have been informed that the groups have agreed to organize a debate instead of the questions and have therefore registered speakers.
I believe the matter has been discussed jointly in the groups.
I really am very sorry that I cannot now give you the floor to ask a question, but this is what has been arranged.
Madam President, my group would wish to condemn these tests but we would recognise in so doing that this was a political explosion in response to a party political programme: and to that extent I agree with Mr Smith that it is actually very similar to the last French tests.
It seems to me therefore that it requires a political response.
It really should not be necessary to go around exploding bombs in the world in order to attract the attention of the international community, and I fear that for too long the European Union has shown a blindness towards South Asia.
It is not wise in my group's view to try to ignore a quarter of the world whether on nuclear issues or on climate change issues where India and China also play a key role.
I want to address two questions, if I may, to the presidency: would it consider convening a regional summit on security in South Asia? This seems to me a more useful response than the American sanctions proposals, although I suppose the two might be conducted in parallel.
Secondly, will the President-in-Office come to the Foreign Affairs Committee at the end of this month, the day after the Council meeting to which he referred, since we will be discussing the André-Léonard report on the new European Union-Indian partnership agreement and our views on that might obviously be affected by what happens in the next few weeks? I believe the British presidency has a key role to play in defusing what is an unfortunate incident before it becomes a regional disaster.
Madam President, the five nuclear tests are not making the situation any more comfortable in the meantime, and are undermining the momentum for nuclear disarmament which has been in existence since the end of the Cold War, the signing of the CTBT and the extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
I dare say India is a threshold country, but it is also on the threshold of a dangerous instability in the region.
Mr Spencer is quite right when he says that it is not solely a military issue, but principally a political issue.
India should be reprimanded, agreed, but this reprimand must also act as a warning to other countries.
In recent agreements the countries in possession of nuclear weapons have committed themselves to nuclear disarmament.
We are not seeing much evidence of this, Madam President.
Instead, the United States is conducting subcritical tests and the START-II Treaty is not being ratified by the Russian Duma.
It is of the greatest importance that all nations concerned take part in the disarmament which is now finally able to take place.
Unilateral condemnation of India is not right, of course, but other countries concerned must indeed be warned by this incident.
Only through a joint approach will we be able to reach our goal.
Madam President, the seriousness and irresponsibility of the new Indian Prime Minister's decision cannot be sufficiently emphasized.
It is likely to start a process with unpredictable consequences in a region where over a third of humanity lives, which has been the scene of several wars over the last few decades.
It is a challenge to the international community unworthy of the prestige that great country has earned in the past.
I believe the time has come to resume the debate on nuclear weapons and their permanent destruction in every country, without exception.
By signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty, declared nuclear powers have signed a solemn commitment, Article 6 of the Treaty, to work towards the achievement of that aim.
It is the prerequisite of radical, universal and controlled non-proliferation.
But, we are far from achieving it.
I should also like to take advantage of this House to appeal to all pacifist movements and personalities that share my conviction that the campaign for disarmament is still, or is now becoming, very urgent indeed.
Let us hold meetings.
Let us consider together what initiatives to take to express a strong protest against these tests and more generally to stimulate public opinion on the issue of peace.
Madam President, I believe that the nuclear tests carried out by India, now five in total, are indeed a big step in the wrong direction.
The whole region is in turmoil.
Look at the reactions from Pakistan.
China, too, has given a heavy response.
In addition, we are seeing that this decision is provoking many reactions throughout the world, and rightly so.
In that respect I am not entirely reassured by the words of the President-in-Office when he says that we should respond, but moderately.
I would like to say: let us respond clearly and through diplomatic means, and with specific economic measures.
In that context I think we should indeed take a thorough look at the cooperation agreement between the European Union and India, particularly as far as the transfer of sensitive technology is concerned.
I really believe we should look at how we deal with this, not least in the context of the report by Mrs André-Leonard.
Naturally, on the other hand, not enough emphasis can be placed on the hypocrisy of the five nuclear powers who have done nothing about nuclear disarmament, even though this was also provided for in the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
To point a finger at others who promote proliferation, something I naturally find extremely negative, without taking any responsibility oneself for disarmament, is, I regret, something that will no longer convince the world.
We will not become credible as a European Union, and this applies to both the United Kingdom and France, unless they take initiatives in this matter.
I have not seen anything of this kind so far.
Madam President, the five underground nuclear tests which India has carried out obviously caused a shock wave throughout the world.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is not applicable to India as it has not ratified the Treaty.
We should be honest, India feels threatened by Pakistan, by China, and is often right to feel this way.
The question is not only whether the fifteen countries of the Union will speak with one voice internationally, but also what we will be doing as from next week, when a vote is held in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on the signing of the cooperation agreement.
The question then will be: what is our position?
In other words, will we decide not to sign as long as India has not signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty? At the same time this will also mean that we must pursue a much more active policy so that, as Magda Aelvoet has said, there will finally be an end to the hypocrisy of the nuclear countries.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the dissemination of nuclear weapons may cause one to feel anxiety, which is understandable, but it is no excuse for hypocrisy.
The President-in-Office, a British minister, is part of a government which has nuclear weapons, which is obviously quite agreeable when you do not want other people to have them.
We hear that sanctions are going to be taken against India by the United States of America, in the name of morality, of course as always, although the United States is the only country to have used a nuclear weapon against civilian populations, in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Can you explain to me, Mr President-in-Office, why it is right, fair and decent in that area for China to have an unacceptable nuclear weapon, yet immoral and scandalous for India to have one? Did the Communist Party, to which Mr Wurtz belongs, not welcome Stalin's acquisition of the atomic bomb, at the time?
Mr President-in-Office, do you not think that the solution to the problem of nuclear proliferation should be political? We have to use the good relationships we have with all the parties involved to try, by mediation, to decrease the tension in the area.
Superpowers must not try to evade the rules of conduct they wish to impose on others.
The rest of the world will look upon anything else as an intolerable and hypocritical diktat.
Madam President, it is a very serious matter that India has conducted these tests since this could lead to a new global nuclear arms race.
This situation clearly requires both political and public responses.
The EU must respond, not simply verbally but also in the form of action.
The citizens of the EU should do exactly what they did during the French nuclear tests, that is, to react with the instruments at their disposal.
The Swedish government has today, with immediate effect, halted a cooperation agreement with India amounting to SEK 900 million.
It is also important, however, to bear in mind that India's argument for not signing the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was that it did not contain a paragraph on total nuclear disarmament.
This argument must today be directed back at India and utilized, if it really was seriously intended.
However, it is also important to remember that every nuclear power should be treated equally.
They are, in fact, currently contravening their undertakings to reduce their nuclear weapons under Article 6 of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
This is something we should also bear in mind when taking action against India's nuclear weapons tests.
Madam President, since nuclear testing was resumed on Mururoa under the aegis of the French President Mr Chirac, it was of course to be expected that such conduct would be copied by countries in Asia and elsewhere.
We accepted the existence of nuclear weapons with a bad conscience at the time, Madam President, because of their deterrent effect.
That national pride should be attached to the possession of such a weapon is obviously completely mad.
It seems that nationalist politicians have been calming their consciences for a long time with the idea that national interest and national honour will justify everything.
Against this kind of politics our political ancestors at the time invented European integration against nationalism, because nationalism in fact means war.
These are things which have been said here before by people such as Helmut Kohl and Mr Mitterand.
That is why the European Union must be the first to condemn the dangerously macho behaviour of India.
It would be of great significance if the people of India were also to discover that their government has committed a blunder, and that it has not gained anything.
Because of financio-economic measures we must cooperate with countries which are capable of exerting financio-economic pressure, such as America and Japan, to see what our role should be in guaranteeing peace in this region.
I extend my good wishes to the Council, that it may be able to proceed with the speed and effectiveness hoped for in the Tindemans report, to respond well to these matters, and thus to play an acceptable and respected role on the world stage.
Madam President, as rapporteur on the strengthened European Union-India partnership, I am particularly shocked by India's dangerous and incomprehensible attitude.
The five nuclear tests have changed the European Parliament's whole perspective on the strengthened partnership.
Our report aimed to be comprehensive and gave the necessary political support to the declared determination of both parties to make their cooperation more efficient.
India has just seriously breached the mutual confidence which had been built up over a number of years.
I will therefore encourage the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to consider that current circumstances are no longer conducive to strengthening the partnership; on the contrary, they must lead to a temporary halt in the process until India has permanently stopped carrying out nuclear tests, has signed and ratified the Non-Proliferation and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaties and has begun to contribute actively towards improving relations between states in the region, more specifically with Pakistan.
On 25 May, the Committee on Foreign Affairs will have an opportunity to discuss this, within the framework of my report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, like the previous speaker I find it extremely worrying that India has carried out these tests and that no criticism is coming from inside the country itself.
Given this fact, the sanctions which have been announced are more likely to result in an act of defiance than any sort of understanding that as a large, democratic country in the region India also has a duty to set an example to its neighbours.
A show of strength may achieve the desired domestic effect for the moment, but this will be far outweighed by the damage it will cause at international level.
A State which cannot solve the problem of poverty in its own country should not be seeking to enhance its domestic reputation through demonstrations of this kind.
The last thing we need in a developing country is an arms race.
Already, India spends 12.5 % and Pakistan 27 % of its budget on military expenditure.
In view of the arms race in the region, however, calling for India alone to put an end to testing would now seem to offer little chance of success.
The European Union must also ask itself whether, after the French tests in the Pacific, it did not sit back a little in relief rather than making energetic calls for more countries to join up to the existing Treaty.
Madam President, thank you for the chance to make a short response to the points which have been raised in this short but important debate.
I would like to say to those who raised questions that the points which have been highlighted will be considered as part of the agenda on 25 May by the General Affairs Council when it considers the Union's response.
There are two inaccuracies I wish to correct.
One is that there was a sense of neglect in India - I cannot accept that there has been any neglect by the Union.
Indeed, the presidency has had a political dialogue with India within the last month and a wide range of issues have been considered.
But even if there is a perception of neglect, I do not believe that this in any way justifies the act which the Indian Government has taken in carrying out those nuclear tests.
The second inaccuracy was a point raised by Madam Aelvoet who said that I had said that there would be a moderate response from the Council.
Well, I did not say that there would be a moderate response.
What I actually said was that there should be a measured and proportionate response and that is quite a different thing.
The important point of the debate is that it has been an opportunity for us all to focus on this subject, to think of the way in which the Union should respond and to suggest options so that on 25 May the Council can consider what action should be taken.
But above all we must make sure that we give proper regard to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and that these form the background to our discussion on 25 May.
Our main purpose should be to devise an appropriate response so as to have the maximum impact on the Indian Government and also to do our utmost to secure regional stability and restraint in South-East Asia.
The debate is closed.
Agenda
Ladies and gentlemen, the debates held this morning and during the course of this afternoon have drawn out somewhat, as you can see both from the agenda and the time.
This means that we now have to adjust the agenda for this evening. I would suggest the following order of business for this evening's session.
According to the agenda there is Question Time from 5.30 p.m. to 7.00 p.m.
I suggest that we continue the debate on EuroMediterranean co-operation, which we left unfinished this morning, after the evening recess at 9.00 p.m.
That would then be followed by the debate on Kosovo, the report by Mr Caudron on the competitiveness of European industry, the report by Mrs Mann on a European initiative in electronic commerce, then the recommendations for the second reading of the report by Mr Hendrick on a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations, the recommendation for the second reading of the van Velzen report on operator number portability and carrier pre-selection and, finally, the report by Mr K. Collins on the labelling of certain foodstuffs produced from genetically modified organisms.
Does anyone have any objections?
I have just quickly added up how much time that would take.
I shall therefore propose a compromise to your proposal.
We shall ask the Council Presidency and the Commission to introduce the subject of Kosovo, and the debate will then take place later as I have suggested.
Madam President, Kosovo is currently one of the major political problems and major trouble spots in Europe.
We wanted to find another time to discuss the matter.
But we were told that it would be better to do it today since a Council statement was scheduled and the debate had therefore been arranged for today when we set the agenda on Monday.
Then yesterday at 5.00 p.m., when almost no one was in the Chamber, it was suddenly announced that today's agenda had been changed and now we find ourselves in a situation where the debate on Kosovo is due to take place after the debate on the nuclear tests in India has been squeezed in.
A statement from the Council which is not followed by a debate is nothing more than a Council press conference!
Why do we need a European Parliament if contributions to the debate are banished to the night.
Mr Titley's proposal really is the most acceptable compromise.
We are already very loathe to accept it, but what you have suggested is no compromise, it is simply the original proposal.
Mr Posselt, that would mean that Question Time would be cut short.
Madam President, I have only one thing to say. Question Time has so often been shifted in the past because certain parties did not like the questions, that I would suggest the discussion on Kosovo should take place now.
That is simply the most logical solution.
It is a burning issue for us. And it is nonsensical that we should be dealing with a non-European matter instead of such a vitally important issue as the Kosovo question.
I would therefore strongly urge you to consider this solution.
Madam President, on a point of order.
Today the Presidents of the Federal Republic and Kosovo have agreed to meet in Belgrade. That, of course, has caused quite a new situation.
It would be ridiculous to discuss that situation without the presence of the Council.
I follow Mr Titley's suggestion that we postpone all of it, because there is no point in discussing this without the presence of the Council.
Many thanks!
If I have understood what you just said correctly, we can proceed as follows: We will introduce the debate on Kosovo and the speakers from the various groups will be allowed their previously allocated times.
I would, however, ask you to stick to these times.
We will have the first round and the rest of the debate will have to take place this evening.
Question Time will, however, be cut by the amount of time - some 15-20 minutes - which we require to do this.
On the agenda, Question Time starts at 5.30 p.m.
It will, however, be cut short and at 9.00 p.m. we will return to the order of business as scheduled on the agenda.
If you are in agreement I will take that as being decided.
Kosovo
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on Kosovo.
Mr President, thank you for the opportunity to take part in this debate on Kosovo.
I got into some difficulty with your colleague on questions before when there was an attempt to rearrange the agenda.
I hope he will understand that part of this understanding is that the length of Question Time will be reduced because of the debate on Kosovo.
There is an increasing spiral of violence in Kosovo which is deeply worrying.
Hardly a day goes by without reports of new confrontations.
The Serb security forces are undoubtedly entrenched.
Involvement of the Yugoslav army, until recently keeping its distance, is a further worrying development.
The deteriorating security situation further underlines the urgent need for a political process involving full and unconditional dialogue.
It is a sad fact that increasing violence makes the goal of unconditional dialogue that much more elusive.
However, as many will recognize, there can be no other way to resolve the crisis satisfactorily.
The Balkans, as we all know, has already seen far too much bloodshed.
The international community's rapid and firm response has sent a resolute signal that we are not prepared to see a return to the appalling acts which we witnessed in the Balkans at the beginning of this decade.
We have recognized that we were too slow to act in the past and we are determined not to make the same mistakes again.
The European Union has fully endorsed the measures taken by the contact group of countries which sent a tangible message to President Milosevic in Belgrade that the international community will not tolerate the brutal acts of repression and violence committed by his police and security forces in the province as at the end of February.
It is simply not credible for the Belgrade Government to justify such actions as legitimate counter-terrorist measures when so many women and children are victims.
At the same time, the European Union has made clear its firm opposition to the use of terrorism to achieve political goals.
It is now the case that the level of distrust between the two sides is such that for any process of dialogue to stand a realistic chance of succeeding, some form of international facilitation is clearly essential.
The European Union has therefore appointed Felipe González as its representative to the FRY to work in tandem with his mandate from the chairman-in-office of the OSCE as his personal representative.
Belgrade's response so far to Mr González' mission has been disappointing.
It continues to claim that Kosovo is an internal affair.
But we reject such claims.
There are serious human rights concerns and these have no boundaries.
The situation in Kosovo also poses serious risks to the security of neighbouring states and to the stability of the region as a whole.
The governments of those states which stand to be affected most, namely Albania and Macedonia, have taken a constructive approach to Kosovo which we very much welcome.
We recognize their concerns and will continue to work with them in exploring ways of preventing the situation in Kosovo from affecting their own security.
We have already increased the number of European Community mission monitors on the Albanian border with Kosovo and have also placed monitors in Macedonia.
It is our firm desire to see that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia takes its rightful place in the European family of nations and plays a full part in the international community.
President Milosevic has a clear choice. Choose the path of peace and reconciliation through dialogue or continue down the path of ever-increasing violence and confrontation and face continuing and deepening international isolation.
Madam President, I gladly concur with the Presidency's plea.
I would like to add that the Commission is also strongly convinced that solely a dialogue and negotiations, with the involvement of international observers or those who can facilitate the process, will offer the chance of a solution.
It is therefore unacceptable that President Milosovic continues to take the position that this is an internal affair, and that all interference from outside can be rejected.
But at the same time it also means there is a risk that the conflict will escalate further, particularly after President Milosovic organized a referendum with a predictable outcome in which the population also turned against international interference, to call it that.
Then the international community will be left with two choices.
The first is to step up the pressure.
The Commission is in the process of implementing the decisions made within the Contact Group with regards to blocking the foreign assets of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, whilst at same time also stopping investment aid.
A proposal of this kind will soon reach the Council.
Secondly, the Commission has also set out which positive measures President Milosovic could obtain in the event of his being actively prepared to cooperate.
I am thinking of the support we would like to give to the implementation of the education agreement which has been drawn up.
I am thinking of the humanitarian aid which is still being given despite Milosovic's political resistance.
But I am also thinking of the trade preferences which might be promised to Milosovic if he cooperates.
I am thinking of the technical assistance as part of the PHARE Programme which Serbia is not able to claim in the present circumstances.
I am also thinking of the trade and cooperation agreement which was offered to Serbia at the time, if they were to keep to the recommendations in the Gonzales report.
In other words, those who might feel that President Milosovic is not given any encouragement whatsoever to cooperate in a peaceful settlement of this conflict, should realize that there are plenty of offers on that point.
For that matter, I am also thinking of the American sanctions which could then be lifted.
And I am thinking of Serbia being readmitted to the OSCE and the United Nations.
In other words, a whole series of positive measures that could return Serbia to the framework of the international community, yet Milosovic's interest in Kosovo still seems to have the upper hand.
Mr President, I conclude by observing once more that the European Union, too, should accept its responsibility in taking precautions where the protection of the borders of Albania and the former Republic of Macedonia are concerned. This is in fact the second precautionary measure the international community should take in this situation while there is the risk the situation might escalate further.
NATO is looking into the situation. We know this.
We also think that the Western European Union should conduct an investigation and should come up with possible recommendations, so that we will not end up once again in a situation where we might have cross-border conflicts leading to great streams of refugees. The European Union might blame itself for not having prepared itself in time, let alone for not having taken measures against it.
Madam President, thank you for accepting the compromise proposal put forward by Mr Titley against his own best interests.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, in principle I can endorse today's two reports.
I would like, in particular, to underline the Commissioner's words on the subject of the plan, what I as a parliamentarian would call a "carrot and stick' approach, a plan which in all likelihood promises a positive outcome.
Not because we have any sympathy or support for Mr Milosevic, but because we must endeavour to do everything in our power to save the situation before the crisis escalates.
This is neither the time nor the place to go into the missed opportunities of the past.
On the other hand, however, it only makes sense if Mr Milosevic realizes what will happen if he follows a certain course of action.
And, Mr Commissioner, I would also like to lend my full support to your comments on the investment ban.
I believe it is true that the sanctions, which are hurting, have made time a more critical issue for Yugoslavia.
But sanctions only hurt if they are truly universal and are observed by everyone. Here the contacts with Russia are particularly necessary.
I would also like to endorse this plan on behalf of my group.
Sanctions must hurt, but on the other hand there must also be a pay-off, in the truest sense of the word, if Milosevic is prepared to operate a reasonable policy.
So our absolute support goes to Albania and FYROM.
I am delighted that the WEU has decided to become involved.
This is linked to the report which we have already debated at some length.
We must use all the measures available to us.
I also believe that the joint deployment of police forces would be very significant since the Serbian police do not enjoy a sufficient level of confidence and trust amongst the Kosovo Albanians.
Finally, I also believe that it is very important that we talk to the forces in Bosnia. As far as they are concerned, nonintervention in Albania, in Kosovo and in FYROM is tantamount to an invitation to stir up the conflict again.
For this reason I would like to give my support to the reports and above all to the package of measures which the Commissioner has outlined.
Madam President, for some time now Mr Uschkin Hoti, a Kosovo Albanian professor and a great European, has been languishing in a Serbian jail because years ago he dared to suggest a European negotiated solution for Kosovo. In our resolution we call for his immediate release and we should take what he says as a warning.
This is not the sudden escalation of a conflict. Kosovo has been the scene of systematic discrimination, torture, expulsion and even genocide for years.
1989 started with a quasi-coup by Milosevic abolishing the autonomy of Kosovo in breach of the then Yugoslavian Constitution.
Today we can be in no doubt that it is Mr Milosevic who must bear the principal responsibility for what is happening, which is not individual cases of infringements of human rights, but crimes against humanity.
For this reason I am very grateful to Mr Swoboda for Amendment No 3 in which he gives voice to this fact.
Crimes against humanity can never be a domestic matter, even less so than infringements of human rights.
In my view, the rightful place for Mr Milosevic and his thugs is before the tribunal in The Hague, not in the negotiating room.
There can be no doubt that we must strive for a negotiated solution.
So the policy of the carrot and the stick is undoubtedly the right one.
Sometimes, however, I have to say that I would like to see a little more of the stick.
First and foremost, we must be clear that it will be difficult to get the better of Serbia with sanctions - as Mr van den Broek said very clearly earlier. What we must do is leave Serbia in no doubt that, if this genocide continues, it will end up alienating itself from the international community, with all the resulting consequences.
We need not only international observers, we also need international peace-keeping troops to monitor the return to autonomy in Kosovo, leaving the Kosovo Albanians free to come to an independently negotiated solution with Belgrade.
In truth, I do not believe that the current murders will stop until we decide to impose our presence in Kosovo through observers, through the long-planned EU office and, if possible, through peace-keeping troops.
As the European Union we should not shy away from taking independent initiatives.
Of course we need the contact group, but we should not allow ourselves to become hostage to it.
Anyone who followed the meeting of the G8 Foreign and Finance Ministers in London saw how the G8 collapsed because Russia was completely unprepared to back the measures. In other words, Moscow is choosing to turn a blind eye to the genocide.
We must be clear that this is quite clearly affecting the work of the contact group.
Which is why, in addition to the contact group, we also need to project a clear and unambiguous voice from the European Union.
Madam President, according to information I have received from Belgrade, an agreement was reached last night, with US mediation, between Presidents Milosevic and Rugova. Under this agreement, they are to meet in Belgrade and there, in private and without a prearranged agenda, they will discuss the framework for continuing intensive negotiations at lower levels.
I am surprised that Mr Henderson neither made any mention of this nor even appeared to be informed of it: in any event, he made no comment about it.
I believe that a very significant step has been taken here.
Milosevic has thus accepted that the Kosovo question is a federal issue and not merely a problem within the Serbian province.
Rugova, for his part, has renounced the demand for international participation in the negotiations - at least as far as the meeting in Belgrade is concerned.
I feel that Mr Holbrooke can be congratulated on his achievements.
The Council of the European Union and Mr Henderson will presumably be informed in due course of any concessions he may have had to make in order to bring about this agreement - in the form of reduced sanctions, for example.
The armed conflict in Kosovo that was mentioned by Mr Henderson has escalated.
For example, two police patrols were recently attacked, one of them in Pristina itself.
The road between Pristina and Pec has been blocked off, there are reports of artillery shelling of Kosovan villages, and new victims are being claimed every day.
Under these circumstances, the events there must be regarded as a low-level war, which poses a threat to peace and security throughout the region.
Clearly we hope that the negotiations between Milosevic and Rugova on freedom and autonomy for the Kosovo Albanians will result in a reduction, or better still a cessation, of hostilities.
We cannot be sure of this, however.
There is a risk that one or other of the parties in the conflict (or both of them) may want to exploit the negotiation situation or demonstrate against it by escalating the violence.
I know that I can rely on support from Parliament in urging the parties to refrain now from violence and in demonstrating through our actions that we wish to give both the negotiations and the peace a chance.
Madam President, I think the people of Kosovo are as worthy as the people of Montenegro. They should therefore be given a charter which matches this, but obviously within the confines of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
I fear that without a formula of this kind no definite peaceful settlement will be possible.
It is true, the acute problem is getting people around the table and getting them to accept that international mediation is appropriate.
In that respect, both parties have allowed opportunities to pass. I fully support the comment that human rights and the rights of minorities can never be reduced to an internal affair.
For that matter, the entire situation over there proves that there are immediate consequences for neighbouring countries; think of Macedonia, Albania, and how they respond to it.
Secondly, I believe that, if we are talking about both encouragement and sanctions, we will have to be careful as far as sanctions are concerned.
They must hit Serbia and not Montenegro as well. It is difficult to carry out some economic sanctions towards a federation without all the parts of that federation bearing the consequences.
This while Montenegro has a far more open attitude; and I believe firmly that Montenegro's offer should be incorporated in such a way that a solution is sought within the federation, and that everything is not made dependent on Serbia alone.
There is one specific point I would like to draw attention to. This is the problem of the presence of Albanian migrants and Albanian refugees in the Member States.
We all know that quite a few of these people are involved in buying and supplying arms which end up in Kosovo.
On that front many Member States are failing to seize a great many opportunities to gain contact with these Albanians, to organize meetings with them, and to show other perspectives and make these possible.
This is not an idealized picture; a meeting like this took place in Germany with great success.
I think it would be very useful if, on this point, we were to try, as part of common policy, to give some proper direction to the difficult but real potential of the Albanians from Kosovo who are with us.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I have a number of questions.
There are a number of strange factors which make it seem possible that the UCK's activities are in fact a giant stratagem, manipulated, organized and orchestrated by Belgrade.
Do the Council and the Commission have any information on the subject? Do they intend to carry out an enquiry into this question?
Mr President-in-Office, you say that the Belgrade government is no longer credible.
Could it ever have been credible with Mr Seselj amongst its members?
Question three. As Mr Posselt said, the Kosovan leadership has sometimes shown certain weaknesses.
A number of its members, who are in prison, are nevertheless very important, intelligent people, whom we have been able to meet, to discuss things with.
They have been tried and sentenced under conditions one can only imagine.
In particular, Mr Hoti has shown that he has quite clear ideas about the future of Kosovo and the future of relationships between Kosovo and Serbia.
Have the Commission and the Council taken any steps to secure the liberation of Mr Hoti and other political prisoners in Kosovo?
Question four. The European Union has a habit of intervening when a crisis has already broken out.
Is it not time to take measures before a crisis, to work to establish the logistics of a peacekeeping and a peacemaking force, to send observers directly to the borders between Albania and Kosovo and between Macedonia and Kosovo, and in any event, to prevent the Belgrade government from continuing to manipulate the situation?
Madam President, fellow Members, the crisis in Kosovo - a consequence of the fibrillation to which the former Yugoslav world is still prey - risks, as in the case of Bosnia, turning into a tragedy, with its resulting ethnic cleansing and counter-cleansing.
The National Alliance delegation considers the real popular revolts which occurred in this region to be more the consequence of the illiberal and despotic regime in power in Serbia than a real desire to reunite with Albania on the part of the population of Kosovo which is of Albanian origin and culture.
However, the real supporters of European Union are overcome with a sense of helplessness when they consider that once again - faced with the prospect of an ethnic, and not only ethnic, war that could erupt in a region very close to us - Europe is finding it hard to be a valid interlocutor between the parties.
In fact an interlocutor, to be credible, also has to throw its political weight on the negotiating table and the possible consequences of the failed agreement between the parties.
And here we come to the crux of the problem with regard to the European Union, which, until it has a common foreign policy, no one, or almost no one, will have any weight to settle the conflicts, including those closest to its borders.
And thus we read about the attempts of the American mediator, Mr Holbrooke, who is meeting with the Serbian President Milosevic and the Albanian President while Europe is still discussing whether the crisis in Kosovo is an internal crisis of the Serbian Federation or can become a battle between States.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the National Alliance delegation considers that the institutional reform relating to the voting mechanism in the Council can no longer be put off, and therefore that unanimity must be abolished for foreign policy decisions.
The debate is adjourned.
It will continue this evening.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0464/98).
Ladies and gentlemen, we are starting this Question Time 30 minutes later than stated in the agenda we all approved.
Now, just as we are about to start, and bearing in mind that we cannot extend this debate beyond 7.10 p.m., I am being asked to allow two points of order.
I will permit them, because the Rules of Procedure say that I should do so. However, I would ask you all to remember that the time used up on points of order detracts from the time available to people who have questions to ask.
Mr Sarlis, you have the floor on a point of order for one minute at the most.
Mr President, I am a registered speaker on Kosovo so please tell me when the debate will continue.
I understand and respect the fact that questions must take place, but you must tell us when we will talk about Kosovo since it is not possible - and I have been in the European Parliament for 9 years - to strike off speakers who have been announced and who have been approved by the party.
Please tell us the time during which the debate on Kosovo will continue and I hope that the President-in-Office of the Council will be able to organize his trips and his return accordingly so as to be present during the debate.
But if he is not present we must still carry on with the debate.
Mr Sarlis, please listen to me.
You were here when we approved the agenda.
It is not the Presidency's fault that we are behind schedule.
The debates will be resumed this evening at 9 p.m.
At the moment, Mr Sarlis, all I can offer you is the chance to start Question Time, two minutes later now than it already was.
So, Mr Sarlis, the debate will continue from 9 p.m. this evening.
Mr Dupuis has the floor on a point of order.
You have one minute.
Just a few words, Mr President.
In fact, I think there is some mistake, because we agreed that there would be a mini-debate with representatives of the groups and therefore an introduction by the Commission and the Council, a statement of the views of the various groups, and a reply by the Council and the Commission.
Otherwise, it would not make sense.
Yes, Mr Dupuis.
But you should raise this question with your group chairman, because it was not the Presidency which organized this debate but the chairmen of the various groups.
At the moment, all I can do is manage the time allocated to me.
And we are already behind schedule.
I can assure the honourable Member that I have spent the last 30 minutes waiting to begin Question Time.
I would ask you to raise your disagreements about the organization of our work with your group chairmen, because they are the ones who set the agenda.
The Presidents of the sittings only try to implement what they have been allocated. And sometimes, like now, we have the problem that you are not happy because you have been unable to contribute, and the Presidency is unhappy because of having been unable to start at the proper time.
Ladies and gentlemen, I now consider the matter closed and we shall begin questions to the Council, as I said, 33 minutes late. We shall be unable to recover all the time we have lost, because Mr Henderson has to leave, and we Members of this House have other commitments.
Question No 1 by Mrs Ulla Sandbæk was to have been taken over by Mr Bonde, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure. However, since he is not here, the question lapses.
Question No 2 by Lyndon Harrison (H-0388/98)
Subject: SMEs' participation in the Single Act
Does the Council believe that the long-awaited Late Payment on Commercial Debt Directive and the recently published Venture-Capital Programme for SMEs will encourage these vital, job-generating agents to participate more decisively in the Single Market?
Late payment inhibits the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises and acts as a barrier to small businesses participating fully in the single market.
The Commission transmitted a proposal for a Council directive to combat late payment in commercial transactions and presented its proposals at the Industry Council on 7 May.
The Council looks forward to discussion of the directive at a working group meeting before the end of the United Kingdom presidency.
The Luxembourg job summit of 20-21 November welcomed the initiative of the European Parliament on the strengthening of budgetary resources earmarked for employment and invited the Commission to make formal proposals, for speedy adoption by the Council.
On 21 April the Council gave its political backing to a package of up to ECU 420 million over three years for three strands of measures, including a venture capital facility run by the EIF to be targeted at an early start-up stage at SMEs with high growth potential.
The Commission has produced a draft paper on risk capital and job creation in the European Union, analysing the venture capital market across the European Union in comparison with the United States and concluding with an action plan outlining further work required at both Member State and European level.
The Council hopes that these measures will boost in particular the small and innovative firms which are so vital to growth and employment across the European Union.
I am very grateful to the President-in-Office for that very positive reply because I know that the British Government has made this a priority for its six months.
It may not be achieved now but I hope that it will be carried over to the Austrian presidency and brought to fruition, because this question of late pay really is the scourge of small businesses throughout the European Union.
Only recently, indeed this week, we have had the latest Grant Thornton report which demonstrates the enormous payment periods which still afflict small businesses in the southern states of the European Union.
But even in the United Kingdom half of invoices are still paid late.
50 % are deliberate and SMEs wait 50 % longer than big businesses to receive their pay.
If we can unlock this problem for small businesses in the European Union, the dividends in terms of jobs and getting our people back to work will be absolutely enormous.
I would like to thank my honourable friend for his supplementary.
It is a very important issue. There are many small companies throughout the European Union who have believed that there are contracts that they could well take on but are often deterred from doing so because they feel that they will not be paid in a reasonable time period; therefore they would end up with very difficult cash flow problems which could in some extreme examples put their businesses into bankruptcy.
If one wants to improve competitiveness generally within the European Union, which I would hope we all would want, this is an important area which we should tackle.
I hope that the draft directive will go a long way to improving the climate in which these small businesses operate and lay down clear guidelines to the larger sectors of the market that when they take on contracts with small businesses they should make the payments with in a reasonable period.
If they do, and if this directive helps them to do that, that will go a long way to improving competitiveness by boosting the small company sector.
I would like to welcome the President-in-Office's response to my colleague's question but pick up the part about venture capital.
This is a huge problem for small businesses.
The European Union says a great deal about its support for small and medium-sized enterprises, but it is exactly such a company in my constituency that has been having great difficulty in accessing money from the European Investment Bank precisely to expand and provide additional jobs in an Objective 5b area.
I would ask the President-in-Office if he could give me some assurance that it will be made easier for such companies to access such funding.
Thank you very much, Mrs Hardstaff.
Mr Henderson, as you can see, this Question Time is getting off to a good start because everybody is congratulating each other.
Let us hope you continue to receive just as many congratulations throughout the hour and ten minutes we have available.
Would you like to reply to Mrs Hardstaff's question?
I thank my other honourable friend for her further supplementary - which I think covers another aspect of this.
It does raise the important point that, given the initial difficulties that small and medium-sized companies have, which were highlighted by Mr Harrison, they have to have an assurance or a belief that they will be paid on time.
If they cannot raise the capital to finance a particular project which might involve additional investment then, even if they thought that the contract would be deliverable, and even if they thought that they would get paid, they might not be able to put enough cash up front to be able to make perhaps a minor modification to their equipment, or whatever, in order to be able to fulfil the contract.
Therefore any measure which helps a small company to be able to tap into venture capital is a very desirable measure, and I hope that we will be able to push this as far as we can, making the necessary progress to be able to give that additional support to the small company sector throughout the Union.
Question No 3 by James Nicholson (H-0390/98)
Subject: Disparity between the pound sterling and the Republic of Ireland punt
Does the Council recognize the disadvantageous trading position being faced by Northern Ireland traders at present as a result of the serious disparity between the pound sterling and the Republic of Ireland punt and will the Council give a view on when the present position can be alleviated and whether it will act to ensure equal and fair trading between both jurisdictions?
The Council recognizes the importance of exchange rate stability for the effective functioning of the Single Market.
As recognized by the 1997 broad economic guidelines, sound macro-economic policy management creates the conditions for stable exchange rates within the Community.
Member States reaffirmed their commitment to pursue stability-oriented economic policies at the Ecofin meeting on 1 May.
Mr President, I would also like to welcome the President-in-Office here today and thank him for his answer - brief though it was.
The reality of course is that the difference between the pound and the punt has been as great as 22 %.
As Northern Ireland is the one part of the United Kingdom that has a land frontier with another European Union country, that difference is immense. It is affecting retailers and petrol stations and is putting people out of jobs in the border areas between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and is causing very serious damage to traders in that particular area.
I particularly wonder if the President-in-Office or his government or, indeed, the Council, would consider commissioning a study into the effects of this.
We are now approaching the time when the single currency will be introduced in the other Member States.
Taking into account the fact that the United Kingdom is not going to be part of that single currency and the Republic of Ireland will be, will he undertake to have a look at the damaging effects this will have on retailers and all the businesses in Northern Ireland, even though it is a crystal ball gazing exercise at this stage?
The honourable Member raises an important point which clearly is felt by his constituents.
The exchange rate differences between the punt and the pound will have always had an effect on the border area between the Republic and Northern Ireland.
I can remember not so long ago when the relationship was quite the reverse.
I can reassure him that Ecofin is committed to monitoring the way in which exchange rate movements take place as we move into an era of the single currency and its relationship to the other currencies it affects.
I can also say - and this is not a matter for the Council - that the British Government itself will be monitoring the way in which there are movements in the economic situation between single currency countries and the United Kingdom.
That would obviously include the Republic of Ireland and the Northern Ireland part of the United Kingdom.
That is part of the process of monitoring the degree to which any convergence takes place.
The honourable Member will know that it is the stated aim of the United Kingdom Government that there should be a period during which convergence could take place between the economy that is determined by the pound currency and the economy which is determined by the single currency.
So there will be a monitoring by Ecofin.
But additionally, the United Kingdom Government will be conducting their own analysis. That analysis they will, I am confident, raise in Ecofin, which will help to build part of a pattern for the Council to monitor.
Question No 4 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0393/98)
Subject: Creation of a European agency for safety in civil aviation
What information can the Council provide on the possible creation of a European agency responsible for safety in civil aviation?
In December 1996 the European Commission made a recommendation for a Council decision authorizing the Commission to start negotiations on establishing a European Aviation Safety Authority.
Since then the Council has been actively considering the issue.
The Council recognizes the need to achieve a high uniform level of aviation safety in Europe and therefore supports EASA's establishment.
Council bodies are carrying work forward on the assumption that the Safety Agency will take the form of an international organization based largely on the joint aviation authority system.
Interested parties recognized at European level have been consulted and support the quick establishment of such a safety agency.
The Transport Council is expected to consider a decision on a negotiating mandate at its June session.
I thank the honourable Member for his supplementary. It is a very obvious point.
It is a matter that has to be subject to the consideration of the Council.
There is a view that it needs to be as wide as possible so that the highest safety standards can be monitored, scrutinized and agreed over that wide area.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office whether at the conference, which as he said, is going to create such an agency, consideration will also be given to safety inside the aircraft.
For many years now there has been a decision that you could only take one piece of hand luggage into the aircraft.
I fly a lot and have noticed that this is not respected by most airlines.
It is one of the main factors of aircraft insecurity in the event of accidents or difficulties.
Does he intend to take steps to ensure that this particular problem is included in the negotiations and in the preparations for the agency?
It really is a matter which should be for the airlines.
I know that I have been a sinner in that regard on a number of occasions: I have tried to take too many bags on and sometimes I have been told by the airline to leave the bag at the steps and it gets put in the hold.
This is one of the issues which could be covered by the Safety Agency.
The intention is that it would be responsible for all areas of aviation safety - specifically aerodromes and air traffic control - but it would certainly also cover the area suggested.
Mr President, as a pilot I myself am often in the air and it occurs to me that, contrary to what we may imagine, with Eurocontrol in particular, interfaces often do not meet safety standards.
I believe we need new standards legislation in this area to form the basis for a single European agreement based on the same software and hardware platforms.
Secondly, GPS has brought us new opportunities in navigation.
Not too long ago I was in Moscow where we will be getting another system in the form of GLONASS.
This heralds the start of a new era in navigation.
To what extent will this new agency's remit include setting safety standards for future projects?
The honourable Member has raised a very relevant point.
I would certainly hope that the remit of the Safety Agency would cover responsibility for looking at the impact of new technology in many areas of aviation safety, and a capacity to make recommendations on the testing of new technology and on requiring higher safety standards to be met.
Question No 5 by Alan Gillis (H-0395/98)
Subject: Money laundering
Given the illegal activities of non-resident registered companies in Ireland what action does the Council intend to take within the context of European anti-drug policies to persuade the Irish Government to close these companies which the government has admitted are involved in money laundering activities?
A Council directive on prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering has been place since 1991.
The Commission draws up reports on the implementation of this directive at regular intervals and submits them to the European Parliament and the Council.
The Commission has not so far submitted any proposal to change legislation on money laundering.
As for the specific question put by the honourable Member, the problem to which it refers has not been discussed within the Council's bodies.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office.
I am very disappointed that this very important issue is not further up the agenda.
One could almost call it an outrage, in fact, given the hundreds of thousands of EU citizens - most of them very young people - whose lives are being completely destroyed by the drug barons who make themselves vast fortunes, assisted very often by inadequate company legislation.
Most of these young people go to a very early grave.
We in Parliament have made the whole drugs issue a top priority.
In view of this, I should like to ask the President-in-Office: does he not think that he should also make money laundering and the fight to combat drugs and drug trafficking a top priority, bearing in mind that the European Union has almost no borders now and there is free movement for these traffickers?
I agree very strongly with the point the honourable Member raises.
Undoubtedly there is a link between the provision of drugs for drug abuse and money laundering from the profits of drugs and, indeed, sometimes securing the finances to purchase them in the first place.
I would say to him that if he believes that there is some way that current regulations are not being applied, he should draw this to the attention of the authorities.
The presidency has made the whole question of combating this trade in drugs and allied activities like money laundering a top priority.
The European Conference set up an experts' group to look at how drugs could be combated across a wider area than just the European Union but also covering the countries which wish to accede to the European Union, some of which are often involved as transit countries from the source of drugs and are therefore linked in with the provision of the financial resources to purchase them or get profits out of them.
It is a top priority and I am sure that the Cardiff Summit will want to address this issue.
It has been a high-profile issue. It is very much a people's issue - parents and others throughout the whole European Union are terrified that their children might come into contact with drugs and end up as drug abusers.
I have no doubt that they will give full support to action the European Union - or any of the nation states within the European Union - can take to combat this evil trade.
I was the rapporteur on enlargement in Eastern Europe and internal security.
What we are currently seeing is that, due to the large privatization programme, coupled with uncertainties in terms of law and order, large scale money laundering is going on in countries wishing to accede to the Union, in some cases the laundering of money which comes from the European Union and is then transferred back to it.
Does the question of money laundering have a role to play in the structured dialogue with the countries of central and eastern Europe and in the preparations for accession? This issue was introduced into my report by Mr Schmid of the Social Democrats.
Countries wishing to accede to the Union must take energetic measures to counter money laundering prior to accession.
The honourable gentlemen is absolutely right that there is and should continue to be a dialogue between the Union and the countries that wish to accede to the Union on the whole question of combating this trade in drugs and the allied problem of money laundering.
I hope I can also reassure the honourable Member by highlighting the fact that as part of the screening process, there is a need for those countries which wish to accede to the Union to meet the Union's acquis.
That covers the banking system; and one of the elements of the banking system which is important in this is to follow banking regulations which, in very simple terms, require people to identify the source of large sums of money which they are depositing in the banking system.
I do not know whether that applies already in some of the countries which wish to accede to the Union.
It may in some areas, it may in some banks.
But, as a banking unit, that will form part of the screening in the banking area and can be an important protection.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the European legislation on money laundering to which you referred earlier does not apply in Gibraltar, does not apply in Jersey, does not apply in Guernsey, does not apply on the Isle of Man - though all of these are British sovereign territories - and does not apply in small countries such as Andorra, Monaco and the Vatican State.
Has the Council discussed how these loopholes, which are very important in practical terms as they represent the central concentrations of money laundering in Europe, can be closed?
I do not wish to respond about the specific territories that were referred to by the honourable Member. Without prior notice and a detailed analysis of the situation in each area, that would be wrong.
However, in general terms, I can say that it is very much in the interests of those offshore banking sectors that they meet the normal regulations that apply internationally.
If they are found not to be meeting those standards, there will be a loss of confidence in their ability to fit into the rest of the world banking system. That would deprive them of a lot of deposits they would find attractive.
For instance, I know that on the Isle of Man strong efforts have been made to make absolutely clear that the level of regulation required there is the same as would be required in the City of London.
You can argue about the adequacy of the City of London's regulation; but the Isle of Man authorities, as one example, are very keen to ensure that is the case.
In Gibraltar too measures have been taken by the government to make sure they were able to reassure any potential investor that the same kind of international standards in banking applied there as applied elsewhere.
So there is an awareness by those authorities, for their own commercial interests, that they meet international standards.
That should be a reassurance for investors and should also be a deterrent for any potential money launderer who thinks he can have an easier ride there than in one of the banking systems within the main part of the European Union.
Question No 6 by David Bowe (H-0400/98)
Subject: Environment Council of 23 March 1998
Is the Council happy with the outcome of the Environment Council of 23 March 1998?
If not, why not?
I am happy to report a very satisfactory outcome from the Environment Council of 23 March.
The Council reached four common positions, agreed four sets of conclusions and made good progress in a number of key areas such as climate change and air quality.
This work should make a valuable contribution to improving the quality of life for people in Europe.
A good part of this success was due to the availability in good time of Parliament's opinions, thanks to the work of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection of which I know the honourable gentleman is a member.
I thank the President-in-Office for his compliments about the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection. I will relay them to my colleagues.
I would agree with the Council's analysis of the first meeting of the Environment Council during this presidency.
It is an excellent step forward in shaking off the last vestiges of the image of the UK in particular as the 'dirty man of Europe' .
However, I would like to ask what else - this is only the first step - will the presidency be doing or does it think it has already done during this presidency to achieve more in the field of the environment and completely sweep away this image of the UK as being 'the dirty man of Europe' ?
I thank the honourable Member for his question.
The presidency and the Council at this time have taken the whole question of environmental improvement as a top priority.
In addition to the points to which I have already referred in my initial answer, I am also pleased that common positions on three directives on landfill, emissions from light vans and emissions of volatile organic components from certain industrial processes have been agreed.
There is now, I understand, an opinion from Parliament on those matters.
The Council also agreed conclusions on climate change which assess the outcome of the Kyoto Conference last December and set out the main priorities for work to be done on emissions trading and other matters before the next conference of the parties in Buenos Aires in November.
These are all important pieces of work which have been done to improve our environment throughout Europe, and I hope they will give a bit of momentum to the whole question so that the work can be carried on by the honourable Member's committee and, indeed, by future presidencies of the Council.
I should like to welcome the President-in-Office to this other place and ask him if he shares my concern that the informal Council of Environment and Transport Ministers have indicated their desire to introduce a kerosene tax which would have dramatic effects on air travel?
Would the minister not accept that, in fact, air transport is probably one of the cleanest, most environmentally friendly ways of transporting people and goods across Europe and that it would be wrong to target air transport in this way? Would he not also agree that imposing a kerosene tax, which I understand is the desire certainly of the Environment Department in the United Kingdom and others across Europe, would have a very detrimental impact on what is an environmentally friendly form of travel and on the local economies and those employed at airports and by airlines?
It is always a great pleasure to receive a question from the honourable Member, whether it is in this Chamber or in another place.
I know she takes a keen interest in the matters we are discussing.
There is no question of the Union targeting a particular sector of economic activity and requiring that sector to make a larger contribution than other sectors to environmental matters.
The important principle is that all sectors of economic activity should, on all occasions, carefully monitor and scrutinize the environmental impact of anything they do.
Indeed, the Treaty of Amsterdam requires the Union to take cognizance of that in any of its measures.
I hope I can reassure the honourable Member that, at the moment, the matter to which she refers is a proposal.
All the various agencies which will be examining this proposal will be looking at what the effects are to see if the desired result would be likely to accrue.
When we have further analysis and further consultation, then I will be in a better position to be more definitive.
I am sure that the honourable Member will come back again, if not in this place then in another place, with a similar interrogation.
I know Miss McIntosh has to divide her time between two parliaments these days but I wonder whether she is aware that at lunchtime today this Parliament voted against the concept of a kerosene tax and the Labour Members of this Parliament supported that position on the advice of Her Majesty's Government.
I wonder whether the minister would welcome that decision?
Mr Henderson, you have the floor if you would like to reply to that question.
You have the right to reply or not to reply.
I invite you to take the floor, but this question goes beyond the precise scope of the original question.
So it is up to you to decide whether or not to reply to Mr David Martin's comment-cum-question.
Mr President, I cannot resist one of your invitations.
I say to the honourable Member that I was not aware of that decision, but it is something that will be taken into account by the Council in its deliberations.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 7 by Pedro Marset Campos (H-0405/98)
Subject: Situation in Palestine
In view of the unacceptable behaviour by the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Netanyahu, during the recent visit by the EU Minister-in-Office, Mr Cook, does the Council not think that the European Union should adopt a firmer attitude, irrespective of the consequences, and demonstrate clear support for the Oslo peace agreements and the UN resolutions by urging Israel to comply with all UN and UN Security Council resolutions?
What action is the Council planning to take in order to ensure that the Israeli Government adopts and complies with the UN resolutions?
Question No 8 by Sören Wibe (H-0414/98)
Subject: Economic sanctions against Israel
The conduct of the UK Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, on his recent visit to Israel/Palestine was extremely courageous.
The Israeli Prime Minister, however, showed no will to negotiate and acted very arrogantly.
Does the Council not consider that more practical action must be taken against Israel, possibly in the form of economic sanctions, to persuade them to respect the peace agreement?
The Council's approach to the Middle East peace process is firmly based on international legality, including United Nations Resolutions 242, 338 and 425.
The Council has, over the years, constantly been urging Israel to comply with these resolutions.
The Council believes firmly that the Oslo process and the principle of land for peace represent the best prospect for a solution offering justice for the Palestinians and security for the Israelis.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for your answer, but I think it is inadequate, for the following reason. The State of Israel was created 50 years ago, and it is also 50 years since the UN committed itself to the Constitution of the State of Palestine.
Israel has a great ally - the United States, with its lobby - whereas Palestine should get special help from us, both for the sake of peace in the Middle East and for the sake of the future of the Mediterranean.
Does the Council not think the European Union should make more of a contribution, in order to have - as has always been the case - a vision of solidarity and scrupulous compliance with international legislation, in the face of Prime Minister Netanyahu's actions, which place constant obstacles in the way of this peace process?
I very much agree with the point raised by the honourable Member that there is a need and it is proper that the European Union should be involved.
Indeed, it has a responsibility to try to do what it can to resolve the various differences in the Middle East.
I cannot recall being at any Council meeting over the last year when there has not been a discussion of activities which could be undertaken on behalf of the Union to try to make a contribution to the peace process.
During the presidency there have been two visits to the Middle East, the second by Prime Minister Blair, resulting in a conference in London at which there was an attempt to take the peace process further.
The conference in London was important because it re-established the dialogue.
There is now an opportunity for a further dialogue to take place at the invitation of the American Government.
As I understand it, the remit which has been issued by the American Government is broadly acceptable to President Arafat.
At the moment steps are being taken by both the American Government, with the support of the European Union, to try to persuade Mr Netanyahu to also take part in those talks.
We have been aided by our special representative who has undertaken a lot of hard work on behalf of the Union in the Middle East in the recent past.
It is crucially important, given that we are the largest donors of aid to the area, that we also exercise our political obligation to try to help the peace process and continue to put the maximum pressure on the parties involved to try to broker a settlement.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office both for his reply and, above all, for the British Presidency's efforts in this area, which I truly appreciate.
However, I still wonder - like Mr Marset Campos - whether rather more concrete measures are perhaps needed, in the form of political or economic pressures on Israel, in order to persuade it to take part in the peace process.
I would like to ask a concrete question: Has the Council during its presidency, for example, requested or demanded of Israel that it should permit the millions of Palestinian refugees who for generations have lived in refugee camps outside Israel to return to their former homeland? Has it, for example, also required of Israel that it should return the Palestinian properties that were stolen from the Palestinian people in connection with the 1948 war?
I believe it is this type of concrete requirement that needs to be made in order to persuade Israel to modify its current dangerous behaviour.
I thank the honourable Member for his question.
On many occasions during this presidency the Council has tried to put pressure on the parties in the Middle East, including Prime Minister Netanyahu to try to persuade them to take action on the issue to which the honourable Member refers and indeed many other issues.
It is important to make progress little by little, if that is the only way that progress can be made.
Many who are involved or who have a knowledge of the circumstances recognize that there really has to be the kind of dialogue that tackles simultaneously the various political and economic questions so that there are steps forward as part of a package to which all the parties are committed.
The problem of trying to put emphasis on one part is that progress on a piecemeal basis is not always permanent and often leads to a situation in the near future where there is a regression from any advances that have been made.
That is why there is a need for a wider dialogue involving the political and economic issues.
We have been urging the Israeli Government to take part in this latest American initiative.
At least the dialogue is back - to some extent - on track after the London talks.
Question No 9 by Anna Karamanou (H-0411/98)
Subject: War scenarios in children's electronic games
According to a recent investigation by the Greek newspaper , the war industries have found suitable territory for expanding their business enterprises in the games market with the aid of simulation technology.
Using war scenarios and simulated battlefields, children are trained in the techniques of war, the use of violence, in cunning and guile in order to become the 'super-warriors' of tomorrow.
The deserts of Iraq and Kuwait are the settings for games such as Desert Tank, Super Battletank, M1 Abrahams and Desert Strike in which the players are called on to drive tanks and pilot helicopter gunships and destroy the hideouts of the 'non-Christian terrorists' .
What measures will the Council take to protect the minds of children from all such profiteers and warmongers and how will it intervene to pass on to the new generation European peaceful values and a rejection of war and violence as a means of resolving differences?
The Council has been examining two proposals on related subjects.
First a draft decision for a multi-annual Community action plan on promoting safe use of the Internet.
The action plan would promote several measures against violence and illegal material on the Internet including, firstly, systems for labelling or rating material according to its level of violence, for example.
Parents would be able to use the so-called filtering programmes which can block access to material which has been labelled as violent.
Secondly, hotlines for Internet users to report illegal material and enable law enforcement authorities to prosecute its originators.
Thirdly, other awareness-raising measures so that parents know what tools are available for protecting their children.
The Council is also examining a proposal for a recommendation on the protection of minors and human dignity in audio visual and information services.
The proposal recommends that Member States voluntarily establish national frameworks for the protection of minors in the fields of broadcasting and on-line services, in particular by encouraging the parties concerned - users, consumers, businesses and public authorities - to take part in developing and implementing measures for that purpose.
It also recommends the establishment of self-regulatory frameworks and codes of conduct at national level for on-line services.
I hope that the Council and the Parliament can continue to work closely together on both measures to make sure that they are adopted as soon as possible.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, from your answer I gained the impression that the issue is not being faced with the attention its seriousness demands.
It is not possible to treat as insignificant the fact that the education of the younger generation of European citizens has literally slipped out of the grasp of institutional bodies and is now in the hands of profiteers, especially those who benefit from the cultivation of violent behaviour among the young, and those who through video games and CD-ROMs - and I am not simply referring to the Internet - essentially involve our children in war scenarios and literally teach them war techniques, I would say, à la Ancient Sparta.
Every day we are witnesses to the increase in the violent behaviour of children and in criminality and I think that the Council must come up with more serious measures than just advice.
I thing that the existing legal system at the level of the European Union does not cover the issue, which I regard to be of vital importance. I also think that few markets are as dangerous as those of video games.
There is a relevant article in the January 1998 Economist which, Mr President-in-Office, I would recommend that you study.
I thank the Honourable Lady for her supplementary question.
I think she gives further emphasis to the need to take action. I cannot really add to what I have already said on the action.
It is practical, but I know that there are many millions of people throughout the European Union who feel very strongly about this. That is why it is important that we come forward with proposals to do what we can in a practical sense to try to create a better environment for technologies such as the Internet.
May I say to the President-in-Office I found his reply very positive and most encouraging.
I am very pleased with that but I would like to ask him if there is not some further action we can take.
It is fine that parents should take responsibility, but one of the problems with the Internet is that in most families it is the young people and the children who know how to operate it and the parents have not a clue.
It seems to me that we have to do more about the people who are making a lot of money out of promoting violence in this way.
I wonder if we can look at the possibility that some of these matters, particularly where instances of racist or religious animosity are involved, infringe the new article that was agreed at the Amsterdam Treaty conference on non-discrimination.
When that is ratified maybe it might be a vehicle by which we could prosecute some of these people.
After all, the European Union came into existence very largely because of the suffering and the misery of two World Wars but there is a new generation of young people growing up who do not know what the horrors of war really are.
This kind of sanitised presentation of violence is extremely worrying indeed.
The honourable Gentleman raises two important points.
There is a very real point about parents being able to take action on the Internet to block material which they do not want their children to see.
I find it difficult to operate a video properly, and I usually have to get my son to show me how to work it, but that is very simple technology compared to the Internet.
It is a very real point, and maybe local public authorities could be offering parents advice on how they might come to grips with the technology.
On the question of what should happen to those who are the perpetrators of material which is in contravention of the law: if it is in contravention of the existing law, then it should be reported to the authorities, and it would be up prosecuting authorities throughout the Union to decide whether or not there was a case which they could take to court.
As to whether or not the situation changes after the Amsterdam Treaty, there is a further onus on the Community to make sure that any action it takes is non-discriminatory, and that is something which will be borne in mind in any activity that we take as a Union to try to counter the effects of some of those damaging products which are on the Internet.
Question No 10 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0416/98)
Subject: Harmonized EU eco-labelling
Sweden is well endowed with reliable eco-labelling systems, having three of them, namely Bra Miljöval, Svanen and KRAV.
Eco-labelling has achieved a success in Sweden that is unparalleled in other EU Member States.
This is the result of conscious efforts by the environmental movement to stimulate demand for eco-labelled products and of the great interest shown by increasing numbers of consumers who are committed to protecting the environment.
The EU is preparing to prohibit Swedish eco-labelling schemes.
There is a new proposal for a directive, pursuant to which only the EU's own eco-label, the flower, will be permitted.
Independent eco-labelling schemes, such as the Swedish Nature Conservation Society's Bra Miljöval, are to be banned.
Despite the substantial efforts made since 1992, the EU scheme still has no more than a handful of licensees.
Its drawbacks are so great that it has not been attractive to licensees or consumers.
Environmental organizations will reportedly no longer be guaranteed places in the Commission's consultative forum.
In view of this, what will the Council do to stop the Commission changing things for the worse in relation to the environment?
One aim of the Commission's proposal for the division of Regulation 880/92, which established a Community eco-label award scheme, is to ensure greater consistency and complementarity between that scheme and other schemes operating within the Community.
The proposal does not seek to prohibit other schemes operating at a national or regional level. Rather, the effect of Article 11 of the proposed new regulation would be that within five years national schemes should be limited to those product groups for which there were no criteria established under the Community scheme.
The working group of the Council has held an initial discussion of the proposal, attended by representatives of the Commission, and this was one of the issues on which a number of Member States expressed concern.
There are no plans at present for further discussion of the proposal.
We have, of course, only today discussed a report on this question in Parliament.
During that discussion, Parliament backed demands that no deterioration should be permitted in the national regulations as a result of the introduction of EU regulations that are to apply throughout the territory of the EU.
It was stated very clearly that it must be possible after a period of five years to guarantee that the Community's eco labels are at least as rigorous as the labels used in the best of the national eco-labelling programmes.
My supplementary question is: Does the Council support this decision of Parliament, and what other conclusions does the Council draw from the extremely positive debate that has taken place in Parliament today?
As the honourable Member will know, and I thank him for his question, there has not been the necessary support in the Council for a similar proposal.
Whether or not the Council would accept modifications which are suggested by the honourable Member's committee is something that I cannot comment on at this time - it was only adopted today.
But it is something which is before the Council and it will be for the Council and the Member States to make an assessment of the impact of the proposals on the general scheme of things and to see whether or not their original reservations have been met.
Question No 11 by Maj Theorin (H-0417/98)
Subject: Common military defence
The issue of common military defence and immediate integration of the WEU into the EU has been removed from the Treaty of Amsterdam, whereas humanitarian, peacekeeping, early warning and conflict-solving tasks have been considered to be important matters of common interest.
In spite of this, proposals concerning common military defence are constantly referred to Parliament.
Does the Council consider that common military defence will become a reality in the near future?
After ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, the new Article 17 of the TEU will stipulate that 'the common foreign and security policy shall include all questions relating to the security of the Union, including the progressive framing of a common defence policy, in accordance with the second subparagraph, which might lead to a common defence, should the European Council so decide' .
Subject to the adoption of such a decision by the Member States 'in accordance with the respective constitutional requirements' , the new Treaty therefore describes common defence as a possibility left open for the future under the conditions set out in the article.
Upon entry into force of the Treaty this text will define the parameters of the Union's handling of the question of common defence.
Thank you for answering my question.
The Council's representative is absolutely right in stating that this is what the Treaty says, and it also says if the Council so decides .
That these words have been introduced since the Maastricht Treaty is, of course, also due to the fact that there are a series of countries in the EU that do not currently back a common defence policy.
And many have also made it clear that the Treaty of Amsterdam as it stands means that the question of a common defence has now been put aside for some time to come.
This applies to the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Austria and Finland, all of whom say that they are not prepared to enter into a common defence policy in its present form.
As I interpret the situation, the Council's reply to my question is therefore that a common defence policy is not on the agenda for the near future.
I would like to thank the honourable Member for her question.
I hope I can reassure her that the Council has currently a capacity to debate foreign and defence policy and, indeed, does so on many occasions.
But the articles to which the original question referred was a matter of common defence.
The position which was adopted in Amsterdam is a position which is acceptable to all the countries within the Union.
It is one which allows a debate, it is one which allows as much common action as is practical under the Petersberg tasks, where there is a need for activity to relieve a crisis or whatever.
The question of military defence is something which has to be determined in another forum.
There are different views on that matter.
There are different associations within the European Union on defence matters and I foresee in the near future no change in that regard.
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
We have exactly 5 minutes left until the deadline we agreed on.
I propose a joint reply to Questions Nos 12 and 13.
I am sure that with your customary conciseness and the discipline of Mr Newens and Mr Gahrton, we will be able to finish at 7.10 p.m. as agreed.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 12 by Arthur Newens (H-0419/98)
Subject: Iraq - UN Agreement
Would the President-in-Office make a statement on the way in which the recent agreement between the United Nations and Iraq on site inspections for weapons of mass destruction and for increases in the supply of food, medical and humanitarian aid is working out in practice?
Question No 13 by Per Gahrton (H-0455/98)
Subject: The Iraq embargo
At an EU conference on humanitarian aid to Iraq held in early April, a member of the Commission, Mrs Bonino, directly attacked the Iraq embargo on the grounds of its anti-humanitarian impact.
Does the Council share Mrs Bonino's view that the embargo is doing more harm to the innocent than to the Saddam régime? Is it prepared to initiate action to alleviate or lift the embargo?
UNSCOM's inspections of sensitive sites began again on 6 March.
All went ahead with full Iraqi cooperation, albeit with some bureaucratic delays.
Inspections of presidential sites followed shortly afterwards on 26 March and 4 April, proceeding without any major difficulties.
The United Nations humanitarian aid programme under Security Council Resolution 1153 will not come into force until the government of Iraq has submitted a distribution plan to the UN and that plan has been agreed by both sides.
Food and medicines have never been subject to sanctions.
Under the UN humanitarian oil-for-food programme, the Iraqi government is able to export large amounts of oil to fund the purchase of humanitarian goods.
Following the UN SecretaryGeneral's recent recommendations for improving the oil-for-food scheme, Iraq will be able under the next phase of the programme to more than double the volume of its oil exports to USD 5.3bn over a six-month period.
The recent European Union meeting, which discussed the humanitarian situation in Iraq, demonstrated the continued commitment of the European Union and the international community to do all it can to help the Iraqi people. Regrettably, this commitment is not shared by the Iraqi regime.
The regime has ample resources available to it under the UN humanitarian programme but chooses not to use them to help ordinary Iraqis.
The EU will continue to support the efforts of the UN to persuade the government of Iraq to deploy the resources available to it to best meet the needs of the Iraqi people.
The conditions for lifting the UN sanctions regime against Iraq are clear: when Iraq complies with all the relevant UN resolutions, sanctions can be lifted.
Does the President-in-Office accept, nonetheless, that the agreement made with Iraq by the United Nations Secretary-General has not led to any real increase in the level of imports of food and medical supplies, which are only at about a level of a third of the volume imported prior to sanctions, occasioning great hardship and many deaths which, of course, are partly the fault of the Iraqi dictator?
Will he take up through the appropriate channels the serious bureaucratic delays occasioned by the United Nations Sanctions Committee and also the exclusion of a large number of items, including things like microscopes, eye glasses, spatulas, thermometers and vaseline, which cannot be considered as military supplies and are hitting the most vulnerable sections of the population, not Saddam Hussein and his particular clientele?
I thank the honourable gentleman for his question but I have to say to him that it is Saddam who is using children to play politics.
The capacity has always been there for the Iraqi Government to have food and supplies for oil.
That was reinforced in the agreement brokered by the Secretary-General of the UN.
The opportunity is still available if Iraq meets the very reasonable terms which have been laid down.
The Council's representative says that it is Saddam who is using children to "play politics' .
All of us here are, I am sure, convinced that Saddam's regime is a repugnant dictatorship, but surely it is rather too easy to blame everything on this regime.
There are, as we all know, reports from numerous humanitarian organizations, which in no way support the Saddam regime, about the dreadful consequences that have ensued as a result of the boycott.
My question was prompted by the fact that Commissioner Bonino has also realized that the effects are dreadful. Nevertheless, is it not the case that the Council must take into account the real effects of the boycott and not simply blame Saddam?
I would therefore like to pose the following question: Precisely what conditions need to be fulfilled? How are we to know that Iraq has fulfilled all of the UN's conditions?
How will we ever be able to prove that there is not a single illegal weapon in Iraq?
While thanking the honourable Member for his question, may I say to him that the food and medical supplies for oil are available because the Council and our international allies in the United Nations are aware of the potential impact on a society of not having access to those important commodities.
That is why every effort has been made to enable Iraq to purchase the necessary equipment and supplies.
It is Iraq that has chosen not to meet the very reasonable conditions which have been laid down and reiterated by the UN Secretary-General in his recent proposal with the Iraqi Government.
The facility has always been available. It is still available and it is up to Iraq to respond to a very reasonable position on behalf of their people who are desperately in need of those supplies.
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
Ladies and gentlemen, since the time allocated to questions to the Council has now expired, Questions Nos 14 to 38 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
I would like to thank Mr Henderson.
Mr Papakyriazis has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, the point of order I want to raise is obvious.
I wish to express my concern and make a protest, since we did not have the time to examine more questions. I naturally understand your position and fully respect it, but this is the reality.
I also take into consideration the fact that a debate such as the one on Kosovo is a very serious reason for this delay.
However there is a point at issue, and I hope that you realize this. I would like to ask a question which is not simply rhetorical but fundamental: if I consider that my question is timely and serious and, given that its debate has been adjourned for this specific reason, can I bring it up again at the next sitting?
Mr Papakyriazis, I have two things to say.
Firstly, the agenda is set at the meeting of group chairmen.
So I would be grateful if you would address your complaints about the agenda to your representative at those meetings.
This Presidency had to wait half an hour today before being able to start Question Time.
So I would be extremely grateful if you would address any comment you might have on the matter to your group chairman, since I am only responsible for the implementation.
The second point is that if you withdraw your question you can reformulate it.
But if you do not withdraw it, it will be answered in writing, as I said earlier, within the next 48 hours.
So, Mr Papakyriazis, you have the choice of receiving a written reply within that period, or of withdrawing your question. In the latter case, it would be entered for Question Time again, but I can give you no guarantee that it would be dealt with here in this Chamber.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Euro-Mediterranean cooperation (continuation)
The next item on the agenda is the continuation of the joint debate on oral questions to the Council and the Commission on Euro-Mediterranean agreements.
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, this morning's news headlines ran as follows: "Palestinian in Jerusalem stabbed by Jewish extremists and bombing of southern Lebanon by Israeli air force with four civilians dead' .
Such is Mr Netanyahu's style of peace process.
Let us not deceive ourselves: the peace process between Israel and Palestine has reached a deadlock, if indeed it exists at all any more.
The Oslo Agreement, the foundation of this peace process, is no longer being respected by the Israeli government.
We must take note of this fact as it has a drastic effect on the whole EuroMediterranean Partnership.
At the beginning of the Partnership we tried to separate the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership from the peace process.
I hope that it is now clear to everyone that this is not possible.
If we want to make progress in the EuroMediterranean Partnership we must get involved in the so-called peace process.
Then, when Israel and Palestine are negotiating, we must have a say.
A second point which has concerned us recently, and which is also closely linked to the Barcelona process, is Algeria.
The European Parliament delegation has, as I see it, opened a door of dialogue with Algeria.
This Parliament now also sees many things in a new light, particularly as our colleagues who were there and who have presented us with a detailed report have now been able to correct a considerable degree of false information.
We must proceed resolutely down this path.
We must seek cooperation with our colleagues in the Algerian National Assembly and assist them in continuing the process of democratization in Algeria, which was begun successfully by means of the elections.
We cannot do much but we should be prepared to do what we actually can do, which is to help Algeria by taking on its concerns, by being prepared to work together with the Algerians, for example by fighting terrorism, not in Algeria but in our own States, in Europe.
So far we have been very negligent in this area and we have allowed terrorism to flourish here.
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, this is indeed an important sitting of the European Parliament, insofar as it is concerned with the future and the significance of the MEDA programme and its relevant aspects.
There is no doubt that both this programme in its entirety and the relevant MED programmes are an important - perhaps the most important - tool for the success of Mediterranean policy. This is a policy - and you, Mr VicePresident of the Commission, have said it yourself on many occasions this morning, and I agree with you - which faces problems, mainly due to the fact that there are flashpoints in the important area of the Mediterranean.
There is no dissent, on the contrary I think that there is agreement in this Chamber, that the MEDA programme must not only move forward but must also cover the largest possible spectrum with regard to the Mediterranean.
Nor is there any doubt that the contribution of the MEDA programme to finding political solutions, together with what can be achieved through the MEDA programme, may be significant.
However these flashpoints, in Turkey, in Cyprus, in the Middle East and in Algeria, which typify the Mediterranean at this moment, cannot be tackled simply using financial means; political solutions and political proposals are necessary.
I direct this remark to the Council.
It is not enough to complain about the fact that problems exist.
It is not enough to realize that we are often not present.
We must go one step further.
We must put forward proposals and these proposals can be put forward.
We often speak about the Middle East question and we will speak about it on many more occasions. It is an important issue.
However it is not enough just to ascertain that there is an issue, we must put forward concrete proposals to cover not only the bilateral relations between Israel and Palestine, but the remaining countries in the region such as Syria, the Lebanon and Jordan. These are countries which are important factors in peace and stability in the Middle East.
We speak about Algeria and we will speak about it on many more occasions, and I agree with Mr Sakellariou that the European Parliament has opened a large door. It is now in the hands of the Council and the Commission alike - and, Mr Commissioner, I welcome the fact that you have sent a group to Algeria - to turn this opening to practical advantage.
It is not enough to say that Islamic fundamentalism is an anathema.
We must find the right way to combat it.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, today, as in 1972, we are proposing general cooperation or financial aid for the Mediterranean, this time of course at somewhat higher levels.
Now, as then, however, in the wider Mediterranean region, political issues and claims are emerging in the face of which the European Union continues to be helpless or inconsistent, cowardly or absent, even though now of course it is proposing some vague dialogue.
Nevertheless, in Algeria it is being sought, in the Western Sahara it is absent, in the Middle East it is essentially a spectator, and in Cyprus it is politically downgrading its original constructive involvement. Towards Turkey at times it takes "a tough stance' without any obvious effect, and at other times it tolerates the unacceptable interference of this country in the internal issues of the European Union, such as with the recent singular veto which Turkey imposed on Community programmes on islands inhabited by Greeks.
I do not need to go on.
I think that as long as there is no real common foreign policy to guarantee security, integrity, peace, freedom and co-development, today's attempt will run the risk of failing in the same way as the attempt in 1972, which we called "Overall Mediterranean Policy' , somewhat ironically perhaps.
I would inform you that I have received seven motions for resolutions, submitted pursuant to Article 40 of the Rules.
Mr President, I just want to reply briefly to what was said this morning.
Do not lose sight of the fact that, when all is said and done, the Euro-Mediterranean programme of the Barcelona Conference is barely two years old. Such a long-term programme as the creation of a free trade area is going to take much longer than that, and these two years have been the initial phase, with a lot of teething problems.
As I said before, do not forget what the situation was like before, and where we are now.
In the first year of the MEDA programme's implementation, the European Parliament decided to establish a negative reserve of 20 %.
Last year it was 10 %.
This year there is no negative reserve.
Also, the decentralized cooperation programmes for the Mediterranean, which had caused problems, have been relaunched.
In other words, we now have the MEDA programme completely operational for the first time.
A lot of things are still not working properly, of course, but the important thing to know is that the programme has now reached cruising speed.
Furthermore, we cannot overlook an obvious aspect, which Mr Sakellariou and the rest of the speakers have mentioned.
While the lack of peace in the Middle East continues to contaminate the Barcelona process, we can work properly on the second pillar, that is, the association agreements.
However, we cannot work properly on the first pillar - security, peace and stability, confidence measures and the Mediterranean Charter - for obvious reasons.
As for the third pillar - sectorial conferences and civil society - our work is very difficult. As you know, last year we had to cancel at least three sectorial conferences because some people came but not others, and some people would not come if certain other people did.
So this is a very serious matter.
I hope that between us, on 6 June at Palermo, we will be able to resolve this situation.
What the European Commission is trying to do is precisely to separate the Barcelona Conference from the ups and downs of the peace process, because all the while people are reproaching each other, it is very difficult to get on with the day-to-day work.
Thank you, Commissioner Marín.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
Kosovo (continuation)
The next item on the agenda is the continuation of the debate on the statements by the Council and the Commission on Kosovo.
Mr President, I rise, not in the normal way to contribute to the debate, but because earlier this afternoon the debate on Kosovo was curtailed and there was a certain degree of chaos because we were trying to get the statements from the President-in-Office of the Council and from the Commission, and contributions from Members of the political groups.
During that melee Mr Cars asked a question of Mr Henderson, the President-in-Office, about a meeting he had heard about between Mr Milosovic and Mr Rugova to try and resolve some of the problems in Kosovo.
Mr Henderson was not able to respond to that point by Mr Cars.
He has asked me to confirm that such a meeting will be taking place and that the presidency has, late this afternoon, issued the following statement:
' It is good news that Milosovic and Rugova will meet face to face on Friday.
This meeting has been made possible by the sustained pressure from the EU, the contact group and others in the international community on both sides over the last two months for a meaningful dialogue to begin.
We have all called for President Milosovic to line up clearly behind the necessary political process. We now look to both sides to make full use of this opportunity for constructive political dialogue, particularly to the authorities in Belgrade, given their primary responsibility as a government to seek a negotiated solution.'
I am sure this Parliament will respond enthusiastically to this news as it is exactly what we were pressing for.
Mr Henderson has asked me to indicate that he apologises for not replying directly to Mr Cars, but this was a consequence of the circumstances.
But I understand that this single meeting in Belgrade will be followed by negotiations in Pristina within one week and that there will be weekly meetings thereafter.
Therefore this is a major breakthrough in the dispute. It is exactly what Members of the European Parliament were demanding.
Mr President, for the second time I must protest about the way in which the debate on Kosovo was handled.
For reasons I am unaware of the debate on Kosovo was curtailed since questions had to follow.
I do not wish to attribute responsibility to your colleague, who had the presidency of the Parliament, but in any case someone is to blame or someone is not doing their sums correctly when it comes to the time available.
It is not possible to have issues extended, in this case the problems of India, and for us, who have been registered by our groups, not to be able to speak.
In the first place I must say that the speech by the President-in-Office of the Council did not tell us of the meeting which is to take place on 15 May between Mr Rugova and Mr Milosovic, and I must say that at least our colleague here is conveying to us what some of us in the Chamber already knew, in other words that this meeting had been decided upon.
I am delighted that the European Union helped to achieve this meeting but I wonder why Mr Hamilton gave no hint as to the efforts being made to bring it about.
He also forgot to mention that the person who was the creative force and the prime mover was not the representative of the European Union, Mr Gonzáles, but Mr Holbrooke, the American special envoy, who arranged the meeting between Mr Rugova and Mr Milosovic.
I think - and I address myself to the Council, which is naturally not listening - that we should at least protect Mr Gonzáles, a very successful Prime Minister, from being appointed representative and intermediary, and the two sides should not deal with each other and make contact through Mr Gonzáles, but operate via the American intermediary.
Of course the meeting is a new development in the right direction, but I must say to you that there are still bloody episodes in Kosovo.
Another constructive development is the decision of the Western European Union in Rhodes, where the Foreign Ministers and the Ministers of Defence of the Western European Union unanimously said that, on the one hand, the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia must not be maintained, while in parallel terrorism must stop and the Yugoslavians must do something to bring about some fundamental dialogue.
In addition the proposals put forward by the Western European Union must have support.
Words are not necessary, nor is the deception that is being perpetrated against the European Parliament on the part of the Council.
I will finish, so that you do not strike the gavel, by saying that, in his speech, Mr Van den Broek was very constructive and very modest.
I would inform you that I have received seven draft resolutions, submitted pursuant to Article 37 (2) of the Rules.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Competitiveness of European industry
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0138/98) by Mr Caudron, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the competitiveness of European industry (SEC(96)2121 - C4-0025/97).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is often thought fashionable to bemoan the supposedly poor performances of European industry.
Having reached the end of my report, which I began a few months ago, I can and will say that this is not fair and, indeed, it is in many ways very unfair.
Of course, this evening, at the end of all this work, there is no question of my not being aware of or not mentioning our weaknesses.
I will mention five of them in particular.
The first is the inadequacy of our investment, both public and private, in recent years, which has undoubtedly curbed both innovation and gains in productivity in our industry.
Our second weakness is our serious shortcomings in the area of information technology and in the production of computer goods as well as in biotechnology.
Our third weakness is a tax system which is cumbersome, often unfair and which often curbs competitiveness in our industry.
The fourth is European industry's poor visibility regarding its competitors, be they American or Japanese.
The fifth is for example the great difficulty which all of our societies have in adapting to all technological change, and this applies to all sectors and all people.
These problems are important and require, both on the part of the European Union and on the part of the Member States, the adoption of clear, readable and simple measures which are timed appropriately.
In my report I propose some of these, basing them on two main areas.
The first of these areas involves the changes necessary in the environment of European industry, for which I have seven proposals.
First, the implementation of a global economic policy for the European Union, coordinating the economic policies of the Member States.
Of course this is already underway but we can do a great deal more in this area.
Second, the coordination of fiscal policies, particularly in order to fight against all forms of fiscal dumping and all other forms of deregulation.
Third, the modernization of our Member States' public administrations in an effort to achieve administrative efficiency, which is undoubtedly one of the key factors in improving the business environment, and to return to a genuine notion of public service.
Fourth, the strengthening and improvement of the Internal Market in line with the advent of the euro which, as we all know, will play a very important role and will at the same time be an excellent lever of European citizenship.
Fifth, the European society statute, which must at last be removed from the midst of the decision-making network in order to further the constitution of large European groups, large industrial groups.
Sixth, a commercial policy for the Union which would no longer be embryonic and which would, in particular, allow our competitors in the rest of the world to respect the rules of international competition.
Seventh, finally, and without putting in doubt our drive in favour of small and medium-sized enterprises, we should not forget that, like small and medium-sized enterprises, large companies have an important role to play in the development of the world economy, nor should we forget that research and technological development depend to a high degree on large companies who alone have the means to place themselves at the forefront of the research/development process.
The second area involves proposals which affect the internal adaptability of the company.
First, the introduction of information technology on a massive scale.
The computer must become a universal tool in relations within a company, between companies and between business and the public.
Second, the issue of training. Greater consideration must be given to this, particularly by company managers; furthermore, it would be possible to integrate this training into the procedures currently under discussion with regard to reducing working hours.
As for these arrangements for reducing working hours, we are aware of the debate which divides us to a certain extent and I, personally, would like to say that if, in my capacity as rapporteur, I cannot support the GUE's amendment on this issue, then as a French socialist I support Amendment No 4 of the Confederal Group of the European United Left.
Third, businesses must be capable of adapting to the market fluctuations to which they are subjected.
Incidentally, the solution, which involves quite simply eliminating regulations in order to make the labour market adaptable, this solution or these proposals are neither realistic nor socially acceptable and I believe that we can only give businesses the chance to adapt if and when salaried employees are guaranteed a solid base of social entitlements and assurances regarding the sharing of the benefits of growth and progress.
Finally, as a fourth and last point, as product life cycles are becoming increasingly short, protection by means of patents in Europe must incorporate new data.
A rapid reform is required here.
These, ladies and gentlemen, are the results of my own reflections and of our joint efforts, both in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and via the Internet, which helped me a great deal in drafting this report.
I do not claim to have done a revolutionary piece of work; I hope simply to have brought the debate forward and to have widened it, to have removed it from the traditional confinement of 2 or 3 points which are ideologically difficult or too difficult.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Caudron for his excellent proposals.
European industry still represents production processes, professional skill and experience at the highest level.
Scientific and technical know-how are also top-notch, but we lag behind in information technology, and especially in the area of applications and content.
So training, brainpower and diversity will also be essential elements in economic competitiveness.
For this reason, we must pay special attention to the development of training schemes, support for teachers and creating an innovative environment.
High level research in Europe also needs to be improved in terms of effectiveness, so that we do not lose our researchers, for example, to the hard cash research institutes and universities of the USA.
Increased competitiveness in industry and improved productivity cannot really happen at the expense of cutbacks and flexibility in the labour markets.
Europe will not be competitive as long as it is struggling with the problem of unemployment, which is a waste of human resources.
Europe's strength lies in the diversity of its peoples and cultures.
We have better education systems, equality and social security.
These are the basis of a sustainable information society.
The production of content in the information society is the area of business that is developing fastest.
Europe should set up multiform and flexible networking bases, where content industries could be developed through invention, innovation and research.
They should be simultaneously both local and global.
Productivity in the European economy seems to hinge very much on the investment stage.
Public sector investment has, in particular, been at a staggeringly low level.
The Commission should put forward a proposal to create a framework for a new European industrial policy.
I expect guidelines based on measures to promote public and private investment.
We must also be able to target action and risk financing at those innovative sectors of industry that are creating jobs.
Similarly, the burden of taxation has to shift from the shoulders of the workforce to such areas as, for example, speculative currency dealing.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Caudron on the open-hearted manner in which he has accepted points of view and incorporated them into his report, which we in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have considered at length and with great care.
I would also like to express my appreciation of the efficiency and prudence he has shown in seeking the views of industry and also being influenced by these views.
I would also like to congratulate the Commission on the sound and straightforward account that we now have of the situation we find ourselves in.
Competitiveness needs to be analysed at global level, precisely as the Commission has done.
It is also important to discuss the competitiveness of European industry because it provides the basis on which we build a large part of our prosperity.
The greater part of the EU's exports are industrial goods.
Industry has a decisive role to play for large sections of the knowledge-intensive service sector.
We in the PPE group are satisfied that there is agreement on the analysis of the importance of a good operating environment and incentives.
At a time when changes are occurring at an ever increasing pace, a long-term, predictable and sustainable regulatory framework is an essential prerequisite for an improved commercial and industrial climate.
In our view, additional investments, special rules for certain sectors and a selective economic policy are ineffective and costly and will, in the long term, destroy entrepreneurial activity.
The structure of tax systems, employment legislation and infrastructure in the broadest sense are crucial for growth, employment and competitiveness.
At the very least, this means that the present barriers to growth in small companies must be removed.
Structural reforms are required.
Globalization of the economy increases the need for reforms.
As previously mentioned, most of the amendments tabled by our party grouping were adopted. However, we would like to have seen greater emphasis placed on the importance of better functioning markets, in which measures against the distorting impact of state aid and monopolies must be intensified.
Exposure to competition must increase with improved observance of public tendering and privatization, along with continued liberalization and deregulation of markets.
I am saying this because it is important for the business sector as a whole, as well as for industry.
The problems are well charted and the Commission's document, which we welcome, is an important piece of homework, not least for the EU Member States.
But we cannot afford to waste time: this task must be carried out now - especially if we are serious about mastering unemployment.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my colleague Mr Caudron's report reflects the view of the competitiveness which the Commission defends and is trying to impose horizontally.
This kind of competitiveness is based on increasing and apparently limitless adaptability of wages, that is to say employees, in an ever-widening deregulation of the market, and especially of the work-force, and the acceleration, if that were possible, of the privatization process, following the example of the United States with its wage dispersion and lack of social protection, and on doubts about the advantages and costs of reducing working hours.
It is true - and I congratulate Mr Caudron on this - that his report has many positive, that is to say moderating, features: the improvement of professional training, more support for research and innovation, criticism of a strategy based only on labour flexibility, the need for and the importance of public investment, and the preservation of publicly-owned and public service companies.
We should very much like the framework to be less submissive and the strategic moderations and corrections to be more forthright.
It is in that frame of mind that we have submitted some amendments which we hope the rapporteur will accept, although we have already had some replies, not all of which were positive, but, in any event, I think those that have been accepted can improve this report even further.
My compliments to the rapporteur.
Mr President, I believe that to say that the report is very cautious and unsystematic is to do Mr Caudron an injustice.
Nevertheless, we should remember that this problem was discussed in all its detail and all its contradictions in the Delors Report of 1993, and we should also remember the tenth chapter where a strategic conclusion - that of the need for a new development model - was at least hinted at.
In my opinion, before beginning the debate we have to redefine at least two things, and despite his many sensible ideas Mr Caudron was not able to remedy this.
The first is the term "industry' , which can be defined in many ways, perhaps as the demarcation of industry and the craft trade in terms of repairs, or perhaps as the development of new branches of the industry which no longer resemble the old ones, such as in terms of contents production, the information society or the transport/telecommunications sector which give the term "industrial structure' , which Mr Caudron rightly uses, a whole new meaning.
Secondly, we must consider more carefully the importance and meaning of the term "competitiveness' .
It is not simply a question of costs; it is also a question of quality and particularly of benefits for others; it is not so much a question of export surpluses, in any case not in a large European Economic Area whose export quota is under 10 %.
Mr Caudron addressed real problems: for example, the lack of investment.
But I believe that we should not conceal the fact that it is linked to a situation in which for the last 15 years cost cutters have had control of both the private and public spheres and this has had devastating results.
It should also be noted that, as far as the technologies of the future are concerned, Europe is currently giving away the lead it had, and to a certain extent still has, in environmental technologies.
Because of this I, as a member of a small parliamentary group, wish simply to quote the great axis analysis strategy which could alternatively be applied and which in some ways agrees with what Mr Caudron proposed but is further-reaching.
First of all, at a European level, we urgently require something like a gouvernement économique which then also takes control of the various dimensions of dumping - fiscal, social, ecological - and, by means of a new policy relating to market economics, sets new conditions of development.
We then need a renewal of the European model of society and consensus, which itself is a condition for innovation and also a factor of productivity.
If complaints are being made about a lack of innovation we should not forget who caused it.
I think it was neoliberal deregulation policy which caused it; this frightens everyone and prevents innovation.
The third requirement would be a necessary axis of social and ecological reconstruction as a systematic exploitation of technologies, procedures and resources appropriate for the future, moving towards a revolution in efficiency and sufficiency and a refocusing of the economy on local and regional requirements.
This would finally be a practical discussion, unlike the quite old debate on the question of whether we should have an industrial policy or the debate brought up again by Mrs Carlsson about the purpose of deregulation, as those are the wrong debates.
Mr President, two minutes is a very short time to discuss a subject of this importance but I thank Mr Caudron for his excellent report which places Community industrial policy among the principal areas of European construction.
Mr Caudron's report opens several areas for consideration.
I will mention only two or three of them.
First is the importance which we must attach to the way in which SMEs and large industrial groups are complementing each other increasingly.
We all know that SMEs in Europe, of which there are approximately sixteen million, are the main vehicles of job creation today and that for the most part they depend on or cooperate with the large companies.
In my opinion we must therefore encourage synergy and - why not? - work towards creating a statute for European society which would make it more efficient in terms of international competition.
With regard to the second area of consideration, I believe that this development must be accompanied by an obligation on the part of the Union to promote research, innovation and training, which are prerequisites in the fight against unemployment and in social advancement, assisted also by technological progress.
This brings us to the question of the financing which would be required to achieve these goals, from both public and private capital.
I think that venture capital offers concrete ways in which we can contribute to the development of the companies which are in the process of innovating.
Perhaps today we should have an impartial approach to the issue of pension funds and their contribution to economic development and employment.
Of course this would require a strict professional code of ethics as these funds are also supposed to go towards the payment of pensions.
I would have liked to discuss working hours and the reduction of these hours but I do not have enough time.
I believe, however, that it is a major problem because, quite simply, it concerns employment.
We must above all avoid being strict to the point of reaching deadlock.
Everything in life is in constant motion and the organization of work today, in particular in terms of the number of working hours, needs and will need to be adaptable and flexible, even up to a period of one year.
I would have liked to discuss the harmonization of tax systems and many other areas which agree with Mr Caudron's analysis, which my group will of course support.
Mr President, the discovery that, given the same level of growth, the United States creates more jobs than Europe, either with a higher or a lower net product, is fundamental.
With unemployment of 18 million a direct relationship must be established between competitiveness and job creation.
A competitive industry simply creates more jobs.
The field in which Europe, both at Community and national level, has a genuine need to catch up, is industrial research.
Our efforts must be concentrated much more on commercial realizability.
Due to flaws in the coordination of research policies in the Member States, some of the most valuable synergy effects are lost.
Particularly in the area of information technology, a research and development policy with excellent coordination and funding could make a significant contribution towards improving the competitiveness of European industry.
Mr President, Mr Caudron addressed seven points from his report.
I shall address three matters that are not included, but should have been.
The first concerns the reason why during the past five years the USA has enjoyed higher growth than Europe.
I am rather surprised that no one has mentioned the obvious fact that the USA has not had a convergence programme.
The USA has not had the same strict monetary policy as Europe.
Nor has the USA been so intent on combating inflation.
My second point concerns taxes.
In the report taxes are mentioned only as something which hampers growth and productivity.
The only theory to support this approach is the one stating that taxes reduce people's desire to work.
But surely this theory can scarcely apply to the present situation in Europe.
Whatever it is that the 20 million unemployed have, it is surely not a lack of desire to work!
I believe it should have been added here that taxes are returned to the citizens, either in the form of benefits or in the form of aid to the public sector, and that taxes therefore help to increase demand, which is, after all, the major motivating force behind innovation.
Furthermore, I feel that reference should have been made to the significance of the increasingly uneven distribution of income.
A rich man has a marginal propensity to consume of almost zero, while the propensity to consume of a poor man is almost one.
When the distribution of incomes becomes increasingly uneven - which is unfortunately what is happening in Europe today - what we get is an automatic reduction in demand.
This in turn reduces production and growth, and therefore also innovation.
I would like to have seen these three points included in both the rapporteur's report and the Commission's original statement.
Mr President, first I wanted to congratulate Mr Caudron on his interesting report, which is a valuable contribution to our reflections on the competitiveness of European industry.
Because our society's first priority is employment, and let us not forget that within our society, industry is the basis for growth, wellbeing and the creation of employment around us.
So the competitiveness of European industry is a basic necessity for our socio-economic model itself and for the very wellbeing of European society.
The single currency is going to favour this competitiveness because, on the one hand, it creates stability for investment, consolidates the internal market and decreases exchange costs for businesses and, on the other hand, it brings low interest rates too, which also help to improve the funding and competitiveness of European business.
All of that is necessary but insufficient because we are also in a climate of globalization, which has to be seen as an opportunity but which requires European industry to be competitive and to adapt more quickly.
And the truth is, we cannot compete on the basis of a flexible labour market and an overall reduction in the total wages bill as the basic premises of this competitiveness.
We have to look for other sorts of measures to ensure that European industry can take advantage of the opportunity provided by this globalization. To do so, we need measures such as, for example, strong support for innovation.
In Europe at the moment, we are very advanced in terms of basic research, but it requires an effort to translate that into industrial innovation, the product and the production process. We have to take steps to build that bridge, to allow competitiveness to improve.
We have to support the coordination of economic policies - including fiscal policies - to create a climate that will favour investment and competitiveness in European industry. We also have to support a framework of European industrial policy which can, for example, contribute aspects such as those mentioned by Mr Sainjon, to create synergies - incentives to create synergies between European small and medium-sized enterprises - innovative financial instruments for the fundamental promotion of risk capital development, so that innovation can progress.
I also think that a competition policy like the one being implemented is a positive measure.
I will end by saying that, basically, we need training for our human resources.
At the moment, energy can be bought, technology can be bought and moved around, raw materials can be bought and moved around, but our competitiveness and our future fundamentally depend on our people.
So: training, training and training should be our objective for the sake of competitiveness.
Mr President, the Commission's initiative and Mr Caudron's report are both of the most immediate relevance to the competitiveness of European industry, and I therefore commend it. This is the only way of promoting competitiveness in a world where frontiers are being progressively opened up, to everyone's advantage.
It was important in the first place to put the problem into perspective.
The rapporteur is right to underline in his explanation of his thinking that the recent predominance of the market should not lead us to abandon 'public action at regional, national or European level' .
Furthermore, it was precisely in this decade that the Maastricht Treaty had a chapter on industry inserted in it, not prohibiting public involvement in production (with a few rare exceptions), but making it clear that public involvement is essential to the removal of imperfections and the creation of external economies. This is the only way we can hope to exploit to the full the possibilities the market offers.
The reference to nations at regional and European level should, however, have been reflected in the recitals and paragraphs of the resolution, defending structural policies which, by promoting less favoured areas, help to promote aspects of competitiveness which have hitherto been less developed (since the only justification for regional policy was then social and political).
Without in any way denying the importance of the major groups and alliances, such as referred to in nº 22, for example, and as mentioned by Mrs Carlsson and Mr Sainjon, we also consider that emphasis should have been placed here - or in another paragraph - on the role of small and medium-sized businesses (only mentioned in one recital, Recital D), which in many cases are highly competitive (even the most competitive) both in the European market and in other more developed markets, such as the United States and Japan.
As is rightly stated in the Recitals, furthermore, they complement the big companies, and the support programmes mentioned in the report and the resolution are more appropriate to them, since the big companies do not need these measures to the same extent.
Finally, the problem of making the labour market more flexible should have been examined in greater depth (the way it is dealt with in Recital H seems to me to understate it). Obviously this does not cast any doubts on the need for social support, and it is an essential factor in the creation of new opportunities.
Members of the European Parliament, as representatives of all European citizens, should therefore be concerned not only with people in work but also with those who are unemployed, young people in search of their first jobs in many cases.
None of these will be impressed by a rigid and unrealistic European 'social model' , which may be based on the best wording (idealistically speaking) of the Treaty and other texts, but which does not put into practice the entrepreneurial dynamism that is essential to creating jobs. Otherwise, there will be a negative general reaction to something it is important to safeguard, namely the correct European social model.
Mr President, the debate has shown that progress has been made in the discussions which we have had in recent years about terms such as competitiveness, productivity, deregulation, flexibility, etc.
For this reason I would like to congratulate Mr Caudron on his report as, even if not all points made in it reflect his own personal views, it clearly reflects the fact that we have developed certain areas of common ideas and reflection.
This in itself is very positive.
Of course there will always be dissident opinions but these opinions are increasingly becoming those of the minority.
Mr Wibe, who has unfortunately gone now, gave us an almost admirable description of classic socialist theory which, I believe, is not shared by Mr Wolf, and this is quite significant.
This means that there are always ideas which originate in the past and are defended vigorously but which do not bring us forward because they are not capable of gaining majority acceptance and above all because they cannot be implemented.
In the last week we have held the debate with the Council of Ministers for Industry about competitiveness in the light of our report, which is also the subject of Mr Caudron's report, and we were, on the whole, in agreement on this.
We have now done sufficient analysis and drawn up sufficient plans.
It is now a question of beginning at a specific point in order to draw up a common European policy which will then have certain outcomes, the positive or negative aspects of which we will discover in due course.
In my opinion theoretical arguments about, for example, whether deregulation creates jobs or destroys jobs, are, in view of our experience in telecommunications, for example, quite futile.
As can be seen from the statistics, today there are essentially two areas in which new jobs are created in Europe: the information society in the broad sense of the term, and biotechnology, i.e. two modern fields of technology which, thankfully, are ours once again, after we had lost some time in these areas.
I will not blame anyone for this as a debate of this kind must go on for some time so that people can get used to it, but now we have caught up again.
There is another possibility which we introduced in the debate and which Mr Caudron also mentioned: benchmarking.
Without much difficulty we were offered two examples: New Zealand and Ireland.
Firstly, these are small countries which did not start out with a high level of industry but were peripheral nations with a mainly agrarian structure.
New Zealand, we could say, is on the periphery of the world and Ireland is on the periphery of Europe.
Both countries have come through this change with great success.
They have created more jobs, particularly better paid jobs and not just jobs which combat poverty but jobs which bring with them good prospects for survival.
These examples will not be able to be applied fully to other countries but it is clear what the broad outlines of such a project would involve.
Then there is the question of research and development, innovation, the role of small and medium-sized enterprises.
We now have enough projects in this area.
We should continue them.
The debates on the fifth Framework Programme on Research and Development have not yet come to an end.
The man who said that has also gone.
The problem is always that those who require explanations go while those who do not require any stay.
For example, for a long time now we have been applying our research to processes and products close to the market, to things which have direct impact.
Years ago we came away from the idea that research is a noble affair which has to be conducted far away from the market.
In small and medium-sized enterprises we now have the first visible progress, which my colleague Christos Papoutsis is pursuing resolutely.
Flexibility of the labour market is of course quite a critical problem because everyone here thinks it is possible to advance by dismantling social rights, although that in turn reduces the quality of life.
If we examine this closely - and I believe there can be no general assertions which are correct - we can see some positive aspects.
In our White Paper we began to look more closely and to ask about the current situation regarding jobs which do not require any specific qualification.
By this I mean jobs which - even if we place considerable emphasis on qualifications, which in our opinion is important and right - must still be available as there will be a large number of people who do not possess the relevant qualification, because they are unable or do not wish to do so, and this is always a possibility.
A society which can only offer jobs for a particular level of qualification is also not ideal.
Incidentally, we have lost a lot more of these jobs than the USA has.
The interesting thing is that our labour productivity is higher than in the USA because we have lost these jobs for the lesser qualified.
However, if we retain these or perhaps wish to create more of them, we must reduce the tax burden there.
This is quite a simple, normal possibility.
Unfortunately none of the Member States has done this to date so we must consider how we can encourage the Member States to put this part of the tax reform into practice.
With regard to the other option - whether or not to reduce wages - it has always been my opinion that it is dangerous to pursue a simple policy of reducing costs, reducing wages or cutting jobs to the point where the very existence of a company is at risk, as in this way it loses the potential that it will need when it recovers, and we see now in European industry that new jobs will be created because competitiveness has increased and better production is now possible.
Thus, only cutting costs, only saving, is certainly wrong, but reducing unnecessary costs, for example in general input, energy, telecommunications, is the correct policy.
As a result of the monopoly in the Union's energy market our energy costs are still higher than in the USA.
In energy-intensive industry this of course represents a disadvantage for competitiveness.
At this point I would like to say to Mr Wolf - without wanting to touch on a sore point, as I am much too liberal and humane for that - that to increase the price of petrol in Germany by DM 5 will of course result in a loss of jobs.
This has nothing to do with environmental technology.
Of course we can introduce changes to our environmental technology but if we drive our energy costs up as high as this, which in environmental terms would be justifiable, we must accept the negative consequences which this has on jobs.
This means that, as always in life, we must compromise and we must also sometimes set priorities.
I have now come to believe that if there is to be any point to such a debate on competitiveness and jobs we must have the courage to set this priority.
There is no point in saying that we will now make environmental policy with great aplomb if we continually claim that unemployment is our number one problem and our social systems are no longer capable of eliminating unemployment.
Mr Caudron's remark that he personally would like to support this reduction of working hours tempts me to comment on this too.
We can reduce working hours if we introduce greater flexibility in the Working Time Statute and are prepared to do this.
We can even do it to increase productivity.
However, it is very obvious that a general reduction of working hours without making the working time statutes more flexible leads to even higher labour costs and as a result jobs are lost.
With some people you could be forgiven for thinking you were having a debate with deaf-mutes because sometimes certain basic facts are simply not accepted.
Thankfully we have now gone past that stage.
I am thankful that the report which the Commission presented, and which we will in future present annually, has met with such a good response.
I hope that the result of this debate and of further debates will be what we have already established in the Council of Ministers. We must now take action.
We have really talked long enough now.
Even if we do something wrong it is still better than doing nothing at all.
So let us begin, even if it goes against all Mr Wolf's theories, as I believe that in the end the most decisive factor in politics is the outcome, not whether or not someone was proven or will prove right in theory.
We can always try that, and there are of course wonderful battles, but these battles do not help the unemployed.
For this reason I think that we should now begin to do something which has in the meantime proven to be very successful and when we see how it turns out we can progress from there.
We must not pursue a policy which makes the same mistakes for ten years; however, we can now begin to learn from our experiences, to take action and then after two or three years to see what comes of it.
Then we will see that we are not in such a bad position.
We have in the meantime improved considerably in terms of competitiveness and in some aspects we surpass both the USA and Japan.
The euro will also make a considerable contribution to the competitiveness of European industry.
So there is no need for pessimism but every need for action.
If that is the outcome of this debate then we have helped many people.
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
Electronic commerce
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0173/98) by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication by the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee on the Regions on a European initiative for electronic commerce (COM(97)0157 - C4-0297/97).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank my colleagues for their very intensive cooperation and willingness to compromise, which resulted in a report which can hopefully consolidate a little the European Union's policy in the area of electronic commerce and business transactions.
I would also like to thank the committees involved, the Commission, the Council, the companies, trade unions and consumer organizations with whom I communicated continually.
In particular I thank the Secretariat of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which worked around the clock and participated in the drafting of this report.
Electronic commerce and business transactions are becoming increasingly important for companies and citizens of the European Union.
Without having to make a huge investment, firms now have a global market place.
In theory the SMEs can profit most from this.
There are, however, still many legal uncertainties and conditions are not ideal for either buyers or sellers.
The aim of the Communication of the Commission is to introduce a series of measures which allow the potential which electronic commerce offers the Internal Market to have full effect.
The Communication of the Commission can be seen as a response to the initiative of the US government, which was presented in person by President Clinton on 1 July 1997 and broadcast live on CNN and C-SPAN.
It drew up an ambitious timetable according to which the sphere of action should be defined by the year 2000.
The electronic market place is a virtual place where information is exchanged and contracts are entered into, goods are bought and paid for, and there should be binding rules.
It is almost like real life and yet there are some important differences.
The electronic market is part of the Internet.
This cyber reality is a world of its own which is strongly rooted in the real world but with some independent characteristics which must be included in a comprehensive trade policy of the European Union.
We are on the verge of a change in paradigms which will influence existing structures greatly.
The European Union should take its opportunity this time.
Its potential which results from introducing the Internal Market is huge.
My report contains a clear message and my colleagues have supported it: regulate where it is necessary and useful but do not regulate for the sake of regulation.
The legal security which currently exists in the virtual world of the Internet is on extremely fragile and fragmented.
It will be necessary to create greater legal security in the electronic market.
So far, a situation where national, European and international legal systems coexist successfully exists only in its initial stages and in the minds of a few specialists.
International harmonization or recognition of standards in this area will be absolutely essential.
In this context I made a suggestion which asks the Commission to sign an agreement of mutual recognition with the Americans in the area of data protection.
The data protection directive must be incorporated into national law by 1 October.
We are afraid that, once again, this will not be done consistently.
I would like to ask the Commission to propose, as soon as possible, ways in which this can be avoided.
The legal framework should be flexible and adaptable.
Self-regulation can be a convenient way of achieving flexibility in the electronic market place and also to maintain it.
However, it does require the actors involved to take on a considerable degree of responsibility, which must go further than non-binding rules.
The introduction of ethical standards must be embodied in private law, liability law and in particular the law of contract.
The European Union must have an active role in the necessary regulation.
I agreed with my colleagues on many points.
We pressed for this and tried to formulate answers which we hope the Commission and also the Council will draw on.
We need a directive of a horizontal nature.
This directive must be ready in the next two months.
It should encompass in particular the areas of private law, advertising, commercial communications, freelance work and trademarks.
Furthermore, we need international coordination and harmonization in many areas.
We believe that such international coordination should go beyond the proposal made by Mr Bangemann in the context of the international charter.
We support the attempts made by the Commission in the context of the WTO and the domain names, as well as the international charter initiative, although in a more wide-ranging form.
My proposal of a single point of coordination in the Commission in the area of electronic commerce could support this process.
It may be useful to extend it to cover the whole information sector.
We also require tax harmonization.
A Communication of the Commission will be available at the next Ecofin Council.
I suspect that in its current form this initiative will be sufficient to achieve a useful harmonization of taxes; after initial analysis it gives the impression of being a rush job which will not quite hit the mark.
I look forward to Commissioner Bangemann's reply.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations I would like to start by congratulating Mrs Mann on her excellent report about this crucial subject.
The development of electronic commerce is dependent on effective and precise legislation, standards, simplicity and certainty according to principles which apply preferably across the whole world, as electronic commerce will be primarily international commerce.
In addition, a global legal framework for electronic commerce must be clear, transparent, simple, technologically neutral and should stimulate competition. It must offer both the consumer and producer adequate protection.
The market, however, needs to stimulate the growth of electronic commerce, and too much regulation or the wrong kind of regulation might nip the potential of electronic commerce in the bud.
Electronic commerce must not be regulated to death.
It slows down the resolution of a number of important and sensitive international issues, such as, firstly; what should be done about taxation?
Mrs Mann has already mentioned this a short while ago.
The idea of tax neutrality of electronic trade is widely supported within Europe and the United States, and no discrimination should be allowed to take place between traditional and electronic delivery of services.
Unequal treatment leads to trade distortion and thus to unfair competition.
My second point is privacy.
The consumer must be certain that the electronic environment is safe.
Buying products electronically without the payer's personal details being fully recorded should be a matter of course.
Small payments are normally made in cash without divulging personal details.
The transaction is anonymous, and it should be thus on line .
This leads me to my last point.
What is the Commission's position on VAT levies on the Internet? I ask you this question, Commissioner Bangemann, as I understand that the Commission is proposing a control system for electronic invoicing of VAT.
This strikes me as extremely controversial in view of the protection of data and privacy, and the wish of many people not to have VAT on the Internet.
So I look forward with interest to the Commissioner's response.
Mr President, Commissioner, I do not think it necessary to reiterate the growing importance of electronic commerce and its promise: the Member, Mrs Mann, did this very well, and her report deserves full congratulations.
As rapporteur of the Committee on Research, it is my duty to underline a few important points concerning the guidelines of support for research and development to facilitate the growth of electronic commerce.
I think that it was certainly a positive move to liberalise the telecommunications market to facilitate the lowering of prices through competition.
This is not enough, however: it is necessary to broaden, on the one hand, the base of users, to help those who invest in the development of applications and software, to help small and medium-sized enterprises that want to launch out into the international dimension with telematics, to encourage the administrations to become computer literate, also offering in this way with the new technologies better services for the citizen, to develop the culture of interaction with computers not only through school and the workplace but also through new types of training and involvement for all ages.
In addition to encouraging the market's expansion, Europe's telecommunications equipment industry must be kept competitive and innovative.
While it is true that in the computer industry we have lost the race with the United States, as regards the telecommunications industry, it seems to me that competition is still open.
This is competition that counts: the future is being played out more on the interconnection of everything than on computing.
That is why I want to recall only a few of the research themes: switching technology, statistical access technology, data compression technology, long wave broadcasting via cable and satellite, new multimedia terminals and, finally, work on standards to enable Europe's industry to participate in the definition and assertion of these new standards on the market.
Finally, I would like to recall a point that we discussed at the preliminary stage in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, a point that in my opinion is very relevant for the promotion of electronic commerce at the world level - as the Member, Mrs Mann, has already observed - which is that of international cooperation for the Internet.
It is essential to strengthen the trust of the user and to avoid growing chaos - fraught with controversies and lessons learned out of error or frustration - and, naturally, to ensure as well that Europeans have fair access to the networks, to avoid excessive American control which is basically harmful for everyone.
We have already begun to list the topics; I am certain that on topics like these, where international cooperation must be strengthened, we will find in Commissioner Bangemann a very dynamic person who wants to find solutions not of the bureaucratic kind but solutions that enable a harmonious development of the market.
Mr President and colleagues, I would, first of all, like to add my congratulations to the rapporteur for a wideranging and comprehensive piece of work.
I think that the broad consultation that she has undertaken with industry, the service sector, consumers and with other interest groups has stood her in good stead and this shows in the report.
I want to add also my congratulations to the Commission, whose proposals are timely, thoughtful and forward-looking.
I want to raise one or two points from Mrs Mann's report and add some other comments too.
I want to commend her emphasis on the request to the Commission to look at the effect of electronic commerce on jobs.
I know this is already a Commission initiative.
The changes that will inevitably come need to be anticipated and planned for.
Mrs Mann comments quite rightly on the need to improve the skills and awareness of consumers.
This is absolutely essential if electronic commerce is to thrive; but that is really not so easy, particularly with certain groups of consumers.
Her report goes on to stress the importance of confidence-building in electronic commerce.
Of course, faith in electronic commerce can only be built by safeguarding privacy and safeguarding personal data.
The emphasis on encryption and the proposals on encryption are absolutely sound and well worked out.
It is important because money is a touchy subject, very dear to all our hearts, and certainty is never possible.
There are always some risks in commerce, but at least the method of trading needs to be as foolproof as possible in both the old and the new services.
It is also important in electronic commerce to support the creation and the development of new small enterprises.
Electronic commerce can, and already has, lowered the barriers to entry for many of those thriving and innovative businesses.
At the same time, the rights of consumers need to be maintained.
The method of securing those rights will almost certainly need to be adapted in the new world of electronic commerce.
I want to raise too the whole question of the need for agreement on taxation.
The rapporteur is perfectly right to reject the antiquated and backward-looking suggestion of a bit tax.
I would appreciate the Commissioner's views on that and also on the question of the need for clarification on whether taxation will be in the country of origin or the destination country - that really does need to be sorted out soon.
To conclude, users of electronic commerce need speedy, reliable, secure, low-cost access to goods and services.
It needs to be speedy because if matters take too long consumers will lose interest. It needs to be reliable because if consumers cannot buy and trade then they will lose interest; it will not be delivering what they need.
It needs to be secure, because without that the whole development of electronic commerce will surely crumble. It needs to be low-cost, because that is the key to the real development of new services in the fields of electronic commerce and many other new technology applications.
This report and the Commission proposal go a substantial way to securing those objectives and I commend them to you.
Mr President, I should also like to start by congratulating Mrs Mann on her excellent report and above all for the excellent cooperation.
Thanks to her method of working we have a very good report with which we, as European Union, are able to fulfil a part of our, as it were, leading role in this field.
Mr President, the Internet is the driving force behind the accelerated rise of electronic commerce.
Large opportunities are awaiting Europe in this field and when we are talking about jobs or employment it is always good to have another look at the figures.
Then we see, for instance, that the software and services sector has an annual growth of about 10 %.
This growth means 50 000 jobs in Europe every year.
So, in other words, it offers a great many opportunities, but we should also set conditions, of course.
We must ensure that education and re-training will take place properly, and that there will be more flexibility.
But we must also remove barriers.
Mr President, I believe that the introduction of the euro will be a powerful shot in the arm for trade within the European Union.
Consumers will be able to compare prices, and conversely, electronic commerce might contribute to the acceptance of the euro, as this form of trade breaks down the barrier to buy abroad.
The European regulations must give the consumer the necessary confidence to make use of electronic commerce and, that way, allow him or her to enjoy the benefits of the internal market more.
Respect for the privacy of the consumer is an essential element in this, and previous speakers have rightly pointed this out. The supervision of the implementation of the EU directives for data protection which will have to be transformed into national legislation by October this year must therefore be carried out carefully.
The free movement of electronic services within the European Union is an essential prerequisite if the internal market is to function well.
We must avoid variations in national regulations which will result in a fragmented European market. I look upon the Commission's statement as a very important and appropriate first stab at a European approach which deserves further development.
I would like to spur the Commissioner on to present a proposal for a directive regarding the provision of services in the information society.
Mr President, well-trained computer programmers are much needed.
The European Union will have to pull out all the stops to get rid of this shortage against the background of the millennium issue.
At the same time it will offer many European young people who are about the choose a college or university course a good chance of finding a job.
I therefore wonder whether the European Union and the European Commission might not be able to fulfil some kind of information provider role in this area.
For small and medium-sized enterprises, Mr President, electronic commerce offers big opportunities.
Electronic commerce offers SME's the opportunity to bring new and remote markets within easy reach, and to find new market segments at low cost.
Nevertheless, companies will have to prepare themselves properly through education and extra training measures.
I believe the fifth framework programme could also play an important part on that point.
But an essential element, Mr President, and this was repeated by previous speakers, is the element of confidence.
Consumer confidence in electronic commerce is vital. Without this, it will not work.
Other important issues are, for example, what happens to the electronic signature?
How reliable is it? What happens to electronic money?
What is the situation regarding liability? I also believe the law on agreements, the recognition of contracts, is of vital importance.
It is obviously essential that we will finally have certainty concerning the tax issue.
It has already been mentioned.
On that point we will have to reach decisions.
It is quite a policy and quite a legislative agenda we will be facing over the coming period, and it therefore requires international action.
I am anxious to know whether the Commissioner can confirm whether the United States is able to accept the proposed Charter.
The Group of the European People's Party believes the Charter is a most important proposal and we would like to support it wholeheartedly.
But everyone knows that we will not get much further with this Charter if it is not accepted by the United States.
Perhaps you could tell us something about this.
It only remains for me to say, Mr President, that the Group of the European People's Party would be glad to agree with the resolution and the report by my colleague Erika Mann.
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate Mrs Mann on the preparation and presentation of a very fine report.
My group fully endorses the proposal aimed at stimulating the vigorous growth of electronic commerce in the European Union.
The US and Japan already have a head start. Therefore the EU cannot afford to be left behind.
We need our own road map for the future.
The recent growth of electronic commerce has essentially been driven by the Internet.
It is therefore open to everyone everywhere.
If the US had its way we would already be on the road to a free trade zone on the Internet.
We need to know where the dangers are and clearly identify and make known the benefits.
Two years ago consumer sales over the Internet came to some $ 600m and by the year 2000 they could amount to ECU 200 billion world wide.
There is a clear message.
The sector offers a huge range of opportunities, development potential and jobs.
But, what assurances can the Commission give me today that the full benefits of electronic commerce will come to the west and north-west of my country. I am calling for positive discrimination in favour of such ultra- peripheral areas and the small and medium-sized companies that are operating there or, indeed, more importantly, have the potential to operate there.
The high cost of telecommunications has acted as a major stumbling block for all electronic commerce in Europe.
I hope that putting in place a package of liberalization measures will result in lower and more flexible prices.
As it crosses frontiers, it is essential that consensus be achieved at world level and the creation of a favourable regulatory framework for electronic commerce.
One of the major hurdles to be overcome is successfully creating confidence for all Internet users in their transactions.
Education and skills are vital. So too are concerns about cyber-crime, security and data protection.
In conclusion, business on the Internet covers everything from mass market retailing to electronic payments, advertising and business-to-business markets.
The development of an Internet mass market could leapfrog if access can be made cheaper and electronic payments guaranteed.
A Europol cyberpolice could be essential.
Mr President, Commissioner, you must get tired of hearing the same old stories over and over again, but we, the representatives of various groups, would like to have our say.
I am afraid my remarks are similar to what you have already heard.
The Mann report is good, in particular because of its broad approach to the problems.
Electronic commerce has the potential to become the personification of the free movement of goods, as people will be able to shop in any country from behind a computer.
I am having a go at it myself, and I must say that it is rather nice to discover that the territorial aspects of trade can be ignored.
Sometimes it is a bit difficult, at least for semi-literates like me.
But comparing prices is simple, and the advent of the euro will make the process only easier.
In view of the speedy development of the Internet and the cross-border character of electronic commerce, it is of great importance that there should be international cooperation on the creation of a regulatory framework.
But in order for that to be possible, Europe must first of all put its own House in order, and this problem is truly urgent.
I do not believe that putting its own House in order is something the Commission fudges.
On the contrary, I believe the European Commission has made some very good first moves, but that does not mean that the Member States are all in line.
In order to become more competitive, it is crucial that the internal market for electronic commerce functions well.
In other words, the preconditions for this type of trade must be met. I will repeat them once more.
These preconditions include consumer confidence in the security of the medium, which is extremely important, for example, with regard to money transactions.
Safeguarding confidential information, in other words using robust encryption technology, is another condition.
I believe that we need a code for resolving trade disputes, and in addition we need a few other issues, already excellently described in the Mann report. These include promoting computer literacy amongst all sections of society and promoting access to the Internet, thus preventing unequal use of the Internet amongst the population.
Another point is developing the SME sector and encouraging young talent.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, it is my personal experience in conversations with small firms that venture capital is still a burning issue despite the initiatives we have taken at European level.
Mr President, I must also briefly deal with the problem of tax.
America has proposed a free trade zone on the Internet, and this may be of interest in the short term.
If we take measures too quickly now, and if the Member States arrive at fiscal measures independently, we will be going about it the wrong way.
We must start by establishing our own position on the Internet and that is why I think it necessary to dissuade the Member States from taking action which will be damaging to the creation of a uniform European system in the long term.
In this context I would like to support Mrs Plooij's question regarding VAT.
Mr President, I would like to thank Erika Mann for the work she has put into her report.
The growth of electronic commerce is giving rise to many complex questions.
They concern consumer protection, employment, tax and the fear of being edged out.
Unregulated electronic commerce poses questions of accountability - who is responsible when people have access to instructions on how to make bombs, or if an ordered CD is just blank? The Commission should not delay in addressing problems of copyright, trademarks, misleading advertising and safeguarding personal data.
Electronic shopping is going to prove more lucrative in many sectors than traditional shopping.
The effects on unemployment could be considerable.
Things could go the way they have in my country: electronic banking has lost half the jobs in the banking sector.
Investment has been responsible for losing more jobs.
The situation is complex.
When we talk of freedom of choice in commerce, the choice should also take employees into consideration: a choice between work and unemployment.
New jobs are certainly being created, but the old ones are disappearing rapidly.
New services, therefore, have to be found, which create jobs and an added value component, but which do not eat away at other jobs.
Rationalization that gets rid of jobs is easy.
I myself was a company director, and rationalization is one of the easiest things to resort to.
Creating something completely new will be difficult and that is our test in Europe.
We have to create new forms of transaction, because, for example, there does not appear to be any upper limit to spending, as there is, for example, to consuming.
It is true that electronic shopping enables people in peripheral areas to enjoy the facility.
The old and the disabled can order merchandise if their computer is fitted with a modem.
The right equipment and a connection to the Internet should therefore become every citizen's right.
Only a Europe-wide network will create a real internal market for Europe, and that will provide a yardstick by which to gauge the real level that European society has reached.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is not long - only about 5 or 10 years - since the people of Europe would not have understood the term "Internet' .
If we look at developments which have taken place since then we see that we are in fact eye witnesses of a revolution in the field of data exchange and are therefore experiencing a revolution of our society and of human coexistence.
However, I would venture to say that we are only at the beginning of a very complex transformation process.
Gradually we notice more and more new fields of application for telecommunications.
I published a book on this subject in the spring of this year and when I read it again today I see that some parts of the book are already out of date.
I believe that we must overcome these ever-recurring obstacles and changes.
For this reason I am grateful for the Communication of the Commission and for the extraordinary commitment of the rapporteur, Erika Mann, and also of Wim van Velzen for a European initiative in electronic business transactions.
The Internet is therefore no longer only suitable for data exchange and transmission of information but also for modern business developments and in fact for conducting business simply, cheaply and quickly.
This means that excellent opportunities in general, as well as possibilities for employment, are opened up to consumers and to many small and medium-sized enterprises.
These new opportunities in turn create completely new service opportunities.
Thus I support the aim of keeping electronic commerce in a European context and preventing the fragmentation of the Internal Market.
We want international agreements and coordination.
I have already thanked Mrs Mann on several occasions for the quality of her reports.
This is another example of the fact that such a discussion with Parliament can also be very informative for us and we gain important new ideas from them.
It is perhaps even more significant that large sections of the report agree with the positions which the Commission has so far put forward, and this is important because in the debate about regulations we must speak with one voice with other trade partners and competitors if we are to succeed.
We are a little proud of the fact that since the beginning of electronic commerce we have been the opinion leaders, to a certain degree, perhaps not in terms of the fact that the subject is already such an important one here - in the USA it is only in its early stages - but more so in view of what it means in terms of development and what we have to do to promote this development.
At the Bonn conference in 1997 we dealt with a number of issues which at that time were very much to the fore, and started on a series of legislative measures which are now available.
I would point out, however, that it is not necessarily only solutions of a legislative nature that are to be considered.
Of course we can use all other possibilities, such as self-commitment of those involved or, something which I proposed myself at an international level, i.e. regulation by political consensus and similar.
This will also help us in our debate with the USA as the USA is not always in favour of a very liberal and far-reaching type of self-commitment; as is shown by the inscription example it is sometimes considerably tougher and more rigid than we here in the Union are.
However, in any case we can say that if we reach this political consensus and if there is a certain degree of equivalence in terms of content, the way in which it is reached will not be important.
This also applies to data protection, for example.
We have a complete and correct guideline for this, i.e. a legislative measure.
If in the USA more consideration is given to doing this in line with self-commitment, then content is more important.
How it is in the end realized is not decisive.
The charter which we proposed, and of which Mr van Velzen asked the Americans' opinion, met with broad approval.
We are in the process of preparing it.
In the Council we have a working party.
We invited American and European industry to an initial round table.
Of course we will extend that to include industry from other countries.
We have contacted all international organizations which will be involved in this and we will be in constant contact with the Americans.
At the beginning there were some misunderstandings because the Americans believed that we wanted to create a type of new international authority with strict regularization.
When we clarified this there were no further concerns.
There are certainly still issues which we must discuss but if we want to make overall practical progress we must set the ball rolling because factors which can pose a threat to the Internal Market can of course also pose a threat worldwide.
If it does not succeed in creating a solid foundation for use it could be that these new opportunities will not be used as they could be because people will be concerned if we do not succeed in establishing a reliable basis for use.
We are currently dealing with the issue that Mrs Mann also addressed, i.e. data protection and data security, digital signatures and consumer protection - we have now taken legislative measures regarding both of these - copyright, taxes and customs, which I will deal with in detail later, illegal and harmful content and Internet governance.
These are partly technical but no less important issues involving ways in which one can best use the Internet.
I would be very pleased if it were possible to cooperate with you given the expertise represented here in Parliament.
Allow me to comment on four further points individually as they were also mentioned in the debate.
We can always think about this coordination point.
We have practically done it already.
We have a group in which all Commissioners involved in the information society are represented.
If we wish, we can give it a certain basis of support so that everyone knows whom to consult.
Secondly, the Commission also supports the US proposal of a duty-free zone, as it was called, although this is misleading as in fact it involves customs.
The proposal is only to introduce no new customs duties but to stabilize the situation as it is today.
We have absolutely no problem with that and we will certainly find a solution in the near future.
As far as the question of taxation is concerned there are two positions: on the one hand we say "no discrimination' , i.e. no additional new taxes - bit taxes or anything else being considered - and on the other hand we say "no privilege' , i.e. every tax regulation which applies to trade in services or goods on the Internet must be similar in form to those which apply offline.
Let us take a specific example: if we did not have to pay VAT on a book that we bought via the Internet and did have to pay VAT for a book bought in a bookshop, this would be discrimination of normal trade and that cannot work.
The considerations which are obviously behind many of the critical remarks made here do not represent a Commission position; they are the initial view of a Directorate-General which approached the issue largely from the point of view of its own tax considerations rather than from Internet considerations.
For this reason there is no cause for concern.
We will be able to sort it out.
Of course we also want to prevent the Internal Market from fragmenting; this is obvious.
We firmly believe that with electronic commerce the Internal Market can gain considerable importance, as well as much more.
What we are talking about is a global network.
As far as jobs are concerned there is an unending list of success stories.
I will quote only one: for example, the company "Alfa Cie.
Metallurgy Company, based in the east of France, specialized in mechanical parts.
This enterprise has expanded from 40 to 400 employees in 3 years, broadened its client base from 1 to 23 countries, reduced time to market for new products from 6 to 1 week, improved reliability, ' etc.
There are also several examples of small and medium-sized enterprises which have met with new opportunities as a result.
I would like to say to my Irish colleagues that Ireland is an example of a country where the use of new opportunities has resulted in a new dynamism in the economy and created jobs.
So if I were Irish I would not be concerned about it having no benefit for Ireland.
It has already done this to a considerable degree.
Of course, as already mentioned here, we must create a series of technical and clear legal regulations.
Data protection is a very important example.
People always think that it is only important for data protection specialists who have strange ideas of one kind or another.
No, it will be a crucial factor in the decision of every consumer regarding whether or not to use electronic commerce.
If it is not guaranteed many people will refrain from using it.
Naturally we must also make certain global regulations in this area, if possible, as data protection which applies only to Europe or only to the USA is worthless if data is used globally.
However, as I said, this is possible because it is not a question of the differences in procedures but of the content.
It is easy to see the creation of new jobs in those areas where figures are already available: in 1996 7.4 million were employed in the IT industry in the USA.
In the year from 1995 to 1996, 230 000 new jobs were created in the IT industry.
Such figures also exist for parts of Europe.
Even if the results of analyses are only partly available we can still say that on the whole we have an area in which new jobs exist and where old jobs are also secure, as considerable savings and in particular increases in productivity can be achieved by allowing or cushioning a high wage level and improvements in productivity.
For example there is the fact that the competitiveness of the European shipbuilding industry has improved solely due to the introduction of such modern procedures.
If in terms of outsourcing we also interpret this as an information network between the firms producing the systems and the suppliers, then new competitiveness is really being created.
The fact that we are still currently slightly behind the USA is due to a combination of factors; it is partly due to cost, as already mentioned, but particularly to the greater popularity of the PC.
Incidentally, this will change in future as there will be quite different ways of accessing the Internet, not via PC but, for example, via television sets.
So if access becomes easier and cheaper we will witness a considerably greater driving force being set in motion in Europe than we saw in the USA.
For this reason I would not be concerned about this.
We can catch up if we continue our efforts in the same way.
This is an essential requirement.
But I have no doubt that all the Member States will realize what is important.
The Parliament, as this report shows, quite clearly has the same opinion.
I am quite glad that Mrs Mann has come back as I felt quite alone when she went away.
That shows how much I rely on her cooperation!
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place at noon tomorrow.
Provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations
The next item on the agenda is the recommendation for a second reading (A4-0151/98) on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and the Council amending Directive 83/189/EEC, relating to the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations (C4-0035/98-96/ 0220(COD)) for the third time (Rapporteur: Mr Hendrick).
Mr President, the rapid pace of expansion of new information services calls for innovative ways of regulating them to the extent that is needed without hindering their development, or of adapting the existing regulations that could prove outdated or counterproductive.
Community legislation may in some cases be necessary but most of the new regulations will stem from the Member States themselves.
As the Commission pointed out in its proposal, there is a risk of Member States issuing contradictory or inconsistent regulations, thus damaging the internal market by restricting the free movement of goods and services. Hence the need for coordination in this particular field.
The Commission chose to use an existing mechanism directed towards technical standards which has proven to be effective in its own field.
At its first reading Parliament supported this approach.
However, our institution raised several concerns embodied in 17 amendments to the Commission proposal.
These amendments could broadly be grouped in the following categories. Firstly, the social, societal and cultural aspects to be considered, in particular the need for expert advice in these areas.
Secondly, preservation of sector-specific rules.
Thirdly, freedom of establishment to be ensured.
Fourthly, active cooperation between Member States and with the Commission.
Fifthly, clearer definitions of concepts and their scope, future review and related EU initiatives, legal and formal aspects.
Now, looking at the common position itself, at first view - and despite the relatively broad support by the Commission - I must say it looks disappointing.
Only one amendment, a very minor one, is included unchanged.
However, even if their wording has been substantially altered, most of Parliament's points have been considered.
The concern of our institution about cultural aspects was shared by the Council who specifically excluded any involvement of the procedure in the area of cultural policy and audiovisual.
Other sector-specific aspects were considered, namely financial services, in a way which shows a convergent analysis of what an efficient regulatory attitude requires.
Most of the issues raised by Parliament relating to formal or legal aspects are taken into account or otherwise resolved.
Not everything is entirely satisfactory, however.
I have tabled five amendments for this second reading, all of which relate to points already raised at the first reading.
Amendment No 1 calls for further Commission action to adapt rules as necessary in response to developments in the sector.
I believe that this is important as the directive should not be regarded as static, but rather as an evolving tool for the regulation of Information Society services.
Amendment No 2 concerns the establishment of an expert consultation group.
Wide consultation, I believe, is vital and expert advice will be ever more important in a field which is becoming technically more complex.
I would like to see a strong commitment to consult of experts from industry and academia, ideally as a group.
Amendment No 3 concerns the freedom of establishment of a service operator.
Failure to allow freedom of establishment poses a major obstacle to the effective operation of the single market. It means that rules established in one Member State may be used to block organizations from another Member State from setting up in that particular country.
With Amendment No 4, both the Commission and other Member States are entitled to submit detailed opinions explaining why they believe that the measures envisaged create barriers to the free movement of goods.
If the Member State in question does not take account of such opinions it must give clear reasons why it is unable to do so.
This provision applies only to the Information Society services aspects of the directive.
Amendment No 5 refers again to provisions for the freedom of establishment of service operators and it is justified for the reason I have already given.
I believe the amendments to be realistic; I believe the amendments to be minimalist; and I believe the amendments are aimed at achieving maximum consensus and therefore, I hope, a qualified majority tomorrow in Parliament.
I look forward to the support of this House for the second reading.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mr Hendrick on his report, which contains a number of intelligent arguments.
Allow me to quote: "The rapid pace of expansion of new information services calls for innovative ways of regulating them to the extent that is needed without hindering their development, or of adapting the existing regulations that could prove outdated or counterproductive.'
It is, of course, extremely important to consider carefully the way information technology is to be regulated.
The risk is that old-fashioned regulatory zeal may take hold and be viewed as an easy way of solving problems and obstacles within the new technology.
There are many who believe that we can solve problems by creating more rules and instituting laws in the traditional fashion, but this is seldom the case.
In certain cases, of course - precisely as Mr Hendrick points out - initiatives are required at Community level when it comes to drafting regulations and laws for this sector.
Precisely as was also pointed out in the speech, it is the Member States who in the large majority of cases will be responsible for most of the new regulations.
It is obvious, in view of the particularly cross-border nature of this sector, that there is a continuous exchange of information about what is going on.
In those cases where anomalies and problems are encountered, they must be discussed among decision-makers within the Union and , to an increasing extent, globally.
But at the same time we must not forget to include in the discussions those players who operate in this market in order to get their view of the problems and to find out about possible solutions.
If no other way can be found, then it is perhaps necessary to resort to regulation.
But it is extremely important that this should not lead to separate national regulations, which run the risk not only of being wholly ineffective but also of hindering trade and the dissemination of information and erecting new barriers within the Internal Market.
In this respect I believe that the Council's common position is a good one.
The Council is taking up the problem of crossborder activity, but is not, as a consequence, expressing any ambitions with a view to taking regulatory action.
We in the PPE group believe that the amendments proposed by Mr Hendrick and accepted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy are likewise viable in the context of the approach that I am advocating.
I would like to conclude by once again quoting from Mr Hendrick's preamble, which states "...that the Commission shall in particular investigate and, where necessary, take initiatives in order to adapt rules promptly in order to encourage the European development of new services.'
I would personally like to add that I am convinced that it would be best if we were not to see too many regulations within this field.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, technical standards and regulations are an extremely important instrument of economic policy.
Their function is to create transparency and promote communication.
I would like to distinguish between two levels: the horizontal level, which involves activities in the Member States, and the second, European, level.
It seems to me quite important to include in these considerations those countries which seek accession and finally also to initiate communication with "the rest of the world' .
The vertical level is also very important.
I believe that by means of harmonization we have achieved a certain degree of progress on the vertical level, but also that the system of mutual recognition has also brought with it many advantages.
A third level, the duty of provision of information, can also provide a basis for the free movement of goods.
I wonder if it would not be advantageous to allow these systems to exist side by side.
For us it is important that the market can react quickly and at a low cost.
The question is how we in Europe can support the formulation of standards.
I believe it would be useful to set up a task force for these new regulations.
Something could also be done within the Framework Programme on Research and Development in order to be able to take any emerging developments into account in advance.
For this we need infrastructure, although it may be possible to merely reorganize existing infrastructure, and of course we also need education.
Mr President, I can limit myself to speaking briefly, although in doing so I would not quite do justice to the significance and quality of the report.
It is significant in that if we can implement such a rule here and in the area of goods, an achievement now possible due to the efforts of Parliament, we avoid fragmenting the market; as our experience shows, this cannot be achieved using any other method.
What we are discussing today is undoubtedly a very important development.
But in view of time restrictions and the fact that we are basically in agreement on all matters, I will merely thank the rapporteur and note that we will adopt all the draft amendments presented by him, so within a short time we hope to have as our legislative basis a considerably improved proposal.
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place at noon tomorrow.
Operator number portability and carrier pre-selection
The next item on the agenda is the recommendation for a second reading (A4-0127/98), on behalf of the Committee of Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and the Council amending Directive 97/33/EC relating to operator number portability and carrier pre-selection (C4-0104/98-97/0250(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr W.G. van Velzen).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking my colleagues for the pleasant and effective way in which we have cooperated. I would also like to thank them for the speed with which we have been able to complete the second reading, as far as Parliament is concerned.
Now that businesses in particular have been the first to benefit from the liberalization of the telecommunications sector, I am pleased that, with the present proposal regarding number portability and carrier pre-selection , the ordinary consumer will finally also be able to benefit from the liberalization process.
The proposal has as its aim the introduction of number portability and carrier pre-selection.
This way consumers will be able to keep their telephone number when changing their telephone company, and, in addition, by keying in a simple code they will be able to switch operators for each call.
Mr President, I am absolutely convinced that these instruments will substantially stimulate competition between the telephone companies, and this usually leads to prices falling. This is good news for the consumer, of course, particularly if the service also improves at the same time.
Mr President, an amendment was tabled on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy. If competition in the telecoms market is to develop healthily, it is vital that users are not discouraged from moving to a different telecoms operator.
At the beginning of January we saw the effect this has. National regulatory authorities must therefore ensure that interconnection pricing for carrier pre-selection is based on cost and that any direct charges to consumers do not discourage use of the facility.
Accordingly, your rapporteur has tabled an amendment which was accepted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I am using the definition of cost-based as used in the Interconnection Directive, and this means the dominant market position of the parties must be taken into account.
This obviously does not apply to entrants into the market, the new, smaller companies.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission to monitor the introduction of number portability and carrier pre-selection stringently.
I would welcome an annual report from the Commission to the European Parliament.
I pay tribute to the Commissioner in that once again the Commission tackled five Member States yesterday, because these Member States are not implementing, or not implementing properly, the licensing system nor the Interconnection Directive.
Mr President, I would also like to say something about the European emergency number 112, and this means venting some frustration.
I already asked the Commission some questions about this a few months ago, and I was given a reply which left me none the wiser.
We later asked some more questions, and hitherto have not received a reply.
The 112 emergency number in the European Union was to become operational not later than 31 December 1996, pursuant to the Council Decision of 6 August 1991. But over the past few months, Mr President, it has turned out that, in practice, the emergency number has been leaving much to be desired.
Many foreigners, for example, experience difficulties with 112 in a number of Member States, as the staff manning the emergency switchboard do not speak enough languages.
How can I as a Dutchman make myself understood in Greece when I dial an emergency number? In addition, in some Member States the new number has been introduced alongside the old number.
I would point out to you that in Belgium, for example, the police are still driving around and displaying the old emergency number.
Belgacom issues lists which do not mention the 112 number.
My response is, Mr President, that the parallel existence of two emergency numbers, a national and a European number, is not in keeping with the intention to have a single European emergency number. I also think this means that the symbolic function will be lost on our citizens.
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner which countries have not yet introduced the 112 emergency number? If the Commissioner does not have this factual information, would he see to it that an urgent inquiry is launched.
My second question is, which steps, what action will the Commission take to ensure that the Member States meet their obligations resulting from this decision? What are his views on the idea that emergency switchboard staff in Member States should speak at least three of the most commonly-spoken languages, in order to able to respond adequately when addressed by a hapless tourist in this respect?
In conclusion it remains for me to say that my group would be glad to agree with the common position supplemented by the amendments.
Mr President, Mr van Velzen must be tired of hearing my congratulations.
We spend our time congratulating each other late at night, with only the Commissioner to hear us.
But nevertheless, it is the conclusion of another piece of the jigsaw in the telecommunications internal market. I congratulate him on it.
I have little to add to his own remarks except to say that I very much support his comments about the need to recognize the merging of the mobile and fixed point telecommunications markets. It is happening so fast that from the consumers' point of view, they really do not care too much whether they make their telephone call from a fixed point or a mobile, as long as they get through efficiently and cheaply and can make their calls.
It seems to me entirely reasonable to be calling for number portability in the field of mobiles as quickly as possible.
I very much hope that the Commission will be able to make some comment about that.
We have the famous review coming in 1999 but we really cannot bundle everything into the review.
We must make sure that where the market is merged we have regulations and a legislative framework to recognise that.
My second point is about something in the explanatory statement which the rapporteur has referred to, and that is the use of the 112 number.
I should like to add an extra question to those of the rapporteur to Mr Bangemann.
Is there any evidence that in certain countries, consumers using a mobile phone to make an emergency call, whether on the 112 number or any other, have to pay for that call? If you do not have that information I would be very grateful if you could let me have it in writing.
There needs to be a great deal more caution than perhaps the rapporteur's explanatory statement would suggest in introducing a change from national emergency numbers to the 112 number.
The picture that the rapporteur paints is very worrying.
But I perhaps would come to a different conclusion: that far from accelerating the process we need to take a great deal more time and trouble on a programme of public education to make sure that before we make a final and irrevocable move, consumers and citizens - particularly the elderly and those who are not so used to using the telephone - are absolutely sure what the emergency numbers are and what the procedures are for using those emergency numbers, both for fixed point telephones and mobile telephones.
So I am urging caution and would appreciate an answer to that particular question.
Otherwise we support Mr van Velzen's report and commend it to you.
Mr President, what Mrs Read said is correct.
We do not need to congratulate ourselves once again; we worked very well together.
The rapporteur's proposal for this is also acceptable to us.
I will merely go into the issues.
As Mr van Velzen already said himself, if the amendment tabled by him is adopted it will lead to a situation where the Member States cannot fix the costs of carrier pre-selection for those market participants who hitherto have not had any great market power.
But he said that himself so we do not need to argue about it any further.
We will then formulate it accordingly.
As far as the 112 number is concerned, the only country which has not yet implemented it is Greece.
We will therefore continue our proceedings against Greece.
However, we cannot continue our proceedings against the other Member States who did not originally do so as it is de facto no longer valid.
However, we do want to take Mrs Read's comments very seriously.
We must discuss with the regulation authorities and in a different way the Member States who are introducing this new 112 number the issue of advertising the number and publicizing it, as otherwise quite an odd situation arises, one in which there is a new number which is not known.
The old number, which is known, can no longer be used.
The two must go hand in hand but it can definitely be done.
The requirement that emergency operators should be in a position to work in at least three Community languages - well, in principle, as the satirical Radio Eriwan would reply - will be very difficult to implement in practice: if even the control towers at airports are not in a position to speak English and that is the only language that should be spoken there, then I have my doubts as to whether it would work immediately with three languages at these telephone exchanges.
However, we can examine this; we can advertise it and see how far we get, as these numbers are used by people who are visiting or who just cannot speak the language of the particular country.
I believe those were the questions I was to discuss.
I hope that the final decision will soon follow.
Thank you, Commissioner Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place at noon tomorrow.
Labelling of certain foodstuffs produced from genetically modified organisms
The next item on the agenda is the report (A4-0181/98) by Mr K. Collins, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on a draft Council regulation relating to the compulsory inclusion in the labelling of certain foodstuffs produced from genetically modified organisms of further information in addition to that specified in Directive 79/112/EEC (COM(98)0099 - C4-0227/98-98/0811(CNS)).
Mr President, it is a pity that the rapporteur is not there but I would like to discuss the position of the PPE group regarding the Collins report.
On Friday of this week we celebrate a memorable anniversary.
The novel food regulation will have been in force for one year without the citizens of Europe experiencing any effects of this in practice.
This is certainly due to the fact that we still do not have any legally binding rules of implementation and to the fact that the products which have already come onto the market in great style - genetically modified maize and genetically modified soya - were removed from the novel food regulation or the Commission's interpretation did not hold these to be novel foods.
At the time I was annoyed about this but I find it positive that it is now being proposed to label these foods too.
Mr Bangemann, you have been much criticized in recent years in connection with this dossier.
Here we have the opportunity to praise you for presenting this proposal and I believe that the proposal is, on the whole, not as bad as it is sometimes made out.
There are some points on which we could argue.
On the whole, the PPE group is in favour of the proposals of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection but opinions can vary.
We are of the opinion that a de minimis threshold should be set but that it should not be 5 %, as suggested by some, as this would mean that in principle we could not assume that there are any genetically modified foods.
Everyone would be able to interpret it as they wished.
Instead, much lower thresholds must be set and the Scientific Committee for Food must make suggestions here.
A list of products which must not be labelled could be useful but I believe that none of the parties should become too involved in this argument as a compromise must be possible.
I personally am of the opinion that the Commission's proposed "' may' provision' is not so stupid; according to this proposal, if it is not known whether something contains genetically modified products this should be allowed to be labelled "may contain' .
My main request to the Commission, but also indirectly to the Council of Ministers, is: please reach an agreement at last!
Everyone must be willing to compromise. Those who hold extreme positions should make concessions.
It simply cannot be possible that despite a regulation people must wait for rules of implementation.
We need a clear decision so that industry and consumers know where they stand, and for this it is essential that everyone is willing to comprise.
Thank you, Mr Lannoye.
The Chair will interpret the rules in a very indulgent way and agree that, as an emergency measure, our colleague, Mr Bowe, shall deputize for our rapporteur, Mr Collins.
But this is strictly on the basis of a highly indulgent interpretation, and I would like to make the point that the Chair should be given plenty of notice of requests for deputies to speak in such circumstances. They should not be left until it is almost time to take a decision.
Mr President, this proposal is extremely important in that it brings to what has in the last year been an extremely unclear and confused situation a degree of clarity which is long overdue.
The issue of labelling genetically modified food is a crucial one in order to maintain public confidence and trust in the development of the biotechnological industry and in placing on the market biotechnological products.
The problem we have had is that with reference to particular products derived from GM soya and maize appeared on the market before the novel foods directive came into place.
Consequently, there has been a legal vacuum and no really effective labelling procedure for them.
The original Commission proposal, which is still under discussion in the Council, tries to address some of the problems relating to the labelling of genetically modified products.
However, I have to say that if you examine the Commission proposal, it is rather like the curate's egg - good in parts.
In particular, I would take issue with the Commission proposal where it suggests that there should be a label 'may contain' .
It would seem to me that the 'may contain' label is one designed to create confusion, distrust and lack of confidence among the public, rather than trust.
Consequently, Parliament has come forward with a proposal which will clarify the situation, ensure that products which contain an element of genetically modified produce that is identifiable by reasonable tests, at a reasonable price and of reasonable accuracy, are adequately labelled.
This will engender some trust on the marketplace and hopefully a degree of sympathy and understanding within the population, which will encourage the continued production of genetically modified products and the biotechnology industry in general.
One should not underestimate the importance of public trust and confidence in establishing a clear framework in which the biotechnology industry can develop.
Legal frameworks are fine and are extremely important and legal stability and clarity are fine.
But, in addition, you need public confidence if these products are to be marketed properly.
The proposal you have in front of you provides rules and regulations which are clear, understandable, based on sound science and provide the public with the information it requires to make an informed choice.
It is quite clear that if we take these present rules and regulations and apply them to products in the marketplace, a substantial number of products in the ordinary supermarket will be labelled.
I do not think we should have any fear or concern about that.
We should be pleased that the public is given information, on the basis of which they can make a choice.
Having been given that information and having a quiet confidence and trust in the product, I feel quite confident that in the case of some of the early products that have been placed on the marketplace - I refer, for example, to the genetically modified tomato paste which is now outselling ordinary tomato paste in the United Kingdom by 2 cans to 1 - you will see a slowly developed preference for genetically modified products amongst the population when they realize they are harmless, of good quality, dependable, reliable and that in no way reflect the will of a large biotechnological company seeking to make profit or a dangerous product which may threaten their health.
I think that the public, once it has had the labelled product before them and seen the benefits that derive from the use of genetically modified products in the marketplace, will think that our work tonight - of this happy few who are here tonight, almost this band of brothers - will be a stepping stone towards a much more logical, sane and sensible arrangement of the European marketplace.
It is one in which biotechnological products are accepted as normal, sensible, healthy and acceptable, against the current view which treats them with suspicion, distrust and almost as the product of some strange unacceptable science.
I hope the Commission hears what we say and is prepared to modify its proposal because we know what the public thinks.
I am telling you now, if you want to sell these products they need this labelling.
Mr President, I have a query for the Commissioner.
There must be an error or an inaccuracy in the draft regulation as it mentions products which had been on the market and labelled before the regulation came into force.
The English word is "products' but I assume it should in fact refer to previously existing stocks or supplies.
It means that which is already in stock.
But if the term used is "products' this is ambiguous.
In my opinion no misunderstanding is possible here as the relative clause states clearly: "which were on the market before entry into force' .
This means that it is either a stock or a product but it must have been on the market before entry into force.
This is completely clear!
Whether it was a stock or a product that is perhaps only in the production process is therefore irrelevant, it depends on the timing.
Mr President, I have one short question for the Commissioner.
If the Commission wants people to accept these products, why does it not give people what they want, which is simplicity and clarity. Get rid of 'may contain' .
Why do you want 'may contain' ? Just give people simplicity and clarity.
Let them choose.
Have some confidence in the people.
The debate is closed.
Voting will take place at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
(The House rose at 11.38 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
Mr President, please permit me, despite the fact that today is Thursday - a play on words which perhaps only Scandinavians will understand - to ask for a correction to the Minutes. The fact is, my name was missing yesterday, even though I was demonstrably present at the vote.
I would therefore request a correction.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I should like to raise with you and Parliament an observation I made on Tuesday's Minutes, concerning your decision to ask for the removal of the banners and the symbols that were in this House.
I noted in the Minutes that you were not accorded what other Members were - applause and comment.
I thought that the Minutes were quite unfair because I saw in you, when you were in the Chair, a very authoritative President.
I think the Minutes should have recorded it accordingly.
(Applause )
Mr Killilea, your observation is of course a courtesy for which I must thank you, but I do not think the Minutes are the proper place to portray reactions to comments or the way in which the sittings are conducted or not conducted.
Improvements in the functioning of the Institutions
The next item is the report (A4-0117/98) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on improvements in the functioning of the Institutions without modification of the Treaties - making EU policies more open and democratic.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, experience has shown that, for the most part, institutional improvements yielded by successive amendments to the Treaties have not so much been the result of negotiations at the Intergovernmental Conference as the sanctioning of established practices, either by means of institutional agreements or following Court of Justice decisions - for example, in the isoglucose ruling - or by extensive use of existing procedures so as to widen existing breaches, as was the case in the budgetary procedure.
It has also been noted that Parliament has acquired new powers as a result more of a gradual evolutionary process than of intermittent major advances.
We have made the transition in various areas from the information stage to consultation, from consultation to cooperation, from cooperation to codecision, from codecision to simplified codecision and sometimes even directly to the assent procedure.
The proposals set out draw heavily on this approach, which is more modest and less spectacular but would appear to be more effective in the long term.
Your rapporteur's proposals are moreover among those pursued with continuity and perseverance by the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
In saying that, I am thinking mainly of the Aglietta report on commitology, the Anastassopoulos report on a uniform electoral procedure, the Theato report on the improvement of budgetary control and the Randzio-Plath report on democratic scrutiny of the ECB, as well as of proposals by Parliament which have the same aim, that of improving the functioning of the Institutions without amending the Treaty.
Owing to the demands of the timetable for introducing monetary union and the need to examine the other problems in greater depth, I have split this report into two parts.
For the moment we will discuss only the first part, for reasons of urgency, as we must take advantage of the occasion of monetary union to do what the Treaty of Amsterdam was not able to do.
It was in effect decided when drawing up the Treaty of Amsterdam that the provisions relating to monetary union should not be touched in any way.
The general feeling was that opening this Pandora's box would create a series of difficulties.
It is true that at the time the Treaty of Amsterdam was being prepared the problems of the unemployment crisis had priority and it was very dangerous to approach monetary problems, which were very much disputed in certain countries.
That is why this area was left aside, while recognizing that the broad aim of the Treaty of Amsterdam was to improve democratic control and transparency. But Parliament did not interfere with the area involving monetary union.
It was however admitted that in areas where greater coordination of economic policy was necessary, for example in the whole problematic area of unemployment, it was necessary to include Parliament in the consultation procedure, but this did not happen in the monetary area.
That is what needs to be put right with great urgency, which is what we are doing with this report.
We propose to sanction current practices with the Commission but not yet with the Council.
The Commission in effect took the initiative in consulting us.
It consulted us effectively, it continues to do so and it even did so yesterday.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy we were consulted on recommendations relating to broad economic policy guidelines, or GOPES in our French jargon.
So we are consulted on these guidelines, but this consultation is informal.
What we ask is that the Council and the Commission, with Parliament, create a procedure by interinstitutional agreement which would formalize today's practices.
That is the main part, which falls within the scope of today's report.
It will be followed by other proposals in a second part, and I would ask you to excuse the fact that the report is not complete.
It had to be dealt with quickly because it was so urgent.
I would like to say immediately to my colleague, Mrs Randzio-Plath, that the report's references to the democratic scrutiny of the Central Bank did not, at the time the report was written, mention her report.
It is not that I wish to take any less farreaching measures than she does, and I will ask straight away that a reference to her report be introduced in the amendments, to show that we are on the same wavelength.
Mr President, the recent decision to proceed to the third stage of economic and monetary union and the stability pact, with the creation of the euro, represents a qualitative advance in the creation of a supra-national political power, but one which needs consistent institutionalization and democratic legitimacy.
After power has been transferred from the Member States to the European Union, these things can only be found in the European Parliament, because the control exercised by national parliaments is quite clearly insufficient and lacking in authority.
Furthermore all observers, whether in favour or critical of the European Union, have pointed out that monetary union is dangerous without effective coordination of economic policies within the Union, and without a budget capable of creating economic and social cohesion and a European taxation system. At the very least it would prevent us from realizing all the benefits of the single currency.
Also, everyone is concerned to find a way of ensuring that the institutions of economic and monetary union are responsible and accountable, without prejudice to the technical independence of the European Central Bank.
The Herman report provides an excellent reply to all these anxieties. The substance of the report is that if our expectations regarding the institutional reform of the Treaty of Amsterdam are frustrated, then we shall have to have recourse to the implementation of the Treaties - all the Treaties - making the fullest use of the opportunities they already offer, to give greater effectiveness to the European Union's actions and to democratic control by a Parliament elected by direct universal suffrage.
And it will be so, if the political will exists to achieve it, both on the part of the European Parliament - whose work will have to be improved and whose responsibilities have already increased - and on the part of the national governments and political forces, which cannot be allowed to maintain the narrow nationalism which casts a shadow on the Council, the founders of the euro.
One of the methods that should be used is that of the interinstitutional agreements which have long been proposed in order to ensure that the European Parliament can exercise effective control and intervene effectively in the mechanisms already provided by the Treaty. If the political will is there, these will lay the foundations of a genuine 'economic government' .
In order to counterbalance economic aspects with social considerations, there will have to be an increase in the mechanisms which the Treaty and agreements have already succeeded simultaneously in introducing in the field of employment.
There are a number of other important areas that still remain outside the democratic control of the European Parliament.
We must implement the proposals in the Herman report, which represent our determination to overcome the serious lack of democratic control in many areas of economic and social policy at European level.
That lack of control is all the more serious inasmuch as the institutional life of the European Union is experiencing an increasing tendency, similar to the one we are familiar with at national level, to drain real power away from Parliament to the executives or mere de facto economic influences - lobbies, professional associations, international financial capital, and so on - as regards our economic and social programme, the democratic monitoring and control of decisions and the periodic evaluation of their effects.
The Herman report seeks to strike a blow to make Parliament really influential, and I want to support and applaud that course of action. I want to make it clear that it is also our responsibility to promote participation by the people, by our social partners and by the European Union's decision makers and all who are associated with them in that process.
Mr President, 2 May was a historic day.
Were it not for the fact that the term 'historic' has been overused on many occasions, no doubt we would be able to use it in this instance too.
I think the only other comparable day was that day many years ago now when the EEC Treaty was signed in Rome.
Many years from now, we will realize what a giant step was taken in the construction of Europe with the launch of the euro.
The truth is that on the evening of 2 May, the least that can be said of the heads of state and government is that they were not on their best behaviour, but I do not think the anecdote should be given too much importance.
Also, I think the European Parliament has provided proof of its enormous responsibility when it comes to contributing to the launch of the euro. So I think it is now time to get down to work.
And that is what Fernand Herman's report does: it gets to work.
For a long, long time, ladies and gentlemen - almost since the time of Mr Anastassopoulos' ancestors - all ideas on political science and political sociology have been leading in the same direction: so as to arrange things in such a way that power limits power, as Montesquieu said, so there is no autonomous, completely independent power which is not answerable to anybody.
The system we have created - and that the Maastricht Treaty created in establishing a European Central Bank - is a system which is answerable to nobody. Precisely in order to guarantee its freedom and independence, no counterbalancing power was included in the Treaty.
What Mr Herman's report tries to do is to ensure that, whilst safeguarding the European Central Bank's autonomy, we representatives of the European peoples are informed of what is happening and can pass on our impressions to the directors of that bank.
That is very important because, in the resolution we passed in this Parliament on 20 November 1997, we laid the foundations of the European Union as a union of states and a union of peoples.
So it is important for this Parliament to be kept informed, to be consulted and to state its opinion, in order to guarantee democratic responsibility.
That is what Mr Herman is trying to do in his report, and especially in the draft interinstitutional agreement.
So my group is going to support it, because we are convinced that it will help the European Central Bank, the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council to collaborate efficiently.
We are going to support it.
And we are also going to support some of the amendments, which improve the text.
Mr President, as I said at the beginning of my speech, it is a good text with which to begin our work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I sincerely applaud the principles of openness and democracy in the operation of democratic institutions wherever they are upheld.
Yet whenever these matters are mentioned, we also talk about two essential sides to the question: the Community decision making process and the informing of Community institutions, particularly the European Parliament, as regards open questions.
On the first aspect, I would not wish to understate the fact that I consider the events of 2 May to have been historic.
I myself voted for the European Parliament's recommendation on the creation of the euro.
But on this point, we are discussing matters concerned with the decision making process, and I am referring to questions of unanimity versus majority votes.
One of the things public opinion, and even some politicians, found most shocking, was the delay in taking the decision.
As we say in my country: "Alas for the King, it took eleven hours!'
And it did!
It might have taken longer - or indeed, not so long!
The important thing, from my point of view, is that the countries harmonized their opinions and reached a final decision.
There are areas, ladies and gentlemen, where I think this rule should be kept when taking decisions.
With regard to democratic participation in Community institutions, I applaud Mr Herman's report and consider it an important step towards raising the awareness not only of MEPs, but also of the national parliaments, as I would like to take this opportunity to underline.
I really do think the national parliaments should play an important part in checking and monitoring decisions, and in providing the information considered appropriate to enable everyone to participate properly in decisions that affect us all.
I am one of those people who believe that Europe will be richer, better and more acceptable to all its citizens if all those people, without exception, who have political responsibilities and have been elected by their peoples are able to participate in and be informed about decisions which, I repeat, affect everyone.
So to conclude, I think the report is an excellent step, an excellent resource, and an excellent way of starting out on the road to democratizing Community institutions.
Mr President, that part of Mr Alban's text which is devoted to economic and monetary union, and on which I congratulate him, takes on a new dimension following the designation of the 11 countries which will take part in economic and monetary union, and the European Parliament's approval of the composition of the executive board of the European Central Bank.
Personally, and I wish to say this before Parliament, I regret that such importance was given to the events surrounding the appointment of Mr Duisenberg.
The media and certain MEPs failed to distinguish correctly between the essential issue - the launching of a key phase of European construction - and issues of secondary importance, that is, the Council's inadequate preparation for solving a problem which had been on the table for more than a year.
But let us get back to the essential issues.
The European Parliament, for the first time in its history, becomes the sole interlocutor of an institution as powerful as the European Central Bank. That represents a huge step forward in terms of Parliament's legitimacy.
It has exclusive contact compared with the Council, the Commission and the national parliaments.
It now remains for Parliament to prove its ability to deal with this new responsibility, as regards its contacts with the ECB, for example the responsibility of becoming a link to the citizens and the opinions which are expressed. That will be the subject of Mr Herman's future report.
It was Mr Schioppa himself who said in his excellent speech that the European Central Bank will need to explain its actions, not only to the market operators but also to the Community institutions, to public opinion and to the media.
The European Parliament, by means of its competent committees, will have to organize these relations.
Finally, how could we fail to be pleased by the conviction shown by several of the directors when they firmly stated that the need for economic and monetary union will be dependent upon the institutional progress of the European Union towards stronger and better integrated institutions, which would compel us all to clarify the objectives of the Union.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Herman.
His proposals are very useful.
He notes the need to reinforce the control of the European Parliament in areas such as economic and monetary union, and in particular the coordination of economic policies, but also competition policies, external commercial policies and even a revival of the issue of social policy.
So it is a very useful report, and one which is very relevant to events we are currently witnessing.
I must also say that the importance of coordinating economic policies was eclipsed by all the problems of control, strictly speaking, of the European Central Bank. It is surprising that we made so much of the opinion on the appointment of the executive board, which is not a core issue, while we are not currently discussing the content of the choices to be made in terms of coordination.
Perhaps favourable economic conditions are masking the importance of this issue.
There will only be democratic supervision of the European Central Bank if, simultaneously, a capacity for cooperation of national economic policies is demonstrated within a balanced concept of the institutions and the running of the institutions.
This requires a power capable of maintaining dialogue with the European Central Bank.
From this point of view, I understand the demand made of the European Central Bank in the report, that it clearly states its objectives, including those objectives which do not come strictly within its responsibilities, such as growth - and here I will add employment -, so that the dialogue between Parliament and that institution is fertile and so that it can be judged in full knowledge of the facts.
Having said that, allow me to underline two limitations to your approach.
Firstly it assumes that the European Parliament is capable of playing a political role in the substance of political and economic options.
Secondly, you are examining its relations with civil society and the social players, and you are confining yourself to a procedure within the institutions.
I regret that the proposal which you voted for here following my 1996 report was not applied, although there was an ample vote in favour.
It proposed that the European Parliament should deliberate economic policy options even before a Commission recommendation or Council decision.
And I proposed that our Parliament should have an annual meeting with representatives of civil society.
Your text proposes an internal resolution, following a recommendation by the Commission.
Why does the European Parliament not wish to take its political role more seriously? This is a test.
I will end by saying that in order to reflect on the consistency between the social objectives of the Union and the choices of financial and monetary policies, we absolutely must become much more involved in dialogue with the social players, the representatives of civil society.
That is the extent of your report, which is nevertheless excellent.
Mr President, as a colleague of mine on the Committee on Institutional Affairs, the rapporteur knows that I am not one of those people who simply follow established ritual by thanking and complimenting each and every rapporteur.
I therefore thank Mr Herman not because it is traditional to do so, but out of great personal respect for his influential voice in the debate on the democratization of the EU.
I consider this report to be very important indeed.
The report's achievement lies in producing a frank and somewhat singular diagnosis of the democratic deficit in the EU and, by way of a clear and definite strategy, in producing a host of proposals, which I fully endorse.
However, I would like to say something about the rapporteur's basic strategy.
The second part of the report is sadly missing from the diagnosis.
The original reason given for this was that the report had to be submitted by 2 May.
We are now well past that date, so perhaps that decision was not quite the right one. However, as has been said, we shall have to deal with the second part later.
The essential part of this diagnosis, in my view, lies in the fact that the rapporteur very clearly shows that parliamentary control is being withdrawn from the national parliaments in an increasing number of political spheres without this control being transferred to the European Parliament.
I consider this to be a quite decisive statement, because it is something which has not yet been properly grasped by the public at large.
It means quite simply that the EU's chain of legitimacy has long since been broken.
It means that the public no longer has an insight into the institutional system. It means that our citizens' right to parliamentary control - and hence to public control - of the executive has been undermined.
This leads me in turn to criticize that practice, that pragmatic strategy, which the rapporteur is proposing in order to extend parliamentary rights and tackle the problem of democratic deficit.
The previous strategy of muddling through, of continuous negotiation, of reinterpretation, of stretching things to the limit, certainly brought the EU success over the years, but I think the rapporteur overlooks the fact that this strategy has not been able to prevent the ever widening gulf between centralization in Europe and democratization in the EU, or the increasingly frequent breakages in the chain of legitimacy, or the emergence of major legal uncertainties in the structure of EU institutions, or the institutional system's growing lack of transparency in the eyes of the general public, or the fact that such a strategy has failed to create a republican system of government, or that...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Herman. On behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, he highlights a number of points, doubtless some of the most important, which leave the European Parliament dissatisfied following the Treaty of Amsterdam, and which above all propose a way to try to overcome this shortcoming.
Without by any means withholding my support, I ask the question: what can be done? We asked a lot of things of Amsterdam and hoped it would provide more adequate answers for Europe.
Those answers were not forthcoming, but I think they are essential; otherwise a Europe of twenty or twenty-five will not be possible.
Having said that, there are two questions I would like to ask in this debate. I address them to Mr Herman, who knows my position well.
Firstly, can we continuously list after the event, so to speak, the litany of the causes of our dissatisfaction, which should have provoked a more vigorous reaction on our part when it was adopted, when we gave our political agreement to the Treaty of Amsterdam? Secondly, are the interinstitutional agreements the appropriate formula simply because there is no other solution?
We saw this in the case of the Central Bank... However, were we not committed to an interinstitutional agreement?
Of course but, by way of reply, we do not have one!
So is this formula the right one because the other side does not wish to agree with us?
Those are the two questions I wanted to ask, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur.
Mr President, the Herman report regrets the fact that in European politics there are areas where national parliaments are deprived of democratic control, without this being replaced by European Parliamentary control. To solve the problem without amending the Treaty, he proposes that agreements be concluded between the European institutions in various sectors, thus allowing the powers of the European Parliament to be extended.
This type of process calls for various comments on our part.
Firstly, a situation where there is no democratic control is of course reprehensible, but if we complain about it - justifiably - we should not then also approve its extension.
But this is what is going to happen with the draft Treaty of Amsterdam, which the majority of this Parliament approves, but which will reduce democracy in Europe and deprive the national parliaments of their powers without offering any equivalent democratic control.
For example, may I remind you that the new Title IV of the EC Treaty provided by Amsterdam will remove from the national parliaments all decision making powers in the field of immigration, without providing any replacement control for at least five years, and then only the inadequate control of the European Parliament.
Such deficiencies cannot be remedied by simple interinstitutional agreements which have the distinction of being prepared in obscurity, leaving out the national parliaments, and not being ratified by the people.
The method and the objectives have to be changed.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations believes that to overcome the democratic deficit in Europe we need a new treaty - note the use of the word 'treaty' rather than 'interinstitutional agreements' - to restore the national parliaments' role within the European decision making process.
In this respect, I regret that Members have once again shown ostracism, a few days ago, by excluding on principle the national parliaments from control of the euro.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Amsterdam Treaty constitutes a significant step on the road to the democratization of the European Union, and our journey down this road must continue.
The Intergovernmental Conference has agreed that the common institutions should use every means to improve their functioning without any change in the Treaties.
There is room for manoeuvre and the Herman report suggests various themes which we think are of prime importance.
Firstly, economic and monetary union.
The future president of the ECB has ensured us that he is willing to hold regular quarterly meetings to exchange ideas.
We emphatically welcome this readiness for dialogue, but it is something which should not just depend on the goodwill of whoever is in charge at the ECB.
That is why we want an interinstitutional agreement - one which also incorporates Parliament's participation in the procedures for coordinating EU economic policy.
Secondly, Parliament continues to play a weak role, both in the area of foreign trade and payments policy, and in competition policy.
The current information procedures are in need of improvement.
The details of this should also be decided by interinstitutional agreements.
Thirdly, employment and social policy.
The fight against unemployment and the development of the European social model are priority issues, the importance of which is also confirmed by the Amsterdam Treaty.
The latter makes Parliament an equal legislator in many areas of social policy.
But there is a yawning gap in the democratic process where agreements between the social partners at European level are to be implemented by Council decisions.
The fact that there are no plans to involve Parliament is in stark contradiction to the principle that legislative actions always require Parliamentary legitimation.
Such a process must now be established, at least on an informal basis, and this is something which also requires an interinstitutional agreement.
After all, as we know, it is still true to say that more democratization in Europe logically means more reforms.
Mr President, the decision making process over the euro has demonstrated again that the degree of democracy in the European Union is still in need of urgent improvement.
Admittedly, we have made important progress with the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I estimate that some 80 % of legislation and the budget will soon be controlled by the European Parliament, but that does not alter the fact that a number of important areas are not included, as my colleague Mr Herman has indicated in his report.
Agricultural policy, fisheries policy, common trade policy, competition policy and development cooperation policy - none of these types of areas are yet controlled in this democratic way.
We are not likely to be able to do anything about this before the next round of Treaty changes.
Mr Herman has made an excellent proposal to try and improve this control in the meantime by concluding interinstitutional agreements.
I find this an excellent proposal, and I think we should do it - not just in relation to the area discussed in the report, but also in other areas.
At the same time we must ensure the Treaties are changed, and give our support to this, before a number of new Member States join.
Mr President, perhaps we should also get ready to show our teeth, because I for one am of the opinion that we should now start to withdraw our cooperation from measures which are not subject to democratic control, exercised by either national parliaments or by our own Parliament.
We could do this at the consultation stage.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that cooperation between national parliaments and the European Parliament ought to be improved.
Many parliaments have so-called joint committees.
These do not yet exist in the Netherlands, but I hope that the newly-elected Lower House in the Netherlands will soon introduce such a joint committee, so that the twilight zone of institutional cooperation can be better controlled, by the national parliaments as well as by the European Parliament.
I should like to support Mr Herman's proposal wholeheartedly. His report deserves wide support today, from the entire Parliament.
Mr President, congratulations! You are making great strides in Dutch.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament likes to complain, and does so frequently, about the slowness of the European decision making process. We also tread new paths, as is our duty.
We like to signpost new routes for the future.
Despite this, European reality sometimes progresses more quickly than expected.
The promises about a continuous dialogue between the executive board of the European Central Bank and this Parliament strike me as a good and happy example of this.
My group and I will in future unfailingly continue to contribute to an increase in openness, transparency and accountability in all the Union's institutions, as we have always done.
Some of these institutions are beginning to understand that the people of Europe will only continue to accept the Union if 'accountability' , as it is called in English, is implicit.
The Commission understands this, and the executive board of the European Central Bank seem to understand this too.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to conclude by sharing with you my opinion that it is the Council, as an extension of the governments of the Member States, who have the greatest difficulty in understanding their duty with respect to safeguarding democracy in the entire Union.
Together with the rapporteur and our colleagues in this Parliament, we will see to it that their understanding continues to improve.
Mr President, the Herman report is commendable, indicating as it does the democratic deficit that exists within the Union.
The report shows very clearly something which, in effect, we already knew: that is, how much is wanting as far as democratic control, democratic legitimacy, openness and transparency are concerned.
This is a very serious democratic problem, not least in respect of EMU, the euro and economic policy.
To employ temporary arrangements to rectify or compensate for these democratic shortcomings retrospectively is perhaps akin to crying in the wilderness.
Nevertheless, I must support the interinstitutional agreement proposed in the report, since it at least helps to do something about the democratic deficit.
I shall also be voting for the amendment by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, which states that such an agreement requires consultation with the Member States and also greater influence for, and consultation with, the national parliaments.
But the real deficit is surely the lack of support among the citizens for such issues as EMU, and the lack of dialogue.
Mr President, I would like to pay tribute to the rapporteur who is pursuing a line this Parliament has always pursued, namely taking the Treaties as they stand, recognizing their insufficiencies but trying to interpret them in the most creative way possible, trying to take the Treaties and, as it were, stretch them like a piece of elastic to try to get as much out of them as is reasonably possible.
Mr Herman is a veteran of the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
He knows very well what is possible and what is not possible in this regard.
He has come up with another admirable piece of work today.
Our colleague from the Europe of Nations Group, however, claims that this is undemocratic, that it is changing the constitution by means of backdoor deals in closed rooms between the institutions.
I must beg to differ with that view.
After all, what is done can only be done in the context of the Treaties.
It cannot change the Treaties.
So the Treaties as ratified by all our national parliaments will not be changed by the back door.
But there is always room for interpreting Treaties and for going for one interpretation rather than another.
It is quite legitimate for us to do this.
It is something Parliament has done in the past with great skill and we are doing it again.
Far from being undemocratic, any interinstitutional agreement is between the elected governments who meet in the Council on the one hand and the directly elected Parliament on the other.
It is an agreement reached in public whose text is voted in a public vote in the elected Parliament.
It is not undemocratic.
I very much regret that the EN Group - which I believe officially stands for the Europe of Nations Group but should really stand for Eurosceptic Nutcases - takes this particular view.
I am sure that the overwhelming majority in the European Parliament will back the resolution that has been put before us.
Mr President, the Herman report is very much to the point and has the relevance we have come to expect from our intelligent and tireless colleague.
Firstly, because the democratization of European economic policy is more necessary than ever since the arrival of the third stage of monetary union.
Also, because Amsterdam alone has not resolved the problem, since economic and monetary matters were excluded from the negotiations.
We do know, however, that it is becoming more and more difficult to get anything out of intergovernmental conferences, however hard you squeeze them.
An interinstitutional agreement to involve the European Parliament in the decision making legitimization chain is appropriate with the advent of an economic policy that will of necessity be more and more a joint one, in the wake of the single currency.
An independent single currency is the very symbol of an emancipated European civil society, of which the currency is more truly the expression than any political power.
That is another reason why the only body that represents that civil society - the European Parliament - should be brought into the front line of political participation.
So an interinstitutional agreement may be the right way to plug the gaps in the Treaties.
What is more, in some of the cases I have described, the European Parliament has already acted informally.
And the Council also accepted the institutionalization of participation by the European Parliament only last week, particularly as regards Agenda 2000.
Everyone, therefore, is aware that our most important future task should be democratization above all.
I would like to thank Mr Herman for his work.
Mr President, I would like to concentrate on the lack of democratic control pursuant to the Euratom Treaty.
This is not an abstract issue but a very specific one.
Nuclear matters are an important part of European activities, and the powers of the Commission under the Treaty, especially in the context of international agreements, are quite extensive.
The present issue of non-proliferation in India is a case in point.
Paradoxically, the role of the European Parliament is minimal, or rather, non-existent in this area.
This is no longer acceptable in 1998-40 years after the signature of the Euratom Treaty.
I am therefore very pleased that Mr Herman has taken this point on board in paragraphs 15 and 16.
We are now faced with the specific matter of KEDO, the Korean Energy Development Organization, which raises geopolitical issues and issues of nuclear non-proliferation, safety and energy, but the European Parliament is playing a very marginal role.
I am very pleased to see Commissioner Oreja here and I call on him to take the initiative to agree to institute a formal consultation procedure on the important matter of KEDO.
I hope also for the support of this House for Amendment No 3, which asks the Commission for information on the financial consequences of this important issue before signing the agreement.
I think I have covered this in just under one and a half minutes.
Mr President, the procedure with interinstitutional agreements is, in my opinion, extremely questionable from a democratic point of view.
In the first place, it is not possible in any democratic country to amend constitutional laws in this manner.
Such amendments must be effected in a manner that is open and subject to the control of the citizens.
Secondly, the European Parliament cannot replace the authority of the national parliaments.
The national parliaments are, of course, founded on what we call the principle of national sovereignty - that is, they are the leading legislative institution within the state.
The European Parliament, on the other hand, is of course bound and trapped in a complex structure where the citizens truly lack influence and which is not ruled by the openness that prevails in national systems.
Moreover, the national parliaments have historically been carried forward by parties and movements struggling for democratic and civil rights.
The European Parliament, on the other hand, has been created "from above' , and its tragedy is that it really lacks a civil foundation.
Thirdly, a genuine democratization of the Union would actually require a radical reform of its entire structure.
The power of the Commission should decrease, since public officials are not supposed to have political power or to be as important as elected politicians.
The power of the national parliaments should increase. The Council's power should also increase, since it, of course, consists of government representatives who have parliamentary accountability in their home countries.
Finally, the overall organization of the Union should be substantially reduced in size.
It is both wrong and unproductive that we sit here in the EU's institutions, including Parliament, and decide upon enormous amounts of details and regulations.
Instead, we should be focusing all our energies on the major pan-European problems and questions.
Mr President, I too welcome Mr Herman's report, particularly some parts of it that have hardly been touched on by previous speakers: the need to control power at European level where it has been lost by national parliaments, the need for greater parliamentary control over agricultural and trade policy and, in particular, its recognition that the European Parliament itself must be made more open and more effective.
We often criticize the democratic deficit and shortcomings in other institutions, but are less critical of our own.
Inevitably, however, our minds are on economic and monetary union, and I even welcome Mr Herman's comments on the democratic accountability of the ECB.
I would prefer that the bank were under proper political control, but it seems that we are all now, or most of us, in thrall to the new religion of 'central bankism' and the best we can hope for is that when the bank screws the people of Europe it will have to come to the European Parliament to account for it.
There is one major shortcoming in any possible control that this Parliament might exercise over the ECB and in the latter's accountability to it, and that is the statement by Mr Duisenberg in the hearings that the minutes should only be published after 16 years.
This is wholly unacceptable.
The governors of the ECB are appointed for a fixed period and cannot be got rid of no matter how abysmal they turn out to be.
They have that at least in common with Members of the European Parliament.
They cannot be got at and it is therefore quite unacceptable that they should continue to behave as if they were members of some religious cell answerable only to the God of the Market.
I believe that the minutes of the ECB should be available to this Parliament in a matter of weeks - not after a period of 16 years, and unless we can find out how the deliberations go in a much shorter period I think that the whole notion of accountability is something of an illusion.
Mr President, the European Parliament must fight for its democratic rights.
That has been the case in years gone by and the future will certainly be no different.
Interinstitutional agreements are an excellent way for the European Parliament to acquire, in important areas, those rights which are appropriate to a democratic European Union.
Mr Herman's excellent report indicates a number of important areas in which progress can be made and where our efforts must be directed in the near future.
I should like to direct our attention to some of the other major questions which will face us in the coming months and years, issues in which the European Parliament wants to - and indeed must - become more deeply involved, as is in keeping with current Treaty law.
Major reforms are imminent in the areas of the common agricultural policy and the structural policy.
We have had to negotiate a new financial perspective for the years ahead, and for all the areas in question it seems important for the European Parliament to be involved in the decision making process in a manner which is proper and appropriate to a democratic Union.
We shall have to fight for these rights.
In a quite significant area - namely in the pre-accession strategy and agreements - the British Presidency has already commendably stated its readiness to grant Parliament many of the rights and opportunities which we simply do not yet have under current Treaty law.
I am expecting the Austrian presidency to do likewise and to give this Parliament the opportunity to participate in the decision making process when it comes to the major issues facing the Union.
Mr President, the Danish referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty is now only two weeks away.
One reason many Danes are contemplating voting 'No' is because they feel the system is closed, bureaucratic and undemocratic.
In many ways, I believe the EU system far outshines its reputation.
The European Parliament is much more open than the majority of national parliaments.
The Commission is surely no more bureaucratic than other state bureaucracies.
However, that does not mean we can rest on our laurels.
Many problems are waiting to be tackled and we should always be on the lookout for any improvements that could make us more open and democratic.
Interinstitutional agreements are often a good idea in our quest for more openness and democracy in the EU.
However, there is at least one area mentioned in the rapporteur's excellent report in which I do not wish to see interinstitutional agreements increasing the influence of the European Parliament.
This is social dialogue.
Social dialogue is still in its infancy, and it is important for us to leave it to the parties to the labour market to achieve mutual agreement and establish a framework for collaboration.
Preferably, we should not get involved.
Now that the UK, too, has been included in the social protocol, there is even more reason to wait and see.
Now there is some hope of really speeding up the negotiations.
In terms of competition, no-one now stands to benefit by remaining outside.
In short, I am voting in favour of the rapporteur's excellent report because of the many positive elements it contains and because we must never stop investigating how to make the EU more open and democratic.
But I have no desire to interfere in social dialogue; let us keep our fingers out of the pie!
Mr President, I would also like to thank Mr Herman for an excellent report.
The immense new challenges of the European integration process, such as the eastwards enlargement of the Union and the single currency, will require a lot of time for the formulation of opinions. The imparting of information to our citizens takes unconditional priority.
An examination of the institutions is essential in this regard.
Openness and the democratic machine are difficult terms to define when we talk of a citizens' Europe.
It is the people that make up Europe, not the institutes or the Member States.
Nevertheless, there is still only the vaguest reference to ordinary citizens when legitimizing so-called major projects.
Economic and monetary union has caused national powers of decision making to pass into the hands of the ECB, which is not controlled by any democratic body whatsoever.
A rather sadly comic example is that the EMU issue was discussed by a Union institution behind closed doors and barbed wire, hidden away from other people.
The media followed the EMU debate in the European Parliament unusually closely that weekend, because that was the only institution that was discussing the matter with the doors open.
It is important to correct the democratic deficit with increasingly effective partnership between the European Parliament and national Parliaments, in order to safeguard common parliamentary interests.
Increased openness cannot create a creditable base for a citizens' Europe unless the institutions meet the great new challenges ahead.
The fateful and foolish decision of the Amsterdam Conference in favour of common democratic surveillance and reform of the institutions will inevitably have an effect on the timetable for enlargement.
How could our citizens give their support to an enlarged Europe if, despite the fact that the Commission has issued papers in a variety of colours, everyone can see that Union institutions and national governments do not have the political will to embrace real change, and openness seems merely a catchword?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to congratulate Mr Herman on his excellent report, which is another parliamentary initiative designed to make the European system increasingly democratic and responsible, especially when the provisions of the Treaty leave areas of uncertainty with regard to the quantity or quality of democratic control.
As the rapporteur has underlined this morning, the Treaty of Amsterdam represented major progress with respect to codecision, as regards both its scope and its procedures - in the appointment of the European Commission, in parliamentary control over the implementation of the budget, and in executive activities in general.
I would remind you in this respect that the Commission is preparing the review of the commitology decision of 13 July 1987.
I also want to mention the growing role of the national parliaments and COSAC, the conference of specialized parliamentary committees.
Undoubtedly, the development of this process of participation by the national parliaments and close cooperation between representatives elected democratically at European and national level has benefited from the very positive climate of collaboration which has been established between the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
And in that sense, I also thought it very timely that Mr Herzog mentioned the role civil society should play, and the suggestion of regular meetings.
The subject raised by the rapporteur is the strengthening of Parliament's powers or, as it says in the proposal, its increased participation in essential sectors of the Union's policies, using measures which do not modify the existing Treaties but guarantee democratic control, at least until the new intergovernmental conference.
In my opinion, most of the proposed measures are very useful and offer prospects for agreements to be negotiated at institutional level.
In that sense, we eagerly await the second part of the report, already announced by Mr Herman.
For example, I think that in monetary or foreign policy issues, the European Parliament should be able fully to exercise the right of control, without questioning the provisions of the Treaty until the next intergovernmental conference.
These sectors are too important to the future of the Union for there not to be efficient democratic control.
Of course, it is not a question of either subjecting the provisions of the Treaty to force or creating obstacles which might delay decisions, since these must be taken quickly.
But it is essential to remove the barriers which, in practice, prevent the European Parliament from fully expressing its point of view, which should of course be taken into account by the other institutions.
So we need to find and create that margin for interpretation, as Mr Corbett said, and as I understand it, that is also the rapporteur's intention.
On the other hand, I think we need to avoid the excessive fragmentation of interinstitutional agreements.
The report proposes a series of sectors in which the agreements should accompany the Treaties, in a manner of speaking.
The rapporteur has identified these sectors well. However, I wonder if it is really essential to have a specific agreement for each of them, or whether it is not better to define, jointly, some principle of general application, instead of negotiating specific rules sector by sector.
But I am just asking a question. I do not have the answer.
I think it is something we can take into consideration.
Also, I do not think the interinstitutional agreements should distort certain Treaty provisions.
For example, I am thinking of the problem of approving agreements made by the social partners.
I do not think the approval procedure needs to be made more complicated. As everybody knows, it is of an almost legal nature, I would say.
The institutions can decide whether or not to approve that type of agreement but, of course, what they cannot do is decide to modify them.
I wonder if the European Parliament - which has to assess whether it wants such agreements or not - has not already got enough ability to express itself politically, both during and at the end of negotiations.
Also, we must remember that basically social policy is not implemented through this sort of agreement, but through the other Treaty procedures.
I would remind you that President Santer had to hold a conference for the social partners, to check their willingness to use social agreements for specific matters.
I am not going to repeat the details of this excellent report.
My aim with these comments is to show you that I have studied the Herman report in depth, because it merits careful study.
I also want to say that it ranks among the initiatives taken by the Committee on Institutional Affairs with a view to getting the Treaty of Amsterdam applied in the most appropriate fashion and, above all, guaranteeing that the Union's decisions are democratic. That has always been Mr Herman's concern, not just in this report but for many years, and he always gives important clues about how to carry on making progress in the right direction.
This process, which extends the guidelines expressed by this Parliament in January 1986, is being followed attentively by the European Commission, which places itself at Parliament's disposition.
In its resolution to approve the Single European Act - Mr Herman will remember it - the European Parliament made a highly realistic commitment in welcoming the new Treaties and helping to improve the building of Europe, both through reforms and using an intelligent and forward-looking application of the existing rules.
Mr President, I note that Parliament is continuing along those same lines today.
We have seen how the speeches have demonstrated a clear majority in favour of these views, and therefore I want to repeat my congratulations to the rapporteur.
But a lot has been said about 2 May and I do not want to finish without mentioning the dates 8 and 9 of May, which saw the recent European Movement congress 50 years after the Congress of Europe in The Hague in 1948.
And I want to convey to you the fact that many of the speeches made there, especially the one by the President of this Parliament, stressed that this century must not end without a great initiative being launched to allow us to create an institutional framework in keeping with the great progress we have seen in Europe over the last few years.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Information and communication policy
The next item is the report (A4-0115/98) by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the information and communication policy in the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, our debate is running slightly late.
I must draw your attention to this.
We are keen to vote on Mr Pex's report at noon.
I therefore request everybody to respect their speaking time strictly, and I will remind people of this where necessary.
Mr Pex, you now have the floor for six minutes. Please begin by setting us a good example.
Mr President, in its budget the European Union has allocated 27 eurocents per head of population to informing the citizen about what is happening in Brussels and Strasbourg.
That is not very much, which means this small budget must be managed carefully and everything must be done to ensure that the communications and information activities are as effective as possible.
This Parliament's Committee on Budgets, and latterly also the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, have made efforts over the past few years to improve the information policy.
This has led to the own-initiative report which I am able to present to you today.
The report carries my name, but the text is the fruit of the excellent cooperation between all the members of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Institutional Affairs, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I thank all my colleagues for their cooperation, and especially for their input.
Briefly, these are the things my report deals with. Firstly, actually improving the coordination of information activities.
Secondly, improving the coordination of activities between the different European Union institutions, especially between the Commission and the European Parliament.
Other institutions could become involved in this.
It is this point in particular which has created difficulties in the past.
In my opinion, this policy has focused too much - and sometimes still does - on demonstrating the merits of the respective institutions, and not enough on the citizens' need for information.
The third aspect is the decentralization of activities down to the level of Member States and the regions within the Member States.
The message from Brussels does not always come across.
The message needs to be translated for the local culture and views, if the message is to be understood.
That means more must be done by the national offices of both the Commission and this Parliament, so it is important that these offices are reorganized.
The fourth is the creation of so-called "European Union Houses' , which are an amalgamation of the national offices of the Commission and this Parliament, so that the citizen can access information in a single location.
It is of the utmost importance that these European Union Houses should be established where they can be easily recognized and accessed by the citizen.
They should be able to enter them as easily as entering a shop.
Separate counters should be provided for Parliament and the Commission if required, as each European institution must continue to be able to retain and fulfil its responsibilities, irrespective of the amount of cooperation.
The fifth point is to improve the quality of information, partly by employing modern communication techniques, an improved audiovisual service, and the proper use of electronic information technology.
The information policy is not a means to an end.
What matters is that the citizen becomes interested in what Europe does for him and what it means to him.
In the Netherlands we have a saying: "The farmer does not like what he does not know' , and also: "Unknown, unloved' .
All the surveys show that people are not terribly interested in European issues, and they do not know much about the institutions.
This is made manifest by the most important poll of all, the European elections.
In my country, the turnout for the 1994 election was a mere 35 %.
What will it be like in 1999, if the policy does not change? The issue is, first, to arouse interest amongst the citizens of Europe, and after that, to meet the information requirements adequately.
The organization of common activities of both institutions requires special attention.
A moment ago I mentioned the need for actual coordination, and this means we cannot leave it at fine words about good cooperation, as was the case until recently.
It means that the organization, management and control should be set up in such a way that there is true coordination.
In this, a distinction must be made between political management and implementation.
According to the rules of this Parliament, the political responsibility for information policy rests with the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Carrying out the specific information activities of this Parliament falls within the remit of the Bureau of this Parliament.
And the general information initiatives carried out in conjunction with the Commission are the responsibility of the interinstitutional Working Party on Ongoing Information Activities which is to be set up.
This is a clear structure which is, in fact, already in existence and headed competently by Mr Anastassopoulos.
However, it should be used more specifically, so that the policy can be laid down appropriately and implemented.
The advantage of this approach is that we will be able to start implementing the new policy tomorrow.
A practical aspect of the cooperation between the Commission and Parliament is that they can both use the communication infrastructure.
I am thinking of audiovisual services and press facilities.
Cooperation here means cost savings and higher effectiveness, and a better service for the press.
We need good communication channels.
I have sought to let the relationship with Euronews function on a new basis, and to intensify the relationship.
This could also be the case with other broadcasting organizations, of course, especially with regional and local ones.
'Europe by satellite' could play a special role here.
This, too, requires a customer oriented policy.
I would like to conclude by thanking my committee and my colleagues for all the work which has been done.
I hope that all those involved in the policy, and first and foremost the Members of this Parliament, will want to participate in this customer oriented policy, placing the citizens at the centre, with the institutions subservient in the background.
Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights paid particular attention to the institutional question of a modern and efficient information policy.
Essentially, the situation is simple.
The European Union has a duty to inform people and this is implied in the Treaties, its powers and its objectives.
The citizen is entitled to receive accurate information about what we do for him.
It is true, no other international organization in the world has such a direct impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.
A working party chaired by myself as far back as 1993 highlighted the information policy's lack of strategy guidelines.
There is no general message common to all the institutions in which the citizens can recognize themselves.
If the message is to get through, it must be expressed in clear and simple terms.
Moreover, if it is to be understood, it must reflect reality, and that means that the message to the citizen must present an accurate and unambiguous image of the European Union.
Who is to convey this message? Undoubtedly, both the Commission and Parliament play a part.
The Commission, as a supranational body and guardian of the Treaties, retains a leading role in communication.
But the European Parliament, whose impact and role continue to increase, must be able to fulfil its obligation of communication towards the citizen.
Not only as far as the overall policy of the Union is concerned, but also primarily concerning its own input into the European integration process and its impact on life in the European Union.
Or, to put it briefly: we, as Parliament, must show the citizens that the political institutions are there for them, and not the other way round.
Mr President, in a report which I submitted to the Bureau on 21 March 1995 on an information policy for the European Parliament, among other things I recommended the drawing up of a report by the competent Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and an annual debate in the House on this important issue.
However, it has taken three whole years to arrive at today's debate.
During this time, the information issue has not ceased to concern us greatly and the Bureau has pushed forward a number of actions which have sketched out a new policy.
Our starting point was the realization that a great lack of communication separated the European Union from its citizens.
I am not a blind devotee of opinion polls, but when in all the opinion polls, year after year, 60 to 70 % of citizens declare that they have no knowledge of what is happening in Europe, or that there is a lack of information on the subject, the problem can only be regarded as crucial for democracy in Europe.
How can there be serious discussion about a citizens' Europe or citizens' participation under such conditions?
To begin to reduce somewhat this significant lack of communication, we attached primary importance to the development of cooperation with the European Commission, which has more general responsibility for information on European activities.
The Commission responded and set up an organizational working party chaired by Mr Oreja and myself.
This group has worked hard over the last few years and laid the foundations for more methodical coordination and a more systematic policy.
Such terms as partnership, decentralization, dialogue with the citizens, and communication without propagandist undertones took on a new meaning.
The PRINCE programme for the three major actions in this field served as a laboratory for the implementation of our new ideas and methods in an effort to turn the rapidly developing new technology to advantage.
We also had the satisfaction of seeing our original cooperation with the Commission finally take on a trilateral dimension, as the governments of 11 Member States signed agreements with us and shared in the joint effort.
Thanks to the spirit of cooperation shown consistently not only by Commissioner Oreja but also by his colleagues, for which we thank them, the framework of our actions has thus been traced out and put to the test.
And from within this general framework has come the report we are debating today, after so much delay.
The problem of our communication with the citizens naturally remains, and it is enormous.
The little progress that has been made is not enough to significantly reduce this lack of communication.
We need more money.
The approximately ECU 100 million a year represents little more than the budget of an average European company which normally advertises a single product.
We need even better cooperation with the Commission and even better coordination.
We need even better cooperation with governments, and governments must cease to claim all successes as their own and to present the European Union as the scapegoat for all failures.
We need to make even greater use of the new technologies and to have greater access to television, which is the chief or only source of information for 70 % of citizens.
The main thing, I think, is that we must not be discouraged by the difficulties, and we must persevere.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the citizens of the European Union will very, very soon be faced with this electoral date which is going to be very important for Europe, that is the re-election of Parliament, without forgetting, of course, the reappointment of the Commission.
Unfortunately, I am not sure that the communication policy applied today has achieved its aims, whether this policy is specialized or intended for the general public. Who is familiar with the functioning of the institutions?
Who is familiar with the content of the Treaties? Who knows the risks of enlargement?
Who knows our decisions?
Only the farmers know about the worrying CAP plans. Their organizations have an excellent system of communication.
As a result, information is achievable.
Let us try, therefore, to make the general public aware of what the European Union has achieved and the advantages it presents. This would help them in their choice, and create support for a European construction which is in accordance with their wishes.
In all parliaments, the risks of communication are political and are therefore a matter for the democracy and authority of their executive.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media is also, as its name indicates, the committee responsible for media. It therefore has a duty to consider and form an opinion on the subject of this policy.
Our group was involved fully in this work and while we always supported the theory of the rapporteur, Mr Pex - which was to optimize the joint resources available at an institutional level - we defended the idea that Parliament did not necessarily have the same political ideas to communicate as the Commission.
In effect, this diversity of opinion prepares the public for an understanding of what is at stake.
A committee on European information was proposed by the rapporteur as a kind of executive of the communication policy.
I, for my part, have never supported this idea and today it seems that its adoption would not have any binding legal value.
Our political group recognizes the importance of the overall consideration which has been given to this important topic and congratulates the rapporteur, Mr Pex, on the work which has been accomplished. We agree with the main objectives which have been determined: objectives of decentralization, interinstitutional cooperation, intensifying contacts with citizens, value for money, research and transparency.
All of this is extremely important to us.
The fundamental message of the Treaty of Amsterdam was to force the European Union to communicate more intensively with its citizens.
Let us try to apply the Treaty ourselves, and let us prepare the citizens for an understanding of what is being decided for them.
I would not like to finish without congratulating the rapporteur once again.
Mr President, since the outset this report has created a certain feeling of uneasiness, as also demonstrated by our President, Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado's speech, an extremely rare event in a public sitting. He thinks the text goes against the Treaty and Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
This ambiguity remains after amendment.
If it is a question of ensuring a more effective information policy, it will suffice to study the improvements which can be made in the functioning of the Directorates-General responsible, with full respect for Parliament's Rules of Procedure, and obviously in relation to Parliament's Bureau.
Many of Mr Pex's suggestions are also interesting in this respect.
The report goes further, however.
In paragraph 16 it grants a degree of power to an ad hoc body, but in this case it must guarantee its objectivity.
That is not the case.
The composition of the working party, which is made up essentially of political representatives and not civil servants, shows the exclusive presence of the two large political groups in this Parliament.
This situation is unacceptable for a body which goes beyond the study and research of better means of communication, the only task which the President of Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado, had suggested, but which the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media did not accept.
In the form in which it is presented in paragraph 16 of this report, and given its powers, this working party which the report proposes to institutionalize could be turned into an EU ministry of information, a ministry which, moreover, would not be democratically accountable.
Ladies and gentlemen, to this we can only say no!
Pluralism is essential in the information society, but not in a form which consists of two speeds, one being direct control by the PSE and the PPE, and the other being a vague monthly report on the body's activities, intended for the other political groups.
So if the majority of this Parliament does not vote in favour of our amendment on pluralism, I will, regrettably, vote against this report.
Mr President, information policy is an important aspect of democratic culture, but it is also a power issue.
The way in which an institution behaves in this critical area is an indicator of its democratic qualities.
The background to this report, the inadequate objectives which have been set, and the composition of the working party all clearly demonstrate that a majority of the Members of this House regard information policy as purely a power issue.
The result is a tendency to confuse information with propaganda, and the representation of Parliament becomes confused with the self-representation of the majority groups.
Mr President, it is already a mouth-watering prospect that according to paragraph 6 of the report, information policy should ensure that "European citizens are provided with quality information, targeted where possible, which reflects their concerns and gives them a positive image of the European Union.'
Is it the duty of the European Parliament's information policy to give people a positive picture, or the knowledge which allows them to form their own independent and critical judgement? The attitude of mind which prevails on this issue in this House can be seen in recent events, when the majority groups actually used the protest demonstrations - which are quite normal, which have occurred hundreds of times in the history of this House, and which still go on - as a motive simply for conjuring up images of the downfall of democracy.
To withhold pictures of these demonstrations from the television companies, to expel photographers from the gallery, shows an attitude of mind which does not shrink from censorship and which, instead of informing the people, only seeks to indoctrinate them.
In my opinion, such actions are hardly a fitting testimony for the European Parliament.
Mr President, in taking the initiative of studying the problem of information in the European institutions, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has done something worthwhile.
However, even though everyone sees the need for it, the actual completion of such a project is not an easy thing.
We must thank Mr Pex for having buckled down to the task, and our colleagues from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and the Committee on Institutional Affairs for having helped him to avoid certain pitfalls.
Nevertheless, whatever false images people may have of Europe and its institutions, it is important to distinguish between information for the citizens and the actual communication policy.
Information includes helping our fellow citizens to have a better perception of the European institutions and a greater knowledge of the decisions taken, while communication, in political terms, is the duty of the political groups and the Members of the European Parliament themselves.
Our mandate obliges us to learn to pass on the message and to explain our choices.
No institutionalized communication policy could replace this.
Furthermore, simpler institutions which are easier for people to understand would ease their sometimes conflicting relationship with Europe.
This is a question which cannot be evaded, but it goes beyond the scope of this debate.
More specifically, with regard to the problem of setting up a permanent working group, my group has reservations.
Nevertheless, such a body could not exist without all the political groups being represented.
We are therefore voting for the amendments which go in this direction.
This is the sine qua non of a true information policy.
Mr President, you wish to vote at 12.00 noon.
I would like to ask you to explain clearly why Mr Pex's report was still not ready for distribution last Friday, and why the amendments were not available until yesterday.
Which powers wish to hamper a normal parliamentary discussion?
The citizen generally views the increasing European integration critically.
The national administration may be remote from the experiences of the citizen but the distance between the citizen and the European institutions is even bigger.
As Europe is gaining more and more powers, this distance must be reduced.
That is why I am pleased with Mr Pex's lucid report.
In the run-up to the 1999 European elections it is necessary, amongst other things, for the citizens to know that their choice in these elections is of real value.
It must also be pointed out to them that the strengthening of European integration, in which citizens can all but follow the policy makers, is a battle which is not over yet.
I have a few questions and comments about the report's substance.
The report rightly points out how inadequate information about the Union's policy is.
The report argues that this is caused by the lack of successful public support for European policy.
To a certain extent this is true.
If the citizen does not know which decisions about what are made at European level, it is unlikely he will quickly become very enthusiastic about it.
However, we need to put this into perspective.
The argument has been put forward several times that better information will convince the citizen of the benefits of the Union.
Citizens will begin to realize the good things about European integration "as a matter of course' , as a result of better information.
This causes me to ask what kind of information goes out to the citizen?
Is it genuinely objective information supplied to the citizen as part of the improved information provision, or is it merely propaganda further to stimulate European integration? Of course, it remains to be seen whether, as a result of openness in European decision making, the citizens will indeed be convinced of these benefits.
This openness could also lead to them forming a clearer idea of the disadvantages.
The core of the resolution consists of a proposal to the Commission to submit a legislative proposal with the aim of integrating the information services of the Commission and this Parliament.
In itself this would seem beneficial, because this way the citizen will be given unambiguous information.
How to explain what distinguishes the institutions from one another, however, seems to me to be a difficult task.
This point therefore merits attention in the evaluation mentioned above.
Mr President, the very first paragraph of the explanatory statement to Mr Pex's report already shows the mentality with which this document, and occasionally this Parliament, are imbued.
I quote: "European Citizens are in general not very enthusiastic about the development of European integration.
One of the major reasons seems to be a lack of communication with Brussels and Strasbourg and a lack of information about targets and means by the European Institutions' .
So, if I understand the report correctly, people who are critical of the current state of affairs in official Europe are either stupid or badly informed.
This demonstrates, with all respect, a certain Euro smugness.
In my own country of Flanders, for example, there was for many years a rather general positive preconception, which I also shared, about European construction. If this positive view is now crumbling, it is not because people are badly informed but, on the contrary, because they are becoming better informed.
And because they conclude, on the basis of extremely concrete facts, notwithstanding all the constantly biased European propaganda, that the subsidiarity principle for instance, which is so highly praised, is being violated systematically, deliberately and continuously. That Europe should lay down who should have the right to vote in my country, for example; that European institutions do not show the least respect for the language laws of Flanders; that Europe avoids referendums like the plague; that benefits of scale in the form of efficiency, so highly praised, are by no means always realized.
Those who wish to gain more enthusiasm from the European citizens for the European project should not spend billions, but should start by respecting the European nations who do wish to cooperate closely, but who are not interested in European uniformity.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Pex for personally pushing this item onto the agenda of the House.
It has been a critical area which has been neglected for a number of years, because the lack of visibility within the EU, in particular within the Member States, has been lamentable and there was, and still is, a need for better direction within DG X and our own information policy within Parliament.
There is a massive amount of work to do, and it is not surprising on the basis of the way some of the offices of the Commission work within the Member States.
I want to talk specifically about the disaster of the Cardiff Office of the Commission in Wales. For years, this building has been proudly standing there.
For 15 years we have not heard a squeak from it.
How could the Commission have allowed this situation to continue for so long?
How could the Commission accept such inactivity? It has cost thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money to maintain such a building, a silent building, which has told the Welsh people nothing about the EU.
It is not only that: the office has had the cheek to pass on information requests to the Commission to Members' offices.
Last Thursday I found out what the office is doing for Europe Day: nothing, absolutely nothing!
What I want to know is this: how typical is this of other offices within the Member States?
At last the Commission is starting to pull its finger out and will soon be appointing someone.
But it has taken almost a year to appoint someone for the Cardiff Office.
By the time that replacement is there the opportunity to ride on the back of the British Presidency will have been lost and the Cardiff Summit will be over.
Mr Pex's report will make sure that this situation never arises again.
DG X is changing and it is improving, and there are some great examples of direct communication, especially using the Internet.
I just want to put it into perspective: the EU spent 10 % of what Pepsi Cola spent on telling us about the difference between changing its coke cans from red to blue - so we must keep it in perspective.
Mr President, the proposal on the future of the European Union's information and communication policy, on which Parliament is invited to vote, contains a number of important points which I would like to highlight.
First of all, however, I must congratulate the rapporteur, Peter Pex, on his initial audacity, but also for the flexibility he has shown in this long and complicated process.
It is that flexibility that has enabled him to complete this report, which deals with a highly important subject for all the Union's institutions.
The text we are to vote on is the possible wording.
But, if there is sufficient political will in the institutions - and that is a critical point - it could be an excellent instrument to strengthen our citizens' sense of being Europeans.
The essential points I wish to bring out are these: it should be customary for Commission and Parliament to cooperate together, and for both of them to cooperate with the other institutions; Parliament should have more control over the definition and implementation of policies; there should be more openness from the ordinary citizen's point of view; and, finally, information policy and the profit/cost ratio should be more efficient.
I would, however, like to emphasize one aspect the report does not touch on, Mr President, and that is the irreplaceable role played by the regional and local media in keeping the people informed.
Since the press is one of our targets, we should specifically make room for the means of information that are closest to the people, because it is they that keep institutions in touch with local life, and are able to translate the Union's political messages into specific terms.
If we fail to do so, we shall be throwing away a valuable ally.
The attention the report proposes to give to regional television stations should be expressed by using the initiatives that already exist in that field, particularly the regional CIRCOM, which consists of 376 regional stations in 39 European countries.
The European elections in 1999 will be the next major test of how serious we are in our attempts to improve the idea Europeans have of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all to congratulate Mr Pex on his excellent work and his delicate mediation in drawing up this own-initiative report.
An efficient and organic information policy represents a fundamental instrument to ensure that the citizens understand the values on which the European Union is based, the objectives proposed and the efforts required to attain these objectives.
In fact, it is only with clear, continuous and open information that the citizens can know and participate in the mechanisms and complexity of the European structure, and sometimes unexpected results and contributions can be achieved.
It is therefore necessary to enable the citizen to have easy access to sources of information, to encourage him to know more, to examine matters closely, and become close to the institutions, and not to see them as inaccessible and incomprehensible.
It is therefore important to identify, on the one hand, the best communication systems, and on the other hand, what should be transmitted.
I believe that information transfer systems must always give priority to the principle of ease of access, and it is desirable to coordinate the structures in which Parliament and the Commission can physically share their technical resources and infrastructures.
This point is in agreement with the rapporteur's idea of decentralizing the information centres, to make it easy to make contact even with people who live far from the capitals.
As for content, it is most important to consider the objectives in the major areas, the direction in which the European Union is going, and the fundamental role the citizens play in this development.
Secondly, the function of each of the institutions - Commission and Parliament - should be considered: their common and individual objectives, and their different responsibilities.
Cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission is very important, above all to identify the effects of information on major topics, to coordinate the specific contribution of each of the two institutions.
However, any strengthening of coordination must leave each institution sufficient autonomy, and safeguard the visibility of the roles and responsibilities of each.
In fact, if it is feared that the citizen has difficulty distinguishing between Parliament and the Commission, the solution is not to unify the image but, on the contrary, to show the different roles clearly.
On this point, it should be stressed that it is the job of Parliament - more than any other institution - in its capacity as an assembly of directly elected representatives, to show the decisions taken by the assembly and the various bodies it consists of, respecting and reflecting the diversity of opinions which are expressed within it.
Lively, pluralistic information is the fundamental element of democratic debate.
Parliament must vouch for it.
Mr President, first of all I would like to state that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party intends to vote in favour of this report.
The future of the European Union depends on the support of its citizens.
No excellent information policy can cover for a chaotic structure or poor decisions, but much of the dissatisfaction felt by our citizens stems from the EU's distant stance.
It is hard to discern any connection between Brussels and its bureaucratic decision making machine and normal, everyday life.
The big challenge for the EU's information and communication policy is to bridge the abyss that separates the EU institutions and the people.
It will require information to become communication that goes in both directions.
The bridge over the abyss can be built only through partnership, involving both the institutions of the Community and the Member States.
The new telecommunications technology will allow more and better interactive communication.
At the same time, the EU information machine must regionalize. It must bring our citizens closer, with the aid of regional information outlets and local media.
For example, libraries make an excellent place for this kind of activity.
It is obviously also important that the language of EU information should be as clear and comprehensible as possible in all communications.
Mr President, the European Parliament is not very successful in its information policy.
There is little doubt about that in this House, but unfortunately opinions tend to differ somewhat on the reasons for this.
However, I can assure you that it does nothing for the credibility of our information policy if the services of the European Parliament remove the cameras when things happen which are not agreeable to a large part of this Parliament, or take other measures to avoid the press finding out about them.
To be honest, not only did this happen this week, it happens regularly here. It contributes nothing to the credibility of the information policy.
Moreover, this Parliament also manages to ignore its own failures when criticizing the information policy, whilst blaming others rather easily. Yet it would add to this Parliament's credibility if it were to show its teeth once in a while in instances when it is able to do so.
I only mention the inauguration of the Commission, or the customs union with Turkey.
These are just a couple of examples.
Consider this Parliament's buildings policy, or the fact that we have to meet in more than one assembly. I can assure you, that adds nothing to the credibility of this Parliament in the eyes of the outside world.
An information policy is hardly sufficient to counter this kind of thing, even if you try to implement it in conjunction with the European Commission.
There is really no point, unless this Parliament polishes up its own credibility.
That would truly be the best way to convince the voters of the European idea.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to congratulate Mr Pex on this long overdue report.
If Europe is to become a Europe of the people, then its tangible benefits, its aims and its perspectives must be more clearly understood by the people.
That means democracy in its absolute sense, and the right to have things explained.
We all know from our own national organizations just how much uncertainty and ignorance still prevails on the subject of Europe.
There is a serious information deficit - incidentally this also applies to the national governments - and a clear disparity between the successes of the EU and its image.
This has resulted in the unpleasant fact that interest in the EU has long centred around negative stories from Europe, and the sceptics have been gaining ground.
As has already been said, people do not know about the European Parliament's rights of codecision after Amsterdam, for example. How many citizens of the EU are aware of the legislative rights of this House?
Do we even know how the great euro information campaigns permeated down to the ordinary citizens? Was the success of these campaigns ever analysed or discussed with us?
How did we ever get into such a situation of no confidence in the democratic legitimacy of decisions taken at European level? I believe we need a more efficient front-line mediation structure, and information on European Parliamentary decisions must be circulated quickly.
We must also pay attention to the amount of information we supply and to the language used, particularly with regard to those target groups who are in urgent need of it.
I would just like to say one more thing.
I cannot imagine that efficiency will be further enhanced by setting up more wonderful - and wonderfully expensive - EU offices and other bodies in Brussels.
This will only be achieved by a further decentralization of our information services.
The "Europe Info Points' , which proved a big success, would be eminently suitable for this task.
These units must be extended, for they operate at the grass roots and offer the ordinary citizen a shortcut to EU information.
Local authorities are willing to cooperate here.
Let us make use of the opportunity provided by central, regional and local authorities, and let us at last launch a confident offensive for the European cause.
Mr President, there is a lot of discussion about drawing our citizens closer to the EU and its institutions, but this is surely just as much a matter of the institutions, the European Parliament included, coming out to meet citizens and learning what priorities they place on the various interests. The institutions must make themselves more transparent, easier to comprehend and perhaps a bit less boring.
They should endeavour to get people to take an interest in European affairs, encouraging them to want to get involved in things, thus motivating them to take a stance while also giving them a sense of value in doing so.
As we discussed here earlier this morning, that is also important for democracy.
And the positions and efforts of national parliaments at the European level could contribute to making citizens more aware of European issues.
What we need is a personal dialogue.
Dialogue does not just mean campaigns, because to me, the term 'campaign' sounds almost like psychological rape.
Forthcoming policy in the area of information will have to mean taking citizens seriously and treating individual countries with sensitivity.
(NI). (DE) Mr President, the rapporteur correctly points out that the EU's information and communication policy should be made more efficient.
But what does he mean by this? He comes to the conclusion that by increasing efficiency in this area we would be able to dispel the negative climate of opinion surrounding the EU, and consequently force the pace of European integration.
I do not share this view.
The widening gulf between the citizens of Europe and its institutions is not being caused by the inadequate information policy but by the unsatisfactory answers which have been given to Europe's most burning questions, such as that of the 18 million unemployed.
While the rapporteur stresses the multilingual talents of the people of Europe, the Committee on Institutional Affairs is already discussing the future adoption of Esperanto as a common European language.
While the rapporteur stresses the importance of the moving picture, Members of this House are proposing that the cameras be removed from the Chamber.
While the rapporteur underlines the importance of intelligibility in the drawing up of legal documents, Members are declaring that they are unable to understand the language of the regulations which have been submitted on agricultural reform.
As these examples show, the claims which have been made simply do not live up to reality.
Pretty wrapping paper is not enough - the contents of the package must also be right.
If the communication policy of the institutions is to be regarded...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media wishes to coordinate visiting and information policy for EU institutions.
This may sound alluring, but that is not necessarily the case.
A certain degree of coordination and exchange of ideas may be fine, but we should remember that the institutions are independent units.
People should be able to differentiate between the Court of Justice and Parliament, the Commission and Council.
When visitors come here, they obviously often say they are going 'down to the EU' , but there is no need for us to confirm that all the peas are from the same pod.
In this matter, our only responsibility is to the European Parliament.
The others will manage just fine.
We should allow visitors access to the House so that they can see the openness with which we operate.
For example, our committee meetings are open compared to those of the national parliaments.
Visitors should have access to our work rooms so they can get the feel of a democratic, open institution.
I have often asked the administrative management of the House to make proper rooms available for visitors.
The Danish Social Democrats alone will probably have up to 3000 visitors this year, and that is only for four members.
We must find space for them, and that might well be some meeting room where the parties can set up their stands and computers.
Our information policy has two key elements.
On the one hand, we must provide information about ourselves, and resources have been set aside for this, but beyond that, we must also be accessible to the representatives of the public, including the press.
Over the last couple of days, I have been shocked to hear colleagues complaining about the zany dress of other Members and the fact that the media were curious to know what these Members meant by it.
It seems utterly idiotic for us, in a democratically elected Parliament, to have any interest whatsoever in restricting press access to our official meetings.
Mr President, this report represents a large collection of contributions by various groups on the question of information, and is also a clear indication of Parliamentary cooperation.
When we remember that communication is a core issue in the information society, and takes place mainly via the mass media, we could hardly be dealing with anything more important.
That is because the legitimacy of the whole Union rests very much on the image that people get from our work - the very people who directly elect us.
We struggle with the professional media, we struggle with the advertising used by mega-corporations, and sometimes it is in downright desperation that we wonder how democracy might be marketed so that it might come to the attention of the people, people whose lives, nevertheless, still depend somewhat on democratic decisions made both at home and in Europe.
I think we must continue to improve our information systems, because the appropriation we allow for the provision of information is very little compared to what, for example, is put into the worldwide marketing of a drink extract or a trademark.
This means that democracy has, as it were, been bypassed by mainstream information systems, as global companies attract international notice and, in certain countries, are already entering our schools.
As long as we bear this in mind, we shall be on the right track.
Mr President, my own county, Essex, is the gateway to Europe, home of the major ports of Tilbury and Harwich with airports at Stansted and Southend, a major beneficiary of European defence conversion, industrial adaptation, fishing and social funds.
And yet it is still too often known falsely for its notorious Euro-sceptics.
That is why I would like to announce two pieces of good news in this morning's debate.
First, this week's EU announcement of a new European Information Centre serving the business community in conjunction with Essex County Council.
Essex has been a black hole in the Brussels network with many local small businesses giving up before they had started with European programmes, tenders or exports.
This new European Information Centre will give them direct and free access to all European documentation.
It will make the requirements of European legislation and the opportunities for European funding easily understandable to them.
It will provide an opening to other businesses through the network of 232 centres throughout the European countries.
Secondly, on 28 April we had a coming together of local government, education and business representatives over the whole of the East of England.
They have agreed to improve coordination of European information.
That is very good news, which I wanted to pass on to colleagues this morning.
Mr President, I will say briefly that it was about time Mr Pex's report came before the House.
The compromise which was reached was approved unanimously by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, in the presence of the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets and the DGIII and DGX services of Parliament and of the Commission.
I support it too.
I would also call for vigilance on the part of our Parliament to ensure that this European body which we are setting up can, in addition to its tasks of coordinating common areas of information, also exercise control of this information and communication policy which we want so badly.
We must not, by passing it off as an otherwise desirable decentralization, privatize this sector by entrusting it to external offices made up of experts from outside the Commission and Parliament, and thus without any form of control.
That would also open the way for harmful misuse.
Let us therefore pay close attention to ensure that the elected members of this body exercise their political mandate independently and resolutely.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will make this a very short speech, although I must admit that Mr Pex's important report deserves a long comment.
I want to congratulate him on his initiative.
I share his concern over the need for the European institutions to promote and develop an active and effective information policy.
It is not an easy task.
It is not easy, simply because of the technical complexity of the decisions taken at Community level. It is also not easy for a structural reason, because it is difficult to talk about the existence of public opinion in Europe, at a European level.
There are national public opinions, but it is hard to convey the content of our institutions' decisions at Community level, to public opinion at a Community level.
The basic message of Mr Pex's report is that there should be more coordination between the information activities of Parliament and the Commission.
Thus he rightly stresses in his report that the Commission and Parliament have objectives in common, but that they are not identical, which means that communication policy should either be developed jointly or in a differentiated manner by each institution.
So I fully share his view that we have to coordinate and collaborate better wherever such coordination and collaboration is possible, with full respect for the institutional autonomy which allows each one to develop its role efficiently.
In regard to the report's two sections, I am not going to make any comment about the Commission's information policy because I agree, and these are partly policies which are already being implemented.
So I will concentrate on the second part of the report, on the mechanisms to ensure cooperation between Parliament and the Commission.
I must confess, I have certain reservations here as regards parts of paragraph 16 of the report.
Firstly, the Commission is invited to present a legislative proposal by 30 September 1998, in order to create an interinstitutional working party.
I think it will be hard for the Commission to adopt a legislative proposal on this question by that date.
A whole series of questions needs to be examined first, of a legal, technical and institutional nature, before we would be ready to formulate such a proposal.
Furthermore, I note that the rapporteur himself fails to request in his report that the proposal be presented by reason of Article 138 B, which is the channel provided for in the Treaty to request the Commission to propose Community acts.
Thirdly, I think it could be a good idea to set up a working party like the one mentioned in the report, and I fully agree, but I do not think we need to create a new body in order to put this idea into practice.
It is working well and yielding results, and it needs to work better and better.
In my opinion, it is not necessary at the moment to create new institutional structures in order efficiently to develop a better coordination of information policy.
As regards the "European Union Houses' , I just want to say one thing. Parliament and the Commission can be based in the same building or in neighbouring buildings, and that is a good approach.
I share that objective.
That is exactly the policy I have been following ever since I have been responsible for this area.
What we must do is avoid duplications, and I am sure that, together, we will manage to establish and share archives, libraries and conference rooms.
As for the other matters mentioned in paragraph 16, I agree with the whole set of initiatives - Euronews, ' Europe by Satellite' , and the European Union on radio and CD-ROM.
On all these points, I fully share the rapporteur's views.
I will conclude by saying that those are the reflections sparked off by Mr Pex's important report, which has the great merit of raising important, urgent questions affecting the European institutions' policy of information and communication with the people.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Welcome
Votes
Madam President, Members will recall my question to the President yesterday in this Parliament: he advised us that it would be the Bureau, and only the Bureau, which would review and make decisions relating to the 50 % voting attendance in Chamber during roll call votes.
This is what the President told us.
As Members of this Parliament, we believe this is undemocratic. We believe that the Bureau is taking decisions which could have a knock-on effect in the future because a precedent is being created.
We have therefore decided to protest in this manner.
This is the only avenue of protest that we have regarding the way the Bureau is handling this particular crisis.
Therefore, my presence in the Chamber is noted for this roll call vote.
I may wish to vote on some occasions but on this occasion I merely wish my presence to be noted.
I appeal to other Members to do likewise.
Madam President, my presence in the Chamber should be noted.
Ladies and gentlemen, presiding a sitting would not be the same without a comment from Mr Falconer.
It has become a pleasant habit.
We take it in good part.
Mr Falconer, we note that you are not taking part in the vote but that you are indeed present.
(Mr Falconer requested the floor) Mr Falconer, I cannot allow you to speak again; that would be once too often.
After the vote on Amendment No 18
Yes, Mr Falconer, you are still there. I can see you.
Are you going to insist, Mr Falconer? If it really is for a point of order, it will be the last.
Madam President, that is not what the instructions from the Bureau say.
The instructions from the Bureau say that you will make it known at the vote.
I wish to be known at the vote and so therefore I wish to be recorded before the vote takes place.
That is what the instructions say, so please obey your own instructions.
Mr Falconer, to save time I promise to check that you are present, but you will understand that I am not willing to participate in your game.
We have a lot of amendments.
I can see you are there.
Whether you vote or not, I know you are present and I have recorded it.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, if the opposite side and other Members in this House wish to bleat like sheep and act like sheep when someone tells them what to do, and then they follow blindly, how can their electorate expect them to represent them? How can the electorate have any faith in this Parliament when their own representatives are being dictated to?
Madam President, you said: ' I am not willing to participate in your game' .
Mr Falconer did not start this game!
The game was started by the Bureau.
It was the Bureau that held these instructions down, not Mr Falconer.
I therefore ask you to withdraw those words!
I ask Members of this House to stop behaving like sheep!
Madam President, on a point of order.
I would like to say that a lot of Members are sick and tired of the behaviour of a certain Member.
I would like to ask you to proceed.
We do not wish to be interrupted at every turn.
The matter is too serious for us to waste time on tomfoolery.
Report (A4-0171/98) by Mr Tindemans, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the gradual establishment of a common defence policy for the European Union
Madam President, this concerns an oral amendment which has two parts.
I have the French text in front of me.
Recital G begins: ' Inquiet du non respect par Israël des engagements... '
The first part of the oral amendment consists in replacing this phrase with the phrase: ' Convaincu qu'Israël doit respecter ses engagements... '
The second part of the amendment consists in adding at the end, after the phrase 'novembre 1995 ' , the phrase: ' et des accords d'Oslo ' .
Thank you, Mr Dimitrakopoulos.
Are there any objections to this oral amendment?
Madam President, on behalf of my group I would just like to express my approval and full support for this oral amendment.
(The President noted that there was no opposition to the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, we all know that yesterday it was decided to start a dialogue between the population of Kosovo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In paragraph 3 we call on them to begin this dialogue.
I would therefore recommend the following changes in paragraph 3.
This paragraph will start with the words: ' welcomes the opening of a dialogue between...' .
It continues: ' without preconditions on the future status of Kosovo' .
This is all that is in paragraph 3.
(The President noted that there were more than twelve objections)
Ladies and gentlemen, there is something I do not understand.
There is a request for an oral amendment.
You did not protest initially.
At the end you can always vote against.
Your attitude is completely stupid.
First you listen and then you say: ' No, I did not want to listen' .
It is completely contradictory.
We were within the framework of the procedure.
You cannot begin at the beginning again.
One day someone should explain the rules clearly to you.
When the resolution was drafted we did not know what was then happening in Belgrade.
We did not have the facts as now presented by the speaker.
We should have been given the chance at least to put arguments in favour of the proposal before it was rejected.
I regret we did not have that chance.
One thing which is certain is that we are not going to start a debate on the matter.
We are all aware that the rule was fully respected in this case.
We were faced with an oral amendment of which, by force of circumstance, our colleagues were unfortunately not aware in advance.
That is what happens in such cases.
I shall now give the floor to Mrs Pack, since she will tell us the reasons for this opposition to the oral amendment.
Madam President, on the subject of this Amendment No 4 on the reduction of working hours, taking account of the debate underway in a number of countries in the European Union and taking account of the votes in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I wanted to say that, as rapporteur, I cannot ask for this to be supported.
However, as author of the report, I support this amendment.
Good, I think the House is now clear on this.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I will be very brief.
The third indent refers to a working document which, in the meantime, has been replaced by Mrs Randzio-Plath's resolution, and therefore it must be updated.
I would ask for Parliament's indulgence to amend as necessary to 'having regard to its resolution of 2 April 1998, doc.
A4-0110/98' .
I will ask for the floor in a moment, on the subject of paragraph 9, for the purposes of a very minor amendment.
(During the vote on the amendments, Mr Falconer requested the floor several times)
No, Mr Falconer, we agreed that that was your last point of order.
I am sticking to that and I think I have been very patient.
(Mr Falconer insisted - protests from the House) Mr Falconer, this is really very unpleasant.
I will speak frankly: I am asking you to stop!
All the Presidents who have occupied this rostrum have shown a great deal of patience.
But that is the end of it.
I would like us to continue with the vote.
On paragraph 9
Madam President, I would ask you to change the wording slightly, not for purposes of economy but to avoid any possible differences in interpretation between Mrs Randzio-Plath's report and mine.
I propose to replace the words 'or given the chance' with 'to enable it' .
(The President noted that there was no opposition to the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I congratulate Mr Herman and I apologize to Mr Pex but it is too late to vote on his report now.
The vote will take place this evening, following the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
I wish you bon appétit and I now give the floor to Mr Falconer!
(Mixed reactions)
Madam President, I hope and trust that you will respect my rights.
Obviously Mr Blak does not want to respect them but that is for his electorate to judge.
My point was this: how many persons have approached your services to advise them that they will be in the Chamber but not voting? That is my first point.
My second point was to ask: can your services identify if they were still in the Chamber? I believe that is a genuine point of order.
It is part of the procedure which we have adopted.
I know that one person approached me and told me that he had registered that he was going to be in the House.
I did not see that person in the House during the vote and I am just enquiring as to how many more persons actually did that to register their protest.
Mr Falconer, I will reply immediately.
The presence of the Members is checked throughout the votes.
I can assure you of that.
Madam President, on behalf - I am sure - of 99.9 % of my group, I should like to thank you for your patience, good humour and dignity in conducting this vote.
(Applause )
Thank you, Mrs Green.
I appreciate what you say.
Madam President, I should also like to thank you for your patience.
I also thank Mr Falconer for standing up for the rights of Members.
Like our rapporteur, I am delighted about the Council common position organizing the introduction of operator number portability in the telecoms sector and of carrier pre-selection.
These are two very important measures to guarantee that competition in this sector functions properly and thus to promote the interests of the consumer.
The deadline of 1 January 2000 for most Member States also seems adequate.
Also like our rapporteur, however, I regret that the Commission has submitted no proposals for introducing number portability in the mobile telecoms sector.
I agree with him that it is essential to make the use of the 112 emergency number operational in all countries of the European Union.
I believe that the citizens' Europe can more easily be made reality by means of practical measures like this than by a proliferation of incantatory declarations.
K. Collins report (A4-0181/98)
Given the complicated title of the proposal for a Council regulation which is submitted to us, it would be useful to remind you that the text on which we are going to give our opinion aims to indicate with precision which genetically modified soya or maize based products must be labelled as such and, where necessary, precisely how they should be labelled.
In my opinion it is essential that we take a firm stance in favour of clear wording in the case of these products, especially as this regulation will probably be used as a reference for precise measures for the labelling of new foodstuffs and ingredients, for which we have waited a long time.
We cannot drop our guard now, knowing the effort we have had to make to gain acceptance of the principle of a specific supplementary labelling, one as complete as possible, within the context of the adoption of the novel food regulation.
Consequently, I fully support the amendments which aim to reinforce that part of the wording which is fully justified and which is submitted to the consumer, as well as to clarify its content.
I support in particular the development of a better scientific evaluation of the presence of GMOs. This means doing away with the possibility of a 'may contain' label and replacing it with the clear label 'contains a GMO product' , and the possibility, where necessary, of an abbreviated label 'genetically modified' , which has the advantage of not being excessively long or complex while still remaining sufficiently clear.
I am voting in favour of this report that will force the labelling of certain foodstuffs that contain genetically modified organisms - GMOs.
I would have liked it to go a little further.
Yet let me make it clear, as a scientist my judgement is that GMOs are safe for public consumption.
However, as has been so sadly proved on many occasions, science and scientists are not infallible.
I want Community law to allow those consumers who make a different judgement to mine to be able to exercise that choice in Europe's shops and supermarkets.
That is why labelling is necessary, in that without forbidding GMOs it maintains the individual's right of choice.
The Danish Social Democrats do not endorse the report because it compromises the labelling of GMOs.
Removing the possibility of labelling foods with the wording 'may contain' is an affront to the consumer's desire for information.
It was a European Parliament proposal that originally advocated that doubtful cases should be labelled.
This assures genuine choice for those consumers who categorically do not want foods which contain GMOs.
Tindemans report (A4-0171/98)
Madam President, I am presenting this explanation of vote on behalf of my Group, namely the Green Group in the European Parliament.
It relates to a report which has produced a fundamental change in the policy of this House.
The Green Group, like a few other groups in this Parliament, belongs to that section of the House which does not consider it necessary to be armed to the teeth in order to achieve a democratic, ecological and socially just European Union.
In this respect, we condemn the fact that in spite of massive protests by a minority in this House during the ratification process for the Amsterdam Treaty, and despite the fact that some Member States of this European Union are neutral, such a report was put on the agenda.
The result is that this initiative by the European Parliament anticipates matters which go much further than the Amsterdam Treaty and therefore will severely disrupt the ratification process in the neutral states. Most importantly of all, it will certainly not be in the interests of freedom of choice for the citizens of Europe.
We were given no mandate from the people to do this.
In the midst of all this confusion a serious change has taken place.
At the conclusion it was not made clear that the name of our committee, the "Subcommittee on Security and Disarmament' , has been changed to the "Subcommittee on Security and Defence' .
This too goes far beyond the Amsterdam Treaty.
On behalf of the Green Group, I wish to register a strong protest against the attempts which are being made to change the procedures in the European Union by way of initiatives, and to do this against the will of the European people.
Foreign and security policy consists of different components: foreign policy, aid, trade, conflict resolution and peace, disarmament policy, refugee policy and military defence.
Security policy is therefore not the same thing as military defence.
From a modern security perspective, the security of the people is the central consideration.
The threat to the people may be anything from environmental disasters to social exclusion.
Conflicts between states are becoming increasingly unusual.
Instead, intra-state conflicts are becoming ever more common.
Most of these conflicts have their origins in social antagonisms of an ethnic and/or religious nature.
Such conflicts cannot be resolved by military methods.
Many of the EU Member States do not accept a common defence policy.
In Sweden, 70 % of the population is opposed to this.
The realization of a common defence policy has been removed from the agenda for a long time, to come as a result of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Parliament does not have the right to decide on a common defence policy.
Unanimity is required within the Council of Ministers in order to adopt such a policy.
We cannot support the report.
I voted against this report because although I want the EU to move towards a common foreign and defence policy as part of a federal Europe, I cannot support the basis of that policy as that of nuclear deterrence.
The British and French nuclear weapons should be dismantled in accordance with Article 6 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and in line with the judgement of the International Court of Justice in 1966.
Then we can develop a common defence policy.
I support the development of an EU defence policy.
I consider that it is an indispensable part of European integration.
Therefore I totally support the proposals contained in Mr Tindemans' report.
However, I would like to take issue with Ms McKenna's remarks during her contribution to the debate.
She has claimed, wrongly, once again that the Amsterdam Treaty establishes a European defence policy, thereby undermining Irish neutrality.
It does no such thing.
The Amsterdam Treaty specifically respects the current defence and security polices of each Member State.
This is a specific Treaty commitment to respect Irish neutrality.
An EU defence policy can only be established if it is agreed unanimously at a future Council meeting.
Furthermore, it would require amendments to the EU Treaties and would therefore be subject to a referendum in Ireland.
She should desist from making those fraudulent claims which she and her colleagues have made during every referendum in Ireland.
The fact that they have consistently proved to be without foundation unfortunately does not prevent their repetition.
I also take exception to her personal remarks about Mr Tindemans.
They are intemperate, offensive and ill-advised.
Mr Tindemans is the spiritual father of European Union and no-one in this House has done more than he has to bring about permanent peace and reconciliation in Europe.
Ms McKenna and her colleagues would do well to follow his example rather than criticize him.
The Tindemans report as approved stands for a thinking that at least partly reflects Cold War attitudes.
It is wishful thinking, considering the Amsterdam Treaty and the four militarily non-aligned countries, to talk about integrating the WEU into the Union.
Finland is at present the only Union Member State having a common border with Russia.
We do not see Russia as an enemy and we hope that the ties between the Union and Russia will be strengthened, creating an even larger area of peace, stability and prosperity.
We do not see military means as a primary answer to the problems facing us in the immediate neighbourhood of the Union.
This was the reasoning behind the Finnish-Swedish initiative to include Petersberg tasks within the scope of the Union.
The Tindemans report is not based on clear-headed thinking about European defence and security needs.
We therefore had to vote against the report.
The Danish Social Democrats have chosen to vote against the resolution.
The Tindemans report regards the EU from the outset as a military power and, in its recommendations, goes further still in its efforts to make the EU the standard-bearing regional superpower.
The report concludes that Union initiatives with regard to problems arising in areas such as the Middle East and the Balkans have been too little and too late, and that the European Parliament's natural role as a responsible player on the world scene has not been very evident to the Commission or the Council of Ministers.
As social democrats, we cannot take issue with that.
However, the report's proposed solution to this problem involves suggesting a rapid assimilation of the WEU into the EU.
An EU as a potential military superpower is a step in the wrong direction for a united, peaceful Europe.
The report also sets out a number of points to accelerate the integration of the WEU into the EU, strengthening the common defence profile that Mr Tindemans so earnestly desires.
However, the rapporteur offers no solution to the difficulties the EU would face in explaining itself to its neighbours, who would object to an EU bent on arming itself.
Similarly, taken to its logical conclusion, a common defence policy would mean French and British nuclear weapons having to come under Community jurisdiction.
So, like others in the social democrat group, we have chosen to vote against the resolution.
Europe already has a joint security identity in the form of NATO and the OSCE.
It does not need another one.
We have voted against the Tindemans report because it represents a considerable step on the path to militarization of the EU, which unfortunately confirms the fears that many of us have been voicing for some time about trends in EU cooperation.
Through the Tindemans report, the European Parliament is lining up behind the view that the EU must be developed into a military superpower with objectives broadly in line with those of most of history's superpowers: the unilateral defence of its own interests, including security of supply, by force of arms.
The report also represents the view that the EU should be entitled to act as a kind of "global police force' and intervene militarily in other countries' affairs as it sees fit.
We advocate an international legal system, which may also include peace initiatives of a military nature of the type undertaken for some time by the UN and the OSCE.
We can also envisage various forms of reinforcement, within the framework of the UN Charter, of the UN's and OSCE's roles in this connection.
We are opposed, however, to individual superpowers or regional blocs independently pursuing military interventions outside the UN framework, for which the Tindemans report unfortunately paves the way.
It is also evident that the vision of security policy underlying the Tindemans report does not in the long term leave any room within the EU framework for non-alignment by the Swedish model.
This unfortunately also bears out fears that we have voiced in the past.
In conclusion, we would like to point out the significant fact that the Swedish version of the title of the Tindemans report translates 'defence policy' as 'security policy' , which is such a serious misrepresentation that it gives a wholly misleading picture of what the Tindemans report is actually all about.
Joint resolution on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation
Do I need to say it again? For us, the Mediterranean Sea is an inland sea.
Our relations - and the quality of those relations - with all the countries bordering on it are vital, both for them and for us.
That requires partnerships and voluntary actions, with full respect for our differences, our constraints and our histories...
This process has been improving for a few years. However, there have been too many delays, too much mixing of genres, and sometimes too much of a superior attitude on our part, not to mention hints of neocolonialism.
On the subject of Algeria, Morocco or the Middle East, no-one has "the perfect answer' .
Certainly, we all agree that we must eradicate terrorism, perfect democratization and relaunch the peace process.
We may have ideas or suggestions and defend them keenly, but we must be able to listen to those who are in contact with these grave and dramatic problems.
Laxness, denial and pretended superiority should not form the European guidelines.
Nor should we forget to demand that the Member States of the European Union ratify their agreements quickly, so we can make the necessary funds available, help the countries of the south, open our markets and also demand that our political weight be recognized in our common quest for solutions.
I believe in our success if, and only if, we manage to use political means.
Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, launched by the Conference of Barcelona in November 1995, is a sustainable element of stability and economic development of the entire region.
In fact, for the European Union it is a matter of promoting growth to reduce unemployment in the region and decrease migration pressure, contributing in general to the stability and security of the Mediterranean countries.
This strategy will consequently have positive repercussions on European security.
Europe is discovering a basic concept: an ECU invested in Asia will create jobs, wealth and security in Asia, while an ECU invested in the Mediterranean will create security for the whole of Europe.
That is why the European Commission must relaunch decentralized cooperation, which has been paralyzed for too long, as quickly as possible.
When does the European Commission intend to reactivate the application of the MED programmes?
These programmes do not function through national governments, but with a multilateral cooperation decentralized to regional and local level.
In other words, they are very important as they make it possible to form direct links between persons, groups and organizations which share the same interests and which have the same aims, both within the EU and the Mediterranean partners, and between those partners.
In this way economic development can be encouraged, through the formation of a ruling and entrepreneurial class which represents the various strata of society and not only the positions of the élite.
And this will be good not only for the Mediterranean region but for Europe as a whole.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the motion for a joint resolution on Euro-Mediterranean agreements.
We have done so based on considerations of the importance of supporting EU projects in this area.
We should be involved in helping to secure peaceful development in terms of trade, democracy and human rights in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean.
One deficiency in the motion for the joint resolution is that it does not put strong enough emphasis on human rights.
The Danish Social Democrats wish to urge the Commission at the earliest opportunity to propose a strategy to promote adherence to human rights in the Mediterranean area.
Furthermore, the Danish Social Democrats consider it a matter of importance for pressure to be brought to bear on the Commission to increase grants to promote adherence to human rights in this area.
Setting aside ECU 9 million for such initiatives is not enough.
Sufficient funds should be set aside to allow activities to be expanded and programmes to be made more comprehensive.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, while I have every respect for the Commission's efforts in launching the MEDA programme and the MED-MEDA programmes, I do have a specific criticism to make on behalf of my group.
The MED programmes have been terminated by Commissioner Marín, though no individual criticism was directed at them, solely as a reaction to the deplorable state of affairs generally.
In this way, good projects have paid the penalty for the failures of the Commission.
This course of action is extremely unpolitical and is indicative of the Commissioner's helplessness.
His intervention in yesterday's debate was also, regrettably, quite out of place.
I would therefore ask the Commission to put a stop to such behaviour when similar circumstances arise in the future.
Terminating good programmes unfortunately does not make up for poor programme execution, in fact quite the reverse, for even greater damage is inflicted.
I only hope the Commission now puts the MED programmes into effect with even great urgency.
Madam President, I should like to stress that I was happy to vote for the Kosovo resolution, even though I was extremely annoyed about the manner in which yesterday's debate was handled.
I do not believe there is any sense in having such a discussion when the representatives of the Council and Commission are not present - and some of them even failed to attend the evening session.
I also think it was an awkward situation, because the Council and the Commission are obviously not acquainted with the latest developments in this area, for these were not entered into.
The manner of the postponement, with the undoubtedly important and interesting debate on India being brought forward, is at the very least questionable.
I am nevertheless convinced that we have to debate this matter in much greater depth, and that in doing so we should not lose sight of the real culprit - for he sits in Belgrade and not in Prishtina.
In 1989 Milosevic acted unconstitutionally in annulling Kosovo's autonomy and he is without doubt also guilty of those crimes against humanity which were recently perpetrated in that country.
There is therefore no doubt in my mind that he should not be sitting at the negotiating table but rather standing before the Court in The Hague.
We have abstained from voting on the resolution on Kosovo.
Our inability to vote for the resolution is due to point 6, in which a request is addressed to the UN Security Council, the OSCE, NATO and the WEU to take all necessary measures to prevent the conflict spreading.
We believe that this request should only be sent to the UN Security Council and the OSCE, which make decisions on measures based on a political analysis.
The solution to the conflict in Kosovo is not a military question, but a political and diplomatic one.
In other respects, however, we view the resolution as a correct analysis of the current political situation.
In our resolutions we continuously reiterate the need to support the forces of democracy in Kosovo.
It is then all the more regrettable that to the best of my knowledge not a single project has been funded this year through the PHARE democracy programme.
On behalf of my group I would therefore like to ask the Commission exactly what it intends doing in the very near future to organize help from the democratic programme for the civilian population of Kosovo.
If the Commission is looking for proposals, then my group is ready to submit ideas right now.
Caudron report (A4-0138/98)
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of Mr Caudron's report on the competitiveness of European industry.
In our opinion, the report contains several good points regarding how to ensure that European industry can become more competitive.
However, we cannot endorse the rapporteur's view that all countries should impose an equal burden on their companies as regards environmental requirements.
In accordance with Article 100 A(4) of the Treaty, each Member State should have the option of creating whatever environmental legislation it may deem necessary with regard to sustainability, health and welfare, and in the future, environmental policy will increasingly be based on Article 130, implying that Member States may build on EU minimum requirements.
We are also against the rapporteur's approach to the harmonization of fiscal policy, in paragraph 15.
We strongly distance ourselves from any type of harmonization of income tax.
E. Mann report (A4-0173/98)
Madam President, given the rapid increase in European-wide teleshopping, I support the rapporteur's proposal that it should be regulated at an international level through the World Trade Organization.
It is also vitally important that action is taken to ensure that the teleshopping trade is subject to the highest consumer standards.
Consumers must be protected against purchasing defective or dangerous products.
I have noted the rapporteur's suggestion that the Commission should investigate whether or not it is feasible to tax Internet sales.
However, I would point out that any such decision should not simply be to dissuade EU consumers from buying cheaper items by taxing them.
Our energies should be more directed to ensuring lower and more transparent prices within the EU itself so that non-EU products are no longer an attractive alternative.
Hopefully, the introduction of the single currency will significantly contribute to achieving this.
However, harmonization of the various VAT and other rates also has an important role to play.
Herman report (A4-0117/98)
Madam President, Mr Herman's report on the reform of the functioning of the institutions without modification of the Treaty shows a surprising approach which I regret that no-one here in this Parliament is reacting to.
On the main subject of the report, that of control of economic and monetary union, we are blandly told that the weakness of democratic control is unacceptable, which we have known since the beginning, but that the negotiators of the Maastricht Treaty did not want to weigh it down, and those at Amsterdam did not want to do anything either for fear of reopening Pandora's box.
In other words, to avoid giving rise to a new debate, it was better to tolerate an indefensible situation.
The result is that today, on the eve of the entry into force of the single currency, everyone is worried about the weakness of democratic control and the European Parliament is reduced to having to come up with emergency secondary measures to give the impression that the citizens will have a say in the matter.
The Herman report notably proposes initiating reforms by means of so-called interinstitutional agreements between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament.
These agreements do not by any means have the value of a treaty, but allow those in favour of integration to agree among themselves on progressively extending the powers of the European Parliament, in order to create a situation which will later be presented as an established fact.
We obviously do not agree with this type of procedure.
The Herman report succeeds only in making the constant manipulation of recent years plain for all to see. The aim of this manipulation is to have only scraps of discussions approved, to constantly postpone full debate and to prevent the citizens from giving their considered opinion on the process of monetary unification.
If any additional measures are required for this monetary unification, let them be discussed and put clearly to universal suffrage.
g. (SV) We cannot vote in favour of this report because its thrust is that the European Parliament should be the channel through which democratic control is gained over the European Central Bank and other political issues.
This essentially means a weakening of the national parliaments.
In many Member States, the national parliaments have double the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament.
The level of participation in the various elections around the EU Member States speaks volumes.
In order for the European Parliament to acquire the democratic responsibility to function better in the EU, it would be better if its Members were chosen by the national parliaments.
It is around the time of the elections to the national parliaments that democratic political debate occurs in Europe today.
Since its first election by universal suffrage in 1979, the European Parliament is truly the product and the representative of the citizens of the Union.
Anxious to absorb the democratic deficit of the European institutions, we constantly aim to bestow on our House all the attributes which belong to a true parliament in a state of democratic law.
From Intergovernmental Conferences to revision of the Treaties, European construction is advancing gradually down this road.
We should note that, while the Maastricht and Amsterdam texts are going in the right direction, they remain nonetheless insufficient in this area.
The citizens of the European Union are losing patience.
Despairing of better transparency and greater democratic control in the functioning of the European institutions - which are too often regarded as a technocratic machine insensitive to their true aspirations - some citizens will from now on be tempted to withdraw into themselves.
Following the Brussels Extraordinary Summit and the adoption of the single currency, the report we are examining today comes at just the right moment and proposes a number of measures which, even if they can only be provisional, nonetheless represent a necessary palliative to a persistent democratic deficit.
While awaiting another new and necessary Intergovernmental Conference in the future, we need to conclude agreements of interinstitutional cooperation in those areas of competence in which the loss of control by national parliaments has not been replaced by that of the European Parliament.
In fact it must be obvious to everybody that the citizens of the European Union will not accept that issues as crucial as economic and monetary union, the Stability and Growth Pact and foreign economic policy should escape the control of their elected European representatives. We all know the impact these issues have or will have on employment and social questions.
In implementing the different proposals for interinstitutional agreements contained in the present resolution, the European institutions will contribute significantly to reducing the lack of comprehension which separates a number of our fellow citizens from a European construction which many of them claim to want.
The Danish Social Democrats are abstaining from the vote on Mr Herman's report, despite the importance of ongoing considerations of how to make EU operations more open and democratic without amending the Treaty.
Moreover, it is correct to highlight interinstitutional agreements as an important means of achieving this goal.
The report contains several excellent proposals.
We endorse the ideas of more openness and democratic control of the European Central Bank and general economic policy within the euro zone.
Despite Denmark's legally binding derogation concerning participation in the third stage of EMU, it is of great importance to us that decisions made in these areas should be as open and democratic as possible.
However, paragraph 6 of the report contains wording that could be interpreted to the effect that compromises made in Amsterdam and Luxembourg in the area of employment are devoid of tangible content.
That is not our perception.
These compromises are an important contribution to the strengthening of employment policy in Europe, and the results are already beginning to manifest themselves little by little.
Furthermore, we would like to emphasize that we cannot endorse the idea of the European Parliament becoming involved in social dialogue.
Social dialogue must be supported and expanded, and in our opinion, that is best done by giving the social partners the freedom to negotiate to their mutual satisfaction.
g. (SV) What is needed in order to strengthen democracy, improve openness, increase public participation and thereby reduce criticism of the EU is reform from the bottom up.
That will not come about via this report.
The powers of the national parliaments must increase with regard to proposals, current business and control.
The powers of the Council must also increase.
The Commission's powers, on the other hand, must be substantially reduced.
Its exclusive right to submit proposals is completely unacceptable.
It is as if only the mayor were to have the right to submit proposals in the municipalities - an absurd thought!
The powers of the European Parliament must not increase, since this would lead to a federal system.
However, the European Parliament's working methods must be improved with a view to achieving more contact with the general public, less time spent in Brussels and more time in the homeland, more direct contact with the national parliaments, more questions of principle and concentration on the major political issues and dispensing with all questions of detail.
The undemocratic system of dividing up speaking time through the group leaders must be abolished.
A more democratic model needs to be created that gives all elected representatives the opportunity to speak on questions in which they are involved.
Speaking time must also be adapted to match the importance of the issues in question.
That two weeks should be devoted to questions of detail, but two and a half hours to the most important question - the EMU debate - during the entire session of Parliament illustrates the current imbalance.
I thank our colleague, Fernand Herman, for the own-initiative report which he has drawn up on possible improvements to the functioning of Community institutions without modification of the Treaty.
The democratic deficit which the institutions of the European Union generally suffer from and the possible solutions to this are set out perfectly clearly.
Like our rapporteur, I believe that the most substantial institutional improvements have been the result more of practices established on the basis of either institutional agreements or case law of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, or indeed of the extensive use of existing procedures, than of formal modifications of Treaties.
The role of the European Parliament must be strengthened urgently in two areas: social policy, which is particularly important in the eyes of European citizens; and economic and monetary union.
I would stress the problem of democratic responsibility in the economic and monetary areas, where the European Parliament, according to the Treaties, does not have any formal role.
We cannot, for all that, neglect the areas of common commercial policy, international agreements and competition policy.
In future, we should even extend our thinking to include foreign policy and police and judicial cooperation.
Our rapporteur recommends reaching an interinstitutional agreement.
I share his view entirely.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.27 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0498/98 by Mrs Günther and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0506/98 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the V Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0523/98 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the political situation in Sudan and the humanitarian crisis in southern Sudan; -B4-0534/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0539/98 by Mr Hory and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0541/98 by Mr Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Sudan; -B4-0552/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Andrews, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Sudan.
Madam President, the Sudan lies at the heart of a region where stability is often threatened.
In the forefront there is of course the clash of cultures, in this case the Muslim-Arab north versus the non-Muslim south.
Consequently the Islamic State of Iran backs the Khartoum faction - and China too, though this is mainly to annoy the USA - while the neighbouring countries are frightened because a united fundamentalist Sudan seems to them a dangerous prospect, as this religious spark, as it were, could well flash over into the Muslim populations of these nearby states.
The hope attached to the Nairobi talks resides in the fact that a compromise may be possible this time due simply to the respective weaknesses of both sides in the conflict, for at the fruitless peace talks held six months ago the same peace plan, more or less, was on the table.
The intention now is to agree, for a transitional period, on a loose federation between north and south and then, after several years, to put to the people in a referendum how they wish to be governed.
However, it is to be regarded as a sign of the helplessness of the European Union and the rest of the international community that we are now grateful for being allowed to provide aid to the suffering population of that country, while it is those very people in power in Sudan who should be responsible for this.
Madam President, when you talk about the Sudan, you are talking about my family.
My two children were born there, and the country means something to me.
To see 400 000 people once again near starvation, it gets me, it gets everyone.
Especially if you know that the cause is the ceasefire which has not been declared by the governing party, let alone by the resistance movement in the south.
The Union must increase pressure to the maximum.
They must be persuaded to take up the numerous peace initiatives again.
I would have thought all types of pressure are legitimate, including the freezing of IMF and World Bank funds, because 400 000 to 500 000 human lives are at risk.
In the meantime, this same Union must not renege on the humanitarian front.
That is why I thank Commissioner Marín, and in any case the Commission, for the recent ECHO flight with ECU 8.8 million in emergency aid.
People must not lose interest in the helpless Sudanese.
Madam President, sometimes when we put forward topics for discussion marked 'urgency' people say: ' Where is the urgency?' There can be no doubt whatsoever that Sudan is an urgent situation, even though we have discussed the tragic situation in that land on many occasions.
Pictures on the television screens of Europe are sometimes what it takes to alert people to human tragedies, such as the continuing crisis in Sudan, and we are absolutely right to come back to it.
We are not alone, however, because at the ACP Joint Assembly in Mauritius recently, to everybody's agreeable surprise, there was a solid majority of the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries voting separately, at their request, from the EU, condemning the Sudanese.
That is not, however, enough.
We have to look for a long-term and permanent solution.
This is where the example of Eritrea and Ethiopia, which were in a similar situation not that long ago, is instructive, and so we should welcome the prospect of a referendum, and reinforce the right of self-determination of the south.
Madam President, over the past 15 years a million people are estimated to have died in the civil war between north and south in Sudan, and hundreds of thousands more are now threatened by imminent starvation caused partly by a twoyear drought but primarily by armed hostilities.
In the hardest-hit region of all, Bahr-al-Ghazal, northern-backed forces are reported to have burned crops and grain stores, and here and everywhere else deliveries of emergency food aid have been barred, while people have been eating their seed stock and leaves and dying in swarms.
In this merciless conflict human rights have been totally ignored. Action by the international community must be stepped up to try to avert an even greater human tragedy than has already occurred.
The Sudanese government has an appalling record of ruthless repression in north and south alike, apart from its military operations: imprisonment, torture, execution and the use of terrorism against its own and neighbouring peoples.
The Sudanese government has ignored UN Security Council resolutions on human rights.
In these circumstances, sanctions on development aid, but not on humanitarian aid, will have to be maintained.
Peace is desperately needed, and it is therefore sad that talks in Nairobi this week broke down.
Peace, however, is only possible on the basis of accepting the right of the peoples of Sudan to democracy and democratic self determination.
We must welcome the fact that agreement has been reached to lift some restrictions on food aid destined for those in dire need, but all possible pressure must be maintained to ensure that humanitarian aid gets through everywhere.
The European Union has already made an important contribution, but we must ask that efforts be intensified to provide relief in this appalling human catastrophe.
This is the aim of this motion.
Madam President, everyone knows that the drought of the past few years has quite plainly only aggravated the problem of the war in Sudan.
In other words, the main obstacle to combating famine and promoting peace must be removed by working on peace negotiations.
We know that the result which has been achieved as part of IGAD is still incomplete at the moment, and that both parties still have some way to go.
Yet I think it is important to signal from within the European Union that we expect further results as part of IGAD.
Secondly, as far as the problem of the now acute food shortage is concerned, and since access is possible again now - thank God! - the European Union should also take the lead in ensuring that the food reaches the starving population for the time being.
Madam President, I have been dealing with this question for five years in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
Sadly, nothing positive has yet been achieved for the people of Sudan.
We need an immediate ceasefire, we need negotiations between all parties, otherwise nothing can be achieved - for partial negotiations have so far not proved successful.
Human rights and democracy, the right of the population of southern Sudan to self determination, these must be respected, and we urgently need humanitarian aid before another 100 000 people starve to death, helpless in the face of the current conflict.
What we need are sanctions against the government of Sudan, and these should be imposed not just by the EU but also by the international community, so that more pressure can be brought to bear and the neighbouring countries can be protected.
Madam President, as the honorable Members are aware, the Commission stopped all development aid to the Sudan in 1989 because of the persistent lack of respect for human rights, the absence of democracy and the lack of significant attempts to negotiate a peaceful end to that country's civil war.
Since there has been no sign of real change, and unless substantial progress is made with regard to the peace process and human rights, there is no reason for the Commission to change its position.
Nevertheless, the Commission is following developments in the humanitarian situation in southern Sudan very carefully.
In 1997, the Commission was the largest aid donor, with ECU 23 million.
Added to the Member States' bilateral aid, that represents 65 % of all the humanitarian aid received by the Sudan.
In November 1997, a decision was made to give the Sudan ECU 6.7 million, out of the total sum of ECU 23 million I just mentioned, to help the world food programme.
I should point out that a large proportion of the food currently being distributed in Bahr-al-Ghazal, in the south, forms part of this contribution.
On 23 March this year, the Commission approved a decision to the sum of ECU 11.8 million, in the form of an overall plan for humanitarian aid to meet the needs of the victims of the war in the Sudan.
That aid - from this year, 1998 - is being implemented by 35 non-governmental organizations and this time covers both the south and the north of the country. It basically focuses on the medical, food safety and health sectors, especially drinking water.
This decision also includes a reserve of ECU 1 million which is being used to provide additional funding for certain activities in Bahr-al-Ghazal, again in the south of Sudan.
Nevertheless, the situation in the north of the region is still very worrying and may deteriorate when the rainy season arrives. That may hamper the delivery of humanitarian aid, as has happened in the past.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0504/98 by Mr Macartney and Mr Weber, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the possible re-entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear plant in Slovakia; -B4-0509/98 by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the V Group, on the entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear power plant in Slovakia; -B4-0515/98 by Mrs Flemming and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear power plant; -B4-0524/98 by Mr Papayannakis, Mr Campos and Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Mochovce nuclear power plant; -B4-0536/98 by Mr Eisma, Mr Frischenschlager and Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear power plant; -B4-0542/98 by Mrs Graenitz, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the planned entry into service of the Mochovce nuclear power plant.
Madam President, the resolution on Slovakia is a compromise resolution.
I think all of us have reservations about certain points.
For example, I have reservations about recital F. A point one should make to our Slovak colleagues, if they are listening to us, as I am sure they will be, is that we are not singling out Slovakia in particular for criticism.
In this House my group put forward a proposal to bring in Dounreay in Scotland as well because the situation there in many respects is just as serious. So we are certainly not singling out Slovakia.
When we say that the Slovak authorities have failed to provide any clear answers to the problem of nuclear waste storage, as in paragraph 5 of the resolution, that certainly obtains in many other countries too.
What I would say is that the resolution is a package.
If you take recital H which expresses doubts about the safety of the Mochovce station alongside paragraphs 2 and 3, these add up to a reasonable request that the evaluation study which will be published, we understand, within two or three weeks should take into account any criticisms and problems.
All of this adds up to a responsible, balanced and fair package and should therefore be supported.
Madam President, the history of nuclear energy in eastern Europe is that of unparalleled decline, whether you take the defunct reactors in Bohunice and Chernobyl or the Mochovce nuclear plant.
This sad decline has for years been accompanied by anxious resolutions from the European Parliament, which have basically done no more than lag behind events with half-hearted measures aimed at risk limitation.
These have all come to nought, as the case history of the Slovak nuclear plant shows.
This plant is being built without containment, it is full of defects and it is to feature equipment from a Russian nuclear reactor which has never even been tested.
Even the most impartial observer must now realize that the strategy of the European Union, which has been to re-equip the nuclear plants of central and eastern Europe and bring them up to Western safety standards, has now failed.
I believe the reason for this is all too evident.
As long as the European Union fails to realize that nuclear energy cannot be made safe and that we need to develop a non nuclear-based energy policy for the future, then we shall continue to lag behind events.
Our main demands are: no start-up of the Slovak nuclear plant; complete shutdown of the defunct reactor in Bohunice; and no reduction in European nuclear safety standards as part of EU enlargement, until such time as this view finally prevails.
Madam President, I first wish to thank all the people whose support has led to the adoption of this joint resolution, and also the operators of the Mochovce nuclear plant and all those NGOs which were prepared to provide us with comprehensive information in this field.
Of course it is the right of every sovereign state to make its own decisions on the use of its primary energy sources, but in recent years, and certainly since Chernobyl, we have come to realize that we are all nextdoor neighbours when it comes to the nuclear plants of Europe. It is the right of every neighbour, in the face of such potentially dangerous technology, to demand the application of those safety standards which are taken for granted in Germany, France and the UK.
This is all part of the acquis communautaire .
Without adherence to the strictest possible safety standards there can be no talk of accession to the European Union.
Two international panels of experts have visited the Mochovce plant in recent weeks.
It was taken for granted that the start-up of the plant would await the outcome of these investigations and any identified defects would be put right beforehand.
But no, the operators announced to an astonished public that whatever happened, they intended to commence operating trials on 21 July.
This is something we cannot accept.
We are also still owed an answer as to the nuclear waste, for this material certainly cannot be sold to Russia.
The law is absolutely stringent on this.
Neither Austria nor the EU can force Slovakia or any other country to collaborate with us, but compliance with the findings of the two panels could constitute the starting point for creating international structures for greater transparency in nuclear matters, and for this Slovakia would earn the gratitude not only of Austria but of the whole European Union.
Madam President, our draft resolution asks for a very small number of reasonable things from Slovakia: an assessment, and the promise that the findings of that assessment will be respected.
I remind you, however, that at Mochovce, as a result of a previous assessment, 201 cases of inadequate safety measures have already been detected, some of which are outrageous, such as the lack of insulation, corroded material and inexistent fire protection.
I therefore think that we have the right to intervene and to call on Slovakia not to go ahead with putting this nuclear plant into operation. It is not simply a matter for Slovakia alone.
We know very well that it is a pan-European matter and, I would venture to say, a global matter. We would be more convincing, Madam President, if we announced a programme to replace nuclear energy throughout the whole of Europe and if of course we promised credible assistance to Slovakia, to ease its way through this period during which it will need energy until it can give up its own nuclear energy.
Madam President, this is not the first time we have discussed Mochovce.
More than three years ago we came together here to form an opinion on the same topics.
I think the safety of the nuclear plants in central and eastern Europe will keep us busy for many years to come.
The situation in Slovakia becomes increasingly urgent when we look at the nuclear plants over there. The Slovak authorities intend to start up the nuclear plant in Mochovce in just a few weeks' time.
We are very worried, because there is still no clarity about the storage of nuclear waste and the safety of the installation itself.
I therefore beg the Slovak authorities to postpone the start-up as long as this uncertainty still exists.
That is why it is so important for us in this Parliament to make a statement today.
In a few weeks' time our Joint Parliamentary Committee is due to meet with Slovakia, and they should be given a proper brief from this entire Parliament.
Madam President, I hope we will all adopt this resolution unanimously, so that our imminent delegation to Slovakia knows the position of the European Parliament, and the position the Slovak authorities ought to adopt.
Madam President, I have been asked by many people why such an urgent resolution on Mochovce is being tabled now.
I believe this resolution has become important for the following reasons. The inspection visits carried out last week and the week before by independent international experts have shown that progress has been made, not least because funding has been provided through the PHARE programme.
They also showed, however, that some questions have still to be answered, particularly that of evaluation.
The investigations revealed that some problems have still to be solved, particularly the lack of any containment in the normal sense, and that the systems which have been installed for this purpose have not been inspected to see whether they are capable of guaranteeing safety in the event of a serious incident, such as occurred at Three Mile Island or Chernobyl.
It is worth recalling here that the results of radioactive contamination from Chernobyl can still be detected in the European Alps.
Secondly, I think the results of these inspections should be submitted prior to the commencement of operating trials, so that any improvements deemed necessary can be undertaken before rather than after the event.
In this context, I must also mention that it seems strange to me that one expert was excluded from the visit.
This particular person was involved with the Greifswald nuclear reactor and his experience would be most valuable.
I should also like to point out that the last meeting of the Council of Ministers, which discussed the problems of integration and enlargement, dealt with the subjects of Mochovce and also the shutting down of Bohunice, in the event that other energy sources are available.
Everybody there was of the opinion that nuclear plants which are not safe should be shut down.
We are very concerned about the safety of the citizens of Slovakia, the transition economies, the European Union and everyone in Europe.
I do not want to see - and I think this goes for all of us - any irreversible steps being taken in Slovakia which might threaten the safety of all these people.
Madam President, this Parliament must respect Slovakia's right as a sovereign country to determine its own energy policy and to operate a nuclear plant if it so wishes.
We should note that Slovakia has signed all the international conventions, that it was a Member of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board between 1993 and 1996 and that Mr Lipar, the head of the regulatory authority, is vice-chairman of the Nuclear Safety Assistance Coordinating Committee which is operated by DG XI in the European Commission.
Because of a previous resolution in this Parliament, the completion of Mochovce has gone ahead without European Union financial assistance.
As a further result, there is no legally binding international agreement to close Bohunice number 1 reactor when Mochovce is in operation.
This Parliament bears the prime responsibility for that situation.
It is to the credit of Slovakia that the completion has gone ahead not only with their own national engineers and with the assistance of the Russian designers but also with the involvement of Siemens, EDF, Westinghouse and Framatome, all western experts in the nuclear field.
The completion has been made to standards set by Risk-Audit, an organization established by German and French nuclear safety authorities.
There has been a study carried out.
The indications I have had are that it is a favourable study but we ought to wait for the study before we jump to conclusions.
It is due in June, and the date that I have for the proposed start-up of Mochovce is July.
Most of this resolution is irrelevant to the Mochovce circumstances.
What we need at European level, and we still do not have, are standards which all the countries have to apply to the safety of their nuclear reactors.
Madam President, we all want the central and eastern European countries to progress economically and to have safe nuclear plants. Just as we want all the nuclear plants in the world to be safe, together with coal mines, factories and every other type of installation.
I have heard a lot of silly things being said here, Madam President, and I am surprised that people say such things without knowing what they are talking about.
I am a member of the delegation to Slovakia. They have explained a lot of things to us.
I think they have the sovereignty to do whatever they think is right, and it is their responsibility to protect the Slovak people, their neighbours and the whole of Europe.
In 1995 this Parliament refused all assistance.
That was a great mistake, but they have no right to say the things they are saying now.
So, Madam President, I shall not be supporting some points of the resolution.
It will not be fully approved, Mr Eisma, because it is not particularly correct.
Slovakia imports 15 % of its electricity. It is growing a lot and it needs help.
I wish them great success, and I hope the Mochovce nuclear plant works well and safely.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a letter from Austrian MPs to the Slovak government and to the Members of the European Parliament reports on the possible dangers associated with putting second generation reactors into service in the nuclear plant in Mochovce in Slovakia.
On behalf of the Group Union for Europe, I must note firstly that the Slovak Republic ratified in 1995 the convention on nuclear safety which was adopted by the IAEA in 1994.
This convention came into force in 1996.
Secondly, the modernization of sections 1 and 2 of the nuclear plant in Mochovce, although it was not subsidized by the EBRD and thus does not benefit directly from European funds, received financing which affects the whole of Europe.
This work was granted to Slovak companies and to a consortium of Czechs, French, Germans and Russians.
The prescribed level of security will from now on be identical to that of Western sectors for the same technology, and it meets IAEA criteria.
International experts recently confirmed that all precautions had been taken in terms of the safety of modernized installations.
In this context, one cannot help but be surprised by the terms used in the letter addressed to the Slovak President.
Slovakia must guarantee energy production at the level required by its population.
It cannot say no to Mochovce.
From now on there is no reason to do so, in that all nuclear safety precautions have been taken for starting the operation of second generation reactors, which are henceforth as safe as the reactors used in the European Union.
So let us wait for the results of the evaluation, which we will have at the end of June, and allow the Slovaks, who are sovereign in this area, to bring back into service, for the benefit of its population, a nuclear plant which guarantees all necessary security standards.
Madam President, the start-up of the Mochovce nuclear reactor is a decision which will have farreaching consequences for the entire future of nuclear power generation.
This reactor would never have been approved as safe either by an EU Member State or in the USA.
The nuclear industry is placing its high-risk installations right up against the borders of the EU.
This is a cynical gesture to the safety of the whole of Europe.
Added to this is the fact that we are for the first time faced with a situation in which the start-up of a suspect nuclear plant may well be part of an election strategy.
The Slovak Prime Minister, Vladimir Meciar, is keen to show the world that he heads a determined and strong government, prior to the autumn ballot.
The nuclear plant is to go into operation in spite of the fact that internationally recognized experts consider that building a new installation would be more cost-efficient that refitting an old one to meet international safety standards.
A panel of experts has recently examined the plant and their findings are to be made known shortly.
I propose that the European Parliament should invite these experts to a hearing on safety standards at the plant.
Slovakia does not have a credible energy policy.
I recall that the Slovak government originally promised that the start-up of Mochovce would be accompanied by the closure of the two unsafe units at Bohunice.
This was also the basis on which the German-based Hermes Bank provided a credit guarantee for Siemens-KWU to supply equipment for the start-up of the Mochovce plant.
Contrary to all promises, Bohunice is being refitted, rather than closed, at a cost of over ECU 150 million.
Slovakia recently declared that Bohunice would be put into service along with the start-up of Mochovce.
The European Parliament and the Hermes Bank have clearly been deceived.
In view of these events the resolution in question is very restrained, but it can be accepted as a minimum response to the situation.
Madam President, I will be brief and make just two points.
I would say to the people of Slovakia that nuclear energy may in many respects be a clean form of energy but it is one that allows no room for any mistakes at all.
That is why neighbours worry and I understand the Austrian position in this.
I am from the south of England and had to take environmental health officers to France where we wanted to look at French nuclear power stations.
Those are concerns people have about any nuclear energy.
However, I would say to this Parliament that, as the vice-president of the joint parliamentary committee with Slovakia, I met yesterday senior safety officials from Slovakia and the Slovak Electricity Authority.
I have no doubt they take their responsibilities very seriously, and we should welcome the action of the Slovak government in inviting an independent panel of experts to inspect this plant.
If those independent experts give it a clean bill of health, we should respect that and, just as we often pass condemnatory motions on Slovakia, we should also respect good news when it comes from Slovakia.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you will remember that after independence the Slovak authorities decided to complete the two first reactors with Western assistance, for which they requested a loan from Euratom and another one from the EBRD.
Because of that request, the Commission promoted a major modernization programme for these reactors during 1994 and 1995.
The programme consisted of a large number of measures which, if implemented, would have guaranteed safety levels absolutely equivalent to those in the West.
However, before the Commission and the EBRD had announced their decision about the loans, the Slovak government decided to withdraw the loan requests and use other resources to finance the installation of the reactors.
The project was indeed carried out, mainly with the assistance of the Czech Republic and Russia. Certain Western companies also participated, by means of bilateral export credits.
As a result, the Commission ceased to participate in the management of the project or in defining the safety improvement programme.
In its opinion on Slovakia in Agenda 2000, and in the association agreement for Slovakia's accession, the Commission has mentioned the need for the Mochovce nuclear plant to work to international safety regulations, and for the implementation of a realistic programme to close the Bohunice reactor.
At the moment, the Community's participation in this project is limited to supporting the Slovak authorities.
The PHARE programme is funding a project for experts from the EU to review the Mochovce units under the direction of Risk-Audit, which is a company effectively composed of independent organizations of safety experts from France and Germany.
In order to evaluate the safety of the reactor, the Commission agrees with Parliament that it is important for the experts to have access to all the documentation related to the modernization programme, and other details about the reactor.
This assessment, by the independent organizations I just mentioned, could be available by the end of 1998.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, the murder of Bishop Juan José Gerardi is seen by many as an attack on the peace process.
He played an important role in opening up the files on the murders and attacks which took place during the time of the civil war.
It is essential for the consolidation of this peace process that lawlessness is brought to an end, and that is why the perpetrators of this murder should be found and punished quickly.
The so-called high level committee which has been set up by the government must work with speed and credibility.
Maintaining credibility is essential for the progress of this same peace process.
We think the murderer, or murderers, tried to upset this peace process.
They must not be allowed to succeed.
The EU must call upon the Guatemalan parties and support them in continuing down the road towards this difficult and lasting peace.
The EU was there to condemn the civil war; now we must be in Guatemala to promote and maintain peace.
Madam President, on behalf of my political group, I also want to express our most energetic condemnation of the murder of Bishop Gerardi and our solidarity with the Catholic community and the whole of the Guatemalan people.
I think the compromise resolution satisfactorily covers not just Bishop Gerardi's worthy pastoral activities, but also his firm and resolute commitment to democracy, human rights and the peace process in Guatemala. The government of that country has expressed a strong desire to identify the perpetrators of this horrible crime and bring them to justice.
In order to do so, as Mr Bertens mentioned, it has set up a committee, which we hope can act as quickly and diligently as possible.
I think, Madam President, that if we were to ask ourselves who benefits and who is harmed by this assassination, there can be no doubt that it was a hard blow for all those people who have shown determination and commitment to the Guatemalan peace process, which was so difficult to achieve.
So, Madam President, I believe the best way of paying a tribute of admiration and respect to the memory of Bishop Gerardi and the ideals for which he laid down his life is for the European Union to continue in its efforts - and now I am addressing the Commission and its representative here, Mr Marín - to carry on making all possible efforts to support the Guatemalan peace process, as it always has done.
Madam President, I think we have talked about impunity many times during this session, and about the way these murders are sometimes directed against the people who defend human rights.
I think Bishop Gerardi's report, which contains more than 5000 statements from people whose rights were violated during the previous era, is aimed precisely against that impunity.
The objective of Bishop Gerardi's report is that acts such as those which took place in Guatemala should never happen again.
In fact, when he finished his report, he said: ' Now I can die in peace.
May nothing like that ever happen again in Guatemala' .
So the other speakers are right to say that the peace agreement should remain. It should remain, but in the absence of impunity.
During the course of the afternoon we are also going to discuss human rights in Colombia.
More than three human rights activists have been murdered, two of them after having spoken to Members.
We think it is extremely serious that there should be this impunity, which allows the constant disappearance of the people who defend human rights in either of these countries.
As Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra said, the Commission must make whatever efforts it has at its disposal to prevent this from happening.
Madam President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, as has already been said, during the night of 26 April, Bishop Gerardi, the auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Guatemala was murdered in Guatemala City.
In expressing our regret and condemnation of this crime, we must also express our solidarity with his relatives and collaborators, and with the Guatemalan people in general.
As has been said, Bishop Gerardi had coordinated the documents reflecting the human rights violations which occurred in that country during the years of armed conflict, and the conclusions of that work had just been presented to the public.
We must of course be somewhat prudent and not speculate at the moment, but we must demand that the Guatemalan government and judiciary complete their investigations.
We are obviously keen to hear the conclusions of those investigations.
Violent acts of this nature cannot go unpunished, and cannot be used cynically as a tool against the peace agreements for anybody's selfish interests. The Guatemalan government is committed to those agreements, as are most of the parties and civil organizations in that country, as well as the group of friendly countries which supported the dialogue which culminated in those peace agreements.
The European Union must also carry on lending its political and economic support to the content of the Guatemalan peace process.
Such an act, so painful and worthy of condemnation, cannot call a country's image into question, but we find it worrying as an expression of a violence still all too present within Guatemalan society.
The people of Guatemala deserve the best possible future after decades of armed confrontation and violence.
Peace in Guatemala also marked the culmination of a process of pacification throughout Central America.
The Guatemalan people deserve our full support for the way they are relying on solving the conflicts through dialogue rather than violence.
We trust that the investigation into the crime against Bishop Gerardi will have a more satisfactory conclusion than other processes underway, such as those relating to the murders of the politician Jorge Carpio Nicol or the lawyer González Dubón.
Madam President, the authorities and the military in Guatemala should take responsibility for the serious and systematic infringement of human rights in that country.
This was one of the main aims of the thousand-page REMHI report which was prepared under the direction of Bishop Juan Gerardi.
As the latter said in one of his last interviews, this will not suit a lot of the people who are seeking to make a clean break with the past.
Bishop Gerardi's brutal murder took place against a background of continuing impunity.
Neither the armed forces nor the secret services have been exculpated as a consequence of the peace treaties.
The report finally names the people responsible and calls for action to be taken. This includes the immediate disbandment of the military and civilian instruments of repression, the prosecution of paramilitary groups, an end to impunity and compensation for the victims.
REMHI restores the dignity of the people.
Project collaborators must be given protection, and this includes those working up-country.
Europe supports many projects in Guatemala, including the build-up of new security forces.
Here it is essential for the EU to ensure that no support whatsoever is given to human rights violators of the old guard.
We should back the establishment of an international commission to investigate properly the fate of the people who have disappeared.
Madam President, we all sympathize with the death of Bishop Gerardi, which has been a grave loss for the people of Guatemala.
I believe, however, that even at a moment such as this we should be focusing on the fact that his work must go on.
But international intervention certainly produces no results.
The Guatemalan government has recently shown how anxious it is to establish peace and order.
After 30 years of civil war, however, it is simply inconceivable that such a thing can be achieved overnight.
However, given my experience of the Guatemalan people, which certainly does not compare with that of my friend Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, I continue to fear that if we intervene too vigorously they will do just the opposite of what we wish.
Nevertheless, we should make every possible effort to administer the legacy of Bishop Gerardi, and do everything we can to achieve his aims.
Colombia
Madam President, the murder of Eduardo Umaña Mendoza has shocked us all.
This sudden, politically motivated crime is the worst attack to date on the human rights movement and on all the opposition groups in Colombia.
This lawyer of many years' standing was known to some of us personally.
He was even told that the recent cases he had been working on would cost him his life, for as Colombia's most distinguished lawyer he had for 20 years consistently and uncompromisingly represented the victims of human rights violations.
It is an open secret as to which of the state and military forces were behind this murder.
Furthermore, those who are promoting economic cooperation with Colombia and granting customs waivers through the GSP are accessories to a terrible spiral of violence which continues to be fuelled by those who benefit from it.
Only yesterday afternoon some 30 soldiers with search warrants forced their way into the offices belonging to Justicia y Paz and other human rights organizations, allegedly in the hunt for would-be assassins.
Such intimidation of human rights supporters is completely unacceptable, and the Council should distance itself unequivocally from such a policy.
The Commission must review the terms of its entire policy of cooperation with Colombia, otherwise the people fighting for human rights in Colombia will soon not just be muzzled but murdered!
Commissioner, I would be pleased if you could for once give us answers to some of these questions.
I know you are a master of diplomacy, but a response would be most appropriate in this case.
Madam President, as a doctor, I can only deplore the development in Latin America of an aspect of epidemiology known as the epidemiology of violence.
It is not an act of nature.
It is not like the other diseases which are studied epidemiologically. Rather, the cause of this epidemic is the support given by North America to the dictatorships these countries have suffered.
In contrast, Europe is constantly defending human rights, justice and equality, so I think it is our responsibility to ensure that people realize the difference between the North American influence, which sows corpses, and the influence of the European Union, which sows peace and concord.
So the Commission should act forcefully to clarify and apply the necessary conclusions.
Madam President, it is with sadness, regret and anger, and also a sense of frustration, that I rise once again in this Parliament to condemn violence - all the violence committed in Colombia, and the rest of the world too.
This is a terrorist form of violence which is preying upon the defenders of human rights; which has murdered Eduardo Umaña Mendoza, just as two days previously it cut down the lives of María Arango Fonnegra and Jesús María Valle Jaramillo, and so on and so on; a terrorist violence which also murdered the former defence minister, MPs, lowly town councillors, journalists, peasant farmers, women and children - in other words, everybody.
This violence is committed in the name of justice - what irony! - or to demand justice; a violence which blackmails and kidnaps; a violence which is fascist, drug-related, and mafia-like. It is a violence which threatens those who believe in democracy and the rule of law, and who do not resign themselves to this state of affairs because they believe there are ways to achieve peace, and who are so generous that they act as human shields in the fight for democracy, peace and liberty by means of dialogue alone.
Madam President, as counterbalance and hope, I want to emphasize the efforts of thousands of Colombian women and men who, with profound democratic convictions and different ideologies, are providing a real lesson in human dignity and civil heroism in a difficult and complex situation.
In a few days' time presidential elections will be held.
It is important, necessary and essential for the process to take place peacefully.
Peace cannot wait much longer.
We must be vigilant and support these efforts. Most of all, we must call upon the violent groups to renounce violence, to realize that their time has passed and that, unless they want to kill everybody, they must understand that with democracy you win, whereas with violence you always lose.
Madam President, like the previous speaker, I can only point out that yet again we have to draw attention to the atrocities - and how often have we already condemned such actions? - which are being committed primarily in Colombia, which, one regrets to have to say, is a land of violence.
Eduardo Umaña Mendoza is the third human rights activist to be killed in a very short space of time.
We really must demand that these human rights representatives are given better protection as they go about their work.
The government is clearly unable to take decisive action, but violence is not the solution - certainly not for the people of the country, who have suffered most from it. Colombia can to all intents and purposes now be considered as a country where violence prevails and its citizens can do nothing about it.
Nor will the elections of 31 May bring an end to the killings, as indicated by the murder of the former General Fernando Landazabal, who was advising presidential candidate Andrés Pastrana on various matters, including a future peace plan.
Other candidates' names are also on the death lists, and this includes people on both sides.
This is no way to achieve democracy. This is no solution.
We call upon the government authorities, the candidates and all the parties to come to a peaceful political solution and at long last to bring democracy and peace to the people of Colombia.
Madam President, in its recent report on human rights the US State Department called the situation in Colombia poor, and that is saying something. In particular, the culture of lawlessness was regarded as a deterioration in the situation there.
We have seen what this can lead to.
Human rights activists do important work, in Colombia as well.
The Colombian government has an interest in this.
I think the Commission and the Council must give another clear signal to Colombia that we are getting serious now.
Today's motion for a resolution rightly calls for a Commission report on the human rights situation in Colombia.
Our agreement with Colombia contains a human rights clause, and for good reason.
I am also asking the Council, which is meeting on 18 May, to pay attention to this.
We must be on our guard.
Turkey
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once again this House has occasion to express its concerns about human rights and freedom of speech in Turkey.
We do so without any exaggerated view of our own capabilities and without belittling our own problems, even within the European Union. Nevertheless, the cowardly attack on Mr Birdal, the president of the Turkish Association of Human Rights, and the legal actions taken against members of the former Refah Party, in connection with political views which had been expressed, are quite dreadful events.
Democratic states are convinced that banning political parties hardly constitutes a solution.
It is certainly no solution to the internal arguments which have been waged in Turkey between those holding different political views, such as Erbakan's party or the successor Fazilet Partisi (Virtue Party).
Democratic states are quite rightly not very keen on banning political parties, for such bans soon get a reputation for being themselves undemocratic and for stifling political activity and freedom of speech.
Turkey itself is undergoing the process of transition to a normal society, which is something the laical constitution of Kemal Atatürk cannot live up to, for in my mind this constitution does not allow sufficient scope for religious freedom and for the religious activities of its citizens.
Neither a ban on political parties nor the threat of imprisonment can prohibit this process of transition, and this is a problem which Turkish society and the Turkish political parties themselves will have to solve.
Respect for human rights has certainly improved in a number of areas in recent years.
This is a fact which we should not conceal.
Nevertheless, it is shocking that attacks on journalists and human rights activists are not prosecuted with the necessary vigour.
Prime Minister Yilmaz has promised that firm action will be taken to find those responsible for the cowardly attack on Mr Birdal.
We can only hope that this will be the case.
The same applies to Mr Erdogan, the mayor of Istanbul, who was given a 10 month prison sentence for expressing his political views.
In our opinion, this state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely.
We are therefore calling on the Turkish government and Parliament at long last to grant its people freedom of speech and freedom of conscience.
Madam President, like most of you I think, I had the opportunity to meet Mr Akin Birdal, president of the Turkish Association of Human Rights.
He always had a certain sorrow in his eyes, a sorrow which is easily understood because in a country like Turkey you need not only courage, indeed foolhardiness, but also obstinacy to devote your life to the defence of other people's lives.
The murder attempt of which he was victim does not surprise me.
I think Mr Birdal expected it too.
He had received several threats and he had never been able to receive any police protection whatsoever.
I sincerely hope that Mr Birdal will survive and will continue his activities.
I call upon the Turkish authorities to bring the perpetrators of this attack to justice.
Turkey, a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, cannot continue with its policy of repression and persecution towards journalists, magistrates, parliamentarians, defenders of human rights, Kurds and ordinary citizens.
The sentence pronounced against Mr Erdogan, mayor of Istanbul, is a further sad example, if one were needed.
Turkey must understand that there will always be Birdals, Erdogans and Leyla Zanas, to shout loud and clear that we cannot kill freedom.
Madam President, the assassination attempts, the incarceration of intellectuals, politicians and reporters, the immunity of the para-state and paramilitary organizations, the policing and penalizing of political life, the political prosecutions, the rigged incidents, the trivializing of politics and democracy, this is unfortunately the political reality of Turkey today.
The assault on the president of the Turkish Association of Human Rights, Akin Birdal, is the product of an unwholesome political climate which favours and breeds violence, and the activity of the para-state against the democratic and human rights of the Turkish people.
Moreover, on the pretext of an existent or non-existent Islamic threat, a pogrom of prosecutions has been launched against the political opponents of the regime, which has not hesitated to ban an entire party. Nor does it hesitate to fabricate legal rulings aimed at removing senior politicians, such as the mayor of Istanbul, Mr Erdogan, from public life.
We are waiting to see what will be the fate of Recai Kutan, who was this morning appointed president of the Fazilet Party.
The European Parliament must take urgent action and force the Turkish government to respect the rights of the Turkish people and to abide by its obligations, which arise both from the customs union and from its other international commitments.
We call for the immediate unmasking of those guilty of the assassination attempt against Akin Birdal.
We also call for the repeal of the ruling by the state security court against the mayor of Istanbul and the 16 businessmen.
We call for the release of all political detainees in Turkey.
Human rights are not simply an internal matter for a state.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the reason for today's debate and resolution is the conviction of a number of politicians who were members of the former Refah Party.
It is bad enough for a country to think that it has to conduct its political arguments in a court of law, that political arguments with Islam, political Islam, fundamentalist Islam, have to be conducted in court and by application of court judgments.
But what is even worse is that something even more inconceivable has now taken place with the attempt on the life of Akin Birdal.
As has already been said by a number of speakers, Akin Birdal was, and is - and it is hoped will remain - a champion, an indefatigable and fearless champion of human rights, both in Turkey and elsewhere, because of the shining example he has set.
He never gave up the fight for human rights, even though he knew and felt that something such as this could happen to him.
That is why we are making a common appeal to Turkey.
Turkey wants to join the European Union, and it could well be that there were a few hitches - and in my view there certainly were - in the talks which were held primarily with the Council last autumn.
Nevertheless, the pure and simple fact remains that we can only accept Turkey into the EU when it decides to uphold human rights, among many other things.
Turkey must take note of one thing: upholding human rights also means protecting those who speak up for human rights and protecting those who fight for human rights. I am convinced - for I am an optimist - that no-one in the government and no-one in the military was happy to hear of this attempt on Mr Birdal's life.
But that is not enough.
What Turkey should be doing, instead of just being "not happy' about it, is taking every possible measure to prevent such outrages. That is what we need to see before we can welcome Turkey as a member of the European Union.
The Turkish government must be absolutely clear about that.
Madam President, the two issues we are debating today - the assassination attempt on Akin Birdal, the president of the Turkish Association of Human Rights, and the prison sentence of the mayor of Istanbul, Mr Erdogan - have one thing in common: the idiosyncratic conception of human rights held by the Turkish establishment, particularly the Turkish army.
The assassination attempt against Mr Birdal is the culmination of a series of attacks and prosecutions perpetrated against him, often encouraged and instigated by the authorities, because of his sensitivity to human rights.
Turkey's establishment cannot tolerate discontent, protest or a different outlook.
The sentencing of the mayor of Istanbul, on the other hand, shows the attempt to impose a secular state by means of violence.
It is undeniable that fundamentalism constitutes a threat to democracy. However, true democracy cannot be defended through persecution and violence.
It is defended through reasoning.
Excesses such as sentencing the mayor to prison for reading a poem strengthen rather than weaken his position in the eyes of the public, insofar of course as his position is indeed fundamentalist.
It must therefore be made clear: Turkey's road to Europe has to pass through respect for human rights.
Let us hope the Turkish government will be able to move in this direction.
Madam President, however justified Turkey's criticism of the European Union might be - that they feel abandoned in the context of MEDA, in the context of the customs union and in the context of accession - it does not relieve us of the duty to continue to point out to Turkey that they must observe human rights. In this context, the attack on Birdal was a blow to us, as was the sentencing of the mayor of Istanbul to ten months' imprisonment for questioning the secular state in a political speech.
It is unthinkable that someone should be given this kind of sentence for that, and we expect the Turkish authorities to make every effort to summons the person who carried out the attack on Birdal.
We also expect the court's sentence with regard to Erdogan to be revoked.
To conclude, Madam President, we urge the Turkish government to do something about the legislation needed for further democratization on the basis of the principle of free speech.
In this respect, I have nothing to add to what Claudia Roth has said.
Madam President, it goes without saying that I concur with the present resolution which rightly denounces the worrying violations of the most elementary human rights and freedom of speech in our neighbouring country of Turkey.
However, I would like to add that, as far as freedom of speech is concerned, this is no longer always guaranteed in our European countries either, for instance when I stand up for my political beliefs.
I hope you will allow me to say, nevertheless, that this resolution carefully avoids the crux of the matter, as is the case, for that matter, with that other subscriber to human rights violations, the People's Republic of China.
The crux of the matter is that the European Union as a whole, and the Member States individually, have never ever spoken plainly towards Turkey, if this plain language were to mean more than a paper protest.
This very same Parliament approved the customs union with Turkey some years ago, and also 14 to 15 billion francs in European aid until the year 2000, without setting even the least suspensive conditions.
Yet at that time we knew just as well as we do today what the human rights situation was in Turkey. We knew that the Turkish army was occupying part of Cyprus, and that in Turkey cultural genocide, if not worse, was being exercised on the Kurds, to give just two examples.
I must add that with this resolution we are once again missing an opportunity to say to the Turkish government and the Turkish people that we wish to maintain the best possible relationship with our neighbouring country and our neighbours, but that Turkey will never be able to join the European Union for the simple reason that culturally, historically, ethnically, and even geographically Turkey is not a European country.
If we do not have the courage to say that, then problems will only increase in future, and I am thinking not least of the problem of the millions of Turkish guest workers and temporary immigrants in Europe.
Malaysia-Indonesia
Madam President, the situation in Indonesia has been getting completely out of hand over the past few weeks, and in particular over the past few days.
The regime is taking extremely tough action against the demonstrators, and this has led to dozens of fatalities.
This is absolutely unacceptable.
Suharto said for the first time yesterday that he would consider stepping down once he had lost the trust of the people.
It is high time he did, then, because he has clearly lost this trust.
The economic crisis, which this regime is responsible for, is being shifted onto the people of Indonesia.
I must say in all honesty that the IMF is demanding measures from Indonesia which do not really improve the situation for the people, but which will lead to even greater poverty.
Nobody is pointing out the responsibility borne by the regime and the clique of friends around it, who have seriously enriched themselves over the past decades.
At the same time we are looking at Malaysia, where there are thousands and thousands of people from Indonesia, whether they have arrived there recently as refugees or not.
Others have been there longer and these people are being deported wholesale back to Indonesia, without respect for the person and without looking at their motives for fleeing their country, where a number of them are bound to be at great risk.
This situation really must come to an end.
Madam President, decades of political omnipotence, familial enrichment and a complete lack of interest in the fate of the Indonesian citizens have rendered the latter helpless and desperate.
They have nothing more to lose, except for a president.
Let us hope, as Mrs van Dijk said, that Suharto is indeed drawing certain conclusions.
His totally undemocratically arranged re-election already heralded a period of absolute terror.
The financial problems have got worse as well, and as a result of the political unrest and the way Suharto's troops acted, it seems to me that the IMF and the World Bank might have to review their ideas.
The European Parliament, as usual, needs to make a clear appeal to the Indonesian leaders, and perhaps also to Suharto's successors, to democratize. The Council and the Commission must stop all aid, except for humanitarian aid.
Likewise, the American government must do the same, with conviction.
Clear action to deal with the crisis will have the most effect. We are dealing with a huge country, and I think we will be able to avoid huge problems if we act in this way.
Madam President, in January this year I was part of the European Parliament's delegation which undertook a fact-finding visit to Malaysia.
We were there at the height of the financial and stock market crises.
We sympathized with the Malaysian authorities as they struggled with the consequences of these troubles which include the plight of the immigrant workers of which there are some 1 million out of a population of 22 million.
Imagine our sorrow therefore to learn of the unacceptable repatriation of tens of thousands of mainly Indonesian foreign workers as a response to the economic crisis and to be acquainted with the deaths of eight Indonesians under detention at centres for illegal immigrants.
We were further disillusioned to learn of the threat of imprisonment of Lim Guan Eng, whose father we met in his role as opposition leader, for the simple reason of his articulating public concern over the treatment of a celebrated rape case victim.
It is a violation of the tenets of democratic freedom to deprive Lim Guan Eng of his seat in Parliament simply because of his mild criticism of the Malaysian government.
It also appears discriminatory that the Prime Minister's daughter, Marina Mahathir, has not, on the other hand, been targeted by the authorities although she too has been a critic of the government from time to time.
In passing, I would say that our delegation was very impressed by her and her foundation's work in combating the AIDS epidemic in Malaysia.
In conclusion, it must be right to emphasize that sustainable trade, investment and economic development cannot be achieved in the absence of the development of democracy, the rule of law, civil society and human rights.
We will always be ready to be friends with Malaysia to try to achieve these worthy ambitions and aims.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a regrettable fact that the economic and political situation in Indonesia is getting completely out of control.
The Group of the European People's Party calls upon the Indonesian government to stop immediately the attacks by police and army units on peaceful demonstrators, and also to protect the country's Chinese minority from attacks by looters.
A number of murders have already been committed among the Chinese community and it is the responsibility of the police to put a stop to this.
I fear, however, that the situation in Indonesia will ultimately only be brought under control when the political rulers of Indonesia step down in favour of a truly democratic government - and this means all those at the top, not just the President.
Let me conclude by appealing yet again to the Malaysian authorities, and to the Supreme Court, to respect the right of freedom of speech - and particularly that of the parliamentary delegates.
We have confidence in that court - we only hope our confidence is justified.
Tibet
Madam President, we are deeply affected by the fact that a continually growing number of Tibetan activists have decided to make the extreme choice of dying in a hunger strike.
It must be realized that all of this is the result of the desperation of the Tibetan people after 40 years of Chinese occupation and non-violent struggle.
The Tibetan people have made some requests which, we should point out, are addressed above all to the United Nations.
They want the debate on Tibet to be resumed on the basis of Resolutions 59, 61 and 65; a special envoy to be appointed to investigate the situation in Tibet; and a referendum to be promoted by China under the aegis of the UN, to ascertain the will of the Tibetan people. I believe we must show our solidarity with the Tibetan people and request with some insistence that the question of Tibet is placed on the agenda of the next General Assembly of the United Nations as quickly as possible, and that the Tibetan militants' other requests should be met.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of Tibet is now in the news more than ever.
The United Nations, as has been said, can and must adopt at least three measures: firstly, to resume discussions on Tibet on the basis of its own previous resolutions; secondly, to appoint a special envoy for that region; thirdly, to ask China to promote a referendum to ascertain the Tibetan people's right to self-determination.
These things were and are being requested by all the people of Tibet, and in particular the six hunger strikers, who have been prevented by the Indian police from continuing their protest on a pretext.
The second measure they request is particularly important: the appointment of a UN envoy, to which should be added the appointment of an EU representative for Tibet. It is deplorable that despite an earlier request by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, nothing has yet been done.
The European Union cannot continue to be strong with the weak and weak with the strong.
Madam President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, our Parliament cannot help but notice that its policy and proposals are systematically ignored by the Council and the Commission, with the exception of Commissioner Marín's positive collateral measures and initiatives.
We have had no follow-up to our requests on the liberation of all political prisoners in Tibet, on the liberation of the Panchen Lama, on respect for human rights, on setting up a committee of inquiry, on the appointment of an EU high representative for Tibet, or on negotiations between Tibet and China.
Unlike our American friends, we did not even achieve the liberation or, even better, the expulsion of certain famous dissidents such as Mr Wei Jingsheng or Mr Wang Dan.
The European Union is not achieving anything and after long months, or even years, of requests from Parliament, we notice that there is a genuine obstruction of Parliament's requests on the part of Mr Brittan and several members of the Council, at least.
I believe we could easily put into Mr Brittan's mouth the words of Churchill at the time of fascism in Italy, if we were to paraphrase them slightly.
He said: "If I were Italian today I would be fascist' .
Mr Brittan, like his famous colleague Churchill, could say: " If I were Chinese today I would be communist, or national-fascist' , which is the same thing.
Madam President, I understand the reasons for preparing this text and I agree on the whole with the proposals.
However, I should like to point out that at the moment the troika is visiting Tibet for the first time, and will be there for some time.
We think it would be better to wait until this visit is over, and ask the Council to report on its results, because I think that might add something to Parliament's position.
Once that has been done, our group is ready to discuss the matter with the Council and prepare a resolution which takes all these elements into account, a global resolution proposing the main point again - the request by the Dalai Lama for direct negotiations, without conditions - and many of the points stated by those who have spoken before me.
I think it is important to look at the conclusions reached by the troika on this visit, because it is the first time it has gone there.
That is the first point.
Naturally, our group agrees with the activists who are currently staging a dramatic hunger strike, and we state our commitment to bringing the question of Tibet to the forefront, with political discussion and a more complete resolution.
I would also like to say something on the subsequent text which relates to the organizations.
We think there is nothing to evaluate for our part.
We also wish to remind the House that in a few weeks, Parliament's delegation will be visiting China.
Perhaps it would be appropriate, rather than voting on a resolution on which we do not have definite information, to ask the delegation to raise this question and try to acquire information during its visit.
Otherwise, I do not understand what these delegations are being sent to do.
When it returns, if these points are confirmed, we shall form a resolution on this subject.
That is the position of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Madam President, the two resolutions submitted to the European Parliament join the fifty or so adopted since 1994 which accuse China.
No other country in the world receives such treatment.
The Commission and the Member States are anxious to develop good relations with China, which does not exclude certain disagreements, notably on the issue of human rights.
Unfortunately, the European Parliament, under pressure from some of its Members, goes against this trend. Sadly, the majority remain indifferent, as there are scarcely twenty of us present.
The resolution on Tibet is based on events in India.
As for the resolution on the sale of organs, it is the result of a campaign without proof, orchestrated in the United States and Germany.
The encouragement of separatist tendencies which inspired the resolution on Tibet, notably with reference to a Tibetan government in exile, calls into question a basic international rule: respect of the territorial integrity of each country.
It is a dangerous attitude which will not in any way help to improve the situation.
Peace, like dialogue on human rights, implies mutual respect, particularly when it is a question of a country with over a billion inhabitants such as China.
That is why I call upon my colleagues to reject these two resolutions about China.
Sale of human organs in China
Madam President, arbitrary arrests, death sentences, executions, removal of organs, this is the terrifying scenario which must, with the utmost urgency, cease in China.
Executions of prisoners are increasing all the time, with 2100 executions in 1995 according to Amnesty International.
For fear of compromising its investments, the international community refrains from condemning these violations of basic human rights, or does so half-heartedly.
We know that the prison system in China remains largely impenetrable today.
Organs are removed from prisoners to then be sold and transplanted without the consent of the person concerned or his family.
As the Union is incapable of taking steps in relation to these violations, the parliamentary delegation which is due to visit this country soon must use all its powers of persuasion to put an end to these despicable practices.
In the meantime, the Commission must examine the possibility of establishing European legislation to deal with the trade in organs.
We ask that the Commission and the Council take all the necessary measures at an international level to put an end to this vile trade.
Madam President, since Mr Colajanni raised the question of the European Parliament delegation's visit to China, I would like to ask my colleagues how many weeks there are in a year.
Well, there are 53.
And when did our delegation go to China? The week of the anniversary of Tiananmen.
This is due to our secretariat, our delegation for relations with China.
This is our Parliament, this is its way of following up our request, our denunciation of the violation of human rights, the denunciation we are making today of an abhorrent fact - it cannot be called anything else - which is affecting Tibet. This is the response to Tibet, Turkistan, Inner Mongolia and the fate of one billion, three hundred million Chinese people who - until proved otherwise - do not live in a democracy.
It is time to stop saying that we shall wait for something.
The Tibetans have been waiting for forty years and have had no response.
The Chinese have been waiting for fifty years, since the Long March, and have not seen any progress in human rights.
We can continue to complain about India, and its nuclear experiments.
No-one is in favour of nuclear experiments, but, like France and England, which were faced with a Nazi regime in the 1930s, India - which is an imperfect democracy, no-one will deny that - is faced with the largest totalitarian empire in the world, and someone wants it to give up the possibility of defending itself!
I would appreciate it if we began to reason a little on this point.
Madam President, I believe we are faced with two very serious facts, which are occurring in several parts of the world: firstly, the continued use of the death penalty as an inhuman method to deal with crimes; and secondly, the international traffic in organs.
These are two facts which exist in several parts of the world, but which are concentrated in the same country when we talk about China.
If anyone has any doubts about the existence of the death penalty in China - but how could it be denied? - clearly for that person within this House, China still represents a beacon of democracy and communism.
The other important point is that commercialization, which is a feature throughout the world, is clearly also seen in China.
The information is sufficiently valid to show that, in China, along with repression, there is traffic in human body parts - a traffic which is spreading throughout the world and which we have favoured even within our own countries, with patents on living organisms.
Thank you very much.
I would only like to say that Mr Avgerinos and I were invited yesterday to a meeting and on that occasion he ask me to excuse him.
I think he has had some problems recently.
Mr President, on the issue of the death penalty and its macabre exploitation in the Republic of China, we are now confronted by an extraordinary phase of routine horror.
On this issue at least, we appeal to this House to abandon its tradition of not letting the facts stand in the way of political and economic convenience.
The facts - not propaganda, which nowadays is going in the opposite direction - are overwhelming.
They show that thousands of executed people in the People's Republic of China are exploited in a most cruel fashion to meet the growing demand for transplanted organs by rich individuals in Japan and in the West.
Last month, we asked to no avail the diplomatic representatives of China in Brussels, Mr Huang Daosheng, Mr Wang Wen and Mr Wei Min, to provide us with documented evidence disproving such ongoing horror.
We are still waiting!
For us, the moment to act is now.
Or shall we conclude that in this House, to act in moral equilibrium means our most sacred values must never be tested?
Capital punishment in Burma
Mr President, in Burma, too, people are being executed.
Last week six prisoners, whom Amnesty International clearly regards as political prisoners, were sentenced to death.
Before that, 20 other prisoners who should also be considered as political prisoners died in prison.
From all appearances, this is actually another form of death sentence, or execution, which is being implemented.
Moreover, the Burmese army takes tough action against ethnic minorities and also executes people without any form of trial.
We would like to urge the Burmese government to abolish the death penalty, and, in any case, to stop the executions, whether or not these follow a sentence.
Individuals have a right to a fair trial, and political prisoners ought to be released.
It is high time we in the European Union urged the business sector to stop investing in Burma and start withdrawing investments.
Mr President, the military regime in Burma continues to persecute political opponents without restraint.
At the end of April two students were sentenced to death.
These two were part of a group of 40 people arrested in January because of opposition activities.
The other 38 were given prison sentences from 3 to 14 years.
Over the past few years, more than 20 people have died in prison.
So we know what this may mean.
Last week another 6 death sentences were passed.
They were all Burmese citizens who are regarded as political prisoners by Amnesty International.
That makes 8 death penalties and 38 heavy prison sentences in the space of a few months, with all the dangers which accompany prison sentences.
It is a good thing Commissioner Marín is present here.
In 1996 we abolished the preferential system for Burma after a series of exasperating acts of violence by the military regime.
The United States, and also the US Congress, want to introduce an investment ban.
In February we asked this House whether we should not be coming up with more measures, including an investment ban.
Is it not high time we implemented this restriction on investments, together with the USA? We would thus force the military regime in Burma to respect democracy and human rights, and above all, to give Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi, the elected president, who has been imprisoned at home for six years, the right to take up the seat she is entitled to, namely the presidency of her country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament has considered the dramatic problem of the death penalty more than once.
We have always been inflexible with the United States of America, and we are also inflexible with the Republic of China, even if it does not appear to please some people. We must be even more inflexible with Burma, if possible.
There are many reasons: firstly, the lack of respect for the least guarantees in terms of court proceedings, which should by right be recognized in all countries; secondly, the nature of the crimes with which the condemned are charged, which are purely political and a matter of opinion; and thirdly, the systematic use of this instrument, not as a penalty, but as a pure and simple repression of dissent, so that the army is accuser, judge and executioner at the same time.
The European Union must do everything necessary, useful and appropriate, including the strictest economic sanctions, to put an end to this intolerable situation.
Mr President, I am going to reply en bloc to the various resolutions on the different questions raised by the honorable Members.
As regards Guatemala, the Commission shares Parliament's sorrow and indignation over the assassination of Bishop Juan Gerardi, whom I had the opportunity to get to know personally, as did many of you, because as you know, the European Union has been heavily involved in Guatemala's pacification process and now, recently, in the peace process.
This crime, like others linked to human rights, is a frontal attack on the peace process itself, and all the more so because of the symbolism of murdering Bishop Gerardi when he had just finished his report on the truth about the terrible civil war in that country during the last 30 years.
What should we do?
At the moment, the European Union has already made the appropriate contributions in terms of political cooperation with that country, and it is obvious that we need to reconsider a lot of issues, in general terms. This would be a good opportunity because the new consultative committee which accompanies the peace process is meeting in June.
This time the meeting will probably take place in Washington, with the Latin American Development Bank.
We need to reconsider how these things are happening, and why.
Above all, we also need to invite the Guatemalan government, the political forces and public opinion to make an effort, so that the peace agreements can really take shape and develop.
In some aspects, these peace agreements are experiencing a really worrying delay.
So we are going to continue to point out to the Guatemalan government the need, firstly, to identify the perpetrators of the crime, and then to gradually regain the spirit of the peace agreements, so that such murders are not repeated.
What can I say about Colombia and the Umaña, Arango and Fernando Landazábal murders? I agree with the speakers' descriptions of human rights in Colombia, especially the speech by Mrs Miranda de Lage.
Colombia's problem is very simple.
At the moment, elections are just about to take place - on 26 May - and really serious things are happening in that country.
Human rights in Colombia will have to come as a direct result of peace.
If there is no peace, I very much fear that this situation of domestic disintegration will continue.
So the first obligation of the next president - not to the international community but, above all, to the Colombian people themselves - is resolutely to seek for peace, so there can be an end to all the causes which are provoking this sort of atrocity.
Because there are atrocities by the paramilitaries; there are atrocities by the guerillas; and there are atrocities - I believe - in a situation in which it is now very difficult to say who is responsible, resulting in that spirit of impunity which creates this sort of situation.
In any case, as you know, the Colombian authorities have created a special committee as part of the public prosecutor's department, and it is going to investigate these murders.
We shall wait and hear what conclusions it reaches.
Meanwhile, what should we do? At the moment, the most we can do - and we want to do it, and have said so, even on our own account, without waiting for the United Nations - is to maintain the human rights office in Bogotá, which is in charge of monitoring the situation.
That does not fundamentally alter the domestic situation, but it is no small matter to maintain an office to monitor events there.
And in order to do that, as you know, we have taken the decision to renew for another year the EU's participation in that office, which is run by the UN representative, Mrs Robinson. We were not obliged to do that, because our commitment was only for one year.
On the other hand, something we shall have to see about in the future is how to increase our cooperation with Colombia in the judicial area.
It is true that the Colombian authorities have already made that request, but it would be quite interesting to see how, in this aspect of judicial cooperation, we can gradually make progress in the future.
But I repeat, whatever happens in the elections, no matter who wins the Colombian elections, the first priority is to seek peace, which will require major negotiations. From then on, the priority will be gradually to reduce the current tension in that country, which gives rise to the situations we have seen there recently, which are so hard to understand.
As for Turkey, the Commission also condemns the attack on Mr Akin Birdal, the Turkish human rights activist. Obviously, like Parliament, the Commission also wants the perpetrators of this crime to be found quickly and brought to justice.
As you know, the Prime Minister, Mr Yilmaz, the Deputy Prime Minister and many other ministers and MPs have also condemned this attack.
Furthermore, the Commission shares the European Parliament's concern about the repercussions of the judgement against the mayor of Istanbul in connection with freedom of expression in Turkey.
We are equally worried by the events of January, sparked off by the decision of the Turkish Constitutional Court to order the dissolution of the Prosperity Party, to which Mr Erdogan belonged.
And the Commission is of course concerned that this sort of decision may have adverse effects on democratic pluralism and freedom of expression in Turkey.
As for the more general aspects of our relations with that country, the Commission of course fully abides by the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council, which restated that the consolidation of Turkey's ties with the European Union also depends on that country continuing with the political reforms which have been started, especially to bring its human rights regulations and practices into line with those of the EU.
And despite Ankara's decision, in principle, to end all political dialogue with the EU, the Commission intends to continue to inform its Turkish partners of the EU's concerns in this area.
As for Malaysia, the South-East Asian economic crisis has grave social consequences for the people of the countries concerned, mainly unemployment and emigration.
During the last few months, the Commission has been fully engaged in a constant dialogue with the beneficiaries and other donors on how to increase our support for the region.
At the moment, following the ASEM conference in London, we are reconsidering, within the Commission, our cooperation programmes with that area and that country, in order to target additional funds on the most severely affected countries.
As regards the conviction of the MP Lim Guan Eng, the Commission's delegation to Malaysia will follow this case closely, along with the appeal which has just been lodged with the Federal Court.
And as for the situation in the overflowing Malaysian detention camps, the Commission again shares Members' concerns about the reports of bad treatment and human rights violations.
So I can assure you we are making sure that these concerns - about the refugee camps - are passed on to the Malaysian authorities, and we are going to urge the government to continue to cooperate with the High Commissioner for Refugees and the various non-governmental organizations in helping the refugees.
Turning now to Indonesia, we are of course also worried and concerned about that country's current situation and the use of violence by the security forces to repress the latest demonstrations which, as you know, has already caused the death of a number of students in Jakarta.
The Commission is still in contact with the government on the question of human rights. At last, we have managed to arrange for a jointly funded human rights seminar to be held in Jakarta in June, organized by the current presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission.
This will be the first open debate to be held on human rights in Indonesia with the joint participation of the European Union and the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission.
It is only one step, but it is an important step.
As for direct aid to the Indonesian people, because of the economic situation, there has already been an on-the-spot mission to assess the true situation.
The first assessment which has been made - by this team working on the question - is that there is often a difference between what the media depict and what is revealed by in-depth study.
Despite the images we have seen of people crowding round lorries to collect rice or other essential foodstuffs, in fact there is no general shortage of food.
There are some localized areas suffering shortages of food and drinking water, and a lack of logistics and distribution, especially in the most vulnerable parts of the country, and affecting the most vulnerable sections of the population. We are already starting work there as regards emergency aid.
But I repeat, in principle the situation does not seem to be as dramatic as suggested by the images we have seen.
Turning now to Tibet, the subject of that country is raised regularly, and the religious dimension of the Tibetan identity forms a constant part of human rights talks with China, and will continue to do so.
The Commission is going to evaluate carefully the results of the recent troika visit by EU ambassadors to Tibet, and will of course inform Parliament as soon as possible.
As for the sale of organs in China, I shall first give the background.
There is specific dialogue on human rights between the EU and China, which began in 1997.
That dialogue has helped to achieve some concrete results, especially as regards China's participation in the UN human rights instruments.
The question of the death penalty, and particularly the legal and administrative conditions governing executions, has been addressed in the context of this dialogue, and will continue to be raised in the future.
As regards the trafficking in human organs reported by the international media, the Commission will raise this problem with the Chinese authorities within the context of the human rights dialogue, on the basis of a detailed analysis of the facts.
Nevertheless, although this certainly does not mean we are not worried about it, the Commission would remind you that intervening in such matters is the responsibility of the Member States since, as you know, Article 129 of the Treaty does not confer legislative powers upon the European Community in this area.
Nevertheless, I repeat that although the Commission does not have the institutional competence, we are closely following the work of the competent international organizations: the Council of Europe is working on this, at European level, and supports cooperation between the Member States on this point.
As you know, the European group on ethics, science and new technologies - which has replaced the group on the ethical implications of biotechnology - will issue a statement in 1998 on the ethical aspects of human tissue banks.
Lastly, once the Treaty of Amsterdam has been ratified, the Commission will be able to study the possibilities for work in this field - that is, as regards the regulations which should be adopted in relation to the distribution or transfer of organs.
Perhaps that would be the right time to raise the problem generally, to consider not just the illegal circulation or transfer of organs from China - assuming the existence of such trade is confirmed - but also its occurrence in any other country.
As for Burma, you know that we in the Commission have always deplored the widespread human rights violations in that country, and we are aware of the recent death sentences passed against six prisoners.
Nevertheless, we think there is reason to be hopeful about these death sentences, insofar as no death sentence has been carried out in 1998.
Let us hope the military junta continues along these lines, and at least does not decide to execute these six prisoners.
As for the possibility of an investment ban, as suggested by Mrs Maij-Weggen, the European Union is not able to forbid private investment on the part of European companies. Apart from the moral and ethical judgements each one of us can form for ourselves, there is no instrument at the moment to allow us to act at that level.
In any case, you know the state of our relations with Burma. There are no relations.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0502/98 by Mr Macartney and Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the arms export code of conduct; -B4-0505/98 by Ms McKenna and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the European code of conduct for arms exports; -B4-0520/98 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on a code of conduct for arms exports; -B4-0522/98 by Mr Bertens and Mr Frischenschlager, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on a code of conduct for arms exports; -B4-0529/98 by Mrs González Álvarez and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on a code of conduct for arms exports; -B4-0546/98 by Mr Titley and Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the PSE Group, on an EU code of conduct on arms exports.
Mr President, often in these so-called urgencies we are dealing with things which one might argue are not urgent.
However, here we have a chance to put our point of view and make a decisive contribution to an urgent decision which will be taken in ten days' time when the General Affairs Council of the European Union will be asked to endorse a Franco-British initiative to have a proper code of conduct for the exportation of armaments.
It is hard to imagine anything that is more important for the long-term future of a world which is beset by strife of all kinds.
European weapons are responsible for the killing and maiming of many people.
So we have to ask the Council to endorse that initiative and to extend it to all Member States, not just the two Member States which are proposing it.
Equally, we have to say that the European Union cannot solve all these problems itself, and we have to look to support from the United States, Russia and China.
It is far from being a futile gesture for us to put forward a European code of conduct.
On the contrary, this is something where the European Union can lead the world.
Mr President, at the beginning of the British Presidency Tony Blair was making great play of the fact that Great Britain was going to take action on a code of conduct on arms exports, and we, the Green Group in the European Parliament, welcomed this warmly.
At last an initiative was to be taken at European level.
When Belgium drew up its arms export act in 1991, the perennial argument on the part of Belgium for not going the whole hog was that this issue should be regulated at European level, otherwise Belgium would be at a relative disadvantage.
So there was genuine hope that Europe would grasp this opportunity.
Unfortunately, we have to conclude that the proposals which have so far been developed by the British Presidency in conjunction with France are frankly a disappointment.
During the ACP meeting in Mauritius on 20 to 23 April we saw that a majority of both the Europeans and the ACP representatives also raised this issue.
They clearly complained that the code in its present form will have no impact on the unstable regions, on countries which spend an excessive part of their budget on defence, and even on the countries which violate human rights.
Also, the fact that the draft does not expressly include the sale of light weapons in the regulation - those light weapons which are wreaking such havoc in Africa - is the cause of much regret.
On a procedural level there are also a great many snags, as a Member State which refuses an export licence must inform the others, but the length of time allowed for this is not defined.
There is no common certificate of end use, so the multiplicity of certificates, which has always led to chaos, will continue to exist. The problem of arms manufacturers from third countries operating with a licence from a Member State company has not been considered at all.
As far as we are concerned, we are calling very urgently indeed for this code to be made binding and meaningful after all.
Mr President, when we learned of the Franco-British initiative for a code on the arms trade, we got the impression that we should be on our guard more than usual.
I think Parliament's resolution indicates clearly that we are indeed prepared to be on our guard, and to strengthen this Franco-British initiative where possible.
It is unacceptable, of course, that when some countries are behaving properly with regard to arms exports, in particular when they are desisting from exporting arms, others fill the gap.
Then the outcome is zero, morally speaking.
There is a great need to combat this cynicism.
Earning money from misery is a serious business which Parliament must take a stance against. It is very good that this Parliament is firmly unanimous about this resolution, so that the Council knows, and others also know, that the representatives of the European citizens have no doubt about what should happen on that front.
Hitherto the actions have always been very weak, for example against Serbia, which already manufactures excessive numbers of weapons itself.
A ban on arms exports to Serbia is in fact one of those useless hollow gestures.
It is much better to take a general line, with criteria which must be employed, including under those circumstances which make it economically less attractive to behave decently.
Mr President, this sort of proposal often tends to be symbolic in nature, and that is why I am underlining that one of the last parts of the proposal talks about the need to combat illegal arms exports.
It is all very well for us to organize everything by law, but if we do not ensure that the illegal export of arms is genuinely combated in an effective way, then we still do not achieve our objective.
That is why I think it is good that this resolution concludes with that point.
Mr President, the three previous speakers have already partly articulated what I wanted to say.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is disappointed about the outcome in practice.
The Member States do not have to accept this as binding.
It remains a political declaration of no value. There are no sanctions.
They are merely obliged to inform each other.
What are we gaining? We are not gaining anything.
This Parliament must make it clear here and now that this is not nearly enough. The present proposal does not deserve to be called ethical politics, as the British Presidency still referred to it at the beginning of the year.
The scandal surrounding Sierra Leone and the American refusal - would you believe - to supply arms to the United Kingdom because of poor export controls, should send clear signals to Europe, as well as to the British, for that matter.
Let us start putting some real effort into strict and binding European regulations on the arms trade.
That is why the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is pleased that this resolution adopts a clear position, and asks the Council to remove the weaknesses in the proposals.
Transparency, Mr President, and multilateral consultation between all Member States are essential ingredients for a common policy.
Any concession on this front to the so-called sovereignty of the Member States makes a laughing stock of the European rules.
I therefore call on the Commission, as well as the forthcoming Austrian presidency, to continue the work of the British in case we end this presidency with a weak compromise.
The Commission obviously also has a job to do in this.
We are all awaiting with great interest what the Commission will do.
In conclusion, I hope the G8 will conclude international agreements during its next meeting, and I definitely also hope that the EU Member States who will be present will support the proposals for adopting the OAS code.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I would like to welcome the initiative by the British Presidency to establish a new code of conduct for the arms trade.
There is no doubt that the code of conduct governing the sale of arms, so that weapons from the EU are not used for internal repression or external aggression, is long overdue.
It is important in terms not only of enhancing human rights outside the Union but also of giving European defence companies a level and fair playing field in the sphere of arms exports.
Undercutting, when one country's defence sector steps in to supply arms refused by another Member State, must become a thing of the past.
The latest draft of the code, in addition to defining circumstances of internal repression or external aggression, which would trigger denial of exports, states that consideration would be given to whether 'the proposed export would seriously undermine the economic and social development of the recipient country' .
Furthermore, Member States would reserve the right to operate more restrictive national export policies while working to adopt the common list of military equipment covered by the code.
It is, however, to be hoped that the envisaged annual reports to the Council will be used as a basis for discussion and scrutiny in the European Parliament.
Further work needs to be done on countering the illegal export of arms.
Arms brokers and end use will require close monitoring.
The next step will be to extend the principles of the code to countries like Russia, China and the United States.
Nevertheless, the fact that we are on the verge of agreeing a historic code of conduct on arms exports, which I hope will be agreed on 25 May, is a hopeful sign for all those seeking a safer world.
Mr President, everyone in this House, with the exception of Mr Truscott, now understands that the British Presidency's solemn announcement of a code of conduct for arms exports is nothing but a carte-blanche for the arms industry.
What all this is about is not the avoidance and prevention of arms exports, but the improvement of European arms cooperation, and especially an improvement in the position of the UK arms industry within this framework of cooperation.
Even the focus of the British Presidency - namely the implementation of a policy for the protection of international human rights - breaks down when it comes to the protection of arms exports.
The proposed code still permits exports to Turkey and even allows the UK government to send weapons to Indonesia and Sierra Leone, in spite of the embargo.
In view of this new situation, the German Bundestag is currently deciding about easing national regulations on arms exports in order to improve Germany's position as an arms trader.
The UK presidency has misled all those who have been pleading for an effective control of arms exports.
We therefore call on the Commission to submit a draft proposal containing clear demands which are in line with those often expressed in this House and repeatedly voiced by the NGOs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the last few years there have been repeated calls both inside and outside the European Union for greater transparency in conventional arms exports.
The EU has taken the initiative in this respect in establishing common rules, in the form of a code of conduct on the transfer of conventional arms.
This draft code of conduct aims to establish a set of principles upon which to base all arms export decisions, and to provide a well-defined framework for action, as a context for discussions of each case of arms transfer.
The draft code of conduct also establishes the criteria for use in evaluating all arms exports.
Nevertheless, it must be made clear that the final responsibility for arms exports rests with the national governments.
The European Union has a great interest in seeing these principles widely accepted, including by the world's leading arms exporters.
And having an agreement which covers the whole of the EU and has a consistent internal approach is important when it comes to putting pressure on third parties to adopt similar practices.
Progress has been made in drafting the code, especially in relation to the appropriate legal instruments for its adoption, and the future elaboration of eight criteria.
We do not deny that serious obstacles remain, and the presidency has offered the possibility of holding other limited consultations between governments during the next few days, after which a report will be presented to the Council - on 25 or 26 May - assessing the situation, and I should imagine a series of compromise solutions will be presented by the presidency.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Doñana National Park -B4-0492/98 by Mr Eisma, Mr Gasóliba i Böhm and Mr Vallvé, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Doñana ecological disaster; -B4-0508/98 by Mrs Roth and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the severe toxic spill disaster in Doñana National Park, Spain; -B4-0521/98 by Mr Valverde López and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the environmental disaster affecting the Doñana National Park caused by the collapse of a dam for channelling mud from the Aznalcollar mines (Seville); -B4-0531/98 by Mrs González Álvarez and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Doñana environmental disaster; -B4-0548/98 by Mr Aparicio Sánchez and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the toxic spills near Doñana with serious economic and social consequences;
Italy -B4-0497/98 by Mr Bianco and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the hydrogeological disaster in the Italian provinces of Salerno, Avellino and Caserta; -B4-0530/98 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the floods in Campania (Italy); -B4-0535/98 by Mr Fassa, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the tragedy in the Campania region of Italy; -B4-0549/98 by Mr Colajanni and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on floods in Campania; -B4-0551/98 by Mr Azzolini and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the flooding of 5 May 1998 in Campania (Italy); -B4-0559/98 by Mr Tamino and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the flooding in Campania (Italy).
Doñana National Park
Mr President, in my capacity as president of a Spanish national park - Aigüestortes y Estany de Sant Maurici - I can only lament the disaster which has happened, or which may happen, in a large part of the Doñana National Park, which is the biggest and most important national park in Europe and has been declared a World Heritage Site.
Faced with this situation, I think the first thing to emphasize is the need for coordination in that region between all the authorities concerned, including those with responsibility for industry and mines - the precise cause of the catastrophe was the storage of waste water from mineral purification - as well as those directly responsible for the protection of the nature reserve.
I think we must also mention the need to increase our solidarity with all the people concerned, who have suffered harm on account of the polluted water which has flooded the zone.
In that sense I think that in future this sort of situation should be anticipated, and there should be no storage of dangerous substances which can damage wildlife areas such as Doñana.
Mr President, once again an inconceivable environmental disaster has occurred, this time in a valuable and sensitive area of southern Spain, in Andalusia.
The Doñana National Park, which was designated one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, is now severely damaged.
Large areas were flooded with over 5 million cubic metres of contaminated hazardous waste water from mining operations when a retaining dam burst.
Over 2000 hectares of cultivated land has also been destroyed.
The fact that it is a Swedish company that is operating the mine in Andalusia is distressing, but at the same time it is also a challenge.
Green politicians from Sweden took part last Sunday in a large demonstration in Andalusia with over 10 000 participants.
The demonstration was arranged by environmental and peace organizations.
Together with the Greens in Andalusia, the Swedish environmental party demanded that the Boliden company should accept the economic and legal responsibility, compensate the victims and finance the remediation and regeneration of the area.
However, it is not only Boliden that is responsible. In fact, many parties are involved in this incident, which is one of Europe's worst environmental disasters.
In 1996 a local organization obtained a report smuggled out by a sacked technician about the problem with the dams.
On 27 February 1996 the company was reported to the Commission, which decided, however, that there was no risk.
The entire investigation was abandoned after having only heard from the local environmental authorities.
Boliden had added to the dam without permission.
Cracks had also been found in the dam, which were reported, but nothing was done.
Now we must accept collective responsibility!
The Commission must take action and support the affected parties.
Mr President, first of all I want to express my solidarity with the victims of the floods in Italy and add my support to that shown by all the political groups in drafting this resolution about the Doñana National Park.
It is important for the European Commission to find the means to grant urgent aid, and to work in close collaboration with the Spanish government and the Andalusian regional government in order to reprogramme the structural and cohesion funds to support the plan being prepared to decontaminate, restore and strengthen environmental protection in the area around Doñana.
And I think it is time to follow the advice of the committee of scientists which has been appointed and remove the toxic sludge as fast as possible, to prevent the irreversible spread of the pollution.
Mr President, Commissioner, as my colleague Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza said at the start of this part-session, and as José Luis Valverde has just said, we deeply deplore what has happened in Italy because human life is the most valuable thing of all. There can be no doubt about that.
But Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza asked for attention to be paid to the Doñana catastrophe, and it is quite right that we should do so.
We state here and now that we are going to vote in favour of the joint resolution, because it refers to Community law, shows solidarity with the people affected, requests expert assistance and financial aid from the European Union, and suggests that all the authorities should unite so as to be able to tackle the problem.
Well, we are presenting three amendments, together with our colleagues from the Green Group in the European Parliament and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party - Mrs Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza and Mr Collins, the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
These amendments address aspects not covered in the joint resolution, and we thought it would be appropriate to include them. I am going to defend them even though I do not have much time.
Firstly, environmental protection groups should be included in the committee of local authorities, experts and so on, because they have years of experience of protecting Doñana against dangers, and they know a lot about the reserve.
Secondly, a committee should be set up to investigate and clarify responsibilities. Nobody is answerable here, but we can see a few people who should be.
We think the Hydrographical Confederation has a responsibility.
They say in the press today, in a study, that the aquifers which feed Doñana are at serious risk. We think the regional government of Andalusia has a responsibility, and the Spanish government.
And in the third amendment, we also think the European Commission has a responsibility.
In 1996, a complaint was lodged by CEPA. The European Commission requested information from the Spanish government, trusted what they told them, and archived the complaint.
So the European Commission also has a certain responsibility for what is happening in Doñana.
I shall conclude by saying that we shall probably learn something from this catastrophe: that it costs far more to restore what has been destroyed than it would have cost to take preventative measures.
And of course, the mining company had the greatest obligation to take such measures.
Mr President, the Commission should put all its effort into helping both to correct a situation which still today continues to threaten the Doñana National Park - which is one of the most outstanding jewels of the ecological heritage of the whole Union - and to prevent similar disasters from happening in the future.
In reaching a decision on this joint resolution which I have the honour of proposing on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Parliament should be aware of three things.
Firstly, the bursting of the dam owned by the Boliden company near Doñana and the resulting spillage of toxic sludge is such a serious matter and poses such a threat that the Commission should not just implement its maximum financial and technical assistance, but should also ensure that such assistance is not discontinued as soon as the danger to the reserve is over, but should extend it in the medium term until the affected sectors have fully recovered in economic terms.
Secondly, so far there has been no damage within the reserve, and the damage caused to the ecosystem is not yet irreparable.
Thirdly, it is nevertheless extremely urgent that the leaked toxic matter be removed, because every day that passes without such removal being achieved represents an extremely high and growing risk.
Mr President, the Spanish administrations are collaborating mutually to solve the problem, and are counting on dependable scientific advice to help them, but it is enormously important for the Commission's support - which the Commissioner has already announced in Spain - to be emphasized and extended along the lines suggested in our proposed resolution.
Italy
Mr President, Commissioner, I hope that the tragedy which took place on 5 May, when a mud slide destroyed several communities and produced hundreds of victims and thousands of evacuees, will be taken as a warning that a new land policy should be implemented, not only in Italy but also on a European level.
I am aware that the Commission has already taken some steps which may be important.
I hope the Structural Funds can be used to restore and relaunch these communities. However, I can tell you that my greatest wish is for the European Union and the Commission to implement an adequate policy throughout Europe - where these tragedies have occurred, such as Doñana which we have just discussed - in order to avoid these disasters, which cause so may victims.
Mr President, 145 dead and 135 missing: these are the first totals, which are increasing daily to give an even more tragic number.
It is certainly not the task of this Parliament to establish what was immediately responsible for losses which have affected three Italian provinces: disorganization of emergency services; inadequate means; criminal behaviour on the part of the local and state administrations.
That is a matter for the Italian judiciary.
The European Parliament has the larger, more demanding task of mobilizing Community resources and technology in a preventive plan of hydrogeological restoration in a territory which for a quarter of a century has been devastated by abuse, corruption, and environmental neglect.
But this is not only a tragic problem for Italy.
As shown by the recent environmental disaster in Spain, other countries within the Community are exposed to similarly severe disasters caused solely by an insane and criminal exploitation of the land.
The alarm for an Italian region should become the alarm for the whole of Europe. The institutions of this Europe, over and above their triumphalist self-praise for the single currency, must now - not tomorrow - defend the most basic rights of its people, who are threatened by a desire for profit and the theft of the environment.
Mr President, I have come to this House today to express profound grief and remember the very serious disaster which affected not only the Italian community but also the European community.
The natural events which recently affected the Campania region were certainly exceptional, but at the same time we cannot say with any certainty that they were unforeseeable.
For many years, the local authorities had been told that the areas struck by the disaster we are remembering today were in complete hydrogeological disorder. The authorities themselves denounced the situation.
There are two astonishing facts, which the President of the Italian Republic rightly referred to. The first is that people are looking immediately for political responsibilities, rather than legal responsibilities - which sometimes appeared instrumental - rather than being led by a real desire to shed light on the facts.
Secondly, people are attempting to use the tragedy in Campania as a pretext for satisfying national party political interests, which risk having little to do with a real reorganization of land management responsibilities.
I have said several times that the problem of southern Italy is not so much a national question as a matter for the entire European Union.
The Commission must therefore take into consideration the possibility of allocating Community resources to the financing of programmes, both to reconstruct and to relaunch the productive activities of the area.
But at the same time we cannot forget that Italy, which has recently entered the single currency with great emphasis - as stated by Mr Manisco - must show that it knows it truly merits the aid which, I am certain, will be given by the European Union.
Mr President, the terrible extent of the tragedy in Campania has already been discussed: 150 dead, 150 missing - it is difficult to imagine that there will be any more survivors - four communities damaged and in confusion, two provinces - Avellino and Salerno - seriously affected, and destruction of the land.
It is clear that responsibilities exist, and that they will be investigated.
Now is the time, first of all, for grief - which the European Parliament has already expressed at the opening of the sitting. Soon afterwards comes the time for solidarity - concrete solidarity.
I would like to emphasize this last point, because I was very pleased with what Commissioner Monti said, on the first day of Parliament's current part-session, when he stated the possibility of concrete intervention.
This is the point I would like to emphasize, and on which I would like a response from Commissioner Marín - the possibility of using regional funds not used for their original purpose.
Can we have a decision from the Commission? Naturally, precise purposes must be established, and controls, as well as extremely clear agreement between the national, regional and community authorities, in the hope for clear management which is not excessively bureaucratic.
This would of course represent the concrete solidarity of Europe with those areas which have suffered the disaster we are remembering here.
We must try to provide this, and contribute to the rebirth of these very beautiful areas which have been so unfortunate in suffering the events which have occurred there over so many years.
Mr President, after listening to my colleagues from Campania who spoke before me, I think it is only right not to repeat the same observations and considerations, which occur naturally to anyone who, like them and like myself, has been to those places and comes from there, and has lived with those people through their drama of despair, profound grief, and great human dignity.
Anyone who saw it on television - and a great many people did see it, not only nationally but throughout Europe - could see great despair in the eyes of those people, but also great dignity. That is perhaps what most struck the journalists, who have become used to grief and profound sorrow.
Now we have to respond to that dignity, because it is difficult now to give answers to the dead.
We must answer the survivors, who need an answer, but I use a euphemism, because it would have been better for the Italian state, and the whole of the Community, to give an answer early enough, rather than have to count the missing as dead and the deceased as victims.
My point is along the lines of what Mr De Giovanni said a moment ago, which is to help these people understand what help can be given to relaunch the economy of the area.
I shall give one example. In Sarno, a hospital has been destroyed which is not only a central point for the health of the area, but a part of the economy, where 400 people live and work.
This means that the area's economy will be repressed, if it is not immediately relaunched.
With the availability expressed by Commissioner Monti, we should remodel the resources and structural funds which, like Objective 1, have more often been shown to be lacking in terms of cost capacity rather than planning.
We need to help the region, the land and the local bodies to reprogramme these resources, using a simple procedure, which allows immediate and optimum use of investments, Obviously the affected parties would not be compensated in the immediate future, but a significant programme would be provided, to remove the anguish of tomorrow and provide more certainty and hope for the area, and a social aspect, which we must all be happy with when it is implemented.
On behalf of my group and my colleagues in Campania, I am requesting commitment, which can be translated into realities rather than verbal solidarity.
Mr President, we are certainly all deeply affected and wish to express our grief for the families of the victims, because there are nearly 300 people dead and missing, very many injured and thousands evacuated.
But with this natural disaster as with others, it has to be said that bad luck has nothing to do with it. This tragedy is the result of human and political action, which caused the hydrogeological problem in Italy, which means that today small normal natural events can cause disasters.
We are therefore faced with the situation that we must have a serious prevention policy to prevent similar natural events.
For this reason we must ask the Italian authorities to provide stable and conclusive information, firstly as regards the persons evacuated. As soon as possible afterwards, however, we need information on preventive action, with an updated map of the risks in all the hydrogeologically compromised regions in Italy.
Above all, we ask the government to complete the necessary reorganization of land management responsibilities. For this reason we also ask the Commission to examine the possibility of using Community funds, together with the national and regional funds, to deal with these problems.
Mr President, I believe that the very serious tragedy which took place in Campania must be seen as a warning and an alarm signal for the European institutions and all Member States governments.
It should be seen as a warning because I think it is now a matter of urgency to define Community instruments of civil protection which can intervene with the speed which unfortunately our country cannot provide on its own.
On this point I agree with the call made by Mr De Giovanni, and I ask the Commission to respond. There is a tragic emergency in Campania; there is a request to use funds; these funds are needed to bring life back to a region of the European Union.
I believe bureaucracy should be overcome, and we should try to resolve this problem.
Another reason why it is an alarm signal is that what happened in Italy has made it clear that without a serious land protection policy - with, on the contrary, ruinous work being done on the land - the perfect conditions are being created for these tragedies to occur.
I call upon the Commission to act as an intermediary, so that it can quickly do what has not been done in many of the EU Member States: to get to know the dangers in an affected territory, and monitor them properly, so that more tragedies do not occur on the scale of the one affecting my country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, due to a bureaucratic misunderstanding our group has not presented a resolution on this subject, but obviously we are happy with the arrangement upon which we shall shortly be voting. I think it is important to state not only our solidarity but also the need for these questions - which will undoubtedly become more frequent in the common European fabric which we are trying to build - to be dealt with on a European level.
From this point of view, I believe there are two possibilities. Either our demonstrations become pure ritual, as is often the case, or the European Union must really show not just solidarity, but that in some fields - in particular in land management in Europe - it can draw up a policy to deal with the situation.
In recent years we have destroyed the budget line which dealt with disasters and provided an immediate and concrete contribution in unfortunate cases such as this.
I think these disasters must make us reflect in the short term, so that we can activate instruments which show the citizens that Europe is not an abstract entity, but can deal with these requests and needs. However, we also need to think about the medium and long term, so that we can implement concrete planning operations, for example in relation to defence and rigorous management of the land.
It would also be useful sometimes for Member States to be able to resort to measures on a European level.
Mr President, once again we are called upon to weep for the victims of natural disasters.
In the case of the recent floods which hit some areas of Campania, the emotion is even greater because of the high number of victims and the fact that they included several babies and children.
The National Alliance delegation supports the contents of the joint resolution and joins in the grief for the families of the victims. However, we can already imagine what the Commissioner will reply in response to the request for aid from the Commission: that there is no EU budget line for immediate and visible aid to affected populations.
The National Alliance therefore hopes that in the next EU budget, which is already at an advanced stage, this line will be inserted.
Furthermore, while deploring the fact that the joint resolution is incomplete - if our Italian colleagues in the other groups had had the sensitivity to consult us informally, we would have raised this point - we ask that the government and the region of Campania be allowed to transfer a part of that region's Structural Funds, for use in the reconstruction and restoration of the land. Unfortunately Italy's land is violated to a great extent by building speculation and regulatory plans at district, provincial and regional level, drawn up in many cases for the benefit of clients and parties.
Also, hill and mountain areas are gradually being abandoned, because people find it impossible to live there. This is partly because there are not enough government programmes to support them, and because they are lured to anonymous urban peripheries by commercial strategies, sometimes shown to be based on false appeals, which promote the idea that city life is infinitely better than living in the country.
To conclude, Mr President, how can anybody fail to see, in this violence and lack of attention to the land, a typical sign of our civilisation which has desecrated everything, and where everything tends to be seen in rational and scientific terms?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by addressing the resolution on the floods in Campania, in view of the fact that, compared with the other ecological disaster, there were human victims here, which we greatly regret of course. The Commission would like to express its most sincere condolences to the families of the people concerned.
Having said that, I must now go on to explain exactly what can be done in the two cases.
Firstly, for quite unconnected reasons, the fact is that in last year's budgetary debate it was decided to stop the budgetary line concerned specifically with urgent aid in cases of catastrophe.
So that is the situation, and unless you decide to reinstate that budgetary line, as things stand at the moment it is not possible to act by means of the urgency procedure.
Secondly, it is possible to act through the structural policies procedure.
And in this case, as far as the region of Campania is concerned, I have to tell you that the Commission has in fact been discussing what can be done in that area, which fully meets the Structural Fund Objective 1 requirements.
So the affected areas can benefit from the rehabilitation measures provided for in the multifund operative programme of the European Regional Development Fund.
Furthermore, the guidance section of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund can also help, with measures to promote rural development and combat the abandonment of farm land, and to address reforestation.
Lastly, it is also possible that the Social Fund may be able to fund work-related training activities, especially in the field of prevention.
As for the Doñana National Park, I want to say that at the moment the Commission is of course receiving information from the Spanish and regional authorities, in accordance with their areas of competence.
In that respect, the first official meeting took place recently, in New York, between my colleague Commissioner Bjerregaard and the Spanish minister, Mrs Tocino, during the meeting on sustainable development.
As to what can be done, my answer to you is that in fact the area around the Doñana National Park which has been affected by the disaster is also included in Objective 1 of the ERDF.
However, you have to bear in mind - and we would like to make this point very clear in the case of Campania and of Doñana - that, because of the lack of a budgetary line for natural catastrophes, there may be a temptation to use the ERDF every time a catastrophe occurs, but the regulations do not make provision for urgency aid to be provided from this source.
I want to make that clear.
Nevertheless, it is possible, as Mr Valverde López said, to carry out an immediate reprogramming exercise so as to give priority to the disasters caused in the area around the Doñana National Park.
It is possible to do that, and in fact the Commission is already in contact with the Spanish authorities and the regional Andalusian authorities with a view to carrying out this exercise, and letters were exchanged on the subject last week.
So it will be possible to provide an answer to this situation too.
As regards one of the amendments defended by Mrs Laura González Álvarez, my comment is this. The complaints system is always a contradictory procedure, not just in the case of Doñana or Campania.
So in the case of Doñana, just as with any other complaint lodged under Community procedure, the Commission can never archive it unilaterally.
It is always done by means of a contradictory procedure.
What you said is right: a complaint was lodged by the organization you mentioned.
The Commission conveyed that complaint to the Spanish government, and the Spanish government replied on 31 January 1997, describing the measures it had taken.
The Commission conveyed the Spanish government's reply to the complainant, who accepted the explanation.
Before the complaint was archived, on 25 March 1997, the complainant you mentioned still had two months, according to Community procedure, to reopen the case.
They did not request to reopen the case.
I am telling you this for your own information, and to point out that, in Community procedure, no complaint can be archived without there having been a contradictory procedure, as is quite right.
The joint debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Votes (continuation)
Mr President, I only seek information: can you advise me whether, under the Rules concerning the 50 % voting, the roll calls for urgencies and the roll calls for the Pex report count towards that 50 %?
Yes.
That concludes voting time.
The Pex report on the European Union's communication policy announces with a surprisingly clear conscience that this policy aims to "awaken European citizens to the cause of European integration' (recital A), that its effectiveness constitutes the "conditio sine qua non for obtaining the support of most European citizens for the integration process' (recital B) and that it is necessary to step it up " in view of the great events approaching the EU in the coming months' (recital C).
For our part, we see in this all the foundations not only of a reasonable information policy, but also of propaganda campaigns aimed at convincing the citizens that there are no options other than those defined for them by the Eurocrats.
In our amendments to this report, which have been rejected by the European Parliament, we asked that a code of good conduct finally be drawn up to define, for purposes of information, the principles of transparency, neutrality and respect for pluralism and partnership.
This code should consist of four sections.
Firstly, European information campaigns must not interfere with national electoral campaigns.
No information campaign funded by the Union or by bodies which it subsidizes should be able to be organized in a Member State during the six months preceding referenda or legislative European or presidential elections.
Secondly, information campaigns must not involve the unilateral development of a particular opinion on a subject which is not supported unanimously.
They must allow the expression of all opinions which reflect the political trends represented in the European Parliament.
The institutions of the Union, their administrations, their offices and officials should, in exercising their duties, always provide neutral and objective information.
They must not in any circumstances become involved in a national debate, either directly or indirectly.
Finally, a committee on ethics, made up of representatives of all political groups in the European Parliament and representatives of the national parliaments, should give a prior opinion on European information campaigns.
It should, in particular, peruse electronic information, radio communications and television advertisements before they are broadcast.
Thirdly, information campaigns must be conducted in close association with all the partners.
No campaign should be launched within the territory of a Member State without the prior agreement of the authorities of that state, and those authorities should be involved in it.
No public meeting related to an EU information campaign should take place in a state without inviting elected representatives of all political leanings to participate in it.
Papers, periodicals and documents of all types published by the European institutions, or by the bodies linked to them by contract, must, where they mention certain opinions, be fair in terms of the space given to the different theories represented within the European Parliament.
Fourthly, information campaigns must adhere to the rule of financial transparency. At the end of each year the European institutions must publish the following, in separate documents made available to the public at no cost: an exhaustive list of the information campaigns which have been carried out, including their references and costs; an exhaustive list of the organizations which have been subsidized for the purposes of information, communication or education campaigns, or who have received funding which could be used for this purpose; an exhaustive list of experts who are remunerated in various ways and are involved in information campaigns where they do not appear officially as salaried staff of the European institutions.
In conclusion, the European institutions should refrain from financing political parties, either at the national or European level, or associations linked to these parties, even for projects which are supposedly for simple purposes of information.
They must also refrain from financing or subsidizing projects from which certain parties would benefit. The committee on ethics already mentioned should ensure with particular vigilance that the principles of transparency are respected.
Had it addressed the core problem of the lack of openness within the EU then this could have been a very good and valuable report on the information and communication policy in the European Union.
But information can be misused as an instrument of power in society, and can easily be replaced and exploited as propaganda.
Reading between the lines, it is evident that this is the way in which people want information and communication to be issued from the institutions of the EU.
Quite simply, the intention is to convey the vision of the EU's infallibility.
I certainly agree that the EU institutions must be more open and less bureaucratic.
A start could have been made by introducing the principle of public access to official records, proper filing routines and recording of incoming post.
But this is not included in the report.
In the light of the situation in the European Parliament's part-session this week, which saw proposals made to prohibit TV crews from filming during voting, it is clear that there are many who wish through censorship to prevent the political debate within the European Parliament from reaching the citizens.
Instead, the intention seems to be that communication with the EU's citizens should take place in advance via arranged information campaigns.
In my opinion this is entirely the wrong course to take.
At numerous points in the report reference is also made to the fact that the citizens are ill informed about how the EU operates and are therefore negatively disposed to the EU.
But surely it is not the institutions in themselves that are the major problem, but the policies for which they are responsible that leads to criticism of the EU.
These are two separate issues.
The report formulates an information policy for the EU.
The first question asked is why such a policy is needed in the first place.
Are the citizens not satisfied with the Union?
The report is totally unacceptable.
It mixes up information, communication and propaganda.
Proposals such as the one advocating that large sections of the population that have "negative feelings about Europe' need to be informed evoke unpleasant reminders of the political propaganda of fallen empires.
Of course there is a need for information, but it must be based on entirely different premises to those set out in this report if we are to succeed in converting distrust into confidence.
I have therefore voted against the report.
I am certainly in favour of any proposal which develops a policy of education rather than propaganda.
In the information society in which we now live, propaganda is counter-productive.
People want facts, not opinions.
Regrettably, the European Commission does not as yet seem to recognize this.
Recently a constituent drew my attention to a Commission publication for use in schools entitled 'What Exactly is Europe?' .
According to this publication, the United Kingdom has exactly no Protestants.
Upon investigation, I discovered that this information had been sourced from the Guinness European Data Book.
People of the Protestant faith in my constituency have been offended by 'What Exactly is Europe?' and this has only served to undermine the credibility of the EU.
Not only do we need improved cooperation between the institutions in our information policy, we need to make sure that the information which is provided to citizens is accurate and will not give offence.
In view of the fact that the President asked me to stand down at the end of my contribution to the debate, I should now like to complete my statement in writing.
I have already said that pretty wrapping paper is not enough, but that the contents must also be right.
If the information and communication policy of the European institutions is regarded in such a way that its content can be changed by the use of pretty wrapping paper, then it is not worthy of the name 'information' - we should change it to 'manipulation' .
I warmly welcome the rapporteur's view that this Parliament must pursue a policy of complete openness and transparency with regard to the way in which this institution operates (recital E).
Moreover, the rapporteur is absolutely correct in stating that information campaigns cannot simply consist in unilaterally developing a specific position on a proposal that does not meet with unanimous agreement (recital H).
It would be splendid if the EU institutions were to live up to this.
For the EU institutions simply to canvass for more power for the EU, a United States of Europe, increased federalism, EMU membership and so on using the taxpayers' money is neither particularly humble nor democratic.
To run a campaign using such devices as the comic-strip character "Captain Euro' in order to convince people of the merits of the euro is to underestimate the citizens' intelligence and the ways in which they form their own political opinions.
Many citizens are evidently suspicious of the EU.
Increased bureaucracy, the increased divides between citizens and their politically elected representatives and wastefulness in respect of taxpayers' money make many citizens quite justifiably suspicious of the EU as a project.
The citizens' scepticism about the EU is not based on ignorance.
It is based, rather, on the fact that they cannot envisage themselves having any influence over the organization, and on fears that a federal EU will become profoundly undemocratic, bureaucratic and controlled by market forces.
This is a question of political evaluations, not ignorance on the part of opponents of the EU.
If those who hold the political responsibility within the EU's institutions do not appreciate this fact, then it will never be possible to develop an information and communication strategy that is capable of achieving two-way communication with our citizens.
Unfortunately, the above points are, in my view, missing from the Pex report.
Competition in the air traffic sector
The next item is the report (A4-0141/98) by Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for Council Regulations (EC):
I.amending Regulation (EEC) No 3975/87 laying down the procedure for the application of the rules on competition to undertakings in the air transport sector (COM(97)0218 - C4-0258/97-97/0137(CNS)); II.on the application of Article 85(3) of the Treaty to certain categories of agreements and concerted practices in the sector of air transport between the Community and third countries (COM(97)0218 - C4-0259/97-97/0138(CNS)) (Draftsman of the opinion: Mr Ribeiro, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy ( Hughes Procedure).
Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty of Rome provided the Community with a legal basis for assessing alliances and mergers.
Article 87 also provided for the adoption of any appropriate regulations 'to give effect to the principles' presented in these articles.
The secondary legislation which has been built up since then gives the Commission the power to consider cases where the competition rules were being disregarded, but initially excluded transport.
The first liberalization package adopted in December 1987 included Regulations 3975 and 3976, although their scope was restricted.
The first allowed the Commission to apply the competition rules in the air transport sector, imposing penalties and granting exemptions, but only in respect of traffic between Member States.
The second regulation allowed the Commission to adopt block exemptions for certain practices but under the conditions laid down in Article 85(3) of the Treaty.
What justification is there for the Commission's proposal? The Commission believes that a number of new factors have intervened since 1989: the liberalization of the aviation market since 1997, the weakness of external flights resting only on bilateral agreements between Member States and third countries, and the future development of agreements with the United States and the countries of central and eastern Europe all mean that a precise framework is needed more than ever to deal with the inconsistencies or gaps in the current system.
These factors have to be added to the grounds put forward in 1989, regarding the legal uncertainty facing the airlines.
So, in order to cope better with the new liberalized framework of rules, to protect consumers' interests, to protect small and medium-sized carriers and to ensure balanced competition between the various European and non-European operators, the Commission is calling for the same powers in respect of transport between the Community and non-Community countries as it has on intra-Community routes.
The first proposal for a regulation will extend the scope to cover all air transport services, including international routes.
A new article 18a has been added to resolve any legal conflict with Member States or third countries by obliging the Commission to consult the competent authorities before withdrawing an exemption.
Nevertheless, the network of bilateral air service agreements between Member States, third countries and their national airlines pose a formidable legal challenge to uniform and compatible competition rules in the air transport sector.
It remains to be seen how these conflicting powers will resolve themselves in practice.
Secondly, the Commission proposes a regulation allowing the non-application of Article 85, for a limited period, in certain categories of agreement between airlines, decisions by associations of undertakings and concerted practices on international routes.
The Commission's decisions may relate to joint planning, the coordination of capacity and timetables, revenue sharing, consultations on tariffs, slot allocation and joint operation of services.
These two proposals represent substantial changes as regards the application of Community competition rules in air transport, especially in its international aspects.
They improve the Commission's powers to monitor alliances between airlines.
Despite the reservations expressed by several companies, the Commission can already use its powers in accordance with Article 89 of the Treaty of Rome, and is indeed obliged to do so as guardian of the Treaties responsible for applying Community law.
The main advantage of our proposals for all parties concerned - airlines, governments, legal services, the European Commission and, of course, passengers - is to set up a homogeneous framework, with definite legal guarantees, for the whole of the European Union, and to promote the position of civil aviation companies within the European Union.
Of the amendments proposed, the three principal amendments accepted by the Committee on Transport - Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 6 - aim for greater coherence in Community regulation by using the wording and scope of the regulation on competition rules in the maritime sector.
Amendment No 4 limits the powers of the Commission to the application of competition rules only to routes which depend on a Community airport.
This amendment defines the scope of the powers of the Commission, which would have no jurisdiction in a commercial alliance or agreement between two non-European companies which did not affect Community air traffic.
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 aim to clarify the procedure to be applied where bilateral agreements between two companies, one from the Union and one from a third country, are in conflict with the European Community's competition rules.
The present proposal for a regulation specifies simply that, in cases of conflict, the Commission must consult the relevant authorities in the country concerned.
Amendments Nos 1 and 3 propose new recitals referring to air transport security, public services and duty free.
I will not oppose them during the vote. I accept them because the sentiments expressed are shared by everybody although, legally, they do not seem to be really appropriate in the context of the two regulations.
To conclude, I will briefly mention the three amendments tabled by the Group of the European People's Party.
I am not in favour of these because they go against the European interest, against consumer interests, and against the interest of fair competition by which we must be guided, at least in the sphere of air traffic.
The airlines are against this regulation because they judge it to be contrary to their own interests, with the provision for the European Commission's anti-trust authorities rightfully to prosecute any cartel involving the airlines of the European Community and a third country if the benefits contravene competition rules.
I call upon my colleagues not to pass up the opportunity, once again, to grant the Commission clear and unequivocal procedures and powers to guarantee uniform application of competition rules throughout Europe, whatever the airline or the alliance in question.
Those, ladies and gentlemen, are the reasons why we are making these proposals, which have been put to the vote and accepted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Mr President, air transport is a vital growing sector with more and more people flying each year.
Thanks to increased competition, the level of fares in the EU - on some routes at least - continues to fall and more and more passengers are able to fly.
It is our duty to protect the interests of passengers by encouraging more small airlines to set up and expand and by not allowing large airlines to completely dominate the market by wiping out all competition.
We must therefore ensure that, in areas where air transport is an essential means of transport, it is not destroyed or damaged by excessive competition.
The Commission, in my view, is to be congratulated on its efforts to persuade Member States to give up their bilateral agreements and to allow the Commission to negotiate for the Community as a whole.
Consequently, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists, I am pleased to offer our support to the rapporteur tonight.
The Commission has powers in these areas which we believe should and must be extended.
Mr Jarzembowski's amendments, on behalf of the PPE, appear to support the Community approach rather than the Member State approach but we feel that they will have completely the opposite effect.
The object of the amendments, in our view, would be to confine the Commission's competence to apply competition rules to its right to negotiate agreements.
We believe that is not acceptable.
One effect, for example, would be the omission of the Atlantic routes.
Indeed, in my friend and colleague's report - Mr Seal's report on the effect of the third liberalization package - he pointed out that there were still a number of obstacles which would prevent the entry of new airlines.
These would affect areas such as slot allocation and certain network alliances.
We therefore cannot agree that Mr Jarzembowski is correct in wanting to limit the Commission's application of competition rules to its present mandate.
This, as he knows full well, will restrict their ability to make progress to just Switzerland and the central and eastern European countries and we would regret that.
We therefore support the Commission's demands to have more rights to negotiate, for example, the open sky agreements.
Any limitation on the present Commission mandate is in contradiction of our request to encourage the mandate to be extended.
In conclusion, we believe the rapporteur - and indeed the Commission - deserve our support in improving aviation in the European Union and beyond because we believe their proposals will ensure fair competition, they will be good for the consumer and they will be good for competitive airlines.
I commend them to the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we in the Group of the European People's Party think the Commission's proposals to extend the competition rules on air travel to include third countries are logical in principle because, Commissioner, internal and external regulations are bound together for practical reasons, which makes it essential to have one single regulation.
Yet in some respects the Commission is trying to run before it can walk, for only when the Council has fully transferred to the Community the responsibility for negotiating air traffic agreements with third countries - a policy which we in the PPE Group support - does it become logical to transfer to the Community sole responsibility for competition rules governing our relations with third countries.
You cannot do the second without the first.
Is the Council really prepared, and - if I can put a direct question to the UK government, if Mr Watts wants to have a word with Mr Prescott - is your government ready, to transfer jurisdiction in this area to the Community?
We hold the view that in the complex field of international transport it would be logical for the Community to be in charge of air traffic agreements for all Member States.
But the Council is not prepared to do this, and I have not seen the UK presidency submit any proposal to this effect within the Council of Transport Ministers.
For years the Commission has been asking for jurisdiction in this very area, but even the UK presidency has failed to be moved.
But if we deny the Commission its wish, then we will be unable fully to extend the rules of jurisdiction to our relations with third countries, because this would create a bigger overlap between the Community's competence and that of the Member States, and the airlines would suffer as a result.
That is not something we wish to see.
I would say to the rapporteur, Mr Scarbonchi, that if the AEA supports these proposals, as we do, then this will benefit all European airlines, for you know how difficult it is to get any kind of agreement out of the AEA, with British Airways, KLM, Sabena and Lufthansa always at each others' throats.
But if the AEA adopts a common position, then there will be real support for this as the best solution.
We are therefore asking the other groups to support our three amendments.
In this connection, Commissioner, I would ask you to give us more details of your intended decisions on the cooperation agreement between British Airways and American Airlines.
We support your efforts to apply certain conditions to this agreement, such as those which seek to reduce the dominance of both companies in the transatlantic route to and from London and to ensure that there is fair competition on the transatlantic routes.
Commissioner, you have now suddenly decided to look again at the old alliances, and to do the same to the new ones, in order to establish how far they comply with competition rules.
We think that is a good thing to do, we are not at all unhappy about it, in fact quite the reverse, for we believe these alliances all have to be investigated in the same way.
However, you should present and discuss with us your guidelines for reviewing and handling inter-company alliances, and you should do so either today or within the next few weeks - as you announced in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
We know that competition law is your domain.
All the same, I think it is important to discuss the guiding principles with one another.
But whatever you decide to do, Commissioner, to remove and prevent distortions of competition, I have certain misgivings about it all.
We want to open up the market for competition between airlines.
We do not want to replace competition - deficient though this may well be - with state intervention.
Above all, we should not distort competition by applying state intervention or even market allocation orders.
In this respect, Commissioner, we are anxious to know if you can tell us something about the guiding principles you intend to use.
By the way, you know we tend to support you in these things, which is more than the Council does.
Mr President, the European Commission, when looking into alliances between airlines, should not lose sight of the global competitiveness of these European companies.
Strategic alliances are now of fundamental importance in strengthening the international competitiveness of the European air travel sector.
Our airlines should therefore be supported by their own authorities when going through the process of restructuring.
Unfortunately, support of this kind is rarely forthcoming and instead highly expensive conditions are imposed on airlines for the licensing of alliances - such as the withdrawal of slots and flight traffic restrictions.
The Commission should only intervene when a violation of competition law has actually occurred.
Its competition policy should not involve measures which will only handicap the European air travel industry and jeopardize the future of European airlines, particularly the smaller companies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the liberalization of air transport, which was completed in April 1997 with the introduction of rights relating to mainland-island connections, has caused profound changes by bringing this sector into line with market rules.
It should be noted as an exception, however, that there is a set of conditions in the Community legislation which give Member States and the Commission the right to intervene in order to deal with certain situations and needs.
In that respect, bearing in mind the importance of the sector to the European economy, to jobs and to internal and intra-European communications, and the fact that air transport plays a vital role in reinforcing economic and social cohesion, by providing rapid transport links between regions and, most particularly, access to peripheral island regions, Community legislation has allowed for the possibility of imposing public service obligations and joint operation agreements between airlines to ensure that these transport links are maintained.
In spite of what I have just said, those obligations have not been complied with in some cases, as a result of labour disputes, among other reasons, and this has jeopardized economic and social cohesion and citizens' freedom to travel to and from the regions in question.
To be specific, I refer to the events which have frequently affected the ultra-peripheral regions of Madeira and the Azores, as they did once again only a few days ago.
For that reason, I consider that any airline which has exclusive rights to a specific route by virtue of its being a public service, and which is subsidized by the state on that basis, in the interests of economic and social cohesion and the accessibility of the region in question, must provide those services and serve those regions in a properly professional manner.
In any event, regardless of the selfish and unbefitting attitude of the pilots, who are putting privileged interests before those of the public and other company employees, I think the government should open the sector up to competition between airlines, with the same quality and safety requirements and the same financial support, to compensate the islanders for their isolation and remoteness.
I had asked the Commissioner to comment further on the policy which is to be applied to alliances between airline companies.
Perhaps he can do this in writing or even speak to me on the matter sometime in the near future.
Time is short, but the guiding principles for agreements in the air travel sector are of fundamental importance, in my opinion, and we need to have more contact on matters such as this.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Code of conduct for computerized reservation systems (CRSs)
The next item is the report (A4-0089/98) by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 2299/89 on a code of conduct for computerized reservation systems (CRSs) (COM(97)0246 - C4-0418/97-97/0148(SYN)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, computerized reservation systems, hereafter to be called CRSs, occupy a relatively unknown but powerful place in air transportation.
These enormous, fast networks are responsible for the lion's share of the airlines' turnover.
85 % of all seats on scheduled flights are sold globally via the five independent CRSs.
The oldest CRS, SABRE, was set up in the past by American Airlines, but is now making even more profit than American Airlines itself.
Airlines which do not participate in a CRS are strongly limited in their opportunities to sell tickets.
CRSs also offer their subscribers - travel agents - and the traveller the advantage of speedy information and reservation.
Guarantees are required, however, to ensure that the client receives objective information when he makes enquiries at the travel agency about the options.
Since 1989 there has been a European code of conduct in order to guarantee this objectivity.
CRSs and airlines are obliged to give equal treatment to all parties concerned.
The Commission proposal we are discussing at the moment aims to improve the operation of the code of conduct.
It includes the subscribers - in other words the travel agents - in this, in order to promote fair information and to prevent inaccurate reservations.
A valuable new component is the possibility of integrating rail services, particularly high speed trains, into what is being offered.
I regard it of great importance that, for short and medium distance journeys, travellers are made expressly aware of the alternative of the train.
Flying consumes a great deal of energy and is a major cause of air pollution, so there is every reason to consider the train if the time difference is not too great.
The integration of rail transport into the CRSs must be done with the necessary preconditions.
Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6 and 10, which relate to this, aim to promote equality between flights and high speed rail links.
Carriers and alliances will continue to be able to sell tickets independently, without having to give neutral information.
However, in that case the traveller must be aware that he is buying from a particular supplier, hence Amendment No 1.
This principle is further extended to the Internet in Amendment No 9.
The opportunities to reserve tickets via this worldwide network are growing quickly.
When browsing Internet pages, we should always remain aware of who is supplying the information.
The CRSs have gigantic amounts of market information at their disposal, including travel agents' sales figures.
They offer this information for sale in an electronic format, but because they only offer the complete package, it is only the wealthy airlines that can afford to buy it.
So that gives them an advantage in negotiations with travel agents.
They would like to have selective amounts of information, for example, just for the region they serve.
Amendment No 7 opens up this possibility of selective acquisition of information, which thereby comes within the reach of the travel sector.
A sticking point in the present division of costs is the fact that each reservation leads to costs for the airline.
Amendment No 8 limits this to routes for which actual tickets have been issued.
Amendment No 13 ensures that the link between ticket and route is safeguarded.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism proposes in Amendment No 11 that a distinction should continue to be made between travellers having to change aircraft, possibly including an interval, and situations when the aircraft is only making a stopover.
Bearing in mind the overall picture, I would like to draw the following conclusions.
The code of conduct has been fulfilling an important function since 1989, but there was cause for further improvement and for bringing it up to date.
The Commission proposal contains a number of significant improvements which benefit travellers in particular, but also travel agents.
The proposal rightly creates the possibility of displaying high speed rail links as an alternative to flights over shorter distances.
In order to make the rail alternative feasible in practical terms, a number of preconditions must be met, such as an agreement between the CRS and the railway company.
In order to avoid the customer wrongly thinking that he is getting a neutral offer, the fact that he is consulting an airline or a group of airlines must continue to be displayed.
The Internet is developing as a new sales channel for airline tickets.
In that case, what must also be shown throughout is which provider the client is logged on to.
CRSs occupy a powerful position, both in the field of marketing and in marketing information.
This should not be allowed to become a monopoly position de facto, just because it is only the financially very strong companies which can buy that information.
My final conclusion is that there is still room for some improvement in the area of providing the best possible information for the customer, and in the area of combating double or fictitious bookings.
I am grateful to the Committee on Transport and Tourism for their cooperation.
Unfortunately Mr Kinnock is not able to attend this debate because of the time at which it is being scheduled.
He was kind enough to write to me to say he considered my report to be of an extremely high standard.
In any case, I have tried to treat this important matter with the greatest possible care.
Besides, I think it is extremely important that in future travellers will be able to make a considered choice between the plane and the train.
This will not only promote fair competition, but also help to protect the natural world and the environment.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it used to be when you wanted to travel somewhere that you would go and stand at a counter.
You then had to wade through piles of brochures, a process which could often be complicated and not always successful, before you got to your destination.
The computer has now taken over this work and has made the whole thing much less complicated.
This new technology now gives us access to an unwonted supply of information and a wide range of choices, and what is more, at very competitive prices. As such, it has been very well received by the consumer.
Now that the computer is with us, we really must stop hoping and believing that the computer is always an objective thing.
On the contrary, the computer is a real box of tricks and there are now many thousands of people whose only job is to manipulate the computer to suit one supplier or another.
The airlines, and even the travel agents, have tried to give customers the illusion of objectivity, while all the time they were only looking to increase profits.
While there is of course nothing wrong with wanting to make a profit, this has done very little for the consumer.
The proposals before us, including those of Mr van Dam, are very sensible and will lead to better consumer protection.
I also see that we need this interconnection when it comes to the modal split with rail transport, so that at the push of a button the traveller knows which system is better, which is cheaper and, furthermore, which is more environmentally friendly.
I believe that Members of this Parliament will also benefit from this, but that is just by the by.
One final point: the review of these systems is not something which will be finished and done with today.
It will have to be repeated at regular intervals, because you can be absolutely sure that there will always be someone in the know trying to get round the regulations.
Mr President, I shall try to be brief.
The important thing is really to thank the rapporteur, for he has submitted an excellent report which has been unanimously approved in committee.
With quite a few countries in the middle of election campaigns, it is always very nice to be able to say that a report has been carried unanimously because of its absolute objectivity.
Thank you very much, Mr van Dam, for this report.
Reform of the code of conduct is very sensible, and it will increase the objectivity of the information provided.
The most important thing now is to include high speed trains in this system, so that people are better able to recognize those routes where it is more practical to take the train than to fly.
This is something we want to see for shorter trips - in other words, more journeys by train than by aeroplane - in order to decongest air space and preserve the environment.
In this respect the advantages are enormous.
Unlike the Commission, I consider the display of code share flights to be a sensible move.
Here I agree with the rapporteur.
This system has proved to be very effective.
Finally, I think it is right to produce a consolidated version of the three pieces of legislation, so they can be more clearly understood by consumers.
In this respect, codification is something the Commission should be following up.
I believe we can reach a consensus here: we have a good proposal and this is now to be improved upon by Mr van Dam.
I hope the Commission accepts the rapporteur's proposals and then everyone will be happy.
Mr President, I would like to note by way of introduction that I have a somewhat sceptical attitude towards rules of this type as a phenomenon.
I believe that we in the EU must beware of formulating too many detailed rules.
We may, quite unintentionally, create a market situation without any fresh ideas, in which we preserve the status quo by means of legislation.
I am fairly convinced that if the EU had not interfered in the problems concerning reservation systems, the market would have solved them automatically.
Travel agents and airlines are well aware that customer service is one of their most important competition tools.
This is my principal standpoint.
At the same time, this cannot be said to be a new phenomenon, since the code has been in existence since 1989.
On a more pragmatic level, I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur on the very fine work he has put into this report.
In spite of my basic standpoint, I believe that the Commission and Mr van Dam have both succeeded in striking an extraordinarily important balance in this matter.
I feel that the positive aspect of this report is that the railways will be included in the reservation system.
This is perhaps something one would not normally think about in this context, but this may actually be one of the most important steps towards a liberalized railway sector.
The railways will in future be allowed to compete side by side with airlines, and consumers will be able to make a much clearer choice between trains and planes.
This ties in with the fact that the railway companies will in future be operating in a much more competitive market than at present.
A key question in this report must also be the matter of fares.
I would like to emphasize that the railways must join in and bear their costs in order to be included in the CRS system.
We cannot once again subsidize the railways but not the other forms of transport.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, on behalf of my colleague Neil Kinnock, allow me to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr van Dam, on his report.
Not only have you managed to initiate yourself into the mysterious technical terminology of computerized reservation systems, but you have also managed to propose a series of amendments which substantially improve the proposal.
Computerized reservation systems are extremely complicated databases which offer a wide range of subscribers - travel agents, tour operators, hotels, ferry companies, hire companies - the means to access information about air lines and other services and, at the same time, make it easier to reserve and issue tickets.
Parliament will be interested to learn that computerized reservation systems are thought to be the world's largest users of computerized services, and offer instant access to the services of more than 140 000 travel agents throughout the world.
There are four major systems in the European Union, and one of them has a market share of more than 70 % in 10 of the 15 Member States.
Of course, this high level is what has provoked the concern of the legislative authority.
But Community regulations also allowed this to be dealt with on the basis of competition rights.
Although the code has worked very well, our recent review suggests that some improvements are needed, in view of the latest advances in the Internet or in high speed trains.
And that is the basis of the Commission proposal to modify the code, as Mr van Dam has described in his report.
As I said at the beginning, most of the amendments propose very constructive changes to the existing text.
So the Commission can accept the amendments proposed by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, except on two points.
Firstly, the Commission feels unable to accept the second part of Amendment No 8, dealing with billing information on magnetic media.
As far as billing information is concerned, we think all billing media should receive the same treatment, and the amendment would treat magnetic media differently.
Also, we think it is superfluous to propose that participating air lines should not be charged a fee for bookings they have disallowed.
Secondly, the Commission does not find Amendment No 11, on the classification of flights, acceptable either.
The Commission proposed a new classification, in order to take account of recent advances in the aviation sector.
We think that to return to the old classification system, as Mr van Dam and his committee suggested, would be to fail to take these changes into consideration.
Apart from these two points, as I said, the Commission thinks that Mr van Dam has done an excellent piece of work. I want to congratulate him, and also thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism for their helpful work on this subject.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Marketing of seeds - Implementation of Regulation (EC) No 1467/94
The next item is the joint debate on the following two reports by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development:
A4-0128/98 on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directives 66/400/EEC, 66/401/EEC, 66/402/EEC, 66/403/EEC, 69/208/EEC, 70/457/EEC and 70/458/EEC on the marketing of beet seed, fodder plant seed, cereal seed, seed potatoes, seed of oil and fibre plants and vegetable seed and on the common catalogue of varieties of agricultural plant species (COM(97)0403 - C4-0459/97-97/0217(CNS)); -A4-0129/98 on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1467/94 of 20 June 1994 (COM(97)0327 - C4-0492/97).
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, the first report, dealing with the directive on the marketing of beet seed, fodder plant seed, cereal seed, seed potatoes, seed of oil and fibre plants and vegetable seed, or in short the seed marketing law, produced an amendment not that very long ago and also resulted in a positive debate with the Commission.
The matter in question concerned the adoption of a simplified certification system for conservation seed which was intended at the very least to restrict the genetic erosion of threatened species of agricultural plants.
You know that these directives on agriculture are dealt with in Article 43, in which the European Parliament has only a consultative role.
If we submit our amendments to these directives and the Commission, after taking due note, states that it is regrettably unable to accept Parliament's amendments, and if we then put our proposal to the final vote, it will all be a pointless exercise as far as we are concerned.
The Council can then ignore the substance of Parliament's submissions when drawing up its decision.
However, if we adopt a different approach, in that we suspend the final vote and reach a compromise with the Commission, so that the Commission and Parliament have a common position, then we will be in a relatively strong position when it comes to agriculture, even with respect to Article 43, for then the Council will only be able to reject this common position unanimously.
Unanimity in the Council is a rarity.
This happened only once, when we wanted to change the legislation - and Mr Fischler, you will recall that this concerned the labelling of beef, when you conceded Article 100a to us and the Council again committed itself unanimously to Article 43, only then to reach compromise after compromise in the matter - and this was only done to achieve unanimity in the face of the Commission and Parliament.
I hope we can also reach agreement over this small amendment and consequently get a good result, for this time the issue is not the simplified registration of conservation seed, that is to say old varieties and local varieties, but rather the adoption of a simplified procedure for the approval of certified seed or basic seed for propagation.
The Commission has carried out tests over a period of time and has come to the positive conclusion that external examiners and inspectors can also be used for the official inspections, that inspection at a higher level, involving the agencies of the state, is only necessary under certain precisely defined conditions, and that the process of seed approval and quality certification will not suffer as a result.
We have, for the most part, accepted this view.
We have only made some slight amendments.
For one thing, we would like to see a swearing-in procedure for those carrying out the inspections.
Such a commitment should ensure greater personal responsibility.
We have made proposals as to the size of the plant sample which should be taken by the official inspectors, and have also proposed measures to be taken in the event of violations.
I expect we can agree with the Commission on this.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has tabled an amendment which concerns the swearing-in of inspectors, but I prefer the amendments which we approved unanimously in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The second report which I am presenting here is connected with the seed marketing law.
After two years of negotiations with the Commission, focusing in particular on the certification of seed which is severely affected by genetic erosion, we were able to achieve success.
The matter in question concerns a Community programme for the conservation, specification, collection and use of the genetic resource base in agriculture.
Parliament submitted this programme to the Commission in 1993, after it had been established in Rio that the great diversity of plant life which we have constitutes one of the most important elements for future civilization on this planet.
We therefore launched a programme, with its own budget heading, which was designed to account for the genetic diversity of agricultural plants and animals.
It was also intended that efforts would be made not only to ensure the safety and protection of this genetic diversity - and even to extend it - through databanks and gene banks, but also if possible to strive for genetic diversity in farming practice.
Unfortunately, the Commission adopted a somewhat hesitant approach to this programme.
Of the ECU 20 million which was made available over the following five years, the budget for 1997 was even cancelled completely.
The problem clearly lay in the insufficient availability of manpower.
This is incomprehensible, because obviously staff are available in other areas and they could have been redeployed.
Clearly - and the Commissioner will no doubt soon enlighten me - this programme is not one of DG VI's more spectacular achievements.
I would be happy to stand corrected on this.
The programme in question has acquired a considerable reputation at international level.
When the WHO held a conference on genetic diversity in Leipzig in 1996, the EU was the only region in the world which was able to present such a programme.
It was interesting to see how the Commission vaunted this about, and indeed with justification.
I supported this at the conference.
But surely the necessary steps then have to be taken in the pursuance and execution of this programme.
Let me just add one more comment.
We must create a closer link between this programme and those which have been set up under Regulation 2078, or with programmes associated with the environmentally friendly use of the countryside, so that we get a complementary effect and the in situ conservation and support of genetic diversity can be secured via these programmes.
If, as Agenda 2000 intends, we then provide economic backing for these programmes in the form of structural aid, and if we see to it that those products which are made from the great variety of plants and animals available continue to be in demand as quality produce in the local markets, then and only then will we achieve a form of stability which is not limited - if I can take a drastic example - to conserving genetic diversity in museums and in some botanic garden in the countryside, but actually constitutes an economic basis for the farming industry.
I am convinced, when applying all those compensatory measures which can and should be taken, that the focus of our efforts must lie in safeguarding the economic basis for agricultural activities, and this includes those special varieties of plants and animals.
That is the only way in which we can achieve the necessary long term stability.
Madam President, I should like on behalf of my group to congratulate Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf for his two excellent reports.
There are a lot of things that irritate our citizens about the EU when it is perceived to be imposing new rules or removing ancient rights without justification.
Usually these perceptions are misconceived - the result of gross distortion of facts by tabloid newspapers.
However, the proposal to limit the availability of traditional varieties of seeds, particularly for fruit and vegetables used by amateur gardeners as well as those used commercially by smaller farms, has led to deep opposition being expressed by such well known and respected bodies as the Henry Doubleday Research Association.
Many concerns have been expressed that the great wealth of varieties which still exists within the countries of the European Union could be reduced as a result of official Community policy to a few standard strains of seeds throughout Europe.
The Socialist Group therefore welcomes the Commission proposal to facilitate the addition of new species to the list of recognized species.
Commercial farmers have also been concerned that they too could lose out and be forced always to buy a limited number of expensive seed strains from big seed breeding companies.
I represent several such companies in my constituency and recognize the value of their work in developing pest resistant crops and seed varieties that are especially suited to particular climates and terrains.
However, the right balance needs to be struck between their interests, those of the commercial and non-commercial growers and the need to certify conservation seeds, that is, seeds of plants useful for biodiversity.
The proposals by the Commission to simplify the inspection process of these seeds are to be welcomed in principle but the Socialist Group shares the concerns of the rapporteur and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as a whole that there should be additional safeguards to ensure that inspections are carried out by qualified objective personnel.
Madam President, Commissioner and those ladies and gentlemen who have remained patiently with us, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has already said something about the decision making side of things.
I would like to restrict myself to the subject of seed and seed marketing.
As we all know, seed is an important resource for agriculture and it is also the basis for foodstuff production.
The provision of good seed is ultimately a prerequisite for a secure nutrition system.
What is more, the quality of the seed has a decisive effect - a very decisive effect - on the quality of the food produced, in many cases even regardless of the various processing stages.
For these reasons, the inspection of plant and seed stocks naturally assumes great importance.
Most countries today are accustomed to having their seed crop certified mainly by public bodies.
However, such a system has made the inspection process somewhat more cumbersome.
Against such a background, the Commission has now submitted its proposal for the simplification of this inspection process.
There is already a substantial need to create a greater sense of responsibility in this sector.
Seed breeders and cultivators have to be incorporated more closely into the seed recognition procedure.
Simplification in this area is indeed desirable and would also mean that unofficial inspectors could carry out the prescribed examinations.
Here the spotlight will naturally fall on the employees of seed producing companies, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has repeatedly pointed out.
These people, with their knowledge and experience, are absolutely made for the job of seed inspection.
Admittedly there is a risk that this will lead to conflicts of interest, and this is something which we shall have to counteract.
On the whole we in the Group of the European People's Party can accept this report, retaining as it does the necessary amendments.
Thank you very much, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, especially for your pertinacity.
Madam President, firstly I would like to compliment Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf on his first report, at least. It is positively excellent.
I agree that there should be controls to ensure that seeds coming into the market are of the right quality and meet requirements.
My question to the Commissioner is, can a seed firm now have its analyses carried out in any recognized laboratory anywhere in Europe - that is, not only in that particular country's own state controlled laboratories, as certain countries are claiming?
Furthermore, I have a couple of comments on the diversity of our seeds.
I must distance myself somewhat from Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's statements, because if we want a seed market, then there has to be a certain level of quality, and there should be close scrutiny to ensure that seeds on sale are of the declared quality.
Therefore, we should be a little cautious about the existing great diversity.
We need to be careful to avoid a situation whereby whatever is in the gene banks comes into our market and destroys it - the world market and the European market alike.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the aim of one of the two regulations we are debating today in the context of Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's report is to coordinate, support and promote, at Community level, the conservation, characterization, collection and utilization of genetic resources in agriculture.
These genetic resources are made up of all traditional plant and animal varieties which correspond, in general, to clearly defined geographical areas or soils.
They represent a great variety, a great diversity of genetic heritage, of hardy and robust plants and animals.
They are in all cases much better adapted to the implementation of sustainable development in agriculture, something to which many of us are attached. They are much better adapted than some new creations - I am thinking in particular of genetically modified organisms - which are linked to the sole objective of ever greater profitability and, let us not deceive ourselves, increased profits for certain large industrial groups.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's report, of which we approve and which I congratulate, in passing, on behalf of my group, rightly underlines our interest in preserving varieties of plant or animal species to conserve the genes which could be useful for agriculture in the future.
This report also underlines, albeit more indirectly, the role which these banks and conservation networks play in the service of the Community, which is, a priori , a good thing.
Having said that, I cannot help thinking that with the legal protection of biotechnological inventions which Parliament adopted on Tuesday, we will paradoxically be helping both to bring into the Community system costs related to gene conservation and, by means of technological patents, to privatize the profit from these same genes, which will have been conserved using money from the European taxpayer.
But you will doubtless think I am trying to cause trouble.
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on both reports.
They have certainly given us a lot to think about.
Some experience in my own constituency leads me to say that we must produce seed of the highest quality.
To achieve this we must have strong inspection measures in place.
While no-one likes to have inspection measures, it is the only way in which control can be accurately implemented.
But while we must have inspection measures, they must not be overly bureaucratic, because that is one of the problems that aggravates farmers most.
The measures must be so structured that they gain the confidence not only of the producer but of all involved in the industry.
And we must ensure that there is a balance between the commercial and the non-commercial producer.
I certainly feel that random sampling is something we are going to have to learn to live with.
It is not going to be nice; it is not going to be easy; some people will object to it; some people will not like it; but that is part of life, that is the way things go at times.
We must also be sensitive to the needs of the seed producers, so I would certainly appeal for the careful and sensible implementation of this particular regulation.
Madam President, I am delighted that the Commission is simplifying the certification procedure for seeds intended for propagation.
The Member States will have to show themselves worthy of each others' confidence and the confidence of the Commission, the guarantor of the Treaties, by the care they take in exercising the controls for which they are responsible.
Absolute accuracy in exercising the various controls will have to rid us at last of our phobia of fraud of all kinds which, like a cancer, eats away at confidence in the construction of our Europe.
We often hear it said that Europe is involved in too many things.
I believe that Europe is facing up to its responsibility by ensuring control of the conservation and safeguarding of seeds, our joint world heritage.
Furthermore, in the decades and centuries to come, these seeds will need to be used as a standard to restore certain characteristics to the plant species which have undergone genetic modification. In some cases it is impossible to predict the harmful or perverse effects which could result from these practices, which are not always necessary for the wellbeing of mankind.
Once again, we must remain vigilant to ensure that mistakes do not become irreparable, for lack of caution.
It is therefore incumbent upon all the people responsible to be precise regarding inventories and the management of collections so that no basic species or important variety of these species is forgotten.
Madam President, Commissioner, I believe that this sound report puts us on the right track.
Madam President, I would first of all like to thank the rapporteur and, indeed, the Commission for bringing up this issue again.
It is very important that we prepare an up-to-date inventory of the state and nature of the genetic resource base in agriculture.
It is also necessary to conserve and protect these valuable resources of both seeds and animals.
Many varieties of seed, both cereal and vegetable, are no longer in everyday use.
We must make every effort to protect and save them for the possibility of future use.
I give you the example of the now famous International Rice Bank where research into cross-breeding of many out of use and local strains of rice has led to the development of a new variety which is now showing up to a seven-fold yield improvement.
Similar possibilities apply to animals.
For example, some rare breeds of cattle, now almost extinct, may provide disease resistant traits and food producing improvements when cross-bred with conventional breeds.
So we must make the investment, not only in records and inventories, but also in gene banking and conservation of what still remains.
Also, it will be necessary to encourage interested people to continue to breed these rare animals.
This will require financial support, as this activity is a labour of love and not economic.
In conclusion, in my opinion, one of the most important aspects of conservation of seeds and animals is the ever increasing possibilities in the area of biotechnology which these genetic resources may provide for the absolute benefit of a rapidly growing world population, much of which is already undernourished in many regions of the southern hemisphere.
The approach to research through biotechnology will also give us seeds and plants with the ability to survive and produce in arid, infertile areas with above normal temperatures and shallow soils.
Biotechnological research must continue and must be properly funded.
Madam President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for a successful report.
It is important for common regulations to be drawn up in the area of certification as regards seed types and approved inspectors.
However, we must guard against losing confidence in the certification system by allowing absolutely anything under the sun to be accredited.
Firstly, it would be far too expensive, because the certification process for new seed types is long and costly.
Certifiable seed types should be those intended for cultivation.
Secondly, the processing time for certification would be lengthened unnecessarily if all types of wild grain were to be certified.
One of the purposes of certification must be to test out new types of seed that are resistant to plant diseases in order to reduce the use of crop sprays.
In my view, another important aspect is to obtain an assurance that inspection will be carried out under reliable conditions.
Inspectors will have to be authorized by the state.
We must ensure that farmers in all Member States are treated equally by the inspectors.
There is some cause for concern at developments tending towards the random awarding of inspection contracts.
That would not be in the best interests of either farmers or consumers.
Madam President, in Amendment No 1 the rapporteur suggests that the new inspectors should be sworn in before they are officially licensed.
I personally cannot support this proposal.
I do not know exactly what the situation is in other countries, but in the Nordic countries there is only one professional group that swears an oath of office, and that is the judiciary.
Unfortunately, it would only invite ridicule if we were also to oblige inspectors of potatoes and flower seeds to swear such oaths.
Moreover, it would make no difference as regards the possibilities of imposing penalties for offences such as incorrect or fraudulent inspection.
Requiring inspectors to be sworn in would unfortunately, I believe, merely over-complicate the whole situation.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for the very constructive way in which the Commission's proposal has been handled.
The task before us was to secure the amendment of seven seed marketing directives, dating back to the late sixties and early seventies, in order to clarify, simplify and facilitate the marketing of seed within the European Union.
The Commission proposal has three basic aims.
Firstly, to extend the scope of the current provisions for the carrying out of temporary experiments, by which alternatives can be explored for improving the provisions laid down in these directives.
Secondly, to facilitate the inclusion of new plants in the catalogue of plants covered by the directive, and thirdly, to lay down provisions on the suitability of plant names.
The Commission's proposal also simplifies the procedures used for the official recognition of certified seed in respect of the clause by which plant stocks which are to be used for seed production do not necessarily have to be inspected by the official agents of the seed certification authority, but may also be certified by other inspectors.
Independent persons, appointed by companies engaged in seed production, seed propagation, seed processing and seed distribution, could in future also act as seed inspectors.
In this connection I should like to point out that the answer to Mr Kofoed's question is 'yes' .
The broad agreement which the proposal has received in Parliament is a clear sign that we are on the right path.
I should therefore just like to say something about the only aspect which has given cause for slight controversy, namely the on-site inspections. Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf referred to the procedure laid down in Article 43.
Each institution has to be fully aware of its function.
But it is not my personal wish, nor that of my colleagues, to disregard the procedure on position taking simply because it is only a position and nothing more.
On the contrary, where it is possible and when it is justified for practical reasons, we shall of course take appropriate account of the amendments which are being submitted here in Parliament.
I am therefore pleased to be able to inform you that the Commission unreservedly accepts Amendment No 4 for the evaluation of the new procedures within a period of four years.
The Commission also accepts Amendment No 1, relating to the swearingin of inspectors, in the form proposed by the rapporteur, and likewise Amendment No 5, with a small alteration.
However, we are of the opinion that both amendments taken together fail to convey the right meaning.
Amendment No 2 is acceptable to the Commission provided it is extended to take account of the amended decision of 1995, which further provides in certain cases for a reduction in the level of official inspections to 5 % and 15 % respectively.
Amendment No 3, which contains the proposal that action shall be taken in the event of contravention by licensed inspectors of the rules governing official examinations, can also be accepted in principle by the Commission.
However, since it is the view of the Commission that the measures contained in the amendment could be lacking in balance, it is thought that these should be reviewed further in a comprehensive study.
Furthermore, for legal reasons the amendment should be edited and an appropriate wording employed throughout.
Let me now move on to the second item in this joint debate.
At this juncture I also wish to thank the rapporteur for the keen interest shown in Regulation 1467/94 and I can assure him that the European Parliament's position will be of great value to the Commission in its deliberations on how to proceed with this regulation.
In addition, I would like to thank the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for the generally positive way in which they have received the Commission's report.
This report shows that the regulation in question is already allowing important work to be done in the Member States, and that this is contributing to the objectives of the common agricultural policy, particularly in respect of the relationship between agriculture and environmental protection.
Thanks to this regulation, Europe can now coordinate the efforts which are being made for the preservation and environmentally friendly use of the genetic resources of the agricultural industry.
The results of this are already being disseminated, primarily via the Internet.
This is acknowledged throughout the world, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has already pointed out.
The important work which has been done towards the conservation, specification, collection and use of the genetic resources of the European agricultural industry, which has been funded within the framework of Regulation 1467, has significantly strengthened our position in the international negotiations taking place on species diversity in agriculture and on genetic resources for the agricultural industry.
In his report, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf indicated that the budget funds for Regulation 1467 must be increased and that greater manpower resources must be deployed in this sector.
The Commission is very aware of the problems which exist in this area, and as far as staffing levels are concerned I can only point out once again that in DG VI we are still experiencing major difficulties in providing the appropriate level of cover for all the tasks in hand.
As regards the comment often made in this House that all these tasks could easily be attended to by redeploying personnel, I should just like to record that I stand by what I have already said, namely that we are willing at any time to have the offices of DG VI undergo public screening.
Then everyone can tell us which operations are to be cancelled or postponed.
We have a problem here and I can therefore only appeal to the budget authorities, in view of the acknowledged importance of this regulation, to provide adequate support for the Commission's proposal.
I should, however, like to express my thanks to Parliament once again for the interest it has shown in this report and for the positive manner in which it has been received.
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
The rapporteur has asked for the floor.
Madam President, I should like briefly to pick up on two points.
The first concerns the matter of swearing-in.
In our country it is customary for persons taking up public positions to be sworn in.
This practice may possibly be unusual.
It is intended not only as a commitment to duty but also to ensure impartiality in cases involving mutual interests.
There are indeed inspectors who also work for seed companies.
The report makes a reference to this and indicates that inspectors have to be given greater independence to carry out their work without pressure from other quarters.
My second point is a question for you, Mr Fischler.
The second report states that we think it would be sensible for this programme - and I am now also extending this to programmes covered by Regulation 2078 - to be made available to those countries in the transitional phase of membership.
I am not looking here for a promise which you cannot give us at this juncture.
But the fact remains that we now have to look at this issue, because in the countries concerned such resources could well be lost partly through changes in agricultural practice, and we would then have an awful lot of catching up to do.
Proposing to those countries undergoing transition that they apply measures which are in line with the objectives of this and other programmes, whose aim is to promote an environmentally friendly agricultural industry, therefore seems to me to be eminently sensible.
Madam President, I would like to look at this question once again, for it seems to me to be an important one.
Within the framework of the accession procedures and the new funding packages which are to be provided from the year 2000, it is planned to give priority to developing the processing sector and to creating a stronger management structure and a more effective environmental policy in agriculture, with ECU 500 million to be made available to the 10 applicant countries for agricultural purposes.
I am quite prepared, particularly now when there is a need for programmes to be drawn up in talks with the countries concerned, to bring this matter up during these discussions and to make the applicant nations aware of the importance of this issue.
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.40 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to ask the Bureau a question arising from the Minutes.
The vote on my report took place yesterday afternoon under the direction of your good self. I would like to thank the 225 Members who voted, 168 of them backing my report.
Over 400 of those present this morning were present for voting yesterday morning.
Votes have often taken place at half past one, even at a quarter to two on some occasions.
Before voting commenced yesterday morning, it was reported that voting would be suspended at a quarter past one.
I would like to ask whether the Bureau intends to introduce variable voting times.
Sometimes we vote until one o'clock, other times until a quarter past or half past one. It all seems rather arbitrary.
I feel I am the victim of voting being suspended at a quarter past one. I would like to ask the Bureau to put forward concrete proposals on fixed voting times so that this sort of thing cannot happen.
We have fixed voting times but not fixed subjects for the voting period: we cover as many items during the voting period as we possibly can but, if we run out of time, the reports not voted on are carried over to the next voting session.
Mr President, I would just like to make a point which may perhaps have escaped Mr Pex.
For some time now, the agenda has made provision on Thursday evening at 5.30 p.m. for votes on topical and urgent subjects and the continuation of the morning's votes.
I can understand that that might have escaped you, Mr Pex, but I think it is very important and that in future we will have to plan our work according to the agenda.
As President of the Thursday morning sitting, I could in theory have closed the sitting at 1.00 p.m. sharp, but thanks to the flexibility of the House, I was able to let it continue until 1.15 p.m. I sincerely hoped to put the Pex report to the vote but this was not possible.
Everyone knew, however, that if the vote had not been held by 1.15 p.m., it would have taken place the same evening.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I have no comment to make on the Minutes but would like to draw both your attention and that of fellow Members of this House to the fact that we have a lady in our midst today who is celebrating a very important birthday.
The lady concerned is Mrs Ursula Schleicher who often chairs the Friday sitting here.
I think it might be nice, Mr President, to offer her our warmest congratulations.
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
Many Happy Returns, Mrs Schleicher.
Votes
Amendment No 1, which has been approved and tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Amendment No 5 from Mr Fantuzzi contradict each other; they are not compatible.
I prefer Amendment No 1 which was adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The Commission has indicated that although it could live with both of them, if I have understood matters correctly, the amendments are incompatible and cannot be supplemented either.
So we have to make up our minds, and I am in favour of Amendment No 1.
After the vote on the amendments
The Commission has nodded.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) Report (A4-0129/98) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 1467/94 of 20 June 1994 (COM(97)0327 - C4-0492/97)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, the European Commission would like to extend the application of the rules on competition to international air transport services.
If the Council decided to do so, the Commission would be given the exclusive right to assess the cooperation agreement between European and foreign airlines.
The Commission currently shares this right with the Member States.
According to the Commission, this gives rise to legal uncertainty amongst the airlines concerned.
European rules on competition for the air transport sector are designed to prevent unlawful constraints on competition between airlines on the liberalized internal market.
Tariff agreements are not, for example, permitted within the European Union.
On an international level, there is however no liberalized market.
On the contrary, international air traffic is generally based on detailed bilateral agreements.
In a situation such as this, it would be impossible to apply rules on competition.
In bilateral negotiations, air transport is often just one part of an entire package.
Package deals are the norm.
In my view, it would be better to keep things as they are with powers shared between the Commission and the Member States.
Member States would, within certain limits, then retain the right to conclude air transport agreements with third countries.
Article 89 of the Treaty states that the Commission may intervene by arrangement with the relevant Member State if an agreement would have the effect of overly restricting competition.
Better cooperation between the Commission and the Member States would significantly reduce the legal uncertainty amongst airlines.
I freely admit that the two do not appear to be working very well together at present.
This is because both the Member States and the Commission have been staking out their own territory in the new situation created by air transport alliances.
I am sure that cooperation between the Commission and the Member States will improve over time.
These are the reasons why I voted against the Commission's proposals.
We are all aware of the importance of the principle of subsidiarity. It allows Member States to solve their own problems, if their action is likely to be more effective than intervention by a European institution.
In my opinion, and in that sense, the question of air transport agreements between Member States and third countries should not make it necessary to extend the scope of the Commission's powers too much.
However, in these two proposals for Council regulations, the Commission wishes to extend its powers to enforce Community competition rules on air transport between the Community and third countries.
May I remind you that, at present, the Commission only has the Council's mandate to enforce competition rules with regard to air transport services provided inside the European Economic Area.
If the Commission's proposals were adopted as they stand, its powers to influence relationships between Member States and third countries would be extended.
For my part, ladies and gentlemen, at the very least I think it would be premature to extend the Commission's powers in that way.
In fact, at the present time, we have no common external policy in the area of air transport.
Furthermore, the background debate on this subject has only led to a limited number of negotiating mandates.
Furthermore, I would also like to say that no agreements have yet been signed with any country which does not belong to the European Economic Area.
To conclude, it would be a pity if the Commission tried to extend its powers by what I would call devious means, using proposals for regulations to get involved in an area which is at present within the sovereign competence of Member States, except in cases where the Commission has a negotiating mandate.
I believe it would be more appropriate initially to extend the Commission's powers only to countries for which the Council has given the Commission a negotiating mandate.
Graefe zu Baringdorf report (A4-0128/98)
The proposal which the Commission has submitted to us simplifies the procedures for the certification of seed for propagation.
The methods envisaged provide for greater involvement of seed firms in inspection procedures.
Official inspections undertaken by seed certification authorities will be partly replaced by inspections for which seed producers will themselves be responsible.
In principle, we approve of this simplification.
Nevertheless, it will be necessary to ensure that self-monitoring procedures are properly implemented, so as to avoid possible discrimination between seed producers in different Member States.
It will therefore be essential to ensure that inspectors responsible for supervising the implementation of self-monitoring use standard procedures in all Member States.
It will also be necessary to apply serious penalties in case of fraud or rigging of inspections.
It will be necessary to ensure that inspectors have greater personal responsibility and that seed firms and producers do not put pressure on inspectors.
This group supports all the amendments, particularly the amendment which provides for the supervision of inspections by sworn inspectors.
In fact, because of the seasonal nature of agricultural products and the need to use temporary labour to carry out self-monitoring procedures, it is necessary for supervision to be carried out by sworn inspectors.
Indeed, that is the only way of increasing the personal responsibility of inspectors, in case of fraud or manipulation of inspections.
I would also to point out an inconsistency.
In the Rothley report on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions, we adopted the principle of the patentability of seeds whilst restricting the 'farmer's privilege' . Parliament now has to vote on a report on the promotion at Community level of the activities of conservation, characterization, collection and utilization of genetic resources in agriculture.
The aim of the report we are considering today is to promote centres for the conservation of genetic resources and to facilitate information at a European level.
Does this not mean that, on the one hand, we are going to prevent or reduce the production of agricultural seeds and, on the other hand, finance and promote centres for the conservation of genetic resources, for the sole benefit of multinational seed firms?
Payment card crime
The next item is the report (A4-0164/98) by Mr Schmid, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft joint action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union concerning arrangements for the better exchange of information in respect of payment card crime between Member States' law enforcement agencies and between those agencies and the payment card industry, where such information is required for the investigation of offences (5683/98 - C4-0136/98-98/0906(CNS))
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Schmid very sincerely for an excellent report.
We should not be surprised; he does after all come from Bavaria, and all sorts of good things come from Bavaria.
This report yet again illustrates in a particular sector the extent of the problems caused by internationally organized crime. The latter has a decisive advantage.
At a time when there is really an explosion of knowledge, when new technologies appear virtually every day, there are still governments which always arrive on the scene too late, like Dad's Army.
They clamp down only long after the matter has been resolved. They shut the stable door only after the horse has been stolen.
That is the real problem, and it is good to highlight it in an area which directly affects our citizens, namely credit cards.
We have a completely new dimension today, with a world-wide struggle against internationally organized crime which is obstructed by political conditions.
Before the Second World War there were perhaps 20 countries in the world that were of any great significance.
Today we have 190 in the UN alone.
Many of us - I know because I used to be on the Committee on Development and Cooperation - do not even know their names.
These countries are increasingly and deliberately being targeted and bought up by international crime and certain dangerous sects, so that a new situation is emerging in international relations as a whole.
In addition, we are also dealing with the problem of major international speculative capitalism.
According to a report from the World Bank, these groups have at their disposal nowadays a sum of between 800 billion and 1 trillion dollars.
If you believe the news, we shall shortly experience another great international crisis like the one in 1992.
That is why we have to proceed on the widest front.
Today it is a question of creating security in the area of credit cards.
But we should not stop there; we should go further, because there are even greater dangers in store.
We face a major international struggle against international forces which are criminally organized and which respect no laws, because they are always quicker than those who are law-abiding.
I would like to thank Mr Schmid for pointing this out.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the sign against crime campaign when we dealt with crime in Brussels, today we come to the "vote against crime' .
We would like to give our full support to Mr Schmid's report.
I think that it is urgently necessary to proceed consistently against organized crime.
Indeed, we ought also to have had a debate here this week, which has had to be postponed because of the urgency of another topic.
I am confident that we shall be able to have this debate with the Council and the Commission in our next Strasbourg sitting.
In Germany we have heard that gangs of children were shipped into Germany from Romania with the job of picking pockets.
If they had not picked a certain number of pockets by the evening, their lips were burnt with cigarettes or their lower legs were slashed with razor blades.
The organizers were caught in this case.
We can see that our cities face entirely new dangers in the area of crime.
Credit cards were also stolen in the course of these pickpocketing incidents, and were used for fraud, with enormous sums being lost. This is quite unacceptable to us.
That is why I have made the proposal - and anyone who travels can see this in the ASEAN countries for example - that like the German railway pass, credit cards should automatically incorporate photos of the credit card owner, so that you can immediately tell whether the person in question really is the owner of the card.
These cards should also perhaps incorporate a fingerprint so that trained personnel could quickly identify, alongside the signature, whether a credit card was being presented by the legal owner.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two reasons why the Commission welcomes today's debate on Mr Schmid's report. Firstly, it is important that the European Parliament should be able to express its views in matters of cooperation in the fields of justice and home affairs before the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into effect.
Secondly, by virtue of their quality, Mr Schmid's report and the amendments it contains should give the Council cause to consider it carefully.
In short, the Commission welcomes this proposal for a joint action. It should be seen as a practical instrument which facilitates the work of all those who deal with investigations in connection with payment card fraud, and one which respects privacy and human rights.
We are particularly pleased that this initiative is based on a project that was financed with budgetary funds from the European Union, or, to be more precise, with funds which Parliament and the Council made available to assist initiatives in the fields of justice and home affairs.
In addition, I should also like to point out that this initiative should be regarded as a concrete measure to implement the European Union's action plan to fight organized crime, which has been extensively discussed in this House.
At present, the Commission is concluding its considerations in connection with the task with which it was entrusted in the context of the action plan, of elaborating proposals for measures against fraud and against the forgery of all types of means of payment, including credit cards, and of examining inter alia the introduction of harmonized bases for punishable offences in relation to certain actions.
All these initiatives, among which we should also include the entry into force of the Europol agreement which is expected this year, and which will mean that Europol is at last fully able to act, show that the European Union intends to proceed with determination against criminal wheeling and dealing in the area of the European Union.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
g. (SV) We certainly feel that it is important for action to be taken to combat crime within the payment card industry.
It is absolutely clear from the explanatory statement accompanying the report that the proposal should concentrate on such areas as the production of payment cards, their distribution, production of card readers and other payment card-related services. All of these areas are important.
We are wondering, however, whether this is a specifically EU-related problem. We believe it is not.
The measures mentioned here are all international. Quite clearly, payment cards do not exist only in EU countries.
Consequently, we do not feel that these matters should be entrusted to Europol, but instead that Interpol, the international, intergovernmental police commission, should take the matter up.
Fraudulent payment card transactions are international and therefore a job for Interpol.
We have thus voted against the legislative resolution.
Use of antibiotics in animal food
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0286/98 - O-0075/98 by Mr Olsson, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission, on regulation of the use of antibiotics in animal food; -B4-0287/98 - O-0082/98 by the following Members: Aelvoet, Roth, Schörling, Gahrton, Hautala, Graefe zu Baringdorf, Lindholm, Holm, Lannoye and Tamino, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on the use of antibiotics in animal feed; -B4-0289/98 - O-0084/98 by Mr Barthet-Mayer and Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on antibiotics in animal feedingstuffs; -B4-0388/98 - O-0098/98 by the following Members: Cabrol, Pasty, Azzolini and Santini, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on antibiotics in animal feedingstuffs; -B4-0463/98 - O-0102/98 by the following Members: Sonneveld, Goepel, Böge, Funk and Schierhuber, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on the rules governing the use of antibiotics in animal feed; -B4-0468/98 - O-0113/98 by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, to the Commission, on the rules governing the use of antibiotics in animal feed; -B4-0470/98 - O-0115/98 by the following Members: Roth-Behrendt, Fantuzzi, Iversen and Hulthen, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on the use of antibiotics in animal feedingstuffs.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are aware that the problem of antibiotic-resistant bacteria is growing.
This is a problem within human health care, above all in cases where diseases that were previously relatively harmless are today tending to become extremely hard to cure using standard antibiotics.
One of the reasons for this is the widespread use of antibiotics in both human and veterinary healthcare.
But it is also due to the fact that we often use antibiotics routinely in order to prevent diseases or to cure "minor' diseases, by mixing antibiotics in feedingstuffs and giving them to animals on a daily basis.
Instead, we could employ good herd management and a good environment for the animals.
Then it is possible to forgo the use of antibiotics in animal feed.
It is also probably true to say that we must not hide a poor animal environment by curing the animals daily with a dose of antibiotics.
This is the wrong way to handle the means we have at our disposal.
But aside from the fact that it is justifiable to remove antibiotics from an animal welfare perspective, we must also restrict their use as far as possible so that in future we shall be able to use antibiotics to combat bacterial diseases in humans.
We must therefore strive to prevent the routine use of antibiotics - and also other medicinal preparations - in feed either as growth promoters or to prevent disease.
I believe it is important that we should obtain more research and produce more evidence in this field.
We already know a great deal today, but we can never be too sure.
One argument that I often hear is precisely that there is no conclusive proof.
But even if some people think that we do not have sufficient knowledge, the duty of care should be applied in this context, in other words, even the suspicion that this might in the long term lead to difficult human health problems should mean that we now stop using antibiotics in feedingstuffs.
Some Member States introduced this type of ban long ago.
We know from experience that this has been successful: production can be equally efficient, even if more care is exercised with regard to the animals' environment.
Once again I would like to put this question to the Commission and to Commissioner Fischler: What does the Commission intend to do to increase knowledge about the link between in-feed antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria? Does the Commission intend to prepare measures to reduce or prohibit the use of in-feed antibiotics within the Union?
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, antibiotics are a good example of the way in which an invention that was a blessing can turn into a genetic time bomb.
Invented and used in the Second World War, at first on the Allied side, it was a blessing in their care for the wounded, then used in the case of serious illnesses and in operations on people to save lives by using a medicine "against life' - antibioticum which is equal to anti-life - subsequently spilling over into veterinary treatment as well, but finally generating a flood of prescriptions now that doctors resort to antibiotics whenever anyone gets a cold.
What is interesting is that dangerous bacteria are not on the retreat as a result and are not checkmated over the long term by this medicine.
Instead these bacteria are reacting, they are reacting with mutations, they are reacting with resistance. In turn, the response to this has always been to develop new antibiotics, and the wheel turns faster and faster.
And then things go completely mad: now people have begun to make use of this means of prolonging life, that is so important for injured and ill people, as a prophylactic or preventive ingredient in animal food, because this medicine overcomes latent illnesses in herds of animals and above all does so in herds which are not kept in an appropriate and ecological manner, where serious mistakes are made in stock-keeping.
In these cases, the antibiotics exercise their greatest effect in improving yield because they suppress illnesses which would otherwise break out.
Now the circle is being closed even more quickly. We are observing the development of resistance here as well, in the case of animals, in the prophylactic field.
New antibiotics are being invented with ever greater speed, at ever shorter intervals.
We have a great raft of antibiotics which are no longer effective in the case of most animal illnesses.
A time bomb is ticking away because, although there is no direct connection between antibiotics in animals and in human beings, there is an indirect one in the way in which "life' becomes resistant to applied medicines and then threatens us in the shape of disease germs.
Commissioner, all this could take on the same dimensions as BSE.
I think that there is an urgent necessity for the Commission to turn to scientific work and in the first instance to take the preventive action that Sweden has already taken, namely banning prophylactic use in animal food, and for us to develop scientific bases in order to hold our own in WTO negotiations.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, approximately 80 % of the antibiotics produced around the world intended for animals are administered in animal feed.
That is the conclusion of a report by the "Commission Interprofessionnelle et Interministériel de l'Alimentation Animale' in France, a body responsible for animal nutrition.
In other words, almost all complete feedingstuffs for animals are supplemented with antibiotics.
Since the BSE crisis, consumers no longer find it acceptable for animals to be systematically fed with foods that invariably contain antibiotics. The risks are obvious according to recent WHO studies which show that, as we have already heard, the systematic use of antibiotics during fattening can have harmful effects, such as the emergence of strains of bacteria which have become resistant to antibiotics and are very difficult to eliminate.
The joint resolution therefore asks the Commission to take advantage of the experience of the Member States which have prohibited some antibiotics in order to check if all antibiotics used in animal nutrition are harmless.
At the same time it also asks the Commission to define stringent scientific standards possibly prohibiting the use of such substances as food additives, or even as drugs, and to ensure that the prohibition also applies to imports from third countries.
This all arises by virtue of the crucial precautionary principle. Compliance with that principle must be formally stated in the revised directive, in order to protect not only the health and safety of consumers but also the interests of farmers.
That is all I have to say with regard to the content of the resolution, but I would like to add that, for this approach to be completely logical, it is not enough to stop using antibiotics in animal feed in order to protect the health and safety of the consumer.
It is also necessary to enforce the directive on maximum residue limits in meat. Even if animals are not regularly fed on foods supplemented with antibiotics, the maximum admissible antibiotic doses may possibly still be exceeded during treatment of these animals.
So it is also necessary to reinforce the tests for antibiotic residues in meat and carcasses produced in the European Union and imported from third countries.
This is based on the same understanding which leads us to oppose countries which, for example, continue to allow the use of hormones as permanent growth factors in animal husbandry, which European consumers do not want.
I therefore believe we would do well to support amendments which complement the resolution in that respect.
Finally, I would like to ask Commissioner Fischler a question.
I understand, Commissioner, that the Commission has arranged for studies to be carried out on the antibiotic resistance of micro-organisms and on antibiotic residues in meat, and this, if my information is correct, within the framework of promises of veterinary transparency made during the work of the committee of enquiry on BSE.
Would it possible, Commissioner, for us to see those reports?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, having witnessed the havoc caused by mad cow disease and the great feeling it rightly aroused in our fellow European citizens, we no longer have any right to compromise on what is called the precautionary principle.
It is absolutely necessary for serious research to be carried out with the greatest despatch in order to establish whether antibiotics used in animal feeding, in hospitals and for medical purposes are in any way responsible for the disquieting antibiotic resistance that is emerging.
In fact, tuberculosis is reappearing all over Europe and anxiety is being expressed at a scientific level.
If a serious bacterial epidemic were to occur tomorrow, we would perhaps no longer have the means to combat the disease and the risks it represents.
It is therefore necessary to speed up the work currently being carried out by the Scientific Committee on Animal Nutrition.
Pending the adoption of European regulations, each country should also organize epidemiological surveillance of antibiotic resistance, according to the use of antibiotics in animal production. This would encourage the reasonable use of antibiotics until more stringent regulations are adopted and would restrict the overall quantities used, as recommended by the World Health Organization.
Above all, it would encourage efforts to improve hygiene in animal production, as Mr Olsson said earlier. Antibiotics must not be used as a means to compensate for bad production methods.
Furthermore, it is also necessary to control the use of antibiotics by general practitioners in hospitals, because we all know that the total quantity of antibiotics used in human medications is far greater than the quantity of antibiotics used as additives in animal food.
We must also ensure that the proposed regulations put an end to existing distortions of competition within the single market.
Mrs Barthet-Mayer has very opportunely reiterated the need to make the testing of residues in meat standard at European level.
And, of course, we must work within the World Trade Organization to ensure that the rules we impose upon ourselves in the interests of human health are not only applied in Europe, but also in third countries which supply us with meat and cattle feed.
Under these circumstances, and as these opinions are broadly shared by all the Members who have spoken, this group, which is joint signatory of the joint resolution, supports it and will also support the amendments tabled by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations which Mrs Barthet-Mayer moved earlier.
Mr President, I participated fully in the drafting of this joint motion for a resolution on antibiotics in animal feed. I would hope that, after this debate, the House will give it its full support.
Medicated feed or feed containing pre-mixed antibiotic additives have one very definitive purpose on large units: to treat sick animals.
Such feed should only be used for this therapeutic purpose; they should only be used under strict licence and under strict supervision.
This is the only practical way to administer treatment in the case of a disease outbreak in large units.
For example, it would be almost impossible to treat a pig-breeding and fattening unit of, say, 5 0-10 000 pigs in any other way than in feed and drinking water.
It would not be possible to catch and inject thousands of pigs every day for perhaps a week.
So applying treatment through the feed is the only way in practice.
However, strict rules and codes of practice must apply to all such use.
Indeed, I am happy to say that in most Member States I know this system already applies.
I feel there are many elements in such a code of conduct, a few of which might be outlined as follows.
Medicated pre-mixes and compounds can only be manufactured by registered compounders on receipt of a veterinary prescription from the state veterinary services, giving full details of the numbers of animals to be treated, the withdrawal periods and the sizes of the batch.
Only the tonnage specified on the official prescription should be manufactured.
Batch numbers of this feed must be carefully recorded from manufacturer through to final farm delivery and use in order to ensure maximum traceability.
Medication must not be incorporated into feed to be used for animals within one month of slaughter.
The locked-box or locked-store system must apply to the manufacturer and on the farm where the feed is to be stored and used.
All transporters, lorries and storage bins must be fully flushed before reuse with unmedicated feed.
Residue testing, pre mortem, through urine and blood samples, and post mortem, through kidney and meat sampling, must be carried out by the competent veterinary authorities to ensure maximum food safety.
The use of medicated feed for prophylactic or growth-promotion reasons cannot continue to feature in management, as is the case in some feeding systems and in some Member States at present.
These farms should be given a limited period to change this practice and find alternative methods.
Medicated feed must not be used to support or underpin poor farm management or weak animal health and welfare standards.
It should be noted that the overuse and misuse of antibiotics is not confined to farmers and the agricultural industry: there is plenty of evidence that the medical profession does not have clean hands when it comes to over-prescription.
Nevertheless, the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry should never compromise or put at risk the health of human beings.
Misuse of antibiotics in prophylactics or in therapy can never replace good management.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, antibiotics are used in animal husbandry in two forms: by introducing antibiotics into animal feed and by using antibiotics for therapeutic purposes in veterinary medicine.
With regard to EC regulations, we already have a directive which establishes a list of authorized additives for use in animal feed and a regulation which defines a Community procedure establishing the maximum residue limits for veterinary drugs in foods of animal origin.
As it is quite conceivable that the excessive use of antibiotics can lead to the development of resistance to antibiotics, not only in animals but also in humans, it is necessary to implement a policy limiting their use to an absolute minimum.
For that purpose, it is therefore necessary not only to control the use of antibiotics in nutrition, but also their use for therapeutic purposes.
We must therefore take into account maximum residue limits for pharmacologically active substances in foods of animal origin, including meat, fish, milk, eggs and honey.
These maximum residue limits must be established on the basis of the precautionary principle, in order to protect public health.
In this respect, I condemn the ambiguous attitude which is prevalent in the European Union.
For example, some antibiotics authorized by Community regulations as coccidiostat are prohibited in Sweden as additives in foods intended for animals, but are authorized as veterinary drugs, and do not comply with Community regulations relating to the evaluation of maximum residue limits.
Those maximum limits are essential to ensure that veterinary drugs are used correctly in accordance with veterinary prescriptions, whereas the use of additives is tightly controlled by regulations and checked within foodstuffs.
Consequently, we ask the Commission immediately to demand the enforcement of the maximum residue limits in all Member States.
The enforcement of these standards must also be ensured with regard to all imports of foods of animal origin from nonCommunity countries, including meat, fish, milk, eggs and honey.
The residue standards must be clearly defined within the framework of international agreements and particularly in the WTO agreement.
I repeat that animal production has a very important place in European agriculture, and production conditions must not be imposed on producers which render them no longer competitive with imported products from third countries which do not comply with the same conditions or constraints.
In this matter, we must not restrict ourselves to examining the use of antibiotics in animal food, but rather adopt a more global approach and include in our analysis the antibiotics used in veterinary medicine.
If scientific research shows that the development of antibiotic resistance is due to the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry, we will have to ensure that everyone complies with resistance standards in order to protect the interests of European farmers and European consumers, and that means not just producers in all the Member States of the European Union, but also all imports from third countries.
Mr President, during the part-session in Strasbourg in February, a significant step was taken towards healthier feedingstuffs.
This was secured by the European Parliament voting in favour of an amendment - of which I was the author - to the Poisson report on a ban covering the use of antibiotics in feedingstuffs with specific nutritional purposes.
The many reports on the possible health consequences are too serious to be ignored.
As stated earlier in this debate, the use of antibiotics carries the inherent danger of bacteria becoming resistant. They become resistant to medicines used to cure sick people.
We are courting a situation where many people will die from diseases that could easily have been treated with antibiotics.
Further, it is a recognized fact that as long as farmers ensure high standards of hygiene in animal husbandry, the use of antibiotics is completely unnecessary.
An important point for future agricultural policy reform will be to ensure that regulations on animal husbandry will render the use of antibiotics superfluous.
Currently, several Member States have already banned the use of antibiotics in feedingstuffs, in some cases on the basis of analysis results available from the WHO.
These analyses demonstrate that the use of antibiotics can be extremely costly in terms of treating human diseases.
The WHO therefore recommends stopping the use of antibiotics.
One of the EU's distinctive marks is the free movement of goods.
All Member States should be free to sell their goods within the EU.
This implies that we have a responsibility and a duty to assure consumers that goods are produced responsibly.
Consumers should be able to choose EU products confidently without having to worry about whether production methods could wreak havoc on citizens' health, a catastrophe that could result in many more deaths than the BSE crisis, with far more widespread impact.
In this regard, we must not forget that the EU is part of the world market, too.
It is a matter of concern that in many parts of the world large doses of antibiotics are used in feedingstuffs as growth stimulants for animals.
Of course it is important to tighten up EU regulations.
However, we should also focus on improving regulations in the global market.
I have three main requests.
The first is to ask the Council to take note of the recommendation by the House for a ban covering the use of antibiotics in feedingstuffs with special nutritional purposes.
My second main point is that at the earliest possible opportunity, the Commission should prepare a list of the most harmful types of antibiotic growth stimulants and have them banned.
Eventually, all these types of antibiotics should ideally be put on the list of banned substances so that we can put a stop to the use of these health hazards.
I would like to encourage the Commissioner and the Commission to begin focusing on alternative methods of animal husbandry to replace and render superfluous the present consumption of antibiotic growth stimulants.
These are steps that must be taken if we are to be able to look European consumers in the eye.
The European Parliament must help ensure that healthy food will not become a meaningless phrase.
Finally, allow me to ask the Commissioner to explain firstly what is going to be done to promote more sustainable and humane animal husbandry. Secondly, when can we expect tangible results from research into the use of antibiotics in animal feed?
What types of monitoring and preventative measures has the Commission introduced in the meantime?
Thirdly, is the Commission currently working on a revision of the relevant directive on the use of antibiotics in animal feed? Fourthly, as a consequence of this, is the Commission currently considering proposing a ban on the use of antibiotics in animal feed?
Today, we are voting on a joint motion for a resolution. I would like to encourage everyone to do so.
We are taking a somewhat cautious step, but it is a step in the right direction towards better, healthier food.
However, it is also absolutely crucial for the Commission to understand the issues involved and to come up with a positive response.
Mr President, I should like to start by thanking the Commissioner for his statement.
However, there remains a great deal still to be done to allay the growing concerns amongst citizens across the European Union about the emergence of strains of bacteria resistant to most antibiotics due to overuse both for animals and human beings.
When I wrote the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on the Commission Green Paper on food legislation, this concern was reflected in the fact that not only was there no opposition to my proposal that antibiotics should only be used to treat illness in animals and not routinely as a prophylactic, but the wording was actually strengthened in the committee.
It was agreed that high standards of animal welfare and husbandry are essential to eliminate any need for such prophylactic use of antibiotics.
For the Party of European Socialists the essential issue here is human health rather than the possible effects on the meat market.
We have all seen what can happen to the meat market when the safety of consumers is neglected, allegedly to protect the market.
My group was nevertheless prepared to accept the joint resolution in its entirety, including paragraph 5, although not totally happy with that paragraph, in the interest of reaching the widest possible consensus.
However, since the Europe of Nations Group has broken the consensus by putting down a number of amendments, the PSE feels justified in voting against paragraph 5 so that the joint resolution concentrates on the real issue concerning this House - the need to reduce the use of antibiotics in animals in the human food chain to the absolute minimum required to treat specific cases of disease in individual animals and herds whilst further research and exchange of information are carried out.
Mr President, I also would like to thank Mr Fischler. Nothing reassures people so well as lengthy scientific discourse: doubts remain, nonetheless.
It is a fact that antibiotics are used widely throughout the EU both for medical purposes in respect of animals and to speed up the growth of animals.
As has been stated, bacteria become used to antibiotics after years of use and build up a resistance to them.
In recent years the hypothesis has been put forward that these resistant bacteria can get into a meat-eater's bodily system and weaken that person's immunity to infectious disease.
Although at the scientific level there is some dispute concerning this problem, which is difficult to examine, we must tackle the matter now.
Some vets think that the use of antibiotics as a growth stimulant must be unconditionally prohibited.
There is no real water-tight proof as yet, but it is true that a person who is treading warily at one end of the food chain does not really know how many boxes of antibiotics he is about to savour the taste of when he orders his Chateaubriand or his McDonald's hamburger.
Finland and Sweden, in their negotiations on joining the EU, received a special dispensation in respect of banning certain antibiotics in animal food.
In many other countries, however, they use the so-called safe antibiotics, as listed by the Commission.
The Commission realizes, as the Commissioner said, that it cannot ban all antibiotics without sufficient proof of serious harm to health.
But just who can define what sort of harm is serious enough to adversely affect people's health? Is not merely the fact that there is doubt enough?
The citizens of the Union move freely from one country to the other, on business or for pleasure.
It is hard to believe that it is only the Finns and the Swedes that could have strict requirements pertaining to the quality of food.
Consumers cannot be treated differently from one country to the next.
I think the EU should most definitely adhere to a principle of caution, especially when it is a question of protecting the health of our citizens, and be strict in the use of antibiotics in animal feed.
Mr President, Commissioner, the issue dealt with by Mr Olsson and others of the use of antibiotics in animal feed is a timely one.
The dispensation made in respect of Finland and Sweden is about to come to an end and the whole EU area must now consider how to approach the problem.
I wish to thank Mr Fischler for his comprehensive response.
Antibiotics are drugs which are this century's best discovery in the war against disease.
All humanity has derived enormous benefit from them.
However, microbes have the property to rapidly develop strains that are resistant to certain antibiotics.
For that reason, drugs are constantly being developed to overcome the problem of such immune strains.
With modern factory farming methods, however, the conditions of growth for animals are difficult.
Very often the size of the rearing unit is large, space is cramped, and disease can easily spread.
So there is an attempt to prevent the outbreak and spread of illness by, for example, introducing even more antibiotics into the animals' feed before any really serious disease manifests itself.
This kind of indiscriminate use of antibiotics is common in the EU, but is even more so in powerful countries that practise industrial agriculture, like the USA.
The result of this is that the use of antibiotics is so widespread that immune strains of microbe are being born at an ever increasing rate.
This is considerably harmful to public health.
That is why this issue is such a very important one at this time.
The issue actually means taking a position on reforms for the whole of EU agricultural policy and the creation of a European agricultural policy.
The question is whether we want to copy the American agricultural production model, with its large-scale use of antibiotics and hormones, which would mean pushing the issue of public health aside.
Or do we want to evolve a European agricultural system which is both ecologically and ethically based on a sustainable programme, and produce, through broadly approved methods, high quality and healthy foods? These are the alternatives that will be weighed at the AGENDA 2000 talks.
The use of antibiotics in animal feed is a big problem that is tied to sustainable development.
It is a shining example of how contemporary greed, in this case the desire for cheaper food, is seriously endangering the ability of future generations to combat illness caused by bacteria.
That is why I give my support to the joint motion for a resolution.
Mr President, the issue here is the problem of factory farming.
Production is carried out in large units and economic considerations are thus often more important than people's health.
Especially problematic in the EU is Holland's pig and chicken economy.
We should now debate the use of antibiotics for fattening up animals.
We have evidence that there is scanty scientific foundation for the use of growth hormones to fatten up animals.
The use of growth hormones is forbidden in the EU area, but one and a half billion ecus worth of them are sold.
The Nordic countries' line in this is a better one than that in the EU as a whole.
The internal market is not protecting people's health.
We have to recognize that the Commission does not have the resources to solve this problem.
Surveillance is in the hands of the Member States and the Commission should in no way obstruct it.
Mr President, we now know that antibiotics are our most important medicine and often the only means of curing bacterial diseases.
At present, one of the greatest threats to public health world-wide - and also in the EU - comes from bacteria that have developed a resistance to antibiotics, due to incorrect and extremely liberal application of antibiotics. This applies especially to use in animals, but also, of course, to humans.
The bacteria have become resistant to antibiotics and are spread from animals to humans, also via foodstuffs.
I do not fully understand why the Commission cannot use the same arguments with regard to antibiotics in animal feed as are used on the question of hormones in the discussion with WHO, that is, that the precautionary principle should apply.
We all know, of course, how incredibly difficult it can be to prove something by means of research, in other words, there has to be solid evidence, as stated by the Commission.
Nevertheless , reports have been produced, one example being a WHO study in the autumn of 1997, which highlights four resistant bacteria - among them Salmonella and Coli bacteria - that cause major public health problems.
It is said that these bacteria have had too much contact with antibiotics and have developed a defence and undergone genetic changes.
We therefore have four exceptionally hazardous bacteria that are thriving here in Europe.
We also know that the Swedish government and Swedish researchers, with support from international colleagues, have shown that at least one of these groups of bacteria - the Enterococci - has demonstrably acquired its resistance because of antibiotics in animal feed.
I have now also read that the British parliament's agriculture committee has recently presented a report recommending an outright ban on antibiotics in animal feed.
It is said that virtually conclusive evidence has been obtained that resistant bacteria can be transmitted to humans.
I believe that this is an opportunity for the Commission to apply the precautionary principle, which I feel it should do.
In the light of BSE, etcetera, there is no reason for us to accept the major risks that are posed by antibiotics in animal feed.
In Sweden such use of antibiotics has been prohibited for the past ten years.
So what have the farmers been forced to do? Well, they have been forced to invest and work on a long-term basis to improve the environment and management of animals.
The Commissioner did not directly mention animal production in Europe.
And that is where the whole problem lies: the industrial manner in which we treat animals, the poor housing conditions, the large herds.
It is clearly in this area that work must begin.
In my opinion, this is what the Commission should be taking up the cudgels for: whether we are to have confidence in your agricultural policy for the consumers and for those who must eat the products that agriculture supplies.
Mr President, the large-scale use of antibiotics in animal husbandry is giving cause for concern.
Microbiologists have for some time been warning about the possibility of resistant bacteria finding their way into the human body through meat consumption.
This might have the effect of making people resistant to human antibiotics.
It is a very worrying development, particularly in cases where only one group of antibiotics will help.
It is therefore very important that we restrict the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry.
I am well aware that little is known about the possible risks posed by certain substances.
The knowledge we have gained about the risk of resistance arising from the use of substances such as avoparcin does however mean that we should exercise caution in our dealings with other substances.
Antibiotics must be available to fight sickness.
What we need to do is question the continued administration of these medicinal products via animal feed, particularly substances that are closely related to human antibiotics.
Restricting the use of antibiotics in animal feed must be accompanied by increased research into alternative feed savers. We should not forget that feed savers play a useful role.
Research has shown that the Dutch livestock industry produces 6.5 % more nitrogen and phosphates without feed savers.
Growth and feed conversion also drop 4 to 8 %.
The industry itself has begun to develop alternatives such as organic acids and oligosaccharides.
Europe should lend its full support to this type of research.
It is also very important that we switch to a less intensive breeding programme that is less dependent on the prolonged use of medicinal products.
The approval procedure for the use of antibiotics also needs to be tightened.
In the light of all that has been said, it is remarkable that antibiotics can still be approved for use as a prophylactic without being tested for any risk of resistance.
Whether they are used as a prophylactic or to treat illness, there are and there will remain antibiotics that carry a risk of resistance.
Although antimicrobial agents to stimulate growth are necessary in the fight against infection, I would like to see them registered as medicinal products and therefore tested for resistance.
Finally, the battle against resistant bacteria is not a lost cause.
Research has shown that reducing the use of antibiotics brings a drop in the number of resistant bacteria.
We should tackle this problem energetically - not least for reasons of public health.
Mr President, we in the Socialist group warmly welcome this resolution, even though we feel that it could have been a little stricter.
This debate has dealt mostly with the risks of antibiotic residues being transmitted to humans, but of course it is the animal 's health that is the major problem here.
There are at least three reasons for restricting the use of antibiotics.
The first reason has in principle been touched upon by all of the speakers here, namely that the excessive use of antibiotics can result in the development of resistant bacterial strains. This has been quite clearly proven from a medical viewpoint.
There is, however, another reason that should be noted.
This concerns the impact on immunological defence mechanisms in both animals and humans.
For example, an increased incidence of allergies has been observed in humans in recent decades.
The precise reasons for this are not known, but one conceivable theory is that it is due to the increased use of antibiotics in young children.
This means that diseases that were previously left to the body's natural immunological defences to combat are now tackled with antibiotics.
In this way, the immune defence is weakened.
It is clear that the long-term effects of this process are completely unknown.
The third reason for not using antibiotics is more speculative, but people have genuinely begun to wonder whether this too could in the long term impact on the genetic structures.
There is, of course, no direct effect of antibiotics on the genes, but there is an indirect link insofar as antibiotics can affect natural selection, that is, nature's own evolutionary process.
The longterm consequences of this are totally unknown.
As many speakers have already stated, Sweden and Finland have for many years very wisely had a ban on antibiotics in animal feed.
I genuinely believe that this resolution should include a few appreciative words about this wise policy.
The only reference to be found in this resolution is in point 5, which contains a proposal from the Union for Europe Group that the Commission should investigate whether our ban has damaged the market for meat.
I must say that this point - which we Socialists shall be voting against - quite clearly means that we look first and foremost to the interests of the market, with public health taking second place.
It is evidently the case that both our citizens and everybody here believe that public health must be the prime consideration.
I would like to conclude by saying that there is clearly a growing body of opinion within medical science against the use of antibiotics.
The best solution would be a general ban on this use, failing which the next best option would be at least for those countries that already have such a ban to be permitted to maintain it in future.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe, as many have already stated, that the matter under debate poses even greater health risks than BSE.
Besides discussing the fact that bacteria have become resistant, we might also note that they have, in certain cases, become more aggressive, for example in hospitals.
Economics must not take precedence over health.
The Commissioner brought both good and bad news in his speech.
The good news was that once again we heard that the precautionary principle is to be observed.
But the question is, exactly when and how will it be observed?
I believe that it is important to renew the directive on feed additives, starting with the aims that are set out in the resolution.
Secondly, I applaud his comments on the interdisciplinary committee, which is to work through until the end of this year and look into the misuse of antibiotics.
I only hope that the question will not be buried there, meaning that there is a delay in the overhaul of the directive on feed additives.
The bad news was that Commissioner Fischler once again stated that Finland has unfortunately not produced sufficient evidence.
Commissioner, might we not here too apply the precautionary principle in respect of the continuation of the bans imposed in Finland and Sweden?
A further piece of bad news, which was noted by the previous speaker a moment ago, was that there was no mention of a good animal environment.
Is it not valuable in itself to ensure that animals have a good environment? It is a political decision that is needed.
History is being repeated: we pay general lip service to good animal health and the precautionary principle, but when it comes down to money and legislation this ceases to apply.
We have heard an extremely comprehensive enumeration of various mucins.
We must not forget, however, that there is also a risk of cross-resistance.
We cannot place our trust in a technical classification which states that certain substances can be prohibited and others permitted.
Finally, I would like to thank all of the other groups that have so ably given their support to the initiative taken in this debate by my colleague Mr Olsson and the ELDR, enabling us collectively to put pressure on the Commission in this matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to express my sincere gratitude for the fact that the position which I have presented here on behalf of the Commission has generated so many positive reactions.
I believe that through the policy which it has pursued over the years the Commission has proved that it is ready to take account of the precautionary principle. It will naturally continue to do so in future.
I should like to deal only briefly with a few things.
Firstly, several speakers have raised the question of multi-resistance and cross-resistance.
In this connection I would like to stress that these phenomena in particular have a great deal to do with the manner in which antibiotics are sometimes used in human medicine, to which for example Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf rightly referred.
We should be in no doubt that it is important to avoid the occurrence of additional risk as a result of the use of such substances in feedingstuffs.
But the impression should not be given that the use of antibiotics in feedingstuffs is the sole cause of the problems which we face today.
Secondly, I would like to remind you - as I already explained in my statement - that an evaluation is under way of what was conceded to Finland and Sweden in the accession treaty, and that there will be a conclusive evaluation during the current year.
Thirdly, I would like to remind you that the Scientific Steering Committee has appointed a multi-disciplinary working group which is to deliver scientific results by the end of this year.
The Commission will of course subsequently submit an overall evaluation of the opinion of the scientific committees to Parliament as quickly as possible.
All the scientific results will, of course, also be accessible to you.
We want to be transparent, and that is why there are no problems at all with this.
I believe, however, that we should certainly not give the impression that we now want to put the scientists under pressure; the scientists need a certain amount of time in order to be able to carry out this evaluation.
We must ensure that they have this time.
Finally, I would also like to stress that the example of Avoparcin in particular has demonstrated our readiness to act appropriately whenever any cause for suspicion arises which prompts such an action.
We would be truly ill-advised to act without a scientific basis, because if we did we would probably fail and in the process do great damage to agriculture and also the food industry.
In conclusion, I would like to stress the following: whenever we are considering the extent to which such additives may be used, we should not overlook the true cause of the problem which is to be found at least in part in the mass rearing of animals.
For that reason, in connection with the proposals which we have put forward in Agenda 2000 for the area of investment assistance for agricultural businesses, we shall pay particular attention to the principle which we have embodied there, namely giving greater assistance to especially animal-friendly and species-appropriate animal-rearing, in the development and elaboration of rural development programmes.
As far as possible, we must jointly take this approach into account because the use of these types of anti-microbial substances will then become less and less interesting from an economic point of view.
Mr President, please allow me to put one more brief question to Commissioner Fischler.
I would like to know whether this multi-disciplinary working group which is being appointed by the Steering Committee will also deal with the problem that, as a result of genetic manipulation, resistance to antibiotics is being produced willy-nilly, and more or less as a waste product.
There are investigations which demonstrate that a bacterial strain which is resistant to antibiotics is being specifically developed in milk processing to ensure that residues which may possibly occur in the milk are not effective.
Will these problems be investigated by this working group as well?
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like first of all to thank Commissioner Fischler for his replies.
They were, in my view, extremely comprehensive and, on certain points, quite satisfactory.
As far as the residues problem is concerned, I believe that we are, for the most part, in agreement.
I would also like to thank all of those Members who have made extremely positive contributions to this debate.
It appears that there is a large measure of understanding in Parliament with regard to what we are doing here.
I am, however, at the same time a little uneasy.
I would therefore like to put one question to the Commissioner. The fact is, he said that a good animal environment may mean that we do not need to use antibiotics.
I have great respect for scientific research and share the Commissioner's view that we must have this, but the choice between having a good animal environment or making use of research is actually a political choice.
This question needs to be pursued both in Parliament and within the Commission.
Does the Commissioner not back this point of view?
Mr President, I wonder if the Commissioner would be so good as to answer the following question?
If Sweden and Finland - and Denmark, too, where these matters have also been considered - wish to maintain a ban on antibiotics, will the Commission permit the EU Court of Justice to judge in these matters, or what exactly did you have in mind? I have the impression that you not exactly enamoured with the idea of applying the precautionary principle.
Mr President, I shall deal first of all with the question raised by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
A definitive decision is currently being taken in this multi-disciplinary working group about all the subjects which can and should be dealt with.
The list of subjects is already extensive.
The identification of the factors involved in anti-microbial resistance is one of the questions which needs to be clarified.
It would be entirely appropriate to deal with your concern under this item. I shall pass the point on to the relevant units in DG XXIV.
Secondly, our aim is not to have the European Court of Justice decide; rather, we want to have both the Swedish and the Finnish application evaluated by scientists in the first instance.
We should not pre-empt the result but wait to see what result emerges from this scientific evaluation.
Now, I will consider the question from Mr Olsson. I do not believe that this is really a matter in which research is necessary.
I believe that there is already a great deal of knowledge in relation to the conditions under which animals are kept.
It is more a matter of creating an economic environment which makes it possible for farmers to put these animal-friendly rearing methods into practice.
In my view, the truth is that the more species-appropriate a system of animal rearing, the lower the vets' bills are, although there are higher investment costs to be faced.
If we therefore provide for greater assistance to these methods of rearing compared with other methods in the context of our new Agenda, the incentive to switch to such methods will be greater.
However, insofar as additional research is necessary within the framework of the current research programmes, if appropriate projects are submitted by the Member States and by the different research bodies, there is, of course, nothing to prevent further investigations being carried out.
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Joint motion for a resolution on antibiotics in animal feed
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Audit of certain aspects of German reunification measures (Court of Auditors report)
The next item is the report (A4-0144/98) by Mr Garriga Polledo, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 4/97 concerning the audit of certain aspects of German reunification measures involving EAGGF compensation payments and export refunds, together with the Commission's replies (C40348/97).
Mr President, Mr Garriga Polledo cannot be with us today for medical reasons, so he has authorized me to present his report on the Court of Auditors' Special Report, auditing certain aspects of German reunification, in relation to compensation payments and export refunds made during 1992.
The Court of Auditors' Special Report analyses the measures taken to integrate the agriculture of the former German Democratic Republic into the common agricultural policy in three sectors: the eradication of leucosis; export refunds in the beef and veal sector; and the reduction of milk production.
The Court of Auditors comes to the conclusion that there has been, firstly, a cumulation of subsidies in the three cases, although it does not quantify the amounts involved.
A simple example of this cumulation of subsidies is provided by analysing and listing the measures adopted in order to eradicate enzootic bovine leucosis (EBL).
Let us examine the refunds paid for beef export and the compensation granted for the reduction of milk production, as a consequence of applying the quota system.
The animal suffering from the disease is slaughtered and compensation is given.
Similarly, the slaughter of the animal is entered into the accounts as reduction of milk production, and payment is provided again, on this basis.
Lastly, since the animal had not developed the disease and is considered fit for sale outside the EU - to prevent falling prices in the Community market - it is exported and another payment is made for export.
Mention is also made of irregularities in the leucosis eradication programme.
In the financial checks on the EBL eradication programme in the new Länder it was found that animals slaughtered prior to 1991 had been included in the programme, compensation claims had been submitted for animals which had not been slaughtered, double claims had been made for the same animal, and claims had been presented for animals slaughtered at the wrong time.
I would emphasize that the Commission has imposed the appropriate financial corrections.
In analysing the situation, Parliament's resolution of 4 April 1990 has to be kept in mind. This underlines the role the Commission should play to facilitate unification, and its participation in the expenditure for the reconstruction of the economy of the Federal Republic of Germany, so as to display solidarity with its people.
The Court of Auditors overlooks the political objective decided upon by Germany and approved by the Commission and the Council: to integrate the five new Länder into the Community.
That implies the full application of the common agricultural policy, retrospectively and with no transitional period, all of which should be done at the least possible cost to the Community and without disrupting the common market.
The market situation in the Federal Republic of Germany was serious, especially in the beef and veal sector.
The task was not at all easy, but there can only be one conclusion: the operation was a success.
And the leucosis eradication programmes have been investigated and the correct fines imposed. Also, financial corrections have been made for the exports and for certain irregularities.
As for the cumulation of subsidies, there is no objection to providing compensation for the slaughter of an animal and again for exporting its meat.
In the first case the aid goes to the owner and in the second, to the exporter.
The same is also true of counting the slaughter of the animal as reduction of milk production.
The allowances are intended for different purposes in the three cases.
By coincidence they are juxtaposed, but it is clear that each form of assistance has its own legal base and objective.
Finally, throughout the whole Court of Auditors' report the point of view is much too narrow.
Many specific considerations have not been taken into account, such as the absence of a transitional period and the retrospective nature of certain measures.
For all those reasons, Mr President, we must congratulate Germany and the European institutions, since the political objective has been achieved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, on 15 May 1998, we are dealing with a historic event that took place over eight years ago: German unification.
This was and remains a historic event.
Let us deal with a quite minor side issue which came about only as a result of this situation.
We have often dealt with matters which took place long ago, but it only really makes sense to do so if there is a danger that the event with which we are dealing constantly recurs in a similar form because there is a failure in the system.
Such a danger does not exist in this case, according to the information from the Commission and the Court of Auditors, which we have discussed at great length and in considerable detail in committee.
The Court of Auditors itself has said, in response to a question from the chairman of our committee, that it is very improbable that a similar situation will arise again.
To that extent, the whole matter is of historical significance, even if the report itself does not fully attain the historical significance of German unification, without wishing to offend the rapporteur. What we are dealing with is the past.
But I should like to offer a few observations, to the Court of Auditors rather than to the Commission.
If you are dealing with this type of occurrence - and you cannot just sweep everything under the carpet because of the particular historic situation - you ought instead perhaps to complete the reports a little faster.
It is typical that we are only now dealing with it. The reason is not that we were so slow, but that it took an infinite amount of time to progress from the first criticism of events, which cannot be denied, to a report from the Court of Auditors, and to the completion of this report and its submission to us.
That happens quite often, and that is why I really want to criticize this aspect alone.
If the Court of Auditors wants to make a sound contribution to our work, it must, like Parliament, have an interest in ensuring that our discussions take place as near to the time concerned as possible, so that justified criticism is not rejected with the argument that everything happened at some point in the past, and that it has all changed since then.
It is not always as easy, as in this case, to check whether everything really has changed since then.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, even though he is not here today, for the work that he has done.
Now we can all draw the same conclusions from it: if we had received the report somewhat sooner, we could have dealt with it sooner, and there might have been greater interest in it than there is today.
The report was unanimously approved in committee.
There are no amendments.
I would say that Mr Fabra Vallés has given us a thorough presentation of the facts of the matter, and we can only endorse that presentation.
Mr President, I understand that Germany is a big net payer to the EU.
I quite understand that the Germans would like more out of the EU for their membership subscription.
It is natural that if eleven billion ecus of German money goes on the needs of others, they should wish to make a smaller contribution to the EU budget.
What I do not understand is why Germany is swindling the EU out of its money.
The basic contention by the Court of Auditors is that the same cows have been paid for twice over.
I think Mr Garriga Polledo is splitting hairs in his report.
He says that those who have received overlapping funds have not necessarily been the same people.
The main problem is that the same cows have been paid for twice over.
Policy has to be implemented under the terms of EU regulations.
It is still unclear to me whether leucosis-infected beef is being sold to Russia or other trade partners of the former GDR.
This has not been denied either in the Court of Auditors' report or in this one.
If it has been going on, which I doubt, it is an absolutely reprehensible matter.
I would have liked the report to enlighten me on this.
We know how, after the BSE slaughter, much meat at compensated prices was exported from Britain.
In Holland ten million pigs have died from swine fever, and in Germany one million.
I wonder what happened to the meat after the swine fever slaughter.
Did the Commission monitor the proper use of this meat? I greatly appreciate Mr Fischler's work in this matter, and I will leave it up to him to explain what happened to the meat after the swine fever slaughter.
I do not understand how the report could have been accepted in its present unsatisfactory form.
The rapporteur does not know why Germany does not have to pay back the eleven million ecus demanded by the Commission, but only one million.
This ought to have been cleared up before the report was approved.
Mr President, we should undoubtedly acknowledge that certain objectives which are listed in this balanced report have been achieved without major additional expenditure being incurred by the Community.
I should like to emphasize the fact that, in this case, the Community has made a welcome contribution to integrating agriculture in the new Länder into the structures of the common agricultural policy.
The fact that the Community has shared in the costs of re-structuring the economy of the GDR and has provided proof of its solidarity with the people of the GDR in this way is very much to be welcomed.
It is all the more regrettable that the report by the Court of Auditors also indicates certain tendencies towards mismanagement on the part of the Commission in this very delicate area.
In addition to considerable delays in controls and wrongly paid subsidies, individual assistance programmes were not even properly coordinated with one another.
The Court of Auditors thus complains in its report that farmers could have claimed three different subsidies for the slaughter of one of their animals, which would have made multiple payments possible.
Such cumulations of subsidies must be avoided at all costs in the future, particularly bearing in mind the massive organizational challenges which the Union will have to face in the near future.
How can citizens in the Member States otherwise be expected to gain confidence in the European Union in the face of the serious shortcomings that constantly occur?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mr Garriga Polledo sincerely for his report on the Court of Auditors' Special Report on the audit of certain aspects of German reunification measures in 1990 and 1991.
There is no need for me to emphasize how difficult and complex German reunification was in its entirety.
I am sure that there is no need either for me to emphasize that reunification was the only correct decision in this historically unique situation.
We had to integrate the new federal German Länder into Community law without a transitional period.
As far as the common agricultural policy in particular was concerned, the process was far from straightforward, as you can imagine.
I am grateful to Mr Garriga Polledo for his explicit recognition of this fact in his report.
In all, three measures were adopted for the integration of the former GDR: firstly, funding of the programme for the slaughter of cattle which were infected with enzootic bovine leucosis; secondly, the introduction of a regulation on the disposal of the meat through special export refunds, since this meat is quite suitable for human consumption; and thirdly, compensatory payment for the slaughter of animals to comply with the milk quota.
These measures fully accorded with Parliament's resolution on reunification in April 1990.
In its report, the Court of Auditors puts forward the view that there was a cumulation of subsidies and irregularities in the application of the programmes because the measures overlapped.
It also finds fault with the fact that there was no qualitative differentiation in the special export refunds.
However, it has to be borne in mind in this respect that the stock of East German cattle was simply too big for it to have been possible to comply with the milk quota regulation from the outset.
The stock was also partly affected by bovine leucosis.
The Commission had to get to grips with the difficult situation quickly, and implemented the three measures which I have mentioned.
Different assistance conditions applied in each case for the measures in question.
As a result, the number of animals affected was clearly not always the same, and similarly the number of those receiving assistance was not the same.
The fact that all three measures benefited some animals does not constitute a contravention of the provisions of Community law.
That is why, in the Commission's view, the Court of Auditors is totally unjustified in its conclusion that there was an inadmissible cumulation of subsidies.
As far as the irregularities are concerned - this also applies to point 5 of the draft resolution - the Commission has provided for a financial correction for Germany in the sum of DM 6.9 million after considering all the available data.
The Commission is currently in the process of collecting this amount from the German government and in December 1997 it deducted half of the amount - to be specific, DM 3.4 million - from payments for the eradication plan for 1996.
The other half will be deducted in the same way in the second half of 1998 from payments for the eradication plan for 1997.
As regards the failure to differentiate qualitatively in the export refunds, the Commission points out that healthy and normal commercial quality is the only available criterion for export refunds, so that there was no case for any more detailed differentiation.
I am glad that the rapporteur largely supports most of the Commission's arguments, particularly in relation to the cumulation mentioned by the Court of Auditors, and that he has endorsed them.
In order to prevent delays in on-the-spot financial controls in the framework of the EBL eradication plans, the Commission immediately introduced special controls after learning of possible irregularities in this area.
Unfortunately, the Commission has at its disposal only limited resources for on-the-spot controls from programmes which are cofinanced.
However, it has set itself ambitious objectives in this area.
I should also like to add that systematic administrative controls are being constantly carried out, particularly by comparing technical reports from the Member States with the final financial reports.
In conclusion, I should like to offer the rapporteur my sincere thanks for his acknowledgement of the problems which the Commission had to overcome in this difficult situation in connection with the integration of the former GDR into the common agricultural policy.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Combined heat and power
The next item is the report (A4-0145/98) by Mrs Estevan Bolea, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on a Community strategy to promote combined heat and power (CHP) and to dismantle barriers to its development (COM(97)0514 - C4-0596/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, cogeneration is the simultaneous production of electricity and heat, or electricity and steam, and I think it is very important for the problems we constantly address in this Parliament, such as the pollution of the atmosphere, which is the most fragile of the ecosystems which form our planet Earth and our life upon it.
Cogeneration allows a lot of energy to be saved, and I want to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the cleanest energy of all is the energy which is not used.
So Europe has to move towards using more cogeneration.
This technique has been used for many years.
The paper industry has been using cogeneration for more than 50 years.
What has changed now is the technology.
We now have greatly improved technologies, with higher efficiencies, which is why we can say we should greatly promote cogeneration.
Furthermore, in the European Union we are trying to promote the use of gas for many reasons.
For example, it is a cleaner technology than coal or oil. Also, we have to buy gas from the new producers, such as Russia, Azerbaijan or the United Arab Emirates, because the world contains large reserves, and the efficiency is higher.
At the moment, cogeneration accounts for 9 % in the EU.
In its communication, the Commission says it would like to achieve 18 % within a few years, in about 2005. That is not an easy matter, ladies and gentlemen.
We have to remove the barriers. And if cogeneration has so many advantages - such as high energy efficiency, less pollution, and energy savings - why is it not more highly developed?
Well, because nothing is easy in today's complex world of globalization, economic development and the liberalization of the electricity and energy markets, so we shall have to see how we can promote all of this.
There are a lot of auto-producers, but the electricity companies are also powerful. So what is the key to the whole situation?
As always, ladies and gentlemen, the key lies in the prices. In previous years, in order to promote these technologies - which, as I say, offer every advantage and hardly any disadvantages - those kilowatt-hours fetched a very high price, an aboveaverage price.
But obviously, the electricity companies have their plants, and they cannot be paralysed so that we can just use the energy from the auto-producers.
So I want to draw your attention to paragraph 8 of the resolution in my report, where it says two things I think are very important.
Firstly, Mr President, it says that in the liberalized electricity markets, electricity produced in these industrial installations should be given priority but, at the same time, it also says that this should be at market price, not subsidized, because we are already subsidizing national coal, renewable energies and other aspects of the components of electricity prices.
So the auto-producers, who use cogeneration, will have to compete in the markets.
We have just approved the directive on gas liberalization, during the last sitting, in Brussels.
The electricity market has also been liberalized. And the auto-producers will have to function within that market.
Energy from gas is a clean form of energy - though not to the same extent as hydraulic energy, for example, or other renewable forms such as wind energy - and we need the Commission to provide a stimulus.
We also need that for renewable energies.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy approved all the amendments which were tabled, Mr President, apart from one. That was one which Miss Ahern retabled, and I am not going to support it because it is unrealistic.
We can wish for anything we like. But if it is out of step with physical reality, it will not make much sense.
So I am not going to support the Green group's amendment to paragraph 11, but I am going to support the rest of the amendments.
I also want to say that one of the advantages of cogeneration is very important: the desalination of seawater.
The electricity companies already get high efficiency from gas using combined cycles, which is the second part of cogeneration, but we should make use of gas and these techniques to desalinate seawater. This represents a great technological market for the EU.
The whole of the Mediterranean and the world will need water, which will be the big problem of the twenty-first century.
Mr President, my group also very much welcomes the Commission's intention to provide greater assistance to combined heat and power.
The technology has, after all, long been well known, although for a long time it was deployed only as emergency unit technology in hospitals etcetera. Far too little use has been made of it in the area of town planning and local authority development plans, and in this context it still runs up against obstacles because of certain minimum running times.
However, the advantages are obvious.
Alongside the necessary demand for renewable energy, this is a very good contribution towards the better achievement of Kyoto's political energy targets.
It has rightly been said that combined heat and power is sensible because it leads to better utilization of primary energy and to a reduction in atmospheric pollution.
Above all, it offers interesting new possibilities for combination with bio-mass utilization in agriculture and industry, and particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises.
It holds out very interesting prospects of reducing the burden of energy costs on small and medium-sized enterprises and of contributing towards self-sufficiency in energy supply in Third World countries as well.
I should also like to stress that there are very interesting models for the better use of agricultural waste, mainly in winegrowing, in a combined technology of bio-mass utilization and combined heat and power.
I am glad that it has now been possible to reach agreement on the fact that the operators of CHP plants will be recognized as qualified generators of electricity.
I must say to my colleagues in the PPE that I regret the fact that you rejected such recognition a little while ago in the case of the gas directive when it was a question of putting it on a proper legal basis.
Mr President, the Commission's announcement on the promotion of a combined heat and power industry in the EU area is an important step forward for energy policy.
I would like to thank the rapporteur of the Parliamentary report, Mrs Estevan Bolea, for her work in producing it.
The added benefit of combined production is that it gets us much closer to the aims set out in Kyoto.
Thus, the time has at last come when we can raise the strategic profile of this issue at EU level, especially as we cannot afford to let slip away any means we have available to us to reduce and eventually rid ourselves of the damage caused by the greenhouse phenomenon.
The growth of the use of the combined system is still being hampered by the reluctance of the electricity market to open up.
Producers of electricity can still restrict the number of new players entering the market.
This makes many otherwise commercially viable projects unprofitable.
Furthermore, producers of combined heat and power of any size must have the right to gas in a free market.
Free access to gas is a key factor in profitability when it comes to constructing private or smallscale power stations.
Combined production of heat and power can be fuelled by coal, gas or using biomass.
The Union should, however, try to promote the idea in its entirety and provide it with a market where decisions could be made as to what might be the most competitively-priced fuel.
The method is said to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by raising the overall efficiency of the power plant.
It must be remembered that that will happen especially if and when renewable carbon dioxide-free biomass is used.
I am afraid the lobbying of gas as a fuel will not be enough, especially as the directive on gas expresses the desire to restrict the entry of small plants into the market.
The combined production of heat and power has been a feature of industry for over fifty years.
Today it is found, at least to some extent, everywhere in the EU.
However, it is only in Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark that it accounts for more than 30 % of all electricity produced.
Its promotion is tightly bound up with the national aims of different Member States.
Despite this, we also need input both at Community level and from industry.
As it says in the report, the combined production of heat and power provides a strategy whereby, in the short or medium term, we can promote the effective use of energy in the EU both significantly and cost-effectively, and have a positive impact on EU environmental policy.
Mr President, in the EU area we can discern certain mega-trends in the field of energy.
Firstly, the demand for energy is growing by around 1 % per year.
That means that gas emissions will increase if nothing is done about it.
Secondly, the EU's level of self-sufficiency in energy will have gone down from the present figure of 70 % to around 30 % by the year 2020.
Thirdly, electricity accounts for 40 % of all energy produced, and that figure is rising.
Fourthly, it is realistic to suppose that the use of gas, and specifically imported gas, will increase rapidly.
All these large-scale trends can be influenced positively by increasing the combined production of heat and power. It will improve the efficiency of energy usage in EU countries, it will save on energy resources, it will reduce gas emissions and it will lessen the growing dependence on imported energy.
The production of energy, however, is not the affair of the EU.
It is mainly up to the Member States, which may derive support from the Commission.
The support has so far been modest and that has been mentioned in publications and speeches.
The CARNOT programme, which aims at improved fuel efficiency, simply does not have the resources, and there are even fewer to spread the word on the combined production of heat and power.
The EU is no more than a paper tiger in this matter; the responsibility lies with Member States.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am rather disappointed with the motion for a resolution submitted to us on the subject of combined heat and power and the barriers which are still being placed in the path of its development.
What is required in order to promote combined heat and power? First of all, we need guaranteed access to the supply network for electrical energy produced by means of cogeneration, and secondly, a minimum price guarantee.
This resolution only proposes guaranteed access to the network at the market price.
I am pleased to inform you that Luxembourg, my native country, already has very progressive legislation on this subject. In 1994 we adopted a law which gives alternative energies, that is, solar energy, wind power and so on, and cogeneration, the possibility of access to Cegedel, Luxembourg's electricity company, with a minimum price guarantee from that company.
In addition, the government of Luxembourg also contributes 1 Franc per kilowatt/hour.
I think this is a very good example of how combined heat and power could be promoted in the European Union. I call on the Commission to resist the lobbying by oil companies which are naturally not in favour of cogeneration because it will reduce the amount of fuel they sell.
Mr President, I ask for the support of the Commission to enable those who produce combined heat and power to obtain guaranteed prices.
Mr President, we have reached the end of a century in which we have squandered more energy resources than in the entire previous history of mankind. War has been waged, and is still waged over these resources.
Even today there can be no mistaking the consequences for the environment.
It is high time that we radically re-structured our entire energy system.
Success in this endeavour will assuredly be one of the central issues for the next century.
At present Europe is dependent on other countries for 50 % of its energy, a state of affairs which presents a problem not only in ecological and social terms, but also in terms of peace policy.
That is why the development of combined heat and power systems is an essential step in the right direction towards energy self-sufficiency in the European Union.
However, the efficiency of these measures in terms of energy policy will become really effective only if importance is attached in this development to giving priority to renewable sources of energy over fossil fuels, with the eventual aim of full substitution.
This would have to be guaranteed above all by fiscal incentives and fair access to the electricity market.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday we dealt with an urgent motion in relation to energy policy here, and we tackled safety issues in the area of nuclear power.
We all know that the acquis communautaire must be applied in the internal market, so that the decision on whether to operate nuclear power stations is a matter for each Member State itself.
However, I consider it important that the European Parliament should repeatedly stress safety and should above all focus on its commitment to alternative forms of energy in relation to energy generation.
We believe that energy generation in the future is a very special issue to which we must pay a great deal more attention.
This also includes combined heat and power.
I should like to thank Mrs Estevan Bolea most sincerely for her report which points out very clearly how important production is in this area, as well as use in power stations for heating.
I believe that entirely new dimensions are possible in this area.
The prospects of increasing from 9 % to 18 %, in other words of doubling the present contribution of combined heat and power to the Community's overall energy generation gives me confidence as far as the economical and appropriate use of our resources is concerned.
That is why I have to support the course pursued by the Commission in the White Paper "Energy policy for the European Union' .
For some time there has also been an intensive liberalization of the internal market for electricity.
We have had not only the internal market for energy but also a liberalized gas market for a few days.
Combining these two areas with each other naturally opens up entirely new possibilities.
This framework creates largely free access to the market and welcome competition.
This competition means numerous advantages for the economy.
I believe that, as a result, Europe can be significantly more competitive on the international stage and that, as a result, there is the opportunity to create many new jobs, but in the process, special status must be accorded to combined heat and power.
It is in particular the combination of electrical energy and heat, which occurs in the case of combustion in engines, that has the advantage of double use and thus a very high energy output.
That is why the distribution companies should also accept this form of energy as a matter of preference, and I consider this passage in the report to be of special importance.
Combined heat and power guarantees efficient and ecological energy generation.
Whatever economic, legal or administrative obstacles stand in the way of its development should be removed as quickly as possible to ensure that it occupies a fitting place and acquires a sufficient market share in the internal market.
But I must not forget to stress that renewable energies overall and energy saving are a quite central issue and are an entirely new opportunity for Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to express my gratitude to the rapporteur, Mrs Estevan Bolea, for the important contribution which she has made to the discussion on the Commission communication which is the subject of this debate.
Global climatic changes present us with new and comprehensive political challenges.
In Kyoto in December 1997, as several speakers have rightly mentioned, agreement was reached on intensifying our commitment in this area by laying down quantified targets for emission reductions.
The European Union committed itself to achieving an 8 % reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases by the period 2008-2012 in relation to the 1990 level.
If this target is to be reached, the Community will have to exhaust all the possibilities which are available to it.
Combined heat and power is one of the possibilities for improving energy efficiency and thus reducing emissions.
However, only limited use has so far been made of CHP's potential for electricity generation in Europe.
Currently, combined heat and power holds a share of only 9 % of overall gross electricity generation.
The Commission has proposed a doubling of this share by 2010.
If the Community truly intends to achieve this target, the strategy presented in the Commission's communication is of the greatest significance.
The internal markets for electricity and for gas are on the threshold of being fully realized. The European Parliament has made valuable contributions to this.
Overall it can be expected that liberalization will have a positive impact on combined heat and power, although certain problems can arise for the operators of plants which work according to the principle of combined heat and power, as a result of increased competition and the accompanying lower electricity prices.
That is why it will be absolutely necessary in the years to come to monitor closely the consequences of the competition rules applicable to the energy markets and, where necessary, to introduce appropriate measures.
The Commission is pleased that the rapporteur agrees with the proposal to lay down a provisional target.
This is one of the main elements of the CHP strategy.
There is scope to discuss the exact value.
What matters to the Commission is to have a target that is both ambitious and realistic.
The idea of raising the target by the year 2010 not to 18 %, in other words a doubling, as proposed by the Commission, but to 25 % seems to us to be too ambitious.
I am also pleased to be able to confirm that the rapporteur agrees with the Commission on the need for CHP to be assisted while fully upholding the principles of the internal market.
In this connection, there is a range of different instruments and procedures which can assist CHP without leading to distortions in competition.
As regards the amendment which has been tabled, I would like to point out that energy efficiency and assistance to renewable energies are priorities in the proposed regional funds regulation.
The definition of these priorities for Objective 1 areas and for the measures to be implemented there is, however, a task for the Member States who have to submit their detailed proposals to the Commission, and not vice versa.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has completed its agenda. Today's Minutes will be submitted for Parliament's approval at the start of the next sitting.
Before drawing our work to a close, it is my pleasant duty to thank Parliament's services - the ushers, the interpreters, Parliament's secretariat and the translation and publication services, who work at a slightly greater distance from us - for their help and hard work.
Without a shadow of a doubt, ladies and gentlemen, it is no exaggeration to say that the two sittings we have had this month, in Brussels and here, have been historic sittings.
We have opened the door to the single currency with a large majority and, again with a large majority, we have approved the executive board of the European Central Bank.
The importance of that is not lost on anybody.
As our President, Mr José María Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado said so succinctly, from now on the citizens of Europe will carry Europe in their pockets, and we all know how important that is.
However, ladies and gentlemen, although that is important we do not think it is enough.
We must ensure that the people of Europe carry Europe in their hearts too, and to do that, ladies and gentlemen, we have to carry on working together with wide majorities so that they are not disappointed in their hopes of democratic participation and social justice.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure we shall continue to work along those lines. So I bid you farewell, and wish you a pleasant and well-deserved weekend.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.00 noon)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 15 May 1998.
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, it is with profound emotion that I have to honour the memory of our colleague Francisco Lucas Pires.
Professor Lucas Pires had been a member of our Parliament since Portugal joined the European Union and was twice its Vice-President. He brought a brilliant and cultivated mind to the ideal of European construction, and enriched our Parliamentary debates by contributing the historical experience of one of the oldest European nations.
The example of Francisco Lucas Pires, whose last public act was to open the European Union pavilion at 'Expo 98' , will remain with us as a model of European citizenship, and as a man deeply committed to his country's causes, but always able to understand and defend the imperatives of European construction.
The flag of the European Union is being flown at half-mast in his honour.
I would ask you to observe a minute's silence in his memory.
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Friday, 15 May 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would just like to have recorded in the minutes that during our last week in Strasbourg the French police did a splendid job of guarding the European Parliament, and that they were visibly present in the proximity of the Parliament.
Mr President, the employees of the company Air France have announced that they will be on strike for two weeks, starting from next Monday.
If this strike takes place, we MEPs will not be able to get to Strasbourg for the next part-session.
Has the Presidency taken any precautionary measures, in view of this possibility?
Mr Medina Ortega, all I can do is constantly remind the French authorities of the regrettable state of transport provisions to Strasbourg. I am doing this, and last week I spoke to the minister concerned.
Of course, in view of the strike announcement, I will contact him again, and ask him to take the necessary special measures.
Mr President, I am sure that you are going to mention it and I am sure colleagues will share our joy in Ireland at the ratification of both our referenda.
(Loud applause) It was a stunning victory for the Belfast Agreement, a slightly less stunning but nonetheless sixty percent victory for the Amsterdam referendum and we hope now that we will see a similar result in Denmark in the next couple of days.
Mrs Banotti, you expressed it much better than I could have.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I refer to Annex V of the Rules of Procedure, Article 1(1)(b). This deals with the reproduction and distribution of reports from the Court of Auditors.
Let us remind ourselves of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It frequently refers to transparency but in the last few days I have had to ask myself what the actual state of transparency and openness is here in our House!
Firstly, it is absolutely preposterous that an official interim report from the Court of Auditors on the reimbursements and allowances of Members of the European Parliament has been available to the President for about a month, according to our information, that it has been available to the Bureau since 13 May, but that not all the groups have been informed.
Moreover, Members of this House have not received this important document, and have had to obtain details from the press!
I have to tell you that I think that both the President and the Bureau have behaved in a really irresponsible way in this matter and that such behaviour leads to mistrust on our part.
(Heckling from Mr Wijsenbeek) We call for the immediate publication of the report, both internally and externally, and demand information on whether there are further reports or whether there is an annex, for example.
Secondly, it is completely unacceptable - would you please shut up, Mr Wijsenbeek - if a subject which affects all members of all groups is discussed and decided upon by the EDU behind closed doors and excluding our group, the ARE Group.
Our Secretary General was expelled from the room this morning.
That is why we are calling for a special session of the Presidents' Conference because it is inadmissible that such decisions, such debates whose scope really affects each and every one of us should be handled in a body on which all of the groups in this House are not represented!
(Applause) Thirdly, our strongest criticism is directed at the way in which necessary reforms which have long been called for are being systematically delayed and obstructed in this House, reforms which are desperately needed if the European Parliament wants to be credible, if it wants to be accepted, if it wants to seek more rights for itself.
(Noise) The report from the Court of Auditors tackles precisely these shortcomings...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mrs Roth, when you quote an article, you must read it first.
The article you invoke states that the Court of Auditors' special reports must be printed and distributed, together with the replies from the institutions.
The document you are referring to is not a report, but consists of preliminary observations.
So this Parliament's Bureau, which is the competent body, has not yet issued its replies.
Secondly, Mrs Roth, all the political groups received a copy of the document yesterday.
Those preliminary observations have been sent to all the political groups.
So if you want to communicate them to the members of your group, you can of course do so, just like any of the other group chairmen. It is up to you.
It has not been kept secret: it is in your hands.
What I cannot do is give out a confidential document, which has to be examined by the Bureau, before the Bureau has seen it.
The VicePresidents have to see it first, which is what has happened.
Read the Rules of Procedure - not what the Green Group wants to read, but what the Rules of Procedure actually say.
And if you want to change them, then do so through the appropriate channels.
Unless they are changed, I do what they say.
Mr Brinkhorst, are you going to comment on the Minutes?
Mr President, to react to what you were just saying: I understand that the Bureau would like to discuss this but I believe that we have a right to know soon what is happening.
The press is constantly attacking us in Germany, the Netherlands and in other countries.
So from that point of view I hope you have some understanding that there is a concern about these issues.
I appreciate what you say, but my first obligation is to apply the Rules of Procedure.
In accordance with those rules, I first forwarded the observations - which, I repeat, do not constitute a report - to the Bureau, which is the body responsible for such matters. Secondly, when there were questions about that report, it was given to all the political groups.
So, the report will be printed and distributed once it is in its final form, not in its current provisional form.
Speak to your group chairman, who will give it to you.
Mr Wijsenbeek requests the floor, to reply to personal statements.
What statements are you referring to, Mr Wijsenbeek?
Mr President, I should like to make a statement pursuant to Rule 108 on grounds of personal remarks:
If we are talking here about people shutting their mouths, we all know whose mouth is always open and who arouses suspicions in respect of hard-working and honest colleagues because the Greens would like to base their election campaign on these suspicions, and that is why I open my mouth.
(The Minutes were approved)
Agenda
I would remind you that in our sitting of 12 May, Parliament decided that the report (A4-0188/98) by Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities in the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme, would be included as the last item of today's agenda.
Mr President, it appears to me that a communication from the Commission on some urgent and very important political issues has been cancelled.
I would like to ask a question.
In view of recent events in Indonesia, there is an urgent need for the situation of all political prisoners to be dealt with here, especially Timoreans and their political leader, Xanana Gusmão.
My question, Mr President, is: has this subject - the first one on the agenda - been cancelled or postponed until a more convenient date?
It is indeed postponed to another day, because at this time the Commission prefers to make its statement on urgent matters relating to the preparations for the European Council meeting in Cardiff on 15 and 16 June.
So, if there are no further comments, we shall approve the amendment to the agenda and proceed to debate that matter.
Preparation for the European Council meeting in Cardiff
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on preparation for the European Council meeting in Cardiff on 15 and 16 June 1998.
Mr President, at the start of my address may I say that I should offer my apologies if what I have to say about Cardiff is not as interesting or as exciting as the points of order you have just heard.
I regard it as a privilege to be able to listen in to such an exciting and robust exchange of views.
It is a tribute to the health of democracy in our continent.
I am here this afternoon because in just two weeks' time the European Council will meet in Cardiff. This will mark the culmination of our presidency.
We have sought to use the presidency to demonstrate the changed approach of Britain towards the European Union.
The government of Britain came to power determined to show that Britain was now a committed and constructive partner within the European Union.
I believe that our presidency has underlined our success in making that transformation of Britain's approach to Europe.
Two of our key priorities were to get enlargement off to a flying start and to get the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union under way.
Both of those key priorities have already been achieved.
I suppose that prompts the question whether there is enough left for us to do at Cardiff to avoid the summit of our presidency being an anticlimax to the achievements that have already marked the historic milestones of our presidency.
I am pleased to say to the European Parliament that there will be full, busy and important agendas before us at the European Council in Cardiff.
In the course of the summit we will examine economic reform, Agenda 2000 and the future of the European project.
We will also explore some of the ways Europe can make a difference in the areas that directly affect our people: on crime and on the environment.
We will also at that summit welcome - and welcome for the last time - President Mandela who will be joining the Heads of Europe for lunch on the second day of the summit.
At his request we are meeting with him in order that before he leaves office he may say farewell to the leaders of Europe who have worked so closely in partnership with his leadership of South Africa to achieve one of the major gains for democracy and ethnic tolerance that we have seen in our generation.
Before we get to that point in the Council we will have completed a large amount of business.
Let me start with the issue of economic reform.
We came to the presidency determined that throughout our presidency jobs would be a key theme and a high priority.
At Cardiff we will be completing much of the work that we have been putting in place over the past five months.
We will be reviewing the progress that Member States have been making on the single market and will be agreeing to further actions to help take us towards an effective, competitive economy which includes within it an inclusive society in which everybody has the opportunity to contribute and participate through work.
We also plan discussion of the competitiveness agenda.
If Europe is to prosper in the long term we need to create an environment in which small and medium-sized enterprises can flourish.
They need to be able to have access to the finance that will enable them to flourish.
They need to be free from unnecessary red tape.
Europe has no shortage of creativity and imagination.
We must provide the opportunity for that creativity and imagination to express itself through entrepreneurship which will bring Europe prosperity and jobs.
Also we will be reviewing the employment action plans drawn up by Member States since the special Luxembourg Council.
This will be the first European Council to have in front of it action plans from every Member State on how they intend to promote employment and to reduce unemployment.
We will want to see what conclusions and lessons can be learned from those plans.
We want to make sure that every Member State can share the best practice of other Member States on their policies on employability, adaptable labour markets and on equal opportunities in the marketplace.
There are, of course, difficult policy questions raised by those action plans: questions on how we reform our tax and welfare systems so that it pays to work and how we can make it possible for women to combine work with family.
If we are to get it right, we need to make sure that we share the best practice in each of those areas.
The European Council in Cardiff will also give high priority to an interim discussion on the Agenda 2000 issues: reform of the Structural Funds and reform of the common agricultural policy; on discipline in our budget procedures and on how we adapt the European Union so that we ourselves are prepared for the enlargement for which so many aspiring candidates are now preparing their economies and their societies.
Since the Commission published its detailed proposals on Agenda 2000 in March, as the presidency, we have set up an intensive work programme to carry forward discussion on the Commission proposals.
Ministers throughout a number of the Council meetings have reviewed that work and have discussed how they relate to each other.
At the General Affairs Council only two days ago we had a two-hour discussion on the presidency's report of the work in progress on Agenda 2000 and that extensive discussion, in which every Member State took part, will be of great value to the presidency in preparing a text for the European Council which can provide authority and direction to both Commission and Council officials in carrying forward the Agenda 2000.
We are very mindful that the European Parliament would like to see decisions taken on these matters before the next elections to the European Parliament.
It would be our aim to achieve successful conclusions at Cardiff consistent with a timetable which would enable a special European Council in the spring of 1999 to reach final decisions on Agenda 2000.
I would also stress that a key theme of Cardiff will be to demonstrate how, throughout our presidency, we have sought to make Europe work for the people, to make sure we focus on issues that our people care about and the issues that affect them directly.
If the European summit is a success, it will only be so because the people watching what the Heads of Government perceive that what they are talking about and what they are deciding has relevance to their lives.
We must not portray an image of the European Council meeting to discuss matters that are only of concern to top politicians.
They must be seen to take forward an agenda that is relevant to the concerns and the lives of the ordinary families of Europe.
There are two particular issues on which we will be focusing attention at Cardiff: improving the environment and fighting crime.
The joint Transport and Environmental Council meeting which we held in April - the first such joint meeting between environment and transport in the history of the Union - showed how we can integrate environmental concerns into the development of other European policies.
At Cardiff the Council will discuss a Commission report on how we can make sure that precedent of bringing together environmental strategy with transport policy becomes the norm across the work of the European Union and not the exception.
The Council will also discuss the progress we have made in fighting crime together, in particular in the work we are now carrying out through the European Conference with all the applicant countries to make sure that existing Member States and future Member States work together now - not after they become members of the European Union, but now - on the common problems of cross-border trafficking in crime which affect both the existing members and the future members.
So, there will be a busy agenda for Cardiff.
There will be a lot of ground to cover and I hope I have demonstrated that much of the agenda will be on practical, specific measures which demonstrate to our peoples that real progress is being made.
But, while we take forward that practical agenda, it is important that we also keep in front of us the vision of the kind of Europe we are trying to create.
Having brought together all the heads of government of Europe, it seems only right that we should find space in that crowded agenda for them to address the question of what kind of Europe we are trying to build.
And that is why at this European Council, unlike most recent European Councils, at the lunch for heads of government they will have an open discussion on the type of Europe we want to see for the next century and what its model might be; on what more we need to do to create a Europe which can function and function well with 26 members as opposed to the 6 members with which Europe started.
And, in particular, how do we take forward those institutional issues which were not completed at Amsterdam but which are necessary if we are to reform the structures and the decision-making processes of Europe in order to make it fit for the new larger Europe which we will see in the first decade of the next century.
That is an exciting task.
I do not think that many people in our own countries have yet grasped the immense historic step which enlargement represents for Europe.
Very few of our own people yet understand that sometime over the next ten years we will see a Europe which will stretch from Portugal to Poland, from Scotland to Sicily, a Europe which will be almost half as large again in land area and a third larger in terms of population and in terms of consumers within the single market.
That is a tremendous quantum leap for Europe.
That is why it is right that when we meet in Cardiff we should find space to reflect on what that means for Europe and what type of Europe and model for Europe we can best offer that will meet the continuing vision of those who are present members and the hungry aspiration of the new members to join in the democratic family of nations we have built.
If we have a successful discussion on that theme we will have an agenda for Cardiff with the right balance between practical, detailed progress and visionary discussion about the model of Europe for the future.
I look forward this afternoon to hearing the input of the European Parliament as to how we can take both those parts of the agenda forward at Cardiff.
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, Members of this House, this afternoon, with an eye towards the forthcoming European Council in Cardiff, I would like to conduct a brief survey of the current state of European integration and also raise the major political topics to be tackled at the summit in Cardiff, before outlining a few avenues we might explore for the future.
First of all, my message to you today is one of optimism.
It seems to me, as we approach the Council meeting in Cardiff, that a wind of success and progress is blowing through the Union, stirred by the imminent introduction of the euro and Economic and Monetary Union.
Again, as the Cardiff meeting approaches, it seems to me that confidence is being restored and is growing; in effect, the macroeconomic balance sheet is healthy and forward-looking, interest rates are down, inflation is minimal, public expenditure is under tight control, the upsurge is making itself felt in many sectors, economic reform on the supply side is beginning to produce results and the first signs of drop in unemployment are beginning to make themselves felt.
Add to that the fact that the Treaty of Amsterdam should be ratified shortly, that the detailed proposals we submitted within the framework of Agenda 2000 are now at the negotiating table and that enlargement is under way.
Is this not proof positive that the European Union is up and running, that it abides by its commitments, that it keeps to its deadlines and that it is on the right track? Mr President, I am delighted that this programme submitted by the Commission should now be under scrutiny.
In close cooperation with the Parliament and successive presidencies of the Union - I will take this opportunity to thank the British presidency for having devoted so much effort - our institutions are now performing their motivating function to the full in this powerful movement towards increased integration.
The political message that Europe would like today to send out to the rest of the world is crystal clear: it can take action and is taking action.
From a political standpoint, we should seize the day.
But there is one item that seems to me to be even more important: in truth, I detect an increasing political consensus, both here and in the Member States, concerning the resources required to tackle the remaining structural problems.
The national employment plans, approved by the European Council in Luxembourg, are especially important in this context.
These alone bear witness to a wealth of exciting ideas, the convergence of policies to combat unemployment constructed around common guidelines, and joint mobilization with social partners.
I also sense the existence of a common political will to bring the domestic market swiftly to a successful conclusion, in accordance with our plan of action in favour of the single market.
I am also especially pleased to note that the incorporation of Community regulations is improving and deservedly so.
I note too that we all feel the need for a more enterprising Union, a Union able to take new technologies and ideas on board and to expand upon them within the Union: able to help small enterprises take off, grow and prosper and capable too of eliminating red tape and allowing our creative talents to flourish; able, finally, to take job creation and rising prosperity in its stride.
These subjects will certainly be uppermost in the minds of those in Cardiff.
To conclude, I also feel that the majority of us are aware that we could do better in terms of justice with regard to domestic matters and the CFSP; we simply need to establish the necessary collective political will.
The debates planned for Cardiff will address the matter of economic reform, Agenda 2000, enlargement and our external priorities.
We will also have the opportunity to speak about the environment, in particular the way in which we might incorporate environmental issues when drawing up other Community policies.
All our institutions should swiftly build upon the progress already made towards achieving this objective.
I assume, too, that this touches upon the question of progress made by the Community and Member States towards fulfilling the commitments they have made under the terms of the Kyoto protocol with regard to reducing gases generated by the greenhouse effect.
In addition, I am extremely glad that time has been set aside for a debate on the future direction and development of the European Union, the challenges it must face, the need to gain the trust of our people and the vision we need to attain that goal.
The debate on economic reform will span the entire range of policies needed to reinforce and maximize the advantages of Economic and Monetary Union.
Obviously, the aim is to further employment prospects through increased competitiveness and social cohesion in a stable macroeconomic environment.
Amongst other subjects, our discussions will also focus on the approval of our major economic policy guidelines with a view to rounding off this excellent procedure by intensifying microeconomic control for closer monitoring of the extent of integration of products, services and capital markets throughout the Union, in order to boost the gains of a single currency.
The European Council will also examine progress made in terms of national plans of action to promote jobs.
Of course, we are still at an intermediate stage, but I am impressed by the determination of all our Member States to get the process off the ground.
In Cardiff, we will brush up on the main topics that emerge today: increasing the capability for vocational integration, promoting equality of opportunity, improving the adaptability of job markets, creating a favourable climate for the development and growth of the spirit of enterprise, especially with respect to small companies.
This constructive process will give rise to a mutual, multilateral development and communal emulation through peer pressure.
Between now and the meeting in Vienna under the Austrian presidency, we have four stages to work through in order to improve employment strategy.
In effect, from the outset, we must define common indicators and a specific terminology.
Secondly, we must encourage the Member States to incorporate their job action plans in their national budget.
Thirdly, we must bolster cooperation and implementation with our social partners and, finally, establish links between the national plans of action for jobs and the projects financed by the European Social Fund.
On 18 March last, the Commission submitted its legislative proposals for Agenda 2000.
This autumn, those proposals will be accompanied by a report on the operation of the own-resources system.
All the individual elements will then be examined together to reach a decision regarding all of these measures with full knowledge of the facts, since we require legislative decisions before the new European Parliament is elected.
Furthermore, we should seek practical methods enabling the Parliament to perform its function fully, as it did last time, within the tight schedule imposed on us.
The initial intensive negotiations, under the British presidency, have already begun.
The various opinions I have heard strengthen my conviction that our basket of measures is fair and balanced.
In Cardiff, we will take note of the progress achieved.
Either the agreement is absolute, or there will be no agreement.
However, I hope that we will be able to record the existence of a significant convergence of views in several areas: the need to intensify reforms of the common agricultural policy, the need to reform the Structural Funds based on the concentration, simplification and clear demarcation of responsibilities; substantial pre-accession provisions in the agricultural, structural intervention, investment aid and administrative aid sectors, inculcating a sense of community spirit amongst all the candidates; a balanced financial framework to finance the reforms and pre-accession assistance, within the budgetary discipline and leaving a sufficient margin to finance the first new membership wave; finally, we need to negotiate a new interinstitutional agreement based on the same fruitful cooperation that governed relations between the two budgetary bodies during the last period.
If we find that we can proceed on this basis, we should be able to take major steps forward during the course of the year.
I hope that the European Council will take on this commitment in Cardiff and will set a timetable for the entire process.
In Cardiff, we shall assess the considerable progress made in the implementation of the Luxembourg conclusions regarding enlargement.
Since the last European Council, the overall enlargement process has taken off successfully.
The European Conference met in London on 12 March, thereby officially opening a forum seeking to bring together the Member States of the European Union and those European States wishing to secure membership and sharing internal and external values and goals.
The European Commission regrets that Turkey has still not confirmed its intention to take part in this Conference and hopes that that country, a most important partner, will be in a position to decide that it can participate in the near future in the work in progress in this context.
Aside from this, eleven candidate countries have committed themselves to the accession process and negotiations have already begun with six of them.
We believe that a major breakthrough has been made through development of the accession partnership with the ten candidate countries from central and eastern Europe.
As with the national strategies deployed in those countries, the accession partnerships have opened the way to successful future negotiations and, hopefully, their eventual integration in the European Union.
In Cardiff, the European Council will also take account of the many events that have taken place during the last six months externally.
I shall confine myself here to summarizing the encouraging result obtained during the last summit between the European Union and the United States of America on 18 May last, in London.
The political agreement concluded at the highest level will enable us to settle the trade conflict generated by the Helms-Burton and d'Amato Acts.
We hope that the commitments undertaken by the government of the United States will be fully endorsed by the Congress.
Mr President, when I announced my 'Less action, but better action' policy at the beginning of my mandate as President of the Commission, I intended to make it a broad guideline for our future work.
In other words, I hoped to focus our efforts - the right of initiative of the Commission - on key priorities, in total compliance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
The Commission will submit a report on the situation to the European Council.
This report is entitled: "The facts' and it records a very serious decline in new legislative proposals since 1990.
Our consultations with partners of the Commission have increased, we have improved the quality of our legislation, we have also simplified that legislation, we have kept our citizens better informed and incorporation is steadily improving.
But this report also notes that too frequently we are compelled to take action in areas that should not lie within the jurisdiction of the Community, that the pressure on us to legislate, exerted mainly by Member States - sometimes by the European Parliament itself - is unceasing, especially in technical fields, mostly from those Member States waving the flag of subsidiarity most ardently.
Finally, the simple, extremely sensible proposals we put forward are subsequently converted into instruments of a complexity that I would willingly qualify as "Byzantine-kafkaesque' .
(Laughter ) The Commission must continue to play its political role forcibly and quite independently.
It must remain the custodian of the Treaty.
We shall submit proposals seeking to intensify and expand European integration in the field covered by the Treaties.
This is our role, confirmed yet again, I might say, by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Nevertheless, we should be aware of the direction we seek and we must also find the means and the opportunity to persuade other institutions that we are on the right track.
In effect, if we look closely at our political balance sheet, one thing stands out clearly: it is generally in those areas where the Commission performs a motivating and stimulating function based on its right of initiative, that real progress is made.
This is why I say yes to subsidiarity, yes to a more political and better-defined European Union, but I say no to those who wish to use subsidiarity to slow down the process of European integration and I say no, even more vehemently, to those who seek to upset the institutional balance of our Union.
Mr President, I would like to make the European Union the first world platform for trade and international investment.
I would like to think that together we are building a European model of growth and prosperity of a truly universal nature, offering opportunities, partnerships and stakeholder status to our social partners and all members of society, based on equality of opportunity and fairness.
To achieve that goal, we must continue to move forward and I feel we need to think again in terms of reinstating the dynamics of social dialogue and establishing a social Europe; fresh ideas about what we understand by the "public interest' ; new conceptions regarding the relevance of the world market as an economic reference point; new methods for incorporating ethics, science and the environment in our policy-making process; a broader view of trade, encompassing the environment and social rights, an intensification of the multilateral nature of the Union since it has always been to our advantage in the past and will continue to be so in the future; a strengthening of our ability to act with firmness.
I also believe that the time is ripe for us to reflect once again on our collective roles: that of the Commission, of course, but also the Parliament and the work of the Council.
The stakes have never been more obvious; we need to create, for the European Union, an institutional system that is better than any other in the world, in other words a more flexible and responsive system, better adapted, more efficient, democratic and wholly transparent that meets the expectations of our citizens, that can attract their interest and encourage them to take a deeper plunge into the process of European integration and, finally, a system that can tackle without delay the numerous decisions arising from the immense European interests.
In conclusion, Mr President, we need an extensive body of legislation, external relations and cooperation, which represent for the Union a genuine institutional asset in the coming new millennium.
I am convinced that the European Council in Cardiff will mark an important stage in the process towards these bold objectives.
(Applause )
Mr President, at the beginning of the British presidency, the British Prime Minister called for a Europe that works together as a team.
Tony Blair said that the mission of the UK presidency was to 'make Europe work for the people' .
As we approach the Cardiff summit and the end of the British presidency, we in the Socialist group firmly believe that the British Government has been true to its word.
Jobs and employability have been given the attention they deserve.
Agreement has been reached for the launch of a single currency on 1st January next year.
The process of enlargement has begun and the presidency has not flinched from ensuring that a firm start has been made on difficult issues like the reform of the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
But I would hope that all the legislative procedures with regard to Agenda 2000 will be implemented by June 1999 and that this European Parliament is fully involved in all of the procedures.
Mention should also be made of the progress towards a creation of a more effective Common foreign and security policy.
I would like to congratulate Mr Cook in particular on his initiative with regard to a code of conduct on arms exports.
Progress has been made on these and indeed on many other areas but I would particularly like to refer to the fact that the British presidency really has had a very real physical presence in the European Parliament.
For example, I have been doing a little homework and I have been very pleased to find that British ministers have appeared at every plenary session during the presidency.
There have been sixteen appearances covering thirty separate debates; there have been forty eight presidency appearances before committee and by the end of the presidency over eighty British Government ministerial appearances will have taken place.
That is a very good example and if anything marks a clear break with the previous government, it is that very material presence of this administration with the European Parliament.
As we approach the Cardiff summit, we must not only take stock of what has been achieved but perhaps more importantly we need to look to the future.
We need a focus on the issues which will take us from Cardiff to Vienna and for the Socialist group top of the agenda has to be the issue of the economy and employment.
We warmly welcome the fact that following the Luxembourg job summit employment plans have been submitted by national governments.
The urgent task now, however, is to ensure that both plans are implemented as quickly and effectively as possible.
The plans, of course, will vary from one Member State to another but it is important for us all to recognize the need for common themes among our various approaches.
For example, if Europe as a whole is to prosper in the global economy we have to compete effectively in that global economy.
Competitiveness is not a take-it-or-leave-it option, on the contrary competitiveness is an essential prerequisite for sustainable economic success.
At the same time, we need to recognize that there are a number of factors which determine whether or not we can compete effectively.
Amongst these are the skills, adaptability and the motivation of our workforce, the extent to which we can develop an entrepreneurial and innovative culture and a degree to which we can invest in our economy for the future.
It is therefore essential that we all recognize the importance of research and development and of science generally.
I would in this regard urge the Council to make available appropriate funds for the Fifth Framework Programme on research and technological development.
Finally, as the Member of the European Parliament representing Cardiff, I am immensely proud that the European summit is being held in the capital city of Wales.
Today, Cardiff is emerging as a truly European city.
It is a city proud of its traditions but also a city optimistically looking towards a future.
Indeed, given that this summit will come at the end of a presidency which I am sure will be judged as a resounding success, there could hardly be a better host city than Cardiff.
Mr President, we in the European People's Party are looking forward to a great success in Cardiff.
We want a great success because, let us face it, the presidency at the present time needs a success.
As a British Member it is with a certain sense of sadness - not anger, not political antagonism - that one hears repeated references to the lack of success of this presidency in leadership of the European Union.
The key to all successful presidencies is leadership.
To what extent can a Foreign Secretary, whose standing in his own country has fallen to a relatively low point, have any claim to speak on behalf of the European Union? So far, this presidency has done little to combat the Union's lack of influence, even on our own doorstep.
We have not achieved very much in Algeria, Israel, the Middle East or, as the President of the Commission referred to, in Turkey.
This presidency, unfortunately, will go down in history as having been responsible for the worst-managed senior appointment in international terms ever made, that of the Presidency of the European Central Bank.
This could have been avoided and far-reaching damage could have been avoided if, when the problem was obvious, the need for compromise had been recognized earlier.
The EMU project as a whole would not have been made to look as ridiculous as was done on 2nd and 3rd May.
Indeed, the whole political system in the European Union was made to look ridiculous at that time.
Let us be more positive, we want to see a success.
What could be achieved at Cardiff to redeem this sadly discredited presidency?
First we need to see real progress on Agenda 2000. Agenda 2000 is important as everybody has so far mentioned.
It is important because the World Trade Organization and its negotiations will be starting in early 1999, as was agreed in Geneva last week.
It looks at the present time as if the European is awaiting pressure from outside in the World Trade Organization talks to force CAP reform.
Well, we have been talking about CAP reform for many years and it is time we actually started to make progress so that enlargement can take place.
Enlargement is probably the most important single issue facing Europe at the present time We need to hold out our hand of friendship because it is nine long years since the Berlin Wall started to crumble.
Not only do existing policies need to be reviewed but also how decisions in the European Union are going to be taken in the future.
Those are important issues, ladies and gentlemen, and I hope that the Council can move them forward in Cardiff.
The third really important aspect, as the President-in-Office of Council has mentioned, is employment.
We need an inclusive society and that means that we have to tackle some of the current heavy regulation.
Twenty million unemployed is not a good record and the record of job creation is also lamentable at European level.
We need flexibility, lower taxation, freer trade and a reduction in social costs.
President, I hope we can look forward to success at Cardiff.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we expect three major policy guidelines from the next summit in Cardiff.
Firstly, a political revival, a wish expressed by Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac during the last Franco-German summit, of the institutional reform of the European Union, which was totally sidelined when the Amsterdam Treaty was adopted.
Not only must this reform take place before the current accession negotiations are completed, but if it yielded clear policy guidelines quickly, it would greatly assist the Amsterdam Treaty ratification procedures currently in progress.
In truth, it is difficult to impress upon public opinion the need for new delegations of power to European institutions until their ultimate architecture has been defined, whether this relates in particular to the weighting of votes for a qualified majority, linking national parliaments to the drafting of policies concerning the second and third pillars or, indeed, the phasing-in of a credible mechanism aimed at guaranteeing compliance with the principle of subsidiarity.
Finally, the summit in Cardiff must formulate policy guidelines concerning the negotiations known as Agenda 2000.
Agricultural workers in the European Union need to be placated regarding the future of the CAP and its financing.
But, to date, they have not received the reassurances they wanted.
They are not opposed to a reform of the CAP in the sense of a fairer distribution of aid, but they do not wish to be sacrificed to the world free-trade ethic or the financial constraints imposed by enlargement.
Similarly, the existing beneficiaries of the Structural Funds seek some sort of guarantee regarding the implementation of policies pursued to reinforce social and territorial cohesion in the European Union.
Finally, with a view to the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty on the convergence of employment policies, the summit in Cardiff will need to examine the action programmes tabled by the individual Member States.
It is important that this should not be seen as a purely formal exercise and that the President-in-Office of the Council confines himself to collecting the essays handed in by individual pupils in the class of Europe and leaves the teacher to allocate the good and bad marks.
What we need is the introduction of a common strategy with regard to job creation that should be steered towards a significant reduction in the burden hampering those least qualified in the labour force, the harmonization of VAT rates which should be reduced in the case of activities shouldering a substantial share of the wages and welfare costs, and seriously encouraging the development of job creation sectors, such as small and medium-sized enterprises, craftsmen, the liberal professions and ancillary services.
It would seem that a huge consensus exists regarding all of these matters that are actually on the agenda for the summit in Cardiff, but we note, from one Council to the next, that this consensus is not actually translated into tangible implementations that can be seen to reflect those good intentions.
So we look forward finally to a firm response to the considerable expectations of our European fellow citizens.
Let us hope that the summit in Cardiff will not be, for them, a further cause for disappointment.
In January the President-in-Office told us that every new presidency brings its own new national drive and new range of experience and a new determination to make its mark.
Cardiff will be the defining moment of the new UK presidency.
Will it bear the hallmark of the new drive and the new determination of New Labour's new presidency? On the economic front your agenda is substantial: liberalization of capital and labour markets, new initiatives on venture capital, a new agenda for training and employability and employment action plans.
Indeed, in its presidency, as at home, your government has pursued economic policies of which your monetarist predecessors would have been proud.
I ask simply whether in Cardiff at the issue of the Welsh valleys which nourished socialism in Britain they will remember the face of their father as he walked back home from the mine.
Unemployment remains the scourge of our continent and while we welcome the work done we need more than training schemes and tax cuts. Where are the measures to cut red tape for small businesses?
Where are the plans to shift the burden of taxation away from the things we want more of like jobs and investment and on to the things we want less of, like waste of natural resources and pollution? Where is the investment in Europe's transport network which would literally get our economy moving?
Prime Minister Wilson said: ' A week in politics is a long time' .
Six months in politics is a presidential era. What will you have to show for it?
The British presidency has been bolstered by the proficiency of the Foreign Office and by its willingness to engage with the European Parliament.
It can celebrate progress in some areas like accession preparations and monetary union.
But, even here, it is hampered by the UK's indecision in joining monetary union - its unwillingness to take the plunge, its failure even to set a date for a referendum and its complacency in educating UK public opinion about Europe.
Beyond the economic arena why has the Cardiff agenda nothing on the Europol convention, on the energy tax as agreed at Kyoto, on the reform of the EU institutions agreed at Amsterdam? No doubt you have generous aspirations and ample faith.
No doubt you have the disciples ready and the church organized.
But you cannot wait for the gospel to make its appearance while you are doing a photo call with Nelson Mandela.
In our debate in January I reminded you of the words of Sir Francis Bacon: ' Hope makes a good breakfast but a rather poor supper' .
Liberal Democrats in this House expected more of the UK presidency.
You may have swapped the politics of the handbag for the politics of the Gucci briefcase.
But what is important is less the container than the contents.
That great British Labour politician, Aneurin Bevin, once accused his opponents of putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.
Unless much is achieved in the coming months, those words may yet rebound upon his successors.
Mr President, inclusion of the employment problem on the agenda of the summit in Cardiff tells us that we can no longer ignore the social and democratic needs that manifest themselves in our countries.
Whilst we have been told for decades that prosperity abounds, our peoples note with bitterness the continuing encroachment of unemployment and poverty.
What is good for the financial markets is not good for them.
I shall confine my address to the recommendations concerning employment and growth, which mark a leap forward that we should greet with enthusiasm.
But they are gripped in the vice of the single currency market which seeks to lower the cost of labour and public expenditure.
This is why the measures incorporated in national plans oriented towards adaptability, in other words flexibility, or even deregulation, take precedence.
In our opinion, we should follow a different direction, giving priority to social viability rather than financial viability, thereby giving the lead to human development and replacing competition with cooperation.
Some of the measures proposed by the Member States foster this approach.
Thus, in France and Italy, we have a commitment to reduce working hours.
In France too, jobs for the young.
At European level, we have the EIB decision to introduce subsidized interest-rate credits for jobs.
To this end, we are proposing three series of measures to promote genuine competitiveness based on sound premises. Firstly, of course, a reduction in working hours without loss of wages, but also upward harmonization of welfare protection legislation, the development of lifelong training and the organization of qualifying courses, vocational routes and the promotion of public services.
We propose financing resources to alleviate corporate financial overheads, not loan charges.
Mr President, you spoke of red tape.
Or course, such bureaucracy exists, but what a burden financial charges impose on company accounts. This is why we are tendering the notion of a selective-rate credit policy for employment, a method of taxation that militates against speculation with the Tobin levy, a democratic check on public employment assistance to ensure that they do not lead to lay-offs, firm action against social dumping and relocation, now even more urgent following the campaign against child labour.
We believe that the margins allowed in the current financial year should foster social progress rather than be devoted exclusively to cutting public deficits, which hinders growth and therefore public revenues.
Finally, new rights, real powers for workers, their trade unions and the citizens at large must be established.
European works councils, for example, must have the power to intervene rather than simply the right to be informed.
We believe that these proposals face up to the major challenges of our day.
We think that awareness is growing, where misfortune is not fatal.
And our group intends to make a contribution by relaying the social movement to the European Parliament.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, as I listened to your speech I thought of the saying from my country: "Nimm dir nix vör, dann slei dir nix fehl' - in other words, if you never try your hand at anything, you'll never have any failures!
There has been an abundance of subjects for initiatives and events during your Presidency, as Mr David has said.
I would be happy to contradict Mr Provan on the matter of implementation, but the longest lunch was an implementation disaster! Let us take the convention on arms exports.
I congratulate you on seizing the initiative, but the results are nothing to be proud of. There was nevertheless an agreement on annual meetings and we can only hope that there we will be able to make appropriate improvements and arrive at binding multilateral regulations.
My impression is that there has been a great deal of fuss about speeding up procedures, but at the expense of political substance.
The Presidency also carries some of the responsibility for the state of the Union and cannot just settle for its skills of packaging and word-spinning.
The central problem is simply this: if we want to offer ordinary people something, we have to offer them politics which affect their interests.
We have to show them that European politics satisfy their interests better, and geographical lists do not help them.
Geographical lists of who is who in Europe will not feed the unemployed, or create jobs, and they will not open up any new prospects either.
The British Presidency, as your speech made clear, has no clear project, which of course also means that there is no failure to be recorded.
In employment policy, there has been no clean break with the failed neoliberal policy model, which Mr Provan - I can contradict you on this point - has offered here once again.
Deregulation, wage reductions, are supposed to create more jobs and stimulate growth at some point and in some miraculous way.
You yourself no longer believe any of this!
Luxembourg saw a fall from grace when employment policy was largely confined to labour market policy.
France and Italy were left out in the cold.
The creation of new jobs by reductions in working hours, a new economic policy, or tax restructuring by means of eco-taxes, none of these is on the agenda.
There is clearly the danger that some Member States will revert to the Essen procedure, under the national action plans which have now been submitted.
This is a matter in which the Commission, in my view, Mr Santer, has an obvious responsibility: in its evaluation it should spell this out clearly and also demand improvements so that we really do arrive at a binding procedure, and so that the objectives do not just appear on paper but are implemented and supported with measures and not just with philosophical reflections.
Nor do we need measures which are already being implemented in any case, or which other bodies, such as local authorities, are supposed to implement.
At the very least, we need an energetic response to youth unemployment, and we are not getting this in the present state of affairs.
We are taking very seriously the "no' which the Commission's President has formulated in this case; the misuse of the principle of subsidiarity for the purpose of re-nationalisation fundamentally serves the interests of the right-wing and ultimately its unsavoury representatives.
We must join forces against this.
Mr President, the President-in-Office said that in two weeks time a very important event takes place.
I do not have to remind you that event of course will be watched by the whole of Europe, millions of viewers, when Scotland takes on Brazil in the opening match of the World Cup.
I am sure the President-in-Office will join me in wishing the best to the Scottish team.
I applaud his enthusiasm for the Cardiff summit, which follows that event.
Perhaps I could make a point that the challenge for us as politicians is to make the Cardiff summit as important to the citizens as the World Cup.
You may say that this is a tall order but there are many aspects of the decisions which will be taken over the next year or so which are going to be of profound importance to the citizens.
The challenge for the British presidency and the Austrian and every other one that succeeds is acceptability.
How do we make the Europe that we are trying to build acceptable to the citizens? I believe the choice of Cardiff as a summit location is an inspired one.
The people of Wales demonstrated last year that they were prepared to exercise their democratic right of self-determination and so Cardiff will become the home of a democratic assembly for the first time in its history.
The people of Ireland just last weekend voted again for major steps forward in democracy and I believe we are at the beginning of a new development which includes my own country of Scotland.
Before the Cardiff official summit takes place there will also be an alternative summit of some of the stateless nations of Europe who are deriving inspiration from the example of Wales and Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and Scotland.
They will be putting forward an alternative vision of Europe but it will not be confined to questions of constitutional change because we believe there are some very important issues which unite the many peoples and regions of Europe.
I am very glad to see the President-in-Office and the President of the Commission stressing the importance of Agenda 2000.
This could have a very profound impact on both the people of Europe and the acceptability of the whole European project.
The plea I would make is that whatever comes out of Cardiff gives us plenty of time, in the European Parliament, to study the implications of the outline that is proposed at that time.
I know it is a thankless task for the Commission as for the Council but we need to get this one right.
Unemployment, and I could not agree more with the President of the Commission, is the key task which faces us.
If we manage to crack unemployment and solve it and produce a growth economy in Europe, then the whole euro project will prove to have been worthwhile.
If we fail, people will wonder what it was all about.
Just two last points, the resolution which is before the House tomorrow commends the international criminal court as an important reform which my group has been very active in pursuing, I hope there will be support for that.
The last point I would make in summing up the challenge for the UK presidency and echoing the points made by Mr Pasty and others, is that institutional reform cannot stand still and I believe that it will be a great fillip if during the Cardiff Summit we are able to come up with a common statute so that Members of this House are not discriminated against by nationality.
We all should have the same terms and conditions; we were elected on the mandate.
Mr President, Minister, in this Chamber we have celebrated the single currency.
When will we be able to celebrate achieving political union, the only way to make Europe no longer just an area of free trade, run by individual countries and their interests or by certain multinationals, but a true citizens' Europe with common objectives and a more certain and peaceful future?
At the Cardiff Summit we urge that some concrete progress finally be made towards the achievement of political union, and for this reason the debate must be opened on reorganizing the European institutions: certainly more decision-making power should be given to the European Parliament, but we also need to identify a body that can represent all the Member States, initially at least, for matters relating to common defence, the fight against major crime, the defence of twenty million unemployed and forty million new poor, a body which may also begin to consider how to craft the Union's foreign policy.
Indeed the Council of Ministers represents the individual governments and does not represent a common European will.
Today, in the absence of this body, foreign policy should be determined not only by the Council but above all by the European Parliament, the voice of Europe's citizens.
The fight against major crime can never be achieved if Europol, for example, continues to be blocked by the failure of the Member States to achieve a coherent view.
If Cardiff turns out to be a carbon copy of the other Summits or makes absolutely minimal progress, we risk having a Europe no longer made up of citizens who see hope in the euro, but of citizens who at the same time worry about a lack of political direction that gives the economy certain objectives to be achieved: in fact, the lack of political direction even makes economic recovery very uncertain.
It is not enough to say that Maastricht imposed stability and that stability now enables the application of rates which are clearly lower than before if we then find banking systems in the various Member States which operate in some cases in a way that is completely different from what we declared with so much enthusiasm and emphasis in this Chamber on 2 May.
If the lack of political union risks, because of the electoral results of one country or another, bringing back the cyclical problem - Europe exists or does not exist as a supranational entity or it is not always...
(The President interrupted the speaker)
I have received five motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I would like to begin by personally congratulating the President- in-Office on his success in achieving a code of conduct on arms exports.
This code of conduct establishes some important principles which represent a major leap forward in the EU's contribution to peace and stability in the world.
The code of conduct will also provide a clearer framework for the rationalization of the European defence industry, which in turn will lead to the greater interdependence which will make national undercutting obsolete in the future.
I would also like to congratulate him on the way he has never failed to take forward the human rights agenda during his term as President-in-Office.
In particular, the success he had in taking that agenda to the Chinese and moving forward the Chinese agenda has been one of the successes of this presidency.
Clearly the major success has been carrying forward the Luxembourg conclusions on the enlargement process.
Not only was the very complex negotiating process begun on time but the European conference was launched in such a way as to ensure that it immediately got down to discussing matters of direct relevance to the European citizens, particularly drugs and crime.
These were considerable achievements but it is important, now we have launched the process, we do not allow other political priorities like a single currency to push enlargement into the background where it would be in danger of becoming bogged down in technical discussions.
So it is important, in my view, that the Cardiff summit sends out a number of clear messages.
Firstly, it should send out a clear signal of our continuing political commitment to the enlargement process.
Secondly, it should reiterate the Council and the Commission's commitments to keeping the Parliament informed of the enlargement process and of recognizing the important role the Parliament can play.
I would to commend to future presidencies the meeting that Mr Henderson held with the bureaux of the joint parliamentary committees as a way forward.
Thirdly, we have to assess the progress which has been made on the screening of the acquis and on the evolution of the pre-accession strategy.
I would hope that special attention can be played to the social dimension in central and eastern European countries which is of particular importance.
We must ensure that the Commission's first annual report, which is foreseen for later this year, is on time and on schedule.
Finally, as other speakers have said, we must take forward the Agenda 2000 proposals because it is very important if we are to keep enlargement on track that we complete the legislative procedures before June 1999.
Therefore we have to have political agreement by the Vienna summit.
Elsewhere, I would congratulate the British presidency on taking forward the Luxembourg conclusions on the Middle East peace process.
The Socialist group recognizes the tremendous efforts made by the British Foreign Secretary and the British Prime Minister to restart that process and to carry out the conclusions of Luxembourg, particularly in drawing to the attention of the Israeli Government the lack of wisdom in proceeding with these settlements and of the need to develop economic strategy on the Palestinian side.
Finally, I would hope the Cardiff summit looks forward to the Bosnian elections.
This is another step in the process of peace and stability in the former Yugoslavia and I would hope that we will support those elections to the fullest.
I would compare the presidency of the European Union with the British Grand National, or the Derby.
It is important to success to be able to finish the race.
It is even more important to success to finish, as the British Government is doing, in style and with panache and with still something to spare in the tank.
Mr President, the current context for employment policy debates is obviously not the same as in previous years.
Monetary union is now a reality.
The national employment plans have now been presented, and economic convergence has created a climate of confidence, which is encouraging for the growth of employment.
This presidency has had the luck to come at the end of a long process in the construction of Europe.
Some countries, such as Spain, having adopted rigorous economic and social policies, are already seeing the results of their governments' actions. The formulae for creating employment - which will always be better than sharing it out - have been stated and repeated often enough, from the Essen Summit to the one in Luxembourg.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we are on the threshold of the twenty-first century.
The technological revolution, the globalization of the economy and the large markets demand that Member States make a great effort in the field of education and training.
Being able to guarantee jobs depends on qualifications and training, and also on educational establishments awarding professional qualifications which meet the demands of the labour market.
I also want to emphasize how essential it is to ensure that social dialogue provides the context for updating the organization of work, as regards job stability, lifelong training or the reorganization of working hours.
For example, I do not think it is right for governments to decide to reduce the working day. In fact, it is the actual dynamics of a company's productivity or size which can provide a guide, enabling workers and management to come to an agreement on such matters.
Finally, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the whole of society needs to be involved in creating jobs. The employment plans presented by countries such as Spain and Italy emphasize that regional or local authorities also need to be given responsibilities here.
The employment services should adapt to the needs of management and workers. They should also scour the new sources of employment for opportunities to provide jobs for the people desperately looking for work.
Unemployment and under-employment lead to exclusion, poverty and despair.
People have heard enough speeches and promises.
The euro and the employment plans are a way of turning people's right to work into reality - their right to work in that society of prosperity and solidarity we all want to create in this new Europe we are building.
Mr President, firstly I welcome the opportunity of congratulating the United Kingdom presidency on its success on behalf of all of us in the European Union.
I wish them continued success for the next couple of weeks and that Cardiff will be like the finishing of the Grand National, as was said by Mr Titley.
The fact that the President-in-Office is red-haired does not in any way mean we should compare him to Red Rum who was one of the best stayers on the Grand National course.
If my memory is correct, he won three times in all.
I should say that the United Kingdom presidency brought with it great enthusiasm, energy and a high quality of organizational ability which we all very much appreciate.
In particular, I am glad that at all times they fully respected the role of Parliament and its Members.
I would like to thank the United Kingdom Government and its Prime Minister for their tremendous effort in guiding the peace process in my country to where it is at the present time.
As everybody knows it received massive backing by all the people on the island of Ireland only last week.
The summit meeting in Cardiff provides an ideal opportunity for the European Union to assess how best it can aid the process of peace and reconciliation which was given this overwhelming support by the Irish people and the referendum.
The Union has given considerable political and practical support to this process over the years and I very much hope that the British presidency will ensure that the important developments of recent weeks are given due consideration in Cardiff.
Recently, the Commission put forward a package of proposals which, amongst other things, called for a reform of the CAP, the Structural Funds and the entire budgetary policy of the Union.
The summit should concentrate on elaborating broad political guidelines concerning this package of proposals which will have a major impact, not just on the functioning of the European institutions but also on the daily life of the citizens over the coming years.
It is important, for example, that European leaders reaffirm their commitment to the central role of the family farmer in agricultural and in rural development policy.
Any reform of the CAP should be geared towards preserving and encouraging the continuation of the family farm as the foundation of the European agricultural sector.
It is equally important that the reform of the CAP should be considered in parallel with the reform of the Structural Funds because an essential component of structural policy throughout the Union should be the preservation of present population levels in rural areas and in the relatively isolated areas on the periphery of the Union.
This can only be achieved by recognizing that agriculture will continue to play the pivotal role in rural areas for the foreseeable future and that structural policy should be geared towards the maximizing the development of allied sectors such as agri-tourism, food processing and the preservation of environmentally sensitive areas.
Finally, again I say to the UK presidency: keep up the good work, two weeks left and remember the last hurdle is also an important one to negotiate before you successfully make the finishing line which I am sure you will.
Mr President, when national leaders meet in Cardiff, public interest will clearly focus on how unemployment can be reduced and what is going to be done about it in practice.
It is good that we will in future be able to assess employment schemes better than before.
We need reliable and comparable data, for example, on whether unemployment among young people and the long-term unemployed is coming down in EU countries.
Merely examining national programmes will not necessarily be sufficient to tell if the strategy for growth and employment is working at the pan-European level.
I believe we need a European contribution to programmes to reduce long-term unemployment and unemployment among young people.
There should be a principle arising from the Cardiff summit that the creation of new jobs in the Agenda 2000 programme should provide a more important basis than it does now for the granting of assistance by the EU.
The success of an active employment policy is ultimately the yardstick by which we can gauge whether Europe can solve the mass unemployment crisis of post-industrial society.
Mr President, in the short period of six months it is hardly possible for a Council Presidency to have a strong impact on the European political process.
That is why continuity and cooperation between successive presidencies are all the more important.
However, our citizens are given the impression, conveyed in part by national media, that each Presidency functions in historical isolation.
Every six months Europe is invented anew, so to speak.
My question to the British Council Presidency, therefore, as an Austrian Opposition politician, is this: in July, do the Austrians start again from scratch, as seems to be the case, or is there genuine co-operation between the British Presidency and the future Austrian Presidency which will ensure that processes already begun will continue to run smoothly? If the answer is yes, in which areas is there agreement, and where can Austria build on preparatory work by Britain?
Mr President, when the Presidency announced that it already intended to review the plans for employment in Cardiff, counting myself among the sceptics, I thought that rather precipitate and even unkind to Vienna, where the process would have to take place.
Now that I have a clearer picture of the situation, I am actually extremely glad that the Presidency did that, thereby giving an extra boost to the process of the Luxembourg Summit.
When you look at what has now been achieved by the Member States since the Treaty of Amsterdam and since the Summit, you see that it is in fact many times greater than what everyone expected then.
I myself was afraid that the response to the Presidency would have been: we need more time, just wait a while.
The situation now is that they have all done their job.
However that does not mean that we are already there because, when you come to assess the plans, there are still a lot of points to consider.
I hope that a contentbased approach will be adopted in Cardiff.
Too many Member States are sitting back and taking the attitude that the guidelines apply to the other Member States, but they are measuring up.
That is nonsense.
Not one Member State can claim that it already conforms to all the guidelines.
I would point out that those national plans must be more than a technical operation in which sheets of paper are neatly filled in; they must focus on the quality of measures taken, on renewal and reactivation.
Also it must not be possible for Member States to pick out two pillars from the four that have been decided and leave aside two really important ones, namely equal opportunities and adaptability, in order to concentrate on re-employment or employability and entrepreneurship. The last two, for me, smack too much of attitudes on the lines of: you are out of work and you only have yourself to blame for that.
You should be more employable .
Or, do not be so apathetic, go and set up a business!
I think the other two are immensely important to the Member States, because they challenge the responsibility of the Member States and the social partners.
It is not by chance that these two have been disregarded up to now.
One last point.
Both Amsterdam and Luxembourg focused on a balance between a macroeconomic policy approach and an active labour market policy.
Up to now there has been no real content-based consensus.
Another feature of the process is that different Directorates-General and different Councils are dealing with those matters.
I call upon the Presidency to take a first step in Cardiff towards joint action by the various parties involved, in both preparation and decision-making.
Mr President, during this discussion, as the Chairman of the Catholic Workers' Movement in the Regensburg Diocese, I have found myself thinking of something that Cardinal Cardyns said: every single young worker is worth more than all the gold in the world.
This is an old saying, but its message is still relevant.
Jobs are important, but hitherto there has been too much talk, and here I would agree with my colleague Wim van Velzen, and not enough success.
Now there are action plans. I only hope that they will be implemented quickly and successfully, otherwise even the best action plans will be of no use.
Best practice is fine, but I hope that it is quickly adopted in those countries which have not hitherto adopted it.
We are always hearing about assistance to SMEs but no Council Presidency and no Commission has yet been able to ensure that small and medium-sized enterprises have simple requirements so that they, too, can put them into practice.
Taxation and welfare systems should bring about a reduction in accessory costs to wages, but they must also be fair so that employees do not again bear the burdens alone.
Structural reform, Agenda 2000 - Commissioner Santer, rural areas seem to me to have been treated very shabbily in this goulash Objective II.
Something more has to be done in this area.
As regards the environment, allow me to say that we need both people and nature, and not nature without people!
I also have a question about the operation of the own resources system: why do we have no money for computers when at the same time we are giving away billions of marks in own resources? Perhaps for once you could do something about this.
Please implement the social market economy as quickly as possible in the new accession countries so that we are not confronted there by problems which are the same as our own.
Do not forget subsidiarity even if as a central government you sometimes are not so happy about it!
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the British presidency for their participation in the peace process in Ireland.
As far as Mr Blair is concerned I believe he is the first British Prime Minister ever to make Ireland a priority.
I would like to thank the British Government for rejoining Europe because we badly need them in Europe.
I and many Members of this House admire very much Mr Cook's stand on the armaments industry and control.
I want to pay tribute to him on that.
In Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic still remains in situ in former Yugoslavia and he has much to answer for.
The European Union stood by and watched the genocide in Yugoslavia; I hope we will not do the same in Kosovo.
We must call Milosevic's bluff.
I admire Mr Cook for his condemnation of the slaughter in Kosovo.
I know Robin Cook is a moral man and is sincere in his condemnation of the slaughter and ethnic cleansing in that country.
He is, of course, outraged as we are in this House at what is happening there.
We must stop the Serb minority in Kosovo.
I also hope that he will raise the issue of East Timor at some stage as a matter of urgency, perhaps in Cardiff.
The horrors of Algeria and the lack of response from the government in Algeria to an independent human rights Commission to visit Algeria to see what is happening there is something that should also be raised.
I want to congratulate the British presidency.
It has been a marvellous presidency and I want to pay tribute to you personally, Mr Cook, for your courage in taking on very major issues.
Mr President, the motion for a resolution which I support contains a number of proposals to promote employment.
However, there are a number of points which need to be retabled and emphasized.
I refer to the reduction in working hours, which the thirty-five hour week merely symbolizes. We all know that, if there are no accompanying measures, companies will easily be able to use leading-edge technology in order to make up the hours lost.
Perhaps, therefore, we need to discuss more drastic reductions in working hours.
I would also like to highlight the emergence of new professions which meet real social needs but which are not recognized on the work market.
These could be promoted by providing healthy financing, as suggested in the Delors White Paper or as introduced on an experimental basis by the French government.
Lastly, Mr President, we need to retable the question of investment in the famous trans-European networks which would, we were told at the time, lead directly and, more importantly, indirectly to new jobs throughout Europe.
This plan has been undermined by ministers of finance in Member States throughout the Union, some of whom will most likely attend the Cardiff Summit, Mr President, without giving so much as a second thought to the contradiction which that represents.
Mr President, I warmly welcome the reference Mr Cook made to the need for economic reform.
Many of us in this House believe that, in completing the process of Economic and Monetary Union, it is now very much the job of the European Union to turn its attention to economic reform.
With the euro area accounting for around 20 % of the world's output and the world's largest importer and exporter, it is essential that we have economic reforms within the European Union that are going to make the single currency a success.
Our shared task is to ensure that our economies work not only effectively but in a way that combines economic dynamism with social justice.
It is essential that in Cardiff the presidency and the heads of government launch a new European way in bringing about economic reform.
This must address the issue of pro-enterprise and a pro-opportunity agenda with measures to encourage enterprise combined with policies that ensure economic employment and educational opportunity for all, building on our long-standing strength of stability and cohesion.
This Parliament strongly supports an economic reform agenda balanced with the process of monetary union.
The Socialist group has identified three specific areas which I hope the President-in-Office will take with him to Cardiff.
The first is the reform of the labour markets.
Europe has 18 million unemployed and while 10 % of the unemployed in the US have been unemployed for more than a year, nearly 50 % of Europe's unemployed are long-term unemployed.
The US is more successful at getting its long-term unemployed back into work.
We need a new way, recognizing that in a fast-moving world of constant innovation and technological change, governments can help to equip people to cope with inevitable change.
While there is far less that government can do to stop people losing their last job, there is a lot more that government should do to help people gain their next job.
We are very concerned about the capital market and there needs to be capital market reform.
The US has a huge capital market and equity market to help in venture capital.
Europe has a fragmented and inadequate equity market.
We need to make sure that there is venture capital available for small and medium-sized enterprises.
In Cardiff it is essential that we start the process of building a Europe-wide equity market for venture capital and for investment.
The third area which needs reform is in the product market.
We have a single market but it is still fragmented.
We still need steps to build the internal market of the European Union.
Cardiff is a marvellous opportunity to accept the process of monetary union and to begin the important and essential job of economic reform.
If that is the aim of Cardiff, Mr Cook has the full support of this House.
Mr President, Amsterdam is still being ratified but already we are beginning to talk about institutional reforms again.
I must say that I was very happy to hear, today, both the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission recall the importance of institutional affairs for the future of the European plan; moreover, signals have also been coming from beyond the official institutions: various personalities - from Jacques Delors to our President Gil-Robles, to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Blair, a few days ago - have expressed concern about the difficulties that may arise with the Union's decision-making mechanisms in an enlarged Union.
I do not want to go into the merits of these reforms here or voice any opinion on the matter; I just want to try and understand why we are returning to the subject of the institutions, with Amsterdam still in progress.
In my view it is for one fundamental reason: because the challenges facing the Union require these institutional reforms.
The challenge of monetary union: monetary union is pushing us towards political union - no one denies that - but we are in great need of a political-institutional will, because nothing in history happens automatically.
And then enlargement: no one has any real doubts about the institutional consequences of enlargement, because it is clear that the emergence of two types of Europe is possible: a much more diluted Europe could be formed, very similar to a large market, and there could naturally be a political Europe.
That is therefore the reason why institutional reforms are increasingly unavoidable, whatever their merit.
How should we proceed from there? That is what I would like to say briefly in the second part of my speech.
There is a resolution of the European Parliament of November 1997.
We propose a particular route: we ask the Commission to produce a document on the institutions before the end of the year, and we ask the Commission to do this because we respect its role of initiative and because we consider that the role of the institutions is fundamental in resuming the debate on them.
And we ask the Council to give the Commission a mandate for this initiative.
That is the fundamental point!
Once again I will not go into the merits, but I'd like to recall that only by clearly defining a relationship between institutions and the objective to be achieved can we respond to the question of Europe's future, what kind of Europe we want, what plan we want to achieve.
I think it is extremely important that this Parliament send a message to the future Parliament - the Parliament which will be elected in 1999 - a message that there must necessarily be innovations to the institutions.
Mr President, Mr Santer, colleagues, there have been several treaties - the Maastricht Treaty, the Amsterdam Treaty - in which we have repeatedly expressed a commitment, for example in Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, namely the demand that environmental policy and protection should not only be included, but should also be a high-level objective in determining and implementing Community policies.
I have been in this Parliament for nine years. I know what we say we will do, but I also know what our achievements are.
What we say we will do is always splendid, and the British Presidency's achievements have been outstanding, but now, in common with this House and also, I hope, with the Commission, Mr Santer, I have high expectations as regards the Cardiff Summit.
If it is our conviction - and, as far as I know, it is the conviction of the British Presidency - that environmental policy is an important Community objective for the people of this Union, and if, at the same time it is our conviction that fighting unemployment is the most important task that we have to face, we should be sufficiently intelligent to link these two objectives.
If we can prove - and we can do so - that environmental policy, higher environmental standards, new environmental standards, developed with the Commission, with the European Parliament, but also with our partners in industry and the trades unions, that these new policies can create jobs, that is what we have to do.
Are we doing it? No, we are not!
Unless we finally start to incorporate environmental standards and protection and the checking of environmental compatibility and sustainability into all other Community policies, we can forget all the other speeches here.
Then Mrs Bjerregaard can give up her work, I can do the same, and so, too, can large parts of the Union too.
So we have to change things.
What will we change? We must have binding framework legislation which says that environmental policy is part of transport, energy and economic policy, as Mr Donnelly has already explained.
It is no longer enough for this to appear in Article 6 of the Treaty.
I am tired of reading treaties - I have done so long enough as a lawyer - and I also know what they can amount to.
I would like to see the Commission being supported by the Council Presidency, by you, Mr Cook, by the British Council Presidency and by the new German Government after 27 September of this year in ensuring that the integration of environment policy into other Community policies is obligatory.
I would like to see a binding commitment to this end, that means I would like to have from you, Mr Cook, and from the Cardiff summit an obligation on the Commission to submit framework legislation, and I do mean legislation which imposes an obligation, not another meaningless commitment!
In conclusion, allow me to say the following. When I was a child, I liked to play with soap bubbles.
You can blow them up and they get really big, they shimmer with all the colours, they're very impressive, then they lose their colours, burst and disappear.
I have no desire to see yet another summit lose its colours, burst and disappear.
Please, Mr Santer, please, Mr Cook, make sure that after the Cardiff summit we have obligatory legislation and that environmental policy is an integral component of all other Community policies!
Mr President, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I am the last speaker in this debate but I hope that the topics that I shall address will be placed high on the Council's agenda.
I would like to make two requests, to you, Mr Cook, and to you, Mr Santer, two requests to take an urgent inquiry from the European Parliament with you to Cardiff.
Fighting organized crime is one of the absolute priorities of the Council and of the Commission, and also of the work of the European Parliament.
We know that wherever it is possible to do business without frontiers, it is also possible to do illegal business without frontiers.
That is why, as a strategy to counter the freedom of having no frontiers which those who are able to misuse our economic system enjoy, we also need cooperation, which as far as possible is not affected by frontiers, between the police and our justice systems whose role it is to pursue the criminals who operate their network on a panEuropean basis.
The trouble is that this process, which can be so compellingly described, is not advancing as fast as the European Parliament would like.
In our view, this is in part due to the fact that, after the finely turned phrases of the summits on European integration have faded away, an integration which must of necessity be implemented in areas of the third pillar as well, the national sovereignty reserve, especially in the case of police and justice co-operation, weighs more heavily in the balance than the pragmatic necessity of co-operating at the European level.
That is why I want once again to formulate precisely the European Parliament's request which is contained in innumerable resolutions, and which was drawn up by us specifically in relation to the initiatives and the common measures subsequent to the report from the high level group on fighting organized crime, the request which is expressed in these opinions: show greater courage and go beyond the level of national governments; do more to remove obstacles especially in the case of cooperation between the police - but also between justice systems, which is no less important.
Show greater courage as the Commission and demand of the Council that more competence and authority under Community law for fighting organized crime should be transferred to you!
I consider that one of the top priority tasks in the immediate future is that we should learn to integrate Europe not only in the economic sphere, and that we should learn to organize the instruments that we need to fight misuse not only at the national level.
Unless we remedy this divergence, organized criminals in Europe will continue to have an advantage over the police.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Common foreign and security policy for 1997
The next item is the report (A4-0169/98) by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the role of the Union in the World: implementation of the common foreign and security policy for 1997.
Mr President, under the Treaties we are required as a parliament to hold an annual debate on the development of the CFSP.
My report discharges that duty in the same format as we did last year.
There is a tabular comparison of the details of the use of joint actions, common positions and declarations over a four year period.
There is a review of the CFSP on a regional basis, starting with our near abroad and moving outwards.
There is nothing of particular interest to note in the use of these instruments other than their continued failure to address the real challenges which Europe faces in the world.
In fact, in 1997, apart from the Amsterdam Treaty, the most interesting thing to happen was the interinstitutional agreement on the financing of the CFSP and on parliamentary involvement.
That involvement is going to depend for its effectiveness on good cooperation between the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
Also, from that agreement, flows the commitment from the Council to provide us with a document on 'the main aspects and basic choices of the CFSP' .
That is a minimalist document stripped of meaning by pre-publication editing in Council working parties.
It is historical, it is narrative, it devotes only a page and a half to the future and then in the vaguest of terms.
It needs to be improved next year.
Observant colleagues will have noticed that we have changed the title of this year's debate to 'the role of the Union in the world' so that we may look at the whole period to draw lessons from the past and project them into the future.
Europe's role in the world is more than just the limited and, as yet, undeveloped activities covered by the CFSP.
It encompasses the commercial and other competences of the Commission, the role of this Parliament, its presidents, committees, delegations.
It must also encompass the foreign policies of the Member States.
As I say on page 9 of my report, we are creating a common foreign policy, not a single foreign policy.
The parallel with the common currency and a single currency may be instructive if not exact.
A common policy magnifies effective influence.
A single foreign policy would be the product of a single state which the Union is not.
In my view we should be striving to maximize Europe's influence in the world for our own good and, I would argue, for the good of the world.
To do so we should use all our resources in all the institutions and in the Member States.
The period of 18 months that we are looking at covers three presidencies conducted in three very different styles with three very different degrees of experience.
I can assure the President-in-Office that I am not going to engage in either the public puffing of the presidency by Mr Cook's PPS and sous-chef Mr Titley, nor indeed, Mr Provan's public pricking of the presidency's pretensions.
I am going to stand back and look at all three of those presidencies as regards common foreign policy.
And I have to conclude that it is currently impossible to run an intellectually or politically satisfying presidency, given the tensions between the current institutional structures and the overblown and ambitious rhetoric of the CFSP itself.
Time and again we see Europe accepting that the real decisions are taken by the Americans.
We tamely follow them around, voting funds and troops into situations such as Bosnia where we have abdicated from effective decision-making.
They say and we pay.
That is not good for them and it is not good for us.
An optimist would say that post-Amsterdam the CFSP is in transition.
Surely the position will be improved when, instead of sending the President-in-Office on a one-day administrative errand to Ankara which fails to persuade the Turks to turn up even to their own association council, we could instead send the High Representative.
Surely the existence of an analysis and planning unit would improve our state of preparedness.
At the moment we manage to be ill-prepared not just for the predictable, such as the Indian test, or the perennial such as Saddam Hussein, but even for the frankly overdue such as Kosovo.
At the moment we have the worst of all worlds.
We are too proud to hand over Europe's interests lock, stock and barrel to Uncle Sam.
We are too vain to remain decently silent.
We have too much memory and not enough vision to create our own foreign policy.
So, what do we settle for? A peacock diplomacy that is for display and not for use.
The prime role of this Parliament and the foreign affairs committees of national parliaments is not to control the executive in their conduct of foreign policy.
It is to encourage them to have a foreign policy worthy of the name in the first place.
To have a Europe which is impotent in the Middle East peace process, silent on the sub-continent and sidelined in the Balkans is quite simply not good enough for the European Union.
I commend the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee to the plenary.
Mr President, of course I thank Mr Cook for that particularly detailed response to Mr Spencer's report, but I am surprised that there has been absolutely no reaction from the Presidency, and I would like to know why not, to the debate on Cardiff.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ample and well-drafted report that we have just heard from the British Presidency should be of great comfort to us all.
It is commonplace to say that the European Union does not have a foreign policy, despite the many rhetorical statements and statements of hope which are often made; but the Presidency of the "Foreign Affairs' Council tells us that significant progress has been made on a number of points, underlining the role of the European Union.
All of this is, in my view, a condition which we can define as necessary but not sufficient.
In other words, we are now faced with a series of quantitative increases in EU foreign policy, due to a certain euro-enthusiasm and the fact that we have approved the single currency. But despite this greater effort to craft and to want to have a common foreign policy, we think there is still a lot to do.
And there is still a lot to do in terms of the quality of foreign policy.
As a Member of this Parliament, I believe that we must hope that foreign policy becomes a constant and common theme of all the political forces in the next European elections.
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office for that extensive report.
One of the problems while discussing the Spencer report has been that we are looking backwards to the working of the CFSP in the last year, knowing full well that the world we are discussing is going to change.
It will change when Amsterdam is ratified.
Amsterdam will be seen as a turning point in the working of the common foreign and security policy.
Amsterdam recognizes, in a way that Maastricht did not, that we are now operating in a completely new security situation following the end of the Cold War which requires broader instruments and broader measures to maintain European and world security.
In this debate we should really be looking at the implications of those changes and how we can maximize their effectiveness so that some of our concerns about how the CFSP has operated in the past will not be replicated in the future.
In particular, I would hope that the Amsterdam Treaty will mark a point where we stop becoming obsessed by the harmonization of the process and become rather more concerned about the effectiveness of the outcome.
It is not whether there is a common foreign and security policy worth its name that exercises my constituents, it is whether or not we are able to achieve peace and stability on the European continent.
Amsterdam takes us forward in a number of ways.
The policy planning and early warning unit allows us at long last to analyse what we mean by a common foreign and security policy.
The existence of a High Representative who will be able to deal with the day-to-day issues and the establishment of common strategies will enable us to start to have a more coherent approach.
We also have to look at some of the challenges created by Amsterdam.
For example, this Parliament is extremely supportive - and quite rightly so - of the Petersberg Tasks.
But the British Army, relative to its size, is now more heavily committed than at any time since the Second World War.
What are the implications, therefore, of developing the Petersberg Tasks for our national foreign policies and our national capacities to fulfil our ambitions?
One area where we need to move forward is the link between the Council and the Parliament.
This Parliament, in its approach to Algeria, and to Albania, in the establishment of the conflict prevention network, and in its approach to the interinstitutional agreement on the financing of CFSP, has always shown that it is capable of developing a mature dialogue with the Council and the Commission.
I would therefore urge that, when Amsterdam is ratified, the Council works more closely with Parliament in the future to develop the CFSP.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur sincerely for the work which he has presented to us.
I would like to deal with two items, both from the viewpoint of my group and from the viewpoint of the Committee on Development and Co-operation.
We are talking about a common security and foreign policy.
The question arises in this context of how we should deal with conflicts.
The rapporteur stressed this in his report, but it continues to be the case that we come up against unpleasant surprises in this area.
We have already invoked conflict prevention several times, and I would like to acknowledge in this context that we have now arrived at a code of conduct for the arms trade.
We shall need to examine the document carefully as well, although we should not overlook the fact that none of this will have any effect on the illegal arms trade - which continues to be our major problem.
It has been a source of some regret to me that the Council Presidency has not now dealt with some points in the report which are essential in my view.
In the interests of brevity, I shall do no more than quote the numbers, namely paragraphs 10, 14, 15 and 17: these are the questions that need to be addressed.
Although the Council Presidency has said it is a matter for Member States, and has passed the buck, it would have been interesting to hear whether there are any approaches which it would be worth pursuing.
There is one more point that I would like to mention, namely the question of the human rights clause which is to be incorporated into treaties with third countries, a demand which has in fact largely been realized in the development sphere, and for which the legal bases have also been created.
This shows that foreign policy can sometimes learn a thing or two from development policy.
Mr President, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs has drafted an extremely detailed report, which was discussed at length by the Committee and approved unanimously.
Every year the European Parliament examines the progress made towards a common foreign and security policy and every year we are forced to admit that progress has not exactly been decisive, to put it mildly.
Mr Spencer's aim was to bring a greater dimension to this question and to look at it from a broader perspective.
Bearing in mind that the common foreign and security policy is at a transitional stage and that foreign policy differs in nature from the other policies of the Union, he stresses - and he emphasized this in his speech earlier - the need for a common, rather than a single foreign policy which also highlights the role of the European Parliament, a role which is the subject of a great deal of discussion but which has yet to meet our expectations.
In addition to specific references to the mechanisms for preventing conflict, for which provision is made in the Amsterdam Treaty, the rapporteur has included an extremely balanced reference in his report to the recent nuclear tests in India and the thorny problem of the code of conduct for controlling the sale of arms.
There is insufficient time to comment on these questions individually.
I merely wish to say that the report examines all the crucial questions which occupy the Union and that, generallyspeaking, our group as a whole supports the report, with just a very small reservation of minor significance as regards the idea of converting the Commission's offices abroad into embassies.
Mr President, 1997 was not a good year for the CFSP.
The Council does not seem exactly prepared to make active use of the instruments of Community foreign policy.
What was achieved in Maastricht as the great step forward to a real common policy in that area has turned out to be a damp squib.
The Union must learn to refrain from making grand promises. That is a great pity for its relationship with the ordinary citizen.
The figures in Mr Spencer's excellent report speak volumes.
The number of Community actions even decreased in comparison with the previous year.
The Union is withdrawing into its shell.
That surely cannot be true.
In the Middle East, in the Great Lakes area, or in Latin America the Union is allowing others to run rings around it, and is paying for them to do so.
Last year was also the year of Agenda 2000.
I still fear that the Commission's financial perspectives are built on quicksand, but this is not a time for short-sighted penny-pinching.
Enlargement of the Union is after all one of the most important international challenges it faces in this decade.
These years are years of transition.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is being ratified.
Progress has been modest so far, however.
Experience will show how much Amsterdam has delivered.
The right of veto could set us back even further.
I hope that the Member States can look beyond their short-term interests and understand that their common interest lies solely in an effective common policy.
The obstructive tactics by which the French Government has prevented a genuine improvement in the code of conduct on the arms trade is a glaring example of the effects of the veto threat.
I only hope that ordinary citizens will understand that it is their governments, not this Parliament, which are responsible for this manifestation of impotence.
Mr President, in a process of transition towards a new world order characterized by unipolar attitudes and globalization, unfortunately the European Union is still not up to it.
This is because the political will and the appropriate mechanisms are lacking.
Unquestionably, what we already have is not being used enough. Also, the Treaties have not been adequately reformed in this respect.
Albania, Kosovo and Algeria, as well as the latest Iraq crisis, are examples of what the public is understandably so dissatisfied about.
The political and economic aspects are out of balance, and the terms undoubtedly need to be changed.
What should be the objectives of an EU common foreign and security policy?
First of all, security in Europe.
Secondly, for human rights and reduced poverty to be the main focus of external action, bearing in mind also the impetus provided by enlargement. In my opinion, we must first make sure that Member States' foreign policies are not too disparate.
Secondly, we must adopt more common positions and actions. And, of course, we need to anticipate events, using what could be termed "preventative diplomacy' .
There are obvious priorities.
I have already mentioned Kosovo, but we should not forget the Mediterranean, Cyprus and Turkey, the Middle East and Western Sahara.
This Parliament has requested that a common position be adopted on this.
I should like to know the Council's view.
And the matter of the International Criminal Court is still pending.
We should congratulate ourselves on the arms code, but not on the understanding reached on the Helms-Burton Act and the extraterritorial laws between the British presidency of the Council and the United States.
Personally, I think this understanding goes against our own interests and does not abide by the principles underlined so many times by this Parliament and the Member States themselves.
I think the report from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is along those lines.
Mr President, I think that the picture painted in the Spencer report is a fairly realistic reflection of the way citizens in Europe view Community policy.
The reality is that every time a major confrontation develops - remember Bosnia, think of Kosovo today, think too of the nuclear tests in India - the general impression is that the European Union seems powerless to act and fails to reach a consensus on how to react to actual developments outside its borders.
On that score it is and remains the case that, if one asked an ordinary citizen whether we have a credible and effective common foreign policy, there is no doubt what the answer would be.
Yet I think that the answer from Mr Cook contains a large element of truth, in that the core problem is a lack of political will among the Member States actually to achieve a common foreign policy.
We could also see that in the Barcelona process, not only in connection with the stalling of the peace process, for which of course Israel currently bears the greatest share of responsibility, but also in the laggardly way in which partnership agreements are concluded.
What we see are often blocking tactics which have everything to do with petty-minded national interests but nothing to do with a common foreign policy.
Mr President, the debate on the common foreign and security policy for 1997 evoked some quite contrasting opinions.
To begin with, I endorse entirely the report from Mr Spencer which clearly outlined the positions adopted by our Commission with regard to foreign affairs.
In other words, the report is excellent in that it contains justifiably strong criticisms concerning the current state of the CFSP.
In effect, and this is my second comment, we have scant reason to congratulate ourselves on the development of the CFSP since last year.
The situation is, to say the least, not encouraging, even if the President-in-Office of the Council endeavoured, with a measure of clarity and skill, to illustrate what has been achieved.
I would stress a number of items.
Institutionally, we are still waiting for the Amsterdam Treaty to be ratified, to the extent that we have still not achieved unity in terms of planning or vigilance, nor even a senior representative in the form of Mr or Mrs CFSP.
As regards the role of Parliament, within the context of the institutional agreement on the methods of financing the CFSP, whilst we may be delighted to see some progress with regard to the means of parliamentary control over the actions of the Council in this respect, we cannot help but notice that the documents supplied by the Council to date are somewhat short on detail and too lame to excite any enthusiasm in the more demanding parliamentarians.
Indeed, Mr Spencer deplored this situation in his address.
With regard to the substance of foreign policy questions, an assessment of the past year leaves us with something of a sour after-taste.
Many statements were made but few common positions and actions were pursued.
Moreover, the major dossiers were hardly surveyed by the European Union.
I might cite the case of Turkey.
Frankly, our relations with this major partner have not been conducted with consummate skill, with the result that today we find ourselves at a dead end.
Turkey continues to maintain a hostile stance, Greece and our Parliament continue to block the financial protocol, the Cyprus dossier has been sucked under and the Fifteen choose to assume different positions whereas we need to adopt a clear and consistent common position.
With regard to the Commission, we are still waiting for it to advise us of the document relating to the strategy to be adopted towards Turkey, which we have now been awaiting for some years.
This example shows us the dangers inherent in a lack of a genuine common foreign policy.
We are flying without instruments and this is not very effective.
If I may refer to the excellent report from Mr Tindemans, adopted a fortnight ago, I would make the same comment with regard to the security policy.
In fact, it is all a question of political will, others have said this and I would like to stress the point, nothing important will happen if we do not want it to.
Mr President, the annual report on progress achieved in implementing the CFSP, irrespective of those who drafted it, relates less to an assessment of the specific results of actions conducted in this context than the progress achieved towards promoting a shared Community responsibility, gradually eroding the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP as defined in the treaties, whereas the latter offers the only opportunity to exist and is the only measure of its effectiveness, as we point out in our Amendment No 10.
Regretfully, the report fails to mention, for want of effectiveness, any individual action by a Member State to the benefit of the whole of Europe, as in the case of Italy with regard to the Albanian crisis.
We might have hoped that the moderating role played by France in avoiding a disproportionate military action in the face of Iraqi obstruction could be invoked yet again in 1998.
No, the only genuine progress worth mentioning must be freed of any link with an individual Member State.
So the report prefers to linger on the major breakthroughs achieved by the Amsterdam Treaty which are, in its opinion, the shared Community responsibility for operational expenditure on the CFSP and the ability to take certain foreign policy decisions on a majority vote and, under that impetus, to advocate the institution of a common European diplomacy, beginning with the conversion of the Commission delegations into genuine diplomatic representations of the Union.
On the contrary, we consider it essential to reaffirm clearly that this is the purpose of our Amendment No 11, drawing a distinction between Commission delegations and the embassies of Member States, which latter enjoy only diplomatic status, as the main source of information required for initiatives undertaken within the context of the CFSP and which constitutes the main vector of their deployment.
On this unambiguous basis, close cooperation could be possible between the individual services and might prevent damaging confusion arising in the host countries.
Depending on the profile adopted by the CFSP in the future, whether serving a modest complementary function or a maximalist function as a replacement for national diplomacy, depending on whether it tends towards a variable geometry or multiplies the votes by majority, it will prove either effective or unrealistic.
Consequently, the ignorance of national parliaments, the ill-defined extension of its jurisdiction with regard to CFSP matters as sought by the European parliament, backed by the abuse of intergovernmental agreements already practised, do not bode well.
It is not in anyone's interest that the intergovernmental nature of the CFSP might soon assume a false front that conceals a quite different reality.
It would then slide in the direction of a purely declaratory and abstract exercise of an artificial and superficial nature.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the excellent words of our colleague Mr Souchet allow me to set aside the speech I had prepared and instead tell you how, in light of the minimalistic, realistic way in which our colleague Mr Spencer dealt with the subject under discussion, I would like to respond to Mr Cook's long statement and, whilst not seeking to reply individually to each item he raised, I would like to make the following points.
With regard to Yugoslavia, I appreciate the way in which he pointed out our sluggish response to the problem.
But we should bear in mind that we were motivated mainly by a belief in the legitimacy of the federal, Serbo-communist, Serbo-bolshevik yoke, as I prefer to call it.
With regard to the refugees, I understand his denunciation of the dilatory response of the Croatian and Serbian governments but, for my part, I also believe that it would have been better than forcing them to return to the place where they lived, where their houses had been destroyed, which only creates further cause for conflict.
I myself have helped house more than 300 orphans from Croatia and Bosnia with the help of the Christian solidarity group I chair.
I know these countries very well. I have passed through them and I believe that wisdom suggests that if we can keep Serbian refugees in Serbia and Croatians in Croatia, that is the way it should be.
Let us keep our dreams of a totally integrated human race for another time.
With regard to the Middle East, it is almost impossible to ignore the fact that nobody today speaks of the Lebanon.
But the problems existing in Israel and Palestine are closely related to those in that very country.
We have been told that the Syrian president Hafez-el-Assad is to arrive in France in July.
As I understand it, these are inter-state relations, but Hafez-el-Assad is a dictator just like Saddam Hussein.
He is probably an even worse dictator: the destruction of the town of Hamra, the assassination of the French ambassador Delamarre, the assassination of our paratroops from Drakkar.
Mr Hafez-el-Assad is coming to Paris, although Lebanon does not yet know freedom, occupied as it is in the south by Israel, in the north by Syria, and Samir Geagea has just experienced his 1500th day of detention, along with the majority of the Christian resistance forces.
There is a great deal to be said.
I just do not have the time.
Mr President, may I join with previous speakers and, in particular, the Presidency in thanking Mr Spencer for the very comprehensive and expertly produced report he has presented on the implementation of the CFSP in 1997.
He has considered every aspect and on many points I can agree with his analysis.
Mr Spencer himself points out that 1997 should in fact be viewed as a year of transition.
A year of transition in the sense that in Amsterdam new elements were added to the Treaty which would bring about changes in the foreseeable future to the effectiveness of the foreign policy pursued by the Union.
The picture that emerges from the reports shows that further improvements are needed on many points.
When it comes to more geopolitical questions, the Union is practically always able to reach common policy agreements.
I refer here in particular to the CFSP in the wider sense and have in mind the policy that has been and is being implemented in respect of, for example, enlargement of the European Union, which is also an important area of external policy.
I would also mention the initiatives in the field of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, the deepening of cooperation with Russia, the Ukraine and other CIS countries, attention to the Baltic region and the regional approach to countries of South-Eastern Europe.
The Commission has also produced, among other things, communications on relations with China and the new Trans-Atlantic agenda.
Initiatives which will all be followed up by consultations in a Council framework.
At the same time it is positive that the Union is playing a major role in the matter of more horizontal questions of human rights, democracy, nuclear safety, nonproliferation and mine clearance.
The Presidency has also given a number of examples of those.
I do agree with the report in that perhaps too little attention is being devoted to developments on the African continent.
No doubt a common position has been adopted on the prevention and resolution of conflicts in Africa, but the individual disputes in that area, with often terrible humanitarian consequences, perhaps do not feature sufficiently in the deliberations of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs.
Perhaps they are still inclined to regard Africa more as a subject for the Council of Ministers for Development and Cooperation.
But this time too it has to be noted, just as last year, that the Union is still in fact failing to react adequately when it comes to acute crisis situations.
When prompt decisions need to be taken, national reflexes often take over or, at most, consultations on the strategy to be pursued take place in a limited framework, that is, involving a small number of Member States.
Yes, I agree with Mr Cook: the political will to make use of existing instruments is sometimes lacking and, as I already pointed out in the debate on Mr Tindemans' report on the Union's defence policy last year, when a crisis arose in Albania following the pyramid scandal, we missed the opportunity to play a recognizable role by making use of the possibilities of the Western European Union in bringing the chaotic situation there under control.
I think it must also be said that we have perhaps again been too hesitant in deploying preventive resources in order to avert a spillover in the crisis surrounding Kosovo.
There have not even been the beginnings of a discussion on a possible request to the Western European Union to undertake an analysis of the situation and to make recommendations which would then be examined by the EU and used as a basis for any decision to be taken by it.
In fact the EU waited until NATO took responsibility for the matter.
The Western European Union remains more Sleeping than Beauty.
Will the Treaty amendments agreed last year in Amsterdam, once they are ratified, mean a change in the stance of the EU in such crisis situations and contribute to an increase in the effectiveness and visibility of our foreign policy? The appointment of a Mrs or Mr CFSP, who would bring more continuity and cohesion into our external policy, may indeed be a major step forward.
The establishment of planning and analysis capacity, drawing upon the combined knowledge and information of the Member States, the Commission and the Western European Union, may certainly represent value added.
The weak point remains of course the decision-making process.
Certainly the European Council can formulate a general basis for policy by voting unanimously, on which the General Affairs Council can subsequently decide by qualified majority, but the question remains of course how well such a concept would work in the particular case of more topical and acute questions on which decisions must be taken rapidly.
Fine, experience will be the test, and the next report will no doubt take a view on that.
I do entertain a certain optimism in my hopes for the new approach based on the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is an approach capable of promoting greater involvement of all the Member States, hence offering scope for the development of a broader support base for a common foreign policy.
A major contribution to this support base will be provided, and I emphasize this, by the European Parliament, not only by holding debates on current political situations and adopting resolutions, but also by being directly involved.
I am thinking here of visits by parliamentarians to third countries and of activities, such as election observer missions and the like, performed by parliamentarians.
This support base is of great importance, particularly in view of the forthcoming enlargement of the Union.
In addition I take the view that, as has already been stated, monetary union will exert a cohesive influence.
The common monetary policy will undoubtedly have a positive effect on other policy areas.
By giving concrete content to the new Treaty provisions, but also by then actually carrying out certain Petersberg Tasks, the Union can at least make a start on developing a common security policy.
In the longer term a common defence policy could evolve, through which the Union would be able to play a role in the European security architecture on an equal footing with other actors.
The current assessment is that, even where conflict situations are being played out within Europe or at its borders, we are not yet able to perform a key role on an equal footing.
That vacuum is quickly filled by others and the European Union is then usually approached exclusively in terms of its financial resources, as Mr Spencer has rightly pointed out.
Only a well prepared and implemented common foreign and security policy can bring about any change in this situation.
Mr President, first of all I want to welcome Mr Spencer's report.
He has managed to avoid that rather nagging tone which sometimes characterizes parliamentary contributions on foreign and security policy, which simply recite our growing list of failures. On the contrary, I think Mr Spencer has managed to achieve a positive tone.
The Presidentin-Office of the Council, Mr Cook, has assessed the British presidency's performance in this field, now we are halfway through the year, and I think he did it well. Allow me to contribute to this topical debate by saying that I agree with the President-inOffice of the Council that we really are very different, with different histories, and sometimes we are engaged in disagreements, but the fact is that there is a major contradiction between foreign policy and what we are doing in other fields.
In the context of Economic and Monetary Union, we have decided to launch the euro despite our great differences. This was even done under the British presidency, which is a good manager despite the fact that the UK is not taking part at the moment.
Nevertheless, in foreign policy we always bring up differences and problems. To sum up in a very fundamental statement, I believe that foreign policy projects and develops a country's domestic strength.
That has been true throughout history.
I would add that there is a clear demand for the EU's presence on the world stage. We are present and, despite our failures, we are developing our presence, for example with enlargement and with Russia.
There are also EU representatives in Bosnia and the Middle East.
Furthermore, they are there all the time, not just when the television cameras are there, and they even try to act with a certain amount of consistency. I welcomed the bravery of Mr Cook, the President-in-Office of the Council, in Jerusalem.
As for the United States, there was an example today of the sort of things that happen. In the Knesset , the speaker of Congress, Mr Gingrich, referred to the US Secretary of State as "the agent for the Palestinians' .
So far, I do not think we say such things about each other.
I believe improvements are needed, and we are continuing - I think - to consolidate everything, but some important instruments are missing. I do not think we went far enough at Amsterdam.
We have appointed a president of the European Central Bank, we have extended the troika, consolidating the Commission a bit, but then we have a Mr or Mrs CFSP which, at the moment, is an invisible post.
Parliament has managed to join in, in budgetary terms. Nevertheless, we are not taken into account when it comes to forming an interinstitutional agreement in order to listen to our recommendations and suggestions.
I think there is still time, not by changing the Treaty of Amsterdam but by trying to improve our relations.
So I welcome Mr Spencer's proposals in this respect.
Mr President, unfortunately the European Union's common foreign and security policy continues to be more a matter of wishful thinking than a reality.
That is why the Spencer report is quite right to stress that the public has not been given the impression of progress in the development of a European foreign policy.
The lack of an inter-institutional agreement on the right of the Parliament to be informed and consulted is also a weakness.
We can only observe with regret that there continues to be a mismatch between the EU's foreign policy and its trade policy activities.
Given the major foreign policy challenges of the European Union resulting from the enlargement process, the citizens of Europe must be allowed to participate in this process through the involvement of the European Parliament, not in order to throw a spanner in the works but to strengthen the acceptance of enlargement in Europe.
The European Union will be tested repeatedly against the yardstick of its ability to act in foreign policy matters.
It is important for the EU not only to speak politically with one voice but also to have available the necessary security policy instruments in order to take peace-keeping or peace-making measures, for the purposes of crisis prevention, whether it be in Albania or Kosovo.
The deteriorating situation in Kosovo is a priority for Austria as the next Council Presidency but as long as the political will is lacking to exercise real influence here, all initiatives threaten to become a demonstration of impotence, and the European Union runs the risk - as has already happened in the Balkans - of becoming an onlooker at an uncontrollable development and of letting slip the need to act.
Mr President, the title of the report, "The role of the Union in the world' , is nothing if not grandiose.
This grandiose title is followed by a total of 9 headings and 26 points.
And all of them are peevish, whingeing statements of the obvious, not one of which is bold enough to get to the heart of the matter.
Relations between the European Parliament and questions of foreign policy: there is no interpretation, Parliament's opinion is sought neither by the Council nor the Commission, decisions are not taken at a cross-institutional level which would make the demands of the Treaties binding.
And what about the common foreign and security policy itself: this has progressed from non-existence to inadequacy.
As the report says: public opinion does not value it.
That is a fact.
There is no coordination in arms exports.
But the report does not say why or how coordination can be achieved.
My third point relates to the Community values which it preaches; the following are not included as a sine qua non in the individual clauses of agreements with third countries: human rights and everything else which one could include in these agreements.
It makes no reference to the typical example of Turkey, which has no respect for anything but which....
(The president cut off the speaker)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unlike my colleague who preceded me I congratulate the President on his excellent report.
It is an important and well-written document because this debate is not resolved in the usual annual meeting but instead it is a great opportunity, firstly, for an analysis and in-depth clarification of the state of foreign policy and the role of Europe in the world; secondly, for a clear and strong awareness on the part of the European Parliament of its role, its prerogatives and its strength; and thirdly, for a precise and specific indication of proposals and suggestions which may lead to real progress in matters of foreign policy.
On this point, the European Parliament's claim of its right to be informed and consulted on international negotiations and bilateral and multilateral commercial agreements is significant and important.
Our Regulations, Mr President, should be adapted as soon as possible to reinforce the role and powers of Parliament, to guarantee information and consultation which are efficient and detailed.
At present, the Council and the Commission snub Parliament: with the information given intermittently to the Parliament they are not fulfilling their obligations with regard to the Treaty, and above all, their duties with regard to the citizens of Europe.
This is a Parliament which represents 300 million citizens, it was elected by direct universal suffrage in fifteen Member States and it is the strongest democratic Assembly in the world.
Given this democratic strength, we must demand a greater role for the Parliament to contribute to giving the European Union an authentic foreign policy which, today, as we are all aware, is lacking or is completely insufficient.
Mr President, I would like to thank the President-in-Office and the Commission for their statements this afternoon and Mr Spencer for his report.
May I begin by congratulating the President-in-Office on securing a ground-breaking agreement on the EU code of conduct on arms exports this Monday.
I welcome the strengthening of the eight criteria agreed at the Luxembourg and Lisbon European Councils which mean that arms exports from the EU must not be used for internal repression, external aggression or supporting terrorism.
The code of conduct will enhance the effectiveness of the common foreign and security policy.
Can I, however, make the plea that the Council's annual consolidated report on the code is published, so strengthening transparency and giving the European Parliament an opportunity to debate and comment on the code's implementation.
On the operation of the CSFP in 1997, it is fair to note that there have been a number of successes including democratic consolidation in central and eastern Europe.
The creation of a policy planning and early warning unit and the office of the High Representative, outlined in the Amsterdam Treaty, and already mentioned this afternoon will help improve the visibility of the CSFP.
However, further work will have to be done on creating closer organizational links between the WEU and EU which under the protocol on Article J VII of the Amsterdam Treaty must be in place within a year of the Treaty entering into force.
This is necessary to make the CSFP, the Petersberg Tasks mentioned by the Commissioner and the European security and defence identity a reality.
An inter-parliamentary delegation between the WEU Assembly and the European Parliament would assist in this task.
In 1998 we have witnessed further progress under the CSFP and many of these have been outlined by the President-in-Office, particularly, I would say, the successful launch of the historic enlargement process.
Over the coming year, I hope the Council will establish an ever closer working relationship with the Parliament as the CSFP continues to evolve.
Mr President, with reference to Mr Spencer's report, the House has in fact been in general agreement that little progress has been made.
I, too, concur with this.
I can also agree with a further three points.
Action is notable by its absence when it comes to the will to prevent conflicts, for example in the Balkans, as we have heard.
Further, there is the matter of interinstitutional collaboration and formal regulations.
I, too, would like to draw attention to the importance of proper Parliamentary involvement, if this is to be considered a project of the people.
I agree with the comments made regarding CFSP and the analysis unit, but I would like to emphasize that I regard this analysis unit as a support to the Council, not some lofty new institution.
However, there are points I must disagree with.
As a Dane, I am somewhat alarmed at the good intentions described in the report, overshadowed as they are by armament and proposals to integrate the WEU into the Union.
Naturally, I must distance myself from that.
The Petersberg agreement is accurately represented, and I endorse this.
The Amsterdam Treaty describes what could practically be called the prospects of welding together the foreign policies of Member States - as Mr Cook, the Foreign Secretary, said previously - while respecting the wishes of each individual country.
We must beware of being so ambitious that the project will become untenable.
New security structures alone do not produce results; the crucial factor is the will of the Member States.
Mr President, Mr Cook made an impressive statement about the achievements during the British presidency.
He forgot to mention that the football championships will start in June; maybe that is also due to the British efforts.
There is an abundance of talkative well-wishers within the Union; the Council issued 124 declarations during 1997 on foreign policy.
Did they change the reality? The answer is No.
In the Spencer Report as it stands today there is the wish to integrate the WEU into the Union.
Maybe some people will have a clear conscience after that.
Everybody is talking about the weather, nobody is doing anything about it.
Everybody is talking about foreign policy but where is the substance? If too much time is consumed by secondary matters there is less time for crucial issues like enlargement and the partial inability to act.
General politics remains the heart of the matter within the Union.
Everybody wishes to preserve peace and stability but the willingness for joint action remains limited as was shown in Albania.
One example, as the Middle East peace process slowly dies - thanks to Mr Netanyahu - despite heavy Union investment in the area, the whole prospect of a common, foreign and security policy must be re-examined including, in this case, economic and other sanctions.
The Spencer Report clearly shows that there is almost no progress in the foreign policy field.
Congratulations to Mr Spencer for stating the obvious.
- Mr President, I find myself in sympathy with most of the objectives that have been expressed in the course of a very full debate in which all those taking part spoke with vigour and obvious commitment.
If I can straight away dispose of the one speech with which I did not agree.
I could not find myself in agreement with what Mr Anthony said about refugee return in the former Yugoslavia.
Let us not forget the basis on which those refugees were created.
They were created by vile, violent and ethnically-based confrontation.
It is a very important as we construct a new Europe that we construct a new Europe on principle of ethnic pluralism and tolerance of minorities; that is after all one of the standards we apply to countries seeking to be members of the Union and it should also be a standard we apply to countries that seek to be in trade agreements with us.
I said earlier this afternoon how much we welcome President Nelson Mandela coming to Cardiff.
We cannot celebrate the abolition of apartheid in Africa, only to tolerate it being created at home in a corner of Europe.
Otherwise, I find myself in much agreement with many of the objectives stated here.
The one point that I did feel running through the discussion is that there was sometimes a failure to grasp that it was not enough to state the aspiration in order to deliver the outcome.
I was particularly impressed at Mr Carnero González listed as failures of the common foreign and security policy: Albania, Algeria, Kosovo, Western Sahara, the Middle East peace process.
There are immense problems in the world and there are some severe cases of conflict.
I believe we are setting ourselves a totally impossible task which is bound to leave us all with a sense of frustration if we make the test of a common foreign and security policy whether it has resolved all conflicts within the world.
First of all, that is unattainable.
Secondly, I would also counsel colleagues against a modern form of imperialism by thinking that the solutions that we ourselves decide are the right solutions in Europe are necessarily acceptable to those who are involved in conflict in other continents of the world.
We have an obligation to offer our best offices to assist them in finding a solution and to take measures against those who willfully and irresponsibly prolong conflict or prolong violence.
Within those two objectives of seeking to achieve a resolution of conflict and to deter people from the use of violence as a means of resolving conflict, we should ourselves find a common position among our countries.
That will not always produce the solution but we certainly have an obligation to find that common position.
If you look back over the events of recent months, on a number of these conflict issues, Europe has indeed adopted a common position, has sought to seek to achieve solutions.
It has not always succeeded and in those cases where we have success, like Bosnia, the process of clawing back from the bitter hatreds of recent years is inevitably going to take time if not a generation to complete.
I would ask the Members of the European Parliament, whilst they are perfectly entitled to demand a common concern and common action from the Council, to recognize that will not necessarily produce outcomes and will certainly not produce outcomes that will be acceptable in the immediate short term.
Finally, can I pick up one or two colleagues who have referred to the mechanisms provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty to improve the common foreign and security policy.
It is indeed the case that when we have the planning and early warning unit and when we have the High Representative in place, we will have a better mechanism for giving expression to the common positions we adopt.
They will, of course, not have any legal basis until the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified.
That is up to the Member States.
Colleagues within the European Parliament can go back to Member States to make sure that they are achieving all possible speed in making sure that they do ratify.
I am pleased to report to you that we have now almost completed the parliamentary processes in Britain for ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
If other Parliaments achieve the same timescale, we can achieve ratification within the next few months and that will give a legal basis to these steps forward in common foreign and security policy.
In the meantime, we have used our Presidency to take forward the preparation so that from the moment we have the legal basis to proceed we can proceed quickly with the changes in personnel, the arrangements, the provision for resources in place so that within the legal basis we can act immediately.
I end with one plea to all Members, I have listened with great interest to a number of speeches this afternoon demanding a common foreign and security policy and condemning the Council for lack of political will in achieving it.
I am bound to say that in each of the countries from which I heard speakers speak eloquently and passionately this afternoon, I could recite lists of cases in the past five months when their Member State has held out against the others in achieving a common foreign and security policy; particularly in the case of Madam Lalumière who made the most rigorous demands for a common foreign and security policy.
Building such a common position is not easy, it requires compromise all round.
We will never get a common foreign and security policy by one nation demanding that the rest of Europe adopt their common foreign and security policy.
It will require trade-offs between us and if we are going to achieve it our best prospect of achieving it is if we go into it openly recognizing that all countries are going to have to work for the common good and at times are going to have to abandon their own national positions in order to do so.
Sometimes, and my own country reserves that right, we will have to say no we cannot abandon this particular national perspective because it is too important.
We have to retain that right to defend a national interest.
That makes it difficult, of course, to oppose a common foreign and security policy but I would submit to Parliament that it is also an essential part of making sure that we get the popular agreement and the popular support for the legitimacy of the European Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
South Africa
The next item consists of the statements of the Council and the Commission on the situation in South Africa.
- Mr President, I should like to say how pleased I am that Parliament has chosen to debate this important subject at this important time.
As Parliament will know, since 1994 the European Union has made a series of commitments to help South Africa through its transition from the apartheid regime.
We remain determined to continue to help South Africa during the economic and political transformation in its society.
We in Europe have seen how achieving common goals of economic development and prosperity binds societies together.
We would all recognize that trade and cooperation between nations is much more likely to bring them closer together.
The best way for the European Union to help South Africa is to allow South Africa greater opportunities for trade and economic development that will help that country to heal the divisions in its society caused by so many years of hatred and oppression.
I also believe that South Africa has the potential to be one of the catalysts for growth and development in Africa as a whole.
The European Union must continue to do everything it can to help to build on that potential.
Many of the European Union's commitments which I mentioned earlier have already been fulfilled.
One undertaking we made was to offer South Africa qualified accession to the Lomé Convention and I am pleased to say that this accession will finally enter into force on 1 June now that it has been ratified by all Member States.
I look forward to South Africa's full participation in the political dialogue between the ACP and the European Union that lies at the heart of the Lomé relationship.
The European Union and South Africa also concluded a science and technology agreement in November 1996 and talks on separate agreements covering fisheries and wines and spirits continue to make progress.
In terms of aid, the European Community has committed substantial development assistance of over ECU 100m per year to South Africa through the European programme for reconstruction and development which will continue at least until 1999.
I can tell Parliament that it is a UK presidency priority to make as much progress as possible in the negotiation of a trade and cooperation agreement with South Africa and on the related agreements on fisheries and wines and spirits.
In the last few months we have come a long way but I believe that there is a political will to go substantially further before the end of June.
The trade negotiations have been slow in the past but they gained a renewed impetus last autumn with a detailed South African offer.
Chief negotiators on both sides believe that a deal which is fair and beneficial to both sides is within reach.
Indeed, on 30 March the General Affairs Council asked Coreper, together with the Commission, to examine options for improving the European Community offer.
Talks are now at a critical stage.
Efforts will be needed on both sides to show flexibility.
The presidency has remained in close touch with the South Africans throughout as well as working closely with the Commission and other Member States.
I am encouraged by the repeated statements from South African ministers of their determination to conclude an agreement.
Both sides will need to look again at areas such as increased coverage of overall trade in order to reach a WTO-compatible agreement.
Any agreement will also have to meet the concerns of both sides about their offensive economic interests, for example in the agricultural and industrial sectors.
Naturally, taking account of Community sensitivities and economic interests remains a key objective for our negotiators.
Throughout the negotiations the Council has been very aware of the potential effects an agreement may have on the neighbouring countries of the South African Development Community.
Both the European Union and South Africa have repeatedly made clear that the concerns of those countries will be taken into account during the negotiations.
The European Union/South Africa Agreement must be positive for the whole region.
With this in mind the Commission has said that it will consider technical assistance to countries of the Southern Africa Customs Union during any economic adjustment period and I strongly believe that the economic benefits an agreement would bring to South Africa will be shared by South Africa's neighbours. I would like to take this opportunity to thank honourable Members for the interest they have shown in the Council's efforts to reach an agreement with South Africa.
In particular, I would like to thank members of the delegation for relations with South Africa whom I met earlier in the presidency and whose expressions of support for the negotiating process have been extremely welcome.
I hope all honourable Members will continue to support these efforts during the critical weeks to come and in the future when the final agreement will require the assent of this body.
The European Union will have a further opportunity to show the importance it attaches to relations with South Africa at the European Council in Cardiff when President Mandela will be having lunch with the assembled heads of state or government.
I would like to reiterate my belief that with hard work and good will on both sides a satisfactory result to the trade negotiations can be achieved.
I hope we can continue to make rapid progress towards concluding the agreement and honouring the commitments we have made to South Africa.
I again thank this House for its continued interest and support and sense of urgency and priority that a trade agreement is reached with South Africa.
Mr President, it will soon be three years since we launched an ambitious set of negotiations with the new South Africa, after the Union had set itself a unique goal: that of establishing a long-term framework for cooperation with this important partner, that would underpin its historical transition to democracy and reflect the dual nature of its economy.
ln April last year, we had the pleasure to welcome South Africa as the 86th member of the Convention of Lomé.
At the ACP/EC Council of Ministers in Luxembourg, a special protocol was signed which gave South Africa qualified access to the Lomé Convention.
This fact marked the conclusion of the negotiations on the first track of the envisaged framework for EU/South Africa cooperation.
But after three years of hard work, we have to note with some regret that the second track, that will lead us to a bilateral trade, development and cooperation agreement, is not yet finalized.
We have made a lot of progress and tentatively agreed on most sections of the future agreement.
But work remains to be done in several important areas before we can conclude.
Last month we had our 18th round of negotiations and a further round is planned for 10 and 11 June.
At several points the gap between the EU and South Africa remains to be bridged.
This being said, I believe that there is still a good chance to finish the work soon.
There remains a window of opportunity for us to use.
The Commission is making every effort to complete these bilateral negotiations with South Africa before we enter into the post-Lomé negotiations next autumn.
On the South African side, we also understand that there is a wish to conclude the agreement with the EU before the start of the electoral campaign for the country's next general elections that are due to take place in the first half of 1999.
What are the main outstanding issues? Firstly, a few problems remain on non-trade issues, notably on the wording of our proposed non-execution clause and on the question of the future financial resources that will be available for development cooperation with South Africa.
No financial amounts will be mentioned in the agreement, but the Community is called upon to give the political reassurance that financial assistance to South Africa will indeed be continued beyond the year 2000.
Secondly, several issues are still outstanding in the area of trade-related aspects, which are essential to any free trade arrangement.
Further discussion and negotiation will be necessary to agree on precise undertakings in the areas of anti-dumping, safeguards, competition policy, government procurement, intellectual property and maritime transport.
Finally, some real obstacles need to be resolved in the trade sector in order to arrive at an agreement with South Africa that meets the principles which the Community considers essential, and to which I will refer briefly.
The first principle is its full compliance with WTO requirements.
As you know, it is widely understood that a free-trade agreement should cover not less than 90 % of total trade between the parties in order to avoid possible interpretative discussions in the context of the World Trade Organization.
The current EU offer covers 89 % of imports from South Africa.
The South African offer proposes to liberalize 81 % of its own imports from the European Union.
Both offers therefore represent a significant step towards improved market access, but they are not attractive enough to the other side, and they may not be sufficient to secure the WTO compatibility of the agreement. The time has come for both sides to increase the coverage of their respective trade offers.
We know it is not an easy step to make, because it touches on sensitive sectors and interests on both sides.
But we need to move in this direction while bearing in mind the two principles of reciprocity and asymmetry which underpin our trade talks.
Tariff elimination on the European Union side will in principle be quicker and achieved within 10 years.
The South African offer is based on a 12 year transitional period.
If we can move towards additional trade concessions, we would secure deeper improvements in market access and, at the same time, a significant element of differentiation that would take account of the differences of development between the two sides.
The second principle is coherence with EU common policies.
The trade agreement with South Africa must be coherent with existing European Union policies such as the European Union's common commercial policy and, in particular, the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy.
South Africa is the first case in the Union's history of a preferential agreement where the objective of free trade also applies to agriculture.
The bulk of the European Union's agricultural concessions to South Africa are scheduled to begin after 2003 or 2005, so that they can dovetail with progress in the CAP reforms.
Some agricultural products will, for the time being, remain excluded from tariff elimination.
But even for these products, partial liberalisation may be considered in certain cases and a regular review should be foreseen.
Tariff concessions are also envisaged on fisheries products but they remain conditional upon the progress achieved in the negotiations for a separate fisheries agreement.
The third principle is the coherence with the provisions of agreements with other preferential partners.
Our agreement with South Africa must also be consistent with the European Union's existing external agreements, with particular attention to Mediterranean countries and the countries of the ACP group.
Fine-tuning will be necessary in order to protect the key export interests of these countries at the European Union market, but also to assure that the terms of SA access to the EU market is comparable with that of countries in a similar position.
Consistency will also be sought in the area of rules of origin.
Finally, the fourth principle is that we must have a strong developmental dimension, for the benefit of South Africa and its neighbours.
It is our definite objective to ensure that the EU/SA agreement will have a positive developmental impact not only for South Africa itself, but also for the southern African region and the ACP group at large.
From the outset of the negotiations two years ago, we began a process of regular consultations with the ACP group and various sub-groups whom we meet regularly.
Based on what we have heard during this process, we are confident that, if successfully worked out, the agreement between the European Union and South Africa will be of benefit not only to both parties, but also to many others that have strong economic ties with South Africa.
How can we assure the positive impact that we are aiming for? I would say that the answer is in political commitment informed by sound economic analysis.
The political commitment is there.
We are still working on the analysis.
In our view the impact of this European Union/South Africa free-trade agreement will be felt in three concentric circles.
First, there are benefits to accrue to the BLNS countries - Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland - the four neighbours of South Africa which belong to the South Africa Customs Union, SACU.
Second, there will be benefits for the SADC region - the broader circle of 14 countries covering the whole of Southern Africa.
And third, we have to look at the wider ACP family.
We expect ongoing studies to confirm that the free trade agreement will bring significant gains for consumers and entrepreneurs alike.
The business community will have access to a cheaper and more diversified range of supplies for their inputs and capital goods and they will thus stand better prospects for investing, exporting and hiring additional staff.
Job creation and an investment drive in the region are expected to be the main positive effects of our free trade agreement with South Africa, and will be enhanced by a more intense economic cooperation.
The principles which guide the Union in its negotiations with South Africa give no ground for controversy.
They echo the ambitions of the new South Africa, which has placed itself at the forefront of an 'African Renaissance' .
As the European Council prepares itself to greet President Mandela in Cardiff next month, it is essential for us to ensure that the Community translates its commitments into a generous and innovative agreement that will foster trade, enhance development and promote peace and stability in the region.
As we enter into a decisive phase of these ambitious negotiations with South Africa, we are fully aware that the agreement we shall reach is of importance to many others and will be seen by many ACPs as a crucial test for the future of Lomé itself.
It is for us to demonstrate that free trade can take place in a developmental context and to reconcile mutual interests with solidarity.
I hope our Member States will join us in expressing these views and if this is so in Cardiff, I am confident we will succeed very soon.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner and congratulate the UK presidency on the clear commitments they have made to these trade and development talks.
I would also like to thank the Minister of State himself for his willingness to prioritize this matter with us in the European Parliament.
As they have both said, we have reached a very critical stage in these negotiations.
Neither of them actually mentioned the fact that we have had the postponement of the nineteenth round which was due to take place this week.
This is a very worrying delay in a very difficult process.
It is one that I have been aware of since I was the rapporteur on the interim agreement.
However, in the light of the South African negotiating team's willingness now to put forward a new - and significantly improved - offer of possibly 85 % product coverage, does the Council anticipate that there will be commensurate adjustments coming from the Commission in the negotiations on our side? Let us be clear.
The South Africans now are saying that they are willing to make substantial adjustments themselves in order that we can see some clear progress.
Unless the European Union is prepared to take clear initiatives to revitalize these talks, we risk jeopardizing the whole process.
I do not want the President-in-Office to think that I am alarmist but the reality is that the EU has only two weeks to prepare an appropriate response which can ensure that the essential elements of the trade components of the negotiations are concluded and ready for discussion in Coreper the following week.
Naturally, we do not anticipate a final or complete agreement but we should aim for 'fine-tuning' and no more during the Austrian presidency.
This will happen if we have substantially agreed the main and most contentious trade issues.
Obviously asymmetry has to be taken out of the cupboard and given a good dusting down and has to be discussed very fully in the negotiations.
The Commission has mentioned that already.
In the context of a global changing market, any agreement on the liberalization of trade set to take place in the timescales envisaged would be unlikely to survive.
There is the reform of the CAP, there are the new GATT negotiations, so is it not likely that they will be both outdated and meaningless in the timescale being dealt with? Let us be prepared to get back to basics.
Let us stop getting bogged down by product-by-product wrangling.
We need to be generous.
President Mandela is approaching the end of his presidency after showing courage and unrelenting determination to ensure a better future for South Africans.
We have a clear part to play.
The President-in-Office may recall that in January I asked him in Strasbourg if it was possible that we could invite President Mandela to Cardiff to sign an agreement.
He is now coming to Cardiff to say farewell to heads of state - and to savour the delights of the capital city of Wales!
Would it not be icing on the cake if we could acknowledge at that time that broad agreements had been reached between the European Union and his country of South Africa?
Mr President, I also want to have a more global approach to this problem and step back somewhat from the details of the negotiations.
When I was a minister, I myself had to take part in various negotiations in the Council of Ministers, including those relating to transit agreements with Austria and Switzerland, and I know how you can get bogged down in details if you lose sight of the whole picture.
When South Africa, after a long, dark period of apartheid, achieved a very honourable return to democracy the Western World rang with laudatory declarations and promises for the future of the country.
The European Union too rallied behind those declarations and promises.
The economic boycott which South Africa had had to endure was to be transformed into economic cooperation, and South Africa was to get generous aid from the European development funds.
That was the picture shortly after the achievement of majority rule.
And, happily, it came to fruition.
That has all been detailed again by the President-in-Office of the Council and by Mr Pinheiro.
South Africa receives considerable financial aid to overcome the effects of apartheid and those projects are faring well, as far as I have heard.
The major problem, however, is in the trade agreement, which has been dragging on for three years now.
Precisely that agreement is of great importance to South Africa because, after the years of economic boycott, South African agriculture and industry need a chance to grow and export, to Europe as well.
That is indeed the only real way to fight poverty in South Africa and to stimulate employment, also for the black population. There is 40 % unemployment in the country, especially among young people.
That is far too high.
We have to realize that.
It represents a grave danger for stability and perhaps even for democracy in that country.
The increasing crime rate is also bound up with that.
Against that background it is hard to understand why the negotiations are dragging on so long, and it is also hard to understand why they have got bogged down in such details.
Of course South Africa has also had problems.
We are well aware of that, particularly in relation to the surrounding countries, and that is also a serious point.
But the real brake on the negotiations is in the hands of the Member States which have refused to make concessions, particularly in the area of agriculture.
That is the nub of the problem.
My group considers that it is high time to put a stop to that insidious process of detailed negotiations and to make a gesture towards South Africa.
This means that every Member State must give some ground.
But the result can be a real agreement.
We think that when President Mandela comes to Cardiff - I have had the pleasure of meeting President Mandela several times - that generous gesture must be made to him.
Perhaps the heads of government must have the courage simply to draw a line under the negotiations and say "let us go ahead and do it' .
We want to reach out a hand to Mandela and we want South Africa to be able to conclude good agreements with Europe and thereby gain a chance to develop its economy.
We need that, Mr President.
Hence my general political appeal, avoiding the endless details that are being dished up again now.
Madam President, I would like to thank the Council and the Commission for the statements they made before Parliament today.
We are all disappointed at the rate of progress in the negotiations for the trade cooperation and development agreement with South Africa but it is important that the end result of the negotiations is an agreement which is beneficial to the long-term interest of both parties to these negotiations.
South Africa is the major economic force in sub-Saharan Africa and the European Union is its principal trading partner.
It is clear that any agreement will have far-reaching implications, not just for our future relationship with the Republic of South Africa but also with its neighbouring countries.
Parliament should take the opportunity presented by today's debate to reaffirm its commitment to the political aim of reaching a wide-ranging and comprehensive agreement with South Africa which is fair to the interests of both parties.
I would like to express my full confidence in Commissioner Pinheiro and his team of negotiators who I know will make every effort to conclude an agreement in line with the negotiating mandate they have been given by the Council of Ministers; a mandate which did not reflect the public statements or commitments given by heads of state or government to President Mandela which, of course, raised very highly the level of expectations in South Africa.
In April the Commission officials put forward a series of proposals which would allow a level of openness of 95 %, a significant improvement on previous European proposals.
I hope that South Africa will shortly be able to respond to this improved offer and that every effort will now be made to conclude the negotiations as near as possible to the target date of mid-1998 or at latest by the end of the year.
I would also like to take this opportunity to say in my capacity as chairman of Parliament's delegation for relations with South Africa, that I and my delegation colleagues have had extensive discussions with South African government ministers and representatives of NGOs concerning the European programme for reconstruction and development in South Africa.
It is my belief that this aid programme continues to make a valuable contribution towards the promotion of the economic developments of the disadvantaged within South Africa and I hope that this programme will be continued after 1999.
I will conclude by inviting the Commission to submit a proposal for the continuation of the EPRD to Parliament and the Council as quickly as possible for our consideration in good time before the end of the present programme.
Mr President, what began as the start of a new era has in reality been a malodorous affair up to now.
The dual approach of South Africa involving qualified membership of the Lomé Convention and bilateral negotiations geared to free trade is the right one.
The results in practice have been less appealing.
Exclusion of 45 % of agricultural products is in conflict with the spirit of that approach.
The Union must make a generous gesture.
What is at issue here is an asymmetric agreement with a country in which, for the moment, everything is not as it should be.
The Union must prepare a follow-up reconstruction and development programme. When the current one runs out in 1999, it merits immediate continuation.
I should like to hear from the Council and the Commission whether more attention can be devoted in the aid-giving process to the security aspects of development.
South Africa is ravaged by crime, and a culture of violence has taken a grip on the country.
There must be more control of arms flows.
Perhaps the Council can also comment on the action programme of the Union on small arms and the conference it recently held in South Africa.
Mr President, the advancement and the conclusion of negotiations between South Africa and the Union marks, in our view, a vital step forward.
The stakes, as the President-in-Office of the Council reminded us, consist in consolidating the human and democratic progress achieved in that country to contribute to a development generating business and jobs and to promote, through South Africa and its extensive influence throughout southern Africa, stability, peace and the future development of an entire part of the African continent.
To this end, we hope that the next meeting between President Mandela and European Union leaders may record not only further advances in the negotiation process, but also the ability to bring them to a conclusion.
To achieve this, the Commission and the Council must provide evidence, as their representatives have just confirmed, of the generous spirit that spurs European governments forward in their relations with South Africa and provide a measure of the mutually advantageous consequences that might derive from the furtherance of economic relations between the European Union and South Africa.
Of course, the promotion of interactive relations with South Africa must not cause us to sacrifice a production sector in the Union, particularly agriculture, which too often serves as a common currency in agreements between the Union and Third World countries.
But in this case, the problems are not comparable.
Not a great deal of our production is truly competitive, due to the problem of distance and the reversal of seasons which may contribute towards promoting complementarity as opposed to competition.
We must pay great attention to these matters.
So, within the context of a necessarily asymmetrical approach, we must spread the spirit of solidarity that binds us through all production sectors in the Union.
In addition, by reviewing the product exclusion list on an annual basis, we will better understand the competitive situations and will be able to restrict the number of products concerned from the outset.
To conclude, I would say that our co-development and solidarity actions should be expressed through other instruments of the Union, such as direct financial aid or the Lomé Convention.
With this in mind, I would hope that the Commission and the Council might seek in the coming weeks to conclude an economic agreement which would reflect the support of the people of Europe for those who conquered apartheid.
Madam President, I would like to express the grave concern of my group over the state of the negotiations between the Union and South Africa.
Years ago the European Parliament had already formulated very precise proposals taking account of the legacy of apartheid and of the need for regional integration, and making a clear appeal for asymmetry for the benefit of South Africa.
The Union proposals that are still on the table make no response whatsoever to the demands which had been very clearly formulated by the European Parliament.
I would like to focus attention on four points.
Firstly, the problem of inadequate access for South Africa's agricultural products to our market, while at the same time heavily subsidized farm products from the Union wreak havoc on the South African market.
Thus, on the point of consistency with other EU policy sectors, the European Union must examine its own conscience.
Secondly, protectionism with regard to certain finished products from South Africa.
Thirdly, concessions which mean very little in the short term or come into effect so late that by that time the exporters have long been forced off the South African market.
Finally, the point of loss of income from customs revenue, for Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland: no satisfactory proposal is currently on the table from the European Union.
Hence my appeal: let us indeed be generous.
Let us be innovative, for up to now this has by no means been the case.
Madam President, when South Africa achieved the impossible and had a peaceful transition to democracy, the whole world applauded the inspiration which President Mandela gave us.
The whole world also applauded the sacrifices made by the front line states in leading up to that achievement: Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and the other states.
All of them have a very specific vested interest in the outcome of these talks because those countries are locked in to a protectionist regime which benefitted them.
It was not that they wished it but that was the system.
I am not convinced yet that the proposals from the European side are going to replace that dependency which they have been landed with.
I would echo the sentiments from all sides in the House for generosity and I am very encouraged by the unanimity with which this is being approached.
This is a time when Europe can come to a conclusion and sweep aside some of the detailed objections from vested interest and come to Cardiff and say to President Mandela: we applaud you, we salute you but not just with fine words but with action.
I echo the spirit of the House and I ask the Council and the Commission to take this as one of their top priorities.
Madam President, it is regrettable that no real progress has been made in the important negotiations between South Africa and the EU on trade policy.
For more than three years South Africa&#x02BC;s democratic government has had to fight against a discriminatory trade policy on the part of the EU.
The EU is South Africa&#x02BC;s major trading partner.
Nevertheless, some countries are pursuing a protectionist policy with regard to products such as wine, fish and agricultural produce.
For example, the EU subsidizes tinned tomatoes and thus completely ousts South African tomatoes from their own market, resulting in growing unemployment. This is particularly damaging because it is primarily women that are affected, each of whom, by working in this industry, supports 7-8 people.
The white population continues to own 87 % of all land.
One-third of the population is unemployed, one-third has work and one-third has informal work.
The problems facing South Africa are substantial.
It will, for example, take at least 20 years to get to grips with the housing shortage.
South Africa is a country that has risen from apartheid and political oppression.
There is a broad-based political movement that is resolutely fighting to create a new South Africa - something which none of us who for many years worked in the antiapartheid movement dared even to dream about.
It is especially important that the EU should support this young democracy in its battle for peace and stability and that it should help to increase the prosperity of the country.
South Africa has now made further concessions in the negotiations.
The Presidency has a special responsibility for ensuring that the EU is now finally ready to sign this agreement.
It would be both significant and fitting if Nelson Mandela were to be permitted to put his name to this important agreement for South Africa while he is still President.
Olof Palme once said "Politics is a question of the will' .
Now is the time for the EU to show that will!
Madam President, now that South Africa has become a model of democracy, an exception in that part of the world, we in the European Union should do everything to support that process.
Let us also be clear: at this time when the Truth Commission under the chairmanship of Archbishop Tutu is working to dispel frustration, hatred, violence and oppression, a word of support and appreciation, admiration even, is worth a lot.
Certainly, when we hear Mr Cook, as President-in-Office of the Council, in his speech earlier saying that we must do everything to promote democratization in the world and we then proceed in a childish, indeed, petty manner to refuse to allow access to our market and to sign an association agreement, then I think there is only one thing we have to add for the British Presidency: no Presidency has more to do than the present Presidency in Cardiff, when President Mandela, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, comes to speak to all the members of the European Council, in order to hand him an agreement ready to sign.
We are counting on the British Presidency to know clearly how to play things, but we also know that the resistance does not emanate from the Commission and it is not Parliament that is resisting the agreement. It is the fault of the Council and the Members of the Council that no agreement can be reached and that does not do you credit, Mr Cook.
Madam President, I too welcome the steps that have been taken to conclude a trade agreement under the British presidency and the personal commitment of the President-in-Office but I hope that these efforts will be rewarded so that when President Mandela comes to Cardiff he will not simply be thanking European leaders for help in the past during the apartheid years but will be able to thank them for taking steps to achieve a full and fair trade deal.
Commissioner Pinheiro said that the need was for a political commitment informed by sound economic analysis.
I have to say there is also a need here for a moral dimension; a recognition that business-as-usual EU agricultural protectionism is causing real suffering in South Africa.
Mr Henderson mentioned the work of the EU South Africa delegation but what are we to say when we meet South African Parliamentarians who tell us that surplus EU beef in Namibia is destroying beef production in Southern Africa or that subsidized EU fruit and vegetables are undercutting domestic production and destroying the South African canning industry.
Earlier this year the largest canning firm in South Africa laid off two thousand seasonal and four hundred permanent workers.
High tariffs in the EU and cheap EU subsidized exports to South Africa were cited as the major factors.
In the context of up to 50 % unemployment, the impact of those job losses is clearly disastrous.
If the EU had been more forthcoming three years ago, this might have been avoided and those jobs saved.
One could go on product by product, category by category.
There are also as the President-in-Office I am sure knows, serious problems with regard to dairy products and the South African Government needs more time to conclude a regional strategy before it opens its markets to further imports of subsidized products from the EU.
The problem really has been this going on category by category, this book-keeping attitude and what is obviously now needed is the generosity and goodwill that various Members have spoken of.
I should say in conclusion and with regard to Mr Wijsenbeek's remarks about the problems in the Council, that if some of the Members here had been able to convince their own national governments of this attitude we might be having fewer problems now.
It is at least heartening that this House is united.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union shares in the responsibility for the democratic and economically prosperous development of South Africa.
Given the tussle over questions of detail which are at times hard to explain, it may reasonably be asked what market disruptions the European Union has to fear. It is the largest trading community in the world.
Millions of jobs in our countries are accounted for by export activity which makes a major contribution to European prosperity.
However, with 373 million consumers the European Union is also an exceptionally important import market which should not be subject to any protectionist barriers, and certainly not in relation to developing countries which are dependent on access to world markets and which urgently need the income from exports in order to deal successfully with their transformation processes.
South Africa also urgently needs a trade policy outlook in order to secure sustainable development in peace and stability.
This will be to the benefit of the entire region of southern Africa, as has rightly been said a number of times.
Truly it is time to launch a non-discriminatory trade system with South Africa and to settle any unresolved questions without further delay, so that the negotiations on the free trade agreement can be concluded favourably at the Council meeting, without any smallminded restrictions.
There is an old saying: where there's a will, there's a way.
If the European Union has the genuine will - and this applies to the Council in particular - to arrive at a positive conclusion, it will also strengthen the readiness of its negotiating partner to compromise.
I rely on the good will of the British Presidency to achieve a breakthrough and so to set the course for the positive development of Africa and thus of the whole area of southern Africa.
Madam President, I begin where Commissioner Pinheiro finished, namely on political commitment.
What has happened to the European Union's pledges of support to the process of consolidating South Africa's fragile democracy? When they meet him in Cardiff, can European leaders look President Mandela in the eye and say we have fulfilled that promise?
South Africa in the past year has made tremendous strides and tremendous efforts in transforming and opening up a closed economy.
What has the EU done? The EU has continuously changed the parameters on the basis of which South Africa entered these negotiations.
From a five-year transition period to no transition period at all, from an FTA based on maximum asymmetry to an FTA in strict conformity with WTO rules.
The European Union still insists on parallel dismantling of trade tariffs in certain key sectors. I am rather struck by the irony of the Commission now using South Africa as a model for future Lomé trade negotiations.
This will be the test after South Africa itself was refused Lomé trade access as it was not a typical Lomé country.
We cannot be complacent about the consequences that these negotiations are having and will have on the people of South Africa.
In Capetown this Friday over 30 representatives of South African trade unions and members of the South African parliament will be meeting to discuss the impact of the agreement on the livelihoods of the South African people.
It is their duty to find out what their concerns are and I hope they will be addressed in the coming months.
Also, parliamentarians from the SACU countries recently presented their written submission to Commissioner Pinheiro and to the UK presidency.
We need to look at these concerns and I would ask that copies of this document be made available to all Members of this House.
As far as regional strategy goes, I would suggest to the Commissioner and to the UK presidency that we consider a statement of intent signed by the Commission and South Africa, which would address how regional concerns would be addressed in the future.
Finally, until this proposed free trade agreement is acceptable to our parliamentary colleagues in South Africa and in the SACU countries, I, for one, will consider that this proposed agreement is not acceptable and I would urge this House to vote the same way.
Madam President, I share the general concern over what already seems to me to be the excessive prolongation of negotiations with South Africa.
And, like all my colleagues, I consider that the European Union should honour its responsibilities and support the consolidation of a non-racial democracy in South Africa by means of economic development.
That economic development will also enable South Africa to deal with the crime and lack of security that have been mentioned.
I also agree that the European Union should support Nelson Mandela, that great world figure, whom we look forward to seeing soon in Cardiff.
But I would like to know, and I therefore ask Commissioner Deus Pinheiro, who will have no difficulty in replying in Portuguese, what is happening? What is holding up an agreement which will bring a fair deal both to South Africa and, of course, to European producers?
Is it just a matter of groundless European protectionism or are there serious reasons?
Which agricultural and other products are causing most problems, and what alternatives might we find to exclusion, pure and simple?
Another thing: what effect will an agreement between the European Union and South Africa have on its neighbouring countries?
And how can the Lomé rules be applied to South Africa without detriment to most deprived ACP countries? That is to say, how can we help South Africa to fulfil its role as the driving power of economic development in Africa, in our mutual interest, genuinely but without undue domination, and with due consideration for other states in the region?
- Madam President, I should like to make one or two remarks in conclusion.
I do not propose to cover the points I made in my initial remarks or in the remarks made by Commissioner Pinheiro.
One thing I would like to say is that I am impressed by the sense of priority given to this issue from all quarters in this Parliament and to the need to conclude a trade agreement.
It is very important to have that bedrock of support.
I am pleased to see that support also extended into the important area of agriculture, one of the more difficult areas in negotiation.
A number of participants in the debate raised the question of what kind of flexibility will be shown?
Is the Commission in a position where it can show flexibility? The starting point is that there needs to be more flexibility on all sides if negotiations are to proceed more swiftly to a conclusion.
In the event that more flexibility is shown by the South Africans - and I hope that will be the case - on the basis of the Council discussions on this matter at an earlier stage this year the Commission has some flexibility to be able to respond to any initiative which might be forthcoming from our South African colleagues.
On the matter of the South African Summit and President Mandela's visit, I would think that all of us would very much welcome that visit in the broadest political context.
My honourable friend Mrs Kinnock said that it would be icing on the cake at Cardiff if an agreement could be reached by then.
I agree that it would be icing on the cake but the importance of President Mandela's visit is that it can act as a vital spur to us all to proceed as swiftly as possible through the issues, not making concessions where we cannot make concessions and not ignoring issues which need to be addressed.
But it is a spur to us all to tackle those issues in a positive and constructive way so that even if the icing cannot be on the cake at Cardiff, it can perhaps be there by the autumn.
- Madam President, I think we are all agreed that the moment of truth is at hand for both sides, and within the European Union this means the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
Let me be clear that the British presidency has been extremely important and of great assistance in pushing forward this dossier in a manner which I would like to emphasize publicly.
As we have all heard, Parliament has been pushing and putting all its political weight behind getting more flexibility and more generosity.
Having said that, I should like to touch upon two or three points which might be important.
Firstly, this round of negotiations was not postponed because of the Commission but because the South Africans were not ready.
They wanted a further postponement which we refused for one simple reason.
If we have our meeting on 10 and 11 June, there is still a possibility, if we work hard, of reporting to Coreper.
We must do our utmost in order at least to give the British presidency a broad draft of what we would be seeking a blessing for in Cardiff.
We cannot miss that opportunity.
I have consulted my colleagues who have been more involved in the negotiations and they are prepared to work 24 hours a day if need be in order to push it as far as possible and give the British presidency a chance.
This is not easy but we know it is willing to take it.
Secondly, regarding BLNS countries, of course we have been looking at it very seriously and I would like to tell Parliament that as we did for economic union in UEMOA we are prepared to devise a similar programme in which for a transitional period the loss of income from customs will be compensated.
In the medium and long-term there is an automatic compensation but in the short term problems may arise and we have told the countries we are ready to assist them during that period.
Another matter I should like to touch on is that it may have been true a few years ago that beef exports from the European Union were competing unfairly in South African market but not for in the last two years.
What is happening now is that the cheap beef from Argentina comes at such a price and with such devious ways of entering the country that this is really the problem now.
We have slashed export subsidies by nearly 80 % in order to make sure that is not the case as regards South Africa.
As regards wine, imports from South Africa have increased 150 % even with the current tariffs so you will understand that having excess wine production in Europe there is some concern about liberalizing the market.
This is not some kind of book-keeping.
We are talking about serious issues and we have to be coherent in the different aspects of our policies.
Finally, regarding asymmetry, this has nothing to do with WTO.
We can have whatever asymmetry we want.
What we cannot do is come up with an agreement and afterwards WTO tell us it is not compatible.
So, we must make sure that what we propose to WTO is compatible so we will have legal security with regard to our agreement.
My final point is that the political commitment made by the European Union to South Africa justifies the kind of flexibility the Commission has proposed.
I sincerely hope the Council will approve what we proposed which is a significant step forward as regards the European proposal.
Unfortunately, it is up to the Council to decide.
Many thanks, Commissioner Pinheiro.
I have received six draft resolutions in accordance with Article 37 paragraph 2 .
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Economic policy guidelines of the Member States and the Community
The next item is the debate on the report (Doc. A4-0193/98) by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm on behalf of the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the Commission's Recommendation for the Broad Guidelines of the Economic Policies of the Member States and the Community (drawn up in conformity with Article 103 (2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community (COM(89)0279 - C4-0291/98)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on the broad economic policy guidelines ensures proper transparency and participation in relation to the correct framework for the management and direction of the euro and the first steps and guidelines for monetary union.
The broad economic policy guidelines are essential for defining the European dimension of economic and monetary policy, as demanded by monetary union and the euro.
The report I have the honour of defending before the honorable Members expresses a broad consensus on the part of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, where it was approved virtually unanimously with no vote against.
This consensus should be adopted by all the European institutions too - the Council, the Commission and Parliament - because the construction of monetary union and the euro requires very extensive, firm agreement, precisely in order to guarantee the necessary solidity and strength of the European currency, and sustainable growth of the EU economy. That can lead to higher employment levels and thereby allow us to resolve our most serious problem, unemployment.
The report emphasizes and respects the prime objective of maintaining price stability, but it also gives important indications about aspects essential to orienting the European economy and guaranteeing steady growth with high employment levels.
So it stresses the importance of investment, which will be favoured by an economy with a low inflation rate and low interest rates. Everybody knows that favours investment, and also saving.
The report also recommends that the conditions set out in the Stability and Growth Pact are adhered to as rigorously as they deserve to be, and in accordance with the agreement made when that pact was established. That means reorganizing public finances and continuing with the processes of convergence and economic coordination between the Member States.
The report does not envisage an increase in fiscal pressure because we believe that could distort investment. However, investment is taken into account as an important factor for growth in the European Union.
The wage factor plays an extremely important role in this growth, and is considered essential in order to ensure a better level of employment.
So there is a proposal to decrease the non-wage costs which penalize job creation.
Social security benefits must be maintained, but consideration has to be given to their funding, based on economic growth itself and on appropriate agreements between the economic and social players, so that these agreements can offer positive results thanks to fruitful social dialogue.
The report also stresses the need to increase the competitiveness of the European economy in an open and globalized situation, such as we have at present.
The report mentions several important aspects for obtaining these increased levels of competitiveness. The development of infrastructures which favour an improved system of production, education and workrelated training, and research and development are key elements to ensure the success of the European economy in the immediate future.
Wider competition is also important.
Finally, I should like to emphasize that there are still barriers in the European internal market which should be removed. There are inflexibilities and major distortions in basic sectors such as energy and telecommunications, so we must attain greater flexibility and liberalization.
It is important that, right from this initial point, the proposals made by the Commission and by Parliament in this report are borne in mind. So I think it is important to give prior notice that tomorrow we will present an oral amendment to insist that when Ecofin adopts the broad guidelines for economic policy, they take full account of the proposals made by the European Commission and Parliament.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we now have monetary union and the euro.
We do not see them as the end of a process, but as the start of a new stage which should see the participation and coordination of all the powers of the EU. Obviously, it should also lead us achieve a new political and monetary dimension for the European Union.
Madam President, the euro will arrive on 1 January 1999, but it will not come alone.
The broad guidelines of economic policy make that clear.
In particular, the guidelines indicate what policy mix Europe needs.
Because the main task assigned by the Maastricht Treaty to the European Central Bank, as the body responsible for implementing monetary policy, is to maintain price stability and it can only support economic policy for growth and employment when that has been achieved, price stability has become more or less the anchor of the European policy mix, in other words budgetary policy and wage development must be geared to ensuring that no inflationary pressures are unleashed.
Should that happen, the ECB will react without fail by increasing interest rates.
That would damp down economic growth and employment.
Because of the way the Maastricht Treaty is formulated, budgetary policy and wages policy are more or less prisoners of the price stability objective.
At present that is not a problem, because at the current inflation rate of 1.4 % we already have price stability.
In order to be able to maintain price stability, the Member States and social partners must not only be prepared to adjust their policy when necessary but must also develop instruments for rapid reaction.
In the face of an inflationary threat, for example, it would have to be possible for collective agreements to be adjusted or for taxes to be increased temporarily.
The broad economic policy guidelines we are discussing today will be much less discretionary in character in the period after 1 January 1999, when the euro and European monetary policy are in place.
Ensuring that inflation does not rise in one's own country is no longer enough.
If average inflation rises as a result of policy in other Member States, the ECB will react by raising interest rates and dampening growth.
In short, making sure that one's own affairs are in order is no longer enough.
All countries of the euro Eleven must go along with this.
At the present time of course, inflation is not the greatest problem in the European Union.
The greatest problem is still unemployment and the inadequate growth in the large countries which is a major cause of it.
In order to promote growth it is important for the European Union itself to develop the growth impetus which in the past year has largely come from outside the Union.
However, I see important elements that could begin to generate it in the policy mix that the Commission has put before us.
Budgetary policy in 1998 will be less strict than in 1997, when strenuous efforts were made.
Monetary policy will be somewhat expansionary, because the interest rates of the peripheral countries will drop to the German level and wages need no longer necessarily lag 1 % behind rises in productivity.
I see a clear stimulus emanating from this combination of factors for the growth of the European economy.
That is the positive signal given by these broad guidelines.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we view the recommendations of the Commission as balanced and fair.
They seek a measure of compatibility between the requirements of a balanced budget and monetary stability on the one hand, and the aims of sustainable growth and increased job opportunities on the other.
They contain specific appeals to certain countries and certain operators in the economic world.
All this is fine, but what concerns us and what concerns the entire Parliament, I believe, is the outcome we should expect from these recommendations.
Some commentators and keen observers of political life have already pointed out that the entire system does not meet expectations, in the form of an economic government or coordination procedures which genuinely ensure that the Member States will adopt these recommendations.
There is therefore considerable room for anxiety.
In fact, this would not be the first time that bold announcements by statesmen at the highest level, at the summit, whether in Amsterdam or Luxembourg, have been gradually and insidiously stripped of their content by concerted action, an unnatural alliance if you wish, between national administrations to retain power and since the recommendations of the Commission must pass before this body, the Monetary Committee, we can be sure that everything they contain that is relevant, with perhaps a few rough edges too, will be peeled away by all those despots who wish to retain their powers and who, between them, assume they have a duty to offend no-one.
In this way, they prevent the Commission applying recommendations that might be misunderstood or ill-received by one or other of the Member States.
This is a type of conspiracy with which I have been very familiar for some time and which, unfortunately, is unlikely to change even though we have made a further concession.
Article 103 was formulated a long time ago and we might hope that this article, which today should be interpreted in a wholly different way since we now have the Central Bank and we now have a single monetary policy, might make a contribution towards coordinating economic policies.
I believe the device on paper could be good if the recommendations from the Commission were actually Commission proposals.
We are well aware that when a Commission proposal is stripped of its real meaning by the Council, the Commission can withdraw it.
Here, we are talking of a recommendation and it cannot be withdrawn.
The result is that we do not know what the "Ecofin' Council will do, or which document it will be working on.
But we might reasonably fear that this document does not contain any of the more relevant recommendations.
Madam President, I would like to welcome the Commissioner to the House and thank him for the communication on the broad guidelines to economic policy.
I would also like to pay particular tribute to our rapporteur who has brought forward a very balanced document which recognizes the new reality in which we now operate.
We are dealing with a global market.
It is important for us as a Union to take account of our competitiveness as well as creating new opportunities for employment and growth.
On top of that I believe the present Amsterdam Treaty for the first time underlines the importance of employment within the overall European Union development.
It is important for us as a Parliament to recognize our role in bringing to fruition the ideas of what the people of Europe want to see.
They do not want to see broad economic guidelines debated here once a year, having no effects to them on the ground.
They want to see positive developments and I am suggesting tonight that there is a number of positive things that we can do within this Parliament.
Firstly, we can look at our own role - look at the legislation that we bring forward and make sure that it does not impact negatively on the employment creation and on encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship within our Community.
Secondly, there is a vast wealth of experience and knowledge of different systems, of different methods of employment and employment policy within this Parliament.
May be instead of dividing ourselves into the left and the right or the free marketeers and the laissez faire or whatever, we should come together and try and bring the best practices from all those ideas into one united policy.
Thirdly, as the budgetary authority we should be more focused in how we allocate funding in the social fund and the Structural Funds to reward those that are achieving the most with regard to meeting the guidelines as laid down by this House.
Let us not forget that we have within our ambit a raft of powers and a series of measures which we can utilize.
Our rapporteur has already mentioned a couple of them in his own speech and in his report.
I would like to focus in particular on the SME sector and on the kind of supports that we can put into place at Community, national level and at local level.
The biggest engine of growth and employment in economic terms should be given extra support.
Finally, could I point very briefly to where we should go in the future.
For the 21st century our motto should be giving our citizens the tools to cooperate and to work within the new Europe.
Madam President, both the broad economic guidelines and the rapporteur's work once again reveal that a number of measures need to be taken by the Member States and by the European Union as a whole after EMU comes into effect.
I would like to follow on from Mr Herman when he said that in fact we already know what has to be done but that we lack the resources to bring about real coordination.
Precisely now that EMU must be helped on its way, it is extremely important that the Member States take the necessary measures, in particular to regulate the labour market in such a way that unemployment is brought down.
In this connection I would point to a number of developments in the Asian world, where events are governed by factors completely different to those in Europe.
We cannot sit on our hands and look on.
We must be very active indeed in implementing the proposed measures.
However, we have been proposing these measures for a number of years and, in my opinion, things are not moving fast enough. I therefore ask the Commission to urge the Council to implement the proposed measures as soon as possible.
Madam President, this proposal by the European Commission is confirmation and proof positive of the hardline, in our view, single-minded approach which colours all Union policy and which is perfectly illustrated in the Stability Agreement, the application of which is already speeding up apace.
The new form in which the policy guidelines have been presented is our first confirmation of the official division of the European Union into a union of fast- and slow-track Member States.
This division by the European Commission is wholly unacceptable.
The Commission, in its proposals, insists on even stricter economic policy, on continuing and hardening political austerity, on promoting privatization, on deregulating industrial relations, on reforming the national health system and on reducing state funding for the national health system.
And yet it is precisely this approach which is responsible for the unacceptable social ills and unemployment in the Union.
The report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy takes the same approach.
Not only does it heartily accept the findings, conclusions and guidelines of the European Commission; on several points it even outshines the Commission by demanding yet tougher measures to the detriment of the workforce and to the benefit of private-sector profitability.
It demands that individual and collective wage increases be subjugated to monetary stability and profitable investment, it seeks a flexible wage structure which depends on productivity, region and sector, it calls for the abolition of state aid, it suggests that privatization should be speeded up, that private-sector capital should be injected into public-sector investments and that intervention is needed in pension funds and is indifferent as to the consequences which this will have on social protection in the Union.
Mr President, we intend to vote against this report, which, unfortunately, does not record our "no' vote to the Commission.
We refuse to accept and endorse a policy which sacrifices the rights of the masses to the interests of a handful of bankers and monopolies.
We support the plight of the workers, which is taking on ever-increasing dimensions, and we shall continue to do so.
Madam President, this report had to be produced hastily, and that may be the reason for its general nature.
All Parliament can certainly unite in the opinion that the coordination of economic policy is now, with the birth of the euro area, more important than ever.
This will certainly stand us in good stead for continuing cooperation with the Commission.
The Commission has for the first time taken a genuine step forward in the direction of concrete targets for employment with these broad guidelines which they have laid down for the economy, and our group is very satisfied.
We wish to emphasize that employment must really be the focal point of the coordination of economic policy in the future.
The costs of unemployment are a heavy drain on national economies.
We must absolutely ensure that national economic resources are targeted at growth and sustainable action.
Our group naturally wishes to stress that growth, which is what we are aiming at here, should be more purposefully sought in connection with the preservation of the environment.
It is quite astonishing how hard it has been to move along in this direction, although the formulae are pretty well-known to all.
We should be able to make it more and more costly to pollute the environment by fiscal means, and correspondingly be able to then lower income tax.
Hopefully, the requirements of the Amsterdam Treaty will make this ecological tax reform more likely and more realistic now that we are embracing the euro.
We are living in a decisive age when the European Central Bank will surely take a part in economic policy that is just as large as we allow it.
My group would like to state that it will be terribly important that a counterweight is created through a truly common economic policy, so that the ECB does not ascend to a position that is too dominant.
Madam President, it is the first time since the decision of 2 May that this Parliament has been asked to give an opinion on the subject of economic policy, in relation not to a decision-making act, but to a recommendation of the Commission to the Member States on their policies.
We know the extent to which these policies are becoming delicate and difficult to manage, precisely because of the decision to complete the third phase of the Treaty and therefore of economic and monetary union.
Now, the states only have control over taxation, while control over the budget has been taken away.
All of this may create problems for the various areas in the individual states of guaranteeing the competitiveness of all areas.
The French economist and banker, Antoine Michel, said that there have to be three essential conditions for an area to be competitive, since competition will now no longer be between companies but between area-based systems: an area-based system must be able to have efficient administration, fair and if possible light taxation, and infrastructures whose purpose is to be competitive.
I think that it is the duty of every Member State to ensure that there are no forced transfers of resources from one area to another, because this would constitute waste.
I am referring in particular to Italy, where there are already large-scale programmes for the transfer of resources from productive areas to areas that are at present assisted.
This will create serious difficulties; in my opinion this is not a policy of rebalance but a policy of imbalance.
It would therefore be appropriate if it were in fact the European Parliament which told the Member States that resources should especially remain and be invested where they are produced, since the whole of Europe will grow in accordance with these virtuous policies, whereas there would be serious consequences if this were not to occur.
Madam President, can I start by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, for his report on the broad economic guidelines.
I, along with the rapporteur, welcome the Commission's emphasis on achieving a high level and rate of growth of employment.
It is clear from those guidelines that we require a policy mix which is favourable to economic growth.
However, what is also clear is that with inflation averaging 1.6 % in those countries within the European single currency zone, perhaps a slightly more relaxed monetary policy, combined with an increase in internal demand, will increase much needed employment across the European Union.
The British presidency has promoted the idea of a flexible labour market and this, along with an increased demand for internal products, services and capital, in addition to growth through exports will be, I believe, the catalyst for those essential jobs that we need here in the European Union.
Reference has already been made to the birth of the euro and I believe, along with many other people on this side of the House, that the euro will improve the operation of the single market and in the medium to long term increase jobs in general across the single market.
Many opponents of the euro have claimed in the past that job losses have resulted from Member States meeting the convergence criteria.
I would suggest that in the longer term job increases will be the order of the day as a result of these developments.
The future and security of Europe will also depend on the ability to get as many as possible of Europe's twenty million people back to work.
The depressions in the early part of century and in particular the 1930s led to mass unemployment and two world wars.
Jobs are being created but not quickly enough because jobs are being lost nearly as quickly.
The unemployment figures today are nearly as high as they were when the Essen summit took place not long after my election to this Parliament in 1994.
I believe that the conditions are right for job creation now and, as we say in my country let's make hay while the sun shines.
With low inflation we can now do that.
I, therefore, suggest that the Member States of the European Union take that course of action.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the introduction of the single European currency on 1 January 1999 in eleven Member States of the European Union has been agreed.
From this date onwards, the European Central Bank will be responsible for a single European monetary policy.
That is why it is becoming ever more important to take further the co-ordination of national economic policies.
It is necessary on the one hand in order to secure the long term stability of the European currency, and on the other in order to create the appropriate framework conditions for growth and employment.
Decisions taken by the European Council on economic policy guidelines are a particularly important instrument in this regard.
The European Parliament collaborates intensively in this matter, according to the provisions of the Treaty.
In this context, on behalf of the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I should like to congratulate my colleague Mr Gasòliba i Böhm on his excellent report.
In its recommendation, the Commission gives guidelines which are directly addressed to the individual Member States in order to arrive at healthy state finances.
I welcome these detailed recommendations which are targeted at the specific situation of the country in question.
In my view, they are more useful than generally formulated proposals which are directed at all countries without taking account of the circumstances of each case.
I expect, and this is no more than the application of the Treaty, that the Council will decide on the basis of the Commission's proposals, because in the first place the Commission has made some very sensible proposals here, and in the second the Treaty itself prescribes that this is the procedure to be followed.
The stability and growth pact is an important and innovative instrument for the greater co-ordination of national budgetary policies which is essential.
In good times, the objective is to have balanced budgets or surpluses, so that a policy of assisting growth can be pursued in economically difficult phases.
As a Christian Democrat, I would describe this as an economic policy following the rules of the Bible, which always tells us that in the fat years we should put by stores for the lean years.
In my view, the importance of the stability policy for growth and employment cannot be underlined often enough.
Today's historically low long-term interest rates are the result of the consistent stability policy of recent years.
Low interest rates mean confidence in the stability of economic development.
This is the way in which stability policy creates the environment in which growth and the resultant employment become possible.
The first steps towards greater co-ordination can also be discerned in tax policy.
The code of conduct for corporate taxation recently adopted by the Council points in this direction.
We are also seeing the first signs of a solution to interest taxation.
A switch from the principle of country of destination to that of country of origin in the case of value added tax remains on the agenda.
However, the objective of greater co-ordination of national tax policies is not complete harmonization.
The internal market lives on competition.
That also includes competition about which state offers its citizens and businesses the services which are expected from the state on more favourable terms.
That is why this competition between the systems will also be an essential component of European tax policy in the future.
There will also be a greater need for co-ordination in relation to the competition policy of the Community and its member countries, the Community's structural policy and the creation of a European infrastructure.
There is also a need for action in relation to the ecological and social framework conditions of the European market economy, because our objective is to create a European economic policy which is based on the principles of an ecological and social market economy.
The report from my colleague Mr Gasòliba i Böhm is an important contribution towards this!
Madam President, it is now and in the near future that decisions will be made on all of the questions that will determine the course taken by the European Central Bank, which - if I am correctly informed - starts work this coming Monday.
This is all very well, but where do my country and its government feature in this picture? As a European-minded Swedish liberal who belongs to a party that has clearly declared itself to be in favour of European cooperation, I find it sad - distressing, in fact - that my own country&#x02BC;s government has denied itself the opportunity to influence these decisions which are so vital to future employment and prosperity throughout Europe.
Madam President, on 2 May last I voted in favour of a single currency with cautious enthusiasm.
I voted for the motion because I believe that the euro is better than a Belgian franc bound indefinitely to the German mark alone and it is better than the mighty American dollar.
But in this Assembly I have always expressed the opinion that the arrival of the euro will not affect unemployment, which hits more than 20 million Europeans and which is caused partly by relocating companies in countries where manpower is 40 to 50 times cheaper than in Europe and partly, which comes back to the same thing, by the immigration of populations from outside Europe that expands the ranks of job seekers.
Nor can I believe any longer in the dogma of interest rates which remain constantly low.
A euro, as strong as it is, will require, whatever anyone says, gradual increases in interest rates.
I therefore invite the Commission to assume a more realistic, rather than an optimistic approach and to exhibit greater courage in its decisions on the most pressing matters to protect the jobs we still have and finally to inspire those young people who no longer believe that they have a promising future.
Madam President, the submission of the guidelines of economic policy by the Commission does indeed this time bear the hand-writing which was previously inscribed in the family album of European employment and economic policy by the Amsterdam resolutions and by the Luxembourg employment summit. This gives us hope that at long last an appropriate and properly balanced policy mix is emerging for the economy of the European Union.
That is why the EU Finance Ministers are called upon to launch Community strategies for investment and employment, and finally to undertake co-ordination of economic policy in such a way that it merits the name, as it is set out in the Maastricht Treaty.
The European Union must place economic policy in the service of employment. Around a third of current mass unemployment is caused by a failure of overall economic co-ordination.
The Maastricht Treaty must at long last be implemented in economic and employment policy as well.
In addition, we need growth which is supported by investment and provides employment.
We need not only an upturn in economic activity which exploits unused capacity, but above all a medium-term process of growth which creates new productive capacity and new jobs.
A decisive role will be played by an increase in the investment quota which continues to be quite scandalously low!
The pre-conditions for this sort of growth process supported by investment are more favourable now than they have ever been, and the Commission rightly draws attention to this.
Now it is essential to deploy public sector investment as well and to dress the Delors White Paper infrastructure programmes for modernisation and innovation in new clothes.
A European investment pact must lead to public resources flowing into productive uses, into an investment alliance between states and private business.
In the process, thought must be given in particular to the stimulus effect for small and medium-sized businesses.
Entry into the 21st century cannot be achieved solely with monetary union.
In the interests of our fellow citizens, as I have already said, we need at long last to have a European economic and financial policy and more co-ordination, .
The Commission is called upon to see to it that European economic research institutes draw up an annual report on the state of the economy and of employment in the European Union, as a contribution to steering European policy.
Madam President, it is a rather odd situation that, although I am officially the rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I am the last speaker but one; but that is a formality that I need not dwell on.
The final report by Mr Gasòliba and the Commission proposal, in my honest opinion, represent clear progress compared with the previous reports.
More balanced attention is devoted throughout to macroeconomic policy, on the one hand, and to structural policy on the other.
That does not mean that I am completely satisfied.
Thus, in my opinion, when analysing stability, employment or unemployment is systematically underestimated as a factor in it or as a hindrance to it.
On the other hand, flexibility, of which the value and necessity are fairly controversial, is systematically overestimated.
I considered and still consider that the guidelines offer little in the way of a concrete strategy for the stimulation of demand, to which the report itself urges substantial attention to be devoted.
The only thing about which a lot is in fact said is the control of wage development, and I get the impression that this relates mainly to wages governed by collective agreements.
When I look at experience in my own country, the Netherlands, the polder model, I can report that there is extensive control of wage development as far as collective agreement wages are concerned, but that there is a scandalous trend in non-agreement wages, where the top incomes in firms in which wage rises were limited to 2.5 % have gone up by over 30 %.
I would appreciate it if that aspect were also covered in the reports of the Commission, for it is ludicrous to exert constant pressure for low wage rises under collective agreements and to say nothing about the rampant growth in wealth at the top.
I think it important to ask for a few points of action, and the most important one for me is that an effective form of parallelism should finally be created between the Council and the Commission in preparation and decision-making relating to employment and macroeconomic guidelines.
There is too much evidence of compartmentalization in which people talk in complete isolation from one another at both staff and Council levels.
I once proposed that the decision-making should take place in a Finance, Ecofin and Social Affairs Council, and I happily repeat that request, that advice, here.
Otherwise you will not arrive at a serious, integrated and balanced approach.
Finally, it surprises me to hear arguments constantly presented for more regional differentiation in the field of wages.
I favour the argument for wage development which takes account of or is based on productivity, but I am against pressing for regional differentiation throughout Europe based on the pattern in Germany.
If you think that can run smoothly and without doing damage, I advise you to look at developments which have taken place in the United Kingdom.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the only question weighing on the minds of Europeans today is whether the major economic guidelines submitted by the Commission will tackle the unemployment problem effectively and substantially.
My reply to this question is clearly that if all the necessary steps are not taken, it does not add up.
I am pleased to note that the report by Mr Gasòliba and the Commission debates have persuaded our Parliament to insist on the need to revive domestic demand and also to insist on the urgency of revival through investments.
But I am sorry that the question of reducing working hours has not been properly expressed by the Commission.
And I can only view as a provocation the Commission text concerning the implementation of a reduction in working hours across the board, which states that the Commission considers that this raises serious problems and would prefer a more diverse, negotiated solution.
In my view, this is either too much or too little.
It is too much, because clearly public opinion in France has regarded it as a challenge to the French government.
And that lies outside the jurisdiction of the Commission.
It is too little, because if we were to take a tally of all the issues that raise problems today in terms of employment and the economic future of Europe, much is missing.
I would have liked to see the Commission dispute with equal vehemence, for example, increased flexibility, a drop in wages, the fact that part-time work prevents an increasing number of wage-earners leading a dignified existence, in other words it slows down domestic demand and an upsurge in consumption, which is to say growth.
Either the Commission draws up a list of all the issues that might threaten growth and the future of Europe, or it should abstain from commenting on national issues; it is also regrettable that the Commission should refer to the texts produced by European employers in this respect.
At all events, I am pleased that Mr Gasòliba and the Commission have reinstated the proposals in Mr Delors' White Paper, which seem to me to be much more relevant than the existing Commission proposals to solve the unemployment problem.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this preparatory year in which we draw up the major economic policy guidelines is of particular importance.
Your House has understood this well.
I would praise the professionalism with which you have contributed to the drafting of those guidelines.
The quality and consistency of the report delivered by Mr Gasòliba must be stressed, I offer him my compliments.
I am also pleased, on behalf of the Commission, to note the support which the European Parliament showed for his recommendations concerning the major guidelines for economic policy in 1998.
This support is important for two reasons.
Firstly, because it emphasizes the operational nature of these guidelines, the first of their kind following the decision to enter Economic and Monetary Union.
Secondly, because it confirms the consensus in favour of the contents of the European economic policy.
The operational nature of the coordination of economic policies depends both on the framework of that cooperative spirit and the manner in which it is deployed.
With regard to the coordination framework, following implementation of the Economic and Monetary Union, the major guidelines are designed to serve as a genuine programme of European economic policy.
Hence, the 1998 Broad economic policy guidelines fit in the context of real multilateral controls, whereby the strict coordination of economic policies, which remain subject to national jurisdiction, assumes its true importance.
This is why the European Councils in Amsterdam in June 1997 and in Luxembourg in December 1997 invited the Commission to formulate recommendations under the terms of Article 103, paragraph 4, in the situation where a Member State might ultimately compromise the successful operation of the Economic and Monetary Union.
Those very European Councils requested that the Broad economic policy guidelines take account of long-term employment programmes and employment guidelines.
The Commission will ensure that these duties are performed consistently and it will assume full responsibility in this respect.
How do we implement this framework; and how do we monitor this coordination? Quite rightly, this year the new major guidelines include specific recommendations for individual countries, with regard both to public finance and structural matters.
Similarly, the recommendations proposed by the Commission, with regard to the euro area as a whole, coincide with the arrival of the euro and represent quite a novelty.
These various recommendations, which come in the wake of the resolution of the European Council in Luxembourg are vital.
Amending them, to arrive at a less precise and therefore more restrictive formulation, would not satisfy requirements concerning the coordination and monitoring of economic policy in Europe.
But in order to render the Broad economic policy guidelines more operational in terms of monitoring and coordination, we need a more accurate definition of the function of all those participating in economic policy in Europe, including the European Central Bank with regard to monetary policy and its contribution to Community goals, Community institutions in terms of balancing the entire economic policy, national governments in terms of budgetary policy and all social partners in terms of fixing wages.
In the light of this, Mr van Velzen, I do not think the Dutch example that you mentioned can be instituted across the board in Europe.
It seems to me more of a local concern.
As to regional differentiation, everybody generally believes this to be necessary.
The example of Italy, especially Southern Italy, provides the proof; we must take due account of productivity.
You are aware of the Commission proposal regarding the broad guidelines.
This meets the requirements in terms of consistency and comprehensiveness, whilst complying with the principle of subsidiarity associated with the implementation of economic policies in Europe.
I therefore back the resolutions put forward by a number of you, including Mr von Wogau, Mr Herman, Mrs Boogerd-Quaak and Mrs Randzio-Plath, that the Commission, when striving to adopt the new GOPES, should prevent national feelings prevailing over Community interests, or those of the Economic and Monetary Union.
In the same vein, I would remind you that the Treaty stipulates that decisions concerning the broad economic policy guidelines must be approved by a qualified majority, these are the terms of Article 103.2 of the Treaty.
Hence the Commission recommendations may be adopted by the Council by a qualified majority.
There is no need to seek unanimity at all costs.
To make sense, coordination of economic policies must be the operational instrument that guarantees genuine multilateral monitoring, organized and administered by the Commission, in close liaison with your House.
At all events, this is the aim of the Heads of State and Government, as reflected in the conclusions of the European Council in Luxembourg.
This is the philosophy of the broad guidelines, which is designed to confer on them an operational nature.
I now come, briefly, to the contents of those broad guidelines, which I have already spoken to you about in detail.
I will therefore confine myself to the basics, from a macroeconomic and structural aspect.
I would remind you that from a macroeconomic point of view, the broad guidelines for 1998 set out two aims at high level: employment and the success of Economic and Monetary Union.
It is for this reason that the Commission is pleased to congratulate your rapporteur unreservedly on the strategies he advocates and I am thinking in particular of item 6 in your draft resolution.
Similarly, as reflected in its recommendation, the Commission endorses the need expressed to achieve adequate levels of private and public investment, as stated by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
Your House, Mr Hendrick, is also concerned about the subject of domestic demand.
Well, I can assure you, the Broad economic policy guidelines take this dimension of economic policy into account, although demand must not be stimulated artificially.
The aim is to ensure that investment and consumption gradually dispense with exports in order to achieve self-maintaining growth in the medium term.
Incidentally, the latest Commission forecasts confirm that this dynamic is already underway.
Finally, with regard to structural policies, your rapporteur approves the Commission recommendations, whether they relate to product markets, services, capital or job markets.
As the European Council recommended in Luxembourg, the Commission recommendation establishes broad guidelines and an effective instrument promoting sustained convergence between Member States.
Hence the Broad economic policy guidelines are focussed more than in the past on measures designed to enhance the growth potential of Member States in order to boost employment.
This is why the Commission attaches such importance to putting forward recommendations to improve competitiveness, the effectiveness of job markets, goods and services, education and information and to render tax and welfare protection schemes more favourable to employment.
With regard to a reduction in working hours, your address, Mrs Lienemann, does not, it seems to me, represent the views of the Commission and I can tell you that the contents of the report and the Commission recommendations reflect not more nor less than the contents of the White Paper of 1993, presented by Jacques Delors.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that these new broad economic policy guidelines define the resources for monitoring and controlling the coordination of economic policies.
This approach, adopted and supported by your rapporteur and your draft resolution is all-encompassing and consistent.
The exercise of this coordination function, and I weigh my words carefully, as concluded by the Heads of State and Government must not tomorrow be abused.
The implementation of the Broad economic policy guidelines, which is vital to the satisfactory operation of Economic and Monetary Union, essential to the deployment of a coordinated strategy to promote employment, will depend on the political will of Community institutions and national governments.
The Commission, for its part, will remain vigilant in the controls it exercises and will keep you closely informed of these.
Many thanks, Commissioner de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.00 a.m. tomorrow.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.22 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Consultation of the ECB by national authorities
The next item is the report (A4-0195/98) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the consultation of the European Central Bank by national authorities on draft legislative provisions (COM(97)0725 - C4-0147/98-98/0056(CNS)).
The rapporteur is not yet here.
I shall give him the floor when he arrives.
Mr Giansily, of the Union for Europe Group, is here however, and may have the floor for three minutes.
Mr President, it is true that it would have been preferable, I feel, to have heard my address after Mr Herman had justified his own position but I will gladly tell you of the matters I wish to raise concerning his report.
Firstly, Mr President, Article 105, paragraph 4 of the Treaty, reflected in Article 4 of the statutes of the European System of Central Banks, stipulates that the European Central Bank is consulted by national authorities on any draft legislative provision within its field of competence, but within the bounds of, and according to the conditions established by the Council, in line with the procedure set out in Article 106, paragraph 6.
The purpose of the draft decision before us is to specify the conditions, obligations and limits imposed on those national authorities that intend to adopt regulations that fall within the field of competence of the European Central Bank, bearing in mind the overall objective which is to underwrite practical operation of the ESCB and the European Central Bank.
Owing to the diversity among Member States in terms of their organization, the draft decision allows them a free hand with regard to those aspects we have just discussed, provided, it goes without saying, that the principle and rules fixed by that decision are observed.
Let us remember that the European Central Bank is the central body and that all authorities must appeal to that body beforehand whenever they intend to adopt amendments to the prevailing rules in sectors within the field of competence of the ECB.
We give our consent, Mr President, to this entire development.
However, we do not share the fears nor do we endorse the requirements put forward by the rapporteur which he has included in the amendments.
On reading the proposals by Mr Herman, which I commend, it is clear that the impetus behind his proposals is the will to accelerate the process of a federal Europe by providing the Council, especially in respect of Amendment No 4, with retaliatory powers in order to impose on states special standards which the national bank would be reluctant to accept.
This does not, however, seem to be in keeping with the spirit of the Treaty.
All the debates in recent months prove that the will of the overwhelming majority of this House is to protect the European Central Bank from political pressure and to guarantee its independence.
To seek to place it at the heart of a pressure group seems to me to contradict everything that has been said in recent months.
This is why, in view of the formulation of the excessively restrictive text of the rapporteur, in our opinion, we would prefer the original enacting terms of the text of the Commission, which seems to us most appropriate, more flexible and more open.
Similarly, we do not think it is necessarily a good thing to start out with an attitude of mistrust with regard to national authorities.
Thank you very much, Mr Giansily.
Since the rapporteur is now with us, I invite him to take the floor.
Mr President, please accept my apologies.
This building is so huge, especially the furthest extensions, that it took me five minutes simply to get out of the place where I was attending a meeting in order to come here.
It is an advantage to be able to address you as a rapporteur after the speakers, because this gives me the opportunity to reply to them.
But first of all, I would like to explain the reason why I proposed these amendments.
There is absolutely no intention to give the Central Bank supplementary powers.
There is no desire, as Mr Giansily observed, to enclose the Central Bank in a network of pressure of which it would be the victim, none at all.
What I wanted to do is this.
The Commission, and the Council too, I might say, allows itself too frequently to be guided by legal experts.
Those experts hit upon a formula that was perfectly valid when they sought to settle matters with the European Monetary Institute.
Why is that so? Because at that time the Monetary Institute was still not the Central Bank.
Monetary policies and the central banks were to remain active up to 1 January 1999.
Consequently, if the Member States were to take steps that fell within the direct or indirect jurisdiction of the Central Bank, it was quite normal that they should consult the Central Bank.
That was the arrangement.
But since the legal experts and diplomats were not always sufficiently bold or particularly pushy, what did they achieve? Once the text had been agreed, they incorporated it for the next stage.
They did not revise the text to allow for the fact that there would be a move to a different stage, that the Monetary Institute is not the Central Bank and that the Central Bank, once installed, would apply a single monetary policy.
From that moment forward, things change.
Once a single currency has been established, why should states still have the authority to solve, for example, the problem of the legal situation regarding the bill of exchange or the cheque? What sense was there in citizens having a common currency, if they have to be subjected to 15 different legislative procedures when they use a bill of exchange or a cheque?
The system proposed by the Commission does not alter these matters.
One simply consults the bank. For my part, I would like to reaffirm the principle that all matters that come within the jurisdiction of the Central Bank should from now on, and this is the text of the Treaty itself, be subject to European legislation.
But I accept that individual legislations are only remotely linked to currency and that, indirectly, they fall within national jurisdiction.
And there, of course, the consultation terms proposed by the Commission seem to me to be perfectly acceptable and normal.
This is why I have drafted amendments that restate this point.
And I am pleased to note that my convictions were shared unanimously by the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, including the main Committee itself.
For this reason, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Giansily's argument does not reflect my intentions nor the spirit of the text, since the text read out by Mr Giansily has twisted the words slightly to make them say what I did not wish to say.
Mr Herman, I know how punctual you normally are, so when I saw you were not here I knew something important must have happened.
But I should inform you that at the start of his speech Mr Giansily said he wished he could have heard you first.
You made a lot of references to Mr Giansily but, according to the Rules of Procedure, he had the right to listen to you first.
Somebody who has definitely heard you first is Mr Ribeiro, whom I now invite to take the floor for two minutes, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left.
Mr President, I have once again listened to Mr Herman with great pleasure, in spite of our differing views.
Now that the euro has been adopted, it is necessary to speed up everything which has already been in the course of preparation for its practical introduction.
This is what the Commission's proposal does, whether or not it is to the liking of those who have been opposed from the start to this process, which serves a strategic plan.
It would give expression to Article 105 (4) of the Treaty, which provides that the ECB must be consulted by the national authorities on any bill or draft legislative provision relating to matters within its competence.
Where the Commission says 'weaken them' , Mr Herman says 'finish them off' .
I think the proposal is still too decentralizing, which I admit would have been justified in 1991 to avoid frightening off (effaroucher) some of the Member States involved in the proposal.
Now that it is no longer necessary to say the opposite of what you mean in order not to frighten anyone off, because public opinion is gradually becoming resigned to the coming of the euro and all it implies - which is also in the explanatory preamble, - and, as I say, it is being subjected to a disinformation campaign - for Mr Herman a step, even an accelerated step, is not enough: his report wants a leap forward.
And that leap, quite apart from the amendments, adds a clause to the Commission's proposal which will mean we can no longer speak of national authorities.
There will be little that is national, and nothing authoritative, about those bodies, which will be obliged to consult and comply with the ECB's opinions, even though they are endowed with the democratic legitimacy the ECB patently does not have.
Mr Herman has exceeded his remit.
And I doubt whether my fellow Members who are going to vote for this proposed resolution have had sufficient information about what they are voting on, because this report has been adopted with such vertiginous speed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate in progress this evening may seem technical, yet it is important and necessary since it deals with legislation relating to the setting up of the European Central Bank.
Your House has therefore been consulted on four proposals from the Commission and three from the European Central Bank.
Naturally, I will only address those concerning the Commission.
Three of the four proposals do not pose a problem.
Your rapporteur intends to approve them: this relates to the scale of contributions for a share in the subscribed capital of the Central Bank, matters relating to the taxation of ECB staff, privileges and immunity.
I can therefore only express my delight in your support.
The problem relates to the fourth proposal for decision, in other words that relating to European Central Bank consultation by national authorities on the subject of draft legislative provisions; in this respect, your rapporteur proposes four amendments.
I would, first of all, like to recall the general philosophy underlying this text before setting out the position of the Commission with regard to the four amendments. On a philosophical level, if I might call it that, the Commission proposal is inspired by a particular principle and past experience.
The principle is strict compliance with the Treaty.
The experience relates to that we gained, as a whole, in respect of the secondary legislation relating to the European Monetary Institute, an experience which, I believe, brought satisfaction.
I would also like to state that no-one could claim that a single currency might lead automatically to the genesis of a unique euro financial market.
Of course, there is a very strong market logic and certain practices will find a certain similitude in a number of market sectors, and here I am thinking in particular of the monetary market.
Yet, other alignments depend on conditions prevailing outside the market and even on Economic and Monetary Union.
Hence, the inauguration of a single financial market, totally integrated, is predicated on a certain degree of harmonization.
Some of these harmonization processes lie within the jurisdiction of the Community, whilst others are a purely national concern.
With regard to Community jurisdiction, I am thinking in particular of the legislation on savings, the taxation aspect of which was covered by a draft directive which the Commission adopted only recently and which has been issued to you.
I am also thinking of the directive on the prospectus, or even the possible adaptation and possible harmonization of accounting rules.
With regard to the jurisdiction of Member States, I am thinking in particular of the schedule for the states' sovereign issues, but at the same time I am thinking of legislative reform with regard to insolvency, bankruptcy or, indeed, the regulation of financial institutions.
In all of these areas, substantial progress is a prerequisite for the introduction of a fully-integrated euro financial market as, if I understand it correctly, your rapporteur wished to see.
This is the thinking behind our proposals.
I will now move on rapidly to a survey of the four amendments.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 actually go back to the matter I just raised on the sharing of jurisdiction between the European Central Bank and the Member States with regard to regulation and financial matters.
As I suggested just now, the introduction of the euro can lead neither to automatic harmonization nor to a transfer of jurisdiction - indeed, Mr Giansily stressed this earlier.
Incidentally, this transfer of jurisdiction from national level to Community level is not specified in the Treaty.
Therefore these two amendments extend beyond the scope of Article 105, paragraph 4.
Yes, Mr Herman, things will change on the 1 January 1999 and I have said this many times in your House.
But the Treaty will not change, nor will Article 105, paragraph 4.
This is the reason why the Commission cannot endorse these two amendments.
I would simply like to reassure you.
In truth, the main precautions have been taken in this respect.
Consequently, in the convergence report, first of all, the European Monetary Institute and the Commission have assessed and confirmed legislative compatibility of those Member States joining the euro movement, with respect to their central banks, with the provisions of the Treaty.
Secondly, should a Member State adopt a legislative text, a law, affecting the jurisdiction of the European Central Bank, recourse to the Court of Justice would obviously be possible.
Finally this draft decision by the Commission is based on similar provisions, currently applicable to the EMI, within the framework of Economic and Monetary Union.
These provisions are satisfactory, they are operational and they have proved their effectiveness.
Moreover, the Commission proposals tabled today have been approved by the European Monetary Institute.
Furthermore, the Commission is not even able to accept Amendment No 4 which, in practice, would mean that national authorities are obliged to bend to the will of the European Central Bank when it is consulted.
In fact, Article 105, paragraph 4, simply envisages an obligation to consult the ECB without any binding commitment.
Here too, however, irrespective of Article 105, paragraph 4, the Commission is obliged to ensure that the Member States comply with the Treaty, especially with regard to the powers and the independence of the European Central Bank.
I can assure you that it will honour its obligations to the full in this respect.
Finally, Mr Herman, I can offer you a measure of satisfaction: we can accept Amendment No 3.
In conclusion, I would like to thank your rapporteur for his analysis, and, personally speaking, I would like to commend him on his endeavours to promote the Community spirit.
The Commission shares this approach but all the same, as custodian of the treaties, may we inform you that we cannot step outside the provisions of the Treaty and, in particular, the scope of Article 105, paragraph 4.
Thank you, Mr President, for allowing me the right to reply.
I wholly agree with the Commissioner's words.
Unfortunately, the Commissioner interprets the texts in a different way.
When we speak of matters that fall within the field of competence of the Central Bank, we are no longer talking of matters that lie within national competence.
And the Commissioner should know that, before the judges in the Court of Justice today, the texts are not interpreted in terms of the intent of their authors or their interpretation, but formally.
We witnessed this recently and the Commission was its first victim, in the case of external relations problems.
It was said that anything concerning services is not a matter for the Commission, since services are not dealt with in the Treaty.
This is a purely formal interpretation.
So, Commissioner, you should be aware that you have judges who interpret matters formally and when we are speaking of matters that fall within the field of competence of the Central Bank, they are no longer matters that lie within the bounds of national competence.
So, all of the matters you raised and all the examples you quoted lie within the bounds of national competence.
I do not intend to prolong the debate because you have a lot of reports to examine and your House has been delayed somewhat.
I would simply like to remind you that from a banking point of view, but also in a number of other fields, central banks retain responsibilities and powers.
We cannot extend these powers abruptly without changing the Treaty.
The Treaty does not allow us to espouse the approach advocated by Mr Herman.
I regret this personally, but that is what the texts state.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Estimates of the European Parliament and the Ombudsman
The next item is the report (A4-0175/98) by Mr Viola, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the estimates of revenue and expenditure of Parliament and the estimates of revenue and expenditure of the Ombudsman for the financial year 1999.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to stress particularly some common aspects characteristic not only of the Parliament's budget for 1999 but, in many cases, of the budget of the other institutions: the adoption of the euro, computer changes for the year 2000, the forthcoming European elections and the related information policy, the consequences of the Amsterdam Treaty, the full implementation of the building programme exercising the option to purchase the LEO complex and the occupancy of IPE IV and, finally, the new staff management policy.
A few items constitute the basic choices comprising the 1999 budget: firstly, the rate of increase in heading 5, equal to 4 %, to which the Parliament and the Ombudsman must adhere.
This increase, I can confirm here today, must not be considered an objective to be reached but rather an unsurpassable ceiling on expenditure, thus sticking to the idea of a rigorous budget comparable, in this respect, to that which the Member States have imposed on themselves.
Secondly, we must not forget, as regards the allocation of earmarked funds for the Parliament and the Ombudsman, that the initial estimate of these funds is based on the "zero' -budget option, and new requests are and will still have to be supported by adequate motivations.
Compliance with these conditions means that the overall amount of the European Parliament budget comes to ECU 916.1 million, with an increase of barely 0.88 per cent compared to 1998 and an operating margin of 28.5 million ECU. In October this will allow us to give a response to some important problems which are still unresolved, such as the annual expenditure and its breakdown between the sums required for the purchase of IPE IV in Strasbourg, the costs connected to the new status of the Members - these proposals will have to be submitted by the working party created for this purpose by the President's Office to the Committee on Budgets by the first reading of the budget itself - the costs related to the choices that will be made regarding the status of assistants and contracting, still in progress, with freelance interpreters.
Moving on to an analysis of the specific features of 1999, the introduction of the euro and the preparatory work to solve the problems in the computer sector with the year 2000 will be reflected as from the present budget procedure.
Therefore, and in line with what was highlighted by the European Council in Luxembourg last December, we shall take appropriate measures at the first reading.
Turning specifically to the Parliament, for which the allocation rate is 19.4 per cent of the volume of resources of category 5, and the particular features of the end of the fourth legislature, I would like to point out that the next elections should include financial costs of about ECU 17 million.
This assumption is related to the percentage of renewal of the Members of the institution and the accompanying measures to be adopted before the elections, such as information, for example.
In any case, the European elections will, as in the past, be an opportunity to undertake a number of specific initiatives in the information sector, initiatives to increase voter participation, such as the Use your vote campaign, agreed with the Commission, also in a context of close cooperation with EUROSTAT.
However, as regards the consequences of the Amsterdam Treaty and the enlargement policy, we have taken into account, within responsibly reduced limits, the Parliament's need for more adequate human resources.
This need is contained in the proposal to create 10 new temporary posts, linked to the enlargement process, on the basis of the job description which will be presented by the Secretary General to the competent bodies before the first reading of the draft budget.
On property, we would like to stress that, as from 1999, the related costs should decrease by a further ECU 17 million.
Within this framework it should be noted that the savings derived from the reimbursement of the investments for buildings D1 and D2 make a margin of ECU 27 million available for the next financial year and that if this continues, this policy will certainly produce a real saving for the Union budget in future years.
It is within the context of this policy that Mr Tomlinson's amendment falls, an amendment that includes the choices of the President's Office to use the financial resources available for the current fiscal year in order to exercise the option to purchase the buildings on rue Belliard for use by committees, by a letter of amendment to the 1998 budget, and on which, as rapporteur, I express a favourable view.
However, as regards the Ombudsman, the proposal of three new posts - and not six, as requested - is considered more in line with the budget rigour imposed for all the institutions, including the Ombudsman.
With this, I do not want to rule out the possibility of further examination, which may lead to appropriate amendments in October, following also the indication of the President of this Parliament, who stated that the Council and Commission consider it the Parliament's job to lay down the general principles to be applied to the staff of the Ombudsman, regarding the number and status of the officers in his service.
It is in connection with these observations that I invite the Socialist group to withdraw its amendment or reformulate it adequately with an oral amendment, which I am prepared to agree.
Finally, I would like to emphasize the happy choice adopted in the committee to modify the nomenclature, and the positive outcome given to this choice by the administration of the European Parliament, which ensures that the Parliament's budget which we are now examining includes an attachment which presents the main budget amounts according to the intended use. I would also like to underline the harmonious relationship created with the President's Office and particularly in the last phase with the Vice-President entrusted with the dossier , my colleague and dear friend Lucas Pires, which is another small reason why we mourn his tragic and premature death.
Mr President, it is often said that one of the first signs of madness is to start talking to yourself.
The attendance at this debate this evening shows how close to the edge some of us are in danger of becoming.
My feeling is only somewhat lightened by the very warm welcome I give to the Secretary-General who is here at the debate and Commissioner Liikanen.
I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Viola on an excellent report.
It is excellent not only because it is good of itself but reflects what over recent years in the Committee on Budgets has become a seamless continuum of budgetary approach to our own Parliament.
The stringency and the strict adherence to the 20 % ceiling of Category 5 appropriations is something which Mr Viola has welcomed and has enforced very strictly in the resolution he puts to us tonight.
My group would certainly endorse the three principles which reflect that continuum to which I referred: trying to get our estimates more and more based on the principles of zero-based budgeting, taking strong account when fixing the budget of the implementation of the appropriations that have been placed in previous budgets and an insistence that demands for new appropriations should be backed by appropriate supporting documentation.
Behind those principles there is also a very clear statement of priorities from Mr Viola.
One of those priorities is in relation to our property policy in Parliament, Although we have such a thin attendance, we should perhaps note that part of that property policy renders the tense of Mr Viola's priorities in his explanatory memorandum slightly out of date.
The necessary signatures were undertaken yesterday for us to proceed to the purchase of the Leopold building complex.
That is extremely important as part of Parliament's approach to property policy.
We have exercised the purchase option before the date of 31 May and in so doing we have managed to get the beneficial input to Parliament's budget of the BEF 7.25 billion that has been negotiated between Parliament and the Kingdom of Belgium.
That ECU 180m that the Belgians are giving by way of indemnifying the land and land development costs is a very important part of our building policy. But added to Mr Viola's report is Amendment No 2 from the Committee on Budgets, an amendment which I know Mr Viola supports.
It is an amendment which refers to the supplementary and amending budget No 1 of 1998.
In that amendment we are seeking a letter of amendment from the Commission to supplementary and amending budget No 1 of 1998 so that we can continue with the policy of property acquisition.
It is the view of the Bureau and of the Committee on Budgets - and here they are absolutely as one - that in that supplementary and amending budget we should seek to purchase the Belliard I and II buildings so that they can be made available to the Committee of the Regions, to the Economic and Social Committee and to the common structure which, following the Amsterdam Treaty, will be dissolved but which will still have to produce common services to those two committees.
So, I strongly commend Amendment No 2, which has already been carried by the Committee on Budgets, to the House.
The priorities are also stated as being the new staff management policy, a policy that the Secretary-General has outlined very clearly both to Parliament and to the staff. A third priority which I particularly welcome is that which we attach to the problems related to the introduction of the euro and the impact of the millennium bug.
I hope we can look to the administration to produce a report to Parliament as to what this priority means in practical terms, not necessarily waiting until next year.
These are serious problems for an information technology department which is already in many ways over-stretched and are probably two of the most important demands that will made of it.
Finally, I should like to refer to Amendment No 1 which stands in the name of my group.
We have tabled this amendment in Mr Wynn's name in order to leave the matter of staffing for the Ombudsman open until the first reading when one will have a clearer view of the overall need concerning staff.
We have done that, taking into account the views of the Committee on Petitions' rapporteur for the 1999 budget, Barbara Schmidbauer.
I commend that amendment to the House as well.
On behalf of the Socialist members of the committee, I should like to say how much we identify with what Mr Viola has said about the sad death of Vice-President Lucas Pires.
He was proving to be an extremely good interlocutor between the Bureau and the Committee on Budgets.
We will certainly miss him in that role but, above all else, we will miss him as a good parliamentarian.
Mr President, Mr Tomlinson said we may end up talking to ourselves.
That reminds me of being on electoral campaign, preaching the good news, and sometimes being faced with empty halls. And of course, conscious of our role as missionaries, we do not give up, but carry on.
All we do is say: "Please could everybody move into the front row' . Well, I think we could at least move into the front row without pushing Mr Liikanen out of his seat, which is rightfully his.
That way we would be a bit cosier.
Mr President, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Viola on the budget he is presenting to us.
It is a difficult budget, and that is the nice thing: to produce a difficult budget.
In times of plenty, the budget is boring.
And this is a difficult budget because of the large investments in property, furnishings and office automation equipment.
But with regard to Mr Viola's report, I would like to focus mainly on the Ombudsman's budget. The Ombudsman is an institution which was born after the era of budgetary plenty.
Like everybody, it was born with nothing, and therefore without demands. And because there were no demands, it was born with a very highly regulated organization.
I believe the demands have increased - in fact, we can feel it - so the organization needs to be adjusted to the work rate demanded of it.
And the work rate being demanded corresponds to the institution the citizens want.
They want a flexible institution, with a good cost-efficiency ratio.
So I think the time has also come for us to ask ourselves seriously whether something more really needs to be done with the organization of the Ombudsman.
Not just to provide the posts which have been requested this time, but really to see if the Ombudsman needs a bigger organization.
It is true that not all the Member States have reacted in the same way.
Some countries, such as Finland and Spain, are responding better, while the others are still some way behind.
But we want an institution which can rise to the occasion, so it also has to be on a par with the other institutions, which means it has to have the necessary staff and means.
And the staff have to be on fixed contracts, whereas temporary staff have to be for precisely that - for work which is only temporary.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mr Viola for a balanced and reliable report on the European budget for 1999.
The total amount for the budget is 916 million euros, which is in accordance with the Bureau's proposal.
This represents a rise of 5.2 million euros on this year's figure, or 0.6 %.
This answers the call for austerity that has to be obeyed when expenditure rises, just as the Member States themselves impose the same discipline on themselves.
The proportion of costs in relation to total EU administrative costs is also below 20 %, which falls in with Parliament's previous level of commitment.
Balancing the budget is eased by the reduction of fixed costs by 17 million euros, as a conclusion is reached regarding Strasbourg's and Brussels' structural programmes.
On the other hand, the end of the Parliamentary term and the switch to the euro will cost an extra 16.8 million euros next year.
That is why the budgetary change, and in particular staffing costs, have demanded much restraint.
I would especially like to bring up one matter, namely the Ombudsman's budget.
The institution of the European Ombudsman was established with the Maastricht Treaty, and it began its work in 1995.
The experience of already two and a half years has shown that it is necessary to have one.
A clear example of this is the soaring number of complaints that have been lodged, which last year showed an increase of 40 %.
One of the main duties of the EU and the European Parliament is, I believe, the defence of the weakest.
As the institution of the Ombudsman has been once and for all established by a unanimous decision by Member States, it should at least be given the modest resources it requires, or else the whole system will turn against its very own aims as matters pile up and decisions take so long to be made.
The proposal by the Ombudsman for six interim posts is modest when we consider the quality of the work done by the institution and the vast area their work covers, as well as the incredibly short period of time they have had to develop.
For this reason, I support Mr Wynn at this stage in his Amendment No 1.
In all other respects I endorse the acceptance of the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I find it difficult to talk about the European Parliament's budget today without referring to the striking confirmation in the most recent report from the Court of Auditors on the reimbursements and allowances which we receive as Members of the European Parliament.
That is why it shows no disrespect towards my colleague, Mr Viola, and his work if I emphasize that my group will support the report and its priorities and naturally the draft amendments as well, particularly as far as the Ombudsman is concerned, and I now devote my speaking time to the special report, especially since the budget of the Parliament will certainly pick up detailed proposals which emerge from the Court of Auditors' report, and Mr Viola will submit appropriate proposals to us, I have no doubt!
It is extremely regrettable that the President has rejected convening a conference of Presidents this afternoon and has resorted to formalities.
If the public rightly gets worked up about the unacceptable arrangements for reimbursement and insinuates that the Parliament has a self-service mentality, the President of this House should not hide behind provisions in the Rules of Procedure.
The right course of action would have been to go on the offensive, because we did after all request the Court of Auditors' report ourselves and because at bottom we knew of all the procedural gaps which we have now had confirmed.
Going on the offensive would also have meant in this case reducing the contradictory procedure to the minimum.
Why not 24 hours, because it could hardly be simpler to give an answer to the observations of the Court of Auditors.
The answer would be: "Agreed, that is how things are at present' , and "Agreed, that is how we want to change things in future' .
But can we rely on this President and this Bureau as far as a willingness to change is concerned? I do have my doubts!
The working group set up by President Hänsch has come to nothing.
The investigation into the pension fund system has come to nothing.
The rationalization of travel costs calculations has more or less, well, actually come to nothing.
It might perhaps be best to entrust the report to the Committee for Budgetary Control.
I can assure you that we would work quickly and speedily!
Mrs Müller, you have criticized the stance taken by the President of Parliament. He is not here, but I represent him at the moment.
I must remind you that the President told the House that there is no Court of Auditors' report. There are some provisional opinions, which are known to all of Parliament's political groups because they were sent to the chairman of each and every group.
Furthermore, a reply to this provisional opinion is being prepared by the Bureau, which is the competent body to do so.
That is a fairly accurate rendition of the President's words.
You may have the floor for one minute on a point of order.
Mr President, my point was not to refute what the President said this morning; my point was that I expected a political reaction.
That is what I am criticising.
Of course it is only a provisional report.
Of course it was distributed to the Chairmen of the groups much too late, and of course as a Member I also received it yesterday evening.
That's not my point!
My point is that I am pressing for a political reaction from our President, given that the press out there which is full of suppositions and insinuations is demanding answers which have to be given by every Member of this House.
My criticism was a political one, it was not aimed at the formalities and the Rules of Procedure!
In that respect, the President is certainly right!
Thank you for publicly acknowledging that the President has acted correctly.
I respect your opinions on the press, but I must inform you that the President is answerable to this House.
Mr President, greater transparency and clarity in this matter would be a boon for Parliament.
I remember suggesting a long time ago that all of these matters should be dealt with by a committee.
I am surprised that yet again a budgetary debate is under way here, in Brussels, in flagrant violation of the Edinburgh compromise, confirmed both by the Court of Justice and the Amsterdam Treaty.
Dear Mr Tomlinson, there were more of us present during the budgetary guidelines debate which was held this year in Strasbourg.
That comment aside, I would immediately like to raise again the matter of the chair to invoke the Viola report, which envisages "the appropriations necessary for a parliamentary calendar comprising 11 ordinary sessions and 6 additional sessions' .
Eleven ordinary sessions instead of twelve, we all agree.
This is an electoral year: we have six additional sessions, why is that so, when the calendar adopted by the Conference of Presidents stipulates only five.
The second main provision of the report sets aside appropriations to conduct a neutral campaign of institutional information amongst citizens of the Union.
What is proposed is that we step up the appropriations allocated for information policy; ECU 2 750 000 have already been released for this purpose in the form of a transfer voted on 28 May last, instituting a special "European elections' action.
So the European Parliament is preparing to vote on a 1999 budget which will only serve finally to augment its propaganda appropriations.
Is there a single example, in any democracy, where a special information action on the eve of the elections adds four billion already devoted directly or indirectly to propaganda by the Community budget? But that will not change anything.
The federalist propaganda will continue relentlessly to seek to change the mind of those who, with full knowledge of the facts, are opposed to the process of European integration.
Mr President, I find myself totally supportive of the need to exercise very strict restraint over the budget, most importantly over the money we spend on the institutions.
Therefore Mr Viola will have my full backing just as he will have my backing tomorrow in his very important report on the island regions of Europe.
I would, however, say as an aside that I regret that in staffing issues we do not make more use of fixed term contracts.
The businesses and individuals who create the wealth of Europe all have to act with restraint and they do not have jobs for life.
Having said that, our priority must always be how we can help the people of Europe.
So I too am going to concentrate on the element of the budget dealing with the Ombudsman.
The European Ombudsman is a critical role.
It is important for us that we see that he gets the resources he needs.
As a member of the Committee on Petitions, like you, Mr President, I have worked very closely with Mr Söderman.
He is an extremely conscientious officer.
Nobody could say that he is acting in a flamboyant or extravagant way.
That is not his Finnish style.
His office is the smallest ombudsman's office of any in Europe, save Malta.
So, his initial request for six temporary staff was one that, at the very least, merited full consideration and a meaningful dialogue.
There are newspapers across Europe that are making a living exposing the errors and flaws of the European administration.
Sadly, there are too many such errors and flaws.
In the Ombudsman we have an officer who can act on behalf of the people of Europe but if he is going to do that job properly he needs the proper resources to do it.
We should make sure he gets those resources.
If we want to look at where that money can come from, I suggest we do a proper cost-benefit analysis on the Economic and Social Committee.
Mr President, first I would like to thank the draftsman of the report for some very painstaking work.
I also wish to draw your attention to the European Ombudsman's budget.
The opportunity to appeal to an ombudsman is one of the most important rights citizens of the Union have.
The Ombudsman's task is to handle complaints about errors made by other institutions of the Community.
The Ombudsman's office has been now running long enough to judge what sorts of staffing levels are necessary for a sufficiently up-to-scratch and speedy service for the citizens of the Union.
The office of the European Ombudsman has been getting an ever-increasing number of enquiries.
This shows that our citizens have regarded the work of the Ombudsman as essential in solving the problems that have cropped up in Union administration.
In his report Mr Viola suggests establishing three new posts to ease the work pressures on the Ombudsman's office.
The problem, however, is not only the number of new posts, but, more particularly, their professional level.
The citizens of Europe have a right to expect the European Ombudsman's office handling their complaints to have at their disposal a legal staff that have at least the same level of experience as those in the institutions of the Community which are being looked into.
Otherwise we create a situation where the European bureaucrats are racing finely-tuned Formula 1 cars against the Ombudsman's Mazda 323 family saloon.
In my opinion that is not fair for the citizen making the complaint.
I hope we can yet consider the proposal by the Ombudsman on the number of staff he requires, and especially on their professional level, before we finally approve the 1999 budget in the autumn.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate Mr Viola most sincerely on his report and come immediately to budget line 205 concerning the security and surveillance of buildings.
In this case we have a rate of increase of 67 %, we are spending a total of ECU 17 million on our security, and we know that there is certainly a need to improve security in the building.
There has been a great deal of theft in the House.
That is why I launched a campaign on security and fighting crime.
More than 150 Members have added their signature to this issue, and I believe that it should be a matter of concern to us that, if we are spending so much money on security, there should be some recognisable benefit in this area.
It was the case that special units were made available to guard the Parliament during the session which the Parliament held in Strasbourg.
The Parliament is also guarded by the police and by the military, of course, in Brussels.
I believe that it would be sensible to speed up official discussions in order to guarantee the security of the House and to ensure that costs are incurred in this area in a way which is really efficient.
I believe that this is a matter of concern to the citizens of Brussels, and it is a matter of concern to all employees in the European Parliament and at the European level.
I would argue that we should hold discussions in this area.
The President promised to do so, and I believe that it should be a matter of concern for us all to look after the security of people in Brussels.
Thank you very much, Mr Rübig.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Rübig's was the last speech.
The Commissioner, Mr Liikanen - whom I welcome - has told me that he does not wish to speak.
Before closing the debate, I shall give the floor to Mr Viola, as rapporteur. Perhaps he would like to explain to Mr Perry how big the Maltese Ombudsman's office is, because I know that Mr Viola was in Malta before coming here yesterday.
Mr President, precisely with regard to the Ombudsman, which all the Members have been discussing, there are a few things I would like to say.
No one denies that the Ombudsman has been more and more active these past few years; his initial requests, however, contain elements which conflict with the regulations on the status of officials and with the rules on the rationalization of administrative expenditure laid down by the three institutions.
For example, the Ombudsman cannot ask for posts which are not at the initial levels; he cannot request directly posts of high qualifications, or certain revaluations, like a revaluation of an A3 post to A2 after scarcely three years, meaning an official hired from the outside as A3 becomes A2 after three years. To me, frankly, these requests seem somewhat excessive.
So, if we approach this matter with a sense of balance and moderation, I am prepared to discuss it again, provided that - and I repeat - there is balance, moderation and compliance with the rules.
Thank you very much, Mr Viola.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Frontier workers
The next item is the report (A4-0168/98) by Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the situation of frontier workers in the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report on the situation of frontier workers is one of a series of reports which deal with the problems of people who use or want to use one of the most important basic freedoms in the European Union.
The rapporteur has devoted a good deal of work to drawing up the report in order to demonstrate the diverse problems of workers in frontier regions.
Although in theory and in practice the internal European frontiers are intended to present no obstacles to the free movement of people, there are plenty of difficulties in terms both of tax law and of social security law, so that clarification is urgently necessary in the interests of the workers.
The first thing to be done is to arrive at an unambiguous definition of the term frontier worker.
It is all too often the case that different interpretations are advanced.
It would be splendid if the Commission could work towards producing some proposals in this area.
In our group, we have looked at these issues in depth, and we are able to agree with many of the rapporteur's ideas.
We would like our draft amendments to contribute to ensuring that the report on the problems of frontier workers sticks with this issue, and that it is not muddled up with other sets of problems.
We shall reject those points dealing with compensation funds.
In this matter, our view is that no genuine solution can be achieved on the basis of this sort of more or less voluntary individualisation between the Member States.
On the contrary, it would simply be a postponement which is the last thing the workers concerned want.
If there were any result, it would involve a lot of agreements between countries which would simply compound the confusion and no country would consider itself obliged to make any effort to work towards a common and fundamental solution of the problem.
I would like to encourage the Commission to take concrete steps in this regard and to press for the proposals which it has already put forward.
The Council has put a tight leash on itself by virtue of the unanimity procedure.
These are brakeblocks which should at long last be abolished now in the interests of the European cause.
We shall also reject the demand for checks and directions to be introduced into free collective bargaining.
Free collective bargaining is something that we have always strongly defended.
Our Amendment No 10, which relates to point 13, was withdrawn by me, because it was drawn up on the basis of an error in translation in the German version.
That also relates to the term "Europaprüfung' in the German version, but we have already come to an agreement with the rapporteur about ensuring that care is taken to make the appropriate changes in the different versions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to place this report in a somewhat wider context.
This afternoon we talked about the broad economic policy guidelines and then we noted, and that was right across the House, that there is still a lack of coordination in the European Union in countless policy sectors which are absolutely vital.
That is why the Van Lancker report is so urgently needed, because it exposes matters which admittedly affect frontier workers in the first instance, but which also have everything to do with bringing flexibility to the labour market, not only within countries but also in possible employment situations spanning different countries.
This is a matter that various Commissioners are working on.
Mrs Van Lancker has already pointed this out.
The Monti Group on tax coordination and the Veil Group have done excellent work.
At the present time we are looking at what can be done in the field of pensions.
Nevertheless, frontier workers are often in extraordinarily difficult positions and, in taking the initiative to work across the border, lose quite fundamental rights, including basic entitlements such as the right to a pension.
I have tabled an amendment following on from the Decker v. Kohl cases, and I hope that the rapporteur will include this amendment in the considerations, because here too a quite fundamental matter is at issue, namely the right to medical care even after the employment relationship ends.
In short, I am very happy indeed with Mrs Van Lancker's report. She has done an excellent job and I hope that this report will be a basis for resolving a number of anomalies that still exist.
Mr President, I believe that Mrs van Lancker has not only worked hard but also well, which is most important.
I would like to refer again to her thesis of the signal function.
I believe that frontier workers are in some ways like bio- indicators which record the level of free movement and equal rights in this Union.
It has to be said that this level seems to be under a high degree of pressure.
If we take that as our measure, then there is an urgent need for action.
This is not the first time that we have agreed on this matter; we withdrew the report by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, for example, until we could reach a more positive understanding with the Commission.
In this case, it is mainly a matter of social security and taxation, and their interaction.
These are not matters for local authority politics.
We cannot place these questions on the shoulders of frontier local authorities; the Member States have to face up to their responsibilities at long last!
Moreover, in everyday life it is also a matter of access to healthcare, security for family members, early retirement, supplementary pension systems, access to unemployment insurance and taxation.
All of that is caught up with the problem of unanimity in the Council of Ministers, even though in other areas everything that is needed to implement the internal market is not subject to unanimity but can be decided by majority vote.
It seems to me that there is a systematic problem here.
I think that the proposal of a compensation fund for disadvantages suffered or for an early warning system through the consultation procedure in advance of relevant legislation is a good proposal.
I am not convinced by the tendency of the European People's Party Group to delete essential elements by means of draft amendments, on the pretext that a global solution which might some day be achieved will be prevented by adopting interim solutions.
We should support the proposal as it is.
I think that Mrs van Lancker has elaborated the essential points.
If we adopt it as it is, we shall be taking a step forward.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the matter raised in Mrs Van Lancker's report merits our full attention.
When, in this very House, we debate problems that focus on the lack of harmonization, for example, in the sizing of processed peas, the capacity of moped engines or the speed of forestry tractors, we tend to overlook those citizens who, whether nationals or frontier residents in a Member State, are unable to work in the adjoining Member State without coming up against insurmountable administrative, social or tax problems.
What are we to think in an age when trade, electronic interaction, professional and geographical mobility on a world scale are becoming commonplace, how do we view a European Union that professes lofty principles, in this case the abolition of all domestic borders, yet fails to broach problems of stewardship. It is a sensitive problem and even the euro, the alleged panacea for all our problems, offers no relief.
Different and frequently complex social regimes exist within our individual Member States.
We therefore need a strong political will and a genuine desire to promote the common good in order to confront the problems posed in this area.
In the preambles to her report, Mrs Van Lancker quite rightly referred to the many petitions that our committee responsible handles in this respect. Thus, for instance, the many cases of dual taxation in the state of residence and in the state of employment, or non-payment of various allowances because the citizens reside in another Member State.
It is indecent to appeal throughout the report for more resources to assist the mobility of citizens of the Member States or to claim the creation of a citizens' Europe when those very citizens, on a daily or weekly basis, cross domestic borders and face staggering problems.
We might add to this those situations where Community nationals face difficulties due to the lack of coordination on the position of Member States in their bilateral agreements with other states.
Once again, there is no shortage of examples, especially in Switzerland.
In France, for example, the committee for the defence of frontier workers in the Upper Rhine throws up many examples, such as that of the Italian national who worked and paid his dues for 25 years in France, followed by two years in Switzerland and who, falling victim to a disability, lost his claim for compensation because of the last two years since he is Italian and therefore not covered by the Franco-Swiss bilateral agreement.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us not forget that in the first instance, we are the elected members responsible for promoting the common good.
Europe will not be built on large coalitions, declarations of intent and self-congratulation, but by the day-to-day approval of its members, I mean individuals and whole peoples.
This is because we will know, when we acquire the legal and technical jurisdiction, how to listen to them and solve their problems and they, in turn, will be able to listen to us and understand.
Mr President, I want to say a sincere thank you to the rapporteur for a good report.
The report has its origin in the problems of Belgian frontier workers who, through the fiscal treatment of social security in the Netherlands, suffered a loss of purchasing power amounting to a few hundred guilders a month.
The rapporteur has made use of that and has referred to numerous petitions submitted to the Committee on Petitions.
The Committee on Petitions is in fact the last resort for tens of thousands of people who constantly face border problems.
There are in Europe a good six hundred thousand workers who commute across frontiers and, if we add the number of people who receive benefits from past employment in another Member State, we have a substantial group of people who desire more European coordination in the field of social security, taxation and benefits or allowances for sickness.
Compared with employees or benefit recipients who live and work in the same Member State, they often have an inferior status.
Europe is trying to coordinate.
However, only social security falls within the Regulation, which moreover shows many other gaps.
A major problem results from taxation not being in step with social security or sickness allowances.
Now that social legislation is being constantly amended in the Member States and more and more tax-related elements are being introduced, it is high time for fiscal coordination to be tackled at European level.
A study of the University of Limburg, carried out in response to the Belgian problem, indicates that it would be possible to put an end to the many instances of unfairness by allowing people to opt for both their social security contribution and their tax assessment to be located in their country of residence or, if they prefer, in their country of employment.
The clear choice that the rapporteur had for that concurrence in the first instance has been invalidated by her subsequent amendment of the original quite categorical formulation.
I think that is a pity.
Now the Commission is being given the task of working something out in the field of taxation too.
I would have preferred to see it formulated in much sharper terms; I support a rapid and constant endeavour on the part of the Commission to reach a solution.
If the Commissioner can now tell us what he intends to do, I shall at least be able to give a little hope to my commuting constituency to whom, if I may say so, the European ideal is of such vital significance.
Of particular importance, and I hope to get a positive answer on that point too, is an element in this report which I already introduced here about six years ago, but then as "the commuting effect test' , but what's in a name?
The aim of what is referred to in this report as the Europe test is to introduce an obligation to chart the effects of every amendment of social or fiscal legislation at Member State level on commuters and ex-commuters.
The availability of information on the problems will also prompt national parliamentarians to turn their attention to seeking solutions.
What makes less sense to me is to have a compensation fund by which disadvantages to cross-frontier commuters would be mitigated at Member State level.
It was particularly gratifying to me - and I say that to my colleague, Mr Chanterie, as well - to learn that the Belgian government set up an arrangement for Belgian frontier workers when my country, the Netherlands, proved unprepared to agree something on a bilateral basis.
However, I think it would be a tedious business to make provision for such stopgap remedies at European level.
Thanks to the rapporteur for taking up the idea of setting up an experiment - you might remember the Maas/Rhine EuroRegion, where it makes no difference as regards sickness allowances, at least for cross-frontier commuters and their families and/or ex-commuters, where the entitlements are purchased.
I remember asking for Limburg to be included, but without anything coming of it.
I wonder whether the Commission is prepared to support a new initiative on these lines or to develop it from scratch, since cases of this kind are now making much more headway through the Court of Justice.
Thank you very much, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I must say, the clock was on your side because it only started counting some way into your speech.
Mr Chanterie now has the floor for three minutes. Let us hope the clock is working properly now.
Mr President, the rapporteur is right to state that the 380, 000 commuters across frontiers make up a minority by comparison with an estimated 150 million workers in the European labour market.
At the same time, it goes without saying that the free movement of workers is an important right of the internal market.
I am very happy to concede the signal function in relation to the EU's objectives.
That is why I fully support giving equal rights to frontier commuters and mobile workers in terms of the European Commission's action plan which contains five main emphases, namely improving or adjusting the most important legal documents on the free movement of workers, increasing the transparency of the labour market, taking-on of responsibility by the Member States and developing co-operation, better information about the right of free movement and strengthening the external effect as well as assisting innovative projects in the framework of the European Social Fund.
Under no circumstances can there be any tampering with free collective bargaining - a great good - as is demanded at point 7 by my colleague Mrs van Lancker.
The principle of subsidiarity must also be respected.
Preference should definitely be given to bilateral solutions.
Under no circumstances can I agree to a central compensation fund at an EU level.
And I continue to reject any extension of reuniting families, or any expansion of the export of support for the unemployed and for families and payments of money or of the right of residence for family members from third countries until it is has been established who are members of the close family circle.
Under no circumstances can these include children over 21 who are not entitled to maintenance, or relatives in an ascending line who are not entitled to maintenance.
In conclusion, I say to my colleague Chanterie that I would stress one point: the frontier workers do this on an entirely voluntary basis.
Mr President, firstly I should like to thank Mrs Van Lancker for her excellent report on the situation of frontier workers and, in particular, the social and fiscal problems that these workers face.
The Commission fully supports her concerns.
Indeed, the Commission's action plan for free movement of workers adopted on 12 November 1997 highlighted the important role of cross-border mobility in the Union.
In particular, it underlined the need for specific clear provisions to overcome the problems caused for frontier workers by disparities between national, legal systems in fields such as social security, taxation, health care and social advantages.
Besides this statutory action, cross-border cooperation needs to be fostered in order to cover specific issues of interest to frontier workers such as social security and taxation.
Your draft resolution calls for a range of actions from the different partners involved.
I welcome your proposal to put forward the resolution to the Council, the European social partners, the governments and the parliaments of the Member States, as well as to the Commission.
I fully agree that only a combined action at each of these levels will bring about meaningful resolution of the problems analysed in the explanatory statement.
Allow me now to set out briefly the Commission's approach to the points raised in the resolution.
With regard to fiscal matters, the Commission has long been aware of the specific tax problems of frontier workers and has sought to contribute to their solution by way of legislative proposals and other initiatives.
As early as 1979 the Commission presented a draft directive to harmonize certain aspects of a tax treatment on non-residents.
Unfortunately the proposal was not adopted since the required unanimity in the Council could not be reached.
Therefore, in 1993 the Commission adopted a recommendation on the tax treatment of residents' income.
The recommendation and the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice following the approach of the recommendation, in particular the Schumacher judgment, significantly benefited the situation of non-resident workers.
Most Member States concerned have now, more or less, adapted their legislation on the taxation of non-residents who earned their main income in a Member State other than that of their residence, in line with the recommendation.
The Commission has also kept under review the legislation in Member States and initiated infringement proceedings against several Member States for failure to respect the non-discrimination rule.
This report underlines the need for a Community approach to the problem of rules for tax jurisdiction in parallel to that existing in the field of social security.
The Commission can in principle agree with the need for Community action.
It has to take into account the need for unanimity for any adoption of binding Community legislation in the tax field.
In the absence of harmonization of income taxes, the attribution of taxing rights among two Member States is so far governed by their bilateral tax conventions.
Recently the Court ruled that under the existing provisions of Community law Member States are free to arrange bilaterally the tax jurisdiction for income tax of frontier workers.
Any multilateral approach in the form of a European convention on the avoidance of double taxation of income and capital would also require unanimity.
However, the Commission will pay particular attention to the need for a coherent solution of the tax and social security problems faced by the frontier workers.
Concerning social policy, I welcome Parliament's support for the Commission's different proposals to amend Regulation 1408/71 on social security for migrant workers.
In this respect, you are probably aware that the Court of Justice has recently made two important judgments.
These judgments means that a person who was insured for medical care in a Member State is entitled to be reimbursed by that state for all medical care he or she receives in another Member State in accordance with the tariffs of the state of insurance.
Since these judgments are directly applicable, the experiments that Mrs Van Lancker suggests in her resolution do not now seem to be necessary.
I would like to thank Mrs Van Lancker and her colleagues for the encouraging support given to the EURES network.
The EURES cross-border partnerships have been supported by the European Parliament from the very start and we welcome the proposal that EURES and its cross-border partnerships should be stepped up.
However, I should underline that while the number of cross-border partnerships has increased from 11 to 18 over the past two years, our budget has not increased.
In fact, it has slightly decreased over the same period.
These cross-border partnerships provide services to frontier workers such as relevant information about their rights and obligations.
In that sense they support certain requests of this resolution.
The EURES adviser can help national and European institutions to be informed as quickly as possible about obstacles to mobility.
In the future we intend to gather such information in a more structured manner.
The EURES partners and their advisers will thus be able to contribute to the setting up of an early warning system. However, it should be made clear that they will not be able to provide a complete coverage in all border areas of the Union or in all aspects mentioned in the resolution.
However, the Commission will shortly present a comprehensive report on the work of the EURES network for the years 1996 and 1997 to Parliament.
This could be a good opportunity to carry out an in-depth dialogue over the future developments of the EURES network.
As regards the proposal to establish call centres for migrant and frontier workers, I would like to draw Parliament's attention to the Commission's intention to launch a permanent dialogue with citizens.
This will be officially announced at the European Summit in Cardiff.
Call centres will be established in all the Member States on the model of the Citizens First initiative, to advise citizens on their rights as well as on any community-related problems.
Finally, I would like to comment on the idea of the proposal for a directive on the introduction of a European test, whereby Member States would be required to test their legislation on the effects they have on frontier workers.
I would like to make it clear that it is already the Commission's task to ensure that all provisions of national legislation are compatible with the Treaty and the secondary legislation so far as Community law is concerned.
The Commission will certainly continue to use the powers laid down in Article 169 of the Treaty and to launch infringement proceedings against Member States when they violate EC law.
However, I understand that the suggested proposal for a directive aims to provide for a more general socio-economic impact assessment of the consequences of national legislation which is in itself compatible with EC law but which might cause detrimental effects to frontier workers.
While I am not sure that it would be appropriate to propose a directive in these circumstances, it seems to me appropriate to stimulate, as it is suggested in the report, cross-border concertation of the partners involved in the different regions and at Community level.
So I can confirm that it is the Commission's intention to stimulate this concertation in order to be able to identify infringements of EC law and the socio-economic consequences of national legislation on frontier workers.
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her stimulating report and to stress the Commission's determination to maintain its efforts to overcome the problems faced by frontier workers.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his extensive answer, which I find to be largely satisfactory.
But one question regarding the Europe test.
I know that he was not so favourable to the idea of a Europe test before, but I also know that the Commission's Legal Service has been investigating the question of the legal basis in the Treaty.
Can the Commissioner confirm or deny that there is a legal basis for such a test, by which it would be possible to vet the social legislation of Member States not only for its conformity with European law but also for its effects on frontier workers, which is another kind of test?
Our Legal Service had indicated Article 49 as a suitable legal basis.
I would appreciate it if the Commissioner could comment on the findings of the Commission's Legal Service.
Mr President, I should like to say to Mrs Van Lancker that it is my opinion that there is a legal base.
The question is of some political choices to be made here and before any of these matters concerning that and other matters concerning taxation are pursued, the taxation policy group should have a look at these matters first.
The only difficulty is that it seems to be overloaded with matters to be dealt with this year.
I know they are obliged to deal with an investigation on pensions and on energy taxation and on electronic commerce.
That is a pretty over-loaded agenda at the moment.
But the answer in short is Yes, it can be established that there is a legal base where this could be undertaken.
Thank you for your speech, Mr Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Registration documents for motor vehicles
The next item is the report (A4-0190/98) by Mr Bazin, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on registration documents for motor vehicles and their trailers (COM(97)0248 - C4-0423/97-97/0150(SYN)).
Mr President, I consider that the regulation proposed by the European Commission is most fortuitous for two reasons:
First, because road cabotage has been deregulated.
This means that we need an efficient system for monitoring and controlling freight vehicles moving within the internal market.
Secondly because, as the committee of inquiry into fraud and smuggling of goods in transit found, most goods, especially cigarettes and alcohol, are smuggled by road.
There are, at a guess, hundreds of instances in which lorries have disappeared together with their freight by changing their number plates and respraying and many of these have been documented in the Commission report in the committee of inquiry into fraud and smuggling of goods in transit.
The proposal itself, and I would like to congratulate the Commission and its rapporteur, Mr Bazin, on their proposal, is based on two premises:
First, if a lorry or bus is to be registered in a Member State, the old registration documents must be submitted to the new state in which they are to be registered.
That is fundamental.
Secondly, the state which registers the vehicle must send the old registration documents to the state which issued them, in order to inform them that the registration number of the vehicle has changed.
Another extremely important point is that provision has now been made for vehicle checks on all main roads within the European Union.
In some countries, such as the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden, where freight vehicles do not need to carry their registration documents while travelling within the country, they are now required to do so when travelling outside the United Kingdom, Sweden or Denmark.
May I also say that the Group of the European People's Party endorses the report and will endorse the rapporteur's amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is really a debate among transport policy conspirators.
This is a report which is slightly technical but not really as technical as all that.
Allow me to begin by offering sincere thanks to the Chairman of the Committee for Transport and Tourism.
It is sometimes his duty, which he takes seriously, to assume the role of rapporteur and to push the matter forward, if no group wants to take on a report because of the subject, and I am particularly grateful to him for handling transport policy in our Committee with such commitment.
As to the matter itself: we support the draft directive from the Commission on the harmonization of the registration documentation for motor vehicles and trailers.
I believe that aligning registration documents will facilitate transport checks in the Union, because in future and irrespective of the issuing country the documents will in each case contain a series of clear and uniform statements; for example, inter alia they will indicate in which Member State the vehicle is registered and which person is the authorised owner of the registration documents.
That will unfortunately still not tell you who is the owner of the vehicle, but we shall at least know who is the authorised owner of the registration documents.
By this means, the draft directive will at the same time assist the fight against car crime.
Moreover, the alignment of registration documents will facilitate reregistration of a motor vehicle from one member country to another.
However, Commissioner, my group believes that this can be only the first step towards harmonization, because it makes no sense within the European Community for some states to have one-piece registration documents and others two-piece documents, with differing legal consequences in the Member States concerned.
That really makes no sense at all in an internal market.
I think that we need a certain degree of harmonization in an internal market.
It does not have to be taken to the final degree, but there has to be a sensible harmonization of basic data.
That is why I would be happy if you would acknowledge that harmonization will have to go beyond this first step, especially since I believe that the theft and smuggling of vehicles within the Community and also from the Community into adjacent third countries must be more effectively prevented, and it would be helpful in this respect to have sensible registration documents.
That is why, Commissioner, we support your proposal.
We hope that you will support the draft amendments from the Chairman of the Committee on Transport and Tourism - apart from the draft amendment from the Greens, of course, we do not support that one either - and we also hope that it is the first step on the road to a careful but objectively justified harmonization.
Mr President, can I begin by thanking Mr Bazin on his excellent and concise report discharged as a duty but also with some enthusiasm.
As this report notes, and as we have just heard from Mr Bazin, there are considerable differences between procedure and purpose relating to the registration of motor vehicles in the Member States.
There are also varying degrees of endorsement of the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, so increasing mobility in the Community and in the single market now makes the harmonization of rules on information contained in registration certificates sensible as Mr Sarlis pointed out.
I am naturally pleased to note that Mr Bazin and his colleagues support the objectives of the proposal.
I have, of course, considered the various amendments carefully and whilst they have my broad sympathy, some purely practical considerations mean that I sadly cannot accept all of them.
Amendment No 1 calls for an additional statement in the preamble to the effect that this proposal constitutes a first step towards more complete harmonization.
While I agree with the sentiment of the amendment, for the reasons set out very recently by Mr Jarzembowski and whilst I also believe that there will be moves towards greater uniformity in the future, the addition of such a new preamble would serve no strict legislative function and consequently the Commission cannot accept it.
Amendment No 3 seeks to change the dates of implementation to take into account the actual time frame of the proposal.
While the purpose of the amendment is certainly sensible, the need for a modified proposal and the need also for a second reading, mean that even the new dates suggested are unlikely to be achieved.
I believe it best, therefore, to leave this detail until the actual adoption of the common position and to set appropriate dates at that point.
I hope, therefore, that this amendment can be withdrawn.
Amendment No 4 calls on the Commission to circulate all copies of all registration documents to all Member States and I can certainly support that amendment as a useful means of spreading relevant information.
Amendment Nos 2, 5 and 6 relate to anti-fraud measures.
I can accept both the principle and specifically Amendment No 5 which requires the inclusion of the engine identification number on the registration document.
However, the effect of the other two amendments would be to require replacement registration documents when certain new spare parts were installed in the vehicle, including for example a replacement window.
I am sure that this could not have been the intention of those who drafted the amendment, since the results would obviously be extremely bureaucratic.
I hope that on reflection honourable Members will not pursue these amendments.
Amendment No 7 were to have the effect of making inclusion of a vehicle's environmental characteristics in the registration documents compulsory rather than optional.
Since such details could play a role in taxation regimes at some time in the future and since such features could also be subject to roadside checks, the Commission acknowledges the sense of making such information mandatory and we can therefore support this amendment.
I am very grateful to Mr Bazin and to his committee for the constructive attitude that they are taking to a proposal which will I am sure prove its worth to vehicle owners and to transport authorities and also be a useful addition to the efforts to combat theft and fraud.
So I, together with Members of this honourable House, look forward to its progress into law.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Potato starch
The next item is the report (A4-0163/98) by Mrs Redondo Jiménez, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EC) No 1868/94 establishing a quota system in relation to the production of potato starch (COM(97)0576 - C4-0045/98-97/0300(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are considering the reform of Council Regulation No 1868/94.
Articles 1 and 2 of that regulation say that the Commission is obliged to present a report on the performance of the regulation, as well as proposals to extend the time limit, or change the regulation or the allocation of starch quotas in any way.
The countries affected were Denmark, Germany, France, Holland and Spain.
In January 1995 three more countries joined - Austria, Sweden and Finland. Therefore, a modification was made at that time, with the overall quota being adjusted to 1 869 000 tonnes.
The present proposal also lists the operational instruments upon which it is based, such as the minimum price of potatoes, the compensation payments to farmers, and the special premiums to industry. There are three reasons for paying industry: because of the structural disadvantages associated with starch manufacture; because of the limited value of by-products; and because of the seasonal nature of production.
I should like to describe to the House the contradictions I have found in the Commission's proposal.
I think the criteria used in the proposal need to be examined here, by all of us.
Firstly, ladies and gentlemen, I think we need to be sure whether we are talking about starch or about potatoes.
If we are talking about starch, the price of starch should be the same whether it comes from potatoes or from cereals.
In this case, there is discrimination in favour of potato starch, with an overvaluation of approximately 35 %, which needs to be looked at.
If it is a question of potatoes, then I hope the honourable Members will allow me to say this: we are going to study this matter in depth and we are going to move towards a set of rules to cover the potato, not just for starch use, but for all uses, both for industry and for food.
And here I would make a claim on behalf of many EU Member States: we propose a common organization of the market in potatoes.
As for assistance to the starch industry, it is paid because of seasonal variations, for not using by-products, and for agrienvironmental measures. I should like the Commission to bear in mind that if it is a question of seasonal variation then the whole of the agri foodstuffs industry should be paid.
Is the Commission prepared to pay the whole of that industry for products which experience problems because of their seasonal nature?
I think that would be a serious mistake. As for not using the byproducts, the same thing applies.
How many industries are there which not only have no useful by-products, but also have to pay to get rid of them? So we are paying for something which others have to pay for themselves.
As for environmental measures, we have been paying the starch industry to take such measures for 20 years.
I think they should have been taken by now.
What am I trying to say, ladies and gentlemen? Should we get rid of these subsidies?
No: I think we policy-makers and the Commission should be flexible and remember the social, regional and environmental problems we are faced with.
So in this case, I propose a careful study of how to implement a new COM in potatoes.
In the case of potato starch, however, the status quo should be maintained for three years.
When it comes to studying the new COMs, as we shall have to do, I hope the same arguments, which I have stated here as contradictions, will be taken into consideration. We are always being told there are financial problems, so we cannot increase our budgets.
Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission proposal involves a budgetary increase of 26 %, which I think is highly significant.
We are told that by cancelling things we could save ECU 150 million.
With the oil question, we are talking about figures in the region of ECU 200 million, which is causing a big fuss throughout the European Union.
So we are going to be consistent and apply the same criteria to all COMs.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Redondo Jiménez for her report and I have noted with some interest that she has pointed out some of the facts that I pointed to three years ago when I was asked to write a report on potato starch quotas.
Just to go back for a moment, the quotas were introduced because there had been a huge increase in the production of potatoes for starch when starch from potatoes started to be treated, as far as subsidies were concerned, in the same way as cereals.
Potatoes, grown for potatoes, to eat as chips or potatoes do not get a subsidy and it was because of a huge increase in production that these quotas became necessary.
I repeat again, as I said at that time, that it is a very questionable use of public funds to support people to grow potatoes for starch when there are other sources of starch.
There has been a huge growth in the amount of money being used to support this production.
Potato starch consisted of 48 % of the total starch exports in 1996-1997.
No fewer than 385, 000 tonnes of the stuff!
Why are we using public money to support people to grow potatoes to make into starch that we cannot use in the EU? We pay the producers to make the starch and then we pay them to export it because nobody wants it.
This is an absolute nonsense and we should not be looking to extend these subsidies, we should be looking to reduce the quotas so that we are at the very least cutting out the export subsidy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to express my very sincere thanks to Mrs Redondo for her report, and in this case I should like to contradict Mrs Hardstaff quite frankly when she asks: why do not we take maize or corn instead of potatoes? Neither wheat nor maize can thrive where potatoes thrive, and that is why it is in particular the production of potato starch that is indispensable and an essential factor for certain disadvantaged regions of Europe.
That is why it is also necessary for the future of the starch industry - because it, too, secures jobs - that the producer premium for potato starch is given to farmers.
There is one other point which I want to mention: it is clear to all of us that high technology in starch production is essential for the firms or for the potato starch producers as well, and these processing plants also need reliable partners among the farmers.
But the farmers can only produce the potatoes if these compensatory payments for the starch potatoes continue.
I think that we should support the Commission's proposal in its present form, and also the proposal that the quotas for the next three years should be maintained.
Mr President, it is not always the case, but this time my group can fully support the Commission's proposals in broad outline.
We think that payments for starch from whatever source, including potato starch, should be made on equal terms.
Why do we think that?
Firstly, the regions of Europe where potatoes for starch production are grown generally have soil that is not very fertile.
Few alternatives are available.
If we did not do this, large areas of Europe would be facing disaster.
I therefore entirely disagree with the spokeswoman from the Socialist group.
I would also have expected arguments of this kind to appeal to her, bearing in mind what it would all cost: at present I think we pay about ECU 200 million for this policy.
Considering regional development in Europe as a whole, that is an extremely small amount.
We get definite value for our money.
What else is attractive about this industry? It has proved over the years that it can operate in a very environmentally friendly manner - no more environmental pollution.
A further attractive feature of agricultural production for non-food purposes.
These are very important developments.
Recently there was a report in the Dutch newspapers that one of the factories had developed a product which could replace gelatine.
Given the BSE problem, that is very attractive indeed. Factors of this kind must be encouraging.
In the long run they are probably the salvation of industries like this one.
For these reasons the subsidy we give is very worth while.
Thank you very much, Mr Mulder.
But you were the one who allowed yourself to overrun by five seconds. I never cut anybody off.
All I do is tell people, fairly forcefully, when their time is up. The responsibility for keeping to time or otherwise lies with each and every Member of this House.
It is now the turn of Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
He has a minute and a half. We shall see if he allows himself longer than that, in which case I shall forcefully remind him that his time is up.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal to extend the quota system for potato starch by three years merits full support.
The arrangement has contributed to a stable development of the market.
The costs of the market organization for potato starch are being kept under control.
In the interests of production planning for the next few years, it is important that the decision-making on the extension of quotas be completed as quickly as possible.
The rapporteur's amendments aimed at reducing support for potato starch production were rightly rejected by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
A one-sided reduction in support for potato starch would seriously disturb the balance on the market between cereal-based starch on the one hand and starch from potatoes on the other.
Hence any reform of the market organization for potato starch must be coordinated with reforms in the cereal sector.
But I do not think that Agenda 2000 proposals for potato starch, in which compensation for a drop in price is only 44 %, are acceptable.
Finally, I would point out that starch potatoes cannot be compared with table potatoes.
We are talking about completely different products and markets.
A market organization for starch potatoes is necessary because these producers have to compete with cereal-based starch producers, who are generously supported through the MacSharry premiums, but there is absolutely no need for the market organization for table potatoes called for in Amendment No 3.
The free market in this product works satisfactorily.
Mr President, I first wanted to thank Mrs Redondo Jiménez for her report on the quota system for potato starch.
Also, an amendment has been added - Amendment No 3 - which calls for the potato problem to be analysed as a whole, including potatoes for consumption, because we need a COM to regulate the European potato market, in order to protect farmers from the price drops which regularly affect this product.
The potato market suffers cyclical ups and downs, leading to periodic price drops which seriously affect the production sector. So Europe needs to intervene to regulate this market.
Let us not forget that the potato is the tenth largest agricultural product in Europe in terms of its volume of production. Furthermore, it is the only one of the 25 most important EU agricultural products not to be regulated by the Union itself.
Other products each cost the Community coffers ECU 2000 million, or ECU 1500 million in some cases. Nevertheless, there is no room for any sort of regulation of the potato, which is the tenth most important agricultural product in Europe.
It is an inflexible market, in which an increase in production and the resulting price drop do not lead to greater consumption.
There are studies which say this market can be regulated by establishing a system of quotas and areas, since it has been demonstrated that there is a correlation between the area under cultivation, the prices and the product.
As well as protecting the product, the potato, from its ups and downs, a regulatory system of this nature would not be administratively complex, and the budgetary cost to the Community taxpayer would be minimal.
So I am in favour of this report being approved.
But we should also call upon the Council, through Amendment No 3, to have the courage once and for all to find a system to regulate the problem of food potatoes throughout the EU, by means of a COM, now that they have had proposals on the table for 5 or 6 years.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Redondo on her report on potato starch production.
It is to her credit that the rapporteur was prepared in the committee reading to accept proposals of compromise which give the report a much more balanced feel, and pay greater attention to the special circumstances pertaining to starch production in different countries.
The Commission is proposing to keep the quota system as it stands, in order to make the Community's starch markets more viable.
In Finland domestic potato starch production is enough to meet only half the demand of the country's paper industry, and so Finland has recommended increasing its quota to 70 000 tonnes.
That would satisfy existing production capacity more fully.
Because of its cold climate, crop rotation in Finland is in much greater evidence than it is in Central Europe.
Because of that, it is difficult to apply the conditions of production to the quota's 5 % flexibility limit.
With reference to the large-scale crop rotation that goes with potatoes, a transfer facility of 10 % from one year to the next seems quite justifiable, and thus I consider Amendment No 6 six to be very welcome.
This is the proposal to be able to deviate from the quota by 10 %.
) Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which drafted the report on the proposed adaptation of the quota restriction scheme for potato starch.
The proposal seeks to renew the existing scheme for a further period of three years.
The Committee willingly accepts Amendment No 1 which underlines the socio-economic importance of potato starch producers and justifies the steps taken in this sector.
Similarly, the Committee accepts Amendment No 2 which lends support to the aim of maintaining a balance between the root vegetable starch and cereal starch sectors.
With regard to Amendment No 3, relating to potatoes grown for food, the Committee is aware of the need to deploy a common market organization in the potato sector.
This is why it submitted a proposal along these lines to the Parliament and Council in 1992.
With regard to Amendment No 4, which seeks to impose a limit on the premium paid to starch manufacturers during the 1998-1999 campaign, the Committee regrets that it cannot accept this amendment which would be contrary to the interests of this sector due to structural constraints in terms of production.
Similarly, with regard to Amendment No 5, the Committee does not see the need to specify a period of three years, as indicated in Article 1 of the proposal, or the reason why the amount of the premium set in the rules should be changed.
Consequently, the committee is unable to accept this amendment.
With regard to Amendment No 6, which seeks to increase the flexibility of the scheme, the Committee regrets that it cannot accept this amendment either, since it might boost production in a market that is already relatively saturated.
Thank you very much, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Higher education
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0191/98), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Recommendation on European cooperation in quality assurance in higher education (C4-0191/98-97/0121(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Heinisch).
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, European co-operation to ensure the quality of higher education. At first glance you might think that we were dealing in this case with a hopeless undertaking.
On the one hand we have the cultural autonomy of the Member States, the variety of educational systems, the independence and individuality of colleges and universities, and these embodiments of the principle of subsidiarity are now at odds with the need to establish European quality standards in higher education, because in the Community there is undoubtedly a consensus view that comparability among European higher education institutions is an indispensable precondition for the promotion of student mobility in the European Union, which is the express wish of us all because we hope that it will lead to the European Union growing together.
But the comparability among higher education systems which is necessary to this end will be possible only if we succeed in reaching agreement on how to define and ultimately how to measure quality.
Beyond that the question arises of who should appropriately hold responsibility for quality assurance measures.
The positions which have been taken up by the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament in the course of the work on the recommendation with which we are now concerned offer a striking reflection of the difficulties that we come up against so often in the sphere of European educational policy, when it is a matter of achieving objectives which are desirable for the Community while strictly respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
In its original proposal, the Commission envisaged that it would be solely responsible for the creation of a European network which would take forward quality assurance and evaluation.
Understandably, this was not acceptable to the Member States, and that is why at first reading the Parliament followed my proposal under which the Member States were to play an essential contributory role in the establishment of the networks.
The underlying thought was that the establishment of a network could be successful only on the basis of mutual trust and co-operation, and it would have been very difficult to conceive of a European network without the corresponding national framework conditions.
The common opinion has picked up Parliament's idea on this decisive point.
Its approach is to recommend the establishment of a network to the Member States, whilst the Commission is to be given the task of supporting co-operation between the competent authorities for quality evaluation and assurance in higher education.
Alongside this essential point, the Council has accepted 13 further amendments from the Parliament either verbatim or in spirit.
What is important to me is that two fundamental considerations on which I constructed my report are now established in the Council's opinion.
Success has thus been achieved in giving clearer emphasis to the principle of the autonomy of colleges and universities and the preservation of their own understanding of their educational purpose.
Equally, the very obligatory tone in which the Member States were called upon to take certain measures has been diluted by comparison with the original Commission proposal.
However, some of the amendments which the Parliament supported following my report have not been accepted.
The Council has, for example, rejected involving the CEEC states in the quality assurance measures.
Even if a recommendation to these states may at present fail because for legal reasons it cannot be directed at non-Member States, I nonetheless consider it important that we should not lose sight of the importance of their being involved, because it goes without saying that all the quality assurance objectives which we are pursuing apply as well to the states with which we shall be enlarging our Community in the near future.
They, too, should share in the integrating effect at which our measures are targeted, and it will be important for them in particular to profit from Europe's capacity for innovation and to contribute to it.
A further amendment has not been accepted by the Council.
I had supported the creation of evaluation systems for the research sphere as well in this amendment.
In Germany where teaching and research form a single entity, it seemed to me a very obvious thought that the quality of a college or university can be judged only if its research achievements are evaluated at the same time.
However, Article 126 of the Maastricht Treaty, on which our recommendation is based, does not allow any statement in relation to the research sphere.
It is the legal base only for questions of education.
I attempted a compromise with the draft amendment which I have again introduced at second reading.
This draft amendment also includes the sphere of training for research in the quality evaluation measures.
In so doing, it falls within the legal base of Article 126 and can thereby include research evaluation in training.
I think that this will be of help as regards the dichotomy between the subsidiarity principle and the pursuit of education policy objectives.
We are well aware that there are still some obstacles to overcome before this compromise can be realized, but the compromise should point the way for university education at the start of the 21st century.
As we develop towards globalization, we in the European Union have to face up to international criteria and follow new paths in higher education policy.
These will include inter-disciplinary and European courses of study. We need to recognise how important it is to base all our educational measures on a holistic concept of education.
Finally we must all endeavour to develop partnerships and establish these in the place of fear of loss of responsibility.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we support the common position and consider that it has taken account of our draft amendments.
The guarantee of and progress in the quality of training and its constant critical review by colleges and universities and all of their members ought really to be much more a matter of course, in the interest of the best possible life and career opportunities for young graduates.
Sadly this is not the case, to a greater extent in some of the countries of Europe, to a lesser in others.
It undoubtedly comes as a bitter realization to students when they get to hear, often by way of dubious ranking procedures, that their university is poorly classified in public esteem because it perhaps missed the opportunity to make changes.
It should at long last be common practice that every college undergoes an evaluation of its research and teaching and that international external experts should also take part in the evaluation groups.
For example, universities should ensure that they face critical questioning about how good and forward-looking the education they are offering is, whether they consciously give a European orientation to their courses of studies in the spirit of ERASMUS, and offer lectures and seminars in other languages, for example, whether they have reached agreements with colleges or sectors of industry in other countries in order to offer students practical experience abroad, or whether the college puts itself forward as a regional training centre for those in work or whether one subject area takes part in distance-learning.
There will be some in research and teaching who will find it hard to re-think along these lines.
That's the only way to overcome ossification.
It is certainly important to ensure that training is assured on the basis of criteria that are as far as possible the same, but it seems to me questionable that new bodies should be set up for this purpose, such as a "network' institution on a European basis, especially since in legal terms it is on thin ice, and this should be rejected.
It will not lead to any progress.
What are important are permanent exchanges of experience about evaluation procedures between colleges and universities themselves.
Individual projects can sensibly be supported by the EU.
In conclusion: what is wrong with the varied profiles of European colleges and universities? They are sources of innovation potential.
Why should not architectural studies in Milan, for example, be offered with rather different emphases than in Aachen, for example, if the quality standards are good in both cases?
Mr President, many thanks for listening to my important remarks so late in the day.
Guarantees of quality should certainly be welcomed.
We should also welcome efforts to align quality in Europe.
However, what has not been taken into account is the free access that we are addressing.
Free access for students to all of Europe's colleges and universities will result in a hierarchy of higher education institutions, and will generate a competition which leads to efforts being made by all colleges and universities to attract students.
That will be far more important than provisions aimed at aligning them with each other.
However, the concept that has been mentioned of research training is somewhat questionable because research training would mean that special syllabuses would have to be developed for research.
Secondly, what is missing here is the propagation of co-operation between research and industry, because we know from experience that research only works properly where it is jointly organized with industry.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Parliament and especially the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and its rapporteur Mrs Heinisch, for having examined the common position of the Council in such a short space of time.
In its broad outlines, it was in line with the spirit of the Committee's proposal.
It also accepted a large number of the amendments proposed by Parliament on the first reading.
In fact, the Council text contains all your major amendments such as those concerning the definition of an establishment of higher education, the diversity of national education and assessment systems, as well as the independence and individual character of establishments of higher education.
If we seek to promote an educational and vocational training system that matches up to the challenges before us, as expressed in the Treaty, quality assessment systems are essential tools, they make a positive contribution to policies favouring employment, growth and competitiveness.
As you have seen, the principles on which the evaluation systems are based are clearly highlighted in the recommendations.
Your contributions have added greatly to their further development.
I remember that they are derived from experience in the field, in which many teaching establishments participated and it is on the basis of this experience that we have been able to single out the common features of teaching quality assessment systems across the various countries of the Union.
I would also like to mention the importance of this cooperative spirit if we wish to achieve a genuine transparency in teaching systems and to foster the exchange of mutual information between educational establishments on the content and quality of their teaching.
This should further the cross-national mobility of students, the recognition of diplomas and qualifications and the free movement of qualified students in Europe.
With regard to the amendment proposed by the rapporteur, I concur wholeheartedly with the desire to show that higher educational establishments must improve not only the quality of teaching and learning, but also that of training for research.
You will recall that the Commission was unable to accept at the first reading an amendment that referred to research in general, since this does not come within the legal premise underlying the recommendation.
However, the scope of the amendment proposed today is clearly defined and restricted to training in research.
I think we should introduce this amendment to the extent that in the teaching provided by higher educational establishments, training for research is often intimately tied to general education.
I have frequently stressed the importance of this recommendation towards promoting quality education in Europe.
I can therefore only rejoice at the fact that the inter-institutional decision-making process has reached a very positive agreement.
As soon as the Council has finally adopted the recommendation, the Commission will proceed as soon as possible to set up the network for quality assessment, whose work will be decisive towards creating the European educational space we all desire so earnestly.
Thank you very much, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Fifth Framework Programme
The next item is the report (A4-0188/98) by Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposals for Council Decisions concerning:
I.the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities and for the dissemination of research results for the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community (1998-2002) (COM(97)0587/2 - C4-0015/98-97/0309 (SYN)); II.the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities for the Treaty establishing the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM) (1998-2002) (COM(97)0587/2 - C4-0016/98-97/0310 (CNS)).
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal being presented on the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities and for the dissemination of research results for the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community and the European Atomic Energy Community performs the essential task of making it possible to implement the objectives and actions stipulated in that framework programme.
Our committee's overall opinion was favourable, and we like the set of measures intended to provide the people concerned with access to Community research.
Our committee has focused on one or two aspects designed to solve the few remaining problems detected during past experience and previous calls for proposals. These need to be dealt with because the improvements introduced by the current proposal do not go far enough.
Thus we express our concern about the effects of rapid technological innovation on some areas of research - especially in relation to the information society - as regards the composition of the applicant groups, as well as their launch and budgetary obligations.
Another of the improvements introduced refers to the need to guarantee that information about calls for proposals is accessible through other electronic media, besides the Official Journal, and in all languages.
We have also received many suggestions aimed at helping the applicants by speeding up the decision-making process, so that it takes no longer than four months to reach a decision.
We also thought it would be a good thing, when it comes to implementing the grants financially, to take account of the various aspects and different characteristics which come into play in each of the countries where the research groups are based, and to treat them all in the same way for that purpose, so as not to cause resentment.
One aspect the committee found particularly relevant is the reference to the property rights to knowledge resulting from work carried out under indirect actions, when the Community's contribution is 50 % or more.
We did not think it right or adequate only to stipulate that right to shared property rights when Community funding was 100 %.
Something of particular interest throughout the Union is the fight against fraud.
Although it seems incredible, we have also received warnings about this disgraceful practice, in some cases.
For that reason, and taking as a legal basis the precedent provided by the judgements of the European Court of Justice, we have introduced specific corrective and preventative mechanisms, which also allow penalties to be imposed, if necessary, on groups which present anomalies or serious irregularities, or fail to fulfil their obligations in this respect.
All of this arises from our concern to protect the financial interests of the European Community, as provided for by Regulation No 2988/95.
Passing on to other matters, we think it is right to use all the languages in order to provide contractors with the necessary information. Similarly, we think all the current resources of the information society should be used, especially for SMEs, universities and research centres.
Finally, we think it is quite right that substantive, detailed reasons should always be given, both for acceptance and rejection.
I should point out that our discussions in committee were very full and covered other aspects, such as our concern to involve as many of the smaller SMEs as possible, or how to set priorities. We discussed the relative importance of the competitiveness of associated technological innovation and the satisfaction of the social needs of Europeans.
In short, by making this contribution, the European Parliament is fulfilling its function of directly representing the concerns and wishes entrusted to it, and is trying to perfect this proposal, which was already good, on this crucial subject.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, the publication and evaluation of results are essential aspects of scientific research policy for countries with under-developed industries.
Although their importance is enshrined in the Commission's text, I have reason to fear that in practice they are still not being dealt with satisfactorily.
So far as publication is concerned, electronic media are an excellent resource for those who know what they are looking for.
But they are not reaching everybody.
We have to find others for those who have yet to discover the potential that lies in exchanges of information and co-operation in the field of research and technology.
These can be research centres such as universities, or equally they can be small and medium-sized businesses.
I would like to say that it is important to keep the definition of SMBs at the present maximum of five hundred workers and not to reduce it to two hundred and fifty, as proposed in Amendment No 1.
If that is done, a country like Portugal will be prevented from taking part in SMB support schemes, which is undoubtedly the opposite of what Mr Marset Campos intends to achieve by proposing this amendment.
But the fact is that in Portugal only companies of a certain size can conduct research.
With regard to evaluation, which means the ability to convert research into production, one good way would be to promote liaison with the EUREKA programme.
So I appeal to the conference which will conclude the Portuguese presidency of EUREKA in June to create conditions in which there can be interaction between the Fifth Framework Programme and EUREKA.
And, since I have mentioned the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme, may I enter a final plea that we do not make the mistake of reducing the marine science and technology budget, especially in this Year of the Oceans.
They are the flagship of Europe.
The world would not understand such a lack of vision and the future would not forgive us for it.
Thank you very much, Mrs Vaz da Silva.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Vaz da Silva's speech brings us to the end of the contributions from Members of this House.
So I now invite Commissioner Cresson to take the floor.
Mr President, before all else I would like to thank the members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, especially the rapporteur, Mr Marset Campos, for the work accomplished.
I entirely share the sentiment of Mr Marset Campos: our rules of participation and dissemination must be comprehensible to all those engaged in research.
They must be deployed with the highest degree of transparency.
Our proposals on this matter come within the much wider context of the efforts by the Commission to guarantee optimum management of Community research programmes.
In particular, efforts will be made to simplify the procedures as much as possible and reduce delays as soon as possible.
The proposal under discussion was prepared on the basis of experience gained with the existing rules.
These worked satisfactorily overall.
Whilst being most important for the participants, as the rapporteur rightly pointed out, they are still quite technical.
I will summarize the position of the Commission with regard to the two draft recommendations of the Parliament as follows.
The Commission in the main endorses the objectives of Amendments Nos 4 and 8 (EC, Euratom).
The first states that requests for proposals should be made public, rather than simply published in the Official Journal.
The second expands upon the financial contribution methods of the Community.
Pending reformulation, the Commission can partially adopt these amendments.
It cannot do the same for the other amendments.
Although sharing their underlying concerns, the Commission is actually of the opinion that these amendments are already covered by the measures proposed, for example Amendments Nos 1 (ECEuratom), 5, 11 and 16 (EC), or they are likely to introduce daily management provisions in the theoretical texts invoked to govern research policy in its entirety, for example Amendments Nos 2 and 7 (EC, Euratom) and 14 (EC).
Some are likely to raise problems of a legal nature, for example Amendments Nos 12 and 13 (EC).
Others are to be considered within the context of the implementation measures, for example Amendments Nos 3 and 6 (EC, Euratom), and 9 and 15 (EC).
I am very grateful to the European Parliament for having grasped the urgency of this paper.
The adoption of this recommendation at the first reading should enable the "research' Council of the 22 June to adopt a common position on the proposal.
We are all aware that the existing framework programme, its special programmes and the existing contribution and dissemination rules expire at the end of the year.
So we are engaged in a genuine race against time.
If we wish to avoid disrupting the European research effort, the Fifth Framework Programme, its special programmes and the new contribution and dissemination rules should be ready in good time to enable us to proceed from the 1 January 1999.
We are on the right track.
However, I do not underestimate the difficulties awaiting us with regard to the adoption of the fifth framework programme under satisfactory conditions.
I am sure that I can count on and continue to enjoy your support in achieving this goal.
Thank you very much, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now completed our agenda.
I wish you a good night's sleep, which I know is well-deserved. May I remind you that our next sitting begins at 9.00 a.m. tomorrow, Thursday 28 May 1998, and is planned to finish at 1.00 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, on page 6 of yesterday's Minutes it says that I asked to make a personal statement.
What I said then, Madam President, was proven again by something that happened yesterday.
On Dutch television, in the programme Nova , Mrs Van Dijk again did precisely what I reproached the Greens for yesterday, in other words, she misrepresented the situation for electoral purposes.
She maintained on television that I am against any change in the current statutory arrangements for Members.
Everyone in this House knows that I have said very clearly time after time, orally and in writing, and in reports by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, that I am of the opinion that the same statute must apply to all Members and that there must be no discrimination on grounds of nationality because that is against Article 6 of the Treaty.
At the present time, Madam President, Italians in this House earn five times more than Spaniards.
That is a disgrace!
That is discrimination on grounds of nationality.
We are deemed to perform the same work and should therefore receive the same emoluments.
Once there is a statute based on equality, Madam President, the rules for travel and subsistence expenses can also be changed.
I demand that the Greens withdraw their accusation that I am against change.
I am in favour of it.
Madam President, we expect proposals from the Bureau as soon as possible on a single statute.
I have one final remark, Madam President.
Why is there not a service in Brussels which can make reports of sittings available the next day, as in Strasbourg? It is an odd situation.
No, those are the Minutes, Mr Martens.
I am talking about the Verbatim Report, the so-called "Rainbow' , in all the various languages.
But Mr Martens, he is hardly here, he does not know all about it yet.
Madam President, I hope that Brussels will be treated in the same way as Strasbourg and that there will also be a service here that can handle the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
Thank you, Mr Wijsenbeek.
We shall take note of that.
(The Minutes were approved)
Cohesion Fund - Structural Funds - Island regions
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0159/98 by Mr Arias Cañete, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission's Annual Report on the Cohesion Fund for 1996 (COM(97)0302 - C4-0482/97); -A4-0160/98 by Mrs Klaß, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Eighth Annual Report on the Structural Funds for 1996 (COM(97)0526 - C4-0582/97); -A4-0118/98 by Mr Viola, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the problems of island regions in the European Union.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Article 130a of the Treaty contains a fundamental provision of Community law.
It establishes that the Community shall develop and pursue actions to strengthen economic and social cohesion, in order to promote its own harmonious development. The article adds that the Community shall aim in particular to reduce disparities between the levels of development of the various regions, and help the least favoured regions, including rural areas, to catch up.
Of all Community regional development policies, the Cohesion Fund is one of the main instruments of that policy, since its essential aim is to help combat the current disparities within the European Union.
The four countries which receive aid from this Fund are still the most affected by such disparities, as was clearly shown in the Commission's first three-yearly report on cohesion.
The report before us at the moment reflects the fact that although a lot of progress has been made in the Cohesion Fund's two sectors of activity - transport and environment - the disparities we are talking about are a long way from being resolved. So it is vitally important for the Fund to continue to function within the four beneficiary countries.
However, it must be stressed that these countries have obligations, not just to make a real effort to ensure that actions implemented at the expense of the Cohesion Fund are really effective, but also to make sure there is a proper balance between actions in the two sectors of the Fund. As the report says, there are imbalances in some of these Member States as regards the funding of projects in certain fields.
Specifically, in the transport sector, we must underline our concern at the fact that road projects are still being given priority, when curiously enough these are the least environmentally friendly compared with other means of transport, such as railways.
This can end up being somewhat contradictory, when we remember that the environment is the other sector which receives aid from the Cohesion Fund, and the most environmentally friendly projects should therefore be given priority.
From a strictly financial point of view, the 1996 results are highly satisfactory because the budgetary implementation reached 100 % of commitment appropriations and 97.5 % of payment appropriations. Also, progress is being made towards achieving a balance between the intervention sectors.
The special attention being paid to the ultra-peripheral regions is very positive, Madam Commissioner, because as we know, those are the regions which tend to have the biggest problems, especially where communications are concerned.
In analysing the importance of the Cohesion Fund as a financial instrument designed to achieve economic and social cohesion, we should once more underline the difference between nominal convergence, which some of the Member States benefiting from this Fund have managed to attain, and real convergence, which is still a long way from being achieved in those countries. It is that real convergence which is the main objective of the Cohesion Fund.
Some amendments to the report confuse real convergence and nominal convergence. As I see it, to say that those Member States which have reached the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union should be excluded from the Cohesion Fund, despite fulfilling the requirement of having a GNP less than 90 % of the Community average, would be to reward those which failed in their obligations and to punish those which, despite being disadvantaged in relation to Community GNP, have made real efforts to reduce disparities and comply with the established criteria - and to continue to do so - not just in the convergence plans but also in the stability plans.
Without compromising that view, I shall present the House with an oral amendment to paragraph 14 of my report, designed to ensure that it is fully consistent with the approach taken in Mr Izquierdo Collado's report, in view of the compromise amendments established by Mr Berend, so that we can preserve the consensus achieved in the Izquierdo Collado report.
We should also welcome the jobs this Fund creates, directly or indirectly, in the beneficiary Member States.
That is an aspect which should be encouraged, because although job creation is not the main objective of the Cohesion Fund, it needs to be taken into account, and priority should be given to measures which can create lasting jobs. That is all the more true at a time when the European Union has to strengthen this policy, in the context of the Treaty of Amsterdam which is waiting in the wings.
To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to point out that the Cohesion Fund has shown itself to be an essential instrument for achieving a large, balanced European Union without disparities.
So it is a valid model to inspire the future instrument of pre-accession, which can model itself on this Fund and help to ensure that enlargement is a complete success.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's report on the Structural Funds for 1996, as forwarded to Parliament, is a very comprehensive and yet a very topical document, and for that we wish to express our thanks to the Commission.
We are adopting a position on this report today because we want the experiences of 1996 to be a lesson for the years to come.
Our gaze is already focusing on the challenges which lie ahead, on the reform of the Structural Funds and on the enlargement of the Union.
A number of problems from previous years still beset us and these have already been discussed in previous years by Parliament's rapporteurs.
Nevertheless, I have decided to include these points again in my report, for as the saying goes, "constant dropping wears the stone' .
I hope the Commission may forgive me, but I hope that by adopting such an approach these problems might be overcome.
With the conclusion of 1996 we reached the midway point in the current programming period.
The two preceding years recorded less than satisfactory results in respect of the take-up of funds.
However, 1996 shows that the backlog in programme planning now seems to have been overcome.
This means that 1996 was really the first effective year of implementation.
We note with satisfaction that the take-up of appropriations from the Structural Funds for 1996 amounts to 98 % of available commitments and 95 % of available payments.
This constitutes a considerable improvement.
It has to be admitted, however, that these payments only give a limited picture of actual implementation in the field.
We therefore call on the Member States to respect the three-month deadline for transferring funds to final beneficiaries.
We ask the Commission to provide data on the transmission of funds to beneficiaries in its next annual report.
Only in this way can we monitor the flow of funds from the Commission to final beneficiaries.
The rate of take-up for Community initiatives and transitional and innovative measures still gives cause for concern, however.
This category accounts for 70 % of the total funding not taken up.
According to provisional figures, implementation of Community initiatives in 1997 also failed to register the hoped-for improvement.
Reprogramming and transfers of appropriations have therefore become necessary and I would request that Parliament be informed of these developments as early and as fully as possible and that our opinion be duly taken into account.
This applies particularly in the event of problems arising from the exhaustion of funds at the end of the programme planning period.
The activities of the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund will considerably strengthen the impact of the Structural Funds.
Greater use should be made of these facilities in future years.
But we also need to have verification of the European Investment Fund by the Court of Auditors.
We must continue to underline the importance of having a structural policy which is compatible with other Community policies.
While the implementation of the partnership principle has improved over the years, this continues to be episodic and sporadic, particularly with regard to the involvement of economic and social partners at regional and local level.
The Commission's thoughts on new forms of partnership and strengthening of the principle and anchoring it more effectively are of significance in that the imminent Structural Fund reform will in all likelihood make partnership an important issue.
Anchoring partnership more powerfully in the new regulations should mean defining realistically and accurately the scope, allocation of roles and function of partnership.
Monitoring, evaluation and checks are of fundamental importance for the successful achievement of these aims.
However, this sector has now assumed enormous complexity in its criteria and procedures.
The forthcoming reform of the Structural Funds must include an appropriate simplification of the evaluation system.
There has been an increase in the number of financial irregularities.
More effective controls and closer cooperation between the Commission and the Member States are certainly exposing more cases of this kind.
However, I believe that an increase in fraudulent activity has also played its part in the rise in recorded cases.
The additionality of resources should continue to enjoy priority.
Nonetheless, verification of the observance of this principle is not being carried out satisfactorily.
The Commission has proposed additionality as one of the criteria for a 10 % reserve.
Yet the difficulties with verification, which are still being encountered, are anything but encouraging.
In this respect I ask myself how a criterion which has been verified as inadequate can be considered as an additional key for apportionment.
I would therefore ask the Commission to think again about this project.
In conclusion I would like to express my thanks to all those who have provided help and support in the drafting of this report.
I hope that it will play a part in our continuing efforts to promote an ever closer European Union through the Structural Funds.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, a year ago the Council decided to modify the Treaty on European Union inserting an important clarification into Article 130a, at the heart of the cohesion policy.
The island regions, which are for obvious geographical reasons far from continental Europe and its internal market, were added to the list of the European Union's least favoured regions - regions therefore in need of special, focused help - because of a series of extra costs which nature imposes upon them.
Finally the European Union acknowledged, on that happy occasion, what it had already acknowledged for other regions, such as the ultra-peripheral regions or the regions of the far north: the right to be treated and considered differently, an exception to the principle of uniformity of which it is often a victim.
It acknowledged something that even the Court of Justice had ruled some time ago, that discrimination consists in treating different situations in an identical way.
A year ago, the Council gave us a huge container to fill with ideas and constructive proposals, a container whose legal basis is the new text of Article 158 of the Treaty of Amsterdam and Declaration No 30 which is attached.
The sides of this container are the common policies: agriculture, cohesion, fishing, energy and so on, but unfortunately it has a rather heavy lid which is delaying the implementation of the Treaty's provisions.
This lid is represented by the Commission, which up to now has closed the door on the ideas of Parliament and its Committee on Regional Policy.
I hope that as from today it changes course.
I do not want this House to open the controversy on the linguistic translation of Article 158 - the Committee on Regional Policy did not concern itself with this problem - and I leave that task to whoever is competent in this Parliament and possibly the Court of Justice.
I would rather discuss giving concrete expression to Article 158.
In fact, I am fully convinced of the correctness of the Italian translation, but I am not so convinced of the Commission's will to carry it through.
If it is true, as it is true, for example, that Community regulations must comply with their primary legal source - that is, the Treaty -, I do not understand why the proposals for regulations on the reform of the Structural Funds, presented by the Commission on 18 March, do not refer to any insertion of that aspect of insularity which concerns 14 million European citizens.
In fact, what is required is to apply the principle of equal opportunities to the island regions, through measures of positive discrimination which, in the last analysis, can compensate for the clear disparities in starting points, in agreement with the principle of economic and social cohesion which is at the basis of the construction of Europe.
In my report I describe an integrated policy for the island regions, coordination managed by an 'Interservice Group' within the General Secretariat, inclusion in the new Interreg of a specific chapter for inter-island cooperation, a criterion for eligibility for the Structural Funds concerning the insular geo-economic factor, and an intermediate island tax zone between the continental and ultra-peripheral zones which already exist, allowing the island regions to compete on equal terms with all the other continental regions, if accompanied by valid financial incentive measures.
In today's vote Parliament wishes to express its own conviction that the Union must make important and innovative decisions.
These decisions will only be the product of Amsterdam if they go in the direction stated in the declaration attached to the Treaty, which recognizes the need for Community legislation to take into account the disadvantages imposed by the island handicap , with a view to adopting specific measures - if justified - in favour of these regions with the ultimate aim of integrating them more in the common market on equal terms.
There are three key expressions. Firstly "justified measures' could dismiss the doubts of those who fear a blind horizontal policy, indifferent to the diversities which exist between one island region and another and therefore for some are unjustified.
Secondly, as regards "equal terms' , if consequential logic exists, this leads to the admission of the existence of the basic unequal conditions which the island regions are subject to.
Finally, the third concerns "integration and the internal market' , a market which the island regions cannot yet fully exploit and from which at times they only suffer losses, caused by the unfair competition which nature imposes upon them.
It is the Amsterdam Treaty which uses these expressions, not an islander like the rapporteur, who nonetheless obviously fully recognizes himself in this Treaty.
Therefore, I ask for a correct ratification by the national governments, acceptance by the European Commission and speedy implementation, starting with the reform of the Structural Funds, competition policy and the common agricultural policy.
The call from this House is not to isolate the islands, not to create a vacuum around lands which are the historical memory of our continent, but to enforce, in the final instance, the rights that the Treaty recognizes are ours.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection had no hesitation in presenting its opinion on such an important question as the social unfairness and lack of ecological sustainability suffered by the islands of the European Union.
Islands - basically those with a population of 100 000 or less - suffer reduced competitiveness and offer fewer opportunities to their people and their industries. They end up being dependent on the dangerous monoculture of tourism.
The small islands of an archipelago lack infrastructure and depend on imports for basic resources, energy, water, waste management and so on.
In the summer, when their population increases three- or five-fold because of tourism, the scarce natural resources run out. The resulting ecological problems are sometimes beyond repair, as with waste for example.
This means that sustainable development, one of the Union's main priorities, becomes mere fiction.
Another serious inequality suffered by the small islands of an archipelago, such as Minorca, Ibiza or Formentera, is that they lack specialist medical facilities, to provide radiotherapy or adequate treatment for heart conditions and rheumatism, for example. So their inhabitants suffer a dual insularity, a double discrimination, since these conditions can only be treated on the larger islands.
That means they have to travel, which adds even more suffering.
Could anything be more unfair than that, Madam President?
I conclude, Madam President, with a request on behalf of my committee that small islands, where health and education suffer particularly, should be granted compensatory legal measures such as the provision of financial instruments, the application of incentives and fiscal exemptions and the inclusion of small island regions in Objective 1 until a specific programme can be prepared for them.
In any case, small islands with a population of less than 100 000 should be treated as ultra-peripheral regions.
That, Madam President, is something the Commission and the Council should think about.
Madam President, I would like to thank Mrs Klaß for her excellent report and to say that the financial instrument for fisheries guidance, the FIFG, only represents about 1.5 to 2 % of the Structural Funds.
Considering the importance of the fishing industry to the poorest and most peripheral regions of the Union, that is a lot less than adequate to meet its task.
70 % of this money goes to Priority 1 regions which means that the remainder, going to Objective 5a and Objective 6, is a relatively small amount of money.
In 1995 the position of this instrument was in marked contrast to the rest of the Structural Funds in that commitments reached 100 % but in 1996 the position was reversed with only 75 % of commitments, giving it at face value a much worse performance than the regional, social and agricultural structural fund.
We do not have a clear explanation by the Commission of the position in the various regions but the Court of Auditors' report draws attention to the situation in greater detail.
It seems that some Member States just do not take the fund seriously and I suspect it is because it is too small to meet any serious purpose.
PESCA is a Community initiative designed to reduce the negative impact of restructuring the industry.
The amount of money is about ECU 40m per year.
The Commission report does not make clear the exact position in 1996.
For the total programme up to 1996, 71 % had been committed and 14 % payments made.
The Court of Auditors tells us that in 1996 91 % of the PESCA Fund had been committed and 43 % in payments.
In relation to the PESCA Fund, I should just like to say that its purpose could be met more adequately in the general provisions of regional policy.
It is too small, the general public is confused about its purpose and this makes it more difficult to administer.
I do not agree with so much emphasis on the idea of additionality.
Surely, within the framework of EMU, we should have a more balanced public spending programme in each Member State.
The question of additionality in some cases could put pressure on Member States to overspend.
Madam President, first of all I have a few comments regarding the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
To begin with, 1996 marks a turning point in the use of Structural Fund appropriations since, for the first time, we have recorded a very active year and this reveals a distinct improvement in the use of appropriations for commitments and payments, as compared with the last two years.
This, then, is a good year in which to prepare for the reform of the Structural Funds in the framework of Agenda 2000.
As draftsman, I would like to make a few remarks concerning the European Social Fund that are wholly encouraging and I would like to say that, with respect to both commitments and payments, we have been able to use up all the appropriations detailed in the budget for the first time.
Nevertheless, in spite of everything, we need to qualify this asset, due to the fact that Objective 4 has proved difficult to apply on the ground and that take-up rates for Community initiatives remain inadequate.
By way of example, we may cite the case of the ADAPT initiative, which does not square up fully with the expectations mentioned above, especially with regard to the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Now we know that there are those in Europe who are, first and foremost, job creators; but, nowadays, we must take account of the competition we face from the United States and we must therefore devote particular attention to such participation.
These few comments echo the initial proposals for reforming the ESF, whereby future interventions would be combined under a single objective, designed to specifically support the European jobs strategy.
Finally, I would like to note that the matter of partnership and its operation in practice is openly raised in this eighth report and it forces us to rethink the question of the composition and role of the monitoring committees by linking the place of social partners in a different way, especially bodies that work in the social field, in order to enhance their participation when this forthcoming reform is introduced.
Madam President, these are the views of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, we in the Committee on the Environment consider that many of the Commission's commitment appropriations have been honoured, that payment appropriations have been advanced almost in full and that the balance between assistance for transport and for the environment has been maintained.
However, we have a number of comments and one question which we would like to put to the Commissioner.
First, as regards the payment appropriations for transport, clearly, all environmentally friendly modes of transport - railways, ports etcetera - have, shall we say, suffered an injustice in all the Member States, while tremendous importance has been attached to motorways, and we cannot agree with this.
Secondly, we note that in terms of payment appropriations for the environment, tremendous importance has been attached to water supply and sewage systems, which is not of course a bad thing per se.
However, we remain somewhat dissatisfied as regards the protection of nature and requirements under programmes such as NATURA 2000.
Thirdly, the evaluation of work under Directive 85/337 and work of a more general nature is unsatisfactory.
Environmental impact studies are carried out merely as a formality and the Commission fails, I think, to get to the heart of the matter. What do these studies say?
Have these studies been adhered to? And so on.
Fourthly, we still attach great importance, Madam Commissioner, to the involvement of local authorities and non-governmental organizations in the drafting of studies and in the implementation of work.
No progress has been made on this point and I think that progress here is needed.
I would like to finish by putting a question to the Commissioner: we would like you to tell us, Madam Commissioner, if the Commission has carried out or is able to carry out a more general overall evaluation of investments and assistance through the Cohesion Fund, if the objectives of cohesion have been achieved, if environmental protection has improved etcetera, if possible, for each country.
That would enable us to make a more general appraisal.
Madam President, there is a lot of money at stake in the reports presented by Mr Arias Cañete, Mrs Klaß and Mr Viola, and indeed in the countless other reports which we have been working on for months in the Committee on Regional Policy. This money is being redistributed from the pockets of citizens who live in the better-off countries - and I am deliberately not referring to the net contributors - to fund projects in the less wealthy and structurally underdeveloped Member States.
When organizing this redistribution we need to observe a few basic principles, which being few are all the more important for it.
The first is that the purpose of European cohesion, namely the support of the weaker, must be beyond dispute.
This means genuine solidarity, which is one of the fundamental principles of our Community.
The second is that we must be very careful about how we handle money from the Cohesion Fund.
Parliament takes its role as a monitor here very seriously indeed and calls on the Member States to do likewise.
The third is that European solidarity is indivisible.
This means that it is not something to be called upon just by a few, or even monopolized.
We have to retain our solidarity with the southern European nations, while the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe also need our solid support, for this is in all our interests.
Fourthly, we should not demand too much of the contributors.
At a time when unemployment figures are high, even in the wealthier Member States, and budget funds low, these arrangements have to be handled very carefully.
In this connection I would particularly warn against excessive demands, for these will inevitably produce a backlash.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, the subjects of our debate are important for regional policy: Mrs Klaß' report on the Structural Funds and Mr Arias Cañete's report on the Cohesion Fund, both for 1996.
I should like to repeat that when we talk about these aspects of regional policy and cohesion funds, we are talking about 34 % of the EU's budget.
I shall limit myself to saying that I think the Arias Cañete report is positive, as regards its subject, that is, the funds for 1996.
I shall not consider the future of the Structural Funds, which we shall be talking about in future part-sessions of this Parliament.
As regards Mr Viola's report, I would like to say that I think it is very important to pay attention to the problems experienced by islands.
The Treaty of Amsterdam now mentions the structural disadvantages of islands, especially with respect to water supplies, energy, education, health and transport.
Regional policy should take islands' problems into consideration.
In that sense, the Commission should allow special transport aid to make up for the disadvantages suffered by people who live on islands, especially the smaller islands.
The Member States should also take the principle of insularity into account in their fiscal measures.
Otherwise, if people living on islands continue to suffer these disadvantages because of their special situation it will be impossible to have a Europe which is the same for all its citizens.
As Mr Viola said, I think this report is about implementing the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam in relation to island status.
To bring Europe closer to island-dwelling citizens will mean bringing Europe closer to all the citizens of the Union too.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the importance of our debate might be viewed as insular, it is certainly one that stands on its own.
I am personally aware of the expressions of interest that the various political groups in our House have shown in the report by our colleague Mr Viola, to whom I extend my warm and sincere congratulations, not only for the excellent work he has done but also for the spirit of unity he has imbued, in close cooperation, amongst all European partners of island origin.
The report submitted to you seeks to show that we must not allow the Union to disintegrate at the periphery.
Yet this is the risk run by island regions, given the socio-economic factors that define those areas.
Up until now, only island regions on the outer periphery have elicited a general and natural concern on the part of the European Union with regard to their problems, in recognition of the handicap they face due to their remoteness.
Other regions have benefited from Community interventions when delays in development so obviously justified the allocation of major Structural Funds.
In fact, and this is the main point of our debate, these regions have never been perceived strictly and specifically in terms of their insularity.
A changes in the Community approach to the problems in those regions has been slow.
I should remind you that by virtue of the concentration principle and in applying rigid, technical guidelines, the Commission plans to exclude islands such as Sardinia and Corsica from the new Objective 1.
We must note how few island regions in Europe will be regarded from 1999 as regions in which development is slow and which therefore require special structural aid.
There is obviously a paradox between the political will of the European Union, reflected in an amendment to the Maastricht Treaty, leading to a genuine institutional recognition of island regions in the new Amsterdam Treaty and an approach which consists in depriving those regions of the resources they require for development at the earliest opportunity and incorporating them in a European area earmarked for expansion.
How are we to conceive of Community regional planning from an exclusively continental standpoint? Island regions, which suffer from a variety of handicaps on the economic, social and human fronts, due to trading difficulties, need us to examine different approaches of a suitable nature within the context of a genuine integrated policy.
Their future depends on it, as does economic and social cohesion, which is a highly cherished principle in the European Union.
I would like to stress, on this occasion, the fundamental importance, in my view, of multilateral cooperation between island regions.
In conclusion, I believe that island regions clearly illustrate the challenge posed for Europe as a whole, which is to move towards a stronger Community, which is developed more harmoniously and which has greater solidarity.
Over and above the legal and economic aspects, this is a political imperative which I invite you to share and support.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in this joint debate I should like to emphasize further - as the Viola report does - the need to take the problems of the island regions into account and to adapt Community policies to their particular characteristics with more flexibility.
However, we must be careful to distinguish island regions from ultra-peripheral islands and regions, as indeed the Treaty revised in Amsterdam very properly does.
I should also like to associate myself more closely with the conclusions of the Klaß report on Structural Funds in 1996, which makes it clear that the budget has been better implemented generally, achieving around 98 % of its commitments, but which also calls for more and better information on the proper application of the principle of additionality by some Member States.
For that reason I am obliged to concentrate the House's attention on the Arias Cañete report on the Cohesion Fund for 1996.
I do not so much to the rapporteur's proposals, which I think deserve universal acceptance, although I do not agree with the way in which the question of conditionality is approached at times here, but more especially because of the present political importance of four of the amendments proposed by our German colleague in the PPE.
To propose, as the Member does, that the European Parliament should consider limiting the benefits of the future Cohesion Fund to those Member States which at present are parties to the cohesion agreement but have not joined the euro, that is to say to try to exclude Spain, Ireland and Portugal from the Cohesion Fund in future, is not only an attempt to subvert the legal basis of the Treaty itself, but confirms that in this House there are Members for whom economic and social cohesion are mere figures of rhetoric which must bow to the reigning financial and monetarist interests.
I sincerely hope this House will reject any such amendments clearly and by a large majority.
The very fact that they have been proposed, however, is a politically unacceptable act which goes against the purposes of solidarity and should therefore be roundly condemned.
If by chance the amendments were to be approved, which of course I do not believe they will, we should have reason to wonder where this European Union of ours is going and what has become of the concepts of cohesion and solidarity between its peoples and its Member States.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, equal living standards for all will not just be achieved by reducing everything to the same level.
We have learned from the reports on both the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds that while a great deal of money has been paid out, we are still failing to promote sustainable development in the regions in spite of the level of aid being applied; in fact, quite the reverse, for the balance is showing a deficit.
We now have rising unemployment, the destruction of ecosystems - which for centuries have sustained all our economic activity - and the centralization of market systems which are destroying economic relations at regional level.
It is a matter of great urgency that both the Commission and the Member States should now effectively comply with the requirement contained in the Structural Fund regulation for the sustainable development of the regions.
We need to remedy this situation now and not wait until the year 2000.
This means that the Commission should not just be filling up its filing cabinets with its latest proposals on job creation, the environment and local employment initiatives, but should be calling for the effective implementation of these measures for the efficient use of European funds in the Member States.
The call for the continuance of the Cohesion Fund cannot be met unless there is a radical change in the way the Fund is managed. We need support for local development structures, the participation of local people, communities and initiatives, the promotion of biodiversity and the protection of the green network Natura 2000.
Every day we read that EU funding is helping to destroy the unique treasures of Europe's natural and cultural landscape; this is not only a disgrace, it is a scandal, particularly as it is taking place under the nose of the Commission which, in spite of everything, is doing nothing about it.
This money must be immediately reclaimed by the Commission.
It is now time to stop turning a blind eye to what is going on.
Sustainable development should mean preserving local potential, not participating in its permanent destruction.
Madam President, I would like to make one or two points about islands in particular and also about the significance of the debates we are having on Mr Viola's excellent report for Agenda 2000.
This is the background to the discussion.
As we move towards the end of this year and into next year we will have some very important decisions to take.
They are all about making Europe more acceptable to the citizens, whether they live in the remote islands or the larger islands and whatever their location.
If you look round Europe you can see Scotland with its hundred islands, you can go through the Åland Archipelago between Finland and Sweden and you will see one island after another.
You can go to the larger islands such as Sardinia.
Each has its own different problems: each is particular.
The map of each island is engraved in the minds of those who live on that particular island.
It would be tempting to say that they do not have common problems but I believe they do.
The common problems are those of remoteness and transport disadvantage.
In many cases this is compounded by smallness of size.
A small island cannot achieve the economies of scale which would allow the prosperity which Europe hopes will spread right across the territory.
So a special compensation has to be built in for island living, for the extra costs of administration, health care and so on.
These are important items to build into our Agenda 2000 discussions.
I would argue that it is important, if we accept that there are particular problems for islands, that these should not necessarily be measured by vast areas crudely lumped together and measured for unemployment or percentages of GDP.
If we could be a bit more sophisticated I believe we have a chance of making a success of the imminent discussions.
To sum up, I believe that the euro project is going to provide the integration for Europe.
We now need to provide the compensation for the disadvantaged regions.
Madam President, I congratulate the rapporteurs on their reports.
I am extremely pleased that in the area of cohesion funding, in particular structural funding, there has been an improvement in the take-up of funds.
To most people a shortfall in take-up represents problems with bureaucracy in their area, rather than a lack of applications for funding.
It is therefore pleasing that this old problem seems to be in the process of being resolved.
I fully support Mrs Klaß in her view that the annual report should include information on the transmission of funds to final beneficiaries.
When so much of European Union funds are involved, it is important that we see where it goes and how it is spent.
As a member of Parliament's Regional Affairs Committee, I am always encouraged by the emphasis which the committee, under the chairmanship of Mr Cañete, places on the partnership principle.
This is generally accepted as the way forward for the distribution of European Union funding for its programmes.
It is therefore essential that it is properly implemented in all Member States.
Failure to develop it fully will amount to a failure in the way in which we spend money on the ground.
I want to see the fullest possible involvement of local economic and social partners, including locally elected political representatives.
It is by this means that the general public will be able to identify with the European Union and the work in their constituencies.
Although the Eighth Annual Report specifically deals with 1996 and the current programming period, it is inevitable that we look at it in the context of the future for structural funding in general.
It would also be remiss of me not to take this opportunity to say to the Commission that, as we move towards the reform and Agenda 2000 in 1999, the rigid criterion of 75 % of GDP is not only unreasonable, it will be difficult for many regions to accept.
Substantial amounts of funding have been going to many areas.
The cohesion funding has given certain areas a particular advantage.
But it has worked to the disadvantage of those areas that are in close proximity to cohesion areas.
They have not had that access or opportunity.
Areas such as my own were dependent to a large extent on European Union funding to stand still, never mind move forward.
I have to say to the Commission that it must revisit my area and look at it again.
It must take up the challenge presented by those areas which have not been able to develop, such as my own, because of circumstances.
Especially after what happened last week, namely the very strong referendum vote by the people in my area to move to a new position, to look for new opportunities, I appeal to the Commission at this time to support us in that area.
Madam President, the National Alliance and I in particular are aware of the disadvantages of the island regions, and in accordance with our position in matters of economic and social cohesion, we are very concerned for the future of the islands, if the reform of the Structural Funds is approved without substantial changes.
The islands suffer from structural disadvantages which in the long term end up having a negative effect on their economic and social development.
With the reform of the Structural Funds, whose main points are set out in Agenda 2000, particular importance has been given to the principle of concentration and, please note, among the various territories which will be disqualified from the Objective 1 programme are many islands.
It emerges from this that if the reform is adopted as shown in the Commission's communication, only a few islands will from part of Objective 1: this means that the island territories will be considered to be regions which do not require particular structural assistance.
This is nonsense and it also appears that the experts in the European Commission who have worked on the reform of the Structural Funds have not read the new Amsterdam Treaty, which provides for the specific nature of island regions either through a rewriting of Article 130a or through the attached declaration.
The Commission is therefore asked to review its position on this point, and provide room for the island regions within Objective 1, apart from their GDP, because a close and conscientious examination of the situation should show that there are not only macroeconomic reasons but above all different reasons which are of a geo-economic nature.
In addition, the Commission should review, for this specific case, its policy for state aid, taking into account for island regions their fragility and their particular geo-strategic importance because they are on the periphery.
In addition to that, a series of fiscal and financial incentives should be introduced to benefit the island regions.
Finally, particular importance should be given to preventing damage to and safeguarding the environment, with appropriate measures to exploit the enormous potential of the regions in question.
Mr President, we have before us three important and good reports.
As regards Mrs Klaß' report on the Structural Funds, I would just like to say that all the measures aimed at transparency and control in the application of the Funds can count on our full support.
As regards Mr Viola's report on islands, allow me to pay tribute to that report by associating myself, word for word, with my colleague Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza's excellent speech.
I do not think I could add any more skilled or positive comments, and that makes me feel very proud.
As for Mr Arias Cañete's report, I must say I think it is balanced, positive and very good. However, it is accompanied by several amendments which I think make up the political substance we have to clarify in this debate.
I am not going to waste time - which I do not have anyway - by saying how good the Cohesion Fund is, and what important effects it has had.
I just want to say that we are going to support Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 by Mr Berend, who is unfortunately not listening to me although he is here.
However, we would ask him to withdraw Amendment No 4 because we are talking about the Cohesion Fund for this period.
So we are going to support Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 which state that we are talking about the period up to 1999.
But I would earnestly call on him to withdraw his Amendment No 4, since we are not making a decision on a future debate. Agenda 2000 lies ahead of us, and the relevant decision can be made in a peaceful and proper manner.
If we manage to get that amendment withdrawn, I think this report will have all the qualitative and positive ingredients it needs.
Mr President, in his report Mr Cañete has very carefully evaluated how the Cohesion Fund was implemented for the 1996 financial year.
There is no denying the success of the Cohesion Fund.
Infrastructure has been decisively improved.
As far as the environment is concerned, financing has continued to concentrate on water supply and treatment projects and, to a lesser extent, on waste treatment.
The essential purpose of the Cohesion Fund, namely to promote economic and social cohesion, has so far been achieved, as witnessed by the increase in per capita income over the last ten years.
This is borne out by the fact that Ireland, Portugal and Spain are to join monetary union in the first wave, while Greece is also well on its way to joining.
That is all I have to say regarding the annual report for 1996 and its evaluation.
In some aspects of the resolution the rapporteur has tried - although in my opinion this was not part of his remit - to keep all four current beneficiary Member States in the Cohesion Fund beyond the year 1999.
Regrettably, I cannot agree to this.
Solidarity also means not demanding or approving any more aid than is absolutely necessary.
Madam President, I congratulate Mr Viola on his report.
I am particularly pleased that my group, the Union for Europe Group, played an important part in ensuring that this vitally important matter is the subject of a report from the Regional Affairs Committee.
For that I thank my friend and colleague Mr Baggioni.
The fact that the island regions are at last specifically mentioned in the Amsterdam Treaty is a major victory for all those concerned and the Commission must now come up with substantial proposals for these island regions and the current reform of the Structural Funds.
The Commission can be assured that my group and the Regional Affairs Committee and others will be most supportive of the proposals when they come on stream.
While I recognize that the problems of Corsica, Sardinia and some of the Greek islands are very specific, I would also like the Commission to recognize that there are small islands in my own country that could and should be considered for specific Community action.
The problems encountered on these islands, notably off the south-west and west coast of Ireland are not acceptable by any Community standard.
They too deserve serious consideration in the ongoing reforms.
On the Cañete report, there is cause for satisfaction.
The budget for 1996 was fully implemented and no case of fraud was reported.
I am extremely pleased that no initiatives were taken on the environment sector and the reference period projects relating to coastal erosion are notable, something I have been advocating for a long time.
In this context, I pay tribute to the Irish Government for a whole series of actions it has taken in this sector.
This has to be a good omen for the future of the Cohesion Fund which has played and will continue to play a vitally important role for the participating countries.
Finally, I attach the utmost importance to the contribution of the European Parliament to the reform of the Cohesion Fund in the coming months.
At this stage in the procedure it will be up to us, the Members, to ensure that the participating nations get the best possible deal to ensure that they can continue and, in some cases complete, the ongoing good work in the environment and transport infrastructure.
I thank the Commissioner for her work in this area.
Madam President, Mrs Klaß has produced an excellent and thorough report on the Commission's annual report on Structural Funds, for which I thank her wholeheartedly.
It is clearly evident from both the Commission's report and Mrs Klaß' report that there are problems in how to use Structural Fund resources to best effect.
According to the Commission's preliminary budget for 1999, spending commitments are set to increase by a massive 17.8 %, which bears no relation to the budget's growth in general, a commitment of 6.5 %.
At the same time the difference between committed spending and actual spending has grown to 7.8 billion euros, that is to say, actual spending is more than 20 % below the figure for commitments.
This means that considerable appropriations have to be used the following year for spending commitments from the planning stage.
Mrs Klaß and the Committee on Regional Policy kindly included in their report points raised by the Committee on Budgets, which stressed - in points 4 and 5 of the report - the need for simplicity in administering Structural Funds, a clarification of the sharing of responsibility, and an appraisal of whether there is a reasonable link between the costs of administering Structural Funds and the money to be spent.
The hallmark of Structural Fund administration is sluggishness and bureaucracy.
In addition, the size of the administrative machine does not always accord with the sum of money to be spent.
Furthermore, comments on the vagueness surrounding the use of Structural Funds testify not only to the complicated nature of the administrative process but to a lack of clarity in the area of who is responsible for what.
Rationalization of the administrative process and clarification on the sharing of responsibility are the most important issues to address as we pass into the new planning stage, and this is one of the greatest changes facing my worthy colleague, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
The accumulation of funds in recent years, the so-called snowball effect, has been a continual source of worry for the Committee on Budgets.
There have been serious difficulties in drafting the budget, where one main area grows threefold while other areas suffer.
That was the case, for example, last Autumn, when 550 million euros had to be cut from other areas.
It was this snowball effect that the Committee on Budgets wished to bring to everyone's attention in its report, and it thus proposed Amendments Nos 2 and 3.
I would hope that Parliament will approve them, as it did Amendments Nos 3 and 4.
Mr President, the reports being debated this morning are all very important, and to my mind the Viola report on the problems of island regions is especially important.
When talking about these regions, reference is often made to the need to adopt specific measures to compensate for the disadvantages they suffer compared with mainland regions.
Nevertheless, although recognized as necessary, such measures are far from substantive, except for those agreed for the ultra-peripheral island regions.
There will have to be a change of attitude when the Funds are reformed.
Fourteen million EU citizens live on islands and suffer the constant effects of these disadvantages on their daily lives, in matters of employment, education, health and quality of life.
The seriousness of these problems demands that geographical and economic factors, such as a region's remote position or island status, be taken into account during the forthcoming reform of the Structural Funds, if we want to see an end to inequality between central and peripheral regions.
If that inequality continues, it will confirm the division between first and second class European citizens.
If the reform of the Funds is implemented as it is, that division will be ensured.
The Viola report is an attempt to avoid that. My group supports all the report's proposals for improving the situation in island regions.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Viola on his fine report.
It is important that we should both pay attention to the EU&#x02BC;s islands and archipelagos and their special problems, and that we should realize that the problems are considerable, but extremely diverse.
The problems experienced in the Greek archipelago are markedly different from those facing the islands off Scotland or in the Baltic Sea.
This applies especially to the landscape and climate.
I myself come from Sweden, the country with the largest number of islands in the EU.
For decades we have been struggling to keep the archipelagos alive and to make it possible both to live and earn a living there.
Major problems for us are depopulation and the absence of sustainable, long-term development.
We want to see more development programmes and more interregional cooperation aimed at easing the situation of the islands.
However, we do not believe that the islands should receive special treatment within the framework of future policy on the Structural Funds. That would simply lead to a flood of demands from different sectional interests and areas.
We therefore believe that the 75 % threshold should be retained.
The situation of the islands is, in fact, a prime example of the need for the EU&#x02BC;s Structural Fund policy to be supplemented with regional support at national level for those areas not covered by EU subsidies.
Otherwise, certain areas will be totally neglected, while others receive aid from both the EU and national governments.
We also believe that in Agenda 2000 the Commission must allow the Member States to authorize national, regional aid to those areas - such as the islands - that are not covered by aid under the EU&#x02BC;s Structural Funds.
Anything else would be unacceptable.
Mr President, thanks to the excellent report by Mr Viola, the European Parliament is today sending out a warm message of support to the citizens of the island regions of the Union, a message of viable development of Europe's most precious natural and cultural heritage.
The first major step was taken in the Amsterdam Treaty, which acknowledged the need for a specialized policy to offset the structural handicaps caused by the particularly difficult geographical and economic conditions faced by the islands.
The second step will be the vote on this report, which really sets out the basis for an integrated policy which will create equal conditions for competition and development in both continental and island regions.
I consider that immediate priority needs to be given to the following points.
Firstly, provision needs to be made when reforming the Structural Funds to a new programme solely for the islands.
At the same time, funding for small islands needs to be increased.
Also, when drafting regulations and directives account needs to be taken of the unique nature of the island regions and the opinions of local bodies.
Thirdly, compensatory measures are needed to offset the additional cost of transport and priority needs to be given to transport, environmental and modern telecommunications infrastructures.
Fourthly, alternative fiscal measures need to be introduced and financial incentives offered in order to promote the endogenous development of the islands.
Another important point is that ecologically sensitive island regions need to be protected.
In addition, we need to examine the environmental impact of activities in neighbouring areas, such as the polluting industries on the Turkish coasts and plans to construct a nuclear factory in Akouyiou, as these will have a horrendous impact on the environment of the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean as a whole.
We should support action to develop renewable sources of energy. In addition, we need to finance the purchase of emergency means of transport for patients, especially from small islands.
We must protect the cultural identity of the islands and develop historical and archeological sites and traditional villages.
And finally, we need to introduce codes of conduct and environmental and cultural rules for tourist enterprises.
We still need innovative solutions for waste management and water storage.
Our islands need the care and attention of the Union.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, it was recognized at the Amsterdam Summit that the development of the island regions of Europe is affected by differences and problems which they have in common.
Today, Mr Viola is presenting us with a proposal for an integrated policy for the island regions. I congratulate him and thank him for his work.
His proposal incorporates and develops the concept of regaining a balance between regions, and calls on the Commission to include in Agenda 2000 macroeconomic factors and geographical and economic criteria such as a region's remote position or island status.
The island regions of Europe are different but have problems in common, particularly with regard to the transport of people and goods.
Businesses located on islands, most of them SMEs, have difficulty competing in the single market on equal terms, since ports and airports are their only link to the mainland and other islands.
We islanders need our regions to grow in qualitative terms and we need to create jobs. So we are asking for support for the development of new technologies and communications.
That is a key sector for our future.
Tourism is a good source of income for many island regions. However, we islanders do not live in the hotels, but work in them.
The service sector needs to become less dependent on the seasons. We need to develop alternative forms of tourism, and there must be plenty of training to allow us to be competitive.
I know the Commissioner will remind me that the Balearic Islands, which I represent in this Parliament, have been developed for tourism.
But, Madam Commissioner, our island regions are fragile in terms of sustainable development, the environment and waste treatment.
We have problems with water, and are highly dependent on others for energy.
Archipelagos also have small islands which are particularly disadvantaged with respect to education and health.
Does the Commission realize how difficult it is and how much the regional administrations have to pay in island regions to give their citizens the same quality of services as people enjoy on the mainland?
Our problems can be solved if the Commission, with the support of our national governments, implements a plan of action, within the framework of Agenda 2000, to apply Community legislation based on the principle of equal opportunities.
Madam President, Ireland is a good example of the effective use of Structural Funds.
In the present programme Ireland is assessed as a single unit for funding.
There is now, however, a very strong case for regionalization in Ireland for the next round of Structural Fund monies.
Some regions in Ireland are clearly out-performing other regions in terms of economic performance and therefore all regions cannot and must not be put into the same bracket for the next tranche of structural fund money.
Figures recently produced from the Central Statistics Office clearly show that the midland region was below 75 % of the average EU standard of living.
Therefore, the case for granting Objective 1 status to the midland region for the period 2000 to 2006 is both real and compelling and beyond reproach.
If Objective 1 status was accorded to the midland region, it would develop as a region on the back of the infrastructural improvements such as the Portlaoise bypass, so as to attract more investment and create more jobs.
Mr President, I would like to say how pleased I am that this report, probably for the first time in the history of the European Parliament, takes special account of our northern Member States&#x02BC; archipelagos, that is to say the archipelagos of south-western Finland, Åland and Sweden.
In particular, I would like to mention recital E in the resolution, in which divided archipelagos and ice conditions are mentioned.
I would like to extend heartfelt thanks to the rapporteur for the understanding that he shows with regard to this archipelago, a region that belongs to our unique heritage, which we have a collective duty to protect, and which can only preserve its character if people are able to work and live there.
In Finland we have for decades endeavoured to pursue an active policy with regard to the archipelago by allocating responsibilities to special bodies.
Point 7 relating to the "Interservice Group' is therefore important.
It is also important that the Commission should rapidly take steps to guarantee that states are able to extend enterprise and transport aid to the island regions.
Delays, Madam Commissioner, could prove fatal to a living archipelago.
Moreover, I hope that the special attention which the report pays to small-scale farming activities on the islands, which cannot be expanded, will also be taken into consideration.
Mr President, I want to draw people's attention to something happening here today which they might find surprising.
Almost all the speakers are talking about the Viola report which, objectively speaking, is much less important than the Arias Cañete report on the Cohesion Fund or the Klaß report on the Structural Funds.
That shows just how important the islands are, and I think Mrs Wulf-Mathies will be taking note.
The Viola report is an excellent report, as has already been said.
It describes the reality of island life very well, and proposes constructive solutions which I hope the Commission will take into consideration.
I particularly want to draw attention to recital E, which contains an almost exhaustive description of the realities of island life. I do not think it would be possible to come up with a better description.
I want to point out that some of the European Union's most important achievements hardly operate or do not operate in the islands. I am thinking of the achievements relating to the single market or the free movement of persons, as well as some of the most attractive projects, such as the trans-European networks.
So island regions are marginalized with respect to some of the EU's most important projects.
Mrs Wulf-Mathies, the only serious objection we have come up with during recent debates on an integral and specific policy for the islands is based on budgetary considerations.
Undoubtedly, that is a very important objection, but many of the measures being demanded involve no cost to the EU budget, for example state aid, such as specific fiscal and economic policies.
Madam Commissioner, I am sure you are sensitive to these issues and that you will be able to convince your less sensitive Commission colleagues, such as Mr Monti or Mr Van Miert, about these specific measures which the islands demand.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the three rapporteurs, Mr Klaß, Mr Arias Cañete and Mr Viola on their reports.
I would like to comment, as an islander, on Mr Viola's report, which is excellent and should be used as a basis for further action.
Thanks to the question and vote passed by the European Parliament last May and coordinated efforts by Member States and island agencies, we succeeded in including special provision for the specific problems faced by islands in article 130a of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In addition, a protocol was attached to the Treaty.
These provisions could form the basis for the application of an integrated policy for the islands.
However, the Commission seems unwilling to translate this potential into specific measures and policies.
That is why we, as the European Parliament, must use our position and status to do whatever we can to overcome these obstacles.
I think we can do so by highlighting the following points.
Firstly, we need to include a new sub-programme in the Interreg Community initiative devoted entirely to island regions and to further promote trans-island cooperation.
Secondly, we must introduce compensatory measures to offset the additional cost of transporting passengers, freight and energy to and from the islands.
Thirdly, we should introduce alternative fiscal measures which take account of the special nature of the islands in these regions and encourage local economies by introducing tax incentives.
Fourthly, we need to support Community action and programmes to develop renewable sources of energy.
And finally, we need priority cofinancing from the Commission to buy emergency means of transport to provide fast links between islands and other islands or mainland areas in the event of an emergency.
Mr President, in welcoming Mrs Klaß' report, I endorse both the Commission's view that 1996 was the first year in which the current structural fund programme was fully operational and the rapporteur's view that provisional good marks can be awarded for the first time since 1994.
However, in a debate being held in May 1998, surely the benefit of time can allow us to draw a wider conclusion about what happens when the programme in effect starts three years late.
We have long lead times for planning and negotiation followed by rushed decisions concerning spending and implementation, consistently late payments both to Member States, regions and individual projects.
In Brussels underspends are seen as a lack of need rather than a lack of efficient administration.
Altogether there is a corrosive effect on expectations, breeding cynicism rather than public support for some of Europe's most important work.
Therefore, I hope that this morning we will recommit ourselves to both ensuring that the budget for the current structural fund programme is fully committed in the 1999 budget, fully honouring the Edinburgh Agreement, and that everything possible is done to ensure that the new programming period from 2000 onwards starts on time.
The alternative will be a domino effect in which all the problems of delay continue for seven more years, blighting the achievements of programmes of which we should be justifiably proud.
I hope we will get a clear commitment from the Commissioner this morning in this respect.
I hope too that she will offer support for the Community initiatives and the innovative projects which, as the report points out, represent 70 % of the total underspends.
We are all aware of her desire to streamline these expenditures but it is right to point out once again that these are some of the most effective, most visible and most direct forms of European aid to our regions and localities.
It is the difficulties of administration in Brussels rather than the lack of effect on the ground which is besetting their progress.
Mr President, as Mr Fernández Martín said earlier, most of the speeches this morning have addressed the Viola report, which shows this Parliament's sensitivity to the island regions.
I should like to point out that certain island regions already have a distinct, special treatment. These are the ultra-peripheral regions, which are already recognized, even in the new text of the Treaty of Amsterdam, in Article 299(2) of the modified text.
So that is a completely different question.
Apart from these ultra-peripheral regions, the island regions are areas within the European Union which are differentiated and experience certain difficulties.
The new Article 130a of the Treaty of Amsterdam already introduces a legislative point, and a declaration made at the Amsterdam Conference also goes in the same direction.
But I think it is right to have that differentiated treatment.
Such treatment has to compensate these regions for their island situation.
It is a treatment which assumes that these island regions experience difficulties as a result of the lack of a land bridge.
In other words, the image we have of the European Union is of a continent, but that ignores the fact that there is a whole series of island regions which experience difficulties.
I think Mr Viola's proposals are fairly positive in general. I would like to draw attention to the proposals aimed at promoting communications and transport, and especially the application of all the new communications network technologies which offer a solution to certain problems.
So I want to congratulate Mr Viola, as well as Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza and Mr Gallagher for the contributions from their respective committees. I hope the Commission will take these initiatives into account in order to prepare concrete programmes to compensate the island regions for these disadvantages.
Mr President, Mr Viola's own-initiative report seeks to underline the particularly sensitive situation the island regions find themselves in.
One outcome of the Amsterdam Summit was the addition to the Treaty of a declaration on the economic and social development of islands, which are in, what is in many ways, an unfavourable position.
The island regions are ecologically sensitive areas.
They are subject to all kinds of pressures. A balance has to be struck between the living conditions of their permanent populations and increasing tourism.
Owing to rapidly ageing populations, the traditional island occupations of fishing and farming have declined.
If island youth is not tempted to stay at home, not only will unique island cultures disappear but valuable cultural heritages will be lost.
As the report states, a stimulus to development founded on the unique identity of the island regions themselves is the only way to check the exodus among young people.
It is unfortunate, however, that Mr Viola's report did not cover all the island regions in need of assistance.
Examples include the vast inhabited archipelago between Finland and Sweden, and the islands in the lake districts of eastern and central Finland.
The island regions are very sparsely populated in cold climates, and in winter they are cut off due to frozen waters.
These regions should definitely be included along with the Union's Structural Fund reforms in the creation of a new objective programme, one in which the island regions would figure in the highest aid bracket, that is, 75 % of the total cost of a project.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, we ought not to forget that the purpose of the Cohesion Fund is to contribute to the fight against social and territorial disparities. It was created out of the need to support the efforts of its beneficiary states to meet the convergence criteria defined as conditions for joining the single currency.
Nor have those social and territorial disparities been eliminated - despite the progress that has been made - nor will the budgetary restrictions we have agreed disappear with the single currency, which is why we must keep the Cohesion Fund after 1999.
In the context of the present Cohesion Fund, however, it is important to prevent adverse effects, particularly those of over-concentration in the most highly-developed regions of the beneficiary Member States.
If we are to overcome territorial disparities, we must fight those which actually exist within each state.
So it is encouraging that the Cohesion Fund has at last reached the ultra-peripheral regions, for example, as a result of this House's repeated efforts to call attention to their needs.
It has reached some of them, but not all of them.
It has not reached the Azores, in spite of the enormous sums that region needs to invest in the environment and transport, jointly with the Cohesion Fund.
This fact is all the more relevant inasmuch as in Portugal 55 % of the finance from the Fund has up to now been concentrated in its most highly-developed region.
We have got to change this situation.
I should like to congratulate Mr Arias Cañete on the excellent report he has produced on this subject.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, we have before us three interesting reports which give us a very illuminating insight into the islands and the position regarding Structural Funds.
However, one comment needs to be made.
In 1996 the rate of application of Structural Funds increased, but in future it will be necessary to speed up and simplify their allocation and make them easier to use.
Another point is that my own country, Portugal, has the highest rate of absorption and use of Structural Funds.
Thanks to aid from the Structural Funds, the Portuguese economy has grown by 4 % in the last year, and will grow by around 5 % this year.
But the territory of Portugal as a whole is below the 75 % level.
For that reason, the proposals contained in Agenda 2000 must not penalize Portugal and take away a slice of the funds it now receives, because that would be unfair and morally wrong.
Virtue should be rewarded, and therefore Portugal should go on receiving Structural Funds at their present level in the next Community aid programme.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today's debate is not a fundamental discussion on whether or not to retain the Cohesion Fund beyond 1999.
Mr Cañete's report, which in itself was a very good piece of work, is the 1996 annual review of the Commission's report for this period.
This means that it should be, and indeed is, an analysis and critical assessment of the latter, combined with relevant conclusions on the efficient use of funds in both qualitative and quantitative terms.
Let us then not anticipate the revision of the Structural Funds and the review of the Cohesion Funds, which will surely go hand in hand with it.
This 1996 report is not the appropriate place for such deliberations.
The amendment which we have proposed, and which was tabled on behalf of my group, can really only be understood from this perspective.
I therefore also reject the comment which Mr Novo made some while ago as completely unjustified.
What now appears in these clauses goes well beyond the limits of a 1996 report and should be presented at some later date, not as part of this report.
I am of the opinion, however, that with the rapporteur we have found acceptable solutions to this problem.
Mr President, I will confine myself to just one island - the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England - the favourite holiday island of Queen Victoria.
It is still a beautiful holiday destination and you are all welcome to visit it.
My constituency of half a million people is approximately three-quarters from the mainland of Hampshire and one-quarter from the Isle of Wight.
Hampshire is prosperous.
GDP is over 100 % of the European average.
Unemployment is 2 %.
It is a great county with great people.
The Isle of Wight similarly has great people but GDP is just 67 % of the European average.
Unemployment is 20 %.
It is the poorest district in England but has no European Objective 1 funding because, statistically, it is measured with Hampshire.
Why is it so poor? It is an island separated from the mainland by just five kilometres of water.
We are not ultra-peripheral but being an island makes all the difference.
I welcome the reference to islands in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I thank Mr Viola for his report.
The British government, the Council of Ministers and the Commission do not want to take any action on Clause 158 of the Treaty.
It is up to Parliament in this report to push for the Treaty to be honoured and for the islands to be helped.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, very briefly, in the minute I have available, I first want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Arias Cañete, Mr Viola and Mrs Klaß, on their magnificent reports, and reiterate once again that the Cohesion Fund was created to achieve not monetary union, but economic and social cohesion.
So until that has been achieved, the Cohesion Fund will still be needed.
In other words, we need to achieve so-called true or real convergence. In the words of the Treaty, while Member States have a per capita GNP which is lower than 90 % of the Community average, we will need that Fund.
Unfortunately, the fact that we have achieved monetary union does not mean that regional and social disparities no longer exist in the European Union.
No doubt, as the Arias Cañete report recognizes, the Cohesion Fund has done a lot. It was well implemented during 1996, as the report also says.
But there is still a lot left to do, as the Commission itself admitted in its threeyearly report on cohesion, and in its proposal for Agenda 2000, maintaining the Cohesion Fund after 1999, even within monetary union.
But as has also been said here, we shall have the opportunity to talk about the future in forthcoming debates within the Committee on Regional Policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first let me express my sincerest thanks to the three rapporteurs, Mrs Klaß, Mr Arias Cañete and Mr Viola, for their outstanding reports and for the constructive manner in which they have worked together with the Members of the Committee on Regional Policy.
As has been emphasized several times during the debate, 1996 was also a successful year for the Cohesion Fund and this applies not only to take-up rates but also to the reduction of disparities in development.
Even the relationship between transport and the environment has come closer to the desired balance and you will see in the annual report for 1997 that deficits in the individual Member States have also been progressively reduced, with the result that the Commission expects the target balance to be achieved in all four beneficiary countries by the end of 1999.
I agree with your criticism of the imbalance between road transport infrastructure and more environmentally friendly forms of transport.
The Commission is involved in intensive discussions with the cohesion countries about the need for progress to be made in the rail sector and in other environmentally friendly areas of transport.
We share your view that greater attention needs to be directed particularly towards rail projects.
I agree with all those who have said that we need better environmental indicators so that we can more effectively assess the sustainability of those projects being funded.
To this effect, Eurostat is carrying out an ambitious programme which one hopes will furnish the Commission with the machinery for assessing environmental improvements and for undertaking comparative studies more effectively in this area.
I refute the unqualified criticism that the Cohesion Fund has tended to destroy the natural environment and that the Commission has not acted against breaches of EU environmental legislation.
I believe we can easily demonstrate to you that, in fact, the very opposite is true.
Your proposal to create local and regional structures within the context of Cohesion Fund projects does not, unfortunately, comply with the Cohesion Fund regulation.
The Cohesion Fund is not a regional fund and its functions must therefore be assessed in terms of the Cohesion Fund regulation.
Mrs Klaß, I too am pleased to see that the take-up of appropriations from the Structural Funds in 1996 was a clear improvement on previous years.
This positive development has continued in 1997 with payments at a rate of utilization of 99.2 %.
After the delays of the first two years the situation has therefore now stabilized and improved.
I share your concerns in the area of Community initiatives and you will know that I have repeatedly pointed out to the Member States that we need a greater input from them in this area in order to speed up developments.
A certain improvement was visible in 1997, but the general situation is anything but satisfactory.
For this reason public sector talks are currently under way with the Member States on the subject of reprogramming, and after the summer recess the Commission will be submitting to the European Parliament a report on the implementation of Community initiatives, which will of course also take account of Parliament's position in this respect.
Let me just add as an aside that even the Community initiatives which you have proposed for strengthening the cohesion programme leave a great deal to be desired in terms of their take-up rate.
It is therefore well worth discussing together what steps we need to take next.
The financial plan which was agreed in Edinburgh earmarked 39 % of commitments for the final two years of the programme planning period.
At the time of its implementation on 31 December 1997 this percentage figure had in fact increased to 41 %, that is to say 2 % more than was planned.
In spite of everything, I consider this to be relatively satisfactory.
Between 1996 and the present, Madam rapporteur, we have made considerable progress in monitoring and evaluating Structural Fund actions.
But as you know, we are aspiring to a more effective system of monitoring, evaluation and checks by way of the new Structural Fund regulation.
In this respect, we are building on the experience gained from SEM 2000.
Let me just correct something which has been said.
There is no evidence that fraud is on the increase, but regrettably there is a continuing problem with formal errors and irregularities, for example regarding funding qualifications and the submission of receipts.
I therefore consider it to be extremely important that the Commission should in future be in possession of instruments for applying sanctions and financial adjustments when it uncovers incidents of this kind.
But I would not be betraying a secret when I tell you that an intensive debate is currently under way as to the best way of simplifying these procedures and that most of the Member States now see the situation quite differently.
Unfortunately, Mrs Klaß, we will not be able to give you a report on the transmission of funds to final beneficiaries, since this information is only available to the Member States at national level, and in some cases only at regional level.
I also believe that it is not our job to do the Member States' homework, but rather we should demand for one thing that the Member States comply with the regulations and for another that they do their work properly.
This is why we need instruments for applying financial sanctions and adjustments.
As you know, there have in the past been problems with the partnership principle.
We are taking great pains to ensure that this principle is more correctly defined in the new Structural Fund regulation, together with a clearer allocation of responsibilities.
Here too there is certainly greater agreement between the Commission and Parliament than between the Commission and the Member States.
In this respect we shall continue to be very much dependent on your support.
Mr Viola, I very much appreciate your commitment to the island regions.
It is the view of the Commission, however, that the geographical criterion "island region' is of itself not appropriate for the general application of exceptional provisions, whether this is done within the scope of the Structural Funds or any other Community policy.
This situation is quite different when it comes to the most remote island regions, whose structural handicaps are assessed as being "quite special' in Article 299 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Nevertheless, the Commission is intensively engaged, within the structural programme, in examining the different problems and specific disadvantages which affect the island regions.
However, if we wish to declare war on these special problems, then we have to make distinctions and cannot treat all islands alike.
An important indicator of the economic structural problems affecting our island regions is GDP.
For reasons you have frequently stated, we have now introduced, for example, higher co-funding rates for the outermost Greek islands.
But we cannot measure everyone by the same standards.
I could well imagine the Interreg scheme being used at some time in the future for promoting transboundary cooperation between the islands, provided that appropriate proposals are made to this effect.
This is something which we could have done in the past had we received a similar quantity of concrete proposals from the Member States, and from the island regions themselves, for such projects.
But sometimes there is even a shortage of these!
I think that we should establish more coherence here too.
In spite of the general ban on operational assistance, the Commission - as you know - does, under certain conditions, allow operational assistance to be granted on a degressive basis, and for a limited period of time, to the most disadvantaged regions.
However, here too the level of aid approved is quite rightly determined by the degree of handicap.
I share the rapporteur's view that we need to promote endogenous, environmentally-compatible development in our island regions, to support new forms of tourism which focus more on the natural, cultural and historic heritage of the islands and to encourage the use of alternative energy resources in these regions.
I want to tell you, however, that we are already doing this, for instance through the JOULE Programme, which alone is promoting 26 projects for renewable energies in the island regions.
The Commission is also in agreement with the rapporteur that the new communications technologies can offer the island regions a wonderful opportunity for their development and for reducing the problems associated with their temporal and geographical remoteness.
We have therefore called upon the Member States to make the use of information and communications technologies an integral part of their regional funding policy.
Let me just make one final comment. As far as I am aware, an astonishingly high number of Members of the European Parliament are themselves island residents.
Their contributions to the debate have shown that those who live in the island regions are very skilful at safeguarding their own interests, not just in the European Parliament but there in particular.
The Commission is prepared to work with you in drawing up a detailed policy.
However, I would re-emphasize that this really has to be thought through in detail, for only then will we be able to help those who are at the greatest disadvantage and to promote the economic and social cohesion of the Union as a whole.
I thank the Commissioner for her speech.
Mr President, the Commissioner employed exclusively geographical criteria in her comments on islands. We have also been talking about the number of inhabitants as a criterion, Madam Commissioner.
Your reply failed to take that into consideration.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.55 a.m. while awaiting the votes and resumed at 11.00 a.m.)
Mr President, I would draw your attention and through you the attention of the President and the Bureau to remarks in the Belgian press attributed to one of our Members, Mr Thierry Jean-Pierre.
These remarks are a re-hash of allegations that he has previously made of irregularity and worse.
These are allegations for which he has never produced a shred of evidence, despite being requested to do so.
He has never produced evidence to the press, to the Committee on Budgetary Control, to the Bureau of Parliament or to our President.
He appears to allege parliamentary obstruction to requests for waiver of immunity where no such requests have been made to Parliament.
Will you therefore ask the President of Parliament to further consider these allegations by Mr Thierry Jean-Pierre and ask that Member either to produce evidence, should any exist, or, if not, to conduct himself in a manner more appropriate to a politician with pretensions to legal objectivity.
Thank you, Mr Tomlinson.
The matter was raised with the Bureau this morning and the President will take note of your comment.
Votes
If I have understood correctly, Mrs André-Léonard wishes to table an oral amendment.
Mr President, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, believed it would be useful to add a paragraph.
Unfortunately, we missed the deadline for tabling normal amendments.
We must therefore table an oral amendment, following the nuclear tests carried out by India on 11 and 13 May and the risks which are still very evident in the region.
I would thus like to present you with this oral amendment: "views as most serious the continued presence of nuclear weapons in the Indian subcontinent which poses a threat to international stability, and regrets that the lack of a genuine common EU policy on security prevents the Union from playing a political role in the establishment of a dialogue on the strategic balance between the countries in the region' .
If you are in agreement, and if the House is in agreement, I would like this oral amendment to be put to the vote.
(The House approved the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, as agreed with the coordinator of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, its chairman and the chairman of the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, the text of the oral amendment is the following:
"Demands that the Ecofin Council should accept the recommendation of the European Commission for the broad economic guidelines as supported by the present resolution of the European Parliament.'
(The House approved the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I repeat my invitation to my colleague, Mr Wynn, to withdraw this amendment, as I shall go into more detail before the first reading.
If he should insist on the amendment, I would ask to table my own additional oral amendment to his amendment.
Mr President, it would seem logical just to vote on this amendment.
If it is lost then the rapporteur can do what he wishes after that.
You are therefore refusing to withdraw the amendment and modify it.
That is a double refusal.
I will put Amendment No 1 from the Socialist group to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I should like to propose an oral amendment to the original text of paragraph 14, to replace the words "...of the Cohesion Fund' with the words "...of a cohesion fund' , and I would request Mr Berend to withdraw his Amendment No 4.
Mr President, if that is the case, then we accept this oral amendment and on behalf of my group I withdraw Amendment No 4.
Mr President, the oral amendment can only be accepted if there are no objections.
I have objections.
I do not accept the oral amendment.
(More than 12 Members stood up)
Mr President, I want to point out that there should be a correction to Amendment No 20, at least in the Swedish version.
It talks about a programme for coastal connections, not ferry services, as it should be.
On Amendments Nos 21 and 22
Mr President, I wish to speak before the final vote and explain my point, because I like to know exactly what I am voting for.
When you moved to vote on the recitals, you combined recitals J and paragraph 1 under the same vote.
But recital J was what we were presented with as a corrigendum, stating the following: "whereas it is necessary to integrate the island regions into the internal market on equal terms' .
We were also told that the existing recital J had become recital K. I have the impression that this corrigendum is more an amendment than a corrigendum.
Clearly, it does not relate to all the language versions, but it does add to the text and you did not put it to the vote.
You put recital J to the vote which was the former recital J, rather than recital K which it became after this corrigendum.
I would be glad if you could clarify this matter for me and proceed to the vote we need to take and the modifications we need to make with regard to the layout of the texts.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, indeed the niceties of the text have not escaped your keen eye.
There was a mistake in the layout of the text as adopted by the Commission.
This is a purely technical rectification that has no effect on the content which the corrigendum affects and it does not need to be put to the vote.
I will now put the entire motion for a resolution, as amended, to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
To say that quality education and training lie at the heart of the struggle for development is indeed a truism.
Each Member State must draw its own consequences and adapt its educational system with a constant view to improving its quality.
And this means not only that higher education establishments should meet the educational and vocational requirements imposed by the global "society of knowledge' , they should also offer a response to social problems and provide standards of education and training that constitute genuine vectors of individual identity, group membership, social advancement and personal development.
We may rejoice in the fact that in this fundamental matter with regard to the future of our children and our societies, Community programmes, such as Socrates, have contributed to the growing awareness in each Member State that improvements are possible in higher education establishments, as compared with the situation in other Member States.
In the unified Europe we are building, we must deploy every resource towards achieving a harmonization in terms of an increase in the grades achieved by qualified students graduating from the higher education establishments of different Member States.
For all these reasons - even if we might actually regret, along with the rapporteur, that the Council did not consider it advisable to assign the Commission the responsibility for getting it off the ground - I am pleased today to see a long process that began in 1991 finally come to fruition.
After years of waiting, this result will allow us to create and implement the "European Quality Assurance Network' in the higher education of Member States of the Union.
Bazin report (A4-0190/98)
Car thefts throughout the EU are a serious problem.
The highly organized criminal gangs who specialize in this trade have been helped by the abolition of border controls.
I welcome the fact that the Commission has taken an initiative to tackle this problem.
I also appreciate the difficulty of trying to create a universal system affecting fifteen different countries with fifteen different practices.
However, try we must and if it does not work then we can go back to the drawing board.
The Commission proposal for production of two registration documents, if implemented, would be the first positive step in the right direction.
The Schengen Agreement sought to dispense with internal frontiers in the European Union.
The result was predictable: since then international crime has continued relentlessly to develop and diversify.
The traffic of vehicles between all the Member States is merely a by-product of the wishes of the Brussels Eurocrats.
Customs and police checks are, in principle, carried out at frontiers outside the Union, according to Schengen.
It is nothing of the kind and the growth of the Mafia and terrorism in all Member States is all the proof we need.
The National Front, for its part, has continually denounced these agreements and warned us of the dramatic consequences of this European sieve culture, in terms of the development of international crime and money laundering, delinquency, drug trafficking and, indeed, the inability to monitor the migratory flow.
With this report, Europe is yet again trying to treat the symptoms of the malady rather than its causes.
Certainly, it is important that we should be able to combat this international crimewave that continues to grow dangerously and the report by my colleague, Mr Bazin, makes a very favourable contribution to that cause.
However, the time required to take steps to standardize registration certificates, the techniques associated with the theft and smuggling of vehicles, which are like a virus, will have moved on and will have adapted to the already obsolete methods employed to combat them.
It is therefore high time we responded and attacked the primary causes of this entire breakdown: the Europe of Maastricht, the Europe of Schengen and now the Europe of Amsterdam.
Herman report (A4-0195/98)
Mr President, the Council has just presented us with a proposal for a decision defining the application procedures for Article 105(4) of the Treaty which stipulates that from 1 January 1999, the European Central Bank should be consulted by the authorities in each state regarding any proposals for regulations in areas within its jurisdiction.
This provision, which is apparently a secondary one, has clearly annoyed the European Parliament rapporteur, Mr Fernand Herman, who has told us that it is incomprehensible since, in a unified monetary area, national authorities would no longer have any independent regulatory powers in fields that might affect common monetary policy.
Even worse, he has expressed indignation that Article 105(4) merely allows for simple consultation of the ECB without allowing the minimum right of veto.
The rapporteur sees in this the signs of total inconsistency.
How has this inconsistency allowed itself to infiltrate the Treaty? Allow me to quote in full the explanation of Fernand Herman, because it should not be forgotten by those who follow in our wake.
According to the rapporteur, and I quote: "...the proposal submitted to us bears witness to an excessively decentralized conception of Economic and Monetary Union.
Such a conception must still have been prevalent in 1991, at a time when this ambitious project seemed unlikely to appeal to certain Member States.
In order not to antagonize them, they were given to understand that they would retain a maximum of autonomy even in matters where the substance of their sovereignty was being transferred to European level' .
Thus we are quietly informed that certain provisions were introduced into the instrument for monetary union simply to give an appealing impression at the time of the Maastricht ratification, but that now we must dispense with them to give the system its true meaning.
And it is to this ploy that the European Parliament has just lent itself, by voting in favour of the Herman report.
How do we view such goings-on, other than as manipulation of the rights of universal suffrage? Those in France who demand a referendum on the single currency should find here new arguments in support of their campaign.
Since we do not subscribe to the idea of a common currency for the EU Member States, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
We emphatically disassociate ourselves from the creation of a European Central Bank that is supposed to control monetary and currency policy in an "expert' fashion, beyond the reach of democratic influence.
The report proposed by our colleague, Mr Herman, addresses the issue of setting up the euro and its "secular' arm, the European Central Bank, a sturdy supporter of this particular currency; I therefore accept the guidelines presented to us today.
In effect, although we have entered the third phase of economic union, it would be, at the very least, something of a paradox if the Member States were still allowed to legislate freely on monetary matters without regard for the new spheres of jurisdiction conferred upon the European Central Bank.
Above and beyond the technical aspect of the report, we feel bidden to give our opinion on the federal nature of this monetary "tool' .
And I would say that of those who are most horrified by the notion that the European Union might have a major political role, many would vote for this text, not through a European persuasion, but simply because they subscribe to liberal, monetarist dogma.
That is not my position at all.
As far as I am concerned, I will vote for this text, not through ideology but through a genuine European commitment.
I would hope too, that many of us realize that the construction of European does not come to an abrupt halt on 1 January 1999 but that, on the contrary, it must be stepped up from 2 May 1998.
I hope, one year away from a major political deadline, that a genuine debate will be opened up concerning the Europe we seek to offer its citizens, as regards the constitution, the political Europe and the social Europe.
Already, the face and framework of the economic Europe is changing.
We might gain some satisfaction from this.
But we should now seek to expand upon the grand design of the major precursors of the European concept.
We must, without further delay, assist the progress of the political Europe to guarantee a genuine democracy for what will be, tomorrow, one of the leading economic, financial and monetary powers, if not the ultimate leader.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the Herman Report.
In our opinion, the original Commission proposal was far superior to the Herman report, in light of the Danish derogation with regard to the third stage of EMU.
We do not support Amendments Nos 1, 2 or 4 in the report.
The amendments imply:
firstly, that the authorities of the Member States should as a general rule refrain from drawing up new rules or regulations; -secondly, that existing regulations in all Member States concerning the ECB's fields of competence should be subject to progressive harmonization; -finally, that a Member State should suspend the implementation of national rules or regulations in the event of a dispute with the ECB until such times as the question is decided by the Council.The wording of the amendments does not take into consideration whether a Member State may have a derogation with regard to the third stage of EMU.
The amendments imply that Articles 2 and 4 of the proposal for a Council decision would go far beyond the provisions of the Treaty as set out in Article 105(4) of the Treaty, where it merely states that the ECB should be consulted in connection with any national draft legislative provision.
Thus, the amendments undermine the derogation provisions of Article 109K of the Treaty and, hence, the derogations that some countries have pursuant to the third stage of EMU.
In our opinion, three of the four amendments to the report contravene the provisions of the Treaty and violate rights laid down in the Treaty with regard to the Danish derogation pursuant to the third stage of EMU.
The EU decides. That is what the Herman report is all about.
The Commission&#x02BC;s proposal for a Council Decision on the consultation of the European Central Bank by national authorities on draft legislative provisions in the monetary sphere is rejected in the Herman report as "an excessively decentralized conception of Economic and Monetary Union' .
This may possibly have been the case in 1991, when the Maastricht Treaty was presented.
In order not to alarm the Member States, the committee&#x02BC;s explanatory statement intimated that they would be permitted to retain the maximum possible autonomy.
According to the committee, the Member States should, as of 1999, refrain from legislating or regulating on "all matters falling within ECB fields of competence' .
In the light of such dictates, Sweden&#x02BC;s decision to remain outside EMU seems increasingly wise.
The debate and the vote on the Herman report contain important considerations for the legal harmonization of monetary policy matters, but, more significantly, they also prepare the way for the establishment of a workable European Central Bank which will be the basis for a successful common currency.
It is absolutely vital for all preparatory procedures to be brought to an early close, so that the ECB trial run for a successful start-up of EMU on 1 January 1999 can commence at the earliest possible date.
To this effect the Commission has presented the European Parliament with a proposal for a Council Decision on the "statistical data to be used for the determination of the key for subscription of the capital of the European Central Bank' , which we can approve unreservedly.
The statistical data must be provided by the Commission, or by Eurostat, so that the capital shares held by the Member States in the ECB - respectively 50 % of each Member State's proportion of the total population and GDP of the EU - can be determined.
The capital shares will be revised every five years on the basis of this information.
Such a weighting system ensures that the costs and benefits of the common monetary policy are allocated in a practical and equitable way. This also applies - regardless of the many debates going on in the Member States - to the distribution of the profits of the ECB, which in principle is to be carried out on the basis of capital shares.
In order to smooth out short-term inconsistencies, there will however be a transitional regulation designed to balance out the different profit levels of the various central banks, which result from the fact that circulation of bank notes is varied in the EU Member States.
Viewed as a whole, this process, which incorporates both the GDP shares and the population-based shares, constitutes a practical and equitable way of allocating the shares.
The incorporation of both these parameters could quite possibly become a model for other projects and institutions in the European Union.
The second aspect of the Herman report concerns the regulations for the "consultation of the European Central Bank by national authorities on draft legislative provisions' . The rapporteur intends, through his amendments to the Commission's proposal, to achieve a more complete harmonization of the legislation pertaining to monetary policy.
The Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy support this intention.
How strong the forces of national inertia continue to be vis-à-vis European integration can be seen right here, where we have managed for the first time effectively to "Europeanize' a political area, as has been achieved with the adoption of a monetary policy for the single European currency.
Those who want to see a common currency must also be prepared to take this into account in their national legislation.
In view of the fact that there is insufficient clarification in the treaties of the relationship between the ECB, the ESCB and the national central banks in respect of their functions outside of monetary policy proper - functions which may be relevant for the development of money supply, for example - we need a pragmatic regulation which will apply in the interim.
This means that the Commission, and not the ECB, can act as guardian of the treaties - and in case of dispute the Council of Ministers can ultimately deliver the necessary political decisions.
Mr Herman's proposals, which we can agree to in this respect, are based on these principles.
It has to be said that, when in doubt, we would advocate diversity and would only plead for harmonization to the point where this can be proved necessary, whereas Mr Herman, under such circumstances, would presumably advocate harmonization.
But that point is not being voted on at this juncture.
Redondo Jiménez report (A4-0163/98)
We have abstained from the vote on this report because we believe that the common agricultural policy is in need of fundamental reform.
We wish to see a proper reform of agriculture policy in 1999.
The current report is, to a certain extent, heading in the right direction, since it proposes a reduction of the compensation payments.
However, we still cannot vote for an extension of the quota system for potato starch.
Too much is being spent on this system - ECU 205.4 million plus additional expenditure on production and export refunds - and we question whether this is money well spent.
During our work in the Committee on Agriculture, our rapporteur attempted to sow some confusion with regard to the production of potato starch and the setting up of a potato CMO.
As I stressed in my statements in committee, the potato for human consumption has absolutely nothing to do with the potato used in the production of starch.
I know that for some time the Spanish government has put pressure on the Commission to set up a potato CMO.
During the vote in the Committee on Agriculture, all amendments which sought to merge these two types of production were rejected.
We must, therefore, be pleased with the result of the vote in committee since it reflects the reality of starch production.
Historically, aid for starch potato production was established in order to maintain this special sector which is in direct competition with the production of cereal-based starch.
But I do recall three reasons given in favour of the preservation of this special production.
Firstly, starch potatoes are subject to the imposition of starch production quota restrictions.
Consequently, a drop in prices will not lead to an increase in market share through higher productivity in terms of cost price.
Secondly, starch potato cultivation requires substantial special investments.
The cost price is set at ECU 2 400 per hectare at least, in other words ECU 60 per tonne based on a yield of 40 tonnes/ha.
Thirdly, starch potato producers have had to put up with the various changes to the CAP, since this production is linked - in the context of starch products - to the official price of cereals, especially maize.
Consequently, the income of farmers has fallen regularly.
Given these three reasons, we should therefore maintain the existing situation and continue to aid this type of production within the framework of the Santer package.
In fact, the quota, the competitive balance with cereal prices for starch manufacture and the net operating margin which is higher than that for cereals, justify the legitimate stance in favour of pegging the minimum price of starch potato at 20 % above the basic intervention price for maize, in terms of both the minimum price and for compensatory payment, all within the framework of the Santer package.
Finally, we must introduce a measure of flexibility in this quota-setting system to take account of climatic fluctuations which affect the volume of production.
This is why our group has tabled a further amendment to enable a starch manufacturer, during a marketing year, to use - either above or below that year - not more than 10 % of his valid quota for the next or the last campaign, as applicable.
This 10 % flexibility with respect to an average campaign allows quotas to be adapted to meet variations in production.
Starch potato production requires expensive special investments, resulting in high cost prices of around FF 15 600/ha.
Therefore, within the framework of the Santer package, we will need to adapt the European regulations to maintain this production which has the advantage of being environmentally friendly and an excellent "crop rotation leader' .
The starch potato's competitor is maize and not, as the committee rapporteur stressed, the potato for human consumption.
In fact, the finished "starch' product is virtually identical, wherever it came from, be it maize or starch potato.
I would like to remind you that the European Union has a shortage of maize; therefore, we need to maintain our special potato starch production.
If we were forced to abolish it, maize imports would increase and we will have penalized European agriculture yet again.
Finally, I am glad that the vote in committee prevented our rapporteur from introducing a measure of confusion between starch potato production and the production of potatoes for human consumption.
At present, there is no potato CMO.
Some organizations, especially the Spanish ones, would dearly like to set one up before the accession of Poland.
May I remind you that Poland produces on its own as many potatoes as the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
The problem is not whether we set up a potato CMO, but quite simply we must not "corrupt' the debate concerning the very special starch potato production sector.
Cardiff European Council
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations would like to issue an appeal to the forthcoming Cardiff European Council.
The Council should be informed of a Franco-German initiative on subsidiarity, decided on at the bilateral meeting in Avignon on 6 and 7 May last.
In principle, this initiative is welcome, since the European Union has never encroached on the jurisdiction of nations to the extent that it does today.
But, unfortunately, we feel that this is merely window dressing.
In fact, if the governments had really wished to protect subsidiarity in Europe they would have needed simply to have seized on the occasion of the Intergovernmental Conference that drew up the Amsterdam Treaty.
But we have seen nothing of the sort.
On the contrary, the Amsterdam Treaty promotes the concept of a genuine subjugation of nations, especially through its protocol on subsidiarity, which places national jurisdiction at the mercy of the Court of Justice, by virtue of Article 7, which enables the rights of a Member State to be suspended, or by virtue of its indirect recognition of the superiority of Community law over national constitutions.
Will the heads of state or government who signed such a text now retract it by declaring true subsidiarity? We would be right to doubt this and our doubts are intensified after hearing Jacques Santer yesterday in this Hemicycle, explain that subsidiarity is already well protected, since the Commission has endeavoured to simplify its regulations, and that we must not go too far.
Yes to subsidiarity, he declared, but no to those who wish to use it to slow down European integration or to alter the institutional balance.
And there we touch on the heart of the matter precisely because the purpose of true subsidiarity, which proclaims the superiority of national laws over those of Brussels, is to set a limit on integration.
It is not possible to seek both total integration of nations and true subsidiarity, unless we can demonstrate a conception of the nations as being simple administrative districts.
Similarly, true subsidiarity should and must alter the institutional balance of the Union by proclaiming national precedence, re-introducing national parliaments in the European decision-making process and stripping the Commission of its exorbitant privileges.
The Cardiff Summit will consider a number of issues.
I would like to refer to two possible areas of policy discussion.
Firstly, I am concerned about the current proposals for CAP reform.
I understand that the Agriculture Council has produced a text on the matter which has been forwarded to the General Affairs Council for discussion at Cardiff.
If the current proposals were to be adopted they would be disastrous for Irish agriculture.
The proposed price cuts of 30 % in beef, 20 in cereals and 15 % in dairy prices without full compensation would be devastating for Irish farmers.
The Irish beef sector has already suffered a severe crisis.
The current proposals would fix prices below the cost of production.
The cuts in the dairy sector would be the equivalent of a 16.5 pence drop in the price of a gallon of milk.
Our dependence on these sectors must be recognized and full compensation should form the cornerstone of CAP Reform II.
Given the grass-based nature of our agriculture, the cuts in cereal prices would also affect our competitivity.
The second issue I would like to comment on is the problem of debt in developing countries.
Mr Blair tried valiantly to persuade his colleagues at the G8 Summit to take the necessary steps to alleviate the problems of highly indebted countries.
Their discussions did not go far enough and I would hope that in the final days of his presidency Mr Blair will ensure that the European Union steps into the breach.
Spencer report (A4-0169/98)
Mr Spencer's report is a useful contribution to the debate on the European Union's common foreign and security policy.
I support his conclusions which highlight the deficiencies and shortcomings in the present operation of this policy.
He is also correct to underline the importance of monitoring the situation in the Middle East, the Balkans and the observation of human rights in China.
Hopefully, when the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified, many of the concerns highlighted by Mr Spencer will have been allayed.
The establishment of a 'policy and planning unit' coupled with the appointment of a High Representative will provide a badly needed coherence to the CFSP.
However, it should also be stressed that it is vitally important that Parliament should be fully involved and informed about developments in the CFSP.
During the cold war, things were simple: there was an adversary against which those from the West, North America and Europe fought together subordinating their entire foreign and defence policy to that cause.
The end of the East-West confrontation has rendered the emergence of a genuine common foreign and security policy for the European Union even more necessary, since it has reduced the need for such integrated alliances in an increasingly multipolar world.
Like the rapporteur, I am pleased to highlight the progress made, albeit limited, by the CFSP during the past year, but I also temper this with the dilatory approach and the difficulties surrounding each step forward, as well as the distance we still have to travel before the European Union has a genuine common foreign and security policy.
But time is moving on.
The challenges are accumulating and we cannot rely on the good will of the United States for ever.
In addition, I would stress the democratic need to see Parliament hitch its wagon to the major policy guidelines of the common foreign and security policy.
From this standpoint, it is high time that an interinstitutional agreement defined Parliament's right to information and consultation.
Until then, it is highly desirable that the Council and the Commission totally fulfil the obligations which are now theirs with regard to providing Parliament with information on foreign policy.
An ambitious and determined application of the potentialities contained in the Amsterdam Treaty would certainly help us make significant steps forward in the area of the CFSP, but I would conclude by saying, in total agreement with the rapporteur, that we will achieve nothing without a profound change of outlook.
That is probably where the problem lies: how do we make the political decision-makers of our fifteen Member States understand that they would better defend the aspirations and interests of their countries if they expressed them with a single European voice?
We are unable to support the report, even though it contains certain positive features as regards the need for the EU to seek, through its action, to support the struggle for human rights.
However, the report aims for the most part to create a common, uniform, supranational foreign and security policy with an increasing military element, which we simply cannot support.
Instead, we believe that the EU should abandon the superpower ambitions and concentrate its foreign policy-related intergovernmental cooperation on promoting disarmament and peaceful cooperation.
It is good that the report offers proposals on initiatives to avoid conflicts, securing democracy, strengthening respect for human rights, working for increased legal security, introducing social clauses on democracy and human rights into trade agreements and increasing the utilization of recommendations and public hearings, etcetera.
I also agree with the importance of the lack of a political strategy in matters relating to poverty and the environment.
However, the report concentrates excessively on the realization of the EU&#x02BC;s own foreign and security policy by means of coordinated policies on defence and weapons and by incorporating the WEU into the EU. There is no intrinsic value in this.
The report emphasizes the new opportunities that the Amsterdam Treaty offers for the gradual establishment of a common defence policy. Mention is made here of peacekeeping and peacemaking tasks.
Majority voting is introduced in several areas and a post of "EU Minister for Foreign Affairs' is created. This enables the EU to intervene in a conflict by force of arms with the aim of making peace.
This is contrary to Sweden&#x02BC;s policy of non-alignment and is not acceptable.
The right of veto is retained, but is diluted via a system of so-called constructive abstention from voting.
The EU is here undertaking tasks which are enshrined in the statutes of the UN, and which, of course, also belong in the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
The committee's report is an excellent, thorough treatment of the role of the Union on the world scene.
The committee's concerns regarding persistent popular scepticism towards European foreign policy are perfectly understandable.
Citizens expect the Union to be able to take much more effective action in the search for solutions to crises relating to foreign policy.
I am convinced that Parliament can use this thorough report and its recommendations to help advance our foreign and security policies.
Because I believe that the European Union must be a cooperation between sovereign states, I cannot vote for the Spencer report.
This report goes in an entirely different direction by proposing, among other things, that it should be possible for some foreign-policy decisions to be taken by means of a majority vote.
Viola report (A4-0175/98)
Line 205 - Security and surveillance of buildings EURO 17 033 000 + 67 %
1.Costs should be divided on a 1: 1 basis between Strasbourg and Brussels.2.
An inventory of crimes committed against property must be available for inspection. (Benchmark)3.
Potential cost-saving measures must be examined.- Gasòliba i Böhm report (A4-0193/98)
We consider the wording used in point 35 of the report to be excessive, particularly as far as tax reductions are concerned.
If tax on labour is to be reduced, then tax on capital and environmental impacts must be increased.
Furthermore, we believe that the Member States themselves should decide which taxes and tax reductions they wish to implement.
The Commission's recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines has one merit: it is consistent with the principles of a single currency and pushes the consequences of monetary unification to their logical end, the harmonization of national policies and the introduction of flexibility in economic structures.
This text gives us to believe that the necessary harmonization must extend much further than some believe: for EMU to achieve its full potential, we cannot simply introduce the single currency, it is essential that all the public and private partners subsequently coordinate their actions in the direction indicated by the Commission.
The Commission affirms this in careful terms. It states that the overall policy mix will promote growth and employment if all the participants and groups comply with the guidelines it has summarized (p.
4).
The countries of the European Union will soon resemble an army on manoeuvres.
All macroeconomic, fiscal and structural policies will be examined minutely.
Even the wages policy, which we would have thought the most decentralized, will not escape.
In effect, the Commission tells us coldly that, in the future euro area, nominal wage increases must be compatible with price stability, which is the underlying objective of the European Central Bank.
How do we reconcile the centralized nature of this objective and the decentralization of wage negotiations? According to the Commission, it is essential that governments apply themselves more to promoting a better understanding of the major economic policy guidelines, which were decided in Brussels.
In conjunction with the centralization of objectives and the harmonization of rules, the flexibility of economic structures should increase.
The text of the Commission is quite clear: it states that if the economies of Member States do not make the stipulated progress in terms of flexibility, the consequences will be serious.
They will be very serious even, since they might lead to the explosion of the euro.
In particular, we are told bluntly that in EMU, salary adjustment must play a more important role in the process of adapting to new economic circumstances, especially when snags specific to certain countries arise.
In effect, as we have said all along, this is the logical counterpart of the abolition of internal currency markets in the euro area.
Finally, we will not be surprised to note yet again that the Commission concludes by expressing the need to invent a new form of multilateral supervision.
In the wake of the Stability Pact, following the definitions of the common economic policy guidelines and the employment policy monitoring procedures, we are presented with the notion of coordination at Community level of regulatory reforms and close monitoring within the context of regular multilateral supervision, which relies on the establishment of a single currency instrument panel.
So there you have an instrument that was still missing from the spectrum of Commission policing!
Let us not deceive ourselves: by denouncing this "confinement to barracks' of member countries, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations does not intend to defend indirectly the rigidity and ponderousness with which a significant number of our economies are afflicted, especially the French economy.
We too deplore these serious shortcomings and we consider that the solution should obviously be sought in terms of greater flexibility and a reduction of mandatory levies.
But how do we move towards this objective? Of course, we recognize the responsibility of our successive national governments with regard to their negligence and slackness in facing up to the problems.
But do we still have to give up the very idea of national sovereignty in order to accept on the one hand the infantile disciplines imposed by Brussels and, on the other hand, the merciless law of unrestrained globalization which, incidentally, do not offset each other but actually merge, as the Commission document clearly indicates?
No!
My group considers that we are in the process of inventing a cure that is worse than the illness itself.
Flexible coordination and the exchange of experiences are undeniably valuable at European level, but the subjugation of peoples and the systematic demolition of their political and social frameworks will yield nothing of value.
That is why we have voted against the Commission recommendations.
The resolution on the broad economic policy guidelines has my vote.
But my feelings are not unreservedly positive.
In the first place, the rhetoric commending the objectives of greater employment, EMU success, sustainable economic growth and expansion of investment is not to my liking.
Paragraph 31 has the most bombastic formulation in this respect.
The rhetoric in the resolution detracts from a serious approach to price stability and a well-defined assessment of the scope of monetary policy.
I think it is of the utmost importance for the credibility of Economic and Monetary Union to guard against the danger of inflation that looms from the overheating of some national economies.
What I am equally disappointed about is that the predicted effects of a steeply ageing population are not considered.
Under pressure from the Socialist group this reality was deleted from paragraph 12 of the motion for a resolution.
This is all the more surprising as a start still has to be made on a real rationalization of public finances in the major EMU Member States, as can be seen from the introductory sentence of paragraph 14.
Finally, I think that the objective of investment-led economic growth may do excessive damage to the environment.
Although the environment is mentioned in paragraph 3, it comes off very badly.
There is a Treaty obligation to gear policy to sustainable development, so that the burden of our prosperity is not passed on to subsequent generations.
I hope that the Council, when it receives this report, will be able to distinguish the good from the bad.
The report by our colleague Gasòliba i Böhm emphasizes, as it should, the significant progress that all the Member States of the European Union have made in order to qualify for the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union.
Inflation rates are historically low, as are interest rates.
But this report is not an invitation to relax and look back with admiration at the path we have followed.
We still have a great deal to do and it is precisely this that the rapporteur seeks to highlight.
The structure is fragile.
The success of the undertaking will depend on the commitment of Member States in the euro area to implement coordinated budgetary policies that meet the pricing stability objective pursued by the ECB.
Similarly, it is important that those countries that are not yet members of the euro area regard their exchange policy as a matter of common interest.
Nor should the efforts to stabilize public finance be relaxed.
We must pursue, or initiate in the case of those countries who have not yet understood it - such as France -, a reduction in public expenditure and prevent tax rises or, even better, reduce taxes.
We must cut deficits to achieve a balance, or even a budget surplus.
This is an important condition for countering the possible shocks of ill-balanced book-keeping with which our economies might be confronted.
We are left with two overriding concerns. The first relates to the low private investment rate in most countries of the Union, despite the presence of sound economic fundamentals.
It is in our interest to reverse this trend.
An increase in private investment is necessary for growth and employment.
The second concern relates to the high average European unemployment rate, rising above the 10 % mark of the active population.
Hence, as I have said before in our assembly, Europe will only bring us, say, a quarter of the solutions, whilst the remaining three-quarters will have to be provided through national efforts.
And this will be achieved by implementing profound structural reforms, as our rapporteur clearly indicates.
First of all, we must ensure that wages progress at a moderate rate and we must reduce the overheads that weigh so heavily on labour in order to eliminate the "tax wedges' and lower labour costs.
Next, it would be most useful to promote active policies in the labour market to eliminate as far as possible the factors that discourage people from working.
Since the report by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm stresses the vast amount of work we have yet to do before EMU can reach total fruition, I shall vote in favour.
There are several points in this report that make it impossible for me to support it.
My principal objection is that I do not believe employment policy can be determined at EU level. This is, in my opinion, a national concern.
The EU countries currently have very different requirements on the question of employment policy.
There are major differences with regard to such issues as branches of economic activity and language.
There are also other structural barriers.
This does not mean that it should not be possible at EU level to give advice or exchange experiences about different ways of combating high unemployment.
But this proposal goes much further than what I consider to be reasonable.
The Commission&#x02BC;s objective of realizing "a comprehensive modernization of the Community&#x02BC;s labour markets' can be interpreted in several different ways.
Does it, for example, mean increased pay differentials or measures that make it easier for the citizens to work in different countries? There is a major difference here, and, if I understand the Commission and the rapporteur correctly, it is the first of these possibilities that they have in mind, which I cannot support.
Furthermore, it is proposed in point 8 that there is an "absolute need' for those countries not participating in EMU to coordinate their macroeconomic policies with those of the euro countries.
I cannot give my backing to such strong wording.
Point 25 reflects a continuation of the coordination policy, which appears to be the guiding star in the EU, this time with a view to coordinating "tax systems' . This goes entirely against the principle of subsidiarity.
I believe that the EU should not try to coordinate tax matters, but that this should continue to be a national concern.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the report by Mr Gasòliba i Böhm.
We support the following positions expressed in the report.
Firstly, a high level of employment is part and parcel of a successful EMU, and strong emphasis needs to be placed on employment pursuant to the Amsterdam Treaty.-Secondly, the low level of employment in the EU is a source of extensive social, economic and budgetary costs.-Thirdly, we need Investment in training, research and development.-Fourthly, measures to promote investment and stimulate internal demand within the EU are needed.-Fifthly, establishing and maintaining a strong social dialogue is essential.However, the report's appeal for increased approximation of budgetary and fiscal policy at Community level reflects a lack of understanding that some Member States are not participating in the third stage of EMU, not because they fail to meet the criteria of convergence, but because they do not wish to participate in the closer coordination of financial and monetary policy, not to mention comprehensive coordination of monetary policy.
We could not endorse the points in the report referring to the harmonization of macroeconomic policies - point 8 -, including budgetary policy - point 7 - and fiscal policy - point 25.
Denmark is choosing to maintain a fixed exchange rate with the euro after 1 January 1999.
Denmark has made its choice to remain outside the third stage of EMU; Danish currency policy with regard to the euro - point 9 - is and remains a matter for Denmark to determine.
Many of the general guidelines from the Commission on the economic policy are good, such as the proposal for reducing unemployment and increasing employment.
It also goes without saying that countries outside EMU are seeking low inflation and stable currencies. This is also the case in Sweden.
However, the committee&#x02BC;s proposal regarding the coordination of the Member States&#x02BC; budgetary policy goes too far.
And the budgetary policy also has a major bearing on the matter of taxes, economic policy and thus the scope and approach of the public sector, and these are national questions.
This report is a contribution to an exercise, in which there is no shortage of other contributors, demonstrating an attempt to harmonize two things that are incompatible in real life, inasmuch as social observation proves that in practice they are mutually exclusive.
These are the introduction of an EMU to serve a strategy based on price stability and single convergent financial instruments and mechanisms, and the alleged priority being given to high levels and rates of employment.
We are actually doing one thing and saying we are giving priority to the other.
How long will this go on?
Will it go on until society cannot put up with it any longer? Because while wealth is being concentrated, inequalities are being aggravated, extremely high levels of unemployment are being institutionalized, poverty and exclusion are spreading, and disproportion is on the increase.
And we are by no means being prophets of doom about this.
It cannot be said that this situation, and these trends, are not reflected anywhere in Mr Gasòliba i Böhm's report.
They peep through, albeit timorously, when a 2 % limit is suggested to prevent the reduction of inflation from turning into deflation, when he has the necessary ounce of courage(!) to mention the subject of democratic legitimacy and the principle of subsidiarity where the question of taxes is concerned.
But the report stops there, through timidity and lack of courage, which come to the same thing.
This is not the way to rectify things that urgently need putting right, even from a point of view we do not share.
Still less is it so when it "urges also - in order to avoid market misperceptions - that all official statements should reiterate the views of the Commission, the EMI, and the European Parliament on the economic strength of the 11 Member Euro ".
That obviously includes the Gasòliba i Böhm report. We must not cause a disturbance in the holy market...
We, for our part, would rather have real convergence, which can only come from debate, honesty and the search for truth.
The need for a tight economic policy is the crux of the Stability Pact intended to ensure that EMU will have a successful, strong currency.
Thus, is it equally crucial for the Commission to prepare a thorough annual analysis of the economic policies not only of Member States, but also of the EU, and to put forward clear recommendations pursuant to this.
I strongly agree with the committee's assessment of the Commission's recommendation; in other words, I fully endorse the view that countries that are not participating in EMU from the outset should consider their currency policy as a matter of joint interest.
This is the only way to ensure rapid assimilation of such countries into the Third Stage of EMU, should they so desire.
We accept the report for two quite different reasons:
1) It takes a number of important steps in the right direction, particularly in highlighting the macroeconomic role of investments and the need not to set as absolute the objective of inflation control.
Even though in some important respects we hold quite different, and in some ways more practical, views on the necessary transition to a new ecological and social development model, we are nevertheless prepared to acknowledge this.
However, this should not take the edge off our criticism of other elements of the report, particularly of its one-sided emphasis on wage restraint or its similarly one-sided praise of flexibility.
We also regret the inadequate treatment given to the issue of reducing working hours, both in this report and in the Commission's proposal.
2) In a situation in which, in view of the introduction of the euro, a binding and substantial EU economic policy is indispensable for all those who do not want to surrender the main aspects of economic policy to the bankers of the ECB - and consequently to the dictate of the financial markets -, we are now for the first time actually considering providing the Union with binding directives on economic policy.
While on the one hand we might criticize the Commission's proposals as mistaken, one-sided or over-cautious, we counter this by opposing all attempts to relegate this process to a mere bureaucratic exercise which commits no-one to doing anything.
In view of the risk, which has been clearly expressed in the debate, that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in particular might completely drain the Commission's proposal - and the position adopted by the European Parliament - of any specific, and therefore possibly controversial content, our support of Mr Gasòliba i Böhm's report gives expression to our view that a "European economic government' is in fact required for the euro but that binding and substantial directives on economic policy must be adopted as an absolute minimum measure.
Van Lancker report (A4-0168/98)
Mr President, I voted against Mrs Van Lancker's report because, unfortunately, the majority in Parliament did not support my group which had tabled amendments to remove from the text the resolution concerning the situation of frontier workers in the European Union, untruths and the most flagrant absurdities and other contradictions that seek to further the belief that all frontier workers are poor victims of discrimination, that they have to put up with wage losses, other disadvantages and so forth.
My country hosts nearly 20 % of the 380 000 frontier workers employed in the European Union.
Our employment policy still creates between four and five thousand jobs a year, which are nearly all occupied by frontier workers, and we are thus helping to solve the unemployment problem in Lorraine, Belgian Luxembourg, the Saar and the Rhineland-Palatinate. I would point out that, in our country, frontier workers are happy to benefit from wages and employment and social security conditions that are more favourable than those in their country of origin.
I told you yesterday that Mrs Van Lancker, unfortunately, along with our colleagues on the left, sees only the holes in the cheese.
We export, for the benefit of frontier workers, for example, family allowances and education allowances which, basically, were designed for our own residents, for demographic reasons.
Yesterday, our Parliament approved a good law setting up a dependency insurance scheme for the elderly.
Our frontier workers will also benefit from this, although no such insurance exists either in Belgium or in France.
All allowances are financed by taxation and they are rather more generous than those in neighbouring regions.
That is why I wish to restate that the principle of levying taxes on the wages of frontier workers in their country of employment must be rigidly enforced.
There is no question of departing from that principle.
It gives me great satisfaction to welcome the report from our colleague Anne Van Lancker.
It is frequently viewed as good form to congratulate a colleague, but I am sincere in wishing to commend the author of a report which, let us hope, should put an end to the ludicrous situations in which some of our fellow citizens live, whereby progress in the construction of Europe results in complicating their situation even further.
Nine years ago, as a Member of the European Parliament, I came face to face with the problems of the dual taxation of French employees working in Belgium. Consequently, I support unreservedly the rapporteur's proposals, whilst not overlooking the problems of social security and CSG (General Social Contribution).
Yes, it is high time we created a new status for the frontier worker, in the widest sense, both for tax collection and for social security benefits.
I hope that this status will be understood by all and accepted by all.
We cannot allow this erosion of the quality of the frontier worker to continue much longer and which, on occasion, differs between one person and another in the same location, on the pretext that there is a radical difference between the occupations pursued.
Finally, I hope that the Commission will be able to persuade the Member States to settle the differences between these administrations.
It is not uncommon to hear contrary interpretations within the same administration, concerning the application of an agreement governing the status of the worker.
Free movement, the right to live in the place of one's choice and the right to work where one can all call for new European rules and the "modernization' of those that predate the Single European Act.
It is more than urgent!
It is vital!
It is a good thing that the frontier worker problem crops up at regular intervals in Parliament, since it helps us assess the situation.
This special and rather limited category of workers - about 630 000, of which more than half work in Switzerland - faces quite different problems, depending on their country of residence and the host country in which they work.
I am a keen supporter of bilateralism, in other words, I favour a pragmatic approach to the main problems that beset the principal countries concerned.
That was the focus of the report that Elmar Brok and myself drew up during the last Parliamentary session.
My country, Luxembourg, employs 60 000 frontier workers out of a total of 210 000, that is, around 30 %.
I believe that because of bilateral agreements relating to taxation and social security, the situation of the frontier workers and their families is most satisfactory, indeed more favourable than in their own country of origin.
This is why we stress the need for income tax on employment to continue to be paid in the host country and, of course, the same applies to welfare contributions.
In this respect, it should be noted that the government of Luxembourg has made significant efforts to eliminate the distortions that worked against the interests of frontier workers.
The discriminatory regulations that frontier workers might encounter differ widely from one country to another.
For this reason, I find the report by Mrs Van Lancker most interesting in that it proposes that all national legislation affecting frontier workers should be investigated beforehand to determine its effects on the situation of those workers.
With regard to the compensation fund posited by Mrs Van Lancker, we should say that it is obviously very difficult most of the time to assess the damage sustained by the frontier worker quite as precisely as in the Belgium-Netherlands case, which formed the basis of Mrs Van Lancker's report.
At all events, we must approach this matter of compensation in a pragmatic way, with a spirit of goodwill on both sides.
The report on frontier workers encapsulates brilliantly the problems which these pioneers of a united Europe have to face every day.
The potential solutions put forward by Mrs Van Lancker are quite logical and deserve our support.
It is good that Parliament, as the representative of the citizens of Europe, is again taking the initiative in drawing the public's attention to this matter.
As a Member with responsibility for part of the German-Dutch-Belgian border region, I know that a great deal has to happen before national frontiers cease being an obstacle to those who seek the right to freedom of movement.
Fundamental solutions will probably only be forthcoming when the number of frontier workers, and hence the pressure on national governments, becomes much greater than it is at present.
However, practical improvements - which would at least provide interim solutions and benefits for those affected - could be introduced right now if such moves were not being blocked in the Council, and here the German government is primarily to blame.
I am counting on it that by the autumn a new German government will give up on this blockade and will provide a clear passage for those amendments to the regulation which have already been in existence for several years, and which have been endorsed by this House.
Arias Cañete report (A4-0159/98)
Mr President, it is incumbent upon me, on behalf of my group, to explain our voting procedure on this report.
The vote has been a shambles.
The rapporteur himself voted against his own report.
It illustrates the risk, when writing reports on subjects in Agenda 2000, of going too far.
The future of the Cohesion Fund from 2000 to 2006 must be dealt with within the regulation.
I hope that Members have learnt from this exercise and that they will not now table amendments and reports on the future of funding which will be dealt with by a future rapporteur.
I was deeply disappointed by Mr Novo undermining the consensus agreed with the other groups on this issue.
At the end of the day we have been held to hostage by 12 Members.
These are not the issues which should come to plenary and result in a shambles of a vote.
They should be thrashed out in committee so that we have a smooth vote in plenary.
I am sorry to have to say it but the only option for my group in the circumstances was to abstain on the vote on this report.
The Arias Cañete report dealing with the Cohesion Fund for 1996 offers a very interesting review of the progress concerning the operation of this fund in 1996.
This is a quality report, although not entirely irreproachable and has gained a favourable vote from our group.
The Cohesion Fund was established mainly to promote single currency membership amongst certain Member States: the Community manna was allocated in order to bolster the budgetary diet imposed by the terms of the Maastricht Treaty.
We might add that it contributed to the sleight of hand that produced a truly miracle cure for certain Member States of the monetary union.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, which even opposed the principle of a single currency must maintain a cautious stance with regard to this Fund and the use made of it.
This is especially true since it harbours serious defects: I am thinking of its questionable effectiveness and certain financial irregularities concerning the use of appropriations.
Moreover, it is an instrument of federalist redistribution, the purpose of which is to induct into the ranks of the Commission faithful the beneficiary regions, rather than let them sort out their own problems.
The birth of the single currency may further disturb the imbalances between states through the accelerating relocations, either to states or regions that are more competitive than others, or from those regions in difficulty towards the more dominant economic powers.
In this context, the Cohesion Fund, rather than offering a genuine solution to the overwhelming problems of certain regions of Europe, may simply serve as a stop-gap to limit the repercussions.
Like Aesop's tongue, it could equally be the best or the worst of things.
Everything depends on the use made of it.
And from this point of view, I prefer to remain optimistic, having learnt from past experience that this type of institution is too often put forward as a means of promoting the emergence of the large centralized European state of which many dream so unashamedly.
I voted against this report because of the European People's Party's Amendment No 4 which sought in future to exclude from cohesion funds all Member States participating in EMU.
I disagree with the proposition in itself and in principle since a report on 1996 should not set the agenda for future policy.
The Portuguese Socialist Members will vote against the Arias Cañete report, because Amendment No 4, which the Socialist group list was committed to voting against, was narrowly approved in the end.
The principle approved, namely that the Cohesion Fund is only for countries which are not members of EMU, is a new one that bears no relation to the commitments we have accepted and has been rejected by the Commission several times.
This vote represents a case of retaliation after the event, penalizing the southern European states which have joined EMU. The amendment is an irresponsible act on the part of the PPE, except for its Spanish and Portuguese Members, who will be voting against it.
For that reason we reject the report.
Klaß report (A4-0160/98)
As usual each year, the Commission submitted its annual report on the state of implementation of the Structural Funds.
The document submitted for scrutiny by our Assembly relates to 1996 and, more importantly, the third year of the programming period.
Like our rapporteur, we must express our delight at the way in which the Structural Funds have been used in 1996.
In fact, we note a 98 % expenditure for available commitments and 95 % for payments.
However, we cannot award full marks overall since some problems remain.
A number of large-scale programmes have been delayed and, because of that, the matter of complementarity has not been resolved.
Finally, how can we fail to endorse the conclusions of our rapporteur regarding the shortfall in terms of Community initiatives and innovative actions? It is indeed regrettable that the total represents more than 70 % of unused appropriations.
Given this situation, I feel sure that our Parliament - when it gives its opinion on the reform of Structural Funds - will keep a close eye on events and will introduce specific recommendations.
This is the eighth annual report on Structural Fund spending.
Mrs Klaß has highlighted a number of problems especially regarding the unsatisfactory take-up in the early part of the current programming period.
This of course has improved in 1996.
My own country has always used Structural Funds well and efficiently.
The successful application of these funds in Ireland has undoubtedly played a significant part in the 'Celtic Tiger' economic performance.
This makes it all the more important that our access to future structural and cohesion funds does not end abruptly.
I hope that the Commission will be able to deliver on its promise to ensure that Ireland is designated as an 'Objective 1 region in transition' .
Mrs Klaß has presented us with a very dense report, examining the improvements, as well as the shortcomings of European structural policy.
1996 was a critical year in the 1994-1999 planning phase since, following two years of delays and difficulties, it proved to be a year of intense activity.
I agree entirely with the comments concerning the budgetary implementation and, especially, the invitation extended to Member States to comply with the three-month deadline for transferring appropriations to the designated recipients.
The same applies to the partnership principle, which is crucial in setting up viable, sophisticated projects at regional or departmental level.
I would like to stress this aspect because, as the elected Member for Pas-de-Calais and a member of the monitoring and planning committees, it seems vital to me that we intensify this partnership, which ensures that we avoid mistakes in the future.
Everybody has something to gain from this, from local and regional elected representatives through to territorial officials and social partners and, finally, the Member State itself.
The same applies to the principle of additionality, since it lies at the heart of the construction of Europe.
I have only one comment or, rather, one request to make: Mrs Klaß is right to state that "the successive adaptations to the financial perspective necessitated by the failure to take up the appropriations available in previous years means that funding will be concentrated at the end of the current programming period.
The correct conclusions must be drawn from this development in order to improve the situation during the next programming period' .
So therefore we must not lose those appropriations, especially if they are attached to a programme that had been delayed for a particular reason; and might not one of the possible solutions be to ask the European Commission to extend the programme?
I mention this because I have experienced this situation in the Pas-de-Calais region and we ourselves have considered just such a solution.
Quite rightly, everybody agrees that the Structural Funds constitute one of the pillars of the construction of Europe, in that they contribute to its economic and social cohesion.
Therefore, I was even more pleased to hear our rapporteur explain that after two years of groping around in the dark, mainly as a result of the delays that have occurred in the programme authorization procedures, the problems have finally been sorted out and 1996 now seems to have been the first year in which the programming period took off in full flight.
However, as our rapporteur does, we should still be ready for some problems that are waiting in the wings.
So, for instance, the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the steps taken continue to pose practical difficulties that still seem to be far from resolved.
Similarly, the contribution of local authorities and social partners still falls short of the mark, even though it lies at the very heart of the goals set for the current period.
There is another concern: technological disparities.
The regions covered by Objectives 1 and 6 certainly give precedence to technological research and development, but in a most uneven way: half of the Objective 1 regions scarcely have the infrastructures needed and exhibit a weak innovative impulse, compared with just a quarter that demonstrate a strong potential in that respect.
This observation is confirmed by the fact that 60 % of public expenditure set aside for civilian technological research and development in the Union is concentrated on two Member States of the Union: Germany and France.
In line with our rapporteur, we believe that the lead given to technological R&D, telecommunications and information technology within the context of the Structural Funds might well contribute to a reduction of the existing disparities.
Yet again, is it really essential that regional managers and practitioners in the field take on the entire decision-making responsibility for research and development in a framework of international competition, which actually belongs to us as a whole?
Moreover, too frequently, they pool their efforts to ensure the continued service life in the immediate future of tools that have no real future, to the detriment of lucrative investments that could stimulate economic revival in their region.
I find the large number of irregularities in the sphere of structural support shocking.
This matter should have been given more attention in the report.
When a support system has cases of fraud amounting to ECU 61 million for 1996, something drastic needs to be done.
The best thing would be to wind up the Structural Funds and restore regional policy for the Member States.
In large systems it is easier to engage in fraud without being discovered.
The logical conclusion should be that the current system cannot continue, even if the Commission says it is getting better at discovering irregularities.
Instead, steps should be taken to abolish the system so that it is simply not possible for irregularities to be perpetrated.
Viola report (A4-0118/98)
We have chosen to vote for Amendment No 6, which emphasizes the fact that winding up duty-free sales will have economic and social consequences.
However, we would like to point out that these consequences will not only affect island regions, but also various Swedish regions, such as the West Coast, Skåne, and the Stockholm and Kvarken Straits areas.
Ferry traffic is a necessary prerequisite for cooperation and exchange.
In certain cases, duty-free sales finance up to 60 % of the costs of this traffic.
To wind up duty-free sales without providing any form of support for continued ferry traffic would have serious consequences for employment.
Ferry traffic as a means of communication would be adversely affected. This in turn influences the sense of kinship, corporate collaboration and the positive development of business in the affected regions.
The practical purpose of this report on the problems of island regions is to extend to all island regions those specific measures which up to now have been confined to the ultra-peripheral ones, on the grounds that the Treaty includes a specific section on ultra-peripheral regions and islands.
The specific position of the ultra-peripheral regions, however, continues to demand special treatment, in recognition of their unique situation, their enormous isolation and distance from mainland Europe and their particular development problems.
Paradoxically enough, in Agenda 2000 the Commission is withdrawing REGIS from the list of Community initiatives in the proposed framework regulations, and merely re-adopting the 10 % increase in the Community distribution of the Structural Funds.
In a difficult negotiating context, and in face of a financial outlook that falls short of what is needed to meet the challenges facing the Union, it would not be fair if the unique nature of the island areas had the paradoxical result of reducing the amount of aid to the ultra-peripheral regions as well as the islands.
In the wake of the new provisions incorporated into the Amsterdam Treaty, recognizing the cultural identity of island regions, our Parliament - aided by the own-initiative report from our colleague - is asked to decide on the measures to be introduced to overcome the handicaps suffered by those regions.
I myself endorse the recommendations made by our rapporteur, especially with respect to the reform of the Structural Funds.
This provides us with the opportunity to boost those regions by recognizing, for example, their entitlement to special treatment in taxation matters.
The European Commission must understand that an official aid policy is required, one that is perfectly in keeping with European law, but one that pursues the goal of harmonious economic development in those island regions.
Similarly, we must consolidate the support that already exists in certain sectors and I am thinking here of environmental protection.
This support must be properly balanced.
Finally, a special effort must be devoted to the question of transport.
We all know that the competitiveness and economic development of those islands suffer because of the high cost of transport for goods and people.
We must thus take action at this level by introducing an integrated policy.
Madeira, Porto Santo and the Azores are particularly deprived island regions in the context of the European Union.
But they are also ultra-peripheral regions sharing common structural characteristics covered by Objective 1, the defining one being that their per capita GDP is less than 75 % of the Community average.
It is true that some situations apply to all islands.
But it is no less true that some of those islands have a level of economic development equal to that of some of the richest Member States of the European Union.
And it would not be appropriate in this case for us to treat different situations in the same way; that is to say, such wealthy regions need no special assistance.
This is why I consider it important to separate the wheat from the tares.
The necessary solidarity between the most highlydeveloped countries of the European Union and the most under-developed regions must be based on pre-defined and easily measurable principles, which must continue to include the per capita GDP.
Mr Viola has produced a commendable work.
It is a pity that his loyalty to his island has led him to support policies of indiscriminate privilege, which do not conform to the principle of economic and social cohesion.
I therefore hope that the debate and the vote on the report will make it possible to restore the European Union's responsibility for its island regions to its proper proportions, without prejudice to the provisions of the Treaty on the ultra-peripheral regions, and I would remind the House that these consist only of Madeira, the Azores, the Canaries and the French overseas departments.
Island communities throughout the European Union are seriously disadvantaged.
Ireland is both an island country and a country with a number of small islands off its coastline.
We therefore fully understand the problems.
I believe that the production of Mr Viola's report is both timely and opportune, particularly as it comes in advance of the forthcoming reform of structural fund regulations.
I support the proposal that the special needs of islands should be acknowledged in changes to these funds.
This is especially important to Ireland's island population, particularly as we are likely to lose our Objective 1 status.
The proposals to examine transport, alternative energy and tourism as sectors where innovative measures could be applied are worthy of consideration.
The production of 'island quality produce' and the introduction of financial and tax incentives are also interesting ideas which would provide answers to the long-term survival of the island way of life.
Very briefly, I shall be voting in favour of this matter which is so important to the island regions, especially since I drafted an opinion.
I am sure the Commission will have taken good note of the requests we have made during today's long, emotional debate to establish compensatory measures to address the situation faced by islands. I am sure the Commission will also be able to provide an adequate response to the dual insularity or double discrimination suffered by small islands with a population of less than 100 000, such as Minorca.
Since time is short, I base my position on the speech I made earlier today.
We maintain and insist that the Community structural policy provided and continues to provide insufficient funds, has a levelling effect when applied and is unbalanced and unfair in that it fundamentally and deliberately ignores local differences between regions and areas.
Given this distorting influence, it is only to be expected that there continues to be divergence rather than convergence and cohesion and that the situation in poor areas is getting worse, especially in the mountainous and island regions in the Community covered by the report under discussion.
The report contains accurate findings and appropriate proposals.
However, within the report, paragraphs 2 and 4 pervert and distort the real aims of cohesion and everything else which has been promised.
To be specific, we consider that a ceiling of 75 % of GDP, which the rapporteur contests, is already too high and will deny assistance to a large number of areas with serious, fundamental structural problems, including the Greek islands, whose GDP is less than 60 % of the Community average and which account for some 42 % of the inhabited island regions of the Union.
Secondly, the proposal to classify island regions under the administrative regional divisions set out in NUTS III is an indirect but clear way of ensuring that they are included in financing for less developed regions and that parts of undeveloped regions obtain assistance, thereby reducing the level of assistance to poorer countries. This is proven by the Structural Fund financing percentages for the 1994-1999 period which show funding down approximately 20 % for Greece and Portugal and up 45 % for Germany and 20 % for Spain.
There is yet another unacceptable aspect to this blatantly unfair treatment, which is becoming increasingly worse: the exclusion of the Greek islands from the operating programmes of the Community support framework for energy, transport and communications which, as we all know, are the most serious problems facing these regions.
Finally, I would like to draw attention to a very particular and important problem faced solely by the Aegean islands which has never earned the attention it merits, despite repeated reminders.
I refer to Turkish expansionism, which is tolerated in the upper echelons and by insiders at the EU and which, apart from anything else, impedes the development of the islands in these regions and prevents them from acquiring the confidence of investors and any investment activity.
Our fear is that the regional and structural policy of the Union is being mapped out using measurements made by a very peculiar pair of compasses which shape programmes and regional, that is, island assistance, not in accordance with fundamental problems and real needs but in order to accommodate the interests which prevail at the time.
At a time when a new Community support framework is being set up, with the aim of implementing the principle, or rather the objective, of economic and social cohesion enshrined in the Treaty, we should in my opinion be concerned with three very specific situations.
Firstly, we should look at rural areas, which have suffered from creeping depopulation and desertification as a result of an unbalanced common agricultural policy.-Secondly, consideration must be given to areas of serious poverty and social marginalization in big cities that are considered to be wealthy when taken as a whole; -And finally, we need to consider island areas, which have very special problems and therefore need special structural aid.While the inclusion in the Amsterdam Treaty of an express reference to those particular needs, even if only in the form of a declaration annexed to it, and therefore of a lesser specific legal weight, is a step in the right direction, it is necessary and even imperative that we should give practical expression to that show of political will.
The Viola report quite rightly draws attention to the problem of double insularity.
This means that in many archipelagos the development effort is often channelled into the governing island or centre, thus creating further regional disparities.
I therefore support the Viola report.
The fact that a special report has now been prepared on the problems facing the island regions of the EU is a positive development.
I am, for the most part, giving my backing to the report, but I would like to emphasize the following points.
There is a risk that the current proposal in Agenda 2000 regarding the future of the Structural Funds will mean a deterioration in EU support compared with the situation today, when aid provided under Objective 5b ceases and is incorporated into the more generalized Objective 2 system of aid.
The report&#x02BC;s proposal of a special form of aid for islands within the scope of Objective 1 aid is therefore a positive development.
I would particularly like to emphasize that not all islands have the same problems simply because they are islands.
There is a massive difference between a large island such as Sicily, the home of the rapporteur, and the hundreds of small islands in the archipelagos of Stockholm, Åland and Åboland.
This must be taken into account during the implementation of the proposal.
The proposal made under point 29 of a European year for the islands - with the possibility of a Forum on the islands, in Brussels, for example - seems rather unwarranted.
A better proposal might be a European "court' for the islands, in which the problems of the islands are discussed every year on a European island, together with an evaluation of programmes and Structural Funds for the islands.
The Viola report relating to island regions is a very comprehensive text that highlights the natural handicaps and socio-economic difficulties suffered by those islands.
He quite rightly emphasizes the need to adapt corporate policies to their special needs.
Thus, he proposes in their favour an entire range of measures that are, on occasion, interesting, even if they appear at times to be somewhat overzealous: compensation to cover higher transport costs, preserving and promoting the cultural and natural heritage, sanitary equipment and drainage, the development of new power sources to reduce island dependence on external supplies, waste disposal and so forth.
Some of these measures, however, run counter to the convictions of our group: for instance, paragraph 35 relating to the common agricultural policy, which calls for the incorporation of "corrective factors for aid on the basis of the size of the farm, the area in which it is situated...' , rather than the size of the active workforce engaged in that operation, as we propose.
Nevertheless, this report reveals a major defect: it is blatantly federalist in persuasion.
It appeals for an integrated policy in favour of island regions.
It seeks to confer considerable powers upon the Commission, in contempt of the most basic subsidiarity and even asks it to cofinance projects, whereas - let us not forget - those finances do not fall within the purview of the Commission, but the European Union.
It also cherishes the notion of coordinating tax measures in favour of islands, although taxation is one of the pillars of sovereignty.
Our group, anxious to demonstrate the interest it seeks to convey with regard to the problems of islands, has tabled about ten amendments and several requests for a separate vote to get rid of this federalist leaning and make it wholly acceptable.
That is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has been unable to approve the Viola report.
Mr President, I am not totally convinced with the answer you just gave.
I am happy to accept that it was a corrigendum and that we therefore had recitals A to K. What is certain now is that we should have arranged them in the same order in the voting list.
You, Mr President of the sitting, are one of the rare Vice-Presidents, who, in my view, allows the votes to take place in the correct order, that is, firstly the votes on the amendments, then the texts they relate to, and to end with, the final text.
So, in this situation, I think that we should have voted on recital K.
Thank you for your comment.
Nevertheless, all of the Presidents of the sitting follow the same procedure, which is determined by the President of our Parliament.
We are his humble servants.
I hereby declare that Parliament has completed its agenda.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 1.00 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 28 May 1998.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Thursday, 28 May 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, as I speak a football match is taking place in Marseilles between England and Tunisia. The latest score is 2-0.
It has finished and it is 2-0.
However, I was very concerned, indeed, to hear of the actions by mindless hooligans during that match, and I want to say to this House that the behaviour of those people in no way represents the genuine English football fans who are as disgusted and appalled as any by the behaviour of those people in France.
(Applause)
Mr President, I intended to vote against, instead of for, Amendment No 4 to the Arias Cañete report.
I wish the record to be changed, if possible.
Mr President, I wish to speak about something that does not concern the Minutes, but is a question of procedure.
This week the results of the working party's discussion on MEPs' pay, travel and other expenses will be made known here.
These have been leaked to the public, to the Swedish press for example.
We Finnish parliamentarians, at least some of us, have had to answer questions on this working party's conclusions.
I do not know whether they are right or wrong, but this kind of leak must not be allowed to happen.
We have to be familiar with the contents of a report at least at the same time as the media, to be able to reply to the questions we are asked.
Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, I think Mr Martin wants to speak about the same subject.
Mr President, the Press Services have just drawn my attention to the coverage in the Swedish press of the Members' Statute.
I wish to say that, firstly, they are not leaks, because they are entirely inaccurate: they do not reflect the contents of the report.
Mr President, as you know, the report will go to the Bureau tonight and until it has been to the Bureau it is not an official document of this House.
Secondly, the report does not mention a salary at all.
It simply suggests that, in future, an MEP's salary should be a percentage of a judge at the Court of Justice's salary but does not mention what that percentage should be; and, thirdly, it states that the percentage should be set by common accord between this Parliament and the Council, so Parliament would not be able to act unilaterally to set its own salary.
The reports and the figures quoted in the Swedish media are entirely inaccurate.
Mr Martin, you have just answered it for me.
Mr President, unlike the previous speakers, I would like to make a point about pages 17 and 18 of the Minutes and the vote on the Arias Cañete report.
An amendment was tabled to this report, Amendment No 1, which was the subject, on the one hand, of a request for a roll-call vote, on the part of the GUE/NGL group, and on the other hand, for a split vote, on the part of our group.
The results of the roll-call vote are recorded in the Minutes, both for the first and the second part of Amendment No 1.
However, in the results of the roll-call vote, in the Annex to the Minutes, we are told that the roll-call list for the first part of Amendment No 1 will not be published for technical reasons.
I would like to ask you why this is, and if any measures have been taken to ensure that such an incident does not happen again.
In fact, I think that as regards requests for roll-call votes, it is not just a question of having the exact result, but it is also a question of knowing how the votes are divided up for each group.
So, have measures been taken to ensure that such regrettable events do not reoccur?
Certainly, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
The electronic system broke down. We have done everything we can to ensure that this problem does not reoccur, and in particular to ensure that the electronic system in the new building is even more advanced and at least provides us with the possibility of an alternative system.
Mr President, I am getting a little disoriented, because I am constantly seeing something approaching on my left, on your right, and it says PPE here.
But I no longer know whether that is the right name, and whether since the merging with everything related to the Allianza Nazionale and so on, there will merely be one group here in this Chamber as far as cooperation is concerned.
Could you please establish that the centre will remain here where I stand?
Mr Wijsenbeek, it is a matter of Members' freedom, which I am sure you recognize.
Mr President, I wish to draw attention to this magazine called the Parliament magazine which purports to be a record, and to represent the opinions, of this House.
This is a special edition on nuclear safety, for which I was asked to write a piece, which was later censured because of the heavy advertising of the nuclear industry in this magazine.
Either this does or does not represent the views of Members and if it does represent the views then it should not be censured in this way.
If this happens in future, I would like Parliament to request that this masthead be removed from this magazine.
I will be distributing to Members the article which I was asked to write for the magazine on the nuclear question so that we will not be censured in this House.
It is a private magazine. If they reduce the length of the articles which are given to them, unfortunately we cannot do anything about that, because it is freedom of expression.
It is not an official magazine of the European Parliament.
Mr President, that is my point: it should not purport to be an official magazine and should not carry the masthead or purport to represent the views of this House.
We will check that it is not, in any case.
Mr President, I just wish to make two points.
Firstly, I wrote to you in connection with the Arias Cañete vote, because there was some confusion there.
Secondly, could the Commission make a statement to the House this week regarding the recent Court of Justice ruling, which effectively means that many of the NGOs and the programmes that most directly affect the people of the Community have been put on hold as a result of this Court of Justice opinion of 12 May.
This is causing considerable alarm and great distress to many NGOs which have had their funding put on hold as a result of this Court case.
If the Commission is not going to make a statement about this week, why not?
And, if not, could it make one at the next part-session at the beginning of July in Brussels?
That has been raised in the trialogue, and we are seeking clarification of the question you raised.
Mr President, briefly and sadly I wish to inform this House that a fishing boat from Mallaig, a small town in the far north-west of my area, was split in two by a German tanker. It sank instantly with the total loss of crew.
The saddest thing of all is that they are all from the same very small town, which is devastated.
I wonder if it would not be impertinent to ask if you could perhaps write some kind of letter of condolence.
I can assure you that I will do that immediately.
You are absolutely right, Mrs Mann.
In any case, I can inform you that I sent telegrams expressing this Parliament's condolences to the German authorities, the President of the Bundestag and the Chancellor immediately after the accident.
Mr President, I assume that you too will have heard that dioxin levels from the wasteincineration plant in Strasbourg have been as high as 360 nanograms.
In Germany 0.1 nanograms are permitted - I say this to give you an idea of the dimensions, that is those of you who do not work in the environmental field.
We could perhaps say that this is our job, but we must show concern for our colleagues so I would politely ask you to write to the authorities in Strasbourg to ask that this waste-incineration plant be closed down immediately, as we have a responsibility towards our colleagues.
I shall tell the mayor this evening. He is dining with the Bureau.
Mr President, as you are aware we have a serious problem with Sellafield and British Nuclear Fuels that cannot be ignored.
I would like to call on you, in your capacity as President of this Parliament, to demand that the Commission investigate BNFL which has already applied to the British Government to considerably increase discharges from its nuclear operations into the Irish Sea and which would result in over thirty billion litres of effluent being released into the Irish Sea over the next ten years.
Secondly, that BNFL and Siemens, the German...
(Interruption by the President )
I am sorry, Mr Fitzsimons, there have been quite a lot of resolutions on Sellafield, and I cannot add anything to what this Parliament has already said.
Mr President, we have changed the subject now, but I cannot help going back to what we were talking about a little earlier.
A short while ago, a British Member very rightly said that people who behaved badly with the French at football matches do not represent the whole of Great Britain but a part that he and many others disown.
I am happy to hear this.
I would nonetheless like to recall here that when the Italian police were put on the alert for a match in Italy, given the fact that the bravado of these fans was no secret and that prevention is the best thing - it is better to prevent problems than to try and solve them afterwards - the British press unfortunately severely attacked Italy and the Italian Government.
So, considering......
(Interruption by the President)
Mrs Marinucci, we cannot start telling stories about incidents at football matches.
This is not the time.
Mr President, thank you for your letter which I received today in reply to my question to you.
I noticed in your letter that the Bureau will be meeting tonight, 15 June, to discuss the 50 % attendance.
Will they take into consideration the contents of your letter which seems to indicate that the majority of people not able to attend 50 % of the votes have some difficulties in either arriving in Strasbourg or departing from Strasbourg? I do think that some consideration should be given to these points.
Of course, I expect that Members of the groups will discuss these matters within their own groups and reach a final decision on it.
You can be absolutely certain of that.
Mr President, I would actually like to endorse what was said by a number of my colleagues, as well as by David Martin, about Members' salaries.
A similar article appeared on the front pages of the Dutch regional press.
I would like to ask you as a matter of urgency, Mr President, whether you could issue a press statement this evening, perhaps jointly with the working party, saying what is true and what is not.
It is absolutely essential that, for once, this is also reported.
I also have a second comment.
Today is the deadline for tabling amendments to next year's calendar of part-sessions.
We in the Group of the European People's Party would greatly appreciate it if we had a little bit more time to talk about the agenda.
Amendments to this agenda are not terribly labourious. I would therefore like to ask you if it might be possible for us in the group to have until tomorrow, let us say until 7.30 p.m., to do something about it.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, you are absolutely right.
If there are no more interruptions, I hope we shall have approved the agenda before 7.30 p.m., and the matter can be discussed in the political groups.
(The Minutes were approved)
Calendar of part-sessions 1999
The Conference of Presidents has decided to propose the following calendar of part-sessions for 1999:
11 to 15 January27 to 28 January8 to 12 February24 to 25 February8 to 12 March24 to 25 March12 to 16 April3 to 7 May20 to 23 July13 to 17 September4 to 8 October18 to 22 October3 to 4 November15 to 19 November1 to 2 December13 to 17 December
The deadline for tabling amendments to these dates is 8.30 p.m. this evening, which gives an extra half an hour for the political groups to discuss it.
Mr President, that was not what I meant.
I have a feeling that we should have a look at the Dutch-Spanish interpretation. I do not think it is always all that good.
I had asked whether we could have until tomorrow evening to table the amendments, tomorrow evening until 7.30 p.m.
It would be impossible to set the deadline as 8.30 p.m. tomorrow, but we could make it 12.00 noon tomorrow.
Mr President, if this might lead to problems as far as translating is concerned; they are extremely simple amendments. That is my first point.
But we could also vote on Thursday. Why not?
We will also be voting on the Cardiff resolution on Thursday, an important topic, so we could also do this on Thursday. So I would like to ask you if we could have until 8.00 p.m. tomorrow to table amendments.
In that case there is no problem.
If the vote takes place on Thursday instead of Wednesday, the deadline for tabling amendments can be 8.00 p.m. tomorrow.
Amendment of Rule 48
The next item is the report (A4-0293/97) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the amendment of Rule 48 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure on written declarations.
Mr President, Mr Dell'Alba has been detained and has asked me to take his place as rapporteur, which I am of course happy to do.
Mr Dell'Alba's report relates to an amendment to Rule 48 of the Rules of Procedure, which concerns written declarations.
This amendment to the rule is based on a proposal for an amendment to the Rules of Procedure submitted by Mrs Aglietta in October 1996, pursuant to Rule 163 which states that any Member may propose an amendment to the Rules of Procedure and have it referred to the committee responsible.
This proposal related to Rule 48 of the Rules of Procedure and was drawn up on the basis of a decision by the enlarged Bureau on 7 July 1989, according to which written declarations (Rule 65 of the previous Rules of Procedure) cannot be signed by more than one Member when being submitted.
Following this proposal, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, which appointed Mr Dell'Alba as rapporteur, drew up four amendments to Rule 48, which I would like to summarize briefly.
The first amendment relates to the fact that, up until now, only individual Members have been able to submit written declarations of not more than 200 words.
It aims to allow written declarations to be signed by up to five Members, in order to take account of the fact that within Parliament there are many collective actions and that it must also be possible for written declarations to be submitted by several Members.
The declaration must then be entered in a register, along with the names of the signatories.
The second proposal is that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities wants the declaration to be included in a register located in the immediate vicinity of the Chamber.
Until now, Members had to sign written declarations in an office which was not always very easy to find, which explains this reference to the location of the register.
Other important changes include the fact that when a declaration has been signed by more than one half of the component Members of Parliament, the President will immediately inform Parliament of it, and the declaration will immediately be forwarded to the institutions to which it is addressed.
In addition, it will be included in the Minutes of proceedings of the last sitting of the corresponding part-session.
Those are the various amendments that have been introduced. They will make it easier for Members to exercise their right to table declarations.
In a way, it is a kind of democratization, an additional step towards a more broadly based democracy, which makes the right to submit such declarations for possible signatories a reality.
I would like to add that in addition to the four amendments tabled by the Rules Committee, which were in fact approved unanimously, a fifth amendment was tabled by Mrs Crawley and Mr Janssen van Raay, who would like such declarations to be entered in a register.
This is of course already contained in Mr Dell'Alba's report, but this fifth amendment would mean that the names of the signatories would also be recorded.
Personally, I wonder if it would not be rather labourious to enter not only the declaration, with the names of the initial signatories, but also the names of all those who have signed it.
I have not been able to determine the rapporteur's feelings on this matter and I am therefore only giving you my personal opinion: I believe that it would be somewhat tedious.
Mr President, that is a brief summary of the proposal that has been submitted to you by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities. I call upon the House to approve these amendments.
Mr President, I should like to say that I will be broadly supporting the Dell'Alba report that has been put in front of us by Mr Fayot, the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
There is a past history to this report.
It used to be possible - at least in the previous Parliament - for Members to collect signatures on the basis of Rule 48 resolutions which meant that on a reasonable number of occasions - perhaps three or four times a year - the requirement of half of the Members of Parliament signing was actually achieved.
The reason that was changed some time ago was due to rather over-enthusiastic lobbying - some might say arm-twisting - by one of the opposition groups, which led to a demand for a change in the interpretation of the Rules.
The present interpretation was adopted which, in fact, only allows for one initial signature to be on a Rule 48 resolution and for people having to sign it in a special office, which avoids having to walk a line of people demanding that they actually sign up to particular Rule 48 resolutions.
The result of this has been essentially to kill Rule 48 as a means of getting a resolution passed.
On only one single occasion in the past three years have we actually obtained the necessary number of signatures, and that was fairly recently on a Rule 48 resolution on violence against women.
While the Dell'Alba report addresses a minor part of this problem, we will be supporting it save possibly, in my view, Amendment No 3, which means that we will no longer get a running total of how many Members have signed, or the second part of Amendment No 1 which seems to be overly cumbersome and not recognize the procedure which is actually followed in the office - because you do have a record of who has already signed.
Nevertheless it would have been preferable to return to the status quo ante , but that would require Members to be sufficiently confident of their politics that they did not feel the need to be protected against overly attentive lobbying.
Obviously this is not the case in this Parliament.
Hopefully the next Parliament will have more about it than the present body or the lobbyists will have less about them.
Mr President, Mr Ford has spoken about the history of Rule 48.
The question now is about the opening up of democracy and returning to somewhere nearer Parliament's former position.
It is about allowing Members not only a clearer and more positive way to express their own political points of view on matters of topical and international interest, but also, perhaps more importantly, the chance to put down a motion on behalf of their constituents - those they were elected to represent.
The rapporteur should be congratulated for his amendments which generally, with the reservations that have been outlined by the previous speaker, seek to simplify these rights and opportunities and also to make the publication of the motions more open and more easily available.
Mr Dell'Alba, the rapporteur, has also made provision for more than one Member to initiate the process, and five Members collectively may do so.
Once again Mr Ford has outlined the history of this process and I need not go into it any further.
Many reports are complex and lengthy.
This report and the amendments distinguish themselves by their simplicity and clarity of presentation.
These features are also reflected in the aims and objectives of the report, which are clarity, openness and simplicity and those are objectives which this Parliament should welcome and which we should be supporting.
It is for these reasons that I and my group have no problem supporting this motion.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Article 366a of the Fourth ACP-EC Convention
The next item is the report (A4-0194/98) by Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the draft Council Decision on the procedure for implementing Article 366a of the Fourth ACP-EC Convention (5644/98 - C4-0156/98-96/0050(AVC)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in January last year the Council consulted the European Parliament about the proposal for a Council decision on a framework procedure for implementing Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention, as revised in 1995.
This is the article that stipulates that in the event of an ACP state having failed to fulfil the essential components of the Convention, namely respect for human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law, this can lead to the suspension, either partially or fully, of the Convention.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation subsequently decided to draw up an interim report pursuant to Article 80(3) of Parliament's Rules of Procedure, and also called for the opening of a conciliation procedure with the Council.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation, followed in this by this entire Parliament during the part-session of June 1997, laid down recommendations in the interim report to amend the Commission's text so as to give Parliament the right of assent on each proposal to suspend or resume cooperation.
The Commission's text had proposed that Parliament merely be informed afterwards.
Unfortunately the Council's response on 6 March 1998 completely ignored the opinion of this Parliament, arguing that the assent of the European Parliament is, legally speaking, completely ruled out.
The situation has not improved because the Treaty of Amsterdam, which will be ratified by the fifteen Member States at the beginning of next year, provides only for information to be given to Parliament subsequently in such matters.
We do not have a legal leg to stand on to enforce this assent from the Council.
It would therefore have been enough for the Council to wait until the beginning of next year to present us with a fait accompli during the implementation procedure.
That is why we responded very quickly in this interim report and developed a fallback position which amounts to the setting up of a consultation procedure instead of an assent procedure.
We are therefore taking a step backwards, but are still asking for a little bit more than has been provided for according to the letter of the Treaty.
For that matter, this request for consultation is not new.
When we were discussing the Oostlander report on enlargement towards central and eastern Europe Mr Henderson, President-in-Office of the Council, gave us a commitment which goes in the same direction, namely that Parliament would be given a suitable opportunity to express its views to the Council before the Council takes a decision; a perfect description of consultation, in fact.
That is why, as a result of this decision and Mr Henderson's statement, I immediately contacted the President-in-Office responsible for development cooperation, namely Mrs Clare Short, to ask her whether the British presidency would also grant consultation to the European Parliament.
In the meantime we have had two discussions with text proposals which are aimed in the right direction.
Not everything has been acquired yet, but we are on the road to consultation.
It is essential that we conclude this issue before the end of the British presidency, which is approaching fast.
That is why we have an interim report proposal before us, which received unanimous support from the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
The essential components are provided for in parliamentary consultation.
Secondly, Council decisions must be made by qualified majority in the case of a partial suspension of the Convention, and unanimously in the case of a full suspension.
To give you a clear idea of this, ladies and gentlemen, even in the case of Nigeria, the full Convention has not been suspended.
It is therefore only in highly exceptional circumstances that unanimity would be called for.
The third element is obviously the call for conciliation with the Council, in active cooperation with the Commission.
I therefore venture to express the hope that approval of this report may lead to us being able to reach an agreement with the presidency within a few weeks time.
Mr President, Mrs Aelvoet deserves recognition in drawing our attention to a very important issue, in order to stress the role of the European Parliament in such a very remarkable situation as the EU reacting to the fact that human rights are being flouted in a country working in cooperation with ourselves.
I also congratulate her on being so coherent in this matter earlier on.
It has to be said that it is not just a matter here of the European Parliament getting its opinion across and having the opportunity to discuss it. This is also linked to that big problem the EU has at the moment, namely its approval by the general public.
Its legitimacy for our citizens has perhaps dwindled. The European Parliament is justifiably seen as a public forum, one that represents the people, in those matters to which the people in general turn their attention.
It is very easy to imagine that Parliament might well have been rebuffed here on judicial grounds, for political reasons.
However, I do not wish to claim that that is the case.
That is why it would be a good idea to approve this report and take it very seriously.
Furthermore, it must be realized that the matter will be taken more seriously in the country in which these human rights violations have occurred if the European Parliament focuses attention on it in its capacity as a public forum.
Mrs Aelvoet's report deserves support and I hope it will be approved with not too much opposition.
Mr President, I too wish to thank the rapporteur very warmly for her work, and as she described the whole legal background for us with her usual clarity I would now like to go into some political aspects of this procedure in the two minutes I have available.
It has become a tradition in the European Parliament that we ask our partners in development cooperation: "How do you deal with human rights?
How do you manage the running of the state effectively, in terms of good governance? How do you ensure legal certainty for your citizens in the legal system?'
I believe we must not limit the discussion to the area of human rights alone. We must always bear in mind the other two areas as well.
Of course, one is not necessarily conceivable without the other, but from that point of view we have actually always adopted this joint approach in discussions.
With this procedure - if we implement it in the way the rapporteur described - we have clear legal certainty for the ACP partner countries and beyond, as we are in the process of extending our cooperation to include to a greater extent the least developed countries which do not belong to the ACP. Some parts of this procedure could therefore be applied here.
It is sometimes noticeable that when human rights violations, bad administration and corrupt government persist for a long time, the stringency with which such sanctions are applied occasionally diminishes to some extent.
I believe we should agree to proceed with equal intensity wherever we observe such shortcomings, and must continue to do so resolutely until the situation improves.
Mr President, the Union is getting the opportunity to give its human rights policy flesh and blood.
The democracy and human rights clause can be made real by the Commission proposals.
With these proposals, operational agreements are being made about how the democracy clause should be used, and on the basis of which criteria.
The Union has a powerful instrument in its hands with the human rights clause, and should also wish to use it.
Clear criteria and procedures will increase the transparency of EU policy.
The countries concerned will also show more understanding of EU policy, and they will have an impetus to stick to the criteria.
That is why it all started.
However, the present state of affairs in this debate on procedure is extremely disappointing.
The Council wants to decide on the use of the democracy clause alone.
My group utterly disagrees with this.
Informing Parliament about the suspension of Lomé cooperation, for example, is by no means enough.
In these kinds of situations public pressure from Europe's representative body is needed.
Initiating Lomé cooperation requires assent from the European Parliament.
So it should follow that this same Parliament should also give its assent to the suspension of cooperation.
The Council's reluctant attitude should not deter us from our principal position, namely that democratic participation and control is a primary requirement.
The Council and Parliament must consult with each other in order to find a solution to this conflict.
We should not surrender something in advance.
The Council has also given the European Parliament a considerable role in the context of the accession partnership, after all.
For that matter, this also applies to the start of the procedure.
Not only should the Council and the Commission be able to initiate a suspension procedure and dialogue with a country, but the European Parliament should also be able to request this.
The rapporteur rightly asks for this in her report, of which I greatly approve.
This Parliament plays an important role in the human rights policy of the Union, and the ACP Joint Assembly is also an important instrument.
On the basis of this, the European Parliament deserves to be given an important role in the entire suspension procedure.
Incidentally, that is true not only of the suspension of cooperation, but also when cooperation is resumed.
Precisely now, when the Union wants to make cooperation in the Lomé context more political, the parliamentary dimension must be strengthened, otherwise it does not have a leg to stand on politically.
Which ACP country, for instance, will allow itself to be convinced by a moralistic European Union, which itself also violates democratic principles?
Mr President, I support a strong political dimension for the new cooperation agreements with the ACP countries, especially in the fields of human rights and good government under rule of law.
It is right that we should consistently emphasize the importance we attach to the steady integration of the ACP countries into the world economy and that new trade arrangements should be compatible with those operating within the World Trade Organization.
In fact, remaining tariff barriers must and should be removed to the greatest extent possible so that some element of fairness and equality of market access can be introduced.
In negotiating new ACP agreements, it is essential to stress the need for simplification and rationalization of aid instruments with a view to gradual evolution towards direct budgetary support for African states.
Due care and attention must be shown so that as trade liberalization takes place no damage is done to the fragile working of the African economies.
I welcome the declarations which were issued by the leaders of the G8 nations, following their meeting in England last month, relating to reducing the debt which African countries may have to pay back to the wealthier countries in the Western world.
As the new millennium approaches, African states will not be able to make that stride to self-sufficiency if they continue to be crippled with debt repayments.
The Western leaders must put in place structures and procedures to ensure that blanket reductions do not apply to all African states across the board.
Mr President, I, in turn, would like to express my complete agreement with the Group of the European Radical Alliance on the two main proposals contained in the report by Mrs Aelvoet.
Firstly, in June 1997 we asked that the European Parliament be able to give its assent to the Council in the case of suspension of the Convention.
However, it would seem that such a provision would be contrary to the Amsterdam Treaty.
We accept this, but consider that this is yet another example of the Treaty's inadequacy.
Having said that, we agree with the simple consultation procedure proposed by the rapporteur so that Parliament can at least give its opinion a priori .
In addition, following the example of the rapporteur, we think that the European Parliament, just like the Commission or any Member State, should have a power of initiative for the suspension of the application of the Convention.
I, for my part, am not certain that in a classic, orthodox view of the separation of powers, a parliamentary initiative of this type is valid.
However, as a militant and firm believer in European federalism, I would say that until the institutions provide Parliament with real legislative power, we will have to encourage similar encroachments by our House on the executive role.
Nonetheless, with the speed at which the framework procedure for the implementation of Article 366a of the Lomé Convention is being set up, there is a risk that it will really not have enough time to be applied.
That is why I would like once again to draw the attention of the Commission and the Council to one of the provisions contained in the Rocard report on the future of cooperation between the Union and the ACP countries.
Mr Rocard had proposed - and our House had followed his lead - that the criteria relating to democracy and respect for human rights on which aid would depend should be defined by the recipient countries themselves.
I believe this proposal would improve the political legitimacy of the provision on conditionality and would lead to increased efficiency.
But although we agree on the substance of the proposal, we must realize that its adoption would involve the ACP in the procedure itself.
We cannot ask these countries to define the criteria for aid, and therefore conversely those relating to the suspension of the Convention, without involving them in the decision to suspend aid to their country.
Consequently, we need to use our imagination and work to restore the balance of the entire procedure, so that it becomes an example of a truly fair cooperation policy.
Mr President, we support this request and particularly the idea behind it, although in our opinion it does not go far enough.
A consultation procedure is certainly necessary; an assent procedure would be the better solution.
We wish to announce one thing now: if there should be no solution during the British presidency, we will try to persuade the Austrian Government that this topic should be accorded particular importance after the change of presidency.
I also have a few general comments on this very important issue. On the basis of its own history, Europe should proceed with great caution in the field of human rights.
If Parliament succeeds in dealing with this problem itself, every care will have to be taken and we will have to ensure that we are not tempted to make generalized premature judgements.
The fact that we are becoming active in this area is to be welcomed, but each individual case must be examined closely.
The relevant countries, which are grouped together here, are at very different stages of economic development.
A measure may affect one country very severely and another less so.
The list of human rights which are constantly mentioned does not include, for example, the right to food and education, a right which is threatened when cooperation is terminated due to a lack of democratic development.
One thing we must bear in mind is that our role is not to act as judge, but to promote and support democratic development in the individual countries.
Mr President, it has never been so important for the European Union to provide itself with a mechanism for suspending cooperation relations when human rights violations take place.
This is shown by the great number of urgent resolutions in this Parliament, which devotes a special heading to human rights, session after session.
By definition, that mechanism - insofar as it is a legal instrument - has to work, both for the sake of the credibility of the EU's foreign actions, which is now somewhat reduced, and, above all, as an inescapable requirement for the real achievement of the objectives established in the Treaties.
In order for it to work, the procedure for implementing the human rights clause cannot depend on unanimity in the Council, or pass through Parliament surreptitiously for information only.
The system of unanimity in the Council is unanimously recognized as causing paralysis in the decision making process. We have known that ever since the empty chair crisis of 1966, and we are aware of it now, when one of the challenges of enlargement is to modify a decision making procedure which, being based on unanimity, is not flexible enough.
So we do not think Parliament is making a revolutionary request in asking for decisions on this important matter to be adopted by majority.
The Council should not view this proposal with suspicion, because it is not an attempt to attack the current interests of the Member States, but to strengthen the policy and interests of the European Union in accordance with the principles established in the Treaties.
For Parliament to request to be consulted on one of the areas of foreign policy which most affects it - human rights - is not only not revolutionary, as Mrs Aelvoet says in her report's explanatory statement, but is entirely reasonable.
Consulting Parliament would have avoided a lot of the contradictory situations we now find ourselves in. For example, in this very partsession we will be presenting a resolution on Equatorial Guinea, which has just passed 15 death sentences, asking the Commission to think again about resuming cooperation with that country.
Let us provide ourselves with the necessary mechanism to sanction the violation of human rights, so basic and essential, and let us do it properly, with transparency and, above all, with guarantees.
Mr President, I apologize to the House for not being in my place when the debate started. Unfortunately my plane was late.
I congratulate Mrs Aelvoet on this excellent report.
The PPE Group unanimously supports it.
Suspension is a very serious matter and it is important that Parliament's views are heard.
However, it is important to remember that the assent procedure very much ties us in to what happened in Amsterdam.
If we cannot have that, then at least we should be allowed to comment when some situation like this arises.
We in Parliament also have to accept that there can be various kinds of situations.
For example, there was the horrendous situation in Nigeria when the former president hanged 19 people.
In such cases, where serious violations of human rights have taken place, the Commission may want to suspend a country immediately.
In others a very slow process may be building up where, simply because of what is happening in the country, it may be possible to alleviate the situation before it goes too far.
For instance, I have just been in the Comoros and was quite horrified by the situation which appears to be building up there.
One island, Anjouan, has declared independence and, at the same time, it expects to continue to get aid from the European Union.
We pointed out to them quite clearly that they could not continue to be in Lomé if they had declared their independence.
It may be that eventually we will have to suspend them.
That is the sort of situation which we should discuss.
Human rights and democracy are vital to our continued support for developing nations. Quite honestly, good governance is probably even more important.
I would have thought that Africa was the natural continent to move on to after ASEAN.
Having seen the problems of ASEAN, many industries want to move out.
Unless countries are stable, people are simply not going to invest in those nations.
It is therefore important to work with other African nations to try and keep countries stable so that we do not have to suspend them.
I hope that, if we cannot have the assent procedure, the Commission will at least keep us very closely in contact with any situation arising where we may have to suspend a nation, and that the Committee on Development and Cooperation in particular would get any reports that were prepared.
Beyond that, the PPE Group will be delighted to support this report when it comes before the House.
Mr President, after years of lip service about compliance with human rights in the ACP countries, Mrs Aelvoet has managed to find a method whereby we have come a step closer to the effective functioning of the European institutions with regard to human rights compliance.
Moreover, the role of this Parliament has been strengthened.
I agree with Mr Bertens: it is not good enough yet, but it is a start.
Bravo, Mrs Aelvoet!
But how can this proposal be successful if an important country like Angola continues to arm itself heavily? Angola has sold its oil supply for the coming three years, and with this money it has paid for the weapons in cash , weapons from Brazil and Russia - Russia, a member of the troika which has to supervise the peace process, would you believe?
The fact that Angola, a one-party state, can take this decision without democratic consultation with the legal opposition represents a failure of the democratic Lomé test.
So I urge the Council and the Commission to come up with a concrete proposal and an interim report from the European Parliament for the ACP counties to adhere to the arms percentage laid down in the Treaty.
Obviously, they should also adhere to the good governance referred to by Mrs Günther.
Only then will democracy and human rights have a chance in the ACP countries as well.
Mr President and Members of the House, it is clear that during the course of the debate a number of issues have been touched on that go beyond the strict terms of the second interim report of Mrs Aelvoet.
That is understandable because Parliament's interest in the proper implementation of the Fourth Lomé Convention and more particularly its human rights aspects is very great.
For example Mr Corrie has mentioned some examples of horrific conduct that give rise to consideration of what should be done in view of the close relationship that the Lomé Convention gives to the European Union with the countries where such conduct takes place.
Therefore the question of the application of the procedure provided for by Article 366a of the Lomé Convention, which is designed specifically to deal with that kind of situation, is obviously very important.
The Commission has carefully studied Mrs Aelvoet's second interim report and notes the amendments tabled which would envisage Parliament being consulted at the various stages of implementation of the procedure.
The Commission expressed its opinion when the first interim report was adopted on the desirability of involving Parliament more closely in the implementation of the procedure and it is clear that the current proposal for a Council decision is more explicit in this regard.
It provides for immediately informing Parliament in full on any decision taken in implementing Article 366a.
We do not feel that a process of formally consulting Parliament on the various stages of the procedure is feasible; not because we think Parliament's views are unimportant or insubstantial, but simply because of the specific provisions of the Treaties, in particular Article 300 which in effect sets out a procedure which is envisaged for situations such as this.
What is proposed would run counter to what is provided for in Article 300.
The Commission wants to be as sympathetic as possible and is certainly prepared to undertake to inform Parliament of any initiatives it takes or any proposal it submits under Article 366a and Parliament of course is in those circumstances more than able to take steps to make its views known.
If they are known then they would immediately be something that would come to the attention of the Commission and would have to be considered.
The Commission will continue to take into account all opinions expressed by Parliament in this regard.
I regret the fact that there has been a delay in setting up the arrangements under which Article 366a can be invoked where necessary.
I hope that as a result of this debate and what has been said during the course of it, both by Members and by myself, it will be possible to move as quickly as possible into a situation in which Article 366a can be invoked because the necessary procedure for doing so will have been agreed.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Genetically modified micro-organisms
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0192/98) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive amending Directive 90/219/EEC on the contained use of genetically modified microorganisms (C4-0031/98-95/0340(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Trakatellis).
Mr President, one of the most important fields of biotechnology concerns the applications that are carried out with the use of genetically modified micro-organisms.
These applications have a significant effect on issues of health and disease, diet, the protection of the environment, agriculture and other important fields of human life and activity.
As a result, it is essential that increasing the possibilities of genetically modified micro-organisms goes ahead, since it promises a great deal.
However, since the nature and extent of the risks to humanity and the environment which are associated with these micro-organisms are not fully known, it is imperative that relevant work is carried out in certain areas which are clearly defined for each class of risk.
Work carried out under containment conditions is regulated by Directive 90/219, which aims to ensure on the one hand a common framework for the development of the new technology, and on the other the protection of human health and the environment.
Moreover, since the adoption of this directive, new scientific knowledge and applications have evolved, while, in parallel, since its application, relevant legal experience has been gained.
As a result, it is now right to amend and update the directive.
In these amendments we must aim for the greatest possible legal flexibility which, however, must not prove detrimental to safety.
On this point I sound a note of warning since we must not confuse a flexible and clearly defined framework with safety measures.
The risk of a future accident is increasing since the field is expanding rapidly.
A simple accident would be sufficient to give the biotech industry a bad name and lead to a crisis. We must avoid that by putting the appropriate safety measures in place.
Although the Council took on board a number of Parliament's amendments, substantive amendments were finally omitted from the Council's common position.
Your rapporteur takes the view that the common position only partly reflects the positions adopted by Parliament at first reading.
As a result, the recommendation for second reading proposes that the amendments which approximate to the position and spirit of the amendments adopted by Parliament in part-session should be reinstated.
The principal points are as follows:
Amendment No 2: the term "contained use' must be clarified so as to specify the containment measures in respect of work involving GMMs.
Amendment No 3: provision must be made for the reexamination of risk assessment where the competent authority has been notified that this assessment is no longer adequate.
This allows the relevant authority to intervene.
Amendments Nos 4 and 9: provisions must be introduced regarding liability insurance for users, given that despite all the containment measures, a risk exists, even if a very slight one.
It is therefore legitimate that there should be insurance cover and liability in case third persons are injured by the use of GMMs.
Amendment No 5: the user should have the opportunity to request formal authorization from the competent authority for category 2 uses.
Amendments Nos 7 and 8: the public must be notified before contained use begins, not only about the emergency plans, but also about relevant safety measures. Provision must also be made for public consultation.
Amendment No 10: inspections and other control measures must be organized by the relevant authority to ensure the correct application of the directive and the containment measures.
Amendments Nos 11, 12 and 13: Parliament must be involved in the procedure for drawing up and amending Annex II, Part B concerning the criteria for excluding certain GMMs from the field of application of the directive.
On the same grounds it is also proposed to amend the risk assessment procedure in Annex III, Part B. We cannot accept the exclusion of Parliament from the process of drawing up such an important part of the directive.
This will allow the Commission better to exercise its executive powers and will also make it easier for Parliament to control the Commission.
On this point, we fully agree with the Commission and expect it to support our positions.
Amendment No 14: this concerns the risk assessment procedure.
I wish to stress that the precise assessment of the risk is the very "heart' of the directive.
The Council has taken on board only general guidelines. We insist that the risk assessment procedure be clarified.
Finally, I wish to raise once again the matter of the choice of legal base, which should be Article 100a and not Article 130s(1).
In industry, work relating to GMMs is regarded, among other things, as having significant repercussions on the terms of competition.
As a result, I think that Article 100a would be more correct.
Also, following the approval of the recommendations concerning BSE, it has become clear, and Mr Santer has committed himself to it, that in issues relating to public health we must have codecision.
I wish to conclude by saying that the Commission must support our positions, which aim on the one hand to ensure the development of this new technology and, on the other, to protect human health and the environment.
Mr President, first of all, it is important that we all thank the rapporteur because of the enormous amount of work that he has undertaken in dealing with this extraordinarily technical and very complex directive.
I congratulate him on his grasp of the technical detail and his understanding of the problems associated with it.
This is a very topical report in the sense that this issue - biotechnology - has attracted a great deal of public interest and concern over the last few years.
This is an extraordinarily important report.
Biotechnology, as a science, has the potential to give us enormous new advances in the next century if it is used properly.
It can bring enormous benefits to the human race in general and increase prosperity for all of us.
But it is important that we build public confidence and trust in this technology.
To do that, it is necessary to have higher levels of protection to ensure that public health is protected and to ensure the environment in general is protected from any dangers that might arise from experimentation.
This directive essentially controls experimentation in contained facilities or the use of GMMs (genetically modified micro-organisms), again in contained facilities.
The rapporteur's amendments seek to ensure that those requirements are met and that responsible care is exercised by all the practitioners in this field.
On behalf of the Socialist Group I should like to say that we are certainly in favour of the development of this new science of biotechnology.
But we believe that it is necessary to ensure that ethical public health and general safety concerns are respected and considered fully.
The rapporteur's amendments help us in seeking those reassurances. I would commend them to the Commission and the Council.
The common position, as it has come back to us, is not a bad common position.
But there are still issues of concern, that the rapporteur's amendments address, and that we would wish to support.
Firstly, there is the whole issue of classification of these micro-organisms.
It is very true to say that the vast majority of micro-organisms that are experimented upon are, by and large, harmless and cause little threat.
But there are some that present enormous dangers, particularly those that are associated with traditional diseases, for example, the micro-organisms associated with things like bubonic plague.
We need to exercise the greatest caution when dealing with those.
Consequently we need to ensure that the containment and safety measures taken are appropriate to the risk of the micro-organism.
The rapporteur's amendments recognize that and certainly construct a system which would ensure that.
I would also echo the concern of the rapporteur on the issue of comitology.
This is a rather bizarre proposal from the point of view of comitology - two different annexes controlled by two different management systems.
It is thus something which we are not accustomed to, which we do not like and which we are very uncomfortable about.
We recognize that the Commission will be coming forward soon with a new proposal with regard to comitology and the development of the modus vivendi .
We would hope that a more rational approach would be taken by the Commission and that the issues which currently present themselves in this proposal can be resolved in that way.
Finally, I would also draw attention to the question of the legal base.
This proposal is currently under the cooperation procedure. We do not find that satisfactory.
We would have been delighted to continue the debate with the Council, with the Commission acting as facilitator, through the procedure of conciliation.
We regret that cannot be done.
Consequently we would wish to support the rapporteur's view that the legal base should be 100a.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to thank the rapporteur for the work he has done.
There is no doubt that great dangers are associated with genetic engineering and biotechnology. We have often discussed these dangers here, for example in relation to the cloning of human beings.
As a further example, I am concerned that the application of prenatal diagnosis will lead to the selection of disabled persons.
This is a danger which we must recognize.
The current proposal for a regulation concerns an application of genetic engineering which, in my view, is associated with great opportunities and regarding which, after twenty years of use, the dangers perhaps envisaged some years ago have not in fact materialized.
So far there have not been any unforeseen incidents.
For this reason, I believe it makes sense to remove this directive from the realm of bureaucracy.
Europe must not fall any further behind in the production of medicines using genetically modified micro-organisms.
We must catch up, and for this we need fewer bureaucratic rules.
This does not mean any less security as we have a differentiated approach here.
The micro-organisms which are potentially dangerous, as Mr Bowe said, continue to be treated with extreme caution.
Harmless micro-organisms, however, must be treated with less caution as the danger does not lie in the fact that we are dealing with genetic engineering but in the microorganisms themselves.
That is why I have spoken out emphatically against some of the amendments to the report, which did not come from Mr Trakatellis but were voted into the report, that is Amendments Nos 2, 4, 9 and 14.
As far as liability is concerned, I also do not believe we need a particularly strict regulation for biotechnology.
We need a comprehensive regulation, which the Commission is currently preparing.
But we cannot always apply restrictions in the area of biotechnology or we will never be able to catch up in this area.
Mr President, this is becoming monotonous, but I am also very grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Trakatellis, for this excellent report.
Biotechnology is a very young sector and has had hardly any practical experience.
Unexpected scientific results will be published over the coming years which will affect the risk assessment of these technologies.
It is therefore best to be very careful.
There must be clear legislation in which the risks are adequately contained.
That is why the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party thinks that Mr Trakatellis has, as I have said, produced an excellent report.
After the Council's common position a number of amendments are needed to contain the risks as much as possible.
The various explanations, such as the definition of contained use, are very important in this regard.
The liability of the user of genetically modified organisms has now been clearly provided for in a number of amendments, as long as they are adopted by this Parliament.
The competent authorities will rightly be allowed to intervene when they have indications that the risk assessment is no longer adequate.
The amendments also mean that the European Parliament is involved in the drawing up and amending of the criteria by which certain GMMs will be excluded from the directive.
Precisely because all risks have to be avoided, it seems right to me that the European Parliament should keep a distant but sharp eye on these criteria.
I understand that the European Commission supports Parliament in this involvement.
I would like to see this reiterated by the Commissioner.
To conclude, our group is clear about the legal basis, that this must be Article 100a.
The directive covers industrial laboratories, after all, and therefore competition in the field of biotechnology.
Moreover, after the BSE crisis it was agreed that the codecision procedure had to apply in these kinds of matters.
I hope that this Parliament will also support Article 100a.
Mr President, I find it disgraceful that, as Mr Liese says, we in the House are saying that genetic engineering offers huge opportunities and would pose no danger in contained use, as in the report we are discussing today, yet at the same time we are avoiding liability like the plague!
If we deregulate, and state authorizations are therefore limited, then it is not acceptable that industry need not undertake liability for this.
If it supposedly poses no danger, then it is more than suspicious that liability is so vehemently rejected.
I know there has been massive lobbying of Members of this House in recent weeks and, as we can see, this has already had an effect on Mr Liese. The result of this is that no-one wants to deal with the issue of liability.
This is completely irresponsible as in fact it should be a case of industry showing more responsibility.
The German Federal Government, in particular, never tires of telling us that industry and science must take more responsibility.
If we want individual responsibility we absolutely have to have liability; it is not acceptable that every driver has to have liability insurance before he drives a car but this is not required of companies which work with pathogenic organisms and research laboratories which work with viruses which could escape into the atmosphere.
The report does not meet with our approval because it deregulates many areas; authorization simply because a time limit has elapsed no longer has anything to do with the precautionary principle.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize once again that the question of liability will be extremely important for us.
It is not for nothing that a recent referendum in Austria showed that a liability regulation is required.
There are also Member States who want it.
So if we want industry to take responsibility itself we must not wait until the damage is done; instead, we must take industry at its word...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, the Trakatellis report deals with one of those subjects which make you wonder to what extent the European Parliament should be discussing it.
It is such a technical matter that you almost have to have worked in a biotechnology laboratory in order to know anything about it.
Also, you have not even said whether the regulations from this directive are better as they were or as they are evolving via the common position.
It is all about the question of whether a laboratory must comply with strict safety regulations when it is working with genetic modification techniques.
According to the Commission proposal, laboratories must determine for themselves, by means of risk assessment, what the level of safety measures should be.
This is a curious construction, because what the standards are for a major risk has not been laid down anywhere.
When, as a company, with strict safety standards in force, you have furthermore to follow a heavier administrative procedure for notification than when you reach weaker safety measures via the risk assessment, then that comprises an element of contradiction.
If, as a company, you want to be extremely cautious, you are punished administratively, as it were, and if you asses the risk to be a little less high, you do not have to comply with the heavy notification procedure.
According to my assessment, this leads to a downward pressure on the containment level.
What we need above all, I think, is a more standardized risk assessment.
The text of Annex III deals with this, but in far too general terms.
I am not sure whether in practice the European Parliament amendments will lead to an improved notification procedure.
To be on the safe side, I will support them, but without much conviction.
As far as the legal basis is concerned, I cannot make more out of it than 130s.
Whether the Member States will reach a high level of protection with this, I venture to doubt.
Thankfully companies are allowed to exceed the prescribed level of protection, insofar as this is clear.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the rapporteur so rightly observed, biotechnology and in particular genetic engineering are expanding greatly.
Within the framework of fair and regulated competition in the European Union it is therefore necessary to form an appropriate legal basis.
This is a very important point and one which is imperative, partly because all regulations in the area of biotechnology in the European Union are based on Article 100a.
This includes the issue of comitology.
It is obvious that the 3b regulatory committee procedure, which the European Parliament completely excludes from the consultations on changing the criteria which allow certain genetically modified micro-organisms to be exempted from the field of application of the directive, is completely unacceptable for us as the European Parliament.
We recently had to abandon a directive on this issue because the Council could not be moved on it.
This is not acceptable to us, however.
If we have cooperation or codecision, the appropriate rights must also be guaranteed for the European Parliament in the committees.
My second point deals with information for the public. It is stated in the common position that the Member States can stipulate that the public be allowed to give their opinion on specific issues.
What are specific issues?
Who defines these specific issues?
What can it possibly mean? It is inexplicable that the European Council insists that such an unclear definition, or nondefinition, should remain.
It is also necessary to clarify the situation, within the context of fair competition, as is intended in the amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to mention briefly why we are dealing with this directive.
According to the Commission's explanation, on the one hand genetic modification procedures must be applied responsibly, and on the other hand the increase in scientific knowledge and findings in the last 10 years must be taken into account.
Findings have progressed greatly worldwide.
Europe has set a very strict standard and this directive actually aims to reduce this strict standard and the high degree of bureaucracy associated with it, as experience has shown that what was considered to be high-risk has not turned out that way, thus enabling procedures to be simplified.
I am of the opinion that the points made in the common position are responsible, and I would like this directive also to take effect if possible.
I can support what is proposed in the common position.
Mr President, I welcome this report and the work of the rapporteur, Mr Trakatellis, and the Committee in ensuring that the European Parliament will have a role in supervising developments in this very technical and difficult field.
Recommending that the legal basis be changed to 100a ensures that the codecision procedure will be followed in full.
It is essential that we learn from past experience and insist on openness and transparency.
It is also necessary to provide the mechanism to guarantee the safety not only of those working in the field of biotechnology but also of the general public.
There is a great need to build public trust and confidence.
This is a new technology and one that offers huge potential in the medical field for the treatment of many diseases for which as yet there are no cures, and for the relief of suffering and pain for millions of people.
We must push out the frontiers of research but in an open and transparent way.
Within the highest safety standards, we must encourage and support research and ensure that the industry is not bogged down with so many restrictions that laboratories will move their research out of Europe altogether and cause a brain drain and loss of highly trained people and highly skilled jobs.
The message to the public with regard to biotechnology must be balanced and devoid of emotion, unlike much of what has happened so far in the area of biotechnological research.
We have seen many wonderful success stories in the biotech field, the development of genetic insulin for example.
There are many more untapped possibilities.
In the interests of mankind we have a responsibility to keep searching for the right answers.
I hope the outdated mind-set of the past will not stand in the way of the relief of so many in the future.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur and the committee for their report and thorough work on the common position adopted by the Council on this matter.
The directive was proposed and adopted to ensure that the precautionary principle could be followed with regard to human health and the environment so that the benefits of this technology could develop safely.
What it seeks to do in a single piece of specific horizontal legislation is to cover a highly technical and rapidly evolving area of work that obviously is of enormous importance.
A number of problems are identified with the directive in relation to classification of genetically modified microorganisms, such as insufficient guidance on risk-assessment and containment measures, the absence of a linkage of the notification and administrative measures to the degree of risk of the activities, and so on.
The common position strengthens and clarifies the original Commission proposal designed to deal with this matter. The main areas concerned include increased administrative control for Class 3 and 4 work: in cases of doubt in classification of an activity the more stringent safety measures have to be applied; the extension of the requirement for safety plans to all cases where the failure of containment could lead to serious danger; and the strengthening of the containment and control measures by incorporation of the requirement to apply the principles of good occupational safety and hygiene in all cases.
The Commission was not, however, able to support the common position where it sought to exclude the European Parliament from the procedure to establish and modify Annex II Part B, which affects the scope of the directive, nor Article 21, where the Council would still wish to stick to a 3b regulatory committee procedure instead of the 2a procedure proposed by the Commission following the first opinion of Parliament.
Of the 36 amendments tabled, including supplementary amendments, the Commission can accept in full Amendments Nos 5, 6, 17, 19, 25, 32 and 36, and can partially accept 8, 12, 13 and 14, and accept in principle 2, 18, 20, 21, 28, 33, 34 and 35, which may need some rewording.
With respect to Amendment No 13, the Commission can accept a 2a comitology procedure which gives flexibility to the Council to adopt different measures from those proposed by the Commission instead of the 3b procedure contained in the Commission proposal.
Concerning the requirement in the amendment to present a report on experience with the directive, the Commission considers that the aim of the amendment could be achieved by making available to Parliament the report it is required to produce under Article 18(3).
But the proposal in the amendment that the decisions and minutes of the regulatory committee should be made publicly available is not acceptable since that is not in line with the recent agreement between the Commission and Parliament applicable since December 1996 on transparency and the publicity of committee meetings.
Then there are 17 amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
Amendment No 1 proposes to change the legal base from Article 130s(1) to Article 100a.
The scope of the directive is not being significantly altered and it does not impact directly on the functioning of the single market.
That is why the Commission considers that there is no legal justification for changing the legal basis of the directive, and that opinion is in line with that given by the Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament.
An additional consideration is that the change of legal base would restrict Member States from having the flexibility to take containment and control measures going beyond those in the directives which at present they can do, because currently Member States can go beyond the standards set out in the directive in their national legislation.
The issue of liability insurance and the provision of financial security in Amendments Nos 4 and 9 are under consideration by the Commission which, as has been said, intends to produce a White Paper on environmental liability, and the Commission would prefer to deal with this matter in a horizontal manner to avoid different liability requirements in different directives.
Amendment No 11 is not acceptable because the requirement to utilize the full legislative procedure for modifications to the risk-assessment procedure set out in Annex III would prevent the rapid modification of the annex which is purely technical in nature, and it could be that such a restriction would lead to safety problems, for instance, where, as a result of additional scientific information, a rapid change to the annex would be needed.
The Commission considers that the proposed procedure utilizing a committee of representatives to the Member States will give the required flexibility and appropriate rigour for the examination of any proposals to modify the annex.
Amendments Nos 3, 7, 10, 16, 24 and 31 are not acceptable because they duplicate provisions present in other articles and the technical Amendments Nos 15, 26 and 30 would operate to increase the burden of control measures, seeking to introduce more stringent measures than those of Directive 90/679/EEC, which regulates the protection of workers from risks from exposure to biological agents at work.
This directive also covers work with genetically modified micro-organisms and the Commission wishes to maintain comparable containment requirements for similar work under the two directives.
Amendments Nos 22, 23, 24 and 27 proposed increased burdens, but we do not think that they make a commensurate contribution to safety.
Amendment No 29 is technically invalid since the genetically modified micro-organisms are not required to be in a closed system.
I wish to finish by stressing the added value of the amendments which have been accepted, wholly or partially, which are a considerable number.
An example of this is Amendment No 5 by Mr Trakatellis, which would allow applicants to request a reply from a competent authority within a defined time period and thus clarify the applicant's position and obligations under the directive.
I believe that the amendments clarify and reinforce the common position and, together with that text, will provide a sound and enforceable framework providing the high level of safety that we are all seeking to achieve.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commission a question because Parliament is continually put off with promises of a White Paper on liability, that is, with a horizontal solution.
We, the European Parliament, have taken an initiative and have been waiting for a regulation of this kind for years.
I would like to ask the Commissioner - he sits in the Commission after all and must know how difficult it is there - when, in his opinion, there will be a regulation.
My second question is also based on this: Commissioner, do you believe that the fact that the taxpayer - that is, the general public - must now take responsibility for possible damage is compatible with the responsibility of industry and science?
Mr President, we are consulting at the moment with interested parties and hope to put something forward this year.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Humane trapping
The next item is the report (A4-0197/98) by Mr Pimenta, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the signing and conclusion of an International Agreement in the form of Agreed Minute between the European Community and the United States of America on humane trapping standards (COM(97)0726 - C4-0014/98-97/0360(CNS)).
Regrettably, Mr Pimenta cannot be here.
Mrs Banotti is speaking in his place.
Mr President, you might be interested to know why Mr Pimenta invited me to present his report this evening.
I have the doubtful honour of being the original rapporteur on the prohibition of the importation of furs caught with leghold traps.
I have kept a watching brief on the issue ever since. And very nasty things they are, too.
I received several of them through my mailbox when I was rapporteur.
I hope Mr Pimenta did not have the same problem when he took over the report.
We have already discussed at length the arrangements between the Canadian and Russian Governments in relation to this.
Mr Pimenta believes that the American authorities are attempting to get round the leghold trap Regulation 3254/91 on the grounds that they have legislation on humane trapping already in existence.
He does not believe this is correct.
The central focus of the regulation is the prohibition of leghold traps.
The Canadian and Russian commitment to ban so-called conventional leghold traps is at least unconditional.
But the same cannot be said for the US which has only offered a six-year phase-in period that is subject to some substantial derogations.
These derogations are specified in sections 423 and 424 of the standards.
Although this text is similar to the text incorporated in the agreement with Canada and Russia, the US commitment on leghold traps is pursuant to the standards, that is, it is conditional.
That is in addition to the fact that it has demanded a longer phase-in period.
In October the US undertook to phase out the use of conventional leghold traps within four years subject to the existence of 'viable replacement traps' .
This proviso was removed from the December text.
The whole episode has immediate consequences for animal welfare where many millions of animals will continue to be subjected to the indiscriminate cruelty of leghold traps for many years to come, perhaps even resulting in some forms of these traps being inappropriately classified as humane.
It also reveals much of the inadequacy of the present EU strategy on matters relating to the WTO.
In a choice between fulfilling their legal obligation to implement Community legislation and responding to a possible breach of WTO rules, the Commission and Council opted to ignore their statutory EU obligations in favour of WTO considerations.
The Commission and Council repeatedly chose to ignore the opinion of the European Parliament, including its many constructive proposals to balance the various interests: for example, to ensure the proportionality of trade measures and to take account of the interests of native people.
At the same time, and despite a range of related problems also including cosmetic testing and farm animal husbandry, the Commission has failed to present any formal analysis or proposals on how to approach or resolve the complex issue of trade and animal welfare: for example, with respect to utilization or modification of the existing Article XX exceptions within the WTO rules.
The Commission has similarly failed to raise these concerns in Geneva or to support the development of a high-level dialogue on the subject, an idea first proposed at the Globe Symposium held in 1996.
Regrettably the Commission has also shown no willingness to engage in a debate to enable appropriate and legitimate distinctions to be made between products on the basis of their method of production - an issue which is of central importance both to animal welfare and to the progress of the trade and environmental debate.
That is why Mr Pimenta, as rapporteur, is asking Parliament to reject the proposed agreement.
Mr President, you can beat your head against the wall in many different ways.
This has been evident on a number of occasions when Parliament has expressed its opinion on agreements dealing with painless animal traps.
On the basis of Mr Pimenta's report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has now recommended the rejection of the agreement, initially drawn up with Canada and Russia, and now with the USA.
This is the way Parliament has gone, then.
The Commission has thus listened to Parliament, but has implemented - and may now, on the Council's recommendation, implement - the agreement they negotiated.
A good thing is not always the best thing.
This old Finnish saying is obviously unknown to Mr Pimenta, the Committee responsible or Parliament generally.
We set our sights on traps inflicting absolutely no pain.
However, no-one has come up with a system that does not cause at least some pain.
The agreements have been a clear step forward.
Their rejection logically signifies the continuation of the present pain-inflicting system of trapping animals.
The REX Committee has unanimously taken a positive stand on the agreement that is to be discussed.
When, furthermore, the USA is involved, as the latest party to the agreement, this view is well justified.
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that we will not be beating our heads against the wall yet again.
I hope that Parliament will take a step forward in this matter.
It will not be perfect, but striving for perfection is a good way of achieving nothing at all.
The agreement should thus be approved, contrary to the opinion of the responsible Committee.
Mr President, this is hopefully the last sad episode in the sorry saga of the leghold trap, where we have seen the strongly held view of the Parliament, elected by the people of Europe, overruled by the Commission in the interests of international trade deals.
The victims are the fur-bearing animals of North America, Canada and Russia who are cruelly killed so that rich women in the West can wear their skins.
There is no justification for this.
The Socialist Group fully endorses, as before, Mr Pimenta's excellent report calling for a rejection of the agreement on the grounds clearly set out in his report.
The agreements were wrong before, they are still wrong and we see no reason to change our mind.
This agreement with the USA suffers from the same deficiencies as those we previously rejected with Canada and Russia, and it is even weaker as Mr Pimenta shows in his report.
It is also unlikely that it can be monitored and properly implemented because the powers vested in the state governments in the United States, who are not signatory to the agreements, mean that they will not properly implement it.
We believe that the Commission has taken the wrong path since it refused to implement the regulation of 1991 at its due date of 1996.
We intend to stick to our guns because we believe that we are right and we can only hope that this unsatisfactory situation does not occur again.
We also hope that it will underline the need to strengthen Article 20 of the GATT.
It is outrageous that European legislation is being corrupted in this way.
I do not believe that these weak agreements will prevent one single bit of cruelty to fur-bearing animals, and therefore they defeat the very purpose of their existence.
Mr President, the entire leghold trap affair is becoming increasingly ridiculous.
I might just as well have repeated what I said here two years ago.
It looks like a never-ending story, because this agreement between the Union and the United States is even worse than the agreement we also rejected between the Union and Canada and Russia.
Whilst Canada and Russia had at least promised to implement the ban on so-called conventional leghold traps, the same can in no way be said of the United States.
They have merely offered to phase out gradually the leghold trap over a period of six years, and in addition have stipulated quite a number of derogations.
This agreement is decidedly insufficient, and must therefore be rejected.
The entire affair is a serious demonstration of the fact that present EU strategy on issues relating to the WTO is totally unsuitable.
It is a real scandal that the Council and the Commission have laid aside the positions they had taken earlier, and agreed to an even weaker proposal in order to escape a possible conflict with the WTO.
It is extremely alarming to see how easily the Council and the Commission lay aside EU legislation.
The European Parliament has repeatedly pointed out that the 1991 regulation, which totally prohibits the use of the leghold trap, must be implemented.
Unfortunately, the Council and the Commission have completely ignored this Parliament's positions.
The entire affair is a serious undermining of EU legislation, and also undermines European democracy.
But even more serious are the consequences for the well-being of animals, because millions of animals will continue to die a cruel death in these leghold traps.
Mr President, when discussing humane trapping it is important to note first that the whole course of events is a drama in several scandalous acts.
First I would like to remind you of Regulation 3254/91, which goes back to 1991, and which states that from 1 January 1996 the furs of animals caught using leghold traps should no longer be imported into the EU.
The Commission, together with the Council, simply did not enact any implementing rule and thus sacrificed an EU law which now simply does not exist. If we look more closely, we find that it was sacrificed on the altar of the WTO.
Secondly, the title: "Humane trapping' .
There is no such thing as humane trapping using any kind of traps!
We are simply deceiving ourselves if we say such a thing.
To the animals which die a wretched death it is completely irrelevant which type of trap is used.
We must finally learn that animals are living creatures and not commodities.
This way of thinking is positively mediaeval. Yet we are now approaching the year 2000 and still think in this way.
Thirdly, the critical point: this agreement with the USA.
The agreements with Canada and Russia were very rough, in the true sense of the word.
But this overshadows everything else.
There are long transitional phases, there are no legal norms whatsoever and it is not at all clear when it will no longer be permitted to trap animals with this kind of trap.
In addition, it is contempt of Parliament, since we were elected by millions of citizens and are their representatives. And the people do not want any more leghold traps.
For this simple reason we will of course approve Mr Pimenta's report, and completely reject all existing agreements and the Commission's entire course of action.
Mr President, most of us on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection agree with Mr Pimenta's report, which again criticizes this proposal because of the lack of participation not just of NGO but also of some of the countries involved in this matter.
So we completely agree with Mr Pimenta's proposal to reject the proposed agreement as totally inadequate, to ban fur imports without further delay, and above all to encourage the participation of native peoples.
At no time during the debate on this matter in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection did we forget the rights of native peoples, who have been hunting for many years and do not kill animals in a cruel manner, unlike other countries which tend towards that sort of behaviour.
I am particularly interested in this subject because I live in Asturias, a region in northern Spain which has perhaps the most important surviving population of brown bears - 80 individuals.
During the last 20 days, three brown bears have died.
The investigation has not yet been completed, but the suspicion is that an adult animal - especially important for the conservation of the species - died because poachers had set a trap for other animals.
And that is what tends to happen when traps are set which can affect animals threatened with extinction.
So, Mr President, we are going to support Mr Pimenta's report.
We think it is time to make a final decision and pay no more attention to commercial interests.
And we hope it is approved by a large majority in the House, as it was in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, will the European Union be able to ensure that the ban on importing fur from animals captured in leghold traps is respected throughout its territory?
Our debate is just one in a long series of debates, and I hope Parliament will be able to show itself to be logical and consistent with the previous positions it has taken.
I am one of those people who, up until now, have preferred to show understanding and moderation with respect to the Commission's positions, which were in fact often adopted unilaterally.
I accepted, although certainly with some reluctance, that the need to reach an agreement meant prolonging negotiations for a year.
I believed too that the agreements with Canada and Russia were undoubtedly a stopgap measure, but at least they had the advantage of bringing the negotiations out of the deadlock they had reached.
Having said that, goodwill has its limits and the agreement with the United States which you are proposing to us today, Commissioner, is entirely unacceptable.
I thus share the opinion of our rapporteur, and I congratulate him on the quality of his work.
In fact, this agreement lags far behind in relation to the agreement between the European Union, Canada and Russia, which is itself limited.
The number of derogations and the six-year application period do not augur well.
Moreover, it is not unreasonable to doubt the will and the ability of the American authorities to impose this agreement on its own states.
These are some of the many questions to which we have no answer.
We must therefore ask, along with Mr Pimenta, that this agreement with the United States be rejected.
Furthermore, the debate must be put into context and we must take account of the fact that as well as the problem of leghold traps, this is a question of the European Union's ability to stand up to pressure from the WTO.
The Commission should be aware of the consequences of the agreements it plans to approve.
And we must regret once more that it is presenting Parliament with a fait accompli .
In addition, it is forcing Parliament to renounce fundamental principles.
Today, it is the protection of the environment which is at issue; tomorrow, it will be social clauses or our culture which will be harmed.
Mr President, by way of introduction I would like to say that safeguarding animal welfare is indeed paramount.
And that is precisely why I cannot support Mr Pimenta's rejection of the proposal for an agreement with the USA.
I believe we should recommend the agreement and the REX Committee.
Firstly, before the agreement can be rejected, the alternative to the agreement must be assessed realistically.
Secondly, the consequences of the agreement in the USA and, of course, in the EU must be considered.
And thirdly, the ongoing prospects of developing better, more humane traps need to be considered.
The alternative to the agreement with the USA is not some other agreement with better standards. So it is not a good idea to revert to the Council decision concerning the banning of leghold traps.
Mrs Pollack used the word 'insulting' , and this is the crux of the matter.
The European Parliament is insulted because it wanted the 1991 resolution to be upheld, even though - as far as I can see - the agreements with Russia, Canada and the USA would serve to improve animal welfare.
Why? The resolution on banning leghold traps is very limited.
It applies only to 13 species, as opposed to the 19 covered by the new agreement.
It does not ban the use of leghold traps, but only the import of pelts, and in the main, this resolution only covers this one method of trapping.
As I have stated before, it is hypocritical to focus on this one - albeit barbaric - trapping method, while traps that are no less cruel are used within the EU.
That - not more stringent requirements for traps - is the alternative to the agreements with Russia, Canada and now also the USA.
EU fur exports to the USA are currently twice as much as imports from the USA.
This is an important point, because it shows that we should be focusing more on the standards applicable to trapping in Europe.
The agreement that has just been established will actually raise standards in several EU countries.
Perhaps we should begin there instead of scoring cheap animal welfare points at the expense of hunters in the USA.
Finally - and perhaps most significantly - the agreement makes financial provision for research into better traps.
In other words, what we have is an agreement bringing in concrete standards for traps and a programme for improving the existing traps.
That has to be better than an import ban, a case with the WTO and European hunters failing to live up to the standards.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as regards this draft agreement between the United States and the European Union, we all fully share the rapporteur's opinion that it should be rejected.
In fact, in terms of this question of leghold traps which has already gone on for a long time, the agreements reached with Canada and the United States have never really received the approval of the European Parliament.
They were, however, superior to this one.
Three elements demonstrate the extent to which it is difficult to conduct truly fair diplomatic negotiations with the United States.
Firstly, the Americans have become accustomed - and it is once again the case in this agreement - to evoking their internal constitutional provisions in accordance with which, in many fields including this one, it is actually the federal states, and not the federal government, which are responsible. This allows them, at the time of the application of the agreement, to challenge to some extent the signature appended at the federal level.
They have already done the same for other unrelated issues, such as the international market in electrical engineering, and this shows that there really is inequality in the agreements we sign with the United States.
Secondly, the US rejects the dispute settlement procedure and confines itself to a simple consultation mechanism, which is obviously insufficient.
Finally, the periods of time agreed with the United States for the elimination of leghold traps are becoming longer and longer, which means that the very content of the agreement is called into question.
Therefore, as far as the substance is concerned, we would like to see the disappearance of all of these traps; however, further to the matter under debate here, there is a problem of principle in relation to the agreements approved between the United States and the European Union.
We talked in the past about "unequal' agreements concluded between China and the European powers.
We often have the feeling that it is also a matter of unequal agreements when the United States and the European Union come into conflict.
Mr President, naturally no-one can sympathize with the idea or practice of barbarous methods, of cruel methods of torture, in the hunting of fur-bearing animals.
But I see that several of my colleagues show such excessive sensitivity that, if they continue in this direction, looking for the ideal solution, in other words the abolition of hunting fur-bearing animals, we will arrive at an unacceptable impasse.
From this viewpoint, we feel that the agreements with Russia and Canada, while they do not provide the ideal solution, nevertheless give a positive thrust to the matter by prohibiting leghold traps and any other methods of hunting which are unnecessarily cruel.
As a result, we think that these agreements offer scope and that they can be improved and extended by means of steadfast negotiations with the United States.
On the other hand, we believe that the more stringent these measures are, the more likely it is that they will be violated.
Past experience shows that no very stringent law has remained inviolate; on the contrary, such laws have invariably given birth to a variety of other ways, some of them criminal, of being violated.
However, there is another aspect that I wish to talk about: sensitivity towards animals is justified but there must also be sensitivity towards native peoples. Thousands of people earn a living from treating and trading in fur.
As an example I shall take north-eastern Greece, around Kastoria. Hundreds of small businesses exist thanks to the treatment, trade and sale of fur, and thousands of people have satisfactory employment.
As a result, we cannot ignore such vital aspects of the matter.
Finally, in order to ensure that such species do not disappear, I think that as well as restricting their cruel hunting, it is possible at both a Community and a national level to promote reserves, by means of subsidies and other measures. There could be reserves at a Community level and national parks, which would make it easy to propagate those species which are fur-bearing and, indeed, exceedingly fur-bearing.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Pimenta for this excellent new report on this matter.
It has turned into a novel, a thriller, a thriller about leghold traps and 13 animal species.
Let me remind you what this is all about. Animals are trapped, their bones broken, their tendons torn.
They try to break free.
With their own jaws they break their own bones.
They tear their own flesh.
They eat their own paws to try to get free. They drag themselves through the snow, leaving a trail behind them, which if I may say so, makes them easy to track.
For years, since the 1991 regulation, we have been trying to ban this monstrosity.
Every year, the European Commission tells us: "another short delay, Mr Torturer, just a little more time' .
We have been told that we should not disturb the Inuit people, as if traditional Inuit fishermen, since the beginning of time, used steel leghold traps.
We are now being told that we should not disturb the World Trade Organization and that a panel is to be consulted, as for bananas and as for hormone derived meat.
The Geneva panel is now becoming the divine help.
We concluded an agreement with the United States in December 1997, just as we had concluded an agreement with Canada and Russia in July 1997.
Obviously, no funds are being made available; it is simply a matter of an agreed minute, like with the Blair House agreement, which the Commission representative is very familiar with.
We are in fact reliving the whole Blair House situation and we are being told that the legal scope of the agreement is very limited, due to the federal structure of the United States which means that the states involved disregard what takes place in Washington.
As regards the substance, the Commission is happy; it obtains a further delay of three to five additional years, with the United States simply proposing to us that they go even further in this unacceptable situation, in this monstrosity.
The most important thing about this matter is that it is symbolic.
As with bananas, cheese manufactured from raw milk, and hormone derived meat and milk, we are giving in, as we have done every time, to the United States.
I repeat, Mr President, and I will finish with this, that as regards the Helms-Burton or d'Amato acts, the United States did not pay as much attention to our concerns as we are paying to theirs.
As far as we are concerned, we agree with Mr Pimenta's position, which if I may say so, is the only possible position when discussing animals, humanity and dignity.
Mr President, I would like to say that I agree with the report.
The thinking behind this report is quite clear because, as everyone knows who has constituents who have written to them and informed them about this barbarous practice and as previous speakers have mentioned, the barbarism which can occur so randomly and leave animals to suffer for so many days is quite clearly unacceptable in a civilized world.
Many people in the UK put their name down to questionnaires sent to me and it is quite clear from deputations of others in the UK that they feel extremely strongly on this issue as with other issues of animal welfare.
Europe is one of the major consumers of the fur pelt trade - something like 70 % of which ends up within the European Union.
It is quite clear that as consumers we have a very strong and authoritative voice on this issue.
I believe the Commission has been wrong not to challenge the WTO more strongly on the grounds of the ethicality of the environmental, welfare and social issues.
I think that there can be a stronger voice.
I know that Sir Leon in particular has made strenuous efforts to bring a balance to world trade from the Commission's point of view.
There are some lines which we cannot step over: not just in this instance but also with regard to aspects of asbestos, for example, which threatens hormones in beef.
It is quite clear to my mind and to others in this Parliament that when we choose to reject what is occurring in terms of the deals which are being struck in Europe's name, when we are speaking for the people, our views should be respected and people should be brought to understand that in that respect, and that respect alone, we cannot renege on the issues which Parliament discusses and puts before you, Sir Leon.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Agreement with Guinea on fishing
The next item is the report (A4-0178/98) by Mr Girão Pereira, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing the fishing possibilities and the financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the European Community and the Government of the Republic of Guinea on fishing off the Guinean coast for the period 1 January 1998 to 31 December 1999 (COM(98)0129 - C4-0245/98-98/0086(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, over the last few years the Commission has brought proposals to the Council and Parliament to enter into fishing agreements with non-EU countries, opening up the possibility of keeping Member States' fleets active in the face of a growing shortage of fish stocks in the waters of the Union.
The agreement with Guinea is thus in line with that policy, which we consider appropriate and obviously support in the light of the importance of fishing to some of our coastal regions, to industry and to the market itself.
Our relations with Guinea in that sector already go back to 1986.
This, therefore, is a matter of renewing a pre-existing agreement for the period from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 1999.
It is important to highlight some of its most significant aspects.
The financial compensation has been substantially increased, but there is also an increase in fishing opportunities as a result of the greater number of vessels that can operate in those areas.
Another aspect it is important to emphasize, and an innovative one, is that approximately 50 % of the overall financial compensation is allocated to specific aid to the Guinean fishing industry, particularly in terms of scientific programmes, technical and professional training schemes, support schemes for the bodies responsible for the surveillance and supervision of fishing activities and artisanal fishermen's support schemes.
Furthermore, these financial aid schemes have been extended to include some devices for proper resource management, inasmuch as it is stipulated that any vessel operating in the area must have an observer aboard to keep an eye on her fishing activities and gather statistical information on catches.
In addition - and this is a major innovation - I have to inform you that the Guinean Ministry of Fisheries is under an obligation to send the Commission an annual report on the scientific and technical actions it is taking to increase its knowledge of fish stocks.
An even more important aspect is that payment of the financial compensation is dependent on the effective implementation of those actions in connection with the development of local fisheries and the conservation of resources.
This is explicitly stipulated in the final part of Article 4 of the protocol.
This is why I am presenting Amendment No 5, which seems more allembracing to me than the one from the Committee on Fisheries, because it invokes that clause of the protocol and the European Parliament's right to inspect the reports referred to in it.
For these reasons, it can be seen that the contents of this report conform to the guidelines laid down by the Council at its meeting of 30 October 1997, according to which approximately half the Community finance ought to be dedicated to objectives specifically aimed at improving the fisheries situation.
Furthermore, it incorporates and puts into practice many of the Commission's recommendations for development and cooperation. The Commission has always insisted that a development aspect should be included in agreements of this type.
Because of the importance of this agreement to the European Union's fishing industry, and because of its innovative measures, we believe it will receive this House's unanimous support.
Mr President, as far as I am concerned, there are some difficulties with this agreement.
First of all, there is the problem with the number of fishing boats: 74 compared with the 43 allowed in the previous agreement.
Furthermore, the agreement was initialled by the Commission without first consulting Parliament for an opinion, which is why I agree with the rapporteur who maintains that Parliament must be informed and that the protocol must be observed.
In addition to these aspects, there are problems especially with monitoring fishing activities within 10 miles.
This fishing would conflict greatly with the interests of the 100 000 or so artisanal fishermen who operate in this country and who have repeatedly protested to the European Union and to the local authorities about this.
Also, the financial compensation proposed for artisanal fishermen has been greatly reduced in relation to the overall amount of ECU 6.5 million: only ECU 320 000 in assistance for artisanal fishing compared with the ECU 800 000 for the ministry and the ECU 800 000 for monitoring and surveillance.
The fishing vessels, of which there are exactly 74 - and 33 of these have seine nets which are very harmful and also create a lot of difficulties - only pay ECU 20 per tonne, which is practically 40 000 lira per 10 quintal tonnes: a truly insignificant figure.
However, having said that we realize that this agreement has been initialled, we realize that it has to be submitted for verification, but we undoubtedly hope that in future international agreements will grant at least equal treatment to third country resources.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Girão Pereira on his report. It follows the European Parliament's traditional line on fishing agreements.
It is a very clear report and I should like to support everything it says, on behalf of my group.
In essence I think it is an agreement which contains some innovations, because we are basically trying to put into practice an old principle we always follow in this House, according to which money and financial compensation paid by the European Union should benefit the fishing industry in the countries with which we enter into agreements, and I therefore think our argument that at least half the Community financial compensation should benefit local fisheries is correct.
At least, I think, this is a start.
Obviously, it would be nice if the principle were applied to the whole of the compensation, but we are in a delicate area where there is a danger of interfering with the sovereignty of each of the countries in question.
In the case of the Guinean agreement, there is in fact an increase in cost, but also a corresponding increase in fish, so there is an objective balancing factor.
There are also some other interesting points which deserve our commendation, such as for example an increase in the funds dedicated partly to research and partly to the actual administrative organization of that country's Ministry of Fisheries.
We support this report and congratulate the rapporteur once again on his work.
Mr President, as we have seen from the tone of the previous speeches, in general both the rapporteur and the two speakers stress the positive aspects of this agreement, which is in line with the new Community fisheries policy.
It is not a question of pillaging existing fisheries resources.
It is a question, firstly, of helping these developing countries to conserve their own resources. The European Community contributes the financial means for that, helping them, for example, to monitor fishing.
Secondly, by means of financial compensation to these countries, we contribute to their actual economic development. In other words, on the one hand the European Community facilitates the action of Community fishermen who, as we know, have problems in a great many sites, and on the other hand it promotes fishing, but conserving resources rather than compromising their continued existence.
I believe the budgetary increase which has been made is justified within this new Community policy, and will prove to be to the advantage both of the people of the African countries and the people of the EU itself, and of the preservation of fisheries resources in general.
So from my point of view, like the previous speakers, I think Parliament should approve the text as it stands, with the amendments approved by the Committee on Fisheries, and also Mr Girão Pereira's Amendment No 5.
On the other hand, I am completely opposed to Amendment No 6 tabled by Mr Teverson.
This would introduce an excessively negative limitation, which would prove too much of a burden for subsequent fishing agreements.
Mr President, Mr Girão Pereira's report on the fishing agreement with Guinea, on which I congratulate him, very clearly shows that people are wrong to say that fishing agreements are a means for the Community fleet to exploit the resources of third countries in an uncontrolled manner, without contributing any benefit.
As if the agreements with Argentina, Morocco or Mauritania were not enough to show how Community fishing activities have contributed to the development of this sector in third countries, the new protocol with Guinea clearly shows the benefits a coastal country can gain from a fishing agreement with the Community. These benefits are at least comparable to, if not greater than, the contributions from the specific development policy, despite the fact that, in this case, we are talking about simple trade agreements.
As has been said, the increase of more than 50 % in the financial compensation is extraordinarily significant, but the way it is to be distributed is even more important.
In fact, practically half of the ECU 6.5 million which will be paid to Guinea is directed towards improving training and stimulating Guinean fishing.
Of particular note are the increases to improve surveillance, which have doubled in relation to the previous protocol, and ECU 320 000 to support artisanal fisheries, representing an increase of a third with respect to the previous protocol.
Thanks to this sort of help, Guinea has managed to sign fishing agreements with China and Korea, guaranteeing resources in a way which would have been unthinkable without the knowledge of fishing grounds and international conservation regulations to which Guinean society has gained access thanks to the Community's financial compensation.
Also, as Mr Girão Pereira rightly notes, we need to stress that, as a new feature, the Guinean authorities will have to report to the European Union to show that the funds have been allocated to actions related to the development of local fishing grounds and the conservation of resources. Compliance is strictly linked to the payment of the financial compensation.
Therefore, like the rest of my group, I shall be supporting Mr Girão Pereira's report.
Mr President, it is rather strange that everybody is emphasizing what good developmental aspects these reports have for the fishing industry of Guinea, in this case, and for other countries as well.
I like that: I have always argued that they should have.
There has been a great improvement in these reports, particularly perhaps since the actions of the Dutch presidency and the taking on board by the Commissioner responsible of my report last year.
So things are getting better, but still there is a problem with regard to consultation with the European Parliament.
The Commission does not consult us early enough. The Council has some responsibility in this too.
This is pointed out by the Committee on Budgets in no uncertain terms in its opinion on this report.
However, we have had to say it over and over again.
There have been advances: a lot more resources are devoted to the artisanal fisheries, to improving the fisheries of Guinea and so on, in all sorts of ways that have been mentioned before.
I hope the Guineans have the resources to monitor what is happening when the EU fleet is there.
I also like the proposal - though perhaps it is not enough - that some of the catch should compulsorily be landed in Guinea for the food supply of the Guinean population.
This is very important.
But it is sad that a 10-mile limit was agreed upon when neighbouring states have 12 miles, which seems to be fairly standard.
Finally, I support the Committee on Development and Cooperation's opinion that it would be useful if the European Commission could negotiate regional agreements to cover areas like Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, and so on.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the honourable gentleman for his excellent report on the new terms and conditions for fishing by the Community fleet in the waters off Guinea.
We consider that these new terms are likely to ensure a more effective implementation of the agreement in line with the basic principles of the conservation of resources.
With this protocol, the Commission recognizes the action taken since 1996 by the Guinean Government to ensure overall control of access stocks and to develop the battle against illegal fishing and marine research.
This new and positive climate, which is recognized by Community shipowners, has led to fishery resources in the area having improved and a renewed interest in Community fishermen in Guinean waters, which provide an important potential for the Community fleet.
The Commission also considers that this new protocol with Guinea contains major innovations aimed in particular at promoting sustainable fishing, while being compatible with both the development policy and the Union's regional approach to fisheries agreements.
The protocol marks significant progress in our regional approach and that is reflected in a harmonization of the financial terms offered by the Community to the various countries in the subregion.
In addition, the technical provisions on fishing activities have been brought into line with the rules in force in the countries belonging to the Subregional Commission for Fishing in the Gulf of Guinea.
The protocol allocates 50 % of the overall financial provision - that is to say ECU 3.25 million - over two years to schemes designed to promote marine research, the monitoring of fisheries to support small-scale fishing and training facilities and to contribute to international fisheries organizations.
The scale of this support will give Guinea the means of taking part in the subregional programmes for managing resources.
Guinea attaches great importance to that because this year it holds the chairmanship of two regional fisheries commissions: the Subregional Commission for Fishing off the Gulf of Guinea and the Ministerial Conference of Atlantic Coastal States.
The protocol provides for close cooperation between the two parties in managing the schemes and gives us the possibility of reviewing payments involved in the light of how it is implemented.
Turning to the amendments proposed, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 4 since that goes against established doctrines regarding the nature of our international fisheries agreements and would adversely affect the powers of the Commission to conduct negotiations.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5 in principle, if not in their present form.
I should stress, however, that the Commission already gives regular information to Parliament as to the use made of fisheries agreements in its statements and reports to the Committee on Fisheries.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 6, given that fisheries agreements are concluded on a Community level and therefore it is the Commission that pays the financial compensation and the vessels fishing in these waters that pay the licence fees.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 7.50 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on the question of Sellafield and the contamination of the Irish Sea, I did not say that the article was edited, but completely excised, at the request, I believe of the nuclear industry, specifically British Nuclear Fuels Limited.
I want to draw Members' attention to the fact that I will be distributing that article today for their information.
Mr President, my point of order relates to the trunks that are provided by Parliament for Members' use.
They enable Members to move their papers between Brussels and Strasbourg.
In approximately two hours' time, I am due to present the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy regarding the Cunha report.
But the trunk containing all my papers has been left behind in Brussels, in the corridors of D3.
I do not wish to bore you with endless complaints about the incompetence of the removal services. I have however noticed that there are a number of other recurring problems at the Brussels offices, relating to the lifts and cloakrooms, etcetera.
And this is the last straw.
What I should like to know, Mr President, is how Members are expected to fulfil their obligations, without files, papers, or the bare essentials they need in order to carry out their duties?
This is a consequence of having three separate places of work.
I suggest you write to the President raising this matter.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Decision on urgency
Mr President, the overwhelming majority of the Socialist Group will vote for this request to apply the urgent procedure.
It was on 17 February 1997 that the Commission's document of options to reform the olive oil sector was presented, and the compromise resolution named after Mr Jové Peres was adopted in December.
The European Parliament has therefore certainly had ample opportunity to give its opinion on this matter!
Moreover, the Commission's current proposal, Mr President, does no more than take on board most of the points of the resolution by Mr Jové Peres, demonstrating that the Parliament's pressure has served to condition the Commission's basic guidelines.
I should not be the one to say it, considering that I voted against this resolution. Rather, it should be the rapporteur, and it is absurd, in my view, that he did not do it in committee.
The point is that, despite what has been written, there is a country, the leading producer, that does not want to hear about any reform, that has chosen the road of protest from which there is no way out and unconditional and unlimited postponement.
The beginning of the next marketing year has been set at 1 November. Therefore decisions have to be made quickly, and I believe that there are a few absurdities that have to be quickly corrected.
One of these absurdities is a guaranteed maximum quota for the Community as a whole, which results in the absurd situation of a substantial cut in aid for producers of those countries that have not increased production, only because another country has produced excess quantities.
In no organization of the market is there a mechanism this unfair.
If we do not find a remedy for this, Mr President, I think that we will all be overwhelmed with protests from producers and that we will very quickly be asked to account for our short-sightedness.
In committee, the rapporteur refused to commit himself to any deadline for his report, even when our group made very reasonable proposals.
Urgency is also the only way to enable the President-in-Office, Mr Cunningham, to conclude the commendable inquiry that has been conducted in a difficult climate and to give producers a positive and definite answer.
I think the President is mistaken.
I asked to speak first because I wished to inform the House, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, that on 19 May the Committee approved the treatment of this issue as an urgency by 27 votes to 17.
That is what I wanted to say at the outset, before other Members are invited to speak for or against the motion.
Mr President, I am speaking because it is my dubious privilege to be the oldest member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, since the committee chairman, Mr Rocard, and the vice-chairmen cannot be with us at the moment, for various reasons.
And I can inform you that the Committee on Development and Cooperation has studied this request for urgent procedure and has agreed almost unanimously in its favour, with the exception of just one political group.
So, if the request is approved, the Committee on Development and Cooperation will meet this evening at 5.30 p.m. to vote on Mr Liese's report and the amendments to the Commission text.
(Parliament approved urgent procedure)
Mr President, the reason we requested agreement to approve urgent procedure in this matter, and the Committee adopted it, is that we have to debate agricultural prices in this part-session, and we have always demanded that that debate should include the set-aside requirement.
(Parliament approved urgent procedure)
Agricultural prices - common organization of the market in raw tobacco
The next item is the joint debate on two reports on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development:
A4-0216/98 by Mr des Places, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposals for 18 Council Regulations on the prices for agricultural products and on related measures (1998-1999) (COM(98)0051 - C4-0084 to C4-0101/98-98/0034(CNS) to 98/0049/CNS, 98/0805 (CNS) and 98/0806(CNS)-A4-0218/98 by Mr Rosado Fernandes, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2075/92 on the common organization of the market in raw tobacco (COM(98)0019 - C4-0185/98-98/0027(CNS))
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I should like to thank all the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their proposals and contributions during our various discussions, and for their amendments.
They have in general supported me, and I should therefore like to thank them for this.
As far as the prices package for the 1998-1999 agricultural year is concerned, the roll-over of prices and compensatory aids will come as a surprise to no one. They are the same, with a few exceptions, as in preceding years, the same as presented by Mr Sturdy, not to mention the same as in 1993, ever since the reform of the common agricultural policy.
The prices package clearly has no great claim to imagination, Commissioner.
But this is perhaps due to the important dates which lie ahead: the reform of the common agricultural policy, with a view to the WTO negotiations in 2003; the reform of the Structural Funds in 1999 envisaged by Agenda 2000; enlargement to include certain Eastern European countries in the year 2000; the changeover by some countries to the euro, and even the exchange rate of the euro against the ECU, which also raises the problem of the "green' ECU; and finally, the euro/dollar parity because, as I would like to point out, world market prices for the large agricultural product areas are set in dollars, on the basis of the Chicago futures market.
Unless of course, Commissioner, it would be possible to set up a European futures market for agricultural products, based near the European Central Bank, that is, in Frankfurt.
All this, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, will take place within a rigorous budgetary framework set until 2006, in which the financial resources of the European Union will never exceed a ceiling of 1.27 % of its GNP. The financial resources available for the common agricultural policy are therefore limited.
Now I should like to say a few words about the budget situation in 1999.
The provisional estimate for the 1999 agricultural guideline is about ECU 45.2 billion, that is an increase of approximately 1.9 billion, or 4.5 % in comparison with 1998.
The budgetary authority adopted the principle of limiting expenditure, during the 1997 and 1998 budget procedures, by voting budgets significantly lower than the preliminary draft budgets drawn up by its departments.
The Commission considers that this climate of budgetary restraint in the Member States should continue in 1999, the year of the introduction of the euro.
Within this specific budgetary context, the Commission is proposing a prices package which increases agricultural spending by ECU 9 million under the 1998 budget and ECU 29 million under the 1999 budget.
It should be noted here that this increase at current rates amounts, in real terms and at constant prices, to a reduction of about 2 % in prices and compensatory aids.
On this particular point, I have tabled a series of amendments, which aim to update agricultural prices and compensatory aids in order to redress the effect of monetary erosion.
With regard to the budget, I understand from the memorandum of 10 June 1998 on the early warning system, that there is a difference of almost ECU 1.1 billion between the implementation of the EAGGF Guarantee appropriations and the indicator of consumption.
This reduction, caused by monetary erosion, will be accompanied by another reduction in prices and compensatory aids of about 2 %, according to estimates, which will be caused by the disappearance of the green ECU with the introduction of the euro.
The Committee on Agriculture has adopted my amendments regarding the creation of an adjustment coefficient with a view to maintaining equitable levels of income between farmers in all European Union Member States in order to compensate for the possible disappearance of the green rate on 1 January 1999 for the Member States participating in the single currency.
I should like to point out here that some applications show that a 1 % difference in the values of the green ECU and the euro is equivalent to ECU 400 million.
The Commission's proposal on the prices package has a number of deficiencies.
First of all, the set-aside rate.
Earlier this morning, we voted on a request for urgent procedure with regard to the Commission's proposal on the set-aside requirement.
I am delighted that the Commission has responded to our request to establish a set-aside rate by the end of June 1998, in compliance with an amendment adopted by the Committee on Agriculture.
The proposal, which consists of implementing the principle of an extraordinary set-aside and raising the set-aside rate to 10 %, is totally unacceptable.
Farmers should not have to bear the cost of errors made by the Commission in its management of the markets, which will lead to a 20-25 % increase in stocks carried over.
Since July 1997 the Commission seems to have been adopting a rather risky approach to its management of cereals exports, with the tax on wheat exports when the European price was below the world market price, abandonment to the competitors of the Saudi market for barley and prolonged delays at the start of the agricultural year, all of which has now led to the risk of a very sharp increase in European stocks.
If the current delay in export commitments, 4.5 million tonnes less than in 1997 at the same period - 8 million tonnes less than the normal pattern -, is not reabsorbed, the European Union could find itself in the position, on 30 June 1998, of having about 30 million tonnes of cereals as opposed to 28 million tonnes on 30 June 1997.
And yet, Commissioner, the volume of our exports is less than 25 million tonnes, although the WTO ceiling allows exports of 30 tonnes, plus the carry-over from previous years.
Furthermore, producers do not understand why it should be necessary to impose more set-asides, when they are being asked to accept further proposed price reductions for next year, to enable them to sell and produce more.
I should like to reiterate that the set-aside rate affects the budget as well as farmers' incomes.
And under these circumstances, I am delighted that we may be able to adopt both the prices package and the set-aside rate, during the same part-session.
Now I would like to say something on the subject of wine.
Unlike other major agricultural product areas, the common organization of the market in wine has not been reformed for 15 years.
The reform is in progress and should be presented to us this week.
In any case, it will not be applicable to the marketing year 1998/99.
In its price proposals the Commission provides for an extension of the quota for permanent grubbing up of vines, while failing to create a quota for new plantings.
This provision on new plantings allows the most dynamic wine growing regions to adapt supply to demand and to improve the quality of the vineyards.
I therefore tabled a number of amendments on this point, which were furthermore adopted by the Committee on Agriculture.
I will now turn to the subject of hemp. At the Council meeting in January 1997 the Commission undertook to propose stronger contractual arrangements with regard to hemp.
In June 1997 the Council asked the Commission to study the possibility of establishing compulsory contracts between hemp producers and processors.
Instead of putting forward such contractual arrangements as part of the prices package the Commission has merely lowered hemp prices by 25 %. The aim is to discourage producers, as the area given over to hemp production has increased from about 10 000 hectares in 1996 to 40 000 hectares in 1998.
I would like to stress that hemp is an agricultural crop, which requires specific investments by both farmers and processors.
The fibre produced from hemp is used in the industrial sector, for insulation and so on. It is therefore an agricultural product for non-food use.
The Commission's main proposals on beef and veal are as follows: extension of the reduction of national ceilings for premiums for male bovine animals. At Community level?
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, I am going to speak on a hot topic, smoke, or kapnos , as the Greeks say. Tobacco, we call it.
It is a hot topic, because it has provoked passionate reactions.
It is a hot topic, because it has provoked near-irrational reactions.
On the one hand false rationalism aimed at the expense it involves, and on the other pious words about the harm it does.
Health considerations and budgetary considerations have whipped this subject up into a cocktail of passions which the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has tried to modulate, maintaining an attitude in which its first concern is for the people who make their living by growing tobacco.
Obviously all those of us who have children are concerned that young people should not smoke.
We are all concerned that young people should not drink, but wine has to be produced...
We are all concerned that young people should not eat too much fat, or too much sugar, because all these things can affect our health, but there are pigmeat producers and sugar producers...
We all agree on that aspect of the matter.
With regard to the financial cost, the funds invested in tobacco growing, we know that around 600 000 people are involved in the industry, not to mention retailers, and we have of course seen the Committee on Budgets adopt a position which I jokingly referred to as 'Pope-like' , condemning the spending of money on tobacco growing as anathema.
Yet I know that same Committee voted against the purchase of scanners that could control the smuggling of tobacco products throughout the territory of Europe, in lorries and containers.
And I have no doubt, from the information I receive, that if those budgetary measures and controls were put into practice the money we would recover from fraud and organized crime would comfortably outweigh the money we spend on maintaining tobacco producers.
Then again, there is the Committee on the Environment.
That Committee is entitled to adopt whatever position it sees fit with regard to tobacco and other plants.
Yet in my judgment it often exceeds its powers, inasmuch as it tries to issue diktats on the ways in which agriculture should be reformed, the money that should be spent, the way people ought to behave.
The truth, let me say without wishing to offend anyone, is that at the beginning of the Iranian revolution - and you need only read an article published some time ago in the Economist , 'The Ayatollahs' - one of the first measures taken was to ban smoking throughout Iran.
I do not have to think about anyone else's options, I support individual responsibility and people's ability to choose for themselves, provided they do not inconvenience anyone else and are not a burden on society.
I think we all have that choice to do right or wrong.
And I cannot prevent my neighbour from doing wrong.
In my report I have tried to prevent, and have proposed that we should prevent, the Committee from intervening by purchasing fixed quotas.
I have tried to defend the argument that tobacco growing, which costs between a thousand and two thousand hours per hectare and is therefore one of the lowest-paid in Europe, should continue in the Greek mountains or the Mediterranean areas.
I have also tried to support the provision of openings for young growers and to prevent modulation from being too heavy a penalty on growers under the pretext of quality control.
These are the aspects I have defended and on this point I will finish, Mr President, so as not to overload this speech.
Mr President, I wish to begin by saying that it is both an honour and a privilege for me, on behalf of the presidency and the Agriculture Council, which I represent here today, to have the opportunity of addressing you all in Parliament.
Just over a year ago a new Labour Government in Britain embarked upon a sea change in relations between the United Kingdom and the European Parliament and, for that matter, the other institutions of the European Union too.
We were determined to work constructively and cooperatively with our European partners and with the European Parliament, and we have done so.
Speaking about my own contribution to that development, this is my fourth appearance in Parliament as President of the Agriculture Council and my sixth visit in 12 months in my role as United Kingdom Minister of Agriculture.
The UK presidency has been an active one and, as for the brief remaining part, June also looks very busy.
Apart from the topics we are here to address today at the June Council, we aim to reach conclusions on other items of business, for example on quotas for the production of potato starch, updating the rules on controlling tuberculosis, brucellosis and EBL in cattle and determining the 1990 set-aside rate for arable crops.
We hope, too, that it will be possible for the June Council to agree a measure which will effectively set general standards on farm-animal welfare, right across the Union.
Moreover, we were grateful for Parliament's rapid consideration of the ornamental plants dossier, where there is now a wide measure of agreement in the Council, and we expect adoption of that dossier shortly.
Let me deal first with the question of price-fixing.
In view of the proposals for reform of the CAP and many of the major common market organization regimes - about which I will be saying more later - the Commission's proposals for the 1998 price-fixing round are centred on those price decisions which are required for legal or technical reasons.
In most cases the Commission has simply recommended a roll-over of existing provision.
There is broad agreement in the Council in support of this approach.
However, not unexpectedly in the course of the Council discussion of this dossier, Member States have suggested a number of additional elements to the 1998 prices package.
The presidency and the Commission are working closely together to accommodate as many of these as can be realistically adopted.
I intend to negotiate a compromise on this package at next week's Agriculture Council, having first taken careful note of the views of Parliament.
Tobacco is an example of a sector where the Union's agriculture needs to be more competitive and open to the market as we prepare for enlargement and the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
With this in mind, the Commission has come forward with some constructive workable ideas which I hope will provide a sound basis for a much improved regime.
All Member States accept the need for reform and the aim of improving tobacco quality but there is a divergence of views between producer states and non-producer states over the ways and means of proceeding.
Most producer states accept the need for premium modulation as an important tool in improving quality and helping their growers to get closer to the market.
They do, however, favour less modulation, phased in over a longer period.
The main producer states also oppose quota buyback as over time it would result in a progressive reduction in the amount of subsidized production.
They argue it would cause rural depopulation and unemployment unless surrendered quotas are redistributed to existing producers or new entrants.
The Commission takes the line that surrendered quotas must be withdrawn permanently.
Non-producer Member States continue to draw attention to the high cost of the regime and the disparity between the budget for the Commission's anti-smoking programme and the annual spend on subsidies for tobacco producers.
Indeed, some argue for gradual withdrawal of support from this sector altogether.
In discussions so far, general agreement has been reached on many issues but some outstanding differences remain to be resolved.
The presidency has been trying to make headway with this dossier, as with all dossiers we have been responsible for dealing with during our presidency, in a fair, open, constructive and impartial manner.
We are making every effort to reach a final agreement later this month and, to that end, will place particular value on the opinion that will be forthcoming from Parliament.
I wish to pay a warm personal tribute to Commissioner Franz Fischler, on behalf of the United Kingdom presidency, for his excellent help and cooperation and constructive working with us throughout the months of that presidency, and, once again, Mr President, thank you for inviting me to open your first debate.
I now look forward with interest to hearing the views of your colleagues on these important questions.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to look at the context of the price proposals for the marketing year 1998/99.
The proposals continue the policy of stability of the previous prices packages, providing for existing institutional prices to be maintained in almost all sectors.
That does not, however, in any way imply that there is no need for a fundamental revision of the common agricultural policy.
On the contrary! Using Agenda 2000, the Commission wants to introduce a reform that will go far beyond the fragmentary annual adjustments made in the context of the prices package, in order to prepare European agriculture for the future and to provide security for the European agricultural model.
Therefore, for the 1998/99 prices, we should restrict ourselves to those measures which are absolutely necessary and not deal prematurely with imminent fundamental reforms.
I would like to thank the rapporteur and the Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for their excellent work of examining the proposals and formulating the amendments.
My thanks also go to the Members of the other Committees that were actively involved in this work: the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on External Economic Relations, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
I would like to begin by discussing those amendments which deal with the introduction of the euro.
These propose an adjustment coefficient for prices and subsidies in order to offset the abolition of conversion rates on 1 January 1999 in those countries participating in the single currency.
In the past week the Commission has adopted a proposal addressing this very matter of the effect of the introduction of the euro on the common agricultural policy.
The Commission is of the opinion that possible loss of income due to the introduction of the euro can best be offset by payment of compensatory allowances.
A system of adjustment coefficients would serve only to introduce yet another new type of agricultural conversion rate.
Thus, the amendments based on this cannot be accepted but, like Parliament, the Commission is aware of the underlying economic problem.
A whole series of amendments are aimed at increasing prices and direct payments by a blanket 1.7 %.
I cannot accept this for three reasons.
Firstly, this is diametrically opposed to the need to improve the competitiveness of Community produce, indeed both in the internal market and in the global market.
Secondly, it would result in considerable budget costs - approximately ECU 260 million, which is unacceptable in times of strict budgetary discipline.
Thirdly, it could jeopardize the international obligations of the Union, affecting in particular the level of internal support.
In addition, I would like to note that the minor effects of inflation are more than offset by technological progress and improvements in agricultural structuring.
In Amendment No 11 the Commission is called upon to submit, as soon as possible, a proposal concerning the rate of setaside for the marketing year 1999/2000.
As you know, this proposal is already in existence and was even accorded urgency.
In two sectors, those of hemp and beef, the majority of amendments are intended to change fundamentally the Commission proposal.
Firstly, Amendments Nos 18 to 22 concern the hemp sector, and their primary aim is to delete the proposal concerning reduction of subsidies.
The Commission is really concerned about the considerable and constant expansion of arable land, and also about the problem of control in this sector.
On 6 May, the Commission proposed to the Council a clear increase in control, to be linked notably to the introduction of obligatory contracts between producers and processors.
This point is incidentally also contained in Amendment No 77, the content of which I will split in two.
In the beef sector, Amendments Nos 48 to 53 aim to reverse the Commission's proposal.
These provide for a return to the high levels of 1996 for the maximum premiums for bulls - that is, 20 % more than in the last two years.
In view of the remaining difficulties concerning market situation and in order not to rush the revision of the organization of the single market within the context of Agenda 2000, the status quo must, in the Commission's opinion, be maintained.
However, in the case of Spain and Portugal, an increase in maximum rates can be directly attributed to an obligation of the Council of November 1996, and we therefore made a corresponding proposal.
Several amendments also provide for considerable changes to market organization which the Commission cannot, however, accept in the context of these price proposals, which are to be kept as simple as possible.
Thus, Amendment No 7 provides for a higher compensatory payment for areas set aside to be used for purposes other than food production.
On this subject, I would like to say that of course we all want to promote the cultivation of renewable primary products with the various instruments available, but to my mind, a specific new subsidy would seem to be far from desirable.
A set-aside rate of 10 % would also comply in principle with this request.
Now on to Amendment No 25.
Breeders of silkworms have already recently profited from currency devaluations in the relevant Member States.
I therefore consider a subsidy increase to be inappropriate.
Approval of renewed planting, premature replanting, the period of validity of planting rights for wine and a subsidy for grape must, as provided for by Amendments Nos 29 to 35 and by Amendment No 37, cannot be dealt with in the context of this prices package.
The Commission recognizes that these are important issues; it will therefore deal with these in its proposal concerning the reform.
This proposal will be submitted to the Commission for a decision tomorrow.
Amendments Nos 41, 85 and 87 aim to increase the premiums for certain higher quality types of tobacco.
There is no economic reason to favour one kind over another.
On the other hand, one of the main aims of the tobacco reform, which is also being discussed, is to improve the overall quality of tobacco.
Amendments Nos 55 and 94 aim to neutralize the stabilizing effect in sheepmeat by increasing the basic premium by 7 %.
This would mean having to abandon the premium for rural areas and would reopen the debate on the budget made available for this sector.
Potential supplementary costs would be ECU 85 million.
I will now look at the amendments which aim to extend or introduce derogations.
These cannot be approved in their current form.
Some of them, however, merit thorough examination.
These are Amendments Nos 2 and 3.
They refer to the moisture content of cereals.
This decision falls within the jurisdiction of the Commission.
The exemption was granted traditionally but this year the higher intervention stocks are also to be considered in global terms.
Amendments Nos 5 and 9 refer to the suspension of special set-aside.
They should be judged in the context of the proposal concerning the set-aside rate.
Amendments Nos 6, 10, 49 and 54 refer to the new German Länder.
The derogations in question were granted for a limited period in the new Länder because of specific structural problems.
As far as the base area for arable crops is concerned, I would point out that the proposals of the current prices package provide for a certain flexibility in that the deadline for the choice of partial base area regulation is postponed to 15 September.
According to Amendment No 8, in certain cases it should still be permissible for the area set aside to be greater than its arable acreage.
The Commission is aware of this problem but prefers to deal with it within the framework of Agenda 2000.
Amendment No 36 provides for the derogation on the minimum acid content of wine to be extended.
Whatever solution is chosen, it must not under any circumstances anticipate the pending reform.
Amendments Nos 38 to 40 allow suspension of wine growing on small plots of land.
We could, in effect, consider taking this problem into account.
In any case, I am pleased to see in the result that the proposals of the Commission largely did justice to its suggestions, as appropriate suggestions have already been submitted for too many amendments - I am thinking here of the euro, the set-aside rate, the tobacco reform, the hemp agreements and others.
Many of these are considered in Agenda 2000 and we agree that some of these amendments must be examined urgently.
I would ask for your indulgence if I speak a bit longer today because I have another important topic to discuss: the organization of the tobacco market.
I will come to this now.
Firstly, I would like to thank the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the rapporteur for having dealt so swiftly with the proposal on the reform of the common market organization for raw tobacco, so that we could discuss it today.
After the vote on the report which the Commission submitted to Parliament last year, the Council and the Commission agreed to continue to support tobacco growers.
As you know, the Commission basically proposes to create effective incentives to improve product quality and at the same time to support those who wish to give up tobacco production.
By shifting the emphasis from quantity to quality, the reform takes into account the business of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Budgets without taking away the possibility of other sources of income from farmers particularly in disadvantaged areas.
For this reason, the Commission rejects Amendments Nos 29, 30, 33, 37, 42, 53 and 59, and Nos 66, 67 and 76 which aim for a compulsory withdrawal of the Community from tobacco production.
Community production represents only about one-third of Community consumption and could easily be replaced by imports.
I am very much in favour of encouraging voluntary withdrawal from production, however.
I welcome in principle the definition of quality criteria in the marketing of tobacco, as contained in Amendments Nos 4, 7, 15 and 16.
These criteria should nonetheless be incorporated into cultivation contracts and the individual provisions relating to this should be laid down in the Commission's implementing regulation.
Please rest assured that the Commission will take the European Parliament's amendments into account in this procedure.
The Commission would like to offer farmers the most effective incentives possible to improve quality.
As regards the variable part amounts of the premium in accordance with Amendments Nos 14, 17, 18, 39, 69, 75 and 77, the Commission is of the opinion that at least 35 % of the premium should be graduated accordingly in order to fulfil the aims of quality differentiation and avoidance of social problems to a satisfactory extent.
By means of the possibility of quota buy-back - the basis for Amendments Nos 8, 9, 27 and 28 - the Commission wishes to provide a safety net for economically weak producers who are not in a position to participate in the campaign for improved quality.
I am prepared to examine additional safety measures which should prevent this system from leading to a complete cessation of production.
But I cannot accept any amendments that would render this system ineffective.
I would also like to note that within the framework of the Structural Funds, Member States already have the opportunity to submit projects which would facilitate the transition to other economic activities for tobacco growers.
For this reason, I cannot approve Amendments Nos 6, 26, 58 or 63.
With regard to Amendment No 44, I share these aims but it is neither necessary nor obvious for bought-back quotas to be withdrawn from the guarantee fund.
With reference to Amendment No 51 I would like to remind you that quota buy-back should be on a voluntary basis, so minimum targets cannot be accepted.
The Commission welcomes Amendments Nos 24 and 81 and that part of Amendment No 36 which deals with the expansion of the area of application of the tobacco fund.
However, in my opinion conversion schemes and research into new uses for tobacco should be financed by this fund.
Therefore, it is my view that we should persist in our proposal to increase the amount to be made available to this fund in order to be able to finance these new initiatives as well.
Thus, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 11, 23, 25, 48, 49, 50 or that part of Amendment No 36 which refers to this.
I share the concerns expressed in Amendment No 10.
The Commission cannot, however, allow research and investigation to take priority over such measures aimed at improving quality.
With regard to Amendments Nos 52 and 86, I can readily agree to make the report available to the European Parliament.
However, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 13, 34 or 38, as the additional amount offered to the northern producer states is in accordance with the situation of their producers and thus should also be maintained.
Amendment No 20 proposes quota compensation at a national level.
However, quotas belong to individual producers, which is why the existing carry-over possibilities are the correct solution to this problem.
I cannot, therefore, accept this amendment any more than I can Amendment No 22, as we must respect the stability of annual expenditure.
Amendments Nos 41, 45, 47, 51, 78, 79, 82 and 85 are directed towards a change in the commitology procedure.
I, however, am of the opinion that the common market organization regime for tobacco should be subject to the same rules as all other market organization regimes.
I cannot accept Amendments Nos 35, 60, 61 or 68, as it is important to retain structural improvements and freedom of quota transfer.
The evaluation of the new regulation in the year 2000 or 2001, proposed in Amendments Nos 52 and 65, seems somewhat premature but, of course, an evaluation is necessary.
With regard to Amendments Nos 70, 73 and 74, it is my opinion that the agreements on sale by auction would give the producer better opportunities in terms of market prices.
I would therefore like to keep this option open.
Amendments Nos 1, 5, 12, 19, 32, 40, 43, 62 and 64 would entail enormous changes to the underlying equilibrium in the respective areas that is intrinsic to our proposal, and this is why I am not in a position to accept them.
Nevertheless, I can accept Amendments Nos 71 and 72, which allow the Member States a transitional period for the transition to direct premium payments to producers.
With regard to Amendments Nos 31 and 86, to accept these would not be to increase the quality of tobacco but to reduce it.
The Commission is prepared, however, to use the national supply of quotas for allocation to young farmers, as provided for by Amendment No 21.
However, this should take place in conjunction with the usual administrative authorities.
I would like to thank you for dealing with the reform of this sector so swiftly, and I hope this will also be the case with upcoming Agenda 2000 proposals.
Mr President, I am surprised that Commissioner Fischler did not wait to hear the opinions of the committees to which the proposal was referred before giving his response, but I shall nevertheless deliver the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
The 1998-1999 agricultural year is unusual because it will be the last year to fall within the scope of the present agricultural policy. I am therefore tempted to ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to endorse these price proposals because they will be the last.
In fact, the raison d'être of the real debate on the forthcoming reform of the CAP can be found in Agenda 2000.
That is why the Committee on Budgets has emphasized, by adopting the opinion I proposed, that the budgetary consequences of the present price proposals with regard to the forthcoming agricultural year are limited.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has paid special attention to the introduction of the euro, as the Committee on Budgets asked, and rightly so.
It is important for the budgetary effect of the introduction of the euro on the agricultural sector to be evaluated as accurately as possible, and appropriate measures proposed as soon as possible.
From 1 January 1999 the euro will replace the ECU and therefore also the green ECU, whose value is up to 1.5 % higher than the normal - financial - ECU.
The Commission has not yet made proposals for the transition of the present agri-monetary system to the euro, but intends to forward proposals to Council and Parliament before September this year. It has not been able to do so yet as there has to be certainty about which countries will definitively participate in European monetary union.
The Committee on Budgets will naturally prepare another opinion on the financial consequences of the proposals.
With regard to the sectoral amendments, I am delighted that the Committee on Agriculture has taken up my proposal with regard to the authorization of "new plantations' for high-quality wines produced in specific regions.
The Committee on Budgets also protested against the European Commission's proposed approach to the question of aid for hemp producers.
The Commission now wants to discourage the production of hemp as it is of the opinion that hemp is sometimes produced for 'illegal' reasons.
But Indian hemp is not the only type of hemp, and not all types can be smoked.
The Commission has chosen the easiest solution: reduction of the premium to discourage a further rise in production.
The agricultural sector has invested in this, and is now being unfairly punished by a savage 25 % reduction in the subsidy.
It is very encouraging to see that the Committee on Agriculture is aware of this problem and has even proposed an increase in the aid per hectare.
I should like to add a last remark about olive oil and draw to the Commission's attention the tensions and distortions that exist between the amounts of olive oil produced, the amount of financial aid provided, and the uncertainty of current methods of inspection.
Mr President, I will just be referring to the tobacco report.
Firstly, I will be ignoring the comments of Mr Rosado Fernandes on the Committee on Budgets.
Like his report they are flawed.
I am a realist in these matters and I can assume that the Wynn amendments, the Hardstaff amendments and the Environment Committee amendments will not be carried later in the day and therefore I can imagine that the report will be adopted.
As you may well imagine, I will not be voting for it except probably for the first amendment from Mr Rosado Fernandes which says 'whereas the Commission has taken no account whatsoever of the European Parliament's opinion of 17 July 1997' .
I would change that to say 'welcomes the fact the Commission has taken no notice of our opinion last year because once again it was a flawed opinion' .
There is this ostrich attitude, with its head in the sand: look at the second amendment from the committee, which talks about the raw tobacco market being very competitive.
Where do they get this fiction from? It beggars understanding.
The truth is, that without European Union subsidies there would be no tobacco industry in Europe.
Not one gramme can sell on a competitive market without EU subsidies.
There is no reason to give money to farmers in France, Belgium, Germany and Austria.
It is a black hole that we pour money into.
Having said that, the Commission has come forward with a report that is a good deal better than the system that we have at present.
However, the Budgets Committee opinion is that it is flawed.
Why not go back, Commissioner, and start again? The consequences are far from perfect.
As you have said yourself, we are not even saving money.
It will actually cost more money than the present system when we take into consideration the monies from the Structural Funds.
This is not a situation that we in the Budgets Committee want to see continuing and quite frankly the best result for everyone would be to take the report back and come forward with something far more bold and dramatic.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we do not wish to play Ayatollah, as Mr Rosado Fernandes is insinuating.
When we drafted our opinion on the common organization of the market in raw tobacco, we, in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, made two basic assumptions.
Firstly, the massive production aid for tobacco, and we are talking about no less than ECU 1 billion, is completely at odds with the EU's policy on the prevention of cancer.
We are supporting a product which is responsible for the deaths of half a million EU citizens a year.
Secondly, the subsidies are, in principle, temporary.
We have been supporting tobacco farmers for more than a generation without any prospect of improvement.
That is why we do not agree with the Commission proposal.
We are therefore calling for a complete abolition of subsidized production by the year 2006.
In countries where there are adequate alternative forms of cultivation, such as Belgium and Austria, the subsidies must be abolished sooner.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection realizes that the abolition should happen gradually, and has therefore developed a transition scenario with the following main features.
Firstly, half of the premium must depend on the quality of the production.
Those who produce better quality will therefore be able to manage without subsidies at a later date.
Secondly, quotas must be gradually reduced.
Thirdly, the transfer of quotas between producers will no longer be permitted.
Fourthly, 5 % of the premium must go the Tobacco Research and Information Fund.
The Fund must look into possibilities for the cultivation of other crops and into other profitable economic activities.
Finally, we are asking the Commission to again conduct a thorough study into the option which was handed to us by the Court of Auditors in 1994, namely direct income support.
Ladies and gentlemen, my proposals are incorporated in Amendments Nos 29 to 53.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection adopted these unanimously.
It was co-signed by thirty Members from all groups.
I therefore hope that a majority in this House will opt for a responsible and healthy use of public funds.
Mr President, Commissioner, what more can be said about the prices package? That it would perhaps be reasonable to no longer present it in these terms and to switch to a different system that involves our House in deciding basic directions, to offer multiannual guidelines to our farmers who have to make production choices.
Our group believes that now is the time to do this, because the contrast has become so great between this procedure, which before involved long marathons, and the Agenda 2000 reforms which are the real package of farm prices on the table.
The only thing to be said is to agree with the rapporteur, Mr des Places, on the urgency of giving a little more impetus to the wine sector.
We cannot just sit around twiddling our thumbs when there is a policy of new large-scale plantings of vines in countries competing with the European Union: since there are no longer surpluses, the market for quality wines is witnessing renewed vigour and the money in the Community budget for this sector is being reduced to virtually nothing.
We must avoid the gradual paralysis of a sector that can continue to be an object of pride for Europeans, anticipating with the prices package certain aspects of the reform of the COM that the Commission should adopt tomorrow.
As for tobacco, I would like to say to my fellow Members: let us try to have a progressive vision of the sector and not always remain confined to a Manichean and ideological debate - tobacco yes, tobacco no -, let us stop criminalizing a sector of production that can continue to play an economic, social and occupational role, worthy of the utmost importance.
Were people to no longer die from smoking if all aid was cut off, I would be the first to observe this moral command.
But we know that it does not work that way, that it is an illusion: we would just import more products from outside the Community, the amount being already greatly insufficient, as Commissioner Fischler recalled.
What is more, we already discussed the matter at length a few months ago.
We also know that with the billion ECUs of the COM, it is quite difficult to guarantee for other sectors an opening for jobs like the one created by tobacco production, which is the most labour-intensive agricultural product grown in what are usually disadvantaged regions.
We therefore agree with the strategy proposed by the Commission - significant innovation, emphasis on quality - to make the sector more and more market-oriented and to grant aid also to anyone wanting to leave the sector because of lack of prospects.
We believe that the rapporteur, although he honourably wants to defend producers, in some passages introduces too much resistance to these innovations.
But it is only right that tobacco producers also begin to see clearly what the future of the entire common agricultural policy is: less situation rents, more targeted aid, policies of quality and more international competition; on the other hand, new developments in policies for rural development and agricultural structures.
This is the picture, and it is in the interest of all that it be very clear.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur, Mr des Places, established in his report that average income from agricultural activities, measured in terms of real net product, has fallen by 3.1 %.
I fully concur with him in this.
In fact, prices for products from livestock farming have fallen; in particular, pig prices have reached their lowest in years.
The profits from cereals have also been very much affected by downward pressure on prices.
This is why monthly surcharges must be retained.
In this agricultural debate, which differs from previous agricultural debates, I would ask you, Commissioner, to intervene in these two areas of cereals and pigmeat and, as you did in the case of beef, to use all possible means to relieve the market.
In the context of the reports on Agenda 2000, the decisions on agricultural prices are, as you said, of a temporary nature and consist mainly of an assessment.
I have a positive suggestion for you in terms of the Agenda.
Should you accept our proposals, the Agenda will be able to proceed far faster than hitherto envisaged; otherwise, we must prepare to go through a long rigmarole.
However, we have drawn up excellent proposals which we will be submitting to you in due course.
I would urge you not to take the path of least resistance in the area of hemp, but to support this environmentally friendly plant so that its introduction to the market can be successful.
With plants, there is no point in beginning with subsidies, then investing in the market, then immediately starting to reduce subsidies before the plants have been fully introduced to the market.
The existence of national hemp processing plants is thus jeopardized as well.
I welcome the extension of the derogation for the five new German Länder.
In principle, a lasting solution to this problem must be found in agricultural reform, in the beef and veal market organization regime.
I thank you expressly, Commissioner, for having responded so promptly in the area of set-aside.
I would like to commend you very highly on this.
I would like to encourage you to see this 10 % set-aside through to the end.
Otherwise we will never put an end to this desperate state of affairs and the Agenda 2000 negotiations will once again be crippled before the event by heavy investment; this is not good because once again we would be unable to determine how things really ought to be.
This path is not practicable as it would lead to a new set of problems.
New beef and milk surpluses are being produced and for this reason I think set-aside should be implemented in the same way in which it has already proved its merit.
I would also point to the early marketing premium for calves.
Mr President, please allow me to make one last comment. I would like to praise the Commissioner for making a sensible proposal regarding how to introduce the euro - not through some complicated mechanism; instead, he wants to even out any losses which individual countries may incur by means of transparent measures.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the President-in-Office for the warm interest he has shown in the activities of this Parliament over the last six months, and we hope that future Presidents-in-Office will use this as a model.
First of all, the des Places report is not taking place under the most favourable circumstances, as far as prices for farmers are concerned.
I believe it would be a delusion to think that, both in the light of the budget difficulties and in the light of Agenda 2000 proposals, we might promise farmers higher prices.
My group will therefore support the general terms of the Commission proposals.
A few aspects need to be emphasized, however, and the Commission has already been forthcoming with us about this prior to our vote on the amendments in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The transition from the green ECU to the euro must happen gradually.
At the moment it appears likely that we will be continuing this discussion.
Secondly, the Commission must do as much as it can to develop new markets.
We will therefore support the amendments proposed by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on agrification, the use of agricultural products for nonfood purposes, especially those amendments which refer to the production of hemp for industrial purposes.
As far as the Rosado Fernandes report is concerned, I must say that my group is very divided on this issue.
We will vote in two ways.
The general line is that we support the position of the Commission that the tobacco which is being produced must meet market requirements and therefore must be of high quality.
In areas with low-quality tobacco we will have to try to find alternatives so that the farmers living in these areas can also earn their income from products other than tobacco.
In conclusion, we would like to point to the need to continue the informational campaigns about the dangers of smoking and the like.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, listening to my colleague from the Socialist Group, Mr Wynn, I have to tell you that I too am a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control of the European Parliament and, naturally, not all the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control share the views that were expressed by Mr Wynn.
Mr Wynn belongs to a group of colleagues within the Committee on Budgetary Control and, whenever the debate turns to matters of European agriculture in general and the products of the south of the European Union in particular, something happens to them and they start to say "no' to everything, as, for example, our very dear Commissioner today.
In your twenty-five minute speech, Commissioner, although you started off by saying that you would give very serious consideration to the recommendations of the European Parliament, when you referred to the amendments, I counted that you rejected 90 % of the European Parliament amendments.
I ask you this: is that what you meant when you said that you would give very serious consideration to the recommendations of the European Parliament? I wonder whether, if you had rejected them all, that would have been a mark of respect or derision for the European Parliament.
You also said that you yourself are not against the complete abolition of tobacco production.
You do not wish to throw thousands of European farmers on the dole.
You say you are for improvement in tobacco quality, but with all these "nos' you are not moving towards improvement in quality.
Secondly, could you tell us whether the tobacco that is imported into Europe is of better quality than the tobacco that is produced in Europe? Have you, the Commission, checked this?
And to what extent is it better quality?
Thirdly and most importantly, I am a doctor and I know very well whether tobacco is harmful or not.
But what I have not heard from the Commission today is how much money you will give to teach our children in school that they must not smoke.
I have not heard you say that, Commissioner.
Mr President, firstly with regard to tobacco: the campaign against tobacco is a sham, a fraud.
If the Community really wanted to reduce or to put an end to smoking, it should not implement an anti-smoking policy but should, within the context of an anti-smoking policy, reduce and even ban tobacco imports.
It should take measures against the tobacco industry, which produces the final product, cigarettes.
It does not do this and that is why it is a sham.
Secondly, with regard to the prices package: it is the same as it was before and is getting worse and it will have worse consequences.
The previous regime brought about a significant reduction in real average prices for the producer and a corresponding reduction in his income. Are those measures for the benefit of producers?
And where is your concern about quality, Commissioner? You rejected an amendment which said "special subsidies for special varieties of tobacco of special quality' .
Why are you rejecting it? Are you concerned about quality or are you not?
As a result, your model, in essence, Commissioner, is the large agricultural enterprise. You are hitting small and medium-sized producers, you are hitting especially those in the south and the products of the Mediterranean region to which my country belongs.
Tobacco growing has been reduced by 30 % and along with it the number of those employed has fallen by 33 %. Where will these people go?
What will they do?
Neither you nor national governments tell them.
Mr President, I will limit myself to only a few basic comments.
Commissioner, in the case of prices - whether we fix them now in this prices package or reduce them drastically in Agenda 2000 - the problem remains that an intervention system still exists.
Already, prices are insufficient for 80 % of small and medium-sized farms.
However, it is also a fact that the fixing of intervention prices and the intervention system itself create surpluses in these areas and that the prices - in any case long-term - never rise above the intervention system.
This leads to a situation where most farms cannot live with these prices.
As a result, it is a matter of readjusting the market so that farms can obtain higher prices on the market.
I hope that this is given greater emphasis in Agenda 2000.
I would like to make a point regarding hemp: Commissioner, please give your support to European money being spent on hemp!
Then you will not need to reduce the 25 % because we will then have a huge market.
In addition, the money rustles so nicely and we would have reasonable ongoing support for a very interesting product.
With regard to tobacco, it is my view that the true scandal lies not in the fact that we are promoting a product which endangers our health, but in the fact that, although only a low level of our production is destined for the world market - premiums are also a form of indirect support - billions are spent here to put pressure on the price in the world market overall.
Thus, we are in fact supporting the tobacco industry.
We should see that our tobacco is also being sold here in Europe and that the industry is accepting it.
Here, too, we need a positive strategy - not so much a strategy of prevention.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his very good report.
Since the reform of agriculture a number of years ago, to a large extent the price review process we go through has become an unreal exercise and does not recognize the problems that face farmers on the ground.
This exercise is largely irrelevant and will not solve the many difficult problems that face the industry.
The agriculture industry, certainly in my own part of the United Kingdom in particular, has never faced as many difficulties as it does at this moment in time.
In the past one sector could perhaps have faced difficulty.
Now we have been racked by BSE in the beef sector and are trying to recover from that.
If you look at agriculture in the United Kingdom at the moment - the pig industry, the poultry industry, the dairy industry, those producing cereals - all these sectors are facing financial difficulties, with farmers wondering which way to go.
Young farmers are just not coming into the industry.
Yes, I know that there has always got to be change; yes, I know that agriculture has to evolve with the times.
Farmers will evolve, but they have to be given the chance to do so.
As things stand at the moment they do not have that chance.
And I have to say to the Minister responsible, who is here in his capacity as President-in-Office, that he cannot stand back and idly watch the agriculture industry disappear and take the hammering it has been taking because of the strong pound and issues over which the farmer has no control.
That is a great difficulty.
Mr President, I want to concentrate on the Commission proposals for raw tobacco and welcome those sections concerning diversification and withdrawal of quotas as growers move out of this sector.
My reservation is that the Commission, whilst encouraging growing for the market rather than for subsidies, does not propose the final logical step, namely the complete phasing-out of tobacco subsidies.
I have tabled amendments accordingly.
Interestingly, yesterday's Süddeutsche Zeitung carried an article about proposals for the abolition of tobacco subsidies in the United States.
The EU should be doing the same.
Subsidizing production of food and useful non-food agricultural products is justifiable.
Subsidizing - to the tune of ECU 1 billion a year of taxpayers' money - the growing of tobacco, which kills 500, 000 of its consumers every year, usually after years of ill-health, is completely indefensible.
The Commission has partly conceded this case with its proposals to buy back quota, give support to producers to change to other crops and other activities and its encouragement of production of tobacco types which can command a reasonable market price.
Currently much of Community production is either destroyed or offloaded on poor countries at below production cost, to add to their health problems.
The Commission should take the logical next step, moving toward a situation where tobacco competes in the market with no subsidy, if it is grown at all.
Rich countries like Germany, France, Belgium and Austria cannot possibly claim they are financially dependent on such subsidies.
Those Mediterranean countries where real hardship would be caused must be given ongoing support to enable growers to diversify and assist local and national government to establish alternative job opportunities in the regions currently heavily dependent on tobacco.
With political will this could be achieved over the next ten years - I offer two years more than the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
By the year 2008 we could do away with the scandal of spending ECU 1 billion of EU taxpayers' money annually supporting a crop which kills our citizens.
I urge support for the amendment setting out this programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, one of the advantages of speaking when most people have already done so is that practically everything has already been said, which means you can add the odd finishing touch to aspects you want to emphasize.
I want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr des Places and Mr Rosado Fernandes, on the effort they have put in, and on their clear and positive approach to their subjects.
I also want to congratulate the Commissioner on his rational proposals regarding prices, tobacco, adapting to the euro and efforts in the area of controls.
I think this is important, and I would be grateful if the Commissioner would take note of what I am saying at the moment, because it seems he is busy with other things.
Compulsory contracts have been proposed for hemp, and I agree with the Commissioner.
I also agree with premiums to cattle, with the increase of 7.7 % and 7.5 % for Spain and Portugal respectively, which is quite right, since it was approved back in 1996.
It is a bit late, but at least it has arrived.
On the tobacco question, having listened to the honourable Members, this is opening up the debate again between the people who are wrongly labelled as environmentalists or agri-environmentalists.
But what really worries me, and what I would like to stress to the Commissioner, is that Commissioner Flynn said in this House not long ago, during the last part-session, that he would spare no effort until subsidies to tobacco producers had been suspended.
It really worries me, Commissioner, that a Commissioner said that on behalf of the European Commission.
I do not know if it was said in a personal capacity, but he cannot say that, or at least it is not acceptable for him to say that in this House on behalf of the European Commission, when the subsidies to European tobacco producers are legal and provided for by the rules of the European Union, as part of the aid given to EU farmers.
So, Commissioner Flynn should be reminded of his obligation to put things right on that score.
If we want to create jobs at the moment, here we have 400 000 jobs and 130 000 direct producers.
So notwithstanding any comments we may be able to make about improving quality, agri-environmental measures and so on, if we want to improve this crop we cannot be directly opposed to it, when it represents only 5 % of EU tobacco consumption.
Mr President, Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Commissioner, I congratulate Mr des Places on a clear report that depicts excellently the effects of the EU's agricultural pricing and aid policy on farmers' income.
The Commission's pricing package proposal will cut farmers' compensatory prices and aid by 2 %.
The introduction of the euro at the beginning of next year will bring with it a further 2 % cut for agriculture.
Last year income from agriculture fell by 3.1 %.
I agree with the rapporteur's insistence on maintaining a pricing package to be made yearly under the terms of Agenda 2000.
It must not be taken away under any pretext.
By means of this package we can moderate the losses to farmers in aid and compensatory payments stemming from changes in currency values or other factors.
As we do not yet know how strong the euro will be, there must be systems for reducing the damage it may do.
The rapporteur proposes keeping pricing and compensatory payments in line with inflation.
I support this proposal.
EU agricultural policy presents a sad picture form the point of view of the farmer.
Income from agriculture has declined continuously, and it is still falling with the reforms in the Agenda programme.
How much longer will the farming community tolerate the immense inequalities among population groups which the CAP is increasingly leading to? While other people are getting income increases, the farmers are losing money.
There are elements of a serious crisis in this policy, and I cannot therefore support it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be brief. We must support the report by Mr Rosado Fernandes, and in particular, the 28 amendments adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
As I have said many times before in this Chamber, the European Union is a net importer of nearly 70 % of the tobacco it consumes.
That is why we support the principle of production subsidies. May I remind you that tobacco-producing areas are mainly situated in less-favoured regions, and tobacco growing is extremely labour-intensive.
However, our group has tabled five amendments, as we are opposed to the principles of the cultivation contract auction scheme tying the producer to the first processor and the creation of a quota buy-back system.
Mr President, the COM in tobacco must continue and must enable the European Union gradually to become self-sufficient.
Tobacco consumption must regularly decrease and production must continue to be limited to a constant tonnage of 351 000 gross tonnes of European tobacco, between the proposed new COM and the present COM.
Mr President, the COM in tobacco should be treated using the same general criteria as govern the rest of CAP production. There is no basis for extremism, or different or unfair treatment compared with the other CAP products.
Also, at a time when the EU's main priority is employment, it would be very inconsistent to fail to take account of a crop like this, which is very labour intensive and provides jobs for women.
We cannot on the one hand state that we are giving priority to jobs and then, when it comes to making concrete policies, ignore that principle.
So I think it would be a very good thing if all the proposals relating to this COM had to take account of the impact on jobs.
This reform has to favour young farmers in the most depressed areas of the EU.
I agree that we have to be able to reconcile protection of public health and the environment, but we also have to reconcile the social burden and the social consequences of this product.
Commissioner, we must also improve the management of the research fund, because it has been doing very badly so far. Reduced tobacco production in Europe does not result in less consumption, by any means.
The result is simply that the European Union will have to buy this product abroad.
I also think it is right to make the reform more flexible and progressive, to the benefit of the producers. And I think it is good to be bold when it comes to investigating new uses and varieties of tobacco.
Guarantees of work and income have to take account of the producers. We must prevent their income from falling, otherwise we would be forcing them - not giving them the choice, Commissioner - to abandon the sector.
I also think it is right that quality should not just be interpreted on the basis of commercial prices.
Mr President, I agree with the persons who have said that this procedure is now a bit meaningless.
In the MacSharry reform we were offered maintenance of incomes from agriculture and, at the same time, stabilization of the rural population.
As we can see today this has not materialized.
In this decade we have already lost 25 % of people engaged in agriculture and incomes have dropped by around 20 %.
Therefore any improvement in the position of individual farmers has come at the expense of employment in the sector.
The situation in Ireland is even worse because of our high dependence on beef and sheep meat.
As Jim Nicholson stated, the situation is exaggerated in Northern Ireland and the UK because of the strength of sterling and there is a new and very obvious reluctance by young people to embark on agriculture as a career.
This procedure is fairly meaningless because, taking into consideration the budget constraints together with the GATT decisions, we have very little capacity to influence the price that farmers can obtain for their produce.
This annual procedure should be looking at the state of the agriculture industry, its long-term viability, recognizing that our share in world production is becoming ever reduced.
While the market is becoming bigger, Agenda 2000 does not give us any more of a strategy than we had in the MacSharry reform to exploit these expanding markets and maintain the long-term viability of European agriculture.
Mr President, the Commission proposal concerning the tobacco market is governed by the idea of quota buy-back and, naturally, there are no proposals for improving quality, as Mr Fischler has said.
Moreover, that is why he has rejected all our amendments which make provision for and promote improvement in the quality of European tobacco.
The logic of wiping out tobacco growing in less favoured regions will have enormously negative economic, social and political consequences in those regions.
Mr Fischler, you know as well as I do and as well as all of us here, that in those regions it is not possible to grow alternative crops.
That is why, traditionally, inhabitants have been cultivating tobacco there for hundreds of years.
There is the argument that tobacco is associated with damage to health.
Indeed, but we still do not know just to what extent smoking plays a part in health issues and, secondly, there are other products that can cause health problems, such as dairy products.
I have not heard you put an end to the buying of dairy products because they raise cholesterol levels.
Do you know how many heart attacks are due to dairy products? Above all we must understand that even if we put a stop to European tobacco production, smoking will continue in Europe.
And I believe that behind this anti-smoking campaign is hidden the attempt of large companies to import cheap tobacco which is of lower quality than European tobacco.
I would like to say to you that the latest statistics from the United States show that the way in which the campaign is being conducted - this American hysteria which has now inundated Europe -, instead of reducing smoking, is increasing smoking among young people.
Let us not create conditions like the prohibition in America.
Let us remain Europeans, in other words let us act in moderation.
I also wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Fernandes, because I believe that his report is along the right lines.
Mr President, overall I agree with the direction given by the two rapporteurs, whom I thank for the job that they did, and would like to make two brief comments on the two reports - one on wine and the other on tobacco.
As far as wine is concerned, and specifically regarding the amendments that have been presented - which Commissioner Fischler says will be difficult to accept because tomorrow there will be the organic reform of the wine sector - I would just like to stress the importance of the problem.
In the prices package these past two years, I myself presented a proposal aimed to renew the regulation on replanting and grubbing up.
Generally speaking, a certain balance has been found on the market; now it is time to fine-tune the mechanism.
In my view, management has to be regionalized in such a way that this market balance is found in all the major producing areas.
On tobacco I only want to say one thing: since I have seen that there are amendments - probably based on good intentions - aimed to cope even with any restructuring and reconversion of production, let us try not to be demagogic in our statements. There are areas that earn a living by growing tobacco.
Myself, for example, I live in an area, lower Veneto, where people earn their living growing tobacco, and this is the case also of the region of Venezia and the province of Verona.
So, before we start talking about restructuring, let us see what the alternatives are, otherwise we will be acting like demagogues.
Mr President, I must say I find the results of Mr Rosado Fernandes' work on this report rather disappointing.
Instead of a progressive report innovatively probing how to improve the reform of the tobacco sector, what we have is a report reflecting old-fashioned thinking, proposing massive support for tobacco cultivation and sustaining farmers in utterly untenable production.
As if that were not bad enough, the rapporteur also strongly emphasizes the need to support young farmers to enable them to take over production.
That is simply laying the groundwork for bringing a whole new generation into the trade so that for many years to come, the EU can continue producing poor-quality tobacco that can only be peddled with the backing of hefty EU subsidies.
I searched the report in vain for any support of the Commission's excellent initiative of buying up quotas from farmers wishing to leave the sector.
I searched in vain for new thinking on how to support and educate farmers in these vulnerable areas in how to switch production to non-hazardous products.
Further, I find it most regrettable that the rapporteur did not wish to give more financial support to the research fund. How else is the research fund supposed to function effectively?
Or is it being muzzled intentionally? Mr President, I must say I am most disappointed with this report.
Mr President, this is the third proposed modification to the COM in raw tobacco in a very short time.
Three reforms in five years are enough to define this situation as an unresolved crisis.
The measures implemented, especially the subsidies regime, have allowed the maintenance of crops and the survival of the sector, but have not resolved any of the structural problems.
Europe's tobacco-producing regions are among the least developed in the EU, and no new job opportunities have been found as an alternative to the work provided by tobacco growing.
The only alternative to growing raw tobacco is unemployment, in regions which are already suffering the highest unemployment levels in the EU.
In this context, Commissioner, I think your proposal is the best one possible, although it may not tackle some of the basic problems affecting the sector, as is clear from Mr Rosado Fernandes' report.
Because of all this, Commissioner, we are going to vote in favour of your proposal.
Mr President, the report on tobacco is an opinion on the Council's proposal for certain changes to the market for raw tobacco. These changes are aimed, among other things, at certain quality issues.
However, the overriding question of the justification of subsidies is not taken up. This is quite remarkable considering the debate about the harmful effects of tobacco and the ban on tobacco advertising which Parliament decided on a month ago.
In fact a majority of Parliament's Members considered the problem to be so great that it justified disregarding the requirements of the EU's system of rules.
The opinion from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection proposes, among other things, that subsidies from the EU budget for tobacco production within the European Union should end no later than the 2006 harvest.
This objective has also been expressed in Amendments Nos 37, 55, 65, 66 and 67.
These proposals deserve full support.
There is no doubt that it is irresponsible to spend public money, European taxpayers' money, in order to subsidize the growing of a product which does so much harm. After all, tobacco is responsible for the deaths of half a million people in the EU every year.
The amount of subsidy has been around ECU 1 billion per year, or ECU 7 500 per grower.
This casts a dark shadow over all other support systems in the EU, a shadow which could be lifted by a decision on abolition - an abolition which must of course take place in a socially acceptable way.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I agree with the proposal for greater integration between production and processing in farm prices in the case of the hemp sector.
In the case of tobacco, I would like to point out the difference in style between Commissioner Fischler and Commissioner Flynn.
Commissioner Flynn definitely had less style in this House when he became very agitated, even gesticulating - it was not very clear what he wanted to emphasize -, and was extremely wrong in his opposition to the reform of tobacco.
I do not believe it befitting for a Commissioner to behave in this way when the decision has been made by all the Members of the Commission.
As for tobacco, a lot has already been said on quality and employment.
I would like to raise a few points.
I believe that it is important, Commissioner, that the Commission prepare a specific communication for the Parliament regarding the annual 5 % quota set for research.
We consider it important that the Parliament be informed how the research fund is being used: that means having not only the figures but also an analytical presentation of the results of this fund.
I agree with the idea of modulating the premium and consider it a useful proposal.
It seems to me that the modulation of the premium should be linked to employment, quality, but I would like more information about environmental constraints.
I consider it a good idea, for example, to increase aid to associations from 2 % to 5 %. They could use it especially to improve quality and particularly to develop environmental themes which are very, very important in this production.
I believe that modulation should also take into account new production techniques, but not to the detriment of the important obligation of keeping people employed, given that if the European Union spends so much on tobacco, it does so especially because it has a major obligation to maintain jobs in the many regions that have very serious problems of employment.
I am referring to the Mediterranean regions and also to some of the regions in Italy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I rise to justify the position of the Committee on Budgetary Control on the reform of the raw tobacco sector described in the Rosado Fernandes report.
Our committee thinks the proposed reform presented by the Commission is acceptable, although we want to introduce a series of amendments, mainly aimed at strengthening Parliament's role in the reform procedure for this sector.
We think the right way to achieve that stronger role is through a procedural change, from Article 23 to Article 43(2) of the Treaty.
This question of comitology, which the Commissioner has said he will not support, would guarantee that the Commission had to listen to and take account of the political positions defended by this Parliament in all aspects of this reform, particularly regarding the maintenance of a quality Community tobacco production.
We also regret that the Commissioner does not want to accept this procedural change in other reforms either.
In any case, we think the position adopted by ourselves and the rapporteur, Mr Rosado Fernandes, is rather more realistic and appropriate to the general problem of Community production than the position expressed, for example, by the draftsman of opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
In any case, the road to reform is open.
I think we should involve the European Parliament in the defence of farmers and tobacco producers.
Mr President, Parliament has made a decision to ban tobacco advertising.
We have also made a decision to ban indirect tobacco advertising.
We give support to campaigns to encourage people to give up smoking.
We also give support to research to combat the harmful effects of tobacco on health.
However, the biggest support we give is to the growing of tobacco, a crop which claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year in the Union.
Throughout the world, many more people die from tobacco than from Aids.
That does not make sense.
I know I speak on behalf of all Swedish Members and with the agreement of all the Swedish people when I say that this policy must come to an end.
The subsidies cannot be justified on the grounds of employment or on the grounds that someone else would have produced the tobacco.
By the same logic we could just as easily subsidize the production of nuclear weapons, or of biological and chemical weapons.
The fundamental issue is not an economic, but a moral one.
The Union's citizens do not want to finance the growing of this harmful crop.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12.00 noon.
Agenda 2000: Economic and social cohesion
The next item is the report (A4-0219/98) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the reform of the common agricultural policy (Agenda 2000 - Part One, Chapter III) (COM(97)2000 - C4-0522/97).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the object of this report is to provide the European Parliament with a set of general principles which can be used as a reference framework for the sectorial reports to be approved later on.
In that respect, as rapporteur I should like to underline a few fundamental points:
Firstly, the real world of European agriculture is not limited to the small number of farmers who can export without receiving refunds.
We must be more careful over price reductions and continue our interventions regarding beef and olive oil, notwithstanding the Commission's proposals.
Secondly, the reform of the CAP cannot be limited to reducing guaranteed prices and offsetting them against productivitylinked direct aid.
The Commission's proposals must be amended in that respect, because they represent a fundamental analytical error.
That error consists of starting from the principle that all farmers are on an equal footing in the face of the external threats arising from the GATT, which is not the true situation.
Now we all know that the less specialized, more peripheral, more extensive, less productive agricultural systems, and in general those in the less favoured mountain, arid or Arctic areas, start at a major disadvantage and will be the first victims of the globalization of agricultural markets if the CAP does not grant them the minimal response they need to survive.
Thirdly, this justifies our reinforcing our horizontal measures and the aid we base on territorial areas, the environment, forests, the diversification of the productive fabric of the most highly-dependent agricultural regions, animal and vegetable health, and aid related to employment and the less favoured areas.
Now, the proposal on rural development is clear enough but it should nevertheless ensure the achievement of that object and it is, in fact, a long way from doing so, in view of the sparseness of the financial resources provided.
The Commission quite rightly calls that rural development policy a 'second pillar' .
But we shall not have a pillar if we keep quiet; it will be no more than a stem or a cane, unless the Commission substantially alters this aid scheme.
Fourthly, I think the Commission's proposal for the direct financing of the rural development policy is the right one, because this will make it possible to improve the internal consistency of the CAP and prevent double standards and different responses to different kinds of farmers.
For that reason direct financing should also apply to rural development in the regions mentioned in Objective 1.
Fifthly, although the question of extension is not in dispute, we must realize that farmers have real fears and apprehensions, in view of the enormous number of reforms and changes they have gone through and the wide present and future implications of GATT.
For that reason, and also for the sake of clarity and openness, I think finance for all pre-accession measures, whether agricultural or not, should appear under a separate heading, distinct from all our common policies, and should only be integrated as each country becomes integrated.
Sixthly, although every productive sector of agriculture has its own peculiar characteristics, the fact that direct production aid only goes to those sectors which enjoyed high levels of protection in the past is causing more and more problems for social and political cohesion.
The truth is that some cultures, such as Mediterranean culture, for example, have never been protected by the price system in the past and are therefore not getting the benefit of income assistance now.
In the long term this is an untenable situation which will force the European Union to think about systems based on other factors than just set-off for price reductions in the future.
If this is not put right we shall in future be creating a kind of agricultural apartheid with some cultures entitled to direct aid and others excluded from it.
Seventhly, it is becoming a fundamental requirement that, in the spirit of the Amsterdam Treaty, the CAP should contribute to the economic and social cohesion of the European Union by creating a basic balance between forms of production, territories and farmers, as indeed has been declared by the Ministers of Agriculture and at the December summit itself.
Finally, and as my eighth point, it is important to emphasize that the Commission must take the coming negotiations on the future of the GATT very seriously.
It has now been proved that Europe is in a unique situation based on multi-functional agriculture and the family-sized nature of its operations.
Its average farm size of 18 hectares is not in the same league as that of its competitors in the world markets, whose average size runs into hundreds of hectares.
We must not compare two things that are totally disparate, nor must we fall into the trap of following other people's interests.
Apart from that, the rules of fair trading must cover such important matters as consumer sensitivity, environment-friendly practices and respect for human rights and basic freedoms.
Finally, I would encourage the Commission to take into consideration these guiding principles which I have suggested and which I hope Parliament will approve.
If it does, we shall at last have a balanced common agricultural policy that is capable of treating farmers fairly in the future.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, CAP reform is a key element of Agenda 2000.
On that subject, may I underline at the outset the essential need to build an open, constructive dialogue between the Council and Parliament on these issues.
Such a dialogue, taking place within the requirements of the Treaties, can only benefit everyone involved.
It can only help the common good.
It will allow each institution to collaborate with the other so as encourage both to play their part fully in the decisions.
On CAP reform, the Agriculture Council has already made a successful start, with the Commission's proposals having been put to a special Agriculture Council on 31 March.
The Council has acknowledged the need for reform in order to establish a clear direction for the development of European agriculture.
We need this not least in order to take on board the forthcoming enlargement of the Union.
There are also the challenges posed to us by the forthcoming World Trade Organization negotiations.
Let me be quite clear about this.
We have no alternative but to plan ahead now to meet these challenges which we know will face us.
We have already begun this important process.
The Council has identified several key issues which will need to be addressed in the next phase of the negotiations on the Commission's proposals.
These include the need for and appropriate extent of cuts in support prices and the timescale over which any such cuts should be achieved, the appropriate nature of compensation for such cuts, the conditions under which Member States may exercise discretion with regard to agricultural support, the future role of production constraints such as milk quotas in a reformed CAP and the appropriate balance of support between production sectors, producers and regions within the Union.
Finally, there is the question of development of the rural economy and protection of the rural environment including multifunctional agriculture.
As well as addressing the need to reform individual commodities, the Council has welcomed the Commission's proposals to address the wider problems experienced in rural areas throughout the Union.
Agriculture is, indeed, an important part of rural Europe but it is only one part and we need to look at what can be done on a European level for rural communities and areas as a whole.
The Council has, therefore, established a clear framework for the next phase of the negotiations on the Commission proposals.
These key issues are currently being put to Heads of Government in Cardiff as we meet to discuss them here in Parliament.
Detailed work will continue in the remaining weeks of the UK presidency and then continue under the presidency of our Austrian colleagues.
The key to success will be to balance effectively the interests of the Union's consumers and producers and the needs of the environment in promoting a sustainable versatile structure for European agriculture.
That structure needs to be robust enough to meet the challenges I have illustrated and to compete effectively on the world stage.
Madam President, I should like to state straight away that, in general terms, the Committee on Budgets agrees with the report presented by Mr Cunha.
Obviously, we would have preferred our amendments to have been definitely accepted but, in fact, there are not too many contradictions.
Indeed, I think there is more agreement than anything else.
However, as far as the Committee on Budgets is concerned, there is a basic question mark over all Mr Cunha's proposals: is there money or not?
Paragraph 36 asks for increased funding and, frankly, in the Committee on Budgets we have to say we think that request is premature. And when I say premature, I mean what I say.
We are not saying it is not justified. We are just saying that at the moment it seems premature.
That is why we asked at the time, in the December resolution, that a clause about the revision of the financial perspectives be included, in order to deal with this additional need should it arise.
We believe, as Mr Cunha rightly said, that the main aim of the CAP reform - or CARP, including rural policy - is not to make savings, but to improve the policy.
The fact is that since 1988 there has always been a systematic saving - between the ceiling of the first category and the agricultural budget - of the order of ECU 1000 million to ECU 1500 million per annum.
Furthermore, the budget has always exceeded the implemented spending.
That is why we are cautious.
But I can assure you, were we to see problems approaching, we would support the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in seeking to obtain that extra funding.
In paragraph 57, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development considers that enlargement costs should remain outside the guideline but, in our opinion, that contradicts what we said in December: that the agricultural costs of preaccession and enlargement should be covered by the guideline.
In that way, we think EAGGF and the agricultural policy should really form a fund which is part of cohesion policy and not, as people have started saying, an anti-structural fund.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder whether there is any point in having draftsmen of the Committees' opinions, if the Council speaks before hearing them.
I shall however report to you on the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy.
The reform of the common agricultural policy which is proposed in Agenda 2000 raises a large number of questions and some concerns.
There is a fear that rural regions will suffer under this reform.
There is more at stake than just agriculture, important though it is.
The challenge is to achieve a balanced development of the countryside, which manages to avoid large-scale emigration from rural areas, and all its attendant problems: depopulation of whole regions and the growth of already overpopulated conurbations, which are more and more insatiable where Community funds are concerned.
However, the importance of rural development for balanced management of the countryside and the preservation of both the natural and cultural heritage and the specific characteristics of the fisheries sector and the financing needs of the Common Fisheries Policy require the creation of an independent sub-objective specifically dedicated to 'rural areas' and 'maritime and coastal areas', within the new Objective 2.
The fact that the new EAGGF regulation brings together all the measures for the development of rural areas is useful, provided that the EAGGF continues to finance only actions directly connected with agriculture, together with coastal and maritime areas, which must not be forgotten.
It is also necessary for the Commission to put forward firm proposals to link agriculture with its local region: local products, labelling, etcetera.
As well as improving quality, this would help us to safeguard against unfair competition from countries with low wages and without welfare protection.
Our ambition should be to enable the harmonious development of agriculture and craft industries, and to promote complementary activities such as rural tourism and direct sales of produce.
We can thereby provide ourselves with the means to bring the countryside, which is threatened with depopulation, back to life, and to maintain a dynamic rural environment throughout the fifteen Member States of the Union, in accordance with the intention expressed at the recent Luxembourg Summit.
This means that we must continue the actions undertaken under the current Objective 5a, in order to encourage young farmers and fishermen to invest and to set up, and also to facilitate the processing and marketing of agricultural and forestry products, and to facilitate the development of mountain regions.
These are some of the concerns expressed by the Committee on Regional Policy, which Mr Cunha and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development were kind enough to incorporate into the body of the report.
I should therefore like to thank them.
Thank you, Mr Pinel.
You are asking about the point of the debate. If the Presidency of the Council...
Are you listening? You are not listening!
Then I do not really need to say it, but I wanted to point out that the Commission, Mr Pinel, will speak at the end of the debate.
Madam President, the Committee on Fisheries unanimously adopted the conclusions I proposed in the opinion intended for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The latter also confirmed these conclusions.
However, on behalf of my group, I have tabled two amendments which revise the conclusions of the opinion on the basis of the Commission's latest proposals.
A horizontal regulation specific to the fisheries and aquaculture sector incorporating all the measures of the former Objective 5a seems indispensable, as in the case of the proposals relating to rural development.
What is the point of the Common Fisheries Policy if it is no longer applicable throughout all the Member States, and does not include the areas which are not eligible under the new Objectives 1 and 2? If we implemented the Commission's present proposals, the CFP would amount to no more than a number of technical constraints upon our fishermen and a policy of destruction of fishing vessels.
This would mean moving in the direction of those who see the CFP as a transitional system, a mere prelude to the complete liberalization of the sector, whereas the aim and the justification of the CFP was to support the fishing industry in all the Member States with coastal areas.
The Committee on Fisheries therefore asks the Commission urgently to propose a horizontal regulation for fisheries which, like rural development, should be financed by the EAGGF and entered in the budget under the agriculture guideline.
The fisheries sector requires a limited volume of credits, but they are of great importance, whether they are required in coastal or maritime areas, which are vulnerable, or in rural areas engaged in mainland aquaculture.
We were all deeply shocked by the total absence of the word "fisheries' in the initial version of the Commission's communication Agenda 2000, as if the European Union had no coastline.
Realizing its mistake, the Commission presented to us a draft incorporating the coastal and maritime areas in the new Objective 2.
This is a step in the right direction. It is nevertheless inadequate because all the fishermen in the European Union operate within common areas, and it would be particularly inappropriate if the rates of aid implementing the Common Fisheries Policy were to vary from 0 to 75 % depending on the home port of each vessel.
Madam President, I would like to acknowledge the fine work that Mr Cunha did and say how useful it is for the next stages.
However, greater conviction could have perhaps gone into seeking a clearer and more effective compromise, because this resolution has too many points.
This also recalls the need to have stricter rules in Parliament's work so that we do not always end up with interminable documents in which a few good things of substance get lost in a sea of repetition and obviousness.
I cannot see how this gives us a better picture.
If the aim of this own-initiative report is to condition relations on the sectoral aspects of Agenda 2000, its success will not, however, depend only on the excellent rapporteur, Mr Cunha, but I believe to a great extent on our future work.
We will therefore have to see whether all together we can use this text as a starting point and advance with a coherent plan to reform the CAP.
The first signs of discussion in the Council of Ministers, Mr Cunningham, do not augur well.
At a time when all talk is about the World Cup, we are still passing the ball back and forth and not scoring any goals.
There is agreement on the laudable definitions, like the European agriculture model, multifunctionality, competitiveness, rural development, but as soon as the focus shifts from statements in principle to concrete facts major differences emerge and everything is engulfed in the sea of special interests, with the risk of seeing a very long shopping list.
We Socialists see two risks.
The first is that the entire debate will be conditioned by the price guarantees of market policy and by their exclusive nature.
In this case, rural policy would still remain the weak pillar of the common agricultural policy, despite the Cork Conference and the commitment of the Commissioners.
Instead, as we stated at a conference in November, structural policy must increasingly become the key policy in agriculture, with emphasis on investments in various sectors, quality and the regions.
If the market is to grow in importance and traditional protections are to decrease in importance, the real market policy sustainable in the future is structural and rural policy.
The second risk is that all the problems with the horizontal regulation of the CAP - modulation, the definition of a maximum amount, cross compliance - will end up being a lost opportunity.
At a time when subsidiarity is all the rage, we believe that it is a mistake to confer total responsibility for such important matters on the Member States, a choice that some would think too courageous but that in reality shows, I think, the little courage on the part of the Commission to take on decisions at European level that are in keeping with what has been said repeatedly and what public opinion is calling for, a public opinion increasingly attentive to what is happening inside the black box of the common agricultural policy.
Madam President, I have only two comments on the Cunha report.
Firstly, it is a good report. Why?
Because Mr Cunha has succeeded in achieving a sensible, mutually beneficial co-existence between current position papers by the parliamentary groups and future reports on the production sectors within the framework of Agenda 2000.
Furthermore, the rapporteur has kept to the recommendation by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development not to go into detail in his report, which did not, however, prevent him from - rightly - making the opinion of the Committee quite clear on the focal points of the future Agenda 2000.
Secondly, the protagonist in the Agenda 2000 discussion is price reductions in exchange for more or less sufficient compensation, Commissioner.
We can debate it as we wish but there has to be some guarantee that farmers do not derive their incomes solely or substantially from compensation but that they can participate in the market more than before.
This is exactly the point that affects our voters, the people who put us in this House and who, not being farmers, increasingly fail to understand this system of financing.
But have our voters ever asked why production price reductions - undertaken, for example, in the MacSharry reform in 1992 - never filtered through to the consumer? What will be the effect of the future Fischler reform, to give another name to the agriculture part of the Agenda?
Commissioner, will bread prices fall? Cereal prices are to be reduced by 20 %, after all.
Will beer become cheaper? A delight to all aficionados of this drink, as the percentage of cereal in this lovely product is by no means insignificant, and the price of cereals is being reduced!
Will meat become cheaper, given the planned 30 % price reduction? What about the price of butter?
Last but not least, the price of compound feedingstuff in animal feeds should become cheaper. Will we be able to expect this?
If this were the case, our voters, who are not only concerned with agriculture, would certainly have greater understanding for European agriculture.
But they will have to be able to see it in their wallets when they go shopping.
Then European agriculture would be a great deal more credible!
Madam President, firstly, I would like to offer my congratulations to Mr Cunha, who has worked with a great deal of enthusiasm on this report. To use a Dutch idiom: we had the impression that you 'felt like a fish in water'.
The Commission is putting three arguments forward for the Agenda 2000 proposals.
Firstly, if we do nothing we will have overproduction once more.
Secondly, we must prepare for the coming WTO negotiations.
Thirdly, we must prepare for the accession of the central and eastern European countries.
As far as I am concerned, and as far as my group is concerned, we think the third point is by far the most convincing.
Maintaining peace and security in Europe is worth paying for, and the agricultural sector will also have to pay for this, just like other sectors in the European economies.
My group therefore supports the Agenda 2000 proposals in principle.
The prices in Eastern and Western Europe should gradually start to converge, and this means that in our part of Europe the prices will have to fall.
We believe that compensation should be awarded for this price reduction.
In contrast to the Cunha report, we believe this compensation should also apply to specific products, such as milk.
In addition, and this concerns a different policy, an active rural policy will have to be pursued.
I believe this policy is not controversial, and we also support it.
There is another aspect besides compensation for price reduction. In our opinion, the development of new markets is decidedly missing.
Much more could be done about the quality of agricultural products.
How can consumers easily recognize this quality? I hope to make concrete proposals to Parliament about this later in the year.
Another omission from the Agenda 2000 proposals concerns proposals in the sphere of agrification.
This can only be effective if the Commission pursues an effective policy by making the use of certain products compulsory.
This does not concern subsidies or excessive subsidies, but simply saying that a certain product originates from agriculture, that it is good for the environment, and that is why we should be required to use it in a major way.
This can be an effective new market for agricultural products. I should like to recommend this.
Madam President, Mr Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Arlindo Cunha on his excellent work, resulting from his experience as the Portuguese Minister of Agriculture and also as the erstwhile President of the Council of Ministers of Agriculture, at the time of the MacSharry reforms.
We are obviously at the stage where, after its initial pride in the child it has brought up, called the CAP, the European Union has become ashamed of that child and now treats it as though it were illegitimate.
The truth is that attacks on it in the world market, by American criticism, by Fortress Europe, by the Keynes group and by all the groups whose historical situations are very different from ours, including the United Kingdom itself, have naturally made Europe ashamed of the CAP it created and which it now considers to be an illegitimate brainchild.
That is the situation we are in and it is that situation which my honourable friend Mr Cunha is at least trying to improve.
It attributes importance to young farmers, to territories and territorial differences in fertility and climate throughout Europe, it attributes importance to something no-one has previously thought important; on the other hand, it places great emphasis on the expression 'rural development' , which I would rate less highly, because I know it is almost a utopian vision to aim at rural development based on agriculture.
Rural development has to be effected in competition with services and industry - that is my experience in Portugal - and I, of course, have never seen agriculture bring about any development in any region whatsoever.
Let us be honest about that!
I also appreciate the fact that Mr Cunha has drawn up the report with one eye on the GATT.
But I would have liked the Commission at least to have thought a little.
When the price reductions come, apart from the green box and the blue box, which black box will the redundant farmers of Europe be put in? I would like to know the number.
Madam President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Cunha for his excellent report.
This report can be no more than a first approach to the reforms contained within Agenda 2000.
Nevertheless, it has a very important added value because it has done work that the Commission should have done, given that the job of proposing legislative initiatives wrongly belongs to the Commission.
Before addressing the principles of Agenda 2000, Mr Cunha's report presents an analysis of the defects of the 1992 CAP reform.
In attempting to tackle a new CAP reform, we first need to analyse the faults of the earlier one.
However, the Commission has not done this.
To my mind, that is one of the great merits of the Cunha report.
In trying to perform an in-depth study of the principles of the 1992 reform, none of the institutions can allow themselves to ignore its effects, which were negative in many cases.
We cannot ignore the huge number of farms which have disappeared, or the effects on the social fabric of the rural environment and land use.
We cannot ignore the enormous destruction of agricultural jobs, especially when our policy formulations make job creation one of the political objectives of the European Union.
Nor can we ignore the fact that the 1992 reform exacerbated all the imbalances already present in the CAP.
There has been an increase in the extent to which aid is concentrated on a few farmers. The budget has become even more concentrated on a small number of common organizations of the market, while Mediterranean products receive less funding, and are subject to proposals which entail their virtual dismantling.
If the Cunha report had gone no further than this, that would still have been quite a lot.
It gives a political signal that with Agenda 2000 we are playing with fire.
The European Union must understand that it is on the point of taking a wrong turning.
If we were to add the collateral structural policy proposals, with the new role for the EAGGF Guarantee section in the rich regions, we would be faced with a loss of geographical concentration and a loss of cohesion in the rural zones.
So we need to thank Mr Cunha once again for all his efforts, and other institutions need to understand that European construction cannot be carried out by means of abstract formulations or experiments.
The European Union also needs to demonstrate its true weight in settings such as the World Trade Organization, where its stance has most often been one of passivity and renouncing its own position.
Madam President, Mr Cunha has presented a very good report.
My group will support him.
He has made it clear that in the past this intervention system led to great disparities and injustices among producers, countries and regions, and that it had a destructive effect on jobs and the quality of food.
As I said before, Mr Fischler, a policy of price reduction within the intervention system leads to farms being excluded, and is fatal for farms and regions which are sensitive in their production and do not belong to the favoured sectors.
Here we must make a radical change.
We must move away from the intervention system and instead move towards an integrated development of rural areas, as is intended in the second pillar of Agenda 2000.
It is essential here that we offer a structural policy on a horizontal basis as in many areas we cannot sustain a policy of price reduction or a departure from the intervention system without regional markets being strengthened.
This would lead to the destruction of further jobs.
For this reason, we must be able to compete in terms of quality as a matter of urgency, Mr Fischler, and this should also apply to production in the world market.
Those who wish to produce for the world market may do so, but they should do so without state aid!
This would lead to an increase in prices on the world market, giving many farmers in Third World countries a chance once again to secure their livelihood by producing food for their countries and regions.
If we continue to dump to the tune of millions, this development will constantly be destroyed and it will result in social and ecological dumping.
I would like to mention external protection briefly.
This is, on the whole, confirmed by the parliamentary groups and I hope that the Commission will keep to its plan of also protecting regional development within the EU by protecting against external social and ecological dumping.
This would also help to stabilize the situation in the world market, which in turn would benefit those countries that are weakest in terms of agricultural production.
Madam President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, we all agree that our agricultural sector must be capable of contributing towards the expansion of the world market, whilst preparing for enlargement and the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
We all agree that the distribution of subsidies must be improved, taking into account the multifunctional characteristics of agriculture. We applaud the Commission's stated intentions, but tremble at the proposed solutions, based mainly on the so-called inevitable trend to liberalize trade, resulting in a general decrease in prices, and with the development of raw materials on the world market as our only aim.
The competitiveness of European agriculture must not depend upon a single parameter.
The quality of products, their processing, their suitability in terms of international demand and dynamic commercial policies, as well as low prices, are capable of increasing our export potential.
We do not need a smaller budget, we need a better budget.
We need a redirected budget to support the European agricultural model which Mr Cunha described so well in his report, a model which reconciles the necessary economic aims of agriculture with the requirements of public health, product quality, the environment, land use, rural development and aid to young people.
That is the model on which the strengthened CAP should be based, without opening the door to its renationalization. Community preference must be incorporated, and we must not forget that we have a production deficit in some product areas, such as oilseed proteins, citrus fruits, fish and wood.
We should not put the cart before the horse, and we must not give up before we begin.
We shall be in a much stronger position to negotiate the CAP in the face of the WTO's demands if we reform the CAP beforehand in accordance with our objectives.
Let us not underestimate what is at stake.
The CAP reform and Agenda 2000 represent a choice we have to make for society.
It is we politicians who must take responsibility for this. I should like to thank Mr Cunha for reminding us of this.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur on the Commission's communication Agenda 2000, I asked the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to draft an own-initiative report on the common agricultural policy reform, and I am delighted that the task was entrusted to Mr Cunha.
Indeed, within the framework of a very limited budget, Agenda 2000 proposes the reform of two of our most important policies: the common agricultural policy and the structural policy.
At the time, I was struck by the Commission's purely budgetary approach in its proposed reforms of the COM for arable crops, cattle and diary products.
The specific features of European agriculture were not taken into consideration, and in its determination to get into line with the international agricultural model, the Commission failed to define a true European agriculture model which took into consideration the specific nature of our rural development and land use.
The report originally submitted to us by Mr Cunha was a good report.
The many amendments tabled by the Committee on Agriculture have made it much less coherent, and in places it even has a slight bias towards the sort of ideology which disregards the fact that above all else agriculture is an economic activity.
To conclude, Madam President, let me give an example: if we want European agriculture to continue, young people must enter agriculture. The only real policy which will encourage young people to become farmers is to offer them an economically profitable activity based on an agricultural policy which is visible in the medium term.
What attitude will the European Commission have when the forthcoming WTO negotiations start in June 1999? A strategy of attack has yet to be defined, and the agricultural policy reform proposed by the Commission does not take that important international deadline into consideration.
On the contrary, it wants to give farmers partial compensatory aid to compensate for price reductions, in the knowledge that such aid is limited within the current framework of GATT regulations and that our fellow citizens do not understand what it is for.
Madam President, this morning we discussed olive oil, agricultural prices, tobacco? this afternoon, we will discuss bananas.
Thanks to Mr Cunha's excellent report, we can respond to this third reform of the CAP proposed by Mr Fischler.
We have had Sicco Mansholt's CAP, based on prices and incomes.
As a result, we have lost 12 million farmers, which makes Sicco Mansholt the Pol Pot of agriculture.
We have had the 1984-1992 CAP, with stabilisers, quotas, maximum guaranteed quantities? which was a failure.
Only yesterday evening, we were informed that stocks of cereals had increased to 14 million tonnes.
And now, we have a third reform, which rather reminds me of "The Leopard' by the Italian novelist Lampedusa: everything must change in order to stay the same.
The reasons are the same: in 1992, we had to prepare for GATT, in 1998, we have to prepare for WTO.
It is estimated that 21 % of the complaints addressed to the WTO are about Europe, and more than one third of the complaints come from the United States.
The system is also the same: it is still Malthusian and budgetarist.
It is Malthusian because of its price decreases, set-asides, sale of foods on the international market and savage cuts (of vines, for example), and budgetarist, with its petty accounting and rationing, even more stringent now that we have the magic amount of 1.25 % of GDP to finance both pre-accession and accession.
In reality, the technical questions raised by Mr Cunha, relating to non-food use, the decoupling of production aid, product quality, ceilings on aid and safety, and so on, mask a real choice between two models, American or European, as Mr des Places, Mrs Barthet-Mayer and many others have said.
The keyword in the American model is "intensive' .
In the United States, agriculture is a combination of chemistry with the added mystique of genetically modified organisms: nitrates, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and now GMMs. The keyword in the European model is harmony.
Harmony between producers and family export businesses.
Harmony in production areas, in the south - tobacco, wine, fruits, vegetables, olives - and in the north, resulting in a range of products which gives the consumer harmony in health, thanks to the quality of products, harmony between the mountains and the plains, aesthetic harmony, ecological harmony and mental harmony.
Minister, harmony in agriculture would mean fewer British hooligans in Marseilles.
Obviously, the consequences of the American model are well known in comparison with our own: soil destruction, ground water pollution, contamination, mad cow disease and alienation. Monsanto and Pioneer, in the name of patent rights, even want to transform American farmers into workers who no longer have the right to re-use seeds.
So we must first of all protect the European model, if we wish to defend it against the archaic American model.
We must use Community preference, the essential heart of Europe, to protect it. Without Community preference, there is no Europe.
We must protect it by keeping prices high, which will help to maintain high income levels.
We must protect it by improving the quality of our products and by increasing their added value, which justifies high prices and the exportation of our model.
Exporting our model does not mean aligning ourselves with world prices, by decoupling production aid; it means providing export aid as the United States does within the scope of FAIR legislation, which maintains export credits, particularly for the benefit of the Ukraine, Egypt, Russia or South Africa.
Finally, Commissioner Fischler, we must defend the European model during international negotiations.
You are European Commissioner for Agriculture, not Under Secretary of State for Agriculture of the United States.
Madam President, I too should like to congratulate Mr Cunha on the work he has done and, especially, on the arguments put forward in his report.
I think his work shows that the Agenda 2000 document is tremendously unbalanced.
It is very clear and very radical in certain approaches, specifically as regards prices. Nevertheless, it is very unclear as regards additional measures.
Specifically, it is very radical on price reductions, which are compensated partially rather than fully, as before.
It is also very radical in giving equal aid to all crops without taking their differences into account, which could mean the end of sunflowers.
On those subjects, the Commission document is tremendously clear and radical.
However, in other aspects the proposals do not display the same decisiveness.
As has already been said, it gives the impression that the only reason for this new reform is the demands of future WTO negotiations.
But the document says nothing about the future of European agriculture.
As has also been said several times, we want this agriculture to fill Europe's land and continue to play an environmental and social role.
There is no mention of the need for the CAP to respond to criteria of economic and social cohesion, or the need to guarantee a balance between crops, farmers and land. To give a negative example, we need only remind ourselves that the budgetary imbalance means that southern crops and continental crops receive different protection.
In the same sense, what role do we really want the aid to have? From this point of view, the horizontal regulation does not clarify things much.
As regards rural development, I do not think the approach taken in Agenda 2000 comes anywhere near meeting the hopes raised by the Cork Conference.
It seems that in the future we shall not be able to count on a real, properly integrated, truly multisectoral, adequately funded rural policy, which is capable of alleviating the problems presented by Agenda 2000's lack of balance.
Madam President, my colleague Mr Cunha had the task of writing a report concerning a number of horizontal problems in the agricultural proposals of Agenda 2000, and of providing a long-term view of these problems.
He succeeded in this, and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development also added important insights on a number of points.
At the same time, this vision of the European agriculture model offers the framework for future policy on the agricultural integration of Eastern Europe.
For the citizens in their capacity as consumers and tax payers, it also justifies why such agricultural and rural policy must be pursued.
But the report is, of course, global.
It does not analyse, for instance, which measures should qualify for EU funding and which for co-funding.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has yet to work out this horizontal problem together with the Committee on Budgets.
The report tries to create a balance between competitive agriculture and the necessity to support areas and groups which, because they occupy a more or less permanently disadvantaged position, need a larger income.
Yet the notion of profitability for farms has perhaps retreated too much into the background.
If prices are reduced to below the cost price of the most efficient farms, then the compensation for these farms must be in proportion to their productivity.
Otherwise they will also disappear, and this surely cannot be what the common agricultural policy intends.
Therefore, the section of the report on dairy policy has been carelessly formulated, and as such is unacceptable.
On the issue of linking environmental stipulations to direct payments, the report rejects the Commission proposals for national criteria.
Still, we shall find out that it will never be possible to formulate environmental stipulations at the EU level for all EU regions.
The reality will force us into the direction of greater subsidiarity.
Moreover, this offers a better guarantee that EU farmers will not be saddled with more rules and bureaucracy.
Madam President, Commissioner, I think that Mr Cunha has managed to move a number of goal posts, which was much needed.
He has broadened and deepened the debate, and this is something we should continue, because I believe that otherwise we will not be able to cope with the next WTO negotiations.
It is my view that at the next WTO negotiations we should not raise the issue of product amounts with linked price support, but rather issues such as food quality, environmental demands and social criteria.
I am therefore pleased with Mr Cunha's proposals that we should ultimately aim for decoupling production aid.
In this context I would like draw the Commissioner's attention, although you are undoubtedly familiar with it, to the Buckwell report, which contains a number of interesting proposals for switching over to decoupled aid.
Perhaps the report requires a little more attention from the Directorate-General of Agriculture than it has been given until now.
Madam President, I believe that the Americans with their FAIR act will most certainly take over a section of the global market, and that we have not progressed as far with our system.
They also give a certain type of aid. We will therefore have to think a lot more creatively about this aspect.
To conclude, Madam President, I would like draw attention to rural development.
The demographic data show that in large areas of Europe, the rural population is continuing to move into the city.
We will not be able to stop this migration with agricultural policy alone; it requires a broader rural policy, as well as the resources to develop this policy.
For this reason I look forward to the actual implementation of the proposals which were developed in Cork.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate Mr Cunha.
He has produced a very objective report.
All of us in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development very much appreciate his work.
The recent proposals issued by the European Commission to reform the common agricultural policy must indeed be substantially changed, from an Irish perspective.
Unless the proposals are extensively amended many marginalized Irish farms will come under pressure and some may not survive.
Such a development would have serious consequences for the socioeconomic infrastructure of rural communities.
The Commission proposals as they stand now, if implemented in their entirety, would have the following detrimental effects on Irish agriculture.
Firstly, in relation to the discrimination in the share-out of the milk quota, Ireland has a very legitimate claim in relation to additional quota.
The proposals which do not provide for full compensation would have devastating effects on the Irish beef sector.
In Ireland, as everybody knows, beef and milk represent 71 % of our entire agricultural output.
The proposals, as they stand, would result in income reductions for Irish farmers, destabilize the structure of family farms, dissuade young people from taking up farming as a profession and would lead to continued rural depopulation.
We must remember that, in comparative terms, agriculture is nearly three times as important to the Irish economy as it is to the EU as a whole.
In 1997 the common agriculture policy was worth £5.1 billion to the Irish economy.
In the context of the Agenda 2000 proposals price reductions can only be supported if they are accompanied by full payment to farmers so as to offset the effects of the proposed price reductions.
The direct payments being proposed by the Commission are not adequate and must be addressed before we can agree.
In conclusion, the CAP reform proposals are unacceptable to Ireland because they are not balanced, they do not protect the interests of Irish farming and they do not enhance rural development.
Madam President, I hope the European Parliament will adopt Mr Cunha's excellent report. In doing so, it will express an opinion on the reform of the CAP, and will also express the reaction within the agricultural sector against the Commission's proposals.
Commissioner Fischler, the Commission has not learnt any lessons from the 1992 reform, which has increased job losses in agriculture and rural areas, exacerbated inequalities in the distribution of Community funds, kept agricultural incomes down to 60 % of the average wage, and caused imbalances in land use.
Worse still, the Commission continues to confine itself to a doctrine of price decreases and productivity races, which threaten jobs, social, environmental and regional stability, and the independence and quality of food.
As the rapporteur emphasized, what agriculture and European society actually need is a CAP reform which offers a real alternative. It must fundamentally redirect a number of measures, consolidate the European agricultural model and enable agriculture to face the new challenges ahead of society, in the areas of employment, food, energy, the environment and water supply.
How can we do this? What tools must we use?
The rapporteur correctly reminds us that prices and markets policy must be based on the three traditional pillars of CAP, particularly Community preference.
And he makes proposals for the future. One such proposal relates to the basis of agricultural income, which must be derived essentially from the production and sale of agricultural products.
By prices rather than subsidies.
He raises the question of ceilings and the adjustment of subsidies on the basis of criteria which promote employment, and for the same purpose, a readjustment between northern and Mediterranean production areas.
He proposes that the definition of international commercial relations should be based on clauses relating to production costs and environmental, social and employment standards.
He even refers to the question of the principle of rural exception, which must set down the limits to globalization in the sector.
This report provides an excellent basis for discussion and suggests alternatives to the Commission's proposals.
It will be of benefit to the farmers and people of Europe, and the Council should take inspiration from it.
Madam President, I would like to add my thanks to Mr Cunha and congratulate him on a very excellent report.
It proves beyond any shadow of doubt that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which sometimes comes in for tremendous criticism from Members in the Committee on Budgets and elsewhere can, on occasions, come forward with very constructive reports.
As we are all aware, the report looks towards enlargement of the European Union and the WTO discussions - the whole Agenda 2000 process.
It will have a very long-term effect on agriculture and as we have known it within the European Union.
There are a number of points I wish to make.
It is important that we ensure that the existing family farm structure of the European Union is protected in order for it to survive.
Member States are extremely enthusiastic about enlargement, but at this moment the Council in Cardiff is probably trying to cut back the contributions to the European Union.
On the one hand they want enlargement while, on the other hand, they are not prepared to pay for it.
They cannot have it both ways.
Member States are going to have to face up to that principle no matter what approach they take.
We must have a longer transitional period and extend the time before enlargement.
One other point I want to make very strongly: we must not allow the renationalization of the common agricultural policy as we have known it.
I am very concerned at the proposal for national envelopes because I believe that will bring inequalities between Member States.
Indeed, there is the whole problem of additionality, which we have seen in the past.
Personally, I would like to see Parliament and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development fully involved in the whole Agenda 2000 process.
Madam President, my honourable friends, our colleague, Mr Cunha, has in fact presented a report which we can approve.
However, we will see that problems will arise when it comes to details.
As you all know, it is easy to agree on general issues but we all have different views when it comes to specific details.
With regard to the Commission's address I would say that the Commission's proposals in Agenda 2000 are definitely a move in the right direction.
But they are flawed.
The proposals rely too heavily on product-related subsidies.
Anyone who now persists in ignoring the pressure for change in the area of agricultural policy and the opportunities of Agenda 2000 by introducing half-hearted reforms or changes, will receive his just deserts from life, the WTO and the enlargement process.
For this reason I believe we must concentrate.
The so-called second strong, sturdy leg or the second pillar, as the Commission says, in policy for rural areas is a very narrow support to which a heck of a lot of flesh has to be added.
What we need in this reform is help to adapt farms to the markets.
This can only be done by means of quality of products or quality of production, and not by means of quantity.
Those who still place too much importance on going to market with huge quantities will discover that we are putting ourselves under pressure.
In the WTO negotiations we, the EU, must set the conditions and not allow them to be dictated to us by the Americans or the Cairns Group.
We need to promote employment in rural areas.
We need to meet unmet demand in a harmonious and well-balanced system of environmentally sustainable production.
In this area, the Commission's proposal remains inadequate.
And it is not right for the European farmers' associations to be telling the same tales of woe as they did two years ago.
At that time the common agricultural policy was supposedly on its way out, but this was not the case.
Nor will it be in future.
But we can lose out - that is, if we only make a few minor changes instead of carrying out real reform.
We will now suspend the debate on agriculture.
The debate will continue at 3.00 p.m.
Votes
We cannot support Mr Pimenta's motion to reject the proposed accord with the USA.
This is not because the agreement is the best it could be, but because it is better than the alternative.
The alternative to the accord with the USA is not some other agreement with better standards.
The Council's earlier decision on banning leghold traps implies that an import ban could be introduced, but that is basically all it provides for.
The resolution on banning leghold traps is very limited; it applies to only 13 of the 19 species covered by the new agreement; it does not ban the use of leghold traps, only the import of furs; most significantly, the resolution only covers this one particular trapping method.
In our opinion, it is hypocritical to focus on this one trapping method, however barbaric, while traps in use within the EU are no less cruel.
That - and not more stringent requirements for traps - is the alternative to the agreements with Russia, Canada and now also the United States.
I fully endorse the views of our rapporteur and wish to make it plain that I totally disapprove of the agreement between the European Community and the United States on so-called "humane' trapping standards. These do absolutely nothing to prevent cruelty to animals.
I believe that it is high time we put an unconditional end, I repeat, an unconditional end, to the use of leghold traps, which inflict terrible suffering on millions of captured animals indiscriminately.
Furthermore, this agreement does not go nearly as far as the agreements with Canada and Russia, which many of us considered inadequate when we were consulted.
Indeed, I consider this to be a step in the wrong direction, both from the legal point of view (with regard, for example, to the method of settling possible disputes) and in substance (I refer in particular to the increase in the time period).
It is unfortunate for animals that our competence in this matter is only consultative. We know that in all likelihood the Council will ignore our opinion and approve this proposal.
But this should not prevent us, as a Parliament, from loudly and clearly recommending the rejection of this unacceptable agreement!
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Pimenta report urging the Council to reject the proposed accord with the USA.
However, we must admit that we find ourselves in a dilemma.
We do want to find alternatives to leghold traps.
Leghold traps are cruel to animals and must be banned.
The difficulty is that political efforts mainly focus on doing away with leghold traps in areas where wild animals are trapped by people who rely heavily on trapping.
Political efforts are even touching on the enormous number of leghold traps used in the EU to keep 'pests' at bay.
The logic appears to be that if a woman wants to wear the animal's pelt as a fur, then it must not be caught using a leghold trap, but if the animal is regarded by humans as not very attractive, then we can do what we like to it.
In the EU, we use thousands of traps to catch animals that are not very highly rated among animal lovers: rats and water voles.
Moreover - to a positively hideous extent - international negotiations on this matter have been so long-drawn-out, have been manipulated so much and have produced such poor results that the whole exercise ought to be done again.
In weighing up the one factor against the other, we have come down on the side of supporting the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection in its rejection of the motion, even though we do not endorse a hypocritical majority in the House who would like to hit the earning potential of native populations while failing to see the beam in their own eyes (to put it mildly).
Council Regulation 3254/91 laid down provisions whereby third countries wishing to export the furs or associated products derived from 13 species should either have prohibited the use of leghold traps within their jurisdiction or ensure that trapping methods used meet internationally agreed humane trapping standards.
Although this Regulation was adopted some years ago, it is not always implemented.
There is a simple reason behind this: a threat by Canada and the United States to take the issue to the World Trade Organization, if the ban is enforced.
The Commission has now presented to us a draft bilateral agreement between the European Community and the United States.
Like the rapporteur, our group rejects this agreement.
Once again, it reflects the tropism of the Commission, bending before the United States and Canada's determination to refuse the introduction of environmental clauses within the framework of the WTO.
If the agreement were enforced, it would furthermore create a situation verging on the grotesque.
In fact, the European Union could continue to import furs derived from animals captured using leghold traps, whilst at the same time refusing to use the same type of trap to destroy animal pests in its own territory.
In fact, in wetlands in particular, great damage is done by animal pests with no market value, such as nutria, to dykes and ditches, which have to be repaired at considerable cost by local authorities and marsh associations.
It would be more logical if we adopted exactly the opposite stance instead of the Commission's proposal: for animals which have a market value, it would be logical to use the most humane traps.
However, in order to eradicate animal pests, which have no market value, it would be preferable to use the cheapest and most effective traps.
I have no option but to vote against the agreement drafted with the USA on humane animal trapping standards.
It is simply not tough enough on the cruel leghold traps which so many of my constituents naturally oppose.
The author of this report has rightly concluded that millions of defenceless animals will suffer the painful death caused by leghold traps for years to come as a result of this agreement not going far enough to ban them.
The view of our citizens in the EU, not only in nations traditionally known for their love of animals like the British, has been set out in the statutory obligation of the European Commission to ban the import of furs caught in these cruel traps wherever practical.
I trust that trade considerations with the USA will not be used as a reason for not continuing the push for better standards in animal traps.
We are the largest trading block in the world's history and it is time that the EU's negotiators used our influence to get a better deal for animals in these kind of international agreements.
If the deal is not good enough, then they must go back to the talks table until it is.
Girão Pereira report (A4-0178/98)
We voted in favour of the Council regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol establishing the fishing possibilities and the financial compensation provided for in the Agreement between the EC and the Government of the Republic of Guinea on fishing off the Guinean coast for the period from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 1999, for the following reasons:
1.We think there is a very positive improvement on the previous protocol as regards controls on fish stocks and the corresponding allocation of financial resources to local scientific and technical programmes and to methods of supervision and control of fishing activities.2.We think the renewal of the Protocol - maintaining previous catch levels for practical purposes, but significantly increasing the amounts of financial compensation - will make it possible to reach a compromise between the need for Community fleets (Spain, Greece, France, Italy and Portugal) to continue to have access to local resources, supplying their own raw materials, and the obvious need for less developed countries to increase their financial profits.
We only hope Community owners (and particularly Portuguese owners, who will be entitled to catch 200 grt a year of shrimps and send two surface longliners to Guinean waters) will make better use of the opportunities created for them.3.We must, however, express our doubts over the fact that the Community fleet will have access to Guinean waters outside a 10-mile limit when its vessels should only have access outside the usual 12-mile limit.
Similarly, we have doubts about the period specified by this Protocol - only two years, and therefore less than in most EC agreements of this type - which will not provide sufficient operational stability for the Community fleet.
Our group is speaking today on this report relating to the fisheries agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Guinea, in order to highlight an essential aspect of Common Fisheries Policy.
At the last Fisheries Council, a ban was adopted on the use of 2.5 km drifting gill nets in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
I strongly opposed this decision, which was adopted without any scientific basis. It deprives fishermen and coastal areas of an economic activity essential to their survival.
May I remind you that this decision is even more unacceptable because in order to obtain the Council's agreement, the Commission maintained the use of 21 km drifting gill nets in the Baltic, although an international regulation established by the UN recommends a limit of 2.5 km.
Let us return to the fisheries agreement with Guinea.
What do we have here? This agreement provides fishing possibilities for 33 freezer-seiners and 13 pole-and-line tuna vessels.
Pursuant to international law, these vessels may if they wish use drifting gill nets.
What is the logic behind this according to the Commission?
As a defender of the principle of controlled resources, and supporter of professional fishermen, I cannot fail to very strongly condemn these absolutely scandalous contradictions in the Commission's attitude.
The Commission should restrict itself to ensuring compliance with international regulations which permit the use of drifting gill nets. It must stop using false excuses in order to enable fishermen from one specific Member State to snatch the market shares of other Member States, by the artificial means of banning a type of fishing gear.
If a drifting gill net of limited length is environmentally acceptable and not detrimental to resources, it must be acceptable for all fishermen, in every sea and every ocean.
All of the fisheries policy which is based on the Community buying fishing rights from the poor countries of Africa is wrong. Therefore we cannot support it.
In addition, the proposal before us from the Commission entails an increase in aid compared with before.
Apart from the reservations on principle, you should also ask whether the aid which the EC pays to Guinea really benefits the poor population of the country.
It is worth remembering that Guinea is not a proper democracy, which makes you wonder where the money actually ends up.
Trakatellis report (A4-0192)
In our opinion, it is of course appropriate to revise the provisions on genetically modified micro-organisms on an ongoing basis as new knowledge is acquired in this relatively new area of research.
We believe it is particularly important to safeguard high safety levels, and this is one of the aims of the report.
However, we have been obliged to abstain from voting on a number of amendments.
This is largely because lay people cannot pretend to comprehend the content and consequences of these proposals.
We feel it is questionable to allow such complicated, technical issues to go to the vote when people have no real hope of understanding them.
The common position adopted with the Council at the end of the first reading provides a framework for the restricted use of genetically modified micro-organisms, and safeguards the interests of Member States.
The 35 amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection broadly take up the amendments presented during the discussion of the proposal at first reading. The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is unable to support either the amendments which aim to prevent Member States from reinforcing minimum environmental protection regulations, or those which are likely to make the proposal unenforceable, by trying to establish too high a level of precision.
The important amendments include a proposal to change the legal basis from Article 130s to Article 100a.
This proposal is unacceptable as it stands, because the directive does not establish rules relating to the harmonization of the internal market; it establishes minimum environmental and public health protection regulations, which Member States must be able to reinforce if necessary.
The directive does not, in fact, regulate the movement and marketing of genetically modified micro-organisms, but only the conditions of their use in contained facilities.
Another important point (Amendments Nos 4 and 9) makes it compulsory for operators to obtain insurance cover for the contained use of GMMs.
This provision is out of place in this document, because operator liability should be governed by general rules at the European level and by specific rules in the Member States.
This document must not be used as an excuse for an indirect attempt to reform insurance legislation.
The wording of most of the amendments (Amendments Nos 2 to 14) is more accurate and appropriate in the common position than in the initial document.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection seems to have taken great pleasure in amending the document in such a way that it has become too complicated to adapt to technological change and unenforceable as it stands.
On the other hand, our group supports all the containment provisions proposed in Amendments Nos 15 to 35 because, unlike the preceding amendments, they are more appropriate than the common position.
Finally, our group supports Amendment No 36 tabled by the Green Group, which provides for a better description, and therefore better knowledge, of the GMMs used.
des Places report (A4-0216)
We think the Commission's proposal is better than the draft report from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We are voting against the proposal to increase prices and so we cannot vote for this report.
We are particularly opposed to hemp, wine and tobacco.
It is our opinion that there needs to be a proper reform before 1999.
The Commission proposals for the 1998/1999 prices package rely on the availability of limited funds for the common agricultural policy and, according to the rapporteur's report, will lead to a reduction of approximately 2 % in prices and compensatory payments in real terms.
Also, this reduction will in all probability be accompanied by a further 2 % reduction with the disappearance of the green ECU and the introduction of the euro.
According to the rapporteur, European agricultural income as a whole fell by 16.4 % in real terms during the period 1990/96, and the rural population decreased by more than 2 million people.
The continuation of price-fixing and compensatory aids for the thirteenth successive year can only be expected to lead to a further reduction in the number of farmers, while incomes in European farming will continue to fall.
The proposals for the 18 Council Regulations are simply a roll-over of existing provisions, with some exceptions which are necessary for clearly legal reasons or to fulfil Council obligations.
They do not tackle the problem of farmers' incomes and their continued employment.
They cannot come about through our vote.
This year's proposals are basically a roll-over from last year's prices.
This would superficially imply that the situation in agriculture is fine.
Nothing could be further from the truth in relation to Ireland.
Irish farmers are experiencing major problems, particularly in the beef sector.
The BSE crisis, the reduction in export refunds and licensing and additional problems relating to access to third country markets have all contributed to the problem.
A roll-over indicates a complete absence of a policy direction on the part of the Commission.
Farmers need to know in what direction the Commission intends to take them over the next decade.
They need a clear indication of a well-thought-out Commission strategy.
What is needed is the development of proposals which have as their objective the revitalization of rural economies, including the agriculture sector.
Proposals for 18 Council Regulations on prices for agricultural products have just been referred to us.
We have come such a long way!
When I entered Parliament in 1989, agricultural prices were discussed with great ceremony.
It was an important debate.
Like church at 11 o'clock on a Sunday morning.
But now the pews are empty.
Prices have already decreased so much, and Agenda 2000 is going to carve another 10 to 30 % off what is left of them, so farmers almost expect to earn less in the market than they do from budgetary aid.
The Community budget is also a rationing budget.
So much so that, in real terms, 1992 agricultural prices have decreased by 2 %.
The overall income of European farmers decreased by 16.4 % between 1990 and 1996, and will probably fall again in 1999.
This will have disastrous consequences in the troubled fruit and vegetables sector.
It will also cause difficulties in the winegrowing sector, where the COM still does not accept wine as an important part of our civilisation.
That is why a reform of the COM is needed, until Brussels accepts that new plantations are needed, and the Commission admits that an agricultural sector at the mercy of budgetary aid is extremely vulnerable.
Farmers' livelihoods must be based on the prices of what they produce.
Decreasing the prices package makes farmers less independent, and therefore gives them less freedom.
We take a negative view of the Commission's adoption of an agricultural prices proposal in line with its policy of maintaining some sectors and reducing others, such as arable crops.
In our view, even for those it maintains, this always represents an actual reduction in agricultural prices, because it fails to take inflation into account.
On the contrary, we would like to see agricultural prices updated to allow for at least a 1.7 % rate of inflation, at the EU level, as a way of guaranteeing the farmers' income.
We also regard as extremely negative the fact that once again there are no changes or revisions for the common organization of the markets in the Mediterranean countries on the grounds that they have not yet been reformed.
In that context we find it unacceptable that no set prices have been fixed for olive oil, with the clear strategy of prioritizing the need for rapid approval of the new draft regulation under discussion.
Although we consider the proposal for the extension of new plantations for special-quality vines to be a positive step, we would reject at the outset a strategy that continues to support the abandonment of viticultural land, because of the importance of viticulture to southern countries, especially Portugal.
In the same way, we reject proposals to allow the blending of different musts and viticultural products, because they will encourage the sale of poor-quality wine and cause consumers to be defrauded.
We voted against the report because, amongst other things, we are opponents of the EU's agricultural policy in general on the grounds of its high costs and, not least, its unfair distribution which favours big farmers.
This policy area should be returned to the Member States as soon as possible.
In addition we consider it to be particularly inappropriate for Parliament to decide on price levels in a market system for agricultural produce.
However, we voted for the setting up of a vineyard register, which, remarkably enough, there has not been in spite of continuous reports of abuse of Community funds in the wine sector.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is extremely satisfied with the quality of the report and the amendments proposed by Edouard des Places.
However, we regret that the Commission has shown such a lack of imagination and has presented such a predictable prices package.
We are nevertheless pleased that in response to the amendment we tabled asking for the set-aside rate to be set by the end of this month, that is, for a decision on the set-aside rate to be adopted at the same time as the prices package, the Commission has proposed a new regulation applicable to the forthcoming agricultural year.
However, at this stage, the Commission's proposals are totally unrealistic.
That is why my group has tabled two amendments, one asking for the withdrawal of the extraordinary set-aside, that is, the application of a penalty depending on the required set-aside rate, and the other asking for an obligatory set-aside rate of 5 % instead of the 10 % proposed by the Commission.
As well as supporting all the amendments proposed by the rapporteur and adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, my group has again tabled amendments in the House proposing a 1.7 % increase in institutional prices, which aim to reduce the effects of monetary erosion on farmers' incomes.
It is quite unacceptable for anyone to think that production costs in agriculture are not affected by inflation.
We have already criticized the fact that a constant level of prices and aid has been established in the Commission's proposals on Agenda 2000 for a period of seven years.
Would it be acceptable in any other profession for income to fail to be indexed to price increases?
I personally do not think so.
Finally, my group was pleased to see that the Committee on Agriculture adopted Mr des Places' proposed amendments regarding the creation of an adjustment coefficient with a view to maintaining equitable levels of income between farmers in all Member States of the European Union in order to compensate for serious drawbacks resulting from the possible disappearance of the green rate on 1 January 1999 for the Member States participating in the single currency.
Defenders of the euro claim that it will naturally be of benefit to farmers, as it will put an end to competitive devaluation, as well as the budget for agri-monetary measures.
This overlooks the particularly serious consequences for farmers of the disappearance of the green rate entailed in the transition to the euro.
In France, for example, the difference between the green rate and the financial rate is in the region of 2 %: there will therefore in fact be a further 2 % decrease in institutional prices and aid, from 1 January 1999.
Thanks to the rapporteur's amendments, a European Parliament document will highlight an important weakness in the euro.
Should farmers, whose opinion was not sought, have to bear the cost of the transition to the euro, which has been introduced for ideological reasons?
Thanks to the work of Mr des Places, Parliament will be ready to issue an opinion during this part-session. This will enable the Council, during its meetings on 22 and 23 June, to define the general legal and regulatory framework applicable to our farmers, thus allowing them to adopt decisions in full possession of the facts.
Rosado Fernandes report (A4-0218/98)
Madam President, it is ironic that the European Union heavily subsidizes tobacco while, at the same time, it tries to fight against cancer and also educate people about the danger to health of smoking.
What it should do is get rid of subsidies.
It is an absolute disgrace that the other members of the Commission would not support Commissioner Flynn on this.
It is one of his most positive proposals and it is disgraceful that the Commission will not support his attempts to get rid of tobacco subsidies.
Every year over ECU 1 billion of taxpayers' money is going to subsidize something which is detrimental to public health and which has a detrimental effect in countries around the world where there is no proper regulation to ensure that smokers are aware of the dangers of smoking.
The European Union is extremely wrong in subsidizing something which shortens the lives of its users.
The tobacco industry and tobacco growers have to realize that they will have to turn to alternative crops.
One ironic aspect of this report is that they are trying to push for alternative types of tobacco.
There is no alternative type of tobacco which is not dangerous to health and it is ridiculous to promote the idea that there is.
The Commission should support Commissioner Flynn on this matter and get rid of tobacco subsidies in the interests of public health and of consumers.
As tobacco consumption has harmful effects on the health of users, it is absurd for public subsidies to be given to tobacco production.
In the vote on this report we are supporting the amendments which will phase out tobacco subsidies.
If these amendments are not adopted, we will vote against the report in its entirety at the final vote.
We have finally started a thorough debate on the vital changes necessary in some specific areas of the COM which face particularly strong competition from other continents.
I therefore share the opinion of the members of Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development who have adopted the Rosado Fernandes report on tobacco.
We have an opportunity today to endorse the need to provide support in this sector according to the quality of the product and to reconsider the problem of subsidies between tobacco-producing countries in the south and north.
We must find a permanent solution to this problem.
Tobacco produced in the north cannot continue indefinitely to be the subject of discrimination in comparison with southern varieties.
Why do we confine ourselves simplistically to defending the interests of our countries of origin, depending on whether or not they produce tobacco? Substantial support will be of benefit to the whole of this sector, which has made a consistent effort for many years to improve quality.
We must remember that tobacco, with 135 000 producers and 400 000 seasonal jobs, is a great rural employer.
Even if tobacco were no longer cultivated in Europe, this would not reduce the consumption of cigarettes, as some Utopians would have us believe.
We must therefore insist upon the enhancement of all high-quality tobacco products, including those produced in northern Europe.
We must acknowledge their value because there is a market demand for them and their production costs are higher.
As well as this type of encouragement, the results of research, particularly genetic research, need to be more widely distributed.
New plant improvement programmes must also be implemented which reflect the progress achieved in other areas.
It is now possible to produce tobacco which is less harmful to human health.
Let us work positively in that direction.
By banning tobacco advertising, the European Parliament recently took a balanced decision to protect the health of young people.
We must now continue along the same lines, by approving the provisions of the Rosado Fernandes report.
The Commission plans to create a quota buy-back system, the stated aim of which is to decrease the volume of tobacco produced in Europe gradually.
However, it is wrong to pursue such an aim when tobacco imports from third countries are so large.
May I remind you that the European Union is the largest importer of raw tobacco in the world, with a self-sufficiency level of no more than 30 %.
Moreover, the intended system will not help to modernize production methods or enable young farmers to set up.
This policy is therefore contrary to producers' interests.
However, within the framework currently imposed on French producers, Mr Rosado Fernandes' report defends positions which are the lesser of two evils. We therefore have no hesitation whatsoever in voting for this report.
In light of the detrimental effects of tobacco on consumer health, we cannot subscribe to maintaining or increasing EU support for the production of raw tobacco.
We believe all forms of official support for tobacco production should be phased out.
Out of consideration for the tobacco producers, this should be a gradual transition over a short period of time to allow tobacco producers to switch to other crops or trades.
In my opinion no subsidies at all should go towards tobacco growing within the EU.
Since none of the proposals before us are aimed at an immediate decision of that kind, I have voted for Amendment No 66 (which means a rejection of the report in its entirety) and against the final adoption of the report.
Otherwise I have voted neither yes nor no.
At the May plenary session we agreed to ban tobacco advertising.
This decision was consistent with EU health policy.
However, the subsidization of tobacco farming is clearly in contradiction of the EU's Treaty obligation to protect the health of our citizens.
I regret that the Commission rejected the proposal to phase out subsidies in 1996 and instead opted for reform proposals.
The 1994 report from the Court of Auditors on the issue concluded that the abolition of tobacco subsidies would lead to considerable budgetary savings without destroying the livelihoods of tobacco farmers.
For these reasons and to be consistent on health grounds, I have supported the amendments put forward by Mr Collins and others from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
The tobacco producing sector illustrates all the contradictions and hypocrisies of society.
Tobacco is a poison and a drug.
The fight against cancer is dependent upon the prevention of addiction to tobacco.
As medical research has identified one of the causes of one form of cancer, we have a moral obligation to deal with the problem at its source.
We do not have any other alternative.
But the tobacco industry provides jobs and incomes for many families, and experience has shown us that prohibitions are useless as they only lead to fraud and increased criminality.
What we must do is to work in gradual stages:
Europe has without hesitation adopted costly and difficult solutions in order to reduce agricultural surpluses and prevent the depopulation of rural areas.
Europe must also find the courage to solve this problem.
This does not mean we have to choose between protecting jobs or health; it means we have to protect health and ensure the redeployment of jobs.
We in the Green Group consider the fact that the EU has a system of tobacco subsidies to be quite wrong and that it sends out the wrong signals to the general public about smoking tobacco.
Not very long ago the European Parliament approved the Council's proposal to ban indirect tobacco advertising.
The European Parliament has also expressed the view that tobacco is a danger to health which must be taken very seriously.
The Green Group shares these points of view and was instrumental in getting the European Parliament to make these decisions.
The risks of smoking are considerable. We must therefore work to get people either to stop smoking or not to take it up in the first place.
At the same time it is a fact that the EU gives substantial subsidies to the growing of tobacco within the EU, currently around ECU 1 billion per year.
In our view, this double morality is totally absurd. We are therefore working towards achieving an end to these subsidies as soon as possible.
It would of course be best if these subsidies were phased out over the next few years. It would be best for those who currently grow tobacco and it would send out the right signal that the EU takes the tobacco issue seriously and is working towards a reduction in smoking.
The conversion premiums which exist to enable tobacco growers to grow other crops must be encouraged and given a larger budget. At the same time the budget for subsidies to tobacco growers should be reduced.
Some people claim that these conversion premiums are of no help because tobacco is the only crop which can be grown where tobacco is currently grown.
That is just political rhetoric and not a serious argument because growers get larger subsidies for tobacco than for other crops.
Conversion to other crops must be intensified and made more attractive.
The Green Group's objective is a complete end to subsidies for tobacco growing.
The COM in tobacco provokes passionate reactions.
Farmers and technical issues are forgotten - only cancer-related illnesses are remembered.
So it is considered a scandalous contradiction that in 1997 the Community spent ECU 11 million on the fight against cancer and paid out ECU 18 million on reconversion premiums and to the Community Fund for Tobacco Research and Information, although tobacco causes cancer.
It is true that there is a problem at Shiva in Brussels, where with one hand we try to fight cancer, whilst with the other hand we cause it.
But this is not the only contradiction in Europe. Land is left fallow because of overproduction, but genetically modified micro-organisms are permitted because of a need to increase production and output.
If tobacco were no longer produced in the European Economic Area, imports would simply increase. Europe is already the largest importer of raw tobacco in the world and is only 30 % self-sufficient.
The problem of tobacco is like the problem of drifting gill nets.
We may prohibit them at home, but we cannot prevent others from producing them, using them or importing them.
This is the truth of the matter.
The cultivation of tobacco prevents the agricultural impoverishment of under-privileged regions.
And the poverty of the jobless is also a cause of illness.
It may be understandable to renounce the 1970 COM in tobacco on account of public health, but it does not make any sense economically.
When the common organization of the tobacco market is reformed, the emphasis must not be put on the harm tobacco causes to health, because if we do that we shall have to start by prohibiting the importation of tobacco, of which there is a severe shortage for the European curing industry.
Questions of public health should be dealt with elsewhere and in other ways, within the context of education and prevention.
When the sector is reformed, the emphasis should, on the contrary, be placed on the direct and indirect employment which the sector provides, particularly in the most backward areas of the EU, many of which have no alternative crops to produce.
Or, after that, it should be placed on the very important contribution which tobacco growing makes to the struggle against increasing rural desertification.
When the sector is reformed, priority should be given to measures aimed at improving the quality of the product, and there have been and are clear proposals by the European Parliament in that respect.
When the tobacco sector is reformed, we cannot deliberately promote and encourage - as the Commission's draft regulation does - the total abandonment of tobacco growing without creating credible alternatives, but quite the opposite.
We should be creating conditions in which production can be maintained and new generations can follow the present growers, especially with young growers coming in.
We are worried that the Commission is ignoring - on an increasingly systematic basis - all the opinions and strategies relating to this reform that have repeatedly won majority votes in the European Parliament.
I am voting in favour of the report that has just been presented to us for three main reasons.
Firstly, this report makes a clear distinction between the issues of tobacco production and the prevention of smoking, because they are not directly connected with production in the Union, which only covers 30 % of consumption.
Secondly, the report rejects all the amendments relating to the withdrawal of production aid, thereby defending the principle of Community aid for production, jobs and associated activities. It promotes improved quality, greater coherence between supply and demand and, within that framework, proposes to reinforce professional organization and increase the payments for some varieties.
Finally, although this report presents voluntary reconversion measures, it does not support quota reduction measures. On the contrary, it proposes to assist young farmers to enter this sector.
However, I do not support the idea of increasing the amount withheld from the payment allocated to the Community Fund for Tobacco, for the prevention of smoking. It means that tobacco producers would take the blame for, and bear the cost of, an activity for which the whole of society is responsible, despite the fact that the Fund is also used to finance research into cultivation methods.
Finally, I share the concern expressed in the report on the consequences of enlargement of the Union. I call for appropriate measures to defend the interests of producers, inasmuch as the internal market offers great potential for the development of production and jobs in this sector.
Consistent action is imperative in politics.
This is why I cannot accept European provisions on tobacco growing.
Recently the European Parliament approved a directive banning the advertising of tobacco products.
I endorsed this ban with conviction: tobacco advertisements are directed mainly at young people in the knowledge that nicotine addiction mostly takes hold in youth.
The result is 548 000 tobacco-related deaths per year including 654 in Luxembourg.
We cannot ban tobacco advertisements while at the same time subsidizing tobacco growing.
Yet this is exactly what the Union is doing by guaranteeing an annual production of 350 600 tonnes of raw tobacco and spending approximately ECU 1 000 million on it.
Admittedly, the system was improved considerably by reducing the quantity (by 24 % over just 4 years) and by means of subsidies for relinquishing arable land.
However, it remains to be seen whether or not control is at an optimum level.
I welcome the relative reduction in subsidies and the reconversion measures which must not, however, lead to abandoned land being taken over.
Yet I am of the view that there is a significant contradiction between health policy (for which very little EU money is available) and the promotion of tobacco growing, which, moreover, is of very poor quality in Europe.
For these reasons, I cannot approve the report.
We voted against the proposal because it will not solve the issue of the tobacco growers' dependence on extensive EU subsidies in either the short or the long term.
The proposal does not contain any reduction in financial support for the tobacco sector. Nor does it take into consideration the serious consequences tobacco growing has for health and environmental protection.
Our group supports all the amendments proposed by the rapporteur and adopted by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, because European tobacco production must be allowed to continue.
The aim of a large number of amendments tabled by our British colleagues is to withdraw all European aid from tobacco production.
We are naturally opposed to this, because the European Union is a net importer of very large quantities of tobacco.
Tobacco is also mainly produced in disadvantaged regions, and it is therefore necessary for tobacco production, which is very labour-intensive, to continue in order to protect jobs.
However, my group has tabled five amendments. Their main aim is to reject the Commission's proposal to create a quota buyback system.
This system will not only lead to a reduction in the quantities receiving production aid and, therefore, to a decrease in European tobacco production, it will also do nothing to help modernize production and it will prevent young farmers from setting up in this area.
This system will also have the adverse effect, in the medium term, of giving quotas a financial value, which will create a further financial burden on producers.
It could in fact lead to quotas being considered as assets, whose value would be based on the quota buy-back value.
On the other hand, we have proposed the creation of national quota reserves to maintain the production capacity of Member States, and to contribute towards the financial stability of existing or new farms.
This would also prevent the appearance of any additional costs created by quota values.
May I remind you that a national reserve system already exists in other production sectors, such as sheep, cattle and milk.
My group has also tabled other amendments to the Commission's proposal, with regard to the cultivation contract auction scheme between the producer and the first processor.
We consider that this is a very restrictive measure, which forgets that the tobacco production is a specific, very highly organized sector, in which distribution and processing are carried out by a small number of multinational or national companies.
I cannot back the Commission proposals for the future of the European tobacco sector.
I am amazed and angered that after all the recent progress in getting tobacco giants to admit that their products cause diseases such as cancer, we have a proposal to keep using public money to subsidize tobacco producers!
Is this a crazed method to keep our hospitals busy with new patients?
What exactly is meant by the idea of subsidizing higher quality tobacco - is this to promote more addictive versions of cigarettes or ones which take longer to kill their smokers? Even with the fig leaf of more publicity about the dangers of smoking, the taxpayer is still expected under these plans to stump up millions to pay the cigarette makers to make people ill.
The continued misuse of public money for this kind of tobacco subsidy is no longer acceptable.
Perhaps when it all began it could be excused on grounds of ignorance about the effects of smoking - but not in 1998.
If we must have tobacco production, let it succeed or fail by its own efforts as any other industry has to, not with people's hard-earned money as subsidy.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.17 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Reform of the CAP (Agenda 2000)
The next item is the continuation of the report (A4-0219/98) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the reform of the common agricultural policy (Agenda 2000 - Part One, Chapter III) (COM(97)2000 - C4-0522/97).
Mr President, Commissioner, I congratulate Arlindo Cunha on an excellent report.
It reveals the rapporteur's expertise in the subject.
The report emphasizes the different circumstances surrounding production in the EU.
It is a totally Utopian gesture to try to apply EU regulations uniformly right across the region, from Finnish Lapland to the Canaries.
The greatest challenge of Agenda 2000 will be the integration of the special needs that exist in northern, southern and mountainous regions into the EU common agricultural policy.
The CAP suits the best agricultural regions in the EU.
Production costs are higher in the northern regions, the mountainous regions and other parts of the EU area.
This fact has to feature far more prominently in Agenda 2000.
Agenda 2000 weakens competitiveness between the production of crops and that of fodder, to the detriment of the latter.
Maize feed storage aid is improving the competitiveness of milk production in six Member States, and weakening the profitability of fodder-based milk and beef production.
Thus there is a need for fodder storage aid, just as the report explains.
The viability of crop growing also requires equivalent special arrangements in northern EU regions.
Agenda 2000 extends EU aid to forestry.
Forestry has been and must in the future be within the sphere of the free market economy.
In no case must we make the forestry sector as tightly regulated and aided as agriculture.
The acceptance of Agenda 2000 requires larger regional investment as part of EU agricultural policy.
We have the European model of the family farming based unit, which we have to defend.
Mrs Anttila, I am sorry that I had to tell you to hurry up, but I am not to blame. Your Group must give you more time.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate the rapporteur on his report but concentrate my contribution on rural development.
It is inevitable that within the EU and, to an even greater degree, in the EU applicant states the number of jobs in agriculture will fall as a result of mechanization.
Without alternative jobs in rural areas young people will leave for the cities and many more people will commute daily to towns and cities with all the negative implications for the environment of increased car use on inadequate rural roads.
Food packaging and processing jobs are currently supported by Objective 5a grants.
However, there is an urgent need for additional non-agricultural jobs and small-scale enterprises in rural areas.
LEADER programmes have already demonstrated great success in generating additional finance for investment in such jobs.
If the rural pillar of the CAP is to become a reality we need some continued form of the LEADER programme after 2000 to maintain thriving rural communities, particularly in areas no longer covered either by Objective 1 or Objective 5(b) after 1999.
Production of wholesome food, protection of the environment and good animal welfare standards must also be key elements of CAP reform.
Mr President, Mr Cunha's report is characterised by honesty and courage.
It is an impartial demonstration of the anti-agricultural line taken by the common agricultural policy.
It is quite correct when it says that the continued reduction in prices and other related measures have contributed to a reduction, to extremely low levels, in the number of small and medium-sized farms, and to an increase in the number of large agricultural holdings.
This is the model of the agricultural policy of the European Union that Mr Fischler told us about this morning.
Unfortunately, whatever compensation the Commission has introduced to counteract these negative measures has been outweighed by the exorbitant fines and excessive quota reductions which are imposed on small and medium-sized businesses, especially on Mediterranean agricultural production.
Agenda 2000 will only make the situation worse. It will serve the mammon of fat profits and work against SMEs, especially those which operate in the south, in the Mediterranean region.
I have a number of recommendations, which I shall not elaborate on as I do not have the time, as you say.
They are formulated as amendments and many of them have been approved by the Commission.
I just want to say firstly that perhaps Mr Cunha has made an omission: he does not give the reason for this anti-agricultural policy or say what interests it serves.
We must denounce this here.
Secondly, farmers will revolt and take a stand against it, and arbitrary and violent measures, such as those implemented in Greece, with 10 000 farmers taken to court and punished with stringent penalties, will not be enough.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to emphasize the high quality of the work Mr Cunha has produced on a subject as sensitive as the CAP reform proposed by the Commission. The Commission's proposal needs, moreover, to be thoroughly reworked in order to provide a real future for all the farms in the European Union.
Various aspects need to be taken into consideration.
First of all, the expectations of our fellow citizens with regard to farmers, in terms of product quality, environmental protection and even the distribution of farming throughout the countryside.
Then there is the international context, particularly the WTO. We have been forced to reduce public export subsidies, and are likely to come under strong pressure to reduce official production aid unless we modify some of our distribution methods.
Finally, the evaluation of the CAP, which has been in force since 1993, and from which there are lessons to be learnt.
I must be brief, and will simply say this: a decline in raw material prices and a reduction in, perhaps even the withdrawal of, official aid does not add up to an acceptable agricultural policy.
Priority must however be given to two areas: competitiveness and the rational distribution of official aid.
Competitiveness must in fact be increasingly achieved by supplying goods and services which satisfy the expectations of society, which relate to wholesomeness and taste, local know-how which enhances the countryside, the technology of sectors which generate added value, and diversity in increasingly segmented markets.
These are the qualities, within our overall performance, which will enable Europe to show strength and originality by comparison with our competitors.
Official support for agriculture, although still necessary, will not be permanently acceptable to European taxpayers or to our competitors within the WTO, unless it takes on board legitimate social, environmental, and regional concerns. Hence the idea of ceilings of aid per farm and national adjustments, based on the principle of subsidiarity, within a framework of Community rules, to prevent distortions of competition and the renationalization of the CAP.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Cunha, for his report.
I welcome in particular the reaffirmation of the need to be especially careful about severe price cuts in any area of agriculture.
I also welcome the report's commitment to compensate fully for any cuts in the institutional price.
This is in marked contrast to the Commission's document, which proposes only a 50 % compensation for one of our major agricultural products.
In the light of already collapsed beef-farmer incomes in Ireland, the Commission proposal is totally unacceptable and must be changed without delay.
The report also confirms the three cornerstones of the common agricultural policy, but calls on the Commission to revise the Agenda 2000 proposals in many respects, recognizing that the continuing exodus of young people from agriculture is causing huge social and economic difficulties in large tracts of rural areas.
For example, in my own country, a shocking statistic: the suicide rate now exceeds the number of people killed in motoring accidents on our roads.
A high number of these totally unnecessary deaths are due to financial despair in rural areas.
Under present policies, with rural depopulation rife, it is not attractive for young people to make a career in farming.
The system of prices for products which are set below production costs and where income depends solely on the payment of decoupled compensation, which itself falls far short of bridging the gap to price reduction, does not provide the long-term security which well-educated young people see as a necessary requirement to their future.
This report strongly suggests that the reform proposals in Agenda 2000 should be radically altered, as it is now very clear that cutting prices has not resolved the problems of market balance, nor has it arrested the continuing decline in farm incomes, which are a vital factor in stemming the haemorrhage of young people from rural areas.
Mr President, I do not wish to sound even more pessimistic than the previous speaker, but I cannot help noticing that the number of farms is continuing to decrease, and that the number of employees in agriculture has fallen dramatically... so what kind of European agriculture model do we want for the future? A model based on enlargement, the WTO model, or a distorted European model?
This is the most important period in the history of the CAP. We must understand that a new direction is needed, to enable farmers to live off the land, to produce food for Europe, and also for the world market, and to keep the countryside alive, by protecting the environment and the rural landscape.
Does Agenda 2000 really offer us this?
Our group is more concerned about safeguarding the livelihoods of farmers and their families than about the international market.
The issue at stake is the continuity of agriculture. Above all, we must enable young people to enter agriculture, by enabling them to purchase land and have the right to cultivate it, and by making them feel confident that in Europe it will always be possible to work on the land.
Mr President, I wonder if Commissioner Fischler has considered the fact that the Cunha report is supported on all sides of the House and by all political groups and that, in contrast, intense criticism has been expressed regarding Agenda 2000 and the regulations for a policy on agriculture.
I think that this is well founded, since, through Agenda 2000, the Commission is doing what we see throughout the societies of the European Union, that is, it is demolishing the social state and introducing models along the lines of the United States.
We see this happening in agriculture too.
We cannot accept a system of agriculture based on compensatory income subsidies, which are temporary in nature and which will transform farmers from productive forces in society into recipients of the temporary charity of the state, as the European Union at present envisages.
It is necessary that we support the European model of agriculture, whereby the farmer is a producer, a custodian of the environment and of cultural traditions, and the family smallholding is a nucleus of employment. This is what is important in the Cunha report and my colleague opposite described very vividly, I think, the problems resulting from its disintegration.
In this sense I think that we must support the Cunha report and oppose the Commission proposals for the enlargement 2000 programme.
Mr President, I in turn wish to congratulate Mr Cunha.
Indeed, I believe that the primary objective that we must bear in mind in any attempt to reform the CAP is the support of the European model of agricultural development and the promotion of the economic and social cohesion of the European countryside.
This is described quite rightly in the Cunha report.
I would just like to dwell on a few points.
The first comment I wish to make is that, with the new structure of the objectives that is envisaged in Agenda 2000, actions belonging to other objectives are being transferred to the EAGGF, which will naturally involve new expenditure.
However, it is not clear where the resources to cover this new expenditure will come from.
There is a danger that we will identify, at a financial level, the policy to develop the countryside with the common agricultural policy, and we are facing the possibility that the CAP will be assimilated and fragmented in the long term within the frameworks of other policies, such as the policy for the regions, for example.
The second is that we must pay particular attention to the danger of the renationalization of the CAP.
This may come about either through granting Member States too much leeway in the management of existing resources, or through a wider interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity.
The possibility of hidden national subsidies will only increase inequality between developed and less developed regions and will cause a chain reaction of problems in the economically weaker Member States.
Thirdly, we must look again at the issue of parity when looking both at the different sectors of European agriculture and the different regions of the European agricultural area.
We must look again at the relationships when subsidizing small and large agricultural holdings, less favoured and developed regions, products from the north and products from the south.
We must look again, for example, Mr Fischler, at the advisability of some common organizations of the market having the year 2006 as their horizon and others the year 2001.
And those that have the year 2001 as their horizon happen to be the products of the south.
Finally, we must look carefully at the source of financing for the area of enlargement which concerns the modernization of the agricultural sector of the applicant countries.
The possibility of financing such measures from the resources of current agricultural guidelines will cause tremendous problems. It will also transfer a large part of the cost of enlargement onto the shoulders of the less developed regions of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Fischler, the number of farmers in Europe fell continuously from 8 million in 1990 to 6.9 million in 1995.
Small family farms are disappearing.
Since 1990, the number of agricultural employees has decreased by 3.7 % per year.
This is detrimental to the fabric of rural life, and to town and country planning in Europe.
The Commission has proposed to reduce prices and provide compensatory aid by means of direct income support.
Would any other industry agree to sell its products at less than cost price? Not to mention the lack of job security for farmers, whose incomes would be even more dependent on direct aid, which we all know would not be everlasting.
What does the Commission intend do with all those acres which will remain unsold? It is quite understandable that young people are reluctant to enter agriculture when they hear that Agenda 2000 intends to take 10 % off milk, 20 % off cereals and 30 % off beef and veal.
Farming is an admirable occupation, but you have to really love it to want to become a farmer today, and unfortunately, love does not pay the bills!
What advice can parents responsible for the future of young people interested in agriculture give them? Nevertheless, young farmers are our only guarantee of a future for European agriculture.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Arlindo Cunha's report is much better than the Commission's draft, although it goes no further than is absolutely necessary.
If I may explain, Commissioner: you are spending half the budget on about 1 % of the richest people in Europe.
As you know, 80 % of that money is distributed among 20 % of the farmers.
That is a profoundly unfair policy.
And the report does not define a firm ceiling or a firm modulation so as to create a fair basis for the distribution of the Community's funds.
I would remind you that every Community citizen pays around ECU 350 to support this policy, which makes me think the Commission cares little what it does with the taxes citizens pay.
The second point is that the agricultural policy still militates against the environment and quality, inasmuch as it is still geared to the support of production rather than production methods and the defence of quality in the food chain.
Today, Commissioner, you are confronted with the problem of a growing lack of credibility in the food chain itself.
With this policy, Commissioner, you are going to aggravate all the existing problems in the Community, which have not been capably dealt with.
In addition, there is no solidarity between the regions.
It is unacceptable that two farmers producing the same product should not be similarly classified and equally compensated because they live in different areas of the same Community.
Aid has not been regionalized.
There is no absolutely obvious need for family farms to receive aid, to the detriment of large-scale producers.
The whole of this policy benefits a mere half-dozen farmers and the result is plain to see: there is total desertification, at present 5 % of the population are farmers, in 2000 this figure will be around 2.5 % and we shall be distributing half the Community budget among 0.5 % of the richest producers, and the richest people, in the entire Community.
Mr President, I do not believe Agenda 2000's proposed increase in aid for the forestry sector is in harmony with the principle of market-based forestry, which does not rely on aid.
The present Union aid for afforestation, forest improvements and averting forest fires is enough.
Our money could certainly be invested more productively.
In addition, the proposal would clearly lead to an extension of EU forestry policy, that is, to less authority on the part of Member States in the forestry sector.
This, however, does not mean that the Union does not nor should not have an important role in forestry matters.
For example, the certification of forests, which led to much heated discussion, should hopefully be clarified under some sort of EU umbrella certificate.
I cannot but consider the proposed price cuts for milk and crop produce, coming as I do from a northern Member State, too harsh.
Where is the promise that was made at summit level to preserve the viability of the rural environment by practising agriculture in all regions of the Union? One very important question has been completely ignored by the Commission, which is the situation young farmers find themselves in, and their future prospects.
We must do something about supporting young farmers when they inherit farms, and their circumstances in respect of sufficient levels of social security.
On enlargement and Agenda 2000 I finally wish to say that it is not worth prolonging the discussion as long as the institutional problems in the EU today remain unresolved.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Cunha for his report.
I want to repeat some of the concerns I have expressed elsewhere.
One of the problems with the report is that it does not address the issue of falling employment in agriculture.
When we talk about rural areas, it does not necessarily mean that we are talking about agriculture as a form of industry and employment.
We need to ensure that there is more diversification on the farm but we also need to ensure there is more diversification within the local economy.
We need to look at the role of rural areas in providing dormitory accommodation to large conurbations, second ownership, recreation, tourism and so on.
We also need to look at what sort of jobs are being provided.
We need jobs which are based on technology, in particular the use of the Internet and ISDN technology.
We also need to look at providing small-scale industrial units for starter firms in our rural areas.
We need to look at a new role for the countryside.
Mr President, I would also like to compliment Mr Cunha on his report.
One of the problems we have had in agriculture - not as a result of Mr Cunha's report but as a result of BSE - is that we have had to see vast changes in our approach to agriculture.
It is not often that I can agree with the opposite side of the House but on this particular occasion I happen to agree with Mr Hallam's position.
One of the problems with agriculture is that we are not bringing young people back into it and one of the things we must do is move away from the constrictions of quotas.
This is something we have to look at in the future and part of Mr Cunha's report talks about it.
We also must look at getting the returns for agriculture from the marketplace.
It is vital that agriculture understands that it cannot continue to have an open bucket of funding available for it permanently.
But the most important issues are, firstly, that we have a single market and that single market for agriculture must remain across Europe.
Otherwise we shall see discrimination against Member States.
That is why I am opposed to modulation, because it attacks the large and efficient farms.
Secondly, I am opposed to the national envelope.
This allows governments to control spending and hold it up.
Mr President, the Cunha report is a key one, since this report will be indicative of the overall position of the European Parliament on the reform of the common agricultural policy.
In my opinion, the report smacks of a compromise of many diverse positions on how to view the reform.
Personally, I think the report is also deficient of vision.
I looked in vain for any strong pronouncements in specific areas such as the environment and animal welfare.
Regarding the section in Mr Cunha's report on imminent expansion, I am nevertheless pleased to see that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has adopted the amendment I tabled to include the first applicant countries in arrangements for environmentally friendly production methods from 1999 onwards.
After all, we must not forget that environmental improvements are not purely the domain of the 15 current Member States.
Environmental pollution does not respect boundaries.
The nations of central and eastern Europe applying for admittance to the EU also have significant agricultural production.
Thus, through support and collaboration, we must help ensure good, environmentally sound production for these farmers.
We must avoid a situation whereby these farmers resort to sacrificing the environment as they strive to keep up with the competition of the internal market.
Commissioner, Mr Cunha, Mr President - Mr Cunha has been praised so much today that I would like to turn this around slightly with a minor criticism, because, as he knows himself, he did not discuss the role of women in agriculture in his report.
He will certainly reconsider this before the vote and include it in the motion for a resolution, as he is in fact pro-women.
Throughout the EU, approximately 50 % of all those employed in agriculture are women.
They derive a high level of income for farming families by means of field work, shed work, book-keeping, direct marketing and farm holidays, etcetera.
Farms have now got the message of the European Commission and it does not surprise us very much.
On the whole, it is having a very negative impact, particularly among women farmers, and I believe that the Commissioner for agriculture, Mr Fischler, felt this when he joined us at our meeting in Berlin.
Women farmers are refusing to accept Agenda 2000.
Their criticism is levelled at the increased adjustment of agricultural market policy and price policy to world market levels.
Income policy and price policy are not sufficiently balanced, for example, in the high environmental costs, so that within a short time a considerable number of farming families will find themselves in a situation of extreme hardship.
Farmers - men and women alike - fear the loss of their essential material possessions and their jobs.
We also find the increased pace of gearing European agricultural policy to the world market quite unnecessary.
Mr President, Commissioner, the report by our honourable friend Mr Cunha includes two particular goals: firstly, the comprehensive approach to farming, and secondly, the ability of farms to survive and adapt, and the strengthening of this ability.
However, these very two aims are under threat in the geographically disadvantaged regions of the new German Länder due to the Commission's proposals on degression and upper limits.
In terms of the ability to survive and adapt, no one in Europe has anything to teach East German farmers.
Between 1945 and 1992 these farmers had to deal with three periods of short-term radical restructuring. They managed that.
In the last period of restructuring, however, 80 % of the population involved in agriculture were eliminated from agriculture within two years.
This was necessary.
Commissioner, particularly in these regions, there is simply no alternative to the farm structures which have survived - mainly cooperatives - that is, no alternative which could guarantee comprehensive management, which is what we all wish for.
An improved, modern agricultural policy, which we all desire, must not further destabilize this form of management, as this would be contrary to the European Union's new employment policy.
Mr President, I should like congratulate Mr Cunha on his excellent report, which does not fall into the trap of using the same tactics as the Commission at the Council of Ministers, that is, it does not divide in order to rule.
It effectively addresses the concerns of the agricultural world.
Parliament's position is therefore of great importance with regard to the survival of the European agriculture model.
The Luxembourg Presidency's approach, the definition of the identity of European agriculture as a reference point for CAP reform and the position of European agriculture on the world market, was ratified by the European Council of December in Luxembourg.
And the model which is emerging from that approach is that of a multi-functional, long lasting, effective agricultural sector spread right across Europe, including less favoured regions, which respects the natural landscape and open spaces, and is capable of responding to consumers' concerns regarding the quality and safety of food.
Unfortunately, a number of reform measures tabled by the Commission do not take this approach into consideration.
The proposed price reductions are excessive and unjustified.
The proposed compensatory aid is inadequate, and will make farmers dependent on benefit. It is also likely to affect the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
The future of compensatory aid, on which the survival of most farms depends, particularly in less favoured regions, is uncertain after enlargement, not to mention the fact, Mr President, that the eco-conditionality of the compensatory payments distorts them and is therefore exaggerated.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Cunha on his very good and timely report.
I very much welcome the Commission's proposals as a step in the right direction but no one in this Chamber should really be under any illusions.
This is not a substantive reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.
It is, as the Commission has said at the beginning of its document, an evolution and an extension of the MacSharry proposals.
As long as the basic objectives and mechanisms remain in place with the CAP there will be no significant restructuring of agriculture within the EU.
A significant majority have indicated that a common rural policy rather than a Common Agricultural Policy would bring greater benefits to Europe's rural communities.
I urge the Commission to re-examine its proposals very closely so as to ensure that Europe's rural communities are not disadvantaged when they must compete for structural funding under the changes when rural areas are included in the new Objective 2.
Furthermore, although Agenda 2000 purports to adopt a more market-led approach, the proposed payments to compensate farmers for a reduction in price are not time-limited and will do nothing to break the cycle of dependence of European farmers on European subsidies; nor will they address the legitimate concerns of the taxpayer.
Compensation for a change in market circumstances should be reduced and eventually stopped after a reasonable period of readjustment.
Given the turmoil of the BSE crisis and the many unresolved issues surrounding food safety and imports from outside the EU, I believe that the Commission should use the opportunity presented by Agenda 2000 to ensure that consumers enjoy the highest level of protection when we enter the next century and that Europe can compete with cheaper non-EU products.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I first want to congratulate the rapporteur on his report, and on having moved on very skilfully to set the guidelines for what our future CAP should look like, in view of Agenda 2000, eastwards enlargement and future WTO negotiations.
My colleagues have already dealt with questions such as price reductions, farmers' participation in the market, getting people to stay in the countryside, and involving young people and women in the sector.
We still have to see how price reductions affect consumers.
However, we must prepare ourselves to be on the offensive in the WTO negotiations, in order to defend our agriculture model, reject foreign models, and make the reality of rural life really matter, by protecting our social and environmental situation.
It is important to implement integral action in the rural zones, going beyond agricultural activity, although that is the basic focus - the crux, I would say. Additional financial means should be provided for other, distinct activities.
Account also needs to be taken of everything to do with land use, the environment, rural tourism, job creation and the improvement and conservation of our rural and cultural heritage.
Commissioner, in the spirit of Cork, rural development should be the second pillar of the CAP.
This reform of yours could and should turn into the common agricultural and rural policy - the CARP.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a real reform of the CAP would mean abandoning once and for all the guidelines introduced in the 1992 reform.
This has not been done, and for that reason the Commission's proposals in Agenda 2000 can be sure of opposition from farmers and their representative organizations all over Europe.
A reform of the CAP would in fact have to be comprehensive and cover all forms of agricultural production.
The Agenda 2000 proposals, however, favour the meat, cereals and dairy sectors, and restrict themselves to a little individual fine tuning of sectors such as olive oil, fruit, vegetables and wine, which are fundamental to the agricultural economies of the southern countries.
Furthermore, to produce a real reform and overturn the 1992 strategy we would have to give unequivocal support to rural development, defend and above all generalize the application of Community priorities, make a special case of rural development in the world context, give decisive support to young farmers and fight rural desertification, maintain and develop market regulation mechanisms and iron out imbalances between regions, forms of production and farmers of different kinds, giving priority to family farms.
We appreciate the introduction of these aspects into the report, to which we have otherwise contributed certain amendments in the direction we suggested years ago.
At the Plenary session we insisted on amendments in favour of the open and universal award of certificates of quality, support for the production and marketing of regional products, the rejection of productivityrelated criteria and most of all the introduction of a clear concept of modulation.
With these guidelines, and if our amendments were accepted, we should have created a policy framework which the Commission ought to take into consideration, and ought to amend the proposals published in connection with Agenda 2000 in accordance with that policy framework.
Mr President, the report is noteworthy for two reasons that might seem contradictory: first of all, it can go into meticulous detail and at the same time it provides a broad overview of the future of European agriculture.
This occurs when the rapporteur combines the economic dimension of agricultural reform with its natural calling, which is related to the sustainable development of the area, the safeguarding of the living conditions of those working there - therefore farmers' income - but especially to the development of regional productions.
It might again seem paradoxical, but to guarantee the basic principles of the CAP - which today is suffering from a growth crisis, in the sense that it has grown too much - we must go back to the beginning.
We must move away from the large industrial concerns and return to the old family farm where it all began and where in many areas it is still the best guarantee of continuity.
The future of agriculture in Europe - in the Europe of today and in the Europe of tomorrow, with an additional ten or so CEECs to take into account - depends on its ability to become the driving force and vehicle of economic and social cohesion, especially in disadvantaged areas where farming is still a challenge and an act of faith.
I am thinking of mountain areas which are continually threatened by a plague called exodus, especially the exodus of young people attracted by easier incomes in the lowlands; I am thinking of Arctic areas; I am thinking of areas threatened with desertification, the last front of those who do not want to give in.
That is why I agree with the rapporteur when he says that support for production can be a double-edged sword that can cut the cord of solidarity with the disadvantaged areas, favouring the growth of two forms of agriculture, one rich and one poor, and create a gap between developed regions and regions lagging behind in development.
In future programming, a series of mechanisms must be guaranteed to regulate interventions and harmonise production in Europe and the Mediterranean. These mechanisms must be based on guaranteed income and forms of integration between complementary professions, definitely treating farming as the main profession.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let us not forget that the common agricultural policy is the fundamental pillar European construction.
It is, in fact, the only really integrated Community policy.
What does the Commission propose, in its communication on Agenda 2000? The Commission proposes a complete reform of the CAP and structural policy limited, for budgetary reasons, to 1.27 % of the GNP of Member States.
With regard to agriculture, its proposals are confined to reducing the prices of arable crops, milk, beef and veal in order to maintain a socalled balance, by providing partial compensation, theoretically enabling farmers to adapt to these price reductions.
However, at the end of December 1999, the European Union and Member States will meet at the negotiating table of the WTO, and the issues under discussion will, of course, be the reduction of agricultural aid and the almost total withdrawal of Community preference.
So what proposals has the Commission made with regard to those discussions?
None, or rather an increase in compensatory aid, which as we all know will be unacceptable to our various partners. The GATT agreements set a ceiling for this type of aid, so I do not believe that such a rise would be acceptable.
What strategy is the Commission going to adopt? Will the Commission have enough courage to force our American partners to accept social and environmental clauses, or the ability to do so?
Commissioner, European agriculture dates back more than 2 500 years.
It cannot be compared with agriculture in countries which have existed only two or three hundred years.
We are going to destroy the rural world by copying them and we will destabilize the regional balance of the whole of the territory of the Member States of the European Union.
I wish to conclude simply by thanking Mr Cunha, and congratulating him on the excellent draft report he submitted to us, but which unfortunately was amended extensively by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, so that it became slightly less coherent.
Mr President, my honourable friends, it would of course be a very attractive prospect now to go into detail on the observations made by my honourable friend Mr Cunha, and on his report.
In view of the late hour, however, I will speak only briefly.
I will therefore distribute to you the statement I had prepared and at this juncture I will restrict myself to a few points which I feel to be important.
First of all, I would like to take the opportunity to thank the rapporteur, Mr Cunha, and the Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for this report.
It was with great interest that I read it and I also agreed with many points in the report.
However, I would have placed emphasis on quite different areas.
Allow me to illustrate.
One of the main aims of the Commission is of course to consolidate the European agriculture model, but in a changing world consolidation cannot mean limiting oneself to consolidating what already exists.
To do so would be to serve agriculture and our farmers badly.
The common agricultural policy must be adapted and reformed because in the coming decades our agriculture will be faced with more and more new realities, new conditions and new challenges.
Only thus can we guarantee the continued existence of the European agriculture model.
This is exactly what the Commission is aiming to achieve by means of these proposals.
Let us speak openly: I have not yet seen an alternative to the Commission's proposals which is consistent, credible and capable of consensus, at least not where longer-term prospects are concerned.
A distinguishing feature, if not the distinguishing feature, of European agriculture, is its multi-functionality, as stated in the report.
This involves firstly the economic dimension.
Today we basically have the choice between two different paths: we could return down the path of production using strict volume limits, but the question is whether this is really an attractive programme for the future, especially in view of a comprehensive agricultural system, enlargement towards the East and the new world trade round.
The strategy which the Commission proposes goes in another direction.
It is based on improving the competitiveness of domestic agricultural products, both internal and external, a task entrusted to the Commission at the Luxembourg Summit.
This brings me to a point in the report, regarding which I must warn against any false impressions.
The price reductions proposed by the Commission are not an end in themselves.
They are the means to improve the competitiveness of our products and thus to create new sales potential.
Reduction of institutional prices must take place in such a way that, even in the case of fluctuating market prices, there is enough scope to maintain a market presence.
From this point of view, I do not believe that the price reductions proposed by the Commission can be regarded as excessive.
In future, intervention should serve only as a safety net in case of significant price collapses.
In relation to the arrangement of direct payments, I cannot confirm, on the basis of the available analyses, that the proposal for a single form of aid for cereal and oilseed would make the production of oilseed crops uneconomic in most of the EU.
In addition, the relationship between the beef and veal sectors is in our experience not nearly as direct as the report seems to assume.
What surprised me is that there would be a deviation from the general rule in the milk sector.
It states that the level of compensatory payments should be allocated in accordance with regional or individual productivity.
It must be obvious that such an approach would have not insignificant redistribution effects.
At a later point the report seems to suggest the increased use of direct payments for redistribution.
If this is the wish of Parliament, it must be stated loud and clear.
I have taken note of the clearly expressed wish to considerably increase area subsidies and subsidies related to service to society in comparison to production-related subsidies.
After all, I see a confirmation of the Commission's view in what the report says about subsidiarity and decentralization.
Subsidiarity - yes; decentralization - yes; renationalization - no!
I am pleased to discover that the report follows a similar guideline to that of the Commission as regards expanding policy on rural areas and environmental protection in agriculture into a solid, second pillar of agricultural policy.
I note that the direction taken by the report in a series of points actually goes much further than the Commission's proposals and that these points refer explicitly to the conclusions of the Cork conference and support a greater financial contribution for rural development on behalf of the Community.
This possibility exists under the agricultural guideline, provided that the political will is to hand and that the agricultural guideline remains in its current form, a point on which the rapporteur and I are in agreement.
I also share the opinions expressed in the report in the areas of food quality and food safety.
I find the report - and I can say this here - very encouraging in many points, but it also opens up many issues which we will disagree on.
I am grateful for both these facts and am already looking forward to further discussions on this and to our continued cooperation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
2000: Economic and social cohesion
The next item is the report (A4-0210/98) by Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on Agenda 2000, Part 1, Chapter II: Economic and Social Cohesion (COM(97)2000 - C4-0523/97).
Mr President, the rapporteur's consensus extends beyond her own committee because, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I think we would go along with most of what her report says.
So I just want to say that although most of our amendments have not been formally incorporated, most of them have been taken on board implicitly. Basically, our amendments only reflect this House's decision of 4 December 1997.
So I do not think there is any problem on our part.
I do want to make two brief comments.
For one thing, we expected a stronger reaction from the Committee on Regional Policy.
As we see it, the provisional pre-accession instrument, from the structural point of view, is not a structural fund, ladies and gentlemen, but an alternative Cohesion Fund.
And that could cause problems in the future.
It does not have the same mechanisms and aims as the Structural Funds, so we think the candidate countries are still not really being prepared for the Structural Funds. They are going to get used to the idea of a Cohesion Fund, which is a different matter.
In the general context of the agreement, I should like to mention a point we think is perhaps fundamental.
We in the Committee on Budgets want a revision clause on the financial result of the structural fund reform - and enlargement, of course.
But whereas we accept the Commission's hypotheses and figures at the moment, we must point out that if the costs corresponding to pre-accession and enlargement are added to the current figures for the Structural and Cohesion Funds, there is still room for manoeuvre within the 1.27 % ceiling.
In other words, if the structural appropriations are reduced for the Fifteen, it is not to avoid exceeding the 1.27 % ceiling, but in order to keep it much lower.
This year, we stand at 1.14 %.
And I wonder, how many decimal places of GNP are we talking about? What we are really talking about at the moment - it was discussed at Cardiff - are mere pittances, in percentage terms.
Mr President, I would just like to add that we must be really aware of the economic and political importance of Heading 2 for the process of European political construction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, from the point of view of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I can but welcome Mrs Schroedter's report.
It shows awareness of the problem and really gets down to the issues of enlargement.
It shows that justice has been done to ideas on achieving economic and social cohesion and it shows a political effort to avoid incoherence.
Enlargement is of course not only an opportunity for positive development but shows us all today, at this early stage, that not all questions of enlargement can be looked at only from an economic point of view, nor will they be a stroll in the park.
Basically, all motions for a resolution, all resolution issues of 4 December are to be found again in the Schroedter report.
My concern is that we need to strike a balance between the areas of infrastructure, transport, environment and human resources in order to achieve cohesion.
This must be regarded as unilateral.
It must be done as a single unit and this must be discussed.
Of course, the role of the social partners is also important in this context, a topic which was broached here as well.
Without the social partners we cannot achieve ratification in the developing countries, in the countries which will be joining.
We need instruments for this and thus we must reorganize PHARE in order to be of significant assistance.
All of this must be done.
Thus, for me it is still a point for discussion.
The new definition of Objective 2 is also very important.
I would just like to point out that the combination of industry and rural areas could represent an opportunity for the future.
I would also point out that in the three regulation proposals shortly to be under consideration, dealing with instruments of structural policy for preparation for accession, there is sufficient time for discussion in order to create a plausible framework for the whole area and to do justice to what we want to achieve, which is a homogeneous enlargement to include the countries of the former Eastern bloc.
Mr President, I welcome today's debate on the Schroedter report on the Agenda 2000 chapter on economic and social cohesion as a solid basis on which to launch Parliament's more detailed and comprehensive work on the regulations governing the Structural Funds.
As Mrs Schroedter said, there was a unanimous vote in the Committee on Regional Policy but I think she would also admit that was as a result of very substantial amendments tabled by many political groups, and, indeed, we have much more work to do in this area.
In response to Mr Colom i Naval, I would say that now is not the time to deal with the very detailed regulations in the Structural Funds: we will look at them when we draw up specific detailed reports.
This is a timely debate, following on from last week's discussions under the British presidency in the Informal Council in Glasgow and the General Affairs Council in Luxembourg, and in the light of today's very topical discussion at the Cardiff Summit on the progress report on Agenda 2000, prepared by the British presidency to identify those areas where a consensus exists in the Council.
Therefore, in the light of these discussions, I wish to take some time to highlight a potential approach that my group will be taking during the reform process.
There is no doubt that this reform of structural and Cohesion Funds represents the most significant changes in the last ten years with a view to meeting the challenges of enlargement and EMU.
Enlargement will surely offer opportunities to our regions but we will want to ensure that the proposals presented by the Commission match our objectives and priorities as socialists, namely to continue the Delors legacy of promoting jobs, sustainable growth and the competitiveness of our regions and the central objective of economic and social cohesion of the Treaty to enable all citizens, regions and Member States to participate on an equal footing.
The Union's benefits must be at the forefront of our policy process.
This is just as much about creating equality of opportunity as removing the disparities between poorer and wealthier regions.
We should be clear about the internal challenges we face: one in five of Europe's youth is out of work, unemployment among women is consistently higher than among men, long-term unemployment persists as a scourge of modern society.
The reform process must, therefore, combine fairness with affordability and durability, with more simplification and efficiency.
It must be fair in order to ensure we give priority to our poor regions without abandoning those problem regions going through the process of economic and social restructuring in wealthier Member States.
Solidarity, if it is to enjoy mass support, must be a two-way, and not a one-way process.
Subsidiarity and decentralization must be the cornerstone of our future policies to ensure that our regional policies are relevant to the needs and interests of local communities.
I would, therefore, like to welcome the decision that Parliament should be fully associated with the reform process.
We welcome the interinstitutional agreement and wish to see it signed and sealed under this presidency.
We have had a positive letter from Robin Cook, the President-in-Office, but we need to move forward now on the more fundamental items.
Finally, I wish to raise some areas where we need to consider the Commission's proposals in more detail: efficiency, of course, is fundamental to ensure the better use of funds but if the efficiency reserve leads to more red tape and bureaucracy and an increased monitoring role for Commission staff, then I fear that all we will be doing is employing more private consultants in order to monitor those processes.
So we need to look very carefully at how that reserve would work.
I would be in favour of looking at an innovation reserve with the appropriate procedures of decentralization and subsidiarity.
We will be judged by our citizens on how we handle the challenge of reform.
Only when the EU is seen to be contributing to the solution of major problems in society, such as poverty and unemployment, can we expect to enjoy their support and ensure the credibility of the Union and its policies and institutions.
My group will take this challenge seriously and we look forward to cooperating with the Council and the Commission in improving the Agenda 2000 proposals to gain support from the public.
We sincerely hope we will be given the opportunity of sharing in the executive powers - in a spirit of codecision, I might add.
In this way we can only add to the democratic legitimacy of the reform process.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur for her willingness to cooperate.
She made a significant contribution to the quality of the report.
On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party I would like to note the following: the Structural Funds must adjust their support objectives in accordance with the objectives of the treaty and the tasks of the Community.
This includes inter alia the balanced and sustainable development of economic activities, a high level of employment and of social protection, equality between men and women, and economic and social cohesion and solidarity among Member States.
The principle of subsidiarity must be considered to a high degree in this context, as must the financial framework.
Under no circumstances must enlargement be used to reduce the upper limit of 0.46 % of Community GNP for structural spending or that of 1.27 % for total expenditure.
In my view, countries participating in monetary union can no longer receive additional support from the Cohesion Fund.
Moreover, solidarity does not mean taking more assistance than necessary.
Thus, for Objective 1 the 75 % threshold of per capita GDP must be adhered to rigidly.
I therefore welcome a transitional period for regions currently eligible for aid within the framework of Objectives 1, 2 or 5b.
The new Objective 2 is, unfortunately, not logical, Madam Commissioner.
It is and remains a scrambled objective.
80 % of EU citizens live in towns, and if rural areas become increasingly disadvantaged in terms of EU support the relationship will deteriorate further.
This means that migration from rural areas to the towns will increase even further.
There are two possible ways to improve the Commission proposal.
The first is an independent objective for rural areas and the second is a subdivided objective with two separate budget lines.
The criteria must be capable of being extended and weighted by the Member States in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
Under no circumstances must the planned concentration of funding hold the Member States back completely from determining the level of assistance they are to receive.
The upper limit of the de minimis rule must therefore be raised considerably.
Aid from Objective 3 must be flexible and easily applicable.
The reduction of Community initiatives to just three is to be welcomed.
But PHARE-CBC funds previously earmarked for cooperation with Interreg cannot under any circumstances be used at the borders between the CEECs.
SME assistance must be increased but, even more importantly, it must be simplified, Madam Commissioner.
The 10 % level for reserve funds is too much.
In this way, the Commission is attempting to gain greater influence because in the end it also determines the use of these reserve funds.
In my view, this is a clear violation of the principle of subsidiarity.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, I would first like to tell the rapporteur, Mrs Schroedter, that she has produced a good report on Agenda 2000.
I am not going to go into the details of the future debate on the Structural Funds, but I must repeat that economic and social cohesion is a fundamental aspect of European construction and, in that sense, we should value the role of the Member States and the regions, and the contributions they should make, together with the EU, towards directly applying the principle of subsidiarity.
I think the desired simplification of the Structural Funds is a good thing, with a large Objective 2. Study is needed to find the best way to include rural areas, industrial areas in decline, urban areas and fishing areas, with a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity in all cases.
Consideration should also be given to the role that regions with a legislative capacity can play in the implementation of these Objective 2 development frameworks.
In that sense, I do not think a single regulation would be valid without taking account of how each Member State will decide to apply this Objective 2, according to its internal organization.
I think the suggestion about Objective 3 is very important, especially in view of the EU's biggest problem at the moment - unemployment.
And all the thinking in that area should bear in mind the future eastwards enlargement of the EU.
In that respect, I think it is a good idea for the Interreg Community initiative to also provide funds for the central and eastern European countries, but without compromising the funds which go to the current EU Member States.
Finally, I would like to say that it is always good for the Structural Funds and the allocated resources to be implemented efficiently, so I hope it will be possible to determine a good approach, to distribute these EU funds as efficiently as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, this is the last opportunity that this House will have to express our positions on the broad principles of the reform of the Structural Funds before we start to examine the detailed legislative proposals in the coming months and it is therefore an extremely important report.
From the outset I would stress that economic and social cohesion is an enshrined principle now and for the future.
It is not about the very short-term fortunes of any national political party for electoral purposes.
We have an obligation to be serious about our contribution to the future development of the Union and our ambitions for a better way forward have got to meet the expectations of all the citizens of the European Union.
Broadly speaking, I am in agreement with the Schroedter report.
There are, however, a couple of points that are of particular concern to me.
I am in total agreement with, and strongly support, the Commission's view that there is no link between EMU participation and eligibility under the Cohesion Fund.
I would stress to certain colleagues that there is no basis in the Treaty to support such a link.
Amendment No 25 by Mr Novo Belenguer and others correctly represents this position and I will be glad to support it.
I can accept the principle of a mid-term review for the Cohesion Fund.
However, I would find it unacceptable if there were not to be provision for transition arrangements for any Member State that ceases to qualify under the mid-term review.
It is essential that adequate transition arrangements be put in place for regions such as my country, Ireland, which cease to meet Objective 1 qualifying criteria.
Transitional arrangements for Ireland must be adequate in terms of the level and duration of funding so as to address our continuing significant developmental needs.
Whereas the level of funding must in particular meet the needs of the less-developed Irish subregions, it is my view that they should cover the whole country during the entire seven-year period of the next financial framework.
Building a solid house is a long term investment.
You do not build a house on foundations that have not been consolidated.
Yes, we in Ireland have made rapid progress towards the EU average in GDP but - yes - we still need new significant levels of funding for the period ahead if we are to consolidate our economic progress achieved to date.
Finally, I do not believe that anyone would seriously contest our aim of reaching a situation in which our higher levels of prosperity are copper-fastened and ensured on a permanent and sustainable basis.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Agenda 2000 caused a great commotion but there is, as yet, no coordination to be seen, as the Member States are rejecting the Commission's script.
Heated fights for allocation, owners of assets who make their presence felt - and in the midst of all this, we lose sight of what is actually at stake; the great, great settlement with central and eastern Europe.
But what are the rules of the game? The first is that enlargement is only possible if the agricultural and structural policies are reformed.
Secondly, some better-off regions are excluded from current aid, and indeed this applies both to Germany and to Sweden or, for example, Spain.
If the German Länder demand that budgetary risks for the Länder be prevented in the finance regulations, it is recommended that they use the interim deadline of four to six years to guarantee this for themselves.
Thirdly, unlike the previous speaker, I believe the Cohesion Fund should be dissolved following monetary union.
However, if the Spanish government and others wish to cling desperately to it, it should be said honestly - and the rapporteur does allow this opportunity - that we cannot in principle deny Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Estonia access to it; this is the logic of the game.
Those who demand things for themselves also achieve things for others.
Fourthly, if we are going to haggle about money, then let us do it properly; this would mean clarifying the net contributor debate, particularly as far as Mr Waigel is concerned.
The justice gap can only be closed on the income side and not on the expenditure side.
Those in favour of reform must also be in favour of dismantling agricultural subsidies.
A reduction of the British rebate in agricultural subsidies and a possible move to co-financing would at the same time pave the way for a general corrective mechanism.
If we adhere to these rules, there will be some kind of coordination and we will have a script which will finally allow us to reach the end of negotiations.
Mr President, Mrs Schroedter's report calls for a more interdependent Europe, where rich regions give poorer regions more help. It calls for an enlarged Europe, enlarged to the scale of the continent, where the first fifteen Member States are committed to raising to their own level the central and eastern European countries, whose average per capita purchasing power is up to five times lower than in the Member States.
At the same time, in Cardiff, our intrepid Heads of State have agreed upon one thing only: to pay less, and to receive more, so Europe will take a huge step backwards.
At the same time, my region, Hainault, is now, in the Commission's own words, a "disaster area' , because of forty years of absolute Socialist rule, because European funds are being squandered by the Socialist Party's friends and accomplices, following an old Socialist and Walloon tradition.
At the same time, we are blowing hot and cold on the countries of central and eastern Europe.
We have invited them to join us, but at the same time, we see a mote in their eyes, their lack of democracy, when in it is our western democracies that are moribund. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is a contemporary version of the torture of Tantalus: the harder we try to reach out to Europe and the benefits it could give our fellow citizens, the more it eludes us.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have less than a year; by then everything must be in place - everything that we want to have discussed and decided in relation to Agenda 2000.
Less than a year is not much time.
So we really must set about rolling up our sleeves and getting started.
I believe Elisabeth Schroedter's report is a good start.
It provides a great deal of information without anticipating decisions which we have yet to debate intensively.
I believe this is exactly the right approach.
In past debates - at this juncture, I would remind you of the plenary session in Brussels - we have experienced what happens if we try to lay down measures rashly or in hasty speculation.
These cannot be the terms under which we work; instead, we must discuss matters seriously and thus find useful solutions.
The report provides some guidelines, even if I would not accept in blank everything contained in it.
There are also further amendments.
We will vote on it tomorrow. Then we will finally have a result.
But I believe it is important that this step has been taken.
What is the aim of all this? The aim in developing Agenda 2000 is not only to distribute money.
It is to achieve a balanced system.
It is also a question of working together to improve and develop an instrument of aid, and of how we get along together.
There can be no question of our standing here and saying "We have received money from the Member States, ' and the Member States saying, "Give it back to us - we know best how to distribute it.'
No, the aim is not to achieve a European added value.
We must work together on this.
I believe that in many places we must point out weaknesses.
In the conflict between globalization and regionalization, it cannot only be a question of bringing as much as possible back and saying to the people at home, "Do what you want with it, ' and sufficing with that.
Nevertheless, we will have to examine the Commission's proposals carefully.
Here, in many places, it is necessary to introduce simplification and the transparency which has been announced.
We will examine this carefully, as it has been pointed out to us that simplification, for example in partnership or in programming, would, of course, bring with it an increased level of pressure and bureaucracy, which we do not want.
We will consider this very carefully.
In my view, our task over the next few weeks and months will be to look at which countries need money and which countries receive it.
Of course, we must also ensure that this Community instrument is developed into a transparent instrument with which we can work together for the future of our regions.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is easy to agree on principles, certainly when the principles in question make sense.
Thus, in principle, we happily agree with the Schroedter report and the proposals for the reform of structural policy within Agenda 2000.
Recognizable areas of concentration instead of spreading funds too thinly, objective criteria for the allocation of EU funds, bottom-up partnership, evaluation, what more could we want? In the interests of those affected, we must want more!
Rural areas, which have already been mentioned today, have not yet been given the necessary consideration, at least not in the initial drafts.
Rural areas must at least be worthy of a subgoal within Objective 2, with guaranteed funding.
In order to meet with the wide approval of our citizens, for the next round of enlargement we will need the opportunities offered by Interreg and a guaranteed level of Interreg funding for the Union's border regions.
Indications from Brussels regarding funding constitute better advice than words of concern from various political ultra-peripheral regions.
Moreover, without upper limits on finance, some so-called net contributors will feel that too much is being asked of them.
The Schroedter report will meet with broad approval only when we allow room not only for the principles but also for particular interests, and I use the term advisedly.
Let us work together with the Commission and the Council to achieve a good balance in the coming months, so that we will have a result which meets with broad approval throughout the Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, reforms in EU regional and structural policy have to be able to meet the growing challenges that spring from regional inequality.
The development of the global economy, mass unemployment, enlargement and EMU are all factors that require a structural policy that will level out differences and create new opportunities.
EU regional policy must be more adept and flexible in its attention to differing circumstances.
For example, more flexibility is needed in assessing population cover and national funding, according to the circumstances of the country.
We have to keep rigidly to the Agenda 2000 timetable for debate.
The effective implementation of the programmes and the participation by the different parties involved requires sufficient preparation time.
Large rural areas such as eastern and northern Finand are in a critical situation as far as the future is concerned.
These areas are suffering acutely from population loss.
We are now in urgent need of a policy of reform for these regions that will help to bring opportunities for the development of human capital, entrepreneurship based on the new technology, and a diverse array of incentives.
The focus has to be the creation of permanent jobs locally and the support of local initiative.
Mr President, I would like to underline the importance of the partnership principle, especially when defining programmes and their methodology.
I would particularly like to underline the fact that, if the measures for the development of rural regions are not clearly defined and decided, we risk causing great damage to local and regional cooperation.
Meanwhile, there is another concern that should not be underestimated, and that is the danger that in the new view presented in Agenda 2000 economic and social cohesion will tend to blur the competences and control of the European Parliament.
If this were to occur, it would truly be paradoxical that at a time when we are faced with the decisive issue of enlargement, the democratic guarantee of the European Parliament would be weakened.
At the same time, we are of the view that it is useful to facilitate cooperation with non-EU countries through Interreg and PHARE, creating appropriate legal and financial instruments like, for example, common funds.
We are puzzled as to the actual usefulness of the proposed 10 % reserve mechanism.
Similarly, we would like to highlight the paltry amount of credits made available.
Enlargement requires a rational and effective structural policy, in spite of the budget restrictions that are imposed.
In general, when we look at the innovations of Agenda 2000, we see that the number of Community initiatives is reduced from 13 to 3, that the budget for the Cohesion Fund is only ECU 3 billion, that the eligibility criteria for aid seems simplified; we also see that no major progress has been made in structural policy, which is even more important today because of the new countries seeking membership.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our financial forecasts for the years 2000 to 2006, upon which our cohesion policy depends, will be decided in March next year, according to the Cardiff Summit, after the effects of the German elections have been put into perspective.
Thus Mrs Schroedter's report, while it is a good piece of work, is merely a preliminary step, although it is imbued with the best of cohesion philosophy.
But we are bound by circumstances, in the light of the vote a fortnight ago in the European Parliament, which was unexpectedly hostile to the countries that benefit from the Cohesion Fund, to take the matter up again in the form of some amendments to the Schroedter report.
The vote on these proposals represents a significant test of the present sensitivity of Members of the European Parliament.
It will indelibly mark out the difference between national selfishness and Community solidarity, between the laws of the market and the ethical imperatives of cohesion, in short between words and actions.
And let it not be said that the Cohesion Fund is intended to help its beneficiaries to join the euro, and nothing more.
That is mere sophistry: false reasoning masquerading as sound argument.
The fact is that the need to keep the Cohesion Fund is even further justified with the coming of the euro.
Economic geography and history show us that when the market is unified, harmonized, extended and supplied with a single currency there are advantages for the whole, but on the other hand there is also a strong tendency for already existing geographical centres and economic groups to be strengthened, to the detriment of the most peripheral and outlying regions.
These are real risks which should not be underestimated; on the contrary, the Fifteen should be working to counteract them.
How? By giving priority to the principle of balance within our territory and to policies of cohesion.
This is why the Cohesion Fund must be kept and why, in short, it would be a very serious mistake to abolish it.
The European Parliament, which over the years has championed the principles of solidarity, would seriously compromise its reputation if it did not now unequivocally keep faith with its traditions and the values on which it is built.
Madam Commissioner, the efforts of the European Union to achieve economic and social cohesion within its borders must continue unabated while there remain substantial inequalities at both regional and national level and while such tendencies are, in certain cases, on the increase, despite the significant steps that have been taken towards achieving nominal convergence.
This situation, together with the imminent enlargement towards countries of central and eastern Europe, places increased responsibilities on the European Union, which impose a new way of dealing with social and structural policies in the future.
Against such a background, the first substantial issue to be raised is that of the structural perspectives, which is an issue which must be clarified as soon as possible so that we know what money we will have at our disposal, in order that we can determine in a responsible way the relevant policies.
This is an issue which, of course, belongs chiefly within the powers of the Council.
The Community budget, up to 1.27 % of Community GDP, of which 0.46 % is allocated to structural policies, may well prove to be inadequate in the future to cover satisfactorily both existing and new countries and policies.
On no account must enlargement turn out to be at the expense of current Member States, especially the poorest.
That is why the financial perspectives must be re-examined, before the first wave of enlargement, with a view to dealing with the new requirements and developments which will have arisen or which, by then, will have become more apparent.
The regions of Objective 1, which are those with a per capita GDP lower than 75 % of the Community average, in other words the poorest and those with the greatest needs, must continue in the future to receive two-thirds of Structural Fund resources, as recommended moreover by the Commission.
The share of financing for these regions must remain high, while they must be even higher for island regions due to the special problems they face, as recognised moreover by Article 130a of the Amsterdam Treaty.
The implementation of an integrated policy, based on this provision in the new Treaty, is also necessary for the islands, in order to deal with the special problems that arise because of their island status.
It is also right to reduce the Objectives from six to three as well as the Community initiatives from fifteen to three, for the purposes of simplification and focus.
Finance equivalent to 5 % of resources also seems logical to me but there certainly needs to be a doubling of resources for innovative actions which, precisely because of their pioneering and guiding nature, may prove to be especially advantageous.
I would like to finish by stressing that in the future there must still be a Cohesion Fund for the financing of large structural projects in the fields of transport and the environment, in which countries with a per capita GDP lower than 90 % of the Community average must once again be able to participate.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mrs Schroedter on her report, and tell her that the best thing about the report - and she should not be upset by this - is that it is indebted to the proposals made by the Commission, and specifically the Commissioner here with us today, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
This report is in line with the Commission proposals, and that is exactly where its strength and positive nature lie.
It has another positive aspect: it is going to allow us to go back over the incredible events of the last part-session when, because of a series of mistakes, a conclusion was reached on the Cohesion Fund which does not represent the majority view of the House, as we will have the chance to find out in tomorrow's vote.
I want to ask Mrs Schroedter to please try to educate a certain member of her group a little, because she has certainly taken full account of what the Cohesion Fund is, and what cohesion means. The Cohesion Fund is provided for in the Treaties, should continue to be provided for in the Treaties, and to change it would mean changing the Treaties.
It cannot be presented as an option for some countries which do not want to give up certain subsidies.
We are talking about the Treaties, and those countries with less than 90 % of Community income have a continued right to the Cohesion Fund, because that is what is said by the rules of the Fifteen with which we have provided ourselves.
Mrs Schroedter certainly has understood what cohesion is.
And cohesion cannot be understood without the fundamental link to the internal market which now, with the single currency, is a full internal market.
The positions achieved are also the positions achieved by those countries, regions and companies which, in a common market, have enjoyed a situation of privileged competition. That is why cohesion arises: so that this competitive privilege can be borne in mind, and the least favoured regions can be helped.
Let us be logical when we talk about cohesion, Mr President.
Mr President, I want to start my speech by joining previous speakers in congratulating Mrs Schroedter on her report.
She certainly deserves those congratulations, because of her hard work in preparing her report and, especially, because of the efforts she has made to seek compromises between the various political groups. These compromises have meant that this report was approved almost unanimously in the Committee on Regional Policy.
Among the report's conclusions, I would like to emphasise - because it is so important for cohesion policy - the express recognition that two-thirds of the total Structural Fund resources should be allocated to the Objective 1 regions. Only by concentrating resources on the least favoured regions can we reduce regional disparities within reasonable timescales.
I think the reference in recital A to the Cohesion Fund's important role in promoting the harmonious development of the Community is very positive. However, not only do I think the statement in recital L should be incorporated into the conclusions, but I also think it needs to be worded in such a way as to clarify the debate currently underway, in view of the vote on the Berend amendment in the last Brussels part-session.
So I think the text of Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 14, presented by members of the PPE Group, the ARE Group and the PSE Group, brings the debate back to more reasonable terms, without hasty pronouncements.
These amendments support the maintenance of a Cohesion Fund after the year 2000, without prejudging the final position of the European Parliament, which will be expressed in the context of the legislative procedure on the Cohesion Fund. They allow this House to begin the debate with the necessary composure and respect for the Treaties, in an atmosphere of parliamentary calm, unaffected by electoral stances arising from the important national elections underway.
I think that, as the report underlines, it is very important to reclaim powers for the bodies responsible for European regional policy, with respect to the programming and monitoring of programmes within the framework of rural development, otherwise the coherence which should characterize all aspects of regional policy will be lost.
I conclude by thanking our rapporteur again for her excellent work, which will serve as a guideline for the Committee on Regional Policy in its task over the next few months, in analysing the highly reasoned and balanced legislative proposals presented by the Commission.
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we must be careful - in the context of the solidarity always mentioned in connection with economic cohesion of the Union - not to repeat the fairytales told to us by the Council and other powers, sometimes even the Commission.
On the one hand, we cannot plan, with the approval of all Member States, an enlargement of the kind that is obviously planned here - the poorest and most sizeable enlargement which Europe's history of integration has ever known. On the other hand, we cannot believe that we will have to pay less than in the past or indeed that we can maintain existing structural policies and Member States' incomes as they were in the past.
Our fellow citizens will not accept this and indeed it is also an insult to our own intelligence.
Thus, it will be a question of proper distribution.
In this regard, some colleagues are indeed right.
We not only have a north-south conflict in the area of cohesion but also, to a certain extent, a north-north conflict.
Here I must point out to some of the preceding speakers that there is no point in only considering structural policies as such.
Of course, no later than October, when the Commission adds up the income side of Agenda 2000 and says that this country has to pay so much and that country has to pay so much, we will have a new debate on expenditure in category 2 of the structural policies.
For this reason it is also important that we include, for example, expenditure on agriculture.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development cannot make its own decisions on this and say that none of it is its concern.
I am directing this particularly at our Bavarian representative here.
Of course, this is to be included as, if we have major new tasks ahead of us, and that is a certainty, then it poses a challenge to our solidarity.
Then it will no longer be possible for the second richest country in this Union to be a net beneficiary because of this - crazy - agricultural policy; then our fellow citizens of the Union will no longer accept such a policy.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to express my approval of the priorities of this report, which owes its current form not least to the cooperation of the rapporteur and to many changes in committee.
We are in favour of the proposed concentration of funding for development and structural adjustment of underdeveloped regions (Objective 1), as proposed by the report and by the Commission.
We support the strict application of the criterion of a regional per capita GNP, expressed as purchasing power parities of level NUT 2, less than 75 % of the Community average, for the selection of future Objective 1 regions.
Two-thirds of the structural funds appropriations for Objective 1 do in fact guarantee the necessary concentration of funding for the regions most in need.
In this context, however, I would remind the Commission not to deviate from the strict application of this criterion. In simple terms this means that all Objective 1 regions are entitled to receive equal funding.
In view of the regional orientation of Objective 1, the criterion relating to national welfare is not suited to equal treatment.
On the contrary, it creates new inequalities and thus, we reject it.
Like the report and the Commission, we are in favour of financing European structural policy while maintaining the ceiling of 1.27 % for own resources and the percentage of structural funds at 0.46 %, and also of not deviating from these central points in the context of enlargement.
As far as the Cohesion Fund is concerned, we agree with the rapporteur that after the year 2000, we should have a Cohesion Fund as support for reaching the convergence criteria.
However, we do not want the continuation of the existing one, as currently provided for by Agenda 2000.
A translation error relating to this will be corrected tomorrow by means of a corrigendum.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, economic and social cohesion is an essential objective of European construction, and just as important as monetary union or the single market. If the effort towards cohesion has been important, the economic data show that so far it has not been enough.
To make sure that people understand what we mean, we are not talking about charity here, or about indefinite, indiscriminate subsidies.
Cohesion is synonymous with solidarity and fairness in the different efforts of the various European regions to achieve competitiveness.
Cohesion is the other face of the single market and monetary union. In that context, and in the context of enlargement, economic and social cohesion will be needed more than ever, and rightly so.
Monetary union and the single market will mean that investment is centred on the rich countries more than ever.
Enlargement will make solidarity even more necessary, when cohesion has still not been achieved among the Fifteen.
So the Cohesion Fund is an essential instrument.
The Cohesion Fund is needed by the current Member States which have a per capita GNP of less than 90 % of the Community average, as established by the Treaty, regardless of whether or not they join monetary union.
Lastly, the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries attached to the Schroedter report mentions an injustice which I want to underline: the inadequate structural attention paid to the fisheries sector in Agenda 2000.
The special nature of coastal regions, which are generally peripheral and highly dependent on fishing, with no easy employment alternatives, means they need the structural support of a horizontal regulation to include the whole European coastline, to give these zones the concrete actions they so badly need and should have, but which do not exist at the moment.
So I conclude by congratulating the rapporteur and calling for real improvements in economic and social cohesion in Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and say that Agenda 2000 puts a brake on the development of cohesion policy with a cut in the percentage of the expenditure objective decided in Edinburgh from 0.46 to 0.39 %, considering that heading 2 of the budget must give up ECU 7 billion to pre-accession.
That is why we are calling first of all for the creation of a new budget heading - heading 7 - a reflection on the 1.27 % that should be revised when the dates and numbers concerning enlargement are known, and a distribution of funds that leaves the cohesion policy the way it was decided, without reducing it to a kind of privilege for a few.
I actually wonder whether Agenda 2000, in wanting to concentrate the distribution of funds as much as possible, has taken into account the actual needs of regions or whether it has blindly chosen a figure as the maximum criterion.
I also have doubts as to the choice of per capita GDP as an absolute reference.
This figure should be examined thoroughly so that it accurately reflects the socio-economic condition of a region, otherwise, we will find ourselves with obvious distortions of reality like, for example, in the case of the island regions.
How does a Eurostat parameter show the major difference that exists between the 76 % achieved by an island region and the 76 % achieved by a region on the mainland?
Several items in the chapter on cohesion policy in Agenda 2000 leave me puzzled, beginning with the 10 % reserve.
I will just say here that I would like to see some rethinking of the Cohesion Fund as soon as possible so that in the near future it is not eliminated but regionalized.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Could you inform Commissioner Fischler's cabinet that mobile phones are not allowed in this House. It is discourteous to Members and interrupts the debates.
Thank you, Mrs McCarthy.
We have all noted your remark.
That includes the Commissioner, of course.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m. tomorrow.
Common organization of the market in bananas
The next item on the agenda is Mr Thomas's report (A4-0220/98), on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending (EEC) Regulation No 404/93 on the common organization of the market in bananas (COM(98)0004- C4-0046/98-98/0013(CNS).
Mr President, today we are considering a Commission proposal which will bring the European Union banana regime into line with a ruling delivered by the WTO dispute settlement body.
Although many of us would like to, we are not at liberty to alter the judgment and many of us, myself included, would criticize the way that decision was reached and the method by which the original complaint was taken.
However, that said, the European Union is required to put new arrangements into place by 1 January 1999.
The world trade in bananas is a very complex business with many players and conflicting interests.
I firmly believe that although we must work within the legal framework of our international commitments, our primary objective must be to protect EU producers and those countries to which we have committed our support in the context of the Lomé Convention.
The provision of quality fruit at a reasonable price is just one aim of the banana regime.
However, world trade should not be driven solely by economic considerations.
We have a duty to contribute to the fight against poverty and towards the protection of acceptable social and environmental standards.
I broadly support the Commission proposals which make as few changes as possible to the existing regime.
The Commission proposes maintaining the existing tariff quota at its current level of 2.2 million tonnes at the same rate of duty of ECU 75 per tonne with an additional autonomous tariff quota of 353 000 tonnes at a rate of ECU 300 per tonne to take account of an enlarged European Union.
My main concern with the Commission proposals is that duty-free access to bananas from traditional ACP suppliers up to a ceiling of 857 000 tonnes will continue while at the same time the current licensing system will be abolished and individual countries will no longer be allocated a share of the quota on a country basis.
The licensing system is one element of the banana regime condemned by the WTO which must be replaced.
The Commission proposal does not detail how licences will be allocated and this gives rise to concern.
I urge the Commission to preserve a balance in the supply of bananas on the EU market and to ensure that in allocating a quota they use the best possible statistics which take account of changes in trade flows in recent years.
It would be totally unacceptable if those ACP countries which have traditionally provided bananas for the EU market and whose economies depend on the revenue they receive from the banana trade lose out when new arrangements come into effect.
The Lomé Convention refers to individual states and not the ACP as a whole and the WTO ruling recognizes the commitment the EU has made to the ACP states.
Traditional ACP suppliers also risk losing out as a result of the increasing involvement of American multinationals in banana production in some of the non-traditional ACP states.
I trust that the Commission will monitor this situation very carefully and bear this in mind when allocating market access.
I am pleased that in this context the Commission has brought forward proposals for a financial package of ECU 370m to assist ACP banana producers and bridge the competitive gap between the ACP and Latin American bananas.
Mr Liese is the rapporteur for the Committee on Development and Cooperation for these proposals and they are linked with mine.
They should be treated as an urgency this week.
It is important to have a mechanism which will enable ACP states to expand their production.
I have suggested that the Commission include an expansion coefficient in their calculations.
It is easy for an Englishman to forget that 17 % of the bananas eaten in Europe are produced domestically.
I would like to thank my Spanish and Portuguese colleagues for the time they have taken to ensure that I was fully instructed on this fact.
We discussed EU banana production and its importance to the industry in some of the more peripheral areas of the Union at some length.
The Commission proposal does not contain any specific measures to favour our own banana producers who stand to lose as a result of the changes to the regime.
I therefore proposed in my report that the maximum quantity for EU bananas be increased by 15 % from the present level of 854, 000 tonnes to 982, 000 tonnes and that the standard reference income be raised by 20 %.
In this way we can ensure that EU producers also benefit from the growth in the market.
The ECU 78m which will be saved as a result of higher duties should be redeployed to facilitate banana production in those regions of the EU such as Madeira, the Canaries and Crete whose economies to a large extent depend on this crop.
Finally, I would like to make a special mention of Somalia.
The civil war and severe flooding have devastated the banana industry.
We have a duty to extend a helping hand to the people of Somalia and ensure that they can rebuild what was a flourishing industry.
I urge the Commission and the Council to be flexible and show some compassion.
There is much more I could say about my report.
I hope colleagues will support it as it was overwhelmingly supported in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union consumes approximately four million tonnes of bananas every year.
76 % of these are imported from nonEU, non-ACP countries, most of whose plantations are controlled by American companies.
So far as we know, this form of production, or this way of producing bananas, has no environmental or social concerns.
Thus, from the point of view of production in the European Union - which, as you know, includes the island of Madeira, which is part of the territory of Portugal - we have been protecting either common production or production in the traditional ACP countries.
That protection has been provided by subsidies and preferential treatment which is expressed in a special system of import certificates and a customary duty-free import quota.
That system, as you know, has been challenged by the United States and some Latin American banana producers as an alleged breach of Article 13 of the GATT.
As a result, the Union has been requested to change the system by the dispute-settling body of the World Trade Organization.
The Commission has accordingly put forward a amendment to Regulation 404/93 on the common organization of the market in bananas.
That amendment is the subject of our report.
Having examined and studied all its aspects, particularly its budgetary implications, the Budgetary Committee essentially agrees to the proposals on the legal side of the matter; however, particularly bearing in mind the resulting implications for its own producers and for traditional ACP producers, the Budgetary Committee has drawn up a series of amendments to the law - which it hopes may be included in the report by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development - the purpose of which is, by means of an annual report by the Committee, to control and keep checks on the financial consequences of the new system and examine the proposed aid framework.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Fischler, the establishment of a European market for bananas in 1993 has had largely positive results: a sevenfold increase in intra-Community flow, convergence and stability of prices, renewed confidence in producer countries and, finally, an increase in the market shares of European operators by comparison with American operators.
More specifically, of the three great multinational companies which control three-quarters of the world market in bananas, only Chiquita's market share is decreasing, which I have to say is the result of strategic and management errors.
Chiquita therefore only has itself to blame. However, this company with its colonialist attitude, which is used to getting its own way, by force if necessary, and which has been convicted several times for abusing its dominant position, blames European regulations, and what is more, the American government and certain other countries have followed its example.
Of course, Chiquita's president has an important political role and great political influence, as he gave over one million dollars to the big political parties during the presidential elections in the United States.
So, the problem has nothing to do with the principle of liberalization of the European market in bananas.
The COM has apparently expanded the market.
The essential problem has something to do with our view of the economy which is opposed to that of the United States, especially when such an important country allows it decisions to be dictated by an utterly unscrupulous company.
Faced with the WTO rulings, and after having exhausted all other means of recourse, the Union has in fact decided to bring the COM in bananas into line with the rules of international trade.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation accepts the solution proposed by the Commission and amended by the rapporteur Mr Thomas, whom I must thank for having incorporated many of our proposals.
We accept it because it complies with the 1993 compromises: it respects the interest of the various sources of supply, and takes into consideration the Union's commitments, that is, Community preference and preferential access for ACP countries, pursuant to Protocol 5 of the Lomé Convention.
In many African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, bananas are the main crop, the only crop to generate exports, the main employer.
They are the "single engine' of fragile economies, trying courageously and obstinately to enter the modern world.
This new regulation will test the Union's political ability to defend its policies and its identity.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating David Thomas, the rapporteur, on his excellent work on this crucial issue of our trade in bananas.
I also wish to offer an apology, Mr President, to you, Parliament and Commissioner Fischler, for I have to leave immediately after this speech for a bilateral discussion with my Dutch colleague, Jozias van Aartsen, about this dossier and price-fixing generally, before the Council next week.
After all the hard work that has gone into this dossier, I am optimistic that the Council will be able to arrive at an agreement at our June meeting.
Today is an opportunity, therefore, for me to express my sincere appreciation to Parliament, David Thomas and all his colleagues for the speed with which this issue, this complex and, as we know, controversial dossier, has been considered.
Ever since the latest WTO dispute began two years ago, we have accepted that, in the event of an adverse ruling, the Union would have to bring its arrangements into line with those WTO rules.
The Union committed itself to do that immediately, once the ruling was published.
We now have until 1 January next year to get the revised system into place.
That is why we must reach agreement at next week's Council so that there is enough time for the detailed rules to be agreed and implemented before that deadline.
The revised arrangements will not be as favourable as the present arrangements for the producers in the ACP countries, to whom we have obligations under the Lomé Convention.
Taking my presidency hat off for a moment, we in the United Kingdom are particularly concerned about the situation of the Caribbean producers.
Because of our long-standing relationship with the region we are acutely aware of their current dependence on banana production to sustain their whole economy.
The Council recognizes the importance of bananas, both in terms of exports and employment, for those Caribbean and, indeed, all ACP countries, and for the ultra-peripheral areas of the Union.
At the same time, we accept that the revisions the Commission is proposing are the best way forward in the very difficult circumstances following the ruling by the WTO.
It is important, therefore, to reach agreement as soon as possible, both inside the European Union and outside it, too, in order to provide the stability in the market that both producers and traders require.
Regrettably, while we seem to be moving towards an acceptable deal within the European Union, the signs from some of the WTO complainants are less helpful.
These countries have, of course, been following the negotiations on the revised arrangements with close interest.
They claim that what the Commission is proposing is not sufficient to bring the bananas regime into line with the ruling.
I must say that I find this attitude very disappointing.
I hope that once the United States and others have a chance to look at what the Council agrees, they will accept that we, working together with the Commission, have found a reasonable way of honouring all our international obligations - that is obligations under the Lomé Convention as well as obligations under the WTO.
I certainly hope that is so, because the uncertainty created by the ongoing threat of further WTO action would be neither conducive to the proper functioning of the market nor to the ability of ACP and EU growers to adjust to the new arrangements.
I firmly believe that the proposal represents a carefully judged reconciliation of the Union's obligations under the WTO and its commitment to the ACP countries under the Lomé Convention.
I am determined to reach agreement in the June Agriculture Council, and I am most grateful for the European Parliament's helpfulness in making this objective possible.
I once again apologize for having to leave.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Thomas, for his report on the reform of the common market organization in bananas.
The starting point which made it necessary to reform those points of the common market organization in bananas which regulate trade with third countries is well known.
I would like to add at this point that the WTO rules do not affect internal Community rules; for this reason they do not need to be changed.
Nine major series of questions stand out from among the large number of amendments.
The first problem concerns autonomous tariff quotas and the balance sheet.
In the Commission's view, the relevant amendments do not take into account the supply requirements of the enlarged Community of Fifteen.
We must also ensure that we fulfil the valid expectations of those traders who previously had privileges.
I would also like to note that each increase in autonomous tariff quotas benefits non-traditional ACP countries and that EU producers always profit from an increase in consumption as their production quantities are not limited.
The Commission cannot, therefore, accept Amendments Nos 11, 15, 23, 27, 28, 30, 31, 46 or 53.
The second problem concerns the regulation on deficiency payments.
The Commission proposal ensures that the regulation is in line with the WTO provisions, which nonetheless do not affect internal Community rules.
Thus, in the Commission's view, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to change the deficiency payments regulation.
I would like to emphasize, however, that the income guarantee for EU producers is always granted, without full compensation, regardless of the actual market price.
Amendments Nos 5 to 8, 10, 21, 22, 24 to 26, 48 and 51 therefore constitute a problem for the Commission.
As far as the ACP suppliers are concerned, a subject dealt with in Amendments Nos 3, 6, 9, 36, 48, 55 and 57, the existing preferences are retained in the Commission proposal.
We believe that access is gained to the Community by means of the third preamble in the original regulation.
Special assistance should be laid down in the Commission proposal in the form of a special framework of assistance for the traditional ACP suppliers which, it is to be hoped, will be accepted soon and which was previously the subject of the vote in the urgent procedure.
Thus, the Commission believes that in this context, changes to our proposal will not be necessary.
I should add, in relation to Amendments Nos 48 and 55, that the revision of the WTO mechanisms lies outside the scope of this regulation.
As regards Amendments Nos 14, 28, 45, 50 and 52 concerning non-traditional ACP bananas, in the Commission's view access of non-traditional bananas to the Community market by means of the ECU 200 preference is already sufficiently guaranteed.
With regard to Amendment No 50, it should be noted that the allocation of 857 000 tonnes applies only to the traditional ACP suppliers and that this fixed provision guarantees access to the Union's market.
Amendments Nos 16, 17 and 32 refer specifically to Somalia. If we were to grant Somalia a special quota, this would clearly be an infringement of WTO provisions, as would preferential granting of licences.
In any case, Somalia benefits from the overall ACP quota, although it did not sign the last Lomé Convention.
The next problem area concerns import licences and the licence system.
A balanced supply is guaranteed by the quotas for third countries and not by the licence system.
Furthermore, the details of the licence system for bananas and the coefficients of expansion to calculate the number of licences to be allocated every year to each group of traders are decided in the course of the management committee procedure.
I cannot, therefore, approve Amendments Nos 12, 13, 33 to 35, 44 or 49.
I will now turn to the question of proper conditions of competition, which I know is very important to many of the Members of this House. This question concerns Amendments Nos 1 to 4, 18, 19, 37, 38, 40, 44, 54, 55 and 58 to 60.
I would emphasize that the Commission is very much in favour of proper conditions of competition and organic production methods. In our opinion, the corresponding measures should be taken across the board and not just for bananas.
This question is currently being discussed by the services concerned in order to clarify the position of the Commission on the issue of proper conditions of competition. Thus, I do not wish to pre-empt the results of these Commission discussions.
Amendment No 29 aims to ensure that smaller suppliers, in particular smaller ACP countries, are not disadvantaged by the introduction of tariff quotas.
The WTO provisions, however, already offer smaller suppliers higher protection and we will comply with these provisions. Thus, in the Commission's view, it is not necessary to change the original wording.
In the Commission's opinion, there is still sufficient time, before the review at the end of 2005, for the regulation to prove that it is fully workable and for its efficiency to be tested.
For this reason I cannot accept the amendments which suggest different limits for the duration of the regulation or for the review.
The Commission welcomes the European Parliament's constructive cooperation in this extremely difficult and sometimes emotional subject, which is of the utmost importance both within the EU and from an international point of view. The Commission's caution regarding the amendments tabled is linked to the fact that we must strive to avoid a second WTO panel in this matter, as this would certainly cause considerable harm to the standing of the European Community and its institutions.
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m. tomorrow.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0474/98).
Having welcomed Commissioner Wulf-Mathies, and once she has got settled, I invite her to reply to Question No 45 by Richard Corbett (H-0501/98)
Subject: Money-laundering and transition to the single currency
Article 3 of the 1991 Council Directive on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money-laundering establishes an identification requirement for customers involved in any transaction amounting to ECU 15 000 or more. Will this be applicable to monies changed from national currencies to the euro?
If not, why not? If necessary, will the Commission put forward proposals to ensure that the transition to the euro provides a unique opportunity for nullifying the value of large sums of money in the hands of criminal gangs and others?
Mr President, the terms of the Council Directive on prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering also apply fully to the period of transition to the euro in terms of the exchange of national currencies into the single currency.
However, according to the Directive, only the laundering of drugs money is prohibited.
This is why it is planned to extend the ban to a broader spectrum of serious crime.
According to the Directive, anyone wishing to open a bank or savings account must provide identification and the data recorded regarding identification must be kept for at least five years.
Moreover, identification is required of all customers concluding transactions of over ECU 15 000.
This is the case regardless of whether the transaction is carried out in a single operation or whether it spans several operations which are, or appear to be, linked.
Where there are grounds for believing that customers are not acting on their own behalf, measures must be taken to determine the real identity of the persons on whose behalf those customers are acting.
If there is any suspicion of money laundering, the identity of the customer must be established regardless of the amount of the financial transaction.
All suspicious transactions must be reported to the relevant authorities.
The Commission expects continuous vigilance on the part of credit and financial institutions in the run-up to the changeover to the euro; during this transition, criminals may attempt to channel their cash back into the financial system or to exchange national currencies into other currencies.
This applies equally to the actual changeover period.
At the same time, the Commission admits that banks could face further difficulties in exposing suspicious transactions, in particular those under the ECU 15 000 threshold, if a large number of unknown customers appear at their tills.
The Commission is continuing its internal consultations on the effects the changeover to the euro may have on the fight against money laundering.
This problem should also be tackled by the money laundering contact committee set up within the framework of this Directive.
In addition, the Commission will soon be adopting its second report on the incorporation of the money laundering Directive into national law, and expects to present it to Parliament before the summer recess.
Thank you, Commissioner, for that detailed answer which is quite encouraging.
But I would urge you to go further and ensure that this unique opportunity is seized.
The black economy is largely a cash economy.
Drug dealers and others like dealing in cash rather than through bank accounts because it leaves no trace.
With the transition to the euro, they will at some point have to convert old notes and coins into euros and, at that point, there is an opportunity for control and follow-up of leads that have perhaps been given from other sources.
That is why a full and proper application of this directive and the further measures that you refer to is essential so that we can use this occasion to have an extra bonus in the transition to the single currency, over and above the economic benefits that it is going to bring us.
May I urge you to persevere.
Mr President, I think we are in agreement on the most important points.
We will continue to observe matters carefully and will endeavour to respond to potential problems using the proposed new directive.
However, we must recognise that old banknotes may be exchanged by honest citizens, too, who simply prefer the piggy bank to the High Street bank.
Thus, above all we must exercise great care in ensuring that banks provide the necessary information and precautions.
Question No 46 by Georgios Anastassopoulos (H-0542/98)
Subject: Commission obligation to monitor the use of Community funds to prevent them being used for Government propaganda
Given that the Greek Government is using substantive amounts of Community funding (for instance, Drs. 1.5 billion from the CSF) for Government propaganda and television broadcasts, without respecting the balance of political power in Greece and without giving MEPs the opportunity to inform Greek public opinion, will the Commission say:
What Community funds have been used over the last three years for actions of this kind and why has it failed to carry out controls so as to ensure compliance with the principles agreed on with Parliament? Since prefectural and local elections are taking place in Greece in 1998, does the Commission intend, in the light of the accusations which have been levelled, to change the present system so as to prevent the unilateral use of Community funds for government and ministerial propaganda and to highlight the Community contribution to the development of Greece?
Mr President, under current Community law the Member States provide appropriate publicity for campaigns assisted by the Structural Funds to draw the attention of potential beneficiaries and of trade associations alike to the opportunities offered by these campaigns, and to inform the general public about the work of the European Structural Funds.
The operational programme "Technical aid within the Community support framework for Greece' provides for the implementation of an action plan for publicity and information, for which ECU 6.2 million was made available.
The national and regional programmes and the Community initiatives also include publicity and information campaigns which are provided with less funding.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the Greek authorities are responsible for proper implementation of the tendering and award procedure for information and publicity campaigns.
Before the invitation to tender was issued, the Commission was consulted on the corresponding specifications.
The Greek ministry responsible consulted the Commission on the action plan and on the national "Publicity and information' guide, in order to ensure a consistent approach.
All actions taken by the Greek authorities in terms of publicity and information are in accordance with the provisions of relevant Community guidance.
As far as the Commission is aware, the advertisements on television and radio and in the press are politically neutral.
Also, there have been no complaints so far regarding the campaign introduced in 1997.
Indeed, Mr Vice-President, as we understand it, the person asking the question played an active role in the campaign himself.
Again, in the talkshows held in 1997, participation of Members of the European Parliament to represent the major political groupings was secured.
The Commission will ask the Greek authorities responsible to guarantee ongoing balanced participation.
As municipal elections are being held in Greece in October 1998, it has been agreed with the Greek government that the publicity and information campaign co-financed by the Structural Funds is to be postponed from August to October in order to forestall any possible criticism.
I wonder if the Commissioner can be satisfied with the reply she has given me, when there are complaints.
And I am afraid that the neutrality the Commissioner asserted does not exist.
Have the Commission services not informed the Commission that use is being made of Community resources for government propaganda and for the promotion of ministers? Let us not confuse certain information action plans in which the European Parliament also participates and in which I co-preside over a committee with Commissioner Marcelino Oreja and give guidelines, and in some of which Greek MEPs have also participated.
The one has nothing to do with the other.
Recently Greek MEPs have not been taking part in some of these information programmes and this is one of the aspects of the complaint.
Mr President, I believe I made it abundantly clear that with the exception of one isolated case we were not aware of any complaints and that we have now taken preventive action.
I believe this guarantees sufficient impartiality.
Of course, where such information is concerned, we cannot prevent the relevant Ministers from issuing this information.
In my opinion, this is even necessary in the interests of correctness of information.
But allow me to emphasize once again that in Greece, in our opinion, not only is party political neutrality guaranteed; some particularly positive steps have also been taken, for example Commission and European Parliament projects in high schools in Greece, which we consider to be exemplary.
I wish that other Member States would make this a subject of study in schools.
In this respect we assume, therefore, that the necessary precautions have been taken to prevent abuse.
Thank you very much, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
However, I would ask you to spend a little longer on the subject matter of this question, because I have received two requests for the floor, and according to the Rules of Procedure, I am obliged to grant them.
Mr Hatzidakis has the floor first, for one minute.
Madam Commissioner, what you have told us is of course constructive, that is, that between the end of August and the end of October the transmission of these "politically neutral' advertisement slots will stop because, in my opinion, they are not.
Nevertheless, I thank you personally for this intervention on the part of the Commission, because it really is important, in view of the municipal and prefectural elections in Greece, but over and above that I wish to dwell on two points.
Balanced participation in these programmes does not exist.
There was a programme, Commissioner, in which there was not a single representative of the New Democracy Party, which is the second largest party in the Greek Parliament, representing 38 % of the electorate, and we did not have a representative.
You must look into that.
It is interesting to note that, as coordinator of the Group of the European People's Party on issues of regional policy, I have never been invited to appear on such a programme.
I do not say this as a personal complaint, but simply so that you can understand the climate and act accordingly.
I will conclude by asking you this: do you know whether, in the regional business programmes, the regulations concerning the allocation of advertisement slots to advertising companies have been complied with? I am not referring to the national slot, where the regulations have been observed, but to the regional programmes.
Has the Commission been informed that the regulations have not been complied with there?
According to our information, the Community Directives and provisions have been adhered to.
I would consider it appropriate if you would pass on to us any specific cases of complaints you may have.
We are not some kind of general remote monitoring organization.
If there are problems, we look into them individually.
But I do not believe that a theoretical debate here in Parliament will serve any useful purpose.
Thank you very much, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, but as I said, I would like you to stay on the same subject because Mr Seppänen also wants to ask you a supplementary question.
Mr Seppänen has the floor for one minute.
Mr President, Commissioner, this problem does not just concern Greece.
I maintain that in Finland too Commission money and resources are used for purposes of political propaganda that are biassed and ignore the fact that there are various national groups in our country that view critically the decisions that are taken by the EU.
For this reason, I would turn your attention to the fact that in Finland money is used, for example, for the purpose of bringing the euro into the market, and that money is for the exclusive use of citizens' organizations that have a positive view of the euro.
Commissioner, do you really believe that only the people who said 'yes' should be allowed to use funds for propaganda?
I will say it once again. It is a question of the principle of subsidiarity.
That means that the Member States are responsible for publicity campaigns within the framework of the general provisions laid down by the Commission.
If there are specific complaints, we should investigate them.
I consider it difficult to pursue this theoretical discourse.
Question No 47 by Charlotte Cederschiöld (H-0556/98)
Subject: Excise duties
The Swedish Government has introduced a bill (Proposition 1998/97: 100) to extend powers to carry out checks on the payment of excise duties, owing to the increase in cross-border trade in alcohol and tobacco.
One firm involved in such trade is the German company, Warendienst OCC GmbH, which arranges deliveries from Germany to individuals in Sweden via the Internet.
It is proposed that the customs service should have the right to seize and, in some cases, confiscate goods if there is a risk that the excise duties will not be paid.
It is also proposed that customs should be given powers to open private consignments where it is suspected that they contain alcohol or tobacco.
Does the Commission consider this draft law to be compatible with the principles which govern the internal market and those enshrined in the European convention protecting personal correspondence?
Mr President, Mrs Cederschiöld, the provisions of the internal market do not preclude Member States from exercising domestic controls.
Community rules expressly provide for excise duties to be charged in accordance with procedure in the Member State concerned.
Member States can therefore set up their own monitoring systems, provided that these do not give rise to any frontier formalities and are in accordance with the general principles of Community law relating to non-discrimination and proportionality.
The Commission was not able to examine the proposed amendments in detail but, according to the information available, the provisions in question do not appear to be inconsistent with the principles of the internal market.
Thank you for your reply.
However, my question was whether this proposal was compatible with the Convention on Human Rights, since the personal import of tobacco products and alcoholic drinks from other EU countries is a civil right under EC law.
The law which is to become effective on 1 July gives the customs authorities the right to open private mail and parcels from other EU countries.
This is not compatible with Swedish constitutional law or with EC law, according to the learned EU specialists who have expressed an opinion.
Even the Law Council, the Attorney-General and the bar association in Sweden do not think this is allowed.
The proposal is in fact contrary to human rights, which only allow restrictions on mail confidentiality if the country's economic well-being is threatened, which is not happening in this case.
Here people would be able to seize and forfeit 'suspected' lorries through a simple court order without impartial, public legal proceedings.
I would just like to ask whether Commissioner Wulf-Mathies thinks this is compatible with human rights, and whether crossborder trade is not more important than a Member State's right to charge taxes.
Yes, Mrs Cederschiöld, I am afraid I must disappoint you, as the Community is not a party to the European Human Rights Convention.
For this reason it is not appropriate for the Commission to comment on whether national legislation is in agreement with individual provisions of the European Convention.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for her reply which clarified matters. As I see it, the question put by Mrs Cederschiöld was a contribution to the Swedish election debate since we have an election in September.
There is one party in the Swedish Parliament which is opposed to the proposal currently before the Swedish Parliament, namely the Conservative Party. However, the rest of the parties think the current proposals to maintain the excise duty rules and to maintain the age limits which we have on the sale of alcohol and tobacco are compatible both with the single market and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Besides, these issues can be put to the test.
An overwhelming majority of the parties in Sweden share the Commissioner's view that the proposals we are discussing here do not conflict with the single market.
Mr President, the agreement reached between the European Union and the USA at the London Summit on 18 May is a package solution with the realistic prospect of a lasting settlement of the disputes with the United States concerning the Helms-Burton Act, the law on sanctions against Iran and Libya and the more general problem of extraterritorial sanctions.
Despite this agreement, the Commission holds to its position that these laws violate the law of nations.
Thus, at no stage did the Community recognize their legality.
In case measures should be taken against persons or companies from the Community, it has reserved the unlimited right to take the case up again within the framework of the WTO.
The agreement reached is of a purely political nature and does not constitute the legitimization of US laws which continue to be illegal.
The package solution includes three points.
The first is an agreement on certain disciplines which prohibit new investment in illegally expropriated properties. The second is the USA's promise to eschew future extraterritorial legislation in an agreement on the transatlantic partnership for political cooperation, and, of particular importance for the Community, the assurance of the US government that it will suspend application of the two contentious laws to the Community and to businesses from the Community - that is, the guarantee of the so-called waiver.
The Community has received clear agreement that the US government will immediately try to obtain authority from Congress to issue an unlimited exemption from Title 4 of the Helms-Burton Act, the waiver.
It is important that the Community does not apply the agreed disciplines before the exemption is actually issued.
The European Union will only fulfil the agreed obligations when the USA complies with its part of the agreement.
There will therefore be no advance concession from the European Union.
A very important factor in the agreed disciplines on the prevention of new investment in illegally expropriated properties is that investments made before 18 May are exempt from this ban.
These disciplines therefore apply only to future investment in properties which the Member States are convinced have been expropriated illegally.
They state essentially that no aid may be granted either by the state or by businesses for investment in illegally expropriated properties.
Investments which have not received state aid are not affected.
I will repeat this to ensure that it is clear: the disciplines are not applied by the Community before the US Congress has given the President of the United States the authority to issue an exemption from Title 4 of the Helms-Burton Act and this exemption has come into force.
In addition, the agreement on disciplines for investment in illegally expropriated properties provides that the Community and the USA bring these disciplines up jointly in the negotiations on the multilateral investment agreement.
Mr President, I would like to emphasize once again that we are in fact dealing only with future investment and state aid for future investment.
It is crucial that, before we actually implement this, the American government should commit itself to waiving extraterritorial legislation and also that it issue this waiver.
This means, therefore, that it is a deal based on mutual interest, if you wish, and first of all the American government must repeal the effect of the HelmsBurton Act for European investment before the European Union reciprocates.
Thank you very much, Madam Commissioner.
I still have two supplementary questions on the agreement of 18 May on the Helms-Burton Act. Mr Newens has one minute to ask the first of these.
Mr President, if the waiver on titles 3 and 4 of the Helms-Burton Act goes through - which is unlikely in view of the statements of Senator Jesse Helms - would not efforts to deter future public support for investments in so-called expropriated properties be contrary to agreements made by individual European Union Member States and Cuba? In that case, which would have the overriding force?
Should not the United States be encouraged to make a settlement with Cuba over compensation for nationalized properties as other states, including those in Europe, have done?
In these circumstances there would be no case whatsoever for the Helms-Burton Act.
Mr President, I really would not like to speculate on what might ensue if Congress did not adopt this regulation as both we and the American government would, of course, stake everything on it being passed.
Furthermore, the agreement is not concerned with a ban on investment in Cuba but only on the part relating to state aid.
Mrs Cresson, we welcome you, and I invite you to take the floor to reply to Question No 49 by Bernd Posselt (H-0567/98)
Subject: "Destructive embryonic research'
What is the Commission's position on "destructive embryonic research' , and are such research projects assisted with EU resources?
The legitimacy of research using embryos is one the most complex and sensitive ethical questions which can arise in science.
It is also an issue on which there are the widest possible differences in the perceptions, approaches and regulations of the various Member States.
The main problem is to strike a balance between the interests of infertile couples and the sick, and respect for fundamental ethical principles and the moral and religious convictions of various sections of the population.
Careful attention is generally paid to ethical aspects of research in the field of life sciences and technology during the implementation of the Union's research programmes.
Some types of work are therefore explicitly excluded from the Fourth Framework Programme on biomedicine and health.
This is the case with research on human cloning or research leading to transmissible genetic modifications in particular.
On the other hand, research using foetal and embryonic tissues is not prohibited as such.
This type of research is of great interest in areas such as medically assisted procreation, and the diagnosis and treatment of cancer or genetic diseases.
Like all proposals presented within the framework of the research programme on biomedicine and health, proposals relating to research involving the use of human embryos or foetuses nevertheless have to comply with regulations and legislative provisions, defining the ethical requirements in force in the countries where the research is carried out.
Proposals of this type that have been submitted under the Fourth Framework Programme have been examined by a group of experts on the embryo and foetus, set up by the Commission, with particular responsibility for evaluating the ethical aspects of research carried out within the scope of EU programmes.
One of the aspects taken into consideration in this evaluation was the lack of alternatives to the proposed method.
The group's opinions have been forwarded to local or national ethics committees responsible for granting the preliminary authorizations as required by the Commission.
All the provisions in force relating to ethics in the field of life sciences and technology will be maintained in the Fifth Framework Programme.
Considering the sensitivity of this question, I shall ask the ethics group chaired by Mrs Noëlle Lenoir to issue an opinion, before the specific 'Life Sciences' programme comes into force.
The approach to ethical questions relating to research involving embryos is therefore based on the need for such research in order to increase our scientific knowledge in the interest of patients, whilst at the same time respecting fundamental ethical principles and the diversity of national feelings.
Madam Commissioner, if I understood your reply correctly, exhaustive embryo research projects are assisted.
In any case you have not expressly ruled it out and you pointed to national standards.
But are there not also EU standards now?
I would remind you of the most recently adopted patents directive for biotechnological inventions; here, with regard to cloning, we said quite clearly that a human being is a human being from the beginning - that is, from the moment of conception, and thus has the right to protection, and in this regard we clarified this considerably in the interinstitutional dossier, the result of which goes far beyond the statements of the advisory body on the ethics of biotechnology.
I am of the opinion that the standards we have developed in connection with the patents directive are the clearest EU standards thus far, and that we must develop our own EU standards on this basis as it cannot be satisfactory in the long term, as we have said, for the Commission to proceed differently in terms of aid depending on the state concerned.
Yes, Mr Posselt, I agree with you entirely that it would be highly desirable for us to have European standards.
Apart from a number of basic regulations, to which I referred earlier, such as the prohibition of human cloning, I also said that the regulations are different, perhaps even extremely divergent, in the various Member States of the Union.
I have furthermore had a table drawn up showing the situation as it stands today, country by country.
I do not think this is an ideal situation, and we must do everything we can to draft a general regulation.
But it will also need to be acceptable to the various Member States.
However, the Commission does not consider that research involving embryos should be excluded as such from the Union's research programmes, and just now I referred to the opportunities that such research can provide in very important sectors.
Provided compliance is ensured with fundamental ethical principles, such as those I have mentioned, the Commission believes that research of this type may be legitimately carried out, in the interests of scientific progress and in the interests of patients.
It seems to me that a precedent would be created if we were to align the relevant provisions with the most restrictive national legislative provisions, because, of course, it would be possible to try to adopt common standards on the basis of the most restrictive provisions. That precedent could mean that the same principle would be adopted as a solution whenever there are differences between national legislation.
You will be aware that this is the case in a large number of areas, which could have negative repercussions with regard to research and for citizens.
We have not yet completed our discussion of this subject and I understand your question perfectly, and agree that it is pertinent.
However, we are in a situation where some Member States have a very restrictive attitude, and others, on the contrary, have a far more lenient attitude.
Should we authorize the manufacture of embryos for the purpose of experimentation? Some Member States, one in particular, would go so far as to allow this, whilst other Member States - in fact most other Member States - have a far more restrictive attitude.
The Commission cannot impose the most restrictive standard as a single standard, nor do I think that would be desirable.
Furthermore, we must be extremely vigilant from the ethical point of view, and we have only just started our discussions.
I therefore consider that we have some very important work ahead of us. With the resources at our disposal today, we have no option but to continue our discussions, and to try to persuade Member States to adopt a common definition, but I repeat, we do not have any means of compelling them to do so.
This is why we can only adopt a position of principle, the principle of respect for fundamental ethical values, and for the time being all we can do is accept the situation as it stands in the Member States.
As the author is not present, Question No 50 lapses.
That brings us to the end of the set of questions to Mrs Cresson.
I thank her for attending and for her collaboration.
Question No 51 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0498/98)
Subject: Cultural cooperation between the European Union and international organizations
Article 128 (3) of the Treaty on European Union states: "The Community and the Member States shall foster cooperation with third countries and the competent international organizations in the sphere of culture...'
The UN organization UNESCO is an authoritative and universally recognized world body responsible for cultural, educational and scientific cooperation.
Will the Commission say whether the European Union cooperates with UNESCO and what action is taken to implement European Parliament resolutions? Mr Oreja Aguirre, I welcome you and invite you to reply to Mr Alavanos' question.
Mr Alavanos, cooperation between the European institutions and UNESCO goes back many years. It was basically established through an exchange of notes in 1964, followed by another in 1973, and was confirmed by Article 128 (3) of the Treaty.
More recently, a cooperation agreement signed by the Community and UNESCO in 1996 removed certain normative barriers which had considerably hindered cooperation actions in the past.
But project related cooperation problems still exist, caused by the current differences between the financial regulations of the Community and UNESCO, and by their implementation.
In practice, although relations between that organization and the Community institutions are excellent, cooperation between them has not so far resulted in a significant number of joint activities, for various reasons. In particular, because of its global remit and scant financial means, UNESCO does not consider Europe to be one of its main priorities in regional terms.
From that point of view, I can only stress that the fields of intervention of the European Union and UNESCO complement each other.
With respect to the cultural sphere, UNESCO and the European Union, within the context of their respective competences, regularly exchange information and data in certain sectors of common interest, such as statistics or goods, often take part in specialist meetings organized by either one, and sometimes finance certain projects jointly.
We also cooperate with UNESCO in the areas of education, information and the fight against the illegal use of drugs.
This collaboration could serve as an example for closer collaboration with UNESCO in the cultural field, in the context of the EU's external action.
As for the future, cooperation between the EU and UNESCO is mentioned in Article 5 of the proposed Framework Programme for Culture for the period 2000-2004, which I had the honour of presenting to the Commission very recently. That programme has been approved by the Commission, and I have presented it to the European Parliament and the Council.
Once it has been approved, this programme will constitute the frame of reference within which cooperation on an equal footing can be strengthened, including from a financial point of view.
I hope Parliament will approve this framework programme, and after that we shall have to see how we can operate in the future.
I very much thank the Commissioner for the comprehensive reply that he has given me and for giving me the opportunity to make the rejoinder which is at the very heart of the debate.
One of the fundamental positions of UNESCO which relates to Europe, which is not totally cut off from Europe, and which was decided upon by the General Assembly in 1982, is the return of the Parthenon marbles from the British Museum to Athens.
This concerns Europe directly and you know that there is tension between the Member States of the European Union on this matter.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if, in his opinion, a country has the right to place this issue within a European Union context, based precisely on Article 128, paragraph 3 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which provides for cooperation with international cultural organizations.
I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commissioner how he would comment on the great devastation that has befallen the Parthenon marbles and which was revealed last week in the British press.
Mr Alavanos, I am aware of what that represents, and I share your concern.
But you know that with the means available to us, with the means provided by the Treaty and, furthermore, within the context of cooperation with UNESCO, that route does not offer any solution.
I know your sensitivity towards an institution such as UNESCO, and I must tell you that the matter you have raised, like many other matters, demands that we should cooperate more, and not ignore each other.
And I want to tell you something else.
We are here in a hemicycle which is also used by the Council of Europe.
And in this hemicycle, in other capacities, I have proclaimed the need for greater harmony between three institutions concerned with culture: the European Union, which has a restricted range, the Council of Europe, which has a wider range, and UNESCO. And I think we are at least going to try to achieve that.
A few years ago that was not possible, because we did not have the instruments to do it.
This is no longer the case.
Today the Community has such an instrument in Article 128.
So I would like to see how the three institutions concerned with the cultural sphere can progress together in the same direction. In many cases, we turn our backs on each other instead of looking in the same direction.
Mr President, I must say that the Commissioner has tried to respond to the significance of the issue and the question.
But I would like to ask him not to regard the matter as simply of concern to Greeks.
It is a sensitive issue which must affect every civilized person and this Community as an organization, since much has been declared about respect for our cultural heritage, which in this case is at risk, not only from the event that Mr Alavanos referred to and which was denounced in the English press, but also because of the fact that these marbles do not have independent artistic value.
They of course have autonomy, but they gain their value when they are united with the body they belong to and that is the Acropolis.
The English are dragging their feet in this affair in the most uncivilized way - how can I describe it? - and they are still refusing to return them.
There are similar cases which may concern your own country.
I would ask you, as the European Parliament, to address the matter more courageously and more realistically, regardless of the cooperation you may ensure with other organizations.
Mr Ephremidis, when we consider Classical Greece and its artistic riches, we are all Greek.
So I sympathize with your wish to identify with something which, of course, goes far beyond its national meaning.
And allow me, as a European, to share that sensitivity with you.
I also want to say that, at the moment, we have no further legal routes by which to address the matters you raise. You know that very well because you are very knowledgable about the Treaty.
But for that reason, I want to go back to the idea of sensitivity.
I think it is very important because, in the end, sensitivity is also a part of our European cultural tradition.
Thank you very much, Mr Oreja Aguirre.
Ladies and gentlemen, we now come to Question No 52 by Mr Mihail Papayannakis.
He is not with us.
In fact, he cannot be with us because he has just lost his 25-year-old son in a dreadful accident.
Allow me to pass on to him our solidarity and sympathy. In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, Mr Alavanos is taking over the question.
Question No 52 by Mihail Papayannakis, which has been taken over by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0544/98)
Subject: Implementation of the "Television without Frontiers' Directive
TV viewers/consumers in Greece have repeatedly complained that popular TV programmes are interrupted all too frequently by a flood of advertising. Taking into account the Second Commission Report (COM(97) 523 final) on the implementation of Directive 89/552/EEC which confirms that advertising in Greece exceeds the quantitative thresholds, will the Commission say whether Articles 10 to 18 of the Directive in question are being correctly implemented by the Greek authorities and, if this is not the case, whether it intends to take the measures provided for by Article 169 of the EC Treaty?
Mr Alavanos, the Commission has already started proceedings against Greece, in accordance with Article 169 of the Treaty, because of the incorrect implementation of certain provisions of Directive 89/552.
At the moment, the Commission is studying that country's reply. I am sure you will appreciate that I cannot give you any further information at this delicate stage of the proceedings.
It would be highly indiscreet of me to go any further.
However, I repeat that the procedure has been initiated in accordance with the rules laid down in the Treaty.
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank you for your warm words about the drama that our colleague, Mihail Papayannakis, is going through.
I think that you express the feelings of all the Members and of the whole of Parliament.
I would next like to thank the Commissioner for the reply he gave to my question and to simply say to him that I understand the reply.
I just wish to express my fear, my intense concern, that, with all this bureaucracy, the time-consuming procedures which are in force in relation to Article 169 and the commitology procedure, this blatant violation which is occurring in Greece concerning the advertisement slot will continue for a long time to come.
I will just say that now the procedure is underway, we are exchanging correspondence with the Greek authorities.
The Commission's services are currently studying the latest reply from those authorities.
It is a difficult case.
It is not simple because Greece has incorporated the directive properly and has imposed fines on the broadcasting organizations which break the rules.
So what the Commission has to do now is show that these fines may perhaps not be enough to actually dissuade those broadcasters from breaking the rules.
That is what we are studying at the moment.
Question No 53 by Robin Teverson (H-0568/98)
Subject: European Cultural Institutes
I understand that a European institute for cultural itineraries is opening in Luxembourg in addition to a cultural centre funded by UNESCO, the Council of Europe and the European Commission.
Given the importance of Europe's cultural tapestry, I would like to have details of the European Commission's role in these centres, from their inception, and the financial implications.
In addition, what other kinds of organizations which promote Europe's rich heritage does the Commission support?
Mr Teverson, the Commission is not participating financially in the creation of the European institute for cultural itineraries in Luxembourg.
According to the information we have received from the Luxembourg authorities, the centre has been created within the context of a cooperation agreement between the Council of Europe and the Luxembourg authorities.
Of course, the Commission takes a favourable view of this initiative because, given the importance of the European cultural network, the centre can make a positive contribution to improving the link between cultural heritage and cultural tourism on a European scale.
At present, the Commission has the means to provide financial support for European cultural centres in the context of the Raphael programme, which supports joint and cooperation activities, but does not give aid for them to be set up.
It provides aid for the development of joint and cooperative activities, but not for their establishment.
That is what I wanted to clarify in relation to Mr Teverson's question.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply which is fairly comprehensive.
I do not wish to say much more as a supplementary except that we, in Cornwall - in the south-west of the United Kingdom - which I represent, have been very thankful for the support that some of the Commission and Council of Europe programmes have given to upholding our Celtic cultural identity.
One statement I would like to make as a British Member of the European Parliament, in response to some of my colleagues' comments earlier on, is that I personally would like to back the campaign to move the Elgin Marbles back to Greece.
That is right and it has my support.
Perhaps that may be necessary, in any case, because Mr Rübig has requested the floor for a supplementary question.
You have the floor for one minute, Mr Rübig.
Mr President, I believe that educational systems are of particular importance in Europe because our culture is based largely on educational values.
It would be a considerable contribution not only towards promoting education but also an essential basis for lifelong learning.
We should therefore investigate the method to see whether best practice models and benchmarks could not be included so that we can see how an opportunity for Europe can be developed in the various educational possibilities offered.
I want to say to the honourable Member that I think one of the things we must consider when putting the framework programme into operation is precisely the fact that, in cultural matters, we must not get bogged down in what we might think of as high culture. We have to project it towards other areas, such as culture and nature, culture to combat the problems associated with a lack of solidarity - in other words, how culture can help with social inclusion - and also culture and tourism.
For all those things, I think training is essential.
In that sense, the proposals I will be presenting for the development of the framework programme will be along those lines, if the honourable Members approve it.
You should not imagine that I am ignorant of the role played by high culture.
It forms part of our heritage, of course, but I do not think we should limit ourselves to high culture.
Two weeks ago I attended a meeting between nine large cities, which addressed the subject of culture as a means to combat exclusion, and I was very encouraged by that meeting.
That is a step in the same direction as the honourable Member was just talking about.
So let us open up the field of culture to new horizons and new frontiers.
Mr Ephremidis, the Commission shares your concern about the conservation of the historic Monemvassia bridge, which I have had the good fortune to visit, and which really is part of the heritage of us all.
As you know, the framework for action to support cooperation initiatives to conserve and improve our architectural heritage is provided by the Raphael programme, which was adopted last year, and has a budgetary provision of ECU 30 million for the four-year period from 1997 to 2000.
I would like to inform Mr Ephremidis that the Commission's services - the DG X services - will give very careful consideration to any application from the relevant authorities as long as they meet the eligibility requirements for action through Raphael, as published in the Official Journal on 31 March.
I also want to tell you now that the deadline for applications this year is 10 September.
So I would request that the application be made before 10 September, and you can rest assured that, although I do not make the final decision, I will personally ensure that this important matter receives special attention.
I wish to thank the Commissioner and to assure him that, as far as I am concerned, I will do what I have to do, that is, I will convey to the inhabitants of Monemvassia the interest that you have shown.
I will say that, before September, as you have said, they must put forward the proposal in any way they think necessary.
What is more, I will go with you, because I think that they will spontaneously invite you to visit Monemvassia again.
To the extent naturally that you have pushed forward the issue and the damage to the bridge has been repaired, you will be able to go and see the monument, the Castle, and the whole of Monemvassia, because the whole of Monemvassia is a historical place full of monuments, history, reminders of the past and culture.
And in this way you will be helping thousands of tourists who go every now and again to the Peloponnese and want to visit this place, but the destruction and the damage to the bridge prevents them from doing so.
Mr Ephremidis, I am glad you are so enthusiastic, but I would be grateful if you would wait for me to give you the floor before you speak.
Please do not do my job for me. I have to earn my pay.
Mr Marcelino Oreja Aguirre, would you like to reply to Mr Ephremidis' supplementary question?
(Interjection from Mr Ephremidis)
But I have not given you the floor. Why are you speaking?
Mr Marcelino Oreja Aguirre, you do have the floor, granted by this Presidency.
Mr President, I want to tell Mr Ephremidis, whom I have known for many years and respect greatly, that I undertake to do what I have stated here in this House. I hope we will be able to watch the start of the restoration works together.
Of course, the application will have to be presented in the correct manner. Although I am not the one who makes the final decision, I am responsible for making sure that decision is taken properly, and will do so.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
You can rely on Mr Ephremidis to accompany you, even if the work does not start for 20 years.
Ladies and gentlemen, that is the end of that block of questions.
I would like to thank Commissioner Marcelino Oreja Aguirre.
Having welcomed Mr Van Miert, I propose that we now move on to Question No 55 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0500/98)
Subject: Unfair competition in international trade
In the Commission's view, what are the common principles which should be established to prevent practices of unfair competition in international trade? Mr Van Miert, I invite you to reply to Mr Camisón Asensio's question.
I would be glad to deal with this question, as it is a problem the Commission has recognized for a number of years.
That is also the reason why we as a Commission took the initiative as far back as in 1994 to set up a group which we asked to consider a number of measures we might propose if necessary.
This group produced good work, and the Commission subsequently made some suggestions to the Council of Ministers, which accepted these suggestions.
This meant that, for the first time, this affair was put on the agenda of the World Trade Organization.
This explains why, in the context of the World Trade Organization, a working party is looking into the problem of competition and trade, with a view to making a number of suggestions.
I obviously cannot anticipate the result of this work, although the work in itself seems to be progressing very well.
I cannot hide the fact that not everyone is completely happy about this initiative from the European Commission.
In America, for instance, there is some hesitation. However, during my recent visit to Washington I noted that there is also the will and desire to continue thinking with the European Union about how this problem could be dealt with positively in future.
What kinds of things are we thinking of?
Firstly, we are trying to, as it were, expand a number of basic rules regarding competition policy at the global level, and to see these rules incorporated into the legislation of various countries in the world.
We also want to improve the enforceability of these rules and, if necessary, deal with certain conflicts afterwards in a specific framework, which we believe would ideally be a global framework.
This is roughly the state of affairs. There is no more I can say about it, unfortunately, but I am pleased to be at the disposal of the European Parliament, and I will return to this issue once the working party has finished its task, in particular with regard to the talks we will be having with our American colleagues.
Commissioner, you recently told the WTO ambassadors - and have confirmed it here today - that there is a lot of unfair competition at international level in the current global economy, and that since it is subject to different jurisdictions, it therefore causes serious problems.
You even said today - and then as well - that the ideal solution would be a global agreement able to solve the problems which arise at national level, by jumping to a different scale.
It would indeed be ideal to create competition structures which include basic principles, such as restricting abusive practices and concentrations, common principles to prohibit unfair competition in the international sphere, and the development of a cooperation instrument based on experience gained in this field.
We think that all sounds very good, Commissioner.
It would be ideal. I think it is a good idea to carry on thinking about it, but it is urgent.
When are we really going to see something practical done about this urgent matter?
Unfortunately I cannot predict when there will be concrete results, because as I have just indicated, there is still some hesitation from the side of America, as well as in South-East Asia, where there is a great deal of resistance.
After all, as you know, their markets quite often remain tightly closed, whereas it is competition which allows markets to open.
At the moment we are trying to get as much support as possible for this initiative from the World Trade Organization in the context of the working group.
Because one thing is clear; the European Union is the most active member of the most active authority actually trying to make progress.
But it is also very important that we reach a certain understanding with our American friends to be able to pursue the objectives with more force.
But having said this, I am not naive, nor is the Commission; it will take a lot of time, but is important that we support this issue, and that we send out a clear signal.
Because globalization is moving forward and because more and more problems are arising globally, it is necessary to have certain rules which can also be enforced worldwide.
As you say, Commissioner, competition policy is a way of opening up markets.
We in this House have urged you to apply it to World Cup tickets, which I see have now become a subject of intercontinental trade.
Could I ask you, Commissioner, what you think about President Chirac's reported attack on President Santer at the European Council for the way the Commission intervened to make more World Cup tickets available to non-French citizens, and what the Commission will do to defend the powers conferred upon it by the Treaties; what you think about the current ticketing arrangements, in the light of recent World Cup matches; and whether you will now take FIFA and the CFO to the European Court of Justice on the basis of the legal opinion that has been obtained by Parliament?
This seems to be a slightly different question but I am happy to give an answer or to state my position.
There is no doubt at all that this question goes far beyond the national boundaries: it is a question of common interests.
Therefore, the Commission, which received a considerable number of complaints, as you know, had to do its job, which means it had to investigate these complaints.
Since there was, and is, clear discrimination, the competition rules apply.
Therefore we will continue with this case, and the statement of objection is under preparation.
But, as you know, we have to stick to the rules ourselves, in particular the procedural rules.
If new elements are brought to our attention, obviously we need to have the opinion of the organizing committee as well.
That is the way things have to be tackled.
So we will continue, in spite of some comments which have been made.
By the way, if we want to be nearer to the public - to the citizens - we have to behave as we are doing.
It brings our institutions nearer to the public when they see that we do indeed take their complaints seriously.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Thank you for interpreting the content of the original question so generously, given that the Rules of Procedure do not oblige you to reply to questions which go beyond the strict scope of the original question.
I know how generous you are, and I thank you, and I hope we can still go back to the real subject of Mr Camisón Asensio's question.
Mr Wibe has requested the floor to ask a supplementary question.
You have the floor for one minute, Mr Wibe.
I will try to be very brief and to the point.
I was interested when you, Commissioner, spoke of the fact that you discussed urgent measures against unfair competition. Could you say more precisely what these measures concerned?
Did they concern taxes, capital income or any kind of common treatment for foreign investors? Could I just have a little clarification on this issue?
Mr President, indeed, this is the subject of further discussions and deliberations as to what could be put into what I would call a basket of basic competition rules, which would then be applied worldwide, but by national competition authorities.
One of the things we are considering, for instance, is that export cartels are carving up the markets worldwide.
That this might happen in some cases should be considered by all competition authorities as flying in the face of one of the most basic principles of sound competition policies.
This is just one example of what may be discussed.
That being said, we should continue to make a distinction between trade issues and competition issues, because trade issues concern attitudes or measures taken by authorities, while competition-related issues are mainly derived from attitudes by companies, so constitute private behaviour.
We should keep this distinction.
Let me give a concrete example to illustrate what kind of difficulties might occur.
The Americans had a very high-powered case, the Kodak case, where their complaint was that the Japanese market was too close and did not allow American competitors real access to the market.
They took the case to the World Trade Organization but at the end of the day the panel said it was none of their business because these restrictions, or the difficulties put in the way of market access in Japan did not arise because of governmental measures, but were the result of the private behaviour of Japanese competitors.
So it was a competition case and this case showed the Americans that they could not tackle this kind of question through the instruments of the World Trade Organization.
For that, either you would need a bilateral agreement with Japan to ensure that they would also apply competition rules in a normal way to open up the markets; or else we could think what might be done in a broader framework like the World Trade Organization, but specifically designed to tackle competition issues and competition problems.
Question No 56 by Sören Wibe (H-0511/98)
Subject: Support for production in peripheral regions
It recently became clear that the Volvo plant in Umeå is not being allowed to receive assistance towards transport costs from the Swedish government.
The consultants' report on which the Commission's decision was based was secret.
Volvo and the Swedish government believed the report to be flawed, but, because it was classified secret, any errors that had been made could not be corrected.
The decision has now been taken, but all those involved must learn a lesson for the future, so that events such as these are not repeated.
Will the Commission operate more openly in future and allow the authorities of the Member State concerned to see the documents on which its decisions are based? Commissioner, I invite you to carry on your discussion with Mr Wibe and reply to his question on production in peripheral regions.
Once again this question is being put to me by the honourable Member and I am happy to reply to this question.
Firstly, we have sorted out with the Swedish authorities how this regime has to be phased out.
As you know, it is regarded as operating aid, which is out of the question in the transport sector.
We have an agreement. It is a fair and balanced one which will phase out this type of aid by 2002.
So we have an agreement.
The question is related to a report drafted by an expert who is consulted from time to time by DG IV when we have to deal with automotive issues or problems.
But this is only done for internal use by my department.
In this case this report was drafted with the aim of conducting some fact-finding as to whether the Commission should open the procedure: not take a decision but open the procedure.
Some of the elements of this report were taken on board.
The facts presented by the Commission when we opened the procedure have been published in all official languages.
Everyone who was interested was invited to give their opinion about our fact-finding in relation to the opening of the procedure.
Therefore, it is an internal business matter and I would like that fact to be understood.
It could happen that some of these reports will be of very little use to our services.
Sometimes they may be of more use.
But it is a strictly internal matter.
Obviously, the position taken by the Commission when it opens a procedure and the basis on which this is done can be challenged by the governments or by the companies concerned.
The Swedish Government and the Volvo company were in a position, then, to respond to what we put as evidence, according to our findings, at the opening of the procedure.
There should be no misunderstanding about the aim of such a report.
It is not for taking the final decision. It is just for opening the procedure which then starts the real investigation.
As I said earlier, fortunately we have now reached an agreement with the Swedish Government and it is a fair one.
That is the general context.
I would ask you to understand one thing.
We have to tackle so many cases - about 600 state-aid cases per year.
Some of them are very complicated.
From time to time we have to call in experts to help our services; not for taking decisions as such but for trying to construe the facts.
I hope you will allow us to continue to do so.
Take, for example, the Crédit Lyonnais case.
We had to call in some experts.
If every piece of expertise had to be made public, it would be impossible for my services to conduct their business as they should.
By the way, from time to time the information involved is very sensitive and the companies are the first to ask us not to divulge it.
So please understand that we are adamant about being as transparent as we can.
The Commission has been criticized in Cardiff by some people because we explain our policies over and over again, why we take decisions or why we do not.
Some people are not happy with the fact that we explain our policy and try to be as transparent as possible.
Please understand that in order to be able to do our job properly from time to time we have to call in experts in a confidential way.
I would first like to thank the Commissioner for his very detailed reply. However, I believe we have somewhat differing views with regard to transparency.
In Sweden it is quite impossible to imagine that something a civil servant does should be kept secret from the elected representatives.
As the Commissioner quite rightly says, the contents of the report concerned have become outdated, but the report itself has become an important issue of principle for us in Sweden as far as transparency is concerned.
The Ombudsman of the European Parliament, Jacob Söderman, has now intervened on this issue and written a letter to Jacques Santer requesting that this report should be published retrospectively.
My precise question is this: Are you now going to publish this report, and, if so, when?
We have already had a meeting with the services of the Ombudsman.
Obviously we allowed them to look into the document.
But, for the reasons I explained earlier, we have to stick to the working method which has been used successfully.
In order to investigate - because it is part of the investigation, not part of the decision-making, that is the difference - from time to time we have to find out some specific things and so we call in experts.
So we still feel very strongly that this should remain within the limits of the services being able to come up with something substantial.
Accordingly, it does not belong to the part which should be publicized.
It is part of the investigation.
Once that has been done then you have the next phase which is completely transparent.
What the Commission publicizes is available to everyone.
That is the difference we would like to keep.
Apart from that, we have demonstrated over and over again our eagerness to be as transparent as we possibly can.
By the way, the Commission is now being taken to the Court because some companies and some people find we are too transparent.
I would also like to thank the Commissioner for the detailed reply he gave.
I have two supplementary questions.
Firstly, has this issue been formally decided by the Commission in that the Ombudsman has made a formal request to the Commission to publish the report? Has the matter been rejected by the Commission collectively, or is it the Commissioner's own opinion that this report should not be handed over?
Secondly, does the fact that the company concerned and the Swedish state, that is, the parties concerned, will read the report and have access to the information play any part in the Commission's judgement? Or is the judgement based solely on the Commission's internal situation?
I am a little sorry that Mr Sjöstedt has put a question that has already been put to me previously.
As I explained earlier, we were asked this question by the Ombudsman and our services were immediately able to explain to him what was happening and a copy of the report was supplied to him.
This is the correct way to handle things when the Ombudsman makes a request.
We also explained why we think that in future we should be able to continue to work as we have been doing because this report looked into the various kinds of activities which took place in the plant.
There can be no operating aid to assist the automobile industry.
This is a general rule.
It cannot be allowed in Germany or in Belgium or in Sweden.
As far as that problem was concerned, there was no difference of opinion but we had to be given some advice about the nature of the various activities at the plant.
Once advice has been received, the services, under my responsibility, who discuss the situation with me, try to assess what is relevant to the opening of the procedure, but this is not a decision.
We feel that we should have the option of establishing the facts and constructing a case.
What happens later should be completely transparent.
I am in full agreement with you, but if we are required to make public every single piece of advice, sometimes in very complicated cases, it would make life completely impossible.
We already have a lot of trouble monitoring all the state aid cases.
There is a lack of human resources.
Cases are becoming more complicated so please allow the Commission services to do their job properly.
If we are asked to explain things - e.g. why something was done or was left undone - we are always available to you, to the Ombudsman and to other people as well.
Thank you very much, Mr Van Miert.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 7.00 p.m.
We have come to the end of the time specified by the agenda for questions to the Commission.
So Questions Nos 57 to 105 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Common organization of the market in bananas (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the report (A4-0220/98) by Mr Thomas, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 404/93 on the common organization of the market in bananas (COM(98)0004 - C4-0046/98-98/0013(CNS)).
Mr President, many of us in Parliament and in the ACP were rather unhappy with the proposal for a global quota.
With that in mind, last week I secured for my group agreement to an amendment which I believe will help to ameliorate the consequences of the proposed changes.
I very much hope that this House will support that amendment.
The Commission proposal does not in any way safeguard the access of the smaller and weaker ACP suppliers.
The risk is that they will be displaced because the traditional volumes will be grown and supplied by others.
Therefore, if we are to have a global quota, can we not have a guarantee that all traditional suppliers will be able to sell their traditional volumes? We should insist that if there is a global quota, we must have enforceable and effective guarantees that ACP traditional bananas will be able to get into our markets on at least the level of access assured by Lomé.
I would hope that a form of words can be devised in the Council meeting on Monday that will take this issue of guaranteed access into account.
Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire and Belize are expanding their production and export capacity.
They will be able to increase production up to and beyond the point at which the quota will be over-subscribed.
Thus, multinationals in these countries will follow their usual routes of putting profit first and the interests of the ACP will never figure in their calculations.
Is it fair to give these multinationals still further advantages over our traditional producers? Should we be persuaded to do their work for them and should we be bullied by the continuing ability of multinational companies and the United States of America to collude so well with the WTO against our interests and the interest of our traditional suppliers?
Indeed, today the President-in-Office of the Council was able to tell us of a very offensive letter he had received from the Secretary of Trade in the United States. I do not think the European Union should be pushed around in this way by the United States and its friends in the multinational banana-producing countries.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Thomas, on his balanced report and his willingness to negotiate, which has fostered dialogue and compromise at all times between the representatives of the various interests involved in the COM in bananas.
In my opinion, the Commission proposal, which aims to adjust the COM in bananas strictly to the WTO decisions, has to be criticized on a basic point: its unbalanced treatment of Community producers and operators, in neglecting to include alternative mechanisms to compensate them for the loss of category B licences.
We have to remember that this mechanism was proposed by the Commission itself in order to guarantee the marketing of the Community banana and now, being one of the main points condemned by the WTO, it is not being replaced by anything else.
So we think it is essential to implement a mechanism to encourage marketing, since the current compensatory aid is only granted to the marketed product. This means that in order to receive such aid, the Community banana would have to opt for lower prices in order to make its marketing more attractive, thereby upsetting the market and increasing aid costs disproportionately.
It is also necessary to review the regimen of aid for loss of income, as laid down in Article 12 of Regulation 404/93, through an increase in the overall reference quantity and the flat-rate reference income, as Amendments Nos 22 and 33 to Mr Thomas' report reflect so well.
As for the licence regime, we fully agree with the views expressed in the report, where it says the reference period should be taken as the shortest and most recent period for which data exist. It also talks about retaining a two year transitional period, justified by the legitimate confidence inspired among category B licence operators by being able to transfer the certificates, as provided by current Community regulations.
As for the Commission proposal on the autonomous tariff quota, I would just like to recall that we also agree with the Thomas report and with the tradition which has been followed here since the Santini report.
I do not think we should disturb the balance of the Community supply sources.
Lastly, export certificates should be reinstated into Community regulations and demanded from all the countries which supply the Community, including the ACP countries, since including them in that way would be compatible with GATT regulations.
They should be seen as a way of avoiding fraud with respect to banana origin, and the risks of falsifying the repetition of import quantities.
Mr President, having listened to the Commission this afternoon and noted Mr Fischler's numerous and categoric rejections of our amendments, I think it is time we reflected on the usefulness and role of Parliament in this matter, as well as the importance which is accorded to the political wishes we express through our requested opinions.
I do not want to repeat the reasons for the Union's lack of control over the destiny of this sector, sacrificed as it is on the altar of globalization.
Nevertheless, I would remind you that Community production of bananas is specific in every way, for it is an activity carried out in the ultra-peripheral areas which suffer the difficulties we are all aware of, and that it covers only 20 % of market requirements.
Furthermore, given the aims laid out in Regulation 404/93, and more particularly the assurance of sufficient income for producers, it is difficult for us to understand why the Commission has considered it unnecessary to provide for adjustments to Title III of the regulation, due to the significant amendments which will be made to the trading arrangements with third countries.
Furthermore, in spite of some reluctance on the part of the rapporteur, I am happy with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development's proposals and reaffirm that Community production must benefit from the consequences of the most recent enlargement and a possible increase in the market.
The system of support to Community production must be adapted to the new rules, due to the raising of the flat rate reference income and to a development in the measures which opens up the right to compensatory aid.
The reestablishment of Article 16 of the regulation is a necessity for better developments in market prospects.
Mr President, this is briefly my opinion on the direction which the European Parliament's opinion must take with a view to reconciling our interests with those of other producer countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament is right to denounce the desire of the American multinationals to obtain the dismantling, by the WTO, of the Community system for trade in bananas.
Our determination has enabled the Community preferential arrangements and aid to Union producers, who have long been in line with social and environmental standards, to be respected.
The Commission's attitude has, unfortunately, been a very different one in which their proposals yield to the WTO's injunctions, with a 16 % increase in the tariff quota which takes no account of the risks of job and income losses on the part of Community producers.
Conversely, the concern of Mr Thomas' report is to propose ways of supporting the incomes of Community banana producers.
It modifies the Commission's proposals by reducing the increase in additional tariff quota from 353 000 to 100 000 tonnes, by increasing by 15 % the Community banana quota eligible for compensatory aid and by increasing this compensatory aid by 20 %.
By adopting these measures and this report, which has my full support, we will be appealing to the Council to reconsider the European Parliament's amendments.
Mr President, this organization of the market in bananas demonstrates that politics can still take precedence over economics.
Protesting before the panel still does nothing to alter the fact that we are taking a political stance, that we are setting up external protectionist measures geared to social and, not least, ecological points of view.
However, it also demonstrates it is not only the interests of the producers that are coming to fruition here.
In considering the position of the Americans, who scarcely have any banana producers of their own - if any at all, or only in Hawaii - then it becomes apparent that they are now making use of the panel to push through their own capital interests, or those of the major fruit companies.
Germany's position, too, was not carried by banana manufacturers or producers, but by the interests of commercial enterprise.
But it is a very positive sign that, despite this, we are able to talk about a political settlement.
Commissioner Fischler, this should enable us to take courage in other areas of agricultural production in which we do not produce any surpluses either - we should take courage in disputes with the WTO and take a political stance, not worrying about the possibility of having to face a panel, but instead making use of this or accepting it in the interests of achieving sensible settlements for agricultural production in Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the most important tropical fruit produced in the world, the banana constitutes a considerable economic concern for producers in the ultra-peripheral areas of the European Union and for the ACP countries.
Produced under unfair conditions often based on non-existent or disregarded social criteria, the dollar banana competes unfairly, and often immorally, with producers working within more regulated production systems which are fairer but of course more expensive.
Naturally the dollar banana is cheaper to produce - for a reason!
Mrs Carlotti this afternoon outlined the Chiquita company's practices to us.
Furthermore, a great deal of well-founded information reveals that some exporting countries practise production methods which are contrary to our own technical and environmental standards.
I am thinking of the numerous health problems, even deaths, caused by pesticides used on banana plantations.
What is worse, social conditions are often unacceptable and this should encourage us to demand a clean up of the rules of international trade at the forthcoming WTO discussions, where the Commission's negotiators would do well to put the social and environmental clauses back on the agenda.
In the face of the pressure being exerted by the WTO and the exporting countries' multinationals on the European Union to open new quotas, let us not go further than real need dictates. A more reasonable estimate for the autonomous quota is 100 000 tonnes.
Above all, let us make our trade conditional upon the principles which we uphold within the European Union, especially respect for human rights and sustainable agriculture, and let us encourage the actions of those producers who wish to move in this direction, as suggested in a number of the amendments.
Finally, let us apply the principle of Community preference, whilst at the same time respecting the commitments made within the framework of the Lomé Convention.
I would not wish to end without also congratulating Mr Thomas on his report, which on balance we support.
Mr President, revision of the organization of the market for bananas is urgently needed.
Under the pretext of development aid, the Union has set up a costly and inefficient organization of the market.
As far back as 1995, the World Bank condemned the European banana policy.
Although the regulation was designed for small producers in the developing countries, according to the World Bank it is hardly benefiting them.
The European banana policy is based on a system of import licences.
With the introduction of the B-licences, the European traders, who traditionally had been importing bananas from the ACP countries, secured an important share in the market in "dollar' bananas.
While this was in the interest of these importers, the farmers in the ACP countries were none the better for it.
The lively trade in category B licences has pushed up the price of bananas on the European market, which resulted in a reduction in consumption.
So there is every reason to take the WTO complaint about the category B licences seriously.
But it is precisely in this crucial component of the organization of the market that the Commission has displayed little creativity.
The Commission is simply opting again for an allocation of the licences on the basis of traditional trade flows.
This proposal has also been adopted by Mr Thomas in his report.
Truly a missed opportunity!
It is high time a change was made.
Instead of the traditional importers, we must give preferential treatment to those who grow bananas in an environmentally and socially responsible way.
This change is lacking in both the Commission proposal and in the Thomas report.
I support the rapporteur's proposals for a promotion fund and the specific provisions for fair trade bananas.
But as long as the European market remains closed to new initiatives because of a licensing system, I am afraid that the fair trade bananas will not get a fair chance.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Fischler for being kind enough to join us again this evening because I think it is important for him to follow the debate, although it has to be said that the Chamber is not exactly full.
I should like to disagree a little with Mr Martinez about how much we knew about the WTO decisions.
The matter was discussed in the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and in that committee we studied both the WTO working group's statement and the Appellate Body's decision.
And it turns out that the European Community was very badly defended.
We find that the WTO Appellate Body was chaired by a former US senator, and that nobody was present in either the working group or the WTO apart from representatives of what we might call free-trade theories, or the new or dominant theory. So the views of the agricultural sectors of the EU were virtually undefended.
Furthermore, the Commission's legal advisor told us that, in all, he only had five lawyers to defend the Commission's point of view, against the battery of hundreds of lawyers available to the US Government, assisted moreover by the multinationals.
I am glad Mr Fischler is here.
At the moment, a group of Canary Island banana farmers is in the public gallery. These people have devoted their whole lives to their work, and at the moment they have no alternative to banana farming.
If the Commission proposal goes ahead as it stands, and the sector does not receive more protection, we are going to find ourselves with a production sector which is now unprotected, whereas prior to the adoption of Regulation 404/93 it was fully protected.
And these people cannot move elsewhere or turn to alternative crops.
So in my opinion, I think the Commission would do well to support a lot of the amendments presented by this Parliament - those tabled by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. I hope that next week the Council can finally achieve a good Community regulation which allows a certain level of protection to be retained.
Mr President, it would be good if the European Union resisted the temptation to thoroughly revise the present banana regulation.
There are a great many diverging interests in this sector.
That is why there is the risk of creating one problem by solving another.
We therefore have to start by aiming the revision at solving the WTO problems which have arisen.
This apparently has been the Commission's intention.
This is why I support the Commission proposal to set the autonomous tariff quota at 353 000 tonnes in connection with the expansion of the EU.
I also accept the duty of ECU 300 per tonne for this autonomous tariff quota, assuming that this will not give rise to new WTO difficulties.
After all, the present duty is ECU 75 per tonne.
In doing so, the European Union is giving a good signal.
The costly, extremely artificial and bureaucratic category B licensing system will be abolished and the ACP countries compensated for lost income.
The liberal banana import system of the new Member States will be integrated politically even further into the considerably less liberal EU system.
The burden of this extra bit of protection is borne proportionally by the EU tax payer and the EU consumer, and it does not discriminate between the non-privileged banana-exporting third countries.
It would be good if the European Union would also give an adequate response to another unmistakable development, namely the EU interest in fair trade bananas.
The problem is not so much the need to support commercialization of fair trade bananas; access to the import quotas is actually the biggest problem.
The Commission must not close its eyes to this.
It should reserve definite space for this category in the daily management of the import licences, while being authorized to do so by Council and Parliament.
Mr President, with this regulation we will have five different import quotas and customs duties for the import of bananas.
That is absurd.
Moreover, I do not believe that this new system will be approved by the World Trade Organization, so presumably we are going to have a new solution in a few years' time.
Nor do I think that it is right for us to use trade policy for our aid to developing countries. The great risk of such a policy is that we lock the countries into an obsolete production structure, in this case into the production of bananas.
Our policy towards the ACP countries resembles what we in Sweden call 'Döbeln's medicine' , that is, it helps for the moment, but in the long term it is harmful.
Both for European consumers and for the populations of the ACP countries it would be better to have free trade combined with direct aid than the present complex quota and customs duty system.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must voice my opposition to the Thomas report.
I am speaking on behalf of a large segment of the Group of the European People's Party; not the whole party, but a very sizeable segment of it.
The Thomas report calls for increased protectionism, whereas what is really needed is less protectionism.
We find Amendments Nos 11 and 28 particularly unwelcome, as they represent a drastic reduction in quotas for the three new Member States.
A total of 10 % is being cut from Latin American bananas, and still more problems will ensue.
I very much doubt whether the Commission's proposal is in keeping with WTO ratios.
However, I am quite certain that the demands made by Mr Thomas and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development would in any case lead to enormous problems with the WTO.
We keep hearing - as we have heard in today's debate - that we must protect the small, independent producers in traditional ACP countries and the EU against the 'big bad' multi-nationals in Latin America.
The organization of the market clearly does not do this.
You are all invited to a talk in the press room tomorrow morning with an independent producer from Costa Rica who produces fair trade bananas and has great difficulty with the way the market is organized.
Small producers in Latin America - of whom there are many, in Ecuador, too, for example - are the hardest hit, and that is why we must give more support to fair trade bananas and vote against the Thomas report on this point.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by congratulating the rapporteur, David Thomas, on an excellent report on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation No 404/93 on the common organization of the market in bananas.
The rapporteur's proposals are an excellent attempt to reconcile the interests of all the parties involved, that is to say of Community producers, of the ACP countries and other non-EU countries and of consumers, in a fair and balanced way, keeping to the rules of the internal market and the common organization of the market.
All the same, the question of abolishing the system of allocation of B certificates ignores the consequences this decision will have for Community producers.
As you know, the distribution of import licences has been one of the basic principles of the common organization of the market in bananas, and serves to restrict the quantities of Central American bananas coming in so as to safeguard sales of Community bananas.
The Commission and the Council will have to define the measures they propose to take to stop this gap, clearly and without time limits.
Among the various measures that should be taken, we think the overall reference income should be adopted and increased by around 20 %, so as to restore the necessary income guarantee to Community producers, and the Community should undertake to reduce the independent quota to prevent a possible glut on the market which would jeopardize sales of Community bananas.
Quite apart, that is, from vital additional aid which will be needed to give Community producers back the necessary resources for disposing of their production, thus offsetting the high cost of transport.
For all these reasons we unreservedly support Amendment No 25, Article 1 (new), in order to protect the interests of banana producers in the Autonomous Region of Madeira.
Mr President, once again we are faced with a debate on the reform of the COM in bananas, and we need to recognize that this time the reform has been forced on us by the result of the dispute within the WTO.
I must say, Commissioner, that this time, in general terms, we share the views expressed in the Commission proposal, because we need to modify the current import licence regime and make it compatible with WTO rules.
Our experience of market behaviour during the last few years suggests that we should take this into account when it comes to setting import quotas, in order to avoid flooding the markets and causing prices to drop, as happened last year in the case of France.
So we think an autonomous tariff quota of 100 000 tonnes, as already requested by Parliament, is better suited to market demands than the 350 000 tonnes proposed by the Commission.
Furthermore, we need to find a formula to allow continued exempted access for traditional ACP producers with whom we maintain economic, commercial and political obligations which cannot be ignored.
Maintaining this sector in the banana-producing regions of the EU is the very reason for the existence of this COM. Nobody has been able to call into question the validity and legitimacy of this COM, despite the constant attacks it has been suffering.
We need to guarantee the survival of Community production, and the EU's banana farmers need their current income levels to be guaranteed.
The banana sector is one of the most important economic resources of the ultra-peripheral regions of the EU. They cannot do without it, not just for economic reasons, but also for employment reasons.
Taking it for granted that the Commission shares these objectives, we need to know what mechanisms they are contemplating in order to sort out the import regime for third country production. Also, we do not yet know how the Commission plans to compensate Community producers for losses they suffer as a result of not having a licence regime like the one currently still in force.
Commissioner, it would be good to clarify and overcome the two uncertainties I have just indicated: guarantees for maintaining production and income levels.
That is what the sector is hoping for from this new reform.
Mr President, I would like to begin by praising the Commissioner's proposal, for it endeavours to strike an admirable balance between the different producers' interests.
Reasonable consideration must be given to EU producers, while we must maintain our Lomé and WTO obligations.
In reality, there is precious little room for manoeuvre.
However, fair trade bananas are one area in which we can improve the Commission's proposal.
The Commission's proposal to support ACP producers paves the way for changes in production, and there must be due regard for the environment, but that is not specific enough.
Thus, it is vital that our amendment should propose arrangements for fair trade bananas.
In this regard, I am not suggesting a particular quota, but rather, support for changes in production, a definition of fair trade bananas, arrangements for labelling and monitoring, and support for publicity and marketing of fair trade bananas.
Arrangements for fair trade bananas would benefit EU producers and ACP producers alike, and I therefore hope these aspects will be worked into this proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of the banana market has given us another opportunity to declare in this House that it is the principal obligation of the institutions of the European Union to defend the interests of its Member States and their regions in every situation, and to honour the commitments they assume in agreements with other countries, without submitting to the interests of the World Trade Organization.
In the case we are now debating, the Commission may be given the benefit of the doubt when it tries to reconcile the interests of Community and ACP banana producers with the requirements of the World Trade Organization's panel of judges.
The Commission must understand that the flooding of the European market with large quotas of cheap bananas from non-EU, nonACP countries will seriously affect the income of Community producers and make it almost impossible for traditional ACP countries to compete with Latin American producers.
We cannot set aside the fact that some of our ultra-peripheral island regions, which are marked out by their isolation and low levels of economic development, are among the European banana-producing regions.
It is not enough to recognize the existence of ultra-peripheral regions in the Treaty of the Union; it is more important that in all circumstances there should be specific and substantive expression of the support which those regions, which expect a great deal of us, call for and demand from the Community.
In Madeira, an autonomous region of Portugal, it would cause incalculable economic, social and environmental damage if the European institutions gave in to pressure applied to them for the purpose of defending interests which are not those of European citizens.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m..
Freedom of establishment in the transport sector
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0215/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a Council Directive amending Directive 96/26/EC on admission to the occupation of road haulage operator and road passenger transport operator and mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications intended to facilitate for these operators the right to freedom of establishment in national and international transport operations (C4-0174/98-97/0029 (SYN)). (Rapporteur: Mrs Maria Berger).
Mr President, Commissioner, even if he is leaving us now, ladies and gentlemen, the Community had conceived regulations as long ago as 1974 with the goal of harmonizing conditions of admission to the occupation of road haulage operator and road passenger transport operator.
However, in recent years, central, basic conditions in the transport industry have undergone major changes.
The present proposal for a directive comes in response to these changes.
The proposal aims to guarantee that at least somewhat similar statutory terms will apply for all hauliers right across the EU.
The occupation of road haulier is already second to none in terms of being a truly European occupation.
In a matter of days, from 1 July 1998, this will be reinforced still further through the final clearance of cabotage.
This occupation, too, will thus be able to benefit fully from the terms of the internal market, and hauliers will enjoy unrestricted admission to the market throughout the Union.
In fact, the directive under discussion here today should have been in force by 1 July 1998.
I must therefore emphasize that Parliament has worked extremely fast and that the Council has been responsible for the delays, having spent rather a long time on the common position; that is why this deadline has not been met.
Regardless of the actual date, however, we must respond to the fact that changes in operating and production processes in industry and retail in line with the just in time strategy have led to faster, more flexible and, at the same time, higher quality transport services, demanding ramified and ingenious systems of logistics.
Today, we are confronted with a situation whereby smaller and smaller consignments need to be transported with increasing frequency.
There is also a noticeable shift from traditional company transport to professional goods transportation, and larger and larger operators are emerging, offering both haulage and logistics solutions.
On the other hand, we are also seeing increasing numbers of small enterprises entering the market place by virtue of their flexibility and the cost savings they offer, accepting haulage suitable only for smaller vehicles, even for transboundary movement.
The public is becoming increasingly exacting as regards transport services, especially in terms of environmental protection, technical safety and abiding by social provisions.
The emphasis varies greatly from country to country.
Standards in the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe in particular are, without doubt, decidedly lower.
Thus, we have to be aware that operators from these countries in particular will be competing more and more with operators within the Union.
Thus, quite apart from the present concrete directive, I would like to pick up where I left off at first reading in my quest to examine the extent to which steps can be taken under the auspices of existing European accords with the nations of central and eastern Europe, prior to their joining, to bring them gradually into line with EU regulations in this area.
At first reading, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights expressly welcomed all the Commission's proposed harmonization measures.
These concerned greater requirements with regard to financial capacity, personal efficiency and specialized knowledge as well as the enlargement of the area of application of the directive.
As rapporteur, I also wanted to see stricter regulations adopted to combat fraud in joint transit procedure and to regulate the transit of live animals. I wanted to see regulations adopted setting greater requirements with regard to financial capacity.
I wanted a tighter definition of the concepts of share capital and reserves to be adopted. My proposals at that time were adopted by a very sizeable majority both in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and in the plenary session.
However, in its common position, the Council has only accepted two of our proposed amendments and these changes are actually more in the nature of legal technicalities.
I am particularly disappointed that in the common position, the Ministers of Transport did not even take up my amendments on combating fraud, when these had the support of the Commission.
Thus, I have resurrected most of my/our demands from first reading, and once again, they have been unanimously adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
As before, I still consider it extremely important to bring anti-fraud provisions into the domain of haulage operators.
I also propose deleting various items added by the Council, as well as introducing supplementary tests for hauliers who have acquired their credentials in a different Member State.
I would ask for your support in the vote.
Mr President, the second reading of Mrs Berger's text deserves to do well.
At first reading, I thought we and the Commission had made good progress.
I can understand the Council being a little more cautious in the text we received subsequently.
But what is it all about? As Mrs Berger said in her introduction, it has something to do with fair competition.
It also has something to do with transportation, environmental considerations, integrity, etcetera.
I am in no doubt that the House agrees on what it is about, but perhaps we are more worried about how to get it through.
Regulations are fine.
That's great.
But in my view, free will can go a long way.
For instance, I am confident that in the trade - within Member States - road haulage is being developed along the lines of sustainability, focusing on quality and service.
There has to be the will to make implementation a reality in all Member States.
The committee's proposal on Community transit and procedures is sensible and deserves the support of Parliament and, in due course, that of the Commission and Council as well.
I would like to ring a little alarm bell about one proposal, however.
The amendment in question is Amendment No 11, where there is a kind of weighting of offences.
The amendment proposed by the House reads, "... convicted of serious offences against the rules in force concerning road haulage' . What is "serious' supposed to mean?
Who is going to define how serious something has to be before intervention is necessary? This is a kind of grey area, giving free reign to spite, so I would prefer us to retain the original text, stating: "... convicted of offences against the rules in force ...'
Mr President, I welcome Mrs Berger's report which seeks to bring common standards to road haulage operators in Europe.
However, I must say that it is simply not good enough for British authorities to allow a situation to arise whereby Irish hauliers are denied access to and use of British roads, as happened when ports were blocked last Sunday for 16 hours.
The European Treaties have espoused a need for the freedom of movement of goods, persons and services within the territories of the European Union.
This should be protected and maintained at all times.
This freedom is enshrined in the legal right upon which the basis of the European Union is founded.
In fact, one must welcome the recent position of the Internal Affairs Council of Ministers' meeting, at which it was agreed that the procedural red-tape would be cut, to allow the European Commission to demand reasonable action by Member States to unblock roads or ports within days of blockades being set up as a result of strikes, or face action in the European Court of Justice.
Finally, I should just like to reiterate my recent call for Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock to intervene once again in the matter of ensuring that the French authorities pay up outstanding claims by national road haulage associations arising as a direct consequence of the blockade of French motorways last year.
There is still £2m outstanding to Irish road hauliers resulting from this strike which must be paid by the French Government immediately.
Mr President, I welcome this common position and I think it will give road hauliers free access under similar conditions of operation and in particular will open up access to cabotage.
I congratulate the rapporteur and welcome this common position.
It is favourable to small businesses with one exception which I come to in a moment.
In my view it fits in positively with the principle of subsidiarity.
However, I cannot support Amendment No 8.
In my view, this would create a high level of immobilised transport undertakings capital, which would be unacceptable.
It would create a very precarious situation especially for small businesses and I would be very interested to hear the Commissioners' views in this regard.
Like Mr Fitzsimons who wishes to keep all roads open against blockades I invite the Commissioner this evening to make sure that in fact her own country will continue to allow free movement: in fact that principle has been breached twice in the past two years under the nominal excuse of industrial action.
Commissioner Kinnock felt unable to intervene in this regard but it is a breach of free movement and I hope the Commissioner will enter into the spirit of the single market tonight and ensure that it does not happen in future.
I also hope that the Commissioner will go some way this evening towards expressing some willingness to resolve the situation whether there are huge disparities of tax.
In particular, fuel rates in the UK seem to be astronomically high whereas in many other Member States they are very low and this creates distortion within the single market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank you for your work on this initiative, which aims at strengthening current legislation by making the conditions of access to these professions stricter, by harmonizing the application of the three criteria and by widening the scope of the directive.
I am therefore happy to be able to accept many of the amendments presented by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Firstly, I would like to say that I am pleased with the amendments which make the text clearer and the proposal more coherent.
Amendments Nos 2, 3, 8 and 11 will therefore be taken into account.
Secondly, although initially the Council did not consider it necessary to take action with regard to combating fraud, the Commission continues to consider this an important aspect and feels that tough measures should be taken with regard to the dishonesty of some people in this sector.
This is why I accept Amendments Nos 1 and 11, along with the second part of Amendment No 7.
The first part of this amendment is, however, too vague and could lead to control measures out of all proportion.
Finally, the Commission remains of the opinion that it is desirable to provide for the possibility of flexibility in the control measures, particularly in the case of small and medium-sized enterprises which could face financial difficulties in the short- term at the time when they are evaluated against the criteria for financial standing.
This possibility is especially important due to the emphasis currently placed on employment at European level.
Amendment No 10 can consequently be accepted.
Mr President, there is one area in which the Commission cannot accept the amendments presented.
Although the Commission is extremely favourable to the principle which underlies these amendments, the aim of which is to remove factors relating to problems known as "diploma tourism' from the common position, it cannot accept that the compromise solution, arrived at with such difficulty, should be rejected.
The Commission remains convinced that the temporary nature of the proposal, combined with the need to consult the Commission in all cases, is a sufficiently restrictive basis for its application.
The Commission is also convinced that the implementation of the new requirements with regard to professional competence will make this measure unnecessary.
This is why the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6 and 9.
Mr President, Mrs Berger's report is both realistic and well founded.
She continues to make a constructive contribution to the Commission's initiative and enables us to reexamine certain questions with the Council.
I hope that, on this occasion, the Council will realize the advantages of these amendments.
We all wish to see stricter standards applied in this sector, along with a series of coherent criteria, to ensure that only reputable transport operators remain in the market, providing a high quality service in the interests of their clients and of society as a whole.
Thank you for your support. I am sure that it will continue to be forthcoming.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Fifth Framework Programme for RTD
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0226/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision concerning the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (1998-2002) (C4-0182/98-97/0119(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Godelieve Quisthoudt-Rowohl).
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I can honestly say that this evening you see standing before you a very happy rapporteur.
Once upon a time we began with one proposal by the Commission that we wished to have amended.
I recall that at first reading we dealt with some 750 amendments and - looking over to the other side of the House - they either got through or did not get through, as the case may be, in the midst of much highly controversial debate here.
Next I would like to thank the Council.
Much to our delight, Parliament, and not least I myself as rapporteur, found the common position of the Council so satisfactory that we would now merely like to improve a few points.
No matter how good a paper is, it is and always will be capable of improvement.
Thus, we have concentrated on a relatively small number of points.
In committee last week, we adopted some 40 amendments, almost all of them unanimously.
As always, there was a bit of debate on a few points of detail.
It will come as no surprise to you that the House wishes to increase the overall budgetary level for the Fifth Framework Programme on Research.
Thus, in committee, we once again unanimously adopted the original sum put forward by the Commission of ECU 16.3 billion.
The Commissioner has assured us all along that this amount was arrived at following thorough research and mature reflection.
We will take her word for it; we are not merely hoping for the support of the Commission, we are absolutely banking on it in conciliation.
We also unanimously adopted amendments delineating the involvement of the European Parliament during the implementation of the programme.
We no longer wish to take our leave as the legislative body for policy on research after we adopt this framework programme presumably tomorrow and then after conciliation.
The much-acclaimed flexibility demanded by the Commission is not synonymous with the whim of the Executive.
Hence, we believe the Commission should be required to report to Parliament.
Moreover, in our opinion, there could well be a review in the middle of the implementation of the programme whereby its content would be open to re-definition.
The overall direction of the programme ought perhaps not to be changed, but we could nevertheless consider whether everything we are deciding right now is still relevant.
Further, we are actually somewhat disappointed that not all the improvements for small and medium-sized enterprises were adopted by the Council.
To be quite honest, I am rather amazed, because support of the middle classes as employers is constantly being lauded, particularly in terms of the creation of new jobs.
This is where action on employment will come from.
We have therefore unanimously adopted these proposed amendments and reintroduced them.
One final comment - which I know will be a sticking point.
The treaty clearly states that research is integral to internal policies and that for such budgetary matters, joint budget authorization by Parliament and the Council applies.
Correspondingly, we have also amended the common position wherever the research budget is mentioned rather than internal policies; this was done, incidentally, with the full agreement of the Committee on Budgets.
We hope this will serve to increase transparency and constitute a qualitative improvement.
The quality of European research is, in fact, its strength.
If the quality is good enough - not merely adequate, but excellent - and if the decision-making processes are transparent, the advancement of European research will also be more readily accepted. Today, this is a question we hear all too often: Does it have to go through the European Union?
Are there not any other ways? In future, we will have to be able to demonstrate that this is absolutely vital.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and all the members of the advisory committees as - after tough debating, in some cases - we have succeeded in adopting such a consistent paper by a very comfortable majority.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Social Democrats, we have never had the least doubt that we would only be giving our partial support to the Council's common position on the Fifth Framework Programme for Research.
We primarily agree with its thematic structure, because this takes account of our most important proposals from the first reading, including initiatives on socio-economic basic research.
However, we have our doubts as to the adequacy of the Council's proposals on the budget, financing arrangements and management.
I would like to make four fundamental comments.
The first relates to concentration.
There is still no significant reduction in the number of areas.
A reduction in the number of projects and the scope of the specific programmes is, however, essential to serious concentration.
The second concerns modernization of institutions.
In the interests of efficient administration, the Commission must bear the brunt of responsibility for implementing the programmes.
The programme committees must confine themselves to coordinating strategic and normative issues.
Parliament must be actively involved in monitoring the implementation of the programme.
The third concerns social innovation.
Innovation is one of the key objectives of the programme.
However, innovation is not limited to a technical process; it is also a social process in need of optimization through investment in a qualified workforce and new types of labour organization.
Europe could gain a decisive competitive edge here.
This is one of the reasons why we are calling for an additional initiative in the area of the information society.
The fourth relates to growth.
The concept of growth must once and for all be taken out of the dead end which is a purely quantitative meaning.
Ecological stability must emerge as a locational advantage of the European economy and hence, the overriding credo of the programme.
I would also like to make just a few comments on the budget.
It is a scandal in the history of Community promotion of research that the Council has no intention of even keeping pace with inflation in the furtherance of research.
In real terms, what the Council has in mind is a 4 % reduction.
My party only agreed to the inter-party compromise of ECU 16.3 billion negotiated in the run-up to this second reading under the constraint of coming up with a qualified majority; otherwise, we would have set the figure far higher.
As we enter the 21st century, more Community efforts will be required in order to make decisive improvements to industrial competitiveness, to avoid large-scale ecological damage and to combat the economic exclusion of entire segments of the population.
Correspondingly, investment in research would need to be calculated in accordance with the principle of saving up to make public provision for the future.
Unfortunately, it was not possible to achieve a consensus on this with the conservative side of the House.
Let us at least join forces to demand what was agreed as the lowest common denominator in the report by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy - the Commission's allocation entered in the budget.
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her efforts, including her successful efforts to bring about a large number of workable compromises and some reasonably consistent parliamentary action.
Mr President, the vote of the Fifth Framework Programme is an important opportunity for our House to confirm the need to guarantee European research the necessary support to face the great challenge of globalization.
The added value of European research is now a proven reality and, on the eve of the year 2000, the existing connection between research and economic development is clear and obvious.
People specifically want research and technological development to provide concrete answers to problems like ageing or disability.
And I am also thinking of employment - the major challenge at the end of this century - and in this sense I confirm the need to involve producers in the activities of the Fifth Framework Programme, and I am particularly thinking of the role of small and medium-sized enterprises.
In this respect, I actually believe that two and not three small and medium-sized enterprises - as provided for until now - can, through cooperative research activities, jointly entrust third legal entities with appropriate research capacities with the task of solving their common technological problems.
At the same time, I would like to stress the need for the JRC to strengthen its ties with other research institutes so that it can develop its function as a centre for the transfer of technology, something we have all repeatedly stated in committee.
Clearly, cuts in funding cannot be made in a sector that is the future of our young people and our economies.
To go without research today means being less efficient and competitive tomorrow.
It is extremely important to assert Europe's role in this way.
In conclusion, I therefore hope that we all play our own role and hope, like those who spoke before me, that the Commission and Council will be able to back Parliament's position on funding.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party I would like to congratulate the rapporteur Mrs Quisthoudt on her report and thank her for the work she has carried out, because it is above all thanks to her that the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has managed to come up with a unanimous proposal for the budget of the Fifth Framework Programme.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is delighted with the budget proposal, in terms of both its level and the substantive allocation.
I therefore hope that this Parliament will once again speak with one voice.
My group does have a problem with Amendment No 31, however; this amendment makes it possible to depart from the generally used definition of small and medium-sized enterprises.
Firms with up to 500 employees (instead of those with up to 250 employees) are entitled to research grants specifically aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises.
As rapporteur for the specific programme on innovation and SMEs, I do not agree with this.
In my experience it is the small firms, in particular those that promote European innovation, that fall between two stools.
In a definition which classifies companies with up to 500 employees as small and medium-sized enterprises, this means that most research funds will go to the larger companies with 300, 400 and 500 employees.
In addition, however, the smaller firms especially must be encouraged to take part in the innovation process.
This is the area in which growth is highest and in which jobs are created.
And in the areas of information and communication technology and biotechnology in particular, a great many small, innovative firms are active.
They should benefit to an optimum level from the European research funds.
A restriction of the definition does not exclude larger companies from participating in the Fifth Framework Programme.
A broadening of the definition gives small companies an even smaller chance to claim the already minimal SME budget for the coming four years.
My group will vote against this amendment.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has come to a unanimous agreement regarding the minimum essential budget for the Fifth Framework Programme for Research and Development. This has been largely due to our rapporteur's tact and listening capacity, and I would like to pay tribute to her.
Parliament concurs with the Commission's opinion, and must send a unanimous message to the Council concerning the issue of financing, in order to approach conciliation - which is proving to be difficult - from a position of strength.
I would like to draw your attention to a limited number of amendments which touch on the heart of European research.
This heart is made up of men and women, our scientists and engineers.
The European Union must offer them the recognition they deserve, along with the necessary motivation, by each year organizing a European Grand Prix for scientific and technological research, as proposed in Amendment No 34.
This heart is also made up of our research infrastructure.
The European Union must mobilize all possible means to support it.
We must make sure that the Fifth Framework Programme draws equally on the Structural Funds, the European Investment Fund and funds from the European Investment Bank.
This is the aim of Amendment No 18.
Similarly, the Joint Research Centre must enjoy more autonomy with, naturally, the counterbalance of an independent evaluation procedure as provided for in Amendment No 19.
Finally, Amendments Nos 20 and 21 restore coherence and concentration to the Fifth Framework Programme by dealing in parallel with health issues linked to our nutrition and environment.
This is where the heart and arteries of every European are at stake.
Ladies and gentlemen, by adopting these amendments by a strong majority, we will approach the co-decision procedure under the best possible conditions.
It is a matter of building a European science and technology policy which lives up to our ambitions, that is, one which is at the service of all Europeans.
Mr President, first of all I want to congratulate the rapporteur on her work, which is very careful and very sensitive to all the opinions expressed in committee, which has meant that the report has arrived at this stage with a high degree of unanimity. That backing bears witness to the work done by the rapporteur.
In the few seconds I have available, I want to focus on what I see as a serious contradiction in the construction of the European Union which is taking place.
We are aware of and admit the fact that Europe is behind North America, Japan and even some other regions which are increasing the GNP destined for research on these matters.
Nevertheless, we are decreasing our investment, and it is also decreasing in every Member State of the European Union.
I wonder how we can make any progress, with the prospect of reduced research spending.
Mr President, please allow me to present my criticism in note form, so to speak, because I only have a short time to speak.
Firstly, I would like to discuss the financial provision. According to the Treaty of Dublin, this should have been 6 %.
That is now out of the question.
I would simply like to point out that America has just decided on an 8 % growth rate, or a total of 32 % over four years.
Next, I would like to address the total disparity between nuclear and non-nuclear energy.
We have earmarked ECU 1 260 million for nuclear energy and ECU 1 004 million for non-nuclear energy - including coal and renewable energy.
I think this is because we are forever chasing the mirage of fusion.
Thus, we would not be doing justice to the task if, for example, I only made reference to the Kyoto Convention.
Besides, an even more pressing task is to probe who actually benefits from growth and what form that growth should take. Does it make people happier, healthier or more contented?
Does it reduce unemployment? We need to pay far greater attention to this.
The other matter concerns information technology.
We are entering an era when a segment of the population of the EU - and, not least, citizens of other countries - will in all probability no longer have any part in knowledge because these people are excluded - they cannot participate in the new information technology.
This will lead to a major disparity, not only in the European Union, but also in many other countries with which we do, of course, have to collaborate, for example in Asia or in the developing countries.
I do not know how we will resolve this.
We need to spend a lot more money in working with this trend.
It is not just about energy or the environment; it is also - and more pointedly - about the consequences of the rapid growth of information technology.
Mr President, Commissioner, like everyone else I would naturally like to add to the well-deserved compliments the rapporteur is receiving and perhaps note that when we embarked on the Fifth Framework Programme, Parliament had two clear demands to make.
The first related to the form and structure of the Framework Programme.
We wanted to break with the linear model of research, which belonged to the past, in favour of an interactive model which linked targeted actions to generic technologies.
These demands were satisfied right from the stage of the Commission's proposal.
Secondly, we wanted the Framework Programme to be responsive not only to the desire to ensure the competitiveness of our industries, but also to be an instrument responsive to social demands.
On this point, too, the Commission moved largely in the direction of our expectations.
And the good news which has come from the Council in the common position is that it has not only confirmed what we have achieved with the Commission but that it has gone further towards Parliament's position than the Commission did.
The bad news, on the other hand, has been that the Council does not provide, or does not provide us with, the political means with which it is itself in agreement.
Thus, given that we cannot express an opinion on behalf of the Council but that we can at least make ourselves heard, I would like to say three things to the Council.
The first is that we have not decided to make many concessions - and I must stress this point - particularly as we are on exactly the same wavelength as the Commission.
So, we will not change our minds.
The second is that if, in spite of everything, necessity dictates that we must accept a reduction to below the 16.3 billion level, there will be no linear reduction.
It will be hard luck for some of the Council's priorities.
Thirdly and finally, there are some things which we consider to be essential, such as the independence of the Joint Research Centre and, to reply to Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, the essential tasks of the Euratom Treaty, including thermonuclear fusion.
But that is my personal opinion.
Mr President, I would like to warmly thank Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl for preparing this report.
The Fifth Framework Programme must be got off the EU decision-making treadmill as quickly as possible, so that competitive European research can continue without interruption when the present phase of the programme has ended.
The Commission cannot be allowed to slow down the decision-making process by drawing out the debate until it goes to conciliation.
Stubborn persistence in attitude does not produce results.
A very important area of research for the future in the Fifth Framework Programme is water.
Clean drinking water, surface water and groundwater is now, and will continue to be, a very important issue for the EU; for example, 2 % of surface water in the EU is being threatened with pollution.
That is why research must help preserve this vanishing natural resource in those areas that still have clean water.
More attention should be paid in research to, for example, the capability of mineral deposits to work as indicators in studies of groundwater.
If ever there happens to be radioactivity in a given area, mineral deposits will reveal this without the need for the time-consuming examination of groundwater.
It is important for European research and competitiveness that the Framework Programme budget be as large as possible.
Only then can we be certain of enjoying high standards in the future in Europe.
Mr President, the four previous framework programmes for research largely funded precompetitive research projects halfway between grass roots research and the commercial development of products.
These programmes had the quality of developing cooperation between scientists, universities and business, but they had only a small impact in social and economic terms and did not enable Europe to catch up in many fields, especially the sectors of the future.
These shortcomings were largely due to the inadequacy of appropriations, their dilution amongst too great a number of programmes and a lack of flexibility in the allocation of appropriations to respond to new needs.
In the Fifth Framework Programme, the Commission has corrected these faults by concentrating appropriations on fewer, more targeted activities, by looking to improve their management and to simplify procedures.
These directions were overall approved by Parliament and the Council, but a disagreement arose regarding the amount of appropriations.
Whilst the Commission and Parliament are demanding a substantial increase in appropriations to bring them to ECU 16.3 billion over five years, the Council has given a figure of 14 billion, which in real terms represents a decrease in comparison with the Fourth Framework Programme.
Given the European Union's backwardness in the field of research in comparison with competitor countries, appropriations should be increased to ECU 16.3 billion and substantial improvements should be brought about in their use and in the implementation of projects.
Mr President, I, too, would like to congratulate the rapporteur.
I know it is a difficult task - a bit like squaring the circle.
Irreconcilable interests often have to be reconciled.
It is critical for Parliament to remain united now.
We have one clear adversary, the Council. We will only be able to resist the Council if we stay on the course we have just mapped out, and I would also ask the Commission to support the House in this.
My second comment addresses a problem that we unfortunately will not be able to solve with the Fifth Framework Programme for Research. I would like to draw attention to this now.
It is the increasing north-south conflict of industrial competitiveness.
Unfortunately, the southern states have cut back their research expenditure more severely than has been the case in the north, although the southern states only had a relatively low level of expenditure as it was.
This will lead to an even greater northsouth divide in the future.
I would like to ask the Commission to devote special attention to this subject, not because I believe the Fifth Framework Programme for Research can solve the problem - there is far too little money for that.
But the political will must come into being in the south - and by that I mean countries with a smaller gross domestic product - as well as in the north.
The latter are not always richer, but as a rule, they spend more on research.
We need to come up with a solution to this; otherwise, the divide will only get bigger. It will cost us dearly and we will not be able to bridge it by stepping up regional policy.
I am asking you to reflect on this.
In any case, thank you very much, and I do hope we can stand united as we oppose the Council.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Quisthoudt, for the excellent work she has done.
The main issue in this second reading concerns the disagreement with the Council over the budget for the Fifth Framework Programme.
The Council proposes a maximum amount of ECU 12 740 billion, excluding Euratom, whilst Parliament proposes just over ECU 15 billion.
The essential difference therefore concerns this additional 2 billion which this Parliament wishes to allocate to the four research themes, namely the quality of the existing and user-friendly information society, competitive and sustainable growth, energy and the environment.
Mr President, it is essential that Europe's competitiveness is increased, that the social issues in this area are resolved, and that the Council is persuaded to adopt the position of Parliament.
Research is one effective method of guaranteeing employment in the European Union in the long term.
It now appears that a conciliation round with the Council is unavoidable.
In view of our experience as Parliament with respect to the role of the Commission in the conciliation procedure involving the additional ECU 700 million for the Fourth Framework Programme, I would like to urge the Commission to determine its strategy for the conciliation procedure in close cooperation with the European Parliament.
We can only get the Council on our side if Parliament and Commission act jointly on this issue.
The Commission should avoid giving the Council the impression that the Commission attaches less value to the level of the research budget than the European Parliament does.
I insist on a response from Madam Commissioner to this question, and I would like to know whether she is prepared to jointly develop such a strategy.
Mr President, I am rather sorry that we are discussing such an important subject late at night.
I do not think it is appropriate.
However, I should like to give my congratulations to the rapporteur.
She is a lady who drives a very hard bargain, I have to say.
But I enjoyed our very interesting discussions and I am very pleased that we achieved a result.
The theme of the week, as expressed in Cardiff, is 'let's bring Europe to the people' .
What better way of doing that than engaging the best brains in Europe on behalf of the people to tackle the problems which worry the people? That is what the framework programme is for.
I am very pleased about the attention that is now being given to the theme of gender balance, of mainstreaming throughout the Community's policies, including the Fifth Framework Programme.
I would sincerely like to thank our Commissioner, Mrs Cresson, for her attention, which will be appreciated by many people in this Parliament.
Another leitmotif of the Fifth Framework Programme has to be sustainable development.
We have to bear in mind all the time that resources are finite and that we must improve life for everyone in the Community.
Like others I have some doubts about the wisdom in the Euratom part of the Fifth Framework Programme of spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of ECUs on research into nuclear fusion which will not generate electricity in the lifetime of anyone in this Chamber tonight.
But so be it.
Socio-economic research which tells us how our society is growing and what we could do to make it better is essential.
What I want to see in the Fifth Framework Programme, which did not happen in the Fourth in all areas, is attention to the implications for society of the research which these brains are working on.
That was meant to happen in the Fourth Framework Programme and it did not.
We seriously want the socio-economic implications of every piece of research to be looked at in the Fifth Framework Programme.
That is very important as well as for some specific areas such as information technology and others where there are very clear societal implications.
I hope that the Council of Ministers is intending to act rationally.
It is not rational to make a cut in real terms in research in 1999 and the beginning of the next century.
That is irrational behaviour.
I hope, therefore, that they are quite clear we will not accept something which cuts the Fifth Framework Programme in real terms in comparison with the Fourth.
That is exactly what this Parliament does not want.
We are bringing Europe to the people.
As I said earlier on, we can only do that with an adequate budget.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as the author of the statement on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I must congratulate the rapporteur. I welcome the Council's common position, which has taken up the concerns of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, incorporating a separate point on energy, the environment and sustainable development into the topic.
I would particularly like to emphasize the fact that the Council has expressly stressed organic substances in its chapter on ecologically friendly energy systems, including renewable energy sources.
That is a big success, underlining the positive re-thinking process in EU policy.
The facts from Austria, Finland and Sweden show that it is possible to step up the use of renewable energy sources; renewable energy sources account for between 20 and 25 % of energy consumption in these countries.
EU policy is aimed at sustainable development and the sustainable utilization of natural resources, achievable through increased use of these types of energy sources.
To me, this is also very important in view of environmental protection, particularly with regard to further developing rural areas.
In this connection, I also welcome the fact that the Council has come out in favour of the sustainable development of agriculture, fisheries and forestry.
At the same time, I would like to emphasize that in a truly integrated rural economy, mountainous regions must also be considered.
I am critical of the low level of funding.
Mr President, the rapporteur has my congratulations on being able to bring to Parliament this evening a report which is commanding widespread support and which I hope will serve us well in the conciliation that lies ahead.
The first point I want to make is that, in relation to finance, we must not allow a fall in real terms in the amount we give to research.
Let me give a simple example.
The oil price per barrel is now at its lowest level ever.
Yet the United States is quadrupling the amount of support it gives to the supply and service industry in the oil sector.
When we set out the Fourth Framework, the Third Framework, the Second Framework, the First Framework, society was poorer than it is now.
And yet, are we to believe that we are now poorer in our aspirations for what we want in the future? It cannot be.
There are two very specific points I want to mention.
Firstly, we must have solid fuel within the purview of this programme.
We may not like coal, but coal use throughout the world is increasing and we should not forget that.
Secondly, we need to add in the work for disability as well as for the ageing population.
They are not always the same thing, but we need to have regard to this problem in our society.
My final point is that we must realize that we are rich in what we have already achieved in our research programme and we must exploit it more than we have in the past.
If we could achieve that in the Fifth Framework Programme, we would be very happy indeed.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Energy for the future (renewable sources of energy)
The next item is the joint debate on two reports, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy:
A4-0207/98 by Mrs Rothe, on a communication from the Commission on energy for the future: Renewable Sources of Energy - White Paper for a Community Strategy and Action Plan (COM(97)0599 - C40047/98); -A4-0199/98 by Mr Linkohr, on network access for renewable energies - creating a European directive on the feeding in of electricity from renewable sources of energy in the European Union.
Mr President, there is already ample testimony to the European Parliament's positive view of renewable energy in numerous resolutions.
Under the motto of "talk is cheap - we want some action!' , Parliament has already requested a strategy and a concrete plan of action in two reports, also tabling some proposals of its own.
The Commission must have been aware that Parliament had high expectations of the White Paper.
Commissioner, I can assure you today, you have not disappointed us.
Even though we would have preferred the White Paper to get down to specifics to a greater extent, it does point the right way.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy gives its unmitigated support to the goal of doubling the use of renewable energy by the year 2010 as a minimum goal, as stated in the report.
However, we expect binding commitments between the Commission and Member States as to goals for the individual countries, broken down by type of energy and annual power prognostications.
These very Member States must be prepared to take up their responsibilities.
The White Paper correctly highlights the major importance of difficult conditions of competition for renewable energy sources.
In this respect I will focus on just one point, the matter of fair access to the electricity network.
The reality of energy policy in the Union demonstrates that countries that do have specific input arrangements for electricity from renewable energy show the highest rates of growth.
Through my report and, in more detail, the report by my colleague Mr Linkohr, we are prompting the Commission immediately to table a motion for a resolution that would organize conditions of access to the electricity network for "green' electricity in such a way that the investment in plant and running costs for the production of electricity from renewable energy sources would become practicable, enabling wide market penetration regardless of the type of system chosen.
Legislative measures such as those just described, as well as concrete, special policies are needed to support renewable energy.
Therefore, I welcome the Commission's plans for a major breakthrough campaign for renewable energy in fulfilment of one of Parliament's demands.
The only other thing we are now proposing is that this campaign should be complemented with an information campaign on "solar heating and solar heating power stations' .
The White Paper gives special prominence to organic substances in the question of doubling renewable energy sources.
That is a very positive signal, particularly for rural areas of the European Union.
But, Commissioner, if we are to take these proposals seriously, there surely has to be a corresponding logical step in the proposals for the reform of the common agricultural policy.
There is clearly a lot of catching up to be done; perhaps you could put that to your honourable friend Mr Fischler.
By and large, promoting renewable energy sources is not the sole domain of energy policy.
This task applies to all Community policy right across the board and must also be given considerably greater consideration in the special financial promotion programmes of the European Union, whether within the Community or in programmes in third countries, since the necessary resources for the breakthrough campaign alone will cost the public coffers an estimated ECU 4 billion.
If political will is combined with political creativity at Union level and at national and regional political levels and channelled into new energy sources, doubling looks set to be achieved before 2010 - I am sure of that.
New approaches are also needed, notably in construction policy.
For example, we are asking for a "solar architecture' action programme in Member States.
Following the successful example of the blue flag, perhaps golden suns could be awarded to hotels and resorts.
The policy of helping renewable energy to make a breakthrough is just as much an opportunity as a necessity.
A doubling by 2010 would give an annual reduction of approximately 400 m tonnes of CO2 ; this alone would fulfil two-thirds of the requirements of the Kyoto objective.
Between 500 000 and 900 000 new jobs could be created, new industrial impulses would be unleashed, new export possibilities would open up, and not least, intensified use of renewable energies represents the answer we need to the finite nature of fossil fuels and the problems of atomic energy sources.
Commissioner, this time we really do want to see some action!
Mr President, I am picking up where Mrs Rothe left off.
Oil currently costs approximately USD 13 per barrel.
Electricity and gas prices in the European Union are set to fall between 20 % and 30 % as a result of increased competition.
That is what we wanted, after all.
However, the question arises - what chance does renewable energy have at all, then, since we know that it tends to be rather expensive, in some cases far more expensive than conventional forms of energy?
The proposal tabled here - and I hope Parliament will agree to it - does provide an answer to this: fair access to the electricity network for electricity from renewable energy sources in return for reimbursement that makes the investment in plant practicable for the operator.
This is, incidentally, a procedure we have used many times before.
Currently, for example, a parliamentary initiative by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on a period of grace for innovations has been brought before the national bodies for patent legislation.
This procedure is permitted under the Maastricht Treaty.
Parliament can take the initiative; at any rate, it can vote on it.
The Commission is then free to take up this initiative.
As a rule, the Commission would be well advised to stand by the decision of Parliament.
Since I am only too well aware that this is a very complex issue, I do not pretend that what has been penned here is the last word in wisdom.
That can be said of very few of our decisions in the European Parliament, anyway.
It would be presumptuous to say that one's own paper really is the best thing we have for the next hundred years to come.
Nevertheless, it is a contribution.
Therefore, I recommend that Parliament should vote in favour of this motion for a resolution, together with its annex, because the annex only says that the Commission should give due consideration to the enclosed text.
Please consider the content very carefully.
It may well be that you have better ideas.
I will gladly bow to superior wisdom.
Please take that into consideration.
Hence, I would like to ask my colleagues to assist the Commission in this regard through the official channels as we go to the vote.
Up until now, the European Parliament has shown unity regarding renewable energy.
We have dealt with several reports - the Mombaur report, the report on energy policy by Wim van Velzen, the two Rothe reports on the Green Paper and the White Paper.
Now we have this report bearing my name.
Each time, the House has lent its unified support to renewable energy forms, and results have been forthcoming.
I say that for Parliament in all modesty.
It also helps the Commission to know that Parliament stands united behind renewable energy forms.
Thus, I appeal to my colleagues to remain on the course we have mapped out.
The content of the proposal - due to shortage of time, I will not read it out, as you can all read it in your mother tongue - the actual message of this proposal is that we should mobilize private capital to promote renewable energy in the European Union.
As we know from the White Paper referred to by Mrs Rothe, the strategy for the promotion of renewable energy will cost some ECU 80 000m - ECU 100 000m over the next decade.
I ask you: where is this money coming from? It is definitely not coming out of national budgets.
It is not coming out of our regional budgets - we have too little room for manoeuvre for that. Neither is it coming out of the European budget.
We could try, but there is no way we could come up with ECU 80 billion - ECU 100 billion.
This can only be done through the mobilization of private capital.
That is, in fact, the objective of this paper.
Accordingly, I ask you once again for your support.
The current debate also helps shape public opinion in Europe, for without this unified public opinion in questions of renewable energy, we would not be able to keep the promises we made in Kyoto, the same promises we will, no doubt, be reiterating in Buenos Aires.
Following on from Mrs Rothe's comments, may there be action to accompany our words!
Those who come after us will thank us for it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen - we are currently debating the future of European agriculture on all political fronts.
The support of multi-functional rural areas is a key point.
Using replenishable raw materials as renewable energy sources brings this goal within reach, and I therefore wholeheartedly welcome the Commission's White Paper on renewable energy.
However, at this juncture I have to criticize the inadequate proposals for reform in Agenda 2000.
The Commission's objective, according to which renewable energy sources would reach a proportion of 12 %, is laudable and corresponds to a doubling of the current proportion. However, a further increase is vital and entirely feasible, as Austria, Finland and Sweden testify.
Organic substances have tremendous potential for the future development of rural areas as a whole.
Jobs will be created through decentralized production and use, promoting integrated development.
Regional purchasing power will be increased in tandem with value creation, and income and living standards will rise.
The result will be a reduction in demographic migrations and thus, the retention of intact rural areas with their irreplaceable value in terms of leisure and relaxation.
In order to promote renewable energy sources accordingly, uniform tax reductions or tax relief would have to apply throughout Europe.
Likewise, reimbursement for electricity input from renewable energy sources would be needed right across Europe in order to set up a reliable legal framework for its development and use.
In parallel, the Commission should also advocate an increase in duty on fossil fuels.
Self-regenerating raw materials are of particular significance especially in view of the imminent enlargement of the EU.
The Commission should initiate a pan-European information campaign on the introduction of renewable energy sources, and I urge it to do so.
The success of organic substances is largely dependent upon their acceptance by our citizens.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Rothe warmly for the excellent work she has done in preparing this report on future renewable energy sources.
In my opinion, Mrs Rothe has succeeded in presenting the effect of renewable energy sources on employment and regional policy quite well in her report.
The effect on employment is greater than with other energy sources.
There is a good argument both for using renewable energy and for the decentralized production of energy, particularly in the regions of the EU that are remote, sparsely populated and which have high unemployment.
By supporting research and development in renewable energy we can create hi tech jobs for these regions and so improve conditions for sustainable development.
There are widely differing resources to exploit in different regions; for example, biomasses, solar energy and wind power.
Energy policy development should always take stock of local conditions.
In my opinion, the Commission's announcement does not give sufficient attention to the importance of wood as a renewable energy source.
Wood as a source of energy production remains largely unexploited in, for example, the northern regions of the EU.
This has not been emphasized sufficiently in Mrs Rothe's report either.
Supporting renewable energy through taxation will be unavoidable if Member States wish to fulfil the goals set for the Union at the Kyoto climate conference.
With tax controls we will be able to increase both the use of wood-based and other biomassbased energy as well as the combined production of electricity and heating.
In this way the Union's energy policy can be more clearly based on renewable sources and not, for example, on the further building of nuclear power plants with the risks they entail.
Mr President, the Commission has called its White Paper "Energy for the Future' .
We truly are speaking of matters pertaining to the future here - human health, the conservation of the natural basis of life, careful use of resources, securing supplies and the independence of supplies from possible crisis areas of the world and lastly - of paramount importance to all the members of my party - jobs.
I believe renewable energy can contribute to achieving all these goals, which are integral to the sustainable, environmentally sound development of the Union.
Thus, I would like to thank the Commission for its White Paper and Mrs Rothe for her report, as well as everyone else who has been working on the report to make it so admirable and meaningful.
We need to increase the proportion of renewable energies in all Member States as rapidly as possible.
To this end, we must implement strategies that promote specific action, because renewable energy is regional energy.
Action is necessary in regional, agricultural and transport policy, and, of course, also in research and economic policy, as well as, ultimately, in fiscal policy.
We also need to discuss how we can better motivate people to use renewable energy.
In my own region, renewable energy accounts for 30 % of energy consumption and people often say with pride, "I use solar heating in my house!'
We ought to be hearing that from a lot more people in the Union, whether it is solar power, wind power or something else again.
One final point in closing: if we truly wish to promote renewable energy, a legal basis will have to be drawn up to allow these programmes to be implemented accordingly.
Mr President, I will begin with Mrs Rothe's report.
The White Paper on renewable energy sources is without doubt one of the most significant - or perhaps even the single most significant - ecological document produced by the Commission in recent years.
The Green Paper was highly acclaimed for its excellent analysis, but it was also loudly criticized for taking too little account of practical considerations for implementation.
This weakness has not been totally surmounted, but it has at least been assuaged by means of a helpful take-off programme.
Mrs Rothe's report constitutes one more qualitative step towards the acceptance of renewable energy sources.
The 41 points listed represent a decidedly successful combination of competent, well-informed demands for further development of the thinking behind the White Paper.
It is to be hoped that it will be given the most extensive consideration possible.
Mrs McNally's Amendment No 2 recognizes the need to set a minimum level of reimbursement for electricity produced from renewable energy sources in consideration of social and ecological use.
I would like to add a further two thoughts. Firstly, changing over to renewable energy sources is not only of importance in terms of the ecology or of socio-economic considerations such as the creation of jobs.
Renewable energy sources are also worth striving for to conserve resources and promote future export business.
Another significant point is that renewable energy sources would also be of consequence to peace policy, above all. We find ourselves in the thick of struggles over the distribution of the Earth's resources in Africa, the Middle East, the Caucasus area and around the Caspian Sea.
A peace deal for the 21st century can thus only be achieved through the changeover to renewable energy sources.
The second thought is that renewable energy sources really only have one single enemy.
Not the big multi-national companies or the suppliers of natural gas or traditional energy companies.
Their one and only enemy is ignorance of the fantastic possibilities these energy sources offer humanity.
Mr Linkohr's report does throw up some very constructive ideas, for example in chapter 2 paragraph 3, which states that there needs to be a right to input electricity produced by renewable energy sources into the grid.
However, regrettably, the report restricts itself largely to so-called funding and special funding for the promotion of renewable energy sources.
Accordingly, we cannot really talk about an input directive, but about a directive on input funds.
There is a grave difference here.
Reimbursement along uniform and harmonized lines in all Member States is a prerequisite to the acceptance of renewable energy sources.
This should be calculated in such a way as to make the investment in plant for the production of renewable energy sources worthwhile. There are plenty of exemplary models for this in Europe; German input legislation and the Danish model spring to mind.
Amendment No 3 proposed by Mrs McNally relates to this requirement and should therefore be embraced without reservation.
This criticism of the report is in no way a fundamental rejection of the proposed funding model; it is, however, intended as a clear signal that, in its existing form, it simply cannot fulfil its purpose - the practical implementation of the specifications of the White Paper.
The demands of the European Parliament need not be any more reticent than the ideas of the Commission.
Mr President, we would not be able to have this debate if Commissioner Papoutsis had not presented us with his White Paper and we thank him very much for it.
The priorities of the current presidency are environment, jobs and crime.
As far as the environment and jobs are concerned, renewable energy is extremely relevant - I am not so sure about crime!
We certainly know that this is an important contribution to both those priorities.
Mrs Rothe has written an extremely wide-ranging report and I am delighted to see that there are supplementary reports from three other women.
It must be a record that all the reports on this important issue are by women Members.
Mrs Rothe has 41 conclusions and I ask colleagues to read these conclusions carefully.
Each of them is sensible.
We know the barriers for renewable energy.
They are legal, financial, administrative, etcetera.
Her Recital G makes it clear that we will not make much progress without a reliable legal framework of one sort or another.
We could hope for an energy chapter.
We could have hoped for an energy treaty like the Euratom Treaty.
That was my wish, but I accept that a charter is a little more realistic.
So, let us try for that.
Mrs Rothe and Mrs Graenitz are quite right to point out that many other policies are taken up by renewable energy, and there is a whole list: environment, agriculture, regional, transport, etcetera.
I would like to turn now to Mr Linkohr.
Reproach has been made in my presence that it is not the European Parliament's job to put forward this sort of initiative.
Why on earth, then, were we given the powers to do so? Were we given powers on condition that we would never use them?
That is absurd.
Of course not. The intention was that we would use those powers, and I urge you to think very carefully before you reject this constructive measure.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Parliament and Council directive on the internal electricity market - which of course arose out of a Commission initiative, and represents so much work by our colleague Mr Desama - clearly recognizes, in two points, the importance of renewable energy sources. In one of these points, it clearly says that the Member States can demand that network operators give priority to installations which generate electricity using renewable energy sources.
Mrs Rothe's second, excellent report is along the same lines. It refers to the Commission White Paper, just as the Green Paper was referred to before.
We can only give it our most enthusiastic support.
Since time is short, allow me just to underline paragraph 40, which calls upon the relevant authorities to prepare what the text refers to as a treaty on renewable energies, EURENEW, which combines the European acronym with the English word "renew' .
If, as I expect, Mrs McNally's amendment is accepted, I dare say we shall talk not about a treaty, but at least about a charter.
We have the example of the European Energy Charter, which was inspired by special circumstances, in Eastern Europe. Now we have another set of special circumstances: moving from the potential to the actual, and turning the new challenge presented by renewable energy into valid legal documents.
So I have little to say on this.
I also want to mention Mr Linkohr's initiative, very briefly because time is short.
I think it is an excellent initiative, although I must also admit that it provokes some negative reactions.
My colleagues who have yet to speak will not fail to mention that.
Not because of the principle, Mrs McNally, not because we want to relinquish our rights, but because of the content of some of the provisions which, to my mind, suggest that this document should be considered further and subjected to a better analysis within the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy. Otherwise, there is a serious risk that this important document may be rejected and fail to obtain enough votes in this House.
That, Mr President, would be a great pity.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate both rapporteurs, Mrs Rothe and Mr Linkohr, for their reports which contain many recommendations for stimulating the use of renewable energy.
Our future energy supply must be based on renewable sources of energy.
Renewable sources of energy that generate electricity should be given preferential development.
Rules for supplying such energy to the grids are also part of this issue.
My group welcomes Mr Linkohr's initiative for a directive on the supply of electricity from renewable energy sources to the electricity grid.
But we are facing a classic dilemma. On the one hand it is an excellent signal to the Commission and the Member States to make proposals in this sphere.
But on the other hand, the proposed regulation in the annex is too detailed and, in my group's opinion, not always in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity.
Overregulation does not belong in a liberalized energy market.
In conclusion I therefore say to you that we will vote in favour of the legislative resolution, but unfortunately, we are not able to support the proposals in the annex.
Mr President, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the idea that increasing the use of renewable energy sources is also a security policy.
EU dependence on imported energy is growing.
In twenty years time 94 % of our oil, 80 % of our coal and 75 % of our natural gas will be imported from parts of the world which are very often unstable.
This also speaks in favour of the increased use of renewable energy resources.
We see, however, a conflict between worthy aims and insufficient means.
It is quite clear that at the present rate the 15 % share for renewable energy is not going to be achieved, and it will not be possible either to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8 % by the year 2012.
There is a particularly clear contradiction, as has been said here, between the White Paper and Agenda 2000.
That is that the increased use of biomasses is, above all else, a matter of agricultural policy and not energy policy.
I myself would prefer to have the heat from the sun and the heat from the earth.
Mr President, renewable energy has been something of a lame duck in the Community.
We talk about it but we do not use it.
The practical effects of our past proposals have been rather small.
Even in the buildings of the European Union and the Parliament there is no real attempt to incorporate renewable energies in a serious manner.
The White Paper could become a point of change and I thank the Commission for their initiative in this way and also the excellent reports of Mrs Rothe and Mr Linkohr which make practical proposals for change.
We could be about to really influence the energy agenda for the year 2000 and Mr Linkohr's proposal for the right of access for renewables to the electricity network is crucial.
For electricity production the introduction of a Community-wide law on inputs to the grid is a most important step.
Throughout Europe, inputting electricity at specific prices is an instrument for gradually dealing with the centralised structure through secure access to the market for decentralised electricity production from renewable sources.
Mrs Rothe's report also has excellent practical proposals and although the Commission's targets are extremely modest given what is technically feasible it is the actual implementation of even modest targets that must be our first objective if we are to achieve anything real.
Campaigns such as the one million roofs, the one hundred solar communities and the golden sun awards are visionary ways of making renewables real to people on the ground and I know that they will be very interesting if we can actually pursue them in a practical way.
One of the sectors of the European Union with a high percentage of CO2 emissions is the construction sector, and technological decisions in the construction sector have a long-term effect on the emission rates of all our Member States.
The attention that we must pay to buildings but are not yet paying is a crucial aspect of these reports and I recommend the practical effects of those to all of us.
Mr President, as I mentioned during the discussions on the ALTENER II project, Luxembourg already has a supply system, that is, a guarantee on the part of the State regarding the price of electricity from alternative energy sources.
Whilst congratulating Mrs Rothe and Mr Linkohr on their report, I would like to speak about an ongoing technical problem, that is, the fact that access rights to the grid for a guaranteed minimum remuneration is not sufficient.
Often, landowners are not willing to make their land available to the management of a renewable energy system - windmills, for example - to enable the windmills to be hooked up to the nearest distribution station.
What can be done? We must base the principle of the public utility of alternative energy production firmly in national legislation, which would enable the expropriation of land from owners opposed to these forms of electricity crossing their lands.
We know very well that the nuclear industry is a strong lobbyist, particularly with regard to the cultural associations, and particularly in my country.
We will put an obstacle in the path of this lobbying in order to offer a true opportunity to wind energy.
This said, Mr President, I will conclude by insisting on the fact that the Commission should truly establish the principle of public utility.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the rapporteur for this own-initiative report.
The Group of the European People's Party warmly supports the supply of renewable energy to the existing electricity network.
The rapporteur has taken the trouble to delve deeply into the practices of various Member States, and, on the basis of this, has developed a concept directive.
Nevertheless, Mr President, we unfortunately have some fundamental objections to the way this draft directive was worked out in the annex.
Firstly, it is debatable whether this Parliament should take the place of the Commission by working out a directive in such detail, which in fact has to be drafted by the Commission.
My group would have preferred a report that did no more than formulate general principles, leaving the Commission the space to interpret the directive on the basis of consultation with the Member States. This leaves more scope to take into account subsidiarity and the introduction variants and routes taken by various Member States.
As an example I would like to mention that the rapporteur is thinking in terms of two main models which exist in Member States.
The Dutch model of 'green certificates', which allows much more space to the energy partners to express their own responsibility, is at loggerheads with this regulation.
Amendment No 1, submitted by Mrs McNally, does not resolve this issue.
This example shows that the draft directive has not quite taken shape.
Secondly, there is a profusion of regulations.
We believe that this is the wrong signal to give to the increasingly liberal energy market.
We believe another mixture of instruments could be applied, namely mechanisms such as price, the development of an energy stock market, a buy-back obligation, as well as education.
We think it is particularly regrettable that the instrument of regulation was opted for.
Let there be no misunderstanding: the PPE Group shares the intentions of the rapporteur completely, but disagrees for reasons of principle with the details.
That is why, with much regret, my group will not support the annex to his proposal.
I ask the rapporteur to refer his report back to the Commission so that a better and wider consensus can be achieved.
Mr President, the whole debate on energy now centres on two issues.
The first is the notion of guaranteed supplies, which is necessarily undergoing major developments.
The second is clearly the climatic consequences of energy.
This was the issue at Rio and Kyoto.
Faced with the issue of climate, there are obviously alternatives to fossil fuels.
The two alternatives are, on the one hand, nuclear energy - whether you are in favour or not, it is an essential answer to the problem - and, on the other hand, renewable energy sources whose only handicaps are that they are far from having reached the same degree of maturity as nuclear energy and that they raise a certain number of problems on an economic level for those who invest in the sector.
Faced with these difficulties, how can the share of renewable energy sources be increased, a share which we know will, in any case, remain a modest one? On the one hand, we can put our trust in the market, by telling ourselves that the internal market for energy has been liberalized.
Yet we know very well that it will take a very long time for the market for renewable energy to truly gain a foothold.
A completely voluntarist action is thus required, and this is what makes Mr Linkohr's initiative interesting, despite the objections which can be raised on one or other aspect of his proposal. Mr Linkohr has in fact put the problem very bluntly and has gone one step further than the previous excellent reports, the most recent of which was the report by Mrs Rothe.
To hide behind the complexity of the problem as the Group of the European People's Party is doing by not voting for the Linkohr report is quite a puzzling attitude. It amounts to depriving oneself of the right of initiative which is recognized within the Treaties.
Consequently, we cannot accept this view.
I believe we should vote for Mr Linkohr's report.
We must do this in order to give the Commission an effective way of proposing a whole range of actions in favour of renewable energies.
Mr President, renewable energy is essentially about producing electricity.
We have a conceptual problem in understanding the demand for electricity in our society and how it is growing; and indeed, how much electricity comes out of a conventional power station.
An extraordinary statistic is that if you took all the wind-farms in the world and put them in the United Kingdom they would still only provide 10 % of the United Kingdom's electricity demand.
That gives you a perception of how far we have to go in promoting renewable energies.
There are three essential points.
Firstly, we need to clear the way for planning permissions.
In the United Kingdom planning permissions, perhaps more than anything else, are holding back the development of renewables.
We need also, as the Linkohr report says, to have access to the grid and perhaps even to make sure that the grid is near to where we want the renewable energies to be.
There is sometimes a problem in the geographical locations: wind energy, for instance, is very often in areas where there are no grid connections in the first place.
So we have problems in that regard.
Linking all this together is the need to find a mechanism for giving financial support while these energies grow - a mechanism which is not just open-ended but also has within it an element of competition which will eventually help to drive down costs.
We have seen evidence of that being possible.
I hope that as a result of these debates - and I know that we have all got reservations about the detail - the Commission will come forward with a proposal which will help us to move into an era where renewable energies will provide more of our electricity supply.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to congratulate both rapporteurs, Mrs Rothe and Mr Linkohr, on their splendid work.
It is true to say that both reports make a substantial contribution to the debate on promoting the use of renewable energy sources.
Their views indeed enrich not only the proposals that have already been put forward, but also those that we are now preparing.
During the preparation of the White Paper the Commission made every possible effort to take into consideration the 1997 resolution of Parliament concerning the Green Paper on renewable energy sources.
As a result, the White Paper essentially expresses in large measure the positions of the European Parliament.
We have now set in motion the review of all existing programmes and actions for the promotion of renewable energy sources at the level of the Member States and, of course, at a Community level.
I have to say that, further to the White Paper, we have been briefed on the development of a series of national action programmes for the promotion of renewable energy sources.
It is clear that the considerable effort that we are urging Member States to make over the next decade has already begun to take on a specific shape.
Nevertheless, there is still a great need and much scope for further action.
And, of course, there can no longer be any excuse for inaction, in view of the pledges made at Kyoto.
In this context, I would also like to express my satisfaction at the endorsement given by the European Parliament to the ALTENER programme.
I also wish to inform you that the ALTENER programme came into force with the recent Council decision of 18 May.
The Rothe report contains a number of constructive proposals.
First of all I wish to assure you that we are making every effort to complete the examination of existing programmes and measures throughout the whole of the European Union within the current year.
With regard to the campaign for the take-off of renewable sources, we, in the Commission, are at the stage of planning measures in various sectors and we are also preparing the necessary activities for the purpose of information and dissemination.
More specifically, with regard to buildings, we will examine construction legislation, with a view to incorporating provisions in favour of renewable energy sources, especially solar thermal power.
In order to promote the reduction of CO2 emissions from coal we will encourage the joint use of renewable energy sources and the conserving of energy in buildings.
We are also studying the way in which we can promote more fundamentally the penetration into the market of the use of solar thermal power and, especially, photovoltaics.
In addition, in order to diffuse good practices, we are studying, inter alia, the inauguration of awards as well as the carrying out of other actions that are proposed in the campaign for take-off.
With regard to the issue of the promotion of renewable energy sources via other Community policies, we are studying how we can make better use of the continuing reform of the Structural Funds and the common agricultural policy, as well as the policy of energy production.
More especially indeed, within the framework of the European Commission proposal for the regulation of the European Fund for Regional Development, in Article 2, which lays down all the sectors which will be funded as a priority in the next financing round, the growth of renewable energy sources is categorically referred to as one of the basic priorities.
And I believe that this is the basis for the allocation of considerable resources, while at the same time fully abiding by the principle of subsidiarity, as shaped by the Community frameworks to support renewable energy sources.
In addition, issues related to the financing of actions in the sector of renewable energy sources via various other Community programmes will, I believe, be tackled during negotiations - and also during the budget procedure - which are expected to take place within the next few years.
I hope that the European Parliament will give special priority to renewable energy sources in the context of its own role, in relation, of course, to the budget.
With the regular progress reports and follow-up reports which are envisaged in the action plan, we hope to ensure that the defined objectives are better realized and that they are suitably adapted as necessary.
Of course there will always be the possibility of discussing the progress of the penetration of renewable energy sources with all the interested bodies and of course with the European Council throughout the entire twelve-year period during which this strategy will be implemented.
Of course the action plan will be amended following recommendations whenever this is expedient.
Turning now to the Linkohr report, I have to say that the Commission agrees with the conviction of the European Parliament that the right of access of renewable energy sources to the electricity market is of decisive importance, especially with regard to our objective of doubling the share of renewable energy sources in the energy balance by the year 2010.
Last March the Commission submitted its first report on demands for harmonization, which are provided for in the directive for the electricity market.
This report focuses almost exclusively on the matter of renewable energy sources and underlines the fundamental issues which must be examined during the preparatory stage.
The Commission is continuing its analysis of the way in which all possible obstacles can be overcome, in view of the developing situation in the Member States.
The aim of the Commission is, by the end of the current year, to submit a motion for a resolution for joint rules concerning the electricity produced by renewable energy sources.
This motion for a resolution must, on the one hand, give a powerful boost to the production of electricity from renewable energy sources and, on the other, ensure a harmonized approach within the Community.
I also wish to thank Mr Linkohr for his detailed and reliable advice.
His report will be of help to us, especially during the phase in which we find ourselves today, that is, the preparatory phase of our proposals on this very issue.
With the Rothe and Linkohr reports the European Parliament is continuing to provide sustained support and advice for the promotion of renewable energy sources.
Once again I wish to thank you and to assure you that the European Commission regards the promotion of renewable energy sources as one of the chief energy and environmental priorities for the immediate future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Counterfeit and pirated goods
The next item is the report (A4-0223/98) by Mr Valdivielso de Cué, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 3295/94 laying down measures to prohibit the release for free circulation, export, re-export or entry for a suspensive procedure of counterfeit and pirated goods (COM(1998)0025 - C4-0159/98-98/0018(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, bad ways, profit and the human condition in general often lead us down certain dark alleyways, which are easier and more profitable than the legally established routes, in order to satisfy our desires to get rich quick.
That is the general basis of my report: the establishment of measures designed to prevent certain types of activity, such as the illegal use of trade marks, or the manufacture or marketing of pirated goods. Such practices are very widespread, although that does not make them any less illegal.
I would like to give a brief definition of counterfeit and pirated goods.
"Counterfeit goods' means goods, including the packaging thereof, bearing without authorization a trade mark which is identical to the trade mark validly registered in respect of the same type of goods.
"Pirated goods' means goods which are or embody copies made without the consent of the holder of the copyright or neighbouring rights in relation to a design or model.
Moving on to the report proper, I should point out that it mentions the importance of the problem, underlining the macroeconomic and sectoral impact and subsequent social consequences of the phenomena of counterfeiting and pirating.
This impact is very difficult to measure.
Nevertheless, I felt it appropriate to request the Commission to make increased efforts to assess the monitoring and repercussions which may follow the entry into force of this Council regulation, and subsequently to communicate them to the parties concerned.
The Commission has proposed introducing into the new regulation a series of proposals which substantially modify the earlier regulation currently in force.
Among the most significant proposals, we underline extending the regulation to a new intellectual property right, such as certain patented inventions, which constitute an essential aspect of intellectual property and occupy a very important place among all the means available to protect innovation. Such protection is essential, given that this coverage provides a suitable framework for the investment in research and development which is so important for the development and competitiveness of European products in the face of international competition.
Customs services are also being given the chance to intervene in new customs statuses: goods in a free zone or warehouse and goods under customs supervision.
The regulation is also being adjusted to take account of the introduction of the Community trade mark, so that the right holder will be able to lodge a single application for customs protection, instead of the fifteen currently required to cover the whole of the territory of the Union.
So those are the most important new features included in the modification of the regulation.
In addition, the European Commission - which I would like to congratulate on what I think is a good piece of work - held a series of meetings and discussions with different business and pressure groups who had certain aspirations they wanted the new regulation to meet.
In that respect, the Committee on External Economic Relations has stated its opinion on the following matters. With respect to the controversial question of non-commercial imports in travellers' personal luggage, two amendments aimed at restricting this sort of situation were rejected in that committee.
The European Commission considers that, within the ECU 175 limit, imports of a non-commercial nature are permitted.
In my opinion, this matter raises a basic problem. It is probably illegal but, nevertheless, is provided for de facto by this regulation.
Even so, the European Commission feels that this relative permissiveness has the effect of favouring small-scale trade and promoting tourism.
The problem of Community harmonization of the penalties which Member States are obliged to impose has become a very difficult problem, mainly due to the coexistence of different legal systems and traditions in the various Member States.
In any case, the report states that such penalties must be effective and proportionate and constitute an effective deterrent.
Finally, I should like to mention and stress the importance I have tried to give in the report to the possible non-commercial disposal of confiscated goods.
In a world in which millions of people live in conditions of extreme poverty and need, I hope Parliament will be understanding and give its support.
It is absolutely outrageous to destroy these confiscated goods, rather than try to find a non-commercial way to dispose of them and go some small way towards meeting some of the needs of those people.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Valdivielso on his report.
The problem of piracy and counterfeit goods is very real and a threat to European industry.
Companies are not only disadvantaged in their sales to the European market, they also do not get a chance to expand their export to developing countries. The market in the developing countries is contaminated, we can safely say flooded, with counterfeit goods.
I saw this once again for myself in Indonesia not so long ago.
The problem is extremely acute for digital products.
Given the state of technology it is almost impossible these days for consumers to judge from the quality of the product whether or not it is authentic.
Mr President, my group is pleased with the inclusion of patents in the scope of the regulation, but is worried about control. Who should carry out controls and where?
Customs officials?
Will they be trained to do so? Ladies and gentlemen, trade flows should not start to take a different course on account of differences in customs control.
My group's question to the Commission is therefore: how does the Commission intend to guarantee uniformity of border controls on this issue, in particular in those places where, after enlargement, the European external borders will be monitored by customs officials from a different legal tradition, who are a long way from fully integrating European legislation.
In conclusion, parallel imports should not and cannot be prohibited.
This is not a solution.
The internal market should not be hindered by protectionism.
The free movement of goods provides healthy competition, and that is good for the consumer.
Mr President, the protection of material and intellectual property is immovably enshrined in our legal system.
This control is of immense value not only to the individual, but especially to the economy.
The protection of property includes the protection of patents on inventions, guaranteeing the viability of research and development.
The dismantling of internal borders makes customs points for traffic with third countries the last instance of control to prevent the infringement of property rights by means of the import or export of illegal, counterfeit goods.
However, for this protection to be effective, water-tight pan-European standards of security need to be in place to prevent illegally produced counterfeits from reaching the European market through weak links in the chain - in other words, countries known to have less rigorous customs arrangements.
Thus, we challenge the Commission to scrutinize the customs points of all such Member States very carefully and ensure that they guarantee a sufficiently high standard of security to do justice to the importance of protecting intellectual and material property.
Mr President, there can be no doubt that European companies have had to undergo far-reaching reorganizations in order successfully to meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive and open economy.
Nevertheless, these efforts alone are not enough.
It is also essential, among other measures, to establish a legal framework which guarantees respect for the rules which govern the world of commerce.
In this context, we should welcome the Commission's proposal to amend the regulation on trade in counterfeit and pirated goods. The aim of this amendment is to extend the scope of the regulation and adjust it to developments in Community rules on intellectual property rights.
Faced with competition from third countries - especially emerging economies, whose low labour costs make it very difficult to compete with them - it is essential to combat the falsification of trade marks, designs and models, and to protect intellectual property, given that the main competitive advantages of European industry are product quality and, especially, creative ability.
That is why the Commission's text represents such an opportunity. It proposes to suspend customs operations in cases where the goods concerned are suspected of being counterfeit or pirated goods covered by an intellectual property right, at the request of the right holder.
And that, in turn, is why the Commission needs to accept the amendments contained in the Valdivielso de Cué report, insofar as those proposals will help to guarantee respect for international trade rules in matters of intellectual property, and will make it possible to combat commercial practices which cause serious harm to European companies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the support of the European Parliament for the Commission proposal clearly demonstrates the desire of all of us to fight hard against fraudulent imports in the context of lawful and balanced competition.
First of all I would like to thank all of you and especially your rapporteur, Mr Valdivielso de Cué, as well as the Committee on External Economic Relations for the thorough and detailed work which has been completed in a very short space of time.
I am especially delighted with this report, as it is being presented today, because it is necessary to give Parliament the opportunity to express its view on the three basic innovations in this text.
And here I am referring, first of all, to the broadening of the scope of the provision on customs protection to include certain patents.
I am also referring to extending the regulation to include all goods which are held under customs supervision and, finally, I am referring to the institution of a procedure to lodge a single application, which will be valid for all Member States, for the benefit of the validly registered Community trade marks.
With regard to the question put to me by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I would like to say that in fact the Commission is coordinating an effort on the part of Member States to train customs officials in respect of the unified application of control measures.
We believe that, in the future, in the next few years, and with a view of course to enlargement, we will have achieved the widest and best possible training of customs officials.
The proposed amendments naturally take account of the Commission objective, which consists in strengthening the possibilities of effecting controls along the external borders of the Community.
However, the Commission, more for technical than for political reasons, cannot adopt all of the proposed amendments.
The Commission is able to adopt Amendment No 6 without any reservation whatsoever.
It cannot adopt Amendments Nos 4 and 5 for the simple reason that they go against certain amendments of a structural nature.
Indeed, the position of Amendment No 4 on the text of the regulation should have been different and the Commission could then adopt it because there is such an agreement.
In addition, with regard to Amendment No 5, the exemption from control of medicines whose compatibility with the legislation relating to patents has already been proved, which the European Commission approves, could be framed with greater precision.
However, the Commission cannot adopt Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 7.
It cannot adopt Amendment No 1, as the fee must be proportionate to the cost of the service provided, since by its very nature this cost varies from Member State to Member State according to the size of the means that must be mobilized.
The Commission cannot adopt Amendment No 2, as the security that the customs authorities may require is used to cover their responsibility in the case of goods held unjustifiably.
Given that this is a national responsibility it is not necessary for the security to be obligatory, since the public authorities must at all events always be regarded as reliable.
Nor can the Commission adopt Amendment No 3, as the compensation of the holder of the goods, the details of which fall within the sphere of the law of each Member State, is always considered to be in full.
Finally, the Commission cannot adopt Amendment No 7, since, in practice, experience has shown that the data obtained in the context of the implementation of the regulation do not offer the possibility of an analysis being undertaken of the kind envisaged in the amendment in question.
The results of the operation of such an instrument, which are obtained by the Customs Union, are measurable and the Commission analyses them in detail in the report it has presented to you.
The phenomenon of the irregular exploitation of intellectual property, the roots of this phenomenon and all of its repercussions are themselves a different issue, which goes well beyond the scope of the present regulation.
In closing, once again I wish to thank your rapporteur and, of course, all who have contributed to this work today during the presentation and examination of this directive.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 11.30 a.m.
Second WTO ministerial conference
The next item is the debate on the Commission announcement on the conclusions reached at the second WTO ministerial conference from 18 to 20 May 1998 in Geneva.
Mr President, between 18 and 20 May I led the European Commission delegation to the ministerial conference of the WTO which was held in conjunction with the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of GATT, the WTO's predecessor.
President Santer represented the European Union, together with many Heads of State from around the world.
Both the ministerial conference and the 50th anniversary commemoration were successful.
There was recognition, rightly, that the GATT system has made a tremendous contribution to the growth of employment and economic stability over the past 50 years and the participation by so many countries in that system and the fact that over 30 additional ones are keenly awaiting membership is a clear reflection of that recognition.
There was also recognition that in today's global economy further trade liberalization within the rule-based system of the WTO is the surest way to maintain and spread that prosperity.
Those messages in favour of the WTO system were expressed by virtually all countries at the conference, both developed and developing.
On 20 May the conference adopted a ministerial declaration which encourages and enables us to work to achieve the objective of further trade liberalization as a means to secure greater prosperity and stability.
The conference reiterated the importance of all WTO members fully implementing their obligations under the WTO which all WTO members are clearly committed to.
The European Community, for its part, expressed its view that by and large implementation of the Uruguay Round has been proceeding well but where an individual country is having difficulties, we are ready to provide technical assistance to ensure that implementation proceeds properly.
That pledge was welcomed by some of the lesser developed countries.
Secondly, the ministerial declaration inaugurates a process to prepare the ground for a decision to be taken at next year's conference in the United States on further multilateral liberalization.
That process, the work programme that has been set up, does not pre-empt next year's decisions but makes it possible to take ambitious decisions next year if, as I hope, we decide to do so.
The process we authorized will respect existing timetables but also allow work where necessary to be intensified so that all the elements are in place for decision-making next year.
We hope that a decision will be taken next year to launch a comprehensive new round of negotiations - the millennium round - which would cover not only the subjects already agreed to be negotiated, such as agriculture and services, but other areas and sectors of importance to European industry and business, such as industrial tariffs, investment and competition rules, government procurement and so on.
It is the view of the European Union that our economy would greatly benefit from agreements in those fields and I believe that is in the interests not only of our industrialized partners but of developing countries too.
I took pains to explain during the ministerial conference why a new round would be the right way forward and perhaps it is worth referring to the arguments today.
Firstly, it is only through a comprehensive approach that all sectors and interests can be confident that their particular concerns will be covered in the negotiations.
Without a comprehensive round, there is a risk of certain sectors and legitimate areas for future work being left to one side.
With a round the agenda-setting process is far more wide-ranging and there will be far more options for ultimate decisions than would be the case if a narrower, sectoral approach were pursued.
Secondly, this comprehensive approach means that the built-in agenda, the Singapore work programme, and new items, too, can be discussed.
A round also involves the so-called single undertaking approach whereby, as in previous rounds, all participants must accept the whole outcome of the negotiations, not just pick-and-choose.
That means that issues which are difficult for some but important for others cannot be blocked in isolation.
That is the key to a successful outcome.
Finally, a comprehensive round implies a single end date which attracts strong political attention at the highest level within member governments and thereby brings pressures to bear to conclude negotiations in time.
At the ministerial conference there was considerable support for our approach and it is very significant that President Clinton was careful not to rule out such an approach and Mrs Barshefsky also indicated that work could be done which would enable such an approach to be pursued if a decision was taken next year to that effect.
Of course our ideas do not yet command universal support and I hope that the consensus-building process will continue in such a way to enable an agreement to be reached to that effect next year.
That is what we will be working towards.
In making the case for further trade expansion and liberalization we must explain clearly to our respective electorates the importance of trade liberalization for promoting growth and creating jobs.
We have to demonstrate to all interested groups the benefits flowing from that and we must show that trade and other legitimate public policy concerns, for example those relating to the environment, are not mutually incompatible but could instead work to mutual advantage.
At the ministerial meeting I stated my belief that we need to tackle head-on the criticism that trade is necessarily disruptive of the environment.
A determined effort to resolve some of the difficult trade and environment issues would go a long way towards reassuring public opinion.
And this call drew support, notably from President Clinton, for our idea of a high-level meeting as the way to take this forward.
The Ministerial Declaration reflects the recognition that we have to persuade broader civil society as we carry out our work in the WTO and we have to find new ways to engage representatives of civil society in the process.
We have to demonstrate to them the benefits of the system to ensure that it remains transparent, and we have to listen to their concerns.
The Community has been very much in the vanguard of calls for this kind of approach.
Before concluding I should refer to the resolution of the European Parliament regarding the outcome of the Ministerial Conference.
I welcome the resolution and can agree with much of it.
It rightly notes the enormous positive contribution of the GATT over the last 50 years and the achievements of the multilateral system in general.
It also reflects the support of Parliament for continued multilateral liberalization, a message which we welcome and intend to take forward as we prepare for the new round.
Parliament also raises some legitimate concerns about the need to ensure that developing countries fully benefit from the WTO system.
I do not share the view that the WTO has benefited only the industrialized countries, but I am the first to recognize that we should continue to make all possible efforts to ensure that further liberalization continues to benefit the poorer members.
The resolution also - and I welcome this - stresses the importance of better integrating environmental and other issues in WTO work and increased dialogue on the WTO with our various social partners.
Parliament has, finally, made some observations on the recent agreement over the Helms-Burton Act reached with the United States.
I do not agree with Members on that.
The settlement was unquestionably a good result for the European Community and in no way detracts from our longer-term objective of seeing those laws repealed.
It is good for Europe because it will permit our countries to invest in Cuba and Iran, but it also includes a strong commitment from the American administration to resist future attempts at extraterritorial measures.
It is entirely consistent with the spirit of the WTO whose rules expressly encourage settlement of differences through bilateral means.
And, of course, if the Americans do not honour their commitments - which I have no reason to believe would be the case - we will reserve the right to return to the WTO dispute settlement, as we can do.
I should like, finally, to place on record my appreciation of the participation of Members of the European Parliament at the conference.
Their participation was welcome and effective.
I look forward to a similarly close association with Parliament in the coming months as we prepare for the Third Ministerial Conference.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner - the ministerial conference in Geneva could not, of course, answer all the many open questions concerning sensible ongoing development for the WTO.
I am thinking of adherence to social standards and the reduction of adverse impact on the environment due to manufacturing, as well as involvement in the current negotiations on multilateral investment accords of developing countries not actually represented in the OECD.
A corresponding WTO code of conduct for multi-national firms would thus be worth advocating.
Such a code would give clarity, providing international terms of reference.
In order to permit the undisputed benefits of world-wide trade to become a tangible reality to as many people as possible - not only shareholders and big companies - we must continue to work intensively, within the framework of the WTO, with the consequences and by-products of world trade as they affect national distribution of prosperity.
If this is not tackled, free trade will be discredited altogether and the advances in prosperity achieved thus far through the WTO will melt away.
However, one positive outcome of the WTO ministerial conference is that, in the face of increasing uncertainty among international economic players as a result of the crisis in Asia, it confirmed the need to keep the multilateral liberalization of world trade on course.
Nevertheless, this liberalization is not an end in itself.
As the ministerial declaration stated, it must benefit all concerned.
Unfortunately, that is not yet strictly speaking the case, because, at the end of the day, the undertakings made at the Singapore summit and reiterated at the 1997 high level meeting in Geneva - to facilitate market access for the least developed countries - must be put into practice by all WTO members.
The EU has taken a step in the right direction by harmonizing market access conditions to include those non-ACP nations that are among the world's least developed countries.
Of course, the least developed countries must take action themselves to drive world market integration and internal growth forward step by step through economic diversification.
In many cases, this necessitates new thinking on the part of those in positions of leadership; that has to be stated clearly.
Today, the balance of payments in many developing countries is weighted not only by debt, as addressed in the ministerial declaration, but also by other factors, for example, keeping to traditional energy imports.
Thus, for example, we need to build up genuine cooperation between the EU and developing countries in the energy sector in order to give developing countries and third countries alike the possibility of developing their own alternative energy production under their own steam.
The House has already addressed this in detail earlier this evening in a different context.
All in all, I would like to use this report as an opportunity to point out that the European Parliament needs to make its voice heard more audibly regarding the future of world trade policy if it is to follow government cooperation more critically in this area; in terms of employment policy, this is very important.
It is my impression that at the national level, this area tends to get lost in the slipstream of debate on domestic policy.
Sir Leon Brittan, we really appreciate that you yourself have always been prepared to appear before the Committee on External Economic Relations to report on current development in the WTO.
However, what we need is formal Parliamentary participation in WTO matters; we particularly need written annual reports on the activities of the Commission in this area.
That would be very much appreciated.
Mr President, first of all I would like to say a belated "good morning' .
I am pleased to see, Sir Leon, that you have taken the opportunity to make a statement when, due to pressure of time, we can neither reply to what you have said nor even really go into it.
I am pleased about the appraisal of the work of the European Parliament, the resolution and your gratitude for our presence in Geneva.
I can guarantee that we will continue to push for collaboration and we are grateful for the small measure of cooperation.
Naturally, at the start of the round in Geneva, the emphasis was more on celebration and proclamation, because 50 years of GATT was indeed reason enough to celebrate.
It was a look back at a time of success.
We focus on what we have achieved so that criticism of what has not yet been done will be made relative.
As the European Parliament, we should have had higher expectations; we should have urged the Commission and the Council not to let the USA have precedence alone.
However, we also know that European Parliament criticism of the fact that not much has been achieved in terms of trade, the environment and social norms is largely down to the developing countries themselves quite understandably dragging their heels on these issues.
We should also take care not to overburden ourselves with our own demands so that what we hope to achieve will remain credible.
The previous speaker said he expected more demands by the European Parliament.
I would say, conversely: in the decisions, the hearing and many other things we have had a part in, our expectations have often gone beyond the realms of possibility for what could be implemented at the time; however, I may be wrong here.
Sir Leon, I am pleased that we will be having another round in New York. The Commission is assuming that it will have to be a major round.
The Commission must not limit itself.
It must ensure that everything is addressed.
Commissioner, with that as a policy, you can count on the support of the European Parliament.
Mr President, the WTO ministerial conference in Geneva was no pièce de résistance !
Even a born optimist like Sir Leon Brittan could only describe it as "relatively successful' .
Its reception in the press was even clearer.
The non-event in Geneva got to the heart of the matter: 50 years after the establishment of the GATT system, there is no reason to celebrate.
Global disparities have worsened.
The poor countries have become poorer, in many areas the environment is on the brink of collapse, advances in workers' rights are being dismantled.
Instead of continuing to carry liberalization to extremes, it should principally be a question of evaluating the years that have gone by.
What has gone wrong when the developing countries are losing even more of their share of trade? What is wrong when WTO panels routinely rule contrary to the interests of the environment and humans?
We do not need trade in genetically modified food to be liberalized; we need some mechanism to protect us from it!
The WTO is in need of constitutional reform! Trading in products manufactured under harmful conditions must no longer be forced through by a panel.
In concrete terms, Sir Leon Brittan, are you prepared to press for Article 20 of the GATT to be amended?
There is another matter of great importance: we need transparency.
Today, the EU requires good government on the part of third countries before development aid can be granted.
We are demanding good government of the WTO.
Very importantly - and also for the Greek government - we demand good government on the part of our own governments before we enter into a new round of negotiations.
Mr President, it is always argued that an increase in global trade engendered by the removal of trade barriers is a means of achieving greater prosperity and higher living standards for all.
Labour standards ought therefore to be our concern.
I wish to urge most strongly that the WTO collaborate in full with the International Labour Organization to ensure that core labour standards are observed as was recommended in the final declaration of the 1996 Singapore Summit.
Developing countries should implement the ILO Convention to achieve a level playing field and to carry on the struggle against world poverty.
The second issue I wish to raise is that of Cuba and the Helms-Burton Act.
I believe, despite the Commissioner's assurance, that it was a mistake for the European Union to have agreed to the winding-up of the WTO panel which was established to deal with the objections to the Helms-Burton Act in return for the agreement of 18 May between the European Union and the USA, as it appears to accept an element of the extraterritorial validity of US law.
As I understand it, provided that there is a waiver of Titles 3 and 4 of the Helms-Burton Act, the European Union will cooperate in establishing a registry of alleged expropriated properties and will withhold public support from, and discourage investment in, such properties in future by its Member States or its citizens.
It seems unlikely, despite the Commissioner's optimism, that the United States Congress will agree to waivers of Titles 3 and 4 without any change of political control, if one takes into account the statements of Jesse Helms.
I welcome the Commissioner's statement that we shall return to the WTO panel if necessary.
If, however, the waivers were agreed, would it really be compatible with the principles of the WTO for the European Union to accept the idea of withholding public support for investments in Cuba and discouraging companies from investing? Would an agreement to do this override agreements between Cuba and individual European Union Member States and be enforceable in the European Court?
Is no account taken of the fact that unlike other states the United States has not attempted to reach an agreement on compensation for properties which were nationalized? And why should the European Union agree in these circumstances to abide by an agreement which in so far as it accepts the idea of withholding support for investment in expropriated properties goes along with an element of the Helms-Burton Act?
By taking some action to secure a kind of out-of-court settlement, it seems that the European Union has made concessions not compatible with the principle of the WTO.
I would be most grateful if the Commissioner could comment on these issues and clarify the situation, particularly with regard to trade with Cuba.
Mr President, Commissioner, I certainly do not want to begin a discussion at this time on the fate of the World Trade Organization, but I would like everyone to know my opinion, which is not an enthusiastic opinion on this conference and on the function carried out by this body.
The idea was that by liberalizing trade we would overcome the damage caused by protectionism before the war, and this would bring prosperity and jobs.
It was no coincidence - I always point this out because it seems significant to me - that the title of the first conference in Havana was 'Trade and Employment' : employment was one of the objectives.
Things did not turn out that way.
The Havana Charter never came into force because the United States never ratified it, and all the measures that had been provided for to accompany the liberalization of trade with the necessary measures for development were never adopted.
Today, all we have left is free trade which has produced serious tensions, including in Geneva.
We need only think, for example, of the malaise that pervades UNCTAD.
The liberalization of trade does not create free markets but often amplifies imbalances because it gives the strongest greater freedom to rule.
I think that we should give considerable thought to all these issues before the third millennium round gets under way.
I would like to make a final observation regarding the Helms-Burton law which, Commissioner, we have discussed many times.
I do not know whether the Americans will manage to stick to the commitments made, I have my doubts.
Already it seems to me that the Europeans have accepted commitments not to invest in nationalized property in Cuba - and virtually all property is - and these seem to be serious commitments to me.
You yourself, Commissioner, heard, like I did in Geneva, President Cardoso of Brazil complain because non-European countries are naturally excluded from all agreements.
I do not think it a very handsome sight to see Europe play a universal role, protecting its own firms and caring nothing about what happens to the firms of the rest of the world which have less bargaining power than we do.
Mr President, first of all, as Mr Elchlepp said, it is right that all issues have not been resolved at the meeting.
There was no possibility or intention to do so: the meeting was designed to provide a plan and a direction for the future and to identify the issues, and that is what it has done.
Many of the issues Mr Elchlepp mentioned will have to be worked on as we develop that way forward.
I much appreciate what he said about the European Union's strong stance on the least-developed countries.
We will continue to press in that direction.
I agree with what he said about cooperation in the energy sector.
What Mr Kittelmann said about developing countries is also very important.
It is very important for those of us who have strong links with the developing countries to persuade them that it is in their interests to cooperate in discussions on matters such as trade and the environment; to explain that we do not have protectionist intent in that direction and that we understand their feelings about our asking them to do what we can afford to do but which they feel they cannot afford to do.
We have to try to enter into a constructive dialogue on that subject.
I do not agree, of course, with the fundamental premise of Mr Kreissl-Dörfler.
But with regard to Article 20, I think the possibility of getting some kind of further interpretation of that - if not an amendment - is a very real issue that needs to be discussed at the high-level meeting on trade and the environment - if we have it, as I hope we will.
I certainly agree with Mr Newens that there should be cooperation between the ILO and the WTO as agreed at Singapore.
But as far as Helms-Burton is concerned, there is absolutely nothing that is agreed which is incompatible with the WTO, which, as I said in my opening observations, positively sets up the system which is not designed to litigate issues to the bitter end and establish points, but to encourage the parties to settle their differences.
Of course, if they are settled, nobody gets everything they want.
But we have made it quite clear, first of all, that if the United States is unable to meet its commitments we have the right to go back to the WTO; and, secondly, that it is not the case, as Mrs Castellina said, that we are committed to not investing in Cuba.
That is just not the case!
There is no restriction whatsoever on investment in Cuba: there is only a statement that, in the circumstances of the Americans' compliance with the agreement, we are not going to give public support for investment, but that only applies to new investment in property that we consider has been expropriated contrary to international law.
So the question of whether that is so is something that would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis.
On this matter I have received the motion for a resolution B4-0666/98, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, pursuant to rule 40, paragraph 5 of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 00.35 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last meeting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, may I ask that in the Minutes under the point relating to the Fifth Framework Programme on Research I also be referred to as the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We shall arrange for that to be done, Mrs Schierhuber.
Madam President, my name is not on the list of Members present at the 9 a.m. vote, although I have notified the Bureau that I was present and voted in favour of an emergency debate on the Common Organization of the Market for olive oil.
I should therefore be grateful if the Minutes could be amended accordingly.
That will be noted and the Minutes corrected.
Madam President, looking at yesterday's Minutes, it says that I voted in favour of Mr Berend's Amendment No 4, when I voted against.
Please could it be corrected.
The Minutes will be corrected.
Madam President, I should like the fact that I was here yesterday to be recorded.
That will also be done.
(Parliament approved the Minutes)
Mr Wurtz, to my knowledge, a mistake was made in preparing for this exhibition, in that the organizers made use of old brochures in French and German from the 1980s. You are quite right.
It should not have happened. But, when the matter came to light, it was put right immediately.
I myself was present at the opening of the exhibition yesterday.
Former President Hänsch made the following comment about the exhibition. He said that we look at this exhibition with the idea in mind that in a united Europe Germans and Czechs, too, will become friends again.
And I believe that in the same spirit we should accept the presence of this exhibition in our House.
I trust that you will accept this explanation and that we can now move on to today's agenda.
Madam President, as the issue of exhibitions has been raised, perhaps I could ask, through you, that the College of Quaestors and the Bureau look at the whole way in which this Parliament, both here and in Brussels, is used for some of the most ridiculous exhibitions - commercial events which make us look more like a bazaar than a Parliament.
My group is regularly disrupted, not just by exhibitions right outside Room 100, but by the accompanying noisy receptions.
Yesterday there were trumpets and trombones outside our meeting room.
The place is becoming a circus and it has to stop.
Although we have strict rules, they do, nevertheless, need to be reviewed.
I will pass your comments on and we will then examine whether new rules need to be introduced.
Madam President, another issue; I would like to ask for your help, and through you for the help of Mr Gil-Robles.
In my country there has been a stir in the media about a false report concerning the European Parliament.
In the Dutch media a report is circulating suggesting that the European Parliament has proposed that its members should receive a monthly salary of between ECU 9, 000 and 13, 000.
Last night Dutch television asked a large number of Members of the Lower Chamber for their opinion, and they said it was an absolute scandal that the European Parliament is demanding such a salary.
Madam President, we all know that our Parliament has made no such proposal and that no proposal whatsoever from any body exists.
I am extremely worried about the negative reporting in my country, which is not always based on adequately checked information.
I would like to ask you whether you could ask the President to issue an official denial, so that this type of extremely negative and damaging reporting will not occur in future.
I am grateful for your assistance.
Mr de Vries, I will pass your comments on.
Incidentally, you yourself said that they were not contained in the draft.
Following on from what Mr de Vries has said, a telex issued by the official Belgian press agency Belga mentions remuneration of between ECU 9, 00 and 12, 000, in other words, 33, 600 to 488, 000 BF per month.
This might be a possibility, according to a letter from the chairman of the working group to the President of this Parliament, José María GilRobles.
The contents of the letter were leaked before the Bureau was able to discuss the issue.
I call on you, Madam President, to ensure that the Bureau denies this report forthwith, and confirms that no decision whatsoever has been taken yet on this matter, that it merely appears in the report of the working group, and that the Bureau has not made any proposal in this respect.
Mr Martens, this matter appears on the agenda of this afternoon's Bureau meeting.
I shall pass on your comments.
Madam President, you know very well, as do all the Members of the Bureau, that no decision has been taken and that no proposal has been submitted so far.
So these are all just rumours and nothing else.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is true that no decision has been taken within any European Parliament body on a statute for Members of the European Parliament, or on the issue of a possible salary.
But it does appear to be true, and in that sense the report from Belga was correct, that a covering letter exists which mentions a possible salary figure of between ECU 9, 000 and 12, 000.
So this figure appears in a covering letter which was apparently leaked.
To that extent we have to make it very clear indeed that not one single decision has been taken.
Nevertheless, proposals have been made, and a covering letter exists which could give rise to this kind of interpretation.
Thank you very much, Mrs Green.
In response, let me say the following. Mrs Aelvoet said that Parliament has not yet reached a decision.
It has not yet reached a decision on the current matter. There is an old decision of Parliament to draw up a statute and there is also, as you are aware, a commitment in the Treaty of Amsterdam which has not yet been completely ratified.
A working group has been set up within the Bureau involving Members from various committees.
This working group has drafted a document which was submitted to the Bureau this week.
As yet no decisions have been taken and this draft document makes no reference to proposals of the sort mentioned in media reports, by which I mean salary levels.
There is really no reason to give the impression that this is the case.
The Bureau and, of course, the relevant committees and Parliament itself will take as much time as is required to prepare any new statute for Members of the European Parliament in the appropriate manner, that is to say on a sound basis.
The matter will not be rushed, it will be properly discussed.
I do not believe that there is anyone in the House who does not share the view that a uniform voting system, such as the one we will be agreeing upon in the next part-session in July, should go hand in hand with a uniform statute.
The leaking of information in advance of a vote, or the alleged quoting of facts from letters which were never in the letters in the first place...
... unfortunately, that is the sort of thing that happens. I shall report it at the Bureau meeting this afternoon, and I shall urge that we issue an appropriate statement clarifying the situation and clearing up any misunderstandings.
Calendar of part-sessions 1999
With regard to the calendar of 1999 part-sessions, I suggest that the vote should be adjourned until Thursday lunchtime, when as you know, since we discussed the matter yesterday, the Legal Service's opinion on the admissibility of the amendments seeking to bring forward the July part-session will be available.
The plan is to bring forward the sitting by one week, but as it is a constituent meeting, we must first establish whether this is legally permissible.
Are there any objections to this proposal?
(Parliament agreed to this proposal)
Middle East peace process
The next item is statements by the Council and the Commission on the peace process in the Middle East, followed by a debate.
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity to open the debate on the Middle East peace process.
The European Union remains deeply concerned by the continuing stalemate in the Middle East peace process and by the threat to regional stability such deadlock poses. This is very much reflected in the conclusions of the Cardiff Summit which were finalized yesterday.
The sides must show courage and vision in the search for peace, based on the principles agreed at Madrid and Oslo, especially the essential principle of land for peace enshrined in the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.
The Union remains committed to its positions of principle regarding the peace process, as set out in its previous declarations, particularly the call for peace in the Middle East, issued in Amsterdam in June 1997.
These principles were reaffirmed in Luxembourg in December 1997 as the essential guidelines for a European Union policy aimed at facilitating progress and restoring confidence between the parties.
The European Union has intensified its efforts to help the sides overcome this stalemate by playing an increasingly substantive role in the peace process.
The British Prime Minister, as President of the European Council, was involved in talks between Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Arafat and Madeleine Albright in London in May.
The European Union participated in negotiations on interim economic issues before and during the Prime Minister's visit to the region from 17 to 21 April.
The British Foreign Secretary, in his presidential capacity, also visited the region from 15 to 18 March.
The European Union has also concluded a joint declaration with the Palestinians on security cooperation and is implementing a counter-terror assistance programme to assist the Palestinians.
Our special envoy, Ambassador Moratinos, has played a key role in these efforts and is continuing efforts to close gaps and move the peace process forward.
The European Union has deepened its cooperation with the United States on the peace process.
It strongly supports the efforts of the United States to gain the agreement of the parties to a package of ideas which, if accepted, would open the way to the relaunch of final status talks.
The European Union has welcomed Palestinian acceptance of these proposals and called upon the government of Israel to give a clear and positive response.
The profound commitment of the Union to fostering peace in the region is reflected in the scale of its economic support for the peace process.
From 1993 to 1997 the Union and its Member States provided approximately ECU 1.68 billion in assistance to the Palestinians and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
The Union's Foreign Ministers agreed at the General Affairs Council meeting on 23 February to renew the European Community aid package to the Palestinians beyond its expiry at the end of this year.
The report on a new Council regulation to extend this assistance programme, drawn up by Mr Tomlinson, reflects an understanding of how important this assistance has been, and will continue to be, to sustaining the peace process.
It clarifies the legal basis for the various facets of the assistance and reflects the need to look at needs beyond the two years for which the assistance has been extended.
The Union has also worked hard, through its formal dialogue with Israel on the issue, to improve the Palestinian economy, especially freeing up the movement of goods and people.
The presidency and Ambassador Moratinos have taken the initiative to intensify this dialogue.
A recent communication from the European Commission proposing cumulation of origin between Israel and its neighbours, including the West Bank and Gaza, for manufacture exported to the European Union will bring economic benefits to all partners.
A second Commission communication regarding implementation of the European Union-Israel agreement has also been published.
It raises complex legal, political and technical issues, including the status of products from Israeli settlements.
These issues will be discussed with Israel and considered by the Council in coming weeks.
While our focus has been to move the Palestinian-Israeli track of the peace process forward, the European Union remains concerned at the lack of progress on the Syrian and Lebanese tracks as well.
There is a need for a continuing effort to reinvigorate them and sufficient flexibility on the part of the parties to allow the talks to resume, and that will be our main objective in the period ahead.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, despite the constant efforts of the United States and the European Union at all levels, the Middle East peace process has been in complete stalemate for almost a year and a half.
As Mr Henderson says, it is true that under the British Presidency the European Union has intensified its support for US efforts at mediation.
Despite sometimes taking different stances on certain important aspects of the peace process, the United States and the European Union agree about one substantial element: at these times of crisis, it is essential to work together in order to break the deadlock.
In this respect, the visit to the region in April by the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, only served to confirm the serious nature of the crisis in the peace process.
One tangible result of that visit was the meeting in London on 4 and 5 May between Americans, Palestinians, Israelis and the EU presidency.
Unfortunately, that meeting did not manage to shift the stalemate as regards the outstanding technical questions: the Gaza airport and port, free movement between the West Bank and Gaza and, in short, the whole joint dialogue agenda with which this Parliament is so familiar.
As you know, the stalemate still persists, and after the London meeting President Clinton himself even had to call off the three party talks in Washington because of Israel's unwillingness to accept the US compromise proposal.
In that sense, we fully share the point of view expressed by Mr Henderson.
It is impossible to make real, credible progress without complying with all the agreements which have been freely negotiated and signed by the parties, and without respecting the principles upon which the peace process is based - essentially the "land for peace' principle.
The latest violent incidents and Israel's recent initiatives, again involving the question of settlements, illustrate how volatile the situation is and how urgent it is for all sides to accept the US proposal, which in itself is a minimum proposal with regard to Israeli redeployment in the West Bank.
Despite having reservations, the Palestinian Authority has formally expressed agreement in principle with the US proposal.
In the Commission's view, it is now up to Prime Minister Netanyahu to show the necessary flexibility in order to revitalize the peace process as soon as possible, by accepting the US proposal which, I repeat, is a minimum proposal but which, as things stand, is the only realistic proposal for further progress along the road to peace.
Lastly, the European position on the peace process has not changed.
In the conclusions of the European Council in Cardiff, as you will be able to see when Parliament receives a copy of the resolution adopted by the heads of state and government, the Union has once more confirmed, point by point, as it could not fail to do, the position which has been traditional ever since Venice, Luxembourg and Amsterdam, and has now of course also been confirmed at the Cardiff Summit.
Madam President, the Israeli-Palestinian question, Middle East issues, are exceptionally complicated and therefore call for great care on our part when we discuss them.
They are complicated because of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians; both are able to claim rights, rights which sometimes stand in each other's way.
Then there is the history of mediation by the United States, a process which in itself requires exceptional caution.
If we become another party to the process as well, we will have to do our best to speak with great wisdom.
Still, it is a good thing that the European Union is also involved, because - and I fully agree with Mr Swoboda - we have great historical as well as current responsibilities in this region.
That is something we cannot get out of.
We cannot say that the others should deal with it, that Europe is neutral.
That is why it is also important that we have someone, Mr Moraltinos, who has been mandated to go to the region to see what the European Union could do to help resolve the problems.
This obviously requires the Council to have a clear position, because the confused foreign policy decision making process in the Council, as we know all too well, merely leads to more grief.
Council decision making will also have to be subject to reasonable control by the people's representatives.
Just on whose behalf are they speaking? Are they really speaking on behalf of the European citizen, or this unclear?
Madam President, all too often we witness the governments of Member States taking independent action.
This has been the case in the recent past, and this trend is continuing now.
Of course, this is scarcely helpful when issues need to be resolved.
You cannot visit the region, and one moment speak from a French position, and the next from a French, Dutch or English position.
We will have to replace this with action on behalf of Europe.
Because, as things stand at the moment, each Member State can maintain its own double agenda in its relations with Israel and the Palestinians.
Sometimes it is better to keep your mouth shut, if you cannot really speak on behalf of Europe.
The complexity of the situation has of course grown out the fact that the political movement around Netanyahu has gained so much influence.
This will not have the desired effect for Israel, either.
The increased radicalism on all sides, both in Israel and amongst the Palestinians, might sometimes even tempt us to express ourselves in radical terms as well.
Prudence is called for at such times.
However, it is a great problem that the political commitments entered into by the previous government are not being honoured.
Madam President, the Group of the European People's Party therefore supports the resolution wholeheartedly.
It is a good thing that Israel's policy on colonization is being changed, given the frustration of economic development, and that it is being replaced by confidence-building behaviour which leaves room for the construction of a civil society on both sides and for person-to-person meetings in order to promote peace in the region.
Mr President, the peace process is at a dead end and every possible pressure is needed to get this process going again.
Tangible results are needed to reinject some dynamism into this peace process.
Further deterioration and lack of prospects for the Palestinians will not increase security for the state of Israel.
That is why it is in Prime Minister Netanyahu's interest finally to enter into agreements about further withdrawal from the occupied territories.
American plans in this direction could break the impasse, and therefore deserve every support, but great vigilance is also required.
The threat made by Israeli representatives that the European role in the peace process should be conditional upon the solution of trade differences is unacceptable.
After all, under international law, the settlements do not belong to the state of Israel.
The Union should not give trade preferences to products from these settlements.
We must not put a premium on the unlawful enlargement of these settlements.
Netanyahu and Arafat must return to the dialogue.
A great deal has been achieved and we must not throw that away now.
In addition, our entire Barcelona process in relation to the Mediterranean stands or falls with this dialogue.
The Union must support the US in calling for the opening of the Gaza airport, the accumulation of the rules of origin regarding regional trade and promotion of social contacts between the countries.
I hope that the Austrian Presidency will display more tact than the British President-in-Office, Mr Cook.
Without an agreement about withdrawal from the occupied territories, there will never be a basis for the final status talks due to start in May next year.
I wish Mr Arafat, Mr Netanyahu, the Palestinians and the Israelis wisdom, political courage and vision.
Mr President, in recent years I have had the privilege of visiting the Palestinians in the Palestinian territories three times.
I have observed that enormous progress has been made; there is better infrastructure, the general appearance of Gaza has changed and improved.
A rush of building is taking place on the West Bank. Recently, we also spoke with a Palestinian entrepreneur who has started to construct a big warehouse to give shape to the industrial zone on the border with Gaza.
So not everything is negative.
Yet I still sense an undercurrent of tension and dissatisfaction amongst the Palestinians, and rightly so.
For the process is stagnating.
But I am also sensing an increasing dissatisfaction amongst the Palestinians with regard to the judicial process in their own territories.
That is why I would have preferred it if our resolution, under point 4, had not spoken about a joint EU-Palestinian security committee, but rather joint EU-Palestinian legal support.
The meeting with the Hamas leaders was not very promising.
They were not positive about the existence of Israel in the medium term.
I find that extremely difficult.
Nor has this paragraph been removed from the Palestinian Charter as yet.
We also visited the airport.
I thought it was encouraging to see that, architecturally, this airport fits well with Arab culture; but there is a lack of equipment.
People are not able to do their work at the airport, and our resolution underlines this point.
But, in all honesty, Israel has a right to security.
The Palestinians have a right to progress.
In my view we need a whole package for the region.
If Israel makes progress with Syria and Lebanon, then this should also be possible with the Palestinians.
Let us insist above all that Lebanon and Syria make peace with Israel, then there might be some movement with the Palestinians.
I hope that the Social-Democrats in Israel will also make a positive contribution, because that is missing somewhat at the moment. I find this a pity.
Madam President, I am convinced that if all Members of the European Parliament had an opportunity to visit the Palestinian territories, if they could see and hear what our delegation has just seen and heard, there would be widespread agreement amongst us that Europe's current timid "wait-and-see' attitude needs to change at a political level with regard to the Middle East peace process.
In my opinion, one thing is clear: since Madrid and Oslo, the dividing line no longer lies between Israelis and Palestinians, or Arabs in general, but between those who wish to support and those who wish to torpedo the peace process.
There are people who wish to torpedo the peace process on both sides, with one difference: since the tragic death of Yitzhak Rabin, these are the people who now hold power in Israel.
It is thus in the common interest of the peace-making forces on both sides, which are lastingly interdependent, to stop Mr Netanyahu and the extremists he relies on burying the vital principle of land for peace whilst there is still time.
It is in their common interest to rebel against all measures which destroy the atmosphere of trust essential to peaceful cohabitation, and even more essential to long-term cooperation.
I am thinking of the expulsions, the destruction of houses, the blockade of the territories and above all of the extension and multiplication of settlements, including in East Jerusalem.
Calling on Europe to use - as it has successfully done in the past on the initiative of this House - its economic, scientific and technical relations with the State of Israel to push for a revival of the peace process would not amount to sanctioning Israel but to supporting the weakening of Mr Netanyahu by those Israelis in favour of peace.
I might add that, far from embarrassing the United States in their role as sponsor of the process, this determined attitude on the part of Europe would create conditions more favourable to their intervention.
Madam President, the recent visit by the European Parliament's delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council highlighted a truly dramatic situation.
We are faced with a serious deadlock in the peace process, and we were able to see that the settlement of new land was the response to the request put forward by the Oslo Accords, which was 'peace for land' .
Instead of 'peace for land' , we have learned that on 9 June the Israeli government decided on a new settlement of the Mount of Olives in the heart of East Jerusalem.
Given the context, the living conditions of the Palestinians are obviously dramatic, in particular because of the shortage of work, especially in Gaza.
The situation is characterized, on the one hand, by the Palestinian authorities' preparedness to respect the Oslo Accords and, on the other hand, by the Netanyahu government's intention not to stick to the commitments made.
In view of this situation, immediate steps must be taken at least to ensure that the systems of communication between the West Bank and Gaza are guaranteed, that the now completed airport is opened, and that work begins to build the port.
Obviously we must understand that a year from now, Arafat will have no choice but to declare Palestinian independence upon expiry of the Oslo Accords, even if he does so unilaterally.
It is therefore obvious that we must do all we can to make sure that the Palestinian National Authority is able to play its role and is in a position to continue its action, including in economic terms.
This is why it is very important that the Tomlinson report be approved.
I believe that in view of this impasse the extremist and intransigent fringes on both sides will inevitably grow and propose military solutions.
If we want to avoid this catastrophic solution, we must act as soon as possible to relaunch the peace process, using whatever form of pressure and diplomatic effort it takes.
We therefore go along with the statement by Commissioner Marín and with what the Council said, but we are calling for even more decisive action.
Madam President, there has been too much moaning about the fate of the people of the Occupied Territories at the hands of the Israeli army.
It is no longer the time for pity or hypocritical snivelling.
Let us now defend justice, the law and, above all, the resolutions voted for by the United Nations, and the documents which have been signed by common agreement by the parties present.
A code of conduct has been adopted, a timetable fixed.
These decisions, this timetable and this code of conduct must be respected.
Although they are not completely disregarded at the moment, the peace agreements are certainly being damaged and the peace process seems to be on its last legs.
There is clearly a reason for the procrastination, delaying tactics and indirect remarks of the Israeli authorities.
Extremists on both sides are opposed to the renewal of serious negotiations.
First and foremost amongst these are the religious fundamentalists, whose interpretations of the Koran and the Torah are, to say the least, questionable.
With regard to the pressure these extremists can exert on the authorities, it is clear that the Israeli government is still extremely vulnerable.
The sensational declarations regarding an "eternal capital' and the thundering arrival of armed settlers in the Occupied Territories, the withdrawal of residence permits in Jerusalem, the fact that Arab citizens of that city find even their right to live there challenged, the blockade of Ashdool with regard to equipment which would enable the opening of Gaza airport: these are so many factors which quite seriously compromise any further progress.
But we also have to consider the problems of security and terrorism.
It is true that in this respect, nobody is safe, neither Israel nor, unfortunately, perhaps in the short-term, Palestine.
In any case, terrorism can come from any quarter and Israel itself lost its Prime Minister in this way.
The fight against terrorism, and against those who incite it, is clearly a necessity.
We must make sure that the American diplomatic effort is supported, for without it nothing will be possible.
To date, and for a number of years, American diplomats have displayed a wealth of inventiveness and ingenuity.
We have an important role to play in ensuring respect for previous agreements and, in relation to this, the Commission's proposal regarding products coming from Israeli settlements outside Israel should be welcomed.
By giving these products - which have clearly come from Arab territories - the advantages reserved for Israel, we are making a gesture which, although it is clearly not going to ruin the Israeli economy, will nevertheless have a precise political significance.
You only have to see the reception given to this proposal in the Israeli press and by Israeli government circles in general to understand that the demand for respect of the agreements, in this case Article 38, is there, which is perhaps an indication of the direction we should be taking in the future.
Madam President, the potential impact of the European Union on the Middle East peace process is primarily indirect, and it could be both positive and negative.
It looks as if it will chiefly be negative.
How can the Union promote peace when it denounces the policy of one party whilst acting anything but diplomatically? A particularly striking example is the Commission initiative to exclude products from Jewish settlements from the preferential trade conditions applying to Israel.
The Commission's thinking is that the settlements on the West Bank do not belong to Israel.
The Commission also wants to subject the goods imported from Israel to special controls, because the country is alleged to tamper with certificates of origin, and is also exporting goods from Palestinian territory under the description "Made in Israel' .
I would like to ask the President-in-Office whether he is behind the Commission's stance.
Is this stance not extremely unwise in view of the current negotiations? If Parliament should conclude that Israel is not respecting the peace agreements, this would be both flawed and premature.
The Oslo accords are also being violated by the Palestinians, thus they are not respecting them either.
In addition it is debatable if we can already pass judgement on whether the accords are being met or not, whilst the term which has been set in them has not yet expired.
The Oslo Accords and the interim accord request a regrouping in three stages according to unilateral decisions by Israel.
By regrouping its troops somewhat, the government of the country has in any case acted formally in accordance with accords, which make no mention of the relationship between these three phases.
Pedantic statements will not bring peace any closer.
Instead of wanting to play the leading part in the Middle East, the European Union could follow the example of the United States, which just recognizes the peace process and tries to support it.
Madam President, peace is something which cannot be relinquished and it risks remaining a petitio principii if governments, public opinion and the international community do not make the necessary efforts.
As far as peace in the Middle East is concerned, we must honestly ask ourselves whether the European Union has done all that was essential to help restart the interrupted process.
When an agreement falls apart, when an accord disintegrates, no one side alone is responsible.
There is a series of contributory causes that fuel the political dialectic, which in turn risks radicalizing positions and undoing the efforts of men of goodwill who on both sides are trying to rebalance the situation so that dialogue may resume.
For this is the crucial point of the tension between Israel and Palestine; whatever the direct cause of the interruption of the process, there is no doubt that the resumption of dialogue would bring tension back into the right proportion and make it possible to assess the situation of the opposing sides, with our eyes cast to the future.
A people decimated by the holocaust cannot continue to live for generations in a permanent state of tension: peace is its foremost interest, a vital interest.
To help Israel find peace again also means helping the Palestinian people and preparing a liveable future for the entire region which is in need of economic and social development.
Many of the European Union's efforts are frustrated by the absence of a political union, of a common foreign policy.
A short while ago we were talking about funds earmarked for the Palestinians.
Well, we would like to know why then we see poor and desperate people on television. Where has this money gone?
And when we are working in this House on rather bureaucratic and unimportant matters, I would also like us to remember the faces of those Israeli children who sing as they leave school despite the fact that they are being watched over by people armed to defend them against another massacre and another tragedy.
Let's remember that the European Union has a role to play quite apart from just being a bureaucratic or economic union: there is also a moral choice to which we must return.
Madam President, I must say that, after repeated visits by our delegation these past four years, we have recently found a situation more difficult than in the past.
For the first time since the Oslo process began, there is a general loss of hope: this is very dangerous and we must unfortunately consider negative developments possible.
None of the difficulties has been overcome, from the corridor between Gaza and the West Bank to the blocking of the settlements, from the prisoners that are still in jails to the veto on the Gaza port and now completed airport capable of operating, to the consolidation of the Israeli presence in East Jerusalem, etcetera.
Regarding the second phase of the Oslo Accords, the proposal by the United States of a partial withdrawal from 13 % of the territory, accepted by the Palestinians - although they do not agree with this - is still, after much delay, awaiting a reply from Israel.
As time passes, all the extreme components of Israeli and Palestinian society are growing stronger.
Arafat especially is in extreme difficulty and whoever thinks that a weaker Arafat would help matters is totally wrong! What can we do?
There is little time left before the Palestinian side issues a unilateral declaration of independence, according to the timetable of the Oslo Accords, and this dictates a political horizon to all the forces that are pro-peace.
The Union must step up its political presence in the area with a series of initiatives.
First of all, it must insist so that the United States makes its proposal official in order to obtain an answer from Israel.
We can no longer wait for and avoid this necessary moment, and it is no use skipping it now and proposing a peace conference, as was recently done.
Yes, we must propose a peace conference if the reply to the United States' plan of withdrawal is no, so as not to leave a dangerous political vacuum.
Then the promoter of this conference will have to be the Union, not an individual European state but the Union, and as such it must be the full-fledged promoter with the United States and other partners.
Now is premature!
Secondly, the Union must ensure funds for Palestine.
We cannot now cut off support which is essential in maintaining Palestinian autonomy.
Thirdly, the Union must endorse - I mean the Council and Parliament, and the latter is doing this with a compromise resolution we are voting on today - the Commission's two initiatives to implement the association agreement with Israel and to introduce mixed origins for the region's products; it is not a technical matter, it is a proposal based on international law and on the association agreements and it is also very important politically.
Fourthly, the Union must encourage and further develop Euro-Mediterranean policy and the MEDA programme.
In Palermo, the Euro-Mediterranean council gave renewed usefulness and credibility to Barcelona; it was a process in crisis.
There is the will to go forward, the new regional and interregional developments have been defined and the choice has again been made to earmark a global figure for funding equal to the previous figure. All this is to be decided in Stuttgart in April.
This, too, is a fundamental contribution of the Union to maintain hope and ways of finding peace.
Finally, I must mention the initiative launched by the European Parliament: in Malta. It was decided with the parliaments of the Mediterranean to set up a forum of parliaments of the Mediterranean in Brussels in October.
This, too, I think is useful.
The Euro-Mediterranean council in Palermo considered it positive.
It is part of the work of this Parliament, and the aim is to develop the people-to-people relationship, if we can call it that, at various levels.
We have promoted and will continue to promote meetings and dialogue between Israeli parliamentarians and the elected officials of the Palestinian Legislative Council. We are trying to initiate contact between the mayors of Israeli towns and Palestinian towns and encourage cooperation and collaboration between them.
I believe that this forum of Mediterranean parliaments is useful too.
This is what Parliament can do, and I believe that it would be a good idea for it, too, to step up its action.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that today's debate shows that we all agree that our problem is no longer what is happening in the region. It is not what recommendations have been made and must be made, but it is how existing recommendations, and the initiatives that have already been taken, will be implemented and bring about a result.
I would particularly like to address the Council, which I thank because it has in fact done a great deal, when I say that the key to the affair seems to be for us to change the presence of Europe in the Middle East.
At present we have a mediator, a great many governments and a Commission office, and that is the first issue we must tackle.
It would be much more effective if, instead of mediators, instead of a multiplicity of opinions, we set about creating one body, in which all the institutions could participate and which would be headed by an individual with a proven knowledge of foreign policy and of the problems of the region.
We would then get far more results.
The vast majority of economic issues have to a certain extent been tackled.
The Commission has done an excellent job of work though, of course, some additions are necessary, especially concerning the availability and management of resources.
What remains of significance are the prerequisites for a solution.
The prerequisites for a solution and for peace are both political and military and are not simply a question of relations between Israel and Palestine.
They extend much further than that, especially in the wake of the new political realities.
I am referring not only to nuclear tests, but to countries such as Iran, because although we quite rightly talk a lot about Syria and the Lebanon, there are other countries such as Iran which influence or try to influence the situation.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I think we have arrived at a point where we have no room for manoeuvre.
It is therefore important that, over and above the recommendations, the ideas and the initiatives, which are all extremely important, we start out from the institutions.
To achieve a satisfactory outcome, we need a new framework which will secure the continued presence of Europe in the region and which will also ensure actions in concert with the United States, though I would go as far as to say that there may be other powers in the world who will take an interest.
Madam President, during the past 16 months, little or no progress has been made in the Middle East peace process.
Fortunately, since last week there appears to be some movement in the negotiations following the latest American proposals.
We must conclude that the European Union has, in the recent past, once again failed to play a leading or convincing role in this issue which is so important to us.
The initiative and the direction of the present talks are entirely in the hands of the Americans.
The European Union's weak political role is out of balance with our major financial contribution, our economic interests and our security.
The balance must be restored as a matter of urgency.
Europe should no longer be merely a provider of funds, the biggest donor in the world, but more than ever must make a political contribution to a solution involving lasting peace.
This is clearly why the Union must be able to speak with one voice to the outside world and to pursue a single line of European diplomacy.
And now to the European Parliament.
I believe that the European Parliament can certainly help improve the mutual understanding between the Israelis and Palestinians; not by means of dictates, resolutions or threats, but by supporting so-called people-to-people projects, and especially by making a contribution to the dialogue between the people from both sides.
Real peace starts with the people, the people in the region itself who live amongst each other on a daily basis, including children and students.
Real peace does not start at the top, but at a country's grass roots.
This is where we have to nurture mutual respect and build a strong foundation for a hopeful and peaceful future.
That is where our role as the European Parliament lies.
Madam President, President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must ensure that this Parliament does not just act like a notary, in other words, that it should not merely record how the situation stands.
First of all, I dispute the fact that the peace process is stalled; instead, it is my view that the peace process in the Middle East is moving backwards, clearly and extremely dangerously backwards.
Therefore, it is not true that we are stalled: the situation is growing considerably worse.
There is radicalization that can be seen now on both sides - Israeli and Palestinian - and this is making it extremely difficult for those who still believe that peace is the only instrument, the only basis, the only sure way for effectively bringing about development, and therefore cooperation, between Israel and the Palestinians.
It goes without saying that Arafat is the one who risks the most and the responsibility of a definitive collapse of this peace process would inevitably end up benefiting those who believe in religious extremism, fundamentalism; it would thus sweep aside those who have worked for peace, beginning with Arafat himself.
But I see that Netanyahu, on the other hand, also has the same problem: his radical extremists from the religious parties are preventing any progress in the peace process.
It should be said, however, that this is an excuse on the part of the Israelis.
Personally, I consider it unacceptable that Israel has not yet given a reply to the American proposal, which was in itself a compromise, for a partial, a very partial withdrawal - the famous 12 % or 13 % or 11 % - from the Occupied Territories.
It has also been said in this sitting that Europe has been absent.
I also dispute this.
Unfortunately, Europe has not been absent, in the sense that it has sewn further confusion: the Middle East peace process is the mirror of Europe's impotence and incapacity.
Chirac went along one day and said something; another day Cook went along and said something else; then Kinkel went and said something different again: this is the sign and signal that Europe not only does not have a role, but at this moment has a negative role.
We continue to be 15 political dwarfs unable to have a single voice in any peace process, in any foreign policy process currently under way in the world.
Madam President, once again we are debating the crisis in the Middle East.
Once again, the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Netanyahu, is failing to comply with the agreements which were freely accepted and ratified by his parliament. Furthermore, he is blocking any attempt at negotiation, as was seen at the meeting of 4 and 5 May in London.
Even the US attempt to initiate new negotiations with a minimum proposal has also been blocked by Israel, as Mr Marín has confirmed.
Obviously, Israel does not want to comply with the agreements.
Israel is not withdrawing from the territories, but is continuing to occupy them and keep thousands of Palestinians in prison.
The United States has lost its role as mediator, and the European Union should put pressure on Israel by subjecting its agreements with that country to certain conditions.
Compliance with the international agreements is the only solution, and the European Union and its envoy should play a key role.
We in the Union should block our existing agreements with Israel and promote all efforts to help the Palestinian National Authority.
The Gaza port and airport and the recovery of the territories are demands which cannot be withdrawn. If Mr Netanyahu wants security, he must understand that security is only possible through the agreements.
Madam President, we all know that the Israelis could not care less whether we speak with one voice, fifteen voices or a hundred voices.
The important thing is whether we talk or whether we act.
The Israelis said right up until Camp David: 'We want nothing but peace.'
Since then they have had peace with Egypt, with the PLO and with Jordan. They could also have had peace with Syria and Lebanon if they had kept to what they said: 'We want nothing but peace.'
But we know that for 31 years they have built new settlements, have killed children who threw stones, have ignored UN resolutions and ignored treaties they have entered into.
They are building 'Greater Israel' in line with the intentions pronounced by Netanyahu's mentor, Jabotinsky, as long ago as the 1920s.
We all know this.
We know that they ignore talk and resolutions.
So why are we not prepared to move from words to deeds?
Today there is an interesting article in Libération which asks just that question.
Why act and intervene only in Kosovo? Do only European massacres get the European Union to move from words to deeds?
I do not mean that we should send troops to Israel - of course not.
However, people say that the EU is an economic giant, but a political dwarf.
Let us make use of the fact that the EU is an economic giant.
Let us use that economic power. Let us move from words to deeds and actually apply proper economic sanctions.
I am convinced that that would be able to influence Israel.
If we do nothing, I am absolutely sure that the 1990s will see a war in the Middle East, just like every other decade.
On this occasion the EU should at least do something and move from words to deeds through peaceful, non-violent, yet powerful sanctions against Israel, which is in breach of all international laws.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the lands of the divine revelation of the Decalogue and the Gospel have rarely known peace, even more rarely have they known respect for dignity and the rights of all communities who have lived together there for centuries.
As the end of the 20th century approaches, it is everybody's wish that a true peace process may be initiated and concluded.
This will be difficult to achieve.
The conditions are, however, clear.
Israel must once and for all have the right to peace secured via guaranteed borders, whilst the rights, dignity and freedom of the Palestinians must be respected.
It is an abomination to continue to coop them up in unacceptable apartheid-like "townships' and it would be an illusion to believe that this can continue without further conflict of unpredictable extent.
Historically speaking it is the Palestinians' home as much as it is the home of the Jews; they have the right to a free, independent and sovereign State.
But Syria and Lebanon are also going through a peace process.
Lebanon has suffered from the presence of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on its soil who were thrown out by Israel and who quickly evolved from welcome refugees into revolutionary conquerors of the host country.
This is the reality which my movement has been contemplating, for the National Front does not fight immigration through some form of racism but, on the contrary, in order to avoid an irreversible situation similar to that in Lebanon, Bosnia or Kosovo occurring in France in the future.
Of course Israel must withdraw from Lebanon, but so must Syria, for whilst Israel occupies the south of the so-called security zone, Syria occupies the rest and, what is worse, has the Lebanese State held under some kind of protectorate where political skill combines with military presence and police terror.
Jacques Chirac's most recent comments in Lebanon are regrettable, for they seem to be directed only against the Israeli presence.
How can it be accepted that the leader of the Lebanese forces in Beirut, Samir Geagea, has been held for more than four years - truly forgotten - in a Ministry of Defence basement, because he neither wanted to leave Lebanon nor accept a ministerial position within a puppet government following the veritable trials of Moscow!
But is there not sometimes a sort of subtle and objective complicity between Hafez el-Assad's Syria and Israel to keep up a war on Lebanese soil, which both regimes perhaps have need of, in order to assure their domestic stability or to request ever more international military aid.
Jews hold the power, Muslims are in the majority.
But the Christians of the Middle East remain in this state of dhimmi which the great Israeli historian Bat Yeor described in his remarkable work "Christians of the Middle East - between jihad and dhimmitude' .
Lebanese Christians must restore their country's independence, they must be able to find once more the role that was theirs, regain their freedom within their own lands where, according to the expression of Béchir Gémayel, the bells must be able to ring unhindered in the country which guarantees not only their own people the right to government, but also offers other Christian communities of the Middle East assistance, solidarity, and even a safe haven.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, everyone has the same feeling: this morning, as we discuss for the umpteenth time the situation in the Middle East, in the presence of four members of the Knesset whom I would like to welcome, this morning we are at a turning point, a time when anything could happen, for better or worse.
I have always been a friend of Israel. Like many, I was a friend nearly forty years ago when it was fashionable to be so in Europe and I remain so today, even if it is no longer the fashion.
I was their friend when Israel was composed of only a handful of survivors determined to exist.
I still am today now that Israel has become a great power.
The layman that I am was a friend of Israel when it was establishing its kibbutzim, to the sound of joyous secularism.
I remain so despite what I hear of sometimes violent debates which arise within the very heart of Israeli society.
I have been president of the Europe-Israel delegation for five years.
Within this delegation, my colleagues and I have worked, and continue to work, for peace and friendship between Israel and Europe.
We have worked in all subject areas: economic, social, cultural and research and technology.
We have woven ties which we mend when they become frayed.
We supported Yitzhak Rabin, we mourned him and, since the last elections, we have worked with the new team in power, which was the product of democratic elections.
Ladies and gentlemen, I mention all of this in order to be able to say clearly to you, in the name of my friendship, of our friendship with Israel, that we are very worried at the sight of the dangers and internal and external demons which are threatening Israel and the region.
And if I remind you of all this, it is also in order to say clearly, on a personal level, that I largely approve of the joint resolution which is being proposed to us.
For once the text is short, clear and readable.
The message is a strong one, without being aggressive.
In certain respects, however, I would have wished greater detail.
In my opinion, in Point 3 of the resolution there is insufficient emphasis on Syria's serious responsibility in the field of security, both towards and from Lebanon.
We have also forgotten the countries of the region which finance fundamentalist terrorism, and we do not place sufficient emphasis on the fundamental role of our envoy, Mr Moratinos.
With regard to Point 9 of the Interim Agreement, first of all it has to be regretted that the contract of association properly speaking has yet to be ratified, and that this is down to France and Belgium.
Above all it must be confirmed that although we can discuss the terms of implementation via the debate on the origin of products, this should not be a roundabout way of influencing the ongoing negotiations, even of sanctioning Israel.
In conclusion, I understand and approve of Israel's need for security and the Palestinians' desire for recognition. In order to reconcile the two, a just peace is required.
This will be achieved through negotiations assuring the security and coexistence of Israel and the Palestinians. To mention this today is also a way for me to pay homage to Yitzhak Rabin, the soldier, the pioneer, the builder of Israel, subsequently the initiator of and the first Israeli signatory to the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians.
To remember him is to continue his work.
Mr President, it is appropriate that we are debating this matter this morning in the presence of the Israeli delegation from the Knesset.
It is probably rather galling for them to hear many of the speakers this morning calling for concessions from the Israeli Government.
But I rather agree with the President-in-Office when he called for courage and vision.
That is the right approach that we require at the present time and not perhaps the other things that he could have mentioned: confrontation and confusion.
We need to resolve the blockage that we have and the hardening of positions that seem to be adopted on both sides.
The President-in-Office quite correctly said that it was necessary to understand that the presidency had taken initiatives in calling Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat together in London.
But that was necessary - if we are blunt about it - because of the ineptitude of the President-in-Office when he tried to visit Har Homa and created a very definite hardening of positions and opinions within Israel and within Palestine.
There is a reference in the resolution which I completely support which asks the Council presidency to urge Member States to refrain from individual initiatives and, instead, to work through appropriate European Union mechanisms.
Surely, colleagues - and I support completely what Mr Caccavale said - it is not helpful for individual ministers to try their own solutions in a situation like this.
We need courage and vision.
And I believe we need new initiatives from the European Union, along with the United States, to try to come to some decent solution with the Syrians, the Lebanese, the Israelis, and the Palestinians.
Let us include also in that area the Egyptians, the Jordanians and, hopefully, even the Iranians and the Iraqis.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is a recurring theme which combines cultural, emotional and political elements of relevance to all Europeans. I want to underline here, as was pointed out by both the Council and the Commission, that our involvement in the Middle East peace process was a forerunner to the elaboration of a common foreign policy.
From Venice to Oslo, passing through Madrid, there has been a rare unanimity within the Union, I would say, in spite of everything.
At this moment, during the British Presidency, I should like to acknowledge the efforts of the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, and also the Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, whom I do not think was treated properly on his visit to Jerusalem.
But the point at issue is not so much a matter of historical reflection or explaining the situation.
The diagnosis has been dealt with at length today.
The question is how we can help to break the current agonizing and dramatic deadlock in the peace process.
And I think, besides suggesting brilliant or not so brilliant ideas, we have to see to what extent we in Parliament can make a positive contribution.
There is one aspect which has not been mentioned here this morning, and I should like to do so, in the presence of the members of the delegation from the Knesset . It is that Israel has a greater moral responsibility, in that the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel has just been celebrated.
Israel is a strong, vigorous democracy at the heart of the Middle East. That gives Israel a superior strength and responsibility.
I had the opportunity, in my capacity as President of the European Parliament, to explain our view to the Knesset at a much more promising moment - on the very day of the start of the Madrid process. I am also an old friend of both Jews and Arabs.
In my youth I had the opportunity to work on a kibbutz .
And I believe we must persevere with this dialogue, even with people who can maintain tougher positions.
We have proof of that in the recent visit of the chairman of the Knesset , with whom we held a critical discussion. And we have to recognize that positive experiences in the field of peace, not just those of the late lamented Prime Minister Rabin, but also those of Prime Minister Begin, with the Camp David agreements, show that peace tends to be forged precisely between people who do not agree with each other.
I believe we must appeal to our Israeli friends and tell them that the Masada syndrome and creating a Bantustan are no solution to the problems of the Middle East.
And I would add two further elements, apart from promoting that critical dialogue: support for the Commission proposal, and joint action with the United States, bearing in mind the key role which should be played by our envoy, Mr Moratinos.
Mr President, I want to make one or two remarks in response to the debate we have had this morning.
The debate has clearly shown that there is widespread concern about the situation in the Middle East and the failure in the recent past to make further progress.
All of us feel terrible frustration every time we think there is about to be a breakthrough and then something happens which means that the situation does not move much further forward.
I very much agree with the point made by one of the contributors to our debate that what we need is not more proposals to try to tackle the difficult issues before us, it is implementation of some of the existing proposals based on the Oslo commitments.
The Council's position is that we strongly support the Commission's initiatives to try to 'engineer' steps toward the negotiating table, where possible trying to use economic measures as well as political ones.
We strongly believe there is a need to follow on from London, where there was a hope that there would be progress, and to get down to dealing with the situation in the way offered by the American proposal.
It has been clear in the debate that this view is supported on many sides of this House.
That is the clear priority in the time ahead of us.
We will also be asking our envoy, Mr Moratinos, to do what he can to try to persuade the various parties to take up the American offer to move the proposals further forward.
That position is enshrined in the conclusions which were agreed at Cardiff yesterday; if they have not already been circulated they will be very shortly.
I have received seven motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37 (2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Financial and technical cooperation with the Occupied Territories
The next item is the report (A4-0180/98) by Mr Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 1734/94 of 11 July 1994 on financial and technical cooperation with the Occupied Territories (COM(97)0552 - C4-0048/98-97/0316 (SYN)).
Mr President, first of all I would like to welcome the President-in-Office's remarks on my report in the last debate.
He identified very clearly my intentions and those of the Committee on Budgets, on whose behalf I present this report.
The peace process is important and needs proper resources.
That is essentially what we are about.
The Commission proposal for a Council Regulation amending the Council Regulation of 11 July 1994 must address two questions: the question of the legal base and the question of the duration of the regulation.
The present Council Regulation must therefore be amended.
There we agree with the Commission but we believe that the current Commission proposal is too modest and is, in a number of respects, therefore inadequate.
The existing problem is that there is no legal base for either the recurrent costs of the Palestinian authority or for the EIB activities.
This is serious in any event but more so in the light of the Court of Justice ruling last week.
The present proposal from the Commission, on which my report is based, overcomes this but only for the remainder of 1998.
It leaves us with identical problems for next year and beyond.
Parliament's amendments, as drafted and approved unanimously by the Committee on Budgets, seek to resolve this and do other things, at least for the years 1999 and 2000.
Thus their whole intention is to help the Commission establish a longer-term strategy for what we are all agreed is an imperative - proper involvement and financing of the European Union contribution to the Middle East peace process.
The amendments of the Committee on Budgetary Control are clear.
I will just go through them very briefly.
Amendments 1, 3 and 4 are proposed to simplify the recitals and to include a mention of the duration of the regulation.
Amendments 5 and 6 cite the Council decision, which expires in the year 2000 and in Amendment 5 gives justification to the subsequent Amendment 6.
That latter amendment proposes a change in terminology to be used in this measure.
We can all agree that the term 'Occupied Territories' is outdated, given the developments since 1994, and West Bank and Gaza Strip would appear a more appropriate phrase to use throughout the regulation.
However, we also have to note that the financial and technical cooperation could be concentrated through the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and so it might be that this more extensive phrase is appropriate.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has also considered this aspect.
What is clear is that the words 'Occupied Territories' are now outdated.
Amendments 2, 7 and 8 incorporate fully in the text of the Tomlinson report the amendments that were proposed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs which clarify the objectives and modalities of the action, underlining its contribution to consolidation of the peace process.
Amendments 9 and 10 deal with areas where we perhaps understand that the Commission might have a marginally different view to Parliament because these concern the requisite level of information from the Commission to the budgetary authority and comitology; the detail is fully explained in the explanatory statement.
Amendment 11 and the draft amendment to the draft legislative proposal call on the Commission for a new, single, consolidated, legislative proposal for continuation of assistance to the peace process after 2000.
They seek to do two things: clarify the confused legal base in the present proposal and give greater consistency and transparency in future.
I think that all those amendments are designed to assist the Commission in what it is seeking to do on behalf of the European Union in the Occupied Territories.
I say 'I think' because regrettably communication with the Commission services, excluding the Commissioner, has been less than satisfactory during this process.
In fact I would go so far as to say that they have behaved badly in relation to the European Parliament.
When I was appointed rapporteur on behalf of Parliament, I asked to see the appropriate representative of the Commission.
In response to my request he came to see me on 2 March and I raised specific questions.
At the Committee on Budgets discussions on 17 March, 21 April and 30 April I re-emphasized all the questions that I had raised with the Commission representative and on which I had not received a reply.
I had a very helpful and fruitful meeting with Commissioner Marín on other matters and I mentioned to his Cabinet on 5 May that I was still awaiting replies to questions I had asked on 2 March.
Following that, various people got in touch with me: the first group to ask what the original questions were, despite the fact that they had been published in my draft report that went to the Committee on Budgets weeks earlier.
Finally, I received a reply on 8 June, i.e. Monday of last week.
I raise this, not because I want to chastise anybody, but to show the difficulties that occur when Parliament is trying to help the Commission.
For example, we wanted to know how the Commission had fulfilled its obligations to report to the budget authority and I quote these two sentences from a reply I received.
'I am aware that the Commission has not reported pursuant to the wording of Article 6(1)' says the Director-General, Mr Cioffi, and then he goes on not to apologize but to say: 'Due to political implications and the sensitivity of the matter, the Commission has considered the above as adequate.'
Neither I nor any Member of this House considers that to be adequate.
We have not had the fruitful dialogue that we would have liked and yet, despite that, we produced amendments which improve your proposal and help the Commission, Council and the whole European Union to do what we all want - to make a meaningful and constructive financial and political contribution to the resolution of the Middle East process.
Therefore I commend all 12 amendments to the House.
Mr President, it would be difficult not to agree with the Commission's proposals on granting financial assistance to the administration of the Palestinian Territories which we propose calling from now on the West Bank and Gaza.
It would be difficult, because in the given situation it is natural that a considerable chunk of the financial assistance goes into running the administrative machinery.
That is all that is possible in this situation where the economic development of these territories is being hampered; not even the proposal for the port and the airport which should be the most basic and simple of matters have got off the ground.
Obviously under these circumstances, we must, like in the case with the other proposal on subsidising interest on loans granted by the EIB, give a legal base to a de facto situation like the one we have seen until now, meaning we must grant financial assistance to the administration too.
Furthermore, the Commission is proposing a few changes to the regulation: that is, it is underlining the fact that financial and technical cooperation is fundamental to the development of the peace process and stressing the importance that civil society has for the democratic development of this area.
Another fundamental point seems to us to be the request that the Commission make an annual report to Parliament on the effects of cooperation.
Having said this in very brief but rather specific terms, please allow me, Mr President, to add a few observations to the debate that we have had so far, stressing, in particular, how impossible it is for the European Union to do much more with the means that it has at its disposal.
The European Union is unfortunately doing what it can, I would say what it knows how to do, that is, to provide financial assistance, because it would have difficulty doing more, being an economic rather than a political entity.
I say this not to play down the importance of the efforts that the Commissioners and President-in-Office are making in this direction, but to underscore a political and an institutional fact, that of a European Union that does not have a political entity in a position to act.
What is more, even the United States, as important as they may have been thus far in the Middle East, are capable of little more than fumbling around with a peace process that has become bogged down.
Please allow me therefore, Mr President, to conclude with a remark, with the agonising memory of the political intelligence and the capacities of a Prime Minister like Yitzhak Rabin in Israel.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it had already been said with great clarity and at some considerable length that the Commission's proposals are a step in the right direction and that the amendments on which Mr Tomlinson, in particular, has put in a very great deal of work, have improved and where appropriate modified them.
Mr Tomlinson had made some criticisms, directed in part at those working for the Commission.
I, however, in a sort of positive amendment of my own, would like to single out two representatives of the Commission and their colleagues for praise because they are doing excellent work.
They are the European Commission's representatives in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem.
On two visits I have noticed that a huge commitment is being made to represent Europe well.
It is for this very reason that the Tomlinson Report is so important today, because it should provide the appropriate financial and other backing required to ensure that the European Commission really can use the money it is spending and its political and moral commitment to best effect.
Both here and in other areas - as we have already discussed in another context - our representatives are hampered by the fact that many decisions are too cumbersome and too time consuming. Parliament itself is sometimes guilty, that I admit, but we must succeed in making our decision-making process quicker and less bureaucratic, particularly when it comes to financial aid.
A second point. You, Mr Commissioner, still hold the view - and I and my group support you fully - that we must not allow ourselves to be squeezed out of the peace process or our commitment.
That is quite right. But perhaps we could see things in a more positive light.
We are a part of the peace process and there is nothing anyone can do to change that!
We are part of it by dint of our political, moral and financial commitment.
Perhaps what we should be doing is improving the visibility of our efforts and activities.
We are doing so much not only for the economic infrastructure, but also for democracy and human rights, that we really should also be increasing the visibility of what we are doing if we want to build bridges, to create the infrastructure. The Commission's representatives have made some appropriate suggestions in this respect.
If we spent just part of the money on demonstrating what we want to achieve with it, namely that we have a European obligation to peace, not only in the interests of our identity as a group, but also more generally for our public image and our image in Israel and Palestine, then our aid would be much more efficient.
I would urge you, Commissioner, to continue with your policy, but to examine how we can better present the policy we are operating, particularly in critical phases, particularly in countries where the official propaganda perhaps presents our work in a somewhat more critical light than the population at large sees it.
Mr President, the point I wish to make follows on from the point just made by Mr Swoboda.
On Easter Saturday 1997 I had the pleasure of visiting the European Hospital in Gaza on the very last day before the workmen finally left - a hospital that has been under construction since 1990.
As a nurse I have to say I was extremely impressed by the hospital.
In fact never have I seen a better-equipped hospital, in a country that desperately needs health care.
I returned again this year on Good Friday, and that hospital has not received one single patient, has not received one single trainee, nurse or medical assistant.
It lies there, a graphic symbol, perhaps, of our sterile role in the Middle East process.
Mr Swoboda has called for more obvious public perception of our role in the area.
If this is the public perception I think it is outrageous.
There is a situation I remember in Yes Minister , a British television programme which many us have often enjoyed, in which Sir Humphrey announces that although they have the hospital they cannot afford to have any patients.
That, I am afraid, is exactly what is happening in Gaza.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for his long answer to my question, dated 16 March, in which he tells me about the kind of money that has been spent on this hospital: over ECU 50 million, and not a single patient treated in the hospital.
The construction company that dealt with it is still waiting for quite a considerable amount of money, and since it is a small construction company from Northern Ireland, the long delay in payment is also causing problems there.
Most important of all, are we to see nothing but white elephants as our contribution to the Middle East peace process? We have excellent ambassadors there but they simply do not have the structures to make the necessary impact on the political situation.
We are looking at practically the largest concentration of people in the world in the Gaza Strip, where they go for their medical treatment to dusty little clinics, many of which I visited when I was there, where heroic doctors do their best to cope under extremely difficult circumstances, while down the road this hospital is lying completely empty.
The gates were locked.
I believe it is costing about US$100, 000 a month just in security to maintain the hospital; but as I have said, not a single patient has been treated there and it is now fifteen months since the workers left.
I know that we have sent out a tender for an international management team, but we are fiddling while Rome burns.
The standard of health in the Gaza Strip is very low.
The maternity care services are appalling.
I have been to that hospital as well, and when I was there they had to remove a cat from one of the babies' cots when we were doing the tour in the outer part of that hospital.
Since we are discussing the budget and our contribution, we have to look into our souls, and I very much hope that the Commissioner will give us an adequate response to the concerns I am expressing about this issue.
Many speakers this morning have spoken about their concerns in relation to the desperate situation in the Middle East.
Friends of both Israel and the Palestinians return more and more depressed from that area, as I did myself after my visit there a couple of months ago.
We unfortunately count for virtually nothing there, because we have not put the structures in place in that part of the world to maximize our contribution to the area.
Mr President, I would like to speak in support of both Mr Tomlinson's report and the principle of European Union aid to the peace process, whilst formulating a few critical reflections on the way this aid is received and, I would say, perceived.
What is its purpose? It is a question of contributing to the development of peaceful co-existence between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East.
Owing to circumstances, this aid is increasingly concentrated on the development of support structures for the Palestinian Authority which, unfortunately, is interpreted as a sort of anticipation of the peace process and consequent recognition of a still doubtful State whose borders remain, at the very least, to be defined. The result is that this political anticipation which underlies the aid is perceived, especially in Israel, as unilateral encouragement of one side rather than both.
It is all the more worrying since, although there exists in Israel a group in favour of peace and co-existence, one wonders if a similar group for peace and Jewish-Arab co-existence also exists on the Palestinian side.
The model for reconciliation which Europe has represented and must continue to represent for the Middle East is an excellent thing.
Franco-German reconciliation worked because there were people in favour of peace on both sides, in both countries.
It would be desirable for European Union aid to place greater emphasis on the establishment of parties for peace on both sides of the dividing line.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have listened to Mr Tomlinson's comments with a great deal of interest and on the whole we support his report. Indeed, I think it is a good idea to stop talking about the Occupied Territories.
But why replace this expression with the West Bank and Gaza Strip? No, I think the role of the European Parliament is precisely to go further than this; to anticipate peace and use the word "Palestine' .
I think this would move things on. We must talk of European Union aid to Palestine.
Palestine must be built and I think that we should not lose faith in the Palestinians.
There are a great number of Palestinians in favour of peace, just as there were a great number of people in favour of peace in the homelands during apartheid in South Africa.
But it is not by maintaining these homelands, by maintaining this apartheid, that peace will be built.
We have to contribute financially to the construction of Palestine, but we also have to contribute to it politically.
I think this is precisely one of the points on which the countries of the European Union are agreed.
They are all agreed on making things move in the direction of recognition of the fundamental rights of a people.
The United States are currently monopolizing all of the so-called "Western' influence, with a partiality which is constantly in favour of the State of Israel.
This partiality must no longer be accepted.
We have to come to a more balanced vision of things.
This is how peace will be built.
Mr President, Council Regulation EC 1734/94 lays down the terms of financial and technical cooperation between the European Union and the Occupied Territories with a view to promoting the process of development in these areas and creating conditions favourable to a positive outcome of the peace process, which unfortunately is not the case right now.
We are convinced, as the National Alliance delegation, that financial and technical cooperation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank makes a fundamental contribution to the consolidation of the peace process.
However, we must admit that the impact of the Union's financial assistance in this area has so far not come up to expectations, despite the tremendous efforts made.
The causes are many: the difficult progression of the peace process that has not created the conditions of stability necessary for development; the blocking of the Occupied Territories on and off by the Israeli authorities in retaliation for terrorist acts; and a certain incapacity to manage on the part of the Palestinian Authority combined with the suspicion of illegal practices.
Amendments to the proposal for a regulation would therefore be helpful in order to better clarify the objectives and the terms of action, stressing the need to consolidate the peace process and coming up with a more detailed definition of the legal basis of this financial cooperation.
The fundamental role of financial and technical cooperation in developing the peace process and consequently in developing a civil society must be reaffirmed, the democratic development of these territories being hindered if a civil society fails to be created.
I have one final remark, and that is that we consider it appropriate that the Commission send Parliament a written report each year on the effects of cooperation.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the Committee on Budgets, especially the rapporteur, Mr Tomlinson, for their excellent, meticulous work, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy for their valuable opinion.
The importance which Members attach to the future of the Palestinians and the peace process gives me confidence that the European Union will manage to adopt a common approach to tackle the region's problems.
To be able to undertake positive work in the future, and for the sake of the credibility of the Union, it is essential for us really to share a common strategy, and I should like briefly to remind you of the context of this Commission proposal.
As you are well aware, the current regulation on assistance to the Palestinians was adopted on the basis of the declaration of principles signed by Israel and the Palestinians in September 1993, and was followed by the international donors' conference in Washington.
Unfortunately, the deterioration in the political climate in the Middle East and the successive crises in the peace process have seriously affected our aid programme.
In particular, the difficult political situation has caused serious budgetary problems both for the Palestinian Authority and for other Palestinian public institutions.
So the international donors - including the European Union, which is the most important - have been obliged to devote a large part of the project funds to recurrent costs and budget support.
Again and again, and each time at the request of the Council, the Commission has had to adapt to these circumstances in order simply to guarantee the survival of the Palestinian Authority and the peace process itself. We have never denied that during our appearances before this Parliament.
It is true that the Community cannot help, or does not usually help, to fund the recurrent costs of this sort of institution. That is why the 1994 regulation - the first one presented by the Commission - did not envisage this type of budgetary support.
And in that sense, I can tell you that at the time the regulation for the special Palestinian programme was established not even I, who witnessed the meetings in Washington and Cairo, could have foreseen that with time the peace process would come to experience the difficulties it has suffered, or that it would be necessary, especially at the time of the first border blockades, to begin to pay a series of administrative or recurrent costs which, I repeat, were not included in the programme.
So the aim of the proposal under discussion today is, if you like, to enable recurrent costs to be financed from Community funds.
And there is no hiding the fact that it is also due to the Court of Auditors having decided, quite rightly, that certain financial payments made to the Palestinian Authority during the peace process do not have an adequate legal base, and furthermore are being used for other objectives of an administrative or recurrent nature which are not covered by the regulation.
That is absolutely true and cannot be denied but, I repeat, we have had to do it because of the political circumstances.
As for the proposal to allow interest rate subsidies on lending by the European Investment Bank, that is also aimed at allowing this institution to fulfil its political mandate.
So these two amendments constitute the main changes the Commission has made to the regulation in question.
In that respect, I am pleased to note that we are in agreement with the amendments which, I repeat, form the essence of this proposal.
Nevertheless, I have something important to say to Parliament, the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
The Commission finds itself in a paradoxical situation at the moment. The Commission fully shares the objectives set out in the amendments tabled by Mr Tomlinson and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, which refer to the future of assistance to the Palestinians.
However, we have a problem with the timing.
The Commission will have no problem accepting these amendments, their essence and their stance at a later date. I say that because the Commission is about to present a new regulation, in accordance with the instructions given by the Council of Ministers in February.
We have to present it before the end of the British Presidency, probably at the Council of 29 June. That new regulation comprehensively addresses all the aspects relating to the overall analysis of the future of the Union, in terms of political and economic conditions.
So I hope you will understand this paradoxical position.
We would simply ask both Mr Tomlinson and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy that a decision on these amendments should be deferred until after the Commission has presented the new regulation to the Council of Ministers.
Once it has been presented there will be a common legal base: Article 130w. There will be a whole set of political conditions, an exercise in globalization and a vision of the future with respect to this regulation.
So, I repeat, I hope you can understand this paradox. I would point out once again that we will have no difficulty accepting Parliament's suggestions and the suggestions contained in the amendments.
Moreover, we also openly recognize, without any problem, that it is an excellent idea to present a two year deferment in order to conclude the financial perspectives and to extend them by a further five years.
We think it is an excellent idea to have an overall view.
But as things stand, the Commission has a problem of an institutional nature. We have to present a regulation to the Council of Ministers, because that was decided by the Council of Ministers in February.
Secondly, we have another problem I hope you will understand.
We are also interested in Mr Tomlinson's amendments insofar as they represent a clever way of getting away from that heavy cross we have to bear, known as comitology.
But again, I have to say that following the European Council in Cardiff, the Commission is going to present a communication to try to change the comitology involved not just in the Palestine regulation, but in the whole system as it currently exists, derived from the Maastricht Treaty.
So the Commission thinks it is very important to adopt a comprehensive approach to all the legal bases in the budget.
That is why the Commission has taken the initiative of presenting a plan for overall reform.
And the plan under consideration today is a good example to demonstrate that the current comitology is a heavy burden, which helps neither Parliament, the Council of Ministers nor the Commission.
I should now like to address the problems raised by Mr Swoboda, for example, on the European Union's participation in the international donors' agreement.
You know that we are making an effort to ensure that the European Union plays an essential role in the donors' conference.
That point is also going to be included in the new regulation, and is a question which Parliament and the Council of Ministers will have to resolve.
That is why we want to base this regulation on Article 130W, so it can have a global vision, and that is why we would ask you to delay all these questions just until October.
Then, in October, when we have the general debate on this new regulation - I hope Parliament and the Council will approve it, because for me that point is essential, Mr Tomlinson - then, with Mr Tomlinson's amendments and the Commission's new regulation, a very simple conundrum will have to be solved. Will the Council accept your amendments?
Will the Council accept my regulation? That is the political problem, because I am asking for a lot of money, and Mr Tomlinson is asking for a lot of money.
So I would ask that we have that global vision in October, because we are asking for ECU 1.6 billion.
And after what happened in Cardiff, the European Parliament and the Commission have no choice but to implement, with your amendments or my new regulation, what the Council is going to say.
So we are in favour of waiting until October, once the Council gives us the margin for political manoeuvre.
That is what we think.
I shall now turn to a few other questions.
Mrs Banotti, the European Commission has made an enormous effort with the hospital in Gaza.
The thing is, you have to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and render unto the Commission what belongs to the Commission.
In other words, we are working with UNRRA and so all I can do is tell you how much we have paid, how much work we have done, what we want to do in the hospital, and the difficulties that exist in knowing whether or not sick people and refugees can be treated.
But is it the Commission's fault if the Gaza hospital is not open? Go and visit the airport.
It has been completed.
The control tower is there, and all the electronic equipment.
I have spent ECU 15 million on it.
I knew it was useless.
Is it my fault that the airport is not open? You place me in an impossible situation.
Of course the airport is closed, and of course I have paid many millions of ecus.
But is it my fault that the Israeli authorities do not want to authorize it to open? Please direct your criticism at the people responsible.
You tell me: "Spend the money' . I spend the money.
Then it unfortunately turns out that the airport, port, hospital, television station, radio or whatever cannot open.
Then you ask me to explain politically to you why it cannot be done.
Please understand that I am in an impossible situation.
I am not the one who gives permission. That permission is granted by the Israeli authorities.
In short, I am really sorry.
No doubt my credibility is non-existent but, believe me, the Commission and this Commissioner have spent a year and a half suffering real agonies over this situation, for which we do not feel responsible because, obviously, what the Commission cannot do when faced with this sort of difficulty is decide to stop paying, because that would be a bureaucratic solution.
If there is no legal base and I do not pay, you would accuse me of being a bureaucrat.
If there is no legal base, but the Council makes political decisions and I pay, you would say: "You are irresponsible because you pay when there is no legal base' .
Thirdly, when work has been done - the hospital, the airport and so on - the Israeli authorities say: "That is not going to open' .
There are questions in Parliament and you ask: "But why did you spend the money on that?'
Please, show a little solidarity with the Commission.
You have to back us up, otherwise in the end nobody is going to want to be responsible for the situation.
In short, Mr President, this is a very complicated situation. Mr Henderson knows that because he is on the Council.
Mr Tomlinson knows it, so does Mr Swoboda, and so does Mrs Banotti because she has been there. I would like nothing better than for the hospital to be working.
But how can we convince the Prime Minister, Mr Netanyahu, that it should also take refugees? Tell me how to do that.
Mr President, my conclusion is this. The Commission does not deny the intelligence and the value of Mr Tomlinson's amendments, which are quite right, or Parliament's contribution.
In February the Council asked the Commission to produce a new regulation to combine all the separate decisions which have been made during the last three years.
Some of them have no legal base.
The Commission's position is that it will present the regulation to the Council on 29 June.
I hope the Council will give us the political and financial margin, and once we have that I shall have no difficulty accepting Mr Tomlinson's amendments, when they are presented in the European Parliament in October, under the Austrian Presidency.
But at the moment I cannot do so, for legal and institutional reasons, and I beg you, please be as understanding as you can of the Commission's position.
Welcome
It is my great pleasure, on behalf of the House, to welcome a delegation from the Israeli Knesset, who are seated in the official gallery, headed by Mr Zeev Boïm, member of the Knesset. They are here for the 23rd interparliamentary meeting with the relevant delegation from this Parliament.
It is my hope that this 23rd meeting, which is taking place at a difficult moment in the peace process, will mark a further stage in the necessary rapprochement between the countries and peoples we represent, with a view to peaceful and fruitful cohabitation around the Mediterranean which, as in former times, is a privileged and incontestable point of contact.
May I wish the Israeli delegation fruitful meetings and a very pleasant stay in Strasbourg.
I would also like to welcome the representative of the Palestinian Authority to the European Union, and a delegation of ambassadors from the Arab States.
(Applause)
Financial and technical cooperation with the Occupied Territories (continuation)
Mr President, I welcome the remarks of Commissioner Marín.
It is very helpful that he has been quite so fulsome towards Parliament's views and quite so welcoming of them.
But he said in his remarks that we had to understand the paradoxical problem of Mr Marín.
Well I do.
But I hope he understands the paradox that he is posing for Parliament. What Mr Marín seemed to say was that he agreed with the amendments of the Committee on Budgets.
What he went on to say was that he shares the goals of Mr Tomlinson's report.
He went on to say 'we have no problem with them' - no problem in accepting these amendments or the thrust of them.
And then those fateful four words, 'at a later date' .
This seems like a kid who is waiting for Christmas.
He has been through all the preparation and suddenly somebody comes along and hijacks Father Christmas's bag of toys and says 'but you can have them next year' .
Parliament is not in a great mood for procrastination.
So there is a paradoxical problem of Marín, but there is a paradox that you present for Tomlinson.
Perhaps, some time, we should sit down and share paradoxical experiences.
I merely give you notice, Commissioner Marín, that I really welcome the spirit of what you have said.
I will cut the words out of the Rainbow and make sure we keep them as a reference point for the future.
But equally, when we come to the vote on this report later, I will ask you quite explicitly at the end of the votes on the amendments, whether you can accept them.
Then we will take our decisions based on what you say then.
At the moment I thank you for your comments but, quite clearly, you will have to understand that Parliament also has its own position to take into account as well as being understanding of the positions of other institutions.
Mr Tomlinson, I would like to explain the Commission's position now, so that Members are aware of it straight away, without me having to comment at the time of the vote.
As I said, the Commission will have no problem in accepting the spirit and the content of your amendments once we have presented the regulation to the Council of Ministers.
At the moment we cannot do so.
We are simply asking Parliament to be flexible and wait another three or four months.
Since August is taken up with holidays, I do not think it is asking much to wait until September or October to hold a general debate under the Austrian Presidency, because we have a lot of problems and we would prefer to have a general debate in October.
That is our opinion.
Thank you, Commissioner.
This exchange thus brings our debate to a close.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. and resumed at 11.30 a.m.)
Votes
Mr President, Amendment No 41 is different to Amendments Nos 42 and 43.
Amendment No 41, with the date 2002, was not supported in committee.
The date 2005 was supported, thereby giving the producers a longer period to settle into a new regime.
The period we should support is 2005, not 2002.
Mr Thomas, I have made a note of your comment and I will see to it that a check is carried out by the Parliamentary language service to ensure that the rendering is correct, as you request.
Do you want a separate vote on Amendment No 41?
Yes, Mr President, I want a separate vote for Amendment No 41 as it is different.
I wish to ask the rapporteur, just for clarification, whether it would not be easier, in the circumstances, to withdraw the amendment and leave the original Commission text.
I am quite happy to do that.
But it is an amendment by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Yes, there has been a mistake.
I have checked with the services.
The committee voted to support 2005 and not 2002.
Therefore, if the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is agreeable, this amendment should be withdrawn.
Mr President, there is indeed a problem.
I would simply remind the rapporteur that, in the recitals, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development adopted 2005.
But Amendment No 41 was also voted for by the Committee on Agriculture.
On the one hand, in the recital, 2005 was agreed on, whilst in the body of the text, it was considered to be 2002.
I therefore think that there is no reason now to remove the amendment relating to 2002.
This must go to a vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
We shall now proceed to the election of a Parliamentary Vice-President.
We have received nominations for Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and Mr Gerard Collins.
Four scrutineers will be appointed for the election.
(Mr Mohamed Ali, Mr Parodi, Mrs Marinucci and Mr Frischenschlager are chosen by lots as scrutineers)
Mr President, I would like to clarify our position on this vote.
Our group has always supported the correct application of what we consider a fundamental rule for this Parliament, namely the proportional distribution of members of the Bureau, President, Vice-Presidents and Quaestors.
During the present legislature there was an agreement between the most important groups, the Group of European Socialists and ours.
This worked well at the beginning, but during the second vote this did not work well as far as the election of Quaestors was concerned.
We see the above rule as a fundamental rule for our Parliament.
The position of our Parliament remains extremely fragile.
Only this morning we were talking about the attacks which are launched almost daily against our Parliament.
We therefore think we should maintain this rule.
According to the calculations of the d'Hondt system, the Union for Europe Group is obviously entitled to a Vice-Presidency.
Since Mr Podestà joined our group, we have the number of VicePresidents that we need.
That is why we withdrew the candidature of Mr Cunha, out of deep respect for what we consider to be a fundamental rule of this Parliament.
I should like to pay tribute to Mr Cunha for agreeing to the withdrawal of his candidature.
I understand that the major groups in this Parliament are prepared to respect this rule, the d'Hondt system.
We were assured that this was the case, and under these circumstances we have therefore withdrawn the candidature of Mr Cunha.
It was our intention that the Union for Europe Group, which is entitled to the seat of Vice-President, would obtain it, despite the fact that we were disadvantaged during the previous vote where the Quaestors were concerned.
Mr President, I would like to point out that it is, of course, the right of any Member to present his candidacy for the post of Vice President.
It is also the democratic right of the Groups in this House to propose Vice-Presidents.
Mr Martens has already pointed out that although internal agreements do exist - between the large groups, as you said, but, of course, there are other groups in the House, too - there are also agreements which are not necessarily supported by this House as the election of Mr Killilea as Quaestor has already shown.
Here the House, in its great wisdom, has made a decision which is different to that which the "arrangement' might have dictated.
For this reason it is our democratic right to present to the House a candidate from the Green Group in the European Parliament, in the belief, incidentally, that it is entirely appropriate to consider whether, in a committee such as the Bureau of the European Parliament, it would not be right, proper and democratic if all groups were to be represented, rather than having the present situation in which three groups have no representation at all.
Three groups in this House are entirely unrepresented in the Bureau, as are the independents.
For this reason, this candidacy is a candidacy which will bring a little more democracy into this House at a time when the Bureau is holding very important debates.
(Applause)
Welcome
I would like to inform the House of the presence among us, in the officials' gallery, of the President of the Greek New Democracy Party and leader of the official opposition in Greece, Kostas Karamanlis.
Mr Karamanlis has been visiting the European Parliament since yesterday for talks with the President of the Parliament and the chairmen of the political groups.
We hope he will have a pleasant stay in Strasbourg.
Votes (continuation)
Mr President, due to the uncertainties which have appeared in my own group as a result of the vote change, I am trying to make it clear to them that we are going to vote on recital B first, and that after that we will return to recital A.
Mr van Velzen, we will clarify it with an electronic check so that there is no confusion.
We have already voted on A and it has been adopted.
You really cannot go back and check it now that the following vote has been taken.
That is absolutely unacceptable.
Mrs Green, you are right in the following sense: indeed we did vote on A and indeed the majority was for.
An electronic check was requested and there was confusion between A and B and so I repeated both votes.
I can repeat the electronic check.
Mr President, you had declared that vote and moved on to B. You then took the recorded vote on B. It is absolutely unacceptable.
That is absolutely true, Mrs Green, but I have been asked to make a check on A.
Mr President, it is against every rule on voting that I have ever heard of to accept a check on a vote that has been declared, after you have taken the next vote.
It is completely unacceptable practice.
They made a mistake with their votes.
It is unacceptable to recall it.
Mr President, as usual you acted very quickly.
Immediately after recital A we requested a check on the vote, and at that point you moved on to recital B. I believe that this vote is perfectly legitimate; we have now voted on A.
Mr President, even if the other side of the House does have a relative majority for Recital A, in this case a qualified majority is required.
If a large group is against it, we simply need to check whether the others obtain 314 votes.
That is, after all, what we want to know.
Mr President, I can well understand the anxiety which some people have on this issue, and I quite understand Mrs Green's position.
But let there be no doubt that there were clear calls for a check on Recital A immediately the vote was taken.
Unfortunately, we moved on rather quickly to take the vote on B, when there were still calls for a check.
Looking around the House, I believe the calls were absolutely justified, and I call on you, Mr President, to make a check on Recital A as you are duty-bound to do.
We can then re-vote on Recital B in due course.
We will make an electronic check on Recital B, as requested.
Mr President, with respect for your management of proceedings, Mr Provan has described quite clearly exactly what happened during the vote on Recital A. You called for the vote on Recital A, and the first calls of "check' were heard immediately afterwards.
However, you proceeded to Recital B immediately.
You then decided, quite rightly in my view, to allow another vote on Recital A by way of a check. As I see it, you then allowed yourself to be dissuaded from holding this vote by the argument put forward very vociferously by the other side of the House.
That cannot be right.
As a result, I did not take part in the subsequent vote and would now request that this matter be cleared up once and for all.
Most certainly, Mr President, you should have a look at the text.
We just voted on paragraph 1© under your chairmanship.
In paragraph 1© the second point which was voted on, there is the phrase: "takes account in this connection of the attached text' .
This text has been rejected.
It is therefore completely absurd to start voting on an annex which we have removed from the legislative resolution.
We have therefore completed the vote.
Mr van Velzen, the President's officials have explained to me that we are not obliged to put a reference to the vote which says: " Taking into consideration the text which is attached in Annex...' .
It is taken as read that the text in the Annex is also taken into consideration.
It is superfluous and that is why it was not put to a vote.
Mr President, as the rapporteur may I perhaps say a few words about this important vote?
We have obviously now removed the phrase which requires the Commission to take into consideration the attached text. But at the same time we also voted to take a decision on the basis of Article 38 b of the Treaty and Rule 50 of the Rules of Procedure - and these make a direct reference to a Parliament initiative and not to any statement.
If you do not agree to this now, then you yourself will effectively be making your previous decisions, that is Article 38 b and Rule 50, look ridiculous.
What the Commission will make of that is its business, whether or not we agree to this.
The Commission, too, can read, in all 11 languages!
I insist that a vote be taken on this annex now in accordance with procedure.
Mr President, to save the Chamber's time and in order to take the rapporteur, Mr Linkohr's, wishes into account, I propose a single vote on the annex and we will thus know immediately where we are, for this annex also requires a qualified majority.
Mr Herman, there are votes in sections.
How is it therefore possible for me to take a general vote on the whole Annex?
Mr President, if you will allow me, I will try to inject a bit of common sense into this debate.
And I do so because of my interest in renewable energies, which is well known to Mr Linkohr and others in this House.
The reason my group wants to reject Recital A is very simple.
By mistake, Recital A says there is "no Community legislation on feeding in electricity from renewable sources of energy' .
I say that is a mistake because the directive on the electricity market published in January 1997 - on which, as I said in the debate yesterday, this Parliament did a great deal of work, mostly thanks to Mr Desama - contains two references to renewable energy, in a recital and an article.
So it would have been acceptable to say there was inadequate or little legislation, but not that there is none.
As Mr Linkohr said earlier, that is why we cannot accept that text.
What is going to happen now, Mr President, is very simple.
The majority of our group is going to vote against, and that means there will not be a qualified majority, and the whole document will not be approved.
It would be better for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy to study it again, because we believe it is possible to improve the text and, at a later date, submit to the House a text which everybody could approve.
That is what I suggest.
Mr Robles Piquer, if I have understood correctly, you are requesting referral back to the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
Fair enough, you can request it.
Are there any objections?
Mr President, we had sufficient time to deal with this in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
The other side of the House also tabled amendments, which were adopted almost without exception.
Until a moment ago I also had the impression that there was broad agreement on this report, as, incidentally, we have always had broad agreement on renewables in the past.
I cannot understand why the Group of the European People's Party has suddenly had a change of opinion, but everyone has a right to do so.
Anyone can make a mistake, but I do not believe that we will make any progress if we go back to committee now.
We have been in this situation before and we are not learning from our mistakes.
Please, let us vote on it now. Then we will know where we stand.
Mr Linkohr, you are opposed.
As a result, we have heard one for and one against.
Mr President, I would like to argue in favour particularly because we, in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, have been trying for a long time to change the aid models found in Mr Linkohr's report, which are extremely dirigiste.
We did not succeed, and I therefore think it would be useful to refer it back for further consideration.
Mr President, first of all, two Members have spoken in favour of this report, so at least two might be allowed to speak against it.
Incidentally, I should like to point out that have we never started referring things back to committee in the middle of a vote before.
Strictly speaking, this amendment should have been tabled in advance.
I should also like to point out that we discussed this matter long and hard in the Committee on Research, Technical Development and Energy, and that we have always said quite openly - on this side of the House at least - that we need to find a route towards renewable energies, and this lays the foundations for it.
If you want to destroy those foundations, all well and good, but that is not what you have been saying until now.
I will not go as far as to say that you have been lying, but this sort of thing cannot be allowed to go on.
As soon as you realize you are losing, you want to send the whole thing back to the committee stage.
If that is to be the case, then our work here in the future will be like that of a nursery school and we will never make any progress.
Mr President, please let the vote continue in order, as it usually would.
The proposal for referral back to committee will now be put to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
Mr President, I rise to draw the attention of the House and yourself to the fact that an interview has been taking place in the public gallery.
I am not at all sure that conducting television interviews while a vote is taking place is a proper use of the public gallery.
Could you please take action to prevent this happening?
Mr Collins, instructions have been given.
Mr President, could I support Mr Herman's proposal? It appears that voting is always carried out in the same way and that every time it is impossible to gain a majority.
Mr Herman's proposal for a general vote seems perfectly reasonable and we would have avoided spending a great deal of time only to arrive at the same result.
I would like to ask the House to bear in mind that the political groups that have tabled amendments must withdraw their amendments in order to allow this general vote to take place.
I personally have no objection, and if the political groups are in agreement and we can take a general vote, then let us do so.
Mr President, we do not agree with that.
There are amendments where we have asked for roll-call votes.
We want the stance of the party opposite to be made public in those roll-call votes and we want them voted on one by one.
(Applause from the left) - After the vote
Mr President, we are, nevertheless, still faced with the problem that we are referring back to committee an annex which we have now rejected.
What we are supposed to do in this situation, I do not know.
But I leave it to your wisdom to decide whether you want to take the vote again or not.
It would certainly be a unique event in the history of Parliament.
Mr President, in addition to an error in the voting list, I fear you may have committed an error in the voting procedure.
The final vote can clearly not take place before the annex has been voted on.
You first of all put to the vote, at the request of one group, the second part of paragraph 1 c) separately, which required the annex to be considered.
You then proceeded to the final vote, then to the vote on the annex.
And even before proceeding to the vote on the annex, but after the final vote had taken place, you agreed to put to the vote a procedural motion requesting referral back to committee, when in accordance with Article 129 it is clear that referral to committee cannot be requested after the final vote.
I think that, in reality, the final vote to which you proceeded earlier was not handled correctly.
We cannot proceed to a final vote before having completed the voting on the text, that is, the text and its annex.
I therefore think that you must put the text to a final vote, one which could not take place earlier.
I am sorry, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, but I do not agree with your interpretation.
The first part of the vote was clearly separate from the vote on the annex.
This has already given rise to some discussion and has been clarified.
We could have two votes, as has been done, one on the motion for a resolution, the other a separate one, on the annex.
We have completed the first, and nothing further needs to be done now with regard to the annex.
I am not going to put the annex to a final vote.
That is an end to the matter.
Before suspending voting time, I will announce the explanations of vote and I wish you all a good lunch.
It is our view that there is no need for a quota system for bananas, especially not with regard to imports from third countries.
This system is unnecessary.
We want a free market for the banana trade.
In other respects we are, of course, very positive towards helping ACP countries in various ways to get the chance to develop trade in their own products on the world market.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of an amendment on common organization of the market in bananas.
A change in market organization is necessary because the EU has lost a WTO case.
The Commission's proposal is a reasonable attempt to strike a balance between the various considerations.
We must respect our WTO and Lomé obligations, while also assuring consumers of good, inexpensive bananas.
Many of the amendments by the European Parliament upset this balance.
Thus, we have voted against a reduction in the dollar banana quota because it is at odds with WTO provisions.
We have voted against an increase in duties, because that would make bananas too expensive.
We have also voted against raising duties on non-traditional bananas because it would be obscene to add to duty on bananas from some of the poorest countries in the world.
We have voted in favour of the report because it contains a proposal for a fair trade banana system.
Supporting a changeover to production of fair trade bananas is an excellent way of helping smaller producers to become competitive in the face of dollar bananas.
The report paves the way for two different systems - one for fair trade bananas and one for organic bananas.
However, there should only be the one system, meeting both environmental and social requirements.
It is unrealistic to imagine that ACP producers will be able to do without pesticides altogether.
Thus, a definition of fair trade must be worked out between producers and consumers.
The system must include support for a changeover in production, support for consumer information and a system of labelling and monitoring so that consumers can be sure of what they are getting for their money.
It emerged once again last week that the American banana company Chiquita is deliberately flouting employee rights and environmental considerations in its banana plantations in Latin America.
For many countries, ACP or otherwise, banana production is a crucial source of foreign currency, and a large number of people are financially dependent upon these exports.
But as the Chiquita affair reveals, banana production also puts third world plantation workers seriously at risk, both socially and in terms of health.
We have supported those amendments proposed by the committee and other members of the European Parliament that require the common organization of the market to take account of and actively promote the production and import of so-called fair trade bananas.
We would have preferred to see a special fair trade quota being set up, but that would fly in the face of current WTO regulations.
When the next round of WTO negotiations begins, the EU must have the clear objective of bringing about such a quota.
Until then, we must ensure that fair trade organizations have easy import access.
We have abstained from voting on the actual report on the common organization of the market because the proposal indiscriminately gives traditional ACP countries an advantage.
There are countries outside this circle equally dependent upon banana production, and we have no guarantee that plantation workers in ACP countries are treated any better than their colleagues in Latin America.
Moreover, the present proposal does nothing to safeguard small-scale banana producers.
The World Bank has calculated that only about 12 % of the additional price European consumers pay for bananas actually goes to the producers - the remainder goes to the importers, and with the existing proposal, there is no guarantee that the future will be any different.
Banana imports to the EU are surrounded by a mass of regulations, duties, quotas and penalty duties.
The EU itself must set a good example and reduce the amount of regulation, follow the WTO ruling and increase the focus on free trade.
This proposal, which follows a decision of the World Trade Organization, is particularly symbolic and important and, if approved in the form submitted by the Commission, will seriously change the present situation for the worse as regards the common organization of the market in bananas.
Symbolic because the Commission's proposals would entail an intolerable acceptance of the universal predominance of the WTO - and the interests of the USA - with the inevitable sacrifice of the traditional privileged relations between the EU and the ACP countries, for bananas now, and extended to other areas later.
Serious changes for the worse, because by substantially increasing the quota of imports from third countries (another 353 million tonnes) - particularly for the benefit of the 'banana-dollar zone' - it would affect levels of imports from the ACP countries and also the amount of room on the market for Community products, especially those from Madeira.
We therefore consider the amendments by the Committee on Agriculture to be helpful.
They are in fact designed to ensure that Community producers' interests are safeguarded and to maintain the essential aspects of our preferential agreements with the ACP countries.
This is what is happening with the reduction of the extraordinary quota to 100 thousand tonnes.
And it is also happening with the fixing of a quota of 57, 500 tonnes for Portugal, 7, 500 tonnes more than at present.
There is still one fundamental matter: we must revise some of the WTO's mechanisms.
The EU must not be held prisoner by them.
That is the purpose of our amendment to the Thomas report.
I welcome this report as an effort to go as far as possible in assisting ACP countries within the constraints of the WTO ruling.
Of course, the WTO ruling means that we cannot help those ACP countries as much as previously but this report, in line with the Commission proposals is the next best option.
Banana reform is an area where the modern organization of world trade seems to have little regard for traditional ties between countries.
We, in the UK, have long-standing links with Caribbean countries in particular.
It is a shame that the WTO does not seem to recognize such links.
The UK, of course, is not the only Member State which recognizes its obligations to traditional producer countries.
I share the rapporteur's concern that the abolition of the licences for individual producer countries could undermine the position of some countries in the EU market.
Additional support measures to balance this are clearly necessary.
In the broader context, the long running controversy makes the point that greater flexibility is needed in the WTO if jobs are to be protected in less well off societies.
The COM in bananas is of particular importance because banana production directly concerns both a number of European regions - particularly the ultra-peripheral areas like the French overseas departments - and a large number of third countries with whom we have longstanding and special links within the framework of the Lomé Convention.
In the face of this geostrategic and economic issue, both at European and ACP level, we must have a COM which clearly implements the Community preference and which is in accordance with the special agreements which link us to the ACP countries.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supports the Thomas report as amended by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Nevertheless, we tabled eight amendments aimed at strengthening ACP and Community production, and the marketing of bananas whose production is in line with certain social, environmental and health standards.
With regard to the ACP agreements, they must be protected as an integral whole.
At the time of the signing of the GATT agreements, we raised the problem of our traditional links with these countries and the reply was that these specific interests would be protected.
The result of the WTO panel shows us that our fears were not in unfounded.
In actual fact, the WTO does not recognize our special agreements with the ACP countries.
The question is now one of knowing if and how the serious error of negotiation committed by the Commission can be corrected, particularly in relation to the next "Clinton Round' .
With regard to Community production, production quotas must be maintained at a level which permits the protection, even the development, of the ultra-peripheral production zones.
We all know that these areas are particularly sensitive and incur specific costs due to their distance from continental Europe.
This is why we tabled an amendment which protects the guarantee of distribution and sale of Community products on the European market, along with an increase in the collection of customs duties for bananas coming from non-traditional ACP countries and a 20 % readjustment in the amount of the flat-rate reference income which had not been increased since 1991.
Within the framework of the WTO, it is absolutely necessary to introduce social, environmental and health clauses.
As we have often said, the globalization of trade can only function harmoniously on condition that fair social, environmental and health standards are applied to all.
In this instance, we would like every Member State to be opposed to bananas imported from third countries where such clauses are not respected.
Our group thus supports Mr Thomas' report as amended by the Committee on Agriculture, which is in the common interest of European producers and producers from the so-called "traditional' ACP countries.
The European Union signed the Lomé agreements, thus taking on international contractual obligations whose legal force is no less than that resulting from the commitments undertaken within the framework of the Marrakech agreements.
It is thus absolutely necessary that the European Union and Member States respect the obligations of the Lomé Convention.
Like many people in Britain who are keen to help the Caribbean countries earn a decent living from their principal export crop, I was dismayed when the World Trade Organization ruled that favourable EU trade rules with these island nations were against international trade laws.
So I am glad that the Commission's experts have quickly drawn up proposals which should meet our international agreements but at the same time continue to allow Caribbean farmers to sell their bananas into the European market.
I understand that these changes to the import licence system will add to the cost of EU aid to the banana-growing countries.
However I feel that this is a small price to pay compared to the risk that poor farmers would be tempted to grow drugs instead of bananas and merely add to the drugs problems our own countries are facing.
Europe profited from its many colonies in such countries in the past, so it is only right that today's Europe give a hand-up to people in the poorest parts of the world who want to earn an honest living.
Since the start of the EU, this House has been concerned with the interests of the traditional banana producers, both Community - 20 % of bananas consumed in the Union come from Martinique, Guadeloupe, Madeira and the Canaries - and ACP.
Various protocols, especially Protocol 5 of the IVth Lomé Convention, preceded the Common Organization of the Market (COM) which came into force in 1993.
This was the result of a difficult compromise with the aim of enabling the distribution and sale, on the internal market, of bananas produced within the Community and bananas coming from the ACP countries, at prices which were fair both for producers and consumers, without however, undermining imports of bananas from other third countries.
Following the actions inspired by the Chiquita multinational and brought by the United States, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and Mexico, the World Trade Organization demanded that the EU should modify its COM in bananas as from 1 January 1999.
I would like to congratulate Mr Thomas on his report, which was adopted virtually unanimously within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
He has tried hard to find a compromise which is compatible with the WTO rules, by accepting the idea of an global quota which maintains the ACP preferences provided for by Lomé, protects Union producers and guarantees consumers a reasonable price.
When the COM in bananas was established, the Community committed itself to ensuring that European and ACP producers are never put in a less favourable situation than in the past.
The reform of the COM must be guided by the same principle.
It is for this reason that I support the Committee on Agriculture's position and this is why I voted in favour of its tabled amendments.
Valdivielso de Cué report (A4-0223/98)
I believe the proposal to tighten border checks on counterfeit goods will prove to be a positive measure by strengthening the pre-existing 1994 regulation concerning the suspension of customs operations for suspected pirated or counterfeit goods.
While the original regulation covered trademarks and design rights, the extension of customs protection to patented inventions, as recommended by this proposal, could go a long way in enhancing the security of intellectual property.
Furthermore, the proposed increase in the scope of customs authority to goods in free zones or goods already in customs supervision will extend the sphere of protection given to patents, trademarks and the like.
Ireland is one of the leading countries in software development in the EU.
Cracking down on piracy and counterfeiting offences, including intellectual property rights violation, is therefore not only in the interests of the EU, but particularly of Ireland, where it will ensure the preservation of jobs in the software industry.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have elected to vote in favour of the report.
The purpose of current EU arrangements is that following an application by the holder of a right, it is possible to suspend customs operations where goods are suspected of being counterfeit or pirated goods covered by an intellectual property right (brand or trade mark, design right, copyright or neighbouring right).
We support this proposal, which means in practice, inter alia, the seizure and destruction of counterfeit or pirated goods.
Aelvoet report (A4-0194/98)
To break off trade and relations with a State is always an important decision.
It can never be taken lightly, nor without conclusive and decisive justification.
All the more so when it relates to aid to a country, and thus a population.
Article 336b of the IVth Lomé Convention, which provides for the possibility of a partial or full suspension of cooperation due to serious human rights abuses is no exception to this rule.
Any decision to suspend or resume cooperation is obviously a serious matter, in which Parliament should be fully involved.
I therefore think it is clear that Parliament cannot be satisfied with merely being informed.
Like my colleagues in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I do not consider it desirable for the Council alone to decide on a suspension or resumption, either full or partial, of cooperation.
In the absence of assent, I consider that Parliament must at the very least be consulted regarding every case, in order to increase public awareness and to put the State in question progressively under pressure.
I consequently subscribe fully to the demand for the immediate opening of a conciliation procedure with the Council, so that the procedure for consulting Parliament may as rapidly as possible be defined by mutual agreement.
Berger recommendation (A4-0215/98)
The proposal submitted to us is aimed at amending the directive on access to the occupation of road transport operator.
It aims to make the current rules stricter in order to achieve a more thorough harmonization of the transport sector.
This proposal for amendment, which has the strong support of only a few countries, is aimed at reducing certain disparities between Member States' legislation, which risk causing distortions in competitiveness and unequal access to the road transport market.
I personally would like to insist on the need to harmonize not only the conditions of access but also the working conditions for road transport operators.
Some countries of the Union have been experiencing serious strikes by lorry drivers recently.
Everyone can still remember the inconvenience these actions have caused.
But they have also revealed the deep-rooted malaise of the road haulage operators.
These strikes have also brought to light great disparities in working conditions between Member States.
I therefore think it is necessary to embark upon a serious consideration of the harmonization of social legislation within the Union.
It would put transport operators, whose duties to employees vary substantially from country to country, on an equal footing.
Quisthoudt-Rowohl recommendation (A4-0226/98)
Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl's proposal is a serious and well-founded one.
Indeed, for several months all the institutions of the European Union have been talking at every possible opportunity of the need to have a research programme which lives up to our ambitions.
It is clear that what is being proposed to us falls far short of what is needed.
Everyone is aware of the eminently strategic role of research and development for the future of our competitiveness on a world scale, but many seem unwilling to accept responsibility for the financial allocations required to innovate and adapt ourselves to world challenges.
Let me give just one example as an illustration: that of shipbuilding.
The European Council decided to end aid to this industry after the year 2000, recommending efforts at competitiveness through recourse to new technology.
At the same time, the Commission proposed merging "inland transport' projects and "marine technology' projects, this merger being accompanied by a reduction in appropriations.
What are we to think?
As a Member of the European Parliament, I can no longer content myself with the fine long speeches of some leaders who are completely out of touch with the reality of the decisions.
We will not be able to hide indefinitely behind Community technocracy.
We will not be able to say "white' one day in Paris, Berlin and London, only to demand "black' in Brussels.
Unfortunately, recent statements from some people do not encourage optimism.
In the coming months, many of us will have to defend the idea of Europe and also to state a number of home truths, even if this means touching on some sore points.
The coming years will be crucial, the political issues major ones.
It will be up to the European Parliament to make its political and, I hope, its decision-making character prevail.
Since I have some knowledge of the scientific community, I can say that, unfortunately, the EU's research programme only creates a lot of unnecessary diversions for the scientific community.
I think research should be based on voluntary international cooperation and not on artificial cooperation rules, such as that there should be scientists from three countries involved or whatever.
I do not think research programmes belong in the area of EU cooperation.
International scientific cooperation can still be arranged - it has been in the past.
I would like at this point to state my regret and criticism regarding the fact that the Union's research policy (and that of its Member States and of the research association, Eureka) has not yet been discussed seriously as a key factor in the strategy of transition to a new development model.
It is probable that this is simply not possible if we continue with our usual procedure.
I would therefore like to suggest even at this stage that for the Sixth Framework Programme on Research and Development we start a broad dialogue with civil society, both at European level and in the individual Member States, concerning the contribution which research policy can make to a transitional strategy with a view to an ecologically compatible and socially coherent development model in Europe and beyond.
In this way, particular importance will be given to including critical groups and opinions.
Linkohr report (A4-0199/98)
Mr President, as this explanation of vote begins, please allow me to point out that the way in which today's voting has been handled is somewhat surprising and I would ask you to pass this observation on to the Bureau: when the President of any Member State visits us, you do not interrupt the session and allow the Members to leave, making him speak to a House which is three quarters empty in comparison with voting time.
I would like to make two remarks concerning procedure with regard to Mr Linkohr's report.
Indeed, the European Parliament has surrendered to a veritable perversion of procedure, through the vote of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
In fact, we already have a directive.
A report has been proposed to us, which is an own-initiative report on the same subject, and it is proposed to incorporate into this report an annex which, on closer analysis, is in actual fact a legislative proposal on the part of the European Parliament.
This practice naturally seems to us contrary to the texts which govern the functioning of the European Parliament, and contrary to normal practice.
It is not for Parliament to set itself up as a legislator.
My second comment refers back to the procedural incident earlier.
I regret not having requested submission of the case to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities at the time, but I am sure they would confirm that if a report has an annex, the final vote cannot be taken before the vote on the said annex.
It is absolute nonsense to consider that a final vote can be followed by other votes.
The first vote we were asked to give an opinion on related to whether the Commission should take into consideration the text given in the annex.
So, it should clearly have been necessary to vote on the annex before proceeding to the final vote, since it formed an integral part of the motion for a resolution.
Above all, Mr President, I believe that if the vote had been better prepared, we could have avoided this incident, because it would immediately have been noted that the annex had not obtained the approval of an absolute majority of Members of Parliament and thus the required qualified majority was not achieved.
It thus clearly follows that the final vote on the report as a whole would probably have been negative.
By proposing to the Members of this House a vote on the annex after the final vote, by proceeding to a vote on a motion for referral back to committee when the final vote had taken place, I believe that a procedural error has been committed. It would be appropriate for the Committee on the Rules of Procedure once more to give an opinion on this, in order to avoid its happening again in the future.
But basically, I come back to the fact that it is not normal to have implemented such a procedure, which comes down to giving Parliament the possibility of legislative initiative, which it does not possess.
The report contains some good proposals for an increase in the proportion of renewable energy through the use of biomass, solar energy, wind power and geothermal energy.
Community rules on the feed-in model could also contribute to this development.
The implementation of energy policy should in principle be a national issue and be managed by each Member State by applying of its own national rules.
The Linkohr report has one essential merit, which is that it raises the important question of the promotion of renewable energy sources.
It is clearly the duty of elected representatives and governments, especially in my country, to think about the future of energy in our nations.
A future which takes into consideration environmental protection, diversification of production methods, the needs of consumers, both industrial and individual, and also the security of supplies and a reduced dependence on the outside world.
Renewable energy sources, those we know of and those yet to be invented, have an important role to play in defining this future policy.
But in spite of this, can we accept an ultra-statist directive, drawn up in an extremely vague legal style - and in particular in flagrant contradiction with the Rothe report - which does not respect the principle of subsidiarity, which completely ignores the specific needs of States and their energy requirements and which considers hydro-electric power as a renewable energy source only worthy of attention below a certain production threshold. We cannot, and this is why we will abstain.
It is for the Member States, in collaboration with but independent of Community structures, to set their objectives, to commit themselves to keeping to them and defining, at national level, suitable means of achieving them.
Energy is too serious and strategic a sector to leave in the hands of the Commission's technocrats or in the hands of the obsessive federalists in this House.
The report proposes that the EU should draw up a new directive on the feeding in of electricity from renewable sources of energy.
We are opposed to this. We think this type of issue is better dealt with at national level.
We are also opposed to the EU drawing up a detailed common energy policy.
This point of view is based both on democratic reasons and on the fact that national circumstances in this area vary greatly.
We have therefore voted against the request for a new directive and abstained from all part votes on the shape of the proposed directive.
Like Helmut Kohl and Jacques Chirac, I think that too many decisions that could have been taken at national level have been transferred to EU level.
Just like them, I think that the principle of subsidiarity should be given real substance.
This report calls for the drafting of legislation on the feeding in of electricity from renewable energy sources into the electricity network.
The objective of this proposal may be very good, but if you look sensibly at the debate this leads to about funds, special funds, investors, network operators, autoproducers, independent energy producers and so forth, it is incomprehensible that such matters have to be decided at EU level.
In think decisions concerning energy policy should be taken at national level.
There is nothing to gain by making energy policy supranational.
I am therefore voting against this report.
Since there has been a lot of debate on the subject, I would simply like to say that I too had a few concerns about whether we should split the vote on the proposal and the annex.
I am not personally convinced that it was the most proper way.
I still have my doubts.
But in any case once we adopted this procedure I, at least tried to dissociate the one section from the other.
And so there was no problem with the two votes.
The first section - the proposal, separate from the annex - could remain as a proposal, as it in fact did.
Furthermore, I must also comment that we were under a great deal of pressure concerning the votes.
We have recently been adopting the procedure of adjourning the voting on Wednesday when an address is given by a head of state.
This has been debated in the Bureau and at the Conference of Presidents.
I can understand the reservations.
It is very difficult for us to start a vote, to adjourn it, to wait until Members reassemble and so on, but I do not think this is the right time for us to revisit this issue.
However, I will pass on Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's comment to the President.
The third point is of course that when we move on rapidly, Members following the votes have to be quick-witted.
It is no good if they realize ten minutes later that they have voted wrongly on a point.
This leads to the sort of problem that we have experienced.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Situation in Kosovo
The next item is statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
When I last addressed Parliament on the subject of Kosovo in one of our previous debates, news was then emerging of the agreement by President Milosevic to meet the leader of the Kosovo Albanians, Dr Rugova.
As Members of this House will recall, the international community then welcomed the news as an important first step on the road towards a peaceful resolution of the crisis.
We were all therefore dismayed that instead of this resulting in a reduction in the fighting in Kosovo, we witnessed a significant stepping-up of the violence with indisputable evidence of indiscriminate attacks on entire villages by the Serbian security forces and the Yugoslav army causing widespread destruction with all the hallmarks of a new campaign of ethnic cleansing.
Belgrade's insistence that it is simply carrying out legitimate counter-terrorist activity is not credible.
The reports of attacks on innocent civilians and the systematic burning of houses are wholly unacceptable.
As the European Council made clear on 15 June, no state which uses brutal military repression against its own citizens can expect to find a place in the modern Europe.
The growing stream of refugees into neighbouring Albania and Montenegro speaks for itself and illustrates the serious threat posed to regional security by the continuing conflict.
It is particularly important that the European Union remains in close touch with the aid agencies who are working in northern Albania.
I welcome assurances from the Commission that its humanitarian office is in regular contact with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The humanitarian crisis will put a huge strain on Albania, a country which is still struggling to cope with its own grave economic and social problems, as I think we are all aware.
We must continue to work with the Albanian Government; to encourage them to maintain their constructive line on Kosovo.
And we must think of ways to step up our assistance both to enable them to cope with the immediate crisis of the refugees and to help them to begin to tackle their own wider problems.
President Milosevic bears a personal responsibility for the actions of his security forces in Kosovo.
He should be left in no doubt that the international community will not be taken in by talk of peace when the reality on the ground is ever greater repression.
There have been expectations of the dialogue which took place in Moscow earlier this week between President Yeltsin and President Milosevic.
We welcome President Yeltsin's efforts to secure a political settlement.
Some of the commitments on the humanitarian side represent a step forward, provided they are implemented.
But some key aspects of what President Milosevic has offered fall far short of the requirements of the European Union as set out in the Cardiff Declaration.
In particular, he has given no clear commitment to the withdrawal of security forces which are engaged in repression.
The European Union will now be working further with the Russians, the Americans and others to maintain pressure on President Milosevic to do all that is required of him - and work is continuing in New York on a draft United Nations Security Council resolution.
As we have learned over Bosnia, we cannot afford to rely on President Milosevic's word.
I hope that the dialogue that took place in Moscow will lead to a changed situation, a better situation, a situation where the repression ends.
I can say to President Milosevic that if that is not the case and if the dialogue results in no major change in the situation then the European Union's view is unchanged - we will continue to seek to put pressure on President Milosevic, ruling out no action in order to try to bring about a peaceful situation and a solution to the problems in Kosovo.
Mr President, I think the European Union can say that it has assessed the situation in Kosovo rightly to date, and is not, as before, simply awaiting developments without taking the necessary measures and without preparing for the worst, as was the case during the tragedy in Bosnia.
The best way to try to prevent the violence and massacres in Kosovo is to make it unequivocally clear to President Milosevic that the international community is prepared to intervene to rectify such a state of affairs, or to give the necessary protection to innocent citizens -men, women and childrenwho are being shelled in their villages with artillery or other weaponry.
I feel strongly about this, knowing how many debates have preceded this one, and knowing that, in this regard, the European Union has opted for a straight line policy in close consultation with the other members of the Contact Group. During the past few days, the Cardiff European Summit has in fact confirmed the line being taken.
We now have the first results from the dialogue between President Yeltsin and President Milosevic.
Along with Mr Henderson, I say, of course, that this dialogue is welcome, but at the same time I reiterate what he said, that it has been shown in the past that President Milosevic's word cannot be relied upon.
Actions are what matter, and in that sense it is disturbing that one of the most significant of the four conditions which the international community had dictated to President Milosevic has not been met. I am referring to the withdrawal of security forces from the area.
This means that, day after day, the people in the region are afraid that they will be attacked again, just as we saw in the past in Sarajevo.
At the same time it means that the international community is once again being challenged to make it clear that this all-important demand must be met, and that it would intervene if excessive violence were to break out again.
As far as that is concerned, this will not be the last debate we are having here about Kosovo.
It will be one of many, and some time will have passed before we will be able to say that peace and stability has returned to the region.
I also agree with the British Presidency, that we must use our influence to support Dr Rugova and especially those who surround him, so that he is able to maintain his moderate line.
Obviously, some Albanians have become considerably more radical, making it more difficult to have a dialogue without extreme demands.
It should be obvious that the international community has taken a clear political stand in this matter and, for good and well-founded reasons, has opted for a solution within the borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
On this point, too, the international community must remain consistent.
The European Commission has provided the necessary emergency help via its humanitarian organization, ECHO.
It recently made ECU 1.5 million available, and is naturally prepared to allocate more where necessary.
In this respect as well, it is crucial that President Milosevic's commitment is verified, that the international aid organizations be given free access to the area.
Incidentally, according to his promises to President Yeltsin, this should also apply to accredited diplomats of governments and other international organizations such the OSCE.
It is of the utmost importance that the number of observers in the region be increased considerably. The Cardiff European Council made a decision to do this, so that we are also continually able to get a good picture of the developments on the ground.
Up to now we have lacked accurate information due to the absence of opportunities for access to the region.
You know that there may be tens of thousands of refugees, or displaced people.
President Milosevic's promise that these people can return to their homes will have to be carefully verified too.
I conclude by saying that there is a gleam of hope that the dialogue may be continued, that serious negotiations can take place.
But I should immediately add that we should understand clearly that the greatest possible vigilance is needed to prevent the process from sliding back into in the bloody violence which plagued the region before.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I should like to make a few remarks expressing my fundamental support, and that of my group, for the current policy, together with a few critical observations.
One: I think you are absolutely right to make it quite clear that the Kosovo Albanians will not be abandoned, that they have our support and that we will not allow them to become a second Bosnia.
Two: I also think we are right to maintain a critical or pessimistic view of Milosevic, and that we must therefore support all the available alternatives both within the country itself and in neighbouring countries.
Though there is little hope in Serbia, there is some in Montenegro and in Republica Srpska - even if they are not all angels - but we must support alternatives to Milosevic.
Three: We must help its neighbours to stand firm in this crisis and stop them from tending towards extreme attitudes. Here I have in mind Albania and Macedonia.
We must also tell the Macedonians that despite, or perhaps even because of the crisis, they must pay greater attention to the minority rights of their Albanian population and make progress in this area.
Despite their effort, it is not enough.
Four: I think that NATO is right to hold manoeuvres.
Unfortunately, and I have to say this, although I am an anti-militarist, in certain circumstances it is necessary to engage in a little sabre rattling.
Five: I also believe we are right to prepare for military intervention if Milosevic does not give way, and therefore I also believe that we must do everything possible to ensure that NATO makes all the necessary preparations for such intervention.
Six: I should like to appeal to Russia - and I assume that both the Council and the Commission are making this clear and unambiguous - to shoulder its responsibilities.
If Russia wants to play a significant and increasing role in overall European security policy - and I think it would be good if Russia were to do so - now is its opportunity to show it.
Because for those who are friendly with Serbia or with Milosevic as the President of Yugoslavia, now is the time to put this friendship to the test, by speaking up for peace.
My seventh and last point, Commissioner, is the following. You have said that the EU is doing everything it can.
And it may well be true that it is doing everything it can at the moment, but - as we have already mentioned on a number of occasions - this is a crisis which we undoubtedly saw coming. We know that Milosevic needed just such a crisis.
Looking at the outcome of the Cardiff summit, Mr President-in-Office, and reading Point 47 which states that progress has been made and further resolutions will be passed at the Vienna summit, then in truth I have to say that I find the whole thing rather weak.
Rapid progress is essential on the planning unit in particular, so as to prepare for an active foreign policy.
We will only be able to prevent a second or a third Bosnia or a second Kosovo if we have a strong foreign and security policy.
So, to conclude, Mr President, I fully support the principle of subsidiarity.
But we should consider where we need a stronger EU. We need a stronger European Union in foreign and security policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are now experiencing a fatal sense of déjà vu , because the results of the events that took place in Moscow amidst great media excitement are really only minimal, not to say non-existent.
The promises made by Mr Yeltsin were promises he had already made to the Americans. He had even been praised for them.
They were the very reason the sanctions were lifted.
I, for one, am not surprised that things have turned out this way.
At the time I found no cause for celebration because I knew all too well that Milosevic had not changed. Perhaps at that age you just cannot change.
But if that is the case, we must take note, because he behaved the same way in Bosnia, and it is how he is behaving now. He agrees to hold meetings, but without an international mediator, and at the same time - just as he did in Bosnia - he is sanctioning murder and pillaging.
The fact is that there are once again concentration camps and even mass graves in Kosovo.
We were all aware of it, we all saw it coming, yet we failed to act.
By we, I mean the European Union.
Unfortunately, Parliament cannot act, we can only suggest possible courses of action.
If Milosevic now refuses to withdraw the Yugoslavian army and his police troops on the grounds that the Albanians must first stop their terrorist attacks, he is confusing cause and effect.
It is really he who is responsible for this whole affair.
For eight years now the Albanians have endured an apartheid regime with great forbearance.
Who then is surprised that after eight years of such an apartheid regime the young men are saying, we just are not going to put up with that any more.
We are not going to let our wives and children be murdered.
We are not going to be driven out.
So we need to exert much greater political and military pressure on Belgrade.
We need UN troops between Serbia and Kosovo, because that is the source of the evil.
Milosevic is playing with the West.
He is leading us around by the nose.
And we know it.
He knows all too well that the West places far greater importance on the implications in terms of international law of possible NATO intervention than on actually putting an end to the aggression.
The UN Charter was written in 1945, at a very different time, and is now out of date in this respect.
We really must make sure that intra-ethnic conflicts do not have to be played out before the international community in this manner.
If we had acted in Sarajevo as NATO wanted us to, Sarajevo would not have remained surrounded, fewer than those hundreds of thousands of people would have been driven out, fewer would have died, and we would not now be faced with the never-ending costs which we are all having to pay.
The problem is that Milosevic knows what he wants and is doing exactly what he wants.
And we're letting him do it.
That is our problem.
Now he can see a new Dayton on the horizon, and because he can see this new Dayton, we are seeing ethnic cleansing in north west Kosovo.
He is driving out the Albanians who live there because, allegedly, it is the cradle of the Serbian nation and because it is rich in natural resources.
And when he has driven them all out, and only then will he be forced to look for a solution, which we will propose.
This is why we should act now and not leave the people of Kosovo in the lurch.
Mr President, Commissioner, on this occasion I, too, am unable to share our view that Europe has acted in a timely manner.
This time no one can honestly pretend that we did not know something of this sort would happen.
And it is the case that military terror is being used for ethnic cleansing.
It is a fact.
And we reacted too late. For years Albanian resistance in Kosovo was based on non-violence.
We failed to use this time to exert pressure on Milosevic through sanctions, to find a solution.
Shamefully, this time was squandered.
Now there is one point which I believe to be particularly important. We must not only exert this pressure, we must maintain it until one basic right has been accepted by everyone, including the Serbian leadership - the right to return.
He cannot drive out as many Albanians as he will have to allow to return.
We must get this through, it is a really crucial point.
How is it that Milosevic is able to act in this way? Because he controls the media like a dictator.
It is my view that the European Union should consider what it can do for the Serbs, for the population of Serbia, to show our sympathy and our regret.
Our policy should be directed against the leadership but, of course, not against the Serbian people.
But they have become hostages because they do not know what is going on.
I wonder whether there is not some instrument we could use to tackle the situation, for example by creating an alternative stream of public opinion in Serbia.
I am thinking of a model such as the Radio Free Europe of the past, by which we could give the population of Serbia access to accurate information.
Then I believe that the leadership in Belgrade would not be able to act in the way it is doing now and we would be nearer to achieving our goal of achieving peace, democracy and human rights for everyone in the area - for Albanians and Serbians alike.
Mr President, President-in-Office, Commissioner van den Broek, ladies and gentlemen, the Commissioner said that Milosevic's words in the past were not enough: a wonderful euphemism for what in Italy is known as a tall story.
Milosevic could be compared to the personality we in Italy call Pinocchio, meaning a liar, an out and out liar, as occurred in the past.
Commissioner, let us call a spade a spade!
This morning I heard Milosevic himself say in English that civilians had not been harmed, that the special forces only intervened against terrorists.
Here is further proof of how Milosevic is Pinocchio, that is to say, a liar, Commissioner!
It is not just what you said, that Milosevic's words are not enough: Milosevic's words are worthless!
You also told us that there is a condition which has not been observed.
And what condition is that? Only the most important, the immediate withdrawal of the special forces.
The very fragile compromise reached between Milosevic and Yeltsin does not consider the most important point: the withdrawal of the special forces.
The truth is that Milosevic wants to buy time, with the acquiescence - if not with the approval - of the international community, as has occurred in the past.
We treated him like Bosnia's best negotiator, the torturer and dictator Milosevic; well, now we tell him that it is also alright to keep the special forces to continue the deportation and ethnic cleansing of Albanians, but with all this the poor Albanian community is yearning for the old unforgotten Marshal Tito: need I say more!
Mr President, both of the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner made some interesting points.
I think that we must not move away from two fundamental principles: on the Serbian side there is the question of the independence of Kosovo and democratic rights, which goes beyond the national issue, the issue of the borders of Yugoslavia. On the Albanian side there is the question of respect for borders by the European Union, Russia, the United States and by both communities.
On the basis of these two principles, boundaries can clearly established by the international community and the two sides can be reconciled.
I too believe that the discussions taking place in Russia are sending out a positive message that could be taken on board.
However, I wish to make three points.
The first point is that we must pay particular attention to what is happening in the Balkans.
We cannot set up borders in the Balkans which reflect the nationality of each community that lives there. The reasons for this are, firstly, because this very nationality is in doubt and, secondly, because the borders are so short, and the situation so fragmented, that we will turn the Balkans into a sieve.
Are we to set up borders for Kosovo and then erect borders around the Serbian minority living in Kosovo? That is the first issue.
We must understand the Balkans and their special place within Europe.
The second issue is that we have heard a lot about Milosevic - with which I agree.
We have heard about Milosevic, and about Tudjman and about Izetbekovic and the International Court.
But tell me one political power in Serbia that holds a different position.
Even Tzuganovic in Montenegro does not put forward an alternative position in Kosovo.
This is important for us to understand the whole issue as a problem for the Serbian people itself and for us to deal with anxieties and problems.
The third point is that, with the measures against Yugoslavia, there is a danger, and I am addressing this comment to Mr van den Broek, that some of the refugees from Crna and elsewhere, who are now in Yugoslavia, will leave for the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and then we will have more enormous problems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if there is one thing practically everyone in this Parliament agrees on, it is that the behaviour of the regime in Belgrade is so shameless and repressive that effective international action must be taken.
We therefore fully support the international pressure that is being applied to the regime, in as far as diplomatic, political and economic initiatives are concerned.
However, if the international community believes that there are situations - and this is most definitely the case here - where military action must be considered, this must take place with the utmost care.
In this context, ladies and gentlemen, I have two serious difficulties with our joint resolution.
The first problem is that the resolution contains no reference whatsoever to the institutional framework within which a solution, a political solution, has to be found for Kosovo.
In particular, it does not say that a solution must be sought within the existing Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The arguments which have been developed in the direction of the right to self-determination for nations, or in the direction of "we must leave everything to the negotiations' , are dangerous and not at all convincing.
They create the impression towards both sides that almost everything is possible, and that no matter what happens or what solutions are aimed for, we will always be behind the Albanians.
It seems to me beyond dispute that the Albanians should have a right to self-determination, but not in every conceivable context.
My second major problem is that a possible military intervention is not made subject to a Security Council decision.
Ladies and gentlemen, this creates a dangerous precedent.
If the UN Security Council does not give its assent, and countries start acting autonomously towards others, then this is, first of all, a clear violation of the UN manifesto.
In this situation you would, in fact, have a kind of indirect declaration of war.
Secondly, you should also look at what you would achieve with military intervention.
As far as we are concerned, we absolutely believe that all forms of military action are possible, but only as a conditio sine qua non within the UN framework.
In conclusion, we welcome the Russian initiative.
However, we are not naive: we are aware of the fact that if the pressure is not maintained, it could easily lead to nothing.
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo is untenable and unacceptable.
The so-called willingness of the regime in Belgrade to start talking to the Albanians may sound beautiful in Moscow, but the hard reality is one of brutal repression and ethnic cleansing.
Milosevic is still not prepared to withdraw his troops from Kosovo, and under the pretext of combating violent terrorists, the entire population is being attacked, with streams of refugees as a deliberate result.
Incidentally, this strengthens separatism rather than weakens it.
The regime in Belgrade seems indifferent to international pressure.
Sanctions do not stop it from continuing its violent actions, despite the rhetoric on political settlements.
More pressure is needed whereby, as far as we are concerned, military intervention should not be ruled out.
NATO has rightly sounded a first military warning this week.
We support the preparations for possible further action.
The results from the Moscow dialogue are no reason to abandon this strategy as yet.
The objective of this strategy should not only be to ensure the cessation of violence, but also to bring about real negotiations, where, as mentioned before, the special units must be withdrawn from Kosovo as a precondition.
I also think that the international observers must be allowed into the region to see what has really been happening, and also to make contact with the people.
The European Council - and I think this is an important aspect of our policy on Kosovo - has made clear what the objective of such negotiations and talks should be: the restoration of Kosovo's autonomy, or to put it more precisely, a special status with a large degree of autonomy.
This sends a clear message to the parties concerned, and to the separatists too.
The independence of Kosovo is not on the agenda, as far we are concerned.
This will lead to quite a discussion in Kosovo itself, because I have the impression that many Albanians who live in Kosovo have come much closer to the idea of independence as a result of the hostilities than they were a few months ago.
There is another important point - and this is the last point I want to raise - and that is the discussion on a mandate for possible military action in the context of NATO.
Some people think that this does not require the involvement of the UN, others believe it to be an absolute precondition.
In any case, my group wants to see the UN involved.
We would prefer it if the UN legitimized a possible military action, and this should therefore be advanced as a matter of urgency.
Mr President, what is missing so far in this discussion is a clear expression of how admirable the Albanian people in Kosovo have been and still are today.
For years and years - going back to a period far beyond the one we are currently dealing with - they have endured with incredible patience - I would say an almost Ghandi-like patience - whatever their oppressors have thrown at them.
This has been the pattern for years.
Statements are now being made criticizing the fact that young Albanians have quite simply lost their heads and reacted in military fashion, but we really have no grounds for criticism when we consider Albanians' past record.
That is my first important point.
My second point is the fact that all too little is being said about the most essential aspect of the problem.
The real crimes are being committed by the so-called voluntary units of the Arkan and others which were previously responsible for killings first in Croatia and then in Bosnia and are now all in Kosovo.
This is a second factor which we must stress.
It is simply not enough that Moscow has now said some may be sent back.
In fact, Yeltsin has yet to give his authorization.
We must once and for all call for these so-called guerillas, the Chechniks, to leave.
They are one of the major evils in the whole business.
Today we are discussing the future of Kosovo.
There is, however, one thing I should like to emphasize. We are democrats and it is time we finally gave the inhabitants of Kosovo the chance to determine their own future.
It is something they have been unable to do for decades and, like other peoples, they are entitled to say how they want to live. So we must have the courage to speak openly and to demand that dramatic action should be taken at last, for I believe this is a situation which could become just as bad as Bosnia.
Mr President, let me protest once again.
The Commission, Commissioner van den Broek in particular, decides halfway through the debate on a matter as important as Kosovo to walk out and leave the question half-finished.
This is a disgraceful attitude showing great disrespect for this Parliament.
Mr President, I do of course understand that the Members are unhappy that the Commissioner responsible cannot remain until the end of the debate.
It is understandable.
On the other hand, we would ask you to understand that the dates of trips made by Commission members have to be set before Parliament's agenda is finalized.
Mr van den Broek accepted an invitation to Slovakia and so he has had to leave now.
He spoke earlier and expressed the Commission's views on this matter.
I am here, I admit, simply as a representative of the Commission and I do not intend to take part in the discussion.
I would, however, ask you to understand that the Commission also has to work in difficult conditions.
Mr President, I also wanted to tell my colleague how, immediately after the vote, Mr van den Broek expressed his regret that the debate was postponed due to his appointment in Bratislava.
I understand what Mr Caccavale is saying, but we must still have some understanding for the work the Commissioner does.
It is not that I, by definition, want to defend him, but the Commissioner has a very real job to do, and was simply unable to cancel the appointment in Bratislava.
Ladies and gentlemen, neither the Bureau nor this House is responsible for the way in which the Commission is organized.
That is the Commission's own prerogative.
Let us simply note that fact and continue the debate.
Mr President, there is a war going on in Kosovo.
It is based, among other things, on the Serbian national romantic image of Kosovo as some kind of ancient homeland.
On these grounds, Serbia maintains its absolute sovereignty over the area, in spite of the fact that more than 90 % of the population of Kosovo are Kosovo Albanians.
That is why it cannot be ruled out that one of Milosevic's aims is to get the Kosovo people to flee.
But he must not be allowed to succeed.
To prevent this, the EU and NATO must get Milosevic to realize that continued Serbian aggression will not be tolerated. In this regard I appreciate Mr Henderson's decisiveness.
However, it will not be easy. Milosevic has shown several times in the past that he carefully watches the other players' hands, and that he does not negotiate until he has lost the military battle.
After the meeting with President Yeltsin, Milosevic said he was willing to negotiate. But negotiations have never before prevented Milosevic from stepping up his military efforts.
Even if a Russian veto blocks the Security Council, the EU and NATO can station troops on the borders of Kosovo. But what would we gain by that?
With good refugee camps you counteract destabilization, but at the same time you risk encouraging people to leave Kosovo. Those who flee know that they will get protection, food and shelter in the camps they go to.
Another task could be to try to prevent the smuggling of weapons to the Kosovo Liberation Army.
That would just be playing into Milosevic's hands and be parallel to the arms blockade which for a long time kept the Bosnian Muslims at a military disadvantage.
My conclusion therefore is that not much of value would be achieved by border controls alone.
Perhaps Moscow's position on the Security Council is primarily aimed at gaining advantages for Russia in exchange for Russian consent. But the EU and NATO cannot accept having their hands tied under any circumstances.
The attacks on Kosovo must be stopped.
If Milosevic succeeds in crushing all resistance and opposition there, all negotiations on Kosovo's future status will be meaningless.
What the citizens of Europe expect of the EU and NATO is that no country in Europe should be allowed to restrict freedom in any area of our part of the world.
Mr President, as this will be my last opportunity I would like first to congratulate the British presidency.
You have run a great presidency.
Well done!
The fact that it has not been possible to deliver humanitarian aid in any structured manner to people in the Kosovo region does not reflect very well on us in this House.
I am a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, which was assured by the Commission that early warning systems had been put in place by the European Union to deal with humanitarian aid missions of this sort.
Clearly this has not been the case and must be viewed as an abject failure for the so-called humanitarian aid programmes the EU is supposed to operate on occasions like this.
From an Irish perspective, we should assist in humanitarian missions to the region.
We should not have to wait for the United Nations in New York to give us the go-ahead on this issue.
This is a European problem on the borders of the European Union and, if the integrity of the European Union is to remain intact, it must be resolved by the Member States of the Union.
There can be no neutrality when we are confronted with a brutal genocidal dictator such as Slobodan Milosevic.
He must be forced to observe the Dayton Peace Agreement and international law in practice as well as in theory.
We must not stand on the sidelines in a disjointed and idle fashion and allow Slobodan Milosevic to run rings around the 15 Member States as he has done in the past.
Ireland must be prepared to play a constructive and positive role within the framework of the European Union to assist in solving the crisis in Kosovo and in guaranteeing that Slobodan Milosevic does not achieve his aim of bringing about the genocide of the native Albanians in Kosovo.
We in this House watched murder and rape in Bosnia.
We appear to be doing the same in Kosovo.
It is a shame on this House that we do so.
Mr President, the people responsible for the conflict in Kosovo are quite clearly the Yugoslav regime and Milosevic.
It is not particularly surprising that after years of severe oppression people should finally take up arms to fight for their cultural and democratic rights.
What we now see is a scenario which is disturbingly like the one we witnessed in Bosnia. The civilian population is being driven out, people are being herded together in prison camps in certain places, and gangs of criminal thugs are being let loose to terrorize the civilian population.
That is, of course, why every pressure must be brought to bear on the Yugoslav regime.
Ultimately, it is impossible to rule out the need also to use military means, although that is, of course, always the last resort.
What I think is important in that case is that there should be a clear UN mandate.
I think taking military action without a mandate from the UN could be a very dangerous development for two reasons. Firstly, of course, there is the reason of principle, namely that it is doubtful whether it is right to authorize others to take militarily action in other conflicts.
Secondly, the really great risk with this conflict is that it will spread to other areas in the Balkans, to neighbouring countries.
The risk of it spreading would probably be much greater if anyone acted without the support of the UN.
That is why, in spite of all the difficulties, we must now seek a clear UN mandate.
That is our main task.
Furthermore, I think the preferred option should be the restoration of democratic rights and the rights of the Albanian people within the framework of a Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with restored autonomy for Kosovo.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, much has been said in this debate, but some of it represents a real challenge.
If it is true that the people of Kosovo cannot easily be afforded the right of self determination because of the overall situation in the region, then a second conclusion also has to be drawn.
As long as Milosevic stays in power it is, of course, extremely difficult to tell the Albanians that they must continue to live under the yoke of Milosevic.
That is the problem.
It means that if we take ourselves seriously we must do everything we can to get rid of Milosevic.
As long as Milosevic stays in power the Albanians will want to leave.
That is only to be expected.
The problem is that our objectives can only be achieved once Milosevic and his terrorism have been removed.
That is my first point.
My second point, Doris, with all due respect, is that if we do not accept that we are bound by international law we can do nothing.
In other words, we must do everything in our power to show Russia and China that they cannot simply say, "Oh, you know, what is happening in Kosovo is not really so bad. It is what we did in Chechnya.'
Or in the case of China, "It is not so bad, it is what we are doing in Tibet.'
We must tell them quite clearly that there will be no economic cooperation and no support for Russia if they support Milosevic.
In other words, we must secure a UN resolution which permits military intervention and there must be no doubt about it.
We have to do this through the UN because we cannot allow what has happened in Chechnya, in Tibet or in Bosnia to happen in Kosovo.
The only way to proceed is through the UN.
But we must give ourselves the means to be able to say to the Russians and the Chinese, "Enough is enough.'
Mr President, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are not just debating Kosovo here, because, of course, Milosevic has been using these hostilities as an opportunity to tighten his grip at home and to withdraw freedoms from the Serbian people.
Clearly, our approach to Kosovo has to be part of a consistent long-term strategy for dealing with former Yugoslavia. If we allow Milosevic to get away with what he is getting away with in Kosovo, he will also endeavour to do that closer to Belgrade.
Equally, Tudjman will do the same in Croatia.
So it has to be part of a longer-term strategy.
Having said that, we must be aware that, if there is military intervention in Kosovo, it will mean NATO declaring war on a European state.
We have to avoid that at all costs, if at all possible.
The consequences are too horrific to contemplate.
So, first of all, our strategy has to be to keep the international community together to ensure that we all speak with one voice.
The experiences of 1914-1918 have shown the folly of trying to divide international opinion and, in particular, we do not want a proxy war between NATO and Russia.
Equally, we must ensure that all the states talk honestly in their approach to Kosovo.
It is not enough to demand military action if you are not prepared to provide the necessary forces, because we will have to have effective burden-sharing in any military action.
Some countries which talk hawkishly are not prepared to support their words with actions.
Secondly, we must not undermine the message: 'autonomy but not independence' .
Any other talk is irresponsible folly: it will only worsen the situation and cause bloodshed, not stop it.
Equally, as part of that, we must recognize in Kosovo that we have to guarantee the rights of the Serbs as well as the Albanians, because while fear dominates Kosovo, it will be impossible to find a solution.
In addition to demanding that the KLA withdraw, we must also demand that the security forces withdraw, but it has to be both.
We must talk tough and act tough with the KLA as much as with the security forces.
We must also give greater support to Albania and Montenegro.
Because their governments have been supporting this we must guarantee their borders.
Our first objective - and I support the conclusions of the Cardiff Summit - must be a cessation of hostilities to allow international observers into Kosovo to view the situation for themselves.
But we must not lose an even-handed approach, because it will achieve naught if we make the Serbs in Kosovo fear for their future as much as the Albanians.
Mr President, it would be rather easy if Parliament could count on the will of the protagonists to find a solution to the problem.
Unfortunately, we cannot count on the will of the protagonists and we do not even have the adequate means to impose our will on the protagonists.
It is on this basis that we must rationally begin.
And then we are forced to rely on the talks.
It is true that Milosevic is not very trustworthy, it is true that he did not agree to withdraw the security forces, but if it were possible to implement what has been granted, the presence of the international observers and the Red Cross and the existing means would probably be enough to calm the situation and enable a solution to be found.
This is, in my view, the only attitude possible, the only rational view that we can take: spes contra spem , someone said.
The least we can do, therefore, is to pursue this objective through negotiation.
There is no other way for the European Union than to rely on NATO for military pressure and on the UN for pressure from the international community.
We must keep these two points of reference and try to urge, to pressure the parties so that the negotiations are real, genuine and internationally guaranteed.
Europe can do no more than that and it cannot go about it in any other way, because it does not have a political lead. Where is the European mediation?
Where is the initiative taken by Europe, where is González? I don't mean González as a person, I mean where is Europe through González.
There is not one, it does not exist.
So we must rely on the UN, we must rely on international pressure, we must rely on negotiation, bearing in mind, unfortunately, what is a depressing fact for us: our paltry means to influence this situation.
Mr President, in less than three month, the sanctions against Serbia have been lifted and reinstated again; this is a sad state of affairs.
The KLA is meanwhile accusing Dr Rugova of being a traitor to the national Albanian cause, and is taking advantage of the resulting confusion.
In Albania, the mafia is raiding arms depots under the patronage of the dubious Berisha, and is supplying weapons to the KLA.
The political wing of the KLA is doing everything it can to undermine the image of the moderate Rugova in order to qualify itself for the negotiating table, at which it will arrive with an extreme demand: independence, or perhaps a Greater Albania.
It should not be allowed to get as far as this because we would then be heading towards a Balkan war.
I have a number of specific questions for the Council.
Does the Council share the opinion that Serbia will only be prepared to negotiate once it has certainty regarding its borders, including Kosovo, and the elimination of the KLA? Can the Council confirm that it also intends to weaken the KLA and strengthen the position of Rugova?
Mr van den Broek was very clear about this.
Does the Council believe that the recent NATO actions have contributed to this objective? In March, in this very place, I asked Mr Henderson to send military observers to the border between Albania and Kosovo.
He did not respond at that time.
Is the Council now prepared to send strict observers to the area into which the KLA is smuggling weapons and provoking conflicts? A great deal more could be said about this subject, but I will confine myself to these questions.
Mr President, in a climate of anti-Serbian feeling running at fever pitch, proclaiming the mistakes made by Milosevic - and he has made mistakes, criminal mistakes - it is impossible to deal calmly and prudently, as called for by Mr van den Broek, with the horrific crisis which is smouldering in Kosovo.
We need to look at it with a clear head.
There are forces inside Kosovo, outside Kosovo, outside Europe, who have threatened military intervention as intimidation and blackmail, or have threatened to carry out military intervention which would dismember present-day Yugoslavia, with repercussions throughout the Balkans, in order to create puppet states that will play their game and serve their interests.
This is not what the people of Europe, the people in the Balkans, or the Albanians in Kosovo, want.
They all want a peaceful settlement, which means respect for the borders that were established as a result of wars and were guaranteed by the map of the UN, just as they are guaranteed by the Helsinki agreements.
They want a peaceful settlement with respect for all minorities' rights, and they want with independence without separation, because otherwise we will never find a lasting settlement in Europe.
Finally, it strikes me that no-one seems to be aware that conditions are currently being imposed on Serbia, on Milosevic, which, by definition, are unacceptable.
Where is he to withdraw his forces from? From Kosovo.
But Kosovo is an integral part of the Yugoslavian Federation.
What state, what government would accept not being allowed to have an army in one of its component parts? This condition cannot, by definition, be complied with.
It has been imposed on purpose to give a pretext for intervention.
We are categorically opposed to any form of military intervention because it would have horrendous consequences.
This Parliament has the power to throw all its political weight behind a peaceful settlement.
Only then will it be fulfilling its mandate...
(The President makes the speaker stand down)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is the time to send two clear messages.
The first is a message to the Council because, for the first time, in one week there has been a Council of Ministers, on Monday, which adopted a common position; a meeting of the contact group; a meeting of the NATO Council of Defence Ministers; and a meeting of the Council of Europe.
And whereas we have always complained - rightly, I believe - that decisions were never taken quickly enough, on this occasion we can say that everybody was in tune and there is a definite will to say: "Things have got to this stage and they cannot be allowed to go any further' .
I think that fact has to be welcomed because it will help us to develop our common foreign and security policy, which is so important.
And it is linked with the second message.
I think the second message essentially has to be addressed to Mr Milosevic.
People here have been asking what has happened to our Mr González.
I have to say - not in defence of Felipe González, who has told me of his interest in this resolution - that the problem for the EU and OSCE envoy is that Milosevic does not want to see him.
Why does he not want to see him? Because when he was in Belgrade, just after the rigged Yugoslav elections, he managed to get a complaint made and Milosevic had to back down.
Those are the reasons why Milosevic will not accept, but they are not reasons for saying that we do not have a presence.
I think there is an important difference, apart from our extreme fondness for severe self-criticism.
I think Milosevic needs to be told very clearly that a dictator - who has changed from the previous communist terminology to nationalist terminology - has no authority to kill his own fellow citizens, quite apart from the fact that he is already exploiting them in all sorts of ways. He has no such right either in international law or in human law.
He has to be told that this is his last chance, and that it is not the fault of the Serbian people, but that the political responsibility rests squarely with him.
I think we have to encourage the Council and the Commission to carry on down the path we have started on.
Mr President, first of all I must congratulate the British presidency on the very complete and comprehensive Cardiff declaration.
I think that all those currently involved in Kosovo, especially the Serbs, must realize that this Summit decision has the unanimous backing of the fifteen Member States.
They must also realize that the political will exists to implement the measures decided upon by the fifteen in Cardiff.
The leaders in Belgrade need reflect on their heavy responsibilities towards the muchafflicted Serbian people and to consider where the imprudent policy of armed confrontation, the responsibility for which lies in the political and military regime of present-day Yugoslavia, is leading the Serbian people and the people of Montenegro.
We all hope that yesterday's Moscow pact will be put into practice.
Both Europe and NATO, however, are determined to take whatever steps may be necessary against anyone undermining the pact.
We have learned the lessons of Bosnia.
Turning now to the people of Kosovo, I wish to emphasize the importance of the European call for self-restraint and for support for Dr Rugova.
I also wish to give equal prominence to the common and unanimous position of Cardiff, which is that the European Union remains steadfastly opposed to the idea of independence and that it will continue to support a special regime for Kosovo, which will provide for broad autonomy within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Finally, we must understand that both Albania and FYROM need substantial support, especially FYROM, as an attempt to get closer to FYROM is being made by Yugoslavia, which is exploiting the problems this state is having with the Albanian minority in the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia.
Mr President, I have taken note with great interest of the statement from the Cardiff Council, in particular the four demands. I find the order in which they were put extremely important.
I would like to ask Mr Henderson whether he wants to keep this order, because we will have to ensure, first of all, that Serbia withdraws its troops to Belgrade before we can invite Dr Rugova to resume the negotiations.
If we want to destroy Dr Rugova's reputation completely, we must force him to enter into negotiations now, without conditions and despite the fact that the troops are still there.
Then we will destroy Dr Rugova's reputation completely.
I think we have to be extremely careful that these conditions, as formulated by the Council and rightly mentioned in this order, will be maintained.
Mr President, dialogue with President Yeltsin was mentioned.
The question is whether this will lead to further Russian cooperation.
The President-in-Office gave the impression that this would be the case.
Is it true that after the failure of Russia to make a real contribution to the talks with Milosevic, they will be willing to agree to military intervention, if necessary? This strikes me as a good thing, but a little more clarity would be in order here.
In any case, I also agree that assent from the UN Security Council is needed, but not on the backs of hundreds of thousands of victims.
We can say that it is wonderful that we will always respect the Chinese veto, but surely we do not wish to sacrifice huge numbers of human lives to this principle.
This would be a little too theoretical.
I am very interested in what people are thinking when they say that the Kosovo Liberation Army should withdraw.
I think this almost qualifies for the "remark of the month' prize.
Where should these troops withdraw to? They do not come from Albania; perhaps they come from Western Europe, but mostly they come from the region itself.
Surely you cannot in all seriousness believe that this is consistent? The withdrawal of the Liberation Army and the withdrawal of the troops?
Mr President, I would like to advise the President-in-Office to consider his predecessor Douglas Hurd as a frightening example.
I hope he will not use Realpolitik the way Mr Hurd did.
In this respect, please do not listen to my colleague Mr Titley, who deserves the "Douglas Hurd prize' for Realpolitik .
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo represents a security problem of the first order for Europe.
The tragedy has proceeded according to the familiar pattern of Serbian politics we have already seen played out in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina: targeted displacement of the population and massive streams of refugees shifting the crisis to neighbouring countries in the region.
So far the NATO manoeuvres have been purely symbolic in nature.
The flying ban imposed on the Yugoslavian Airline JAT, and confirmed by the Council of Europe, is a feeble gesture.
The fact that in Cardiff the European Council left open the carefully circumscribed possibility of a military option demonstrates the extent of the international community's paralysis is in relation to the crisis in Kosovo.
This crisis management is an embarrassing reminder of our reactions to Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
By waiting for the Security Council's green light on military intervention we have effectively provided Russia with a means of preventing NATO's involvement and, at the same time, we have given the Serbian leadership additional time by allowing the meetings between Yeltsin and Milosevic.
The withdrawal of the Serbian Special Police from Kosovo was made conditional upon the actions of the Albanian underground organization, the UCK.
The conflict within the EU on whether military intervention by NATO should take place with or without a mandate from the Security Council has given Milosevic more time in which to continue his policy of expulsions unhindered.
In these circumstances, the call to the international community to use every means at its disposal to put an end to the attacks against the civilian population is in danger of remaining completely unheeded.
The start of negotiations between Belgrade and representatives of the Kosovo Albanians should be made conditional upon a moratorium on the fighting.
The statements made by the European Parliament are a feeble substitute for the lack of political will being shown by the EU Member States to avoid another tragedy in the Balkans.
Mr President, I am not pleading for border changes either.
I would like to make it quite clear that much of what has been said here is historically and legally incorrect.
If what Mr Ephremedis has said were true, then today the Ottoman Crescent would still be fluttering over the Acropolis.
We must be quite clear that there have always been changes, throughout history, and that under current international law peaceful changes are quite permissible.
In 1878, exactly 120 years ago, in Prizrem in present day Kosovo the Albanians founded the Prizrem League in a bid to reassert themselves as the oldest civilized nation in Europe in the face of the crimes of the Ottoman Empire.
At the Berlin Congress, which documented the failure of the Europe of the day, they were simply swept under the carpet. Their right of self determination and their very existence were ignored.
They were not discovered again until the Balkan wars, when they became useful as pawns in a game of chess.
That is how the borders we are discussing today were fixed, and so Mr Cohn-Bendit is right.
We must make sure that the regime in Serbia changes and that Mr Milosevic disappears, because it is impossible to persuade a family in which several members have been murdered to carry on living under the same roof as the murderer.
It is a quite absurd idea and one which could only have taken shape in the mind of a politician or a bureaucrat.
I must say this quite unequivocally.
We must see things as they really are.
People are being systematically murdered and expelled and it has been happening for eight years.
The situation has indeed deteriorated now, but this campaign against the majority population in Kosovo has been going on for eight years.
If Mrs van Bladel keeps saying that our first priority must be to counter the resistance movement in Kosovo - and I myself am no supporter of violence either - I must remind her that having turned our backs on Mr Rugova and his peaceful resistance for many years it is now somewhat hypocritical of us to attack people who are simply trying to save their own lives.
I have to inform you that I have received six draft amendments, submitted pursuant to Rule 37 (2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon tomorrow.
Mr President, I would just like to ask whether it is now common practice in discussions with the Council for the Council merely to issue a prepared statement at the start, to continue to be present during the debate, which we welcome, but then to leave the Chamber without making a further statement, or any further involvement in the debate? It is completely pointless!
Mr Posselt, you know as well as I do that it is for the Council to decide whether or not it wishes to speak at the end of a debate.
If the Council shows no inclination to speak, we can only note that fact.
In vitro diagnosis
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0225/98), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on in vitro diagnostic medical devices (C4-0178/98-95/0013(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Pompidou).
Mr President, as you know, the Conference of Presidents changed today's agenda, and Mr Pompidou's report should have been this morning.
He had agreed to chair the board of examiners for a thesis student and unfortunately he could not leave the candidate in the lurch.
This is why I am replacing him and I will repeat what he would have said if he had been present.
In vitro diagnostic medical devices are taken to mean reagents, instruments and equipment for the examination, for medical purposes, of tissues or substances from the human body.
Unlike medicines, in vitro diagnostic tests are used outside the human body in order to allow medical tests to be carried out on samples taken from patients.
Such devices are thus essential tools for the diagnosis of illnesses, the monitoring of treatment and now even research into the predisposition to certain genetic disorders, thanks to the recent development of genetic tests.
These devices are mainly used by pharmaceutical laboratories, doctors and specialist pathologists.
However a growing number of these devices are intended for use by patients themselves - for example, measurement of blood sugar levels in diabetes and for pregnancy testing.
In such a context, any diagnostic error would have serious consequences for the health and treatment of patients.
You will easily understand this as it relates especially to diagnosis of the AIDS virus and hepatitis.
The common position thus lays down the essential requirements which the devices must satisfy to be able to be placed on the market and the conformity assessment procedures to be applied by the manufacturers.
The Council has taken up most of the amendments tabled by Parliament at first reading.
Thus the common position seeks to establish a balance between the aims of freedom of movement and protection of human health.
In fact it enables monitoring and follow-up of the quality of products, based on reacto-vigilance measures.
It would nevertheless be worth clarifying a few points, namely those which are the object of the six amendments, especially the more general ones.
Amendment No 2 insists on the need to draw up - as quickly as possible - the legislation that is lacking on medical devices manufactured from substances of human origin, which are currently not covered by the scope of the directive.
Amendment No 3 aims at avoiding any distortion in competition which may be caused by certain Member States' own regulations with regard to devices for self-testing.
Amendment No 4 ensures that instructions for these same self-testing devices will be translated into the language of the final user.
Outside the laboratory the patient must be able to understand the instructions easily in order to avoid all possible error in the use of the test.
Amendment Nos 1 and 5 enable the quality and safety of two types of new test to be taken into consideration.
Amendment No 5 relates to the diagnostic device enabling the risk of trisomy 21 in the first few weeks of pregnancy to be assessed, whilst being aware of the fact that it relates only to an assessment of the risk which will then require further screening methods, carried out with the well-informed consent of the parents-to-be.
Amendment No 1 covers genetic tests, in particular the use of high-density DNA micro-chips, which are the components of genes.
These devices enable genetic diseases, and a genetic predisposition to certain diseases, to be very rapidly and reliably identified.
Given these conditions, our rapporteur Mr Pompidou fully subscribes to Amendment No 6, proposed by the Green Group in the European Parliament.
Based on the Council of Europe's Convention on Bioethics, this amendment aims to avoid any discrimination on the basis of genetic tests.
He will thus propose an oral amendment at the time of the vote tomorrow, which adopts the precise words of the Council of Europe's Convention.
Progress in diagnostic methods leads us today to take precautions regarding the quality and reliability of tests, but also to avoid any improper use which could endanger human dignity.
This is the aim achieved by the common position and sought by the rapporteur's amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the suggestion of the European Parliament the Council has made a whole range of important improvements to the original European Commission text.
This is very welcome, for this is a very important matter.
However, there are two points I would like to raise which my group believes to be of particular importance and which are still missing from the text, although we introduced them at the first reading.
The first, Commissioner, relates to an ongoing dispute with you, and that is the issue of labelling in the broadest sense of the term.
It is imperative that the instructions for medical products to be used by individual members of the public be translated into the languages of the various Member States in which the products are to be marketed.
This is absolutely imperative since these products have to be used in a very precise way.
Faulty diagnoses which might result from incorrect use must be prevented at all costs, so it is vital that all possible sources of error are eliminated.
And this naturally includes making sure that the public can read, in their own language, the instructions on how to use these products and the consequences of using them incorrectly.
The second point I would like to raise here is, in fact, the last point which was discussed in the presence of Mr Pompidou.
In vitro diagnostics use very special materials, tissues, cells and other substances of human origin.
The nature of this material obviously requires that it be handled with particular care and particular precautions.
I am delighted that this option is available.
The amendment tabled by the Greens will provide a guarantee of data protection and guard against the type of discrimination which might result from knowledge which could be gained from these diagnostic methods and tests, in terms of the fundamental genetic characteristics and predispositions of the individuals involved.
For this reason it is very important indeed for us to make this improvement in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the current phase of European integration, and particularly now with the Cardiff summit, the talk is once again of much greater subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity means, for example, that general economic conditions should primarily be regulated by individual Member States.
It also means, of course, that although these arrangements are not standardized, they must be mutually recognized by all parties involved.
For if this were not the case, our most important goal, the single market, would quite simply not function.
To this extent, the principle of complete technical harmonization which formed the basis for the corresponding 1985 directive is now obsolete.
This is something which Mr Donnelly from the Socialist Group emphasized quite specifically in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
In terms of technical legislation, the "new approach' is gaining considerable ground.
All it means is subsidiarity.
The single market should not be hampered, but it should not be over-regulated either.
However, if it proves impossible for a matter to be regulated or to be regulated adequately at Member State level, then we must proceed jointly to regulate in a uniform way at least the essential elements, only the essential elements in fact, at European level.
In vitro diagnostics is one such matter.
This draft directive represents a further step towards the completion of the single market, in particular for medical products.
But it is proving to be an area fraught with tensions.
On the one hand, we must allow producers free access to the European domestic market, but on the other we have to take into account health protection, particularly with regard to the use of these medical tests by individuals.
Nevertheless, this must not be allowed to become a pretext for setting up market barriers and anticompetitive measures.
During the very lengthy period it took to formulate this common position in the Council, we had to acknowledge that there was an increasing trend in some Member States towards excluding in vitro diagnostics from the single market.
In our view, that is the main reason for adopting this directive, and thereby creating a single market for these medical products, as quickly as possible.
We know that the manufacturers are waiting eagerly for free access to the market.
For this reason it is important that the amendments which have been submitted are also accepted by the Council and that the directive should be formally ratified, perhaps even before the summer recess.
The Council has already accommodated us on several points.
At any rate 36 of the 50 amendments submitted following the first reading have been accepted.
Nevertheless, we would like to stress that there is still room for improvement in the basic approach.
For this reason I, too, submitted several amendments to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, designed to dismantle the bureaucratic devices which are so costly to business.
The most important thing is that statistical requirements should not become preconditions for the introduction of the products themselves.
But this addition in Article 10 (2) must also apply in a consistent and logical manner to the provisions of Article 21 (2).
What we are dealing with here, however, is a fundamental phenomenon.
Discussions on disputed single market guidelines often last a very long time. When the matter comes before Parliament, therefore, we often have to reach our decisions very quickly if we want to make the internal market a reality for the citizens of Europe.
This should also be taken into account in any future reform of the Treaty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in his recommendation for second reading, Mr Pompidou proposes that we give an opinion on six amendments, amendments which, I would remind you, were adopted virtually unanimously by the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on 3 June.
The measures, which consist mainly of providing specific rules for in vitro diagnostic medical devices, in other words the examination, for medical purposes, of tissues or substances from the human body should, I feel, attract broad approval.
Whilst the Commission's directive seemed extremely technical, we must applaud the rapporteur who has tried hard, on the one hand, to use common sense - a rare quality - and on the other to protect human dignity in an area of utmost importance, that of public health.
Having sought, and obtained, a wide consensus at first reading, Mr Pompidou contents himself with amending a few details of the common position, with the aim of completing the process so that the directive can be implemented as quickly as possible and this is an aim which we share.
We thus support the six amendments proposed by the rapporteur, insofar as it seems to us necessary to notify the relevant authorities regarding the introduction of all new products onto the market as this thus enables some form of product monitoring, and also necessary to fight against pirating and copying of products or medical procedures, thus giving a guarantee of quality and safety to the users.
The need for rapid legislation in the area of medical devices manufactured utilizing products derived from human tissues or cells is clear if we want to avoid the risk of misuse.
With regard to the devices covered by Annex 2 and those designed for self-testing, the possibility for Member States to ask to be informed of the data allowing identification and directions for use should not be a prior condition for a product to be put on the market and/or put into service.
This would cause a doubling up of work and would mean an administrative overload with regard to the decision to conform to the directive.
It would seem to us wise to leave the decision regarding the translation of instructions to the Member States, except with regard to self-testing.
Although testing is generally the role of doctors, in view of the development of self-testing, it is appropriate to ensure that care is taken by requiring that all users can read the instructions in their own language so that they clearly understand what they are doing, aware that any error could prove to be catastrophic.
In view of the tragedy a baby carrying the trisomy 21 gene represents, it is appropriate to add to the Annex 2 list the procedures enabling the detection of all risk of this illness.
In conclusion, Mr Pompidou's approach, which consisted in seeking a balance between the objectives of freedom of movement and those of the protection of public health seems to us well-founded and impeccably implemented, which encourages us to give him our unreserved support.
Mr President, this report has followed a rather arduous course, but it has at long last reached the final straight, thanks amongst other things to the determination of the rapporteur.
The European Parliament introduced a series of amendments to the initial proposal to specify the rules for in vitro diagnostic medical devices to allow their marketing; in the past these devices were excluded.
In Italy, in particular, we have problems with HIV, HAA, and HCV, which are the markers of hepatitis and AIDS.
In the common position, the Council took on board nearly all of our amendments, which is why we can say that we are partially satisfied.
Now we must rapidly conclude the legislative procedure, because the use of these devices is essential in diagnosing diseases and the predisposition to certain genetic disorders, and in evaluating the patient's state of health.
This equipment is, therefore, very important in avoiding diagnostic errors and in putting into effect the health protection programme in the sector of in vitro diagnostic devices.
Madam President, the vastly important contribution of medical devices to the quality of public health service provision has been acknowledged here. Nevertheless, in order to demonstrate the importance of such devices, I would like to mention, for example, the devices we use in blood groups and blood sub-groups for transfusions, the control of drug compatibility, the contribution of laboratory diagnosis, such as for AIDS and hepatitis.
With very few exceptions, there is no system of controls and regulations in the Member States of the European Union. As a result, the directive we are debating covers this field and will without doubt contribute to the needs of those industries which produce these devices.
To start with, the proposal was considered constructive, not only as it would have been useful for the reasons I have mentioned, but also as it contained many elements which would have contributed to a better qualitative control of in vitro diagnostic devices.
There were weaknesses in the directive which have been significantly improved in the common position both through Mr Pompidou's amendments and through my own amendments and those of others. Today there have been other amendments which make it even better.
Firstly, some ill-defined aspects of the Directive have been clarified, as has its relation to other related directives.
Next, the devices of human origin which are used in in-vitro diagnostic methods have been clearly defined, and the number of reagents which are classed under Annex 2 has increased, given that the reagents in this Annex are subject to considerable control.
Moreover, special importance has been attached to reagents used in the home, given that their users are not people with special knowledge and that instruction must therefore be clear and in the user's mother tongue.
Finally, safety regulations concerning diagnostic devices have become more stringent, as regards both their preparation and use, in order to safeguard the user against various dangers and against certain reagents.
I foresee that this field will increase significantly in the future.
That is why this Directive is of benefit both to the industries that produce the devices and to users, who will be able to use them with confidence.
Madam President, we would have liked to be able to express our thanks to Mr Pompidou in person because working with him was not only a very pleasant, but also a very productive experience, considering the outcome.
But for understandable reasons he cannot be present today.
With an eye on the previous debate, I would wish that Parliament, which in fact laid the foundation stone which prevented Mr Pompidou from presenting this report himself, would sometimes show a little more understanding for members of the Commission who are also subject to these parliamentary vagaries without having a hand in them.
But that is simply a remark which I make with complete confidence in the wisdom of those who set the agenda.
We have a directive in front of us - and I should like to say this to Mr Rübig to prevent any misunderstanding - which sets out the minimum standards that all parties really must adhere to.
This is not, in essence, the old approach of harmonization but, if you like, the new approach whereby Community legislation is used to lay down minimum requirements after which, in the course of reciprocal recognition, other issues can also play a role.
It is, however, absolutely necessary because, we quite clearly cannot work on reciprocal recognition until at least the general rules for the Community have been laid down.
But there is still a long way to go in defining subsidiarity.
The Commission was particularly pleased that in the Council discussions at the Cardiff summit we were able to point to several issues where we believe subsidiarity would have produced a different outcome.
For example, we believe, in contrast to Parliament and the Council, that conditions for animals in zoos should be regulated at national level.
It is not a matter which calls for European regulation.
However, subsidiarity allows of some splendid arguments.
The future directive on in vitro diagnostics, however, will both guarantee the safety and reliability of these products in relation to their application in medicine and strengthen the single market through the standardized requirements which it stipulates.
We welcome the fact that - having already accepted a whole range of amendments submitted by Parliament at first reading which improved the text - we are now also able to accept all the amendments suggested now - although some will still probably have to be improved orally.
These amendments contain clarifications and additions to the directive which are very welcome.
In applying the directive we must bear in mind the pace of technological development.
In any case, we will start by setting out a series of framework conditions within which the industry can work.
But it is impossible to rule out the possibility that we might have to revisit the matter.
Therefore, in implementing the directive, the monitoring of the market by the Member States will have a very important role to play.
We hope that the setting up of a European database, which also springs from a suggestion made by Parliament, will contribute towards this. In any case, we shall make every effort, in conjunction with the Member States, to set up this database before the directive comes into force.
Rather than going into all the amendments in detail, I should like to mention one in particular, namely Amendment No 2, which illustrates particularly well how the manufacture of medical products using substances of human origin has to be harmonized at community level.
Naturally, like Parliament, we hope - and according to the information we have, we are almost certain - to be able to convince the Council as soon as possible that these latest amendments are justified, so that we can then complete the legislative process as quickly as possible. I say this because the implementation of these directives is not only in the interests of the single market, but, first and foremost, in the interests of health protection.
Many thanks, Commissioner Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Harmful tax competition
The next item is the report (A4-0228/98) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission 'A package to tackle harmful tax competition in the European Union' (COM(97)0564 - C4-0333/98).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my job is to illustrate a proposal for a resolution on the topic that has been stated, that is, a package of measures aimed at fighting harmful tax competition, a package that has been approved by a large majority of our Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
This committee was able - due, amongst other things, to the work that has been going on for a long time now - to find a solid basis of common ground with regard to the major principles of the new approach that the Commission has proposed in the matter. This has also been possible because of the opportunity that we have had to be in constant touch with Commissioner Monti, and the opportunity of being so involved in defining an extremely delicate matter as it progresses.
Indeed this matter not only closely concerns economic entities but also all citizens and is increasingly gaining in importance as the full effects of Economic and Monetary Union are being felt.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will remember that about a year ago Parliament approved by an overwhelming majority the first resolution on the matter in which there was full endorsement of the idea of elaborating a code of conduct on various tax issues and in particular on the taxation of company profits, a code that has since been created and is already operational, as I will explain in a moment.
Since the proposal of the new approach two years ago by the informal Ecofin Council in Verona in April 1996, tremendous progress has been made.
I think we can say that the problem has now been clearly brought into focus and that there is agreement on all the procedures that are being proposed to tackle the problem with any hope of success.
Even the European Council in Cardiff that has just ended underlined these concepts in the spirit of encouraging the active continuation of work on the matter.
The package that we are dealing with in today's debate and in tomorrow's vote and that is the subject of this resolution was put together last year and presented to the Ecofin Council of 1 December which approved it and gave the green light for its implementation.
Our committee - and not Parliament unfortunately, because of the limited time - has succeeded in giving a favourable opinion to endorse, encourage and support this package.
Today, we are here to comment on its main content with reference first of all to the approach, to the philosophy followed and, secondly, to one of the three parts that comprise it, that is to say the code of conduct for the taxing of company business, a code that is already operational and that now has all that is needed to begin producing its initial effects.
The other two provisions are the proposal for a directive to avoid double taxation on royalties paid between associated companies in various Member States, a proposal that is already being examined by our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy; finally, the passage of the third part of the package will begin, the draft directive on the taxation of savings or, better, on a common approach to the taxation of financial income paid to natural persons who do not reside in the various Member States.
The nature of these three provisions in itself illustrates one of the fundamental aspects of the new approach, which is that of following soft procedures - if I can use that term - adapted to each of the specific matters without claiming to have found the solution to all the problems by way of the harmonizing directives.
Secondly, it is a coordinated approach whereby, through the package technique, it is possible to bring together various interests and find the necessary consensus.
I think that we can but agree on this.
It is one of the reasons why I am not in favour of the amendments that have been presented and that - apart from those that repeat concepts already contained in the report - have a certain tendency to harden the approach proposed, something that I do not consider appropriate at this stage.
I would now like to turn my attention to a fundamental aspect, that of always clearly making the distinction between harmful tax competition, which calls for Community-wide action in order to eliminate the effects that in the end are negative for everyone, and the opposite concept of positive tax competition which is beneficial and is stimulated by competition within the single market and monetary union, and that we could also say is an answer to the requirements of international competitiveness which the Union is having to face in the globalized economy.
This report concludes by giving support to the Commission and encouraging it to continue along the same line, taking on other issues that so far have not been tackled for very obvious reasons, like those listed in paragraph 7.
I will conclude, Madam President, by pointing out to the Members of this House that paragraph 28 suffers from the fact that it was written before the draft directive on the taxation of savings was tabled.
This proposal is at our disposal and, as I said, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy will commit itself to proceed quickly with this.
Madam President, Commissioner, the report presented by the rapporteur represents a real step forward, just as the package of measures put forward by the Commission has finally succeeded in stirring up the tax debate at European level.
And it is timely, because the internal market will quite simply never be completed unless we put an end to harmful tax competition in the European Union and make further progress in the areas of tax alignment and tax coordination.
This must therefore be followed, with the start of economic and monetary union, by a real coordination of tax policies which goes beyond the narrow alignment of economic policies.
And this package of measures represents a step in the right direction, as Mr Secchi has underlined in his important report.
In a world of globalized markets, the international competitiveness of locations is determined by their infrastructure and, therefore, also by their tax systems and tax scales.
Corporate taxation, in particular, is increasingly becoming a factor in competition.
There are certain Member States which are attracting inward investment through tax avoidance and tax exemption measures or tax reductions and thereby taking these resources from other EU Member Sates.
This constitutes anti-community tax competition in the form of tax dumping and is harmful to all the states in the European Union.
There is a conflict of aims between the wish of Member States to protect their fiscal sovereignty and the wish to structure corporate and capital taxation in such a way that they are neutral rather than restrictive to competition.
It is impossible to solve this problem by free competition and market forces alone.
It is a fact that tax competition in the European Union is unfair, and that income tax payers are making an ever greater contribution to the tax revenue of Member States and mobile resources an ever smaller one.
As the Commission has very rightly outlined, the burden on income tax payers has increased by roughly 10 %, while that on capital factors and corporate taxation has dropped by some 20 %.
This change in the basis of taxation has made the performance of public functions considerably more onerous and could also lead to tax erosion.
The development is dramatic because in the long run no state can avoid the pressure to reduce taxes and this can benefit only the companies, not the countries involved.
Thus, the community-wide coordination of tax policy, as suggested in the European Commission's package of measures and Mr Secchi's report, in the form of a code of conduct on taxes is a very proper aim and represents a step in the right direction.
However, it is in no way binding and this is something we should be pushing for.
At a time of European and international competition, the coordination of tax policy does not represent a loss of fiscal sovereignty for Member States, but rather a gain in sovereignty for both the European Union and its Members.
It makes sense to define profits and the way in which tax assessment bases are structured jointly and to introduce a minimum level of taxation. Whatever happens, the tax oases in the European Union which currently allow transnational companies to transfer profits between countries in order to escape or reduce levels of taxation in their country of registration must be eliminated immediately.
As a result, I believe that we must place the tax code of conduct within the principles of free but fair competition.
We must not allow a situation to develop in which direct contributions in general are banned, but where there is no limit on subsidies through tax regulations in the European Union.
That is no longer acceptable.
I believe that the package must be expanded to include further intensive measures designed to standardize regulations and tackle new tax regimes, and also to include a comprehensive and modern system for the exchange of information and checks between tax authorities in order to create barriers to tax evasion in the European Union.
Mr President, the European Union has little to say about the taxes Member States impose on their citizens.
Only Article 99 grants some power, but with three limitations. The article only applies to indirect taxes, the measures must serve the completion of the internal market, and the European Parliament has merely a consultative role.
I certainly understand the reticence of Member States to relinquish control in the sphere of taxation.
Levying taxes is a very serious affair.
Citizens or businesses have to hand over part of their income.
Taxes can exert an upward effect on prices, which means that businesses have less money to invest and citizens have less money to spend.
Of course, taxes are usually applied for the common good, for example, to finance public works or to discourage the consumption of certain items through excise duties.
My group favours less competition between countries as regards tax levels themselves, and to let them compete instead on what they achieve with the tax money.
Business parks, housing conditions, infrastructure, education; countries make their own choices on how they allocate their money.
But we should not have a situation, Mr President and Commissioner, where inefficient states dictate the level of taxation to efficient states.
My group can therefore appreciate, to some extent, the extremely limited progress in the sphere of tax harmonization, or as it is being called more modestly now, tax coordination, and the prevention of mutually harmful tax competition which might erode tax proceeds in the long run.
Yet I am also disappointed.
Many years ago, the former Dutch Minister of Finance, Mr Ruding, wrote down his priorities for European tax harmonization, for VAT and duty harmonization.
Apart from the minimum rates, none of these are anywhere near to being harmonized.
The interests of all the countries, the interests between various countries, and the interests within individual countries have turned out to be too divergent.
The time is right to take a step forward.
At the Cardiff Summit, broad guidelines were adopted to coordinate the economic policies of the Member States to ensure the success of the single currency.
As a result of these guidelines and the euro, the Member States will become very conscious of their mutual dependency. Perhaps this will help to set the affair in motion.
Carlo Secchi's report is excellent; it is a coherent and well-structured piece of work.
The approach opted for in the report offers the best chances for a step forward.
There is no point in simply shouting loudly from the rooftops, or wanting to take steps that are too large.
I hope that this combination of three routes, the code of conduct, the imminent tax on the savings of those living abroad, and the tax on interest and royalty payments, might lead to the Council reaching agreement more easily.
I do hope that the brilliant discovery of a single package will not lead to the Member States holding each other to ransom. My fear is that one aspect or another will not get off the ground because the entire package could not be accepted.
Of course, quite a few dossiers remain open.
The pension system dossier is the most important.
The systems vary so much that we can expect great difficulties in this area during the next century.
Commissioner, I hope that we, the European Parliament, can support the attempts to improve this situation.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I want to express the support of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party for Mr Secchi's report which, once again, makes a very positive contribution to the analysis of fiscal affairs at EU level. We congratulate him most sincerely on his work.
We also welcome the Commission's proposals, not just because of the work the Commission has done, but because of its tenacity in trying to restore balance to the fiscal situation, which is absolutely necessary in the context of the constitution of monetary union and the euro.
We have made progress in the commercial and economic field, with the European internal market. We have made a lot of progress in the monetary sphere, with monetary union and the euro.
But we are not making any progress in the area of fiscal harmonization, as we need to do, because of a real obstacle: the fact that we need the Member States to be unanimous in order to reach agreement in this area.
Nevertheless, the Luxembourg conclusions and agreements and the Commission proposals are headed in the right direction.
We think they are good proposals, which will serve to eliminate harmful unfair competition between Member States in fiscal matters, and to make suitable proposals, for example in the field of dual taxation or taxes on cross-border payments.
Nevertheless, I would like to conclude by repeating that there are still some very important aspects of fiscal harmonization which, unfortunately, have not yet been regulated and lead to an imbalance between these three areas: the economic, the monetary and the fiscal.
Madam President, at the outset I want to congratulate Mr Secchi on the presentation of his report.
Over the years there has been much talk of the need to achieve better coordination of national taxation policies.
Let us not be trapped by the illusion of grand taxation schemes which, in fact, could undermine the competitiveness of my country and send hard-won jobs out of the country.
Let me immediately say how appalled I am by Amendment No 5 by the Greens, which I reject out of hand.
It calls for further action to be taken to establish a European-wide minimum rate of corporation tax.
This is a backdoor way to increase taxes on business.
It would undermine the whole Irish economy.
It would send out the wrong signals to investors.
As regards the code of conduct and business taxation, I want to underline the point that its purpose is not to harmonize business taxation but to deal with special tax schemes which are considered to be harmful in a Community context.
Harmonizing business taxation has no place on any EU agenda.
Such a position flies in the face of the principle of subsidiarity.
There are many factors which determine the location of a business.
Some incentives are not transparent.
Larger countries, for example, can attract investment through substantial grants or public procurement possibilities.
My country has a very transparent tax regime.
Other countries have high nominal rates and, on the other hand, they offer a low effective tax rate for business through special reliefs and allowances, some of which are not so transparent.
As part of the Commission's package on taxation a directive has been tabled which is aimed at eliminating withholding taxes on interest and royalty payments between associated companies and different Member States.
This removes an impediment to cross-border business transactions.
This is an objective which we can support.
However, certain aspects of the directive could create difficulties which need to be examined and eliminated from the outset.
I should like to say as a representative from the peripheral area of the Union, from the northwest of Ireland, that we have great difficulties in attracting investment.
That is understandable from a geographical point of view.
But let no party in this House try to suggest that there should be no positive discrimination in any part.
Authorities in my country - the Industrial Development Authority or Údarás na Gaeltachta, responsible for development in the Gaeltacht regions on the west coast of Ireland - have all tried over the years to attract investment.
Any suggestion that there should be any tampering with our systems is very wrong.
Madam President, taxation could be an important tool for the construction of a Europe based on growth and employment and could thus encourage the development of human abilities.
Does fiscal coordination in the fight against unfair competition, as proposed by the Commission, enable Europe to respond to such a challenge? We know that tax dumping is already at work in the free movement of capital and tax havens.
There is a serious risk of this worsening with the introduction of the single currency.
The Secchi report essentially tackles the issue of fiscal coordination from the point of view of the increased competitiveness of European financial markets.
In fact, it is a question of harmonization from the bottom.
For years, deductions on income from capital within the European Union have been endlessly reduced, whilst those affecting salaried income have increased, in particular through indirect taxation which, as we know, hits the lower paid hardest.
As representatives of our people, we should challenge the domination of the financial markets by advocating a tax system which is both fair and effective.
Firstly, balance must be restored between tax deductions on salaries and those on the holders of capital.
Taxation of speculative movements of capital would enable better control of the financial markets and could provide an additional way of developing growth, training and employment.
Furthermore, the European Parliament has already stated its agreement for such a measure.
It could also encourage Member States to increase taxation on large fortunes, in order to finance effective actions to fight against exclusion.
The financial burden must be lowered, especially for SMEs, through a credit policy favouring productive investment and jobs, rather than placing the burden increasingly on payroll taxes, which jeopardizes welfare systems.
Social dumping must be combatted through taxation, the same goes for relocations and tax havens, which are a factor of unfair competition that must be brought to an end.
In conclusion, it is only possible to respond to the enormous challenges of the technology and information revolution with policies aimed at human development as opposed to a decline in social costs, and a fairer tax system could contribute to this.
Madam President, our group supports the general ideas contained in Mr Secchi's report.
He has been monitoring the harmonization of taxation for a long time now.
As a Parliament we obviously have good cause to be somewhat impatient, as Member States still view taxation as if it were some diplomatic affair comparable to foreign policy.
An example of this is that the meetings this high-level taxation group holds have an air of being top secret, and it is very hard to get any information on them, which is most certainly no longer the right attitude to take today.
It is quite obvious that with the advent of the euro such tax differentials between Member States will show up even more clearly, and tax competition will increase.
My group would like to warn against the picture that is being painted that tax competition is a very positive thing.
We see that it may, in some areas, be a useful tool, but we clearly wish it to be known that we want a minimum level of taxation in the EU, for example, for corporation tax.
As for the ideas of the Member from the Union for Europe Group, Ireland may well still compete to some extent with a low rate of corporation tax, if it likes, but we above all want to create fair and equal conditions for competition.
Otherwise, what Mrs Randzio-Plath said here today will happen: Member States will lose their tax base.
How then will we be able to preserve this European model?
Madam President, this debate confronts us with the wholly individual character of the European Union as a closely-knit framework of cooperation between independent Member States.
The exclusive sovereignty on tax issues lies with the Member States, but this does not mean that they can do anything they like.
The sovereignty of national states can never be absolute.
At present, this sovereignty is being eroded by globalization.
This is an important impetus towards coordination or harmonization of taxation at European level.
The European Commission wants to compensate for the loss of national sovereignty by creating a joint sovereignty of the Member States.
Within the framework of the Commission's proposals, fair tax competition will continue to exist; there will, therefore, be no uniform tax rates.
Taxation remains an exclusive power of the Member States.
It is a mystery to me why the Commission is quoting the subsidiarity principle in point B of the Council's motion for a resolution.
According to the Treaty and the Council 's Edinburgh declaration, this principle is out of place.
Has the Commission overlooked this? I would like to hear Commissioner Monti's response to this.
High tax rates encourage harmful competition and tax evasion.
For that reason alone, tax competition is not a bad thing.
Due to high levels of public debt, or inefficiently organized governmental machinery, some Member States have condemned themselves to high tax rates.
We cannot have a situation whereby the Member States who have their affairs properly arranged have to suffer for the indiscretions of others.
Tax competition becomes harmful when it encourages the market players to relocate their production activities purely to net a tax windfall.
This type of competition is not only engaged in by Member States, but also -and perhaps especially- by regional and local authorities.
In addition, harmful competition not only takes the shape of a reduction or an exemption.
Businesses are sometimes exempted from legal provisions, so that special licences are granted, or environmental or noise standards are loosely applied.
This aspect is left out of the motion for a resolution.
One positive point is the call to reduce tax on labour, and to shift to a tax on the environmentally damaging use of raw and auxiliary materials.
It would be desirable if the European Member States started to compete with each other on the basis of who has the "greenest' tax system.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Secchi.
The introduction of the single currency certainly raises in no uncertain terms the problem of achieving tax coordination throughout Europe, seeking first of all to avoid harmful tax competition and also guaranteeing fair and equally distributed taxation with no favours.
Like the euro, tax harmonization should be a valuable instrument at the service of economic growth and job creation.
However, it is a delicate matter that demands adequate expertise and legislative clarity.
The important thing is to provide individual national administrations with the instruments with which to cooperate and share information and experience as provided for, moreover, in the FISCALIS programme.
I would, however, like to emphasise that a genuine European tax policy cannot be limited to the passive role of fighting harmful tax competition.
Our companies and our citizens are urgently calling for a reduction in the excessive burden created by too much taxation, taxation that is stifling household and corporate budgets, and actually jeopardizing the recovery of the European economy.
I will therefore conclude by saying that the working party that is preparing to set about its task should also set itself the objective of defining the instruments and strategies for a serious European policy of tax moderation, failing which, from our point of view, we will not have the means to rekindle development and there will be neither social justice nor economic democracy.
Madam President, in my speech I would like to focus on the taxation of savings.
In Europe it is the area in which there is the most hypocrisy.
My country, Luxembourg, has often born the brunt of this.
It has sometimes been described as a tax haven, when there are as many tax havens for non-residents as there are Member States in the European Union.
For every Member State has endeavoured to develop its financial sector through different methods of taxation and regulations, especially with regard to non-residents.
The financial sector is a thriving service sector which provides hundreds of thousands of high-level jobs in each one of our States.
This needs to be taken into consideration in decisions at a European level.
For many years, global solutions have been advocated here with regard to the taxation of savings, without considering their impact on the European financial sector.
It is thus heartening to note that the attitude of the European Parliament in this report is becoming more qualified, more realistic and more pragmatic.
It concludes for example, and I quote, "that the competitiveness of European financial markets must be protected at a world level' .
Unfortunately, Mr Secchi's report says nothing about how to achieve this.
I think we are agreed on the development of a financial service sector which is free from tax or social dumping.
The main thing is not to make a mess of the transition.
If the tax measures taken lead to the flight of capital from Europe, we will be permanently weakened.
The current negotiations show that it is not easy to put into practice the Ecofin Council's agreement of 1 December 1997, which was obtained under the Luxembourg Presidency.
Thus the 20 % withholding tax on income from savings is clearly too high.
But certain countries, which require sources of income, consider it too low.
Personally, I think it would be favourable to set a minimum rate such as there is for VAT and leave the possibility of exceeding it to Member States, without thus forcing them into line with the euro.
I also wonder how the immense possibilities for financial engineering will be taken into account, which will easily develop a way of getting round European agreement via third countries which are not committed.
Similarly, Madam President, should true tax havens which come under the control of certain Member States be included in the European area? I am of the opinion that in a field which is so important for jobs and for the economy in general, and in particular investment, every detail must be sorted out and clarified before we can talk of moving on.
If this is not the case, there will be no unanimity within the Council, nor a large majority in the European Parliament.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with the introduction of the euro the completion of the European single market is coming ever closer.
In some important areas we are, however, still faced with major and difficult tasks.
Tax policy is one of these areas.
Increased coordination of tax policy at European level is urgently required if market distortions, double taxation and other similar phenomena are to be avoided and the four basic freedoms of the common market are genuinely to be guaranteed.
I am not talking about complete harmonization.
On the contrary, competition between national taxation systems remains necessary.
But this competition must offer individuals state services under favourable conditions because by opening up markets and implementing freedom of movement, we have created competition between systems and this very competition will become a significant part of the tax system.
But, at the same time, Mr Secchi in his excellent report speaks of a "beneficial' degree of competition which we have to accept in order to guarantee competitiveness.
This I fully support.
The package of measures proposed by the Commission is a step in the right direction.
I should particularly like to congratulate Commissioner Monti on the progress he has made over recent years.
With the code of conduct for corporate taxation and the other two elements of the package dealing with capital earnings and taxes and licence fees between companies, he has achieved the first, important advances in taxation policy.
Other areas must now follow.
And here I particularly have in mind value added tax.
The transition to the country of origin principle should be completed as quickly as possible.
The current system, specifically designated a transitional system, is a burden on all companies trading across national borders and in particular on small and medium-sized businesses which are very important in terms of employment.
We should also look more closely at the possibility of halving tax rates for labour intensive goods and services.
At the moment, labour is overtaxed in relation to its much more mobile counterpart, capital.
This has obvious consequences for the labour market.
But we must also examine carefully how this area, focused on manual work, can be defined and delimited.
Our task is to close the gap between the high burden placed on the labour factor on one hand and the lower burden placed upon consumption, capital and energy on the other.
I look forward to hearing some appropriate proposals from the Commission and hope that in this important area it will prove possible to achieve some concrete measures quickly.
Madam President, there are four things I would like to say in this minute.
The first is that tax policy is and should remain essentially a national concern.
It should remain that way so that we do not construct a superstate or a federal state.
Secondly, the first thing you think of, and which the general public thinks of, is tax havens.
I would like to stress that we must do something about them in order to have any credibility on the issue at all.
It is simply harmful to the market.
Thirdly, not all tax competition is harmful.
I would like to stress that there should be healthy competition between companies and countries.
This is natural and simply promotes increased competitiveness and variety.
Fourthly, it is also quite natural and important for there to be differences in tax systems and rates which are based on social motives, such as the environment, health and consumer protection. And it is natural for these differences not to be regarded as harmful in tax competition.
Madam President, the main concern of the Commission's proposed package of tax measures will be to deal with the imbalances in competition that may be caused by the different existing tax rules and regimes.
Mr Secchi's report takes a similar approach.
In addition, the proposals put forward at this plenary emphasize the way we must go following the creation of the single currency, whose numerous advantages and universal benefits will only thus be revealed, namely tax reforms at community level.
We ask that this process be accelerated and synchronized, if only so that the code of conduct for corporation taxation, which is part of the package and has already been approved by the Council, can be taken up with it.
Let us remember what some would apparently rather forget:
that the peculiarities of national tax systems arise from the peculiarities of national economies, which cannot be eliminated, despite all efforts to ignore them; -that tax harmonization, if supra-nationally imposed after the adoption of the euro, which now serves as a pretext and justification, would take away yet another instrument of sovereign and (democratic) government, especially as regards savings, from the national authorities; -that the inequalities of the weakest in terms of competitiveness may be seriously aggravated in the name of standardizing competition by means of tax reforms.The tax reform we are fighting for, at Community and national level, is a tax reform, or rather a series of tax reforms, that aims to create fairer tax collection systems with a reduction of the tax burden on working people, and not harmonized rules that lead to fresh and increased exemptions in favour of capital that already circulates too freely.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that there is a ghost creeping through this debate, the ghost of subsidiarity.
It wears several guises: that of Mr Chirac, Mr Kohl, and more recently clearly that of Mr Gallagher.
What is at stake is not providing a clear definition of subsidiarity as a necessary dimension of European integration, but rather using it as a pretext to develop the EU, within the framework of the WTO, as a deregulated community in the face of the single market and the euro, introducing a system of dumping in which we will all be losers.
We all know that the only way out of this dilemma is to achieve common, reliable regulation.
We must put a stop to tax erosion.
And to do this we should take up and support the new convergence introduced by Mr Monti and, perhaps, as it has been increasingly watered down, give it back a little of its original shape.
We have submitted some amendments which head in this direction.
I believe we must make quite clear exactly what the aim of the whole undertaking is.
The aim of the undertaking is to complete the single market by creating the regulatory conditions for fair competition. Tax competition may be acceptable in terms of the quality, the good design and the proper application of taxation, but not in terms of rates of taxation.
Secondly, we should put an end to the disproportionate burden which, as Mr Monti has illustrated, is imposed on waged work, by shifting the burden to corporate capital and private assets on one hand and the environment and the consumption of resources on the other.
This means we should ensure that capital and business start paying taxes on environmental impact and resources again and thereby create an important precondition for the transition to a sustainable development model.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Secchi's report clearly highlights what some of us feared at the time of the Maastricht Treaty.
This is namely that, following the transfer of monetary sovereignty, the transfer of economic and fiscal sovereignty would be almost inevitable.
Well here we are, we have arrived at the first step in that direction.
In fact, the technique is always the same.
We are given an assertion: the high level of tax competition has reached a clearly harmful level.
It would have been good if this assertion had been supported by concrete examples.
Then we are given another assertion: the Member States are slowly abandoning their fiscal sovereignty, thus the best way of finding that sovereignty once more is to abandon it completely to the European Union.
This being so, the real question to be raised is whether this tax competition between States within the European Union is desirable and good for the citizens of those States or, on the contrary, harmful.
In reality, this tax competition may be perfectly healthy for both consumers and citizens.
The States which in the future will be successful in an open market, a market in which there is - and this is a good thing - freedom of movement of people, capital and industry will be those which ensure moderate taxation, flexibility in regulations and legal security.
Thus this competition, far from being bad may, on the contrary, be extremely beneficial for individuals.
It will create competitiveness between States and rather than creating some kind of gasworks - excuse me for this rather crude image - a harmonized tax gasworks, it is better to make the States compete with each other.
This being so, the idea of a code of conduct, especially for business taxation, is an excellent idea which should be adopted.
The debate is now suspended and will be continued after Question Time.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0474/98).
Allow me to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Henderson.
I invite him to reply to Question No 1 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0497/98)
Subject: Persecution of the Assyrian population by Turkey
On 14 May 1997 Turkish forces invading Iraq to persecute the Kurds passed through Iraqi Mesopotamia where a majority of the population is Assyrian and destroyed twenty Assyrian villages, killed scores of people and persecuted the population, forcing many of them to flee.
Assyrians in Turkey are forbidden freely to express their political and religious views (they are Christians) and most of them are obliged to live in various European countries and in the USA.
Will the Council say whether it is aware of the invasion by Turkish forces of Assyrian regions in Iraq and what measures it intends to take to prevail upon Turkey to respect the basic human rights to which the Assyrian community is entitled?
I am delighted that we will have our full 90 minutes today.
Some of our previous sessions, for one reason or another to do with timetables, have sometimes been a little curtailed.
But maybe in the spirit of the World Cup, we will have our full 90 minutes.
In response to Question No 1, the Council is aware that the Turkish armed forces launched a cross-border operation into northern Iraq in the spring of 1997.
On 19 May the presidency issued a declaration on behalf of the European Union, noting with concern that fact and, inter alia, called on Turkey to exercise restraint, to respect human rights, not to endanger the lives of innocent civilians and to withdraw its military forces from the Iraqi territory as soon as possible.
The Council remains deeply concerned at the plight of the Assyrian people of south-east Turkey and northern Iraq.
The proper protection of human rights remains an essential component in the development of relations between Turkey and the Union.
The European Council meeting in Luxembourg on 12 and 13 December 1997 recalled, in line with the Council position expressed at the Association Council with Turkey on 29 April 1997, that strengthening Turkey's links with the European Union also depended on that country's pursuit of political and economic reforms, including the alignment of human rights standards and practices with those in force in the European Union, including protection of minorities.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his reply, which was quite constructive.
I am afraid, however, that it was a bit of officialese in that we are limiting ourselves to a reply which simply confirms past events.
The issue here is that we have a minority which has deep cultural roots going even further back than Ancient Greek civilization.
We are talking about the Assyrian people.
These people, who have carried with them their language, their religion and their traditions, are few in number, and they are being displaced as refugees throughout Europe, in Sweden, in Greece and in other countries.
I wished to ask whether, especially with regard to the Assyrian people, and especially with regard to the Assyrian minority both in Turkey and in Iraq, the Council will express its concern to the authorities of these countries and in particular to the authorities in Ankara.
Especially with regard to the Assyrian minority.
I am not sure that I have very much to add to what I have already said to Mr Alavanos.
I understand that he has further outlined the plight of the particular populations that he refers to.
I have already indicated the action of the Council in relation to these matters, and there is not much more I can add.
There is great ignorance about the fate of the Assyrian people compared with a number of other minority peoples.
When people discuss the past, the Armenians are often mentioned, although historically the Assyrians were also subjected to heavy persecution in Turkey.
When people discuss the present situation, the Kurds are often mentioned, although the Assyrian people are also extremely vulnerable.
That is why special attention should be drawn to this to this particular population group in contacts with the Turkish regime.
I would like to ask the Council whether it has ever drawn attention to the Assyrian people. Has it ever drawn attention to this group when discussing these issues with Turkey?
Are there any plans to draw attention to this group? The Assyrian people in Turkey today is more or less threatened with cultural obliteration.
Again, there is not much more I can add.
I am grateful to Mr Sjöstedt for drawing to our attention the plight of the Assyrian people he refers to, but I really cannot add anything further to my original response.
As the author is not present, Question No 2 lapses.
Question No 3 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0499/98)
Subject: Measures to combat fraud in the sphere of excise duties
In the opinion of the Council, what measures should be taken to combat fraud in the field of excise duties, especially in the tobacco and alcohol sectors?
The Council is aware that fraud in the tobacco and alcohol sectors has reached alarming proportions and results in very substantial revenue losses for the Member States and the Community.
Ecofin considered how to combat this type of fraud at its meeting of 19 May and concluded that, subject to a Commission feasibility study, the long-term goal should be a computerized control system.
In the interim an effective early warning system should be put in place so that customs authorities have better information about what goods are being moved.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we have been told that the European Commission proposed some time ago to the Council that new measures should be adopted to combat fraud in the sphere of excise duties which, as the Council said, particularly affects tobacco and alcohol.
We were also informed at the time that this is not a question of isolated cases - and the Council has confirmed that today - but of organized criminal networks.
Furthermore, we know that the national authorities have the right to inspect goods being transported but, since they are not informed when they are being sent, they have difficulty in implementing effective control.
Our view is similar to that just expressed by the Council: that the ideal thing would be to set up a computerized system.
But in the meantime, we think it would be a good idea to set up an early warning system, based on governments notifying one another.
Would the Council be prepared to take this first step, before such time as we obtain the computerized system which would really be the best solution?
Again there is not a great deal that I can add to my original answer.
It is recognized by the Council that there is a problem and that there is a loss of revenue which results in large measure from crime related to the evasion of duties.
Customs organizations throughout the Union will be taking what action they can in practical terms.
As my original answer indicated, until such time as a computerized control system is set up it will be difficult to completely eliminate the abuses which are currently taking place.
An early warning system will, we hope, help in the short term but if that was the solution then there would be no need for the long-term computerized way of tackling the problem.
There is really no substitute for that in the view of those who are charged with finding technical responses to a political objective which we all share.
I wish to thank the Minister-in-Office and Mr Camison for recognizing the problems of fraud within the excise duties sector.
I also recognize that in the short term, computerized records are not an immediate goal but obviously a long-term goal.
The proper functioning of Europol has to be part of that goal as well in both the short and the long term.
I would like to ask the Minister-in-Office whether ultimately the way to tackle this problem is to look at the different excise duty rates in the different Member States and perhaps that should be the long-term goal of the Council of Ministers.
I wish to say to the honourable Member that I understand the point he is making about the differences in excise duties which create an incentive for criminals to evade such duties.
I am aware of cases in my own country where gangs are involved in bringing back goods bought in another country which they claim is for their own personal consumption but is in many cases for sale.
This is one area where customs have been trying to catch up.
The question of common excise duties is a matter for Member States to consider.
It is the responsibility of each Member State to decide the level of excise that it levies on any particular product range.
Where there are issues of competition involved, it may be a matter for broader consideration but where it is a question of the regulation of excise duties on particular products, this is a matter for the Member States at present and I foresee no change in that.
Question No 4 by Susan Waddington (H-0502/98)
Subject: Employment Guidelines 1998 - women's employability
Given that the Employment Guidelines agreed at the special Luxembourg Employment Summit last December and the current Council presidency place great emphasis on developing women's employability, what specific measures are being taken by the Member States to increase women's participation in the labour market and encourage lifelong learning, whilst at the same time reconciling these activities with family life?
The measures being taken by each Member State are set out in the national employment action plans.
As Members of this House may know, they include: improved child care provision, extension of parental leave, strengthened training opportunities and targeted help to get lone parents back into work.
Members may also be aware, and when they read the Cardiff conclusions they should then be fully aware, that employment was an important topic of discussion at Cardiff and it was agreed that action to mainstream equal opportunities in employment policy should be our priority in future.
I thank the President-in-Office for his concise and clear answer.
I understand that in some of the national action plans that were presented this year equality of opportunity for women was given a lower priority than the other three pillars.
I wonder if the President-in-Office believes that the Cardiff Summit will enable women's employability and women's employment to gain a higher priority in future years.
I thank the honourable Member for her supplementary question.
I can reassure her that in the discussions at Cardiff and the conclusions which arose out of the discussions, the matter to which she refers - employability of women -was given the highest priority.
There are clearly a number of high priorities in relation to unemployment and I hope that Members would understand that, given the high levels of unemployment that pertain in virtually all of the European Union countries and the need to tackle that problem of unemployment.
One of the ways is to give a particular incentive and pressure to the various Member States to take measures which will raise the employability of women.
That will give women greater opportunity to move into jobs which previously may have been closed to them for all sorts of reasons.
In general terms if one is serious about 'welfare to work' which has also become an increasing priority of all of the Member States of the Union, as reflected in the conclusions in Section 1 of the Cardiff report in relation to economic reform, it has to be recognised that an important sector of the Community who are currently excluded from work are young women.
Helping to tackle the problem of youth unemployment necessarily involves tackling the problem of unemployment among young women.
That is a priority in the conclusions and I am confident that the Member States will take on board their obligations to take action to assist schemes to raise the employability of women and thereby provide more equal opportunity.
I am also concerned with these issues. Mrs Waddington and I sit on the same committee.
I would like to ask a more general question in connection with employment for women.
It concerns the following: are you, as a representative of the Council, generally positive about developments in the area of employment since the Luxembourg Summit and up to the current summit in Cardiff? Do you think that so far the decisions taken in Luxembourg, the general decisions, and the national action plans have satisfied the demands for improvements which we had the right to make?
I believe that the important thing is to get job creation into context.
Apart from where the state provides direct employment, the state cannot directly generate jobs.
Companies generate jobs, people generate jobs.
What the state has to do is create the climate - excluding areas of direct employment - where employability within the Community is enhanced.
I believe that the key measure is to raise the education standards of our peoples within the European Union and to raise their training standards so that they are better able to take on the global challenges which every company trying to export beyond the European Union faces.
Most companies within the European Union seek to export beyond that area.
Therefore the importance of the conclusions at Luxembourg and at Cardiff is to nurture the development of the right state policies, first of all deciding what can best be decided at European level and what can best be left, through subsidiarity, to action at national level or even below national level.
That in itself is a very important decision that must be taken.
But then, to impose an obligation on all the Member States - and that is what the Cardiff Conclusion does - to take action which is consistent with the thrust of the proposals which originated in Luxembourg, to tackle the various issues of youth unemployment, middle-age male unemployment, equal opportunities for men and women and stimulating entrepreneurship - these are all challenges. Each Member State within the Union is required under the Cardiff conclusions to come back in six months and show what it has done on those issues.
If they are wise then they will understand the context of my introductory comments; that, apart from direct employment, where the state is employing people directly, one has to understand that the state cannot require the manufacturing or service industry to take on more workpeople.
That is something that they must decide they need to do because there is a demand for their product or service and they have people who are capable of meeting that demand.
That is where the need for training and education is so crucial, so that there are products that will be world-leading products arising out of the economy of the European Union which is based on high education standards and good training.
That means that there will be more permanent employment creation effects.
It is in that context that one must view the conclusions from Cardiff.
Question No 5 by Aline Pailler, which has been taken over by Sylviane Ainardi (H-0503/98/rev. 1)
Subject: Implementation of the Euro-Mediterranean agreement between the EU and Tunisia
On 2 March the EU presidency welcomed the entry into force of the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement establishing an Association with the Republic of Tunisia, Article 2 of which lays down that "relations between the Parties...... shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles' .
Despite the fact that the Government of Tunisia has signed that clause, there has been no halt to human rights violations in that country. Charges have been brought against Ms Nasraoui, a member of the Tunisian Bar Council; Mr Ksila, Vice-President of the Human Rights League, has been sentenced to three years' imprisonment; and many leaders of human rights associations are subjected to harassment, police surveillance, provocation and so forth.
What measures does the Council intend to take on the basis of Article 2 of the Association Agreement, to help put a stop to human rights violations in Tunisia?
As stated by the honourable Member who raised the question, the Council welcomes the entry into force of the Euromed Association Agreement.
Tunisia was, in fact, the first Mediterranean country to sign such an agreement, establishing a political dialogue which allows both parties to discuss openly a range of political issues, including human rights.
The Council attaches great political importance to the promotion of respect for human rights in Tunisia and closely follows the evolution of the situation in that country.
The presidency will be working closely with the future Austrian presidency to prepare the first meeting of the European Union/Tunisia Association Council which will take place under the Austrian presidency.
On this occasion the Council will raise the question of human rights and fundamental freedoms, reminding the Tunisian interlocutors of their human rights responsibilities and undertakings in the framework of both the EC/Tunisia Agreement and the Barcelona process.
Mr President, since the resolution which was adopted on 22 May 1996, we have indeed noted an improvement in the human rights situation in Tunisia, with the release of Mr Mouada and Mr Chammari.
But as my colleague Aline Pailler underlines, the situation has once again deteriorated, with the sentencing of the Vice-President of the Human Rights League, Mr Ksila, to three years' imprisonment.
My question is thus the following: what can be done to guarantee the application of article 2 of the Association Agreement, because making reference to it is not enough.
I am grateful to the honourable Member for taking up the question.
One of the key matters that will be discussed at any Association Council meeting would be the question of human rights and the need to uphold the highest standards.
That, in a sense, would be an essential part of the agenda of any meeting before other matters could proceed.
But the specific point that the honourable Member raised was referred to by my colleague, Mr Fatchett, who is another Foreign Office Minister in the United Kingdom, when he visited Tunisia.
I think that was in a presidential capacity - or it may have been in the run-up to the presidency.
He made that very point on behalf of the Council.
Does the President-in-Office share my opinion that of all the Arab countries Tunisia is the most democratic - relatively speaking, of course - and that since it is wedged between Algeria on the one side and Libya on the other, we should take a special view of the situation of a country which is, furthermore, very much threatened by Islamic extremism and by other extremist movements? Would he agree that in this connection it has done a remarkable job in keeping relative freedom for the people and in trying to save the country, so that, rather than giving them too much advice, we should encourage them in the right direction and not give them the feeling that we are criticizing them?
I thank Mr von Habsburg for his supplementary question.
I have much sympathy with him, and others, in our discussions in this forum.
However, it would be very wrong of me to act as some kind of jury and make assessments as to which of the countries which could be described as Arab countries - although I am not sure that definition would be too easy to make - was most democratic.
What would be right for me, the Council and, I hope, Parliament, is to encourage all countries to build democracy and to guarantee human rights.
In all our dealings with third parties in the European Union, that should be a high priority and we should continue to pursue that.
Where we recognize that there have been big improvements, then we should say that, arising partly out of the discussions and the dialogue we have had, there have been improvements and that has led to a better life for a lot of people in certain countries.
Question No 6 by Mark Watts (H-0504/98)
Subject: Failure of Member States to transpose EU transport directives
The Council will be aware that a significant proportion of EU Directives have not been transposed by Member States.
For example, in the transport sector, most Directives have not been transposed.
What action does the Council propose taking to speed up transposition and complete the single market in sectors such as transport?
The Council has made a commitment to transposing all overdue single-market directives in all sectors by the end of this year.
Each Member State has submitted timetables to the Commission showing how this will be done, with progress monitored through the single market scoreboard.
As a result, the number of overdue directives has halved in the past year.
I thank the President-in-Office for what is clearly good news for the European Union.
And that is that, under the UK presidency and, indeed, the preceding presidency and no doubt the one that will follow it, we are making real progress towards completing the single market by ensuring that all Member States who have signed up to European laws comply with them.
I would ask the President-in-Office whether he can confirm that, if Member States do not honour the undertakings that have been secured, he will continue the practice of naming and shaming those Member States that do not comply with the laws they have freely adopted.
I thank him for the progress we have made but I believe we need to keep the pressure on so that the remaining half of untransposed legislative acts are brought into Community law at Member State level within the year, as all the Member States have undertaken.
I am sure all of us will be encouraged but we all want to see the pressure continue.
I can say to the honourable Member that I am grateful for his question and the opportunity to raise this very important issue.
I can assure him that the Council is not going to act like some candid camera running round Europe seeking to expose breaches of commitments.
To the question as to whether countries responsible for breaches will be publicly named and shamed by the Council, the answer is No. Where the Commission has collated the information and placed it on the scoreboard, the information will name and shame.
It has been done with this purpose, so that we can try to speed up the process of achieving a more effective single market.
Question No 7 by Freddy Blak (H-0508/98)
Subject: Council of Ministers as a showcase for lobbyists
The display of a luxury Jaguar in the entrance hall of the Justus Lipsius building in May was reprehensible.
It purported to be a general advertisement for the British presidency and the Coventry area, but in reality it was a commercial advertisement for a car firm.
The matter becomes even more serious with the Open Day arrangement on 9 May.
Is the presidency aware what signals the transformation of the Council of Ministers into a bazaar sends to the public? The whole affair shows the European institutions in a bad light.
Lastly, which other lobbyists have been allowed to exhibit in the Council of Ministers, and how much does it cost to use Council buildings as a showcase? Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mr Blak's concerns about that Jaguar.
It is normal practice, as Members of this House will recognize, for Council presidencies to mount an exhibition of a cultural, social or historical nature in the conference part of the Justus Lipsius building.
The exhibition staged by this presidency was supplemented for a period of two weeks by an exhibition on the history, culture and social and community profile of Coventry.
This was timed to coincide with COREPER's visit to that city.
The Jaguar car was part of this exhibition, symbolizing the importance that motor vehicle manufacture has played in Coventry.
There was no advertising and no information about the car, its price or where to buy one.
The car was there to give the exhibition popular appeal and succeeded admirably.
I am sure all honourable Members share my satisfaction at Jaguar's success in boosting employment in Coventry.
In many ways that is what the exhibition was all about.
The Council building is reserved for the use of the Council and its members and no outside commercial interests have access to it or its facilities.
I must say, you have quite a sense of humour, Mr Henderson.
If you can see sex appeal in a car, you definitely will not be pulling any birds.
I must say your answer astonishes me.
To my mind, it is wasteful to pay out £10, 000 to remove a window in order to get a car into a building, followed by another £10, 000 to get it out again.
I find it obscene.
It is downright wasteful of taxpayers' money.
It is all very well advertising for Coventry, but as you are all well aware, Jaguar has been sold; the company is now under American ownership.
I have to say we must be way off track if we are now starting to advertise for the USA.
Mr Henderson, I think we need to exercise care to avoid a situation whereby we have to ask Jesus to come and cast the money-changers out of the temple.
I think we need to stop these propaganda exercises.
It is a disgrace and people are at a loss to understand it.
Thank you very much, Mr Blak.
I was waiting for that last, biblical sentence in the interpretation.
Now that Mr Freddy Blak's speech is complete, Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply. I should warn you that we cannot leave the Justus Lipsius building just yet, because Mr Ford wants to put a second question.
You have the floor, to reply to Mr Blak first of all.
I thank Mr Blak for his question.
I have to say that he must have a more lateral-thinking mind than I do.
I thought that the exhibition had popular appeal.
If Mr Blak thinks that is sex appeal, he has a more inventive mind than I do and I commend him for it.
I believe it is important to demonstrate to the whole of the Union the lifestyle of our communities within the Union.
Any attempt to explain life in the community of Coventry in the Midlands of England to the rest of the European Union and beyond without mentioning Jaguar would give a very false impression of the importance of Jaguar to that city and, indeed, to the motor car industry within the European Union.
I believe that the Jaguar is a good product and that it is appropriate that Coventry - not the Council - should feel that was an integral part of their community and one that they would want to show to the rest of the world.
Generally relating to lobbying, a number of parliaments within the European Union have in recent times drawn up stricter rules on the role of lobbyists and lobbying, how it should take place and in what circumstances it should take place, how it should be regulated, what relationship lobbyists, lobby companies and lobby organizations should have to Members of Parliaments and so on; and it may be that it would be appropriate for the European Parliament to give this matter further consideration.
It is something which the Council would be wise to keep always under review, to see if any changes need to be introduced to current practices.
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
As I warned you earlier, our thoughts are still on the Justus Lipsius building. More specifically, we are thinking about its interior, near that luxury Jaguar.
Measuring the car's possible sex appeal does not form part of this Parliament's remit. However, to continue on this same subject, Mr Ford has the floor for one minute.
I appreciate Mr Blak's sense of humour.
I am not sure whether everybody else does.
We are both members of the Socialist Group.
It was only a few months ago that we actually had racing cars outside the Socialist Group room and, as far as I recall, Mr Blak was not making a protest then.
Obviously racing cars are okay - I think they are probably sexy.
I do not know whether they have popular appeal, but clearly we need to sort out the plank in our own eye before we sort out the mote in the Council's eye.
This is an area that we need to look at as there were complaints this morning about exhibitions currently going on in Parliament.
Common standards are required and perhaps it is time for the European Parliament to take the lead.
We had a report on the control and registration of lobbyists which already seems to be ineffective, and the Rules Committee, of which I am a member, is doing a follow-up report on that to try to tighten up and strengthen the regulations.
Maybe we can take the lead and the Council can learn something from us.
I hope Mr Henderson can agree with that.
Mr Henderson, I am not sure whether to interpret Mr Ford's comment as a question to you or an argument with Mr Blak.
However, if you wish to reply in any way, you have the floor.
If the same question had been asked in the British Parliament, I am sure it would have tried to have established itself as a genuine question, whether it was or was not.
I am in agreement with the honourable Member that there is a need for a continual review of the lobby system, to take place from time to time as circumstances change, and I can assure him he would have my support for that.
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
I am glad to see that the Council Presidency and the hemicycle are on the same wavelength, at least at the moment.
We shall see if that continues to be the case with Question No 8 by Jaime Valdivielso de Cué, which has been taken over by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0512/98)
Subject: Aid to shipbuilding
Faced with the new moves to gradually eliminate aid to the shipbuilding industry, could the Council say what sort of criteria were used as a basis for withdrawing it and whether account has been taken of the importance of shipbuilding to certain regions of Europe in general and Spain in particular?
The new rules on aid to shipbuilding, which were agreed with widespread support from Member States, including Spain, are designed to improve the competitiveness of the European Union shipbuilding industry.
Whilst the new regime abolishes operating aid, it also refocuses remaining forms of support in order to promote the competitiveness of the industry.
There will be new aid for innovation and the opening up of regional aid.
A strict limit will be placed on restructuring aid, and strengthened monitoring provisions will be introduced.
We believe this is a very positive outcome for the future of the European Union shipbuilding industry.
The new aid regime certainly takes account of the interests of all Community regions with shipbuilding interests.
Spain stands to benefit particularly from the agreement to open up regional aid.
First I want to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for the information he has provided in response to the question.
But since the question placed special emphasis on the case of Spain - I do not know what data he has in that regard - I would be grateful if he could be a little more specific about the case of dockyards in the Basque Country.
Thank you very much, Mr Camisón Asensio.
I shall invite Mr Henderson to reply.
However, I am sure that if he does not have the information at this moment, you will receive it very shortly.
Mr Henderson, you may reply but, in any case, I have told Mr Camisón Asensio that if you do not have the information at the moment, I am sure you will send it to him in writing very shortly.
Mr President, I am very grateful to you for suggesting the answer to that question.
I should like to endorse your comments.
The purpose of changing the regulation is to allow more flexibility, to give each country a capacity to do what it thinks is necessary to restructure to help its industry and, of course, that applies to Spain.
If there are specific points which the honourable Member wishes to raise in relation to the shipbuilding industry - if he was referring to the shipbuilding industry in northern Spain - then I would be happy to answer them in writing.
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
Having worked together for six months, Mr Henderson, it can come as no surprise to you that this Presidency, despite not being held by a member of the Labour Party, is pretty much in tune with your replies and can predict, to a certain extent, the problems you may experience at a given moment with such a specific question.
So we need to be in tune to a certain extent, Mr Henderson.
We have been working together for six months, and I hope we can do so again in the future.
So, along the same lines, I propose we now move on to Question No 9 by Nikolaos Papakyriazis (H-0514/98)
Subject: Desecration of a graveyard in Istanbul
On Wednesday, 1 April 1998, 51 graves in the Agios Eleftherios Greek Orthodox graveyard in Istanbul were desecrated.
This was the worst act perpetrated in a Christian burial ground during the last decade.
In recent months, the Greek Orthodox community in Istanbul has been the victim of a growing number of acts of provocation and aggression, while no official reaction has been forthcoming from the Turkish Government.
In view of developments concerning relations between the European Union and Turkey and in the framework of the contacts with the Turkish Government and negotiations regarding the Association Agreement, what steps will the Council take in response to this and what explanations, measures and guarantees will it seek to obtain from the Turkish Government regarding the protection of the Greek Orthodox community in Turkey and respect for its rights, given that acts such as those described above are inconceivable and unacceptable for the European Union?
The Council regrets the developments concerning the Agios Eleftherios Greek Orthodox graveyard in Istanbul, and is well aware that under the Treaty of Lausanne signed in July 1923 the Turkish Government undertook to grant full protection to churches, synagogues, cemeteries and other religious establishments of nonMuslim minorities.
The European Council meeting in Luxembourg on 12 and 13 December 1997 recalled, in line with the Council position expressed at the Association Council with Turkey on 29 April 1997, that strengthening Turkey's links with the European Union also depended on that country's pursuit of political and economic reforms, including the alignment of human rights standards and practices with those in force in the European Union, which also encompasses religious minorities.
The situation of democracy and human rights in Turkey remains high on the Council's agenda.
The Commission's report to the Council in March 1998 on developments in relations with Turkey since the entry into force of the customs union, concluded on human rights that no substantial progress had been achieved as regards human rights and the democratic reform process in Turkey.
These issues are raised regularly with the Turkish authorities.
Cooperation in the field of human rights and humanitarian issues formed part of the Commission's European strategy for Turkey of 4 March 1998.
I wish to express my thanks and my satisfaction to the President-in-Office of the Council for the clear answer he has given me on the matter of principle, which is of course the most important political issue.
This comment applies to the second part of his reply, but I am afraid that the first part, in which he attempts to give respond to my question on the specific unacceptable event which took place in Constantinople, is not an answer.
My question refers to the specific event which took place there, which should to be condemned, and to the explanations that have been demanded and to those that have given by the Turkish government. It also asks what measures, explanations and guarantees the Council is seeking in the context of the discussions it is holding with Turkey on the conclusion of relations between Turkey and the European Union.
Desecration of a graveyard is unacceptable and outrageous conduct in any society, and that is as true in Turkey as it is anywhere else.
We have urged the Turkish authorities to do all they can to bring those responsible for this action to justice.
That is a matter which will be reviewed on an ongoing basis.
Question No 10 by Sören Wibe (H-0518/98)
Subject: Tax-free sales and international conventions
The Member States of the EU have signed international conventions stating that the sale of goods in international waters and international airspace shall be free of tax.
No country has the right to impose taxation where journeys are effected between two countries.
Does the decision to end tax-free sales within the EU from 1999 not constitute a breach of those conventions? Must the conventions not be renegotiated by all the countries which are party to them?
The decision to end intra-European Union duty on tax-free sales from June 1999 was taken by the Council in 1991 and I am not aware that this issue formed part of its deliberations at that time.
However, the Commission has now produced a set of proposals on a duty-paid regime following abolition and Commission-chaired discussions are now under way at official level to work out the practical details of this regime.
The honourable Member may wish to address his question to the Commission to ensure it is aware of the need to consider international conventions in these discussions.
Should I interpret your reply, Mr Henderson, as meaning that the Council does not know whether the Member States have signed international conventions which they may possibly infringe when tax-free sales end?
It is, of course, reasonable for the Council to obtain information.
I know that there were multilateral negotiations on which these decisions about international waters and international airspace are based.
It is probable that these negotiations and the agreements which were then entered into also contain a clause about the circumstances in which individual states may cancel these agreements.
If the Council is unaware of this, I would like to advise the Council to try to obtain information on this point, as it is very important.
I have seen the general outlines of the Commission report on this matter.
If it is the view of the honourable Member - and I thank him for his question - that those proposals contravene obligations which have already been entered into by Member States, then I would urge him to submit his views to the Commission and seek its comments.
When the Council considers this matter further, all these issues will be taken into account.
Given that only the Council can seek action from the Commission in this area, perhaps I could give an example of why there is a problem. Will the President-in-Office agree with me that ferries sailing from the east-coast ports of the United Kingdom to the continent through international waters will be able to sell goods on those ships at duty-free rates, even when the duty-free regime is abolished on 1 July 1999?
Is that not the case and is it not the reason why my colleague Mr Wibe's point needs to be addressed at Council level? It is only the Council that can seek action from the Commission to ensure that the postduty-free regime is clear and transparent to the consumer and the enforcement agencies.
I know that the honourable Member takes a deep interest in these matters, and if I represented his constituency I am sure I would as well.
I also have an airport in my constituency so it is a matter of considerable interest to me back home.
The Commission proposals are not in line with what the honourable Member suggests.
The Commission proposals require a duty-paid regime to be put in force on intra-EU traffic after 1999.
As I have said to the other honourable Member, if there is a belief that the Commission proposals contravene Member States' other obligations, then I would urge the honourable Members to put their views or the views of their constituents to the Commission, so that the Commission may reassess their proposal.
It would then be up to the Commission to come to the Council with an original proposal or an amended proposal.
At this stage what we are really talking about are the facts of the case, and of any legal opinions that may flow from that.
I think we want to get all that information on the table before any of us jump to conclusions.
Mr Gallagher, do you wish to put a supplementary on the same question? I am sorry I did not see you, and I invite you to take the floor.
I indicated to your officials at the initial stage that I had a supplementary.
In view of the Commission's recognition that there would be a negative economic impact from the proposed abolition of duty-free within the EU and the fact that it has promised to present a working document to Ecofin clarifying the Community instruments available to Member States for addressing the consequences of abolition, could I ask the President-in-Office whether the Council agrees with the principle of using taxpayers, money to pay for the abolition of an industry which is currently self-financing and provides employment and economic benefits to regions around Europe? Could I also ask the President-in-Office if the matter was discussed at the Heads of State meeting in Cardiff?
Does the view expressed outside that meeting by some of the Heads of State reflect the view of the presidency?
In conclusion, could the President-in-Office indicate the number of jobs he believes will be lost as a result of the abolition of duty-free?
I was not at the meeting of the Heads of Government in Cardiff, as the honourable Member will understand, but, as far as I am aware, that issue was not discussed.
Certainly there are no conclusions which lead to any change in the situation.
The matter was discussed fully at the Ecofin Council in May and the honourable Member is clearly aware of the conclusions of that Council meeting in May, as can be deduced from his question.
In response to the general issue, whether public money should be used in some instances to restructure industry, the answer is that in some circumstances that will be appropriate if, in the location, there is a qualification for structural fund aid or regional aid within a country.
That would also apply in relation to any duty-free revenue loss.
If there was a counter-proposal which on its own merit meant that it qualified for public money, then it would qualify.
The whole purpose of the change in the regulation is to increase competitiveness, which should to lead to a gain overall for the public - if not in the immediate period ahead, then in the longer term.
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
Mr Gallagher, allow me respectfully to remind you that, in accordance with the way we apply our Rules of Procedure, requests for supplementary questions are made when the main question is announced. In other words, the request cannot be made in advance because that could obviously give some Members an advantage over others.
So we have established, in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, that supplementary questions are accepted chronologically immediately following the announcement of the main question.
Question No 11 by Angela Billingham (H-0520/98)
Subject: The case of Els Pins Park, Moraira, Alicante
Over 13 years ago, two Spanish nationals committed a crime against fifty-four European citizens (non-Spanish) when they sold them property in Els Pins Park, knowing that there was a 63 million peseta loan on the whole property.
This case took the Spanish judiciary until 28 May 1996, 11 years later, to bring to trial.
In 1996 one of the property developers was found guilty and the other did not receive any sentence.
The owners put forward an appeal against the non-conviction of the property developer two years ago.
They have still received no final date for the appeal.
Could the Council request information from the Spanish Government as to why this case took so long to be brought to trial and request notification of when the date for appeal will be set? Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mrs Billingham's question.
I thank the honourable Member for her question and recognize the difficulties those involved in the Els Pins Park dispute have faced over their properties, but I regret it is not for the Council to intervene in cases which are pending before national criminal courts.
I am grateful for the reply, however negative it would appear to be.
This is a really sorry saga.
It has attracted the interest of Members from all sides of this Parliament.
We have sought the intervention of the President of Parliament too.
But I can tell you that even with your response matters have got even worse.
When I asked the question it was about an appeal.
We have now subsequently learnt that appeal has been heard.
Nobody was notified of the appeal.
None of the plaintiffs therefore attended.
Nobody has any idea of the outcome of this appeal.
Quite frankly, people are absolutely desperate.
Already people have lost their property.
Others are in the process of losing their property.
It seems to me that we have an absolute impasse here.
It seems to me that there is no procedure within Parliament, the Council, the Commission or whatever organization they are turning to that is able to offer them some help.
So I seek further acknowledgement of the problem.
I thank the honourable Member for her further question.
I acknowledge the seriousness of the situation in the way it affects those who are directly involved.
Indeed I have had constituents who have been involved in difficult situations which are broadly similar.
Ultimately they have had to seek legal redress.
As those matters are currently before the national criminal courts it would be inappropriate for me to comment further other than acknowledging that there is a serious problem.
Question No 12 by Paul Rübig (H-0521/98)
Subject: Cost of new customs legislation
As a former member of Parliament's committee of inquiry into fraud, I welcome any initiative aimed at making procedures more effective and more fraud-resistant.
However, I am in favour of a rational and, above all, manageable realignment of EU customs legislation based on the requirements of SLIM and the assessment form. The other parties - customs services, trading partners, freight companies and banks and insurance houses - should also be involved as far as possible.
Can the Commission state what costs the new customs system will involve for the European economy? Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mr Rübig's question.
The Council obviously attaches great importance to the fight against fraud, and reducing customs fraud is one of the main objectives of current work on reform of the transit system.
Mr President, the problem with the Commission's current proposal on customs law and transit is that it is, in reality, unworkable.
We are approaching the enlargement of the EU.
We want to trade with these countries and the system is currently structured as if all goods were sensitive goods like cigarettes, meat and alcohol.
The fact is that normal trade accounts for 99 % of the total and the formal proposals currently under examination are completely unworkable in practice.
As a result, if the system were to come into force in the version currently proposed by the Commission, it would prove absolutely catastrophic for economic relations.
I believe that these strict regulations designed for sensitive areas should not be applied to small consignments and basic necessities.
I have very little to add except to say that there is a need for reform.
The precise nature of the reform should be achieved in a balanced and measured way.
Where there are costs involved, they have to be borne.
One would hope that in the long term there would be a saving because a new system would prevent abuses which have cost public revenue in the past.
I was fascinated by Mr Rübig's question, particularly as it refers to the Committee of Inquiry that I chaired.
I would just like to ask the President-in-Office if he will agree with the main conclusions of the Committee of Inquiry, in particular those that relate to the role that computerization can play in preventing the loss by fraud of excise duty to Member States and own resources to the European Union budget?
Is he aware that the transit system as it now operates is so porous that billions of ecus are being lost across the Member States and that serious efforts are by the Member States are needed to inject the necessary urgency and political will into the resolution of this problem? Will he give us his assurance that the presidency will make sure that this continues?
I thank the honourable Member for his supplementary.
The answer is that the Council is aware of the report produced by the honourable Member's committee.
It has endorsed the general outlines of the plan and recognizes, as I said in relation to a previous question this afternoon, that computerization is a very important aspect of any changes which will enable a check to be kept on the transit of goods.
Hopefully, this will outlaw abuses and lead in the longer term, once the system is in place, to increases in public revenue.
In accordance with Rule 41 of the Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 13 and 14, by Olivier Dupuis and Ursula Stenzel respectively, lapse because they refer to the situation in Kosovo and, as you know, a debate on that subject was included in the agenda.
Question No 15 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0524/98)
Subject: Autonomy in Northern Epirus
According to the UN Charter, autonomy is one of the inalienable civil rights of peoples.
In the EU, autonomy is a common form of institution; countries such as Italy, Spain and Finland have granted fundamental rights to autonomous regions on their territory.
Northern Epirus is a region of Albania whose right to autonomy has been established (as long ago as 17 May 1914 by the "Corfu Protocol' ) and provision made for the protection of the population's language and religion.
Moreover, the Protocol was signed at the time by the plenipotentiary countries of the (present-day) EU (Italy, Great Britain, Germany, Austria and France) and by the Special Representative of Albania himself.
Will the Council state its position on this issue, which concerns the protection of human rights in a country which desires closer relations with the EU but which has refused for years to honour the commitment that it undertook?
Mr Henderson, you have the floor to reply to Mr Kaklamanis' question.
The presidency welcomes the significant progress made by Albania regarding the rights of Greeks living in southern Albania.
It encourages Albania to continue to make improvements in this area.
Albania has repeatedly declared its commitment to observe the rights of the Greek minority in accordance with international standards.
Mr Henderson, I am very sorry but you have not answered my question.
You have answered another question, which I did not ask you. I am very clear on the matter.
Does the UK Presidency divide autonomy into good and bad?
Does it give the right of autonomy to some people but not to others? Your country signed the Corfu Protocol of 1914, which refers to autonomy in northern Epirus.
My question is this: how is it possible, through the use of weapons, for the European Union to want to grant autonomy to the Albanians in Kosovo and for the European Union, through your own presidency, to refuse to implement an instrument which bears the signature of five Member States of the European Union and that of Albania? I would like you to answer my specific question, and I would also like you to tell me whether, in the discussions which are taking place in the Council on autonomy in Kosovo, the Greek government has raised the issue of the autonomy of northern Epirus.
I refer to my previous answer, that political encouragement has been given to Albania to recognize the rights of Greeks who live in the southern part of Albania.
The Albanian Government has declared its commitment to meet the necessary international standards in this regard.
The matter has not been specifically raised in the Council by the Greek Government - or, if it has, I am not aware of it.
In relation to the general point, one cannot say that the solution should be the same in every situation in every region or country in the world where there is an argument about regional devolution in one form or another.
One really must look at the situation that pertains in any country.
Indeed, those who believed they were a persecuted minority might want differing solutions in different countries even though the persecution was of a similar nature, for all sorts of historical, political or economic reasons.
So one must look at particular situations.
But, generally, it is consistent with the Albanian Government's statements of support for a greater say over their own affairs by the people of Kosovo that the Albanian Government recognizes within its own borders that special needs have to be accorded to the Greek minority who live in the southern part of Albania.
Question No 16 by Hugh McMahon (H-0526/98)
Subject: Removing obstacles to trade
Can the Council inform Parliament of the terms of the agreement at the Internal Market Council of Ministers' meeting on 18 May concerning legislation removing obstacles to trade?
In particular, what powers have been accorded to the Commission to demand that states take the "necessary and proportionate measures' to remove such obstacles to trade? Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mr McMahon's question.
The Council reached unanimous agreement in principle on a regulation and resolution on the functioning of the internal market in relation to the free movement of goods among the Member States.
Parliament will be reconsulted on the text of the regulation since it is substantially different from what the Commission originally proposed.
The regulation requires the Commission to request a Member State to take action within a period which it shall determine.
The Member State then has five days in which either to set out the action it will be taking or to submit reasons why it does not consider that there is an obstacle.
The regulation also sets up an information mechanism to keep all Member States informed of actual or potential obstacles and action being taken against them.
I thank the President-in-Office for his very full answer.
I am pleased that the British presidency has curbed the zeal of the Commission, which really wanted to exercise excessive powers, which could have meant restraints on the right to strike and legitimate trade union practice.
Would the Council not agree with me that we now have a more sensible compromise, and that no doubt there will be successful proposals coming forward from this Parliament when it expresses its opinion?
I have known Mr McMahon for a number of years and as ever I agree with the point which he has raised.
I gladly accept his congratulations on the Council's view on this matter.
I assure him that in any revised position we will be ensuring that the measures do not affect the right to strike or other fundamental rights.
As the author is not present, Question No 17 lapses.
Question No 18 by Gary Titley (H-0537/98)
Subject: Problems facing beneficiaries of wills across the EU
One of my constituents has inherited a legal estate through the will of a relative.
He has been informed that as different parts of the estate are in both Ireland and Britain, he will have to go through the legal processes and costs of securing executor's oaths and powers of attorney in both countries.
What proposals will the Council produce to ensure the harmonization of legal procedures for births, marriages and deaths, so that in future the Single Market will serve the citizens of Europe from the cradle to the grave? Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mr Titley's question.
The Council has no plans to harmonize the present procedures in Member States of the European Union relating to the inheritance of property on death.
In view of the widely differing national laws relating to inheritance - particularly of family property - and the formalities relating to the drawing up of wills and the procedures involved in their administration, the technical difficulties that would be involved in such a project would be formidable.
The honourable Member has also raised the wider issue of the harmonization of legal procedures for births, marriages and deaths in this context.
I would draw his attention to a convention on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters which was agreed by the Council of Ministers at the end of May.
An important benefit of this agreement is that it will ensure that orders in Members States in divorce and similar cases, including orders affecting children at the time of divorce, will generally be recognized throughout the European Union with the minimum of procedural requirements.
If this is furthered by regulating the competence of divorce courts, this should help to avoid the present confusion among courts in the European Union.
Could I thank the President-in-Office for his very full answer.
Since putting this question down I realize that this problem is much more extensive than I had anticipated.
One of the benefits of the single market is that people can now own property anywhere in the European Union.
A number of people take advantage of those provisions to retire to countries like Spain; clearly that is an ageing population and inevitably people are dying and their families are finding that they are getting entangled in a legal nightmare.
I recognize the impossibility of harmonizing legal systems but as the President-in-Office has said we have just agreed a convention on divorce.
I would have thought that if we can sort out divorce we can sort out deaths.
Could not the principle of the conventional divorce, whereby there is mutual recognition of legal systems in Member States, also be applied in this case?
I would summit this is going to be a bigger problem. If we are going to build a Europe for the people then we ought to sort out the basics of births, deaths and marriage so that the single market does cater for citizens from cradle to grave.
I am not sure if everyone will agree that if we can sort out divorce we can sort out death.
It is complicated enough sorting out divorce.
I think that the honourable Member raises an important point.
As Europe becomes a more mobile area and people move from one part of the European Union to another then increasingly there will be problems that arise because of that movement of people, especially when it happens in large numbers - and the numbers are growing.
I think all of us in the United Kingdom know friends who have retired to Spain or to Ireland.
I am sure that all Members from different Member States could quote similar experiences so the honourable Member raises an important point.
In my original answer I explained the current position of the Council but it would be wise for all of us to think further on this.
During this presidency the honourable Member will be aware that justice and home affairs has been a lively area where a lot of change has taken place and a lot of future change has been initiated, and it is an area where those who have been involved in this question will want to give further thought, because it needs practical solutions.
Question No 19 by Marie-Paule Kestelijn-Sierens (H-0540/98)
Subject: European subsidies on school milk
Can the Council explain why, under Article 2 of Council Regulation 1842/83 , sterilized full cream milk is the only kind of full cream milk excluded from the European subsidy scheme for school milk, in spite of the fact that it is the only kind of full cream milk sold in glass bottles? Does it not consider that schools which opt for educational and environmental reasons to supply milk in returnable glass bottles are being unjustifiably penalized for this under the subsidy scheme?
Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens' question.
Sterilized whole and semi-skimmed milk has been ineligible for European Community school milk subsidy since the introduction of the scheme in 1977.
When the scheme was introduced the list of eligible products took account of the market situation, availability and the type of product actually supplied to schools at the time.
The list has been amended over the years at Member States' request but there has been no request to add sterilized unflavoured milk.
Its inclusion would require amendment of Council Regulation 1842/83 or of the detailed implementing rules in Commission Regulation 3392/93 which provides for a derogation from specified heat treatments.
I am surprised that sterilized whole milk is the only type of milk supplied in glass bottles in some Member States.
In the United Kingdom pasteurized and UHT milk is available in glass bottles while sterilized milk tends to come in plastic bottles.
There is of course no link between the type of container and eligibility for subsidy.
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply, but I am left with the problem that between a quarter and half of the schools in Belgium provide milk in glass bottles to their children.
This concerns sterilized whole milk which is only available in glass bottles.
In order to reach a solution, the directive should be modified since it excludes sterilized milk.
This means that environmentally-minded schools receive no subsidies, even though they use glass bottles.
I would like to urge a modification to the directive on this issue.
I am so used to answering questions in the British Parliament by saying No that I find it quite difficult to say 'Yes' sometimes.
I say to the honourable Member who raised this question that she has raised a real point.
So far Member States have made no requests for the addition of sterilized milk to the list.
As I understand it, sterilized milk is 5 % of the European Union liquid milk market.
If there is a need for a modification to the regulation, perhaps the Belgian Government could consider making representations to the Commission.
If there is a logic to the case, there will be receptiveness in the answer.
Question No 20 by Maj Theorin (H-0541/98)
Subject: Relations between India and the EU
India has conducted five nuclear weapons tests and created instability in its region.
Pakistan has announced that it will conduct its own nuclear weapons tests.
The risk of a new nuclear arms race, global as well as regional, is obvious.
The EU is an important partner for India as regards cooperation.
It possesses political, economic and diplomatic leverage.
The USA is urging that sanctions be imposed on India, but there are alternatives, such as suspending cooperation agreements, stopping aid and prohibiting all exports of arms or arms parts.
The EU thus has an opportunity to criticize India not only in word but also in deed.
What action does the Council think the EU should take? Mr Henderson, I invite you to reply to Mrs Theorin's question.
The European Council welcomed the conclusions of the meeting of P5 Foreign Ministers in Geneva on 4 June and G8 Foreign Ministers in London on 12 June as a positive contribution to the process of encouraging India and Pakistan to address constructively the issues which divide them.
It also welcomed the decision by some Foreign Ministers on 12 June to establish a taskforce to promote non-proliferation in South Asia.
Previously, the Council has called on India and Pakistan to engage urgently in dialogue on regional stability issues and agree confidence-building measures to reduce tension and urged them to sign and move to ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty, join negotiations on a fissile material cut-off Treaty, exercise stringent control over nuclear-related exports, and commit themselves not to assemble or deploy nuclear weapons.
Member States have already worked for a delay in consideration of loans to India via the World Bank and other international financial institutions and will review the advisability of international financial institution lending to Pakistan in the relevant institutions in the light of the economic and financial circumstances.
The Council has also asked the Commission to review India's and Pakistan's continued eligibility for GSP preferences.
That was a good summing up of many proposals we would like to see implemented; above all the condemnation of India and Pakistan.
However, there was one measure which I clearly missed, namely that we were willing to take measures with regard to arms exports or the export of weapon parts to India and Pakistan.
In percentage terms, India is competing harder in the area of military research than any other country in the world apart from the USA.
Their new prime minister has proposed an increase of 100 % over five years.
There is therefore a very dangerous situation with regard to both conventional weapons and nuclear weapons in this region.
It is a serious situation which demands a response and action from the outside world.
But, of course, the five permanent nuclear weapons powers must also accept their responsibility and follow the measures they promised in Article 6 of the non-proliferation treaty, namely to seriously negotiate a real reduction in nuclear weapons.
Otherwise no actions will be credible.
I thank the honourable Member, as ever, for her supplementary question.
I am pleased that she recognized that the original answer covered much of the ground that she would expect to be in the response of the Council.
She was somewhat critical of the lack of an arms embargo.
I say to her that there is no consensus in the Council for this.
But even if there were, it would be doubtful if it would be effective because Russia is a main supplier of arms in this particular situation to India.
I should like to say how much I have enjoyed spending my Wednesday afternoons in the company of Mr Henderson for the last six months.
I look forward to the Austrian presidency.
Does the President-in-Office not agree that this current situation reinforces the need for Western powers to take seriously the dangerous potential insecurity in this region, particularly in view of the running sore of Kashmir between India and Pakistan and the ongoing problems of disputes between India and China? We ought therefore to have a fresh political initiative in order to ensure greater stability in the region.
I wish to say to the honourable Member that it is so pleasant to do business with a man who is so easily satisfied, and I look forward to continuing to try to satisfy him in other forums on other occasions.
He is absolutely right that the recent events in India and Pakistan highlight the need for the rest of the world to enter into a dialogue with both of those countries and other neighbouring countries to try to build a stability which will ensure that what was a relatively minor problem, which has become a very much greater problem, does not become an even greater problem in the future.
The honourable Member is absolutely right to bring that to the Council's attention.
Mr President, before I sit down, I just wish to say to you that this is the end of my six months of reporting to Parliament and it has been a pleasure to have operated under such a genial chairmanship as your own and one which has been courteous and fair.
I apologize for the fact that once or twice airlines have not cooperated with either Parliament's timetable or mine and it has led to deviations from our original intentions.
But I hope that we have covered the ground, and I thank you very much for your chairmanship.
Thank you very much, Mr Henderson.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes Question Time.
Questions Nos 21 to 44 will be dealt with in writing.
As Mr Henderson said, today's sitting marks the end of six months of collaboration in questions to the Council.
I would like to say, Mr Henderson, that Mr Titley is not the only one who is glad to have shared some of his afternoons with you. As President, I have had the honour and pleasure of sharing all my Wednesday afternoons with you, and I would like to express my thanks and satisfaction.
I would also sincerely like to wish you all the best for the future, and I hope we meet again, here or somewhere else.
In one of the later questions, it was repeatedly said that many people go to Spain to retire. Mr Henderson, Spain is a good place to go to even before you retire.
I hope we may be able to meet there, too.
That concludes questions to the Council.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Harmful tax competition (continuation)
The next item is a continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0228/98) by Mr Carlo Secchi of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the Commission's communication to the Council and the European Parliament concerning a package to tackle harmful tax competition.
Mr President, I would like to draw the attention of the Bureau to defects in the text of the report we are now debating.
The German version and the Swedish version contain 22 paragraphs. However, the English version contains 35 paragraphs.
We are all anxious to know what we are going to be voting for tomorrow.
Thank you, Mr Svensson.
We will take note of this.
Your comments will be given consideration.
I can promise you that.
Mr President, after monetary union, it was to be expected that sooner or later the harmonization of the tax systems of the Member States would be raised as part of the project for a federal Europe, which is gradually being imposed on us, whether we like it or not.
I fear that today's debate is only the first act in a long play.
It may be packaged under the heading 'countering harmful tax competition' , but ultimately it boils down to the same thing: the powers of the Member States are being moved in dribs and drabs, but very systematically, to federal level.
I am not in any way opposed to extensive European consultation and collaboration. Nevertheless, as a Fleming I am wellqualified to be critical of this form of equalization.
As you know, the Flemings find that they now are unable to introduce essential reductions in taxation - at their own expense, would you believe - within the federal state of Belgium - for example, regarding social security taxes or the burden of taxation on labour -, as these reductions have been vetoed by the federal partner in the Walloon provinces.
The question may therefore justifiably be asked whether the hypothetically harmful tax competition which would be countered, and which nevertheless also has advantages, would ultimately not be a lesser evil than the federal uniformity which threatens to replace it.
May I remind you that large companies and capital are easily moved outside the European Union for tax purposes, an option not available to the average citizen.
Finally I should mention, albeit not with a totally clear conscience, that a variety of tax advantages are granted to the European institutions that are not available to the common citizen in our Member States either.
Those who wish to harmonize and equalize would do well to start with themselves, if not, they should leave well enough alone.
Mr President, the introduction of the euro has caused the Member States to realize that their direct taxes require some tax harmonization.
The code of conduct relating to harmful tax competition, dated 1 December of last year, was the first writing on the wall, and we hope to see a future agreement regarding tax on interest for non-residents.
The need for such initiatives is obvious.
Since 1980, the burden of tax has been shifting from mobile factors such as capital to the least mobile factor of labour.
Europe will not succeed in drastically reducing unemployment, presently standing at 11 %, without departing from this trend.
The Secchi report recognizes the above mentioned necessity for some harmonization in the area of direct taxes in order to prevent the race to ruin.
However, a new concept, that is, profitable or healthy tax competition, was introduced in this report, to which my group strongly objects.
This seems to me to be a totally muddled concept which assumes that tax competition exists which has favourable social effects.
Admittedly, variations in taxation will continue to exist, and these variations will always lead to competition.
Tax competition is inevitable in this sense.
But we cannot see how this competition could be beneficial to persons other than those who are subjected to it.
Differences in taxation create a constant pressure on governments to lower their tax rates.
The more mobile the tax source, the harder it is to resist this pressure.
The result, however, is seldom a lower level of tax, but rather a shift of the burden of tax to the least mobile source, namely, labour.
That is what we have seen in recent years. It is one of the reasons for the high unemployment rate in Europe.
I would advise the right-wing members of this Parliament to think twice before coming up with tangled concepts such as tax competition.
Mr President, the internal market is now five years old, and, as the rapporteur stated, the arrival of the euro will render it more transparent and efficient.
Everyone knows by now that, besides eliminating the traditional obstacles to free movement, the internal market can only function well with a proper competition policy.
The Commission has considerable powers at its disposal in this respect and is taking firm action in cases of unlawful governmental support or actions by companies that reduce competition.
Unfortunately, a similar range of instruments is not available to the Commission with respect to removing the harmful effects of fiscal competition.
Unless this changes, Member States will continue to steal a march on each other with specific provisions for non-residents; the fiscal shopping around on the part of companies and private citizens will only increase.
In addition, the risk of erosion of state revenue will become a real threat, which is certainly not a good thing in times of budgetary constraint.
Finally, the trend during the past decade to lighten the burden on mobile factors at the cost of the less mobile labour factor could not be reversed, despite any number of employment debates.
It is therefore laudable that the Commission has presented this package and that the Council has also decided at long last that something must be done.
Cardiff has emphasized this as well.
It is a cautious beginning.
The question of harmonization has not yet been raised in any of the three selected priority areas, which are therefore limited to coordination here and there.
The package method is a step in the right direction for Europe and the Member States, but the package, which contains no more than three products, would appear to be rather minimal.
Indirect taxation and border labour also suffer badly from the lack of fiscal harmonization.
The package presented by the Commission is admittedly a good move for us politically, but only as a first step, that is, with the condition that further steps must follow, including those relating to the decision-making procedure.
It would not be right for the Member States to maintain the unanimity rule and give the impression to their citizens that they are safeguarding their powers with respect to fiscal matters, when that same unanimity rule prevents the Member States from realizing the harmonization required to counter harmful tax competition and the erosion of tax revenue.
By retaining the unanimity rule the Member States are themselves undermining the formal powers they cling to so eagerly.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commissioner three questions before closing.
Firstly, a code of conduct working party has been established which is to implement specific matters. How will this be democratically controlled?
Secondly, does the Commission intend to talk anyone else outside the OECD into taking one or more of these measures? Thirdly and finally, Mr President, when can retailers in border areas expect the VAT rates to converge?
My congratulations to the rapporteur.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
We agree with the proposal in the Monti package.
Unfair competition in the area of company taxation must be eliminated.
In five years time there should, therefore, be no more fiscal constructions set up by Member States to entice companies from other Member States.
A provision for savings is also required.
All sorts of calculations are being made about how much the new regime will contribute to the national treasuries.
However, we should not be under any illusion, as savings are also deposited outside the Union.
But the Council is correct in its conclusions dated 1 December of last year that we must safeguard the competitiveness of the European financial markets.
In this context, I would imagine that an advance levy on income derived from securities of 20 % or more would be counterproductive.
Large savers will undoubtedly invest their money outside the Union.
In conclusion, I have one more question for the Commissioner.
I know that the text of the directive on the tax regulation for savings has been finalized.
When does he expect this directive to take effect? Many citizens are, of course, interested in this matter.
Mr President, the positive thing about this report is the criticism of so-called tax havens and demands for minimum standards and for a duty to inform to apply to banks.
However, the idea of more general tax harmonization is unrealistic. It would be a serious encroachment on the prerogative of national parliaments and the rights of the citizens to shape their country's tax policy through elections.
It could also upset the stability of state finances.
The Member States have such different tax systems that they would be forced at the same time to harmonize all sorts of taxes.
This is politically and practically impossible and an unrealistic idea which we should abandon.
Mr President, I would like to echo the compliments expressed by other speakers to the rapporteur. Allow me to congratulate him on the content of his report which, whilst containing comments on and criticism of the Commission, essentially supports the Commission in what I consider to be its bold intervention in Member States' tax policy.
Particularly once Economic and Monetary Union has come into force, there is no doubt that Member States, who are being stripped of what margin for manoeuvre they had on budgetary and monetary policy, will not easily relinquish their prerogative on tax matters; there will certainly be resistance.
The Commission therefore needs Parliament's backing on this, and I believe that, in the democratic spirit which drives it, Parliament will support it.
Let us not forget that nearly all Member States, particularly the larger ones, have created oases within their borders. We are not talking about tax havens, but oases in which taxation is somehow lighter.
These oases spark off competition, and the competition system hampers the healthy and harmonious management of taxation which would create the results we are seeking, including in terms of economic progress and growth.
I would like to stress, moreover, that we must safeguard the possibility of using the tax lever, applying tax incentives for areas which need to expand; there are some outstanding examples of this in the Community. These should still remain possible because even labour taxation, for example, can allow areas with difficulties to get onto an equal footing with other areas of the Community.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in his report Mr Secchi has shown a great deal of sensitivity, which is very important in dealing with such a delicate issue.
However, we must under no circumstances allow ourselves to close our eyes to the economic reality of the European Union.
It is a fact that the single currency, the euro, amongst all its positive effects, will also have a politically positive side effect in that it will stimulate extra activity in the overall policymaking of the European Union.
And for me this extra activity means that things will, at last, have to get moving in the tax sector.
It will not stop at coordination. We will have to move on to harmonization, and there are many reasons why this is the case.
I myself think that we should move away from the principle of unanimity.
Europe needs a certain level of coordination, better coordination in the area of tax policy, precisely because many different levels of tax burden apply in the European Union. Labour is too heavily taxed.
Corporate groups are largely left to deal with their tax matters as they see fit.
Small- and mediumsized businesses don't really get a look in.
In truth, it is only the international tax consultancies who really benefit profit from the situation.
What we need is better coordination in order to eliminate certain double and multiple taxation problems.
It is quite simply unacceptable that Europe has coordination centres, as is the case in Belgium, which make large loans to groups and subsidiaries of groups with interest payable outside the country in question, where in turn they are subject to very low tax rates and thus in practice manage to avoid the whole taxation process.
This is unacceptable!
These practices exist all over Europe and we must get rid of them.
This is our chance to achieve better harmonization in this sector.
Mr President, I will not repeat any of the comments made by Mr Secchi, which I support from start to finish.
I would prefer to concentrate on one point concerning the stage at which we Europeans find ourselves after the coming into force of the euro.
We Europeans have from now on rejected the possibility of devaluing currencies in order to recover lost competitiveness by way of a short cut.
We have also rejected the use of monetary policies as a national instrument to create employment in the oldest sense of the Phillips curve.
In addition, we have rejected budgetary policies by signing up to the Stability Pact.
Now it is time for us to tackle the problem of fiscal harmonization, which still remains to be solved.
And here there are two conflicting ideas: one - from the Council - which is timid, narrow-minded and slow; and the other which is the one the Commission wants to opt for.
I would like to assure the Commissioner of my personal support for the efforts he is making in order to overcome the Council's opposition, and would like to emphasize several points relating to the package being presented to us here today.
As regards fiscal competition, I completely agree that a single market, with a single currency, is not compatible with fiscal privileges which distort competition.
However, it would be appropriate if, alongside allowances, tax reductions or increases in credit facilities, the Commission tackled the complex problem of state aid.
One thing that has been talked about during the days in the run-up to the Cardiff Summit is the desire on the part of some Member States for the principle of subsidiarity to be applied in an unequal manner, in such a way that the Commission cannot control, review or examine state aids.
I cannot see any difference between aid granted by means of tax reductions and aid granted from items of public expenditure.
Secondly, as regards taxation on savings, I share the Commission's view that it is unacceptable to increase taxation on work while decreasing the tax burden on capital. Nevertheless, I believe that the measures which are being implemented, and which we are currently considering, are insufficient.
I think - and this is not the moment to go into this as I do not have time - that we will need to consider whether the model of calculated added value for consumption is still valid, a model we approved at a time which was very different to that in which we now live.
In conclusion, Commissioner, I would like to reiterate my support for the efforts being made to overcome the Council's opposition and to move towards the harmonization which we Europeans now need.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Monti package is a good impetus for further coordination.
We must find the right balance between policy coordination and competition.
In my opinion, we should not compete outright in a number of policy areas but rather arrive at cooperation.
In this respect, I believe that the code of conduct regarding corporation tax should be elaborated further.
In its present state, it provides a host of possibilities for tax evasion, and the entire issue of VAT has been disregarded in these proposals, which is regrettable.
I do not consider this to be Commissioner Monti's fault, but rather a matter which the Council is still afraid to tackle.
The same applies to indirect taxation, such as creating environmental and energy taxes to avoid increasing taxation on employment, as has been mentioned often by other Members.
The reduction of double taxation on wages, in particular, should be given a higher priority.
I do not blame Commissioner Monti, but I do blame the Council.
Mr President, the introduction of monetary union will create a previously unknown level of transparency and thus of total comparability of all prices and costs from one Member State to another.
As a result, competition-distorting differences in many areas, including environmental conditions for example, but of course above all the tax sector, will take on a new and greater dimension.
Our domestic market with its complete liberalization and freedom of movement must have fair competition conditions, otherwise it may produce shifts and changes running counter to economic and social balance.
Harmful tax competition can destroy the economic advantages of the single market in the states in question and runs contrary to the logic of economic and monetary union.
Strictly speaking, reaching the degree of tax harmonization we are currently labouring to achieve should have been be an important condition for introducing Economic and Monetary Union.
In this respect I welcome Mr Secchi's report with its very clear and logical assessment of the Commission's communication.
I believe it is important for us to agree that tax coordination - in terms of reducing the labour factor - is necessary and can therefore also serve as an important instrument in the fight against unemployment.
The achievement of a compromise between tax sovereignty and stronger voluntary economic coordination is an inescapable necessity for any state which wants the single market and monetary union to work.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Secchi, very sincerely for having successfully handled a particularly difficult task when it comes to encroaching upon national, in some cases even nationalist, prerogatives.
In my report on European industrial competitiveness, I myself proposed fiscal harmonization in order to avoid anarchic competition between Member States and in order to produce beneficial effects at the level of business competitiveness.
I am also delighted at the adoption of a code of conduct in the area of business taxation by the Ecofin Council.
There is currently concrete progress which points to real hope in this area.
With regard to the text of Mr Secchi's report, there are however a number of points which raise certain fears and doubts for me.
I consider that the bias in favour of a correlation between lower taxes and lower unemployment is far too optimistic.
If such a simple solution existed, there would no longer be any unemployment in Europe.
Similarly, I do not support the lowest tender fiscal policy which the rapporteur seems to suggest, for it encourages negative competition between Member States. I would finally like to remind you that tax deductions also result in a redistribution within society as a whole: education, research, security, infrastructure - none of these would be accessible to everyone without a fiscal policy which enables strong public intervention.
In conclusion, I would like to reaffirm my conviction as a Member of the European Parliament and as a Frenchman, that it is necessary to harmonize the Union's fiscal policy.
However, we must keep in mind that this fiscal policy is a way of constructing a political Europe, and that it is a political Europe alone that can legitimize a fiscal Europe.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for some excellent work.
The report presents us with a splendid opportunity to discuss the weapons the Union will choose to combat harmful tax competition between Member States.
Divergent national tax systems and the competition they lead to will result in a total failure to achieve the prospects for growth and employment in the internal market.
In many Member States, the level of tax on labour is the greatest barrier to solving the unemployment problem.
The higher overall labour costs are, the higher the unemployment rate generally is also.
Unfortunately, harmonization has not extended into this particular sector.
What has happened at national level is at best special tax allowances for foreign executives and the use of option and other tax systems, which, in conjunction with a low rate of capital gains tax, results in production becoming capital-intensive, thus exacerbating the unemployment problem.
The Union has quite rightly intervened in indirect taxation, for example by aiming at harmonization of VAT.
Otherwise tax on tobacco, alcohol and car tax, for example, can differ quite substantially from one country to another.
When the Union fusses over the abolition of the duty-free system, it forgets that this only serves to cause unemployment and preserve different levels of indirect taxation.
Tax havens can only be created in countries whose national economies are in good shape or with an undeveloped social security system.
They are able to compete with low taxation.
Countries with a high rate of taxation, which, in addition, have problems balancing their budget, apply negative tax competition instead: in other words, they burden their own citizens with high special taxes.
Tackling this problem is at least as important as intervening in harmful positive tax competition.
Mr President, I think that this report contains a lot of good things.
However, I would like to talk about three things that are not included, and which I think should perhaps have been included.
The first concerns the Ecofin group which is to be set up to monitor the application of this Code of Conduct.
Its meetings are secret.
I think Parliament should have called for the minutes of these meetings to be published as soon as possible.
The second point which I find lacking comes in part two of the action plan, and concerns the duty to inform which people are considering applying to banks within the Union.
In fact a very common way of avoiding tax today is to place your capital in another country and then withhold information on income from this capital from the tax authorities in your home country.
This is a quite simply criminal tax fiddle which is taking place on a large scale within the Union today.
A very simple way to overcome this, Mr President, is to impose an obligation on banks to report to the authorities in the capital owner's home country that this income exists, so that they can be taxed.
I think Parliament should have said that we welcome such a duty to inform.
The third point concerns measures against tax havens.
Obviously, like the rapporteur, I too welcome the fact that we are trying to tackle this problem within the Union.
However, I think we should perhaps have pointed out that to get a definitive solution to this problem we need a global agreement, otherwise there is a risk that capital owners will move their capital from one of the Union's tax havens to a tax haven outside the Union.
Mr President, I did not vote for Mr Secchi's report in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and I will not vote for it in the House, because it proposes a fool's bargain in the sense that, in practice, it advocates non-respect for the demand for simultaneous adoption of the Community directives on business taxation and taxation of savings.
There is no way we can be satisfied with a code of conduct in the area of business taxation whilst demanding a directive on the taxation of income from savings, especially given that harmful tax competition is far more important in the area of business taxation than that of the taxation of savings.
In this latter field, my amendment recalling that the competitiveness of European financial markets at world level must be protected was fortunately taken up by the committee, which particularly delighted and reassured my colleague, Mr Fayot, who is no longer here and who, unfortunately, was also absent from the committee when this amendment was voted on.
Mr Secchi's report goes as far as putting in the rubbish bin the integration of the legislative process with regard to the different components of the package formulated on 1 December last year by the Ecofin Council.
My amendment clarifying that there is no cause for killing fair tax competition within the European Union was rejected, as was my amendment which confirmed that the only objective of harmonization must be the elimination of real distortions which truly interfere with the single market. An example of this, in the area of indirect taxation, is the excessively high rate of excise on wines coming from certain Member States - and Mr Monti will have understood clearly that there is no cause to take initiatives to kill the zero rate in this area.
Mr Secchi's report calls for the elimination of tax havens in the internal market.
No Member State is a tax haven, quite the contrary, but many territories which have special relations with certain Member States, such as the Isle of Man, the Dutch Antilles and so on, may be considered as tax havens. In the internal market, there will be a need to eliminate these.
It is furthermore intellectually dishonest, if not hypocritical, to consider an eminently social model of taxation as a tax haven, such as that in my country which imposes reasonable rates of VAT and excise duties - to the advantage of the low paid - and taxes higher incomes more heavily; which treats non-residents the same as neighbouring countries with regard to taxation of savings but which fortunately refrains from confiscating income from savings, savings made, by honest people, on the basis of income on which the taxpayer has already paid his or her taxes.
The taxation of border work is held up as one of the areas in which fiscal harmonization is necessary.
On this subject it is sufficient to ensure respect for the principle by which it is appropriate to consolidate, in the country of employment, the payment of social contributions and income tax.
Mr President, I fear that a number of exaggerations in this report hardly contribute to consolidating the Ecofin Council's decisions of 1 December last year, reached under the Luxembourg Presidency, which deserve credit for unblocking the process of direct fiscal harmonization, but which must not be the victim of a fool's bargain.
Mr President, I should also like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, and I would like to say that I understand that a certain degree of competition between national tax systems may in fact stimulate efficiency and benefit consumers.
But it should be emphasized that the present inequalities between tax systems can also contribute to making it impossible for us to reap the profits we might otherwise obtain from the internal market in terms of growth and employment.
So I think it is becoming a matter of urgency to improve the coordination of these policies, which are a hindrance to the proper working of the internal market.
Particularly in the area of taxation, bearing in mind that tax coordination can be used as an essential instrument for the practical implementation of our employment policy guidelines by reducing the tax burden on employment.
We must reverse the taxation philosophy we apply to the labour market and other production factors, especially capital.
As the rapporteur quite rightly emphasizes, between 1985 and 1995 taxes on employment increased by 20 % while taxes on capital decreased by 10 %.
We shall only succeed in creating jobs when we have the political ability and the political courage to reverse that trend.
It is therefore vital that we should adopt a package of measures that deserve the support of Member States and include, for example, a code of conduct for company taxation, and conditions that will make it possible to reduce the tax burden on those who promote employment, with a consequent reduction in non-wages social costs.
To succeed in our fight against unemployment it is important to counteract the disastrous consequences of harmful tax competition, and I would emphasize that, if it becomes necessary, we must retain beneficial forms of competition in taxation between Member States as an instrument for increasing the competitiveness of the European economy in the face of the present challenges of the global market.
Mr President, a number of shrewd observations have been made this afternoon and this evening.
I would like to look at this matter more in terms of principle.
Firstly, I must say it is a good thing that we are taking this up, and I would also like to congratulate the Commissioner on his excellent results in Cardiff.
The Council has also followed the recommendations in the document forwarded by the Commission.
To my mind, there is a matter of principle involved in these problem areas.
My premise is that we should deal with trans-border fiscal matters.
That is where the problems lie.
My honourable friend Mr Gallagher from Ireland made a fine contribution this afternoon, amply illustrating the problems of company taxation.
I can well understand our delight at creating jobs in one place, but I do not like the fact that jobs are simply disappearing elsewhere, which means that jobs are not really being created at all and that the Union is not making any progress.
The second point I would like to mention is environmental taxes or duties.
These traverse borders just as company taxation does.
Here, too, we need to keep in step.
Once again, we have heard Ms Lulling and also Mr Fayot speaking earlier today about returns on investments, interest, and so forth.
What is the good of agreeing on uniform taxation of interest if we cannot even locate the interest? That is the real problem: a lack of openness, or banking secrecy.
Finally, we have what are known as excise duties - as mentioned previously - on spirits, wine, cars, and so on.
That, too, is a trans-border issue that we must examine.
However, I do not think we should touch on personal taxation.
That would not be realistic at present.
Overall, the tax ratio is actually fairly uniform.
Some countries have heavy user fees; other countries, my own included, have little in the way of user fees. However, adding it all up, for more than half the members of the Union, much the same tax ratio goes on welfare and welfare services.
I strongly recommend that we take a good look at the real world and include a voluntary aspect when implementing changes in taxation within the Union.
Mr President, may I begin by congratulating Commissioner Monti on the action he has taken on tax harmonization, with all the difficulties that arise from the fact that a unanimous vote in Council is still required in this area.
From our political point of view, the idea that there should be no harmonization, and that the market should resolve the problems, is an attractive one.
But we have to be realistic and recognize the certainty that, as economies are opened up and all other rules are increasingly harmonized, competition in the field of taxation would have the effect of increasing the already excessive tax burden on employment.
Thus, while we cannot achieve everything at once, we must pay special attention to the introduction of the euro, which means that we have to harmonize the taxation of savings and interest. When the currency is the same it makes no difference whether, for example, the money is deposited in one country or another, because the countries with the lowest tax rates will naturally benefit and transfers are therefore to be expected.
But the risks of unfair tax competition do not end at the boundaries of Europe in an increasingly open world.
For that reason the European Union must close the loopholes by demanding that third countries observe minimum tax rules, which would be just as legitimate as our requirements in the social and environmental fields, and would therefore act as a disincentive to countries outside Europe.
And it is for the same reasons, and even more so, that I wish to voice the strongest agreement with the rapporteur, Mr Secchi, when he says that we should speed up the elimination of tax havens within the internal European Union market - as already mentioned - to put an end to the ruinous tax competition between Member States, which is compatible neither with the single market nor with the spirit of the Community.
As I have emphasized, these havens are of no help to the products and areas most in need of support, and European citizens cannot understand why they continue to exist; or at least, I am unable to explain this in my own country.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Secchi on his report on this important subject.
Sluggishness, lack of political will and incapacity have hitherto been the hallmarks of this highly important tax harmonization dossier.
This is a very difficult subject technically speaking, and its political sensitivity is an aggravating factor.
The Council's requirement for a unanimous vote is based on the fact that the national parliaments want to have the last word on the matter.
And although I can understand that if we carry on along this road we shall find it hard to make any progress, what is certain is that the national parliaments essentially came into being because taxes had to be fixed, and they are not likely easily to accept a role in which they are merely required to rubber-stamp decisions taken by supra-national authorities.
But the creation of a single market and the free movement of citizens and capital have already shown that the existing tax policy causes imbalances in the market that are in many cases highly unreasonable, prejudicial and indeed unfair.
The problem of harmonizing this situation is therefore an extremely difficult one.
For that reason the lack of progress and political will I mentioned at the beginning is understandable.
The problem is that the results of that inertia are unacceptably harmful to taxes on employment and are too easy on other production factors, especially capital.
When the euro comes into force and the internal market is suddenly wide open, some major measures will inevitably have to be taken to bring the various tax systems closer together.
On this point Commissioner Monti has tried to take some positive steps which the Council has unfortunately limited to a few direct taxes.
Only the work and experience of the group of experts appointed by Ecofin will be able to guarantee that we have the political will to achieve something in this field.
But if it is to do so its work must not be kept secret.
One of the effects of the euro will be to make it necessary for tax policies to be approximated.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Commissioner Monti and wish him the best of luck in his fight for fiscal harmonization and the elimination of harmful barriers.
I would also like to thank my colleague, Mr Secchi, for this excellent report, which will allow us to make better use of the advantages of the single market and monetary union by eliminating fiscal distortions. These distortions exist; they translate today into the relocation of savings and investments - with harmful repercussions on the competitiveness of businesses - and they also mean that there is an increase in the tax burden on workers who cannot relocate.
However, I want to emphasize that the code of conduct expressly recognizes the possibility that in a given Member State there may be different tax legislation and that all legislation must be equally subjected to this process of eliminating harmful distortions.
This process of eliminating distortions cannot and should not be used to limit the subsidiarity principle. Nor should it limit the fiscal authority that can now be exercised, in the case of Spain, by the Basque Country or the Autonomous Community of Navarre, whose constitutional relationship states that the fiscal laws passed by the Cortes of Navarre can only be challenged in the Spanish Constitutional Court.
Respect for existing levels of authority in the European Union can only strengthen the credibility of the current process of accelerating fiscal harmonization.
This process does not unnecessarily discriminate between fiscal rules according to the state or regional body which approves them, but solely determines whether or not their content is harmful for the entire Union.
Fiscal differences between the various countries can be advantageous for all citizens, in that they can stem from a different level of public spending on the part of the various administrations, from the best or worst management of their expenditure or from the effective use of public resources.
Therefore, we must take harmonization forward, we must respect the principle of subsidiarity and we must respect the causes which mean that different countries have logical distinctions in their tax burden.
Mr President, I am most impressed by this rich, flowing discussion. It has touched on some highly technical matters which nevertheless affect political questions at the very heart of the workings of our European Union.
It seems to me that on certain fundamental issues we have very broad agreement across the whole of the political spectrum represented in this Parliament.
I would like to warmly thank Mr Secchi for his excellent work on this realistic and balanced report, which provides a highly accurate analysis of the package of tax measures and questions related to harmful tax competition.
Let me take this opportunity, Mr President, to say how much I admire the energy and commitment with which Mr Secchi so promptly followed up his report with a proposed report on the draft directive on interest and royalties.
As I was saying, I was struck by certain points where there is broad consensus: one such point is the question of capital and labour.
Mr Caudron is quite correct in saying that this is a tenuous link, but the basic link does exist all the same, and any employment policy in Europe is not credible if it fails to make use of the taxation coordination lever in order to reverse the trend we have seen towards increasing taxation of labour.
When we talk of capital and labour it should be quite clear that the aim is certainly not to undermine the financial markets.
The financial markets are vitally important to the workings of the European economy, to competition and employment.
This is why the Commission - as I will repeat once again this evening - is against the idea of taxing financial transactions, as was proposed by Mr Moreau and Mr Passilinna.
We believe that we should not discourage financial market operations by taxing transactions, but we feel that within an integrated financial market we need to create a normal system for taxing capital income.
It is nothing drastic, it can be done, and it can be done Mr Lulling, Mr Thyssen, in full awareness of the need to avoid penalising competition on European financial markets.
That is why we are doing our utmost to act in international fora such as the OECD and the Group of 7, and to extend the principles of the code of conduct and tax on savings to the dependent and associated territories.
Every country - as Mr Fayot said, and I would agree with him - has become a tax haven for the rest.
This is why we have focused our attention on cross-border taxation.
On the other hand we want to avoid a situation to which several of you referred - for example Mr Peijs - in which inefficient states end up imposing the tax burden on efficient ones.
This is the reason behind the fine line drawn in the fight against harmful tax competition - we do not indiscriminately want to tar everything with the same brush and attack every form of tax competition, even fair ones.
I am pleased to see that the Parliament has understood the value of the package approach both for business and for savings. This is why I must also point out that, as far as business taxation is concerned, we have already set the ball rolling.
Mr Lulling is already hard at work on this one, not with a directive, but rather with a code of conduct, which is starting to work for savings: we hope that in the not-too-distant future we will get the directive.
By the by, Mr Kesteleijn-Sierens was asking when Article 12 of the draft directive on savings should come into force; it says that Member States should adopt legislation on transposition no later than 31 December 1999 which should come into force on 1 January 2001.
The rapporteur himself, Mr Secchi, and other speakers suggested that we should go further than what is covered by this package.
I would fully go along with what was said by Mr Randzio-Plath, Mr von Wogau and others: this is just the beginning, but I trust that this package, modest as it may be, has radically transformed the climate of tax discussions in Europe.
We can now talk about such matters with some prospect of success.
Two years ago - as you well know - it was seen as something completely unrealistic.
We have to go further, from coordination to far-reaching harmonization, and on that we had different points of view: this is one of the few points on which there were divergent positions, which I find perfectly normal since there are different philosophical and political views.
Some people would see a loss of national tax sovereignty as positive; others fear such loss.
We have been working until now on improving coordination, which allows everyone to better exercise the tax sovereignty they have.
Mr Angelilli commented that we should take steps from Community level to bring about a gradual drop in tax pressure.
I am convinced that this is the business of the individual Member States; I am also convinced that it would be in the interests of their economies, and I believe that by closing certain loopholes the coordination of taxation puts everyone in a position where they can afford to reduce the gross average rate.
Mr Formentini recalled the requirements of regional policy: the code of conduct recognizes these requirements and submits them to certain checking processes.
Let me make another point, Mr President: I was very unhappy two months ago when I had to answer a flat "no' to the request of this Parliament, which was supported by a large majority, to reopen discussions on the intra-Community duty free decision on the basis of a study. But those of you who so strongly backed this package against harmful tax competition cannot fail to realize that it would be highly contradictory to be for this approach yet at the same time to want to keep alive these localised tax havens, the duty free sales.
Finally, many of you pointed out that the euro is driving this harmonization or this tax coordination.
Let me state here and now that this has not been the case thus far.
Let us be frank: until now their preparing for the euro has not allowed the Ministers for Finance to focus all their energy as we would have wished on the coordination of taxation. Consequently we have, in a sense, been swimming against the tide, although I believe that from now on the advent of the euro will encourage this process.
One closing comment: I rank amongst those who favour getting rid of the unanimity rule on taxation questions because, if I may say so, it would boost this Parliament's decision-making role.
Unfortunately we are not yet at that juncture, but allow me to stress that, through close cooperation between the Parliament, in particular its Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and the Executive Committee, we were able to get the support of Parliament even under the present institutional system - you are bearing witness to that this evening - and to provide Parliament with the greatest possible amount of transparent information on ongoing work.
So in a certain sense we are creating the conditions which I hope will be institutionalised some day.
Thank you for your support, and thank you once again to Mr Secchi, the rapporteur; I hope that we will have other opportunities to go into more detail on these difficult but important questions.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Tax treatment of private motor vehicles
The next item is the report (A4-0217/98) by Mr Watson on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the proposal for a Council Directive governing the tax treatment of private motor vehicles moved permanently to another Member State in connection with a transfer of residence or used temporarily in a Member State other than that in which they are registered (COM(98)0030 - C4-0145/98-98/0025(CNS))
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating you on the excellent spirit with which you are presiding over this evening's proceedings and the calm efficiency of your chairmanship.
There is not a single question in politics that does not begin or end with taxation.
I am moving tonight a report on the tax treatment of private motor vehicles moved permanently from one Member State to another in connection with a transfer of residence or used temporarily in a Member State other than that in which they are registered.
This draft directive has two aims.
The first is to update the provisions of earlier directives on tax exemptions for vehicles imported from one Member State to another and tax exemptions applicable to permanent import from one Member State to another of the personal property of individuals.
Secondly, the draft directive extends these provisions to problems which have been encountered in the application of the earlier directives and to comply with the internal market and expectations of freedom of movement.
We know that there are obstacles to the free movement of privately owned vehicles, often in the form of double taxation.
This is a matter of concern to this House since the free movement of people is a criterion for a successful single currency area.
That free movement is hampered by obstacles to the movement of vehicles.
Hence we welcome the Commission's proposals.
Generally vehicle taxes are not subject to approximation rules at Community level. This has led to differences between Member States in terms of tax regimes levied on vehicles.
The draft directive before us defines the basic rules for vehicle taxation in the context of individuals moving between Member States.
The single market prevents the use of frontier formalities in the collection of taxes, but this has led to some Member States converting excise duties on motor vehicles into registration taxes or introducing new taxes to compensate for VAT rate reductions.
My report aims to ensure that there is no scope for double taxation.
The measures that are proposed cover two broad categories. First, in the case of transfer of residence, the proposal is that Member States should not impose vehicle registration taxes on cars brought into their territory by individuals who are moving to live there.
Second, for temporary residence the aim is to safeguard the right of the individual to use a vehicle temporarily in a Member State other than that in which he or she lives.
There would be a right to use the vehicle for up to six months in any twelvemonth period.
Additional elements guarantee or include greater freedom to use rental cars in Member States other than that in which they are registered, and greater flexibility for cross-border workers who use vehicles provided by their employers.
We seek also to improve bilateral communications between Member States in the case of a dispute about a person's place of residence.
It is surprising and perhaps depressing that there is not already suitable communication between the competent authorities.
In subsidiarity terms the aim is to provide a common set of rules for the non-imposition of motor vehicle taxes in certain cases in order to help movement of labour and to prevent double taxation.
I am proposing three amendments to this draft directive.
They serve as no more than tidying-up measures.
They do not change the character or the thrust of the Commission's proposals in any way, but they seek to reinforce the rights of the citizen.
The first is to allow for a vehicle that is being scrapped or destroyed, perhaps after an accident, not to incur liability to taxation.
The second is, in the case of infringements of the rules being encountered, to allow the citizen to have the right to remove the vehicle from a Member State without payment of tax.
The third is simply to bring the whole piece of legislation firmly into accordance with Article 95 of the Treaty.
The most important message that I have for the House tonight is that we must stop Member States circumventing internal market legislation and abusing the spirit of the internal market by applying new names to old taxes.
This legislation will secure freedom of movement for cars and citizens in the single market, it will help car hire firms whose cross-border rental operations have been penalized by allowing better fleet management, and help the consumer by reducing car rental taxes.
Our colleague Mr Sindal spoke in the last debate of the importance of tackling transfrontier taxes.
This is a small step in that direction.
In conclusion, there are only two certainties in this world: death and taxes.
The grim reaper strikes only once.
This proposal aims to make sure that the same is true of the tax man.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at first glance Mr Watson's report may seem rather technical. You only have to look at the small number of speakers to be convinced of this.
However, once this first sensation has passed, you very quickly realize that it touches upon an essential issue for the construction of Europe: the free movement of goods and people and the consequences of certain tax restrictions on this.
Indeed, when border formalities were removed on 1 January 1993, many Member States invented new taxes, particularly for motor cars.
These new deductions institute a de facto double taxation which is completely against our principles. I therefore welcome with a great deal of satisfaction the proposals in Mr Watson's report.
In fact, it was important to legislate on such a sensitive subject and, similarly, to do all within our power to remove the final restrictions on freedom of movement.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur warmly.
I would add that it would have been absurd to debate tonight, on the one hand, the need for harmonization of fiscal policy at a Union level whilst on the other to continue to accept taxes which are in contradiction with one of the driving forces and principles of the construction of Europe.
Nevertheless, although I am pleased with the text, I am forced to wonder once more about the fact that it always seems easier to reach an agreement on material goods than on people and the taxation of people.
In fact, Commissioner, over the last few weeks I have had a number of problems of double taxation affecting employees referred to me, and these employees came to me so that I might intervene to help them get out of absurd and often difficult situations.
Tomorrow, when we vote on the Watson report, these dozens of cases will leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth, in spite of the responses the Commission has given me with regard to these dossiers. They are far from being solved.
Ladies and gentlemen, Europe is progressing and I am pleased at this, but I cannot help thinking that, sometimes, its construction is being achieved the wrong way round.
Although, following this directive and our report, goods transportation will be carried out with increasingly fewer restrictions, the same cannot be said for the movement of people.
In fact it remains difficult, and I wanted to say this this evening, to be able to work freely wherever work can be found - and that, in itself, is not easy - and this is in spite of Treaties signed and ratified, and directives.
It is truly a shame, if not downright upsetting.
Mr President, this proposal for a directive is another step towards our goal of free movement of persons. In that sense it is surely a link in the further expansion of the European Union.
However, I agree with Mr Caudron that there is still much to be accomplished in that area.
Although border formalities when importing cars following a change in residence or for temporary use in another Member State were abolished in January 1993, quite a few Member States have been ingenious enough to replace the border formalities and the accompanying taxes which were dropped with some form of registration tax.
This creativity by the Member States is finally getting a suitable response.
Promoting the mobility of persons in the European Union, while at the same time preventing mobile people, accompanied by their beloved car, from taking up residence elsewhere unless they pay an additional tax levy, can no longer be justified.
The Commission's proposal rightly limits these practices, which often boil down to no more than double taxation.
My group, Mr President, is fully in agreement with the proposal for a directive, with regard to the basic problem as well as to the solutions found.
We will therefore support the proposal.
We have not tabled any amendments ourselves, but we will support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur on which we unanimously agreed in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The amendments by the rapporteur render the proposal more explicit in three areas and therefore contribute to clarity and increased legal security. Who could be against that?
Mr President, I agree with the proposal but I would add this: I hope that the Italians -I do not know if you are a football fan, Commissioner - I hope that the Italians will be just as successful tonight in their match against Cameroon as you have been tonight in the match in this Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very sensitive to the remark made by Mr Thyssen and believe that we are faced with a case of harmful competition between television programmes and debate in the House, a debate on very important issues like the one dealt with in the report by Mr Watson whom I would like to thank and congratulate for his document and for the conclusions reached.
Mr Watson welcomed the Commission document as a logical and sensible proposal - it is always nice to hear these words - that should allow the Union's citizens freer movement.
According to the Commission, this proposal is an important step forward towards a single market for the owners and users of private vehicles.
Its adoption will help solve problems that can crop up for people who change their domicile from one Member State to another or who temporarily want to use a vehicle registered in their country of origin in another Member State.
As far as Amendments Nos 1 and 2 are concerned, I fully agree on the content.
The Commission is in fact grateful for these suggestions and will do all it can to get them adopted.
As for Amendment No 3, which is suggested in Article 11 of the proposal, I would just like to point out that Article 95 of the Treaty is already in itself directly applicable to all national legislation and does not need any additional clarification.
The direct effectiveness of Article 95 of the Treaty is upheld by what are now consolidated rulings by the Court of Justice and therefore, for this reason, I am sorry that the Commission cannot accept the amendment.
Secondly, the content of Article 11 of the proposal would not be amended by the insertion of a reference to Article 95.
For this reason, the point of such an amendment also appears debatable.
Again I congratulate the rapporteur and thank you, Mr President.
Thank you, Commissioner.
You may be pleased to know that our service department has just informed us that Italy is leading 1-0 - as Commissioner Bangemann will now confirm.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Mobile and wireless communications
The next item is the report (A4-0221/98) by Mr Camisón Asensio on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision on the coordinated introduction of mobile and wireless communications (UMTS) in the Community (COM(98)0058 - C4-0144/98-98/0051(COD)).
Mr President, in its resolution of 29 January 1998 on the third generation of mobile communications, this Parliament clearly demonstrated its emphatic support for this extremely interesting project, which concerns nothing less than the nervous system of the global village of the 21st century.
It was undeniably a political impulse and a commitment - which we are hoping will now be renewed - before the proposal for a decision which we are debating today.
Our 11 amendments have the same objective and they were approved almost unanimously in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
It would also seem logical to capitalize on the success of GSM to secure a leading position for Europe in advanced technologies and on the international markets.
To achieve this, we hoped for mutual collaboration, including the sector of industry involved as well as the public authorities, in a sincere attempt to overcome individual preferences so as to achieve a model of open networks and technologies, getting away from proprietary designs aimed at controlling captive markets which would, in the end, be unable to compete on the world market.
Given the lack of time, I would like to mention the following aspects. The ETSI has already made substantial progress in the standardization process, and rival equipment technologies have been combined.
Although a great deal still remains to be done, we hope that the speed of technological progress in the industry is such that the first commercial services may be available by 2002.
It is therefore time to initiate the licensing process, so as to give operators and manufacturers the indispensable legal certainty they need to initiate the sizeable investments that are required.
The draft decision establishes the necessary guidelines in line with the directive on licences as well as in cooperation with the CEPT.
In short, Commissioner, we are satisfied with this proposal and we believe that it is perfectly legitimate not to reserve access to UMTS licences to present GSM/DCS operators, nor to exclude them in principle.
The proposal does not address selection criteria for licences or the pricing of the licensed frequency spectrum - which is not its purpose anyway - because the freedom of the Member States must be respected in this field.
We are advocating the need for sufficient coverage in less populated areas. The Commission should be given a higher profile for international negotiations, while respecting the Member States' rights in the field of spectrum management.
We hope that the Council will take a favourable position, thus allowing this decision to be adopted without delay, since we are involved in a global battle of the utmost urgency, and we must always remember this.
As regards the amendments tabled, I have only two points to make: firstly, there is no serious scientific study highlighting the danger of using earpieces for mobile communications, and it would thus be inappropriate to raise any unnecessary social alarm; and secondly, we must not forget that we are talking about a sector - European telecommunications - which is completely liberalized.
I would like to end with a warning.
The next World Radiocommunication Conference - WRC 99 - will take place in the second half of next year.
At global level, many applications from the radiocommunications sector compete to use the scarce resource of the radio spectrum; they are applications which are of paramount importance for the economy, for consumers and even for peoples' security.
At the WRC, legally binding decisions will be adopted which may also affect broadband mobile services, that is, the UMTS sector.
At the WRC, the Member States of the European Union negotiate on their own behalf by way of coordination with 28 other European countries.
There is an obvious need to establish common European positions in this situation, and it is therefore time to harmonize European positions for the WRC.
I hope, Commissioner, that this has not been forgotten.
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Commission's proposal to introduce UMTS in Europe concerns an extremely important technological development in mobile telephony, one of the fastest growing markets, a sector in which Europe has been able to gain a competitive edge using the common GSM standard before the United States.
But on the UMTS standard, greater global convergence has been achieved than on GSM and American operators in particular are expected to rapidly adopt this technology, and will therefore be competing in this area from the very start.
With the arrival of this standard, the European industry could therefore lose the sharp competitive edge that it had with GSM; moreover, the idea of delaying the introduction of UMTS would be entirely detrimental to the European industry, in that it would lag behind in this competition.
We therefore fully agree with the Commission's proposal and with a rapid timetable to introduce new services and we in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy encourage investment in the development of terminals that comply with the new standard.
Two points are of great concern to me, and they are the subject of amendments that the rapporteur has received.
The first point is non-discrimination between competing operators when all the frequencies of the 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz range are being allocated, to allow these operators to offer services via GSM or UMTS, guaranteeing coverage of both urban and rural areas in a situation of fair competition.
The second point is political support for the Commission so that it can spur Member States on to reallocate and make available new frequencies for UMTS services.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to express my appreciation to Mr Camisón Asensio and the European Commission for their constructive approach to this subject.
The Commission, and in particular the Commissioner, have set to work energetically and have managed to get the industry as a whole to agree to a European standard for UMTS.
Hopefully, this will enable Europe to lead the world in the area of mobile telephone systems.
The rise of the mobile telephone is impressive.
UMTS offers Europe the opportunity to repeat the success achieved with GSM.
UMTS offers many multimedia adaptations and applications and, in fact, spells the end of the traditional telephone.
In addition, the development of this system may create a large number of jobs.
Success is, however, only possible if the licensing system and the availability of frequencies are clear at an early stage.
In this context, I would like to make two points.
Mr President, it is very important that great care be exercised with the selection of an allocation mechanism for the scarce frequencies which will be made available for UMTS.
To this effect, I have submitted a written request to the Commission to start an investigation of the best allocation mechanism.
I believe that Commissioner Bangemann has already promised to contribute to such an investigation in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I would ask the Commissioner whether he can now confirm that he will, in fact, conduct this investigation.
A number of Member States, including the Netherlands, are preparing to set up an auction for UMTS.
I would be grateful if the Commissioner could tell me when we can expect the result of the investigation, because I consider it important that the results are available before Member States decide on their selection of an allocation mechanism.
Mr President, in addition to the selection of the allocation mechanism - and this is my second point - it is very important, as Mr Malerba has said, that the Member States strictly adhere to the principles of transparency and non-discrimination in the allocation of the UMTS frequencies.
We must avoid a situation where operators who are awarded a UMTS licence at this stage are denied the possibility of using GSM and DCS frequencies for UMTS services.
Such a prohibition only serves to drive up the market price of frequencies and flies in the face of the principle of spectrum efficiency.
An amendment to this effect was approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in this Parliament with a large majority.
I should like to hear from the Commissioner which measures he intends to take against Member States who do not adhere to the principle of non-discrimination and who still impose such a ban.
Mr President, UMTS will become very important for Europe in the future.
But the emergency number 112 is now also very important for the citizen; the use of the emergency number 112 in the entire European Union should have been introduced a long time ago. I have pointed this out many times and I submitted a written question on 22 October of last year, a question which was repeated later in the House.
I would be grateful if the Commissioner could throw light on the following three points.
Which Member States have not introduced or activated the 112 emergency number and why have they not done so? Secondly, which steps and actions will be taken by the Commissioner to ensure that the Member States comply with this obligation?
Thirdly, does the Commissioner not think it is useful if at least the staff manning the emergency switchboards can communicate in the three languages which must be spoken for the users of 112 in the respective Member State? I would appreciate it if the Commissioner could provide an answer to these questions.
Mr President, the GSM system has given European producers a world-leading position and made it possible for the EU countries to build a comprehensive mobile telephone network. It has limitations.
For example, it cannot handle the high-speed transfer of multimedia required for the Internet via mobile telephones, as shown here. Hence UMTS.
It is important for both the EU and the Member States to play an active role in promoting the development of the new system so that it becomes just as big a success for Europe as GSM.
It will certainly take several years before the first of the new services reaches the market, but, as the Commission says, it is quite right for us to lay down the legal framework now so that the enormous investment required for the development - a greater investment than ever before - can be made.
We know it is important for the Member States to adopt a common standard and to be able to act jointly at the next meeting to be held by International Telecommunications Union this autumn, at which the decision is going to be made.
The Commission does not have a vote there.
The USA may perhaps present four standards which will lead to a split in their market.
We need a single standard to have the same kind of opportunities throughout the Union.
A fair amount has been said about licensing.
I hope other countries will be able to do the same as the UK, which is setting a good example, and will think about starting to grant licences soon so that we actually achieve the target of bringing the new system into service no later than the year 2002, in accordance with the Commission's timetable.
The granting of licences has also been debated here today.
I think it is important to look at which consortia want to ask for a licence and not accept those who lack credit and opportunities to develop.
Instead we should be able to oversee a royalty system which gradually gives them the ability to pay.
The open process, which has been highlighted here, is also important.
If we have one standard, we can then share the patent.
We need a competition for the best applications.
In this way the consumers will gain access to new services and new products.
Mr President, Commissioner Bangemann, ladies and gentlemen, how often in the past have we spoken of revolutionary developments in relation to telecommunications?
As so often before, this also applies to the changes we can expect in wireless and mobile telecommunications.
UMTS not only provides data rates of up to 2 MB per second and ISDN standard speech quality. It also creates a whole new market for mobile multi-media services.
However, we must look carefully at the various success factors.
The necessary frequency spectrums must be distributed sensibly amongst the network operators.
The total technical cost of UMTS involves high investment costs, but we all want the end price for the customer to be as attractive as possible.
For this reason we must endeavour to keep the cost of licence fees, regulations and other costs as low as possible.
If we do not, we will be unable to achieve satisfactory market conditions in Europe and will put ourselves at an enormous competitive disadvantage in the medium term.
However, let us consider competition on a global scale.
In Japan, the first preliminary stages of UMTS will go into operation at the end of 1999.
If these preliminary stages go on to become de facto standards, network operators in the single market will have to adopt them.
We must at all costs counter this threat with our own activities.
On the other hand, as Mr Camisón Asensio says in his report, Europe is capable of taking both the technological and the strategic lead in this area.
Our advantage lies in our experience of collaboration on matters of standardization, which should serve us as a model for other areas of technical legislation - here I am thinking of the bus directive.
Mr President, first of all let me express our thanks to the rapporteur.
Working with him we have, in a very short period of time, been able to prepare a very important measure. This has essentially been achieved jointly and on the basis of the same fundamental principles.
I also believe that the discussion today has shown that there is no difference in the positions held by Parliament and the Commission on these fundamental issues.
I should also like to remind Parliament that a good six months ago, when we last dealt with UMTS, we were still awaiting a decision from the ETSI and the situation was very unclear - to say the least.
It has, however, proved possible to draw up this new standard for the third generation of mobile communications within a relatively short period of time and with the broad consensus of all the parties involved.
This represents a considerable success and one which should not be underestimated.
During these six months we have arrived at the necessary legal guarantees and I believe that we will now be able to move on to commercialisation very quickly. Of course, this stage is clearly not dependent on measures determined by political authorities.
On the contrary, it is up to commercial operators to play their part. I have absolutely no doubt, however, that European industry will again be able to achieve the lead it has now with GSM, not only in the European market, but worldwide.
We agree on that.
We have also had the occasion to discuss some individual issues.
For this reason, I want to go into these individual questions in greater detail and to state once again that we are unable to accept all the amendments.
This is partly because certain amendments either repeat or pick up issues, such as health protection, which have already been dealt with in sufficient detail elsewhere and do not need to be revisited in relation to the legal guarantees for UMTS.
We are, nevertheless, accepting seven amendments unchanged, Nos 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9 and 11, along with Amendment No 7 in principle and Amendment No 6 in part.
We are unable to accept the other six amendments but, as I have already said, they tend to relate to individual questions.
So, let us move on to these individual questions which Mr van Velzen has once again asked.
It is always a pleasure to answer these questions. That is presumably why he likes to ask them several times.
I have already dealt with them in committee and on other occasions.
I am, however, quite happy to go over them again today.
As far as the increase in frequencies is concerned, as I remarked recently in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, it is simply a matter of method and of course we have already gathered, and will continue to gather, relevant experiences.
There is no need to commission a study and we will soon be suggesting, in a statement to Parliament, how the various options available can be used to develop a sensible frequency policy.
We are also completely aware, Mr Malerba, that we need to pay great attention to the Radio Conferences.
The last conference was an improvement on its predecessor, and I am sure that next year's conference will produce an even greater consensus between the Member States and the Commission and therefore provide us with access to valuable resources.
With regard to Amendment No 7, which - to answer another of the points raised by Mr van Velzen - relates to Article 3 Para. 4, we can give our agreement in principle.
It is one of the list I have already given you.
However, we would like add the words "in compliance with the Community legislation in force' in order to point up the link with current legislation, in particular the Directive on authorizations and the Directive on competition in mobile telecommunications.
In Amendment No 6, which we can accept in part, the same applies to the reference to Community legislation currently in force.
However, we have taken the view that there is no need for a specific reference to the principles of transparency and nondiscrimination as this is clearly an integral part of Community legislation.
Sometimes things can be overstated. It doesn't make things clearer.
I have also already answered the question on emergency numbers and their implementation, Mr van Velzen.
With one eye on the time, and given the discussion which is to follow, let me suggest the following.
I have already said all this to you before and I hope you will agree that there is no point in my repeating it again here.
Or would you like me to do that? I can, I do not have a problem with that, but it strikes me as perhaps being a waste of time.
So, I have dealt with the most important questions which were asked.
Finally, a few closing words on our draft.
It occurs to me, Mr Rübig, that there is no danger that either we or companies working in Europe may be forced to adapt to Japanese standards.
Rather the other way around!
All the Japanese standards we know about at the moment, and the reactions from the MITI Ministry and the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, indicate that Japan is likely to adopt the standards chosen either by us or by the ETSI.
This is, in part, due to the fact that in drafting these standards we were able to work together with Japanese and US firms, and so in its approach the document is actually far more than a European standard.
So, as you can see, we have a good chance of not only repeating the success of GSM, but perhaps even of surpassing it.
In further discussions, in particular with US industry and the US administration, we will stress the fact that UMTS is not a mandatory standard proposed by the Commission or by Parliament and the Council but, as ever, an industry-devised standard in our usual tradition.
It is a standard which anyone can adopt, but no-one is forced to adopt.
However, in the interests of consumers and in the interests of creating as uniform a market as possible - and thereby above all reasonable prices -, we must persuade the various political wills that a standard of this kind will achieve the scope of influence it deserves.
That means that everyone is invited to use it and therefore everyone has to be convinced of its advantages in order to use it.
It is this positive policy which has allowed us to make good progress in this area so far and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Parliament for its support.
Mr Commissioner, can you guarantee that we will be able to start the licensing process next year?
That, of course, depends on whether we receive any applications, which will not necessarily be the case.
If we do, and if we have agreed this draft, there are no further legal obstacles.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Transport of nuclear waste
The next item is the statement by the Commission on transport of nuclear waste in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 30 April the Commission received information from the French authorities indicating that a significant number of cases had been registered in which fuel casks being transported to the reprocessing plant at la Hague, France exceeded the limit of 4 becquerels per square centimetre for unfixed beta gamma contamination.
Given that some of the fuel casks concerned came from German nuclear power plants, more detailed studies were urgently launched, not only in France but also in Germany.
The Commission has remained in contact with the relevant French and German authorities, in order to monitor the results of these studies which have not yet been competed.
It must be recognized that Member States have primary responsibility for the implementation of Community directives and that the Commission would only consider intervening to fulfill its role as guardian of the Treaties in the hypothetical situation where a Member State failed to take the measures dictated by this responsibility.
The first measure taken by the relevant authorities when the current situation became known consisted of immediately suspending the transport of irradiated fuel from nuclear plants, whilst awaiting a complete study of the situation and the adoption of additional and appropriate safety measures to guarantee the correct application of European legislation at a national level.
It clearly emerges from the results which are currently available that neither staff nor the population were subjected to exposure to radiation in excess of the limits set at Community level.
In fact, any exposure resulting from the excess contamination of the flasks corresponded to no more than a fraction of the current limits.
It can be concluded that the relevant authorities of the Member States acted responsibly in order to rectify the situation as soon as the problems were identified.
The Commission remains in contact with the Member States concerned.
Furthermore, the issue was discussed at a meeting of the Permanent Working Group on the Safety of Transportation of Radioactive Substances, on 18 May and lessons to be drawn from their analysis of the situation have been passed on to the relevant authorities of the Member States.
At the current stage, the Commission proposes no further immediate measures.
Nevertheless, as has already been noted, measures aimed at assuring the correct application of European Union legislation are still being studied by the Member States concerned.
Furthermore, the Commission is concerned about the circumstances which were at the origin of the situation observed, even if corrective measures seem to have been implemented promptly.
Consequently, when the full results of the inquiries at national level have been communicated to the Commission, it envisages an impartial overall study of the situation not only in France and Germany but in all the Member States likely to be affected.
Mr President, Commissioner, the public has in fact just recently learnt that we are not the only ones who sweat working here, but that flasks sweat too.
These sweating flasks actually put people's lives at risk.
You have said that there is no risk. That is not quite true.
If the hot spots where this sweat concentrates come into contact with the human body, these people are at risk.
Some of them work on these flasks and others watch over them.
Not that they sweat because they are being watched.
So there is a real risk.
What is remarkable in this whole story, however, is that the public has only just found out about these sweating flasks, while the people who operate the flasks have known about it for a long time and have been measuring the sweating for a long time. So now let me put the question to you, Mr Commissioner.
You must know something! You have a standing working group.
You discuss transport matters. It is a close community with its ear to the ground.
I can imagine many scenarios, but it is really possible that no one knew anything about the measurements these operators were taking? Or the fact that COGEMA had additional facilities built to clean the returned material in advance?
Was the Commission really unaware of all this? No, maybe you do not know anything!
The whole thing is quite inconceivable.
For this reason I should like to know in greater detail exactly what the Commission knew and when.
Looking at your new statement on the work of this standing working group, it says very vaguely that there was no risk because these incidents and accidents were few in number and limited in consequence.
Please, exactly what accidents and incidents happened with the flasks? This is where I think the vital security leak lies.
There were obviously some people who knew something but chose not to share this knowledge with the public.
Then, of course, I have a much more specific question.
If such knowledge was available, what did the politicians responsible do with it?
Did they knowingly deny this knowledge?
And what conclusions should they now draw? You cannot simply act as if the Commission suddenly received this knowledge in May like a bolt from the blue!
As for the industry, it is not just because certain best-sellers are doing big business at the moment that I should quote Lenin, but the motto "confidence is good, control is better' seems very apt in this case with the hushing up of security problems and accidents, particularly in the nuclear industry, so topical.
As far as I can see, at the moment the nuclear industry, which has known about these sweating flasks for years, is no longer a reliable source of information.
I urge the Commission to make sure that if there is to be cross-border transportation of radioactive waste, that checks, uniform standards and a reporting duty should be introduced.
At the end of the day this is just another example of the fact that there is no absolutely safe final storage for nuclear waste.
It is simply pushed back and forth across borders.
I urge the Commission to act in the interests of the citizens of Europe and not to become an accomplice of the nuclear industry, trying to make energy policy against the will of the majority of the population of Europe.
It makes for a shaky structure, a colossus built on shaky foundations.
This is the reason I simply cannot understand why your statement, from which I have just quoted, states in this important area that the question of security is discussed not from the point of view of risks or the concerns of the population, but simply in terms of how we can gain greater acceptance.
No, the Commission must serve its citizens and not individual industries.
Allow me to try to cool matters down a little bit.
I welcome this statement from the Commissioner.
We are dealing with an industry which is very highly regulated, one of most regulated industries in Europe, and we must take cognizance of the fact that contrary to what my colleague suggested, the containment in these flasks was not breached.
We are talking about a minor degree of surface contamination, and I urge that we do not let this matter get out of proportion.
In stirring up concern, we exacerbate the public's fears about these matters unreasonably and excessively.
It is true that if an industry is highly regulated, it has a duty to inform the public, as well as the authorities, and arguably it should be like Caesar's wife, that is to say, quite beyond reproach, and should take all steps to inform people of the situation.
My understanding is that there has been some expression of regret and contrition on the part of the utilities in Germany and the transport organization.
Although, as I understand it, they did not breach the disclosure requirements, because the levels of contamination were not that great - and I welcome the Commissioner making that point - nevertheless it would have been better if all information had been made public because more information, not less, is better for restoring and establishing public confidence in the nuclear industry.
I would like to point to the BNFL establishment at Sellafield in the UK, as an industry which has gone out of its way to take the point of transparency and openness to the degree of turning their facility at Sellafield into a tourist attraction.
That seems to me to be quite an achievement and a step in the right direction.
The real question here is: was there any danger to the public? No.
Was there any danger to the operators and the staff involved? I think not.
Are there lessons to be learned? Yes - there needs to be more openness.
That is a useful outcome of this exercise.
But above all, let us not go overboard in sounding alarmist about this.
Other industries have far worse instances of difficulty which do not get the same attention as anything to do with the word 'nuclear' .
I think that is regrettable.
So I welcome the statement and hope we will not let matters get out of proportion.
Mr President, I consider Commissioner Oreja's reply to be very unsatisfactory.
He says that we will not take any additional measures at present, while two Member States, France and Germany, have announced a total ban on the transportation of nuclear waste.
The response of the Commission is not to do anything at all, although there are 13 other Member States, some of which face similar problems.
Just look at all the questions we ask in the present joint resolution.
I will not list all our questions to the Commission about improving the situation because this would take more time than I have been allocated.
But you could take a look at paragraphs 4, 7, 8, 11 and so on.
We would really like a response from the Commission on these matters.
Could we have some answers please? These are questions where we ask the Commission in a joint resolution to tackle the problem.
I must say that it is scandalous that so little information has been released about this transport and the health risks it entails.
I stated above that two Member States have halted the transport.
The Netherlands should do likewise because it has suddenly come to light that the power stations in Borselen and Dodewaard, located in my own country, have also shipped their waste to La Hague and Sellafield, with similar risks.
The containers in which the nuclear waste is shipped have been shown to have excessively high levels of radiation and contamination.
The transport in my own country of the Netherlands should also be halted for as long as this situation remains unclear.
But even this is not enough, Mr President, because it is very frightening that such matters have been concealed.
More openness and control with respect to nuclear transport is therefore of the utmost importance.
The Commission must present a plan and submit it to our committee as soon as possible.
According to German law, the seabed off Sellafield, with its nuclear waste, and even the pigeons around the reprocessing plant, must be classified as "contaminated with radioactive waste' .
This debate seems long overdue.
Mr President, I cannot speak about the transportation of nuclear waste without speaking about Sellafield, which Mr Chichester has mentioned.
The daily discharges from the nuclear plant at Sellafield are now estimated at nine million tonnes of nuclear waste.
The recent application by BNFL to the British Government for increased area discharges is another unpleasant episode in the ongoing saga of Sellafield and Thorp nuclear plants.
I find comments made this week in Dublin by a scientist Dr Sue Lon - who is BNFL's director of operations and technology - that the UK has a safety record which would bear up to the closest scrutiny rather sickening.
If BNFL had such a blue chip record in the field of public health and public safety why do lobsters along some parts of the east coast have levels of contamination 247 times greater than was the case only in 1993? May I tell the experts that Mr Chichester has mentioned, who say the industry is highly regulated, that the Titanic was the most highly regulated ship in the world and it sank.
If Sellafield sinks we will all sink with it.
If the British nuclear industry is such a model profession, why do BNFL not agree to allow the European Commission independently to evaluate its operations and the powers which derive under the EURATOM Treaty? The comments of that BNFL director are verging on the extraordinary.
In the light of the fact that the Dounreay nuclear plant is now being closed because of the public health risks to the operations being carried out there, the Irish Sea must not be used as a dumping ground for nuclear waste materials from the Sellafield plant.
Undisputed statistics clearly demonstrate, since the setting up of the Thorp plant, wholesale increases in the amount of nuclear materials found in concentrations in seaweed in Ireland.
This was observed by the radiological protection institute in Ireland in 1994, exactly one year after the British granted BNFL the licence, which is responsible for the environmental mess that we now have on our hands.
Mr President, I notice that the previous speaker has learnt to read, but has not learnt to stop reading.
We have only recently had proof of how Pakistan and India, through smuggling, fraud, theft and bribery have obtained the means to manufacture a nuclear bomb.
I do not claim that a nuclear power plant is an atomic bomb, but the nuclear power lobby in Europe engages in that same secrecy and lying in public that has characterized the behaviour of states with newly-acquired nuclear arsenals.
I would hope that the citizens of Europe can trust those who use nuclear power plants to the extent that nuclear power poses no danger to them.
The main problem is that nuclear plants produce spent fuel.
That is the end product, and there is nowhere to dump it.
For that reason, it has to be transported to and fro, and it is quite possible that all Europe's nuclear waste has now ended up being dumped in the wrong place and that it will all have to be moved yet again.
That is why urgent measures are required of the Commission to enable the gradual construction of final nuclear waste sites.
Mr President, the Commission would have done itself a favour if it had read its own papers, in particular the paper dated 3 April 1996, Commission, No 11.
Because it states, word for word, that the outside of the packaging - referred to as a "fuel transport container' causes contamination in water.
You have known this since 1996, and now you stand there in front of us acting dumb and claiming you have only known since April!
Incidentally, there is also a working paper No 4 from Technical Committee 996 6 96 which makes detailed proposals on this subject which have been included in the safety series produced by the AIO with whom you also work closely.
So, if you're trying to tell us now that the limit values were only slightly exceeded, I have to ask you whether you think we are absolutely stupid.
The limit values are 4 becquerels/cm2 and we are looking at recorded contamination levels of 50, 000 becquerels.
The only reason you have waited so long is that you were hoping the industry would solve the problem.
Except that the contamination has kept on increasing.
It has not dropped, it has increased year on year.
That is my first point.
Secondly, it has yet to be established whether contamination occurs whilst the water basin is being loaded.
Because the water basin must contain isotopes other than cobalt and caesium.
Until now, however, we have only found cobalt and caesium.
So what has happened to the other isotopes? The cause may actually be quite different, they just have not yet been established or even researched yet.
Then, to refresh your memory, I should like to quote you something from the Euratom Directive, namely Article 2 of Directive 92/3/Euratom.
It says quite explicitly, "The transport processes required for delivery must adhere to the provisions laid down by the Community and by the individual Member States and must be in compliance with the international agreements on the transport of radioactive materials.'
If this is so, then the reverse must also be the case: if the authorities in question are unable to control things at national level - and you have been quite aware of that for years - then you too must perform your regulatory duties. You are the guardians of the law.
As is it, the only reason this whole scandal has been revealed is because of an indiscretion, not because you were looking into it.
That is the real scandal of the matter.
Now to play that down and on top of everything else to say that the transport workers or the convoy staff were not exposed to any risk is just another example of your treating the public as fools. But everyone knows quite well that even if you are carrying a dosage meter it obviously cannot show anything if it is an alpha emitter!
But if it is swept down through the air from a transport container, for example, and the poor policeman who is driving alongside or the transport worker gets it, then he can obviously suffer from serious radiation damage. But he can never prove it later!
So my question to you is what conclusions are you drawing from this? Are you finally going to give us access to the minutes of the standing working group and the studies which have been paid for over the years with money from EC coffers?
Are we finally going to get to see these studies?
It is now vital that the reliability of the operators is tested, because authorization to operate nuclear power plants is always linked to this reliability. And this reliability can no longer be taken for granted.
You should have revoked their authorizations a long time ago. Those are the facts.
And everything else you are trying to tell us is inaccurate.
You just have to read your own papers!
Mr President, the question of the safety of Europe's citizens in relation to nuclear waste transport is obviously of great importance.
However, the subject can only be dealt with as one detail of a more complex overall issue which deserves our most serious attention.
Until the question of intermediate and final storage has been settled, all matters relating to the commissioning of new nuclear power stations and the re-commissioning of old plants must be rejected out of hand.
As we see it, the European Union should do everything in its power to effect a complete withdrawal from nuclear power and, to this end, should promote alternative sources of energy to a much greater extent.
The European Union had an opportunity to treat this matter as a model.
The safety or otherwise of nuclear waste transport is nothing more than the treatment of a symptom of unsafe development.
It is important.
But it would be even more important if we could treat the root of the problem and stop all further development of nuclear energy.
I would like to say to Mr Chichester that in Britain Caesar's wife has been putting it about a little bit!
Dounreay has been closed by the nuclear inspectorate.
We have in Sellafield a situation I can only describe by saying that we are expecting a spectacular nuclear orgasm any time now because there is in that place a pit which it is suspected may explode at any time.
However, I think this debate today timely, against the background of the situation in Germany, where rail workers, policemen and even protesters against nuclear issues have been irradiated.
In fact the situation was so serious in Germany that the head of the German police force was threatening to bring charges of causing serious bodily harm against the German Ministry of the Environment as well as the management of the German nuclear power stations.
These workers were exposed to radiation levels three thousand times above the permitted levels.
The flasks were unsafe and inadequately tested.
Last year one quarter of the flasks sent by rail from Germany to France had not been properly cleaned and were thoroughly contaminated.
This has been going on for something like 13 years.
Of course this is only possible in an industry like the nuclear industry which is protected and shrouded by secrecy.
It is almost impossible to monitor and call to account the movement of radioactive material.
The industry has known about radioactive contamination in transport to the UK and France since 1980.
The industry was aware of the dodgy and unsafe fittings of the casks and I am given to understand that the smaller casks, which were transported to Sellafield had never been tested for their effectiveness, safety and efficiency.
Can I say something that I hope the Commission will take note of.
This material must be processed and stored, not at the point of delivery far away in Scotland or in England, but stored and processed as near as possible to the point of production.
Can I also say to the Commission that they now need to take on board the seriousness of this issue?
We will get another chance to do that when we debate the transport of nuclear material, when the Commission sees fit to bring their report to the Transport Committee.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must ensure that legislation - both European and international - is implemented correctly.
Objective testing and transparency must be guaranteed immediately and where abuse occurs, legal measures must be taken immediately.
Mr Lange has already mentioned Lenin.
I believe that we must turn our attention to eastern Europe and endeavour to implement safety standards there as quickly as possible.
That is why we must establish joint safety standards in Europe on the broadest possible basis immediately and strengthen our information policy significantly.
Mr President, Commissioner, as I listened to your explanations, I remembered how last year President Santer, full of enthusiasm, stood in this place and shouted out the words, "Let us make this Union a Union of health.' But the protection of the people of Europe's health has been neglected when it comes to transporting nuclear waste.
If this were not the case, transport workers, convoy staff and even people protesting against the transport would not have been exposed to radiation. It should also be remembered that these consignments are merely in transit; there is still no final place of storage for nuclear waste.
The research goes on, but we have yet to find a solution.
We do not only need, we must also implement uniform security regulations, Mr Chichester, because when Caesar said that his wife should be beyond reproach, he was in fact announcing his divorce because his wife had hidden from him things that had happened in his own house.
And that is just the point!
It is unacceptable that things should be hidden from people, that the Commission, the companies and the Member States do not have free access to all information so that they can pass it on to the public.
A number of Member States have refused to use nuclear energy as a source of electricity.
However, the consignments pass through these countries too, because often there is no way round it in Europe for geographical reasons.
I see no reason why people should be exposed to this risk and believe that the funds we so generously spend on Euratom should finally be used to draw up a set of safety regulations which would then apply to all Member States and all new applicants for membership in order to guarantee safety in Europe.
For security cannot be parcelled out, and we cannot keep pushing the blame back and forth from one side to the other.
Mr President, we are really here tonight to comment about the nuclear industry, but having heard the Commission's initial response it is fair to say that it is not adequate and is certainly lacking in seriousness and complacent.
We really need more from the Commission when we get incidents like this.
These recent revelations of these high levels of radiation found in casks and rolling stock used to ship nuclear waste are unfortunately yet another example of the nuclear industry shooting itself in the foot. When are they ever going to learn?
Fragile public confidence in the technical competence and responsible care exercised by the industry is once again evaporating into thin air.
When will the industry learn that in order to maintain public confidence and support and to have any hope of operating in future they must operate to the highest safety standards with a diligence and zeal second to none?
It is my personal opinion that if the industry wants to have a long-term future in a stable legislative and economic environment it must learn the lessons of the past and conduct itself in an open and transparent manner with the highest concern for public safety.
Some of the resolutions, I have to say, are an overreaction to the latest incidents, which, technically I do not think are as serious as some people have made out.
I must admit, though, that I did enjoy Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's intervention!
There are some lessons that have to be learned.
The lessons can be found in those resolutions that we see tonight.
First of all there has to be an urgent public investigation: that is absolutely necessary.
There has to a prompt remedy to any problems and abuses identified.
New standards must be established on a European basis for monitoring, evaluating risks during transportation, and subsequently a new set of uniform operating standards across Europe.
Finally, the Commission and the Member States involved have a responsibility to ensure that action is taken against any guilty parties identified during the investigation.
Let us hope that this small straw is the one that breaks the back of a very stubborn and blinkered camel which is the model of the nuclear industry as we see it to day.
Finally it might just see the light.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to make an initial comment.
It was an honour for me to be here today to share with you the Commission's position on the contamination of the irradiated fuel casks.
Mrs Bjerregaard would have very much liked to be here with you - she is the Commissioner responsible for this area - but as you are probably aware, she had an extremely important Council in Luxembourg today, what we call in our idiom a "mega' Transport and Environment Council.
I will briefly reply to a certain number of the points raised, but you can be sure that I will pass on your questions to her tomorrow morning.
I have taken note of all the questions you have raised and the way in which they have been formulated. Mrs Bjerregaard will provide you with replies, either written or verbal.
I would first of all like to say to you that the Commission is very sensitive to this problem and that it is entirely in agreement with the statements which have been made by some of you, in particular the last speech made by Mr Bowe, and others such as that of Mr Chichester on the need for greater public information.
Reference was made to President Santer's sensitivity with regard to health related aspects.
This is indeed one of the Commission's main concerns, and has been since the beginning of its term of office three and a half years ago.
So how could we not be sensitive to a problem such as this?
To try to reply to Mr Lange and Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, I must first of all say that I am not aware of how many times contamination levels have been exceeded at the time of exposure.
The levels apply to unfixed contamination, that is, one which can be removed by wiping the surface and thus likely to be transmitted to people in contact with the surface.
We have known for some time, however, that contamination which is impossible to remove at the time of shipment can undergo changes through natural processes whilst in transportation, such that on arrival it is no longer fixed.
The fuel casks are thus covered during transit to avoid all contact with people and any leaching effect caused by rain.
Furthermore, any reappearance of excess unfixed contamination during transportation must be followed by decontamination as soon as possible after detection.
A certain number of cases of this kind are thus to be expected, although I cannot give you an exact figure.
However, in this instance, it seems that there was a lack of communication between the operators who detected the contamination and the competent authorities. The latter were thus not fully aware of the extent of the problem raised by the contamination, nor of the possibility that these effects concealed the need for stricter procedures.
These aspects must clearly be the subject of further measures, in particular at a national level.
In response to part of the question raised by Mr Lange, I would also like to tell him that a report drawn up in 1985 by the International Atomic Energy Agency explicitly recognizes the possibility of the reappearance of unfixed contamination on the surface of the fuel casks during transit, even when this contamination had been wiped off before shipment.
Many of the Member States of the European Union, as well as the Commission, contributed to this report.
However, the responsibility for applying Community directives falls primarily on Member States, and the Commission was unaware of the possible extent of the problem of contamination of fuel casks attributable to this phenomenon before being informed of the situation in France by the relevant French authorities on 30 April 1998.
Finally, in reply to a comment by Mr Eisma, I will say to him, as I have already said moreover, that inquiries are still underway in the different Member States. When they are completed, the Commission will very rapidly examine the appropriateness of a more thorough collective study of the situation in the many Member States which are potentially affected.
I will say finally to Mr Fitzsimons that I listened with great interest to his speech, as well as those of Mr Seppänen and others.
There are questions which, if I have understood correctly, do not exactly touch upon the problem of transport.
I will nevertheless pass them on to Mrs Bjerregarrd, along with the others.
With regard to Mr Morris, I will simply say that it clearly emerges from the available results that neither staff nor the population were subjected to radiation exposure above the limits set at Community level and that any exposure resulting from the excess contamination of the fuel casks only corresponds to a small fraction of the current limits.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is what I am able to tell you today.
Allow me finally to insist on the fact that we are particularly sensitive to the problems which have just been raised.
As I said, I will immediately pass on your questions to Mrs Bjerregaard, who will be able to give you full answers.
I can see that four Members have asked to speak on very brief questions.
I would ask the honourable members to consider that Mr Oreja is deputizing for another commissioner and that there will be other opportunities to question the appropriate commissioner.
Mr President, I would just like to ask two questions which I would be grateful if you would pass on to the competent commissioner.
Firstly, when will we receive the minutes of the standing working group? Secondly, will a reporting duty for company transporters and transports at long last be introduced now?
This information does not appear in any of the directives. Thirdly, I would just like to say that contamination reaches this high level on arrival, not departure.
Mr President, a year ago last April we sent back from the Committee on Transport and Tourism a report to the Commission, for consideration also by the Council, on the transport of nuclear material by air.
We are still awaiting the return of that report to the Committee.
It is an urgent matter and I would therefore request the Commission to make enquiries as to when that report will be presented to the Transport Committee.
Mr President, when will Parliament have the opportunity of seeing the minutes of the standing working group on nuclear safety if they cannot be delivered to us directly? I would be pleased to come to the Commission on Monday morning to read the minutes there.
Yes, certainly.
But I am not in a position to give concrete responses and I do not want to give replies which are vague. That is not my role here and would have no meaning.
The respect you deserve as Members of the House prevents me from speaking to you in generalities.
However you, and Mr Lange in particular - who asked if he could go and see the minutes of the meetings on Monday - can be assured that no later than tomorrow morning at 9 a.m., Mrs Bjerregaard will be fully informed of all the issues raised here, regarding the minutes of the Permanent Working Group, regarding a directive and so on, and I hope that within 24 hours you will have a reply from Mrs Bjerregaard, one way or another.
Personally, I can give no further detail, out of respect for Parliament and parliamentary Members.
I would like to thank you, Commissioner, for appearing before Parliament at such short notice, and for answering so well, considering this is not your field.
Please convey the best wishes of the House to Mrs Bjerregaard.
On behalf of the Presidency, I would like to add that it is of course important for the management of Parliament to endeavour to arrange the debates in such a way that the appropriate commissioners can be present.
This is a self-directed criticism on the part of the Presidency.
But once again, thank you, Commissioner, for your willingness to step in.
I have received six motions for resolutions , tabled pursuant to Rule 37 (2), on the agenda.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, surely due to some fault of my own, I do not appear in the list of Members that attended yesterday's sitting.
For the morning, there is proof that I attended all of the roll-call votes and, for the evening, I had the privilege of chairing part of the sitting.
Therefore, so that the Minutes are accurate, I would like this error to be corrected which - I repeat - I am sure was due to a mistake I made myself.
I did not remember to sign at the correct time.
Thank you very much, Mr Gutiérrez.
It will be corrected.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz has asked for the floor.
Mr President, as you all know, we had a debate last night on the Commission's statement about nuclear transport.
The Commissioner present on this occasion, however, who had obviously made a considerable effort and was very polite - since he is responsible for publicity - had no idea about the subject matter.
We could have saved ourselves the debate.
He was unable to reply to any of the questions.
As if that were not enough, he read out a statement by the Commission which was clearly false.
It said in the statement that the Commission knew nothing about the contamination from the castor containers until the 23 April of this year.
I could prove without a shadow of a doubt, however, that the Commission had already written about it in its communication of 3 April 1996.
Of course, the Commissioner could say nothing in answer to this - it is obvious; it is not his brief.
I would therefore ask that care be taken to ensure that someone is present from the Commission who is capable of entering into a real debate.
Otherwise we will have to forego debates of this kind, because they would just be a waste of time.
(Loud applause)
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, I would like to remind you that, in any case, it was decided to add this item to the agenda in the full knowledge that Mrs Bjerregaard had an important Council meeting and that there was no certainty that she would arrive on time.
The Conference of Presidents preferred to run the risk, knowing that this might happen, as unfortunately turned out to be the case.
The Council meeting lasted longer that it should have and the Commissioner responsible was not able to be here.
However, in this case, we knew that we were running that risk.
European Council in Cardiff - activities during the British presidency
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report by the Council and the statement by the Commission on the Cardiff European Council of 15 and 16 June 1998; -the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the activities of the British presidency.The President-in-Office of the Council is arriving now and we will give him the floor as soon as he can join us in our work.
Mrs Malone wishes to speak.
Mr President, I wonder whether Members realize that the session is starting at this hour.
There seem to be a lot of vacant seats.
Perhaps we could ring the bells.
Mr President, honourable Members, I am delighted to make my first visit to the European Parliament as British Prime Minister and to report to you on the UK presidency and the Cardiff European Council.
I would like to begin, if I may, by putting on record today our gratitude to you for the cooperation which has marked relations between the Council and Parliament during our presidency.
For our part, we have worked hard to ensure that British Ministers have reported regularly and fully to you on the major dossiers and made every effort to take on board Parliament's views.
I would like to say a special word of thanks to José María Gil-Robles for his kindness, support and cooperation during our time as President of the European Union.
There are two dimensions to my report: first of all, the practical results and achievements of the presidency; secondly, a description of the mood and direction as we see it in the European Union today.
Our presidency was marked self-evidently by the launch of two historic events: monetary union and enlargement.
A single currency in Europe has the potential to create a force for stability in the world.
But no one should underestimate its challenges to each of us.
There are some who talk as if the creation of a single currency is enough in itself to bring economic prosperity.
It is not.
To work, a single currency must be accompanied by two things: the European Central Bank policy must be credible; monetary policy must be disciplined, and therefore the euro strong and not weak.
In addition, there must be economic reform in the European Union.
The single currency brings with it huge structural economic changes, change that is sometimes beneficial - necessary, even.
But we must be honest with our citizens that change there will be, and we must prepare for it.
The European Central Bank now has strong leadership for at least a 12-year period.
The Cardiff Summit has produced an agenda for economic reform.
There are four elements to this programme of economic reform.
First of all, employment.
Jobs must remain the top priority of the European Union over this coming period of time.
(Applause from the left) Eighteen million unemployed in Europe is far too many.
At the jobs summit last November we agreed guidelines to promote a skilled, trained and adaptable workforce and flexible labour markets responsive to economic change.
All fifteen Member States have submitted national action plans for jobs.
We agreed at Cardiff to take that work further, to put particular stress on further work on lifelong learning, strengthening equal opportunities, revising tax and benefit systems to improve work incentives, and developing a culture of entrepreneurship.
There is now consensus on the need for a flexible, dynamic approach to respond to the challenges of globalization.
Secondly at Cardiff, we endorsed a firm commitment to pursue structural economic reform in Europe.
As well as sound macro-economic policies we have developed broad economic guidelines.
Member States have agreed to reform labour, product and capital markets and to reduce regulatory burdens on business.
They also agreed to produce annual reports on their progress in doing so.
These changes are vital if Europe is to remain competitive.
Thirdly, the single market.
With the help of this Parliament the European Union has made good progress in the last six months: new measures on financial services and biotechnology patents, new competition in telecoms markets, a new framework research programme to promote hi-tech research and development, and measures to safeguard the free movement of goods.
I hope that Parliament will give its formal agreement to the last two measures as quickly as possible.
Since December last year the so-called single market scoreboard shows that the proportion of measures which have been implemented in all Member States has increased from 73 % to 82 %, but we must go further and we must go faster.
We agreed at Cardiff to extend the scoreboard to develop better indicators for effective market integration, and particular priorities for the future were agreed: financial services, improved enforcement of single market law and tackling unwarranted price differences across Europe.
The fourth element of economic reform was help for small businesses: the small business sector, those who are self-employed.
Many of those people are going to be the engines of growth and jobs in the future in the European Union.
It is our task to give them the support they need in order to develop and grow from small firms into medium-sized and then to large firms.
(Applause) They need better access to capital, less bureaucracy and a culture that supports them.
New initiatives in all these areas were again endorsed at the Cardiff Summit.
This is the beginning of the reform process.
It marks a move away from policies of the past - and rightly so.
Also, on enlargement, in the space of twenty days in March and again with this Parliament's help, we opened the European Conference, we launched the accession process and we began the accession negotiations for enlargement.
We have finally started a process that will erase the scars of a divided continent and bring huge advances in the prosperity and security of the whole of Europe.
We have launched those negotiations with six countries.
The screening process is underway.
Seven chapters out of thirty-one have now been completed.
The opening of substantive negotiations will be the next stage.
And we have not neglected those candidates not yet in formal negotiations. We want them to begin as soon as they are ready.
We will continue to seek closer cooperation with all the candidates.
I particularly hope too that the decisions taken at Cardiff mean that we can open a new and more productive chapter in relations between the EU and Turkey, including a resolution to the impasse over financing.
Successful enlargement also requires, however, the modernization of the Union's own policies.
During the last few months detailed work has begun on the Commission's Agenda 2000 proposals.
They involve crucial issues for all Member States: the size and distribution of the budget, equitable reform of the Structural Funds, modernizing the common agricultural policy.
But we also have a responsibility to the new Member States, a responsibility to extend to them as soon as possible the benefits of the single market to allow them to join a viable, competitive common agricultural policy, to enable them to have their fair share of Structural Funds.
The Agenda 2000 negotiations, like the enlargement negotiations themselves, will be tough - such negotiations always are.
But we, the existing Members of the European Union, cannot on the one hand say that we support enlargement and then not will the means to achieve enlargement.
(Applause from the left) In particular we cannot let individual vested interest stand in the way of our historic obligation to the former communist states of Eastern Europe.
They, after all, with courage, took the path to democracy.
We have to help them on the path to prosperity.
(Applause) The Council agreed that decisions on Agenda 2000 should be taken during the German presidency in the first half of next year.
It is an ambitious timetable.
We have worked with Parliament to ensure your full participation in this complex and important process, and we are committed to the successful negotiation of a new interinstitutional agreement during the lifetime of this Parliament.
Meanwhile, too, we have worked very closely with you in the important annual task of preparing the budget for 1999 and improving financial management, drawing on the work of the Court of Auditors.
This kind of cooperation will be vital as we determine the financial framework for the beginning of the next century, and I hope will continue under the next presidencies.
Let me deal with a point which I know is of very great concern to many of you: the implications of the recent European Court judgment.
The Commission spending on certain programmes did not have satisfactory legal authority.
In the view of the Council it was essential that there should be legal certainty and transparency in a budget process which involves taxpayers' money.
That is in the interests of all institutions.
Let me make it absolutely clear that the judgment is about the law we all have to follow when we agree spending programmes; it is not a judgment on the programmes themselves.
We now need to act together to resolve these difficulties speedily.
The European Court of Justice ruling recognizes that the Commission can still authorize spending without a specific legal base in certain circumstances, and contracts entered into will be respected.
At my request, however, presidency representatives will now meet Commission and Parliament representatives on 23 June to identify an early and satisfactory solution to this problem so that it can be resolved.
(Applause) The purpose of this meeting will be to allow the Council and Parliament to ensure the rapid adoption of those programmes where Commission-proposed legal bases are on the table.
We have worked to develop a more coherent and powerful European voice on issues beyond our borders.
Last month Robin Cook set out to you the practical actions taken by the European Union since January towards this goal.
Our efforts have focused on several key areas, and let me describe them briefly to you.
The crisis in Kosovo confronts Europe with a dangerous challenge, to establish a just solution for an autonomous Kosovo within the Federal Republic, while avoiding a repetition of Bosnia.
This time at least the European Union has moved fast to put in place measures to dissuade Belgrade from continuing the violence in Kosovo.
I have discussed our resolve to act with each of our Heads of Government colleagues.
No one could be in any doubt after our Cardiff statement of what the Union wants to see in our resolve to act with our allies in the wider international community, if our demands are not met.
I should say to you - controversial though it is in certain quarters - that military planning is well under way in NATO, with the full support of European Union Member States, in case diplomacy should fail. But we cannot allow stability to decline and chaos to result in that part of the world: it will affect all of us.
(Applause) In recent months, too, the European Union has secured a more prominent role in the Middle East peace process.
We support American efforts there but we now have a clear and distinctive position also for the European Union in helping drive the process forward.
The Union and its members have likewise responded quickly and effectively to other international problems, for example the Asian economic crisis, Indonesia, and the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests.
Of course Europe cannot resolve all these crises but we have been able, rapidly, to articulate a clear European view, to express a consensus where one exists and to act effectively in concert with our international partners.
We were able to resolve the long-standing EU-US argument about extraterritorial US legislation in a way which fully protects European economic interests and our principled opposition to legislation of this kind.
We have maintained the European role in other areas of long-standing concern: in Bosnia we acted quickly to sustain the momentum behind the new Dayton-friendly governments in Republika Srpska and Montenegro.
We have agreed a new European Union code of conduct on arms exports.
I hope that, as a result, Member States will no longer decide to go ahead with an arms sale simply because they believe that if they do not someone else will.
(Applause from the left) We have actively pursued human rights through positive engagement with those concerned.
For example, there is now a new, more constructive dialogue on human rights with the Chinese, not forsaking our principles, but looking to see how we can make real practical progress; and the first ever EU-China Summit in April showed the benefits of this approach.
Closer to home, the presidency has given priority to issues close to the hearts of ordinary people.
On the environment, at yesterday's Environment Council the Union has reached agreement on how the European Union will implement the commitments on greenhouse gases agreed at the Kyoto Summit.
That is a major step forward.
We have agreed further measures to cut atmospheric pollution, to improve water quality, and to put an end to driftnet fishing.
We have agreed a new directive on areas of animal welfare, as in zoos.
We have also worked out a programme of work with the next three presidencies to ensure continuity and real action.
Overall I believe the Union has created and accomplished a great deal in making for a cleaner Europe in these last six months. I would like to pay particular tribute to my colleague, my own deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, for his work both at Kyoto and yesterday in the Environment Council.
(Applause) In addition, the Union has made good progress in the fight against crime: a new pact with applicant countries on cooperation against organized crime; movement towards closer cooperation between Member States in criminal matters; the core elements of a post-1999 European Union drugs strategy; a package of measures to ensure better coordination between police forces and judicial authorities to tackle cross-border crime; and an agreement to work for mutual recognition of court judgments.
This Parliament rightly attaches importance to greater openness.
We have worked hard to make the Council more transparent: this year's open debates have been better attended than ever before, and Member States have agreed now to establish a public register of Council documents.
But I am well aware there remains a very long way to go.
I am grateful for your support.
You backed us in the first ever summit for ordinary people, which brought together to debate our agenda NGOs from across Europe.
We also welcomed at Cardiff the initiatives of the Commission and the Council to improve their effectiveness.
We agreed that once the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified - a step taken by Britain earlier this week - we will need to tackle the institutional issues not resolved at Amsterdam.
However, my presidency, and, indeed, any presidency, should not be known just for a catalogue of results but also for the sense of direction and feel about the European Union that it represents.
I hope that Britain has come a long way in the past year in its relations with the rest of the European Union.
The days of the beef war - 14 against 1 - government positions ravaged by warring factions in the governing party are, I am pleased to say, over.
(Applause from the left) I should like, very diplomatically, simply to say to those British Conservative Members of Parliament here who have organized dissent against the presidency in the European Parliament: thank you for your interest, but we remember when your party was in charge and we do not want those days back again.
(Applause from the left) We also signed the social chapter with pride; we negotiated the Amsterdam Treaty with ease; and we have worked during our presidency with our colleagues as partners.
However, in conclusion, I wish to be frank with you and the citizens of Europe.
There are always two strands of opposition to Europe in Britain, and these strands are reflected across the whole of Europe, they are not confined to Britain.
One is utterly opposed to Europe, come what may, on straightforward nationalist grounds.
Here one must simply win the argument for a modern view of how nation states work.
But the second strand is different: it can support the European Union but it worries about its directions and its actions.
This strand of opinion must be engaged with by us.
We must understand its concerns: it fears Europe is too centralized, too remote, and its economic policy too caught up in regulation.
In my view, such concerns do not justify being anti-Europe, but they merit being addressed by us honestly and frankly.
I am pro-Europe - without any hesitation at all - but I am anti the status quo.
We need economic and political reform.
In economic terms we need an open, competitive Europe that has macro-economic stability and dynamism and innovation in its supply side.
I believe that education, not overburdensome regulation, is the key for our workforce for the future.
The single European market must be driven through.
I reject laissez-faire and state control of industry.
The third way, surely, is to recognize that government has a vital role to play but one that is enabling, empowering our people and business to prosper in a new global market.
The European social model should not, and will not, be abandoned.
(Applause) But it should be reformed to provide for solidarity in today's world of international financial markets, industrial change and technological revolution.
Alongside that economic reform we need political reform.
We need a vision for Europe that allows people to feel safe in their national identity whilst reaching out and embracing European partnership.
In some areas we are going to integrate more, in others much more can be done at national, regional and local level.
We must think boldly about how we connect the European Union with its citizens, about its institutions at a national and European level.
I believe this is the coming debate in Europe.
We began it at Cardiff, we shall carry it forward at the informal summit in Austria in October, and it is a debate in which we must engage the whole of the institutions of Europe, including Parliament.
Mr President, we still have some decisions to take in Britain about Europe, as you know.
But, at long last, Britain is engaged: it is constructive, we know we have something to give and something to learn.
Pro-Europe, pro-reform - that is where I am, it is where the European Council is and it is where our electorates and our people are.
I believe in the European ideal.
I want it to live again in the hearts of the new generation.
I hope that our presidency will be seen in retrospect to have developed some arguments for the long term that may contribute to the revitalization of that ideal.
Mr President, it has been an honour to be President of the European Union.
I consider it a privilege.
I have enjoyed working with you and the Members of Parliament, and I thank you for listening to me today.
(Loud and sustained applause)
Thank you, Prime Minister.
This presidency has through its ministers and its officials responded to your own personal wish to develop good relations with Parliament and its President in a cooperative and friendly spirit.
I thank you very much for that.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen Members of this House, the President-in-Office of the Council, Prime Minister Tony Blair, has just presented us with his review of the British presidency.
For my part, I would simply like to expand upon some of the matters raised at the recent summit in Cardiff.
The Prime Minister placed his presidency under the banner of connecting with the citizens.
He pursued this theme with the conviction and enthusiasm we have come to recognize in him.
Cardiff was not a meeting at which concrete or specific decisions were made.
Those decisions had been made in previous months.
I am thinking, of course, of the decision concerning the euro and the launch of the enlargement process.
We cannot make historic decisions at three-monthly intervals.
Cardiff was nevertheless an important and positive meeting.
Our rendezvous took place in an appreciably better climate overall, attesting to a renewal of confidence in Europe. Europe is on the way back.
Europe is up and running.
The euro is coming.
Growth is truly spread across the board, with a rate of 3.2 % in the first quarter of 1998.
Unemployment, finally, is dropping.
We are back at the unemployment rates of 1993.
This is very encouraging, even if there is still a long way to go.
The Heads of State and government have stressed this forcefully during the discussion on national action plans for jobs.
The European Council has proved so successful that it now faces the future resolutely.
Because of the historic progress made in recent time, the Heads of State and government have been able to engage in a genuine debate on the future of Europe with equanimity.
I find this particularly pleasing.
In the Commission, we have begun to reflect widely on this type of approach, with particular stress on our own institution.
After these few introductory words, Mr President, I would now like to proceed to a rapid review of the major topics covered by the European Council.
Firstly, economic reform.
As you know, the Commission tabled an ambitious project covering the major macro-economic policy guidelines and, to be perfectly honest, some of our Member States found the text at times unpalatable.
Now it is time to move on from the general chanting and wishful thinking stage to a genuine exercise in economic coordination, if we wish to make a lasting success of the euro.
The Ecofin Council, finally, although still a little caught up in its habits of old, unfortunately watered down our project, with each minister attempting to show his own country in the best light.
I consider this to be a youthful folly.
We must grow up very quickly.
I raised this question with the Heads of State and government and found, to my great satisfaction, a very positive response to our comments which, incidentally, Mr Herman, were shared by your Parliament.
My colleagues in the European Council certainly did not wish to alter the guidelines for this year but, in their conclusions, they issued a very clear political message on the need to strengthen the exercise of guidelines in the future and make them a genuine instrument of coordination.
With regard to jobs, I think we can reasonably be satisfied with the progress we have made in the past year.
The method defined in Luxembourg for national guidelines and action plans is already common practice.
I would especially like to congratulate the Member States for their commendable sportsmanship.
The discussion on employment in Cardiff was excellent.
In Vienna, we will be able to make our first assessment of the implementation of those action plans.
I am convinced this will yield a positive result.
I am struck by the insistence of Heads of State and government in making a success of the jobs strategy for the duration. Employment is just one aspect of our integrated strategy.
Since my arrival in 1995, I have made genuine implementation of the domestic market one of my priorities.
Hereto, as we have just been told, the results are encouraging.
The incorporation of directives is improving continually and the Heads of State and government have expressly underlined the important role of the Commission in terms of inducing the need for compliance with the rules of the domestic market; this gladdens me.
I note too that deregulation, in the telecommunications field for example, has resulted in a growth rate of more than 8 % per annum in those sectors.
This is what creates jobs.
In civil aviation, we are witnessing substantial reductions in ticket prices and the recent decisions to deregulate the gas and electricity sectors have already transformed the fuel and power structure in Europe.
In Cardiff, we also concentrated on the best ways of enhancing the spirit of enterprise in Europe.
I might mention, by way of example, the very important matter of access to venture capital and, generally speaking, the systematic promotion of our small and medium-sized companies.
Economic reform is essential, but our citizens demand rather more of Europe.
In this respect, I believe that the adoption by the European Council of our proposals regarding further integration of environmental protection in Union policies is an excellent thing.
It is not enough, in itself, simply to incorporate this principle in the treaty; we should implement it positively in our day-to-day activities.
Another subject that concerns our citizens directly is the matter of justice and home affairs.
Little by little, the Union is building a solid and effective plan of action in this area.
I am delighted by the fact that the European Council has explicitly asked the Commission and the Council, with Vienna in sight, to devise a plan of action with regard to the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty provisions to create an area of freedom, security and justice.
As expected, the discussion in Cardiff concerning Agenda 2000 did not yield any significant advances.
The various delegations on the whole maintained their individual positions in order to avoid weakening their negotiating stance.
This meant that we spent a lot of time seeking suitable formulations to explain that we had still not reached agreement.
This is not too serious at this point.
We must now, under the Austrian presidency, double the pace.
It is not enough to say it is all wrapped up, simply to avoid moving forward.
We must negotiate.
In my opinion, the main achievement in Cardiff was to obtain from the European Council a clear commitment to the timetable.
We now have this commitment.
I trust the Heads of State and government to comply with that timetable and put the final touches to the package - because this is indeed a package - by March 1999.
By planning a meeting devoted to this subject on 25 and 26 March, they have given us a clear signal.
If there was one subject at the centre of all the discussions during the days leading up to the summit, it was clearly that relating to the future of Europe.
There was great speculation about the real or imaginary intentions of individual participants.
I can record that in Cardiff the debate was open, constructive and that no animosity was expressed whatever.
The Heads of State and government realized that the Community method, its laws and the existence of strong institutions - especially a powerful Commission serving all citizens - are essential to enable Europe to progress.
(Applause) We have raised three subjects; firstly, institutional questions, in respect of which the first priority is, of course, to ratify the Amsterdam Treaty.
But everyone acknowledged that a further institutional reform was necessary before the first enlargement.
I know that your Parliament attaches great importance to this and we will have the opportunity to discuss this further.
Then there was the operation and structure of institutions.
I think that each of our institutions should begin to examine its conscience and investigate its individual structures and operation in the light of these new requirements.
For my own part, I was able to refer to the work that the Commission has already begun to tackle with regard to its own future.
A third subject was democratic legitimacy and subsidiarity.
I am pleased to report that this issue is being debated - provided, of course, that it is conducted in a genuine community spirit with a scrupulous respect for Community law and on condition that we acknowledge that some citizens are sometimes appalled by an excess of Europe and that, at the same time, there are those who want more Europe.
I myself have revised my own views several times regarding the very nature of subsidiarity and, in particular, the need to clarify responsibilities.
As I said in Cardiff, each is responsible for setting his own house in order.
I am ready to do this, but I insist that we should be truthful when we tell our citizens who does what.
I would like to repeat that the Heads of State and government have tackled all of these questions in a positive state of mind, with a view towards the future.
They have insisted strongly on the need to involve themselves personally in this debate and it is in this context that I commend the decision to devote an informal meeting between the Heads of State and government to this very subject under the Austrian presidency.
I note that, with the march of time, we are in the process of achieving, one after another, the major goals we set ourselves in 1995.
Because of this progress, we can now turn resolutely to the future.
The British presidency, under Mr Tony Blair, has performed an excellent job and allowed the Union to make steps forward in most of these areas.
At this point, I would like to express my satisfaction with the climate of understanding and constructive cooperation that has prevailed in relations between this presidency and the Commission during the last six months.
I am particularly pleased that the official attitude of the government of the United Kingdom towards Europe has changed.
I am convinced that this will have beneficial effects for the image of Europe in the United Kingdom.
This is important both for Europe and for the United Kingdom.
(Applause)
Mr President, I should like to begin by welcoming Prime Minister Blair to the European Parliament on behalf of the Socialist Group in this House.
It is a great pleasure to be the first MEP to speak in this debate and to warmly welcome the first British Labour Prime Minister to Europe's Parliament.
You are very welcome, Tony.
It is an added personal pleasure for me to be able to welcome him as my party leader and I very much do so.
These last six months have been important months in the political life of Britain and its relationship with the European Union.
It is quite impossible to overestimate the significance of the change in attitude which is now manifest in Britain and which has been evidenced by the frequent visits of your ministers to this Parliament during the presidency.
We, here, all remember too well, for instance, the arrogant disregard of the previous Conservative ministers for the European Parliament and notably the refusal of the then Agriculture Minister, Douglas Hogg, to accept the invitation and come and explain his handling of the BSE crisis...
(Applause from the left ) ...which has had and continues to have such disastrous consequences in Britain and throughout the rest of Europe.
By contrast, Jack Cunningham, your Minister of Agriculture, made his sixth visit in six months to the European Parliament on Tuesday of this week.
He has done a huge amount to explain, discuss and engender confidence that, despite the complex problems and formidable cost to Britain, your government would act in good faith to eliminate BSE from the British beef industry.
His approach exemplifies the change of mood, tone, attitude and substance of your government to Europe.
That change is clearly having an effect on attitudes in Britain and is instrumental in creating a better-balanced view of the European Union.
Whilst, of course, this Parliament will inevitably have differences with the European Council, no matter how irreproachable the presidency, no-one is in doubt about the intention and commitment of this British Government to play a full part in the life of the European Union, if sometimes controversially.
For that above all else, Prime Minister, this whole Parliament congratulates and thanks you.
When looking at the achievements of the British presidency it is impossible to look at the outcome of the Cardiff Summit alone.
This presidency is remarkable because of the two outstanding events which occurred in March and May.
The launching of the enlargement process in March marked the opening of a new era in the evolution of the European Union.
On our side of the House, we support enlargement to ensure peace and stability on our wider continent.
We want a prosperous and dynamic Europe and know that cannot be built on a Europe where intolerance, extreme nationalism and conflict prevail or simmer just below the surface.
The European Union is a superb model of conflict resolution.
And if there were no other reason for enlargement, we in the Socialist Group would support it for that reason above all others.
The successful opening of the European Conference and the bilateral negotiations with six of the eleven applicant states deserve our hearty recognition.
You will forgive me, Prime Minister, if I say that the launching of the single currency on 2 and 3 May was not quite such a seamless operation, although all of us appreciate that you were seeking to reconcile seemingly irreconcilable positions, something we contend with in this House very often.
My group has been critical for many years of the way in which the Council deals with the appointments of the most important political and now, economic, positions in the Union.
Whilst we all appreciate that the launch of the single currency was, thankfully, in market terms an unqualified success, there was real dismay at the wrangling between heads of state, which was seen by all. I suspect, Prime Minister, that as the man in the middle, you share some of that dismay.
We are thankful that you brought that process to a successful conclusion and that the euro has become a reality.
Perhaps, when you engage with other heads of government in your informal discussions in Austria, in October, looking into ways to make the Union more understandable to its people, we could urge you to seek a more satisfactory method of securing senior appointments in the future.
The euro is launched.
I must say that we were rather pleased with the role Parliament played in that process.
My group is now determined that we will make our relationship with the decision-makers on the euro one of great seriousness and rigour.
It is our responsibility to perform this function effectively and to ensure that our national parliaments are kept fully up to speed with the accountability which we shall exercise over the Central Bank, its president and executive board.
Cardiff saw the first assessment of the national action plans for employment drawn up by each government.
We thank you for driving that agenda forward.
Frankly, over the past five years we, here, have got somewhat fed up with the excess of words spoken about the need to help the 18 million plus unemployed in the European Union.
We have heard many of those words here.
In fact we have generated a lot of them.
Your election in May last year and that of Mr Jospin in France a month later created the progressive majority in the Council which allowed us to actually move forward from words to action through the creation of the employment chapter in the Amsterdam Treaty, the Luxembourg special summit on employment and the defining of some real shared targets for employment creation.
Cardiff reinforced the equality criteria of employment policy: support for women, the disabled, ethnic minority citizens and, of course, the long-term unemployed.
While some national action plans are, without question, better than others, at least we have them.
We note that the British Government was the first to produce such a plan and this has acted as a catalyst for the rapid and serious production of others.
Prime Minister, I want to welcome, on behalf of this whole House, what you have just said about the issue which is causing a major problem for citizens and non-governmental organizations throughout the European Union.
I refer to last month's judgment of the Court of Justice regarding monies being spent by the European Commission without an explicit legal base for such spending.
As a result of that judgment, as you know, the European Commission has taken the decision, as one might expect, to cease all spending on the budget lines concerned.
This means, for example, budget lines for social exclusion, the elderly, sport in Europe, the fight against racism, support for the disabled, public health, anti-personnel mines and, of course, the work of NGOs in the developing world.
We can all see at a glance that these small but significant budget lines are ones which have been having a significant impact on the lives of some of the most needy citizens in our Union and those whom we seek to help beyond our borders.
We all share the view that European Union funding should be properly rooted in law.
That principle has been rightly secured by this judgment.
I am pleased that you have given your commitment to act to secure a legal base for this spending which you have made clear you have no intention of harming.
In the remaining days of your presidency, we look to you to ensure that the words 'a people's Europe' have some tangible and lasting resonance through this action.
I want to conclude on the problem raised at Cardiff about the legitimacy of the institutions of the European Union and the desire of the Council participants to bring Europe closer to its people - something which we here very much endorse.
There is still unfinished work to be done to ensure that the Union is ready for enlargement in the coming years.
Amsterdam was unable to conclude this work and in so far as the debate you launched will deal with these items, we very much welcome it.
I understand, however, that the Council intended this debate - indeed you said so - to be much wider-ranging than just that unfinished business.
I also understand the Council wants to look at the nature of the Union's institutions themselves, at subsidiarity and democratic legitimacy.
These are complex and sensitive issues which must be faced.
I have no doubt that the European Parliament will be making its views known to the heads of state before the informal meeting in October.
I must say as well that for the first time in the living memory of anyone in this House, the European Council has actually taken up our entreaties to deal with the general conditions governing the performance of the duties of Members of the European Parliament.
During this parliamentary term, this House has been dogged by constant allegations of abuses of expenses and allowances of Members.
I note that in the British papers this week you are quoted as saying that whilst you will insist, quite rightly, on sorting these out, you want to acknowledge that the overwhelming number of Members of the European Parliament are honest, hard-working people, abiding by the spirit and the letter of our regulations.
We thank you for that recognition and assure you of our determination on this issue.
According to the Treaty, we need the unanimous agreement of the Council if these issues are to be solved.
We are keen to solve them.
We want the next Parliament to be clear about the shared mandate of its Members, their rights and responsibilities, their privileges and immunities.
It is no easy task to bring together the parliamentary and political cultures of 15 different countries and create a single shared European culture in this respect.
But if we, the 626 Members of the European Parliament, cannot do that, then we had better give up trying to develop a shared vision of the future for the 370 million citizens of the Union.
(Applause ) We want to ensure that the Parliament which succeeds us here next June can put this issue firmly behind it and we welcome your commitment to work with us to sort this out.
Prime Minister, I recognize perhaps more than some others here just how much you have supported a pro-European policy in our party at home and a pro-European constructive policy for Britain in the European Union.
I thank you, as my party leader, as the Prime Minister of Britain and as the President-in-Office of the European Union.
(Applause )
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen.
Mr President of the Council, I welcome you on behalf of our group at your first appearance and I thank you for the work you have done during your presidency.
Your presidency is characterised by two decisions which will always remain part of the European integration: the start of negotiations with the countries in Central Europe and the decision on 2 May by eleven Member States to jointly create a single currency. The Union now faces a real challenge.
Monetary union, a powerful lever for federal integration, must be completed.
The expansion to 25 Member States will markedly increase the differences in economic performance as well as cultural and political differences.
Who could credibly maintain that such an expanded Union can still function without majority decisions? The European Council has asked fundamental questions under your leadership.
How can we strengthen the European identity worldwide? How can we ensure its legitimacy amongst the population?
How can we distribute powers in this new Europe while reconciling democracy, accountability and efficiency? Cardiff has certainly not formulated any answers to these questions.
But we are pleased that an informal European Council will start work on the future of the institutions in October.
It is unthinkable that the Commission, which monitors the Treaties, would not be involved in the reflection on the improved functioning of the institutions.
Are we not closer to the goal which the founders of the Union envisaged half a century ago? Has the time not come to lay the foundations for a constitutional structure which establishes durable and clear competency levels in the Union?
We side with the message from Cardiff to bring Europe closer to the citizens.
Europe should be given a face. The foreign policy, Mr President of the Council, was not sufficiently clear.
We believe your presidency was too modest in respect of the Kosovo crisis, the tension between India and Pakistan and when restoring the failed troika in Algeria.
We must advocate a more authentic European foreign policy, even if it means that Europe must be more forceful in making known its intentions to the US.
Mr President, the legitimacy of the European institutions as well as subsidiarity are at the heart of the debate in Cardiff.
I will have no part in the easy temptation to make the Community institutions, in particular the European Commission, into a scapegoat.
We must indeed halt the passion for regulation. But we should also recognise that the Commission has imposed the requirement of subsidiarity on itself and has reduced the number of proposals.
We should admit that the internal market would not have succeeded were it not for the initiatives displayed by the European Commission.
It is easy to appropriate at national level the successes of European solidarity.
Much easier than admitting that the institutions have done a good job.
Often reproaches are unjustified.
We should instead convince our fellow citizens that they owe much in their daily lives to the European policy concerning the protection of the environment, the strengthening of internal security, and the cooperation between the police and the legal system.
Mr President of the Council, our continent has recovered the dynamism of a healthy economy.
Economic convergence must be strengthened further, and we support your words and actions regarding the joint action against unemployment.
It should create new jobs, the European social model must be maintained.
I hope you will be able to instigate initiatives to redeem the undesirable and negative consequences of the recent pronouncement by the Court of Justice.
European cooperation and the introduction of the euro are a considerable trump card for our economies, compared with the financial crisis in South East Asia and the problems in Russia and Japan.
It is therefore high time that the great European project should be painted in brighter colours so as to look forward with optimism to the future, and to outline to the public at large the extensive opportunities afforded us by durable peace in our continent, strong democracies and a cultural and material standard of living which is amongst the highest on our planet.
We should no longer distance ourselves or be suspicious of the European Union.
Mr President of the European Council, I consider it harmful to discuss internal differences of opinion here in the European Parliament.
That is one of the reasons why I say today that it is thanks to you that the attitude and the mood in your country has changed.
Europe is back.
Let us further cooperate in together completing this masterpiece of civilization which is the European ideal.
I thank you on behalf of our group for your work in this respect.
(Applause )
Mr President, on behalf of European Liberals let me welcome the United Kingdom's new approach to Europe, as eloquently outlined by the Prime Minister just now: pro-Europe and therefore pro-reform.
In our view, the most important result of the past six months has been the normalization of relations between the United Kingdom and the rest of us.
This is important, for the European Union needs the United Kingdom as much as the United Kingdom needs the Union.
Welcome back United Kingdom!
I also salute the personal efforts of Prime Minister Blair to bring about a lasting peace in Northern Ireland.
(Applause) Mr President, I am not worried about the United Kingdom.
I am worried, however, about another important European country, Germany.
The theme at the Cardiff Summit was the imminent advent of the German elections.
Elections bring out the best as well as the worst in people.
As a result the Cardiff Summit has become a populist Summit.
The criticism voiced by Chancellor Kohl and others of the European institutions are as hypocritical as they are misplaced.
What is the main task of the European Commission?
It is to safeguard the Treaty.
Only then does the European Commission act in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Treaty when it also reminds the most powerful Member States of the rules of play. Germany would therefore do better, for example, to reduce its subsidies to the coal industry, which distort competition, instead of criticizing Mr Van Miert's policies.
The criticisms of the Court of Justice are also false.
The Court of Justice recently decided that two Luxembourg nationals, who had respectively bought a pair of spectacles in Belgium and were seeking orthodontic treatment in Germany, were entitled to reimbursement of the costs.
The Court did emphatically not take the place of the legislator, as the Danish and German Prime Ministers maintain.
The principles of the Treaty apply in cases were no harmonization legislation applies, such as here.
In future, free movement of persons applies not only to healthy Europeans but also to sick ones.
Is that not what is meant by a citizen's Europe?
(Applause ) We are against a European super state, President Chirac and Chancellor Kohl said.
Well, everyone is against that.
So who do they criticise? Surely not the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties which they helped to set up?
Such talk in public damages the Unions' image.
The Union can only be brought closer to the citizens if leading national politicians accept responsibility for the Union's actions.
How can the democratic legitimacy of the Union be increased? I can see three possibilities.
Firstly the introduction of a uniform election system based on proportional representation for the next European elections.
Secondly, an integral review of all internal reimbursements by the European Parliament, so that only actual expenses are reimbursed, and the introduction of a uniform charter for Members.
Thirdly, the introduction of a form of consultative referendum for the new Chairman of the European Commission, as advocated by Jacques Delors and others.
If Socialists, Christian Democrats, Liberals and Greens each nominate a candidate for the Chairmanship of the European Commission, then this might give the European elections a new dynamic impetus.
It would devolve more power to the European citizens and it would give the Commission more legitimacy.
Much has been said in Cardiff on a citizens' Europe.
I welcome this.
I hope actions will follow swiftly.
(Applause)
Mr President, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, I would like to congratulate the Labour government, and particularly the Prime Minister, for the intelligence and courage they have shown in order to find a solution to the conflict in Northern Ireland.
This Parliament and public opinion throughout Europe are following with emotion the efforts being made to achieve peace and democratic normality in that European region.
We also thank the British presidency for the pro-European climate that it has been able to stamp on its term, a climate which would have been unthinkable among previous governments of the United Kingdom.
Maybe this is the best contribution of the British presidency because, and I say this very sincerely, the running of the presidency, even with the success of the birth of the euro and, in particular, the results of Cardiff, does not generate enthusiasm or excessive optimism at this extremely decisive stage for the construction of Europe.
On the one hand, almost all of the important decisions have been postponed until after the elections in Germany and, on the other hand, doubts and risks have appeared for the future of solidarity in the European Union.
We take a positive view of the incipient coordination of national employment plans, which could involve the first impulse of a Community policy which puts economic and social issues on the same level.
But the European Council has not analysed the viability of those national plans which, in many cases, do not set out clear objectives or set aside financial resources for their implementation.
We hope that the Vienna European Council is more decisive and takes into account the experiences of France and Italy to reduce weekly working time without loss of salary and other socio-economic measures which should be considered in terms of the European dimension.
We are very concerned because the debate on Agenda 2000 is not global and balanced and because the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund are being called into question.
If we want to respect the current internal solidarity and be able to finance enlargement, we will have to exceed the ceiling of 1.27 % of GDP and maintain the level of contributions from the wealthiest countries, which will be those that profit most from enlargement.
As regards international cooperation, we support the initiatives to relaunch the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians and we believe that additional pressure must be applied in order to ensure that Netanyahu's government respects the Oslo agreements and the United Nations resolutions.
We value the efforts made to develop a European identity in international politics, but I am sure Mr Blair will allow me to tell him that, at times, the British presidency has seemed more like the Atlantic partner of the United States than the coordinator of European foreign policy.
As regards institutional reform, we must learn from the failure of Amsterdam.
The situation is scandalous, in view of its urgency, which is unavoidable because of enlargement, and the need for a reorientation of the construction of Europe with institutions which are capable of responding to their citizens' aspirations.
To conclude, I must tell you, Mr Blair, that a substantial part of the European left, which represents more than 12 million voters, cannot allow the monetarist ideology, expressed in the convergence criteria and in the Stability Pact which accompany the birth of the euro, to question economic and social cohesion and to put the European social model at risk. This model is a distinguishing characteristic of our democracy, as you have recognized, although you have talked about fine-tuning it and modernizing it.
But we must tackle all of these problems seriously.
In order to do so and to build a Europe of solidarity we will undoubtedly need the joint effort of the diverse left, as is already the case in certain countries of the European Union.
Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, as expected, Mr Blair has with much flair and feeling for public relations drawn attention to Europe at the start of the British Presidency, promising much.
A citizens' Europe, democratic and transparent, a Europe which would credibly promote a healthy environment, which would easily and quickly enter the euro zone - in a manner of speaking - and with a more humane foreign policy, armed with a meaningful code of conduct for the export of arms.
Many of the promises went up in smoke in a blue skies discussion on the future, with fewer concrete results than hoped for.
However, the positive stance of the British Government in respect of Europe is an important change.
It spells an end to the europhobic attitude of the Conservatives.
But we are disappointed that you have attached so much importance in your press conference to the initiative by President Chirac and Chancellor Kohl, who together put subsidiarity on the European agenda, where the future evolvement of Europe is concerned.
What a present for the Presidency, the British eurosceptism is of the past but now the Continentals back the centralised bureaucratic euro nation which Great Britain has denounced.
We consider the initiative by Mr Kohl and Mr Chirac to be an attack on a future-oriented European political project.
The concepts of subsidiarity and decentralization are blatantly abused in order to exclude undesirable intervention in their own territory.
Member States who have previously supported a common market with common rules of play should not complain afterwards about the fact that the Commission safeguards its concrete realization.
Mr Hänsch is correct in saying that Mr Kohl's liking for subsidiarity is proportional to his aversion to the ban on the Kirsch and Bertelsmann merger.
I cannot rid myself of the impression that it is not so much Europe which should get closer to the people as we, the national governments, who should get closer to them.
The Greens have always defended the idea that power should be devolved to a level which is as close as possible to the people but on the other hand that a political counterforce should be ready to oppose internationally organised economic actors.
In fact, a fake battle of powers is induced between the Commission and the Member States, whereas these same Member States think nothing of quietly transferring large powers to multinational organizations such as the World Trade Organization.
The erosion of democracy is not categorized, whereas political decisions by our Union, such as our option for hormone-free meat and the special banana regime for ACP countries, are thrown over, while we stand powerless.
We do therefore want a Europe which is closer to the citizen, which to us means a simple decision-making system and the disappearance of the democratic deficit.
Because the citizens not only harbour a growing rejection of Europe but also an increasing rejection of politics.
We should try and do something about that, both at national and at a European level.
We welcome the fact that the environment has finally made it to a European Summit again, after seven lean years.
Rightly so, as eight of the twelve essential environmental items show a degradation.
To us this means an important result in the British Presidency.
We are also pleased that Prime Minister Blair has brought up the subject of the reimbursements and the charter of the Members of the European Parliament.
It is about time this was settled and I believe, ladies and gentlemen, that we all have an interest in dealing quickly with this point so that it can be removed from the agenda.
Finally, I would like to thank Mr Henderson and Mrs Clare Short for their willingness to accord consultative powers to the European Parliament in respect of expansion and the Lomé Convention, amongst other things; support for the strengthening of this Parliament means indeed support for the strengthening of democracy and closer ties with the citizens.
Mr President, these are major occasions in the life of our Parliament and we should not overlook the fact that President Santer is here as well as the President-in-Office and I welcome them both.
I would like to thank the Commission President for his very skilful and diplomatic address.
However, we are mainly here to talk about the UK presidency.
We have to recognize that it started with a great deal of goodwill.
The change of government was welcomed right across Europe, not least in Scotland where the Conservatives suffered total wipe-out at the general election.
But I would say to the President-in-Office that he should not mistake the sighs of relief for gasps of admiration.
The greatest asset the Labour Government has is that it is not the old Conservative Government.
In saying this, I do not want to be grudging.
We welcome the change of tone.
This Parliament appreciates the fact that we have had Ministers such as Robin Cook, Clare Short and many others addressing Parliament and attending its committee meetings.
That is very worthwhile.
We all remember that handbag that Mrs Thatcher wielded when she banged the table and said: ' I want my money back' .
Well, the handbag has gone but the rebate and the claim for rebate remain from the UK, and from Germany.
In trying to appraise the record of the UK presidency we have to match the rhetoric and the achievement and ask ourselves what we will remember the UK presidency for.
It departed, with perhaps unfortunate symbolism, from Waterloo Station six months ago.
There were two big events in the last six months.
The first was on 2 and 3 May when we assembled to welcome the launch of the single currency on behalf of 11 Member States.
It was supremely ironic that the British Finance Minister, Gordon Brown, who presided over that in Brussels could not be the team manager but had to play in the left outside position because he was not part of it.
We have waited in vain today for an indication of commitment to the cause of the single currency, which I and most of us think is the most important aspect of European integration.
A colleague, Mr Puerta, also mentioned the too-close association with the United States.
On the Iraq crisis the hotline to the White House was operative long before there was any thought of calls to the Elysée Palace or anywhere else.
This Clintonization of policy is regrettable, and I have to mention the disgrace of the secret importation of nuclear waste from Georgia to Scotland.
The citizens of Europe were not even informed until it had arrived.
There were also some non-decisions.
What happened to quota-hopping which was supposed to be sorted out in the British presidency? What about the compensation for the farmers who are desperate at the strength of the pound and are looking for compensation?
But let us look ahead to the vision of Europe.
That is what Prime Minister Blair talks about, and all of us are concerned about it.
What do we make of the phrase 'a Europe of nation states' ? Was this a major faux pas ?
By that I mean a John Major faux pas . When John Major talked about the nation states and subsidiarity, he meant that it stopped at Dover.
Nothing that applied below that level was in his mind.
It would be unfair for us to accuse Prime Minister Blair of that.
He has recognized the historic nations of the United Kingdom. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are all to have their own parliamentary democracy.
That is a transformation which parallels those of Gorbachev in his day.
I finish by drawing on an analogy with the World Cup which is on all our television screens.
The Scottish football fans have got it about right. They have been welcomed across Europe for their positive contribution.
These are the same fans that voted for Home Rule for Scotland in the referendum last year.
That was welcomed at the time.
Their behaviour is welcome now.
I would urge Prime Minister Blair to turn his back firmly on the equivalent of Les Hooligans - the Fleet Street tabloids with their constant Brussels bashing - and take a leaf out of the book of the Tartan Army whose vision, like mine, is to participate, to be there and to create a true Europe of the peoples.
Mr President, I too would like to add my words of welcome to the President of the Council to our Parliament.
You are very welcome as our Prime Minister.
I believe the UK presidency will be judged, in the long term, by what has been achieved.
I feel we are getting ourselves in a position, within the European Union, that every time a new presidency comes in, it tries to out-do the last one; it tries to be more outward looking and come forward with great new ideas.
At the end of the day, unfortunately, on many occasions we do not always achieve what we set out to do.
Six months of a presidency is about as long as a two minute speech in this Parliament.
It is very difficult to say all you want to say or do all you want to do.
I certainly believe that the creation of jobs and the development of economic growth throughout the European Union must be our number one priority.
Despite the fine words we have heard in this House on many occasions, we have not had any success in this area.
We must succeed if the people of Europe are not to be further alienated from Brussels bureaucracy.
I believe the most positive way forward to achieve this is to develop, as you said here this morning, our small- and mediumsized enterprises.
There are tremendous opportunities here to develop and allow them to grow.
I note also your comments on achieving, by next March, an end to the Agenda 2000 negotiations.
I hope the Council and Commission will ensure that this Parliament and its committees are fully involved and informed of the whole situation.
I would also like to take the opportunity to appeal to you to tackle the real problem that agriculture is facing throughout Europe, and certainly within the United Kingdom, and the problem of the strong pound sterling in its relation to the green pound.
I should also like to take the opportunity to congratulate you very warmly, Mr President, for the time and energy that you invested in achieving the positive outcome of the referendum in my constituency of Northern Ireland.
I want to publicly thank you here today because I do not think it could have been achieved but for that time and energy you gave.
(Applause ) As the only representative from Northern Ireland here today, I want you to take that back with you.
I was saddened to read in the press comments made by Mr Brok of the PPE Group when he said that senior UK ministers were so preoccupied with Northern Ireland that they were unable to concentrate on the European Union.
I am sure that you will take the opportunity to reject that here today.
That was a very unfortunate statement by Mr Brok.
I should like to say, regarding the situation in Northern Ireland, that you made personal promises to the people of Northern Ireland.
I hope that you will be able to deliver on those promises, Prime Minister.
I also want recorded in this House the important role played by my party leader.
To a large extent his role has been overlooked.
It was extremely important, the very courageous decision that he, too, took in putting his own political future on the line to ensure that my people in Northern Ireland are able to achieve peace.
Finally, I should like to call on the Council and the Commission to work with us to find ways in which we can support the new assembly that the election next Thursday will hopefully put in place in Northern Ireland.
(Applause )
Mr President, President Blair, like his predecessors serving as Presidents-in-Office of the Council, told us: "jobs must remain the top priority in Europe: eighteen million unemployed in Europe is far too many' .
These are impressive words that we have heard before and we will hear again.
The reality is that the European Union has peaked in unemployment in the industrialized world.
We have between 10 and 11 % unemployment in the European Union, compared with less than 5 % in the United States and less than 4 % in Japan.
Of course, we are talking of different continents.
But within the European continent there are two countries that have much lower unemployment levels, and I am speaking here of Switzerland with less than 4 % and Norway with less than 3 %.
These are two countries, two States whose peoples, through a referendum, have refused to enter the European Union.
What they are trying to tell us is clear.
The system set up by the European Union is inefficient and bad for the people, especially in terms of jobs.
We are not ignorant of the reasons.
First of all, it is the frenzied standardization to which the European Union aspires.
Then we have the furious economic free-trade ethic which blurs boundaries and eventually leads to their breakdown.
After all is said and done, President Blair, it is the Economic and Monetary Union that has been praised during your presidency.
In short, the cause of unemployment in Europe is the yoke imposed by the single market, single standards and the single currency.
Europe and the European Union could beat the unemployment problem if it changed its basic principles, if it stopped seeking to expand worldwide and if it genuinely embraced the principle of subsidiarity and the diversity of regions and nations, in short, if it legislated less and imposed fewer conditions upon us.
This is how the European Union could regain the path to full employment.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
Mr President, first of all can I move from what I was going to say to very much endorse what you said, Prime Minister, in terms of enlargement and the hard and difficult decisions which have to be made to ensure the security of our continent for the next century.
In the big picture, this presidency has been one of paradox.
Positively: a presidency where Britain finally and officially came in from the cold and became mainstream.
Negatively: a presidency, where having caught up with the rest of the pack, Britain found itself demoted and sent back to the second division as monetary union became the new reality.
Yet, despite the historic fact of monetary union, there is no mention in the Cardiff communiqué of completing the project of working positively to bring Sweden, Denmark, Greece and of course Britain within the borders of euroland.
That now should be a political priority.
There are too many commitments just carried forward to future presidencies but one Cardiff promise that I heartily welcome is the pledge to resolve the Agenda 2000 issues by spring of next year.
That is already a tall order.
Progress on key issues has been pitifully slow.
Let us be clear.
If the spring 1999 deadline is missed, in the structural funding area especially, we are faced with disruption of vital regional programmes across Europe.
Already critical social training and education programmes, due to finish at the end of next year, cannot plan their futures.
If, on 1 January 2000, the money stops because the Council is unable to make decisions in time, then who is alienating the citizens from Europe? The German election timetable should not be continually used as an easy excuse to postpone any meaningful discussion within the Council.
We welcome Cardiff's call for greater openness in Europe.
Absolutely essential but, as I think you suggested yourself, what an irony that it is still the Council that is the most closed and secretive part of the European Union.
Where the summit has implicitly criticized this Parliament, and justifiably in certain areas, it is that same Council of Ministers that burdens the European taxpayer with some ECU 150 million a year by insisting that each month we meet here in Strasbourg as well as Brussels.
That is truly unacceptable.
Help release us from this political merry-go-round.
I was very interested in and welcome your comments on a third way - one that rejects both laissez-faire and state control.
That way has already been mapped - it is well trodden and it is called Liberal Democracy.
Let me conclude on a positive note.
I particularly welcome the fact that this presidency has made efforts to deal constructively with individual Members of this Parliament.
I thank Doug Henderson in particular.
I have been readily received by many ministers over the last six months in my efforts to achieve Objective 1 status for Cornwall.
I welcome generally that accessibility.
Finally, no presidency is perfect and too much has been carried forward, but the thought of what this presidency might have been like under the previous British regime bears no contemplation.
(Applause )
Mr President, I think this outgoing presidency should be named the Blair presidency in honour of a very great Englishman.
Of course, I refer to Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell.
Orwell described how the Europe of 1984 was governed by a Ministry of Truth in which spin doctors explained how the war being waged by the Ministry of Peace was always going well.
The language of this world was called newspeak.
New Labour speaks this language to perfection.
When they read of new measures against poverty our poor hide their purses.
When we hear of Britain's new leadership of Europe we anticipate a new surge of xenophobia tempered, perhaps, by American advice.
It is quite fitting that the last achievement of the Blair presidency was the annulment of the Poverty 4 Programme.
I am extremely pleased to hear the Prime Minister announcing that annulment is now to be annulled.
It is clear that there is still some space in our Europe for public opinion to make its weight felt.
Now the President will be free to pursue his own course and I understand he is leading a team in pursuit of the third way.
They seek a way between truth and falsehood, between right and wrong.
If Europe goes along this path it will be widening its fissures both vertically and horizontally and I hope very much that we shall consider carefully before embarking on this road.
Mr President, I am the other ghost at the feast of the British presidency.
This ghost wants to say a few things about the presidency.
Firstly, the general consensus amongst informed opinion in Brussels is that the British presidency has been a bit of a damp squib: it has promised much but achieved little; and the Cardiff Summit was summed up by the Financial Times as being 'long in words but short on action' .
I wish to highlight two things.
Firstly, I want to reinforce those comments about the way in which your first failure as President of the European Union was to side automatically with Mr Clinton, without even consulting the European Union, on the question of the threat from Baghdad and the threat to bomb Baghdad.
That was a mistake and caused much consternation in this House.
Secondly, the fact that we have been bystanders on the question of a single currency is a major error of strategy of your government.
I have to ask you to comment on the words of your Permanent Secretary, Sir Terence Burns, in Brussels last week who, when asked why Britain was not joining the single currency, said two words: ' Rupert Murdoch' .
When will you stand up to the Sun , Mr Blair, and actually say when your government will join the single currency?
I have to say that your concern about building a people's Europe is something we would all support.
Why, therefore, have you blocked major social programmes, like the extension of the reduction of working time directive, the consultation directive, and why has your government led a considerable weakening of the acquired rights directive, passed overwhelmingly by this House two weeks ago, which seriously threatens many workers across Europe? If you could reassure us on those things, we might believe your concern about a people's Europe.
Mr Presidents, the conclusions of the Cardiff summit remain deliberately vague regarding the future of European institutions after enlargement.
We learn simply that we must, and I quote, "strengthen the democratic legitimacy of the Union and spell out the meaning of the principle of subsidiarity' - a philosophy which, outlined in this way, remains highly ambiguous since it could result either in the enhancement of a super- state, or the emergence of a Europe of nations.
If strengthening democratic legitimacy means giving pride of place to a more distant European democracy and hence one that is less vibrant than any national democracy, if absorbing the principle of subsidiarity means giving monarchic jurisdiction to the Commission and leaving nations with the crumbs of power, then of course the citizens will be confused.
If, however, reinforcing democratic legitimacy means reassessing the role of national parliaments, submitting the decisions of the Court of Justice to a right of appeal by the people or exercising better control over the Commission, for example by not allowing it to vote on spending decisions without a legal basis, as we spoke about earlier, if applying the principle of subsidiarity means reinstating national control over Europe and making Brussels a complacent service provider, then I believe that the European Union will have reached adulthood.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the Cardiff summit failed to give an official opinion regarding the joint letter from Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac on the matter of subsidiarity. This was a wise move, since any approach which announces from the outset that in order to apply subsidiarity we must avoid any re-nationalization, will not make a great deal of progress.
On the other hand, since you have reported on the satisfactory resolutions of the Council with regard to transparency, we are surprised that we have not heard anything of the letter that Chancellor Kohl sent you, Mr Blair, on his interpretation of the new Article 63 of the Amsterdam Treaty relating to the community-wide adoption of the immigration policy.
What is in this letter? The partners of Germany would very much like to know this before they ratify the treaty.
Mr President, will Council transparency continue through to the point at which we are informed of the contents of this letter?
Mr President, ten days ago in Luxembourg the European Union's Finance Ministers actually rejected the commitments requested by the Commission for a major improvement in the financial situation and substantially watered down and emptied the Waigel Plan of all meaning, a plan approved a month ago at the Summit in Brussels.
This is a step backwards, or even a false step that could prove very costly for a Europe united by the single currency.
In a word, economic and social policy has been forgotten.
Even the refusal to reduce the working week to 35 hours was sweetened by the very discretionary clause that the 35 hours could be applied as long as unit salaried positions do not increase.
Cardiff is an ambitionless Summit that only seeks to identify the problems without proposing any solutions.
The Kohl and Chirac initiative has reopened old issues on points of discord like the decentralization of Community decisions or even institutional reforms.
The Chancellor and French President's joint letter in fact reopens the debate on subsidiarity, institutional problems and on the aims of European construction, and your proposal, Mr President-in-Office, of creating a top-level group to study the profile of the future Europe seems consistent with this.
To us it seems paradoxical that, at a time when the euro is an important factor of integration and the European Parliament's role seems to be growing stronger, a lot of Member States want a pause for reflection, warning about excessive decision-making powers.
The National Alliance wants a Europe that is closer to its citizens, a Europe that is resolute in tackling the problem of reform.
But a Europe of 25 or 30 States requires a very strong political - I repeat, political - mechanism to offset the effect of number and the heterogeneity of its components, because the vaster the territory the more political cohesion will be necessary to give direction.
We have witnessed an unenlightening Presidency, if we consider the goals that it has achieved only for the framework programme for research and development and the liberalisation of the gas and electricity market; it was a Presidency that was downright unilluminating when it decided to step aside at the decisive moment of the advancement of European construction to the single currency, giving of course its endorsement but comfortably preparing itself to adhere only when all the consequences are known.
Mr President, it was not so long ago that Britain was on the political margins of the European Union, often ignored, frequently seen as irrelevant, always complaining and whingeing, never being constructive.
I am delighted that all of that is firmly behind us. Now we have a British Government that correctly believes that Britain's future is in Europe.
Under the British presidency we have seen the government's new approach achieving practical results: mutual respect, genuine partnership, constructive dialogue.
These have all been the hallmarks of the past six months.
Under the British presidency, as many people have mentioned, two achievements of enormous significance stand out: the agreement to launch the single European currency and the beginning of negotiations to enlarge the European Union.
The single currency has been established on a firm basis.
There is no doubt in my mind that the euro will emerge as a sound and stable currency.
Equally, enlargement is of tremendous significance.
The European Union has never been inward-looking and short-sighted.
I welcome the recognition that enlargement is essential for the wellbeing, stability and prosperity of all of Europe, both East and West.
Under the British presidency job creation has been, quite rightly, there at the very top of the agenda.
The presidency has recognized that if we are truly serious about achieving greater employment opportunities we have to embrace change.
This does not mean undermining the European social model.
It means making sure that the model is relevant to the needs of today.
The quality of our European workforce will be the single most important factor in determining our future competitiveness and therefore our future prosperity.
Now that the British presidency is concluding, all of us have a responsibility to ensure that issues such as employability, adaptability, equal opportunities, life-long learning and entrepreneurship are all taken forward and acted upon by all Member States.
Finally, I was delighted that the Cardiff Summit was a positive conclusion to the British presidency.
The summit confirmed the real progress of the past six months and has pointed a way to a new kind of European partnership.
I was absolutely delighted that such a successful summit should have been held in Cardiff, the capital city of Wales and the city at the very heart of my constituency.
Last weekend the Cardiff Summit was a landmark in Europe's development - important for Europe, important for Britain, important for Wales as well.
Next year Wales will have its own national assembly.
That assembly will ensure that Wales, like Britain, will play a full part in our people's Europe.
Mr President-in-Office, in the light of past experience I would like emphatically to acknowledge the willingness of the Council presidency to enter into intense discussion with the European Parliament.
For me one of the highlights of the British presidency was Mr Gordon Brown's statement to the European Parliament on 2 May.
I might add that given the splendid explanation of the historic decisions, there was only one thing missing: the United Kingdom's immediate declaration of accession to monetary union.
I wish to point out that I regret the Commission's decisions to lift the export ban for the whole of the United Kingdom.
This is not in keeping with the exact wording of the Florence agreements.
And I just want to add that for two days now I have had in my hands a late report from the EU inspectors.
Here it states, and I quote: ' The level of non-compliance is rather high.
The official authorities do not check in the credible way, contrary to instructions.'
I could go on.
Against this background and also in view of a visit from the European Parliament, we were treated to a show at the time, but not to the reality of practical implementation.
I would like to state most clearly to Mr de Vries and Mr Santer: the issue the German Chancellor has raised concerning subsidiarity and the need for a more equitable system of income and expenditure, is supported by the large majority of the German population, and more recently by the Ministerial Conference of the Federal States.
And that is why, Mr Santer, it should be noted from the discussion on the agenda that the Commission is not only the engine of integration, but also very much a party in this affair.
If we wish to keep to the timetable in the course of the German presidency, there are two conditions that have to be met.
Firstly, the Commission must submit its agenda proposals in a revised form in autumn in the light of the current discussions also taking place in Parliament.
Secondly, we need a Council presidency under the proven leadership of Chancellor Helmut Kohl if this is to be drawn to a successful conclusion, because we should not leave the matter to amateurs.
Mr President, Cardiff and the British presidency have clearly provided some justification for those who always thought that a Europe wanting to exercise less centralized control and leave more to the sovereign states is a better Europe - a Europe which will be better understood by its citizens and one which will also find greater acceptance.
If nothing was resolved in Cardiff, at least the European Council should have recognized that the limits of feasibility have been reached when some are paying less, others receiving a lot and all are having to finance enlargement jointly - and all this without increasing the budget ceiling.
The British presidency has prepared the way for the Austrian presidency to solve a series of problems that it could not solve itself and which the Austrian presidency cannot solve if it continues with the prearranged and present course of action.
Europe needs a new direction which can again give the Member States more weight.
Mr President, I would like to focus on the institutional debate that arose suddenly before the Cardiff summit, through the letter from Mr Chirac and Mr Kohl.
I would like to point out to Mr Böge that whenever domestic policy problems - in this case the German elections - arise within a major Member State, the subsidiarity issue is raised.
This is usually a veiled attempt to re-nationalize elements of European policy and thereby pander to unhappy voters.
So the hunt is on for scapegoats.
It is either the Commission, or the European Parliament, it is never the Council!
If there is one European institution that has missed the mark recently it is the Council, where some ministers and heads of government prefer to busy themselves with the allowances for Members of the European Parliament, rather than genuine European problems.
We also know that the institutional imagination is boundless.
So old ideas that have been discussed a thousand times resurface.
I learn that some think of the old deus ex machina of a senate of national parliamentarians to offset the democratic deficit.
These institutional digressions are not meant to reassure the citizens, who cannot make sense of it.
I therefore commend the wisdom of the European Council in Cardiff, which stressed that the first priority is to ratify the Amsterdam Treaty.
But, clearly, the European Union has a problem in terms of political visibility.
The citizens fail to grasp European policy, but that is not an institutional problem, it is a political problem, a policy-related problem.
If, for example, the President of the Commission, who holds a distinguished political position in Europe, is appointed by the European Council after a secret conclave, based on a complex alchemy without public debate, how do you imagine the citizens feel involved? Whence the motion that we have put forward to several people - including Jacques Delors - to open up the debate and allow the European citizens to participate through European elections.
Personalizing the electoral campaign also means politicizing it.
This approach would result in a greater cohesion of political forces, a more serious contemplation of the future political programme of the Commission and a genuine political dimension for Europe.
Mr President, it is certainly true that we find ourselves at the end of a presidency without spectacular results.
There were no reasons for this.
The Amsterdam Treaty and the Luxembourg Extraordinary Summit highlighted objectives and guidelines for action for which the debate and the assessment of results require time.
In terms of foreign policy, Mr President, we regret the failure of the troika mission to Algeria, a country which is very close to our southern borders and which deserves special attention, as the entire Mediterranean region does.
And we must welcome the agreement reached in the context of the Transatlantic Summit, particularly the agreement on the legislation on extraterritorial effects which, in the case of the Helms-Burton Act, is subordinate to the amendment by the United States Congress of Title IV of that Act, without the agreement changing, of course, the European Union's perception of the nature and scope of that Act.
An important issue is that of employment, which received a strong impulse at the Luxembourg Extraordinary Summit chaired by Mr Junker.
Countries such as Spain, Mr President, have presented action plans which have been highlighted by the Commission itself for their toughness and for their objectives.
For the first time, specific measures and specific time limits have been presented.
It is still not time to carry out an evaluation on them and the general character of the Council's study in this respect is understandable, although I would like to draw attention to two questions which have been commented on in this Parliament. The first is the need to bring into line the time limit for the presentation of these plans and the budgetary forecasts that the countries make each year; and the second is the need to have officially approved, reliable socio-economic indicators available which allow for a comprehensive follow-up to their evaluation and results.
As the President of the Spanish government, José María Aznar, said only yesterday in the Chamber of Deputies, the best cure for the disease of unemployment is price stability, an improvement in public finances and an evolution of salaries in line with inflation and productivity growth.
And if this is complemented by an effort on the part of businesses to reinvest profits and, in a climate of social dialogue, to adapt labour organization and the needs of the market, we will be taking steps to ensure that citizens are aware that political decisions are moving in the right direction.
Finally, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, there is no real convergence without employment and there is no economic and social cohesion without solidarity and without collective economic and social effort.
We want a European Union which is not in the form of "marketing' but in the form of a free and competitive internal market where our young people, our women and all those who have a desire to work may move with freedom throughout a common economic and social territory.
Mr President, I would like as a German Member of Parliament to thank the President-in-Office in his capacity as the British Prime Minister for his tremendous involvement in the peace process in Northern Ireland.
I do so as a German MEP because I love Ireland and consider it one of my favourite holiday destinations.
Secondly, I would like to thank the Presidency - and especially the British one - for its involvement in the final steps towards monetary union, and I say as a German MEP: We want Britain inside of the currency union!
That is why I am especially grateful for the UK involvement, even if it should continue for a bit longer.
Thirdly, with the Treaty of Amsterdam a historic epoch has drawn to a close because the European unification process in the past was very heavily characterized by old-style diplomacy.
Progress has been made and now Parliament-controlled policy has the job of making more progress with unification.
At the same time, the European Parliament and the parliaments of the Member States will need to safeguard their rights.
Our rights must be further extended.
Each new step towards integration following the Treaty of Amsterdam needs to improve the contractual arrangements allowing European political parties to continue to develop so that the parliamentary system is also improved.
My fourth point concerns Agenda 2000.
It will not surprise anyone - and I agree fully with Mr Böge's factual statement - that the agenda is very tight, and the German presidency needs to bring this to a satisfactory conclusion.
The difference is that it will be a social-democratic President - the Chancellor to be precise - who will hold the office. In other respects I share Mr Böge's opinion.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Great Britain on a well carried out Presidency, which should also be seen in the light of having completed a start for EMU and a strong and successful commitment to peace in Northern Ireland.
I would also like to express my gratitude for the clear answer we were given today on the question of legal grounds for certain expenditures with a strong social dimension.
It is that kind of expenditure, more than any other, which is associated with 'the people's Europe', the theme of the British Presidency.
I am very happy to be able to pass on the answer we have been given today to the various organisations which have contacted me from Sweden, not least the organisations for the disabled - we have had some anxious telephone calls.
I can now tell them that they can look forward to next week with confidence; it is hoped that Mr Tony Blair will see to this.
As to Cardiff, what I appreciate most of all is the clear willingness and ambition demonstrated also at the meeting to continue forcefully the struggle against unemployment.
We all know that it is not easy to achieve anything at the European level, as this is something which is supposed to be both a national and an 'EU-wide' affair.
There is no absolute truth, there are no clear models for how we are to proceed. We must, however, ' keep the pot boiling', and must not give up this struggle.
I would like to point out that those who criticise the Union for not achieving anything, for example on the employment front, are often those who are not prepared to create any common instruments towards progress, but who always, with horror in their voices, immediately cry 'Federation!'.
Allow me also, finally, to express thanks for the promise we have been given that the Council will carry further the issue of public documents.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, as many of the previous speakers have remarked, I too am obliged to describe the Cardiff Summit as something of a disappointment.
It squares with the overall image of Britain's presidency, which clearly started well, but then tailed off somewhat.
This means of course that the work involved for the Austrian presidency will be considerable.
Not least the informal special summit to be held in October of this year in Melk on the issues of transparency and subsidiarity must serve to ensure that a much-cited and almost as often misinterpreted concept like subsidiarity is finally given the correct substance.
Subsidiarity is neither an aid to self-help nor an exclusive relationship between the European Union and the Member States, but rather the political principle that the larger unit should never assume responsibilities which can be successfully dealt with by the smaller unit.
This also means, however, that policy areas such as foreign and security policy need to be established at European level so that they do not lead to inefficient fragmentation, and we now have the clear example of Kosovo, where more or less exactly the same mistakes have been made again as were made at the start of the civil war in Yugoslavia.
Unfortunately, the British presidency has made less progress on the issue of deregulation and de-bureaucratization, which had been heralded in numerous attractive brochures.
When I read in the President's concluding statements about a Union closer to the citizens, I ask myself why the Cardiff Summit has failed to implement sufficiently the European Parliament's report on information policy from May of this year.
For this called for an open information policy provided by common EU information offices instead of the previously separate offices for Commission and Parliament.
We need to press in Parliament for the unresolved, but nevertheless important issues to be implemented under the Austrian presidency.
Mr Nassauer has already dealt with security policy - this is a key issue because security policy needs to be one of the major aspects of the Union as a whole.
If security policy is not functioning, if the safety of the individual citizen is not guaranteed, then the other policies cannot really have any impact at economic and social levels.
Mr President, I join colleagues in welcoming Mr Blair to Parliament today.
My only regret is that he did not come here at the outset of the presidency because he will know, as I know, the key importance of working closely with colleagues within the European Community and Union and with Member States.
It is only through the closest co-operation that we can really achieve the results that we want.
I am just going to concentrate in the two minutes I have on a couple of points, one about Turkey and the other about human rights.
To a mild extent I part company from Mr Nassauer but I would wish to draw Mr Blair's attention to the situation in Turkey itself.
Of course Turkey must be quite free to conduct its own policy within Turkey and on a bilateral basis with other countries.
But when we are talking about the possibility of Turkey becoming a Member of the European Union we are obliged to take a much closer interest at the way in which it conducts its affairs.
We do look to Turkey to meet the criteria which we, as the European Union, lay down for Membership.
Mr Blair knows perfectly well that there are many shortcomings within Turkey at the present time and there have been for many years.
There is the whole question of human rights violations, for instance, and the torture that is going on.
There is a lack of freedom of speech there and indeed Turkey has a government which is there by kind permission of the army.
So there are a lot of things wanting.
I do not think that we should entirely look to the Americans to influence our policy in that regard.
In regard to human rights, he made brief reference - and there was not much time - to the progress made with China and I salute that.
However, I do regret very much what appears to be the sniping which has been going on, on the part perhaps of the Foreign Secretary, against the European Parliament in respect of the many resolutions we have adopted which we think are soundly based on human rights.
I would like to see a closer understanding between the British Foreign Office and ourselves.
It is all too easy to pay lip service to human rights.
I have an article here from the Financial Times about an Amnesty International report which says that far too little attention is being paid to human rights issues in the 142 countries with which Amnesty is concerned.
I think we really must give this a lift up the agenda.
First of all I offer my congratulations to those who have stayed the course during our debate this morning which I have very greatly enjoyed hearing.
I will respond as briefly and fully as I can in the time that is available to me.
I thank people for what, in general, have been very kind and positive remarks.
Indeed some of the most negative remarks have actually come from British representatives but then, there are perhaps some British traditions that never change.
I should also like to say a word of thanks for everyone's comments on Northern Ireland.
I would like to express my thanks to all the political leaders of the main parties in Northern Ireland and indeed to the political leadership in the Republic of Ireland for their work in bringing about at least some hope of future prosperity and peace for people in Northern Ireland.
(Applause ) I should like to say a personal word of thanks to Jacques Santer, the President of the European Commission.
He will know that one of the strange aspects of our debate in Cardiff about the future of Europe was my insistence that, although I believe strongly in the principle of subsidiarity, as I indicated in my speech, I believe that there are significant changes needed in the European Union to bring it closer to people.
Let us never forget there are good and bad reasons for being in favour of subsidiarity.
The good reason is that decisions that can be taken closer to the people should be taken closer to the people.
The bad reason is when the Commission does the job the Commission is actually supposed to do: in making sure, for example, that the single European market is driven through and there is progress and change in Europe.
I should like to extend to Jacques Santer my own personal thanks for the cooperation and work of him and his colleagues throughout our six-months presidency.
We have enjoyed close working relations.
I personally have enjoyed a tremendous and good relationship with him.
I shall deal with the comments that were made on the European Court of Justice.
I have indicated how we intend to take this process forward and resolve the legal base following the European Court of Justice's judgment.
I would also like to welcome the comments that Mrs Green made about the terms and conditions of employment of European Members of Parliament.
That willingness to accept that it is in everyone's interests to get these issues sorted out is something that is good for the European Union as a whole.
I should like to deal with the comments made by several Members.
There was some criticism here that I shall deal with as diplomatically as I can: the criticism that the British presidency has been too close to the United States in our foreign policy considerations. I want to say to you very clearly indeed - I know this may not enjoy universal acclaim - that it is important that the European Union enjoys good and strong relations with the United States of America.
That is to our mutual advantage and interest.
(Applause ) I ask you to realize that there are forces within the United States who want to have an isolationist American policy, who want the US to disengage from its responsibilities in the world.
That is emphatically not in any of our interests.
I would also simply point out - as indeed I said when I addressed the Socialist Group earlier today - that in respect of Iraq it is simply not true to say that we did not contact, either collectively or individually, other European Union Member States. We did.
We contacted them very fully indeed.
I am afraid, however, it is rather worse than Britain simply following the line of the United States.
We did not really follow it.
We agreed with it and helped put it together.
My own belief is that we would not have seen the progress with the UN inspections in Iraq had it not been for the firm stand of diplomacy backed up, if necessary, by the use of force.
I believe that was the right policy.
I thank Mr de Vries and others for their kind comments on the normalization of relations between the UK and Europe and say that I agree very much indeed that we should try to complete the programme of reform to make the European Union more competitive and, in particular, to make its single market come about.
I should also like to deal with a point made by a number of colleagues that the national action plans and the employment guidelines have not yet delivered enough to people.
Let us make one thing quite clear: these national action plans are the first time that governments have actually put together employment programmes - action to tackle social exclusion and unemployment - and agreed a process whereby those are going to be reviewed, evaluated and then further steps taken.
We are at the beginning of that process but it is a long way from the old days when people said that these are not issues that the European Union need concern itself with - this is simply for Member States.
Jobs are one area where we can learn from each other and where action is essential to tackle the fundamental problems of social exclusion and long-term unemployment in our countries today.
Can I say to our colleague from the Green Party, who made some kind remarks but criticized us on the environment, our achievement in the Environment Council, concluded yesterday, represents a very significant step forward.
Most people thought Kyoto would never happen. Then most people thought that it would not be possible to agree to implement Kyoto.
The European Union has shown: (a) that it can be constructive in approving Kyoto and (b) it has actually agreed a plan to take it forward.
We never aim for perfection but it is progress.
(Applause ) Can I say very gently to our colleague from the Scottish Nationalist Party that I support devolution in Scotland and decentralization within the UK very strongly.
From my own political perspective, and I hope he understands where we differ on this, I support devolution but I will always stand out against narrow-minded nationalism.
I do not believe that is the way to go.
(Applause ) I would also like to thank particularly Mr Edward McMillan-Scott for his contribution.
It is important to remind people what they were missing and I can only say, as kindly as I can to him, I think his problem is that he agrees with my position on Europe rather more than the position of his own party.
(Applause ) Finally, without making this too introspective a British summing-up, I would like to reply to my former colleagues, Mr Coates and Mr Kerr.
I think that Mr Coates said that the British Government was undemocratic.
I would like to respond by saying that they were elected as Labour Members of Parliament on a Labour ticket.
They left the Labour Party.
They still sit as Members of Parliament without any democratic mandate for doing so at all.
That is not my idea of democracy.
(Applause ) Finally I would like to deal with the points that were made on Agenda 2000 as well as several of the other specific issues.
On Agenda 2000, let us be very clear and honest with ourselves, there is a very great deal more to do.
We have agreed a timetable.
The Agricultural Council in May agreed on changes to the common agricultural policy.
It is difficult and it will take time.
I will be quite open with you - I would prefer to have made more progress on this issue during the course of our presidency.
By agreeing the timetable, as I think President Santer was saying a moment ago, we have concentrated people's minds and change must now come.
It may be that over the next few months, once certain issues are out of the way, we can get back to dealing with the substance.
I would like to say - in response to some of those who asked whether there was enough substance in the presidency - that what I find strange about this is that we launched monetary union and the process of enlargement.
Those are probably two of the most significant steps Europe has taken in its recent history.
It is worth pointing out that, though they may be glossed over as achievements we can take for granted, for those who were more closely involved and who were seeing it through, it was often a lot more difficult.
In relation to the launch of the euro and the presidency of the European Central Bank - yes it was an extremely difficult negotiation but I believe it was important to secure an outcome that was fully consistent with the treaty that people had agreed.
I believe that the ultimate test is that we have launched the euro with tranquillity and calmness, with people understanding there will be stability in the euro-zone.
It would have been a disaster had we launched it without a proper candidate and in circumstances where there was no proper control or authority.
Finally, can I say to colleagues about the other areas - in relation to the European social model and reform and change within Europe - I hope and believe that ultimately there are three main things that we have tried to do and achieve.
The first is, as I stated, to have launched monetary union and enlargement.
The second is to have begun the process of a new debate on economic and political reform in Europe - very important for Europe's future.
The third achievement of our presidency has been the dramatic transformation in my own country's relations with the European Union.
I hope that these three achievements mark a significant result for the British presidency.
But I hope more than that: that we can take on the arguments that we have developed during these past few months with confidence for the future.
President Santer said in his address - and I think Mr Martens said the same - that we must be careful of not making people pessimistic about Europe.
I am actually optimistic about Europe.
I am hopeful for the future of the European Union.
It is hope and confidence that give us the ability to take on the case for reform.
We need not be frightened of reform.
We should welcome and embrace it.
It is right and it is the way that we will convince a new generation of people - younger people, who were sitting up there at the beginning of our debate, listening to what was happening in this European Parliament.
These are the new generation of people, who did not experience the Second World War, who do not know about the Cold War in Europe, and who have grown up in a different set of political and economic and social circumstances.
We have to persuade them that Europe means something to them.
We have to persuade them that Europe offers them a better future.
We have to persuade those young people that the ideals that our ancestors fought for in forming the European Union are alive and well today in the European Union of the 21st Century.
Do that and we will truly leave a legacy of which we can be proud.
(Loud and sustained applause )
Mr President, just before the President-in-Office leaves the Chamber.
He asked about my position on Europe and whether I agreed with Mr Hague.
Most certainly I do.
Conservatives want to be in Europe but not run by Europe, and especially not run by Socialists.
Votes
Mr President, I proceed from the assumption that we only need to vote once on the amendment to paragraph 18 and that the House is agreed on an amendment.
All three amendments proposed are identical.
They have been submitted by the Socialist Group, by Mr Arias Cañete with 19 signatures and by the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
I think that only one vote is needed because consensus in this House on this extremely sensitive issue is very important.
I agree with you.
One vote will suffice.
Mr President, I just wish to say that I agree with the rapporteur on the necessity of one vote on Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 14.
Could we take the vote on my group's amendments first?
We took the trouble to get an internal consensus in our group - it is a group position - and it is the position of the left in this House; whereas Amendment No 5 (paragraph 18) by Mr Arias Cañete is simply a personal amendment, supported by 29 signatures, and he does not have the backing of his own political group.
I hear what you say but I cannot do that.
The convention in the House is that the lowest numbered amendment is taken first.
As they are identical I will take Amendment No 5 first and Amendments Nos 6 and 14 will fall.
Their objectives are all the same anyway.
Paragraph 18:
Mr President, there has been a slight mishap in paragraph 18 due to the vote in the Committee and the drawing together of the various votes, with the result that the sentence has become totally illogical.
To rectify this I propose the following oral amendment, which I shall read out in German: ' Stresses the importance of the monitoring committees not only for balanced monitoring, but also for revision and adaptation, and expects the composition of the monitoring committees to reflect the new requirements of EU regional policy and to safeguard their authority and decision-making powers.'
The issue is to do with the powers of the monitoring committees.
This is the crucial issue.
All other texts are wrong as well and we have already distributed notice of this for clarification.
It is not the decision-making powers of the EU that are at issue here, but rather the decision-making powers of the monitoring committees.
This is what the oral amendment is concerned with.
(Parliament approved the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
This is a genuine point of order and I think we should listen to it politely.
We cannot withdraw these paragraphs.
As a compromise from the Chair I would offer a separate vote on paragraph 16 and 17 if it would be helpful.
Mr President, the clarity and strength of Mrs Roth's point means that I do not have to give the same explanation.
We have the same problem.
I am not asking for the paragraphs in question to be withdrawn if it is not possible, nor for anyone to be blamed, but we cannot support them.
In any case, we want to vote on them separately.
And you should know that we do not support those paragraphs of the resolution.
Mr President, I chaired that conciliation meeting which drew up the compromise text.
Let us be clear, at that meeting, where the groups concerned were represented, we had a discussion about whether these two paragraphs on Kosovo and the Middle East would be acceptable.
As you know, we have two separate resolutions on those issues.
The deadlines for the resolutions that are concerned specifically with Kosovo and the Middle East were concluded before we had the conclusions for the Cardiff Summit.
Both those issues were covered at the Cardiff Summit.
We agreed in the meeting together that there should be a specific reference in one short paragraph to anything new from the Cardiff Conclusions on the Middle East and on Kosovo.
On that basis, the text was signed.
It must be said that I was there, and all the groups that were there agreed.
It was only later that, I have to say with full respect to the services of this House, they thoroughly confused everything by saying that these two paragraphs could not be included, and they removed them against the will of the political groups.
That caused confusion which allowed some groups to believe that they were not in the final text.
That discussion was held, and there were other Members there who will confirm that.
I regret the confusion and the fact that we got engaged in bureaucratic politics when it was clear there are new issues on Kosovo and the Middle East in the Cardiff Conclusions that should have been addressed, and are rightly addressed in this resolution.
I hope, therefore, that Members will agree to your proposal to take a separate vote on those two items.
I hope Members will see why they were added and the sense of their being added.
Other colleagues are now indicating that they wish to speak and this is the sort of issue we could spend the next hour debating.
I would suggest that there has clearly been a misunderstanding.
I do not think there has been bad faith.
As a way of trying to rectify the misunderstanding, we will vote separately on paragraphs 16 and 17.
Mr President, since I was the one to negotiate the compromise on behalf of our group, I need to make one or two things clear at this point. It is correct - and we have since verified this - that Mrs Green, the other MEPs and myself were not present for a while, but rather our colleagues discussed among themselves what might be possible, and that is the way things were actually discussed.
When I then saw the resolution, the services assured me it was an alternative.
Either the paragraphs are included or there is a resolution, that is to say it would mean the resolution being deleted.
In response I only stated verbally - and I am being self-critical here - that I would be signing it there and then, proceeding from the assumption that both these paragraphs would not be included.
That is why I have now personally withdrawn my signature.
This does not mean that the group is withdrawing its signature because we still have a third signature involved.
Given my background, in Germany, I cannot support the wording used here.
Since 99 % of us were not present at that meeting, we cannot judge what happened and it is not our purpose to do so.
There has been a misunderstanding.
Let us accept that and move on.
Mr President, just on a point of clarification.
I take it that the resolution on Kosovo and the resolution on the Middle East still stand and both will be voted on in all their detail subsequently.
They will not fall as a result of the adoption of these two paragraphs.
I want to be sure of that.
That is exactly right.
They will still be voted upon.
I promise not to tell your constituents you were chasing Mrs Oomen-Ruijten round the room.
Amendment No. 7 :
Mr President, might we possibly consider the two sentences of Amendment No 7 as separate entities?
The first is an invitation to the Council, relating to the administrative regulations and the second is an invitation to us, since we are seeking to introduce a different set of rules regarding our allowances.
I know that my request reverts to a call for a split vote, but I would remind you that Article 125 of the regulations stipulates that when there are two separate provisions in a particular amendment, this normally produces two different amendments.
I therefore think it would be logical if you could conduct two consecutive votes.
I would add that, apparently, it is customary to accept roll-call votes after time.
You might therefore accept this request for a split vote after time.
You have a point, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
I accept your request for a split vote.
Amendment No 8 :
Mr President, this is about the Commission's power to investigate a breach of the Treaties.
At Cardiff the Commission was criticized for alleging discrimination against football supporters from outside France in the sale of World Cup tickets.
On Tuesday evening Commissioner Van Miert confirmed to this House that he would pursue his action against a violation of European Union law, and this amendment seeks to support him.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commission for its position on the amendments.
Mr President, the Commission is obliged, for legal and institutional reasons, to reject all the amendments relating to the Tomlinson report.
However, as Vice-President Marin stated yesterday, the Commission will invoke the spirit of these amendments in its second modification of the regulations, scheduled for October 1998.
Mr President, in view of the fact that the Commission accepts our amendments in theory but rejects them in practice, which is an offence to this House, could I move, under Rule 60(2), that this matter be referred back to committee?
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
I am pleased to note that this compromise has incorporated the proposals put forward by the Europe of Nations Group, seeking to convene twelve sittings in the year, reduced to eleven on this occasion because of the elections.
However, in order to comply fully with the Edinburgh agreements, the draft Amsterdam Treaty and the decisions of the Court of Justice, this draft timetable should not have included the organization of mini-sittings in Brussels.
In truth, it is quite wrong to make allowance for such additional sittings in advance, since they should only be organized if the Strasbourg agenda was found to be a little top-heavy.
Moreover, I am furious that these additional mini-sittings are to take place in Brussels, when they should normally be held in Strasbourg.
This is why I have voted against this draft timetable.
Cunha report (A4-0219/98)
This report contains many good points of view, but basically, it expresses a disinclination towards reform of the common agricultural policy.
In the proposal to the report from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development there is, for example, opposition to abolishing the system of intervention for beef and olive oil.
It is our opinion that a thorough reform and deregulation of the common agricultural policy will have to take place in 1999.
We shall abstain at the final vote on this report, as the willingness to do this is not made sufficiently clear.
The budget for the agricultural policy is the largest in the European Union.
Consequently, it is quite normal and desirable that the European Parliament should contribute to it with respect to its major guidelines.
I would like to congratulate Mr Cunha for his work on this inordinately sensitive and difficult subject.
It is not a question of bringing to the fore the negative results following the implementation of the reform in 1992, but rather of establishing a consistent and clear framework regarding European policy guidelines for agriculture, within the context of Agenda 2000.
At the same time, we have every right to be astonished that certain practical provisions of the Commission have been distanced somewhat from the general intent and objectives defined by the Commission.
Yes, we should do our best to ensure that Community agriculture is competitive; however, we have to give up everything for this single quantitative aspect.
Our agriculture is a creature of diversity, it is also a vital trump card, not only when we are confronted with outside competition, but even more to protect and preserve a balanced environment.
It seems to me to be important to take account of this latter factor in the future system of Community financing.
In the interest of future generations, we must be able to allow two different types of agriculture to co-exist and it is essential that the Commission should make allowance in its regulations for these two aspects of country life.
I am of the opinion that some of the wrath directed at the European institution is fed not so much by the allegedly inadequate budget allocations but rather by the unilateral imposition of standards. Following the same reasoning, if we are to effectively ward off health risks, we have to remember that when a crisis occurs, it is most often the result of an increasingly vicious competitiveness in world markets.
Everyone wishes that we could define a European model for agriculture.
This would please us enormously.
However, we cannot adopt high principles of a generous nature indefinitely and, as has often been the case, leave it at that.
This may seem a pessimistic view but, to enable Europeans to regain confidence in Europe, we come back to the simple policy of saying what we do and doing what we say.
I would like to indicate my total opposition to the proposals in Agenda 2000 relating to the reform of the CAP.
As currently framed they would be disastrous for Irish agriculture and the towns and villages of rural Ireland.
It was disappointing that Ireland did not receive an appropriate share out of the additional milk quota despite the commitments that were given to Ireland in 1983.
Furthermore, the proposed price cuts without full compensation would have a devastating impact on Irish farming in particular and the Irish economy in general.
In the case of beef alone, prices would actually fall below the price of production.
These proposals must be changed substantially before they would be acceptable.
Nonetheless I welcome the rapporteur's support for the principles of Community preference, financial solidarity and a single market, and his warnings about price cuts.
I hope his views as endorsed by Parliament will be heeded and reflected in the full version of the Agenda 2000 proposals.
We cannot support the Cunha report, since it paves the way for a continuation of the present common agricultural policy, a policy we strongly disagree with in many areas.
Our vote is based on the following principles:
Agricultural prices in the EU should and must come closer to prices in the world market.
It is artificial to prop up the prices of a particular category of products in order to safeguard one occupation.
We would prefer to secure farmers' income directly.-Organic farming must be given a far better operating framework than has been the case up until now if it is to have a chance of surviving.-Agricultural production must not end up in storage as surplus produce.
Financial support for cereal production, for example, where cereal ends up being stored as surplus, is an absurdity; this must be brought to an end.
Our group has tabled 25 of the 58 amendments we are now called to vote on in respect of Mr Cunha's report, which is part of the major debate on the vital question of the future of the CAP.
This report, as presented to us today, following the vote by the Committee on Agriculture, is not particularly notable for its consistency.
An initial raft of amendments tabled by our group therefore raises yet again the fact that the Commission proposal, in its Agenda 2000 report, is inadmissible, not only because of the unacceptable nature of a price reduction across the board, but also because of the risks of a distorted sense of competition that would follow from a rampant re-nationalization of the CAP, fervently sought by many Member States, and from a suicidal anticipation of the results of future WTO negotiations, which begin in December 1999, at the instigation of the United States and the Cairns Group.
Moreover, whilst the stated aims of the CAP reform as set out by the Commission do not invite any particular criticism, we are surprised to note that the specific proposals put forward totally contradict the explanatory memorandum.
In truth, this memorandum is governed by budgetary restraints and by a willingness to bow to the initial requirements formulated by our WTO partners, especially the United States.
By accepting this approach, the Commission is committing a serious error of judgement, since negotiations can only take place on the matters remaining to be negotiated, excluding the concessions already made on a unilateral basis, which are regarded as already on board and are therefore no longer included in the negotiating field.
Why does the Commission accept this strategy, the main result of which will be to further weaken Community trade preferences?
The purpose of a common agricultural policy should be to maintain the European agriculture model, which ensures a territorial balance amongst the various Member States of the Union.
In contrast, the proposals of the Commission seem totally inconsistent.
On the one hand, they reduce the income of farmers, thus forcing them to increase productivity by intensifying or expanding their farming activities and, on the other hand, they put a ceiling on aid, thereby limiting their development.
The other amendments we have tabled remind us of the fact that agriculture has an economic purpose and it is the linchpin around which the rural world is organized.
We must at all cost brush aside the fads and fantasies of those who envisage a rural world in which agriculture plays only a marginal role.
This is why we need to upgrade products in the production areas themselves, so as to support economic activity in our regions.
A general lowering of agricultural production would bring about a de facto drop in business, both upstream and downstream of the agricultural sector.
It must be possible for us to make business in these sectors cost-effective.
But how can they be sustained if we recommend a general reduction in activity?
Hence, the Cunha report poses a series of valid questions with regard to the necessary re-legitimization of the CAP.
But we should state, unequivocally, that the CAP is not destined to be watered down into a common agricultural and rural policy (CARP), which some would like to see and which would simply marginalize the economic dimension of our agriculture in favour of a lumber-room policy for the rural areas.
I am glad to see that the arguments of the British presidency for reform of the common agricultural policy are echoed in these Commission proposals.
Whilst I am still concerned at the huge amounts of taxpayers' money going into agricultural funding, I welcome the change from subsidies to keep consumer prices artificially high, towards support for farmers who may face particular difficulties.
They are also to be encouraged into environmental management of our countryside, which is another welcome step.
The new rural policy ideas which accompany this proposal are a step in this Green direction.
Both farmers and consumers will welcome the new emphasis on food quality.
This approach is fully in line with that of my own government which has had to grapple with the BSE problem it inherited and which in recent days has begun to see success in having the beef export ban lifted.
I trust that the governments of the European Union meeting this week in Cardiff will back the moves by the British presidency to get this reform under way.
The taxpaying public deserves a better agricultural policy from Europe in the future - one which helps keep consumer prices down and targets any subsidies at those farmers who really need help to stay on the land and manage it for future generations to enjoy.
I consider it fundamental to implement the strategy to develop and promote the European agricultural sector according to a model capable of reconciling purely economic interests with the requirements of environmental protection, with the social implications of development and with the importance of safeguarding regional agricultural production.
We must therefore rule out any possibility of European farm aid being granted on the basis of regional productivity, making sure that the relative weight of the agricultural sector in the local economy represents the only criterion for the allocation of funding.
In other words, I consider it important that the primary sector should benefit from European support as part of the effort to safeguard regional planning and the rural world, rejecting ideas, that are frequent, of abandoning farming in numerous regions.
The policy of reducing prices with a view to stimulating competitiveness and expanding external outlets in addition to increasing the involvement of European agriculture in the development of the world market must be offset by an increase in direct aid in order to safeguard producers' income.
The expected growth in world demand for agri-food products, if approached in the right way, could actually mean for European regions that are primarily agricultural - mainly concentrated in the South - an increase in their power to control the internal and external market, with considerable effects on employment.
In this respect, I consider it fundamental that we develop a more decentralized model that enables Member States and, when necessary, the local authorities, to solve most of their problems independently, in the light of the specific local features that distinguish the European agricultural economy.
This granting of more freedom to the Member States and their local government agencies should be developed in parallel with a strengthening of the respective mechanisms of control.
The future of European farmers and the safeguarding of their interests will depend on the will of those at the top to develop an agriculture that takes account of differences in production, environment and landscape and that ensures the continuation of living and active rural communities able to generate sustainable employment compatible with their area's needs.
Schroedter report (A4-0210/98)
Unfortunately the Berend amendment to the Cañete report attempted to establish a link between EMU participation and eligibility under the Cohesion Fund.
The vote on this amendment was surrounded by a fair amount of confusion in part created by the Chair.
As a result the impression was created quite wrongly that I along with others supported this linkage.
I am therefore glad to have the opportunity to correct this false impression.
I do not believe any country should be denied Cohesion funding simply because it was successful in meeting EMU criteria.
This would be unjust and unfair.
For these reasons I have supported Amendment Nos 5, 6, 14 and 25.
I should also make it clear that in supporting these amendments I am voting for the original Spanish-language amendments which speak of GNP.
The English language text mistranslates this to GDP.
It is the reference to GNP which is the correct one.
Further, the reference year or years that are used to assess the criteria are critically important.
I believe that an average over a number of years rather than the figure for a single year would be more appropriate.
The report by Mrs Schroedter affords us a vision of the future concerning the challenges the European Union faces as we approach the end of the century.
It is for this reason that I approve of the rapporteur's implicit wish to incorporate the objectives of the Treaty in the Structural Funds reform (on-going development, jobs, support for SMEs, innovation, the use of new technologies, welfare protection, equal opportunities and the environment).
The Structural Funds must remain a European capital gain for the Member States.
What I cannot accept however, is her idea of splitting Objective 2 into two sub-categories (industrial/urban regions, rural/fishing regions).
At this stage in the procedure, I am of the opinion that this type of motion should be incorporated in the report on the framework regulation for reform of the funds which our group has been appointed to prepare.
As regards the rest, I support our rapporteur and the compromise amendments that secured a unanimous vote to adopt the report from the Committee on Regional Policy and I would remind you that Parliament has already expressed its opinion on economic and social cohesion within the context of Agenda 2000 when adopting Mrs Izquierdo's report.
We are therefore voting in favour of this report (with the provisos mentioned above) and are now awaiting the discussion on the framework regulations before proceeding further.
I approve the report submitted by Mrs Schroedter which allows us to state our position regarding the major principles underlying the reform of the Structural Funds.
I fully agree with the report's conclusions on the continuation of priority aid to regions covered by Objective 1, and the splitting of Objective 2 into an urban/industrial and rural/fishing category; the extension of the staging period envisaged for Objectives 1 and 2, Objective 5b and, finally, the reservations expressed regarding the viability of the 10 % reservation system.
I hope that the Council and the Commission will have taken note of our wish, along with the per capita GDP factor, to make significant allowance for the unemployment level.
Finally, I am pleased to note that the European Parliament continues to remind us, both during this legislative session and again in the report, of the importance of the role of the regions in generating, managing and implementing the Structural Funds.
As members of the European Parliament, we should also seek to make a more active contribution to the deployment of the Structural Funds in our region (for example, through mandatory participation in the monitoring committees and in future management committees of the members of the European Parliament).
I have voted in favour of the report.
The Structural Funds, planned for the period 2000-2006, will be organized around three objectives.
The first two objectives are quite different from the third.
They will concentrate their actions on less-privileged areas where economic and social development is appreciably below the average for other areas of Europe, either because they are disadvantaged, or because they require redevelopment.
These regions are either behind in development terms, or in industrial decline, or they may even be rural or urban areas faced with severe problems.
Large-scale financial aid will help these regions offset the vicious effects of an open market that is becoming increasingly deregulated.
The size of those regions should be sufficiently small for the effect to be visible.
Objective 3 is of an entirely different nature.
This no longer requires us to seek specific results, but rather attempts to stimulate a combined movement in society through the development of human resources, investing in manpower rather than infrastructures.
Clearly, Objective 3 supports the actions decided at the summits in Luxembourg and Cardiff (national plans).
The development of human resources must play a central role in the European and national strategies to promote jobs.
We might rejoice at the juxtaposition of a general, across-the-board objective with vertical objectives which are centred on particular areas, almost as if they were sticking plasters.
However, we should be asking whether we have the means available to achieve such an ambitious goal.
Negotiations between national governments and the European Commission are under way with regard to the breakdown of the next round of EU Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006.
As a Member of the European Parliament for the constituency of Connacht/Ulster I would like to reiterate my position here today that the border counties in Ireland and the west of Ireland must be accorded Objective 1 status for the purposes of guaranteeing that the maximum amount of EU Structural Funds is directed into these respective regions for the period post1999.
Ireland as a country will lose its Objective 1 status shortly but this should not mean that the border county region and the west of Ireland should lose such status.
In fact I would go further and say that it would be wholly inequitable if the east coast of Ireland were to be put into the same bracket of classification as the border county region and the west of Ireland for the next allocation of EU monies.
Figures published from the Central Statistics Office have reinforced the arguments that I am making today as these figures clearly demonstrate that the average standard of living in the border county region and the west of Ireland is below 75 % of the EU average.
Objective 1 status entitles regions to the maximum amount of EU regional, social, agricultural and fisheries funds and it plays a very constructive and positive role in redressing regional imbalances and ensures that economic performance increases within regions in the EU which are lagging behind the rest of Europe in terms of their standards of living.
It is a well-known fact that regions within countries secured Objective 1 status for the period 1994-1999 even though their actual Member States were not accorded similar status.
For example, East Germany, Merseyside, the Highlands of Scotland and the Flevolands outside Amsterdam were all categorized as Objective 1 regions even though Germany, England, Scotland and the Netherlands were given a different classification for the purposes of allocating Structural Funds during this time.
There is nothing to stop the border county region and the west of Ireland being accorded Objective 1 status post-1999 and the east coast of Ireland being given a different categorization.
Tough decisions will have to be taken by the Irish Government and the European Commission on this issue but all the people of the border county region and the west of Ireland are looking for is fair play and equality of access.
If the EU is serious about promoting the principle of economic and social cohesion within the EU then the border county region and the west of Ireland will be given Objective 1 status post-1999.
I welcome the main lines of the Schroedter report on economic and social cohesion in the context of the Agenda 2000 proposals.
The Structural Funds have been one of the success stories of the European Union.
My own country has benefited substantially from structural fund spending but, of course, we have a huge need to further develop our basic infrastructures such as roads, rail and telecommunications networks.
I very much welcome the Commissioner's proposal to renew the Cohesion Fund for the four countries - Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland - that currently benefit from this facility.
It has been suggested that countries participating in the single currency should not benefit from the Cohesion Fund.
I take the opposite view.
Countries such as my own need every possible help and encouragement to continue their development and convergence economically with the more prosperous Member States.
The continuation of the Cohesion Fund is essential to Ireland and the other cohesion countries in the pursuit of this aim.
Finally, I hope the Commission will come forward soon with its detailed proposals on the revision of the Structural Funds.
The Schroedter report, which we support, is a first step towards meeting the challenges Europe will be facing in the next ten years, chief among which are those of economic and social cohesion and enlargement.
These are two fundamental objectives for the European Union, which cannot be mutually contradictory or prejudicial.
Enlargement will bring in nations which are historically European and will strengthen the European Union's position in the world; but failure to achieve economic and social cohesion may cause cracks that will jeopardize the whole process of European construction.
Structural Funds for cohesion countries are not merely a matter of philanthropy, but are also in the interests of the richer countries.
In Portugal, according to some studies, approximately 60 % of Structural Funds return to the richer countries of Europe in the form of services, technology and equipment.
The unrestricted opening-up of the Portuguese market to the single market has resulted in a deficit in Portugal's balance of trade with Europe that outweighs the total amount Portugal receives.
Some countries have recently expressed the intention of not granting payments out of the Cohesion Fund to countries that have joined the euro.
In our opinion it would be unfair if Objective 1 countries which meet the convergence criteria can be penalized for the enormous effort they have made.
It is important to remember that those countries are a long way from achieving the real thing - genuine convergence.
We have abstained from voting on the report on Economic and Social Cohesion pursuant to Agenda 2000.
It is our definite opinion that under-developed regions throughout Europe should be supported in their efforts to develop as they see fit.
Why should political riders such as greater integration and safeguarding European added value be prerequisites to being considered for financial support? We believe support should be given to needy regions, but that it should be given without political undertones and as a block subsidy, where the actual regions have the say.
A reform of the Structural Funds is essential.
Reducing the objectives from seven to three is a good thing, as is the reduction of Union initiatives.
Incorporating Objective 6 in Objective 1 and Objective 5b in 2 results in gross obscurity in respect of which rules are to apply to those areas in future.
This will have to be accurately defined without delay.
The phasing out of assistance to parts of these regions is worrying and unclear.
Certain urban areas, suburbs in particular, are in need of assistance. This must not, however, be at the expense of rural areas.
Assistance to applicant countries is important.
Reform of support to present Member States must not entail a lesser effort on behalf of the applicant countries in central and eastern Europe.
This report has been much improved upon through amendment in committee although I still think it could have been further improved before reaching the plenary session.
Nevertheless, it is a reasonable contribution to the EU's work to ensure that all regions enjoy the potential to develop socially and economically.
All of us want to see disparities between the regions reduced as much as possible.
A major contribution to this has been the Structural Funds programme.
Regrettably the Commission is proposing that some areas which still need as much help as possible to catch up with other regions have Objective 1 funding removed.
It is difficult to tell constituents in Northern Ireland, for example, that the EU is determined to bring all regions up to the same level, while also having to explain that the Commission thinks that a fundamental part of the financial support to achieve this should be removed.
I again urge reconsideration of the rigid adherence to the 75 % of GDP criteria.
I welcome the commitment in this report to finding ways of reducing unemployment.
This remains the European Union's biggest social and economic problem and I recognize that the rapporteur has used the report to seek to address this.
We think it inconsistent, to say the least, to continue to discuss economic and social cohesion, whether for a 15-nation European Union or for an enlarged Union, without first keeping in mind the need to ensure that the Community budget is provided with the necessary and sufficient funds to satisfy in full the requirements of real convergence, that is to say that it should make a genuine contribution to economic and social cohesion.
We therefore consider it of fundamental importance that some alternatives should be presented that would give the report on the chapter on economic and social cohesion in Agenda 2000 the consistency required by some of its proposals in favour of cohesion, which, without the necessary clarification and financial framework, are at risk of becoming mere figures of speech.
Hence the amendment reaffirming the position of the European Union on the need to consolidate the EU's efforts to promote means of cohesion by maintaining (as a minimum), until enlargement, the quotas that should be attained by category 2 of the financial forecasts in 1999 (0.46 % of GDP), an amendment which was rejected, especially by Members of the European Socialist and People's Parties.
Hence, also, the amendment designed to require the EP to subscribe to the Commission's position for the Cohesion Fund after 1999 as set out in Agenda 2000 (perhaps one of the few positive aspects of that document).
That amendment was also rejected by most members of the same political groups and supposedly replaced by wording which really says nothing new or specific about keeping that Fund available for countries that have joined the euro and have a GDP below 90 % of the Community average.
That wording insists on rules that are even more timid than the text of Agenda 2000; once again it imposes rules that postpone decision-making and prevent discussion and clarification (by the complete subordination of the EP to the will of the present and future German Parliament); it imposes rules which, objectively speaking, are only in the interests of those who do not want to renew the Cohesion Fund in its present form but, on the contrary, are trying to relegate economic and social cohesion to a secondary role, totally subordinate to the domination of financial interests.
The future of economic and social cohesion between the regions and the countries of the European Union may depend on the future we want to provide for the Cohesion Fund.
We must remember that the real criterion which determines whether or not a region is eligible to benefit from the Cohesion Fund is in fact only that clearly stated in the Treaty itself, in its protocol on economic and social cohesion. To be precise, the region must have a gross national product per capita of less than 90 % of the Community average, as specified in the amendment I have tabled.
Therefore, like the European Commission, we are in favour of maintaining the Cohesion Fund for those countries which form part of Economic and Monetary Union and which fulfill the requirements demanded in this respect by the Treaty.
Doing away with the Cohesion Fund from the year 2000 for those countries which form part of the euro group would only serve to harm, cancel or invalidate all the efforts and progress which have been made over the years, for the sake of a convergence which is not only nominal but real, thus endangering the Stability and Growth Pact.
I believe that these reasons are more than sufficient for us to continue to respect solidarity and the spirit contained in the Treaty and to support the maintenance of a Cohesion Fund which provides nothing more than a common advantage for everyone, and hence an advantage for the entire European Union.
The report by Mrs Schroedter is not without serious shortcomings.
So, on occasion, it lapses into a few unfortunate platitudes on the nature and democratic quality of the Structural Funds and even on the concern to encourage the participation of social partners, especially associations promoting equality between the sexes.
In addition, the rapporteur exaggerates the "cornerstone' contribution of the structural policy in terms of combatting unemployment.
Moreover, Mrs Schroedter is unfortunately one of those parliamentarians who consider the financial proposals of Agenda 2000 unrealistic and would like to go beyond the stated figures of 1.27 % and 0.46 % of GNP.
This, obviously, does not appear in black and white in the report but it does permeate the philosophy of a number of paragraphs.
Mrs Schroedter betrays an invidious penchant for wishing to please everybody: the countryside, regions dependent on fishing, but also towns, States benefitting from the Cohesion Funds, outlying regions, states applying for accession, etc.
The reality of all this might well prove to be financially painful.
Our group would like the Community to avoid the wrongful allocation of public funds and to focus its budgetary efforts on those areas that are governed by a common policy: agriculture and fisheries.
Whilst Mrs Schroedter rightly stresses the faults inherent in the economic and social cohesion policy, emphasizing the scale of the disparities that remain, modesty forbids her to mention the pernicious effects that the single currency will surely have on the balance between regions.
However, the Europe of Nations Group of independents can only rejoice to see the rapporteur openly adopting such a defensive posture on behalf of the rural and fisheries-dependent areas.
We fear that these may suffer greatly from the reform advocated by Agenda 2000.
Like our group, Mrs Schroedter proposes that the "new Objective 2 should be split into two subcategories - industrial/urban and rural/fishing - with specific eligibility criteria, individual objectives and financial quotas, in order to give the rural areas a real boost...'
So, although the report has serious shortcomings, our group has chosen to take advantage of the opportunity to further the adoption of so favourable a text for the countryside and fisheries-dependent regions and, therefore, French interests as a whole.
This is why we have accepted Mrs Schroedter's report.
I support the Schroedter report, in the form in which it was issued by the Regional Policy Committee, because it aims to maintain a framework of European policies that ensure economic and social cohesion between the various regions and Member States.
The abolition of economic frontiers and the creation of Economic and Monetary Union are incompatible with the preservation of the present inequalities in development, and therefore the inclusion of new political objectives, such as enlargement, cannot be achieved at the cost of reducing our structural policies, as in fact is partially proposed in the Commission's text on Agenda 2000.
Thus I have to express my reservations and concern at the attempts to reduce the proportion of the budget relating to Structural Funds in the context of the present 15-nation European Union and in the light of the 'innovations' within the scope of the new draft Regulations, the result of which may be to make the Community Support Frameworks more difficult to implement in full.
We have in the end voted against the Schroedter report.
We do not consider the Commission's judgements on how to reform assistance from the Structural Fund and the Cohesion Fund sufficiently realistic to cope with expansion eastwards.
We regard, for instance, the Commission's prognosis of an anticipated annual increase of approximately 2.5 per cent, as too optimistic.
The risk of Member States being forced to increase their budget expenditure is obvious.
This contrast emerged clearly during the Summit in Cardiff, too.
The Edinburgh Treaty on the Cohesion Fund was a short term measure to help certain countries manage the EMU convergence criteria.
With these criteria now fulfilled, the assistance should be stopped.
The European Union ought to have realized that present assistance from the Structural Fund alongside EMU and the common agricultural policy is one of the real obstacles for a successful expansion eastwards.
The solution rests primarily in transferring decisions on regional and structural policies to the national level.
I back the aims of the Commission in their plans for regional funding after the EU takes in new member countries from the East.
Better targeting towards the poorest regions, cuts in red tape faced by local authorities in applying for European money and taking more decisions at national and regional level are all welcome reforms.
However, I will be looking at this issue closely in the months ahead to ensure that British regions such as my own in the North West of England receive their fair share of future EU funding.
The way we measure which areas deserve funds needs to be fair to all - whilst I welcome the fall in unemployment at home, it is still true that many people could be helped by EU projects.
Why not consider the relative wealth per inhabitant in a region for example? Regions as such are neither wealthy nor poor - individual people and local areas are and people's needs should be the basis for funding.
So I welcome the much needed reform of EU regional funding but like the people of my home region I will be watching to ensure that we get a fair deal from Europe in future.
Cardiff European Council
In paragraph 3 the intention is expressed that the Union be brought closer to its citizens.
We agree entirely with this. According to the resolution, however, this rapprochement is to be achieved by 'strengthening integration' on foreign and security policy and on legal and internal issues.
This is, if we may say so, quite absurd. It is precisely the excessive integration, the constant transfer of power from Member States to the Union that is the basic reason for the growing distance from the people of the Union.
This and the excessive benefits granted to parliamentarians and officials are the main reasons.
Increased integration will increase the distance from the people, not decrease it.
We prefer to greet Mr Tony Blair's and Mr Göran Persson's declaration against a federal Europe with satisfaction and Mr Helmut Kohl's and Mr Jacques Chirac's move for the need to return political issues to the level of Member States.
There is nothing in the proposal on a compromise resolution that brings up the MEPs' salaries and allowances, a question which has been dealt with by the media in several Member States.
There is only one good solution to the question of MEPs' salaries and allowances: transfer these questions in their entirety to be decided by Member States, so that each country can give salaries and allowances according to the regulations and customs in each respective country.
The joint Franco-German letter addressed to the President of the European Council, on the eve of the summit in Cardiff, which was intended to raise the problem of subsidiarity in view of an imminent reform of the European institutions, is often presented by the federalists as a side-effect of the electoral rhetoric of Chancellor Kohl.
If this were the case, we would be even more anxious since, regardless of these circumstances, this document reveals an extreme timidity, which does not augur well in terms of the ability of the parties involved to resolve the real problems that exist in Europe: even when Jacques Chirac and Helmut Kohl seek to attack the European Commission, they do not succeed since they are themselves captive to the grand designs of the federalists.
What, according to this letter, does subsidiarity mean? To summarize, it is an organizational principle giving Europe the responsibility for the big decisions and individual nations the responsibility for small decisions.
This principle would sidestep the risk of a "centrally-organized' Europe and allow us to "respect the spirit of local, regional or national needs in decisionmaking' .
The AFP communique of 15 June, reporting on the resolutions of the French delegation to Cardiff, sums up the situation neatly by revealing that subsidiarity is a decentralizing philosophy.
This is not our position.
We certainly do not want a centralized super-state in Europe, but it would be even better if we did not have a super-state at all.
Similarly, we appreciate the fact that the European institutions are considerate enough, when they make decisions, to allow for our "local, regional or national needs' , but we would be even more delighted if we could make our own decisions, either directly or in our national representative bodies.
To recap, we acknowledge the desire of Heads of State and government to allow us to make the small decisions, but we would also like to make the big ones.
In other words, subsidiarity in our view is not a simple decentralizing process, shedding some powers in favour of Brussels, whilst according it legitimacy for the most part.
On the contrary, it is a recognition of the fact that the main legitimacy lies in the nation state, since it is the most active circle of representative democracy and closest to the citizen.
So it is the nation that might delegate powers to Brussels and monitor their execution.
In our view, it is certainly not Brussels that "decentralizes' powers for the benefit of individual nation states.
Any attempt to have fundamental decisions made at the remotest point, that is, Brussels, actually means removing powers from a near and living democracy in order to transfer them to an artificial, distant democracy.
This is what our Heads of State and government seek to dress up in the pretty name of subsidiarity with the clear intention of inducing us to accept the manoeuvre more easily.
In reality, it is an outrageous attack on democracy.
One thing is clear, and that is that the Cardiff Summit was a Summit without any news.
The Summit came too late because the most important subject, EMU, had been discussed in May.
The Summit was held too early also, because institutional issues are still to be decided on in a future mini-Summit.
Agreements relating to the division of the burden between the Member States must wait until elections have been held in Germany, as there would otherwise be no guarantee that Germany would comply with the agreements.
The letter from Chancellor Kohl and President Chirac shows that the hard core of Europe wants to mark time: no further steps on the way to a federal Europe.
In addition, the powers of the European Commission must be curbed in order to close the gap between the citizens and the EU.
We are pleased that the further development of Europe will be discussed in October.
But we remain puzzled over the fact that subjects which could not be settled in the Treaty of Amsterdam are again on the agenda, although this Treaty is still to be ratified in many countries.
Finally a comment on the British Presidency.
The above developments indicate that the efforts by Prime Minister Blair at the start of his Presidency, i.e. to give Europe back to the people, have failed.
Despite these efforts, Europe is still just as far removed from the citizens of Europe as ever.
Nevertheless, we have voted for the joint resolution, as we had no sufficient reason to vote against the little it contained.
I do not wish to conceal, behind lengthy oratorical and diplomatic flights of fancy, my disappointment in this meeting of the Council which I found devoid of interest for the most part.
What happened to the debates that were announced? Let us face it, not a lot.
So, the question of unemployment has virtually disappeared, body and soul, and, because the issue was not debated, our leaders failed to reach agreement on all but what had been agreed before.
We are quite right to expect more of these people who are responsible for sketching the contours of Europe in the twenty-first century.
Unfortunately, we have been treated to nothing but a list of common positions on the euro, the Asian crisis and the fact that Europe must stand as a model in the eyes of the world.
In short, nothing new and, without wishing to point the finger at anyone, I find this most regrettable.
Happily, there is reason for hope in the proposed institutional reform.
But we should remain on guard since - and let me spell this out - what is proposed cannot be narrowed down simply to the amount of the contributions paid by the Member States.
Sadly, I have to say that the declarations of some do not give the partisans, such as myself, cause for optimism regarding a strong political Europe capable of speaking for itself.
We might also question the risks inherent in enlargement under existing conditions and the first steps forward which have been made in this direction.
Nobody wants to see future enlargement and its institutional corollary built on shaky compromises which might destabilize the Economic and Monetary Union to a dangerous degree.
The only moment of emotion came with the announcement by Nelson Mandela concerning his imminent retirement from politics.
This living symbol of the fight for the freedom and the rights of man, who has shaped his own destiny and that of an entire people, cannot be overlooked either by the African continent or by Europe.
Despite the burden of the years, he still inspires hope for reconciliation between peoples, hope for tolerance and humanity.
Since I am unable to thank our Heads of State and government, allow me therefore, as the Cardiff summit ends, to say thank you, Mr Mandela.
In common with all presidencies, the UK presidency has had its successes and its failures.
However, I do not intend to list either.
For me the most important achievement is the fact that the UK is now back at the heart of Europe playing a positive role in its construction.
The UK needs the European Union and the European Union needs the UK.
Furthermore, it is vitally important for Anglo-Irish relations that both Ireland and the UK pursue common European objectives.
Many of us had hoped that Europe would provide the framework for reconciling both parts of Ireland.
The current British opt-out of the single currency causes philosophical, political and economic problems for relationships between both parts of Ireland and between the UK and Ireland.
I trust and hope that the UK Government will pursue its positive European stance and that this problem, too, will be resolved sooner rather than later.
Finally, I would also like to record my support for Amendment No 7 tabled by the ELDR.
Large parts of this adopted resolution are unacceptable to me. I have, therefore, voted against it in the final vote.
The reason for this is that I do not regard its direction to be the right one.
The fine words pronounced by several EU leaders at the Cardiff meeting about the EU getting closer to the people have not led to any concrete proposals from the summit, rather the opposite.
If these words are meant seriously, the EU must stop the construction of the 'United States of Europe', and instead work towards restoring power to the national parliaments, so that the EU only deals with clear-cut cross-border questions.
It is my view that the European Parliament with its democratically elected parliamentarians ought to have adopted these fine words from the EU leaders in their Resolution.
As the Resolution now stands, it points in the opposite direction by once again, among other things, demanding continued harmonisation and coordination of economic policy, defence and security policy and in legal and internal matters.
These are not demands likely to bring the EU closer to the people.
I have voted against the Amendment on a common statute for Members of the European Parliament.
In parts it might possibly be justified, but at the same time, one of the major driving forces in favour of a common statute is that Members be given a uniform salary, which, to my mind, is not such a good idea, particularly as the corridor gossip is of a salary of up to SEK 100.000 per month.
This proposal amounts to an insult.
The FPÖ is voting against paragraph 1 since rapid enlargement of the Union does not seem expedient given the current state of preparation.
Hence we are also against paragraph 2 and are therefore abstaining in paragraphs 2 to 4, where there is block voting, since we welcome paragraphs 3 and 4 in principle.
As regards Amendment No 7 (new paragraph 19a), this amendment puts forward the right idea, the essential idea of ending discrimination on the basis of nationality.
That is contained in the first part of the amendment.
I support it fully.
For instance, UK MEPs, unlike those from most other Member States, are not eligible for free travel to, from and within their constituencies.
That is only one example of the anomalies.
The wording of the amendment is, however, deficient in implying that, irrespective of progress on a common statute to remove discrimination, the European Parliament should undertake certain specific measures.
This would not solve the problem of discrimination on the basis of nationality.
Finding an overall solution should be the main task to be undertaken by Parliament and the Council together.
We have voted in favour of the Liberals' Amendment No 7, as it demands that MEPs' allowances be tightened and only cover actual costs.
We would, however, like to emphasize that we firmly oppose the second part of the Amendment on establishing a common statute for parliamentarians.
If I took the liberty earlier of railing against the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, in the Hemicycle, this is because it is wholly unacceptable that we should hear the President-in-Office of the Council of the European Union claim that a positive decision had been made regarding the removal from our fishermen of one of the tools of their trade, namely the driftnet, whose development the European Community encouraged just a few years ago.
Is it not particularly scandalous to see such an irresponsible and arbitrary measure, which is plunging entire seaboard populations into a state of despair, being hailed by the presidency as a great event?
Here to survey the achievements of his six-monthly presidency of the Union for the benefit of the members of the European Parliament, Mr Blair did not fail to point out, amongst the other great deeds of the British presidency in respect of the environment, the ban on driftnets.
Will he therefore turn a blind eye to all the devastating economic and social consequences that such a decision will have on a vast number of maritime, coastal and island regions in Europe? How can he glory in being the originator of such a disastrous decision?
But in fact, in the European system as it exists today, the realities are basically of little moment: the prime driving force of this European decision is, once again, purely ideological.
The British government, doubtless believing it was pulling off a "big deal' in media and ecological terms, confined itself to claiming the credit for the half-baked obsessions of the Commission and the conspiratorial strategies of manipulative and highly-organized pseudo-environmental lobbies.
I say this firmly to the British Prime Minister: your presidency will forever be stained by a black mark.
By changing camp, by reversing the traditional British position, by betraying your own fishermen and those of other Member States, bar one, by aligning yourself as an accomplice in a monopolistic thrust, by flouting the principles of the common fisheries policy, by ridiculing the principle of fair play, you have committed a crime and assumed a historic responsibility.
By placing yourself in the camp of injustice and discrimination, by deriding the scientific foundations of the common fisheries policy, you have given our sea-going populations the image of a distant and cavalier European Union, one that is indifferent and contemptuous.
Believe me, this is something they will not forget.
Of course, the problem of driftnets is not central in terms of the future of Europe.
But the manner in which it has been dealt with reveals the particular way in which the construction of Europe is conceived: a way that our fellow citizens wholly reject, because it is building a Europe that is hostile to Europeans.
I have voted with conviction for Amendment No 7.
I am pleased to conclude that a majority in Parliament supports it.
In this way, we make it plain that it is not necessary to wait for the long-awaited joint charter of all Members of Parliament in order to make the necessary changes and improvements in the system of reimbursement of expenses.
All improvements which can be implemented now must be made.
This includes the avoidance of all forms of improper use of reimbursements.
Improper use is close to abuse and this should be prevented with all means available.
I trust that the European Parliament will swiftly deal with this.
Pompidou report (A4-0225/98)
The motion for this directive envisages the possibility of a free trade in devices for in vitro diagnostics, within the Member States of the European Union.
This impinges on the issue of public health.
At the instigation of Mr Pompidou, the rapporteur, the European Parliament has therefore insisted on greater protection of the public health.
The medical risks were rightly considered.
However, I was - and I am again - disappointed with the scant attention paid to the ethical aspects associated with the in vitro diagnostic technique.
This applies firstly to those devices which are made of products produced from tissues or cells of human origin, and secondly to prenatal diagnostics.
The consequences of disregarding the ethical aspects associated with the use of these medical devices and techniques are incalculable.
Certainly when you consider that the interests of commercialization prevail over the interests of the protection of the public health in both a physical and a mental sense.
I have voted against Amendment No 2 for the above reasons.
It is important that ethical guidelines are drafted on the use of clinical testing equipment which fundamentally seek to protect the tested person's privacy and ensure that the tests do not lead to discrimination based on inherited traits.
The approved amendment to point 6 is a political signal to the Commission to consider separate legislation to guarantee that the above mentioned points are covered.
Camisón Asensio report (A4-0221/98)
I am pleased to note the speed at which our European institutions have reacted to a dossier of "high strategic value' .
Similarly, I would like to commend the accomplishments of my colleague, Camisón Asensio.
The GSM network has made unprecedented headway, due to the early recognition of these new methods of communication.
It is therefore consistent and desirable that the Union adopt common standards and rules as of now.
From this point forward, we might reasonably hope that the future UMTS network will be a success.
Over and above the significant technological support required, it is reasonable to expect that this House will get to grips with the problems of coverage.
Needless to say, I support the amendments which recognize not only the lesser-populated regions but also the total compatibility between the GSM and the UMTS systems.
Mobile telephony has taken off in the most spectacular way.
Europe is not lagging behind.
However, I believe we still have a long way to go in improving our position in the field of new information technologies, especially with regard to high-speed Internet connections.
Finally, this text emphasizes the fact that, since the will exists, we can now make rapid progress on the documentation front.
It would be ideal if we could "mobilize' ourselves in the same way on other subjects.
Today we have reason to feel optimistic.
The success of the GSM mobile phone system over the past few years can be partially attributed to the rapid response of Europe in implementing an early policy of standardization.
By acting in a similar fashion with the third generation of mobile phones, the promotion of common rules and standards can once again ensure a speedy deployment of networks and services with the new UMTS system.
While the UMTS system will not be readily available until the beginning of the next century, prior planning and a Europewide coordination of policies such as licensing procedures can help smooth the transition from the GSM system to this new technology.
In addition to providing the same services as the GSM system, UMTS will offer its users fast Internet access along with other multimedia services.
These kinds of services are currently not available in a mobile format.
However, the rapid development of communication and information technologies in the latter part of this century has contributed to a transformation in the technological needs of individuals within Europe and the rest of the world.
A fast, efficient and easily accessible mobile network offering services like a reliable Internet connection can help meet the needs of individuals, businesses and other organizations in the coming years.
By acting early and creating a common framework throughout Europe for the eventual utilization of the UMTS system, we can help keep Europe at the forefront of technological advancement into the 21st century.
The Commission's proposal and report are in the main good.
Development on the telecommunication front is incredibly fast. Regulations, therefore, run the risk of fast becoming too old and out-of-date.
EU regulations ought to be kept to a minimum.
The EU should also take the initiative of a global dialogue with other markets to avoid different systems being developed on other continents.
The new system, UMTS, must be given better coverage in rural areas.
Licences should be allocated in a more serious manner than via 'auctions to the highest bidder'.
We need to satisfy the demands of society and to meet the needs for coverage in rural and ultra-peripheral areas.
Watson report (A4-0217/98)
I would like to support the conclusions of the rapporteur.
Double taxation is unjust and unfair.
I would also hope that in future the Commission would also address the problem of the significant difference in the price of cars throughout the different Member States.
I do appreciate that an annual report is available highlighting this problem and that action has been taken against certain manufacturers for price fixing.
However, more needs to be done.
If there is a genuine single market the EU consumers should play exactly the same price for the same car (including taxes) irrespective of which country they live in.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against the Watson report.
The report does nothing to change the central aspects of the Commission's proposal, which in our opinion is riddled with problems.
We oppose the Commission's proposal for the following reasons:
The Commission's proposal implies, inter alia, that a citizen of one Member State who resides in another Member State for more than six months may bring a vehicle home without having to pay a registration fee in the home country if he or she has paid the registration fee required for the vehicle in the country in which it was acquired.
The proposal would put a great deal of pressure on EU countries that have a registration fee.
Further, the proposal fails to set a concrete figure for the number of vehicles an individual is permitted to bring in.
Thus, widespread speculation could be envisaged in bringing in vehicles for re-sale from countries that do not have a registration fee to countries that do have a registration fee.
The proposal would undermine excise policy in the eleven countries that currently have vehicle registration fees and could open the floodgates to widespread abuse.
The Commission's proposal amounts to interference in national fiscal sovereignty.
The amendments tabled in the Watson report do nothing to change this.
Parliament voted today on a proposed Directive on governing the tax treatment of private motor vehicles moved permanently to another Member State in connection with a transfer of residence or used temporarily in a Member State other than that in which they are registered.
This proposal is of particular significance for Finland and Denmark, two countries with high charges before cars are allowed to be brought into use.
On many points the proposal will serve to clarify the rules, although it does not yet solve all the problems.
Finland forces returnees to pay unreasonable import duties on vehicles when owners return to resettle in their home country.
That is why the Commission has submitted an official complaint to Finland for offending against Article 95 in the Basic Treaty, which ultimately can lead to Finland being brought before the European Court of Justice.
There is, unfortunately, a risk that Finland will put a stop to this good proposal - possibly together with Denmark.
The question now is which role does Finland want to have?
Do they want to stop a proposal which would be of great practical use to many citizens of Europe, particularly as it would contain ideas on how to introduce a more sensible vehicle taxation system in Finland, which would take into consideration environmental aspects and might also promote traffic safety?
Having been appalled by cases of double taxation of cars encountered by my own constituents driving in other EU member countries, I am glad to add my support to this report today.
It is unacceptable in the single European market that people are free to move country in search of work but that often they are charged extra taxes if they want to take their car with them!
I know that people have in the past been encouraged to get on their bike and look for work, but if you are going to work in another country you should be able to drive your own motor vehicle there without being taxed a second time.
It is encouraging to see that the Commission proposal for an end to double taxation of cars for people who move around the EU has resulted from a number of petitions to this European Parliament.
This is evidence that the people's elected representatives can have a real influence on problems facing people in their everyday lives.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.27 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0604/98 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the ELDR group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan; -B4-0619/98 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the PSE group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan; -B4-0638/98 by Ms McKenna and others, on behalf of the V group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan; -B4-0647/98 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the ARE group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan; -B4-0657/98 by Mr Oostlander and others, on behalf of the PPE group, on the nuclear tests in the Indian sub-continent; -B4-0663/98 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL group, on the nuclear tests in India and Pakistan.
Mr President, I assume the Commissioner's staff will pass on my message.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports the broad condemnation in this Parliament of the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan.
So much is clear.
Both countries are experiencing a decline in regional stability. This does neither of them any good.
The costs to their national budgets, which are meagre anyway, are enormous.
India has unintentionally placed Kashmir on the international agenda again and the international climate for disarmament has taken a serious turn for the worse.
Our answer must not be in the same Pavlovian vein. Sanctions are not the answer here
The enormous political support in both countries for the tests indicate that the popular will is not easily reversed.
We must look deeper into the underlying problems.
The regional security situation and the bilateral problems in the two countries should become the subject of an international conference. The right mediator must be found.
The international community must then make a serious effort to arrive at genuine nuclear disarmament.
The NPT and the CTBT must be adhered to, to the letter.
That includes non-proliferation.
Speaking of sanctions, the Union might well commit itself to a ban on the export of arms to the two countries concerned.
They already possess more weapons than enough.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I should like to say that the nuclear tests carried out by India and Pakistan in May are a serious threat to regional and global security.
Apart from increasing tensions in the Indian sub-continent, the tests have broadened the nuclear club of nations, breaching the principle of non-proliferation.
Other countries may be inclined to pursue the goal of nuclear weaponization.
While more needs to be done to implement the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by existing nuclear states, further nuclear tests can only lead to global insecurity and the risk of nuclear war.
This is why India and Pakistan should adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty immediately and unconditionally.
The European Union and the United States have rightly applied political and limited economic sanctions against India and Pakistan.
Until they become part of the international community's drive to scale down and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons from the globe it is right that these sanctions should stay in place.
Nor should India and Pakistan export nuclear technology or continue to develop and deploy nuclear weapons.
EU Member States should ensure that neither country's nuclear programme is assisted by European equipment or know-how.
There is also the question of Jammu and Kashmir.
This problem has persisted for too long and lies at the heart of the hostility and suspicion between New Delhi and Islamabad.
It is time for the EU to support the good offices of an intermediary in the tragic division of Kashmir which has caused two wars between India and Pakistan and cost thousands of lives.
The conflict continues to this day but it is time for it to be solved for the benefit of all the people of Jammu and Kashmir, with their consent.
There is an urgent need for confidence-building measures between India and Pakistan and for jaw-jaw, not war-war.
Mr President, we all have to totally condemn the nuclear testing by both Pakistan and India, but we also have to look to ourselves - the responsibilities that the European Union holds and the fact that France, not so very long ago, carried out its nuclear tests despite opposition from right round the world.
All of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have to accept responsibility for the present situation.
The nuclear five blocked all agreement on even small moves on nuclear disarmament at the NPT Treaty Prepcom meeting in Geneva.
Also, bearing mind that our own Irish Minister, David Andrews, has launched a campaign for a nuclear-weaponsfree world, backed by one other Member State of the European Union, it is also important that other Member States of the European Union back David Andrews on this initiative to get rid of nuclear weapons totally.
The UN General Assembly meeting back in January 1946, in its first resolution, unanimously called for a commission to make proposals for the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all major weapons of mass destruction.
Atomic weapons are still here.
Not only have they not been got rid of, but there is a massive proliferation.
Two Member States within the European Union - Britain and France - bear a huge amount of the responsibility for that.
They have to accept that.
It is about time that they, along with other countries throughout the world, got rid of their nuclear arsenals.
I am pleased to welcome Mrs Cresson who has just arrived.
I hope her associates will be kind enough to summarize everything of great interest that has been said in her absence.
Welcome, Madam!
Mr Dell'Alba, you are in luck, you have a Commissioner!
Mr President, I was just about to say the same thing.
But I was slightly embarrassed by the fact that, in truth, there are not many of us either, it has to be said.
Therefore I have not tabled a procedural motion and, like you, I am pleased that we now have someone to address.
I simply wanted to say that while we are not grudging in our endorsement of this the umpteenth resolution, which does not say a great deal, it is certainly not given with any real sense of joy.
We might have been a bit firmer.
I believe that these nuclear explosions in India and Pakistan are an exceedingly serious matter and that we are taking them rather too lightly, with rather too much diplomacy.
In my opinion, we should have hardened our tone.
Since the CFSP is quite able to prevent members of Parliament taking part in delegations to international conferences, since it is totally ineffective from a foreign and security policy standpoint, let us settle for the wording we have and await with interest the reply the Commission will give regarding this affair.
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, Pakistan wasted no time in responding to the Indian nuclear tests, thereby reviving the spectre of atomic war.
Of course the risks for Asia are immense, but they are too for the security of the world as a whole.
These tests, which our group immediately condemned, could easily revive the spread and proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide.
To prevent other States with a similar capability following the example of these countries, we must take urgent steps to ban tests totally once and for all - including laboratory tests, which some nuclear powers continue to conduct - and to eliminate all nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction.
We must put an end to this horrifying threat, as proposed by the "Abolition 2000' international network which embraces over a thousand organizations worldwide.
This network has set itself the goal of reaching an agreement on the elimination of nuclear weapons by the year 2000, which would enable us to use the budget allocations, currently squandered on military spending, for the benefit of the environment, health, education and development.
In order to promote the success of this campaign, I support the proposal of the Japanese government to create an international forum which, for obvious symbolic reasons, would hold its first meeting in Hiroshima and which would seek to define ways of ridding the planet of all nuclear weapons forever.
Mr President, I want to say to the Commission that, in my view, any talk of imposition of sanctions on the peoples of the Indian sub-continent in response to the recent testing of nuclear weapons would be wrong.
It is a very simplistic response which amounts to little more than punishing the powerless for the seeming sins of the powerful.
Such a development would also make a nonsense of these countries' achievements in providing basic health and education support, which have contributed so much to furthering the well-being of their peoples.
I of course deplore what has happened, but we in Europe must face up to the reality and continue our development efforts to support the one million poor of the Indian sub-continent.
To this end, I have proposed an oral question to the Commission, to which I hope to get a response at some stage: would it not agree that the arms race is directing resources away from development and the reduction of poverty to the military-industrial complex, and would it not agree that the imposition of sanctions in these circumstances amounts to no more than the punishment of the powerless for the sins of the powerful?
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, five underground nuclear tests by the Indians in Rajastan were answered by six nuclear tests by the Pakistanis in Baluchistan.
The reaction in the West: anger and dismay.
In Asia overwhelming enthusiasm.
Who the winners will be in this dreaded arms race is unclear.
The current losers are millions of people.
They do not hunger for power and national prestige, but for opportunities to escape from poverty and to enjoy the training and education that has been denied them.
India's nuclear tests are the response to China which has been developing its nuclear arsenal for years.
Where is the Western protest here? Even in Tibet atomic weapons are being stockpiled, and China is supplying Pakistan with weapons know-how and rocketry.
Will Islamic Pakistan and the largest democracy in the world, India, be prepared to sign an international nuclear agreement if they are recognized by the industrial countries as negotiating partners? When we can rely on the monitoring committees of the nuclear states and when nuclear safety can be finally guaranteed, then it will be easier to sign both the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Test Ban Treaty, which needs to be finally ratified by the US Congress.
Mr President, during the previous sitting many of us spoke heatedly in the debate in our condemnation of the nuclear tests in India.
And the consequence, as we now know, was that a few days later Islamabad imitated New Delhi, despite the attempts of the Council, the United Nations and the United States to make it think again.
After several decades of difficult relations, the question of Kashmir remains a bone of contention between the two countries.
We are still waiting for India to make a gesture which will stop this problem becoming an international issue and to offer reassurance to the 30 000 people living in permanent terror on either side of the frontier.
We must put a stop to the furious arms race - generated mainly by intense nationalist fervour on both sides - which will inevitably lead to escalation and regional and international instability.
As the largest democracy in the world, India must demonstrate its wisdom and bring to an end the vicious spiral in the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
But China, too, should adopt a more conciliatory attitude in this particularly vulnerable region.
Every effort must be made to re-establish dialogue and it is for this reason that I commend the initiative of the Council in organizing a regional summit on security in Asia.
The Union earnestly urges India and Pakistan to sign and ratify the nuclear test ban treaty and the non-proliferation treaty unconditionally.
Mr President, one cannot but lament the inconceivable - that eleven nuclear tests have been detonated in India and Pakistan.
This means that we have to accept a huge responsibility, does it not?
I regret that we are not willing to get to grips with the export of weapons and parts of weapons to both India and Pakistan.
My own country, unfortunately, exports parts of weapons to India.
In Southern India military expenditure has increased by 25 per cent in the last ten years.
The Indian Government devotes more than a quarter of the country's research funds to military research, funds that could be put to much, much better use for the poor in that region.
Moreover, the new Government in India has now proposed an increased budget expenditure of 100 % over the next five years.
The crisis behind it is of course Kashmir.
It is regrettable that India and Pakistan have not managed to reach a solution to this problem by diplomatic means.
We have to act through the UN to find a diplomatic solution through regional conferences and encouragement before things go too far.
Mr President, the world reacted to the nuclear testing by India and Pakistan thinking that we had returned to the strategy of dissuasion, with the threat of reciprocal destruction; there was talk of the desire to acquire nuclear power status and of the possibility of a conventional war leading to a nuclear war.
It seems to me that all these war scenarios are old hat, outdated, congruent with the Cold War.
With this diagnosis, we will certainly not succeed in reducing the risks of proliferation.
The reality is very different and more complicated, more modest but perhaps also riskier: the reality is that nuclear weapons are used to intimidate, to prevent political actions by other countries and to blackmail.
Yesterday, the Herald Tribune reported that Korea was threatening to export missiles if it was not granted substantial economic assistance.
This technique has already been used, and probably can be used again.
There is a problem of national pride - Pakistan's Prime Minister said that he had to give in to public opinion - and there is perhaps also the problem of dissuasion.
If we understand this and come up with a good diagnosis, then the disease may well be curable. If not, it will simply persist.
Mr President, the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have made us realize that we in fact live in a situation in which we cannot just criticize these countries but must also criticize ourselves.
It is, of course, scandalous that the present nuclear powers have not done enough to reduce their own arms manufacture and their own stock of arms.
This leads other countries to believe that the possession of nuclear arms means an important increase in status.
And when one country in the Indian subcontinent successfully conducts nuclear tests and develops arms, then the other country is of course compelled to do the same, as there is no guarantee that they are protected from nuclear attacks by the other side.
It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Western world and Russia and China understand that they must take the issue of continued disarmament in respect of nuclear arms seriously.
Recently we encountered the impossible problem of France, which itself conducted nuclear tests in Mururoa.
I am therefore in favour of a condemnation of Pakistan and India which is no harsher than the condemnation of France. The fact that France conducted nuclear tests was actually much worse.
I naturally hope that our action will soon lead to the signing of the non-proliferation Treaty by the two new nuclear powers and that in this way the continuing cycle of arming and more arming will be halted before it is too late.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Members of this House, the nuclear escalation in Southern Asia has major political and geo-strategic consequences which some of you have already outlined.
It revives the question of the non-proliferation policy and the risk of contamination for other countries.
The objectives of the European Union are, firstly, to restore the credibility of the non-proliferation system, to obtain the ratification by India and Pakistan of the non-proliferation pact and the CTBT, in other words the Complete Test Ban Treaty , in order to re-establish a substantial dialogue between India and Pakistan and especially to find an acceptable solution to the Kashmir problem, which represents an explosive situation in Indo-Pakistan rivalry.
In this regard India, which until today had been on the point of opening up dialogue on the conflict, committed a major error.
We should make the most of this new opportunity.
We should then support the creation of regional security procedures which, until now, unlike other regions in the world -and I am thinking here of the ASEAN - have been sadly deficient.
We need to set up a positive dynamic enabling not only these countries but also the international community to escape the treadmill.
From this standpoint, given the uncertainty that reigns in India and Pakistan at present, it seems somewhat unwise to follow a path which might lead to a breakdown in the dialogue with these countries - and I say that for a certain number of speakers who would like to go further, indeed who would like to see retaliatory measures introduced.
We think we should continue to maintain a dialogue with these countries.
It is important that we make them understand fully that the nuclear solution can only damage them.
In this context, the European Union has declared its readiness to take the necessary steps by treating India and Pakistan as equals.
This type of approach must not, however, close the avenues to dialogue.
The European Commission is ready to contribute to the international community's efforts to seek and implement initiatives aimed at increasing regional stability and halting nuclear proliferation.
Mr President, can I take it that there is no question of sanctions being imposed at this stage?
No, as I just said, there is no question of sanctions, we must simply continue the dialogue with these countries in the most effective way possible.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0605/98, by Mr Fassa and others, on behalf of the ELDR group, on the war betweenEthiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0620/98, Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the PSE group, on the conflict between Ethiopia andEritrea; -B4-0631/98, by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the UPE group, on the conflict betweenEthiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0637/98, by Mr Günther and others, on behalf of the PPE group, on the territorial conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0644/98, by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the V group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0649/98, by Mr Hory and Mr Macartney, on behalf of the ARE group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0664/98, by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea
Mr President, the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea for possession of territory measuring 400 km2 is another exceptionally good example of the destructive power of incorrect consultation, of war, of senseless violence, when preventative diplomacy might perhaps have accomplished something.
Unfortunately these destitute countries, which as neighbours got along well until about three months ago, are not themselves able to prevent this mutual destruction.
Yet all border disputes can be resolved by mediation, with give and take on both sides.
The parties must be encouraged to accept a cease-fire. I therefore welcome the commitment and the willingness of the Rwandan government and the Egyptian President.
The Union must show itself willing to offer all the help needed and certainly emergency aid for refugees.
These poor countries must be made to understand that a military solution is never the real answer for small and large conflicts of this kind.
A military solution cannot be a durable one.
Mr President, I was in Ethiopia and Eritrea just a few weeks ago, and I met both the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and the President of Eritrea, along with many other politicians and people.
I find it absolutely unbelievable that these two countries could find themselves in this particular border conflict.
History is littered with a whole series of pointless wars but this particular one must be one of the most pointless wars in hundreds of years.
These are two countries, the leadership of which actually fought alongside each other in trying to get rid of the evil regime of the Dergue - the communist regime in Ethiopia.
When you consider that, of the 175 countries in the world on the UN index of human development, both Ethiopia and Eritrea are in the bottom five, and that this conflict will lead not only to much greater poverty in both countries but to far greater instability in the entire region, we have to call on both countries to pull back from the brink of war and engage in talks.
I shall be putting forward an oral amendment, which tries to bring this resolution up to date, because there is a cease-fire at the moment brokered by Rwanda, the OAU and the United States.
We have to do everything in our power to make sure that this cease-fire lasts.
I call on both sides - the Ethiopians and the Eritreans - to pull back from the brink of what would be an enormous tragedy and to go forward with mediation.
I call on the European Union to do everything in its power to make sure that we see a peaceful resolution to what I have described as both a tragic and a pointless conflict.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the President of Eritrea recently replied, when asked about the reasons behind what had happened, with a very simple statement: "It is very difficult to give an easy answer' .
And the President of Ethiopia, referring to the incidents, said: "I was surprised, shaken and disoriented' .
I am sure you will understand that the most surprised and disoriented people seem to have been we Europeans, because there is not the slightest doubt that, despite having had strong historical relations with that part of the world - particularly some of the Member States of the European Union -, it appears in this case that nobody knew anything.
And one of the points in our motion for a resolution underlines the fact that the Council has limited itself to uttering fine words of condemnation and has not even taken part in the efforts aimed at negotiation which should bring an end to the hostilities.
As we know, it is the United States, Rwanda and the OAU which have intervened.
The Council's passiveness and lack of action in this matter are a scandalous reflection of the lack of a common foreign policy, as is the fact too that these two countries are neighbours, not only in terms of geography, but also in terms of ideology, history and, more recently, belligerence. They are neighbours, yet a war is taking place between them, although for the moment it seems as if a cease-fire has been achieved.
It is one of those "wars of the end of the world' , to use the expression from an extraordinary book by the Peruvian-Spanish writer Vargas Llosa, which you will surely have read, called "The War of the End of the World' in Brazil; a terrible war which he skilfully described in novel form.
I believe that we cannot in future, or even at present, limit ourselves to offering fine words and even generous humanitarian aid. Instead, it is essential that from this experience - which, after all, is relatively small in the general scale of things - we understand the consequences which must lead us, Mr President, to put an end to our lack of action and our passiveness.
Mr President, this conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has surprised and disturbed us all.
We are worried that the region will be further destabilized.
We are worried that a tragedy is waiting to happen.
Those affected are first and foremost the people in this region.
They are already badly affected by belonging to one of the poorest regions in the world, and now war is to be added to their lot.
Border conflicts of this kind are often the expression of internal political conflicts and differences, in both Ethiopia and Eritrea.
We are of the opinion that this conflict should not be allowed to escalate.
The European Union is called upon to support the diplomatic efforts.
We welcome the efforts of the OAU, the USA and Rwanda.
The Council said in its last statement on the Cardiff Summit that it condemns the conflict, that it wishes to support the diplomatic solutions and that it is also prepared, should negotiations come about, to lend material assistance.
We should support this as a Parliament and you too, Madam Commissioner, should support it on behalf of the Commission.
We must try to find a diplomatic solution and assist the people in the region directly through material aid.
Mr President, could I speak partly as the person who chaired the meeting drawing up the composite text? I would like to support Mr Cunningham's point but we were rather overtaken by the swiftness of events.
We did not make an explicit reference to the efforts made by Rwanda and the United States and the peace plan that was accepted by the Organization of African Unity in Ouagadougou on 4-5 June.
I think it would strengthen this resolution enormously if we could make some reference to that and I would support Mr Cunningham if he is willing to draft something.
The resolution that we have adopted makes three references which could be taken to apply to it.
We talk about the peace plans in paragraph 1, we talk about the OAU and the Council of this Union in paragraph 3, and in paragraph 5 we ask that the resolution be transmitted to Rwanda and the United States.
The eagle-eyed amongst you might wonder: why these two countries? I have just explained the reason but I apologize if we were less than explicit.
We should put that right because all of us want to see an end to the conflict.
The parties, too, have accepted the mediation put forward by these two countries and agreed by the OAU and I think that this House would want to support that, to get a speedy end to the conflict.
Mr President, as has already been said, this conflict is serious not only because of the military and civilian victims and the destruction in what are already poor countries but because it has damaged a relationship of collaboration and friendship between two States that seemed strong and weakened a relationship that could have become a model in Africa of stability and cooperation without fanaticism.
Unfortunately, the habit of going to war and the fragile democracy of the political systems that have emerged from dictatorship and independence probably prevailed in this phase.
It is now important that Eritrea and Ethiopia have agreed - at the initiative of the United States and Italy, to be precise - to stop the shelling.
Now the European Union, together with the international community, must make a strong commitment to lend assistance to the people affected and the refugees, to find a peaceful solution to the conflict and to create the conditions for a genuine peace plan.
The European Union must demonstrate here too that it wants an international role and that it wants a foreign and security policy.
Mr President, along with Tony Cunningham, I recently had the opportunity to visit both of these countries.
I have to say that while I was there, there was some evidence of tension.
Since the war of national liberation which created Eritrea, they have had disputes both with the Yemen over the Hanish Islands and with Ethiopia over the particular area of land we are talking about now.
It seems to me that this particular war was not triggered by the land dispute but more by economics.
The recent separation of the two currencies has created a major disruption to trade and this has led to soaring prices on both sides of the border as commodities that used to be traded between the two countries are now in short supply.
That is one of the reasons for the thrust towards the Assab port by Ethiopian forces towards the end of the war.
We cannot afford to allow this situation to continue.
We need to use whatever pressures we have to try to make sure that the cease-fire that now exists holds.
I hope that we can amend a resolution orally to bring it up to date and to make sure the Council and Commission continue to exert pressure on the two potential combatants.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen Members of this House, the Commission is extremely preoccupied by the recent military confrontations which have occurred on the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
It deplores these incidents between neighbouring countries and shares the anxiety expressed.
It strongly urges the two countries not to resort to violence, to cease all hostilities and to resume negotiations.
It stresses the need to resolve the conflict peacefully.
It commends and encourages the efforts of the United States, Rwanda and Italy and, indeed, any other national or regional organization seeking to ease the situation and offering a conciliation procedure with a view to finding a peaceful solution to the current crisis.
It hopes sincerely that these countries and organizations will succeed in their endeavours and is ready to assist them.
The Commission is prepared to offer humanitarian aid, if required.
It is now investigating the possibility of responding to the Ethiopian request for assistance for the dispossessed populations in northern Tigré.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, first of all I would like to say that I agree with Mr Dupuis.
While Great Britain was governed by the Tories, there was opposition to capital punishment becoming a joint concern for the European Union.
That has now changed.
Today Europe stands more united than ever in that struggle.
We are, in fact, the strongest force in the world driving the question of capital punishment, which is greatly to our credit.
As Mr Dupuis precisely said, the Resolution seeks to induce the UN to introduce a worldwide moratorium.
This is important, as there are a number of countries, China, the United States, Iran and Iraq, for example, which still put their citizens to death in great numbers.
It is a disgrace that this happens.
The fact is, Mr President, that Europe's fight against capital punishment is an expression of the humanism and culture which now characterises our continent, much to our own credit.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the European Convention on Human Rights with the protocol abolishing the death penalty belongs to the legal bases of the European Union.
The EU is therefore obliged to raise its voice in the international dialogue calling for this penalty to be abolished.
I endorse what the previous speakers have said, that this House should unanimously support and enact the concrete measures proposed.
We must do everything to ensure that the death penalty, which is an archaic remnant from the times of sacral law, disappears from our legal system, which is based on human rights and hence cannot tolerate a type of punishment which eliminates the human being as a legal entity.
Mr President, the great Swiss national economist Felix Somari said in his book 'The Crisis and Future of Democracy' the following: ' To apply the death penalty to a multiple murderer means only atoning for the first murder.
All the other murders go unpunished.'
This was one of a whole series of his arguments against the death penalty.
One thing is clear to me from this: the death penalty is, all legitimate moral scruples apart, nothing more than a trivialization of the crime for which this punishment is often given.
A genuine life sentence is in most cases surely the more humane solution, while also the stiffer penalty.
That is why I am very happy that this resolution will hopefully be adopted today by the European Parliament without amendment and without any fuss.
This is very much in keeping with the activities of our Parliament, even though I would be especially pleased if we could finally address the question of the death penalty on the basis of a clearly defined moratorium without the customary deviousness so often found.
If the State in question is a very minor one, it is quickly condemned.
But if the State is more important, then this is usually more difficult.
I am thinking, for example, of China, where we once tried to deal with the issue of trade in human organs taken from prisoners condemned to death.
I would like to draw attention to something else too.
Whenever we talk about the actual death penalty, we should focus on the form of execution that is most frequently practised here at home, namely the termination of unborn life.
It is now high time to look at this from a new perspective, since this is carried out in most cases, sadly, without recourse to legal proceedings.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the European Parliament is once again calling on the Council, the Member States and the new Austrian Presidency to try to ensure that this moratorium on the death penalty is included on the agenda at the next session of the United Nations General Assembly and that it is a universal moratorium.
It is also asking for a resolution to be tabled in this respect.
Even if only one innocent person had been executed, this universal moratorium and the abolition of the death penalty would still be worth fighting for.
However, dozens of innocent people have been executed and so it is unacceptable that at the end of this century the death penalty has still not been abolished.
We are going to go on to discuss Guinea and the 15 people there who are condemned to death and who have not had the remotest possibility of having an adequate defence.
We therefore support the position of our colleague, Mr Manisco, who has resigned from the Delegation for relations with the United States due to the fact that the next meeting will take place in Texas, a state which has the dubious honour of having executed 10 people since March.
Mr President, I would like to make it clear that personally speaking, I am against the death penalty on principle, for a number of very different reasons.
Like everyone in this Parliament I was shocked by the brutal disposal of human lives in countries such as China and Pakistan, to name but two from a very long list.
Nevertheless, I will not vote in favour of the present resolution: I will abstain. Because I emphatically do not want to send the wrong signal to my own country, including to my own continent.
The problem in our continent, in Europe, is, of course, not the death penalty, rather the problem is the reverse. It is the lax and even very lax treatment of hard criminals.
The death penalty for a felony has also been officially abolished in Belgium.
Unfortunately, this was not accompanied by the introduction of sentences with no reduced term, such as real life sentences for the most serious types of offender - in fact, quite the reverse.
We now have the situation where in Belgium, for example, convicted paedophile sadists, child abusers and child murderers are systematically released into society after only a few years.
Regrettably, this situation does not just exist in my own country, but in many European countries as well.
Recent dramatic lawsuits, particularly in Germany and in France, show this to be true.
Moreover, the infamous Dutroux affair has taught us that these child murderers and child abusers are not merely released, they are in addition assured of social benefits.
Marc Dutroux was paid BEF 80 000 net monthly in benefit, an amount which many well-behaved, needy people who have never done anyone any harm can only dream of.
We might say, perhaps controversially - but accurately, that the death penalty for these multiple recidivist monsters might have saved the lives of many children.
The day that I am able to say, to the best of my knowledge, that in my country - and this applies to all countries in Europe - children and innocent citizens are adequately protected and that the most heinous crimes will be punished appropriately, that will be the day I will vote with conviction in favour of any resolution against the death penalty.
Unfortunately, I regret to say that this is not yet the case.
Equatorial Guinea
Mr President, this Parliament must unanimously condemn and reject the events which have taken place in Equatorial Guinea. These include the repression to which the Bubi people have been subjected there as a result of the chaotic events which took place on the island of Bioko last January, the torture of 117 members of the Bubi ethnic minority, accused of terrorism, secession and treason, and the long sentences imposed and the death sentences received by 15 people after a summary trial which did not provide the minimum guarantees required to allow justice to be served.
But we cannot limit ourselves to a passive condemnation; instead we must adopt an active attitude faced with these facts and faced, in particular, with these death sentences.
Therefore, we must also use all our authority to request that the death sentences be commuted and that in this connection a fair retrial be staged.
Parliament believes at the same time that the people of Equatorial Guinea have the right to live in a democracy and be guaranteed the respect for human rights; we regret that no progress has been made in the democratization of Equatorial Guinea, despite the fact that President Obiang made a commitment to this effect when he visited President Santer last autumn. Therefore, this Parliament must call on the Commission, and we are doing so with all our might, to suspend the cooperation programmes for this country - except for humanitarian aid, of course - while there is no concrete evidence that advances are being made on the road towards democracy.
It is only in this way, by responding vigorously to the government of Equatorial Guinea, that we will help the people of that country to regain their freedom and their dignity and the European Union to regain its own credibility in the eyes of the world.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the events taking place in Equatorial Guinea are part of a long history of absurdities in that former Spanish colony.
At the moment, this issue has reached a particularly serious stage with 15 people having been sentenced to death and a considerable number of people having been given prison sentences of more than 20 years.
In this connection, an accusation has also been made against the members of the Bubi ethnic minority, who live in one part of the territory of Equatorial Guinea.
This process which has taken place in Equatorial Guinea has not had minimum guarantees, and the proof of this is that certain Western journalists have been expelled from the country because possibly the information they were providing did not satisfy those in power.
In this respect, I agree with what Mrs Ferrer has said: it is necessary for the European Union to determine the aid which might lead to the democratization of this country and therefore to enhance its reputation in the eyes of the African countries and particularly in the eyes of Equatorial Guinea.
Mr President, unfortunately this is not the first time that Parliament has had to give its opinion concerning events in Equatorial Guinea.
Not long ago, this very Parliament also denounced similar situations involving a lack of democracy and respect for human rights, and the European Union's cooperation with this country was suspended.
However, it is also true that the Malabo regime has always been very good at making false promises and, on many occasions, at convincing Western authorities with its fallacies.
It even managed to convince the French government of its desire for democracy and to convince Commissioner Pinheiro and President Santer himself to show signs of comprehension by lifting the sanctions which this Parliament had promoted.
Now we see that the actions of the Commissioner and the President of the Commission were somewhat hasty in that they were not supported by this House.
We are now witnessing a Kafkaesque situation where 16 people have been condemned to death; fortunately, the sentences have not been carried out, but the accused are left like hostages of that very regime.
Our first action must therefore be to provide impetus and to apply pressure so as to ensure that these death sentences are commuted and that this ersatz trial is held again since, according to international organizations, all sorts of attacks have been made on its judicial neutrality.
To return to my starting point, Mr President, we must again call for a further freezing of cooperation aid to this country - except, of course, for emergency and humanitarian aid - until, once and for all, decisive steps are taken towards democracy.
Mr President, immediately after demanding a moratorium on executions, we are faced with yet another reason to deplore capital punishment, in the form of the 15 death sentences that have just been pronounced in Equatorial Guinea.
But, on reflection, is it enough simply to protest from a sort of moral standpoint, or even to suspend a meagre allocation of development aid for that country? For their part, the radicals consider that such barbaric actions should be sanctioned immediately, first by cutting off all international relations.
But in order to resort to this sanction, the EU would again have to deploy a diplomatic service and its relations with Africa would not only have to be the lowest common denominator among the bilateral diplomacies of the old colonial powers.
If this is so, we must vote for the compromise resolution in order to exert firm pressure on the authorities in Equatorial Guinea to commute the sentences and not to resume the bloody violence of the past and the totalitarianism that this country has experienced for twenty years.
In other respects EU support for the draft moratorium would, in all other circumstances, be the best backing we could offer the victims of all despots.
Mr President, the people of Equatorial Guinea have been suffering under dictatorships for 30 years.
In fact, the European Union has introduced the democratic clause as an important instrument in its relations with all other countries in order to give an example, in comparison to other powers, of our unmistakable desire to help establish a different international order.
All of the circumstances surrounding the farcical trial which took place are extremely suspicious and it is not clear how the uprising itself began or developed.
Therefore, we believe that the sentences which have been passed are totally unjustified.
In this respect, the democratic opposition in Equatorial Guinea is placing all its trust in the European Union. This is because the people of Equatorial Guinea have a total lack of confidence in what we would call the democratic paths of pressure and claims for democracy, and we are seeing the appearance of dangerous, yet understandable, temptations to resort to violence if there is not a fundamental change leading to the restoration of democracy in Equatorial Guinea.
I therefore believe that the European Union now has a unique and important opportunity.
Along with the demand for the democratic clause and for firmness in its relationship with the dictator, it has the opportunity to be able to ensure as soon as possible - and with its sights set precisely on the next elections which will take place after the summer - that, in addition to the sentences being commuted, democracy is restored. In that way, this troubled continent might finally begin to hope for human rights and for democracy.
Mr President, we have just talked about the death penalty.
In a farcical trial, 15 people have been sentenced to death in Equatorial Guinea and 117 people have been judged and also given varying sentences, in addition to being tortured.
This has been the result of a process which has been completed without any form of guarantees and which has taken place in a context in which the Guinean people live with only limited democratic rights, particularly the Bubi people who live on the island of Bioko. This is the ethnic group to which these people belong; it, too, has the right to democracy, its own cultural rights and its own political rights.
The European Union can still carry out actions and make gestures to save the lives of these people and to help ensure that a regime which provides all democratic guarantees is established in Equatorial Guinea.
We therefore have an instrument at our disposal: the suspension of the European Union's cooperation assistance to Equatorial Guinea, if the democratic clause is not complied with, maintaining only emergency humanitarian aid.
So, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I ask that we support this resolution which will help to save these lives and establish democracy in Equatorial Guinea.
Mr President, we all know that Equatorial Guinea is a dictatorship, where human rights are not respected and where 15 death sentences have just been passed. But the question is: how do we prevent this situation from continuing?
Why did President Santer allow Obiang to visit him last autumn? Which governments urged him to do so?
Why is Article 5 of the Lomé Convention not applied to the regime in Equatorial Guinea?
These are questions that need immediate and constructive answers. Cooperation must naturally be suspended.
Equatorial Guinea cannot be considered a normal party to the Lomé Convention. But there are governments which should adopt a positive attitude to counteract the multinational economic interests present in Equatorial Guinea, which are those that, at the moment, form the foundation of the dictator President Teodor Obiang's position.
In this respect, we must call for clear responses from two governments, namely those of France and Spain.
Are those governments prepared to act in accordance with their historic responsibilities in favour of democracy in Guinea? We are now demanding that they do.
Madam President, for the last ten years or more this House has been monitoring the political situation in Indonesia nearly every month, and more particularly the dramatic situation of the oppressed and brutalized people of East Timor, a country which, we should not forget, is formally under Portuguese administration according to United Nations law.
There is no denying, therefore, that this House's historical powers include the unquestionable right to draw European politicians' attention once more to what is happening in East Timor, and the vital need to solve this problem.
Because we are convinced that we must continue and persist in making sure that the defence of one of the most enduring and difficult of causes, that of democracy and human rights, is not forgotten, in order to provide an indisputable political basis of international solidarity to find a peaceful solution to the problem of East Timor.
I would also like to add that, with rare political balance and common sense, the pressure of the popular movement and resistance in Indonesia has wrung from the new Government which succeeded the fall of the dictator Suharto a set of declarations which, although contradictory, offer the prospect of light at the end of the tunnel.
For that reason, because everything can still be resolved democratically and without further unnecessary violence, the signatories to all the motions acknowledge that the first condition for resolving the problem is the release of the historic Timorean leader, Xanana Gusmão.
We are convinced that no-one can escape the hand of History and that, sooner or later, the new Indonesian authorities will have to free him.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once more the problem of Timor has come up at this Plenary Session, and now, it seems, in a more open and hopeful context.
The new President of Indonesia has begun to release political prisoners and, for the first time, the Government of Indonesia is prepared to accept a solution for Timor within a framework and laws that respect Timor's interests.
The international community, and especially the United States, are including Timor in their political agenda, and I am delighted to say that the Cardiff European Council Summit touched on the subject of Timor, taking a position by declaring that a just and internationally acceptable solution must be found.
We are delighted about this and hope that a solution to the problem can thus be found.
In the meantime, it is important that Xanana Gusmão should be set free.
It would be a political signal and I consider that the European Union could play an important political role in the matter, because Xanana Gusmão is not in prison as a common criminal.
The common criminals are those who continue to kill unarmed and defenceless young people in a graveyard in Dili. The common criminals are those who continue to kill young demonstrators who are fighting for a just cause.
Xanana Gusmão is a political prisoner who must be released, and his release would be an important political signal.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Portugal and the Portuguese Members of the European Parliament are under a political and moral obligation, for both historical and current reasons, to insist that the European Parliament call for full compliance with United Nation resolutions, and the observance of international law and human rights in East Timor.
Up to now, the new Government of Indonesia has made no move to free the people of Timor and their political leader, Xanana Gusmão, and is continuing the violent repression of peaceful and legitimate demonstrations by a people who are fighting for their freedom.
We are delighted with the position adopted by the Council in Cardiff in relation to the problem of East Timor and we ask the European Parliament to confirm that position of condemnation of the present Indonesian Government.
Madam President, the heroic resistance of the people of East Timor against military occupation has become one with the Indonesian people's fight against dictatorship.
The dictator has fallen.
The dictatorship had to fall and the military occupation must end so that the Timorean people's inalienable right to self-determination may be asserted.
For our part, we need only maintain that pressure which has forced the European Parliament to exert pressure of its own.
We were on our own, or almost, but the Timorean people's refusal to give up has now made it possible for others to join us. This includes the European Parliament, the European Council, the United States and others.
We only have to persist until we ensure that the question of Indonesia and East Timor is not reduced to, or submerged in, an economic-financial problem, where the European Union, the IMF and other bodies try to give them aid to enable them to help themselves.
Where we have respect for international law and the right to self-determination which is, and continues to be, the central issue.
Madam President, probably nowhere else in the world since 1965 has a greater proportion of the population been killed or suffered flagrant human rights violations at the hands of the authorities than in some of the territories under Indonesian rule.
In East Timor an estimated one-third of the population has died since the Indonesian invasion of 1975.
Now that the economic collapse has forced the resignation of President Suharto, there is at last hope of fundamental change.
President Habibie has promised reforms and the army, low in morale and divided as a result of the crisis, has begun to exercise some restraint in dealing with opposition demonstrations.
Some reports indicate the possibility of serious food shortages which could produce great waves of violence.
It is vital for the President to take immediate action to resolve issues which could trigger off clashes, perhaps directed against the Chinese, who have already been victims.
This means immediately releasing all political prisoners, especially Xanana Gusmão in East Timor, and recognizing the right of the East Timorese people to self-determination.
Earlier this week, despite restraint shown by troops, tension in Dili was heightened by reports of a shooting of a civilian elsewhere.
In Indonesia itself, the population will demand genuinely free elections and, with so many people under the age of thirty, completely new forces could emerge to participate in a far-reaching transition which we must hope will be peaceful.
In the dire economic crisis the dangers of an appalling catastrophe are considerable, but without extensive political change they will be much greater.
The European Union must support change and a complete end to all repression.
It must be prepared to ensure that its very considerable economic aid is used to assist the transition.
I call upon the House to support this resolution.
Madam President, finally there is a chance for renewal and democratization in Indonesia.
The apologies by the Indonesian military leadership yesterday for killing a twenty-one year old boy are a characteristic sign of these changes.
The present release of fifteen East Timor political prisoners sends another positive signal.
More is, of course, needed.
We now have an opportunity to arrive at a durable solution to this lingering conflict in East Timor.
This requires continued international pressure.
The promises of the new President, Mr Habibie, in regard of a special charter for East Timor are welcome but they do not go far enough.
The right to self-determination must be guaranteed, political prisoners must be released and violations of human rights must be investigated.
This can be the only basis for a durable solution of this dispute.
The Indonesian President must not think himself rich yet: the foundation for trust by the public and investors and a healthy economy and the public interest can only come about as a result of genuinely fundamental reforms.
But not too fast.
Madam President, the democratic forces in Indonesia have managed to oust the dictator Suharto.
They have forced the new government to implement the first political and economic reforms.
These are breaches which the democratic forces will seek to widen.
The vice that formerly strangled any freedom of expression, information and association is beginning to lose its grip.
Trade unionists and political opponents have been freed.
But this political breakthrough remains limited and the freeing of political prisoners is relative, since it does not include the communist prisoners condemned to death in 1965 by Suharto and those who have been sentenced for their opposition to the occupation of East Timor.
Our group offers its total support for the democratic forces in their fight for genuine economic and political change, fragmenting the economic and financial power of the Suharto clan and responding to the needs of the people.
We also demand the organization of free, democratic elections and the release of all political prisoners, without exception, especially those who have been in death row for 32 years and who originate from East Timor, such as Gusmão.
I am pleased to see that this proposal from our group has been incorporated in the joint resolution and by the European Council on 15 and 16 June in Cardiff, calling for the release of all political prisoners.
Madam President, the people of East Timor have had the unreserved support of the European Parliament.
It is now or never that we have to get involved.
Now would be just the right time to send a European Parliamentary delegation to East Timor.
If it still is not appropriate to send an official delegation, it can just as well send an informal one, but it is important that one is sent.
We must resolve to ensure that funds for East Timor in the EU budget are used for the purposes they were intended, whether it be development cooperation or humanitarian aid.
It is also reasonable to insist that the European Union support the democratic movements in Indonesia and East Timor.
Unfortunately, there seems to be some conflict within the Commission as to how the budgeted funds should be spent.
I fear this has been a sign that they would sooner deal with relations with Indonesia, but right now we all have reason to suppose that decisive and courageous action must be taken.
Madam President, it is clear that the real objective here is the removal of the Indonesians from the occupied territory of East Timor and the East Timorese right to self-determination.
We have to welcome some of the positive things that have happened in recent times.
For example, as Mr Berthu mentioned, it was historic to have an apology for the tragic shooting of a 21-year-old student.
That shows that things are moving to a certain extent.
But the East Timorese resistance leaders are still in prison.
We need to see the unconditional release of Mr Gusmão.
All the political prisoners have to be released.
It is quite clear that they were wrongfully imprisoned in the first place: they were fighting for self-determination, their human rights have been abused over and over again, and they have to be released, because they have spent a long time in prison for no real reason other than asserting the right to self-determination.
I would also like to draw attention to another point that has to be investigated, that is, the rape of many Chinese women in Jakarta during the uprising.
This has to be investigated as well.
It is an appalling situation.
Chad:
Madam President, all is not well in a number of African countries.
A few years ago it was still thought that stability and democracy and respect for human rights and minorities would become widespread in most of Africa.
But it is becoming increasingly obvious that we must make critical annotations in respect of a growing number of African countries.
Today they are joined by Chad.
My Group does not wish to distance itself in advance from the plans being made by the three respective oil companies to construct a pipeline in Chad and Cameroon.
We should not deprive those countries of the economic benefit and advantage of such a project, when all the necessary social and environmental conditions are complied with under the guidance of the World Bank. Many other countries could also profit from oil production.
But it is clear that considerable problems have been created in certain regions in Chad, as it would seem that whole villages are displaced by this project and people are losing their place of residence.
We also see that politicians such as Mr Yorongar are arrested for defending the interests of these people.
Moreover, the people involved are minority groups, who are already under pressure in Chad in this respect, and repression is increasing. Comparison with the Nigerian problem, namely in Okoni land and the arrest and death of the Ken Saro Wiwa, cannot be avoided.
After Nigeria, history threatens to repeat itself on a lesser scale in Chad.
This resolution is not intended as a severe condemnation, but rather a strong signal to the Chad government and to the oil companies involved that they should not go the way of Nigeria, but to show respect for democracy and human rights.
The Chad government should immediately release Mr Yorongar and consult all other activists who are concerned about the minority groups involved so that they will be able to make their points in parliament and not to go the way of repression, arrests and worse.
That is the objective of this resolution and the reason we demand action by the Commission and the Council.
I sincerely hope that at this early stage we may be able to prevent something which might otherwise threaten to go horribly wrong.
Madam President, we have often debated human rights violations in Chad.
We had hoped that the situation would change once the President assured us, after the human rights violations in October 1997, that these would not happen any more.
This year, in March, 100 civilians or village elders were massacred by the military.
The latest case of human rights violations we witnessed in connection with an event of the European Parliament, the 2nd P7 Summit, for the Poorest Seven, which took place in Brussels last week.
A member of the Chad Parliament was supposed to deliver a speech on the oil project in Dobabecken at 9.30 a.m. on the Friday.
The colleague from Chad, Mr Yorongar, had a court appointment at 9.30 a.m. and was given an extended prison sentence.
He has been in custody since 3 June simply because he criticized this project.
The project provides for 300 oil wells in the south of Chad, a 170 km long pipeline in Chad and a 700 km pipeline in Cameroon.
In our opinion analysis of whether this is socially compatible has been insufficient, or rather the population has not been involved.
Likewise where the environment is concerned, not enough precautionary measures have been taken.
We are not against this in principle, but a democratic development, the involvement of the population and the observation of environmental standards, which are required by the World Bank, ought to be assured.
The World Bank has earmarked some 55 million US dollars for Chad and 58 million for Cameroon and claims it is creating jobs.
4, 000 jobs in a region where 28, 000 live off a subsistence economy cannot be real jobs for the region.
If 8, 000 litres of oil are escaping into the environment each day due to leakage, then the environmental compatibility tests cannot be adequate.
We ask both the World Bank and the EU, along with Shell, Exxon and Elf, to reconsider this project and only to continue with it once a situation which respects human beings is guaranteed.
Madam President, since independence, Chad has unfortunately been caught up in insurrections, armed uprisings and a civil war that does not merit the name since it opposes only tiny military factions.
It was thought, and it was widely stated, that this drastic situation was due to the extreme poverty of Chad, one of the least developed countries on earth.
And now we have new outbreaks of violence, civilian massacres, the arrest of political opponents, journalists and human rights activists and extortion of all kinds.
This time there is a different reason.
The convulsions in Chad are due to its potential wealth.
It is said that the Chadian soil reeks of petroleum.
American and European companies together are prospecting for oil and the authorities in Chad prohibit anyone opposing this.
As Mrs Maij-Weggen said, it is not up to us to condemn these actions categorically, but to deliver a stern warning.
Mr Yorongar, a member of the opposition, who is due to address us concerning the reservations of the population as a whole regarding this project, has been arrested and we cannot tolerate this.
We must use the facilities provided by the Lomé Convention and all the means of pressure that can be exerted by the Commission, and also by our international audience, to demand that the government of Chad release those imprisoned and obtain from the companies involved a commitment to subject their projects to a genuinely democratic inspection.
Madam President, over a year ago I spoke in this House to expose the flagrant disregard for human rights in Chad, a country marked by thirty years of war and aggression.
Despite the promises of the leaders of Chad to respect human rights, the situation has continued to worsen and today it is particularly disturbing.
Journalists are indicted for libel and thrown into prison for denouncing the evils committed by senior politicians.
The opposition member Yorongar has been arrested for the same reasons.
The government of Chad must realize that it cannot pursue this policy of repression with impunity.
It must also stop military activities in the south.
Moreover, if it wishes to continue with its project to extract oil, it can only do so if human rights are respected and if environmental protection rules are complied with.
Otherwise we must think about sanctions, because the Union cannot close its eyes indefinitely to the atrocities perpetrated in this signatory to the Lomé Convention.
Madam President, more than ten years ago I received daily press releases at my paper's editorial office on the titanic battle between Hussein Habré and Mr Debry, with alternate support from Libya and sometimes France, as the minerals in the Auso zone were ready for exploitation.
To some extent the country experiences stability under Debry but unfortunately, Madam President, the country still ranks fifth on the list of the poorest countries; it is understandable that such a country intends to exploit its resources.
Hence the proposal by an international consortium following consultation with relevant organizations, to which the World Bank ultimately must give her approval.
I have been assured that advanced technology will be deployed in the realization of the project, so that events in Nigeria will not be repeated.
However, I cannot help but conclude that opinion on this project is influenced by the negative effects of the Nigerian drama.
In my opinion the involvement of the World Bank guarantees a sound implementation.
Madam President, I have meanwhile heard from reliable sources that the two imprisoned journalists have been freed.
I naturally plead for the release of our fellow Member also.
Madam President, would it not be a good thing if the relations on this land could be organized through ACP channels?
What is their responsibility, if not conducting the correct dialogue at the right time? Madam President, I also believe that this resolution is not supported by both sides and I can therefore not vote in favour of it.
Pakistan:
Madam President, Socrates was given the poisoned cup because he was supposed to have insulted the gods.
Such an accusation was at that time an effective way of condemning someone with whom you were at odds.
Slandering the gods was punished with the death penalty.
Although Socrates lived in ancient Greek times, such legislation would still seem to exist.
In Pakistan, for example, Islamic laws are regularly misused in order to settle personal vendettas.
The death penalty may be imposed on the basis of a single accusation of having slandered Mohammed.
Such a religious law goes, of course, against our sense of justice and ideally we would prefer it to be revoked.
We should in any case condemn the improper use of these laws, which allow innocent citizens to be condemned to death.
Pakistan would like to be respected as a modern nation, yet seems to ignore elementary rules of law.
A country which wants to participate in the community of people should at the very least show respect for the minority groups living in its territory, including religious minorities.
1991 saw the introduction of religious laws in Pakistan, which in practice pose a serious threat to the country's minority groups.
Many Christians have been imprisoned after being accused of abusing the name of Mohammed.
A number of these were even murdered in prison by fanatical Muslims.
However, this law is not only a threat to Christians.
Other non-Muslims and even Muslims who experience their beliefs in a different fashion to the Ahmadies live in constant fear that they will be entrapped by the religious laws.
These accusations prove in practice useful for settling personal vendettas, similar to ancient times.
Once people are accused, they have little chance of escaping a conviction.
I refer to the recent example of Ayub-Massih, who was accused by his neighbour of blasphemy.
This neighbour had been having a dispute with him for years over a piece of ground.
He was recently condemned to death by the judge of first instance, following imprisonment.
He has since appealed, but unfortunately judges at higher courts are often also afraid to acquit someone who has been accused of blasphemy.
One judge who did this last year was murdered not long after, probably for just that reason.
It was announced this week that the Christian Shafik Massih was accused of blasphemy at the end of May, following a row over an electricity connection.
It is true that there is much opposition against these blasphemy laws in Pakistan itself. But the Muslims who demonstrated in favour of the law were left in peace, while the Christians who protested against the law strangely enough were manhandled by the riot police.
Through this resolution, which we hope will be carried broadly by the European Parliament, we intend to call on the Pakistan government to revoke the blasphemy law or at least to moderate it. The Pakistan government should ensure in any case that all citizens in their country are granted a fair judicial process.
The cooperation agreement between the European Union and Pakistan, which is presently under preparation by the European Commission, speaks of respect for human rights and democratic principles as the basis for the agreement.
We ask the European Commission to emphatically draw attention to this violation of the right when signing the cooperation agreement, and also later to monitor it scrupulously.
Cooperation between the European Union and Pakistan can continue if Pakistan meets these conditions.
Should Pakistan fail to comply, and let us all hope that it does, then sanctions should be imposed on the trade between the European Union and Pakistan.
The European Commission must not maintain good relations with a country where religious minorities are systematically oppressed and discriminated against.
Madam President, I would like to endorse this.
It is not the nuclear tests that preoccupy us, but rather an evil which often likes to creep up slowly, which sometimes begins quietly, but often ends badly, namely discrimination against religious minorities.
The evil is not just caused by state religions, but also by a misunderstood fundamentalism, which for example takes advantage of a blasphemy law that is fiercely applied.
In Pakistan this evil is virulent and has become apparent through the death of the Catholic bishop John Joseph, but the situation in Pakistan was also the subject of a working party at the Conference of the German Catholic Church last week, and without anyone suspecting what would happen.
Minorities are often characterized by various factors: ethnic differences, varying religions, languages or cultures.
At the same time some aspects always come together.
Religion is misused to suppress freedom of opinion and information, to influence courts and legal judgements and to exercise violence through the police and fanatical groups.
We would like to express to the Pakistan government our grave concern, before the currently postponed, yet still imminent consultation of the European Parliament on the cooperation agreement.
We would like to support all efforts to create the laws in such a way that human rights, democratic endeavour and law and order are guaranteed and religious freedom is provided for all who want to live in peace in their country.
I have been told that the Pakistan government would be making suitable efforts.
Certainly we see that the death penalty has currently been suspended.
If that is the case, then we would like to know that our resolution is seen as support for those who want to turn Pakistan into a modern state in an admittedly difficult political situation.
But please let this be done without the atom bomb!
Might I also remind you that the founder of Pakistan, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, supported the idea of equality for all religions.
I hope that modern Pakistan will take this to heart.
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to welcome this resolution.
I know that my colleague Anita Pollack, under the auspices of the South-east Asia Delegation, has raised this issue on a number of occasions during visits and delegation meetings with officials from and in Pakistan.
Last year I went to see the Pakistan Ambassador to the European Union and raised with him a number of cases.
His reply then was, ' Look, we have this vast population, several million people, and you are only able to bring up six cases' .
But over the last 12 months it has become abundantly clear that Section 295© of the Pakistan penal code, which provides for the death penalty, is being misused: often to settle family feuds; often on very dubious legal bases with just four witnesses; and it is often being used to persecute not just the Christians but the other minority groups in Pakistan.
Some of the reports of what happens when these cases are brought to court are quite horrifying.
At one court a group of local people turned up and began to build a gallows outside the courtroom to make it absolutely clear that whatever actually happened in the court, the people would subsequently be lynched.
So we face a serious situation.
I want, though, to bring this right back home.
Next month we will be discussing the Berger report on cults and sects.
Next month we will be looking at the Oostlander report on Muslim fundamentalism.
I would hope that, when this Parliament looks at those two reports, we act in a sensitive manner and make sure that we do not pass any resolution or any proclamation that can be used as evidence that here, in the European Union, we are anything other than an example, a shining beacon to the world of religious tolerance.
Madam President, since the blasphemy law of 1986, religious minorities in Pakistan, such as the Christians and Amadi Muslims, have had their civil rights curtailed.
The law provides for the death penalty and life imprisonment for profaning the name of the prophet Mohammed and is mercilessly exploited to persecute religious minorities.
The Sharia law of 1991 only applies to Muslims and justifies attacks on dissenters, while women - and here it is particularly non-Muslim women who are badly affected by fundamentalist politics - are completely ostracized socially.
A further source of discrimination is the divided electoral system.
I have obtained information on this in my role as vice-president of the SAARC delegation of the European Parliament.
Here Muslims have the chance to vote only for Muslim candidates, while minorities can only vote for representatives from their ranks, and the effect is: Christian villages lack proper roads, electricity and water supply, and access to clean water is totally impossible.
The blasphemy law should not just be toned down, but abolished.
We expect from Pakistan that it finds its way back to the vision of its founding father, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, and finally makes human rights a reality.
Guinea-Bissau:
Madam President, a conflict has lasted ten days and nobody knows how many deaths have occurred on either side.
This conflict drags on, with its trail of despairingly foreseeable consequences: epidemics raging through the towns, population movements that frighten neighbouring countries and regional instability that gets more worrying in the course of time.
Furthermore, this conflict is being acted out in a sadly familiar context, scarred by poverty, limited educational facilities, health care and other public services.
But, like Janus, poverty is two-faced.
It fosters a culture of ingenuity and solidarity, whilst at the same time it nurtures the soil in which all manner of shady deals find sustenance.
Of course, decent living conditions do not entirely eradicate the traffic of evil - we need only consider the healthy state of drug trafficking in Europe, as well as other black markets - but at least they partially drain the bogs in which they proliferate.
One of the major difficulties, and also one of the great risks that this conflict poses to stability, is that it bolsters secular ethnic solidarity, whereas the African nations are less than forty years old and those persistent feelings of solidarity grew out of a decolonizing policy introduced at the end the period of European military expansionism which mainly consisted in drawing geo-strategic lines on maps, rather than taking account of human realities.
One of the most recent causes has been the stagnation of joint development policies.
At all events, the boundaries of these countries are firmly established and recognized internationally and we can only believe that the conflict and the restoration of peace in Guinea-Bissau have taken place under the auspices of the democratically elected Heads of State, the Senegalese head of State and the goodwill of the Gambian head of State.
Our Parliament must apply its moral authority and political weight to persuade a regional institution such as the Organization of African Unity to intervene in this conflict and bring about a cease-fire and maintain peace.
Madam President, Guinea-Bissau was already one of the poorest countries on earth, and has therefore sometimes made an ideal subject for documentaries on Third World misery.
For twelve years, against a sound background consisting of the rockets and machine-guns of a military rebellion against the constitutional Government and its allies from neighbouring countries, Senegal and Guinea-Conakry, Guinea-Bissau has been front-page news for the world's media.
The results could not be more devastating: the country's capital well nigh destroyed, massive flights of refugees into neighbouring countries - we hear of six thousand having fled to Dakar, while Lisbon and Cape Verde are still receiving refugees - the drastic lack of food and medicine, hundreds of civilians and an unknown number of soldiers killed.
The fact that the armed struggle is still going on also shows that the recapture of Guinea, although making progress, has been difficult, which may indicate a considerable imbalance of strength.
We must obtain a bilateral cease-fire as a matter of urgency as a pre-condition for negotiations, but we must ensure that the current mediation initiatives do not suffer from excess or multiplication.
There is a mission from The Gambia in the country; the Official Organization of Portuguese-Speaking Countries has offered to mediate in the conflict; in this Resolution the European Parliament calls on the European Union and the UN to intervene.
But a conflict between Africans ought to be resolved between Africans, and hence the OAU seems the organization in the best position to do so.
Guinea-Bissau has been a democracy, albeit a flawed one, for some years.
Stability in West Africa depends on the restoration of the constitutional order, the principal figurehead of which is President Nino Vieira.
But we must at all costs avoid replacing a normal military conflict with the old type of endless guerrilla warfare - a lesson which our colonial history ought to have taught us by now. The only ones who profit are the arms dealers, and the only losers are the people.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, the situation in Guinea-Bissau is complex, fluid and subject to constant political changes.
Hence this resolution had to be read with the prudence appropriate to those who reaffirm principles and above all else appeal for peace.
Peace is essential if we are to provide practical aid for the thousands of refugees, because it is only today that the first humanitarian aid is expected to arrive via Bafatá, thanks to the endeavours and the generosity of the Portuguese Armed Forces, the Red Cross and the religious and Social Security institutions, with the active support of the European Union.
Peace has already been called for by the Council, especially as a result of efforts by Portugal, France, the President and other Member States of the Union; peace has been called for by His Holiness the Pope and a number of international organizations; peace for which the Official Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries mobilized yesterday at its meeting in Lisbon; peace, for the sake of which the Gambian Minister of Foreign Affairs has gone to Bissau to attempt to mediate there.
The European Parliament calls for the re-establishment of constitutional order, for arms to be laid down and for a peaceful solution to a serious internal and regional conflict, the establishment of democratic constitutional order within the framework of Guinea-Bissau's political institutions and respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of that country.
Hence the reference in the resolution to the role of the OAU and the United Nations.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to mention the immediate willingness of the Commission to provide humanitarian aid and to underline the part played by Portugal, in co-operation with Senegal and Cape Verde, in the repatriation of foreign refugees, most of whom come from Member States of the Union.
Those refugees, and the Guinean people, are after all the main reason for our concern.
Madam President, anyone familiar with Guinea-Bissau in the past is aware of the reasons for the present crisis.
A few decades ago the people still lived relatively well. Perhaps they were not rich, there was no great development, but the Portuguese really achieved something to be proud of there.
The country then collapsed through corruption and international intervention.
I think you just have to admit that environmental protection, for instance, is today nothing short of terrible.
When I was there, a long time ago now, people could really live on islands like Bijagós.
They had enough to eat, whereas now everything has been destroyed by pollution.
That is the price that has been paid for government without conscience - the present one has been much better, but up to now it has had to settle the bill.
We should be doing everything we can to help the extremely likeable people of Guinea-Bissau to get back on the right track.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by thanking my honourable friend Otto von Habsberg for his kind words on the work of the Portuguese in Guinea-Bissau.
I would not wish to offer an opinion on the internal political problems of Guinea-Bissau, nor to comment on the participation of the Senegalese and Guinea-Conakry armies in this conflict, their legitimacy or any territorial claims they may have on Guinea-Bissau.
What is important, as has already been mentioned, is that institutional order should be restored in a country that is growing poorer and poorer, that democracy should be able to survive and that the opposition parties may have practical conditions in which they can exercise their democratic rights on equal terms with the party in power, which has not actually happened.
But what also matters is that the European Union should be able to help in this crisis.
I would like to remind the House at this point how quickly the European Union has provided aid, releasing funds for refugees, and I would ask the European Union to go on giving attention to this problem, not only from the political but also from the humanitarian point of view.
There are thousands of refugees still fleeing from Guinea-Bissau, settling in neighbouring countries and, in particular, coming to Europe. These people deserve our support and that of the Commission.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, although we do not yet have sufficient information to enable us to make a detailed and objective analysis of the recent situation in Guinea-Bissau, nevertheless we would wish at this point to express our sadness at the serious events that have been taking place in that country, and especially the high number of deaths that have resulted from those events.
We would also like to express our hopes that the Guineans - and not any third parties - will quickly be able to find a lasting democratic solution by political means, without further bloodshed.
In the meantime, we are delighted that it has been possible to repatriate many foreign citizens at the appropriate time, particularly Portuguese citizens whose lives were in danger.
At the same time we are aware of the very serious situation in which many Guinean citizens find themselves and it is therefore essential and a matter of urgency that the European Union should demonstrate its solidarity with them, by increasing humanitarian aid and particularly by providing more food supplies.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will try to reply to the questions you raised.
Firstly, on the serious matter of the death penalty.
During its sitting in 1998, the United Nations Human Rights Commission adopted a new resolution on the death penalty, which was jointly sponsored by all the Member States of the Union.
In particular, this resolution commits all those states that have not yet abolished the death penalty to - and I quote - "gradually limit the number of offences that carry the death penalty, to impose a moratorium on executions with a view to the final abolition of the death penalty and to publicize information about the application of that penalty' .
Currently, the Union, which deems the abolition of the death penalty to be an integral part of its policy in support of human rights, is continuing its work with a view to adopting guidelines on the procedures to adopt with regard to other countries.
I now come to the second question, regarding Equatorial Guinea.
The Commission is most concerned about the way the situation has developed in this country.
Following an armed attack against a number of military installations on the island of Bioko in Equatorial Guinea on 21 January 1998, 117 people were detained, accused of rebellion and tried by a military tribunal in session from 25 to 29 May at Malabo.
The military tribunal reached its verdict on 1 June.
It condemned 15 of the accused to death, as you yourself stated, and several others were given prison sentences of between 6 and 26 years.
The Commission will continue to follow developments closely, in collaboration with the Member States in situ, and will maintain the dialogue with national authorities to prevent violations of human rights and to advance and consolidate the fragile democratic process in the country.
The Commission is standing by the conditions imposed for the gradual resumption of cooperation with Equatorial Guinea, especially the use of resources from the seventh EDF.
These conditions call for genuine progress with regard to respect for human rights, democratic principles and the de facto State, in accordance with Article 5 of the fourth Lomé Convention.
I now come to the problem of Indonesia and Timor.
The Commission commends the decisions taken by President Habibie, seeking to reform the political landscape of Indonesia and hold elections in 1999.
It does, however, think it important to speed up the pace of reform, to guarantee rapid recovery of the Indonesian economy.
I attach particular importance to the openness which the Indonesian government seems to show with regard to the question of East Timor.
I hope that this demonstration of openness will soon result in a just, overall solution that is acceptable internationally.
The Commission has always participated fully in the work of the CFSP in the search for a solution to the question of East Timor.
In particular, it has supported the endeavours of the Secretary General of the United Nations and his special envoy, Ambassador Marker.
The Commission has also supported the call from the "General Affairs' Council held on 8 and 9 June, demanding the release of Xanana Gusmão and all other political prisoners, a visit by the troika to East Timor and an immediate resumption of the discussions under the auspices of the United Nations.
I now come to the question raised about Chad.
The Commission is following with some concern developments in the human rights situation in that country.
The arrests of Mr Yorongar and some journalists, in particular, have been monitored closely.
A delegation adviser is attending the courtroom in which the trials are being held.
According to the latest information, the two accused journalists have been released and the position of Mr Yorongar is now being examined in the light of comments his lawyers have formulated regarding the irregular nature of the waiving of his parliamentary immunity.
More generally, the Commission is investigating the possibility of planning and implementing specific actions to promote respect for human rights in this country.
In addition, with regard to concerns about security problems in the south of the country, according to our information, following the agreement reached between the parties early last May, there was nothing serious to report.
Hence, military activities seem to have been suspended while negotiations continue.
I now come to Pakistan.
The Commission is aware of the problems of harassment that the devotees of other faiths impose regularly on Christian religious minorities in particular.
The Commission, through the mediation of its delegation in Islamabad, and the Member States represented in Pakistan are examining these matters close at hand and investigating particular incidents with the responsible authorities in that country.
Freedom of worship is guaranteed by Article 20 of the Pakistani constitution and by Article 1 of the cooperation agreement between the European Community and Pakistan, which was signed on 22 April 1998 and contains the following statement: "the respect for democratic principles and human rights, as defined in the universal declaration on human rights, underlies the domestic and foreign policies of the Community and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and constitute a vital element of this agreement' .
The Commission will continue to maintain vigilance regarding all matters relating to human rights.
Through its development aid programmes it will provide aid for the poorest and most underprivileged populations in Pakistan.
I now come to the last question concerning Guinea Bissau.
The European Commission shares the comments contained in the motions for resolution tabled by the European Parliament.
The Commission is monitoring attentively developments in Guinea Bissau and is aware of the difficulties confronted by the civilian population at the moment, due to the lack of food, medicine and water.
The Commission and its Humanitarian Office gather information from various humanitarian organizations serving in the field to enable them to offer an efficient and speedy humanitarian response to displaced populations.
The European Commission supports the mediation efforts initiated by individual Member States and regional leaders and appeals to the parties in conflict to negotiate a final cease-fire.
The European Commission is ready to resume cooperation with Guinea Bissau as soon as the country returns to the path of democracy.
Thank you, Commissioner Cresson.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the debate on the following six motions for resolutions:
B4-0599/98 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Lenz, on behalf of the EVP Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0606/98 by Mr de Vries, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0625/98 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0639/98 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0648/98 by Mr Dell'Alba and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the International Criminal Court; -B4-0673/98 by Mr Puerta and others on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the International Criminal Court.
Madam President, each time initiatives such as this are on the agenda, we are reminded of the fact that it all started with a flight from responsibility by certain Member States at the time the issue of Yugoslavia was on the agenda.
An international court of law was then proposed for Yugoslavia - it was pure window dressing. Nobody expected much of it, except the late Member, Alexander Langers, who at that time had compiled an excellent report on the matter.
We have made progress since then, thanks to the serious commitment by judges and public prosecutors who have been involved from the time of the Yugoslav court, and we are now so far that we are even preparing to set up a general international criminal tribunal.
This is more than anyone had expected, in my opinion.
Our progress is a slap in the face for all Realpolitik which believes that morality and justice are irrelevant in foreign policy.
This is basically why the whole area of foreign policy is so far removed from the citizens, who experience justice and morality in their daily lives.
This court brings to our attention that the borderline between conducting Realpolitik and war crimes is often and easily transgressed.
The establishment of this court is a great preventative measure. It will make government leaders and ministers realize that such a Realpolitik motive does not lead them far and that they may be convicted if they continue on that track.
It is good that this court will be able to guarantee its independence.
This will make it impossible, for example, for veto carriers in the Security Council to get off scot-free per definition.
The Amsterdam Treaty sets a good example in this respect in that it reminds all Member States that the legal order must be safeguarded, otherwise they can expect sanctions.
The offer by the Dutch government to establish the Criminal Tribunal in The Hague is, of course, admirable.
It is also practical, due to the presence of other international courts of justice.
I hope, however, that this will lead the Dutch government to realize that this offer also commits it not to continue further with the national hobby of navel contemplation, but to become the real standardbearer of the tradition of Hugo de Groot, and thus keep in mind its international responsibilities.
Our Group is delighted to support the resolution, including both amendments submitted by Mr De Vries.
Madam President, the Liberals in Europe are deeply engaged in trying to get a permanent International Court of Justice for War Crimes established.
We are happy to see that the matter has advanced as far as it has.
We do not understand why the majority of this House do not share our view on two points.
We think that all war crimes should be judged equally, regardless of whether they have been committed in a civil war or in a conflict between two states.
Why does the Chamber not wish to support that? We think that the prosecutor should have a natural right to decide whether or not to instigate a prosecution.
If he or she has the same material and knows that he or she faces a criminal, it is then in all normal legal practice the duty of that prosecutor to commence prosecution.
Why does the majority of this House not want to support the Liberals' demand in this respect? I call upon those who speak after me to give a satisfactory answer to that question.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I have here a card which affords me admission, as a member of the delegation from Senegal, to the FAO buildings where the diplomatic conference is being held concerning the institution of the International Court of Justice.
I am grateful to Mr Jacques Baudin, Minister of Justice and Head of the Senegal delegation, for bestowing such an honour and rendering such a service on my behalf.
However, neither the Commission nor the Council have allowed observers to attend this conference, other than those from this Parliament.
This is a most serious precedent that I would like to bring to the attention of my colleagues.
Apparently, I am told, the Council of Ministers, at the instigation of the Commission, would not have allowed us to sit for three days in Rome to witness the commitment which this Parliament continually trumpets in favour of the Court: we adopted a resolution three months ago; there is a group known as the Amici Curiae with a fellowship of more than 60 members; we have drawn up budget headings; we have always supported the efforts of the Commission and the Council.
Well, it seems, we cannot go to Rome, the capital of a Member State, because the issue relates to the second and third pillars!
This is what I judge to be the gravity of the situation.
I hope that this Parliament will be able to take this into account during the three-way discussions and all our negotiations and inter-institutional contacts, because this seems to me to be a very, very serious precedent in which, I believe, the Commission has played no small part.
On a rhetorical note, then, a matter that seems to me to be important.
With regard to the underlying principles, of course, we must support this resolution.
It is important that the Court be set up in Rome.
We must support the amendments of the liberal group, especially that dealing with the jurisdiction of the Court in internal conflicts which is greatly disputed by the Arab countries and certain Asian countries, who would like to oppose it, whereas those conflicts are an integral part of the Geneva Convention and must be included in the jurisdiction of the Court.
The Court must be independent and effective: this is the task and the commitment of the Union.
Frankly, we might have spared ourselves this blunder.
Madam President, the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, approved 50 years ago, stated amongst other things that disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind.
Now, finally, the Rome Diplomatic Conference is taking place to establish a permanent International Criminal Court.
Given this historic opportunity to provide ourselves with an institution capable of punishing these outrageous acts which are still being carried out, I read with horror in the press that the OSCE suspects that concentration camps are being established in Europe.
The international community has taken up the challenge of completing its legal system by providing an institutional channel for a universal conscience which revolves around human rights.
The task is difficult because no text has been agreed on.
There is not even a global agreement on the universal competence of the future Court, and in this respect China's retreat once again into its entrenched arguments of cultural exception is of some concern.
We need the conviction, without any selfishness, of the maximum number of countries; not only of Western countries, but also of those countries whose conviction is certainly not as yet guaranteed.
It is difficult because the universal history of disgrace has extended the catalogue of crimes over which the Court should have jurisdiction to include sexual crimes against women during times of war, the recruitment of minors, the use of certain types of weapons, ethnic cleansing and so on. And, from the legal point of view, too, it is difficult because the statute will have to be the fruit of an effective combination of the Latin and Anglo-Saxon legal traditions.
All these difficulties could mean that the debates at the Conference are prolonged endlessly and that the Conference itself is interminable and unproductive, but, faced with these difficulties, there are some positive aspects.
Firstly, the previous unsuccessful experiences demonstrate the need to make sure that things are done properly this time.
The results of the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia are not satisfactory.
The reality of what has happened in Cambodia, Argentina and Chile for example, and what is happening in Kosovo at the moment, clearly demonstrates for us the need to establish a permanent and effective criminal jurisdiction which will overcome the errors made in the past.
Secondly, the project can rely on social backing.
The mobilization of non-governmental organizations has translated the International Law Commission's draft statute for a court to street level, and it has been converted into an unavoidable demand.
The 800 NGOs represented in Rome keep the flame of civil society lit; its mere presence serves to make the authorities aware that they are defending, on the basis of populism and demagogy, a concept of national sovereignty which at times is obsolete, one that does not have the support of its people.
Therefore, we Socialists, who believe that there can be no peace without justice, consider the success of this Rome Conference to be a duty, and we support this resolution and the two amendments that have been tabled.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, since the Nuremberg Tribunal first began its work it has been clear that, as part of the new international legal system which had to be created after the two World Wars, there was also a need for a court where the offences of state criminals could be prosecuted, tried and if need be punished. However, it is only now that we have taken steps to turn this court from an ad-hoc initiative into a permanent institution.
I am extremely delighted, and it is a great satisfaction to me, to see from the text of the resolutions, especially the joint resolution, that there is unanimity in this Parliament over three central issues.
Firstly, the prosecutor's independence, both from the Security Council and from the national courts, which finds expression in the definition of the core crimes under the new international penal code and the relationship of this International Criminal Court with the United Nations.
This relationship cannot, of course, mean subordination to the Security Council.
Let us hope that this initiative on the part of this House may help to make this century not just the century of state crime, of the destruction of law organized and executed by organs of the state, but also a century of legal regeneration.
Madam President, I believe that from now on we should support primarily the international coalition of more than 800 non-governmental organizations which, in a true exercise of civic diplomacy, has managed to ensure that the governments sit down to negotiate the creation of an International Criminal Court.
It is an International Criminal Court which will naturally perform an effective role of preventive diplomacy in that firstly, it will be fully independent of the United Nations Security Council, secondly, it will have a prosecutor who can carry out investigations and present indictments on his own initiative and thirdly, it will have inherent, universal jurisdiction.
It is regrettable that certain countries, such as the United States, are set on spoiling the results of the Diplomatic Conference which is taking place in Rome.
However, it would be even more regrettable if certain Member States of the European Union, ignoring public opinion, were to join with those efforts of the North American government.
We have already had a negative element in the fact that the Union has not held a common position, in accordance with the Treaty, regarding this Diplomatic Conference.
Parliament should have been present at that Conference, as Mr Dell'Alba has said.
To conclude, I want to say to Mr Cars that he has our support for the amendments he has tabled because they are aimed at ensuring that the International Criminal Court becomes an effective reality.
Madam President, we have already said on many occasions that our planet needs an International Criminal Court capable of putting an end to the impunity of those who turn the civil population into an object to be destroyed and who use torture and mass rape as weapons of war. It should also be capable of promoting forgiveness and reconciliation among peoples through the exercise of justice.
That is why we have set our hopes on the Rome Conference.
We know, however, that there are still many obstacles which need to be overcome in order to reach agreements, particularly in matters relating to its independence and jurisdiction.
Therefore, it is fitting that this Parliament let its voice be heard once more, calling, on this occasion, on the Member States of the European Union and on the Commission to support the approaches that this Parliament has repeatedly defended.
However, it is also fitting that Parliament let its voice be heard - it is essential that it let it be heard - in order to protest and express regret, as previous speakers have done, at the fact that Parliament will be the great absentee from this Conference. Indeed, since the beginning, we had asked that we be permitted to consider a formula that would allow us to be represented and to take up the place we deserve due to the determination we have shown over the years in favour of this Court and in favour of international justice for peace.
Mr President, the National Alliance Group will vote in favour of the proposal for a joint resolution to appoint an International Tribunal for War Crimes.
It goes without saying that this is a historic opportunity, but it is a decision that comes late and that is certainly not enough to rehabilitate a Europe whose image has been that of an ostrich with its head in the sand and which so far has refused to take any concrete initiative not only to prevent the occurrence on its own territory of genocides, crimes against humanity and war crimes but also to condemn and punish with an unrelentingly will the authors, direct and indirect, of such crimes.
Strangely, Europe seems to have wanted to stop the clock of history at Nuremberg, as if since then European soil has not absorbed the innocent blood of hundreds of thousands of victims - women, children, civilians - while many of those responsible continue to run free and unpunished, even receiving honours and respect, including from that official Europe which has so far limited itself to occasional verbal condemnations.
It is our hope that the diplomatic Conference in Rome, convened with the purpose of appointing an International Tribunal for War Crimes, will be the last step towards this fundamental, albeit late, achievement.
We will have to neutralize and repel any attempts to obstruct this by those who have an interest in maintaining the status quo, even if we object to the absence of the European Parliament which could have had an important, leading role in this conference.
It is also our hope that the appointment of the Criminal Tribunal, while representing an effective integration of national legal systems, can be part of a new political context where Europe finally has its own foreign, defence and security policy.
If this priority objective had been pursued with the same tenacity as with the single currency, Europe certainly would have seen, right here on its doorstep, many fewer victims these past few years. And I am referring to those same innocent victims who are now asking the European Parliament for justice, not revenge.
Ladies and gentlemen Members of this House, the diplomatic conference in Rome is due to close and approve a convention seeking to set up the International Criminal Court.
Since the conference opened just three days ago it is difficult to comment on any of its results.
As you know, the diplomatic conference will continue through to 17 July.
The Member States of the European Union are participating actively in the negotiations to ensure that a convention is adopted that will establish an independent and powerful Court.
The Commission is represented at the conference in Rome by an observer.
On many occasions, she has declared herself in favour of the institution of an independent and effective International Criminal Court.
In a speech to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on 17 March, the Commission - through Mrs Bonino - stressed the importance of adopting decisions in Rome rather than settling for procedural approaches.
I think we can safely say that this first step which has been taken - and which has been insisted on by a large number of NGOs - is a very important one.
Of course, this is a situation which remains fragile and it is one which we should endeavour to consolidate.
I have taken note of the words expressed by Mr Dell'Alba and I shall not fail to pass this on to the Commissioner responsible, but it is true that we could doubtless conceive of procedures in which better information and greater transparency might be brought into play.
Thank you, Commissioner Cresson.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the debate on the resolution (B4-0609/98) by Mr Bertens and Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on Cambodia.
Madam President, maintaining the status quo in Cambodia is not in the interest of anyone.
The European Parliament demands that Cambodia comply with the Paris agreements, in other words the conditions which that country has itself endorsed: no more, no less.
These conditions include the holding of free elections this year, the setting up of an electoral register and the ability of political parties to participate in the democratic process, rather than be excluded.
In saying this, I am simply repeating the comments I was able to make before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, which appointed me as draftsman of an opinion, regarding a new generation agreement between the European Union and Cambodia.
We have already suspended work in this direction, until Cambodia is ready to comply with the principle it endorsed itself in the Paris agreements.
We are not asking this country to do anything impossible, we are simply reminding them of the conditions which, just a short time ago, opened up such encouraging prospects.
It is now the turn of Cambodia to restore the former situation.
The same comment applies with regard to support in the democratic process, in other words the free elections scheduled for this year.
The Commission is urged to block the funds until the conditions for free elections, worthy of the name, are met.
Mr President, I have been appointed as the EU's special envoy to the forthcoming Cambodian elections.
This is not only an honour for me but also for the European Parliament.
I am naturally anxious that these elections should be a constructive step towards democracy in that country and, certainly, they should not be a meaningless gesture on the part of Hun Sen's regime.
I am unlikely to be complacent since I will ultimately have the responsibility to give the EU's position on that election.
But what we must remember is that, whatever the current political situation in Cambodia, this is the first election to be called by Cambodia: it is not an internationally enforced initiative but one that came from Cambodia itself.
It is this factor that we in this House have to recognize; and we, as part of the international community - the European Union - have been asked to lend the essential support that election needs.
We are there to ensure an effective registration process, to rigorously monitor the vote, and to give all political parties access to the media.
Eighty per cent of voters have already registered and fifteen long-term observers are already in place.
Eighty short-term observers from the EU and eighty-five bilaterally from Member States will be deployed throughout the whole of Cambodia.
Further observers offering technical assistance will come from other states.
The UNDP is coordinating technical assistance and the UN election assistance secretariat is coordinating the observation team.
We have already negotiated access for the media, and EU media experts have been put in position to ensure that takes place.
These are achievements.
But I am very conscious that we have a long way to go.
The EU is not monitoring these elections for the purpose of rubber-stamping the process: we are there to ensure that it is a free and fair election.
If that is not the case, then it will be our duty to say so, and I will not hesitate to do just that.
As Derek Fatchett, Minister of State at the Foreign Office, said last week in the UK parliament: it will be a fine judgement we will have to make, and one that the EU must be prepared to make.
I, for one, will be prepared to make that judgement, and I intend to lead a team of observers committed to ensuring that the European Union takes an independent and fair position on these elections.
Madam President, Commissioner Cresson, I think that the urgent and topical debate here is possibly our last chance to reconsider exactly the financial investment being made by the European Union in the Cambodian elections, which after all amounts to almost ECU 10 million, and to look at the conditions under which this money is to be used.
When I read from the list of investments made, for example, that a large part has been used to support and educate journalists in the region of Cambodia and in the country itself, then I have to say - as someone who knows something about the situation - that this is tremendously difficult because the latest news is that in the last state purge the final opposition journalists were murdered and there are currently only journalists there who are loyal to the government.
I am very glad to hear Mrs Kinnock say that there are experts from our side there, too, trying to sort out the media.
However, I have certain doubts about this, and we should really consider the exact nature of our involvement in this area.
I think another point requires careful consideration too, and that is our collaboration with the United States of America. The latter have taken a clear stance on their involvement in the Cambodian elections and have adopted a very distanced attitude to them.
They are no doubt interested, like us, in a genuine democratic process, and I think in this case we should collaborate with them and agree a common position.
Madam President, the Union is prepared to make a considerable contribution, not only to the elections but also to democracy in Cambodia, as mentioned by Mr Habsburg.
This also applied to the elections in 1993 when I was part of a delegation of Euros led by Mr Cheysson.
It also applies at present and I would say to Mrs Glenys Kinnock: good luck, see you in the headlines, I hope.
In return we are entitled to demand something from the Cambodian rulers. Elections are only meaningful when they result in a credible authority.
The Union should only support these elections if, at the very minimum, conditions for holding genuinely democratic elections are met.
To be honest, these conditions are not yet in place in Cambodia.
The reason is not the practical difficulties in the country; the impossibility of democratic elections is currently being caused by the unsympathetic attitude of Hun Sen, who does not comply with the Paris agreements. Mr Goerens has already mentioned this.
The Union should be quite explicit.
The elections on 26 July can only be recognised if a minimum number of conditions are met.
The Commission must not contribute to fraudulent elections.
Otherwise Hun Sen would wrongly be accorded legitimacy.
Sending a delegation of observers and even ECU 10 000 does not mean that we also sanction the policy.
Nevertheless, I hope the result will be a good one.
Ladies and gentlemen Members of this House, the European Union has condemned the ousting by force of the Prime Minister, Prince Ranariddh and the violence perpetrated in July 1997.
The action in support of the electoral process, decided by joint agreement between the Commission and Member States and amounting to ECU 10.4m, seeks - subject to strict conditions - to provide the Cambodian government with the resources required to institute successfully an electoral process which, on this occasion, will be implemented under the sole responsibility of the Cambodian people, with the support of the international community.
If the conditions of freedom and impartiality required are not complied with, the European Commission reserves the right to suspend its aid after formal consultation with the Member States, based on the terms of the financing agreement signed in Phnom Penh on 16 January 1998.
The diplomatic action by the European Union, initiated in conjunction with the initiatives launched by the countries in the "Friends of Cambodia' group, the ANSEA troika and the United Nations, especially with regard to the observance of human rights, will continue to concentrate on the most appropriate methods of bringing about pluralistic participation in the elections.
In this context, the European Union will remain especially vigilant regarding matters of procedure, the registration of parties, the workings of the constitutional council with regard to the inspection and regular conduct of the elections and the risks of a resurgence of acts of violence against members of the opposition.
Events in recent days, following the trial of Prince Ranariddh, and the granting of a pardon by King Sihanouk, therefore represent crucial stages in the process of assessing the development of the political situation and enabling the international community and European institutions to adopt the appropriate policy guidelines with a view to the forthcoming elections.
Consequently, the next meeting of the "Friends of Cambodia' , due to take place towards mid-June 1998 in Phnom Penh, must bring to the fore the elements required to enable the international community to determine whether the preparations for elections meet the stipulated conditions, enabling all the political forces involved to express themselves freely in the crucial phase of the electoral campaign.
Mrs Kinnock spoke earlier of the electoral aid device.
I will therefore not raise the matter again.
Long and short-term observation is guaranteed through the provision of 95 observers.
The Member States will appoint, on a bilateral basis, more observers operating under the auspices of the European Union observation device.
Close collaboration with the United Nations at all stages of the organization and progress of the elections is guaranteed in the field by European consultants, operating on the instructions of the departments of the Commission.
Thank you, Commissioner Cresson.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.25 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Votes (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the votes from noon.
Report (A4-0207/98) by Mrs Rothe, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the Communication from the Commission on energy for the future (renewable sources of energy) - White Paper for a Community strategy and action plan (COM(97)0599 - C4-0047/98)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, after consulting the various Parliamentary groups - and if it is not inconvenient - I would like to propose orally that Amendment No 3 to paragraph 3 of this joint resolution be voted on firstly as an addition to paragraph 3 and secondly that we only vote on the section from the beginning, which states: "...calls on the governments of Lebanon, Syria and Israel...' up to the first reference to the Middle East.
In other words, we should vote on it as an addition and we should vote only on the following part of the amendment: "...calls on the governments of Lebanon, Syria and Israel to revive and resume the peace negotiations at the point they had reached when they were broken off and in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the principles laid down at the Madrid Conference on the Middle East' .
So we would then leave out the rest of the text.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I would like to ask whether the Rules of Procedure of this Parliament allow us to define new borders in Europe, because this is what this paragraph is about.
Parliament in its infinite wisdom has defined a new border in Europe.
Mr Sakellariou, that was a speech on the debate and this is now closed.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
We share the opinion of Mr Kohl and Mr Chirac that far too many decisions which could have been reached on a national level have now been transferred to the EU.
Like the two persons mentioned above, we regard it as important that the principle of subsidiarity be given real meaning.
This report deals with the development of renewable sources of energy in far too detailed a manner.
It becomes somewhat absurd when it suggests that the sign 'golden sun' be handed out to various holiday resorts and such like in order to encourage the use of renewable sources of energy.
Is it really the EU's task to deal with such matters?
It is our opinion that energy policies are to be dealt with at national level.
There is nothing to be gained from making policy on energy at supranational level. We therefore vote against this report.
My vote in favour of the Rothe report on renewable energy is based on a national and regional reference framework, which I take the opportunity to emphasize.
It will only be possible in practice to achieve the reduction in CO2 emissions fixed at the Rio Summit, and to comply with the obligations we assumed at Kyoto, if every Member State operates a rational energy management scheme and encourages the production of renewable energy, which in the European Union represents only 1.3 % of the total energy produced (5.3 % if we add hydro-electric power) with figures of 6 % and 15.7 % (with hydro-electric power) respectively for Portugal.
The European Union proposes to increase its overall percentage of renewable energy, including hydro-electric power, from 5.3 % to 15 % by 2010.
This target will only be achieved with new support schemes for renewable solar, wind, bio-mass and photovoltaic energy sources - hence the importance of the support fund called for by the majority of Members of the European Parliament.
In the Algarve region, with solar radiation between 1782 KwH/m² (Sagres) and 1896 KwH/m² (Tavira) and an annual sunshine total of 2800 to 3100 hours, a privileged area for wind-generated power - between Rogil and Sagres - and enormous potential for biomass production, particularly associated with pig-farming and forestry, in the case of Monchique, renewable energy sources represent a policy option that should be exploited.
Hence the importance of the initiatives in that direction that have been launched by the European Union, the Government, local authorities and the community in general.
May I first of all commend my colleague Mechtild Rothe for the quality of her work and her sense of realism.
I also wish to say that I will be voting in favour of the motion.
I am one of those who openly welcomed the intentions of the Kyoto summit.
Now we have to take steps to make credible the good intentions expressed at this conference.
Like Mrs Rothe, I am of the opinion that the objective set by the Commission with regard to renewable energy sources is the minimum and that we should seek details of the plans and strategies of the Member States and, in particular, determine their willingness to comply with the Commission requirements.
I also share the concern of my colleague on the subject of the efforts we need to make in the field of solar energy and agricultural-based alternative energy sources.
With regard to the latter, we must check their ecological effects which, dare we say, has not always been the case.
So, in view of the urgency of the situation, both in environmental terms and with regard to the increasing scarcity in the medium and long term of renewable energy sources, we need to envisage steps that encourage the participation of public and private operators engaged in this essential and vital sector.
Finally, I will close my address regarding the political nature of this proposal by saying that in terms of political ecology, the European Union should also establish itself as a model for the rest of the world.
This does not mean setting itself up as a tutor, but rather showing that Europe states its resolve and acts for the benefit of all, and seeks to find solutions for future generations.
I am coming close to believing that our survival depends on it.
During the past few years, it has become apparent that non-renewable sources of energy cannot alone meet our future needs in a satisfactory manner.
Both Member State governments and other groups within the EU have raised questions concerning the continued availability of fossil fuels and the finite nature of the supply of resources such as oil.
Furthermore, unchecked consumption of non-renewable energy can directly and indirectly contribute to environmental problems like global warming, air pollution and other potentially disastrous scenarios.
Because of these reasons, I support the development of renewable sources of energy within an EU framework.
The proposal to double the rate of total energy consumption from renewables by the year 2010 can have a considerable impact on the future direction of EU energy policy.
The more our dependence on non-renewable energy sources such as fossil fuels is diminished, the closer we are to creating a sustainable and environmentally friendly energy programme.
Therefore, I welcome this proposal to increase our investment in renewable energy.
The need to steer economic development onto a path that does not endanger future generations is becoming more and more apparent to everyone.
The White Paper we have to discuss today is further proof of this.
Fossil fuels, the source of the extraordinary economic and industrial development of our societies over the past one hundred and fifty years, now pose an acknowledged risk for mankind, now that their unbridled use and the exponential production of CO2 are likely to alter our climate appreciably in the coming decades.
Whence the importance of promoting renewable energy sources by lending all the support necessary to assist their breakthrough into the market, in the context of what the White Paper calls the "lift-off campaign' .
From this standpoint, I am pleased to point out that despite its incompatibility with the proposed reforms of the CAP in Agenda 2000, the notion of tripling the use of biomass energy sources is intended to provide some sort of response to those European farmers who are worried about their future and are now thinking about possible reconversion.
With regard to the possible exploitation of the biomass, there is certainly one path we should explore further, since it lies at the crossroads between a number of priority concerns within the European Union: stable development, the common agricultural policy and enlargement.
That said, our rapporteur has wisely pointed to the need, raised many times in this Chamber, for Community-based taxation on non-renewable energy.
Indeed, there might be a CO2 tax one day, let us hope so!
To conclude, I would also like to express my conviction that the emergence of renewable energy sources and the unfettered deployment of a genuine programme of stable development together constitute a source for jobs of all types and all grades.
I therefore unreservedly declare my support for the White Paper, as amended by the motion for resolution as tabled.
I am urging the European Commission and the European Council to coordinate their efforts in a structured and streamlined manner so that a long-term energy policy can be formed which enhances Irish and European agricultural and rural development policies.
This should be brought to fruition as negotiations take place between the national Member States and the EU on the future of the common agricultural policy post-2000.
It is clear that renewable energies continue to play a more direct role in many businesses and industries in our society.
We should recognize that the use of renewable energy as an agricultural development also offers great potential.
If renewable energies are used for agricultural and rural development in an environmentally friendly manner, there is great potential for the creation of sustainable jobs as a direct consequence of maximizing the use of our land resource.
We cannot deny that alternative energy programmes based on the proper use of renewable energy offer innovative ways for farmers to make money from their land.
This should come about as the inevitable reform of the common agricultural policy highlights the importance of producing non-food crops.
If we are serious about enhancing rural development measures and protecting the maximum number of family farms on our land then we must put in place a coordinated renewable energy policy which will assist in enhancing Irish agriculture and creating employment in rural areas.
It is stated that a positive impact of introducing comprehensive renewable energy programmes is the reduction of CO2 emissions, which should fall by 402 million tonnes per year.
Within the EU, renewable sources currently account for 6 % of total energy consumption.
This figure is simply too low and substantial investment will be needed if wholesale expansion in this sector is to occur.
The Rothe report is quite agreeable in many respects.
However, there are several problems embodied in its proposals.
First of all, its lack of realism in relation to the EU internal energy market.
The solution the report outlines with regard to the internal market is an energy-related tax model set by the EU.
I cannot endorse this solution. Apart from the fact that I am an opponent of EU taxation, an energy-related tax model would have precious little chance of being implemented at EU level, since industry would submit that it cannot afford such escalating expenses.
At best, this factor would mean that the renewable energy sector would be given an increase in its tax-funded EU and national subsidies.
At the same time, major energy users could continue to purchase cheap coal and atomic energy in the liberalized EU energy market.
Thus, there would be little incentive for them to implement energy-saving measures.
The only prospect of implementing the positive intentions of the Rothe report in the area of energy and the environment is to go the way of allowing Member States to determine and implement national objectives in the area of energy.
It is useless for an EU country to require its energy producers to produce a certain amount of energy by means of renewable energy sources while the largest energy users in that country are free to import cheap energy from abroad - that is tantamount to undermining national producers financially.
For this reason I cannot support the Rothe report.
The report contains a good proposal on an overall plan of action to double the renewable energy share of the energy consumption.
Bio-energy, solar power and wind power must form the backbone of this.
Atomic power will have to be phased out.
Overall objectives on a European Union level and other levels, such as United Nations, is a good thing, but policies on energy are and should primarily remain national issues.
It is important that Sweden controls its own natural resources and does not sell off energy and natural resources which may govern Swedish development from outside Sweden.
We have voted for the report, as we share its positive attitude to alternative and renewable sources of energy. There are, however, also parts of the report that we oppose.
They include the demands for a common policy on taxation, a common policy on forestry and the demand that a special chapter in the Treaty be devoted to energy.
Situation in the Middle East
There is no doubt that there are various areas of conflict in the Mediterranean which urgently require a path towards peace, including Algeria, Palestine, Israel and so on.
Supporting, encouraging and being concerned about the development of the peace process in the Middle East is not a sufficient reason to manipulate the facts or to "put one's own interests first' .
Many of us and many others too need to reflect on the road we have travelled, on the reasons for the backward movement and on the apparent incompatibility and autism of those currently in power.
Consideration must also be given to the tangible result of the financial support provided by the European Union, the status of Palestine, and the democratic control of its institutions and of the use made of the economic aid received.
We must talk to Jordan; we must look for solutions to the European incompetence regarding Algeria; we must understand Islam better; we must promote direct dialogue with the population and, perhaps, initiate processes to follow on from this.
I already declared this when President Rabin came to Brussels.
It is not possible for that tragedy not to have served any purpose; similarly, we cannot allow a situation whereby European funds do not benefit the public.
It would be inexplicable and alarming if the West Bank and Gaza were to continue in the same social and economic situation in which they currently find themselves.
In conclusion, then, all of us must think things over once again.
The Austrian Freedom Party is of the opinion that the agreement on agricultural trade needs to be prepared carefully, but enlargement towards the east should be rejected at the present time on the grounds of inadequate planning.
That is why the FPÖ is abstaining with respect to paragraph 10.
With regard to the common resolution on the WTO which has just been adopted, I note that Parliament, which was generally and oppressively enthusiastic at the time of the signature of the Marrakech agreement, has gradually become aware of its extremely serious negative consequences for European countries, which a few of us denounced at the time.
Mr Rocard himself, at the last meeting of the ACP-EU joint assembly, distanced himself from it, speaking of the Marrakech Treaty as a poorly negotiated agreement, signed in haste, with serious shortcomings, which it would be necessary renegotiate at least in part.
This belated lucidity makes it difficult to improve a treaty adopted by most members of the international community.
It is apparent in the text of this resolution which shows a marked change of tone on behalf of Parliament, which appears to have discovered that the WTO is systematically calling into question the main provisions of current external commercial policy.
How can we protect the European cultural exception against WTO mechanisms?
How can we protect European development aid policies? How can we prevent unbridled international competition from systematically favouring producers who are the least respectful of indispensable social and environmental standards?
The first arbitration decisions by WTO panels do nothing to reassure us in this respect. What we see in operation is the crude logic of the system the Commission joined in Marrakech and which it helped to develop.
My group has supported most of the amendments which emphasized the need to defend regional commercial preferences as instruments of development.
The WTO wants to get rid of these, on the pretext that they represent an unacceptable violation of the principle of commercial non-discrimination and that they introduce distortions of competition.
The evidence of four Lomé Conventions refutes that theory.
My group has also supported the various amendments which denounce the leniency of the policies adopted by Community institutions within the WTO, making concession after concession without any significant returns.
Secchi report (A4-0228/98)
Madam President, as crucial as it is to insist on common principles of taxation in a single market, it is as vital, however, to adopt a clear position against the dominant tendency in the States of the European Union towards creeping tax increases.
For example, the benefit derived from closing tax loopholes, as we so nicely term them, will only be slight if sufficiently attractive financial centres exist simultaneously throughout the world.
In fact, mobile risk capital will escape from Europe while its honest and hard-working citizens continue to be fleeced of their savings.
The enormous increase in risk capital can be attributed to, among other things, the high taxation of money entering the production process.
It is not the tax oases that have a distorting effect on the internal market, but rather the excessively high corporation taxes and excise duties.
I have spoken out against parts of the report because it skirts around this very real problem.
We have countries in the present Union where the level of taxation is approaching the 50 % mark.
Our clear aim therefore must be an obvious reduction in this tax burden.
There is the principle here that, within the meaning of subsidiarity, the State does not have the right to increase the tax burden and then to re-distribute gifts to its citizens indirectly by way of an expensive bureaucracy.
In this context one should recollect the American economist Arthur Laffer, who proved that above a taxation level of 25 % concealment of income increases progressively.
The black economy is a logical consequence of this.
Madam President, I want to point out that this report basically accepts the whole idea of globalization, the internal market, absolute free trade and the free movement of capital.
We are trying to work with the problems that all this creates.
We need to reintroduce some level of capital control and not turn ourselves into a completely open space for multinationals, which is what Europe is being turned into.
With the creation of the single market it is now basically up to Brussels to control everything: indirect taxation, national budgets, interest rates and corporate tax.
Next it will be income tax and fiscal harmonization.
I have serious problems with all of this, and think we are taking the wrong approach.
We cannot support the Secchi report because it paves the way for fiscal harmonization which would divert tax money from Denmark.
Conversely, we believe it is sensible to co-ordinate rates of taxation between Member States, but only by way of minimum regulation and not harmonization.
There is no such thing as harmful tax competition in the EU.
The idea behind the single market was to encourage competition by removing barriers to the free movement of goods, services, money and people.
The results have been clearly beneficial.
So if free competition is beneficial in these other fields, why should it be harmful in tax?
The European Commission's communication 'A package to tackle harmful tax competition in the European Union' is the wrong prescription for a non-existent malady.
Some Member States complain about the low level of Irish Corporation Tax, about the lack of a Withholding Tax in Luxembourg and about the zero social charges (taxes on jobs) in Denmark.
Some even complain about the unfairness of the relatively low level of income tax in the UK (they overlook the increased tax burden on UK citizens since the election of a Labour Government).
You never hear the British complaining about the low level of excise duties in France, Spain, Italy and Portugal though it could be argued that low taxes on alcohol and tobacco are harmful - principally to the health of our fellow citizens.
For me, the correct analysis of tax competition is not that some countries have too low taxes.
It is that the countries who complain loudest, notably France and Germany, have too high taxes.
As a British Member of the European Parliament, I would like to see the tax burden reduced in those countries to British levels.
High taxes and 'social charges' destroy jobs.
Much as I appreciate the rapporteur's work, I, with my colleagues in the British section of the EPP Group, will be voting against the report.
The motion for resolution we now have to discuss raises a fundamental question regarding the future of the single market and, more generally, the European Union as a whole.
Introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999, in eleven of the fifteen Member States, actually calls for greater coordination of policies, including those relating to taxation.
This is actually a mandatory path to follow for all those who, having raised the matter of unemployment and jobs in Europe unambiguously, consider it essential to ease employment taxation.
Like most of us, I consider that the lack of tax harmonization between the Member States has led them into a tax competition that is potentially harmful for all, to the extent that it has resulted in significant losses of tax revenue for public authorities who are otherwise occupied rebalancing their budgets.
And this is at the cost of sacrifices that are sometimes difficult for populations to bear.
It is therefore with some satisfaction that we note the adoption by the Council of a resolution on a good conduct code in terms of company taxation and we have carefully observed the series of proposals formulated by the Commission in terms of tax harmonization.
It must be said that the proposal by the Commission and the agreement reached within the Ecofin Council on a community solution governing the matter of taxation on savings income paid by the Member States to individuals living in another State are particularly heartening for a Belgian politician like myself.
In our opinion, all of these measures should be regarded as the first steps on the path to further progress.
This is especially so in the area of indirect taxation, but also with regard to the taxation of non-renewable energy sources or, indeed, to tax definitions.
Clearly, tax harmonization should be one of the main objectives for those who wish to proceed on the path towards a federal Europe that is economically prosperous and socially just.
Although as yet far from incomplete, the measures outlined to us today are moving in the right direction.
This is why I support the resolution proposed.
The alignment of taxation systems at European level is a key factor towards the enhancement of the single market.
The Commission proposals and the report by Mr Secchi seek to remove the barriers to satisfactory operation of the single market.
The report states - rightly, in my opinion - that it is important to harmonize certain elements in our taxation systems.
Two arguments militate in favour of improved coordination of our taxation systems: firstly, the distortions that might arise in different taxation systems concerning the optimum allocation of funds and investment, whether from financial or production sources, within the European fold; secondly, the drying up of some tax revenues, which could pose very serious budgetary problems for certain Member States.
If a degree of tax competition is to be maintained - because this is useful in order to impose certain disciplines on states - it must be conducted within the framework of the tax rules, especially with regard to taxation on savings and cross-border taxation.
This is the view adopted by the Secchi report and I can only approve it.
However, it is perhaps regrettable that the Commission and the Secchi report do not seem to have put forward any proposal regarding certain elements of direct corporate taxation, such as the way the rate for corporate taxation is calculated.
Apart from this reservation, I am pleased to note the proposals for a good-conduct code and minimum deductions at source with regard to the taxation of savings by European non-residents in a Member State.
However, the rate of deduction at source must not be so high that it discourages saving or results in relocations outside of Europe.
I am also pleased to note the measures designed to eliminate deductions at source on cross-border payments of interest and dues to companies which create distortions that are harmful to growth and jobs.
In the field of relations within a group of companies, we should also go even further, especially in terms of calculating corporate tax in a consolidated way at European level.
For all the reasons set out above, I therefore vote for Mr Secchi's report.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Secchi report on tackling harmful tax competition in the EU.
We have elected to vote in favour of the report because:
it places positive emphasis on the Council's adoption of a code of conduct for company taxation and establishment of a code of conduct group to evaluate national taxation measures that are harmful to the interests of the Community.-it refers to the fact that differences in systems and levels of taxation based on social or environmental factors and aspects of health and consumer protection are legitimate.-it recognizes a need to achieve a common minimum level of taxation in areas where tax competition results in harmful conduct.-it emphasizes the need for the code of conduct to be carefully adhered to in company taxation.However, the Danish Social Democrats cannot agree with the section of the report dealing with fiscal harmonization.
The fiscal structures of Member States are widely divergent, each having different ways of protecting its citizens.
Thus, bringing taxes more into line is unacceptable.
However, we can endorse common minimum levels, inter alia with regard to company taxation and capital gains tax.
At the recent summit in Luxembourg, the Heads of State and government reached agreement on a code of conduct relating to tax competition which seeks gradually to do away with harmful practices in this area.
On that occasion, Luxembourg stressed the fact that any action relating to taxation on capital income should be offset by a similar action with regard to corporate taxation.
Luxembourg was of the opinion that this should be a binding commitment imposed by a Community directive: tax dumping can only harm European companies and create all types of distortion in the Common Market.
With regard to the range of tax systems prevailing in individual Member States, there is no reason to change it now.
In truth, tax competition can be an asset when it is practised between tax systems: some are more efficient and lower tax rates can be applied, whereas others must offset a lesser degree of efficiency by imposing higher taxes.
The Commission proposals regarding corporate taxation signal an initial step forward in the right direction towards better coordination of tax policies.
The procedure is acceptable since it consists of a package of measures rather than isolated proposals.
The scope for action remains huge and there is still a great deal to be done before taxation is no longer a barrier to the four freedoms.
The Secchi report encourages Member States to work towards the scrapping of the tax havens that exist within the Union.
Luxembourg is not named specifically, but there is no doubt that it is targeted, although all the Member States try to attract business with enticing tax exemptions; although all the Member States attract private investors with tax arrangements that favour non-residents, some Member States harbour genuine sanctuaries that are totally deregulated.
For this reason it is wrong to target Luxembourg alone, which has a financial centre that is subject to strict regulations (on the laundering of money from drug trafficking, for example) and an efficient tax system that enables it to impose relatively low rates.
Hence any future harmonization of tax policies should encompass all Member States and their dependencies, as well as an immense panoply of tax domains.
Given these comments, I have voted for the Secchi report, in the knowledge that it is simply a parliamentary recommendation and that the final decisions are to be taken unanimously by the governments of the Member States.
We have voted in favour of the sections of the report dealing with banks: their duty to give information, code of conduct, minimum level of business tax and measures against the so called tax havens.
The report does, however, also include harmonisation of taxes on a grand scale.
This encroaches on the prerogative of the national parliament and on citizens' rights to decide their countries' taxation policy via the ballot box. Besides, it is a threat against the countries' financial stability.
We have, therefore, voted against the report in the final ballot.
This also marks our reservation against the demands, so often recurring in the debate, to abolish consensus in matters of taxation.
In our opinion, such a measure is contrary to the Treaty.
As the rapporteur, Mr Secchi, said, the process of coordinating the European Union's tax systems according to the commitment made by the Council of Ministers in this regard must be speeded up.
I am in fact firmly convinced that the current distortions and differences in tax systems could thwart the efforts made to achieve economic and monetary union, eliminating the potential advantages and opportunities that the single market can offer in terms of economic development and the gradual reduction of today's structural unemployment.
If left intact, the current system may actually lead to a gradual loss in the power and sovereignty of individual Member States to tax.
Furthermore, I endorse the composition of the package of anti-competition tax measures which is an effective way to first plan and then implement the entire strategy.
I congratulate the rapporteur and therefore give him my full backing for his report.
Situation in Kosovo
It is a matter of the greatest urgency that the European Union not only condemns Serbia's actions in Kosovo, but also employs the economic, political and diplomatic methods the Union has at its disposal.
We do, however, object to preparations for a military intervention.
Military action can only be possible after a decision in the UN Security Council.
Yet again this House has adopted a resolution on Kosovo.
Firstly, we should bear in mind that this build-up of resolutions does not seem to have resulted in any lessening of political tension in the region: quite the reverse.
We should also point out that this resolution, like its predecessors, is typified by its absurd dualism, by a frenzied attack on the Yugoslav Federation and Serb Republic, by a single lack of historical perspective in its assessment of the situation in Kosovo and by a serious lack of regard for the local, regional and international consequences of the lavish inducements extended to the Kosovan breakaway militia.
We do not in any way underestimate the democratic shortcomings of the former and existing Yugoslavia, or the excesses of the various nationalist groups confronting each other in this region, or indeed the suffering of the civilian populations taken hostage by these nationalist groups; we feel compelled to deplore the superficiality and partiality of the positions adopted by the European Parliament.
Guided by the dictates of American diplomacy, under the influence of two EU Member States and under pressure from a powerful parliamentary lobby yearning for the old style of political organization in the Balkans, the European Parliament has, for eight years, declared a sort of political and legal war against one of the signatory States of the United Nations Charter, which should have guaranteed the integrity of its borders.
In total contradiction to that guarantee, we have encouraged the dismantling of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; we have urged the "friendly' federated republics to align themselves individually with the European Union; we have begun the accession process with Slovenia, thereby rewarding its leaders for their self-aggrandizing conduct; we have raised all those who crafted the partition of Yugoslavia to the rank of allies of the European Union and "democrats' , sometimes in defiance of the evidence; we have multiplied sanctions, blockades and embargo procedures and military threats against the Srpska Republic, which stands accused of all the evils committed during the events taking place in that region.
Since that immense destructive effort was apparently not sufficient, it was the territorial integrity - forged by geography and history - of Serbia itself that has been attacked by urging on, even before the end of the war in Bosnia, the Albanian secessionists of Kosovo.
This encouragement has been so excessive and lacking in political intelligence that it has resulted in the marginalization of the moderate leaders of Kosovo who were looking for an even-handed solution in the Yugoslav Federation, for the benefit of the ALK extremists who, weapons in hand, are today struggling for the independence of Kosovo and tomorrow will push for its return to Albania.
The European Union has encouraged Croatian independence, an independence that all Croatian communities have paid for in Vukovar or Knin.
It "guaranteed' the independence of Bosnia and secured the partition of that region, together with the massacres at Mostar, Ilidza and Srebrenica.
It fuelled the flames in Kosovo and provoked the terrorism of the independenceseekers, resulting in its inevitable and probably disproportionate repression.
Tomorrow, the blindness and partiality of the Union and the United States - let us make no mistake about it - will give rise to widespread frontier disputes in the region - especially those of Albania and Macedonia - as well as serious disorder in Vojvodine and Sandjak.
The Yugoslav Federation was founded on a conventional subjective view of nationality, the very same as that which led to the European integration process.
Instead of promoting this vision of nationality, we have settled the political problems - unquestionably real problems - that existed in the Yugoslav Federation, by applying another conception of nationality, both romantic and objective, which favours ethnic loyalties and which has already inflamed Europe twice in the course of this century.
Through its accumulated errors, the European Union has turned its back on its own history, misunderstood its culture and visited an outrage on its future.
We still have time to avoid committing the irredeemable sin and to reintegrate the Serbian people in the European Community to which it belongs because of its great contribution to the freedom of all peoples in its region.
This is why I intend to vote against the resolution.
Safety of transport of nuclear fuel and waste
We cast our vote for the compromise resolution.
When nuclear waste is transported, all populations of areas affected are put at grave risk.
All local and regional governments of such areas should be entitled to have full details as responsibility for dealing with emergencies would rest upon them.
We object to risks taken in transport to Dounreay for the following reasons:
1) the standard of cask carried by the US aircraft was sub-standard;
2) the Dounreay facility is scheduled to close because of safety faults below international safety norms;
3) the UK violated requirements for all reprocessing to be returned to the country of origin;
4) the UK overturned the Nuclear Inspectorate's ban on transport of nuclear material to Dounreay.
The transport of dangerous waste is a difficult problem which cannot be lightly dismissed.
In this respect, I am in favour of many of the excellent points contained in the common resolution on which we have expressed an opinion.
It would even have been possible to go much further.
However, these good points must be seen in the light of certain criticisms.
From an organic point of view, we are against the interference of supranational structures in environmental policy.
Prevention and increased supervision and control are in fact necessary in the Member States.
But national political authorities must first of all shoulder their responsibilities, so that progress can be made in the right direction.
Furthermore, if certain countries show weaknesses or delays with regard to environmental protection, such shortcomings should be resolved by means of the normal mechanisms of diplomacy and international agreements.
As for the amendment tabled by the PSE, it is surprising on the part of a group which calls itself left-wing and prides itself on defending the weak.
To refuse to allow nuclear waste to travel though densely populated areas, is tantamount to allowing it to travel through less densely populated areas.
That is a scandalous notion.
All populated areas must be avoided.
That is all.
Last but not least: we do not accept the imputations against EDF in this proposal for a resolution.
If any such problems exist, they must be resolved by means of national internal mechanisms.
We have therefore voted against the whole of this resolution.
Herring for industrial purposes - fishery resources in the Baltic, Belts and Sound - industrial fisheries
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0142/98 by Mrs Langenhagen, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation specifying conditions under which herring may be landed for industrial purposes other than direct human consumption (COM(97)0694 - C4-0041/98-97/0353 (CNS)); -A4-013/98 by Mr Kofoed, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending for the seventh time Regulation (EEC) No 1866/86 laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources in the waters of the Baltic Sea, the Belts and the Sound (COM(97)0675 - C4-0017/98-97/0354 (CNS)); -A4-0201/98 by Mr Kindermann, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on industrial fisheries.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal, which has been adopted by the Commission and is already in effect, is a result of negotiations in the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission.
In principle, I can say that we agree with the measures taken, but I do have a few comments, mainly for future reference.
We are not altogether happy about the proposal being brought before Parliament for consultation at such a late stage.
We should have been finished by Christmas so that we could have had a debate that would have influenced the final Council decision.
I would like to touch on the actual administration of resources in the Baltic Sea.
Firstly, there is the matter of salmon fishing.
I cannot understand why salmon fishing should be curbed as severely as it has been, since we know that juvenile salmon are being released corresponding to a catch of 700, 000 salmon; nevertheless, the quota is set at a mere 400, 000.
Our own experience in the Baltic Sea is that the salmon are plentiful, but some underlying political decisions are involved.
One gets the impression that - in order to protect so-called wild salmon - the idea is to restrict the catching of any salmon.
In one particular country, Sweden, there is a tourism factor involved, since it is felt that salmon should be caught in the rivers for the benefit of the tourists.
I believe that approach to be flawed.
The basis of this framework has not been proved scientifically.
That is one point.
Another point concerns fishing for cod and herring in the Baltic Sea.
I am extremely concerned about trends in both these stocks and I therefore believe the Commission should consider this very carefully and endeavour to place limits on capacity.
We have proposed restricting horsepower per vessel to eliminate the huge trawlers that come down to the Baltic Sea in the cod season, resulting in over-fishing.
Regarding herring fishing in the Baltic, I am not in favour of fishing in the Baltic for herring destined for use in fish meal because herring stocks are not particularly plentiful in the Baltic; thus, fishing there for this purpose should be avoided.
I can understand Sweden and Finland fishing for this purpose in the northern part of the Baltic Sea.
But it is my belief that even this affects herring stocks in the rest of the Baltic, so I recommend to the Commission that more caution should be exercised in future with regard to this type of fishing.
I must also stress that more attention should be paid to conservation measures.
A direct ban on fishing should apply during breeding seasons and in waters where the fish are breeding, to allow fish stocks to replenish freely.
That is how to cultivate a stock.
My next comment concerns the so-called floating trawl.
This is a highly effective tool which, however, also takes with it types of fish other than those being fished for.
This factor contributes to the problems of fish stocks in the Baltic.
Finally, I must mention that the ecological balance in the Baltic has not been studied.
I have the feeling that when 1m tonnes of fish are caught in the Baltic and brought ashore, nutrients are too depleted to feed the stocks that are supposed to be building up.
I believe biologists have taken far too little account of the need to nourish fish stocks.
Production is not possible without this.
In agriculture, it is an accepted fact that a quantity of nutrients must be put back into the soil equivalent to the quantity removed through farming.
No-one considers this in terms of fishing policy.
I therefore recommend to the Commission that it should let biologists study the ecological balance in these waters, because we need to "cultivate' the waters, too, if they are to be capable of producing good food for our citizens.
Otherwise, Madam Commissioner, I can report that we support the motion as it stands, but that new elements will need to be incorporated in next year's negotiations.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, the Committee on Fisheries, on whose behalf I have drawn up the present report, deemed it necessary to address the issue of industrial fishing in an initiative report.
Since this involves a hotly debated and also highly important subject, which so far has failed to receive proper attention both in the European Parliament and in the European Union as a whole, we hope to able to remedy the matter with this report.
We are talking here about fishing with very small-meshed nets, whose catches are meant for industrial processing.
Target species are usually fish which do not serve direct human consumption or are only used to a limited degree for this purpose.
This type of fishery is very important in the North Sea, which is why the report concentrates on this region.
Industrial fishing's share of the total North Sea catch has stood at almost 60 % over the last few years.
This means that here twice as many fish are being caught for industrial exploitation as they are on average worldwide.
Industrial fishing, however, is not just a regionally significant sector of the economy.
It is also the subject of controversial discussions on ecological justifiability.
Many will recall the campaign by Greenpeace against sand eel fishing off the Scottish coast in the summer of 1996.
This was to do with the fact that, as a result of the fine meshing of the nets, sexually immature edible fish were being caught as a by-catch.
Owing to the high catch rates with the target species in the sand eel fishery, the annual catch is in the order of one million tonnes.
That is why many people are concerned about the stocks themselves and the maintenance of the food chain.
The Committee on Fisheries has taken the clear view that fishing for industrial purposes is only justifiable if it observes the principle of sustainability and if, in cases of conflict, priority is given to fishing for human consumption.
The report states that in the past, especially with mixed fishing and sprat fishing, there has been a very serious problem with monitoring compliance with Community law.
This has been reflected in the excessive catches of target species and the permitted by-catch of protected species - especially herring - being fairly regularly exceeded. The high mortality rate for herring in the North Sea, which caused the Council to introduce emergency measures in the summer of 1996, has no doubt been partly caused by the large by-catch of herring landed through industrial fishing, where the proportion of herring is sometimes predominant.
However, we also want to acknowledge the positive developments.
The Council has introduced, as one of the emergency measures of July 1996 which have just been mentioned, an absolute upper limit for landing herring for industrial purposes, which - once reached - will lead to the fishery in question being closed.
This measure has proved to be very effective, especially since the Danish fisheries authority, in whose jurisdiction most ports of landing used by industrial fisheries are to be found, introduced in the same year a comprehensive monitoring system with a high degree of intensive sampling.
Initial figures available for 1997 indicate a drastic reduction in the herring by-catch.
It is our opinion, however, that one should wait and see what experience over several years brings before finally judging the effectiveness of the new system.
Council and Commission have taken the course of setting maximum permissible limits to reduce the by-catches.
The effectiveness of such measures is, of course, dependent on rigorous controls in the ports of landing, constant monitoring and recording of the composition of the catch and prompt closure of the fishery when the by-catch limit is reached.
The new Danish monitoring system might satisfy these conditions.
However, it needs to be accepted by the fishermen, too. Otherwise it is not worth very much.
There are signs that suggest this acceptance is not to be found with all fishermen at present.
We therefore advise caution and consider that it is still too early to relax the other conservation measures, as the Council and the Commission are intending to do by raising the permitted share of the herring by-catch in sprat fishing from the current 10 % to 20 %.
We have therefore come out against increasing the by-catch limit to 20 % both in the motion for a resolution on my report and in the legislative proposal on Mrs Langenhagen's report, which deals especially with herring fishing in the North Sea and the Baltic. In other areas of fishing there is an urgent need for action.
The report has made this clear.
In particular smelt fishing should be examined.
The problem with this type of fishery is with the large by-catch of protected species, especially young shellfish and whiting.
These are two species of edible fish whose mortality rate is very high.
Worse still, the estimated by-catches of shellfish and whiting in industrial fishing are being explicitly withdrawn from the annual TAC and Quota Regulation.
There are no by-catch limits here, although the industrial fishing by-catches in certain fisheries are higher than the permitted catches in consumption fishing.
This situation is no longer tenable.
We have therefore proposed as a minimum measure that the by-catches of protected species be taken into account in the annual fixing of the permitted catch rates and in allocating the quotas to the respective Member States.
This would give the Member States engaged in industrial fishing the opportunity to solve within their own fishing industry the conflict between industrial fishing and fishing for consumption, which has seen a shift to Community level.
We consider this proposal the neatest and easiest solution to implement.
Should the Council and the Commission finally prove willing to attend to this problem, they will be assured of Parliamentary support, even for alternative solutions and for the talks with the Norwegians.
There is also a need for action in the sand eel fishery.
While marine biologists do not estimate the stocks to be endangered due to the eels' reproductive capacity, they nevertheless do not want to rule out local reductions on account of these creatures' territoriality and the great dependence of certain edible fish, sea birds and marine mammals on sand eels as a food resource.
We therefore call upon the Commission, as a result of the large catches involved, to adopt a precautionary approach and to ensure the provision of a management plan, similar to those already found in many other fisheries.
This plan should encompass the setting-up of protection zones in ecologically sensitive areas.
Moreover, it is our opinion that a reduction of the by-catch currently permissible in sand eel fishing at sea is a viable proposition and is something which should therefore be made law.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I want to congratulate my colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries, Mrs Langenhagan, Mr Kindermann and Mr Kofoed, on their excellent reports which have a common underlying theme, namely sustainable fishing in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea.
I, like them, have a very strong constituency interest in the maintenance of fish stocks, in my case particularly in the North Sea.
I am especially concerned about the effects on the whole marine eco-system of the North Sea of the intense industrial fishing mainly by Danish boats.
Species like sprat, Norwegian pout and sand eel may not be used for human consumption but if huge numbers are scooped up for use as fish meal to feed pigs and chickens or as fish oil to make margarine and cooking oils and to feed farmed fish, the delicate eco-balance is distorted and food sources for fish like herring and cod, etc. which are eaten by humans are depleted.
Other sea creatures like seals and birds are also threatened by declining sources of food.
I have particular concerns about the taking of herring for industrial purposes.
The herring is an especially nutritious fish for human beings but sadly one which is no longer to be found in great abundance on the slabs of our fishmongers.
In the past, certainly in the UK, it was a very common, cheap but delicious and healthy part of the diet of many less well-off families.
Now it is far less widely available and costs much more.
Fisherman who catch herring for human consumption are finding fewer and smaller fish.
Fisherman from my constituency believe that industrial fishing is one of the main causes of this state of affairs: both because the smaller fish on which they feed are being taken in huge quantities and because the herring themselves are being caught in the very small mesh nets necessary for industrial fishing, as indeed are undersized immature cod.
Therefore, Mr Kindermann's report is particularly welcome.
I urge support for his recommendations for stricter controls and limitations to be placed on industrial fishing, particularly those calling for careful ecological monitoring so that spawning and nursery feeding grounds can be protected through the introduction by the Commission of protection zones.
His proposals for tackling the problem of large by-catches in sprat fisheries by rigorous controls of landings and closure of fisheries when the by-catch limit is reached are also positive ways forward to ensure the survival and revival of herring stocks.
Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Langenhagen for her report, and also Mr Kofoed and Mr Kindermann.
In spite of all the work that has been done, the whole area of industrial fishing remains, certainly to me, a little bit mysterious.
In the European Union we land something like 10 % of the world's industrial catches, and it is sold for approximately 30 % of the value of fish that is caught for human consumption.
It is also clear that industrial fish catches contain an unknown quantity of edible and even valuable fish.
In circumstances where fish is scarce and expensive, as it is in the European Union, it is very wasteful to use any fish for industrial purposes if it can be processed for human consumption.
It is also disturbing to read in the explanatory statement - and this has been raised by Mr Kindermann - that 100 000 tonnes of herring was caught as a by-catch with sprat in the Baltic up to 1996.
This seems an extraordinary amount of fish.
I do not want to oppose the Commission proposal, referred to in the Langenhagen report, to allow industrial fishing to continue in this particular case.
However, I believe that the Commission is always under pressure to make excessive concessions to industrial fishing interests, and extending the right to fish for herring, even if some of it is of inferior quality, gives rise to serious doubts, even if Germany and Sweden did not catch their full quota in the Baltic.
It is unclear why this was so, but perhaps it is because it requires too much fishing effort because the stocks are in bad condition.
I do not believe that this gives us a case to convert stocks of fish suitable for human consumption to animal and fish feed.
The explanatory statement also informs us that, because of the way industrial fish is stored, it is impossible to tell exactly what quantity of by-catches there is.
If we catch 3 million tonnes of fish for industrial purposes in the European Union annually, with 7.5 % to 8 % of that being by-catches of edible fish, then that represents a quarter of a million tonnes of a commodity that is scarce in the European Union, when we are only 48 % self-sufficient.
A quarter of a million tonnes of edible fish being used for animal feed is excessive.
It is larger than the entire quota that an island nation like Ireland gets.
These reports have been useful.
But we need further information on this subject before we can come to a rational policy decision.
Mr President, in the United Kingdom when we think of fishing we tend to think of fish that we eat, fish and chips, maybe even fish that we might eat in the restaurants around Strasbourg.
Reading Mr Kindermann's excellent report - and I do not say that just out of politeness, it is an outstanding report - it came as quite a shock to learn that 30 % of the world catch, some 30 million tonnes, is used for industrial fisheries. Yet, in the case of the North Sea, which is subject to extreme environmental and ecological pressure, the figure is up to 60 %.
That is a warning signal which we cannot ignore.
What is this fishmeal used for? Seventy-five per cent is used for animal feed, the other twenty-five per cent for oils.
This could all be replaced by other substances which could be grown rather than harvested from the sea.
About a year ago I went to one of the few fish processors in my constituency in the city of Plymouth.
There I was confronted head-on by the problem of industrial fisheries.
This organization was catching, landing and processing herring and mackerel for major multiples.
Yet the owner was able to tell me that the problem was not the quotas for these species, but that because of the 10 % legal by-catch the industrial fisheries could take out more of the fish stocks than the people with legitimate quotas.
That is not only a problem to me conceptually, but it drives a coach and horses through the whole idea of a quota system that is there to be respected.
I was particularly amazed to read in the report that the number of herring taken by by-catch is greater than the quota itself.
There are a number of lessons to be drawn here.
In fisheries we talk about the precautionary approach.
Here is one area where we have to be very precautionary indeed.
It is going to be difficulty to rein back this particular sector of the industry; in Denmark it is an important industrial sector.
However, we have to change our priorities.
We have to be careful.
This is one of the lowest parts of the food chain in an area of sea that is under pressure.
I would be very interested to hear from the Commission what plans it has for the long-term future to ensure that this fishery is reduced quite substantially, or at least that it will not have a damaging effect on the marine environment in the long term.
Mr President, this has been a fascinating debate.
I agree with Mr Teverson that we have had three outstanding reports to contribute towards our understanding of a very difficult problem.
For Denmark in particular there is an historical dependence which was encouraged by the Danish Government, and any measures to change the balance - with which I agree - should be matched by compensatory measures.
That is the kind of challenge which perhaps we should bring out and discuss in greater detail.
I wish to salute Mr Kofoed's honesty and courage in confronting the problems of the Baltic.
There is a whole series of matters of detail that he mentions, for example the salmon regime appears to him to be a rather crude regime and does not take adequate account of the sophisticated differences between tourists catching wild salmon and people who catch it for a living.
He has made a lot of very important points about engine size and bans on catches during breeding periods.
All these seem to be eminently common-sensical.
Likewise, Mr Kindermann, with his stress on conservation and reducing the herring by-catches.
This is extremely important, and I hope we will learn a lot from these reports.
The one lesson I would like to draw from both of these reports, and also from Mrs Langenhagen's report, is this: when you listen to what is happening in the Baltic, for example about driftnets, it is very different to what is happening in other areas, such as the Adriatic or the Bay of Biscay.
I do not see why the European Union should impose one regime on the whole of Europe.
This helps to convince me even more that we have to have a differentiated approach in the future.
As some colleagues will know, at the moment I am doing some work on regionalization of the common fisheries policy.
This is the kind of ammunition and data which we need to be able to put together, under the umbrella of the common fisheries policy, a regional approach.
I thank the rapporteurs for their contribution.
Mr President, industrial fishing, not least at its present scale, seriously threatens fish stocks and the ecosystem.
The fact that these ships catch large amounts of fish, which are basically fit for human consumption, for processing into fish meal and fish oil is especially galling.
It is a waste of a valuable source of nutrition and protein.
Also, large amounts of food for other fish species, sea birds and sea mammals are thus lost.
It is therefore high time that the principle of sustainability is realized in the industrial fishing sector.
Unfortunately, I note that this principle is often demoted when the Council makes decisions.
Council policy is mainly aimed at continuity in respect of the industrial fishing sector.
The distribution of the quota for sand smelt, horse mackerel and blue whiting speaks volumes in this respect.
Two thirds of the total North Sea contingent of horse mackerel has, for example, been allocated to Denmark, which processes this fish into fish meal.
Yet it is eminently fit for consumption.
So there is no question of preferential treatment in the case of fishing for human consumption.
The attitude of the Council in respect of fishing for sprat shows scant determination.
The establishment of an overall limit on herring catches when fishing for sprat was admittedly a significant step in the process of reducing by-catches.
But at least 10 % of the total herring catch in the North Sea still disappears into fish meal, as a by product of the sprat fishing sector.
This particularly affects herring which are not yet sexually mature, which are caught before they have been able to contribute to the preservation of the species.
I therefore consider an increase in the permitted by-catch percentage for herring in the sprat fishing industry of between 10 and 20 %, as decided by the Council on 24 March, a serious matter.
It removes all incentives to change over to more selective catching methods.
In conclusion, the treatment of the Commission proposal on the industrial fishing of herring in the Baltic comes too late.
The Council has already achieved a political agreement in regard to this.
The recommendation of this Parliament is only required by the Council to allow it formally to confirm the agreement which has already been concluded.
The Kindermann report deserves a more serious consideration in the Council.
The recommendations it contains for restricting catches, protecting ecologically sensitive areas, limiting by-catches and so forth, ought to be implemented as soon as possible.
Mr President, we are dealing with three excellent reports here.
Indeed if you look at the explanatory statement you will see that two of them were adopted unanimously and only one person abstained on the Langenhagen report.
It is an indication of the breadth of support across the committees for the sentiments which the three rapporteurs are presenting.
They are all on the same theme: the need to look at industrial fishing.
There is a need to carry out research into industrial fishing and the impact of industrial fishing on the fishing industry. The second theme they all put forward is the most important aspect of the fishing industry: is fish primarily for human consumption?
Industrial fishing really is an extra. They all make the same point that the important thing is fish for human consumption.
This is what we, as European Parliamentarians are doing for our constituents - we are helping to ensure there are sufficient stocks.
The third theme which runs through the reports is the need for conservation of stocks.
Mr Kindermann mentions it with the decision of the Council to fix, for the first time in 1998, a quota for sand eels which, up to that time, was a non-quota stock.
There was no limit on the quantity of sand eels which could be extracted from the North Sea or elsewhere.
Indeed this gave us in the West of Scotland a particular problem.
There is an area called 'the wee bankie' , where some Danish and Scottish fishermen almost came to blows at the end of last year over the fishing activities that were going on there.
The Scots alleged that the activities of the Danes were affecting the stocks of cod.
There was a little bit of a problem there, but we got it ironed out.
It is important that there be adequate research into the effect of industrial fishing on the stocks of cod, but also into the whole marine environment.
Mr Kindermann talked about salmon.
We have a problem with wild salmon.
It is important that we see what the impact of industrial fishing is in this area.
We also must look at the conservation measures.
Mr Kindermann mentions the size of nets in the technical measures in his report.
It dovetails from Mr Kofoed's earlier report on MGP IV, which was dealing with mainly technical measures.
So we really have to bring these things together.
I congratulate the three rapporteurs for doing an excellent job.
Mr President, the Commission has rightly proposed a ban on industrial fishing outside the Baltic Sea area.
Behind the proposal is the concern for the general decline in herring and Baltic herring stocks as well as the negative effect on the environment caused by fishing.
Marine birds, for example, can get caught up as by-catches in nets with small mesh sizes.
In the Baltic, however, the situation is different, as there the herring stocks are not under threat and fishing even has a positive effect on the marine environment.
Fishing reduces the amount of fish that would have to be thrown away and even helps increase cod stocks.
In addition, fishing is important for sparsely-populated coastal areas.
The livelihood of the people in these areas is often dependent on this one occupation.
Finland's and Sweden's herring fishing industry must therefore be allowed to continue.
In the Accession Treaty countries were permitted to fish herring for animal feed until the end of 1997.
The new regulation will, in my opinion, come into force retroactively from the beginning of this year and not merely from 1999 on, as proposed in the amendment tabled by the Committee on Fisheries.
The total catch quota for the Baltic is high, however.
Although there are no problems as yet, fishing - and especially intensive fishing - must be monitored.
The principle of sustainability in fishing must be observed.
That is why I give my enthusiastic support to Mrs Langenhagen's motion to amend the regulation, in the light of recent scientific evidence.
With reference to Mr Kofoed's report, I wonder why the Commission gave its international recommendation to the members of the Baltic Fishing Commission so late that the deadline for filing a protest had already passed.
The Commission's proposal in respect of the fishing of flounder and plaice, however, can be readily endorsed this time around.
Mr President, I would like to point to a very important question concerning the Baltic Sea, and that is the ruthless exploitation of wild salmon.
This practice must be stopped, as it seriously threatens the salmon in the Baltic area.
One of the main reasons for this is fishing with driftnets.
Particularly threatened is the very rare natural salmon, which is to be found almost exclusively in Sweden, but which also exists in Finland.
The salmon is born in the Swedish rivers in Norrland - the Northern region.
It then leaves the rivers and moves into the Baltic Sea for feeding.
The period the salmon spends in the Baltic Sea is, however, a dangerous time.
The main reason for this is large scale industrial fishing with driftnets measuring up to 21 kilometres.
Issuing EU approved limits and bans on fishing for sport on certain rivers, as has been done up to now, has merely symbolic value, whilst overfishing with driftnets is allowed at the same time.
This must naturally be stopped.
Another serious threat to the survival of the natural salmon is the disease M-74, which was discovered in 1974, with the M standing for environment related diseases.
This disease constitutes a severe threat to the natural salmon and its survival.
These are, therefore, important questions to bring up at the next meeting of the Baltic Commission and an issue which the environmental groups in Sweden and Finland are pushing for extremely hard.
Mr President, it is clear that sustainable and ecologically-sound fishing poses a challenge for the future.
But we are still far removed from this, particularly when we consider the issue of industrial fishing.
A solution to the problems associated with this in no way implies sustainable fishing.
By-catches, already mentioned, are a problem, but the catch is in general much too large.
Like previous speakers, I would therefore like alternatives to be investigated, such as vegetable sources, for the products which are presently being produced via the industrial fishing industry.
Industrial fishing is not essential for animal feeds and fish meal or oil.
An ecological approach deserves sound scientific research, of course, but this does not mean that we as politicians can sit back and await the arrival of these reports.
Waiting too long for the increased certainty which scientific research is supposed to offer us, and thereby failing to make decisions, means that we are not equal to our responsibilities.
I support all three reports: they indicate that it is possible to make a start on sustainability in the fishing industry.
We now await the actions of the Commission and the Council.
I wonder what measures they will instigate.
Mr President, many of us feel very hesitant, and with justification, about industrial fisheries.
It is, therefore, a pleasure to be able to congratulate Mrs Langenhagen, Mr Kindermann and Mr Kofoed on their good and well balanced reports, where one of the proposals is that the rules for by-catches of juvenile cod, for example, should be made more stringent, that maximum limits be introduced, that the control mechanism be increased, and so on.
Bearing in mind the vulnerability of the Baltic Sea, and that the situation there may suddenly be altered, the proposal to review the regulation before the year 2003 is positive.
It is a pleasure to note that the share of industrial fisheries in the Baltic Sea is slowly declining in favour of fisheries for human consumption.
We hope this trend will continue.
A great deal of the criticism directed at the industrial fisheries in the North Sea has been justified, due to the volumes involved and the risk to the eco systems.
Mr Kindermann suggests that a modicum of industrial fisheries can be accepted, provided this does not conflict with fisheries for human consumption. The latter must always take precedence.
On the whole, the criteria in Mr Kindermann's report ought to be applied to the Baltic Sea, too.
Mr President, first of all I would like to emphasize once again that Baltic herring in the Baltic Sea in fact is Baltic herring and not the same as the herring we are talking about here in this House.
There seem to have been some problems with the translation.
As we know, Baltic herring and the fishing of Baltic herring are of extreme importance for the professional fishermen in Finland, for the archipelago and the coastal region.
I welcome, and I have voiced my personal support for the proposal that the exemptions granted to Sweden and Finland in their Membership negotiations be given permanent status, so that the fishermen may know for certain that the fishing can continue.
I know that the Commissioner is very familiar with this matter.
The far reaching limitations on salmon fishing which have been effected in recent years, and which Mr Kofoed pronounced unfair, have further increased the importance of the fishing of Baltic herring.
The fishing of Baltic herring for purposes other than direct human consumption makes up 80 per cent of the total Finnish catch; the main part of it goes to fodder for fur farms.
So long as there is no set-aside for human consumption, we ought to be able to fish in the manner proposed.
As the price of Baltic herring for direct human consumption is higher, as much as possible goes to direct human consumption.
This form of regulation is also of fundamental importance for two other reasons.
It may contribute to a reduction of overfeeding in the Baltic Sea.
But the exemption is also important in the long term, as it will enable fish farmers to move increasingly to the use of fishmeal from Baltic herring instead of other nutrients being added to our waters.
Madam President, I would like to thank Mrs Bonino for having successfully concluded a problematic agreement on the banning of drift-net fishing.
I also think that the banning of drift-net fishing should be the subject of debate in the Baltic as soon as possible.
For it is not true to say that other species, especially seals, do not get caught in these nets in the Baltic Sea.
Secondly, it is very important to promote an increase in natural salmon for rivers in Northern Europe.
There have been promising signs of this recently, as there have been restrictions in the use of drift-net fishing.
I have heard that the Finnish government intends to bring up the matter of banning drift-net fishing this Autumn at the Warsaw Conference.
We should give it our support.
It is to be hoped that Sweden and Denmark will agree.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to deal with the three reports together - they are directly related to one another - and to tell you how pleased I am that on a topic as controversial as industrial fishing, whose different opinions are echoed in this House and in today's debate, the Parliament, although it has had a few subsequent suggestions, shares the Commission's point of view, especially on the need to give this type of fisheries a rational direction that takes into consideration for each fisheries activity the actual state of stocks, by-catches and the problems of monitoring.
I am referring in particular to the excellent report by Mr Kindermann. The Commission appreciates the fact that in it he highlights the progress made in monitoring and managing resources and the Commission's own desire to make further progress.
The Commission will closely analyse the suggestions in Mr Kindermann's report, but in this regard and in response to Mr Teverson, I would also like to make three remarks: first of all, the Commission considers the problem of monitoring the absolute priority of industrial fishing, and this is why industrial fishing vessels are included in the first phase of satellite surveillance which, as you know ladies and gentlemen, will begin in July; secondly, the Commission has very closely monitored herring fishing in the North Sea, especially since this was the subject of a special report, which you ladies and gentlemen have surely seen, and which states something that perhaps will not please everyone, and that is that industrial fishing is more controlled, or at any rate the controls are more effective than for other types of fishing; thirdly, as far as the more longer term initiatives are concerned, the Commission is currently financing research to understand exactly what the situation of the ecosystem is - since all the parliamentarians referred to this problem - and is pushing for and, moreover, obtaining a very concise study on the impact of industrial fishing by the International Council for the Exploitation of the Sea.
In fact, more than monitoring, I believe it especially important for everyone to know more about the impact on the ecosystem.
Regarding the convergence of views on the conditions in which herring fishing for reasons other than human consumption may and should be authorized, Mr Langenhagen proposes approving the general logic, the general system that the Commission has followed, particularly with regard to the distinction between the Baltic Sea and the other areas where current bans should remain in effect.
Indeed, beyond the approaches or values everyone has, I believe it important to say in concrete terms that the situation of the herring stock in the Baltic Sea is good.
We must also take this into account, beyond the approaches, however ideal, that we each may have.
I believe that a distinction between the two areas is legitimate, not only as far as the situation of the stock is concerned but also for the problems of by-catches.
The concrete problem that we must face therefore concerns the conditions under which herring fishing should be allowed for reasons other than human consumption.
In this regard, the Commission is trying to strike a balance between the need to create conditions that prevent abuses and the preoccupation - perhaps you ladies and gentlemen can understand me here - with not saddling the Union's fishermen with constraints that would put them at a disadvantage in relation to fishermen from other coastal States along the Baltic Sea.
This is another factor that we must take into consideration.
Currently, only the technical measures decided in the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission apply to the fishermen of third countries, as Mr Kofoed rightly points out.
Therefore we should try to have the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission adopt more restrictive rules which will apply equally to all fishing fleets and not just to those of the EU.
For this reason the Commission cannot accept the amendments, particularly Nos 1 and 4, precisely because they would only impose constraints on Community fishermen.
In Amendment No 4, the Commission certainly accepts the demarcation of zones - this is obvious - but globally speaking, it cannot accept the amendment precisely on account of the rules that govern the composition of the catches, which the Commission considers to be too restrictive.
As far as Amendment No 3 is concerned, the Commission accepts that part relating to the date of application, whereas the part on the revision procedure is not, in its view, suitably worded.
Finally, the Commission accepts Amendment No 2.
In conclusion, I would like to make two additional observations regarding technical measures in the Baltic Sea.
The Commission shares the view of the rapporteur, Mr Kofoed, on the shortcomings - also underlined in the speech - of the mechanism proposed by the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission.
As I already said, the Commission wants to avoid a situation where measures confined to the Community prove detrimental to our fishermen, and for this reason, as Mr Kofoed suggests, the Commission will do all it can to improve the technical measures that are decided at the next meeting of the International Commission I have just referred to.
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Future for the market in fisheries products- fish product canning industry and aquaculture
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0204/98 by Mr McCartin, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the future for the market in fisheries products in the European Union: responsibility, partnership and competitiveness (COM(97)0719 - C4-0029/98); -A4-0137/98 by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the fish product canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union.I now invite Mr McCartin, the rapporteur, to speak for a maximum of five minutes.
Mr President, the Commission Communication on the future for the market in fisheries products implicitly recognizes a number of shortcomings in the present policies.
Very briefly these shortcomings could be described in the following way.
Firstly, several phenomena on the market in fisheries products run counter to the efforts to conserve fish stocks, on which the future of the whole fishing industry is dependent.
Illegally landed fish, in particular under-sized fish, are being put on the market and, meanwhile, withdrawal of good quality fish from the market and the subsequent turning of this fish into low-value fish-meal and fish-oil occurs.
It even happens that good quality fish is dumped at sea with the support of the Community which, in this way, tries to prevent market prices from falling too low.
I know that in recent years the amount of fish actually destroyed in this way is relatively small but even 10, 0-20, 000 tonnes is too much.
Secondly, an excessive mismatch between supply and demand can be observed in certain areas, suggesting that the flow of information should be improved and that stronger incentives should be provided to producers to adapt their production to demand, and to buyers to pay more attention to what the producers can actually offer.
This is closely linked to a third set of problems relating to the competitiveness of Community producers.
Imports represent an increasing challenge and outside competitors may benefit sometimes from better fishing grounds, very low labour costs and sometimes government subsidies and, indeed, a failure to control them properly.
The Commission Communication favours improving the situation, in particular through first reducing withdrawals.
For its part, the Committee on Fisheries feels that the Community should not support the waste that withdrawals involve.
The temporary withdrawal of fish should be developed since it contributes to stabilizing without causing any waste and the putting on the market of illegally landed fish should be counteracted by strengthening controls in ports, particularly, and also in the subsequent links in the food chain.
A system of designated ports - ports which are designated for the landing of fish and fish may be landed only at these ports - is an idea that the committee certainly also supports.
Stimulating producers' organizations to achieve a greater regularity of supply by introducing catch plans is something our committee is also in favour of.
Encouraging an improvement in the quality of Community products and encouraging consumers to choose such products by means of certification and of labelling - this, too, the committee supports but clear rules must be elaborated so as to avoid uncertainties and distortions of competition between different producers.
As regards imports, the Committee on Fisheries cannot agree with the Commission that the system of reference prices should be abolished.
The Community should not abandon the possibility of intervening in case of serious disturbance of the market.
Furthermore, the Community should endeavour to counteract the distortions of competition that may follow from very low labour costs or irresponsible fishing by vessels flying flags of convenience.
In order to increase the supply from Community producers, the potential of aquaculture should be fully exploited.
This can sometimes be a controversial area.
But we have a consensus in the Fisheries Committee that there is tremendous potential there for peripheral regions to supply high-quality food to consumers in the Union while, at the same time, not neglecting environmental considerations, the health of the waters and the health of wild fish stocks, which can sometimes be affected if we go into this industry without having done proper research, as we have sometimes in the past.
In a Union where we have only 48 % self-sufficiency, it is quite obvious that there are regions - in particular Galicia in the north of Spain - where aquaculture well carried out can make an immense contribution to the viability of the local economy and, indeed, can supply the home market with high-quality food, and be a tourist attraction at the same time, because fresh, high-quality food from aquaculture can attract tourists to a region - people who have a liking for fresh sea food, consumed in its natural environment.
On a general level, the interdependence between the market and the other strands of the common fisheries policy is allimportant and has to be taken into consideration.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank the rest of my colleagues whose reports are being considered in this joint debate today - Mrs Langenhangen, Mr Kofoed, Mr Kindermann and Mr McCartin - and which I followed with interest in the Committee on Fisheries; indeed, I contributed to some of them with my amendments.
But I am sure they will understand if I concentrate today on my own report because, among other reasons, it is not often that we have reports relating to the fish product processing industry.
Yet, this industry is a fundamental pillar of the Common Fisheries Policy and an extremely important alternative to a possible reduction in employment in coastal areas dependent on fishing activities.
Processing, along with marketing and aquaculture, forms a complementary activity and one of diversification for economic activities in the fisheries sector. It creates its own jobs and is capable of absorbing labour surpluses at a time of crisis when we are talking about overcapacity, conversion and adjustment of the Community fleet.
In the European Union the canning industry alone provides some 50 000 direct jobs with 75 000 indirect jobs.
Given that employment is the focus of all of the Union's policies, these figures are significant; they are even more so if we add the fact that those jobs are located in peripheral coastal regions where there are few alternatives to fisheries activities.
The own-initiative report for which I am rapporteur is the first to refer exclusively to what we could call the subsector of canning within the processing industry. It has been aimed at drawing the attention of Parliament, the Commission and the Council to the situation of the Community canning industry and the significant potentialities it might have if we continue to support it and do not implement policies which damage its competitiveness and promote unfair competition with products processed in third countries.
The Community canning industry is involved in an important challenge of modernization and restructuring in order to adapt itself to the globalization of the market and the costly demands of the Community's environmental, technical and health and hygiene standards which act as a guarantee for the European consumer.
In this respect, it has received substantial Community aid which must continue to promote its ultimate modernization.
However, and in particular, it has been confronted with trade agreements with other countries which have allowed our markets to open up to products which are difficult to compete with in terms of price, due to their low wage and social costs and to lower technical and health and hygiene requirements. This has a negative effect not only on the final price but also, and more seriously, on the quality and guarantees for the health of consumers.
Given the risk of relocation of European businesses and its negative effect on Community employment levels, we need greater and improved control of extra-Community imports. In addition, the same demands must be made of them as are made of products processed in the European Union.
As a competitive advantage, we must make the most of the quality of our products and establish anti-fraud units specializing in fisheries as well as a network of specialized laboratories and a reference laboratory at Community level.
We must also promote a policy which supports and encourages quality among companies and campaigns to promote European canned products throughout the Union. In this respect, we should make use of the single market and the diversity of products processed throughout the territory, emphasizing their high nutritional value and the contribution certain canned products make to a healthy, balanced diet, such as blue fish in olive oil.
The labels must exactly represent the content of the product within and not use generic names, as happens with certain techniques used by third countries. This carries the risk that we may be taken in by the products we eat or, in this specific case - given the different varieties, qualities and prices of tuna - that we are given thunnus obesus , or bigeye tuna, or another variety, instead of expensive thunnus alalunga or long-fin tunny.
The Community policy on raw material supplies should be implemented in relation to the actual needs of the Community industry and new quotas should be opened only when they are strictly necessary.
Research and development involving new products, new species and new forms of presentation will have to be promoted just as the new COM in fisheries products will have to be adapted to the needs of the industry in relation to fishing activities.
In short, the report is asking the Commission for the following things: a serious and thorough study of the reality of the Community canning industry; proposals for a specific and global plan of action; and an analysis of the copious and scattered regulations currently in force. Further, canned products should be considered as sensitive products for which compensatory aid in trade agreements is required.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would point out that the report does not constitute a goal but is instead a departure point through which Parliament is taking a first step, drawing attention to this sector and promising - and I am doing this personally, as rapporteur - to follow up on its demands. In this way, we will together ensure that the European fish product processing industry takes the position it deserves in the world on the basis of its tradition, prestige, quality and potential, as well as its level of job creation; indeed, job creation is the main challenge for our society and all politicians must contribute to its success.
Mr President, I believe that a plan is beginning to emerge to reform the common fisheries policy even if, as usual, it is a policy that particularly affects Europe, deals with the problems of territorial waters and succeeds with difficulty in defining a different relationship with third countries.
I am in part satisfied that we are beginning to reorganize the international fisheries agreements, but it will do us no good to make progress on European territorial waters if we do not tackle the problem with third countries too.
Shipowners are currently paying tuna 40 lira a kilo: a ridiculous figure.
A large quantity of this product, 58 per cent, is imported in the European Union.
Of these imports, 65 per cent are not subject to customs duties and there are also hygiene and sanitary problems.
I say this because I am convinced that we need to harmonise not only the common fisheries policy but also our relationship with third countries.
Market policy can provide answers.
I am pleased with the Commission's proposal and communication and see that some positive choices have been made, including after the debate that this Parliament was able to engage.
I am thinking especially of the way in which Parliament has tackled the problem of organizing producers, the way in which an attempt has been made to monitor the products fished in territorial waters so that they are identifiable and attract the attention of consumers within the framework of market rules, so that their quality is also eco-compatible.
These are very important aspects.
For this, we must promote all the positive actions that favour the introduction of a designation of origin, the post-GSPs for fishery products - in my opinion these are important choices - but at the same time we must overcome the logic of supporting prices in such a widespread manner that is perhaps not always properly focussed.
We must aim much more specifically at supporting fishermen's income so that it is directly connected with the biological and environmental balance.
From this point of view, I believe that it is very useful to encourage a biological rest period, forms of subsidiarity in the work and possibilities of guaranteeing income - in addition to the work directly related to fishing - which will also enhance some of the anthropological aspects of the fisheries sector, of the relationship between fishermen and the sea which, if the commercial and economic logic prevails, risks being increasingly lost.
We need to transmit this culture too, a culture that involves respect for the sea, a balance between resources that can be caught.
This balance is restored not only by taking action based on our romantic vision of the sea but also by using scientific instruments that can guarantee adequate research which will put a value on the available resources.
From this point of view, we also need to develop a better policy of control that is not dispersive, one that makes optimal use of technological innovations.
I therefore applaud the fact that the satellite system can be used as a fundamental part of monitoring.
I believe that some important signs are emerging.
We will be able to continue this debate with the documents that will be presented to reform fisheries after 2002.
I believe, Madam Commissioner, that you have taken some steps in this direction, in your work with the Parliament, but I am also convinced that there are a few points on which we must work.
I am referring to a point to which I draw your particular attention and to which I am sure you are sensitive: the use of dolphins in military experiments.
I do not think we can accept this anymore.
Recently, carcasses of dolphins were found in the Gulf of Marseille. These creatures had been used for such purpose and their throats had been ripped open by the explosion of small bombs.
This matter must be put on the agenda so as to prevent it occurring again.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, the Community market for fisheries products finds itself in a very strange situation.
The high dependency on imports can undoubtedly justify allowing the tariffs established within the GATT, although they are low.
However, at the same time, the European Union is implementing a policy aimed at the removal of tariff barriers which, in my opinion, is affecting important quotas.
Whether with regard to agreements such as the generalized system of preferences or in the context of cooperation or other types of agreements, the Commission accepts provisions involving a total or partial withdrawal of tariffs for fisheries products; this leaves the Community industry increasingly vulnerable.
I am not denying that they may be justified in certain cases, however, we must prevent the continuation of situations - which I would even describe as ridiculous - such as those that force, for example, Community producers of tinned tuna to export to the United States with a tariff of 35 % while the United States exports to the European Union with a tariff of 24 %.
I am sure you will realize that this is certainly not a case where poverty or the need to promote the development of a country justifies a tariff preference of 11 %.
I am therefore particularly concerned - and I think that some of my colleagues have already mentioned this - about the Commission's statement regarding the likely market trend towards lowering tariff protection. We believe, on the contrary, that the Commission is obliged to protect, where possible, its own production by encouraging policies which contribute to an increase in internal supply.
It must also curb the removal of tariff barriers or demand reciprocity, as well as allowing differential treatment for products from joint ventures which do, after all, receive Community capital. In addition, the Commission should maintain reference prices, contrary to what its intention appears to be, and encourage carry-over premiums, particularly as replacements for withdrawal or destruction mechanisms which, in a market lacking high-quality proteins, paradoxically give priority to the conversion of fish into oils or fish meal.
We have thus been calling for a long time for a reform of the common organization of the market for fisheries.
The Commission has finally presented this document which, we presume, puts forward the guidelines from its imminent legislative proposal, which it has promised to submit before the end of the year.
We hope that the Commission, which has been slow in tackling this reform, will take into consideration the proposals our rapporteur, Mr McCartin, has included finally in his report, so that the forthcoming legislative proposal is capable of helping Community producers as soon as possible.
We ask that special attention be given to the introduction of measures guaranteeing that imported products meet the same health and hygiene guarantees as are demanded of our own products, with a view to preventing discrimination and unfair competition and encouraging the protection of the health of European consumers.
Madam Commissioner, these are only some of the rapid responses the market for fisheries products requires.
Mr McCartin's report, as well as the comprehensive and excellent report by Mr Varela on the Community canning industry, contain many others which are fundamental and which cannot be forgotten when tackling the reform of the common organization of the market. This is necessary not to achieve as yet its optimum performance, as the Commission itself hopes, but to provide a minimum balance between imports and the external aspect of its own production and between the different internal productions in terms of the Community market.
Mr President, I would like to speak about the report by Mr McCartin dealing with the vital matter of the future for the market in fishery products in the European Union.
Of course, there is no question but that the demand from the European market calls for a substantial share of imports from developing countries.
But let us not forget that 80 % of these imports already benefit from a preferential tariff system, many are even duty-free.
So the rapporteur is right - and Mrs Fraga pointed this out before I did - when he states that the Commission has a duty to protect Community producers to the best of its ability and that further measures to abolish customs duty on fishery products from outside the EU are really not what we want.
First, catches by fishermen of the European Union are governed by a self-evident fact: if there are no resources, there are no more catches.
This is why we must obviously support the efforts designed to control supply on the basis of market demand.
Also, as the rapporteur pointed out, we must encourage producers' organizations to work to catch plans and it seems logical - for the benefit of the fresh goods market - to steer intervention tools in the direction of withdrawals for put-back, rather than withdrawals for dumping.
We must encourage quality policies.
Of course, the existing joint organization of markets provides support for producers' organizations that commit themselves to quality improvement plans.
Whilst that assistance has not yielded the success we might have expected, this is due neither to its underlying principle nor the lack of forward-planning, but to insufficient amounts.
It is vital therefore that we revitalize the appeal of these incentives by stepping up the amounts involved.
We must let consumers know about these policies by showing our support, in particular, for those products that can be identified with a specific region, once they have been subjected to rigorous, thoroughly-tested quality control procedures.
Nevertheless, I would still question the advisability and actual definition of the eco labels we have in mind. In this respect, the Commission would call upon specialists in the fishing industry and any others involved.
What exactly does that mean? Does that imply official recognition of quality labels awarded by bodies set up for that specific purpose and funded, for example, by industrial consortia seeking to implant a positive image in the minds of the consumers?
Or, perhaps, by others whose ecological rhetoric often conceals a baser, customer-oriented philosophy? In which case, we might see the Commission turn against any scientific analysis and leap onto the bandwagon of a public opinion largely ignorant of sea-faring matters, easily deflected and, in some cases, easily manipulated - a particularly loathsome example of which we have just witnessed.
Mr President, salmon, herring and other sea-foods make the issue very appetizing and appealing.
Unfortunately the same is not true of the Community fishing policy.
This presents serious problems in its internal market, which shows a continuing deficit of approximately 60 %.
This shortfall is made up for by imports from third countries, many of which maintain low prices, due to what is commonly known as "social dumping' .
This policy has had particularly negative effects on coastal and small-scale fisheries, which show reduced levels of production and employment as well as a reduction in their share of the total fish market, to the benefit of large-scale fishing industries.
Any attempt to organize the market for fisheries products must therefore be aimed at the protection and balanced growth of the fishing industry. It must also be adapted to regional characteristics and it must protect mainly the small and medium-sized and coastal fishing industry, which is an important source of income and an important sector of employment, especially for the coastal regions and the islands.
Stringent measures must also be taken to conserve fish stocks and to maintain the marine eco-system. Measures must be taken to tackle illegal fishing and the landing and trade of fisheries products, as these will have positive repercussions for consumers who will have greater guarantees of product quality and price stability.
The common fisheries policy must not repeat the tragic mistakes of the common agricultural policy.
The Commission proposals for a reduction in fisheries production and partial compensation for lost income in the form of other subsidies will have the same negative results as in agriculture, that is, a reduction in employment and an increase in imports from third countries, disintegration of the social fabric, and depopulation of coastal and island regions.
I have other things to say, but I do not wish to monopolize the time available. I will submit them in a written explanation of the vote, as this matter of the fisheries industry, which really is extremely important for the Community, must be tackled by the Commission with both prudence and gravity.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate the Commissioner on his successful ban on driftnets, which was long overdue.
It is very important that the market for fish in the EU is reformed and consolidated.
Fish is caught to be sold on the market and therefore there is great scope, via the markets, to improve the efficiency of the CFP as well as promoting its conservation goals.
In this respect, the role which the market can play is particularly important.
The policy of withdrawing fish from the market and sometimes destroying it simply because the price is too low is totally unacceptable.
It is outrageous in today's world, with so much poverty and hunger, both around the world and right here in the EU, that such a policy should exist.
We have heard about promoting the consumption of fish as a healthy food to support the fishing industry.
This is fine and good, but it must be conditional and selective.
We must not be involved in promoting the consumption of all fish no matter what species, the area where it was caught or the gear that was used.
It could be argued that some of the stocks in the EU are in such desperate straits that it would be negligent or even worse to promote their consumption.
Another point which was just raised is the concept of eco-labelling, which is becoming more popular.
The Committee on Fisheries heard an account of this just a few months ago.
The scope for such a concept to be positive is really great.
But there are conditions which must be met to avoid some fairly obvious and serious pitfalls.
The criteria which are used by these ecolabels must be publicly available to all who are interested, and must be detailed and specific.
For instance, to say that a fish was caught in a fishery which is sustainable or responsibly managed is utterly meaningless, because one person's definition of 'responsible' may differ very much from another's.
Verification of such claims is also crucial if consumers are actually to have confidence in this.
This is where the thorny question is raised of who shall be responsible for ensuring that the claims are valid.
What role does the Commission see for itself in this area, or is it going to be the Member States' responsibility? We have all seen the vigour with which Member States have pursued the surveillance of fishing activities so far, and I would like to know the Commission's view on this question.
Mr President, I congratulate both rapporteurs on the work they have put into these very interesting reports.
Mr Varela's report is as good as the delicious Galician fish we have all consumed.
I have nothing really to add to that.
Mr McCartin has taken on a rather more thorny series of problems in his report and I congratulate him for addressing them.
We have a whole series of interlocking problems with the whole question of a free market and the idea of protecting the interests of those who are dependent on fisheries in a particular area.
I have already mentioned - and I think the Commission took note of it - the whole question of the possible regionalization of the common fisheries policy.
This is where we have to start looking very seriously at what that means in various contexts.
Obviously one starts from the cornerstone of relative stability.
That sets limits on what is possible.
When you start talking about local boats landing locally you have the problem of quota hopping.
There is no case for discrimination on the ground of nationality but a link with the local ports would clearly have to be part of that philosophy.
Like many fishermen, I am unhappy with the idea of centralizing the ports of landing.
Certainly in Scotland that has been a bone of contention.
Fishermen do not like being told you can only land in certain ports.
On the contrary, they would like the freedom to land.
But I would recommend to the Commission - and I think this is one idea that would be appreciated by fishermen throughout Europe - that it should centralize information about fish prices electronically.
Fishermen could use radios or other electronic devices to find out where to land their fish.
I think they would go for that kind of centralization.
Finally, with regard to Mr Baldarelli's points on balancing supply and demand scientifically, that would have support.
The amendments by Mr Souchet of the I-EDN Group are all very sound and we will be voting for most of them.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, looking back on the report by Mr McCartin, I would like to say that we are today confronted by two different policy orientations, that is to say fishery or agricultural products.
Some people, like our rapporteur, want us to adopt a totally liberal policy.
Others, including myself, prefer a policy that seeks to devote more attention to the interests of the producers by implementing the principle of Community preference more rigorously, by upgrading the fresh foods market, organizing the sector in a more effective way, maintaining market intervention facilities and incorporating them in some kind of specialist discipline.
Whilst it is clear that imports from developing countries are necessary nowadays to meet a structural demand from the European market, which falls well short of the requirements we seek in terms of sea-food products, we must nevertheless ensure that such exchanges with the developing countries take place in an atmosphere of fair competition.
This is why a strengthening of import controls seems to me to be very urgent, especially those relating to source and hygiene, which should take priority in the controls procedure, at both Community and national level.
The importance of the fresh food market for both producers and consumers is such that we must pay greater attention to it.
The 15 amendments tabled by our group relate mainly to this objective of upgrading fresh foods of Community origin, principally through product identification and a suitable quality improvement policy, whilst at the same time enhancing the fisheries product sector by extending the role of producers' organizations and by according greater recognition to inter-trade organizations.
Finally, with regard to intervention, we have tabled amendments seeking to strengthen the withdrawal mechanism to serve as a safety net, thereby contributing to market stability and the long-term survival of the fisheries product sector, whilst at the same time ensuring that it does not degenerate into a mechanism that merely provides a regular outlet for goods for which there is no market demand.
These amendments, Mr President, were devised with the special needs of the fisheries sector in mind, consisting mainly of small-scale companies which are obliged, when they feel the need to make up for a drop in the price of fish, to boost productivity by increasing their catches.
Mr President, we welcome the Commission initiative to present and, more especially, to discuss its ideas on the future of the market in fisheries products in the European Union.
The chosen form of a report makes for a discussion that is pertinent to the issue.
Three meaningful words are quoted in the Communication heading: responsibility, partnership and competitiveness - the correct sequence, in my opinion.
Fish is, and will continue to be, a scarce resource both inside and outside the European Union if some 50 % of the fish and fish products supplied in the EU originate from imports.
They are not available in the European Union.
That is why conservation of the fish stocks and market policy are closely connected.
The fisheries activity needs to be oriented globally on the basis of sustainability.
We particularly support restrictive measures for endangered stocks.
The main problem is adapting the fisheries capacity to available stocks, and this is where intervention should be the greatest.
Merely to regulate via the market is, in my opinion, a symptomatic response to the problem.
I am not the only one facing questions such as: How much of the market do we want to regulate? Where does responsibility, or rather the own initiative of those involved, begin and end?
What do we want - a market economy or a planned economy?
Standard management and marketing measures presuppose an effective and, above all, a balanced system of controls. We can do nothing other than support the call that fisheries products should only be landed in those ports which are effectively able to control them, but not, however, the extension of fisheries inspectors's rights to that of the retail trade.
On the other hand, it will also be vital - not only as part of the next WTO negotiations, but also with bilateral fishing agreements - to make some reference to social standards, which nowadays cause considerable distortion of competition.
In conclusion, I wish to thank the two rapporteurs for their very good reports, and I hope that we can continue to work with these excellent documents in the Committee on Fisheries.
Mr President, I welcome the report by my colleague Mr McCartin, which deals with many of the problems of the fishing industry.
It is clear that to date there has been significant over-fishing and in many cases illegal fishing of EU waters.
For example, Irish waters are regularly plundered by large industrial boats from other EU countries, many fishing with illegal nets.
This has led to disastrous effects not only on stocks, but also on the livelihoods of fishing communities who, for the most part, are situated in remote and peripheral regions of the European Union and have few, if any, alternatives.
Two elements are essential if we are to save the remaining fishing areas from total depletion.
Conservation and rebuilding of stocks - an absolute and urgent priority; and adequate policing, with the introduction and enforcement of severe penalties against those caught fishing illegally.
It is essential to find a balance between the needs of the fishing industry, the management of resources and the needs of the people who make their living from fishing and its associated industries.
We must bear in mind that the European Union imports 52 % of its total fish consumption from third countries.
So there is a very large market to be satisfied.
I believe that aquaculture can provide part of the solution to restoring the balance between imports and fish produced within the EU.
Aquaculture is a valuable source of employment and can cushion the hardship of the areas affected by the decline in fishing.
We have proved we can farm salmon and shellfish to the highest standards, taking all the necessary precautions to ensure good environmental practices.
It is necessary to maintain and enhance these practices by improving the possibilities for fallowing, to allow the sites used for fish farming to be totally rested and flushed.
Furthermore we should seek balanced agreements with our partners in developing countries where we are fishing at present and combine this with expansion in aquaculture, thereby protecting their fishing resources and providing new sources of production within the EU.
The CFP needs to combine all aspects of the fishing industry in order to provide a viable future for our fishing communities.
A combination of conservation and good management on the one hand, and increasing fish farming on the other, will go some way to securing that future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam Commissioner, I should like to refer to the report submitted by my honourable friend Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, whom I congratulate on a notable, I repeat notable, piece of work.
I believe the report covers all the fundamental problems in this sector.
There are, however, a few points which I think should be highlighted.
Firstly, the absence of a suitable framework of support measures for existing industries could threaten their survival.
It will be difficult, if not impossible, to compete with products from non-EU countries whose final-product costs are much lower than the Union's, either because of lower levels of technical and health requirements, or because of very different labour costs in those countries.
Secondly, we consider that the European Union should reinforce its quality control policy for its products, stimulate industrial effort by means of quality awards, records and labels, and hold promotional campaigns publicizing the quality and the European origin of the product.
Thirdly, with particular regard to the sardine-canning industry, to which Portugal is highly sensitive - and which is undoubtedly the industry which is most seriously affected - and following the partnership agreement with Morocco, we think urgent measures should be taken, including the establishment of a compensation fund for the Community canning industry and the maintenance of balanced subsidies for storage and freezing, to prevent market prices from fluctuating with seasonal variations, and here these subsidies should be granted to industries on production of evidence of payment of the minimum price for the product; the launch of a Community campaign to promote canned sardines and their derivatives, bearing in mind the high nutritional value of the product; and finally - as suggested by the rapporteur - we consider that the Commission should immediately conduct a general study of the present situation in the industry, concentrating particularly on the number of companies and the development of the sector over the last ten years in the various countries, so that the consequences of opening the market to non-EU countries become sufficiently clear, and including data on production, sources of raw materials, export and import figures, employment, technical and health regulations, duties payable, and in general the laws that govern the sector and, finally, how they are codified.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, any review of the Common Organization of the fisheries market must seek, among other things, to conserve stocks, maintain and improve regulatory mechanisms, strengthen partnerships between producers' organizations and industry, protect the quality of products, promote increased contributions by Community production to internal market supplies, and protect Community production and processing against social 'dumping' at world level, which is an unacceptable form of unfair competition.
Guidelines tending towards greater deregulation and liberalization will lead to even greater reductions in income levels for fishermen and producers, and will certainly damage operating conditions in the processing industry; they will contribute to the progressive deterioration of the whole fishing sector in many regions, with adverse effects on the economic fabric and aggravated unemployment, and may cause over-fishing, to which professional operators will be tempted to turn to prevent the further erosion of their already inadequate standard of living.
Unfortunately these principles appear to form the basis of the Commission's document, particularly inasmuch as no questions are raised over the derisory budgetary sums currently allocated to its market policy, and because it seeks to encourage the creation of transnational companies, whose devastating effects on small and medium-sized businesses in this sector - producers or processors - are easy to foresee.
There is no doubt that we have to rethink the present Common Organization of the markets.
For example, we accept that the set-aside system must be reviewed, if necessary by reducing the proportion allocated to the destruction of fish.
Nevertheless, the mechanism itself should be retained by increasing and/or creating other income support schemes for producers, just as we also need to provide subsidies for industrial freezing and storage, as stated in our amendment to Mr McCartin's report.
With regard to fixed guide-line prices, it is essential that we retain these, and likewise the compensation system for tuna.
In that connection it is unacceptable that there is still no comparable scheme for sardines, and we are therefore re-submitting an amendment to that effect, which we hope will be approved.
There must be a system of certificates of quality, origin and production and processing conditions.
We must also pay special attention to local markets and their supplies, and particularly to their positive effect on small coastal fishing fleets.
But we must also be aware of the fact that the European Union imports almost 60 % of its supplies. We must protect Community products against producers who have no quality control systems or no regard for social or environmental conditions.
We do not have the abolition of customs duties in new international agreements, in which the interests of the industry have been destroyed without even securing mutual guarantees.
In the report, as now amended - many of our recommendations have been adopted, and we hope it will be further improved as a result of this Plenary debate - the Commission will find, if it so wishes, sufficient ideas for revising the present Common Organization of the fisheries market without endangering the sustainability of the sector.
We await the legislative proposals which you will no doubt be submitting to us this year, Madam Commissioner.
A word about Mr Daniel Suanzes-Carpegna's report on the canning industry.
I will not take long, because it is in fact a very good report.
Its wording is excellent and, if the proposals are taken up, it will help to improve the operation of the canning industry.
Our two amendments to your report, Mr Suanzes-Carpegna, are intended to reduce the costs of raw materials without jeopardizing operations in other important sectors - such as olive oil - and to help strengthen the Producers' Organization. This is of fundamental importance if we are to set up effective partnerships with operators in the same sector.
Mr President, this evening's sitting on fisheries presents a gloomy picture.
It seems more like an academic meeting than a parliamentary sitting because we are discussing texts which are study texts and not legislative texts. A group of us, who already knew each other well because we are a group of friends from the Community fisheries sector, met in connection with these texts, which are in fact more academic than anything, and in circumstances which, according to the Commission reports, seem to be heralding the disappearance of the sector.
In other words, I have the impression that this is the type of debate we will look back on in years to come with nostalgia, as a time when we could still talk about the Community fisheries sector.
I am going to refer primarily to the Commission communication on the future for the market in fisheries products in the European Union.
I think that it is a good report, that is a report drawn up with great sincerity and honesty and one which also fulfils its role.
It is a preliminary report and the Commission has set itself a deadline of 30 June of this year. In other words, it has given itself a week or two to receive reference material and points of view from the sectors involved in production, from the social partners, etcetera, and on the basis of that information, it will undoubtedly draw up legislative proposals.
I believe that the report is very honest and reveals the problems facing the sector.
The basic problem, which has been highlighted by various speakers before me, is that 60 % of Community consumption of fisheries products comes from imports - the Community only supplies 40 % of its own needs - and that possibly - and this is a trend that can be seen clearly - our entire Community consumption will eventually come from imports.
I believe that that would probably be a line of defence.
From time to time, as far as fisheries are concerned, the news we receive is generally bad news.
We sometimes receive good news but that good news is usually accompanied by some bad news.
For example, the agreement reached on 8 June by the Fisheries Council establishes the ban on drift gillnets but postpones it until 31 December 2001.
Between now and 31 December 2001 there are six months left of 1998, 12 months in 1999, 12 months in 2000 and 12 months in 2001, which means that by the time drift gillnets are finally banned, there may well be no fish left that have escaped this equipment which is destroying the fisheries sector.
At least the desire is there to do away with this evil.
But sometimes the news we receive is completely bad. For example, recently there have been statements in the Spanish press by the Moroccan authorities who say that they are not going to renew the fisheries agreement.
Not only are they not going to renew the fisheries agreement with the European Union, but, in addition, a year before that agreement comes to an end - or more than a year in advance - they are going to take away from us a range of fishing licences in a certain zone. By doing this, it seems that they are not fulfilling the commitments made with the Community and, until the actual event, I was unaware if there had been any Community reaction.
And this, without any shadow of a doubt, is bad news.
In this respect, and to avoid this process, I would like to highlight the references made by the chairman of our Committee on Fisheries, Mr Fraga, and the conclusions of the report by Mr McCartin, which, in my view, was given serious deliberation and careful thought in the Committee on Fisheries.
I would also refer the Commissioner to paragraphs 14, 15, 16, 17 and 21.
In particular, in paragraphs 14 to 17, Mr McCartin's report refers to the need to maintain a system of protection for the Community market.
It is true that we are going to import an increasing number of non-Community products, but if we again lower the protection we have at the same time as we are being expelled from fishing-grounds, then we are asking to be expelled from even more fishing-grounds.
In some way, this Community fisheries market, which is so tempting, is the greatest enemy of the Community producers themselves, because increasingly more is asked of us, more is demanded of us and more limits are imposed on us.
I therefore believe that any concession in the context of the World Trade Organization, which it appears that the Commission is planning, must be thoroughly examined.
Secondly, paragraph 21 talks about joint ventures - joint ventures with Community capital - as a possible solution in cases where fisheries agreements have terminated; this is an issue which could certainly be developed.
However, the great mystery is: what is going to happen with Agenda 2000 and what resources will be available for the fisheries sector during the period 2000 to 2006? Is the Commission going to have the necessary funds to be able to support, for example, joint ventures, and to support all the types of measures envisaged in the Community report?
Finally, Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission for the work it has done, I would also like to thank Mr McCartin for his work too and I would say that we are waiting for the second part of this report which will undoubtedly come very soon and will contain concrete proposals or new initiatives on the part of the Commission.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the five rapporteurs and I am going to concentrate primarily on Mr McCartin's report on the market for fisheries products.
I believe, in fact, that the Commission has carried out a valuable analysis and that, in the same way as we have a common agricultural policy which dedicates its efforts to the stability of the agricultural markets and farmers' incomes, we should, as regards the problems of the fisheries sector, think about trying to look for imaginative formulas which are also geared towards a common fisheries policy which guarantees a certain stability for the market and fishermen's incomes.
We have very scarce resources and the problems continue to grow.
To give you an example, fish such as hake 11 or 12 years ago used to receive a price of just over 400 pesetas per kilo (ECU 2.5 per kilo) at the ports. Twelve years later, the same price is still being paid, while the cost of gas oil and the costs for fishermen have increased enormously.
This leads to a situation which may, in fact, threaten the very survival of the sector.
In this respect, paragraph 14 of Mr McCartin's report underlines the need to eliminate or reduce the current trend towards doing away with tariffs.
We must search for measures in this connection so that, while fulfilling international commitments, the Commission can protect our sector as far as possible.
Paragraph 16 is also very important in that, as regards those competing with us, we must demand minimum social guarantees of them within the context of the measures required by the ILO: respect for the environment in fishing for resources and, in addition, minimum conditions in terms of health and quality which can be compared to our products.
I believe that we are obliged to ensure the maintenance of the Community fisheries sector - and I am aware of the difference that exists between the agricultural sector in that we are talking about a market which needs external fisheries resources to supply its own needs - but we need to find imaginative solutions in this respect.
I will simply conclude by saying that we must also focus on the need to avoid fraud in the market and I will end by giving two advance warnings regarding "loin' fillets of tuna from countries involved in the generalized system of preferences and the possibility of the Community market for cod being affected by fraud from Russia, for example, through agreements with other countries.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think the method the Commission has chosen is the right one: by opening this communication to discussion, it allows Parliament, the various sectors and the Council to make their contributions to what will become the subsequent legislation.
But I should like to emphasize here a point mentioned in Mr McCartin's report, which I think is an excellent contribution to this debate.
That point concerns the waters of non-EU countries; it is a subject that has been very well dealt with by Mr Medina Ortega and we should indeed be giving some thought to it, for, as he has quite correctly said, the consumption of fish products in the European Union is also an attraction in market terms and in some ways also a potential cause of greater difficulty in obtaining fishing quotas, which, as we know, is the area in which we are experiencing the greatest problems.
On reading the Commission document, therefore, I would like to insist on a few measures which I consider to be important.
In the first place, and naturally on the subject of sardines, in the light of my honourable friend's excellent report on the canning industry, I should like to re-emphasize what has already been said here about sardines, namely the need for compensation for the sardine-canning industry. Hence the importance of subsidies for the freezing and storage industries.
We also need a way of regulating the market itself. My view is that the paper drawn up by the Producers' Organizations should have been used as a basis and it would have operated by means of sardines purchased by the Producers' Organizations at above their removal price.
We need an award for quantities delivered by the Producers' Associations to industry under contracts, because we consider it essential that the industry should have strong and active organizations; we need the possibility of developing interprofessional organizations, the use of denominations of origin and quality marks, and particularly promotion campaigns based on denominations of origin; we need to channel the principle of preferential Community treatment into food subsidies; and finally, we need the financial aid to off-set the temporary or permanent closure of industrial units, the only way of preventing some very negative social effects in the already disastrous situation that exists in some regions which are highly dependent on fishing.
Finally, I should like to underline the following point: this reform is going to cost more money.
This is also something we should be aware of.
It will cost at least ECU 30m per year to implement this reform.
That is a point Parliament will also have to think about.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the topics covered in the Varela report, which I refer to in particular, are many and on the whole have been dealt with properly, with solutions that I consider positive in most cases.
However, no mention is made of the international agreements on trade and the problems related to the gradual reduction of customs protection.
Well, in my opinion, given the insufficient amount of raw materials produced by the Community, we must now guarantee that the processing industry is supplied at internationally quoted prices and avoid a situation where, in cases of bilateral cooperation agreements, we are forced to barter the total elimination of customs duties on finished products for the signing of fisheries agreements, such as that with Morocco.
Now, the customs advantages granted to Morocco have really been a major factor in the closure of most of the facilities of the Italian sardine canning industry.
We would like to make sure that the tuna canning industry does not meet with the same fate, as could very well happen if the current system were to be modified with zero customs duties on imported frozen tuna steaks from GSP countries.
That is why I certainly consider it useful to do an in-depth study on the effects of the so-called tariff anomalies, definitely including the anomaly with imported loins which, contrary to the general rule, are imported as a finished product.
The rapporteur is right in calling for an effective system to control imported canned goods from third countries and the origin of products, a definite policy of quality which should be combined with an adequate promotional campaign. He is also right in requesting that the Community's canned goods be declared sensitive products, with compensatory aid for the tuna and sardine sector: all this in a very labour-intensive sector, which is often located in disadvantaged regions, and therefore one which merits priority consideration in the context of the European Union's employment policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think the debate we have conducted here underlines yet again the complexity of this sector and the many interconnections between its individual elements.
For example, many of you, during this debate, have told me that it would be beneficial to develop aquaculture not only in our own area, but also in the developing countries and therefore in line with our bilateral agreements.
This is all well and good, except that to produce fish by aquaculture we need fish meal.
If I might hark back to the debate we held scarcely an hour and a half ago on fish products not intended for human consumption, we came face to face with a number of contradictions.
I say all this simply because during the debate I found that I had detected two of the dominant persuasions prevailing within the Council, but also within the sector itself, which do, however, have a point in common, if I understood your excellent report correctly, Mr Rapporteur.
This common factor relates to the need for a greater commitment on the part of the public authorities in favour not only of the transition to a more responsible fisheries policy, but also with respect to aid for the sector to enable it to adapt to new economic, commercial and health criteria.
So, if I understand you properly, we agree on the fact that it is important to strengthen the organizational base of all the parties involved and help them gain access to innovations.
We therefore have to support the operators in the sector and the industry as a whole.
But I would like to ask you a question that many others have already posed.
What about the quality policy, and indeed other motions which have been tabled, such as the controlled source proposal? We can and must be able to control it.
And I would inform this House that it is already difficult enough for us to apply the regulations on minimum size in a credible way.
If this is the approach we are to adopt, we must therefore - and this is the matter raised by Ms McKenna - give some thought to the supervision and control conditions required.
Some Members have urged the Commission to conduct further research, fresh analyses and so forth.
I would simply like to point out that this debate has been running since 1996, that we have held two seminars with Parliament, at Quimper and La Haye, that work with the departments concerned has continued in close concert with Parliament, that we have listened to the opinions of everybody, that there have also been a number of regional meetings with representatives of the sector and that, therefore, the time has arrived for the Commission to draw its own conclusions and to debate a legislative text designed to clarify a significant number of issues.
The time has now come for me to honour the commitment I undertook to submit a proposal which will inevitably be controversial, because it is impossible to please everyone.
For example, to go back to the debate, several suggestions were put forward which do not bear any relation to the matter in hand.
Because in the fishing industry that is how things always are; as soon as you open a debate on a particular issue, we have to say a little something about everything.
Take the subject of funds, for example.
I have no idea what funds will be allocated, any more than you do.
What will the Community budgetary allocation be for the period 2000-2006? Like you, I do not have a clue.
As you know, in principle, the budgetary allocation does not come within my domain.
Moreover, it is quite clear that there are problems with regard to the developing countries, to which several speakers have alluded.
I note, for instance, the statements by Morocco, which no longer wants part of any fishing agreement.
To me, there is nothing new in this.
Incidentally, further contacts are meanwhile being established.
So I would call for a little more order and discipline when the Commission is the sole arbiter in negotiations concerning fishing agreements.
I do not really need help here.
I would rather not be bothered with, for example, the presence of those private European companies - without naming names - which have concluded private agreements with individual States in the developing world, where I hold a negotiating brief.
I would also be glad if the Member States could remember from time to time that the authority to negotiate fishing agreements falls within the jurisdiction of the Community.
It is a fact that confusion helps nobody.
But I digress - indeed, we have had no shortage of digressions during this debate.
During the debate, I detected two particular persuasions which are typical and traditional, and two objectives that are occasionally contradictory.
On the one side, there are those who believe that complying with the common trade policy in this sector is a priority and, on the other side, there are those - whose representatives I have met - who wish to boost the importance of domestic policies in market matters.
The Commission has a duty, before the end of the year, to settle any disputes and to submit a proposal which, I am certain, will not please everybody.
One further word on the own-initiative report of Mr Varela.
There are, nevertheless, degrees of convergence between Mr Varela's report and that of Mr McCartin.
For example, both stress the need to observe strict compliance with health regulations.
This is an important factor, from a commercial standpoint too.
While we are on the subject, I would also remind you that there are only five or six Community health inspectors.
I have said this before and I want to remind you of it again today.
There are also other points on which the rapporteurs see eye-to-eye.
For example, the creation of mechanisms for strengthening associations and enhancing the position of individual operators in the sector.
But, beyond these points of common interest, there are also analyses and proposals concerning the canning industry that seem to me, Mr Varela, to be overly dramatic or pessimistic.
Because, whilst it is true that some companies - which we know about - have been unable to cope with the competition from the developing countries, we should also point out that some of them were, to some extent, operating obsolete businesses and that imports have merely accelerated a process that was inevitable.
The business people concerned have even admitted as much.
In addition, I feel obliged to point out that the Commission has already introduced marketing standards for canned sardines and tuna, to guarantee the transparency of commercial transactions in this sector, all for the benefit of the consumer.
Hence, a number of criteria, quite clear in their purpose, have already been defined with regard to sardines and tuna.
The problem is, however, that I am being asked to allocate special aid facilities to help the sector along, virtually to the detriment of other sectors.
I must therefore remind you that this sector has already benefited from significant financial support from the Community as compared with others.
It is also the case that in 1995 the Member States themselves decided not to extend the procedure for awarding carry-over payments in favour of the sardine industry, precisely because the operators and the Member States no longer wished to favour this sector over others, in view of everything that had been done already.
Member States may, at their own level, give precedence to this sector if they consider it to be of prime importance in their own country, by relying, of course, on the Structural Funds which fall within their jurisdiction.
On the same subject, allow me to point out that such aid awarded by the Member States, whether in the past or in the future, does not excuse the sector from contributing to innovative projects, in order to steer the marketing strategy towards valueadded products, which foster European technology, rather than in the direction of basic products which do not require advanced technology and which therefore suffer badly from the competition of developing countries where labour costs are obviously very much cheaper.
So, there you have the guidelines.
But with regard to carry-over payments, I would remind Mr Varela that this was rejected by the Member States back in 1995.
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at the end of this debate, which has seriously overrun its allocated time.
Mr Varela wishes to speak as rapporteur and he may do so for a maximum of one minute.
Mr President, the Commissioner called on us not to help but, at least, to ensure that we did not put any barriers or obstacles in the way of her work.
And in relation to the competitiveness of the industry to which we are referring, I would like to say to her that it is obvious that certain companies cannot be competitive, but we are asking that they do not put obstacles before them.
I referred to the fact that certain agreements are obstacles, and this is what we are saying.
If there are health measures yet very few inspectors, as you said, we call for the creation of a network of specialized laboratories so that there might be controls.
The Member States can do this themselves but it must take place on the basis of a proposal from the European Union itself.
Madam Commissioner, we are calling for specific measures to be taken.
Thank you, Mr Varela.
I hereby declare the debate closed, having considerably overrun the time allocated, and I am sure that you all join with me in thanking Parliament's services and the interpreters for this extra work which we have burdened them with on a day that was already extremely busy.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.55 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's session have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I rise under Rule 108 to make a personal statement because of the attack on myself and Mr Coates by the President-in-Office when he replied to the debate yesterday.
On page 28 of the Rainbow he suggests that we do not have any democratic mandate or legitimacy because we were elected on a Labour ticket and therefore we should not be sitting as Members of the House.
This is a serious personal attack and under Rule 108 of the Rules of Procedure I am allowed to reply.
I would observe that I was elected under a Labour ticket - not a New Labour ticket - when John Smith and Margaret Beckett were leaders of the party, and elected by two-thirds of my party members locally, unlike the Labour MEPs for next year who will be selected by Mr Blair personally.
So, I would claim to have a far stronger democratic mandate than they will have.
Madam President, I would like to praise the exemplary activity of the French security service during the visit by Tony Blair.
Secondly, I would like to inform you that President Gil-Robles has received a letter from Prime Minister Dehaene promising us that a police station will be established in the vicinity of the Parliament in Brussels.
Madam President, it concerns what has been lacking in the Minutes throughout the week, namely there has been no reference to Mr Falconer telling us whether he is voting or not.
Has there been any rule change by the Bureau with regard to recorded votes?
Thank you very much, Mr Wynn, for following the matter so carefully.
Madam President, I thank my colleague, Mr Wynn, for raising this matter. Obviously, I would wish to allay Members' concern.
I am glad to see that the Monday to Friday group are still with us.
We are here all week and we vote all week, unlike some Members who are only present part-time and by Thursday afternoon are on the move.
The answer is quite simple.
I wrote to the President asking him how many Members had been affected as a result of the rule changes. He advised me that per part-session since February 120 Members have had their allowances adjusted as a result.
I attend every month from Monday to Friday so I participate for the whole week.
I am opposed to the principle of how the Bureau came to the decision without referring the matter to the House, but I am appalled at the lack of backbone of these 120 Members who have stayed silent on this issue and have raised no protest in this Chamber.
With that in mind, I have decided to allow them to deal with their own consciences.
I will continue to support my principles and I have no doubt I will argue for those principles within the Socialist Group.
I hope this allays the House's concern.
Thank you, Mr Falconer, for the explanation. We will record that in the Minutes.
(The Minutes were approved)
Votes
The amendment of Regulation No 1866/86 laying down certain technical measures for the conservation of fishery resources in the waters of the Baltic Sea is based on the latest recommendations adopted in the framework of the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission (IBSFC).
What are these technical measures? They are merely minor adjustments to already existing prohibition periods for the fishing of flounder and plaice, and minor adjustments to prohibitions on the use of certain gear in fishing for salmon.
As the rapporteur has said, who, may I remind you, is Danish, ' These adjustments, and thus the Commission proposal, can easily be approved' .
However, I should like to remind you that wild salmon is in the process of disappearing from the Baltic Sea, a sea which receives special treatment from the Commission.
As we have seen in the Kindermann report, intensive industrial fishing is carried out in the Baltic.
Industrial fisheries use small-meshed nets and, despite protests made by Greenpeace, such activities are not subject to any particular restrictions.
The use of large-scale drift gillnets is still authorized, although this is an infringement of international legislation, which imposes a 2.5 km limit.
On the other hand, at present, Spanish vessels rarely fish in the Baltic.
Does the latter explain the former?
Our group supports this report in substance, as well as the proposal for a regulation, but wishes to stress that the Commission must remain impartial with regard to the fishermen of the various Member States.
We are therefore very firmly opposed to the fact that the Commission 'forgot' industrial fisheries when it established new technical measures for fisheries in Europe and that it 'forgot' to ask the users of large-scale drift gillnets to comply with international legislation.
It is inadmissible that the Commission should ignore the scientific considerations which form the basis of the Common Fisheries Policy, should favour some European fishermen undeservedly and should discriminate outrageously against others, in order to gain a large enough majority in the Council.
Kindermann report (A4-0201/98)
My group wishes to congratulate Mr Kindermann on the quality of his report on industrial fisheries.
As you know, industrial fisheries use small-meshed nets, the catches from which are intended for industrial processing into fish meal and fish oil.
Denmark is the largest producer of fish meal in the European Union, accounting for 80 % of industrial production and 6 % of the world market.
Fish meal is used mainly as animal feed in the poultry and pig-rearing sectors.
There is a remarkable disparity between the declared objective of the conservation of stocks and the huge quantities of fish caught for industrial purposes. Our rapporteur quotes a number of particularly impressive statistics relating to industrial fisheries: 30 % of all world catches comes from industrial fisheries.
The proportion may be as high as 60 % in some seas, such as the North Sea, which is extremely vulnerable, as we all know.
By-catches are also large: sometimes they even exceed actual catch quotas.
There is an even more startling contrast between the Commission's uncompromising attitude towards certain types of fishery and its leniency towards industrial fisheries.
Does this distinction have anything to do with the fact that Spanish vessels are rarely to be found in northern waters?
Such discriminatory treatment by the Commission is not acceptable under any circumstances.
On the one hand, the use of drift gillnets has been prohibited without scientific basis in the Atlantic, where small catches are taken from very large stocks.
On the other hand, a good deal of research has been carried out, but no action has been taken with regard to industrial fisheries, which makes huge demands on resources.
What is the reason for this differential treatment?
If industrial fisheries constituted a significant activity in the Atlantic, they would most certainly be treated differently.
McCartin report (A4-0204/98)
As I said in my speech, our group tabled 15 amendments to Mr McCartin's report.
In fact, in contrast to the rapporteur's initial proposals, we believe it is necessary to have a strong COM for fishery products, particularly for products intended for the fresh fish market.
The approach adopted by the rapporteur is too exclusively liberal, going so far as to call explicitly for a reduction in the principle of Community preference.
I do, of course, know that the European Union has signed, and has made Member States sign, a number of free trade agreements.
It has made Member States join the generalized system of preferences, particularly with drug-producing countries. We are also restricted by the GATT agreements within the framework of the WTO because, as a result of a major political error, unlike agricultural products, fishery products have always been consolidated under the GATT.
A COM which strengthens the entire fisheries sector is therefore essential, because of these major constraints, which already significantly limit Community preference.
We have a number of other possibilities, such as the improved organization of the sector, which would enhance the fresh fish market, and the continued use of market interventions. But what does the rapporteur propose?
In terms of enhancement of the market, very little. Instead of maintaining withdrawal systems, he proposes to do away with them.
What would be left of the COM? One can but wonder.
The COM must not operate to the sole advantage of processors, whose main requirement is regularity of supply at the lowest cost, irrespective of the source of raw materials.
It is therefore essential for the WTO to establish specific measures applicable to the fresh fish market.
Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report (A4-0137/98)
Our group supports the overall approach adopted by Mr Varela in his report.
It is clearly essential to preserve, and therefore if necessary to protect, the fish canning industry and aquaculture in the European Union.
This is why my group tabled 16 amendments to the McCartin report on the COM for fisheries products.
The fisheries sector must be analyzed as a whole: it needs the processing sector but at the same time, and the Commission must accept this, if production were to cease in Europe, there would no longer be a European fish canning sector.
We therefore only support those of the rapporteur's proposals which aim to strengthen the canning industries and to stop relocations to countries where wages are low.
In his report, Mr Varela focuses on two important sectors of the canning industry: the sardine sector and the tuna sector.
The sardine sector, which has been virtually allowed to disappear in France, is still very important in the Iberian Peninsula.
The rapporteur proposes protecting this industry from imports of processed products from North African countries, particularly Morocco.
Although I am aware of the competition faced by the industry in Portugal and Spain, I would however like to point out that these North African countries have fragile economies which require support, unlike a certain number of other countries - especially in Latin America - with whom the European Union has signed preferential agreements to import tinned fish products, in particular within the framework of the so-called 'generalized system of preferences' .
With regard to the tuna industry, the rapporteur considers it necessary 'to ensure there is a proper supply of the necessary raw material (fresh, frozen and fillets of tuna), giving priority to the Community fleet?' . The Spanish, French, Irish and British tuna fishing fleets in the Atlantic have contributed towards that supply until now.
I note that having worked actively in favour of the prohibition of fishing for tuna by European vessels with drift gillnets, Mr Varela is now asking for specific measures to protect the Community tuna processing industry: is it also destined, like fish stocks, to become a Spanish monopoly?
Finally, Mr President, I should like to remind the House that the fish product canning industry is highly diversified and not limited to the above two sectors of activity.
Furthermore, fish product processors, like all manufacturers, require regular supplies of raw materials at the lowest possible cost.
We must therefore very carefully ensure that the future of the processing sector is safe, but at the same time we must avoid doing so to the detriment of the fresh fish sector. This is a sector which is likely to expand in response to the current concerns of consumers, who wish to eat fresh, wholesome, unrefined foods.
This is why it is absolutely essential for European fishermen to retain control of the fresh fish sector.
Market in oils and fat
The next item is the statement on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 136/66/EEC on the establishment of a common organization of the market in oils and fats (COM(98)0171 - C4-0229/98-98/0098(CNS)).
One moment!
Quiet please!
We cannot hear if you are all talking at once.
Commissioner, we are here to defend a wonderful gift of nature.
The olive tree gives us the world's most noble representative of the food we produce, and at the same time it is the symbol of a unique landscape, a history and an identity of which we should be proud as Europeans.
Allow me, Commissioner Fischler, to say that the Commission certainly gave a poor example and did a horrible job of managing this matter: news leaks, inferences, rebuttals and postponements too often prevailed over the true merit of the official documents and helped poison the atmosphere somewhat.
Although this Commission proposal has its flaws, it does have two merits in my view: the first is that it takes account of the arguments of the majority of this Parliament.
Personally, I was critical of the Jové Peres compromise, but I must acknowledge today that after the stormy debates in 1997 on the fundamental points of the compromise reached in December, the Commission has accepted Parliament's arguments.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot say: we were only joking!
It makes no sense today to have someone here complaining that it is impossible to have a fit and proper debate.
The second merit of this proposal is that it puts an end to the uncertainties and indifference that we have been seeing for some time.
We cannot ignore, with the excuse that there are no surpluses lying in the warehouses, the profound signs that the sector has structural difficulties: falling prices, sharp cuts in aid and production forecasts for the leading producer country that foreshadow worrisome scenarios for producers who are not at fault for all this.
We cannot make it through another year with a COM from 1966, one which is old and outdated, the only common organization of the market that does not have national quotas aimed at making individual Member States and producers responsible for their behaviour.
Those who do not want all this, those who persist in asking for time, facts and postponements, saying that the fault lies with the same old Eurocrats in Brussels, are not defending olive growers but betraying them.
I hope that today we all realize this.
Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to make four remarks.
First of all, I would like to say that I, too, on behalf of my group, am pleased that this debate has finally reached the House, a debate that we have requested because paragraph 1 of the document approved at the time by Parliament stated that we had to move quickly to reform the sector.
I am therefore pleased, because the Council of Ministers and the Commission have taken heed of our request and this morning we can finally express our opinion.
As for the second observation, the Commission's proposal does indeed take on board some of the important points that we raised in the document approved by Parliament: ' no' to consumer aid, ' yes' to production aid, which is confirmed, and 'yes' to the definition of national quotas, without which we risk not only seeing producers penalized but also a war break out between these producers and between the various producer countries.
Therefore, the Commission is taking heed of our requests and I and my group are pleased about this.
Thirdly, I would nonetheless like to raise a point that does not please me.
In all the discussion papers on the CAP reform which also concern Agenda 2000, the Group of the European People's Party talks about rebalancing resources between the various sectors and between the various areas of the European Union.
Well, we here, Commissioner, have an important opportunity: the opportunity to demonstrate that we truly intend to promote producer sectors that have a future - without any distinction between sectors in the North and in the South - by giving a positive response to olive oil and a positive response to a fundamental sector in the Mediterranean that can develop but that needs more resources to increase overall production levels, and the opportunity to promote the product on the markets and improve the quality.
Lastly, I would like to say that a solution also has to be found for the current year.
Even if we make wise decisions here today in Parliament and in the forthcoming days in the Council of Ministers, we will perhaps solve the problem for the year to come, but there are already major consequences for the current year that producers will be forced to pay without special measures.
For this reason I request that it be adopted by the Commission.
Mr President, Madam President, Commissioner, we are debating here a particularly important point.
We are all aware of the importance of agriculture for the European Union and the importance of certain agricultural sectors, not for the entire European territory but for very specific areas.
Last year there was a meeting in Cork where the importance of the countryside was also discussed.
Commissioner, in certain areas, guarantees for the countryside are guarantees for particular crops which are, in fact, monocultures in those areas.
The Commission drew up a proposal which was debated by the Committee on Agriculture and approved by a wide majority in this Parliament last December.
The Commission has drawn up a new proposal and I must say that, in many cases, it has not respected the guidelines that this House had approved reflecting the fundamental concern of those regions involved in olive oil production.
I agree, Commissioner, that fraud is something that has got to be avoided and cannot represent a form of finance for anyone. However, I believe that we cannot legislate or lay down regulations with only the struggle against fraud in mind.
We must think about the needs of the sector and the needs of those areas throughout Europe which depend, primarily, on a specific sector such as, in this case, that of olive oil.
We have always talked about the need to guarantee high-quality agriculture and high-quality products.
And if we are talking about the quality of a product, the guarantee of a product's origin, we must ban the marketing of mixtures with other products, which represents an adulteration of the guarantee of origin.
We must draw up a policy based on protection and on promoting consumption aimed at guiding the consumer, provide specific aid to products linked to olive oil, such as table olives, and establish, in this respect, effective systems of control.
I believe, Commissioner, that this proposal with which we have been presented can be improved and I hope that during this debate, through the vote on the amendments tabled by the various political groups, we can manage to significantly improve the proposal on this issue. Although it may not be an important issue for the whole of European agriculture, it is very important for specific regions and for specific people who do want to believe in a truly European agricultural policy.
Madam President, in its proposal for a reform the Commission has not followed most of the guidelines contained in the report approved in December by this Parliament.
Unlike with other reforms, the Commission proposes doing away with intervention and maintaining the maximum guaranteed quantity at a level which is much lower than Community consumption. And, ladies and gentlemen, in Parliament we called for an increase in the maximum guaranteed quantity to take account of consumption, exports and a safety margin, and this was the condition, ladies and gentlemen, that was to enable us to subsequently establish national reference quantities.
From my modest position, I am calling on my colleagues to take serious account of this issue when voting today.
The Commission does not put forward proposals to ban blends of olive oil with other oils, it does not draw up proposals to establish a reliable and effective system of control, nor proposals on table olives, although Mr Fischler promised us this at the conclusion of the debate which took place in Parliament in December. Moreover, it tackles the control of planting in a way that might create serious problems of legal uncertainty.
The list could be much longer, as demonstrated by the large number of amendments which have been tabled.
So, we are talking about a proposal similar to those usually presented by the Commission concerning Mediterranean production. In other words, it is totally discriminatory with respect to continental production, although one other characteristic is evident: the approval of the urgent procedure for a radical reform of a COM, which is an unprecedented event in this Parliament.
If we wanted the reform to enter into force before next year, we still had some time available to better complete our work.
Leaving aside the media use which the existence of different presidencies might have, the use of this procedure has a very clear practical significance: the Commission is drawing up proposals for the distribution of the maximum guaranteed quantities between those Member States involved in production using information which the Commission itself says is not very faithful and blocking information - which will appear in the next few days, from the Court of Auditors, etcetera - which could have been very valuable for our work.
Ladies and gentlemen, my group's amendments aim, as far as possible, to correct this situation and, of course, have tried to be completely respectful of this Parliament's mandate and of the unitary commitment we established in December.
I hope that this desire for agreement, which took shape in December, is respected today by all our colleagues.
Madam President, olive growing is of great cultural, but also economic, significance and therefore the identity of European olive cultivation must be guaranteed right up to the level of regional allocation.
The stock of olive trees may well be of importance to us - also an important ecological factor - but that is not enough.
It is also a matter of considering olives as a social factor, in other words, in relation to the number of jobs in this sector.
What is more, in the policy of the Commission it must be clear that we are dealing here with an important foodstuff.
The objective, therefore, must not be to support a type of cultivation that is difficult to market, but instead the marketing, processing and regional allocation must be supported, taking into consideration the demand for olive oil from consumers.
Only if we move in the direction of a regional market will it be possible to resolve the difficulties that we face, despite pumping billions into this sector and still losing jobs.
Madam President, Commissioner, the assignment of national quotas, the elimination of consumer aid and the improvement of crops and the quality of the product are some of the best aspects of this document. For this reason, it has our overall support.
Of course, the elimination of the flat-rate scheme for small producers and the uncertainty surrounding the last season lead us to request special measures so that this year too the sharp cuts do not negatively effect the weaker economies, those of southern Europe.
We must, however, convince ourselves that olive oil, the growing of olives, is an important European resource not only from an economic point of view but also from an environmental viewpoint.
The 'oil' problem cannot be considered just a problem of the countries of southern Europe, it is a European problem: oil is a European resource, and a strong product can be decisive in creating competitive conditions that benefit our economies.
That is why I am expressing the National Alliance's approval of and support for the work done, and I believe that these observations lead us to reflect on the need to take urgent action to obtain certainties.
For too many years we have been in a situation of uncertainty that has given rise to conditions of speculation.
This document is a first important step so that producers can again have peace of mind in order to improve production and to create conditions of growth for the European economies.
Madam President, I would like to briefly mention, on behalf of the Spanish Socialist Members, the criteria which have led to these amendments.
Recently, this Parliament approved an opinion on the future of the olive oil COM which seemed to establish a certain consensus.
The response from the European Commission could not have been more frustrating since it presented a proposal which was totally removed from that consensus.
Despite what has been said, there is no national agenda here: if we ask for an increase in the maximum guaranteed quantity, we do so in the interest of all European producers; if we want to maintain intervention, we want to do so for all European producers; if we want a specific ban on mixtures, we want it on behalf of all European consumers; if we call for a scheme for table olives, we do so for all European producers; and if we call for a special regime for small producers, we do so irrespective of the region where they are located.
Commissioner, I thank you for being here for this debate.
However, I would like to tell you clearly that the producers of olive oil cannot understand that, while in other sectors of the CAP there do not seem to be any budgetary problems, in this sector, in spite of the contribution the olive sector makes towards combating erosion and desertification and in spite of its contribution to employment and to keeping the population in the countryside, the Commission's proposals go in the opposite sense.
I am sure that a more detailed consideration of its proposal on the part of the Commission would lead, as has happened in other sectors - such as wine - to a new proposal, a much more realistic one, which maintains the economic and social cohesion which must inspire all of the Community policies of the European Union.
Madam President, it is not necessary to highlight the enormous economic importance of the olive crop in the European Union.
More than 4 million hectares and 465 000 jobs depend on this crop.
In my autonomous community alone, Andalusia, 14 000 jobs, almost 50 % of all agricultural jobs, depend on this COM, which is thus established as a basic element of social and territorial cohesion.
In this context, the Commission has presented us with a proposal which, in its current form, is clearly out of step with Mediterranean agriculture, unbalanced in respect of certain Member States and technically incorrect since it eliminates fundamental elements for the stability of prices and agricultural incomes, such as intervention. Further, it does not protect Community consumers in that it does not consider banning mixtures and totally ignores the situation of table olives.
The Commission must begin to treat Mediterranean farmers fairly.
It is not possible to always invoke financial neutrality for the more disadvantaged farmers and to be prepared to systematically increase, without restrictions, aid to continental production.
Commissioner, it is perfectly possible to increase the maximum guaranteed quantity with a very limited budgetary effort; it is perfectly possible too, where appropriate, to bring national quotas into line with actual production in the Member States, and the Commission knows that the figures on which it based its proposal are inaccurate and obsolete.
I am pleased with the fact that we have tabled amendments which have led to important agreements within the political groups and which, if the vote reflects those agreements, will allow us to give a response to the hopes of Community farmers and significantly improve the Commission proposals, establishing, in addition, elements for rigorous control which might reassure European contributors.
I hope that the Commissioner takes these amendments into account, shows flexibility and modifies his proposal.
Madam President, Commissioner, what has happened this week in connection with the reform of the olive oil sector confirms that, by agreeing to urgent procedure, the European Parliament has taken a very serious decision, because it has agreed to deal with a very important reform without drawing up a report, acting on impulse in response to circumstances and when there was no need to observe close time limits.
With regard to the Commission's proposal for a regulation, contrary to what some Members have said here, it does not follow the guidelines in the Jové Peres report we approved in December.
It merely takes a few partial ideas from it, out of context.
We hope the amendments we shall be approving today will restore the spirit and the letter of that document, particularly as regards the increase in maximum guaranteed quantities and their national distribution on the basis of real and reliable data.
This will also be my own country's interests, in respect of which the Commission's proposal does not take into account the olive plantation development plan.
I hope the amendments will restore the spirit and letter of the Jové Peres report regarding the reinstatement of intervention mechanisms, subsidies for small-scale producers and consumption, the production of table olives and firm measures to prohibit the mixing of olive oil with other products.
If the consensus we reached in December is recovered today and this House does not place the interest of olive growers in general second to other national interests which are not very obvious, we may be in a position to amend the Commission's proposal, ensure that the sector remains sustainable and respond positively to the concerns of the olive growers.
I hope that, if so, the Commission will now accept what it actually rejected in December.
Madam President, concreteness is valuable to politics and must be a characteristic of politics.
We are faced with a valuable choice because it is concrete, and it is concrete because it takes account of the quality and quantity of agricultural production with mechanisms to assist production and with mechanisms to determine national quotas; it is concrete because it takes account of the urgency of intervention; last but not least, it is a concrete political choice because it takes into account the Mediterranean dimension and the rural dimension of the European economy.
I believe that these factors must be underlined at this time and hope that the debate serves to make this intervention more, and not less, concrete.
Madam President, today's debate, which is the result of a procedure that certainly was not the best, concerns a product which is important from every viewpoint.
Olive growing is a traditional and predominant form of economic activity in large areas of southern Europe, while olive oil as a product is the basis of any healthy diet.
Given the dominant position of European production in the world market it is extremely important that the sector be organized rationally and efficiently within a European Union framework.
It was therefore a pleasant surprise, and, Mr Fischler, I hope you will continue to give us pleasant surprises, to see the Commission abandon some initial proposals which would have caused ructions in the olive oil industry, and put forward a proposal very much in line with European Parliament proposals.
This proposal is one which, with some improvements, can lead to what we are calling for.
And what we are calling for is the rational organization of the olive oil market, the production of a product of a high and stable quality, and the support of incomes and employment in large areas of the European countryside.
I would like to ask you to look at and adopt the tabled amendments relating to the following.
The first issue is the abolition of intervention, which creates rather than solves problems.
The system of intervention must be preserved as a safety net for the producer.
Secondly, the issue of the promotion of olive oil is important and the necessary resources must be allocated to it.
An aggressive policy of promotion will safeguard the dominant position of the European Union and will solve whatever problems of surpluses arise.
Thirdly, within the framework of Agenda 2000, the changes to the common organization of the markets have a time-scale until 2006.
This same time scale must be implemented for the common organization of the market in olive oil.
Fourthly, together with the setting up of national guaranteed quantities, the possibility of carrying over quotas into the next trading period must be instituted, given the special nature of olive oil production.
Finally, the Commission must look separately at the sector of table olives, not simply as a wish in the explanatory statement, but with the instigation, in the very near future, of specific measures of support.
Madam President, Commissioner, it is with great satisfaction that I am taking part in this debate which our group called for.
We expressed our desire for it in the Committee on Agriculture when we voted for urgent procedure by 25 to a mere 17; we confirmed it on Monday when this Parliament wanted to send a signal and voted 196 to 154 to end this dispute.
It is definitely time that this 32-year old common organization of the markets retire.
It is unthinkable that we prolong any further some of the schemes that the COM has introduced.
I will mention two of these: the system of maximum guaranteed quantities at Community level which means that it is unthinkable to continue setting national quotas that not only no longer correspond to the productive potential of countries that produce olive oil but also no longer correspond to market demand.
So as not to repeat what other Members speaking before me have already said, why not focus on a measure that is provided for in this COM, that is, product promotion which strangely is always considered in all the COMs as optional, an almost luxury accessory? We know that product promotion is the best way to highlight quality, and product quality is the best way to win over consumers and in so doing also solve problems of excess quantity.
That is why a few more tonnes of oil do not scare me, provided that it is extra-virgin olive oil and therefore quality oil.
It is in the common interest today to give the go-ahead to this reform in any case, before the marketing year begins in November.
Therefore, I do not think anyone here - at least I hope not - still wants to carry out initiatives that would stand in the way of what we are trying to accomplish.
Any move to refer the matter back to committee or some similar step would not be in the interest of anyone and would cause serious economic damage. In particular, it would severely damage the image of this Parliament which once again would show itself incapable of deciding.
Granted, the proposal is not perfect, but we also have to leave some detail for the Commission and the Council, otherwise what use are they?
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, those of us who have been opposed to the fact that this reform is being debated by urgent procedure, have tried to be constructive and be faithful travelling companions since this procedure was approved by our sovereign House.
All the basic aspects of this reform have already been discussed by the speakers before me.
The maximum guaranteed quantity, intervention, the ban on mixtures, table olives, the distribution among countries, etcetera, have all already been sufficiently discussed in order to try and have them incorporated into this reform.
However, Commissioner, and I am sorry that there is no representative from the Council here today, in a few statements made yesterday evening - which were certainly very unfortunate - the Council confirmed that this reform should take place at no financial cost.
Commissioner, you know the sector perfectly well - and we know how sensitive you are towards this topic - and on many occasions you have said that there would not be a reform which would be detrimental to producing countries.
Commissioner, you now have a golden opportunity to prove that.
You must be sensitive and accept that a reform does not take place without an increase in the budget, and particularly so when these financial stringencies always affect our southern countries.
You must seriously consider and accept the suggestions which are made by Members of this Parliament. These suggestions are being made with great sacrifices and responsibility and with a constructive spirit in mind on the part of the majority of Members, who give priority to their citizens' advantages - for whom we have all been elected - rather than to their own possible political advantages.
Madam President, when we speak about olive oil producers there are three things we must not forget.
Firstly, we are speaking about producers who live in the poorest regions of the European Union and who, as a result, need support.
Secondly, they produce a product which has been shown to contribute to promoting the good health of consumers. Thirdly, olive growing makes an important contribution to environmental stability.
The adoption of the new regulation is urgent, not only because the regulation which currently governs olive oil is old, but because there are serious problems which need to be tackled immediately.
Chief among these is the exceeding of average guaranteed quantities at European level, and indeed by a large amount, with the result that subsidies for producers are falling dramatically in all countries, even when production in one country is low.
The system that is being proposed, that is, the system of national quotas, is without doubt a just system.
However, if the quota of a particular country is not used up, it should be permitted for the difference to be carried over into the next trading period.
I am puzzled at the fact that, while for products from the north the new regulations remain in force until 2005, for olive oil the intention is for the regulation to remain in force only until 2001, when there will be a new, more stringent, regulation.
Why two measures and two yardsticks?
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
Mr Colino Salamanca has the floor.
Mr President, we have just voted on the Commission proposal as modified by the amendments which we have just introduced. We still have not voted on the legislative proposal.
And before that step, I would like to put a question to the Commissioner.
Very important amendments have been approved: the one which determines that the maximum guaranteed quantity is 1 800 000 tonnes; the one which establishes aid for the production of table olives; and the one which establishes that for the 19981999 season there will be a target price and a representative price.
And, finally, the ban on mixtures within the European Union has also been established.
I would like to know the Commission's position in relation to these questions.
Would Mr Fischler like to reply to the points raised by Mr Colino Salamanca, on which I will subsequently have to make a regulatory point?
Mr President, I am happy to reply to these points.
First may I make it clear that the Commission cannot, of course, take over all the amendments, but that it, too, has its duty to perform.
But I refer to what I said in my earlier contribution. I would like to remind you of it again.
First, we have addressed five fundamental wishes of Parliament with our proposal.
Second, we have a certain sympathy towards many of your amendments.
Third, we will also examine a series of amendments in our further deliberations.
Mr President, the answer the Commissioner has just given me obliges me to ask that the matter be referred back to committee.
Mr Colino has asked that the matter be referred back to committee.
Are there any objections to this?
Mr President, before giving my view with respect to the proposal by Mr Colino, I would like to ask you, in accordance with Rule 129, if this request for referral back to committee is being made on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists or on behalf of 29 Members.
Because, if it is the latter, this would have to be done on a formal basis.
Mr Galeote, allow me to give you the explanation myself and to suggest that you read Rule 60(2).
In this case it is not a matter of a request for referral back to committee on behalf of a group of 29 Members. In fact, in this case the chairman or the rapporteur has the ability to do so, and Mr Colino is chairman of the Committee on Agriculture.
Mr Cabezón wishes to speak in favour of the request for referral back to committee.
Mr President, at this time, once we have voted - and the result of the vote is known, the representative of the PPE Group has reminded us of it - there are still too many accusations of this kind, urging us to put Spain's interests first in an immediate and cheap manner.
The reality is that this House has given its opinion on fundamental issues concerning the reform of the olive oil sector.
The chairman of the Committee on Agriculture asked the Commissioner what he thought about the result of Parliament's vote, and the Commissioner answered that he was sympathetic towards it.
And tomorrow, we are going to tell the producers of olive oil and European farmers that the Commissioner was sympathetic towards this vote by Parliament.
We have asked the Commissioner for more than sympathy.
There is a difference between this Parliament's opinion and the Commission's position; what we want to know is whether the Commission is going to take over Parliament's opinion, because if it does, it will take it to the Council, but if it does not take it over, it will not go to the Council at all.
We therefore ask that the proposal be referred back to committee, to see if we are able to convince the Commissioner outright that it is right for the Commission to take over Parliament's opinion.
So, we are now calling for referral back to committee.
Mr Fantuzzi wishes to speak.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to say that Mr Colino is not making this request on behalf of the Socialist Group, because the Socialist Group is opposed to referral back to committee.
Secondly, if we refer to the Rules of Procedure, the chairman of a committee, in my opinion according to the interpretation of Rule 60(2), can request referral to a committee only when the Commission states that it does not intend to accept any - I repeat, any - of Parliament's amendments.
Commissioner Fischler stated at the beginning of the debate that he accepted some of the amendments as they are.
Therefore, the conditions for referral back to committee are not met.
Thank you, Mr Fantuzzi.
Mr Dell'Alba wishes to speak.
Mr President, I asked to speak only to express my full agreement with what Mr Fantuzzi had to say on this point and to repeat that I do not understand what we are voting on.
We had a vote without a report; we voted on all the amendments.
Please explain to me what we are referring back to committee, given that the resolution does not exist, because we have a procedure without a report.
Frankly, it seems to me that this is a manoeuvre to buy time, and it also goes beyond any Rules of Procedure.
I do not see what you can refer back to committee!
Mr Dell'Alba, it is the amendments which would be referred back to committee.
I will now put Mr Colino Salamanca's request to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Mr Pasty wishes to speak.
Mr President, I should like to make a proposal with regard to the next part of our proceedings.
It is very important for us to vote this morning on the second report for which a request for urgent debate has been made, that is, the set-aside requirement. I therefore propose that we do not hold a debate but proceed immediately to the vote which, according to our Rules of Procedure, is possible.
We could also adopt the same approach with regard to the report on bananas, otherwise, we will be unable to get everything done this morning.
I therefore suggest that we proceed to the vote on the setaside requirement, which will be very short, without holding a debate.
Mr Pasty is proposing that, for the remainder of the agenda, we proceed directly to the vote, and that we cancel the debates.
Are there any objections to Mr Pasty's proposal?
(The President noted that there were no objections to the proposal)
Mr President, we have seen here today a clear example of how the improvements introduced by the European Parliament are cancelled with sympathy.
Commissioner, please listen to me.
In Andalusia, and throughout Spain, it is incomprehensible that this type of backward movement can take place, and particularly as regards olive oil, a product that is so symbolic and so important.
We do not have confidence in what the Minister is going to do because, since the beginning of the process, she has mistaken her role and is more involved in making declarations than participating in negotiations, as she should.
Commissioner, you are surrounded by errors and are committing the serious mistake of discriminating against Mediterranean products; you are surrounded by ignorance, and what we have experienced today is a historical mistake by Europe against Spain and against Andalusia.
By agreeing to the use of urgent procedure for the reform of the common organization of the market for olive oil, the European Parliament has taken a very serious political decision, and that decision creates an equally serious precedent for the future.
It is unacceptable that this House should have decided to vote on the proposal for a regulation without waiting for the completion of the Parliamentary report, which, furthermore, could have been ready in time for the debate and vote at the meeting of the Committee on Agriculture this month, and for debate and vote in the House in July.
It is unacceptable that the European Parliament should have acceded to the Council's request for the use of urgent procedure, the only reason for which must have been the British Presidency's desire to see the olive oil market reform process completed in the first half of the year.
It is unacceptable that the European Parliament itself should have decided to exclude itself from the normal democratic process of discussion of a matter which is not merely incidental; on the contrary, it deals with the reform of an agricultural sector which is fundamental to four of its Member States.
This fact in itself creates a serious precedent the European Parliament will find it difficult not to follow in the future.
It is unacceptable that the European Parliament should have approved a request for the use of urgent procedure when there was no hurry in terms of time limits, since the reform to be approved is due to take effect next November.
With this decision only a limited debate has been possible in Parliament, since a period has been allowed for amendments to the Commission's proposal for a regulation, of which there are over 160.
In spite of this procedure, which is in no way open or democratic, the amendments approved have substantially altered the text put forward by the Commission, following the basic guidelines of Mr Jové Peres' report.
The maximum guaranteed quantity is increased for figures representing consumption and exports and its national allocation is provided for on the basis of reliable and verifiable data.
Intervention mechanisms are restored together with the creation of subsidies for storage and also for the production of table olives.
Other measures include additional subsidies for production by small-scale growers, control mechanisms for the stages between production and consumption, a ban on the mixing of olive oil with vegetable oils, and the promotion of consumption.
The planting of new olive trees is also permitted in countries with approved development plans.
For these reasons, although we disagree with the process, we vote in favour of the regulation as amended by a set of amendments that originated in our group.
The Commission should simply accept the amendments and proceed accordingly.
After requesting the emergency procedure, the Council has no option but to ratify the amendments approved today.
This is what we and European olive growers demand.
Set-aside requirement
The next item is the debate on the proposal for a Council Regulation derogating from Regulation (EEC) No 1765/92 establishing a support system for producers of certain arable crops as regards the set-aside requirement for the marketing year 1999/2000 (COM(98)03661 - C4-0363/98-98/0213(CNS)).
In accordance with Mr Pasty's proposal, we shall proceed directly to the vote.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf wishes to speak.
Mr President, I would like us to debate this report and I would like the debate to proceed as we have proposed and planned it.
The fact that time is short must not impede the debates on the report.
At the time, no objections were raised.
However, so that there is no doubt, I will put to the vote Mr Pasty's proposal that, for the remainder of the agenda, we proceed directly to the votes.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal (as amended) )
Mr Souchet has the floor.
Mr President, I will make my explanation of vote in writing as I intended, but I also wish to say orally that it is scandalous that Parliament has given its opinion an issue as important as this without holding a debate.
We are not debating this matter.
Parliament has approved this method of proceeding.
In order to combat cereal surpluses in the course of the agricultural reform of 1992, a decision was made to link the area-related compensation payments so that producers of certain agricultural crops would take a certain percentage of their land out of production.
By means of Regulation No 1765/92/EEC, the percentage determined for compulsory set-aside was 17.5 %.
At the same time, small producers who make use of the simplified regulation are exempted from the set-aside obligation.
The compulsory setaside quota was set at 15 % in 1993 and 1994 and at 5 % in 1997 and 1998.
Initially, set-aside fulfilled its purpose as a measure for managing the market.
Surpluses were reduced by using them as animal feed and by prompt servicing of the world market.
The introduction of an export levy by the Commission was an unfortunate measure. It impeded the reduction of cereal stocks.
Anyone who opposes the market is penalized.
After two good harvests the supplies are building up again and the internal market prices have weakened considerably.
Its use as animal feed is reaching limits, because also the meat markets are static or falling.
We welcome the fact that the cyclical set-aside is set at 10 % and that no new planting of fodder plants is permitted.
The utilization of new feed quantities creates new problems on the meat market and new control problems.
The set-aside areas may only be planted exclusively with raw materials that will grow again. This has proved successful!
In particular, there has been a pleasing demand for vegetable oils in industry as an environmentally friendly fuel and lubricating oil.
I call on the Council and the Commission to implement the resolution of 10 % very swiftly so that the farmers can plan their planting in good time.
The proposal by the Commission concerning the compulsory set-aside of 10 % of arable land for next year is unavoidable.
Income compensation was fixed for six years in 1993.
With present prospects of production, the increased stocks with limited export prospects would result in an unacceptable fall in cereal prices.
However, the proposal puts the Commission in a difficult position as Agenda 2000 proposes only voluntary set-aside.
More efforts should be made by the Commission to find new markets for arable products.
Raw material from the arable sector can be used to make bio diesel, lubricating oil, plastics etcetera, which are all bio degradable and therefore to the benefit of the environment.
The European Commission should investigate whether compulsory use of these products initially in ecologically sensitive areas is economically feasible, especially from an environmental point of view.
If new markets can be created, farmers will become less dependent on public subsidies.
We were told in 1992 that it was necessary to reinstate the set-aside, which had been tested since 1988, as stocks were increasing due to over-production.
From 1992 to 1997, we were told that the set-aside was having a positive effect. Stocks were declining because of the setaside.
But now, in 1998, we are being told that it is necessary to establish a set-aside of 10 % because stocks have increased to 14 million tonnes, and may even reach an estimated 30 million tonnes by the year 2000.
At the same time, the reform of the CAP removes the set-aside requirement.
Whilst in Agenda 2000 the set-aside is being removed, at the same time it has to be urgently re-established.
This is a strange way to behave.
In reality, the set-aside, like the "fine tuning' of a visual flight procedure, has hardly any effect on the world market.
When stocks decline, it is because there is a drop in supply and an increase in demand.
Supply may decrease because of the climate in North America (snow) and in Cairns Group countries (drought in Australia).
El Niño has far more effect on the market than the European Commission and its stabilizers.
Similarly, when the growing Asian economy increases its indirect and direct consumption of cereals, in order to feed chickens and pigs, for example, Western stocks decline.
Conversely, if Asian currencies collapse, purchases of cereals decrease in the West.
In other words, Brussels' voluntarism, expressed in terms of rationing procedures, such as MGQs, quotas, grubbing and other national guaranteed quantities, is ideological rather than practical and effective.
This ideology is reprehensible. It is the Malthusian ideology of the Club of Rome.
According to Brussels, we must stop planting olive trees after 2001, although the consumption of olive oil is increasing and we are world leaders, producing 80 % of the total quantity of olive oil.
With regard to vineyards, planting is being stopped, vines uprooted, unripe grapes gathered. Apple trees are being pulled up.
Milk production is being restricted. Where cereals are concerned, land is laid to waste.
There is constant rationing everywhere.
And meanwhile, at the international negotiating table, from the GATT to the WTO, our interests are not being protected.
We are giving up markets. We are not exporting.
So, if we really must get rid of something, it is the bugetarist ideology, the pettiness and Malthusianism of the Commission in Brussels that we need to eradicate.
Our opposition to the grant of subsidies for set-aside is well-known, because this practice has negative effects on production and employment, and also because it benefits large-scale producers who own vast tracts of land they can take out of production while still making financial profits from them.
We therefore oppose the Commission's proposal to increase the compulsory uncultivated-land tax on cereals from 5 % to 10 %.
This proposal is all the more incomprehensible inasmuch as it comes precisely during the final run-up to the implementation of the Agenda 2000 guidelines, which provide for a 0 % rate of tax on uncultivated land.
We can only conclude that this proposal is a further attempt to save more money, within the general policy of indiscriminate budgetary restraint.
In that context, and as a means of preventing the approval of the Commission's proposals, we opt to vote in favour of the amendments tabled, the object of which is essentially to maintain the current 5 % rate of tax on uncultivated land.
Although I do not intend to make a habit of it, I should like to thank the Commission for responding to our request for the set-aside requirement to be established at the same time as the 1998/1999 price package.
My request was upheld by many of my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and I am delighted that this was the case.
I cannot say the same thing with regard to the proposed 10 % set-aside, although I understand the concern caused by estimated cereals stocks of 30 million tonnes by the end of this agricultural year.
Commissioner Fischler, you must admit your guilt, and admit that you were wrong to handle the calendar of export certificates so cautiously, when they were favourable to us!
Admit that by underestimating the specific size of the European wheat crop, you made it difficult for contracts to be signed.
Admit that the size of the harvests of cereals whose export is prohibited, such as fodder-quality wheat and corn, should have compelled you to open the door to exports.
Be that as it may, we will not reach the ceilings available under the GATT this year, far less take up any unused carryovers.
This is all extremely harmful to European agriculture and the farmers who have entrusted us with a responsibility will once more be accused of over-production.
Our group has tabled two amendments to your proposal.
The aim of the first is to renew the suspension of the extraordinary set-aside. The aim of the second is to ask for the compulsory set-aside requirement to be kept at the same level as in the two preceding years, that is, 5 %.
European farmers will not accept a rise in the set-aside requirement due to management errors and the situation in the world market, particularly considering the fact that, within the framework of Agenda 2000 and CAP 2000, the Commission has proposed a set-aside of 0 %.
Farmers will not accept such incoherence.
As the initiator, in June 1997, of the oral question to the Commission, supported by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the establishment of the set-aside requirement before 30 June of each year, I thank the Commission for requesting an urgent debate on this subject.
However, if the 'Santer package' anticipates a set-aside of 0 % by the year 2000, I wonder why the Commission is now proposing a set-aside of 10 %.
What has caused this inconsistency?
What is happening? Could this be due to mismanagement of stocks?
In view of the price reductions largely recommended by the Commission, farmers are being encouraged to produce more, despite the set-aside, in order to compensate for the drop in their incomes, thereby causing an imbalance in some crops in comparison with others.
The problem of oilseeds is an old story, but I would like to remind you of one technical detail. In order to obtain the same yield, twice as much acreage has to be cultivated with oilseeds as with cereals.
At the time of the Blair House agreements, the Delors Committee, represented by Commissioners McSharry and Brittan, put a noose around our necks by agreeing to limit the production of oilseeds in Europe.
And yet the rotation of oilseed crops would have been an excellent tool for the control of cereal crops, without having to use the set-aside requirement.
This would have enabled crops for industrial purposes, which are now almost never mentioned, to be developed more quickly and would, above all, have made it possible to retain some degree of independence with regard to cattle feed.
Perhaps we should consider this in time for the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
To conclude, and to return to this morning's debate, my group will support the 5 % set-aside requirement.
As it stands, the Commission's proposal for the set-aside requirement is unacceptable.
This is why our group has tabled amendments to prevent the application of the extraordinary set-aside and to limit the compulsory set-aside to 5 %, instead of the 10 % proposed by the Commission.
Although the Commission regrets the existence of European stocks of 30 million tonnes of cereals, it must not forget that it is directly responsible: at the beginning of the agricultural year, that is, during the first three months, the Commission applied an export tax to cereals when global rates were higher than European rates. The Commission also failed to grant the necessary authorizations to supply barley to the Saudi market.
European farmers must not be penalized for the Commission's mismanagement.
They will not accept the adoption of a high set-aside, and I believe they are right.
How could the Commission propose to raise both the compulsory set-aside and the extraordinary set-aside at the same time? A few weeks ago, we received proposals for the reform of the COM for arable crops, in which the Commission proposed a compulsory set-aside of 0 %.
The proposals submitted to us by the Commission are therefore totally lacking in coherence.
One step in the right direction has, however, been taken and is worth mentioning.
The Commission did respond to our request, in the report by Mr des Places on the price package, for a proposal on the set-aside requirement before the end of this month.
European farmers must know what compulsory set-aside requirement has been established before they start sowing.
Finally, we call on the Commission to accept the two amendments we have tabled. These are perfectly coherent, in terms of the setaside, with the proposals voted within the framework of the report by Mr des Places and the Commission's proposals for the reform of the COM on arable crops.
ACP suppliers of bananas
The next item is the report (A4-0237/98) by Mr Liese, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a special framework of assistance for traditional ACP suppliers of bananas (COM(98)0005 - C4-0263/98-98/0014(SYN)).
Before the vote on Amendment No 31
Mr President, I would like to make two points.
Firstly, the wording of Amendment No 31in our documents does not match the wording that was agreed on in the committee.
It was indeed said in committee that this amendment had to be changed and that it had to be introduced as an Article, and not in the financial statement for administrative reasons.
But the wording as presented here was not the resolution of the committee.
You could say that the committee decided on the meaning but not the wording of its resolution.
I am putting this on record and would ask Parliament's services to check how one should proceed in such a case.
In order that everyone knows what we are voting on: it is a matter here of the financial sum involved.
The committee proposes ECU 500 million.
The procedure in the House, however, - even the Commission sees it in this way, in my view, and perhaps the Commissioner can comment on this - is that financial sums are normally set in the budgetary procedure.
Colleagues in the Committee on Budgets have also asked me to point out once more that this is an unusual procedure and that actually the application ought to be rejected.
The committee, however, is in favour and for that reason, as rapporteur, I must also say that, in accordance with the spirit of the resolution, the committee has agreed to increase this financial amount.
Mr President, on this point, I would also like to mention Amendment No 38.
But was this not retracted, Mr Liese?
Then that will be explicitly recorded.
On the question of setting the sum, it is not a matter of a budgetary procedure or the anticipation of a budgetary procedure but it concerns a political declaration of intent.
For this reason I find it important that we take a vote on this.
Yet another application is contained subsequently in the legislative resolution, which provides for the increase to ECU 500 million.
We can, therefore, take a vote on it without anticipating the budgetary procedure.
But by doing so we give expression to the fact that we want to use financial resources here too.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
We vote in favour of the Council's proposal for a regulation, since it aims to make it possible to set subsidized prices for bananas imported in the traditional way from the ACP countries.
The fact is that the import of bananas from those countries has recently been challenged by a decision by the World Trade Organization - WTO -, as a result of which an amendment of the common organization of the market for bananas is under discussion. This amendment will allow for increased dollar imports of bananas, at lower prices, produced by American transnational countries.
This will obviously be damaging to bananas produced in the European Union - particularly in Madeira - and those imported from the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, which have long-standing agreements with the European Union under the Lomé Convention.
In some ways the regulation is intended to provide a minimum amount of compensation to offset reductions in the prices of bananas from the ACP countries - and thus in producers' incomes - in face of increased competition from a large quantity of dollar bananas which will be allowed free entry into the European Union.
It should be emphasized - as we already have done when stating the reasons for our vote on the Thomas report on the new common organization of the market for bananas - that this situation has become possible only because the decisions of the World Trade Organization, which increasingly panders to American interests, are being imposed on the European Union without any reaction or show of political will by the latter in defence of its producers and those in the poor ACP countries.
Mr President, the traditional trading relationships between Member States of the European Union and a number of third countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific must be protected, and the principle of the Lomé Convention must be upheld.
We do not want the international political and economic balance to be destroyed in the name of globalization and free trade.
Fair trade must be encouraged, that is, trade which respects the environment, social welfare and health.
Are we going to watch continual attacks being made against the Lomé system without reacting? We have every reason to be concerned about the weakness of the Commission's reactions.
The attack being made against us at present with regard to bananas by firms involved in production in Latin America must be examined in conjunction with the difficulties we are meeting in trying to impose an obligation to use 100 % cocoa in the manufacture of chocolate.
The same thing applies to oilseeds.
The use of genetically modified micro-organisms for soya beans will make this area more productive and therefore more profitable, and will compete directly with the production of peanuts, although we do not even know what side effects GMOs will have on the environment and health.
The European Union must be aware that by signing some international free trade agreements, or by joining the generalized system of preferences, it is likely to help destabilize many countries, especially on the African continent.
Our group supports almost all the amendments proposed by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, except Amendment No 32.
In fact, our group is opposed to the establishment of a reduction coefficient, which would be applied from 2004 to producers who have not done enough to increase their competitiveness.
We would support the principle of a reduction coefficient if it were to be imposed on producers who fail to comply with environmental, social and health requirements.
The text of this amendment utterly contradicts the principle of so-called fair trade.
Finally, our group is opposed to all the amendments tabled by Mr Liese on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, all of which is aimed at damaging the production of bananas by traditional ACP suppliers.
Instrumentalities and proceeds from crime
The next item is the report (A4-0222/98) by Mr Orlando, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Joint Action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union concerning arrangements for cooperation between Member States in respect of the identification, tracing, freezing or seizing and confiscation of instrumentalities and the proceeds from crime (6490/98 - C4-0184/98-98/0909(CNS)).
Mr Nassauer wishes to speak.
Are there any objections to Mr Nassauer's request?
Mr President, I only wanted to say that in the committee there was a spirit of harmony between the various political groups and therefore I must carefully follow the request made by the Group of the European People's Party which made an important contribution to solving these problems.
I will let the Presidency decide, but I believe that on such an important issue we should not stifle the debate or prevent any group from contributing.
Mr Schulz wishes to speak in favour of the request.
Mr President, I would like to give my express support to the request made by Mr Nassauer.
I would also add one comment on the other decisions that we have reached this morning: if this house is not to degenerate into a large gymnasium for building up our biceps, because we spend more time voting on the dotting of "i' s and crossing of "t' s than on political discussion ...
... and we do this in every week-long part-session, then I ask you finally to consider preventing such incidents as the current one from being repeated.
It is a matter here of consultations within the framework of the third pillar, where the only possibility of democratization is the debate here in Parliament and we have nothing else to offer the Council than an undebated, albeit inexpensively balloted, opinion.
That is not something which contributes to the strengthening and the reputation of the European Parliament.
For this reason we have no other choice, for the sake of our own credibility, than to proceed as Mr Nassauer has proposed.
(Applause)
I will now put to the vote the request to postpone the debate on the report by Mr Orlando.
(Parliament approved the request)
TACIS programme
The next item is the report (A4-0179/98) by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission Communication to the Council, to the European Parliament and to the Committee of the Regions on cross-border cooperation within the framework of the TACIS Programme (COM(97)0239 - C4-0280/97).
Mrs Karamanou wishes to speak.
Mr President, I think that, as the situation has turned out, I too would like to ask that the debate on my report be deferred.
I will now put to the vote the request to postpone the report by Mrs Karamanou.
(Parliament approved the request)
Electronic communication
The next item is the report (A4-0189/98) by Mr Ullmann, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on a Communication from the Commission to the Council, to the European Parliament, to the European Economic and Social Committee and to the Committee of the Regions on ensuring security and trust in electronic communication - towards a European framework for digital signatures and encryption (COM(97)0503 - C4-0648/97).
It has been requested that this report be postponed.
I will put this request to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request for postponement)
Information society
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0473/98 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on the information society; -B4-0475/98 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on the information society, Internet management and democracy; -B4-0476/98 by Mr Martens and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on the information society, Internet management and democracy; -B4-0477/98 by Mrs Ryynänen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission, on the information society; -B4-0478/98 by Mr Elchlepp, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on the information society; -B4-0479/98 by Mrs Pailler and Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on the information society and democracy; -B4-0480/98 by Mr Wolf and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on the information society.I have received seven motions for resolutions .
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Joint motion for a resolution on the information society, Internet management and democracy.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Finland is a pioneer in the construction of the information society.
A part of this work is viable telecommunications links.
With these the vast distances in our country are lessened.
They thus make it possible to bring the benefits of the information society to remote areas and people who, owing to disability or some other restriction, could not otherwise access the information sources they need.
Finland has a scattered network of universities.
The ability of universities a long way from the capital to remain competitive requires real-time contact with central locations.
Because of this, Finnish universities are the first in the world to have linked up to a high-speed telecommunications network.
Our network is actually so fast that many Americans searching for information use it also.
Healthy competition with America is thus possible in this sector.
The only problem is that links within Europe are not fast enough.
The information society is a lot more than just fast communications links; nevertheless, without fast connections people's patience runs out.
It is also a matter of money, because slow connections put up costs to the consumer.
To improve equality and cohesion it is time for Europe to invest in good, fast communication links within the Union and throughout our continent generally.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has completed the agenda.
The Minutes of the current sitting will be submitted to Parliament for its approval at the beginning of the next sitting.
Ladies and gentlemen, at the end of sittings this Presidency usually thanks Parliament's services and the interpreters for their invaluable cooperation. Today we have provided them with additional work.
Therefore, allow me to thank them even more sincerely.
In addition, ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for the help which you always give me, but which has been even greater and more important today since we have had many complicated votes. And in those cases where my incompetence has shown through, you have been able to overcome it with the generosity you are known for.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you the best for this weekend, and I would remind you that we have reached the home straight of this Parliamentary term.
Therefore, I hope that you, who are so hard-working, make use of the time, because we have only 11 months left.
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.43 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 19 June 1998.
Mr President, we all know of your full and warm-hearted support.
Thank you for your good wishes and for sending the telegram this morning.
Let us hope that in the next few days we will not see any breakdown of the current positive actions in Northern Ireland.
I raised a point at the last session on Parliament's budgetary problems following the judgment of the Court of Justice with the NGO networks working on social cohesion.
There is serious and widespread alarm about this.
I hope we may be able to get a statement from the Commission.
Mrs Banotti, if I may say so, you have anticipated the matter by about five minutes.
We are just about to begin a debate on the matter with Mr Liikanen.
Thank you, Mrs Günther.
We will look at it immediately.
Mr President, I would like to pay tribute to the memory of Lunes Matub, vilely assassinated in Algeria last Friday.
Lunes Matub was a singer and spokesman for Kabylia and Berber culture as well as a symbol of the Algeria which is struggling and suffering.
I have every sympathy with the emotion and anger of the Algerian people in the face of this dreadful act and their revulsion at the fundamentalism which has strengthened the hand of the assassins.
Algeria is now suffering and fighting and I hope that the Algerian people and the Algerian government will be able to rapidly find solutions so that his situation can move forward.
I would like to end with the remark, as his mother declared with great dignity at his funeral, that while Matub may no longer be with us in person, his songs and poems will remain deep in our hearts for ever and his struggle for peace will continue.
Mr President, I too wish to express the strongest condemnation of the murder of the Rentería councillor, as a representative democratically elected by his fellow citizens.
And in that respect, we believe that democracy and peace can only be achieved by listening to the voice of the people and never by taking the lives of their representatives.
Mr President, I do not propose to speak on this sad event - which naturally grieves me as well - but I regret that I have to report to my fellow Members in this House, particularly the ladies, the death, in this case from natural causes, of Carmen Llorca Vilaplan, who was a Member of this House for many years and worked hard here, especially in the fields of culture and women's rights. I am sure she will be remembered with affection by many Members.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Friday, 19 June have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I refer to page 16 of the Minutes.
Under Item 8, the COM on oils and fats, there is a reference to Rule 99.
This is a report taken without debate so it should be Rule 97 which is a matter of urgency requested by the Council.
As far as I am aware, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development agreed to urgency on this and there was a full debate on the Friday morning.
I now refer to the middle of page 19 in the English version, where it says that Mr Colino Salamanca, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, requested that this report be referred back to committee.
There is a matter of principle here.
It is not possible for a chairman of a committee to refer an urgency back to committee when that committee has not been involved in the debate that has taken place.
There were no amendments from the committee and I am not quite sure on what grounds the chairman was asking for referral back when he was representing the committee.
This matter needs to be looked at either by the Bureau or by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Mr Colino had every right as an individual to seek referral back to committee if he so wished but to do so he would have needed the support of his own political group or 29 Members.
That was not requested by the President at the time.
I am not criticizing the President who has our complete support every Friday morning that he is in the Chair.
But it is a matter of principle that the Bureau needs to look at.
Thank you.
I think not only the Bureau but, if necessary, also the Committee on the Rules of Procedure should remedy this omission.
Mr President, I have a comment on the Minutes of Friday, 19 June 1998.
On page 18, in the vote on my report, there are two errors.
One relates to paragraph 10: although I made an oral request for a linguistic correction to the Spanish version, this has not been done, and I wanted to say that in the various paragraphs where the word 'oil' appears this should read 'olive oil' .
And a new paragraph 13 has been wrongly added, when I indicated in my oral amendment that this was an addition to paragraph 12.
I should, therefore, be grateful if what appears as paragraph 13 could instead be added to paragraph 12.
Mr President, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak. I put my name down to do so some time ago, but perhaps you need more staff in the Bureau so that you are aware of all the Members wishing to speak.
I should like to raise one point.
At the last sitting in Strasbourg at midday on Friday, we agreed at short notice to adjourn a number of agenda items until the next sitting as there were not enough Members in attendance.
This is now the next sitting.
The items in question do not appear on the agenda.
When do you intend to deal with these items in the House?
They will be dealt with in Strasbourg.
This will be put to the Conference of Presidents, which will be meeting today and is the appropriate body to approve the draft agenda.
This, of course, could not have been done earlier.
In any event, my assistants are sufficient for the time being.
Mr Colino, I assume you are asking to speak regarding some personal remarks.
Mr President, it is just that my name has been mentioned by Mr Provan.
Rule 60 states that once amendments have been voted on, the Commission's opinion on those amendments may be sought, and it expressly states that before proceeding to vote on the draft legislative resolution the chairman of the committee or the rapporteur may, if necessary, request that it be referred back to committee.
Since there was no rapporteur, I made that request as chairman of the committee.
I agree that this is undoubtedly a problem of interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, but in any event I acted in accordance with the Rules of Procedure themselves.
Mr de Vries, you know as well as I do that points of order must be raised at the appropriate time, and none of us has any option but to be extremely disciplined.
(The Minutes were approved)
Welcome
Court's ruling in Case C/106
The next item is the Commission's communication on the follow-up to the Court's ruling in Case C/106 (legal bases in the budget).
Mr President, a recent ruling of the Court of Justice has raised serious questions about the execution of the Community budget, both in 1998 and beyond.
The Commission is aware of the concerns which these difficulties have created, and I welcome the opportunity to inform you of the state of play on this matter.
I would, however, like to state from the outset that any answer provided today can only be preliminary: the examination by the Commission of the budget lines concerned is going on at this moment.
As agreed at the Budgetary Trialogue of 23 June, the Commission will draw its conclusions on 14 July, in time for the discussions between the European Parliament and the Budget Council of 17 July.
The judgment of the Court of Justice of 12 May 1998 is the result of a legal action brought by the United Kingdom, later supported by Germany, Denmark and the Council.
The action was brought against a decision of the European Commission in 1995, to finance projects to combat poverty and social exclusion, although the proposal for a legal base for the 'Poverty 4' programme had been blocked in Council.
In its defence, the Commission was supported by the European Parliament which had inscribed credits for such projects to the 1995 budget.
But the Court concluded that the Commission was not competent to fund the projects concerned.
Furthermore, before the specific case at hand, the Court set out a number of principles of which the Commission must take account as regards the implementation of the budget.
In brief, the Court insists that funds for significant Community action can only be executed if there is both an entry in the budget and a prior adoption of secondary legislation, that is a so-called 'legal base' , authorizing the action itself.
The Court accepts, however, that a legal base is not required for non-significant action.
The Court does not define 'non-significant' .
But it insists that a small amount or a short duration are not, per se , sufficient criteria.
Instead the Court points towards the right of the Commission to exercise its power of initiative by initiating, on its own responsibility, the studies or projects required to prepare its proposals.
From that it can be derived that pilot projects, preparatory measures and studies to prepare or update legislation can be executed without a legal base.
In addition, autonomous actions of the institutions have not been disputed.
In this situation, once the ruling of the Court had become available, the Commission had no choice but to suspend temporarily the execution of all budget lines of the 1998 budget without a legal base and to examine as quickly as possible whether they can still be executed in the light of the ruling of the Court.
The situation of this examination as of today is the following: 90 budget lines have been temporarily suspended.
The total budgetary volume in question was some ECU 870m; for 19 of these budget lines, the Commission has proposed legal bases, some of them already four years ago.
The volume concerned is some ECU 500m; more than 30 of the temporarily suspended budget lines have already been re-opened, as the Commission is satisfied that they meet the criteria of the Court.
Thus execution has resumed of some ECU 240m; for the rest the examination continues and the Commission should take its decision on 14 July 1998.
In parallel to its internal investigations, the Commission has contacted Parliament and Council to discuss the situation.
The Budgetary Trialogue of 23 June has permitted to agree an action plan with three elements.
Firstly, Council and Parliament will accelerate the adoption of legal bases for which the Commission has already made proposals.
This is very important because it concerns some major budget lines, in particular the 'Community measures for NGOs' (for which a legal base has been proposed in 1995) and the 'Human Rights and Democracy initiative' (proposal one year ago).
Fortunately, the legislation for the European voluntary service has now been concluded (after two years) and the execution of the programme can resume shortly.
The Commission will have an opportunity tonight and tomorrow to draw the attention of the Austrian presidency to the urgent need to adopt these legal bases.
But it is up to the legislative authority to make a special effort in this respect.
Secondly, in the Trialogue the Commission committed itself to conclude its examination in time to provide results for the meeting between the Budget Council and the European Parliament of 17 July 1998.
This will be done.
Thirdly, the institutions will make their best efforts to come to a 'code of conduct' for the question of legal bases already on 17 July.
The Commission has been trying for years to secure conclusion of such a code of conduct.
It has made a number of proposals which, unfortunately, have not been agreed between the Council and Parliament.
The most recent proposal has been made in the framework of the Commission proposals of 18 March 1998 for the next interinstitutional agreement.
Discussions at a technical level are going on among the institutions.
We will do everything we can to be able to conclude the discussions at the next Trialogue in two weeks' time.
Commissioner, you have just said that the Commission had no choice but to suspend over 40 budget lines.
But you are fully aware of the consequent effect of the judgement, and especially the fact that this was a very particular situation since the problem was not the lack of any legal basis, but the abolition of a legal basis: the Poverty 3 programme.
Do you not agree, however, that - like Lucky Luke, the cartoon cowboy - you are firing quicker than your shadow and by sending this catastrophic signal to a group of people directly concerned with programmes which affect the most deprived of our citizens, you have deepened the crisis of confidence between the most deprived section of European society and ourselves?
We must remember that the decision of the Court concerned issues which affect the weakest part of our society, namely the budget lines against poverty and social exclusion.
We all think these actions have been extremely important but when the Court announced its decision on the Commission's competence to implement these budget lines, we had no other choice but to seek legal certainty for the implementation of the budget from now on.
Suspension was the only choice we had.
Of course since then we have been working day and night to find solutions as quickly as we can.
But the Commission is not above the law.
We must respect the decision of the Court of Justice even though it gives us many difficulties.
I am sure that in two weeks' time the situation will have become clearer.
I cannot guarantee that everything will have been resolved but the vast majority of the issues will be.
Mr President, in spite of what has been said regarding the settlement of the current issue, that is, the suspension of budget lines following the ruling by the Court of Justice, I nevertheless wish to draw the attention of the Commission and the Members of this House to the issue of the institutional solution to the problem.
This issue has been shuffling around Parliament since 1982 and each year all kinds of problems surface which curtail Parliament's possibilities to exercise its powers.
In parallel, therefore, to the solution of the short-term problem, that is to say, the specific issue of the current budget, in the debate that will take place on 17 July a solution must be found to the long-term problem. In other words, we need to define an institutional framework which will allow the institutional problem to be solved on a predetermined basis and in a legally acceptable way, so that the problem of legal bases will not arise each time and cause the problems that it does.
I am of the opinion that, in the event that a solution is found to the short-term problem, we must also have the institutional solution in parallel.
If not, I very much fear that the consequences for the current budget and for subsequent budgets will be considerable and the responsibility for this will lie with everybody.
I agree with this statement.
It is very important to try to solve this problem which has been pending since the 1980s.
In the best scenario, by 17 July we could have a clear situation for the 1998 budget and a solution for the long-term which could then be a part of the interinstitutional agreement which must be concluded before the end of this Parliament.
If we can agree on all the basic elements that would be the basis for the action from now on.
There are two questions here which are very important.
The first is: what is non-significant action?
The common opinion is that it essentially helps the work of the Commission in the execution.
The second issue which must be discussed is what is to be done in the case where a legal base has been proposed but not accepted.
There is clearly a difference between these two dates and technically that could lead to a situation where we must cut off the action.
We must find a solution which will make a bridge from the normal preparatory action to the date when the legal base has been accepted so that the legislative procedure will not stop an activity.
Mr President, much damage has indeed been done, and it will take years to patch matters up.
The confidence of the public and that of the national organizations has gone, and, though we may find a quick solution, the damage is going to take time to repair.
I maintain that the reputation of the European Union, Parliament, and all EU institutions has been tarnished.
Mr Liikanen, you stated that a quick solution is now being sought.
It is most important and necessary that a quick solution be found and that this code of conduct be implemented. But what if we have no solution on July 17?
Will Parliament, in that case, have to use the only means ultimately available to it, which is that we refuse to discuss the budget if no solution is found? Can you assure us that the Council will in this case now approve this joint agreement and give it a legal basis?
Can you give us a guarantee of that?
Mr President, we need three parties to the agreement: the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
No agreement will emerge unless all three find a way to compromise.
Much work obviously needs to be done here, and we also need a sense of good will as well as an appreciation of just how serious the crisis will be if legislation and the budgetary authority are at loggerheads.
In this respect, I hope this very unpleasant situation has at least raised awareness of how essential a solution to the problem is.
The Commission cannot give guarantees that the Council will go along with the Commission's position, but at least the former chairman made a commitment to doing everything possible to find a solution.
Today and tomorrow the Commission and representatives from the country holding the presidency, Austria, are staging a conference in Vienna, where this matter is up for crucial discussion.
We hope to see a sufficient degree of coordination in the Council, also, for those nineteen proposals for legal bases which they have there, and many have been around for a long time now, to be dealt with quickly.
Commissioner, I think that this matter illustrates the saying donner et retenir ne vaut .
What kind of a situation do we have here? Thanks to the Interinstitutional Agreement, we can have the last word on noncompulsory expenditure.
However, this Court ruling has simply led you to freeze some of the credits on the grounds that we must wait for a supplementary regulation.
I think that you are going too far, because we all know perfectly well that a legal base has been missing for a good number of years and that it is essential, as regards decisions taken by this Parliament, that such decisions be implemented.
Who is affected by your decision? In the final analysis, it will affect a large number of NGOs, that is, organizations which need these funds in order to exist and which cannot wait until the long drawn-out bargaining processes between the Council and the Commission are over.
So I hope that you will not wait until 17 July, but if you do have to wait until then, that you will be able to provide us with an assurance, on that day, as to the commitment of these funds.
We must remember that the Commission cannot behave as if the Court ruling had not taken place.
The Court of Justice is an independent institution in the European Union and we are obliged to follow its ruling.
Whatever we think of the contents of a particular budget line, we are not above the law.
The political adjustment cannot go in a different direction to the clear contents of the Court decision.
The clear message is that according to the Court, significant Community action requires both appropriations in the budget line and a prior legal base.
We must follow that decision now.
There are areas where we have more margin of judgment such as pilot projects, preparatory actions and autonomous actions.
But we must review everything.
We must remember the poverty programme was blocked in the Council.
We wanted to continue some actions which were very close to many European citizens which we had implemented, supported by the European Parliament, but then the Court of Justice announced this decision.
So we cannot continue as if the decision had not happened.
Of course, we are working as hard as we can towards clarifying the situation by 17 July.
I have told you already that we have been able to clear budget lines which amount to approximately ECU 240m.
For the rest, I hope we will have completed our work in the next two weeks.
We must treat this very seriously because the Commission has the responsibility for execution thereafter.
We do not want to restart the same problems which led to the Court case.
I am not totally convinced that Commissioners Flynn and Bonino would agree with your very restrictive interpretation of this Court ruling.
As you have quite rightly said, the areas and the budget lines affected are those which are closest to the citizens and which, coincidentally, have been put in by the Members themselves.
If you are trying to keep the link between Parliament, Commission, Council and the people, you must try hard to get a quick solution to this.
NGOs are closing down at this very moment because they cannot enter into any new commitments.
No new contracts can be signed and so on.
When the Treaty of Amsterdam is ratified by all the Member States and comes into being, how do you view the unanimity clause as regards the non-discrimination and social exclusion provisions. We could fund certain of the poverty lines and the social exclusion lines under the Treaty, but we still need unanimity.
Perhaps you could enlighten us with the legal expertise at your disposal.
We might still be in a legal quagmire unless we have a proper interinstitutional agreement.
I am afraid that your target is wrong.
The Council did not accept the legal base but when the Commission decided to execute that legal base, Members of Parliament attack the Commission.
Our decisions have been annulled and we must follow the law.
There are many areas in the budget which are very close to what I would like to do but that under the Treaty and financial regulations we need a prior legal base and appropriations in the budget.
The Court has now clarified that position.
We cannot continue as if Court of Justice decisions had no bearing on how the Commission acts.
We must be extremely clear about this.
We have some margin of manoeuvre when you talk about pilot projects, preparatory actions and autonomous actions.
We are trying to clarify every case.
I do not want to be in a situation in the future where a new decision of the Commission will be annulled by the Court of Justice and perhaps then the organization will have to pay the money back.
This time that did not happen.
The Court has said we do not have to pay the money back.
However, if the same thing happens intentionally in the future, then the damage to European public opinion will be disastrous.
I agree it is important to be close to the European citizens; it is also important to respect the founding treaties on which the whole Union is based.
As far as the Treaty of Amsterdam is concerned, it is possible to think along the lines of whether we could do something preparatory for the new Treaty.
This contains new articles on employment and the social field.
We are having intense discussions on that and perhaps that could be a base for preparatory actions.
Thirdly, this legal interpretation has been prepared in the Commission by our legal service and by our budget department and agreed fully in the Commission.
There has been no political difference of opinion in the Commission on that decision.
Of course we accept that the Commission must respect the law.
But the Commissioner has also said there is a margin for interpretation.
I would like to ask the Commission to show some political courage.
The Commission cannot sit silently between the Council and Parliament and say whichever is stronger will win.
Specifically, I should like to ask the Commissioner, in the event of a choice between Article 235 which requires unanimity, and other legal bases, will the Commission always try to use the legal base which gives most powers to co-decision with Parliament?
That is a very important question but it does not help in this matter.
The present problem is whether there is or is not a legal base.
As you know, our position has always been to support co-decision within the whole decision-making system as much as possible.
I do not disagree with Mr Brinkhorst on the matter in general.
Commissioner Liikanen, the Commission has been in operation since 1 January 1995 and since that time you have been responsible for the budget. This Parliament has not given a discharge for the 1996 budget and has reserved the right to do so in September.
The officials went on strike because your proposals, Commissioner, came, shall we say, unexpectedly and were kind of makeshift solutions.
Now we have this matter that the Commission apparently did not discover until 12 June?
Since it has the power of initiative, how do you see the Commission's responsibility in this matter? It is a matter that certainly puts the European Parliament in very serious difficulty but also greatly damages the European Union's image, considering the problem of the legal basis and the fact that the Commission knew for years that the institutions had to be given one.
Certainly, the Council, in particular, is seriously behind in its work, but the Commission is perhaps somewhat at fault too.
I would like to know what you think about this, Commissioner.
You are right when you say that.
This Commission has been in office since January 1995 and we must remember that these budget lines were executed in 1995.
It was this Commission's decisions which have been annulled.
That is why we must take it seriously.
If it had been otherwise, we would say that it was not our responsibility.
But, it is our responsibility - mine and the whole College.
To say that we interpret this to mean that everything can continue as before would be contrary to the Treaty and the whole spirit of the European Union.
We have given the role of resolving conflicts to the Court of Justice and now we must follow its decisions.
In some areas, there is a margin of manoeuvre, and we will try to use this as much as we can.
As far as our initiatives are concerned, your colleagues in the Committee on Budgets know that we have made proposals all the time to solve the issue of the legal base.
I have raised this matter every year in every Trialogue since the beginning of this Commission.
Mr Christodoulou, the rapporteur for the European Parliament, has been very active on this matter.
The Council has been extremely hesitant.
Now I am a little worried that we are missing the target in the debate.
We have taken the initiative to seek an agreement between the institutions.
We have made proposals for the legal bases.
The Council has not accepted.
We have not found a solution on an interinstitutional agreement but a lack of initiatives is not the problem.
There are plenty of initiatives.
But now we need a solution.
I am sure that your colleagues in the Committee on Budgets and those who take part in the Trialogue will do everything they can together with us to find a line which could be acceptable for all three institutions.
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for clarifying a number of the points which I had intended to raise.
You are quite right to stress that the Court's ruling must be adhered to, but this is precisely the point of my question, which relates in particular to Paragraphs 39 to 42 of the ruling.
In this respect, the Commission's action differs fundamentally from what the ruling says.
The ruling has exempted a whole range of existing contracts and payments from suspension.
The Commission is proceeding on a very different basis.
It is examining everything and is now giving us a total of everything it has examined, but this does not satisfy the concern felt by the general public.
I would like to ask you to respond now to this public concern by providing a second answer in line with the wording of the ruling, which refers to specific categories.
Secondly, you have repeatedly told us that you are working towards an interinstitutional agreement.
However, our priority is to find legal bases - and since you have also argued in these terms, I assume it must be your priority too - and an interinstitutional agreement is not a legal basis in terms of the ruling's requirements.
The Commission policy since 1994 has been to interpret an action which involves less than ECU 5m and of a duration less than two years as not significant.
We have applied this interpretation since 1994.
The problem is that the Court did not accept it.
It said that small amounts or short duration are not good enough arguments.
So, our position has been questioned.
Secondly, on the question of legal bases, as I said in my statement, we have 19 legal bases now pending in the legislative authority.
ECU 500m are dependent on those legal bases.
We need to get them through.
In many areas there is no disagreement on the political contents.
There is very often disagreement on the different procedural issues or comitologies or the article on which to base the legal base.
We need a strong political will and strong coordination in the Council to get them all through.
The interinstitutional agreement is important for those so-called grey areas.
We must try to have a common opinion on what is 'non-significant' .
The unilateral position of the Commission has not been accepted by the Court.
But if all three can agree on some interpretation, then we will have a new situation.
The Commissioner is under a lot of pressure today and Parliament has expressed a significant amount of concern.
Could the Commissioner tell us how the full College of Commissioners will respond to his very obvious good will in this situation? Also, we must note that, unfortunately, Courts of Justice are not elected and their members do not have to feel the citizens' hot breath on the backs of their necks.
Many NGOs, in particular in the area of safety and protection of children, have so far not qualified for any funding under previously existing rules.
I hope that those organizations who do not have the opportunity to avail of Structural Funds will be given priority when the decisions are made in the Commission.
I would also like to ask the Commissioner what he thinks about the Committee on Budgets' opinion.
It has not been mentioned this afternoon but I believe it is not as sympathetic to us as we might want.
Mr Christodoulou, the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets, asked me about the legal base and he has expressed the position of the European Parliament.
On the basis of the Trialogue, my conviction is that we are not very far from a solution but we need a strong effort by the Parliament on the basis of the decision which has been taken and also from the Council.
If we have the basis for an agreement, the Commission will do all the technical preparations necessary.
As far as the NGOs are concerned, in the future the key matter for them is that we have a basic legal basis for their activities.
That is what we have been proposing since 1995.
If the Council accepts that legal basis it is cleared for external actions.
Internal actions will need the same.
On the political priorities of Parliament, I do not want to interfere in discussions between the Committee on Budgets and the other committees.
Finally, I have received personally every NGO which has asked for contact.
I have talked to them directly and explained the situation.
We must try to find solutions which support the political priorities of Parliament and the Commission but which are legally solid.
We cannot have it any other way.
The Commissioner will now have heard the anxiety across the political spectrum in this House about what has happened with these legal bases and budget lines.
This Parliament is deeply committed to those lines for several reasons.
Firstly, they take this institution and the Union closer to the people.
But also we - like the Commissioner - have been on the end of the lobby from NGOs, organizations and people who have been supported by those budget lines and now find they are not available.
The Commissioner has made it clear that the real problem lies with the Council, not with this Parliament and not with the Commission.
Could he perhaps then join with us in saying that what we need now is a concerted Parliament and Commission line which says to the NGOs and the people of the Union that they can continue to write to us but they should direct their anxiety and lobby the Council and the national governments.
We in this House can perhaps provide addresses, telephone numbers and faxes of relevant ministers so they can feel the same heat as us.
Commissioner, we would like your support.
I fully agree.
It is important that our actions in the Commission and in Parliament are targeted on the areas where the problems are.
Many problems are solved on the day the Council accepts the legal base.
We must try to convince them.
We tried with the previous presidency and we begin tonight with the Austrian presidency.
I am sure that this very unpleasant crisis has transmitted the concern of the citizens to the Council.
We must try to find a solution which will attract popular support.
I am pleased that the Commission has taken cognizance of the concern which exists regarding this situation.
That concern is quite obviously shared by the European Parliament and civil society is very sensitive about the matter.
I think we must show that we share that concern by introducing transitional measures, once the ruling is known, until there are legal grounds for approving the various regulations that will authorize the actions provided for.
Mrs Green is right that we should bring pressure to bear on the Council.
But the European Commission must also do its duty and give specific answers to the questions placed before it.
For example, how does the European Commission interpret the scope of the words 'non-significant measures' in the ruling?
Secondly, what will the European Commission be doing about the programmes approved in the 1998 budget?
And thirdly, ...
(The President cut off the speaker since he had exceeded his allotted time)
We try to analyse all the budget lines now in the spirit of the Court ruling so that we have a right to execute pilot projects and preparatory actions.
All those actions which fulfil these criteria can be executed without a legal base.
We work on this basis.
When the Court does not accept our interpretation about a certain amount of money, we cannot insert a new sum because it says clearly that a small sum is not a sufficient condition to execute a budget line as being not significant.
So that basis does not exist.
But pilot projects can be small and can be larger.
Preparatory action can be small but can be bigger.
The key thing is that we have to try to make a qualitative analysis of the old actions, not quantitatively as was done in the past.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
This matter is closed.
Mr Telkämper wishes to speak.
Mr President, I think that you should give an answer to this question in your capacity as President.
The point is that we cannot ask - or indeed complain about - the Commission because there has been a shift of power: the Commission and Parliament are now in the same boat with regard to the Council.
It is now time for Parliament to make a statement on this issue.
I think that you yourself have recognized that Parliament has become weaker, and it is up to us, as Parliament, to take a political initiative to ensure that this shift of power which has occurred - and I think there has been a shift of power vis-a-vis the Council - is removed by Parliament.
I would ask you to ensure that this item is included on the agenda at the next part-session in Strasbourg and that we, as Parliament, take an initiative to restore Parliament's power in this respect.
It is a question of the Treaty; perhaps, on principle, a codecision procedure should be introduced ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr Telkämper, that, as you know, is not within the President's powers.
It is the prerogative of the Conference of Presidents, with which you may raise this issue through your political group, as any other Member may raise an issue through his political group.
The President, however, is not responsible for drawing up the agenda. That is for the Conference of Presidents to decide, and ultimately the whole House when it approves the agenda.
Mr President, I respect your authority as President to conduct the debates, but perhaps, in a debate of this kind, if the rapporteur asks to speak it ought to be one of the 20 or 30 Members who could put a question.
Mr Colom, this is a debate which is ordered in such a way that all Members can have an opportunity to speak, whether they are rapporteurs, chairmen of groups or anything else.
And, within the limits of the President's powers, and there are many such limits, we try to strike a balance between nationalities, political groups, etcetera.
In your case, unfortunately, you have asked to speak but so have other members of your group, and rightly or wrongly, I had to choose one of them.
Euro-Mediterranean Agreement with Jordan
The next item is the report (A4-0165/98) by Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the signature and on the conclusion of a Euro-Mediterranean Agreement with Jordan (COM(97)0554 - C4-0171/98-97/029(AVC)).
Mr President, let us turn our attention to the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement between Jordan and the European Union.
This Agreement forms part of the overall process known as the Barcelona process, a process whose purpose was - and I hope will continue to be - to achieve closer links between the European Union and the countries of the southern Mediterranean, and of course between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority.
The main objectives were: to help achieve peace and stability in the region; increase economic cooperation, for which a perspective was drawn up on the establishment of a free trade agreement between Jordan and the European Union after a period of twelve years; increase regional cooperation; provide more opportunities for social and cultural cooperation through organized links; and finally, to allow Jordan access to MEDA funding.
Since the establishment of the Barcelona process, four similar association agreements have been concluded with Israel, Tunisia, Morocco and the Palestinian Authority.
Unfortunately, it looks as though the Middle East peace process has ground to a halt.
There is increasing evidence that this is so. This naturally places a very heavy burden on the original purpose of the Barcelona process whose very aim was to give peace more of a chance.
In June, further efforts were made at Palermo to give new impetus to the peace process by convening a meeting of Foreign Ministers of the European Union and partner countries. Ultimately though, it is events that determine future progress and not just meetings.
A meeting may help but it cannot act as a counterweight if everything else continues to point towards a harsher reality.
The situation in Israel is giving more than cause for concern.
The Agreement with Jordan has been a long time coming.
This is largely because Spain expressed opposition after the original agreement had been initialled. It felt that one particular clause was too prejudicial to the Spanish tomato market given the possible import of Jordanian tomatoes.
This finally resulted in the clause being altered and an increase in the quota of tomato concentrate. Jordan had then to forego an overall review of the quota.
This is an embarrassing example of how a project aimed at giving shape to a European Union foreign policy can ultimately stumble over a few cases of tomatoes.
There is not really anything to boast about.
Turning to Jordan itself, there can be no doubt that its economy is weak.
Like the Palestinian economy, the Jordanian economy is suffering a great deal due to the deadlock in the peace process. There are many in the European Parliament who plead for sympathy for the situation in Israel.
They should take a look at the situation elsewhere and see how every economic initiative is grinding to a halt because of the difficulty there is crossing borders. This is because there are only two bridges that can be used in either direction and because Israeli border checks continue from early in the morning until late at night.
The country that summoned the political courage to sign a peace agreement with Israel in 1994 is now paying a very heavy economic price for doing so and not reaping the rewards it had hoped for the political courage it actually showed.
With regard to democracy, it is clear that Jordan has a long way to go before it meets the main criteria for a well-functioning democracy.
In some respects, the situation is actually deteriorating.
But if you compare the situation in Jordan with the average situation in all of the other countries in the region, then Jordan is doing relatively well.
As I suggested in my report, I think that the European Parliament is doing well to define what problems there actually are and plead for the adoption of the cooperation agreement; at the same time we should monitor the situation with regard to democracy and human rights and use this agreement to demand more progress, because things have got to improve.
Mr President, firstly, I should like to thank the rapporteur for her work, and also for her comments here today.
I can only agree with her that whereas Jordan is not a developing country in the traditional sense, it has not really been the focus of the European Union's attention for some time.
Certainly - and I agree with the rapporteur on this point too - Jordan has a less than perfect record on human rights and democracy, but I am sure we would all be pleased if Jordan's achievements, which Jordan itself is keen to improve, could be repeated in other parts of the world, especially in the 'classic' developing countries.
Democracy and human rights are always issues which we are increasingly stressing in our cooperation with other countries.
Mrs Aelvoet herself has also undertaken the work necessary in connection with the Amsterdam Treaty and the Lomé Convention to enable us to make democracy and human rights a criterion for cooperation in general. The Committee on Development and Cooperation is therefore pleased that this, too, has been laid down in Article 2 of the Agreement.
Another point in the Agreement which we welcome very much is the intention to facilitate cooperation between the Parliaments, which is certainly important within the framework of the parliamentary forum of the Euro-Mediterranean process too.
We are currently preparing the first meeting of this forum, and for this reason too Jordan is thus in an advantageous position to breathe life into this Agreement.
Mr President, although the number of Euro-Mediterranean Agreements is continuing to increase, I have to say that the measures that were proposed at Barcelona far outweigh those that have actually been put into practice, particularly in the eastern Mediterranean.
This is largely due to the deadlock in the peace process.
Good headway in the peace process had to form the basis for greater economic cooperation between the countries in the region. The European Union promised that it would play an important supporting role.
A new cooperation agreement with Jordan would, of course, have to play a prominent part in this.
Now that things have gone awry, we must welcome the new agreement with Jordan with open arms.
As well as having genuine economic significance, it will play an important symbolic role.
Jordan is a country with a long-term vision.
It knows that its fate will depend on relations between Israel and Palestine.
It wishes to play a positive role in the peace process and will, therefore, be an important participant in any future negotiations.
By signing this agreement, the EU will indirectly play a similar positive role.
We share Jordan's desire for close links with Israel and the Palestinian Authority and do actually have such links.
The very fact that the European Union is the most important provider of support to the Palestinian territories underlines our commitment to the future of the entire region.
The agreement is wide-ranging and ambitious.
In twelve years' time, the European Union and Jordan will have established a free trade area.
The agricultural sector will also have to play a prominent role. There is no sense denying that agreements of this kind will cause problems for the European Union as regards horticultural products.
In the years to come, we will be willing to strengthen our relations with Mediterranean countries in the area of agriculture, but not if our own EU producers will have to cushion our partners against market developments in the fruit, vegetable and flower sectors.
Plans for these sectors in the Mediterranean region are very ambitious, too ambitious, in fact.
We hope that it will be possible to increase cooperation in the agricultural sector but in a reasonable and sensible manner.
Mr President, I would like to welcome this Association Agreement with Jordan, which has been a long time in coming, as the rapporteur, Mrs Aelvoet, was saying.
I would like to say that our group, the Socialist group, will be expressing its satisfaction with the Agreement by voting in favour of the rapporteur's proposal that we give our assent to the Association Agreement.
And I would like to take this opportunity to say that we are concerned that the necessary ratification by Member States of the European Union will take another four years from now, and the implementation of this Euro-Mediterranean Agreement will, thus, be delayed even further.
Jordan is a country that has opted for peace and a country in a difficult region and a difficult situation.
Jordan has to prove to its public that the peace it has opted for will benefit them.
Jordan is a country that has maintained a constructive attitude in the dialogue process signed in Barcelona and has continued along the same road since.
And the financial and economic cooperation that can come out of this Agreement is important to Jordan's political development.
With regard to agriculture, the sector that has caused the delay in reaching an agreement with Jordan, we have to accept its inclusion in this free trade area and find quicker formulas for achieving cooperation in that respect.
This Agreement also includes a political dialogue and a parliamentary dialogue which we have called for many times.
In October, in this same House, there will be a multilateral dialogue between the parliaments of the region and the European Parliament.
And I believe it is going to be important to ensure that this Agreement, like the rest, has been signed by then.
The Agreement also contains provisions for monitoring the observance of human rights and support for democratization.
The situation in that field is not perfect.
We are concerned not so much about the human rights situation - which, as previous speakers here have already said, is comparable to that in other areas of the world - as about a certain tendency for the situation regarding political rights - the right to hold meetings, the right of association, the freedom for elected members to carry out their duties, etcetera - to deteriorate, and we want that situation to improve.
But we want to sign this Agreement precisely in order to be able to do that: to be able to play a proper part in the monitoring of human rights, as has been mentioned, to help in the democratization process.
I therefore reiterate our intention to vote in favour of the rapporteur's proposal. I only hope the Jordanians will not have to wait for a further generation before this Association Agreement is ratified by all the Member States of the European Union, and that sentiment applies equally to the other agreements that come out of Barcelona.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the conclusion of the Agreement with Jordan is a positive step, since this Agreement is an example of how the European Union can conclude treaties with other countries - in this case with the Mediterranean region, in particular - which are below the threshold for accession.
I think that this can, and must, be a model for the future.
We cannot only intensify cooperation when there is a prospect of accession to the European Union at the end of the process; instead, we must find other ways of proceeding.
This Agreement is an example of how close relations can be achieved on the basis of an accord.
Agreements of the same type have already been concluded with Tunisia, Israel and Morocco, and this new Agreement thus fits in with the European Union's policy on the Mediterranean.
A Cooperation Agreement with Jordan has existed since 1977.
Four supplementary financial protocols have already been signed within the framework of this Cooperation Agreement.
After a transitional period, the aim is to establish an area of free trade which should be achieved on a step-by-step basis.
I believe that this is an important move towards a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area, which is what we are aiming for.
The Christian Democrats in this House, the Group of the European People's Party, has always supported and worked actively towards this goal; I should like to emphasize this point very clearly once more.
However, there are criticisms which we can make in relation to Jordan, and which we should not gloss over today.
The rapporteur made brief reference to this at the beginning; however, her report does not make these issues as clear as I would have wished.
I think that two points should be made in this connection, and I shall name them: the restrictive press laws in Jordan, and, above all, the ban on all forms of political assembly.
I think that the discussion process with Jordan can be a way of initiating talks about these issues too.
They could thus be dealt with through political dialogue in such a way as to ensure that democratic conditions are achieved as we would wish and in line with the conditions set by the European Union, at least in the final phase, when it concludes agreements of this kind.
I am pleased that this Agreement has been reached and that solutions were found within the framework of the trade talks too, for I believe that Jordan, in particular, must be given our support. Jordan has always been a reliable partner in the Middle East and also contributes to the stabilization of this region.
I am looking forward to the dialogue between the European Parliament and the Jordanians.
Mr President, I regard closer links with Jordan as a natural means of strengthening the agreements that have already been concluded with Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
We are clearly leaving out Syria and Lebanon although that is not such a problem.
But what about Egypt?
I have been rapporteur for Egypt for three years now and regret to say that negotiations are still deadlocked over a number of issues: agricultural products and human rights.
Mrs Aelvoet has already mentioned agricultural products. An agreement should not hang on a case of tomatoes.
I say we should give Egypt a fair export quota.
The situation with regard to human rights is rather more complicated although I will not go into that here.
The Commission has negotiated very hard with Egypt and has now reached the end of its mandate.
I would therefore like to call upon the Commissioners to come and report on the situation as soon as possible.
On this the first day of the Austrian Presidency, I would call upon Vienna to ask all of the Member States to speed up the agreement with Egypt because we do not want the first country in the Middle East that had the courage to start the peace process with Israel to be one of the last to be able to sign the agreements.
I hope that in the coming months the Council will not just give its attention to enlargement but will make one of its many tasks to call upon the Member States to bring the agreement with Egypt to a successful conclusion.
Very positive results have already been achieved with those countries with which we have already signed agreements.
I am referring in particular to Morocco.
I regularly come across Moroccan parliamentarians with whom we can talk business.
I would like to see the same thing happen with Egypt and, of course, Jordan.
I would also like to congratulate Mrs Aelvoet because she has worked hard to keep those cases of tomatoes out.
Mr President, the Liberal group welcomes the conclusion of this agreement with Jordan.
The European Union is doing well to pursue this Mediterranean policy under the Barcelona process.
We should not be put off by complications arising from deadlock in the peace process.
Jordan is important to the peace process.
Jordan was prepared to sign a peace treaty with Israel despite Israel's occupation of part of Jordanian territory in 1967.
This is a sign of great willingness.
King Hussein has quite rightly earned a great deal of respect.
Since the time of the Israeli occupation, Jordan has continued to act as protector of the occupied territory.
Jordan also has very large groups of Palestinian refugees within its borders.
Despite all these complications, Jordan is one of the few democracies in the region.
We must encourage further democracy because improvements are possible and necessary.
Mr Konrad has already mentioned those involving freedom of the press and the formation of political parties.
If Jordan had been part of Africa, I think things would have been different and there would have been no agreement.
I therefore think that it is right for the agreement between the Union and Jordan to contain a clause on democracy and human rights.
I hope that we can adhere strictly to the clause.
In the current explosive situation in the Middle East, we must use this agreement to promote the prospects of a lasting peace.
This agreement will hopefully help give the Jordanian people more chance of achieving economic progress. Hopefully, it will also help the country continue to promote peace and reconciliation.
The Liberal group therefore accepts this agreement and joins me in sending compliments to my friend and colleague Magda Aelvoet.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we approve the basis of this report and the improvement in relations between the European Union and Jordan.
But I would first of all like to pay tribute to King Hussein, tribute which he so justly deserves for the many long years during which, under the most difficult circumstances, he has shown wisdom and worked for peace, torn as he was - as was his country - by powerful forces. In common with the Lebanon, Jordan has suffered problems due to the creation of the State of Israel, through the presence of many Palestinian refugees in Jordan who have sometimes behaved as a conquered state, forgetting their own difficulties and foisting their problems upon their host country.
This report is too critical because what we mean to say here is that human rights are far from perfect in Jordan; but what conditions prevail in the region?
There is far less denunciation of things which happen in the neighbouring country.
The daily press reports that huge crowds gather in Jerusalem itself.
Mr Netanyahu goes there and up goes the cry, "Death to the Arabs' .
Curiously, those who appreciate the extremist positions in Israel are those who would sometimes like to teach us a lesson, whilst we only want to ensure that the basic sovereign rights of our people are respected.
This is home to the Arabs; this is home to the Palestinians, and Jerusalem's policy of conquest and expulsion of the Palestinians and Arabs is a real catastrophe.
Here, people talk about freedom of the press, but if we take a close look at ourselves, we see that it does not exist.
There are laws which a great journalist from our French daily newspaper, "Le Figaro' , a former Stalinist and something of an expert, who has acknowledged the errors of her youth when she was an editorial writer with the Jewish Tribune, called the intolerable Jewish thought police.
We have laws which prohibit freedom of thought, freedom to write, so how dare we pursue in Jordan, living in a state of war, something we are unable to enforce at home, where we have an intolerable thought police. But, as always, there is truth on the banks of the Jordan, mistakes on the banks of the Seine.
As regards the free trade policy, we would like to impose some limitations on this concept, which we do not always agree with. But, in general, we would like to welcome the improvement to be made in our relations with Jordan, by voting for this report.
Mr President, I too consider Mrs Aelvoet's report excellent and the agreement with Jordan positive, also because a solution has been found for some problems with agricultural production that were blocking the agreement.
But you see, in all these agreements a problem occurs: either negotiations are delayed or some obstacle prevents subsequent ratification of the agreement reached.
If it is not one Member State posing problems, it is another: this is the case for Egypt whose agreement still has to be completed or for Morocco whose agreement was concluded two years ago but has not been ratified.
This is not acceptable!
We, the European Parliament, were right in taking a position a month ago and reminding the Commission and the Council of their responsibilities so that they, in turn, remind the Member States of their responsibilities.
Otherwise, it is too contradictory: we cannot want to relaunch the Mediterranean strategy and then block agreements with individual Mediterranean countries.
This is too contradictory.
We must, therefore, again recall this aspect.
Jordan is an important country in Middle East affairs; it certainly has a few economic and social problems and also problems with full democracy, but - as Mrs Terrón recalled - in comparison with other countries, fundamental liberties and rights are guaranteed and there is a certain cohabitation between religions.
We must make sure that this situation does not regress but instead gradually progresses.
This aspect is, in my opinion, very important.
We must rekindle - now is the time to say it - political dialogue between parliaments: it will be very important if we succeed at the end of October in organizing the first interparliamentary forum between the European Parliament and national parliaments and in taking full advantage of this opportunity.
We must, therefore, rekindle interparliamentary dialogue in general, and Euro-Mediterranean dialogue in particular.
The meeting of Foreign Ministers on 3 and 4 June was useful in this sense, and I believe that it can help the third Euro-Mediterranean Conference.
The most important question relates to the peace process.
As you know, the Palestinians have said that they accept the American plan whereas the Israeli government so far has not said that it does.
This creates a very difficult situation.
Some of today's newspapers carry an interview with President Arafat who expresses his deep concern about a very worrisome situation: he denounces Israel's siege of and stranglehold over the Palestinian Territories, a situation that cannot be accepted over a sustained period of time and that can only generate despair and especially hinder development and prevent the solution of poverty, a situation that is a kind of embargo, so to speak.
The interview ends with a very serious and pressing appeal to the European Union, the only one that can help call off the siege.
This is a very strong reminder of our responsibilities.
We must tell everyone that you cannot play with peace, but especially that this region cannot be kept in a situation of marginalization, poverty and non-development.
I understand that this is in the interest of some who today are stronger and more powerful, but this is not in the interest of all the peoples and not in the interest of the European Union; we must therefore remind everyone of their sense of responsibility in concluding this peace process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this agreement follows the signature of two similar association agreements with Tunisia, Morocco, Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the context of the new EuroMediterranean partnership.
This Agreement creates the necessary conditions for establishing the nucleus of a future integrated economic area, as soon as the political situation permits, in the Middle East and North Africa.
By creating this network of agreements based on similar provisions, the Community is attempting to create an economically prosperous EuroMediterranean area and encourage the development of South-South economic relations, which are essential to peace and economic stability in the region.
We hope the new Agreement will lead to a thoroughgoing renewal of our bilateral relations with Jordan.
The Commission is aware that the gradual establishment of free trade with the Community is an enormous challenge to the Jordanian economy and Jordanian society.
In that respect, although the Community can only act as a catalyst for the efforts of Jordanian society, it will not fail to provide technical and financial assistance, through the existing channels, to support the changes Jordan will have to make.
The Commission is especially pleased that Jordan fully accepts the provisions relating to respect for human rights and fundamental democratic principles, as well as the need to prevent illegal immigration.
Finally, the Commission wishes to congratulate the European Parliament, and particularly Mrs Aelvoet, on the excellent work of the committees that studied the Agreement.
We hope that the process of ratification by the Jordanian parliament and those of our Member States will soon be completed so that the Agreement can begin to produce its beneficial effects as quickly as possible.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Urban environment
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0177/98 by Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on strengthening EU urban environment policy; -A4-0172/98 by Mrs Napoletano, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission communication "Towards an urban agenda in the European Union' (COM(97) 0197 - C4-0235/97)Draftsmen of the opinions: () Mrs Benassar Tous, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs; Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection; Mrs Terrón i Cusí, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs (Hughes Procedure); -A4-0206/98 by Mr Novo Belenguer, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on regional planning and the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP).
Mr President, an analysis of the urban environment in Europe was undertaken in the excellent Commission Green Book of 1990, together with the parameters of a general approach at the European level, and we commented on that in my report in 1991.
Further development from the Commission comes in the form of the urban communication which we are looking at later on in this debate.
The purpose of my new report is to take stock of what has happened since then and to suggest ways in which we can move forward by strengthening the development of European Union environment policy for urban areas.
A lot of mileage has been made out of the subject of a peoples' Europe and yet our actions are not perceived by the majority of our citizens to touch their lives.
It is my contention that the many factors which make up the urban environment are precisely those where we should be able to connect with people more closely.
Policy development, however, must be from the bottom up, involving NGOs, women, men, old and young people and social partners.
If we are indeed to develop the role of cities as generators of prosperity and economic growth and combat the under use of human resources, then an integral component of our work must be a tangible improvement in urban environments.
I cannot stress strongly enough that social and economic development are partners of a better environment and quality of life in our cities.
What are our European objectives for our cities? I do not yet see a clear answer from the Commission.
The main ingredients of quality of life are surely health, a safe and pleasant place to live, work and a variety of cultural experiences.
We in Europe are proud of our cities, large and small, in which our culture, civilization and democracy have flourished and developed for many centuries.
Yet these same cities are the scene of a wide rift between the haves and the have-nots.
Poverty, racism, unemployment, ill-health, crime, traffic congestion, noise and air pollution scar the lives of far too many.
So where is our vision?
Whilst celebrating the good with our cities of culture and so on, it is our duty to play our part in tackling the bad.
I say play our part, President, because this is not something which the EU can or should tackle on its own.
Clearly, a large part of the task must be for the local, regional and national authorities to deal with.
First, I would like to pay tribute to the work of the expert group on urban environment and to the sustainable cities campaign.
Each has made enormous contributions to the development of urban environment policy, awareness raising and real actions which have taken place over the last few years.
It is essential that they are guaranteed a continuous existence and do not have to worry about the future with every annual budget.
Also, that proper resources are made available for the development of a partnership approach to urban environment and support is continued for collaborative schemes on best practice.
Environmental degradation in our towns and cities is as widespread as the problem of social dislocation.
We know that the poorest and most socially disadvantaged people tend to live in the most polluted areas.
This in turn affects their health, particularly the weaker members of society such as the elderly and children.
Yet there is a knock-on effect on the whole urban population as poor quality of life, high crime rates and pollution drive out employers and make life, even in the more attractive parts of town, a misery.
Given the new public remit under the Amsterdam Treaty, criteria should be included in the new Structural Funds regulations on combatting levels of health-damaging pollution.
We have a serious task in front of us and there is still insufficient coordination inside the Commission to deal with urban environment.
Yes, there is an inter-service working group but I believe it needs to be upgraded to a proper cross-departmental unit with a clearly specified reporting mechanism.
We currently have no clearly articulated vision for a sustainable urban future across the range of policy areas.
We also lack any fund whose primary aim is to improve urban environment.
Clearly, some of the tasks for the near future need to be a proper sustainability audit and the development of comparable sustainability indicators.
This must go hand-in-hand with the widespread dissemination of better information on the state of Europe's urban environment and an ongoing programme of pilot schemes.
One of the most important developments in recent years has been the proliferation of Local Agenda 21 schemes.
Putting sustainability at the forefront of our efforts in urban areas is the key to successful action in the future and we need continued support for the Agenda 21 organizations.
Sustainability is not only about the need to arrest environmental degradation and ecological imbalance and prevent the impoverishment of future generations.
It is also about the need for quality of life and equity between current generations; an urban model which excludes a substantial environmental component is incapable of achieving this.
I welcome the news that an urban environment action programme will be launched in Vienna in November.
Please can we assure that flexibility is built into these action plans so that they can be applied to all areas in cities and not confined to restricted areas.
If we can move forward along these lines, I believe we can begin to develop our cities so that they can be places of creativity and fulfilment for future generations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this resolution is a starting point for our Parliament because the European Commission's communication has the merit of initiating a debate and, for the first time, approaching urban problems from a global, comprehensive viewpoint.
I believe that this is important because, to date, we have dealt with cities, but only in the context of sectoral policies.
Furthermore, the Commission's document begins with the observation that 80 % of Europe's citizens live in cities: cities are where the greatest economic and social changes have occurred these past few years, cities have to face the processes of economic globalization that often upset their economies.
Therefore, cities are where the greatest number of contradictions exist: in general, cities are where there is the most wealth - the level of the Community's gross domestic product is actually the highest in cities, but it is also where poverty is the most severe and where there is another, perhaps even more serious phenomenon, that of exclusion.
All this therefore leads the Union to take a careful and concerned look at the development of this situation and these policies.
However, European policy has not yet drawn all the conclusions from this analysis.
If you will allow me to give a naturally positive judgement of the Commission's communication, it is that this communication identifies and develops the problems in depth but is not very coherent in identifying which instruments should be used to intervene more effectively.
I will say immediately that this is not a simple matter, because it is obvious that the instruments are disseminated in various policies and, therefore, the policy that is more visible in terms of impact, including impact on citizenship, is cohesion policy.
We must, however, be careful not to burden cohesion policy with the responsibility of assuming what should be the objective of other policies: I am talking about environmental policy and research policy but also agricultural policy, because cities are the place where the relationship between producers and consumers materializes, a relationship which is often rather critical and based on imbalances in the ability to control and participate.
Nonetheless, I believe that we are at an interesting point in our work, the point where we must link up various instruments with various courses of action; I personally think that we were right in organizing this debate in conjunction with the debate on regional planning in which Mr Novo will speak, because cities are in a region and we cannot, therefore, imagine a policy on cities that is not linked to regional policy.
Lastly, we will need to take immediate account of the single most important matter, reform of the Structural Funds and Agenda 2000, and with this report we are calling on the Commission to be more coherent in its policies on cities.
It is fine to have introduced an urban dimension into Objective 2, but it is quite inappropriate to propose cancellation of the URBAN programme which does not in any way contradict this objective.
It is also important that in Objective 1, the Interreg programme and Objective 3, which deals specifically with training and employment, greater attention be given to the impact of these policies on cities. And it is especially important that a conscious effort should be made to involve locally-elected representatives, for it is a major policy, an important policy with many challenges which, as a Union, we now want to take on, beginning with the challenge of employment.
Mr President, this own-initiative report on planning and the European Spatial Development Perspective is part of the work being carried out by the governments of the countries belonging to the Committee on Spatial Development.
On 9 and 10 June 1997 in Noorwijk, during the Dutch presidency, this work produced a first official draft of the European Spatial Development Perspective.
This first draft stated that we have not yet considered, at European or national level, the three principal aspects of regional planning: the spatial aspect, based mainly on the location of people, activities and equipment; the economic, social and cultural aspect, based on employment and the search for work; and the aspect based mainly on the protection of the environment.
The report we are debating today concentrates on the content of the first four sections of this first draft perspective, the spirit of which is specifically summarized in the first part, defining the purpose of regional planning.
That purpose is based on the principle, which we have constantly and frequently defended in this Parliament, that truly balanced competitiveness throughout the whole territory of the European Union can only be achieved on the basis of social and economic cohesion and the nurturing of sustainable development.
The second part of the document is the analytical part, which gives some idea of the difficulty of obtaining harmonized comparative data from the different Member States by complete and reliable methods. This demonstrates the need - as I have also specifically mentioned in the report - for the creation of a European Observatory for regional planning, as recommended at the 1994 Leipzig Council, and for a budget heading to make it financially viable.
The third part of the document is the political message itself, and this defines the European policy we ought to follow to achieve our regional planning objectives.
I believe, Mr President, that that policy is incomplete inasmuch as it does not take sufficient account of cross-border and transnational areas.
The fourth part of the document refers to the practical application of the perspective, making allowance for the difficulty of an obvious institutional weakness at European level, which makes us incapable of carrying it through.
I have tried to draw special attention to this aspect in my report.
I therefore emphasize that the possibilities of intergovernmental action in that respect are now exhausted, and so it is absolutely essential that the policy on regional planning be officially introduced at Community level.
And on this point I want to remind the House of the continuous calls by the European Parliament to give definitive official status to the Council of Regional Planning Ministers and to make the Committee on Spatial Development a permanent body, seeking, too, ways and means of enabling regional and local authorities to play an active part in the process.
There are, nevertheless, various existing Community instruments that can be used to implement the perspective, such as the Community policies affecting the spatial balance and the structural policies defined in Article 130a of the Treaty, the reform of which will have to take account of the political principles and options defined in the perspective.
And finally, I must draw your attention to the question of cross-border and transnational areas, as previously mentioned, especially in view of the future enlargement of the European Union, which is now imminent.
In that respect, there was an interesting meeting of the Council of Regional Policy Ministers in Glasgow on 8 June, which, among other matters, considered the effects of enlargement on the present 15 Member States, which will undoubtedly affect the subsequent definition and content of regional planning in the European Union.
While on the subject, Mr President, I consider that we ought to add a further chapter to the perspective document to cover enlargement. This is the thinking behind the three amendments I have tabled, apart from wishing to include the Glasgow Council's conclusions in my report.
With regard to the other 14 amendments tabled, I would like to explain to you, Mr President, the reasons why I am against their inclusion in the document.
It is because their philosophy is profoundly contradictory to that of the report. This report was approved by the Committee on Regional Policy because it emphasizes the need for a Community policy which gives the European Union itself the leading role in regional planning development, which, as I have already mentioned, will encourage social and economic cohesion and competitiveness within the Union itself; this is, of course, subject to the principle of subsidiarity, with the object of dealing more efficiently with the particular practical needs of the regions and thus including all interested sectors.
I would like to conclude, Mr President, by saying that it is now time for us to leave behind the fears of all Member States that regional planning policies may directly affect the reform of the Structural Funds, although we ought at least to suggest - from now on - that regional planning policies be used to coordinate the implementation of certain Community policies - agricultural, environmental, research and development, etcetera - all, as we have also mentioned, subject to the principal objective of genuine economic and social cohesion.
Finally, I would like to thank all my colleagues in the Committee on Regional Policy and the whole of the technical team, especially the technical secretariat of the Committee on Regional Policy.
Mr President, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs agrees with the need for the coordination of Community policies concerning cities and an integrated overall view of them that will lead us to develop an effective urban policy.
We are all agreed that the URBAN, INTEGRA and Interreg initiatives have been successful and that their objectives should be maintained in the future.
European cities have improved greatly, thanks to these initiatives, but the effort must continue.
Our cities still have problems of unemployment, social integration, immigration and safety which call for joint action by citizens and authorities to find solutions.
Planning must take into account the ageing European population, young people and the difficulty they have in getting their first home, children, whose safety is in doubt in many cities, the disabled, housewives, and the unemployed.
Although all different, they all have one need in common: they want to live with dignity, and there must be a place for them in the city.
Nurseries, day centres for adults and the disabled, domiciliary care and neighbourhood services must be a priority, both as sources of employment in the service sector and because they are urgently needed to enable women to reconcile jobs with family commitments.
Cities can be innovation laboratories for social and employment policy, turning problems into opportunities.
We call on the Commission to give priority to local employment initiatives and territorial pacts.
Urban sustainability will require greater awareness in the use of public transport, saving water and energy, and the management of waste and noise, which very seriously affect industrial and tourist-orientated cities.
Local authorities must reduce property fever and land speculation, which do not bring progress, but rather instability and anarchy, and must provide for all these things without ignoring social conventions, by seeking development models that do not involve destruction and impoverishment.
We urgently need to protect our European natural and historical heritage and develop parks and green spaces in cities. We must learn to make the city a more human place and become more human with it.
And, to conclude, I would like to remind you that a strict application of the principle of subsidiarity must not prevent the European Union from concerning itself with the weakest members of society by taking actions which, although they may be small and cost little, help to create a European social conscience.
President, may I first congratulate my colleague Mrs Napoletano on her excellent report and the very constructive comments which I also fully support.
We in the Environment and Public Health Committee welcome the Commission's urban communication but we also want to register some concerns which we have articulated in greater detail in our opinion.
Obviously, the Environment Committee's report, which we are also debating, feeds directly into this particular area.
The environment and public health side of urban issues seems to be submerged in the debate about economic urban regeneration and spatial development.
We accept, of course, that problems of high unemployment and social exclusion are particularly serious in cities.
Nevertheless, several OECD studies have indicated that improving quality of life in the urban environment not only improves life for its citizens but helps attract and create jobs and investment.
Therefore, by improving the urban environment we can, at the same time, increase economic regeneration.
The urban communication lacks an overall vision in this respect and it is essential that environmental sustainability is taken on board as an important part of the urban equation.
The eleven suggestions under the heading of environmental aspects in the report are crucial in developing urban environmental action.
I do not really have time to discuss them here, although I would like to go through each and every one of them, but I stress their importance.
I hope the Commission will pay very serious attention to them since they have had the endorsement also of the Regional Affairs Committee.
We need a real cross-departmental urban affairs unit in the Commission to ensure that these matters are more coherently pursued than at the moment and that there is much more integrated development of policy than currently exists.
One final point, there is now a very strong move in the revision of the Structural Funds to relegate urban actions to areas simply covered by Objective 1 or 2.
This is simply not good enough.
Eighty per cent of the European Union's population is in towns and cities, most of which are outside these areas and the need to tackle social dislocation and urban environment problems refuses to fit neatly into these administrative and budgetary borders.
The disappearance, in particular, of the urban community initiative into Objective 2 means that the flexibility needed to be able to develop environmental sustainability in our cities, where it is so desperately needed, is missing.
Since we have no fund which has as its main aim improving urban environment, I strongly urge the Commission to construct its action plans in such a way that flexibility can be maintained.
Mr President, I would firstly like to add my congratulations to the draftsman of this report.
I think it is a report which helps us to understand the problem and makes important proposals.
We welcome both the Commission's communication and its conviction that we need to create a European Union policy that both includes and concentrates on our cities.
I come from Barcelona, a city which is very proud of its status and its local government, and I know how much local government authorities look to Europe and how much the presence of Europe needs to be felt through our cities so that citizens can see and hear how important and how close to them it is.
The first proof that we have adopted such a policy, as the report says, will be the reform of the Structural Funds, and in that respect it seems to me that some interesting suggestions for reform have been put forward, especially the reform of Objective 2.
But I would also like to express my concern that, at the same time, there is talk of abolishing such a beneficial initiative as URBAN.
I think the retention of URBAN, together with the right sort of financing, is not incompatible with the reform of the Structural Funds, but is consistent with the guidelines we want to lay down for the reform of the Funds.
The Committee on Civil Liberties, Mr President, is also looking very carefully at what is going on in the cities.
We think the subject of urban safety is highly important, and we also think it highly important that we in the Union should also work to create cities where people not only can, but also believe they can, go out at night. Only then can citizens feel free, and only then can we live in an environment in which violence, whether that of delinquents or that carried out by the private protection systems we see proliferating everywhere, will not go on and on increasing.
We must work against phenomena such as racism and xenophobia - and there is provision for this - and we must introduce a series of structural and social measures which involve the citizens and which strengthen the social fabric and civil society in order to do so.
But we also need to help the cities to do what they can for themselves, what they have the competence to do, and to strengthen their competence and capacity in certain areas.
And I believe, for example, that it is very important to establish systems of summary justice and community reparation for petty crimes, and support other, little-publicized, types of action, such as the drug and heroin addiction prevention and control plans which are being implemented in many cities, without much fuss, and which are extremely effective.
I think this series of measures would be important and I hope this report and the Commission's initiative will help to place this subject, too, at the top of our agendas.
Mr President, Commissioner, colleagues, I believe today's debate on both the EU's urban agenda and the report on regional planning and European spatial development perspective raises two very important and yet related dimensions of European regional policy.
It is particularly relevant for Parliament to give its opinion on the future development of these policy areas given that under the British presidency the informal meeting of Ministers in Glasgow chose to devote one whole day to discuss both urban policy and the European spatial planning perspective.
I congratulate Parliament's rapporteurs on their work and indeed the quality of both these reports and all of those people who have provided very good opinions to the reports.
The draft spatial planning document has now made progress, thanks to the push given by both the British ministers and indeed the group of experts.
But this is not just some academic planning exercise; it needs to be supported by real decisions.
We need to agree on how to plan for the future and making sure the results of such an exercise are accessible.
The real audience are our citizens and the countries of the European Union need to bring governments closer to the citizens.
The key we believe is sharing best practice.
We want real solutions for real issues.
For example, the complexity of transport flows offers some areas new opportunities yet other areas get congestion and pollution.
We also see the pressures on our urban and rural areas and yet we want to see the benefits of new technology spread right across many of our regional areas.
We need to foster cooperation between the Member States and get common approaches to share problems and opportunities and get a better balanced development with an integrated approach across the sectors.
We, in Parliament, want to be involved in translating the Eurospeak into real action and we look forward to the final draft of the European spatial perspective which we hope will be agreed at a future Council meeting.
One further aspect where the British presidency conclusions agreed that further work was needed was better consideration of the changing role and functions of urban areas.
I welcome the initiatives that were taken at the informal meeting.
Indeed, the Presidency document on urban exchange produced a very good exchange of experience on looking at a comprehensive approach to regeneration, to tackle problems faced by disadvantaged people concentrated in particular areas, to look at town centre management and to address urban quality issues.
Very close to our hearts in the Parliament, was the emphasis on the need for community involvement and good government in order to improve the working of local democracy.
I would agree with Mrs Pollack that simply to include the urban dimension in Objective 1 and 2 programmes is not sufficient.
We believe that the urban community initiative has, in fact, given very good public recognition to the urban ideas.
We want to see that promoted.
Therefore, it will be no surprise to Members of the House and to the Commission that in our meetings we are asking for a continuation of the urban community initiative.
At the informal Glasgow Council, children from across the European Union fifteen Member States were asked to design and present to ministers their ideal city of the future.
Children, by providing a high-tech vision of a safe, sustainable city, were laying down the challenges of fulfilling our responsibilities.
I believe that begins now.
We need to create dynamic cities that respect people and the environment and involve community groups in the planning and process and in regeneration processes as such.
I was pleased to table amendments to Mrs Napoletano's report to look for a much more sustained approach with better funding for our urban areas and I hope the Commission will take these views on board when they produce their Agenda 2000 proposals, following negotiations with ministers in Council.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Europe needs a planning policy.
Just as Member States have their territorial policies, which include regional and local policies, we now need a European planning policy which incorporates the different national policies.
This is a common objective: we need to combine economy and territory.
Planning is bound to influence future regional policy, because there will be no economic and social cohesion without territorial cohesion.
We cannot go on designing and implementing isolated common policies, because we are doing something bigger than that, we are building a continent, and we need to do so in a spirit of cohesion and solidarity between the 15 existing Member States and those that are knocking at our door, in order to build the great Europe.
So coordination, cohesion and territorial-based planning are essential.
Planning is synonymous with balance, or, if you prefer, with restoring balance.
The great Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset once wrote that 'Europe is not a thing, it is a balance' .
There are many bees, but one flight.
And from that swarm of interests, planning should emerge as a policy to restore the balance of European spatial areas and policies.
I therefore support the ESDP and my compatriot Mr Novo Belenguer's excellent report, and I would only wish to restate here what I added to the report in committee: that the European Spatial Development Perspective should go beyond its obvious terrestrial dimension and include the maritime dimension it lacks at present.
We plead for the promotion of European ports, especially the small and medium-sized ones, which are a catalyst for local and regional development in backward and peripheral regions, and the development of all forms of maritime transport as an alternative to the congestion of land transport and the deterioration of the environment, with support from the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
And permit me one last comment.
Speaking for this Parliament, I call for support from the Commission and the Council for the Atlantic side of Europe, an area where 50 million Europeans live, where three of the present four cohesion states are situated, two of them fully within Objective 1, and where there are 32 peripheral and ultra-peripheral maritime regions. These regions, from the Highlands of Scotland to Andalusia in Spain, demand their inclusion in real terms in the European Spatial Development Perspective and support for a trans-European maritime network which will boost European Atlantic and transatlantic communications as a special backbone for their future development.
Mr President, I would firstly like to express my appreciation of the fact that my group, the Liberal group, has been given a position in the order of speakers which now actually represents fairly the number of Members it has.
We are discussing a regional matter here, as presented in two reports which I think are two sides of the same problem: the one on planning and the European Spatial Development Perspective and the other, Mrs Napoletano's report, on urban policy for the European Union.
Why do we need planning? The rapporteur has told us the reasons: to achieve greater economic and social cohesion, sustainable development, and geographically balanced competitiveness.
Obviously there is something missing from our planning system: the Treaty makes no provision for Community planning powers.
But it is difficult to draw up regional policy unless there are instruments for territorial cooperation at European level, which transcend those artificial lines that constitute boundaries, and the Interreg initiative has already played an important part in cross-border cooperation, but there is still a great deal to do in that field.
I am, therefore, strongly in favour of the creation of a European Spatial Planning Observatory.
Secondly, there is the problem of the cities.
European policy must have a direct effect on cities as a whole, not only their sectoral aspects, in order to deal with the serious problems they have, as the rapporteur has mentioned, especially those of unemployment, social integration and immigration, which is also normally concentrated in these areas, and to develop citizen participation and improve the quality of life.
Agenda 2000 provides for the abolition of the URBAN initiative.
This may make it difficult to implement the city schemes contained in that great compendium of measures, the proposed new Objective 2.
In that respect, I consider that we ought not to waste the experience of city development that URBAN has provided for us.
Finally, I would like to say that this urban policy is not incompatible with regional policy, but rather complementary to it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) is a document which, even though it depends simply on intergovernmental cooperation, aims to give a real political framework to Community, national and regional actions as regards regional planning.
At Community level, this framework will help to give coherence to the various Union policies, and in particular to structural policy and transport policy.
If I restrict myself to discussing the matter which is closest to my heart - namely that of insular regions - and I hope you will forgive me, I note that the framework provided by the ESDP is not consistent with the resources currently included in the Structural Funds.
Must we conclude that some regions, currently considered by the Union as being in great economic and social difficulty, do not warrant being included in Community spatial planning because the document scarcely mentions them? How is it possible that a document, which is so important, does not promote the new provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, which quite specifically acknowledges the particular handicaps of insular regions and the urgent need to remedy this situation?
The ESDP, and the proposals for regulations on the Structural Funds appear to want to bypass these provisions and bring no message of hope to the 14 million people living in insular regions who are still waiting to be integrated into a major European regional planning project.
I would not like to appear too pessimistic, and so after congratulating the rapporteur on an excellent piece of work, I would very much like to welcome the promise reiterated on 8 June by the European Ministers for Regional Planning, who met in Glasgow, to think more seriously about the territorial development of the Mediterranean basin.
In my opinion, this is one of the main challenges which faces the European Union at the dawn of the 21st century.
I hope that this commitment will not, once again be relegated to a mere declaration of intent and that, here again, we shall not forget to take proper account of the situation of the very many insular regions in the Mediterranean.
Mr President, I am going to refer in particular to Mrs Pollack's report, because we are both members of the Committee on the Environment.
80 % of the inhabitants of the European Union live in cities; yet less than 50 % of the European budget is allocated to dealing with their problems.
We know that a very major share of the European budget goes to agriculture.
The European Environment Agency calculates that between 70 % and 80 % of cities with over 500 000 inhabitants have problems of air pollution, noise pollution and deficiencies in the general quality of life.
It is true that the European Union has taken some sectorial measures relating to air quality - with the Auto-Oil programme, which was debated in the Committee on the Environment -, to water quality, and also to waste management.
There is a campaign for sustainable cities, supported by over 320 local authorities.
But, today, there is still no overall statement of the European Union's position on the quality of life in the cities, even though the Green Paper on quality in the cities was debated and published 7 years ago.
I would conclude, Mr President, by saying that we need an overall framework programme for air quality and the urban environment, with sufficient and coordinated funds.
And we must allow for the fact that measures to deal with unemployment, poverty and poor health conditions must be inter-related, and finally that citizens need to be educated and their awareness raised to enable them to contribute to improving their quality of life.
Mr President, I would like to make a few remarks regarding the Pollack, Napoletano and Novo Belenguer reports.
The report by Mrs Pollack, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, should be underlined and deserves praise for the sensitivity shown towards the great problems facing us today, including the problems of our cities.
The report by Mrs Napoletano on the Commission's communication 'Towards an urban agenda in the European Union' is commendable because of the extensive work done on the environmental and social aspects of urban problems and on related civil liberties, regional development and structural interventions.
The committee also deserves to be commended for its own amendments which have made a very positive contribution to Mrs Napoletano's work.
However, without a clear direction and a clear mission for Member States regarding urban policy, the current debate is obviously limited to a list of problems and solutions, even if it is an admirable inventory.
It seems to me that the most relevant aspects and most significant requests in the motion for a resolution are: firstly, the definition of a European strategy for urban policy and the coordination of all Community policies concerning urban areas; and secondly, the need for European support of European strategies on sustainable urban development.
The report by Mr Novo Belenguer is particularly commendable, because it attempts to solicit and develop a political perspective for the technical proposals for informal work on regional planning: there is a return of the strong relationship between cities and overall regional planning policy, although with some concerns that I believe should be underlined.
First of all, the major trans-European networks risk connecting only the major metropolitan areas, and so are likely to intensify metropolitan concentrations.
I think, therefore, that we must be aware of this risk and avoid a situation where the needs of small and medium-sized cities are totally forgotten.
We must be aware of this, because otherwise we risk making the stronger cities much stronger and the already congested cities much more congested.
The risk is that we will not give priority to taking advantage of areas that are still natural and making use of our environmental heritage.
Instead, priority must go to reducing the process of urbanization in Europe. We have a point of reference: ' NETWORK AND NATURE 2000' .
It should be taken as the point of reference and we must abide by the principles of this document for any intervention in the matter.
I have two more remarks that I would like to make regarding what has already been said.
First of all, I, or should I say we, see the URBAN project as positive.
I also have the experience of a city like Palermo which is one of the 49 urban areas that has positively implemented this project.
However, maintaining this initiative, which is very positive, must not penalize small and medium-sized cities - again I am back to the same topic - and so provision must be made for forms of cooperation between cities.
Secondly, as regards the new Objective 2 which covers both urban and rural areas, guarantee clauses should be included so that when individual Member States make their selection, they cannot entirely overlook rural areas and just select strong areas that are inevitably, in all countries, urban areas.
For this reason we are still awaiting an action plan for cities from the Commission which, before this Parliamentary term is over, will finally give concrete expression to the strategic guidelines that have emerged from today's debate on the problem of cities in Europe.
Lastly, I have just a couple observations.
Cities are the most complex achievement of the human race.
The entire complexity of life is represented in cities: culture, transport, economy, art, health and sport.
The human race has not achieved anything more complex than the city.
The overwhelming majority of European citizens lives in cities - 80 % - and the greatest wealth is produced and traded there.
Despite this, cities seem to symbolize places of hardship that cannot be enjoyed.
To make our cities enjoyable and suitable to be lived in is, I believe, what our citizens want and the obligation of the current city governments; however, it is still not an organic and strategic objective of the European institutions.
We all want this debate to underscore the need to build enjoyable cities worth living in throughout Europe.
Mr President, the Pollack, Napoletano and Novo Belenguer reports have quite rightly been clubbed together on this afternoon's agenda.
They share one thing in common: neither urban policy nor regional planning policy have any foundation in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Both were left out of the Treaty.
Attempts have of course been made in the meantime to incorporate these matters into the European agenda.
We are only partly in favour of this.
Anything that can be done locally should be.
Fortunately, the Pollack report is short but forceful and not too demanding, unlike the Napoletano report.
When I read the reports, I did wonder why there was such a desire for a Community-wide policy.
One of the reasons given was that there were major problems in towns and cities throughout Europe and that over 80 % of the population lived in towns and cities.
Can this really justify the implementation of a European urban policy?
I think not.
There has to be a real benefit and I have my doubts about this.
Anyone who has spent any time in local or regional politics will know that the problems involved are often very specific and require specific solutions.
Only in the area of regional planning do I see opportunities for Europe. But even then, you would need to have a very good idea of what would and would not be possible on a European level.
The European Spatial Development Perspective is a very good way to get discussions going but no more than that.
It is an illusion to think that it would be possible to harmonize regional development policy in the various Member States.
Fortunately, everyone is agreed about this.
The approach adopted by the ESDP is therefore quite a cautious approach.
It merely raises a number of very general assumptions and perspectives.
Europe itself has a great deal of influence over regional development. Just think of the internal market, transport systems and agricultural policy.
There is then already some control over regional planning on a European level.
There is, in my view, also a certain amount of potential for ecological development and the preservation of ecological corridors.
I think these are important elements in the ESDP document.
If we are to accept this sort of approach, I think we will need a formal Council of Regional Planning Ministers, although I suspect that this will also be the most we are likely to achieve.
Mr President, I would like to rise above all the repetitive talk we have heard these past few years on the urban environment.
It has become fashionable to say: ' the city for the city, the province for the province, the region for the region, ' in a false autonomy that, in substance, creates not progress but regression.
Indeed, without broad and comprehensive planning, we end up making incomplete choices that never solve the problems of citizens or of the businesses that offer jobs. Do you realize that seven years have passed since the Green Paper on the urban environment was published?
Yet, despite many initiatives, virtually nothing has been achieved. Do you realize that because it does not want to be unjustly accused of interfering in the day-to-day management of European cities, the European Community, which got off to a good start, has never fulfilled its main role which is to define a framework for urban policy?
We are convinced that Europe's urban environmental policy, launched by the European Parliament's own-initiative report in 1988 and included in the 1990 Green Paper, is today the only instrument capable of promoting an integrated approach to the problem of European urban areas and defining a Community strategy focusing on at least three important and specific problems: first, measures to improve the quality of life and the environment in European urban areas; second, the elaboration of a Community project for sustainable cities; third, the definitive inclusion in the Structural Funds of financing for areas suffering from urban decay.
In the light of this, how can we not interfere to coordinate and harmonize?
At the second European Conference on Sustainable Cities held in Lisbon in 1996, it was shown that pollution in our cities was deteriorating at an exponential rate and that we are far from making our dream of a clean and healthy environment come true in Europe, because urban pollution does not seem to take account of existing national or Community legislation.
Moreover, the unevenness of Community interventions leaves us puzzled when we see that over half of the Community budget is aimed at rural areas while 80 % of the population actually lives in urban areas.
So, yes, we support the Pollack report and, yes, we give our unconditional support to a stronger Union policy on the urban environment.
Our job is to improve the lives of consumers, certainly not to chase after the autonomous yearnings of some dreamer, or worse, some profiteer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Napoletano on her splendid report and the great determination with which she has taken on the by no means easy task of gathering together all the opinions and ideas on the urban problem that have been expressed in this House in the course of its preparation.
It seems to me that this report highlights two fundamental issues.
The first is that almost 80 % of European citizens live in urban areas.
The second, which is becoming ever more obvious, is that the European Union needs to unify and coordinate its own policies for those areas.
Both issues should mark a starting point for a Community strategy to achieve the harmonious development of the European geographical area.
But there is a third element in this report on which I should like to dwell for a moment.
If we want all kinds of citizens to feel at home in the cities - adults, traders, artists, young people, entrepreneurs, immigrants, women -, the European Union, as well as the governments of the Member States, must combat the effects of exclusion and the division into haves and have-nots which is at the root of the serious conflicts we are seeing every day in European urban areas.
Women, ladies and gentlemen, form a social group whose needs and difficulties in the cities tend to be minimized.
The European Charter for Women in Cities, a discussion paper sponsored by the Equal Opportunities Unit of the European Commission in 1995, contains some of the key ideas that can help us in our general thinking: the opportunity of gaining access to employment; the number and quality of neighbourhood services, especially those relating to child care; access to decisiontaking authorities in cities; and the issue of safety in urban areas.
Ladies and gentlemen, European urban policy needs to recognize these specific women's issues, as summarized in Mrs Napoletano's report, because women urgently need to become involved.
We must encourage their participation in decisiontaking authorities and increase exchanges of information and innovative projects. Their point of view needs to be taken into consideration when determining socio-economic and cultural indicators for the cities, and our male colleagues should be made more aware, so that they will take more notice of women's points of view.
Mr President, more and more Europeans live in cities.
As has often been pointed out, four out of five EU citizens are city-dwellers.
Cities are thus also enjoying increasing prosperity and their infrastructure is improving all the time.
In this connection, I am pleased that my city, Graz, was recently selected as the European City of Culture for the year 2003.
However, cities are not only places of beauty and culture; they face growing problems with poverty, unemployment and exclusion.
They have more crime and are less safe, and they suffer environmental damage on a very large scale.
Against this background, it is obvious why urban issues are crucially important within the framework of structural policy and why they must continue to be so, but - and this cannot be emphasized often enough - not everything should be regulated at European level.
We must not get carried away; we must take account of the principle of subsidiarity not only in speeches but also in our very practical political work.
A second important aspect should be mentioned in this connection, however.
European structural policy, and European urban policy too, cannot be defined from the top down; it must be a bottom-up process and we must take partnership with the cities seriously.
Thirdly, the principle of divide et impera has often been applied in the past, with much, therefore, being imposed from the top.
We must adopt a different position: we must support networking by those involved, and we must support what has already been discussed here today, namely the sharing - and challenges - of best practice.
Diversity is out there in the European cities.
The excellent reports before us today - especially the reports from our committee by Mrs Napoletano and Mr Novo Belenguer - take account of all these issues to a substantial degree.
However, in some respects the enthusiasm goes a little too far, and I have thus attempted, with my amendments, to modify one or two points.
This is not directed against the issues themselves; rather, my intention is to ensure that we should also, and above all, respect the reports submitted by the Commission and the aims which they contain, and also take this respect seriously.
I have nothing against URBAN, but we must take ourselves seriously and thus integrate URBAN and its objectives into general Community policy and structural policy, even if we would prefer to have our own programme.
I have nothing against the initiative for cities, but we must not forget the region around the cities either.
I have one final point: I have nothing against a further extension of the right to vote in local elections for all citizens living in our European Union, but first things first, we should be concentrating on EU citizens above all.
Mr President, as Mrs Napoletano's report emphasizes - and I would like to congratulate her on her work -, it is essential that the European Union tackles the issue of urban policy, since a large majority of Europeans live in cities.
As long ago as 1995 I was very concerned by this problem and tabled a motion for a resolution on large conurbations which suffer many of the problems which beset today's society. These include: unemployment and its associated disastrous effects; poverty and the homeless; large-scale and small-scale crime; the lack of social infrastructure; emigration of the welloff to the more pleasant outlying districts with the consequent deterioration of the environment of town centres; lack of funds for the development of public transport; the deterioration of local infrastructure; and very weak support for historical and architectural heritage.
Even with its limited resources, the URBAN projet has produced good results in the less advantaged parts of our towns.
Should we not be concerned that its initiatives, incorporated within the huge canvass of Objective 2, might lose their effectiveness there.
We need a regional planning policy which respects the balance between habitat and green spaces, meeting and leisure spaces, if European towns are to remain attractive.
The proposal for an urban audit is, therefore, an excellent one and it will be useful for all our towns to think about this.
Finally, I fully subscribe to the importance which the report gives to the participation of citizens in local democracy, and, therefore, to the compulsory and unrestricted application of the Treaty as regards the voting rights of European nationals in municipal elections.
I hope, therefore, that the Belgian government, which has dragged its feet on this matter, will finally implement this provision as soon as possible.
Mr President, the report by our colleague, Mr Novo Belenguer, expresses its agreement with the main aims of the ESDP project and emphasizes the shortcomings of an overly urban and continental vision of Europe.
It demonstrates the inconsistencies with Community policies and the aims of the ESDP.
But is there not a more basic criticism to be made of this draft plan?
Is it right that the ESDP should start with the needs of business rather than those of people and propose that the territory should be structured so as to benefit business by achieving a high level of productivity. With this approach, the plan hardly makes any reference, if at all, to the human dimension, that is, employment, culture and education.
It ignores the role played by public services and local policies in terms of land use.
It does not say anything about local resources, with the exception of water, which lead to human settlements and agricultural, industrial and energy activities.
Last of all, it ignores the strategy of large groups and financial bodies which have a significant influence on the planning of the land.
The current plan for Community spatial planning responds, in my opinion, to one fact and to one project.
The fact is the land crisis, at the centre of which lies the competition for land.
The price of this crisis is the transfer of the considerable wealth from the population to economic and financial activities.
It is the forging of imbalances in land use and the concomitant urban overdevelopment, rural abandonment, saturation of the main axes of communication and social and environmental destruction.
The project is the result, stressed in the ESDP, of the implications of the introduction of the euro and the pursuit of economic liberalization.
What additional problems will be created with the arrival of the euro and the enlargement of the Union? And how should we deal with this?
The rapporteur proposes putting a fence around European policies to encourage the development of social and economic cohesion and lasting development.
He hopes to see, as I do, democratic development of the ESDP and he points out the priorities in the plan as regards the harmonious development of employment and activities in the various regions of the European Union.
But will this be enough? Should we not be thinking about quite a different process for developing the ESDP based on the needs of the citizens and the territory, an approach which would ensure that economic and financial activities met with and satisfied these needs.
I hope that the discussions organized within the Member States and at Union level will make it possible to listen to the needs of the people and of the land and that the final plan will be centred around jobs, as well as the social and environmental aspects.
Mr President, the report by our colleague Mr Novo prays that there will be a European regional planning policy.
This is an excellent initiative.
In fact, rural areas represent approximately 80 % of the Community territory, and a balanced regional planning policy depends on their vitality.
The ESDP document notes that European agriculture will continue to play a principal role in the development of the vitality of several rural regions.
Mr President, the Commission must also be well aware of this and take account of this in its proposals for reform of the common agricultural policy.
Our rural areas are currently undergoing profound change which can be seen in the diversification of activities and all too often, unfortunately, in abandonment.
In some regions, agro-tourism will not be enough.
It is, therefore, essential that we respond to the challenge of this change and avert the dangers so that, by contrast, we derive as much benefit as possible.
Thus, intensive development can encourage investment, provided that quality and the environment is not sacrificed to quantity. Quite the opposite.
Diversification can offer new opportunities for the promotion of our cultural and natural heritage, as well as the development of rural tourism affecting small- and medium-sized firms and craft industries.
Extensification and marginalization can create better conditions for the protection of the environment and reafforestation, always provided that we can prevent a haemorrhage of manpower and the abandonment of agricultural holdings by using land in a different way.
We must recognize that Community action has sometimes had very damaging consequences on an economic and social cohesion of which we are often voluntarily proud, but it should be restored.
Thus, the abandonment of some of our countryside has been aggravated by the implementation of the 1992 common agricultural policy and the reduction in agricultural prices.
The new reform of the common agricultural policy which, amongst other things, involves a marked reduction in prices, can only further unbalance regional planning through a major reduction in the number of farmers.
So we hope that, rather than claiming new powers, the European Union will simply consider the effects of its policies, and in particular those of the common agricultural policy, on the balance of the Community territory, in order to avoid negative consequences, and that it will insist that the health and the well-being of animals will be taken into consideration in future WTO negotiations...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, considering that there is broad agreement with the report by Mrs Napoletano, the European Commission's document is a basis which can be used to launch a serious and constructive debate to outline the terms of a Europe-wide urban policy.
It is clear that a new strategy is needed to strengthen or restore the important role that European cities must play as regards social and cultural integration, the supply of resources, sustainable development and as a pillar of democracy.
The purpose is not to develop Europe-wide urban policies in areas that can be better dealt with at local or regional level but rather to facilitate solutions and their application at European level, adopting a more targeted approach based on the instruments that exist in Member States and at Community level, with increased cooperation and coordination at all levels.
Most cities today are a hodgepodge of many realities: business districts and residential neighbourhoods, historical centres and outlying dormitory towns, office areas which are deserted at night, shopping centres, student neighbourhoods, etcetera.
Many neighbourhoods in the outlying areas are host to acts of vandalism and crime arising out of a lack of job opportunities or social and cultural life that keeps them isolated.
To regain control of urban areas there must be better regional planning that revives the true notion of neighbourhood and reintegrates huge peripheral areas into the urban fabric, and this must be accompanied by efficient public and private transport.
In our opinion, cultural activities must be promoted as a feature of development in cities, regions and throughout Europe, given the wealth of heritage available to us.
This will have two effects: one direct effect, that of encouraging the creation of jobs that are often permanent; and one indirect effect, connected to what is produced and which could offset the loss of jobs in the primary and secondary sectors.
So, promoting the development of cultural activities as a factor of social and economic cohesion must be one of the new directions.
For all this, it is fundamental that we increase the amounts earmarked for the Structural Funds, give more importance to studies on the theme of new services, and give attention to all the possible forms of tax relief, beginning with a reduction in the Value Added Tax on work to restore, recover and preserve cultural assets.
Another area where cities can and must play a fundamental role is in the conservation of the environment, because the most serious environmental problems are concentrated in cities.
Therefore, when planning and developing future strategies, greater attention must be given to urban development and rehabilitation of the decaying outlying areas, since this will favour synergy between specific actions at both local and regional level.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to express my appreciation of the excellent work undertaken by Mrs Napoletano and Mr Novo Belenguer.
Both reports underline the most important issues arising in the closely linked debates on regional and urban development and put forward a number of valuable suggestions in terms of developing these very new European policy areas further. I should like to make three points.
Firstly, the various European Union policies - such as agricultural policy, structural policy, transport policy or even competition policy - directly affect the spatial structures of the European Union, but have hitherto done so, as regards regional planning, in an uncoordinated and incoherent manner.
Furthermore, in terms of Europe's population structures, its transport, energy and communication structures, the spatial distribution of its economic activity and its environmental links, Europe forms an interconnected network.
We must, therefore, move away from our often very limited viewpoints and develop a European perspective on the impacts of spatial planning, both for the territory covered by the current European Union and also for an EU which is enlarged towards the East.
A European observatory can contribute substantially to this process.
However, clear progress towards collating basic statistical data on these issues is even more important.
Secondly, developing a European perspective and coordinating it at European level does not mean that we must shift competencies to Europe to a substantial degree.
What is vitally important in this respect is that we adhere to the principle of subsidiarity and respect for established local government traditions, and that we ensure the participation of local actors.
Thirdly, I would like to make a point about the cities. It would be a grave mistake to view the cities in isolation.
The very complex interaction between urban and rural areas must be taken into account.
It is true that 80 % of Europe's citizens live in urban areas.
More than two-thirds of Europe's wealth is generated in the cities.
Yet this is only possible against the background of the rural areas' ability to balance out economic, social and ecological interests.
It would be a mistake to focus solely on the major urban areas.
It is the smaller and medium-sized towns and cities in the rural regions, in particular, which perform an important bridging function and shape the economic and social landscape of Europe.
We are still at the beginning of spatial planning at European level.
If we take on board the conclusions of the two reports submitted today, we will be taking a major step forward.
Mr President, up to now the accent in the regional policies we have been implementing has been on development in the less favoured regions of the Union, as a means of advancing economic and social cohesion.
Yet in recent years more and more people have been calling our attention to the fact that we ought to be placing more emphasis on the citizen as the beneficiary of our environmental and planning policies.
The Commission has already pointed out this trend in its Europe 2000 communications and, more recently, in its Europe 2000+ document on planning, and Parliament voted in favour of the report, of which I myself was the rapporteur, by an overwhelming majority.
It is very important that we should not forget the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions, the subarctic areas and the sparselypopulated mountain regions, so as not to aggravate geographical imbalances.
But Europe, Mr President, is, first and foremost, an urbanized continent.
The most serious cases of poverty, marginalization, unemployment, social exclusion and crime are now found in the urban areas of the Union.
The bigger the cities, the more serious these problems are.
In the urban agglomerations of London's docks, next door to the City itself, there are the most appalling cases of human misery.
The same applies to Naples, Amsterdam or Madrid.
None of the major cities of Europe is free of this problem today.
That is why I share the Commission's view on Agenda 2000, which does not propose a reduction in urban development funds, as some critics seem to believe regarding the URBAN programme, but does, in fact, seek to restructure those funds to create a greater and more efficient volume of investment to support development in the urban areas of the Union.
Mr President, I have three brief comments to make on these three excellent reports.
Firstly, I am pleased to see that Mr Novo Belenguer, in particular, has recognized how important proper coordination of regional planning policy is to sustainable development - particularly with regard to nature conservation policy - and has included this in one of the points of the resolution.
I myself have tabled an amendment, establishing a link between the habitat and birds directives and the instrument involved in coordinating regional planning.
This is because the Natura 2000 initiative says that every Member State must leave 20 % of its territory to nature in order to protect biodiversity in Europe.
There is, however, scarcely any coordination between the Member States.
Some countries have too few black grouse and others far too many.
Coordination of this kind is a very good way of implementing a nature conservation policy within the European Union.
My second comment relates, in particular, to that part of Mrs Napoletano's report where she says that we should support Agenda 21 and consider introducing a new budget line.
I can agree with this because I am chairman of a local 21 group in The Hague and can see the importance of promoting a system whereby we can exchange experiences.
Finally, Mrs Napoletano and Mrs Pollack have pointed out that 80 % of the population live in towns and cities and that the European Commission wants to scrap the URBAN initiative.
We are sorry to learn that the URBAN initiative will also be disappearing from Agenda 2000 because it forms part of Objective 2, although towns and cities in areas not covered by Objective 2 are excluded from the urban system.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the draft European Spatial Development Perspective is an approach to planning matters which I consider limited, inasmuch as it places little importance on the problems of the human dimension of the occupation of land, that is to say, on its cultural and educational aspects and the question of social exclusion.
Similarly, it does not enquire as to the role public services, regional policies and specific economic activities should play in rational planning, particularly through giving the attention that is desirable and necessary to the peripheral and ultra-peripheral regions and the islands.
The report by Mr Novo Belenguer, whom I take this opportunity of congratulating, is in its turn a welcome reminder of the need to pursue a policy of economic and social cohesion with a strategy of sustainable development and balanced competitiveness, although it might have dealt with the gaps and omissions in the European Spatial Development Perspective at greater length.
In the context of institutional politics, however, we find Mrs Napoletano's report - and I congratulate her as well - more balanced, fairer and more realistic. It also supports the creation of a European Spatial Planning Observatory, but accepts the present informal framework of a Council of Regional Planning Ministers and recognizes the potential for development of urban and territorial planning policies, based on increased cooperation, dialogue, partnership and subsidiarity.
Because we consider this vision more appropriate, we have suggested some amendments to try to give the Belenguer report the same political and institutional rationale and render the two texts more consistent with each other. This is because we do not think standardizing planning policies at Community level is the way to find solutions to problems which often are and will continue to be specific and varied, and for that reason will continue to depend essentially on the proper discharge by the national, regional and local government authorities of their responsibilities.
Mr President, the adoption of an integrated European policy and a strategy for the viable development of towns and cities today takes on a certain urgency as, in many towns and cities, the downgrading of the natural environment, the problems of political, cultural and social exclusion, and the problems of crime and traffic chaos have brought about a serious deterioration of the lives of millions of people.
Moreover, the crisis in our towns and cities places the competitiveness of the European Union, the mechanisms of integration, and the policy of economic and social cohesion in great jeopardy.
The Commission communication and the excellent report by Mrs Napoletano constitute a positive response to the new challenges and a global approach to the problems in the framework of a broader spatial planning policy.
We need to act now in order to secure a minimum quality of life in the towns and cities of the future.
In my opinion, priority must be given to the following.
First, we need to consider the creation of a new equilibrium between the large urban centres and the countryside.
Secondly, the strengthening of ties between small and medium-sized towns is essential.
Third, we need to create technological and industrial parks and cultural and recreational centres, with the active participation of local self-government and social organizations.
Fourth, we must give consideration to the needs of children, the elderly and people with special needs, during the planning of towns, buildings, roads and means of transport.
Fifth, we need the necessary reforms aimed at maintaining a high level of social protection, in view of the projected increase in the number of people over 60 years of age by 37 million over the next 25 years.
Sixth, we should look at the provision of resources for social infrastructures, day nurseries, and up-to-date homes for the elderly, in the light of the reform of the Structural Funds.
Seventh, we must provide public transport which is accessible to all and which will respect the environment and reduce the use of private cars.
Eighth, we need to consider measures aimed at combating racism, xenophobia and at crime prevention, in other words, measures to safeguard the rights of the citizens of Europe to a life that is free from fear and insecurity.
Last but not least, we must promote the active participation of women in all decision-taking authorities and in the planning of the societies and towns and cities of the future.
Mr President, after first congratulating Mrs Napoletano on the very good report she has prepared, I would like, in turn, to dwell on a few points which I consider to be important in the issue of "the urban environment and the European Union' .
Bearing in mind the significant role played in the economic and social life of the European Union by towns and cities and large urban centres, in which a very large part of the population lives and where more than two thirds of the wealth of the European Union is concentrated, I think that the Commission must promote a European urban strategy that will acknowledge the vital role of towns and cities, as well as the special problems they face, one which is also aimed at coordinating the various Community policies which may affect urban regions either directly or indirectly.
Of course, a European urban strategy cannot be understood in isolation, but only as an integral part of a broader spatial planning policy, which is mentioned in the other report we are debating jointly today, that of Mr Novo Belenguer. I would also like to support this report wholeheartedly, as it contains some very good points and observations relating to the already ambitious Commission communication on a draft for a European Spatial Development Perspective.
Be that as it may, what I would like to dwell on at this moment are some more specific issues.
Given that the Community initiative "URBAN' , which for the most part has been extremely successful, is nearing its end without any possibility for its renewal, as with most Community initiatives, greater emphasis must be given to the innovative actions of Objective 10 of the European Regional Development Fund relating to the urban environment.
In this regard, the Commission could examine the idea of strengthening small and medium-sized island towns which face, in addition to the other difficulties, all the particular problems which arise because of their island status, not on the basis of the criterion of an upper limit of 100 000 inhabitants, as provided for in Objective 10 of the ERDF, but of the influence they wield as key towns and cities, that is, as poles of economic, social and cultural development within the broader geographical unity with which they are associated.
In addition, I consider it useful to point out the following.
Firstly, incentives must be given, in the context of relevant Community policies, for the restoration and upgrading of historical buildings for cultural, social or economic use.
Secondly, special emphasis must be given to urban tourism, which could constitute the basis for growth for many regional towns and cities.
Finally, we must encourage the accession of regional towns and cities to Europe-wide networks and, more generally, strengthen coordination and cooperation at all levels between towns and cities and the European Union.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Napoletano and Mrs Pollack on their excellent reports and to stress that I think we need something more, something much more, than simple communications from the European Commission, which may indeed be laudable, but which do not have much practical value.
The urban environment is something akin to a biosphere for the vast majority of European citizens.
The enormous problems of the quality of life they face, even at the level of public health, are being faced additionally by the European Union, with relevant programmes for air quality, for regional regeneration and for cultural interventions.
These programmes are often useful and even pioneering.
However, the Court of Auditors itself has pointed out that they do not have multiplicative outcomes or a global logic and usefulness, simply because they do not have a specific framework for global consideration and a global perspective.
The citizens of Athens, for example, are very well aware of this.
Of course, ensuring the cohesion and the perspective of such interventions in the city belongs to the national, and chiefly to the municipal, authorities which, in Athens, for example, have not done their job, beyond a short-lived push forward for political reasons.
Nevertheless, they can and they must do their job.
And I think they will be greatly helped by general Community legislation, a programme, a framework directive which will put in place a general framework of principles, guidelines and criteria, so that whatever relevant programmes are debated and adopted will take on significance and perspective.
It is about making a qualitative change, which I think will reduce arbitrariness and waste and will increase the overall gain of citizens from any Community intervention.
Mr President, having had the pleasure of chairing the European Parliament Hearing on the Urban Communication with our rapporteur, Mrs Napoletano, and having chaired an association of ten towns in my own region in the United Kingdom before being elected to this Parliament, I welcome the progress being made towards an urban agenda for the European Union.
Not simply do the vast majority of European citizens live in towns and cities but such urban areas include pockets of deep poverty and incidences of racism and social exclusion and of environmental degradation which demand action at European level.
Yet the action programme, to be proposed by the Commission, is not yet a fully-fledged urban competence for the European Union.
Initiatives to benefit towns and cities still have to be made by diverting powers from other headings.
The next revision of the European Treaty must remedy this deficit.
The proposals within structural fund reform which will enable European support for housing projects and for the regeneration of derelict sites for the first time, are welcome steps forward in meeting urban needs.
But as other speakers have made clear, the abolition of the urban community initiative would dismantle European support in 110 cities benefiting half a million people across Europe.
Retaining a separate urban community initiative would allow innovative and trans-national urban projects to be maintained as well as aid to the majority of people who live in particular in small and medium-sized towns.
No European-aided town in the Nordic countries or in Austria, currently exceeds the 100 000 population mark; their needs must not be ignored.
Meanwhile, welcome as the newer urban strand in mainstream Objective 2 structural funding would be, the proposed 2 % population to be aided is a feeble figure.
The 5 % proposal requires far more serious consideration.
In my own constituency, in Basildon, European ADAPT funding is currently being used to appoint a town centre manager to combat the drain of shopping to out-of-town centres.
Today, in the Parliament, we have a visitor who is working to increase the recycling of waste in London from less than 10 % to 50 % by the year 2005.
These are the exciting urban regeneration initiatives that we should be supporting.
Are we up to the challenge?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to thank the rapporteur and draftsmen of the opinions for having drawn up this report which opens our dialogue on the future of urban development.
It is essential that we recognize the need to pay more attention to the problems of cities at Community level.
Nevertheless, as you are fully aware, we have no mandate to create a common urban policy.
We do, however, need to try to formulate a coordinated and consistent response to tackle the growing number of problems affecting our cities.
European cities are having to deal with an ever-increasing number of problems, from unemployment, environmental deterioration and traffic congestion to poverty and social marginalization, housing problems, crime and drug addiction.
A more coherent programme will enable cities to deal with these problems more effectively and make the best possible use of their resources.
As a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, I would like to emphasize, in particular, the need to direct our efforts towards the fight against marginalization, racism, xenophobia and drug addiction.
Many immigrants make their homes in the cities and, therefore, one of our objectives is to create appropriate polices for integrating them into the community, making it possible to comprehend the problems and interests of minorities within the urban population, encouraging immigrants to participate in community life and providing them with information on the resources and services available to them.
In that connection, it is also essential that we train social workers and partners and campaign against xenophobic and racist activities.
As far as crime is concerned, we all know that urban areas are the most seriously affected.
The growth of crime is a serious threat to the respect of citizens' rights in the Union, and for that reason we must endeavour to go on creating a Europe of safety and justice, encouraging the competent authorities to maintain progress in the exchange of information that will benefit all the citizens of the Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Napoletano's report, the contents of which I entirely agree with, highlights and gives due importance to the need to define an urban strategy that is clearly differentiated, as regards both powers and institutions, from our regional strategy, in view of the important roles of two sub-State authorities - the autonomous community and the city council - in the construction of the European Union and the creation and implementation of its policies.
In that context, and from the point of view of the objectives to be achieved at the beginning of the year 2000, we must ensure that local autonomy is protected and municipal authorities are given full responsibility in the partnership.
In my opinion, however, the limited attention given to the municipal authorities in Agenda 2000 gives us cause to fear that the amendment of the regulations, even if we acknowledge that they have some part to play, will in practice be of little effect.
It is quite obviously insufficient to relegate the urban problem to Objective 2. This clearly means that the structural policies of Objective 1 will have to meet the needs of large and medium-sized and country settlements.
At the same time, we call on the Commission - please do not forget to pass this on to Mrs Wulf-Mathies, Commissioner - to decide in favour of keeping the URBAN initiative - in view of the positive results of its implementation in over 100 European cities -, improving the resources allocated to it and making good use of the information that has resulted in its being applied, as Mr Howitt reminded us earlier, in over 100 European cities.
If we want to make European citizenship really meaningful, citizens must see it at work in the first institutional layer that represents it: the town hall.
To forget that, Commissioner, would be a serious mistake, which we hope the Commission will avoid.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mrs Pollack, Mrs Napoletano and Alfonso Novo, for the reports they are presenting today.
And I believe they all reach the same conclusion: that the European Union should seek a coordinated urban strategy, since the Union is already having a decisive influence on our cities today.
Furthermore, they also make it clear that our urban problems need a global approach, as regards both the internal problems of the cities and the relationship of cities to geographical areas.
They then go on to identify the most urgent needs the cities are facing: unemployment, which is a serious problem for social integration; citizens' safety and their participation; and the environment, and specifically the quality of life in our cities.
They also mention funding.
I share the concern over the abolition of URBAN, which has produced so many successful results within our Community urban policy.
The new Objective 2 covers a different set of issues.
It deals with the problems of industrial decline, rural development, urban areas, and fishing subsidies within a general instrument comprising a total sum which, let us not forget, is reduced by 13 % in constant ecus during the 1999-2006 period in relation to the amount that is allocated to all these Objectives at present.
I must, therefore, express my anxiety about the financial aspect, especially since medium-sized cities may find themselves at a disadvantage when the funds are shared out.
The European Union should, therefore, endeavour to concentrate its attention essentially on those aspects which have a Community dimension.
And I would end with this thought, Mr President: it is also essential that we should do something about cross-border urban areas, where there is a real problem Europe can do something about.
I would say that I live in a Basque Euro-city, straddling a national frontier, on the main road from San Sebastián to Bayonne.
And there is regrettably no Community legal framework at European level to extend the significant increase in cross-border cooperation to cover planning matters, so as to improve the quality of life of our citizens.
Mr President, the reports and the debate that has been going on for so long have provided a sampling of the many serious problems that the urban Community territory is suffering from.
It is clear that there are more problems, and the outlook is that they will get worse and they will multiply.
What is noteworthy and surprising in this? Nowhere does anybody name the main causes, those guilty of this situation, that is, the jungle of the law of multinational interests and unbridled competition, which has run amok, in the pursuit of profit in the context of the arrant free market.
We run the risk of being regarded as hypocrites and accomplices in the cover-up of illegal interests, or, of it is not the one or the other, we run the risk of being regarded as political and parliamentary masochists, continually bemoaning the problems, not naming the causes, and consequently not confronting the problems in order to find a solution.
Let this Parliament at last rise above these syndromes and let it show that it truly represents the tormented people in the urban centres of the European Union.
Mr President, cities are too often seen in terms of black and white, either as places for the rich and privileged, or as problem areas.
Cities have their own, individual problems but cities are, above all, centres for innovation and they are in the forefront of development.
Besides, most new jobs are now being created in urban areas.
Last year it was emphasized at summit conference level, no less, how Europe's immense unemployment problem needs to be brought under control.
Investment in urban areas and seeing them as places of opportunity rather than as problems must be one of the principles of the European Union too.
Structural funding reform should attend to the targeting of EU regional funding at areas which are more certain of producing the result we want, that is, the improved welfare of citizens, and not squander resources in developing desolate or impoverished areas.
The spill-over effect will mean that prosperity will spread out of the cities to other regions.
By strengthening opportunity in the cities we improve prospects for rural regions.
At this time, regional policy thinking is still on the wrong track when it comes to funding.
Although 80 % of EU citizens live in urban areas, over half the Union budget still gets spent in rural areas.
It is easy to muse that the EU is one big rural project that ignores urban areas and urban folk alike.
There is no longer any great trend for people to move to cities, but there is a large proportion of people who are staying and who enjoy being in the city.
Although the details contained in urban policy are ultimately the province of decision-makers in individual countries and regions, as they should be, the European Union has its own important duty to solve in particular problems that are common to all.
Urbanization has brought with it new problems for society, such as exclusion, drugs and environmental problems.
We certainly want everyone in the future to enjoy clean drinking water, fresh air and a safe city environment. One unfortunately good example of urban environmental problems is the collection of waste and recycling.
Brussels, for instance, would seem to have a lot more to learn along these lines.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mrs Napoletano on a very successful report.
I am especially glad the report gives great emphasis to the importance of the opportunities for residents themselves to have a say in urban policy.
There can only be full-blooded development of cities when it leads to city dwellers having an influence on decisions that affect them.
That is why different forms of residents' and local democracy should be investigated and developed, and there should be greater possibilities for keeping residents informed and for them to get involved, for example, by making use of new technology.
We support with particular warmth the report's proposed insistence on getting women involved in urban development.
Studies have shown that when women are involved in urban planning the results are very different from the plans of men only.
Women consider the smooth flow of the working day more important than the monumental outward appearance of buildings.
Women remember to see to it that children and prams, elderly people and the disabled can move around and live in comfort.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to pay tribute to the rapporteur, Mr Novo Belenguer.
I can support the main conclusions of the own-initiative report.
However, in Germany we have found that successful spatial development policy needs a bottom-up approach.
Regionally balanced social and economic development, in other words spatial cohesion, can only be achieved if local communities and regions are equally involved in spatial planning and decision-making from the outset.
A top-down approach to spatial development is wasteful of people's energy, entails the risk of bad planning and our citizens are reluctant to accept it.
The rapporteur is, therefore, quite right in calling for the principle of subsidiarity to be strictly observed in implementing the ESDP.
I believe that we should reject any attempt in the ESDP to tie EU Structural Funds to spatially relevant programmes.
I am also afraid that they could be used as financing and regulatory instruments of regional planning policy.
I do not think that we have any reservations about generally grouping regions into target areas or about the control and coordinating function which the Commission accordingly has to exercise.
However, a European Spatial Development Perspective is not needed for this.
Instead, the implementation of EU structural assistance should remain the responsibility of Member States, and should not be made more difficult because of additional regional planning criteria, so that it becomes a greater burden for Member States involving increased administrative expenditure.
We should reject any attempts to make structural and sectoral development policy in the Member States subordinate to key regions and central locations under a European Spatial Development Perspective.
We must not lose sight of that in this debate.
Mr President, in the European Union, theory and practice differ in many matters.
This is particularly true of urban environmental policy.
Let us take Brussels, for example.
Here, all our excrement gets directed untreated into the River Samme, which takes it untreated into the River Schelde, which takes it untreated into the North Sea.
From there we get our excrement back in the form of mussels in those months which, in French, have the letter R in them.
Brussels' first waste water treatment plant, which, therefore, is not a sewage plant, but a water treatment plant, will be completed next year.
According to the reply I got from the Commission to a written question, Brussels is breaking the terms of Directive 91/271/EEC, and Article 17, in particular.
It is going on under the Commission's very own nose.
I propose that we embark on an urban policy by treating our own waste and making Brussels do the same.
Brussels is an environmental disaster when it comes to urban policy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Ad hoc procedures for 1999 budget
The next item is the report (A4-0256/98) by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the "ad hoc' procedures for the 1999 budget, as provided for in the Interinstitutional Agreements of 29 October 1993 on budgetary discipline and improvement of the budgetary procedure, and of 16 July 1997 on provisions regarding financing of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and in the procedure concerning financing international fisheries agreements, pursuant to the Joint Declaration of 12 December 1996.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate opens the ad hoc procedure for the 1999 budget, as provided in the Interinstitutional Agreements of 29 October 1993, which stipulate that at the request of the European Parliament the ad hoc procedure may be opened if either of the two arms of the Budgetary Authority wishes to depart from the preliminary draft budget on agricultural spending submitted by the Commission.
With the trialogue held on 23 June, Parliament and the Council formally opened the ad hoc procedure for the budgetary year 1999. This procedure will remain open until an agreement is reached; in principle it will be closed in the autumn.
It will, thus, provide a more realistic and appropriate budget estimate.
The budget procedure has been further improved and the ad hoc procedure now consists of three sections: agriculture, fisheries agreements and the common foreign and security policy.
Although it may appear to be a routine technical exercise, I should like to underline the political content of this ad hoc procedure, because it represents an extension of the European Parliament's influence over the budgetary procedure.
In recent years its advantages in terms of budgetary rigour have been well and truly proved.
Before getting down to the contents of the motion for a resolution, I would like to mention the different views of the two institutions, the Council and Parliament, on the classification of certain items of agricultural expenditure, on which progress has been slow.
For that reason, the European Parliament's point of view, as we commence our dialogue on the 1999 budget, is contained in Annex I of the resolution.
With regard to the forecasts for agricultural expenditure in the 1999 preliminary draft budget, the Commission suggests a figure of ECU 40 440 million.
However, we must take into account, firstly, the fact that numerous items of agricultural expenditure have constantly been overestimated by over 10 % since 1994; secondly, that in 1997 the preliminary budget figure was ECU 42 305 million, but in the last review for that year there was a surplus of ECU 2 709 million; and thirdly, that the latest forecast, adjusted on 1 June 1998, predicts a surplus of approximately ECU 1 200 million, to which we have to add an initial reduction of ECU 1 000 million with regard to the Commission's original estimates. We thus arrive at a total of ECU 2 200 million less than the Commission's original estimates in terms of actual expenditure.
For all these reasons, I myself, as rapporteur, and the Committee on Budgets consider that the European Parliament should insist on a category 1 reserve, precisely because of our experience in previous years and the obvious difficulty of obtaining a more accurate forecast.
The creation of a reserve does not mean that we have to cut down on essential agricultural expenditure, because our intention is that Member States should only pay out what corresponds to real expenditure, and not have to provide the Commission with resources which will not be used and will have to be repaid to them later on.
In my original draft report, I suggested three separate reserves, one relating to support measures, in the absence of a truly effective evaluation report from the Commission, and a second on lines for which there is no legal basis. This is because I believe that if the Council insists that all non-compulsory expenditure must have a legal basis, the same should apply to compulsory expenditure, which the Council appears to have overlooked.
There are, in fact, thirteen lines which lack a legal basis; these represent a total sum of ECU 150 million.
I should like to thank my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture, with whom we have reached an agreement to provide for a total reserve of ECU 700 million for market uncertainties and support measures, provisionally on a linear basis, until the Commission's Letter of Amendment notifies us of the adjustments to be made according to the requirements and development of the sector.
I am appealing to the Council to reach an agreement with the European Parliament on a strict budget.
Let us hope that it sets an example.
However, it is worth mentioning that the pressure we have exerted through the ad hoc procedure in recent years has had notable results.
With regard to the question of international fisheries agreements, we should be very pleased at the confirmation of the principle that no payment should be made unless Parliament is first consulted.
However, the reserve provided for in the preliminary draft budget appears to be overestimated, because there are too many uncertainties over the conclusion of certain agreements.
Thanks to the collaboration of the Committee on Fisheries and the Commission, we are asking for the reserve to be reduced as indicated in Annex II.
With regard to our common foreign and security policy, this resolution also summarizes the position of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, particularly with respect to the reduction of the reserve allocated to emergency measures in support of other policies, such as democratic transition and electoral processes, and the prevention of conflicts, as well as the issue of the nomenclature proposed in Annex II of the resolution.
For all these reasons the Committee on Budgets and I, the rapporteur, call on the House to approve this report as a mandate for negotiations between the European Parliament delegation and the Council.
Mr President, at this part-session, Parliament will be deciding on the mandate for negotiations with the Council covering, in particular, compulsory agricultural expenditure for 1999 as part of what is known as the ad hoc procedure.
In previous years, we have gained a good deal of positive experience of this procedure, particularly last year with the 1998 budget.
All of the parties involved believe that the ad hoc or Tillich/Mulder procedure must continue.
This means that negotiations between Parliament and the Council should no longer focus on the preparation of a draft budget but on the autumn when the Commission sends the two arms of the Budgetary Authority a Letter of Amendment containing details of the most recent estimates of compulsory expenditure.
At this moment in time, we need to decide what changes might conceivably be made to the preliminary draft budget both in terms of income and expenditure.
In view of actual expenditure for the financial year 1998, Parliament feels that it might perhaps be possible to make savings in 1999.
It is acting on this assumption by allocating ECU 700 million to a general reserve to cover market uncertainties and related measures.
There are also tentative proposals for a straight cut in the agricultural budget.
Any reduction will be temporary assuming that the Commission comes up with proposals for a more selective reduction in a number of substantial budget lines.
It is a temporary solution given Parliament's express opposition to a genuine straight cut in compulsory expenditure. This opposition stands.
The procedure must, of course, also work well if on balance we do not achieve savings but merely increase expenditure.
I would also like to say a few words about related measures arising from the 1992 agricultural reforms.
These measures are becoming more and more important and expenditure is increasing significantly.
What we are lacking is a proper analysis and evaluation of these measures.
Parliament believes that an evaluation of this kind must be carried out very quickly, particularly as these measures will form a substantial part of the new rural policy proposed by the Commission.
Parliament and the Council must be able to make a sensible decision on this.
It is high time that Parliament carried out a thorough examination of the effectiveness of these related measures.
Parliament will propose increasing the budget item to combat fraud in the agricultural sector.
This is in line with the Commission's intention to embark on new programmes of action.
There must be no slackening in our efforts in this area.
The Commission can embark on new campaigns immediately if funding is guaranteed.
Finally, the Dührkop Dührkop report contains proposals that involve dividing up the agriculture section of the budget in a different way.
Separating traditional market planning expenditure from direct payments to producers, which have increased significantly, would, in particular, be very useful.
The same goes for structural expenses in the Guarantee section.
This item also demands specific attention given the Agenda 2000 initiative that has already been announced.
Each of these cases involves compulsory agricultural expenditure although this is not to say that they would be able to escape the political will of Parliament.
The way in which Parliament could exercise its authority in a proper manner must form part of an agreement between the various institutions, a new agreement.
The new classification proposed by the rapporteur would be a good start.
Mr President, Mrs Dührkop's report demonstrates that in the Parliament progress can be made without changing the Treaty.
For many years, the Council has refused to subject the budget to proper democratic control.
We have been fighting for years for proper overall budgetary control, both for compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
We have been also been fighting for years for democratic control over fisheries and for the budget on common foreign and security policy to be under democratic control.
This proves that without Treaty change, provided Parliament is consistent, efficient and does not spend too much money, we can make progress.
This is what we now have: the ad hoc procedure.
It has taken the Commission some time to understand that over-estimating budgetary expenditure in the field of agriculture is counter-productive.
Finally, two years ago we made a start and I congratulate my colleague Mr Tillich who last year succeeded in gaining a firm commitment both from the Commission and the Council to accept the principle of the reserve.
Much has been said about the reserve.
It has always been said to be an abuse of power by the Parliament.
But the reserve is not an abuse by the Parliament: it is the proper use of public money by a publicly controlled legislature.
It is against that background that I believe we have the best starting point for the debate which will begin in the next few weeks.
One comment on the legal basis. This afternoon, it was again demonstrated in the debate with Commissioner Liikanen that the legal basis is not ultimately about the law, it is about the political willingness to understand the needs of the population.
The fact that 90 budget lines are at present not being executed is shameful for the development of civil society.
We have just passed the Herman report which makes it very clear that we can make progress providing the Council is willing to work with us.
Let there be no misunderstanding: if we do not achieve in a trialogue a political breakthrough on the legal base, relations between the Parliament and the Council, but I would also add relations between the Parliament, Council and the Commission, will suffer: I hope this message will be received by all those who were not present here today.
I see that the Commissioner for Africa is here and I hope that he can pass the message along to the Agricultural Commissioner.
I believe that with what has been achieved so far we have a good starting-point and I am confident that we will come to a good conclusion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ad hoc procedure born of the provisions of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993 on agricultural expenditure has been extended to include fisheries agreements and the common foreign and security policy.
Undoubtedly, this has enabled progress to be made, both as regards improvement of the budgetary procedure and preparation of the European Union's budget.
The concertation which preceded the second reading of the 1998 budget is the best example of this.
On the one hand, the European Parliament is allowed to look over the section of agricultural expenditure, whilst on the other hand, by accepting certain positions of Parliament as regards compulsory expenditure, the Council can obtain certain concessions as regards non-compulsory expenditure. In the past, because of the supposedly unreasonable scope of the European Parliament's budgetary decisions, this has often represented a bone of contention, if not a source of conflict, between the two arms of the Budgetary Authority.
Another significant and positive step forward is the agreement concluded between the Council and the Commission, as a result of which the Commission must now submit a Letter of Amendment for agricultural expenditure to its preliminary draft budget, before the first reading of the budget, so that the budget forecasts can be better assessed, this being a difficult exercise as regards agriculture.
These improvements are wholly acceptable for two reasons: firstly, it becomes possible to put an end to a kind of war over budgetary decisions between Parliament and the Council, which has gone on for far too long in the past; and secondly, they give Parliament a more coherent and unified role in exercising its authority.
The situation of the budgetary hemiplegia of our Parliament, which only gave us power over half of the budget, leaving the Council the second part of the budgetary authority, is now seen as out of date and unrealistic.
We are in favour of the ad hoc procedure as a code of good conduct between the two arms of the Budgetary Authority: budgetary etiquette ensures better results when drawing up the budget.
But we must be careful that this does not engender, by insidious means, a confusion of powers, because as far as Parliament can see, it amounts to no less than a proposal to amend the structure and classification of agricultural expenditure, in other words, the abolition of compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
Without questioning the rationale behind the ad hoc procedure, nonetheless, we cannot support the rapporteur, for the basic reason that since agricultural expenditure is so specific, it could not, in the main, be treated as general, non-compulsory expenditure.
By its very nature, non-compulsory expenditure is subject to the free will of the legislator, depending on the choices made.
It is desirable, for example, to reduce a budgetary allocation in favour of a programme of wind power, depending on the interest and credibility attributed to this energy source.
Most other agricultural expenditure has to be treated very differently, including expenditure concerning market support and that relating to direct aid or structural measures.
This expenditure has to be guaranteed and, because it is so specific, it must be excluded from excessive attempts at classification.
The ad hoc procedure must only be applied within the framework of the Interinstitutional Agreement and must not go beyond this.
Whilst not wishing to swim against the tide, it is a step which my group and myself could not take.
Mr President, I would make a general comment first of all to say that we consider the ad hoc procedure positive inasmuch as it provides a way for Parliament to contribute to the introduction of improvements in the distribution of compulsory expenditure, particularly agricultural expenditure. It guarantees that they are more rigorous and more transparent.
But we also consider - and this is a point we would like to emphasize - that this procedure neither can nor should be devalued by making it into a mere mechanism for proposing reductions in expenditure.
This applies twice as much to the special reserve proposed in category 1.
We can certainly agree to the creation of this reserve, particularly for the purpose of providing a cushion against market uncertainties.
But we do not think it should be created as a matter of course; it should be consolidated and limited to very well-defined situations.
In this context, however, there is one idea which has already been raised in a previous report, and which we find controversial, namely, the idea of a dedicated fund.
We understand the intention to lighten the budgetary burden on Member States, but we must draw attention to the dangers of such a trend, either as a precedent which may tend to become generalized, or, more especially, as a way of completely negating the concept of own resources.
Unless some precautions are taken, we run the risk that this concept of own resources will be transformed into mere routine transfers by Member States.
And that is a situation with which I am sure none of us would agree.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before I comment on Mrs Dührkop-Dührkop's excellent report, I must make a short additional remark on this afternoon's debate on legal bases, as this seems relevant to me and was not mentioned.
The crucial point is not whether a judgement has to be complied with.
That goes without saying.
The crucial point is how we can get the Council to agree to policies that Parliament wishes to initiate. Unfortunately, we have not received any institutional reply to this question so far.
As long as the Council refuses to make any concessions on this point, we will have to use the means available to us as the Budgetary Authority and bring pressure to bear.
At the last meeting of the Committee on Budgets, all the groups were in agreement that if the Council dug its heels in, we should make full use of the margins available to us in categories 3 and 4 of the 1999 budget.
The Council has to realize that we know perfectly well how to get round its blocking tactics. After all, we are talking about at least ECU 1.3 billion.
The Council can be quite sure that we are in a position to spend this money well.
It will have to come clean on this in the trialogue.
Now let me turn to the Dührkop report, which - if we leave the specific estimates to one side for the time being - refers to three important institutional disputes that need to be resolved in the context of the next Interinstitutional Agreement. In addition to the problem of the legal basis, which I have already mentioned, it also refers to the classification of expenditure and also sounds a warning note about using the creation of a reserve to achieve increased flexibility.
To this extent the Dührkop report is an important stage on the difficult road to interinstitutional cooperation.
My group supports the efforts of the rapporteur and of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to pay more attention to evaluating programmes.
This also applies, of course, to sustainable regional agriculture programmes.
However, we wish to stress that everything possible must be done to guarantee that these particular programmes, which call for a high level of commitment by Member States, are made relevant to our citizens.
With regard to creating an insurance fund to compensate for damage suffered as a result of animal diseases, I would like to emphasize that for me the key motive is to reduce the burden on the budget.
Checks could accordingly be carried out so as to guarantee the self-insurance principle.
I cannot, therefore, agree to the creation of a budget line at present.
Finally, I have another point about expenditure under the common foreign and security policy.
We entered into the ad hoc procedures under the Amsterdam Treaty because it seemed important to us to preserve the non-compulsory nature of this expenditure.
Nevertheless, these procedures assume a minimum of responsibility on both sides, which I believe the Council has not fulfilled.
It is particularly regrettable that neither the Council nor the Commission has so far complied with Parliament's wish to establish a European Civil Peace Corps.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are studying an important report on budgetary procedure here in Brussels, which is different from the texts which our headquarters manages, confirmed by the Court of Justice.
The report submitted to us is far from being neutral.
In fact, whilst, in theory, the ad hoc concertation procedure consists of formalized discussions between the two arms of the Budgetary Authority as regards the amount and distribution of compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure, in practice, this procedure allows the European Parliament to open a dialogue and to politically blackmail the Council, both as regards the amount of compulsory expenditure as well as the nature of some of this expenditure.
I would like to discuss the two categories which are subject to the opening of an ad hoc procedure in the report, namely, agricultural expenditure and CFSP expenditure.
As regards agricultural expenditure, the European Parliament justifies its regular recourse to the ad hoc procedure by pointing out the endemic overestimating of the past 10 years.
The Committee on Budgets believes that some lines in the agricultural budget are permanently provided with excessive appropriations.
It calls on the Commission to submit a Letter of Amendment so that the budget includes only credits which match real needs as closely as possible.
However, we should not be fooled by the real motives of the Committee on Budgets; their real and only objective is to influence the character, content and amount of compulsory expenditure, which is usually controlled unilaterally by the Council.
I had tabled an amendment which proposed that Parliament should regard the ad hoc procedure as an instrument designed to improve the allocation of credits and not a political method for upsetting the current balance of power between the two arms of the Budgetary Authority.
This amendment was rejected.
As regards CFSP expenditure, the problem is slightly different.
To start with, the Maastricht Treaty treated this type of expenditure differently.
The Interinstitutional Agreement of 16 July changed things, without respecting the procedure, or waiting for ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
There is also a desire, in this respect, to change the texts and influence the Council's proposals.
Contrary to what we are told, the ad hoc procedure is not a way of rationalizing expenditure, but a desire to redefine the classification of this expenditure.
Mr President, the budget for 1999 is the last of the present financial perspectives. It is, therefore, a budget which, although it follows the same lines as those of previous years, has already begun to look towards what will be the new financial perspectives, and this is no less true as regards its agricultural aspect.
We are well aware that the purpose of the ad hoc procedure is not to cast doubt on the competence of the budgetary authorities but is, on the contrary, to provide an opportunity for debate between the Council and Parliament on the classification of expenditure.
The Committee on Budgets approved Mrs Dührkop's report on the ad hoc procedure at the same time as it was confirming the value of the Tillich/Mulder procedure we introduced last year.
We will apply it once again to the Commission's Letter of Amendment, which will be submitted at the end of October, in order to achieve greater harmony between predicted and actual expenditure.
I would also like to emphasize the fact that we have voted for the creation of a special reserve for market uncertainties and accompanying measures, while waiting for a Letter of Amendment from the Commission.
It is allocated ECU 700 million from a linear cut in all B1 lines of the EAGGF - Guarantee Section, without an increase in its total amount, thus preventing an overestimation of agricultural expenditure.
Whether the Council is prepared to accept it is another matter.
An additional innovation that has our support is the new expenditure nomenclature proposed by Mrs Dührkop, based on the purpose of the expenditure, in order to achieve a better evaluation of the common agricultural policy.
In addition - in the absence of any agreement with the Council on the legal basis in the trialogue, and to be coherent with the ruling by the Court of Justice -, the rapporteur suggests that funds relating to lines for which the legal basis has yet to be approved should be placed in a special reserve.
In this way, the appropriations will be transferred from the reserve to the line only when the legal basis for it has been adopted.
The Tillich/Mulder procedure, which has already been mentioned, includes international fisheries agreements; therefore, the Commission's Letter of Amendment enables us to reach a better assessment of the situation as regards current negotiations, and if the agreements are not concluded in time, we can decide to reduce the amounts held in the reserve still further.
I do not want to finish, Mr President, without mentioning that there are some Members who have some reservations about dedicated reserves, because of the danger of accumulating expenditure at the end of the year and having to pay it all at the same time.
As far as the financing of the CFSP is concerned, we can accept a reduction in the allocations for emergency measures if this means that loans provided for the prevention of conflicts will be increased.
Mr President, Mrs Dührkop has prepared a thorough report, for which I thank her profusely.
I should like to look more closely at points 13 and 14.
These tackle the questions of environmental support for agriculture, early retirement and afforestation.
Firstly, I would like to point out that European Union policy and funding should not extend to forestry as such.
Only afforestation, which concerns reverting arable land to forest or rough pasture, might possibly fall within the European Union's sphere of activity, as might activity that sets out to prevent erosion or desertification.
Point 14, in particular, focuses on the agricultural policy to be applied.
It sees requirements for agriculture as being too vague and non-binding.
At the same time, it calls on the Commission to make special proposals to enhance sustainable agriculture by developing regulations for good agricultural practice as well as functional standards for the environment and production.
I believe point 14 places too much faith in administration and bureaucracy, indeed in rules that extend to regional policy.
We must remember that the European Union is a community of 370 million inhabitants.
It is impossible to imagine that the Commission would be capable of drafting good agricultural policy for every nook and cranny of Europe.
The same goes for meticulous standards also.
For example, this spring, the Commission changed the final day for sowing for my particular country several times.
Why should the Commission be trying to decide details such as this? Agriculture has ben practised for centuries in that Member State.
They know perfectly well when the land can be sown there and when it cannot.
The basic prerequisite of the common agricultural policy is a respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
The responsibility for agriculture lies with the Member States as well as the EU.
Up until now the environmental protection of agriculture and associated activities has been dealt with through agreements between the Member State and the European Union, and both sides have contributed to the costs.
Putting these into practice and monitoring the result are mainly the responsibility of the Member State.
This has worked well, as the Member State has had both the functional and economic responsibility.
I hope that these matters of subsidiarity will be resolved positively in conjunction with the CAP reform when the AGENDA 2000 programme is being decided.
Mr President, I would like to turn to an aspect of Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's interesting report on combating animal diseases.
This has cost the European budget a great deal of money over the past few years, on account of BSE, and swine fever, in particular.
Presently, in the event of an outbreak of a contagious disease, 50 % of the costs are borne by the Member State and the remaining 50 % by the European budget.
The present situation is that in certain Member States - for example, in the Netherlands, to name a country which is close to my heart - the 50 % of the costs which are borne nationally are borne by the farmers of that country.
It is clear that this is not yet the case in other countries.
Does the Commission not think that this could be a case of distortion of competition?
Would it be possible for the Commission to evaluate all existing schemes relating to combating animal diseases in the Member States of the European Union in the near future? I already referred to this last May.
I believe that it is certainly worthwhile to consider Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's proposal to investigate the feasibility of establishing an insurance fund at European level for this.
There are, however, many details to be discussed before then.
Mr President, The Commission is pleased that the European Parliament seems to accept the overall amount proposed for EAGGF Guarantee and that there is a large measure of agreement on how it should be allocated between sectors.
The rigour of this budget is evident not only in its 'zero-growth' , but also in the efforts which have been made to reduce the over-budgeting seen in the past on certain budget lines.
As for the proposed creation of a reserve inside the EAGGF Guarantee, I have to say that the Commission does not see how the creation of a reserve without making any change to the overall amount of the budget contributes to our common aim, namely a rigorous budget.
The Commission is opposed to a linear reduction of all lines in order to fill a reserve.
However, if this is what the budgetary authority wishes to do, the Commission can accept to treat about 250 million euros as 'provisional appropriations' and place them in the reserve chapter B0-40.
These appropriations can be drawn from five budget lines, which either tended to be consistently under-executed during the period 1994 to 1997, or where expenditure is not certain, such as the fight against outbreaks of animal diseases.
To reduce the appropriations for the actions of control and prevention by 3 million and to inscribe them into the chapter B0-40, seems illogical.
The Commission would not be able to carry out an evaluation of the accompanying measures, as Parliament has requested, and to which it is committed, if Parliament withdraws the appropriations.
Concerning the transfer of a supplementary 17 million euros to the B0-40, obtained by a linear reduction of the budget lines, the Commission does not see the usefulness of this action.
In its preliminary draft budget the Commission is committed to presenting new actions to control and prevent fraud, if possible in the framework of the Letter of Amendment.
In the future, the agricultural Letter of Amendment in the autumn will be a crucial step in the EAGGF-Guarantee budgetary procedure As in the past, it will allow the latest developments in production and on markets to be taken into account.
In this regard, developments up to now do not lead us at this stage to expect savings on the amount proposed in the 1999 PDB.
The rectifying letter will also be the right occasion for an update of the PDB in the light of legislative decisions, including those on the price package, market reforms and, probably, the adaptation of the agri-monetary system following the introduction of the euro.
Concerning fisheries agreements, following the new estimations, the Commission can now endorse two changes to the preliminary draft budget if the budget authority can agree on them.
The first one is the transfer of 0, 5 million euro from the line B7-8000 to the reserve relating to the agreement with the Gambia which will most probably not be signed in 1998 and thus will not be in force at the beginning of 1999.
The second is a reduction of up to 7 million euro of the reserve intended for new agreements, due to the fact that it will most likely not be possible to conclude a new agreement with Russia in the near future, for which such an amount had been foreseen in the reserve.
However, at a later stage the Commission present updated estimates and propose the corresponding changes to the proposals for new agreements.
As agreed during the trialogue of March 1998, the final distribution between the reserve and the budget line should be decided in the Letter of Amendment that the Commission will transmit at the end of October to the budget authority.
Finally, concerning the financing of the common foreign and security policy, with regard to the line for urgent actions (B8-015), appropriations proposed in the Preliminary Draft Budget for 1999 have been increased in the light of the relatively swift execution in the first months of 1998.
However, the Commission could endorse a certain downward revision of the allocated amount, such as the 2 million euro proposed by the European Parliament and reinforce for example the line for prevention of conflicts and support for peace processes (B8-013).
Minor modifications in the nomenclature do not pose any problem for the Commission.
But if no agreement can be found for some budget lines, the Commission proposes to revert either to the nomenclature agreed upon in the 1998 budget discussion, or to the nomenclature agreed upon in the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Commissioner, I would like to make it absolutely clear that this resolution does not propose any reserve for support measures.
I have said quite clearly that I would have liked to ask for much more specific reserves instead of a general reserve.
But the general fund that has finally been decided on has been agreed with the Committee on Agriculture.
And if you read the report carefully, you will see that it says "provisionally linear' .
During all the years of the ad hoc procedure this House has always stated that it is clearly against linear cuts.
For the time being, until we see from the Letter of Amendment where the real needs lie, we prefer to say "provisionally linear' .
As far as fishing agreements are concerned, Commissioner, I would like to say that, as we both know, not only is there little chance of the agreement with Russia being included in the 1999 budget, but this applies to one or two other agreements as well.
We shall see how things stand around autumn, as we shall with agricultural expenditure, when we look at the amendments to the budget.
Thank you, Mrs Dührkop, for your explanations and clarifications, which I do of course note.
With regard to fisheries agreements, however, and inasmuch as I am involved from time to time, at least collaterally, in negotiating some of these agreements, it is extremely difficult to make a reliable prediction.
I will give you an example: the fisheries agreement with South Africa.
This is an agreement which looked impossible last year, on which negotiations began this year, and which, in spite of everything, we have some hope of being able to conclude by the end of the year.
We have some hope, but no more than that!
Because it depends much more on the South African authorities than the Community authorities.
For that reason, we have to view these matters with some degree of caution, accepting that there is some uncertainty.
This was the point I wanted to clarify, while assuring you that I do, therefore, understand the difficulty both my colleague and the Member and her colleagues find themselves in, because they would like a strict budget, while at the same time they are confronted with these uncertainties with which they have to grapple.
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Vendor control systems
The next item is the report (A4-0230/98) by Mr Riccardo Garosci, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission report on the vendor control systems applied by the Member States (COM(96)0245 - C4-0589/96).
Mr President, this is my first speech in my new seat in this Parliament, finally in the centre.
Starting with the bad news, 30 June 1999 could perhaps be the last day on which people who travel between Member States will be able to purchase duty-free goods such as specialty items, crafts, luxury articles, alcohol, and tobacco in tax free shops.
This date will change an important feature that has been with European travellers for 50 years.
Its abolition is, however, the direct consequence of the creation of the single market on 1 January 1993.
Given the sector's socio-economic importance, the Council granted a special extension from 1 January 1993 until 30 June 1999 so that the sectors could gradually phase out the tax-free system.
The Council also authorized duty-free sales during the extension period in the two Channel tunnel terminals and increased the duty-free allowance for third countries to ECU 175 and for Community countries to ECU 90.
Given the lack of border controls, the Council has set minimum standards of control on tax-free sales dealt with in this report.
The Commission should have presented the Council with a report by 1994 on the functioning of this transitional system and on the related systems of vendor controls.
This report was not produced until 1996, and today, a little more than one year before the end of the extension, the Parliament is called on to give its opinion on this Commission report and, therefore, indirectly on the future of duty-free.
The first airport with tax-free points of sale was Shannon in Ireland in 1947.
To give you an idea of how this tax-free airport has developed, from the first flight with thirty passengers in 1945, we have reached a turnover of $10 million in 1977.
The Shannon concept spread rapidly to all of Europe and since then all the major airports have adopted the duty-free system.
Following the example of the airlines, the ferries also developed tax-free sales on board, especially the small companies with year-round service, and today these sales still cover a large part of their management costs.
In the European Union, the sector now carries weight in the three fundamental channels - airports, ferries and on board aeroplanes - with a sales turnover of $7 billion in 1996.
In 1991, the Commission said that it was in favour of producing a study on the socio-economic consequences of eliminating duty-free.
Unfortunately, this report was never produced, and the information available today for understanding the current importance of the sector in question is still the information compiled by the sectors and the information contained in a European Parliament study.
The creation of the internal market on 1 January 1993 and the relative absence of Community borders made it necessary to introduce a system to monitor sales and guarantee compliance with the set duty-free allowances.
The manager of duty-free sales - and here we arrive at the central issue of the report - has to pursue two separate objectives: increasing sales whilst making sure that sales do not exceed the set limits.
The Commission states that compliance by managers of the guidelines laid down by the Council in 1992 has been far from satisfactory.
In most cases, shop managers have not applied systems that keep track of purchases and have not set up systems that calculate how much duty-free allowance passengers still have.
There has also been no coordination of controls for purchases made on aeroplanes.
The duty-free sales manager does not have all the relevant travel information for the passenger concerned at the time of the individual purchase.
This is due to the shortcomings of the control systems, but is also justifiable because the provision of effective controls coordinated between the various modes of transport and for the various stages of each journey would require huge investment.
For their part, the controls set up by tax free shop managers are only the same as those carried out by warehouse managers and only guarantee that the goods have not left the store or the tax-free area without having been registered.
The shortcomings observed are probably due to the fact that Member States have not, between themselves, had the time to organize, coordinate and invest in these systems.
The extension to 30 June 1999 could have been a way of helping the sector make the necessary, gradual adaptations, but since 1991 nothing has been done to convert the duty-free system in preparation for the end of duty-free on 30 June 1999.
There is also another problem of fairness with traditional shops.
Even if sales were to decrease, the development of air traffic would offset any initial drop.
Furthermore, the abolition of duty-free does not mean the physical closure of the points of sale but only the end to duty-free allowances for travel within the Community.
Another important factor is the physical location of duty-free shops and shops in the city, which is difficult to compare.
So, whether we like it or not, the completion of a real internal market must include the end to duty-free sales within the Community.
The case of duty-free, however, raises socio-economic problems that Parliament cannot ignore.
The sector directly employs about 140 000 people, and the abolition of duty-free allowances will mean that a lot of these jobs will be in jeopardy; in addition to the risk of job losses, there will be negative effects on the tourist industry, particularly in certain peripheral regions.
Furthermore, the elimination of duty-free sales will jeopardize the process of liberalization of the transport industry, especially for small and medium-sized operators.
The consequent rush by the airlines to save money could also endanger transport safety.
For that reason we are placing a lot of trust in the amendment that the Commission is sponsoring to use regional funds.
We understand that the decision to eliminate duty-free sales, unless there be some new unanimous political assessments, is final and we agree with the Commission's assessment that the situation is rather unsatisfactory.
The idea of using the duty-free system also for the arrival of the euro is important.
Therefore, without changing the deadline of 30 June 1999, it is our duty to provide the managers with instruments and methods for improving their control and for providing the network of duty-free shops with an opportunity to make a gradual conversion into normal points of sale.
We therefore consider that the second of the two amendments which I have tabled is fundamental. This amendment enables travellers whose final destination is outside the Community, but who have a stopover, to make duty-free purchases at the point of departure.
Mr President, those of us who fly regularly know that the control on compliance with the regulations in respect of duty-free sales is absent, or at least it is full of loopholes.
Individuals who have bought their quantity of duty-free alcohol or cigarettes in the airport have no difficulty in obtaining another lot on board the aeroplane.
Those purchasing goods above the permitted duty-fee sum find that they have not paid VAT after all, as the shopkeeper will have paid it.
These problems are as old as duty-free sales themselves.
The fact that they have not yet been resolved says a great deal.
The duty-free sales within the European Community may disappear in a year's time from today, but they will remain in place for journeys out of the Union.
As a result, the problem of uncontrolled double duty-free sales remains with us and this is the subject of this report.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists agrees with the rapporteur that it is time effective controls were in place, and we agree with his recommendations, which are astoundingly easy to implement.
My group thinks it is right that the Garosci report only deals with the control of duty-free sales. Indeed, the European Commission's report on the subject is rather out of date.
We did not agree with the way in which the original report tried to table the Ecofin Council resolution dated December 1991, on the subject of ending duty-free sales within the Community, again.
We are, of course, also concerned about jobs in duty-free shops, but firstly, consumer purchases will be moved to other shops where jobs will be created and secondly, governments will be able to lower taxes by raising additional, different tax revenues, or increase their expenditure in order to create new jobs.
After all, attractive as duty-free sales may be to the consumer, they are anything but free.
They are a subsidy on flying from which the better-off traveller in particular benefits, and to which all citizens contribute.
It is, therefore, a socially regressive tax. It is a subsidy to the most polluting form of transport which discriminates against environmentally-friendly forms of transport which cannot make use of this privilege.
It is a subsidy which discriminates against shops in towns and villages who must pay VAT and excise duties, in favour of shops at airports.
It is a subsidy on alcohol and tobacco, in particular, as these more than any other products are affected by the freedom from tax.
Yet these are not the kind of products we would choose to subsidize before all others, given a free choice.
Research I have conducted showed that consumers benefit from only one-third of the non-paid tax, while the shopkeeper retains two-thirds.
This enormous percentage of profit on sales in duty-free shops explains the enormous campaigns and gigantic pressure put on us as Members of the European Parliament.
But we will not succumb to this pressure, based on the arguments I have submitted.
We will, therefore, support the Garosci report in its present form.
Mr President, I cannot, of course, agree with the previous speaker, who like a typical socialist can only see the downside when it comes to tax-free sales.
No, I am one of those people who is passionately committed to keeping duty-free shops at airports and on ships for people travelling inside the European Union, who should keep the right to buy typical products, artefacts and other goods free of tax.
However, all this is due to end on 30 June 1999.
I know that there are some people who adhere strictly to principles, and that it can be said that duty-free is incompatible with the internal market.
This principle is a hobbyhorse of the Commission and, in particular, of Commissioner Monti.
The Commissioner has refused to extend the 30 June deadline again, for example until 1 January 2002, as our rapporteur, Mr Garosci, had proposed in a spirit of compromise.
That is, of course, when we will have euro coins and notes in our pockets.
I am not just an advocate of duty-free because I want to make it easy for executives with money to spend to buy luxury goods on business trips.
But right now I simply cannot ignore the fact that there are 18 million unemployed in the European Union and that tens of thousands of jobs are being put at risk by abolishing duty-free at airports and on ships, not to mention the effect on the cost of flying.
Is it not rather contradictory to organize grandiose employment summits, set up action plans to preserve and create jobs, and then simultaneously, by rigidly adhering to principles, jeopardize more jobs than programmes of this kind could ever preserve or create? I also know that politics is the art of the possible.
So I can only express my regret that the good intentions of our rapporteur, Mr Garosci, whom I warmly thank and who wanted to save duty-free, have become the victim of a procedure which has swept all his excellent proposals aside by limiting his report strictly to vendor control systems.
I am the joint author of two amendments, the aim of which is to ensure that we do not at least just lock the stable door after the horse has bolted, in other words, after we have destroyed jobs by abolishing duty-free. Instead, we intend that a system of sectoral and regional aid should be provided for the regions and sectors that will be hardest hit by the abolition of duty-free.
We want to ensure that Community funding is made available for this.
I also hope that Parliament will agree to our amendment, which stipulates that travellers departing from ports and airports in the European Union will be able to make duty-free purchases if their final destination is outside the Union, but they have to change inside the Community.
This is particularly important for Luxembourg, as we can usually only fly to third countries via Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris and Amsterdam, and I hope ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
Mr President, Mr Garosci's report is, of course, an extremely interesting report. This is particularly true, as we do not say what we really wanted to say, as the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has decided to stick with the European Commission report.
But the question which arises is whether implementing the measures in the Garosci report will be effective, considering the fact that by the time bureaucracy has processed these recommendations, duty-frees will be abolished.
That is what I think anyway.
Nevertheless, Parliament has made a wise decision in my view.
Parliament has not been tempted into the trap of giving its opinion on a problem whose future direction is in the hands of the European Commission. The question remains concerning the stage at which the duty-free zones must be abolished.
In theory, we are agreed, of course, that these duty-free zones must be abolished, but on the other hand, the European Union and the Council in the vanguard, with the European Commission in the rear, have not been able to resolve a number of tax issues.
Society might have expected that these tax issues would have been resolved by now.
Another issue relates, for example, to how this system of abolished duty-free allowances is to function in regions such as the European Economic Area.
European citizens travelling from Amsterdam to Switzerland or from Paris to Norway may encounter, for example, different rules than when they travel direct to Sweden.
I fear that we are facing a problem which we are not resolving correctly, as we anticipate events while still leaving issues unresolved.
I would, therefore, urge the European Commission to reconsider carefully all aspects of this issue and, in particular, to review the inevitable effects, rather than just the recommendations in this report.
Mr President, I recognize that the primary thrust of the Garosci report relates to the general need to tighten up the rules governing the purchase of duty-free products at airports within the territories of the European Union.
However, it is difficult at this time to debate such an issue without referring to the broader need to maintain duty-free operations within Europe post-1999.
I understand that the outgoing President of the Ecofin Council described this debate as the most emotive one on the political agenda and I believe most people would agree with that.
The abolition of duty-free will be a highly regressive step in the light of the fact that it commands such widespread support among the citizens of Europe.
It is a consumer-friendly measure and one which commands widespread public support.
In fact, at a time when many people contend that they feel alienated with the workings of the European Union, they find it virtually incomprehensible that the EU is abolishing what is a very popular mode of social shopping for many people working and travelling to different Member States within the Union.
The European Commission is not giving an inch on the need to look closely again at the effects of the abolition of duty-free and the effect that this will have in many Member States of the Union, particularly peripheral regions.
We should not forget that the Commission gave an assurance that this study will be carried out and they have failed to have fulfilled this commitment.
The Commission is not endearing itself to the general public by taking such a wholly unsympathetic and forthright position.
On 3 April, this House overwhelmingly voted for a resolution calling on the European Commission to carry out a social and economic study.
The fact that the European Commission is refusing to do this, once again reinforces the fact that it is unwilling to listen to the wishes of the only democratically elected body within the European Union.
The Council of Ecofin Ministers met on 19 May and contrary to press speculation there was no decision or reaffirmation by the Council that duty-free would be abolished.
The issue will be back on the Ecofin agenda when working documents on the issue are prepared.
I welcome the fact that the Mr Garosci in his report believes and recognizes that an alternative solution must be found to the abolition of duty-free shopping.
He makes the clear and correct observation that the decision would immediately jeopardize a sector which employs 140 000 people in Europe.
If duty-free operations discontinue, the effects for my country, Ireland, will be very serious.
There would be job losses across all sectors; price rises in both air and sea travel; higher access costs for travel; threats to the viability of year-round ferry services to and from Ireland.
It is a very serious situation and I would hope that the Commission will at last take into consideration the views of the Members of this House and the wishes of the vast majority of the people of this Union.
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my appreciation for the fact that the Garosci report keeps to the subject it deals with: the point-of-sale control systems.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy convened a hearing on this subject which unfortunately proved to be overcrowded by lobbyists who pleaded in favour of duty-free sales.
The European Commission report is clear.
The controls are slack in many ways.
The main cause is that people are riding roughshod over one of the basic principles of the administrative policing. The vendors, in whose interest it is to maximize their turnover, are at the same time required to ensure that their customers do not exceed their purchase limits.
The inevitable result is that the improvements proposed by the rapporteur remain stopgaps, which is not to say that they should not be welcomed.
The duty-free sales on internal European journeys conflict with the single European market.
The distortion of competition is all the greater, due to the defective controls.
The price level is still considerable, despite the duty-free regime.
The consumer hardly benefits, not least because jobs are sucked away artificially from the normal distribution chain stores and smaller shopkeepers.
Duty-free sales frustrate the required internalization of the external effects of transport, due to cross subsidies.
We should not forget the environment.
To conclude, there are more than sufficient reasons to reject all amendments tabled.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and point out that, although formally this debate ought to have been limited to the Commission's report on the vendor control systems used by Member States, it is clear that it has been brought up at every Parliamentary committee meeting in which the economic and social repercussions of the abolition of duty-free shops within the boundaries of the European Union have been debated. Has this been the case, as some speakers have suggested, because the commercial sector affected has taken the opportunity to inform us of its arguments against the abolition of duty-free shops?
Or is it because the Commission's report itself and the debate within the Council has led some of us, as Members of the European Parliament, to consider the possible disadvantages of their abolition in greater detail and with greater interest, and - why not? - with some anxiety? The fact is that there are valid arguments both for and against this measure.
I think the Committee on Transport's conclusions have shown us that it would be fitting for the Commission to prepare a more detailed study, particularly on the effects the abolition of this kind of shop might have on the funding and management of transport infrastructures, and the possible threat to consumers of an increase in terms of transport service costs as a result of increased airport charges.
Mr President, I am not in a position to express such a forthright opinion as some Members have done.
I would like to see a more detailed study of the subject, which is being called for not by the sector but by the representatives of some Member States.
I would also leave out some of the accusations we have heard concerning the sinful attitude of certain Members or Member States.
I should like us to avoid debates of that sort.
I, at least, have had neither the opportunity nor the intention of speaking to any representative of the lobby involved.
In any event, Mr President, what the Commission's report does say is that there are serious problems regarding controls in terms of the level of sales, especially for airport and in-flight sales.
And I totally agree that we should support all measures to enforce the observance of the laws of the European Union and its Member States and prevent abuses in that sector.
Mr President, the question under debate here is how the control of the duty-free system works.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy decided after voting that it cannot, nor, consequently, can Parliament itself, take a position on the main question under debate.
It is the question of the possible continuation of dutyfree sales which interests the ordinary citizen.
I would like to make two marginal notes.
Firstly, the decision to end dates from 1991.
At that time, Finland and Sweden, for example, were not members of the European Union.
However, duty-free sales were absolutely essential for their shipping traffic, and partly also for their air traffic.
Finland, isolated as she is by the sea, has through them built at reasonable cost a bridge over to mainland Europe.
Ending duty-free will sever this connection.
Secondly, ending duty-free will create unemployment. 40 000 people in the Union and 13 000 in Finland will lose their job.
This is in direct conflict with the EU pledge to pay serious attention to averting unemployment.
The one hand does not know what the other is doing.
Besides, even if duty-free sales are abolished and there is apparent harmonization, the high and disharmonious levels of tax on alcohol and tobacco in the Nordic countries will continue.
Who will benefit? There might be a spurious element of prestige in it for the Commission and Ecofin.
Another beneficiary will be Estonia, which is outside the EU.
Ships plying between Helsinki and Stockholm may preserve the duty-free system by stopping off in the future in Tallinn.
But how high will the port costs be that Tallinn will levy in that case? The matter has not been thought through from all sides thanks to a bullheaded Commission and a toothless Ecofin.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when unemployment remains the main concern in all our countries, I am not at all sure that it is wise to further increase unemployment through changes which some are immediately planning for duty-free trade. This has been properly pointed out in the study prepared by Parliament's Directorate-General for Research.
With regard to the study, I would also like to point out that the Commission has not fulfilled its commitments or kept its word as given at the time of Mrs Scrivener.
Between the commitment made at the time and today, a lot of time has passed but nothing has been done.
We should also remember that the Commission did not think it worth replying to the request from the Transport Council of 17 March 1998 nor to the European Parliament's resolution of 3 April.
Nor does its proposal, of the Ecofin Council of 19 May, correspond any better to its promise of 1991 or to Parliament's request, reiterated in its resolution of 3 April and adopted by a very large majority.
Once again, therefore, we have to point out that the scheduled end of duty-free trade within the Union cannot take place unless certain very specific conditions have already been met. Otherwise, we shall run the risk of very serious repercussions in terms of jobs in the regions affected.
So, ladies and gentlemen, whereas paragraph 19 of the Commission's report on vendor controls recognized that duty-free sales make some contribution to the funding of airport infrastructures, help to minimize the effect of airport taxes and thus favour the tourist industry, it would be quite appropriate to provide for aid and appropriate compensation measures, especially in peripheral regions, which will suffer disproportionately from the consequences of the abolition of duty-free trade.
In this context, particular attention will also have to be paid to transport services in isolated and peripheral regions, and the Commission must look seriously into the possibility of Community funding.
Therefore, Mr President, no-one will be surprised to learn that our group will vote against Mr Garosci's report in its current version, as it represents an accelerated death warrant for duty-free trade without there having been any study or serious actions and will inevitably have disastrous repercussions on employment and on the regions concerned.
Mr President, when I was a young boy living in Scotland, at nighttime I used to listen to a children's programme called 'Jackanory' ; it told you fairy tales.
Well, tonight I think I have sat through another episode of it because I have never heard so much disinformation coming across on the question of duty-free.
I heard Mrs Boogerd-Quaak saying 'duty-free is going' .
Duty-free is not going.
Duty-free will still exist for all those travellers outwith the EU.
Can I say why it is important that we discuss vendor control tonight?
I will give you a prime example.
If you travel via Brussels airport, as most Members here do, you go into the main lobby in terminal B and you can buy a bottle of spirits and 200 cigarettes.
You then go down terminal B to get to your gate and there are another two duty-free shops there where you can buy another bottle of spirits and another 200 cigarettes at each one of these shops.
Therefore, you have three litres of spirits and 600 cigarettes.
While you are flying back to Glasgow they come around asking if you would like to buy duty-free.
You can buy another bottle of spirits and another 200 cigarettes.
Then you have 4 litres of spirits and 800 cigarettes.
The only problem you would have in getting them back is not whether customs stop you, it is actually carrying the bloody stuff.
If we are going to continue to operate properly as a Union, we have to tighten up on the vendor control system.
Let us drop this whole question of duty-free coming or going.
That argument will be won or lost in the Ecofin Council; it will not be won and lost in this Chamber.
It is high time people recognized that.
Therefore, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have put down amendments to the Garosci Report showing ways that we can get around the abuse of the system within airports, ports and airlines.
It is important that we take these up and implement them.
If we do not we are allowing fraud to continue within our system and also there is loss of revenue to exchequers in the various Member States.
Therefore, let us concentrate on the issue which is in front of us.
It is not duty-free, it is vendor control.
Please stick to the issue.
Mr President, it has been a stimulating debate so far and I particularly appreciated the contribution from Mr Miller who demonstrated very clearly the point made by the rapporteur, in his excellent report, that vendor control is simply not working.
Mr Miller described graphically what happens at Brussels airport.
Let me tell you what happens on cross-channel ferries.
Some rogues collect up boarding cards from innocent and naive passengers and take them along to the duty-free shop and cash them in for much larger amounts than they are actually permitted by the regulation.
It is a system which is subject to wide-scale abuse.
I agree with those people who have regretted that the whole debate has been hijacked into an entirely irrelevant consideration about duty-free.
I am a great supporter of lobbies, I believe profoundly in their ability to come here and try to influence us.
I do not agree however that they should tell lies in doing so.
One of the worst of the untruths that they have been telling is about job losses.
There has been an unscrupulous playing on the fears of their employees for their job futures.
Obviously people are going to continue to travel by air.
Indeed, in the United Kingdom airports are expanding their shopping facilities all the time.
There is, of course, a problem on some ferries, particularly those crossing the Channel.
Those problems are caused by the fact that there are too many ships chasing too few passengers, particularly now that the Channel Tunnel is open.
The Channel Tunnel, where incidentally you cannot benefit from duty-free if you travel on the Eurostar.
So I support what Mr Garosci has done, I entirely agree with the points made by Mr Miller and indeed somewhat exceptionally too, with the points made by Mr Metten.
So I hope we will support the rapporteur and reject most of the amendments.
Mr President, the decision to abolish the duty-free sector on 30 June 1999 was confirmed by the refusal of the Ecofin Council on 18 May 1998 to comply with Commissioner Scrivener's promise made to the Members of the European Parliament to carry out a study on the impact throughout the Union.
Since I only have two minutes, I will simply deal with one single aspect of this problem.
The directive which was passed in 1991 formed part of an overall plan for a harmonized tax system for Europe.
Unfortunately, we are hardly, if anywhere, near that yet.
Europe must not be created at the expense of jobs.
And yet, during the hearing of 29 October 1997, Commissioner Monti recognized that the abolition of duty-free sales would affect employment and the economic activity of certain regions in Europe.
Of all duty-free products sold, 41 % are of French origin and duty-free trade is the best possible shop window and the best possible way of promoting products made for export.
I come from the Cognac region in France and more than 30 % of its production is sold duty-free on the world market.
It is the main sector in the Cognac region and accounts for a major share of top quality sales.
A specific study has shown that 1 000 jobs are affected by this European decision and that 2 000 hectares of vineyards will be grubbed.
And this comes on top of the Asian crisis.
In some regions, such as the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, which already has 20 % unemployment, 3 500 jobs will be lost.
Europe will not be able to justify itself to the electorate with such inept and brutal decisions.
Have we thought about a different approach, which would be more in harmony with the economic and social constraints which prevail at the end of the century? What about, for example, a progressive tax rate which would be more flexible and more pragmatic?
Perhaps there is still time to step back. Who is going to pay the bill?
Airports?
The airline and shipping companies?
The consumer?
No doubt all of them will to some extent. But it will cost far more to rehabilitate the credibility of the European institutions and the prime movers within them who deliberately destroy jobs.
Mr President, we must agree with the position of the Committee on Transport and Tourism and others that problems caused by the ending of duty-free sales should have been discussed in connection with this present topic for discussion.
I will take the liberty of wondering out loud how difficult it will be to effect and conduct proper discussions on the subject.
We tend to stick rigidly to legal interpretation without paying sufficient attention, for example, to the EU's massive aim to substantially reduce unemployment.
The EU should not be making decisions that run counter to this aim.
But that is what appears to be happening in this debate.
It is patently obvious that ending duty-free sales will weaken, for example, Finland's ability to maintain communications with the rest of the European Union.
Finland is an island as seen from Central and Western Europe, and one that needs sufficiently efficient and competitive maritime links.
Duty-free sales have done a great deal to guarantee high-quality Finnish maritime links to Scandinavia and the Baltic.
Because of duty-free sales, fares have been kept so moderate that anyone, including the unemployed, can enjoy these crossings. This is the main thing that has kept passenger numbers high and traffic busy, thus enabling, furthermore, high freight capacity.
Some have clearly laboured under misconceptions such as the idea that all this has to do with protecting the interests of the wealthy.
But this is really not the case; on the contrary, it is emphatically about the interests of the less well-off, and therefore about equality between citizens.
Effective and regular car ferry services are a part of Finland's main route connections to Scandinavia, the Baltic and thus to elsewhere in Europe.
Any deterioration in these will mean higher freight costs and bottlenecks regarding capacity, causing problems for economic development for the whole country.
Discontinuing duty-free sales will mean higher fares and the threat that some services will cease altogether.
This would have an immediate and deteriorating effect on maritime employment.
The effects on employment will not, however, be confined to the maritime sector.
Road traffic employment will similarly come under threat.
The rise in costs and transportation difficulties will also mean an increase in costs to the export industry, affecting its competitiveness and, indirectly, employment.
A fall in capacity will also result in fewer orders for the shipbuilding industry with a crushing effect on dockyard employees and subcontractors everywhere in the EU.
We sincerely hope that the Commission will take seriously the demands expressed in the European Parliament for a thorough clarification of the total effect of discontinuing duty-free sales.
Mr President, in 1991 by a unanimous vote the Council of Ministers decided to abolish duty-free sales for journeys by air and sea within the European Union from 30 January 1999.
The best estimates we have indicate that up to 140, 000 jobs may be lost as a result of the Council decision.
Despite considerable pressure, the Council of Ministers has refused on a number of occasions to reconsider their decision to abolish duty-free.
It is clear that many air companies and ferries, in particular those operating in peripheral regions such as Ireland, will have difficulty surviving the loss of income the abolition of duty-free will bring.
In addition, the ticket cost to the travelling public will undoubtedly increase.
I will continue to strive to overturn that Council decision.
However, it is necessary to consider the plight of those whose jobs will be put in jeopardy by the Council decision.
The Commission must urgently examine the situation of people whose jobs will be put at risk by the abolition of duty-free sales and bring forward a proposal in good time to alleviate the adverse consequences for those involved.
A number of ferry companies face severe loss and even bankruptcy as a result of the Council of Ministers' decision.
The Commission must examine in particular the structure of air and ferry companies servicing peripheral regions and bring forward measures to prevent loss of services to those regions concerned and prevent job losses.
Mr President, when the Council decided in 1991 to extend the existence of duty-free shopping until 1999, it could certainly not have known that unemployment in the EU in 1998 would be 18 million and rising.
The Council also had no idea that in 1999, despite monetary union becoming a reality, there would still be no question of tax harmonization.
So the internal market has not really been completed.
The Council and Commission's inflexibility on this point borders on irresponsibility!
Abolishing duty-free means killing several birds with one stone, in a negative sense, of course.
A large number of additional unemployed people will come onto the job market.
The EU will voluntarily sacrifice an important shop window for its branded export goods, and the tourist trade will suffer demonstrable damage.
A cynic might say that the first concrete employment policy measure taken by the Community will be the destruction of over 100 000 jobs by abolishing duty-free.
I find it absolutely incomprehensible that the Council has not reviewed its position given the situation in the job market.
There is a wide and unanimous consensus that the main topic of political debate and the objective of all our actions should be the fight against unemployment.
So why is not possible to reach unanimous agreement to alter this decision, which will clearly create so many additional unemployed?
The new President of the Council, Austria's Federal Chancellor, yesterday appealed to the EU partners to make the fight against unemployment the focus of their attention.
If he means that seriously, than he should convince his partners that by keeping duty-free, many jobs would be saved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the system that applies to duty-free sales up to 30 June 1999 involves the exercise of controls by the seller over his own sales.
Two years ago, in July 1996, the Commission drew up a report on the application of these controls by Member States.
The conclusions were somewhat negative, inasmuch as they highlighted, in particular, the diversity of the measures taken at national level and the gaps in their control systems.
At this point I would like to thank Parliament, and especially the rapporteur, Mr Garosci, for his work on this issue, the sensitive nature of which is generally acknowledged.
I am delighted that Parliament agrees with the Commission's approach regarding the conclusion to be drawn concerning controls.
The Commission fully endorses the recommendations for the improvement of controls, whether by the airline ticket cancellation method or by increased use of computer technology.
Nevertheless, we would draw your attention to the fact that it is less appropriate to introduce measures of this kind now that we are only a year from the deadline of 30 June 1999.
The fact is that the need to introduce additional control measures would require further investment, which might amount to a misleading signal to operators as regards the deadline of 30 June 1999.
I would also emphasize that since preparing its report the Commission has been informed that operators have tightened up their controls.
They have already started to make the adjustments that will be necessary until these sales are abolished, and will now have to concentrate their efforts on actions at ground level.
Mr President, I would now like to talk about the proposed changes, most of which are separate from the question of controls and relate to the general problem of duty-free sales.
On this point, my colleague, Mario Monti, has had occasion to explain the Commission's position to you a number of times.
I can confirm that there has been no change in that position, and indeed it has recently been reaffirmed here at the Ecofin Council on 19 May 1998.
I would, therefore, like to restrict myself to the following observations.
In the first place, we will not in any way entertain the suggestion that the date for abolition of these sales should be postponed.
On 19 May, let me say again, the Ecofin Council gave no indication to that effect, not did it even agree that the debate should be re-opened.
It also seems to me that any association between duty-free sales and the introduction of the euro would be artificial or even dangerous for the image of the Community.
The Commission still considers that Member States are in the best position to examine the consequences of abolishing duty-free sales at national level, and to take the appropriate decisions, if necessary.
There are also a certain number of changes relating to sectoral and regional support measures. These recommend the use of Community funds to assist in dealing with local difficulties.
Measures proposed by Member States which involve the use of Community mechanisms, such as Structural Funds, will be considered by the Commission on the merits of each case.
In addition, the Commission has promised the Council that it will draw up a working document clarifying which Community instruments can be used by Member States in that connection.
Obviously the European Parliament will be kept informed.
Finally, Mr President, Community legislation does not contain any provision allowing passengers travelling to third countries to buy duty-free goods at airports within the Community where they first embark.
This is initially an intra-Community flight.
There is nothing, however, to prevent contact between strictly Community passengers and passengers travelling to third countries.
This fact could lead to abuses which would be unacceptable to the Commission and Member States.
Mr President, I would very briefly like to thank the interpreters for going beyond the maximum time limit and for bearing with me earlier when I forced them to rush during the reading of my speech.
I would also like to thank the draftsmen and remind them that I have only tabled two amendments for tomorrow.
If these two amendments go through - and I also say this to the Commissioner - we will solve a lot of the sector's problems.
The first amendment concerns the possibility of making purchases already at the points of sale of boarding, something that according to our verifications I do not believe is contrary to Community rules; the second amendment is to use regional funds.
I repeat, if these two amendments go through, we will be solving most of the sector's problems.
Thank you for those concluding remarks.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.15 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Recognition of professional qualifications
The next item is the report (A4-0232/98) by Mrs Fontaine, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications and supplementing Directives 77/452/EEC, 77/453/EEC, 78/686/EEC, 78/687/EEC, 78/1026/EEC, 78/1027/EEC, 80/154/EEC, 80/155/EEC, 85/384/EEC, 85/432/EEC, 85/433/EEC and 93/16/EEC concerning the professions of nurse responsible for general care, dental practitioner, veterinary surgeon, midwife, architect, pharmacist and doctor (COM(97)0638 - C4-0657/97-97/0345(COD)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we approve the Commission's underlying principle in presenting us with this proposal for a directive on the recognition of qualifications, that is, the consideration of three distinct elements: firstly, to take account of the initial lessons to be drawn from experience and, in this respect, I would like to point out that our European Parliament had very carefully studied the Commission's first report in April 1997; secondly, to take account of the SLIM initiative aimed at rationalization; and, finally and obviously, to take account of the development of the case-law of the Court of Justice.
On this basis, the Commission proposes some measures which will, undoubtedly, make it easier to grant recognition of qualifications, by incorporating, in particular, the principle established by the Court of Justice in the Vlassopoulou judgement which puts a value on professional experience.
I would remind you, ladies and gentlemen, that our European Parliament had frequently argued this point and we are absolutely delighted that the Commission has listened to our demand and has respected the commitments it had formulated in this connection.
Our wish to have the powers of the group of coordinators strengthened and extended has also been heard.
Our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was able to talk to the group of coordinators and question them. We noted that they were putting together key items in the provisions for the practical application of the system of recognition of qualifications.
As we are now dealing with horizontal modifications of sectoral directives, we are delighted that the Commission is tackling the problem of Community nationals who have had training outside the European Union.
This is a very delicate matter, which has been frequently raised and which often continues to be raised by our citizens.
Of course, the Commission is still taking a very timid approach since all that is happening is that the qualifications in question are only being taken into account, rather than being recognized.
Nevertheless, we consider this to be progress and we welcome it as such.
The specific amendments of sectoral directives do not require any particular comment from our Committee on Legal Affairs.
I would simply like to say that, in this context, we thought it important to point out the need to find an appropriate solution for Irish architects whose training could not be recognized in time for that to be possible.
I think it is worth saying that such recognition could not go beyond the specific problem raised, and we would like to hear what the Commission has to say on this point.
Finally, we have no objection to the reform of the advisory committees, which would make them less cumbersome and more flexible, inasmuch as - and I would like to stress this point - these committees will be required to operate with maximum efficiency and transparency, and we are making a number of proposals to this end.
Please allow me, Madam President, to finish with a much broader observation.
Today, our three institutions feel the urgent need to bring the citizens of Europe closer. I am tempted to add that we say this every time.
Moreover, we are not forgetting that the people of Europe face two very important stages in the months ahead: ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty in those countries where this has not yet happened, and, of course, the elections to the European Parliament next June.
What better way could there be of achieving this aim of getting closer to our citizens than to make it practically possible for citizens to carry out their profession without hindrance outside of their own national borders? However, we have to recognize that we are not there yet.
Our Committee on Petitions could, moreover, bear witness to this as it receives a constant stream of complaints on this subject and we know that most of the complaints involve the refusal to grant recognition.
Commissioner, we know that the Commission is very aware of this, but more than being aware of it, we must act and remove the last obstacles which remain.
To date, we have received no formal assurance from the Commission that the revision of the system will take place, as expected in 1999, following a substantial evaluation of its implementation.
That is why we are sending you a very strong signal via the amendments from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs which our Committee on Legal Affairs has taken up.
Commissioner, can you give us an assurance that there will be a new directive in 1999, and that this directive will go as far as possible in the right direction? The European Parliament and the citizens of Europe are waiting for an encouraging reply from you and I would like to thank you in advance.
Madam President, there is no doubt a great need for mutual recognition of professional qualifications throughout the EU Member States.
We have heard of cases in which a well-qualified professional person from one Member State is denied a job or compelled to accept a lower salary in another Member State because his or her qualifications are not recognized as equivalent.
Mrs Fontaine's report will extend freedom of movement in actual practice, allowing workers greater mobility and ensuring greater transparency in legislation.
Experience and qualifications meeting minimum standards gained in one Member State should contribute towards the experience required in another Member State.
To ensure equality throughout the Union, if Member States require professionals to undergo further tests, they should firstly inform the Commission.
This proposal is not only a welcome move towards transparency in decision-making we should also see it as a move against unfair discrimination and even xenophobia.
Xenophobia and racism are already prevalent throughout the Union.
Especially with the onset of enlargement, my fear is that it will increase dramatically unless we can set in place measures which bring about fairness in recognition of qualifications.
This proposal of Mrs Fontaine will give well-qualified migrant workers from countries outside the EU who have worked in one Member State the right to transfer their skills and expertise across the Union.
I therefore propose that a certificate of equivalence be issued by the host state to ensure that these workers from third countries gain equal - no more, no less - rights to their counterparts in other EU states.
I urge Parliament to support the Fontaine report.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her excellent report.
She has a very distinguished history in dealing with these issues.
I have to confess to a certain national relief that Mrs Fontaine has accepted the amendments relating to the rather unique position of the Irish architects.
I am most grateful for that.
This has been a difficulty in my own country for as long as I have been in Parliament.
As both previous speakers have said, the Committee on Petitions receives more petitions from people who are experiencing discrimination in relation to the recognition of their professional qualifications than for any other single issue affecting our citizens.
To give you a bit of history, you may recall that the first directive on architects came at the end of 18 years of trying to decide what an architect was.
The architects' directive became the first under the Fontainebleau Agreement to say finally: Let us get out of the deep water and recognize certain basic qualifications.
At the beginning this was not noticed and in many cases with the first attempt to draft some kind of recognisable harmonization of qualifications, the vast majority of professionals in all areas of life in our countries were simply unaware of the need to feed into that process and to take care of their best interests.
That is the reason why there is this anomaly in Ireland which Mrs Fontaine has very generously agreed to accept as an amendment to her report.
I look forward to hearing whether Mr Pinheiro is going to accept the amendment.
This significant group containing some of our most eminent architects will receive this recognition.
The practical aspect of it is that without this kind of recognition they are unable to tender for contracts outside their own country.
Madam President, our Vice-President, Mrs Fontaine, has produced an exceptional report as always.
The Committee on Legal Affairs, as Mrs Banotti has commented, has adopted a very clear position on the matter, and at the meeting of 23 April it examined the proposal and approved it unanimously.
The directive brings the whole Community system for recognizing qualifications up to date and gives concrete expression to its undertaking to simplify the up-dating of qualification lists.
To recount the events that support this measure: the Commission has submitted a report on current progress in the implementation of the general system for the recognition of higher-education diplomas; there have been developments in the case-law of the Court of Justice, which has given several preliminary rulings; and the Commission has sent the Council and Parliament its communication on the SLIM initiative.
The result of all this is a proposal to amend at least 14 directives, a number of which have certain problems in common, and it is thus possible to identify them and examine them much more systematically.
Experience shows that this formula guarantees a sufficient degree of legal certainty and fully respects the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
The contents of this proposal will incorporate the principle of case-law whereby, on receiving an application for the recognition of a qualification, the host Member State must take into consideration the experience acquired by the interested party since that qualification was obtained.
Directive 89/48 must also introduce the concept of regulated education and training. The aim of this is to oblige the host state to take account of any education or training received by the emigrant even if the Member State of origin or the home Member State has no corresponding regulation of the profession to which such training relates.
This new provision will make it possible to prevent the host state from demanding years of professional experience.
Three explanations should be made regarding the Committee on Legal Affairs' interpretation of these amendments.
The first is the amendment of the 1989 and 1992 directives relating to the general system.
From now on, the host Member States must recognize a citizen's even where training, as I mentioned, the Member State does have any corresponding regulation.
The second is the horizontal amendment of the directives.
The third is the specific amendments to the sectoral directives, implementing specific amendments and adjustments, and updating lists of diplomas, certificates and other qualifications.
In my opinion, the directive has advantages: it incorporates into the general system the obligation, which - as I have already said - is established in case-law, whereby experience gained after obtaining a qualification is taken into consideration when considering the application for recognition, and it introduces, too, the concept of regulated education and training.
By way of conclusion, it may be said that this directive responds to the need to enable citizens of the Union to work where they like by recognizing their higher education and professional training qualifications.
In short, the aim is to ensure that no citizen of the Union is ever again confronted with same old problem, and to create genuine freedom of movement through this directive.
These, Madam President, are the objectives.
Will it all work in practice? Obviously the directive is a very important step in that direction, and it is logical that we, the Members of the European Parliament, should place very significant emphasis on it.
Madam President, I agree with the previous speakers that Mrs Fontaine has produced an excellent report.
It is an important plank in the free movement of workers which is a basic right in the Treaty of Rome.
If qualifications are not recognized by other Member States, then mobility is extremely difficult for workers to achieve.
Sadly, problems still occur in this area and most MEPs receive case work on this subject.
Therefore, the directive is welcome as it addresses an important problem.
There are two main thrusts to the report.
Firstly, it applies to two general directives on higher education diplomas and on professional education and training.
The second area relates to specific professions such as nurses, veterinary surgeons, midwives, architects, pharmacists and doctors.
In particular, the report seeks to set out clearly the provisions for Member States being allowed to apply aptitude tests.
Although we see the sense of aptitude tests, sometimes Member States have used them to distort the true purpose of the directives.
I reiterate the points made by Mary Banotti.
I too have had correspondence on the specific problems of architects.
I trust these have been successfully resolved.
I can only stress that in my view the free movement of workers is essential for the proper operation of the Treaty of Rome.
I commend this report.
Madam President, I should also like to thank Mrs Fontaine for a very excellent report and also my colleague Mrs Berger who took on board several amendments regarding the architects.
As you know, in the original directive of 1985 on the recognition of architects' qualifications, certain Member States did not get derogations for what is known as an established right to practice.
These architects were seen by the competent authorities in their Member States as having sufficient acquired experience and ability to be allowed to practice as de facto architects.
This was despite their not having the exact qualifications laid down elsewhere in the directive.
Unfortunately, while countries like Germany, the Netherlands and the UK received the derogations, Ireland did not.
The result was huge discrimination and a large group of practising Irish architects of great ability and experience failed to get their status recognized elsewhere in the Community.
This situation continues to this very day.
The amendments we tabled and which have been taken on board by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights will hopefully help to bring about the free movement of workers, as Ms Oddy mentioned, and these people will be able to practice anywhere in the Community.
I hope I will be able to report back to these architects that the result of what we are doing here today in conjunction with the Council will contribute to the ongoing completion of the single market.
It is up to Member States to recognize these workers' rights to fair treatment and I hope that Member States and the Commission - especially Commissioner Monti, who has been rather intransigent on this whole issue and I hope the message can be taken back to him - can agree that those countries that did not apply for the 1985 derogation should have the right to do so now.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too wish to express my very warm thanks to Mrs Fontaine for paying special attention in her report to the outstanding proposals regarding the directive on architectural qualifications.
Parliament only recently had occasion to formulate some of these proposals when it considered a report specifically about the architects' directive which I had the honour of drafting. Thanks to Mrs Fontaine's report, these proposals may now be implemented.
This applies in particular to Amendment No 14, which has already been mentioned several times today. Its aim - and like Mrs Fontaine I wish to stress that this is its only aim - is to give a small group of Irish architects a fresh chance to have their qualifications and attestations of competence recognized, something they were inadvertently deprived of when the directive was implemented in Ireland.
The architects' directive has a number of peculiarities that set it apart from the other directives, which is why we also wish to keep this as a separate directive.
However, these peculiarities in no way justify the fact that the advisory committee established under the architects' directive is to be excluded from the proposed reform of all the advisory committees.
Just as with all the other directives, a reduction in the number of members on this committee and more effective procedures would also help to improve its workings under the architects' directive.
I would also like to emphasize that a solution to the problem of recognizing educational qualifications gained in third countries is also of great importance in the architectural world.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank Parliament for the interest which it has shown in this proposal and for the important work carried out by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, as well as the rapporteur.
I would like to thank Mrs Fontaine in particular; she has provided an excellent summary of all the proposals, reports and amendments which have been tabled.
The Commission is delighted to see that the substance of its proposal has been well received.
The main aim of the Commission's proposal, in accordance with the recommendations of the team on recognition of qualifications, is to simplify the updating of the list of qualifications appearing in the sectoral directives, as part of the SLIM initiative: nurses, dental practitioners, veterinary surgeons, midwives, pharmacists and doctors.
This new proposal has been seized upon as an opportunity to implement other recommendations which appear either in the Commission's report on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications, or in the Commission's report on specific training in general medical practice.
It is, therefore, in this context that the amendments tabled by your Parliament should be considered.
In this respect, we unfortunately have to note that the majority of amendments would, if accepted, impede the efforts aimed at simplifying laws and administration, since they are likely to impose new procedures which would sometimes be very onerous on Member States and/or on the Commission.
Examples of this are Amendments Nos 1, 4, 6 to 9 and 11, which seek to oblige Member States to inform the Commission of their intention to introduce compensation measures for each professional sector involved.
It is also true of Amendments Nos 5 and 10, since they tend to afford a great deal of publicity to the deliberations of the Coordinators Group.
It is further true of Amendment No 12, which extends the system for updating the list of qualifications proposed by the Commission, and delays its application.
Amendments Nos 3 and 13 aim to establish automatic recognition of training obtained in a third country, where these have already been recognized by the first host state within the EU.
On this subject, the Commission wishes to reiterate its position expressed during the consideration of the proposal for a directive aimed at inserting comitology rules into Directive 1100.
This is a matter which will be studied further, after the publication of the report which the Commission will present in 1999 on the general system for the recognition of professional qualifications.
The Commission therefore believes that the proposal contained in Amendments Nos 3 and 13 is premature.
As regards Amendments Nos 2 and 14 concerning the architects' directive, the Commission carefully notes the invitation extended to it via Amendment No 2 to give some thought to the desirability of including in the architects' directive the formula to simplify the updating of the lists of qualifications. We will consider this matter.
As to the message contained in Amendment No 14, which aims to regularize the situation of some architects, the Commission would like to point out that your Parliament rejected a similar proposal when considering the report on the architects' directive on 26 March last.
On that occasion, Parliament suggested that Article 7 of the Directive already offered an adequate opportunity.
Amendments Nos 15 to 21, in the field of general medical practice, will also be looked at in the context of the Commission's report on the system of recognition for professional qualifications, to be presented, as I have said, next year.
In conclusion, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission cannot support the amendments which contradict the legal and administrative simplification sought by the SLIM initiative, or which are contrary to the letter and spirit of current directives.
It notes the messages contained in other amendments, and will present the result of its deliberations as and when appropriate.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Pinheiro.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Citizenship of the Union
The next item is the report (A4-0205/98) by Mr De Clercq, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the second report from the Commission on citizenship of the Union (COM(97)0230 - C4-0291/97).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what is the state of the citizenship of the European Union? This is the question concerning us in this debate.
A number of rights to which European citizens can lay claim have been incorporated into the Maastricht Treaty under Article 8.
Union citizens comprise all those possessing the nationality of one of the Member States.
Fortunately, the Amsterdam Treaty specifies that Union citizenship is complementary to national citizenship.
The implementation of rights associated with European citizenship has accomplished much, though there is still room for improvement.
Allow me to put forward some key points.
As far as the right of persons to move and reside freely in the whole of the European Union is concerned, we are certainly dealing with a right which is possibly the most concrete for citizens.
It is, therefore, unfortunate that these same citizens still experience so many difficulties.
The main cause lies in the fact that this right is regulated through different clauses, depending on the category of citizens.
We would, therefore, call on the Commission to convert all existing legislative instruments to an easy and generally effective instrument.
Free movement and residence in the Union will not come about until the last barriers are lifted, including: the abolition of all border controls and the comprehensive acceptance of the Schengen acquis; education systems which are geared to each other, aimed at the mobility of employees with children of school-age; a simplified recognition of all diplomas and professional qualifications, in particular for young people; the tracking down of unfair administration practices which are practised by national governments to hinder the policy right; and the protection of rights relating to supplementary pensions.
There is much to be done.
Another important point is the direct functioning of Article 8a.
This would mean that each citizen would be able to petition their right to free residence and movement in front of any national judge in the Union.
As far as the active and passive right to vote in local elections is concerned, I will be brief and to the point.
This means that the right to vote in local elections should be introduced for all EU citizens by all Member States, including Belgium.
France has done so already.
In terms of the active and passive right to vote in the European elections, the implementation of the directive by all Member States should be simpler and more uniform.
EU citizens often are not aware of how they can exercise this right in the Member State in which they reside.
Better information is, therefore, required.
As far as consular and diplomatic protection is concerned, we are only just at the initial stage.
A common definition must urgently be sought, so that the European citizens realize that this produces added value outside the Union as well.
As far as the right to petition and the right to apply to the ombudsman is concerned, the first annual report by our European ombudsman shows how these rights are useful and necessary, even if their exact scope is still unknown.
Here, too, better information is required.
In conclusion, I would say that the Amsterdam Treaty has added something, namely, the right to apply to any European institution in one of the official languages of the Union and the right to reply in this language.
However, this has not yet been implemented and can, therefore, not be evaluated today.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the introduction of European citizenship underlines that European integration is also a political project.
The rights associated with this must certainly make an essential contribution to a greater European awareness in the same way the plans relating to jobs, and recently the euro, have undoubtedly brought Europe closer to the citizen
Our task is to make this permanent and to show the citizens that Europe offers added value, and is there for them.
This is not only done by legislating for a number of citizenship rights through a Treaty.
It is just as important for these rights to become known and for them to have sufficient content and not least their practical implementation is of fundamental importance.
Free movement, the right to free residence, the right to vote, the right to apply to an ombudsman belong, of course, not just to the European Union.
They belong to any self-respecting democratic constitutional state.
Whatever its importance, it is not sufficient to involve the citizen closer in Europe.
More attention paid to European symbols or to our shared history will certainly help us, but we are in urgent need of restoring the confidence of the citizen in Europe.
This requires a change of mentality amongst not only the citizens, but first and foremost among the European decision-makers, the administration and the media.
The Europe of the citizen begins with those who are concerned every day with European matters.
They must prove their solidarity with Europe.
The European Parliament has a large role to play in this.
Parliament is one of the main players and we help to determine the strategy.
As European representatives we must ensure that the citizen is involved as much as possible in this game, that the game is an attractive one and, in particular, that we ourselves adhere strictly to the rules.
In short, we must set a good example in Europe.
Good examples always come from the top.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur deserves to be congratulated on his thorough and committed work.
I offer these congratulations without any reservations, but at the same time I must admit that I am somewhat envious of Mr De Clercq.
I envy him the auspicious moment at which he is presenting his important report on citizenship of the Union.
The timing could not be better!
With the introduction of the euro, we have laid the last foundation stone for Economic and Monetary Union.
Now we can concentrate on our citizens, on their wishes and dreams.
There is nothing more to stop us going ahead with European political union at full steam.
The De Clercq report points in the right direction, and my group will therefore be voting for it.
We have tabled a few amendments, but they are not at odds with the report.
They are simply intended to amplify certain areas and make some points even more explicit.
I hope that the rapporteur will see it that way, and that he will find this helpful and recommend acceptance of our amendments.
The recitals include various references to encouraging citizens' European awareness.
What could be more obvious than to demonstrate this awareness with a symbol as delightful as a common European holiday?
But we must not fool ourselves.
Our citizens will not be satisfied with symbols and fine declarations alone.
They expect citizenship of the Union not just to deliver rights on paper, but also tangible advantages.
Our citizens expect political union in Europe to make their everyday lives easier.
For instance, let us take the example of the citizen's right to freedom of movement, which we love talking about, but which so far has only progressed in Lilliputian stages.
Our citizens cannot see any more than that.
Freedom of movement is not just a question of pulling down barriers: first and foremost, it is about dismantling bureaucratic obstacles.
The Commission must, therefore, immediately bring forward a legislative proposal to eliminate differences in rights of residence as between Member States and to promote genuine freedom of movement for the Union's citizens.
In particular, we need to remove obstacles to mobility for young people and to make it easier for them settle wherever they wish.
We therefore need simple, easily comprehensible and unbureaucratic means of recognizing diplomas and professional qualifications, which we have just been talking about.
That means that school-leaving qualifications, professional qualifications and diplomas should be equally valid in all Member States.
If we adopt this approach in all areas, we can transform citizens' rights from pieces of paper to a living European reality.
There is a long road ahead of us, and we should never forget one thing: we should be focusing on people and not on profits.
Madam President, it really is reassuring to listen to this report here today.
It is reassuring because the conclusions of the Cardiff European Council are still ringing in our ears, and because we can still hear the echoes of recent statements that people want less from Europe, less integration, declarations that even call for certain policies to be placed back in the hands of the national authorities.
I therefore think it important that the European Parliament is today flying the flag of citizenship in the splendid presentation we have heard from the Chairman of the Committee on Legal Affairs and rapporteur.
It is a balanced report; balanced between the real world and symbolic values; balanced between practical measures and the poetry, which Mrs Gebhardt mentioned.
We too need a little imagination and poetry.
Among those practical measures, Mr De Clercq has emphasized the need for the free circulation of persons and choice of country of residence for European citizens to become a reality. Article 8a must also become a reality that can be directly pleaded in our courts of justice.
Publicity must be given to the rights already conferred by this still embryonic European citizenship, such as the right to vote in local elections and the right to vote in European elections. Finally, we must continue to create - and this is where we move from reality to poetry, from reality to the realms of myth - symbols of integration.
We need to make Europe exist as a cultural concept.
The European People's Party will not only support Mr De Clercq's report, but also the Socialist group's amendments and some of those tabled by the European People's Party, although we have rejected Amendment No 5.
The fact is, Madam President, that these are bad times for Europe.
Against such scepticism, it may be said - and here I agree with Mrs Gebhardt - that our ally, paradoxically enough, is the market.
Life is full of paradoxes: the Europe of the markets is going to help us to create a real Europe of the citizens, because if the euro is to succeed, if the single market is really going to work, we shall have to shape free circulation in its fullest sense. We shall have to move on to further integration.
And therefore, Madam President, I believe that here today, at the beginning of the Austrian presidency, we must all congratulate ourselves on this European Parliamentary report which, once more, reaffirms its role as the voice of conscience, as a warning, against certain circumstances which today seem to advocate a hard-nosed, short-sighted Europe.
Now, against that hard-nosed, short-sighted Europe, the European Parliament is raising its voice, and that of its citizens, saying that Europe will come into being only through integration, and that, in contrast to the concept of the Europe of the markets, we have to ensure that the reality of the Amsterdam Treaty translates into a genuine citizens' Europe.
Madam President, I want to congratulate the rapporteur, and I am pleased that Parliament is once again advocating the implementation of the rights enshrined in the Treaty, in the framework of citizenship of the Union.
I would like to suggest that we take a look at the fundamental significance of citizenship of the Union.
What is it all about? I firmly believe that it means the Union recognizing nothing less than that our citizens are the driving and sovereign forces of the European unification process.
Citizenship of the Union therefore plays a key part in legitimizing the Union. And it is not just legitimized indirectly via national governments and treaties, but also directly, personally and immediately, by giving all citizens a legal status.
Citizenship of the Union was, therefore, quite logically introduced in the Treaty on European Union to strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of the nationals of its Member States.
We are, therefore, looking at a statute that covers the fundamental and civil rights of all citizens.
So far, so good, as far as the theory goes.
In practice, however, we are still a very long way from achieving an all-embracing guarantee of fundamental and civil rights, from recognizing the citizen's sovereign role in integration.
Of the four freedoms, surely the most personal, the most existential, the most human is freedom of movement of persons, the implementation of which has been the most protracted, subject to the greatest reluctance and has had the most obstacles put in its way.
Border checks for individuals have not been abolished.
They have not been eliminated by the Schengen Agreement, but rather replaced by barriers that are sometimes even higher than the old ones we pledged to get rid of.
The right to vote and the right to stand for election to the European Parliament is often undermined, and even more so the right to participate in local elections.
These rights are often sabotaged to some extent, and in some capitals, in Vienna for example, they are limited to taking part in city district elections.
Consular protection is also virtually non-existent in practice.
However, I also believe that we have to look beyond the Treaty texts, and the rights enshrined in the Treaty, to the comprehensive protection of fundamental and civil rights.
I hope that the special summit in Vienna will allow us to progress from mere technocratic institutional reform to genuine democratic reform.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his learned and thoughtful report and commend his European vision.
If we are to ensure that the European Union flourishes, the citizens of Europe must feel that we have ownership of this project and that we benefit too, not just the commercial organizations and governments.
The Commission's second report on citizenship is therefore an important plank in building a corps d'esprit and a sense of European belonging.
I particularly welcome the right to vote and stand as a candidate at municipal elections in the European Parliament, although I would flag up the generous voting rights granted to Commonwealth citizens in the UK and urge there is no reorganization of this and no attempt to water down the rights which exist.
As draftsperson on the Commission action plan on free movement of workers, I welcome the remarks of Mr De Clercq on obstacles to the free movement of people, such as pension mobility, family responsibilities and the educational needs of children.
I fear that this is a little adventurous for my British group as yet but I believe the Commission could look at promoting the international baccalaureate.
The creation of the Ombudsman can only be commended but I feel that its office needs greater promotion.
I agree that the key to feelings of closeness with the European Union hinge on information.
I therefore ask the Commission to make even greater efforts to inform the citizens of Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this evening's debate is concerned with citizenship of the Union.
We all know what that means and what a key role citizenship of the Union occupies for the citizens of Europe, and above all in European integration. But I wonder if people in Europe actually know about this?
Do the very people whose rights are associated with citizenship of the Union know this?
Do they know to whom they can turn, whom they can ask and where they can obtain information? In the course of many conversations with ordinary citizens, I have repeatedly had the feeling that people only have a sketchy idea and precious little knowledge about this.
However, it is not only our citizens who know very little about this. For example, take a look at the information issued by the European Commission, which often does not deal with certain areas at all.
For instance, we were recently sent a brochure, the Single Market Review, which contains over 38 reports describing how the internal market is being implemented in practice. Yet this brochure contains next to nothing about freedom of movement.
When I see that, I wonder how our citizens are actually supposed to be informed! Another example: when I mention to officials in the Commission or Parliament or even outside that as a citizen of the Union with a Dutch passport I have a seat in the European Parliament for Germany, I always get asked: how is that allowed?
Where does it say that?
How is that possible?
This demonstrates that even the right to vote and to stand for election, to the extent that it must be in the Treaty, is something we have not really grasped. Nor has it really been grasped by the people who decreed it or by our citizens or by my colleagues.
Many of my colleagues have not actually realized this yet either.
I think it is important that we ourselves should take on board citizenship of the Union, with everything that it implies, and give it serious thought.
We will then be better placed to inform people about it, so that people really understand it too.
Madam President, on behalf of the Commission, I am very pleased with Parliament's detailed examination of our second report on citizenship of the Union and, in particular, I would like to highlight the excellent work of an outstanding European called Willy De Clercq.
I consider this debate on citizenship of the Union as a kind of invitation to all politicians to concentrate on the essentials of the construction of Europe, and a warning regarding the advances and setbacks that are taking place in the construction of Europe, and may detract from our citizens' sense of 'belonging to a political community under the rule of law' , to quote the expression used in your resolution.
As Members are aware, this concern was also expressed at the recent Cardiff European Council, where it was declared that all citizens should be able to benefit from the advantages of Economic and Monetary Union and the single market, and that the Union should be brought even closer to ordinary citizens.
This second report on citizenship of the Union covers 1994, 1995 and 1996.
It therefore pre-dates the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference that led to the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In this report, the Commission has been at pains to describe and analyse the new rights conferred by the Maastricht Treaty, to investigate what progress has been made since the publication of its first report in 1993 and to indicate a series of objectives to be achieved.
Your motion for a resolution is rightly addressed to all interested institutions, and likewise to Member States.
The fact is that future progress can only be achieved by means of combined action at all levels, particularly in the field of improving legislation by making it more readable and capable of more efficient application.
I can assure Mr Willy de Clercq and this House that as far as Schengen and the application of Article 8a are concerned, the following issues are on the table before the Commission: infringement procedures, administrative practices, the right to vote, consular and diplomatic protection, permanent dialogue mechanisms, education and the recognition of qualifications, protection against threats to individual safety and freedom and trade.
Even today, at the Commissioners' meeting, the first part of the meeting was, in fact, dedicated to European citizenship.
And we hope that with the impetus provided by this House and input of the kind we have received through this resolution, we can all achieve real citizenship that much earlier.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Pinheiro.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Safe use of the Internet
The next item is the report (A4-0234/98) by Mr Schmid, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Commission proposal for a Council Decision adopting a Multiannual Community Action Plan on promoting safe use of the Internet (COM(97)0582 - C4-0042/98-97/0377(CNS)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, until a few years ago, the Internet was the preserve of specialists.
Today it is so much a part of everyday living that even we as Members have access to the Internet in our offices.
This is clear proof that miracles can still happen!
The Internet offers great potential - more than ever before in human history - to gain rapid access to a large volume of information.
On the other hand, there is also a certain amount of material on the Internet which is harmful to minors or illegal.
Also, like traditional forms of telecommunication such as the telephone or even the post, it can be used for criminal activities.
The advantages of the Internet largely outweigh its disadvantages. Nevertheless, action is needed on the problems I have touched upon and we need answers.
But the answer cannot be a stricter yardstick than we apply to other media such as film or television.
Just because there has been a heated debate, especially on the part of people who have never used the Net for a single second, it does not mean that we should treat it differently from other media.
The response should, therefore, reflect the specific characteristics of the Net rather than stipulate stricter standards.
What is special about the Internet? First of all, it does not belong to anyone.
No-one is the overall owner of the Internet.
I always say that it is really a fundamentally communist structure.
Second, the Net is global and, therefore, accessible worldwide.
Third, legal action against criminal content is in accordance with the criminal law of the country where computer on which the data is stored is located.
Fourth, material can be transferred from one computer to another easily and quickly, in just a few seconds.
Fifth, access to the Internet is anonymous.
A computer cannot tell who is sitting on the other side of the screen and it is not limited to certain times.
This has implications for the protection of minors, because on the Internet there is no-one behind the counter or in the ticket office as there is in a cinema or video shop, who can say to a six-year-old 'you cannot come in here' or 'I am not letting you take out that video' .
That is the real problem.
The Action Plan that the Commission has now proposed to us claims to guarantee safe use of the Internet.
I believe that it can perhaps help, but 100 % safety is not possible in this case.
Furthermore, this idea promotes the misconception that parents no longer need to worry about bringing up their children, because they can leave the protection of minors to technical systems and filter software.
We should not be encouraging this misconception.
That is why I am in favour of changing the whole concept to 'safer use of the Internet' .
That would reflect the real world.
In any case, we need to be aware of the limitations of the measures proposed.
Given that the number of commercial pornography providers is growing every day around the world, it would be rather naïve to expect much from self-regulation.
The fact that Members of the House yesterday received an advertisement for pornography in their e-mail - not a very good one, incidentally, and the price was far too high - shows the direction we are heading in.
The embargo on the Dutch XS-4-All server because the journal Radikal was being disseminated on this server shows how far you get with that approach.
Previously, Radikal was only available on that one server.
After the embargo it became available on 53 servers on the Internet, because mirror sites were immediately set up around the globe.
So the embargo approach has its limitations.
Because of the multiplicity of languages in the European Union, it is also doubtful whether the use of word recognition programmes for filtering would really help.
Using image filter programmes also involves blocking all pictorial scientific material and all graphics.
I am certainly in favour of this proposal, let there be no misunderstanding.
I am simply pointing out that it has its limitations and that we have to be aware of these limitations.
Another of these limitations is that in the real world children generally understand more about computers than their parents do.
As regards the idea of installing filter software on PCS, I have put it to journalists like this: filter software is a programme that a 12-year-old can use to prevent his dad accessing porn websites on the Internet, because he has been stopped from watching television.
That is how it really is.
Nevertheless, I am in favour of using filter software; we simply need to be aware of its limitations.
The proposed action plan is chiefly intended as a tool for combating undesirable content on the Internet, that is to say, pornography, politically extreme sites and so forth.
Because the European Union lacks criminal law and law enforcement powers, the action plan addresses illegal content only in terms of encouraging the preparation of a study on national measures necessary.
In my view, the real problem is not so much illegal content as undesirable content.
It is truly amazing what you can find if you spend just a few hours on the Net and make a specific search; I was doing that just yesterday while preparing for a press conference.
You can find instructions on making your own bombs, unlocking doors without keys, producing illegal drugs, other terrorist activities, forging credit cards, hacking into computers without permission, and so on; a whole range of things.
As things stand, combating illegal content is a matter for Member States. I have no intention of questioning that.
In practice, it is made considerably more difficult by the fact that not even in the European Union are there identical or at least comparable legal standards governing important issues.
Prosecution in the case of child pornography is difficult if the age at which 'child' stops and 'adult' begins is defined by differing age limits under different legal systems.
In some Member States it is 14 years, in others it is 16 years.
It is difficult if there is no definition of what illegal pornography is.
It is also difficult if an illegal content is subject to prosecution but a pointer from another Internet site to that content, at the click of a mouse, is not itself subject to prosecution.
It is quite a simple matter then.
It is also difficult if - as is the case today - you can connect a computer to the Net without it being possible to establish who the operator is, and if - as is also possible today - an e-mail can be sent without it being traceable to a particular person, in other words, if servers can be operated anonymously and electronic mail sent anonymously.
We therefore require at least preparatory studies to establish what kind of legislation we need.
I know that there has been some resistance during deliberations in Council.
Home affairs are now the preserve of the nation state, whereas they have lost military policy: NATO does that now.
The only area where there the state has a monopoly on the use of arms is the police.
This is the apple of their eye and is protected accordingly.
I know that there is some resistance to the idea of embarking on such studies, but they are still needed.
The fact is, we can ultimately only solve the problem of illegal content by global agreements.
Global agreements on such things will face the same problems as we have with GATT: if the Community turns up with 15 different opinions, we will not get anywhere!
If the USA, the European Union and Japan all have roughly the same ideas, it will happen relatively quickly.
For that reason, we need to establish common standards, not only because of law enforcement within the European Union, but also because of the need for international agreements.
Without such standards we will not make any further progress on this issue.
I would like to ask the Commissioner to tell me in his summing up what amendments the Commission is willing to accept, because that would help me.
Madam President, the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on this issue, with the amendments it has tabled, aims to promote the development and the adoption of efficient technical systems, the main aim of which, of course, is the protection of minors and human dignity, but also the strengthening of business and financial activity.
It also attempts to improve global cooperation on this issue, in order to ensure the dynamic growth of the Internet industry.
More specifically, regarding the field of implementation of the action plan, and taking account of the possibilities offered by the Internet for financial and business activity, and indirectly in the employment sector, it proposes the adoption of a broader approach. Beyond the issues that affect minors or human dignity, the possibilities offered by the action plan for the protection of financial and business activity will be examined.
The trust of users, both individuals and businesses, of the Internet will create a favourable environment for the growth of business activity in the information society sector.
In this way, the Internet will be, in addition to a secure source of knowledge, a valuable tool for business activity.
The second important issue in the opinion concerns the principles which must govern the actions to get rid of the harmful and illegal material on the Internet.
Briefly, these principles are as follows.
First, we must support industry in the development and adoption of desirable and effective systems to control the content of the Internet.
In addition, cooperation between interested bodies, above all industry, is the determining factor in the successful institution of self-regulatory systems and filtering and rating mechanisms.
The second important condition for the effective control of the content of the Internet is the clear separation of the roles and responsibilities of each element involved in the creation and distribution of that content.
The final point I would like to stress is the demand, due to the transborder nature of the Internet, for substantial cooperation and coordination of the actions of the programme at global level.
Cooperation is the only way to ensure maximum efficiency of the actions undertaken at European level.
For this reason, I think that the European Union must aspire to a leading and active role in the process of instituting principles and technical models that are acceptable at global level.
In finishing, I wish to congratulate Mr Schmid and my coo-draftsmen on their contribution to the issue of the safe use of the Internet, and to thank them for supporting the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Madam President, this is not the first time that we have discussed the Internet, nor will it be the last.
Developments are going in the right direction. Not only here, but everywhere, there is growing awareness of the value of this revolutionary form of free information.
It is the freedom we should safeguard, not the rules.
A year ago we discussed the Pradier report on harmful and illegal content on the Internet.
The demands for regulation from various quarters then were extensive, including the registration of Internet users and a ban on digital encryption.
Many were then unfamiliar with the new and thought that old world thinking should also apply to the new world.
Once upon a time, those who did not see the new age wanted to smash Gutenberg's printing press.
The Reformation started because they did not succeed.
Through the printing press, citizens were given entirely new ways of obtaining new and much more easily accessible information. That time it led to a decentralization of power.
Now we are facing the second reformation in that citizens are able to obtain knowledge and information and become more and more independent of authorities and states.
In the long term, this will probably lead to less regulation of the day-to-day lives of individuals and entirely new opportunities for contacts and supply.
However, illegal material on the Internet must be dealt with, but without affecting the basic premise of freedom.
The Commission wants to set up direct lines for the reporting of illegal material on the Internet, to support filtering and classification systems and education and information.
The report complements the Commission's line by wanting to investigate the legal aspects of harmful and illegal material on the Internet.
These are reasonable proposals, since they take into account the nature of the medium.
Before, there was a preoccupation with developing separate European systems.
However, we should respect the fact that this is about global and international contacts.
It is a global and international medium. The solutions must, therefore, be international and global.
Internationally workable systems have already been developed and have won acceptance and popularity.
In this context, I would like to thank the rapporteur for having been so accommodating with regard to my amendments in this area.
Finally, I would like to welcome the understanding which has been shown with regard to avoiding compulsory systems. The market has, of course, a direct interest in self-regulation.
In addition, quality marking could lead to a better market position for Internet service providers who want to make use of it.
It is pleasing that the Commission does not regard it as the task of the authorities to regulate the content and use of the Internet.
However, it is the authorities' task to combat and suppress criminality wherever it appears, whether it is with the help of the Internet or out on the streets.
Madam President, the explosive development of the Internet is seen by most of us as positive.
However, as we all know, it also has a very dark and unpleasant side.
Through the Internet, everyone, including children and adolescents, can easily find detailed recipes and descriptions of drugs, as well as recipes for explosives, paedophiles can look at child pornography and women can be bought and sold, etcetera.
It is quite clear that we all want to put a stop to this.
The problem with the Internet's dark side is that it is global and does not recognize any borders. A complete solution must, therefore, also be global and can only be brought about in cooperation with the industry.
It is something which we all must work towards. Meanwhile, the Commission's draft action plan is a beginning which could also effectively contribute to a real international debate and hopefully a solution.
Among the most important points in the action plan are the proposal to work together with the industry for self-regulation and codes of conduct, the development of systems for filtering and classification and a broad information campaign.
Personally, however, I distance myself from all attempts to regulate the Internet problem through directives at EU level.
It is something we have to resolve in a different way and more internationally.
I am, therefore, going to vote against Amendment No 23.
However, the Green group as a whole is going to support the Schmid report.
Madam President, when we talk of the safe use of the Internet, the notions of free expression and the dissemination of illegal material often travel along a collision course.
By its nature, the Internet is free and unrestricted, and it must be kept so.
The flip side to the coin is always the knowledge that someone is trying to abuse freedoms.
The grossest form of abuse is unarguably the spread of child pornography and paedophile material.
The general availability of this material on the Internet is stunning.
According to a study by Interpol, the result of just two months' monitoring of the network revealed over 70 000 sights containing images of child pornography.
The number is so large that ethical selfregulation among those active on the Internet will not be enough in itself to restrict it.
It would be wrong to charge Internet server providers with transmitting illegal material.
Although their role as guardians of self-regulation is a crucial one, we can only achieve the results we want through tight cooperation between the authorities responsible for the form and content of the computer technology industry and the Internet.
Because the Internet is a worldwide phenomenon, mere action on the part of Europe will not be sufficient in the struggle against child pornography.
What are needed are global publicity and information systems and standards, by means of which those purposely transmitting porn can be caught.
A good example of official initiative in the fight against child pornography is the tip-off phone and web page set up by the Finnish police, which you can contact to give information on paedophile activity you have found on the network.
When international material has been found, the police propose to tip off, in turn, the authorities in the countries concerned.
Finally, I would like to thank Mr Schmid for some excellent work in tackling this difficult subject on such a large scale.
Madam President, may I begin by congratulating the rapporteur not only on his excellent report but also on his absolutely brilliant speech.
This is a very important subject, which is fundamental to our future as a society that protects both the rights of the individual and industrial development.
But all this should not cause us to forget the fundamental issue that justifies our existence: our decisions must be rooted in the Treaty, the legal basis of our political acts.
My speech, therefore, will concentrate on the proposal put to us by the Committee on Legal Affairs, that the legal basis of the proposal for a decision be changed and that we use Article 129a relating to consumer protection, instead of Article 130 relating to the competitiveness of industry.
Madam President, there is no doubt that Article 130 tells us that measures will be taken to encourage an environment favourable to initiative and to the development of undertakings, and it is true that a better and safer environment will encourage industry.
But it is no less true, Madam President, that it is very difficult to apply the objectives of Article 130, for example, that of establishing the necessary conditions to make Community industry competitive, to actions intended to warn consumers about the content, be it sex or violence, on the Internet by creating self-regulation systems and setting up filter mechanisms.
Having examined this proposal for a decision, therefore, the Committee on Legal Affairs has decided that the appropriate legal basis is Article 129a, which allows us to take this kind of action to encourage and protect a safe environment for consumers in general terms.
Madam President, I would also mention that this change of legal basis gives this Parliament more of a leading role in the whole of this action, because Article 129a provides for the codecision procedure, whereas Article 130(2) merely provides for consultation.
And I think it is essential that on such a socially relevant and indeed burning issue this House should have a loud and strong voice, and not merely a consultative role.
Therefore, Madam President, I believe this is a subject that concerns all of us. The Treaty gives us a clear basis to participate with the Council on an equal footing, and we should try to see that this change of legal basis is reflected in the proposal.
Madam President, I would first like to speak as the rapporteur for the document 'Initiative for international coordination of the Internet' in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I agree with the European Commission's communication on the action plan for the safe use of the Internet, but I am not convinced that all the amendments which the rapporteur suggested making to the Commission's text are appropriate.
Just this Monday, at the invitation of the European Commission, I participated in a panel discussion with the leaders of this world industry and a consensus was reached on three points Firstly, we must avoid setting up complicated rules that create conflicts between states and that are difficult to enforce, but we must also take a political initiative so that the courts do not have to issue rulings and set legal precedents.
Secondly, we must promote a legislative framework which allows the Internet to develop, imposing self-discipline within the industry, together with involvement by the political authorities and the competent international organizations in a form of structured dialogue similar to the successful Transatlantic business dialogue.
And finally, we must try to achieve an international consensus on a multilateral basis that includes, therefore, not only the United States and Europe but many other countries, in as global a context as possible.
While it might be obvious that there are areas where new codes must be written, for example, electronic signature specifically for use on the Internet, it is not obvious that new crimes will be committed on the Internet that have not already been invented and provided for in law.
Rather, the Internet is an extraordinary means of communication that enables each individual to become a publisher, gives companies an instrument for the globalization of electronic trade and - I emphasize - makes it possible, if necessary, to trace all too well the origin and destination of transactions.
I personally believe that we are faced with a young child that is taking its first steps and that we must help it grow in a favourable legislative context.
I have problems with certain amendments, Amendments Nos 6 and 12, on the authorities responsible for the content of the Internet, and Amendment No 7, on the responsibility of the distributors, but I am sure that we will come back to this debate with other thoughts and experiences.
The Commission wishes to thank the rapporteur Mr Schmid and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs for a very positive report.
The Internet is growing at a rapid pace and is no longer just used by scientists and researchers.
Now it is part of everyday life in offices, homes and schools.
It has proven to be extremely useful and important for business, education and culture.
The vast majority of content poses absolutely no problem.
However, the Internet can be used for illegal activities and distribution of illegal contents.
Parents and teachers are concerned at the availability of content which could be harmful for children.
If the consumers and industry of Europe are to take full advantage of the opportunities offered by the information society, these issues must be addressed.
Over the last year the Commission has worked hard with the Council, the European Parliament, Member States, industry and users to propose solutions.
The action plan is the result of the response received when the Commission first addressed the problem and it has been developed in coordination with the Council recommendation on the protection of minors and human dignity.
The present action plan takes a non-regulatory approach, involves industry and proposes concrete measures to deal with the problems.
It implements a political consensus and ensures the follow-up of actions already undertaken at EU level and in Member States.
This approach has received strong support from the Bonn Conference, the Internet working party and the Council and European Parliament.
The action plan has four action lines: first, creating a safe environment, including the creation of a European network of hotlines and support for self-regulation; second, developing, filtering and rating systems taking account of Europe's cultural and linguistic diversity; third, encouraging awareness actions; fourth, support measures.
Each of the action lines aims at reaching certain main objectives: to empower the user to protect himself and his family from undesirable harmful material; to strengthen reporting mechanisms for illegal material to be dealt with by existing legislation; to ensure that the specific multicultural and multilingual needs of Europe are addressed adequately; and to build trust in the new environment so that the consumer can benefit from the new services and so that industry can use the opportunities of electronic media.
The action plan is not the only means for achieving these objectives.
It is a financial instrument that stimulates initiatives that must be addressed by Member States, the industry and users.
It is not a legal instrument for solving the various legal issues connected with the Internet.
However, many of the problems in the new environment do not call for new legislation.
They calls for approaches where existing legislation can be applied to the Internet and how to provide sufficient solutions without legislation.
Therefore, care has been taken to focus on the non-regulatory measures in this action plan.
Concerning the amendments, the Commission is able to support most amendments tabled by Parliament.
In fact, 20 of 24 amendments tabled are wholly acceptable to the Commission.
Regarding Amendment No 14 on comitology, I must point out that the Commission intends to use the exact wording of the 1987 Council decision on type 1 committees.
There are, however, three amendments - Nos 7, 12 and 17 - which cannot be accepted.
Two of them deal with legal issues and, in particular, liability.
These certainly need to be addressed but the action plan, being a financial instrument, is not the place to do it.
The Commission is, however, working on a legal instrument, a proposal for a directive, to deal with this subject.
The third amendment proposes the inclusion of labelling systems in industrial codes of conduct.
The need to adopt labelling systems is already stated in the recommendations on protection of minors and human dignity.
We can expect codes of conduct to be developed along the lines suggested in this report.
I can assure you that if a separate European labelling system is needed, the action plan will certainly promote such a system.
Nevertheless, if flexible international systems can be adapted and this proves to be convenient, there will be no need for a separate European system which could be a waste of money.
However, there is no reason to believe that the concerns reflected in the suggested amendment are not already covered by the proposal.
I again thank Parliament for its work and its response so far.
In line with this, now is the time to follow up on the initiatives of the European Union institutions.
Parliament has already recognized the importance of dealing with these issues and I hope its decision will confirm the need for action by giving the action plan the full support needed to have a substantial effect.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Combined goods transport
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0239/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation concerning the granting of Community financial assistance for actions of an innovative nature to promote combined transport (C4-0173/98-96/0207(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Ulrich Stockmann).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard the full title of the regulation.
Intermodality is the key concept of present and future European transport policy.
It aims to create an overall transport system.
By linking together various means of transport to create door-to-door transport chains, the advantages of each one are put to good use.
Combined transport, which we are debating here today, is a tried and tested forerunner of intermodal goods transport.
Combined transport has long been a keynote of our speeches, speeches by politicians concerned with transport, so that the rhetoric has far outstripped the reality.
However, last year's statistics may mark a change in the trend here.
In addition to possible regulatory measures, at European level we have had the pilot actions for combined transport, PACT, since 1992.
Following the success of the first programme, which expired in 1996, we have been working on PACT II since last year.
The combination of the regulation and the increased, although still far from adequate, budget should now result in a proper programme, by which I mean one with a legal basis.
The fact that we have not reached the second reading of the regulation until today very much reflects the birth pangs of the regulation, during which the Council showed itself to be a poor midwife.
Regarding the content of the regulation, we in the Committee on Transport and Tourism welcome the partial agreement of the Commission and the Council, particularly the inclusion of inland waterways and the reference to trans-European networks as a criterion for project selection.
On the other hand, we consider the rejection, in the Council's common position, of some of the amendments which we originally tabled at first reading to be short-sighted, given that we need a strategic, and as I see it, forward-looking transport policy.
The Committee on Transport has, therefore, confirmed the need for Amendments Nos 1 to 6 before us today.
So what do we consider important here?
Firstly, just as this has now become feasible for certain other programmes, we want PACT to be extended to candidate countries with which negotiations have already started, with a corresponding additional budget of ECU 4 million for the years 2000 and 2001.
A far higher level of funding for infrastructural measures for the central and eastern European countries was envisaged in Agenda 2000 for this period.
We would like to see a small part of this earmarked now for combined transport.
We are already witnessing an excessive increase in goods transport from the candidate countries.
There is also a marked trend towards shifting goods from rail to road.
This trend is generally irrevocable if it is not resisted early enough; we can tell you a thing or two about that in Germany's new Länder .
We cannot just stand by and watch changes like this.
That is why we are calling for a strategic policy to be formulated at this point, and not a reactive policy that could cost us much more in ten years' time.
Our second main concern is to establish synergies.
A good programme can always be made better if it both aims at synergies with other programmes and it supports other policy objectives.
We still believe that synergies with the PHARE programme and projects under the Cohesion Fund should be possible.
We consider that priority should be given to PACT projects in the catchment areas of freight freeways, which are politically desirable even if they are still hard to implement.
Synergistic effects could also be achieved with activities planned under the Fifth Framework Programme on Research.
This is the aim of a further amendment we have tabled.
At this point I would like to say a few words about Mr Jarzembowski's amendment, even though he is not here today.
We have certainly not made things easy for ourselves with the reference to preventing competition, which initially sounds plausible or even self-evident.
However, we finally decided to reject the amendment because we believe that any support programme inevitably implies positive discrimination, in this case away from transporting goods exclusively by road and towards combined transport, and also in favour of regions and competitors who give priority to combined transport.
I would like to thank all my colleagues, including those who are absent today, who played a part in this report and I urge you to adopt it tomorrow.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur very sincerely for the excellent work he has done and to congratulate him on it.
The Commission's proposal on support for combined transport takes account of the fact that the European Union needs a reliable trans-European transport system to guarantee efficient trade and also mobility.
I therefore deeply regret that the Council has only accepted a small number of Parliament's proposals.
This would be a perfect opportunity to act instead of just talking for once.
As I have already said, I think it is a matter for regret that in its common position the Council has not seen fit also to give priority to projects which create links with the central and eastern European countries and thus achieve synergies.
Likewise, in selecting projects the Commission should try to strike a balance between regions and Member States, so as to avoid distortions in competition.
Parliament accepted this point at first reading and it has now been confirmed in the amendment tabled by Mr Jarzembowski on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
I urge the House to support this amendment too.
I would also like to mention that it is essential to integrate trans-European 'rail freight freeways' for the sake of environmentally sound development and to utilize trans-European transport networks.
I see these freeways as a particularly important and innovatory aspect of the transport policy.
Regrettable is not a strong enough word for the budget, which the Council has set at just ECU 35 million.
Appropriations of at least ECU 43 million are required for the period from 1997 to 2001, if, as has already been said, we want action and not just words.
A budget of this level should therefore be approved, even if I still think this is only a drop in the ocean.
I believe it is vital to develop the European Union's transport system, particularly in view of enlargement and the everincreasing significance of environmental issues.
I therefore support the amendments tabled, as do all the Members of my group, and I hope that they will also enjoy the support of the House.
Thank you very much, Madam President, particularly for giving me an opportunity not only to congratulate the rapporteur, but also to say that he is an excellent role model for people willing to retrain from being theologians or musicians to real technicians and politicians!
Let me now change over into my own language and say something on the report itself.
In my opinion, we have here a typical example of how the Council could have shown for once through deeds, rather than just through words, how we, in this Parliament, as a body support the idea of a general shift from road to railways and inland waterways.
We are once again here compelled to accept that we will have a major collapse in traffic before long if we do nothing.
The responsibility for this lies with the Council and the Commission, not with Parliament.
Madam President, let me first of all thank the rapporteur, Mr Stockmann and the House for the work on the proposals to continue our successful experience of pilot actions for combined transport, PACT.
It is a clear demonstration of Parliament's continuing commitment to promoting combined transport.
While we appreciate the constructive attitude of Parliament in this dossier, I am sorry to say that the Commission will only be able to accept two of the amendments, although this should not detract from the broad agreement that exists between Parliament, Council and the Commission.
Amendments Nos 1 and 4 seek to introduce, as Parliament proposed in the first reading and the Commission agreed, the notion of the trans-European rail freight freeways into the regulations.
Since the rail freight freeways are an important Commission initiative, I can continue to support their inclusion as an evaluation criterion in the PACT regulation.
The freeways are a significant step towards the true liberalization of the rail market.
I can assure the House that both the Commission and the Member States will give high priority in the selection of procedures to any project that wants to make use of the freeways.
Amendments Nos 2, 3, 5 and 6 seek to reintroduce the possibility of funding actions outside the European Union and of allowing non-EC companies to be beneficiaries of PACT funding.
The Commission is quite aware that combined transport policy cannot stop at the EC borders.
Traffic flows and the opportunities for inter-modal transport are too important with our eastern neighbours.
Therefore, the Commission proposal originally foresaw this possibility.
However, discussions on this point in the Council have clearly shown that the regulation as such would not have a chance of being accepted by Council if the Commission insisted on this point.
Member States agree that the Community must help the candidate countries in their endeavours for a sustainable transport system.
Many Member States thought that other instruments, for instance within the PHARE programme, should be used or further developed to assist combining transport services.
The Commission will, therefore, examine whether the current programmes can be used for PACT-like projects for inter-modal transport in the candidate countries.
In the same vein, the Commission cannot accept the topping up to ECU 43 million because this sum conflicts with the financial perspectives of the Community for PACT.
Moreover, certain aspects of Amendments Nos 3 and 5 cannot be accepted; neither can we accept Amendment No 7.
On the one hand, synergies with other funding programmes will be ensured through the necessary inter-service consultation within the Commission.
On the other hand, the Commission continues to believe that the selection criteria, in simple terms, improvement of competitiveness, of combined transport through innovation are clear and limited in the interests of transparency.
Other priorities or considerations could, we believe, only muddy the waters.
Even if I am not able to convince Parliament of the Commission's position in all respects, I hope I have at least clarified that position.
Let me close by again thanking Parliament, and in particular the rapporteur, for the interest taken in combined transport and for the valuable contribution it has made concerning these regulations.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Pinheiro.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 10.50 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Rübig wishes to speak in connection with yesterday's Minutes.
Mr President, I would just like to ask if the thefts and break-ins in our offices here in the European Parliament could also be recorded in the Minutes?
Mr Rübig, that is not something which should be recorded in the Minutes, but it will be recorded that you have spoken today on this issue.
(The Minutes were approved)
Transnational trade union rights
The next item is the report (A4-0095/98) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on transnational trade union rights in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Social Charter was adopted at the Strasbourg Summit of December 1989 and was seen at the time by many as a great step forwards.
I had my doubts and I remember very well a discussion I had prior to the Summit with a member of the COREPER who tried to bring me to an understanding of the far-reaching consequences of the text to be adopted in 1989.
My lack of understanding at the time was caused by the fact that I come from a country where the rights of employee and employer organisations are well established and so my feeling was that the European Charter would not add anything new.
Now we are ten years on and - the report is the best proof of this - I must say that the Social Charter of that time is not yet firmly anchored in the EC Treaty.
We have now had two Treaty amendments, Maastricht and Amsterdam.
The Social Protocol is indeed well established, but the limitations that were formulated with regard to pay, the right of association and the right to strike or the right of lock-out have unfortunately not been adopted.
Our European social policy is thus to my mind still not mature.
With regard to the initial report itself, the history, I am keen to establish for the benefit of historians that the long period needed to get this report to the House cannot be blamed on any unwillingness on the part of the rapporteur or her political party.
Let it be known that the christian democrats were standard bearers of the socially-orientated market economy and I know from experience that allowing social partners responsibilities leads to a successful society.
I am also keen to mention that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs' decision to write a report was based on many petitions, namely from the United Kingdom because trade union rights were not settled there and the idea was that if we now have something at European level then it will happen here as well.
Thirdly, because I must also persuade the free marketeers, it is too crazy for words that Europe has repeatedly pressed for the freedom to form trade unions and the freedom to negotiate to be adopted in international or global agreements, for example within the framework of the WTO, while we have not adopted these guarantees in our own EC Treaty.
The matter that we have to sort out is trade union rights as such.
What I would like is for the European Commission to come forward with an initiative, I am not asking for a directive, a proposal, but rather an initiative for specific research.
The group of experts that is at present already analysing the Treaty of Amsterdam, looking at what the shortcomings are, could very well report on this point.
I ask also that the social partners make a first move, because it concerns them.
They must ensure, and the annual report from the reports by the group of experts is possibly a good starting point, that a proposal is provided.
In connection with trade union rights I have also made a number of remarks about the social dialogue and also the rules of that game.
I am sometimes concerned as to whether there is sufficient room for this social dialogue.
I am well aware that for some Member States we cannot settle very awkward matters from one day to the next.
All the same, I think that in a mature society where it is observed that there are still too few rights, the social and political organizations should be able to tackle the problem quickly.
I thank all those who have contributed to the creation of this report.
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I must tell you that I am pronouncing your name better, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, because I am receiving lessons from the interpreters and I am taking advantage of these lessons. They enable me to improve more and more and to pronounce your name, if not perfectly, as I would wish, then a little better each time.
Thank you very much, Mr Schäfer.
You have informed me that you thought you had four minutes and I have accepted this, but, concentrating on Marx and Engels, you took up almost five minutes.
I would ask you, please, although you have such important points to make, to be careful with the time.
I would ask you all to be aware of this in future, particularly those who have yet to speak, including Mr McMahon who is going to speak for two minutes on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Mr President, I am fascinated by people negotiating their speaking time across the floor of the House, a very interesting departure from our customary procedure.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has produced a very good and interesting report and this is an area where there is very considerable concern within the Union for the whole issue of workers' rights.
There is no doubt that the Social Charter lays down the guarantee for fundamental rights for workers, in particular the right of association for workers and employers.
The interesting thing too is that there were one or two little gaps in the Maastricht Social Protocol which led my country to a lot of misrepresentation about what was actually involved in the Social Protocol.
It did not apply to the right to strike, the right of association and it did not apply to pay or to lock-outs.
Despite that, the UK Government of that time decided that it could not sign up for it and that was regrettable.
I believe it is important that the rights of free association collective bargaining are regarded as a basic human right and that any attempt in Europe or anywhere else to violate these rights are a violation of fundamental human rights.
The development of the social dimension in Europe has contributed to a general trend towards the Europeanization of industrial relations and as my colleague, Mr Schäfer, said there is going to be increasing Europeanization of labour relations and organization.
The euro is going to give fillip to this and there will be more collective bargaining on a European basis.
As one example of that, the union of which I am a member, the GMB has reached an agreement with IG BCE, the chemical union in Germany.
They have actually got collective bargaining right across the board. I believe the model that the GMB and IG BCE have developed will be a good model for the future.
With this and with the development of the social dialogue, which is one of the priorities of the Austrian Presidency, I believe the union movement will go from strength to strength within the European Union.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate my colleague, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on her report, to which she gave an excellent introduction and with the main points of which we are in total agreement.
Although the subject of this report is transnational trade union rights in the European Union, I maintain that certain lines of argument within it can, by analogy, be applied to the other side of the social dialogue.
Out of respect for the rapporteur I did not want to alter the specific nature of the report and have refrained from tabling any amendments.
However, I wish to widen the scope of the debate.
The report refers to ILO Conventions Nos 87 and 98 concerning freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.
It states that these Conventions must also be applied at Community level.
The report also rightly emphasises that the social dialogue is an outstanding aid in continuing to bring together the economic and social aims of the European Union.
A good dialogue naturally requires an opposite number, who can best represent his group as broadly as possible.
The rapporteur will already have realized that yet again I unfortunately find myself forced to exclude the SME partners from the European collective agreements process.
This House has repeatedly called on the Commission to do something about this, but unfortunately in vain.
Today once again I call for the attention of all democrats to the fact that the right to negotiate is also a fundamental right for SMEs and that this right is a cornerstone of social rights as they have been established by the ILO.
This last sentence is not mine. It is a quote from Professor Blanpain, a labour law professor of international repute.
Perhaps by firmly rooting trade union rights in the Treaty we can in the end also obtain something for SMEs.
If this report also leads to that then the SMEs, Madam Rapporteur, will be eternally grateful.
Mr President, Madam Rapporteur, our party is naturally also of the opinion that fundamental freedoms to organize and to negotiate are very important in order to promote the social dialogue at European level.
I should also like to underline Mrs Thyssen's point with regard to the right that small and medium-sized enterprises must also have to participate in this sort of negotiations.
However, I wish to use my brief opportunity to speak to ask you to look at point 10 of Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report, specifically the second indent where it is asked that free participation in trade union organizations in enterprises be provided for.
I should like the European Commission, when it considers this report, to consider also the right of the individual not to have to join an organization.
Hitherto, in international law, for example both in relation to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to the same declarations in relation to fundamental freedoms granted through the Council of Europe, there has been a refusal to establish a fundamental right not to be organized.
I wish to point here to the fact that in a number of countries there is still a closed shop system or enforced unionization.
I think that, on the one hand, the right to join an organization must include the right not to join.
Also, I did not wish to table any amendments as I did not want to whip up the issue in this sense, but I hope that the European Commission will also establish this right when it works out its proposals.
Mr President, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report has an unusually long and colourful history here in Parliament.
This time the report has altered considerably and it is important that the trade union movement managed to have an influence on the final outcome.
When our committee discussed the report last February, most of the group voted against it.
The basis for that decision then was that the matter was so much one of principle, and a delicate one too, that we could not come to any hasty conclusions.
Time has passed since February, however.
This time, in Finland at least, a debate has arisen on the absolute necessity of transnational trade union rights as a counterweight to transnational markets.
This debate has convinced me of the need for European trade union rights.
Obviously, however, when European trade union rights begin to be formulated, both management and labour must be fully involved in the work from the start.
Under no circumstances can European trade union rights be allowed to have a weakening effect on national and statutory rights.
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Party I welcome the report by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
As Mrs Ojala said, it had a long history in the committee, an interesting history as well.
I believe at one point the report was pulled from the committee because it was seen to be too pro-union and too pro-European.
Just before the British election it was thought it might be a little embarrassing, particularly for our Labour colleagues, to actually have to vote in favour of this since Mr Blair was not known to favour the kind of trade union rights that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten speaks about in her report.
Indeed he boasts that Britain has the most lightly regulated industry and toughly-regulated trade unions of all the European Union.
The disappointment for us in Britain, of course, is that the new Trade Union Bill, which is before the British Parliament, does not restore the many rights which had been taken away from trade unions in the many years of Tory rule.
So I welcome Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report and I can only conclude that really she is very old Labour and is welcome to join the independent Labour network, well to the left of new Labour.
Mr President, Member States have differing traditions with regard to industrial relations, and we should respect this.
Thus, I am glad to see that we have established that the report is dealing with transnational rights rather than national professional rights.
I am also glad that we have established that the question of wages will remain exempt from European legislation.
In my opinion, the report is good because it paves the way for much-needed debate.
It could be said that the parties to the labour market can already enter into European agreements in the social dialogue.
If so desired by the parties concerned, such discussions could be raised to the level of European legislation, so European trade unions already have some collective rights.
However, there is a problem in that little progress has been made in the social dialogue.
The social partners are not terribly keen to enter into agreements.
That is one of the difficulties in developing a European model where, to a large extent, the social partners have to take the blame for initiatives in industrial relations.
The slow pace of the social dialogue is particularly regrettable for someone like myself, as an ardent fan of the Danish model, where the parties to the labour market settle industrial relations questions jointly.
However, it would be disastrous if this were to mean we would be unable to develop a strong social dimension at European level.
We would risk finishing up with multinational companies pitting national trade unions against each other.
Thus, seen against this backdrop, it may not be so stupid to be discussing a new framework for the social dialogue and giving trade unions more effective instruments with which to force the employers' organizations to the negotiating table.
It may well be that collective action or some kind of European employment legislation should or could resolve any conflicts in industrial relations.
Finally, I would like to emphasize that the most important players of all the parties to the labour market are those responsible for laying down transnational union rights.
Mr President, I wish to express my deep concern regarding the state of the social and union rights of workers in the European Union.
Community intervention in fundamental issues of labour legislation tends, especially nowadays, to undermine and overturn the most basic achievements of the labour union movement.
Unfortunately, the report we are debating does not avoid, to any large extent, going down the same road.
Three references suffice to support this assessment: the recommendation to abolish the provisions of the Treaty which concern freedom of association and the right to strike; the elevation of social dialogue as the fundamental duty of trade unions, instead of the fight for workers' rights; the adaptation of the policy of employment to the objectives of EMU.
The labour movement's rights are currently under attack as never before and the European Parliament should be concerning itself with assisting it in its struggle, instead of taking a hand in the attempt to undermine it.
Mr President, within the last two weeks the ILO has adopted a new convention on global labour standards which includes the right to join unions and bargain collectively.
Ireland is a member of the ILO and yet the Irish constitution, as interpreted by our courts, gives employers the right to refuse to recognize unions.
The most recent and blatant example of this was the case of an airline company, Ryanair, where the management of that company refused to negotiate with the trade union SIPTU in relation to a group of young, very badly paid baggage handlers.
It is absolutely essential that we enshrine in European law the right to join trade unions and the right to bargain collectively.
Partnership at work must be based on the firm foundation of union recognition.
I call on Commissioner Flynn to begin work now on drafting a new directive to this effect.
The Amsterdam Treaty was defective in this regard.
It did not give us the trade union rights that we so badly need.
Mr President, Commissioner, no-one can deny that in these days when capital is becoming transnational it is reasonable to give transnational trade union rights their proper effect.
The recognition of the right of association is in line with that argument and should serve as a basis for it.
This own-initiative report therefore appears to be the natural outcome of a process in which the inclusion of the Social Chapter in the Treaty is its main justification.
But this is not just a report that has been produced on its own.
It goes hand in hand with other initiatives and reports making up a package which is worrying to those who think trade unions have other purposes and tasks apart from merely participating in the social dialogue, the sole purpose of which is to protect economic interests in a market in which the workforce is no more than one kind of merchandise.
Furthermore, the recognition of the freedom to form trade union associations at Community level, while necessary, may have the undesirable result of causing trade unions to lose their character as class organizations, which they also can and should continue to be, particularly at national level.
We consider that the effect of this initiative is not to close, but rather to open a debate or bring it up to date.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for the comprehensive work they have just produced on the subject of transnational trade union rights in the European Union.
As you know, the right of association with the object of forming professional or trade union organizations, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, is recognized in Article 6 (2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam as a general principle of Community law.
In that context, it is important to emphasize that, for the first time, the Treaty of Amsterdam gives the Court of Justice jurisdiction over matters relating to human rights and fundamental liberties, including the right of association.
Freedom of association and collective bargaining are recognized in the Community Charter on Fundamental Social Rights for Workers and implicitly referred to in Article 136 of the Treaty of Amsterdam as guiding principles of Community social policy.
Nevertheless, I should like to make it absolutely clear that, since the right to associate and the right to strike are not within the scope of Article 137 of the Treaty, the Commission does not intend to draft any legislation on those matters.
The Commission does, however, consider, Mr President, that the question of fundamental social rights requires more sustained and detailed thought at Union level.
In that connection, one of the sessions of the European Forum on social policy held last week touched on the question of how to widen and deepen the debate on fundamental rights.
In addition, a group of experts has been set up to examine the progress that has been achieved in that field by the Treaty of Amsterdam, identifying any omissions and recommending courses of action for the future.
The report is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
I am sure my colleague Padraig Flynn will keep Parliament duly informed of the results of our present deliberations and the courses of action the Commission will be suggesting.
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commissioner's speech brings this debate to a close.
I would remind you that the report by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on which she has been congratulated many times, will be put to the vote this morning at 11.00 a.m.
Voluntary organizations and foundations
The next item is the debate (A4-0203/98) by Mrs Ghilardotti, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Communication from the Commission on promoting the role of voluntary organizations and foundations in Europe (COM(97)0241 - C4-0546/97).
Mr President, today we are dealing with quite an important Commission communication, and the debate in the House comes at a rather delicate moment, because, as everyone knows, organizations, associations and foundations are faced with the problem of how to finance their activities because of the decision of the Court of Justice. The Court ruled that the Commission had to stop all funding until a Council decision defines a legal basis for this financing.
I will return to this later, but certainly it is strange to talk about promoting associations and foundations, the voluntary world, the third sector - to which we give particular importance in Parliament's communication and work - and at the same time observe that the activity of these organizations is paralysed.
I therefore believe that today's debate can be an incentive for the Council to reach an interinstitutional agreement, as the Parliament has been proposing for some time, that can effectively solve the problem, not just for the 1998 budget but also for the future.
The communication that we are talking about today is the result of more than ten years of work based on an own-initiative report of the European Parliament in 1987, a report that prompted the European Commission to set up a 'social economy' unit at Directorate-General XXIII. The Commission did a tremendous amount of work, proposing two actions for legislation and the drafting of a White Paper.
However, all these initiatives encountered difficulties in the Council and in the Commission itself and went no further than a few measures. In any event, these problems remain completely unsolved, and we think that today's debate and the approval of this report and the Commission's communication can break the deadlock so that the planned legislative activity can continue.
Even if the communication is an instrument that is a little weaker than what Parliament wanted and what the unit at DG XXIII planned to do, I believe, as does the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, that it is nonetheless of great importance because it defines two elements in what is broadly speaking the social economy, that is associations and foundations, and it defines the characteristics and recognition at European level.
It is an important operation because it serves to pool the various experiences and realities of the different Member States.
In addition, it recognizes and promotes the various roles that these organizations play, for example in providing employment: Parliament has already worked on this aspect these past few years; a lot of the studies and research work done recognize that the world of the third sector, broadly speaking the voluntary sector, is a sector that these past few years has on the one hand promoted new job opportunities, especially at the local level, and on the other hand has been able to meet a series of needs - relational, social, cultural, environmental - old and new, which today neither the public sector nor the private sector is able to meet.
It therefore has a very important role in providing employment, a very important social role, but also a very important political role.
The possibility of recognizing, promoting, finding various ways for citizens to participate in the collective good - because that is what we are talking about - in relation to the tradition of the organizations of political parties and trade unions plays a major role in involving citizens in Europe's construction.
This civil dialogue, as we have called it, was promoted by the European institutions throughout the Intergovernmental Conference debate and there is no doubt that the voluntary sector is a new way to resume building a legitimate relationship of trust and participation between citizens and the institutions.
It is for this reason that we greatly appreciate this communication and I would indeed like us to use this debate as well to urge the Council to arrive at an agreement on the legal basis before the first reading on 17 July, otherwise we demonstrate an inability to act for and to have faith in Europe's citizens, in that we make statements and then, by and large, behave quite differently - even if it does not depend on us but on the Council; in short, the European institutions say one thing and then do another.
Mr President, I have two observations to make in my two minutes, .
The first, on procedure: I still do not understand the headlong rush of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs in this matter.
The deadlines given to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for delivering its opinion has prevented it from paying serious attention to the day-to-day legal problems raised by the communication, and with which the associations are very familiar.
The problems in question include those of definition, mutual recognition, responsibility and taxation.
I fear that such precipitate action by our colleagues might also have prevented Parliament from giving a proper hearing to the voluntary associations and from studying their problems in depth.
I feel, in this matter, that Parliament has wasted an opportunity to make its contribution to this debate, and I fear that this indifference, coming on top of the catastrophically negative signals given by the Court of Justice, the Commission and by the Council with regard to legal bases, will only serve to create a huge gulf between ourselves and these very important groups, as Mrs Ghilardotti has reminded us.
The second observation, Mr President, concerns the fundamental issues at stake here.
For my part, I believe that the communication provides an interesting inventory of practices and problems.
I welcome this step which is a kind of tour of Europe carried out by the Commission and its staff to open up discussions with the authorities of the NGOs of various associations: it represents an attempt to create awareness, to provide information, and also to mobilize forces.
I would simply like to draw attention to the danger that all this could end up as some kind of pointless intellectual exercise, if it does not result in any concrete proposals, and we are awaiting these proposals.
It is my hope that these proposals will be clearly incorporated in the very notion of a large market, of economic activities, and that we shall not treat the voluntary organizations and foundations sector as being simply the place for some kind of voluntary and charitable activity, but that we take account of the real difficulties which will one day have to be tackled.
Mr President, I think that this report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs as this was, and I stress this, drawn up in committee following the marvellous work of Mrs Ghilardotti, is a responsible political position at which the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has arrived and which it is presenting for debate during this sitting.
The Commission communication is undoubtedly a significant piece of work, which brings to the forefront the important topical issue of the promotion of voluntary organizations and foundations.
However, this work of the European Commission cannot surely be regarded, I am afraid to say, as having provided a bold and effective solution to this big problem.
So the report, the long preparation, the assessment of experiences, which has resulted from the work in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (and at this juncture I must say that I cannot understand Mr Cot's position), accurately underlines the importance of this issue in the European Union today and gives it the fillip it needs.
Today, in view of overall progress, of the problem of employment and the problem of unemployment, of proof that local initiative and the exploitation of local human potential as well as of natural resources, can pay off in this global society, this report indeed makes a significant contribution.
I believe that it must be regarded in this way, as a point of contact with the society of citizens and an activation, a recognition, of the role that it can play.
In conclusion, I wish to stress that two topical issues, the promotion of national action programmes against unemployment and the reorganization of the Structural Funds for the regions are, taken together, I believe, an opportunity to link the issue we are debating with these major developments in the European Union.
Mr President, I believe that the whole question of voluntary organizations and the third system is one whose full significance we have only begun to appreciate in the last few years.
In our modern, differentiated and individualized societies it is necessary to establish a clear social coherence, and in this context the various associations are a key factor.
The European Union has a rather complicated history in this issue, as the rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has explained.
We have not yet succeeded in creating a common legal basis for associations, mutual societies and foundations, and this is regrettable.
Yet the Commission's communication is to be welcomed. I do not believe it is an avoidance tactic since it is necessary to develop broad communications and broad advice throughout this sector concerning what we want.
We want strong development in this sector.
We want this sector no longer to be regarded with mistrust by the authorities or by certain sides of industry which consider themselves to be removed from everyone else.
We want to see this sector developing in all its many facets, and I think that to do this we urgently need time for examination, reflection and consultation.
Then we should gradually plan and devise options for sponsorship, for a suitable legal framework and for the development of activities within Europe.
I think that this communication from the Commission is a good first step in all of this and therefore I welcome it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have already heard quite a bit about the importance of charitable associations and foundations.
They have important functions in socio-political and employment terms.
The rapporteur has taken this on board, and I can only praise her for her commitment in this area.
Unfortunately, she was less than cooperative during the debate in committee and she did not take into account any ideas which were further-reaching or tried to go into more depth.
I only want to look at the most important of these again: it must be clear that we do not want to create a new network of national agencies to manage and coordinate this sector, but rather that this network should grow from the existing agencies through cooperation.
I warmly welcome the proposal to improve access to Structural Funds for NGOs, but we must also be realistic about the allocation of these funds.
Often very little is left over for those who really need it, especially in small projects, after the cost of administration in terms of both allocation and sponsorship.
Consultants and the sponsors themselves are financed from it.
And this leads me on to my most important point.
In point 14 of the conclusion, the rapporteur mentions that part of the funds for SMEs should be held back for third system SMEs.
Firstly, there is no such thing as third system SMEs.
It is a case either of the profit or the non-profit sector.
Secondly, the existing funds for the SME are currently so small that the charitable sector cannot also have a share of it.
Thirdly, notwithstanding the euphoria about the effects on employment of the third system, we must differentiate between two things.
This sector has an important role to play in reintegrating people into employment and in promoting enterprise.
Management in its truest sense is often carried out under the most difficult of conditions.
However, long-term, subsidyindependent jobs are created primarily by private industry, especially the SMEs.
We all agree that the NGOs have an ever more important part to play in the citizen/state relationship, and we must promote this.
Autonomy and solidarity are core principles of this.
For this reason, we in the PPE group are voting for this report despite some points of criticism.
Mr President, there are many different voluntary organizations throughout Europe, such as in the environmental area, the social area, trade unions, peace movements and women's movements, which often have very active members and a lot of contacts with their members in the respective Member States.
By supporting voluntary organizations you support the many people throughout Europe who have the energy to do something just like us in Parliament.
Supporting voluntary organizations and foundations also creates understanding of our work here in Parliament, and shows that we do more than simply concern ourselves with trade and economics.
I would like to emphasize three things.
Firstly, increased support for voluntary organizations through the Structural Funds is positive. One per cent of the European Social Funds is good.
Secondly, voluntary organizations can create jobs. It is possible to create jobs in a third sector.
We should not exaggerate the opportunities, but they exist and we should make use of them.
Thirdly, and most importantly, we must make use of the expertise and commitment of voluntary organizations and foundations by including them in our legislative work and other Parliamentary work in a natural way.
In Scandinavia we have a very good system of consultation which means that on important issues voluntary organizations and foundations are regularly given an opportunity to express themselves and their views are gathered.
That is also a good way to improve understanding of the EU and the work of the European Parliament.
But there are also some things I think we should guard against.
We should not interfere with the internal workings of foundations, such as who should be their representatives.
In my opinion, paragraph 24 is close to the limit.
Finally, our task is not to regulate and control. Our task is to encourage and support voluntary organizations and foundations.
So this is a good start.
Mr President, I am very happy to add my voice to those who support the concept of voluntary citizen participation in the work of community development.
We are fortunate to have people who give so freely of their time.
Their role in society is not always sufficiently recognized, in particular at a time when reward for work is generally measured in terms of money.
From an EU perspective and in the context of the application of the principle of subsidiarity we cannot ignore the potential and desire of our citizens to participate in the work of nation-building.
I give the example of the LEADER programme.
Given the opportunity and a favourable community infrastructure, the citizens of rural Europe are actively participating in enterprise programmes, creating much-needed employment and contributing to the sustainability of rural communities.
It is not, however, good enough just to pay lip service to their work.
All of us must be concerned with the continuing decline of rural populations, the deteriorating age profile of our farmers and the real threat to the traditional family farm.
After all, the European agricultural model is supposed to be about their survival.
With new technology and the availability of more financially rewarding opportunities for young people, let us not close our eyes to this real threat.
We cannot, however, turn the clock back but through carefully constructed training and educational programmes involving organizations such as CEJA, the European umbrella body for farm organizations and, in my own country, Macra Na Feirme, our young farmers' organization, we can create the economic and social infrastructure necessary to encourage and help more young people to pursue farming as a credible career.
We must take up that challenge in the context of Agenda 2000.
Mr President, voluntary organizations, or the charitable sector, are an important sector of society as the bearer of values which we want to safeguard and which we want to encourage, that is, that citizens actively participate in and thereby also gain influence over the development of society.
Society's collective responsibility is not going to be replaced. Instead this should be seen as a complement.
This is a growing sector in which many new jobs are being created.
Therefore it is particularly shameful that funds for the support of the charitable sector have now been frozen. I hope that we reach a swift solution with regard to this.
I would really like to support Mrs Ghilardotti's proposal to strengthen the charitable sector at the local level as far as the Structural Funds are concerned, so that they can be active partners in the planning and implementation of co-financed measures.
Furthermore, I would also like us to bear in mind that cooperatives can also be included in voluntary organizations and the charitable sector, even if their charter says they should promote the economic interests of their members.
Those interests are restricted to keeping the activities going, so it is not about making a profit.
Mr President, with the euro's arrival a few months from now, the Member States will be talking the same monetary language, and this will help further their growth together.
Similarly, another aspect that we must discuss together and concerning which we must take action, is voluntary and cooperative activities.
Indeed organizations and foundations today play an important role in what the Commission calls the Community scenario, intervening in all areas of social activity.
We must therefore pay greater attention to them and be more and more available, helping them to develop synergies, use a common language and meet the needs of their members, collectively speaking, in order to create an ideal environment in which they can operate to achieve the objectives of representing their own groups.
In addition to protecting social interests, this can create major opportunities for work, cultural growth, vocational training, as clearly recalled by the rapporteur whom we thank.
Let us therefore hope that the next Intergovernmental Conference finally promotes the role of organizations and foundations, recognizing non-profit organizations and non-governmental organizations as fundamental bodies for common social growth in Europe.
Mr President, the PPE group is in favour of the communication and believes that the report by Mrs Ghilardotti complements and improves it.
Congratulations!
Both documents contain interesting remarks on the role of associations and foundations at national, regional and local levels, but a European dimension is also mentioned, inter alia with reference to the proposal for a Statute for a European association in 1992.
Mrs Ghilardotti accepted the PPE group's suggestion made in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, that any regulation on European associations in future must be clearly differentiated from the European public limited company.
A European statute of association must not be viewed unilaterally as a business association, but it must also be compatible with charitable associations and the issues of subsidiarity, the freedom to form articles of association and the freedom of citizens and association.
In this spirit we are in favour of the report by Mrs Ghilardotti.
Mr President, the fact that we have many economic and social experiences and many ways to manage the related activities is typical of the European model of development and a source of wealth that must be protected.
The report by Mrs Ghilardotti on the role of organizations and foundations in Europe rightly recalls the need to develop the entire third sector, the so-called non-profit sector.
Today we are talking about foundations and NGOs, but soon we will have to talk about mutual societies and cooperatives.
The Council must, however, move beyond the attitude that it has had up until now, which has been an attitude of objectively blocking the third sector.
In Europe, there is not just the State and the private sector, but a wider range of experiences that cannot be ignored.
We cannot talk about reform of the welfare state or innovation in international cooperation without the contribution of the private social work of the foundations and NGOs.
Mr President, the report by Mrs Ghilardotti whom I highly commend is an in-depth, comprehensive examination of all the problems related to the promotion of the role of organizations and foundations.
We largely agree with all the assessments made in the report: to begin with, the need for genuine regulation of the non-profit sector at European level, a valuable sector that in this historic period is witnessing extraordinary growth, precisely because it has been the only sector capable of filling the gap left by the crisis of the public welfare systems in providing social services.
For this reason, we can only agree with the recommendations in the report: first, the creation of a European statute that guarantees the voluntary sector recognition of a clearly defined legal status that protects and encourages the activities carried out; second, genuine, clear rules in legislative and fiscal terms, in particular the revision of VAT; finally, adequate financial resources.
Only this way, only if we clearly recognize the right of the non-profit sector to play its role, will it be able to make that precious contribution suggested by the Treaty of Amsterdam of developing solidarity and social participation under the best conditions.
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying how gratifying it is for the Commission to see the interest with which the document has been received by the general public, the national bodies, the sectorial organizations and also the European institutions.
I would like to emphasize the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, which have expressed their clear intention of supporting the development of organizations and foundations.
I would also like to congratulate Mrs Ghilardotti, Mr Cot and Mr Wolf most heartily on the frankness with which they have approached the subject, showing an interest in all activities undertaken or proposed by socioeconomic organizations.
Since presenting its communication, the Commission, in collaboration with representatives of the organizations and foundations, has developed a plan of action to implement its conclusions, to exploit the potential of those organizations and foundations, and also to identify the difficulties to be overcome to enable them to play a more effective part in defending the interests of European citizens.
It is a fact that organizations and foundations which participate in all aspects of economic and social life often have considerable economic power and represent an important source of employment.
Most of these socioeconomic organizations are corporations in the broadest sense of the term.
And in many cases they represent alternative forms of corporation related to traditional economic and social models.
That in fact is why we have also included the socioeconomic sector in the Commission's communication under the heading 'Promoting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe' .
I will not go over the conclusions and suggestions contained in that communication here.
I would, however, like to mention the actions we have taken since it was adopted and, at the same time, I will try to deal with the questions that have been raised by Members and especially by the rapporteurs.
One important point, on which many others depend, is undoubtedly that of the status of European associations.
I understand why you are not happy about the fact that little progress has been recorded in that area.
I can, however, assure this House, and especially the rapporteur, Mr Cot, that the Commission has taken various initiatives to achieve the progress we seek.
And, although the matter was referred back to COREPER and the Austrian Presidency at the last Council of 4 June, it should be noted that negotiations within the Council have already reached an advanced stage and a good number of the European Parliament's concerns have been taken into consideration.
So we are confident that some positive progress will be recorded by the end of the year, particularly, may I say again, with regard to the status of associations.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to give you an account of the suggestions we have sketched out in our communication.
We are moving forward in three directions.
Firstly, national conferences are being or will be held in Member States, nearly all of them on the subject of this communication.
In the second place, the Commission is organizing a series of meetings of experts on topics relating to the present and future status of organizations and foundations, among which I would particularly mention relations between the sector and the public authorities, the need for information and better knowledge of the sector, an aspect widely confirmed at the 6th SocioEconomic Congress held a few days ago, and also the potential of organizations and foundations to create jobs.
The Commission agrees that the socio-economic dynamic has not yet fully developed as regards the ongoing preservation and creation of jobs or the creation of appropriate services in response to new needs.
We are asking Member States to pay due attention to the application of the guidelines for the employment sector.
At the same time, we are trying to ensure that the results of the pilot schemes included under the heading 'The third sector and employment' are widely publicised so that everyone can gain some benefit from these experiments.
There are other proposed topics for discussion, including the use of the euro and enlargement, a subject which has been particularly emphasized by Mrs Ghilardotti.
A third field in which we are working is that of actions that can be taken directly by the Commission.
With the objective of advancing dialogue and cooperation between the Union and the relevant organizations, we have set up a Consultative Committee for Cooperatives, Mutuals, Associations and Foundations.
In addition, the Commission is meeting with a platform of European NGOs twice a year, and has set up a new group of experts in succession to the 'Comité des Sages' with the object of re-examining the code of basic social rights provided in the Treaty in order to present recommendations for action at Community level, including a charter of rights if necessary.
We agree that there is a great deal to be done.
It is in fact essential that we should re-appraise the situation and find the right way of developing the social dialogue in all European institutions.
We must achieve the right balance between maximum flexibility and participation on the one hand and absolute transparency and consistency on the other, while avoiding excessive bureaucracy and the creation of complicated frameworks.
Mrs Ghilardotti and Mr Wolf place particular emphasis on the difficulties many NGOs have in collaborating with the Structural Funds.
It is a source of particular satisfaction to me that the new proposals on the Social Fund represent a significant step forward in improving and facilitating access to that fund for NGOs.
I would also like to inform the House that the report by DG V, referred to in points 2 and 3 of the resolution we are discussing, only relates to the various internal departments of that Directorate-General and not to the Commission's relations as a whole with NGOs.
Finally, when reading this resolution I could not help noticing point 19, ' Enlargement and external relations' , in which the ACP countries are not mentioned.
I would therefore like to remind the House that giving full value to the socio-economic sector is a mainstay of our development policy, and this is clearly expressed in the mandate for the negotiation of future relations between the European Union and the ACP countries which has just been approved by the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are not, therefore, sitting back and doing nothing.
We intend to continue our efforts to see that the organizations and foundations are given the recognition due to them at local, national and Community level.
And, last of all, I would like to thank the rapporteurs once again and also to assure them that we will take their suggestions and comments seriously.
I am sure we shall have the support of the European Parliament for all the actions we undertake for the benefit of socio-economic organizations.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Working time directive
The next item is the report (A4-0229/98) by Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission White Paper on sectors and activities excluded from the working time directive (COM(97)0334 - C4-0434/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, if there is one social issue in which the European Union can play a role and thus carries responsibility, it is the protection of the safety and health of workers at the workplace in accordance with Article 118a of the Treaty.
The fact that the workplace is mobile does not detract from the right of workers to a safe and healthy working environment.
Working times are, as the Court of Justice explicitly established in a judgement of 1996, definitely a matter of health and safety.
In 1993 the European Union issued a directive which lays down rules on daily and weekly rest periods, weekly working hours, annual leave, breaks, night work and shift work.
The minimum requirements specified in that directive are rather low and the number of exceptions rather high.
In addition, at the instigation of the Council of Ministers a range of sectors and activities were completely excluded from the scope of the directive.
These are doctors in training, activities at sea, both the fisheries and the offshore industry, and the transport sector, namely road, air, sea and rail transport as well as transport on inland waterways.
People who work in these activities or sectors, even in an office or a workshop, are denied the protection of a European working time regulation.
The European Commission realized at the time that this could not be and announced an initiative, the initiative that we are debating today, namely the White Paper which has finally seen the light of day after four years.
In this White Paper the European Commission has looked at the working time situation in these excluded sectors and activities, which, taken together, concern around six million workers, of whom around five million are in the non-mobile part of these sectors.
The European Commission proposes to bring the non-mobile workers within the scope of the directive and to include the mobile workers only partially, namely for the following four elements: annual leave, annual working time, appropriate rest periods and health assessment for night work.
The other, let us say more important, aspects such as minimum rest period and maximum working time and suchlike would have to be regulated sector by sector.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for which I appear here as rapporteur wants the Commission first of all to try and bring all the excluded sectors and activities as far as possible within the scope of the directive.
The existing directive has, as I just said, an article, Article 17, which allows a number of exceptions, which in theory offers enough opportunities to consider specific cases and also to take account of the competitiveness of the various sectors and activities.
Should it appear, however, that this is still not sufficient for some sub-sectors, our Committee on Employment and Social Affairs agrees that there should be sectoral regulation, preferably based on agreements between the social partners, but if this is not possible then based on the initiative of the Commission itself.
The Commission does ask the social partners to negotiate the matter effectively in the Joint Sectoral Committees because in this way we believe they can best take account of the specific situations.
I offer one such example, the situation whereby road-haulage drivers, in addition to their driving time, must also carry out other activities such as loading and unloading, which have so far not been included in the working time directive.
We are aware that a directive alone is not enough.
It is also a question of turning it into national laws, of regulation, controls and sanctions.
But there should be regulation, a European framework, as the problems cross national borders and this issue is also part of the working of the internal market.
I should also like in particular to go into the situation of doctors in training.
I begin with a quote from one of the many testimonies.
The quote is as follows: "From Friday morning to Monday evening I slept five hours, had two night duties in accident and emergency.
During this entire period I did not see a bed and did not earn an extra franc.
I walked around like a zombie but during the day I also performed operations.'
That is all for that quote.
Who among us would want to work under such conditions and, especially, who would let himself be operated on by someone who is in such a state. This sort of situation still exists and maybe more than we think.
Doctors in training are in many cases exploited far beyond the bounds of acceptability and this puts human lives in danger.
The lives of patients but also those of the trainee doctors themselves who, due to excessively long working hours, can for example cause accidents with fatal consequences or fall asleep at the wheel.
Over-tiredness, depression, heart attacks and suicides are not fabrications but reality.
The exclusion of doctors in training from such a working time directive can be considered to be downright criminal.
Allowing or forcing people to operate after dozens of hours of nearly uninterrupted work is playing with people's lives.
That is why we can no longer accept this situation.
There are even two countries which, like Belgium, have no national regulations.
All the people I have listened to in this file call for an extremely urgent initiative.
The existing directive is indicated here as a framework and I call on the doctors' unions, on the High Commission for Medical Professionals and on the Minister of Health to take action.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we expect a legislative initiative from the European Commission soon, so that Parliament can complete this legislation before the end of this legislature.
Mr President, I congratulate you on your elevation to the Chair.
I have three minutes but it would take a lot longer to go into all the intricacies and difficulties of the fisheries sector.
I would certainly like to congratulate Mr Chanterie on the amount of work he has put into trying to accommodate all the very detailed differences and specificities of the different sectors that are excluded.
We have to recognize first of all that there was a reason for the exclusion of these sectors.
That was their complexity in the first place.
Secondly, as regards fishing, there is a deep-seated suspicion of Brussels in many respects and a lot of opposition to the whole idea of fishermen being told when to sleep or what to do at sea.
They feel that once they are at sea they have to be masters of their ship and their own destiny.
There is a deep-seated instinctive hostility to any kind of directive coming from Brussels for the fishermen.
The idea of maximum hours at sea has to be matched against the fact that some countries impose maximum days at sea and that constrains the working hours of a fisherman where that is done, for example, by the UK.
So all the ideas relating to days at sea or that you must sleep at certain times have to be taken into account.
I would like to focus mainly on what exactly will be the scope of such a directive.
This was the cause of vigorous debate within the Committee on Fisheries.
Perhaps I could address the question to Mr Pinheiro who, coming from Portugal, is very familiar with the way in which fishing is organized.
Many fishermen are organized on a family basis, many are share fishermen and many are not employees in the sense that we would understand it.
Is this directive going to affect them or not? If it is not, then most of the fisheries sector of Europe is excluded, even after the passage of a resolution like this.
These are the key questions: what is the scope and who are the persons employed in fishing? There is perhaps scope for flexibility in Mr Chanterie's remarks about saying 'as far as possible' but we have to know from the Commission its view.
There are huge differences between a long-distance fleet where fishermen are employed for months on end by a company and a small boat that goes out based on a family or cooperative from Galicia or the Adriatic, or in the case of the latter, people who go out to fish at night because that is their tradition.
They all worry about being regulated and put into straitjackets.
So, we have to know who are involved.
How do you tell self-employed people to take a holiday? I would love to hear the answer to that one.
And if the answer is that you do not because they are excluded, then we have to recognize that we are talking about a very small sector of the whole industry.
My last point is about the idea of partnership.
This is very difficult in some cases where there are no trade unions representing the workers because the workers are self-employed.
It is very difficult to tell a country to come up with an agreement between the unions and the employers when there are no such partners.
There you have a rather bogus situation.
Consultation has to be genuine.
It has to affect those who go to fish at sea and let them be involved thoroughly before we come up with something.
Otherwise, there is a danger that yet again Brussels will be blamed for being more interested in red tape than in red mullet.
Mr President, five years after the adoption of the working time directive, it is extremely urgent that we look again at the problem of the excluded sectors.
It is, moreover, regrettable, that so many salaried workers have been excluded, from the start, from the scope of this directive.
We can see this more especially in the road transport sector, with serious consequences for the health of workers and for road safety.
Several trade union disputes have shown the growing rejection of inhuman working conditions, particularly in this sector.
The specific issues at stake in the transport sector are real, but no less real are the need for rest, for leisure, for respect of the biological rhythms of salaried workers.
The existing rules in the road transport sector permit a driving time of 56 hours per week, and even this is not properly respected.
There is a social but also an economic need to improve the rules on driving time and introduce more effective controls, as requested by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, in order to combat unfair competition and social dumping, especially with the entry into force of cabotage.
I am thankful that the two committees are requesting an amendment to regulation 38/20 so as to reduce working time and driving time.
In this regard, loading and unloading time as well as waiting time must be included in the calculation of working time.
To conclude, I would like to express one regret: namely, that the inclusion of mobile workers in the Directive, with - obviously - limited and negotiated derogations, as I proposed in my capacity as rapporteur, has been rejected.
This could have sent a strong signal in favour of a social Europe which, sadly, is eluding us.
The adoption of the Chanterie report can nevertheless provide some support in the context of the joint negotiations which are taking place in the various sectors that have been excluded.
It is clear that the salaried workers concerned must continue to make their requirements for sufficient rest and living time heard, in the face of liberal dogmas about free competition which deride the most basic rights.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate you on your first session as a Vice-President of Parliament.
Mr Chanterie is also to be congratulated.
He has produced a report which is both fair and balanced It has taken some considerable time to produce because of the differences of opinion within his committee and other committees, which we have just heard about.
It is very difficult to impose ideas on working time across so many different industries.
The industrial groups affected are offshore workers in the oil and gas industries, the fishing industry, transport workers such as inland waterway workers, airline pilots and their crews, and railway workers.
They are all known as mobile workers for the purposes of this directive.
It also includes training of doctors but not emergency workers.
They are dealt with under the compensatory measures in the original working time directive.
However, inclusion of those people who are not mobile workers but in sedentary employment in offices serving people who are mobile, is to correct what was thought to be a mistake in the previous working time directive when they were excluded.
That has to be welcomed.
The difficulties faced originally are being overcome because of an arrangement between the social partners.
That has to be recognized and congratulations should go to those people who hitherto have found it difficult to talk to each other.
No arrangements previously existed for this.
So, decent health and safety standards are now for the first time on the table for many of these workers only because of the social dialogue.
Commissioners Flynn and Kinnock are both to be congratulated.
The important thing to remember is that this is about health and safety and it would perhaps be more appropriate to call it the 'stopping people dropping dead at work act' .
If one looks at the statistics one finds that 20 % of all accidents on the roads involving heavy goods vehicles are, in fact, caused by drivers suffering from fatigue.
It is not only drivers who are killed but the families in the other vehicles they might plough into.
It is very important that we solve this issue.
As Mr Chanterie has also pointed out concerning the training of doctors, if they are to have survivable periods of work and if we are to get the very best out of these professionals, we must all do our best to put pressure on our governments to get a reduction in working time for them so that their judgments and their reactions are not skewed or affected in such a way that we are not gaining the optimum benefits of their training.
This is about stopping people dropping dead at work.
The consequences of this are recognized in Japan; they are now being recognized in Europe.
We look forward to a directive next year.
Mr President, may I first also congratulate you on your election as Vice-President, so that you can preside here today.
But secondly I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Chanterie, who I think has achieved a great piece of work with this report.
He has developed a vision and that was not easy, as Mr Skinner also said, because there were different inputs from all sides.
He has developed a vision that is well constructed theoretically but which is still very practical and in fact more practical than that which the Commission itself had previously put forward.
On the one hand I must congratulate the Commission for the fact that it has spent so much time sorting out these apparently very difficult sectors, but on the other hand we have been dogged by the fact that the two Directorates-General in question found it very difficult to agree with each other on some points and that has certainly not speeded things up.
But I think that in this case the Commission has in the end played a positive role.
I think that the White Paper is in general a good thing but I also think that what we have now put on the table adds something extra.
The rapporteur's idea in the first place to take the people who are not mobile workers and then to include them as far as possible in the existing directive is a good idea, because it contributes something new, which is a strengthening of the social dialogue.
It has already become apparent in a number of sectors that it is now possible to reach an agreement that did not previously exist.
In this context, I find it regrettable that it has not yet succeeded in the fisheries sector.
We can of course go on and on about how difficult it all is, but if we cannot reach agreement then we do not strengthen our own case very much.
I think that it is very important that the fishing sector should follow what has taken place in other sectors.
Those are my main points.
I think that we have put forward a good report and that we must continue in the same fashion.
I hope that the Commission adopts it in its entirety.
Mr President, I also want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Chanterie, for his report.
Here is an extraordinarily careful report which examines thoroughly what the maximum legal basis would be for a nagging problem which we, as Members of the European Parliament, have all faced in letters and requests for meetings, namely the problem of working times and rest periods.
It has already been said here by a number of Members that in virtually all cases there is also danger for other people involved as well as for those who do not have sufficient rest, for example in the case of those who are responsible for piloting a plane, driving a car or working in health care.
This can have far-reaching consequences for the safety not only of these people themselves but also of other people.
It is a shame that the Commission still reacted rather slowly to pressure from this House in producing this White Paper, which is now here, and I agree with all speakers who say that the report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, namely as a result of the work of Mr Chanterie, has been well done.
I think that we must now decide together to convert a number of the proposals into binding legislation.
In this context, I think that the social partners have their own role to play and I would wish to call on them to press ahead with consultations on these policy areas and to complete them as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I support Mr Chanterie's proposal to ask the Commission to submit a proposal to amend the working time directive.
As others have said, it is quite unacceptable that around 6 million workers are excluded from what we call basic rules on the length of working time.
In addition, it relates to workers who work in sectors where it is really essential that they are get their rest and have had holidays in order to be able to do their jobs in a safe way. It relates, for example, to people working in the transport sector, railways and aviation, and also doctors in training.
The people who work in these sectors have precisely the same need of rest, sleep and holidays as we 'ordinary people' .
In fact, I think it is a matter of human rights to provide these basic rules on working time and holidays.
I think paragraph 11 of Mr Chanterie's report is very important.
It states that future legislation must not undermine the regional or local collective employment contracts which apply in the Member States and which offer higher levels of social protection than those now envisaged by the Commission.
I would really like to congratulate Mr Chanterie on his report.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Chanterie for his excellent and balanced report.
Other colleagues have already said it - some 6 million workers are currently excluded from the working time directive, of which three and a half million are in the transport sector - how sensible!
One has only to think, for example, of the strikes which paralysed France and parts of Europe last year.
Once again, the champions of liberalism have well and truly put the cart before the horse.
The total liberalisation of road transport on 1 July 1998, comes into force without any fiscal or social harmonisation having been implemented.
No protection has been anticipated at Union level to avoid a race towards the state which is the lowest social tenderer, in a damaged sector where small firms find it difficult to survive, and for which liberalisation often means death.
I therefore accuse some governments of having deliberately sought this legal vacuum in order finally to do away with certain social rights achieved after a huge battle in this sector.
I demand therefore that European drivers should benefit, here and now, from paid waiting time and equal annual holidays for all.
I hope that, even if some flexibility is possible, the number of annual hours should be limited, with an average week of 35 hours.
If this is not the case, it is essential that all drivers who travel between two points in any one country of the Union respect all aspects of social legislation in that country.
I think that as regards harmonisation, we must begin at the beginning and first decide the days and dates that long-distance lorries can drive on the roads and motorways of the Union, so that we can emerge from the fog which currently surrounds us.
This is the first essential element in the construction of a Europe for road transport.
Mr President, allow me to congratulate you on your election to this very important post.
The Commission very much welcomes Mr Chanterie's report.
We also appreciate the hard work which has been done in three committees, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Committee on Transport and Tourism and the Committee on Fisheries.
It has been a long story but we are making real progress.
I would just like to remind you of some of the background.
In 1993 when the working time directive was adopted, the Council decided to exclude certain sectors and activities from the scope of the directive. These were air, rail, road, sea, inland waterway and lake transport sectors, sea fishing, other work at sea and the activities of doctors in training.
At that time Mr Chanterie was the rapporteur.
The Commission undertook 'to take appropriate initiatives as soon as possible in respect of the different sectors excluded from the scope of the directive.
The preparatory work for the implementation of these initiatives is being undertaken in the context of the joint sectoral committees for the sectors concerned where they exist' .
Accordingly, we asked each of the joint committees in the five transport sectors and the sea fishing sector to give their recommendations on how to adapt the principles of the working time directive with regard to their area of work.
We also arranged for factual studies to be undertaken of the working time arrangements in respect of the so-called 'other work at sea' and doctors in training.
While some progress had been made in most sectors, it was not sufficient and so last year the Commission decided to publish the White Paper setting out how we intended to take matters forward.
In the White Paper we considered the possible options and came down in favour of what we called the differentiated approach.
We have subsequently confirmed this approach in the second-phase consultation documentation adopted by the Commission on 31 March.
Under the differentiated approach we seek to make the distinction between those activities which can be accommodated under the working time directive and those which require specific measures.
We therefore propose a three-pronged approach.
Firstly, as your resolution states in paragraph 1, non-mobile workers must enjoy full protection in relation to working hours and must therefore be brought fully within the scope of Directive 93/104.
We propose to do that.
Secondly, as you say in paragraph 2 of your resolution, mobile workers must also enjoy full protection in relation to working hours and must therefore be brought as fully as possible within the scope of Directive 93/104.
In your resolution you agree with the Commission that there is in particular a need to provide for all mobile workers and those engaged in other work at sea a guarantee of adequate rest and for a maximum number of hours to be worked annually, and to extend to them the directive's provisions on four weeks paid annual leave and health assessments for night workers.
Thirdly, the Commission stated that it proposed to introduce or modify specific legislation for each sector or activity concerning the working time and rest periods of mobile workers.
Again this is what we intend to do and again we are pleased to have your support on this matter.
I am pleased to report that as a result of these initiatives there have been serious discussions in nearly all the main sectors, especially since the second round consultation document was issued.
Consequently, we are very hopeful that agreement will be reached in a number of sectors.
I know that some of you are concerned about the way in which we propose to proceed.
The table after paragraph 1.4 of the explanatory statement to your resolution illustrates very clearly our intentions.
Non-mobile workers will be covered by an amendment to the working time directive. This will include doctors in training.
Other amendments will provide basic protection for mobile workers and those engaged in other work at sea in respect of annual leave, annual working time, adequate rest and health assessments for night workers.
All this will be done by means of an amendment to the working time directive under Article 118(a) of the EC Treaty.
Independent fishermen are not covered by this directive.
The Commission nevertheless believes that minimum standards of protection of health and safety with regard to working time should apply to all workers, including share fishermen, that is to say members of the crew of a fishing vessel who are remunerated by a share in the earnings of the vessel.
Such protection should, of course, take account of the special nature of the sea fishing industry.
It will be much easier to draw up such proposals if both sides of industry are fully involved in their preparation.
Fourthly, the central provisions where an agreement between the social partners is reached before 30 September 1998 and if the parties so request the Commission will make a proposal for a Council decision in accordance with Article 4(2) of the agreement on social policy.
In addition, the Commission will make complementary proposals, for example to make comparable provisions for self-employed drivers.
If the social partners are unable to reach agreement before 30 December 1998 the Commission will prepare a proposal for a directive on the working time of mobile workers in the different sectors.
This would take full account of the result of the negotiations reached so far.
Finally, my colleagues Padraig Flynn and Neil Kinnock expect to be tabling appropriate proposals later this year.
I would like to thank you on their behalf for your support today.
We very much look forward to your continuing support in the future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 11 a.m.
Fair trade
The next item is the report (A4-0198/98) by Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on fair trade with developing countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, fair trade is without doubt one of the most important ways found these past few years to help development.
Begun somewhat inconspicuously and as purely voluntary initiatives, fair trade has today become a highly respected and ethical way to do business.
For this reason the European Parliament has dealt with the matter on several occasions, first with Mrs van Putten's report and then with the report by the late Alex Langer.
The purpose of the present motion for a resolution and the related report is basically twofold: first, to provide criteria with which to define in clear and precise terms what is actually meant by fairness and solidarity in trade; second, to establish the need for a common label for fair trade and to establish the principle that certification organizations operate independently from organizations which engage in importing or selling products.
In the first case in particular, paragraph 10 of the report very clearly lays down ten criteria, a set of rules so to speak, for fair trade.
These criteria are: direct buying, fair price, advance payment, no import or sales monopolies, price transparency, stable and long-term relations with producers, conditions of production respecting ILO Conventions, non-discrimination between men and women, no child labour, respect for the environment, respect for development and encouragement for the autonomy of local population groups.
Thus we have here a series of criteria that are, in the view of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and in the view of the rapporteur, sufficiently precise but in no way rigid, that reflect the existing reality of what is already today fair trade and that offer consumers ample protection.
For this reason, allow me to say that I do not support the amendment presented by Mrs Maij-Weggen whose commitment and expertise in the sector I nonetheless recognize, for in my view it does not seem to have very acceptable consequences.
I will mention at least two of the consequences here: first, the criteria as proposed in the amendment are vaguer and weaker than the criteria listed in the motion for a resolution that came out of the Committee on Development and Cooperation; second, the amendment states that the criteria only have to be observed when the Commission helps fair trade organizations and producers.
Instead, it is my view that these criteria should be observed - as stipulated in the original text of the resolution - whatever the case and not just when the Commission provides aid, and this as basic protection not only of the producer but also the consumer; otherwise, any product could arbitrarily be defined as fair by whoever produces, imports or resells it, regardless of whether the Commission provides aid or not.
Finally, there is no reason to fear that the European Union's support for fairness and solidarity in international trade will, as some have inferred, contravene the rules of the World Trade Organization.
I recall that the Director General of the World Trade Organization informed the Committee on Development and Cooperation that there are instruments which are compatible with the WTO and which governments can use to support fair trade and avoid discriminations between developing countries. The World Trade Organization is also planning additional special measures to be adopted to support developing countries, measures that will be clearly defined in the next round of negotiations.
It will be precisely by including fairness and solidarity in the great movement of international trade that we will lend greater relevance and credibility to the motto that has always been adhered to in carrying out this commendable activity: Trade, not Aid .
Mr President, the growing importance of the fair trade sector emphasizes the need for the European Union now to properly assess its institutional and financial arrangements vis-à-vis this sector.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation report makes a number of important suggestions in this regard.
Equally, however, any assessment of the success of fair trade should take place with a view to including the elements and principles of fair trade into the European Union's own development and trade policies in the future.
In its opinion the REX committee has chosen to focus on these principles.
Effectively, local producers are given a step up by being included in the fair trade network.
That provides them with a chance to become competitive and builds up their capacity to trade in general.
As this is one of the European Union's primary objectives in its trade and development policy, the fair trade experience is of particular relevance.
The following elements are at the basis of the fair trade approach and should equally be the basis of the European Union's own approach to trade with developing countries.
The elements are: direct access to European Union markets; a fair price; income stability - the fact that fair trade organizations pay part of the price in advance is crucial for small-scale producers who can then buy inputs and perhaps get through the season without resort to moneylenders; finally, feedback and capacity building, where producers gain confidence to approach a trading system they once saw as too complicated.
This approach underlying fair trade effectively removes the obstacles to trade that exist for producers in developing countries.
Where the fair trade approach has not succeeded and European Union policies and instruments are floundering is in linking the various mechanisms into an integrated and coherent effort in support of local producers as they face the many obstacles in trying to sell their products in the European market.
Finally, in short, fair trade makes for good business and is a concept, the objectives and approach of which we should seek to include in our broader European Union policies as well as to promote it in a global world trade arena.
Mr President, the movement of fair trade and solidarity with developing countries is now a concrete and important reality that is becoming particularly relevant in all European countries.
A lot has been accomplished since the European Parliament's approval of the report by the late Alexander Langer a little over four years ago.
I would like to recall that the general objective of fair trade actions is to correct and begin changing this reality, which is extremely characteristic of international trade and which is profoundly unjust for developing countries.
Fair trade is therefore an essential instrument with which to correct and transform the most perverse dynamics of the world market. It is a way of using the mechanisms of the market itself to promote better awareness of the inequities in the relationship between North and South but also to begin experimenting with innovative practices.
Fair trade clearly takes into account the objectives of sustainable and participatory development, giving guarantees to producers in poor countries, respecting the environment and promoting more advanced economic and social rights.
The fair trade movement in Europe has grown at an exponential rate these past few years; more and more shops and points of sale are carrying fair trade products which in some cases can now even be found in supermarkets, involving millions of consumers.
Meanwhile, networks have been organized to market and promote fair trade products, and the action to directly support producers has expanded.
In the report that we are voting on today and on which I would like to congratulate Mr Fassa, we are asking that fair trade principles and practices, far from just being a success story, become an integral part of the European Union's more general policies of development cooperation.
We firmly endorse the criteria listed in paragraph 10 of the report - which is why we think that this part of the report should not be amended by the House's vote - and we are especially asking that the European Commission and the Community institutions in general take a comprehensive approach to questions of fairness and solidarity in trade.
It is for this reason that we are asking the Commission for a specific communication focusing on four essential points: first, the incorporation of the principles of fair trade practices in more general policies of cooperation in international trade; second, the determination of specific instruments that are stronger than the instruments used today to support certain projects involving fair trade; third, the establishment of criteria to define fair trade or the production of specific fair trade products; fourth, the development of political dialogue with operators practising fairness and solidarity in trade.
This calls for comment.
In the report that we are about to approve there are proposals to increase Community support for fair trade projects, not only to educate people about development, which is certainly an important aspect, but also to provide direct support to producer organizations.
Mr President, although my country, Spain, was 20 years late in practising fair trade, in the last five years its use has grown by 100 %.
In addition, given that, according to the rapporteur, there are 800 000 producers in the Third World who practice this kind of trade, it is essential to emphasize the importance of such fair trade.
We are in complete agreement with the rapporteur in that the criteria with which this trade must comply need to include direct buying, fair prices, transparency, respect for labour regulations, exclusion of child labour and respect for environmental regulations.
But we believe that, for the European Union, this can mean a different form of development.
The European Union should support, both economically and politically, initiatives which begin modestly but which might be an alternative to an unjust, unfair and mercantile society.
Mr President, the fact that the European Parliament is now debating fair trade is largely due to grassroots activities that have been underway over the past 10-15 years.
This is because idealistic organizations have shown that by means of a conscious policy, the market can be used to promote socially and environmentally responsible production, as well as, quite significantly, income for small producers in developing countries, and this is very useful experience.
We must, of course, support sustainable production in developing counties, both for our own sake and for the sake of the developing countries.
But we must not insist, for example, that this requires harmonization of EU labelling.
It is correct that a universal label makes it easier for consumers to find their way through the market, but the situation today is that we have labels such as Max Havelaar, which enjoys huge recognition and confidence among consumers.
Replacing this with an EU label would be a setback to development to the tune of several years.
We must look at the experience gleaned by the labelling organizations.
Despite several years of endeavouring to come up with a joint label, they have not yet succeeded in doing so.
This is not due to a lack of will, but simply to the fact that the existing labels are household names.
I do not believe the advantages of having a common label would go any distance towards offsetting these risks.
The Fassa report recommends that the EU should strive for social and environmental standards, and that these should be worked into the WTO system.
I can but agree with that.
But it is not enough.
We must require that it will be possible to set special quotas for products that do fulfil the criteria.
Currently, that is not possible today.
Unless definite pressure is applied, neither will it be possible in the future.
The EU must support production in developing countries that is sensitive to the environment and to human welfare, but we must not use this noble intention to centralize the work being done by organizations all over Europe.
The people currently working with fair trade understand the problems.
We need to support them and the producers, but that is a far cry from requiring an EU label, which would take a long time to work its way into the minds of consumers.
We support applying strong pressure to the WTO and making funds available for education and for changing production in developing countries.
Finally, I would just like to say that I support Mrs Maij-Weggen's amendment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the issue of fair trade arose during a long discussion when we were debating neo-liberal free trade ideology, and a number of specific criteria were developed for social and ecological sustainability.
We had a long fight before this demand was even recognized.
Obviously, in the history of these demands, the time comes when their implementation can no longer be prevented, but then someone goes and waters them down.
And that is precisely what the European People's Party is doing with its amendment; the criteria for fair trade are being watered down to such an extent that the demand is hardly recognizable any more.
It is precisely this that we need to stop, for if even here in the European Parliament which calls for fair trade and has established fair trade as a central demand in setting up new fairer and more sustainable relationships between North and South - if this Parliament also sank to watering down these demands, it would indeed be a setback - I will not say a catastrophe - but the European People's Party should be ashamed for the damage they have done!
Mr President, there are very, very few Europeans who take the trouble to look at the products which they consume, be they coffee, sugar or chocolate. However, what if two cups of good coffee constituted very different political messages; or if two slabs of chocolate, which look very similar, harboured two different stories?
And what if, at the other far end of the chain, thousands of producers sweated blood and tears to increase the wealth of others, whilst, little by little, some others began to work hard, but for themselves? Because, little by little, not in theory, but thanks to slow, patient campaigns, where charity work has an important role to play, new practices are beginning to appear.
Whereas the resolution adopted by the European Parliament in 1994 spoke of niches, of justice and of solidarity as regards these practices, today, Raimondo Fassa's report presents fair trade as another alternative which aims to establish fairer trading relations between rich countries and producers in the South.
Because the first task of fair trade is to free producers from the current conditions of slavery which is the context within which they are struggling. However, we need to adopt more of a marketing strategy, that is to say a strategy which aims to satisfy the consumer.
So I would like to support the Fassa report, and particularly certain points in it: its definition of fair trade, the creation of a European label in order to avoid complexity and confusion for the consumer, the incorporation of fair trade into the Union's overall policies, and not only as an instrument of development policy, but also in all economic and commercial policies, so that it can be properly promoted.
This implies the instigation of a code of conduct for European transnational firms which operate in the developing countries.
Moreover, the Union must strive to ensure that environmental and social clauses are included in the WTO criteria.
In conclusion, we are waiting for a communication on fair trade from the Commission at the earliest possible opportunity, which will include both the method for developing fair trade and the means which will be used to achieve this.
Mr President, I too want to express my appreciation for Mr Fassa's report.
For quite a few years now there has been fairness and solidarity in trade with good results, but this type of trade clearly assumes a whole new relevance at the end of this millennium, characterized by the liberalization and internationalization of economic trade and by the obligation imposed by the WTO to dismantle our systems of preferences with the world's poor countries.
Since Parliament dealt with this matter in 1993, not enough has been done unfortunately to promote this form of cooperation, and the European Commission itself does not have a specific political line in this regard.
And yet, past experience and Community statistics prove that fair trade has developed in the right way and, with adequate awareness campaigns, is successful in large European consumer areas.
This instrument is important not only because it immediately improves the living standards of the communities concerned, today estimated at five million people in 45 developing countries, but also and especially because in the long term it turns small local producers into autonomous economic operators.
The Commission, the Council, the Member States should make a greater effort to promote the marketing of fair trade products.
In practical terms, fair trade must be recognized in its own right as an instrument of development and promoted without delay by making adequate human and financial resources available, possibly by also creating a specific line in the Union's budget.
Only in this way will the European Union be able to abide by its commitment expressed in Article 103 of the Treaty to promote the integration of developing countries in the world economy.
Mr President, this report is held up mainly by the issues of consumer protection and the prevention of abuse of trading channels.
What is completely lacking is consumer motivation.
We are also lacking the understanding that this is a form of development aid in which we must reach the consumer so that we may be able to motivate him or her to pay higher prices.
We are not marketing a product, we are marketing an idea.
My only reservation is that the bureaucratization heralded in the report will only prevent this.
We must finally realize that Europe also has a responsibility to help developing countries to sell their products in Europe.
In this form the report is a good idea.
What is missing is the consumer motivation to buy these products.
Mr President, in welcoming this report I should like to highlight the purpose of my own amendments to the report by the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
It is to urge the Commission to produce its communication on fair trade which can act as a base for new legislation; for global research which can bring direct support to developing fair trade networks in the south as well as fair trade principles in the north; to support in principle a separate budget line ending the necessity of using NGO co-financing monies which are often not appropriate for producer cooperatives within the developing world; to end European discrimination against fair trade in fiscal terms, bringing forward preferential treatment which is compatible with the WTO because of the voluntary nature of the labels; and finally, to recognize the dangers of the proliferation of labels and the need to have a serious dialogue about the link between fair trade and the new ethical trading being promoted through codes of conduct, on which I am drawing up a report for the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Fair trade is about the poorest and most marginalized people in developing countries not being lifted out of poverty through aid, important as that is, but lifting themselves out of poverty through selling to the European consumer.
Forty-five thousand outlets in Europe, three thousand different products, a turnover of at least ECU 250m per year.
Not great as a proportion of total trade but not charity either.
This is serious commerce and in the European Parliament we have to be serious in giving our support.
Mr President, the rapporteur has taken a great deal of time and care in preparing this report and we thank him for this.
The committee also contributed over 50 amendments to the document which we have before us.
Please do not be offended if I say that the final result is not quite a success.
There is still a lot of talk about protection and support measures and too little said about the structures which lead to market place competitiveness.
In committee, my group attempted to focus on a few points in pursuit of this aim, and indeed the amendment by Mrs Maij-Weggen does so.
Above all, we must take care that we do not leave too much room for bureaucracy.
Less bureaucracy would seem to be assured if we support the amendment rather than if we use the original formulation which goes into so much detail as to hardly be practicable.
I am also concerned about the proposal to use funds from co-financing to advertise fair trade.
I am unsure that the already overstretched B7-6000 line should feature here.
In addition, this is one of the budget lines whose legal bases are currently under dispute.
Nonetheless, I hope that common trade with third world countries, including the fair trade discussed here, continues to develop in a positive way, and I also hope that the Commission will continue to support us in this.
Mr President, I think I can deal with this matter very briefly.
Firstly, I should like to thank Mr Fassa for his excellent report; next I would like to emphasize the importance of this instrument to a North/South cooperation policy; and, finally, I would like to say that many of the suggestions put forward will certainly be included in the communication which the Commission intends to present in a few months' time.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at voting time.
Madam President, I request that it be noted in today's Minutes that, whereas the vote, according to the order of business, should begin at 11.00 a.m., it is in fact starting at 11.15 a.m.
You have brought us to a problematic impasse: either we will stay for the vote or, bearing in mind that it should begin at 11.00 a.m., we have arranged a flight for a particular time.
Either we will miss the flight, or we will lose the right and the obligation to stay for the vote.
I request that it be noted in the Minutes because I will invoke it if by chance they wish to deprive me of certain rights, since I am in no way responsible for this delay.
Mr Ephremidis, we will note this in the Minutes but, with your cooperation, we will try to make up the lost time.
Votes
Madam President, the original text refers to a justification for the old legal basis.
Since we have changed the legal basis, we need the new text.
If we only add something to the text, it will not make sense.
It is not a problem of content, but one of logic.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, there is one amendment to this report and it is a crucial amendment.
I understand that Mr Fassa would like the report to be accepted with as much support as possible.
That is possible if our amendment is combined with Mr Fassa's text in the following way. We would take Mr Fassa's introduction to paragraph 10, together with his paragraphs 3 and 6.
From my amendment we then take points 1, 3 and 4.
I understand that with this combination Mr Fassa can support the amendment and we can then support his report.
Madam President, if I have understood correctly, Mrs Maij-Weggen is proposing that no changes be made to the introduction to paragraph 10, which states: ' Believes that fair trade, in order not to be open to abuse, should as a minimum comply with the following criteria.' Is it or is it not true that this remains?
In other words, that this remains the way it was in the text of the report?
Is that what her amendment is? In practice, with the oral amendment she is taking out the first two lines of the amendment that she proposed, plus the combinations between the various paragraphs the way she proposed them?
Is that how it is?
Madam President, together with the combination of the third and sixth paragraphs, plus points 1, 3 and 4 of my amendment.
Then we are in total agreement.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, I am really very sorry, but it is very confusing and I have to tell you quite frankly that personally I am not at all sure what we are voting on.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
On several occasions, Parliament has called for the development of a transport policy which would respect the environment, a policy which is innovative.
Thus, the PACT programme concerning the granting of Community financial assistance for actions of an innovative nature to promote combined transport has received a great deal of detailed comment by European operators.
As it is about to expire, the Council regulation which controls this programme has been revamped.
In June 1997, the European Parliament approved the Commission proposal, insisting on clarification of the procedures for selecting projects and on an improvement in the application of the financial procedures.
Our colleague's report, sent to us for examination, is faced with an obstacle raised by the Council, on a point which I would like to come back to.
The Commission proposal envisaged a reimbursement of expenditure and costs relating to the implementation of parts of projects outside the Community, in favour of firms in third countries.
This facility was not approved by the Council, which maintained that it was nevertheless possible to finance projects extending to third countries.
I do not think that the Council has been able to justify its decision, in terms of the possible partnership between operators in third countries and from within the Community.
Our Committee on Transport and Tourism is trying to re-establish a logical approach to this matter, and I dare to hope that Amendment No 2 will receive sufficient votes.
Fontaine report (A4-0232/98)
It could be helpful to recall the need to reform the directives on the recognition of diplomas.
In fact who, in this House, has not been called upon to intervene in such an issue, to persuade national authorities to recognize qualifications acquired in another Member State?
The report by our colleague, Nicole Fontaine, provides important support for the European educational system, and more specifically for people who are training or are students.
I would therefore like to congratulate her on her work, which also represents a further step towards strengthening the idea of European citizenship.
In fact, with such strong forces trying to hold back the mobility of persons, how can we talk about free movement of goods and persons in Europe?
Many people use terms like adaptability, reactivity, flexibility, cardinal values for the European salaried worker in the year 2000.
But, very quickly, they come up against the hard realities of bureaucracies, or more exactly laws made by national governments?
This observation is also true for other fields, and it interferes with the construction of Europe.
So we must legislate on whatever most closely affects the daily concerns of the individual.
In so doing, we will breathe life back into the idea of Europe, and perhaps put it back on the rails.
Yes, a text which affects the rights and powers of the citizen helps the European Union to come across more clearly.
Aelvoet recommendation (A4-0165/98)
After Tunisia, Israel, Morocco and the PLO, we must today make a decision and give our assent to the Euro-Mediterranean agreement with Jordan.
Following directly upon the conclusions of the Barcelona Conference of November 1995, the European Union is forging its relationships with its partner countries in the Maghreb and Mashrek by setting up a new contractual framework.
The Association Agreement with Jordan is entirely consistent with this framework, as its first article announces the creation of a free trade area.
We have to support this objective, as we did for the other countries, because the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is counting on our aid.
The various aspects of cooperation will be reinforced regarding economic and social relations, improvement of living and working conditions and the development of regional cooperation.
It is true that Jordan is currently experiencing a relatively high rate of growth, but this does not seem to be shared by the whole of the population.
The effort must be sustained and it is at this level that aid from the European Union will have its full effect.
Finally, let us not forget the problem of the political stability of the region.
The fragility of the peace process, the consequences of which are sometimes felt in the implementation of our MEDA partnership, will achieve a measure of stability with the instigation of a political dialogue with Jordan.
In accordance with the recommendation of our Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I would like to speak in favour of the agreement by expressing our wishes for its future success.
The conclusion of a Euro-Mediterranean Agreement between the European Union and Jordan is a good thing and something which I would like specifically to support.
A dynamic Euro-Mediterranean partnership, together with the enlargement of the European Union towards the East, is one of the cornerstones of the stability and development of the whole of the European continent.
I think there are four particularly important aspects to this agreement:
1) the gradual creation of a free trade area which will benefit both parties;
2) the clause for the respect of human rights and democratic principles provided for in Article 2;
3) the initiation of regular political dialogue (Articles 3-5) and in particular the establishment of cooperation, to be defined, between our Parliament and the Jordanian Parliament;
4) cooperation between the European Union and Jordan as regards the fight against money laundering and drug trafficking.
Schmid report (A4-0234/98)
The report by our colleague Gerhard Schmid is of great importance both for the communications industry and for Internet users.
I would like, therefore, to support the Community action plan which is put before us today.
However, we must be aware of some truths about this network and its continuing growth.
First of all, I would like to denounce certain voices which seem to assume that 'Web' necessarily means 'bad'.
It should be remembered that this gigantic worldwide web is above all a tool and that it can in no way be held responsible for the perversions which some seem to find on their computer.
As with the telephone and the print media, the Internet is being portrayed as the 'mother and father' of all vices and the creator of sins, though several news items reveal that there are people who were not waiting for this network to be created in order to carry out unpleasant acts.
Unfortunately, they simply adapted to this new form of communication.
This preliminary proposal must not be interpreted as a renunciation of any wish to pursue these exploiters of human misery; quite the contrary.
We need to lay the foundations for a complex reality which sometimes escapes us, and these need to be understood before satisfactory solutions can be found.
In fact, we have to take into consideration a basic fact about information technology.
It evolves and is increasing its power daily; now, from a portable computer, we can access everything and everyone, and all this without any particular risk, even where this is illegal.
Thus, whilst I support the rapporteur's proposals as regards illegal content and the way such content is dealt with using technological solutions, it is also necessary to reinforce legal and policing policies at Community level.
Such increased cooperation can alone lead to tangible results.
In order to ensure a safe environment, it is essential that awareness should be developed at international level, and first of all at European level.
It is urgent !
Very urgent !
Pollack report (A4-0177/98)
We note that this report is one of a long line of reports which demand that a new EU unit be set up, in this case a 'cross-departmental urban affairs unit' .
We think this growing mass of EU authorities merely creates bureaucracy.
We can manage without this cross-departmental unit.
The European Union is apparently not able to take responsibility for the daily management of the environment in European cities.
This has to be done at local level.
Nevertheless, it is desirable that the Union should continue to specify some guidelines to be followed and aims to be achieved as regards sustainable development in the management of the urban environment, which can apply throughout Europe.
In fact, many environmental problems which can be attributed to the urbanisation of our countries have consequences throughout the Union.
Therefore, the citizens of Europe need an integrated approach to problems, the day-to-day management of which must be ensured by the local authorities, but which also need to be dealt with in a wider context which sets out the methods and objectives.
From this point of view, while we welcome the sectoral measures already taken by the Union, particularly as regards reduction of atmospheric pollution, it is regrettable that the Commission has delayed publishing the White Paper on the Urban Environment which we have been waiting for since the appearance, seven years ago now, of a Green Paper on the same subject.
It would certainly not be true to say that the European Union has been idle.
However, in the absence of a European legal framework, the projects financed by the European Commission which affect the urban environment have not received either sufficient resources or the coordination which the citizen has the right to expect.
Therefore, the Commission should, in the context of the reform of the Structural Funds which is to take place in 1999, continue its support for these projects, and it should get down to finalising at the earliest possible opportunity a legal basis and an overall action plan for a sustainable urban environment in the European Union.
I am supporting this report today as a representative of exactly the kind of urban area which it is aiming to help.
It is high time that the debate on green issues went beyond the image of green fields and came home to the cities and towns where most of our citizens live.
Greater Manchester is one of the oldest industrial built-up areas in Europe, having been a centre of the Industrial Revolution.
We thought that with the clean air laws of the postwar years pollution had been confined to pictures of smog-wreathed factories in the history books.
However, as this report makes clear, people living in urban areas today face traffic congestion and pollution just as worrying as the old chimney smoke, but often invisible to the human eye.
We should take seriously the Court of Auditors' findings that current EU policy to tackle urban problems lacks a coordinated framework.
It is time that our citizens reaped the benefit of a dedicated EU programme to improve our urban environment.
I will be looking to the Commission to respond to our call for such work as soon as possible.
Napoletano report (A4-0172/98)
We think our party colleague Mrs Napoletano has written a good report.
We would particularly like to agree with Mrs Napoletano's criticism of the Commission's plans to abolish the URBAN initiative.
It has provided excellent results with regard to specific urban problems not covered by other EU programmes.
In view of the fact that around 80 % of the EU's citizens live in cities, we think it would be rash to abolish the URBAN initiative.
I have been very concerned about the problem of urban policies for several years, so I congratulate our colleague Mrs Napoletano who has completed this important task with such dedication.
I would also like to express my support for the quality of his report.
Like the rapporteur, I think it is urgent that we define the bases of a voluntary urban policy on a European scale.
At the present time, the city is at the heart of political discussion in the aftermath of tragic events in what are conventionally called the 'districts at risk'.
In all cases, we have to be firemen and attend to the most urgent things first, waiting for the next conflagration.
As the report underlines, no-one is proposing to set the world of the town against the world of the countryside, but we must support a development process which limits the rural desertification process which affects most of the Member States.
Thus I would like to support Mrs Napoletano's request regarding the pursuit of the URBAN programme, a Community tool which is all the more necessary as regards the experience of our citizens living in the large conglomerations, who are too often anonymous and rejected to the outskirts of the town centres.
In this sense, the work of the Eurocities network can mean a very interesting global approach to urban policies as regards large European conglomerations.
By defining an urban policy we are defining a framework and concrete and realistic objectives.
The next century will probably see an evolution in the urban environment, both in terms of its form and its size.
It is therefore important to take account of this fact in our discussion and in our political action.
I can only enthuse over my colleague Mrs Napoletano's report since this report deals with the urban problem as a whole, including the environmental, social, cultural and regional aspects and the citizens.
It is precisely from this angle that the European Union should conceive of its urban action, with the aim of improving the quality of life; urban policy should not be assimilated to that of deprived areas.
We need better coordination between the European institutions, more particularly between the Commission and the Member States.
This can, of course, be done by means of the principle of subsidiarity, but it really has to happen.
Just as the Commission must integrate the urban dimension with other Community policies and actions, similarly the Member States must develop their urban policy (town contracts, state-region contracts for France) in parallel with policies for the application and use of monies from Structural Funds in their countries.
We need a global vision of spatial development, which confirms a European urban strategy which our Parliament prays for.
It is a vision which complements that which the respective Member States should have, and the Member States themselves should put pressure on their local and regional authorities to implement it.
Local self-government, which is now defined in the Charter of Local Self-Government adopted by the Council of Europe, occupies a primordial place at the heart of the Europe which we are trying to build.
In addition to being the closest level of political representation for citizens, whose aspirations and concerns they feel all the more closely, large and small local authorities have a major role to play in a series of key fields.
The resolution which we are voting on today provides a list which, while not exhaustive, nevertheless gives a good oversight, particularly as regards environmental, social and cultural aspects.
The impact of Community policies and actions on urban towns and municipalities is clear.
Their character is also sometimes contradictory.
It is, therefore, essential to take proper account of the urban dimension of this impact when defining the policies and actions implemented by the Commission.
In this context, there is an urgent need to define a European urban strategy, which must be designed to be an integral part of a wider policy of spatial planning, the aim of which is to coordinate the effects of various Community policies throughout the Community and in different towns.
I would like to stress, in particular, the need to reinforce the integrationist role of the urban environment.
And in this regard I strongly support the rapporteur's proposals on improving security and reducing crime in towns.
Mr President, the reports and the debate that has been going on for so long have provided a sampling of the many serious problems that Community urban space is suffering from.
It is clear that there are more problems, and the outlook is that they will get worse and they will multiply.
What is noteworthy and surprising in this? That nowhere does anyone name the main causes or those guilty of causing this situation, namely the jungle of the laws of multinational interests and unbridled competition, which has run amok in the pursuit of profit in the context of the arrant free market.
Unemployment, social exclusion, the poverty of sections of those residing in cities, racism, xenophobia, crime, unbalanced development - not only between different towns and cities in different countries, but even more so within the same country and within the same towns and cities and between neighbourhoods and sections of neighbourhoods -, the excessive pollution, the tragic degradation of the environment and the overall degeneration of the quality of life are neither coincidental nor unavoidable problems and, of course, they cannot be addressed with cover-ups, embellishing homilies and programmes.
Nowhere is it mentioned that the unemployment that is spiralling and ravaging urban centres is the result of the free market policy and the supremacy of big business, which, escorted by the European Union itself and with the support of national governments, is unrestrainedly torpedoing balanced development and labour and social rights.
Nor is there any mention by name of those interests that are squeezing dry the rural, regional economy and mining the balanced relationship between the countryside and the town, creating ever greater waves of unemployed who throng to urban centres to add their numbers to the already tremendous number of existing unemployed.
In the same report it is mentioned that "in 49 districts with an EU Urban programme, 15 of those urban areas have an unemployment rate of over 30 %' and not one of those who stand for "social justice and cohesion' asks the vital question "why?'
It is the law of unbridled profit, the law of the jungle of multinationals, which is overturning any balance in the social fabric and giving rise to conditions in which the phenomena of crime, racism, xenophobia and killing are on the increase. These phenomena cannot be combatted with measures to police social life and measures of containment, which are proposed in the report.
These are the very same laws that are responsible for the rapid degradation of the environment, which has been placed under the "high-level protection' of industrialists, of motor vehicle manufacturers, of lobbies and of politicians who facilitate their unrestrained activities, who overturn and impede every attempt to propose and implement policies that are environmentally friendly.
The outcomes and the declarations of the Rio and Kyoto Summits are mentioned, but no mention is made of those who rated them as feeble and dead in the water.
The monopolistic networks did not even allow these few measures to be implemented.
This new attempt at a so-called solution to the urban problem that has been announced, with whatever "European dialogues' there may be and with the squandering of several more million ECU, apart from being a source of enrichment for the "large rodents' of Community funds, will not solve these problems.
It will make them more acute, it will inflate them, it will become a pretext for taking away resources from other actions of a social nature, a means to mislead and assuage public opinion.
We run the risk of being regarded as hypocrites and accomplices in the cover-up of illegal interests, or, it is not the one or the other, we run the risk of being regarded as political and parliamentary masochists, continually bemoaning the problems, not naming the causes, and consequently not confronting the problems in order to find a solution.
Let this Parliament at last rise above these syndromes and let it show that it truly represents the tormented people in the urban centres of the European Union.
Many of the proposals in this report are well intentioned.
At the same time as emphasizing the similarities of cities and the problems so many cities face, we also have to be aware of the fact that there are large differences between cities in the EU. I therefore think it is important to point out that the principle of subsidiarity must apply.
Exchanging information is very good, because it is certain that many cities could learn from the actions of other cities on certain issues, but I am very sceptical of the idea that we should develop EU programmes and EU directives in this area.
The physical planning must be decided at a lower level than the EU. The people who live in the area should decide on spatial planning, not some Brussels-based institution.
The Napoletano report on the urban question meets the aim of defining a "European urban strategy' .
Once again, the Commission is endeavouring to extend the field of responsibility of the European Union.
The challenge is not only a political one, but also a financial one: recognition of an integrated Community urban policy will mean significant budgetary expenditure.
Given the budgetary constraints of the European Union, this expenditure is only possible on condition that funds are redistributed within the Community budget; the main victims of this redistribution will, of necessity, be the rural regions and the regions dependent on fishing.
Thus, Mrs Napoletano is the spokeswoman for the URBAN initiative which will be merged into the new Objective 2, under the Agenda 2000 plans, and hopes that it will be maintained with "adequate funding to consolidate its activities ... ".
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has always thought that the Community should concentrate its financial efforts on existing common policies, namely the CAP and the CFP, and avoid the scattering of futile and client-oriented public funds.
This wish to "define a European urban strategy' is echoed by the wish to create a "broader spatial planning policy' of which it is "an indispensable part' .
The whiff of federalism also impregnates some suggestions in favour of so-called European citizenship, one element of which is "the recognition of the right for foreign residents to vote and stand in municipal elections' , and supports at the first opportunity "the unrestricted application of the provisions of the Treaty on the right to vote for Community residents' .
Add to all this the numerous pledges made in this report in favour of a fashionable world ideology, using disquieting platitudes about the cohesiveness of our nations to justify multiculturalism.
It is therefore logical that the report should refer to the 'integration of immigrants' instead of encouraging their assimilation into the civilisation of the host country, in order on the one hand to preserve national cohesiveness, and on the other to help foreigners to become full members of the national community, proud and happy to belong to it.
Therefore, it was impossible for our group to approve a report so opposed to our own beliefs.
Mrs Napoletano's report asks for a "European urban strategy' which forms part of an integrated and therefore federalist policy of spatial planning, a Jacobean step which we can only reject.
Urban policy is already the responsibility of towns, of urban districts of course, but also of municipalities, regions and states.
The list of those who have a part to play in this matter is sufficiently long without needing to add the European Union to the list.
The more actors there are on the scene, the more complex the files become, and the longer it takes to bring them to fruition.
Obviously, as Mrs Pollack's report suggested, we must pay full attention to the urban environment (waste management, air pollution, water treatment, employment, precariousness, preservation of our urban architectural heritage, migration ...).
However, in order to deal with these difficulties, we need to act upstream, by preventing ills and not downstream, by managing the crisis.
Therefore this report appears too often as a catalogue of symptoms the source of which is elsewhere.
Worse still, this catalogue has unfortunately too often the bad taste of sacrificing fashionable globalist ideology, for example by delivering meaningless platitudes on the immigration question.
We must aim for a better balance in spatial planning. To achieve this, we have to overcome the urban over-concentration which so harms our societies.
We must concentrate our efforts in favour of the rural and maritime worlds, in order to deal with excessive urban concentration which is the source of so many problems.
We must encourage both an agricultural system which is capable of preserving quality and the environment but also a diversification of economic activities in rural regions and thus combat the excesses of production-oriented agriculture.
The Union must concentrate its financial efforts in areas where an integrated policy applies, for example the CAP and the CFP, and avoid scattering public funds around in a futile and client-oriented manner.
The Union must act in such a way that its policies, and in particular the CAP, do not seriously disturb the balance of spatial management.
These two reports deal with different problems which will arise in Europe in the future as a result of demographic developments.
Nowadays 80 % of EU citizens live in cities and the majority of business is conducted there too.
This concentration gives rise to a series of difficulties which the European Union can doubtless be helpful in removing, for example by drawing up a European strategy for cities.
The environment within cities is one of the most acute problems. Air pollution and the gradual disappearance of green spaces and parks to make way for built-up areas have clear consequences in terms of health which can no longer be hidden.
Without intervention throughout Europe, a reversal of this tendency is not foreseeable.
It is rare for environmental problems to be local in nature; the majority of large cities have the same problems.
This is why it makes sense to set up a cross-departmental body in the Commission for matters specifically relating to cities, if it leads Member States to realize more quickly that the environment has a critical role to play in the future development of cities.
At the same time we also need economic and social initiatives.
Unemployment affects built-up areas particularly badly.
Xenophobia and racism are the unwelcome concomitants of different cultures living together.
So it has been suggested that not only large enterprises and technology parks should be promoted, but rather small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), business centres and leisure and culture centres.
Security in conurbations of several million people is also a problem, and fighting and preventing crime is a priority.
We have to conclude from these two reports that a Europe-wide strategy for cities and regions would provide a useful framework from which to approach common problems, even if the solutions need to be adapted to suit individual situations.
In this context, the initiatives of the 'Office International du Coin de Terre Jardins Familiaux' are of great importance.
This organization of European allotment holders represents some three million families (!) across Europe and is making an important contribution by setting up allotments within cities.
First and foremost, allotments contribute to improving the environment in cities.
They also provide a positive leisure pursuit for city-dwellers.
And what is more, these initiatives by the 'Office International' particularly benefit the unemployed and those living on the edge of society, as they find useful occupation working on the allotments as well as a cheap source of fresh fruit and vegetables.
Allotments therefore have an important part to play in improving the environmental and social situations in cities.
So it is particularly regrettable that non-governmental organizations were not named specifically to become involved in helping define a Europe-wide city development strategy.
These organizations have been making valuable contributions to their cities for a long time now, both in terms of environmental protection and protection of green spaces, as well as in social terms.
For this reason I tabled an amendment in the Committee on Regional Policy (recital R), which at least mentions the NGOs in this context.
I can only hope that these valuable helpers will be regarded and treated by the Commission as essential partners on this issue.
With this objection, I am in favour of both reports.
Belenguer report (A4-0206/98)
We note that this report is one in a long line of reports which demand the setting up of a new EU unit, in this case a 'permanent structure that will provide analytical support...' (recital K).
We think this growing mass of EU authorities merely creates bureaucracy.
We can manage without this permanent structure.
We all want to see the European Union develop harmoniously.
This is the rationale, notably, of our present action in the field of a single currency.
This wish will only be fully and satisfactorily met if it is accompanied, upstream, by an efficient regional policy and a coherent spatial management policy.
The driving force behind the document 'Europe 2000' , approved by the Committee of the Regions, is wholly appropriate.
Given the diversity of our European regions, we absolutely must encourage economic cohesion by providing wholly appropriate trans-European transport and communication networks, in spite of the many problems which persist.
As a representative of the Aquitaine, I would like to talk about the very real difficulties encountered in the implementation of "Europe 2000' .
In common with all other regions in the Atlantic Arc, the Aquitaine is a peripheral region which needs to be accessible, particularly as the Union is about to expand into the East of Europe and some centres of interest of the European Union are being moved to the north and east of the continent.
So we must first of all take into consideration the local aspects of the development work which we are proposing, without allowing ourselves to be overtaken by an over-generalised view of the plans.
This does not mean that this common balance must not remain our guiding light, but we shall have to make quite an effort in order to recognize the implications at local level.
The first official project of the plan for Community spatial planning has allowed the local authorities to participate actively and to involve the economic actors in these regions in the debate.
Let us work out a synthesis which takes account of the various local positions in order to establish a true consensus, without going beyond the confines of the current distribution of powers, since the European Union has not granted us strict rights in this area.
For these reasons, I approve the amended and consensual report prepared by my colleague Mr Novo Belenguer.
Mr Novo Belenguer's report aims to integrate spatial planning into the field of competence of the Community. He "regrets that the Treaty does not at present provide for specific Community powers as regards regional planning' , and 'strongly urges the formalization of the Council of Regional Planning Ministers' .
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations objects to this federalist urge which rejects the principle of subsidiarity, the letter of the Treaty and the sovereignty of nations.
In this respect, we think it would be preferable to ensure that Community decisions do not work against the economic and social cohesion of our countries.
We should also question the possible consequences of the implementation of the single currency as regards spatial planning and in particular the consequent increase in the disparities between regions, because it is absolutely true that the most depopulated and poorest regions are very likely, when the euro comes into force, to suffer from the displacement of activities to the more dynamic economic axes which are more populated and better served.
Moreover, desertification of some of our rural territories has been aggravated by the coming into effect of the 1992 CAP and by the abandonment of the principle of Community preference, granted during the GATT negotiations.
The new CAP reform, as proposed in Agenda 2000, together with, inter alia, a significant reduction in agricultural prices, can only give rise to additional imbalances as regards spatial planning.
The ESDP document points out that European agriculture will continue to play a primordial role in the development and vitality of many rural areas.
In this regard, we cannot fail to note a major contradiction between the detailed analysis carried out by this document and the proposals which the Commission has put forward for reform of the CAP (Agenda 2000), proposals which will have the effect of reducing the number of farm workers in the European Union.
Do we have to remind the House that rural areas represent approximately 80 % of Community land? Coherent land planning depends, therefore, upon their vitality being maintained.
Our colleague Edouard des Places was right to insist upon this point yesterday.
In general, we would prefer the European Union to consider the repercussions of existing Community policies and of decisions taken by it or of negotiations which it conducts on the balance of the European territory - both at WTO level and in international agreements - rather than continually trying to obtain new powers, so as to avoid the possible negative consequences.
It is in that spirit and in order to manifest the interest which he brings to the matter of spatial planning, that our group has tabled some ten amendments to Mr Novo Belenguer's report, which we can only reject as it stands.
Dührkop Dührkop report (A4-0256/98)
We would like to protest over the farce played out here yesterday in the Hemicycle, when the Commission came to seek the support of the European Parliament to back its misappropriation of funds.
In fact, it was caught in "flagrante delito' : the Court of Justice of the European Communities - which is generally not severe with the Commission - had no choice but to condemn it, on 12 May last, for having committed budgetary expenditure without any legal basis.
This affair is a fine example.
The general budget of the European Union for 1995 allocated ECU 20 millions for the prevention of poverty and social exclusion.
But half way through the year, the Council refused to approve the "Poverty 4' programme proposed by the Commission; this programme involved scattering credits in favour of small projects described as the "fight against social exclusion' .
We intervened at the time to support the position of the Council, on the grounds that such subsidies are contrary to the principle of subsidiarity and only serve to maintain the Commission's clientele.
The Commission, attacked at the very heart of its being, decided to ignore the Council's prohibition and in January 1996 announced that it granting subsidies to 86 projects relating to the "fight against poverty' objective, to a total of ECU 6 million.
This was a flagrant violation of the Treaty. The validity of Community expenditure rests on two successive acts: entry in the budget and the definition of a legal basis, the first granted by Parliament and the Council acting together, the second granted here by the Council alone.
The second stage was quite plainly missing here. The Court of Justice was forced to recognize this.
Several lessons must be drawn from this.
First of all, we note that only the United Kingdom, subsequently supported by Germany and Denmark, had the courage to bring the matter before the Court of Justice.
France stayed safely behind the scenes even though this was a flagrant violation of the Treaties, as well as of the principles of subsidiarity to which we declare ourselves elsewhere to be most firmly committed.
This attitude does not show our country up in a very good light.
Such timidity in the face of the permanent terrorism of the Commission explains in part why so many things are going badly in Europe.
Secondly, today, the Commission does not consider that it has been beaten.
It has just called on the European Parliament to help it to put pressure on the Council so that an agreement between the three institutions can soon be reached, supporting, in rather broadly defined cases, its habit of committing expenditure without any legal basis.
We find this manoeuvre totally unacceptable, and call on the Council to stand up to it. Even if it gave in, this interinstitutional agreement would be illegal, because an agreement between institutions would not suffice to get round the obligations of the Treaty which were ratified by the people and can only be modified by them.
We do not think that Europe can continue like this: on the one hand, with great proclamations of democracy, respect for the law, subsidiarity; on the other, behaviour on the part of the Commission which is contrary to such principles, and which does not seem to show any remorse even when caught with its hand in the till.
Unfortunately, instead of censuring the Commission, as it should in such a case, the European Parliament congratulates the Commission and commissions it to continue on behalf of their old federalist complicity.
Not only must the Council reject the new interinstitutional agreement proposed, it must affirm once and for all that this type of agreement must have the explicit approval of national parliaments.
Moreover, the institutional reform to come must include a reform of the Commission, and it must be clearly subordinate to the Council.
Garosci report (A4-0230/98)
The European Commission, in its report on control systems at the point of sale implemented by Member States, recognizes many anomalies.
In fact, based on the premise that such controls exist in the fifteen Member States, the Commission has found that there are differences in application.
However, how can we coordinate the control of sales at an airport and on board aeroplanes for example, without imposing additional financial costs on the operators for a fixed period. Let us not forget that the European Commission's report is linked to an estimation of the way the transitional system for duty-free sales will operate before abolition on 30 June 1999.
For our part, we are worried about this very important question of the abolition of duty-free sales, for both economic and social reasons.
The economic reason is that the financial support assured by the income from this sector represents a major investment which contributes to the economic health of air and maritime transport.
If this revenue is lost, how will airports finance their infrastructures?
Then there is the social and very current reason which concerns employment in this sector.
The trade union organizations suggest a loss of some 140 000 jobs!
Can we afford to close our eyes to this fact whilst we are trying to develop policies in favour of employment?
We would like, therefore, to take advantage of the vote on this report, to remind the European Commission of the commitment of the House, as seen in the vote for a resolution on 3 April last, demanding an urgent study paying particular attention to the consequences of the abolition of duty-free on employment in the single market.
The stated intention of the Commission to persist with its policy to abolish duty-free sales after 30 June 1999 is totally unacceptable, particularly as the Commission has failed to fulfil the undertaking that it gave this Parliament to carry out a study on the economic and social consequences of abolition.
Not only has it betrayed a promise, the Commission is also demonstrating that its commitment to make the EU more relevant and responsive to its citizens is little more than empty rhetoric.
It is estimated that the abolition of duty-free sales will result in 140, 000 job losses throughout the EU. Four thousand of these will happen in my own country.
Jobs will be lost in the duty-free, transport and tourism sectors.
Suppliers to duty-free will also suffer.
It is evident that there will be a major negative impact on some regions.
As stated in one of the amendments tabled in my name, the Commission has a responsibility to bring forward measures to assist those who will be hardest hit if the Commission does in fact implement the decision to abolish duty-free.
In my view, the report contains a bit too much detail about how the control of sales should take place for inward and outward journeys.
This applies, for example, to paragraphs 9, 10 and 11 of the resolution, which contain recommendations about where the ticket shall be stamped when a person has bought duty-free goods.
Surely the European Parliament should not concern itself with this.
Such things should be taken care of at a much lower level of decision-making.
As far as duty-free sales are concerned, I have voted against all the proposals from the UPE group which suggest that these sales should continue after 1 July 1999.
The only proposal I have chosen to support is Amendment No 9, which criticizes the Commission for not having produced an impact assessment on the effects of the ending of duty-free sales.
I still consider that reasonable, even though I think that duty-free sales should end next year.
When border controls were abolished through the single market the Member States could no longer carry out border controls as before on the border itself.
In my opinion that decision was a mistake.
We should instead have done the same as in Scandinavia and abolished passport controls but maintained other border and goods controls.
In connection with the decision to abolish duty-free sales, the Commission promised a study of the economic and social consequences of an abolition.
This has not been done, for example, with regard to the effects on employment in Scandinavia etcetera.
As long as this has not been done, there should be no abolition of duty-free sales.
While everyone in the Community would like to see the creation of laws which support the directives for a common system where it is useful, duty-free sales is not one of the issues which should be consuming the Commission's time and the Community's money.
The pursuance of the common system should be established in a way which aids each state and their citizens.
At this time it can be said that loopholes do exist in the present system concerning tax-free sales, but complete abolition of the system creates more serious problems than its continuance.
That the effects of this proposal have not been clearly thought through is evident in the lack of facts and concrete statistics which are currently available to the Commission.
Their report was written quite a few years ago and several of their main points for eradication have been greatly improved upon in terms of tightening control of such sales.
The implementation of this procedure in 1999 will show drastic losses concurrently hitting several viable fronts.
A loss of 140, 000 jobs, increase in airport landing charges, a marked decline in the EU tourist sector due to higher passenger fares, and the devitalization of regional airports are concrete factors which directly injure the Community.
The answer to this problem should not be found in a complete removal of the duty-free system, but in proposals for a more efficient manner in which to carry out such sales.
Although this report is primarily technical in nature and deals with the possible improvement in vendor controls in duty-free trade, its political background - the abolition of duty-free goods sales on travel routes within the EU from 1999 onwards - cannot be denied, and I would firmly reject this.
It may be that controls in ports and airports are insufficient and the customs allowance set by the Council is frequently exceeded without any controls.
If this is so, these regulations must be improved in line with the recommendations of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
For this reason I am in favour of the Garosci report.
I am also in favour of the amendments tabled by the rapporteur, which include financial support for the people and regions which will be affected by the partial abolition of duty-free.
This clearly spells out the consequences in terms of employment that this useless measure will bring: duty-free sales represent an important proportion of revenue especially for smaller regional airports.
Travellers see duty-free as a welcome pastime when they are waiting for a flight; its abolition would have a negative impact for them, and - with decreased airport revenue - could eventually result in increases in the price of flights.
The argument that duty-free sales would damage normal trade has been proven to be incorrect.
These sales are closely tied up with their location and their environment and they would not be made in the course of normal city shopping.
The Commission's persistence in not carrying out a study on the effects of the abolition of duty-free sales on employment is nothing short of scandalous.
In 1992 the Ministers for Finance could not predict what the employment market would be like in 1999, or else they certainly would not have willingly endangered thousands of jobs by way of making a small cosmetic improvement in the internal market.
The key question here in political terms is the significance and future of duty-free sales within the Union.
The large majority of our group shares the belief that customs and tax loopholes and tax havens cannot be reconciled with a properly functioning internal market, and therefore we support the plans to let duty-free regulations be phased out.
The structural problems of peripheral regions and areas should be tackled in earnest, for example by defining a practical equivalent to the universal concept for transport and traffic and through an appropriate Community and national grant scheme.
A transitional follow-up grant as set out in Amendment No 30 would certainly be a practical solution for problem regions and areas.
The artificial prolongation of duty-free regulations as a roundabout way of achieving long term clarification of grey areas, as set out in Amendment No 29, is considered by the large majority of my group to be much too vague and indirect as well as being unfair and inefficient.
De Clercq report (A4-0205/98)
We do not think that the EU should decide to what extent the Member States should teach a common syllabus of European history.
As Article 126 makes clear, education is the responsibility of the Member States themselves.
Nor do we think that we would 'strengthen European consciousness' by harmonizing teaching aids and school years.
However, we do think that European voluntary service is a very good project which gives young people a chance to experience new cultures and learn languages.
For these reasons it is logical for us to abstain from voting on recital G.
What is citizenship of the Union? Put the question to the average citizen and he will shrug his shoulders.
It means little to the citizen.
Today there was a vote on the report by Mr De Clercq, which examines this citizenship.
Citizenship plays the key role in continuing political integration, according to the report.
So the citizen must be encouraged in all kinds of ways to value this European citizenship.
The citizen must thus be motivated to take an active part in this Parliament's dream of European unity.
Furthermore the citizen must gain a European consciousness, which must be encouraged through instruction in our so-called common history and culture.
But can and should this citizenship of the Union really play a key role in continuing integration? Is this not putting the cart before the horse?
The coming into being of a feeling of European citizenship can never be a means, at most it can be the end. And even as an end we do not consider it worth striving for.
Citizenship at a national level is made up among other things of language, culture and history.
Citizenship of the Union appears to take shape in matters such as voting rights, right of residence and freedom of movement.
These are issues of a different sort.
Even with the proposed methods of promoting this notion, the citizenship that binds people together at national level cannot arise at European level.
To think that a uniform citizenship should be imposed on the people of Europe is to misunderstand the real needs and wishes of the citizen.
A citizen becomes involved through such issues as local decision making, openness, sensible legislation and tangible results.
Only when we take note of these needs of citizens and take them seriously will the citizen in turn take the Union seriously.
Ideas such as lists of candidates for the European Parliament which must include citizens of Member States other than one's own will certainly not contribute to voters taking the Union seriously.
Those are enough reasons for our party to vote against this report.
The question of European citizenship is essential because it shows the spirit which is meant to guide the development of the European Union.
In fact, the very idea of citizenship cannot be dissociated from that of the State and it is clear that the affirmation of an even wider European citizenship arises out of the wish to achieve a European federal state, or a more centralized Europe.
The report by the chairman, Mr De Clercq is obviously consistent with this line of thinking.
The recommendation made to the political parties "to accept more Union citizens who are not nationals of the country concerned as partymembers and candidates on the electoral lists, and to encourage them to take part in political life in their country of residence' is significant here. This is part of the utopian desire to create a European people by force and by legal artifice, against the historical, cultural and linguistic reality.
Everything can be debated, but it must be done in a spirit of clarity and in front of the citizens of the Member States.
This is precisely what has hardly ever been done in Europe.
The system we know was built away from the eyes of the people.
The Commission is still working towards the realization of a centralized super-state, as is proved by the document 'The Commission of tomorrow ' of 16 April 1998 which states that this latter should concentrate further on the great kingly policies - foreign affairs, the currency, internal security, the single market, economic and social cohesion - and common policies.
We might ask what will be left for the Member States? The Commission's answer is: greater delegation in simple administrative tasks.
Has this debate been clearly stated?
No. And this is where the scandal lies, because the political system which is being built is not subject to any democratic caution.
President Santer stated on 27 May, this year that the Commission must continue to play its political role, forcefully and totally independently. This is the claim for increasing power without the political responsibility.
This is contrary to the very basis of all democracy.
The report by the chairman, Mr De Clercq forms part of this logic of a European state.
Has the Directorate-General for Research in the European Parliament not stated that citizenship of the Union constitutes one of the essential structural principles of federalist political systems?
We cannot accept this logic.
Democracy requires proximity.
The artificial super-state which we want to build has all the characteristics of a power which is both technocratic and distant. It is radically contrary to our concept of a Europe which respects peoples and nations.
While I welcome the work of our colleague Mr De Clercq on a subject which I hold very dear, I would also like to specify the weaknesses, as I see them, in this report.
First of all, I think that citizenship cannot happen by decree, but is something which comes with practice.
Once this premise has been put forward, the rights and duties of the various players in the democratic process must be specified, because exercising citizenship is that as well.
Thus, if I express delight at the proposals made by the rapporteur in favour of the Members States, in order to broaden and support the rights of citizens, it is, however, necessary to think about how we might improve the way the various institutions are seen, so that each European can fully exercise his citizenship, in full knowledge of the situation.
These remarks are not limited to the European institutions alone, but also apply to the Member States.
In fact, how can this citizenship possibly operate properly at two "levels' if the dysfunctionality is already appearing at national level?
Is it necessary to give examples?
In addition to the need for better understanding, we should add, in this field, that nothing can develop positively if we politicians do not find some real credibility.
In fact, I am silly enough to believe that this citizenship and political decisionmaking cannot be separated from one another.
Given the way that the economy affects our daily life, political action must find the right tools to do this.
We cannot and should not reduce the democratic process to an exercise in bargaining.
It is clear to me that our weak decision-making process in the context of the emerging global economy contributes to the erosion of the citizenship which we all recognize and which lies at the heart of much verbal, written and physical violence.
Finally, on a more technical note, how can we talk about European citizenship when we are dealing, as I am, with tax scandals which have been dragging on for years.
Someone affected by these problems cannot fail to question whether Europe for the European citizens really exists.
In this respect, the next few years will be critical if we are finally to achieve something amounting to European citizenship.
This greatly affects the credibility of the European Union and thus its future, if not its survival.
The construction of Europe has seen an inversion of priorities and the negative effects of this are still being felt, which the European Parliament has undertaken to correct over time.
I would like to mention the four freedoms defined by the Single Act: freedom of movement of persons, goods, services and capital.
We know that, for reasons connected with the primacy afforded to the economy and to the rapid advance of technologies, it is freedom of movement of capital which was achieved first, contrary to the wishes and expectations of the founding fathers, with consequences of which we are already aware.
That is why I agree with the rapporteur when he reminds the House, in the first point of his proposal for a resolution, of the protocol of Treaty of Amsterdam which aims to integrate the Schengen Agreement into the framework of the European Union and when he invites Member States to start work on this without further delay.
In fact, there is no doubt that the free movement of citizens is linked to the abolition of internal border controls.
Member States have still to amend laws which are sometimes too cosy as regards the conditions for establishment, the mobility of the young and the recognition of diplomas.
Citizens in the Union must feel at home in each of the Member States and must enjoy every freedom for setting up home, living, studying and working in those states.
As regards voting rights in municipal elections, I am delighted, as a Belgian, that the rapporteur has asked France and Belgium to transpose the directive into national law as soon as possible.
This is a matter which touches upon the very roots of democracy.
Moreover, I am personally in favour of the right to vote to be granted to everyone living in my country for several years and who satisfy a certain number of conditions, whether the people are or are not European.
European citizenship which is implicit in this right to vote in municipal elections goes hand in hand with the respect of minority groups and, more broadly, has to do with the defence of our values which are tolerance, respect for differences and mutual comprehension.
These values are the only real antidote to turning in on one oneself, nationalism, xenophobia and racism.
The public's disillusionment as regards the construction of Europe is patent within several Member States.
Too often, our citizens feel that only economic and financial Europe is working, with its cohort of restructuring and redundancies.
It is essential that we correct this perception, which leads too many Europeans to get hold of the idea that the Europe under construction is not their Europe, if they do not take a complete dislike to it.
Citizenship of the Union is at the very heart of the link which must unite Europeans and the building of Europe.
Six years after its incorporation into the Maastricht Treaty, citizenship is still far too theoretical for our fellow citizens.
In the collective subconscious of Europeans, one is a citizen of a country in which one can wander around freely in every direction without having to show identity papers.
There are still too many obstacles today which prevent this from becoming a reality in the European Union.
The measures suggested in the proposal for a resolution which has been submitted to us is obviously a step in the right direction. This is why I support this proposal unreservedly.
The right to vote is yet one more irreducible expression of citizenship.
We must therefore ask whether one can really be a full European citizen if the Member State in which a person is living as a non-national applies different laws and electoral procedures, as regards participation in European votes, to that person than to its own nationals at the same elections.
To me, the answer is a clear no.
It seems to me, therefore, that we have to go further than the current resolution.
As regards European elections, we need the laws which apply to nationals to be automatically applicable to citizens of the European Union residing in the national territory.
In the case of my country, this means, inter alia, that voting rights will be obligatory for all nationals of Member States of the Union living in Belgium, unless they can prove that they vote in their own country.
By extension, the same equivalent treatment must apply to local elections.
The Liberal Members are able to draw a lot of positive things about Union citizenship from the De Clercq report and confirm the need for the citizens to participate in the construction of Europe.
Without acceptance by the citizens there can be no common Europe.
However we are also aware of the current developments in which politicians, mainly at a European level, talk a lot about proximity to the people, but in actual fact neglect them at every turn.
However, we reject the report as a whole because we reject the institution of Union citizenship in itself because we do not have a European people.
In the opinion of the signatories to this explanation of vote, the De Clercq report is unacceptable on almost all fronts.
Thus, we have chosen to vote against the report.
For example, we find the De Clercq report's desire to harmonize the school systems of EU countries in terms of their syllabus to be an expression of a dangerous line of thinking, particularly against the backdrop of the proposal in the report to introduce joint teaching of selected subjects to promote a clearly positive view among pupils of the EU.
In our view, teaching pupils about European history and culture is excellent, and voluntary coordination between European countries and their schools and teachers centred around particular subjects is also an excellent idea.
That way, our children and young people will be given a broad, cross-border insight into one another's history and culture.
However, that is not the intention of the De Clercq report.
The purpose here is purely and simply to influence the views of children and young people in a particular political direction, with the ultimate goal of drumming up support for the federal EU state.
Neither can we support the desire for the Schengen acquis to be enshrined in the Treaty on European Union, because we oppose the Schengen Agreement.
Our opposition is based on the fact that Schengen does not lead to greater freedom for citizens; on the contrary, the Schengen acquis would imply increasingly less transparent, hidden controls on people.
We are also strongly opposed to the EU having any influence whatsoever on pensions and other social benefits.
The nature of these matters is purely national.
Finally, we wish to distance ourselves from EU interference in the matter of candidates to be selected by parties for European Parliament elections.
The undersigned have voted against the report by Mr De Clercq for the following reasons:
1.Issues of citizenship should be decided by the individual states without Union interference.
This should continue in future to be the prerogative of the Nation States.2.The right to vote in municipal elections for immigrants can be decided without introducing Union citizenship.
In Sweden all immigrants already have the right to vote in municipal elections after two years of residence.3.A citizenship of the Union automatically creates discrimination against immigrants from countries outside the Union. The right to vote in municipal elections should apply to all immigrants regardless of their country of origin.4.Freedom of movement without any restrictions is, as experience shows, absolutely undesirable for social reasons.
The States have to be able to guarantee good conditions, rights and integration for the immigrants.5.The idea of teaching a 'common syllabus' of European history is totally bizarre.
Such a standardization of history teaching is equivalent to censorship of critical scholarship and entails the setting up of a fundamentally dubious picture of actual history.
No real European identity will be created by such artificial methods.6.Far more appropriate than the unproductive, mistaken proposals in the report would be to abolish the current semiauthoritarian level of government in the Union and replace it with a simpler system based on national sovereignty and the principle of subsidiarity.
That is the only way Europe will become a Europe of the citizens rather than a Europe of the civil servants, the lawyers and the elites.
I have voted with conviction for the resolution of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on citizenship of the Union, including paragraph 11, in which the Belgian government is called upon to put the directive on Community voting rights for European citizens into operation without delay.
This should have been settled two years ago.
Perhaps it could be written in large letters that my party, the Flemish Christian People's Party (CVP), have always been in favour of this European voting right.
I want to use my voting declaration to call on my Belgian colleagues in this House not just to make grandiose statements here in the European Parliament but also to get down to work on it in their own party back home.
The Belgian government has long been wanting to implement the directive but in order for the directive to take effect smoothly the constitution must first be changed.
Such a change requires a two-thirds majority in the Belgian Federal Parliament. The opposition parties must therefore give their support.
If the rapporteur, Mr De Clercq, who is an eminent member of one of these opposition parties, can persuade his own party members at home to deliver their votes, then the appeal that he made in the European Parliament will get a rapid response.
His report would then gain in credibility.
I am voting against this report for many reasons. I do not think, for example, that we should invest more in target-oriented information, that is, propaganda for the Union.
Nor do I think that we would 'strengthen European consciousness' by creating a 'European history' .
Nor do I think that we should harmonize European syllabuses and school years. I think that most Swedes, parents and children alike, are happy with the Swedish model, which means that we have holidays in June, July and August.
In brief, this report is far too federal for me to vote for it.
Oomen-Ruijten report (A4-0095/98)
On several occasions, the European Parliament has said that the recognition of trade union rights must be effective.
This text by our colleague, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is essential, and I support this initiative to include them in the Treaty on European Union.
Because of my political affiliation, I am also delighted by the general spirit of this report, which insists that concertation and consensus is a condition for lasting social and economic development.
Thus, I note with interest our colleague's wish to see a consolidation of the still embryonic situation between the different partners, and no longer between national organizations, but at European level.
This new approach, if it works out, can only be beneficial for the future of social relations within firms, and is vital if we are to retain our competitive edge.
This important advance in the recognition of unions might contribute to a better recognition of their role by our fellow citizens. It is an important factor for equilibrium and progress.
Finally, beyond the text, I note with 'surprise' that some people will be voting for a text which strengthens union rights, while the same people frequently object to any form of representation for employees in their own country.
"Truth in Brussels' ... "scandal' in Paris!
You never know!
The European collective bargaining process will assist the coordinated implementation of the policy on employment and Economic and Monetary Union.
Sustained social and economic development, the strengthening of economic activity, and the creation of jobs take place through social consensus, concertation and active diplomacy.
The restoration of fundamental social balances will not take place without the support of the social partners and the development of a European social dialogue.
Experience tells us that the partial globalization experienced in Europe for the past ten years or more has been accompanied by many perverse effects due to the absence of a European social dialogue.
Much distress and misery could have been avoided with more concertation.
Let us hope at least that this painful experience will serve as a lesson to avoid further dramas as regards the globalization currently taking place.
I would like to thank the rapporteur and congratulate him on the work he has presented.
There are some positive stages ahead along the path towards European unification: completion of the single market, realization of Economic and Monetary Union, as well as the imminent arrival of the euro as a single currency.
However, none of this will be permanently established if the people of Europe feel that the unification of our continent is taking place at their expense.
From this viewpoint, the emergence of a social Europe becomes an absolute necessity.
Once it is realized, it will favour the establishment of lasting peace in terms of social relations in the European Union and will thus encourage economic growth.
Ratification by the 15 Member States of the European Union of the section of the Amsterdam Treaty relating to 'Social policy, education, vocational training and youth' , is a new step in the right direction, but it must be followed by others and, in particular, by the inclusion in the European Treaties of fundamental trade union rights.
Moreover, as our rapporteur has quite rightly emphasized, the European Commission is speaking up in international bodies to have trade union rights and the right to bargain - rules internationally recognized in the world of work - respected in all the countries of the world.
In addition, the European Union will soon be opening its doors to states which do not have the same traditions as ourselves in terms of labour relations, nor the same habits of respect for trade union rights.
Finally, in our own countries, the far-reaching changes in the labour market as a result of technological innovation and globalization make it necessary to include these fundamental rights in the founding texts of the European Union. They also call for the creation of a transnational Community framework of guarantees and legal provisions which will ensure the harmonious deployment of social concertation at European level.
For all these reasons, I support Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report.
In view of the long traditions we have in Sweden concerning the rights and obligations of unions, I have voted against this report today.
Compared with many other countries in the EU, the Swedish trade union movement is very highly developed and, compared with many other countries, it has a special position in the labour market.
There is a clear risk in this proposal that many of the rights which trade unions currently enjoy are under threat, such as with regard to collective bargaining.
Obviously I have nothing against the demand for fundamental social rights, but should these matters really be centralized in Brussels?
It is important to strengthen union rights at all levels, such as freedom of association, the right of collective bargaining and the right to strike.
One way might be to also include these rights in the Treaty at European level.
Another way might be to let unions take care of this without any Treaty provisions.
One risk of regulating at the EU level is that union rights will be mixed up with EU law and that they will be restricted instead of being strengthened.
Obviously we should try to avoid major industrial disputes, but the question is whether this should be regulated at EU level.
This proposal could be supported on condition that it is the social partners who themselves draw up the negotiating rules and principles at European level within this framework.
The EPLP position is to maintain the current industrial relations culture in the UK, but understands the background to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's own-initiative report as it affects other countries in the EU.
I am glad to vote for this report today and glad to see that the need to balance the EU's emphasis on trade with a strong social angle is being taken forward at the initiative of this Parliament.
As the report rightly points out, it is to be welcomed that my own country's government has decided to end the opt-out from the Social Chapter which threatened to leave British workers as second-class citizens compared to their counterparts in other EU countries.
It is surely only fair that the trade unions and employers' groups which represent the people who make our economies work should see their rights of association enshrined in the Treaty on European Union in future.
And who better to consult on issues such as trade union rights in multinational businesses than the unions in which millions of our working people participate?
Thirty years ago my predecessor as MEP for Greater Manchester West, Barbara Castle, was campaigning in Britain for a new approach to employment rights to put cooperation and fairness in place of industrial strife.
I only wish that her efforts had met with more support then.
I am committed, in voting for this report, to see that the kind of cooperation between employers and staff aimed at replacing damaging disputes with a partnership culture takes another step forwards.
Let us get bureaucracy off the backs of entrepreneurs and employees and allow them to draw up proposals for negotiating between themselves.
In this spirit of teamwork in the workplace, Europe can create a culture of fairness at work - as my own government is doing at home.
The judgement reached on 17 June by the European Court of First Instance, which rejected the request from the UEAPME, the European Union of Crafts and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, to be allowed to take part as a full social partner in the European social policy discussions, is very regrettable.
This judgement confirms the position of power of the existing European social partners UNICE, CEEP and the ETUC.
This judgement leads us once again to ask questions about the procedure agreed in Maastricht whereby the "representative' social partners can reach European collective agreements about work without the intervention of the European Parliament and where the Council only acts as "solicitor' .
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's report rightly emphasises that overcoming conflicts of interest through discussion and social consensus contributes to the strengthening of industry and the economy as a whole, and also to the creation of job opportunities, and that such a consensus is an essential condition for sustainable socio-economic development.
The report also rightly points to the ILO Conventions Nos 87 and 98, drawn up in the 1940s, and the European Social Charter of the Council of Europe, in which the freedom of association and the right of collective bargaining at a national level are enshrined.
The report also rightly states that these ILO Conventions should be applied at Community level.
I should like to emphasize, however, that the social partners should always be sufficiently representative.
Everyone must have a chance.
It is thus unacceptable that the ETUC refuses to include important trade unions, for example the ACVLB from Belgium or the CGT from France.
The same applies to the employers' side.
I regret the refusal to recognise the UEAPME as a full social partner.
This decision goes against the ILO Conventions mentioned above.
This judgement is an aberration.
Social partners should be sufficiently representative.
In my opinion it is unacceptable to rule that an organization with more than nine million members, which employs some 50 million workers, should be excluded from discussions about European collective labour accords.
I wish to protest very strongly against this.
Social Europe has indeed still a long way to go.
Ghilardotti report (A4-0203/98)
The contribution made by workers in the voluntary sector is irreplaceable. It is present in local associations but also at every level of our society, at regional, state, Community or even global level.
Their contribution sets an excellent example and they play a leading role in allowing us to experiment and invest in new sectors of activity and human solidarity.
It is also a sector of activity which desperately needs recognition of its usefulness, but while it may sometimes need only a little to encourage it, it can also be all too easily discouraged.
Public administrations will draw inspiration from this, realizing that the human and financial resources devoted to the support of associations and foundations in Europe are the most efficient, most reasonable and apparently the best market we could implement to meet the social needs of our society.
Economic and social cohesion in the European Union is and must also be the concern of the citizen.
Throughout Europe, several voluntary organizations work in all sectors of society and instil a real breath of democratic life and acceptance of citizens' responsibility. They often serve to bridge the gaps in the activity of local and national administrations.
This is true in such essential social areas as training, education and solidarity.
It has often been said in the House and by the Commission that this type of organization could, moreover, constitute an important source of jobs, so as to respond in a flexible and efficient manner to a number of unmet demands.
For this reason, we must support the proposals to increase European national or regional aid which can help these organizations in promoting jobs in priority sectors such as health or education, provided that the jobs so created are real jobs covered by real work contracts and not just precarious or badly paid jobs which serve only to bring down the unemployment statistics.
In conclusion, like the rapporteur, I resolutely support the Commission's commitment to promoting the role of voluntary organizations and foundations in Europe.
But I would also like to remind the Council and the Commission of the importance of developing laws which can be applied to organizations, foundations, associations and mutual societies in the voluntary sector.
Chanterie report (A4-0229/98)
Seven months after the road transport strike in France, the European Union is beginning to be aware of gaps in its legislation on working hours.
On 15 July 1997, the European Commission presented a White Paper on the sectors and activities excluded from the working time directive.
But, reading this paper, one can only be astonished that no proposals for directives or regulations are contained in it.
As a member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, I would like to stress the importance of legislation concerning long-distance drivers.
It is time to amend the regulation which has been effective since 1985 (3820/85) relating to driving time and rest periods.
It is necessary to incorporate new data such as the daily and weekly ceiling, the number of driving hours, unloading and loading time, which is an integral part of the long-distance driver's work.
Mr Chanterie's report deals with these problems in a very thorough manner, and I can only congratulate him on his work.
As long ago as December 1997, the French government had presented a memorandum demanding European harmonization of social rules in the road transport sector before the full opening of the market, which is planned for 1 July 1998.
The Commission, which is committed to the aims of the memorandum (regulation of working time, including loading and unloading time, compulsory initial and continuing training for professional long-distance drivers, harmonization of controls and sanctions applicable in the case of non-compliance with social legislation), has been very slow to make any proposals.
Now those involved in this sector will not give up the struggle and they will remain vigilant.
There is a very strong risk of strikes and the argument that this will damage the principle of free movement will not cause the barricades to fall.
If the European Union can get involved with this social aspect, it will regain some credibility.
As we are about to vote on this report, I would like to remind the House of the urgency of harmonization in European road transport.
At a time when cabotage is permitted, it is unacceptable to see the development of social dumping and the exploitation of long distance drivers.
It is economically unjust, socially unacceptable and, I would add, dangerous for everyone in terms of road safety.
Therefore, we must act as quickly as possible, at the risk of seeing costly yet understandable conflicts multiply.
It can be done if the political will exists.
It is up to our ministers to speak out on this matter and to act!
Let us look at just one example which we in the North know very well.
In France, long-distance drivers cannot drive on Sunday.
In Belgium they can.
The result is that long-distance lorries all gang up at Rekem and at 10 p.m. we have miles and miles of queues of long-distance lorries invading the Lille area and crossing Villeneuve d'Ascq, heading towards Paris.
As we enter the age of the euro and the single market, it is a shining example of the rickety nature of a lop-sided European construction which is no longer acceptable to European citizens.
The opening of markets and international competition means that working time has become an important factor in the competitiveness of European firms in home and foreign markets.
If implemented properly, a different distribution of working time could help to create or to preserve a large number of jobs.
If badly planned, however, it could damage safety, health, family life or the social life of the people concerned.
It would appear that the sectors and activities were excluded from the current Community rules on working time for questionable political and economic motives which had very little to do with scientific or social consequences.
Thus, I share the viewpoint not only of our rapporteur but also of the Joint Sectoral Committees of several excluded sectors, that working time is an issue that must be discussed fully within the context of European industrial and social relations.
While it must be clear to everyone that the flexibility which is needed to ensure the competitiveness of our businesses must not in any way become synonymous for workers with a deterioration in their living conditions or a lowering of standards of safety and protection, we should also condemn as unacceptable the fact that workers excluded from the benefits of European legislation should, therefore, be obliged to work in conditions which are potentially harmful to their family life or dangerous for their health and safety or that of others.
So I fully support the resolution which we are adopting today. I would like to stress in particular the need for the European Union to adopt the necessary means to improve controls and harmonize sanctions, in order to combat excessive working hours.
In collaboration with the social partners and the Member States, the Commission must be the driving force in this respect.
We should be pleased that this report deals with the working conditions of sectors and activities excluded from the working time directive, in particular, workers in the transport sector, fishing, doctors in training and the self-employed.
It is clear that the working time directive will be an essential factor in improving the quality of life of all citizens and in particular for the six million workers concerned.
But we should not forget that for more than a century, the benefits of gains in productivity have always been shared out between economic investments, pay rises and reduction in working time.
This development, approved by strong action in favour of the five-day week, the eight-hour day, paid holidays, the right to continuing professional development, has come at the same time as continuous economic growth and the emergence of a society which shares the fruits of its labour amongst all consumers.
For almost twenty years, this process first started to slow down, then began to jam up completely, creating more and more exclusion and poverty for those who do not share in the distribution of labour.
It is high time to redress this situation and to manage human resources quite differently.
Everyone must share in the joint effort and must benefit in return from the share of wealth generated in order that their families can benefit from the welfare of all.
Training work has become very important in our society.
So we must assert the right and duty of every worker to improve his professional qualifications throughout his career and, and that he must be able to spend part of his working time in training as well as in productive time or service delivery.
While this may still seem a Utopian dream, except for white collar and office workers, the social partners must pay close attention to this and there should be specific clauses in each contract of employment and in each regulation.
Our society will only progress if there is greater investment in people, in their intelligence, in their desire for recognition of their skills, in their ability to progress throughout their life.
We have today voted in favour of all EU wage-earners being able to derive maximum benefit from the 1993 directive on working hours.
There are, of course, certain special circumstances in the case of the transport sector.
However, all mobile workers should at the very least be covered by regulations on annual leave, health assessment for night workers, rest periods and annual work time.
It is an excellent solution that regulations on working hours for mobile employees in the excluded sectors are being negotiated on the spot between the parties to the labour market.
Thus, we welcome the agreements entered into so far, for example in the maritime sector.
It is quite unacceptable for five million non-mobile workers in the EU not to be covered by the directive on working hours.
Thus, we have a situation whereby a sales assistant working for the Danish State Railways has different working conditions than those of a sales assistant in a cinema, even though both of them sell tickets.
Thus, we join in pressing for non-mobile workers in the EU to be fully protected by the directive.
Mr Chanterie's report rightly underscores how urgent and even very urgent it is to put an end to the scandalous exclusion of a large number of salaried workers from the European working time directive.
The European parliament judged this directive to be wholly unsatisfactory back in 1993 when it was adapted.
Five years later, millions of salaried workers still do not enjoy the most basic protection in Europe!
Five years later, whereas there have been enormous gains in productivity everywhere, the Council and the European Commission are incapable of proposing substantial improvements to the 1993 directive and the specific decisions dealing with excluded sectors.
In fact, Parliament was only consulted on the White Paper.
How long do we need to wait before we get a directive which covers excluded sectors and improves the current directive?
Road transport is one of the most important sectors.
Today, the road transport market is open, free, deregulated.
At the same time, in spite of the protests of salaried workers, and even strike movements, there are no European rules which harmonize - upwards - their working time and conditions, and which limit social dumping, deterioration of the best social standards, and which protect not only their safety but also the safety of others.
Europe is not working!
Working time for long-distance drivers must take account of the amount of time which is actually worked (unloading, loading, breaks, etcetera)., it must very quickly come down to the 35-hour week and should never exceed 39 hours.
Otherwise, how can we possibly talk about a "European social model' ?
Otherwise, how can we establish financial sanctions for Member States whose long-distance drivers block the roads in order to have their legitimate claims heard?
If an operational directive is not adopted before the end of the year for this profession, liberal Europe will once more have overridden the project of a Union at the service of the people.
Mr Chanterie's report takes us in the right direction; it could go a lot further but, for the time being, the most urgent thing is to establish a protective framework for the six million salaried workers who are the most vulnerable.
That is the reason why I am voting for this report.
It would not be at all difficult to write an entire novel on the evolution and the discussions on working time in the road transport sector.
That is why I think that enough has been written and there has been enough blah, blah, blah, as Pauline Green has said, and that now we have to quickly find solutions which attack an iniquity which is less and less acceptable.
How can we exclude from the working directive this sector which is so vital to our every day life, when social conditions are regulated in all other sectors of employment?
If we note that Directive 3820/85 authorises a working time of 13 hours in the transport sector, with a daily rest of 11 hours, which can be reduced to 9 hours three times per week, whereas we generally think of a working week of 35 hours, we note that we have a social situation where the social laws are a throwback to another age, in working conditions which were criticised by Emile Zola in "Germinal' .
We have to move away from this.
Long-distance drivers know very well that they are doing an important job, that their businesses must carry on working, that the European economy needs them, but they do not like being treated like idiots.
If we do not want to run the risk of new industrial conflicts and unacceptable dumping, we shall have to find a fast solution to these outstanding problems.
One solution, in my opinion, would be to separate non-mobile jobs from mobile jobs.
At any rate, it should have long been the case that non-mobile jobs would appear outside the exclusions for the road transport sector, since they are fully employed most of the time, in common with all other salaried workers in the employment sector.
Then we have to find solutions for people employed in the different transport sectors, such as road transport, sea and river transport, and flight crew.
These three sectors need suitable working hours and rest periods, acceptable compensations must be arranged with a method for calculating working time over a 28-day period and another for 365 days in order to calculate retirement; thus, in future it will be easy to control this in road transport with the introduction of the new tachograph 1 B.
This could satisfy a profession which, by its nature, is forced to work differently from all other sectors and for which working time in a given 12-month period could also be taken into consideration in order to achieve a retirement age of 55, as has been negotiated following a strike in France.
Since we are forced to recognize that negotiations in the different Joint Sectoral Committees are becoming more and more difficult and are very likely to fail altogether, resulting in a significant loss of time, I think that we need legislation on this subject.
The Commission should take up its responsibilities.
I am certain that the European Parliament will follow.
Five years after the adoption of the battered working time directive, the Commission has come up with its White Paper, which is now under scrutiny and which sets out the problem of the numerous exceptions and exclusions, which the Council of Ministers stubbornly imposed, disregarding the proposals of the European Parliament.
Indisputably, the six million workers who today are not included in the scope of implementation of the directive must be subsumed under protective provisions, having regard of course to the specificities of the relevant sector.
Beyond legislative fine-tuning, particular attention must be paid to the implementation of the applicable protective legislation and, by extension, to combatting the phenomenon of unfair competition. The manifestations of illegal and unregulated work are observable to a large extent, especially in the sectors of road and sea transport.
The implementation of the guidelines for the opening up of the markets to arrant competition and for the abolition, in any way possible, of national instruments, together with the logic of reducing, at all costs, the operating costs in sectors such as air and rail transport, has led to the violation of collective agreements, not only in respect of working time, but also in respect of the remaining conditions of work.
From this standpoint, any settlement to protect the workers would be a positive step, provided it is the result of genuine representative consultations with their trade union organizations and provided it leads to a reduction in arbitrary decisions taken at their expense.
However, we wish to point out the inadequate content of Directive 93/104 "on certain details of the organization of working time' .
This is a directive which provides for a maximum permissible working time of 48 hours a week when, at the time of its adoption, the basic working time was 40 hours (with the result that only in England and Ireland did it lead to a reduction in working time). This is a directive which contains a host of exclusions and possibilities for national differences, which permits night work, excessive working time and overtime, instead of promoting the 35-hour working week without a reduction in income, and which does not safeguard, to the necessary extent, the rights of workers.
Unfortunately, the Commission, faithfully following a narrowly-defined economic logic relating to the notion of competitiveness, refuses even today to draw the necessary conclusions from the regression that the Council imposed in the directive in respect of the Social Charter on Fundamental Rights for Workers, and merely points out that "the directive permits work for more hours than is usual in practice in most Member States' .
The logic which governs the Council and the Commission, that is, the logic of minimum social harmonization (or of minimum specifications), has demonstrated that not only does it not lead to the safeguarding of workers' rights and to the improvement of labour law but, quite the contrary, it is the institutional umbrella which provides cover for the decline in protection, subverts labour relations and calls into question everything that has been gained with so much struggle by the labour movement.
A typical example is the bill that was introduced by the Greek government, which overturns the eight-hour day, the 40-hour week, while giving the green light to the generalized application of part-time work and to the overthrow of sectoral collective bargaining through local employment contracts.
Moreover, it is not by chance that the Council itself asserts the "possibility of flexibility' contained in the directive.
The rapporteur, while accepting the logic of flexibility, goes on to make several constructive comments on the relationship between working hours and the safety, not only of workers, but of citizens more generally. Inter alia he calls on the Commission to submit urgently a proposal to amend the directive in its entirety.
Of course, the risk of putting forward amendments that offer greater impunity to employers, based on the more general guidelines of the EU, as these are defined in the Delors White Paper and the guidelines on employment and on ensuring "additional flexibility in the context of any new legislative proposals' , is very real, to the extent that no mass movement will evolve to assert the rights of workers to fight against these dictates will evolve.
We believe that only a robust movement asserting the rights of workers can provide radical and effective solutions to the problem of unemployment, form a protective shield for all workers against any violation of labour legislation and, finally, secure the 35-hour working week with no reduction in income. Only such a movement can promote full employment and restrict part-time and other forms of casual work, reduce overtime, abolish excessive working time, place stringent restrictions on night work and cover all workers, bearing in mind, of course, the specificities of the respective sectors where necessary.
We are fighting for just such a policy, together with workers, at national and European level.
Fassa report (A4-0198/98)
I reject the report by Mr Fassa on fair trade as it now stands because I consider its approach, which favours increased aid for small and medium-sized producers in developing countries, to be mistaken.
In particular, I do not think that the complete regulation and definition of what we call fair trade and the setting up of a comprehensive support mechanism can make much difference in improving the situation for small and medium-sized producers in developing countries.
Fair trade as a concept represents a niche in world trade.
The proposed elimination of the middle-man across the board is, in my opinion, not only illusionary but also damaging.
Developing countries rely on distributors to transport and sell their products.
I believe that financial support for fair trade by the European Union is wrong, as in effect it can only mean that a proportion of the difference between the world trade price and the so-called "fair price' will be borne by the Community budgets.
The only thing that can lead to a long-term increase in prosperity both in the Member States of the European Union and in developing countries is a broad opening up of markets on both sides.
Mr Fassa's report should be read in the context of a growing awareness, which is late but nevertheless praiseworthy, of the essential role that trade can play in favour of the development of the less advanced countries.
It is somewhat strange that at a time when the WTO denies Member States of the European Union and the Union itself the right to grant trade preferences which are designed as development aid, we are forced to operate this type of policy indirectly, via hypothetical actions in favour of consumers.
The concerns about social fairness, environmental sustainability and the protection of children must not only apply to "fair trade' .
The juxtaposition of two trade systems governed by two different ethical codes and using very different tariffs seems at the least unrealistic.
At European level, it is fairly risky to deal with such challenges solely on the basis of the good will of consumers.
The second danger linked to this approach is that it risks creating a fair trade "ghetto' which could be lucrative for some, but condemned to marginalization.
Over and above the challenges of fair trade for development, this report illustrates the need for a more generalized correction of a global trade regime which involves absolutely no parameters as regards development or the environment, or any social clauses.
The definition of products which could benefit from the 'fair trade' label as proposed by the rapporteur is entirely satisfactory; the amendment tabled by Mrs Maij-Weggen can only weaken it.
Therefore, my group did not wish to support it.
I am voting for this report today as, like so many consumers in Britain and the EU, I am a keen supporter of fair trade practices with the poorest countries of our world.
EU trade agreements with the rest of the world should have encouragement for small-scale producers in developing countries built in as a central plank of a joined-up trade and development policy, not bolted on as optional extras after major trade deals have already been signed.
We have already put in place special clauses on the environment and social standards into some of our agreements with poorer countries, so there is no reason why fair trade clauses should not now become standard practice too.
Some of the public money which goes from Europe to the developing world in aid should also be set aside specifically for fair trade incentives.
We of course need to respond to immediate crises such as the conflict and famine in Sudan, but the poorest people of the world's south will only enjoy a long-term future if they can trade fairly with the powerful industrial north.
I hope the EU negotiators will take on board this Parliament's wishes and as a result I will be looking for more and more labels on supermarket shelves in future telling me that I can buy fair trade goods and help the people of the developing world who make them.
That concludes voting time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.10 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 2 July 1998.
Tribute
I would now ask the Members of the European Parliament to join me in a minute's silence in memory of the three children, Richard, Mark and Jason Quinn, who lost their lives in the horrendous attack on their home in Northern Ireland on Saturday night.
There are no words strong enough to express our sorrow and condemnation.
We stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Northern Ireland in resisting terrorism and in showing our solidarity with the spirit of reconciliation and the search for peace.
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Thursday, 2 July 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Order of business
Mr Schulz has the floor.
Thank you very much, Mr Schulz.
Does anybody wish to speak in favour?
Mr President, I second the motion tabled by Mr Schulz.
I will not add any justification to this, but further discussion could not harm the report, and for this reason it is appropriate to refer it back to committee.
Fine.
Since nobody wishes to speak against, I put Mr Schulz' request to the vote.
(Parliament agreed to refer the Berger report back to committee)
Mrs Aelvoet requests to speak.
Mr President, no doubt you will remember that there was a problem when discussing voting on Mrs van Dijk's report last Thursday. Her report was to be tabled on Friday morning but the majority of the group chairmen considered that votes should not be cast on this sensitive report on a Friday.
Everyone knows that Mrs van Dijk leaves Parliament at the end of the month and we would therefore request that her report be dealt with today.
Her report appears on the agenda, so it should not come as a surprise and we would be able to vote on Tuesday.
Furthermore, Mr Gahrton's report cannot be dealt with on Tuesday, due to his illness.
We heard this morning that he has a serious heart problem and that he will certainly be absent for the rest of the week.
This would offer a second opportunity, if required, to place Mrs van Dijk's report on the agenda.
I leave it to you to decide, Mr President.
Mrs Lulling is asking for the floor.
Do you wish to speak for or against?
I am against this.
Mr President, it is impossible to consider the van Dijk report today.
It will even be very difficult to deal with the report on Friday, given the number of amendments - that in fact we do not actually have, for they have still not been translated.
It is therefore impossible to consider it, and I would ask you to leave the agenda as it is.
Mrs Hautala has the floor, to speak in favour.
Mr President, I would like to speak in favour of Mrs van Dijk's report being switched, for example, to Tuesday, as it would be most regrettable if it were not discussed until Friday and the voting did not take place until September, when Mrs van Dijk will no longer be a member of this Parliament.
I have received an official proposal from Mrs Aelvoet: that Mrs van Dijk's report be dealt with tomorrow, Tuesday, in place of Mr Gahrton's report, which was planned for then.
So I put to the vote the official proposal from the Green Group in the European Parliament, suggesting that Mrs van Dijk's report be dealt with tomorrow.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
The Group of the European People's Party requests that Mr Anastassopoulos' report, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the election of MEPs, be brought forward and taken immediately after Mr Tappin's report on public contracts, keeping the other reports in the same order.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has the floor, to justify the request.
Mr President, as we stated last Thursday, we do not consider it sensible for an important report on the uniform electoral procedure to be the last item on the agenda. This report has been discussed extensively in all the groups, in particular as to the method and the reasons why we should offer proposals.
This report is the subject of great interest, not only within the group but also outside Parliament.
Mr President, the fact that a number of amendments to the report have been tabled only underlines my argument. In my opinion, we should offer the rapporteur the opportunity to consult on any compromises, in view of the importance of the report.
It could be fitted in after the Tappin report, at the beginning of the afternoon session or at the end of the morning session.
I would be very grateful to you and the Members if they would agree to this.
Mrs Green has the floor, to speak against.
Mr President, this issue has been debated two or three times in the Conference of Presidents and a very clear decision was taken that we wanted this report to be debated on Tuesday in its present position on the draft agenda.
It is an important issue and many of us are sympathetic to some of the arguments in the report.
However, it was the general view of the Conference of Presidents, on the two occasions at least in the last fortnight when we discussed it, that this is a very sensitive issue.
In many Member States electoral reforms or systems are at present being developed so this is an inopportune moment for this report.
In fact, we would have wished that, despite the good work - and I pay tribute to Mr Anastassopoulos - we could have had this report later.
I have to say that it was not only my group but many others that took this view.
That is why we had a majority to have it on at that time.
So I would ask that it be retained in its present position which has twice been confirmed by the Conference of Presidents.
Mrs Green is half right.
She is right that a majority in the Conference of Presidents voted to have the report on during the night sitting; she is wrong to suggest that the majority of groups shared her view that it was somehow inopportune for the subject to be discussed in view of certain changes in Member States.
There is a Treaty and since 1957 that Treaty has said that there is to be a common electoral system and that the European Parliament should make a proposal.
That is our job. Let us deal with it during this part-session.
That was what the majority of groups also felt.
Mrs Green, as we are at the end of the debate, you may make a personal statement.
Mr de Vries came back on what I said, but he should also remember that at one point in a vote taken in the Conference of Presidents, we agreed to remove the report from this part-session.
Out of respect for the work of Mr Anastassopoulos, we then decided to put it back on, but at a late sitting.
It may be that others have different views about why it was taken off, but there was a clear decision: firstly, to take it off, and then we agreed that it should go on but at a late sitting.
To bring it back now is not in the spirit of the decision that was taken and discussed three times in the Conference of Presidents.
The spirit that prevails in the Conference of Presidents may differ from that of the plenary. I am going to put the matter to the vote.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten requests the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, other people are allowed to speak twice in this House, so I am entitled to do so too.
However, for the record, I wish to state that what Mrs Green says is not true.
Her report was placed on the draft agenda in May, Mr President; it was moved later.
This should put the record straight.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, it was not quite like that.
This report has had various ups and downs in the Conference of Presidents. That is not what matters now.
The House has made its decision and what we must now do is abide by it.
I do not think we have anything to gain by repeating all the discussions which took place in the Conference of Presidents.
Mr de Vries mentioned Mrs Green by name, which is why I was able to give her the floor.
If anybody else had been mentioned by name I would have given them the floor, but that was not the case.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday: no changes
Mr President, I would ask you to allow the Commission to speak tomorrow on a subject which is not provided for in the agenda, and in this respect to add it to the agenda.
In the coming week we will be travelling to Bosnia with a delegation from this House.
In the meantime, at the weekend, we learned that subsidies for the former Yugoslavia were misappropriated by ECHO and, in addition, the Commission staff involved obviously had the opportunity - as I understand it from the press, as UCLAF was not in a position to provide the Committee on Budgetary Control with sufficient information regarding this - to allow files to disappear, with the result that it is extremely difficult to investigate the case in detail.
I consider it important - Mrs Gradin is here among us today - that we be allowed at least a brief explanation of this issue from the Commission itself, so that the delegation can travel next week in possession of all the facts.
Mrs Müller, as you know, that sort of request has to be made either to the committee a week in advance and presented to the Conference of Presidents or, at least, one hour before the start of the sitting.
Neither of those requisites has been met. This is the first time you have made this request, which means that neither of the channels for such requests is possible in this instance.
Your group did not make the request last week at the Conference of Presidents.
I am sorry, but that means it will not be put to the vote.
Mr President, I received a letter from my colleague Nuala Ahern, in which she states that she submitted an article to The Parliament's Magazine.
This article, which is about Sellafield, was not printed in the magazine.
I would like to hear the President's comments as to why it was not printed, and whether it may be printed in the next issue of the magazine.
I have read the article. It is strictly factual and I, for one, found the information very useful, so I would like to hear why the article in question was not published in the magazine.
Mrs Sandbæk, this issue was dealt with during the last Strasbourg part-session.
I had the opportunity then to explain to your colleague that this is not an official publication of this Parliament. So since it is a private publication rather than an official one, it publishes as it sees fit, and we cannot tell it whether to publish something or not.
Since your colleague has conveyed her request to you, ask her also to pass on to you the written reply I sent her. Ask her to give you all the relevant information.
Mr President, as you are aware, an extremely important international conference on the setting up of a permanent international criminal court is currently being held in Rome, as this Parliament sits.
Because this House has several times almost unanimously declared itself in favour of the setting up of this court and because the conference is due to finish about now, I would like to ask you, Mr President, to ensure that the relevant departments keep the Members of this Parliament informed of events at the conference, and if necessary add the backing of this House to the conclusions of the conference in order to help achieve this very important result.
Any information we may receive - and we shall seek it - will be passed on to the honourable Members.
Mr President, I have two items of information.
First of all I would like to thank my colleague for her response to my letter about the Parliament magazine and to say that the article was in fact subsequently printed in full: I am satisfied with that.
I am not satisfied with what happened, but I also thank you for your letter, Mr President.
We should be very careful to maintain a balance: the magazine did subsequently print my article, although not in the special nuclear edition.
I would also like to draw the House's attention to the fact that I asked the Director of the UK Neurofibromatosis Association to provide Members of Parliament with information during the patenting directive debate, and that she was subsequently censured by the Charities Commission for this action.
This is absolutely bizarre and I would like you to inquire into this, Mr President.
I will give you further information about this.
I would ask you to send me a written note and we will find out all the necessary information.
Mr President, I would ask you to put to the vote the motion tabled by Mrs Müller.
We have only been aware of events in Bosnia-Herzegovina since the end of the week and it would be very important for our delegation to be given official Commission information regarding the course of events before travelling there.
This should be done this week.
Mr Schwaiger, you can request that the subject be included in the topical and urgent debate.
The precise purpose of urgent procedure is to deal with urgent matters and receive the relevant information.
If the groups think it is really urgent, that is the route to take: the urgencies route, which also allows resolutions to be made.
Urgent procedure should not be used for less urgent matters.
What I cannot do at the moment is allow a vote on something which contravenes the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, the issue here is that the delegation is going to Bosnia in order to evaluate the situation prior to the discharge which has already been postponed.
We want to see, in September, whether a discharge can then be proposed to the House.
The visit by this delegation was decided by the House, and the composition of the delegation was arranged and approved.
But at the weekend all imaginable information regarding ECHO was in the newspapers.
I believe we should investigate this thoroughly, and I do not believe that an explanation to the House is sufficient. This would render the investigations invalid.
For this reason I think we should discuss this issue with Mrs Gradin, the members of the delegation and the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I propose that we appoint a day, if possible this week and that, due to the urgency of the matter, we approve a sitting during this part-session.
However, I will continue to seek a hearing with you, if the House is in agreement, as we require exact documentation and information which we can rely upon. This certainly cannot be done within two or three days on the basis of articles from the press.
Mr President, on a point of order.
It is very important that Mrs Müller's request be voted on by the House.
I know there are rules governing such a situation but nonetheless, because of the scandalous reports coming from Bosnia and because of the visit and the fact that Parliament will be in recess for the month of August, it is of vital importance that the Commission give some account of the circumstances which appear to have occurred in Bosnia.
The whole issue of ECHO should be looked at seriously.
This House will eventually have to take a very hard look at what is happening with ECHO - quite frankly it has got out of control and Bosnia is an example of it.
I would urge you, Mr President, to show some flexibility and to allow the House to vote on the request by Mrs Müller.
Mr Andrews, I have already explained why it is not a question of flexibility. The reason is that this could have been presented up to an hour ago, and no group did so - neither yours nor Mrs Müller's.
Mrs Theato has indicated one route to you, and I described another one to Mr Schwaiger, but I cannot do anything else. I have to stick to the Rules of Procedure in these matters.
These questions cannot be brought up at the start of the part-session, when it could have been done up to an hour beforehand. And of course, people knew what had happened at the weekend.
Mr President, I would like to draw the attention of the European Commission to Article 37(1) of our Rules of Procedure.
According to Article 37(1), members of the Commission are entitled at any time to request the opportunity to ask for a clarification.
I consider it in the interest of the control function of this House, as emphasized by Mrs Müller just now, that the European Commission observes transparency and ensures clarity on the commitment of its public servants in the case of the possible disappearance of aid funds in Bosnia.
The Commissioner is here; it is her portfolio.
She should be able to ask you, Mr President, to be allowed to make a statement on this subject during this part-session.
That does not conflict with Mrs Theato's view.
Of course, a more extensive investigation may still be undertaken by the Committee on Budgets but we as Parliament, and also public opinion, would benefit from the Commission making a statement during this part-session, and Article 37 entitles the Commission to request this.
(Applause)
As you know, Mr de Vries, the Commission has that right and can choose whether or not to exercise it.
The moment the question may arise, at any time, the debate will be held.
So it is at the discretion of the Commission whether to do it or not.
Mr Hallam has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I would like to support the comments made by Mrs Ahern about the apparent harassment by the genetic engineering lobby of a British charity concerned with medical research.
It seems they are saying that if an organization has charitable status it cannot give evidence to this Parliament or to its Members.
That would mean that British animal charities, children's charities, churches, educational foundations, research foundations and universities would not be able to speak to us as Members of this House.
I regard that as a gross breach of the privileges of this House. I also believe it is a suppression of democracy.
I would certainly hope that we take Mrs Ahern's point very seriously and make it clear to the British Charities Commission and the genetic engineering lobby that we in this House will not be bullied in this way.
Thank you very much, Mr Hallam.
I have already said what we shall do as soon as I am informed of the facts.
Mr President, we need to come to a decision on the Bosnia issue for three reasons.
Firstly, we had set appropriations aside and we have released them.
Secondly, none of the three proposals made are mutually exclusive.
Either Mrs Gradin proposes that we ask her a question, or she does not.
If she does not, we then have the possibility of including the issue under the urgent heading.
Thirdly, and in any case, the Committee on Budgetary Control must meet to discuss it.
Consequently, it seems to me, Mr President, that you must ask this House, which has this right, to approve these three possibilities according to the Commission's position.
Excuse me, Mr Giansily, but this House does not have the authority to approve things that are already contained in the Rules of Procedure.
Mrs Gradin will tell us whether she wants to reply today.
I will contact her to ask her whether she intends to exercise this right or not.
If the Commission does not want to reply today, it has until tomorrow to do so.
Secondly, the Committee on Budgetary Control can at any stage, precisely because it is not incompatible, seek authorization for a meeting, and I will grant it.
Thirdly, it is up to you, the groups, and failing that, the House, to decide, not today, but tomorrow, whether or not you wish to table an amendment.
(The President asked Mrs Gradin to clarify the Commission's intentions) The Commission does not wish to reply today.
It is fully within its rights.
It will do so when it judges it appropriate and you will make your decisions.
(The order of business was adopted thus amended)
Admission of third-country nationals
The next item is the report (A4-0266/98) by Mr Lehne, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on
I.the proposal for a Council Act establishing the Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States; II.a draft Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States of the European Union [COM(97)0387 - C4-0681/97-97/0227(CNS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report which we are discussing today concerns an area which will gain considerable importance for this Parliament in future.
You know that, according to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the issue of policy regarding third-country nationals will in future be subject to Community law, and that this issue was moved from the third pillar to the first pillar.
It is therefore of crucial importance that when we, the European Parliament, have to deliver opinions on draft conventions or, in future, on proper drafts, we deal with these proposals with the necessary respect, and in principle come to decisions in the manner of responsible legislators.
Only by doing this can we really justify our request, in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam, to be involved in decision-making within the third pillar after the 5-year transitional period has expired.
The European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has proposed a series of amendments on the basis of the text proposed by the Commission. The Commission proposes that European law relating to foreign nationals, European law on third-country nationals, should be harmonized in accordance with certain minimum standards, certain common requirements.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs thus made a series of decisions which - and I would like to make this quite clear - are not in accordance with my personal opinion as rapporteur, even if I say this here.
It decided, for example, to authorize admission, for purposes of family reunification, of partners of the same sex, that is to include lesbian and gay relationships, and it also proposed including not only children but also relatives in the ascending line.
According to what we have heard, this will lead to considerable changes in terms of admission for purposes of family reunification, that is, to a drastic increase in the number of relatives admitted to the Member States of the European Union.
In addition, the committee also decided that all third-country nationals who have settled on a long-term basis should have the right to vote in municipal elections within the European Union.
I would remind you that in the Maastricht Treaty we introduced the right to vote in municipal elections for citizens of the EU.
In my estimation, this law has not been satisfactorily transposed.
There are countries which have not transposed this to a sufficient degree.
Therefore, a proposal by the committee which aims to give third-country nationals more rights than EU citizens is, in my view, unacceptable.
The committee rejected a motion tabled by myself which would have given the Member States the opportunity to expel thirdcountry nationals who have committed serious offences; that is, those who have received sentences of three years or more.
This was not the opinion of the majority in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
In addition, a series of motions was tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists which I also consider to be problematic, but which, thankfully, were not approved by the majority of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
Thus it is proposed in Amendment No 49 that even the offer of a job can suffice to justify third-country nationals' legal claim to immigrate.
I do not need to explain what this would mean for our Member States' social insurance systems.
It would lead to the possibility of importing cheap labour for low-paid jobs, thereby undermining all our social insurance systems.
The same danger exists in Amendment No 48.
This text offers the possibility of employing seasonal workers for a longer period in another area, after the end of the season.
I wonder what will become of the term "seasonal worker' if all seasonal workers have the option of becoming employees with long-term rights.
I would therefore make a quite specific appeal to my colleagues in the Group of the Party of European Socialists, asking them to consider once again whether these amendments are actually reasonable and do justice to the interests of this House and of the European Union.
Tomorrow we will have the pleasure of receiving here as our guest the President of the Bundesrat , the second chamber of the German Parliament.
I have here the position of the Bundesrat on this draft legislation.
The Bundesrat is controlled by an SPD majority in Germany, and it has declared itself quite clearly - I could quote it but due to constraints of time I will not do so - against liberalizing further the migration rights of third-country nationals, simply due to the backdrop of huge immigration pressure with which the Member States of the European Union, in particular Germany, are already faced.
In view of the proposals relating to the authorization of admission for relatives, the Bundesrat says quite simply that the current figure of 200 000 immigrants per year would easily double according to existing proposals.
This shows clearly how problematic these proposals are.
I therefore appeal to this House to make a wise decision tomorrow regarding this issue, to support serious proposals and to conclude by recommending to the Council of Ministers a convention on third-country nationals which does not allow the burden on our states to grow incessantly and which is thus, in my opinion, much more in the interests of third-country nationals than the proposals made by the left side of this House in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, and again here in this part-session.
Mr President, first of all I want to say that I am in favour of harmonization, or a certain degree of harmonization, in immigration and asylum policies.
I also think - and I want to stress this because I would like this House and its Members to be responsible legislators, as Mr Lehne said - that harmonization should have been and must be accompanied by a real European debate, in which the involved parties can participate, as has happened in some of our Member States, because this really is a very important matter.
In some Member States, as a result of such debates, it has been possible to come up with some imaginative and very worthwhile proposals.
In the case of Italy, for example, an agreement has been reached whereby a guarantee can be given for an immigrant in search of work, something which is not envisaged at all in this draft convention.
We are not trying to move towards a free-and-easy open door policy; we are trying to help legislate coherently, without going further than what has been established in previous resolutions adopted by this Parliament.
What are we trying to achieve with this convention?
We should be aiming for a European immigration law which can effectively regulate migratory flows, but also permit the dual objective of necessary control and the regulation of the presence of immigrants in the European Union as far as possible or, in other words, combat illegal immigration, not just by police methods.
I now want to talk about some of the measures proposed in this convention, because I think they make this objective more difficult to achieve.
Some of the measures would be virtually impossible to comply with and do not help to achieve that objective.
With respect to residence authorizations and their renewal, for example, I think the effects are counterproductive.
I do not think it would improve matters to ask people to return to their country of origin if they wish to apply for a residence authorization for reasons other than those giving rise to the previous authorization.
Quite the contrary!
As regards the measure to regulate the presence of persons in paid employment, which Mr Lehne mentioned, I detect a sort of Community preference in this convention or - if you will allow me to say so - a demand for the perfect functioning of the single market, to be applied first and foremost to third-country citizens.
These people, or their employer, would have to prove that no Community citizen or legal resident from a third country could do the job being aspired to by a third-country national seeking admission.
I really do not see how that could be achieved.
I cannot see a shopkeeper in my city managing to demonstrate that no Finnish citizen wants to work in his or her shop, in order to be able to employ a Moroccan.
As the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I think it is essential to avoid this illegal presence, which is only illegal because we make it so.
I think we should increase cooperation and dialogue with third countries, but we should also send them a clear signal that it is possible to live among us in a legal and perfectly established manner.
If we do not act to ensure that the necessary control of flow is accompanied by this accessibility, with no Utopias or discrimination against the potential presence of a third-country national within the European Union, we are going to make matters worse, with a new outbreak of racism and increasing xenophobia, which is exactly what we want to avoid.
Mr President, the Commission proposal to establish common rules for the admission of thirdcountry nationals to the Member States of the Union is an initiative which in my opinion can only be welcomed by us all, provided two conditions are met.
Firstly, this migration must finally be approached in an open and positive fashion in all its aspects, not as a reflex by the frightened European white man, and indeed new legal openings must be created which do not push people towards the margins.
Secondly, in addition to common conditions for access, sound European minimum standards for fundamental rights of third-country nationals must also be formulated.
Despite the good intentions of the Commissioner, I have a general problem with this proposal, and my group agrees.
Surely European legislation was not intended to formulate a policy at the most repressive level.
The proposal does not formulate the right to residence, to work or the right to study.
Although it harmonizes the conditions, it does not leave a possibility open for Member States to formulate improved rules.
In this respect we are particularly pleased about Amendment No 80 which our colleagues Mr Nassauer and Mr Pirker have tabled.
The proposal imposes particularly strict conditions on third-country nationals who wish to work or study in the European Union.
I am seriously worried about the restriction of the right to family reunification, as is my group.
Family reunion, the right to a family life, is a fundamental human right which should be respected in relation to third-country nationals too. Excessively strict conditions should not be imposed here.
In conclusion, I would state that the agreement, rightly in my view, contains a chapter relating to the rights of long-term, established third-country nationals.
This also raises concerns.
It is increasingly less acceptable to distinguish between Union citizens and nationals of third countries who have been here legally for years.
They should be entitled to the same rights, Mr Lehne - not better rights but at least the same rights - including the right to free movement, the right to work and the right to a family life.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are discussing a proposal for a convention which anticipates regulations which, on the basis of the Treaty of Amsterdam, will apply in the Union in other legal forms, namely in the form of Community law.
For this reason this debate is also considerably more important than it may have been in the past.
The European Parliament is getting ready to formulate legislation relating to one of the most essential areas of domestic policy, that of migration into Europe.
There is no doubt that all Member States will look critically at the way in which Parliament deals with this procedure.
With respect, Commissioner Gradin, I personally am convinced that your proposal will have considerable difficulty in obtaining a majority in the Council.
I believe that it must also be the task of the Commission to consider whether its proposals are capable of obtaining a majority.
It cannot be the case that Commissioners' own political convictions hold sway.
It is appeal to the majority which is crucial.
This means that we must state clearly to what extent we wish to have migration into Europe and to what extent we do not.
Europe is not an immigration region in the classical sense, as the United States was in the last century or as New Zealand and Australia are today.
Access must be regulated. In this respect, the existing proposals offer no grounds for great satisfaction or even approval.
I will give you an example to make this clear. Family reunification is a point of controversy, and I say this because, for example in Germany, the concept of family reunification in particular is used as an argument for immigration, as are asylum and, for example, the admission of refugees from civil war.
It is not acceptable for someone situated within the European Union to have the right to bring his entire family with him, but it would be appropriate for someone living outside the European Union, in a third country, to apply for entry to the European Union for reasons of family reunification.
Otherwise, all those who are here can bring their entire family, that is any number of relatives, while in the other case decisions are made on a case-by-case basis as to who has the right, on these grounds, to immigrate into the European Union.
This is an essential principle which, in my opinion, is unfortunately not dealt with appropriately in the Commission's proposal.
For this reason we must ask that we use not only the criterion of maximum conceivable generosity but also the criterion of reality.
We must be able to take responsibility for and justify everything relating to the field of immigration.
In this respect, Europe will have to seek acceptance.
Mr President, I would like to talk about the crux of the matter, which is neither political refugees nor family reunification.
Let us not bury our heads in the sand.
The crux of the matter is economic immigrants.
The report attempts to lay down certain rules, but they are inadequate to address the problem of economic immigrants, whose unregulated admission into the European Union has endangered our social fabric.
Of course, the immigrants themselves, who see in the European Union the lost paradise, the paradise that they cannot find in their own countries, are not to blame.
We are to blame, and especially those of us who have made a profession of democracy, for not having as yet instituted uniform binding rules for all Member States.
And in this sense I congratulate the Commission on having the courage to tackle the problem.
We must make rules to allow us to admit as many economic immigrants as we can economically absorb and integrate.
Let us stop burying our heads in the sand.
Unemployment, which is currently blighting the lives of the citizens of Europe, especially the young of our nations, makes it imperative that measures be taken to halt the flow of illegal immigrants.
If today there is racism in the European Union, it is due to the lack of a European immigration policy.
It is essential, therefore, that we institute rules, having regard first and foremost to the citizens of Europe and then to third-country nationals.
Mr President, the only interesting thing about this convention is that it foreshadows the content of a Community policy on immigration and the right of asylum.
Unfortunately, there is no cause for rejoicing, but there may be cause for concern.
That is how I feel as regards this restrictive text. In fact, it is more restrictive than many national laws, which are themselves not exactly outstanding in this field.
This text is the symbol of a fortress Europe, inward-looking and deaf to the distress calls of the victims of war, repression or misery.
If this convention had been applied a few years ago, there is a strong possibility that Zidane and Djorkaeff, whom you applauded today at the opening of this sitting, would not have been members of the French team.
So I hope you will be as enthusiastic and passionate when building a Europe which promotes solidarity and fraternity.
Once again, in this convention, immigration is wrongly linked to unemployment. It thus prolongs the scandalous 1994 Council recommendation which advocated Community preference - and I think that must strike a chord with some people, particularly the French - that is, Community preference in the field of employment.
It must be stated and repeated - because the worst kind of deaf person is someone who does not want to hear - that the OECD has recognized that there is no close correlation between the influxes of foreigners into a country and changes in the level of unemployment.
We must put an end to this scapegoat strategy, for it is dangerous to manipulate immigration.
This helps to strengthen the credibility of all those people - and there are many of them - who encourage a demagogic policy of exclusion and xenophobia.
But some people have followed the European examples; this is unfortunately the path currently being taken by the French Minister for Home Affairs, Mr Chevènement, who continues to refuse to make provision for the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants whom he has urged to come forward.
He ridicules or threatens the people who support them in their struggle.
I am proud to be one of them; I am not a Trotskyist - if I were, I would also be proud and free to be so - and I am not, as far as I know, manipulated by Great Britain, although I am seated here close to its representatives.
Tomorrow, 14 July, I will be in Paris to participate in promoting once again the rights of illegal immigrants and to support the action of the hunger strikers.
A film will be previewed there, a film by Jacques Kébadian about a Malian family in St Bernard, despite the lack of authorization from the Minister for Home Affairs who is trying to censor it.
If I dare to present this French case here, it is because the issue of human rights is universal and because the Commission, in its draft, in anticipation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, already considers it to be a European responsibility.
Many of us have sat next to members of the French Government who were, at that time, Members here of the European Parliament.
I ask you to show such solidarity.
Today, people are perhaps going to die in France.
This is not a call to your sensitivity, but to your responsibility, in the face of those laws which make illegal citizens.
So I call on you to reject this text here tomorrow, to vote for all the articles which could, however, improve it, and to show your solidarity - in other words, your responsibility.
The future of Europe and its peoples depends on it.
Mr President, each one of us is of course aware of the major importance of this issue: it is an extremely sensitive issue in many countries of the Union.
In this text, consideration is given to employment, independent economic activities, study, professional training and family reunification.
Nevertheless, this text does not consider - and it is entirely wrong to ignore this point - the naturalization of immigrant football players, a topic which is in fact very important, particularly for my country.
Regardless of the situation, the Commission is right to call on the Member States of the Union to ratify this convention before 1 January 1999.
We must note, in passing, that it is in no way a question of imposing a constraint on countries and on governments, but is rather a question of establishing minimum rules.
The issue of admission conditions for studies and professional training is looked at carefully and, in any event, the convention would allow us to set up a common reference point which would be extremely useful for candidates and for national authorities.
The criticisms made against the text voted on by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs blaming it for its laxness are unfounded.
The act of settling down in an EU country still represents a real obstacle course.
Some people dream of much more restrictive attitudes.
Let us say to them clearly that overly restrictive measures have perverse effects, and often have the opposite effect because they encourage illegal behaviour - the source of all sorts of personal dramas and political difficulties.
Subject to the approval of the most important amendments, the Group of the European Radical Alliance will possibly be able to vote in favour of this text, since it looks at family reunification and, in particular, dependent relatives in the ascending line, and this encourages entirely commendable behaviour.
Without directing this at anyone here, honouring your father and mother is an element which Christians should hold dear, even if they are democrats.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Lehne's report concerns an extremely sensitive subject, as my colleague, Mr Pradier, pointed out: the subject of rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States of the European Union.
In fact, the demographic situation, the level of unemployment, the problems faced in certain areas of large European cities, and the difficulties involved in the assimilation of people from outside Europe mean that the action taken by national governments is very delicate, and that the consequences can be important for the social balance of the countries involved.
The criteria proposed by the Commission would actually seem to be relatively lenient.
It is important that the Member States can adapt their policies according to the specific reality of each country involved.
Happily, Article 39 seems to allow for this.
Having said that, certain amendments approved by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs seem to be characterized by views which are somewhat unrealistic, even demagogic which, far from promoting the situation of thirdcountry nationals, would risk causing rejection by the people of the host nations.
The amendments mentioned by Mr Lehne seem to us, in fact, to be totally unacceptable.
Thus family reunification cannot be used for a different object to the benefit of types of cohabitation which do not have very much to do with the family.
Similarly, Amendment No 29, which does away with the provisions allowing us to avoid fraud and the false use of family reunification, is irresponsible.
In the same way, a simple offer of a work contract would not be sufficient automatically to authorize the admission of third-country nationals.
In the field of immigration, as in other fields, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Leniency and irresponsibility in this field can only be extremely harmful for third-country nationals who are properly admitted, as well as for those who would like to come and work in the Member States of the European Union.
A real immigration policy, which is truly generous, must be based on four pillars: a policy on development aid, to allow nationals from developing countries to live and thrive, at home, and to contribute to the economic and social recovery of their country; voluntarist family policies, to help the countries of Europe get back on the right path in terms of their demography; a law on nationality based not on chance but on the will of those involved; and public order measures which respect people's rights but which are applied resolutely.
Mr President, the point at issue is whether a uniform European law on migration is currently required, whether the time is right for it.
The controversial dispute in committee about this very issue underlines its importance.
We believe that the variation in immigration pressure on the individual Member States is not mainly due to the different national rules but to the economic and also topographic situations of the individual Member States, which determine their attractiveness to potential immigrants.
Therefore, in our opinion, the individual Member States must continue to have the power to adjust their immigration laws according to the situation, and thus respond to the situation with different immigration regulations.
From this point of view, harmonization would not, in our opinion, be the correct solution.
Thus, for example, in Member States with long external EU borders, such as Austria, the consequences of a common regulation for frontier workers would be very different from those in the other Member States.
What is almost incomprehensible, in view of the increase in crime caused by foreigners and the intensified fight against crime which forms the focal point of a European Union programme, is the request that convicted foreigners should no longer be expelled.
The same applies to the proposal to widen the conditions for family reunification, as the rapporteur explained.
Bearing in mind that, instead of the planned convention, a directly applicable regulation or at least a directive could come into force in the Member States immediately after the Treaty of Amsterdam has taken effect, we reject the report.
We are also rejecting it because the planned rule makes a regionally adjusted reaction to migratory flows impossible and, in contrast to the rules currently applicable in Austria, would significantly facilitate immigration, without justifying it objectively, and thus lead to a loss of security.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Gradin, the Commission has recognized that with the creation of the single market, the removal of border controls and progressive liberalization, common rules must be drawn up relating to migration and the rights of third-country nationals.
We are all aware of the difficult nature of this topic, as the Member States of the Union find it difficult to formulate a common policy in the field of law as it relates to foreigners.
We must take account of the reservations of the Member States if we want the voice of the European Parliament to be heard.
However, in order to avoid injustice, we must also clarify where the weak points of the proposed convention lie.
I will therefore discuss three points. The first is the right of residence for students.
If we want to help third-country nationals improve their education we should promote this work attitude and remove obstacles. This is also a type of development aid.
So we must allow them the same freedoms as all other students, and we cannot discriminate against them or treat them as third-class students.
In the case of family reunification also, we cannot cease in our efforts and set the level of legal protection too low.
Many states grant special protection to the family.
German Basic Law even grants special protection to the family and to family unity, in its Article 6.
We, the European Parliament, must strengthen this protection.
Thus the concept of the family is to be understood in a broad sense.
What counts is the de facto partnership, not the marriage certificate.
The welfare of the children is also important, not the sex of the partner or the marriage relationship.
What is right is family reunification involving dependent relatives for purposes of their protection and to maintain the family unit, rather than their exclusion or arbitrary admission by the relevant state.
A third-country national will invest in the education of his children, learn the language of the host country and build a secure existence if the countries are really prepared to regard the integration of these people positively and consciously.
Therefore we must ensure that concessions are made to people who come to us as third-country nationals, in terms of the right of residence, the right to vote and social law.
Mr President, we now know why large sectors of the population are afraid, are afraid of immigration, of non-existing rules.
What we need is rules relating to employment and also to the immigration of foreign workers into the Union.
Mr Lehne addresses both in his report, and we must consider both together.
The population expects politicians to tackle such problems and present solutions, that is, to create a system of laws or rules and undertake harmonization.
I am pleased that the Treaty of Amsterdam supports us in this.
We need common rules for the migration of workers, which must be controlled and restricted.
Only when this happens in the interest of the Union will the integration of foreign nationals really be reasonable and possible.
We have experienced problems of this kind in Austria.
We drew up rules, with the result that a quota system currently exists whereby no further immigrants are admitted until those already admitted have become integrated. I consider this to be an absolutely essential system.
So the aim must be to draw up Community rules on migration and establishment.
In the Union there is no right of immigration and establishment, and it must also be possible to draw up common rules relating to the asylum procedure.
We do not have that yet either, and this leads to abuse.
The Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals have, to a certain extent, strayed from the path of reason with their amendments, which have made the Lehne report an irrational one. It has now been presented to Parliament, with the regulations you are aware of, which aim for absolute liberalization.
Migration with open borders is certainly not what we want or what the people expect from us, the European Parliament.
I hope that tomorrow we will return to the path of reason, that is, that the amendments tabled by ourselves and by Mr Lehne obtain a majority in Parliament.
Then we will find a course which will really allow immigration and integration to a limited and controlled extent, as we would wish, and promote a complete system which the public and the people will not be afraid of, but provide a solution for the people who come to Europe, and for us and the Union itself as a whole.
Mr President, I should just like to take up Mr Hager's point about national rules, as he put it.
When a person is legally resident within the European Union, how, in simple terms, can free movement of citizens of the Union be ensured without infringements of the rights of other EU citizens?
Let me give a specific example, even though Mr Hager is not listening to me.
A coach party came to visit Parliament in Strasbourg.
Some of the passengers were British passport-holders.
However, there were also two sisters, one of whom held an Indian passport, whereas, for some strange reason, the other, the younger of the two, held a British passport.
The teacher in charge of the group had to decide whether to go to the Black Forest.
She came to see me and said: ' I do not have a visa to go to the Black Forest, what shall I do? Shall we keep the school trip back because one of the children does not have the necessary visa or shall we take the risk and go anyway?'
Advising that teacher was very difficult for me. I would probably have taken the risk, but then I have the benefit of diplomatic immunity.
The teacher did not. Therefore she was placed in the invidious position of saying: ' No, I must comply with what apparently is the law and I will stop the trip going to the Black Forest' .
Is that not wrong?
When you translate the rights of third-country nationals into a situation like that you can see the iniquity of what is being proposed by those in the PPE.
What we in the PSE, the Liberals and the Greens are proposing makes a great deal of sense and will not cause the kind of heartache that was caused on that coach trip on that particular day.
Mr President, a lot of things have already been said during this debate, but I would like to go back to a general observation and make a few other points about certain amendments.
Undoubtedly, the European Union has an important responsibility towards the phenomenon of immigration.
Various aspects of the issue have been mentioned, from development cooperation to birth rate policies.
I am not going to comment on them, except for two aspects which I think are fundamental: the legal certainty and integration of immigrants.
From the point of view of legal certainty, we have to bear in mind that legal certainty should apply not just to immigrants but to the citizens of the Member States too, and at the moment the Schengen Agreement is being applied.
So the Commission's initiative is welcome and, in general terms, it is reasonable. I hope it will be supported, of course.
From the point of view of the integration of third-country nationals, we need to think about how nationality is acquired, but that does not form part of the competences set out in Article K.3, nor will it be among the matters to be "communitized' after the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It still comes under the sovereignty of the different Member States.
Nevertheless, we need to think about it, because one of the routes towards the integration of these immigrants into the community receiving them will always remain ineffective if there is not at least a joint reflection about how people can acquire the nationality of one of the Member States.
Having made that comment, I am going to end by talking about four amendments.
The first is Amendment No 66 by the Group of the European People's Party. Clearly, its only aim is that the procedure being established, in accordance with Article 36, should respect Article 10 of Directive 68/390: that is, that the Member States should retain the possibility, for reasons of public order, public health, public security and so on, of refusing to allow that procedure, or of establishing a derogation to it.
That is already provided for in recital 9, but there is no sense in having a recital which is not reflected in the section containing the legal provisions.
The second amendment, Amendment No 67, refers to Article 12; that is, to immigrants wishing to establish themselves on their own account.
There is also another directive on that - Directive 90/365 - and it is only right to demand the same conditions from immigrants as from the citizens of another Member State.
Next we come to family reunification, and bearing in mind the question of legal certainty, I understand the Commission's approach.
On the other hand, I do not understand the approach taken by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, because it goes against legal certainty.
Supposing a Member State's legislation allowed family reunification based on common law relationships, who would be able to verify the existence of such a relationship, and how? I do not think this is a reasonable solution.
Finally, as regards Article 34 - voting in municipal elections - let us not lose sight of the fact, ladies and gentlemen, that the European Union project is a political project.
So I agree with the need for integration as regards social rights and the nationality aspect but, in contrast, political rights belong exclusively to the citizens of the Member States.
Mr President, achieving a fair and coordinated approach towards immigration into the European Union is a crucial issue and the Commission's proposals are a worthy attempt to deal with this, as indeed is Mr Lehne's report as amended in committee.
It could be improved by some further amendment.
We have to avoid the unreasonable fears that seem to be floating around in some people's minds.
Of course, we do not want a totally open door.
There must be some organization, planning and control of the levels of immigration that we can sustain.
However, I equally reject the concept of a fortress Europe.
We do not want to live in a Community which unreasonably restricts the entry of outsiders.
The countries of Europe have benefited from and been revitalized over the centuries by the waves of immigrants who have come in and stimulated the development of our societies.
Many of them have contributed much to our countries' development and to providing increased wealth and prosperity.
Some people in Britain were worried some years ago by the level of immigration from the Indian sub-continent.
We have overcome those problems to a large degree and last year Indian-owned businesses contributed 5 billion to the British economy.
That is just one way of looking at it though it is not the most important.
One of the key issues is that of family reunification.
We must be humane, fair and reasonable.
Of course people cannot be allowed to bring in anyone they wish, but reunification of close family is important.
I represent an area where a third of the population are of non-English origin and many are not UK citizens.
I deal with many of their problems.
One example is an Indian lady who wishes to bring her son from India. He has been taken seriously ill and has no one to care for him.
Another was a family whose elderly father from India was originally refused entry by the Entry Clearance Office on the grounds that he gave contradictory answers to his reasons for entering.
No one thought to make inquiries and discover that he was partially deaf, which was why he gave contradictory answers.
These things need to be dealt with on a fair and humane basis.
Mr President, I believe we are all aware of the need to maintain an objective distance from this topic.
We must reconcile a need to impose control with democratic requirements.
For this reason, the proposals we are about to make with a view to the coming Amsterdam Treaty must fulfil certain requirements, which I will run through quickly.
Firstly, the proposals must all be far-sighted. We must take the near future into account.
Everything is able to circulate in our global world; do we really wish to restrict - sometimes for absurd reasons - only people who are forced into their situation? This cannot be allowed to happen and we must therefore introduce measures to ensure integration.
Voting rights are essential in this context.
Secondly, we must be strict.
But in order to be strict, to combat lawlessness and secrecy, we must also be able to open up controlled immigration channels. This control over the flow of immigration will be possible only if - and this is my third point - we act efficiently without too much bureaucracy.
On the matter of immigration for work, I cannot understand why the Group of the European People's Party has proposed such a bureaucratic and inefficient mechanism in certain amendments.
Lastly, we must also be able to work without discrimination.
Our new Treaty rejects discrimination very clearly.
As far as family reunification is concerned, the new convention will have to be extremely consistent if we are to prevent our policies spreading selfish attitudes and national fears throughout the community instead of looking to the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard some points made here today by Mr Pirker and Mr Nassauer which I would have liked to reply to in person, but these gentlemen preferred to move on to other activities, following their vigorous words.
This is often the case, by the way.
As the previous speaker pointed out, Mr Lehne put a lot of work into this report, and I would like to make two points regarding what he said, as rapporteur.
Mr Lehne, we will certainly give further consideration to your requests in the votes.
In the amendments submitted by the committee, there are two possible versions to which we must indeed give further consideration. I thank you, as rapporteur, for drawing our attention to this.
I would like to ask, however, what is actually at issue here.
We must try to distinguish between what we want to achieve and what the current reality is.
Here Mr Nassauer says, in well-chosen words, that the European Union is not an immigration country or an immigration region.
A few weeks ago we all complained about having so much illegal immigration in Europe.
So what is going on? Of course we have illegal immigration in the European Union.
Why do we have it? Because we are an immigration zone.
We cannot create a world of our own choosing.
So Mr Nassauer must be honest and say that we do not want to be an immigration area.
That is something else, but that we actually are one is indisputable.
That we do not want this to happen in a disorganized way, on the other hand, on this point - and on this point only - I concede that Mr Pirker is right.
So, if we want to organize it we must proceed relatively objectively and not in a controversial manner, even if we are in the middle of an election campaign in Germany and it is, of course, fun to stir things up a little.
However, what are we actually talking about, Mr Lehne? Amendment No 48 states: ".. may request ... an extension' .
People who can apply for an extension - yes, at least this is still possible - can also be rejected.
So it is by no means a guarantee, but merely a recommendation.
According to Amendment No 49, admission "may be granted ... for the purposes of paid employment in order to fill a job vacancy ".
"Granted' does not mean that it is guaranteed, but that this is at the discretion of the Member State in question.
According to Amendment No 51, the right to exercise family reunification may be exercise subject to application, which in Germany means following detailed examination.
You know this as well as I do from experience at local authority level.
In Amendment No 52 the difference is that you want to admit children below the age of legal majority and we want to admit children in the immediate family.
Well, we can argue whether this concerns only children who have not reached full legal age or the grandmother of the person in question.
The European Union will not fall apart as a result of this.
Because you know this, Mr Lehne: in your own Amendment No 80 on students and other applications for purposes of taking up employment, you have very nicely written that this chapter, as strict as you would like it to be in your recommendation, does not prevent Member States from having rules which are more favourable to applicants.
On this point we are in agreement again, after you made quite a radical change.
I therefore propose that if we can agree to try to reach agreement tomorrow on what we should allow, and to avoid controversy, then we will be serving the European Union, its citizens and those who wish to come here.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I greatly appreciate the time and energy which the rapporteur and other Members have devoted to familiarizing themselves with this proposal.
Today's debate was very worthwhile and showed at least two things.
Firstly, it showed that the immigration issues are and remain priority political issues.
In certain Member States immigration has for many years contributed to political, social and economic development.
In other Member States this is relatively new.
What we need to do now is to examine jointly how the challenges in the area of immigration policy should be handled in future.
Secondly, today's debate shows that the issues are complicated and cover a broad political field.
There are a lot of questions.
What can we do to create the conditions for people to remain in their home countries? How do we control the flows of immigration which arise?
How do we explain to the outside world that we cannot offer room for everyone? What do we do about the trafficking in people which is taking place?
How do we ensure that immigrants are integrated into society?
How do we justify alienation and social exclusion?
These are controversial questions. The solutions which we propose must therefore be well thought out, clear and consistent.
Migrants are going to continue to try to come to Europe for the foreseeable future.
The basic reasons are largely the same as in earlier migrations.
People are looking for a better life for themselves or for their children.
Today there are no unpopulated continents, which is why these people are trying to get to places which can be physically reached.
We must accept this as a permanent and normal state of affairs and not see it as something temporary and dramatic.
The solutions we propose must therefore also be long-term and, above all, lasting.
In addition, we have come to a point where the answer must be sought in cooperation with other countries.
The citizens also expect the European Union and its institutions to help.
Mr President, that is the main reason why I drew up the proposal we are discussing today.
The conditions for immigration are broadly the same in all the Member States of the Union.
But we still have different rules.
This creates uncertainty and confusion among the citizens of third countries.
It also undermines the trust which there needs to be between the EU's Member States in order to be able to build up a practical working cooperation on these issues.
This initiative has already set in motion a debate on how Europe's future immigration policy should be shaped, which is also what I had hoped for.
Not least, today's lively debate here in Parliament shows what strong differences of opinion exist.
I have also closely followed the various rounds of the committee's discussion of the proposal.
I recognize many of the arguments, both from the internal discussions in the Commission and from the reactions in our Member States.
A very large number of amendments have been submitted. Some of them concern the more central points of the proposal.
A very important part of this proposal concerns the rules for family reunification.
This is a fundamental right and all the EU's Member States have both a collective responsibility and collective commitments by virtue of a number of international agreements.
The chances of agreeing on a common policy should therefore be good.
However, the question is how far we should go.
The concept of the family varies from one Member State to another. The same is true of age limits.
On both these points my proposal represents a considerable step forward compared with the current fragmented situation.
Now the discussions in the Council of Ministers will show whether there is further room so that we can move the positions forward.
Another issue concerns citizens of third countries who have lived legally in our Member States for a long time.
Experience shows that stability and length of stay are a prerequisite for integration.
My view is that a third-country national who has legally lived and resided in Europe for a long time should be able to live on more or less equal terms with EU citizens.
For example, it is reasonable under certain circumstances for immigrants also to be able to look for a job in another Member State.
The alternative is a segregated Europe, with everything that entails in terms of discrimination, social unrest and instability.
I am sometimes asked if this was really the right time to submit this proposal.
I sometimes hear that it would have been better to wait until the new Amsterdam Treaty had entered into force. I do not agree with that.
I have submitted the proposal to start a debate both here in Parliament and in the Council of Ministers about the factual issues of immigration policy.
When the proposal was presented there was not a single concrete initiative in the Council in this area.
I see it as the Commission's clear duty in such a situation to use its right of initiative.
It is of course true that the new Treaty will give me the opportunity to use other, more effective tools, but the issues will remain the same nonetheless.
I do not see any reason to delay a debate on the substance of immigration until we can give it another form.
Obviously, the Commission will submit a new initiative once it is able to use the new instruments.
The negotiations on this proposal will intensify under the Austrian presidency.
I expect the first reading to be ready some time during the autumn.
After that, the work will move on to finding compromise solutions where opinions differ.
There are already a large number of opinions on the proposal.
I expect the thoughts and ideas put forward in the Lehne report, and the amendments being presented, to be taken into consideration too when the negotiations continue.
Hard work, goodwill and, above all, a lot of patience will doubtless be needed before the efforts bear fruit.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Fundamentalism and the European legal order
The next item is the report (A4-0328/97) by Mr Oostlander, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, containing a draft European Parliament recommendation to the Council on fundamentalism and the challenge to the European legal order.
Mr President, the initiative to compile a report on fundamentalism originates from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
They proposed to speak on the dangers of fundamentalism under the original title.
Fundamentalism which exists in all sorts of religions internationally has been referred to, and rightly so - as Mr Colajanni rightly says, as a sort of misunderstanding.
It shows up in Christian religions, Hindu religion, Jewish religion and Islam.
Generally speaking this does not involve government, as government should be neutral and positive in respect of religions, or in any case neutral.
Problems are only created if there are conflicts with public order or with legislation, in particular systematic problems.
These are not problems concerning religion, but problems concerning an excess of, or - to use Mr Colajanni's expression - a misunderstanding about religion.
The Presidency of Parliament considered this subject to fall within the competence of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
While working on this I arrived at the conclusion that the word 'dangers' in the title was wrong in any case, and it was better to speak of a 'challenge' .
Because there are many dangerous terrorist or violent movements in Europe and the politically-engaged 'Islamic' fundamentalist orientation is one of the smallest amongst them, as well as one of the least significant.
I think it is important to state that religious fundamentalism and its excesses refer, in fact, to a rather insignificant phenomenon.
It is important to establish this. Hence my preference for 'challenge' .
I intend to use my report to refute the alarming coverage this issue currently receives.
It is more attractive to portray someone with an unusual appearance, an unusual mode of dress and an unusual pronunciation in the western European media. That makes it interesting for the viewer.
But it is far from representative of the European Muslim citizen.
In fact, there is a certain danger in this extreme presentation of everything connected with Islam.
Very recently, the scandal feature of one of the Dutch television stations presented a Dutch Government internal security service report, which in fact is characterized by striking parallels with the resolution I propose, as an indication of how dangerous Islam is in the Netherlands, whereas the report - entitled 'Political Islam in the Netherlands' - does not remotely give cause for that view.
It is therefore important to make the title represent the contents, and to refute any prejudices.
Moreover, it is important to propose a policy which can prevent the creation of any problems or difficult challenges.
That is what my report and my resolution purport to do.
I advocate that a positive policy be conducted in the whole of Europe, in particular so as to prevent trouble, and to ensure that Muslims know that they are completely integrated and accepted.
A lot remains to be done, as there is discrimination in the religious area in fulfilling Muslim obligations to a certain extent, in particular where the training of their own leaders is concerned.
I am therefore strongly in favour of the creation of training opportunities for Muslims in Europe, particularly in theology, and I advocate this in the report. I believe that scientific study centres should become available for them, in order to educate leaders who have full knowledge of the European culture and are not foreign to it, and who will be able to provide the second and third generation Muslims in Europe with appropriate pastoral care.
So I consider it very important that we make everybody in Europe, including the Dutch Government, understand that comparisons are useful, as regards what we do with the Muslims in our society, and to take stock.
I advocate a comparative study into the different kinds of policies which exist, so that this study can form the basis for tracing the shortcomings in certain countries.
Governments will then be able to modify their policies based on experience from their colleagues in other countries.
But it is important for Muslims to know European culture well too, as is true for many Europeans.
It is very important to know how the constitutions and legal systems of Europe function.
It is important to know that we in Europe are generally of the opinion that the competencies of various institutions, such as those of religious communities and public authorities, must not be confused.
A religious community which appropriates the competencies and means which really belong to the state is on the wrong track, and vice versa .
I think this is at the heart of the so-called fundamentalist issue.
In my opinion, people who have a different view in the world of Muslims or in fundamentalist circles are not really a problem for the European Union.
To repeat, a problem only arises if there are gross violations of the law and conflicts with public order.
I appreciate the fact that we speak our mind clearly in this Parliament, including where the media and our own citizens are concerned: that we have a positive policy, and that we give a clear signal that we take the Muslim citizens in Europe - who contribute greatly to our culture and economy - seriously, and that we accept them as citizens too.
Mr President, Mr Oostlander's report contains a number of positive points and proposals, particularly where it calls for tolerance towards different religions and cultures, where it warns us against mixtures of religions and fundamentalist deviations of these religions, and where it recommends measures to deprive religious extremists of favourable ground in Europe.
However, I regret the fact that Mr Oostlander chose to look solely at Islamic fundamentalism, and the speech he has just given has not convinced me.
Of course, this type of fundamentalism was tragically illustrated by the wave of attacks in France.
However, does this mean to say that no other type of religious extremism constitutes a threat?
In fact, the tragedy which we deplored today shows that in Northern Ireland, where the Orange Order does not accept being deprived of its annual provocations, the fundamentalists are not prepared to mark time.
Certainly, the rapporteur deliberately omitted this problem which, I admit, goes beyond a purely religious problem, but other Christian forms of fundamentalism are at work in Europe.
Europeans value their security, yet they also value their freedom, particularly their freedom to lead their personal and private lives as they wish.
The anti-abortion commandos, guided by Catholic fundamentalists, have not killed as yet in Europe as their American counterparts have done. However, they clearly demonstrate this movement's determination to impose its objectives and values, even by force: the return to an imposed moral order and the intrusion of religious issues into the public sphere, as well as threats to the status of women, the rights of homosexuals and secularity, and all this accompanied by violently xenophobic and anti-Semitic statements.
This struggle by Catholic fundamentalists for a regression of society, for interference in the private sphere, is laden with threats and violence towards the rule of democratic law and freedoms.
We should have been worrying about this, starting from today.
I know the rapporteur intentionally avoided this aspect of things and I regret that.
As regards Islamic fundamentalism, it seems to me that the opportunity has been missed to remind certain Member States of their responsibilities - Member States which, for honourable reasons of tolerance, but also for other reasons which are perhaps less worthy, welcome into their territory and tolerate core activities of Islamic terrorism.
The struggle to be carried out must be collective, loyal and free from ulterior motives. I would have thought it useful to remind the Member States of that with this report.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, it is a real pleasure for me to take the floor to talk about this report by Mr Oostlander. I think it is a magnificent report, both in its original drafting and in its present form, rounded off with the amendments we have all signed.
Obviously, this report confines itself to a limited scope - as Mrs Lindeperg has pointed out - but there can be little doubt that its conclusions can be extrapolated to any form of fundamentalism.
What is included within the scope of this report? Well, it points out once again, loud and clear, that we live in an open society based, in the last analysis, on democracy, the rule of law, the defence of human rights and the separation of powers.
In particular, as Mr Oostlander underlined very well, it is based on religion being a private matter for each and every one of us, of no significance to the state.
As a result, people can hold any view they like, as long as they keep within the law, the legal framework and the legal order. What this report reveals is how complicated and dangerous it can be when ideas which should remain in that private sphere begin to be used to recruit people to commit violence, and cause real problems for social coexistence.
Undeniably, Mrs Lindeperg, you said this report has shortcomings, which I do not see as such.
We have said that this report voluntarily restricts itself to these aspects.
There are other very serious forms of fundamentalism, and I come from a country which suffers from them: the fundamentalism of people who set up their political ideas, or any other sort of idea, and constantly kill, commit violence and restrict everybody's freedom.
It is true that all those sorts of fundamentalism are excluded from this report, but Mr Oostlander's conclusions - which I hope will be approved by an ample majority of this Parliament tomorrow - can be fully extrapolated, in order to proclaim once again that we are an open society, that we want to be an open society, and that an open society is a lawful society, governed by the rule of law and not protected on any other basis, in this case religious, mentioned in Mr Oostlander's report.
Mr President, like the rest of the speakers I have nothing but the highest respect for Mr Oostlander and the work he does in this House, but I have to say I have great difficulty with this report on fundamentalism. It is not helpful in my view.
It could in fact stir up ill-feeling, resentment and a great deal of trouble quite unnecessarily.
There is no satisfactory definition of fundamentalism, no adequate basis, no common ground.
In committee, a disgraceful amendment was tabled in an attempt to establish a link between what was called Christian fundamentalism and neo-Nazi groups.
The main subject of criticism is Islamic fundamentalism, and the report seems to concentrate too much on that.
Regardless of the rights or wrongs of these two hardline positions, we do not need a report calling on the European Union to pursue a preventive policy against any form of violent religious fundamentalism. It is up to the Member States to deal with violence, whatever its origins or intent.
It is up to the Member States to formulate the most appropriate and responsible policies aimed at integrating religious minorities into society.
Why isolate and point a finger at Islamic fundamentalism when we do not truly understand the meaning and the philosophy behind Islam anyway?
What about political fundamentalism, or cultural or environmental fundamentalism? Why do we not deal with this subject as a whole?
The report talks about the need not to fuel religious fundamentalism or provoke any unnecessary anti-Western reactions.
Again I say that this report is not helpful.
Indeed, it is guilty of the very thing it is trying to warn about - fundamentalism itself.
Fundamentalists often try to impose acceptance of their views through legislation.
Finally, Mr President, I feel that I must mention the questions to the Commission and in particular Question 53 by Mr Alf Lomas on racism and fundamentalism in Brussels.
It is very important that we look at this question when it comes up in the House.
Mr President, today we are faced with a report which deals with the important, complex subject of fundamentalism.
Because of the time I have available, I would like to mention a few specific points which I do not think are very clear in the report.
Firstly, I regret the fact that when the report talks about violent religious fundamentalism, it makes particular reference to Islamic fundamentalism, when I do not believe this tendency is the birthright of any one religion or another. They can all suffer from it to a greater or lesser extent, as Mr Oostlander has just recognized.
Nevertheless, his report reveals a clear imbalance in this respect.
As with all religions, not all the exponents of Islam can be lumped together under the same heading. To do so would be extremely irresponsible.
Bearing in mind the diversity of the different Islamic tendencies, the radical trends must be clearly distinguished from those which do not question the values of freedom and democracy in any way whatsoever.
Based on that distinction, I believe that dialogue with European Muslims should be above any potential intransigence or intolerance from one side or another.
In that sense, I think the European Union should realize that a certain Islamic inspiration is a constant feature of political movements in countries of the Muslim world.
We should accept that, as long as respect for human rights and democratic freedoms is considered to be an essential condition which can never be given up.
Furthermore, I would like to say that the stereotypes about some religions - including Islam - generally correspond to a lack of information and understanding of the subject. That should be put right by means of an education policy which offers the chance to get to know all religions and cultures, especially as regards history and social relations, and which promotes a truly cross-cultural education, in keeping with Europe's multicultural nature.
The media should play a major role in this task, by correcting the sometimes easy and frequent inclination towards the clichés, prejudices and mistaken opinions which people hold about cultures different from their own.
Consequently, cultural exchanges should be seen as a two-way exercise, rather than being limited to a significant "if possible' or "if necessary' .
It is absolutely essential that we put an end to policies of inequality.
On that basis, with a greater degree of credibility and objectivity, it is likely that we would be able to help stop certain types of fundamentalism.
Mr President, the basic idea behind democracy - the fundamental freedoms - should not be seen as the birthright of any particular culture or tradition, in excessively clear-cut terms.
All cultures should and do have the ability to adapt to democracy and individual freedoms.
Mr President, as regards the challenges which the fundamentalists have presented us with, we must congratulate the rapporteur on the frame of mind which prevailed in the drawing up of this report. It emphasizes, in particular, the importance of preventing violent fundamentalism, seeks to ensure that the elements of trouble do not sow the seeds of disorder and discord within the European Union, and calls for the adoption of a policy of integration, which is particularly dear to the citizens of my country.
However, this text does demonstrate a very worrying tendency.
We move from fundamentalism to religious fundamentalism and from religious fundamentalism to Islam and Muslim fundamentalism, Islam being specifically mentioned in 19 paragraphs of this text.
This all happens as if Opus Dei Catholic fundamentalism were not at work within this or that government in our very own Union, or as if Jewish fundamentalism were not at work in connection with European policy in the eastern Mediterranean.
The report thus sticks to a description, or rather an indictment of Islam, the countries where it rages, and those who are accused of supporting it; this means that this text is no longer capable of leading to any serious reflection.
Until such time as all the elements of ideological or religious fundamentalism which were discarded are one day tackled as they should be, we will not vote for Mr Oostlander's report.
Mr President, Wittgenstein the philosopher once said: "What cannot be spoken about should be kept quiet' .
You should not pronounce on a subject on which you cannot make any definite comments.
Fundamentalism is a phenomenon which is difficult to put into words, certainly if one tries to give it a political meaning.
The present recommendation creates more confusion than clarity.
Fundamentalism is clearly distinguishable from religion.
Somebody believes on the basis of a personal conviction in which experience, reason and heart play a role.
Human power and compulsion play no part in this.
Under fundamentalism, fear and compulsion are central.
It is a case of perverted religion.
This also occurs in ideological movements such as Communism under Stalin and Mao.
Another example is relativism.
A form of this is the unfortunate pronouncement that not a single religion harbours a germ of hatred.
This would allow for tolerance in respect of and by any religion.
But this ignores the pretension to truth on the part of religions.
I am a convinced Christian; the Bible is for me the Word of God which guides my life.
I know myself saved in Christ, who said: ' I am the Way, the Truth and the Life' .
Other religions are idolatrous religions, according to this belief. They harbour, as it were, the germ of hatred in their bosom because they do not recognize the God of the Bible as the only One.
But this conviction cannot be called fundamentalism. This is created when we compel others to believe the same.
Europe's past shows instances where we went wrong.
We always see that this occurred where government usurped religious powers or the Church usurped secular powers.
The Church and the State must be separate.
However, that does not make the state neutral, as the report states.
No state is neutral: take Europe.
Our legal orders and democracies are based on Westernized, Christian values.
We have therefore made a choice.
People who come and live here can be asked to fit in with this legal order. But they will not experience this demand as neutral.
Mr President, firstly I should like to put a question to you.
The report is based on a resolution on the dangers of fundamentalism, yet it appears on our order paper as 'Fundamentalism: the challenge to the European legal order' .
I have looked through the report. I cannot see anywhere where the change of title was agreed.
I hope that you will ask the President, tomorrow morning, to rule whether this change of title is acceptable.
The resolution on which this report is based talks about the horrors of the war in former Yugoslavia, with Christians oppressing Muslims - at least that is one element of it - the massacres in Rwanda and Burundi, the blind fanaticism of Rabin's assassins - clearly the intention is to include Jewish fundamentalism - and the suicide bombers in Israel - Muslim fundamentalism.
They are all outside the European Union, but the report appears to be about Islamic fundamentalism inside the European Union.
Two mistakes have been made: firstly, this is not a report which should have been produced by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs; secondly, Mr Oostlander has treated the subject in a particular way which does not coincide with the original wishes of those who tabled the resolution or, for that matter, its nature.
There are 19 references to Islam, but there are no references to any other religions.
The report presents the stereotypical image of Islam as terrorism.
Five pages out of seven in the explanatory statement are about Islam. I do not know how Europe's two to three million Muslim citizens actually feel about this.
There is nothing in the report about churches that style themselves 'Christian' and the racial hatred that they preach.
The report likewise fails to mention the fact that people are trying to import this religious fundamentalism into the European Union from the United States.
It does not mention the anti-abortion terrorists who, in the name of Christianity, have murdered those both offering and seeking legal abortions - again a kind of terrorism that people are trying to import here.
It says nothing about the extreme elements around the Orange Order who burnt three Protestant children to death because their mother was a Catholic.
I agree we must stand together to fight terrorism.
I am concerned about the situation as regards Europol.
We have a duty to see where the real threat is coming from.
The friends of the Taliban pose less danger to Europe than the friends of the Ku Klux Clan who sit in the far corner of this Chamber.
Mr President, unlike the previous speaker, I will not incriminate Mr Oostlander for the title he has chosen to give his report. It is a real problem determining whether certain religions, through their imperialism on civil life and private life, are compatible with our constituent principles, our European values - in other words, the free choice of the individual, the way in which he intends, in the context of laws, to organize his life.
I believe that what we can indeed blame Mr Oostlander for is the fact that he did not give sufficient consideration to this question, which is a fundamental question and one which leads us to what could be a body of principles common to the various countries, and the embryo of a European constitution.
This body of principles, Mr President, has a name in certain countries: a nice name - "secularism' . That represents the best defence against all forms of fundamentalism and the encroachments of religion on public life and the private lives of us all.
Mr President, I too think that religion should not form the basis of the consensus to live in society.
But I would like to stress that I was one of the people who signed the draft recommendation to the Council which led to this report.
And when we signed that recommendation, we wanted to underline why we thought it was important to raise our voice now against intolerance, against extremist and fundamentalist trends within any religion, or even against the extremist secular trends which try to prevent people carrying on their way of life if it includes religion. We also wanted to remind people of the horrors we have seen caused by a conflict between two religions in the former Yugoslavia, and also in Ireland, as mentioned by the previous speaker from my group, Mr Ford.
It was a question of seeing how we could establish a dialogue; how we could talk to religious leaders and promote all those good practices which could help to overcome such conflicts.
And we did it in the aftermath of the Islamic Conference in Iran, because we thought it was important to draw attention to some of the female voices - which I want to mention specifically - within Islam and certain other religions, which are attempting to make progress towards a better life and peaceful coexistence.
I thought that was an interesting initiative.
On the other hand, I think an initiative which can instead be easily misunderstood as a negative sign by the millions of Muslims living in Europe is dangerous.
I do not have time to go into more details, but I am going to vote against this report.
Mr President, it was with great interest that I read Mr Oostlander's report.
It concerns a topic which is both sensitive and difficult to manage.
The basic issue is what attitude we should take towards various kinds of religious extremism.
The answer we give is closely related to respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms.
However, it is also necessary to set clear boundaries on the kind of behaviour we can never accept, regardless of the justification.
Tolerance is an obvious starting point.
Within the bounds of religious freedom there is room for quite a number of faiths, even some extreme ones.
However, the boundary has definitely been crossed if there is violence or any kind of compulsion.
Then it is no longer an issue of freedom of expression and freedom of religion.
Our duty then is to protect weak, vulnerable people and to safeguard the basic values of society.
In the Union we have actively participated for several years in the work of creating a safer and more secure Europe.
A large number of initiatives have also been undertaken.
Let me begin with police cooperation. The Europol Convention has now finally been ratified.
The rapporteur complains that Europol will not be able to deal with terrorism for another two years.
However, the Member States and the Commission have both now agreed that the cooperation shall start on 1 January 1999.
In fact, the first stage of the preparation work started last month when a project group was set up.
In his report, the rapporteur also urges the Union to conduct a consistent and unanimous policy towards governments which in various ways encourage, support or tolerate terrorism.
I think that is already happening.
A large number of both political and practical measures show that the EU's Member States actively and continuously work to improve the fight against terrorism in Europe.
This is done both through internal coordination, such as through the liaison officers who are put in place, and through continuous dialogue with countries outside the Union.
There is also a worthwhile coordination with the help of various working groups which have been established within both the second and third pillars.
This, too, has made it easier for the Member States to conduct a dialogue on how we can combat terrorism with joined forces.
As far as sanctions against countries suspected of supporting or permitting terrorism are concerned, the Member States clearly prefer to act through international fora such as the United Nations.
Mr President, we also set great store by the work which is being done to prevent the occurrence of various kinds of acts of violence.
A number of initiatives have been undertaken to promote tolerance and increased understanding both inside and outside the Union's borders. This has been done within the framework of various cooperation agreements, among other things.
One example is the Euro-Mediterranean Agreement and the Barcelona Declaration which is the basis of this agreement.
This stipulates, for example, regular meetings between representatives of various faiths, religious institutions, theologians, academics and other concerned parties.
In addition, these measures have been followed up by a number of efforts which reached their climax at a seminar on dialogue between cultures and civilizations in Stockholm in April 1988.
The Commission has also encouraged several other initiatives to increase dialogue between various cultures.
An example of this was the informal meeting in Toledo in 1995 between representatives of various religious and philosophical traditions.
The discussions emphasized the importance of deepening the dialogue between the religions.
The Commission also supported a similar initiative in Copenhagen in 1996.
We should also not forget the role of the media in increasing understanding between cultures and religions.
That is why the Commission supports the training of journalists from the Union and other countries at the European Journalism Centre in Maastricht.
This has courses which deal with, among other things, non-discrimination, tolerance and minority issues.
There is also a special media programme which the Commission has set up to increase cooperation between the media in the Mediterranean area.
Mr President, a policy of prevention also has to include measures to improve the integration of religious minorities into society.
I fully support Mr Oostlander's view that active measures are needed to strengthen their position in the labour market.
In addition, their active participation in political life must also be facilitated and encouraged.
It is important to avoid segregation and discrimination and the acts of violence which almost always result from this.
As far as information and research are concerned, the rapporteur would like to see a comparative study of the positions of Islamic and Muslim organizations in the Member States.
A proposal for the formulation of such a study is already being drawn up by the Commission.
A meeting is to be held this autumn at which a decision on the extent and content of this study will be taken together with the Member States.
There are already a large number of activities, both in the Member States and at the European level, to increase understanding between cultures and to prevent and combat terrorism based on religious arguments.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Cross-border cooperation (TACIS programme)
The next item is the report (A4-0179/98) by Mrs Karamanou, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, and the Committee of the Regions on cross-border cooperation within the framework of the TACIS programme (COM(97)0239 - C4-0280/97).
Mr President, Mrs Karamanou, from a long way away from the Baltic Sea, has produced a well-informed report on the problems of the Baltic region. I should like to thank her for that.
The biggest problem in the development of the TACIS programme is bureaucracy, and there are two types.
There is the EU bureaucracy in the granting of aid and the bureaucracy that exists in the countries receiving the aid.
EU aid programmes on the one hand often lack cohesion, and on the other hand tend to overlap, and fail to coordinate aid between different Community programmes.
There should be coordination and there should be responsible coordinators.
With TACIS we are talking about very small sums of money.
To a certain extent they are earmarked so that the best projects do not always get selected.
TACIS money is an EU policy buffer against countries receiving aid.
For example, the EU committed itself, via the G7 group, to the construction of the reactor shelter at Chernobyl without the committed parties having legally-based funds in the budget for it.
The policy money required is to be taken out of the TACIS programme.
As such, it is a political reserve fund.
This criticism is not necessarily aimed at cross-border cooperation. There are often two parties involved, who are known to each other.
Because of that it is possible to spend funds more wisely than, for example, extending them to Siberia, where there are no corresponding parties.
Siberia certainly needs the money.
But it is important always to promote those projects we can keep an eye on.
It would seem that TACIS aid is largely monopolized, and funds often go to places where they have an excellent technique in applying for aid.
We should get rid of such favouritism in respect of consultants.
Mr President, I too wish to thank Mrs Karamanou for a report that was both excellent and concrete insofar as content is concerned.
Because I myself am the European Parliament's easternmost Member, from near the Russian border, I cannot help acknowledging the fact that I am very much in touch with problems connected with cross-border cooperation between Finland and Russia.
I therefore think the ideas contained in this report are excellent, that is, that sustainability must be achieved within the framework of the TACIS programmes, and that the TACIS-CBC programmes must, as well as being long-term, be administratively compatible with the INTERREG programme, to ensure the effective usage of funds.
The report proposes common funding for cross-border cooperation. That would be an excellent way to solve this problem.
I also think it an excellent and most welcome proposal from the Committee on Regional Policy that coordination between TACIS-CBC and INTERREG should be included in structural fund reforms.
Another important contention is that we try to prioritize cooperation between regional authorities, and that, in the future, when we have got rid of these administrative problems, funds available for the TACIS-CBC programme must be substantially increased, with environment, the narrowing of social inequality, and concrete solutions for border-crossing points as priorities.
The frontier between Finland and Russia is the frontier between the EU and Russia, and the European Union must also bear the responsibility for smooth and contained operations at border-crossing points.
Mr President, my congratulations to the rapporteur, who showed in the Committee on Regional Policy that, with great charm and powers of persuasion, she made a success of this report.
There are a very few points, however, with which I would disagree. The rapporteur requests a single fund for cross-border projects between the EU and third countries.
I think there is a danger here that funds for programmes which are currently separate might get mixed up with these.
At present we know how much the EU Member States receive and how much non-Member States receive. That should continue to be the case.
The rapporteur also wants small-scale projects to go ahead without a public tendering procedure, and to make the latter unnecessary.
Although we are all against excessive bureaucracy, it is my opinion that even for small-scale projects the relevant rules of public tendering should be followed.
Lastly, even if some neighbouring countries consider a specific Baltic Sea Programme to be reasonable, my view is that we would need several separate budget headings in future if we were to introduce this.
We should not proceed with such a specific programme.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate Mrs Karamanou because I think she has produced an excellent report on cross-border cooperation within the framework of the TACIS programme.
Obviously, this is one of the longest borders of the European Union - the 1 300 kilometres separating Russia and Finland. There has been persistent confrontation along that border, which has been completely closed for a long time.
Along these borders with the countries of the east, cross-border cooperation is more complicated than within the European Union.
There are economic, social, cultural and organizational differences, and cooperation becomes much more difficult.
It is right that regional and local authorities should participate.
Cross-border cooperation often takes place at municipal level, but in order to be effective, there needs to be more coordination and transparency, and local authorities need to be given information and training on what they can do in the field of cross-border cooperation.
Otherwise the programmes get bogged down in bureaucracy and, in that sense, they end up not being effective.
It is true that infrastructure needs to be built in these projects. It must also be remembered that cross-border projects are not projects in the border zones.
They are projects which pass from one side of the border to the other, and help to bring the people on the two sides closer together.
Mr President, the Green Group in the European Parliament is also very satisfied with Mrs Karamanou's report on the TACIS programme.
We warmly support the basic proposals it contains, such as the notion of one integrated funding system, and the idea that all activity should be coordinated very visibly in conjunction with other funding instruments, like INTERREG, for example.
It is very important for TACIS to become a flexible instrument in this way, because the problems that exist on the other side of the EU's eastern border are immense, and it is surely worth reminding everyone once more of the gulf that still exists in standards of living between Russia and Finland.
It is considered to be greater than that between the USA and Mexico.
I believe in future we must lay much more emphasis on problems of the environment, and we think it is right that the report separately identifies the problems of nuclear safety.
Right across the border from the European Union and Finland there are dozens of extremely dangerous nuclear reactors: in the Kola peninsula, in St. Petersburg, and right up in the north of the Kola peninsula in Murmansk there are military reactors, which we should also turn our attention to.
Luckily, the European Union has to some extent supported preliminary efforts now to solve these enormous problems.
But we should also aim to actually shut down these nuclear reactors completely and deal with the problems of nuclear waste in a satisfactory manner.
I would still like to mention that it is terribly important that proper social policy be developed in Russia, exactly because of this huge gap in the standard of living.
If that does not happen, the problems are certain to blow up in our hands.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur very warmly on her report.
This report underlines the need for us, the European Parliament, constantly to examine the developments which take place on the periphery of our Union and, particularly, to examine occasionally how the Commission implements policies, particularly in the case of important foreign policy programmes such as MEDA, TACIS and PHARE.
We know - and several speakers have already referred to this - that in the field of TACIS we are concerned with countries whose policies are based on very different traditions from those we are used to.
For this reason, the Commission deserves understanding if it sometimes does not immediately achieve the desired results.
On the other hand, we can and must expect the Commission to state quite clearly what requirements it thinks it must have in order to be able to implement these policies properly, for example in the field of TACIS.
In the end it is only in this way that policies can be accepted.
After all, Parliament exists for the purposes of examining this.
An example of an issue which has not yet been mentioned in this discussion is the fact that the Committee on Budgets, in relation to the use of funds for cross-border cooperation - TACIS - discovered that in 1996 and 1997 a total of ECU 58 000 was used from the estimated sum of ECU 60 million.
I hope that in a later report we will be able to note better execution of the project, and that by then the implementation of the projects you mentioned will have been improved.
Mr President, the TACIS programme is intended to try and ease the switch to democracy and a market economy in certain targeted countries - that is, Russia, other countries once part of the Soviet Union and Mongolia - and promote the integration of these countries into the world economy.
Finnish consultants have succeeded in establishing good projects through the programme particularly in the border regions of Russia, and obviously elsewhere.
Experiences with the TACIS programme have not always been positive however.
It is typical of projects that the foreign firm brings along experts, and local expertise and resources are not used, although they exist and are of high quality.
This has understandably led to rancour, especially in Russia.
Furthermore, the programme lacks a proper investment component.
Although increased opportunities for investment have already been spoken of, there has been no real change in the situation as yet.
What is the point of making technical and economic analyses if no changes can be implemented, even though the records show them to be beneficial? Opportunities for funding therefore have to be improved considerably.
I wish to finish by laying emphasis on the importance of the speedy resolution of environmental and nuclear safety problems that exist in the Russian/EU border regions by using the TACIS programme to its best advantage.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the honourable Member, Mrs Karamanou, for the report and resolution on TACIS cross-border cooperation.
Such cooperation will become increasingly important in the future.
An enlarged EU will have extended frontiers with Russia. It will have frontiers with Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova as well as direct access to the Black Sea.
TACIS cross-border cooperation will contribute to economic development and stability throughout the whole region.
The report identifies actions in the field of environment and energy efficiency as priorities. The Commission shares this view.
It is reflected in the fact that more than 30 % of the 1996 and 1997 programme budget was allocated to projects in these fields.
Another issue highlighted in the report is the need to support the removal of practical obstacles to border crossing and customs clearance.
A large part of the projects under the TACIS cross-border cooperation programme relates to improvements in these areas.
In the future these activities will not only be concentrated on local transits.
Projects will also be directed to border crossings on the main transport corridors linking the newly independent states with central and western Europe.
There have been delays in the implementation of the programme but, as the rapporteur underlines, this is to a large extent a consequence of the cross-border character of the cooperation.
The implementation of projects relating to infrastructure has been shown to be particularly complex.
They often involve many ministries as well as various authorities.
However, improvements should be made. A stronger link to existing administrative structures in other EU cross-border cooperation programmes is one example.
The Commission shares the rapporteur's view that training and development of local administrations must be another priority for cross-border cooperation.
The Commission has allocated ECU 1 million to regional capacity-building initiatives for 1997.
The projects are on the way to being implemented.
Finally, I should like to emphasize that cross-border cooperation in central and eastern Europe will become increasingly important.
Parliament's report and today's debate have been a useful contribution to the development of the Union's policy in this field.
The Presidency congratulates the rapporteur, Mrs Karamanou, on the broad acceptance by the House of this important report.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 7.50 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Aid for Bosnia
I was asked yesterday at the beginning of the session to make a statement on behalf of the Commission concerning irregularities or possible fraud in connection with a number of contracts in the field of humanitarian aid.
These contracts were signed in 1993 and 1994 to provide humanitarian aid for former Yugoslavia and the Great Lakes region of Africa.
UCLAF has, since the autumn of 1997, been conducting an inquiry into aspects of these contracts.
In the course of the investigations suspicion arose of the existence of serious irregularities.
During the last week the inquiry led to suspicion being cast on a particular official in the Commission.
These suspicions were strong enough to allow legal proceedings to be initiated.
Last week, in the light of these facts, the Commission handed over the findings to the relevant legal authorities in the Member State concerned.
UCLAF will, of course, give its full cooperation.
In accordance with the agreement on the exchange of information, Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control has been informed of these initial findings.
As the President said, I have also agreed with the chairperson to have a meeting on the issue this week.
At the same time the Commission has started disciplinary proceedings against one official suspected of involvement.
In the meantime the official in question has been suspended.
Since legal proceedings have now been initiated, I am sorry that I am not in a position to give you more details at this stage.
Madam Commissioner, I can hear various interjections from Members.
The announcement was very brief and, because of the sensitivity of the matter, I wonder to what extent it satisfied the justified concerns of Members. But I would ask Members to hold a debate tomorrow during the extraordinary sitting of the Committee on Budgetary Control, in order to avoid having this debate now, in an unorganized way, during the part-session.
Competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry
The next item is the report (A4-0224/98) by Mr Ribeiro, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on a communication from the Commission on a plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry (COM(97)0454 - C40626/97).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start off by applauding the fact that the Commission has drawn up and sent the European Parliament this document entitled 'Plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry' , which is the reason for my report, quite apart from its contents and guidelines.
This document follows the setting-up of the Bangemann working parties, one of which is concerned with textiles and clothing, and this reflects the importance of the sector.
Although as rapporteur I have much more time than usual, it is still not long enough to give a proper idea of that importance, which in any case is generally acknowledged, and I will therefore make no attempt to reproduce everything the report contains.
I would, however, emphasize that textiles represent over 4 % of value added in EU industry and double that for at least one Member State, in which, with 8 % of the EU's industrial jobs, that proportion is over 25 %, a third of its exports being dependent on that sector, whereas another Member State, with a very different industrial structure, is simultaneously the biggest exporter and the biggest importer.
The total weight and quality of the percentage represented by textiles and clothing therefore varies throughout the EU, according to quotas and Member States, and even more if we take sectoral peculiarities into account.
It is those very peculiarities, and the possible existence of different attitudes - particularly as regards competitiveness - that create a risk of fragmentation, preventing the industry from being dealt with as a whole, with a minimum of cohesion.
The adoption of a 'production chain' approach seems to be central to that purpose.
The industry has its own inner cohesion through its 'production chain' and, if it to be competitive either at Member State level or at EU level, we have to look at it in a balanced way and as a whole.
This position has been approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
It could nevertheless have gone further, in my opinion, by including in the textile 'production chain' certain activities which, while they are essential to the textile/clothing industry, cannot be considered to be included within the intrinsic industrial definition of the sector.
Thus, without prejudice to the importance of upstream and downstream activities, it seems to me essential that we should define the limits of the spinning, weaving and garment-making 'production chain' .
That is the reason for the two amendments I am tabling, which I hope will be accepted.
This report, which is the result of collective efforts and numerous visits and consultations, has been unanimously approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I would like to thank my fellow Members for the amendments they have suggested with a view to improving it. I think in almost every case that has been the result.
I would only wish to oppose those submitted by Mrs de Rose and Mr des Places, not because I disagree with their contents, but because I think those ideas area already contained in the draft resolution, and it would be overloaded if they were included.
The same applies to Amendments Nos 25 and 30.
All the others have my support even though they may somewhat overload the draft resolution.
I would also like to emphasize that the other Commissions' opinions have been extremely helpful in enriching our perspective.
Particularly that of the REX Committee, with its special interest in competitiveness, whose suggestions are presented by Mrs Ferrer, in the form of additions to the motion for a resolution. These have my total support.
I think this has enhanced the thinking in the Commission's document.
Against the backdrop of a global 'production chain' approach, greater importance is attached to labour-intensive activities, rejecting the inevitability of contracting-out or globalization, which will be all the more relevant inasmuch as the sector represents over 2 million jobs, has lost 600 000 jobs in recent years and, unless something is done about it, we can predict that hundreds of thousand more will be lost.
The role of training is highlighted, as is the need to deal with the specific questions of women's jobs and lack of job security, and even clandestine and child labour, which give the sector a special and highly delicate social relevance.
During the process, this House will have played a decisive role in getting the Commission to confirm that what it had presented as a plan of action was a discussion paper.
The Industry Council of 7 May itself admitted this and, instead of being completed, we might say the process is just beginning in the sense of coming up with a real and necessary plan of action.
It was Parliament's wish to contribute to that Council with its oral question and resolution as then approved, without prejudice to the preparation of this report.
This is the point of view from which the motion for a resolution has been framed.
Whereas Parliament had been excluded from the process until the Commission's document came before it, from then on it has wanted to play a full part.
And it wants to go on doing so.
If the plan of action has become a discussion paper, this resolution will contribute to that discussion within the framework it defines.
I would therefore re-emphasize and reinforce point 20 of the motion for a resolution, which calls on the Commission to continue the dialogue launched with the two sides of industry, to coordinate and monitor the measures to be adopted to improve competitiveness in the sector, and to bear in mind that Parliament should participate in that dialogue and that discussion. Fully participate in them.
To make sure there is and will be a real, meaningful and necessary plan of action.
Mr President, Commissioner, whether liberalization represents an opportunity or a threat to the European textile and clothing industry does not depend solely on the industry's own efforts.
Therefore, Commissioner, the dialogue you have encouraged between the Commission, the Member States' authorities and the social partners within the sector ought to be greatly welcomed. The aim of that dialogue is to define strategies, bearing in mind the challenges posed by the globalization of the economy.
As a result of that dialogue, the social partners presented a report in which they specified the measures which, in their view, should be promoted at Community level. That report formed the basis of the Commission communication on measures to increase the competitiveness of this industry that we are now debating.
Well, that communication concentrates more on describing the problems and assessing the policies the Commission has been implementing than on providing concrete proposals in response to the demands put forward by the social partners with a view to improving companies' competitiveness and profiting from the liberalization of the markets.
At least, that is how we in the Committee on External Economic Relations interpreted the contents of the communication and the impression it gives.
So we think that over and above the proposed measures in the areas of training, research and development, information technologies or implementation of the internal market, much more emphasis should have been placed on questions of access to third-country markets and respect for the rules and obligations arising out of international agreements.
In particular, the Commission should have proposed specific measures to end fraud and combat dumping practices effectively and within a reasonable time-span; or to get rid of the imbalances caused by the technical and administrative obstacles which continue to hinder the access of European products to foreign markets; or to protect intellectual property, which is so important given that the European industry specializes in design and fashion; and to stimulate exports and promote the image of European products - the famous EXPROM line which, unfortunately, is diminishing all the time, because of a lack of legal base, we are told.
That is the precise gist of the amendments which were approved unanimously by the Committee on External Economic Relations and which I have tabled, in agreement with Mr Ribeiro, with the intention of getting them incorporated into the text of the resolution which accompanies his excellent report - on which I wish to congratulate you, Mr Ribeiro. I hope the House will vote in favour of these amendments, and the whole Ribeiro report.
There is no doubt that these amendments and the whole text of the resolution will make a clear and full contribution to providing the solutions which the textile and clothing industry, and all the social partners, are asking the European Union for.
I want to end by calling upon the Commission to accept the amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Ribeiro report on a 'Plan of Action for the competitiveness of the textile and clothing industry' , proposed by the Commission, deserves our acceptance to a certain extent.
By stating in the report that the proposal is not specific and lacks cohesion and specific commitments, in terms of both financing and a timetable for implementing it, he gives greater credibility and accuracy both to the conclusions and suggestions contained in the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and to those produced by the specialist committees that have been asked to give their opinion on the Plan of Action we are now debating.
We think it appropriate to place the main emphasis on the social aspects which necessarily underlie the subject under discussion.
We must therefore take prompt measures to slow the galloping job losses in the sector, which has a high proportion of poorly qualified labour and female employees.
In accordance with the employment policy guidelines, it is important that Member States should reduce indirect labour costs, particularly those arising from poorly qualified labour.
Because of rapid technological advances, professional training schemes never get beyond the experimental stage.
To maintain competitiveness in the sector we shall need to anticipate future developments as early as possible and apply them to training systems immediately.
Small and medium-sized enterprises merit special attention: their limited capacity makes it extremely difficult for them to invest in innovative professional training projects.
The sectoral framework agreement that the two sides of industry are already in the process of negotiating will be welcome; it is needed to bring renewed and greater hopes of improvement in the employment situation, by concentrating our efforts in the areas of promotion, professional training, competitiveness and quality.
We endorse the code of conduct signed by the two sides of the industry in Europe and the idea of introducing a certificate of quality to be awarded to textile products produced in socially acceptable conditions, so as to prevent social dumping.
By ensuring the observance of internationally accepted labour regulations, this code of conduct has provided an appropriate instrument for promoting minimum standards in the workplace, even in third countries which use child labour and have extremely low pay levels.
It should be borne in mind that in certain Member States, because of the proportion of jobs it provides, the textiles and clothing industry plays a key role in the balance of trade and the economic fabric of some of its regions which depend on the sector.
Despite this, the European Union should specifically enforce the measures its Member States or their most deprived regions are calling for, thus demonstrating true solidarity, and achieving real economic and social cohesion.
Mr President, the Commission has presented a plan of action to increase competitiveness of the European textile industry. Unfortunately, the plan was produced too late, as though this were a marginal or relatively unimportant subject.
Our industry has now been suffering for years from unbridled competition from developing countries - and neither the Member States nor Europe are prepared to come up with an effective political and economic solution.
As a result of this competition, 600 000 jobs were lost in Europe between 1990 and 1996 and textile production fell by 4.9 %.
In the clothing sector alone, 3.7 % of production was lost.
When consulted for its opinion, the Committee on Regional Policy, Regional Planning and Relations with Regional and Local Authorities stated that it considered the proposal to be very willing to diagnose the problems and that it contained useful points but at the same time it lacked firm foundations, consistency and - above all - strategies in terms of financial investment and time frameworks.
I fully agree with the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy and sincerely hope the entire Parliament will endeavour to ensure this sector is no longer neglected.
Today the European Parliament will be discussing the reform of the Structural Funds - and this reform cannot ignore the textile sector.
It is therefore important to ensure that the Commission's plan of action includes actions and programmes that will help, motivate and provide training for all the small and medium-sized enterprises ultimately responsible for spearheading change. This must be carried out throughout all regions dependent on textile manufacture, rich and poor alike.
Proper backing and proper financial support must be made available for this training - and also to fund research and development to continue the good work of the RETEX and EXPROM programmes.
I therefore ask the Commission to revise its plans in order to fill the gaps and to include the proposals put forward by the European Parliament.
Mr President, let me first of all say to the Commissioner, that his action plan is very welcome to me as a Member of this Parliament.
I represent a region which is heavily dependent on the textile industry.
In Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire over 48 000 people are employed in clothing and textiles and in one area alone - Ashfield - it represents 24 % of manufacturing.
However, since Christmas 1997 there have been major job losses of 3 000 people, over 5 % of manufacturing.
In the UK nationally we have lost some 25 000 jobs out of 380 000, partly as a direct result of your decision to impose import duties on grey cotton.
In my region we have an action plan using Objective 2 funding, the European Social Fund and RETEX funds worth some 1.8 million over the next three years.
Yet regional aid for many of our textile areas is under threat.
The Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal makes no provision to replace the RETEX programme, and Objective 2 areas are to be reduced.
My discussion with local, regional and national companies and organizations representing the textile sector indicates that your action plan is indeed very welcome.
They need access to investment capital for the latest high-tech machinery, support to allow traditional manufacturing to move into specialist niche markets and a branding project to promote EU manufacturing.
And of course there is the other side of the coin, proper labelling of origin.
I do not need to tell you, Commissioner, that competitiveness is the name of the game and I believe that your plan will help deliver the desired competitive gains.
But such plans need resources in order to be effective.
New money may not be necessary, but existing resources will have to be targeted in a coordinated and cohesive manner to underpin the points in your plan.
We believe it is good to set targets and goals to enable the plan to be implemented.
Any company business plan would be toothless if it did not do this and identify the sources of funding.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will reply to these points when you sum up.
I have often listened to debates and spoken to industry, the social partners, who I believe know their own business.
I hope that you will continue to work very closely with the industry, Commissioner, to deliver the competitive gains.
It remains imperative to promote access for EU companies to third country markets and we welcome a programme of coordination and proposals in this area.
Let me finish by saying what the industry does not need.
It does not need old- fashioned protectionism, which you have delivered in the decision on grey cotton imports.
I will be the first to defend Commission anti-dumping duties and quotas where they are justified, but, when they are not in the interests of the industry, I will be the first to defend my textile finishers, not only in my region but also across the EU.
For your bedtime reading, Commissioner - if you would like to look this way - I would therefore recommend that you study this document, in which the finishing industry makes its case for abolition of the provisional duties that you imposed in March.
I hope that you will listen to the industry.
I hope that you will take a decision that respects the common interest of the industry at all levels, including finishers, producers and weavers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report before us on the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry sends a clear message.
This sector has for a number of years been faced with major changes and challenges, and its competitive position and employment policy measures are matters which will continue to be the subject of intense debate.
In Austria this sector of the economy is the one which pays absolutely the lowest wages.
The industry is a major employer of women and is under increasingly fierce competitive pressure, with the result that many businesses have had to close.
About 2 million people are currently employed in the European textile industry.
Since 1990, as we have already heard, some 600 000 jobs have been lost.
The Commission has now devised a plan of action to counter this trend.
This is a very welcome initiative, and indeed proposals of a more concrete nature could also be drawn up with a view to providing support for small and medium-sized enterprises and increasing the competitive potential of this sector.
Of course attention must also be paid to promoting innovation and the use of new technologies, which in the long run will provide the key to success.
It seems to me to be particularly important - and my amendments should illustrate this - not to distort competition or to discriminate against businesses operating in the home market.
The textile and clothing industry is in a rapidly changing competitive environment.
This applies especially to third countries, where the circumstances are often quite different.
I also wish to refer to the amendments proposed by Mrs Ferrer, which seek more effective action against unfair practices by deploying every available means of protection laid down by international agreement.
There should be no discrimination against the exports for these markets.
I wish to conclude by saying that training measures are of course particularly important for the clothing industry, as in the long run consumers will only buy the goods they want.
This is the key to the unemployment problem.
We simply have to ensure that the products available in this area are those which the consumer wishes to purchase.
I believe that training is one of the most important instruments here.
We have to provide training not only for the technical staff but also for those on the managerial side.
We must try to introduce the latest business management methods and for this reason we should take every possible action to ensure that a proper training strategy is adopted for this sector.
Mr President, the textile industry occupies a key place amongst the industrial activities of the European Union, since it is a labour-intensive sector.
At a time when employment is the Union's most serious social problem, this industry deserves very special attention from Europe's institutions.
I have followed closely the work of my own committee, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and the other committees whose opinions have been expressed here, and I want to express the support of the Group of the European Liberal De Democrat and Reform Party for both the Ribeiro report and the proposals made by Mrs Ferrer and Mr Mendonça.
I would like to stress particularly that these proposals aim to increase the competitiveness of the textile industry.
It is not a question of protecting it, or sheltering it indefinitely from foreign competition. It is a question of making sure it enjoys a level of competitiveness which allows it to occupy a secure position as regards international competition.
For that reason, I should like to make special mention of paragraphs 5 and 6 of the Ribeiro report.
Paragraph 5 stresses the proposal to promote innovation and the use of new technologies, as well as the interaction of all the chains of the industry.
Not long ago there was an intervention which I think was mistaken, where only one aspect of one subsector of the textile industry was considered. It is a mistake to come up with a plan for the textile industry based only on one specific sector - there has been talk of the finishing sector - rather than considering it in its entirety.
Lastly, I want to underline the very important point in the Ferrer opinion about respecting the EU's agreements and rules with respect to the textile industry in the area of international trade so as to avoid unfair competition which results in an unfair loss of jobs, all for the lack of an adequate basis to guarantee the necessary continuity in the textile industry in a context of international competitiveness.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone acknowledges the predominant position of the textile and clothing industry in the European Union, which is important in economic and commercial terms, but also, and above all, in terms of jobs.
European business is faced with fierce international competition.
Companies are most concerned by globalization, above all else.
They are obliged, more than anything, to cope with social dumping, which they find particularly damaging.
From now on, as our rapporteur Mr Ribeiro has stressed, we must seek to introduce a Community strategy to boost the competitive stance of European business, and I believe that the Commission supports this.
I represent the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region in France, where the textile sector has for some time played a major part in the local economy.
The difficulties experienced by this sector in the past and, indeed, still today have had a profound effect on our entire regional policy.
Even within the Union, we have encountered competitive situations amongst Member States which at the time were highly damaging.
With the introduction of the euro, such situations seem unlikely to occur again.
I am pleased to note the intention of the Commission to draw up a Community plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry. But, after reading the statement by the Commission, I feel I have to agree with the rapporteur that this report is more like a simple list of good intentions than the genuinely proactive strategy that business expects.
Business needs a more robust expression of support from the European Union and the Member States.
The previous French government implemented a plan of support for the textile industry.
This clearly delineated plan had begun to produce positive results.
Unfortunately, the Commission rejected it as illegal.
That is why I am taking the opportunity of the debate on this report to ask the Commission to go even further in its proposals, because that way lies the wellbeing of countless businesses, the continuance of a large number of jobs and, ultimately, the survival of individual regions in the Union.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mr Ribeiro on his report.
I think that he has vividly described the crisis faced by one of the most important industrial sectors of the European Union.
During the period 1990-1996 more than 600 000 jobs were lost and it is anticipated that over the coming years a further 800 000 jobs will go.
In particular, the impact on female employment must be stressed, given that the sector is dominated by women doing highly intensive work.
When will the European Union draw the obvious conclusions in terms of policy? Competition is all very well, but the production base and jobs are being destroyed.
The European Union, as a result of the broader policy that it is pursuing, but more especially as a result of its industrial policy, is fundamentally undermining the sector and is reinforcing the tendency for units or centres of production to relocate to countries with low labour costs.
The European Union bears the gravest of responsibilities, because it has not taken care to protect European production, even at the most elementary level, from unfair competition on the part of countries that practice social dumping.
The plan of action that has been presented by the Commission will not reverse the current unacceptable situation.
The problems pervading the sector cannot be solved without a more general review not only of competition policy but also of the industrial and commercial policy of the European Union.
The only way to achieve growth in the sector and increased employment is a policy addressing the issue of competitiveness, with a view to supporting production and investments to modernize existing production centres, to promote full and stable employment and a change in policy with regard to cotton, coupled with measures to combat commercial and social dumping,
Mr President, what we are dealing with here is not just an Iberian or McCarthy matter, but the question of whether or not to establish a model for European industry policy.
This basically means that we have to do our own homework rather than looking for scapegoats elsewhere.
We have to apply ourselves to the innovative development of high-quality products using considerable mental input, instead of pinning our hopes primarily on anti-dumping measures.
Competitiveness is not essentially a question of costs but rather a matter of developing a quality strategy, whereby we would focus additionally on regional diversification, on conversion plans and on eliminating child labour, homeworking and undeclared employment, which still typify some parts of this industry, and concentrate on developing specific devices, such as environmental labelling and declarations that proper environmental standards are being adhered to, so that customers can really find the quality products they are looking for.
Mr Rübig, offering goods for sale and expecting those goods to be purchased by the customer naturally assumes that there will continue to be mass purchasing power.
This does not apply in situations where real wage levels are falling.
One question which we still need to ask the Commission is this: why do we only develop models of this kind when there are specific sectoral difficulties instead of using them as a basis for European industrial policy as a whole?
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur.
I share his concern that a definite plan of action is needed for the European textile industry.
The fact that more than 600 000 jobs were lost in the industry in the first 7 years of the present decade does not bode well for the industry in the next century.
Textiles, possibly more than any other single manufacturing industry in the European Union, can claim to be our traditional industry.
In my own constituency the textile industry was the foundation of industrial development.
I share the rapporteur's concern that the Commission communication does not provide a specific plan of action.
It is clear that the industry needs such a plan: we need more definite measures which will encourage and support innovation, design, differentiation of products and processes, through research and development and smarter operating methods.
I would also advocate making funds available to support the piloting of imaginative, innovative projects.
Making our textile industry more competitive will require such funding to be made available, and it should be made available in a way which is accessible and easy to administer.
Incorporating piloted projects fully into the industry will also require strong support.
The more all those involved in the European textile industry work together, the better the chance for that industry in our individual Member States to become more competitive.
I fully endorse calls for support for supply-chain initiatives which, amongst other things, would encourage the large retailers in the European Union to develop links with European Union suppliers to facilitate quick response and mass customization of goods.
In line with the same logical pattern of cooperation, assistance for a European textile industry dating service would allow for greater collaboration between businesses in the European Union which share similar ideas but may not always have the means to establish such collaboration.
I note the rapporteur refers to the issue of anti-dumping measures.
The United Kingdom Members were particularly concerned at the effect the provisional measures regarding unbleached cotton grey cloth will have on the national industry.
The episode has displayed the extent to which the industry needs to be a prime candidate for anti-dumping measures.
Finally, I wish to say to the Commissioner that this is not a sunset industry: this is an industry which has a future but requires the support of the Commission of the European Union to ensure that its future is fully realized.
Mr President, Mr Ribeiro's report presents a very clear picture of the facts, problems and needs of this sector, which is so important for Europe, for our small and medium-sized enterprises and for EU employment policy.
In view of the enormous international competitive pressures I consider it essential that this industry should organize its national production chains more intensively along European lines and should strive to develop a network of transboundary production chains within the integrated economic area.
There needs to be greater interaction between all the different links in the production chain, from the use of specialized machines through garment making to the retail distributors.
The fact that there are different types of textile sub-sector and that there is a high degree of fragmentation within the industry should not prevent this sector being considered and treated as a heterogeneous whole from both an economic and sociopolitical point of view.
We should therefore give our full support to the call for the Commission to submit a new plan of action which focuses more on promoting innovation and on using new technologies.
The SMEs, both as producers of finished products and as suppliers, merit particular attention, not least because of the important role they play in ensuring job stability.
Mr President, may I first of all congratulate the Commission on this plan of action to increase competitiveness in the textile and clothing industry, my colleague Sérgio Ribeiro on the report he has presented to us today, and the draftsmen of the Committees' opinions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing today with one of the European Union's principal industrial activities, one which on its own accounts for ECU 200 billion worth of trade, but in relation to which the European Union's balance of trade with the rest of the world shows a deficit.
There are 120 000 businesses, nearly all of them small or medium-sized, involved in all aspects of the textile and clothing industry, and of over 2 million jobs the majority are occupied by women.
The employment situation in this sector is one of those which has most affected the rate of unemployment in Europe: between 1990 and 1996 600 000 jobs were lost, 100 000 of them in 1996 alone, and unemployment is expected to progress for the next few years, affecting 800 000 jobs, unless something is done to halt it.
Knowing that employment is a decisive issue for the European Union, and that most of the unemployed are women, we therefore demand immediate and far-reaching measures in that area, especially because it affects the least developed countries in the European Union, or those in industrial decline, and the regions that are heavily dependent on the textile and clothing business.
In Portugal, for example, the sector is responsible for over 30 % of industrial production.
The quality textile sector has a future in Europe, and the need to maintain employment and reverse the trade deficit means that the European Union must give the sector strong support, especially by:
implementing properly monitored anti-dumping measures and social conditions in relation to third countries, for example by stipulating a 'social label' ; -actively supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, especially in the National Action Plans for employment; -more action on professional training schemes and adaptation to women's domestic needs, since the great majority of workers in the sector are women; -increasing subsidies for the promotion of Community textile and clothing exports, particularly by allocating more funds to budget heading B7-852. In this respect the European Parliament has a special part to play in bringing our financial proposals into line with what we propose to do; -developing the creation of new products by means of the Fifth Framework Programme on Research and Technological Development; -improving the way the internal market works and cooperation within the European Union.This is a set of measures the Commission should extend and elaborate on, and they need to be specifically included in the plan of action to increase competitiveness in the textile and clothing industry presented to us today.
This sector is vital to employment and production in the European Union.
Let us be consistent and give it our unequivocal support.
Mr President, we are now discussing the competitiveness of the European textiles and clothing industry.
I welcome the Commission's plan of action in this area because I believe it is a very important sector for Europe.
It is important for us to talk about this, particularly in the context of continued liberalization within the WTO.
Since the 1970s, several Member States have opened their markets to textile imports and abolished old forms of subsidy.
An enormous change took place in these sectors and areas, and that happened because protection would favour neither increased expertise, development activity nor free trade with new competing countries.
Above all, it was imports from the countries of southern Europe, which were then demanding free trade and access to markets, which revolutionized conditions for, amongst others, Sweden's industrial districts.
Several decades have now passed.
Today we have high-quality production, but without the same number of workers.
A lot of production has been relocated to places like Estonia.
However, the companies I am now talking about in Sweden's industrial districts are not helped by distorting financial subsidy programmes within the EU or by textile quotas.
When I hear some colleagues demanding in various terms more protection against textile imports, this does not reflect the EU's spirit of free trade or solidarity.
The newly democratic counties of central and eastern Europe, and developing countries in other parts of the world, must have access.
They must be allowed to compete with their conditions, and that often means lower wages than the wages we demand in the EU.
I fully respect the fact that we need a transition period.
I support the plan of action and joint efforts to bridge this period. However, there should be no doubt at all about the objective, that is to say free trade and competition on equal terms.
I support this because I believe that this sector, the European textile industry, has very good conditions.
I do not believe that it is an end in itself for us to try to preserve many of the poor jobs which actually exist in the sector today. Instead I have faith in this industry and know that it is actually a world leader in several segments and extremely competitive.
However, if we are to succeed in including the whole sector in this, we need an increased ability to change, specialization and a higher know-how content, so that we can compete in a globalized economy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am one of those who consider that the Commission's communication can hardly be called a plan of action.
On the other hand, I do think that the industry should not expect too much from Europe, but that the industry itself and the Member States will have to make the necessary adjustments.
Ladies and gentlemen, what will have to happen to secure the competitiveness of the industry in a global economy? Europe has to ensure strict compliance with the rules of the Uruguay round.
Tariff barriers preventing free export have to be lowered and sophisticated techniques to prevent exports from third countries are absolutely forbidden.
European textile producers are, of their own accord, avoiding the need to compete with cheap imported products.
After all, the trumps they hold lie more in quality products, new applications and the use of new technologies.
In this respect, the Fifth European Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development may provide encouragement for many SMEs who are prepared to innovate.
National governments cannot escape their responsibilities.
At every Council meeting, they promise better training and a reduction of labour costs which, by the way, are part of the reason for the black economy in this sector.
It is high time that these promises were kept.
Mr President, in its communication, the European Commission acknowledged that the textile sector has, in recent years, sacrificed a considerable number of jobs.
We all know that the crisis in the textile sector is due mainly to delocalization, increased imports, lower consumption due to unemployment and a drop in incomes, but also to significant delays as regards training, research and equipment modernization.
Nevertheless, the textile industry still represents a promising sector for the future of Europe, as we have seen from the Ribeiro report, which not only criticizes the Commission's approach, but also puts forward proposals to halt the massive loss of jobs and make a positive contribution to the future development of the textile sector.
In its communication, the European Commission committed itself to an approach that seeks to improve the competitiveness of business which, in itself, is not a bad thing, but it essentially wishes to do this by exerting pressure on labour costs and by encouraging flexibility, solutions which have already unworkable.
Neither pressure on wages, nor a reduction of labour costs has prevented continued job dumping and further aggravation of the trade deficit.
So, whilst offsetting the distortions of competition and combating the ill effects of social dumping, we must seek more positive means of promoting a reduction in working hours, developing research, improving training facilities and modernizing equipment by introducing new technologies; we should also aim to elevate purchasing power to boost consumption in the textile and clothing sector.
Unless it is emasculated, or weakened by the adoption of amendments, the Ribeiro report - which covers all these proposals - should be given our full support.
Mr President, Commissioner Bangemann, ladies and gentlemen, there are certain reports that we have to debate and vote on in our Parliament which capture our attention as a whole and which appeal to me especially.
They are the ones that dwell on industrial policies, policies that sustain and create wealth, business and jobs.
Entire regions depend on them.
They constitute the bedrock, indeed the condition that governs everything else, including the drift of public opinion and the morale of employees everywhere, hope for the future and support for the European cause itself.
I said the very same thing just a month ago when I delivered my report on European industrial competitiveness and its prospects.
Sérgio Ribeiro's excellent report emphasizes the logic of this approach.
It heads in the same direction and contributes to the creation of a future framework for the textile industry.
As the elected representative of a large, long-established textile region in the north of France, I commend his report and would like to tell him that I support the underlying philosophy of his message.
It is quite legitimate to institute an action programme that would allow this sector to fight on equal terms with the competition from third countries.
Consequently, I believe that the European Union should play a key role in the fight against dumping, by means of social and environmental provisions, together with financial restrictions on imported goods, should this prove necessary.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we must reaffirm the special nature of the textile industry, which employs a vast labour force, often with few qualifications and with a significant number of women workers.
Many parliamentary reports have stressed the training aspect.
Now we must find the means to do something about it.
So I am hoping for a strong, specific commitment on the part of the Commission.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it is quite natural for us to enquire about the repercussions of the Asian crisis, about the growth in the trade gap with those regions and therefore consequences for European textile companies.
I expect a greater degree of transparency.
And yes, ladies and gentlemen, we must support all initiatives that favour job growth, but not from an ideological standpoint.
We must further the development of new technologies in this sector.
Many of my colleagues have said as much.
We can and must be able to combine new technologies, steps to promote jobs and social development.
To conclude, I simply wish to restate the fundamental importance of the textile chain in European industry.
Textiles are not a mere relic of the past.
This is an industry with a future.
We must consider the consequences and provide the means.
My friends, we in Europe are once again in a cycle of growth, so much to the good; we must now do everything in our power to encourage it with research, training, a strong commercial stance and a proactive, intelligent approach to the social aspects.
The textile industry in Europe is a fertile breeding ground.
Mr President, my colleague Sérgio Ribeiro's report, on which I congratulate him, makes a significant contribution to the much-needed promotion of the textile and clothing sector, reinforcing Commissioner Bangemann's welcome initiative.
This is a very important sector for Portugal, where it represents 9 % of production and 13 % of all jobs, and we are particularly concerned that it should have registered a 22 % reduction in employment between 1990 and 1995, higher than for the European Union as a whole.
Yet this does not mean there is no future for the sector, because the loss of jobs - which requires readjustment measures - is largely due to ongoing increases in productivity.
By way of example, productivity in Portugal rose from 1.43 escudos per employee in 1990 to 2.14 in 1995.
On the positive side, it should be pointed out that even in a world of fierce competition from countries with much cheaper labour, Europe has continued to maintain a strong position.
This is essentially due to high-quality fashion products: all over the world preference is given to our brand names, which is also a kind of recognition of European cultural values, in this case of an aesthetic nature.
It is therefore important that those values are happily married to our economic activities.
With regard to promoting our exports, there is every justification for increasing the budgetary heading we jointly proposed a few years ago.
This is a heading that has been amply justified by the contribution it has made to sales in major but much more difficult markets, such as those of Japan and other Asian countries.
You will understand, therefore, that we very particularly wish to emphasize the need to support the REX Committee's suggestion - which Mrs Ferrer has also mentioned - that increased funds should be made available for that allocation.
If we agree or even wish that our markets should be open to third countries, we must also implement some restructuring measures, which are needed in many cases.
This is happening in Portugal, with the programme of assistance for the textile sector agreed at the end of the Uruguay Round, although we naturally cannot now accept any reduction in the funds presently allocated, which are fully justified and to which we are committed.
It would be incomprehensible if the politicians were to fail to honour that commitment.
Mr President, first I should like to thank Mr Ribeiro for a very thorough and in-depth report.
In Finland too the textile sector has had to undergo radical structural change, and tens of thousands of jobs have been lost.
Nevertheless, the textile industry that has remained with us, after the changes were made, has shown itself to be competitive in world markets.
In trying to cope with both structural changes in the sector and present uncertainty, the most important factor, alongside technical development, has proved to be social innovation, such as the reorganization of work, greater autonomy of workers, and management methods.
For this reason we should pay close attention to the increase in demand for work skills among company staff, and the change in the type of skills required.
Professional training should be provided for all staffing sectors, taking account of three requirements: increased interaction, negotiation and problem-solving.
Mr President, I first want to congratulate the rapporteur.
Given the importance of this sector from an employment point of view, especially women's employment, and its regional impact, Parliament should permanently monitor developments the sector, and carry on with this work.
This sector is a touchstone for European economic and social values and our reactions to the globalization which is talked about so much. It is true that analysis of this sector lends itself to conservative, protectionist clichés and attitudes.
It is also true that we are talking in positive terms about a European industrial sector which is complex by virtue of its heterogeneity and diversity, dynamic and, in many cases, competitive. Nevertheless, without wishing to dramatize the situation, it is also true to say that we are faced with problems in this sector - in Europe and the world - due to tough international competition and restructuring.
So we are looking at massive layoffs, unequal pay for men and women, a lack of job security, sexual harassment, low pay, undeclared employment, delocalization, and, in other parts of the world, the exploitation of child and female labour, unhealthy working environments, and examples of dubious industrial ethics - in what is called the necessary international division of labour - such as some 'maquilas' in border areas and free trade zones.
What are the solutions? I believe that, as already has been said here, we must first of all respect social dialogue in Europe and support the international promotion of the basic conventions of the International Labour Organization.
Here and in the World Trade Organization we must speed up the processes of defending and promoting European trade.
That is why it is so important to promulgate and apply the code of social conduct which should also be complemented by programmes of economic and social support in third countries.
At the same time, here in Europe, we need wholehearted support for technological innovation, quality, branded products and lifelong learning, as well as implementing regional and social measures.
I say this because the restructuring process will continue, and diversification in the textile regions should guarantee the preservation of jobs in these areas, especially for women.
Unfortunately, we do not think the plan of action we are discussing is sufficiently ambitious, since it does not specify concrete measures or adequate funding.
So we are faced with an important challenge, which has already been mentioned: that of attaining a balance between growth, competitiveness and employment.
I would add that that applies not just within the European Union, but also in our relations with third parties.
It is not a question of protectionism, Mr President. It is a question of making sure that all the social criteria we say we stand for are respected in the international division of labour which is affecting this sector.
Mr President, in my opinion the proposal by the Commission to enhance competitiveness in the textile and clothing industry does not go far enough.
As we stated in the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, the so-called plan of action is more a preliminary, tentative plan than a programme ready for implementation.
The European textile and clothing industry has been made competitive mainly by an efficient, skilled workforce, high-quality, innovative and up-to-date production methods, and specialization and flexibility in the industry.
Weaknesses in the sector in Europe have long been due to unfair access to markets.
The EU has opened up its own markets without obtaining reciprocal and equal access to third country markets.
An example of this is the latest agreement with Russia. The EU abandoned its restrictions with hardly any concessions in return.
European Community regional aid to the textile and clothing industry treats different EU regions unequally.
Large centres of population in Finland do not qualify for this kind of aid. Nor can the RETEX programme be applied in Finland.
Yet Finnish business has to compete in the single market with companies receiving support.
I would like to remind everyone that EU aid and action to encourage competitiveness must be such as to avoid distortion of competition and guarantee companies the same opportunities for competition in the market.
Companies' competitiveness is ultimately a question of their ability to be innovative and develop, which should be the main criterion in granting programmes of aid.
Mr President, before getting down to details, I should like to congratulate Mr Ribeiro, because this was not an easy subject to tackle, and he has done so efficiently and accurately.
I would also like to congratulate the three draftsmen of opinions.
I have already congratulated one of them, Mr Moretti, when we examined his work in the Committee on Regional Policy.
My compatriot, Mrs Ferrer, has done a wonderful piece of work for the Committee on External Economic Relations, and the same is true of Mr Mendonça for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
The textile and clothing sector in Europe represents a very important source of jobs for women.
They account for as much as 75 % of the workforce in this sector, which makes it the mainstay of women's employment in the industrial sector and means its future will have a decisive impact on the position of women in European industry.
The various restructuring strategies within the sector - such as the introduction of new technologies, the delocalization of some production, the reorientation of production towards the top end of the range and the rapid response to changes in demand - have a serious and almost exclusive effect on women workers.
As regards qualifications, women mainly work in semi-skilled or unskilled jobs.
Men are over-represented in more senior positions.
In sectors with a very high concentration of women, such as the one we are dealing with here, the percentage of skilled women is higher than that of skilled men, because skilled men are not attracted by the low wages in the textile sector.
The average wage is lower than the average manufacturing industry wage, and women's average pay is sometimes considerably less than men's, for example in Ireland or the Netherlands, as described in the 1991 study on "the impact of the internal market on the employment of women in the textile and clothing industries' produced by the Directorate-General for Employment.
At this time of restructuring, companies which cannot anticipate the changes caused by the single market, new technologies and globalization will have to make an extra effort to adapt, which will chiefly affect the workforce, and particularly unskilled workers, who are mainly women.
To avoid this happening, it is imperative for us to provide these unskilled female workers with the means to retrain and obtain the qualifications needed for the new production processes.
I think this objective and this aspiration have been expressed perfectly in the report by Mr Ribeiro which we have before us today.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, we are all aware of the fact that textiles and clothing have been synonymous with job losses for more than twenty years.
Although It has already been mentioned, I think we do have to keep in mind that a further 600 000 jobs have been lost in the last six or seven years.
We have cohesion and structural policies in the Union.
There are loans from the European Social Fund and the RETEX programme, but these are not real solutions.
Hence the importance of the plan of action that the European Commission has drawn up in consultation with the industry and the Member States.
Hence also the importance of the Ribeiro report, and I would like to particularly congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
I would like to talk in more detail about four points in the context of this plan of action.
First of all, improving competitiveness.
I believe that there have to be three important elements in this. First, reducing labour costs; this involves increased training, because there are a very large number of semi- and unskilled workers in this industry and many semi- or unskilled women working in the ready-made clothing industry.
Greater efforts are also needed in research and development in order to be able to introduce new technologies.
Do not let us forget that we are mainly dealing with typical SMEs here.
There are around 120 000 of them in the European Union.
It is thus a completely different industry from the automotive sector, where in the final analysis we only have ten or twelve large companies.
There are a lot of small companies in this industry, Commissioner, and they have specific needs and have to have specific support, particularly with regard to new technologies.
Secondly, access to international markets.
It cannot be repeated often enough, Commissioner, that more and more new trade barriers are being raised.
Brazil, for example, introduced an import duty of over 50 % at the beginning of this year.
How can we get access to the international market when there are countries carrying on like that? We have reached agreement on the abolition of the Multifibre Agreement around the year 2005, but to correct this access to markets has to be available at international level.
In other words, we have to act quickly against those countries that operate dumping practices, such as China, India, and Egypt, and above all we have to protect intellectual property as well.
The balance of trade with third countries is in the red. Do not let us forget that.
There is a surplus in the textile industry of 5.4 billion but there is a deficit of 22.6 billion in the clothing industry.
Therefore, the European Commission and the Union have to take prompt and efficient action in this area.
Thirdly, the social dimension.
The European Union must support the basic conventions of the International Labour Organization as far as possible in the international arena.
That is an absolute necessity, it goes without saying that, among other things, there must be a ban on child labour in the European Union, and Mr Ribeiro referred to this.
Fourthly, the role of management and labour.
Before this action plan is implemented, Commissioner, I believe that it will be necessary to set up a follow-up committee where representatives of management and workers, the "social partners' , will also be able to play a role.
I will conclude, Mr President, by saying that I, as the chairman of the textile and clothing committee of the Central Economic Council in my own country, would like to express my pleasure about the action plan and about the resolution that was approved by the Council of Ministers.
The most difficult phase, that is to say implementation, is now to come, and there we are counting on you.
Thank you, Commissioner.
We have all taken note of the Commissioner's wishes. Now we will wait to see what happens and then decide, Mr Bangemann, what drink we should put in the glass you claim we will have to offer you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
Composition of the Economic and Financial Committee
The next item is the report (A4-0264/98) by Mrs Berès, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on detailed provisions concerning the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee accompanied by a proposal for a Council decision on the detailed provisions concerning the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has today been informed of the Commission proposal concerning the transformation of the Monetary Committee into an Economic and Financial Committee at the start of the third phase of European Economic and Monetary Union.
There can be no doubt that this report has come at just the right time since, from 2 May, we have finally been allowed to speak about of the institutional aspects of the euro and the institutional consequences of the euro.
In this respect, the Treaty on the European Union is certainly not the be-all and end-all in institutional terms, but until now we have been forbidden to talk about it lest we imperil acceptance of the euro.
We were forbidden to speak about it at the Intergovernmental Conference.
But since 2 May, things have begun to stir and even actually to move.
We now have the Euro Council, the Euro 11 and - who knows? - tomorrow there could well be further developments.
But, just for the moment, let us go back to the Treaty on European Union.
It has a weakness in that it only gives us the right to information on such an important subject.
It is surprising that it refers to the existence of a technical committee, unless it is not really a technical committee, in which case we have good grounds for our fears.
Fundamentally, however, it does envisage substantial changes with regard to the future of the Monetary Committee in terms of its name, its membership and its function.
From this standpoint, the Commission proposal, drawn up in accordance with the guidelines defined by the European Council in Luxembourg, does take us aback somewhat.
In fact, the Treaty does not lay down that each Member State should necessarily be represented by two members elected to the Economic and Financial Committee.
All the same, that is the choice that has been made.
The result is that we have an Economic and Financial Committee which, from the point of view of the national central bankers, will precisely match the membership of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, which is the true decision-making body in the Central Bank.
Yet, it seems to us at this stage that tax and budget experts, economists and experts in economic forecasting should play a part.
We are told that they will be represented on the Committee on Economic Policy.
But that committee has been in existence since 1974 and we have scarcely noted its influence.
Its function is not mentioned in the texts concerning the Stability Pact and it was merely referred to in a document transmitted by the Ecofin Council to the European Council in Luxembourg.
Obviously, we are not expecting a central role in terms of coordinating economic policy.
Furthermore, the way in which the committee would manifest itself when the broad economic policy guidelines (over which much ink has been spilt) are adopted this year, does not convince us either.
My committee is would like to know if the status of the Economic and Financial Committee is compatible with independence. Certainly, the Economic and Finance Ministers are invited to the European Central Bank.
But the bankers are fully paid-up members of the Economic and Financial Committee and their reflexes betray a strong national bias.
We feel that there should be an effort to seek common ground with the national central banks, but not to the extent of defining economic policy.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy thinks a dialogue is necessary, but does not believe it is that particular dialogue that Economic and Monetary Union needs.
We now invite the Council to revise the proposal currently under examination and to reconsider the role of the representatives of the national central banks on the Economic and Financial Committee.
We urge it to define an unambiguous connection between the work of the Economic and Financial Committee and the Employment Committee.
We also call on it to seek a merger between the Economic and Financial Committee and the Committee on Economic Policy.
Objections have been raised to the effect that this would mean the Economic and Financial Committee meeting weekly.
Why not? The euro needs institutions and policies that accept the need to devote some time to it.
The transition to the euro is disrupting the life of our citizens, but also that of our institutions, our political leaders, our civil servants, their customary pursuits and their clubs.
Economic government is not an Ecofin Council meeting three times a week.
In addition, we think that a merger with the Committee on Economic Policy should not be brushed aside.
This might be the way in which we could set up genuine facilities for coordinating economic policy.
If, at this stage, nothing changes, we urge the Member States to make use of alternates to ensure that tax and budget experts and economists take a seat on the Economic and Financial Committee.
We want to be consulted on the status of the Economic and Financial Committee, rather than being simply informed of the membership of that Committee.
Finally, we would ask the Commission and the Council to ensure that this device is only a temporary measure.
We are awaiting the proposals from all the institutions concerned in the transition to the final phase of EMU in order to take these arrangements further.
Finally, your rapporteur is curious about the role of the Economic and Financial Committee with regard to the Euro Council, the Euro 11, and, perhaps too, about who is to be the president of this envisaged Council.
This report gives us an opportunity today to make our position clear concerning one of the institutional arrangements that are to enable the European Union to promote the coordination of economic policies in pursuit of growth and jobs.
From that standpoint, we think there is still much to do.
We will do it together and your Parliament intends to play its full part in that respect.
Mr President, I congratulate my colleague, Mrs Berès, for throwing light on one of the more shadowy organizations of the European Union - the Monetary Committee.
Chaired by the distinguished and retiring Sir Nigel Wicks, it has done valuable service in preparing papers for Ecofin.
Some of its confidentiality is justified.
There is a sense in which seminal papers must be allowed to sow the seeds of their ideas before they see the light of day.
Nevertheless, it is time to be more transparent.
The change of the name to the Economic and Financial Committee is an appropriate juncture at which to prompt reform.
In my own recent meeting with Sir Nigel I was encouraged to hear him support the idea that his successor as Chair - he himself will not continue in that role, as Britain is not a founding member of EMU - should appear regularly before a relevant committee of the European Parliament to make the EFC more open to the public gaze.
This despite the fact that Article 109c of the Treaty only requires Parliament to be informed of the Council's decisions.
All that would be a good start, but the change of name should also reflect a change of function.
Many of us are concerned that the Treaty emphasizes monetary matters at the expense of economic management.
The renamed Economic and Financial Committee should tilt the balance back to a proper equilibrium.
The rapporteur's suggestion that new links should be formed with the near-moribund Economic Policy Committee set up in 1974 is good, as too is the proposal that dialogue should be encouraged between the EFC and the Employment Committee created under the employment chapter of the Amsterdam Treaty.
The key to what the rapporteur, and the Socialist Group, seek to achieve lies in the composition of the membership of the EFC.
It should of course be as balanced and skilful as France's winning football team on Sunday.
However, at the moment it is banked with bankers, although Article 109c does not specify whether representatives should come from national banks or from economic and finance ministries.
Surely it would be preferable here, in addition to national central bankers, to have representatives from the economic ministries who are themselves responsible for formulating short and medium-term economic policies.
There is even a case for substitution on the 34-person EFC.
Experts in the fields of taxation or budgeting should substitute for regular members from time to time if that leads to better and more informed debate.
Finally, I support the rapporteur's proposals that the Council's decisions should be amended so they can be reviewed before 1 Jan 2002 and that the Commission, EFC and ECB should report before 1 July 2001 on the state of interinstitutional relations in the context of EMU since the beginning of Stage 3.
Mr President, the Economic and Financial Committee that is to be set up has a large number of important tasks, and they are all in the previously mentioned article 109 C, paragraph 2 of the Maastricht Treaty.
What does the EFC do? It gives advice upon request or on its own initiative to the Council and to the Commission, studies the economic and financial circumstances of the Community, prepares the work of the Council in a wide range of areas such as exchange rate policy and the coordination of economic policy.
A great deal of attention has been paid in particular to the coordination of economic policy in the last few months. And this coordination is becoming more and more important.
Wim Duisenberg wrote in his response to the written questions of the public hearing in May that inflation is not solely determined by monetary policy, but also by budgetary policy.
By both, therefore, Mr President, in contrast to what our rapporteur implies.
Therefore, good cooperation must be brought about between the governments who are responsible for budget policy and the European Central Bank, which ultimately determines interest rates.
The Economic and Financial Committee will play a central role in this, and to my way of thinking it will be the forum for coordination.
I find Mrs Berès' proposal to remove the monetary specialists or the representatives of the European Central Bank from the Committee unacceptable.
National monetary specialists would therefore no longer be on the Committee, according to her plan.
Like Mrs Berès, I would like to emphasize the need for a coordinated policy, but not in the same way.
This is why my group has tabled three amendments.
I consider that it must be possible to make individual countries aware of their responsibilities.
If some countries relax their budgetary policies, this could mean that the ECB will have to step on the monetary brake at the expense of those countries that have their house in order.
This must not happen.
Wim Duisenberg has already stated that he sees a task reserved for the European Central Bank in rapping the knuckles of countries which go off the European budgetary rails as laid down in the stability pact.
In the Netherlands, too, the Nederlandse Bank has appointed itself the critical and independent judge of government finances, even in the past, and now the new President is taking this line again. The Nederlandse Bank criticized the negotiations on the financial margins of a new government only three weeks ago.
That is precisely the reason why the national monetary specialists on the Committee cannot be dispensed with as Mrs Berès imagines.
They ensure the necessary impartial knowledge about the state of the economy in the various Member States and will be a critical voice within the Committee.
They must prevent the Committee from echoing "his master's voice' too much.
After all, if there are only civil servants from the Finance Ministries on the Committee, Ecofin will be advising itself.
Developments in German wages are another current indication that the warning voice of the national central banks has to be heard clearly.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with the opinions which have been expressed here, both by the rapporteur and by the representatives of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European People's Party, in the sense that the currently proposed composition of this Economic and Financial Committee, which is to replace the Monetary Committee, should be broader and that it should operate more at Community level.
The Commissioner will recall that during the debate on the content of the annual economic report, in which the Monetary Committee proposed limiting the Commission's ability to assess the economic situation in the various Member States separately, Parliament rejected that restriction.
Maybe that restriction on the Commission's competence will come about after all, if the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee is established as it stands in the current proposal.
I can see an important defect in this composition, because the Economic and Financial Committee would become a sort of alternative Governing Council of the European Central Bank and an alternative Ecofin, so that the overall situation would be controlled but without there being a forum for debate at the level of the whole European Union, able to analyse the economic and financial situation objectively and thus advise both the ECB and the EU institutions themselves, such as the Commission or Parliament itself.
So I think it would be a good idea to review this composition and provide it with a real Community dimension, at EU level.
Mr President, what we are dealing with here is a much more general problem than simply the composition of a committee.
What we are dealing with is the risk of diminishing political vigilance in the wake of the decision on the euro, where the old dreams of the technocrats suddenly appear again on the agenda and institutional non-regulation changes to institutionalized non-policy.
I have a word of warning for the ECB.
Institutional nirvana is not a safe place to be and there is circumstantial evidence for this.
Firstly, the press are saying that Mr Duisenberg's salary is to be regarded as a state secret.
I hope that he will be able to deny this.
Secondly, there is the procedure for establishing the basic principles of economic policy, where the Monetary Committee has practically worked out all the political aspects, that is to say the primacy of employment policy, the embodiment of monetary policy and the relationship between wages policy and productivity trends, on the basis of the Commission's proposal, thereby rendering the latter incapable of action.
What we need here are institutions which can enter into consultation with the European Parliament, and not just feed it information.
We need a political body which is properly qualified to run the Ecofin and Euro-11 meetings in coordination with the Employment Committee - something like a European economic government. This will not be achieved by the proposal as it stands, which does nothing more than revive the nightmares of technocracy.
Mr President, Members of this House, we should congratulate Mrs Berès on her perspicacity.
The Commission proposal concerning the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee due to succeed the Monetary Committee actually conveys an innocent impression of continuity.
But, in reality, it represents a divergence from European economic construction towards a double overindulgence: a surfeit of monetarism and an excess of technocracy.
Yet the name of the Economic and Financial Committee projected an image of a place of reflection extending beyond mere monetary matters.
Its function in formulating decisions regarding the coordination of economic policies or defining major economic policy guidelines leads it naturally to consider all economic and social data, with reference to all the instruments of economic and social policy.
But the Commission proposals relating to its membership are exceedingly limiting.
They simply make it an adjunct of banking and monetary policy, which the ESCB could well do without, since its independence and range of measures have a solid basis.
The rapporteur has good reason to criticize the elevated status some would seek to grant the representatives of the central banks on the Committee and, with respect to the senior officials, the monopoly envisaged for the representatives of financial administrations only.
So, it seems to us that it would be a good idea to increase the membership of the Economic and Financial Committee, to restrict - as Mrs Berès would wish - the role of the representatives of the central banks, but also (and here we are deliberately stepping beyond the wishes of our rapporteur), to ensure that the skills of practitioners in economic and social matters, other than those of the senior officials, are represented.
Finally, we share the Mrs Berès' desire to see a regular information and consultation procedure set up between the Economic and Financial Committee and the European Parliament.
Mr President, the start of the third phase of EMU is prompting a restructuring of the Monetary Committee.
The name will be changed too, unfortunately.
In my opinion, it should have stayed the same.
Then the rapporteur would at least have been spared a disappointment.
Now she thinks that the change of name will also lead to a change of substance.
However, cause and effect are being reversed here.
There should have been a much stronger plea for retaining the name Monetary Committee.
In the explanatory statement of the report, the rapporteur says that the countries of the euro-area have dual representation on the Economic and Financial Committee, namely via their own representatives (directly) and via the representatives of the European Central Bank (indirectly).
I cannot follow this reasoning.
It will not do to regard representatives of the ECB as indirect representatives of the euro-area countries.
That essentially indicates a failure to understand the independence of the ECB.
This is also demonstrated by the following point. Because despite the fact that the rapporteur does not think much of the influence of national civil servants within the Economic and Financial Committee, her report is an unmistakable plea for a typical national French hobby-horse: the formation of an economic administration at European level as a counterpart to the ECB, which - in the eyes of the French government - is too much along German lines.
Given what I have just said, the European Parliament's lack of serious powers in this area is of very little importance.
Mr President, the Economic and Financial Committee, which is to supersede the current Monetary Committee, strengthens the position of the Finance Council in relation to the EU's other Councils of Ministers.
It is worrying to me that not enough emphasis was placed on such things at Maastricht, that the role of the European Commission is thereby weakened and that in important processes for the coordination of finance policy the Commission does not propose but rather recommends.
Parliament must support calls for this situation to be changed when the time comes for the Treaty to be revised.
The EU must adopt a new approach to policy coordination.
The rapporteur is quite right in referring to this and the Economic and Financial Committee - and here I can only share your hopes and indeed your opinions - must also reflect this new approach to coordination.
I very much regret that the twin-track approach to the process of monetary union, as conceived by Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt when the European exchange-rate mechanism was being set up, has not yet achieved its crowning moment, as it were.
At that time two committees were set up - the Monetary Committee and the Employment Committee.
The Monetary Committee was institutionalized and enshrined in treaty law, while the Employment Committee continued to live in its shadow.
This is not justified, given the dramatic policy development and the nil return in respect of European added value.
I therefore think that the problems of employment policy, economic policy and financial policy actually have to be seen as a whole.
I should like to recall that this Parliament, when it adopted the broad guidelines for economic policies last year, stressed that these guidelines must also take account of other considerations, particularly since the Ministers' decision on economic and finance policy has to be seen in connection with the budget debates in the national parliaments, which always take place in the autumn of each year.
The Economic and Financial Committee has an advisory role, yet it has become an institution.
Its function must accordingly be made more transparent and enforceable.
It is therefore correct to say that we need a monetary dialogue over and above the previous dialogue.
You know that for years Parliament has been carrying on a dialogue with the Monetary Committee via the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs.
This must also be extended to the Economic and Financial Committee, so that opinions on stability plans, on the avoidance of excessive deficit and other moves aimed at coordinating economic policy do not remain solely in the hands of monetary authorities and monetary advisory bodies, but that other parties are also included.
I still think that it is important to have a Jumbo Council every year.
The already paramount role of the Council of Finance Ministers, should not lead to a situation in which economic and employment policy is decided upon without input from the Ministers for Employment and Economic Affairs.
While the institutional structure of Monetary Union is all too clear, the decision-making processes for this Union are, by contrast, underdeveloped.
We need a fresh approach here, and the Berès report gives us renewed hope of this.
We probably even require an additional protocol to Article 103 of the Maastricht Treaty, so that in future we too become part of the real processes of negotiation and decision-making.
Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the debate seems to be dwelling, above all, on the membership of the Committee.
In fact, the real debate should not be about that at all.
Instead, the real debate should focus more on the nature of the Committee.
But the Committee as it stands today, as we have seen, is there merely to defend national interests and skim off anything that is Community-related.
Whether it is composed of representatives of the national banks, or representatives of economic and finance ministries, nothing changes and that is the pity.
What we have in effect is the Commission which, when it comes to coordination, draws up draft recommendations.
These then go before the Committee, now known as the "Economic and Financial Committee' but there is still no change: it is there to defend views that are not in the common interest.
We cannot change anything because that is how the Treaty has ordained things.
So we must now do something to remedy this mistake and to do this we must allow Parliament to exercise its influence, thereby providing a dimension that this Committee can never offer since, as we have seen and will doubtless see again, it will never do anything in the common interest, it will be there to defend the positions of governments.
What we need is policy coordination and policy coordination implies supra-national power.
It is not only the Commission and Parliament who have such power.
There are the only ones who should step in at this stage.
They duplicate Ecofin.
So this Committee serves no real purpose.
I would have liked this factor to have surfaced in the Commission proposals, especially since the Commission has stood by in agony watching the way in which the proposals have been eroded.
I had hoped that as a result of these proposals, it might have targeted things better.
Unfortunately, this has not happened.
Mr President, the Economic and Financial Committee, which replaces the former Monetary Committee, is something completely different, and its composition and the way in which it will function must reflect that fact.
In other words there is no longer any question of it carrying out some kind of coordination of the monetary policies of the relevant Member States.
This work is carried out by the European Central Bank.
The new committee will be a kind of technical adviser with as broad-based a composition as possible. This technical adviser will attempt to find ways of coordinating the financial policies of the Member States who have signed up to European Economic and Monetary Union and of the states that have not yet joined Economic and Monetary Union yet remain within the exchange rate mechanism.
In other words, it must have the general power to advise on issues relating to the coordination of the financial policy of the Member States of the European Union with more general monetary policy.
This work is new and has not previously been carried out.
I do not think that much needs to be said and I think that we must not overstate its role.
Naturally it will help, naturally it will assist along these lines, but it is not anything absolute or anything that should give rise to the fears that have been expressed in this House.
Judging by the way in which audiences are arranged between the Parliament's committees and various bodies that are far more important than the one we are debating at the moment - and Mrs Randzio-Plath makes reference to this - and judging by the way in which they respond, I have the impression that this will continue. I would also like to see what committee would refuse to appear before the committees of the European Parliament to give an account of decisions it has taken, even if this is not provided for by the Treaty or by anything else.
I do not think, therefore, that we need be overly concerned about this, and the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee must be as before: it must contain representatives of the central banks of the relevant Member States.
It will be a good compromise between the European Central Bank on the one hand and representatives of the finance ministries on the other.
Let us then look at the matter coolly and let us not exaggerate either the significance or the role of this committee.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Berès' report concerns the procedures relating to membership of the Economic and Financial Committee, on which the Economic and Financial Affairs Council must make a decision. This report makes a major and interesting contribution to the overall debate about the process of establishing Economic and Monetary Union.
Certainly, Article 109C, paragraph 3 of the Treaty on European Union does not formally admit consultation with the European Parliament on this matter, but it is quite legitimate that this House should seize upon an issue of this importance.
Moreover, the Treaty does impose a general obligation on the President of the Council to keep the House informed, so it is natural that this should be given some substance.
Along with the Commission, I therefore commend the words of your rapporteur on the membership of this new Committee and I also note with interest everything that has been said regarding its status, which should also be adopted before 1 January 1999.
The Commission will also pronounce on this new status and, at the appropriate time, it will take account of your views.
To reply to the matters raised - especially by the rapporteur this morning - I would like to make two quick comments concerning, firstly, the actual membership of the Economic and Financial Committee and, secondly, its role.
With regard to the membership, Article 109C, paragraph 2, stipulates that the Member States, the Commission and the European Central Bank shall each appoint not more than two members of the Committee.
Now, at the European Council in Luxembourg, on 12 and 13 December last year, the Heads of State and Government, in their resolution on the coordination of economic policies, stated their intentions and I will quote the conclusions of the European Council: The Economic and Financial Committee, which will bring together senior officials from the national central banks and the ECB as well as from finance ministries, will provide the framework within which the dialogue can be prepared and continued at the level of senior officials.
So, Mr Castagnède, there is no departure.
I do not accept this criticism since the text from the European Council defines the natural framework in which the Commission is bound to make its proposal even if, as the rapporteur rightly points out, the Commission has not specified the original administration which is to be represented in the Committee.
This, however, was the only room for manoeuvre left to it by the text from the Heads of State and Government.
From the standpoint of the Commission, there can be no continuity between the Monetary Commission and the Economic and Financial Committee.
As Mr Harrison pointed out, it is not merely a matter of changing the name, it involves changing the nature of the system itself.
This is why the tasks facing the Economic and Financial Committee are no longer the same as those of the Monetary Committee.
The duties of the Economic and Financial Committee have been specified, they are defined in Article 109, paragraph 2 of the Treaty and they focus exclusively on monitoring the economic and financial situation of Member States and financial relations with third countries and other international institutions but especially, and I think this is important, the Economic and Financial Committee contributes to the preparation of Council work at technical level.
In reply to Mr Herman, I would say that those appointed are appointed on an intuitu personae basis, rather than as governmental representatives and I believe that Mr Christodoulou is right when he says that this function should not be overestimated.
We are talking about preparing the Council technically with regard to three essential subjects: multilateral surveillance, the broad guidelines for economic policies and decisions to be taken under the excessive deficit procedure.
So, what we need to make the Economic and Financial Committee work is a base of expertise, it will not override the Council, let me reassure Mr Castagnède that it is not nor ever will be a mere branch office of the national central banks.
I am of the opinion that the economic dimension of the Committee's duties is of primary importance.
So this should be reflected in its membership.
The European Central Bank should duly appoint its representatives with regard to monetary policy and the Member States should do the same with regard to the various components of economic policy.
Consequently, the suggestion by the rapporteur, Mrs Berès, about alternate members should be given particular attention.
In truth, it is vital that the senior officials present should be technically competent in the subjects dealt with - whether this be taxation -as you pointed out - budgetary matters or economic forecasting.
As far as the Commission is concerned, the Economic and Financial Committee should be a technical instrument which will help to enhance the coordination of economic policies which, I would remind you, are aimed at promoting growth and jobs.
This brings me to my second set of comments which, I assure you, will be very much shorter; these concern the role of the Economic and Financial Committee.
Here, too, the European Council in Luxembourg reached the conclusion that the Economic and Financial Committee should serve as a focus for dialogue - and here I am responding to the wishes of Mrs Randzio-Plath - specifically a dialogue between the Council and the European Central Bank at senior official level.
I believe that there are two sides to the matter of dialogue on coordination: firstly, coordination between economic policy and monetary policy and, secondly, between individual aspects of economic policy.
While we are on the subject of the link between economic and monetary policy, I think that it is the responsibility of the ECB, the guardian of single monetary policy and the Council, which adopts and implements the broad guidelines for economic policies, to ensure that that link is maintained.
I also think that the Economic and Financial Committee should prepare and monitor meetings of the Euro Council, now known as the "Euro 11' .
On this matter, I might say - although I hope to address the issue after the recess, that the first two meetings of that new body gave rise to a new impetus.
The Economic and Financial Committee should adapt to that fresh mood in order to back up the introduction of the euro, within the terms of the Treaty and under the best possible conditions, and then to administer it.
With regard to coordination of the individual components of economic policy, as the rapporteur mentioned so pointedly, the Economic and Financial Committee should also direct its work and proposals as part of a genuine spirit of complementarity with the Employment Committee and, at the same time, with the Economic Policy Committee.
Allow me at this point, Madam, to diverge slightly from your own analysis.
The Economic Policy Committee is responsible for structural matters; the domestic market, job creation, competitiveness, state funding and so forth.
The European Council in Cardiff stressed the importance of these structural issues by reminding us that the broad guidelines for economic policies should in future also cover the economic reforms needed to guarantee the satisfactory conduct of Economic and Monetary Union.
As far as the Commission is concerned, it is therefore important that the workload be distributed evenly between the specialized committees, including the Economic Policy Committee.
Nonetheless, let me assure you that the Commission, in line with the wishes of the House, will exercise a coordinating function with regard to the activities of the Economic and Financial Committee, the Employment Committee and the Economic Policy Committee.
Quite apart from the formal composition of the Economic and Financial Committee and its duties, I feel that the final, determining factor will be how that Committee functions in practice, and, in conclusion, I would like to stress that in this area too, the Commission - which plays a central part in the coordination of economic policies, as the last "Euro 11' meeting demonstrated - will ensure that the work of the Economic and Financial Committee and other committees is correctly coordinated.
Consequently - and this is where I bring matters to a head - I would say that the Commission has noted with interest your proposal that you should receive a report before 1 January 2001 regarding the operation of the Economic and Financial Committee within the context of inter-institutional relations between Parliament, the Commission and the Council, but also - I believe - relations between the existing committees.
I heartily endorse this proposal and I will, I hope, be able to report to you in person on those conclusions.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00.
Participation of EEIGs in public contracts
The next items is the report (A4-0196/98) by Mr Tappin, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission on the participation of European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs) in public contracts and programmes financed by public funds.
Mr President, European economic interest groups: what are they? They are groups of small or medium-sized companies joining together to get themselves an increased profile, increased chances of winning contracts against larger competitors, increased resources to promote their expertise, a legal personality and, of course, increased chances to expand, employ more staff and thereby reduce the number of unemployed in the European Union.
Obviously, if successful, such a scheme is a good idea.
This report on the Commission's communication on the participation of European Economic Interest Groupings in public contracts and programmes financed by public funds addresses exactly that issue. The scheme has been operating since July 1989.
It cannot, as yet, be accounted a success.
Where groupings have been formed - frequently cross-border organizations dealing in goods and services - they have shown that the concept works.
However, insufficient groupings exist, or have existed, to enable the Commission to analyse all the problems or define how best it can help promote the idea, and its application in practice, for the future.
This is recognized and is why the Commission has produced the communication.
The Commission is to be congratulated on the initiative and thanked for the efforts it is putting into the promotion of the interests of smaller businesses across the European Union.
The public procurement market alone accounts for ECU 720 billion a year, of which very little goes to smaller companies: only about 11.7 %.
To increase that share, and the share of funds from EU programmes which flow to SMEs, I made several proposals.
I would like the Commission to promote the establishment of voluntary cooperation panels at EU level, consisting of national and sectoral experts, social partners and, of course, Commission representatives, to help disseminate information and to raise awareness about the possibilities available through this scheme.
Secondly, I would also like to see the Commission positively encouraging Member States to identify or establish centres where good-quality advice and training are available for SMEs wishing to participate in the scheme.
This might add an impetus to the same request which was made in regard to procurement centres in an earlier report I drafted.
Since one of the aims of this report is to enable SMEs to take a much larger share of the ECU 720 billion procurement market than they currently do, it would be appropriate if the information centres were one and the same.
Similarly, the diffusion of information through informal centres, such as Euro-Info centres, business information centres - BICs - and local chambers of commerce, is to be encouraged.
Since there is a huge difference between publicity and guidance and the sort of training and legal counselling that a national centre could offer, it becomes clear that these would be complementary systems.
National centres would also greatly assist in the monitoring of results.
This is essential if we are to maximize the effectiveness of measures we take.
After nearly ten years of operating, there have only been about 800 EEIGs formed under this scheme.
It is clear that the Commission is taking what steps it can to improve this take-up, but our message must also be to the Council, calling on it to support the efforts of the Commission and the SMEs at Member State level.
This will be especially useful when it comes to ironing out some of the difficulties which arise for SMEs during international commerce, especially in dealing with the anomalies created by differing national legislation.
The Commission is to produce clarifications of the rules governing the establishment of EEIGs and the way they can operate.
In view of the legal complexities, and the fears many SMEs have of extending their activities outside the safe and well-known limits of their existing commitments, such clarifications would be invaluable.
However, I hope that interest groups and SMEs can have the chance to appraise these clarifications and that the substance of those appraisals, plus the conclusions drawn from the monitoring of EEIG activity, can form the basis of a further Commission communication in a couple of years' time.
This should be put before Parliament, the sectoral organizations and Member State representatives.
Then, if there has not been a significant take-up in the procurement market of programmes funded from Community money by EEIGs, we must do something more.
We are working against a deadline as the GPA is opened up to more countries.
This means big foreign companies squeezing our SMEs out of their existing markets.
If we do not enable them to take up the opportunities offered by global access, then their situation will go from bad to worse.
Of the amendments, I can support Nos 1, 3 and 4 but am against No 2.
Finally, I commend the Commission for its initiative, and I hope Members will be able to support my resolution.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Tappin for a splendid report that looks carefully at the status of SMEs and public services.
Both sectors are vital for our societies but, nonetheless, they suffer from unfair treatment.
If Europe is going to be something more than just an internal market and achieve its hope for economic and social cohesion, it must develop services for the benefit of all at European level.
Establishing internal markets thus means having to free up services for the public good, which in turn means great changes in social structure.
There must be a wide debate on policy guidelines in public services among Member States, the Commission and Parliament.
The debate must involve management and labour, and consumer and social sector organizations.
The European Economic Interest Grouping the rapporteur refers to may bring a precious element of added value to the status of SMEs, which by and large are not yet aware of the opportunities available in the single market.
There are many barriers.
The European Parliament until last year was the only institution trying to define the European welfare state through the notion of the public sector.
Now, with Cardiff, a step has been taken in the same direction.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity Member States will decide whether to use private or public companies for the implementation of public services.
We must - at European level - guarantee opportunities for SMEs to compete for public procurement contracts.
The participation of SMEs in public procurement is vital. They employ most of the workers.
In addition to openness in competition, we have to invest in the development of the taxation and social security system so that they too support the sort of labour-intensive entrepreneurship that characterize SMEs.
Reduced income tax is the goal and that is of particular concern to labour-intensive service sectors.
I think they have been dealt with wrongly when it comes to taxation.
Furthermore, more venture capital is needed to establish companies.
In Europe this is particularly required for innovative SMEs, which will then grow into larger companies and, as was stated in the meeting on SMEs and employment held by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on that hangs the future of employment in Europe.
Mr President, when you intervene in a market, you will discover that you have to stay on afterwards and repair the damage.
That is how it was in the European Union when we intervened in the traditional set-up whereby national government contracts were placed nationally: we discovered after a time that the intervention had unintended side effects.
As so often, it was the small and medium-sized enterprises that footed the European bill.
For years, they had carefully built up and nurtured their relationships with local, regional and national governments, relationships based on mutual quality and trust.
Under the anonymous European tendering procedures, these trust-based relationships lost their value in one fell swoop.
Small and medium-sized businesses in particular were the victims and went to the wall.
That was not the intention, so the damage had to be repaired again.
Hence the creation of this crossborder interest grouping, which is intended to make it possible for smaller companies to combine to take on large projects which are being placed more and more on the basis of stringent qualification procedures.
And we as a Parliament want that too, because, as we have stated in other reports, European government tenders have be simpler, easier and involve less bureaucracy.
What I cannot find in the Commission communication, Mr President, is an analysis of and a solution to one major problem with EEIGs. That is the lack of awareness of this instrument in the very sector for which it is actually intended.
Nobody in small and medium-sized enterprises has ever heard of these interest groups, which have after all been in existence since 1989.
That is something that Michael Tappin rightly remarks on in his report.
The Commission communication concentrates on legal possibilities and impossibilities, while the point of lack of awareness remains untouched.
Measured by the yardstick which the Commission itself attaches to the communication, namely publication of the actions that have to be taken, the Commission has fallen short.
It might have been expected that the Commission would put a plan on the table stating what has to be done to deliver information to companies about this instrument: it is the age-old European Union communication problem.
The Commission writes that 800 interest groups have been set up, 80 per year. That figure does not mean anything in itself unless we know how successful these interest groups have actually been in obtaining government contracts or subsidies from EU programmes.
The communication does not contain this information.
Nor does it state what opportunities the interest groups encounter in their day-to-day operations. Perhaps the Commissioner could give me some information about this.
Is it perhaps possible that small and medium-sized enterprises businesses have no need at all for this kind of interest group? Does it ever happen that we in Parliament or in the European Union dream up things that nobody needs?
In general, my group can support Michael Tappin's report. My only doubts are about paragraph 3 of his motion for a resolution, in which he suggests a special panel at European level.
Socialists always expect good to come of this kind of structure, but I do not.
Fortunately, what he has in mind is a voluntary basis. I myself think that it would be much more effective to link up with existing networks in order to inform small and medium-sized enterprises, and in order to make it easier for companies to find partners.
The European Commission does already have the facilities here, I am thinking of the Europartnership, the Interprise scheme and the BC-NET network.
Mr President, first of all I want to congratulate Mr Tappin on this report.
I welcome it as a valuable means of promoting small and medium-sized industries throughout the Member States.
Indeed, as Mr Tappin rightly points out, small and medium-sized industries naturally tend to be the norm in smaller countries.
He is right as well to say that a concerted assessment of needs has to be made and that we have to take a more user-friendly approach when delivering information and practical support for the operations of EEIGs.
One point which I should like to stress from the outset is the gains for small organizations who become partners.
A small operator would not only be able to bid for and win a contract that would normally be beyond its capacity to complete; but would continue to reap certain benefits even after the contract had been completed.
For example, Mr Tappin, I would point out that a small road building contractor in Ireland that wins small-scale contracts from local authorities would find it absolutely impossible to bid for larger-scale construction projects for major roadways or motorways because it could not afford the investment required for the quantity of equipment needed to complete the job.
Even if the investment were made, the outlay would not be justified in the long run, since the equipment would be lying idle for most of the year because not enough work would be available on a constant basis.
If a small operator were part of a consortium, it would have a greater chance of continued work.
New contracts in other Member States will help to bring that prospect about and are therefore to be welcomed.
We must insist that all Member States play by the rules, since capital investment in smaller states will never be forthcoming.
Mr President, it is a pity that such little use is made of the only existing Community instrument for transnational cooperation between SMEs.
With just 800 EEIGs having been set up since 1989, it is no surprise that there is little or no participation in public contracts.
This low figure assumes even starker significance when one considers that almost 99 % of European businesses are SMEs and that 52 % of jobs are still to be found in this sector.
Anyone who has had a lot of personal contact with SMEs and with micro-enterprises will confirm the rapporteur's remarks, namely that SMEs are completely unaware of the good fortune which could come their way.
The EEIG scheme is an extremely valuable instrument for small businesses in that it allows them to participate in transboundary cooperation within the internal market and even to go so far as to tender for public contracts.
The proposals contained in Mr Tappin's report clearly show what is needed, namely genuinely practical information and concrete measures of support.
The promotion of non-bureaucratic access to public procurement by undertakings engaged in transnational cooperation is very important if the internal market is to have more substance.
An information scheme using every possible means, from personal contact meetings to the use of modern technology, is needed to help overcome the dearth of information and other barriers which exist.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for some considerable time European integration has been endeavouring to bring transnational forms of cooperation under company law.
For it is through transboundary cooperation between enterprises that we shall come nearer to our goal of a European internal market.
The challenge before us today is just as intense as it was 10 years ago.
At the start of the Austrian presidency we are therefore eager to see whether it will be possible to adopt the European Company Statute before the end of the year.
This would enable firms to avoid the unnecessary and costly procedures associated with national company law.
This new option should be directed not just at multinational companies but more particularly at small and medium-sized enterprises which are keen to participate in Community projects such as transEuropean networks.
We have already heard in the debate that the European Economic Interest Groupings provide just such a structure, but that there is an obvious need for improvement and that life still has to be breathed into the formal legal framework.
We should also be considering exactly how many firms can be offered a form of association of this kind or indeed how many there should be, as small businesses, which should benefit in particular from this form of association, should in future also be able to participate to a greater degree in public procurement between Member States.
Mr President, I too would like to join in congratulating Mr Tappin on his report.
It comes at a very critical time when we look at the new measures being introduced to boost employment, because the figures show that the majority of employment within the European Union is created within small- and medium-sized enterprises.
Therefore it is vitally important that we do everything we can to facilitate further growth within that sector.
However, I have some criticisms.
In particular I have criticisms of the way in which the Commission is so slow in paying people who have been involved in contracts in the PHARE and TACIS programmes, for instance.
I can point to three individual small firms from Ireland that went into liquidation because of the late payment by the Commission for contracts those firms completed in Russia.
It seems to me that to get information on these types of initiatives you need to be a member of the Freemasons.
You simply cannot get public access to the information, and this is something which is essential for small enterprises.
In Ireland we have established the Small Business Operational Programme.
That pointed out five key areas where work needed to be done to allow SMEs to become involved in European economic interest groups: access to finance, access to public procurement documents, access to proper tender support, access to a prompt payment guarantee from the contractor, and access to closer networks of SMEs across the European Union to allow broadly based enterprises to develop.
Unless we give real information in a very public manner then we cannot benefit from these groupings.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission I would like to thank the European Parliament, and Mr Tappin in particular, for the support it has given to this communication on the participation of European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs) in public contracts and programmes financedby public funds.
I must say that since this communication was adopted on 9 September 1997 there has been a swift and unprecedented move to set up new EEIGs: the number has risen rapidly from 800 (the figure at that time) to 966 within in a short space of time.
This represents a significant step forward in our efforts to encourage interested parties to familiarize themselves with the EEIGs.
Because the EEIG is the only Community instrument that promotes cooperation between companies, the EEIGs may be considered an important link in European cooperation and a means of speeding up the real achievement of a single market.
The Commission is planning other initiatives with the aim of offering more extensive and detailed information on the features and possible uses of EEIGs - and particularly their usefulness to small and medium-sized enterprises.
One of these initiatives will be a communication on the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in public contracts.
I can tell Mr Crowley that this specific communication on the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in public contracts is due to be made published shortly. It will also deal with problems of payment terms and credit.
The issue of information has been raised several times, particularly by Mr Peijs. Insufficient information is available on the EEIGs and the possibilities they offer.
This was evident at the 1996 conference on the EEIGs proposed by the Commission and aimed at economic operators. It is also evident from the number of requests for information on this subject that the Commission receives each day.
How will we go about providing more and better information? One way will be to publish a guide containing a sample contract and practical advice for operators on all stages of a an EEIG's life, from setting up to operation to dissolution.
Another way will be to make increasing use of European Information Centres.
BC-Net and other operators are already acting as specialized consultants to small and medium-sized enterprises on participation in public contracts.
We also intend to consult the Contact Committee to find out what information could be useful for promoting and developing EEIGs.
As the topic of trans-European networks has already been mentioned, I would also like to remind you that some EEIGs already participate in trans-European network projects, particularly in the transport field.
Lastly, Mr Tappin, the suggestions you propose in your report and the resolution will be very useful in helping us to achieve the objective that is so important for all of us.
Finally, I should like to state that I agree with what Mr Rübig said and I hope that the Austrian presidency will manage to make the idea of a European Company Statute a reality. This will be very important for large European enterprises but also for small and medium-sized European enterprises which will, I am sure, make great use of the resource.
To Mr Paasilinna I should like to say that the Commission is very sensitive to the two topics he raised. In relation to his first point, that is the need to reduce fiscal pressure on labour-intensive activities - as you know, the Commission presented a communication on employment to the European Council in Luxembourg.
With regard to the second point on venture capital, which could be so important to small and medium-sized enterprises, the Commission presented a document that aroused great interest at the Cardiff European Council.
To conclude, I would like to give my thanks again for the support that the European Parliament has given to this communication and to congratulate Mr Tappin in particular.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
Electoral procedure
The next item is the report (A4-0212/98) by Mr Anastassopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on a proposal for an electoral procedure incorporating common principles for the election of Members of the European Parliament.
Mr President, after efforts that have lasted forty years and more and that have proved to be exercises in futility, we now find ourselves once again on the starting blocks.
A uniform electoral procedure for European Parliament elections was provided for in the Treaty of Rome of 1957, through which the European Communities were created.
This is perhaps somewhat paradoxical as at that time there was no European Parliament, but an advisory Assembly, which was, moreover, slow to evolve. What does this mean?
It is perhaps a sign of the inordinate institutional significance attributed by the founding fathers of Europe to a European Parliament that would reach maturity - and did reach maturity - in democracy, within a united Europe that would be based, and is based, on democracy?
Forty-one years on, that objective has still not been achieved.
A few steps have been taken.
In 1979 the Members of the European Parliament, on the initiative of the then French president, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, began to be elected by direct universal suffrage, and from 1987, with the Uniform Act of Luxembourg, they began to gain their first fundamental legislative powers.
But a uniform procedure did not appear on the horizon even then, and has not appeared up to the present time.
Efforts always foundered on two rocks: the unshakeable refusal of the United Kingdom to change its electoral system of first-past-the-post voting with narrow constituencies and to unite with its partners, who had all opted for proportional representation, and, secondly, the operation of different national electoral traditions which did not permit any agreement on a uniform procedure.
The efforts of the European Parliament were futile and were perhaps at times coloured by political romanticism, since it judged that the political map of Europe could be redrawn - albeit for European elections - with Brussels and Strasbourg at the core.
And so we come to 1997, a year of great changes.
In Britain the new Labour government of Tony Blair, after reaching an understanding with the Liberal Democrats, tabled a bill for the revolutionary - to the British way of thinking - introduction of proportional representation for the European elections and the partition of Britain into 12 electoral constituencies.
And at the Intergovernmental Conference, which led to the Treaty of Amsterdam, government representatives and our own European Parliament representatives, realizing that they were at an impasse, added the alternative solution of common principles to provide an element of flexibility in order to make it easier to reach agreement.
Against this background, the European Parliament last year launched its sixth and most recent push.
It was preceded by the report of Mr De Gucht, which each of us should hold in great respect.
And I, as rapporteur for the Committee on Institutional Affairs, took it upon myself to learn the lessons of our past mistakes.
I judged it advantageous to take a simple, evolutionary and limited approach in order finally to enable the first great step to be taken, after forty years of continuous failure.
I also considered it necessary, in addition to the long-drawn-out and exhausting debates in the Committee on Institutional Affairs, to visit many of the capitals of the fifteen Member States, to have talks with government representatives and representatives of political parties, to inform and to be informed.
The outcome of all these exchanges of view, the deliberations and the search for answers, undertaken on such an extensive scale for perhaps the first time in the annals of the European Union, appears in the report and in the proposals which I have the honour of presenting to the House today.
There are two basic principles: proportionality and the close relationship principle.
Proportionality is without doubt the fairest electoral system.
It permits fair representation of all political tendencies of the peoples of Europe.
And in the case of the European Union, which does not have - at least in the period under consideration - a central European government which needs to rely on majority voting in the European Parliament, the representation of all major political tendencies is necessary.
Europe can not be constructed on the basis of a single political power, or even two, however great these may be, and however convenient that might be.
A wider political base is necessary.
And the powers that maintain it must be represented in this continually evolving and improving European Parliament.
Hence our preference for proportional representation, which is, during this period of European construction, honourable, honest and constant.
But this does not mean that we are in favour of the fragmentation of political power, which does not help in the evolution of European political life.
For this reason we are allowing Member States to institute, for the allocation of seats, a threshold that does not exceed 5 % of the votes cast, in order not to place the preservation of proportional representation at risk.
This is not the only way in which we are offering Member States more room for manoeuvre.
Nor is it blind dedication to the famous principle of subsidiarity which is governing our choices.
It is rather our conviction that on to matters such as electoral issues - but not only on those issues - we must bring forward framework laws within which Member States can make their own decisions.
A big YES therefore from us for proportional representation.
And Member States will determine exactly what kind of proportional representation they want.
We were amazed, at a time when the British government was abandoning first-past-the-post voting, to see political powers in continental Europe, who up till now have not been noted for their love of Great Britain, declare themselves - with much delay it has to be said, and with a kind of necrophilic nostalgia! - in favour of the system the British had liberated themselves from.
Of course each system has its advantages and disadvantages.
And it is a fact that the British system brought constituents and those elected closer together.
But how acceptable can a system be regarded which, if it had been implemented in France in 1994, would have given the electoral alliance of my friend the Mayor of Toulouse, Dominique Baudis, a total of 87 French seats, with 25.5 % of votes? The close relationship principle, the principle of proximité , is in fact the second principle in our proposals.
We believe that it is necessary for constituents to be closer to their European Members of Parliament and for this reason, as a first step, we propose that the five largest countries of the present European Union, which have a population of more than 25 million, should be divided into electoral constituencies.
The countries themselves will be the judge of which and how many constituencies.
We do not aspire to lay down ourselves, from Strasbourg, those constituencies which geography, history, economic and cultural conditions have determined.
We are aware of the difficulties of the operation.
But it needs to be done.
The ability of the European Parliament to represent its people must not remain a subject of debate.
This Parliament, which is moving onwards and upwards, slowly but surely, will be judged by the quality of its work, the awareness of its responsibility in fulfilling its mission, and its ability to reconcile the challenges of constructing Europe with unflagging political activity within the Member States and with its ability to represent its people.
The latter must not be called into question.
With the division of the largest Member States into electoral constituencies for the European elections, the democratic choice of candidates from the political parties, and a declaration by constituents in favour of preferential voting, the close relationship principle will have a firm foundation and will change the entire picture.
Is it necessary to ask whether, in the current European Parliament, with its already considerable legislative or colegislative powers, there is any room for part-time Members?
Our proposals contain another element, however, which has most often given rise to debate.
I am referring to transnational constituencies, which are intended to be in place in ten years' time.
The idea has been aired before but it was initially regarded as Utopian.
However, it has stayed the course and may possibly lay claim to a place in the Europe of 2010 or that of 2020.
There is no question that it will be a very different Europe from today.
And the European Parliament needs to look ahead, to have vision, to break new ground, to be in the vanguard of its age in terms of thoughts, proposals and ideas.
It is unacceptable for us to tackle problems with the wretched approach of daily routine, with petty political self-interest, with small-mindedness and in the extremely restricted sense of small-party compatibility.
It is intolerable for us to have institutionalized European political parties with the Maastricht Treaty, and not to attempt to give them fundamental political substance.
It is rather foolish to maintain that transnational constituencies disadvantage the small and the medium-sized parties, when there are possibilities of guaranteeing that neither the medium-sized nor the small will be harmed by the implementation of this great European idea.
These proposals, which the Committee on Institutional Affairs paid me the honour of adopting with an overwhelming majority, are now being placed before you for your verdict.
They are restricted to just 10 or 11 points but they have been put together in the ambitious hope that they will finally lead to the first step towards equal opportunities, a more democratic Europe and a more representative Parliament.
We will not cease to fight unrelentingly for these principles.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, now that the euro has completed the process of Economic and Monetary Union, the time has come for Europe to be a "Citizens' Europe' .
An important sign of this is the election of Members of the European Parliament from Member States by universal suffrage, a subject which Mr Anastassopoulos dealt with quite brilliantly in his report.
The right to vote is the most important of all citizens' rights, as it allows people to participate in the most direct way possible in shaping the course of politics.
This shaping process has to take place in such a way that each citizen feels that the European Union, with all its vicissitudes and values, is his political homeland, a place in which his dreams and aspirations of peaceful coexistence can become a reality.
The opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is based on this principle.
We need a system of universal suffrage which is clearly intelligible to everyone.
A voting system which brings people and Members of Parliament closer together, which takes account of traditions and which at the same time is flexible enough to absorb new Member States into the European Union.
We do not need fifteen national systems of electoral law - with more to come - interspersed with one or two common European principles.
This would not be in keeping with either the letter or the spirit of those treaties on the basis of which we are working.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has tabled concrete proposals to this effect, which are also essentially contained in Mr Anastassopoulos's report.
Where there are omissions, or where the wording is not sufficiently binding, it is up to us to rectify the situation.
To this effect there is a whole series of amendments which bear my name, for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights cannot act as a proposer here.
I wish that the rapporteur had recommended the acceptance of these amendments.
However, I also know that he has to reject a considerable number of amendments, as otherwise the political structure of Europe would be set back a considerable way from its current position.
Looking to the future, we need a system of European electoral law which is formulated in clear and concrete terms.
We have to ensure, for example, that the binding form of wording "shall' cannot be substituted by the nonbinding form "can' .
In my view such options are only appropriate when they refer to rules existing in individual States or when they open up additional possibilities for others.
Examples of this are the preferential votes and a threshold clause which should not be above 5 %.
Some may well shake their heads in surprise, but parts of the new European suffrage system do need to contain clauses of a self-evident nature if they are to be properly observed.
Just think of the principle of equal rights for men and women. This is a vested right in almost every Member State, yet it is often ignored in everyday life.
If we want to bring Europe closer to the people by making it their Europe, rather than a Europe run by a political elite, we have to ensure a strict separation of powers and the elimination of duplicate mandates.
One amendment therefore contains an extensive list of incompatible mandates - a list which, in my personal view, still does not go far enough.
I would even like to see all mayors excluded from the European mandate, but the proposals as they stand are still acceptable.
Neither will the citizens of Europe understand us if we fail to put a cap on electoral costs.
And of course it goes without saying that transparent accounts should be provided here.
Finally a few words on transnational lists and on the mandate given to MEPs.
I know that the rapporteur is very much concerned about transnational candidate lists as a symbol for the unity of Europe.
I am too.
We should therefore adopt this list, without any ifs and buts, in the form proposed by Mr Anastassopoulos.
Amendment No 45 which has been proposed by the rapporteur contains a clarification of the MEP mandate.
I would withdraw this excellent amendment in favour of Amendment No 48 as proposed by the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, which suits our common purpose even better, Mr Anastassopoulos.
Because it is now time to vote, I declare the sitting suspended. We will resume this afternoon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.00 noon)
Votes
Mr President, I agree with Mr Falconer that voting by roll-call conflicts with the constitution.
Last time, I actually approached you when you were in the chair to tell you that I did not want to say that during the sitting, so as not to delay the vote and not to frustrate the President, because I have a great admiration for the way you chair sittings.
I have just realized that, in contrast to what Mrs Nicole Fontaine had been told, it does have to be done formally.
I am therefore informing you formally - you can see that I am here, I have voted neutrally once - that I am not participating in roll-call votes as a matter of constitutional principle.
I hereby request you to take into account retrospectively what I have up to now told you informally in good faith.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and after consultation with Mr Lehne, as rapporteur, I wish to table the following amendment: on the basis of Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure I request that before proceeding to the vote we refer the report and the amendments back to committee.
Some of the amendments are still very controversial.
Mr Lehne has agreed to make a further attempt to reach compromises which will avert the risk which currently exists that we shall ultimately be voting on such a contradictory text that the report will be altered beyond recognition and consequently will be devalued.
We therefore request your approval for the report to be referred back to committee.
Mr President, if the rapporteur himself can accede to Mr Schulz's request, I as the Chairman of the Committee accept that.
But I do want to say that this, of course, has nothing to do with the arguments used by the rapporteur.
This is a committee, and it is in the nature of this committee that controversial political topics will be on the agenda.
It is actually a miracle that in most cases we do agree, that we do reach consensus in this committee.
In a number of unusual cases which deal with politically heavy-weight matters, it is sometimes useful to have a further opportunity to discuss them in committee.
But in this case, I just wanted to add that, it would possibly also be very useful to hear from the European Commission what it thinks of amendments which have been tabled by our parliamentary committees.
We were not really told that properly yesterday.
It would be very useful for the continuation of our discussions, and this can naturally also be done actually in committee, for us to hear what the Commission, or the responsible Commissioner, thought of the points of view we have jointly adopted and that have been tabled in the form of amendments.
Mr President, whichever way the final vote on this resolution goes, I would like in any case to address a comment to Commissioner Gradin, who yesterday, after the reading of my report, responded with a number of policy plans which boiled down to adopting all the policy proposals I particularly value and which I think that almost everyone supports, except possibly the extreme right of this Parliament.
The work of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and my own work as rapporteur is thereby richly rewarded, in my opinion.
I thank the Commissioner.
Mr President, I would like you to note that none of the members of the Union for Europe Group will take part in the vote on the report by Mr Oostlander, neither by raised hand, nor by electronic verification, nor by roll-call vote. This is because we believe that the status of religions is a matter for national authorities, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, and that, therefore, it should not have been presented before this Parliament.
Consequently, in accordance with our rules, I call on the sitting's services to note the presence of those of my colleagues who are here, but who will not take place in the vote.
Thank you, we will make sure your attendance is recorded.
(Parliament rejected the motion for a resolution)
We note that paragraphs 1 to 6 in the explanatory statement amount to a description of how the situation actually appears today.
However, we cannot agree with the expression of intent in paragraph 7, which advocates protection clauses for tobacco and rice, because, among other reasons, in general we do not think that this amounts to a permanent solution.
Instead we should seek adaptation to the existing WTO rules.
We are also opposed to specific protection clauses for tobacco since we think it is totally wrong to support this sector because of the very great adverse effects on health which the use of tobacco entails.
We have today voted in favour of the European Parliament's approval of the proposal by the Commission on the arrangements applicable to agricultural products and goods resulting from the processing of agricultural products originating in ACP States.
We support the Commission's proposal because it serves to improve access to the European market for some of the poorest nations in the world.
In many cases, these countries are utterly dependent upon exporting their agricultural produce.
Nevertheless, we have several reservations with regard to this proposal.
Firstly, it is regrettable that it has taken the EU almost three years to get as far as this reading.
Even though the change will take effect retrospectively, this has caused unnecessary uncertainty in ACP States.
Secondly, we must urge the EU to involve more developing countries in this system.
ACP States are, of course, among the poorest in the world, but there are equally other countries needing to export to Europe.
Thirdly, it is a disgrace for the EU to expend so much energy protecting its own agricultural production.
There is nothing - either in this proposal, in Agenda 2000 or in other actions relating to this area - to indicate that the EU would be prepared to sacrifice its own production in order to come to the aid of other parts of the world.
Our group has of course voted in favour of the Commission's proposal which is intended to implement the agreements on preferential treatment for imports into the European Union of agricultural products originating in the ACP States which are covered by Annex XL of the Fourth Lomé Convention, signed on 4 November 1995.
However, in this explanation of vote, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations regrets that it has taken the Commission three years to make this proposal, which will come into force retroactively, with effect from 1st January 1996.
This is an unacceptably long administrative delay for such a simple proposal which satisfies two objectives: to make further concessions to ACP countries and to make the technical adjustments called for by the continuation of the GATT agreements, which established customs barriers, that is, by withdrawing the agricultural levy on imports, and replacing it with customs duties.
Consequently, the difference between the old customs duties which have been in force since 1st January 1996, and the new reduced duties will be refunded to ACP exporters.
This is a minimal concession amounting to ECU 10 million per annum in reduced customs duties and ECU 2.7 million in increased costs of export refunds with regard to products originating in ACP countries which the European Union re-exports to third countries.
All this does not justify the three years it has taken the Commission to draft the few pages of this regulation.
Finally, Mr President, our group would like to remind you that we are extremely anxious about the future of the ACP-EU agreements.
In fact, we in the 'banana' panel have observed that the very principle of preferential agreements with ACP countries, with whom may I remind you the Member States have close and specific traditional relationships, is being damaged, and may even be destroyed by the WTO.
We therefore call on the Commission to take the specific nature of the ACP states into consideration when the negotiations of the WTO are resumed next year, that is, at the end of 1999.
Dybkjær report (A4-0231/98)
Our group is in favour of developing a specific Europe-Asia cooperation strategy in the field of the environment and environmental protection.
In 1997, the United Nations General Assembly confirmed that the pact concluded within the framework of the Rio Conference had been almost totally disregarded.
It is therefore necessary to use this Europe-Asia cooperation strategy to implement a policy which takes into consideration a certain number of the Rio commitments.
There are many environmental problems in Asia:
As far as water pollution is concerned, domestic sewage in and around urban centres threatens human health as well as aquatic life, allowing disease to flourish, leading to high sickness and death rates.
In addition, most industries discharge their waste into rivers.-With regard to air pollution, according to the World Health Organization, 12 of the 15 cities with the highest levels of particulate matter and 6 of the15 cities with the highest levels of sulphur dioxide are in Asia.
The region is becoming the major contributor to acid rain and greenhouse effect gases.-Land degradation, which is largely due to efforts aimed at maintaining self-sufficiency in food, using unsuitable technologies given the specific soil and climatic constraints of these regions.Having made these alarmist comments, what else can we do? Some, like the Commission in its communication, envisage the establishment of an environmental cooperation policy which will of course require separate funding.
Our group recommends an alternative which may nevertheless be compatible with the first solution, in order to repair the damage caused by the current situation as quickly as possible.
Globalization, as we know it today, must by replaced by the internationalization of trade.
This means implementing specific clauses guaranteeing compliance with social, environmental and health principles within the framework of the COM.
We must put an end to the social and environmental dumping seen today.
What is the point of liberalizing trade by limiting tariff and customs barriers if this leads to ecological disasters? We are in favour of the free market provided social, environmental and health clauses are established.
Mr President, I am voting for this report as we must not lose sight of the need to preserve the environment in Asia despite the preoccupation at present with that region's economic troubles.
Indeed, given the agreement at the Kyoto Earth Summit in Japan last winter, pollution has now been linked to the international trading system in the pollution quota trade arrangement.
I am glad that my own Deputy Prime Minister was able to play a key role in those negotiations and that this year my own country hosted only the second ever Asia-Europe summit meeting.
This report is right to argue that any EU taxpayers' money which goes in aid to Asian countries should be linked to the recipients agreeing to respect the environment when spending that aid.
It is no use assisting the Asian economies to work their way out of their current troubles if the world's air and water are to be polluted as a result.
Having played a major part in the Kyoto Earth Summit agreements aimed at making economic progress environmentally sustainable, we are practising what we preach in asking those whom we assist with our public's money to use it in environmentally friendly ways.
And the recipient countries will themselves reap the benefits of so doing, to stop the dreadful trend of hundreds of thousands of their children losing their lives through water pollution each year.
Oostlander report (A4-0328/98)
Mr President, I voted against this report by Mr Oostlander, and I am very pleased indeed that Parliament has rejected it by a decisive two to one vote.
It was confused.
I am sure the rapporteur was well-intentioned but this bizarre report came over as though fixated with the Islamic religion.
It focused unnecessarily on the Islamic religion, whereas it was meant to be a report on the problems associated with fundamentalism.
Overall, it was a general insult to Muslim citizens and residents of the European Union.
One of the paragraphs referred to the stereotyped image of Islam and Muslims in the western media.
This report itself contributed to increasing that poor image.
There are millions of ordinary, decent Muslim people, followers of the Islamic religion in the European Union, who are perfectly respectable and law-abiding and who were quite right to feel insulted by this report.
I am glad it has been rejected.
European societies which lack ideals, objectives and clear reference points are totally defenceless against the rise of fundamentalism.
Bogged down in a deceptive, even desperate materialism, they do not know how to face up to the sometimes violent challenge represented by Islamic fanaticism and which is becoming all the more serious in that it is finding a happy hunting ground amongst uprooted immigrant populations, who are poorly integrated and are victims of unemployment and of the low life that flourishes in the dehumanizing suburbs.
Mr Oostlander's report might have made a valuable contribution to the debate on this problem.
Unfortunately, this work was misleading in that it was basically ambiguous with a very broad scope.
It was ostensibly a report on religious fundamentalism but the actual report dwelt heavily on Islamic fundamentalism.
This is not by chance, since that is what we are witnessing in such a bloody manner in the European Union, and especially in France.
The debate held in this House, far from clearing our minds, has simply sown further confusion, since no-one can agree on the definition of fundamentalism, a word that is sometimes used in the sense of fanaticism, sometimes extremism and often applied to areas outside the religious fold.
More than that, with the understandable desire to avoid pointing an accusing finger in the direction of Islam, some speakers have wallowed in grotesque fusions of ideas, even going so far as to speak of "Catholic terrorism' with reference to groups opposed to abortion who pray in front of hospitals, not to mention the fantasies woven by others around the Opus Dei organization.
Whereas Voltaire regarded the Jesuits as his bête noire , the Voltaire network seems fixated on the Opus Dei group, but as a writer Voltaire at least had talent and style.
So the entire debate has added nothing new to the subject.
It would probably have been preferable to demarcate the boundaries of the report more clearly; this would have avoided some of the interminable discussions.
So this is a report on religious fundamentalism that dwells heavily on Islamic fundamentalism.
This is a major problem because it leads us to the question of the integration of Islam in societies that understand the concept of the separation between things spiritual and things temporal; "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's' is not a precept that prevails in Islamic societies.
Hence, the challenge we face is a dual one:
for our societies, showing respect for Islam as the spiritual expression of increasing numbers of peoples in the European Union-for Muslims, respecting the separation between the spiritual and the temporal, which is a gospel truth in our societies, and accepting that religious law must not be confused with civil law.Consequently, the initial ambiguity about the scope of the report made it incoherent, so that - despite some good points - it provoked such ill-structured debates.
To conclude, I regret the fact that one form of fundamentalism was not discussed and that is secularism, which preaches a hatred for religion and which, especially in France, is sadly too often exemplified, sustained and propagated by allegedly secret societies that are far more dangerous for the state than Opus Dei.
In setting before you my views on this report dealing with "fundamentalism' , I would like to repeat the fact that I was sorry Parliament last night failed to debate and adopt a harsh report attacking sects that represent fundamentalism at its worst.
Our Parliament lacked courage.
With regard to the Oostlander report, I would like to say that I too am vigorously opposed to Islamic fundamentalism, as I am to all forms of fundamentalism, whether religious or otherwise.
Not only do such movements incite violence and war, all of them threaten the bedrock of our democratic structures and hence our individual and collective liberties.
Therefore we must fight them all without fear or favour.
To achieve this aim, we have one sure weapon and a set of principles on which we should rely and that is quite simply - secularism.
As defined in the explanatory statement appended to the present proposal for a recommendation, religious fundamentalism here seems to mean the will of a particular group to impose a type of society (which may indeed be eminently democratic, in principle) by violent means, based on the religious convictions held by its members.
In accepting this, we have to conclude that a group which latches onto the notion of promoting, by peaceful means, a nondemocratic type of society based on the religious convictions of its members, is not fundamentalist.
The definition we end up with might lead us to believe that it is not so much the ends - the type of society based on religious convictions - as much as the means employed - violence - that is the defining feature of fundamentalism, as envisaged within the context of this motion for a resolution.
Now, as your rapporteur rightly stressed, religious fundamentalism of a violent nature will not be welcomed in the European Union.
In certain Member States it may find favourable territory in which to set up base for battles to be conducted beyond the frontiers of the Union.
Similarly, it would be beneficial if, in this area as in many others, foreign policy were more consistent; but we should concentrate more assiduously on the ends to be achieved in this respect.
At the same time, a preventive policy encompassing all the factors underlying a genuine dialogue based on a better mutual understanding is the key to a truly intercultural society.
And this is conditional upon the State guaranteeing and encouraging this preventive policy by law, by making appropriate provisions and continuing to demonstrate its impartiality towards individual religions, whilst at the same time respecting the personal convictions of everyone; yet it should still show that it is adamant in rejecting any social behaviour, even if it is irrevocably bound up with those religious convictions, that runs counter to fundamental rights and liberties.
Woe betide us if we adopt the animosity, the prejudice, the ignorance, at times, and, mainly, the fanaticism that the rapporteur directs against fundamentalism.
We will be automatically led to precisely what Mr Oostlander is alleging that he is trying to prevent: tearing apart social cohesion and transforming of our societies into arenas full of racist, fanatical gladiators.
Using law and order as an alibi, first class arguments are advanced for the close supervision and control of social and political life, which will encourage the further strengthening of supervision mechanisms, the keeping of files, actions taken by companies, including dismissals, all of which will fundamentally increase and deepen racism and xenophobia.
The rapporteur, who is monolithic and absolute in his approach, inveighs against any kind of anti-European religious fundamentalism that threatens European prosperity and democracy, whilst failing to mention the fanaticism currently steeping Northern Ireland in blood, with continued cruelty and violence, because he avoids "like the plague' tampering with the established order of the European Union, the sway of Catholicism and Protestantism and their own fundamentalist groups, while denouncing fundamental orthodoxy as anathema and blaming it for the slaughter in Bosnia.
Mr Oostlander's report fanatically calls for new crusades, reducing the "law and order' of the European Union to religious dogma. It calls on its "disciples' to carry out campaigns of religious conversion in every direction.
The modern inquisition is to exploit the modern mechanisms of Schengen and Europol.
It is to turn political cooperation and the common foreign policy into mechanisms of coercion and of the imposition of a "European dogma' .
No mention is made of the more deep-rooted phenomena that encourage acts of violence and blind confrontation.
No mention is made of the real social, economic and cultural reasons which transform religion into a pretext for the expression, channelling and violent release of deeper class-related and other problems. These are problems which the inquisitorial findings and proposals contained in the report can only reinforce and exacerbate.
Moreover, the fundamental objective is this: the construction of an apologetic alibi for all the criminal interventions in foreign countries, such as the Gulf War, Bosnia-Herzegovina and so forth.
It is also an alibi for everything that the new order is generating, for new interventions, such as in Kosovo or anywhere else for that matter, in its American or European Union guise.
It will still require disorientation and other alibis for military policy plans such as the restructuring of NATO and armament programmes, to provide a market for the military industry.
The Oostlander report cries out "what will become of us without barbarians' , without threats and without dangers.
And when they do not exist, we manufacture them.
For these reasons I will be voting against the report.
We voted against Mr Oostlander's resolution on fundamentalism because of its unbalanced and tendentious nature.
The title of the report, ' on fundamentalism and the challenge to the European legal order, ' gives the impression that all forms of fundamentalism are going to be described objectively.
Unfortunately, the report does not do this.
Islam is picked out yet again as the greatest potential danger for the West.
The way the resolution is written is insidious, in that unobjectionable paragraphs about the protection of, among other things, the rule of law, are mixed together with paragraphs which express a patronizing attitude towards Muslims, such as the idea that Muslims can have difficulty accepting the rules of democracy and the rule of law.
Groups and parties on the extreme right are attacking refugee camps, murdering people because of the colour of their skin, setting fire to houses and murdering small children because of different religious beliefs.
These authoritarian and in some cases fascist tendencies represent a much greater threat to the legal order in Europe than any possible fundamentalism.
For me many of the positive aspects of this recommendation are common to all questions relating to Community foreign policy and the need for a preventive approach to this subject.
But I have no time for policies which state, for example, that the Council 'should compel the Member States to remove the legal and practical obstacles to the performance of religious duties' .
This interference of a supra-national body in national affairs, such as the question of giving equal status to the Muslim faith, must be rejected.
This is one of the reasons why the Members of the Freedom Party voted against this report, both in the final vote and in many of the detailed votes.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted against a report that is primarily concerned with Islam as a challenge to the European legal order.
The report concludes that the problem of violent religious fundamentalism is not particularly serious in Europe.
Nevertheless, it goes to great lengths to describe the challenge from Islam.
Reference is made, for example, to the Islamic religion having certain requirements of a legal order that would conflict with the European legal order in certain areas.
And European Muslims are warned against Islamic manipulation.
The report does make some positive observations, urging, for example, a firm and consistent policy towards governments that support and permit terrorism.
All countries should be judged on equal terms; hence, no distinction must be made on the grounds of economic or strategic considerations.
We also support calling on Member States to take preventive action against fundamentalism by following a deliberate policy of integration to strengthen the position of Muslim groups in the labour market and in the education system.
However, we have voted against the report, because we do not believe that it contributes to integrating Muslim groups into the Member States; neither do we believe that Parliament has a negative approach to the Islamic religion.
Why should a report about measures to combat religious fundamentalism be discussed in the European Parliament at all? It sets religion against religion and points to religious tendencies as being fundamental and therefore less good than 'European' religions.
Nor is the word fundamentalism defined.
That is the wrong approach.
If violence is the main issue, then that is what should be discussed.
Matters of religious legislation and religious rights should be dealt with at national level.
There is also no reason for the EU to start special media programmes on Islam for journalists or to start up any European research aimed at being able to 'meet the need for spiritual leaders trained in a European context.'
Against this background I have voted against the report.
We are directly opposed to this report.
Not because we do not acknowledge the importance and rightness of responding to the phenomena of fundamentalism, but because of the twisted and wrong-headed way in which the report tackles the question, ' pinning it' on the Arab world, confusing it with Islam and disregarding its political, social and cultural causes.
In particular, it disregards those situations which originated in Europe and have become a hothouse in which it thrives.
It is, furthermore, symptomatic that this report treats the phenomena of racism and xenophobia, which ought to be of such concern to us, in a biased and equivocal manner; it is like a parody which, in this context, ignores - and encourages us to ignore - the 'fortress Europe' that is being created.
Thus it is no surprise that the report gives priority and particular emphasis to policy measures.
These are some of the fundamental reasons why we are voting against this report.
I have voted against this report because of its implied view that all Muslims in Europe are susceptible to Islamic fundamentalism and that Islamic fundamentalism always manifests itself as violence.
This is not true, and the report has caused extreme offence to many European Muslims.
The report does contain a few sections that could be supported, but unfortunately they are outweighed by the simplistic, intolerant and unbalanced majority of the report.
If people break the criminal law they should be dealt with through their national jurisdictions as appropriate, but this should have nothing to do with their religious convictions.
I, too, am of the opinion that the European Parliament has no authority in the matter of fundamentalism.
I therefore abstained in the final vote on the Oostlander report.
I will be voting against this report as although it does condemn all forms of racial hatred and fanaticism, it concentrates far too much on the Islamic varieties and seems to forget the many other types of extremism which exist in Europe.
Of course we must combat violent extremists, as our governments already do.
They do not need reminding by a report such as this, which if taken up by governments would risk turning their attention away from the many non-Islamic extremist groups which threaten or use violence to try and force their views on the rest of us.
My many law-abiding Muslim fellow citizens in my own constituency would be rightfully upset if such a one-sided report were allowed to pass by without opposition.
I am myself offended by the linking of the words Islamic and fundamentalism - as if these automatically go together.
I believe that people of all faiths represented in Europe add to our civilization.
Our national governments should be left to counter any terrorist threats from whichever quarters they may come, without being encouraged to focus on any one type of fundamentalism.
This is the only fair and effective way to protect all of us from possible terrorist threats.
Karamanou report (A4-0179/98)
We would like to congratulate our party colleague Mrs Karamanou on a wellwritten report.
Cooperation with the states of the former Soviet Union is extremely important, especially in view of the fact that creating a free market economy involves problems of an economic, social and political nature.
We are also pleased about the proposal for a specific Baltic Sea Programme, which has been a Swedish Social Democratic priority for a long time.
However, we would like to stress the importance of setting up a similar programme for the Barents Sea area.
Ribeiro report (A4-0224/98)
Many of the reports we discuss here in Parliament argue for the creation or maintenance of European centres or organizations.
That is also the case here.
You hardly ever see a report which proposes that an organization or centre should be closed.
We think that the existence of 'European' centres tends, unfortunately, to lead to the production of a lot of documents, but does not have much effect on the ordinary lives of people.
Even though we are voting for the report, we would like to express our strong reservations as above.
We will be voting in favour of Mr Sérgio Ribeiro's report, because at least it has the merit of highlighting the importance of the textile industry in terms of the economy and jobs in the European Union, especially in the least privileged regions, in view of the challenges they face - dumping, unfair competition, relocations, and so forth - and the blatant inadequacies of the Commission in taking appropriate action.
But we have some important reservations.
When will we find a measure of consistency in the European Union? We cannot seek to protect the textile industry and at the same time approve abandoning the Multifibre Arrangement.
We cannot at the same time condemn dumping and accept Community legislation designed allegedly to protect business, which is derisory, ineffective and deliberately slow.
We cannot, at one and the same time, play the welfare game and continue to trade with countries where children and political prisoners are made to work under conditions of virtual slavery.
We cannot at the same time seek to support a particular sector and forbid France to abandon its textile plan in the name of ultraliberalism.
In other words, it is high time the European Union gave precedence to jobs and to the prosperity of Europeans before worrying about competitiveness and free trade policy.
It is high time we placed humans at the heart of Europe and finally stopped promoting capital.
In this written statement, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, I want to express our vote in favour of the Ribeiro report.
The basis of our support is centred on the rapporteur's criticism of the Commission's plan of action to increase the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry.
It is true that there is a need for such a plan, because of the precarious current situation of this important sector, which employs more than two million workers throughout the Union and involves more than 120 000 companies.
Most obvious is the alarming drop in the production level - about 5 % compared with 1990 - with more than 600 000 jobs lost in the period 1990-1996. In this last year alone, 100 000 jobs have been lost.
The European Commission's plan of action is well-intentioned, but it is not very specific. It lacks cohesion and precise commitments about funding and a timetable for implementation.
So the Commission should produce a new plan to make good these deficiencies and place the emphasis on training, innovation, technological development and anti-dumping measures.
The internal market too is subject to intense competition.
In order to safeguard businesses and jobs, it will in future be even more important fully to guarantee internal market conditions.
The delocalization of economic activities, in whatever sector, is dependent from the very beginning on how attractive the means of production are.
However, this delocalization, particularly in favour of labour-intensive production, should not benefit from additional support in the form of subsidies or even EU funding.
Instead, we need to invest in the training of our workforce and in making people more competitive in the job market.
This will really be an effective way to prevent damaging distortions of competition.
The Ribeiro report raises the important issue of competitiveness in the European textile and clothing industry.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wished to table two amendments to this report to underline the particularly damaging effects of business delocalization on our textile and clothing industry.
This industry, especially in the poorest nations of the EU, suffers from unfair competition, more particularly in the low-paid countries with inadequate welfare protection, located outside of Europe, which results in a loss of market share, factory closures, very many job losses, delocalization and a growth in undeclared employment.
Delocalization is far from enhancing the well-being of poverty-stricken populations in the developing world and emergent nations; quite the contrary, it encourages their exploitation in working conditions that can be compared with slavery.
According to the principle held by our late Chairman, Sir James Goldsmith, delocalization enriches the wealthy in poor countries to the detriment of the poor in both rich and poor countries.
This is why, yet again, we urge the European Union to go back to the principle of Community preference, a pillar of the Treaty of Rome sacrificed to American interests during the Uruguay Round negotiations.
Restoring the principle of Community preference is the most valuable and effective support the European Union could give in the battle for jobs.
In supporting this report I would like to draw attention to the opinion of the REX Committee, the contents of which I fully endorse.
On the report itself, I would like to support the broad criticism by the rapporteur of the lack of genuine action in the Commission proposal.
At this time the textile industry in my constituency is caught up in a terrible situation caused by a combination of events.
The high value of sterling, the crisis in south-east Asia and high tariff barriers in our major export markets, such as the USA, have all served to bring about severe problems for employers and workers.
Almost daily we receive yet more reports of further job losses in areas where there is little prospect of alternative employment.
In these circumstances, therefore, for the Commission to call its proposal a 'plan of action' is an understatement of laughable proportions.
I listened to Commissioner Bangemann in the House today and I heard nothing that gives us any hope for the future.
We need action now on a coherent and effective strategy, so I would ask the Commission to think again.
I represent a part of the North-West of England with a proud history of high-quality textile production stretching back hundreds of years.
I am voting for this report today as is puts forward practical ideas to help the industry remain competitive with rivals in other parts of the world - greater use of incentives to encourage new inventions and the use of new technology are key measures the EU should promote.
And as in all industries, the best possible training aimed at improving people's skills for their daily work is needed.
I also welcome the idea for a code of conduct to be worked out by staff and employers in the textile sector aimed at outlawing the use of child labour.
We should not stay silent on the use of child labour in other parts of the world today in sectors such as textiles, just as our forebears in Europe rightly campaigned to outlaw child labour in our own factories.
On one issue, however, I must state my disagreement with this report.
Despite the industry's proud past, many of the people who work in its most advanced companies today face an uncertain future due to the protectionism of some in the Commission and in the European cotton production sector.
We must see an end to the repeated use of anti-dumping duties against the very raw material - cotton greycloth - which our most progressive companies then use their skills and technology to process into high-quality textile products.
In a sector defined, both at national level and throughout the EU, by a production chain including fibres, textiles and clothing and also manufacturers and retailers of equipment, employing 2 million people, 75 % of them women, with 120 000 businesses which within a short space of time -from 1996 to the end of this century - may lose over a million jobs, we cannot go on with economic recovery strategies based on closing down companies and doing away with large numbers of jobs.
The need for competitiveness in the sector has caused priority to be given to capital-intensive activities, displacing labourintensive activities to countries with lower wage-bills and total social deregulation.
Its marked concentration at regional level, especially in the least-favoured regions of the EU, mean that the textile industry is of the greatest economic and social importance, in countries such as Portugal.
The pressure of competition from third countries that make extensive use of direct and indirect subsidies, together with the Outward Processing Arrangements (OPA) which has stimulated the displacement of labour-intensive activities to the CEECs and the MEDA countries, with highly damaging effects on the textile industry in southern Europe, means we must adopt a real 'plan of action for increasing competitiveness in the European textile and clothing industry' . We are not doing this under the Commission's present initiative, which lacks both the necessary measures and the necessary finance.
We do not question the need to include our strategy for the textile industry in our overall industrial policy strategy, nor do we defend protectionist measures, for legal and international policy reasons. However, more aggressive measures and strategies are needed, and they must be properly quantified and timetabled, rather than the 'catalogue of good intentions' the Commission has just presented us with.
What is needed, therefore, is a new plan to promote innovation and the use of new technology in the sector and to strengthen interaction between all agents in the production chain, supported by a wide, dynamic professional technical and management training scheme, and economic, financial and fiscal support measures for small and medium-sized enterprises, to provide employment incentives in the sector.
The plan must also give priority to counteracting social dumping and failure to observe the principle of reciprocity by some third countries.
We must mobilize the Structural Funds, particularly the Social Fund and the ERDF and the SME, ADAPT and EMPLOI initiatives, to ensure that European textiles continue to play an irreplaceable economic and social role on the European scene.
Berès report (A4-0264/98)
Because Sweden is not going to participate in the introduction of the euro in 1999-2002, we have chosen to abstain from the vote on this report.
The report deals with an issue which only concerns the Member States which are going to be in the euro-area.
The composition of the Economic and Financial Committee, which will replace the Monetary Committee with the start of the third stage of EMU, is one of many relevant political and technical issues resulting result from the process to adopt the single currency and the operation of the ESCB.
Several aspects of the report under debate relate to particularly significant issues.
The report appears to champion the further institutional consolidation of a two-speed Europe.
It calls for special rules against exercising the powers of the Committee, which relate to the preparation of the informal Ecofin Council of the 11.
It recommends the institution of "different arrangements for the States belonging to the euro area' in comparison with the States that do not come within the framework of the Economic and Financial Committee.
It thus goes further than the Maastricht Treaty, which provides for the participation of all Member States.
Once again the complete lack of even fundamental democratic control within the structure of EMU is apparent.
Council decisions with regard to the Economic and Financial Committee are to be taken following consultations with the ECB, while the European Parliament is simply informed.
In other words, the bankers - who one way or another will participate in the Committee - take an active part in the process, while the elected representatives of the people of Europe can not have an opinion on a committee which will play a decisive role in the directions and the decisions taken by the Council in the process of multilateral surveillance, in the event of excessive deficit and, more generally, in the assessment of the economic and financial situation.
And the problem will not be solved by a few meetings, however regular they may be.
For us, the central issue is the undemocratic and unpopular nature of EMU, which is becoming apparent in each of its relevant aspects and which is reinforcing the predominance of capital interests.
The key point, on the basis of which we define our position, is the deeply unpopular and anti-developmental policy that is being promoted as a result of the European Union's approach to economic policy and other issues, which has already led to a serious decline in the living standards of working people.
For these reasons, which relate in general terms to EMU and more specifically to the role of the EMI and the Economic and Financial Committee which will succeed it, and also on account of the proposals in the report that we regard as leading towards a more reactionary European Union, we will vote against the report.
Tappin report (A4-0196/98)
Both the Commission's communication and the report include a number of elements which should lead to a greater participation of SMEs in contract procurement.
Many industrialists know nothing whatsoever about the EEIGs, let alone about the possibilities afforded by such an instrument.
We therefore have to try to find centres, such as local Chambers of Commerce, which can offer expert advice and training.
This transfer of information can also be promoted through the EEIG forum, comprising representatives from the fields of economics and administration.
Finally, it is also important for us to clarify in quite general terms the practical obstacles to transboundary cooperation between companies.
As long as direct business activities cannot be developed, and as long as our objective is simply to facilitate and enhance the economic activities of the Member States, it is essential that we find ways to use and promote the high-quality help available through the EEIGs.
We have no fundamental objections regarding the Tappin report and the communication from the Commission on which it is based. However, there are two fundamental problems which we consider to be indirectly related, and which go beyond the specific problem of the European Economic Interest Groupings (EEIGs).
The first of these is the poor legal infrastructure for crossborder economic trade, in particular with regard to the structure of European undertakings and groups. The second is the creation of appropriate support measures for small and medium-sized enterprises which will actually allow them to participate fully in the potential of the single market and its continued reinforcement as a result of the introduction of the euro.
If no sustainable progress is achieved in these two reports, in our view the success in real terms of hybrid instruments such as the EEIG should unfortunately be regarded with the greatest of scepticism.
This does not detract from the efforts made by Mr Tappin and of the Commission.
However, it should not be forgotten that these are at best only a stopgap and will remain one.
That concludes Voting Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Electoral procedure (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0212/98) by Mr Anastassopoulos, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on a draft electoral procedure incorporating common principles for the election of Members of the European Parliament.
Mr President, it is my pleasure and honour to speak today on behalf of the Socialist Group on this important subject.
May I begin by congratulating the rapporteur on the work that he has put into this.
This is of course an old issue.
It is an issue on which the treaties give Parliament the right of initiative, and Parliament has used that right a number of times to put forward proposals for a uniform electoral system.
But, alas, each time it was unable to find the necessary unanimity in the Council for the adoption of such a system.
We now have a window of opportunity, thanks to two new developments.
The first of these is the election of the Labour Government in the United Kingdom which is introducing a system of proportional representation by regions for European elections.
The UK was the only country not to have a proportional system and this therefore brings the UK into line with all the other Member States at least in that respect.
Mr Anastassopoulos referred to that as a surprising new development.
It is not really surprising; it has been a long-standing policy commitment of the Labour Party, and was in Labour's manifesto when it won power last year, so it is not surprising that this has come through.
There is a determined government, keen to act on its promises.
The second development is also important, however.
The issue of proportional representation is far from being the only issue on which it had proved difficult to reach the necessary unanimity in the Council.
That is why the Treaty changes agreed in Amsterdam are equally important: for the first time it will be possible simply to adopt common principles for the European elections, rather than a completely uniform system.
If we can reach agreement, this will allow us to make progress immediately without needing to go all the way to having a fully uniform system straight away.
It is that window of opportunity that we must take advantage of today.
Mr Anastassopoulos' report points the way.
It contains much that is wise, it leaves a lot to Member States under the principle of subsidiarity, but it determines a number of common principles.
If we can iron out one or two little problems that still remain in his report, then we should be able to get a large majority to support it.
One of those problems is the proposal for 10 % of seats to be set aside for transnational European lists.
There are, frankly, divergent views, not just within my group but within most groups on this issue.
On a report like this it is necessary to get a very large majority in order for Parliament to speak with authority.
I have therefore put forward a compromise amendment in the name of my group which should give satisfaction to both sides - both those who think that transnational lists are important because they are more European, and those who say you do not need a system like that, and that even federal-type systems do not normally have federal level lists.
If you look at America, Switzerland or Germany, that is not normally the case for elections.
Both sides can be satisfied if my amendment is adopted because it says that Parliament will 'examine' a proposal for such a system in time for the 2009 elections but would not make it legally obligatory now by inserting it as a requirement in the act.
Those who support the system would gain the satisfaction that the idea is kept alive - it goes forward to the Council and we will have to come back to it.
Those who are opposed to the system would be satisfied that it does not immediately become obligatory and an essential part of the acts to be adopted.
I commend that compromise to the House and I remain convinced that, if it is adopted and if one or two other minor problems are sorted out with this report, we will find it possible to obtain the very broad majority which I am sure we are capable of getting for this report and which we should indeed aim for as a parliament.
Mr President, one of the new features of the Treaty of Amsterdam is to establish the possibility of this Parliament incorporating common principles for elections to the European Parliament.
The Treaty of Rome gave us a single mandate: the establishment of a uniform electoral procedure.
For 40 years we have been unable to achieve it, but I believe that with this excellent, meticulous report by Mr Anastassopoulos we will be able to establish common principles for elections to the European Parliament, even before the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into force.
So I think this is an example of work done well, quickly, accurately and with political meaning.
Furthermore, I think it exemplifies something I have been lucky enough to be able to talk about in this House before: from having had a role in providing the impulse, our Parliament has moved on to having a role via codecision.
I think that is extremely important.
Mr Anastassopoulos' report underlines the essential principles of an electoral system for the European elections.
The first principle is that of proportional representation.
There is no denying that in this House at the moment there is a Socialist parliamentary majority, because of the fact that in certain EU Member State elections are carried out by means of a majority single-vote procedure.
At the moment, that first-past-the-post electoral system has resulted in political misrepresentation.
If this Parliament unanimously approves Article 1 of the Anastassopoulos report, it will mean that the rules of the game will be the same in all the Member States.
So I think we have to congratulate ourselves on the acceptance, by everybody, of proportional representation for the European elections.
Secondly, the Anastassopoulos report also has the merit of applying the principle of subsidiarity, for example in the power it gives the Member States to determine the constituencies, according to the specific characteristics of each country.
I want to mention a third point, to which the previous speaker has already referred: the transnational list.
We in the Group of the European People's Party believe we should promote transnational lists because we think we ought to develop that precept, which is included in the Maastricht Treaty, where it talks about European political parties. So I agree with what Mr Corbett said.
We are going to try to find a formula with which all the political groups in this House can feel comfortable. But we must give a clear political signal that we want transnational lists in the future.
Finally, we also want to mention the incompatibility between a European Parliament mandate and national mandates. The work we do here is important enough.
This Parliament is involved in codecision and has a lot of work to do.
It will have even more work in the future. So we do not think it is possible to be both a national MP and a Member of the European Parliament.
So, Mr President, given these views, my group, the Group of the European People's Party, is going to vote wholeheartedly in favour of this excellent report by Mr Anastassopoulos.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if today, on the strength of Mr Anastassopoulos's excellent report, we finally agree on common principles for an electoral system for the European Parliament, this will be a quite decisive step - and one which has long been overdue - towards greater electoral democracy in the European Union.
It is very encouraging to see that we are in agreement on the basic principles of proportional representation, or rather that we are on the verge of reaching such agreement.
In this connection the political representatives from the UK, who prepared the way for this measure, deserve every respect.
It is quite vital for us to recognize that proportional representation will provide us with a more vigorous and dynamic parliamentary system.
This will have particular benefits for the European Parliament and for the political union of Europe.
Why? Because this political union is still unfinished and still has no fixed constitutional structures.
It is therefore very, very important for this Parliament to keep an open mind when it comes to many of the political policies and, as far as I am concerned, to territorial interests and ideologies as well.
This openness is vital, for what we do not want to see is a Parliament made up of two blocks with rigid voting patterns and so on, as tends to be the case with the first-past-the-post electoral system.
As we enter a historic phase in European history it is particularly important that we have a Parliament capable of open debate.
The rapporteur has adopted just the right approach in attempting merely to define the principles of universal suffrage.
This leaves room for national political traditions and cultures - which is a very important factor.
Let me now raise a number of points which have an important bearing on this debate.
Firstly the matter of constituencies. It is right that these should be limited to the larger countries and it should be made quite clear that the principle of proportional representation should not be affected by this in any way.
Secondly the percentage hurdle.
In my view the 5 % being proposed for the larger nations is simply too high.
It would be deplorable if possibly millions of voters in the larger countries were not to be represented in the European Parliament.
I therefore hope that we will lower the 5 % hurdle.
Now two more fundamental issues. The first concerns the compatibility of a seat in the European Parliament with one in the national Parliament.
Let us be honest - if you take your mandate seriously, you cannot perform both roles.
My final point relates to the common European list. If we are to take European political union seriously, we should be happy to see our citizens organizing themselves on a Europe-wide basis and standing as candidates in democratic elections.
I therefore support the idea of transnational lists in the European Parliament.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mr Anastassopoulos on the very fine piece of work he has brought us here, especially the part that deals with European electoral rights, which are very important to our work.
In addition to my acknowledgment and thanks, I would like to string together a few thoughts, mainly regarding territorial constituencies and transnational lists.
This report recognizes that eleven of the present fifteen States have only one electoral constituency.
Even so, it considers it important to make territorial constituencies based on population criteria for the areas in question compulsory.
I wondered why, and found the answer in the report as well: our colleague says his aim and objective is to bring elected Members closer to the electors.
I myself am entirely in favour of that principle.
I do indeed consider that the closer we get to the citizens that elect us, the better Europe will be built.
And I therefore think this principle is to be applauded.
But I have serious doubts as to whether this arrangement or system is the most likely way of achieving those aims.
There may be other, different ways of achieving them.
From my point of view it suffices that we should be attentive to public opinion in the various Member States, which of course is expressed through their national Parliaments.
And, therefore, I myself would give the principle of subsidiarity free rein in that area - a principle which is also recognized and applauded in the report.
Another aspect I cannot overlook relates to the question of making transnational lists compulsory from 2009.
And I must say I am delighted by the opening Mr Corbett has provided for a possible agreement on the matter.
I have to say that, as this motion is worded, I have the most serious doubts.
Firstly from the legal and institutional point of view: I wonder, and I ask my fellow Members to enquire of themselves as well, whether Article 190 of the Amsterdam Treaty will not perchance be a little cramped by a proposal of this nature...
But apart from this legal question, with which we should be concerned as a House of specialists in such matters, which we also are, there are questions of a political nature that I cannot help bringing to the House's attention.
I am thinking for example of the question of what role Parliaments should play vis-a-vis public opinion.
I myself have always believed that Parliamentary legislation should follow the demands of public opinion, and not the other way round.
So far as I am aware, public opinion in the various Member States is not calling for transnational lists.
What the public wants most of all is that we here should do our job properly and that those we represent should feel that their interests are genuinely protected here.
I am inclined to quote a well-known Portuguese figure, not even a member of my party, who used to say 'Let Europeans marry one other, let them meet one another, don't run too far ahead of Europeans' .
For my part, I am open to that understanding for the very reason that I am one of those people who do not believe European public opinion is calling for transnational lists.
Mr President, I too wanted to pay tribute to Mr Anastassopoulos' work and make it clear that it is possible to admire a rapporteur's work, and congratulate him on it, without necessarily agreeing with all the points in the report.
I particularly agree with the way it gathers together all our national experience; proposes a draft electoral procedure based on common principles, developing the Treaty of Amsterdam; presents the principle of proportional representation as the most important; and the incompatibility of mandates, especially those between the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
But although I agree with all that, and also the transnational dimension of the elections - although I know public opinion is against that in some countries - I have to say that I do not agree with the idea of territorial constituencies, and making them compulsory for countries with a population of over 20 million.
My first argument is that it is an arbitrary figure.
So in countries with a population of 19 million, if any existed, Members of the European Parliament elected in a single constituency would be close to the people, whereas in countries of 21 million inhabitants they are not, and have to be divided up into various constituencies, of approximately 5 or 6 million people.
I do not think such an arithmetical method will resolve the question of the citizens being close to their representatives.
Secondly, there is an adverse effect on medium-sized political options - not the People's Party, to which Mr Anastassopoulos belongs, or the Party of European Socialists.
Political choices such as the one I represent, which count on approximately 10 % of European voters, and which are not nationalist parties, would really be placed in a very difficult situation.
In other words, the people we represent would be left with virtually no representatives.
That is an attack against the fundamental principle upheld by Mr Anastassopoulos: the principle of proportionality.
I believe we need to study what happens in real political life.
Here, perhaps, the Conference of Presidents could be made up of just four group chairmen.
That is why, every now and then, the report says "without violating the proportional system' , "without generally violating it' , and so on, because the main objective is being compromised.
I must also say that in some countries there are worrying political consequences because not all regions are equal and not all territories have political power.
Of the 200 European regions, only 69 have real regional parliaments. They have a different dimension, and in Member States with historical communities, with a political personality, it is very difficult to set up different constituencies with a very different dimension.
I will finish, Mr President, by saying that the constituency system in a country I greatly respect - Italy - has not exactly solved the problem of the people being close to their representatives, because political parties can also put forward the same candidates in all the constituencies, which is something this document does not address.
I am not sure that subsidiarity is being fully respected, and for all those reasons, if the rapporteur and Parliament do not accept any amendments then, regretfully, we shall not be able to vote in favour of this report, which contains such interesting elements.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if we want people to regard the European Parliament as their Parliament and to see the Members of this Parliament as their MPs, then we need to have universal European suffrage and a common set of rules and principles.
The same view was expressed 40 years ago and I only hope that we do not have to wait another 40 years to see it happen.
On behalf of my group I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, and to congratulate him on his report.
We agree with him.
We agree in particular with the principle of proportional representation as the democratic system of suffrage.
We also support the idea of preferential voting, addressing incompatibilities and the creation and development of European lists, even though this process is fraught with major technical difficulties.
If we have submitted amendments, these are aimed at speeding up the whole process and at achieving a more democratic arrangement.
We are therefore of the opinion that the obligation to introduce equality for women should apply to the national Parties from 1999.
I hope, Mr Anastassopoulos, that we also have your agreement on this.
We also believe that the proposal for European lists should have a 2004 deadline, not a 2009 one.
If we do not try to get these reforms going, who will? Others can be relied on to create delays!
As far as the question of democratization is concerned, I agree with all those who have expressed misgivings about regional constituencies.
At least there should be no pressure exerted here.
This could be handled by applying subsidiarity.
There would be two different types of Member in this House - one with European legitimacy and one with national legitimacy.
I am of the opinion that we need to think this through once again, to say nothing about the various possibilities for manipulating proportional representation.
Naturally the smaller groups in this House - and this is something which Mr Frischenschlager referred to - wish to drop this qualifying clause.
The strength of this House also lies in its representation.
A further reduction in the voting age would also be possible, in our view.
In closing I would like to make a further point.
I believe that current developments also require us to look at the representation of European interests and to bear in mind the development of European political parties.
This is also relevant to the report and is something which is directly associated with it.
If we wish to define and represent European interests, then we need to have European parties.
I believe that here too there are reasons for thinking that the parties present in this House must not just see themselves as European groups but should also align and organize themselves as such, if there is to be any point in having European electoral rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all, on behalf of my group, to congratulate Mr Anastassopoulos on the important work he has done and for having incorporated in his report the essence of a number of items raised by his colleagues in the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
It seems almost a miracle that we have been able to tackle a subject of such complexity in a plenary session, in such a short space of time.
Naturally, the most recent amendments introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, together with new factors concerning British policy, have greatly aided our task.
Nevertheless, defining the individual features common to all Member States in order to secure a uniform electoral procedure for the European elections is a tough one that calls for a particular degree of tact and skill.
In the opinion of my group, the report before the plenary is a good starting point. it is in fact the responsibility of the European Parliament, in accordance with the provisions of Article 138 of the Treaty, to submit a proposal to the Council.
We would be failing in our duties if, whilst deriving benefit from a favourable political context, we found ourselves unable to accept our own responsibilities in those areas where the Treaty explicitly accords us the right to do so.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance is especially pleased to find principles outlined in the report focusing on proportional representation, the incompatibility of mandates, derogations in support of special regional characteristics and transnational lists.
May I make a brief comment on this very matter of transnational lists?
I think it is quite justifiable to commit the European Parliament to the path of Europeanizing the electoral campaign which, incidentally, ties in neatly with Jacques Delors' proposals.
As regards the rest, the report is wise, perhaps too wise, but there is no doubt that we are behind the times in setting a date and a particular threshold that allows us to put the finishing touches to our proposals.
To those who would criticize the proposals for not establishing a set number of seats for each Member State, I would say that the argument seems a little out of date at this stage in the process of building Europe, insofar as the ability offered to citizens of the Union to put themselves up as candidates in a state other than their own has already diminished the value of that particular principle.
As a matter of interest, one of the members of my group is of Belgian nationality and was elected in Italy.
Nonetheless, we believe the report by Mr Anastassopolous could be further improved.
This is why my group has put forward a number of amendments which we would bring to the attention of the rapporteur.
Firstly, whilst understanding the arguments of the rapporteur in favour of territorial constituencies, I feel that the decision should be left to each Member State to decide.
In this respect, I share Mr Puerta's opinion.
Secondly, the list of incompatible mandates should be extended to include any mandate that involves a legislative or executive function.
We are of the opinion that the increasing responsibilities of the European parliamentarian make the notion of holding a dual mandate even more difficult.
Finally, in view of its strongly regionalist persuasion, my group would appreciate a strengthening of the Article 4 device, in order to establish the legitimacy of the special provisions to allow for regional differences in firmer ground.
To conclude, I must express a certain regret, Mr President.
I deplore the fact that when we were speaking of European elections, transnational lists and the major challenges facing our continent in the future, no progress was made regarding the European political parties.
It is very sad that the Commission has still not followed up the requests of the European Parliament within the framework of the excellent report by Mr Tsatsos.
I urge all my colleagues to insist that the issue be debated in this Chamber, during one of our forthcoming meetings.
Mr President, every Member State is represented in the European Parliament by directly elected individuals.
If the plans of the Anastassopoulos report go through, this will change.
A certain percentage of the seats in the European Parliament will be distributed across "transnational' lists.
Our citizens are already far from the European Parliament, a fact which will only be exaggerated by this change.
In addition, the rapporteur wishes to take away the right of Member States to organize European elections on a day which fits in with their traditions.
The report suggests electing members of Parliament in all countries simultaneously, possibly over two days.
This is a problem for a country like the Netherlands, in view of the fact that the proposed Saturday and Sunday as election days run totally counter to Dutch tradition.
This not only poses organizational problems, but also problems of principle.
There are many people in the Netherlands who recognize Sunday as a day of rest, for which reason no elections are held on a Sunday.
These two reasons will ensure that the turnout for the European elections will be even lower than the 35 % last time.
A certain class of voters will not show up at all, and will thus not be represented in the European Parliament.
In addition, I am concerned here with the principle that every Member State should have the right to determine itself when it holds elections.
The amendments I have tabled refer to this.
Finally, if the European Parliament wishes to increase European awareness as stated, it has to respond in these election plans to the customs of the Member States in this regard.
This will be very easy to arrange by allowing the elections to take place within a number of days.
Mr President, the National Alliance also wishes to thank to Mr Anastassopoulos for his valuable work and gives its backing to further efforts by the European Parliament to establish a common electoral procedure for European elections throughout all Member States.
Our imminent expansion makes this decision particularly urgent and important. But our most pressing task is to ensure that the parties - which represent a link with democracy in Member States - understand that Europe now more than ever needs representatives who are elected by the people and who will devote all their energies and skill to parliamentary work.
Monetary Europe and the new parliamentary Europe - to an even greater extent - pose important problems that cannot be resolved by half-hearted effort.
The National Alliance still holds to what it said in the last legislature, in other words that proportional representation remains the only real way to involve citizens in electoral choice and thus achieve true democracy.
To turn to the proposals, we consider that the new uniform law should include the incompatibility of mandates already discussed and also stipulate incompatibility - or rather ineligibility - for those who fill important national posts such as regional councillors, mayors of towns with more than 50 000 inhabitants or deputy mayors in regional capitals.
The Europe of the year 2000 must be served by parliamentarians able to devote all their time to giving the European parliament all its eagerly awaited and necessary legislative power.
These parliamentarians must represent all the citizens of their own countries and help them achieve true European citizenship.
For this reason, we ask the rapporteur to consider these comments on incompatibility and ineligibility. We also ask the President of Parliament to send an official invitation to the political forces and governments of all Member States to ask them to adopt measures to be implemented during the next elections - once again due to take place without a common European law - to ensure that the electoral lists, which represent the wishes of our citizens, are made up of people institutionally engaged in acting as Members of the European Parliament and nothing else.
Mr President, may I begin by expressing my support for Mr Anastassopoulos's report as regards what I consider to be the fundamental issue.
He is proposing a set of common electoral principles based on the proportionality rule.
This seems to me to be the fundamental issue, and I therefore think Parliament should strongly support this report, using the opportunities provided by the Treaty of Amsterdam and the result of the English elections to the best possible effect in order to support, at last, common electoral principles for European elections.
I am in sympathy with the report over a number of proposals, particularly regarding areas of incompatibility, and, I have to say, the creation of infranational constituencies as a way of bringing Members closer to those who elect them. I do not think such a device should cause too much strain on the principle of proportionality.
The aspect I wish to dwell on, however, is the question of transnational lists.
I have to say that I am against this idea, not because I am anti-European, but because I think an intelligent and critical pro-European would prefer not to vote here on this absurd proposal, which is not included as a method of correcting deviations from proportionality, as happens in those of our countries where a national electoral constituency is provided to make it possible to correct deviations from proportionality.
This idea is presented here as a way of, shall we say, identifying a pro-European vanguard from the European political parties.
And I consider this a bad idea, because the way to strengthen the building of Europe is, on the contrary, to reinforce the Commission's ability to act, its supra-national character and its responsibility to the European Parliament.
That seems the right way to me.
Instead of drawing electors and the elected together, the proposal put before us here drives them still further apart, and, in that respect it may or might seriously damage our fellow citizens' commitment to strengthening the European Union.
It also has another serious disadvantage, from my point of view.
With the object of promoting European political parties, it attempts to create by this method a class of Euro-politicians who would be perpetuated by means of the European list, but would or might lose touch more and more with their electoral bases in their respective countries.
I think a different way is best.
And Mr Jacques Delors' proposals are different!
For example, the proposal that a candidate from the European parties should stand for President of the Commission.
That is what the debate is about, not these absurd ideas, as I see them, which may militate against the idea of strengthening democratic and federal forms of European political integration. Those are the principles I support, and I think they should be taken into consideration in this document.
Mr President, I also wish to thank Mr Anastassopoulos for undertaking this very important report.
Although I do not agree with the rapporteur on all the details contained in it, I consider it important that its central concern is to aim for proportional representation in all Member States of the Union.
The report talks about the significance of the principle of subsidiarity as the connecting thread running through the whole issue of European Parliamentary electoral reform.
That is only right, but it appears that what subsidiarity might consist of in this context turns out to be very different for different people.
As the aim is, as the rapporteur stresses, that Members of Parliament and citizens assume closer ties, I cannot agree with the rapporteur's assessment, for example, of the need for a single European list of candidates for election.
Communications between Parliament and the voters are already very often pretty tenuous.
This being the case, we can only wonder how someone elected from a single European list, say a Portuguese Member of the European Parliament, could actively run things, for example, in the Åland Islands.
Greater community and representation of the people will not come about through common election lists and dates.
Any debate on whether the Belgians, say, may vote one day before the Finns is trivial and diverts attention away from the real problem of how to arouse interest in citizens in European Parliament elections in general.
This report does not get its teeth sufficiently into the problems of representation and the involvement of the people.
As for the latter, the main question concerning election dates is the assurance of sufficiently long-term advance voting for all EU citizens.
This is an idea that is unfortunately absent from this report.
The rapporteur's idea of rejecting dual mandates is one we warmly support.
Simultaneous membership of a national parliament and the European Parliament calls into question the whole credibility of both the Member of Parliament and the institutions.
Dual mandates were not approved in Finland, and I hope that we will be able to do something about them as quickly as possible in Member States where they are still allowed.
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me first of all to congratulate Mr Anastassopolous for his careful handling of a difficult text, which finally addresses a problem that has long been held in abeyance.
I am pleased with the adoption by the Commission, supported by Mr Anastassopolous, of the amendment in favour of parity between men and women on the European lists.
The European Parliament has always been at the forefront of this struggle since its election by universal suffrage in 1979.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs continues to follow this path and, once again, I thank Mr Barros Moura for his endorsement of my amendment.
With regard to Article 3, concerning the transnational lists, Mr Anastassopolous and myself have each tabled an amendment seeking to reflect precisely the terms of Articles 137 and 138 of the Treaty.
In fact, just as the national parliamentarian represents both the interests of his constituents at state level and the national interest as a whole, the European parliamentarian represents the interests of his constituents at European level and the general interests of the Union.
This is the letter of the Treaty whereby - and I quote - "the European Parliament consists of representatives of the peoples of the States brought together in the Community' .
This is the same logic on which the Maastricht Treaty is based, asserting the principle of European citizenship by offering European nationals the right to vote and the right to be elected in all Member States.
This is the meaning conveyed by Article 7 of the proposal put forward by Mr Anastassopolous which, within a period of ten years in a single constituency, enables candidates to put themselves up for election by all citizens.
That said, I am in favour of the amendment tabled by Mr Corbett, which sends out a clear signal and which, unquestionably, will enable us to reach a more substantial majority in favour of the proposal put forward by Mr Anastassopolous.
Mr President, democracy in the EU countries and in the EU is based on and emanates from the national constitutions and the national parliaments. Therefore that is where rules for elections, including elections to the European Parliament, should be formulated.
That is where you find democratic legitimacy and respect for national conditions.
For this reason the Swedish Left Party rejects all proposals to regulate the electoral system at EU level on such matters as constituency boundaries and qualifying percentages for small parties.
In the report, paragraph 4 on additional seats at the EU level appears unrealistic.
Such a system requires functioning EU parties. Such parties can only be created in theory.
In practice, EU parties will for the foreseeable future lack any democratic legitimacy. They cannot therefore play a true democratic role.
That is why we are going to vote against the report, with the exception of certain parts, such as the fact that elections should be held in May and that dual mandates will not be allowed.
Mr President, I rise to support in particular Amendment No 46 by Mr Ebner, and my own Amendment No 49, which focus on the rights of historic recognized nationalities within the European Union.
I am quite convinced that a democratic Europe cannot ignore the rights of its small peoples, whether they are the Friesians, the Sardinians or the Valdostans.
The amendments which I am supporting draw attention to exactly that point.
But I am not persuaded at all by the argument that the big Member States have to subdivide into territorial constituencies and the small ones can be left out.
That seems to be quite irrelevant.
Portugal is a nation-state, but so is Germany.
What we have to look at is the multinational states such as Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom where we have to recognize the rights of nationality.
This is something which a sensitive and democratic Europe has to take on board.
Let me conclude by congratulating the rapporteur on his report, which has set us on the right lines.
I would concur with Mr Corbett's point that after a 20-year British veto on a proportional representation system, it is a relief that we are at last within sight of that goal.
Mr President, the report by the Committee on Institutional Affairs concerning the procedure for selecting European Members of Parliament, contains two dubious innovations.
The first is the general obligation to regionalize the ballot, except in countries with more than 20 million inhabitants.
In this respect, the report neatly reflects the Barnier private member's bill which has been used in France as the basis of a government bill seeking to regionalize the ballot.
But I should inform the House that all of these developments are now out of our hands since the French government, in view of the general opposition it faced, preferred to withdraw the bill.
Why so? Over and above the circumstantial arguments put forward by each party, a proportional ballot - within the framework of a single territorial constituency - as currently practised by 11 of the 15 Member States - is the best way European Members of Parliament can represent their entire country.
This therefore seems to us to be most in line with the concept of a Europe of Nations.
Under such conditions, I would find it inconceivable that the European Parliament could now vote for the regionalization proposal which France wishes so firmly to reject.
It would be even more inconceivable given that the proposal put forward by the Committee on Institutional Affairs is clearly discriminatory, since it enables countries with less than 20 million inhabitants to retain a representation that reflects their national unity, but which is forbidden to all others.
Perhaps other large countries would benefit more than France in this matter.
I do not know.
At all events, I will tell my French colleagues that this proposal is not in the interest of our country.
The second questionable innovation in this report - the election of 10 % of Members within the framework of a single European constituency - is really just another aspect of federalist folklore.
It has no chance of being included in any revision of the Treaty and I wonder if its inclusion in the motion for a resolution placed before us is designed simply to divert our attention from the first issue, which is the more dangerous in the immediate future.
Finally, we note that the European Parliament would gladly accept the election in a regional context, or even a European context, but the only context that terrifies it is the national context.
Anything but the national context seems to be its guiding principle.
How odd.
This is precisely the context that seems to us to be the most robust, the most realistic principle, the closest to a calm democratic expression of popular will, based on national parliaments.
All the others favour the establishment of a confused Europe, deprived of any reference points and opening itself up to all manner of mishandling.
We absolutely refuse to follow this path, Mr President, and we prefer to pursue the path of a Europe firmly grounded in national democratic procedures.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Mr Anastassopoulos for his excellent work.
We do indeed need to have common principles in the electoral procedure for elections to this House.
One of those should be full respect for proportionality.
But there is also a need for all the peoples who make up the European Union, all the national identities, to have the ability to send their own elected representatives to this Parliament.
And where different nations, different peoples, live together in a single Member State - as in the case of the Spanish state where Basques, Catalans and others are all of us nations comprising a state - that plurality needs to be reflected when it comes to establishing the European Parliament's electoral constituencies.
For those of us who believe in a federal European project, it is important that the people should feel that Europe is close to them, as something they can identify with.
Establishing territorial constituencies brings Europe closer to its citizens and the reality of their national and cultural lives.
That is why the report's proposed Article 2 is important, establishing that each Member State shall set up territorial constituencies, with these essentially being compulsory for countries with a population of more than 20 million, the ones where this lack of territorial representation is most apparent.
Some governments, such as the Spanish Government, are opposed to their country's domestic plurality being reflected in the construction of Europe.
That is an archaic, centralist view, which reflects apprehension about Basque or Catalan actualities, or others, being reflected in European politics.
But they have nothing to fear.
We do not want a presence in Europe in order to destroy anything, but to build a common European space.
We are going to contribute and collaborate with solidarity to the European project, which can be the reflection and multicultural sum of us all - not just French, Spanish and British, but also Catalan, Basque, Scottish, Welsh and so forth.
So creating territorial constituencies for the European elections can and should be a step towards achieving a Europe for everybody, in which all its peoples can participate.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is an important moment in this session of the European Parliament.
I would like to start by offering the warmest congratulations on behalf of myself and of my whole group to Mr Anastassopoulos for the quality of the work he has delivered.
I said that this was an important moment for the following reasons, ladies and gentlemen.
You will be aware that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party in particular has been devoted for many years to establishing of a common electoral system for the European Parliament.
I must, however, point to the important reports that were completed in the last Parliament by my fellow party member and fellow countryman Karel De Gucht in connection with a European election system, and which were approved by a large majority.
A very creative idea was put forward in the De Gucht report, namely that a uniform system does not mean that the same electoral system has to be established in all Member States down to the last detail, but that all Members of the European Parliament should be elected on the basis of the same principles, that is to say chiefly in accordance with the principle of proportionality.
The principle of proportionality is very precious to us liberals, and that is truly not just because we are one of the smaller political families in Europe, but is because our basic convictions and ideology mean that we greatly value the pluralism of political democracy, because we believe that a mature democracy is one in which there is room for diversity of ideas and views, because we believe, ladies and gentlemen, that the business of politics has to be something more than the confrontation of power among large blocs, and therefore we are delighted with this report and my group will consequently approve it.
Mr President, I also acknowledge the work Mr Anastassopoulos has put into this, even if I think that his report is not entirely appropriate, because Amsterdam is not yet in force and, in particular, because changes are being made to the electoral system of the Member State at which reports of this kind are usually directed.
We consider, furthermore, that the diversity of electoral cultures in our countries should lead us to be extremely careful in our approach to these matters.
That is to say, when we talk about principles we ought not to talk about anything else.
Any drifting beyond that limit will inevitably be ruled offside.
The emphasis given by the rapporteur to the principle of proportionality therefore deserves our acceptance.
And we could say the same about the principle of non-accumulation.
But, for the same reasons, we cannot say the same about certain other guidelines it directly or indirectly recommends.
First and foremost, let me address the matter of electoral constituencies or a single constituency.
It seems wrong to us to lay down any guidelines in this area.
In addition, this is an attempt to link electoral constituencies to the population of Member States while disregarding, for example, their political and administrative organization, whilst giving a markedly federal character to the building of Europe by creating a single constituency. This, in particular, would drive a wedge between Members and electors, when our agenda should primarily be to find ways of dealing with the real alienation of the one from the other that we are seeing today.
The references both to preferential voting and to setting qualifying percentages seem equally inappropriate to us, if only, in the latter case, because it clashes with the principles of proportionality and pluralism.
For these reasons we think this report is in fact inopportune at the present moment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur's task has been a difficult one.
It is good that the Treaty of Amsterdam creates a framework for the harmonization of elections in all Member States. This is equality, but something quite different from organizing the European elections as if Europe were a single electoral constituency.
Regional representation guarantees democracy in national and international policy.
Federal states have also recognized the importance of regions and their division into local constituencies.
Even the USA is divided into electoral districts.
And this is despite the fact that there they have one common language throughout the entire country.
As far as political familiarity and influence are concerned, the main state television networks are likewise the same throughout the whole of the federation of the United States.
Europe is not the USA, but it is trying to become an even tighter federation than the United States.
In the EU there is not nor will there ever be one single language nor one single television network broadcasting identical TV programmes to one and all.
So if we were to support single European crossborder elections, we would be turning our backs on national representation.
We would be bashing different cultures into the same unfounded shape.
It is diversity that is the very hallmark of Europeanness.
Sameness is not a strength in the information society.
For example, in my country, Finland, people representing Britain could become well known via the BBC' s channels, which Finns who understand English watch.
Finnish affairs and representatives on the other hand could in no way become well known in Britain.
In practice this would mean a fall in the number of small language groups and also of seats in Parliament held by Members from small nations.
If single lists were to be organized, representatives of the smaller countries would, as a result of their being less well known, be right at the bottom of the list before very long.
This is the sort of "silly' federalism that destroys harmony.
Is it not enough that people have already become alienated from these polls?
Mr President, the history of a civilized society is the story of a succession of battles against repression and discrimination.
This report seeks to lay siege to one such current bastion of injustice.
Our European Union has 15 Member States; we currently use 16 different electoral systems to choose our Parliament.
We use 16 because one Member State - my own - uses two systems: a fair one in Northern Ireland, where injustice would lead to armed conflict in a province which has seen far too much violence; and an unfair system in Great Britain, where the minority has limited itself to passive protest.
Great Britain is the only country which uses a non-proportional system of voting to elect Members of this House, and that has rightly been condemned: not simply because it is inherently unjust but also because it has skewed the balance of power between the political parties in this House.
I am the first Liberal Democrat from the United Kingdom ever to be declared elected to this House.
I participated in three election campaigns - in 1979, 1984 and 1989 - which saw not a single Liberal Democrat elected despite, on one occasion, one voter in every five having cast their vote for my party.
The two Liberal Democrats elected from my country in 1994 should, by rights, have 12 colleagues in this House.
I would like to thank Members of this House, in particular former colleague Karel de Gucht, Gijs de Vries and now Mr Anastassopoulos, for their work to see that such injustice is repaired.
The United Kingdom Government has introduced a bill in Parliament to right the wrongs that have hitherto persisted.
But so long as procedures for election to this House are a matter for national governments, we cannot guarantee a continuation of the principle of proportionality and that is why this report is so important.
We must cement for the European citizen the right so wisely identified by the governments at Amsterdam to an electoral system based on common principles.
This report does that.
It is a major step forward and I commend it to the House.
Mr President, Mr Anastassopoulos' report clearly shows that the political unification of Europe requires a Parliament whose members are chosen for the role it has to play along the same institutional and political lines.
The rest will be ironed out by national laws.
I recall how our Green colleagues protested in July 1989, because the British Greens, having got, if I remember rightly, 12 % of the vote, did not have a single Member in this Parliament.
It was politically unacceptable not only to the Greens, but also to the entire British people and to the European Parliament itself and as a failure to reflect the extent to which the Parliament is representative of Europe.
However, we Members of the European Parliament are set apart from each other by the way in which each of us was elected to office.
Some were preferred by the constituents themselves, some chiefly by the leadership of their parties, while others were selected by the members of their party and at times by their constituents as well.
This does not strengthen interest in European affairs, nor does it bring Members of Parliament closer to the people.
In this regard we would like to see arrangements which would give citizens greater and more appropriate involvement.
For this reason I support Mr Anastassopoulos' proposals for a system of proportional representation, and also for the ability of the citizen to express a preference among candidates.
This can be achieved by various national arrangements, technically speaking. The spirit and the aim, however, must remain the same from country to country.
For the same political reasons the qualifying threshold for being allocated seats must not be prohibitive and, in my view, must not exceed 3 %.
Finally, the election of a number of Members of the European Parliament on a pan-European basis is a positive idea, as long as there are arrangements to prevent the marginalization of smaller countries and of less widely used languages.
Mr President, I would like to offer my congratulations to the rapporteur as many others have already done.
This report might well have passed unnoticed by the public.
But nothing of the kind, and the great merit of the rapporteur is that he had the courage to introduce the proposal for transnational lists, along with other proposals whose importance I do not underestimate, for five specific reasons.
Firstly, it is an initiative that ties in neatly with a programme for building Europe not strictly focused on national interests.
Next, given transnational lists and the opportunity to be included in those lists, minority groups throughout the Member States could gain representation in the European Parliament.
By way of example, minorities we might consider would be the Romanies and Muslims.
Thirdly, as a socialist belonging to a party of European socialists that exists alongside the parliamentary group that bears the same name, I further believe that such lists would help to establish genuine European parties.
Fourthly, it might be interesting to add a little touch of drama to the European elections, in order to distinguish them from national elections.
Finally, there is the question of whether to build a Europe of nations or a federation, which is once more the issue at stake in this debate.
There are, of course, a number of practical problems to be ironed out, but that does not detract from the fact that the principle of transnational lists needed to be brought to our attention and that it would help to develop European awareness.
Mr President, drawing up a draft electoral procedure for electing European Members of Parliament is a long-winded process and many reports have pursued that same line without success.
Doubtless because a uniform, restrictive procedure is neither acceptable nor desirable.
The Anastassopolous report recommends proportional representation, which is the fairest and I commend it, but it does put the burden of creating territorial constituencies on individual Member States.
Yet, of the Fifteen, eleven have a single constituency.
By what right does the European Parliament seek to impose a solution that differs from that prevailing and for which most of the States have opted? The argument about bringing electors closer becomes quite absurd when we are considering constituencies with several million inhabitants.
In addition, this provision has two major disadvantages.
Firstly, it replaces the national character of the delegations from individual countries and imposes a regional character.
Some States have chosen that path and they are entitled to do so.
But others have not.
Secondly, it infringes the principle of fair representation by raising the eligibility threshold, thereby compromising the representation of small or medium political groupings; it encourages bipolarity and therefore whittles away at the principle of democratic representation.
The French government, which would like to see such reforms in the balloting procedure, has been forced to retreat because there was not a sufficient majority in favour.
This was a wise move, and I would urge the European Parliament to take counsel from that wisdom by allowing Member States a clear choice between adopting a single constituency or the right not to do so.
Mr President, I should like to add my congratulations to Mr Anastassopoulos on his report and the manner of the consultation he carried out in writing it.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party broadly welcomes the report.
As Mr Corbett reminded us earlier, the Labour Party election manifesto in 1997 included a commitment to introduce PR for the European elections.
The Labour government has acted swiftly to fulfil this commitment.
The European Parliament is a representative body, not a parliament from which a government is drawn.
So the objections to proportional representation at a national level do not apply to the European elections.
We also acknowledge that the UK's electoral system skews the balance of forces in this increasingly important Parliament.
I should say to Mr Watson - who is muttering away there - that the system we have had, and continue to have, in the United Kingdom, and which has preserved our representative democracy fairly effectively for many centuries, simply consists of the candidate who gets the most votes winning the election.
It really is beautifully simple.
He should not complain if he keeps coming second.
To return to the report, like all reports in the European Parliament, the Anastassopoulos report is a compromise.
I suspect there are few individuals or political groups in this House who would support every part of it.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party has a particular problem and is fundamentally opposed to the proposal that 10 % of the seats be elected in a single constituency comprising the whole of the European Union.
This proposal will, we believe, have virtually no support among the peoples of Europe.
MEPs elected on a transnational list would have no contact with their constituents and would be either independents or the creatures of very remote transnational parties.
Moreover, as the EU expands, the number of MEPs for each Member State is going to be reduced.
This proposal to set aside 10 % of the seats for a transnational constituency would reduce that still further and consequently further remove the MEPs from the constituents they are supposed to represent.
With that caveat we would welcome this report, but we cannot support the 10 % proposal.
Mr President, the report quite rightly favours the principle of proportional representation.
However, it also advocates the division of Member States into electoral regions.
This means a majority can create such numerous and such narrow constituencies that the system of proportional representation will degenerate into a monstrous majority voting system.
Secondly, this division into regions is intended to bring Members of Parliament closer to their constituents and to their problems.
But this is totally at odds with the proposed provision of supranational Members of the European Parliament.
These Members, who will make up 10 % of the total, will be physically distanced from the people and from their problems.
Moreover, it means that this Chamber will include a second category of Members of the European Parliament, who will be in a superior position.
They were elected at a pan-European level!
And this will happen in the name of some united European nation.
It does not exist!
Will it ever exist? It has not appeared on the near horizon.
Perhaps in the future, after the Second Coming, there will be such a nation, which will elect supranational Members.
Thirdly, there is the issue of the 5 % threshold.
In other words we must decide who has the right to be represented and who does not.
With this system three million Germans may not be represented, even though they take part in the ballot.
450 000 Greek citizens vote and they will not be represented with the 5 % threshold.
This is unacceptable.
Mr Anastassopoulos says that we are not mature, not "ripe' , but it appears that we have become overripe, that we have putrefied and that we are moving towards an antidemocratic system.
Mr President, EU federalists aim to increase transnational decision-making.
This will favour big countries, the former colonial powers.
This will be the state of affairs when the entire EU region is one single constituency in the European Parliamentary elections.
To insist on such a thing would be a travesty of democracy.
There is only national democracy.
For that to exist there has to be a nation.
Europe is not a nation.
It is thus not a nation that Members elected from one constituency should represent.
In the EU there is no generally pervading concept of international democracy.
Insistence on one vast European electoral constituency is at odds with the whole idea of decision-making becoming decentralized. It means concentrating decision-making.
Voters in the big countries, the former colonial powers, will also be electing representatives from the smaller nations.
These lists will furnish Parliament with only "yes' Members, "ja' and "jawohl' Members, "oui' Members, "sí' Members, but no Members from small countries.
Mr President, I think that our colleague, Mr Anastassopoulos, has approached this difficult area with moderation and discernment. It is an area in which there are divergent national situations and political viewpoints, and he has given us a basis for debate.
I agree with the remarks that were made previously by Mr Papayannakis.
I would just like to make four points.
The first relates to the importance of proportional representation as a common electoral system. This importance must also filter through to national parliaments on the basis of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It is part of the institutional provision for the whole of the European Union.
It is not a matter for us, but we must draw attention to it.
The second point relates to the qualifying threshold.
The threshold was launched on the basis of the threshold in the national parliaments, which is aimed at preventing the fragmentation of political powers and at providing viable forms of government.
Is such a logic tenable for the European Parliament? In any case, I think that 5 % is too high a threshold.
The third point relates to preferential voting.
I think that our colleague has touched on a very important issue.
Of course there are parties that elect their candidates on the basis of a vote by its members.
However, there are also parties in which the candidates are chosen on the basis of the preference of the leader of the party or his or her entourage.
This is unacceptable and I think we must think very hard about the democratic mandate of Members of the European Parliament, either by means of preferential voting or by means of democratic procedures within the parties.
The fourth point I would like to make relates to supranational Members of Parliament.
This issue is very important.
However, I wonder whether it would not be more advisable to take an overall view of this matter or to deal with it through the normal procedures of the parties themselves, which would result in greater stability and less opposition.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission first wishes to congratulate the rapporteur of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, Mr Anastassopoulos, on the excellent report he is presenting today, and also wishes to express its support for this new attempt by the European Parliament to resolve once and for all the question of the electoral procedure as regards those fundamental aspects where there is a broad consensus among the Member States.
I believe this attempt is an essential part of a whole set of proposals, the ultimate aim of which is to improve public participation in the election of Members of the European Parliament. The Commission has already pointed out the importance of that in view of the future enlargement of the European Union, in the opinion it presented to the last Intergovernmental Conference.
I also want to remind you that the procedure provided for in Article 138(3) leaves the legislative initiative in this area in the hands of the European Parliament, and it will be the Council which establishes the relevant provisions, acting unanimously after obtaining the Parliament's assent.
So on behalf of the Commission, I want to acknowledge the importance of the rapporteur's efforts during the last few months to facilitate an agreement in Council as quickly as possible.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to end by thanking you for the opportunity to take part in this debate, and reiterating the Commission's support for the essential objectives set out in Mr Anastassopoulos' report.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
European voluntary service action programme
The next item is the report (A4-0274/98) by Mrs Fontaine, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the Community action programme "European Voluntary Service for Young People' (C4-0381/98-96/0318(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the plenary is now invited to cast its vote on the conciliation agreement we concluded with the Council, on 23 June, on the subject of the European Voluntary Service action programme.
As the rapporteur for this conciliation exercise, I have to tell you in all truth that I have suffered, as have many other members of our delegation.
Suffered, Mr President, through witnessing the extent to which the Council has once again demonstrated its shortsightedness by skimping - there is no other word - on the funding required to implement an initiative that, as we saw during the trial phase, very much lived up to young people's expectations.
But the Council knew this.
We had no choice.
We had no choice because it is an excellent programme, precisely because young people write and tell us how interested they are in being able to extend their horizons beyond national boundaries, learning a new language in a neighbouring country, able to cement their projects through direct action.
In all conscience, Mr President, we cannot disappoint them.
A lack of agreement on conciliation would have deferred, or even cancelled out the positive effects of European Voluntary Service, particularly by fragmenting the impetus generated so far.
So, after long hours of debate, we have managed to wrest ECU 47.5 million from the Council for the period 1998-1999.
This financial package is wholly inadequate and I thank Commissioner Cresson for the statement by the Commission in which it undertook to look favourably into the possibility of boosting the credits.
I have no doubt that Mrs Cresson has her heart set on making this intention a reality, and I have no doubt that Commissioner Bangemann, who has been gracious and kind enough to stand in for Mrs Cresson, will confirm this in a few moments.
With regard to the other items, I am pleased to note that the Council has taken account of our requests concerning the need for cultural and linguistic training among the young, as well as quality hosting projects.
We note, too, the steps taken, albeit somewhat hesitant but nonetheless significant, towards eliminating the legal and administrative obstacles that hamper young people's access to programmes and towards acknowledging the special needs of the young volunteer.
Finally, on the ever thorny problem of the comitology procedure, we have at last reached agreement on an honourable solution regarding the basis for a modus vivendi .
In view of this package - according to the formula adopted - and the vital need for the European Voluntary Service to be operational as soon as possible, your rapporteur proposes that you approve the joint text.
But I fervently hope that the success of the programme in the coming months will prise open the budgetary corset in which the Council has stuffed it, as has been the case with other Community mobility programmes.
Mr President, we have finally arrived at the final stage of the long and laborious process that will result in the adoption of the first multiannual programme for European Voluntary Service for Young People.
We know that this programme will cover only the years 1998 and 1999, but it will nevertheless be of fundamental importance in determining the nature of the new Youth programme that will continue the same work from 2000.
Parliament has formulated some amendments to a few essential points in the Commission's original proposal, which was in the main supported by this House.
These amendments specifically related to the following points:
the age band of the volunteers included in the programme-the legal status of volunteers-the relationship with national civil and voluntary services-finance for the programmes.On the first point, we succeeded in reaching a mutually acceptable compromise with Council after the first reading.
As a result of this, access to the programme was made easier for young people aged over 25. On the other points, however, we found the attitude of the Council - and of certain Member States in particular - deplorable in that it sought to block any progressive actions that aimed to make the most of all the potential offered by the European Voluntary Service.
We were faced with a really difficult task.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists, parliamentary members of the Conciliation Committee and in particular the rapporteur Mrs Fontaine and the VicePresident, Mr Imbeni, for the patience, tenacity and intelligence with which they conducted the negotiations.
I would also like to thank Commissioner Cresson for the active role played by the Commission throughout the negotiations.
The results we achieved were only partly satisfactory.
As far as the legal status of European volunteers is concerned, we obtained an important declaration from the Commission, but no firm commitment by the Council, to try and draw up common legislation governing legal, fiscal, social security and health insurance aspects for European volunteers.
In terms of the relationship with national services, we succeeded with great difficulty in drawing up a general formula for possible "complementarity between European Voluntary Service activities and similar national activities of various kinds' . This formula still allows room for States to try out joint initiatives between the EVS and national civil and voluntary services.
With regard to the programme budget, we did not succeed in obtaining more than ECU 47.5 million for two years, a sum that falls far short of our proposals.
These partial successes are made even more disappointing by the obtuse attitudes of certain governments: they should try explaining to their young people - who demonstrate enthusiasm for the European Voluntary Service - exactly why they are against the development of community youth policies.
Despite these limitations, the results achieved will allow the EVS to expand during the next two years and to continue with the actions we have set in train during the trial stage.
Now no-one can question the existence of the EVS - and this is a result we hardly dared hope for just a few months ago.
For these reasons, our group urges Parliament to adopt the Conciliation Committee's proposals so that we can proceed without delay to help the thousands of youngsters who wish to reinforce their training, their education and their European citizenship through the European Voluntary Service.
Mr President, it appears to be a platitude to say that European development depends on the youth of Europe.
The training and education of young people is an essential matter.
In today's world, young people have to be able to operate in an international atmosphere.
Exchange programmes are a suitable means of familiarizing the youth of Europe with the cultural diversity within Europe.
This provides a basis for us to be able to satisfy the demands of the increasingly globalizing labour market, in other words knowledge of different languages and of different cultures.
We have a number of successful exchange programmes for students, and now, with the European Voluntary Service action programme for young people, we finally also have a programme for working and in many cases for unemployed youngsters who are not or are no longer students.
What I have just said does not represent anything new or startling.
So my disappointment is all the greater that this has met with no or precious little support from the Council of Ministers, and it has certainly not been translated into reality.
The outcome of the conciliation we are discussing today is very disappointing.
The Council of Ministers has demonstrated in two areas that it does not take improving the mobility of young people in Europe seriously.
In the first place, Council is making too small a budget available.
A budget of ECU 47.5 million will only enable a few thousand young people to use the programme.
The contribution per person is too small to allow everyone access to the programme.
We are therefore creating a programme for the happy few who win the lottery and can pay to participate.
In the second place, Council was not prepared to guarantee that all obstacles to mobility arising at administrative level would be eliminated.
Recital 13 is a poor apology for what the Parliament proposed and the Commission's statement on the matter is only a sticking-plaster on the wound.
The Council was seeking a compromise, that is a compromise between the Council's proposal and that of the Commission.
Actually, Parliament's proposals have not been taken into account.
I was and am apparently stupid enough to assume that conciliation means a reconciliation of the two standpoints of the Parliament and the Council.
In practice, Parliament has been unable to play much of a role in this matter.
It was a case of "like it or lump it' .
The Commission, in the person of Mrs Cresson, deserves praise for their persistence in this matter. But I think that the Commission was too easily satisfied.
As long as a programme is put in place, then that is fine, although the scope of the programme is disappointing.
I am actually against the outcome of this conciliation.
But I acquiesced in the result. That did not come from the heart, but only because the youth organizations involved in this work asked me to.
Better half a loaf than none, was their attitude.
Because I do the work for the young people this project concerns, I said yes.
As a result, as far as I am concerned the Council and the Commission have won.
It is a bad outcome. I fear it will have the effect of setting a precedent for subsequent conciliations in the area of culture and education.
The Council will have to realize how important education and culture are for the future of Europe, especially when it comes to young people.
My thanks go to Mrs Fontaine, who has made this programme possible through her report, her commitment and her staying power.
The youth of Europe must know that if it had been up to her and the other members of the European Parliament, the programme would have looked a lot better.
Mr President, is a voluntary service still a valid proposition in our society?
When I was a boy scout, we called this a "good deed' .
Nowadays, such words invite ridicule.
Yet, despite that, the need is still felt, since we are creating a voluntary service at European level and the number of young candidates far outweighs the number of opportunities available.
Because while a service, any service, is originally born from generosity, it is also a training ground, it generates human interchange, shared experiences and mutual enrichment.
Thus, many young people aged between 18 and 26 years can participate in the work of NGOs, they can enter problem areas, they can perform humanitarian services for others once they have acquired the rudiments of the language of their host country.
We are truly in the realm of informal education.
So, the fifteen Member States of the Union decided to cooperate in offering young Europeans this citizenship opportunity, but Parliament and the Council failed to reach agreement on all the procedures to be implemented.
Whilst each of the partners has reached an agreement on the status of the young volunteer and the complementary nature of European and national activities, the financial package unfortunately remains a sore point.
Yet, in the Conciliation Committee, we reached agreement thanks to the intervention of the Commission, and Mrs Fontaine earlier emphasized the part played by Mrs Cresson.
But can we really talk about conciliation when the Council always has the last word and it decides on the scale of the programmes, whilst Parliament holds the authority to apportion budgetary funds?
If I abstained from voting during the conciliation, it was because the ECU 47.5 million allocated for 1998-1999 is totally inadequate to satisfy the expectations of the ever-generous young.
But this programme must go on.
This is the reason why, despite the most disappointing budgetary allocation, the Union for Europe Group will support the report by Mrs Fontaine, whom I commend here for her work and her determination to see the European Voluntary Service dossier through to completion.
Mr President, on behalf of The Green Group in the European Parliament I would like to thank the Conciliation Committee, and especially Mrs Fontaine, who has worked very actively for these issues, and for the fact that they have at least succeeded in increasing the Council's original offer of ECU 30 million to ECU 47.5 million.
Of course, we should like to have seen a much larger sum, but the Council clearly does not think that youth projects are particularly important to invest in, which is something we of course regret.
We in The Green Group are going to support the proposal, since we think the involvement of young people is important, especially in the social area, the environment and cultural work and so forth - areas which we know are priorities for young people.
I also think it is important for this programme to be open to participants from countries in central and eastern Europe.
It is important for us to bridge the differences which exist.
The programme could be a significant first step in that.
However, from the point of view of the Swedish Green Party, some of the proposals are questionable, although I do welcome the principle of a Europe-wide voluntary service for young people, which must be supported.
We in The Green Group are of course going to vote for the report.
Mr President, I agree with the previous speakers that the European Voluntary Service for Young People is a well thought out and important programme, but, as Mrs Fontaine has said, its future is uncertain as a result of the political short-sightedness of the Council.
I, and indeed all my colleagues, especially those from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, have shared in Mrs Fontaine's suffering throughout this affair.
I support Mr Pex and Mr Vecchi, who have explained that although some of the well-founded proposals put forward by the Parliament have been adopted, it has unfortunately proved impossible to introduce specific regulations in line with our proposals on legal status, social status and, more generally, the elimination of legal and administrative obstacles to access to the programme.
The question of complementarity between European Voluntary Service activities and similar national activities of various kinds has been solved in part.
A positive point, certainly, is that the programme is open to third countries.
I do not wish to hold back from expressing my regret that it has not been possible to increase the funding available for this programme.
We proposed a budget of ECU 80 million, but in the event the Commission was not even able to push through its proposal of ECU 60 million.
The inadequate funding of the European Voluntary Service for Young People begs the question whether the noble aims of Article 1, which were, after all, voted for by the Council - namely to contribute actively to the ideals of democracy, tolerance and solidarity to promote European integration and strengthen cooperation between the European Community and third countries - can actually be achieved in practice.
Mr President, I would like to speak a little about the European Voluntary Service.
It has taken a long time but at last we have reached a conclusion.
I hope that this will now be a programme which will break down the barriers among young people across the continent, giving an opportunity to help foster European integration and gain some valuable experience.
The whole point of conciliation is to look for an agreement.
The very fact that we have reached this point means that both sides have had to compromise.
We are still unhappy about the resources available for this programme because funding will in effect be cut in future years.
However, we believe it is a programme worth keeping.
Our only other option was to stop the whole initiative.
So, I should like to apologize to all the young people who might have participated in the programme had we been granted more money.
At least we have something to show for all the hard work that has been put into the pilot actions.
I would like to thank Mrs Fontaine and everyone else who has been involved in this initiative.
We in Parliament, together with the Commission, attach great importance to eliminating all the legal and administrative obstacles hampering access to any programme.
But this is particularly relevant in the case of the European Voluntary Service.
We will be monitoring the implementation of this programme very carefully.
Congratulations to Mrs Fontaine for getting us through a very difficult time.
I hope we will be able to build on this in future.
Mr President, the EU must be there for young people too.
If the EU ignores the needs of young people, the result - at best - will be indifference and, at worst, hostility.
The allocation of ECU 47.5 million to the European Voluntary Service for Young People is, it is true, the minimum required and much less than the European Parliament wanted, but at least it enables the project to continue.
It means that at least a small number of young people without higher education will be able to understand and experience Europe for themselves.
At a time when youth unemployment has reached 15-20 %, this programme is just a drop in the ocean anyway.
In Austria, it has been implemented especially well.
100 young people have already participated in the programme and many others are on the waiting lists.
The programme is not intended to conflict with the voluntary social service year, but is designed to appeal to young people and encourage them to look beyond their own immediate horizons.
In order to make the programme attractive, there must not only be a good range of projects but also good pastoral support.
The criticism that this programme undermines collective agreements is unjustified.
The aim is not to provide cheap labour but to promote personal development and offer young people an opportunity to gain international experience and thus have better opportunities in life.
However, the programme is too limited to have any real weight.
We can of course question the justification of projects such as 'frog conservation in Provence' .
If we bear in mind that 10 million young people in Europe leave school without qualifications, it would be more sensible to increase the budget for the Leonardo programme by 100 %.
This money would benefit apprentices and young people in occupational training.
One cannot help but think that despite all the good intentions, programmes like the European Voluntary Service for Young People smack of tokenism.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you can imagine, my colleague, Mrs Edith Cresson, would have very much liked to be here to thank the rapporteur and, like her, to recommend the adoption of the result of the conciliation procedure.
Unfortunately, she is unable to attend and has asked me to stand in for her today.
The Commission welcomes the agreement and, as Mrs Fontaine has already said, participated actively in achieving this result.
Of course we understand the disappointment expressed by all the speakers about the funding of the programme, but as is often the case, the Council is not in a position to fulfil what Parliament and Commission propose.
In the Council, economy measures of this kind are always more popular than the most well-intentioned programme, and the interest of the young people who have already registered as a result of the pilot projects shows that this programme could have had a major impact.
Nonetheless, as is always the case, we should accept what we can achieve rather than having nothing. We are sure that this programme will develop an impetus of its own, and by its new approach to bringing young people closer to Europe, and through its results, it will show that Mrs Cresson's intentions, which she shares with Parliament, will be translated smoothly into action.
We will do everything in our power - and I speak for Mrs Cresson here too - to overcome the obstacle, namely lack of funding, which is impeding the programme.
We will also eliminate the other obstacles which may occur.
A number of other difficult questions undoubtedly also need to be resolved, although the conciliation procedure has settled many of the issues arising in connection with the complementarity between this programme and national community service activities.
This is certainly very complicated, but once it is implemented we will see how we can achieve even better results.
On behalf of my colleague Mrs Cresson, I would also like to assure Parliament once again at this point that, as with Youth for Europe, no decisions about individual projects will be submitted to the Committee.
With the proposed funding of ECU 47.5 million, the Commission can ensure programme access and the quality of the measures during the remaining 18 months.
Recent experience has shown, however, that the interest of young people in the European Voluntary Service is already very great and is likely to increase further.
For this reason, when we implement the EU budget, there will be an opportunity to examine whether additional funds should be allocated to the programme, and I can promise now on behalf of the Commission that we will certainly look at this possibility.
We would like to express our thanks once again to the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, especially its rapporteur, Mrs Fontaine, and also to the delegation of the European Parliament and its chairman.
I should also like to thank Parliament generally for its support and its sympathy for this project, without which we would not have made as much progress as we have.
We have not yet reached the end of the process but we have moved some way in the right direction and I am sure that together with the Parliament, the Commission and perhaps, ultimately, even the Council we will see that more must be done, and that a programme of this kind can do more to develop European identity and understanding than certain other programmes which get bogged down in technical detail and do not really deal with people or reflect their views, ideas and wishes.
In this respect, I should like to thank you all once again personally on behalf of Mrs Cresson too; we hope that this programme will mark a new page in the history of European integration.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Food additives
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0242/98) by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 95/2/EC on food additives other than colours and sweeteners (C4-0183/98-96/0166(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to make some general points before I present the amendments of the Committee.
In principle, harmonization of the authorization and use of food additives in the European Union is to be welcomed.
Without a standard regulation on additives, the principle of mutual recognition leads to a great deal of uncertainty amongst consumers and to major shortcomings in the monitoring and labelling of foodstuffs.
Harmonization of the authorization and use of additives is also designed to achieve, as far as possible, a reduction in the range of additives and areas of use.
Unfortunately, this objective is not achieved in the amendments proposed by the Commission, which seem to pay more attention to the needs of the producer than the consumer.
It has been a long-term policy, in line with the demands of European consumers, as well as a trend in the food industry, to dispense voluntarily with certain food additives.
Experience has shown that this has led, particularly in many EU countries, to reductions in the food additives used in the last twenty years.
This is due less to legal provisions than to voluntary restraint exercised by the food industry.
The Framework Directive defines the general criteria for authorization as follows: a technical need must be demonstrated, they must not mislead the consumer, there must be no health risk, and they must benefit the consumer.
As far as the assessment of technical need is concerned - and here I appeal to you, Mr Bangemann - we really must arrive at some agreement once more as to how this term is defined.
When the report was submitted, you did not provide an adequate definition of what is meant by 'technical need' and where this technical need lies in many points of the amendments.
I therefore fear that the situation will deteriorate into tokenism, especially if the authorization procedure is to rely solely on information provided by producers.
Examples are the proposed new authorization of flavour enhancers in margarine and the enzyme Invertase, enabling a higher sugar content, which is supposedly justified on the grounds of technical need, even though only one manufacturer in the whole of the European Union has applied for it.
I think that technical need should not be recognized simply because one manufacturer demands it when all the other manufacturers demonstrate that another approach is entirely possible.
Today, it is possible to produce many foodstuffs - such as gourmet salads - with and without preservatives.
However, I should now like to confine myself to presenting Parliament's amendments.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has adopted 10 amendments; the European Parliament, during its first reading, adopted 26 amendments and thus largely followed the decisions of the Committee.
However, the common position took full account of just 11; it took partial account of 4 and rejected 11 completely.
Admittedly, this is a partial success for the European Parliament, but it is an illustration of the extent to which both the Commission and the Council of Ministers sympathize with producers.
On such important issues as allergy labelling, in particular, there is obviously little movement in the Commission.
A very important principle for us must be transparency, which means that we must put an end to secrecy, that is the use of additives in food ingredients.
I must emphasize - and I make no secret of this even in my capacity as rapporteur - that I would like to see more comprehensive labelling.
I regret that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection did not support this, but would like to put a question to Commissioner Bangemann at this point. The Commission said that it could not agree to the amendments because they were in the wrong place.
I would therefore like to know when, and how, the labelling of genetically modified additives will be regulated.
Now there is also a proposal from Austria.
Perhaps you could explain to us how the Commission will respond to this Austrian proposal and when you will submit it.
You promised us that the Commission would soon bring forward a proposal on novel food.
The same applies to the labelling of loose foodstuffs.
It is unacceptable that loose foodstuffs need not be labelled.
Parliament thus does not want any extension in additives in flour-treatment agents as we feel this is unnecessary and there are already enough products.
It also rejects the surface treatment of peaches and pineapples with beeswax, as we want natural products to remain natural.
It is not acceptable for the consumer to be misled and offered an apparent level of freshness which does not exist.
As regards nisin, the House did not call for the introduction of antibiotics in mascarpone, in cheese, at second reading.
(The President indicated that the speaker should finish) We should allow antibiotics to be available on subscription, but they should not be in foodstuffs.
Those were the amendments put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I hope, however, that the Commission is still prepared to respond to the unresolved questions, which have been orally supported by colleagues in the Committee, on the labelling of genetically modified additives and also the ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I would like to highlight two points before we proceed to the vote this morning: on the one hand, nisin, and on the other, sulphites.
Nisin is an antibiotic that could, in the long term, lead to resistance to medicines.
Antibiotics are crucial in treating certain illnesses; thus, they are medicinal and should not, in principle, be used either to promote pig growth or as a preservative in foodstuffs.
In my opinion, this has no place in this directive.
Now, mascarpone is not even an effective treatment for sore throats.
More and more people are affected by food allergies.
Sulphites are among the contributing factors here.
I believe that at the very least a specific limit value should be set for their use, rather than estimating the extent to which they are thought to be necessary.
Sulphites are typically used in processing dried fruits, for example for breakfast products.
And many parents buy dried fruit loose for their children as a healthier alternative to sweets. However, thanks to sulphites, this can lead to allergies.
I appreciate that to a large extent, climatic and hence cultural differences may give rise to different views of what additives are necessary.
The distance between two refrigerators could be a determining factor in evaluating which is the lesser of two evils - food-poisoning from sausages, or food additives. But we must understand that there is a difference between whether it is possible to produce and add an additive on the one hand, and whether the additive is really necessary on the other.
Today, we have foods in the European groceries market that would keep long enough to allow us to make a trip around the equator in a rowing boat. We do not really need our food to keep that long.
Please remember that European civilization once lived quite hygienically by smoking, salting, boiling and cooling food, long before all these strange additives came on the scene.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists will be voting in favour of the amendment by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection to Mrs Breyer's recommendation for second reading - for which I would like to thank Mrs Breyer - and I hope the amendments will receive the required number of votes.
I am in no doubt that they will receive a large number of votes, but what they need is enough votes.
There is no doubt in my mind that the current trend - even discounting ecological foods as such - is towards greater simplicity and more natural foodstuffs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1995 we adopted a comprehensive Directive on food additives other than colours and sweeteners in the European Union.
With the common position, we are today debating the first major amendment to this directive.
The amending directive is required firstly because during the many years of deliberations on the 1995 Directive, not all additives or their use had been scientifically tested, and secondly, because technical uses have evolved in the intervening period. Furthermore, particular conditions applying in the Member States, especially in the new Member States of Finland, Sweden and Austria, must be taken into account and, finally, a number of errors have crept into the full text of the 1995 Directive which this amendment is designed to correct.
It is true that the Parliament has put forward a number of amendments and the Council has now adopted some of them.
On behalf of my group, I can say that we are in agreement with the common position.
The amendments which have been proposed, in the main by the rapporteur in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, were adopted by a majority there; however, we cannot vote for them.
I should like to come back to the issue which was mentioned by Ms Breyer.
The objective was to ensure that as few food additives as possible were used, and preferably to reduce them further.
I have been involved in these discussions for twenty years and I have changed my political view to some extent.
I think that if we concentrate on very few food additives, these few additives will be used across the board.
I believe that we should not always consume the same additives, because this is the only way to ensure that health considerations are taken into account.
Furthermore, the issue of authorization should not be regulated to such an extent that everyone is compelled to use additives; however, we should ensure that if they are used, they should only be used to a limited extent.
As I said, they need not be used, but if additives are used, then the product must obviously be labelled accordingly, and that is what needs to be regulated here.
Awaking new fears about things which have traditionally been in existence in Member States is, in my view, unnecessary, for after all these additives have not caused any health problems and in any case the Committee was there to monitor this.
For this reason, my group and I are able to vote for the common position in its current form.
Once again, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her work on this directive.
I would also like to draw attention to my speech at first reading, in which I pointed out how unintelligible this directive is in its full form, in spite of the fact that many citizens would be extremely interested in its content.
I would also like to remind you of the subsequent questions to the Commission and the Council on the possibility of simplifying the directive without necessarily altering its content, and I would like to remind you of the answers given.
I stand by my opinion that the Commission's answer is a study in arrogance, whereas, by contrast, I am delighted with the much more constructive response from the Council.
I am reminding you of this in the hope that the conciliation procedure can be used in such a way that simplification is addressed alongside the work of finding a compromise.
The Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports the Committee's amendments, but in connection with the first two amendments, I have to say that we are not doing so because we would ultimately want to see flour treatment agents exempted from the directive. Rather, we are doing so because the common position appears to be comprehensive to the point of meaninglessness in this area.
The best approach would have been to introduce flour into Appendix 2 - that is, as the staple commodity it most certainly is - spelling out permitted substances there.
Now we have a situation whereby far too much is permitted, and the argument that the industry would obviously not use all these additives is really rather feeble.
I think the best thing would be to consider flour as an unprocessed commodity and thus take it as a starting point that Annex I substances must not be added to it.
In this regard, I am also referring to Directive 89/107, Annex 2, point 1, where it states that there has to be a "sufficiently great technical need' for approving additives.
I do not believe this to be the case when all of a sudden it is all right to use any substances at all from Annex I in flour. I cannot actually make sense of the common position any other way than this.
Moreover, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party opposes sulphites in nuts and maize, and is also opposed to wax treatment of peaches and pineapples.
Pineapples may not in fact matter, because the outer part is not eaten, but it would be quite unreasonable for peaches.
Can we please just have the plain produce here?
Mr President, the three criteria put forward by the Commission for including additives in the list of permitted substances are technical need, benefit for the consumer and no health risk.
I think these three criteria have been bandied about too much, to the extent that - as the rapporteur states - we will actually end up with a considerable extension of the number of authorized additives and especially the use of those additives.
I believe the choice is a bad one and I will give you two examples which, in my opinion, are glaringly obvious.
Firstly, the extension granted for the use of sulphites as additives points unquestionably to a poor choice: we know very well that they cause a lot of people health problems, especially those prone to allergies.
So, why should we use these sulphites when there are alternative solutions and when, in any case, we can well do without them?
Secondly, Mrs Jensen was right to speak about the problem of nisin.
This is an antibiotic.
Is it reasonable for the Council and the Commission to use an antibiotic as an additive whilst we are still wondering about the wisdom of using antibiotics in animal feed and whilst the WHO, for example, is producing evidence that many infectious diseases are spreading and that a number of antibiotics are proving ineffective? Does it make sense to include an antibiotic as an additive?
I think some Member States have raised the issue and I would here like to draw the attention of Mrs Schleicher to two matters.
First of all, several Member States, including the German government, have voted against the common position.
Next, the fact that a product has been used for a very long time does not make it harmless.
For very many years we used asbestos and now everybody agrees that it should no longer be used.
I do not see how the fact that because no proof of direct ill effects has been produced for a particular additive it should be regarded as harmless.
You know very well that indirect effects are possible and, indeed, quite probable and that in the case of many additives, it is exceedingly difficult to take circumstances into account.
Therefore, I think that it is vital for us to support the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and I would urge Mrs Schleicher and her group to reconsider their position on this matter.
Mr President, a European Union framework directive has been in force since 1989 on the approximation of the laws of Member States on additives authorized for use in foodstuffs.
The Commission has proposed to amend the directive in the light of recent scientific developments.
A common position was adopted by the Council on 23 March 1998.
Of the twenty-six amendments presented by the European Parliament at first reading, eleven were accepted in full while a further four were accepted in part.
The Commission's proposal also underwent a series of changes specifically designed to safeguard the needs of the food industry, namely the inclusion of flour treatment agents and authorization to treat mascarpone with nisin and to treat peaches and pineapples with wax.
In our evaluation, we sought to reconcile the interests of the food industry with the - in our view - priority aim of safeguarding the health of our citizens.
This comes at a time when product quality must be safeguarded more than ever, particularly when we consider that the small-scale retail trade with its emphasis on quality is sadly disappearing throughout the Union and giving way to large-scale distribution which is able to put products of increasing sophistication and refinement but questionable wholesomeness on the shelves.
The need to protect the health of European consumers therefore leads us to authorize only those preservatives that actually safeguard product quality and properties.
We oppose the use of new additives for pasteurized cream and sterilized milk, mainly because no fewer than thirty-eight additives are already available on the market. We also oppose the use of new additives that tend to extend the shelf life of certain vegetable products and sugar additives that serve the sole purpose of appealing to child consumers.
The existence of a standard community additive authorization system will certainly benefit the consumer.
We also emphasize the need to introduce a form of labelling for food products containing additives: such labels should provide as much information as possible. The main aim of this would be to protect people with allergies, newborns and more vulnerable citizens who are in the greatest need of protection.
With specific reference to Amendments Nos 1 and 2, we are against the use of additives that are classified as flour treatment agents in Annex 1.
With regard to Amendment No 3 on the use of sulphur dioxide and sulphites, we believe these substances are no longer necessary from a technical viewpoint.
The labelling system should in any case provide information on all relevant indications and contraindications.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Breyer for her hard work during both readings and in the Environment Committee.
She is an admirable member of the committee and will be remembered in that committee for the work she has done, particularly on the protection of infant foods.
I would like to be able to say that all the amendments now being redebated here will go through to conciliation, though I rather doubt it given the majorities that are needed.
I want to confine myself, therefore, to just three of them: Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 7.
I come to Amendment No 4 first because I tabled it and it was passed in the Environment Committee on reconsideration.
It concerns the use of sucrose esters in canned liquid coffee and tea which are now being sold hot direct to the consumer.
Whether happiness can be found in a warm can of caffeine I do not know - it would not be my favourite tipple.
What I do know is that sucrose esters stabilize milk proteins against the process of destabilization which occurs during storage.
As a nation of tea drinkers, the British would rather like to know why it is that sucrose esters are not approved of by the Commission.
We are not actually told that in the small print which accompanies its decisions.
It is always the case, and it is one of the problems as we reach the second reading, that one knows a good deal more about what the Commission will approve than what it will not.
Secondly, I would like to mention Amendment No 5 which Mrs Dybkjær has already discussed briefly, that is, the use of beeswax as a preservative for surface treatment of peaches and pineapples.
I cannot understand any more than she why these two fruits are labelled together.
There are a number of others which are not mentioned.
One thinks of melons as somewhere halfway between the two, but the distinction between them is surely that one does not consume the exterior of a pineapple - unless one is very stupid indeed! - whereas one would usually eat the skin of a peach.
I would therefore agree very much with the rapporteur in saying that it would be dangerous to have this coating on peaches, but I do not see the reason why we have to remove it from pineapples where it is a genuine preservative.
My last point concerns Amendment No 7.
On balance I support the rapporteur in her amendment to strike out the use of triacetin as a product for chewing gum, but again we do not know very much about why it appeared in the first place.
We owe it to those who argue that this particular emulsifier is not necessary and desirable to ensure that the case is set out as to why it is so essential and so desirable.
I hope the Commission will be able to tell us, because clarity should always be our watchword in these matters.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Breyer for her hard work as well, but I must go on to say that I shall be opposing all the amendments, as will quite a number of the Members of the PPE group - as we did in committee - with the exception of Amendment No 4.
This is a very technical issue to do with food additives and the permitted additives in food throughout the European Union.
It raises the question of how the European Parliament can best deal with such a technical question.
Mrs Breyer has tackled it from an ideological angle, natural to her group.
But there are two questions we have to consider as yardsticks.
One is that we must ensure the continuing health of the European population is safeguarded when adjustments to the permitted additives are discussed. What guidance do we use?
Do we use our own judgement? Well, I am a historian, Mrs Schleicher was a harpist.
That may be a useful qualification for the next life, as it were, but it is not necessarily the best qualification for dealing with food additives.
We are, to some extent, amateurs in this field.
We have to be guided by the Scientific Committee for Food.
I would really much rather be guided by that committee than, I am afraid, by Mrs Breyer.
Secondly, we have to ensure that European Union law is sufficiently flexible within the bounds of safety to allow new products to be developed.
I agree with Mr Whitehead that it may be a godsend for the Scottish Scouts, who are apparently here in the Gallery, if they no longer have to rub two twigs together to boil the kettle because they will be able to buy hot tea in cans - if indeed the European Commission allows that to happen.
I would like to ask Mr Bangemann, when he replies to the debate, to say whether or not he is prepared to allow tea in cans to be sold alongside the British sausage which we already salvaged from the ravages of the European Commission a few months ago.
So I do not believe that this is an issue where there is any room for extremes.
Green fundamentalism may be useful in triggering questions but it is not a view which should be allowed to prevail.
Mr President, I feel the same as Mrs Jackson.
I would first of all like to express my warmest thanks to the rapporteur.
She has obviously not only studied the material in depth but has also adopted very clear positions on the issues.
Even though I do not share these positions - neither personally nor on behalf of the Commission - I nonetheless feel that Ms Breyer has carried out admirable work on this issue.
I do not hesitate to say this to her personally.
I am not sure whether she will be pleased but I would like to tell her nonetheless!
The views expressed by Mrs Jackson and especially Mrs Schleicher correspond broadly with the Commission's position.
I will therefore be brief.
I am, of course, not an expert in the assessment of health risks or the absence of them, but I am a lawyer by training.
For this reason, I would like to say to Mrs Breyer that there is a clear principle here which has been the constitutional position at least up to now, namely that nothing may be banned if there is no reason to do so.
We cannot say that we want as few additives as possible and ban these additives simply because we feel like it or because we want to adhere to a point of principle.
There must be a reason for us to do so, and this is what we have now defined very clearly.
It is not true, Ms Breyer, that the issue of technical need is not defined in Annex 2.
The three general criteria are listed again. Firstly, it must be demonstrated that there are reasonable technical grounds and purpose which cannot be achieved through any other technical means; secondly, there must be no risk to health; and thirdly, the consumer must not be misled.
These are the three criteria.
Admittedly, not all of them have to be fulfilled in each case, as they may also apply in part.
That means that if one of these criteria applies, an additive may be banned.
We have thus stated precisely - there is more, but I do not wish to quote at length here - what technical need is and how it must be defined, also using individual criteria.
We have thus created sufficient certainty for everyone, both for the consumer and the producer.
It is quite in order for a producer to dispense with any sort of additive he chooses. He can also use this fact in his advertising.
He can say, ' This product is pure and unadulterated!'
This is perfectly possible.
Many producers do indeed take advantage of this opportunity, and it is quite acceptable.
However, if, on the other hand, we do want to ban something, there has to be a legitimate reason for doing so.
We can therefore not accept the eleven remaining amendments.
Given our time constraints, I do not want to explain our reasons in every case, but my previous comments apply.
I would like to answer the other questions asked, on labelling for example.
Mrs Breyer, I am constantly surprised that you want to regulate everything at every opportunity, despite the logic that you usually apply.
We simply cannot do this!
We cannot regulate general issues in all the many different directives which have a specific purpose.
Labelling is a general issue.
We regulated it in the labelling directive 79/112.
This is where any possible amendments should be made.
If there is a need to do so in relation to additives, then we must amend that directive accordingly.
We cannot now simply enter into a commitment that we will include all additives here; that would simply be a blank cheque.
We have to examine whether the general principles of labelling require a particular additive to be labelled accordingly.
The issue of labelling of genetically-modified additives was also raised.
I have already stated - and you have repeated it again - that we are looking into this.
However, it is extremely difficult, for example because the issue of proof, the issue of appropriate threshold values, and the possibility, too, of a negative list are not that easy to deal with, not even for scientific committees.
It is not a lack of goodwill on our part which has prevented us from submitting a response so far, but the issue is very difficult indeed.
As far as allergies are concerned, all additives should be labelled.
In principle, all additives should be listed on the label.
Those affected thus have access to adequate information.
Incidentally, this also conforms with the view of the Standing Committee on Foodstuffs.
The number of allergies triggered by foodstuffs is to my knowledge actually very low, as Mrs Jensen has said - far lower than one would generally assume.
It is quite inaccurate to state, as you do, that foodstuffs represent a particular danger in this respect.
We are also working on a directive on 'balanced diets' , in other words, on additives in foodstuffs for sick infants and toddlers.
The general labelling directive will be amended accordingly.
(Interjection: What about loose foodstuffs?) This is regulated appropriately in all the Member States.
The Member States have the option of labelling these or not.
We do not therefore see any need to introduce a labelling regulation as one already exists.
In the case of loose foodstuffs, the Member States can introduce an exemption.
But this is something which is already a legal requirement in the Union.
I think that those were the most important questions, if I am not mistaken.
I do not want to discuss the eleven amendments in detail, Mrs Jensen, as that would take up too much time, but our reasons for not supporting them should be clear from what I have said.
I hope, then, that Parliament, or at least some of the Members, will support Mrs Schleicher's suggestion, so that we can then conclude the procedure.
We will then have established a reasonable basis which is also in the interests of the consumer.
Mr President, I should like to put two more questions to Mr Bangemann.
I think that there has been broad agreement in the House that we have problems with nisin because antibiotics should not be present in foodstuffs.
Mr Lannoye has once more pointed out the major problems associated with resistance to antibiotics.
Antibiotics threaten to become ineffective as a means of treating disease.
I would like to know why you think that antibiotics, to which many people are allergic - in addition to the problems we have with resistance - should be permitted as a food additive.
After all, scientists are rightly concerned that the danger of resistance is becoming increasingly acute.
Secondly, Mr Bangemann, I cannot agree with your view that the issue of labelling loose foodstuffs should be a matter for regulation in individual Member States.
The point of this directive is, after all, to achieve harmonization throughout Europe.
I do not think it is right that packed foodstuffs must be labelled but loose foodstuffs, which give the consumer the impression that they are purchasing fresh products, do not need to be labelled.
Your representative on the Committee said that the Commission would repeal this provision!
I am astonished, then, that you are now saying something quite different, that you do not think that there is any need for action.
I would like to know what is actually the case.
Was what your representative said in Committee wrong, when he said that the labelling directive would resolve the situation at some point? After all, we have already dealt with a range of points which would fall within the labelling directive if we agree on what you say.
My final question, then, is when you intend to put forward a new draft or amendments to the labelling directive so that these loopholes and these requirements which have emerged can then be closed or covered?
Mr President, first of all I should like to address the issue of antibiotics.
The Commission has no reason to respond to this question since no relevant amendment has been submitted.
No, it was discussed in Committee but there is no amendment.
I cannot discuss hypothetical questions here.
Then to the question which you raised once again. I will repeat: we have a regulation on the labelling of packed or loose foodstuffs.
Both must be labelled.
In other words, there is a labelling requirement.
It is just that we have a special provision which means that Member States can exempt themselves from this requirement in the case of loose foodstuffs.
As far as your third question is concerned, I cannot remember the precise timing but I think that after we commenced the debate about the general directive on foodstuffs, we did not conclude it because various points of principle were raised such as: what is the key principle of labelling?
Unfortunately, there are various different viewpoints in the Commission as well as in the European Parliament, and an extreme viewpoint, which was initially also expressed here in the Parliament - I do not know if it is still upheld now - is that everything must be labelled, whether or not it is sensible or appropriate to do so.
I have always resisted including a mass of detail on labels since this would make the label useless to the consumer.
You must label what is useful for the consumer.
That way, you will reach your target audience.
If you label everything, you will not reach the consumer and then the label becomes useless as a tool in providing more consumer information.
This has now actually been recognized by a member of your party in Germany, who has publicly praised me for my stance.
I think that this is a signal that the debate is developing in an intelligent way and we would like to proceed on this basis.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was suspended until 5.30 p.m.)
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0481/98).
Firstly, allow me to welcome Commissioner Liikanen.
Mr President, the effect of computer piracy on our work has been very slight, because the Commission has been actively engaged in improving security on its information networks.
Commissioner, as things stand, IT piracy is doing great harm not just to the European institutions but to the whole of society in general, both in the form of the installation of illegal software onto the hard disk before a computer is sold, and by means of the production of imitation software or direct copies via the Internet.
We note that the Council recently approved its common position on the legal position against radio piracy.
In view of this, does the Commission not think it would be of the greatest interest to promote the strengthening of legislation to protect industrial property, for example? Let us not forget that the United States is ahead of us here too, since the extent of the piracy which Europe suffers is still 43 %.
Mr President, this is a very important question.
At the end of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s, as a result of some occurrences of hacking, the Commission's computer system architecture was modified so that internal information systems were centred on what are called closed user groups.
Communications within and outside the building are monitored by the present telecommunications centre in the information technology directorate in accordance with the parameters that exist for security arrangements and technical facilities.
Obviously, owing to rapid developments in information technology this system requires continuous updating, and the Commission is keeping a close watch on it.
Question No 45 by Philippe De Coene (H-0642/98)
Subject: European Voluntary Service for Young People and the 1998 World Cup
I see from a Commission press release that as part of the European Voluntary Service scheme 71 young people have been assigned to the organizing committee of the 1998 World Cup in France.
The cost to the European budget is ECU 5 000 per young person.
The actual European Voluntary Service scheme is currently acting as a pilot project, assigning young people to organizations. The texts available show that the young people involved are supposed to take part in non-profit-making and unpaid activities.
Is it the Commission's opinion that the World Cup and the organizing committee are non-profit-making organizations?
Can the Commission explain why the organizing committee is favoured by one Commissioner, via the Community budget, while another Commissioner has condemned the organizing committee in plenary because of its discriminatory ticket sales policy - a form of discrimination which was confirmed in the ruling of the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Paris on 5 June?
Mr Liikanen, I invite you to reply to Mr De Coene's question.
Mr President, as Mr De Coene has said, a part of the European Voluntary Service scheme for Young People involved 71 European volunteers participating in projects connected with the World Cup.
The volunteers worked for more than five months in local host organizations in those cities and towns where the matches were staged.
In addition to this, the volunteers for several weeks helped in the organization of the World Cup Games.
This voluntary project was only indirectly connected with the World Cup Organizing Committee, as all host organizations tended to be non-profit making agencies from the cultural, physical education, environmental and social work sectors.
For this reason the pilot project was of no benefit to the Organizing Committee as an organization, but assisted the project's social, cultural and environmental aims through local non-profit making service agencies.
The business activities of the Organizing Committee are covered by EU sports regulations, which is why the Commission, on the basis of many complaints, are investigating allegations of discrimination in its sales of tickets to the public, The average contribution made by the Commission in connection with these six-month projects was around ECU 5 200, which is the same amount paid out for other voluntary work in pilot projects.
Commissioner, I know that you received the question very recently, but please do not take it amiss, in Dutch we call that a Jesuit's answer.
It is very clear that young people have participated with the help of Community funds in an initiative which has been condemned twice by a Commissioner, a fellow Commissioner, in this Chamber, firstly because of the violation of the principle of equality of citizens and secondly because of the violation of a number of economic rules, because the Commissioner found that the whole of the organization was purely and simply an economic matter and was therefore subject to the rules on economic activities.
Now we are being told that it was actually for the CFO, and at the same time that it was not for the CFO.
I must say I really am not satisfied with this answer.
I think that it is an improvised answer, and I would actually like you to tell me precisely what the activities carried out by the young people were.
If you say they were socio-cultural activities, then I want you to tell me exactly what they did.
Mr President, as with other part-funded pilot projects, local host organizations tended to be connected with the social work sector, culture, physical education or the environment movement.
The organizations were involved, for example, in the youth movement, youth employment and improving the urban environment.
The experience the young people got from taking part in the project has been beyond comparison.
Through the World Cup volunteers from eleven Member States and Norway worked in partnership with thousands of French people.
This provided opportunities for cultural learning and increased mutual understanding.
I wish to join with others in this House in congratulating France on their victory in the World Cup.
It is wonderful to see a European team doing so well and particularly such a brilliant performance by France.
But our joy at that result should not overshadow the fact that there were many serious problems in the organization of the World Cup, some of which one of the Commissioner's colleagues is currently looking at.
I would ask the Commissioner to look very seriously at the question raised by Mr De Coene.
The question hinges around the status of the CFO.
The Commissioner needs to investigate what the status of the CFO is in the Commission's view and whether the use - or abuse, as we believe it to be - of this system in supplying assistance to the CFO merits investigation.
I would ask the Commissioner to come back to Mr De Coene and myself in writing with a more thorough investigation of this matter.
Mr President, I would like to add my congratulations to France.
I was in the Champs Elysées on Sunday night and I had a chance to witness the immense delight of a nation.
As for this question of sports regulations, I am going to report this discussion to my colleague responsible for sports policy.
I know my colleague will investigate the matter thoroughly.
This is a typical case of the Commission approaching the same subject from two angles.
One is voluntary work and the other is sports policy.
I obviously understand the concern among Members that the Commission's position should nevertheless be a coherent, harmonious one.
That we shall endeavour to preserve.
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
It is now the turn of Mr James Nicholson's question on conditions for Objective 1 status for Northern Ireland.
Mrs WulfMathies is with us, but Mr Nicholson is not here.
I dare say the special situation in Northern Ireland at the moment must have demanded Mr Nicholson's presence there.
I am extremely grateful that Mrs Wulf-Mathies is here, which is always valuable, but without the Member who tabled the question we cannot proceed.
I am sure it would have been very interesting to listen to Mrs Wulf-Mathies speak on this question.
Furthermore, ladies and gentlemen, you know that Mr Nicholson takes his responsibilities very seriously, but I should imagine that perhaps the situation in Northern Ireland has detained him at such an important and, if I may say so, dramatic time as this.
So as the author is not present, Question No 46 lapses.
Question No 47 by Juan Izquierdo Collado (H-0708/98)
Subject: LEADER II programme in Spain
To judge by the answer given to questions H-380/98, H-383/98, H-384/98 and H-385/98 , the Commission is aware of the difficulties currently being experienced by the LEADER II programme, particularly in Spain. Does the Commission believe these to be caused by the requirement for convergence plans to be adhered to?
Does it consider that the Spanish Government's failure to implement the LEADER II programme's financial framework constitutes a responsible attitude? What view does the Commission take of the refusal by the Employment, Economic Affairs and Agriculture Ministries to cofinance their share of the ESF, the ERDF and the EAGGF-Guidance Section, as they formerly agreed to?
Ladies and gentlemen, we are awaiting the arrival of Mr Fischler, who is a few minutes late. It is understandable, because we were hoping to have been able to discuss the question addressed to Mrs Wulf-Mathies first.
The Commission's services say he is on his way.
What we do not know is whether he is coming far or not, or whether there are any problems en route .
Ladies and gentlemen, as its name suggests, this Parliament is for talking, but a few minutes' silence is no bad thing either.
There is a Catalan poet, Joan Brossa, who says that silence is so important that it should only be broken for matters which are even more important.
So while we wait for Mr Fischler, I suggest we respect the extraordinary value of silence.
We welcome Mr Fischler. We shall let him sit down in peace and open the right file.
Mr Fischler, I invite you to reply to Question No 47 by Mr Juan Izquierdo Collado on the LEADER II programme in Spain.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in its response to Questions No 380, 384 and 385, the Commission has advised you that it is aware of the difficulties associated with the implementation of the LEADER-II programme.
These difficulties are attributed, inter alia , to the need to adhere to the convergence criteria in respect of Economic and Monetary Union.
It is clear that some difficulties are due to the lack of financial participation by central government, since the envisaged cofinancing by central government of interventions under the ERDF and ESF is not guaranteed.
This problem is delaying the implementation of the programme and should be resolved, bearing in mind the interests of the affected local action groups, within the framework of the partnership between Member State, autonomous community and the Commission.
The Commission wishes to respect the internal organization of the Member States and therefore will not intervene in structures for financial administration of public funds which are necessary to guarantee cofinancing of the individual LEADER-II initiatives.
The Commission thus agrees that the funding which was to have been taken on by one local authority may now be replaced by an appropriate contribution from another local authority.
The Commission is also in agreement with the amendment of the financial plans in order to ensure that the reduction in the contribution from the Spanish government can be balanced out by an increase in other contributions under the regulations on cofinancing of Community initiatives.
It is clear that any change in the original decisions may lead to a delay in the implementation of the LEADER initiative.
However, this is no reason to speak of a freeze on the LEADER-II programme in Spain, as Mr Izquierdo Collado has done.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mr Izquierdo Collado would like to put a supplementary question.
I shall give him the floor now, and I should also warn you that I have received requests for three more supplementary questions.
Unfortunately, however, the Rules of Procedure only allow me to grant two.
So I will tell you now that after that I shall give the floor to Mr Camisón Asensio and Mrs Redondo Jiménez. I am very sorry, but I shall not be able to let Mr Rübig take the floor.
You have the floor, Mr Izquierdo Collado.
Commissioner, why are we trying to confuse the issue when it is so clear? This question contains my express request for your help, and I am extremely grateful for your presence here today.
So let us tackle the subject clearly: there is a splendid programme, lovingly nurtured by the Commission and yourself, called the LEADER programme, for investment in rural areas, specifically for vital aid in fields such as small businesses, tourist accommodation, crafts, the marketing and valuation of agricultural products and, in these contexts, it is being blocked, stopped, paralysed in Spain. Why?
I am asking you for help. I am asking you to help us unblock it.
But why is it blocked? It is blocked because the Spanish Government refuses to finance what it has signed up to in the cofinancing agreement.
Mr Rato, the Minister of Economic Affairs, says he will not pay a penny, a peseta or an ECU to this programme through the ERDF; Mr Arenas, the Employment Minister, says he will not give a penny or an ECU through the European Social Fund; and the Minister of Agriculture says she will not cofinance even half of what was agreed.
Will you not help us unblock this dreadful situation? It has left Spanish mayors totally embarrassed, local action groups in a state of depression, and so on.
Mr Izquierdo Collado, it is not a question of the President's generosity. It is a question of the time you allow yourself, because I informed you when your minute was up.
I must warn you that any extra time you use up means that less is available for the other questions.
So you are the ones who have that responsibility, not me.
Mr Fischler, you have the floor to reply to Mr Izquierdo Collado's supplementary question.
Mr President, Mr Izquierdo Collado, I think that there is actually no fundamental discrepancy between us.
You and I, and the Commission generally, are interested in ensuring that the LEADER programmes which have been agreed for Spain can in fact be implemented.
This must be our first concern, for this will help the private initiatives which want to carry out programmes of this kind.
It is also clear that cofinancing is required and that this cofinancing must be provided in accordance with the regulations governing the LEADER programme.
However, the Commission is flexible in the sense that we do not necessarily demand that these funds be provided exclusively by the Spanish government.
In principle, it is also possible - and this is an internal matter for Spain - for other public bodies to provide this cofinancing.
One thing is clear, however - if no agency is able to provide cofinancing, then the entire LEADER programme is in doubt.
According to the information at our disposal, there is a willingness on the part of other public bodies to provide this cofinancing instead of the Spanish government.
If this takes place, the programmes will then, as I have said, be implemented.
If not, then the programmes cannot be carried out.
That is the situation and the reality, and it lies within the power of the Spanish authorities at various levels to make this decision.
I must speak on this question, to try to fill in the whole picture.
The local action groups were selected in 1995 - under the previous Spanish Government, by the way - and they were selected badly.
That is shown by the fact that they do not work properly.
LEADER II is not in a state of stalemate in Spain, as can be seen from the fact that in 1997 the utilization rate reached 36 %, and that it has increased in 1998.
Before 1996 it was practically nil.
As regards the central administration's contribution, in 1995 and 1996 the relevant headings were not provided, perhaps because people were mistakenly awaiting the accumulation of aid.
That big mistake was revealed when Mr Legras of DG VI ruled that the accumulation of aid was not acceptable, and that shows that the model lacked the slightest trace of rigour - the model of the previous administration, that is.
Moreover, the vast majority of the autonomous communities have now reprogrammed their financial frameworks, except for Andalusia, Estremadura and Castile La Mancha - what a coincidence!
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, I have heard your comments and your views on this situation, I have not heard a question.
I therefore cannot answer a question.
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler.
Mrs Redondo Jiménez, do you wish to put a question to the Commissioner? I am specifically asking whether you wish to ask the Commissioner a question.
Under no circumstances shall I allow Members to enter into debate among themselves. In any case, the debate should be between the Members and the Commissioner.
You have the floor, for a question to the Commissioner.
I am going to address a few comments to the Commissioner, but I am not going to begin any sort of national debate here because I do not think this is the appropriate place. Anyway, my colleague who spoke before me has already given the relevant explanations.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for saying that these programmes can be cofinanced by any public body. I am repeating it again now, because cofinance is not the sole right of the central government.
Cofinance can also be provided by the competent regional bodies, and private cofinance can also be added, which is also signed by these local action groups.
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether the initial funding envisaged is going to be increased for these LEADER programmes, which he described to us in his Agenda 2000 presentation as extremely important.
I think the important thing is to open up the budget line but perhaps the funding is a bit low, because it is extremely important for the development of rural areas IN all the Member States of the European Union, of the Europe of the Fifteen.
As to the question put by Ms Redondo about the intentions of the Commission regarding Agenda 2000 in relation to LEADER, I can say that we are planning a successor programme for LEADER-II.
Because - and I agree with you on this point - the LEADER initiative is so important, the intention is that in the next planning period, more funds will be available for this successor programme as a Community initiative than in the current period.
Thank you very much, Mr Fischler, for your presence and your replies.
Question No 48 by Ursula Stenzel (H-0670/98)
Subject: Own resources
At the Cardiff summit the Heads of Government undertook to reach a decision on Agenda 2000 by the end of March 1999.
Austria's objective in this connection is to prevent the net contributors' position from deteriorating by the following means: fair allocation of net burdens, strict compliance with EU budgetary discipline and reserving a clear margin for the new Member States, as well as taking into account the temporary nature of the Cohesion Fund and incorporating it into structural policy.
Will the Commission be observing these principles in its evaluation of the own resources system? Mr Liikanen, I invite you to reply to Mrs Stenzel's question.
Mr President, the Commission is fully aware of the issues that Parliament is now raising in its questions.
Austria is not alone in saying that it estimates its budgetary burden is too great.
These questions, which the recent proposal for a corrective mechanism supported by Austria also recently shed light on, will be included in a planned report on the own resources system.
At the same time it must be stressed that the Commission's proposals contained in Agenda 2000 and reforms in EU policy might have a considerable effect on common expenditure among the Member States.
The Commission's proposals are compatible with rigid budget discipline and sufficiently broad margins to allow for the funding of enlargement.
The Commission intends to examine these matters thoroughly in its report on its funds and resources.
Mr President, I am interested simply in an additional aspect of this question. Are you in fact aware that margins should be taken into account in this respect in order to ensure that the figure of 1.27 % is not completely exhausted?
Since you will be drafting a report about own resources during the Austrian presidency and as the Commission has the right of proposal, you can shape your proposal in a way that would perhaps allow us to bridge at least some of the discrepancies between the northern and southern countries even before reporting?
Mr President, the Commission has already assumed in its proposed budget for next year that expenditure must be kept below funding limits.
Accordingly, expenditure under next year's budget is 1.11 %, while the own resources ceiling is 1.27 %.
In addition, the Agenda 2000 proposal for the period 2000 to 2006 is so structured that expenditure will not rise to the 1.27 % level, but that the fifteen EU Member State level should even see a downward trend, expenditure reaching 1.13 % by the year 2006.
In this way we will attempt to guarantee a sufficiently broad margin for enlargement.
This will require adaptability and rigid budgetary discipline.
Mr President, I already have the answer to what I wanted to ask.
- My question to the Commissioner is - and I am going to ask four complementary questions - first of all, whether there is now a solution to what own resources are, particularly for transit goods from the ports, and especially Rotterdam. Secondly, whether the Commissioner is aware that in the Dutch coalition agreement includes a reduction in the contribution of NLG 1.2 billion.
Thirdly, whether the Commission's new plans take account of the contribution per head of population. Fourthly, whether the fact that the United Kingdom received a reduction is being taken into account, which is in any case a net limiting factor, and that this should also apply to other Member States, and whether it can already be considered that a like-for-like treatment now applies.
All these issues will be raised in the Commission report which will be produced in the second half of October.
As far as the British rebate is concerned, back in Edinburgh the Council asked the Commission to report on that issue and we will do so in the second half of October.
Secondly, the report will also provide a basis for the Member States to assess their expenditure.
There are areas where it is easier and areas where it is more difficult.
That is why we should be careful not to talk about the juste retour .
There are areas of common interest but allocation cannot be on a country-by-country basis.
Sufficient information will also be provided on that.
Thirdly, on the Rotterdam effect, as the honourable Member knows well, this issue has been discussed a lot in Holland and in Belgium recently.
We have asked for a specialist study and that has been produced.
Not all the conclusions have been totally uncontested by the different parties but this report is a basis for further discussion.
As to the matter of the NLG 1.2 billion in Holland, I am not totally certain if I quite understood what the honourable Member wanted to ask.
At any rate, the Commission report will respond to the debate on the position of net contributors which has been taken up by four countries, in particular - Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria.
Mr President, I think that Agenda 2000 is a particular challenge for us all, especially in the accession strategies of the candidate countries.
It is certainly the case that the EU Member States and the candidate countries which share a common geographical border will of course have particular challenges to face.
My question is this: does the preaccession strategy actually contain any approaches to finding a solution to the special problems which arise as a result of this geographical proximity and the naturally intense nature of these problems?
The whole Commission paid a visit to Austria a while ago when Austria was to take over the presidency and this question was raised then.
Of course, in all these programmes, especially in the programmes which are connected for example to INTERREG and PHARE, it is very important that the border areas get particular attention.
It is usually where the difference in standards of living is highest that political and economic tension is created.
We will discuss the matter in the Commission and I hope that we can act appropriately.
Question No 49 by Eva Kjer Hansen (H-0720/98)
Subject: Implementation of democracy programmes
How does the Commission intend to implement the planned democracy programmes under Chapter B7-70 of the Budget following the European Court of Justice's decision to freeze appropriations for programmes which have no legal basis? Mr Liikanen, I invite you to reply to Mrs Kjer Hansen.
Mr President, regarding those sections of the budget dealing with the funding of action in the interests of human rights and democracy, the Commission proposed to the Council on 24 July 1997 a regulation for the purpose of developing and reinforcing democracy, the principle of the rule of law, human rights and basic liberties.
We must also point out that the Commission appoints itself to the position of legislature when it proposes any legal basis.
The Commission has many times asked the competent institutions, mainly Council, but also the European Parliament, to speed up the process of approving legal bases, which are required to put the vital work of the Community into effect.
In any situation brought about by a court decision the Commission has hoped that the legal process would advance as speedily as possible.
So that the work of the Community should not stagnate, the Commission, which under the Treaty is responsible for setting the budget, has in today's meeting approved a list of actions it considers itself able to continue funding, and a list of activities which it has not been able to endorse for continued support, for the time being, pending further clarification.
These lists are publicly available and are intended for debate today by the Committee on Budgets.
As for the sections of the budget devoted to greater democracy and the protection of human rights, regulations on regional programmes of cooperation have been agreed as alternative legal bases for sections of the budget in respect of the following areas: central and eastern European countries, third countries in the Mediterranean region, countries of the former Soviet Union and Mongolia, former Yugoslavia, and developing countries in Latin America and Asia.
Regarding the budget over the coming years, the Commission has kept in touch with both the institutions which hold budgetary power, Parliament and Council, and is doing everything it can to see that the debate on legal bases progresses quickly so that agreement among the institutions can iron out those differences of opinion that have led to the current situation.
Finally, I wish only to add that we have a trialogue between Parliament, Council and the Commission on Friday 17 July, and we will do everything possible to achieve a long-term solution there.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his answer to the question and, at the same time, I would like to follow up by asking how the Commissioner intends to inform the parties concerned about their situation - that is, those on the list of programmes to be continued and those on the list of programmes that cannot be continued.
How will these individuals find out what the position is? NGOs will in fact be very much affected, because they feel trapped, not knowing what to do from here on.
In other words, has the Commission planned its information strategy? I am looking forward to following up this debate in the Committee on Budgets, but I would like to ask the Commissioner to clarify whether or not the democracy programmes will be able to proceed unhindered.
And finally, my last question to the Commissioner is this: why did the Council not adopt the motion that the Commission obviously tabled as far back as a year ago? Could it be that certain countries in the Council are blocking the continuation of the democracy programmes?
I fully agree with the honourable Member that we must be careful to inform all the parties concerned, especially the NGOs.
That is why we are now making public today's decision unfreezing a large number of the budget lines.
The next attempt to find a solution to the legal basis to release further budget lines comes on Friday.
I will do my best along with my services to ensure that all the NGOs concerned are informed in the next few days.
As far as the legal basis is concerned, the Austrian presidency made a very positive effort yesterday by raising the issue in the General Affairs Council.
The General Affairs Council has mandated the Committee of Permanent Representatives to try and find a solution to the problem this week.
In the past there have sometimes been political difficulties.
Sometimes the legal basis has not been accepted because of issues of comitology and so forth.
But I hope that the seriousness of the situation, about which many NGOs throughout Europe have expressed their great concern, will also put pressure on the Council to act more rapidly to get the proposed legal basis accepted.
I have listened very attentively both to the questions and to the answer given by Commissioner Liikanen.
You are still referring to the necessary legal basis for the payment of loans in the budget of the European Union.
I cannot help thinking that the various small initiatives taken by this Parliament and which relate to the most vulnerable groups which NGOs support with small actions - intended, in actual fact, to stimulate some Community initiative - cannot be successfully accomplished so easily with a legal basis.
At all events, it seems inconceivable to me that a separate legal basis can be created for all these separate initiatives.
Does the Commissioner have any proposal on a more general solution to this kind of problem of non-significant - though I know that this is a controversial term - actions which are nevertheless so important to the image of the Union?
The Court of Justice decided that any significant action required appropriations in the budget and also a prior legal basis.
In the case of significant actions, we have no choice but to follow the decision of the Court.
But there are areas where there is more scope for interpretation.
They are: firstly, autonomous actions of the institutions; secondly, pilot projects; and thirdly, preparatory actions paving the way for further actions.
We have studied all the budget lines from this angle.
We have tried to unfreeze all those which we find not to be incompatible with the Court decision.
It is important to try to find a solution within the budgetary authority and to arrive at a definition of non-significant actions.
There, the discussions between the services have gone reasonably well.
We just hope that, at political level, the same will happen this week.
The factor to bear in mind is that, according to the Court decision, these pilot projects must study the possibility of Community action later on.
So they cannot be permanent support schemes.
They must be in preparation for something new.
If they come to the conclusion that something new could be done, then we will take preparatory measures and make real legislative proposals.
If the studies conclude that is not the case, then we will stop them.
But they cannot be a basis for permanent activity funded from the Community budget.
I hope, however, that we will find a solution on Friday.
Mr President, I have one more precise question.
I think I understood you correctly, Commissioner, but I would like to ask whether the issue of the Office for Minority Languages which was initiated by the European Parliament in 1982 is thus secure or whether you take the view that such a long-term project still has no legal basis, and how, in your opinion, this legal basis can be created.
Promoting minority cultures is one of the most important democracy programmes within the European Union, especially in view of the forthcoming enlargement, in which context we are constantly demanding minority rights from the candidate countries.
It would be quite scandalous if we were to end a programme which has proved its worth within the European Union over the last 15 or 16 years and cut its budget line.
This budget line is one for which it is difficult to find a solution.
The Commission has not proposed a legal basis, so we cannot blame the Council for the lack of action.
We are continuing to study that issue but there is as yet no solution to this matter even though we have been able to find one in the majority of cases.
There are many activists in different countries who have contacted us on this matter.
Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to thank Mr Liikanen once again for being here with us today and answering our questions.
Question No 50 by Carlos Carnero González (H-0623/98)
Subject: Dismissal of trade union representatives belonging to the Comisiones Obreras trade union by the company Fábrica de Bisagras, S.A.
(FABISA) in Burgos (Spain)
On 26 May the company FABISA, which is owned by the German group EDSCHA, dismissed the workers Gilberto Alonso Poza and Segundo Fernández Pardo, members of the works committee and the Comisiones Obreras trade union. As I was able to ascertain during a visit to the protest campaign mounted by these workers outside the factory, this decision has caused widespread unease among the people of Burgos, who feel it is an unwarranted and repressive measure against well-known trade unionists.
Does the Commission not consider that, as part of a genuine European social policy, the principle that workers' representatives must be able to perform their duties freely and not be subject to coercion in so doing must be fully guaranteed? Accordingly, does the Commission not consider that, given the failure to abide by this principle, the decision by FABISA to dismiss the trade unionists should be withdrawn?
Mr Flynn, I welcome you and invite you to reply to Mr Carlos Carnero González' question.
At present there is no Community legislation on individual dismissals of employees in general or trade union representatives in particular.
The issue raised by the honourable Member is primarily a matter for national law and practice.
However, in some situations Community law lays down rules which prohibit the dismissal of an employee on certain grounds, such as nationality, gender, the taking of parental leave, transfer of an undertaking or a worker's refusal to transfer from full-time to part-time work or vice versa.
If a dismissal does not fall within one of these categories, the issue falls entirely within the responsibility of the Member State concerned.
If the company in question has a European Works Council or the dismissed trade union representative is a member of a European Works Council, Article 10 of Directive 94/45 lays down that: ' Members of European Works Councils and employees' representatives exercising their functions under the procedures referred to in Article 6(3), of the Directive shall, in the exercise of their functions, enjoy the same protection and the guarantees provided for employees' representatives by the national legislation and/or practice in force in the country of the employment.'
So, according to the information available to the Commission at this time, Spanish legislation provides for extensive protection against dismissal on account of activity as a workers' representative.
I fully understand the answer Mr Flynn has so kindly given us.
We are certainly aware that there is no Community legislation which could serve as a basis for the Commission to intervene and state its opinion on the sort of situation mentioned in my question.
That is the unfortunate thing: that there is no Community legislation in this area, because there is no doubt that the matters we are talking about should be the central focus of a social Europe - the chance to have, alongside the single currency, rules to guarantee workers, for example, the opportunity to exercise all their rights, and even more so in the case of their trade union representatives.
This matter is assuming great importance in Castile and Leon.
A demonstration is to be held tomorrow to support these workers, and various social and political groups within the city of Burgos have promised to take part.
Debates have taken place within the regional government of the province of Burgos and in the town hall of the provincial capital.
Mr Flynn, despite the fact that the legislation does not exist, my question to you is whether you do not think a broad message could be sent from here to discourage this sort of situation from being repeated.
I appreciate the fact that the honourable Member recognises the limits imposed on the Commission in this instance.
He is quite right, and it is clear that there is no Community legislation which lays down detailed rules on the protection of workers' representatives against dismissal.
I have taken his point, and the Commission is considering how to deal with the question when pursuing future Community action as regards information for and consultation of employees in general.
I am studying the matter.
Question No 51 by Bernd Posselt (H-0645/98)
Subject: Family policy studies
Further to my suggestion at Question Time on 31 March 1998, has the Commission already hired an external consultant to carry out a study on provision for old age for persons who devote their lives solely to bringing up their children? Does it believe that it should conduct or hold, and finance, a survey or specialist conference on the proposed "parenting wage' ?
Mr Flynn, I invite you to reply to Mr Posselt's question.
As I explained in my reply to the honourable Member on 31 March of this year, the Commission is aware of demographic trends and changes in family structures, but the Community has very limited powers in the whole area of family policy.
The Commission has considered the situation in the Member States as regards enforcement of Directive 79/7 relating to equal treatment between men and women in statutory social security schemes.
The directive applies only to the working population, so people who devote themselves to bringing up their children fall outside its scope.
The Commission proposed an amendment to the directive in 1987 to fill the gaps in equal treatment in the social security field.
The matter is still pending before the Council.
The points covered include old-age benefits granted to persons who have brought up children.
Within the next couple of months the Commission intends to replace the 1987 proposal with a new proposal to amend Directive 79/7.
I believe that the new proposal should take account of the gender balance and new developments in family structures in general.
I hope that this reply will help the Member.
Mr President, thank you, Commissioner, for your very precise reply.
I should like to ask a supplementary question about studies - I know that the Commission has no immediate responsibility, but it does carry out studies - whether, perhaps, a study into the issue of a parenting wage could be planned, as this is being discussed more and more intensively within the European Union at present.
You are aware that in May a conference on this issue took place in Frankfurt, which was attended by the Prime Minister of Saxony, Kurt Biedenkopf, and the Prime Minister of SchleswigHolstein, Mrs Simonis, in other words it was a cross-party event.
I would like to ask whether you feel that it is possible to arrange or fund a conference or a study of this kind at European level too.
The honourable Member might be interested to know that we have arranged, in cooperation with the Austrian presidency, a major conference on demography and the impact that it will have on the whole social fabric of the Union.
While it is not specifically targeted at the point you made, a wide-ranging general discussion will take place in October at that conference on the whole question as regards its impact on the Union.
As regards carrying out studies, I am afraid that the point made by my colleague, Commissioner Liikanen, applies specifically here, too, namely the budget line problem, insofar as the family policy project line is currently blocked.
Perhaps if you returned to this matter when these matters referred to by Commissioner Liikanen had been finally agreed, we might be in a better position to give you a more positive response.
Question No 52 by Anne Van Lancker (H-0648/98)
Subject: Transfer of unused ESF appropriations from Objective 4 to Objective 3
At the beginning of the current programming period, there was a shortage of appropriations for Objective 3, while it was barely possible to allocate the appropriations for Objective 4.
Members of the European Parliament asked the Commission to allow the Flemish Community to transfer Objective 4 appropriations to Objective 3.
The Commission said it could not allow this because the initial problems would ultimately be solved.
It left the possibility open that it might permit such a transfer in connection with the mid-term evaluation.
In its resolution of 4 December 1997 on structural policy in Belgium, the European Parliament observed that Objective 4 appropriations were under-utilized and reiterated its call for unused resources to be transferred from Objective 4 to Objective 3 when undertaking the midterm evaluation.
One year before the end of the current programming period, it has become apparent that the resources available for Objective 4 will not be exhausted, although the situation has improved significantly, while the shortage of resources for Objective 3 persists.
In view of the enormous needs which exist and the approaching end of the programming period, can the Commission allow a transfer of appropriations from Objective 4 to Objective 3? Mr Flynn, I invite you to reply to Mrs Van Lancker's question.
I should like to say to the honourable Member that Objective 4, as she knows, foresees a preventive approach to maintaining employment, in particular by anticipating labour market and industrial change and also reinforcing stability of employment through vocational training and qualifications.
The programmes for Objective 4 are therefore directly in line with the development of an active and preventive labour market policy in accordance with the European employment strategy which was just recently put in place by the European Council at the Luxembourg employment summit, and subsequently in employment guidelines which have been adopted for 1998.
The national action plans for employment have now been drawn up by the Member States to put all these guidelines into effect.
The Belgian action plan refers explicitly to the intervention of the European Social Fund Objective 4 with a view to increasing the possibilities for training for workers to promote employability and to develop possibilities for lifelong learning. The plan actually supports that point of view.
Given the importance that the European Council, as well as the Belgian authorities, attach to prevention of unemployment, to lifelong learning and to active labour market policy, the Commission considers a reduction of the available budget to Objective 4 through a transfer to Objective 3 as inappropriate.
The Commissioner knows, of course, that I myself am a particularly strong champion of European agreements on employment and also a very keen advocate of prevention.
However, the reason why I am asking the Commissioner this question is as follows: I do not want to claim that the preventive training courses in Flanders are the best in the world.
There are Member States that do it even better.
But I would certainly claim that they are better than the average in Europe.
On the other hand, the long-term unemployment situation is particularly bad in Flanders, and I would therefore like to expand my question somewhat and give it a more general scope.
In view of the fact that the Commissioner has no more scope for changes in this programming period and is also putting forward substantive reasons for this, can he assure me that Member States will have somewhat more flexibility and somewhat greater margins within the priorities of the European Union to adjust their own priorities to a specific situation in the forthcoming programming period with the future Structural Funds?
I have to agree with the honourable Member I am well aware of her particular point of view and her very supportive attitude towards both the employment strategy and the preventive approach.
That has been stated here in the House many times by her and I appreciate it greatly.
I am aware of the difficulties of long-term unemployment in the Flanders area.
The key thing is how to make best use of the money, to cater for the very problem that the honourable Member mentions.
Expenditure can be accepted until the end of 2001 so there is some time left to cater for the expenditure.
In fact, between 1995 and 1997 we had about ECU 6m of real expenditure in that particular area.
I am satisfied from discussions I had just yesterday that the 1998 out-turn may be even somewhat stronger than that.
Taking that into account together with the possible situation over the next couple of years, I am reasonably satisfied at this time that this expenditure can be applied for the purpose for which it was intended and in support of the very point of view that the honourable Member put forward.
As she says, later on when we come to renegotiate all these things her point of view will be very much taken into account.
Question No 53 by Alfred Lomas (H-0653/98)
Subject: Racism in Brussels
On 19 April 1998 a constituent of mine, a British citizen, together with her husband, a Tunisian national who lives with her in Britain, and a friend who is a Belgian citizen of Tunisian descent serving in the Belgian army, visited a bar - Au Laboureur, Place de la Constitution 3, Brussels. Her husband and the friend were refused a drink on the grounds that they were "Arabic' .
They informed the police who took no action and even refused to give their names.
This incident caused great distress.
Will the Commission urge the appropriate authorities in Brussels to take action against this overt racism? Commissioner, I invite you to reply to Mr Lomas' question.
The honourable Member refers to a racist incident experienced by one of his constituents and her Tunisian husband.
They were refused service in a bar in Brussels.
The Commission and the House deplores this incident.
At the same time, while deploring it, the Commission is not in a position to take action in this regard.
The fight against racist incidents is first and foremost the responsibility of Member States and complaints must therefore be addressed to the competent national authorities.
The body responsible for such matters in Belgium, the role of which is very similar to the Commission for Racial Equality in the United Kingdom, is Centre pour l'Egalité de Chances et de Lutte contre le Racisme , that is the Centre for Equality and the fight against Racism.
The honourable Member is advised to take the constituent's complaint to this body and they will be pleased to hear about the complaint.
I thank the Commissioner for his reply and the very helpful information he has given me.
Of course I will do what he says.
However, the EC has frequently commented on such matters, and the Commission in particular has made some excellent statements.
Since the Commissioner may have a little more influence than me, I wonder if besides me taking the matter up, the Commissioner could advise this body - I know it can do no more, it cannot interfere - that a Member has raised this matter and that the Commission is disturbed about it.
There should be an inquiry into both the bar and the police and it would be very helpful if the Commissioner could assist in this way.
I appreciate what the honourable Member has said.
We are launching a wide debate on Article 13 as you know.
I would hope that with our Action Plan we can provide ourselves with a legal framework as to how we can combat racism better in Europe.
The last survey on racist attitudes was very disturbing and it is as well to put this on the record of the House.
When the survey was carried out in Belgium, 22 % of the people interviewed regarded themselves as 'very racist' and 33 % regarded themselves as 'quite racist' .
Therefore, 55 % of the total population of Belgium was quite or very racist.
That says how much support we need for the proposed Action Plan.
The figure for Europe was a whole was 33 %. So, a third of the total population of Europe - 120 million people - regard themselves as either 'quite racist' or 'very racist' .
It gives some indication of how great the need is to pursue incidents such as this.
I am rather pleased that one of the successes of last year was the setting up the Observatory.
We will be able to get better data on the whole aspect of these incidents - what brings them about and hopefully some of the causes - so that we can deal with them properly under Article 13 when the Treaty is ratified.
I know that unanimity is required but it is my intention before the end of this Commission's term of office to introduce a proposal dealing with Article 13.
I know that the Commissioner, as a champion of the fight against racism and discrimination, is very well aware that a lot remains to be done at European level as well.
However, I must tell Mr Lomas, for example, that thanks to funding from the European Commission for Belgium itself with its Centre for Equality and the fight against Racism, training projects are being set up by the police.
If it would help Mr Lomas, I would be pleased to help him in filing his complaint, which will then ultimately have to be taken up by the Observatory mentioned by the Commissioner.
The two honourable Members will be pleased with one particular aspect.
On the matter of the budget, we will be able to have our Action Plan and the question about the budget line for racism cleared.
Thank you very much, Mr Flynn.
That comment brings us to the end of the time allocated to the block of questions addressed to Commissioner Flynn.
So Questions Nos 54 to 57 will be dealt with in writing.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 58 by Anne McIntosh (H-0604/98)
Subject: Common Fisheries Policy
Will the Commission confirm that the 6/12 mile limits contained in the present Common Fisheries Policy will be maintained beyond 2002?
Question No 59 by Robin Teverson (H-0687/98)
Subject: Twelve mile fishing limits
The Council Regulation EEC 3760/92 allowing Member States to maintain restrictions on access to waters under their sovereignty or jurisdiction within a maximum limit of 12 nautical miles is due to cease on 31 December 2002.
Is it the Commission's understanding that all Member States want this derogation to be maintained and when will it bring forward a legislative proposal to the Council to allow the derogation to be renewed?Welcome, Mrs Bonino. I would suggest you reply jointly to the questions by Miss McIntosh and Mr Teverson.
It is the Commission's opinion that the amended common fisheries policy for 2002 should retain the current system governing access to the 6/12 mile zone.
According to Articles 6 and 14 of the Council Regulation, the Council must decide whether to keep the current system by 31 December 2002.
In its 1996 report on the application of the Community system for fisheries and aquaculture, the Commission informed the European Council and Parliament that, as things currently stood, no application had apparently been made to alter this aspect of Community law.
The response the Commission received to its recent questionnaire on the amendment of the common fisheries policy confirms the Commission's view that current provisions on the 6/12 mile zone should be upheld.
I am most grateful to the Commissioner for that decision.
However, it did not say very much.
Could the Commissioner please confirm that if a request is made to overrule the 6/12 mile limit beyond 2002, that will be decided by qualified majority voting in the Council of Ministers? That is the first point.
Could she also reassure my fishermen in north Essex and south Suffolk that they will be free to fish in that zone up to the 12 mile limit beyond 2002, because that was the agreement we had when Britain signed up to a common fisheries policy?
In her view, what is the legal status of a letter sent by Jacques Santer, as President of the Commission, to Tony Blair, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, guaranteeing the 6/12 mile limit would be kept beyond the year 2002? Does that have legal status and can our fishermen rely on it before the European Court of Justice?
I can answer two of those points.
Certainly, any decision by the Council of Ministers to overrule the present system has to be taken by a qualified majority.
I think what President Santer's letter to Prime Minister Blair means is that the Commission will not make any proposal to the Council to change the current system.
Decision making is in the hands of the Council of Ministers and it can overrule the arrangement by a qualified majority.
But the Commission will not be arguing for this.
I also wish to thank the Commissioner for her reply.
As I understand it, in the questionnaires she refers to, that were sent back by the industry in the various Member States, there was a general feeling that, if anything, the 6/12 mile limit could be extended.
I wondered whether, given its wish to take notice of consultation with the industry and to work with it, the Commission might bring forward a proposal to extend the limit, say, to 30 nautical miles rather than the 6/12 miles at the present moment?
Mr Teverson, you know very well that the current system is already a derogation from the Treaty.
It is true that there is a consultation process with the industry.
We have not yet analysed all the replies, so I do not know its overall reaction.
As far as the replies we have received so far are concerned, they are very largely, or I would even go so far as to say, entirely in favour of the status quo.
I will not enter into any commitment at this stage.
What I can say is that there will be no proposal from the Commission to overrule the current system.
But that is the most I can say.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for her usual frank and forthright way in dealing with these questions which sometimes prompt alarmist comment.
In addition to the reassurance on the 6- and 12-mile limit, will she also bear in mind the question of relative stability, since these are the fishermen's two biggest causes of concern. Perhaps she would like to give an assurance, via this House, on both these issues, that the Commission is behind the fishermen and against the scaremongerers?
Maybe I can give a personal assurance.
We are entering into consultations and it would be unfair for me to commit myself now.
The overwhelming majority of the answers up to now have all called for relative stability to be maintained.
That is my personal view at this stage.
I do not want to commit myself further today because we are consulting and I do not want to undermine the exercise completely.
Question No 60 by John McCartin (H-0620/98)
Subject: Ban on drift-net fishing
Following the recent decision to ban drift-net fishing in Community waters, has the Commission made any proposals for some form of compensation for the people engaged in tuna fishing and who are about to lose their livelihoods as a result of this decision? Mrs Bonino, I invite you to reply to Mr McCartin's question.
I believe, Mr McCartin, that the best response that the Commission can give is contained in the joint declaration by the Council and the Commission, annexed to the minutes of the Fisheries Council of 8 June this year, which states: "Anxious to promote a switch to techniques which are more reliable, selective and financially appealing for capturing the same stocks, the Council and the Commission agree on the need to introduce in the Community an appropriate range of actions and special supporting measures for fishermen serving on board and the owners of fishing vessels.
' The measures concerned will have to be exceptional in character, however, and in any event be met from the budget for the affected Member States' existing structural programmes.
' The measures may include alterations to fishing vessels making it possible for them to convert to techniques that are more reliable and selective, in particular for taking the same same species and avoiding those that are being overexploited; compensation enabling fishermen on board and the owners of vessels to face the economic consequences of having to give up drift-net fishing activities; schemes to retrain fishermen for jobs in areas other than fishing or to provide them with new skills; and decommissioning of vessels involved in drift-net fishery' .
It is still premature to detail the exact nature of the supporting measures because they are currently the subject of bilateral talks with the competent authorities in the Member States, who are, in turn, consulting professionals in the sector.
For the time being, it is impossible to predict the outcome of these talks and still less to predict what the Commission will propose to the Council.
It is very likely that the measures will be more or less the same as the measures adopted for swordfish, that is to say they will involve payments for owners of fishing vessels and fishermen who give up fishing altogether or who continue fishing for tuna using other methods.
Parliament will naturally be consulted on the proposal as required by Article 43 of the Treaty.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for her reply.
Would the Commissioner not agree that there is considerable discontent amongst the fishermen involved who feel that they have been displaced, not because of any scientifically based conservation programme, but simply for political reasons, to enable their catches to be exploited by others who have a different traditional way of exploiting stocks? I cannot work out whether there is a proposal to provide new moneys to compensate the displaced fishermen or whether the Commissioner is saying that the governments of the States concerned - be it France, the United Kingdom or Ireland - should propose a compensation programme using the resources already provided and no new money and resources are available.
The answer is yes.
There is no new money, but there is a possibility of using the money currently available in the Member States, of rescheduling the present funds.
We are discussing this with the authorities.
We really feel that for Ireland, the UK, France, etc, taking into account the average of what has been spent up to now, there is room, frankly, to cover this new expenditure.
Again, the European budget provides 50 % to some Member States, and 75 % to Ireland.
We are looking into this calculation in some detail.
But let me assure you that there is a way to reschedule and reprogramme the present fund.
There is a great confidence - rightly or wrongly - that the driftnet fleets of the Atlantic will disappear because of this Community regulation that has now been agreed.
Is the Commissioner confident that the Mediterranean driftnet fleets will also disappear and that we will no longer have driftnet fishing in the Mediterranean, from EU waters, as we will now in the Atlantic.
Will there really be equality of enforcement in European waters?
I do not know if all seas will have the same treatment but I am confident that all of the European fleet will have the same treatment.
I cannot prohibit driftnets from being used by Japanese-flag vessels or others.
That is another dynamic that is now under discussion in the CGPM in the Mediterranean where the Commission has just recently become a member.
But I am confident for many reasons, one being the financial incentives, that before the deadline of 1 January 2001, even in the Mediterranean, the fishermen will finally realize that it is even more convenient for them to take this opportunity.
I have no reason to doubt the effectiveness of enforcement, though I would stress again that, while the Commission will be very vigilant, enforcement is first and foremost the responsibility of the Member States.
Question No 61 by Birgitta Ahlqvist (H-0644/98)
Subject: Salmon-fishing in the Torne river basin
The Finno-Swedish Border Rivers Commission has banned salmon-fishing in the River Torne despite the fact that all waters in the area are privately owned.
Fish stocks are plentiful, and there is enough room for everyone, both tourists and fishermen.
Never before have so many salmon swum in our waters.
Sweden's constitution guarantees the inviolability of ownership rights, although such rights are inexplicably being infringed in this case.
Moreover, fishing is of economic significance for those who fish and it is profitable.
It is an ancient occupation which is dying out as a result of this ban.
In view of the fact that one of the aims of EU regional policy is to create jobs in sectors which foster sustainable growth (and salmon-fishing in the Torne river basin satisfies both these criteria), what does the Commission think should be done in this case? Mrs Bonino, I invite you to reply to Mrs Ahlqvist's question.
The Finno-Swedish Border Rivers Commission has banned salmon fishing in river waters as a result of a 1997 resolution, passed by the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission, that called on all coastal states to adopt a moratorium on wild salmon fishing in internal waters as part of the strategy to rebuild wild salmon stocks - otherwise known as the salmon action plan.
I would like to remind you that the European Community embarked on this action plan only after discussion with Member States and that it intends to implement the plan in all areas.
We must also consider that salmon is a fish that migrates from feeding grounds in the sea to breeding grounds in inland fresh waters.
In order to protect it throughout its life cycle, we must adopt measures that apply to both coastal and internal waters. These measures must be added to measures already adopted for the open sea, where catches have already been halved compared with 1993 figures.
In rivers where stocks of wild salmon are almost depleted, the moratorium should be fully observed for several years. In other rivers, very prudent catch levels could be gradually reintroduced when experts confirm that the stock situation has improved.
I would like to thank Commissioner Bonino for her answer which I had not really expected.
As I understand things, the decision which the Border Rivers Commission has taken is based on the EU's earlier rules.
Therefore this is not a national issue, but a Union issue.
This is a very big problem on the River Torne. If nothing is done about it, it will grow into a very, very big border dispute.
I wonder whether the Union could not in some way divide the salmon fishing fairly between Sweden and Finland. The issue concerns both of these countries.
I can assure Mrs Ahlqvist that there is an ongoing process of dialogue and discussion on salmon fishing in rivers between both States involved.
I was referring, in procedural terms, to the decision taken by the International Baltic Sea Fisheries Commission.
Although this Commission is responsible for regulating fishing in international waters, we thought it was appropriate to involve the Baltic Sea Commission because salmon swim into inland river waters to breed.
Having said this, the Union is naturally negotiating with both Member States to reach a solution, with the agreement of both if possible. The aim is of course to avoid the conflict Mrs Ahlqvist referred to.
Although the situation is frankly quite difficult, the Commission has not given up hope of reaching a mutually acceptable solution.
I am pleased that Commissioner Bonino quite rightly asserts that wild salmon have recovered in many places in the Baltic Sea, and that she is also well aware of the fact that we have many difficult regional conflicts and conflicts between different types of fish.
This means the problem is not so much one of a border conflict between Sweden and Finland, but one of regional conflicts.
Since we know this is a difficult question, I wonder, firstly, how long the Commissioner thinks the action plan for salmon will have to continue with the tough restrictions which exist?
Secondly, I understand that there is an idea of marking salmon so that people can distinguish between wild and farmed salmon.
Does the Commission intend to proceed with the question of marked salmon?
Finally, I wonder whether there are any measures which the Commission could take to promote the position of professional fishing. It is having great problems.
We have hardly any salmon fishing left along the Gulf of Bothnia coast in Finland.
The quantity of sea catches has been halved, in other words cut but 50 %, compared to 1993. The aim of this is to help stocks recover.
There is a total moratorium for the time being.
The Commission is naturally willing to adopt a more flexible approach once the scientists tell us that stock levels have recovered.
For the time being, however, the Commission has not yet received any official reports that indicate that stock levels have recovered sufficiently in river waters.
Thank you very much, Mrs Bonino.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is now 7 p.m. We have come to the end of the time specified in the agenda for questions to the Commission.
Therefore Questions Nos 62 to 114 will be dealt with in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.00 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Towards sustainability
The next item is the report (A4-0275/98) by Mrs Dybkjær, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a European Parliament and Council Decision on the review of the European Community programme of policy and action in relation to the environment and sustainable development 'Towards sustainability' (C4-0382/98-96/0027(COD)).
Madam President, today we are seeing the fruits of work that has been going on for 2 ½ years, and I would like to begin by thanking the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for their very active efforts.
Allow me briefly to remind you of the background. In Committee, we were seriously discussing whether to throw the Commission's draft assessment of the Fifth Community Action Programme on the environment back in their teeth.
That is how dissatisfied we were with it.
It was just not good enough.
However, a majority within the Committee felt that this would delay the whole process too much, and we had precious little guarantee that we would get anything better.
Thus, we chose to continue working with the text, but using the influence of Parliament to the maximum.
The result was that some 100 amendments were voted through by the Committee.
Then we did something rather unusual in the plenary.
We agreed to take control of the process and withdrew 50 of the amendments in advance.
That is almost unknown in parliamentary history, but the strategy paid off.
Our prioritized amendments were voted through.
Neither the Council nor the Commission had much time for our amendments.
They could not accept very many of them, and therefore, we had to present virtually all of them again at second reading, whereupon the majority were adopted.
Then I would like to say a big thank you to the British presidency.
Their will to negotiate, their flexibility and professionalism allowed us to achieve a reasonably positive result together.
It was difficult at the start.
Council only accepted three of our amendments, but things did improve.
Then, finally, my thanks go to the Commission.
It took them a while to get on board, but they did so in the end.
Naturally, the result is a compromise.
The European Parliament would have preferred to see all its amendments implemented without modification, but we are living in the real world.
So what have we achieved? Generally, the programme has become more legally binding.
It has been registered that the new Member States - Austria, Sweden and Finland - will not be forced to lower their environmental standards after the end of their transition periods, not even if the EU has not by then managed to raise the EU's present standards, as promised.
It is now quite clearly enshrined in the programme that EU legislation will have to be adjusted so that the high standards of the new Member States can be maintained, and this will be done in full public view.
However, we will face environmental problems from quite the opposite end of the spectrum with the next enlargement of the Community.
When the countries of central and eastern Europe join, it is important to ensure that the dynamics and perspectives of this do not disappear.
The new Member States will have to respect regulations already in force and those pending, and we have ensured that the Community will assist them in this major task.
They cannot do it alone.
Parliament has always taken the approach that the EU should take the lead in global, sustainable development.
The action programme underlines this; for example, more will be done to get the WTO to start taking the environment seriously.
However, none of this would be of any use at all without monitoring to ensure that legislation is actually adhered to.
Parliament has helped reinforce those provisions of the programme that deal with the implementation and monitoring of EU regulations.
For example, the Commission will be preparing a report on joint minimum standards for environmental inspection in the various countries.
The success or failure of the individual Member States in observing environmental requirements will also be made public.
I could mention many other things that have also been implemented, but in this summary, I will just say that as an old chemical engineer, I can but rejoice that not only are chemical substances mentioned in the Council's original text, but that there are also details of a specific plan of action to be prepared so that we can quickly evaluate all chemical substances, and greater emphasis is also given to tighter controls on the phasing out of CFCs.
Overall, I think Parliament should be pleased with its efforts.
Not only have we considerably improved the Fifth Community Action Programme on the Environment, we have also ensured that the entire reevaluation process was an open one in which many different interests came to the fore.
The European Parliament is the green institution of the EU, and the European Parliament does make a difference.
Of course, we have not achieved enough to make the EU sustainable overnight.
What we have is a compromise, as I said, but it is definitely a compromise in the right direction.
The result may not be worth celebrating with champagne, but it is surely worth a glass of good red wine.
And after that we will need a strong black coffee, because now the results must be put into action.
What is the value of an action programme if it is not put into action?
Let us look on the revised Fifth Community Action Programme on the Environment as a step towards sustainability.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that we are today able to discuss the approval, by the Conciliation Committee of Council and Parliament, of a text in relation to the environment and sustainable development in the European Union, is thanks to the persistent efforts - persistent seems to be a much better word than sustained - of the rapporteur, Mrs Lone Dybkjær, and of the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Kenneth Collins.
With this persistence and great wisdom they persuaded the Council to be open to Parliament's ideas and to accept the proposals on a far broader basis than we could have hoped at the beginning of the negotiations, and in particular at the beginning of the first reading.
On behalf of my group, I thank you very sincerely for this.
It is clear to all those involved with environmental issues that this programme can only be the beginning of sustainable development in the European Union.
For this reason I am particularly pleased that the objectives of this Fifth Action Programme already state that still more progressive priority objectives and measures will be necessary beyond the year 2000, so that the Community action does not lose its momentum and, of course, so that we can succeed in including the applicant countries in this environmental process.
I would need much more speaking time than I have, if I were to discuss all points on which there was agreement and which could contribute to an improvement in environmental legislation.
Therefore, I can only mention a few key points relating to some of these.
It is particularly important that environmental policy is included in agricultural policy, and I am very grateful to the Commission that this additional statement on the common agricultural policy has been included in the decision by the Conciliation Committee.
I am also very grateful to the Commission for stating that it will make proposals regarding ways in which environmental liability really could be legally regulated.
We talk about this regularly in the House and we will certainly publish a White Paper on it at some stage which we can discuss and which can take into account national differences, to such an extent that we can finally achieve a good pan-European directive on environmental liability.
I consider it very important that a system of green accounting should be introduced in the individual Member States so that we can carry out a form of environmental accounting - the German term is not very beautiful - once the individual Member States have reported back.
This is particularly important as, in precisely those places where we can integrate environmental protection very well, in operational processes and other processes, this integration of a system of green accounting into general accounting has many advantages and is excellent for transposing environmental provisions into national law.
Transposal is a very important catchword.
We must also have more effective monitoring, as Mrs Dybkjær has already said, and this will lead to us finally having better health protection; this was also established more firmly in the Conciliation Committee than ever before.
There is no time to go through everything.
I would like to conclude with one point.
Many of us concerned with globalization and international trade issues see how much more difficult it is if environmental and precautionary aspects are not dealt with adequately within the framework of the WTO.
This text also states that the Commission will continue to do its utmost in the negotiations which are supposed to be concluded the year after next, but which will at least be very advanced by then.
Once again, I thank everyone involved.
Even if it is a compromise, it is a compromise which brings us further forward on environmental issues.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mrs Dybkjær, it is of course a little sad, considering how hard, how magnificently Lone Dybkjær fought in her report, that the report was originally much better, but we have to accept that, where environmental issues are concerned, small steps forward must be accepted gratefully here in Europe, in the European Parliament.
But perhaps the Member States will then actually grasp these small steps.
That, also, is Europe.
The joint text by the Conciliation Committee notes that the new Member States - Sweden, Finland and Austria - are not required to lower their environmental standards.
So far, so good, and I am very much in agreement with this.
Of course, it would be catastrophic if the Union were seen to be even trying to force Member States to lower their environmental standards.
This would certainly not happen.
But we all read it slightly differently before lunch.
Commissioner, is it not true that you discussed the possibility of checking or rather reviewing whether the Union could not adopt the stricter standards of the three new Member States? And was it not also discussed that you personally - and here I believe you - would make every effort to support this and to present a result to the House?
I once heard from an official at the Commission that there had not been any really specific discussions with the individual countries.
Nevertheless, it was obvious, the official said, that these countries would not adopt our environmental standards, so there was no point in even trying to discuss it! A classic case of jumping to conclusions.
I think it is a pity for the Commission.
It think it is a pity, Commissioner - I hold you in the highest regard, and I would have expected a little more from you here.
It is also a pity for the Union, and a pity for the citizens of Europe.
Madam President, Parliament has once more obtained a marvellous result for the environment and for the European citizen with the outcome of this codecision procedure on the review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme.
I admit that it has been an extremely painful process, but when we look at the result of the conciliation procedure it has undoubtedly been more than worth the trouble.
This is the second conciliation procedure under the British presidency in which Parliament has been able to exercise a considerable influence on the end result, with which it can be highly satisfied.
I am referring to the Auto-Oil Programme and now the review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme.
My congratulations to the rapporteur, Mrs Dybkjær.
I experienced at first hand how much energy she put into her efforts to achieve a better review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme for our citizens and the environment.
She deserves every praise for this.
It is very important for Parliament's monitoring of compliance with Community legislation to be tightened up.
Article 4 on implementation and compliance has been completely rewritten to reflect Parliament's amendments.
I emphasize that it is chiefly the Member States that have to accept responsibility for compliance, but the Commission too must improve compliance monitoring by means of a European network of environmental inspectors.
I am also very pleased that the Commission, with the support of Parliament, has made its intentions clear with regard to the integration of environmental objectives into the common agricultural policy.
This is of great importance to a sustainable future for Europe.
The much-needed reforms for sustainable agriculture have to be put in place as quickly as possible.
I shall myself be making concrete proposals in the context of the budget to integrate environmental objectives into the common agricultural policy.
I also need to take a look at my own country, which is making far too little use of the opportunity - I am thinking of agricultural and environmental regulation 2078/92 - to make agriculture much more environmentally friendly through cofinancing.
Finally, the guarantee given to the states who joined most recently - Austria, Finland and Sweden - that they will be able to maintain their strict environmental standards, is of great importance to them. I will conclude by asking the Commission what preparations it currently has in hand to give the Environmental Action Programme a fresh start after the year 2000.
Madam President, I agree with what Mrs Flemming said.
At both first and second reading, Mrs Dybkjær, we considered your report to be absolutely first-rate and a real ray of hope for the European Parliament. But was it not precisely for those reasons that we did not agree with the outcome of the Conciliation Committee?
We believe that it is not even worthy of red wine, but at most a glass of seltzer - what remains, after all, of the ten points submitted by Parliament? Where is the agreement that the White Paper is finally on its way or, even more importantly, that environmental liability is finally being regulated?
For years the Commission has been putting us off, and so it goes on.
I fear it might just happen on twelfth of never.
As Mrs Flemming already said, where is the very clear statement that we will finally look at the regulations in the three new Member States and take very best points over from them? There should be a whole series of such achievements.
Or where is the management plan for radioactive waste which we, as Parliament, requested? None of this is in the outcome.
For this reason I believe that Mrs Bjerregard, who has already described us as a Mickey Mouse Parliament in connection with the Fifth Action Programme, will continue to make a joke of Parliament.
I would have liked to know what, in concrete terms, will become of environmental liability, what new points the Commission is planning.
We fear that in environmental terms this result is much too poor, and for this reason we did not vote for it.
Madam President, Parliament received the text on the review of the Fifth Environmental Action Programme in February 1996.
Today, we are discussing the outcome of the conciliation procedure.
More than two years have passed in the meantime, and that is a very long time for an action programme that is to be implemented in the year 2000.
The next time, everything possible must be done to accelerate the process, otherwise the programme will be overtaken by events.
We are very happy with the contents of the joint draft text.
It proved possible to include many more concrete proposals from the European Parliament in the final text. As a result, the text has been strengthened.
My congratulations to the rapporteur and the other participants in the conciliation procedure.
It is a pity that more did not come out of it in the area of agriculture.
Of course, we have Agenda 2000, where a lot of scope has been built in in terms of environmental policy, but we still have to await its implementation.
We are very happy about the priority given to better enforcement of environmental legislation.
This really is an area which needs to be paid more attention in the years to come.
The Commission seems to have been getting more interested in this recently, but things could still be improved.
I thought the additions by Parliament to the joint text about this priority were very good.
In particular, the use of the legal instruments which the Commission possesses to spur on the Member States is important.
It is simply disgraceful to see how the deadlines for implementing environmental legislation are being exceeded.
Just make the Member States come before the Court a bit more often, to explain why it is so difficult to implement laws, and perhaps then they would get a bit more of a move on.
Madam President, I wish to thank the rapporteur Mrs Dybkjær very warmly for her success in explaining so clearly that the three most recent Member States should not be penalized because the European Union has not been able to keep to its agreement.
When the three new Member States joined, it was agreed that the EU would amend its legislation to fit in with that of the new Member States, in which case this transition period would not have caused the new Member States any grief.
At the same time it would have also enabled EU environmental standards to rise.
There is really still a great deal of work to be done in this field.
The European Parliament has done much to put matters on the right track, and a good example of this is this achievement on the part of the Conciliation Committee.
Agenda 2000 is an important tool, but it is worth bearing in mind that when we quite justifiably insisted, in the context of enlargement, that future Member States must observe the European Union's strict rules, at least strict in the opinion of the newcomers, we also have to see to it that the EU for its own part honours its agreements and commitments.
But it is specifically in the area of enlargement that it is vital to make sure EU environmental legislation is not weakened, but that it is continually improved.
I believe that the important thing about this report is that we have to honour commitments already in existence today.
Madam President, the disappointment is obvious to anyone reading the final report of this conciliation procedure.
After the major inroads made in committee, we now find the document presented by the Commission to be absolutely unacceptable. Although this document talks about sustainable development, it actually suggests a form of development that seeks to adapt environmental needs to the current system of production.
All this is done, naturally, without tackling the indefensible policies that destroy natural resources and without any real moves to carry forward the limited progress made as a consequence of the actions of the European Parliament.
I can give examples: there is agriculture, but there is also Agenda 2000, which fails to meet these requirements.
Also, the document on agriculture does not mention genetically modified organisms.
My colleague Mrs Breyer has already mentioned the topic of radioactivity.
As far as consumers are concerned, we have already debated labelling as a means of providing safeguards, but nothing at all has been said about labelling genetically modified organisms.
These were just examples, but what do they tell us? They tell us that we have switched from a proposal for sustainable development to a proposal aimed mainly at preserving the status quo.
The changes to the original text are simply windowdressing and do not alter the gist.
We cannot therefore say that we appreciate the spirit in which the European Parliament has attempted to give substance to an empty proposal presented by the European Commission.
Madam President, without intending to do so, this report raises two problems.
Firstly when talking about harmonization between the Member States, we are also talking about the risk of levelling down.
I do not have any problem at all with the exception which allows Austria, Finland and Sweden to retain their own standards, but the fact remains that this exception was not clear at the outset.
Furthermore, there is no point whatsoever in raising and harmonizing our environmental standards in Europe if, at the same time, we do not keep a critical eye on what is coming in from outside.
The question of sustainable development is one of those issues which provides the best arena for euro-globalists to be faced with their own contradictions.
Here industry and commerce play a clearly dominant role.
Specifically, how can the Member States develop a policy of sustainable development in a global commercial context in which free trade would like to prohibit our countries from inspecting the quality of imports from third countries? And I refer here to products manufactured under frequently deplorable social and environmental conditions which, in the absence of compensatory taxation, is slashing prices in Europe and nudging unemployment figures upwards.
Ladies and gentlemen, these issues seem irreconcilable to me and lead us to choose between two very different concepts: the best offer and the lowest offer.
If we really want to have an ambitious environmental policy, we must push our thinking as far as it will go and keep control of those precious filters which our borders represent.
If this happens and we permit only those products to enter our Community which respect human beings and the environment, third countries would certainly work more quickly to raise their standards.
However if the opposite happens, and the law of the jungle takes over, unfortunately our efforts towards sustainable development would be worth little.
The same applies to farming methods. For example, even if it is less expensive in terms of cost price to raise cattle on the ashes of the Amazon rainforest, it would be catastrophic for the environment and for employment to sell beef from this source, which admittedly would be much cheaper, in competition with beef produced on the grasslands of Europe.
In this context, I think that aiming for higher standards seems a particularly difficult objective.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Parliament on the outcome of the conciliation procedure pursuant to the resolution on reviewing Community policy and action in connection with the environment and sustainable development entitled "Towards Sustainability' .
This result has been made possible thanks to a constructive and realistic approach on the part of Parliament and the Council of Ministers.
My special thanks go to the rapporteur, Mrs Lone Dybkjær, and to Mr Ken Collins, chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, as well as to the British presidency for their energetic approach to tackling this issue.
The Commission is of course delighted to have played a part in the overall compromise by contributing a large number of proposed wordings and communications on the minutes of the meetings.
The Commission will now do its part for the duration of the programme, tabling motions for measures that will be required to implement the result we now have before us.
I trust that the implementation of this resolution will further promote the integration of environmental considerations into other sectors of policy, as required by the Treaty and upheld at the Cardiff Summit.
In addition, please allow me to make a few individual comments on some of the issues raised in today's debate.
Several speakers, including Mrs Dybkjær, Mrs Flemming and Mrs Myller, touched on the matter of the new Member States.
I can only confirm what I have said many times in response to questions and debates in Parliament: in my view, standards for the three new Member States should not be lowered.
I would also like to say to Mrs Flemming that the entire proposal on pollution strategy and the subsequent proposal on sulphur in petrol have taken direct account of spreading the standards of the new Member States to the rest of the Community, so we have most definitely been inspired by the new Member States.
I can also confirm that at the Council meeting in Chester in April, I promised we would come up with a plan of action on chemical substances.
As regards agricultural policy, mentioned by Mrs Graenitz, Mr Eisma and Mr Blokland, I must say I share Mr Blokland's view that a stronger statement on agricultural policy would have been good, but we do have the option of coming back to this, because we will be discussing the relationship between agriculture and the environment in the context of Agenda 2000.
The debates we have had on this clearly demonstrate what an important issue it is.
Finally, as regards liability, I would just like to emphasize that I am still hoping for and working towards presenting a White Paper on this before the year is out.
Madam President, with these few remarks, I would just like to say thank you once again for the result achieved.
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Epidemiological surveillance
The next item is the report (A4-0276/98) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision creating a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the European Community (C4-0383/98-96/0052(COD)).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, because of the grave, sometimes mortal threat to the people of the European Union from communicable diseases, in April 1996 the Commission proposed the creation of a Community surveillance network to respond more effectively to recurrences of such serious diseases.
Parliament had long called for this.
Nevertheless, the Member States' response in the Council to this initiative was very disappointing.
In its common position adopted in July 1997 the Council seemed to be doing its utmost to restrict effective action, that is, action which could be taken at Community level, by retaining as many as possible of individual Member States' prerogatives and by having decisions in every case taken not at Community level but at the discretion of each government.
In its second reading amendments of January 1998 Parliament sought to restore the effectiveness of action against recurrences of communicable diseases.
This triggered a conciliation procedure.
In a series of official and unofficial negotiations with our delegation and its chairman, Mr Ken Collins, we fought a hard battle in the course of which we secured the essential guarantees.
Firstly, public recognition in each Member State for an officially designated national centre charged with gathering information on the communicable diseases currently evolving and on measures for controlling them.
Secondly, the creation of a Community network linking all the national centres, with the job of assimilating the data gathered and operating in both directions, from the national centres to the network and vice versa.
This is Amendment No 13.
It was much more difficult to obtain a centre whose job is to classify and analyze the data and also to provide an early warning system in order to push through the required measures.
This was gained only on condition that the European Commission took responsibility for it.
This is Amendment No 5.
In an effort towards Community cohesion, we succeeded in drawing attention in all the stages of data gathering to the need to use consistent definitions and data gathered in accordance with previously established methodology and to encourage the use of appropriate language and technology.
It was an uphill task to obtain the financing for this purpose.
The text only allows for the possibility of Community financing.
This is Amendment No 4.
In selecting the diseases which might be covered by the network, we have managed to avoid establishing arbitrary criteria and we have raised recognition of the need to record not only the clinical but also the microbiological characteristics of the diseases in question.
In addition, the list of communicable diseases is now real and no longer only indicative.
This list can be modified with the approval of Parliament.
In terms of the steps to be taken, the concept of guidelines at Community level has been adopted, as opposed to decisionmaking as the exclusive domain of the Member States as called for in the Council's common position.
On the contrary, each Member State must consult the other states before taking any steps, except in cases of extreme urgency.
Controls will also be permitted at the external frontiers of the European Union.
There will also be a periodical evaluation of the operation of the entire system - national centres, the network and European centres - within a reasonable time scale.
In conclusion, the joint text we now have may not be perfect, but it would be difficult to achieve more given the current state of the European constitution.
Your parliamentary delegation recommends, therefore, that Parliament adopt the decision in accordance with the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee.
Our common goal is to promote and protect the health of individuals and our populations.
In this context, today really is a landmark in the development of a Community health policy.
Parliament is poised to adopt the decisions setting up the network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
The adoption of this decision will be a major step forward in the fight against diseases.
I support both contributors in that regard.
It really is an important evening.
It will enable further concrete initiatives to be undertaken, as well as further surveillance and control. It will set up a network intended to respond effectively and in a coordinated fashion to epidemics or outbreaks of communicable diseases in a Community without internal frontiers.
It will not be confined simply to the transmission of surveillance data.
I am pleased to acknowledge the key role that Parliament has played in shaping this decision and the requirements that will accompany it.
Members of Parliament and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, and the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Mr Collins, deserve full credit for their efforts and their success in fashioning a major legal instrument of cardinal importance for Europe's public health.
I welcome the positive way in which Parliament and the Council approached the conciliation phase and played their respective roles to the full to secure adoption of this decision.
I wholeheartedly support what Mr Needle said in this regard.
The conciliation meeting itself was conducted in a most efficient and cooperative manner and the delegations must be given full credit for a job well done.
For the record, I would like to reiterate the two statements of the Commission made at that meeting so that they are properly entered in the Minutes because I think they are important for the record.
On Article 1, the Commission will pay particular attention to providing an adequately staffed and appropriately identified structure so as to ensure the implementation of the decision, taking into account the availability of resources.
On the implementation of the provisions of Article 7 - the point that Mr Needle referred to and that Mr Cabrol is extremely interested in as well - the Commission will pay particular attention to ensuring that expenditure relating to the committee which will assist the Commission is determined in strict application of the rules of financial prudence, in particular as regards the number of experts deemed necessary for the proper implementation of this decision.
I thank you for you support.
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Women's health
The next item is the report (A4-0260/98) by Mrs van Dijk, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the state of women's health in the European Community (COM(97)0224 - C4-0333/97).
Madam President, in the name of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party I should like to ask for the Mrs van Dijk's report to be referred back.
I would like to make it very clear that we all know Mrs van Dijk as a hard-working and motivated champion of women's rights, but that this report, which contains 90 proposals to the Commission and the Member States, is not the right report to promote women's health.
An interminable shopping list is being presented.
The European Commission needs a clear and concise signal from Parliament, and we want action to be taken.
There are a large number of proposals included which do not lie within the powers of the European Union, such as national authority concerning abortion.
For all these reasons, my group requests that the report be referred back to the Committee on Women's Rights, so that we can present the Commission with a short, concise report as quickly as possible in September or October.
I regret that it has to be this way, and I would like to state that in person, too, because it is Mrs van Dijk's last sitting.
I would have much preferred it to be otherwise.
She has a lot of good reports to her credit, and I will personally help to ensure that the reports come back to the plenary soon, but in a shorter and more concise form with clear priorities.
You have now tabled a motion pursuant to Rule 129.
We can now have one speaker each to speak for and against the motion.
Who would like to speak in support of it? Frau Heinisch.
Madam President, I would agree with Mrs Larive.
We discussed this at length, tabled many motions and have had some really good discussions with Mrs van Dijk.
But we did not manage to reconcile our positions on many points with those of the other groups in order to achieve a satisfactory outcome.
I personally, as a pharmacist, am interested in the issue of women and health.
There are, however, many amendments which we simply cannot allow in the report because they have nothing to do with the issue of women's health.
For this reason I support the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party in asking that it be referred back to committee.
Thank you.
Who would like to speak against this motion?
Madam President, I wish to oppose the request of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party since, firstly, this is Mrs van Dijk's last session and it would be a real pity if we could not see this matter through.
Secondly, if there is quite a lot to cover in this report, it is no doubt due to the fact that women's health is not awfully well charted as a separate issue.
For example, there is a dearth of statistical information, and, given this, I believe the report, in the shape it is in now, will act as a sort of catalogue of those issues that ought to be systematized and considered later on.
I think it is highly regrettable that there should be a desire merely to attribute all this to the wishes of the rapporteur.
The Committee certainly participated as a whole in the drafting of the report, however, as 96 amendments were presented in Committee, if I am not mistaken.
This number has now been whittled down to 34.The matter is clearly being resolved.
Besides, it is quite obvious that there is never unanimous agreement over abortion in this Chamber.
Before we proceed to the vote, Mrs Roth wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mrs Roth, on which Rule do you wish to speak?
Madam President, I refer to Rule 112 on the quorum.
I would like to ask that the quorum be established.
If Mrs Roth makes this request, at least 29 Members must rise to support it.
You cannot request it alone; you need the support of 29 Members of the House.
I ask those Members who support Mrs Roth's request to rise from their seats.
(8 Members rose from their seats) Thus, the request for the quorum to be established is rejected.
I beg your pardon, Madam President, but Rule 112(5), also says that you, as President, can establish whether there are actually 29 people here in the Chamber.
You yourself can establish whether the quorum is present.
The request for the quorum to be established was rejected.
(Protests from Roth) Mrs Roth, I am chairing this sitting and I have said that the request was rejected.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the motion of referral back to the committee.
(The matter was referred back to the committee responsible)
I was disregarded earlier.
I do not know whether it would have turned out that way, but you said that I requested that the quorum be established.
However, in my second point of order I referred to Rule 112(5), because I wanted to know whether there were actually 29 people in the Chamber, and that was before the vote, before Mr Posselt and Mr Bourlanges rushed in.
You did not permit this; if you had, you would have been able to establish the quorum.
This is no longer relevant, but I was referring to something else.
Mrs Roth, I understood perfectly well what you were asking for, but such a request is not possible.
The VicePresident may do it, but he does not have to.
I beg your pardon, but you must read your Rules of Procedure very carefully.
In any case, the vote on referral back to committee was passed successfully.
Thus, this agenda item is closed, as the report was referred back to the committee.
Mrs García Arias wishes to speak on a point of order.
Madam President, I am sorry that Mrs Roth's point of order has not been heeded.
I just want to state that I do not understand why an allusion to abortion under certain conditions - those which apply in all our countries - should have provoked this sort of reaction.
I would remind you all of the conditions which regulate abortion in practically all our countries: rape or incest, serious foetal deformity, and danger to the mother's health.
I do not understand this discussion.
Unfortunately my attitude differs from that of my committee, but for the record, Madam President, I think this situation needs to be brought to people's attention.
Mrs García Arias, the debate is closed.
The Members have voted, and the vote was very clear.
I deliberately held an electronic vote so that there could be no confusion.
Environmental taxes and charges
The next item is the report (A4-0200/98) by Mr Olsson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission communication: Environmental taxes and charges in the Single Market (COM(97)0009 - C4-0179/97).
Madam President, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy was unanimous in its conclusions.
We want to stress how important this issue is.
We recognized that minimum levels should be set at EU level to help speed up the polluter pays principle. That is a very important first step.
Then we also talked a great deal about how things currently stand in the Member States.
Certain Member States have a lot of environmental taxes and charges, while others do not.
There is, in other words, a large degree of freedom for the Member States.
The important thing in this context is that Member States should be able to share their experiences with other Member States so that they can do the same things.
Research can be a great help here.
Research has to be very advanced in this area for other countries to be able to learn from good examples.
That is also why we on the Committee on Energy stress that we must bear in mind the principle of subsidiarity, so that detailed rules should not be imposed, and it is possible to have different solutions.
Furthermore, when the EU Treaty was drawn up, environmental taxes and charges were not considered at all.
Because of this, all the legislation in the EU is lagging behind in this area, while consumers and companies are clamouring for change.
That is why it is important that Community legislation should not obstruct the developments taking place in many Member States, including the Scandinavian ones, which are aimed at developing better environmental taxes and charges so that these can spread and be applied and so that the EU's objective of an environmentally sustainable EU and society can be achieved.
At the same time, Community legislation must not be allowed to prevent this.
Madam President, I think this move towards imposing environmental taxes throughout Europe is an important one.
It is important to note, however, that environmental problems will not be resolved merely by using environmental taxes.
We need an effective combination of good environmental legislation backed up by environmental taxation.
Only through such a combination of forces and cooperation will it be at all possible to achieve results.
The fact that a harmonized approach to environmental taxation in different countries is now being considered and must be considered, will mean that those countries that have already voluntarily imposed environmental taxes will no longer have to bear the pressure that presently comes from industry, which claims that they are freely giving away a competitive edge to their competitors.
I do not think the issue can be looked at in such simple terms.
Besides, the fact that production methods which protect the environment and environmental taxes exist at all can be considered a competitive edge.
In my opinion, the whole of the EU, as a single market area, should aim to achieve a position whereby Europe's competitive edge is the very fact that we have instruments available to us to control production and consumption so as to protect and improve the environment.
In my opinion environmental taxes offer a sensible way of controlling consumption and production.
It will suit the market economy splendidly, because it fits in with that very principle, although we cannot merely rely on the market economy.
It is essential for political decision-makers to have a genuine desire to acknowledge the importance of environmental matters, and for tax controls to be on the right course in this respect.
When we say, and I think it has to be said, that by increasing the use of environmental taxation we can reduce other taxes, for example, income tax, it should not then in any way be imagined that environmental taxes and the money they raise should be at all tied just to investment in, and care for, the environment.
Whereas we may see changing the focal point of taxation as a means of achieving better environmental protection, at the same time it is evident that it is also a means of amassing the resources society needs to produce welfare services; in other words, environmental taxes must be seen in the context of the overall tax system.
We should not just aim to create a better environment in concrete terms through environmental taxation.
No, by using environmental taxes to achieve better, more sustainable production, we can also deliver better, more sustainable social services, and an improved standard of living for our citizens.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Olsson.
He made every effort with this report in the course of the procedure, and I believe that he has presented a good report.
We need to take action in the environmental field, even if at the moment it is not popular everywhere to talk about the environment.
We have many unsolved problems.
To name just one, there is the issue of how the European Union and the Member States intend to carry out their Rio and Kyoto obligations in terms of CO2 reduction.
There are various possible ways of tackling these problems.
We can use administrative law or we can allocate state subsidies. These are all necessary, but in my opinion they are not the ultimate pearl of wisdom.
It is better to use the market economy in this area also, because it not only provides the most efficient solution to the problem, but it also allows the polluter pays principle to come into play.
Of course, we must now ask the general question: why are environmental taxes and duties not much more widespread in Europe and in the world, in our Member States and at Union level? This is partly due to the fact that if we want to impose environmental taxes we expose ourselves to suspicion that we are doing so to finance new public services.
Unfortunately, the previous speaker was not very precise either about this.
She said that we could do new things which the State could provide for.
We, the Group of the European People's Party, reject this concept.
We want environmental taxes in order to reduce taxes and duties in other areas.
In Europe we need less taxes overall, not more.
We need a redistribution of taxes and charges, increased taxation on use of the environment and a reduction in the burden on the labour factor.
But I would ask my colleagues to beware of using pushing this instrument too far it is intended to create new income for the State.
That is why we tabled the corresponding amendments.
These instruments should be tax neutral, not a means of increasing the tax burden.
Otherwise, I consider the report to be very good.
It rightly says that it is better to introduce a charge of this kind, a tax of this kind at European level.
However, as long as this is not done, the Member States must, of course, be encouraged to use such instruments and must not become discouraged.
Unfortunately, we have had cases in the past, for example the introduction of an ecological car tax in Germany, when the Commission hesitated for a long time to promote environmentally friendly technology, and this must be different in future.
States which wish to use such instruments must be supported in this.
In conclusion, I would like to suggest an amendment to the Value Added Tax Directive, as I believe that some Member States would be very willing to introduce an increased value added tax on energy-related emissions, for example.
Certainly, the European Union's existing VAT Directive allows the application of a lower rate of VAT on energy but not a higher one.
The Commission should consider whether it should not be exactly the opposite.
Energy consumption should be reduced and taxes on labour should also be reduced, and it is for this reason that this should be considered.
Madam President, my colleague, Mr Olsson, has produced a very good report, and there is not a lot to add to it.
I believe that here in the Chamber too there is broad agreement on this report.
However, I would like to correct what my colleague Mr Liese said just now.
He in fact claimed that Mrs Myller wished to increase the tax burden on the Member States.
I understood quite otherwise.
I understood that Mrs Myller said environmental and energy taxation would provide a way of lowering income tax, which is a very important issue.
This was a principle contained within Mr Monti's energy tax proposal, for example.
Environmental taxes and charges are really one of the best instruments we have to protect the environment.
But it must be said at the same time that it is one of the most acrimonious examples of how difficult it is at Union level to make any sort of headway.
And the Amsterdam Summit did not made it any easier.
As I understand it, in Amsterdam Germany's Chancellor Kohl right at the last minute rejected attempts to ease the decision-making process on the question of environmental taxation.
Let us now turn our attention to the fact that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party has produced an excellent draft amendment to Mr Ollson's report.
They actually suggest that environmental taxation might be decided on the basis of Article 130 of the Treaty, which would certainly also facilitate the decision-making process.
I am pleased to say that Austria has indicated that she intends to develop the issue of energy taxation, which has remained in abeyance for so long.
We in Parliament can certainly hope that other Member States will unite in this effort.
The aims of Kyoto are going to remain unachieved unless the EU starts to draft a common energy taxation policy.
Many Member States stressed the importance of this when they themselves approved bases for a combined share of the tax burden at the last meeting of the Environment Council.
Madam President, this is a good report.
The free market economy includes elements which lead to a better environment.
It is necessary to be economical with input goods, not least for reasons of cost and competition.
Open debate also makes consumers environmentally aware.
They are choosing products with a low environmental impact and are even willing to pay a higher price for such products.
However, it may still be appropriate to use financial instruments to correct the market for an environmental impact which consumers find difficult to judge.
Environmental charges which properly reflect the environmental impact of an emission can be an effective method of correcting the market economy. Nor can it be wrong to use the income to rectify the damage caused by the discharge.
Another advantage of financial instruments is that they create incentives for technical development and the development of methods which produce a lower environmental impact.
It pays for companies to invest in environmentally friendly technology.
In cases where environmental charges threaten competition between the Member States, tax concessions could be an acceptable alternative.
It is important for environmental charges to be set in a proper way and to be based on solid factual foundations, such as in the form of life-cycle analyses.
The report takes up environmental taxes on emissions of carbon dioxide.
Such taxes are necessary in order to achieve the Kyoto targets.
Countries which have already introduced this obviously have a great interest in seeing these taxes harmonized within the EU.
One financial instrument not mentioned in the report is transferable emission rights.
This means you can set a level of emissions which the environment can cope with and then you can have trading in emission rights. This is beneficial for the environment at lower cost.
Madam President, unfortunately Mr Liese, who advocated environmental taxes so passionately, is no longer here.
I would have liked to ask him why the Federal Republic is not setting an example and why it has been blocking it for 16 years.
I think that we should not just talk about environmental taxes this evening; we should also ask ourselves what has become of them!
Even before the Rio Summit we had requested that there be a tax on energy, and we are still a long way off it.
We also wonder why we agreed on a zero rate for consumption taxes, which is basically only a zero figure.
After all, if we say zero rate, and the Member States can do with it what they wish, then it is more than a zero figure, it is a joke figure!
We should also ask ourselves why a two-thirds majority is adequate for the introduction of the euro and unanimity is required for environmental tax.
I would like to know whether environmental taxes are less important to the European Union than the euro!
In view of climate change worldwide and also of the worsening of the European Union's climate, is it not be urgently necessary to follow words with deeds?
An absolutely essential question is what has become of the combined CO2 energy tax.
Why do we not take up the proposal or the model of the then Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mr Lubbers? He talked about introducing an exemplary model which would involve our agreeing to a climate reduction target, that is defining the target but leaving the method open for now.
Those Member States who never tire of claiming that they are in favour of an environmental tax, an energy tax, must commit themselves to it, in particular the so-called friends of the eco-tax, who committed themselves to it informally in the Environment Council.
Then we would say that as from a specific date those Member States who cannot achieve this using other instruments would be included.
I think that if we were to do this we would achieve something important in that we would finally stop playing hide-and-seek and passing the buck, that is hiding as a nation behind Brussels and thus causing a deadlock.
What we need is to revive the corpse of the CO2 energy tax.
We must finally begin to introduce an environmental tax, and the environment-CO2 -energy tax would be a start.
Madam President, it is essential for us to add an environmental and a social dimension to our fiscal instruments.
It makes no sense to have direct competition between products which are apparently equivalent but may have very different impacts on the environment.
The same argument applies for social impacts, as I said earlier.
It is completely unacceptable that tools manufactured in Chinese prisons, for example, can be sold for a tenth of the price of those manufactured by Europeans who are paying pension contributions, health insurance and unemployment insurance and so on.
This situation guarantees slavery in China and unemployment here.
We must resolve this situation and, though the solution to it may indeed be fiscal, the proposed concept of an environmental tax is not the correct approach.
This is looking at the problem from the wrong angle.
If we cobble something together which would end up increasing the already excessive tax burden on individuals and companies it would have a negative impact on the economy.
However, I said that the approach may be a fiscal one.
But wait - not in terms of additional taxes, but by looking at tax in a fresh way through a far-reaching fiscal reform which combines social and environmental dimensions within the very bases of fiscal calculations.
So I say no to extra taxes, but yes to a different form of taxation with a fixed budget which favours employment, local economic activities, the environment and health.
Madam President, the Commission communication on environmental taxes and duties in the single market currently before us is extremely interesting.
However, because environmental legislation is very complex, we need to examine the situation clear-headedly in order to see how we can simplify matters.
It is worth remembering that at the time the Treaty on European Union was drawn up, no-one had thought of this type of fiscal instrument.
The fact that the instrument now needs to be applied in accordance with Community law makes everything extremely complicated.
It might be useful to treat this communication as a common environmental policy tax incentive, and thus evaluate its components as Community resources.
More extensive use of tax incentives would undoubtedly enable us to increase the efficiency of environmental policy and also improve the cost/benefit balance to prevent renationalization that would certainly not help us achieve the required coordination between the various sectors involved.
I feel it is fundamentally important for the Commission to tackle the problem of the huge economic impact of environmental taxes and duties, and also their effect on job creation or suppression and international competitiveness.
One of the amendments presented by our group is concerned with this very subject.
Madam President, Sweden and the Swedish Green Party have a lot of experience of environmental charges. The aim of these is that what is bad for the environment should be expensive and what is good for the environment should be cheap, in order, of course, to guide the consumer in the right direction.
However, this must also be done by introducing minimum rules at EU level rather than by harmonizing rules on environmental charges.
A country must be free to introduce higher environmental charges to demonstrate that it is possible and to show the positive effects this step can have.
The Scandinavian countries are well placed in the study which has been made.
In this debate, the Scandinavian model of having many environmental charges can serve as a good example of the fact that it is possible for other countries to introduce similar environmental charges, and that it has positive effects not only on the environment, but also on employment and the economy.
It is interesting to hear certain Members here in Parliament speaking so favourably about environmental charges.
But if you look at their parties in their own counties, both in Germany and in Sweden, they act in precisely the opposite way and refuse to introduce anything going by the name of an environmental charge.
We want to see some positive action for environmental charges, not just empty words here in an empty chamber.
Madam President, an environmental policy involves pursuing aims.
For human beings the most important aim is to be healthy to an old age.
For this we must see that our environment is in order.
We can achieve this by two methods, either by punishment - and tax is also a punishment, as it were - or by incentives, that is by reducing the burden or achieving tax savings.
It is important within the European Union and worldwide that we achieve common legal bases for tax and uniform labels for fiscal concepts.
Our aim must be to reduce the burden on our citizens in order to have to take away as little as possible of their wages.
One extremely positive example I would like to cite is efficient transport pricing, where the Commission pointed the direction in which we should go.
We must all hope that this efficient transport pricing will be implemented as soon as possible.
Madam President, I would like to begin by saying how pleased I am to see environmental taxes and charges on the EU's agenda.
I believe environmental taxes and charges to be a key way of combating pollution and overexploitation of natural resources.
Hence, I am rather disappointed that the Commission communication does not go further with regard to extending the capacity of Member States to make use of this excellent instrument for protecting the environment.
Instead, the Commission largely just cites current practice in the Court of Justice, where the prime consideration is and remains the free market, not the environment.
The Commission is somewhat lacking in vision in this area, despite many years of discussing with us the need for external aspects to be given consideration in fixing pricing levels.
Against this backdrop, I find the Olsson report very positive.
It draws attention to the fact that environmental problems often arise from market failures, when the market actually fails to take into account the cost of pollution and exploitation of the environment.
Set at the right level, environmental taxes and charges serve to enforce the extremely important polluter pays principle.
This principle is important because we can only reverse the trend if producers and consumers are aware of the consequences and costs of their choices in terms of production and consumption.
The report is sympathetic to the need to provide scope for political intervention in the market, if we are going to save our environment.
However, I think the Commission should await the findings of studies into the efficacy and effect of environmental taxes and charges before pursuing initiatives to introduce such charges.
I also think the report should focus more on the possibility of coordinating environmental taxes and charges in a broader international context, perhaps under the auspices of the UN.
Finally, here is my strongest reservation: if we are to pursue the initiative on EU environmental charges, it must be on condition that tax revenues will be ploughed back into the Member States.
One characteristic of a tax is the sovereign right to require taxes from one's citizens.
This right has the indirect support of citizens through the democratic legitimacy of the State, a legitimacy not shared by the EU.
The EU is not, and must not become, a State.
Madam President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Olsson for the work he has put into the report on the Commission communication on Environmental taxes and charges in the single market.
The Commission has repeatedly advocated increased use of fiscal instruments to promote an environmental policy that would have greater impact while also being more cost-effective.
Two years ago, we saw clearly that Member States wishing to apply environmental taxes and charges would need further clarification on the legal position.
Many were uncertain as to whether environmental taxes and charges were really compatible with the single market.
The employment aspect has also taken on greater significance, as emerged from the conclusions of the Cardiff Summit.
In debating the situation of the labour market, the need for tax reforms to reduce work-related taxes is often a key issue.
Environmental taxes and charges could become an important source of finance for such reforms.
The communication on environmental taxes and charges addresses the legal framework applicable to Member States, together with the possibilities and limitations on the use of environmental taxes and charges in the single market.
Thus, the communication could serve as a kind of guideline to Member States.
The reactions to the communication that have come back to us demonstrate that it is a useful instrument for political decisionmakers in Member States and applicant countries alike.
I note with pleasure that all Member States are, in fact, considering increasing the use of environmental taxes and charges.
Mr Olsson argues in favour of the increased use of economic mechanisms.
I would endorse the view that setting the correct pricing levels for goods and services involving environmental costs is an important key to sustainable development.
I share Mr Olsson's conviction that society would benefit from a green tax reform both in terms of employment and in terms of the environment.
The conclusions of the report focus on the ongoing work of the Commission, with concrete proposals for measures and further details about the situation, tailored to the Member States.
With regard to specific proposals, DG XI has already begun studying the potential for introducing EU-wide levies on pesticides.
In reaching a decision on further measures, the Commission will give consideration to the proposals in the report. However, in the short term, I cannot promise that detailed studies could be carried out in all the sectors cited in point 25.
As regards drawing up further guidelines, this is more difficult, because Member States have quite extensive powers in this area.
We are also aware that most Member States are somewhat hostile to the idea of their free agency in fiscal matters being restricted by more stipulations over and above those already enshrined in Community legislation and described in this communication.
I fully agree with what the report says regarding the desirability of a more effective EU decision-making process in this area.
However, we are all well aware that fiscal matters require unanimity in the Council.
And as long as the Treaty contains this prerequisite of unanimity, it will remain difficult to speed up the decision-making process.
With regard to the Council's position on the communication, it is a matter of regret that the Council has not as yet put this forward for consideration, and it does not seem to be on the current presidency agenda either, although I did note that Mrs Hautala seemed to think otherwise.
However, I do not think we should underrate the value of the communication as a manual for Ministries of the Environment and Finance Ministries in Member States.
I would like to touch on point 2 of the motion for a resolution, because it is alleged here that we failed to take account of the ramifications of the proposal on energy charges.
However, the Commission did undertake a wide-ranging study of the consequences; this is also attached to the proposal and it shows that the proposal would have a positive impact on the environment and on employment.
I do, of course, fully endorse point 27, favouring the adoption of the proposal on energy taxes.
I would also like to take advantage of this opportunity to emphasize the importance I attach to the Commission's proposal for a framework directive on water, which is already before the House.
Water charges for the purpose of ensuring that costs are fully covered are an essential element of this directive, and I hope I can count on your support in the debate on this subject that we can expect to have with the Council.
At the same time, I would like to thank Mr Olsson for his very valuable contribution.
His report does not only contain practical proposals for the ongoing work of the Commission, it also gives the Commission - and this is very important - a significant political signal to take concrete steps towards further integration of policy on the environment and on taxes and charges.
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 10.35 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of Tuesday, 14 July 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I will not delay matters because I am concerned with the Minutes, the unconstitutional compulsion to vote, the unconstitutional imposition of financial obligations and the disastrous fiscal consequences; but you are a renowned lawyer and instead of having my say here I will this morning write you a letter and place it on your desk.
Thank you very much for your cooperation, Mr Janssen van Raay.
(The Minutes were approved)
Welcome
Programme of the Austrian presidency
The next item is the statement by the Presidency-in-Office of the Council on the programme of activities of the Austrian presidency.
I am going to give the floor to Mr Schüssel, who will speak on behalf of the Council.
I want to extend a special welcome to him on the occasion of the opening speech of the first Austrian presidency. I am sure we all wish him the greatest success in the task of exercising, for the first time, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Mr Schüssel has the floor.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Members of the European Parliament, Austria is assuming the Presidency at an exciting and momentous time for Europe.
The Union is in the process of implementing two projects that will have a decisive impact on the face of our continent in the 21st century.
With the advent of the euro, Europe is taking a great stride towards economic and political unity, and, as the largest integrated economic area in the world, it is simultaneously becoming one of the key players in the world economy.
At the same time, the enlargement of the Union should mean that stability and prosperity will be exported to a greater Europe.
Not long ago, a wise person wrote in one of the major European newspapers that the completion of monetary union will reinforce Europeans' identity, and enlargement will test their limits.
The founding fathers of the European Community dreamt of a greater Europe that would bridge the deep gap between east and west in our continent.
They dreamt of a Europe that would uphold democracy and human rights on the basis of common values, and which would guarantee lasting peace and freedom.
They dreamt of a Europe that would not need bureaux de change and border posts, and which would thus no longer prevent Europeans living and working together.
We now have a historic chance to turn yesterday's dreams into tomorrow's reality.
The European Union has not been unsuccessful in these endeavours.
Let us briefly recall what has happened since it was founded: the Community of Six in 1958 had a population of 160 million, now it has 370 million, and with the candidate countries it has 500 million people.
Today's EU has a gross domestic product which in real terms is nearly six times as great as that of the European Community in 1958.
The Union now accounts for one third of world trade.
But at the same time it is the world's greatest donor: 60 % of development cooperation and 80 % of the aid flowing to the countries of the former Soviet Union come from the European Union.
It is perfectly justifiable to say that we now have a chance to make yesterday's dreams come true.
The euro is Europe's answer to globalization, enabling us successfully to face up to this challenge.
The single currency will improve the functioning of the internal market and help to safeguard jobs, but it will also give an impetus to market-oriented structural reforms, which are urgently needed in order to guarantee our own competitiveness.
The conditions for the introduction of the euro are better today than most of us expected, including even the most ardent optimists, to whose ranks I normally belong.
This House, the Europeans' parliament, the European Parliament, by taking part in the appointment of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and by holding hearings whose value has been acknowledged on all sides, has exercised a significant democratic control function.
In the coming months, under the Austrian presidency, attempts will be made to achieve stronger economic policy coordination and preparations will be made for the final setting of exchange rates.
There is no doubt that one of the most important tasks for the Austrian presidency is to help get the euro off to a good start on 1 January 1999.
I would like to make another comparison, which I think is even more important than positive economic and monetary indicators. Since 1945 there have been over 200 armed conflicts around the world, excluding lesser conflicts.
According to international statistics, there has never been a four-week period during which there has not been a major military engagement somewhere in the world, but the territory of the present European Union has been spared such conflicts.
At this point I would like to quote Baron Friedrich von Gentz, Prince Metternich's Secretary, who was, as it were, the notetaker of the Congress of Vienna.
He believed that any political system that could give Europe a hope of avoiding just three or four wars in a century would deserve the very greatest respect.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have that system!
We have got a system like that, we do have such a system: it is called the European Union!
If we want to ensure lasting peace, stability and economic prosperity in Europe, then it is my deeply held conviction that in the long term there can be no better way than to integrate our neighbouring countries into the European Union.
Of course there is a need for very thorough preparations because of the large number of candidate countries - never before have we talked with a total of 11 countries and negotiated at so many different levels - and because of the wide variation in economic development.
In the resolution it adopted last December, the European Parliament rightly recognized that the next round of enlargement would represent a completely new stage in the European integration process, requiring an in-depth examination of all the institutional, political, economic and social consequences for the Union and for the applicant countries.
You do not need me to tell you that Austria shares almost half its borders with four candidate countries.
I would particularly like to thank the European Parliament for the understanding and sensitivity it showed in its resolution of 18 July on Agenda 2000, which took account of the particular impact on regions with borders adjoining applicant countries, and which addressed the need to give them support, in particular under the Interreg programme.
However, I should like to add that precisely because of our special position - which was formerly on the periphery and is now at the core - we in Austria have an almost unique interest in the success of enlargement.
We have to be honest with our citizens.
Enlargement has a cost.
But these enlargement costs, set down in the pre-accession strategy and in the pre-accession aid, which were accurately and with every justification addressed in the Commission's proposal, are probably the best investment in our own future.
Allow me to make a comparison: in the period after the Second World War, the Americans helped us.
At that time they transferred just under 2.5 % of their gross domestic product to Europe, to the countries of their former enemies, for four years.
The interesting thing is that the Commission is now proposing that we should put around 2.7 % of our gross domestic product at the disposal of these countries, and I think this is absolutely right, and I hope that there will be no objection whatsoever to this aspect. I must say that so far I have not heard any real argument against it, even during my tour des capitales .
It is a twofold Marshall Plan, an investment in our own future and in the future of the candidate countries for the 21st century.
I welcome this, and the Austrian presidency, on the basis of these proposals, will try to ensure that this really is uncontroversial.
The decisions taken at the Luxembourg European Council have laid the ground for the enlargement process, an inclusive process with 11 candidates.
The British presidency was very much marked by the formal opening of this process.
We Austrians now believe that it is up to us to maintain the political momentum, and my Minister of State, Mrs Benita Ferrero-Waldner, and I - you could say that it was our innovation - also included the applicant countries in our tour des capitales . We included all 11 of them, because we wanted to send an important signal to these countries from the outset, the message that they now belong to the European family and that we will treat them and keep them informed on equal terms and as partners.
They are, of course, affected by all the decisions that we have to make, be it on Agenda 2000, institutional reform or the enlargement strategy, or on other important foreign policy issues.
We want to initiate substantial negotiations on individual chapters during our presidency.
The Commission is making good progress with 'acquis screening' and we hope that by the end of the year about half of the chapters will have been checked, so that we can really get started with substantial negotiations at a meeting of ministers in November.
I will say quite openly here that it is very important to support the reform process in the applicant countries as well.
We should not have any illusions about this.
Of course, all the candidate countries - and we visited them together - have Eurosceptic political parties, populists and critics who are opposed to enlargement.
It is our job to help and be a source of strength to those people who advocate moving closer to the European Union in a meaningful way and who are arguing for a bold but sometimes also painful process of preparation for accession.
(Applause) Enlargement will not just demand great efforts on the part of our future partners; the Union itself is not yet in a fit shape for these accessions.
I am being quite candid with you about this.
The reforms grouped together under the 'Agenda 2000' banner - agricultural reform, structural reform and the Union's financial framework - are of course particularly important.
Despite the criticisms quite rightly levelled at some individual points by many Member States, they are necessary.
But I believe that the Commission's proposals nevertheless provide a good basis for the political discussions due to start this autumn.
We are certainly aware of the challenges presented by these proposals and by the pressure of time involved.
In Cardiff we essentially decided to bring forward the discussion by nearly nine months.
If we genuinely want to have a package ready by March under the German presidency - and that is also important because we should, if it all possible, have discussed it and reached decisions before the European Parliament elections -, it will really require an incredible effort to get away from nonspecific rhetoric and prepared speeches about principles, and to get really stuck into the grinding work of tough and difficult decisions.
I know that this is not a simple matter, because the programme for 2000-2006 will after all cost a total of 10 000 billion Austrian schillings, and it covers two full parliamentary legislatures.
If you consider how difficult it can often be in nation states to secure an overall programme just for one legislature, then you will see that this is no easy task.
However, we know that if we want to stick to the timetable, we will have to make considerable progress by the Vienna European Council.
The task of finally completing the package and securing agreement on it will fall to the German presidency.
However, we agreed upon a very ambitious and precise timetable at the General Affairs Council on Monday.
This Council is responsible for horizontal coordination and it has to be that way, since all the specialized Councils naturally and quite justifiably bring their special concerns to the negotiating table.
We must be prepared to negotiate at every meeting and to find time for this.
The inclusion of the European Parliament in the legislative decision-making process was one of the hallmarks of the British presidency.
I think it is excellent that over the coming months Parliament will be working intensively on all aspects of Agenda 2000 so as to help ensure completion on time.
I would like to thank you for your willingness to do this and I wish to stress that we in the Council need to be aware that we cannot manage without the support of both our national members of parliament and the directly elected Members of the European Parliament.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Amsterdam Treaty will help to make Europe fit to face the future.
Despite its well-known shortcomings, this new legal framework for the Union will nevertheless result in genuine improvements.
Many people say that this Parliament is one of the winners under the Amsterdam Treaty.
It is true that its role in the codecision procedure was reinforced.
I would just like to remind you that during the Intergovernmental Conference, Austria was, from the outset, always in favour of maximizing the role of the European Parliament and the involvement of representatives of the European Parliament in the negotiations. To sound a critical note, I must add that President Hänsch, who was of course present throughout, was not always sufficiently firm on that.
I think it is a pity that Amsterdam did not take the final steps needed to round off the institutional reform process.
In Cardiff we decided that as soon as the Treaty was ratified, which I hope will be soon, negotiations would begin on the outstanding institutional issues.
We also have to take some important decisions concerning the common foreign and security policy in Vienna; I will return to that later.
Furthermore, we have to prepare for the integration of the Schengen conventions and the Schengen Secretariat into the European Union.
The preparatory work on the implementation of the new codecision procedure, on the revision of the comitology procedure and on proper involvement of Parliament is particularly important.
Work has already begun in this House on a common voting procedure for the European Parliament and on a uniform statute for Members.
I am pleased that some of these subjects are on the agenda of the first part-session during the Austrian presidency.
Seldom in the history of European integration has the European Union faced so many challenges, and for most of them we need our citizens' support.
We therefore welcome the British initiative to institute an in-depth discussion on the future of the Union, and we intend actively to continue this dialogue in the second half of the year.
All too often, we just pay lip service to the concepts of the efficiency of the Union and of its institutions, bringing the Union closer to people, subsidiarity and democratic legitimacy; they are just clichés churned out in soap-box speeches.
(Applause) However, and I shall be quite frank, we will never fire people's enthusiasm for the European cause if we are half-hearted.
I therefore welcome the fact that a special meeting of the Heads of State or Government on this subject is to be organized under the Austrian presidency.
I should say immediately that is a subject that probably cannot be solved in one debate.
It will remain on the agenda, and I regard that as a good thing.
We should all search our own hearts, and in my capacity as President of the General Affairs Council I intend to take this subject seriously and ask our colleagues to consider how we ourselves can help to increase efficiency and achieve greater European coordination. Everyone needs to consider how all the structures of the Commission and the Council can be improved.
Do we have too many Councils now? Is the European cause not sufficiently coordinated at European level?
How can we use the European Council to achieve clearer and more precise decision-making? What role can the European Parliament play in this very important interinstitutional dialogue?
Subsidiarity is an interesting subject - and we provided for and prepared a very good protocol on it in the Amsterdam Treaty - as it can clear the decks for true European work.
There are a lot of subjects that clutter our agendas and prevent us from devoting enough time to the really important issues.
But I will also be quite honest with you: subsidiarity cannot be used to undermine the European cause itself.
The institutions must not be weakened.
(Applause) I also consider that subsidiarity and solidarity should not be set up as opposites. In an ideal world, they should complement each other.
They are both vital elements of tomorrow's civil society.
Without Europe, the nation states can no longer respond to global challenge. I personally am totally convinced of this, and anyone who knows me will tell you that I always say this, no matter where and what I am speaking about, not just in front of the European Parliament; I am always consistent about this.
Without Europe, there is no way of solving the major issues of the future that really interest our citizens: environmental protection, employment policy, respect for human rights and global security.
In those areas we need more Europe and not more nation state or even lower levels, with these clichés about subsidiarity.
(Applause) The best way of firing European citizens with enthusiasm for Europe is to listen to what is important for them, and to put those priorities at the top of our agenda.
It is very interesting that these priorities are pretty much the same in every country in Europe, with employment at the top of the list, followed by concern about a clean environment and a safe home.
And safety, and once again I will be very frank, needs to be understood in the widest possible sense, including security: safety in the face of organized crime of course, secure protection and even security in the military sense.
So this must include everything from security in the social context of solidarity to nuclear safety in the context of dangerous power stations.
(Applause) With the average unemployment rate still over 10 %, creating employment is therefore still the Austrian presidency's number one priority in Europe.
It is a priority for us now, it was a priority during the Intergovernmental Conference, and its concrete implementation will be a priority.
Until now, it has just been part of the lyric poetry, as I like to call it, in many European speeches.
What is new is that we now have tools available to us.
For the first time 15 precise employment programmes have been published, which the Commission has examined with a very critical eye, which I welcome. We can and should learn from each other here in terms of what another Member State has done better than ourselves, where one is ahead of another, and we can also learn from adverse experience.
Many good ideas do not quite work out as planned.
Sir Karl Popper once said that the essence of developed humanity was this: ' Our advantage is that we can let our ideas die in our stead' .
It is important to learn and gain just as much from the failure of our ideas as from success stories.
What is new about the employment guidelines to be agreed in Vienna is that for the first time they will be based on 15 specific and binding national action plans.
Secondly, for the first time this provides a basis for decisions concerning the successful implementation of the single currency.
Eleven countries are taking part in this process, and a further three could participate - as they meet the criteria - if they have the political will and take the necessary political decisions.
I will go even further.
Europe could also do more for employment in very specific areas: on the world stage, in negotiations with the World Trade Organization - which is extremely important - and as regards research and development.
Although as President I should not really be saying this, I shall not conceal my sympathy for many of the European Parliament's ideas about the Fifth Framework Programme, which is of course the springboard for the job concepts and opportunities of tomorrow.
The whole issue of trans-European networks, not to mention proper implementation of environmental technology, equality of opportunity for men and women, improved conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises, education and training for workers, are all key points in our programme.
Regarding the environment, lasting protection of our environment and living conditions are equally important for citizens everywhere.
We therefore quite deliberately intend to implement an active environmental policy, with high environmental standards at home. Above all, we also intend to play a leading role in international negotiations on global environmental problems.
I very much welcome the White Paper on renewable energy.
It is very interesting indeed!
It points to direct and indirect job opportunities for about 800 000 people, such as the Auto-Oil programme, the reduction of the petrol and diesel programme; this is all extremely interesting.
One question that needs to be addressed in the context of enlargement is, of course, nuclear safety standards.
This is highly important and we Austrians are of course particularly affected because of our geographical location.
I will say this quite openly, because I know that some Members would have liked this point to have been officially addressed already; we do not intend to misinterpret this as a bilateral issue.
It should not prevent anyone from joining the European Union.
We do, however, want newer nuclear power stations that can be rehabilitated to meet the highest Western standards, and we want old power stations that can no longer be rehabilitated - like Bohunice, a few kilometres from Vienna - to be closed as quickly as possible, whatever it takes, in the interests of the people there and in the interests of our own citizens.
(Applause) A study has been published today on safety standards at Mochovce.
I do not have a copy myself yet, but I undertake to ensure, either this afternoon or tomorrow, that this safety study is forwarded straight away to the groups in this Parliament, because it will probably be of great interest to the European Parliament.
The Union has to convince its citizens that open borders will not lead to a loss of security.
Internal security will therefore be a real priority for our presidency, in other words, combating organized crime and traffic in human beings.
We are, by the way, preparing an international convention on land and sea at UN level, with all 15 Member States.
We need to strengthen the Union's ability to act on drug trafficking.
I know, from our contacts and visits to central and eastern Europe, that the subject of internal security is also a central issue for the candidate countries.
I would like to make a plea to the Commission in this context: the 11 candidate countries have borders totalling 6 600 km with third countries.
Just imagine that! These are the external borders of the 11 candidate countries, not borders with the Union, not with our neighbouring countries, where we know exactly what problems exist.
It is so important for us to help these countries as regards the environment, trans-European networks and building up institutions, that we should consider - and these countries are calling for this as a matter or urgency - if we could not do more to help them secure their borders, so that we export security and do not end up importing instability.
(Applause) The launching of Europol in the second half of 1998 should, of course, provide a major impetus in this area.
We are also proposing a fair distribution of the refugee burden and the elaboration of a common Union strategy on migration policy.
I would like to touch on another subject that is particularly important to me, namely child protection.
Nothing says more about the standards of a society than how it protects its weakest members.
We have planned some interesting activities.
We want to tackle this issue at UN level.
The subject of child labour is of course extremely significant within the International Labour Organization, and further work on the UN Convention on Children's Rights is equally important.
We must urgently combat the sexual abuse of children - a particularly distressing and painful subject - and the horrifying effects of child pornography on the Internet.
40 % of landmine victims are children, and I believe that the Union can play a major part in this area.
I have followed the action plan proposed by the Commission and approved by the European Parliament with great satisfaction.
Respect for human rights, in theory and in practice, is particularly important this year, in which we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We intend to mark this by arranging an appropriate official event.
There is one subject I would like to mention that is currently highly sensitive and urgent: the financing of NGOs and unblocking finance and budget lines.
At my insistence, we devoted a lot of time to this over lunch at Monday's Council meeting.
560 million ecus or euros are still affected.
200 million of this relates to human rights and this will have devastating consequences if we do not act quickly.
(Heckling from Mr Samland: Tell the finance ministers that!)
That is why I particularly wanted to point out that we decided in Council - and I would also like to thank the Commission for its proposals, which were agreed yesterday - to bring great pressure to bear tomorrow in COREPER so as to resolve this matter, if at all possible.
The Budget Council is on Friday.
We have asked every individual foreign minister to press his cabinet so as to achieve a positive resolution of this problem.
I am also asking for interinstitutional problems to be put slightly to one side here, particularly with a view to unblocking funding for 1998, as hundreds of NGOs are of course highly anxious about the outcome.
I know that the European Parliament takes a very positive view of this.
Foreign policy is naturally a very significant challenge for every Council President.
Compared with other major nations, the European Union is certainly the most important world power after America, in terms of potential.
The EU is far more than a regional power.
It is the driving force of the reshaping of our continent in the post-Soviet era.
It is strategically responsible for its own 500 million members, for 250 million people in the Mediterranean area and for 250 million who live in the territory of the former Soviet Union.
Werner Weidenfeld says that Europe's weakness lies in the current gap between its potential and its political infrastructure, and this combination of potential and weakness make Europe look like a world power in waiting.
To my mind, that is a very fine and significant phrase, and we should forearm ourselves as planned.
During the Austrian presidency I intend to take important measures to ensure that the Planning Cell on foreign policy is really translated into reality.
In Vienna, agreement should be reached on the Secretary-General, who should be a visible personification of foreign policy.
We intend to pursue the foundations laid in the Amsterdam Treaty for closer contact between the EU and the Western European Union; the possibility of an eventual merger has even been touched upon. And internally we need to give some thought, first and foremost, to how we can alleviate conflicts in neighbouring countries.
Just look at the reasons for the various conflicts - Kosovo, which I will return to later if you wish - Bosnia, Transnistria, you find the same pattern everywhere, in other words, unresolved ethnic conflicts, minority disputes, the issue of what degree of autonomy can and will be granted, and the general disintegration of state systems.
The Union must put forward some ideas here.
Kosovo is a subject in its own right, so I shall say nothing here.
As for the Middle East peace process, we are deeply concerned about the continuing standstill in the process for a considerable time now.
We will support every initiative to strengthen trust and cooperation, and we also intend to increase the visibility of the Union in this area.
We also believe that the economic and social situation in the Palestinian territories demands the greatest attention and concern.
The resumption of the Syrian and Lebanese problem is an important factor.
With regard to Turkey, the Austrian presidency has a keen interest in this country's stability and pro-European stance.
We will work towards the normalization and continued development of relations, but this will have to cover all areas, including, of course, human rights, the Cyprus question and the Aegean.
It is important for us to implement the European strategy for Cyprus drawn up by the Commission.
On Cyprus, we intend to offer the United Nations every assistance in resuming the peace process, which must in any case remain open to the Turkish-Cypriot linguistic community.
We must continue to seek their participation, because I believe that joint negotiations would give both ethnic groups an enormous impetus for the peace process.
I know very well that six months is a short time.
You cannot change the world that quickly, and even Europe is slow to move.
We will therefore make a deliberate effort to involve the previous presidency, with which we have maintained very close contact, including contact at a personal level.
I wish to take this opportunity to thank the British presidency, and also the forthcoming Germany presidency, with which we also wish to encourage intensive and harmonious cooperation, so that we can make as much progress as possible in all these important issues.
We have a good many things to complete that were started by the British.
Likewise, the Germans will take many things over from us, and the more efficient the Austrian presidency is, the easier it will be for them to do so.
This presidency is naturally something rather special for us, as it is our first.
For many of you from founding states it is quite routine.
My friend Jacques Poos calmly told me that he had lived through four presidencies and that he would be glad to offer me advice.
But for us it is, of course, the first time.
We have therefore prepared ourselves well and we need the support of our partners in the Council.
We need and are seeking cooperation with the European Parliament and with the European Commission.
We do not have any historic or dazzling events lined up, but that does not worry us at all.
A lot of people keep referring to the Congress of Vienna, but I shall not, because you know what they said about the Congress of Vienna in 1815: it did not work, it danced.
The Congress danced, but it did not achieve anything.
It is our ambition to celebrate as little as possible but to work all the harder.
There is one important difference: the Congress of Vienna of 1814-1815 was in fact dominated by the big five, who essentially carved up Europe at the expense of the smaller countries.
Things are very different now.
The new idea of Europe is that there are 15 equal partners, each of which is equally important, even if some are larger and some are smaller, and they have to live with each other.
That is our task.
So we have a working presidency ahead of us, and we hope that you will support us in this work.
(Applause)
Thank you very much, Mr Schüssel.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, every Council presidency is of course faced with the problem of being both able and required to promise a great deal.
I hope that you will be able to achieve as many as possible of the things that you have presented today.
You are dependent on other people's help. In most cases, you can count on the support of the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party in this House.
I would like to mention two points in particular.
The first is enlargement.
I would especially like a debate on the issue of the timing of enlargement.
I believe that there should be only one criterion for the admission of these applicant countries: as soon as these countries have implemented their democratic and human rights reforms, and as soon as they have made their economy capable of competing in the internal market, then they should have the right to accession.
They should not be denied this right until the Western Member States, who have a great lead, decide that their own economy is fit to face competition from the economic systems of our eastern neighbours, which have been weakened by decades of planned economy, when they decide that they are willing to be exposed to this competition.
That would be an absolute disgrace for Europe!
I expect the Austrian presidency to make it perfectly clear that these countries have the right of accession as soon as the requirements are met, and not just when it suits us!
Secondly, institutional reform got short shrift both in your speech today and also in your written programme.
Yes, there is a reference to the, as I see it, rather strange summit in October, which will not perhaps be pointless if the Heads of State or Government hold an exchange of views on subsidiarity and bringing Europe closer to its citizens, or even a quite general discussion on the future of Europe. However, the initial pronouncements, the reasons for having the summit at all, bode ill.
The most powerful Heads of State or Government in the European Union probably intend to cut back the powers of the Commission and, in particular, the Commissioner responsible for competition, who takes his job very seriously.
I think it would be disastrous if that happened!
Small countries have only legal stability and the Treaty on their side.
The Commission is the guardian of the Treaties' observance.
So everything must be done to prevent this pruning of the Commission's authority in this central role; I hope that you will live up to your remarks today, and that you will succeed in this.
In any case, I believe that the Intergovernmental Conference or rather the institutional summit in Austria in October will only have one purpose, and that is to continue the work in which the Heads of State or Government so recently failed, by which I mean institutional reform under the Amsterdam Treaty.
The most important task here is to get over the blockade preventing further steps towards integration by abolishing the unanimity rule.
This is an area where the Council and the European Union in general cannot start thinking soon enough, and they should take advantage of the extraordinary summit in October.
Bringing Europe closer to its citizens means more democracy in the European Union, more Parliament and more democratic structures.
This is what institutional reform should aim to achieve, and I hope that you, too, will accept responsibility in this area.
I hope and expect that you will commit all your goodwill and your good intentions to achieving this, and I am convinced that you will!
(Applause)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, it is first of all a pleasure to be able to welcome someone who is presiding over the Council for the first time and who has done so today in such an authoritative way with that very important speech.
However, the tasks that await the Austrian presidency are so ambitious, as the President himself said, that naturally there will be a tremendous amount of work to do.
There is first of all the question of a political Europe, Mr President-in-Office: the euro's introduction is clearly a major step forward towards the integration of European countries, but it has made Europe look technocratic, with an operation that has started at the top and that has not involved citizens at the bottom.
This, Mr President-in-Office, is the first point that you will be able to tackle: a citizens' Europe is created through the democratic control of the decisions taken, not through a technocratic Europe.
The second point is the common foreign and security policy.
Too often we have heard in this Parliament that Europe needs to be represented in the world with one strong, uniform voice that carries.
Well, what kind of image has Europe been projecting these past few months, these past years? A divided Europe, a Europe bordering on ridicule when it intervenes in the crisis areas of the world, a Europe that carries no weight, that is forced to ask its American friends to help it solve the problems in its own back yard.
So, Mr President-in-Office, enough with a Europe of 15 political dwarves; we want a Europe that carries real political weight at European level.
As for the issue of enlargement, well, we cannot deal with that using accounting methods.
We are not accountants, we should not be pointing our finger at some economic index of the various countries that have asked to join us.
Enlargement means political enlargement, and we must look at the underlying reasons for this.
Europe is a dream of freedom and democracy for these countries that are asking to join what for them has been for so long precisely only a dream of freedom and democracy.
The last point and the most important concerns unemployment.
Mr President-in-Office, there is too much rhetoric here, but the figures on unemployment in Europe show that Europe is on the wrong road, with a welfare state that is too cumbersome, too rigid, too excessive and unjust; one that takes resources away from investments.
The message we should give is one of flexibility, less taxation, less bureaucracy: we therefore want freer trade, a larger market and more competition.
Only when the consumer citizen is able to choose a service, the best service at the lowest price possible, will Europe become genuinely more social and interdependent.
Madam President, our group wishes the Austrian presidency success in its first term at the head of the European Union, but that success will depend on achieving results in the management of the affairs which have been declared priorities: employment, enlargement and the environment.
As regards employment, we hope that the Vienna European Council in December will verify the effectiveness of the national plans, and that they can be coordinated in order to fulfill the hopes raised in Luxembourg.
Since Austria has the second lowest unemployment rate in the EU, we hope its experience can be used to achieve results, especially to combat youth unemployment and to promote equality between men and women as regards job access.
In the field of enlargement, the presidency will have to work quickly to study the compatibility between the candidate countries' legislations and that of the EU, so as to be able to initiate discussions during this term of office on some of the 26 chapters of the negotiations, in the knowledge that transition periods will have to be established to avoid causing shocks in such sensitive sectors as agriculture or the free movement of workers.
We value Austria's role as a bridge between the EU and the countries of central and eastern Europe, but we also want to remind the presidency of the importance of negotiations with the legitimate government of Cyprus, which should include, if possible, a representation from the Turkish Cypriot community, without any interference or blackmail from the Turkish government.
Before enlargement, we think it is essential to achieve the institutional reform which failed so resoundingly at the Amsterdam European Council.
That means that decisive steps need to be taken in the informal summit planned for October, within the framework of a debate which should be attended by the President of the European Parliament.
We think the public should be aware of the proposal for institutional reform at the time of the 1999 elections, so it can be debated and legitimized.
There would be no sense in talking about public opinion and public participation if, at the same time, at the most important moment of commitment between the citizens and their representatives, we were unable to inform public opinion of the proposals of the Council and the European institutions as regards institutional reform.
Furthermore, we have to address the difficult subject of simultaneously funding enlargement and the internal solidarity of the Member States.
We could talk about the North-South solidarity of the countries of the EU.
An own resources ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP is totally inadequate to maintain the objective of economic and social cohesion, and that is what defines the current Community budget and its great limitations.
It is essential to exceed 1.3 % of GNP, and in order to do so consideration should be given to the setting up of a fifth resource which takes account of the relative wealth of the Member States.
With respect to the environment, we are pleased that the Austrian presidency's position supports respect for the Community acquis in the enlargement negotiations, and takes account of the sensitive issues of nuclear plants. It is also necessary for the environmental dimension to be incorporated into all the policies of the EU.
It must be pointed out to the Austrian presidency that there is concern over a possible acceptance of low environmental standards in the candidate countries.
Finally, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we hope the Austrian presidency will ensure the presence of the EU for a fair solution to the Kosovo problem.
We also hope it plays an active role in ensuring that the self-determination referendum takes place in Western Sahara, under the auspices of the United Nations, not just because it is important to allow the Saharan people to express their will, after 20 years of war, but also because it guarantees European security from the southern shore of the Mediterranean.
I especially want to congratulate the presidency on its concept of security, which includes not only defence but also the environment and social cohesion.
That is what many of us believe in, and for that reason we are very happy to support the presidency and wish it success.
Thank you for having whet our appetite in this way, Mrs Roth.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Austria is taking on the presidency of the Council of Ministers of the Union for the first time and this raises a great deal of interest and also some very pleasing images.
Personally, I feel extremely confident as I have good memories, very good memories, of our collaboration with Austria when I was Secretary-General of the Council of Europe.
Your knowledge of central and eastern Europe, your concern for a balance between East and West, and the broad experience of the Austrian diplomatic services are all qualities which lead us to have high expectations.
Mr President-in-Office, let me pick up on a number of your priorities.
Firstly, enlargement of the Union may not be the highest priority of the next six months, but it is probably in this field that your geographic situation, your history and your political experience can help us to overcome many obstacles.
More than anyone else, you know why it is essential that central Europe joins us and more than anyone else you also feel anxious in the face of an enlargement which risks both disrupting employment in your country through an excessive influx of workers and competing strongly with your agriculture, to mention but two issues.
But Austria is also well placed to be a link, a bridge between central Europe and countries such as my own, which are not adjoining the CEECs and which, when all is said and done, know very little about them; yet without them enlargement would be a failure.
This enlargement cannot be reduced to a privileged one-to-one encounter between neighbours even if, culturally and economically, Germany and Austria are in the front line.
Secondly, although for our citizens it is the major preoccupation, during your presidency you are going to have to continue efforts at encouraging employment.
For pity's sake, Mr President, do something!
If only we could mobilize ourselves around employment as we have done around the euro.
I know full well that we cannot force companies to take people on, but the Union could create a favourable environment and mobilize the means it has at its disposal.
Some progress can be observed, but there remains so, so much to be done.
Lack of time prevents me from going into detail on the other priorities of your presidency, such as the necessary institutional reforms or the perfecting of Agenda 2000; on this subject I, too, am concerned with regard to the ceiling on expenditure as proposed by the Commission. However, I would like to conclude by mentioning the choice you have made in giving Vienna a special place in the 50th anniversary celebrations for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This is an excellent choice.
When I think back to the role of Austria within the Council of Europe, I can bear witness to your country's deep commitment to the defence of human rights and I wholeheartedly wish that this role may now be continued to the benefit of the European Union.
There is one last point which seems to me to augur well: the invitation to the Turkish President, Mr Demirel.
Whatever the difficulties in our relations with that great country, there are gestures which need to be made in order to iron out regrettable mistakes.
I recognize with pleasure the traditional role of Austria in this, just like during Chancellor Kreisky's time, with the hand held out to all.
Madam President, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, I would like to congratulate Austria on assuming the presidency.
I hope the statements by Austria and the Foreign Minister on the principle of subsidiarity will turn out to be more than lip service.
Five years down the line after the Maastricht Treaty, we now have 50 % more regulations to keep track of in Brussels.
The Union has reached the Orwellian stage of language covering the opposite of content.
Subsidiarity now means that 20 Commissioners in Brussels have sole rights to propose whether a decision should be made by themselves or by the citizens and their elected legislators.
A proposed legal basis can only be changed if all 15 countries agree.
Can 15 foxes agree to protect a chicken? One single special interest on the part of one country can prevent power from being handed back to Member States, national and regional parliaments and elected representatives.
I will make a gloomy prognosis that when Austria hands over the reins to Germany, and when Germany in turn - after much talk about the principle of subsidiarity - hands over the reins yet again, the mountain of legislation will be stacked as high as the Alps.
What is said is one thing, but what actually happens is the complete opposite.
Another example is the recent adoption of the proposed rule governing Members of Parliament, giving us a uniform, higher salary. The proposal would make us the representatives of Brussels in the Member States.
In the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, we believe it is better for us to represent the Member States in the EU.
Where in the Member States can you find people who would advocate paying ECU 1000 for a ECU 500 trip?
Who has been out demonstrating for us to have higher salaries? In its present form, the proposed rule would distance us further from the electorate and it would not conform to the principle of subsidiarity.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Austria, Sweden and Finland joined the European Union just over three years ago.
Austria is the first of these countries to hold the presidency.
This is a highly responsible job, a difficult job, which, if it is done well, can earn great respect.
Some of the themes in the presidency's programme are bound to be dictated in advance.
Agenda 2000 represents an enormous project which needs to be negotiated.
President Santer hopes that this project will move forward apace under the Austrian presidency.
It is hoped that during the Austrian presidency we can establish not only options but also specific elements for constructive completion of this project, which will involve the difficult task of reconciling various different interests.
One specific example of this, because we all know that the devil lies in the detail, is structural reform of the Cohesion Fund.
Three of the four cohesion countries are participating in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union.
This suggests that the basic requirement for this Fund no longer exists.
What is the presidency's position on this issue, and how does it intend to negotiate an agreement?
My second example is: how does the presidency intend to achieve a settlement of the so-called net contributor debate? It is obvious that there is a wide gulf between Germany's demands for fair burden sharing and the Spanish proposal to tap new sources of income.
My third example is institutional reform.
The future of the Union and its scope for enlargement very much depend on this complex subject, and yet it scarcely features in the written presidency programme at all.
So I am all the more delighted that you have promised today to take on this subject, Mr Schüssel, in contrast to your previous statements.
My fourth example is this: many of you may not think it all that important that a country like Austria, which immediately borders onto the eastern European countries, is inevitably concerned about high safety standards in nuclear power stations near the border.
This is by no means a minority problem or a peripheral subject in Europe.
I could continue with this list of subjects almost ad infinitum , but my speaking time is limited.
When Austria assumed the presidency, there was a lot of talk in our country about how much scope the presidency offers to really influence things.
In their initiative at Cardiff, Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Kohl reminded us of the importance of bringing Europe closer to the citizen.
The Austrian President, Dr Klestil, also touched on this subject in this House a few months ago.
Transparency, bringing Europe closer to the people, the question of what powers Brussels should reasonably have: these are vital issues in building the 'House of Europe' .
Apart from today's solemn declaration of intent, there is also the question of what specific contribution the Austrian presidency will make to it.
Only when we get a concrete answer to this question will we know to what extent Europe's citizens are prepared to carry on building the 'House of Europe' .
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen. Mr President-in-Office, you said that the Union itself has to become capable of enlargement.
We, the European Parliament, will be doing everything we can to ensure that Agenda 2000 is adopted by the end of this legislature.
However, let me ask the Council not to forget that there are deadlines to be observed, and that Parliament must have an opportunity to have its say at the end of the whole process.
The final whistle will blow in May!
You said that the German presidency would table the decision in March.
All well and good, but that is the last chance if Parliament is going to decide by May.
After that, time is up.
So, and I am saying this as a German, do not leave too much to the Germans!
My second comment is that thanks to Kohl and Chirac you now have a extraordinary summit.
It will talk about making the Union more efficient, more able to act, bringing it closer to the people, and demarcating its powers more clearly.
It really reads like a list of jobs not done in Amsterdam.
You should have been able to get all that done in Amsterdam!
(Applause) But you did not get it done.
Well, it is good that we are talking about it now.
I am reminded of Schiller's Wallenstein , ' The Piccolomini' , Act One, Scene One: ' You have arrived late, but you have arrived!'
Well, that is something at any rate.
If the discussion at the extraordinary summit simply leads to some improvement in the Council's work, that alone would be an excellent outcome of the summit.
Thirdly, I will mention subsidiarity.
I would like to stress that your own comment means that the European cause has to be taken seriously.
Subsidiarity does not mean less Europe; it means more Europe, with Europe really achieving something.
Let me give you two examples. Our citizens expect that with the introduction of the euro, Europe will now agree on a common fiscal, budgetary and economic policy.
We need a sort of economic government.
But it is not only Bonn that is balking at that, but others too.
It is not enough and it is wrong to constantly complain about Europe's impotence in the Balkans and at the same time to refuse to give Europe more power.
That applies to the foreign ministers as well.
Nevertheless, I wish that governments would stop talking about what Europe cannot do - especially at the extraordinary summit - and instead talk about what Europe should do!
Finally, Mr President-in-Office, it is not so much a question of uniting Europe to avoid history repeating itself, but rather a question of making it clear to our citizens and to ourselves that we must unite Europe so that Europe can assert itself in the world of the future!
(Applause)
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, people's expectations of any new presidency are great, especially when a young member of the EU is taking on the job for the first time.
As you have heard here today, the confidence we have in Austria is equally great.
As the presidency changes every six months, which many justifiably consider to be an inherent weakness in the EU, we need to keep our feet on the ground and neither exaggerate nor play down these expectations.
The scope for action is dictated in advance.
At the Cardiff Summit the Union imposed a deadline on itself.
The intention is to deliver the reforms of the common agricultural policy and of the Structural Funds, and to lay the foundations of the future financial framework, by March next year, in other words just before the European Parliament elections.
It will be up to the Austrian presidency to present an overall package with options for a definitive solution.
This is a mammoth political task and you have had a taste here in Parliament of the immense differences of interest within the European Union.
You will have to reconcile the differences between net contributors and net recipients, between those afraid of being milked and those afraid of being short-changed.
The need to achieve a consensus is therefore the order of the day, together with a conviction on the part of Europe that solidarity in the European Union must clearly offer something in the interest of fair burden sharing.
For this reason alone, Parliament must be involved in making a decision on Agenda 2000 in good time, as Mr Hänsch has just said.
I am delighted that you want to work on the continued development of the interinstitutional dialogue.
I hear the good tidings and I am not lacking in personal faith.
This process started under the British presidency, and it now needs to be consolidated under the Austrian presidency.
There is too much at stake to keep Parliament on the sidelines on the preparation of Agenda 2000, which is supposed, after all, to prepare the European Union for the new millennium and the period beyond.
The fact is that our citizens are directly represented through this body.
It is here that the much-trumpeted subsidiarity can become a reality, and Europe's citizens are expecting it to be given a fresh impetus.
You in particular were influential in calling for the employment title to be included in the Amsterdam Treaty, as a commitment to concern about jobs.
The EU should not run out of steam now that the euro is to be introduced.
The economic boost expected from the euro must be reflected in fresh growth and new jobs, especially for young people.
But that alone is not enough.
Research with applications in industry must be encouraged.
I urge you as President-in-Office of the Council to work for a high-powered version of the Fifth Framework Programme for Research.
That is no place to make savings, it would be a false economy.
The European Union, and on this I am totally in agreement with you, needs to be strengthened at all levels, as otherwise it will not be in a position to make the project of the century, the enlargement of the European Union, a reality.
If we look around, at the Kosovo crisis, at the tension in Cyprus, and at the impasse in the Middle East, then we can only draw one conclusion, and that is how important it is to strengthen Europe from the centre, and that means accelerating from the centre and dynamizing the enlargement process.
You have declared your intention to do this.
My colleagues and I in the European Parliament will support you.
This, too, will strengthen the credibility of the European Union, and you will have to play an important part in achieving this.
Mr President, I welcome the first Austrian presidency.
I sense clearly that Austria wishes to serve between the British and the German presidency.
I welcome that.
Unfortunately, the Austrian presidency will not dance in 1998 but maybe we will be able to play football, because you often find solidarity and unity in this type of innocent but profound human manifestation.
I agree with the sentiments of promoting efficiency in the Union and implementing subsidiarity, but a number of concrete measures relating to efficiency are missing.
It is and remains necessary for institutional reorganization to take place before enlargement. I have not heard much about this.
The President-in-Office has held forth extensively on security; this is unfortunately influenced by unemployment, and, of course, by growing crime.
Would it not be marvellous if the Austrian presidency, precisely Austria, would finally bring the mafia, which advances from eastern Europe, to a halt? We all know that the first assaults took place a few weeks ago in Budapest.
I would welcome clear and concrete measures by the Austrian presidency.
Would a Member State, that is, the Netherlands, please finally call for the battle against crime to be taken seriously and for the arrest of the former dictator of Surinam, an internationally-wanted drugs dealer?
As far as stability is concerned, enlargement does play an important role, but would the Austrian President not only keep the states in central Europe in mind but also support the Mediterranean policy.
I am concerned, as the negotiations with Egypt have gone on for three years now.
The country which was the first to throw itself into the peace process in the Middle East now risks not participating in the Mediterranean agreements before the end of the mandate of this Parliament. Austria, I call on you to do something!
Austria, I see the elderly were not mentioned in your speech.
120 million citizens in Europe are over fifty years old!
The introduction of the euro should not be at their cost.
The have promoted the economic success of Europe.
Please remember the elderly!
I am pleased that you wish to protect children, but you should also protect the elderly.
In conclusion, Mr President-in-Office, with the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, I would ask you for an initiative: there are 4000 EU citizens in prisons outside the EU.
They are deprived of all legal support and, unfortunately, sometimes of diplomatic support also.
Please take the initiative and start a fund to offer appropriate legal support to these citizens; then they, too, will regain confidence in Europe.
Madam President, I wish to point out that the speech of the President-in-Office of the Council was both measured and forward-looking.
We are expecting a great deal from the Austrian presidency.
I noted that he mentioned the subject of the rapprochement of Turkey with Europe together with human rights and the Cyprus issue.
He has perhaps forgotten the Kurdish problem, although he mentioned the importance of promoting the Cyprus issue.
I wish to put one issue to the President-in-Office and to ask him one question.
We are entering a critical period in relation to Turkey, Cyprus and the rest.
Turkey is calling into question the right of Cyprus - an independent country - to have its own defence.
Now there are open threats of war and military measures.
Two days ago, Mr Clerides, the President of the Republic of Cyprus, met President Yeltsin and publicly announced his intention that Cyprus will not go ahead with its deployment of S-300s, since Turkey has taken steps towards demilitarization, and that progress would be made towards a solution of the Cyprus issue.
What will the Austrian presidency contribute and how will it strengthen this initiative? I would like an answer from the President-in-Office.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, as you have seen, the start of each Council presidency is a time for fine phrases and good wishes.
By the end, the praise is sparing: by the fruits of your labours shall ye be known.
Parliament and the European public will pass judgement come December.
I am convinced that at the end of the year Parliament's palate will be sufficiently discerning to decide whether the delicate outer case that you have served up today contains a substantial filling or just hot air.
We already know what people in Europe expect and we must say it today - jobs, democracy and a fair distribution of wealth.
Those are the deficiencies that people are suffering from.
Those are the criteria by which your presidency will be judged.
Many people waiting at the gates of Europe expect to be admitted into an area of peace and stability in the Union.
The programme that you have presented today, Mr President-in-Office, gives rise to a number of concerns.
What you do not sow, you cannot reap!
If you do not recognize the existence of problems, you cannot solve them.
You have not addressed the urgent questions relating to democratic reform in your programme today.
You have not said a word about the programme for the extraordinary summit, which Parliament is pinning certain hopes on, as it is after all the continuation of a protracted debate.
As Mr Hänsch has already said, the Council has put the European Union in this position because of its failure in Amsterdam, and you have not been able to allay our fears today.
I welcome your critical remarks and reservations about subsidiarity.
However, I regret that you have said nothing about the need to overcome the democratic deficit, which lies chiefly in the Council. Are you prepared to make sure that openness prevails in the Council's law-making?
Are you prepared to subject the area of justice and internal cooperation to constitutional checks, that is judicial and parliamentary checks? Are you prepared to use this extraordinary summit finally to tackle the institutional reform that the Council has dragged out for so long?
These questions remain unresolved, as do questions about the future of codecision by Parliament, its budgetary sovereignty, common electoral law, a catalogue of fundamental rights, and so on.
This is no time for transitional presidencies, it is a time for vision!
It is not true that the political dynamism of Europe simply needs to be upheld.
It needs to be recovered.
This presidency needs to be an icebreaker!
As far as social affairs go, I did not hear a single word about fiscal harmonization, which is one of your own Finance Minister's ambitions.
Not a word about reducing working hours or about a common economic policy!
I hope that these gaps can still be filled, so that we are talking about a real filling.
Unfortunately, up to now it all looks suspiciously like hot air!
Madam President, Prime Minister Blair concluded at the end of the British presidency that his presidency had been successful, because relations between the European Union and Great Britain had improved, amongst other things.
The start of the Austrian presidency is an opportune moment to formulate our expectations clearly.
The presidency of the European Union is not to be used to build better relations with the other Member States this time.
The Austrian presidency has made it known that they will devote a lot of time to the issue of work over the next six months. This is a clear policy point, and we will return to this for evaluation.
However, we hope that the presidency will not devote itself to this exclusively. The next mini-summit in Vienna will deal with institutional reforms.
It is becoming increasingly clear that European citizens do not consider themselves to be represented by the European Parliament amongst others.
The presidency must therefore make improvements in the institutional area also.
In addition, there is another important matter which Austria should address, the European Union's plans regarding enlargement towards the East.
This can no longer be postponed; effective action is required here.
The presidency has also announced its priorities with regard to the environment.
The focus is naturally on the CO2 policy, as the next Conference of the Parties in Buenos Aires is imminent.
It would be splendid if the European Union would be in a position there to boast of a fine effective policy in this area. I refer to the policy for reducing fuel consumption in cars and trucks.
Concluding international agreements with industry as happens presently is not sufficient.
I do not expect these to be effective. The effects will be minimal in the long term.
What is needed is a range of strict legal requirements for fuel consumption for the different sizes of car engines; in other words, a proposal for a directive.
Technically, a great deal is possible.
Then you would really steal the show in Buenos Aires.
This is the first time that Austria wields the presidential gavel.
We hope that this first turn will be a successful one and we wish Austria all the best.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, at the beginning of your speech you quite rightly said that we need a means of preventing wars and that the enlargement of the European Union was an important component of this, as was a common foreign and security policy.
It is precisely in the area of common foreign and security policy that there is great potential in implementing the Amsterdam Treaty.
This will have to be achieved during your presidency, before the Vienna Summit.
We shall have to see whether the potential of the new troika, the planning and strategy unit, whether the decision-making potential will really lead to a higher level of European added value or whether it will just be a continuation of the classic intergovernmental approach of 'old policies in new bottles' .
I believe that you have a key role to play here.
Much the same applies to the integration of the Schengen Agreement.
We as a Parliament will watch very closely whether national bureaucrats negotiate to keep more elements of Schengen in the third pillar than necessary, instead of transferring them to the first pillar as envisaged in the Amsterdam Treaty.
There may well be a big row over this, if my information about the present state of negotiations in COREPER and in other bodies is correct.
So I would like specifically to draw your attention to this now.
Another point I would like to touch upon is this: you are quite right in saying that we have not made sufficient progress with the institutional reforms needed for enlargement, and that at the extraordinary summit, and after it, we will have to put the necessary conditions in a context that still has to be sorted out here.
I am sure it is evident that the European Parliament must have the last word on the ratification of the enlargement treaties.
Please remember, when work is being done on preparing institutional reforms - which we regard as a condition for enlargement -, to make sure that the agenda and the conduct of the agenda are arranged in such a way that the European Parliament, too, is satisfied with the institutional reforms, so that enlargement is not jeopardized.
That is why I believe it advisable to hold the necessary dialogue with the European Parliament at a very early stage.
This should not just take the form of motions for resolutions that the European Parliament kindly forwards to you; it must also be pursued at other levels and in a constructive manner.
Similarly, we also need to look at subsidiarity.
If you are going to deal with subsidiarity at the extraordinary summit, you need to realize that this has to be geared towards the present Treaty text.
This means that one of the two parties to the codecision procedure, namely the European Parliament, needs to have a similar view of subsidiarity to that of the summit.
If the summit interprets it differently from the European Parliament, you can forget the summit!
If that were the case, we would not follow that model, and given the possibilities open to us, the policy would continue as before.
That is why it is also important to involve the European Parliament in the preparations for the summit.
We must make it clear that we have to find new instruments, or perhaps rediscover old ones.
For instance, directives could once again be adopted in the form of framework directives, thus creating the necessary frame of reference at European level, but giving national legislatures sufficient latitude.
It is certainly not acceptable for the Council to inform us what we can do, and then cram everything it wants into its own decision-making process, and try to stop us to boot!
This needs to be done through cooperation between the Council and the European Parliament.
We also need to recognize that this will only work if the Council reforms itself properly.
Lastly, I have to say - and Klaus Hänsch has already referred to this - that the method adopted up to now by the Council in legislating on general matters is one of the biggest jokes in the European Union!
In this area, the Council, just like Parliament, needs to reorganize itself if it is to fulfil its legislative role.
If this clear division between the Council as executive and legislature is not recognized and this leads to a lack of clear guidelines, then you can decide whatever you want about subsidiarity, but it will not make any difference.
That is your homework!
(Applause)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, shaping Economic and Monetary Union is not a job that can be left until 1 January; it has to start now.
That means that the form of economic policy cooperation will have to be the central theme of the Austrian presidency because - for the first time - there will be several Euro-11 Councils during this Austrian presidency.
We in the European Parliament cannot emphasize enough how important it is that, on the one hand, the reconciliation process between the countries in the euro area should work, and that, on the other hand, links with the Economic and Financial Affairs Council should be maintained.
Accordingly, it is a matter of particular concern to us that the informal Ecofin Councils and also the Euro-11 Councils should be conducted with more transparency and information for the outside world than has been the case in the past.
After all, we are all affected by the decisions taken here in these vital areas affecting the economy, growth and employment.
The stability programmes that the Euro-11 countries will have to submit will also be discussed for the first time during the Austrian presidency.
I would like to remind you that it was the European Parliament that specifically succeeded in getting investment trends in both the public and private sectors included in the stability programmes.
I would welcome an undertaking from the Austrian presidency that it will not just be a question of analysing, but also - and above all - of developing, because what the European Union lacks is the organization of growth in the private and public sectors.
We really cannot afford that if we genuinely want to fight mass unemployment.
This is a fatal weakness in the European Union, and the stability programmes are accordingly very important.
However, they should not adopt an excessively rigid approach nor should they frustrate our other political endeavours.
The stability programmes should not lead to a situation whereby the convergence plans of the 'pre-ins' are implemented more strictly than stipulated in the Maastricht Treaty; we do not want to end up with a split.
I would like to make one more point.
The Austrian presidency has quite rightly pointed out that the last hour of that presidency will mark the end of the 14-currency Europe and the transition to a single currency for the 11 countries in the euro area.
This old continent has actually managed to meet present-day challenges by creating a new and single currency.
In the field of economic policy coordination I would also like to see us making a start during the Austrian presidency on interinstitutional agreements, on the multilateral surveillance procedure, on the procedure for excessive government deficits and on economic policy orientation.
We need Parliament, the Council and the Commission to act as partners, and it would be good if the Austrian presidency could finally tackle this issue in the interest of democratizing the European Union's decision-making processes.
Despite the experience of the Congress of Vienna, Austria is required to arrange the celebration of the happy event on 31 December, on New Year's Eve, to mark the birth of that beautiful baby, the euro, to the proud parents.
I believe that the euro must be ushered in such a way that everyone in the European Union, and above all its citizens, will know it is welcome.
Madam President, I should first like to congratulate the Austrian presidency on its ambitious programme, and wish it luck and good results.
You are right, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, when you say that six months is not long enough for this presidency or any other to be able to resolve each and every one of the problems currently faced by the EU.
But what we can hope for from the Austrian presidency is that, by forging consensus, uniting wills and doing the most difficult thing of all, that is, seeing things from the point of view of the common interest, it will be possible to bring about substantial progress in all the aspects which have been mentioned by the previous speakers.
All of that, obviously, should lay the foundations to strengthen and reform EU policies, so as to be able to produce a favourable impact with enlargement, an improvement in people's living conditions, steady growth and job creation.
As Mr Brok said, there is an obvious need for institutional reform, and I think something which particularly interests me comes under this heading: subsidiarity.
To this end, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I am glad you have not succumbed to the biased, demagogic, manipulative use of this principle which some people use to try to achieve an emergency stop or a change of direction in the project of political union.
They are the same people who accuse the European Commission of being a bunch of stateless bureaucrats, when the truth is that without their decisive impetus and their will, the project could not have reached the stage of development it is currently at, which is of course plain to see.
There are three questions which interest me particularly in this respect.
The Austrian presidency has mentioned the importance of the principle of subsidiarity.
I would like to know how that presidency stands as regards the debate on the financial perspectives and, specifically, the recent debate on Community own resources.
The second question is whether the Austrian presidency plans a prompt follow-up to the agreements reached in May with the United States on extra-territorial legislation.
Thirdly, how does the Austrian presidency view and plan to approach relations with the countries of Latin America, and what preparations does it intend to make, in agreement with the German presidency, with a view to the forthcoming summit of the Heads of State and Government of the EU and Latin America? What role does it intend to give the European Parliament in that summit, given that Parliament participates in the internal summits of EU Heads of State and Government as everybody knows?
I am just finishing, Madam President.
As you said, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, time is the measure of all things, and I hope that in six months' time, when we meet here again to take stock of the achievements of the Austrian presidency, the results are as good as the ambitions and objectives of the programme you have presented to us here this morning.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the current President-in-Office of the Council for this truly political report. I say political because, in my opinion, it is very concrete, very operative, very responsible.
This is how you earn the credibility and regain the trust of European citizens.
You said, Mr President-in-Office, that it will be a presidency dominated by work and not play.
It is necessary to be at the building site; it is not necessary to be planning new building sites.
The site is already open and has taken a particular turn with the euro; as President Delors said, it is time to get down to work, and in this sense I believe that, if the Austrian presidency is an operative presidency - as you promised, Mr President-in-Office, - it will be a valuable presidency that will be remembered.
I also thank you, Mr President-in-Office, because everyone knows the importance of this upcoming political period, albeit difficult, that awaits us: we are facing elections in Germany, and even the European Parliament is nearing the end of the legislature.
I thank you, Mr President-in-Office, because we were afraid that the Austrian presidency's programme would give in to the temptation of becoming a programme at the end of a legislature: this it is not, and we are pleased that it is not the case.
In this spirit I would like to mention a few practical matters that you indicated.
I am referring in particular to one: trans-European networks.
I believe that this presidency would be a presidency remembered in my country if we could find a solution in this second half of the year to the problem of railway transport through the Brenner pass which in a way is blocking the connection of all of central Europe with the Mediterranean.
In addition to this, there is the problem of breaking the deadlock on the Malpensa 2000 airport which concerns the entire Mediterranean economy and that is, therefore, not just a national problem.
I would like to recall that there are certainly problems to be solved in Italy, but we have the impression - I say this especially to President Santer - that the Commission's attitude also depends on the influence and pressure of a few strong interests in Europe.
You are right on unemployment: after the euro we have to translate words into action in this area.
The national states have to give up some powers, because a few problems like unemployment - and I am thinking about unemployment in the southern areas of various European countries - need a real boost at Community level to be solved.
I have a last and final question, Mr President-in-Office: you told us that the European Union is not ready to organize accession.
Let us prepare it!
We cannot have new countries join a Europe that is paralysed, that is unable to decide.
So, what we expect from the Vienna Summit is this: the Amsterdam Treaty has to be reexamined, amended and the reforms have to be made before - I repeat, before - the process of accession gets under way. However, my question is this: how can we make these reforms?
Who do we make them with? Your country being a small one, Mr President-in-Office, it can allow itself to ask the larger countries these two questions that we are all aware of but do not dare raise.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, thank you for coming here today. In my capacity as general rapporteur for the 1999 budget, I have complete confidence in your spirit of cooperation.
I would like to thank you for having mentioned one of the most important of today's burning issues: the legal bases, - in other words, the unblocking of the budget lines currently in hand.
I also note that you have managed to convince the foreign ministers, or they have convinced themselves.
But I can assure you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that on Friday, 17 July the finance ministers must be convinced, because they will be the ones in charge, and we will meet face to face on 17 July.
You are also aware that the European Parliament cannot renounce its political priorities.
Nor are we prepared to accept only a few budget lines being sorted out; the ones the Council likes. We are going to have to come to a general, overall and binding agreement.
Above all, we are not going to accept a patching up which only settles the 1998-99 period. We need something that aims towards Agenda 2000 and is binding on that.
Furthermore, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, both Parliament and myself would have liked to have had a budgetary procedure consisting of just one reading this year.
One reading would be the result of good cooperation, and would make that fateful game of taking things off and putting things on between the two readings by the Council and Parliament a thing of the past.
In that way, we could produce a real budget of political priorities, not just book-keeping.
I wish you a fruitful presidency and we in Parliament offer you our cooperation.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, I wish to thank you for mentioning a policy for children, because our children are the future of Europe.
Legal maternity protection, two years' maternity leave, child benefit, a legal ban on hitting children: these are things I would like to see for all children in Europe.
Children need a healthy environment.
I am convinced that the Austrian presidency will push ahead with integrating environmental objectives into all areas of policy, including animal welfare.
Leonardo da Vinci, Francis of Assisi: it was always the truly great who lent their voice to dumb animals.
The European Union is an immense economic power, and we are proud of that.
Yesterday, the great spirit of Europe blew through this country: liberty, equality and fraternity.
We are proud of that, too.
However, the moral quality of any society can be judged by how it treats its weakest: the old, the sick and the young.
Here we see the soul of Europe, born out of a Christian understanding that every person is unique and inimitable, and I hope that the Austrian presidency will give a hint of the soul of our great continent.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, a subject that was not originally planned for this presidency, institutional reform, has now taken on a new topicality and momentum.
It has been driven forward by the prompt ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty in a number of parliaments and by the clear "yes' vote of the people of Denmark. However, it has been given a negative flavour from the outset by the joint letter signed by the French President, Mr Chirac, and by Germany's Chancellor Kohl, who have used subsidiarity as a pretext to launch a massive attack on Europe's supposed centralism and on the European institutions' alleged remoteness from the citizen.
From a German point of view, the background is crystal clear.
The Commission's refusal to approve the Bertelsmann/Kirch television project hit a particularly close friend and political supporter of Helmut Kohl.
It seems to be a quirk of history that the very same German government that worked to achieve a European competition law in the 1980s is no longer prepared to accept EU decisions in the 1990s.
This reprehensible act is an example of precisely the sort of thing that Kohl and Chirac claim not to have in mind, that is, an attempt to encourage renationalization and populism.
Everyone knows that all the necessary Treaty arrangements have been put in place regarding subsidiarity and that no major action is needed.
Action is needed, however, where the Community is deficient in institutional terms: weighted voting in the Council, extension of the qualified majority and the composition of the Commission.
As we all know, all these points remained unresolved after the last Intergovernmental Conference.
However, at that time, Austria was one of the countries that worked particularly effectively and closely with the European Parliament.
Against this background, and in view of the tradition of federalism in the Member State currently holding the presidency, we have faith in Austria's creativity and commitment to achieving common European solutions.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the number one question for this autumn is how to create jobs.
The answer could not be simpler: you just have to produce products and offer services that people want to buy. How do you achieve that?
You have to invest in education and training, in life-long learning.
In this case I would suggest - and Mrs Flemming has already touched on this - that the Leonardo programme should receive at last 100 % extra funding.
At present we have given this programme 0.1 % of the Community budget.
If we increased this to 0.2 %, we could make an important contribution to making employment interesting and integrating young people into the world of employment.
What else do we need? We need fiscal coordination, and we need harmonization of the legal basis for taxes.
We should not worry so much about tax rates, because what we need here is a market, not a finance ministers' cartel, but a reasonably priced service for our citizens.
We need as few taxes as possible, but we need a proper basis: we do not need 163 different value added tax regulations, but rather a definition of tax fraud and many other issues.
What else do we need? A social dialogue!
In other words, we need to talk with each other.
We have too many problems just to debate them theoretically, we need to sit down and talk with the practitioners.
Madam President, on 30 September negotiations between the European Union and ACP countries will formally open with a view to defining the characteristics of the new partnership agreement that will replace the fourth Lomé Convention.
Already these past few months, during the debate held in the Council on what this agreement should look like, certain governments unfortunately expressed some reservations on essential aspects of future cooperation.
I would like to underline that it is absolutely necessary to strengthen the political content of the Convention, meaning greater emphasis on the promotion of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and the prevention of conflicts, but it is also and especially important to try to develop a common strategy between the European Union and the ACP countries, a strategy aimed at taking on more effectively the challenges of globalization.
Although the contents of the negotiating brief concluded last month are important, the spirit in which the Union's countries, and especially the Austrian presidency, embark on negotiations with the ACP countries will also be fundamental.
We must be convinced of the fact that in the new Convention a great part of our international protection is at stake.
The Austrian presidency will also have to tackle the particularly urgent problem of adopting adequate legal bases for all the budget lines on international cooperation that risk being blocked because of the new legal situation that arose a few weeks ago.
In the case of Non-Governmental Organizations and human rights actions in particular, we really have to move quickly to produce adequate legislation, otherwise the Council will have to assume the heavy responsibility of the end of a substantial part of our development cooperation.
A last remark: other measures that are at a standstill in the Council have to be adopted, beginning with the regulation on ACP countries which are traditional producers of bananas, and we insist on this so that the amendments adopted by Parliament are also adopted by the Council.
Madam President, I would first like to wish the Austrian presidency all the best for this period.
This period is short but also important and I see that they have started resolutely and quietly.
This augurs well for a successful conclusion.
I wish to highlight two aspects.
The first aspect is the institutional reforms and improvements of the Amsterdam Treaty, with which the Austrian presidency wishes to start via an informal summit.
As ex-rapporteur, I can only emphasize that the democratization of the European Union is not yet complete.
Even though we are called the victors of the Amsterdam Treaty, there are still things to be done and I would ask you to finalize the fulfilment of the democratic content of the European Union.
My second appeal relates to human rights. The chairman of our group has also mentioned this.
The 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights occurs during this period.
We keep having debates on human rights in this Parliament.
There remain a number of matters which are never concluded successfully, such as the initiatives by the European Union in relation to Nigeria and Burma.
The situation in both countries has escalated during the past two months.
We appealed to the British presidency to pursue a single course of action and to take firmer action.
That failed, so we appeal again to the Austrian presidency to rise to the challenge and to ensure that legal order and democracy are restored in these two countries, because these matters are always much more important than economic interests, for the European Union too.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, if you are looking for work, I have two more subjects for you.
One is the Fifth Framework Programme for Research, where we are talking about the derisory sum of ECU 15 or 16 billion.
We must get this work done as quickly as possible or else the Commission will not be able to make the funding available next year.
That means we need to know what is available to us before the decision on the budget.
And that puts both you and us - because we have to work together on this - under pressure for time.
I am assuming that the conciliation procedure will start as soon as possible in September and will then reach an outcome.
The second job I have for you, or perhaps this is on your agenda anyway, is a tough one: the climate summit in Buenos Aires.
Although Buenos Aires is a long way from Europe, it still concerns us.
We came very well out of the last climate summit in Kyoto.
The Europeans actually demonstrated their lead in this field.
That was recognized and it also made an important contribution to creating a feeling of cohesion and resurgence in Europe.
The agreements that were signed then, or which were agreed to, have scarcely been observed.
As a physicist I do not just look at such agreements, but I also take measurements or have others take them, and I can see that we are producing more CO2 today than a year ago.
And so it goes on!
That means that we need a strategy, and Buenos Aires is a good opportunity for it.
The presidency is also an opportunity for you to demonstrate that you are capable not just of words, but also of deeds.
I wish you luck for your presidency, and I hope that we shall be able to work together.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, a plethora of questions have been asked and I cannot, of course, go into each one in detail now.
I also apologise for the fact that, due to my inexperience, I exceeded my time at the beginning, but I will try now to make up the time lost.
Thank you, first of all, for the kind words regarding Austria - which I accept not for myself, but really on behalf of our country -, for the good wishes, the strength and the energy that you have wished us, because in the long run it should be to the benefit of the entire Union.
I also need this support because the President of the Council - and you as long-serving professionals will know this better than one doing it for the first time - cannot force others to do anything in a dictatorial manner, but has the very difficult task, where possible, of mediating, cooperating, merging and combining often very contradictory individual interests.
That is where I really need your good wishes.
I accept them for what their expression represents: a sign of trust in Austria and in the people, the politicians, the officials and the parliamentarians who will work here.
You have addressed some important subjects.
First and foremost, let me look at the question of the institutions, and the question of this special meeting, which is not, after all, a summit conference in the classic sense.
May I say quite frankly - as was decided in Cardiff - that the institutional reform will be tackled as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified.
We may well begin to talk about it before then, but formal proceedings cannot start until after ratification.
Moreover, I believe that the question of institutional reform cannot be reduced to the weighting of votes, to the question of the composition of the Commission, although I detect a certain flexibility in this respect, more so today than I did even in Amsterdam.
Those countries, for example, that have drawn attention to the composition of the Commission are beginning to understand today how important it is that each Member State is represented in the Commission, because it also boosts the credibility of the Commission if all are represented there, although it is clear that they are of course no longer national representatives.
On the other hand, even the smaller and medium-sized countries are beginning to understand that greater flexibility will be required in the question of the weighting of votes.
I do not see that this is any disaster; I think it is good.
I believe that with a greater number of majority votes a way out can in any case be found which goes in the direction of a more efficient Union.
Now to the question of employment.
Together we want to prove that a strong, credible currency that is a rival to the dollar will not conflict with a responsibility for employment, but quite the opposite: it will be a locational advantage for industry, small businesses or the service industry in Europe.
It essential to prove this and it is possible.
I am convinced - without using any high-brow language which does not suit me - that at the end of the year we will have a considerably higher number of jobs - it may well be more than a million - than a year ago.
Economic growth will of course help us, but it also has something to do with the fact that we have coordinated our economic policy better than before, and that coherence and convergence are already beginning to bear fruit.
On the question of finances and of solidarity, allow me to state quite openly that even the Union of the future will not be able to neglect solidarity within the Union or solidarity with the poorest outside the Union - ACP countries have been mentioned, applicant countries outside the Union.
It is so important that it is actually a basic principle; this solidarity - regardless of how tough the discussion might be - must be rescued.
There must be absolutely no doubt about that.
We view with interest the report by the Commission on how this fair distribution of burdens within the Union now appears.
Then a discussion will begin within the Union and the Member States.
But I am sure - and I say this quite openly - that these difficult negotiations can ultimately be resolved as everything can that stands between people who have a certain talent for reason, even if they are pursuing different interests.
On the question of enlargement, I have said we want to start the negotiations.
The main point of the discussion is whether we wait until every word has been checked through by the Commission, or whether we start a parallel process as soon as individual chapters have been proof-read.
I prefer the latter approach and I also really need your support, because I believe that the signal of starting honest, open negotiations right now is very important and will support the process of reform in the individual countries.
These countries will have to make great sacrifices, let there be no illusions about that.
Those governments, those politicians who support the European Union and integration will get a taste of a very harsh climate, and will fight against strong headwinds.
We should help them in the process - that is solidarity, after all - and not artificially postpone the start of negotiations by a year for administrative reasons.
That is the fact of the matter which I wanted to put in a nutshell.
Perhaps I should say one more word on the summit, because it, too, is connected with enlargement.
We need a strategy beyond the 11 applicants, for which we have already developed a type of entry philosophy.
What happens with countries such as the Ukraine, Moldova, and the Balkan states? That is quite an important question which is, of course, not at all easy to answer one way or another.
Such a strategic discussion was: which network of European relationships are we offering, a European conference or whatever? That is a subject that, in my opinion, can also be discussed at the extraordinary summit, at the informal Council in Gymnich in Salzburg, but perhaps also by the Heads of State or Government.
We have addressed the subject of Latin America.
Under the Austrian presidency we began the first Joint Council with Mexico yesterday.
And I will tell you quite plainly why.
Sixty years ago, Mexico was the only country to protest at Austria being annexed by Hitler's Germany.
The only country!
This fact has been engraved in our collective memory for 60 years.
It was quite exceptional that we should have created this Joint Council before this interim agreement had even been in force for two weeks.
We want to convey our thanks in this way.
You see, little things can often be so important and the responsibility of Europe and the ties with Latin America are decisive.
Together, with the Germans of course, we want to do everything to ensure that this summit next year in Rio de Janeiro functions.
I have a few words to say on the environment: Europe led the way in reaching the Kyoto Agreement.
The 8 % reduction is, in reality, extremely ambitious.
If we convert that into concrete measures, then some painful decisions will have to be made, and national governments will then have to stand by these decisions.
For this reason, we must urge that this question also be supported by concrete measures in reality.
It is no longer the time for fine words.
The major difference from earlier national declarations was that this is an obligation subject to international legal redress.
For this reason, I think that the discussions that we are holding now with the Commission and the Council at last have a new quality.
I also find it very positive that the subject of environmental protection has been addressed by many parliamentarians.
I would like to give you some clear information on human rights.
We have already prepared a troika meeting with Algeria.
We are now in very close contact with Nigeria and I certainly do not want to conceal certain positive aspects in this respect.
I sincerely hope that the new ruler, General Abubakar, really adheres to the declarations that he has just made.
You may rest assured that the Austrian presidency will pay close attention to these questions that have also been supported today.
Thank you again for the trust you have put in us. Thank you even for your sceptical comments.
It goes without saying that Cyprus is on the list of priorities.
We want to begin in exactly this way.
I do not deny that there is a right to self defence.
In the question of stationing missiles, I hope that we can find another solution that does not threaten the security of Cyprus.
Mr Klaus Hänsch quoted Wallenstein. 'You have arrived late, but you have arrived' .
The full quotation reads: ' You have arrived late, but you have arrived. The long journey excuses your tardiness.'
We have been journeying for a long time and we intend to reach a good destination.
This fascinating debate is now closed.
Situation in Kosovo
The next item is a statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the situation in Kosovo.
Madam President, may I welcome Commissioner Hans van den Broek with whom we discussed this subject in great depth on Monday in the General Affairs Council.
First, I will look at the facts: at the moment there are between 80 000 and 90 000 refugees, the majority still in Kosovo but accommodated elsewhere due to the destruction of villages in their homeland: about 15 000 to 20 000 of them are in Northern Albania.
Klaus Kinkel was there in person.
Terrible conditions are being experienced.
Families, themselves numbering 10 to 15 people, have taken in another 10 or 15 refugees.
In small rooms there may be 15 people lying on the floor, on nothing more than hard-packed earth.
Thanks to the help of the Commission and the various NGOs, there is now at least the first humanitarian aid.
This is also thanks to the fact that the corresponding programs have been released.
But I believe that even individual countries must do more at a bilateral level.
There are currently about 10 000 refugees in Macedonia.
We expressly welcome the integration of Russia.
This is an important point.
The meeting between Milosevic and Yeltsin in Moscow was not ideal by a long way, there is no question about that, as important elements of the demands of the international community of states were not met.
But at any rate, we have been able to include the Russians and to compel them to deal with this matter in a different manner than before.
I myself was in Belgrade and spoke with Milosevic. I was the first and still the only foreign minister actually to visit Pristina.
We have now opened the first office of the presidency in Pristina.
We have managed now to bring international observers into the region.
There are at present 28 European observers who are not acting as ECMNs, but in effect as diplomats of our embassies, and the same number again have been sent by the Americans and Russians.
At the weekend, I sent the General Secretary of the Austrian Foreign Office as my personal representative to Belgrade, Pristina and down to Malicevo where the headquarters of the KLA is situated, in order to ensure the visible presence of the Union and of the presidency at this time.
I do not see why only Holbrooke and Afanasievsky should be there.
There must be a visible presence of European representatives and ambassadors.
(Applause) We have made some important discoveries.
Firstly, the existing sanctions are at least having a partial effect.
The freezing of privatization schemes is, of course, drying up the financial sources for Milosevic.
Secondly, sanctions have a certain economical remote effect, although they should not be overestimated.
Especially in the case of the flight ban that has just been decided, it is necessary to consider that, due to the various international periods of notice, it will take several months before it becomes effective at all.
So we should not expect too much of sanctions.
In my opinion, another point to be added is that the military situation has completely changed.
According to the Russians, 30 % of the Kosovo region, and according to other sources 40 % - which I think is nearer the mark -, is today under the military control of the KLA.
In my view, Milosevic can no longer really win this conflict in military terms, unless with an incredible military effort.
It is very much a question of whether such an effort were feasible on the basis of the attitude of the leadership of the Yugoslavian army, which in itself is a positive signal, but something that cannot be ruled out.
Secondly, we are seeing a growing tendency toward radicalism, even - from a critical viewpoint - on the part of the Kosovo Albanians.
It is a fact that the influence of the figure that we have all relied on together - Ibrahim Rugova - is waning by the day, even by the hour.
He is a man who deserves the greatest admiration, because at a very difficult time he had the courage to stand up for freedom from violence.
When my General Secretary was in Malicevo - an eerie experience, incidentally, almost like something from the days of Che Guevara; no names were mentioned, people just said 'I am Commandant No 7' , and the like -, he stated that the real enemy in Malicevo were the politicians in Pristina, above all, Rugova.
I freely admit that that gives me cause for concern.
We must make it our interest to strengthen the reasonable, moderate forces of the Kosovo Albanian leadership and not weaken it by giving the wrong signals.
I believe that we must be concerned about our visible presence.
We particularly want to concentrate on the question of enhanced status, as we always call it in our complicated Eurospeak.
Nobody knows exactly what this means.
Some think it is essentially a bit more than the status quo, while the Kosovo Albanians say that, apart from separation, in other words, an independent state, nothing would be considered.
It is essential that we ensure that the drawing up of a statute of this kind includes complete autonomy and not only the question of the use of the language, admission to universities and admission of nurses to hospitals; this statute is an age-old European topic on which we wish to concentrate our energies.
In addition, we must of course continue to call clearly for an absolute cessation of violence. Immediate negotiations in the presence of the Americans, the Europeans and the Russians are required.
I personally believe that we will simply not manage without getting involved in the region.
We are working in parallel in the United Nations Security Council on a type of two-stage resolution, which should de facto safeguard the unlimited freedom to take further action.
The coming weeks will reveal whether we can really succeed in persuading Milosevic to fall into line and allow international participation.
We could, of course, also offer incentives here such as their reintegration into the OSCE.
If a mission, a real presence in the region is desired, then this appears to me to be the only practicable idea, the only reasonable incentive by which the Yugoslavs can be included.
I would also say quite openly that we could hardly expect that the Albanians would be satisfied with any kind of concessions to autonomy, unless at the same time a drive toward full democratization and pluralistic development were undertaken in Yugoslavia.
Only then, in my opinion, will autonomy, a real discussion of status and a positive negotiated solution be possible.
(Applause)
I have received six motions for resolutions at the conclusion of this debate.
Welcome
It is my great pleasure to welcome a delegation from the National Assembly of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, led by Mr Abdelkader Hadjar, chairman of the Assembly's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Emigration, who have taken their seats in the official gallery.
The delegation is visiting us on the occasion of the fourth interparliamentary meeting with the relevant European Parliament delegation.
May I add that relations between Algeria and the European Union will soon be based on the principle of a EuroMediterranean partnership and that the contacts we have made at a parliamentary level have demonstrated a common desire to cooperate in a large number of vital sectors.
May I wish the Algerian delegation fruitful meetings and an excellent stay in Strasbourg.
Situation in Kosovo (continuation)
Madam President, I am particularly pleased that the Algerian delegation is here today and, like you, Madam President, I hope that the meeting bears fruit, that we gradually improve the relationship between Europe and Algeria, and that the Austrian presidency will be able to contribute to this progress.
But first I will turn to the subject of Kosovo: Mr President of the Council, you have spoken of the huge loss of power by Rugova.
This should not surprise us.
That is not your fault personally, but Mrs Pack and many others here have often spoken - and the Commissioner, whom I would particularly like to welcome here, knows this - of the fact that the European Union must do more to support the peace-loving forces.
So far, I must say in all honesty, it has done little to nothing.
We share the blame if the democratic and peace-loving forces are weakened.
We must state this quite clearly in full knowledge of the facts.
I am very glad, on behalf of my group too, that at last - in accordance with the wishes of this Parliament - we are more strongly represented as Europeans and I am also glad that this is happening under the Austrian presidency.
My second point concerns the political objective, because there are already different opinions on this in this house.
Let us, however, make clear to everyone what our political objective is, even in the case of possible intervention.
Because General Norman has stated this quite clearly recently.
He was also prepared to intervene if necessary on the part of NATO and only wanted to know the political objective.
The political objective must be the autonomy of Kosovo - and I fully admit you are right here - in a democratic Yugoslavia.
If, however, we set ourselves another objective or other objectives, some in favour of autonomy and some for independence, then we know that we will face the next problems with independence. In Macedonia, or, as it is known here in official jargon, in the FYROM and also in Albania itself.
We should not be drawn into this game.
We must stand up for autonomy and indeed also for a corresponding democratic system in Yugoslavia.
I am very glad about all the efforts, especially through the talks with Russia, to bring the United Nations onto our side or to bring them to the stage of approving the appropriate intervention should it prove necessary, which I hope it never does.
But I will say quite openly in my total solidarity or identification with the aims of the United Nations, that the Albanian population must know that Europe must never tolerate the slaughter of this people, the withdrawal of their basis for life.
Every effort must be made to achieve a peaceful settlement; every effort must be made to persuade the United Nations to issue an approval, if intervention is necessary.
But we must remain perfectly clear that we are not only fighting for the autonomy of the Albanian people, but we are fighting at the moment for the right of the Albanian people to survive.
What happened in Bosnia must not happen to us again, otherwise we will completely lose all credibility.
If we are in favour of a common foreign and security policy, then we must prove now that we are capable of carrying it out to the end.
Madam President, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party is critical of the Council of Ministers' actions on some points, but we are still grateful for the good speech given by Mr Schüssel.
Firstly, we think that the Council of Ministers, as the foremost representatives of European democracy, should act swiftly and sternly.
Milosevic is continuing with his attacks, fighting is taking place, villages are being bombed, many people are being killed, people are fleeing.
Mr Schüssel, the Council of Ministers must do more than it has done so far to put an end to the misery. By the misery, I mean Mr Milosevic.
He must be forced to end his attacks and withdraw his troops from Kosovo, under threat and with serious reprisals if necessary.
After that, real negotiations about Kosovo's future can begin.
Or do you think, Mr Schüssel, that you can ask the oppressed to negotiate while the hands of his oppressor are still around his throat?
Secondly, it is very desirable for the UN's Security Council to agree to military measures from the side of the democracies if there is no other way Milosevic can be persuaded to do the right thing.
Meanwhile, the Council of Ministers should not let its hands be tied by any veto.
We expect the European Union, led by its Council of Ministers, to put a stop to oppression and tyranny in our part of the world.
Thirdly, we Liberals think that the future status of Kosovo should be decided through negotiations and not before them.
We think that it borders on impudence to ask Kosovo's elected president, Mr Rugova, to abandon his demand for autonomy before actual negotiations have even started.
This demand has been a cornerstone for Mr Rugova in all the years he has led his oppressed countrymen. In these years he stressed at the same time that the fight should only be fought with peaceful means.
But did he get the support of the democracies then?
No, we failed. 'In Kosovo it was calm.'
Within the European Union it should not make any difference whether we are Swedes, Greeks, Austrians or Portuguese, or whether we are Protestants, Catholics, Muslims or Jews.
The Union exists for us as individuals.
My inner hope is that those who are now fighting against oppression and for freedom in Kosovo should be driven by the desire not to set group against group, Orthodox against Muslim, Serb against Albanian, that their goal should be to anchor Kosovo into a European community characterized by democracy and respect for every single person.
Mr President-in-Office, in your speech a moment ago you said that you wanted to collaborate with the European Parliament, and we thank you for this.
Please know, then, that if there is a topic on which the European Parliament has expressed itself many, many times, it is Kosovo, warning about the tragedy that could occur and that has in the end occurred; and all this with the total indifference of the European Council and the Commission.
We had already imagined that sooner or later Milosevic the dictator would turn on the Albanians in his own back yard, taking advantage of the methods he already used during the war and for ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.
Mr President-in-Office, in my opinion, the essential point is the last one you mentioned: until there is democracy in Yugoslavia, it will be impossible for us to solve even the problem of Kosovo.
I believe that, in the case of Milosevic the dictator, Europe must speak with one strong, far-reaching voice, threatening clear and strong positions before it is too late.
Madam President, the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army has declared that whosoever desires peace in the Balkans must support the independence of Kosovo.
Nevertheless, American diplomacy, expressing its intentions towards Yugoslavia, insists on including the Liberation Army in the process to find a solution.
For its part, the Council appears to be moving towards such a view, arguing that any group that has something to say must take part in the peace process.
Does the Council not think that exerting unilateral pressure on Belgrade without adopting the tactic of Milosevic fundamentally undermines the moderate forces of the Albanians in Kosovo and strengthens the intransigent forces of the Liberation Army? The President-in-Office of the Council has told us that they control 40 % of Kosovo and that their stance is one of "independence' .
How will they impose a peaceful solution in the context of the autonomy sought by the Council?
I think that the time has come for us to draw our own conclusions and to assume our own responsibilities towards the situation that has been created in the Balkans.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has pointed out the tragedy of Kosovo so many times.
We have numerous resolutions.
Rugova returned to Strasbourg many times. We awarded Demaçi the Sakharov prize, but the Council remained in deadlock all this time, because no concerted policies were agreed on, not even a policy relating to Kosovo.
All that time the Council knew that the Serbian violence would lead automatically to more violence.
The situation has now become hopeless, and may give rise to mass slaughter.
Basically, the cause of the violence must be taken away: is it Serbian state nationalism or the Serbian state terrorism?
International law must be implemented to the full for Kosovo.
In my opinion, this means a massive diplomatic offensive, in which Kosovo will be directly involved as an equal nation.
I have much confidence in the Austrian presidency, but I would ask it to propose that the Council awards it a realistic diplomatic charter, such as my country has recently done for the Palestinians.
History should be able to also anticipate events, instead of always arriving late.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when representatives of the communist Serbia of Milosevic were here as a delegation seven years ago, at the time of the heroic liberating rebellion of Slovenia and Croatia, I had made the following three observations.
Firstly, instead of wanting to maintain its domination over these historically constituted ancient nations, admittedly federated within Yugoslavia but with a constitutionally recognized right to secede - which will also be the case, I hope, for our countries within the European Union -, Serbia would do well to free itself from communism.
Secondly, by claiming the territories of the Krajina region of Croatia as Serbian, on the pretext that these border regions were largely populated by Serbs, they similarly exposed themselves to one day seeing their province of Kosovo contested, historic cradle of the Serb nation but with a population consisting of 90 % Albanian Muslims.
Sixty years ago, the Serbs were in the majority in Kosovo.
Now they make up no more than 10 % of the population, for two reasons: the collapse of their birth rate and continuing immigration on the part of Albanians which has strengthened the Muslim minority already present.
Thirdly, the Serbs would have done better to endeavour to reverse the flow of immigrants and to repopulate their land rather than wanting to reduce the Catholic people of Croatia to living within the area visible from Zaghreb cathedral's bell tower, according to the cynical expression of one of their belligerent leaders.
Remember that at this time the Serbian Bolshevik regime in Belgrade was supported here by Jacques Delors.
Unfortunately, the people continue to pay for the fecklessness of their leaders and the folly of their ideologies.
But despite all this, these considerations do not justify the interference of the new world order in the domestic affairs of Serbia today, and they justify even less the search for a pretext for military intervention. Such intervention would lead to Serbia's break-up, with all the imaginable consequences this would have for the Balkans and for Greece, a country which is rightly worried, with centuries of dreadful Ottoman domination still fresh in its memory.
We must reaffirm the principles of international law here.
The first is the inviolability of frontiers, which should only be modified in exceptional circumstances and by mutual agreement.
The second is the right of peoples to self-determination, as long as it is expressed in a democratic manner and not through the pressure of terrorist organizations, as was the case in French Algeria and is the case in the Spanish Basque country today.
The third is the non-interference in the internal affairs of a state.
Finally, I have a few comments.
How can we accept that the Palestinians, who have always lived in Palestine, should have far less rights than the Albanians, whose presence in Kosovo is far more recent? How can we accept that Israel's right to a birthplace should be so glorified when it is denied to the Serbs?
How can we accept that the condemnations of Israel, which maintains a ferocious policy of apartheid and increasing colonization, are not followed by the application of any sanctions, whilst we prepare to strike Serbia? Similarly, should we accept, in some areas of France, Belgium or Germany, the proclamation of Muslim republics, on the pretext that this is what new populations would want?
We say no, no and no!
Madam President, I thank the President-in-Office for his statement.
It is by far the most positive statement we have heard about Kosovo in the last few months and it is a clear indication that many months of very patient diplomacy are beginning to pay off.
It is important that we have managed to do that while maintaining the cohesion of the Contact Group.
And it is important that we keep the whole of the Contact Group on board, including Russia.
If we do not, we will cease to have any control whatsoever over the situation.
I have two concerns following the President-in-Office's statement.
Firstly, his remarks about the weakening of Mr Rugova's position must concern us all.
We have to be clear once again - and I am glad the President-in-Office made the point - that we are talking here about autonomy, and now extensive autonomy; we are not talking about independence.
I repeat what I said last month that those who talk loosely about independence are only going to make the situation worse, not better.
If we make that position clear we will be supporting people like Mr Rugova.
Secondly, however, I was concerned not to hear the President-in-Office say that, as part of resolving this situation, we have to guarantee the rights of Serbs who live in Kosovo.
We must accept that Kosovo is important historically and traditionally to the Serb nation and we must not replace fear of one set of people by fear of another.
That has to be a key element.
For the Serbs as a whole we must make it clear that, as soon as there is a solution to the problem of Kosovo, we will want to lift sanctions.
We will want to try to rebuild the former Yugoslavia.
We are not making the Serbian people scapegoats for the actions of their leaders.
We must strike a positive note if we are to try to break through the situation.
Constantly trying to grind people down is not a solution.
Having said that, ultimately it is clear that Milosevic himself will only understand the threat of force.
While we pursue diplomatic solutions, we must not lower our guard but continue the military preparations that are necessary through NATO as well as our pursuit of a UN resolution that will give a legal basis for military action.
We hope that will not be necessary but, nonetheless, we have to take the two-pronged approach of pursuing proper peace-making diplomacy while maintaining the option of force.
Mr President of the Council, first and foremost I would like to thank you for the specific and clear speech you have given on a subject in which the real point has so often been missed.
I see signs in this that it is not in vain that Austrian history has played a significant role in Kosovo.
Because Austria means a great deal to the Albanians.
I ask you, therefore, to use this Austrian prestige to bring peace, where Austria in its time also brought peace.
But I would also like to say that it is important for us to pursue a much clearer policy for once and I am grateful that you have started this process.
The most important thing, however, is that we support Mr Rugova, as that is the political solution that we must seek.
I am, therefore, very happy that my group has submitted Mr Rugova's name for the next Sakharov Prize.
We must do everything to strengthen the position of Mr Rugova which, unfortunately, has been betrayed by politics, including those of the European Union, in recent months, even years.
The peace-loving groups have not been supported there.
It is understandable that we have had difficulties.
In this context, I wish you every success in your task.
Madam President, it seems to me that the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Schüssel, has clearly illustrated and presented with great dignity a European position that in substance is, nonetheless, very weak.
Naturally, I believe that the Council will have the support of all or most of the political forces of this Parliament for the actions that it has announced and that it has undertaken and that are headed in the right direction.
However, allow me to say that we believe, like Mrs Spaak whose speech I fully endorse, that a peaceful solution is no longer conceivable and that the weakening that you, Mr President-in-Office, have noted of the more moderate part of the Albanian world in Kosovo, that is, Rugova, will have serious consequences.
In a way, what a lot of the Members here have been saying, that Europe and the international community can be in favour of autonomy but never independence, actually means that Milosevic knows that his actions to crush Kosovo will be met with a very weak reply from the international community.
In these conditions, it is very difficult, Mr President-in-Office, to force Yugoslavia to make that little extra effort that is still possible so that the situation in Kosovo does not explode.
We therefore hope that you are right, but our preoccupation is that once again Europe's diplomacies will be inadequate and come too late.
Madam President, the efforts of Mr Rugova to find a political solution by means of dialogue must be supported. For this reason, I welcome the public declaration of support for Mr Rugova on the part of the President of the Democratic Party of Albania, Mr Sali Berisa.
This is a significant declaration, which comes from the majority party in the Albanian opposition.
I would like to remind you that the Cardiff declaration supports the autonomy of Kosovo and rejects its independence. It frees the Serbs and the Montenegrins who are opposed to the policies of the establishment in Belgrade to continue the fight for more freedom and democracy in Yugoslavia and for more autonomy in Kosovo.
But, above all, I would like to remind colleagues, and the hawks whose voices were heard in this House, of the no , the no not only of the European Union but also of this Parliament to the secessionist movements of the Serbs in Eastern Slavonia and Krajina.
Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina preserve their territorial integrity thanks to the consistent and judicious policy of the European Union and of the whole of the West.
Finally, it is essential that hostilities cease so that pressure can be exerted on both sides in the conflict, and that military measures be used only as a last resort.
Such measures must be used if there is no other solution, either from NATO or Europe, in order to put an end to the continuing bloodshed.
Madam President, the President-in-Office has this morning shown himself to be a real European with a clear vision on the Kosovo issue.
I am very impressed, in respect, too, of the accurate analysis of this problem he has offered.
The Members of this Parliament have often spoken of the fact that self-determination is only done justice in a democratic constitutional state.
If the Yugoslav Federation could indeed be transformed into a democratic constitutional state, than autonomy is, of course, also completely acceptable, but nothing more than autonomy.
However, we cannot compel anyone to live in an undemocratic violent dictatorship.
That is impossible!
The point is, therefore, how do we get the Serbs to no longer elect criminals to the highest positions.
That will indeed require a clear policy towards Milosevic.
I agree with all those who say that Milosevic only understands firm talk.
We have seen this in Bosnia when a week of NATO actions was required to finally halt Milosevic and his band.
But we also need a different policy aimed at democracy and the promotion of a constitutional state within the Republic of Serbia and within the whole of the Yugoslav Federation.
I would ask the President-in-Office, as well as the Commission, as they are involved in the democratization policy, if this policy can actually be implemented by the Council and the Commission, so that we can indeed take our responsibilities seriously as we should.
Because fleeing our responsibilities is no longer an option.
Votes
Mr President, it is a fairly small correction, but there is a problem of translation with Amendment No 49 which is supposed to extend the representation of minorities to those covering more than one state - e.g. the Sámi people of Lapland.
The English version talks about minorities that have 'traditionally settled' .
The version I would like is the same as in Amendment No 46 - i.e. 'minorities traditionally resident' .
We are not talking about settlers, we are talking about people who are traditionally to be found in a territory.
Amendment No 46 was originally drafted in Italian.
I would just like to ensure we are consistent here.
We will make the necessary amendments, Mr Macartney.
On Amendment No 8 by the Green Group
Mr President, in the vote on Article 2 you said that Amendment No 8 by the Green Group was invalid.
In my opinion, this is not the case, because the preceding amendments that we accepted refer to the setting up of regional constituencies.
The amendment by the Greens, however, aims to add something to Article 2, namely to obtain compensation for the system of proportional representation if there are regional constituencies.
For this reason I ask for a vote to be taken again on Amendment No 8.
Mrs Müller, it is for this very reason that we considered your amendment to be inconsistent.
But I will consult the rapporteur so that he can enlighten us with his wisdom.
I agree with you, Mr President.
We therefore judge the amendment to be inconsistent.
Before the final vote
Mr President, I would like to propose that this report be referred back to committee, pursuant to Rule 129.
In fact, the report seems to me to be incomplete.
Given the current state of affairs, it does not seem to do justice to the legislative power conferred on the European Parliament by the Treaty.
It seems to me that it is an unusual enough matter for Parliament to want to exercise its competence fully.
The report speaks of common principles, of a European electoral system, but it is far from being complete.
A number of aspects are not touched upon, in particular those which the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights had mentioned in its opinion.
For example, you can be elected at the age of 18, or at 25, depending on the Member State.
The report is also full of contradictions.
We want to bring representatives closer to the electorate; this is the principle of proximity.
But, at the same time, a transnational European list is envisaged.
Reference is made to the French example when, as you know, France abandoned the project, the government having withdrawn it from the National Assembly.
I believe it would not be to the advantage of French sovereignty, only a few days after Sunday, 12 July and after the country's national holiday, if the report's only practical consequence was to be in contradiction with the wishes of the French authorities.
This is why I propose referral back to committee, and I suggest that you put my proposal to a roll-call vote.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will be brief.
I agree totally with Mr de Vries.
The European Parliament has accomplished a concrete task, laid down by the Treaty of Rome.
This would not have been possible without the competence and the will to negotiate on the part of Mr Anastassopoulos, but also of a great many others who have contributed to the adoption of this report and this resolution.
Welcome
Votes (continuation)
It has been proposed that the word energy which appears in the list in paragraph 25 should be replaced by carbon dioxide emissions.
I have discussed this with the proposer and we have agreed that this could be done as an addition, so that the text in the English version would read: energy, for example, emission of carbon dioxide.
I will consult the House to see if it accepts this oral amendment or if there are 12 Members opposed to it.
(The President noted that there was no objection to the oral amendment) -On paragraph 27
The amendment concerns a phrase in the text in paragraph 27 where it says 'tax on carbon dioxide emissions and energy' .
I would like to replace these words with "carbon dioxide energy tax ' .
I think that sounds more natural in the English text because the concept of a carbon dioxide energy tax exists.
That would therefore replace the current text, "tax on carbon dioxide emissions and energy' .
Mr Olsson, I imagine that your proposal applies both to the initial text and to the two amendments which I am going to put to the vote, Amendment No 9 tabled by the Group of the European People's Party and Amendment No 2 tabled by the Green Group.
Are there any objections to this amendment?
Mr President, I have no objections, because that is the wording in normal usage, even by the Commission.
I only ask urgently that a vote be taken on Amendment No 9 in any case, as the term 'revenue-neutral' appears here.
With this amendment, we want to make it very clear that environmental expenditure, regardless of where and how it is spent, must not under any circumstances increase the tax quota; instead, the money must be returned to the citizens.
We must vote on this!
Please be assured, I will put your amendment to the vote, as well as that of the Green Group, but with the rapporteur's oral amendment applying each time to the text, since it does not concern the text of the amendment, strictly speaking.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
In Denmark, we have a long and excellent tradition of voluntary work among all age groups, not just among young people, even though the level of activity is substantially higher in that section of the population.
Denmark is often described as 'the nation of organizations' , and on average, every Dane is a member of some organization or other, whether it is a political party, a youth organization, a Scout movement or a residents' association.
All these people are working to improve the situation of the members of the organization in question and others who are sympathetic to their cause.
But only a minority would be prepared to work towards developing the European dimension.
We question whether there is such a thing as a 'European dimension' .
We distance ourselves from this type of EU propaganda among young people and the rest of the population, for that matter.
Nor do we believe there is any need for a common rule applicable to young volunteers.
On the basis of the considerations outlined above, we are voting against a European voluntary service for young people.
I fully support the report by our colleague and first Vice-President, Nicole Fontaine.
European voluntary service for young people is an initiative of the European Commission, and more particularly of Mrs E. Cresson, which the European Parliament enthusiastically supported with regard to its baptismal funding.
Unanimity is required with regard to its objectives:
encouraging solidarity through the promotion of a voluntary service for young people aged 18 to 25, -encouraging the participation of young people in the construction of Europe through youth exchanges and, finally, -encouraging a spirit of enterprise and creativity amongst young people.This being so, as a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, it is my duty to highlight the deplorable attitude of the Council of Ministers who, once more, are completely out of line with their discourse.
Indeed, it is not sufficient to come to an agreement on the principles; the practical means for its realization also have to be provided.
On this level it is clear that the sum of ECU 47.5 million granted for the 1998-1999 period in no way does justice to our ambitions and even less still to those of the young people who are waiting impatiently for the time when they will be able to throw themselves into the adventure of solidarity.
I will therefore vote for this report, but with this reservation.
Whilst everyone is now in agreement in recognizing that the training and education of young people in the world today are the fundamental axes of development in our societies, here we are confronted by a joint text which goes right to the heart of these issues, and yet which is extremely disappointing.
It is disappointing because the results of all this are minor advances forced out of conciliation.
For the least that can be said is that, in spite of the efforts of our Parliament, the Council was by no means the most conciliatory during the procedure, particularly with regard to the question of the programme's financial framework.
Indeed, what are these measly ECU 47.5 million in relation to the enthusiastic generosity of tens of thousands of young Europeans awaiting such exchanges, which we have constantly told them are synonymous with good citizenship, openness to social and cultural diversity and mutual enrichment and which are essential qualifications for their full development?
How can we make them understand, when they are hoping to invest emotionally in transnational activities of collective use, that they will come up against a multitude of legal and administrative obstacles? What can we say about the degree of European integration if we are not even capable, at the dawn of the 21st century, to promote this type of initiative intelligently?
We already know that the programme has enormous potential and can be a brilliant success.
This was the case with the exchange programmes for students.
The many young workers or young unemployed who are no longer studying, and for whom European voluntary service is specifically targeted, want and deserve much more if they are to be supported in their projects for mobility and apprenticeship throughout Europe.
We must, of course, support this much awaited text, even if it is insufficient, because I think this little something, imperfect as it is, is better than nothing at all.
I still take the view which I have previously declared on this matter when it was discussed in Parliament.
The report's firm intention was that the financial framework for the programme's implementation during the 1998-1999 period should be increased from the Council's proposal of ECU 35 million to ECU 80 million.
After negotiations with the Council, the Council has now proposed an increase of the sum to total ECU 47.5 million.
I cannot possibly vote for this proposal when I can see how at the same time the Member States are making cutbacks which are causing job losses in the public sector in their respective countries.
Dybkjær report (A4-0275/98)
Sustainable development nowadays enjoys a broad consensus in our countries.
Those who would still dare maintain that the economy and the environment are contradictory are few and far between.
But widely proclaimed good intentions still need to be translated into concrete measures.
The interinstitutional negotiations on the fifth environmental action programme are exemplary in this regard.
We can, of course, regret the time that has been taken over such an important issue.
In fact, the procedure commenced in February 1996 has only now come to a conclusion.
Almost 30 months were thus necessary to fulfil the new provisions provided for in the Treaty on European Union which came into force in November 1993. Meanwhile, the fifth action programme anticipated a review of its strategy before the end of 1995.
Having said this, the European Parliament can congratulate itself on the results achieved thanks to the implementation of the codecision procedure which can now be applied in this matter.
The field of environmental issues has broadened and the Council has approved the need for an overall evaluation of the current programme.
It will be accompanied by proposals concerning the priority objectives and the measures to be taken from the year 2000 onwards.
That the Council has already recognized that some will have to be "still more ambitious' makes this acceptance all the more positive.
Another reason for satisfaction in my eyes is the Council's agreement on the possibility of legislative initiatives with regard to the use of fiscal instruments in the environmental field in order to encourage employment, competitiveness and growth.
This relates to an long-standing demand which should be made concrete as soon as possible.
Whilst awaiting the White Paper announced by the Commission, I therefore give my unreserved support to the results of conciliation as proposed.
As far as the results of conciliation on the EU's action plan for the environment are concerned, we must unfortunately note that not much remains of the demands and measures from the Green group and the combined environmental movement which are necessary to achieve the goal of sustained development.
Not even the proposals from the European Parliament's first reading remain to any great extent.
At the European Parliament's second reading, 10 important amendments were accepted with an absolute majority.
These included, for example, the fact that the three new Member States of the EU would not be required to reduce their high environmental standards, that the Commission should set up an action plan for what was to be done with nuclear waste and that the Commission should submit a directive on environmental liability.
All these proposals have been negotiated away in the compromise proposal which is now to be adopted.
The content of the compromise proposal looks largely the same as the proposal the Commission had still intended to submit in the area of the environment.
All the proposals which would really have made the Commission - and the Council - act and take environmental issues seriously have been removed from the text.
The Members of the European Parliament on the Conciliation Committee have not succeeded in defending the demands which the majority of the European Parliament adopted at second reading.
As far as the transitional arrangements for Sweden, Finland and Austria are concerned, the proposal does not represent any guarantee for these countries that they shall be able to keep a higher level of environmental protection than the rest of the EU.
Harmonizing standards runs the risk of levelling them down to the same common denominator.
After all, this is what almost happened to three of our Member States - Austria, Sweden and Finland - which fortunately seem to have been able to benefit from separate status.
So much the better for them, but what a shame for the rest of us!
Secondly, why raise environmental standards in Europe if, at the same time, we are not prepared to look critically on what we accept from third countries?
The Euro-internationalists have to face up to their contradictions in this respect.
Indeed, can Member States engage in a policy of sustainable development within a context of world trade under the dictatorship of the WTO, which strives to prohibit states from having a say in the quality of imported products?
If we really want an ambitious policy on the environment and health, the argument has to follow its logical path; control must be retained over our borders, which are precious filters.
Thus, if only products which respect human beings and nature are allowed to enter the Community territory, there is no doubt that third countries will work more rapidly towards improving their standards.
If not, if the law of the jungle prevails, I unfortunately do not rate the chances of our efforts in the area of sustainable development very highly.
Following the rejection by the Council of the lion's share of Parliament's amendments at first and second reading, I am encouraged to see that by working effectively, the Conciliation Committee has managed to come up with a compromise text relatively quickly.
I am convinced that the many initiatives contained in the action plan are necessary if we are to secure a good, clean environment for our descendants.
The rapporteur rightly emphasized making as many as possible of the actions in the programme binding on the Community rather than considering them to be priority political objectives.
I am convinced that the environment can only be secured by means of a clear set of laws with teeth.
Cabrol report (A4-0276/98)
We cannot support the Cabrol report on creating a network for the epidemiological surveillance and control of communicable diseases in the Community.
We believe it is superfluous to create a permanent network at Community level under the wing of the Commission.
It would be far better to coordinate efforts under the auspices of the WHO, because the diseases in question are not only restricted to the territory of the EU.
Nor can we support comprehensive registration, for which the Parliamentary and Council resolution paves the way.
Based on the above considerations, we are voting against this report.
It is an obvious and natural area of cooperation to monitor, advise and spread information about communicable diseases in the EU and other countries.
Developed cooperation between the Member States can reduce the risk of infection.
This kind of Union function is an important instrument for reducing the risk of infection and preventing disease, but it can never take over ultimate responsibility from the democratic institutions and responsible authorities of the Member States.
A corresponding democratic accountability is lacking at Union level because the legislators cannot be changed at general elections.
Cross-boundary coordination is crucial for maintaining effective treatment of communicable diseases in the Community.
Thus, it is also important to set up an effective, successful network for epidemiological surveillance and control.
I am convinced that a permanent network of authorities and central epidemiological institutions in the Communities is the only way we can get anywhere near ensuring that effective medical treatment is given for communicable diseases, whilst also stemming the tide of the regrettable development of multi-resistant disease-causing micro-organisms already extant in some parts of the Community.
I am very pleased that the Conciliation Committee has reached a sensible compromise on the proposed network.
I repeat my opinion which I made clear at the second reading of this report in January 1998.
The cause which is being served here is, of course, good, that is, the creation of a centre for the control of communicable diseases.
I am, however, very sceptical of the value of always creating new institutions at 'Community level' .
Sweden has already developed networks for this purpose, including in cooperation with the WHO.
If a network is to be created in Europe, it should be a pan-European structure.
These continuous new EU institutions require resources, and these resources have to be taken from somewhere.
The positive choice of an EU institution may therefore require negative decisions at national or global level, especially when we remember the negative attitudes towards taxes in the Union.
Breyer recommendation (A4-0242/98)
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supported both the report and the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
The framework directive on the harmonization of Member States' legislation with regard to food additives has been in force since 1989.
The proposal from the Commission on which we are voting today is aimed at adapting European legislation to bring it up to date with the most recent scientific, technical and technological developments.
With regard to the use of nisin (an antibiotic) in the production of pasteurized eggs, the Commission proposes withdrawal of its use, whilst permitting it, however, in the manufacture of mascarpone.
Rather than demanding the withdrawal of all antibiotics from livestock feed for reasons of bioresistance, we consider that it is far more important to reduce their use in food for human consumption.
Indeed, bioresistance develops according to the absorption of active antibiotics to be used in food.
This is the reality of the matter.
Yet again, our group does not understand the Commission's position which we denounce as illogical, unless its proposals are in response to some interest or other wishing to destabilize European animal production.
Be that as it may, it is necessary for European regulations to be regularly adapted to scientific, technical and technological developments, and for this to be done in response to the single objective of consumer health protection.
The purpose of amending Directive 95/2/EC is to adjust its annex to accommodate the major technological development that has taken place over the last few years, and to enable Member States that have joined the EU since the directive was adopted to continue to use traditional additives.
It is very gratifying that the Commission's monitoring of the trend in the additives market has resulted in a proposal so quickly, thus always keeping EU legislation up to date in this important area.
The Danish government has expressed concern in the Council in the matter of certain substances permitted under the directive.
However, I hope it will be possible to reach a compromise that is acceptable to all Member States.
Anastassopoulos report (A4-0212/98)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Anastassopoulos report, as voted for this morning, does Parliament no credit.
Indeed, I insist that it is far from responding to the obligations of the Maastricht Treaty and the future Amsterdam Treaty.
Many significant aspects have not been adopted by, nor are they dealt with in, the report.
Furthermore, the amendments we had tabled, namely Amendments Nos 35, 29 and 26 have been rejected even though we said that the aspects not touched upon came within the competence of the Member States.
Parliament has thus recognized that it should have discussed them, but it has not come back to the issue.
It has not touched upon either the requisite conditions for inclusion on the electoral roll, the establishment of a system to control and review electoral lists, the conditions for eligibility or ineligibility, or the incompatibilities other than those mentioned in Article 8. Nor has it discussed electoral propaganda, the financing of electoral campaigns, the preparation, holding and monitoring of voting operations, or electoral disputes.
What is worse, the report that we have adopted inherently contradicts what is being proclaimed.
We want to bring the electorate and its representatives closer together and it is proposed to establish a transnational European list.
Reference is made to the French example when France, given the very strong reserves of the people, has just abandoned the project of regionalisation of its electoral system.
At a time when electors want decisions to be taken as close to them as possible, how can we call for a list which will lead to an abstention rate close to 99 % if it is implemented?
Now is the time for nations, now is the time to give a voice to the people.
At a recent sporting event, the happiness of the European people at belonging to a nation was clearly expressed.
This is what we should have expressed today and not this report, which is a botched job.
Mr President, one of the problems with this report and with the idea that the European Parliament and Members of Parliament and political parties should draw up an electoral system is that they are going to have the interests of the political parties themselves rather than the interests of citizens to the fore.
Basically they will be looking at what is the best kind of system to enable them to make more gains in the next election.
Also, it ignores the fact that in certain Member States there are very fair electoral systems.
For example, Ireland has one of the fairest electoral systems in the whole of the European Community.
Harmonising electoral systems for the European election could actually be detrimental to the very fair and equitable system that we have in Ireland, and most people in this Parliament are probably totally unaware of that.
Furthermore, the idea of setting aside a certain percentage of seats for the European Parliament to be elected on a Europe-wide basis assumes that there is a sort of Europe-wide political identity.
There is not.
It would be to the detriment of smaller states, to the detriment of smaller parties and peripheral regions.
To imagine you can force this European political identity on people by adopting some sort of system like this is ludicrous.
What you have done here today is damaging to people at grass-roots level and to the political system and to democracy.
We really have to look at this again.
It is a major mistake.
It will not be in the interests of people, despite what you are trying to say here.
That is why I voted against the report: it is a really bad idea.
Mr President, I agree with everything that Ms McKenna just said, so I will not repeat it.
Instead I will concentrate on the question of whether this report has any basis in fact.
The factual evidence on PR suggests that, bearing in mind the spoilt ballot papers that remain in each Member State that has PR, large numbers of voters reject it at every election.
The only country in the European Union which has a smaller percentage of spoilt ballot papers is the United Kingdom, in its tried and tested first-past-the-post system.
As far as I can see, after my experience of 14 years in Parliament, PR is fair to one element, and one element alone: the political parties.
On that I agree with Ms McKenna because it unfortunately produces a load of clones, i.e., what is acceptable to the leadership shall come here rather than what is acceptable to the electorate.
Therefore I am in favour of the electorate having the last say as to who they actually send to the European Parliament - or any parliament, for that matter.
That is why I voted against this report.
Mr President, every report presents a concept, and a major one at that.
The Gucht report offered the concept of proportional representation and Parliament declared itself in favour of this.
The Anastassopoulos report offered us the concept that large constituencies, in the largest most populated countries, should be divided into a number of constituencies, described as territorial constituencies.
The question which is now being raised is this: by removing the word "territorial' from Article 2, have we or have we not changed the rapporteur's message? Well, I would simply like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that we have not actually altered the substance of what the rapporteur had proposed.
This is for the simple reason that the last line of Article 2 excludes states with less than 20 million inhabitants from the obligation to create constituencies. Does this mean that these States are shielded from the obligation to create a national electoral constituency?
Not at all.
The very fact of having this declaration for small States means that the constituencies to which the first sentence of Article 2 relates are infra-national, territorial constituencies.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have removed the word but we have not removed the idea.
The spirit of the Anastassopoulos report is indeed the obligation for large states to divide the national constituency into a number of smaller ones.
Our view is that the Member States should each decide for themselves what kind of electoral system they should have for elections to the European Parliament.
Our view is that a proportional electoral system is fairer than an electoral system with single member constituencies. But this is a debate which people can have in each individual Member State.
The same applies to the question of opportunities for the electorate to vote for individuals.
As far as the debate on the idea that a number of seats should be filled through elections in a single constituency for the whole of the EU is concerned, we dissociate ourselves from the idea.
As Europe looks today, with the lack of an EU-wide media debate, differences in language, culture and political traditions, it goes without saying that the EU is not ready to create an EU constituency.
We would strongly warn against attempts to centralize democracy in this way.
It could lead to the creation of an oligarchy because democracy will become so centralized and large-scale that the citizens will not feel involved in politics.
On the basis of the Amsterdam Treaty, the report gives expression to the European Parliament's vision of an electoral system with common principles for the Members of the European Parliament.
In order to be able to support these principles they have to be based on the fundamental idea of a 'Union of the peoples and of the states.'
We think that the report should not amount to anything more than what is stated in the Amsterdam Treaty, that is, ' common principles' .
Therefore, we cannot support Article 7 which maintains that a certain percentage of the Members of the European Parliament should be elected through a single constituency.
I supported and voted in favour of the central objective of this report: the definition of common electoral principles for the European elections based on the principle of proportionality, which is the best way of securing a democratic system.
I supported a number of other aspects, particularly the incompatibility between the mandate of a Member of the European Parliament and that of a national member of parliament and the creation of infra-national electoral constituencies as a means of bringing Members closer to their electors, without prejudice to proportionality.
I voted against the proposal for a European electoral constituency for transnational lists, because that extraordinary idea is not intended to correct deviations from the proportionality rule and ensure that minorities are represented, nor is it even really necessary to ensure transnational participation in European elections. Bearing in mind the rules of the Maastricht Treaty on European political citizenship, I voted against the proposal because:
it is against all the principles of a supra-national democratic power on federal lines, based on a national parliament with a number of members per country in proportion to each country's population; -with good reason, it avoids the really central issue of the development of the Council into a kind of 'Upper House' in which all states would be equally represented; -it raises, but does not resolve, the problem of national weighting in the European list, a political problem similar in all respects to the question of the weighting of votes in the Council; -it distances electors even further from the elected; -finally, it would be a means of perpetuating Members' European mandates, separating them ever further from their electoral bases; some of them might never be elected again otherwise.I therefore reject this proposal on a matter of pro-European principle and not because of any opportunist calculations which may lie behind some of the proposed compromises on the Anastassopoulos report.
This proposal is an expression of a pro-European elitism which can only alienate further a public already concerned about the esoteric nature of some of the institutions of 'far-off Brussels' .
Now we do urgently need a pro-European impulse, but it should follow another path, precisely the stony path this report has not been willing to follow. It plumps for the easy option, through fear of impeding the political battle for democracy in Europe.
For me, the hard way involves enhancing the supra-national role of the Commission, which means proportionately increasing its political responsibility to the elected Parliament.
It involves selecting major pro-European political figures as candidates for the European Parliament, with real input and influence in the political systems from which they come.
It involves the selection of someone with real pro-European political influence and authority as President of the European Parliament.
And finally it means accepting the Delors proposal that the European political parties should put up their own candidates for the Presidency of the Commission, so that the President would then have the democratic legitimacy to deal with national governments.
I find no evidence of any such pro-European political courage in this merely 'politically correct' proposal for transnational European constituencies.
The European Parliament has just adopted the Anastassopoulos report which provides - although in a slightly more obscure manner than the initial document - for an obligation to regionalise the European elections in all the Member States where the population is greater than 20 million.
My group has fought, and will continue to fight, this proposal, which is only at the beginning of its legislative course since it will be necessary, in accordance with Article 138 of the Treaty, for the Council to adopt a recommendation unanimously - admittedly under pressure from the European Parliament - and, above all, then be approved by each Member State according to its own constitutional regulations.
Nevertheless, the process has been set in motion.
It seems to us to contradict the principle of subsidiarity, which should leave to each Member State the choice of number and size of its constituencies.
It is also very dangerous for large states, who would quite quickly risk finding themselves divided into a number of territorial entities, each one with a weight equal to that of a small state.
Some claim that this would not occur if the sub-national constituencies adopted did not coincide with the boundaries of historical regions.
But they are only falsely appeasing their guilty conscience.
In reality, it is clear that a debilitating action would be at work, and you can count on the Commission to nurture this with all possible means.
I find it enlightening to remember that arguments in favour of the regionalisation of the electoral system were developed in France in a report dated June 1996, prepared under the auspices of the "European Movement - France' , which, as everyone knows or should know, is heavily subsidized by the Commission, and it obligingly relays the Commission's not entirely worthy ideas.
This model of indirect influence is frequently used by the Commission through numerous other intermediary associations, sometimes receives 100 % funding and which should one day be studied to understand better the wheels of the spread of federalism.
What is more remarkable in this instance is that the European Movement's report had been drawn up by a cross-party committee whose members - or so the foreword on page 11 affirms rather ostentatiously - were "from a cross-section of political formations representative of the broad trends of the democratic sensibilities of the country' .
However, it should be noted that representatives of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations were not included.
There was what the report calls an "initial contract' between these members and the governing authorities of the European Movement which stated, in particular, that "the essential objective of the new electoral law should be to bring the electorate closer to the elected (an extraordinary slip, incidentally) by breaking up the framework of the single national constituency' (page 13).
Given this "initial contract' it is not surprising to finally learn on page 16 that "the members of the committee were unanimous in recommending a reform of the existing system and, in this perspective, the continuation of proportional representation and the division of the electorate into a number of territorial constituencies' .
To what extent certain members of this committee were taken in, we do not know.
What is certain, in any case, is that public opinion is constantly manipulated through the effect of Commission subsidies.
We are, therefore, taking this opportunity to demand once more their complete and permanent removal.
We would also like to remind you that the simplest and most certain way of bringing European representatives closer to the electorate - and not the other way round - is to give national parliaments back a major role in the Community decision-making process, making them more active players on the European scene.
With regard to the European Parliament representatives, who should all be elected, for both theoretical and practical reasons, within the framework of a single national constituency, they might find themselves better controlled by the electorate if they were to apply the proposals contained in the different documents of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
Amongst others, Members of the European Parliament should be managed at national level and not by Brussels, their work should be better linked to the work of preparatory reflection on national laws when they are common subjects, and citizens must be enabled to draw up a true balance sheet of the positions taken by their representatives in Brussels, by their different speeches being published in a specific section of the French government gazette.
I support the report by Georgios Anastassopoulos.
The proposals put to us largely move in the direction of a people's Europe and the strengthening of European citizenship, a direction which I support and which takes up all my energy.
Two measures respond to these necessary demands: the creation of territorial constituencies for states with more than 20 million inhabitants and the election of Members of the European Parliament at European level.
I regret the overcautiousness of some, on both the right and the left, with regard to these two points.
Whilst I understand, although I do not share, the arguments for refusing such developments under the pretext of a loss of sovereignty, I cannot accept that others should condemn them out of a strategy of politicking.
These latter are often the very same people who regret the lack of representativeness and the distance between our Parliament and our people.
I would try to understand this, if I did not already understand only too well.
It is, however, regrettable to have to wait until 2009 to be able to elect 10 % of our Members within the single frontier of the Member States; 60 Members elected by Europeans as a whole would have been a strong symbol of the construction of Europe if it had been applied from 2004.
Secondly, I approve of the desire to make the offices of national member of parliament and Member of the European Parliament incompatible.
These two mandates demand time and effort.
To permit the holding of a dual mandate is de facto to discredit our role in the eyes of the population: to reject it is thus a wise measure.
I would once more like to congratulate Georgios Anastassopoulos, whilst hoping that his recommendations will be understood by national members of parliament, beyond any strategy of politicking.
I hope so, but unfortunately I cannot say that I am sure this will be the case.
In Article 7 of his "draft act' , the rapporteur has had the good sense and the courage to introduce a proposal for transnational lists covering 10 % of the total seats available in the European Parliament.
Some will perhaps consider that alongside the other proposals in this text - a list system of proportional representation, minimum thresholds, preferential voting, territorial constituencies in states with more than 20 million inhabitants -, that of transnational lists is of secondary concern.
This is not my opinion.
On the contrary, it is an initiative which is a part of the main theme of the construction of Europe which is less focused around national issues.
It is the logical continuation of the directive giving Europeans living in another country the right to vote at the time of local elections in their host country.
In both cases, it is a question of developing the realization of a true European citizenship.
And it is furthermore based on this precedent, which goes beyond the boundaries of the framework of the State, that the European Parliament's Legal Service has given an opinion on this proposal which, in its opinion, is not alien to the principles of the Treaty, since elements of transnationality already exist in terms of the European elections.
As a Socialist who is a member of the a Party of European Socialists (PES) alongside the parliamentary Group of the Party of European Socialists (PSE), I should add that it would give an extremely specific content to the establishment of true European parties as distinct from traditional political groups.
It may be interesting to add an element of dramatization to the European elections by dissociating them from national elections and removing the risk of confusion between the two levels.
Thanks to the transnational lists, minority groups spread throughout the Member States may find a way of increasing their standing and even of being represented within the European Parliament.
I am thinking, amongst others, of gypsies and Muslims.
These are the principles.
What of the concrete realization? We are not yet there, but everyone knows that there are many practical problems to be resolved: the drawing up of lists; the overall balance of Members between states; the choice of personalities of a European stature who could acceptably figure on a transnational list rather than a national list, and so on.
This is the problem of a Europe being constructed from amongst nations and federations.
But the fact remains that the principle of transnational lists is likely to develop the spirit of a European conscience.
The regular election of representatives by citizens through free, fair and secret direct universal suffrage is most certainly the characteristic of truly democratic power.
As long as it respects these basic characteristics, the electoral system can, however, vary.
It is, when all is said and done, no more than a method of implementation which can be amended in space and time, without representing any cause for challenge of the democratic nature of a representative regime.
In the current state of the construction of Europe, it appears that the priority is for all of the Union's citizens to feel fully and truly represented within the European Parliament.
From this perspective, a harmonization of the essential elements of national electoral procedures - in the sense of the generalized use of proportional representation by constituency for the European elections -, combined with the introduction of a minimum threshold of representativeness - aimed at avoiding too much fragmentation of the political groupings - appears to be the best solution since the British government has put a bill to its parliament establishing proportional and regional voting for the 1999 European elections.
It is for this reason that I support the draft act which is before us.
I would, however, like to add that harmonization of the essential elements of the electoral procedures for the European elections is not sufficient to make up for the lack of legitimacy and recognition which the European Parliament suffers from.
It is my deep conviction that this will remain as long as Parliament is not invested with the basic powers devolved to any true parliament. These include being the final authority with regard to voting on taxes and budgets and having the power to appoint and dissolve a European government which is fully accountable to it alone.
This report contains the incompletely drafted proposal of the so-called transnational lists for the European elections, and I cannot accept it in this form.
In the absence of any further precise details on this in the report, it is difficult to determine what this actually means.
To the rapporteur, transnational, that is, European, lists appear to mean that 10 % of the Members of the European Parliament will be elected not nationally, but on a Europe-wide basis.
This contradicts other proposals contained in the report.
For example, an attempt is made, through the regionalisation of constituencies for the large countries, to bring the voters closer to politics.
The transnational lists will, on the other hand, turn Europe into one vast constituency, which will in turn distance the Members of the European Parliament, definitively placing them in higher spheres, far away from the voters.
But perhaps transnational lists mean that in individual regions, such as the Saar-Lor-Lux region, cross-border lists could be made up for the European elections: such an idea per se would not be inappropriate for the promotion of European thinking.
If this is the intention of the report, it should at least indicate so.
In addition, it is not clear how such lists would be created, nor in particular how countries with very few Members, such as Luxembourg, would be served by this.
The more I think about it, the more this transnational list appears to me to be a type of 'political gadget' , that stands in direct contrast to the objective that I myself am pursuing in European politics, in other words, keeping European politicians in touch with the citizens, participation of the citizens in the political discussion in Europe and the 'visibility' of the European politics for the citizens.
The creation of a uniform electoral law for elections to the European Parliament is one of the most difficult aspects of the process of European integration.
That is shown by the fact that the task of producing such a law featured back in the Treaty of Rome, but almost 50 years later we have still not been able to approve it.
First of all, it was the very question of direct elections to the European Parliament which was the subject of debate; more recently, it has been the different traditions in the various Member States which have prevented us reaching an agreement.
So we should congratulate ourselves on having approved the Anastassopoulos report, for which I voted, for that reason.
In fact, this report allows Parliament to take a step which, although not as large as might have been hoped, is still of great political significance and will undoubtedly help to bring the voters and their elected representatives closer together. That is essential for the smooth running of the democratic system and to allow people to participate more directly in the decision making process which affects them, and thereby feel they are taking part in the great adventure of building a Europe of peace and wellbeing.
I am glad to be able to explain my vote in favour of the Anastassopoulos report on the production of a draft electoral procedure based on common principles for the election of Members of the European Parliament .
The report and draft act, drawn up in accordance with Article 138(3) of the Treaty establishing the European Community - Article 190(4) of the consolidated Amsterdam Treaty -, fill a gap in the fulfilment of the Treaty of Rome, which envisaged a uniform electoral system throughout what is now the European Union.
In the much-needed deepening of the democratic aspects of the EU, which is still today suffering from a democratic deficit in some areas, fulfilling the aforementioned mandate will constitute one more very important step in the representation of the citizens of the EU in the European Parliament, which has been repeatedly pointing out the need for this.
It is worth remembering, in this respect, the excellent earlier draft produced by my former Liberal colleague, the Flemish Member Karel De Gucht.
Unfortunately, the lack of will and agreement between the governments of the EU Member States has prevented Parliament's successive proposals from being put into practice.
I hope and desire that on this occasion the draft produced by our Vice-President, Georgios Anastassopoulos, will become reality.
It is a good proposal, which contains the essential elements to lay the foundations of the uniform electoral system demanded by the Union's democracy.
I am glad that one of those elements envisages territorial constituencies in Member States with a population of more than 20 million.
Constituencies corresponding to stateless nations and well-defined regions of the EU make a marked contribution to consolidating the reality of the EU and the integration of the peoples who form it.
Respecting such identities when electing their representatives in the European Parliament will certainly be a big help in improving the degree of representation and the relationship between the people and their Parliamentary representatives.
Once again the European Parliament is acting as the guarantor of progress and democracy in the construction of a united Europe.
Let us hope that this time the governments of the Member States are conscious of their obligations and do not stand in the way of complying with the wishes expressed in the Anastassopoulos report and the plan it contains.
Within the development of the institutional context, marked, in particular, by the establishment of direct universal suffrage for the election of Members of the European Parliament and the granting of the codecision procedure through the Maastricht Treaty and more recently through the Amsterdam Treaty, we must congratulate Georgios Anastassopoulos on the work he has carried out.
I fully share his legitimate ambition to bring European representatives closer to the citizens in general and the electorate in particular.
But I question the choice of method he advocates.
Indeed, the electoral method which truly enables this proximity to be established in practice is the method of voting for a single Member whereby the number of constituencies would correspond with the number of Members to be elected.
During the French government's recent attempt to regionalise the voting system, I took this same position.
Furthermore, a large majority of the national political class denounced the fact that this proposal for reform was based on a method which did not enable the desired objective to be attained at the grass roots..
This failure on the part of the Jospin government, which finally withdrew its proposal, demonstrates that a reform of the voting method used for the European elections must, of necessity, take into consideration: the real expectations of our citizens and representatives, the existing geographical and administrative realities and the change in the number of Members of the European Parliament for each Member State, following enlargement.
Furthermore, it is now particularly important to anticipate which general principles are common to all Member States. The states must, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, retain authority with regard to practicalities concerning the establishment of electoral lists, the organization and financing of electoral campaigns, the preparation and progress of electoral procedure and electoral disputes, as well as the setting of a minimum threshold for the allocation of seats.
As the amendments which would have contributed to moving the text in this direction have unfortunately not all been adopted, Mr President, I have voted against the final text.
I regret that I must vote against the report by our honourable Vice-President, Mr Anastassopoulos, but it raises questions concerning elements of principle in our politics.
The history of parliamentarianism shows us conclusively that an extremist party has never yet legally gained power in a country in which a system of voting for one member was used.
A study by one of the major German universities has proved that Hitler would never have gained a majority if the system of the proportional list system had not existed in Germany.
Let us not be under any illusions.
Democracy is under threat today and we cannot allow mistakes to be made.
It must be given a human face; the voters must know whom to trust.
The proportional list system leads us to the kind of 'partitocracy' in which most Members are no longer representatives of the people, but instruments of the party functionaries.
The growing number of people who do not vote should be a serious warning to us.
We need Members who obtain the trust of the people through their own efforts.
The system that is to be expanded today, however, all too easily turns these Members into employees of the party structures.
This leads to the decline of, and consequently the direct threat to, democracy.
Those of us who have lived through dictatorships and war, can only have the gravest doubts about the path that can be taken by choosing the wrong electoral system.
According to the new Article 190 in the Amsterdam Treaty, a set of common election regulations for the European Parliament is to be drawn up.
The following points were among those voiced by the rapporteur:
voting should be based on a system of proportional representation; -a threshold not exceeding 5 % should be introduced; -10 % of the total number of seats should be reserved for lists for a single pan-European constituency beginning with elections to the European Parliament in 2009.The new aspect in Article 190(4) of the Amsterdam Treaty is that "...a uniform procedure in all Member States or in accordance with principles common to all Member States' is to be used.
Thus, direct harmonization - as solicited by the rapporteur - is not required by the Treaty.
The Danish Social Democrats believe the rapporteur has gone too far, since Article 190 does not require harmonization.
The procedures applicable to European Parliament elections - for example, proportional representation and thresholds - would, in fact, even out the differences between the larger and smaller nations, thus giving small countries proportionately more influence.
The Danish Social Democrats support the other amendment tabled by the Group of the Party of European Socialists, endeavouring as it does to deflect the rapporteur's report away from the concept of harmonization.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Holm and Schörling (V), Bonde and Lis Jensen (IEDN), in writing.
(SV) The undersigned have voted against the report.
We think it is the duty of the national parliaments and constitutions to regulate the electoral system, even with regard to elections to the European Parliament.
It is the national parliaments which have democratic legitimacy and familiarity with the local conditions.
We think that democracy in the countries of the EU is based on the national parliaments and constitutions. It is therefore important that it is these authorities which have power over such crucial issues as electoral systems.
We are particularly opposed to paragraph 4 of the report. It proposes that 10 % of the seats should be distributed by proportional representation at EU level.
Such an arrangement requires functioning EU parties, something which is hardly likely to be realized within the foreseeable future.
Today the so-called European parties completely lack any legitimacy or basis among the citizens.
The differences between the national parties with the same leanings are substantial, and the political debate is highly national.
In the spirit of pluralistic democracy and a Europe of all the peoples I wish to state my support for Amendments No 46 (tabled by Mr Ebner of the Südtiroler Volkspartei) and No 49 (which I have tabled).
Both express common concerns for the smaller peoples of Europe.
The South Tyroleans, Valdostans, Sards and Friulians in Italy and the Frisians in the Netherlands, for instance, are covered by Amendment No 46.
But Amendment No 49 goes further, by extending this to recognised historic nationalities in more than one state.
The particular beneficiary of this approach would be the Sámi people, who inhabit the northern part of two Member States (Sweden and Finland), as well as of the former applicant country Norway.
There is a strong moral case for giving the Sámi people a seat in this Parliament.
Under the current system that does not happen.
But a European Parliament without a Sámi seat is an incomplete Parliament and I appeal to colleagues to eliminate this deficit along with all the others this report seeks to address.
Today (15/7) the European Parliament votes on the Anastassopoulos report proposing an EU-wide common electoral system, based on proportional representation, for future European elections.
Much as we respect Mr Anastassopoulos personally, and appreciate the enormous effort he has put into his report, Conservative MEPs will be voting against his conclusions.
Two of his main conclusions are unacceptable to us.
We are opposed in principle to PR being an obligatory system of election, whether at European or national level.
We cannot support the idea of some MEPs being elected in a single panEuropean constituency, something the report proposes from 2009.
The British experience proves that single-member constituencies keep MEPs closer to the people than continental systems and encourage them to pay more attention to their constituents than to party bosses.
Large regions or, worse still, single national constituencies, are the enemy of effective representation.
We welcome the fact that the Gaullist RPR in France recently proposed that the single national constituency in that country should be replaced by eighty-seven individual constituencies on the British model.
Whilst we dislike PR, it is important that, wherever PR is used, governments and parliaments choose the most open and voterfriendly version on offer.
Closed lists are anti-democratic and bad for the civic culture.
My German EPP Group colleague, Mr von Habsburg, has rightly condemned them as the instruments of a party state.
We will be campaigning for open, rather than closed, lists to be the norm in future Euro-elections.
Mr Anastassopoulos' personal support for open lists is most welcome.
Today, as part of our campaign, we are publishing a paper by Professor Vernon Bogdanor of Oxford University, one of Britain's leading constitutional and electoral experts, setting out the case for open lists to promote voter choice in Europe.
Today is also the start of voting within the British Labour Party on candidates for next June's European election.
In each existing Euro-constituency, Labour Party members will be able to participate in the nomination of two or three candidates to a central pool of over 200 aspirants.
At that point, the Labour leadership, through the NEC, will decide the order of candidates within each region.
Party members will be excluded from the key decisions on who gets elected.
Whereas both other main parties in Britain - Conservatives and Liberal Democrats - have allowed their voluntary membership complete control over the order of each regional list, Labour's control-freak tendency is determined to impose identikit slates of Blairite clones from the centre.
The Labour leadership's response to PR confirms all our worst suspicions about how the system can be abused when party apparatchiks refuse to give up control and decide to shut the voters out.
The electoral procedure for the election of Members of the European Parliament is essential, mainly for those Member States where there is a decentralized system of government, such as Spain which has 17 autonomous communities, the administrative organization of which is closer to the people.
For that reason, I think the European elections should use the autonomous constituencies, since this method brings the Member closer to the people he represents, and makes him more accessible, thereby achieving one of our objectives: that the European Parliament be more sensitive to the needs and concerns of all European citizens.
Furthermore, this type of constituency attempts to provide a practical outlet for the situation in the many Member States composed of different historical nationalities, such as Spain, which is shared not just by the Catalans and the Basques, but also by other historical nationalities such as the Valencian Community. That means it is a good idea to introduce autonomous constituencies for the election of Members.
In that sense, I support the Anastassopoulos report.
I voted against the report, as I cannot accept that, as from the year 2009, 10 % of European Parliamentary seats should be filled by representatives from a pan-EU constituency.
Such a practice would unfairly favour large Member States to the detriment of the small ones.
It would mean an increase in populism in the nomination process as well as the emergence of internationally well-known candidates, not necessarily politicians.
This would not have any added value for the work of Parliament.
In addition, the question of dividing countries up into one or several electoral districts must remain for the Member States themselves to decide.
The Vice-President of Parliament and rapporteur of this report will forgive me if I call to mind a famous compatriot of his by the name of Plato, and state that I am a great friend of Mr Anastassopoulos but an even greater friend of Truth.
And in my humble opinion, the truth is that each Member State should be sovereign to decide how to select or elect the Members who represent it in this Parliament.
As I see it, there is no sense in 10 Member States with a population of less than 10 million forcing the other five Member States to create constituencies which in practice will surely violate the principle that each and every Member represents all the country's voters.
Furthermore, this system could produce unexpected results, to which we may perhaps not have given enough thought.
I shall give an example: with the current Spanish method, which treats the whole national territory as a single constituency, there are six Spanish Members from the Spanish Basque Country in this legislature.
If the proportional system were applied to the territory and population of that region, it would only have two Members in a future Parliament elected by such a system.
That would no doubt go against the interests of the Basque Country and against the wish to bring this Parliament closer to a region of Spain which deserves, and gets, special attention from this House, thanks partly to the work of its six current Members.
What I have just said does not mean I do not admire the report by our colleague Georgios Anastassopoulos, which is good and worthy of admiration.
So I have voted in favour of the text.
The Anastassopoulos report is the perfect illustration of the anti-national method and ideology which drive the current federalist majority in this Parliament.
It is an own-initiative report founded on a legal basis which figures in a Treaty which has not been ratified by Member States and which is therefore not in force.
But this matters little, for the tactic is always the same: it is a question of creating a fait accompli, regardless of the law, in such a way as to be able to then use the European Parliament's proposals as a lever to put pressure on the Council and to put this latter on the defensive.
The intended objective of the content is to break up national constituencies.
To achieve this, federalist ideology jointly uses its two favourite channels: the infra-national level and the supra-national level.
Under pretext of bringing Members of the European Parliament closer to their electorate, the Anastassopoulos report proposes a maximum fragmentation of the electorate by doing away with both the notion of a single national constituency and the Members' status of national representatives elected in the different Member States.
At the same time, the report recommends the establishment of transnational lists, which would have exactly the opposite effect to the previously stated objective.
But it matters little that these proposals are often entirely contradictory: the objective is negative - it is a question of destroying the national framework - and not positive: bringing a Member closer to his electorate is no more than a false pretext.
After today's vote it is clear that a proportional electoral system will apply to the whole of the Union in future. At the same time the electoral proposal respects the principle of subsidiarity and avoids regulating electoral procedures in too much detail, for example, election expenses, voting age etcetera.
It was also important and in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity to establish that the setting of voting thresholds is voluntary.
As a part of creating more uniform conditions for the Members, it was important to establish that having any other parliamentary seat at the same time is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament.
However, on three points I regret the resolution the majority of Members decided on.
Firstly, it was unfortunate that the majority of the House considered that constituencies should be compulsory in Member States with more than 20 million inhabitants.
If a country has fewer inhabitants, it does not have to be divided into constituencies, including Finland.
Secondly, it was also unfortunate that the majority in Parliament - 349 against 173 - voted in favour of discussing a proposal that a certain proportion of the seats should be distributed within a single constituency which is common to all Member States.
Such a system could only serve to further confuse the electoral procedure.
Thirdly, it was unfortunate that a majority could not be raised to clearly state that it should be possible to have protection mechanisms for minorities: 190 votes for and 287 against.
In spite of the above flaws, I considered it important that the work on common provisions could now continue in the Council of Ministers and therefore voted for the report in the final vote.
I would like to thank our colleague Georgios Anastassopoulos for the work he has carried out.
Nevertheless, although I fully share in the ambition, a completely legitimate one, to bring European Members of Parliament closer to their citizens, I am not in agreement with the method advocated.
Resorting to a regionalised system of proportional representation is not the best solution.
Indeed, only the method of voting for one Member, with a number of constituencies corresponding to the number of Members to be elected, enables this objective to be attained.
In France, the failure of the Jospin government as regards its recent proposal for reform aimed at regionalising the method of voting in the European elections is largely linked to the discrepancy between the means and the objective.
It would have been desirable for this House to draw lessons from this national experience.
Mr President, I voted in favour of a large number of amendments which would considerably improve the proposal, taking particular account of the principle of subsidiarity.
As they were not all adopted, I have voted against this text.
Olsson report (A4-0200/98)
Mr President, in order to achieve sustainable and lasting development, our society must take up a double challenge: to encourage individuals and businesses to pollute less and to correct the distortions in competition which penalize manufacturers who have invested in the fight against pollution, whilst generally applying the principle of "the polluter pays' .
Admittedly, it is essential that the environmental dimension, as well as the social dimension, be integrated into fiscal instruments, but the Olsson report is based on the concept of an ecotax, that is, a supplementary tax to be added to an already excessive tax burden.
That can only have a harmful influence on the economy.
However, what is actually needed is a tax system adapted to the demands of sustainable development.
But this means a real tax revolution, not greater taxation but different taxation, not so heavy but better calculated, encouraging employment rather than more unemployment, in favour of the environment and not the polluter, in favour of health and no longer the sickness of living.
The Olsson report does not allow us to achieve these objectives.
Mr President, the 20th century dawned with red taxes: taxes on income, inheritance and capital, both in Europe and the West.
The 20th century must now come to a close with green taxes and we are presented with a new version of fiscal interventionism: taxes on CO2 and against pollution.
It is ineffective in principle and dangerous to the system.
With regard to the principle, we have 40 French, European and Western tax doctrines.
Fiscal intervention has never been seen to work.
Africa tried it, in the field of economics, with dozens of investment schools.
It did not work!
To achieve justice, it did not work!
To achieve demographic revival, it did not work!
And nor will it work in respect of the environment, because of the system, because it will first of all be necessary to fix the price of, and take into account, different hypotheses, different pollution, different sources of pollution emissions.
This will bring about a new legislative complexity and a prescriptive pollution.
It is economically dangerous because it will cause distortions between countries which will apply them and countries which will not.
It is the same as the story of the drift gillnets.
Tunisia and Japan do not apply them in the Mediterranean.
Finally, it is morally condemnable because it is not the principle of the polluter pays which is applied, it is the principle of the consumer pays, the principle of the innocent pays, just like the surcharges on meat to tackle pollution, to tackle mad-cow disease.
And if the aim is to encourage employment, then let us have widespread tax reform, with a European ceiling for tax and social security deductions, and let us finally reflect on the stupidity of maintaining a tax on the creation of wealth, that is, a tax on income.
We think that environmental taxes and charges are good and help reduce pollution and the wrongful use of natural resources.
But this should be dealt with at the level of the Member States, not at EU level.
I am happy with this initiative on the part of the European Commission which, for the first time, examines Member States' use of environmental charges and draws up an inventory of the possibilities and obligations linked to this.
It is nevertheless disappointing that the Commission has not taken this inventory further.
Indeed, a critical and comparative study of the effectiveness and profitability, both environmental and economic, of these taxes would have been particularly interesting and useful.
On many points, I do not share the opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which recommends the promotion of environmental charges without even demanding a prior cost/benefit analysis.
Personally, I am not in favour of bringing in new taxes.
On the contrary, I advocate firstly the use of tax incentives, whose effect is always more positive, and secondly, the need to make polluting companies responsible for their actions.
Taxes are never the ideal solution, on the contrary!
The principle of "the polluter pays' is a good one if it does not systematically end up by buying the right to pollute.
For this fundamental reason, I voted against the proposed resolution.
Karl Erik Olsson's report highlights a number of significant environmental problems to which the EU single market and other forms of economic globalization have contributed.
At the same time, the Olsson report also refers to a number of environmental obligations that the respective participating countries entered into at the meetings in Rio and Kyoto.
We fully support the view that various environmental taxes and charges may constitute one of many effective means of reducing pollution.
However, what makes the Olsson report unacceptable to us is, for example, that it recommends EU environmental taxes and charges and the harmonization of national economic policies at EU level.
Empowering the EU in terms of taxes and charges is at odds with the promises we have made to our electorate.
We have promised to fight any action that would grant more powers at EU level to the detriment of national democracies.
At the same time, we wholeheartedly support all positive local, national, regional and international actions that may help reduce any kind of pollution.
However, we oppose the far-reaching proposal in the Olsson report that would spell sweeping EU harmonization of vital aspects of economic policy.
For these reasons, we are voting against the Olsson report.
The Danish Social Democrats support initiatives on environmental taxes and charges at EU level.
However, the revenues should go to the individual countries themselves, and the taxes and charges must not be funnelled into other areas.
We support the report in challenging the Commission to come up with common proposals that would at least promote the use of environmental taxes and charges.
Environmental taxes and charges in individual Member States could conflict with the rules of the single market and, therefore, environmental taxes and charges should be based on the need to solve environmental problems.
We are pleased to see the topic on the agenda of the presidency for this autumn, and it is our hope that this discussion will soon blossom into something tangible.
I will vote in favour of Mr Olsson's report, for a tax system favouring the environment and based on the principle of "the polluter pays' enables the encouragement of industrial and consumption practices more in favour of supporting sustainable development.
Nevertheless, indirect taxes on consumption have the enormous inconvenience of not taking income into account and of not being based on the principle of progressive taxation, which is the fairest form of taxation.
Thus, the multiplication of these taxes, as is the case with VAT, increases social inequalities by penalizing the rich more heavily.
They can thus only be used when we are sure that the tax created truly brings about a change in behaviour and effectively reduces pollution.
It will be noted, for example, that in spite of significant and increasing taxation on petrol consumption in France, there has been no notable reduction in use.
In summary, my aim is to call on the European Parliament and the Commission to be mindful of the social consequences of environmental taxes or charges.
The unreserved or scarcely suppressed enthusiasm during the debate on environmental taxes cannot but cause us serious concern.
Although we acknowledge their merits, it has yet to be proved that they will have the intended effect of making it possible to replace labour taxes - even if they are effective from the environmental point of view, they will not produce much in the way of revenue - or that they will not have the effect of penalizing investment, particularly in a competitive world with open borders.
In addition, we are shocked at the complete absence of any reference to their retrogressive effects, in that they penalize the poor more than the rich; and the absence of any reference to the fact that the Union's greatest polluters are the richest countries: Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy alone are responsible for 71 % of CO2 emissions, whereas Portugal produces 1.4 %.
This is thus an argument for different requirements and timings , or indeed the fact that an energy tax will be a particular burden on transport, and will thus affect the poorest, peripheral countries much more than the others.
Finally, it is also shocking that the report never says that the only clearly effective optimization policy which involves no retrogressive effects or economic distortions would be a policy of direct support for restructuring equipment.
Could this still be the case because the burden of such a policy would fall principally on the richest countries, which are trying to soothe their consciences and evade their responsibilities by insisting on environmental taxes?
We must be careful to distinguish between two issues in the Olsson report: that of the harmonization of ecotaxes and that of a possible European tax system.
For the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, protection of the environment is unquestionably a priority area of common interest, where a high degree of harmonization can and must be sought between the maximum number of Member States.
On the other hand, it is unacceptable that questions of pollution should be used as a pretext to enable the Community to have own resources at its disposal, circumventing any control on the part of Member States, which is what the Commission ceaselessly and untiringly strives for.
We have seen, with the mad cow affair and the drift gillnets, to what point the Commission is an expert at manipulating health and environmental issues, to which we are particularly sensitive.
So, we will not accept that, under the guise of ecotaxes, an attempt is in actual fact made to create a European tax.
We must seek to preserve the environment, the single market and the fiscal sovereignty of Member States.
With regard to VAT and excise duties, for example, administrative procedures have been put in place which respect the fiscal independence of Member States, whilst preserving the principle of the single market.
For ecotaxes, a certain number of Member States have established such taxes for packaging.
In Germany, for example, the dual system enables operators as a whole to participate in the ecotax, whatever the origin, be it a third country or another Member State.
The system of green points in France, with the establishment of Eco-packaging and Adelphe also enables easy intra-Community trade.
However, in Belgium, the ecotax system in place which obliges operators from another Member State to include the accreditation reference of each of their distributors, is a heavy system, which causes a certain level of protectionism.
The amendments tabled by our group aim to give the Commission the responsibility for harmonization of administrative procedures with regard to ecotaxes.
In fact, contrary to what has been done in Belgium, the administrative system for the collection of taxes must be simple, fair, effective and must not hinder intra-Community trade.
If the Commission remains set on its current position, hindrances will be such that some will wish for the creation of a European tax, which is absolutely unacceptable.
Indeed, the European Union budget must remain a budget exclusively financed by Member States and by customs duties on products imported from third countries.
The creation of a European tax would be one more step towards the creation of a European super-state, which is something our people do not want.
The issue of the imposition of so-called environmental levies and charges, otherwise known as ecotaxes, is not new and has been in abeyance in the Community organs for years.
Now, however, the issue raises its head again with greater intensity, with a series of proposals such as, notably, the proposal for a directive to levy a CO2 energy tax and increased VAT on energy, the proposal for the taxation of energy products, and the Green Paper on pricing in transport, in the context of a more general attempt to broaden the European Union's powers of taxation.
We believe that the environmental element must constitute a fundamental parameter of all policies and activities, that sustainable and far-reaching development must go hand in hand with the protection of the environment, that environmental policy must be based on prevention, on the imputation of responsibilities to those who are involved in its destruction, and on the taking of measures to repair the damage caused.
Moreover, a fundamental role is to be played by the completion and enforcement of the existing legal framework at both a national and an international level, and by the taking of coordinated action for the implementation of declarations that are made from time to time, such as the measures announced at Rio and Kyoto, which are being flagrantly ignored for the sake of increased super profits for big business.
The proposal for environmental levies does not even guarantee that revenues will be used to finance environmental protection actions, to promote activities relating to sustainable production models, and to boost the use and production of environmentally friendly technologies.
The environmental sector could bring about the creation of new jobs and thereby contribute to increased employment.
However, a guarantee must be given that, whatever measures are taken to protect the environment, they will not lead to new indirect subsidies for employers, as there is a serious risk that resources will be misused or held back and not paid out. (This was demonstrated by the respective problems relating to the payment of VAT or, as in Greece and other countries, the nonpayment of social security contributions.)
Moreover, any financing of actions to protect the environment may lead to unfair subsidies for big business, without there being any guarantee that they will have a positive impact on the creation of steady full-time jobs, as demonstrated by the current unreliability of environmental studies which must accompany large-scale works.
We disagree with any attempt to link environmental levies with the logic of the White Paper on increasing competitiveness by reducing labour costs and, consequently, employers' social security contributions.
This would lead to the further shrinking of the State social security system and to the support of private insurance.
The reason for this is that the institution of such levies, if linked with the reduction in employers' contributions, will lead to reduced revenues for social security organizations.
Moreover, the current reality shows that a reduction in employers' contributions does not lead to an appreciable increase in employment, but rather to an increase in profits.
We are especially concerned by the fact that the range of products susceptible to taxation is expanding dangerously, covering a variety of essential goods and goods of wide consumption such as water, transport, construction, chemical pesticides and fertilizers.
We fear that the ulterior purpose is to create an additional generalized tax burden aimed at increasing tax revenues.
For these reasons we cannot vote for the report.
This brings the explanations of vote, and the agenda for the morning, to a close.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
EMI annual report
The next item is the report (A4-0263/98) by Mr Fourçans, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the European Monetary Institute's annual report (1997)
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, before the start of the second stage, this European Parliament had already assumed responsibility for organizing a monetary dialogue with the European Monetary Institute, and at the same time it stressed that this must be developed further in the third stage of monetary union with the beginning of the age of the euro.
We in the European Parliament have been able to see the commitment of this European institution, the European Monetary Institute, at a time in which there was great doubt as to whether monetary union could actually begin on time.
Therefore, the European Monetary Institute, its President and its employees should be thanked for their work which has always been characterized by hope and by the European Community spirit, because we all know that if a matter is not tackled jointly, it cannot be completed.
In this respect, Mr President, I wish you all the best for your work in the European Central Bank, which will be so important to our daily lives.
In this respect, I would also like to thank the rapporteur, whose position is supported by the PSE group, for his comments on the report by the European Monetary Institute.
Even if this no longer survives, many recommendations by this institute are still of particular importance for the European Central Bank.
I would like to emphasize one point at the beginning of this debate: when the common monetary policy is introduced on 1 January 1999, not only the markets, but also the people, must be convinced of the value of this institution's work, of the credibility of its decisions, in the interests of price stability and also in the interests of the independence of this European monetary authority.
At the same time, however, it must be possible to develop an information and communications strategy that meets the need of the people who are entering this age of the euro with uncertainty, fear and scepticism.
For that reason, this European Parliament's question concerns what is being done or what should be done beyond the monetary dialogue with this Parliament on the basis of the quarterly report and on the basis of the annual report from the European Central Bank, in order to give concrete shape to democratic accountability and the establishment of European openness for its decisions.
This raises the very specific question of what a rejection of the publication of records really means. Is it really not possible for the European Central Bank to publish its monetary decisions, as this European Parliament has repeatedly requested, and at the same time to publish the reasons for a monetary decision on the day of that decision?
We in the European Parliament are not concerned in the least about who puts forward what point of view or who votes which way in the European Central Bank. We are simply concerned that the public, that we all understand what the background is to these monetary policy decisions, that not only affects price stability but actually helps to determine investments, growth and employment.
To this is added the fact that this monetary dialogue is not only in the interests of the democratic system, but at the same time is in the interests of the European Central Bank, which can only gain credibility.
For this reason, I also think that it is very important to discuss strategies of monetary policy.
Money supply and inflation targets are in competition, as the rapporteur indicated.
We in the European Parliament considered a double and mixed strategy at a very early stage and are of the opinion that money supply and inflation targets must be linked because we want to avoid any risk, especially in the age of electronic money.
I must repeat that the more indicators that have to be assessed by the European Central Bank, the simpler it will be to control the development of money supply and thus also inflation, one of the major tasks of the European Central Bank.
Mr President, I hope that the next time you come before this Parliament, unlike the two previous occasions, it will not be to give a report of an organization about to be liquidated.
I would like to share with you three concerns, and put to you two questions.
My first concern relates to the external representation of monetary union.
The situation of close interdependence of the financial markets nowadays makes cooperation on the part of the major monetary authorities - of which you are one - more necessary than ever; we recently noted during the Asian crisis, that you were not to be seen, at least, you were not in the front row of those discussing these problems. I would like you to explain to us what the problem is with regard to your external representation.
My second concern relates to the coordination of economic policies: the process provided for in the Treaty does not seem to give particularly spectacular results. I am, above all, concerned about continuing efforts with regard to the consolidation of budgetary stabilization.
We have a number of concerns with regard to this matter, as does the Commission, I believe.
It seems that many countries, having achieved the required performance in terms of respecting the convergence criteria have now let themselves go a little and there is a natural tendency to relax efforts which must, however, be continued.
The third worry concerns the impact of the Asian crisis in conjunction with the Russian crisis, not so much on an economic level - we have been given more or less reassuring statistics in this respect -, but concerning the direct commitment of the European and international banking system in the affected countries.
It appears that the chances of repayment on the part of Russia, in particular, are slim and we know it they must this year repay more than 30 billion dollars, of which it has not one cent.
I have exhausted my speaking time, but with regard to the establishment of the Central Bank, I would nevertheless like to ask what level of autonomy of action you leave to the Governing Council, for this is an important point.
You have a good team; we know it is united.
This was made clear at the time of the hearings.
How will the Bank establish it and what truth can we give to the rumours which are circulating regarding difficulties relating to the printing of bank notes?
Mr President, this is a moment of transition.
Formally, we are dealing with the EMI report for last year. The president of that institution has become the first president of the European Central Bank.
Obviously, as stated by the previous speakers, starting with the rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, whose report we support, this has been useful for a first exchange of views on the first steps of the European Central Bank, which has been undergoing a process of consolidation since 1 June this year.
I would like to repeat a few points which have been mentioned which I think would benefit from clarification.
Yesterday, in this same Hemicycle, we approved Mrs Berès' report which deals with the composition of the Economic and Financial Committee. We expressed our dissatisfaction at the way the composition of that committee has been hijacked by representatives of the Member States' central banks and high ranking officials answering to the finance ministers.
They have excluded a wide range of experts in fiscal and budgetary matters, and analysts specializing in the international situation. In fact, it prevents there being a genuine Community dimension.
That lack of a Community dimension can also be seen in, for example, the presence of the European Central Bank itself and the representation of monetary union in the international fora and international bodies relating to monetary matters, from the International Monetary Fund to the groups composed of representatives of the large industrialized economies.
I am also referring, as Mr Herman said, to the question of relations with Ecofin, the Euro 11 and the role these institutions play in their relations with the European Central Bank.
We are deeply concerned about these issues, and we think that between now and the beginning of 1999 they should be resolved as best they can.
Mr President, Commissioner and President of the European Central Bank, at the outset I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate the President of the Central Bank on his appointment and wish him well during his term of office.
This annual report does not provide an adequate point of reference or explanation as to the type of policy to be managed.
In the future the European Central Bank must include important elements, such as more detailed analysis of developments on world financial markets and possible areas where discussions can take place on coordinating fiscal policies.
The summary with regard to the countries of central and eastern Europe is far too brief from the point of view of future enlargement.
If we look at the European situation as a whole, the fight against unemployment must remain a top priority and of course one way of tackling the problem is through increased product investment.
It is also useful to recall that the monetary policy of the euro zone is inseparable from the introduction of a Union economic policy based on coordination of the economic policies of the Member States.
The European Central Bank will play a key role in creating an economic atmosphere conducive to investment and will therefore play an important role in job creation.
While the emphasis since 1994 has been on preparing the management framework for the European Central Bank, decisions still have to be made.
The most important concerns the instruments for monetary policy.
Above all an intermediate monetary policy objective must be defined.
It follows that the Central Bank, given a precise objective, must examine a whole range of criteria in order to take decisions.
The European Central Bank Council must disclose its strategy on this matter in September.
Could I ask the President of the Central Bank what steps are to be taken to ensure that the visually impaired will not be disadvantaged when the new notes come into circulation?
In conclusion I would like to say to the President of the Central Bank how much we appreciate his offer to appear regularly before Parliament's subcommittee.
I can assure him that we will be acting as the euro watch-dog.
We will be looking to him to safeguard the interests of the smaller Member States.
Mr President, these reports by the European Monetary Institute and Mr Fourçans point in the same direction: they are to be identified with those who proclaim the obsessive principle of price stability, and aim for a uniform fiscal and budgetary policy and a centralized economic policy.
These are just two more reports that ignore technical difficulties, disregard uncertainties over democratic control of policy, give priority to theory and convince and want to convince us that everything is fine with the real economy.
This is Mr Duisenberg's last report before he moves from the European Monetary Institute to the European Central Bank.
And he has taken up and emphasized the preoccupations he had while he was there in his new and continuing duties: the same strategy requires us to go faster and faster along the same road to price stability to the point of deflation, the reduction of budget deficits to the point of surplus.
With his advice and warnings he comes close to threatening Member States, not even allowing them to celebrate their pleasure at being among the Eleven.
If, in common with this Parliament, Mr Duisenberg is worried, like the breathless White Rabbit in 'Alice in Euro-Wonderland' , we are worried because he is worried.
And we want to say so.
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, the demise of the old, the EMI, is the birth of the new, the European Central Bank.
For this reason, we here are discussing the policy of the European Central Bank.
I assume that Mr Duisenberg will deny press reports that his salary is being treated as a State secret.
I further assume that we will have a great many more discussions about which monetary policy is really suited to guaranteeing the necessary future investments in Europe and the development of employment that we urgently need.
We must also discuss the acceptable margins of inflation, the problem of deflation, the lack of investment and the problem of the asynchronous course of economic activity that exists not just regionally, but now also socially.
Will we in a couple of years have to republish "A Tale of Two Cities' , in which the Third World expands throughout Europe? Monetary policy must play its part here too.
Secondly, the complex matter that we will discuss is the question of the democratic integration of the European Central Bank and the ESCB.
I just want to help the ECB on its way with this advice: the institutional nirvana is not a safe place.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must recognize that the European Monetary Institute's final annual report represents an efficient and substantial piece of work.
However, I have to note, as the speakers before me have noted, that on certain points that I consider to be fundamental, this report restricts itself to generalities.
Why express these reserves? Because whilst its mission was to herald the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union, the Institute also had the mission of reflecting, not only on the establishment of the forthcoming common monetary policy but also of shedding light on three basic considerations for the good performance of this monetary policy.
Firstly, what are the conditions for good coordination between the monetary policy which will from now on be conducted by the European Central Bank, under Parliament's supervision, and the economic policies of the different Member States? Secondly, what are the conditions for the best possible coordination, both budgetary and fiscal?
Similarly, what analysis has the Institute been able to make with regard to the interdependence of the financial crises shaking Asia and Russia?
What analysis has it made of the necessary or desirable speed of globalization?
Thirdly, what is the impact of the principles of longterm growth, prosperity and employment on the monetary projections which have been put forward?
The Institute's report remains far too general and imprecise on these three points.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance thus shares the critical opinion of Mr Fourçans and will vote in favour of his report.
It is to be hoped that the European Central Bank will support you over the coming months, President Duisenberg, and will be able to learn the lessons of these imperfections which we regret today.
Mr President, this fourth annual report completes the EMI set.
However, it does not offer a comprehensive review of the past four years.
The main news appeared in the March convergence report of this year.
Nevertheless, I would like to draw your attention to a number of points.
Take paragraph 13 of the motion for a resolution.
It would seem an open door but the problem with EMU is precisely that a joint monetary policy might very well run counter to the country-specific context of a national economy.
This is the case, in particular, for Ireland, Finland and the United Kingdom.
The Netherlands was also out of step last year, economically speaking.
When problems such as this affect small countries, then it is hardly noticed at EU level.
But this changes when large countries are involved.
How does the ECB handle such a dilemma?
Secondly, I refer to EMS II and the position of the transition countries.
Are they ready for participation in EMS II and for linking their currency to the euro? Chechnya has tried to link its currency to the Deutsche Mark and the US Dollar but had to abandon it.
This development evokes in me the question as to whether the establishment of EMU might not create an additional obstacle for speedy accession on the part of the central and eastern European countries to the European Union.
Finally, I would like to comment on the position of government finances in the Member States.
The deficits and debts are rather high compared with the present economic trend. This applies, in particular, if we look at the future demographic trend of an ageing population.
I consider it desirable that the ECB or the European Commission and Eurostat investigate and report on this problem.
Mr President, I welcome Mr Duisenberg on his first visit to the European Parliament.
I hope that we are going to have a very good relationship over the coming eight years of his presidency.
I should like to also say to him that this is his first chance to speak to the citizens of the European Union, in particular the 290 million citizens who will be covered by his Central Bank.
Therefore I would like to remind him that he needs to make sure that this bank builds public confidence.
The European Central Bank is not the Bundesbank.
The Bundesbank has a track record and enjoys public confidence in Germany.
The European Central Bank is the newest of the European institutions and has to earn the confidence of the citizens of the European Union.
You cannot earn that confidence by sitting in secret in your office in Frankfurt; you cannot earn it without disclosing information and without ensuring that citizens and our communities are informed about the way in which you do your work and the decisions that you take.
So what I would like to ask the President of the ECB today is that he set out for us very clearly, in simple terms, the way in which the European Central Bank is going to disclose information to the public.
We do not expect you to publish the names and the voting records of people within the monetary authorities.
We do not expect you to do that because we need anonymity in that area.
But we need decisions to be communicated to the public; we need decisions to be communicated to the business community and we need decisions to be communicated to the financial markets.
The financial markets need predictability.
The business community needs confidence in the work that you do and the citizens of the European Union need to have confidence that you are acting on their behalf.
When you came before us for your hearing you said that you would only publish the minutes some 16 years after a meeting has taken place.
I hope, in retrospect, you now realise that is completely unacceptable.
There has to be an interactive relationship between you and the other members of the board in Frankfurt, the European Parliament and the citizens of the European Union.
We even had the ludicrous situation last week, Mr Duisenberg, where someone enquired what your salary was as President of the Central Bank, and was unable to find out that information.
You are a public servant and this information must be made public; it must be in the public domain.
I want to ensure that we have a good relationship with you.
I think that is possible because you want to show the sort of goodwill that you have shown as President of the EMI, but as well as attending hearings in this Parliament, as well as attending meetings of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in the European Parliament, we need you to provide information so that people have confidence in the European Central Bank, but much more importantly, they have confidence in the euro.
Mr President, on 30 June we celebrated the baptism, or shall I say the official creation of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, the common house for the single currency.
Indeed, the euro's arrival modifies the existence of the European Monetary Institute whose annual report we are examining today.
This document reviews the state of preparation of the European monetary institutions on the eve of the euro's introduction and in so doing outlines the monetary policy of the European Central Bank.
The new bank will be a success early on if, in addition to fulfilling the new functions for which it has been created, it correctly carries out the tasks the EMI were entrusted with.
That is why we commend the official President in his dual function, Mr Duisenberg.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has already expressed its satisfaction with the very informative document.
We therefore thank the rapporteur for taking the time to recall the rights and duties of the newborn monetary institution - which is why we used the word baptism - commenting and analysing the rights and duties of the dying monetary institution, which does not, however, require a funeral.
In the same vein, there is no need to talk about funerals for the national central banks either; their role is still too important for the monetary construction of the euro, and this is demonstrated by the 60 000 people they employ in the Member States in comparison with the 281 people working in the EMI.
However, in the future and in the medium term, the ECB will have to fully assume all the functions provided for in the Treaties.
The final objectives expressed in figures, such as the inflation rate and money supply, will constitute factors of stability and growth and will also show European citizens that if today we are working so intensely on the single currency, it is in order to better achieve the other Community objectives sooner, beginning with employment.
A final word: let there be no mistake that the European Parliament is the only Community institution directly elected by the citizens to which the EMI had to be accountable; this obligation will also apply to the ECB.
The European Parliament will do all it can to collaborate, but it will be unremitting in its control of the activity and functions that yesterday were the EMI's and that today are those of the European Central Bank.
Mr President, André Fourçans' excellent report enables us to give a final opinion on the European Monetary Institute and to acknowledge the excellent work carried out by this body and by its two successive presidents, Mr Alexandre Lamfalussy and Mr Wim Duisenberg.
It also enables us, through the pen of the rapporteur, to recall a number of principles which have governed the introduction of the single currency and which must direct the actions of Europeans over the coming years.
The first of these principles is that the European System of Central Banks must enable the single currency to move in the direction of complementarity between a single monetary policy and economic policies. They will of course be coordinated but the strategy remains to be defined at national level.
Although the key words are price stability and control of inflation, and although the objectives are long-term growth and prosperity, it is clear that the fact that the EMI's report has refused to tackle the general problem of the coordination of budgetary and fiscal policies within the Union must be deplored, in line with the rapporteur's comments.
With the euro and the European Central Bank, we must have the means for rigorous supervision of these policies, which are essential for the much-needed stabilization of public finances.
Indeed, we cannot want to reform the gigantic redistribution tool of the common agricultural policy, set ambitious objectives with regard to enlargement and commit ourselves to holding two mandates through Agenda 2000 if we are not at the same time preparing to put in place technical instruments which protect against both what has been called possible asymmetric shocks and also a slow drift towards laxity. These would gnaw away at the refound fruits of growth to the sole benefit of category-specific and selfish interests, disregarding the common good.
The French government's capitulation a few weeks ago at the height of the Air France pilots' strike is a perfect example of what should not be done.
The ECU 200 million lost by the airline during the conflict is a great deal of money which will burden the French taxpayer's purse and, consequently, will prevent a reduction in the national budget deficit.
It is time that national leaders became aware that this is no longer the time for unruly children to be given everything they want and that a serious reform of the labour market is needed, as the rapporteur states, in order to achieve a significant reduction in unemployment.
Naturally, our group will support Mr Fourçans' report.
Mr President, each time we debate in Parliament economic policy and the economic situation in the European Union, words of self-satisfaction of those who have shaped economic policy are saved for the achievements of the economic policy that the European Union is following.
Much the same is happening now.
But how satisfied can we feel with the level of unemployment in the European Union and the level of investment, which is inadequate to fundamentally combat unemployment?
I would like to ask the President of the European Central Bank the following questions.
Firstly, does he think that, with the rigorous implementation of the Stability Pact, which he requested in his speech, it is possible to combat unemployment with the tremendous financial restrictions it imposes?
Secondly, is it possible for us to go ahead with a policy to support the single currency in the context of a fiscal policy like the one that is currently in force?
I would like Mr Duisenberg to answer these questions to see whether the people of Europe can feel satisfied with this situation.
Mr President, in welcoming Mr Duisenberg here today, I also congratulate Mr Fourçans for his commentary on the EMI's final and historic report.
His assertion that the parliamentary dialogue with the ECB must not be confined to monetary policy is persuasively argued.
To quote Mr Fourçans: ' The success of the euro must be economic as well as monetary.
It is by that yardstick that European citizens will judge the new currency' .
Less congenial are the rapporteur's comments on the supposed necessity of wage moderation and the slashing of public expenditure to meet the stability pact targets.
I thought we were all in agreement that wage rises justified by productivity gains should be deemed normal and acceptable.
Mr President, let me now turn directly to Mr Duisenberg and ask him to clarify his position on the choice of monetary policy strategy and instruments to maintain price stability.
The 1997 EMI report fails to reflect the interesting and enlightening exchanges Parliament had with the other ECB candidates on 7 and 8 May about the choice of direct inflation targets, with margin or monetary supply objectives - or a combination of both - as a preferred measure of price stability.
Indeed, the President's then indicative bracket of 0 % to 2 % as a reasonable inflation target seems to have been replaced by a yearning and a yen for monetary supply targets, if recent reports and pronouncements from Mr Duisenberg are to be believed.
Could he make plain his predilections in this area, especially as yesterday's FT report on the uncertainty of monetary aggregate statistics cast doubt on whether we need to worry about their sharp growth?
Finally, does Mr Duisenberg believe that it was a wise decision to have the euro banknotes printed by the eleven separate Member States? Is this not an expensive method which also has security implications?
Mr President, this report in some way constitutes an account of the activity of the EMI in relation to the completion of its mission.
It necessarily remains, therefore, at the level of general frameworks, since many of the relevant issues have been the subject of separate, more specialized reports.
Nevertheless, it is very useful and, in the simple yet methodical way which always distinguishes the EMI, not only does it give a great deal of useful information but it also highlights certain points and contains advice on how to address the economic problems faced by the European Union and on the effective operation of EMU.
It must be said that it is a laudable report, despite the fact that many would have expected it to go into greater detail and analysis and, possibly, would have wished for a more concrete approach.
But the nature of the EMI prescribes this form of report and, as our colleague, Mr Fourçans, quite rightly mentioned in his excellent report, this is the way in which it must be approached.
As a result, our congratulations must go to Mr Duisenberg on the work he has done so far and on the work he will do in the future. Congratulations must also go to Mr Lamfalussy on establishing the EMI and on its subsequent operation.
I recall the first annual report, for which I was the rapporteur, and which stated that we should in some way look carefully at structural issues.
I fear that now we are going through a crisis of excessive confidence because the euro was established much more easily than we expected.
We may, therefore, have forgotten that many of the structural problems still exist.
The financial problems have been ironed out to a great extent because of increased economic activity in the European Union.
Inflation has been brought under control to a very large extent thanks to a proper monetary policy, and also due to the fact that there have been a lot of boosting factors from outside the European Union.
Let us not get carried away by the fact that the euro has become established. From now on, we must have a policy that is not a continuation of the policy that has been followed so far, in other words, a policy to combat the structural causes of unemployment and the other problems apparent in the European Union.
I hope that efforts will now be made to solve the problem of ERM II for those states that are outside the system of Economic and Monetary Union, so that, finally, EMU can be a unifying factor, as had been planned, and so that it can fulfil its objective and contribute to the progress of all the Member States of the European Union.
Mr President, the main principle of the European Central bank is neo-liberalist ideology.
In its name, Europe has seen it lead to both deflation and inflation at the same time: deflation in the labour market, and inflation in the capital market.
The labour market has deflated to an average mass unemployment rate of over 20 %, while the capital market has inflated to a 40 to 50 % rise on the stock market.
Stock market prices have risen mainly in Italy, France and Finland.
These countries have both Europe's worst unemployment rates and left-wing led governments in power.
It is spectacular proof of a lack of political alternative and satisfying the multifarious needs of profiteers.
Mr Duisenberg, you simultaneously manufacture deflation, or mass unemployment, and inflation, or a bubble economy for the capital market.
The cost of labour and that of capital differ in just the right way to set off a recession in Europe of the type we have seen in Asia.
The European Central Bank will not have any money then to bale out the speculators.
Mr Duisenberg, I have said as much, though in greater detail, in my capacity as member of the administrative council of the central bank in my own country, to Sirkka Hämäläinen, one of the directors, so please ask her for more details on what I mean.
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Duisenberg for the quality of his work at the head of the European Monetary Institute.
The excellent mission he has accomplished leaves us with great hopes for the work he will accomplish at the head of the ECB, which we wish him much success in, and it is certainly a good guarantee of his concept of democratic responsibility.
In any case, from this point of view he can count on Parliament to be very demanding of him.
I would also like to thank Mr Fourçans for the quality of his work.
I too would like to ask you, Mr Duisenberg, about your concept of the role of the increase in public and private investment in relation to economic growth.
It emerges from the experience of many Member States that an increase in public and private spending can now contribute to economic growth - the only real way of creating jobs - far more than a strategy of strict reform of a labour market; nobody knows yet exactly to what extent that could be successful.
In this respect, Mr President, I also have a number of questions to put to you which move in the same direction as those of some of my colleagues.
What will be the orientation of the Central Bank's monetary policy? You will most certainly remember the questions we put to you during your hearing in this Parliament.
As I do not believe these questions have yet been answered, it is appropriate to commence a dialogue, for example, on the definition of a true rate of inflation. What is a stable rate?
Between 2 % and 0 %, there is a margin of vagueness, a margin of interpretation for which we are awaiting clarification.
Furthermore, we consider, as does the rapporteur, that in order to be in line with the objectives of the Treaty, especially Article 2 of the Treaty, a monetary policy cannot be in the service of only one of the Member States of the Union, but must take into account the overall objectives of the Union's economic policy for the whole of the area.
Mr President, I cannot resist the pleasure of making of use of your presence to put to you another question on a somewhat similar subject.
What do you think of the presence of 11 representatives from national central banks of the euro area on the Economic and Financial Committee? Do you not think that this is unnecessary given the two members that the European Central Bank will appoint to this committee?
Mr President, I would like to ask Mr Duisenberg three questions, one of which links up with the last question from Mrs Berès.
Firstly, the budget figures of the various Member States show that the cyclically adjusted deficits are no longer falling, despite a favourable economic trend, and are even rising somewhat in certain Member States with high growth.
I would like to hear the President of the European Central Bank's comments on this.
It seems to me that future developments might be threatened if the Member States are not capable of reducing deficits when the economic situation is favourable.
My second question concerns the external representation of the Community.
Informal discussions such as G7 Finance are of real importance.
Although representatives of three of the 11 euro Member States have always been included up to now, that is, by political representatives or representatives of their banks, no-one representing the European Commission, no-one representing the European Council, nor anyone representing the European Central Bank is included.
How can economic and monetary discussions at global level be effective when actual representatives of the Euro 11 are not included?
My last point, which links in with Mrs Berès', is that my own foreign secretary, now standing down, warned Europe against a Europe dominated by finance ministers.
You and I know that these finance ministers operate on the basis of the Monetary Committee.
The Monetary Committee will be succeeded by the Economic and Financial Committee, which comprises 15 national bankers, in addition to two European Central Bank representatives. That makes 17 representatives of the European System of Central Banks.
Is that not a bit overdone ? And could this not threaten policy coherence?
Mr President, I first want to say that I agree with Mr Fourçans' report, and also that I am pleased to see Mr Duisenberg in the European Parliament.
This is the moment to congratulate ourselves on the European Monetary Institute's contribution to achieving the objective of Economic and Monetary Union.
In fact, we can feel satisfied with the current scene in which Economic and Monetary Union is beginning.
The Europe of the 11 is in a phase of upward growth, with a level of price stability which we can consider practically absolute.
However, doubts arise due to some negative points in this scenario.
We refer to the Asian crisis, especially the deflationary crisis in Japan and the risk of bankruptcy in Russia.
But, above all, apart from these uncertainties, the European economy, having corrected its macroeconomic imbalances, continues to suffer from a fundamental imbalance: the difference between people who are looking for work and people who are working, the imbalance of unemployment.
In this situation, monetary union offers opportunities to consolidate growth, to increase the level of investment and to make progress in reducing unemployment, but on the condition that the Union is not limited to monetary aspects, but is also a Union which harbours a fiscal policy on a European scale which can face up to all these problems.
Therefore, Mr Duisenberg, permit me to say that I was interested to note that your first message to the outside world, to society, stated last week and again here today, constitutes a message of alarm about the rate of deficit reduction, adding that some countries have to be shown the yellow card.
From our point of view, it is certainly important to take advantage of the current growth phase to reduce budgetary deficits, in contrast to what was done in the second half of the 1980s, which was the last upward phase, although the similarity to that phase is not exact, since today there is much more price stability and much more homogeneity than at that time, when the average growth rate of prices was twice what it is now, and there were enormous differences between countries.
But above all, and more urgent than that, we think there should be a different message: the message about the Union's muchneeded economic dimension, about the progress which should be achieved along this path, in order to arrive at what Mr Fourçans' report says, which I conclude by quoting: "that the monetary policy of the euro area is indissociable from the introduction of a Union economic policy based on the coordination of the Member States' economic policies' .
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Marketing of fertilizers containing cadmium
The next item is the report (A4-0254/98) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 76/116/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to fertilizers, as regards the marketing in Austria, Finland and Sweden of fertilizers containing cadmium (COM(98)0044 - C4-0109/98-98/0026(COD)).
Mr President, the time has come to recall the promises the European Union made to its newest Member States, Austria, Finland and Sweden, when they joined the Union almost four years ago.
These countries were promised they could keep to their strict environmental standards for the duration of a transitional period that would be four years in length.
It expires at the end of this year.
During this time, the EU intended to do all it could to raise its own environmental standards to the same level the newest Member States enjoyed.
The idea was that the whole European Union area would acquire a high level of environmental protection.
This report on cadmium might sound pretty trivial but it has very far-reaching political significance.
Actually, I am convinced that the citizens of Austria, Finland and Sweden will be watching very carefully to see whether the EU is actually capable of keeping to its promise of high standards for the protection of the environment and public health.
By the way, it was finally agreed today in the part-session that the right of Finland, Sweden and Austria to keep to its strict standards would be supported.
So, just what is the position today, when the termination of the transition period is just a few months away?
One of the most important derogations was the cadmium content limit in fertilizers.
Cadmium is a notoriously poisonous heavy metal that disturbs microorganisms in the earth, making it difficult for plants to grow.
It builds up in animals, but it also accumulates in humans.
There is often a lot of cadmium in the raw material that is used to make phosphate fertilizers, especially if it comes from certain countries in Africa.
The European Commission has given economic support to phosphateproducing countries in Africa to develop a technology for industry to be able to remove cadmium from the raw material in phosphate fertilizers.
Now it is important that this research and development work be speeded up on both sides.
On the other hand, in some regions, the cadmium content of the raw material for phosphate fertilizers is not so great.
Such regions include, for example, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia.
My conclusion is that the Commission and the Member States have wasted these four years of transition time in dilly-dallying over the production of a risk assessment study which is needed to come to any conclusion on whether regulations should be introduced at Union level on the cadmium content of fertilizers.
In fact, there is reliable data coming from these newest Member States that limits for cadmium are very strongly justified from the point of view of health and the environment, though not enough information has been had from older Member States.
As rapporteur of the Commission's proposal, I think that the Commission has definitely taken the right step.
It in fact proposes that a new transition period of three years be granted to Finland, Sweden and Austria, so the time for the EU level risk assessment study can be extended accordingly.
However, I am of the opinion that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has accepted the view that the Commission and the Member States should be rather more determined in their purpose.
A derogation being allowed to exist indefinitely in this way is out of the question, and environmental and health factors, on the one hand, and an unhampered single market, on the other, demand that there should be an agreement now that any possible or necessary amendments to legislation be approved during this new three-year term.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what the rapporteur has said is true, that the cadmium contained in phosphate fertilizers, a poison that destroys microorganisms, has been found in Finland, Sweden and Austria, to be harmful to humans and the environment.
The EU directive on fertilizers does not, however, stipulate limits for cadmium content, and that is the problem.
We know, in a general sense, that the cadmium content of phosphate fertilizers is harmful.
Cadmium must in future be classified as a harmful substance, and its limit values must be specified precisely in a new directive.
Producer countries, especially Morocco, must renounce their apathy and commit themselves to developing methods of ridding phosphate fertilizers of cadmium.
That is in the interest of producer countries.
Community aid must continue to go particularly to producer countries in the African continent which are vitally important producers of the raw material for the EU internal market, and for whom the EU is the largest market in the world.
Here in the EU we must press ahead and produce a risk assessment study on cadmium in fertilizers.
Our objectives are foodstuffs as free of impurities as possible in this allergy-troubled Union, and our principle should obviously be that our earth, our timber and our people should all remain toxin-free.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when Austria, Sweden and Finland joined in 1995, the European Union committed itself to a more careful consideration of ecological aspects than before.
This is of enormous importance for the economic framework conditions, because only an even playing field permits equal competitive capability.
Thus, we agreed in general then that the more stringent Austrian environmental standards would provisionally continue to apply generally for four more years.
At the same time, a monitoring process was established at Union level.
The objective was to adapt environmental standards, if necessary, to the higher national standards.
These agreements were and still are considered a great environmental policy success both for the new Member States and for the environmental situation in the European Union.
Since then, we have achieved the first success with the benzene content of petrol.
The limit value has been drastically reduced.
In the case of the sulphur content of heating oil, the Austrian limit values have likewise been retained and also the development in the cadmium limits in fertilizers is thoroughly positive, because the limit values not only of Austria, but also of Sweden and Finland, have been extended to the year 2002 on the basis that an objective study is to determine whether cadmium from the soil really can be transferred into the human bloodstream.
If this should be proven, the limit value situation in the European Union is clear.
Currently we still do not have sufficient information about the risks posed by cadmium.
We want an objective analysis of the effects in this area.
Mr President, congratulations to my colleague, Mrs Hautala, for her excellent report.
The Commission's proposal is to extend the right of Finland, Sweden and Austria, to be exempt from the requirements of the directive on cadmium in accordance with their Acts of Accession.
The Commission has promised to decide on a risk assessment study for the whole of the EU area.
In addition, the Commission must endeavour to develop methods to rid raw materials for fertilizers imported into the EU of cadmium.
According to information I have received from laboratories, it is already possible to remove cadmium from phosphate fertilizers. A process has been discovered.
Now it just needs to be put into practice.
Cadmium accumulates in the soil and is dangerous to humans.
According to certain studies in EU Member States, the soil's cadmium content is already very high.
That is why ridding fertilizers of cadmium is especially important.
In Finland, selenium has been added to fertilizers in greater quantities since 1984: formerly, six grammes per kilo of fertilizer, and, since last April, 10 grammes per kilo.
We have been monitoring the use of selenium for years.
According to these studies, the supply of selenium to domestic animals and the general population has declined.
For this reason, 10 grammes of selenium, rather than just six, are now being added to selenium fertilizers.
Studies show that the increase in selenium has had an excellent effect on the state of the health of domestic animals and the population.
The EU as a whole would do well to follow this example.
I urge the Commission, while undertaking its research, to invest also in an appraisal of the effects of selenium added to mixed fertilizers, so that we can improve the health of the whole of the EU population and its livestock.
Finally, I would like to state that tighter standards to promote human and animal health cannot be allowed to seen as hindrances to business; the EU has to find a place for them.
Mr President, at the time of the accession negotiations, Austria, Finland and Sweden obtained permission to retain environmental standards which were more demanding than Community legislation, particularly for the cadmium content of phosphorus fertilizers.
In fact, through the Commission we finally committed ourselves to an upward harmonization of standards.
Yet to this day, nothing has been done, whilst the harmful nature of the substances in question appears scientifically proven.
The Commission contents itself with granting a derogation to those states which are most advanced in the area.
However, public health and environmental protection are not subsidiary questions; I think that current affairs ensure we are reminded of this every day.
For once, it is for Community legislation to align itself with the most demanding in order to remain credible.
This issue, which appears to be largely technical, in fact assumes a major political dimension, above all, in the context of enlargement to include the CEECs.
We must not give false political signals to candidate states and whilst derogations admittedly serve as a way of catching up with the most demanding policies, they must not prevent the most ambitious from continuing to progress.
The derogation, the principle of derogation, must not be perpetuated for ever.
We must fulfil our commitments and it is in this spirit that we support the report and the amendment by Mrs Hautala, whom we congratulate most sincerely for her extremely clear work.
Mr President, those who participated in the discussion have already described the starting position adequately.
We are facing a particular situation, as the three new Member States had special standards which we have continued to maintain with the obligation to check whether there can be a Community regulation that adopts either these or other standards.
It was clear from the start that the Community regulation was to originate from scientifically founded data.
It is incorrect to say, as the last speaker did, that the Commission has done nothing.
We have carried out a study of this problem, and it produced insufficient data for a Europe-wide raising of standards.
This means that at the moment we are in a position in which the concerns that we share with Parliament - Mr Rübig is absolutely right in this respect - cannot result in a legislative measure because we do not have sufficient scientific data.
That is the whole problem, as far as the Commission's actions are concerned.
In many other cases it may be perfectly correct to criticize the Commission, but in this case it is completely unjustified.
What can be done? In conjunction with the Member States, we have commissioned a new study in order to obtain better data which will then permit us to take the appropriate legislative measures.
This data, however, if it is to be reasonable and reliable, cannot be available before the year 2000 because some of the possible consequences necessitate a certain period of observation.
Because of this, we must wait until 2000, and that obliges us now to propose an extension of these derogations because otherwise the three new Member States would be in an area without rights, which cannot be the intention of the entire process.
At the same time, however, we cannot accept what Mrs Hautala proposes, because if we now - before the expert opinion, so to speak - wanted to introduce common standards, then we would completely undermine this scientific process.
There is no point in commissioning a scientific study in order to obtain grounds for standards, and at the same time saying that we are going to adopt this standard anyway.
That is not a form of legislation that I can justify, Mrs Hautala, and therefore I ask Parliament to accept our proposal, which even the rapporteur does not reject.
If you do not want to extend the derogation, if we cannot resolve this now, then we will, as far as the three new countries are concerned, exist in a very uncertain legal framework which cannot be in the interests of those involved.
I only mean this part.
We cannot accept the other part - as I have already said - as we cannot commission a scientific study while stating in advance that we will do what we think is right now, regardless of the findings.
That is our situation and that is why I ask Parliament to play its part so that we can extend these derogations, so that we at least have today's legal status.
Mr President, I would only like to make it clear that this report fully approves the extra new three-year period.
I wish Mr Bangemann would listen; you obviously have a headphone.
The basic line is approved, but this derogation cannot be allowed to continue to be open-ended in this way; should it not end some time?
As you yourself say, you will have a decision on this risk assessment study by the year 2000, which is absolutely right.
I have to make it clear that the Commission has done its bit, but old Member States have dragged their heels, so this proposal by Parliament is totally realistic and feasible for all parties concerned.
Thank you, Mrs Hautala.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Motor vehicles for the transport of certain animals
The next item is the report (A4-0253/98) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to motor vehicles and their trailers - transporting certain animals and amending directive 70/156/EEC in respect of the type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers (COM(97)0336 - C4-0339/97-97/0190(COD)).
Mr President, the proposal for a directive that we are now debating, is a certification system for vehicles to be used for the transportation of certain animals.
These standards apply to animal transportation loads of under eight tonnes.
Under this directive it will become possible for the manufacturers of vehicles to choose a certified system in the internal market for the whole of the Union, one that will fulfil certain technical requirements.
It is a matter of a joint decision, as the aim here is a better internal market for these vehicles.
In fact, many decisions on animal welfare taken in this Parliament are, properly speaking, outside the jurisdiction of Parliament, as the issue is mainly the application of the common agricultural policy.
On that, Parliament mainly gives an opinion and then the Council does whatever it does and often then does a bit of horse trading, because one demands unanimity.
But this time, and I think it may even be the first time, Parliament will have the opportunity to affect the issue of animal welfare to the extent that it will be the legislating party.
Because of that, it is very important for Parliament now to use this opportunity to the best advantage.
Very many Members continually receive communications from constituents who are appalled and enraged at how animals are treated during transportation.
Now we have a chance to improve things.
It is obviously not a matter of being able to solve problems of animal welfare with technology, but this can have a very important part to play.
Why should we not take advantage of modern techniques and facilities when new vehicles start to be manufactured? This will mean causing as little suffering to animals as possible while they are being transported.
Actually, it is likely that demands for animal welfare will become more stringent in the future, certainly not slacker.
That is precisely why it is very important that technical factors that improve the protection of animals are taken into full consideration when manufacturing these vehicles in the future. Apart from anything else, this is also the most economically sound option.
All the proposals contained in the report are fully capable of being achieved with modern materials and technology, and that goes for gentler sloping ramps too.
There has been some discussion on them in Parliament, but the manufacturers have said that such things are possible and that the strain factor is reasonable.
I wish, moreover, to say that animal welfare is also a matter of economics, because if animals fare badly while being transported, the result is poor quality meat, whereas the quality of meat can be improved by means of technical features on vehicles, with the consequent economic benefits.
The issue of the ramps is a vital one.
The Commission suggests that their angle of inclination should be 25 degrees, but animal welfare studies show that it ought not to be more than 20 degrees.
It is obviously a matter of loading/unloading and sawdust at the start and end of transportation.
We should mention as a separate matter that pigs, which in many ways are like people and are very sensitive and intelligent animals, are extremely sensitive to loading arrangements and sawdust.
For that reason, the report contains the proposal by Mrs Anttila, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, that there should be lift apparatus on vehicles used for the transportation of pigs.
It is very important that Parliament does not now waste this opportunity to improve future vehicle models for the transportation of animals, to take account of animal welfare.
Better planning as well as the surveillance of transportation are very important and, for this reason, we propose that these vehicles should be checked at three-yearly intervals.
Naturally, the behaviour of drivers also affects the welfare of animals, but the technical factors can by no means be underestimated.
Mr President, congratulations to my colleague, Mrs Hautala, on a very well-informed report.
I am extremely satisfied with the report's amendments, the implementation of which would mean less stress for animals while being loaded onto vehicles and during transportation.
Stress during transportation has a direct effect on the quality of meat, as Mrs Hautala stated.
Conditions for transportation differ widely in the EU area, owing, for example, to differences in climate.
In the north it is freezing cold, and in the south it is too hot.
Both conditions must be taken into consideration when fitting out vehicles.
I am very glad that the report includes mention of an obligatory loading lift for sheep and pigs, which I had already proposed to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
When we produce directives in the 21st century, our aims must be progressive.
There is a clear gap in the directive between the technical and material requirements of equipment for transporting animals, on the one hand, and requirements for use and proper use of equipment, on the other.
Requirements for equipment and its use go hand in hand.
A mere requirement for correct use does not guarantee the welfare of the animals.
Nor does high-tech equipment with all mod-cons guarantee the animals' welfare during transportation, if the use of the vehicle and the actions of the driver are inappropriate.
That is why I think it is important that the authorities in Member States are given sufficient powers to monitor transportation.
The next goal must be to extend these requirements now under discussion to cover equipment already being used over a given period of transition.
When that transitional period has lapsed, the equipment should fulfil the requirements of the directive, at least as far as the important, central issue of animal welfare is concerned.
The Commission's proposal mentions that the date of the next check due should be displayed on the vehicle's registration plate. There is no mention, though, of the time that has elapsed between checks.
That has to be put right; ideally, checks should be carried out every three years.
Animal transportation in the EU has attracted a lot of negative publicity, which does not benefit anyone.
As the regulations for transportation have now been reviewed and when vehicle equipment gets put right, we will have the requirements we need for a much improved system for the transportation of animals.
Mr President, road transport of cattle has long been a thorn in the side of many people and the main cause of this is the offence caused by the shocking pictures which all of us have seen of the transport of animals over what are certainly large distances.
Today we debate the type-approval of vehicles designed for animal transport whilst recalling these pictures.
It speaks for itself, therefore, that the European Parliament places great demands on the type-approval, because we no longer wish to see such abuse, where animals being transported not only suffer from temperatures which are much too high, but also from lack of water and food.
We are convinced that civilised society is harmed when animals are not treated civilly, even when this concerns animals for slaughter.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism agrees with the European Commission that different equipment must be present on board for different types of cattle; but this is not sufficiently detailed in the proposal.
My committee has therefore submitted detailed proposals to ensure that animals cannot fall from trucks or loading bridges and that they are prevented from injuring themselves when they are moved from one level to another.
But the greatest problem is that the Commission omits a number of matters, because it is of the opinion that these must be included in a directive relating to the use of the vehicles, rather than in the type-approval.
But let me tell you that it makes no difference to cattle in which directive it is included.
The distinction between equipment and use is a curious one, because the equipment determines to a large extent how a vehicle can be used.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has adopted a great deal of the Committee on Transport and Tourism's proposals and I would therefore like to thank Mrs Hautala for her efforts.
I hope, therefore, that they will stand up not only at first reading but also at second reading, and that we will be able to convince the Commission and the Council, if need be, in the very last round.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report.
Over recent years Europe has been outraged by this barbarous treatment of animals for slaughter.
Transportation takes place today in Union Member States, and especially outside the Union, in conditions we can at times imagine to be frightful and totally inhumane.
And to a large extent it will continue.
I have myself slaughtered animals and been employed in the transportation of animals, so I do know a bit about the subject.
Transporting animals to be slaughtered over long distances to countries outside the Union - if this seems a risible topic, you would do well to listen carefully - is absolutely intolerable both from a humane and economic point of view.
We must give due consideration to inhumane conditions for animals for slaughter, as it goes on with the support of the Union.
We have in this way issued a permanent licence to torture animals.
This directive on vehicles which is being prepared is an interim measure but it goes in the right direction.
We have to give consideration to loading and unloading as has been stated.
Loading is the greatest cause of stress and who would not get furious at the fact that animals are dying while being loaded?
Loading stress can be avoided with simple lifting equipment, as has been mentioned.
While drafting the directive, we have to take into consideration the need, too, to take account of internal differences within the Union, like those that exist between the North and the South.
In Finland, we have done a great deal in this area. But within the Union, we have to have a more active system of monitoring.
Ladies and gentlemen in the front row, it would be important to put an end to the transportation of live animals for slaughter across the continent.
Meat is not affected by travel.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group welcomes positively the objectives and provisions in this draft directive which is a considerable improvement on the existing measures.
But an improvement also means an increase in costs, for you never get something for nothing.
This is why, although we accept the strengthening of certain constraints which the rapporteur proposes, we are far from agreeing with her on all issues, especially when it comes to an important legislative principle, the principle of proportionality.
The images which have given rise to compassion and anger or indignation on the part of many of our citizens correspond to realities which must be abolished, but which have nothing to do with some of the measures proposed, in particular with regard to the problem of loading ramps.
If Mr Ilaskivi is an expert in the field then I, too, can argue that I am an expert in the area of loading and unloading animals.
When I was younger, I loaded and unloaded hundreds and hundreds of pigs and heads of cattle.
So I know what a ramp is.
The ramps used to date had between a 30- and 40º incline.
I would like to be able to demonstrate for you the difference between a ramp at 25- and a ramp at 20º.
You would be extremely surprised and should not underestimate the animals' skill in surmounting an obstacle of this nature.
I have experience of this and I can tell you that, in this instance, the cost is excessive.
Mrs Hautala affirms that it is technically feasible.
Admittedly, you could transport all animals in air-conditioned buses with couchettes; it is technically feasible.
It is a question of assessing the relationship between welfare and cost, and in this respect, the rapporteur goes too far.
A ramp at 20º raises considerable problems and should, in particular, be flexible so that it can fold, which is obviously extremely expensive.
This is why our group cannot support the rapporteur's excessive proposals, but we are the first in line to support, enthusiastically, those which are reasonable.
Mr President, my first reaction to Mrs Hautala's report is to ask why the Committee on Economic Affairs and Industrial Policy was given the task of dealing with a subject that belongs more appropriately, in my opinion, to the Committee on Agriculture and to the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
How the subject of the welfare of animals during transport can be seen as more relevant to economic and monetary policy than to agricultural policy or transport policy is beyond me.
I suppose the fact that the opinions of these committees are sought is some consolation, but in a general way this decision needs some sort of explanation.
However, ' inexplicable' is becoming more and more the norm in this House.
Regarding the subject of the report - the safe and humane transport of animals - we all accept without hesitation that this is a fundamental requirement.
But once again we are going way overboard on this matter which has been adequately dealt with in the Commission's own proposals.
In the Member States there already exist the most stringent systems of checking on animals for transport, particularly those on long-haul journeys, and rightly so.
The modes of transportation are likewise, in my opinion, of the highest quality and standards.
They simply have to be if animals are to arrive at their final destination in good condition - acceptable to the final recipient.
In the agricultural industry, as in any other, farmers and livestock dealers have very large vested interests in presenting their product in prime condition in order to command the best possible price.
If we are intent on imposing further layers of procedure, if we insist on a whole range of modifications to animal transport, we will stretch the system to breaking point in terms of increased costs and reduced efficiency.
The cost of such procedures will of course be borne only by two groups: farmers and consumers.
We are back on a typical Green agenda, Mr President, the same old story: no matter what you give them they want more and more.
But the high-rise flat occupants of the Greens know very little about the reality of farming today and have learned very little.
Mr President, the recent incidents of poor treatment of animals during transport, particularly by East European countries, have evoked a strong emotional reaction from the public.
Therefore, the proposal that we are debating must be an answer to this public and not to the Greens.
Generally speaking, already on 2 October 1997, the European Parliament defined the conditions in which live animals should be transported, emphasizing, in particular, that they should not travel more than eight hours and stating in more general terms that the transport should be limited to the closest place possible for slaughtering.
It is clearly in this perspective that the general debate on transport should be held.
With this proposal for a directive, we only deal with the characteristics of the vehicles. But from this point of view as well we must say that the proposal has its limits, particularly its optional nature and the fact that only new vehicles are covered, that is, those registered after 1 May 1999.
Furthermore, there are various aspects already highlighted in previous speeches where improvement is needed, ranging from the slope of the ramps to the need for hydraulic lifting platforms to transport pigs, from the amount of room above the heads of the animals to the problem of temperature and the animals' reaction to it.
It is therefore clear that we are talking about a proposal for which we are asking that not only the text of the report but also all the amendments be approved. However, we emphasize the fact that in this type of proposal no reference is made whatsoever to poultry, and hens, in particular.
Mr President, unlike Mr Herman I am not an expert on loading animals on to vehicles but I am expert on watching it happening, because I live in the kind of area where millions of animals are constantly having to travel very long distances.
My area has 90 islands, and one can imagine some of the stress involved in getting the animals from the islands to the mainland, and thence on further long journeys.
Both Parliament and the Commission have shown concern.
There is the eight-hour rule and the recommendation mentioned by the last speaker that animals be slaughtered as close as possible to their place of origin.
I would really like to seize this opportunity to ask the Commissioner whether he feels that there is too much laxity about monitoring.
A lot of the criticisms from the public relate to cattle coming from outside the European Union into the European Union.
I wish to know what on earth we can say to satisfy our public critics, because - sadly, perhaps -the fattest file a constituency MP gets is about the welfare of animals.
I wish to support all the amendments on the ramp and the pigs, because I have watched the horror of trying to get pigs into a lorry.
The poor driver knows he has only eight hours but an hour is taken up with loading the pigs, so we really should look at the matter of the loading lift.
Mr President, to consider the welfare of live animals during their transportation is a commendable objective, and there is nothing worthy in this.
Moreover, you get out of it what you put in.
The field of animal production as a whole has every interest in respecting animals during their transportation, for everyone knows that the market value of an animal is greatly reduced if its transportation conditions are poor.
We therefore agree with this respect for transport conditions, provided, however, that they are applied everywhere, and include trade with third countries, both imports - from the point of departure - and exports, and that they can be implemented and are useful.
By way of example, what is the use of having strict guidelines for the manufacture of new vehicles if the way they are used is not in line with the principles of respect for animal welfare? We also know that the climate varies substantially between the Mediterranean and the Nordic regions.
Why, then, have the same manufacturing standards?
Finally, farmers themselves also use specific vehicles for transporting their animals, either to take them to market within a very limited radius or simply to take them to grass elsewhere.
In this respect, too, we must be careful not to create useless additional costs for farmers.
Consequently, we are opposed to all amendments aimed at increasing the costs for farmers and for companies in this line of business. On the other hand, we ask that, within the WTO agreements, international trade as a whole should take account of international transport standards.
Mrs Hautala's report is extremely technical, but as with all type-approvals, consideration has to be given to the purpose, which in this case is the transportation of animals.
I think the report does justice to that.
Since 1994, parliamentary chairmen have been receiving petitions bearing millions of signatures regarding animal welfare in general, and transportation in particular.
Regulations and directives have not done much to improve the welfare of animals in transit.
The 1995 directive and the 1998 regulation both indicate that there is a need to establish requirements for the methods of transport used for animals.
That is what we are addressing today.
Joint decision-making therefore amounts to the most important technical step as regards securing genuine progress.
That is difficult.
Major differences exist between Member States.
But we will get there.
Many decisions and statements have come and gone, but what we have here is something concrete.
This directive gives us the basis for improving animal welfare during transportation, but farmers and abattoirs in Member States will have to ensure and check that future transportation - including the means of transport - will be monitored.
Other committees and Commissioners, and, of course, the Council, will be seeing to that.
What is the good of creating optimum conditions in the abattoirs when the animals are traumatized on the way?
The transportation of live animals, whether for slaughtering purposes or for further breeding, is not desirable, but it is nevertheless a fact.
That prompts me to mention that even though we are improving animal welfare, the spread of infection is still increasing.
That has nothing to do with today's topic; rather, it has to do with the way vehicles should be cleaned.
There is good reason to contemplate what ought to be done from here on.
There is good reason to put a damper on trans-European animal transportation, but other than that, I support Mrs Hautala's report, and I hope the Commission and the Council will be able to come up with something sensible.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Hautala report addresses the technical fittings of vehicles for animal transportation.
We have heard repeatedly what a sensitive subject this business of transporting animals for slaughter is, whether we are dealing with horses, pigs, cattle or sheep, because naturally enough, the films record only those aspects that are not alright. Things that are alright, however, are not shown.
We must not tar everyone with the same brush.
There are decent hauliers as well.
There must be no repeat of these events.
That would be out of the question.
We have just recently adopted the van Dijk report, and straight away we are astonished to find animal welfare popping up in a different committee every time.
This is not very impressive.
We should leave animal welfare where it belongs, in the areas of agriculture and transport.
Taking the kind of trouble we do with this, we should really know where it will appear next.
The rapporteur has gone to a lot of trouble, and the committees have done some excellent work.
However, I would like to make it clear - and as a farmer, I know what I am talking about - that the use of hydraulic loading ramps in the transportation of pigs is not the last word in wisdom.
Mrs van Dijk demanded in her recent report that piglets of up to 30kg should be loaded using a hydraulic loading ramp.
That is fine.
Now Mrs Hautala is saying all pigs should be loaded using hydraulic loading ramps.
Let me tell you this: my farm has a loading ramp the height of the lorry.
That is critical, because then the animals just go into the lorry at ground level.
When we buy animals, they leave the lorry at ground level as well.
Forget your hydraulic loading ramps!
This is the best way because it is what the animals are used to.
It is about people, not vehicles.
People need to handle the animals in such a way that the animals sense they are being treated properly.
For large numbers of animals, we must demand loading ramps that exactly match the height of the lorries.
There is a standard for them, and it works.
We cannot expect small-scale farmers to fit a hydraulic loading ramp onto their vehicles for driving their animals to the market; they would have to quit altogether rather than go out and buy one of those.
So there is really no point.
Let me emphasize the following once again: we must improve the implementation and monitoring of animal welfare provisions in Member States.
I am not pointing the finger at the Commission, because it cannot handle this.
It simply does not have the staff.
We have many a time and oft set aside funds in the budget, but the monies have never been paid out because the Council has refused to employ the staff to carry out this monitoring.
This is crucial!
The people handling the animals are crucial to animal welfare, and if they treat them properly, it will work fine.
Mr President, animal welfare is a matter of great importance to me.
In Austria, there is a high level of awareness of the importance of how animals are treated, whether we are talking about utility animals, breeding stock or animals for slaughter.
The Austrian presidency will be taking a greater interest in this topic with a view to improving conditions of transportation of animals throughout Europe.
On the subject of animal transportation, I would like to emphasize the necessity of pan-European regulation.
The European Parliament should stake out the political way ahead and set basic conditions.
However, the European Parliament should not approve any regulations that go into too much technical detail.
As politicians, we are elected to set policy and not to displace experts in other professional fields, for example, veterinarians, technicians, etcetera.
Proper transportation of breeding and utility animals is very important for the wellbeing of animals.
However, the transportation of live animals for slaughter must also be carried out under good conditions, because the quality of the meat depends on this.
As producers, we desire good treatment.
However, after the sale has been concluded, the animal no longer belongs to the farmer; the buyer becomes responsible.
It is all very well using modern technology, but please also consider that different types of utility animals have different patterns of behaviour.
In my opinion, it would be virtually impossible to load pigs with a hydraulic loading ramp because they never keep still.
As regards the angle of the ramp, I would like to say that in Austria, we have properly aligned fixed ramps.
To me, it is also crucial for the driver and loading personnel to handle the animal calmly.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too have been here almost 10 years and I cannot help thinking about how much we have discussed animal welfare and the amount of paperwork we have created. Sometimes I really feel there is an awful lot of theory here, but precious little practice.
I would say "yes' to protecting animal welfare, but "no' to Mrs Hautala's proposal on hydraulic loading ramps. We are creating the impression that there is just the one kind of mass production.
Plenty of practical questions have already been posed. What about the small-scale farmer who simply wants to transport his animals from A to B?
What about the village butcher; are we not always saying "yes' to local produce?
I would like to put that one to the Greens sometime. These are animals from detached houses; they have been sleeping in straw, and now we are asking for them to be transported through the place on silver platters.
That does not quite fit in with what Mrs Hautala is proposing here.
Commissioner Bangemann, I also have a problem with how this monitoring is supposed to work.
Is there anything we have not made a decision on here?
Eight-hour transportation, loading and unloading, watering: a lot of this is rather far from actual practice, and for that reason, I would like to suggest here that we should advocate practicable solutions, and you really ought to heed the practical experience of our farming colleagues.
Mr President, getting straight down to your comments, Mrs KeppelhoffWiechert, the whole discussion, or at least two-thirds of it, is neither about the report nor about the problem.
This is not a matter of monitoring the transportation of animals, nor is it about how animals are actually transported; it is quite plainly about type-approval of vehicles that are subsequently used to transport animals.
That is quite different from what many speakers have been debating here.
It is all very well if Mrs Ewing and others have seen these cruel images and then say this has to be stopped, but that is not the subject of this report.
This report is about our desire to approve vehicles that are suitable in a particular way for a particular type of animal transportation.
That is as far as it goes.
You can put all your comments about monitoring back in your briefcases, because these vehicles will of course be checked to ensure that they are of the appropriate type; otherwise, they would never be approved.
We do not need any new officials to do that, because we already have technical monitoring bodies and suchlike.
So please do not take this the wrong way, but we would have been finished half an hour ago if we had debated what was, in fact, presented here rather than the completely different problem of how to monitor and implement the transportation of animals.
That is not up for debate here.
Please allow me a further comment.
I always find it somewhat amusing that people who are so interested in animals focus their energies on transport, but the minute an animal is slaughtered, their interest dwindles.
I find this rather odd.
An animal has to be treated beautifully, but then it is slaughtered.
I can imagine a stressed-out pig would be able to handle the stress far better if it were not about to be slaughtered at all.
Now for the report itself.
The rapporteur has tabled 24 amendments.
We are able to accept nine of these: Amendments Nos 3, 4, 6, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21.
All these amendments are concerned with very desirable editorial improvements.
To some extent, they also give producers more flexibility, and that constitutes our grounds for accepting these amendments.
We cannot accept the others.
I cannot go into much detail here as to why we cannot, but I will select a few examples.
Firstly, there is type-approval.
I repeat: type-approval has nothing to do with the use of the vehicles or animal welfare as such.
Thus, all the amendments targeted at improved usage or animal welfare as such are out of place in this context.
Naturally, it would be possible - and this would be an example of such an amendment - to change the loading height for one type to something other than what we are proposing here.
However, we have kept to the decisions already made by the Council of Agriculture Ministers, and Directives 91/628 and 95/29 and one regulation stipulated the heights which we have adopted.
There is no sense in the existing directives using different heights from those found in the directive on type-approval.
People would think we were not quite right in the head if we stipulated two different heights.
We must, therefore, abide by what has already been decided.
Then there is the gradient.
Unlike Fernand Herman, I am not an expert, and I am constantly amazed at all the things he has done in his life so far.
He relates aspects of his own life and experience in every report.
He must have an incredible amount of experience.
We calculated that if the gradient were reduced to 20º, that would mean the loading ramp would have to be too large to allow us to keep the total height of 4 metres.
Mrs Hautala, it is all very well to disagree on a lot of things, but it is very difficult to disagree about mathematics because all it takes is a simple calculation.
Then there can be no differences of opinion.
So, unless we wish to exceed the prescribed limit of 4 metres, we cannot accept this amendment.
As I said, I cannot go into all these amendments one after another.
I hope - and I have to be a little cautious after what the members of the PPE Group have said - that we will be able to agree on a common position which will now mean that we can adopt one of the last regulations on type-approval.
This is not the end of the story, but it is the beginning of the end, and this should ultimately enable us to have the whole matter nicely sewn up.
Mr President, I wish only to tell Mr Bangemann that I have a pretty good knowledge of geometry, and, besides, I studied agriculture at university. But, in any case, have you never heard of the hinge?
The hinge is quite interesting in itself actually, but after all it is a very simple invention, which can solve this problem of the length of the ramp.
This is actually a very simple technique. As Mrs Anttila said, we are speaking of new vehicles for the 21st century.
If we are not forward-looking enough now, in two years' time animal protection groups will be telling us these vehicles are no good for anyone.
Do you think that will be of any benefit to the manufacturers?
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon tomorrow.
(The session was adjourned for five minutes while awaiting the beginning of 'Question Time' )
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0481/98).
First of all, please allow me to welcome Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council, who is going to be with us for the next six months.
We predict that, as always, there will be an atmosphere of understanding in this Hemicycle, and that our questions are sure to be answered with the accuracy and efficiency of which we know Mrs Ferrero-Waldner is capable. So let us begin this Question Time in the normal way, peacefully and with the good manners which characterize this Hemicycle.
Question No 1 by Freddy Blak (H-0607/98)
Subject: The Staff Regulations and discrimination against homosexuals
As they stand, the Communities' Staff Regulations discriminate against homosexuals and their registered partners.
Homosexual staff have exactly the same duties and obligations as their heterosexual colleagues but do not have the same entitlements.
The Council has an opportunity to end this blatant discrimination when the Staff Regulations are revised.
It ought to listen to the European Parliament, which voted by a big majority to amend the Staff Regulations so as to give homosexual staff and staff cohabiting with, though not married to, partners the same rights as their colleagues.
I am therefore very disappointed to learn that the presidency is asking the Council to revise the Staff Regulations without complying with Parliament's wish to see an end to the discrimination against homosexual staff and their partners.
Is it really true that the presidency wishes to perpetuate such discrimination? Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply to Mr Blak's question.
Mr President, Mr Blak, I would like to answer your question concerning the personal status of, and discrimination against homosexuals.
The matter of equal treatment of homosexuals pursuant to the Staff Regulations of European officials was recently discussed in the relevant Council bodies.
In its examination of the proposal for an amendment of regulations governing officials in respect of equal treatment, as tabled by the Commission, the Council has made the following statement on these two aspects.
Firstly, by adopting Regulation No 781/98 of 7 April 1998, amending the Staff Regulations of Officials and Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities in respect of equal treatment, the Council has confirmed that the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation applies.
From this point on, Article 1a of the regulation states that, and I quote: "Officials shall be entitled to equal treatment under these Staff Regulations without reference, direct or indirect, to race, political, philosophical or religious beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, without prejudice to the relevant provisions requiring a specific marital status' .
Secondly, with particular reference to legislative developments in some Member States, in adopting this regulation, the Council has asked the Commission to carry out the necessary studies into the recognition of registered non-marital life partnerships and to table proposals to the Council on this matter on the basis of its findings.
The presidency will ensure that any new proposal is examined as soon as it is submitted to the Council by the Commission.
I would like to begin by welcoming the Council representative.
I must say it has been several years since we have had quite such a charming representative here.
Nevertheless, I am not completely happy with the answer I was given.
We are in the process of amending the regulation, but consideration has still not been given to the fact that there are people of the same sex who wish to live together, and that this should be respected.
Such consideration has not been given.
I would like to put the following question to you: the Swedish government has given official support to a Swedish public servant working for the Council who has taken a case of discrimination against him and his registered partner to the Court of Justice.
What is the stance of the presidency on the arguments put forward by this Swedish official?
Mr President, Mr Blak, thank you very much for your kind welcome.
I would like to comment further on your supplementary question. With regard to the Swedish proposals and ideas, we are awaiting proposals to be tabled by the Commission, for, without this, the Council cannot have any involvement in the matter.
Perhaps I could just mention briefly once again that the Commission had already tabled a proposal for a regulation to the Council in March 1993, to amend the Staff Regulations of Officials and Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities in respect of equal treatment of men and women.
One objective of this amendment was to have the general principle of equality of men and women written into the texts in question, while a second objective was to include provisions which would enable the bodies in question to eliminate the very real inequalities which adversely affect the opportunities available to women in the areas covered by the regulation.
The Commission gave partial approval to the first amendment of many tabled by the European Parliament in November 1993 allowing for the principle of non-discrimination to be extended to cover sexual orientation.
After extensive consultation, the Commission presented an amended proposal on 3 March 1996, which was again brought before Parliament for a reading.
The new position of the House reflects the concept that the European Community should take account of the fact that - as you have said - increasing numbers of predominantly young people are now living together without marrying, and that consequently, following the example of the European Monetary Institute, a corresponding change should be made to public service legislation in the Communities.
When the Commission's proposal was being examined by the relevant Council bodies, the Commission did indicate that it would not be presenting any additional amended proposals to take account of Parliament's amendments.
In this case, unanimity in the Council was required for the Commission's proposal to be amended; the Council is, therefore, waiting for the Commission to table new amendments, which it will then deal with.
I thank the Council for its reply, but I am not satisfied with it.
If I understood the reply correctly, you have now made an exception and said that a new proposal will be made later on with regard to the new cohabitation relationships or registered partnerships which exist in some Member States.
The question then is when this new proposal will come and how this issue is going to be discussed later on.
The Staff Regulations are not changed particularly often. In fact, they are changed very seldom.
Even if, in reality, we know that registered partnerships exist in several of the EU's Member States, it means that the Council intends to continue to discriminate against employees who come from these countries.
That is quite simply continued discrimination against homosexuals, despite the fact that this type of cohabitation is permitted in the countries where they originally come from.
I would like to have a reply to this.
Mr President, please allow me to refer to this yet again; perhaps it was not quite clear, so I will emphasize it again. The Council has asked the Commission to carry out a study of this matter, and as soon as the Commission tables its proposals on this, the Council will become involved once again.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, first I should like to congratulate you, as a representative of Austria, on being the first of the new Member States to hold the presidency.
I wish you all success for the presidential term.
Regarding the matter of homosexual and lesbian discrimination, Article 13 in the Amsterdam Treaty prohibits discrimination in respect of sexual orientation, and in this connection it is important also, in accordance with Article 13, to review the Staff Regulations.
Obviously it would be awfully important for there not to be any discrimination in the Member States either, and in this respect we are looking particularly at Austria's own laws, now that you hold the presidency.
Your laws as they relate to homosexuals are clearly unsatisfactory.
I would like to ask, in particular, how you intend to go about concretely reviewing staffing legislation using Article 13 as a basis.
Mrs Ojala, allow me to emphasize once again what I have already stated perfectly clearly in response to the main question. By adopting Regulation No 781/98 of 7 April 1998 amending the Staff Regulations of Officials and Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities in respect of equal treatment, the Council confirmed the applicability of the principle of non-discrimination to equal treatment on the basis of sexual orientation.
I will quote this once again because this is precisely what is at issue here.
Article 1a of the regulation provides that: "Officials shall be entitled to equal treatment under these Staff Regulations without reference, direct or indirect, to race, political, philosophical or religious beliefs, sex or sexual orientation, without prejudice to the relevant provisions requiring a specific marital status' .
That corresponds exactly to the wording of the Amsterdam Treaty, and consequently, as I have already said, the Commission was asked to carry out studies into the recognition of registered non-marital life partnerships and to table its proposals to the Council.
Question No 2 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0608/98)
Subject: Overbooking in passenger air transport
Does the Council intend to undertake any new initiative to deal with the problem of the growing number of passengers who are becoming victims of the practice of overbooking at EU airports? Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply to Mr Camisón Asensio's question.
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, on 30 January 1998, the Commission tabled a proposal to the Council for a Council Regulation(EC) amending Regulation (EEC) 295/91 establishing common rules for a denied-boarding compensation system in scheduled air transport.
This regulation came into effect in April 1991, and since that time the Commission has been gathering information on its application.
Considering the most recent developments in the air traffic sector, the amendments proposed by the Commission are aimed, in particular, at increasing the number of instances where passengers are entitled to compensation, as well as adjusting the minimum level of compensation upwards to help keep the practice of over-booking within more reasonable limits.
At that time, the amendments were examined by the relevant Council bodies.
In the meantime, on 18 June this year, the Council concluded that it was necessary to review the present regulation with the objective of raising the minimum payment levels; the Council asked the Commission to examine how air passengers could become better informed of their rights.
The Council bodies will continue to examine the Commission's proposals with a view to reaching agreement in the near future.
I too should like to start by welcoming the President-in-Office of the Council with full Parliamentary courtesy.
It comes as no surprise to me at all that the European institutions are very concerned about the growing problem of overbooking, leading to the relevant regulation having been updated during a recent Council meeting, as the President-in-Office of the Council has just said.
However, the great paradox of this issue is that, in most cases, passengers who cannot board their plane are not aware of their rights.
In view of this situation, we have a twofold supplementary question.
When will airlines be forced to display a notice on the desk setting out people's rights to compensation in cases of overbooking?
Will the forthcoming regulation ensure that damage sustained through missing connections with other flights receives fair compensation? Because, as things stand, that question is up in the air, which is a very appropriate expression when dealing with air transport.
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, please allow me just to state the following and then to give my response to this question.
Firstly, the amendments to Regulation 295/91 cover an extension of the area of applicability to all flights. Secondly, they cover the airlines' "OK' endorsement on airline tickets, known as the document of passage as well as, thirdly, the level of compensation and, fourthly, compensation in all instances of overbooking.
Regarding information to passengers, allow me to comment that yesterday, I was reading an in-flight magazine myself and came across a really brilliant article explaining this issue to passengers.
Generally speaking, however, we cannot of course set a deadline for this, because the Commission would first have to be called upon to examine the options, and that would probably take some time.
The Council actually reached its conclusions, based on the proposal I have just outlined, on 18 June 1998.
In its conclusions, the Council firstly recognizes that the practical experience of implementation demonstrates the need for a review of the regulation, and secondly, it welcomes the Commission's proposal to amend the regulation, calls on the Permanent Representatives Committee to continue discussing the Commission's proposals - this would indicate that matters could be resolved within a relatively short space of time - and challenges the Commission to pursue this specific matter of information.
This process will, therefore, probably not take very long. Competition, too, will make for a better service and will help regulate passenger numbers, because this question is becoming an increasingly important one for all those who travel by air.
The practice of overbooking is openly admitted - they say to passengers like me that all air transport companies do it - and, as has been said, people do not know their rights.
Could I ask the President-in-Office, whom I very much welcome - she has added a lot of colour to this fairly sombre Chamber - whether she believes that these proposals will come into force during the Austrian presidency?
Mr President, let me first thank my colleague Mrs Ewing for her kind words of welcome.
It is difficult to say at this juncture what will happen.
As you know, the Commission has been called upon to act, but we have not as yet seen any proposals.
It would, therefore, be difficult for me to say to you at this point in time that it will be possible in the course of our presidency, but it is most certainly a matter which shall receive our attention.
Question No 3 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0609/98)
Subject: Strict compliance with the Amsterdam Treaty
The President-in-Office of the Council, the UK Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, committed multiple infringements of the Amsterdam Treaty during his visit to Ankara in attempting to formulate a common position of the "14' - i.e. with the exception of Greece - on political relations between the Union and Turkey in a bid to alter the decisions taken by the Luxembourg European Council concerning Turkey, which only a Summit Meeting can do.
As such action is in breach of Articles J.3(3), J.8(2), J.13(1) and J.13(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, will the Council say what measures it will take to ensure that every presidency of the Council of the European Union complies strictly with the Treaty on European Union?
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you have the floor to reply to Mr Alavanos, who is situated behind you.
Mr President, allow me please to elaborate briefly on the question posed by Mr Alavanos, and I would like to ask the Member to note that the Amsterdam Treaty has not yet come into effect and that, therefore, no contraventions of its provisions can possibly apply.
However, the Council is of the opinion that the stance taken by Mr Robin Cook in Ankara was in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty.
The Council therefore sees no reason to act on the Member's proposal.
Mr President, I wish to thank the President-in-Office.
My question was addressed to Mr Cook, who wanted the time to answer it.
But he did not have the time because of the change in the presidency.
I do not expect the President-in-Office to criticize her colleague; that would be very difficult.
I would simply like to put a supplementary question to the President-in-Office.
Will the Austrian presidency, in matters of foreign policy, seek the agreement of all 15 Member States, in accordance not only with the Amsterdam Treaty, which will soon be in force, but also with the articles of the previous Treaty, and not the agreement of 13 or 14 Member States? Will Austria, as a democratic and sensitive country, seek the agreement of all 15 Member States on matters of foreign policy, and especially on the sensitive issue of Turkey?
Mr President, allow me to respond to the Member's question by saying that Austria and the Austrian presidency will go to great lengths to obtain a consensus of 15.
I can also state that in the difficult matter of Greece and Turkey, as well as the question of Cyprus/Greece/Turkey, we have initially been sounding things out with both Greece and Turkey, and that this is indeed the direction in which things appear to be moving.
Obviously, we are well aware that these are difficult political questions and that we will probably only be able to take a few small steps at a time.
However, this matter is of genuine concern to us.
Perhaps a small-scale presidency from a small-scale state will be able to make more happen - because in reality all interests are focused on working for the European Union.
At any rate, we certainly hope to make a little progress with Greece, Turkey and Cyprus on these very difficult political issues.
Question No 4 by Pedro Marset Campos (H-0610/98)
Subject: Human rights in Equatorial Guinea
The people of Equatorial Guinea have suffered for the last thirty years from dictatorial regimes characterized by the most absolute contempt for human rights, perpetuating a situation of violence and repression.
Does the Council intend to take a firm stand on the matter and unequivocally condemn the violations of human rights, calling on the Government of Equatorial Guinea to commute the death sentences passed on fifteen citizens in a trial without guarantees from which the media were barred, as in the case of the Spanish journalists who were expelled? Does the Council not consider that real political pressure should be put on the authorities of Equatorial Guinea so as to ensure the right to a fair and objective trial, by suspending all cooperation projects that are not strictly humanitarian in nature?
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, allow me to be a little indiscreet but, in this friendly atmosphere here, I understand that the surname "Campos' strikes a certain chord with you. Mr Marset Campos is behind you and is all set to listen to you.
I invite you to reply to his question.
Mr President, Mr Marset Campos, I would like to mention the following in connection with your question.
I would refer you to the answers to questions Nos H-0135/98 and E-1115 on the situation on the Island of Bioko.
The Council has been following with deep concern the trial of some of the members of the Bubi tribe native to the Island of Bioko. These individuals were accused of belonging to, or supporting, the independence movement, namely the Movimiento de Autodeterminación de la Isla de Bioko , or the MAIB.
On 24 February 1998, the Council expressed its deep concern to the Ambassador of Equatorial Guinea regarding infringements of human rights following the alleged attack on the town of Luba by the MAIB on 21 January.
Several hundred people were reported to have been arrested and after interrogation at least three people are understood to have died in custody.
The Commission has called on the authorities to investigate and punish those responsible for such infringements of human rights.
The Ambassador stated that the Ministry of the Interior had set up a special commission to receive and investigate complaints regarding infringements of human rights, and that the President had even intervened personally to ensure that no further such acts of violence would go unpunished.
The Ambassador gave further assurances to the effect that those responsible for the attack on 21 January had been identified and would be tried; all other persons arrested had been released.
At a meeting between the heads of the EU-accredited mission to Equatorial Guinea and President Obiang, which took place in Cameroon in May 1998, the mission heads expressed the concerns of the European Union with regard to the human rights situation in Equatorial Guinea.
Despite this, on 1 June, a military court passed the death sentence on 15 of the 100 or so accused.
The presidency has recently appealed to the President of Equatorial Guinea on behalf of the Union not to uphold the death sentences.
As far as we are aware, the death sentences have not yet been carried out.
The Council will continue to observe developments in Equatorial Guinea very closely and will take every opportunity to underline the importance it attaches to upholding human rights and democratic principles in that country.
As regards EU development aid, in August 1996 President Obiang requested consultations with the Commission under Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention with the objective of reaching agreement on the resumption of development cooperation.
On his visit to the Commission on 31 October 1997, President Obiang was received by Commission President Santer and during this meeting he proceeded to explain and defend his programme of democratization.
The Commission made it clear that a gradual resumption of aid would be dependent upon progress in human rights, democratic principles and the rule of law.
I want to thank the Austrian presidency for its kindness and courtesy in answering this question, but I should imagine we have heard the sad news, reported in today's press, of the death in hospital of one of the people who had been sentenced. They were not actually condemned to death, but this event reveals the inhuman conditions suffered by such people and the systematic violation of human rights which Obiang is imposing on the whole country.
I believe this provokes fears of even more dramatic consequences in the near future, and makes it more difficult for the democratic opposition in Equatorial Guinea to bring about the necessary transition.
So the European Union must act firmly with all the available means so that human rights are respected once again in this part of the world and, moreover, so that forces from outside Africa are not allowed to intervene.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too have just received the news that the leader of the Movimiento de Autodeterminación de la Isla de Bioko has died in prison, probably as the result of torture inflicted on him.
Let me now say again that the Council will be observing developments in Equatorial Guinea all the more closely and will take every opportunity to point out the high value that must be attached to human rights and democratic principles in that country.
The Council will do everything in its power to avoid any repetition of this in future.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I too thank you for your kindness, but unfortunately I have to say that you have not by any means satisfied the expectations of this House or the democratic opposition in Equatorial Guinea as regards the situation we are dealing with.
I understand, of course, that your country, Austria, no doubt views the terrible human rights situation in Equatorial Guinea as remote, but I would suggest for example that you request information from the Spanish government, because they were also the ones who, last autumn, urged President Santer to receive the dictator Teodoro Obiang, who subsequently set up a council of war, which was certainly followed by death sentences and the death, probably from torture, of the Equatorial Guinean leader, Martín Puye.
So, as well as monitoring the situation closely, I would like you to tell me clearly whether you do not think the Council needs to adopt a common position to apply Article 5 of the Lomé Convention to Equatorial Guinea and stop that country participating in that agreement until, of course, it respects minimum democratic principles and human rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me assure you that we are of course following this difficult situation closely.
Up until now, this information has not been available to us in any detail.
I assume, however, that the Council will be dealing with these developments soon, although we will need more detailed information, and I can assure you that we are keeping a very close watch on affairs, and we will of course be doing everything in our power to improve the situation.
At the present time, I cannot say any more than that, because I cannot, of course, pre-empt the Council and its decisions.
Question no 5 by Allan Macartney (H-0616/98)
Subject: Commission document on compensatory measures on the abolition of duty-free sales
Will the Council ensure that the Commission's document outlining possibilities for compensatory measures to the regions most affected by the abolition of Intra-EU duty and tax-free sales after 1999, as agreed at the May Ecofin Council, is presented to and debated at an Ecofin Council this autumn? Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply to Mr Macartney's question.
Mr President, Mr Macartney, as a result of consultations at the European Ecofin Council on 19 May 1998, it became apparent that there was no consensus on the question of calling for a Community-wide study into the effects of the abolition of intra-EU duty-free sales on 30 June 1999.
In light of the various studies conducted in individual states and comments from the sitting, however, the Commission will - and I would particularly like to draw attention to this - clarify in a working paper exactly what instruments Member States have at their disposal to help absorb the impact of these measures.
I also welcome the Austrian President-in-Office of the Council.
The Austrian presidency has got off to a very good start.
We appreciate your directness in dealing with our questions.
The mystery here is that, at the Council meeting in May, Commissioner Monti promised that there would be measures to alleviate the negative impact of the loss of intra-EU duty-free and tax-free sales.
Since then there seems to have been a rearguard action by certain Commissioners who seem opposed to what he undertook.
What I was looking for was an undertaking from the Council that they will do their best to make sure these measures are forthcoming.
I take it from what the President-in-Office says now that the Council already has this in hand and, in a sense, has taken over the responsibility, in which case I am delighted.
We need to know the impact on areas which are going to suffer, including my own.
Mr President, Mr Macartney, perhaps I failed to express myself clearly. I did not say that the Council already has a document in hand.
We are awaiting such a document from the Commission, but what we have asked the Commission to clarify is exactly what instruments Member States have at their disposal to help absorb the impact of these measures.
This document is not yet available.
It will also address the question of the content of these measures, but I cannot give an answer to this at the present stage.
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, this question of compensatory measures on the abolition of duty-free sales is of great interest to this House, which means I have received requests for four supplementary questions.
The Rules of Procedure only allow me to grant two.
So I shall give the floor to Mr Morris and Mr Lindqvist in turn, who made their requests in that order, and I am very sorry but I shall not be able to let either Miss McIntosh or Mr Cushnahan speak, since their requests came later.
Mr Morris has the floor first, for a supplementary question.
I welcome the prospect of compensation, if it is available.
However, in a Community where there are approximately 20 million people unemployed - and since we are faced with the prospect of a further 42 000 people who are employed in the tax-free industry facing unemployment - I should prefer it if the Commission, via the Council, could undertake very serious research to give us the facts as they stand at the present time.
My concern now is that we must know the facts ahead of any action that the Commission and the Council might take in abandoning the tax-free policy.
Mr President, Mr Morris, perhaps I should just say once again that the Member must be well aware that the abolition of duty-free at ports and airports, as well as on ferries and aircraft travelling within the Community, is necessary in order to complete the single market.
In this respect, it has to be emphasized that the abolition of duty-free sales is by no means a new measure.
Those involved in this particular market sector were also granted a five-year transition, which expires in 1999. This was specifically to enable them to make the necessary adjustments to smooth out the social consequences of the abolition of dutyfree.
The Council is, of course, aware of the fact that the abolition of duty-free in intra-EU ferry and air traffic will lead to employment problems.
The Council therefore eagerly anticipates the results of this study which, as I already mentioned, the Commission will be preparing in the form of a working document on the instruments available to Member States to assist them in dealing with this situation.
Let me stress this again: the Commission is involved and will be presenting this document to us. The latter will of course contain certain facts and figures.
I would like to congratulate Austria on having taken over the Presidency of the Council.
I hope that the question of duty-free is going to have a positive solution.
I come from Sweden where we are very concerned that something should be done; more than has so far been the case on the part of the Commission and perhaps also on the part of the Council.
In connection with taking the decision on duty-free sales, a promise was made to carry out a proper study of the consequences for the countries which have duty-free and which will suffer a change for the worse, including with regard to employment.
This has not been done.
Now I hear that there is going to be such a working document, which sounds very good.
However, it would be even better if the Council could promise that compensation will be given to the affected countries.
We do not need a study if we can have a good answer on this point.
It would satisfy me.
I am therefore putting this question once again, in order to be able to give a reply to my questioning representatives in Scandinavia.
Mr President, Mr Lindqvist, thank you for your kind words.
On this subject let me repeat that as far as compensatory measures are concerned, I am sure you are aware, Mr Lindqvist, that the Council made this decision unanimously - as I have already explained - and therefore cannot become involved in this matter again.
However, I have also indicated that the Commission has now been asked by the Council to prepare a study on this, that is to say, a working document, and I can only point out that this will make instruments available to Member States, or will advise them as to what instruments are available to them, to help absorb and compensate for the impact of this measure.
Mr President, could you clarify how we should put supplementary questions? I understand it is no longer by catching your eye or by a show of hands but rather that one has to press the button and that the questions are taken strictly in the order in which they are put.
Could you clarify this point?
Miss McIntosh, supplementary questions are put at the precise moment the main question is announced.
You can ask to speak by raising your hand or by pressing the button.
The President gives the floor in the order the questions are asked, whether by a show of hands or by pressing the button.
It makes no difference.
It is true that the President has a certain amount of discretion in granting the floor if there are a lot of questions from one side of the Hemicycle or the other.
So far, however, I have not had to use my discretion. Should that need arise, you can rest assured that I would do so with the most absolute - I would even say paranoid - institutional neutrality.
You all know you can ask me for the floor. The Bureau advises me; in other words, it is not just one pair of eyes doing all the work, but three, and I try to keep strictly to the chronological order.
I may make a mistake on the odd occasion, but in that case I assure you it is absolutely unintentional.
Mr Watts, do you wish to make a point of order?
I was just trying to catch your eye for the next question.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not going to turn this into a competition.
I know the actual starting point is when the next question is announced, and I understand that people get a bit edgy, but please do not be too quick off the mark.
I am going to announce the next question now.
In any case, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to make a little use of the powers invested in me by the Rules of Procedure. In this case, since this question is closely related to the previous one, I am going to take it that Mr Cushnahan and Miss McIntosh have priority.
So I am going to use the authority granted me by the Rules of Procedure in that way, and I hope you will understand.
So without further ado we move on to Question No 6 by Brian Crowley (H-0714/98)
Subject: Council's discussions on duty-free
Can the Austrian presidency indicate what plans, if any, it has to hold discussions in the Council of Ministers on the proposal to abolish duty-free in 1999 and all its impact on employment? Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, this question is on the same subject.
I do not understand why these two questions were not grouped together.
I was very surprised myself, and asked Parliament's services why the two questions had not been grouped but I have not had any reply.
Therefore, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, if you feel it has already been answered, I shall give the floor to Mr Crowley for a supplementary question on the basis of the debate which has already taken place, and I shall then let Mr Cushnahan and Miss McIntosh speak.
Are you happy with that or would you prefer to speak first?
You have the floor, Mr Crowley.
I want to have an answer from the President-in-Office before I ask my supplementary.
I am dealing specifically with the employment aspects of the matter as opposed to compensatory aid.
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, you have the floor.
We will take account of that slightly different angle, which must have been why the questions were not grouped together. I invite you to comply with Mr Crowley's request and give him an answer.
Mr President, allow me to repeat to the Member what I have already stated.
I was assuming that the questions would be grouped together and that I could then answer both of them at once.
May I state once again that we will endeavour to put instruments into the hands of Member States to help them absorb the impact arising from the loss of certain jobs.
However, I have already said, as Mr Crowley well knows, that provision was made for a five-year transition period expiring in 1999. This was intended to allow for certain adjustments to be made that would be necessary for smoothing out the social consequences of the abolition of duty-free.
I have nothing further to add to this.
I would like to congratulate the President-in-Office on her first session here in Parliament and thank her for her honesty.
She is the first President-in-Office I have heard say there will inevitably be job losses because of this decision.
I would refer her to the comments of her colleague, the Austrian Foreign Minister, earlier on today in Parliament, when he said that job creation would be the top priority of the presidency and that under the Amsterdam Treaty the EU now had the necessary instruments available via national employment plans in specific and binding areas.
Surely now is the time, under this presidency, to reverse the decision.
The President-in-Office has admitted there will be job losses and also that we can put off this decision until such time as there is harmonisation of taxation - particularly excise duty.
I would like a response on that point.
Mr President, Mr Crowley, thank you for your kind welcome.
In a word, yes.
Our Foreign Minister did address the subject of the job creation programme, which will no doubt figure among the top priorities of the Austrian presidency.
To my mind, it is extremely important for us to enter into the revision process under the auspices of the Vienna European Council and use this to learn from one another.
You are well aware of the great importance attached to best practices.
Just as Austria, for example, can learn about mobility, flexibility and many other specific programmes from other Member States, by the same token, other Member States can learn from us, and here I am thinking of our excellent apprenticeship training scheme, which allows young people of 14 or 15 to start training with a firm or workshop while at the same time continuing to receive school education.
These are just some of the measures available.
I do not want to go on about this, of course, but I would like to put it to you that such measures are important.
Retraining under the umbrella of education would be an important measure, too.
Returning to the original question: the five-year transition period has basically provided the opportunity of operating such a scheme with people who are currently employed in the duty-free sector.
Regarding the general question of the harmonization of taxes - which if I have understood correctly you were also asking about - I must say that our Finance Minister is very concerned about driving this issue forward as soon as the proposals of the Commission have been received.
I would hasten to add, however, that as things are at present the Council will not be facing an easy task here, but at least this is what the Austrian presidency will be trying to achieve.
Naturally, the completion of the single market also means gearing up in terms of employment and competition, and that greatly improves prospects of expanding trade, which is essential if we are to face up to the challenge of globalization.
President-in-Office, let me also join with my colleagues in wishing you and your colleagues a very successful presidency, bearing in mind that this is an historic moment: your country's first presidency since joining the European Union.
I intend to continue to fight for the retention of duty-free but I am intrigued by part of the response you gave my colleagues and I should like clarification.
Firstly, you talk about a working document.
Will we have this working document before this Parliament before 1 July 1999? Secondly, when you talk about instruments and compensation measures, can I have the assurance of the Austrian presidency that compensation measures will be forthcoming if, unfortunately, this decision does go ahead; that these compensation measures will be additional to money in existing or future Community support frameworks; and that countries will not be forced to poach money from other parts of their Community support framework.
Mr President, Mr Cushnahan, allow me to express my thanks to you, too, for your words of encouragement and your warm welcome.
In this context, all I can do is reiterate that the Commission has been asked to prepare the working document, but I cannot say when it will be ready.
I think that question should be addressed to the Commission directly.
Nor can I give you an answer as to its content, that is to say, whether additional funding will be available or not.
I think you should ask the Commission about this.
Mr President, I am doubly grateful to you this evening, for exercising your discretion in this way.
Can I extend a very warm welcome to the Austrian President-in-Office, I am delighted to see her here this evening.
Could I seek clarification on two issues.
It was generally understood that any ferry travelling through international waters outside the 12-mile limit and any airline travelling in international airspace would continue to benefit from and be able to continue with duty-free sales after 1 July 1999.
I understand that, under the British presidency, a meeting of national customs officials overruled that and that will effectively nullify the effect of a change of route for a ferry operating from my constituency.
This will have very serious commercial and employment ramifications.
That is my first point.
The second point is that the President-in-Office has mentioned compensatory measures in reply to a number of questions this evening.
I would like to be quite specific: from which part of the European Union budget will these funds be taken?
Mr President, Miss McIntosh, first of all, thank you for your warm welcome. Secondly, I have to say that your question is rather technical.
I would ask you to allow me to respond to your question in writing, and as regards budget funds, I cannot provide any further information, as I have already explained in answer to the previous question.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Very briefly, if the presidency, quite understandably, wants to reply in writing to the honourable Member, would it be possible to ensure that other interested Members get to see that reply? Obviously, we would all have heard an oral reply, and it is only right and proper for the reply to be made available to the whole House.
Mr Watts, that is not a point of order. It is almost a supplementary question.
However, I am sure that if Miss McIntosh receives her reply she will be kind enough to pass it on to you immediately.
Miss McIntosh's openness and kindness are well known, and mean that she is bound to give you a response as quickly as possible.
But it is not a point of order.
So, ladies and gentlemen, if you will allow me, as they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 7 by Ioannis Theonas (H-0618/98)
Subject: Return of the Parthenon ( "Elgin' ) Marbles
There has been a public outcry over revelations that the Parthenon Marbles suffered heavy and irreparable damage in 1939-1940 in the British Museum where they are being illegally kept.
In particular, sharp tools and strong chemical substances were used to strip the Marbles of their protective patina, thereby exposing them to environmental conditions.
Moreover, this fact was carefully concealed by the British authorities in violation of the most basic standards of scientific and ethical behaviour.
What actions does the Council intend to take to secure the return of the Parthenon Marbles to their country of origin, to save one of the crowning achievements of world culture and to respect the claims of historical legitimacy, and does it not consider that the continuing refusal to hand over the monuments legitimizes the looting of cultural treasures and is contrary to any notion of cooperation between countries in a spirit of good faith and the principle of respect for the cultural heritage of the Member States?
Question No 8 by Angela Kokkola (H-0651/98)
Subject: Return of the Elgin marbles
According to recent scientific reports, the British Museum has caused irreparable damage to the Elgin marbles in attempting to clean them since it used substances and materials which damaged the outer surface thereby detracting from their historic and artistic worth.
In view of this, together with the completion of the Acropolis Museum, which is being built using the most modern methods and in accordance with international specifications, what pressure will the Council bring to bear on the British Government to respect its long-standing undertaking to return the Elgin marbles to their country of origin, given the special nature of the circumstances, since they form an integral part of a temple and are not isolated works of art? How will it contribute to the setting up of a committee of internationally recognized experts to assess the damage suffered by the marbles as a result of cleaning?Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, you have the floor, on the subject of marbles and friezes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Member is no doubt aware that the UNESCO recommendation of 1982 initially states that the Elgin marbles should be returned; it went on to specify that they should be returned to Greece so that they could once again be put on display at the Parthenon.
The matter of the Parthenon Marbles is not something which can be dealt with by the Council, since this goes beyond the jurisdiction of the European Community.
This issue must be resolved solely between the governments of the United Kingdom and Greece.
Mr President, I too would naturally like to welcome the President-in-Office on her first appearance in the European Parliament.
However, I also wish to express my disappointment at the Council's response.
The Parthenon Marbles are a priceless cultural commodity which concerns not only Greece and Britain but the whole of humanity.
I think that the Council, too, should be just as concerned about their fate as all the other interested parties, who are greatly alarmed in the wake of scientifically well-founded facts, according to which the marbles suffered irreparable damage as a result of how they were treated by the British Museum.
I think that, for precisely this reason, the Council should have the sensitivity that is shown by non-governmental organizations and mass movements for the fate of the Parthenon Marbles, and give a more substantial response to this issue.
Mr President, Mr Theonas, unfortunately, all I can do is to repeat what I have already stated.
The Council has no jurisdiction in this matter.
The issue is a purely bilateral one.
It should therefore be resolved bilaterally between the governments of the United Kingdom and Greece.
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office, who is here today to give us a response.
My question is not a supplementary question.
It is an entirely different one since, after the latest findings and the announcement by the great scientist Ced Claire concerning the damage done to the Parthenon Marbles, I wonder whether a committee of experts might not get together to participate more generally in the scientific investigation into the matter and in the communication of the findings.
The President-in-Office has the opportunity to show her feminine sensitivity.
In addition, she is from a small, democratic and very sensitive country, and it is well-known that small countries have a lot to contribute on many issues.
More specifically, Madam President-in-Office, will you show this sensitivity and will you convene this committee?
Mr President, Mrs Kokkola, thank you, first of all, for your kind words.
I would like to refer again to something which I mentioned at the beginning of my first answer, but perhaps it did not come across clearly.
The most appropriate body for dealing with such matters is not the Council of the European Union, but UNESCO.
I would, therefore, like to suggest that perhaps the committee of experts you have just proposed should operate under the auspices of UNESCO in tackling this issue.
Let me just underline once more that the Council is not the appropriate body because it has no jurisdiction in this matter.
Question No 9 by John McCartin (H-0619/98)
Subject: Crisis in Sudan
Following the meeting of the Development Council, has the Council addressed the issue of the war and famine in the Sudan and can the Minister make a statement on the current situation there? Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply to Mr McCartin's question.
Mr President, I would like to make the following comment on the crisis in Sudan.
The Council is watching developments in Sudan with great concern.
Following the debate which took place at the meeting of the Development Council on 18 May, which the Member referred to, the Foreign Ministers of the European Union discussed the situation in Sudan on 25 May and 29 June.
The Council refers to the statement by the presidency on 1 May and confirms that only a lasting political solution will allow the Sudanese people to return to a state of normality.
The Council affirms its support for the intergovernmental development authority, IGAD, in its efforts to find a way to negotiate a lasting peace.
In this context, the Council welcomes the proposal whereby the IGAD Partner Forum (IPF) would despatch a ministerial-level mission to Khartoum and Nairobi to investigate the possibilities of bringing about a cease-fire in the areas hardest hit by famine in order to allow humanitarian aid to get through.
The European Union will continue to use all the means at its disposal to urge the parties to resume negotiations and to observe human rights in Sudan.
I thank the President-in-Office for her reply.
I have seen the newspaper reports that the Irish Minister has requested this ministerial mission and am glad that it has been organised.
There is immense frustration - I am sure not only in Ireland but throughout the European Union - at the scale of distress.
I think that there is a political will throughout the European Union to devote whatever resources are necessary at least to alleviate the present hunger and suffering.
Does the President-in-Office believe that the European Union could channel aid to alleviate starvation more effectively than is now the case? Can the position be improved on as a matter of urgency?
Mr President, Mr McCartin, I can at least share with you one communication which I have just received hot off the press.
I am sure you will be pleased to hear this. The Deputy Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom, Derek Thatchet, went to Nairobi and met with representatives of the SPLA on Tuesday specifically to discuss the matter of the security corridor for aid organizations.
Mr Thatchet then flew on to Khartoum to negotiate there with representatives of the Sudanese government.
The Sudanese rebel organization, the SPLA, has called a unilateral cease-fire in certain areas of the country in order to allow more than a million starving people to receive aid.
The cease-fire in the Federal State of Baralgasal and in parts of the Upper Nile came into effect late on Tuesday evening, according to the SPLA spokesman in Nairobi on Wednesday.
He has since added that the Khartoum government is expected to follow suit.
According to information from the UN World Food Programme (WFP), 1.2 million people in the south of this African state are actually facing starvation.
The people here are suffering primarily as a result of the drought, but also, of course, from the consequences of 15 years of brutal civil war.
I can also add that, since I am responsible, too, for development cooperation, I have discussed this subject myself with the Irish Secretary of State for Development Cooperation. I know she has gone to great lengths in proposing the sort of solutions for Sudan which helped broker the peace deal in her own country.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to ask whether the Council is also concerned with religious freedom in Sudan, as well as taking an interest in Southern Sudan and the humanitarian issues.
You are aware, for example, that pressure was brought to bear on the Bishop of Khartoum and that he was threatened that if he resisted this pressure, church development aid projects would be blocked.
My information comes from Missio, which is a Munich-based episcopal welfare relief organization, and I would like to ask you whether the Council is aware of these matters and whether it is involved with religious freedom throughout Sudan and with this attempt to highjack development aid.
Mr President, Mr Posselt, I can tell you in general terms that all aspects of the question of the crisis in Sudan are under our constant scrutiny.
In the Council of Development Cooperation Ministers and in the various working committees, we have naturally also been very concerned with addressing questions of religious freedom and the matter of fundamentalism.
We will continue to discuss the question you have raised and you can rest assured that it will be a matter of concern for the Council.
As the author is not present, Question No 13 lapses.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 10 by Michl Ebner (H-0630/98)
Subject: Protection of minorities
In its resolution of 8 April 1997 on respect for human rights in the EU (1995), the European Parliament was critical of the fact that the call for a charter for ethnic groups and linguistic minorities in the EU had not been taken up by the Council, the Intergovernmental Conference or the Member States.
It also stressed that the rights of ethnic and linguistic minorities present in many Member States were either not protected or were so only on a regional or national basis.
Does the Austrian presidency support the drafting of a Charter for linguistic minorities in the EU in accordance with the European Parliament's resolution on human rights?
Question No 11 by Joan Vallvé (H-0631/98)
Subject: Action programme for minority languages
It was only at the beginning of 1994 that the Commission submitted a communication on minority languages in the EU, in the form of an activity report (1989-1993).
This was the first ever official communication on the preservation and promotion of minority languages.
Does the Council propose to ask the Commission once again to prepare a similar action programme for minority languages? What type of decisions will be taken in future on our minorities, languages and cultures?Question No 12 by Bernd Posselt (H-0632/98)
Subject: Protection of ethnic minorities
Regrettably, the EU has as yet adopted no special provisions on the protection of ethnic minorities.
In spite of this, it insists that the future Member States in central and eastern Europe adopt such provisions.
Partly in view of the EU's prospective eastward enlargement, what measures does the presidency propose to take, or what initiatives does it expect from the Commission, in respect of the protection of ethnic minorities?Question No 14 by Karl Habsburg-Lothringen (H-0634/98)
Subject: Cultural and linguistic diversity in the European Union
In its resolution of 17 May 1995 on the functioning of the Treaty on European Union with a view to the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference the European Parliament stated that "the value of national and regional cultural and linguistic diversity within the European Union should be explicitly recognized' .
Could the Council say when the protection of linguistic diversity will appear on its agenda, and what type of decisions will be taken regarding the future of our minority languages and cultures?Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, I invite you to reply jointly to Questions Nos 10, 11, 12 and 14.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to give a joint reply to these questions on the promotion of minority languages and the protection of minorities and their cultures.
What must be stressed, above all, in connection with these issues is that the protection of basic personal freedom and the affirmation of democratic principles constitute two of the fundamental pillars of the European Community.
Allow me to assure the Members that the Council is highly conscious of the importance attached to the preservation of ethnic, regional and local characteristics. This is what makes our Community a kaleidoscopic entity of many facets, whose diversity is intrinsic to its overall richness.
Moreover, it goes without saying that all citizens of the European Union must be able to enjoy the same rights and freedoms.
In other words, there must be no discrimination of any kind against citizens of the European Union, and certainly not on the basis of their belonging to a national minority.
It is the opinion of the Council that the governments of the individual Member States are responsible for ensuring that within national communities, xenophobic tendencies do not lead to forms of discrimination which would be at odds with freedom and democracy, which are the very foundation of the European Union.
The Members must doubtless know that the Council has not examined any specific proposals relating to the protection of minorities, minority languages or similar measures.
Nevertheless, the Council can assure the Members that it will give its full attention to any such proposals that may be presented to it and that such proposals would be more effective at Community level than corresponding measures at national level.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, before I get to the point, allow me to express my delight at appearing here as a representative of an Austrian minority.
I believe that today is the first time in 80 years that an elected representative of part of the former crown land, principality and earldom of Tyrol has been able to stand before a representative of the government of the Republic of Austria, to take part in parliamentary exchanges and to participate in the parliamentary system.
I think that this is the practical manifestation of those major advances which Europe offers us.
Now to the matter at hand.
I believe that it is not enough just to have no discrimination.
What we need is positive discrimination for minorities, that is to say, active protection, and I hope the Council will not only apply itself to this in some detail, but will also seek to obtain appropriate proposals from the Commission.
Mr President, Mr Ebner, I too am delighted to see a representative of an Austrian minority standing before me in my capacity as representative of the presidency.
Let me repeat that the Council can only act on the initiative of the Commission.
Here I must cite Article 128.
Allow me to point out that Article 128 of the Treaty also makes the following provision: the Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States, while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore.
Through its activities, the Community encourages collaboration between Member States, where necessary supporting and complementing their activities in the following areas: disseminating, and enhancing awareness of, the culture and history of the peoples of Europe; and maintaining and protecting cultural heritage of European significance, non-commercial cultural exchanges and artistic and literary endeavours, including work in the audio-visual field.
However, should the Member feel that the Commission should approach the Council with a proposal for an action programme to promote minority languages, then I would like to point out to you that provided your draft fulfils the requirement of having the support of a majority of your colleagues, then you yourself have a far more impressive array of arguments to present to the Commission than the Council could possibly assert.
Perhaps I should also mention the special programmes that exist, notably in the field of languages.
I am thinking in particular of the LINGUA programme which has been set up by the EU.
Mr President, Mr Vallvé, first of all, thank you for using German, my mother tongue.
I greatly appreciate that.
I do actually understand Valencian Catalan, not every word, but a little, although I speak it very badly.
As to your question, I can only repeat that the Commission has to take the initiative.
The Council can hardly assign the Commission the task of taking the initiative.
Over the past decade, however - and this is something I wish to elaborate on - considerable changes have been made in a number of areas affecting minority language communities within the European Union.
At national level, decentralization measures, particularly in the fields of teaching and culture, have also led to an increase in activities favourable to a number of minority communities.
In any case, at European level, there is of course a renewed desire to share the benefits of the single market with the less wealthy regions of the Union.
This takes the form of regional aid, such as the financing of infrastructural projects via the Structural Funds, and this aid in turn benefits certain marginal areas and, consequently, communities in prioritized regions.
In many cases, these are also minority regions.
Mr President, Mr Posselt, let me just repeat what I have said: I believe it is quite clear that the Commission must first present proposals; these are the rules of the European Union.
We in the Council can only become involved on the basis of proposals submitted by the Commission.
However, in general terms, let me say that when it comes to minority rights, particularly in central and eastern European states, the conventions of the Council of Europe naturally have a major role to play, and I believe it is also very important to state that the work of the Council of Europe should not be duplicated.
In my additional capacity as representative of the Council of Europe, I personally think that it is very important to let the Council of Europe get on with its work and to leave the Council to act on initiatives tabled by the Commission.
A tremendous amount has been achieved, and we are delighted that in many central and eastern European countries, where there have been problems with minorities, such problems have now been addressed and in some cases settled.
Thank you very much, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
As I said, Mr Imaz San Miguel is not here, which deprives us of the chance also to hear the opinion of a nationality with such a strong and complex identity as the Basques.
However, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen is with us, and has one minute to put a supplementary question if he wishes to do so.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, allow me to begin by saying how enormously satisfying it is for me to have the privilege of addressing you by this title and what great pleasure this gives me.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, one question which is naturally of great interest to me in this connection is how you view the situation of the rights of European ethnic minorities.
This matter has arisen time and again in the European Parliament, but has of course never reached the House; it always seems to get stuck, as it were, in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Given the fact that we are now discussing the enlargement of the European Union, when each of the prospective Member States will also be bringing along its own problems in respect of ethnic groups and minorities, do you not think it is time for the European Union to reach out to the public at large and seek to define a law for European ethnic groups and a proactive system for the protection of minorities?
Mr President, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, I too am delighted to be here today giving concise answers to your questions.
As you know, according to the rules of the Union, this would also require an initiative from the Commission.
However, I would like to reiterate what I have just been saying.
I believe that it is really the role of the Council of Europe to be reflecting on the rights of European ethnic minorities, since it has already done a lot of work in that direction.
Why should we - and this is my own personal view - always repeat the same thing in the European Union as we have already anticipated or conceived in the Council of Europe? For my part, I would have thought that quite apart from an initiative by the Commission - if an initiative were forthcoming, that would of course be marvellous - we should continue to pursue the matter of a European law for ethnic groups primarily in the Council of Europe.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I still have three further supplementary questions on this issue, which will bring us to the end of Question Time.
However, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as you will see, when we give the floor to the Habsburgs in this House, we do so in chronological order, that is, to the eldest first and then the youngest.
So Mr von Habsburg now has the floor for a supplementary question.
Madam President, allow me to say how heartening it is to see you in this position.
My question is as follows: do you not agree that it would be intrinsically more correct if we were also to address the issue of political representation when dealing with problems of nationality and language, because without the political representation, no regulation will ever be fully effective?
And do you not agree that when it comes to the rights of these ethnic minorities, there should be a special focus on the political representation of these groups, because - the way I see it - the system which has been adopted in Belgium constitutes the best solution.
If we look at the German Cantons of Mr Grosch, who was elected with 16 000 votes, while I - as has been pointed out to me - needed 980, 000 votes to get elected, then I consider it quite fair and equitable that we should ultimately recognize that there is more to this than counting heads.
I shall finish in a moment; just a few more words, Mr President.
I just want to say that groups really are as important as individuals as regards rights within the Community.
Thank you very much, Mr President.
(Laughter)
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg, I too am delighted to be addressing you in your new capacity.
Perhaps in this instance I can make an exception and give a personal answer.
Personally, I think you are quite right.
Of course this matter is something which we should look into further, and we can get our cue from Article 128 - which I cited earlier - namely the first section, which states that the Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore.
As I indicated earlier, however, it is up to the Commission to table a proposal here.
Then the Council can become involved too.
The President-in-Office has dealt very fully and sympathetically with this question.
I come from a part of the Community where we have an ancient and very rich living language but it is at some risk.
The European Union's efforts to support this minority language are immensely appreciated.
In the past the European Union has been criticized on the grounds that it is going to be a great melting pot in which small communities and minorities will all be lost.
I would point out that, in the past, the individual states and kingdoms which now compose the European Union persecuted and tried to stamp out these minorities, but the European Union now supports them and gives them practical assistance in the form of a budget and, in the case of Ireland, a minority language office in Dublin.
Does the President-in-Office agree with me that it is very appropriate that the European Union should engage in this political activity in order to make the point that we do not want to destroy but to support and maintain minority cultures and languages?
Mr President, Mr McCartin, allow me to repeat that the European Union naturally seeks to protect all particularist and minority groups and takes an interest in all the various languages.
It is incorrect to say that support is given to groups which seek to exert a negative influence here.
As I have already pointed out, the starting point is the aforesaid Article 128 of the Treaty, which states quite clearly that the Community shall contribute to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States while respecting their national and regional diversity and at the same time bringing the common cultural heritage to the fore.
I believe that is the correct intention and that is how we shall be proceeding in future.
Mr President, I have been following the line of reasoning of the President-in-Office: rather than the Council going ahead, she calls on the Commission to take the initiative.
What is this about? It is about the protection of minority rights, and the right to preserve one's linguistic heritage, etcetera.
This is provided for in the Treaties.
The Commission is guardian of the Treaties.
As a result, its first obligation is to respect the Treaties.
Why are they playing this game with us? Why is it being sent from pillar to post?
This was the game that crucified Christ. If you tell us the Commission, and the Commission says the Council, you hang minority rights.
Why? Since the Commission has an obligation to respect the Treaties, the Council should not order it, the Council should request it to put forward a proposal in accordance with such and such an article of the Treaties so that we can move towards protecting these rights.
Why are you avoiding this? What are you concealing?
Mr President, Mr Ephremidis, I am sure you are just as familiar with the Treaties as I am.
As you know, I am speaking here of Article 128(5), which quite clearly lays down the right of the Commission to take the initiative.
I believe that all the other procedures are of an informal nature.
Of course, it is possible to approach the Commission informally, but the basic formal right to take the initiative lies with the Commission.
There is nothing I can do about that.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as Vice-President of the inter-parliamentary delegation for relations with Slovakia, I am constantly involved in intensive discussions as to how minority rights are actually handled within the European Union of 15 and how they will be handled in the applicant countries. The questions are always the same: is there an evaluation?
How are minority rights developing within the various states?
What model should really be adopted as the best practice? Are we in a position to produce exemplary projects and say that these really work, that this is the way things should be, and can these models be compared with one another?
Mr President, Mr Rübig, I would like to add the following: all Member States of the European Union naturally operate on a democratic basis, fully uphold human rights and meet all the criteria that we are imposing on some of the prospective Member States.
You are aware of the Copenhagen criteria.
These include the process of full democratization, that is to say, democracy.
This naturally goes hand in hand with the effective protection of minority rights.
That is the basis of the agreement.
This is also the starting point for renewed political dialogue with Slovakia, for example, a process which I personally am very much involved with in that country.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes Question Time.
Questions Nos 15 to 43 will be dealt with in writing.
When we started Question Time we welcomed Mrs Ferrero-Waldner. That welcome has been repeated in a polite and friendly manner throughout the afternoon.
Now that we have finished Question Time, I repeat that welcome but, at the same time, I must express our thanks because, ladies and gentlemen, whether or not we are pleased with the answers, we must recognize that they have all been given with that sense of responsibility, effort and willingness to reply which this House deserves.
Thank you very much, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, and I predict that we shall have six months of intense but pleasant and fruitful work.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
New codecision procedure after Amsterdam
The next item is the report (A4-0271/98) by Mr Manzella, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the new codecision procedure after Amsterdam.
Mr President, many think that the Amsterdam Treaty, although disappointing in some respects, has achieved a very important institutional result with the new codecision procedure.
Parliament's position in relation to the Council is indeed much more balanced as a result, and Parliament, in particular, as the legislator of first instance on a proposal from the Commission, can offer the Council an immediately adoptable legislative product.
The so-called first reading can in this way also become the only phase of examination by Parliament, substantially shortening the Union's legislative programme and enabling Parliament to be more involved in Community legislation than in the past.
The motion for a resolution before the House is a document of guidelines that moves in two directions.
The first direction concerns our working procedures which must be adapted, including through the subsequent work of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, to the new political dimension of the Parliamentary stage after the proposal by the European Commission.
The possibility of concluding the procedure after one Parliamentary stage means that this phase has to be structured, with a series of measures that ensure that this procedure is not unnecessarily long, that there is genuine, effective dialogue with the Council, in addition to the dialogue with the Commission, that there is responsibility in the proposals and in the decisions, and that there is transparency.
All this must be done while making sure that there is no loss of flexibility in the Parliamentary game and in the dialogue with the other institutions. Besides, certain legislative committees have rightly underlined this.
The change in the legal nature of the first stage is naturally reflected in the second stage as well, the so-called conciliation stage.
This stage is actually enhanced by the increased interinstitutional dialogue which takes place at first reading.
Thus, the second direction taken by the document in question is aimed at a new interinstitutional agreement, and it is absolutely necessary that the opinions of the legislative committees that have accumulated the most experience in this procedure be taken into account when negotiating this agreement.
Mr President, Commissioner, as you can see, the basis of this motion is the radical change that the Amsterdam Treaty has brought about in the legal nature of the initial Parliamentary stage.
For this reason, all our efforts must go towards the introduction of this initial stage, with as much elasticity as possible.
On the other hand, I would consider it frankly absurd - although with all my respect to the Members who presented two amendments along these lines - if the European Parliament refused the procedure outlined in the Treaty, retaining a second reading nonetheless.
If this were the case, this motion would turn into a counter-reform, unacceptable not only politically but especially in terms of constitutional legitimacy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the committee, I express my thanks and appreciation to Mr Manzella for the constructive and balanced fashion with which he has treated this subject that is so important to the European Parliament, namely a new codecision procedure in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Mr President, with regard to the first reading of the new codecision procedure, I would like to briefly discuss several matters.
It is important that we realize, as the rapporteur also stated, that the completion of the codecision procedure made possible by the Amsterdam Treaty can only be implemented in practice following the first reading if the exchange of information and the informal contacts between the Council and Parliament are strengthened at first reading.
In addition, the rapporteur and the chairman of the relevant Parliamentary committee with authority in the field should theoretically be able to begin informal discussions with the Council, or at least with the chairman of the relevant Council working group, following an initial exchange of ideas in the Commission.
It is also essential that the representative of the Council actually takes part in the committee meeting, is present during the voting and that he is given the opportunity to make his position known before the vote.
With regard to the second reading and the conciliation procedure, I also have two more remarks.
It is essential that the representative of the relevant Council working group explain to the relevant Parliamentary committee the main issues in the common position adopted by the Council at first reading.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy would welcome a strengthening of the role of the rapporteur in the conciliation procedure.
The Council must also provide Parliament's rapporteur with the opportunity to explain his or her position to the Council.
In this way, I believe that a mutual process of information exchange and persuasion can take place and I therefore hope that these suggestions will be adopted.
Mr President, most of the Members who are involved in the committees dealing with this report, the rapporteur and also the draftsmen of the opinions have discovered, in the course of the past week, that the changes to procedures in this House which arise from the Amsterdam Treaty have much greater effect than could be suspected at first or second glance.
These changes are certainly positive, but partly problematic, and in any case are of a complex nature.
I thank the rapporteur very warmly for his difficult work in the finely spun web of interactions, of action and reaction, in the network of relationships between the various bodies of the European Union.
I do not want to discuss all the aspects of the written opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights which was approved unanimously in committee.
I will restrict myself to paragraph 3 of the existing resolution, to the question of contacts with the Council and in what form, to what extent and when these should take place, and what the legal quality of the contacts would be.
In our view, this question was answered very inadequately by the rapporteur.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has approved such contact, but only informal contact.
The report is questionable in that it authorizes the rapporteur to negotiate at first reading.
This authorization means that Parliament has commitments regarding others and that a situation of trust is created regarding others, without a vote to this effect taking place.
We consider this to be too far-reaching, particularly as there are now amendments which, firstly, no longer grant such a right to the shadow rapporteur, and which also provide for the removal of the obligation to report to the committee.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights considers informal contacts to be necessary.
These must be incorporated, but further-reaching negotiating powers must be implemented in transactions and back-to-back transactions.
If the rapporteur is to have such rights, the Council must also be obliged to act independently and without being able to commit itself at an early stage.
Mr President, first of all I congratulate Mr Wieland on his first speech before the European Parliament, and I also congratulate Mr Manzella on his report. On behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I would stress that the main emphasis of the changed procedural rules must lie in the preparation for the first reading.
From this point of view, I share Mr Manzella's opinion.
The opportunities which the Amsterdam Treaty offers Parliament must be used to the full.
It must be possible to conclude a legislative procedure at first reading without the Council having to draft a common position, which, as we all know, requires a vast amount of time.
Parliament's legislative procedures can be tightened considerably if advantage is taken of the opportunities offered by the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs requests this quite expressly.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, with regard to our powers, for the first five years after the Amsterdam Treaty has come into force, many policy areas will be removed from the legislative powers of the national parliaments, will be Communitized and will be made subject to the unanimous decision of the Council and only the consultation of Parliament.
This concerns policy areas which are traditionally Parliamentary policy areas.
It is very difficult to tolerate the fact that, in this respect, Parliament is only consulted.
For this reason, we request that the Council treat us as though we had a right of codecision.
Thirdly, the codecision procedure, the consultation procedure has also gained in importance.
We propose that there be a permanent Conciliation Committee in the European Parliament which is composed mainly of permanent Members who regularly deal with the policy areas of conciliation and thus, in this function, are dealing with the Council.
It is not acceptable that we diminish our importance in relation to the Council by using this committee only in individual cases.
This puts us at a disadvantage in relation to the Council.
Therefore, at least in the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, we should consider setting up a permanent committee for conciliation issues to make it clear that Parliament has gained new importance in the area of conciliation also and that we are prepared to exercise our Parliamentary role vigorously.
On the whole, Parliament is faced with a new challenge.
We must ensure greater quality in our legislative work.
This will be shown in the organization of the procedure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by my friend, Andrea Manzella, on the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty deals with the most important task of the European Parliament, apart from its budgetary powers and appointment of the Commission, that is, joint legislation at European level.
We must be aware of the dimensions of what we have now achieved in terms of codecision: before Maastricht, there was nothing, after Amsterdam, 75 % of all legal acts are decided jointly by the Council and Parliament.
However, this great success should not distract us from the subject areas which still remain open: agriculture, competition, taxes, Economic and Monetary Union, foreign trade and social dialogue.
If these six areas are not included, the European democratic deficit will not have been eliminated.
We now find ourselves in a new situation, the Council must first of all get used to the fact that it no longer has the last word.
But the European Parliament must also change its work fundamentally and concentrate greatly on legislation.
For this, a measure of self-criticism is necessary.
We can no longer speak on all topics by means of resolutions and urgencies.
We will now be involved less with ardent appeals than with the concrete work of integration which will determine and, I think, give new impetus to, the everyday work of the European Parliament.
Mr Manzella's proposals therefore point in the right direction.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the extension and simplification of the codecision procedure is indeed the most important institutional change in the Amsterdam Treaty.
This offers our Parliament the chance to become a more fully-fledged legislative body.
In his outstanding report, Mr Manzella has proposed to make maximum use of the new provisions.
My group agrees with him that a new institutional agreement must be entered into, and we call on the Council and the Commission to take action on this matter as soon as possible.
We also share his threefold concern for, first of all, better information exchange between the institutions and better planning of activities; secondly, an improvement in the linguistic and judicial quality of the texts; and thirdly, a transparent procedure in all its stages.
In view of the new possibilities to complete the entire procedure following the first reading, the rapporteur has investigated how Parliament, the Council and the Commission can capitalize on this situation.
The discussions in our committee have led to a balance between the concern for efficiency on the one hand, and the concern for transparency and broad decision-making on the other.
I am very satisfied that my amendments requiring the committee chairman and the rapporteur to report, too, on their informal contacts have been accepted.
After all, it would be extremely questionable if the simplified codecision procedure restricted legislative work to a privileged club of only a few Members of the European Parliament. We therefore do not agree with the proposal by Mr Nassauer.
This proposal would not only mean that George Orwell's prediction would come true within this Parliament, but it would also mean, in particular, that the Union would cut itself off even more from the opinions of the European public and of the national parliaments.
The present resolution does not do that; it has taken the proper direction.
My group will approve the resolution.
Mr President, I have a very small correction for you, Mr Schäfer, about something that you said which I totally disagree with: happily, since Maastricht the correct wording is no longer "the Council and Parliament' but "the European Parliament and the Council'.
This small correction would enable me to agree completely with you, because I, Mr Manzella, want to limit myself to the role of the European Parliament, because we are not fulfilling our duty. If we take part in the Conciliation Committee, there is always the chairman - a minister from the presidency -, there are always 14 representatives of the Council, and luckily we always have one of the Vice-Presidents at conciliation, as well as the rapporteur and the chairman.
But, unfortunately, I must ascertain, Mrs Neyts - and this comment is directed at you- that a number of us are absent. I understand your point, and I understand that of Mr Nassauer, but regardless of which of you is correct we must always make sure that 15 Members of Parliament are present.
Whether we do that using a combination, Mr Manzella, of a number of permanent and a number of alternating members, I am prepared to make any compromise, because I do understand what you mean: if we have a fixed group of 15 permanent representatives, we cannot allow those who disagree in the partsession to be present during the conciliation.
My most important point, Mr Manzella, and we will support your outstanding report, is that we, the Members of Parliament, like the Council, must always be present on the committee with 15 members.
If we must have a few more permanent members with a certain alternation, I can live with that.
Let us make a compromise.
Mr President, I believe that our rapporteur is right: with Amsterdam, the codecision procedure has taken a great step forward, further legitimizing the role of the European Parliament and, especially, providing citizens with new instruments.
This aspect on representative democracy has often been underlined: the more codecision is extended, the more citizenship grows; these are relationships between extremely important things.
I believe that the report by Mr Manzella highlights this aspect, and I am not letting friendship get in the way when I say that we have been fortunate to have a rapporteur who is a legal expert but who also has great political awareness.
Parliament is showing that it understands one fundamental thing, that is, that it has become substantially equal in legislation: it is a co-legislator having effects on legislation and effects on control, meaning effects on comitology, with a tremendous simplification of the procedures as well, making them more efficient as a result.
Allow me to say briefly in passing that I confirm and endorse what Andrea Manzella already said with great vigour, rejecting an amendment that would destroy the meaning of the report; indeed, I do not see why the European Parliament has to underestimate the importance of being able to conclude an act of legislation at first reading.
I have a final observation, Mr President: the codecision procedure is also closely linked to the debate on subsidiarity, which is a debate we all know is still under way, with the letter from Chirac, the Cardiff Summit, and the future informal summit that will be held in Innsbruck.
It is very important because we must bear in mind that the European Parliament, when legislating, must also naturally be respectful of the autonomies and, especially, must ensure that its own legislation is of a general nature, meaning that it concerns laws of a general scope.
Nothing good comes out of European legislation that is too cumbersome, whereas much good is done with European legislation that can be adapted for acts of a general scope.
I know very well that the issue being debated today does not concern the hierarchy of laws, however, we certainly should mention a criterion regarding the general scope. Besides, in various documents on codecision we have already had an opportunity to mention this.
This is in favour of European democracy and in favour of a just interpretation of subsidiarity, which of course must not be an excuse to renationalise policy but a democratic coordination of the various levels that contribute to the construction of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, I must begin by saying that is an honour for me and a stroke of luck that it is I who must speak, on behalf of the PPE, to congratulate Professor Manzella on his report.
I do so with great admiration; admiration which began when I learnt through his book the foundations of what I know about parliamentary law.
I believe that our colleague, Mr De Giovanni, has already discussed the two great and outstanding essential qualities of this report.
In it, the superior work of a clever politician and a great lawyer are united.
As regards the politician, I would like to highlight his sensitivity towards that concept that involves truly bringing Europe closer to the citizens.
We need to realize that we must begin with these procedural issues.
There is nothing that moves the idea of Europe further away from the citizens than debating a directive which we are not going to hear of again for years - sometimes 10 years or more - and which then reappears without there being a connection between one stage and the other.
Therefore, I believe that we must all support that political objective.
As regards the undoubtably great lawyer, I would firstly highlight his accuracy and the importance he gives to aspects which, for others in this Hemicycle, would be subsidiary or ancillary, such as the quality of legislation, the quality of standards, the quality of drafting and the translations.
All of the points made by Mr Manzella in that respect are totally relevant.
But there are also practical aspects, such as appropriate management of time, appropriate management of deadlines and the establishment of interinstitutional agreements in this field.
Finally, I would like to underline certain aspects which, although I agree with them and I see them as objectives to provide Parliament with a form of self-discipline, perhaps go slightly too far.
I am referring to the explanation of the two amendments and the misunderstanding that may have occurred in connection with them.
Mr Manzella, for example, suggests the institutionalization of informal dialogue, yet he knows better than anyone that, by its very nature, what is informal steers clear of institutionalization, and steers clear of being established within a code.
That would be one example.
Another example is the need to give explanations in writing.
I share his aim, but maybe it is not totally adjusted to reality. Why?
Well, in fact, we all know that what is found in a rule can be used against Parliament as an institution, and not against third parties.
We must be cautious and not include in a rule obligations for third parties, which are wishful thinking in the last analysis; nor must we include in a rule issues which would only be binding on us, and which could even cause us problems before the courts of justice.
Mr President, I would like to conclude by emphasizing that, in my opinion, there is a misunderstanding in those two amendments and that, in any case, we are all aware of the importance of this report and the need for this Parliament - which is already relatively old, which already has some real power of codecision, and which is a co-legislator on equal terms with the Council - to mould all of this into internal rules and interinstitutional agreements.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 70 % of the areas dealt with in the European Union will be subject to codecision by the European Parliament following ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, which should be concluded by the end of 1998.
Up to now, this figure was only approximately 35 %.
Therefore, in a few months, we will become a true legislator in additional areas of European integration.
We have not only been granted greater powers, we also have the burden of greater responsibility for European legislation which is close to the people, comprehensible and to which all individuals can relate.
The amendment of Article 189b, now Article 253 of the EC Treaty, offers the European Parliament a new opportunity to be involved in a greatly changed legislative procedure, the main points of which are as follows. Firstly, the legislative procedure will take up less time.
The third reading, for example, will no longer exist, and other simplifications are possible.
Secondly, those involved in the procedure, the Commission, Parliament and the Council, must prepare the texts more carefully and also formally, as the first reading may now end the procedure and at this stage a regulation can become law.
Thirdly, the European Parliament may exert its influence at an early stage in the procedure.
For this reason, even at first reading we require a structured dialogue between the institutions involved, not a round table of people who are potentially interested but not really competent.
Fourthly, Parliament must consider and maintain carefully its parliamentary and political influence on the public.
This should lead Parliament to consider at which reading, first or second, it considers itself to have greater influence.
We must therefore adapt our Rules of Procedure fundamentally and we must continue to use to the utmost the powers accorded to us by the Treaty and to fully utilize our responsibilities.
Together with the Council and the Commission, we must establish a clear interinstitutional framework which reflects the new balance of power in the interinstitutional structure of the European Union and makes it practicable.
Finally, we must give our voters an excellent form of legislation which is close to the people, of a quality which shows them that not everything in Europe is complicated.
On behalf of the PPE, I would like to express to the rapporteur, Mr Manzella, our thanks and recognition for the care, competence and political perspective with which, in his excellent report, he found solutions for almost every issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that one of the positive contributions of the Amsterdam Treaty has been that it strengthens the role of Parliament as a co-legislator, opposite the other branch of legislative power that is the Council.
And, as is well know, this strengthening of Parliament's role was supported during the Intergovernmental Conference by the Commission.
The increase in legislative issues submitted for codecision represents, nevertheless, a challenge for all of the institutions and calls on us all to improve our work and coordinate our action in a constructive way in order to guarantee that the new procedure can successfully achieve its result.
In that respect, the excellent report by Mr Manzella which we are debating today is a particularly timely one and, in my view, contains many well-presented suggestions which are, in fact, especially useful in enabling us to tackle this new extended codecision procedure.
Therefore, I would like to sincerely congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
The pleasing result that the codecision procedure has had up until now is due, to a large extent, to the coherent way in which Parliament has worked, and it has done so from first reading through to the conclusion.
There are, in addition, some circumstances which favour it in particular, such as the fact that there has been continuity in terms of the rapporteur and the chairman of the Parliamentary committee for each issue.
This evidently contrasts with the situation in the Council where the presidency changes every six months.
There is also continuity in conciliation, with the participation by Parliament, including the three Vice-Presidents who belong to the Parliamentary delegation, which undoubtedly offers an undeniable advantage.
I believe that this new codecision procedure will be successful if we are able to work together and take advantage of the experience which has already been accumulated in a pragmatic and flexible way in order to tackle the important work which we must carry out from now on.
Certainly, a great deal of work is going to accumulate as a consequence of this increase in Parliament's authority.
And in that respect, I must say that I support, in particular, the various measures contained in the report aimed at increasing transparency, democracy and the very legal quality of Parliament's amendments.
In my opinion, Mr Manzella is right when he underlines in his report the importance of the first reading stage.
The Treaty offers the possibility of concluding the legislative procedure at first reading. This represents an important change, particularly if we take account, in fact, of this increase in the number of subjects which will be submitted for codecision.
However, there are other reasons which I would like to point out here.
This first reading is a particularly important stage in the procedure because it is the stage at which each of the institutions carries out an especially detailed analysis of the Commission's proposals. It consequently provides an opportunity for all to clearly demonstrate their concerns, to emphasize their own interests - minority, sectoral or majority interests - and to ensure that they make their voice heard at that stage.
It is thus particularly important, both for Parliament and subsequently for the Council too.
Furthermore, a detailed political debate at first reading, although it may not be the end of the legislative process, might allow us to reach a conclusion more easily at second reading.
At second reading, more strict requirements enter into play, involving majorities. In that way, we manage to avoid the conciliation phase, which should undoubtedly be avoided as far as possible because we already know how long and complicated it usually turns out to be.
Moreover, if Parliament takes more care over its amendments at that stage, this would obviously contribute positively to the debate.
Until now, we have seen at times how, due to lack of time, Parliament's amendments at second reading have been a mere reiteration of the amendments which were not accepted at first reading.
And at times, perhaps not even a careful analysis of the Council's common position has been carried out.
For its part, the Council should also adopt a more open attitude in order to find common solutions which take Parliament's amendments into consideration.
I see that sometimes there is a type of paralysis, that is, that Parliament has a second reading in which the amendments from first reading are reiterated and the Council, for its part, does not want to move away from its first position and practically does not take account of Parliament's amendments.
With the extension of codecision, I believe that there must be more fluidity, more flexibility. If Parliament has tabled amendments, the Council must take them into consideration, examine them, and determine how formulas can be found to reach agreement, while avoiding conciliation which is usually a particularly rare formula.
Obviously, if no agreement is reached at second reading, there is the possibility of conciliation, but we should try to resolve the problems beforehand.
Finally, I would like to tell the House that the Commission is prepared to play an active role in all the stages of the legislative procedure, and particularly at first reading, as Mr Manzella's report proposes.
I believe that we can collaborate and contribute ideas on a mutual basis.
On the one hand, we must do so with the Council working group itself; on the other hand, we must do so with the rapporteur and the relevant Parliamentary committee, to try to push the process forward and to facilitate the drawing up of a modified proposal aimed at reconciling as far as possible the positions of both parties.
I know that Parliament has often asked us to play the role that corresponds to the Commission and that it has reproached us where we have not done so adequately.
We are going to do everything possible to follow those suggestions we have received from Parliament.
I am also convinced that, if we achieve positive results in the debate on a new decision concerning comitology, on the basis of the proposal recently presented by the Commission, this will facilitate a rapid conclusion of a large number of cases which are submitted for codecision.
According to our calculations, at least 70 % of the cases submitted for codecision have involved some problem concerning comitology. It would be a great relief for all if this matter could be resolved once and for all, giving due recognition to Parliament's rights without decreasing the efficiency of the system when applying the implementing measures.
I finally want to demonstrate my support for the proposal to review the Interinstitutional Agreement currently in force concerning the codecision procedure.
This should be modified in accordance with the terms of the new Treaty and with current practice.
I have no doubt that that will be a relatively easy task to allow our collaborators who have contributed so effectively up until now to the success of interinstitutional dialogue can achieve it.
There are some formal interinstitutional procedures provided for in the opinion at first reading which might mean that the procedure becomes slightly complicated.
Therefore, I would recommend to Parliament that it should try to move forward in the most pragmatic and flexible manner possible.
Mr Manzella's report represents the adequate framework to achieve this objective and the Commission wants to show that it is prepared to participate in an active and constructive way in the negotiations, in a spirit of collaboration, in order to ensure the success of Parliament's strengthened role in the legislative procedure.
Actually, I never need to teach my old friend Oreja anything, he certainly knows everything better than I do. But it is important for the new Members of Parliament to know that it is only out of wise self-limitation that we carry over amendments to the second reading which were not adopted at first reading because, according to the Treaties, we theoretically have the right to come into the second reading with all new amendments.
But we previously decided not to do that, to prevent eternal discussion. Therefore, my friend Oreja, the fact that we are bogged down with amendments that were not adopted at first reading testifies to the self-control of Parliament which is essential for a good conclusion to the legislative procedure.
Thank you, Mr Janssen.
You do not need to answer, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty: implications of closer cooperation
The next item is the report (A4-0257/98) by Mr Friedhelm Frischenschlager, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty: implications of closer cooperation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report by the Committee on Institutional Affairs is part of the follow-up work involving the decision regarding the Amsterdam Treaty.
In this case we want to make decisions on how closer cooperation can be evaluated and applied, not least because the European Parliament would like further proposals from the Commission in the foreseeable future on the reform of the institutions; that is what these reports are for.
The significance of the pressure towards institutional reform following on from Amsterdam can be seen in the example of the work done by the Committee on Institutional Affairs in the area of closer cooperation. What was the intention of the Amsterdam Treaty?
Obviously, it intended to allow closer cooperation, and the idea behind this was that people acknowledge that there is political heterogeneousness, there are various levels of political development in individual countries and obviously different demands for integration. For this reason, there should be differentiated integration - and this is what is essentially new about the Amsterdam Treaty - within the institutional framework of the European Union.
The second aim was that, in further-reaching integration measures and demands of a large majority of Member States, the practical veto of a minority of states or perhaps of a single state should not prevent these additional integration measures, except in constitutional areas such as the amendment of the Treaty for purposes of enlargement, etcetera.
This was the intention of the Intergovernmental Conference, and the European Parliament's position on this was always very hesitant as it was afraid that it would lead to a Europe à la carte, and this is a very justified reproach.
It was for this reason that the European Parliament, in the form of the Tsatsos/Méndez de Vigo report, incorporated very clear and very, very restrictive conditions to allow closer cooperation, and it also succeeded in this.
In this area the result of Amsterdam was certainly to allow closer cooperation in principle, but the requirements, the conditions, were made so restrictive that in the final analysis it leaves very little scope for the future: in the first pillar there is practically none but in the third there is a very little scope for legislative measures to implement the action programmes.
But even this very modest scope was restricted in the Treaty by the provision that, for important reasons of national policy, each Member State of the EU can, by requiring unanimity, prevent any far-reaching demand for integration on the part of other Member States or the large majority of Member States.
So once again a national veto consisting of national interests has been incorporated with the result that, yet again, one of the main purposes of this Treaty provision has been thwarted, in that true, far-reaching integration has de facto been rendered impossible by a majority decision.
It was always Parliament's line that, with all restraint regarding closer cooperation, it should be possible to go over to that side as a last resort, to actually be able to carry out differentiated integration of this kind by means of a veto.
I will come now to the conclusions.
The scope of this closer cooperation is very narrow; it is in no way justifiable to bring back this national veto, and this is why we request that the Commission remove this veto, this blockade, from the Treaty by means of proposals which advocate amendment of the Treaty.
In general, we have achieved the result that this closer cooperation in no way fulfils the political requirements of the European Union.
For this reason, we have kept to the European Parliament's old wish that it is essential, for the future of the European Union, that the principle of unanimity be replaced, under certain circumstances, by a general majority voting procedure.
This is the main political substance of my report, and I hope that the majority of this House agrees with this opinion.
Mr President, closer cooperation between Member States is a means of European integration which must allow the obstacles to be overcome; obstacles which are due partly to the often divergent expectations of Member States and partly to the continuation of the rule of unanimity by the Amsterdam Treaty, .
Admittedly, this latter provides for closer cooperation to be used as a last resort, that it will be accompanied by strict conditions and that it must involve a majority of Member States.
Nevertheless, even under strict conditions, everyone would prefer not to have to implement the mechanisms of this closer cooperation.
Citizens will still perceive it as an admission of failure, and rightly so, if you remember that the construction of Europe has always had as its main objective the implementation of joint projects as part of a single structure.
Furthermore, it will be noted that a sort of competition exists between the institutional reforms, which must assure the enlargement and deepening of Europe and closer cooperation, which is a means of pressure aimed at forcing the construction of Europe and thus at avoiding paralysis should the intergovernmental procedure fail.
This procedure is, however, not capable of responding to the major future challenges of the construction of Europe for it contains the seeds of its own destruction.
I would remind you here of the words used in the Treaty of Rome to outline the European project, "an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe' . Who does not see that closer cooperation goes in the opposite direction, that is, towards what is known as a two-speed Europe or a Europe à la carte?
Therefore, whenever possible, institutional reforms must prevail over closer cooperation. This latter will never be an adequate framework or the ideal solution for taking up the main challenges of European Union.
It is a "spare tyre' and must remain so, even if Parliament considers it something that cannot be ignored in order to make progress in certain areas.
The rapporteur is right to call on us to firstly search for politically constructive solutions.
Finally, it is to be regretted that the Amsterdam Treaty requires only that the Council and the Commission regularly inform the European Parliament of the development of closer cooperation.
In order to respect the institutional balance, Parliament's involvement should become the rule: this is, moreover, what the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs wishes.
And, as the rapporteur requests, the process of launching any closer cooperation must be submitted to the democratic control of the European Parliament.
Closer cooperation was only adopted at Amsterdam to navigate between two pitfalls: paralysis or fragmentation.
In the current state of affairs, we can unfortunately not do without it. But it should still be limited, moderate and democratically controlled.
I congratulate the rapporteur on how he tackled the difficult task of drawing up this considerate report.
Mr President, closer cooperation was, during a certain period of time - before the Intergovernmental Conference -, the star topic.
It seemed as if closer cooperation was resolving all the important and worrying issues regarding the construction of Europe.
Since the Amsterdam Treaty, it must be recognized - and Mr Frischenschlager does so in his excellent report - that closer cooperation has actually turned out to be much less important than it seemed it was going to be.
Why has this happened?
Why do we have this result? Surely it is because the problems which, somewhat hypocritically, closer cooperation claimed to solve have been solved in a different way.
Thus, that government which used to block part of the agreements in the Council has been replaced by another, which seems to have a different attitude.
So, in addition, issues such as security and defence, for example, which also cause difficulties in certain Member States, have been in some way resolved through the Petersberg missions.
Finally, the issue of enlargement, for which some people set the date for the year 2000, as we already know after reading Agenda 2000, is going to take much longer and that, in addition, surely the problems of enlargement will be resolved through transition periods, as has happened with all previous enlargements.
Therefore, after all, closer cooperation has not served to solve those problems which had a difficult political solution.
I am pleased with that, Mr President, because there was something hypocritical about closer cooperation.
The European Union's true problem is that there are still certain subjects which are subject to unanimity.
This is the only reality, as Mr Frischenschlager states very clearly in his report.
And given that - as we know - it is extremely difficult to achieve unanimity with 15 countries, it is hard to imagine what it will be like with 25 countries.
It will surely be tremendously complicated.
Thus, closer cooperation, which has been extraordinarily confined to issues which come under the first pillar, will serve little use.
I have had difficulty determining those issues to which closer cooperation can be applied under the first pillar.
It will be possible to apply it to the third pillar, to those issues which involve cooperation, after the five years of the transition period; and certainly, through constructive abstention, it will be possible to apply it to the second pillar.
But I will return to my principal point, to the point we should worry about in this Parliament: the most important thing, the really important thing - and it is highlighted by Mr Frischenschlager in paragraph 16 of his report - is that we have to try, in future revisions of the Treaty, to replace unanimity with qualified majority.
That is the only way in which we can fulfil our role, the only way in which Europe will be capable of being not only democratic, but, more particularly, effective.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate our colleague Mr Frischenschlager on his excellent report. The fact that there are only three amendments - two of which come from the Liberal Group - is testimony to that.
Closer cooperation is one of the major innovations of the Amsterdam Treaty.
At least that was the original intention.
What was written into the Treaty this time was not the right to opt out but the right for Member States to pursue integration within the single institutional framework without being blocked by a veto.
The need to overcome the paralysis imposed by the veto became all the more urgent with the prospect of enlargement.
A positive, constructive approach to European integration, therefore, underlay the original idea, and therein lies its added value.
Of course guarantees had to be built in.
Closer cooperation could not endanger what had been achieved together so far - the so called acquis communautaire - and could not lead to a permanent rupture between the Member States.
The Treaty specifically provides for a number of safeguards in respect of these and other conditions.
However, unfortunately during the negotiations a major change was introduced to accommodate British insistence on the veto.
The provisions in the Treaty now allow any Member State to block the majority vote needed to trigger closer cooperation for 'important and stated reasons of national policy' .
For the first time enshrined in the Treaty is the notorious Luxembourg Compromise of 1966.
The rapporteur recognises this by repudiating that specific point.
By introducing the veto into the procedure closer cooperation loses much of its potential and turns it largely into a theoretical exercise.
That is the gist of the amendment submitted by the Liberal Group and which Mrs Spaak would have defended if she had been here today.
The merit of closer cooperation was that it provided time to convince others of the advantage of cooperating in a particular field.
Now the Treaty does not even provide this temporary solution to a deadlock.
That means that we are left with the basic problem of a worrying lack of consensus about the direction of European integration.
That is the problem with what was finally agreed on closer cooperation.
I hope the Commissioner can comment on that point.
Mr President, closer cooperation between states, and also between social actors, is legitimate if it expresses the common values of the Community, if it pursues objectives of social progress and development and if it takes into consideration the necessary solidarity between Europeans.
I would add that it is also a current need if progress is to be made on a whole series of issues.
For example, on the issue of common economic policies, the French government, in its own way, is looking to encourage possibilities for closer cooperation within the group of 11 countries of the euro area.
Certain social issues should also be mentioned, such as the structuring of European networks of services in the general interest.
It is also important to have the possibility of experimentation and cooperation, for example, of an interregional nature.
The fact remains that closer cooperation must be situated within a legal framework which clearly expresses all of this.
A minority of colleagues think that closer cooperation can do without a legal framework.
This is clearly impossible, for it may prejudice fundamental rights.
The Amsterdam Treaty is sometimes hesitant, for good reason, regarding concern for Community unity. However, it is also sometimes hesitant for poor reasons, which demonstrate, I believe, that many of us are unfortunately influenced by the idea that Europe remains, above all, a competitive arena.
Our rapporteur demonstrates very well that there exists a significant obstacle to this process of closer cooperation: it is the national state veto.
I support his report and, in particular, the clause calling for the abolition of this veto.
There are other restrictions, such as the need to avoid causing distortions in competition or the Commission's obligatory initiative in first pillar matters, which we could also discuss.
I have only one fundamental reserve to express to the rapporteur, which does not prevent us from agreeing on the outcome.
It concerns the idea that a qualified majority vote is sufficient, an idea which others have also expressed here.
I am in full agreement with the importance of the qualified majority vote, but I insist on the fact that, besides the law, besides coordination, besides Community programmes, tools for differentiated integration must be provided for, as far as they are positive and constructive.
I think that the issue is thus not a closed one.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, unlike the rapporteur, I see a clear change in the position of the European Parliament on this issue.
Incidentally, this change of opinion happened, to a certain extent, as soon as the report came into being.
I am very pleased about this, I welcome it and also congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
When this idea was introduced, there was still a very clear hope in the European Parliament that an instrument had been found which could unblock the process of integration.
I believe that this optimism has since given way to the view that, rather than solving the actual problem, it suppresses it, that is, the issue of the two-thirds majority, the issue of a majority vote on future integration.
However, I believe that there was also a fundamental error, that is, the view that only the decision on a higher speed of integration was involved.
In actual fact, it is, of course, a question of direction, of decisions on political direction.
What better than the first "wild' cooperation experiment, that of the Schengen Agreement, to prove that Community law in no way intended to draw up the Schengen Agreement in the form in which it was finally drawn up by a few. I am therefore pleased that we are emphasizing the exceptional nature and strict conditions of institutional unity and that we are concentrating...
(The President cut off the speaker)
There is not a great deal to be said, because this report rests on a view of reality that is just so out of touch with what is going on among the citizens of the nations of Europe.
The citizens of these countries should be consulted, but this is not done, because if the citizens of these countries were confronted with the project presently on the table, they would either laugh out loud or go away in tears.
In every facet, what we have here is a totally unrealistic project that, to Danish citizens, at any rate, is almost a farce.
This project is being implemented to the chant of 'an ever closer Union' as its main thrust, together with the wonderful realization that monetary union and economic policy would, of course, force citizens into a political union.
Then it goes on to state that only the Community system is able to give the necessary guarantees with regard to democratic control, judicial control and solidarity.
Thus, the entire basis of national democracies is swept away, and paragraph 10 goes the whole hog in stating that a qualified majority, rather than unanimity, will now be the norm.
I must say that if this proposal were laid before the citizens of Europe, it would be greeted with scorn and a definite thumbs-down.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report, which covers a very difficult area.
The difficulty is perhaps symbolised by the various euphemisms that have been coined to describe closer cooperation, reinforced cooperation or even the forbidden F-word, flexibility.
The aim of closer cooperation is to allow some States to go faster or further than others provided that this does not lead to a hard-core Europe or override the national interests of other Member States.
The assumption clearly shared by many in this House that the EU is a one-way journey in which closer integration is an end in itself is a very dangerous and unpopular one with most of our citizens.
This danger is made greater by economic and monetary union.
I hope that the fully fledged common economic policy referred to in recital F will involve those countries who choose to, or have to, remain outside economic and monetary union.
I also welcome the acknowledgment in paragraph 5 that closer cooperation should be a last resort.
However, paragraphs 10 to 12 cause some difficulty.
The agreement at Amsterdam that closer cooperation can be stopped by any one Member State for important reasons of national policy was, I believe, a necessary acknowledgement of the concerns that Member States have about this option.
It seems strange to me that Mr Frischenschlager's report should call for a reform of this Treaty before it has even been tested.
I am sure that this 'virtual veto' , as it has been described, will only be used as an exceptional option in the last resort.
I therefore do not regard it as the mere theoretical exercise that Mr Brinkhorst described.
The United Kingdom, for instance, has already shown that it is prepared to allow closer cooperation in the third pillar.
I see no reason to think that the United Kingdom or any other government will use this virtual veto in the frivolous sort of way that appears to be envisaged by the rapporteur and others who have spoken.
However, we will have to see.
With that major reservation my national delegation and myself are happy to support this report.
Mr President, miracle weapons have never lived up to their reputation.
This was so in the ancient world, but it is also the case in German mythology.
One or two examples of the many show this clearly.
When tested, the Achilles heel did not really prove to be strong, and even miracle weapons in our century proved to be an illusion, which is fortunate for Europe and for democracy in the European Union.
In this respect, it is good that the supposed miracle weapon of closer cooperation, of which some promised so much prior to the beginning of the last Turin Intergovernmental Conference, was not actually launched in Amsterdam.
In this respect, it is good that Mr Frischenschlager's very sensible report - and it is for that reason that it is such a good one - shows with great clarity the limited scope and the limited efficiency and desirability of this new form of variable geometry.
Closer cooperation in its European form with a compulsory field of activities for the Commission also, with democratic participation of the European Parliament, and with constitutional control by the Court of Justice is essential.
Anything else would have been detrimental, after all.
The main point made by the Frischenschlager report, therefore, is that the laborious process of European decision-making in the first pillar, or at least in accordance with the first pillar, cannot be replaced.
Shortened forms of this laborious dialogue, short, simple ways to achieve great new European solutions do not and will not exist.
This is why we should remember that the magic potion only works for the Gauls, for Asterix and Obelix.
We Europeans, on the other hand, are required to recreate our common Europe laboriously each day.
The only formula which leads to success is to never stand still, and we heard in the debate this morning on the Austrian presidency how this formula is used again and again.
We must build our common Europe together.
Mr President, let me begin by saying that I think the report which Mr Frischenschlager has presented is very interesting and well-written.
The explanatory statement includes extensive examples of how difficult the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty are to interpret with regard to integration and closer cooperation; for example, the question of whether a proposal for closer cooperation can be based on the somewhat confused Article 235.
Examples are also given of the dangers which are associated with the actual aim of the Treaty's provisions on flexibility or closer cooperation.
According to the analysis, the aim is to substitute a legal instrument for political will in order to advance together towards more integration.
However, on that point we must ask whether there really is anyone who believes in a European cooperation, a development of the EU, without political will and, above all, without the will of the people ? What future would we see then?
We would not see, I am afraid to say, a democratic Europe of the citizens.
Although this report is well-written and the analysis is good, it is also very contradictory.
The conclusion is that closer cooperation should be avoided so that we do not create a two-speed Europe.
However, at the same time, the report itself could help facilitate such a development by proposing the abolition of the principle of unanimity and the Member State's veto. That is precisely what guarantees that the EU does not progress faster than the political will and the will of the people.
I cannot therefore vote for this report, nor can I vote for any of the amendments.
Mr President, closer cooperation is, in my eyes and the eyes of most others, an emergency solution, a last resort.
It is, however, an emergency solution which can open up possibilities.
Correctly used, closer cooperation can strengthen integration in the Union.
Wrongly used, it becomes a dividing force.
With the help of flexible integration we can get around short-term obstacles.
The history of the EU has several examples of this, including the UK's attitude to the Social Charter and the Schengen Agreement.
In certain situations, temporary flexibility in practice, or increased integration, can strengthen the Union by weakening the requirement for unanimity.
The possibility of flexibility means that the discussion does not always have to be conducted with consideration for a small minority of integration opponents.
EU integration cannot always adjust to fit the weakest link in the chain.
Even though closer cooperation does not cover the second pillar, there is an interesting idea that the objectives of the Maastricht Treaty could be fulfilled there.
It includes, among other things, the WEU which, according to the Treaty, is an integrated part of the Union's development and has the task of preparing Union decisions relating to defence.
The existence of neutral countries obstructs integration in the second pillar.
Here we could open a discussion which might be able to get further than the Amsterdam Treaty's current solution.
Obviously the objective is for those Member States who for various reasons choose to remain outside to be included as soon as possible.
However, the path to increased integration has not been and is not always going to be totally straight.
History shows that it is easier to join an existing cooperation.
Correctly used, and in certain very special cases, often security issues, increased cooperation can be in the interest of European integration.
Only then should it be tested by qualified majority voting, which is, of course, the obvious decision-making method.
Mr President, I must say that I agree with Mr Méndez de Vigo when he said that there were many illusions in relation to closer cooperation, a topic that certainly seemed to play a star role at the Intergovernmental Conference; a great deal of time, comments and speeches were dedicated to it.
There was even a sitting in which, in a monographic manner, many hours were spent discussing the scope of closer cooperation.
It was even given other names; variable geometry or differentiated rates of integration were suggested.
Finally, it was decided to give it the name of closer cooperation.
The reality is, on the one hand, that it was essential to have some discussion on closer cooperation, and on the other hand, that - as other speakers have shown here - it is, in fact, difficult to see how it corresponds to the various pillars.
Closer cooperation cannot be applied to the second pillar, because there are already other instruments within the second pillar for such application.
It is not easy to know within which limits closer cooperation can be applied to the first pillar; perhaps the third pillar presents the greatest possibilities in this respect.
However, I would like to make one thing clear here.
I was very pleased with Mr Frischenschlager's report.
I believe that he presents a very clear and systematic study, gives a summary of the various provisions to be applied, and puts forward some approaches which deserve to be given particular emphasis. He also does something which is interesting for us as members of the Commission: he asks us a series of questions which oblige us to state our position in relation to each one of them.
Since the debate is already well advanced, I want simply to try to give some replies to the questions that Mr Frischenschlager puts to us as members of the Commission.
Firstly, as regards the scope in terms of areas of application of closer cooperation, I note his request that we prepare a study on the potential fields of application of this closer cooperation.
We are going to do so.
I want to commit myself here - in front of the House - to carrying out this study, because it also seems to me to be a very sensible request to which we must respond positively.
In terms of his remarks on the launch of closer cooperation, it seems obvious to me that to proceed to political dialogue with a country which is opposed to such a launch evidently forms part of the Commission's obligations.
The Commission must try to talk to that country, ask it why it objects and set out the Commission's reasons if it believes that the cooperation should go ahead; consequently, the point made that one of the Commission's tasks is to try to convince that country of the reasons which would help seems to me to be perfectly valid.
On the other hand, as regards the emergency brake provided for in the new Article 40 of the Treaty on European Union and the new Article 11 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, it must be remembered that its inclusion forms part of a balance which was particularly delicate and which was discussed at the end of the last Intergovernmental Conference.
Nevertheless, I note Mr Frischenschlager's comments and I believe that we must consider how we can manage in practice to abolish that quasi-veto.
It is not the only such case provided for in the Treaty.
Remember that there are others in which the use of that quasi-veto appears, for example, everything that comes under the second pillar.
We are not talking already of strategies concerning foreign policy, for example, when we know that the strategy is determined unanimously. We are subsequently very pleased to think that the Council can adopt decisions with a majority, despite the fact that we know that any country can invoke a national interest, thereby breaking that majority principle which had provided us with so much relief.
Here, a similar situation is presented.
These are, so to speak, devices inserted into the Treaty.
We hope that some day, with a new reform - since there will be new reforms of the Treaty - we might be able to free ourselves of these commitments to which we are currently tied.
With regard to democratic scrutiny, the report calls on the Commission to undertake to withdraw any proposal for closer cooperation where Parliament delivers a negative opinion.
Naturally - and I am sure that Mr Frischenschlager will understand -, I cannot commit the will of the Commission in this matter, particularly since our right of initiative is limited to the first pillar.
But apart from that, from a political point of view, it is obvious that the Commission, when dealing with a topic as sensitive as this one, will always be very careful to take into consideration the position of the different players involved in closer cooperation and, in particular, of course, the European Parliament.
This is totally logical.
Consequently, I am giving you a legal response, but at the same time I am giving you a political response that we will give serious consideration to the points put forward by Parliament at a given time.
I would like to end by congratulating once again the rapporteur on this initiative which, along with other institutional reports tabled this week, is proof that interinstitutional dialogue has got off to a good start.
It will be followed by other reports currently being prepared by the Committee on Institutional Affairs and which will be presented to this House in October or November.
In short, I think it is up to all of us to do everything in our power to follow this path, to hope for a rapid entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and to then proceed - once the Treaty is approved - to the necessary institutional changes.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Action plan for the free movement of workers
The next item is the report (A4-0269/98) by Barbara Weiler, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the communication from the Commission entitled 'An action plan for free movement of workers' (COM(97)0586 - C4-0650/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the free movement of workers is one of the essential foundations of the European Union.
The right to free movement, which is enshrined in Article 8, allows each European citizen to enter the territory of any Member State in order to work or to seek work there.
Yet only approximately 2 % take this opportunity.
Undoubtedly, cultural and language barriers are important reasons for this reluctance.
But there are also many other obstacles which are of a political nature, for example, the fact that overdue regulation reforms are blocked in the Council, the considerable information deficits which exist at all levels, slow transposal into national law in the Member States, and bureaucratic administrative practices, such as a variety of petitions which are available to us and which include rulings of the European Court of Justice.
The Commission's action plan contains a sound strategy to overcome these problems.
All those concerned are to be involved in developing free movement. This means the citizens, national, regional and local authorities, the social partners, but of course the European institutions too.
I therefore welcome the Commission's action plan and, in particular, the legislative proposals announced.
I would also like to thank the Veil High-Level Panel for its comprehensive proposals, some of which are included in the Commission's proposals but also in my report.
I consider them to be brave yet pragmatic.
I would also like to thank the committees which were asked for an opinion and which added some important points to my report.
In my report I concentrate in particular on 31 requests to the Commission and the Council.
The first concerns coordination of social security.
Of course, it should not be the case that a person's acquired entitlements in the home Member State lapse when he goes to another Member State.
I have requested, inter alia, that the Commission also draw the necessary consequences from the most recent Court of Justice rulings - Kohll and Decker, for example - and present these to Parliament.
The second concerns tax treatment.
Naturally, mobile citizens must not be penalized by discriminatory double taxation.
The third relates to access to employment.
I would not overrate the importance of mobility for the labour market situation, but I consider it right that this aspect was dealt with at the Luxembourg Employment Summit.
It is certainly more important for the future than at present.
The fourth concerns information and cooperation.
By this I mean in particular that, in future, employment offices should have better facilities with a view to also providing greater transparency for job seekers.
The fifth involves the freedom of entry and residence, even for third-country nationals.
The sixth relates to the recognition of educational qualifications, which must be greatly enhanced.
In conclusion, I would like to come to a rather unpleasant point.
I have heard that the PPE will not approve the report because of political demands for third-country citizens.
Of course I regret this.
I also consider it to be strange behaviour because we in the European Parliament generally work together constructively, particularly in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, because I made an effort to incorporate most of the 40 amendments, but also because I consider Mr Pirker's current amendments to be decidedly destructive and populist.
I believe that we, on the left of this House, also treat the concerns and needs of our citizens carefully.
We also want to improve slowly and gradually certain requirements and restrictions concerning freedom of movement for citizens from third countries.
However, I cannot support Mr Pirker's amendments.
Abolishing discrimination against third-country nationals cannot wait until we have a Community migration policy.
Unfortunately, in your amendments you call for a policy of isolation and demarcation.
Any attempt to prevent free choice of work, for reasons including nationality, must not be allowed to take place.
For this reason, we demand a sensible policy for the necessary integration which will bring Europe forward.
We must finally do away with the contradiction between legal entitlement and legal reality, which has unfortunately been in existence for 40 years.
Mr President, free movement of workers is one of the four freedoms granted in the Treaty of Rome.
In my view it is the least developed of these four basic freedoms.
It is clear that there are barriers to free movement of workers and consequently I congratulate the Commission for producing the action plan to try to resolve this problem.
However, the Commission must investigate indirect barriers to free movement of the work-force, such as pension portability, housing costs, health care systems and education systems, to see how they can be overcome.
I thank my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for their support and sensitive suggestions but I urge the Commission to take this subject seriously as it can only help the profitability of the European Union if people are more ready to move for work.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I want to sincerely congratulate Barbara Weiler on the great deal of work she has done on a theme that is, of course, very close to all our hearts.
Parliament has always striven to defend this fourth fundamental freedom, which is also a symbol for European citizenship and integration.
Commissioner, we hope that Parliament and the Commission will continue to fight against the tendency in some countries to fall back on oneself, to erect institutional and actual barriers against the free movement of persons.
In contrast to what is thought by some Member States, free movement will not result in a drain on budgets or loss of social security, and it is time that we understand that Europe needs mobility, that mobility gives something to society, it does not take anything away from society.
We in the Socialist group therefore thank the European Commission for this action plan and we hope, Commissioner, that the Commission quickly comes up with concrete legislative proposals, because there is still a great deal of work to be done.
This is true, for example, for the right to residency, which happily no longer applies only to those who are employed, but also to retired persons, students, the unemployed and family members, as long as you can, of course, prove that you have sufficient income and health insurance.
But, in both Community and national law there are still a great number of hindrances, great heaps of administrative obstacles that bring misery, especially to retired persons, people with temporary contracts and those being posted abroad.
The report is correct when it says that we must tackle this problem.
I honestly do not understand why the PPE does not want to support some of these very legitimate demands which, as a matter of fact, are supported by the Commission.
My group believes strongly that, regardless of the nationality of the family members, the right to family life is a fundamental human right.
I have seen that the European Commission indeed plans to implement this right to family life, and we want to support that 100 %.
Finally, my group also stands behind the gradual elimination of all forms of discrimination, certainly discrimination between citizens of the Member States and citizens of the European Union, but also the gradual elimination of discrimination between citizens of the Union and citizens of third countries who are residing here permanently.
I know that the latter is a very difficult aspect of the Parliamentary debate and I have noticed, by the way, that the European Commission also wants to do something about this in a gradual fashion.
I have also noticed that the PPE group theoretically supports this standpoint, but still links the right to free movement of subjects of third countries to a common European policy of immigration.
My group cannot support this strict linkage.
It does not seem reasonable to us to make migrants who have lived for years in the Union wait until the Council has completely finished the third pillar, and only then give people the right to travel, to look for work over the border or to transfer their social security rights over the border.
A European integration policy must indeed rest upon the responsibilities and duties of citizens of third countries, but please let us not forget that these citizens still do not have a package of rights which we as Europeans do have.
Commissioner, we support this action plan of the Commission wholeheartedly, and we wish you every success in its realization.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, freedom of movement - and here we share the same opinion - is the focal point of the Treaty on European Union.
Here we created many legal conditions to allow this to take place.
We continue to have many problems in achieving freedom of movement, not only of workers.
I now welcome the action plan presented by the Commission to improve freedom of movement for workers at least.
I welcome it because the Commission presented very specific proposals here.
In this context, I also welcome Mrs Weiler's supplementary proposals because she believes, quite positively, that bureaucracy should be eliminated, social rights must not fall by the wayside, citizens should be informed, mutual recognition of training is necessary, and a social insurance card should be introduced, perhaps to prevent, too, the abuse of a directive on posted workers. There are many positive points on which we are in agreement.
However, you are now being too ambitious, Mrs Weiler.
In the context of immigration and residence of third-country nationals, you have demanded the same rights for third-country nationals as for citizens of the Union.
Looking at it systematically, we can only approve it if Union-wide rules have been drawn up in advance on the migration, admission and residence of workers in the European Union, which apply to all Member States.
You are doing things the wrong way round.
Your second request is the immediate abolition of visa requirements.
The Commission has now announced that it is a very ambitious goal to consider this.
You want to achieve this immediately, without any pre-conditions.
This is regarded as entirely realistic by others who think that we should introduce a transitional period, wait five years and then the Council decision should be passed.
We must not forget that the third countries must also ensure that they have sufficient border security to prevent problems in terms of people crossing the borders into the Union, and as a result within the Union.
Thirdly, you insist that the right of residence be extended to all relatives, independently of nationality, and also to all partners.
In this you are clearly taking the same line as Mr Lehne.
In doing so, you are opening the door to abuse.
I believe you have taken on too much.
You have lost all sense of what is feasible.
I agree with certain passages in the report and would support it if Mrs Weiler would support our demands that Community rules be established concerning migration, residence and asylum, so that we may then realize completely the principle of freedom of movement, including for third-country nationals.
I agree with some of your proposals, but there are some important points with which I do not agree.
Thank you.
Mr President, I think that we are dealing here with some good proposals from the Commission and also with a good report from Mrs Weiler.
Yesterday we heard from Mr Bangemann and the Liberal group who pointed out that the interests of the national states are decreasing and globalization continues to increase.
If we look at Mrs Weiler's report in that context, I think that we should also have the courage to decide amongst ourselves that we must not discriminate against employees from other countries who work here with the necessary permits, because this is what it is actually all about.
I must say that just now I could not believe my ears when I heard Mr Pirker's contribution to this discussion.
This can be absolutely nothing other than a "statement' made in the context of the German elections.
I had always thought that the purpose of the European Parliament was to exist outside of party politics, to rise above this.
I deplore the fact that the Christian-Democratic group, in this instance, does not feel itself capable of doing this.
Still, I would appeal to them to support this report.
Ladies and gentlemen, it simply cannot be that, due to these small differences, Mrs Weiler's report must go without the support of the Christian Democrats.
If I had not been able to believe my ears today, I would not be able to believe my eyes if that happened tomorrow.
That being said, Mr President, I would now like to say only that I am quite disappointed with the Commission's answer to the written questions I submitted as part of the Kohll and Decker matter.
The Commission is also being very cautious about this matter, and I think that it is also involved with the German elections, and those elections have to be over some day, after all.
As Europe, we must be able to rise above the national and state interests.
I appeal to the Commission to do that as well.
Madam President, first I should like to congratulate Mrs Weiler on her excellent report.
In it, Mrs Weiler consistently defends the principle that free movement in the European Union must involve all those resident in the EU area, and not just workers and their families.
Students, pensioners and citizens of third countries who come to live here must also be free to move within the Union area.
The EU's four basic freedoms have until now only embraced the free movement of the workforce.
Nothing has been said about people.
The workforce is seen as a resource that must be able to move freely within the single market along with other resources.
It is still a question of people, however, people who have human needs and feelings.
The fact that they should want to move can be due to other factors than changing demands in the workforce.
I was very surprised and disappointed by the PPE amendments that aim to qualify this principle in respect of citizens of third countries that are legally entitled to reside in the Community area.
I fully support Mrs Weiler's proposal that visa requirements should be abolished for family members of migrant workers now living here.
When we speak of family members, be they Union citizens or citizens of third countries, we should also take into consideration the changes that have taken place when it comes to the notion of the family.
Nowadays, a family may also mean partners living together unmarried of the same or of different sex.
They must be accorded equal status to those in traditional families when determining benefits.
I definitely hope, Madam President, that the PPE will not overturn this important report.
I think this is such a valuable report that it should be approved unconditionally by Parliament. It would be very embarrassing if we did not get consensus on it.
Madam President, allow me to go back a little and also to go into greater detail.
My thesis is that as Western Christians, as rationalists, as Europeans, we cannot be in favour of categorizing people into first and second class and shutting them in behind state borders.
I refer to the Bishop of Hippo in today's Tunisia, the spiritual father of the Latin Church, based his treatise on grace on the essential equality of all people, even if we do not have to follow Luther's ideal of equality regardless of what we have achieved and what we owe.
I refer here to the European enlightenment which, since Antiphon and Hippias of Elis, has argued the basic idea of equal freedom.
I also refer to the European Movement of the post-war period and its demonstrations against boundaries.
Mr Pirker and Mr Pronk, in the year of our Lord, 1998, contrary to Community law, you are putting forward a type of conditionality to which free movement is linked, because you know that the condition will not be established so soon.
You are asking for the removal of all references to groups which are particularly subjected to discrimination today: third-country nationals, relatives of any nationality, common law spouses, workers with precarious contracts who are seeking work, migrant workers, students, pensioners, unemployed persons.
That, Mr Pirker, does not create any so-called logic of classification, although this is in any case only another term for what one wishes.
If we are to use big words here, then we should say that these amendments must be rejected for being unchristian, anti-rationalist and completely and utterly anti-European.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent and open report on this issue.
Allow me, first of all, to observe that this morning, when the Austrian ViceChancellor presented Austria's programme for the presidency of the European Union, I was proud to be Austrian.
Now I am slightly irritated.
In contrast to what was said by Mr Pirker - who today created a Fortress Austria, a Fortress Europe -, this morning we spoke about the enlargement of the European Union, with all the spirit that belongs to it and all the political perspectives associated with it, with certain conditions and transitional arrangements, of course.
In the preliminary phase, however, we are introducing purely discriminatory measures and are not even in a position to integrate workers and their families from third countries.
We are applying a double standard but, apart from that, the proposal concerns a gradual implementation of these measures.
I considered this to be only practical.
On the one hand, we in the European Union talk about the freedom of movement of goods, we want to strengthen it and implement it.
Where it is a question of the freedom of movement of people, of the social rules and measures involved, we obstruct it.
Where any kind of discriminatory rules are concerned, we disgrace ourselves.
This must not be allowed.
I assume that tomorrow reason will prevail and we will be able to take the initial steps in this direction, as otherwise in many cases our deepening process will succeed only to a very poor extent and this should not and cannot be the case.
Excuse my rather emotional outburst, but that is how I feel today.
Madam President, obviously the free movement of the workforce is one of the basic rights of citizens in the EU.
This is one of the four basic rights that comprise the cornerstones of European integration.
These freedoms concern, as they must, the citizens of the Union first and foremost.
Barriers that impede free movement, like red tape relating to residence permits, problems of the equivalence of qualifications and questions of social security would only get worse if we tried to alter the status of citizens of third countries before we update Community labour legislation.
At the moment, legislation makes it impossible to put the citizens of the Union and a workforce originating outside the Union on an equal footing.
Completely equal treatment is not a politically realistic aim, either.
Because the radical action called for by Mrs Weiler to change the status of workers coming here from third countries is without any legal base; the core of the report remains of necessity very vague.
The academic pass system that Mrs Weiler stresses will improve the situation regarding the equivalence of qualifications; it is in itself to be supported, but its introduction must rely very much on cooperation between national authorities in the spirit of subsidiarity.
Mr President, a great deal has been said this evening about our position.
That is, of course, always enjoyable in a debate.
As exemplified by what has just been said, however, I must say that these comments are totally erroneous.
I, and I think my group as well, envision a Europe where everyone can travel freely and can reside freely.
The problem is simply that we do not have a common visa policy.
In the United States there is a common visa policy, and unrestricted travel and residency is therefore possible in that country, not only for the citizens of the United States, but also for citizens of third countries.
Unfortunately, the situation here is different.
There are many socialist governments which resist changing this situation. I cite, for example, the government of Great Britain which refuses to take part in a common visa policy.
It is then very strange, of course, when you hear from that side of the House that we are responsible for delaying this matter.
No, Mr President, we want to do what is possible within the present legal framework, but we cannot go any further than this, because the better choice is the enemy of the right choice.
We must keep this in mind, and this applies to the Commission as well.
Commissioner, there are a tremendous number of events taking place at this instant.
There are a terrible number of complaints, especially from citizens of the Union who, in one way or another, have found themselves in difficult situations.
A great deal can be done about this. A great deal can indeed be done about this, but it too easy to simply say: then everyone must come; one broad, enormous family.
I always find it so striking that it is only in this context that one hears from the other side of the House about family politics.
Then it happens all at once.
I cannot believe my ears about what I am hearing.
This is all wonderful but, Mr President, our standpoint would lead to improvement in the long term.
As regards what is proposed by Mrs Weiler, with every good intention, and with every appreciation for what she has said, her proposal would not lead there. It would only mean that we would remain in our present situation, while we really want to move forward.
Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have contributed to this very important debate and to thank Mrs Weiler for her contribution.
I discovered recently that this is a highly sensitive subject, irrespective of at what time of year and in what year it is being discussed.
I agree with Ms Oddy that we have to take the subject seriously and I am not satisfied that this is a freedom that has been developed as quickly as some of the other freedoms that were guaranteed, be they goods, services or capital.
This is a freedom that needs to be addressed and I agree with Mrs Weiler that the whole question of mobility is fundamental.
We cannot talk about a European employment strategy and about adaptability unless we are going to take on board what needs to be done about providing greater mobility in the European labour market.
That does not exist at this time.
The action plan on free movement of workers was adopted by the Commission in November last year.
It aims essentially at placing the right to free movement of workers in the overall context of other European Union policies and actions, with express emphasis on two key issues that underpin the whole action plan.
The first is citizenship.
Improving the exercise of the right to free movement is for the benefit of the EU citizen since this right is an essential part of European citizenship.
The second concerns the question of employment policy.
The improvement of free movement of workers is a contribution to the better functioning of the European labour market.
Since November 1997 the Commission has been actively working on the implementation of the action plan in order to fulfil the commitments that were announced in the plan.
Legislative proposals are being considered by the Commission to amend and update the core legislative text on free movement of workers.
We are talking here about Regulation 1616/68 on the right of free movement and Directive 360/68 on the right of residence of workers and their families.
These two basic legal texts have not been significantly modified for 30 years.
The time is now opportune and appropriate, given the single market, the single currency, the whole question of enlargement and the need for our employment strategy to be strengthened.
The new legislative proposals will cover key issues such as the improvement of the right of residence for job seekers and trainees and the reduction of bureaucratic obstacles for all workers.
I agree with Mrs Van Lancker in this regard.
There has to be improvement of the conditions for family reunification of European Union workers and encouragement of a space for professional mobility based on the recognition anywhere in the European Union of comparable professional qualifications of EU workers, irrespective of the Member State where they have been obtained.
This includes matters such as professional experience, diplomas and qualifications.
The proposals build on the earlier proposals we made back in 1989 and also on the action plan itself, as well as on the recommendations of the high-level panel on the free movement of persons chaired by Mrs Simone Veil.
Last week the Commission adopted a communication to the Council and Parliament on the follow-up of the report from the Veil group.
The communication highlights the importance of concrete proposals to enhance free movement.
I am pleased to recall that there have been some important legislative advances before the Council in the area of free movement of workers.
The Council has recently adopted two Commission proposals concerning the free movement of workers, these being the directive on supplementary pensions and the regulation on the extension of Regulation 1408/71 concerning the coordination of social security regimes to special schemes for civil servants.
The Commission proposal to extend Regulation 1408/71 to third country nationals legally residing in one Member State is also on the Council table.
These three proposals were covered by the action plan.
The Commission is also actively working on the simplification of Regulation 1408/71 which is one of the most important pieces of legislation for the effective exercise of the right of free movement.
Moving away from the legislative developments, the action plan also announced actions aimed at better transparency in the employment market and better information about employment market facilities.
The European Parliament also called for such actions in its resolution.
To this end there are several key actions that have been launched quite recently.
Within the information initiative 'Citizens First' a new action called 'Permanent Dialogue with the Citizen' was launched at Cardiff just a month ago.
A new route map for job-seekers has been presented with a view to reinforcing, through a practical and user-friendly guide, information for citizens who wish to exercise their right to free movement.
At the Cardiff Summit also, the EURES database was presented on the Internet so that it is now fully accessible to all citizens who want to consult job offers in all of the Member States that are available through it.
Various actions to enhance information for scholars, practitioners, judges and citizens on the right of free movement of workers have been launched.
A range of conferences and seminars have now been completed in all of the Member States, including the EEA states.
There is a follow-up to these actions.
A major conference will be held in Brussels in October in order to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the entry into force of Regulation 1612/68 and also to look to the future.
I am therefore able to confirm that the efforts by the Commission to comply with the commitments set out in the action plan are going forward at a reasonably good pace.
In this context the resolution from the European Parliament is very important.
I must say that I am satisfied by the coincidence of views between both institutions here.
I would like to highlight that the resolution of the European Parliament stresses the importance of free movement of workers in the same way as does the Commission: through citizenship and employment.
It is important to stress that both areas are closely related nowadays in Europe and they correspond to the European citizens' main concerns.
We know that European citizens are worried about the employment situation in Europe and that they are interested to know the possibilities of finding employment in another Member State.
Furthermore European citizens are more and more aware of the existence of a Europe-wide area of professional mobility.
They want to know how they can fully benefit from that.
The action plan - and the resolution of the European Parliament - fully endeavours to meet these concerns.
So the action plan is essentially focused on free movement of workers.
However we have not overlooked the fact that free movement, as such, includes a range of other concerns that go beyond the situation of the working population.
Such other concerns are referred to in Parliament's resolution and they include: the elimination of border controls, including the insertion of the Schengen acquis in the Treaty; the right of residence for students, retired people and inactive persons, in line with the concept of European citizenship; the creation of an area of mobility for students with respect of academic qualifications obtained in the different Member States; and the problems stemming from the disparities in fiscal legislation in the Member States as well as the interaction between fiscal and social security systems.
All these concerns are carefully taken into consideration by the Commission and are the object of initiatives under the action plan.
Finally, despite its relatively limited scope in such a wide context, the action plan on free movement of workers aims to create political momentum in the area of free movement.
The plan emphasizes the strong link between all of these various areas and although more work is certainly needed, it is an important starting point for implementing a coherent approach with the aim of obtaining for the benefit of the citizen a wide area of mobility through a border-free Europe.
I strongly believe that the European Parliament and the Commission are following the same objective.
I welcome the important contribution from the European Parliament in this respect.
I give you my undertaking that I will pursue the agenda that will lead to greater freedom of movement and to that freedom being enhanced in the better Europe that we look forward to.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would merely like to clarify two points and answer one question, all of which will surely help to objectify the debate.
Mr Pirker, I would like to quote once again point 7 in my list of requests, that concerning visa requirements, as you unfortunately worded it wrongly.
I call on the Commission, notwithstanding the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, to submit without delay proposals for the abolition of visa requirements applicable to third-country nationals moving within the Union, provided that they are members of the families of migrant workers or posted workers.
It is, therefore, a modified request.
My second point concerns a question from, I believe, a Finnish Member.
Unfortunately, I have now forgotten the very finesounding name.
I suspect she is Finnish.
You observed that the European educational pass is very vague.
I suspect that you mean point 23 of my report, in which I call on the Commission to continue its work on the introduction of a European training passport.
This European training passport was presented by Commissioner Cresson.
We in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have discussed this European training passport in great detail and I believe that all groups, even the PPE, considered it to be a good idea.
Madam President, I have a question for the Commissioner.
He gave a good response but it is not clear to me what the Commission's view is concerning the main point of difference between the two sides of the House.
We should know to what extent the Commission wants to incorporate the wishes of Mrs Weiler - the wishes, I would not say of the whole House but maybe the majority of the House - concerning third country nationals?
Third country nationals are not included in our action plan except as family members.
You must remember that we are talking about reunification regulations.
They apply to family members irrespective of nationality.
They have applied that way for 30 years.
One of the big problems that I have discovered in recent days is that an awful lot of people in very senior positions have not understood that reunification has already existed for 30 years by way of law.
I do not have time to go into the details of it this evening, but it is a very interesting exercise just to look back at exactly what has been in place for 30 years as regards ascendants, descendants and other family members - some provisions are statutory and some require reunification to be facilitated.
I am trying to deal with this in a proposal before the Commission at this time.
It is important to remember that.
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Insurance against civil liability (Fourth Motor Insurance Directive)
The next item is the report (A4-0267/98) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles and amending Directives 73/239/EEC and 92/49/EEC (Fourth Motor Insurance Directive) (COM(97)0510 - C4-0528/97-97/0264(COD)).
Madam President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur for his proposal, and also to congratulate him on it.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism has opted to give its opinion with a conclusion and without amendments, in order to lend coherence to the overall proposal.
This directive really does improve considerably the protection of accident victims outside their country of residence.
The fact that a great many citizens are affected by this proposal is underlined not only by the current holiday period but also by the one million frontier workers.
As the rapporteur said, an estimated 500 000 accidents occur every year outside the victim's country of residence.
These are accidents concerning which the formalities can become difficult, the relevant contact persons are sometimes difficult to locate, and - even worse - in some cases it may take a long time for the compensation to come through.
We hear of delays of up to eight years.
The current directive introduces a direct right of action for the victim, which applies not only to the person responsible but also to the insurance undertaking.
The information centres will have to provide the victim with all necessary information and the claims settlement body or, if applicable, the compensation body, as designated, will in any case accelerate the procedures.
In addition, the directive also concerns accidents occurring between EU citizens in third countries - thankfully, this was added - and this also prompted the Committee on Transport and Tourism to recommend that this directive should perhaps also be given greater consideration in negotiations between the EU and third countries.
However, this directive will only take fully into account the claims to which these victims are entitled if, in our opinion, the proposed minimum figures contained in the Second Motor Insurance Directive are adapted.
The above Directive 84/5 is approximately 15 years old.
Consequently, in certain cases the minimum rates no longer cover the possible costs by any means, particularly in the case of serious injury.
In addition, these minimum rates vary between countries by up to 90 %.
Unfortunately, supplementary insurance is the only guarantee of appropriate compensation.
This is why the Committee on Transport and Tourism is retaining its proposal.
It is very good to reduce delays and provide correct information but, if the minimum rates are no longer enough, this does not help the victim sufficiently.
I thank the rapporteur once again for his work and I thank you for your attention.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this important report.
It is an important first too for Parliament.
It is the first time that a Parliament resolution has been used as the backdrop for a Commission proposal for legislation.
It is the first time that Article 138b of the EC Treaty has been used as a call for legislation.
This is an important directive.
It is both a consumer-friendly proposal and also an important plank of the single market.
It will help the victims of motor accidents that occur outside the victim's home country in another Member State.
Each insurance company will have to appoint a designated representative or agent in each Member State and the victim will process the claim directly with that designated representative.
The advantage of this is that it will speed up claims considerably and ease language problems.
At present the average claim processed abroad can take up to eight years and cost at least 15 % more than a claim processed in one's Member State.
This proposed directive will also ease the situation with - as the rapporteur explained - the deadline requirements and the penalties for non-compliance with the deadline.
On behalf of the Socialist group, I commend this report to the Commission and Parliament as an important new consumer measure.
Having a road accident is stressful enough without the added inconvenience and strain of having to wait for years while insurance companies in different countries settle the claims.
This proposal is imaginative, creative and I would like to thank the rapporteur both for producing the original resolution and report and now for reporting on the Commission's proposal.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is difficult to add something original after the speeches by the Members; this is due to the unanimous consensus expressed on every aspect of the report by Mr Rothley in my committee, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
In substance, we all say the same things.
So, only a few aspects should be stressed.
First of all, even if it has already been said, I would like to point out the degree of transparency that results from this and the gain in transparency.
It is worth noting that this directive marks the first time that the European Commission responds to a request presented by the European Parliament pursuant to Article 138b.
But this means a gain in transparency, because there have been times when Parliament, considering itself deprived of the power to initiate legislation, has intervened in proposals presented by the Commission with a series of amendments which have been excessive in relation to the original framework of the proposal itself; a rather inappropriate intervention.
We have the instrument, fully demonstrated in this case, with which to define proposals that convey the will of Parliament in a more organic and rational way.
Secondly, I would also like to underline that the unanimous consensus expressed by the legal experts of the Committee on Legal Affairs is fully shared by all the European insurance companies and consumer associations; this, too, is a fact that is not insignificant and that should naturally be pointed out.
I do not think it necessary for me to dwell on the content, also because it has already been abundantly illustrated by my fellow Members.
I truly believe that Mr Rothley's report should be adopted in its entirety, because it represents a top-level compromise.
It is a compromise in the noble sense of the word, that is, it is the synthesis of a series of innovative incentives and concepts that first came from the European Commission and then from the Members of the European Parliament, especially the Committee on Legal Affairs, in collaboration with the insurance companies and consumer organizations that I referred to just now.
I believe that in this perspective this aspect should be underlined.
In my opinion, the amendments presented by the Committee on Legal Affairs must be approved in their entirety.
The only amendment unrelated to the unanimous work of the Committee on Legal Affairs is the one by Mr Wijsenbeek with which I do not agree, not because I am against the substance, but because the translation in all the languages of the forms used to declare the accident and prepare the notification of claim already exists.
I know this from first-hand experience from an accident in France some 10 years ago.
The forms are written in various languages, but they are the same colour and the questions are presented in the same way, which is why I consider the amendment superfluous and believe that it should be rejected.
I would also like to emphasize that the idea of creating a compensation body should be understood in a context of subsidiarity and freedom, where Member States will be free to choose within the public or private structures the compensation body they consider most appropriate.
In addition to these observations, I would finally like to thank Mr Rothley.
Madam President, I would first like to give my compliments to the rapporteur.
I would also like to express my appreciation for the way in which he has achieved compromises in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
He is ultimately the initiator of this private Member's legislation.
In that regard, therefore, it is truly a beautiful piece of work that adds something real for citizens of the Union.
The citizen is becoming increasingly mobile and that means that he crosses the border much more frequently. Because the traffic situation is unfortunately still so different there, an accident can sometimes occur.
But the situation can be even more complicated than the average case presented in Mr Rothley's report. Imagine - I have taken an arbitrary situation - a Spaniard and a Greek have an accident in Italy.
In that case, if they should have to initiate legal proceedings, there is still a problem about where they should initiate those proceedings.
This shows the magnitude of the problem of equality of rights in the Union. It is still not true that every citizen can initiate legal proceedings with equal treatment and equal status everywhere in the Union.
To this day, foreigners are often placed at a disadvantage.
Finally, Madam President, I would like to say something about my amendment.
It has been rejected here by the rapporteur who said that it must be somewhere else, and by Mr Casini who said that it exists already.
That is true, Mr Casini.
I am in favour of integration.
But, if citizens come into conflict with each other, they have a sort of basic distrust and they may think that they are being cheated by someone.
If there was a single document, not only in their own language but also in a number of other languages, so that they could mutually determine that it is indeed the same form with the same wording, then we would be working towards the integration of the citizen.
What could be more beautiful than this, and what are we doing here other than promoting this integration? I have, therefore, re-tabled this amendment at the instigation of the insurers, and I appeal to you once again to adopt it.
Madam President, in the case of Denise Matthews against the United Kingdom, which was handled by our neighbour, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, a court other than the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has ruled for the first time that the European Parliament has full legislative authority.
And why? One of the strongest arguments for the Committee on Citizens' Rights was the right of initiative of Article 138b.
Among other things, this article provides the European Parliament, according to the Committee on Citizens' Rights, with full legislative authority.
This is a historic moment, Madam President and Commissioner.
For the first time we have made use of the right of initiative and I fully support Mr Rothley, not only in his personal appeal to you, Madam President, but also in his appeal to Commissioner Monti to continue in this new direction.
In the interest of the citizens we must make more use of this right of initiative.
I will not go into the content. I support the amendment tabled by Mr Wijsenbeek, because he is correct.
That is another matter. But, the most important point I want to make here is that we are extraordinarily grateful to Mr Rothley for the initiative with which he has supported the legislative role of the European Parliament and he deserves our appreciation and support.
Madam President, the increasingly apparent difficulties concerning the settlement of claims to the detriment of the victims of traffic accidents abroad have for a long time required a regulation to solve the problem.
On the one hand, a growing number of citizens are affected and, on the other hand, the procedures which currently exist are insufficient to provide a fair solution for every case.
The aspects which need to be solved most urgently are: guaranteeing the victim the direct right of action, and ensuring the payment of compensation. These were issues that needed to be resolved and I believe that the amendments tabled have contributed very successfully in this respect.
I must naturally thank Mr Rothley for the excellent work he has done.
Nonetheless, although we support in general terms the aim of these amendments, we have some reservations with respect to Amendment No 33 to Article 5. It appears to us that the drafting of this amendment might be more beneficial to the insurers than to the victims themselves.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive that we are considering tonight has been keenly awaited both by drivers and by insurance professionals and international automobile associations.
It must be underlined that this text is due to the initiative of Parliament.
It was in response to a clear expectation and Parliament has proved that it was able to take its legislative responsibilities seriously by providing a work of quality.
We should all be pleased with this.
The stated objective is to simplify the procedure of claims settlements for injured parties by facilitating access to the other party's insurance company.
In order to achieve this, the proposal for a directive proposes four measures: the introduction of a direct right of action; the appointment of a representative of each insurance company in every Member State who will have responsibility for settling claims; the establishment of information centres; and finally, the creation of compensation bodies.
Admittedly, this legal construction may seem a little heavy, a little complex, what the French familiarly call "a gasworks' .
The amendments tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights aim at complementing the text, even at giving it greater coherence and rigour. We will therefore support them.
In conclusion, I would like to acknowledge the remarkable work of the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, who has been able to bring clarity to a complex text and who has proven his great talent as a jurist.
I would like to congratulate all my colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, in particular two of them who combine both charm and competence, Mrs Palacio and Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn.
Madam President, it truly may be the time that is almost inviting us to talk in confidence, to talk among friends.
For me, too, the previous speeches have already been sufficiently detailed as regards the technical aspects to allow me to speak of the history of this directive. I can speak of how the European Union today is still a frontier territory where a person, a Member with a good idea, with the Treaty behind him and with a great deal of firmness and a strong ability to negotiate is able to initiate something that is important for all of us at the stage when we feel that we are, I will not say consumers, but, rather, like the man in the street.
Madam President, this has not been an easy directive.
Thirty-six amendments were tabled by Mr Rothley, but another 36 amendments were tabled by the various members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, twenty of which were mine. Subsequently, Mr Rothley - with firmness, as I have said, but also with a great ability to negotiate, and a great ability to understand the concerns regarding the issue of subsidiarity - accepted 10 compromise amendments.
This meant that it was possible for those 36 final amendments to be adopted unanimously in committee, and I hope that tomorrow, if not unanimously, that we will approve the report by an overwhelming majority.
Mr Rothley, I have considered the history, the short history, from Parliament's original resolution where use was made of Article 138b. I have considered it and when I am told that in the European institutions we only do very abstract work, work that is very distant, and that we do not concern ourselves with specific problems, I will show them this work.
And the only thing that I regret is that from this it will not be evident how extremely pleased and honoured all of us have been to work with you.
Madam President, the previous speakers have already discussed in sufficient detail the content and advantages of this report.
I would, therefore, like to discuss only two points which I consider to be particularly noteworthy because they bring us significantly closer to a citizens' Europe.
The first concerns the citizen-friendly content of the planned directive.
It really is high time for this important area to be dealt with.
As a result of mass tourism and the free movement of goods, services and persons, the volume of traffic moving from one state to another is greater than ever before.
The danger is correspondingly high that citizens are victims of an accident which occurs outside the home country and from which claims could arise against other EU citizens or their insurance.
It is, therefore, particularly welcome that the directive will provide road users in the Union with such comprehensive, fast and effective protection and which will go beyond the mere direct right of action against the insurer, by having an agent of the insurer in the victim's country, by means of mechanisms to locate the latter, if necessary, and by means of a centre in each Member State which can itself deal with compensation should difficulties arise.
We would never have achieved this multi-faceted protection for citizens, at least not at this time, if Parliament had not taken the initiative itself.
I now come to the second point which I wish to discuss.
This is the first time the European Parliament has availed of the right of indirect initiative conferred on it by the Maastricht Treaty.
Parliament, as the elected representative of the citizens of Europe, is entitled to have the legislative initiative.
If the European Parliament makes frequent use of its new initiative it must in the long term strengthen its influence on the European Union's legislative system. This increases, at the same time, the indirect influence of the voters on policy in Europe.
The result can only be to improve the standing of the European Parliament among the people and thus to increase its political authority.
I therefore expressly thank the rapporteur for beginning this initiative here in Parliament.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the European Parliament and the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, for three reasons: for the content of this directive, for the institutional motive and for the approach taken.
I am pleased with the content because, as Mr Rothley said, this directive is aimed at citizens so that they feel at home not only in their country, but also in the rest of Europe.
This proposal for a directive in fact concerns a large number of citizens and concerns a difficult moment in their life, a difficult experience, when they are victims in a Member State where they do not reside of a road accident caused by a motor vehicle registered and insured in another Member State.
The second reason is institutional.
It has already been underlined, but, on behalf of the Commission, I want to place particular emphasis on the fact that this is the first time that Parliament has made use of Article 138b.
I must say that I am delighted as a Member of the Commission that this institutional 'first' has occurred in an area so relevant to citizens' lives.
The third reason why I am satisfied and pleased is the way in which this problem was approached, with the positive contribution of consumer citizens and the insurance industry which helped make this proposal for a directive possible.
None of the motor vehicle insurance directives already in force take into particular consideration the specific problem which is dealt with here of compensating the victims.
From a legal point of view, they are covered by the green card system, but in practice they encounter difficulties in obtaining compensation from the insurer of the party liable.
The purpose of this proposal for a directive is to provide such victims with another legal instrument in order to offset the practical difficulties that they encounter.
I would like to emphasize that the proposal does not involve excessive costs for the insurance industry and national governments. Another positive aspect of the proposal is its pragmatism, and if the rapporteur will allow me to say so, I believe that he appreciates pragmatism in proposals for legislation.
The new structure does not entail any increased costs, because Member States and the insurance companies can to a large degree avail themselves of existing structures which can be used simultaneously for different purposes.
In addition, even if the measure we are talking about means some costs for the insurance companies, the benefit for the company is quite substantial, in that the new mechanisms would lower the costs that are usually borne by the victims in the country where the accident occurred.
Such costs include, for example, translation of the police report, and fees paid to lawyers because the victims are not familiar with the procedures in force in the Member State where the accident occurred and because they cannot deal with the insurance company without the assistance of a legal expert.
I will now turn to the individual amendments.
The Commission is very happy to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, 16, 18, 20, 21, 25 and 31.
These amendments improve the wording of the language and offer useful clarifications in the text.
The Commission also agrees to accept partially Amendments Nos 15, 17, 19, 28, 29, 30, 33.
Point (a) of Amendment No 15 on extending the right to accidents that occur in a third country cannot be accepted.
This problem needs to be examined more closely in the light of other international agreements.
Amendment No 17 is an excessively simplified version of the Commission's initial proposal.
As for Amendment No 19, we cannot accept in a directive suggestions regarding persons who might assume the role of agent to process the claim.
In Amendment No 28, there has to be a description of the tasks to be performed by the information centre.
In Amendment No 29, reference to the Member State where the insurance company has been authorized to operate is not appropriate.
In Amendment No 30, the deadline could delay compensation of the victim; furthermore, there is an erroneous reference to Directive 84/5/EEC that does not contain any provision referring to the compensation body.
In Amendment No 33, there is no reason to indicate the type of entities that could act as compensation bodies.
In the same point, in cases where the insurer cannot be identified, the Commission could accept the intervention of the compensation body only if the final responsibility lies with the guarantee fund in accordance with paragraph 4 of Article 1, of Directive 84/5.
For another group of amendments, the Commission can accept them in spirit or with a few adaptations: I am referring to Amendments Nos 5, 10, 13, 26 and 27.
Of these, I would like to very briefly look at No 26 and No 27.
We will not accept the parts that would lead to excessive and harmful harmonization and a procedure to compensate the victim that is burdened with too many time limits and made more complex by procedural details.
I finally come to the various amendments that the Commission cannot accept because they do not in any way improve the text proposed and might create confusion regarding the meaning of some of the provisions.
I am talking about Amendments Nos 4, 8, 11, 22, 24, 35, 36 and 37.
Moreover, the Commission may not accept Amendments No 14 or No 34, and this in order to guarantee the overall coherence with the three directives already in force for motor vehicle insurance matters.
The Commission also cannot accept Amendment No 23; it could accept a stronger version of Article 3, paragraph 6, but not the wording proposed in Amendment No 26.
The best solution could be a compromise between the Commission proposal and what is suggested in Amendment No 26.
Lastly, the Commission also rejects Amendment No 32, because in some Member States the information services are provided free of charge by the public authorities.
There is no reason to introduce additional costs.
As far as Amendment No 37 is concerned, Mr Wijsenbeek, the use of multilingual forms for collisions could, in our opinion, be introduced through a voluntary agreement between the insurance organizations and not necessarily through a directive.
I am sorry if I have burdened with a list of amendments something whose great value must nonetheless be emphasized.
This proposal is extremely important because of the institutional innovation, the closer involvement of citizens and the fact that it proves that the single market can be achieved on the initiative of Parliament, in addition to the initiative of the Commission, reconciling the interests of consumers and the readiness of the industry to collaborate.
Thank you, Commissioner Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Building a sustainable Europe
The next item is the report (A4-0233/98) by Mrs Hulthén, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission on environment and employment (Building a sustainable Europe) (COM(97)0592 - C4-0655/97).
Madam President, employment and the environment, which is what the Commission's communication is about, are two areas which for a long time and on many occasions have come into conflict with each other.
But since things have moved forward, not least in the area of the environment, it has been shown how erroneous and out-ofdate that actually is.
The environmental aspect and environmental awareness have become a more integrated part of society.
In spite of the development which has taken place, there is still a lot left to do.
In this report, which I have tried to prepare with valuable contributions from others, not least from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I have tried to put forward proposals on how we can go further in building a sustainable Europe.
I would also like to say that in the time that work on the report has been going on, I have discovered that there is enormous inventiveness and development locally and regionally around the Union.
In order to be able to see at all the development in a sector like 'green jobs' , it is important to have a reasonable definition of what a 'green job' actually is.
The Commission's definition is attractive, almost philosophical, but perhaps not so practical to use for gauging properly what it is actually about.
That is perhaps the first inquiry which should be made when this work is continued. In order to be able to make comparable statistics and take proper measures it is necessary to have a clear and distinct definition of the subject.
There are four main areas in which I think the jobs of the future could be, and where a change in the current situation is entirely necessary for the sake of sustainability.
These are the energy sector, construction, waste and, not least, the agricultural sector.
This is perhaps one of the most important areas in which the Union has the power to bring about a change, and where it is important that something happens to change the current path.
We know that during the last 15 years an increasing number of organic farms have been created in Europe.
Consumer demand for environmentally-correct food has grown constantly.
However, so far, the Union has shown relatively little interest in following this trend and satisfying the consumers' demands.
If we are to make a change and get this stimulus for 'green jobs' , we must also begin in the agricultural sector, where the Union actually has the opportunities and resources to do something.
This is a very bitter pill to swallow.
The methods to stimulate this development and get the environment and employment to go together can look very different.
The consumers are perhaps one of the most important parts in this; they must be made aware. It is they who are making demands.
Unfortunately awareness is not genetically determined, but is something which has to come from experience. Therefore, consumers must have the opportunity to make choices, to get information and to find out what products exist and what demands can be made.
Aware companies are equally important; aware companies with producer liability. That does not come of itself either.
Both carrots and whips are needed from the political side to drive developments forward.
It is also about aware authorities which accept their responsibility and which recognize the opportunities they have, such as in relation to public procurement, to stimulate the development of more environmentally friendly companies, a development which goes in the right direction.
It is also a matter of us giving training, and stimulating technical development and cooperation between scientists from NGOs, trades union movements and, not least, authorities.
There is an awful lot to do in this area.
In order to manage this sustainable development, we must go through sector by sector and perhaps also sometimes cast out this or that old holy cow which has been left over from before.
We have a clear responsibility and a clear task, not least from the citizens of Europe.
We need a better environment, but we also have 20 million people unemployed who need jobs.
That is where the challenge lies.
Twelve amendments to the report have been submitted.
Of these 12, there are two which I can support.
They are Amendment No 3 and Amendment No 11 from Mr Virgin.
I am not against the others on principle, but I do not think they make the report or the Commission's proposal any clearer; in fact, the opposite is true.
Madam President, Mrs Hulthén, your report is truly very interesting and I thank you for having accepted the conclusions of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I congratulate you on your contributions.
I think that we will all agree that the deterioration of the environment has become one of the greatest problems we are currently faced with due to the type of development of the industrial society.
Dirty, smelly rivers, rubbish and waste all around, and the irritating smoke in the cities are perhaps the most visible signs of a planet - our planet Earth - which is increasingly polluted. And there is also another form of pollution that is less apparent yet closer to us: the illnesses caused by physical and chemical pollutants.
The Commission's communication on the environment and employment is aimed at establishing the general principles of a strategy to allow for the creation of synergy between environmental policy and employment.
It is a question of creating jobs that decontaminate the air and the water we pollute, that recycle and reuse the waste we produce, and that reforest our felled woods. In addition, research and technology must meanwhile improve the damage to the environment which will, supposedly, also improve our society.
As I believe that we devote more time to talking about the environment and employment than actually implementing real and quantifiable measures to solve these two serious problems, I would modestly call on the Commission to criticize, within the context of the launch of this European strategy, our current "throwaway society' .
It is only in this way, I believe, that we would realize our objective.
Madam President, the environment creates employment.
This slogan has been around here for a long time.
It was around as early as 1993, when the decision on a new development model was taken at the suggestion of Commission President Jacques Delors.
The inefficiency caused by over-exploitation of natural resources and insufficient use of labour should be replaced by sustainable development.
In addition to this change of emphasis, Delors also requested that the field of environmental protection become a new area of employment.
The improvement of our environment and quality of life - which has not yet been discussed - should be used as a means to create new jobs and to thus help reduce unemployment.
For completely inexplicable reasons, the Commission neglected this important approach towards an economic policy which brings together the fields of environment and employment in such a way that they strengthen each other.
This statement by the Commission was long overdue.
Now, of course, we expect that this paper will not be forgotten again, but that it will be represented actively in the monitoring committees by the Commission representatives and that they will propose using money from the Structural Funds for the environment, precisely in those areas to which funds have not yet been allocated.
We also expect that these changes will be approved quite quickly in the Commission so that the good work which we have on paper and which really is a good start, can also be implemented.
It is therefore logical, of course, that the Commission should advocate a new regulation on the Structural Funds, that the use of funds in this innovative area should be set at an appropriately high level, and that environmental authorities and organizations should also be involved in planning, evaluation and implementation.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, I asked if I might speak to defend and support the general context of Mrs Hulthén's report, which seems to me to be generally correct, especially when the 'environment' at present employs over 3.5 million people in the European Union and the annual growth forecast that is generally accepted, particularly in studies by the OECD itself, is around 5.5 %.
And thus, in a Europe in which not only employment but also the progressive and inevitable inclusion of the environment in the European Union's policies is a constant challenge, employment and the environment have become two sides of a single coin, a counterpoint to a now-outworn development model, based on price-investment ratios involving the excessive exploitation of natural resources.
I would also like to take this opportunity to emphasize that the coming reform of the common agricultural policy basically demands, and reinforces the need for, the attribution of sufficient weight to environmental questions, also in the light of this sustainable development strategy to which we have pledged our support.
We must also underline the role of the Structural and Cohesion Funds in developing environmental policy, particularly this link between the environment and employment.
There is no doubt, for example, that the rule that 50 % of the Cohesion Fund must be applied to the environment has contributed very positively to improving the quality of life in the Cohesion states, but it has also increased the amount of environmental investment in the Cohesion states, making the link between the role of the environment and job creation more obvious.
In addition, it is now generally acknowledged that the sectors and companies that are investing in ecological processes, production systems and products will find themselves less and less able to compete within the European Union and in trade between the Union and third countries.
This is why we are declaring our support for Mrs Hulthén's report, and also why we challenge the Commission to submit some practical proposals, after this communication, in line with the report Committee on the Environment of the European Parliament.
Madam President, we are now discussing a good report which contains a lot of good ideas for the Commission to work on.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Hulthén on this.
The report raises important questions about how environmental policy can contribute to creating new, meaningful jobs in the EU.
As data from the Commission's communication shows, the environmental sector is expanding strongly with an estimated growth in the coming years of 5.5 %.
This is very pleasing.
The explanation is partly peoples' increasing commitment to environmental issues.
This changes their demand towards environmentally friendly goods and thus strengthens employment in the environmental sector.
Political decisions on emission limits, etcetera, have yielded results in the form of investments and therefore jobs.
Yesterday we had a debate on financial instruments. If they are used in the right way, they can undeniably contribute to a better environment and increased employment.
However, excessive use or defective environmental charges risk having the opposite effect.
I also believe it is important to stress the fact that growth has an important function in this context.
With increased growth the opportunities for us to invest in a better environment increase.
That is exactly what is happening. Growth in our modern society is coming through new sectors.
The environment is undeniably in the front line.
The European Council's recommendations on how we can increase employment in Europe are clearly closely linked to the subject we are discussing this evening.
Some of these ideas are expressed in the amendments proposed by the PPE Group.
I hope that the rapporteur will be able to support all these proposals if she is allowed to sleep on it.
Mr President, we agree with Mrs Hulthén's report and the opinions of the Committee on Regional Policy and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
In the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, in fact, confirmation is given of something that is very clear: "the patterns of production and consumption today are far from sustainable' , as stated clearly in the fifth action programme on the environment.
And naturally, the industrialized countries are essentially responsible today for the environmental situation in the world.
In the Amsterdam Treaty, employment is linked to the environment, and these two sectors are linked to the remaining policies. Yet we all know that decisions on economic and agricultural issues are adopted that have nothing to do with the protection of the environment.
Therefore, we are in complete agreement that local and regional authorities should participate where projects related to the Structural Funds and the environment are involved.
We also support the use of those people who, in some regions of the European Union, come from industry and who could receive training to allow them to work, in fact, in jobs treating water, treating waste, treating contaminated land and caring for natural areas.
As the OECD rightly states, the environment sector is a sector which might experience a growth of 5.5 % in the coming years in terms of generating employment.
We are not used to seeing other sectors with such a level of growth; it is more usual to see a decline.
It is, therefore, essential to link employment and the environment.
Madam President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mrs Hulthén on an excellent report on two very important and pressing themes, namely, the environment and employment.
Information from Eurostat shows that we have around 3.5 million environment-related jobs in the EU today.
We also have the modest estimate from the OECD of an annual increase in environment-related jobs of 5.5 %.
This shows quite clearly that the combination of necessary environmental investments and 'green jobs' is not only good economics, but also a way to combine underused human resources and overused natural resources.
Since Commissioner Bjerregaard is here at this late hour, which I really appreciate, I would like to urge the Commission to approve as soon as possible Sweden's action plan for employment and 'green jobs' which has been waiting for approval from the Commission since November.
Otherwise, the signals from the Commission will be very contradictory.
Naturally, my group is going to support this report, but we would appreciate it if we also received support for our amendment, which I consider to be an important addition to paragraph 45, that is, that the countries which want to introduce a tax on energy and a carbon dioxide tax should take a lead and show the other countries what can be done to fulfil the commitments which were made in Kyoto.
Madam President, I would have liked to say that there was once a time when people believed that the environment destroyed employment.
But it was not long ago that this way of thinking prevailed.
Today, everyone has realized that it is only by respecting natural resources and using raw materials and energy economically and carefully that jobs can be secured in the long term and thus sustainable development can be introduced.
I think it is very important that the Commission has submitted its statement on the environment and employment to Parliament this year, after careful preparation by means of a hearing, and that we are discussing it now, at the beginning of the Austrian presidency, which will deal with ways in which national employment projects can be implemented.
I thank Mrs Hulthén, the rapporteur, for the competent way in which she took on and prepared this report.
We certainly still have a great deal to do in order to translate into concrete terms the issue of which jobs can be created where, not to create too many jobs by means of repairing the environment, where there is still plenty to be done, but in particular to create jobs where new industries are working on preparing for more environmentally friendly operations and creating the necessary infrastructure.
Even in the Kyoto process, if it is a question of the reduction of emissions, in this area it will also be a question of jobs because due to the thermal insulation alone in buildings which already exist, many states will only be able to achieve half the necessary reduction in emissions.
Commissioner, I hope that the issue of the environment and employment will play a particularly important role in the debate which will take place in the next six months.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I totally agree with the view expressed by the rapporteur and the delegates during today's debate: that we are discussing a very important topic, and therefore it is of course a matter of irritation that it has come up so late in the day. But that must not prevent us from studying the importance of the relationship between environmental protection and employment.
Firstly, allow me to address employment, because employment is now clearly included as an item on the agenda of the European Union.
We know that employment was included in the Amsterdam Treaty as a goal for the Union.
We held a extraordinary summit on employment last year in Luxembourg, and this year, for the first time, all 15 Member States have presented their action plans on employment to the Commission.
The Commission presented an initial evaluation of these plans at the Cardiff Summit, giving us the opportunity to scrutinize these policies from an environmental point of view and to discuss with our colleagues how to promote the existing synergies between the two policies.
One way of doing so would be to integrate the objective of environmental protection and sustainable development into the new 1999 employment guidelines.
As regards environmental protection, European commitment dates back further, and many have mentioned this, but it was of course given new momentum at the Cardiff Summit, where a reinforced strategy for integrating the environment into all other EU policies was approved.
Today, we are not only linking economics and the environment. We are also adding a social dimension to sustainable development.
Balanced economic growth, environmental protection and job creation are not only mutually compatible; they are building blocks of long-term development strategy.
In order to implement this new development model, there are certain principles - as outlined in the declaration - that must be adhered to, and I will briefly mention some of these.
We need environmentally-oriented investment.
We need higher levels of employment, and by that I mean we need a change in fiscal legislation - which, as Mr Virgin mentioned, we have also debated this evening, and almost just as late at that - by shifting taxation away from the workforce.
Finally, we need the involvement of all interested parties.
In connection with climate problems, I can see a number of possibilities in particular for creating jobs in new industries and services, whether it is a question of expanding the application of renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency in terms of processes, products and buildings, or increased exports to markets beyond the Union.
All this would save money.
It would improve the environment and create jobs.
I agree with Mrs Graenitz in that it is very gratifying to see that the Austrian presidency will be addressing the declaration on the environment and employment at the Environment Council in October.
I hope the Council will take that opportunity to adopt a resolution that would serve to strengthen the commitment of the Commission and the Member States to take further steps in the areas of the environment and employment.
Madam President, I will stop here, but before I do so, I would like to express my appreciation to the three committees of the European Parliament for their excellent work on the report and their statements on the Commission's declaration on the environment and employment.
In particular, I would like to thank Mrs Hulthén for the terrific job she has done as rapporteur, and I would also like to thank Mr Ken Collins, chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, for his active participation in the conference on the environment and employment hosted jointly by the European Parliament and the Commission last year.
And finally, I would just also like to express my satisfaction with the productive collaboration I have enjoyed with my colleague Padraig Flynn.
Thank you, Commissioner Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 00.05 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
Madam President, the reason I want to say something about the Minutes is my letter announced to the President yesterday.
I would like to sincerely thank all the Quaestors for the fact that they granted my request to present the legality, not the expediency but the legality, of the system of mandatory voting, financial discipline and the fiscal consequences of this to the legal adviser, in whom I have a great deal of trust.
Many thanks, Quaestors and also a word of thanks to Mr Falconer who set everything in motion on behalf of the 'backbenchers' of this House.
Mr Falconer and the Quaestors, many thanks.
Madam President, during Question Time to the Commission I withdrew my question, but this was not noted in the Minutes.
Naturally we will rectify that.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
Madam President, I notice from the voting record that my vote was not recorded for the first two votes, for which I was present, and which I thought that my machine had registered.
I voted 'no' on the first vote and 'no' on the second vote.
We will correct that.
(Parliament approved the Minutes.)
Mrs González Álvarez wishes to speak, on a point of order.
Madam President, I would like to make a request to the Presidency.
At the last partsession we adopted a resolution condemning the situation of the prisoners and those condemned to death in Equatorial Guinea.
The day before yesterday the Bubi leader Martín Puye died.
Imprisoned under terrible conditions in the jails in Equatorial Guinea, he was not allowed to talk to anyone, his food and water were rationed and he was in a cell measuring 1.5 m by 1.5 m.
We would ask the Presidency - since there is not enough time to table an urgent resolution - to call on the Malabo authorities to carry out an investigation and we ask that our institution takes the necessary measures to ensure that nothing similar happens again because various other prisoners are in the same situation as this Bubi leader was.
From now on we must ensure that such an event is never repeated.
This man was 58 years old.
It is terrible that he has died in such a way; the other prisoners have not been sentenced to death but they are going to die in the same way due to prison conditions.
Mrs González Álvarez, naturally it is difficult for us to intervene from here.
We have to consider how our protests might be able to help in future.
It think I should perhaps refer this matter to the competent committee or even to the Bureau.
Mr Morris has the floor.
Madam President, on a point of order.
Last night during Question Time we did not come to the question that I intended to pose to the Council.
It is an important one.
At the present time there are five prisoners in a Saudi prison accused of apostasy and they are facing the penalty of death by beheading.
Two are Europeans and it is highly likely, as a consequence of appeals from seven Member States, that they will have their sentence of death commuted, possibly to a term of imprisonment.
Of the five, three are Filipinos and it is highly likely, as in the past, that the Filipinos - in other words the non-European people who are accused of apostasy in Saudi Arabia - will in fact be beheaded by sword.
I would appeal to the President and to the Parliament, and certainly to the Council, that we make an urgent appeal to the authorities in Saudi Arabia for mercy and clemency to be shown to all five.
We would be appealing in fact for the fundamental freedom of religious expression in Saudi Arabia.
I would make an urgent appeal, on behalf of these five people, for this action to be taken immediately.
Mr Morris, the Presidency is here today.
I do not know whether the gentlemen have made a note of that. If not, I would suggest that we resubmit your question in writing so that the Presidency can take up this protest.
Mrs Ferrer has the floor.
Madam President, I would like to say that I agree fully with what Mrs González said because it is not only a question of there having now been an unfortunate death - that of the leader of the Bubis - but also that there are another 10 or 11 people in danger.
I believe that this Parliament, which has very clearly stated that it is opposed to the death penalty in general and, in particular, to the death sentences of certain prisoners in Equatorial Guinea, should take action, at least through the Presidency of the Council.
We could pass this message on to the Council so that it contacts the authorities in Equatorial Guinea to intervene and, in any case, so that those authorities allow a visit by European Union authorities to monitor the situation of these prisoners and thereby guarantee justice for this people.
Thank you, Mrs Ferrer. We have noted your remarks.
That is how we will proceed.
Mr Smith has the floor.
Madam President, I have some brief comments which I hope the presidency will take on board.
I understand that the Government of South Korea, due to the industrial unrest in that country, have issued warrants for the arrest of 55 trade union leaders.
I would ask the presidency to make it quite clear that we do not approve, and fundamentally oppose such conduct.
Deliberations of the Committee on Petitions - Amendment of Rule 156(3) of the Rules of Procedure - Amendment of Rule 156(3) of the Rules of Procedure
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
Report (A4-0250/98) by Mr Fontana, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year 1997-1998-Report (A4-0209/98) by Mr Evans, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on amendment of Rule 156(3) of Parliament's Rules of Procedure relating to the right of petition-Report (A4-0158/98) by Mr Wibe, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the amendment of Rule 156 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure (Right of petition)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, for the Committee on Petitions the July partsession traditionally offers the opportunity to present its annual report but it is also a time for the Members of the House to debate the institution of the right of petition, our understanding of which seems to be at times inversely proportional to its importance.
The right of petition enables European citizens to have closer contact with the Community institutions by means of their requests, making these institutions aware of the preoccupations and expectations of citizens, especially when the intertwining of Community and national legislation ends up violating the rights of individuals.
Indeed, a lot of petitions, I would say too many, demonstrate that the Member States disregard or incorrectly apply these laws that they themselves helped approve at European level.
Whether we are talking about the more general case of discrimination between Community and national citizens or the more specific case of the threatened expulsion of Community citizens, only because they are unemployed, or the case of practitioners of liberal professions who fail to obtain recognition of their own diploma, there is an infinite number of extremely interesting cases that Community citizens submit to the European Parliament by petition.
These are human cases, sometimes painful, always rich in lessons, that we are trying to solve within the confined limits of our means, resources and competences.
This is possible also because of the contribution of the European Commission and its services which, I stress, unlike the Council and the Member States, are in constant dialogue with our committee nearly every day.
From the numerous cases examined and solved emerges a push to demand a more forceful and direct legislative role for the European Parliament that has the favour of the people and to promote a system of better information for Parliament itself and the institution of the right of petition.
An in-depth reflection is therefore necessary, also in view of enlargement, in order to determine new instruments and procedures for the effective handling of petitions.
The national authorities and the institutions, especially the Council, need to be more directly involved in these procedures, for too often they remain silent and do not act upon our requests for information or intervention.
In the report, we are also pleased with the fact that relations with the European Ombudsman are fruitful and constructive, in the interests of European citizens and of transparency of Community actions.
We would also like to see a better use of new information technology, providing the Parliament with the appropriate instruments.
Although quantitative figures should never prevail over qualitative figures, the figures are in themselves very eloquent.
I recall that in this period of time 1312 petitions were presented, 582 were declared admissible, 529 inadmissible.
I will again point out, however, that 959 petitions are still being examined, including petitions that, like the one received on hunting, bear more than 1 800 000 signatures, testimony of the interest shown by many citizens in this instrument.
I will conclude, Madam President, with a question.
We are aware of the fact that the institution of the right of petition has become an extremely important and delicate instrument to better draw the citizen closer to the European Union and to enable the Parliament to perceive citizens' real expectations.
In short, in a Parliament that unfortunately still does not have the power to initiate legislation, the petition constitutes today an irreplaceable instrument for the full assertion of European citizenship to achieve that Utopian view cultivated by the great European minds and illustrated by Voltaire when in 1700 he claimed that Europe had to become the only continent where an Italian or German citizen who happened to be in France or elsewhere should never feel in exile.
If this is true, I ask you, Madam President: are the means, the instruments that we have given ourselves equal to our ambitions and to those expectations of European citizens I was talking about?
Madam President, I apologise on behalf of Mr Evans who is unavoidably absent this morning, although he hopes to be back by lunchtime when we vote on this matter.
The Evans report is about allowing petitions in the European Parliament to be submitted in languages other than one of the 11 official languages.
There are two groups of what we may term non-official languages.
Firstly there are the languages of some of the regions of the European Union.
For example, from my own country you have Welsh or Gaelic.
Secondly, there are the languages of immigration in the European Union which, again from my own country, would be languages like Gujerati, Urdu, Bengali etc.
The proposal from Mr Evans is to allow people to petition the European Parliament in either of those groups of languages provided they are accompanied by the appropriate official translation.
This will benefit many millions of people who reside in the European Union, who are citizens of the European Union but whose first language is not one of the 11 official languages.
I hope that the House will be able to support the report.
Mr Evans' amendment deals with this issue.
There are a number of other amendments which I am afraid we are opposed to on the grounds that they mostly draw a distinction between officially recognised languages and languages that are not officially recognised.
We believe that any of the languages commonly used in the European Union should be admitted, provided they are accompanied by the official translation.
Certainly one or two of the amendments are rather nonsensical, one of them implying that we are going to have to recruit staff who, for example, are capable of dealing with petitions in Welsh.
We are very happy for petitions to be submitted in Welsh, but we do not agree with the amendments which state that it should be permissible for them to be submitted without a translation.
I urge you to support the Evans amendment, but not to support the other amendments.
I hope that you will make this small but significant change on behalf of the people of Europe when we vote at 12 noon.
Madam President, my report is based on a proposal by Mr Dell'Alba to make a small amendment to Rule 156 that would make it possible to submit petitions by electronic mail.
The essence of my proposal is that we approve this amendment by Mr Dell'Alba, and that we thus allow petitions to also be submitted electronically.
My report also contains a second proposal, namely that these petitions should be entered in a public register and thus be available to the general public.
My report has been discussed a great deal. However, I would say that the most valuable opinion on it so far is that petitions must be independent of the way in which they are submitted.
It must not matter if they are sent by fax, ordinary letter or by electronic mail.
I would also like to point out that the submission of petitions electronically is permitted in many corresponding bodies in the national parliaments and by our own Ombudsman.
In principle, three objections have been raised to this.
The first is that it is unfair in some way, because not everyone owns a computer.
It is, firstly, mainly men and, secondly, mainly people with high incomes who have computers.
It is, of course, a valid objection to say that this increases the options for those who have a computer and not for others.
At the same time, it must be said that when the typewriter was invented 50 or 100 years ago, they were not owned by everyone either, but perhaps the more wealthy groups in society.
However, it would be unreasonable to prohibit the submission of petitions by electronic mail just because only a specific group of people would be able to make use of this facility.
The second objection concerns the possibility of falsification, that is, if a petition is sent in by electronic mail, it is possible to sign it with a false name.
That is quite correct, that could be done.
However, I would like to point out that there is nothing in our current Rules of Procedure to say that the signature on a letter that has been received should be checked.
In my opinion, it is a matter for the administration.
If the administration wants to check the signature, it is possible to do so, irrespective of whether it has been submitted electronically or in the form of an ordinary letter.
The third criticism is that it will lead to an increase in the number of petitions, which will therefore require more personnel; this, in itself, is also correct.
However, I believe that there are opportunities to streamline the work when making use of electronic means.
The most important point in this context, however, is that democracy has to cost something.
This could mean that we need more personnel in the Committee on Petitions, but democracy costs, so we must also be prepared to pay the small price in question.
In addition to the above-mentioned core question, my report also contains a proposal to place the petitions in a public register, as long as the person submitting a petition does not want it to be treated in confidence.
This is also a reasonable demand for the sake of transparency.
I would like to conclude by saying that, happily, this report has achieved unanimity in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Extremely small steps are, indeed, being taken here (it is almost a mere trifle) but they are nevertheless small steps towards greater transparency.
Every long journey does, after all, begin with a small step.
Madam President, we in the Committee on Petitions welcome this initiative and would very much like to see it adopted as soon as possible.
We believe that a rapid reform is necessary.
At the same time, like the rapporteur, I would like to congratulate the Ombudsman on having opened a home page where you can find a form on how to lodge a complaint.
It is a good model, also for us, when we come to realize in practice the amendment of the Rules of Procedure that this involves.
It is true that, under our current rules, the identity of the petitioner must be checked.
We must try to speed this up, and, at the same time, we must also perhaps make use of new legislative proposals regarding electronic signatures.
We share the rapporteur's view that we must do more to develop the databases so that the general public can see what petitions exist.
In addition, we agree that petitions must be treated in the same way, irrespective of the way in which they have been submitted.
I am also looking forward to the proposal to amend the Rules of Procedure so that the petitions will be public, except in cases where the petitioner has requested that a petition be treated in confidence.
The interesting thing is that this amendment of the Rules of Procedure will conflict with Article 2.3 of the rules governing public access to documents as established by the Bureau.
These rules have a different approach, namely that to obtain access to a document submitted to Parliament, we should not turn to Parliament but to the person who produced the document.
This is an interesting conflict, but we have chosen the more correct line in this document, namely that they should be viewed as Parliament's documents.
Finally, I would like to say that it is important that in future we also have opportunities to submit mass petitions.
At the same time, it is our responsibility as Members of Parliament to consider the nature of the matter and not the number of petitions when deciding priorities.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate the three rapporteurs for, as far as I know from the other committee, all three reports were passed unanimously.
Our task, as parliamentarians elected directly by the citizens of Europe, is to represent the interests of these citizens and to look after their concerns.
No institution or administration is infallible.
European regulations can prove unsatisfactory in practice, just as the best-intentioned transposal of European law into national law can be unsatisfactory.
We all know that administrations tend to act bureaucratically and that means at a distance from their citizens.
Proximity to citizens is one of the favourite expressions heard in the speeches of the Members of this House.
The Committee on Petitions with its practical work provides the guarantee that this proximity exists in practice.
The work of the committee is to provide redress in the case of shortcomings in or breaches of Community law and to protect the rights of its citizens.
Happily, the citizens of Europe are exercising their rights more and more frequently and so the number of complaints and petitions received has increased over recent years.
Unfortunately, the Secretariat's staff resources have not automatically grown in line with the increasing volume of work in the committee, and we are endeavouring to speed up the process by which petitions are dealt with by adapting and tightening up our working practices and systems.
We also hope that the Wibe report decision on the amendment of the Rules of Procedure will win us further possibilities because it should mean that petitions could be submitted via the Internet and would make the administration and processing of the entire system faster.
It is not merely annoying that as long as several years can elapse before some petitions can be resolved.
It also gives a very negative picture of Europe.
There are many reasons for the length of time it can take to process petitions.
Firstly, it takes time for the documents to be translated and for a summary to be made available in the eleven languages.
Secondly, in most cases the Commission is asked for information and the Commission's answer then has to be translated into all the languages before the petitions can be dealt with in committee.
The greatest problem, however, comes from the Member States whose responses to complaints, particularly where these are obviously justified, are evasive, slow and in some cases non-existent and are only moved to action by the threat of appearing before the European Court of Justice.
The fact that the European Commission report on this EU law lists 17 actions for treaty violation brought at the instigation of the Parliament in 1997 is the result of our work in the Committee on Petitions.
So, despite all the difficulties, it is gratifying that many petitions have nevertheless reached a successful conclusion.
The annual report describes several cases by way of example and I should like to pick up on one of them here.
It involves the case of a German employee who had worked for part of his career in Belgium and France.
He quite rightly applied for his pension in all three Member States and although the French pension fund granted his claim, it only paid out half of it on the grounds that he had to submit the pension rulings from Germany and Belgium before he could receive the entire amount.
However, as he was simultaneously experiencing difficulties with the German pension fund, where the matter had gone to court, he would have had to wait a considerable time before receiving his French pension.
At the initiative and intervention of the Commission, the French pension ruling was then changed and he was paid the full pension as the French authorities had acted on the basis of an old directive.
This was a case, therefore, in which national authorities had made an error but the intervention of the Committee on Petitions was successful and a citizen was granted his rights.
Not all petitions can be resolved so successfully.
Time and again we run up against the limits of jurisdiction imposed by the Treaty.
However, it is important that the citizens of Europe are kept informed and that they know they can turn to the Committee on Petitions for help in enforcing their rights and we will do everything in our power to help them obtain their rights.
Madam President, during the debate on the Anastassopoulos report earlier this week, many Members said that we must make every effort to bring this Parliament closer to the people of Europe.
That is an important objective.
In fact the possibility of petitioning Parliament and the work of the Committee on Petitions are one of the most effective means we have of allowing individual citizens to use Parliament in a clear and a direct way to address their individual concerns.
I congratulate Mr Fontana on the clarity of his report and also on the commitment he has shown, as Chairman of the Petitions Committee, to the needs of European citizens.
He is ably served by a competent and conscientious staff and, similarly, the reports furnished to us by the Commission are always thorough and well presented.
One could wish, on occasion, that its reports arrived rather more promptly at the Petitions Committee.
The determined boycott of the committee by any representative of the Council is still, sadly, a great omission.
I see no one here listening to this debate.
We failed to get the British presidency to take the needs of individual citizens seriously.
I hope that the Austrian presidency might address this issue and ensure that, as a matter of course, a Council representative attends every meeting of the Petitions Committee.
The Council would learn far more there about how Europe is really working than at any number of closed Council meetings.
I would also endorse the points referred to by other Members about the need to use modern methods - e-mail and the Internet - to present petitions.
Whilst I certainly endorse Mr Evans' report, the prime concern is speed of consideration.
This is what Members really want to see.
Many thanks, Mr Perry.
I just wanted to point out to you that the Council presidency is here today.
Its representatives are here at the front and are taking notes industriously.
Madam President, I believe that the modification of the right to petition the European Parliament, in the sense that those languages which are official in an area of the territory of the Member States will be recognized, is a positive step.
We must remember that this Parliament approved, in December 1990, the report presented by the Member from Luxembourg, Mrs Reding, which highlighted the importance of minority languages in the context of the European Union and the need to ensure that the citizens of all parts of Europe did not see the European Union as a body that was unconnected to their own identity.
We are not talking about recognizing more working languages or more official languages. It is purely a matter of these citizens being able to send petitions to the European Parliament, which is the institution that represents all of the citizens of Europe, in their own language, where it is officially recognized in the corresponding Member State.
I would like to point out that many of these languages were banned in certain countries during very recent dictatorships, but democracy has recognized them and has also granted them their own official status.
We must also take into account the fact that these citizens have the right to use their mother tongue in the Court of Justice of the European Communities and in other legal bodies.
Therefore, the recognition of the use of the language itself on the part of the European Parliament would be an act of justice as regards the right to petition. It would be a good example, too, in the face of the future enlargement to include the countries of central and eastern Europe, where there are also minority groups with their own languages within each country; these groups would then see that this European institution is open to the plurality of all the peoples of Europe.
Madam President, it is becoming increasingly evident that one of the more significant innovations of the Maastricht Treaty was enshrining the right to submit a petition.
This is a fundamental right given to each citizen of the European Union.
In the period covered by the report, the Committee on Petitions received 1 300 petitions.
Most of these petitions covered four main areas, namely non-recognition of qualifications, problems relating to free movement in the Member States, the environment and public health.
These are real issues raised by EU citizens themselves, and we ignore them at our peril.
The right to petition helps to break down barriers and creates a vital link between the working of the EU institutions and our citizens.
As a result of petitions submitted by EU citizens, Member States can be found guilty of infringing Community law.
I wish to refer briefly to Sellafield.
That nuclear installation on the west coast of Britain, far from the cosy seat of power in London, has been and remains a cause of serious concern to Irish citizens.
The only safe Sellafield is a closed Sellafield.
The Commission cannot continue to ignore what citizens are saying.
It is not a question of subsidiarity: trans-frontier pollution is a matter of concern to us all and has prompted numerous petitions.
Sellafield has an appalling record: it is accident-prone, it pollutes the air and our sea.
There is a long litany of incidents and disputes.
Why was British Nuclear Fuels unwilling to release enough information to the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland to enable it to assess the safety of nuclear storage at Sellafield? A report by the Irish General Council of County Councils, published in June, warned that a nuclear accident at Sellafield could result in a disaster ten to a hundred times worse than Chernobyl.
Even a small earthquake in the Cumbrian region could breach the storage tanks.
This report, prepared by the Director of the US-based Institute for Research and Security Studies, accuses the United Kingdom nuclear installation inspectors of not taking a serious accident at Sellafield seriously enough and of not having an emergency plan.
It is about time the Commission clipped the wings of British Nuclear Fuels' nuclear ambitions as it expands its empire to the United States.
In conclusion, as regards the petition by Mr Peter Downs in Ireland on the safety of riding helmets, I want to urge the Commission to come forward now with a progress report on the issues raised.
The proposed EN 1384 standard is a compromise which does not provide the best possible protection available, as required by the personnel protective equipment directive.
Only one out of 17 equestrian federations throughout Europe was consulted.
Why are we being denied safer standards when they exist, given that, for example, American standards provide better protection? So please come forward with a progress report, because lives are at stake.
Madam President, the amendment of Rule 156(3), proposed in the report by Mr Evans, is not a amendment of the rules governing languages, which are the responsibility of the Council, but the desire to ensure that citizens can use their own language in the complaints or petitions they send to the European Parliament.
Certainly, Mr Evans has made an effort, and has introduced this form of presenting written documents in the language itself along with a translation.
But this is not satisfactory: it is a formal solution but it is not a real solution.
And this is especially true, Madam President, for certain cases where the languages are official languages in one of the Member States of the Union.
In this case, Madam President, we believe that the petitions and complaints made by citizens in their own language should be accepted.
Madam President, I think everyone realizes that petitions, together with the right to appeal to the Ombudsman, constitute an important aspect of European citizens' right of citizenship, and therefore I believe that in this sense we must encourage as much as possible this democratic activity and this right of citizens to information.
Petitions are also an instrument that citizens can use to become acquainted with the European institutions and an important moment for us parliamentarians and for the European institutions to learn about the most significant problems facing citizens and the most relevant aspects that should concern our actions.
It is worth noting that petitions are on the rise - there were more than 1 300 last year - but also more and more citizens are signing petitions - there are petitions with more than 30 000 signatures - which means that hundreds of thousands of citizens each year are using this important instrument of democracy.
This obviously necessitates improvements in the organization of the work of the Committee on Petitions, but ways must also be found to make it easier for citizens to use this instrument.
We are therefore in favour of the use of new instruments like the Internet and the use of languages other than the official languages, provided that there be a summary and a translation in one of the official languages.
It should also be noted that nearly half of the petitions are inadmissible: this means that European citizens are not being adequately informed about what they can request and how they have to send petitions.
Another important aspect is collaboration with the European Union's structures: with the European Ombudsman in particular for limited petitions but also with the European Commission whose collaboration so far has been good but which can be improved in terms of both the time it takes the Commission to reply and the quality of its answers.
Collaboration between the Committee on Petitions and the European Parliament's other committees should also be improved; furthermore, as already stated, relations with the Member States also need to be improved, given the fact that the answers that we have had so far have been unsatisfactory and slow to come.
As a representative of the Greens, allow me to say that we are very pleased that European citizens consider the instrument of petitions very important in making known the environmental problems of their own area.
Madam President, I would like to begin by congratulating the three rapporteurs, although in my speech I am going to concentrate on the report by Mr Evans due to its great importance and interest in the languages and cultures of the European Union.
In fact, the languages which enjoy official status in a Member State will, from now on, be able to enjoy the same rights as those enjoyed currently by each of the 11 working languages of the European Union in terms of the right to petition the European Parliament, thereby promoting the development of the different cultures of the peoples of Europe.
And, Madam President, that is the aim of our amendment: to promote and develop the use of and communication in their own languages, by European citizens, respecting their own cultures and idiosyncrasies, with the Community institutions, in this case with the European Parliament.
By doing this, we are merely strengthening and developing the feeling of European citizenship in all the peoples of the Union. What we are trying to achieve is a situation whereby, if the case arises, a citizen, for example, from the Autonomous Community of Valencia, has the opportunity to contact the European Parliament both in Spanish and in Valencian, the latter being an officially recognized language in our Statute of autonomy.
This is a good opportunity to give meaning to the great effort that the European Union itself, through the Commission, has been making for several years to promote and develop the minority languages of the Union. This is, in particular, due to the ARIANE programme which received funding of ECU 3 700 000 in 1997, and thanks, too, to the work carried out by the European Bureau for Lesser-Used Languages.
I will conclude, Madam President, with the hope that this House approves a report whose amendments aim to widen and consolidate the spirit of integration of the peoples and their cultures.
Madam President, the purpose of the reports by my colleagues, Mr Evans and Mr Wibe, is to extend further the right of petition provided for in Article 156 of our Rules of Procedure.
But, in these same texts, we find provisions which, anticipating difficulties that might arise from such reforms, turn them into a model of the status quo.
At a time when the European Commission's translation services are seeking a hierarchy for documents so that, with the coming of enlargement which will bring the number of official languages up to sixteen, it will be possible to decide which texts require full translation, Mr Evans proposes a reform of the Rules of Procedure so that everyone can present petitions in a language other than the eleven official languages of the Union.
This is a fine idea for those who speak one of the minority languages.
But how much time will be saved if the petitioner must attach a translation, or a summary, in an official language of the European Union? How hypocritical is this proposal which, put at its simplest, suggests that Parliament should receive documents which we all know perfectly well are quite pointless!
For his part, Mr Wibe suggests that the procedure for presenting petitions be simplified using electronic means, but he specifies that it would be necessary to send petitioners a letter inviting them to confirm the proposal sent by e-mail, as soon as the petition is received via the web.
So where is the simplification that we are promised? The chairman, Mr Fontana, notes in his report an increase in the number and frequency of petitions, with the corollary of increasing delays and difficulties in processing them.
Under these circumstances, where will be the efficiency and credibility of the Committee on Petitions, if we multiply the number of petitions to Parliament as suggested by the different reports which we are discussing this morning?
To conclude, Madam President, we shall vote against these reports, not because they are bad, but because they do not solve the problems which are raised, since having noted that the Committee on Petitions is becoming clogged up, the rapporteurs propose yet more bureaucracy as a solution.
Madam President, one of the most important results of the Maastricht Treaty has certainly been the institution of European citizenship which has made every citizen of a Member State a citizen of the Union and has implicitly led to greater protection of citizens' rights in the context of European construction.
Together with the figure of the Ombudsman, instituted by the Treaty, the right of petition, also sanctioned by the Treaty, is part of the logic to make up the democratic deficit that is still penalizing the Community's citizens.
In fact, the right of petition is essential not only for citizens but also for the Union's institutions, in that petitions enable the institutions to become aware of citizens' real expectations.
We would, however, like to stress the fact that an effective examination of petitions always depends on an adequate presence of human resources, of responsible services, and we insist that the most appropriate means be used to inform European citizens regularly of the right of petition and even more so of the ways to reach the European Parliament, which is the collector of the petitions.
Finally, great importance must be attached to the admissibility of these petitions.
The President of the Commission, and we also, would like to see the Member States being more active in cases where infringements are reported, and underline the need for the Member States to provide complete and prompt answers to the requests for information and action that they receive from the European Commission and to abide by the obligation to help the Community to fulfil its own tasks, as stipulated in Article 5 of the Treaty.
All this, however, is unfortunately not the case today.
Mr Fontana, whom I thank for the excellent work that he does as chairman of the Parliament's Committee on Petitions, rightly draws attention to the real powers of the European Parliament which currently only has the power of codecision, without any true legislative power that effectively enables voters to exercise, through those they elect, the democratic control of the measures that are taken.
The importance therefore of having access to the right of petition, which records the hopes and expectations of citizens and takes in their complaints concerning European legislation that they consider unfair, is a cornerstone of our democratic system.
Thanks to the various petitions sent to the European Parliament, we have certainly succeeded in making protective changes to what has become enforceable legislation, changes that are necessary to promote that European integration which we can no longer put off.
A final observation concerning the time of reply, which is too long: I do not know how, but we are going to have to study how to be quicker and more punctual.
Madam President, being an active member of the Committee on Petitions is very much an education.
The Committee on Petitions provides a constant source of information, knowledge - and sometimes a bit of bewilderment - as we probe the various complexities of legislation which inspire citizens' complaints.
But it is here, in direct contact with the citizens of the European Union, that we find the flaws and limitations of European Union legislation.
For example, on the environment, we find that environmental impact assessments do not apply to projects which were planned before the legislation was implemented.
Therefore, a 20-year old plan can be taken off a shelf, dusted down and it does not need an environmental impact assessment for approval.
On mutual recognition of qualifications, the European Union still has a long way to go.
On access to social security benefits, governments collude with each other to deny citizens their rights.
All these things taken together act as an impediment to the free movement of citizens and the Committee on Petitions has continually drawn attention to this.
I would like to praise the Commission and thank it for its cooperation during my time in the committee.
However, that praise is qualified.
From time to time it could be more pro-active.
Matters coming before the Committee on Petitions could have been taken a bit further by the Commission before going on to the committee.
But, like Mr Perry, I reserve my criticism for the Council.
It very seldom cooperates with us, and the key to the resolution of very many citizens' complaints lies in cooperation.
Unfortunately, this is not sufficiently forthcoming from the Council.
So, I am happy to support these reports, with those reservations.
I thank the rapporteurs for their efforts.
Mr Wibe has asked me to point out that his report is a work of historical significance.
I am quite happy to quote that for the record - although I will leave you to judge for yourselves.
So far in this debate none of the speakers has kept to the allocated speaking times.
If we continue like this, we will be half an hour late starting the voting this afternoon.
I just wanted to say that once, for the benefit of everyone, with a plea that we might perhaps keep an eye on the clock.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party on the Evans and Wibe reports.
The Wibe report is one small step for man, one giant leap for the European Parliament.
We know that Mr Wibe, coming as he does from a Scandinavian background, is particularly interested in information technology.
This is a new insight, a new aspect of our work which has been particularly emphasized and underlined by his work and that of his Scandinavian colleagues.
We welcome it and it is right that he should be gently leading us into the 21st century in this respect.
As far as the Evans report is concerned, I am also speaking on behalf of the PPE Group.
I should like to point out that Amendment No 3 has been withdrawn.
It is not an amendment put forward by the PPE Group.
An identical amendment has been put forward by Mrs Ferrer and 28 others and that will be voted on.
Having made that preliminary remark, I should say that the PPE Group supports the Evans report.
We think it is a very workable and worthwhile compromise between two goals, one of which is to respect the Treaties and the regulations which are in place. The other is to recognize the right and desirability of people to be able to address their petitions to the European Parliament as far as possible in their mother tongue.
Mr Evan's report seems to observe both those goals.
It conforms to the legal requirements of the Treaty and of the regulations.
It is an important step towards allowing the speakers of minority languages or the languages of Catalonia, Wales, Ireland, Sardinia etc. to appeal to the European Parliament in their own language.
Immigrant groups will also benefit.
It would be a pity if the European Parliament got itself too deeply involved in questions of linguistic arrangements that are more properly decided at national level.
We have our official languages.
We should observe their status in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
I commend the Evans and Wibe reports to the House.
Madam President, the most genuine, direct, live contact that the European Parliament has with the citizens of Europe, individually and collectively, is the procedure within the Committee on Petitions. This was highlighted by the three reports and I agree with them.
It was especially highlighted in the report by Mr Fontana, with which I also agree.
I would just like to comment that, while it renders some kind of account and mentions a number of petitions that have been dealt with, it does not tell us of the outcome.
In these cases did the citizen, the petitioner, get justice in the end or not? This concerns us.
And if they did not get justice, who opposed them? The Council, the Commission, the national authorities?
What will happen after that? Perhaps there is then a celebratory debate, a time-consuming procedure with no outcome.
I would like to add, firstly, that this report must mention whether the people are satisfied after the petitions have been dealt with; secondly, why, and who is responsible.
I would also suggest that this committee and its procedure be strengthened institutionally and legally so that, when a just petition is not satisfied, there is some kind of sanction.
Finally, I would suggest that the debate take place not once a year but, if possible, during each part-session - if we appreciate the importance of the institution - or even every six months so that Parliament can be brought up-to-date, and so that it can supervise and assist the committee in its task.
Madam President, I could almost repeat my contributions to the discussion last year word for word.
Every year we receive more and more petitions, even though a high percentage of the people of the European Union do not even know that they have the right to submit petitions on Community issues to the European Union.
In addition to leaflets, the use of new media could be used to inform the citizens of Europe of their democratic rights.
To the disappointment of the petitioners, the processing of petitions to the final outcome takes too long.
The Committee on Petitions has optimised its procedures.
In my view, cooperation with the civil servants in the Commission has improved considerably.
As has already been said, in most cases the problem lies with the Council, that is, with the Member State to be consulted in each case.
It requires real patience to obtain an answer.
It often takes months, frequently there is no answer at all and sometimes it is only the pressure of the Commission instituting proceedings which moves the Member State to act.
It is impossible to avoid the impression that, contrary to the obligation enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty, individual Member States are not taking the rights of petitioners very seriously.
I personally find it gratifying that the number of petitions taking action against failures to apply or to implement European environmental law has dropped considerably in the period covered by the report.
This could be taken to show that Member States are now taking the environmental directives more seriously.
A high percentage of the petitions relate to social issues and to migrant workers in particular.
Although the coordinating directive 1408 is positive, it often offers no help in resolving injustices.
In this area, in particular, the Council must show greater understanding to ensure that freedom of movement does not create disadvantages.
Here I should mention Mrs Weiler's report on which we will be voting this afternoon.
Madam President, the European Union, which is defined as and acts as a Community based on respect for human rights, and which has always defended and undertaken to promote the cultural diversity of Europe, cannot ignore the right of a people to have the symbols of their identity recognized and respected.
Therefore, this Parliament, as the representative of the people who form the European Union, has shown itself on many occasions to be in favour of measures which contribute to preserving this identity, of which one of the most obvious symbols is its language.
In this respect, we should recall the Reding report on the situation of the Catalan language or the Killilea report on minority languages.
Today, Parliament has the opportunity to fulfil one of the agreements adopted in the Killilea report and thereby to reiterate its commitment to the defence of those languages which are part of the rich cultural heritage of Europe.
Therefore, I call on this House to vote in favour of the amendment that various groups and Members have tabled to the Evans report, asking that the petitions drafted in the official language of a part of the territory of a Member State might also be admitted for consideration.
I ask this to provide coherence with our own approaches and decisions and as proof of this Parliament's commitment to the construction of a Europe which is respectful of the diversity of the peoples and cultures which form it and which constitute one of its most important riches.
It is not a question of increasing the number of official languages or working languages, it is rather a matter of allowing those citizens who have a language of their own which is recognized as such by the legislation of its Member State, to draw up their petitions in their own language. This is important because this language is one of the examples of the cultural wealth of Europe, its use is one of their rights and, by doing this, we will win many citizens over to the European cause.
Madam President, the collective rights of historic minorities and cultural diversity are assets that we all must protect and the European institutions have spared no efforts in doing so.
However, the right of petition is not a right of the peoples; it is, in fact, quite the opposite. It is an individual right anchored in the protection of human rights, which the Treaty recognizes not only for the citizens of the Union but also for any person, any human being who is in the European Union.
Therefore, nothing is more contrary to that spirit than the discrimination between those who have a minority language which is recognized in a territorial context and those other citizens, who are normally the most needy, whose language is also a minority language but is not officially recognized.
Madam President, the amendment by Mrs Ferrer is not in line with the Treaties and, in addition, represents a serious attack on an essential element of the European Union: the true protection of human rights.
The person most in need of the opportunity to forward a petition in his own language is not the European citizen belonging to a historic minority whose language is already recognized.
We must, therefore, be serious.
If we recognize this opportunity, we must recognize it without any limitations.
And it thus seems to me that the amendment by Mr Evans represents a logical solution to this extremely complicated problem.
Mr President, I am using my one-and-a-half minutes to give once again a very brief report to Parliament on my work as the President's mediator for transnationally abducted children.
I was honoured to take on this role at the request of the Committee on Petitions.
As soon as we receive notice of any petition relating to the abduction of a child, generally a parental abduction, we telephone the parties concerned so that immediately they are aware that somebody in Parliament is directly responding to their concerns.
This gets round the difficulties that many speakers have referred to in relation to delays with petitions, although I acknowledge that the situation has considerably improved since the committee was recently reorganized.
I believe that when dealing with many of the petitions, especially those relating to abduction of children, speed is of the essence.
We make direct contact with the parents concerned, the judges involved and national authorities.
This is very much appreciated by those whom we contact.
However, we are still very much at a disadvantage because many European Union countries appear to have a persistent record of failure to implement the Hague Convention.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say that I agree with the excellent Fontana report in terms of its comments on the importance of the right of petition.
Petitions allow the institutions to become aware of the true difficulties and problems encountered by the citizens.
The right of petition is, therefore, situated at what we could call the heart of the relationship of trust between the citizen and the institutions which must take responsibility for the smooth running of the Union.
By sending a petition to Parliament, the citizen is not only denouncing what seems to be an unsatisfactory application of Community legislation, but is also demonstrating, at the same time, its trust in Parliament and in all of the institutions, with the hope that the error might be rectified.
I, therefore, welcome the fact that the collaboration between Parliament and the Commission has allowed us this year, too, - as rightly pointed out in the Fontana report - to find specific solutions and improvements in a large number of cases.
I must also tell you that the Commission, which is doing everything possible to bring Europe closer to the citizens, shares the position adopted by the Committee on Petitions on infringement procedures and appreciates the importance of the action that Parliament is taking in this area.
We are convinced that an essential task which we must fulfil is to guarantee complete respect for Community legislation and to detect the weaknesses in this legislation in order to improve it and ensure that it is put to more adequate use for the citizens.
It is precisely because of that concern of looking rapidly and in detail at the petitions that have been submitted to us, that I will only speak briefly about the Evans report.
It is true that the issue of the languages in which petitions are drawn up is essentially a problem which is Parliament's responsibility.
However, it is also true that, through cooperation - which I would even go so far as to call creative - between the Committee on Petitions and the Commission's services, the consideration of a large number of petitions could be resolved.
That is all I wanted to say to you.
I would congratulate once again the rapporteur and all of the members of the Committee on Petitions on the excellent work they have done.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00 noon.
Report on the activities of the European Ombudsman (1997) - Public access to documents (European Ombudsman's special report) - Amendment of Rule 161 of the Rules of Procedure
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A4-0258/98) by Mr Newman, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1997 (C4-0270/98); -(A4-0265/98) by Mrs Thors, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the Special Report by the European Ombudsman to the European Parliament following his own-initiative inquiry into public access to documents (C4-0157/98); -(A4-0416/97) by Mr Crowley, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the amendment of Rule 161 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
Thank you, Ombudsman.
As you can hear, we are very satisfied indeed with the way in which you have introduced your important work as Parliamentary Ombudsman.
We will now proceed to the debate, and I will begin by calling on Mr Newman, who is the rapporteur of one of the reports, to speak.
Mr President, during 1997 the European Ombudsman continued to investigate possible maladministration in European Community institutions and bodies.
He has done it thoroughly and comprehensively and in my report Parliament is asked to recognise this.
The democratically elected MEPs who serve on the Committee on Petitions have the task of monitoring the work of the European Ombudsman.
In our view, Jacob Söderman is an effective champion of the rights of citizens.
His work acts as a vital safeguard, because without an effective Ombudsman the individual citizen could easily be the helpless victim of maladministration by a powerful and sometimes out-of-touch European bureaucracy.
In last year's annual report on the work of the European Ombudsman, Parliament asked him to come forward with a clear definition of the term 'maladministration' .
He has responded to this challenge with a satisfactory formula, namely that maladministration occurs when a public body fails to act in accordance with a rule or principle which is binding upon it.
Perhaps more meaningfully, he also reminds us in his report of the examples of maladministration which he gave in his first annual report.
These include administrative irregularities or omissions, abuse of power, negligence, unlawful procedures, unfairness, malfunction or incompetence, discrimination, avoidable delay and lack or refusal of information.
Of course the Ombudsman rightly makes the point that these examples are not exhaustive and that he cannot take up complaints concerning political or judicial decisions or that involve value judgments on legislative acts.
The Committee on Petitions has previously supported a common code of good administrative behaviour for European Union institutions and bodies and we are pleased that the Ombudsman has also proposed such a code.
As he states in his report, this would surely raise the quality of the institutions' administrative practices and enhance their relations with European citizens.
The administrative behaviour of the Ombudsman's own office perhaps provides a useful example of the kind of practices which should be included in a code.
When the Ombudsman receives a complaint, the complainant receives a letter of acknowledgement which both explains the procedure for handling the complaint and, very importantly, gives the name and telephone number of the civil servant actually dealing with the complaint.
This kind of administrative practice turns the faceless Eurocrat into a real person to whom the complainant can relate and I hope the Commission will take this on board.
The Ombudsman has looked into the European Commission's administrative practices when it has used the Article 169 procedure to bring infringements of the European Treaty before the Court of Justice.
This is a matter which bothers many of our citizens who, rightly or wrongly, feel that the Commission responds too readily to pressure from Member States, for instance, over possible infringements of environmental protection directives.
The Commission has also been accused of keeping complainants in the dark about the progress of this kind of complaint.
It is true that the Ombudsman was able to close his inquiries into the Commission's practices in the infringement procedure without making critical remarks.
However, on the basis of our consideration of many relevant petitions, the Committee on Petitions believes that there are many unresolved problems concerning the application of the infringement procedure and we ask the Ombudsman continually to review the Commission's administrative behaviour when it uses the procedure.
Perhaps the code of good administrative behaviour will also help in this matter.
I welcome the Ombudsman's commitment to conclude his investigations and inform the complainant, normally within one year of receiving the complaint.
In order to help the Ombudsman to keep to this commitment Parliament will need to ensure in the budget procedure that his office receives the necessary additional staff.
In conclusion, I agree with the Ombudsman's decision to target his latest publicity at citizens and organisations that deal with European Community institutions and bodies, as his powers are limited to investigating maladministration by such European Community institutions and bodies.
Other complaints of a European Union character can be considered through petitioning the European Parliament.
The Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman have complementary but distinct roles.
One of the Petitions Committee's roles is to report on the overall work of the Ombudsman and our report to you today is that we are entirely satisfied with the way in which he has performed his duties.
Mr President, the work on increasing public access in the EU has started in earnest.
The Court of First Instance's ruling on the Council of Ministers' documents, the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam and new methods for the Council of Ministers' work are all examples of this.
A particularly important contribution to increased public access has been made by the Ombudsman through the Special Report which we shall debate, and through several other initiatives.
Let me first point out that the Special Report is historic.
It is the first time that we in a part-session of Parliament have to make a decision on such a report.
The way in which we treat this Special Report can, in a way, create a model for the future.
The importance of the report from a legal point of view lies in the fact that the Committee on Petitions thinks and proposes that it should come under the Ombudsman's mandate to undertake own-initiative inquiries.
On the other hand, we share the Ombudsman's opinion that there are no grounds for formal recommendations, with the legal meaning that recommendations have under the Statute of the European Ombudsman.
On the other hand, as the Ombudsman also proposes, the Special Report gives grounds for political initiatives on the part of Parliament.
At this stage, it is therefore important for us to signal politically what we expect from the Commission in the proposal on openness which the Commission should put forward supported by Article 191a of the Amsterdam Treaty regarding the right of access to documents.
As we state in the report, what we expect from the Commission is, inter alia, the following:
We regret that the Amsterdam Treaty's new rule to be adopted regarding openness formally applies only to the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
It was a disappointment to many of us that it was so limited.
Let us state that the new Article A in the Treaty is also obligatory for the other bodies, that is, that decisions should be taken as openly and as closely to the citizens as possible.
Today, on the basis of Ombudsman Söderman's speech and Mr Newman's report, we have talked a lot about the issue of a code of good administrative praxis , a code of conduct on good administrative practice and the significance thereof.
Such a code means that we adopt minimum standards for good administrative practice.
This means that it may be of significance to the other institutions that are perhaps not formally bound by Article 191a.
We also emphasize in our report that public access to documents is not worth much if not everyone can find out which documents exist and then request some of them.
If there is no register or journal of the documents that exist, we will have a so-called insider public access.
This report therefore requires rules on a register to be an integral part of the legislative proposals that the Commission should put forward as soon as possible.
In the debate following the Intergovernmental Conference it has been maintained that the rules to be adopted regarding public access can apply only to documents that are produced within the institutions.
In this regard we refer to the explanation of this which was attached to the Treaty.
There are good grounds for maintaining the opposite.
The declaration attached to the Treaty concerns expressly the correspondence of the Member States.
It is possible, as we are doing, to interpret this so that other incoming correspondence is public. Only what the Member States have asked to be kept secret shall be.
In addition, I would like to issue a challenge to all the Member States who say they support public access, that they limit as far as possible requests to keep a document confidential.
We ought also to ensure that this is how it actually works.
I would like to thank the Ombudsman for this initiative.
We can confirm that it has led to practically all institutions and bodies having rules on public access, with the Court of Justice as a regrettable exception.
We can also confirm that, since the report came into being and for as long as we have discussed it here in Parliament, the publication of the rules has improved.
Practically all institutions have rules on access to documents in all languages.
They have published their rules on access to documents in the OJ or on their websites.
Even the Committee of the Regions has done so; this constituted an addendum after the report was completed in committee.
Allow me also to say something about our voting procedure.
I believe the President is going to propose that recital D is a superfluous recital in the report.
There would have been an error there.
I hope that the President will make a decision on this at the vote.
When we are able to go further with public access, it is important for us in future to obtain more precise rules for all institutions, in which deviations from the principle of openness are as precise as possible and as small as possible.
Mr President, I should like to welcome the Ombudsman to the House.
I also welcome the Commissioner.
She has been a very active force in bringing forward some of the proposals that are being discussed here today.
At the outset I would like to point out to Members that my report deals with changes within the Rules to accommodate the operation of the Ombudsman and so on.
In that connection I should like to thank the secretariat of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities for its assistance in drawing up this report, which was a very trouble-ridden one when it first started off in the last Parliament.
It is essential for us, as a Parliament, to guarantee the independence of the office of the Ombudsman.
In one sense, while we in Parliament are the representatives of the European citizens and while the Commission and the Council have their own distinct roles, the Ombudsman is the person who can interact between all those different institutions in a neutral and unbiased way; who can make comments and decisions that are either favourable or unfavourable, on the basis of the rights of citizens and in support of those rights.
Therefore it is essential for us, as a Parliament, to have our Rules altered to guarantee that independence and also to show the link between Parliament - through its committees - and the Ombudsman.
From that point of view the Ombudsman and Parliament are the two central points of access for European citizens: because we are elected and because the Ombudsman is there to protect their rights if there is any maladministration or wrongdoing in the operation of the European institutions.
Originally in our own Rules of Procedure we had Rule 161 in its original format, which could have been interpreted as not guaranteeing the independence of the Ombudsman, particularly on issues such as: when the Ombudsman was due to come before Parliament, whether he could be called before Parliament to make requests for information, and whether a committee of Parliament could bring him before the committee to make requests for information.
Under the Treaties the Ombudsman has the right to adopt his own implementing provisions and regulations.
That occurred on a provisional basis when the office was set up and became fully effective in January of this year when it became fully operational.
Unfortunately it is only now that we in Parliament are coming round to amending our Rules of Procedure to take account of those rules concerning the Ombudsman.
To that end we have made some changes to Rule 161.
It is important that Members should realise that our own Rules of Procedure are our guiding light with regard to the operation of this Parliament.
I know a lot of Members find them very technical, very boring and indeed at times pedantic.
But the reason that we have rules is to ensure the proper operation of Parliament and also the proper structure of relationships between Parliament and other institutions.
It is for this reason that changes are being made in Rule 161.
The biggest change that is being made within the Rules is to ensure that the Ombudsman has the initiative with regard to informing Parliament and Parliament's committee.
The one obligation required of the office of the Ombudsman is that an annual report must be submitted.
That annual report allows for debate to take place in this Parliament, which is what we are having at the moment.
Apart from this, Parliament guarantees the Ombudsman its cooperation, whether through access to documents, through giving information or through the Petitions Committee, guaranteeing that requests for information are followed up.
What we are doing here today in amending the Rules is first and foremost to guarantee the independence of the Ombudsman.
That is a very clear message which we can send from Parliament today to European citizens to show that, despite the changes in personnel within Parliament, despite the alterations in the Commission and despite a different Council presidency every six months, the one remaining certainty at all times is the office of Ombudsman: the final port of call for the protection of rights and fundamental freedoms and the guarantees of proper administration of all of the European institutions.
I commend this report to the House.
I would also like to thank the Committee on Petitions for their opinion, given by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, which is very supportive of my own position.
Mr President, Mr Brian Crowley is presenting us with a proposal to amend Rule 161 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, after a fruitful exchange of opinions and observations in which the Committee on Petitions participated fully and actively.
As a result of the good work carried out by Brian Crowley, we today have a completely satisfactory proposal for amendment which, in addition, is in line with the opinion already previously given by the European Parliament.
The rapporteur's proposal is categorical evidence of the complete independence of the European Ombudsman, and of the fact that the normal channel for the relationship between the Ombudsman and the European Parliament is the Committee on Petitions; a relationship which is clearly confirmed in the proposal for amendment which we must vote on.
Therefore, Mr President, while congratulating Mr Crowley, I would also call on the ladies and gentlemen here to vote in favour of the proposal to amend the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, Ombudsman, Madam Commissioner, what does the Maastricht Treaty mean when it requires the policies and decisions of the Union to be taken as closely to the people as possible? It means many things.
And one of these things is certainly the theme running through the Ombudsman's special report, that is access to EU documents for the citizens of the European Union.
It is my honour and my pleasure, Ombudsman, to thank you on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights not only for having taken an initiative which reflects the legal basis of your role, but also for having done the citizens of the European Union a great service in recognizing their rights.
In so doing you have admittedly also imposed an obligation upon the bodies and institutions of the European Union to review their practices.
For example, the Council must now ask itself whether it actually has the right to rule on what is and what is not legislation.
Parliament must also ask itself whether its rules of access have really developed in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
In this respect, this special report represents an important step towards the fulfilment of the new Article 191a which, although it only actually contains rules on access for the Council, Parliament and the Commission, in light of the new version of Article 2, second paragraph, must also be taken as a criterion for all bodies and institutions of the European Union.
I will conclude by extending a special word of thanks to Mrs Thors who has not only shed some light on the significance of the Södermann report, but through her work with the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has also given an example which is admittedly not always followed in this House.
Thank you very much, Mrs Thors.
Mr President, Ombudsman, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate the Ombudsman and Mr Newman, Mrs Thors and Mr Crowley for their excellent reports.
These discuss both the Ombudsman's annual report for 1997, the Ombudsman's Special Report on public access to documents, and an amendment to Parliament's internal Rules of Procedure applicable to the Ombudsman.
I have read all of these reports with great interest.
It is, after all, through the Ombudsman that citizens of the EU have been given the chance to know how our administration works.
In the Ombudsman's annual report for 1997, just as in 1996, most of the Ombudsman's inquiries relate to the Commission.
This is normal, bearing in mind that the Commission is the institution that makes most of the decisions that directly concern the citizens.
In Mr Newman's report on the Ombudsman's annual report there are four main questions that I would like to comment on briefly.
Firstly, like Mr Newman, I welcome the fact that the meaning of the term 'maladministration' has now clearly been defined.
This clarifies the Ombudsman's mandate. It also facilitates our work and that of the Ombudsman in identifying how we are to combat this maladministration.
The second question concerns the importance of the citizens receiving information on their right to submit petitions to the Ombudsman.
I share the opinion that we in the EU institutions must continue this information work.
The information must also be improved with regard to the right to submit petitions to Parliament's Committee on Petitions.
The third point concerns the Ombudsman's efforts to improve the procedure for proceedings pursuant to Article 169 on the infringement of Community legislation by Member States.
It is a question of increasing the confidence of the citizens in this procedure.
The Commission itself has undertaken to inform the complainant when we intend to leave a complaint without action.
We are also going to communicate the Commission's grounds for deciding that no infringement of Community law has taken place.
Finally, Mr Newman takes up the question of the drawing up of a code of conduct for the administrations in the Union's institutions and bodies.
Parliament took up this matter in connection with the Perry report on petitions to the Committee on Petitions in 1996-1997.
The matter has also been taken up by the Ombudsman himself.
We in the Commission support this proposal and have produced an initial draft for such a code of conduct.
This has been sent to the Ombudsman who has given us many constructive comments.
At the moment, we are working with a new proposal and revising it with broad internal agreement.
I am convinced that such a code of conduct will lead to us improving our administrative practices, and that we can improve relations between the Commission's services and the citizens.
During 1997, the Ombudsman also presented a Special Report on the opportunities the public should have to access documents.
The report is also discussed in Mrs Thors' report.
The Commission supports the view of the report that access to documents is an important element if we want to create increased openness in the Union.
It is also a fundamental requirement for citizens to be able to participate in the public debate.
Increased openness will enable us to contribute towards an improved decision procedure, and thereby also to citizens having greater confidence in the Union's institutions.
If we wish to prevent power abuse and corruption, openness is a good means of doing so.
Like the Ombudsman, therefore, I welcome the fact that the EU's institutions and bodies are on the way towards implementing rules for public access to documents.
I concur also with Mrs Thors' demand that every refusal to issue documents be explained with reference to why an exception is being made.
The question of access to documents is also closely linked to the existence of a properly-functioning register of documents in the institutions.
I consider this to be a very important instrument, both for our daily work and to bring about increased openness.
Mrs Thors also proposes in her report that there should be specific persons to whom the general public can turn with their inquiries.
For your information, I can tell you that the Commission has appointed such contact persons in all the DirectoratesGeneral.
In addition, there is a unit in the General Secretariat which will have central responsibility for questions of openness and for responding to what access to documents is available.
Finally, I would like to welcome Mr Crowley's report on an amendment to Rule 161 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
These amendments will further improve the Committee on Petitions' already good relations with the Ombudsman.
Mr President, it has been established in the Amsterdam Treaty that openness in the decision-making process shall be one of the Union's fundamental principles.
The Commission has already begun to prepare the proposal that the Council and the European Parliament will discuss regarding the right of access to documents in all three of the institutions.
We hope that there will be an initial working document as early as the autumn.
To conclude, I would like to thank Ombudsman Söderman for the good working relationship that we in the Commission have with him.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, Ombudsman, I am happy that we can discuss the excellent reports by the European Ombudsman, and by Mr Newman and Mrs Thors, at peak listening time, as we say, because the matter fully deserves it.
We are dealing with the rights of the citizens in terms of the administration and the transparency of that administration.
Mr President, the difficulty of the role of Ombudsman derives from the fact that he had and still has to create, now and in the years to come, a whole set of rules and procedures.
He must put in place a theoretical and practical procedure for dealing with complaints.
I can say, having followed this matter, that Mr Söderman has applied himself to the problem with a great deal of energy and in a spirit of continuity, and I would like to congratulate him on behalf of the Socialist Group.
In particular, Mr Söderman has specified the notion of maladministration, which was contained, but not defined, in the Treaty.
The Ombudsman's efforts to clarify the concept are on the right track and should specify the respective duties of the Committee on Petitions and of the Ombudsman.
These two are not rivals but should complement one another.
They are both instruments of a parliamentary democracy to monitor administration.
In this respect, it is essential that Parliament itself lays down clear procedures to deal with the Ombudsman's reports.
Publicity is an efficient tool for combatting excess bureaucracy.
It is useful, therefore, to give the Ombudsman parliamentary rules on the use of this tool, in the course of this part-session, and I can say that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities is getting on with this.
However, the specific cases described in the Ombudsman's report, which are fascinating to read, show clearly that the work on complaints also makes it possible to objectify the debate.
Too often, citizens who are refused a request accuse the national or European administration of discrimination, and, in this respect, I think that the research carried out by the Ombudsman has a pedagogical value since it can be used to help our citizens have a better understanding of how the Community works.
However, if we consider that in 1997, 1 181 new complaints were received from a population of 370 million, we believe that there is a long way to go, all the more so because only 27 % of complaints received fell within the mandate of the Ombudsman.
I would also like to comment on the special report on access to documents.
It is an essential principle of transparency, reinforced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, and at the request of the Ombudsman all the institutions are called upon to adopt rules in this area.
The European Parliament did it in 1997, but, to my mind, Mr President, these rules are very restrictive, very formalistic, and above all they have not been the subject of any democratic debate within this institution.
I share the view of all those, including Mrs Thors, who deplore that a decision by Parliament in this context is in fact a decision by the Bureau, which is not empowered to do this, and, to see whether these rules are truly solid, I am waiting for the first case to be referred to the Court of Justice when, for example, a citizen is refused access to documents concerning Parliament's property policy.
To conclude, Mr President, I would like to express one regret.
Seventeen citizen's complaints have been submitted by Members of the European Parliament.
This is a low number and it proves that we MEPs have to make a personal effort on the ground in order to enlighten our European citizens as to their right to call upon the Ombudsman.
Mr President, Ombudsman, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the PPE Group I want to take a moment to consider the Newman report. First of all, I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Newman, on his report.
Secondly, and more specifically, concerning the work of the European Ombudsman, I want to express the special appreciation of the PPE Group for the work that the Ombudsman and his team have done and for the annual report for 1997. The 1997 annual report has a remarkably clear structure and focuses, among other things, especially on elements that are indeed of great importance.
Apart from that, Mr Fayot has alluded to the great concern for the judicial context within which the European Ombudsman must function. What is the mandate of the Ombudsman as laid down in the Treaty?
How does one define the concept of maladministration?
And, inversely, how does one set down rules for proper administration? I believe that these are elements which were requested by our group in 1996, and we are pleased about the work which has been done on this matter in the current annual report.
We would also like to congratulate the European Ombudsman and his assistants on the openness and rapidity with which they have accounted for their activities, both to the Union and directly to the citizens and the associations in the Member States.
I believe that this is a good example for other European institutions, also concerning the use of new communication technologies.
There are many interesting figures in the annual report, but I will take a moment to reflect on only two of them.
Firstly, only 27 % of the complaints fall within the mandate of the European Ombudsman, 27 % of the complaints lodged, of which approximately two-thirds were declared admissible.
This concerns more than 1 000 new complaints.
Ultimately there are only a very limited number which fall within the activity mandate of the European Ombudsman.
Secondly, only 3 % of all admissible complaints have led to criticism from the Ombudsman or to a settlement with the institution concerned.
Our group draws three conclusions from this.
Firstly, the citizen has too little knowledge about the specific mandate of the Ombudsman and the role of the Commission in Parliamentary petitions.
Secondly, the Commission, Parliament and the European Ombudsman all have a joint responsibility for communication, but also, specifically with regard to the Parliament, for providing greater financial means.
Thirdly, we know that citizens have many questions regarding the institutions. There is a need for the European Parliament to approach them more positively.
Mr President, I have a question for you.
We have thousands of visitors here every week.
Why do we not provide the visitors with a booklet or brochure about the task of the European Ombudsman and what the Parliament does in this matter?
Mr President, there are two reasons why the post of European Ombudsman is important.
Firstly, the right to consult the Ombudsman is one of the European civil rights which applies to all natural and legal persons who reside legally in the European Union.
This means that this right is a political right and represents a political project.
Secondly, the high number of complaints shows how essential this function is and that certainly not everything in the European institutions runs smoothly.
Allow me to briefly refer to the conclusions of my report 'Citizenship of the Union' in connection with the operation of the European Ombudsman.
Firstly, it is of essential importance that the citizen becomes better informed about the role of the Ombudsman.
It is especially the task of Parliament to make sure that the citizen knows his or her European rights and knows how, where and when he or she can exercise these rights.
Secondly, the institutions must learn from the dossiers about them which have ended up with the Ombudsman.
The complaints submitted give a good picture of what is happening with the citizen and what the citizen finds wrong in European administration.
Every institution must therefore adjust its mode of operation to come as close as possible to the citizen.
Thirdly, the activities of the Ombudsman can be improved by establishing national agencies in the Member States.
This would strengthen the role of the Ombudsman and these agencies could serve to refer matters which the Ombudsman services in the Member States are authorized to deal with, and vice versa.
In short, we, as the European Parliament, must ensure that the Ombudsman also contributes to the process of bringing Europe closer to the citizen.
We have complete faith that the present Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, will do this.
Mr President, first I wish to congratulate all three rapporteurs on their excellent work.
Above all, I would like to express my thanks to the Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, for the splendidly energetic work he has done in the name of greater transparency, public access and EU credibility.
His contribution has been a major one and, during his short term of office, it may already be said that the institution of Ombudsman has established its position in the European Union.
It is also important that he should have produced the first special report on public access to documents.
I am in full agreement with the conclusions Mrs Thors expressed in her own report.
Unfortunately, working towards greater transparency often still leaves a bad taste in the mouths of those in some institutions, although I believe that we are making headway in this matter.
Another important point is that the Ombudsman has produced a definition of maladministration.
But it is by no means enough that we know what maladministration is.
We have to have rules of procedure for good administrative practice, as the Ombudsman has proposed.
I also hope that this Parliament sees to the matter of extra staff so that the Ombudsman gets the added resources needed, which is a vital matter.
Mr President, when we investigate exactly which agencies are at present involved in creating transparency for the European Union, it is with gratitude that we cite the fundamental work of the Ombudsman.
For this the Green Group wishes to thank him warmly.
As a result of this work, nearly all Union institutions have regulations that have to be observed whenever the general public wishes to receive documentation from them.
Now it is up to the public to examine and see how well these regulations serve them, and, if necessary, to use the machinery available to appeal decisions that deny them access to documents.
Through his work and findings, the Ombudsman has also obliged the Council and the Commission to justify more precisely why the institutions have not surrendered documentation to the public. And the Council cannot hide away, for citizens must have the general right of access to documents from the institutions of the European Union.
There is, however, still a long way to go before we reach a stage where the refusal to release documents is totally justified and a rare exception.
That is why it is important that the European Parliament bear the responsibility in the drafting of a regulation on transparency.
It was gratifying to hear the Commissioner say that a working document on this matter might appear in the autumn.
The provisions must affect all the institutions, just as Astrid Thors said in her report, because good administrative practice must be observed.
It is very important that exceptions to making documents accessible to the public are strictly limited.
Rather too often such notions as general security and international relations are used as justification for denying access to documents.
Our group hopes that the Ombudsman might help to define these notions more exactly.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the Ombudsman on this second annual report, which sheds new light on the work which he carries out at the service of European citizens, now that the various services and infrastructures have become operational and links have been established between Member States and their national Ombudsmen.
The Ombudsman's services have been able to deal with the 1 200 complaints which they have received; this is proof that this institution is beginning to be known but probably still not to a sufficient degree.
So I share the point of view expressed by Mr Newman in his excellent report.
Independently of the complaints being referred, the initiatives taken by the Ombudsman are therefore very welcome, particularly as regards the definition of this notion of maladministration, which is not always easy to grasp.
Thus, it should be possible to make a clearer distinction between the responsibility of the Committee on Petitions and that of the Ombudsman.
It is obvious that this relies on closer cooperation between the two institutions and thus supposes that the two bodies have the means - and this includes budgetary means - for their respective tasks.
In this respect, you know, Ombudsman, that my group will support your requests in this matter.
Finally, it is also necessary to provide the citizens with quality information, particularly thanks to new methods of communication such as the Internet; this is for reasons of the transparency to which all European citizens are entitled.
Mr President, all three reports which have been submitted are, like the three preceding reports, full of good intentions.
We must acknowledge that Mr Crowley's report responds to a clear wish for legal clarification of the texts, of our Assembly's Rules of Procedure on the one hand, and the Statute of the European Ombudsman on the other.
It does so to the advantage of the latter, outlining for each their prerogatives and obligations, which is one measure amongst others of good operation.
On the other hand, the Newman report on the Ombudsman's report returns to the need for cooperation between the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman.
How many times have we made this complaint? And yet, on reading the report one is tempted to conclude that either nothing at all is being done in this area or the Ombudsman is happy to present to us, on principle, declarations of intention which he himself knows carry no weight.
But here again, if there is to be fruitful collaboration, we need partnerships which work well.
On all sides, in fact, the accumulated delay is considerable.
There are 959 petitions waiting before Parliament and 227 referrals by the Ombudsman, carried forward one year to the next.
The Court of Justice has itself pointed out that the Community institutions must, and I quote "ensure the internal operation in the interests of good administration' .
As regards Mrs Thors' report, Mr President, it echoes the Ombudsman's special report which requests greater access for the public to the documents of the Community institutions
We can only underwrite this complaint.
In fact, the construction of Europe has always been too far away, or even voluntarily hidden from view, for us not to laud this proposal.
But Mrs Thors also underlines, in her explanatory statement, that transparency is not the only necessary reform and that other structural reforms must be put in place in all the Community institutions in order to improve efficiency and clarity.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mr Söderman on his excellent report, and also the rapporteurs who have given their views on the Ombudsman's annual report and the transparency of the report.
I am delighted that it has been possible for us to discuss these reports this morning in conjunction with the reports on the Rules of Procedure and the annual report on the work of the Committee on Petitions.
These subjects belong together since the Committee on Petitions is not only responsible for cooperation with the Ombudsman; we see again and again that the work of each complements the other, and in the course of the last year we have been able to build up a solid basis of trust between the members of the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman, Mr Söderman, which we can use to the benefit of the citizens of Europe.
Mr Söderman's reports demonstrate both that complaints about the institutions are justified and that solutions to the problems are possible.
In relation to the initiatives concerning the transparency of the institutions, I can only urge the utmost caution.
Quite unilaterally, Mr Söderman grasped the nettle and was successful.
Precisely because the image of bureaucracy is inherent in the institutions of Europe, it is good and helpful for the citizens of Europe to know that there is an office which is bringing light into the darkness of bureaucracy and thereby opening up ways of presenting their complaints successfully.
But even the Ombudsman is bound in his work by the restrictions of the Treaty, and many complaints relate to maladministration, not in European, but in national institutions.
The second limit is the staff resources of the office and with the increase in the number of complaints and our policy of closeness to the citizen, we support the demand that the staff of the office be reinforced so that everything can be dealt with.
Mr President, in general terms, we agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Thors, in supporting the initiative of the Ombudsman to obtain greater transparency as regards all Community activities and to urge all of the institutions to provide information related to their field of activity to the citizens or legal persons who reside or have their home in any Member State and who ask for such information.
This is necessary because we must emphasize that it strengthens the democratic nature of these institutions, and it is appropriate to encourage, in particular, the Commission and the Council to progress towards this aim.
Perhaps this is the time to recall that positive indications are already being given in that direction.
For example, the Court of First Instance of the European Communities has just judged that a Council decision refusing access to certain documents must be overruled, since the reasons for the refusal were not clearly justified.
The documents had been requested by the Swedish journalists' association; it only received from the Council four of the 20 documents required, yet it had been able to get 18 of the 20 documents through the Swedish authorities.
Another indication is that the European Court of Justice has just given a ruling for the first time on the directive on the freedom of access to information concerning the environment.
Given all of this, we agree with this report and, naturally, agree that access should be allowed to documents within the rules of the game involved.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, we support this report and we congratulate both the rapporteur and the Ombudsman.
Mr President, I was extremely pleased to hear the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities share the opinion put forward in the report on access to documents, namely that it is wrong for the Bureau to have adopted the rules on our own openness, and that they contain shortcomings.
I hope that, together with several committees, we can get this corrected quickly, as it is a disgrace to Parliament.
I am also pleased that the Commissioner has said that the Commission is prepared to adopt the system of having a register of documents.
What is lacking, however, is a response as to whether incoming documents will also be registered there.
Furthermore, I would like to say that our group cannot support recital G of the report. It emphasizes confidentiality, which conflicts with the whole report.
The ELDR Group will also vote against paragraph 22, which is quite simply incorrect.
Mr President, it is evident that with his work the Ombudsman has already played an extremely positive role in working towards increased openness within the EU.
I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation of Mr Söderman's work.
The demands Mrs Thors is making on future rules on openness in the report are good, but I would like to draw attention to two points that I think are lacking.
The first concerns the fact that there are several important cases in the Court of Justice, such as the Guardian case and the journalists' case, which have given greater importance to openness.
The court process also has several weaknesses.
It costs a lot of money to go to court and the proceedings take a very long time.
A way of making an appeal which is quick and costs nothing must be introduced in the new rules.
Secondly, the rights of EU employees to speak to the mass media ought to be strengthened by introducing freedom of communication.
Consequently, I will also be voting against recital G of the report.
Mr President, I believe it is not by chance that today, all day, we have been discussing, firstly the issue of petitions and now the issue of the Ombudsman.
I consider this association to be especially felicitous, because I believe that the citizen's right to submit a petition to the European Parliament and the right to lodge a complaint to the European Ombudsman are two basic rights which are fundamental for the European Union.
They are of course parallel, complementary functions.
They are of course distinctive functions which, in contradistinction, highlight the independence of the European Ombudsman.
However, the right to make a complaint, as well as the right to submit a petition, is an opportunity, a practical test, a continuous sounding instrument in some way of the operation of the European Union: direct, with the citizen, with the active participation of the citizen.
It is therefore an invaluable political tool, a component in the progress of the European Union.
A year ago exactly, as rapporteur for the annual report of the Ombudsman, I had the honour of presenting the views of the Committee on Petitions.
What I wish to say is that, today, I have the great satisfaction of personally welcoming the tremendous progress that has been made since last year.
This year's report by the Ombudsman truly promotes, reinforces and advances the institution of European Ombudsman.
Mr Newman, our experienced rapporteur from the Committee on Petitions, has analysed the report and also the work of the Ombudsman.
I wish to say briefly that I think the European Parliament has made a good choice and the European Union has a worthy representative in the European Ombudsman, because really and truly Mr Söderman has constructed and is still trying tirelessly to construct this invaluable instrument.
I therefore thank and congratulate the European Ombudsman.
It was said previously that each year we repeat ourselves in this debate on petitions and complaints.
However, this year is no ordinary year.
We have some breathing space before the next elections, therefore it is necessary today to send a strong message to the people concerning their participation in the developments of the European Union.
Madam President, I would like to join the chorus of praise for our Ombudsman.
He has done a splendid job and it has rightly been recognised by Parliament.
His job has, in many ways, brought the citizens of Europe closer to us, an aspiration we continually speak about here in Parliament.
He has also, for many countries who do not have a tradition of Ombudsman, brought the role closer and explained it to the people - which was very important.
In his first report he pointed out how many people had petitioned, and which petitions were not admissible.
As I pointed out when I spoke earlier in this debate, he has also promptly responded to those who have petitioned Parliament.
This is very important because many people, when they write, feel that their letters disappear into some bottomless pit and nobody ever finds them again.
So that is terribly important.
I should just like to take this opportunity, while expressing my appreciation of our Ombudsman's work, to raise also the issue of the need for a special children's Ombudsman in Europe.
My work in the area of children and children's rights clearly indicates that this is an important and very vital extension of the role Mr Söderman has been fulfilling so splendidly.
I hope that in the next Parliament we will address that issue and decide on the appointment of a special Ombudsman for children.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place during the next voting time, which is about to begin.
Madam President, the Spanish Interior Minister has stated that the assassinations in the Basque country of democratically elected representatives "are unacceptable for the entire European Union because they constitute an attack on the very essence of democracy' .
And since this is the home of democracy in Europe and also the most visible expression of the peace and liberty which the large majority of Europeans enjoy, I would call on you, Madam President, to welcome a group of Basque local councillors whose lives are threatened due to their beliefs and who are here to attend our debates today.
Mr Galeote Quecedo, I welcome our visitors most warmly, and I would like to say that I fully support your suggestions, and the words of welcome which you have just expressed.
(Applause)
Votes
I would just like to add to the Minutes that there is a small problem with the German, Spanish and French translations, which do not make clear that petitions must continue to be in writing, and thus may not be submitted by telephone.
My report is, of course, not affected by this.
I would just like this to be recorded in the Minutes before the vote.
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, before we vote on paragraphs 10, 11 and 12, I think I should give you the following information.
These three points together represent a compromise from the Committee on Institutional Affairs. The original text was much more strongly against having closer cooperation with majority voting, whilst at the same time giving any Member State not in agreement the opportunity of exercising a veto against this closer cooperation.
This compromise therefore also includes paragraph 12 which calls upon the Commission to include, in its work on the revision of the Amsterdam Treaty, a paragraph which once again does away with this national veto.
This compromise was accepted with a large majority and I would advise Parliament to adhere to this compromise, not least because the European Parliament has always spoken strongly in favour of replacing the principle of unanimity, except in constitutional matters, by qualified majority voting.
I considered it a mistake once again not to do away with the national veto on a concrete point where a majority vote is concerned, and am therefore asking you to adhere to the compromise.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I voted against the Evans report because I believe that it was a very bad decision on the part of Parliament.
We demand the recognition of minority rights and regional languages at all levels.
We demand it at Council level, as we did in the Maij-Weggen/Dury report.
We demand it from associated states, but we do not demand it of ourselves.
In our Rules of Procedure we have failed to draw the obvious conclusions of what we demand of others.
The Evans report is poor because, on one hand, it fails to distinguish between our recognized regional languages and other languages. Secondly, I do not quite understand the point of the summarised translation for it can only mean that the petition is not read in the original language.
And if it is not read then there is no point in giving anyone the right to submit it.
I have the feeling that this is an attempt to mislead us and I should therefore like to make it quite clear that I believe we should stick to our official languages, but that between the official languages and all the other languages we also have the regional languages which we must secure and protect.
I voted in favour of the amendment of the Rules of Procedure proposed by the committee, in accordance with which petitions will be admitted even if they are drawn up in a language other than an official language of the European Union. To be considered, a translation or summary in one of the official languages will be included, to be used as the language for subsequent procedures, including the correspondence from the institution to the petitioner.
As I was able to point out in my speech during the debate, this amendment precisely respects the very essence of the right of petition, which is, by its very nature, an individual right that the Treaty grants to every man or woman among us, without allowing any discrimination and, in particular, without making any distinctions between citizens and non-citizens.
The complementary - and therefore ancillary - rule is a procedural one which, irrespective of other considerations, respects the Treaties: in general, the procedure in a European institution must be carried out in one of the official languages.
The amendments tabled and rejected which discriminate, on behalf people's rights, against some people and not against others in terms of drawing up a petition - because their language of use does not have territorial recognition - are, in the last analysis, contrary to the very essence of the right of petition.
I am happy to back this report which seeks to make the petition system in the European Parliament more accessible to our citizens.
My Labour colleague Mr Evans's report puts forward a welcome reform to allow people who may be more comfortable using a non-EU language to use their mother tongue when sending us a petition.
Of course for administrative reasons we would still need a summary in an official EU language to enable the petition to proceed.
Since we recognize minority EU languages as valid when they originate in Member States, there is no reason why for example Urdu or Hindi should not also be recognized.
EU citizens who belong to ethnic minorities often face problems of racism which the majority of us need to be aware of so that they can be tackled.
Anything which makes it easier for such problems to be raised is to be supported - which is why nonEU languages should be as valid for use in citizens' petitions here as any other.
Hautala report (A4-0253/98)
Madam President, it is most regrettable to find that neither in the original text of the Hautala report, nor in the amendments, is it specified that these vehicles only concern transport over a fixed distance.
Like with the rapporteur, we are anxious to prevent animals suffering stress, cold, heat, shocks, etcetera, and we would have voted in favour of most of the amendments as well as the text as a whole, if only the authors had given some consideration to the small livestock farmers who might take just two or three animals to market in a neighbouring village, small farmers who obviously do not have access to an air-conditioned vehicle, nor - most particularly - adequate financial means for such an investment.
In the absence of any such specifications, it is once again the small farmers who are penalised, perhaps even put out of work altogether, and we simply cannot accept this.
We are choosing to vote against certain proposals from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, as they constitute unnecessary detailed regulation and, to a certain extent, contravene the principle of subsidiarity.
We assume that the Commission's technical experts have carried out a correct assessment of the requirements of proper animal transportation, but it is our hope that the Member States will provide supplementary rules taking local conditions into consideration with the aim of maximising the welfare of the animals.
The transport of animals within the EU covers a very large number of animals.
Every year around 14 million cattle, pigs, horses and sheep, etcetera, are transported between the Member States.
Most of these go to slaughter and some are exported, while at the same time the EU also imports a lot of animals, around 2.3 million.
In recent years we have again and again seen pictures showing the cruel and shameful way in which this transportation takes place.
The Commission's proposal for improvements to current directives on the design of the motor vehicles and trailers which are used is a good starting point, but is not sufficient.
We therefore support the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, in her report which aims to improve the Commission's proposal with toughened requirements.
These include the design of the loading ramps and how the ventilation in the trailers could be improved.
The amendment that there should be regular inspections of vehicles to ensure that they fulfil the requirements is of the utmost importance, otherwise there is no point to the directive.
This is a step in the right direction in order to go some way towards eliminating the odious transportation of animals which currently exists in the EU.
The Commission's proposal on common rules for motor vehicles and trailers used for the transportation of animals across land will be considerably improved by Mrs Hautala's excellent report which contains proposals for less steep loading ramps, electrical lifting devices, better ventilation and temperature and continuous monitoring.
That is good.
With this in mind, I have voted in favour of the report. However, the key issue must be to reduce the overall volume of animal transportation.
The best way to do this is to offer no support for the transportation of animals within the EU.
I have also backed this in votes in connection with the budget, among other things.
The concern for the safety of farm animals in transportation procedures is supported, but with reservations as to the success of the Commission's proposals.
As plans will affect 14 million animals, regard must also be given to their owners, who will be paying for any changes in transportation specifications.
There are three main issues of concern which should be evaluated further before full support is given.
First, incline for loading ramps should not exceed 20º according to the Scientific Veterinary Committee (1992).
This report allows for an increase of this number by an additional 5º.
Secondly, cavity implementations on 'light' metal walls have two potential problems.
They could lead to increased bacteria levels if punctured and would increase costs for transporters.
This seems to be a less effective measure than possible alternatives if the issue of disinfecting the transport area becomes yet another problem (ECOSOC opinion Dec.
1997, ref: CES 1378/97).
Thirdly, changes in roof structure and their purpose of protection from temperature variation and weather conditions are already in place with ventilation control systems.
With these obvious problems of changing veterinary suggestions for safety and increase in cost for the transporter, full support cannot be given to this report.
It should be considered whether such changes would significantly raise livestock safety or just cost of their transport.
We should consider if plans for safety are better implemented in other ways.
We are aware that the topic of animal transport is a very important one, and that efforts must be made in this field in order to reach political goals and solutions.
The citizens of Europe attach great importance to animal protection.
Studies which show that animals for slaughter are exposed to particular stress during transport and loading/unloading must therefore be taken very seriously and discussed at a political level.
Political guidelines are one thing, the partial implementation and technical execution of these principles quite another.
Just recently, in relation to the draft directive on bus design, we have on numerous occasions discussed new approaches to technical legislation - both in the Committee on Economic Affairs and here in Parliament.
This report gives us another opportunity to consider the advantages of this "new approach' .
This procedure enables us to proceed and to make decisions in accordance with the planned allocation of roles.
As the representative body of the citizens of Europe, it is the role of the European Parliament to prevent concerns and anxieties from arising and to develop basic political concepts designed to guarantee the proper health and safety of people and animals.
The technical experts, the practicians, who work in this field every day, are on the other hand responsible for implementing these concepts on the basis of the political guidelines.
This process should also include provision for hearing and involving representatives of any relevant interest groups - manufacturers, consumers and other interested parties.
In this way we can ensure that rather than passing abstract legislation which is remote from practical issues and excessive, we promote streamlined, efficient and modern regulations and thereby finally help to complete the single market.
Overall, our group supports, on principle, measures which favour the well-being of animals.
However, it is quite legitimate to wonder about the validity of imposing uniform standards as regards the construction of vehicles intended for animal transportation, independently of their conditions of use and their operational character.
In fact, why impose the installation of an air conditioning system for the transport of animals in Finland or Sweden? Why lay down identical standards for animal transportation which apply to both short distance and long distance transport?
These are some of the questions which we really have to ask.
What is the main purpose here? The desire to standardize everything or the useful and functional nature of the legislation?
And there is another question: how can we apply European laws to the import of live animals from third countries? Unless we want to impose penalties on ourselves, it is essential that we apply our own provisions to all imported products, from the very start of the production chain, and not only from the time these products cross the frontiers of the European Economic Area.
Rather than wishing to legislate purely at European level, we should try to define these rules worldwide, in the context of the international negotiations of the WTO.
We shall be paying careful attention to this point, and many others, in order to see how the Commission does or does not defend European interests, particularly in terms of the reciprocity of legislative provisions.
Finally, we must be careful not to impose unacceptable charges on our farmers and, in this specific case, on our livestock farmers, even if the honourable reason is to ensure maximum welfare of animals.
We are at the dawn of a reform of several COMs and the Commission's proposals for regulations worry us a great deal.
In fact, if they are adopted, they will bring about a significant reduction in farmers' income.
If, in addition to these proposals, other Commission services impose draconian standards in all sectors, then the Commission will be penalising and discouraging the whole of the agricultural sector, as well as the whole of rural life.
Mr President, although I welcome the fact that British regulations already meet the standards of vehicle design as set out in this report for the transport of animals, this is one case where I would like all of Europe to be required to meet centralised EU-level rules, for the sake of the 14 million animals carried on European roads each year.
If they could vote, I am sure these animals would choose to travel in lorries or trailers with proper ventilation, adequate room per animal, decent lighting and sufficient loading/unloading facilities.
In particular, the last aspect needs to have proper minimum standards, since the experts - and common sense - suggest that loading and unloading of animals into and from vehicles is an especially stressful time.
I also share the rapporteur's view that more needs to be done to ensure monitoring of ventilation and proper inspection of vehicles to see that they do in fact meet the letter and spirit of EU rules.
I hope that many countries will choose, as we have done in Britain, to go further than EU rules demand, but we need decent minimum standards of animal transport for the whole EU.
It is said that a society can be judged by how it treats its weakest members.
Some of Europe's weakest inhabitants are its animals, on which we depend for food, so the least we can do for them is to transport them in civilised conditions.
The rapporteur has produced several very good proposals for amendments to the Commission's draft directive.
However, I would like to raise an objection that I usually take up when discussing similar reports.
I ask myself whether this Parliament should concern itself with such technical matters.
Is this Parliament competent to reach detailed decisions on the internal height of each deck in order to determine the exact size in millimetres for the transport of piglets or lambs etcetera?
This Parliament should instead set up frameworks and objectives such as, for example, that the transportation of animals shall take place in the best possible way for the animals.
Civil servants can then determine the means to achieve these objectives drawn up by politicians.
Rothley report (A4-0267/98)
I am delighted that Mr Rothley's report has been adopted at first reading.
The proposed directive sets up the principle of direct action by the victim against the insurers of the person who caused the accident. It obliges the insurer to propose compensation within a specified period and imposes a financial penalty.
These various measures, which are necessary, will improve the situation of the victims of road accidents throughout the European Union.
Extension of the scope of the directive to non-Member States of the Union raises difficult questions.
I am not certain that the directive is the proper instrument for this purpose.
No doubt we shall have to return to this problem at second reading.
The report presented by Mr Rothley is the kind of report which it is a pleasure to vote for.
First of all, it is a true institutional "first' .
It is the first time in fact that we have been called upon to vote on a proposal for a directive based on the power of initiative accorded to the European Parliament by Article 138B of the Treaty.
Secondly, it is a proposal for a directive which, once implemented, will bring practical and efficient help to a large number of European citizens.
In fact, the number of European citizens involved in road accidents outside their country of residence is estimated to be approximately 500 000 per annum.
The rapporteur notes, in this connection, that it costs at least fifteen times more to settle an accident abroad than it does in one's country of residence, and that it generally takes up to eight years!
This is enough to show that the initiative is both necessary and urgent.
The mechanism proposed by the Commission and amended by our Parliament comprises four essential, simple and practical measures to be set up in each Member State:
1.granting the victim a direct right of action; 2. appointment by the insurer of a claims representative; 3. setting up an information centre; 4. creation or approval of a body providing compensation for the deficiencies of a defaulting insurer.I hope that these measures can be applied as quickly as possible, and I hope that all the Union institutions will work towards this.
This Directive will greatly benefit people involved in traffic accidents whilst on holidays in other European countries.
Tens of thousands of Irish people travel to Britain and the continent by car every year.
If you are involved in an accident in France with a Dutch tourist, it can be extremely difficult to get compensation afterwards.
Aside from the personal injuries that may occur, there can be terrible problems with paperwork, different procedures and endless delays.
I am contacted on a regular basis by people whose holidays have been ruined as a result.
While this Directive will not solve all of their problems, it will mean that making a claim against someone in another country for an accident that took place in a third country will not be as difficult as it is at present.
I also welcome the fact that the Commission has followed through on the European Parliament's 1995 initiative highlighting this problem.
The Commission should retain the sole right to initiate legislation in order to ensure that EU legislation reflects the interests of all Member States.
But it is correct that Parliament should have the right to suggest legislation for problems that the Commission has missed and where a Europe-wide approach is the best solution.
I am happy to back this report today as I have had to take up several cases involving constituents of mine who have been faced with car insurance problems after suffering the stress of accidents whilst travelling in another EU country.
To make claims as easy and quick as they can be in such stressful conditions, I am backing this report's practical suggestions - for a system of direct claims, to the offending motorist's insurance company, for each insurance company to appoint a special representative in EU countries to help with speeding up claims and for new compensation bodies which could see more disputes settled outside court and thus save claimants time.
The image of motoring abroad in the EU can often be one of carefree summer holiday touring as put forward in television holiday programmes.
However, when accidents occur abroad in the real world we need an insurance system that works quickly across borders.
I hope that our suggestions are acted on by the industry and the Commission to help anyone unfortunate enough to suffer a motoring accident in other EU countries.
Whether a road accident abroad is a minor scratch on a car or a tragedy in which loved ones are hurt or lost, the stress should not be compounded or drawn out longer than necessary due to red tape in cross-border insurance claims.
Madam President, I am very pleased that we have finally been able to adopt a clear stance on matters in Kosovo with a very large majority.
Unfortunately, however, it has to be said that this is really something we should have done two or three years ago. Then we might really have been able to achieve an internationally guaranteed, far-reaching solution based on autonomy, just like the one we are calling for today.
For years we ignored Mr Rugova's peaceful line by doing nothing, and now it makes sense that the Kosovo Albanians should be trying to escape with their bare lives.
And that is exactly what is happening.
We have quite simply acted too late.
However, I am pleased that the Austrian presidency seems to represent a turning point in this matter.
Mr Schüssel was the first President of the Council to give a clear and forwardlooking message on Kosovo.
For years we have been pressing for an EU office in Pristina.
We were always told it was not possible.
Within a few days Mr Schüssel had set up a representative office and I am pleased that the image of Europe we are presenting in Kosovo at the present time is Mr Schüssel's image of Europe.
We have voted for the Greens' first amendment, which means that the UN must give the go-ahead for possible military action to prevent the genocide of the Albanian inhabitants of Kosovo.
The proposed text of the resolution is unclear on this point, and it is possible to interpret it as NATO/the WEU being able to act without a UN mandate.
For us, a UN mandate is necessary in order for any military action to be able to take place.
However, the main approach to the Kosovo problem must be peaceful international pressure and mediation to bring about a political solution to the conflict in Kosovo.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a resolution condemning the violation of basic human rights that is taking place in Kosovo, and the violent attacks that Serbian security forces, units from the Yugoslav army and paramilitary forces are carrying out against the population of Kosovo.
We do support one amendment emphasizing that a resolution by the UN Security Council would be needed prior to any military action.
Scarcely one month after the adoption of our last resolution on Kosovo, the European Parliament has voted a new resolution on this same subject. Is it really necessary?
The deterioration in the situation is of course very worrying but what real help can be provided by a redundant resolution which, to all intents and purposes, merely condemns yet again the crimes committed and their perpetrators? We must not confuse the issuing of moralising generalities with the adoption of a position or the actions of a foreign policy which has some real effect.
In addition we must be careful to avoid tripping up here.
We have heard very many irresponsible proposals in this place linking all progress towards peace with the recognition of independence of a so-called Kosovan nation.
To do this, to follow the direction initiated by the recognition of an independent Kosovo by the Tirana authorities, would be the best way to ensure that the present conflicts remain wholly inexpiable.
Let us not forget that, while Kosovo today comprises a population which is 90 % of Albanian origin, it is the historical and spiritual cradle of the Serbian nation, and that the first Albanian colonies were installed at the initiative of the Ottoman Empire.
The oppression of nations instigated by the communists must not be followed by a fury of dismembering and dismantling likely to result in the creation of artificial nations which would in the long run pose considerable problems.
This calls into question the statute of autonomy of Kosovo in 1989, which was the first destabilising element in the Yugoslav territories.
The contact group is working very hard to help re-establish this statute in the midst of the greatest difficulties, be it the violence of the Milosevic government's actions, or the anarchic state of the Kosovo Liberation Army, a group of resistance fighters who are not represented and are likely to be regarded as valid interlocutors.
The contact group, which brings together the active part of the European Union, is trying very hard to find the right mix of threats and positive incentives to avoid the conflict being stepped up and widened.
Alongside the contact group, and supporting its actions, the national diplomacies have an important role to play.
The OSCE, currently chaired by Poland, can also make an positive contribution and the proposals made by the Austrian Presidency, which follow the same line, can also be useful.
Fourçans report (A4-0263/98)
Madam President, the annual report of the European Monetary Institute, the last report by this institution before its transformation into the European Central Bank on 1 July, shows, as the rapporteur of our Assembly so nicely puts it, a certain bias towards generalization.
However, it does open, on the first page, with a photograph of the EMI Council in its entirety, which says more than the rest of it.
The photograph shows all the governors of the national central banks, nicely lined up, standing in the second row, whilst five people are comfortably seated in armchairs in the first row: the EMI President, who has become President of the ECB, Mr Duisenberg, as well as his Vice-President, which is quite normal, surrounded by the two female governors of the Central Bank, which is also understandable.
The fifth person is Mr Hans Tietmeyer, governor of the Bundesbank, who, to my knowledge, does not belong to either of the two preceding categories.
No doubt his presence is intended to illustrate Mr Duisenberg's famous remark, which I quote: "The euro speaks German and we are especially happy about this' .
We were expecting that, six months before the single currency enters into force, this EMI report would explain something about how we shall manage a unified monetary policy in an area which is economically, socially and politically heterogeneous.
For example, what criteria will be used to determine a single level of interest rates? How will we manage not to upset everyone at once, and above all, not to end up with economic results which are on the whole poorer than those which would have been achieved by policies finely tuned to each country's individual circumstances?
But the report remains totally mysterious on all these points, which are nevertheless vital, and very urgent at the stage that we have reached. However, this does not prevent it from proclaiming once more that it recognizes the need for the ESCB to ensure transparency of its objectives and the policies which it will pursue, so that the financial community and the public will understand and support its actions.
In contrast, the EMI report, either in the body of the text or in the foreword by its President, does not stint on the details concerning the policy to be conducted in this field, yes, the budgetary field.
Mr Duisenberg explains here, for purposes of simplification, that the reduction in public deficits must be accelerated if we do not wish to force the ECB to conduct a restrictive monetary policy.
Moreover, he did the same kind of thing at the time of the last Council meeting on the euro.
Of course, anything can happen but there are nevertheless limits to be respected, especially on the part of the man extraordinarily placed beyond any democratic control.
This report provides us with a necessary opportunity to think about the international monetary system.
As the rapporteur suggests, the EMI report is very vague.
At any rate, our international monetary system is fundamentally in trouble from the moment it is based on the dollar standard: this gives the United States the extraordinary privilege of issuing an international currency and thus of avoiding some of the monetary discipline imposed on other countries.
The introduction of the euro will not change anything in this inadequate system.
Moreover, the will to link the euro to the Deutschmark is likely to cause deflation in Europe and to endanger the level of employment in the less competitive European states.
In order to give each state control of its currency within the framework of a discipline which can be imposed on everyone, it is necessary to re-establish a gold standard or at least a gold exchange standard.
Thus, inflationary excesses could be combatted without conferring an unfair position of power on the United States as well as on a future European Central Bank.
The latter, as the rapporteur clearly recognizes in paragraph 13 of his report, will be indifferent to the situation of each Member State.
We are taking considerable risks by wishing to centralise currency issuing in a Europe which is in all other respects pluralistic and diverse in its economic characteristics.
In currency matters, it is often very dangerous to put our confidence in governments.
But placing undue confidence in a central bank is also very dangerous.
An automatic system based on gold, as was the case in Europe before 1914, would allow for greatly increased stability with a minimum of choice.
It is regrettable that this possibility was not seriously considered, because of the prejudice in favour of a supranational currency-issuing agency.
Once again, this ritual exercise shows its limitations, and I would like to support my colleague André Fourçans and the reservations expressed regarding certain aspects of the current relations between the Monetary Institute and the European Parliament.
It is, in fact, prejudicial that the tools and analyses supplied are not more detailed.
A more accurate control system for the European economy would enable everyone to have a proper view of this, and would help to back up our own discussions in a more constructive manner.
In this respect, it would be rather prejudicial for future relations between our Assembly and the European Central Bank to continue in the same way.
We have the right to expect more from such an institution.
I would add that, even quite recently, some of our colleagues expressed this same view during discussions on the ECB; commitments appear to have been made.
I dare to hope that they will be kept.
Moreover, if it is right to express some reservations as to the substance, it is also permissible to wonder about the politicoeconomic orientation underlying the drafting of this report.
If the independence of the Central Bank should not be called into question, I feel I should point out that exchanges between the European Parliament and the Bank imply that each should listen to the other.
In these difficult and disturbed times, no one can pretend to be certain of anything ... I will mention only the Asian crisis or the "forecasts' of our learned economists in their turn!
Yes, the politicians must take into account economists' analyses, but it also seems necessary to me that the latter should take account of our remarks in their discussions.
In all cases, the only ones who will have to explain themselves to the citizens are their elected representatives.
The report on the 1997 annual report of the European Monetary Institute is actually about the introduction of the euro in 1999.
From this perspective, and seen in the context of the Swedish debate on EMU, the report is quite 'revealing' on the question of what EMU is going to involve.
Among other things, it says:
that the single monetary policy will underpin a change in the economic policies of those Member States which have adopted the euro (recital A); -that it is nevertheless necessary to develop a genuine economic policy at European Union level through the more effective coordination and surveillance of the Member States' economic policies (recital G); -that gradual labour market reforms are needed (paragraph 5); -that it is regretted that the EMI has declined to address the general issue of the coordination of fiscal and taxation policies in the European Union, which will nonetheless be one of the major foreseeable consequences of the process of Economic and Monetary Union (paragraph 7).These examples from the report show plainly that the European Parliament obviously thinks that, in connection with the start of EMU in 1999, the EU will meddle in and begin to take over the economic policies of the Member States to a greater extent than today.
' Gradual labour market reforms' sounds fine, but usually means worse employment rules and increased wage gaps, which we cannot support.
Sweden is going to be outside the euro zone from the start in 1999.
We think that this decision is good because we think monetary policy should be conducted by the Member States and not by the EU.
However, there are, of course, a number of good demands in the report.
These include, amongst others, the demand for transparency in the current EMI and the subsequent ECB.
We do of course support these demands.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Fourçans report.
We agree with the rapporteur that the EMI has come a long way in preparing the instruments and procedures required for the implementation of the common monetary policy in the third stage.
We agree that there is a need for more public and private investment to stimulate internal demand, that the EMI's explanation of EMS II is insufficient, and that there is a lack of perspective for the states of central and eastern Europe and their associated membership of EMS II in connection with the strategy of accession.
However, we do have reservations about the rapporteur's view to the effect that it is necessary to put together actual monetary policy at Union level, but we are in favour of coordinating monetary policy between Member States, for example in promoting employment.
We do not fully agree with the view that it is regrettable that the annual report does not address the question of the integration of budgetary policy and policy on taxes and charges in the EU.
It is hardly the place of the EMI to demand integration of such policy in its annual report.
The annual report of the European Monetary Institute, the last one before its liquidation and the establishment of the European Central Bank, is shorter due to the elimination of a large chapter that until now had been the main part: the analysis of progress in convergence of the individual Member States.
This report, however, drafted at an important moment in the historic journey that has led to the euro, lacks a detailed analysis of the following points:
an in-depth study of progress in the process of harmonization of the individual European tax policies: the current distortions and differences in the individual national tax systems, if they are not identified and analysed by a group of independent experts, could thwart the efforts made to achieve Economic and Monetary Union, eliminating the advantages and potential opportunities that the single market can offer in terms of economic development and the gradual reduction of existing structural unemployment; -there is also no specific examination of the candidate countries seeking membership to determine their efforts in the area of economic, monetary and financial policy and to assess the real progress made in these policy areas.Finally, I consider it only right to emphasize the structural weakness of Italy's economy which, together with those of France and Germany, has been analysed in the report: this is an alarm bell that must be met with appropriate remedies in terms of horizontal European actions and the strategies of the individual national governments.
The problem of structural unemployment calls for rapid and targeted solutions: the Central Bank, although it has an important role to play in this area, may not, however, replace the international actions of renewal of individual job markets.
There therefore has to be an employment strategy that, taking into account the population trend in Europe, abandons rigid policies that create - perhaps in perfectly good faith - a sense of social protection that is only temporary and illusory, to adopt new forms of working relations, more flexible and in line with the needs of the market.
In spite of all these reasons and although I appreciate the rapporteur's commitment, on behalf of the National Alliance, I cast a vote of abstention on the report in question.
Manzella report (A4-0271/98)
Madam President, Mr Manzella is bringing us good news: acceleration and simplification of the legislative procedures in our Parliament.
Will the democratic deficit which prevails so blatantly in our European institutions be made good for all that? It would appear that the answer is no.
Doing things more quickly and more briefly will not affect the basic problem.
It will not lighten the crushing weight of the two large dominant groups in our Parliament.
This Parliament will always run the risk of reliving a socialist Presidency which seems to suffer from some kind of 'right' blindness, excluding almost systematically the nonattached Members of Parliament who are regarded as permanently out of the game.
It is most commendable to wish to increase contacts with national parliaments, but sometimes, as in Belgium, it is particularly so because we know that both the European and national elections in Belgium are ostensibly fixed, be it by subsidized media, taxpayers' money or dirty money from political and financial skulduggery.
So much for our work upstream of Parliament, and downstream, what point is there in legislating when Belgium once again refuses to be subject to directives which it does not like, such as the right for citizens of the European Union to vote in local elections.
"Maastricht' has extended our powers and our responsibilities.
The post- "Amsterdam' period will reform current procedures, which are too cumbersome, in order to move towards greater simplicity.
Daily, we think and we act with a view to bringing the European Union and its citizens closer together.
Today the Manzella report provides us with another opportunity to demonstrate our efforts and above all to convert them into action.
Given the volume of texts which we study in Parliament's committees and during the part-sessions, we have a double challenge: to simplify once and for all the legislative process and to balance the roles of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council.
It is now legally possible to simplify, rationalize and accelerate the preparation of our legislative work.
We must, within our various committees, encourage the chairmen to do this.
A new structured dialogue structure can be launched.
The majority of our home countries have a two-chamber system.
The efficiency of this system no longer needs to be proven.
It can be transferred to the European level.
All that is needed, in the first instance, is to define new rules to govern the operation of the European Parliament and relations between our different institutions.
Informal exchanges of opinion, coherent and joint work between our Assembly, the European Commission and the Council will make it possible to reach many agreements on first reading without impeding the transparency of the mechanism and by exchanging more information.
I therefore approve the Manzella report which hopes to make qualitative improvements in our legal procedure at first reading, second reading and conciliation, and to achieve more comprehensive planning of the annual legislative programme, which would have the advantage of enabling us to concentrate more on our priority objectives.
The Manzella report which the European Parliament has just adopted proposes a certain number of technical reforms, which are intended to take an example from the new codecision procedure provided for in Article 251 of the EC Treaty, modified by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Our Assembly has the right, admittedly, to begin to think about what will happen after Amsterdam, but all the same it goes a bit far when it cites this Treaty, in the adopted resolution, as if it had already entered into force and as if ratification were already complete.
This is not the case, particularly in France.
It is important that we do not, in this new Europe, think that the approval of the people is something that we obtain automatically.
We are all the less inclined to give credit to the European Parliament in this matter, since the codecision principle introduced by Maastricht and the extensions provided by the Amsterdam text seem to us to be far from satisfactory.
I also note that the French Constitutional Court, in its decision of 31 December 1997, noted for the first time that codecision, applied to certain fields, could damage the essential conditions for the exercise of national sovereignty.
In fact, this procedure allows the European Parliament, where French Members only hold 13 % of votes, to have the last word on vital questions for our country, in particular as regards the international movement of persons.
One might even imagine cases where codecision would allow the European Parliament to oppose a decision wished for by all the governments, supported by all the national parliaments.
We have here a case of supranationality which is all the more dangerous because the European Parliament has the authority of a European people which does not exist, and depends on Eurocrats who, alas, exist only too much.
Now, the Amsterdam Treaty makes this situation even worse: on the pretext of simplifying the procedure, it strengthens the position of the European Parliament, which it turns into a co-legislator together with the Council, thus establishing a balanced situation in which the Manzella report discovers with satisfaction the characteristics of "a two-chamber legislative system' .
At the same time, it increases the number of cases where this strengthened procedure can be applied to twenty-five new fields.
These developments taken together give the European Parliament greater power and this represents one of the great federalist advances in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Thus, before hurriedly moving on to the measures for applying the new procedure and having regard to the debate on ratification of Amsterdam which will take place in France, we would first of all like to ask a fundamental question: is it appropriate to reinforce codecision, is codecision itself appropriate? We would say no, because codecision gives the European Parliament an essential deciding role, whereas it should only have a secondary role.
It takes away people's control of their destiny, whilst the European mechanisms do not offer a democratic quality or proximity equivalent to those of national parliaments.
In the future, it will be necessary to withdraw from codecision - for example, to start by rejecting the Amsterdam project - or to reintroduce balance by instituting the right of veto in national parliaments.
This report presented by our colleague Andrea Manzella is of great importance because the problem is to translate into reality the proposals of the Amsterdam Treaty.
I support the measures which are proposed here today, as I believe in the real and recognized power of the European Parliament.
This revision of the codecision procedure constitutes a really important step for our institution, as everyone here agrees.
However, it is still important to recall our unanimity as soon as we have to bring additional weight to bear on our work.
This situation is seen not only in our relations with the Commission, but also, and this is just as important, in our wish to enter into a fruitful dialogue with the European Central Bank.
In both cases, it would seem that our Assembly has realized that it must make people aware of our legislative role.
This aspiration is all the more legitimate since it is combined with a wish on the part of the large majority of our colleagues to bring the citizen closer to the process of building Europe.
Some worried souls, albeit they are increasingly rare, may argue that particular measures do not go far enough in a particular field.
However, we have to consider all these provisions which have to be taken as a whole in order to evaluate the path travelled.
Yes, I am firmly convinced that we must continue to progress along this path; the time seems to have returned for political decision, and it is essential to give the legislative power of the European Parliament its full meaning.
I hope that the next few months will be fruitful as regards political debate, so that invective and demagogy are left to the xenophobes and racists.
This can only serve to strengthen our role and increase our credibility.
It often occurs to me to think that the euroscepticism which we deplore all too much on the part of our fellow citizens is fed and maintained by our own disappointments.
Thus, how many Members of the European Parliament have spent more time and devoted more words to deploring the weaknesses of the Amsterdam Treaty rather than emphasizing the progress it brings with it, some of which it essential?
That is why I am grateful first of all to the rapporteur, Mr Manzella, for the positive and reasoned nature of his report on the changes made by the Amsterdam Treaty to the codecision procedure.
I would like to join him in saluting the fact that this Treaty will not only extend, but will also reform and simplify the mechanisms of the codecision procedure, so that the European Parliament will be a true co-legislator one day.
It seems to me also that he is perfectly right to insist on the major changes allowed by the Amsterdam Treaty from the socalled first reading stage.
In fact, the Treaty lays down that this first phase could also be the last - and therefore give birth to a law of the Union - if the Council approves a proposal of the Commission which has not been amended by Parliament, or if the Council adopts all the amendments approved by Parliament.
I fully share the opinion of the rapporteur who sees, in this possibility, substantial advantages in terms of acceleration, rationalization and simplification of the legislative work.
Finally, I think he is right to insist on the fact that Parliament must take advantage of this opportunity to make important changes in its attitude at first reading: improvement of the legal quality of the texts, concentration on the main priorities, establishing new inter-institutional reports.
Well done, Mr Manzella.
I approve your work (almost) without reservation.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Manzella report.
We have done so based on the consideration that the report thoroughly examines the improved codecision procedure adopted in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We clearly support the enhanced influence of the European Parliament; in many areas of policy, we now enjoy the same degree of influence as the Council.
However, the Danish Social Democrats are voting against the point concerned with providing written justification for all instances of the European Parliament adopting legislative amendments.
Our grounds for opposing this point in the report are that it would make the procedure extremely bureaucratic and slow, and that is surely not what is intended by a simplification of the codecision procedure.
I am abstaining from the vote on this report, since my fundamental outlook is that the European Parliament should have not have any codecision procedure with the Council.
I think that EU cooperation should be based on a cooperation between the parliaments of the Member States.
Political debate in the Member States is currently based on elections to the national parliaments.
For the sake of democracy, the power of the European Parliament should be reduced.
Frischenschlager report (A4-0257/98)
The discussion regarding cooperation and different speeds has been going on for a long time in the EU.
The rapporteur has made an ambitious attempt to shed light on this issue.
However, there are above all 3 paragraphs in the resolution that we cannot vote for, namely paragraphs 10, 12 and 21.
But we are also doubtful about paragraph 11.
Cooperation is a requirement for all international work, and especially for the EU.
However, the objective which this cooperation aims to achieve can never be achieved by forcing other Member States into something they do not want.
Cooperation must be completely voluntary for it to be meaningful.
For this reason, we cannot vote for paragraphs 10, 11, 12 and 21.
For reasons of democracy, we think that what was decided in the Amsterdam Treaty must apply until a new Intergovernmental Conference amends that Treaty.
This will also promote for the applicant countries the clarity of EU legislation and the opportunity for insight into it.
The Group of Independents of a Europe of Nations Group voted against the Frischenschlager report on the implementation of closer cooperation as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty.
Our group has explained its position in a minority opinion which the Committee on Institutional Affairs has been good enough to append to the report.
In fact, whereas cooperation between states is completely free in Europe (apart, of course, from matters which are codified by Community texts), the Amsterdam Treaty aims to incorporate everything into the Community mechanism by according a particular status within the Treaties to specific forms of cooperation.
Its ultimate aim is, therefore, to reduce the diversity of forms of cooperation in Europe, by forcing them into the mould of a single institutional framework, itself oriented towards the construction of a super-State.
This approach seems to us inappropriate: after the collapse of the Soviet regime Europeans can look forward to the possibility of a peaceful continent free of all forms of totalitarianism finally achieving its ideals of respect for individuals and peoples.
A super-State and the various forms of unification which accompany it are of no use in this context.
Worse still, by going against the very nature of Europe, they would weaken rather than strengthen it.
Furthermore, the forms of closer cooperation, which are also incorporated into the Community mechanism, as envisaged in the Amsterdam Treaty, are also open to criticism technically speaking, since they would be complex and ineffective.
Contrary to the declared intention, the various forms of cooperation incorporated in a single institutional framework entail great administrative complexity, as the new "Schengen' cooperation shows.
Likewise the multiplicity of preconditions and the right of the European Union to examine individual agreements will undoubtedly discourage applicants and halt certain forms of cooperation which would otherwise have been beneficial.
The debates which took place yesterday evening in this Hemicycle showed, moreover, that even the federalists were getting lost and demonstrated huge uncertainty regarding the legitimacy of these new provisions.
Our colleague, Ole Krarup, rightly highlighted the fact that if our citizens became aware of such complex provisions, they would not know whether to laugh or cry.
The Group of Independents of a Europe of Nations thinks that the various forms of cooperation in Europe must be left very free, under the control of the national parliaments.
This method would be much simpler and more profitable.
The different forms of cooperation should come under a European Union framework only if this is shown to be more effective in every case, and a dynamic of cooperation in freedom must be created..
European cooperation has played a fundamental role in the development of the Community as we know it.
Voluntarily shared sovereignty has made it possible to mark up some successes, but today it would appear that, rather than deepening and enlarging, the European Union should leave room for closer cooperation.
This closer cooperation between Member States is meant to overcome blockages dues to the sometimes divergent expectations of members of the European Union.
In very many cases it is due to the mechanism of unanimity voting.
Each, however, wishes to avoid having to implement closer cooperation mechanisms which would be perceived by the citizen as a declaration of failure.
Moreover, there is a form of competition between the expected institutional reforms in order to allow the enlargement and deepening of Europe, and closer cooperation, which is a means of pressure intended to force the construction of Europe in cases where, once again, intergovernmental procedures fail.
The institutional reforms must therefore be clearly preferred and all our efforts must be devoted to this.
It seems illusory today to expect that closer cooperation would be the appropriate framework for meeting the main challenges of the European Union.
Europe must choose the right gear in order to adapt.
However, we must be prepared for the worst and do everything possible so that the European Union does not fall apart.
A "Europe à la carte' is unacceptable.
If closer cooperation became necessary, it would have to meet certain criteria:
1.The acquis communautaire and the proper functioning of the internal market must not be called into question; 2.
The single institutional framework must be retained; 3.
All closer cooperation must be compatible with the objectives of the European Union which are shared by all Member States; 4.
It must be used only as a last resort and provide for sufficient opportunities for non-participating Member States to join at a later stage; 5.
The Commission must play a central role in the application of criteria and procedures, particularly in Community matters.These conditions appear in the memorandum of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg of 8 March 1996.
I welcome paragraph 7 of the motion for a resolution which underlines the exceptional and limited character of the area of closer cooperation, and paragraph 20, which considers it illusory to wait for the closer cooperation which could constitute a suitable institutional framework.
I would like to borrow a conclusion from the reflection committee responsible for preparing for the Intergovernmental Conference.
Closer cooperation would perhaps be a step forward, but it could also result in calling previous achievements into question.
According to some, we must allow the most ambitious states to progress and, according to others, it is, on the contrary, a question of not having to participate in Community projects.
Thus we have to deal with two threats: on the one hand, explosion, and on the other, paralysis.
The excellent report by our colleague Friedhelm Frischenschlager is a tiny piece of intellectual bravura.
In fact, it treats with sensitivity and clarity one of the most controversial mechanisms introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, namely that of closer cooperation.
In the minds of those who invented it, one might think that closer cooperation - in broad terms, the possibility that a majority of Member States could go further forward towards integration without being held up by others who do not wish to or cannot follow the proposed speed - is intended to help to overcome the blockages within the Council.
If this is really the intention, ought there to have been a right of virtual veto for each Member State, provided that it cite "important reasons of national policy' , thus obliging the European Council to act unanimously?
If this was in fact the intention, ought there to have been provision made for the respect of an equal number of guarantees not only on substance - where they are totally justified - but also on procedure, where they are both cumbersome and ambiguous (in particular, how should the notion of "last resort' be defined?).
In truth, as rapporteur, I cannot ignore the notion that closer cooperation would, above all, have some virtual effectiveness: it would hardly ever be used, but one hopes that the risk of its use would do away with one blockage or another.
If it only served this purpose, closer cooperation would already be very useful.
It is in this light that I approved Mr Frischenschlager's report.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Frischenschlager report.
We have done so based on the consideration that the report constitutes an excellent follow-up to the intent of the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, we voted against paragraphs 10 and 12 of the report, since we disagree with the rapporteur's approach to the special option of using a veto.
Unlike the rapporteur, we believe it is sensible for there to be an emergency brake on collaboration.
It should be possible to resort to the right to veto if there are serious national grounds for so doing.
By this, we do not, of course, mean that this option should be exercised indiscriminately whenever there is disagreement; nevertheless, we are convinced that the wording of the 1966 Luxembourg Compromise should be retained.
Thus, in cases where crucial interests are at stake for one or more Member States in connection with decisions that can be made by majority vote following a proposal by the Commission, we are in favour of the members of the Council seeking within a reasonable time to reach solutions that all the members of the Council can endorse, taking into consideration their respective interests as well as Community interests pursuant to Article 2 of the Treaty.
A 'closer cooperation' between certain countries within a specific area will divide the EU into A and B teams.
The Amsterdam Treaty now provides such a possibility under strict conditions and with a guarantee that the veto will remain as a last resort for individual Member States to stop such proposals.
Parliament cannot and should not amend proposed Treaty texts, even if the Treaty has still not been ratified by all Member States.
Replacing the principle of unanimity with decisions based on the principle of qualified majority voting will have the same effect in reality as if the veto were abolished; in other words, a country which wants to prevent a 'closer cooperation' for other countries can no longer do so.
Unanimity and veto should be a matter of course in the cooperation between independent states.
I have therefore voted against this report.
The Amsterdam Treaty has evaded institutional reforms which have proved to be elusive in the context of the Union which is to be enlarged to include the countries of central and eastern Europe.
The extension of qualified majority voting within the Council is certainly the cornerstone of the institutional reforms to be undertaken if we wish to avoid institutional blockage within the European Union.
It soon became apparent that the Member States were not ready to move forward in this way.
A new political concept, "flexibility' , had meanwhile seen the light of day.
Launched in the context of the reflection group, in advance of the Intergovernmental Conference, this concept seemed to constitute, in the first instance, the "miracle' solution needed to get us out of the stagnation which threatens us.
Unfortunately, Amsterdam has shown us that this is not at all the case, and that "closer cooperation' , as adopted in the new Treaty, is of the most limited kind (being limited primarily to the third pillar) and is probably inoperable.
The ELDR Group deplores the possibility offered by the Amsterdam Treaty to every Member State to oppose the implementation by qualified majority of provisions on closer cooperation for "important national policy reasons' , which have not been defined anywhere.
The ELDR Group considers the possibility of a veto to be both contradictory, in that it aims to resolve some blockages in this way, and disproportionate in relation to the scope of the likely applications.
Moreover, we think that a Member State must never be able to cite such reasons and we obviously cannot support a report which proposes this possibility and which concludes by making "closer cooperation' a provision which is wholly inoperable and pointless.
Those who vote for the report today should be aware of the following fact: if "closer cooperation' as defined and adopted in the Amsterdam Treaty, had existed at the time EMU was launched, the euro would probably never have seen the light of day.
Even before the Amsterdam Treaty was ratified by our peoples or their representatives, the European Parliament made use of a provision of the Treaty opening the possibility for Member States who so wished to cooperate more closely than before in some fields.
The reaction of the European Parliament is consistent with the dominant ideology which prevails there: it only wishes to see in this new provision a threat to the construction of a federal Europe which it wants to promote, and would like to restrict its effects as much as possible.
Voluntary cooperation between states is, however, the European method which has produced the most positive results so far, from ARIANE to the Airbus.
The same is true in the field of international relations.
The European Parliament routinely deplores the inefficiency of the CFSP, without wanting to recognize that this stagnation is structural.
But if, instead of wishing to force at all costs all the external actions of the Union into the constraints of a single Community policy, Europe knew how to encourage and support the initiatives of some Member States which have greater expertise, and acknowledge their European dimension when it judges that they meet the interests of the whole of Europe, the Union's foreign policy would be real, understandable and respected.
By deliberately ignoring the relevance and efficiency of national diplomacies, the Union is depriving itself of a major trump card.
By favouring an ideological vision of the CFSP, it is condemning itself to impotence.
Sticking to an archaic and monolithic vision of a single Europe with a single policies, Parliament is once again turning its back on a promising route to a Europe of voluntary cooperation between sovereign nations.
As usual, when discussing institutional matters, the European Parliament goes further than the position reached by the Intergovernmental Conference.
This is underlined very clearly in this report by paragraphs 10, 12 and 21.
I do not believe in the creation of a federal Europe and am therefore voting against paragraphs 10, 12 and 21.
Weiler report (A4-0269/98)
I have nothing against our colleague Barbara Weiler; her text is of high quality and I subscribe without hesitation to its recommendations.
However, for some years now, I have regularly seen reports being passed which are more or less linked to this question.
Unfortunately, we must recognize that we are making only very slow progress in this field.
Those who wish to or have to work in a Member State other than their own are prey to administrative problems which are completely at odds with the current discourse favouring flexibility, mobility and so on.
We must admit that, strange as it may seem, it is pretty easy to shift several million Ecus around the world and yet there are all sorts of difficulties if you want to work 50 km from where you live, where this involves crossing a national frontier.
A truly bizarre paradox in the global village!
Yes, I am concerned by letters from European citizens explaining that they have a tax problem, a residence problem and many more.
I am also concerned to realize the huge administrative effort which has to be made in order to achieve a result which is often quite unpredictable.
Yes, truly, the Europe of the citizen, the everyday Europe is still waiting to be created.
So I am astonished to see some of our colleagues objecting to simple common sense solutions in the name of I know not what fantasy.
Finally, these are the very same people who reject any form of European construction ... so what do we do?
It is absolutely imperative that we move forward in these matters, because in addition to the individual problems to which they give rise, it is the construction of Europe which is at stake as far as our citizens are concerned.
We cannot let them down on the big political choices, we cannot allow ourselves to forget the everyday life of the people of Europe!
We are abstaining from the final vote on the Weiler report.
The report contains much that we sympathise with, and it is terribly important to solve the frontier worker problem.
However, we do not think that taxation, pension and social security systems should be harmonized.
We do not think that the mobility of labour is the anchor for growth and continued welfare.
The Weiler report deserves to be praised for not discriminating between people from EU countries and people who do not originally come from EU countries.
Despite the generally positive tone of the report, I cannot support it.
The desire to harmonize education systems, social security arrangements, fiscal regulations, etcetera, out of consideration for the free movement of the workforce is tantamount to taking a mallet to crack a peanut.
The problem is minimal.
For those who wish to work abroad, the rule of thumb should be that from day one, they should not be working under any worse conditions than the conditions the workforce of the country concerned work under.
It is the duty of the national authorities to check that this is the case.
As I said, the question of the free movement of the workforce across national boundaries is a very minor issue.
Only 0.2 % of the total workforce of the EU exercise this option.
Even if the EU were to reach the USA's 0.5 % level, for example - and a large number of linguistic and cultural considerations would impede this - this would hardly reduce unemployment, which is at far too high a level, as Mr Weiler also mentioned.
Under no circumstances can I support the desire to "soften up' directive 1408/71.
I give my full support to the Council's blocking this.
Thus, I challenge the Danish negotiators in the Council to stand firm.
The Danish trade union movement is bitterly opposed to the concept of an EU rule on European "apprentices' .
The EU should not hold any sway over the content of vocational training or, for that matter, any form of training.
The field of education is strictly a national matter.
These are some of the reasons why I cannot support the Weiler report.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of improving the free movement of the workforce in the EU.
One of the underlying concepts behind European collaboration is to create the potential for the free movement of persons, not just of goods, capital and services.
Europe must not only be a business community.
It must be a Europe of the people.
Thus, we can support a call to eliminate the many obstacles to freedom of movement.
Only 0.2 % of EU citizens work in a Member State other than their own.
One of the reasons for this is that it is extremely difficult to move to a different country.
Thus, we must secure some clear and readily understandable regulations for arrangements concerning social welfare, health insurance and pensions.
People should not have to encounter so much bureaucracy when trying their hand in another Member State.
The rapporteur of the report deplores the Danish derogation in the legal field.
At this juncture, we would like to point out that the Danish derogation is a Danish matter that can only be changed by a referendum in Denmark.
We oppose, inter alia, the section on Schengen in the report, and the paragraphs on the abolition of the requirement for unanimity.
We have, nonetheless, voted in favour of the report in order to strengthen the rights of citizens of third countries.
Once again, the report submitted by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission on the promotion of the freedom of movement of workers was used by the left-wing majority in the committee as an opportunity to overload it with ideological ballast on immigration policy and the rights of third country nationals.
This week we did not vote for the report for submission to the EU Commission for regulation of the admittance of thirdcountry nationals into the sovereign territory of the Member States because it had been peppered with demands from a majority from the same political camp which would have flooded our labour market, already numbering 18 million unemployed, with hundreds of thousands more job seekers, mainly cheap labour.
This report's stance on family reunification for third-country nationals goes far beyond what is tolerable, and in any case beyond the rights which have until now been granted to applicant countries during the transition period and those we will be able to grant new Member States upon accession.
Extending the scope of those entitled to join migrant workers to include same sex partners, family members regardless of their nationality, family members not living in the migrant worker's household and those who have more than one spouse or partner, would lead to a flood of immigration with which my small country, more than 37 % of whose population is made up of non-Luxembourg citizens, could simply not cope.
The report also contains hasty demands relating to the taxation of immigrant workers and the statement, somehow pulled out of thin air, that frontier workers would face the threat of a considerable drop in income as a result of the different rules in force in terms of taxation and social security.
This is certainly not the case for the almost 70, 000 frontier workers employed in Luxembourg.
Similarly, I cannot agree with the demands to abolish the visa requirement for third-country nationals within the European Union.
Talleyrand once said that everything which is exaggerated is meaningless.
However, the exaggerations in this report, were they to be taken seriously, would be far from meaningless. Not to mention the fact that they are further grist to the mill of antiEuropean extremists.
For these reasons I was unable to vote for this report.
We must point out at the outset the considerable delay in the regulation of the free movement of persons, in contrast to the complete freedom of movement of goods, services and capital.
In this respect, especially, we underline the enormous problems faced by transient workers with regard to safeguarding their social security and labour rights.
Especially acute is the problem of free movement faced by third-country nationals who legally reside within the boundaries of a Member State, during their movement within the boundaries of the European Union.
However, we disagree categorically with any attempt to link the issues relating to the free movement of people with the Schengen Agreement. The basic element of this Treaty is not to facilitate the free movement of people within the European Union, but to hold electronic files on and, by means of networked centres, to carry out surveillance on, millions of citizens, and to gradually transform the European Union into an impregnable fortress for third-country nationals, as is clear from the most recent proposals concerning the rights of entry and residence.
Based on the assumption that transient workers are not second class workers, we call for equality of treatment for them in financial, social and fiscal terms.
In addition, there must be regulation of the gaps that exist in the exercise of the right of residence for all those seeking work and for pensioners who reside permanently in another Member State.
We think that the Council must go ahead and approve the proposals concerning the amendment of the regulation on the coordination of social security systems for transient workers and extend its field of operation to include social security systems for civil servants and third-country nationals who are covered by the social security system of a Member State.
In addition, there must be regulation to ensure equality of treatment for transient workers and the preservation of their rights if they are posted to another state in respect of their supplementary pension rights and career breaks.
We also wish to highlight the problems created by the varying definitions of "incapacity for work' and the varying assessment of "degree of disability' , as well as by the divergences in the systems used to calculate periods of insurance.
Hulthén report (A4-0233/98)
In our countries, there are very few people today who argue that economic development must, at all costs, take place within the context of respect for the environment so as not to mortgage the destiny of future generations.
Everyone is, in general, agreed that job creation must remain at the forefront of the minds of all political decision-makers.
All this is so obviously true that the Amsterdam Treaty put "economic and social progress' , a "high level of employment' , and "balanced and sustainable development' as some of the fundamental aims of the Union.
One of the main concerns of the European institutions must be to integrate the environment into all policies of the Union and of Members States across the board.
This must also be the case for employment policy.
Far from acting as a brake on investments and growth, a carefully thought-out across-the-board policy for environmental protection will in fact make it possible to increase the competitiveness of our businesses, release new added-value and create many additional jobs, at all skill levels.
This is what makes the Commission communication which we are discussing today so interesting.
I can only support this strategy and the general principles set out by the Commission and hope that a number of dossiers - such as that on the proposal for a Commission directive introducing a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide and fuel - reach their conclusion as soon as possible.
With this in mind, I would like to support the resolution tabled here today.
The need to protect the environment introduces significant constraints into our societies but we do not sufficiently highlight the new prospects which it offers in terms of employment.
In Europe, the number of jobs linked to the environment has, today, reached just over 3.5 million (source: Eurostat).
According to the OECD, annual growth in employment in the environment sector should reach 5.5 % in the next few years.
The creation, and subsequent generalization, of eco-taxes, shows that the sectors and firms which do not invest in processes which integrate environmental concerns into their production run the risk that their competitiveness will be weakened ineluctably, or even threatened with extinction.
In order to ensure growth which accommodates the problematic issue of the environment, it is necessary to confront both the problem of the scarcity of resources and that of the link between jobs and the environment.
This supposes that our economies are no longer characterised by the over-use of natural resources and the under-employment of human resources.
We must find the best possible compromise between the use of natural resources and jobs.
A reduction in taxation relieving the obligatory burden on employment taxes and transferring these at least in part to eco-taxes would help to promote such a development.
So we must speed up the transition of our economies to the new and clean technologies which will replace the old, polluting technologies and towards measures for reducing the amount of waste at the end of the production cycle.
However, because of the internationalization of our economies, the determining factor is that environmental parameters must be taken into account in international rules of trade.
It is within the WTO that this battle must be fought and won.
Such is the purpose of the amendments which the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has tabled, some of which have been adopted by our Assembly.
The gaps in current provisions are, in fact, especially significant.
It is fairly simple to impose ecotaxes on packaging waste on products imported from third countries but, in the context of existing international agreements, it is impossible to tax the effects of production processes on water and environmental pollution.
Finally, while it is essential to develop specific professional qualifications corresponding to new job profiles which are specific to the environment sectors, let us not forget that it will be necessary to include the environmental approach in all technical, economic and legal training.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity to raise a point of order.
We are now beginning the topical and urgent subjects debate, and I must lodge a slight complaint, perhaps also on behalf of a number of the Members of this House.
Today's agenda has the topical and urgent subjects debate scheduled from 3.00 p.m. to 6.00 p.m. If we look at the agenda, we see subjects such as Nigeria, Belarus, human rights and so forth, followed by a number of figures, a sort of secret code from which absolutely no one can figure out who has submitted the resolutions or why these topical subjects are being discussed.
The topical and urgent subjects debate has already reached a low point.
We know that.
That is why there is currently talk about reorganizing it.
However, I believe that what is happening here is improper, namely that it is not indicated who, which group or which person, is dealing with Belarus or Nigeria and so forth.
On top of this, for a long time the press releases have given hardly any attention to the topical and urgent subjects debate, because the staff apparently has to catch the train home at 3.00 p.m.
Mr President, I am very disappointed.
You know, or perhaps you do not know, that for nine years I have been trying to make something of the topical and urgent subjects debate, not a half-hearted attempt, but with my full devotion.
Mr Bertens, I have noted your comment which we shall communicate to those concerned.
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following seven motions for resolutions:
B4-0723/98 by Mr Bertens and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0739/98 by Mr Pasty and Mr Andrews, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0741/98 on behalf of Mrs Maij-Weggen and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0749/98 by Mr Hory and Mr Macartney, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0752/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0767/98 by Mr Vecchi and Mrs Kinnock, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Nigeria; -B4-0769/98 by Mr Marset Campos and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Nigeria.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the sudden and, for some, mysterious death of General Abacha has opened up a new chapter in the events of this tormented country, Nigeria.
The European Union cannot fail to take note of the fact that the temporary successor of General Abacha, General Abubakar, has released a few political prisoners but it must also see that not all have been freed and that there are no specific guarantees that a democratic process will be rapidly started in Nigeria.
It is therefore the duty of the European Parliament to ask the Council and the Commission to follow the political situation in this country closely and to encourage the president with resoluteness in this very unstable period of transition to clearly commit himself to a return of the democratic order in this country.
Mr President, in only a few weeks the political situation in Nigeria has changed dramatically.
Firstly, the unexpected death of General Abacha, then the naming of a new ruler, General Abubakar, and finally the equally unexpected death of the imprisoned opposition leader, the elected president Abiola.
Of these events it is especially the death of Moshood Abiola which has most shocked the world.
He may well have had a heart attack, but everyone knows how poorly political prisoners in Nigeria are treated.
It was generally known that Abiola, who had heart problems for a long time, was not receiving the proper treatment and medication in prison.
One could actually speak of death by neglect.
In the mean time, rioting has understandably broken out in Nigeria, and that has led to violent incidents between police, the military and demonstrators who are taking part on behalf of the opposition. The result has been dozens of deaths.
This is a question of escalating events and increased de-stabilization in Nigeria.
Mr President, what is the European Union doing? A great many refugees from Nigeria who reside in Europe want to help the democratic opposition.
Back in February we requested, by means of oral questions, that the Parliament pay attention during the debate to the worsening situation in Nigeria.
The British presidency at that time was sympathetic to our questions, but not a great deal has happened since then.
Now the situation has escalated further with a dramatic turn of events. We, as the PPE Group, believe that the Union must exert greater pressure on Nigeria and on the new president Abubakar to immediately cease violation of human rights, release all political prisoners and restore democracy through democratic elections.
But the Union must also not hesitate to sharpen, if necessary, the actions against Nigeria in order to increase this pressure.
In resolutions I have already asked four times for economic sanctions, but the most important exhortation is this: as a European Union, draw a single line together, face the new Nigerian regime with determination and demand restoration of democracy and human rights.
Then the chance that something good could happen in Nigeria would be greater at this moment than ever before.
Therefore, Commission and Council, do something!
Mr President, I should like to start by paying tribute to the life of Chief Moshood Abiola.
It is an old African tradition that you wait until somebody has been buried and properly celebrated before you resume normal business.
Unfortunately Nigeria has not allowed us the luxury of doing so, but we should not let this moment pass without giving our tribute to that man who won the election four years ago, against all the odds, uniting north and south, Yoruba and Muslim.
His achievement was of course snatched away by the brutal actions of the late General Sani Abacha.
Nigeria - the great giant of Africa - is now paying the price for it.
My concern for this giant of Africa is for the people - it is not the governments of Nigeria that have made it the giant, it is the people.
In this resolution we have got it right by asking in paragraphs 1 and 2 for the speedy restoration of power to the people of Nigeria so that they can take their rightful place as a leader in Africa.
Mr President, it is normal that one never rejoices about the death of a human being.
In the case of certain dictators, however, I must honestly, say ladies and gentlemen, that I make an exception, and the death of the dictator, Abacha, has indeed led to the removal of some hindrances to political evolution in Nigeria.
On the part of his successor, Abubakar, there have been a few small signs that point in the right direction, but there remains a tremendous amount to be done.
It is especially painful that Chief Moshood Abiola has died at this specific moment, and, as said by others, certainly as a result of neglect and the lack of the right to adequate healthcare and so forth.
I therefore believe that the pressure must indeed now be increased on the Nigerian authorities to abolish all repressive measures, restore the constitutional state and release all 30 remaining political prisoners.
Only then can one eventually think about a possible perspective of renewing help to Lomé as soon as a civilian government is formed.
Mr President, there are really no longer any excuses to justify the continuation of the situation that unfortunately has characterized Nigeria for many years now.
Since 1993, when the democratic process that was under way at the time was brutally interrupted by a military coup d'etat, there has been in Nigeria every kind of abuse, every kind of violation, however elementary, of human rights and the consolidation of a regime, linked to the military and business clique in power, that has made widespread corruption and the worse kind of violence prevail.
Our Parliament has expressed itself repeatedly on the situation in Nigeria as has the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in a very significant way.
The disappearance of the dictator, General Abacha, which occurred last month, has rekindled some hope of a possible change.
The sudden death of the former president and opposition leader, Mr Abiola, which occurred on the eve of his release, has on the other dealt a great blow to a possible democratic process, because it has meant the disappearance from the scene of a key figure who enjoyed tremendous popular favour and support for the launch of a democratic transition.
The newly proclaimed president, General Abubakar, has freed a few political prisoners, but it is still not clear what his actual intentions are in terms of opening a new page in the history of Nigeria.
For these reasons, we call on the authorities in Lagos to immediately open a real democratic process, founded first of all on the opening of political dialogue with all the opposition parties, on the immediate release of all political prisoners, on an end to political and ethnic repression and on the launch of a process that leads to free elections.
We believe that for the international community and, particularly, for the Community institutions and the governments of the Union's Member States, the time has come to coordinate political action and pressure on the regime in Nigeria, beginning with full compliance with the sanctions in effect, in order to demand the change that we have been hoping for now for too many years but have so far not obtained in any form whatsoever.
Mr President, the dictator Abacha has, in fact, died, but the dictatorship remains; it remains with a new face visible in another soldier: Abubakar.
Some political prisoners have been freed, but the authoritarian structures are still in place there.
Many other political prisoners and prisoners of conscience are still in jail and, at the moment, the promises of democratization are only that: promises and words which have little substance.
I therefore believe that it is very important to ensure that, at this time, the European Union maintains a firm and demanding position with respect to the authorities in Lagos, and that in no way is any credibility given to the promises made, not even a minimum of credibility.
In this respect, a few of the insinuations made by Heads of State of the Member States of the European Union seem to me to be extremely worrying, such as those made by President Chirac, who appears to be determined to convince Europeans of the kindness of the promises of the new dictator Abubakar.
In this situation, it is evident that we must maintain the sanctions, we must strengthen them and we must try to ensure that the European Union, and not only the Union, implements a policy with those characteristics, aimed at establishing a civil government, a government based on the participation of the political opposition and the democratic powers in Nigeria, one which can prepare for free elections.
And, before that, we must achieve the release of all the political prisoners and the restoration of minimum fundamental freedoms.
Of course, we regret the fact that the president-elect, Abiola, has died - obviously due to a lack of medical care - and that he died in jail, days after Abacha.
Mr President, the death of Abacha, it has been said, has created, sadly enough but thankfully as well, new possibilities.
Despite all the conflicting reports, the new ruler, Abubakar, has become more willing to undertake democratization.
In addition, the death of Abiola has created a situation that has made the country extremely tense.
The Union must now project clarity and unity - and I realize that is like asking for snow in summer - but at any rate the Council and the Commission must join in the call for a rapid transfer of power to a civilian government.
This is the only way to allow democratic elections to take place.
The sanctions, however simple they may be, can only be removed when actual democracy is restored.
The Union must offer its assistance in terms of dialogue, and it must also strive to make the transition as successful as possible.
Attempts to exploit ethnic conflict must be dealt with.
The risk of ethnic conflict, however, must not be a reason to oppose democratization.
Democracy, Mr President, respect for human rights, building the constitutional state, these are still the best guarantees for stability and progress.
But let us, the Union, show the Nigerians that we are not only concerned with making gestures, but with truly working together with them in true cooperation.
Mr President, Nigeria has been the scene of a long-running saga of unrest and brutality, and the outlook for democracy and human rights remains highly uncertain.
The sudden death of General Abacha may just possibly clear the way for a more hopeful future, but that is by no means certain.
Our resolution calls on the Council and the Commission to renew pressure on the Nigerian authorities, but unfortunately not all Member States have been wholehearted in their support for previous sanctions.
It is to be hoped that some of them will resist the temptation to sidestep the issue for personal advantage.
I would be interested to know whether the Commission is attempting to monitor the sanctions situation.
Mr President, after a long period of deteriorating political and economic conditions and serious human rights violation in Nigeria, there now appears to be a window of opportunity - albeit a fragile one - for a more positive turn of events.
The new Head of State, General Abubakar, has released a number of political detainees and clearly stated his intention to steer the country towards civilian rule.
That development is welcome.
The political momentum now started should be encouraged and also used to press for further measures towards democracy and full respect for human rights.
I welcome the statements made in this debate urging us to do so.
I recall that the on 13 July the Council urged General Abubakar to release all the remaining detainees and to clarify his plans for future elections.
We are in favour of closer dialogue with the Nigerian authorities to promote and if possible assist the transition to democracy.
The European Union has already taken the first steps in such a dialogue through a recent visit by Minister Lloyd representing the EU presidency.
These efforts should continue and it is important that other international bodies such as the UN and the OAU work actively in the same direction.
The Commission of course deeply regrets the sudden and tragic death of Chief Abiola on 7 July.
The EU had repeatedly called for his release.
His death casts more uncertainty over the Nigerian political landscape and has led to an increased climate of mistrust and to unrest and violence.
This has highlighted the need for further confidence-building measures from those now in power, vis-à-vis Nigerian society as a whole.
I can assure Mr Moorhouse that the Commission will closely monitor events in Nigeria and in the months to come the European Union will keep its policy towards Nigeria under review, including the question of the sanctions.
The aim of our policy will be to support and demand the full restoration of democracy and full respect for human rights.
That requires a process of national reconciliation based on a credible plan for the transition to civilian rule and the release of all political prisoners.
I can assure the House that our efforts will be very much in that direction.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following six motions for resolutions:
B4-0728/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0732/98 by Mr Saint-Pierre, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0756/98 by Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0758/98 by Mrs Mann, Mrs Hoff and Mr Botz, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0770/98 by Mr Carnero González and others, on the situation in Belarus; -B4-0784/98 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, Mr Ferri and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Belarus.
Mr President, the liberals are delighted about the unified position taken in this case by the Council, Commission and Parliament and a large number of third countries regarding the regime in Minsk, Belarus.
The so-called embassy incident shows at the same time the delusions of grandeur and otherworldliness of President Lukashenko.
The ease with which he violates international conventions offers little hope for good cooperation.
The reaction of Lukashenko, the fact that he hopes that common sense and realism and not emotions will determine European policy, is a slap in the face for us.
His international policy is, however, but a shadow of his authoritarian domestic policy.
The era of, dare I say it, Stalinism appears to have returned.
A united international front must take a clear position against this.
The use of the OSCE to promote democracy deserves appreciation, as does the TACIS programme for democracy, at least if the Belarus Government does not block this.
The Union must be prepared for dialogue.
But first, Lukashenko must satisfy the preconditions.
He understands the democracy and human rights clauses of the agreement which the European Union has with third countries.
It is his fault that Belarus is the pariah of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we have a double problem here: a psychiatric problem - and obviously there we can do very little - and a political problem.
Just the once will not hurt, I think, and we can congratulate the Council on the strong position which it has taken concerning Belarus.
However, we need to go a lot further.
Given that Russia has, thanks in part to the Union, been granted a loan of 20 billion dollars, we would have grounds for expecting that this country would do more to put an end not to a return, as Mr Martens said, but to the persistence, in the heart of Europe, of a communist, Stalinist glacis .
There are grounds for putting pressure on Russia.
Measures must also be taken at the level of the Council of Europe.
I think that the fifteen Member States should try to ensure that the participation of Belarus in the Council of Europe be suspended.
This is also true for the OSCE and other bodies.
I think that we have to be very firm and we must follow the Council's lead.
Mr President, President Lukashenko is taking his self-inflicted isolation of Belarus to excess.
After the elected representatives of the dissolved parliament, the independent media and young people, it is now the western ambassadors which Lukashenko has singled out for bullying as his personal enemy.
The international community did not act until its own people were affected.
It was very slow in realizing that Lukashenko was not prepared to respect international rules in Europe and that the country's only hope of returning to democracy is through support for the opposition, for the opposition is the only thing on which we can pin our hopes.
The visa ban has been the only significant step taken by the Council.
It was, however, also long overdue.
The effect has been amazing.
Just imagine, the population has now realised who is to blame for the situation in which it finds itself.
It is not the people, not the West, but those in power in the government.
A small instrument with an astounding effect!
Now comes the task of ensuring that this work is continued consistently, in other words that Lukashenko must be made to cooperate with the OSCE monitoring group.
He must be made to give the TACIS programme the green light so that finally there can be an end to the suffering of the civil population.
He must be made to accept that his mandate only runs until next year and that he must make preparations for free and fair elections.
In this context I as you, Mr Brittan: what is the Commission prepared to do, and what conditions do you intend to propose to the Council for the lifting of the visa ban?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Sir Leon Brittan, I am delighted that you are here.
We have reached a critical point in our relations with Belarus and I hope very much that this will be the last resolution we discuss and that we will now finally be able to move along a more positive route.
The latest decisions taken by the Belarus Government represent a serious breach of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
The Council's decisions merit our full support.
It now appears that new negotiations are on the cards and a settlement to the conflict seems to be in sight.
The Belarus Government has signalled a serious interest in finding a positive solution.
Clearly this is something we welcome.
However, we should also see the conflict as an opportunity to consider just what dangerous ground we are on.
A change of direction in our relations is urgently needed.
Belarus is part of the European family.
Nobody wants it to be isolated.
It will soon be our immediate neighbour.
I therefore particularly support the wording proposed by the Council and would like to suggest that we include the following words under paragraph 1. I would suggest that we take the English text, unfortunately I do not have the original here, just the German version which is more or less the same and states that it fully supports the Council's desire, expressed in the Common Position of 13 July, to develop more constructive relations with Belarus.
But this must include clear positive signals from Belarus.
The European Parliament has shown right across the political board just how serious is its interest in improving relations.
But naturally this means respecting the democratic rules of the game.
We cannot, and of course we will not, overlook this point.
The delegation had an extremely positive meeting in Brussels.
Ambassador Wick illustrated clearly and pragmatically the steps he believes should be taken in order to bring about an improvement in relations.
We are planning another meeting in Belarus in November and I would hope that all of us here will have the opportunity to attend and to continue our work on improving relations.
Mr President, first of all I should also like to say how pleased I am that today we have heard certain signals from Belarus suggesting that the very tense situation of the last few days might perhaps be returning to normal to some extent.
Representatives from Belarus have often reproached us for applying double standards, particularly with regard to human rights.
On each occasion, my only response has been to say that it is only natural that we should regard countries which are our immediate neighbours, countries which we assume might one day wish to become part of our Community, countries which have many cultural similarities with ourselves - as is the case with Belarus - with a particularly critical eye.
We do not apply double standards, but perhaps we do look at some countries more closely than others, quite simply because we need and want to have a close relationship with these countries.
This is why we sometimes look very critically at Belarus and at what is happening there.
Then we are obliged to say that certain things happening there are quite simply unacceptable, as we have done in this case.
Of course, the quasi closure of the embassies is something we find wholly unacceptable, and our reaction to it is therefore, in my view, a very appropriate reaction.
Of course, we also consider the failure to allow various NGOs to enter and to work in the country to be inadmissible.
Here, too, some progress has been made and there has been a certain improvement, but not yet to an extent which we find acceptable.
Of course, the need for the OSCE to be able to operate there freely and to carry out its tasks, its mandate, is also very important to us.
We shall certainly judge this country on its actions and not only on the words we hear time and time again.
This is very important for us if we are to ensure that this European country reaches the standards expected of it both by us and by the Belorussian population, so that we can negotiate reasonably and can build sound foundations.
Mr President, the draft resolution on the situation in Belarus is a work of art, a magnificent piece of disinformation to be classed as one of the wonders of the world, alongside the media lies of Timisoara or the Gulf War, a war which was said to be a precision instrument and which ended up as a dreadful butchery.
The Belarus authorities have decided - what could be more normal - to repair water pipes which are more than half-a-century old, and we hear talk about the expulsion of ambassadors, of serious violations of the Vienna Convention and of human rights.
I know both the Belarus people and President Lukashenko very well.
The Belorussian people have suffered, and continue to suffer, as a result of the Chernobyl disaster, to the scandalous indifference of the west.
President Lukashenko, it must be recalled, was democratically elected by an enthusiastic population to whom he committed himself to fighting corruption, and that is what he is doing.
A politician who keeps this kind of electoral promise should serve as an example to our old corrupt parties, with which we are all too familiar in France, Belgium, Italy, our old parties caught up in scandals, stained by criminal settling of scores, whose perpetrators often enjoy total impunity.
Who are we to give Belarus lessons in democracy, when our own elections are rigged by a servile press and dirty money? Will our Parliament become a place where we just chat and lie?
We have been told, here, that there was no free press in Belarus. Well, I went there to see, and at every newsstand I found on sale two pro-government dailies and two opposition dailies.
We all know the parable of the mote and the beam.
We should think long and hard about that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have here, and I will show them to you, copies of two letters sent on 11 July to the presidency of the Council, one written by President Lukashenko himself, the other by the Belorussian Minister for Foreign Affairs. They both undertake to satisfy the will and demands of the ambassadors accredited to Minsk.
The German ambassador has already been appointed by the Council to go to Minsk in the next two to three days in order to sign the agreement.
I think that it would be regrettable for a European Parliament resolution to jeopardize negotiations which have started and which are already almost completed.
Mr President, Parliament's resolution will not do any of the dangerous things just referred to - quite the reverse.
The Commission welcomes Parliament's proposals for a resolution on Belarus.
For the most part, the debate has been an extremely balanced one, expressing proper criticisms of what has been going on in Belarus as well as a desire not to isolate Belarus, but to help it follow the proper path.
In response to the last speaker, the fact that a government has been democratically elected does not absolve it from the obligation to obey international norms and respect for human rights.
Alas, it is perfectly possible for a democratic government not to do so and when that happens it is right and, indeed, necessary for the international community to say so and take the appropriate action.
Therefore, the Commission welcomes Parliament's proposals for a resolution because they demonstrate the deep concern of all European Union institutions about, for example, the repeated violations of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.
Furthermore, they show institutional solidarity with the European Union common position on Belarus, which has been regarded as quite a tough one.
Nonetheless, the Commission also hopes that the recent promises by Belarus to work towards a solution to the diplomatic crisis will soon materialise into constructive steps.
There would then be no need to take further action that would be undesirable both for Belarus, and obviously, for the European Union.
One of the speakers mentioned Russia.
On 24 June Foreign Minister Primakov said to the European Union Ministerial Troika that Russia shared the Union's concern about Belarus and would try to use its good offices.
Whenever there is an official bilateral meeting, the Commission repeatedly urges Russia to intervene to bring Belarus back on the right track.
The Commission has taken considerable action already, quite apart from suspending the bulk of the TACIS programme.
It has not so far pursued further discussions on the TACIS civil society development programme with the national coordinator, but we hope that current difficulties in dealing with Belarus will not hamper the resumption of a constructive dialogue with Belarus and counterparts on this programme.
The programme is supported by the OSCE mission in Minsk, since it fully complements the OSCE's own objectives.
So I hope that the policy we can follow - with Parliament's support, which we deeply appreciate - will continue to be a balanced one, seeking to be very firm and to take such tough action as may be necessary in the face of any violations of international norms by the Belarus Government.
At the same time, the policy must also seek to extend the hand of friendship and show readiness to cooperate with the Belarus Government if it gives effect to its stated promise to work towards a solution to the crisis and proceed in a way which will be acceptable to those who have expressed their concerns in this House and elsewhere about what has gone on in the past.
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner a question which he has not answered.
Would he please answer it now?
Mr President, as I understand it the question is about what further action we will take.
The answer is that we are observing the situation and I do not think it is useful to issue a series of specific threats.
However, in answer to the debate I said that we want to avoid having to take further sanctions against Belarus, which implies that we fully reserve the right to do that if progress is not made.
Mr President, the question was: what are the conditions subject to which the visa ban might be lifted?
I am not in a position to state specific conditions.
The common position speaks for itself and I do not think it is appropriate for me to attempt to add to it today.
Mr President, last October, at the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in Togo, I denounced the human rights violations, arbitrary sanctions, the lack of respect for freedom of expression and freedom of the press.
I denounced the dictatorial power of President Eyadema who has been in power for thirty years.
This did not earn me the congratulations of the powers who tried so hard to show me how wrong I was.
I would remind you that the Union's cooperation with Togo was suspended in 1992 and that its resumption was conditional upon respect of democratic principles and the organization of fair and open elections in June 1998.
We have to recognize that the Togolese authorities have not respected the essential democratic principles which are necessary to ensure that the elections are valid.
The national electoral commission even resigned on 23 June this year.
The opposition has not been able to speak freely, the press has been muzzled, and President Eyadema's victory was proclaimed even before all the votes had been counted.
In these circumstances, it is clear that the Union must maintain sanctions on Togo, and not resume cooperation, as long as issue of the electoral process has not been resolved.
Togo must know that democracy comes with a price tag and that impunity will no longer be accepted.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Togo is a symbol of cooperation between Europe and Africa.
The Lomé Convention always has been and still is a milestone in this kind of cooperation.
This has made it all the more painful for us all that it was only with great difficulty that we were able to hold the last but one meeting of the ACPEU Joint Assembly in Togo and to accept Togo's invitation.
A number of Members of this House had particular problems making the decision to travel to Togo.
There is a lesson to be drawn from what has happened in Togo and that is that we should not necessary believe empty promises. For the highly embarrassing personality cult manifested at the last meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly showed all too well the direction in which things were developing.
Although those in power were prepared to hold elections, they had undoubtedly also started looking for the loopholes which, if the result went in a direction they did not like, they could use as a sort of emergency brake.
In our resolution - as Mrs André-Léonard has already mentioned - we have indicated that the media were also manipulated to a large extent.
May I, however, remind you all that we are not so very far away from such things in Europe. We just have to look at the sort of media manipulation which has been visited upon the electorate in the so-called election campaigns in Serbia and elsewhere.
I am pleased that cooperation with Togo has not yet been resumed.
I believe that recent events show that the resumption of this cooperation should not be hurried.
Several amendments to this text have been tabled.
I would simply like to explain that I think Amendments Nos 4 and 5 are acceptable, one because it refers back to Article 366a, the Mauritius resolution.
Amendment No 5 is actually superfluous since I believe it goes without saying that we will receive the relevant report.
Mr President, it really is a tragedy for Togo's democratic development that the presidential election appears now to have got completely out of hand.
It is not because the population has shown no interest; on the contrary, turnout was extremely high and it also took place very peacefully.
No, the reason is instead that the government and authorities have acted and totally undermined the credibility of the electoral process so that there can no longer be any guarantee of democratic control and insight or of those things associated with a democratic election.
Despite the promise given in connection with the meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in Lomé, despite the fact that Togo has received all the help that the country requested from the EU, despite the fact that NGOs and other human rights organisations have been very involved in the election, and despite the Togolese population's feeling of responsibility, everyone has been let down and all assurances that democratic principles would be respected have been broken.
I must say that the Commission, the EU and the ACP-EU Joint Assembly really must be observant and keep an eye on continuing political developments in Togo.
Mr President, Togo is a country that we have had the opportunity to become acquainted with, perhaps more than other countries in Africa, also because, as other Members recalled, at the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in October we more or less negotiated or at any rate obtained assurances from the Togolese authorities and from the leaders of the opposition, insofar as they had the power to do so, regarding the electoral process that was being organized and regarding the possibility of guaranteeing elections that were truly free and correct.
Obviously, it was also on the basis of these assurances and these commitments that, rightly so, the European Commission undertook to support the electoral process, including from the financial point of view.
We were able to see how the first round of the presidential elections on 24 June did not at all meet these expectations and those assurances; on a positive note, it should be stressed that there was widespread and correct participation in the vote by the citizens who therefore demonstrated that they had reached full maturity for democratic participation.
However, there were a number of irregularities in the organization of the elections and the counting of votes; polling stations opened late in the capital Lomé, the counting of votes was blocked, although this did not prevent the results from being announced, and there were resignations from the electoral commission.
This obviously means that, at least for the moment, under no circumstances does General Eyadema want to give up his power, regardless of the opinion of his country's citizens.
For this reason, the results of this first electoral round are not credible, and this was the judgement of the entire international community, demonstrating that pressure has to continue to be exerted on the Togolese authorities with great force.
Here, too, it is hoped that the Member States will be coherent in their attitude, something that has not always been the case in the past, so that the democratic process in this country can resume without any limitation; I believe that all the conditions are present for this to occur.
Mr President, if Nigeria, which we have just debated, with the sudden tragic deaths of General Abacha and Chief Abiola, could have perhaps given rise to a tragedy written by a modern Sophocles, then the case of Togo could be worthy of a vaudeville.
And it could be described like that if it were not offensive to the people of Togo, who have participated with real enthusiasm and with a democratic will in this first round of presidential elections.
Mr President, the resolution prepared by some of our groups is, in my view, extremely moderate and reasonable and, of course, maintains the criterion of those of us who, even before going to the penultimate meeting of the Joint Assembly, had serious doubts regarding the suitability of holding that event in that country.
We can only hope now that General Eyadema, satisfied with more than 30 years in power, recognizes that he cannot continue to be a type of "Mobutu the Second' and that he allows a democratic solution whereby the Togolese people can state their opinions with the freedom that they have lacked until now.
Until that time, there is no doubt that we must continue to give our firm and resolute support to the maintenance of the restrictive criteria regarding European aid.
This position is not one unanimously held by the liberal group, Mr President.
I believe, and I voted accordingly yesterday, that it would have been better to delay the resolution until we had the Commission's report, so that we could debate the matter in full knowledge of all the facts and more calmly.
I think it is rare, Mr President, to echo the bold statement of the previous speaker, that a leader is democratically elected with the enthusiasm of all the people, and particularly rare in Africa.
I think that it would have been useful to consider the text of the resolutions more fully, all the more so since controversy seems to be centred on the problem of the transmission of just a few results.
In any event, we find ourselves in a situation in which it is impossible, for example, to have a debate on Angola, where President Dos Santos does not wish to proceed on to the second round of the presidential election which would legitimize him, and this shows that we have a policy for Togo which we do not apply to Angola.
Our Parliament applies the principle of two weights, two measures to Africa, and that does not strike me as being very healthy.
Mr President, several political groups in our Assembly have decided to ask questions about the presidential elections in Togo.
Naturally, not one of the good apostles who signed the resolution went there to see what happened.
I, for my part, was present, as I was sent as an observer by my group and I can confirm that the operation went very smoothly in Lomé, in most of the 617 polling stations, and I was able to visit a large number of these stations, including some in the Bé district.
I have Decision No E 05/98 of 8 July of the Constitutional Court of Togo, which confirms what I myself observed and explained as early as Monday, 22 June in a communiqué.
This decision says, and I quote, "there were some irregularities because the official opening and closing times for the polling stations were not observed' .
In one polling station which closed at 11.00 p.m., I myself insisted that counting should not start until the last person present had voted.
But officially the stations closed at 6.00 p.m.
The Constitutional Court also noted that, in three districts in Lomé, counting could not be carried out in the polling stations, and that it could only take place in the central polling station.
But in those polling stations, the outgoing president obtained less than 10 % of the vote.
So, if there had been any fraud, it certainly was not to the benefit of the president.
Finally, the Constitutional Court annexed to its decision all the documents, including the results of the vote counts.
This is why I have some serious questions to ask about the role played by ERIS and Reporters sans frontières and I would like to ask who chose them.
How has it been possible to spend ECU 2 million, while the final report is still not ready because of continuing disagreement between the observers who ostensibly speak on our behalf? I give far more credit to the Togolese Constitutional Court, to the African OAU observers, to delegates from the French-speaking world, to Americans from the Center for Contemporary Diplomacy and to the President of the Malian National Assembly, Mr Diello, than to the small team designated by DG VIII, and I hope that the Court of Auditors will be able to study how the money was spent, because I am really very fearful that the money has been wasted for ideological and partisan reasons.
Mr President, I was in Togo as a representative of the radical left party and I was part of a small group of parliamentarians who were there.
I was an observer for fifty polling stations, together with American and English lawyers.
I saw that the election took place without violence: of course there were some imperfections as regards voting cards and electoral lists, but overall, if one compares this election with others on the same continent, the voting took place in exemplary conditions.
In contrast, it was when the counting of results was centralised that a certain number of mistakes and problems appeared, the most important, of course, being the resignation of the electoral commission and the transfer of the counting of results to the Minister for the Interior.
May I be permitted to say that even if it is the rule of our Assembly and whereas by means of assistance from DG VIII, we have provided fairly unique and exceptional technical support for a presidential election in Africa, it is not normal for an election of this kind that our Parliament did not send a parliamentary team of observers to help with this election.
We would perhaps have had a totally different debate from the one we are holding now in favour of this resolution.
Nor is it acceptable for firms engaged by the European Union and by the Commission to organize technical support, to entrust students with the task, however excellent such students may be.
Mr President, I would like to specify that my Amendment No 6 is not intended to replace Article 4, but in fact to complement it. Why?
Because it seems obvious to us to point out that, since the Commission has raised the matter with the Togolese authorities, we should wait for results from them.
In conclusion, Mr President, it is the Togolese people who are being penalised in this matter and not Mr Eyadema.
Mr President, when we are talking about elections in an African country, a country where voters have not been consulted for a long time, we certainly cannot expect elections to be as orderly and precise as they are in the West, in Europe or in countries where there has been democracy for many years.
It is certain, moreover, that the procedures used to conduct the presidential elections in Togo are extremely suspect in more than one way.
It is difficult to establish what really happened, but we cannot forget that, when we decided to hold the Joint Assembly in Lomé, our decision was based on the return of conditions of substantial democracy and not only formal democracy, and all the Community institutions must focus their attention on this aspect.
Guinea-Bissau
Mr President, Commissioner, according to the latest calculations the recent crisis in GuineaBissau has left several hundred people dead and about 400 thousand homeless.
In Bissau, the capital, alone the population has fallen from 300 thousand inhabitants to around 25 thousand.
The shortage of food and, especially, the lack of medical assistance are becoming acute.
The Commission's action in providing rapid and plentiful humanitarian aid is to be applauded.
It must also be said that Portugal has made a notable effort in that respect.
But it is incomprehensible that Senegal has still not been persuaded to authorize humanitarian corridors from Dakar to provide aid to the people who have been displaced.
We support the restoration of constitutional order, but we know the root-cause of the crisis is internal political and social decay, and we must be aware that the presence of foreign troops, particularly Senegalese troops, is of special significance in the region and does nothing to restore institutional order. It is more likely to take the country into a new phase of guerrilla war, the duration and consequences of which are unforeseeable.
In this respect, too, the European Union can and must play an important role.
On the subject of the conflict in Guinea-Bissau, it might be appropriate to give some thought to the constant convulsions that are occurring on the west coast of Africa, particularly along the new oil and raw-materials corridors.
It is vital that the industrialized countries of Europe or other parts of the world should not march into Africa under the flag of economic-interest diplomacy, because this often causes tension, but rather help Africa to find its own way to development, democracy and respect for human rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at this point I must mention Angola.
There are increasing quantities of oil in that country, but there are also increasing signs that the peace process is breaking down, young men are being recruited into the Army, troops and military equipment are being moved around, artificial war scenarios are being created, summary executions are held, while for some reason I cannot understand the United Nations have not yet appointed a mediator in succession to the late Maître Beye.
I believe the Commission and the international community can play an important part in preventing this deterioration of the peace process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation which has existed in Guinea-Bissau for almost four and a half months is reaching alarming proportions, indeed tragic proportions where the future of the country is concerned, with the sacrifice of human lives and fundamental rights and the destruction of major physical and economic infrastructures.
In that respect I should like to emphasize three basic points, which in fact are in line with my group's motion.
In the first place, it is absolutely deplorable that up to now all the efforts of various international organizations, including a Portuguese-Angolan mission, have not achieved a definitive cease-fire and a peaceful political solution to the problem, owing to lack of goodwill on the part of those involved in the conflict.
Equally deplorable are the obstacles that have been raised by neighbouring countries to prevent emergency aid from reaching the people affected by the war.
In the second place, I would like to say that the direct or indirect introduction of foreign troops into an internal conflict in a foreign country is absolutely deplorable and they must be withdrawn from Guinea-Bissau as an urgent and inevitable precondition for any peaceful solution.
In the third place, I would like to emphasize that it is vital to find a peaceful solution to the conflict by political means that respect the fundamental rights of citizens, preserve their collective future and respect democratically-elected institutions.
It is in this hope that I support our appeal to the United Nations Security Council, the OAU and the European Union that they actively endeavour to find a political solution to end this deplorable and fratricidal war.
Mr President, no effort should, of course, be spared by the international community with regard to getting conflicting parties to the negotiation table and trying to achieve a sustainable, long-term political solution which can create peace in the whole region, and which can also guarantee that Guinea-Bissau's borders are respected and respect for human rights restored.
Unfortunately, the reports we have received are worrying.
Among other things, there are problems with obtaining humanitarian aid such as medicine, drinking water and food.
I really hope that the Commission will exercise pressure to bring about a corridor for humanitarian aid.
It is also worrying that people are being held in captivity and as hostages. They are being treated very badly according to a report from Amnesty International.
In addition, among journalists and those working for human rights there are many who are afraid.
I therefore fully support paragraph 11 of this resolution, which proposes that a delegation from the ACP-EU Joint Assembly be sent to the country to find out both how aid can be provided quickly and how we can help to resolve the conflict.
Mr President, in order to make up for the accumulated delay, I will on this occasion make you very happy by being particularly brief.
Our group does not wish paragraph 9, demanding the non-intervention and withdrawal of all foreign troops, to feature in the resolution, because we think that the presence of Senegalese troops is still needed in order to combat the rebels and stabilize the situation in the country.
Put simply, we would like paragraph 9 to be dropped from the resolution.
That is the wish of the ARE Group.
Madam President, Commissioner, it was originally intended that my colleague Mr Barros Moura should speak at this point.
Mr Barros Moura has been prevented from attending at the last minute, but as one of the signatories to the resolution, I should like to underline one or two points on my own and Mr Barros Moura's behalf.
Firstly, there can only be peace or mediation for peace if the warring forces, the belligerents, want it to happen.
Secondly, we consider it essential to emphasize the need to withdraw foreign troops and prevent this war from being gradually extended to other countries.
Thirdly, it is important in that respect to accept the possibility of UN or OAU troops intervening if the parties agree.
We are also concerned about the humanitarian situation of the people of Guinea-Bissau.
The obstacles to humanitarian aid, particularly the Senegalese forces themselves, will worsen the situation.
If we do not act quickly and effectively, the situation will deteriorate day by day in humanitarian terms.
In addition, this House has condemned the military coup, as we have done on previous occasions, and has supported the restoration of constitutional and institutional order, which means respect for institutions, especially the elected Parliament, but also respect for human rights (on this point see in particular the petitions by the NGOs and Amnesty International itself).
Finally, there must be an immediate cease-fire, saving human lives and enabling the country to start functioning again while searching for a peaceful political solution that guarantees Guinea-Bissau's territorial independence and integrity.
Madam President, Commissioner, we have followed the developments in the situation in Guinea-Bissau with great concern.
Being familiar with the country (we were there not long ago), since the outbreak of the war which has been dragging on since 7 June, we are on the side of those who have unequivocally supported a political solution to end the war, and most of all to end the suffering of a people.
Despite several attempts at mediation, the armed conflicted has dragged on, with the continued direct involvement of foreign military forces which have done nothing to assist the negotiated political settlement we want to see, and this has resulted in the most appalling human consequences in terms of loss of life and material possessions and created hundreds of thousands of refugees.
This disastrous situation is being prolonged and it is vital that it should be ended. It affects one of the world's poorest countries, which makes it even more deplorable inasmuch as it threatens the future and the real independence of a country, the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, after a heroic struggle by the PAIGC and a man of the political and human stature of Amilcar Cabral.
Thus we demand that a political solution be sought, leading to and guaranteeing the maintenance of peace and respect for the cultural and territorial integrity of Guinea-Bissau, ending the involvement of other countries in the war, and encouraging foreign military forces to return to their own countries.
In the meantime, practical humanitarian aid must be supplied for the people as a matter of urgency, by opening up corridors by which aid can reach those who need it, and removing anything that might hinder it.
Our position as Members of the European Parliament and Portuguese citizens can only be to affirm and give practical expression to our active and disinterested solidarity in both political and humanitarian terms.
Madam President, 350 thousand homeless, 100 thousand of whom are in danger of starving to death, hundreds of civilians and soldiers dead, atrocities against women and children, fear among the intellectual sectors of the internal political opposition, lack of food, medicines and drinking water - these are the ingredients of this disaster.
The military forces must not be allowed to go on preventing humanitarian aid from reaching people at risk.
One mediation effort follows another without much success.
There is now talk of bringing in Mozambique or the whole of the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries to assist in the Portuguese-Angolan mediation effort. Or using an intervention force from the OAU or the Economic Community of West African States.
An immediate cease-fire is the key to resolving a conflict with a dangerous tendency to perpetuate itself and become generalized.
Constitutional order must be restored.
The government's mandate ended on 4 June, and therefore Nino Vieira, as President-elect, has the legitimate power - but greater responsibility - to promote a cease-fire, dialogue and negotiation.
Only when all this has been done will the conditions be in place for reconciling the political process with a national government of reconstruction and the holding of legislative and presidential elections which will enable Guinea-Bissau to commence a new stage in its history in 1999.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation of Guinea-Bissau is nothing more than a specific part of a larger picture in a region of Africa that, like other regions, is continually destabilized politically to the point that there is little real political authority or concrete guarantees for the population.
There is clearly not much the European Union can do, but there are at least two areas where it has to focus its immediate attention.
Its first objective must be to ensure that humanitarian aid, food and medicine rapidly reach the populations in this very problematic area.
The other objective, in the medium to long term, is to promote a peace process that, although certainly dangerous and difficult, is also the only condition for development of this area.
Burma
Madam President, the situation in Burma is deteriorating rapidly at this time.
This applies both to the economic situation and to the political situation.
Economically, Burma is on the edge of the abyss. The military regime, after all, is surviving on the drugs trade and partly also on forced state labour, and for months has been unable to stop the downward spiral of the economy.
The population appears to be suffering more and more.
Politically speaking, repression has also increased in recent months.
This applies both to the opposition and to minority groups. The Karen people and the Shan are suffering, as are the Naga, the Mon, the Karenni and the Kachin peoples.
The systematic killings and ethnic cleansing are resulting in hordes of refugees in neighbouring countries, especially Thailand, India and Malaysia.
These numbers have recently increased dramatically.
Like the attacks on the refugee camps, killings and kidnappings have become common.
The opposition is also suffering.
Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi was arrested because she wanted to travel to the North, and she was again given severe house arrest with the threat of imprisonment.
Various members of the opposition are being threatened or are already imprisoned, and this in a country where there are already many political prisoners.
It is known that the military government fears that the situation will escalate even further around 8 August, because the remembrance will take place then of the student revolt of a number of years ago which cost so many lives.
Moreover the regime is afraid that the situation in Indonesia will spread to Burma.
Meanwhile the criticism of Burma within the ASEAN region is increasing, because Burma was admitted with the promise that it would do something positive regarding human rights and democracy.
This simply did not happen.
Madam President, we have previously made requests in this Parliament for a halt to European investment.
An economic boycott is needed.
Against this background it is incomprehensible - I say this to Sir Leon Brittan - that he has lectured Massachusetts because they have simply begun doing this.
Perhaps you are legally correct, but morally speaking, you are not correct.
What we want from the Commission and the Council is in fact to follow the United States and stop investment and put the regime in Burma under more pressure.
This must happen, Madam President, and this is something that the Commission is certainly capable of doing.
Madam President, first of all I would like to point out once again the absence of a colleague who is particularly dear to us - Mr Avgerinos. As we all know, he is responsible for considering the reform of the topical and urgent debate.
As we have not seen him during the past few months, I think it is important to point out that he is not here today either.
Perhaps he finds it more valuable to gather the opinions of all and sundry in the corridors of Parliament, which would perhaps explain the first proposals which he has put to us.
As regards Burma, I do not think there is a great deal to add to what Mr Bertens and Mrs Maij-Weggen have said: the European Union must not lag behind the United States.
Pressure has already been exerted; it has not achieved the results which we might have expected.
The abolition of preferential tariffs has not brought about any change whatsoever on the part of the Burmese authorities.
I think that we have to go a lot further and opt resolutely for a boycott.
Just as the Americans, for once, have a very clear position on this matter, the European Union could usefully join with the United States and try, once and for all, to put an end to this absurd regime.
Madam President, Burma is a mess and it is now becoming a nasty mess.
Fifty elected representatives have been gaoled whilst other MPs suffer the indignity of having to report twice daily to local police stations at the behest of the government.
Three hundred thousand internally displaced Karen people are on the run from the Burmese army.
Systematic destruction of Karen villages is combined with rape of women from all the Burmese minorities.
Destruction of food stores precedes massacres and ethnic cleansing of the Naga, Shan, Mon, Karen and Kachin peoples.
And now the growing numbers of Karen and Shan refugees in Thailand present new problems for the countries of ASEAN.
The European Union must make a stand.
Rightly, the EU-ASEAN Joint Committee has not met, since to meet would mean allowing Burma full representation.
We can do more.
We should encourage the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson, to install permanent observers in Burma to monitor human rights.
We call upon the Commission to implement full economic sanctions against Burma and to prohibit investment in Rangoon until human rights are properly respected.
The UN Security Council should also encourage global economic sanctions against the ruthless dictators of Burma.
The Thai Government, too, could help.
Better protection along the Thai-Burmese border can give confidence to refugees fleeing Burma's undemocratic and despotic regime.
We call on the Burmese Government to permit the UN special rapporteur on Burma to visit the country freely, and to allow him to carry out his mandate by guaranteeing him full access to the regions inhabited by the Karen people.
Moreover we demand that foreign companies investing in Burma, such as Total and Premier Oil, should freeze their investments immediately.
We recognise and support ASEAN's right to choose its own membership, but as the days and months pass it becomes increasingly clear that ASEAN has invited an unwelcome cuckoo into its nest of nations, spoiling its chances of developing modern democracies and respecting human rights whilst encouraging economic development to provide for its people.
Now is the time for the EU to stand up and be counted.
The UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma has expressed very deep concern about the recent reports that members of the NLD continue to be victims of arbitrary arrests and various forms of restriction.
The NLD has called for Parliament to be convened by 21 August and has also repeatedly called on the military rulers to engage in dialogue.
However, as Mr Harrison has just pointed out, the government has responded by ordering all the elected members not already in jail or exiled to report twice a day to local authorities, basically to stop them convening on their own.
It is high time that the EU took a moral stand on the situation in Burma.
The Commission and Council have to implement full economic sanctions against Burma and prohibit any investment until the situation as regards human rights violations has been settled.
As Mr Harrison said, the UN High Commissioner, Mary Robinson, should send a permanent observer to investigate the human rights situation and the atrocities committed by the Burmese authorities in the areas inhabited by oppressed minorities.
This has been going on for too long and we have to do something about it.
Sudan
Madam President, today the newspapers have made the happy announcement that the warring parties in southern and northern Sudan have agreed to a cease-fire.
I hope that several hundred thousand people in southern Sudan can now be saved from starvation.
But we have certainly learned our lesson in Sudan.
This development is indeed the first step in the framework of an active European policy, and hopefully on this basis preparations can begin for a referendum on the independence of southern Sudan.
Both parties have previously committed themselves to this, but now that must be proved.
International supervision will be essential if this referendum is to proceed in an honest fashion.
Both parties must also be involved with organizing the referendum.
In the meantime, the government in Khartoum must prove its credibility as a partner by making a priority of democracy and human rights, by releasing political prisoners and developing the constitutional state.
Madam President, I can endorse much of what Mr Bertens has said, for the situation in Sudan really is a sad and never-ending story.
This I know as a rapporteur in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
The problem has been the same for many years now.
We simply cannot get things moving.
The parties are not prepared to agree on a peaceful solution.
There is a danger that it will become a Thirty Years War.
I believe that the Council is right in supporting the IGAD and in endeavouring to engineer things so that we can send another ministerial mission to Khartoum and Nairobi and put a stop to the fighting.
As Mr Bertens rightly said, according to newspaper reports the SPLA has declared that it is ready to stop the fighting for three months.
I hope this happens as it is the only chance to help the people.
With the terrible drought it is already very late anyway.
Then we must work to secure peace as quickly as possible.
If we manage to achieve peace, then all the measures required to help the people there can be carried out calmly.
Even if peace is secured it will not be easy to solve the problems there, as it will not be possible to make good the damage which has been caused there and to restore the structures which have been destroyed over night.
I am afraid that even once the conditions are right there will still be an awful lot of work to do before the families which have been broken up can be reunited and everything else which needs to be done can be done.
Let us do everything we can to ensure that these conditions are created.
Then we can start to rebuild.
That is the first step.
Madam President, unfortunately in the region of the Horn of Africa and neighbouring areas the situation continues to deteriorate and is very serious, and there is no doubt that what has been occurring in Sudan now for many years is today one of the most worrisome and destabilizing factors.
The dramatic pictures that we have received these past few weeks, like in the past, of famine and the consequences of war, particularly in the regions of southern Sudan, have again drawn our attention to the situation of this country.
We know that it has always been extremely difficult, even when famine has been at its worst, to get aid from the international community to the populations affected, especially because the warring factions, and the authorities in Khartoum in particular, have always blocked it.
We must now attempt to take political action with great firmness and also great intelligence to take advantage of every possible opportunity to help definitively change this situation.
Agreement on a cease-fire is something that we have always sought and wanted, and according to the information reaching us, it seems that a situation of this type could very well be developing, something that we obviously hope is true.
At the same time, however, there must be a political will to take concrete and extremely urgent action so that humanitarian aid - which must be substantial - reaches the populations suffering from famine, and there must also be coherent political action involving first and foremost the regional players and IGAD but also the European Union to arrive at a peaceful and possibly definitive solution to the conflicts in Sudan.
Madam President, to improve the humanitarian situation in Sudan this Parliament has adopted five resolutions with the same intent during the past ten months.
Yesterday, in my opinion, the Austrian President-in-Office answered the Members' questions sufficiently.
I can add nothing to this.
Therefore, I think it wise to ask the Parliament to turn its attention towards a country where conflict is breaking out.
A country that in the year 2000 can provide one million barrels of oil and where 60 % of the population lives below the subsistence level.
A country where the government at this time is recruiting young people in the cities and mobilizing for battle. A country where the elite is corrupt, where generals turn into businessmen and where the fate of human rights activist Sahandu Neto is unclear.
Presidents Kabila, Dos Santos and Nujoma have agreed to allow the Angolan army - and this is the country I am speaking about - to carry out their operations on their territories.
The seriousness of the threat has been shown by the fact that the Portuguese have established an army group to evacuate their citizens from Angola.
I request that the Commissioner send a signal via our mission in Luanda that this conflict may not be allowed to break out, to call for the second round of elections and especially to say that the profits from oil must not be spent on arms, but on the Angolese.
Madam President, when the outcome of a civil war unites with repression, the infringement of human rights and drought, the result is what we have been seeing in the press in recent days: the threat of a terrible ravenous hunger affecting hundreds of thousands of people.
Therefore, the United Nations has called on the Commission and the Member States to provide as much humanitarian aid as possible.
And we must demand that the Sudanese authorities allow that aid to reach the displaced civil population because if it does not, the same thing will happen again as happens so many times due to the causes we are all aware of.
In any case, we must support the peace process.
And there would be no harm in taking a look at the United Nations Human Development Report, which states clearly that this country and others will not escape their absolute poverty if they do not manage to achieve a fairer distribution of wealth and greater respect for basic human rights: the right to eat, to live, to be educated and to enjoy good health.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, once more our Parliament is called upon to make a statement on the situation in the Sudan, without however being really convinced, either of the effectiveness of its previous interventions, or of the currency and exhaustiveness of its information.
Thus, the joint motion for a resolution submitted for our attention obviously ignores both the few improvements in access to areas hit by food shortages authorized by the Sudanese government as well as the cease-fire decreed by the southern movement, led by John Garang.
It does not highlight the relative progress that has been made towards the setting up of a democratic system, as represented by the adoption of the Sudanese constitution, or the developments in the negotiation progress between the main parties to the conflict.
In general, it does not appear to be based on a detailed analysis of the causes of the civil conflict in the Sudan, on sufficient understanding of the situation on the ground, or on the influence of external interventions, in a region where political instability is almost all-pervasive.
While we must of course approve of the interest shown by Europe in re-establishing peace and democracy in the Sudan, it would seem to us that the efforts designed to achieve these objectives require a new type of approach, a method based first of all on better information, in conjunction with arranging a mission on the ground or organizing hearings for representatives of parties to the conflict.
This method would, eventually, replace systematic and sometimes unbalanced condemnation, with the systematic encouragement of all parties to the conflict, to progress towards dialogue and work towards peace and the institution of democracy.
Situation in Georgia and Abkhazia
Madam President, the conflict in Abkhazia in the Caucasus has again flared up.
Many hundreds of people have already been killed, thousands are fleeing.
The cease-fire of 25 May did not last long.
Despite the efforts of the United Nations and the OSCE, the situation is still tense, to use an understatement.
Everything must be done to limit the destructive force of that conflict.
Both parties in the conflict must be convinced that violence is, of course, not the solution.
It is precisely now - when democratization in Georgia is on the right track, and with the help of our Union the reconstruction of the country has begun to make some progress - that we must make every effort to prevent this process from being derailed.
We must redouble our efforts to promote sustainable peace and development in the region.
I am therefore also pleased, Commissioner, that your colleague, Mr van den Broek, visited the region last month and, with the extra help that he promised, that the civilian society can make some progress.
Madam President, here again we are witnessing a nasty trick.
We are including a highly political issue under the heading of human rights because natural disasters have occurred in Georgia although they are no longer among our Parliament's priorities.
Well, really!
The Georgian question is a political one - and there again we are averting our gaze, because we are preparing to approve a very reasonable resolution which does not add to the problem.
What is needed is to allow Georgia to join the European Union very quickly, to avoid what happened in Yugoslavia where, for years, the Commission and the Council have watched the situation deteriorate.
It is essential that we propose rapid accession to the EU to the Georgian authorities, who are only waiting for this.
Georgia is a strategic region for the European Union.
It represents access to central Asia, Marco Polo's famous silk trail, the oil reserves in Azerbaijan where the English, French, Italians and other countries in the Union already have a strong presence.
The only way to ensure stability in the region is to allow Georgia to join the European Union quickly.
As Professor Gerenek said yesterday, one is not born a European, one becomes a European.
The Georgians have demonstrated this.
They have unilaterally undertaken to adapt their laws to those of the Union.
We must therefore encourage them, that is what they are waiting for.
The entry of Georgia into the Union would also help to make a constructive contribution to the problem of the Abkhazia who, as we know, and so long as there are no clear prospects for accession, will always be subject to the goodwill of the Russians, who have every interest in keeping some kind of influence in this area.
) Madam President, in the joint resolution we emphatically condemn the most recent acts of violence against the Georgian people.
The resolution also expresses our full support for the President of Georgia who has set in motion a process of political and economic reforms.
This process includes the strengthening of internal stability which has already made progress in the past. The peaceful solution of the crisis in Abkhazia is an important prerequisite for further consolidation and an important condition for the stabilization of the country.
We regret that fighting started in the region again in May, bringing with it deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees.
In order to continue the policy of reform in Georgia, further peaceful, political solutions to the conflict in Abkhazia must be found.
We therefore urgently advise the parties to take an active role in the UN peace process, and have reiterated this in point 2 of the resolution in which we call for adherence to the 1994 Moscow Agreement on a cease-fire and separation of forces and the 1998 cease-fire protocol, as well as to the obligation to refrain from all use of force.
This plea goes out to both sides, and I very much hope that the resolution will be passed unanimously in this form.
Madam President, reading this resolution and comparing it with the events of the last 48 hours, I have to say that there appears to be some discrepancy.
For only the day before yesterday a Polish woman from the United Nations, Maria Magdalena Wewiorska, 31 years of age, was shot dead in Georgia, probably by Georgian criminals.
I would just like to say this for the record because it shows once again that certain neat explanations about countries we know little about actually mean very little, and that we should finally admit once and for all that conditions there are terrible.
We should not play this down. Most importantly, we should ask ourselves seriously whether there is really any sense in sending Europeans to support the Russian Army in Georgia now because it has been officially announced.
Madam President, the conflict in Abkhazia is one of those conflicts which always fill us with concern because, after the military debacle, hatred amongst the population is so deep that it splits it, and efforts to secure peace progress very slowly.
The return of families to Gali was based on the great hope that it would finally be possible to bring the conflict under control.
The fighting has now destroyed this hope.
But what is the EU doing to improve the possibilities of a return to peace? Sometimes it is necessary to proceed in small steps.
That is why the Council of Europe has endeavoured to implement a programme of confidence-building measures, such as the Ertoba Radio Company project.
To date not one single Member State has offered its support for this measure.
What is needed is a few small projects to restore understanding amongst the population.
For this reason we are calling upon the Council to finance measures designed to build confidence amongst the population and to devote considerably greater attention to this.
Vietnam
Madam President, there is not a lot to say about Vietnam, other than this is the first time that our Parliament is preparing to give its opinion on a matter which, sadly, is still taboo for many Members of our European Parliament.
I would like to thank the colleagues from the PPE and from the Liberal Group for having supported this resolution.
Unfortunately, the Socialist Group and the Confederal Group of the European United Left do not support it.
I could perhaps remind them that they adopted the same position on North Korea and on China, on Mongolia, and on Eastern Turkestan, and you will quickly see that there is a common denominator underlying this attitude of the Socialist and United Left Groups.
As soon as old comrades are involved, everything is permitted even if, as in Vietnam, we all know that nothing is changing.
Of course, there is no Pinochet there, but the human rights situation is not getting any better.
It is a dictatorship, a red dictatorship, and therefore a lot more tolerable, but it is a dictatorship nevertheless, and I think that it is important for our Parliament to remember this.
Madam President, Commissioner, this resolution contains everything it possibly can about human rights, and the European Parliament has always made its views on human rights very clear.
I believe that we should look at the issue of human rights in a country with some reference to the historical context of that country.
If we look at the whole history of Vietnam, we can see that there is one part of Vietnam where we have become accustomed to seeing human rights infringed and abused and another part where - in our version - this did not happen in the same form at least until the 1970s.
Since then and since the war in Vietnam, we have more or less blocked this country from our memories, banished it from our consciences and it is time that we shook these consciences awake again, faced up to what is really going on there and made it clear here in the European Parliament that we cannot remain silent if such things, if such crimes are really taking place there.
This is why this resolution is so important. It is good that it has come here to the Parliament, that it attempts to highlight the situation so that in the future a relationship between the European Union and Vietnam will be possible.
Madam President, with regard to Togo, the conditions under which the elections were held there on 21 June prompted the EU to adopt a statement on 26 June expressing our deep concern at the conduct of the election and doubts about the credibility of the result announced by the Minister for the Interior, namely a first-round victory for President Eyadema.
On a proposal from the Commission, the European Union has invited the Togolese Government to hold consultations in keeping with the procedure set out in Article 366a of the Lomé Convention.
The first phase of the consultations will give the Togolese Government the opportunity to explain the irregularities observed during the process and say what measures have been or are to be adopted to remedy them.
If this preliminary phase does not give satisfactory results for the two sides, our commitment on cooperation could be put into jeopardy.
The launch of this procedure shows the importance we attach to this electoral process.
Its purpose is to open a dialogue to help find a way to restore the rule of law and respect for democratic principles with a view to normalising relations, including the provision of EU-funded cooperation projects.
With regard to Guinea-Bissau, the Commission agrees with the comments in the proposed resolution submitted to Parliament for adoption.
We have kept a careful eye on developments in Guinea-Bissau and deplore the fact that internal military conflict has been continuing for the last month and, indeed, as in recent days, increased in violence and intensity.
We appeal for a peaceful solution which would guarantee peace.
We are aware of the difficulties currently facing the civilian population, in particular the lack of food, medicines and water.
That is why, through ECHO, the Commission has released ECU 1 million in humanitarian aid for the distribution of food, water and medicines to those who have been displaced to the interior of the country.
The Commission supports the mediation efforts of a number of regional leaders and Member States, including those of Angola and Portugal, and calls on all parties to the conflict to negotiate a definitive cease-fire.
With regard to Burma, the Commission deplores the widespread human rights abuses there, including executions, arbitrary detention of political prisoners and refugees, the forced relocation of Shan villagers, combined with the systematic destruction of Karen, Shan and Karenni villages, as well as their food supplies, by the Burmese military.
We use every opportunity to urge the government to engage in peace talks and enter into substantive dialogue with the opposition led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the ethnic minorities.
Since Burma is now a member of ASEAN, we are especially urging our ASEAN partners to use their influence on their newest member.
The Commission has explained to this House on many occasions that it does not have the power to impose sanctions or call on the private sector to refrain from investing.
This issue has to be determined by the various bodies of the Council, which so far have not opted for that route.
As far as America is concerned, whatever the position of the US Administration may be, it is not appropriate for an individual state - Massachusetts - to seek to coerce European Union businesses to take action of a particular kind.
That is not compatible with international law and we have rightly made a strong protest.
That in no way implies support for anything that is done in Burma, which we have criticised repeatedly and frequently.
But it is a great mistake, to put it mildly, for an individual state in a friendly country to seek to pursue a foreign policy of its own by exerting unacceptable pressure on businesses in the European Union.
We actively support the Burmese democracy movement through our human rights and democracy budget line.
We are co-funding a project of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung , which has set up a Euro-Burma Office in Brussels, aiming to build awareness and disseminate accurate information on the true situation in Burma.
The initiative is also providing training in good governance and democracy for Burmese opposition members and future leaders.
With regard to Sudan, the European Commission shares the general view that the only means of bringing about a peaceful solution to the conflict is a lasting negotiated settlement based on an all-inclusive political process undertaken by all parties.
Any expression of EU concern should therefore address both sides in the conflict.
We continue to support all attempts at mediation and efforts to seek peace, and particularly the efforts of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.
We have encouraged and expressed our full support for its diplomatic efforts.
We have held frequent discussions with those leading the talks and have intervened on several occasions to make our views known.
The European Union has also repeatedly urged the parties in the conflict to achieve a negotiated solution in the IGAD peace talks.
We reaffirmed our commitment to support that at the last meeting of the Partners' Forum Committee in The Hague last month.
In the light of the current serious humanitarian crisis, the IGAD partners decided to send a ministerial mission to Khartoum and Nairobi to explore the possibilities of securing a break in the fighting.
I very much hope that the recent news of a cease-fire proves to be true.
We are considering what form of truce or corridors of tranquillity would be of most help to the humanitarian efforts and agreeable to all concerned.
In the light of their contacts with the representatives of the Sudanese Government and the representatives of the SPLA, the IGAD partners also noted that the parties to the conflict are committed to holding the third round of peace negotiations in August 1998.
In collaboration with other partners and institutions involved we are co-funding several preparatory initiatives on governance and constitutional practice and negotiating skills.
Meanwhile we will not change our declared position on the suspension of formal development cooperation, but continue to provide humanitarian assistance to the needy population in the south as well as in the north of the country.
With regard to Georgia and Abkhazia, the Commission fully supports the presidency's declaration of 2 June and salutes the statesmanlike restraint shown by President Shevardnadze, which has prevented a further escalation of violence.
It calls on all parties to honour their commitments, including the cease-fire protocol signed on 25 May.
We share the sorrow and deplore very deeply the tragic death of a worker in recent days while assisting the people.
As Mr von Habsburg has rightly said, it is extremely difficult to ask people to go to a dangerous area if events of that kind take place.
Nonetheless, we have made available ECU 200 000 through ECHO.
The Commission decided last week to make a further contribution of ECU 1.5 million to supply clean drinking-water, sanitation and medical assistance.
In addition, some money is available from the counterpart funds established by the Commission in 1995/1996 for supplying essential equipment and drinking water.
ECHO is ready to intervene further if epidemics should break out or if the situation does not improve by the winter.
Finally, with regard to Vietnam, the Vietnamese Government has announced that a general amnesty will be held on 2 September this year.
There have been strong indications that a significant number of political prisoners could be released on that occasion.
That should be the most important amnesty in Vietnam in recent years.
We must maintain pressure on the Vietnamese leadership to improve respect for human rights, in particular freedom of religion.
We also have to encourage and support moves in the right direction such as the commitment to hold the general amnesty in September.
It is important not to discourage the Vietnamese leadership from releasing significant numbers of prisoners at the time of the amnesty, and we are looking to them to do so.
It is also essential that our efforts and those of other donors in promoting dialogue with Vietnam on good governance should continue and not be thrown into question by wider political developments.
A clear message was given to the Vietnamese Government by the Head of Delegation in Hanoi at the consultative group's mid-term review in Hue on 15 and 16 June, when it was stated that the EU considers the good governance exercise with Vietnam to be an important element in giving a political dimension to relations between the two sides.
The Commission hopes that the European Parliament will use the present resolution to send a positive appeal to the present Vietnamese leadership to use the September amnesty as a unique opportunity to respond to the expectations of the international community, drawing particular attention to the individual cases about which the European Union has already expressed serious concern.
The forthcoming EC-Vietnam Joint Commission in October will provide the occasion to judge the scope of the September amnesty and in particular to see what consideration has been given to the individuals on the EU list of political detainees.
Mr President, may I return briefly to Burma, because the Commissioner has not responded to one of my previous points.
He stated that a ban on investment has not yet been implemented in the Council in response to the action of the United States, but my question is: has the Commission actually submitted such a proposal to the Council?
The Parliament has asked for this a number of times but has the Commission actually submitted such a proposal, because before the Council can come to a decision, a proposal for a decision must first be tabled.
I believe that you cannot accuse Massachusetts of anything if we ourselves are too weak to follow the American Congress in this area, certainly when the entire Parliament is of the same opinion.
Mr President, you can blame Massachusetts.
It is not within the powers of Massachusetts and quite contrary to international law for an individual state of the United States to decide to conduct a foreign policy which seeks to coerce European Union companies.
We cannot possibly object to the Helms-Burton legislation or the Ilster legislation and then say what Massachusetts does is all right.
That is contrary to the rule of law and I have to emphasize that it is not acceptable.
As far as sanctions are concerned, there is no support for them and therefore no reason to put the question to the Council as Mrs Maij-Weggen, given her experience, knows very well.
It is not a question of just tabling a resolution.
Soundings have to be taken to establish whether there is support.
Madam President, I have asked the Commissioner if the EU mission in Luanda would send out a signal to prevent a new war in that country.
This is important.
This is urgent.
Please give me an indication.
Perhaps you cannot answer positively now, but would you discuss giving that signal with your colleagues? That is my question.
I will ensure that you have a response to that.
Many thanks, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, I will be brief, since my colleague Mr Novo has already clearly identified the problem.
I would only like to say that, dramatically, only a few short months after one natural disaster in the Azores which caused several deaths through floods and landslides, there has now been another disaster.
On behalf of my group I would like to express full support for this motion, and also to affirm my confidence that the Commission will also help the Portuguese Government and the Regional Government of the Azores to find measures such as those already mentioned here, particularly the reinforcement of the REGIS programme and the Operational Programme for the Azores, to demonstrate our solidarity with this people who have been so severely afflicted, because I believe that unless that solidarity exists and is demonstrated, there will be no true spirit of European construction.
Madam President, there are three points I would like to mention, as one of the signatories.
Firstly, we know the Community budget includes a financial allocation for disasters, and we therefore ask for an increase in the allocation of Community funds to the Operational Programme for the Azores and the REGIS II initiative so that the Portuguese Government's solidarity with the Azores is not undermined by a web of bureaucracy in Brussels.
Secondly, the fact that these phenomena have repeated themselves clearly proves that the ultra-peripheral regions have special problems and calls for the necessary initiatives to be taken by the Commission to give practical expression to the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Thirdly and lastly, urban renewal and re-housing - in times of natural disaster - make these measures eligible under the ERDF rules for housing investment subsidies.
The current reform of the Fund regulations is a good opportunity to open that particular door.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the earthquake of 9 July, which principally affected the islands of Faial, Pico and São Jorge, has had devastating effects: there are over two thousand homeless people living in tents, and there is enormous damage to public buildings.
Owing to the scale of the disaster, families that have been victims of the disaster cannot rebuild a normal life for themselves on their own.
In any event, the Azores have no means to give them the kind of support they need in these circumstances.
We therefore have to rely on outside help.
No-one can remain indifferent to the plight of someone who loses the fruit of a lifetime's work in the space of 20 seconds.
I have been with the homeless families.
They look to us with a mixture of weakness and determination, helplessness and expectation, hoping for help but fearing it will not come.
We cannot leave them to fend for themselves.
Especially at times like this, solidarity must be more than just a concept.
They will now see who they can rely on.
We shall do our part in the Azores, but special help in reconstruction from the country and the European Union is essential.
We must ensure that, regardless of our efforts to get closer to European Union development parameters, we shall have the necessary means to provide decent living conditions for the victims of this disaster without delay.
Time is short.
The European Union has the necessary means.
All that is needed is the decision which, in the circumstances, I am sure will be taken.
However, we must define our terms.
I am not only talking about emergency humanitarian aid.
That is needed as well, but it is normally so meagre, and the incomprehensible dispute between Parliament and the Commission over the use of these funds is so fierce, that my essential hopes are not placed in that quarter.
What I do hope for, and I think it is reasonable to hope for, is an increase in the funds allocated to the Azores under the Community Support Framework, and those coming from the REGIS Community Initiative, bearing in mind that the calculation of the total damage to date stands at a minimum of ECUS 90 million (18 billion escudos).
This is the only way we can ensure that we shall proceed with the scheduled investments, which are vital and urgent, and also carry out the reconstruction work which is even more vital and urgent.
If we fail to do so, either we shall retard irremediably our progress towards reaching the average development parameters for our country and the European Union, or we shall not carry out any reconstruction work. Neither of these possibilities is acceptable.
The greater our need, the less ready we shall be to forgive those we rely on if they fail us; and the greater our need, the more we shall value the solidarity of those who are willing to stand with us.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 9 July 1998 will be just one more tragic date to add to the many others that for the saddest of reasons will remain in the memories of the people of the Azores.
The facts are that at dawn on 9 July the people of the Islands of Faial, Pico and São Jorge were woken by a violent earthquake which left eight people dead, around a hundred injured and over fifteen hundred homeless.
The material damage is estimated at around 20 billion escudos.
Once again - and in this House - we reaffirm the importance of the introduction of an article in the Treaty of Amsterdam providing for differentiated and specific treatment for the ultra-peripheral regions.
We have also previously stated in this House that in view of the repetition of these situations the REGIS initiative should in future contain an element enabling it to deal with natural disasters.
In these situations, apart from expressions of sympathy, votes of condolence and verbal assurances of solidarity, which are always welcome, we should take practical action in the form of immediate direct support for the Government and citizens affected, so that not only will the public utility infrastructures be rebuilt, but elderly families without financial resources will also have their homes rebuilt.
We are aware that the Community budget makes no provision for disaster relief funds.
That is why we are suggesting to the Council, in the context of the national solidarity which has already been expressed in the reinforcement of the specific development programme for the Autonomous Region of the Azores, that it should take action to reinforce the REGIS Community initiative with funds from other Community initiatives which are not expected to be used by 1999.
This European solidarity will enable those citizens, who are Europeans like ourselves, to feel, despite all they have suffered, that it is worthwhile continuing to live and believe in the European ideal.
Earthquake in Turkey
Madam President, on that Sunday, 28 June, the whole world froze in horror at the tragedy that befell Adana in Turkey as a result of an earthquake of biblical proportions.
It was natural for all the countries of the European Union, including my own as a neighbouring country, to hasten to the aid of the suffering populations in that region of Turkey.
I believe that such disasters, with hundreds of dead and thousands of injured victims, and with incalculable economic and social repercussions, must make the European Union treat them seriously.
I would like the European Parliament - and I believe that is what we are doing now - to express its sympathy, support and condolences to the families of all the victims, as mentioned in the joint resolution.
I believe we must call on the European Union and the Commission to try to find ways to give financial support to tackle the havoc that has been wreaked on this country.
Finally, I would like to use the opportunity of this debate on acts of God and earthquakes to mention that the European Union must at last give substantial financial backing to international cooperation for research into systems and methods to forecast, predict and give advance warning of earthquakes.
Finally, I believe that in this matter Turkey must today have the full support of the European Union, regardless of the problems it has or does not have with the European Union.
Madam President, I share the emotion and the solidarity for the victims of the recent catastrophic earthquake in Adana and I naturally support any financial and technical aid that the European Union can offer.
This misfortune may, however, offer opportunities for positive action.
In the region that extends from Italy to Greece, Turkey and the rest of the Middle East earthquakes are observed to have typically many similarities and, unfortunately, similar effects.
It is also well known, and it was confirmed recently at Adana, that prevention, the antiseismic policy in building and the appropriate intervention following an earthquake, are just not good enough and need radical modernization.
And of course more general coordination at all these stages could help significantly to reduce the consequences of the disaster.
In this connection I think that the European Union may play a decisive role.
And I ask this. Could the Commission perhaps give us some initial thoughts on the matter?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the earthquake in Turkey really is a large-scale natural disaster - 150 dead, 1 500 seriously injured, thousands of buildings damaged -, and it is both good practice and vitally necessary that we express our solidarity not only in words, but also in deeds, in the form of aid.
For this earthquake occurred in the south of Turkey, in a region which is highly dependent on tourism.
The first reports only a few weeks after this devastating earthquake reveal that tourist bookings have dropped drastically.
Turkey has reported a drop of over 40 % in this heartland of European tourism which welcomes almost 5 million European tourists every year.
So it is a disaster which goes beyond personal damage, beyond family suffering.
It is a disaster which goes beyond the physical damage which has been caused on the ground.
It is a disaster which directly affects the livelihoods of several million Turks, and therefore we need to provide rapid assistance of a practical nature.
Above all the European Union needs not only to express its solidarity as we are doing here in Parliament - and I am delighted that the Greek members have also done this - but to finally fulfil its obligations under the customs cooperation agreement with Turkey.
It is we - not the European Parliament, but rather the European Union - who have blocked a considerable percentage of the payments due to Turkey to date.
We have failed to act in accordance with the agreement and I should like to take this opportunity, in addition to expressing my solidarity with the victims, to call upon the Commission, together with the Austrian presidency, to put an end once and for all to the blockade on financial aid to Turkey so that we really can provide some practical assistance.
In the same vein, we also need to make the necessary provisions, of course, and here I agree unreservedly with the two previous speakers who have seen this as their task.
Madam President, Turkey lies on a seismic fault running from east to west. Therefore earthquakes are, unfortunately, fairly common in Turkey.
We cannot prevent earthquakes from happening, but we can, of course, alleviate the effects of them by building houses that are technically more stable and by establishing early warning systems.
This earthquake was fairly strong, 6.3 on the Richter scale.
In addition to the tragedy that people had to lose their lives, there was also considerable material damage, including damage to the electricity system and to the oil storage tanks in the town of Adana.
Turkey suffers from earthquakes. It is therefore incomprehensible that the Turkish government is now planning to construct a nuclear power station, the first one in Turkey, only 100 km from this area.
I would like to ask the Commissioner what the Commission intends to do to appeal to Turkey and tell the country that it should not construct a nuclear power station in an area that is so vulnerable to earthquakes.
It is bad enough that a nuclear power station is being built, but we must prevent the catastrophe which could occur with a nuclear power station in this precise area.
Forest fires in Greece
Madam President, I would ask the Commissioner not to restrict himself to a litany of solidarity and support concerning the enormous damage caused by the fires during the last two months in Greece, but to make a solemn statement that there will be immediate aid to compensate for that damage.
Tens of thousands of hectares of cultivated land and a large number of cattle farms were completely burned. Houses were burned down, infrastructure was burned, there were dead and injured as a result of the fires.
I would ask the Commissioner, therefore, to announce that this immediate aid will be provided.
In addition, I would ask him to exercise the influence that can be exercised, so that governments in Greece, including the current government, will at last create a forest registry and enforce more stringent legislation concerning the trade in land. Existing legislation is so lax that mafia groups avail themselves of arsonists in concert with commercial entrepreneurial construction interests and cause the fires in Greece, beyond what can normally be expected.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out that the Community has no effective pre-emptive policy for forestry protection.
It does not have a coordinating body or commensurate funds to exploit the modern methods made available by science and technology to prevent Europe from turning into a desert because of the fires, because fires do not occur only in Greece.
Madam President, Greece has the painful privilege of being the country where, with each of the many fires that occur, the extent of the damage is greater than anywhere else in Europe.
Of course Greece does not have a monopoly on these disastrous fires.
Because of their geophysical and climatological conditions, most regions in the countries of southern Europe are ravaged by fires.
At this moment, as we speak new fires are raging in the Peloponnese in southern Greece.
I believe that the European Parliament would like to express its support and solidarity for my compatriots.
There have been victims, human lives have been lost due to the many fires that have occurred in Greece over the last few days.
I believe that the European Commission must give immediate financial and technical assistance to these regions.
I in turn would like to stress that the European Union must deal with the matter in a systematic way, in collaboration with all national bodies, so that the appropriate initiatives can be taken for a system that will prevent and tackle such damage.
Finally, I wish to highlight in the most unambiguous way that the total prevention of these ravaged regions being turned into plots of land for building must be debated at all costs.
In other words we must encourage the regeneration and reforestation of these devastated regions.
Speaking on behalf of my European Socialist colleagues of PASOK, I wish to announce that we fully endorse the resolution that has been put forward.
Madam President, every year in Greece and in other Mediterranean countries of the Community enormous areas of forests are burned.
There is no doubt that some of the fires are the result of criminal activity, the aim of which is to gain financial benefit, while most of them are the result of special climatic conditions.
It is a fact, however, that the non-existence of administrative structures, the inadequacy of coordination and the inability to deal with these fires intensify their catastrophic effect.
Moreover, inadequate prevention and lack of proper surveillance are the result of the delay in the completion of the national land registry and the non-existence of national action plans within the framework of Community Regulation 308/97 for the protection of Community forests against fire.
I call on you, Commissioner, to inform us: firstly whether the action plans were handed over to you by the Greek government in 1997 and what sums of money were pledged for that purpose from the Community budget; secondly, what is happening with the work of the national land registry which is being financed by the second Community Support Framework and for which the Greek government was requested to make cutbacks and to transfer money to other works.
Last year, on the occasion of the great fire of Thessaloniki, I had already called for overall strategic prevention and the setting up of the European Centre for Protection Against Fire for the systematic study and prevention of disasters and, indeed, relating to areas of high biodiversity, in connection with which the European Union had signed a special convention.
It is therefore essential that it protect these forests and precious regions.
Madam President, I will not describe the disasters.
My colleagues have done that very well.
I would just like to say two words.
Firstly, that there is an issue in Parliament, generally, relating to disasters funds.
We ourselves abolished the budget line which corresponded to this issue. What remains for us to do?
With regard to the specific issue in hand, concerning the fires in Greece first of all, I would like to agree with my colleagues and to ask the Commission whether it plans to exert the necessary pressure, which it has the obligation to exert, on the Greek government concerning this famous land registry, which does not exist and which causes Greece to burn every year. I would also like to ask whether, given its powers, it plans to exert pressure on the Greek government to prevent the extensive fires that burn at the hands of landgrabbers.
In addition, I would like to emphasize that in fact there is a problem, that a way needs to be found to give help, as the extent of the disasters is extremely great, and that we ourselves must try to find this way and not abolish budget lines when we need them.
Madam President, clearly there are no possibilities for material help.
Nevertheless, the Commission, given its powers and responsibilities, has a very important role to play in the prevention of fires in the long term.
Beyond the whims of nature fires are caused by, or facilitated by, the lack of a land registry, because there is always the hope that the burned areas can be appropriated, and by arbitrary building and town planning that lacks infrastructure or suitable access and impedes the extinguishing of fires. Finally - and I wish to emphasize this in particular to the Commission - fires are caused by the thousands of illegal and uncontrolled rubbish dumps over which there is no guard, which do not have the most basic infrastructure, and which become the source of fires.
The Commission can help a great deal. Firstly, it can exert pressure to speed up the land registry which, moreover, the Commission itself is financing.
It can also refuse funding which, directly or indirectly, encourages or turns a blind eye to arbitrary building.
And, of course, it can exert greater pressure on authorities, especially local and regional authorities, to build modern, protected areas for rubbish.
To achieve this it can use the threat of recourse to the courts or the cutting off of other funds.
In this way the Commission will make a significant contribution to reducing the dangers from fires in Greece.
Madam President, beginning with the situation in the Azores and in Greece, may I say that the Commission obviously sympathises very much with the victims of the fires in Greece and the earthquake in the Azores.
First of all I want to present our sincere condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives.
I am not going to be able to answer every question that has been raised.
I will, however, give you the information that I have.
With regard to aid for the victims of these catastrophes, the Community budget for 1998 does not contain appropriations for emergency aid inside the European Community, but the areas affected by these calamities are recipients of Structural Funds aid under Objective 1.
Within the framework of the appropriations available, the public authorities can reorient their expenditure to take account of the new needs.
With regard more particularly to the earthquake in the Azores, the Commission has had initial contacts with the regional and national authorities to examine the possibilities, within the Community support framework for Portugal, of financing the necessary rebuilding work following the earthquake.
The Commission was informed that an official request from the regional authorities concerned might be submitted to the monitoring committee of the Community support framework, which is actually meeting today in Lisbon.
If that happens the Commission will, of course, consider this request in a spirit of openness.
With regard to Greece, there are operational programmes which could part-finance the restoration of the environment and forestry heritage under the Structural Funds.
Moreover, the specific programme for the prevention of forest fires can also contribute to improving prevention systems, and it should be noted that the appropriations under this programme were reduced from ECU 23 million in 1997 to ECU 17 million in 1998.
Let me finally stress that the Commission is willing to examine quickly any concrete request emanating from the competent authorities of these two countries.
I have no information beyond what I have given as to whether such requests are being made.
I can also confirm that the Commission will take all the necessary formal decisions concerning possible amendments of the existing programmes to enable us to do what I have outlined.
With regard to Turkey, as has been said, a very serious earthquake occurred on 27 June leading to considerable numbers of people being killed and injured.
Again, I would like to express our sincere sympathy and condolences to the families and individuals affected in this tragic event.
The latest reports from the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent say that there are approximately 300 000 people living in tents, but the assessment of the damage continues.
The Turkish Red Crescent, Kizie Ay, provided immediate relief assistance in the form of tents, blankets, food supplies and mobile kitchens and over 1000 units of blood were also supplied.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent issued a request for funds in order to purchase emergency relief items.
A UN assessment mission conducted on 1 and 2 July reported that the government and local authorities had the situation under control and did not need or request any international assistance.
The situation has not changed since then.
OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, issued regular situation reports and acted as a channel for contributions.
All contributions received were intended for use in coordination with the relevant UN organisations.
ECHO has made a decision for the release of ECU 500 000 in response to the IFRC request for funding for emergency relief items.
That will cover items such as blankets, tents, mobile kitchens and electrical generators.
Many thanks, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
Madam President, I believe it appropriate to illustrate very briefly the content of this resolution which calls on the Council and the Commission of the European Union, out of respect for the memory of millions of victims and elementary human rights, to bring every pressure to bear on the governments concerned to ensure that the assets and property stolen from the Jews and constituting spoils of war, part of which was deposited in particularly secret banks, are disclosed and returned to their original owners or those now entitled to them.
These are assets and property that have been and are today an enormous problem for public opinion.
This is the content of our resolution, a text that I would like to comment on very briefly and in very simple terms, recalling Europe's responsibility in the Holocaust.
Europe is a synthesis of tolerance and violence: the Holocaust did not arrive from another world; unfortunately the Holocaust arrived from within the history of Europe.
For this reason, there is something that deeply affects us, because it always imposes new responsibilities on us that are of a historical and cultural nature.
At this time I would like to challenge and take to task the revisionists who, with their edited version of history, are undoing the past and thus making it impossible to build the present and the future.
For this reason, it is obvious that European civilization must be based especially on the condemnation of the Holocaust but also on the condemnation of all forms of violence and on the need for a profound recognition of diversity.
That is the point!
Our request is very precise and concrete and concerns a tangible issue that has been raised by the whole of public opinion, causing dismay in American public opinion, in particular.
The request made to the Commission and the Council is precisely that which I indicated in the beginning.
Madam President, we are absolutely, categorically, for the resolution and for the acceptance of all requests, and we ask the Commission to carry out its duty in a responsible way because it would be unacceptable for it to play the Pontius Pilate in such matters.
I wish to take this opportunity to say that, although the extent and the consequences may not have been the same as those of the Holocaust we are debating today, there were other Holocausts in other countries and in my own country.
And even now the German authorities refuse to pay compensation - and it concerns damages of some billions of dollars - and refuse to return the contractual loan they had signed on the understanding that it would be returned after the war, no matter what the outcome.
They find various excuses that all the money was used up, especially after the reunification of the two German states.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner to speak not only about the consequences of the Holocaust for the European population but also about this unacceptable stance of a Member State of the Community which is portraying the monster of wealth and power.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in light of the sensitivity of the subject we are dealing with, it was in my view a wise decision to leave open to the Council and the Commission the detail of the text of the resolution specifying the means by which they intend to exert pressure on the relevant institutions and governments to effect the restitution of property belonging to Holocaust victims to those persons who are legally entitled to it.
However, precisely because that is the case, because this openness was necessary, I should now like to draw attention to and underline what Mr De Giovanni has already said.
There is in this case both a moral and a legal imperative for action.
The moral imperative consists in the fact that the Holocaust has become a universal example of the flouting of human dignity and human rights.
Such behaviour must be condemned, and we must therefore act accordingly.
The legal obligation consists in the fact that every legal system makes provision for compensation for damage suffered by a victim or restitution of that of which he has been deprived.
However, I would like to conclude with a reference to a historical imperative for action by the European Union.
I hope that during the next legislative period, as a result of enlargement, Auschwitz will become part of the Union.
It is therefore important that the European Union is quite clear about exactly what this means for it.
Madam President, 50 years after the greatest tragedy of this century, the victims have still not received fair treatment, and their possessions and goods have still not been returned to them or their heirs.
Now that the facts have come out about the actual role of the Swiss banks in this tragedy, now is the time for Parliament to justifiably call on Switzerland to do justice to the victims of the Holocaust.
My group has nothing more to add to this, and we support this position completely.
Mr President, all of us in this House agree, I think, that, just as the Holocaust is to be condemned, the actions or oversights which are the consequences of the Holocaust are similarly to be condemned.
It is clear that it is unquestionably incumbent upon us to find the fairest possible way of addressing the issue of some of the assets of Holocaust victims.
It will add to the overall attempt to administer justice on behalf of the victims of this disastrous policy of the past.
Switzerland, the first country in connection with which the issue of assets of Holocaust victims arose, has made a move towards some kind of arrangement, following pressure brought to bear by the international community.
There is no doubt that other corrective action is necessary so that, at least as regards this country, there is an outcome of some substance.
However, other countries that were involved in this matter need to take the same corrective action.
I believe that the European Parliament resolution that is before you today is one more push in this direction.
Mr President, today, 53 years after the military defeat of the Nazi regime, it is shameful that appeals still need to be made to governments and banks for assets stolen from Jewish people during the Holocaust to be returned to the survivors and their heirs.
Self-evidently, living survivors are predominantly elderly, and many are infirm or living their remaining years in poverty.
Relatives who are the heirs of the murdered victims have been denied compensation for the absurd reason that the Nazi barbarians did not issue death certificates and post them to those Jews who managed to escape the gas chambers and the pits of death which the Nazis planned as the fate for all the Jewish people.
Where there are definitely no living heirs, assets stolen from these victims of the Holocaust should be used to finance material support for the many now elderly and poverty-stricken survivors who came originally from a background of poverty.
I fully support the European Parliament resolution which demands restitution of stolen assets, and I trust that the Commission and the Council will do everything within their powers in that area.
However, the Shoah, the mass murder of 6 million Jewish children, women and men in Europe, can never be compensated for.
The memory of the 6 million Jewish martyrs, of their lives and emotions, of their culture and of their potential, needs to be preserved.
And very importantly, the vile racist and anti-Semitic ideas, media and actions of modern-day fascists and neoNazis in Europe need to be combated and suppressed by all necessary means.
Mr President, following on from others, Mr Newman has just said everything and the Liberal Group quite naturally shares the basic feelings and views which have just been expressed here.
However, we have not signed the joint text because we think that paragraph 1 has been drawn up in a very clumsy way and it is likely to downgrade the essential challenge of this text and turn the matter into a mediocre lobbying issue.
That is why, borrowing the very words which Mr Newman used in his speech, I would immediately like to table an oral amendment - to be reiterated later - which would replace "bring every pressure to bear on the governments concerned' , with "do everything within their powers' .
The meaning of the text would not be changed as a consequence and it would mean that the text would no longer be subject to mediocre and nauseating exploitation.
I would like this oral amendment, which I will repeat as necessary, to be accepted by all our colleagues.
(Loud applause)
Mr President, I agree wholeheartedly with the ideas expressed by Mr Newman here.
I believe he has highlighted the fact that we have to continue to fight fascism today.
This resolution mentions Jews in particular as those who suffered worst from the Nazi atrocities.
Nevertheless, I would like to remind everyone that many other groups, in addition to the Jewish people, were the victims of these horrors and general tyranny.
I would especially like to mention Romanies and homosexuals.
Their honour also must be restored.
Recently foundations have been set up in places such as Switzerland and Germany, where Jews, Romanies and sexual minorities that suffered cruelty under the Nazis may seek compensation.
The kind of compensation on offer is, unfortunately, mainly symbolic, but it is an indication that their former plight is being acknowledged today also.
I hope the Commission and Council will also consider the Romanies and homosexuals, in addition to the Jews, with regard to the restoration of property.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the National Alliance endorses the joint resolution of the European Parliament on the restitution of property belonging to Holocaust victims and is very pleased that a motion for a resolution which it originated and whose key signatories are Mr Muscardini and Mr Pasty as well as the President of the National Alliance, Mr Gianfranco Fini, has been included in the House's debate.
The National Alliance delegation is particularly pleased that this was expressed by our House, considering it a natural conclusion of the passage through Parliament that it precisely sought with its two political initiatives on this topic: the written declaration of 14 January 1998 and the subsequent motion for a resolution of 20 May 1998.
Both initiatives called for the restitution of property belonging to Holocaust victims.
It is therefore obvious that we are in total agreement on the contents and the requests of the joint resolution that we will be voting on shortly.
The supreme crime perpetrated by the Nazi criminals against those belonging to the Jewish religion, the infamous act that the allies of the Nazis sullied their hands with in various European countries, collaborating in the persecution, denouncement and searches, and not least the tragic racial legislation introduced by the Fascist regime in power in Italy make even more unjustifiable the shameful insult of the requisition of property and the concealment of assets belonging to the victims of such horrendous persecution.
This concealment we consider to be totally illegal appropriation and theft, because it is obvious that the banks and financial institutions concerned knew and know the identity of the holders of the accounts.
For this reason, the National Alliance is proposing that the assets and property belonging to the Holocaust victims, even when it is impossible to locate the holders or heirs of the holders of such assets, be paid into a single fund managed by the World Jewish Congress or by any other association or body that this Congress may want to indicate and officialise for the purposes deemed most appropriate.
Mr President, I do not think there can be any need for me to say how strongly I respect the feelings and views expressed in this debate by so many Members from all sides of the House.
Speaking personally, not only do I respect those feelings and views but I also have no difficulty in saying that I share most of the sentiments expressed.
On the other hand, I have to state the position of the Commission and, although I cannot believe that any of my colleagues would not hold the view I have just given voice to, it is a fact that the Nazi gold affair is not one that falls within the Commission's competence.
All that the Commission can do in its contacts with the Swiss side is to express the view that it would seem to me to be very much in the Swiss interest to do the utmost to settle the issue in a satisfactory manner and, indeed, in a way that would satisfy those who have spoken in this House.
Although it is a fact that the Commission does not have competence here, I can say that I personally warmly welcome the fact that there has been this debate in this House and that the views that have been expressed have been expressed.
I have little doubt that, amongst the welter of activities on the part of individuals and organisations, representative and non-representative, the views expressed so strongly and universally by those in this House will not be the least influential, and, I hope, will have the effect that those who have spoken would wish for.
Mr Nordmann, I have already recorded your request for an oral amendment.
During your speech I will refer to it myself.
Before proceeding to the vote, I would like to inform you of the request for two oral amendments.
One is being presented by the Liberal Group and aims to replace the first words in paragraph 1, which are: ' calls on the Council and Commission, out of respect for the memory, ' by 'invites the Member States to endeavour with every means in order to respect the memory...' .
What follows remains unchanged.
Has this been referred to me correctly, Mr Nordmann?
Mr President, we are not asking for the appeal to the Council and the Commission to be deleted, but we want to add "and on the Member States' , and we would like to replace "bring every pressure to bear on the governments concerned' , with "do everything within their powers' , terms which Commissioner Brittan's speech has, were it necessary, justified, and which I take from Mr Newman's own proposals.
Mr Nordmann, there has certainly been a misunderstanding between the Liberal Group's request and the text that has been presented to me, because indeed during your speech this wording was very clear.
Now, though, all the Members are able to judge.
I must obviously, however, turn to the House to check whether there are any objections to the request for an oral amendment.
Mr President, we believe that the existing text is better than the proposed oral amendment, and we therefore object to voting on the oral amendment.
As you know, the Rules of Procedure provide that it is not possible to proceed to the vote of an oral amendment if there is opposition from at least 12 Members in the House.
Unfortunately, your statement is not enough.
I ask the Members to please rise.
(Twelve Members stood up) Mr Dimitrakopoulos asks that in paragraph 2 the words 'World Jewish Congress' be replaced by 'the government of Israel, the Knesset and the organizations that represent Jewish people all over the world' .
(Parliament adopted the resolution) That concludes the vote on urgent subjects.
Votes
Mr Bourlanges, it is a very delicate issue and we are all sensitive to it. As a result, I will allow you to make this comment.
Let us say that it is a kind of declaration of vote.
Naturally, it is possible to comment on Mrs Aelvoet's explanatory statement, but I have had to abide by the Rules of Procedure and consequently I have obviously not emphasized Mrs Aelvoet's statement, but I have only seen that there were twelve Members who rose.
Mr President, the Rules of Procedure are the Rules of Procedure, and the Rules of Procedure do not state what type of explanation must be used.
Therefore our colleague's remark was not totally correct.
He can have a different opinion - that is not a problem for me - but the Rules of Procedure do not say anything about the type of explanation that is required.
Report by Mr Newman (A4-0258/95), on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1997
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The right of petition is one of the most ancient to which ordinary citizens are entitled.
It is, therefore, quite right that the citizens of the European Union should also have access to this right, which has been enshrined in law since the Maastricht Treaty entered into force.
It is, however, essential that petitioners, generally motivated by the fact that they believe that their legitimate rights have been abused by the public authorities, should not also feel that the European Parliament, to whom they have turned, fails to examine their request not just carefully, but promptly.
It is important, therefore, that the Committee on Petitions has access to the necessary resources, in terms of both staff and equipment, in order to deal with the many requests which it receives annually with great efficiency and diligence.
It is, moreover, regrettable that, unlike the Commission, which appears to collaborate gladly with the work of the Committee on Petitions, the Council would clearly appear to be far less willing in this respect.
Parliament has a right to expect that Council officials will also participate in the work of the Committee on Petitions.
The attitude of the Council and the paucity of means are all the more damaging since a close examination of the petitions is also an excellent way for the institutions to evaluate the extent of the application of and true respect for Community law in the various Member States.
By voting for this resolution which has been submitted to us, I would, therefore, like to stress, in particular, just how important it is for all our European citizens that all the institutions collaborate closely, including in the framework of the Committee on Petitions.
Newman report (A4-0258/98)
With the Committee on Petitions, the European Ombudsman is the other pillar of the right of petition through which the citizens and residents of Europe are able to participate personally and directly in the construction of a Union which respects its own principles and its own laws.
Like the rapporteur, we can really be very happy that the Ombudsman has followed the European Parliament's recommendation and defined what is understood by 'maladministration' .
Similarly, we must also be satisfied with the favourable reception which the Ombudsman has given to our proposal to draw up a common set of general administrative rules applicable to all the institutions and to all bodies of the European Union in the form of an code of good administrative behaviour.
The code, of course, will have to specify the sanctions applicable in the case of proven infringements.
This very positive evaluation cannot, however, disguise the fact that only 3 % of the 1 412 complaints regarding maladministration registered during the past year have resulted in a comment, a regulation or an amicable solution.
On this point, I cannot but share the scepticism which the rapporteur has expressed regarding the image of the truth behind these figures.
The purpose of a close study of the complaints sent to the Ombudsman is also, in fact, to contribute to an improvement in the running of the Community institutions and organs and to their credibility.
With this in mind, it would seem to be essential to extend and strengthen cooperation between the Ombudsman and the Committee on Petitions.
It is also desirable that the Commission should have adequate resources for monitoring the proper application of Community law in each Member State.
In a law-abiding state which respects itself, recourse to the Ombudsman can really only be an additional method of ensuring the good conduct of the institutions.
It cannot under any circumstances be the principal method.
It is in this spirit that I support the resolution which is before us.
Mr President, I am happy to support this report which deals with a new and important part of the EU's institutions, the office of the Ombudsman.
The Ombudsman fills what had been a gap in our way of working, by allowing members of the public to submit a complaint when they suffer from maladministration by the EU's institutions.
It is good news that, in more than half of the cases completed last year, there was found to be no maladministration.
However, the Ombudsman has still played a useful role for the public by asking the Commission to improve people's rights in the run-up to judicial cases resulting from complaints, which the Commission has now done.
People could be forgiven for thinking that they are the David taking on the Brussels Goliath when they complain about the European Commission - but now people should know that, if they have a genuine complaint, then David will have a strong ally in the Ombudsman who will face Goliath with them!
Thors report (A4-0265/98)
The signatories of this explanation of vote fully support the initiatives of the European Ombudsman as regards access to documents and hence also Mrs Thors' report.
It is high time the EU began to act on its fine words and statements of intent on transparency, which is also enshrined in the Treaty.
Openness and transparency are decisive prerequisites for a democratic system if decision-makers are to be held accountable for the decisions they make.
A lot more can be done to increase openness within the EU; this is in fact the background to the European Ombudsman's report.
In order to make it easier for citizens to seek access to documents and facilitate the processing of cases involving access to documents, the institutions and organs of the EU must have the same general, clear and readily-available administrative rules in this area.
The Ombudsman's report and recommendations to EU institutions and organs regarding increased transparency are a step in the right direction.
We hope the institutions of the EU will follow up on his report and recommendations and work towards introducing improved rules on access to documents.
In our opinion, the right of access to documents should be the rule in the EU rather than the exception.
The first special report to Parliament by that institution's Ombudsman is already in itself certain proof of the great importance of the institution of Ombudsman.
In building a people's Europe and in developing a Union of closer ties for its citizens, we need a legal player to defend the ordinary citizen, the man in the street, from the grasp of bureaucratic machinery.
The Ombudsman is a vitally important institution and person from the point of view of the aims of Parliament.
The substance of the Ombudsman's special report, the practical implementation of the principle of public access, is immensely important in bringing the Union closer to the people.
The study carried out on the Ombudsman's own initiative has in itself already advanced the cause of public access to documents; previous rules have begun to be implemented in a totally different way.
However, there is still a lot to be done on the basis of recommendations made.
Transparency has to become a leading principle, and restrictions or exceptions to it must be justified case by case.
In many cases it is a question of changing the entire administrative culture from a secretive one to an open one, and a real commitment to a comprehensive implementation of the principle of public access.
It is most definitely necessary, on this basis, to continue to develop common administrative rules for the Union's institutions and boards.
Citizens have the right to information, advice and guidance in all matters connected with the work of the Community's institutions and boards.
Petitions should be replied to as quickly as possible and on the so-called one-centre principle, in other words by referring the petitioner, if necessary, to the appropriate institution or organ.
Unless these principles are absorbed into practice, it will be futile to talk of closer ties for the citizens of the Union.
Regarding proper access to documents we must make greater headway with internal rules for the institutions.
Community laws must incorporate common rules on public access and transparency, which will strengthen commitment to the practical aspect of these principles.
Denied-boarding compensation system in scheduled air transport
The next item is the report by Mr González Triviño (A4-0240/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No 295/91 establishing common rules for a denied-boarding compensation in scheduled air transport.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the topic we are going to debate is of great importance for European citizens.
Due to the policy of liberalizing air transport in recent years, we have experienced both a considerable reduction in the costs of many flights and a significant rise in the number of passengers.
Nevertheless, at the same time, less desirable consequences have appeared, such as the increase in the number of times when some passengers, with a valid ticket, cannot board because more tickets have been sold than the number of seats available.
This phenomenon, already known by its English name, overbooking, represents a serious inconvenience for those affected.
The European Commission has taken the decision to review the legislation currently in force, which dates from 1991, with the dual aim of guaranteeing that citizens are precisely aware of their rights and adapting the compensation for the material damage and inconvenience affecting the victims of overbooking.
The draft presented to this House for consideration is the result of broad consultations carried out with all the parties involved in the sector: users, consumers, unions, airline companies, etcetera.
The present proposal has the following main aims: to put an end to the distinction between scheduled flights and nonscheduled flights, which has remained obsolete in the liberalization of air transport and the birth of new companies; to guarantee that passengers receive adequate information regarding their rights if they are denied boarding even though they are in possession of a valid ticket; to adapt the monetary amounts for compensation in accordance with the current economic situation; and to avoid a situation whereby passengers whose flights are cancelled for commercial reasons are defenceless and do not receive any compensation.
In line with the Commission, we propose that the rules concerning the right to compensation for overbooking should be laid out in plain and intelligible language and distributed by the Commission to the main consumer organizations in the European Union.
Similarly, it is our hope that passengers' rights might be displayed for the public at the check-in counters in English or in the local language or languages in letters at least 1 cm high.
Another aspect which should be highlighted is that the tickets received by passengers as compensation for their loyalty to companies must be equally protected by this regulation, even if they were issued free of charge.
To conclude, I would like to state that all of the amendments tabled improve the Commission's text.
All of the amendments are acceptable, but I would like to make a clarification as regards Amendment No 10, which calls for the inclusion of the text in question on the ticket.
This has a disadvantage due, firstly, to the fact that the text on tickets is the result of a universal regulation and it would be invalid or would represent an excuse for the companies, and due, secondly, to the fact that there are already many companies which do not issue tickets, but which notify confirmation of the booking by fax.
Therefore, I would substitute "on the ticket' with "with the ticket' .
That would be a nuance which, I believe, would make it more practical to move forward with this process.
As regards Amendment No 23 by Mrs van Dijk, whom I would like to congratulate, I must say that I accept it in full.
With her addition, she is providing clarification and ensuring that the annual study to be carried out by the Commission identifies the airline companies with most shortcomings.
I therefore congratulate her once again.
I would also like to say that this improves the information provided for consumers and guarantees their rights, and that this regulation is binding on companies.
And I am sure you will allow me to take this opportunity, as a European citizen and a Member, to sincerely thank Mrs van Dijk for her dedication and work in this Parliament, and I hope she is going to have the same success in the new functions she is going to carry out, because she will continue with tenacity and vigour.
We are losing a great companion, a great worker and also a great woman.
Good luck and many thanks for your contribution to the European Union.
Mr President, the Socialist Group is going to support the complete and excellent report by Mr González Triviño which, after being debated in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, puts forward some sensible and enriching amendments which improve the interests of consumers.
I would like to congratulate the Commission because its proposal to modify this regulation represents a new advance in its policy on consumer protection - which is slow, at times, yet firm - and, in this case, it concerns a very specific and important sector for consumers, that is, the sector concerning passengers on commercial airlines.
Everything is based on a premise in which we believe or do not believe.
We do believe in it.
Whoever owns or manages an airline must know that he does not own just any kind of company - be it public or private -, a production facility with exclusively lucrative ends, but instead owns a company which provides services in the general interest and which, therefore, has two characteristics that other companies do not have.
Firstly, the protection of those who pay for these services in the general interest is more important, if that is possible, than that of any other customers paying for other less necessary services.
And, secondly, the profit motive and the profit and loss account of the company, legitimate though those concepts may be, are not the supreme interest, but they must coexist with an extraordinary degree of transparency, fairness and commercial security for the customer.
However, I must mention one fundamental objection, Mr President: in the Commission's proposal and in the report, significant improvements are put forward to favour the customer, but overbooking is not questioned.
Enough years have passed to allow us to consider whether it is fair that the authorized figure for overbooking of seats continues.
I am not now questioning overbooking - which will also at some stage have to be reviewed - but I am questioning the authorized figure.
There is enough information to carry out a statistical study aimed at allowing us to lower the authorized figure and even bring it close to zero.
When this figure was authorized, it was possible to cancel all tickets, so the compensation was fair.
But today, many passengers - more than half of them - travel with tickets that cannot be cancelled, so this issue is more similar to any other commercial transaction.
But, in conclusion, the reform of this regulation is welcome because airline overbooking is today, due to its frequency and the harm it causes, the main breach of service to which travellers fall victim. This Parliament, on approving an own-initiative report only a few months ago, for which I had the honour of being responsible, considered that the following was necessary: improving the information provided to passengers, the information on their rights; increasing the amount of compensation; extending the system to include charter flights; and regulating the opposite case to overbooking, that is, where companies cancel a flight due to the lack of passengers, camouflaging that cancellation with explanations which, if not false, are ambiguous.
To conclude, almost all of this is raised in the regulation proposed by the Commission, and improved in the report by Mr González Triviño from the Committee on Transport and Tourism; we will approve this tomorrow, and it will receive, of course, the votes of the Socialist Group of this House.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we shall meet again later as unfortunately is our lot.
I believe that we can be very happy with the Commission's submission on denied-boarding compensation for scheduled air transport.
We in the PPE Group support most of the improvements proposed by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
In particular, we think it is right that with effect from next year - I am assuming that it will come into effect next year - passengers who are unable to travel due to overbooking, despite the fact that they have valid and confirmed tickets, will receive increased compensation of ECU 185 on flights up to 3 500 km and ECU 379 on flights over 3 500 km.
I also believe that it is right that the distinction between charter and scheduled flights has now been removed, though it has not been removed entirely.
In the case of charter flights it applies only where a seat has been booked, not where a package holiday has been booked.
So the old regulation is still applicable for travellers who have booked a package holiday; here nothing has changed.
However, where single tickets are sold for charter flights it is right that the same applies and compensation must be paid.
It is also important, I believe, that we should inform citizens of their rights.
There are very good airline companies - as most of them are, in fact - which, when they have overbooked, take the initiative to offer compensation themselves.
There are apparently other airline companies, however, who fail to inform their passengers that they have a right to compensation where flights are overbooked.
In this respect the new regulations which we are proposing together with the Commission, that is that appropriate notices should be displayed at departure desks, are right.
Here we as Christian Democrats, however, do not agree with some of the proposals from the committee.
We do not believe that the size of the letters on the information notices should be decided by Community law.
Firstly there is the principle of subsidiarity, and secondly there are simply differences.
Some countries have one language, others have several languages, and I think it is going to far to try to specify the size of the information notices - down to the last centimetre - for all the countries in Europe from Finland to Portugal.
Parliament should exercise a little restraint.
In any case, my group will ask that we vote against this proposal tomorrow.
We would also like to point out - and here my view differs a little from that of the rapporteur - that it is right that the information be printed on the tickets as well.
Certainly, international talks will be required in order to clear up all the details.
A passenger who gets his or her secretary to book a flight through a travel agency and receives confirmation that the flight has been booked does not need information about compensation payments.
The normal citizen, however, who books a flight himself should have information concerning his rights provided on the ticket.
We also reject the view held by the majority of the committee that this compensation regulation should also apply to flights from third countries.
We cannot have two laws, with EU companies having to pay compensation and companies in America and other competitors not having to pay compensation.
This has to be done on a global level for it is unacceptable that our European airlines should be disadvantaged in relation to American and other companies.
I believe this is a fair compromise between the interests of passengers and the airline companies and I therefore believe that we should all vote for the substance of this report.
Mr President, many users' and consumers' associations have echoed the dissatisfaction of passengers who have fallen victim to overbooking practices.
In terms of the total number of passengers transported in Europe, this problem obviously only affects a very small percentage, but it remains nevertheless true that these practices have tended to become more widespread and to become excessive.
Moreover, some airlines have not hesitated to make this an essential plank of their commercial operation.
Given these circumstances, it is becoming urgent to review the Community regulation on the denied-boarding compensation system, in order to increase the protection and rights of users and to dissuade companies from using such methods, guarding against the legalization of a commercial practice which is unacceptable and reprehensible for users.
I support the amendments contained in the report by our colleague, Mr González Triviño, which oblige companies to respect stricter rules thanks to a better compensation system for users and to fuller and more accessible information.
The overbooking phenomenon has been accentuated by the deregulation of the air sector and fierce competition between companies.
The increase in the number of flights and the race to fill aircraft have led some companies to abuse these practices.
This strengthens the need to assess all of the social and economic consequences of the liberalization of air transport and to learn from this. This is particularly important in order to reintroduce criteria and public service aims in air transport, based on greater participation of users with new control and intervention rights.
Mr President, I want to begin by congratulating Mr González Triviño with his report.
It is a good report and I would also like to thank him sincerely for his kind words, because this is indeed the final debate in which I will take part in this Parliament.
I would, however, still like to bring up a few substantive matters.
It is true that on behalf of my group I tabled an amendment in order to obtain greater insight, especially for the benefit of the consumer organizations, about which airlines are most guilty of overbooking and therefore of denying boarding to their passengers.
It is true that if this is made public, an airline will not like it, but it is an extraordinarily effective way to indicate to the public that it is perhaps better to look for another airline where overbooking is not such a common practice.
It is, of course, unacceptable to ultimately deny boarding to passengers after they have booked seats on an airline.
I would like to make yet another remark.
It is good that the Commissioner has made this proposal, and I agree with Mr González Triviño's amendments.
But I think it would also be good if the other modes of travel were examined in terms of their protection of consumers.
If we travel through Europe by train, it quickly becomes apparent that the industry maintains terms of travel from the previous century which are totally obsolete.
I have never seen a proposal from the Commission to protect consumers who travel by train.
That would actually be an extraordinarily good idea, to ensure that we not only pamper air travellers but also travellers who choose more environmentally-friendly forms of transportation.
I believe this to be an extraordinarily good idea and I would ask the Commissioner to consider it.
I thank you, and in particular because it is the last time that you will be speaking in this House.
I thank you for the contribution that you have made, in particular for the way in which you chaired the Committee on Women's Rights and which has been appreciated by all.
Mr President, according to the rapporteur, for every ten thousand travellers who arrive at the airports of the European Union, three to twelve people are not allowed to board an aeroplane.
Denying boarding to passengers therefore does not take place very frequently, at least in terms of percentage.
Due to the enormous number of flights, however, this still amounts to around ten thousand people per year.
The Commission and the majority of the Committee on Transport and Tourism are justified in wanting reasonable compensation.
This can take place by modifying Regulation No 295/91.
It is of essential importance that information for the traveller be improved.
Because the traveller is now insufficiently aware of his legal position, he misses out on compensation.
The Commission's proposal, strengthened by the amendments of the rapporteur, improves this situation.
A great deal has been said about the specification of the proposal.
Must decisions about the size of the letters in the text at the check-in counters take place at European level? We are in favour of strict application of the principle of subsidiarity: that which Member States can do for themselves, they must continue to do for themselves.
However, in this case we have no objection to the specification of the proposal.
It concerns a regulation that will come into force immediately in the Member States, so specification was not only unavoidable, it also guarantees a level playing field for the airlines in the Union.
The proposal will be significantly improved by adopting Amendment No 20.
This would eliminate the committee proposed by the Commission which would have the task of adapting the amount of compensation to economic developments.
I agree with the rapporteur that yet another new committee carries with it an unnecessarily large bureaucracy.
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his clear report.
Mr President, in its original form the regulation under discussion here failed to gain the desired level of success in all quarters since some airline companies withheld the necessary information from the relevant parties.
However, a protective regulation makes sense only if the people to be protected are also aware of their rights.
A situation must be avoided in which airline companies are enabled to evade their obligations by intentionally failing to provide information or by disinformation.
For this reason, above all, the proposal to display a notice at the flight desk bearing details of how to obtain information on the relevant rules and regulations is to be welcomed.
However, I imagine that it would also make sense in the interests of comprehensive and customer-oriented information if passengers were also to be informed of the higher compensatory amount in the same way, as that would improve the information considerably.
Any amendment which obliges the airline companies to present each passenger on request with a copy of the relevant regulations would meet with my full support.
Mr President, we could reiterate today everything that we said yesterday, during Question Time to the Council, on this same subject. This is especially true as regards the obligation of airlines to publicize our rights concerning damages in the case of overbooking - putting an end to the current ignorance - and as regards the suitability of promoting a regulation aimed at covering the damages caused by missing connections with other flights.
The report by Mr González Triviño is, in general terms, to be supported.
And we congratulate him on it, particularly since the current regulation - which dates from 1991 - must be amended, and given the adaptation of the regulation to the evolution experienced by the transport industry, meeting the passengers' demands for information and increasing the amount of compensation.
Similarly, an objective of extreme interest is that whereby the passenger, to have the right to compensation, must have arrived at the check-in desk at least 30 minutes before departure time, but only at the queue for check-in.
Do not forget that recent American experience demonstrates that the percentage of passengers who do not turn up at the check-in desk has fallen from 10 % to 8 % as a consequence of better information.
However, of less importance is the request to use the local language for the information or the size of the letters on the signs, as Mr Jarzembowski has explained very well.
But, in conclusion, we are going to support this report.
Mr President, first of all my congratulations go to the rapporteur.
What he has told us is very interesting.
We are in an age where globalization and technology tell us that taking the plane will cost about the same as taking the bus.
This means that consumers will be relatively less protected, even if prices are lower.
They will have less proof that they have a right to a seat and they may have fewer possibilities to claim compensation or to protest, especially if they are in another country and are obliged to do all this in another language.
I therefore think that, although the things the rapporteur proposes are very positive, we should reinforce them in some quarters. For example, in the case of third-country carriers, who will find it easier to provide air-transport services in Europe, intervention on the part of the European Union should be much harsher and, if the obligation to compensate is not included in the new structure, it must be possible to appeal against their permit.
In addition, Community carriers returning from third countries must be included.
In this connection there occur the greatest scandals we are aware of, and I have in mind some such scandals from my own country.
And, of course, as was quite rightly mentioned, compensation must be paid out on the spot and in cash, even if it is difficult for the carriers to do so at that precise moment.
The blacklist of carriers that continually overbook is an excellent idea and the Commission should possibly think of how to push it forward.
Mr President, the aim of the proposal that we are examining today is to amend current legislation on compensation for denied boarding, to improve the management of problems stemming from overbooking and to protect, in the final analysis, the citizen from any abuse that might be committed by the airline companies.
Indeed it can be a great inconvenience for the passenger to be denied boarding.
Although at first glance the figures may seem insignificant, if compared with the high volumes of traffic registered in Europe's leading airports which each serve 5 million passengers a year, the statistics end up revealing numerous cases of denied boarding, about 5 000 to 10 000 cases a year.
Of course, there can be various reasons for this.
One of the most frequent is that are no seats left.
Overbooking is related to the fact that often passengers, although they have a confirmed reservation, do not check in because of the flexibility that they have when they pay the full fare.
In practice, with this fare they can cancel or change the reservation without paying any penalties, which is not the case, however, for those with restricted tickets.
In addition, the growth of the air transport sector, which has occurred with the liberalization of the sector and the admission of new operators onto the market, certainly points to an upsurge in the phenomenon.
The parliamentary committee has thus aligned itself with the new proposals presented by the Commission to provide maximum protection of the thousands of passengers who each year are refused a seat on board, even after having booked a long time in advance, and to protect others from the confusion created by the lack of clarity in the rules applicable to cases of reimbursement owed for the cancellation of a flight.
Lastly, we are pleased with the legislation because it provides for, finally, the protection of the rights of consumers in air transport services.
Mr President, let me say first and foremost that I do not believe that what we are discussing here is something which the EU or the European Parliament should be concerned with.
Now that we are working towards having a single market, I think we should be terribly cautious about regulating this in detail.
That said, my principal view is that the airlines can and should in fact deal with this themselves.
It must be possible for one airline to show that it is better than another.
Paying compensation in the event of overbooking is, in principle, a competitive tool just like all other competitive tools.
There is always someone who says that competition does not work where aviation is concerned.
I am conscious of the fact that there are shortcomings in several areas in this respect.
The best way to get the airlines to treat their passengers in the correct way is, however, to ensure that competition is improved on more routes than is currently the case.
Then people can choose another one if they are displeased.
That is how the system works in all other contexts.
This is assuming that the Commission will devote time and energy to essential matters instead, such as on producing a proposal on the allocation of slots.
It would be interesting to obtain an answer on this today from the Commissioner responsible.
I must admit that I think it feels extremely awkward when we as a European Parliament have to take a stand on a proposal from the Commission which states that the information at airports must be on a notice containing letters 'at least two centimetres high' .
Unfortunately, it will be only marginally improved by the rapporteur saying that one centimetre is adequate.
Obviously, both the Commission and the rapporteur think that those outside this building cannot think for themselves how to inform their passengers.
If it is not the case that the Commissioner is having a little joke with us, the best way to treat this particular article is to consign it to the nearest wastepaper basket.
We have substantial, crucial matters to which to devote our time and energy, not least as far as the airlines and the transport sector are concerned.
Let us take the opportunity to concentrate on them!
Kinnock, Neil, Member of the Commission .
Mr President, fortunately there is no arrangement in this Parliament or any other for having to pay compensation for running over time.
Otherwise we would all be much the poorer.
Before I respond to the debate on Mr González Triviño's report, I would just like to say, as others have done, how much I regret the fact that Mrs van Dijk is leaving this House.
I know it is by her choice and of course all politicians prefer to make departures only by choice and not because of the will of the electorate.
I hope she will be very happy in her new role.
I must say that in the three and a half years we have worked together, I have come to admire her as a very good parliamentarian and a very dependable and progressive colleague.
I hope she will be happy and fulfilled in the future.
I should also like to thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism and, specifically, the rapporteur, Mr González Triviño, for an excellent report on denied-boarding compensation.
I hear Mr Stenmarck saying he is embarrassed by it.
He would probably be a lot more embarrassed if he were not provided with accurate information about his consumer rights and, indeed, suffused with embarrassment if he were bumped from a flight and did not have a sufficiently dependable system of regulation to ensure that in these circumstances he could effectively exercise his rights as a consumer.
It is also a fact that minuscule though the detail appears to be relating to the actual size of a notice, if there were great disparities across the single market I am absolutely certain that there would be consumers who would be aggrieved at their treatment and be induced to undertake litigation which would be time-consuming, expensive and even then not guaranteed properly to defend their rights.
So, footling though it might appear to be to an enlightened and refined intellect like Mr Stenmarck, the rest of us are glad to have dependable rights on which we can rely.
The practicalities of airline operation mean that some overbooking is unfortunately unavoidable.
But it is our duty to ensure that those passengers who are denied seats, even though they hold a valid and confirmed ticket, or equivalent, are compensated for the inconvenience they suffer which can be extremely severe.
The rules laid down by the denied-boarding compensation regulation of 1991 have been useful in protecting passenger interests but new developments in the sector and failure properly to apply the regulation by too many airlines certainly justify a number of improvements.
This proposal, therefore, refines and updates the existing rules by providing better information to passengers, by increasing the compensation levels on the basis of economic trends since 1991 and by taking account of relatively recent developments in civil aviation like code-sharing, ticketless travel and the decreasing distinction between scheduled and non-scheduled flights.
All of that is important in order to demonstrate to passengers that the Community framework for aviation is bringing tangible benefits, not only through lower prices and improved choice on many routes but also quality of service and user protection.
Mr Stenmarck and the rest of this House can be absolutely certain that we will not let matters rest or concentrate only on fares.
The other matters that have been referred to in the course of the debate - like slots and adherence to schedules - are constantly matters of concern in which we, like many parliamentarians, are active.
We hope we will continue to see progress in these spheres too.
We are not in the least distracted from these important activities by pursuing the legislation which is before the House today.
I am glad to note that the Committee on Transport and Tourism shares the opinion put forward by the Commission since many of its amendments are largely supportive of our approach.
So I am pleased to say that the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 4, 7, 11, 12, 18, 21, 22 and 23.
The Commission can also accept in principle, subject to some redrafting, Amendments Nos 3 and 8, first paragraph, since they clarify the fact that capacity restrictions might be imposed for completely legitimate safety reasons.
Amendments Nos 5 and 19 which extend application of the regulation to Community carriers returning from third countries are also acceptable in principle, as is Amendment No 6 since it precisely defines the airline's responsibility to identify passengers still in the queue at the time of closing the check-in.
Amendment No 13 is acceptable since it underlines the fact that even the handling agent would be considered as the air carrier for these purposes.
Amendments Nos 15 and 20 simplify the procedures by replacing a new committee with one that already exists.
We find that acceptable too, as is Amendment No 17 which provides the possibility for additional means of payment.
The Commission can also accept in part Amendment No 9 which establishes a better basis for improved customer information.
However, there are a few amendments that we cannot accept.
I will run through them very quickly giving our basic reasons.
We cannot accept Amendment No 1.
We believe there is greater clarity and transparency in stipulating a minimum 30-minute check-in time in the regulation.
Amendment No 2 on providing the rules to passengers is not acceptable since this obligation already exists in the current regulation.
The third paragraph of Amendment No 8 is not acceptable because even though passengers may agree to accept a seat in a lower class, they are still being denied boarding in the class to which they are entitled according to their ticket.
The passenger therefore deserves proper compensation even in those circumstances.
Amendment No 10, second and third paragraphs, adds unnecessary bureaucracy and would make the information notices difficult to read, especially for someone like myself who needs the support of glasses on every occasion.
In addition, it suggests a ticket notice which the Commission believes is not practicable.
Finally, I cannot accept Amendments Nos 14 and 16 since they would oblige airlines in some instances to pay higher compensation than the passenger has actually paid for the ticket - the so-called 'bingo' arrangement.
Perhaps we should not legislate for that.
In conclusion, however, I am pleased to welcome most of the amendments which will enable the Commission to strengthen the proposed regulation and I should like again to thank Mr González Triviño and the Committee on Transport and Tourism for their constructive and enlightened work.
It will undoubtedly contribute positively to the discussions that lie ahead in the Transport Council.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Structural Funds programmes to the end of 1999
The next item is the report (A4-0214/98) by Mr Howitt, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission guidelines on priorities for the adjustment of Structural Fund programmes to the end of 1999 (C4-0640/97).
Mr President, my report on guidelines for the adjustment of Structural Funds programmes may, at first, appear to concern a dry and technical subject.
But in reality, tonight, we are debating how we can make European funding programmes intended to create jobs and prosperity effective in achieving these aims; how and why they are different, as European programmes, from regional support, which has already been adopted in the Member States; how there can be a genuine dialogue between local people in regions across Europe, which really does exchange best practice and which lifts quality for us all; and perhaps most of all, how the wheels of decision-making can be oiled to make the whole system as easy as possible at every level.
As the report makes clear, this first attempt at operating Structural Fund guidelines is right in principle, is well intentioned, but is one from which lessons have to be learnt: it was published four years late in Merseyside and elsewhere after the changes which these guidelines had been intended to affect had already been made; it was written in dense and obtuse text; it identified 27 different areas as priorities - far too many for serious consideration; and it was disseminated only via Member State governments and arguably, not even by them.
As a result, a survey that I conducted with 11 European-wide associations of local and regional interest showed that 40 % had never even heard of the guidelines and not one knew of any positive change which they had brought about.
In all seriousness, I have to say that this is the stuff which fuels Euro-scepticism and an area in which Europe has to improve.
Tonight we are bringing forward a series of practical proposals to do just this and on which I expect, Commissioner, we will have your agreement.
Now let me concentrate on three questions which will raise a more severe challenge.
First, the legal status of what the Commission proposes.
Local and regional authorities claim this has been a grey area in which the Commission itself has sought to exploit ambiguity.
We have commissioned this legal opinion from Parliament's Legal Service which finds that the Commission, in Article 9(4) of the Draft Structural Fund Regulation, is seeking to agree guidelines which constitute a binding act based on the May 1970 European Court ruling on essential rules and on other case-law.
Quite simply, the Commission is seeking a backdoor route to determine European Structural Fund regulations without obtaining proper agreement from Member State governments through the Council of Ministers and without the full scrutiny of the European Parliament.
Tonight we ask you to indicate that you are prepared to think again and that advice means advice, not additional rules which are not needed and which only cause difficulty on the ground.
Secondly, this debate gives us a chance to attack the culture of delay which has become endemic in the operation of these programmes: late agreement of the programme, late agreement of country-by-country single programming documents; late calls for applications; excessively short deadlines; late notification of approvals; and even later payment of the monies - too often, too late for the people who need the money, but never too early for us to act in response.
That is why tonight we call on the European Commission to publish its proposed new guidelines, nine months - and preferably a minimum of six months - prior to the submission date for programmes.
That means by 31 December 1998 at the latest, for the next Structural Fund programme.
If they do not do so, that programme cannot start on time.
It must.
I hope we will hear a clear commitment from the Commissioner on this point.
Third, how can we debate adjustments up to the time of the closure of programmes without recognising the shortcomings here? As we negotiate the next Structural Fund regime from 1999 onwards, there are still 51 programmes in the United Kingdom and 58 in France which are incomplete from the previous Structural Fund period up to 1993.
In the United Kingdom today £120m (ECU 150m) is outstanding in payments to regions for European Regional Development Fund projects actually completed in the years 1994-1996: money to meet claims is running out this very week in my own region, in the east; projects in the Northeast receiving only 45 % of costs; public sector projects are getting just one-third of their costs in the southwest; and similar stories are being repeated across other European Union countries.
Tonight Parliament will reaffirm our commitment to end this stop-start approach to Europe's regional aid, to ensure continuity where possible and smooth transition where it is not.
This can only be achieved by planning in advance.
We call on the Commission to ensure that the new guidelines do precisely that.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to say that I agree with the report by the rapporteur from the Committee on Regional Policy, Mr Howitt.
However, I would like, in particular, to emphasize that the Commission's guidelines on priorities for the adjustment of Structural Fund programmes must be clear, concise and easily read.
They must also appear in one document, if possible, and be sufficiently widely distributed, because Mr Howitt has demonstrated in his report, based on consultations held in various regions of the European Union, that when the guidelines reach the regions themselves they are confused, late and at times do not have any effect on the projects under way.
I therefore believe that this issue is a priority.
I also agree with the emphasis he has put on three horizontal issues: employment, the environment and equal opportunities.
In the Amsterdam Treaty, those three topics were clearly linked to the other policies of the European Union.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs puts forward a series of proposals. It regrets, firstly, that since it does not have at its disposal the results of the mid-term review of the Funds, it know little about the real application of Objective 4, and secondly, that there are no statistics on the effect of the Funds on equal opportunities or on the integration of people with disabilities, nor on the effect of the new "sources' of employment.
Yesterday, in fact, we were debating the report by Mrs Hulthén and we saw that the environment is fundamental within the topic of employment.
Indeed, the OECD believes that, in the next few years, the number of jobs related to the environment will probably increase by 5.5 %.
If we take account of how slowly other sectors are growing or that they are even declining, it is clear that this issue is quintessential.
We also call for transparency and participation and we must always take account of equal opportunities as well as those projects related to the environment; we desire a balance between job creation and the economic policies which tend to reduce it.
It is not the first time that regions such as my own - Asturias - receive Objective 1 funds, at times from other objectives and at times from certain Community initiatives; and yet, it is a region in decline where decisions are taken on economic policies which lead to reductions in employment.
A balance must also be found between the budget for infrastructure - which usually creates temporary employment - and the aid for small and medium-sized enterprises, the new "sources' of employment and the LDEIs (local development and employment initiatives), etcetera, which create more permanent jobs.
The Funds must provide services for children and the elderly, in other words, consideration must be given to projects which might promote equal opportunities in terms of women's access to jobs in comparison to that of men.
In conclusion, Mr President, we need to increase the budget in the field of the environment - Objective 2 only dedicates 5.2 % - and the participation of local and regional authorities in those projects concerning the environment, because it is essential that they ensure that environmental principles are not violated.
Mr President, Commissioner, the rapporteur had made a very valuable contribution to the discussion and - although of course technically he should not - also to the arguments for the reform of the Structural Funds.
If it is the case that these guidelines are intended to reflect the objectives and the European dimension of structural fund policy, and therefore if they really do specify programming priorities, then quite clearly they should not be too numerous.
Guidelines should not, after all, be a source of confusion.
Paragraph 7 of the motion for a resolution can give the impression that these guidelines are taken as very specific quantitative indicators, in other words, concrete figures and quotas.
I should like to warn against this, for I believe that it is possible to meet European guidelines even where specific targets may be missed by a short distance, .
Concealed behind this argument - as we are all aware - is the problem of this Commission proposal, the 10 % reserve.
The specific question we have to answer is how in the future - if we take the decision on this line next year, for example - the Commission will decide whether a Member State would have such a sum deducted and whether these funds would then be distributed to other regions.
This should only be the case, if at all, where a Member State has genuinely failed to meet guidelines, not simply failed to achieve a set of figures.
It must be a genuine case of failure to meet a small number of important European guidelines.
If - as is currently envisaged and as we in this House would also wish - in the future Member States really are to be given greater leeway in the national implementation of European programming, then these guidelines must neither be too detailed, nor too numerous.
Otherwise, although we would technically be giving the Member States and the regions greater leeway, we would not be doing so in detail.
Finally, and even though we are rather depleted in number, I should specifically like to thank Mr Howitt for what he has achieved.
Anyone reading this report in detail - something I would recommend to all my fellow MEPs - will see that he has not only given formal consideration to the issues, but that he really has spoken to everyone, from senior Commission officials to the project agencies in the various Member States, and recorded many suggestions. I would recommend anyone taking part in the forthcoming discussion to read it thoroughly.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Structural Funds have been a very important chapter of Community policy and have without doubt achieved substantial results for the recovery of certain regions suffering from depression due to historical and traditional factors.
We are now facing a year of transition, and there is the risk that if we adopt lines that are too rigid we may, so to speak, block the process instead of creating further momentum.
I, too, am convinced of the fact that Mr Howitt's report contains some particularly relevant points and sets a course that is certainly useful to follow.
The problem I see, however, is that of the directions and guidelines that will have to be followed to conclude the programme at the end of 1999, and that of tying them in with the guidelines for the new programme from 2000 to 2006.
There are criteria that have to be laid down with extreme clarity from the start.
I believe that we must stick to a course of dialogue from the bottom up, precisely because of the role that both the regions and the states have had; the idea of providing direction can certainly be useful in defining common guidelines within the European Union in order to achieve fixed common objectives, but we cannot underestimate the vitality of the regions, vitality that is precisely due to the capacity of each state to identify the problems that have to be tackled and the programmes that have to be elaborated.
The fundamental criterion of the Treaty, which concerns social issues, attributes this key role to the states and the regions. Besides, they are currently demonstrating their great vitality.
It is an aspect that must under no circumstances be forgotten and that must be borne in mind.
The report also raises other points that I believe are very important: the need for clarity, speed, the conveyance of information, conciseness and at the same time the ability to incorporate the many suggestions in extremely specific aspects.
The guidelines are undoubtedly positive but must also take into account these requirements.
Mr President, the Commission's goal to promote a pan-European regional policy by means of common guidelines is obviously a very worthy one.
In the way of Mr Howitt's excellent report, however, we have to ask what these guidelines are being used for and whether they are going to be able to realize the goals in the proposed manner.
It is a question, in a sense, of a common framework of reference for the adjustment of programmes.
I think it is very important that the guidelines are explored expressly for the improvement of the nature of regional policy.
At best they will comprise an advisory tool in the sharing of information on the best ways of going about things, thus improving programme efficiency.
However, this will in practice require improvements, especially from the point of view of regional players.
The present situation and the profusion of different guidelines is unquestionably very confusing.
The Commission must set down primary goals clearly in one document. Similarly, we have to reject the Commission's call for adjustments, which have been proposed at such a late stage that it will only lead to delays and frustration.
The guidelines must be published in good time if we want them to have a real effect on the planning of programmes.
Regarding the next term for new programmes, this will mean agreement by the end of this year.
In addition, publicity and training at regional level must be increased if we want to promote the effectiveness of the guidelines in question.
Just as the rapporteur has proposed, primary goals should include a strategy for continued support, transitional measures, or the termination of a programme in a given region.
A decent transitional strategy could prevent many problems, such as delays, lack of responsibility regarding income and waste of resources, all of which today constitute a lamentable realty.
Because circumstances in Member States and in the regions vary greatly, these common guidelines and goals must have incorporated within them a certain degree of flexibility.
Nevertheless, the most important priority areas, such as employment, the environment and equal opportunities, would certainly benefit from clear, common indicators.
Mr President, my thanks to Mr Howitt for this report.
There was really nothing more he could have made of it, given that the European Parliament was consulted at such a late stage.
I must say quite honestly that I am very disappointed that Mrs Wulf-Mathies is not here.
Could it be that she is avoiding this discussion?
The point of contention is whether or not the guidelines are binding.
This point of contention is being carried forward into the new regulation. Most revealing in this respect is the rapporteur's question in the explanatory statement.
The guidelines are basically nothing more than a paper tiger.
They are ignored by the Member States.
The Commission is not pressing for them to be used as guidelines for adherence to European objectives or European cohesion policy.
This must be seen as particularly critical given that it is intended that in the future the guidelines should form the centrepiece of European structural policy and that they should then almost become the core of a Structural Fund regulation to ensure that it remains focussed on the issue of European cohesion policy.
In the new regulation the Commission has indeed reallocated certain tasks.
That was a very sensible move, but if it restricts itself to setting a framework and to monitoring, it needs the guidelines for support.
If these guidelines have no central significance, there will be no European cohesion policy.
This represents a very, very dangerous threat capable of undermining its very foundations.
We can only achieve sustainable development, equal opportunities and employment if they are a joint aim.
This joint aim also needs common paths, even if they are travelled differently in the various regions.
For this reason it is most important that we continue to discuss this matter intensively.
We know that many Member States do not want guidelines.
That is responsibility enough to make us develop them into a central instrument here.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to concentrate in my speech on one of the aspects of Mr Howitt's excellent report and, in particular, on the Commission guidelines which could, it has been said, be of a somewhat restrictive character whereas the legal basis for this restrictive law does not appear very obvious.
First of all, I would like to point out that this Structural Funds system is an original and practical device and this is due to a number of reasons: its classification into objective areas which takes account of regional differences; the sometimes exemplary way in which Structural Funds have served regional policies, because these Structural Funds have in fact structured; the infrastructures which have made areas less isolated; the aid and support for economic activities, particularly in rural areas, and primarily in the area of agricultural diversification; and the aid to training and retraining which have very much supported employment.
The way it was conceived is interesting: the consultation procedure is based on regional development plans and the "docups' , the single programming documents, the length and periodicity of which have now been established and are well broken in.
The principles which governed its preparation are all also very interesting: I would like to refer in particular to the principle of additionality which creates synergy between the actions of Member States, regional authorities and the European Union; the principle of compatibility with texts, that is to say, Treaties, the regulations, but also with the great principles of the Union, for example the priorities in terms of the environment, jobs and equal opportunities for men and women; and finally, the principle of subsidiarity in regional policy which illustrates admirably its necessity and effectiveness.
Let us now look at the instruments and I am thinking here of the Community support framework which ensures synthesis and coherence in the programme as well as in the operational programmes which specify the implementing rules.
It is clear that much progress remains to be done in terms of evaluation, not only as regards the preparation of Treaties, but also as regards delays in the publication of these evaluations, if they are to be useful.
It is altogether logical and even reassuring that the Commission is concerned, at this level of intervention, that the European Union should not lose its ability to influence the guidelines relating to regional policies and the use of Structural Funds.
This obviously raises the question of the legitimacy to which I referred earlier regarding the legal basis, but also the question of the participation and active contribution of the European Parliament - which is, incidentally, a political authority - and, therefore, its contribution to the establishment of these guidelines.
In any event, the most important thing is to find the right balance, which is undoubtedly delicate, between a principle, namely, the principle of subsidiarity which cannot be called into question, and an objective, that of cohesion, which naturally calls for coordinated intervention, perhaps even readjustments.
The task is important because we need to create a link and find some compatibility between the necessary coordination and the wish that economies have to escape from dependency.
Mr President, in welcoming the report, may I congratulate the rapporteur on his work and efforts to consult as widely as possible in order to ascertain in general terms how the structural fund guidelines operate?
I trust the Commission will take careful account of Mr Howitt's report from this House this evening, for he has not only identified problem areas, but offered constructive criticism as to how the problems can be addressed in order to make application of the guidelines more effective, thereby contributing to greater transparency and efficiency.
I have sympathy with the view that, because of the differing circumstances within Member States, some flexibility should be offered.
If there are too many guidelines, the problem should be addressed without obliging Member States to accept what might prove to be counter-productive uniformity.
Simplification must mean more than a neat and tidy system in Brussels which cannot be feasibly applied at Member State level.
The rapporteur assures you that current programmes need to be completed effectively and future programmes clarified in greater detail.
It is unacceptable that rules were issued without a proper legal basis and remained largely unread.
Of course the Commission might argue that it was entering uncharted waters and some allowance should be made for the experimental nature of the guidelines.
That is an inadequate answer to give to European citizens, to whom we are all ultimately accountable.
The Commission has vast experience and expertise in similar fields and so we should not allow it to bleat to us that there is a job to be done and we must get on with it.
I would ask the Commission to take that point into consideration.
Mr President, I wish to thank Parliament and, in particular, Mr Howitt for this important draft report and resolution.
Despite some critical comments in the report, mainly on the timing and format of the Commission's guidelines, there is much within the draft resolution with which we can fully agree.
For example, it recalls the overall purpose of the guidelines, which was to provide a general policy and priority framework within which to make adjustments to current programmes.
It was never the intention to touch projects which were already under way and being satisfactorily implemented.
The resolution recognizes that, although the guidelines provide a means of setting out priorities for the Union as a whole, local circumstances also need to be taken into account in deciding on adjustments to programmes, and the guidelines confirm that view.
Similarly, we would fully endorse the resolution's suggestion that the guidelines should be seen as a mechanism for the exchange of best practice between all partners at regional, national and European level, and that is an aspect that might be usefully reinforced in future Commission guidelines for the next programming period.
As regards the advisory nature of the guidelines, I want to reiterate that it was always intended that the guidelines should provide a general framework only.
As regards their legal status, the Commission has always stressed its view of the advisory nature of the guidelines, and the role of monitoring committees and other relevant authorities in adjusting programmes.
Indeed, the guidelines were a response to a request from the Member States themselves that the Commission should formulate policy orientations, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, to facilitate the adjustment exercise at the mid-point of the programmes.
Therefore, the guidelines do not have either the sinister intention or the sinister effect that some have feared or claimed.
Indeed, it was stressed in particular that any changes in the current Objective 1 and 6 programmes should aim to increase job creation.
It is clear that is what the guidelines have sought to do.
So, the Commission could not share the view that the social economy and new sources of employment are insufficiently emphasized in the guidelines.
A significant section of the document is devoted to the promotion of local potential by means of local development and employment initiatives.
The guidelines highlight, for example, the scope for businesses to gain economic benefit from the niche marketing of quality local products and services, and they also emphasize the potential of cooperatives, mutuals, associations and foundations.
Whilst actions in the field of equal opportunities may have been financed more often than not under the European Social Fund, the Commission agrees with the rapporteur that such horizontal aspects should be given consideration in all areas financed by the funds.
The same goes, for example, for the environment and sustainable development.
But this is more an issue for the Member States themselves to handle when putting their programmes together, since the guidelines were intended to be applicable to all the funds.
Many of the remaining points of the resolution refer not to the guidelines for adjusting the current programmes but to the Commission's proposals for future guidelines under Article 9(4) of its proposed general regulation for the Structural Funds after 1999.
As the rapporteur stated in his report, it is not his intention in this exercise to pre-empt discussions of the reform taking place elsewhere.
But I am sure the Commission will be taking to heart the points made about the need for more timely and reader-friendly guidelines in the future, although I could not agree that the mid-term review had almost been completed by the time that the guidelines were issued in the present case.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Security of electronic communications
The next item is the report (A4-0189/98), by Mr Ullmann, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on ensuring security and trust in electronic telecommunication - towards a European framework for digital signatures and encryption (COM(97)0503 - C4-0648/97)
Mr President, the core issue of this report is equality of legal status between digital signatures and conventional signatures, and it should be around this issue that the Parliament's answer to the Commission's communication on electronic telecommunication and a European framework for digital signatures and encryption is framed.
On close study of this central theme, the possible consequences become apparent immediately.
It all comes down to rules, such as the legal reliability of digital certification - the legality of contracts, for example -, or the integrity of texts exchanged via electronic telecommunication.
They must be admissible as evidence in legal proceedings if they are to be recognized as being equivalent to the conventional written form in this regard, too.
The purpose of my presentation of this report here is not to go into individual details such as how the authentication of signatures, the integrity of text and the confidentiality of transmitted data can be guaranteed using digital techniques.
Rather, I wish to underline the fact that the Commission's communication represents the preparations for and part of a whole series of legal initiatives, some of which it is in the process of preparing, others of which have already been drawn up, and all of which are directed towards the use of new technologies to develop the single market, in particular in the area of the free movement of goods, services and capital.
The report suggests that Parliament should encourage and support these initiatives energetically.
In terms of digital signatures and encryption, for example, we should back the Commission in following up at least two of the directions outlined in its communication.
In addition, when dealing with the certificates which are already widespread in electronic commerce, the principle of mutual recognition at EU level should be given precedence over any attempts to create a uniform certification process.
It is equally important for Parliament to follow the Commission's line in allowing the protection of the private sphere to take precedence over tendencies in certain Member States to make state access to digital communications the rule on the grounds of security.
Digital postal services, too, must continue to maintain something akin to the privacy of correspondence in the traditional sense of the term.
I am pleased that the committees which have been involved in the consultation process are voting in the same way.
And although I cannot agree with one of the amendments put forward by the Economic and Social Committee, it is on a point of form rather than one of content.
It deals with the subject of liability which, as I said at the outset, goes beyond the scope of this report.
The Commission will address the subject of liability in the framework directive on electronic commerce.
I shall conclude with the hope that the draft directive on electronic signatures announced by the Commission will be dealt with and adopted as soon as possible in the same spirit of cooperation so that, together with the single currency, the new regulations on electronic commerce can lend extra impetus to the single market.
From the identification marks on imperial mediaeval documents to equal status in law for digital signatures!
In the current climate of globalization is that not a prospect that it is essential to strive for?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the communication from the Commission which is now before us is an important step in strengthening the trust of citizens and businesses in making electronic transactions.
I would like to thank Mr Ullmann for his report and I would like to thank the Commission for its very constructive cooperation.
In view of the time I will limit myself to a few points.
First of all, the PPE Group welcomes the decision of the European Commission to make a clear distinction between electronic signatures and encryption, and to clearly decouple these from each other.
The PPE Group applauds this because the heated discussion surrounding access regulations for encryption keys will undoubtedly slow down legislation regarding electronic trade, even though we in Europe must actually increase our pace to keep up with the United States.
This does not take away from the fact that the standpoint of the PPE Group regarding the introduction of legal access regulations for encryption is very clear.
The question of whether you, for reasons of security, must establish central registration of keys has been answered by the PPE Group with a firm no.
The most important argument against the registration of keys is the lack of effectiveness.
In addition to the high costs that accompany the access regulations and the erosion of privacy among users, the measure that criminal investigation and security services have in mind is naive. After all, an honest citizen would conscientiously submit a copy of his or her key, but a criminal would, of course, never do this.
In short, the registration of keys is not effective and can also seriously harm the trust in electronic communication.
I am happy that the government of the United States has also come to this conclusion.
This does not take away from the fact that the criminal investigation services must have the right to require suspects to submit their key, following authorization from judicial authorities.
This brings me to my second point.
It is of vital importance to win the trust of citizens and companies in making electronic transactions by means of a complete agreement regarding liability.
The agreement must be legally authorized, otherwise citizens and businesses would be left empty-handed following claims for compensation.
Of course, the development of such an agreement is initially a matter for the Member States, but it is also important that the Commission, due to cross-border transactions and the rules of the internal market, keep close track of events and, where necessary, propose harmonizing measures.
I am also happy that in the present directive the Commission also shares this opinion.
I refer to these two points which were approved by an overwhelming majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, because they were rejected by the Committee on Legal Affairs.
I therefore hope that this House will, to be honest, correct what went wrong in the Committee on Legal Affairs.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to thank the rapporteur very warmly for his report.
We are, I think, agreed that electronic means of communication are developing at such lightning speed that we too must act very quickly in setting up the legal framework for this new type of communication.
We should also welcome the Commission's decision to set out a European policy for a common framework for digital signatures and encryption, not least because electronic commerce, like all the other possible uses of new technologies, is no longer restricted by national frontiers.
We in the European Union have the possibility of developing just such a joint legal framework.
Given the absolute urgency of the issue, we should welcome the fact that the concrete draft directive is already available as we discuss the preparatory document here today.
However, electronic commerce reaches far beyond the Union, in fact it is already boundless.
This is why we are calling upon the Commission and the Member States to press ahead energetically for agreements at international level.
As has already been mentioned, in dealing with the issue of security and trust in electronic communication there are two core areas for discussion: security and cryptography.
As far as the security of transmitted information is concerned, firstly we must be able to ascertain where a message is coming from, and secondly we must be able to ensure that a message reaches its recipient without having been modified en route.
These questions are of vital importance both for the consumer and in terms of guaranteeing public trust in this method of communication.
This development means an enormous adjustment and an enormous challenge for both the general public and the economy.
People will only use these facilities if the confidentiality of the data they are exchanging is guaranteed and above all, where payment is concerned, if adequate legal security for contracts concluded and money changing hands electronically are guaranteed.
On this point, I should like to make a call for the bodies of the European Union, including the Commission, to take on a pioneering role in the use of electronic signatures, both for internal communication and when exchanging data with third parties.
I believe this would represent an important step towards strengthening people's trust in digital signatures in particular and in electronic communication in general.
Following on from the last consideration, I should also like to say that we need clear legislation in all Member States giving electronic signatures the same status as conventional signatures.
In any support for a joint policy and the development of electronic commerce in general, however, there will be certain problems which will have to be examined in detail and for which there are various possible solutions.
This is particularly true in the case of liability.
However, I believe that we will be able to solve this problem soon, thereby creating a great potential for new jobs in Europe and for support of the economy.
Mr President, Commissioner, the document presented by the European Commission is a good one, but it is still a document for debate and reflection.
The first observation I would like to make is the urgent need I see for the European Commission to provide momentum and take legislative action in this sector, considering that major legislative initiatives are being taken regarding digital signatures in the world and also in the Union's Member States themselves.
As Mr van Velzen has already noted, it is in my view important to make a clear distinction between authentication services and confidentiality services.
The need for action is particularly urgent in the case of authentication services and digital signatures.
Common rules or a set of common rules, with legal value, are needed for digital signatures which are at the basis of building up consumer trust and are the foundation of electronic commerce and contracts.
The challenge is great, especially from a cultural point of view: there has to be reeducation of the public and private sectors and a review of certain aspects of administrative law and the law of contracts in order to give substance to the principle that conventional and digital signatures have the same status in law.
The benefit reaped will be a gain in productivity in terms of quantity and quality, especially in processes outside businesses.
This course is necessary to cope with the growing complexity of the wealth-creating process of our society and, if I may say so, to free us from a certain amount of inefficient bureaucracy.
Industry must be behind this process of updating the rules of commerce for the electronic dimension, but governments must also be involved and legislative and political bodies must provide impetus and legitimacy.
In my opinion, the transformation brought about by electronic commerce contains the germ of revolution, and I wonder whether we should not also move beyond the tradition of defining the law through rules and regulations and favour legislation comprising principles and procedures that are therefore more flexible, evolutive and acceptable at global level.
I believe that Commissioner Bangemann's initiative for the globalization of the information society and international cooperation, sometimes defined as an initiative for a map of the Internet, moves in this direction.
I would like to add that it would be appropriate if we Members of the European Parliament were also to set up a working unit in the Parliament, transversal in relation to the parties and committees, taking advantage of the existing expertise and strengthening coordination with the parliaments of the Member States and, especially with the American and Japanese parliaments.
Today's debate is without doubt just one chapter, one stage of this process.
Mr President, each day every European citizen becomes more aware that electronic commerce is the commerce of the future.
Solving the associated problems in the field of legal security will be a determining factor in the acceptance of electronic communication by the citizens, but it will also be a precondition for the equality of legal status of digital and conventional signatures.
The rapporteur has given us a comprehensive account of these problems and pointed us in the right direction.
Solutions appear to be possible for both the problems of authentication and integrity.
In my view it is, in fact, the question of confidentiality which will prove difficult to resolve.
However, the speed of technical development in the field of electronics suggests that satisfactory methods will soon be available.
On one hand these will have to meet the requirements of day-to-day use and of data protection, on the other they must not hinder the fight against crime.
It is my view, however, that we should dispense with legal access rules.
Mr President, may I firstly thank the rapporteur for his admirable report and say how encouraging and supportive we find it.
The aim of the communication was to stress the importance of the free availability of cryptographic products and services for consumers and the European industry.
The general answer to Mr Giansily is that we regard it as an important contribution - only one contribution but an important one - to enable European industry to take full advantage internationally of the developments that are currently taking place.
Europe is not at the moment at a disadvantage but the situation is moving rapidly.
It will therefore be at a disadvantage unless we take the kind of action that this requires, as well as other actions going beyond this as far as the information society is concerned, whether in international fora or through our own legislation.
If we do that we will not be at a disadvantage.
Indeed, there is need for action.
Other international organisations are very active.
I turn now to the specific field covered by this debate in the field of cryptography.
I agree with the report that because of the global character of the Internet, the international dialogue is of the highest importance.
Within the EU there are several Member States that have engaged in activities in this area and it is undoubtedly the case that if you had divergent legal and technical approaches, that could constitute a serious obstacle to the free circulation of goods and services within the internal market.
That is why a Community policy framework for cryptography is urgently needed.
The report goes along with the view that we have stated very strongly, namely the importance of making a distinction between authentication and integrity services on the one hand and confidentiality services on the other.
That is explicitly stated in our report.
With regard to authentication and integrity services, the first important step is the directive on electronic signatures.
The proposal was sent to Parliament on 1 July.
It is of course in the hands of the Council as well.
The aim is to create a harmonised and appropriate legal framework to facilitate the use of electronic signatures within the Community.
The proposal is in line with the requirements laid down in the report of the European Parliament.
It is an approach which stresses technology neutrality.
A variety of authentication mechanisms is expected to develop and the scope of the directive has to be broad enough to cover the whole spectrum of electronic signatures including digital signatures.
There is also stress on the importance of legal recognition.
The directive should contribute to a harmonised legal framework within the Community by ensuring that electronic signatures are legally recognised in the same way as hand-written signatures.
Importance is also attached to common requirements for certification service providers and certificates and also to the provision of mutual recognition, the introduction of liability rules and cross-border provisions.
In all these aspects the proposal is in line with what is suggested by the report of the European Parliament.
Turning to the question of confidentiality services, here we are talking about the amendment of the dual-use regulation, and that proposal for a Council regulation was adopted by the Commission on 15 May.
The main change was the proposal for notification instead of licensing procedures for intra-Community trade.
At the moment no regulatory activities are foreseen but the Commission will continue examining the proportionality of national restrictions with a view to seeing whether any of them have become obstacles to the proper working of the internal market.
I would like once again to thank Parliament for this supportive report.
I hope we will get the same support for the proposal for a directive and, given the importance of initiative in terms of its impact on growth and employment, I hope Parliament will quickly endorse the proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I notice from the Minutes that Mr Janssen van Raay has very kindly complimented me on my activities on behalf of the back-benchers in this Chamber.
I would like to thank him for his kind words but I would also like to stress that my difference of view with the Bureau was not on a legal point but on a democratic point.
I believe that discipline is a matter for the political groups. I do not believe it is the responsibility of Parliament as an institution.
I also believe that any changes to the allowances payable to Members of this House from the time they were elected in July 1994 be put to the House, rather than imposed by any Bureau of 15 to 16 people.
So my point was different. I do not believe in pursuing these matters through legal channels.
It is a democratic course which I am intent upon. But I would like to thank Mr Janssen van Raay for his kind comments yesterday.
Madam President, I should just like to point out that my name is not on yesterday's attendance register, although I took part in all the votes.
I should be grateful if this could be rectified.
Madam President, my name is not on yesterday's attendance register, although I was present, and took part in all of yesterday's roll-call votes.
May I ask that this be rectified?
Madam President, item 1 of yesterday's Minutes states that I made clear that I had intended to vote against in most votes.
I should like to make it clear that I actually did vote in both of those votes and voted against. But this was not registered in the Minutes.
Madam President, I would also like to refer to the Minutes regarding what my friend, Mr Janssen van Raay, said about mandatory attendance at votes and the relevant sanctions.
It is very unpleasant when you arrive here on Monday and see several Members being rebuked at the Members' cash office, embarrassed by the officials telling them that they will be penalized for several days of this part-session because they did not attend the vote.
I believe this is an erosion of individuality and of our integrity as Members of European Parliament.
Can you think of a means, as long as this measure still exists, where the punishment - and that is what it is - does not take place en plein public by officials at the Member's cash office? That is my question to you.
Madam President, I would like to inform the House that another Commission official was mugged in Leopold Park, probably by the same group which mugged Mr Macartney.
I have taken note of that.
Today is the last part-session. I hope that emotions will stop running quite so high, that there will be no more red faces and that we can now move to the vote.
(The Minutes were approved)
Votes
Madam President, a few minutes ago you reported that there were corrections to all languages.
I am a bit puzzled by that because, if the original language has been changed, at what stage in the procedure was it changed?
We shall ask for that to be checked and you will receive a written answer.
I enthusiastically support this report.
For the last few years as a frequent traveller with Sabena, I and my fellow passengers have endured lost luggage, delayed flights, tremendously over-booked planes, rude staff - especially in Brussels - incompatible computer systems (even within one company) and a level of inconvenience which, if associated with a major retailer, would have produced consumer resistance and bankruptcy a long time ago.
It is therefore about time that consumers were able to exercise some control over the activities of such rogue companies.
This report, though not perfect, goes some way to achieving that and that is why I support it.
The question of compensation in the event of overbooking flights is not a matter for the EU or the European Parliament.
It is a matter that should be resolved by the airlines and the airline organizations.
I have therefore voted against the report.
I welcome this report, though I doubt if the airline that I fly with regularly, Sabena, does.
If overbooking was the only fault then I suppose the airline could improve.
But when you add lost luggage, delayed flights and poor service, then there is a serious problem.
While this report goes some way to rectifying one problem, there has to be action to tackle the others.
Howitt report (A4-0214/98)
Mr Howitt's report gives an outline of the priorities which should form a basis for the adjustment of Structural Funds programmes to the end of 1999, in response to the chronic under-utilization of the Structural Funds.
But once again, instead of investigating the causes of under-consumption, and particularly the incredibly high degree of bureaucracy, mismanagement, wastage and fraud, all we are proposing to do is to redirect the use of the Structural Funds.
The role of the Structural Funds is paradoxical. Their aim is to promote social and economic cohesion, which has been impaired by some Community decisions, such as the reform of the CAP, the reduction in agricultural prices, and the prohibition of the use of drift nets by our fishermen in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic.
Structural aid for the rural economy, which was developed in 1992-1993, was also intended to provide compensation for the agricultural interests which were sacrificed within the framework of the GATT negotiations.
One of the most important priorities adopted should have been the evaluation of the consequences of Economic and Monetary Union on regional disparities.
The euro is, in fact, likely to worsen appreciably the imbalances between the least populated, poorest, most rural and peripheral regions, on the one hand, and the regions situated along the main lines of communication, where economic activities are concentrated, particularly those through the centre of Europe, on the other hand.
In order to maintain a balance between our territories, it is indispensable to preserve the vitality of rural regions and regions dependent on fishing, which, need I remind you, cover 80 % of the area of the European Union.
If we want to ensure that land use is balanced, to prevent the drift from the land, to preserve our rich and fragile cultural and natural heritage which is the main source of tourism, we must pay more attention to certain more vulnerable and less accessible under-privileged areas, such as mountain areas and wetlands, which are particularly numerous in Europe.
In our opinion, the Community should not try to cover innumerable areas, in a customer-based rather than a development perspective. Its efforts should be concentrated on tightening things up and giving priority to the only two real common policies: the CAP and the CFP, by giving them the resources and instruments they need to operate efficiently.
Orlando report (A4-0222/98)
I should like to declare my wholehearted support for a report which aims to step up the fight against organized crime in all its forms.
Europe needs common rules and increased cooperation in the areas of law and the police, but, above all, Europe needs shared convictions.
Of course, we need to protect individual freedom and increase legal protection, but it is also necessary to ensure that criminals do not have better protection than their victims.
There is already awareness of this in Europe. But the Council still has a long way to go.
Practical legislative and technical measures must be adopted and, in order to do so, we need a more political Europe, a citizens' Europe, in order to prevent crime which is often camouflaged behind companies and by financial and economic channels.
The Orlando report is taking us in the right direction, and I support it.
We must now go further, and do more, more quickly!
The Council has proposed a joint action with regard to the methods of cooperation between Member States in the fight against organized crime.
We are delighted that this type of cooperation is being established at intergovernmental level, as it cannot fail to have a positive effect on the fight against international crime and will increase the efficiency of the police and the law in Member States.
On the other hand, the treatment of the Council's proposals by this Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs is extremely worrying.
The committee has disfigured the Council's proposal, by systematically amending the provisions which ensure respect for national legislation and, therefore, the sovereignty of Member States.
It is certainly not the business of this Parliament to give an opinion on this type of issue, nor is it Parliament's business to recognize the competency of the European Court of Justice by means of Amendment No 13 to Article 4.
The Court of Justice cannot be considered competent on this subject in any capacity. The Council's proposal adopts the principle of an intergovernmental procedure, which implies that Member States themselves are competent, by means of their respective legal systems, with regard to the interpretation of the joint action and the settlement of any disputes concerning its implementation.
It is impossible to envisage that, due to this joint action, persons under the Member States' jurisdiction with whom they are understandably unlikely to agree, should be able to bring the Member States before the Court of Justice!
We are, therefore, totally opposed to the proposals of the Orlando report on principle and for practical reasons.
Elchlepp report (A4-0227/98)
Exchanges and joint projects in the area of vocational training are especially important during the period of difficult economic adjustment.
As we have said, cooperation programmes must be organized in a balanced way in both directions.
For educational exchanges with the Czech Republic, this means not only encouraging mobility from the Czech Republic, but motivating and supporting teachers, pupils and students wishing to experience the Czech Republic at first hand.
It goes without saying that central and eastern European countries can secure places on these exchanges by making their own financial contribution.
However, we must take care here, as we did with the long-term SME programme, to ensure that the Community can provide additional finance from PHARE programme funds.
And even if we ensure in general terms that partner countries are able to make their own contributions, we must react efficiently in exceptional circumstances.
I can still see the floods in the Czech Republic in my mind's eye a year later.
The economic effects were devastating.
In this respect, I fully and wholeheartedly welcome the present proposal to use additional PHARE funds to guarantee further cooperation.
It is an active step in the direction of the Europeanization of the EU.
Macartney report (A4-0249/98)
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supports the fisheries agreement between the European Union and the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros.
France is directly involved in this agreement as it relates to 21 French tuna seiners.
However, we wish to point out that we are opposed to Amendment No 5 because it asks the Commission to submit a comprehensive report on the state of fish stocks, on the application and conditions of implementation of the agreement, and on its impact on vocational training.
However, in reality, the fisheries agreement confers a right for a given number of boats to fish for a specific tonnage.
The measures accompanying the fisheries agreement are political and technical guidelines and European institutions should not unilaterally assume the right to regulate measures which fall exclusively within the national competency of the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros.
To conclude, the fisheries agreement should, therefore, not undermine the national sovereignty of one of the European Union's partners.
Amendment No 6 states that the Council authorizes the Commission to start negotiations with a view to the adoption of protocols implementing the agreement.
We are of course in favour of the Commission being authorized to negotiate the agreement, but we are against the extension of its mandate to cover implementing protocols.
The Council must remain in charge.
Once against, the federalist majority of the European Parliament is trying to strip the Council of its powers and transfer them to the Commission, a bureaucratic body, which is not democratically controlled.
Finally, this fisheries agreement highlights the problem of the supply of tuna to the European Union, since it focuses on a reference tonnage of 45 000 tonnes per annum for our domestic market only.
I should therefore like to reiterate that I am totally opposed to the decision to prohibit the use of drift gillnets inasmuch as they are mainly used to fish tuna in Atlantic, where fish stocks are healthy. The arguments relating to the protection of marine mammals are groundless because the drift gillnet is a selective type of fishing gear, as has been demonstrated by scientific studies, based on recognized reliable methodologies.
Fight against crime
The next item is the report (A4-0222/98) by Mr Orlando, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Joint Action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union concerning arrangements for cooperation between Member States in respect of the identification, tracing, freezing or seizing and confiscation of instrumentalities and the proceeds from crime (6490/98 -C4-0184/98-98/0909(CNS)).
Madam President, in the action plan on organized crime, it was decided that the search for and seizure of proceeds from criminal operations should be strengthened.
The European Parliament supported the proposal, and the same trend is found in other parts of the world.
The net is now being pulled tighter around drug dealers and international organized crime. A series of legislative acts will contribute to this.
The piece of legislation in this case is not particularly detailed, but the committee has attempted to clarify and strengthen it with the good help of the rapporteur, and not least with Palacio Vallelersundi's well-known legal expertise.
There may still be reason for the Council to return to the issue, namely, to the question of how the seized money should be handled.
Here the Council is proposing measures relating to handling, procedure and possibilities of emergency measures, as well as a network of contact points to prevent the disappearance of the assets of serious organized crime, such as drug dealing. There will be investment in training.
However, we must have understanding for the fact that the Council is hastening slowly in this area, as there are fundamental integrity aspects that must be respected and human rights to be considered.
The balance must be maintained between the protection of integrity and the effectiveness of the fight against crime.
It is also important for the citizens of each country to have a sense of legal certainty, that is, that they know their law is respected.
This requires the protection of the individual.
Irrespective of the political objectives, confusion in the principles of law and order can never be justified by political objectives.
When my report on organized crime concerning the action plan was debated, Parliament voted almost unanimously for the victims of crime funds proposed there in the case of assets that could not be returned to their rightful owner, or when so many countries have been involved in the action and seizure that it is impossible to divide the proceeds in a reasonable manner.
The Council has still not given its opinion on this proposal.
There is reason to come back to this, and the victims of crime should be involved in this context.
In this matter, there are good examples within the Union on which to base the construction of a network.
Some specification of what should happen to the assets must be initiated in any case.
Because the Council has waited for the Parliamentary reading to reach a decision on this matter, it will also have a more complete basis on which to make a decision, as Parliament has developed its reasoning.
In the same way, it could be advantageous to issue a slim piece of legislation which functioned as a political barometer, picking up important ideas in the area of victims of crime which might be worth using.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this report has a political significance which transcends the actual content. Why?
Because the rapporteur has understood exactly how to highlight where the difficulties lie. He points out how uncommonly difficult the Member States and the Council find it to take a truly political stance on questions of judicial cooperation, especially in the criminal sector.
This is a central point which the rapporteur makes clear in his critique and for that we are grateful to him.
I really have trouble believing that the draft actually states and I quote, "no concrete proposals for improving legal provisions in this area' and that it does nothing to further the action plan.
It is a declaration of political bankruptcy by the Council and the Member States in an uncommonly sensitive political area because, as we all know, cooperation and integration are not needed just for the internal market and it is perfectly clear that the criminals are several jumps ahead of the political institutions when it comes to making decisions and solving problems.
This is the background against which the Council has submitted this ridiculous proposal to us.
This needs to be said, because it is the Council which is the legislator, not us.
Judicial questions and criminal law are normally the bread and butter of parliamentarianism and yet we only make a moderate consultative contribution.
I would, therefore, like to thank the rapporteur for his extremely critical comments in the report on the involvement of Parliament, especially in the explanatory statement.
It is extremely important in this context, I feel, for the committee and the rapporteur and, I hope, the full House, to respond to this uncommonly meagre Council proposal with proper legislative, substantive work.
I think it is important for the European Parliament to get things moving on the content side. It is most welcome that the rapporteur and the committee have made up their minds to do so.
I think we should take this opportunity to stress how strikingly inadequate the powers of the European Parliament are under the third pillar and how they need to be strengthened.
This is clear from this example and we must ensure that political decisions are taken and institutional conclusions are drawn in this area in line with social developments.
The report proves this and the rapporteur has my wholehearted thanks.
Madam President, firstly may I add my congratulations for the rapporteur, Mr Leoluca Orlando, because he has produced a very good piece of work - as everyone acknowledges - and has highlighted - as has also previously been mentioned - the need to go ahead with a form of European construction that covers all necessary dimensions, that is to say, one which places emphasis not only on the economic side but also, and more particularly, on the social and legal side and the financial aspects, which are also important.
Mr Orlando has tried to correct that imbalance and for that reason our group will vote in favour of all his amendments to this proposal.
We are concerned because, to be precise, we perceive a kind of difference between the treatment of certain acts of minor significance and that of major problems such as organized crime and its disastrous consequences for society, culture, young people, etcetera. That difference in treatment shows that the Council has not risen to the occasion.
And it is important to act against these organized groups of criminals, characterized, among other things, by their financial strength and also by the fact that they have firms of legal advisers who are highly skilled in exploiting the byways, cracks and loopholes that exist in national and international law.
For that reason, the European Union needs to be more precise and more forceful where these groups are concerned.
We also find some of the practical amendments - Amendments Nos 6, 7, 10, 15 and 16, which seem to us to be aimed at the central issue - very positive.
In that respect, Amendment No 6 - on free and direct access by Member States to information held by another state - seems important to us because it will speed up the work of prosecuting this type of crime.
The same is true for Amendment No 7, on the court decisions that shall be required during the process of identifying illegal assets, in order to be able to infringe the protected rights of persons or institutions that have committed this type of crime, and for Amendment No 10, on the preparation of a catalogue of data which legal requests for confiscating instrumentalities and freezing the proceeds from crime must contain.
Another important amendment is Amendment No 16, on the need for states to take the necessary measures to be able to act in coordination with one another.
We do not, however, agree with Amendments Nos 20, 21 and 22, because we feel Mr Orlando's text is more precise.
For that reason, as we have said, we fully agree with the rapporteur, and we congratulate him.
Madam President, I shall be brief. We, the Greens, have always criticized the concept of organized crime as a hotch-potch of mafia structures, terrorism and whatnot on to which government authorities project their particular form of government, whereas in reality it is an irregular variation on the capitalistic enrichment process.
The question of civil liberties must carry more weight than the question of property rights.
We therefore take the opposite approach to that of the present regulation, which is why we have already refused once in the past to endorse an Orlando report which we felt went too far on this point.
On this question, that is, the question of infringing property rights in connection with irregular capitalistic enrichment processes, we are of the firm opinion that Mr Orlando has simply expressed the common sense view and we support the report on all points.
We also find the proposals of the Group of the European People's Party sensible and worthy of support.
In the final analysis, a "godfather' who is in prison but is managing his criminal assets from prison is far more dangerous than a godfather running around free but with no assets.
That is the decisive factor and in this respect the proper start has been made.
It is amazing just how hesitant the Commission is on the whole question, which is why we again have the wrong emphasis in the regulation.
We need to regulate a fair exchange on the extended internal market because that is the only way of preventing the growth of the criminal cancer produced by the normal capitalist enrichment process.
Madam President, the Orlando report deals with a joint action of the Council in the framework of the detailed action plan to fight organized crime as adopted in June 1997 by the European Council.
The Orlando report was quite negative about this proposal concerning the cooperation of Member States in the area of identification, tracing, freezing or seizing and confiscation of the instrumentalities and proceeds from crime.
According to this report, the Council has not satisfied a single demand of the detailed action plan: the requirement from Policy Guideline 11 - including the improvement of the legal regulations of Member States and the implementation of special procedures - and Recommendation 26(c) - confiscation regardless of the physical presence of the violator - are not incorporated in this action.
I believe these allegations are too strong.
The action is based on Article K.3 of the Treaty of European Union, intended to implement the action plan, specifically concerning Recommendation 26(b).
Briefly summarized, this states that a study must be carried out to speed up the tracing and seizure of illegal assets and the implementation of decisions concerning confiscation.
In fact, the joint action provides a sizable impulse for this.
Expectations that a European system would be immediately established go much too far and would not even be compatible with the political objectives of the action plan.
They would perhaps be compatible with the political objectives of Parliament, but in that case we could not base our argument on the action plan to show that the Council is wrong. Cooperation in the area of the administration of justice does not proceed very easily at European level; that is true.
But this also concerns the heart of the national Member States. With such measures, one strikes very close to the sovereignty of the states.
The action is based on Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union. Parliament has therefore advisory authority.
It is unclear to me why the proposal is being handled as if Parliament had approval authority.
In terms of their content, I can agree with many of the amendments, but in view of the intention of this action of the Council, the amendments to Article 4 actually go much too far and are too detailed.
I have real difficulty with Amendment No 13, which provides for the European Court of Justice to be given the competence, among other things, to interpret this action and the disputes surrounding its application.
This concerns an action in the framework of the third pillar. The Court has no jurisdiction here unless the Member States themselves come to an agreement and approve this limitation of their freedom of policy.
Although I do not disapprove of the content of many of the amendments, I still cannot support this report, because I believe it does not belong here.
However, I fully endorse the proposal for a joint action from the Council.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that with this report we are moving in the direction of cooperation between Member States in the fight against crime and, fortunately, we have a certain consensus on this subject.
We must not forget that crime has increased significantly in Europe over the last 50 years.
In France, for example, the number of crimes and offences has increased from 500 000 in 1950 to over 4.5 million at the present time.
This is an increase which is out of all proportion with the demographic development of the country.
I have used this example because it is one I know well, but I am sure that in most European countries, there has been a similar increase. This is extremely worrying.
Quite obviously, the aim of most crimes is to take possession of property illegally. We therefore need to fight against crime by hitting out against it economically, against the proceeds of crime and the assets of criminals.
That is therefore the aim of this report.
European cooperation in the fight against the crime, in this particular area, is thus very important.
One of the defects of our crime prevention procedures is their slowness, and the aim of several articles and amendments included in this report is, specifically, to accelerate the procedures relating to the identification, tracing, freezing or seizing and confiscation of the proceeds from crime. All these measures have our full support.
However, we believe that the initial text of Article 4 should be maintained, because European cooperation should, of course, comply with national legislation, and also with the principle of subsidiarity enshrined in the Treaty on European Union.
Some amendments, such as Amendment No 4, make some very useful specific changes to a legislative proposal which nevertheless remains extremely general in scope.
With this report, we are therefore moving in the right direction. We shall vote in favour of it, but without a doubt, the action taken by Member States is still very ineffective due to the sheer scale of economic activities linked with crime.
European policy mirrors the policies of the Member States or of most Member States, and at the moment, it is hopelessly adequate.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Orlando on his courage and his report. It is a timely one.
European criminals, like European industry, have cottoned on to the advantages of the free movement of goods, services, capital and people.
Drugs, prostitution, dirty money and those smuggling illegal immigrants all benefit from the single market.
The forces of law and order must cooperate as do Europe's criminals and harmonise their procedures.
Mr Orlando's report helps us to start this process.
We can only hope that the Council of Ministers pays some attention.
I should also like to suggest a couple of other very simple practical steps we could take to deal with organized crime.
Mr Oostlander and I recently attended an international police conference in Holland.
The issue raised there with the two of us was the idea of using the transition to the euro as an opportunity for detecting and intercepting dirty money coming from organized crime.
Those with their ill-gotten gains in francs, Deutschmarks or pesetas in safe deposit boxes - or even under the bed! - will have at some time during the transition to the euro to change this money and that is when we will have our opportunity to identify it.
The police at the conference suggested the establishment of a European-wide special unit to detect such transactions - maybe based on Europol which is responsible now for dealing with the trans-European problems of drugs and terrorism.
Along with this, the requirement to report to the authorities the conversion of large amounts of cash from one currency to another needs to be harmonised.
At the moment in many countries only suspicious transactions have to be reported, and it may be sensible to harmonise this procedure and make it tougher.
The people of Europe would welcome such a step and we should seize this opportunity.
Not to do so would be a mistake.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I consider it fundamental to support with determination the fight against mafia organizations and fully agree with the draft joint action adopted by the Council. But I am personally against the approach taken in the Orlando legislative proposal, in that this proposal is extremely prejudicial to the liberty and institutional guarantees of any citizen under investigation and is a step backward in time and history.
I am very concerned about this.
To promote this position would have one immediate effect: citizens would only need to be accused of involvement in mafia activities to have their assets and property confiscated and be ruined economically before any sentence of condemnation.
I remind you that we are talking about precautionary measures here.
And Italy has already been censured on several occasions by the Court of Justice for the extreme length of its trials.
The definition of a few basic principles aimed to improve international cooperation - but which also has major consequences at judicial level - must be in keeping with the preventive opinion of our Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs, even if the amendments tabled by Mrs Palacio seek to deal with this shortcoming.
To approve this proposal, ladies and gentlemen, means returning to the Middle Ages and the Inquisition, wiping out once and for all the social gains concerning freedom and the guarantee of defence of accused citizens who, for all the courts of civil states, are presumed innocent until a final sentence of condemnation.
I therefore appeal to your wisdom, ladies and gentlemen, and propose that the text be referred back to the Committee on Legal Affairs, which was unable to express its own opinion, so that guarantees for European citizens can be incorporated into the proposal.
Madam President, Commissioner, the fight against crime comes high up, sometimes at the top, of most opinion polls about what people think the EU should, among other things, concern itself with.
This is a report of the kind which discusses how crime and criminal activity should be prevented through effective cooperation between the Member States.
Firstly, I would like to say that it relates to intergovernmental cooperation. It is about tracing and seizing financial assets arising from such crime.
It also relates to getting Member States to ratify conventions and the resolution on the laundering of drugs money, etcetera.
Some keywords I see in this include access to information between the Member States, high priority in the form of rapid processing of applications for the seizure, rapid action, personal contacts between investigators, judges, etcetera and simple procedures whilst upholding legal certainty.
This is an issue which is extremely sensitive for many Member States.
Issues of crime, punishment, police and prosecutors are the foundation of the legislation of many nation states.
It is, therefore, important to do nothing that is viewed as an infringement of national sovereignty.
In my opinion, this includes Amendment No 13, which proposes that Member States should recognize the Court of Justice as the competent authority on the interpretation of Article 4.
Article 4 concerns questions regarding appeals, damages and suchlike that are often purely matters for the civil court, particularly questions of damages.
There is no reason to involve the Court of Justice in this cooperation.
This is therefore something that I am against.
Aside from this, the report is excellent. We in the ELDR Group support it, on my part with the exception of Amendment No 13.
Mr President, I consider Mr Orlando's report excellent, and the direction that he gave it is a very positive framework with which to move forward in the effective fight against organized crime.
I see absolutely no threats to individual liberties, I only see the request for effective collaboration that must be pursued with adequate instruments.
These suggestions exist in the amendments and in the direction given by Mr Orlando.
I would not like a kind of obsessive focus on the problems of personal liberty to cover up and protect certain distinct positions that should instead be pursued with great determination.
In conclusion, I fully support the report and the amendments by Mr Orlando.
Mr President, it is clear that this draft joint action is good. The report which has been produced is good.
However, I believe the moment of truth will come fairly soon when we look at the implementation of the action plan to combat organized crime, etcetera.
The Internal Affairs Council adopts joint action after joint action without this necessarily involving a great deal.
If we look at the situation regarding the application of conventions in the same area, we see that the situation is pitiful.
Conventions have been approved, but very few of them have come into force.
What is the situation with these joint actions which are almost rhetorical? I believe we are approaching a situation where there is a very large difference between the words that are uttered about cooperation and what actually takes place.
That is what I mean by the moment of truth in these important areas: legal cooperation and the fight against organized crime.
We repeat situations where Member States do not in fact comply with what has been said in the convention areas which already exist.
How is it with this then? I do, however, believe in the power of example, and hope that people will in fact succeed in cooperating.
Furthermore, I would like to say that I, unlike my colleague Mr Lindqvist, support the proposal that the Court of Justice should have authority in this area.
Without wishing to refer the matter back to committee, I do, however, regret that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was not consulted on this area, that we have not had the opportunity to express ourselves.
However, it is now too late, and I am not demanding that it be referred back.
Mr President, first I would like to thank the rapporteur for his consistent action in the fight against crime.
The adversary, however, is "organized crime' and should not be underestimated. It is an adversary which a priori has the upper hand due to a lack of legal constraints and against which the Union must arm itself with the best legal weapons.
That is why we must join the rapporteur in ruing the lack of concrete proposals in the measure submitted for improving legal provisions in the Member States.
Given the rising crime rates, I find the reservations shown difficult to understand.
Even in Austria, where the matter is regulated more or less along the lines advocated by the rapporteur, I have for this very reason criticized provisions which I felt went too far in dispensing with what we refer to as levies on enrichment and forfeiture, as counter-productive and mafiafriendly, precisely because it is swift action against the financial proceeds of criminal organizations which is effective.
That is why we welcome the proposed improvements.
Mr President, we in the Commission welcome today's debate on the means of seizing and confiscating the proceeds of crime.
We are grateful to the rapporteur, Mr Orlando, for the work that he has done and particularly his suggestions for improving the draft joint action which is still being considered by the Council.
When the Council considers the matter, it might do well to bear clearly in mind that, according to the opinion polls, there are huge majorities of people in every single Member State who support maximum coordination, legal action and cooperation against international crime.
In this respect at least, the public demonstrates that it is rather ahead of politicians' thinking on the issue, though sadly not quite as far ahead as the criminals.
The Commission very much agrees with the general thrust of Mr Orlando's report, which aims to strengthen the commitments to combat money laundering and confiscate the proceeds of crime.
Clearly, to fight organized crime effectively, it is important to have international instruments that are not merely based on 'best endeavour' undertakings but are authentic and welldefined legal obligations that can protect society and deter or, indeed, punish the villains.
I particularly agree with Mr Orlando when he stresses that Member States which have not already done so should ratify the Council of Europe's 1990 Convention on laundering, search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds of crime.
In fact Member States should endeavour to ratify all the conventions to which they have agreed, within the promised deadlines.
The conventions and protocols on the fight against fraud and corruption have, for instance, been awaiting ratification for more than two years.
My Commission colleagues and I hope that governments will now live up to their commitments and national parliaments will press for ratification.
In their own interests, Member States should also comply fully with the requirements of the Community directive on combating money laundering and implement the recommendations produced by the task-force on money laundering in 1996.
The Commission also endorses the amendments which improve the way in which direct cooperation in legal assistance is offered.
We also support the introduction of deadlines in the procedures and a better definition of the requirements to be fulfilled in order to offer judicial assistance between the Member States.
The Commission is aware of the need to balance effective measures against money laundering with protection of individuals' genuine rights.
We therefore welcome Mr Orlando's proposals to ensure that those who wrongly suffer loss as a result of such measures will be entitled to claim compensation.
Criminals would not observe individual civil rights so scrupulously, but, as democrats, we naturally have to demonstrate superiority in this respect.
We are also sympathetic to the idea of including a review clause with a date for checking whether the joint action could be further strengthened.
We suggest the end of 1999 or perhaps the end of the year 2000 so that there is a specific date, rather than a relatively vague open-ended commitment.
As the House will know, the issue of efforts to combat organized crime was carefully considered at the open debate of the Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers last May, and the Cardiff Summit also made a clear statement on the subject.
Mindful of these activities and of our own strong feelings, the Commission will do its utmost to include forceful references to the matter in the action plan on freedom, security and justice which has to be submitted to the European Council in Vienna next December.
Naturally, we continue to count on the support of this Parliament in shaping further progress in this important area now covered by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to vote.
Before the vote on Amendment No 13
Mr President, may I ask the rapporteur a question on this point? Mr Blokland maintains that this would be overstepping the contractual mark.
If you look closely at the amendment, it contains a proposal to the effect that the Member States agree between themselves to cooperate in this way.
Perhaps the rapporteur could give an opinion on this?
Mr Wolf, if the rapporteur had asked to speak as rapporteur, I would immediately have allowed him to speak.
There is no doubt about that. But it is my view that Mr Orlando is not obliged to give an opinion at the request of another Member if he does not wish to do so.
And, since he does not wish to do so, we shall continue with the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I truly welcome the fact that we have been giving the subject of money laundering increasing attention over recent months, but I feel that we should include this matter more intensively in the accession strategy, in the structured dialogue and in accession negotiations.
There has been a return to a proper rule of law in the countries of central and eastern Europe following decades of socialist enrichment, but this process is being massively abused by powers in the EU and by the old and new structures in the countries of central and eastern Europe in order to launder money.
We need to tackle this matter, which is why I welcome the fact that the Austrian President-in-Office of the Council will be coming to Brussels next week with his Minister for Justice, Mr Michalek, and his Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Schlögl.
We can only hope that they do not walk through Leopold Park; but otherwise we welcome the fact that we will be able to refocus on the matter.
Participation of the Czech Republic in Community programmes (training, youth and education)
The next item is the report (A4-0227/98) by Mr Elchlepp, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the participation of the Czech Republic in Community programmes in the fields of training, youth and education (COM(98)0093 - C4-0161/98-98/0067(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it truly is wonderful that young people from the countries of central and eastern Europe can now take part in European exchange and training programmes even before their countries become full members.
I personally witnessed the huge expectations of and commitment to the programmes in the Czech Republic during recent talks with members of parliament and the government in Prague.
I really must stress here that educational exchanges with central and eastern European countries will not be a one-way street and exchanges will work in both directions.
Young people from Prague, Budapest and Warsaw are prevented by the division of Europe from taking advantage of training possibilities in London, Paris, Bologna and elsewhere, while young people from the EU are deterred from spending a year in Poland, Romania or the Czech Republic.
This should become a matter of course and we should motivate young people to do it.
I hope that even more study courses will be set up which offer this as an integral part of the course.
I would also like to stress that the inclusion of these countries in the training programme is, first and foremost, an important component in supporting the enlargement process.
Enlargement towards the east is not merely an economic process; it is a gigantic learning curve for us all.
It involves building trust and breaking down the prejudices which have failed to disappear now that the borders are open and which are, unfortunately, harboured by forces both here and in these countries which are basically opposed to European integration.
Nor should the significance of the transfer of know-how be underestimated.
Personal exchanges of experience in teaching, science, vocational training and teacher training are an excellent driving force during the difficult adjustment process on the path towards full membership and are usually more important than investing in material assets.
For the rest, they also help to prepare young people for the mobility needed on a larger European job market.
We must make sure as a matter of priority that participation in the programmes increases steadily over coming years.
There is another point which I would like to stress. During our talks in Prague, it was suggested that representatives of the central and eastern European countries should be offered the opportunity to attend the EU training programme accompanying committees.
I would like expressly to support this move and to ask the Commission to support it, because personal cooperation in committees represents an important step towards integration and offers our partners in these countries an excellent opportunity to become acquainted with the complex EU administration and programme structures at a specialist level.
The financial resources available to candidate countries are limited.
As I have said, we must ensure that the numbers of people involved in exchanges increase still further over coming years.
More the pity that, now of all times, the Council of Finance Ministers has tabled a proposal to reduce the funds for Leonardo by two-thirds from ECU 140 million to ECU 40 million next year.
It is downright scandalous.
This is especially true given all the full-blown announcements at the Cardiff Summit as to how we want to pursue an active employment policy, focus on European qualifications, facilitate mobility on the European job market and push on with the integration of central and eastern European countries.
As we heard from the President-in-Office of the Council in this House just two days ago, all this is to become reality.
This reduction applies yet again to training policy to be exact, to vocational training more precisely, money is being refused to the weakest on the job market but not to industry-related media programmes.
Surely the public must get the impression that this is a dishonest policy.
I am outraged and ashamed when I think of the multitude of good, cross-border projects set up by companies, training institutes and technical colleges which will now have to be cancelled and of the dashed hopes of young people who, perhaps for the first time in their lives, might have been able to finish part of their vocational training in another country.
Given the imminent enlargement of the EU towards the East and the increase in the number of candidates, the question of funding for EU programmes is already becoming even more urgent.
Now there is a risk that de facto training projects and candidates from central and eastern European countries will have to compete with projects and candidates from the EU for even less funding. It does not create a very good impression.
I therefore urge the Council to renounce this short-sighted and antisocial policy and to increase rather than reduce the funds.
This is also a piece of European credibility.
(Applause)
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mr Elchlepp on his report.
As a member of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, I know his work in the committee, and he is one of the most knowledgeable members in this area, having worked in it before he became an MEP.
It is quite rare to find rapporteurs who know more than the officials about the programmes concerned.
On the face of it, this is a technical measure to readjust funding.
But it raises a very symbolic and important financial point - which Mr Elchlepp made very well - that if we are serious about taking the applicant countries from central and eastern Europe into the European Union, and we in the Green Group certainly are, then we really have to talk about funding the process properly.
We had a long battle in the Culture Committee and in Parliament overall over the funding of Socrates, and we made it very clear that we will not vote in favour of any more members joining on an associate basis unless the Council provides the funding.
I am glad to say that, after a battle, we got an increase in funding.
I have to note, with Mr Kinnock here to respond, that the British government was initially opposed to that increase in funding.
But we got it.
The message which we have to underline here this morning is that to make these programmes work they need funding and, as Mr Elchlepp said, they are vitally important in terms of training, educational and youth exchanges to bind the people of the central and eastern European countries to the people of the Union.
Therefore, that is why we should emphasize this.
The exchange programmes which have already begun have started to build a basis for this growth in the Community.
No European Union worthy of its name can be complete unless we take these countries in, and these programmes are a very good way to go forward.
Finally, since Commissioner Kinnock is here, I just wish to say that it is nice to see what a splendid job he is doing this morning.
I might have had some criticisms of him in the past as Labour leader but, after the recent visit of the current leader, I have to say: all is forgiven and please come back, Neil; if not as leader of the Labour Party then I hope as President of the Commission next time.
Though having said that, this will probably finish him off if it gets back to Tony.
Thank you, Mr Kerr.
I have to inform you that we have not yet amended the Rules of Procedure in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty and, therefore, Parliament cannot put proposals to the Council regarding Presidents of the Commission.
Mr President, like the other Members, I, too, congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp, on the excellent work he did.
The European Community's enlargement towards central and eastern Europe certainly has to take into account aspects like the exchange of experiences and cultural projects, particularly those for young people.
Only if there is constructive dialogue between students and teachers can an important result be obtained in innovative teaching and training projects; for this reason it is fundamental that we accelerate the process of structural adjustment of these countries which will join the European Union.
It is important to ensure that programmes are open to all young people, including those from socially disadvantaged families, that they succeed, therefore, in working towards a joint project which enables these young people to learn about their own history, their own values, their own identity.
The Czech Republic needs our support, particularly for the three education, training and youth programmes, completing the action of integration with specific agreements.
It is worth recalling that, following the disastrous floods in July 1997 - as Mr Elchlepp clearly indicated - the country's finances have been in a difficult state; therefore, so that the Czech Republic can participate in the Socrates, Leonardo and 'Youth for Europe' programmes as soon as possible, a solution has to be found to this technical problem of funding, also because in this region of the world, lasting cooperation between young people becomes fundamental, given the difficult historical relationship.
Teacher, pupil and student mobility from the European Union to the Czech Republic must be encouraged but guaranteed in a balanced way and with a genuine exchange of cultures and languages.
European cultural integration, which is at the basis of the Treaty on European Union, is only possible if we devote special attention to these countries that are socially and culturally close to us.
Mr President, as a member of the Czech-German coordination council set up in Pilsen a fortnight ago and as rapporteur on the additional protocol to the association agreement on which the Elchlepp report is based, I would like to congratulate Mr Elchlepp most warmly on his report and give him my full support.
I think, in fact, that you can only make political headway by changing the way people think and people will only change the way they think by coming together. This only works from the bottom up, not from the top down, from officials and politicians.
It is precisely here that young people are a special and important factor, which is why I believe that we must promote projects such as the Ronsperg youth clubs in Westböhmen or the student exchange programme between Bavaria and the Czech Republic set up by the Prague journalist Milan Kubes as well as numerous other projects, because it is only though such concrete action that we can mutually prepare for enlargement.
I think that this is the crux of the matter: mutually preparing for enlargement, which is why I welcomed the fact that Mr Elchlepp stressed that we should make it possible for large numbers of people from the EU to go to the Czech Republic, so that we can learn their language and culture.
I truly believe that these exchanges should not be a one-way street and that we have just as much to learn as people in the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe.
That is why the Elchlepp report is particularly welcome, because it removes the paternalistic biased attitude which often reigns and advocates genuine cooperation between partners.
Mr President, the Pope recently visited Vienna and said that we should be talking of Europeanization rather than enlargement towards the East.
I think that these cross-border training exchanges could be used as a model.
Cooperation in training is extremely important, because people in the profession, teachers, pupils and students, have the opportunity to get to know each other and to learn from each other.
I, too, asked the Council for an increase in Leonardo funds on Wednesday during the presidency debate.
As Mr Elchlepp rightly pointed out, we have no sympathy with reductions because funds within the European Union are already so stretched.
We need a 100 % increase in these funds if we are to be able to do justice to these tasks.
For me this has been an interesting debate, not least because of one of a contribution from a Green Member - he was kind enough to offer me an invitation to return. It is one that I sincerely decline.
Although he offered me that invitation to come back because all is forgiven, I regret to say that I cannot reciprocate.
I am grateful to Mr Elchlepp for his report on a proposal for a decision by the European Union-Czech Association Council which would allow the Czech Republic to use PHARE funds to pay part of its financial contribution to three education related Community programmes - Leonardo, Socrates, and Youth for Europe.
As the House will recall, the participation of candidate countries in Community programmes fulfils an objective that was recognised by the 1993 Copenhagen Council and has been confirmed at subsequent European Councils.
I share the hope expressed in the course of this debate that those declarations of intent and good purpose will be assiduously copied by finance ministers in their approach to various Community programmes.
This whole approach is a significant element of the pre-accession strategy since participation in such programmes contributes to the implementation of the economic and cultural cooperation provisions of the Europe Agreement.
It also enables candidate countries to familiarize themselves with an important part of the cooperation practices of the European Union and with the procedures and methods used in Community programmes.
Clearly, it also contributes to helping those countries to respond to internal policy needs and to find solutions to common problems.
It is no accident that the first programmes opened for candidate countries' participation were Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe.
Education and training are obviously essential for bringing countries closer together.
The creation of a learning society is at least as important to the efforts to promote growth, competitiveness and employment in the candidate countries as it is in the Member States.
The Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania were the first countries to participate in Community programmes in October 1997.
In the months since, it has been obvious that those nations pursued the programmes with great enthusiasm after the lengthy and thorough preparations undertaken with the technical and financial assistance of the Community.
The successful information campaign and the expectations raised during the period preceding the entry into force of the decision have led to a large number of applications, with the Czech participants being particularly active and successful in their applications.
Early last year the Czech Republic announced that it would bear the full cost of participation in the education-related programmes from its own budget in 1997, 1998 and 1999, rather than using PHARE support.
However, as we have been reminded in the course of the debate, at the end of last year the Czechs advised us that the massive financial burdens resulting from the devastating floods of July 1997 have made it impossible to fulfil that original ambition.
The Republic now wants to make full use of possible Community support through the PHARE programme.
As the House will know, such support was reaffirmed by the Member States at the Luxembourg Council last December.
I hope that Parliament will follow the recommendations in Mr Elchlepp's very good report, and respond positively to the Czech request to use PHARE funds for this purpose, as in the case of other applicant countries such as Hungary, Romania, Poland and the Slovak Republic.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Fishing off the Comoros
The next item is the report (A4-0249/98) by Mr Macartney, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) relating to the conclusion of the Protocol setting out the fishing opportunities and financial contribution provided for in the Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros on fishing off the Comoros for the period from 28 February 1998 to 27 February 2001(COM(98)0264 - C4-0344/98-98/0144(CNS)).
The rapporteur, Mr Macartney, will speak first for five minutes.
Mr President, this is not a controversial report but it is an extremely important agreement for one of the most impoverished countries in the world, namely the Comoro islands.
Not only have they had many problems with their economy but of course they have had problems with rebellion and they have been a war-torn zone for quite a long time.
However, the needs of the fishermen of the Comoros and of the Comoran government, are all still present and it is very important that the EU has this agreement with the Comoro islands.
One question to ask for the future, and perhaps the Commission will not want to respond immediately, but if it wishes to do so I am delighted, is how the Comoros fisheries agreement will in future fit in with the Indian Ocean as a whole.
I know from the Seychelles that they are much more interested in an Indian Ocean-wide series of agreements, rather than individual agreements.
Perhaps we should be told whether the agreement is likely to continue for the Comoros in this way or whether it will be subsumed in a larger series of negotiations.
Nevertheless, the issue is very important for the people of the Comoros.
Perhaps this agreement is again typical of the way in which agreements between the EU and third countries have evolved, in that the development component has steadily increased.
Instead of just a lump sum going to the government of the country concerned, there is increasing concern for scientific and technical measures.
On page 9 of my report we see a series of six headings, including support for the ministry of fisheries, study grants, practical training courses, financing of scientific and technical programmes and even participation in international meetings.
One of the problems of the Comorans is that they cannot afford the fares to go to some of the meetings they should be represented at.
This is a good model of the way in which these agreements are continuing.
However, at one point it looks slightly more generous than it really is in several language versions.
I have to report one slight mistake, which I am grateful to Mr McCartin for pointing out with his eagle eye: at one point when it talks about 45 000 tonnes this is actually 4 500 tonnes, so we were not getting quite the bargain we thought in the purchase of tuna!
So I regret to inform the language services that this applies to eight language versions, but not to the Dutch, French or Swedish versions - the Dutch, French and Swedes need not worry but the others should, perhaps, be concerned.
That is just for the record.
The final point I should like to make is that the European Parliament, and its Committee on Fisheries, have increasingly requested reports from the Commission at the end of the agreements with the country concerned, so that we can make an informed judgment about the future of these agreements.
I would emphasize that this is important and is the reason for the amendments which were tabled in the Fisheries Committee. I look for the support of the House for those amendments.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should like to thank and congratulate Mr Macartney on his very useful report on the fishing agreement with Comoros.
The amendments agreed unanimously in committee strengthen the commitment of this Parliament to ensure that European fishing agreements such as the one we are discussing today contain a strong element of development assistance and that this will be reviewed regularly.
It is important that such agreements are not just a means by which rich countries exploit one of the few natural resources of an extremely poor country like the Comoros.
The PSE therefore welcomes the fact that, on top of the payment of ECU 540 000 to the government of Comoros for fishing rights, there is a commitment of an additional ECU 540 000 for direct support for the Comoros' own fishing industry to support the programmes mentioned already by Mr Macartney.
We hope that when this agreement is again reviewed, the Commission will consider still more assistance to contribute to the development of added value projects, such as processing and canning, which will make a real contribution to the local economy and local living standards.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Macartney for his report which is well done and represents the views and concerns of the Committee on Fisheries.
I have one or two concerns that perhaps represent my own views rather than those of my political group.
First of all we should remember that we are dealing with an extremely poor part of the world: half a million people with a GDP per capita of something like ECU 600 annually or 3 % of the European Union average. These are very poor people.
Theirs is an unsettled political situation as well.
That raises the question, for me, of how we can expect these people to have any idea of what is happening in their coastal areas or waters.
We cannot expect a country like the Comoros to know what fish has been taken out.
I would not trust any information that I get from an area with such meagre resources about what is happening in their waters.
Secondly, we did a deal on the basis of 6 000 tonnes of tuna.
We only caught, apparently, an average of 3 000 tonnes, and yet we are increasing the number of vessels being sent there.
The revised figure that Mr Macartney gives us is 4 500.
But there are 44 seine vessels and 16 longliners.
I have to ask why all these ships are going such a great distance to catch 3 000 tonnes of tunafish.
I would like to see some kind of balance sheet presented to us.
How many days did all this tonnage of vessels fish in these waters, what did they catch and where did they land it? Who tells us what amount of fish is involved?
Some kind of balance sheet that would bring this into some sort of reasonable focus is needed. I do not begrudge the fishermen of Spain and France the subsidies we are giving them but I think we should give them in a different way.
We should not mix up development aid with an economic policy that the Community is pursuing in relation to fishing. I have serious doubts about this.
Mr President, the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros is one of the world's poorest economies.
That is why it is very important that funds in the fishing agreement between the EU and this region are in future targeted mainly at the development of the fishing sector in the Comoros and the monitoring of fishing.
That is the best way of enhancing sustainable development in the region from the point of view of both the environment and society.
The working methods of the Commission and the Council in extending the fishing agreement leaves a lot to be desired, however.
How, for example, has the decision on the provisionary application of the protocol on fishing, which will have effects on funding and budgets, been taken once again without reference to the other budgetary authority, that is to say, the European Parliament?
In addition, the Commission has pledged to pay a part of the compensation in the absence of a Parliamentary opinion.
In my opinion, this can no longer be due to a shortage of time.
Can the negotiators of new fishing agreements not start work well before the former contract has expired so that the Union's ponderous regulations for procedure, such as they are, might be observed?
I thus agree with the rapporteur that the flow of information between Parliament, the Council and the Commission must be improved upon.
In this connection, the assessment reports requested by Parliament on the implementation of the agreement hitherto must be submitted before negotiations on the new agreement start.
Thank you, Mr President, I shall continue in German.
It is well worth dealing with these so-called smaller reports on a Friday, because a great deal is said which we never get to hear with the larger reports. I would like to refer to one point in particular.
If you read the report, especially its explanatory statement, you will see the scandalous manner in which the powers that be here in Parliament and, more importantly, in the European Union, run roughshod over Parliament's rights. Times are manipulated in order to score points over us and this report on the Comoros is being used for precisely this purpose.
I want this on the record because it will be of even greater importance in the future. Every effort is being made on a systematic basis to dismiss Parliament's rights because they always say nobody reads anything at the end of a sitting.
Do the top officials and their acolytes think that we have not noticed what they are up to? Mr President, if this report on the Comoros is important, then it is important not only because it illustrates the shenanigans at the top, but also because it teaches us something, in other words, how important fishing is to us.
A few days ago, I was again asked why I keep reverting to fishing matters, despite the fact that my constituency has nothing to do with the sea. But, may I say in passing, we do have large quantities of the best trout in the world.
They are far better than the farmed variety.
In any case, Mr Frischenschlager, the water comes from Austria.
(Laughter) This is a matter of crucial importance to mankind.
You simply have to compare menus in the restaurants of 20 years ago with those of today.
Twenty years ago, fish was the cheapest dish on the menu.
Today, fish is the most expensive.
We are beginning to apply to fish what was generally applied solely to bait fish in the past because there is not enough, which is why we need to keep the focus on this matter.
Our seas everywhere are being destroyed and, as we destroy them, we are ruining the poorest among us who still have to make a living from fishing, such as the inhabitants of the Comoros.
It is the huge fish factories in America, Russian and Japan which are destroying what needs to be maintained for future generations and we should take a decidedly more serious approach to this than is nowadays often the case.
(Applause)
Danke schön, Herr von Habsburg, and I will now switch to Spanish ...
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr von Habsburg's speech completes the list of contributions by Members of the House.
I therefore call on the Commissioner, Mr Kinnock, to speak.
Mr Kinnock, you have the floor.
Mr President, I enjoyed this debate, as I enjoyed reading Mr Macartney's report, but, certainly, attendance here was worthwhile to hear the appeal made by Mr von Habsburg and the response of the House.
It demonstrates that Friday mornings in the European Parliament are truly worthwhile.
Well, you get la crème de la crème , do you not on Friday morning!
I wish to thank Mr Macartney for his excellent report on the new terms and conditions for fishing by the Community fleet in the waters off the Comoros.
I would respond to the question he put by saying that, obviously, currently we are still dealing with bilateral agreements but these could evolve over the years into regional agreements if that were the expressed desire of the third countries.
To a great extent, the initiative lies with them.
But I am certain that Mr Macartney will continue to follow this issue to see whether that evolution takes place.
So far as Mr McCartin's question is concerned, we provide annual reports in the form of the report on the budget outturn and also a report on the outlook for agreements.
But I understand that what he wanted was rather more comprehensive than that.
So I invite him to put down a written question listing the issues, that he very fairly raised, and I am certain that my colleagues in the Commission will happily respond in detail.
As the House will know, the Commission considers that these new terms are likely to ensure more effective implementation of the agreement in a way that is consistent with the basic principles of the conservation of resources - the importance of which was brought to our attention again in the course of this debate.
We also believe that this new protocol with the Comoros contains major innovations to promote sustainable fishing that are compatible with development policy.
The details of the agreement and protocol are obviously very familiar to the House so, rather than repeat them, I shall come directly to our response to the amendments by the Committee on Fisheries.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 1, because we consider that the expenditure relating to the agreement is compulsory.
We accept the spirit of Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4 and 5, but we stress that we already give regular information to Parliament, as I mentioned earlier, on the use made of fisheries agreements in the statements and reports that are made to the Fisheries Committee.
The Commission does not entirely agree with the objectives of Amendment No 6 and, in particular, the reference to small local fishing enterprises, since these fisheries agreements, which are, obviously, commercial in nature, seek to provide fishing opportunities for Community shipowners, while taking into account compatibility with other Community policies and especially development policy.
Since fisheries agreements are concluded on a Community level and the Commission, therefore, pays the financial compensation, while the vessels fishing in those waters pay the licence fees, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 7.
I hope that the House will, on reflection, accept the considered view of the Commission.
I thank Mr Macartney for his characteristically thorough and positive efforts in producing this report.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Before proceeding to the vote, may I thank you, Commissioner, for your kind remarks to the House.
I agree with you that we have the very cream of Parliament here on Friday mornings, but might I add that on some Friday mornings - and today, for example - we also have the very cream of the Commission.
(Laughter and applause) We shall now proceed to the vote on Mr Macartney's report.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg is quite right.
Fishing, like all primary forms of production, is a central aspect of the ecologically destructive and unfair world order in which we unfortunately live.
However, I would like to add straight away that, if we are to overturn this unfair world order, we must constantly ask ourselves if we are part of the problem.
The European Union and its fishing policy are part of the problem, despite the scraps from the table which fall to the poor countries.
A step could have been made towards overcoming the situation by accepting Amendment No 7 proposed by the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party, because even the best fishing agreement cannot function without controls, which is why I regret that this amendment was not accepted and wish to explain why our group agreed to it.
Mr President, I would like to make a point I have made before on a Friday.
We have the pick of Parliament, the pick of the Commission and the pick of the public here on a Friday and I very much regret that our business is not televised within the building.
I have asked before why the proceedings are not televised on a Friday.
Can you tell me when we will show that we take this Parliament seriously on a Friday and record the sitting so that it is there for the archives and available to the television companies if they wish to broadcast it?
Mr Hallam, once again I find this an interesting point.
But I would say that being here is such a privilege that it is really of no concern to us that our sittings are not televised, because we came here to work.
Mr President, on behalf of members of the Committee on Women's Rights and the PPE Group, I should also like to wish Mrs van Dijk, who is leaving us to take up other functions, great success and satisfaction in her new profession.
I am sorry we had to refer her last report back to committee. However, we did so in her own interest because, unfortunately, the majority of the Committee on Women's Rights had overloaded the report with many claims; claims which I dare call contradictory and incomprehensible.
That is why the report was referred back to committee and, in fact, we did it for her own good, in her own interests.
I, for one, would not have wanted her last report to Parliament to be so incomprehensible.
We did not intend to give her a poisoned apple as a leaving present. That is what I wanted to her to know.
Mr President, I would also like to wish Mrs van Dijk all the best for her future, both in her professional and private life.
And on behalf of my group, I also want to say that we regret that her report was not of such a nature that we were able to debate it and vote on it this week.
My group has, therefore, requested that the report be referred back on Tuesday evening, because we believe the subject is so important that it deserves a second chance.
As I also stated in the House, we will make sure that a good report about the important subject of women and health comes back to the House as soon as possible, and I assume that Mrs van Dijk will follow these events closely.
Once again, we wish her all the best, and I regret that she has been unable to separate her private life from her political life in the press and on the radio.
Mr President, I would especially like to thank my colleagues and you for all the praise you have given me this morning.
I feel extraordinarily honoured to be able to receive all this at the end of this sitting on Friday morning.
I will not go further into the report that is on the agenda.
Politics is receiving, politics is, therefore, accepting good things, and it is also accepting bad things.
I want to absolutely emphasize that I, together with other members of the Committee on Women's Rights, and before that in the Committee on Transport and Tourism and in all the other committees in which I have been active, have worked extraordinarily hard to get things done.
During this process you sometimes meet each other as allies and sometimes as something less than allies. This is all part of politics and it belongs in this Parliament.
Therefore, I have absolutely no hard feelings against anyone.
I would to thank my colleagues most sincerely for all the cooperation and support I have received while chairing two different committees.
I always did this with a great deal of pleasure. Coming from such a small group, this was not always very easy, but once again, many thanks, ladies and gentlemen, for this.
Also many thanks to you, Mr President, for the fact that I have been able to work for so long and with such pleasure in this Parliament.
Thank you, Mrs van Dijk.
Ladies and gentlemen, Parliament has now completed the agenda.
The Minutes of this sitting will be submitted to the House for approval at the beginning of the next session.
Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come to thank everyone in the House once again for their cooperation, starting with our colleagues, the interpreters, the translators, those who draft the verbatim report of proceedings, our ushers and the secretariat's services.
I know I do this every Friday before I put the lights out, but this Friday has a special significance: it is the final July part-session of this legislature.
The next July meeting will be one for welcomes and farewells, but, at the same time, we are coming up to a very long weekend, the recess is here and, therefore, may I wish you all a very good holiday.
I hope you enjoy the sea, the mountains, or the city, for those who prefer the city.
And, ladies and gentlemen, in this intimate atmosphere we enjoy on Fridays let me tell you in confidence that when the Friday when we normally hold our part-session comes in August I may find myself suffering from withdrawal symptoms, a touch of what we call 'cold turkey' .
But I promise you, ladies and gentlemen, that I shall get over it and that I shall be here with you in September.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.15 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 17 July 1998.
I trust that everyone had an enjoyable holiday, and I hope your work in this final year of our term will meet with success.
Tribute
I would like to pay tribute to Dr Allan Macartney who died suddenly at his home in Aberdeen on 25 August.
We have lost a colleague who was respected right across the political spectrum, both at home in Scotland and here in the European Parliament.
Elected to the European Parliament for the North-East Scotland constituency in 1994, Allan Macartney was a very active Member of Parliament.
As vice-chairman of the Committee on Fisheries, he fought tirelessly for the interests of the fishing industry.
To the Committee on Development and Cooperation, of which he was also a member, he was able to bring his great experience and commitment in Africa.
Allan Macartney was a member of the Scottish National Party for some 40 years, being the founder president of the student wing of the party.
He held various posts in the party before becoming deputy leader in 1992.
He was the party spokesman on Europe and external affairs. He was deeply involved in his party's preparation for the new Scottish Parliament.
His last public engagement was on the day before he died, when he detailed his proposals for developing links between the new Scottish Parliament and Europe.
Allan's wife, Anne, and other members of his family are with us in the gallery today.
I would ask you to stand with them in observing a minute's silence in remembrance of our colleague.
(The House rose and observed a minute's silence)
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
Mrs Theato has the floor.
Mr President, Mr Bösch's report on the independence of UCLAF has been taken off the agenda. I have more or less found that out from unofficial sources.
I was told a letter from you to me as chairman of the committee was on its way. I find it somewhat strange that I heard so late about the report being withdrawn.
DG I had in fact indicated, following the majority vote in favour of this report in the Committee on Budgetary Control on 4 September, that it would be put on the agenda.
It was then not released, however, and is still unavailable today, with the result that it is not possible to table amendments.
I know from administrative documents the reasons why the report was withdrawn, although our committee has not yet received a political explanation.
I should like to point out that this report is based on Article 206 of the EC Treaty, since it has been drawn up on the basis of the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 8/98.
That is a sufficient legal basis and, in my view, Rule 50 is therefore not applicable.
There is a political issue here, since the media are currently highlighting a suspicious case regarding humanitarian aid and irregularities in that field.
It would have been a very good political move if we could have adopted Mr Bösch's report this week, in order to clearly show how Parliament reacts to improve the prevention of fraud as well as to make it punishable.
I would therefore ask you to accept this objection which I am making today as chairman of the committee.
Unfortunately, this report does not appear on the agenda as planned, even though a full vote was taken on it in committee.
I object to that and would ask to be informed when it is made available.
(Applause from the right)
Actually, Mrs Theato, I did reply to you in writing on 11 September. I said that I had read your letter and that my duty was to ensure that reports comply with the Treaties and the Rules.
I am very sorry you did not get more detailed information and I will take the appropriate steps to arrange that as soon as possible.
As you rightly say, the problem is that the report does not indicate the legal basis - and we need that to take the vote with the right majority to make it effective - and nor does it contain a financial statement.
I think your committee will be able to meet those two requirements of Rule 50 in time for the first October part-session.
Therefore, and in view of the political reasons which you have just explained, the Conference of Presidents has arranged for the report to be debated during the first October part-session.
The legal basis simply needs to be stated in the report; as you know better than I do, Article 138b should be invoked and the vote should be taken by an absolute majority, so that the Commission is forced to consider the legislative proposal you are requesting.
You know that if you do not invoke that article, the proposal will not have the same binding force on the Commission.
It is your committee's decision which route to take, but you must state one or the other.
And under Rule 50 a financial statement is also required.
I assume it must be relatively straightforward for the Committee on Budgetary Control to determine the cost of an organization with 300 posts.
I do not think there will be any problem about including this for the first October part-session.
Mr President, I wish to address the same subject, with reference to Rule 96(1).
I would also like to point out that Mrs Theato's request, made in her capacity as chairman of the Budgetary Control Committee, should give rise to a vote on the request for the Bösch report to be re-entered on the agenda.
Under Rule 96(1), on behalf of my group, I request that the report be placed back on the agenda.
Mr President, you have been wrongly informed.
What you have just told us has no legal basis.
Neither Rule 50 of our Rules of Procedure nor Article 138b of the Treaty applies here, and all the Members present will bear me out.
There has been no own-initiative report, and the Conference of Presidents has not authorised this report.
The report falls under the discharge procedure. It follows a special report by the Court of Auditors on the manner in which UCLAF operates, and is a damning account of the fraud practised in connection with the Community budget.
Hence Article 50 does not apply and we do not need either a legal basis or financial statements.
Indeed, this is not the first occasion on which the Committee on Budgetary Control has made similar suggestions in its reports, and I know what I am talking about because there have been times, as you may have noticed, when I have not voted for them.
The Committee on Budgetary Control is asking the Commission to take action.
This is certainly not a legislative proposal as you have inaccurately stated.
This report must therefore be placed on our agenda, because the measures that must be taken are urgent and are related to budgetary matters; if we wait until the first October part-session we will have missed the meeting of the Committee on Budgets on 28 September.
Therefore, I request that this report be re-entered on the agenda, pursuant to Rule 96.
(Applause from the right)
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you are a legal expert and a member of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, and you will know that Article 138b of the Treaty does not restrict legislative proposals of this kind to those made on the basis of owninitiative reports.
You will also be aware that when the Commission is requested to submit a legislative proposal - and that is the purpose of paragraphs 2 and 3 of the resolution - Article 138b of the Treaty has to be applied, unless the committee in question states that it does not wish its request to fall within the scope of that article.
That is why it is unfortunate that the Committee on Budgetary Control did not specify the legal basis, because this has implications for the majority that is required.
If it is the majority under Article 138b, it must be an absolute majority. Otherwise, the committee responsible is not bound by Article 138b and a simple majority will suffice.
It is for this reason that our Rules of Procedure, under Rule 50, require the text of the resolution in question to indicate the legal basis.
Unfortunately, all I can do is to ensure that our Rules are properly applied.
The problem can quite easily be resolved. I also think it will be quite easy to give Parliament the chance to vote on a proposal to create 300 new posts on the basis of the financial statement.
That is what is required by Rule 50, and it is as simple as that.
I cannot be held responsible for the fact that the Committee on Budgetary Control, which should have all the figures at its disposal, failed to indicate them.
Parliament's services have made me aware of the problem, and I have no option but to ask for the report to be revised as quickly as possible.
If you have any doubts, I should be very glad to refer this interpretation to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, before I comment on the Rules of Procedure, I should like to say thank you for something which my group has been pressing for since I have been a Member of the House.
Finally, I have discovered that the waste in my office is being separated.
There are new waste baskets, and I am very grateful that it has at last been possible to take this measure.
Now to the more serious matter.
In connection with investigations concerning ECHO, I have personally asked for the Commission to make a statement during the week.
My group has also presented this request to you in writing.
I and other members of the Committee on Budgetary Control have now received, about an hour ago, a detailed dossier from Mr Trojan with opinions on the relevant questions, which were raised in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
For this reason, I assume that we can come to an agreement on this with the Commissioners this week or next, if their offer of dialogue is to be taken seriously.
I would therefore no longer support the request for this matter to be discussed in plenary.
I should like to make one point, however. The coinciding of our researches into ECHO with the Bösch report would have meant that a proper, thorough debate could have taken place in the House at 5 p.m. today on the question of how we deal with irregularities and suspicious factors concerning fraud in our own ranks.
I am sorry to have to say, Mr President, that with or without all your legal arguments, this political manoeuvre appears all too obvious to me, and whilst on the matter, I would tell you that your reference to Rule 50 is completely unfounded in my view!
It was clear from the start that the Bösch report is one that has been drawn up under Article 206.
If the President believed this not to be the case, then he could at the very least have consulted Mrs Theato or the rapporteur.
Instead, our DirectoratesGeneral are endlessly having to clarify references, remarks and legal eventualities, about which there is full agreement amongst the majority who voted through this report in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It is not in order, Mr President, that you should undermine the political debate here with your legal arguments.
Incidentally, in addition to what Mr FabreAubrespy has requested, I would ask for the report which the competent parliamentary committee has adopted to be made available tomorrow by 12 noon to all Members of the House in all languages!
I shall not comment on your insinuations, Mrs Müller.
My duty is simply to apply the Rules of Procedure. And as this Parliament steadily gains greater powers, it also has a greater obligation to be aware of the rules governing the exercise of those powers and to respect them.
That is all, Mrs Müller.
This is not about what each committee would like to do, but what it can do under the rules.
That is my responsibility, and anyone who interprets the position otherwise can make a submission to the Rules Committee. I say that with all due respect for everyone's opinion.
Mr Crowley has the floor.
Mr President, regarding the order of business I should like to put on the official record my congratulations to my constituency colleague and good friend, Mr Cox, on his election as president of the ELDR group.
It is a great honour for him and his family and, in particular, a great honour for Ireland to have a president of a group from Ireland.
Thank you very much, Mr Crowley.
I have already had occasion to congratulate Mr Cox personally, but now that has been signed and sealed by Parliament.
(The order of business was adopted)
Third country aircraft safety
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0295/98), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0338/98-97/0039(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive establishing a safety assessment of third-country aircraft using Community airports (Rapporteur: Mr González Triviño).
I call Mr Dary, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
Mr President, this proposal stems from a directive establishing a safety assessment for third-country aircraft using Community airports.
It is the first of a series of measures recommended by a highlevel working group with a remit to draw up a Community aviation safety improvement strategy.
Since January 1992, the European Community has had a harmonised set of safety requirements for its operators, consequently making European carriers among the safest in the world.
However, the safety record of a number of third countries' aircraft is less reassuring.
This obviously affects both European citizens and carriers when they use Community airports.
The problem was highlighted by the February 1996 crash of a Turkish aircraft chartered by a tour operator in which all 176 passengers died. Unfortunately, this was not an isolated incident.
Recent safety concerns have focused attention on the older models of Boeing 737 and 747 aircraft, with the result that in the United States 150 of these aircraft were recalled for inspection.
It is hoped that similar inspections are being undertaken by all European carriers, and indeed all operators of this type of aircraft.
During the short period since the end of August, one aircraft which had been in service for 20 years crashed in Quito, Ecuador, while another, newer aircraft belonging to Swissair crashed into the sea near Halifax for reasons as yet unknown.
The proposal before us aims to collate information from pilots, passengers, maintenance engineers and others and, where there is reason to suspect non-compliance with international safety standards, to carry out checks on the aircraft involved and, where necessary, impose corrective measures.
As a last resort, where rules are not observed, the aircraft would be grounded or the carrier banned from using European airports.
The following are the main elements of the draft directive proposed by the Commission.
Firstly, aviation authorities are to collate and share all information pertaining to ramp checks.
Secondly, conditions are laid down which should give rise to ramp checks and ultimately to groundings. Thirdly, collective Community action is envisaged, ranging from the definition of content and procedures for ramp inspections to imposing bans on specific operators.
It is this last feature which lies at the heart of the directive and which has caused the most disagreement with the Council.
Essentially, the Commission was proposing that it should be able to recommend whether or not to institute specific surveillance of a third-party operator or to ban a specific country's carrier from using Community airports.
Recent experience of third-country operators evading a ban in one Member State by simply landing across the border in a neighbouring country at an airport of convenience would seem adequate justification for this collective Community action.
At first reading, Parliament fully endorsed the Commission's proposal to improve the safety of foreign carriers, taking the view that safety cannot and should not be compromised.
Nevertheless, 14 amendments were adopted, aimed at strengthening collective action, extending the sources of information and introducing a degree of transparency by providing for the publication of groundings in cases where there is an immediate safety hazard.
This was an essential amendment, since Parliament has always considered the release of information on aviation safety to the public to be an essential part of a Community aviation safety policy.
The Commission accepted practically all of these amendments and presented an amended proposal.
Yet the Council, in its common position, only accepted half and removed all the most important and progressive elements, particularly those relating to flight bans.
Your rapporteur, whom I represent today, takes a firm stand against the text of the Council's common position.
When compared to the statements of the British Presidency concerning the need for safety to be a priority for the common transport policy, this text adds nothing whatsoever: all it does is recognise rights already exercised by Member States, without conferring power on the Commission to determine any general sanctions valid throughout the Union which would apply to Member States, aircraft and operators failing to meet the international safety standards.
The amendment simply reiterates Parliament's view that all third-country aircraft landing at Community airports and suspected of not complying with international air safety standards should be subject to ramp inspections.
Adopting anything less is to compromise on safety.
In addition, the rapporteur considers that this must apply to all airports open to international passenger and freight traffic and not just the main ones, since many of the accidents reported concern foreign freight or charter companies using smaller regional airports to save on landing fees.
Amendments Nos 3 and 4 address the matter of the Commission's power to decide on penalties.
Mr President, Mr González Triviño's report on safety assessments of third countries' aircraft has now also been unanimously adopted at second reading, as it was at the first.
The report is of particular importance because it involves the safety and lives of both crew and passengers.
If the European Union guarantees the free movement of people, then it must also assume responsibility for the safe movement of people.
The passengers who take advantage of cheap flight offers are, in particular, more often than not unaware of the dangers of the journey they are undertaking, especially as they do not receive any reliable information on whether safety problems have been detected and with which companies.
We have made good progress with the draft directive on the way towards achieving the complete safety of all passengers travelling by air in Europe.
Parliament and the Commission quickly agreed during their discussion of the directive that effective protection for passengers is only guaranteed when ramp inspections are carried out on all aircraft everywhere in accordance with a common inspection list.
At the same time, the Member States and the Commission must fully inform one another about the inspection results and measures taken against third-country aircraft.
The Member States must finally take common measures against aircraft which have safety problems.
We will only achieve the greatest possible safety at airports in the European Union when the system of carrying out inspections is standardised and third-country aircraft can no longer avoid the system when flying from one Member State to another or from one airport to another.
The safety net which we are tightening must not be so broad-meshed that it is possible to slip through unnoticed.
Against this background, I cannot understand - and nor can nearly all my colleagues here in the House - why the Council has cut back the original proposals of the Commission and Parliament quite considerably in its common position.
Nor can I understand why the Commission should not be able to declare an EU-wide grounding of aircraft of its own accord.
Naturally, we respect the freedom of decision-making of the Member States.
But in what area, if not safety in Europe, would it be appropriate for the Commission to take central decisions on sanctions?
In this case, if we leave the Member States too much scope to make independent decisions, we run the risk of not achieving the purpose of this directive - safety - once again.
The freedom of decision-making of the Member States and the concept of subsidiarity must not be confused with national egoism.
I am therefore very grateful to the rapporteur for the solid and fair compromise which he has proposed in his amendments and which we have adopted unanimously.
My group supports the compromise unconditionally.
The first link between what is a matter of concern for the Parliament and the Commission, and the reservations of the Member States has therefore, I think, been successfully forged.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I will be very brief and thus hope to make up some of the extra time which my colleagues have previously taken.
First of all, I should like to warmly congratulate the rapporteur, who unfortunately is not with us here today, on his excellent report. He has really done a very good job.
I should merely like to endorse his criticism of the Council. We do not want anything impossible, but we do want safe aircraft, even if they come from non-EU Member States.
This has after all been regulated since 1992 for the Member States.
We do not want excessive bureaucracy, but we do want information to be exchanged and the general public to be able to access information.
None of this is going too far - our concern is to achieve something useful for Europe's citizens, namely the highest possible standard of safety.
The Group of the European People's Party therefore supports all the amendments from the Committee on Transport, as we have already done in the committee.
We think that a sensible compromise has been found here.
At the same time, we expect the Commission to vigorously support these amendments, which express the continued will of the House, in the talks with the Council at second reading.
The Council would also be well advised to adopt our amendments.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the absent rapporteur for his insistence upon some very correct views.
At the same time, I must declare my group's full support for the report in question and for Commissioner Kinnock's efforts, and denounce the Council's policy.
The Council must understand that political expediency or political compromise may have their place in dealing with some other issues, but when we are talking about issues that affect our lives and those of our families and children, then the Council has no right, absolutely no right at all, to make decisions which represent a compromise policy.
It grieves me particularly, because the information we all have is that the Council is not even disposed to accept the agreed text, the agreed amendments from second reading.
In such a case, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must back Commissioner Kinnock with our authority and stand by him, and if the Council persists in its refusal, we must denounce this publicly. The citizens of Europe should know who bears moral responsibility in the event of a fatal air accident caused either by lack of information or by inadequate safety regulations.
Where the lives of Europe's citizens are concerned, no Minister and no Council has the right to make high-handed decisions.
Mr President, this directive came as a direct response to the plane crash in the Dominican Republic in February 1996 in which 176 people died.
Two and a half years on and with the terrible disaster in Canada fresh in our minds, little has improved in practice.
We may not be able to prevent all accidents from happening, unfortunately, but we must do everything we can to prevent avoidable accidents.
Human life is priceless, and the Member States must do everything in their power to protect it.
Community legislation is an important tool here.
Operators in the Community are rightly subject to strict technical rules, most of them based on the Chicago Convention which all the Member States signed up to.
The Community cannot impose these rules on other countries, but by applying conditions for landing at Community airports we may well encourage third countries to comply with them.
Passenger safety could be improved if the legislation applied both to Community operators and to operators from third countries landing at Community airports.
I agree with Mr González Triviño that we need improvements in both active and passive passenger safety.
Active safety could be improved by carrying out ramp inspections at airports to check whether aircraft are airworthy, and we must ensure that there is a sound basis for the inspections and any consequences they might have for operators.
Checks must be carried out wherever there is justifiable doubt as to whether certain aircraft are airworthy.
If the results are negative, other Member States must be informed in order to prevent operators from trying to avoid sanctions.
Passive safety could be improved by ensuring that full and accurate information is provided on the various operators, so that consumers have all the information they need to decide whether they wish to risk flying with a certain operator before they book.
This means, as the rapporteur proposes, that the relevant information must be published.
In conclusion, I would just say that I hope the Council does not disregard Parliament's opinion for a second time.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are now in the final stages of the work on this proposed directive, and I hope we can agree on a sensible recommendation.
Safety in transport is of concern to us all. Unfortunately we are occasionally reminded that it is necessary to think about safety in transport.
Human and technical errors should be prevented by proper procedures and training.
I have some misgivings as to whether we are actually achieving what we want through this proposal.
We can draw a parallel with shipping, where we have port state control, which means that ships are monitored, and we can say that some success has been achieved in singling out the really bad ships.
In Amendment No 1, where the text reads 'Each Member State shall put in place the appropriate means to ensure that third-country aircraft suspected of non-compliance...', 'appropriate means' and 'suspected' are somewhat vague formulations.
Suspicion is not enough for me.
There should be a better reason for detaining an aircraft than mere suspicion.
But neither commercial considerations nor kindness should play a role in these judgments at airports.
I very much hope that Mr Kinnock, together with the committee and the Council, can devise some methods of verification on the basis of which the directive will serve the intended purposes.
There is no point in adopting a directive if it does not work.
The next point I would mention is that European airlines are currently phasing out large parts of their fleets. New resources are being deployed and energy-saving aeroplanes are being introduced, and indeed that is a good thing.
Unfortunately, many of these pensioned-off aircraft - often 20 years old - are to be seen dressed up in new clothes and operating in the European area under different flags.
That shows how greatly this directive is needed. It shows that we cannot be guided by commercial considerations or kindness alone; we must really have a system that works.
I very much hope that we can agree on something that works.
We must get something adopted which does not merely look good on paper, but which can really be implemented in the Member States and which the Member States are able to enforce.
This is in fact my greatest concern.
Mr President, it seems to me that it is very sad that we are discussing the issue of aircraft safety so shortly after the tragic Swissair disaster off the coast of Nova Scotia 10 days ago.
I join my fellow parliamentarians here collectively in sending our condolences to the friends and families of the victims of that crash.
I feel that not enough has been done at a political level, either by the European Union or the Member States, to deal with the issue of congestion in our skies.
The Association of European Airlines has gone so far as to intimate that a certain sense of complacency exists in some governments, particularly the British Government, about seriously tackling the problem of air congestion.
The statistics are rather frightening.
Air delays in Europe have reached the worse level in nine years.
30 % of all scheduled flights in Europe take off late 45 % of the time.
Charter flights are subject to great delays.
The most crowded airspace in Europe is over South-East England where, this year alone, air traffic controllers are filing a record number of overload reports.
Near-misses are being reported more frequently.
The opening of a new air traffic control centre in England is four years behind.
Two-thirds of flight hold-ups are due to congestion in the skies.
I feel that the time has now come for the Commission and the EU Member States' governments to come together and collectively do something urgently about this.
In the past three years I have not been on a plane that left on time or arrived on time.
There is something wrong somewhere, Mr President.
Mr President, I will begin by echoing the views expressed by the President of Parliament earlier on lamenting the sudden and tragic death of Dr Allan Macartney.
He was, as everyone here will know, someone regarded with universal respect and affection that crossed the political divide.
And as we send our sympathy to his loved ones we record the fact that he will be sadly missed by everyone, including of course his constituents.
We also join Mr Andrews in sending our condolences to those who are bereaved and suffering as a consequence of the appalling and tragic Swissair disaster just 10 days ago off the coast of Nova Scotia.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr González Triviño, on his excellent work for the second reading of this Commission proposal before the House today and also to thank Mr David for taking his colleague's place today because of Mr González Triviño's unavoidable absence.
As in the first reading, the rapporteur has adopted a very supportive stance in his recommendation and I am glad to say that his four proposed amendments provide the basis for an acceptable compromise between the common position of the Council and the Commission's proposal.
As the House will recall, the initial proposal suggested that third country aircraft suspected of not complying with internationally accepted safety standards should be checked at Community airports.
As Mr Sindal says, this is a relatively modest proposition beginning, we hope, with even more comprehensive developments, but one that is certainly necessary.
Of course national authorities are already free to exercise that right of checking, of supervision and of detention but the added value of the Commission's proposal is that it introduces the facility for taking common action against unsafe aircraft or operators of those aircraft or their countries of origin that tolerate those standards.
Regrettably, that feature was not recognised in the common position, nor was account taken of the legitimate interests of the public in being informed about the safety of the air transport they use.
That, to say the least, is somewhat inconsistent, especially in those Member States where the law already obliges governmental organisations to release all the information that they receive.
The House knows that in safety matters we in the Commission always seek to achieve the delicate balance between providing legitimate information for the general public and securing publication of information that might be harmful to individuals or enterprises and have the effect of silencing information sources that we consider to be vital for the improvement of safety and safety standards.
None of our proposals would have departed from that convention of sensible and responsible balance.
I am pleased therefore that the amendments proposed by the rapporteur will allow the Commission to propose common action against dangerous operators and will also achieve the correct balance between the dissemination and the protection of safety-related information.
For this reason the Commission supports all four of the amendments in Mr González Trivino's recommendation, subject to slight rewording of Amendment No 2 relating to the release of information to passengers' organisations.
We would make that change simply because we believe that the issue is already well provided for in an earlier part of the same amendment.
In conclusion, I am particularly glad to see that the way is now open for the rapid adoption and implementation of European legislation that should contribute to improving the safety of people who travel by air and also of others, particularly of course those who live near airports.
Naturally, I am grateful to Mr González Trivino and his colleagues for their effective work and for their continuing cooperation in trying to advance the levels of safety for the travelling public.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Legal protection of designs
The next item is the report (A4-0315/98) by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the legal protection of designs (C4-0467/98-00/0464(COD)).
Mr President, the proposal we are presenting today - the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee - is the result of a great deal of work in Parliament, the Council and, of course, the Commission.
The Commission first presented a proposal in this area five years ago, in 1993, involving both a directive and a regulation.
The directive was to harmonise the relevant law in Member States, but ultimately of course there will be a regulation establishing a Community law, with the Community's own register and set of standards.
But there has been a problem from day one - a fly in the ointment, one might say - arising from the so-called 'repairs clause', because in practice, and even by law in some Member States, property rights in a motor vehicle model or design are contradicted by manufacturers having the right to reproduce visible and external vehicle parts for replacement without needing authorisation from the vehicle manufacturer.
This issue has major economic implications, because there are thousands of road accidents every day.
Mr Kinnock was talking about aircraft accidents just now but, as we all know, far more people die on our roads in car accidents and, of course, the material damage caused each day in our Community amounts to truly astronomical figures.
We are talking about thousands of millions of ECU, about vast amounts of work, and about something affecting intellectual property.
So this is not a trivial matter.
It is an important issue because of its impact on employment in certain Community countries and regions where this is an important sector. It is also in the interests of the motor manufacturers to push for some kind of law, given the legislative diversity.
Five years have gone by and all we have been able to achieve is a kind of armistice.
Parliament came out in favour of a formula involving the right to manufacture spare parts against payment of compensation to the vehicle manufacturers, but the Council was unable to reach agreement.
In the end, the final text maintains a sort of armistice - as I have just said - because Article 14, the 'repairs clause', was turned into a transitional provision, and under Article 18 the Commission must make an analysis of the situation and present proposals to complete the directive within three years.
So we are currently at a standstill, with each state keeping its legislation in force and everyone doing their best not to interfere with the single market. If states change their legislation, they undertake not to make the internal market in these products even more difficult by doing so, but to use the opportunity to facilitate the liberalisation of the internal market.
We may not be very proud of the work that has been done, but this armistice does mean we have prevented a war.
However, the directive is more than just the repairs clause; a whole series of sectors were waiting for this directive to be able to consolidate their legal position, and the text includes useful provisions giving a definition of a design or model.
Reference is made, for example, to the fundamental characteristic which a utility design or model must have in order to be recognized as such.
This is the characteristic of innovation, and this innovation is primarily defined in terms of a certain visibility, so that an informed user can distinguish it from another earlier product by that innovation.
Obviously all this directive does is get things moving. The directive must be incorporated into the legislation of the various Member States.
There will doubtless be Community legislation and Court of Justice decisions to help us disentangle this matter.
I hope the directive will achieve a final formula and also that, in the meantime, Parliament and the Council will progress with the approval of the regulation on the utility design and model, so that we end up having Community arrangements permitting free movement of all these products.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the design directive which we are talking about today has a path of trial and tribulation behind it, but it is not yet out of the woods.
The result of conciliation between Parliament and the Council has left open some important questions.
Against this background, I should like to thank my colleague, Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of my group for the steadfastness with which he has represented the concerns of Parliament before the Council and the Commission.
His steadfastness was particularly evident during the struggle for the so-called repairs clause.
We only have to look at the motor vehicles sector to recognise the importance of this detail.
The European Parliament has found a balance between the interests of the car industry, spare parts manufacturers and consumers.
It would have proved the benefit of the European Union to its citizens if the Council had agreed to our proposal.
It failed because of the egoism of individual Member States, which is not good evidence of Europe's ability to solve problems.
The result of conciliation which we agree to with bad grace is no solution. It merely postpones a solution.
We shall therefore only agree to this legislative standstill because nothing will become worse through it, and because we assume that it will still be possible to achieve a satisfactory ruling on spare parts.
This must prevent monopolisation - which restricts competition - and at the same time secure inexpensive repairs for consumers with spare parts of their choice.
The Commission has the job of making this objective achievable in the next seven years.
Commissioner, we in Parliament and my group in particular will keep a close watch on how and whether this is happening.
Mr President, this is perhaps one of the most difficult conciliation procedures we have yet had to conduct.
On this occasion, the dispute did not involve an institutional or budgetary matter.
We had a fundamental divergence with the Council on an important point in the directive.
Parliament obviously defended the so-called repairs clause that we had voted for in second reading by an overwhelming majority. The Council, for its part, rejected it unanimously.
After long weeks of informal negotiations which were, unfortunately, unsuccessful - Mr Medina reminded us earlier that this dossier has been pending since 1993 - we are now faced by a most uncomfortable alternative.
Either we should seek a compromise with the Council on the controversial issue of spare parts, or we must accept that conciliation cannot be achieved, with the attendant risk that numerous sectors of activity which held high hopes regarding this directive would be seriously affected.
I am grateful to our delegation - and particularly to our rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, whose work has been outstanding and who has been angelically patient, if I may say so - for being so clear-sighted.
It was concluded, upon mature reflection and after a discussion that was not always easy, that harmonisation of the legal protection of designs and models in all sectors of European industry was truly essential, and that we could not take the responsibility of deferring it any longer.
Consequently, we had to find the best, or certainly the least bad compromise regarding the protection and use of spare parts for the repair of motor vehicles.
I have been struck by two things throughout this labourious process. I would like to mention them because they reveal, it seems to me, a positive development in the conciliation procedure.
During the committee's first meeting, we entered into a very wide-ranging substantive debate, during which members of the delegation and members of the Council alike were able to fully express their differing points of view.
This might seem natural but, in some ways, it was unprecedented.
We owe it to Lord Simon's determination to bring this matter to a successful conclusion and to his finely-honed political sense - and I would like to pay tribute to him here - as well as to the spirit of dialogue which is gradually developing between the two arms of the legislative authority.
The second point that I would like to raise relates to the active support we have received from Commissioner Monti personally in this matter.
It is sometimes said that the Commission might be uncomfortable in this conciliation procedure because it would have an unobtrusive role, to which it must be said it is not accustomed.
But I consider that the Commission cannot but give the fullest effect to the final sentence of Article 189b(4) of the Treaty.
Commissioner Monti understood this perfectly, as did Commissioner Kinnock, in connection with the Transeuropean transport networks. I would like to thank him most sincerely for his effective contribution to lifting the dossier out of the rut into which it had sunk.
Our rapporteur and other Members have already spoken on the substance of the compromise proposal and so I will say only that, in my opinion, the 'standstill plus' solution, in conjunction with the Commission's very firm commitment, may well bring about the desired agreement between the parties involved.
I think that we should vote for the joint text that is before us, emphasising that it is absolutely essential that the letter and the spirit should be fully respected.
Commissioner Kinnock will without doubt restate the Commission's commitment to it later today. Meanwhile, Parliament will keep a watchful eye on developments.
Mr President, I wish to extend my warmest thanks to the leader of our delegation, Mrs Fontaine. Other speakers have described the work involved.
Mrs Fontaine referred to developments in the conciliation process itself.
These will, I believe, prove significant at subsequent stages, and I would congratulate Mrs Fontaine on the key role that she played.
As has been said, the repairs clause was a focal point in the discussion.
We must not forget that this directive will lengthen the period of legal protection of designs in many Member States. It will also encourage the interest in safeguarding the right of design holders to protect the content of their work.
One aspect worries me, however.
I have been observing the situation in my own country and looking to the future. How are we going to handle goods coming into the EU without such levels of protection?
Our customs authorities would be well advised to address this.
My group accepts that we shall have to live with the outcome on the repairs clause, although it is far from ideal.
We expect the Commission to honour its published undertaking to submit proposals for amendments.
The internal market is still not operating perfectly and Parliament's text contains a clause to that effect.
We hope that the Commission will be vigilant, ensuring that no unjustified steps are taken to block the workings of the free market. All sides need to work together in preempting legislative changes or new practices which would violate the standstill clause.
Mr President, the framework directive dealt with in this report was intended to guarantee fair competition, to benefit consumers in particular.
Has this been achieved?
After nearly a year of conciliation, not only have Parliament's initial proposals not been taken up, but the agreement does not contain the repairs clause, and the inclusion of that clause was fundamental to being able to establish a framework for fair competition between spare parts manufacturers and motor vehicle manufacturers.
The agreement expressing the wish to prevent the legal position of the spare parts manufacturers worsening does not resolve the basic problem. Nor does leaving the solution of this conflict of interests to voluntary self-regulation by the spare parts and vehicle manufacturers, because they are not all in the same position and they do not all have the same influence.
This attitude goes against the interests of consumers, and the approval of Article 10 of the directive, providing up to 25 years' protection for designs and models, does little to help.
All I can do from here is express our disagreement with a stance which benefits the great motor industry, but does not take account of the interests of the Community's citizens, whom we were elected to defend them.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur and Mrs Fontaine in particular for their hard work in concluding this difficult negotiation, and also my colleagues on the Conciliation Committee, who adopted a very pragmatic approach.
It is a particular pleasure for me that the agreement was reached during the first UK Labour presidency.
A member of the House of Lords, Lord Simon, could see at first hand how hard and diligently we work in the European Parliament.
This agreement is a victory for common sense.
I represent a very large car manufacturing area in my constituency. This covers companies like Peugeot, Rover and Jaguar, to name just some.
I also have even more components firms.
So I was particularly anxious that a compromise would be reached which saved jobs and this compromise does exactly that.
Mr President, all the previous speakers have stressed the torment that has accompanied this directive. That torment has been caused primarily by the problem of taking a balanced decision on the so-called repairs clause for spare parts for complex products, such as motor cars.
The proof of that torment is provided not just by the length of time which has elapsed between the Commission's proposal, which dates from 1993, and the first common position in 1997; not just by the delay in bringing it to the Conciliation Committee; not just by the contrast between Parliament's amendments and the Council's position; but also by the simple fact that a proposal for a regulation was presented jointly with the directive.
That regulation still has to be considered, but the Committee on Legal Affairs specifically decided to wait until the directive relating to harmonisation was concluded. The regulation to decide on a Community design and model would then be examined.
There is nothing surprising about these difficulties, because the economic and legal problems have not been simple.
There were legal problems of establishing the criteria, the conditions for assessing innovation or originality in the design or model and defining its visibility, but over and above all that, there is the problem of determining whether, in legal terms, it is right to evaluate the aesthetic aspect in relation to an individual element or only as part of a unit.
This is a legal question which has wearied courts of appeal in the Member States and the Court of Justice itself, in a ruling from 1995.
I leave aside the seriousness of the economic issues, involving the risk of closure for some companies, or the link between accident studies and the choice of which parts should or should not be covered by legal protection, and so on.
Ultimately, we have reached a compromise which I consider acceptable because it does actually lead to greater cooperation and hence greater commercial freedom, even if, for the time being, things can stay as they are, without any harmonisation, and each state can do what as it pleases.
So I think we should vote in favour, in the hope that the Commission will bring forward valid proposals as regards the regulation.
We can also take that path, and that is why, as rapporteur on that regulation, I take a particular interest in the matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first - like my colleague, Mrs Thors - I wish to express our support for this report and our agreement with the position taken in the Conciliation Committee by both Mr Medina Ortega and Mrs Fontaine.
I had the opportunity to analyse this issue in some depth as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and I should like to point out that, from an economic angle, the directive sought to respond to two objectives: on the one hand, completion of the internal market and facilitating the free movement of goods with equal protection for products in the area concerned; and, on the other hand, protection against copies or products which might arrive from third countries and damage our industry.
Five years have gone by, and we cannot feel particularly satisfied at our failure, in all that time, to resolve two issues which have a considerable effect on European industry, in terms of both the internal market and international competition.
And what we have achieved, as has already been said, is not at all satisfactory either.
We have stopped things getting worse, and we have reached agreement on a minimum, but we have clearly not succeeded in fulfilling the initial aims of the directive.
It does give me some satisfaction that it was possible to take up one of the points proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in my own document: the commitment to analyse the position and review it within a fixed period.
Although the slow pace of progress is quite inappropriate to protecting our industry in a highly competitive international context, we hope the matter can finally be brought to a conclusion.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mr Medina and Mrs Fontaine on a good result.
As Mr Medina tells us in his report, it is certainly not the best conceivable result, but perhaps it is the best that could be achieved in the circumstances.
I think the standstill decision is a good thing.
The conflict between spare parts manufacturers and motor vehicle manufacturers will certainly continue for a long time to come.
The consultation exercise and voluntary agreements may perhaps lead to a new and final directive and put an end to the antagonism.
In my opinion, we should not be as disappointed at the outcome as the previous speaker suggested. Especially not when we consider the scope of the directive and the multiplicity of industries to be covered.
I think it may prove to be a sensible way forward, covering the internal market and the many divergent views the Member States may take.
Mr President, I should like to add my voice to the chorus of praise that there has been for the efforts of the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, and the chairman of our Conciliation Committee, Mrs Fontaine.
I congratulate both of them on their patience over a very long time in dealing with this; after all, it is not a new proposal. It has been on our agenda since as long ago as 1993.
A lot of people outside this House have been expecting us to arrive at a decision long before this, particularly representatives of consumer groups, of the replacement spare part manufacturers; even, indeed, of people like motorcycle enthusiasts.
Of course no compromise - and this is a compromise - ever succeeds in satisfying all the interested parties one hundred per cent.
But then the European Parliament is about compromise and the European Community operates on compromise.
I have no difficulty at all in supporting this particular compromise because it allows the development of the single market in such things as vehicle spare parts but at the same time it does not inhibit the development of design protection in those areas which need it.
One of the things that has rather worried me about the long delay in bringing this particular directive into force has been the harmful effects it might have had on other industries which depend on design: the fashion industry, the textile industry and so on, whose interests at some stage appeared to be subordinated to that of the car industry.
I hope that everyone outside will be pleased with the work that has been done.
I hope that we will be able to depend upon the House tomorrow to endorse the Conciliation Committee's recommendations overwhelmingly.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have not understood the negative undertone which has come from the far left wing.
We have achieved progress and something positive here.
The fact is that 180 million car drivers and motorbike riders can breathe a sigh of relief, since the Conciliation Committee of the European Parliament has been able to prevent expensive times for them for the immediate future.
Thanks are due above all to the negotiators in this Conciliation Committee.
All independent garages and the market in spare parts with all its employees, the many small and medium-sized enterprises, can also breathe a sigh of relief, however.
Through the clear position it has adopted - not least in our plenary discussions - the European Parliament has prevented big car companies from dictating prices, which would have been the consequence if we had agreed to this proposal.
The monopoly which would have been created indirectly will therefore not come about, so the high insurance premiums which would also have arisen will not take effect. Businesses will not go bankrupt and jobs will not be destroyed.
I sympathise with producers, because design costs money.
We must therefore find a solution which also takes into account the protection of designs and a commensurate payment for the designer.
In future there must be a free market, however, with replication under specific conditions. Three years now remain in which to find a suitable solution.
I believe that what we have achieved is a success for our citizens, consumers and the many small and medium-sized enterprises, because in future there will be original and after-market parts and independent garages and dealerships side by side, in the interest of consumers, employees and many ordinary people. This is a successful outcome, due to the persistence of Parliament's representatives.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Medina Ortega, the chairman of the Conciliation Committee, Mrs Fontaine, and everyone else involved for all their dedication and hard work on this extremely difficult and intractable dossier.
The second point I should like to make is this: if you listen to the debate on this issue and read what has been written about it, you would almost think that there was nothing else in the designs directive apart from the repairs clause.
This has certainly been its most striking feature, because of all the important groups involved - the motor industry, the entire repairs sector and consumer groups - but there is more to the directive than that, which was also why the final conclusions of the conciliation procedure turned out as they did.
Parliament had already delivered a most carefully considered opinion on this infamous repairs clause, which was that there should be liberalisation but also compensation for the design holders, but unfortunately these proposals were not accepted.
Following the theory that 'half a loaf is better than no bread', I think we would be wise to try to find a compromise here.
I have every confidence that if the European Commission brought all the relevant parties to the table and tried to reach some sort of agreement on self-regulation with them, we could achieve the compromise we are looking for.
I think that it is up to us as Members of the European Parliament to make it clear to any critics in the Member States that it was the Council, not Parliament, which blocked the solution that we proposed.
If we work with the organisations involved to bring pressure to bear, I think a successful agreement can be reached.
Now is the time to give the issue as much publicity as possible.
My thanks once again to all those who worked on this difficult dossier.
Mr President, the Commission is very pleased that, after five years of intensive and complex discussions, agreement has been reached on the design directive within the context of the conciliation procedure.
I am sure that honourable Members will share that pleasure, particularly Mrs Fontaine and Mr Medina Ortega who, in different capacities, have been deeply involved in the issue.
Indeed, I heard Mrs Fontaine describing Mr Medina's patience as angelic, and I could only reflect as I listened to the debate that between Lord Simon and the angel Medina the conciliation procedure must have been a particularly ethereal experience on this occasion. I am almost jealous that I was not present.
But I then reflect on my own experience in conciliation and surrender the experience to everybody else.
The agreement on the design directive obviously marks an important step towards the completion of the internal market in industrial design, and we can be confident that it is likely to encourage investment in the manufacturing industries and, consequently, to help to strengthen competitiveness and, I hope, employment.
As honourable Members will know, during the five-year discussions on the directive proposal the repairs clause has, as several Members said in the debate, been the subject of extensive debate between all the institutions involved, and during the conciliation procedure it became clear that, in spite of all efforts, agreement on that clause is still, for the moment, beyond reach.
All the parties involved, however, recognised that the importance of the directive overall for European industrial design meant that adoption should not be prevented because of the problems relating to that single repairs clause.
The Commission, therefore, welcomes the reaching of agreement to freeze the existing legal provisions relating to the protection of the design and the use of spare parts and, meanwhile, to review the consequences of the directive in the foreseeable future.
The so-called 'freeze plus' clause ensures that each Member State must maintain in force the provisions of its design law in relation to both the criteria for the protection of the design of spare parts and the free use of spare parts for repair purposes.
Furthermore, Member States may only introduce new provisions on the use of spare parts insofar as their objective is to liberalise the market in spare parts.
In addition, the Commission will fulfil its undertaking to launch a consultation, particularly with car manufacturers and spare-part producers in order to examine the possibilities of finding a voluntary agreement on the spare-parts issue.
Finally, in accordance with the agreement, three years after the implementation of the directive, the Commission will submit an analysis of the consequences of the directive for the motor vehicles sector in particular.
We will uphold those undertakings, and those honourable Members who have sought reassurance on that point, I am certain, will accept what I say on behalf of my colleague, Mario Monti, and my other colleagues in the Commission.
This is a necessarily pragmatic approach which allows significant progress.
I conclude, therefore, by thanking the rapporteur on the design directive, Mr Medina Ortega, who has grown older through the experience or, at least, through the years, although his appearance belies the advance of those years, and the chairman of the Conciliation Committee, about whom it can be said in the words of Shakespeare: 'Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety' - in the manner of Cleopatra, of course - for the decisive role that both have played, together with their colleagues, in achieving a workable agreement on this important directive.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Perhaps for once the President of the sitting could add his congratulations to all those who have enabled this difficult report to come to fruition, in particular Lord Simon, Commissioner Monti and our rapporteur Mr Medina Ortega, as well as Mrs Fontaine, who chaired our delegation.
It did indeed require a whole company of angels and archangels to work this minor miracle.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Coffee and chicory extracts
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0278/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0306/98-96/0117(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to coffee extracts and chicory extracts (Rapporteur: Mr Lannoye).
Mr President, we are dealing here with a breakfast product and perhaps this is not the best time of day to talk about it, especially since the political ramifications are not particularly significant.
I doubt if I shall use all my five minutes of speaking time.
I would like to remind the House, however, that this involves one of the seven vertical directives relating to food products, and that the question of coffee and chicory extracts has been dealt with on a par with that of chocolate, which has proved more controversial for other reasons.
The overall purpose of the proposal is to achieve a simplification so as to facilitate the free movement of products.
The concern of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is that such a simplification should not be achieved at the expense of the consumer and of the quality of products.
That is why we submitted three amendments in first reading, which were rejected by the Commission and the Council.
One amendment is a very technical one and I do not think it is worth discussing here.
The other two, however, involve a matter that may be important for the consumer, since they relate to the restriction of the range of weights which can be offered by the retailer to the consumer.
When the range is entirely open, and particularly when it involves weights that are relatively close to one another, the risk of confusion for the consumer is not inconsiderable.
And it is for this reason that we wish to maintain what was in the original directive, where a range of weights was laid down which were sufficiently different from each other to avoid confusion.
We consider, therefore, following the discussion in second reading, that it is appropriate to retable these three amendments, including the technical one. This the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has done, by an overwhelming majority.
Indeed, I think I am correct in saying that it was unanimous, which is not something that occurs very often.
I should like to add a brief comment regarding two amendments which I have tabled, on behalf of the Green Group, without a prior debate in the Committee on the Environment, because our time there was severely limited by a number of other matters which we considered to be of greater relative importance.
I have retabled two comitology amendments seeking to restore the powers conferred on the Commission in the area of adaptation to technical progress and not, as unfortunately appears in the text of the amendments, to confer powers on the Commission in the area of adaptation to Community legislation and to general Community provisions applicable to food products, since this was rejected by Parliament in first reading.
I would therefore request that this be clarified when we vote, in order to correct a mistake for which I am entirely responsible, and for which I apologise to the House.
Mr President, the common position with a view to the adoption of a directive on coffee and chicory may appear to be a purely technical issue, but if you scrutinise the dossier in conjunction with others on foodstuffs, you will see that there are also many political aspects involved.
The rapporteur has already discussed a number of points that we still hope to settle through amendments.
We maintain the position adopted by our group in the Committee on the Environment, and we therefore wholeheartedly support the views expressed by the rapporteur here.
However, one point that I would just like to raise is the use of the comitology procedure.
At first reading, Parliament voted to accept the comitology procedure for adaptations to technical progress, but not for adaptations to the general horizontal foodstuffs directives, and we think we should keep to this line here.
We tabled an amendment to this effect which was adopted at the time, but the system adopted in the common position is the exact opposite.
The common position says no to comitology for adaptations to technical progress, but yes for adaptations to horizontal foodstuffs legislation.
We still think that we should insist on this point.
We have seen with a number of dossiers including chocolate that adaptations to general rules often involve political aspects which can trigger quite violent discussions.
We think it is important for Parliament to be involved in settling such political issues and for the codecision procedure to be used to the full. This is the line we think we should take.
I had a few words with the rapporteur about this, and I am pleased to say that he has just told me that the amendments on the subject that were tabled very late are to be put to the vote.
I assume that we may have a split vote on them.
I would urge the other groups to support this line, to read through the amendments again very closely and to ensure that the position we adopt is a unanimous one.
Mr President, we should also like to thank Mr Lannoye.
Like Balzac, the Commission drinks coffee from the morning until late at night, in order to be able to fulfil its duties.
It is therefore not unusual for us to be discussing coffee at this time.
Three of the five amendments were not adopted by the Commission at first reading.
These have now been retabled as Nos 1, 2 and 3, together with two new ones, Nos 4 and 5, which we can adopt because they correspond to our original thinking.
I should like to explain briefly now why Amendments Nos 1 and 2 are not acceptable to us.
According to the amendments, the provisions on the ranges of prepackaged products are to be reintroduced as they exist in the present directive.
We cannot adopt them because the proposal for a directive, at least for the most part, deals only with questions of composition and labelling.
Ranges are therefore not included here because they do not come under this proposal for a directive.
These ranges should be dealt with under the directives on ranges of prepackaged products.
When the common position was adopted, we included a declaration which states that we are prepared to examine, in agreement with those affected, whether ranges of prepackaged products in connection with coffee and chicory extracts should be incorporated into the relevant legislation.
So that is our intention.
I hope that Parliament understands that we cannot do that here today when dealing with this proposal for a directive, because of the constraints imposed by the timetable.
Amendment No 3 tries to establish ISO standard 11292 as binding for the determination of the free and total carbohydrate content in soluble coffees.
That corresponds neither to our policy nor to the significance of ISO standards, which are by definition not compulsory, and which can of course be brought into play accordingly in announcements, advertising and so on.
They are in any event not compulsory or binding, however.
As far as the adaptation of Community analysis procedures is concerned, we have already committed ourselves to bringing the existing analysis procedures for coffee into line.
We have also referred to this commitment again in our declaration attached to the common position.
As far as Amendments Nos 4 and 5 are concerned, we should like to express our thanks.
They correspond to our positions, and so we can naturally adopt them.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Transatlantic relations/Echelon system
The next item is the statement by the Commission on transatlantic relations following the 18 May 1998 EU-US summit and the use of monitoring techniques in the field of communications (Echelon system).
Mr President, with your permission, I should like to deliver two separate statements. The first is the one which my colleague, Sir Leon Brittan, would have liked to make.
Unfortunately, this item was only placed on today's agenda on Friday. I therefore apologise for any inconvenience caused by his asking me to take his place for this item.
However, since we do work very closely together on issues of economic policy arising between the USA and ourselves, I hope that I can also account to you for our position.
I should then like - with your consent - to deliver the second statement after we have discussed the state of relations with the USA, because I think that would be more appropriate.
First of all, then, the Commission's statement on EU-USA relations.
We are very pleased to be able to hold an exchange of views on this important issue here with Parliament, especially as there has been a whole string of positive developments since Sir Leon spoke about the matter in plenary in November last year.
In particular, the EU-US summit of 18 May in London should be mentioned, which led to an agreement to create the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and at which agreements were also reached on the Helms-Burton Act and other issues associated with it.
The significance of the economic relations between the USA and the EU is well known.
We are both the largest investors in our respective markets.
One in every 12 factory workers in America works for a European company, and American companies employ 3 million staff in Europe.
The traditional economic relations naturally also reflect the interdependence of our economic systems, which is becoming greater every year.
Of course, this also shows that our fundamental values are in harmony.
In joining forces, we are endeavouring to promote these common interests and values in the world, by standing up for political stability, democracy, free trade, and the protection and defence of human rights.
It is repeatedly said that this is an unequal partnership, that the USA considers the European Union the junior partner in the relationship. That is not so.
We are making our external relations increasingly coherent.
We are appearing more and more as a player on the international stage, and even when differences arise between the USA and ourselves - and they can arise without being serious - it still remains a lasting relationship between two equal partners.
Perhaps that is precisely one of the reasons why we speak openly about any differences of opinion when we have them.
We are able to do so because our relationship is based on sound foundations.
Naturally, that also means commitments for both partners.
We undoubtedly bear a great responsibility in the international community, but the USA perhaps has an even greater one at present.
We are increasingly sharing this responsibility between us, however.
The European Union and the USA have therefore been in the public eye since the beginning of the crises in Asia and Russia.
Our reactions are keenly followed, and those affected both look for and receive our support and advice.
We therefore clearly share with the USA a great responsibility for strong and coherent leadership.
That is expected of us, and it is our duty to do provide it.
In this sense, the New Transatlantic Agenda is of great importance.
We have a framework for the development of our joint role.
When we agreed the New Transatlantic Agenda barely three years ago, both sides were already of the opinion that a comprehensive framework would be needed to promote cooperation between us in many areas.
Four major areas of priority for our cooperation were established in the New Transatlantic Agenda: promoting peace, stability, democracy and development; responding to global challenges; expanding world trade and intensifying economic relations; and forging links between nations.
The progress we have achieved in the past three years in all these areas is perhaps not what we might have hoped for, but it is nevertheless quite considerable. We are continuing to extend our cooperation.
We are making progress in combating global problems, such as drugs, organised crime and trafficking in women.
We have been able to give our businesses and citizens real advantages through our cooperation in international organisations such as the WTO, as well as within the framework of our bilateral agreements.
I was here in the House last year to discuss the report which Mrs Mann presented on the New Transatlantic Agenda, together with the report by Mr Souchet on relations between the USA and the EU, and we agreed that the future potential for this cooperation is considerable.
Of course, the Transatlantic Economic Partnership will also play a decisive role in this context.
We have already achieved some tangible and satisfactory initial results here - perhaps even unexpected ones on occasion.
In January this year, the European Parliament itself called for a general blueprint - a framework, timetable, schedule and time limit - for the completion of the New Transatlantic Market.
Following this, we drew up a proposal which was discussed at length within the Council, and also with the US Government. The first result of this was that an ambitious joint declaration on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership was issued at the summit meeting in London.
We are pursuing two basic objectives: firstly, the dismantling of trade barriers which still adversely affect transatlantic trade, the removal of which means considerable new opportunities for our businesses and consumers, as well as for businesses and consumers in the USA.
Secondly, we have sought to promote multilateral liberalisation whilst improving our cooperation with the USA in multilateral trade forums, particularly the WTO, because I know that both these forms of cooperation are often also treated in Parliament as controversial and mutually exclusive options.
We are of the opinion that they can be pursued together.
Progress can be made at bilateral level, and multilateral cooperation can also be promoted at the same time.
We have therefore made it clear in the summit declaration on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership that pursuing the aims of EU and US trade policy within the framework of the WTO and together with other members of the WTO is a high priority.
Multilateral cooperation has a number of key elements: firstly, the joint commitment of the EU and the USA to negotiating broad-based liberalisation; secondly, close cooperation so that ambitious aims can be achieved at the forthcoming GATT 2000 negotiations; and, thirdly, reinforcing the agreement on future WTO negotiations on the reform in agriculture.
The essential element in bilateral cooperation is the large-scale removal of regulatory barriers and, as a result, opening up our markets more for both goods and services. This also includes areas such as invitations to tender and intellectual property.
Of course, we are absolutely determined to listen to and include those involved in the dialogue when carrying out these tasks.
The success of the transatlantic business dialogue is obvious. It has essentially ensured greater transparency in the decisionmaking process.
The immediate problems can also be better dealt with, and it is now resulting in a series of other initiatives as well, such as the global business dialogue.
So we shall naturally continue to pursue this possibility of transatlantic dialogue, so as to ensure that we can achieve our objectives with the agreement of those involved.
This week, the Commission is expected to adopt a recommendation to the Council on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership with the accompanying draft negotiating directives and an action plan.
We hope that we can finally achieve agreement on the plan and begin the process of implementation before the EU-US summit in December.
This economic cooperation is important for the whole world and is essential to strengthening the multilateral system.
Other important progress concerning the differences of opinion over the Helms-Burton and d'Amato legislation was also achieved at the London summit. You will be aware of the disputes.
The agreements reached in London are advantageous for Europe and European businesses, as they open up real prospects of neutralising the extraterritorial effects of the Helms-Burton Act and the Act on sanctions against Iran and Libya.
Let me be quite clear on this point: the EU has not given anything away here!
The agreements represent a package. We shall only fulfil our part when the USA has done likewise.
The EU will not implement the Understanding on disciplines for the strengthening of investment protection until waivers are made possible under Title 4 of the Helms-Burton Act.
The HelmsBurton issue is not being raised to multilateral level with this agreement.
As you know, the USA was seeking to limit trade with Cuba and investment there to a large extent through this Act, but in reality, legal investment is made easier for EU businesses through the agreement.
Only a small proportion of future investment in Cuba is affected, and only in so far as it depends on state support.
The disciplines agreed do not include a ban on investment in expropriated property, and investments already made remain completely unaffected.
In addition, the agreement represents an important step forward in investment protection policy which goes far beyond the issue of possible illegal expropriations in Cuba.
The disciplines for the strengthening of investment protection ensure unimpaired national sovereignty for the Member States, since they can both determine which expropriations were illegal and apply most of the disciplines agreed themselves.
In the declaration on the transatlantic partnership in the area of political cooperation, the US Government commits itself neither to strive for nor propose, but to counteract economic sanctions prompted by foreign policy considerations which are designed to lead European businesses to behave in a similar way to those in their own economy.
I am quoting from the agreements here.
This should largely rule out in future the adoption of legislation with extraterritorial effects, such as the Helms-Burton Act and the Act on sanctions against Iran and Libya.
As regards the d'Amato Act or the Act on sanctions against Iran and Libya, our investors are being given legal security by the lifting of the sanctions imposed on the Total company under Section 9© and the prospect of similar decisions for EU businesses in comparable cases.
As a result, the Act on sanctions against Iran and Libya is losing some of its terror, at any rate.
The agreement reached in London opens up great opportunities and even great advantages in competition to EU businesses in these countries.
As far as the implementation of these agreements is concerned, Mrs Albright is trying at present to convince the Congress of the need to amend Title 4, so that waivers are possible.
It is now up to the American Government to secure the adoption of the agreements by Congress. We shall naturally support it in this, so far as that is within our power.
Sir Leon Brittan is visiting Washington on 24 and 25 September in this connection.
Apart from all the other areas of transatlantic cooperation which I cannot go into in more detail here for reasons of time, the agreements on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and the Helms-Burton Act show that our cooperation is intensive and constructive.
The bonds and the common values which unite our citizens and governments on both sides of the Atlantic are much stronger than any passing differences.
The Members of this House, and naturally of the Congress too, will play a central role in making these relations more intense.
At the last meeting of EU and US ministers on 3 September in Vienna, both the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Schüssel, and Sir Leon Brittan emphasised to Mrs Albright the importance of continuing to develop interparliamentary relations between the EU and the USA.
We welcome all the efforts which have been made on your side in this area, in which many Members of the European Parliament have been particularly active: Mr Donnelly, Mr Elles, Mrs Mann and Mr Brok, to mention but a few.
Let me end with a final remark on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
Just four months have passed since the summit in London at which this initiative was brought into being.
During this period, the European side has worked intensively and with commitment to get the Transatlantic Economic Partnership off the ground.
I am certain that the American side is likewise trying to play its part.
These common efforts justify our expectation that the next EU-US summit will produce important and concrete results both in the interests of the EU and the USA before the end of this year, and that these will be helpful above all to those whom our daily work should concern first and foremost, in other words our citizens.
Mr President, I am very pleased that Mr Bangemann has covered the essential points in his brief statement.
I have to say quite honestly that I had hoped that we would not be debating this until November or December, when we shall be discussing the report on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership once again.
The decision would also have been taken by then in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
The die is sometimes cast differently from how one plans, however.
We know how difficult it is to have a balanced transatlantic relationship.
Our basis is a good one, reliable and stable, and we can see how important this is in view of the worldwide turmoil around us.
Europe's citizens above all hope for stability and reliability from transatlantic relations.
We can lead the way together with the Americans on human rights and democracy, and introducing labour and social standards in the multilateral negotiated package.
The European model fits well with the American model in this respect.
Nevertheless, we are certainly experiencing some considerable differences and losses due to friction on sensitive issues, particularly in the area of trade.
An important point which you have already addressed is naturally the Helms-Burton Act.
Unilateral sanctions, as the Helms-Burton, d'Amato and ILSA cases have made clear, have not exactly shown the best side of American economic policy and have raised the question time and again of whether economic policy is not being confused with foreign policy here.
Certainly, those who caused these conflicts were our colleagues in Congress and the Senate.
I am sure that we can only avoid this absurd dispute if we succeed in formalising parliamentary relations.
The euro will also have its part to play.
The delegation for relations with the United States, led by Mr Donnelly, has made some excellent proposals in this respect which we should then discuss in November and December in the context of the report on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
I welcome the proposals and the progress which you have described in this area, and I hope that we can agree with both the Commission and the Member States on this.
Many differences can be explained by the tensions between existing common interests and values and global economic competition between the EU and the USA. This became particularly clear in the GATT negotiations and will certainly also come to light again when the new round is opened.
Besides, the Americans have a preference for negotiating unilaterally.
However, many differences also result from the very emotional competition to claim leadership in managing international conflicts. Europe's weakness certainly also becomes particularly apparent here.
I want us to succeed in introducing parliamentary control and establishing democratic relations between the Congress and the European Parliament in the ensuing discussions. Then we shall be able to remove many of the difficulties.
Otherwise, I think we shall be running into the same dead end again and again.
Mr President, I am particularly pleased that Commissioner Bangemann is here for this debate and also that it has been possible to hold it.
Further to what my colleague Mrs Mann has said, I think it would indeed be desirable and appropriate if the Commissioner responsible, Sir Leon Brittan, could attend the relevant committees - the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on External Economic Relations - and give us some impressions of his travels on his return from the United States.
I think we can broadly agree with Commissioner Bangemann's account of the objectives of transatlantic relations, particularly at this time of world crisis.
But there is one point about which the Commission has not been sufficiently explicit, and I should like to explore it further.
I am referring to laws with extraterritorial effect, in particular the unilateral interpretation of the agreement on the HelmsBurton Act made by the US Secretary of State, Mrs Albright, in a letter of 7 August to Mr Helms, the chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate.
Mrs Albright's letter would seem to suggest that this agreement - reached at the transatlantic summit - assumes recognition by Europe of the Helms-Burton Act.
Certainly the agreements of 18 May are, by their very nature, complicated to read and very difficult to interpret.
But it is equally true that, both in the context of those May agreements and in repeated statements by President Santer and Commissioner Brittan himself to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the European Union has made it clear that this is an illegitimate law, especially in terms of its extraterritorial effects.
And I wonder, Mr President - and I should like to put this to Commissioner Bangemann - whether the interpretation in the Secretary of State's letter is a logical response to the European Union's goodwill in dropping its claim before the World Trade Organisation, whereas in other disputes, like bananas and hormones, our North American colleagues, friends and partners have been implacable.
Mr Bangemann mentioned this just now. The European Union ratified that agreement through the General Affairs Council, while the Clinton administration has not yet finished asking the United States Congress to amend Title 4.
So I find it very satisfactory that Commissioner Bangemann has said that as long as it does not fulfil those requirements, the European Union will not fulfil its commitments either.
I wonder, Mr President - and I would like to ask the Commission - whether the European Union is going to continue demonstrating unilateral magnanimity as it has done up to now, when the United States is not fulfilling the commitments it has made as well.
I know this is a politically sensitive and economically important issue and I believe the European Commission should take a position on the way these agreements are interpreted in the Secretary of State's letter to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, so that any doubt on the matter is entirely dispelled.
I believe that we need to be loyal friends and partners of the United States because of the great political challenges facing the world at this time, but as I always say, when it comes to economic and commercial matters, the European Union needs to move on from the Beatitudes to the account books.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Bangemann, I am very pleased that you are standing in for Sir Leon Brittan this afternoon, since it gives me the opportunity to ask you a few questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group attaches great importance to the liberalisation of multilateral trade, and eliminating trade barriers between the EU and the United States is an important part of this.
The transatlantic market is the biggest in the world, not just in terms of the volume of trade and investment, but especially in terms of employment.
My group is therefore delighted at the proposals for a new Transatlantic Economic Partnership and very much welcomes the undertaking to remove trade and investment barriers in a number of areas.
A great deal of good work in this field has already been done in recent years through the Transatlantic Business Dialogue.
However, the Liberal Group would also stress the importance of having a democratic input in the development of the transatlantic market, and it therefore expects the European Parliament and the American Congress to be kept fully informed and involved in the forthcoming negotiations on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
I should like to ask the Commission how it intends to involve Parliament in future negotiations in order to guarantee adequate democratic controls.
Encouraging public support on both sides of the Atlantic is very important in transatlantic relations, and the 'people to people' aspect is a significant factor here.
The Liberal Group therefore wholeheartedly supports the Commission's budget proposals in this field, which will enable projects launched last year such as the Transatlantic Information Exchange Service (TIES), the ten European institutes at American universities, scientific and technical cooperation and other social initiatives to be continued and expanded.
This was what I wanted to say about transatlantic economic relations.
My second point - and this is why I am so pleased that Commissioner Bangemann is here today - concerns the report on the Echelon network and the study carried out by the STOA group in this field.
I asked the Council on behalf of my group in February this year about the existence and impact of this American monitoring system, but the Council claimed to know nothing about it.
Perhaps the Commissioner could make a statement to the Council.
I should like to ask Mr Bangemann today whether he is aware that the United States systematically taps all telephone calls, faxes, e-mails and telexes sent in the Member States of the European Union?
If so, is this done with the knowledge and agreement of other Member States? Was there widespread monitoring of communications during the GATT negotiations?
Commissioner, I asked whether the Commission was aware of the existence of widespread monitoring between the Member States in the European Union, and I would ask you specifically what the Commission intends to do to ensure the confidentiality of Europe's telecommunications and that the Echelon loophole is closed?
As I see it, a high level of security in the telecommunications sector is absolutely essential if new systems are to be made acceptable to society.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Bangemann has dealt with transatlantic relations remarkably thoroughly, but he has not really discussed the Echelon system item on the agenda.
No doubt he will do so later.
The statement that was unanimously adopted by Member States during the London summit on 18 May strengthens the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and turns it into a key instrument.
The objective is to develop a genuine transatlantic partnership, based on true reciprocity in relations of cooperation between the European Union and the United States.
This will allow us to achieve our shared objectives of democracy, peace and economic development.
In this context, the rapid advance of information and communications technologies offers access to new tools of economic monitoring and information.
These have been identified in a STOA Unit study for the Committee on Civil Liberties on the protection of citizens in connection with new control technologies, prompting me on several occasions to put a question to the Commission which we shall be able to discuss this evening.
More specifically, this report confirms the establishment and recent strengthening of world telecommunications surveillance.
We are dealing here with a network for intercepting and monitoring satellite communications which, moreover, operates entirely legally.
The Echelon network falls within the scope of a bilateral agreement between the United Kingdom and the United States, which was strengthened after the end of the Cold War and subsequently devoted to information of an economic nature.
The point here is not to call into question bilateral agreements between a Member State and the United States of America, but rather to alert the economic actors of the European Union and to provide the Union with an effective economic information system.
How does the Commission intend to counter potential abuse in connection with the use of new information control tools?
Is the Commission taking the necessary steps to establish an economic information policy for the European Union, employing all the legal means at its disposal?
Does the Commission intend to establish the means to protect its economic policy, to counter the disadvantages to which European industry is exposed by the Echelon system? Does it intend to provide better protection of confidential information in the civil sector by enhancing the access of European companies to reliable electronic encryption?
Finally, in so doing, I believe that the Commission will thereby avoid the risk of distortion of competition, which is certainly a matter which falls within its competence.
A code of good conduct must be drawn up for electronic information, as part of the partnership between the European Union and the United States.
Mr President, last March our group opposed the draft transatlantic agreement on the deregulation of trade between the European Union and the United States. Trade unions and associations were widely mobilised.
The French Government successfully petitioned the Council to reject the draft.
However, when we read the conclusions of the EU-US summit of 18 May, there are grounds for wondering whether the principles rejected at that time are not now back on the table.
I note from its programme that the Austrian Presidency is preparing the way for the establishment of a Transatlantic Economic Partnership, particularly in connection with the liberalisation of services, agriculture and dismantling of tariff barriers.
This would dangerously predate the signature of the MAI, discussion of which, I would point out, was postponed by the European Parliament for resumption in a few weeks' time.
The Council, like the Commission, has strongly opposed the way in which extraterritorial legislation such as the Helms-Burton Act is applied to Europe.
Nonetheless, the principle of these laws has been approved, which is a serious matter.
We take the view that the European Union should reject any extraterritorial application of US legislation and proceed with its complaint to the WTO.
In response to questions in the National Assembly, the French Government stated that Member States are not bound by the decisions of the London summit. That is curious, to say the least, and I should like some further information on this point.
What commitments were entered into by the Council Presidency?
What implications do they have at national and Community level? I think that we should learn from experience, and firmly resist the hegemonic aspirations of the United States, in order effectively to defend and promote the interests and assets of the countries of Europe.
Mr President, I intend to concentrate solely on the Echelon system; my party colleagues will be addressing other aspects of the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and elements in the STOA working document.
Commissioner Bangemann had not a word to say about Echelon, although it is on the agenda for discussion this evening.
My group, the Greens, finds the very idea of a global surveillance system of this kind, designed to monitor telephone, fax and e-mail communications, totally unacceptable.
Equally intolerable is the secretive behaviour of the EU. Without so much as convening Council, the 15 Member States apparently agreed, following a series of fax exchanges, to set up a similar system in cooperation with the FBI.
National parliaments and the European Parliament were kept well away from the discussion process, which has clearly been under way for many years.
I have been reading the resolutions tabled by the other political groups, some of which are rather tame in their expressions of disquiet in the face of such an interception system. Where are the calls for open debate with the citizens of Europe?
Or for parliamentary oversight?
Or for proper democratic decisions and the safeguarding of civil liberties? It should go without saying in societies based on the rule of law that such all-embracing surveillance technologies require broad and open discussion.
Echelon is built upon the notion that all telecommunications activities should be able to be intercepted. Surely this cannot be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that interception is justified only where a crime is suspected.
There are bound to be problems with national legislation here. Straight implementation would be out of the question in Sweden, since a public prosecutor must specifically authorise interception.
How are the limits for Echelon to be set, and who is going to take responsibility? We seem to be on the way towards the kind of society described by Orwell.
I would like to hear an answer from Commissioner Bangemann.
Mrs Schörling, since both you and Mr Pompidou have referred to the Commissioner's introductory speech, let me make it clear that the Commissioner said he would be making a special statement at the end.
Mr President, during this period of financial crisis in both Asia and Russia, we can see the extent to which the United States and Europe are bastions of economic and commercial stability.
We might dwell for a moment on what Europe's position might have been regarding an American president experiencing difficulties if we had a genuine common foreign policy based on a powerful single currency.
But let us return to the matter of trade and the transatlantic partnership.
My group inclines towards the utmost caution with respect to these negotiations which, it seems to me, fall outside any genuine parliamentary control and are frequently conducted in informal meetings.
A return of the political dimension is called for, not only in connection with this economic partnership, but also where the OECD, the WTO and the IMF are concerned.
Some form of supervision of each of these organisations should be exercised by democratically elected parliaments.
We shall be particularly vigilant to ensure that this partnership does not extend to agriculture or audiovisual and cultural services.
We will not allow social and environmental acquis to be brought once more into question through a common investment strategy.
Where individual liberties are concerned, we are all aware that technological developments in the communications sector provide a means of allowing the flow of information and knowledge.
Such fantastic developments raise great hopes for bringing the human beings of the world closer together and strengthening friendship and solidarity across the divides of culture, religion or moral codes.
That is certainly how I see things, and my endeavour is to ensure that all scientific and technical progress is placed at the service of mankind.
However, we can only be concerned when it becomes clear that certain ill-intentioned people are seeking to use the most advanced technologies in such a way as to make our societies less and not more free.
The investigation, which has subsequently been made public, into a spy network under the control of the CIA, and hence of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, brings us all face to face with the threat hanging over the private lives of several millions of our citizens, our major industries and our very security.
We cannot tolerate this practice of compiling files on individuals, this blatant violation of individual liberty which, if we allow it to become commonplace, will inevitably lead to a form of dictatorship.
How is it that these methods have only now been made public, when the UK-USA or Echelon agreement has been operating for years without prompting a reaction by any government in any Member State? I personally find it most distressing that a Member State of the Union, a Trojan horse indeed, should be among the countries involved.
In my opinion, this is perhaps the greatest scandal of these closing years of the century, and therefore this matter cannot be allowed to pass unnoticed.
Here again, the political dimension should resume its due place on the international stage.
Ultimately, there are two problems here.
Firstly, this partnership puts us on the wrong footing with the WTO. Its DirectorGeneral, Mr Ruggieri, has said himself that there cannot be several overlapping modes of dispute settlement.
Secondly, whatever anyone says, the agreement recently concluded between the European Union and the United States of America to settle their disputes in connection with the Helms-Burton Act legitimises the extraterritorial effects of the Act which are totally illegal under international law.
We cannot accept this, despite the fact that a number of European firms have won cases relating to this issue.
At this moment in time, when the Europe of monetary union is about to take its place in the world of the 21st century, let us prepare the way for the construction of a politically strong Europe which stands firm against the legal manoeuvring of the United States.
Mr President, Mr Bangemann has drawn us a very positive picture of the state of transatlantic relations, but we all know that the progress of the transatlantic dialogue to which we are all committed is being hampered to no small extent by the major disagreement as regards the extraterritorial scope of the Helms-Burton Act and the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act. Ambiguity appears to be the hallmark of the Commission's attitude to this matter.
Indeed, is it wise, in the name of practicality, to try to negotiate waivers to the extraterritorial implications of unilateral laws, particularly when the principle itself has not been questioned before the appropriate international bodies?
Do the concessions obtained justify giving up the judicial remedies which are available to Europeans to assert their rights? Is to negotiate in this manner not to offer de facto recognition of the legitimacy of extraterritorial laws?
Is the development of trade really to be based on inevitably fragile and readily contested waivers granted to the few, or on a clear and universal rule which is in principle to be laid down by the WTO?
Moreover, is the negotiation process really effective? The progress made in relation to Cuba, as described to us, appears extremely tenuous.
And has any progress been made regarding the non-enforcement of extraterritorial provisions, not only by the federal authorities, but also by the individual states and local authorities?
Mr Bangemann made no mention of this. Japan has recently submitted a complaint against the state of Massachusetts regarding its extraterritorial legislation with respect to Burma.
Will the European Commission follow Japan's example?
These are a number of questions which occur to us and which prompt us to ask how the Commission is dealing with this issue of extraterritorial legislation, which is absolutely crucial for the future of transatlantic relations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I listened earlier to Mr Bangemann's statement, I was reminded of the words of Georgias, the man who conducted dialogues with Plato, when he was defining rhetoric.
Rhetoric, he said, is an special oratorical skill which makes it possible to build up what is small and to play down what is great.
Today we have listened to a speech which, with consummate skill, built up the advantages which the European Union might gain from the transatlantic partnership between Europe and the United States, and played down the disadvantages of this partnership between partners who are fundamentally unequal.
Where transatlantic relations are concerned, it is impossible to ignore the historical fact that one country has won three major world conflicts, the First World War, the Second World War and the Cold War.
Consequently, this country naturally occupies a position of undisputed dominance on the economic, cultural and political fronts.
It is obvious that, after these three military victories, in a world which revolves around the sword, the United States is the world's only superpower, with all the accompanying scope for abuse in the world of today.
There used of course to be another superpower, the Soviet Union, and we were witness to the drawbacks of such a situation. We always fought it, in the name of the freedom and human dignity which we hold so dear.
But it served to provide a balance.
However, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, we were handed over, bound and gagged as it were, to our American friends.
You say that this transatlantic agreement is feasible because it is based on a fundamental agreement between parties with common values.
You listed the four principles of free trade, democracy, freedom and human rights.
But what might one actually say about them?
Does free trade consist of applying laws like the D'Amato-Kennedy Act or the Helms-Burton Act, and all kinds of embargo measures that the United States imposes on countries it does not like? I know you said that these laws would not be enforced across the board and that Europe's position in this respect had been strengthened by the London agreements, but I fail to see where the spirit of free trade lies in all this.
Nonetheless, the initiative behind such waivers has certainly come from the United States.
And what of democracy? Democracy is very relative.
Even within the United States, questions might be asked about the conditions in which it operates, and about the influence exerted by certain powerful lobbies on the American Government, quite openly and publicly.
As for the countries of Europe, it is argued that the regimes we have today are more in the nature of oligarchies than democracies.
So there is a great deal that could be said on this subject.
And what of freedom?
It seems odd to talk of freedom when, according to the agenda, the first item for discussion should have been the question of the Echelon system.
The Echelon system, as some colleagues have clearly explained, particularly Mr Sainjon, is a system for intercepting computer and telephone communications which covers the entire world, and which allows the Americans to carry out global surveillance.
Freedom, certainly, for those who are listening to us on the Echelon system.
But our own freedoms are diminished as a result.
And to this might be added the formation of cartels by the United States on the world's markets - not to mention other phenomena imported from that country, such as rampant crime, which has increased fivefold over the last 30 years.
For the people who live in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods of our countries, it means that freedom today is but a vestige of what they had a few decades ago.
And I think that it is somewhat insensitive to refer to human rights when the international community, at the instigation of the United States, is imposing an absurd and inhuman embargo on a country like Iraq, where thousands of children are dying for want of medicines, and nobody really dares to speak out against this outrage because it would be politically incorrect.
Indeed, in France for instance, only Jean-Marie Le Pen has had the courage to take on this taboo subject.
Democracy, freedom, human rights, free trade - not everything is bad in our Western system.
But there are many negative elements.
And where these are concerned, Commissioner, you excelled in your rhetoric, building up what was small and playing down what was great. We could look at a number of more technical issues at some length.
You mentioned, very briefly I must say, the agricultural sector.
Well, I think our farmers know what to expect from the successive diktats of the Americans, the aim of which is to destroy or virtually destroy European agriculture.
There is talk of partnership.
Could we not be a little more frank, for once? Let us rather talk about a neocolonial system.
Which is not to say that the neocolonial system does not benefit both sides.
The colonial systems that were established during the 19th century benefited the home country, of course, but they also benefited the colonies.
There is no doubt about it, even if today no one wishes to acknowledge it.
So Europe could be seen as benefiting from a neocolonial system, its market shares being the crumbs falling from the American table, so to speak. And why not?
Such a situation is defensible.
But it must be openly acknowledged, just as the political inequality of the system which we are now sanctioning has to be exposed. Because you are indeed sanctioning this political inequality between the United States and Europe.
In fact, it is only logical; the two great political powers that were built up in Europe after the Second World War were themselves built with American money, for the purpose of defending American interests.
I am talking about the Christian Democrats and Socialists. There is no shortage of examples.
Of course, it is only to be expected that the Commission, which is committed to these two major currents, should likewise be committed to American interests.
For our part, we wish to recover our sovereignty and rekindle the flame of European resistance.
Mr President, the chairman of the STOA panel, Mr Pompidou, has to his credit referred here to the study carried out mainly in connection with the Echelon monitoring system.
I am astonished that Mr Bangemann made no reference at all to this matter, which is now in hand, in his opening speech.
In my view, the Commissioner would have done well to listen to the other speeches made here, so that he could comment on the Echelon system, which so far he has not done.
I do not understand how you could pass comment on us, Commissioner, when we should have been commenting on your speech on the matter.
You also appear to be keeping things from us.
I tabled a written question on this subject several months ago, to which I have still not received a reply. It was a priority question.
The European Commission wishes to remain silent on the subject of the Echelon system and the mystery that surrounds it.
I should be grateful if you would ensure that written questions are answered within a reasonable period of time.
In this context, the issue of secretive collaboration with the USA, the French magazine Marianne has also claimed that France and Germany are engaged in similar forms of collaboration in Europe.
This is something that should be investigated.
It has now come to our attention that an agreement may have been concluded in the European Union in 1995 whereby the secret services of EU Member States would acquire the use of the Echelon system via the FBI - the American intelligence service - and the NSA.
It is now for you to tell us, Commissioner, the Members of the European Parliament, whether or not such an agreement was concluded in 1995 and, if so, what was actually agreed.
It is a requirement and the responsibility of a democratic system such as ours to get an answer to this question.
It is our duty to discover whether conversations in the European Parliament and the European Union are being listened to using ISDN digital systems.
It is only right that the Commission should answer these questions.
This is not an issue which you, Mr Bangemann, may keep quiet about, as the Commission has done up till now.
Mr President, I am extremely surprised, Mr Bangemann, that you are exploiting this joint debate so as to put the statement on Echelon at the end, thereby actually avoiding a debate on it.
The House is holding a joint debate, and I should like to hear two statements from you.
I am quite staggered that you do not find all this alarming.
You do not seem particularly concerned about the existence of a system of electronic surveillance which allows eavesdropping on telephone conversations - in fact the whole network of telecommunications between the citizens of Europe - without any protection of fundamental rights, any courts of law, parliamentary control or data protection.
This is a massive intrusion upon people's privacy which bears the hallmark of totalitarianism.
I am quite amazed by your restraint. After all, you come from a country in one part of which a system of injustice has just been overcome and where general spying on citizens was the most significant feature.
Five English-speaking countries, including an EU Member State, are now helping to support and operate this system which originated in the USA.
Apparently, it has now been secretly decided under the third pillar, outside the Council meeting, to set up a similar system in the EU in cooperation with the FBI.
The EU sees itself as a system of values based on fundamental rights and human rights.
We believe that spying on its citizens and putting them at the mercy of spies is totally incompatible with this perception.
It may be that the American system of justice is no longer even able or willing to protect the human dignity and basic rights of its own President, according to the latest developments.
However, such an attack on the privacy of our citizens should be firmly resisted by this Parliament.
Mr President, the last thing which Mr Voggenhuber just said gives me the opportunity to explain once more what I explained at the beginning of the debate. I am grateful to Mr Lannoye for having taken that on board, since he was obviously one of the few to do so.
I said at the start that I would make two statements, the first on general relations with the USA, which could then be discussed. Then I would make a second statement on Echelon and that too could be discussed.
I do not believe, Mr Voggenhuber, that the Echelon affair, if that is what it is, should take up the whole debate on relations with the USA.
That would be more or less what you were just criticising with regard to the American President, namely that the leading world power is currently dealing with problems which are probably not the greatest ones facing the international community. So much for that point.
Hopefully you have now also taken it on board. I said it at the beginning, but perhaps not everyone was here at the start.
(Heckling from Mr Voggenhuber) I made it absolutely clear!
You can read what I said afterwards.
I should now like to answer a number of questions which have been raised concerning general relations with the USA.
The letter which the American Secretary of State wrote to Mr Helms, the chairman of the committee, is naturally not an official interpretation of what we have agreed with the USA.
It is a letter to Mr Helms, as chairman of the committee, setting out her own views.
We do not need to concern ourselves with that.
I have told you how we understand what we have agreed with the Americans.
I have also said that, as matters take their course, we shall wait for the USA to take its commitments through the Congress first before we do anything at all.
And of course, when we undertake a legal measure, it must go through the legal decision-making process, and not least through Parliament.
Moreover, we have not abandoned our legal positions or the rights of European citizens or companies.
Nor have we abandoned or contravened the principle that there should be no extraterritorial effect.
That was our purpose from the outset.
We shall also naturally be involving Parliament in future. We shall pass on the request to Sir Leon that he should provide a report on his visit, and he will certainly be able to do that.
Furthermore, like the Japanese, we have invoked the WTO panel procedure regarding both these issues, namely the Foreign Sales Corporations Act and the Burma-Massachusetts Act.
In other words, we have done exactly the same as Japan.
I do not wish to go into the details - not least because of the time - and you may still have questions on my statement on Echelon as well.
I should just like to say to Mr Souchet, no, the Member who quoted the Georgias dialogue: I do not wish to be the judge of that - it may be that you feel I stressed the positive aspects somewhat more than the negative ones.
I did at least have a basis for my assessment, however, whereas when you talk about free trade, you have to try very hard to find a few words of support for free trade from within the ideology of your group and party.
At least, I cannot recall hearing any.
Incidentally, you have a representative of the Commission here before you who belongs neither to the Christian Democrats nor the Socialists.
You have therefore missed the mark in your attack on these two great movements - I am not in the firing line!
Let us now turn to Echelon.
I must ask you to distinguish between two things: what we know officially as the Commission or have learnt from the Member States, and what it says in your interim report or a book by a former colleague from New Zealand or newspaper reports.
You will appreciate that the Commission cannot act on the basis of assumptions, suspicions or some book or article, but we have the responsibility to do something when we are sure that something needs to be done.
We have no indication either from the Member States, Mr Lannoye, or from anyone whose rights could be violated - a citizen, a business or anyone else - that this system exists in the form in which it has been described here.
It does not mean that such a system may exist because there was one in the past, when it may have been set up for entirely different reasons.
We know nothing about this. So I cannot tell you definitely now whether this system exists or not.
What we do know is that the Member States have given us no indications on the matter.
A question to the Council from one Member of the House - I am not sure who - was answered as follows: ' The Council has no knowledge of the matter'.
The Council would have to know if such a system existed, because when a Member State is affected by it, as is being claimed here, the Council would have to receive the relevant information.
That is the first point.
The second point is that we know - and this is something we encourage, not least in the interest of, and following the calls from Parliament - that there is cooperation in fighting crime, in other words organised crime and other international forms of criminality.
This is something that is agreed between the Member States and with us.
That does not concern this system, however, as it has been described here; it concerns official cooperation, and not the violation of any rights.
If the system existed in such a form, that would naturally represent a blatant violation of rights, the individual rights of citizens, and of course an attack on the security of the Member States. That is absolutely clear.
The Council, and naturally the Commission and the Parliament as well, would have to respond the instant something of that kind was officially confirmed.
Thirdly, what we are doing now is addressing the general issue, because the problem arose through the development of technology.
We now have far greater possibilities than five, ten or twenty years ago.
That is why we have a directive on the protection of the privacy of our citizens.
That is why we have pressed for the authorisation of encryption systems - not least with the Americans - and for only allowing them to be deciphered when there are legal grounds for doing so.
We still believe, like the rest of the world, that such encryption will for the most part remove a number of the problems which we already have to deal with in normal traffic carried on modern communications systems.
So to repeat it again, to make it absolutely clear: firstly, we have no official knowledge of this system, such as it is described in the interim report.
Secondly: there is international legal cooperation in fighting crime, and the EU and its Member States are naturally also involved in this.
Thirdly: we are doing everything possible to ensure that such information or other communications cannot be misused in this new infrastructure.
I cannot say anything more to you on the matter.
The Commission will certainly give its detailed opinion on it when the report is finally delivered.
You can gladly put questions to the Council too.
If I knew that the system existed, then the Commission would be using all its powers to persuade the Member States not to obtain information illegally in this way.
I cannot say that to the House, however.
I think there is a difference between someone who writes a book - if I may just make this point -or a Member of Parliament who is also able to say what he or she may think, and a representative of an institution which can only act in a democratic system when it knows something for certain.
We do not have that knowledge.
I have received eight motions for resolutions on this subject pursuant to Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure .
Mr President, I think we should address this subject again quite calmly, Mr Bangemann.
It makes no sense at all to discuss this in a state of panic.
I would also ask my colleagues to proceed with due caution and not to react with too much excitement to comments made in the media, however important or relevant they may be.
We could certainly accept one point as a proposal, Mr Bangemann, namely that we - meaning you, of course, rather than ourselves in Parliament - should consider with the Council whether some kind of code of conduct could not be signed, not only between the individual Member States, but also between the Member States and the United States, so that when information is received through whatever channels - and this involves above all economic information, industrial espionage - it is handled with the appropriate care.
I realise that such words or statements are a little naive.
However, such codes do also have a persuasive effect when they have been signed, and this could well be a proposal for dealing with the matter sensibly.
Mr President, because I recognise that Commissioner Bangemann treats the European Parliament with particular respect, care and consideration, I should like to have these points made absolutely clear.
One, did the Commission know about Mrs Albright's letter unilaterally interpreting the agreements between the European Union and the Clinton Administration? Two, does the Commission share Mrs Albright's interpretation of the agreements in this letter, especially when she says that these agreements constitute - and I quote - ' an extraordinary vindication of the principles underlying the Libertad Act'?
Three, does the European Commission propose to make a public statement on its approval or disapproval of the terms of this letter?
I must refer the honourable Member to Parliament's own Rules of Procedure.
These state that the Commission can make a statement at any time, and I have used this privilege granted to the Commission today - and it does involve a privilege - for the reason I have given you.
I am not hiding in any way. I believe that it would not have been appropriate to the progress achieved or to our good relations with the United States if we had debated this together with these other problems.
There is a second aspect, which was entirely in your hands.
I pointed out to the President from the outset that, with his agreement, I would first make the statement on the USA and then - you really must listen to what I say - the other statement, and this second statement can of course be debated in exactly the same way.
So to the questions: on the question of the global business dialogue, Mrs Mann, we are trying to agree on all these issues, encryption and privacy as well, in such a way that everyone, not just the United States, but all the other members of this global information society too, can come to an agreement on what needs to happen politically. With that, Mr Salafranca, I have gone into your question, but I will not repeat it again.
Firstly, I even have the letter here with me. Secondly, we do not share the view which was conveyed in this letter.
It is an interpretation which we do not endorse, and I have explained our own interpretation to the House just now.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, there is a clear error in the Minutes relating to Commissioner Bangemann's speech here.
Mr Bangemann was to deliver two statements: on the Commission's position on transatlantic relations and on the Echelon system.
Mr Bangemann did not mention the Echelon system in his speech and did not even say he intended to speak about it later.
This can be checked from the verbatim report of the sitting.
Consequently, it must be said that Mr Bangemann was in breach of parliamentary procedures when he failed to speak on the Echelon system, and only delivered one of the Commission's statements.
Mr Bangemann was not at all prepared to speak about Echelon.
He had nothing to say on the subject.
He did not know anything about it.
For this reason, I do not think that Parliament should accept that the Commissioner made a statement on Echelon.
I propose that the Commission should be obliged to make a statement on Echelon once again, so that the issue is discussed properly and Members of Parliament can make speeches on the subject.
I would like the Minutes to be changed regarding the matter of Mr Bangemann's speech, and the matter to be sent back to the Commission so that it can be settled.
Thank you for your statement, Mr Seppänen.
I do not actually think we are talking about violation of our Rules of Procedure, but there was a problem of communication between our services and those of the Commission, and as a result yesterday's debate did not take place according to the agreed procedure.
So it is understandable that you and Members who were present during the debate you referred to were disappointed.
Mr President, unfortunately what Mr Seppänen said is true - there was no misunderstanding.
Reference was made three times to the necessity of having an overall debate, and then we were told that it would be split into two parts, although we all knew that this would not work.
It was only at the end that we were told that questions could be asked, and then only the two big political groups were able to have their say.
This is simply unacceptable.
We strongly protest against this procedure.
The way in which Mr Bangemann dealt with this issue yesterday was inadmissible.
Thank you.
Are there any other comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Amendment of Financial Regulation
The next item is the report (A4-0308/98) by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC, ECSC, Euratom) amending the Financial Regulation of 21 December 1977 applicable to the general budget of the European Communities (COM(98)0206 - C4-0290/98-98/0130(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I realise interest in this report is not exactly lively, but it is an important document for our Parliament, for the life of the European Union and for the full incorporation of the instruments of economic and monetary union into the Union's legislation.
The Financial Regulation forms part of the basic provisions, and serves to govern relations between the institutions and the way in which, starting with the Commission, they implement the budget of the European Union.
The introduction of the euro into the EU context calls for a series of measures, on this occasion amending the Financial Regulation.
In this report, Parliament expresses its opinion on the amendments the Commission is proposing and which we approve in substance, with a series of amendments which I shall try to illustrate briefly. The context of this report is limited, which is why the Committee on Budgets decided to go right to the end of the road signposted by the Commission.
This means limiting the specific amendments to the Financial Regulation to the most urgent aspects, in other words those which allow us to implement these measures on 1 January 1999 - specifically to adapt the Financial Regulation to the euro. It means postponing other amendments until the next, and imminent, new proposal for amendment.
And I have to say, as rapporteur and on behalf of the committee, that while we may well support them entirely, we decided not to uphold those other amendments on principle. That also applies to the amendments from colleagues who proposed broadening the scope of the amendments.
Let us look at the details.
Firstly, the euro has to be introduced into the Financial Regulation and the debit/credit mechanisms in the Union budget adapted for those countries belonging to the euro area.
Secondly, the Financial Regulation needs to be adapted to a very important provision of economic and monetary union: the system of fines.
Countries which do not respect the standards and rules for applying the common economic policy on schedule will be subject to fines.
Parliament's amendments are not intended to record these fines in the budget, but to transfer them in accordance with the Treaty of Maastricht - using a derogation from the general provisions - to the countries belonging to the euro area.
Finally, many of these amendments relate to the implementation powers of the other institutions.
The Treaty of Amsterdam abolishes the common organisational structure between the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee.
The amendment we are tabling seeks to adapt the text to that provision.
We are asking for the Ombudsman to be included among the institutions recognised as having powers of implementation, along with the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee.
We think that is possible and we are proposing that amendment in my report.
Mr President, I would like to stress that the Committee on Budgetary Control unanimously approved four amendments tabled by the group to which I belong, the European People's Party, to make it possible to produce an opinion by the Committee on Budgetary Control, because what happened was this: we made our decision after Mr Dell'Alba's report had been approved by the Committee on Budgets.
I would like to focus Parliament's and the Commission's attention on an amendment we are tabling, which relates to extending the powers of UCLAF to the control of other institutional bodies of the Community as well.
This is an addition to Article 22(2), enabling UCLAF to check the way parts of the budget which relate to other institutional bodies are dealt with, and I would be very grateful if that amendment were to be approved.
The other three amendments concern administrative matters related to certain programmes involving third countries, particularly candidates for membership. They concern the ability of those countries to manage Community funds on their own.
In conclusion, Mr President, I repeat that it is important for these amendments to be passed, especially the one which I told you concerned extending the powers of UCLAF so that it can check other institutional bodies and services of the European Union.
On that point, moreover, I should like to hear the Commissioner's views, in other words whether the Commission accepts those four amendments by the Committee on Budgetary Control
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in principle I can support the proposed amendment of the Financial Regulation.
The desire to develop European integration further and the legal bases for this - the Maastricht Treaty, the Edinburgh summit and the Amsterdam Treaty - have caused substantial changes to be made to the original Financial Regulation.
The text's coherence needs to be restored and this amendment should, therefore, be welcomed as the first stage in a general review.
Allow me, however, to use the debate on this formal amendment above all as an opportunity to emphasise the importance of the real issues underlying it.
Amending the Financial Regulation is a small but significant step on the way to the third stage of monetary union.
Firstly, and this is something we already know from the ongoing negotiations on next year's Union budget, the euro will replace the ecu as a currency unit in just a few weeks' time.
The budget also has to be prepared for this.
Secondly, the rules governing the Community budget need to be adapted to take account of the pact on stability and economic growth.
This is the backbone of the single European currency.
We all remember the efforts made by individual Member States to achieve economic convergence, which constitutes the precondition and basis for a stable euro.
The stability and growth pact should ensure that excessive deficits are not permitted in the participating Member States in the future either.
The special mechanism of sanctions will also affect the Community budget, which will be the appropriate instrument for applying it.
This system is the reason why the proposed amendment is so important.
Here, and in general, our aim must be to do all we can internally to prepare for the introduction of the euro, while at the same time ensuring maximum transparency.
Mr President, what can I add to the words of our rapporteur and draftsmen? Very little, I believe, and I therefore hope to be brief.
However, I would first like to congratulate them and particularly Mr Dell'Alba who has done some excellent work on a routine yet fundamental issue.
Legislative work is perhaps normally less interesting than own-initiative reports but it is just as, if not more, important.
I have no wish to argue with Mr Sarlis, who used part of his speaking time as draftsman to claim certain amendments for his own political group.
I would, however, like to remind this House that the amendment he highlighted is, in fact, a compromise amendment between the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Moving straight on to the subject - and if there is any time left, I will look at other questions later - the PSE Group would like to emphasise two points: the updating of the regulation and the Ombudsman.
As Mr Dell'Alba rightly said, we are now faced with updating once again the 1977 Financial Regulation.
This update includes the new elements contained in the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty of Amsterdam, or at least introduces the regulatory instruments to be used when the latter enters into force.
There is no objection to this; the opposite is, in fact, true.
However, this is the umpteenth update.
No one knows any longer whether it is the seventh, eighth or ninth.
No one really knows.
Indeed, if the new Financial Regulation is to be formally correct, perhaps what we really need is a new Financial Regulation, with a new basis.
The European Union that is preparing to enlarge towards the East is very different from the European Economic Community of the 1970s, when the foundations of this Financial Regulation under debate were laid down.
It was a Community that did not even have a European Parliament elected through universal suffrage, and which was beginning the negotiations on the accession of the southern countries: Greece, Spain and Portugal.
We are very far from that situation.
I therefore believe that the Commission, which has told us so often that it is in favour of drawing up a new Financial Regulation, should give fresh impetus to that idea.
We understand that there are even working documents on this matter. Incidentally, we have not been sent any of these documents but we have, of course, managed to obtain some of them.
These working documents should be forwarded to Parliament and should be debated. In addition, we need to establish a dialogue on this revision of the new Financial Regulation and to do so as soon as possible.
It is absolutely urgent.
The other major political point involves giving appropriate consideration to the Ombudsman.
The European Parliament could certainly lay claim to the creation of this post, since it came about as a result of a parliamentary initiative taken up in Maastricht. However, we believe that the political and institutional body that is the office of the Ombudsman requires the specific treatment afforded it by the amendments to the proposal for a regulation.
The very independence of the Ombudsman demands that it be excluded from the European Parliament's budget.
If the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee are consultative bodies of the Council and are given their own section, why was the Ombudsman going to be included in Parliament's section of the budget? There is no political logic here.
We therefore support the move to designate it a specific section of its own.
Perhaps half the amendments to the proposal for a regulation relate to this issue.
The remaining amendments, ladies and gentlemen, relate to other aspects of this update with which we are in total agreement: the euro, the payment of fines in connection with the stability and growth pact, the decentralised bodies, and the necessary and logical dissolution of the common organisational structure of the two committees, since it has been clearly demonstrated that the Maastricht 'invention' was not efficient.
We agree with all of this and the amendments reflect what we could call the House's doctrine on the issue.
I am therefore not going to go into detail in that respect.
However, I would like to say once again that we hope that the European Commission will very soon present us with a Financial Regulation already conceived for a Europe that will embrace a great deal more than its current responsibilities.
The Liberal Group also thinks that some important amendments have been proposed here. I want to thank especially Mr Sarlis from the PPE Group for ensuring that the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgetary Control were put forward.
As one who is very active in the PHARE area, I am of course very keen to promote amendments concerned with decentralisation, which may facilitate better management of PHARE resources and at the same time help to expedite the process of enlargement to take in the Eastern and Central European countries.
I must say how surprised I am that the Commission has not contributed any input of its own on decentralisation.
We already started this discussion last autumn, when the Commission took a very positive stance on decentralisation, which it said it wanted and was prepared to implement.
The question was also taken up in the Agenda 2000 papers. Even so, the Commission has not taken the opportunity to put forward concrete proposals in this area.
It is odd when people say one thing and do another.
Hence it is for us in the European Parliament to hold the Commission to the things it has promised and the commitments it has stated.
What is important about decentralisation is that it serves to convey a clear political will to help Eastern and Central European countries qualify for EU membership.
It is, so to speak, the precursor to the Structural Funds, and at the same time it provides a means by which the new Member States can put their administrative structures in order, gain some experience and be well prepared for accession to the EU.
In addition these are recommendations which will find favour with the Court of Auditors, because they involve changes which may help us overcome some of the problems currently experienced in the management of the PHARE programme.
I am thus happy to recommend these amendments to my colleagues and hope for their sympathetic support.
They serve to give a clear signal that we want to promote enlargement.
They may pave the way for membership and may ensure that we get a more effective PHARE programme.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes the generally favourable view which the Committee on Budgets suggests you adopt on the proposal for the eighth set of amendments to the Financial Regulation.
This is the last specific amendment proposal before the Financial Regulation is redrafted, on the subject of which, on 22 July, the Commission presented a working document intended to open up a wide-ranging interinstitutional consultation.
Mr Colom I Naval wanted the Commission to present this formally and officially to the European Parliament.
There is no problem, I will do so.
This eighth set of amendments does not seek to substantively modify the Financial Regulation.
The proposal simply seeks to bring the urgent and limited amendments required by the launch of the euro and the stability pact and the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam whose sole effect on the Financial Regulation - given the removal of Protocol No 16 on the common organisational structure of the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - is to introduce a specific section for each of these two bodies.
The Commission can undertake to adopt several of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgets.
These are Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 14, 16, 19 and 20, designed to introduce a specific budget section for the European mediator, and Amendment No 22 which provides a different date for the entry into force of provisions relating to the euro and the stability pact, that is 1 January 1999, and for provisions relating to the Treaty of Amsterdam, that is following ratification.
The Commission is not, however, inclined to adopt certain amendments, which I advise against both for the technical reasons which I will explain and for the essential reason that these are substantive amendments which will make it impossible to respect the tight deadline imposed by the launch of the euro on January 1 next.
In connection with Amendment No 21, contrary to what this suggests, the amount of fines for excessive deficits, as at present the amount of fines for violating the rights of free competition, are not very clear at the time of drawing up the budget.
The budget is not able to include any more than an outline framework.
In connection with Amendments Nos 1, 8, 9, 12, 13 and 15 on the agencies, these have their own budget and financial regulation.
They are not to be covered by the Financial Regulation, which relates solely to the general budget, but rather by the specific regulation which applies to these agencies.
In connection with Amendments Nos 5 and 17 on interinstitutional cooperation, the Commission considers that this cooperation can be organised, as is the case at present for open competitions and purchases, by means of the administrative arrangements between the institutions.
In connection with Amendment No 18 on the Commission's powers of inquiry, this is not a matter for the Financial Regulation but for arrangements between the institutions.
The Commission is not opposed in principle to widening the powers of the UCLAF, but this can be done through an arrangement between the institutions.
As regards the redrafting of the Financial Regulation, the corresponding amendments could, if necessary, be included at the appropriate time.
The question concerning Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 4 by the Committee on Budgetary Control on the decentralised management of PHARE was put by Mrs Kjer Hansen.
During this month of September, the Commission will be adopting an amended proposal for a regulation on the coordination of assistance to candidate countries as part of the preadhesion strategy, in order to permit the decentralised management of PHARE.
This point will also be dealt with at the time of redrafting the Financial Regulation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Draft budget for 1999
The next item is the presentation by the Council of the draft general budget for 1999.
Mr President, the draft budget for 1999 resembles the preliminary draft budget closely.
A difference of only 0.5 % confirms that there is a broad convergence of views with regard to the 1999 Community budget.
The Commission and the Council have had to reconcile rigour with the obligations of the Union, in particular with regard to the decisions of the European Councils of Edinburgh and Cannes.
As far as compulsory spending is concerned, the Commission will submit an amending letter at the end of October to take account of the last available information for the finalization of the 1999 budget.
This will be the second application of the procedure successfully established in 1997.
Contrary to last year, however, there may well be spending requirements if current developments on some markets are confirmed.
On structural actions, the draft budget establishes the payment credits at the level proposed by the Commission.
This should assure the correct financing of the requirements for 1999 in the light of the Edinburgh decisions.
Category 3, internal policies, is the only category where the Commission proposals have been seriously cut, even below the 1998 level.
This is sometimes difficult to understand as some of these cuts concern Council priorities, notably Leonardo and small and medium-sized enterprises.
These cuts are explained in relation to the reference amounts of regulations but it is not in the spirit of of the common declaration of 1995 to consider these reference amounts as if they were maximum amounts.
Finally, on external policies, for the first time I can remember the draft budget exceeds the preliminary draft budget.
This is logical on the assumption that the requested reinforcement of PHARE in 1998 is not taking place and the Council was to complete the financing of the external cooperation programmes as they were decided by the European Council at Cannes.
It is commendable that the Council provides this financing mainly through additional spending and thus limits the cuts in other important areas of external cooperation.
Above all, the draft Community budget for 1999 is a constructive step in the 1999 budget procedure.
It augurs well not only for next year's budget but also for the more far-reaching decisions which will soon have taken place on the next financial framework.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before addressing the Council's presentation of the draft budget after its first reading, I should like to say that the cooperation between the Council, Parliament and the Commission over the conciliation on legal bases, which we will be debating shortly, has been exemplary.
In the first place, in the nine years I have been doing this job, I have never before experienced a conciliation which started at 11 a.m. and finished at 7 or 7.30 p.m. with Parliament cooperating.
Afterwards, they even took it upon themselves to decide the budget as well.
Secondly, they can be proud, not only of a long meeting, but also of the result.
The Austrian Presidency has contributed to this and I wish it just as much skill and success in further deliberations on the budget and on Agenda 2000.
That was the praise - and it is rare coming from me, so make the most of it - but now comes the criticism. What does this budget tell us?
We have stressed from the outset - and Mrs Dührkop Dührkop will also say this in her report in a moment or two - that this budget is a bridge between the expiring financial perspective, on the one hand, and the new financial perspective, which will begin in the year 2000, on the other. We view it as such.
That is why I should like to make the following general statement on behalf of the Committee on Budgets: we will make every effort to place the 1999 budget procedure in the context of the discussions on Agenda 2000, and the recommendations in Mr Colom I Naval's report relating to the fundamental issue of flexibility.
We want to see progress on these aspects of Agenda 2000, if we are to conform to a budget procedure based on achieving lowest possible expenditure, i.e. on keeping to Member States' average expenditure at Community level.
I am only announcing this here, because it will, of course, have implications for the discussions on the budget in first and second reading in this House.
I should like to make a few comments on the results of the Council's deliberations.
Firstly, on agriculture.
We were a little disappointed that it has not been possible to send out a clear signal on agricultural policy as early as the first reading in the Council.
But we are relying on the fact that we will all take the agreed ad hoc procedure seriously and that on the basis of a Commission letter of amendment we will achieve some results in the conciliation procedure in November.
By results, I mean that we must limit expenditure in this sector and identify procedures to allow these resources to be put to optimal use. We tabled a proposal for a reserve last year with this in mind, and we will be doing so again.
Indeed, we have already made technical proposals.
I might remind you once again that expenditure on agriculture is ECU 1300 million in excess at present.
Had we not, in the face of bitter resistance from your 15 agriculture colleagues, cancelled ECU 1000 million of spending last year, we would now be ECU 2300 million over budget in the agricultural sector.
The experiences of this year and the last 15 years show, therefore, that we can take this step, and can do so without putting the legal provisions laid down in directives or regulations in the agricultural sector at risk.
Secondly - and this comment is also directed towards the Commission - I am yet again hearing calls from some Member States for export refunds on pigmeat, butter and milk to be increased, to rejuvenate the Russian export market, which is currently in a state of collapse.
Community policy cannot aim to control currency fluctuations outside the Community by raising export refunds.
So do not let them persuade you otherwise, Mr Liikanen, but retain the position you had in 1997; prevail against the six, and take the same line when it comes to securing savings in the agricultural sector for the 1999 budget.
The contents of Categories 2, 3 and 4 are interlinked.
We have already discussed the growth of Category 2 with you many times here in this House.
The reason for this is not that the money is needed, but that this is the last year of the financial perspective; the Structural Funds change on 31 December 1999, and any unutilised appropriations are carried over to this year.
We have absolutely terrific rates of increase here - between 17 % and 18 % in commitment appropriations and around 10 % in payment appropriations.
There is actually an incredible amount of money to be dealt with here.
As a result of this increase, because you did not have the courage to take action on this issue - despite the fact that several Member States, such as France, actually made proposals during discussions in the Council - you are now having to cut Categories 3 and 4 by the same amount by which you have increased Category 2.
You will see, for example, that in Category 3 you have cut funding for the Leonardo programme. That stands in direct contradiction to your own work programme, where you state that you wish to strengthen educational programmes as a means of making Europe more attractive to business.
The EUR 100 million you are cutting there is not going because it has been proved surplus to this programme's requirements - in that case perhaps EUR 86.45 million would have been the sum withdrawn.
No, you are cutting EUR 100 million to make your sums add up, to bring the rates of increase in Category 3 down so that they compensate for the high rates of increase in Category 2.
The second area I wish to address is external policy.
The situation here is far worse.
In Council, you did not secure the adoption of a supplementary and amending budget for 1998, containing an additional ECU 150 million for PHARE.
If we are honest, we have to admit that PHARE will not need the ECU 150 million, either in 1998 or in 1999, because the interim accounts for the 1998 budget year, which were released by the Commission on 30 June 1998, reveal that in the first six months of the year, ECU 1000 million of the appropriations available under PHARE had still not been committed and, even worse, that more than ECU 2500 million had not been awarded and spent in contracts.
That means that there is ECU 2500 million on the table, ECU 1000 million of which is completely free and ECU 1500 million of which might be spent in contracts, if the contracts materialise.
And then we are supposed to increase this by a further ECU 150 million, while at the same time making cutbacks in, for instance, spending on non-governmental organisations.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with sound financial policy, but it does have something to do with ideology.
A decision was made once upon a time in Cannes and now it has to be applied at all costs.
Parliament had no hand in this, and will not, therefore, be accepting either the proposal contained in the Council draft, or the Commission proposal to achieve this through early procedures.
Neither approach is appropriate, and we need to tell the applicant countries, aspiring to become members of the Community, that if together we are not able to commit the appropriations in the time allowed - reminding them once again of the annuality of budget appropriations - then these appropriations cannot be used.
And you will see that this House will not agree to a ECU 150 million top-up in Category 4 at the expense of non-governmental organisations throughout the world.
Finally, there is the question of how research, a very important area, is going to be dealt with.
You are aware, Mr President-inOffice, that in parallel to our 1999 budget negotiations, discussions will be taking place on the total appropriation for the fifth framework programme for research, which accounts for a considerable part of Category 3 expenditure in the budget.
You will also be aware that there is a discrepancy between Parliament's proposal, for ECU 16 300 million over five years, and the Council's position hitherto.
I can hear the voice of your colleague now, announcing that we will certainly reach a compromise on 29 September.
I would be glad if this were so.
It is up to the Council, and certainly not Parliament, to come forward with a compromise formula.
And a figure of ECU 14 000 million is not an acceptable compromise; the figure will instead lie between ECU 14 000 million and ECU 16 300 million.
You know that this is an important decision, because it will have a major impact on the 1999 budget - over 60 % of Category 3 appropriations are allocated to research.
If we consider the issue of funding for networks, for example, it is clear that it will be possible to strike a balance between networks, on the one hand, and research, on the other, if the outcome of the agreement on the fifth framework programme for research is known.
That is why I can only repeat my request to you - and your colleagues, the Finance Ministers - to please ensure that sufficient pressure is exerted on your side, so that we reach an agreement on the budget allocation of the fifth framework programme for research for the next five years in good time, before the first reading of the 1999 budget, or at the latest before the second reading.
In the same spirit, may I venture to hope that our further discussions on the 1999 budget are productive, interesting and exciting.
I would also like to add to the praise for the Council presidency for its cooperation, which we believe has been exemplary up until now.
My speech will, in fact, be brief since the chairman of the Committee on Budgets has given a very comprehensive demonstration of the gaps that, in spite of the praise for the presidency, can still be seen in the 1999 draft budget procedure.
However, I would like to highlight several points.
First, I would like to reiterate the fact - as has already been mentioned - that the 1999 budget must represent a bridge. That bridge should not be thought of purely in terms of accounts, but should represent a crucial step forward towards an agreement for Agenda 2000 and the new financial perspectives.
I believe that, as part of that bridge, we have together forged an important element: the agreement we reached on the legal bases.
I would, nevertheless, like to emphasise that it is only one element, and I believe that we should be pleased that we have settled a dispute that had already been going on for many years.
During conciliation, the European Parliament had the chance to set out its political priorities.
I am going to refer here to one category in particular.
The chairman of the Committee on Budgets has already stated exactly what Parliament believes in relation to Category 1 and Category 2.
We do not think that the presidency has initiated an appropriate analysis of the financial resources that would be in the interests of a healthy Community budget.
As for Category 3, I would like to say as rapporteur that Parliament cannot agree with how it reads.
Category 3 is a true scapegoat, to use a common expression.
In this category, to ensure that its accounts are balanced within the 1999 budget, the Council has made cuts in policies that are fundamental for the European Parliament.
I call on the Council - and Mr Samland also mentioned this - to recognise its own lack of consistency.
It is strange that its priorities, as set out in Cardiff, match those of the European Parliament, yet the same Council states with regard to the Leonardo programme that - and I quote the exact English text - ' while bearing in mind the considerable success achieved by these programmes', it is cutting ECU 100 million.
Another interesting move relates to the global package agreed at the beginning of this year on employment policies. The importance of this agreement was highlighted by the Council itself in Luxembourg at its first reading, yet ECU 14 million are being cut from the support for SMEs, despite this being a priority, according to the Council.
Another paragraph from the Cardiff European Council, paragraph 12, states that we are going to pay particular attention to disadvantaged groups, to ethnic minorities and to people with disabilities.
However, at the same time, the Council, as well as the presidency, which had presented these policies to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, are removing these programmes from the budget due to a lack of legal base.
Finally, I would like to say with regard to Category 4 that I fully agree with the approach put forward by the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, which has also been set out by Parliament in its guidelines.
We are not going to allow the PHARE programme to be implemented at the expense of other obligations the European Union has towards third countries.
As for Category 5, Mr Ruttenstorfer, I would like to remind you that, apart from the fifth framework programme on research and development, before Parliament's first reading we have another issue that remains to be settled: the question of pensions.
The worker has done his part; now the employer must do his.
I would like to repeat my willingness and Parliament's willingness to cooperate in the future in order to reach a satisfactory conclusion in terms of this bridging budget, bearing in mind, as far as possible, both your and Parliament's priorities.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would endorse what the chairman of our committee said about close collaboration with the Council and the Commission in the trilogue and at first reading of the budget for 1999, which was brought forward by the Council this year to 17 July to give us adequate time in view of the tasks and places of work imposed on us by the Treaties.
In this financial statement, the sum earmarked for administration amounts to EUR 4.4 billion, with a total margin of EUR 300 million as compared with 1998.
As last year, the Council has deemed it appropriate to fix an inclusive total amount to be assigned to the other institutions for ordinary operating costs with an increase of 1 % over 1998 levels, with provision, however, for a significant margin to adjust the increase for exceptional and often justifiable cases.
This margin has been interpreted rather generously by the Council for itself, with a rise of 5.14 %, the increase for the Commission being 1.63 %, while for all the other institutions, Parliament included, it was 1.52 %.
In this context, it is worth underlining that our institution is the only one below the 1 % threshold, with a rate of increase of 0.88 %.
As regards staff, the Council has accepted the creation of new posts only if they are connected with enlargement and the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and has rejected the conversions or upgradings requested by the other institutions.
In more detail, the first reading provides for the creation of 109 posts and only 10 conversions, modification of the establishment plans of the institutions by converting some permanent posts into temporary ones, and transfer to the Commission of five posts taken from the other institutions for the medical insurance service.
In fact I am doubtful about two aspects of the staff policy adopted by the Council at first reading, and I will explain these while taking care not to go into the merits of the Council's independent choices.
The first point is that since the Council has seized the opportunity to allow its own staff to increase by 71 to handle the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam and enlargement, it might have been appropriate to establish a common approach to this from the outset, given that this problem is common to so many other institutions, from Parliament itself to the Commission and the Committee of the Regions.
The second point is that frankly it is difficult for me to understand why, if the Council thought it right to award itself 71 new posts, it refused very modest demands from the other institutions, for example the Committee of the Regions, which has undoubtedly seen significant increases in its own responsibilities since the Treaty of Amsterdam.
As regards the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee, and the consequences of the Treaty of Amsterdam, mention should also be made of the abolition of Protocol 16, that is the common organisational structure which linked the two committees.
I believe that interinstitutional collaboration and avoiding duplication of costs wherever possible - as I have frequently stated - should be the criteria to apply in dealing with all aspects of the division imposed by Amsterdam, so that moving to full reciprocal autonomy for these two committees does not become a cause of dysfunction, jeopardising cooperation and escalating costs.
Turning to the Courts, the 1 % criterion is exceeded for the Court of Justice, resulting in the creation of 10 new posts, but the Council did not accept the Court of Auditors' request for allocations for its building projects, where the Commission has provided for such expenditure in the financial perspective.
Here Parliament must outline the approach required for the most consistent possible attempt to limit expenditure on new buildings in Luxembourg.
Finally, as regards the European Parliament, the Council accepted our preliminary draft estimates in line with the gentlemen's agreement.
By the same token, it also accepted the estimates for the Ombudsman, through a broad interpretation of the agreement which has essentially created a distortion between the criteria for examining the Ombudsman's estimates and those applicable to the other institutions and associated bodies.
In this context, I wish to stress that the Ombudsman is an autonomous institution: our earlier debate on amending the Financial Regulation confirmed that.
This means there must be a specific section in the budget, and it lies outside the percentage of 20 % of the administrative costs which relates only to the European Parliament; it means there should be a dual reading of the budget.
Moreover, the approach taken by the Council does not take account of what has already been decided here about the increase in the Ombudsman's staff.
This decision remains our point of departure for assessing whether a further increase is needed - respecting the procedures always adopted by the budgetary authority and certainly not equal to the increase proposed by the Council at first reading.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have listened with great attention to the views expressed by previous speakers and, in my capacity as chairman of the Budget Council, I have also taken note of what has been said.
I can assure you that I will endeavour to bring your suggestions to bear in the Council's further deliberations.
I noted, in particular, that you agree with me that in the case of agriculture we should wait for the letter of amendment.
I also noted that you consider it appropriate to provide a reserve in the agricultural budget.
Obviously, I have also taken note of your misgivings about funds being withdrawn from the Leonardo programme.
It should be said that with the funds allocated for 1999, the Council has actually utilised all of the budget for the whole period.
But I willingly admit that there has indeed been a sharp reduction on the previous year and that Leonardo is a successful programme.
In this context, I can tell you that the Council is currently examining a draft decision to set up a second phase of the Leonardo programme to run from 2000 to 2004, with a considerable increase in funding.
As regards PHARE, the Council recognises the difficulties involved in implementing the PHARE programme and is, like Parliament, keen to see it managed efficiently.
Hence the Council's wish to see a speedy conclusion to the seventh series of amendments to the Financial Regulation, since they contain, in particular, new rules on the utilisation of commitment appropriations, namely that a deadline will be set for the use of these appropriations.
We would expect to see improvements in the PHARE programme as a result.
I have also noted the importance you attach to resolving the research funding issue.
I can only assure you that the Austrian Presidency is making every effort to settle the issue of the fifth framework programme in good time, first and foremost for the sake of research, but of course also in time to draw up the 1999 budget.
Finally, I have noted the calls for a staffing policy not only for the Council, but also in more general terms, and I will try to bring these considerations to bear in further Council discussions.
I should like to conclude by once more highlighting the very good level of cooperation that we have enjoyed with the European Parliament thus far in the budget procedure, and at the same time express the wish that this will be continued in the future.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
Legal bases and implementation of the budget
The next item is the report (A4-0296/98) by Mr Christodoulou, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for an interinstitutional agreement between the European Parliament, Council and Commission on legal bases and implementation of the budget.
Mr President, this is not the first time the issue of legal bases has preoccupied the European Parliament and the European Union's institutions more generally.
If I remember rightly, we have been in a state of relative disagreement since 1981, and now at last, after so many years, we have reached a conclusion for which congratulations are due to all those who have collaborated to achieve it.
Let me remind you that in a resolution we adopted on 12 December 1995, we called for a provisional solution to the issue of legal bases and an end to the impression being conveyed that the European Parliament and the Council, very often with the Commission's intervention too, are constantly at odds over issues about which Europe's citizens are often not very aware, so that they thought we were continually debating in an atmosphere of confrontation.
Fortunately, that has now ended and we can therefore say that we will be able to make normal progress towards establishing a very serious and important procedure, which concerns the European Union's ability to undertake new and pioneering activities that bring it much closer to Europe's people.
Because we must not forget that the Erasmus and Konver programmes, efforts to promote the peace process in Ireland, and so on all started within a framework which we are now trying to adjust by the procedure of legal bases for pilot, preparatory and other similar actions undertaken in the context of the European Union.
We must not underestimate the importance of those actions.
The impression was often given that such activities, which had no legal base and were initiated at an experimental level, were rather exotic, in other words they involved elements of waste, they were unnecessary, and so forth.
I do not deny that perhaps some of them could be put into that category, but most by far of those actions were very fundamental and important for the promotion of the European Union's aims.
It is very fortunate that we are now in a position which allows us to establish in law the way in which the matter is to be dealt with, and to settle for conclusions, methods and procedures which will put an end to the constant conflict that has existed between us for so many years.
The agreement as a rule makes the implementation of appropriations entered in the budget for any Community action dependent on prior adoption of a basic act, in other words a legal base, except in the case of actions relating to pilot, preparatory and autonomous actions by the Commission, and appropriations intended for the operation of each institution under its own administrative autonomy.
That possibility is not unlimited, and of course, if it is to be credible and able to hold its own and be implemented correctly, it has limitations with regard to both time and quantity.
And it is very much up to us, ladies and gentlemen, in other words to the European Parliament's committees, through the Commission and then the Council, to promote the establishment of a legal base of that type as soon as possible so that we can achieve two things: firstly, the prompt implementation of really worthwhile programmes and actions and, secondly, the release of resources for pilot, preparatory and other actions from the time and quantity limits to which they are still subject, so that new actions of that type can be included without those appropriations being permanently committed for a very long time, as used to happen in the past.
In other words, this new agreement imposes on us a sense of absolute responsibility, and that is very important for us and we should respond in the best possible way.
Mr President, I would like to add something to what I said earlier about the basic value for the European Union's aims of all the initiatives being undertaken and which, I repeat, result in programmes which are worthwhile and bring the European Union closer to its real aims and to Europe's citizens.
I want to remind us that probably, in the future when this agreement becomes absolutely permanent, in other words when practical application has demonstrated that it is essential and that it operates correctly - which depends on us - that will be the time to consider adapting it.
In other words, if the future shows that there is a need for this agreement to be modified, for instance by adapting the appropriations and perhaps the time limits so as to enable the European Union to do its job more effectively in the very important areas which these initiatives deal with, I am sure that since the system has worked well, everyone will agree to adopt any decisions which will make those actions even more effective.
Mr President, in Mr Christodoulou's report - in the explanatory statement - there is a wonderful line that says this 'provides a long-term solution, since it has not been unilaterally denounced by any of the three institutions concerned' - yet.
'Yet' is my word, because Parliament has not yet voted on this report.
I am going to speak with two tongues in this debate: one - as an individual who has been involved in the debate in the negotiations, and then, as it is my responsibility to speak, in my role as coordinator for the Socialist Group.
On a personal level I welcome the report.
I think it is the best that we could achieve, and a culmination of many years of work and attempts by Parliament to get this problem resolved.
So, knowing what we have gone through in the past, I am extremely pleased with what we have got for the future.
I also have to say that when we were coming to this conclusion on 17 July, there was cooperation between ourselves, the Commission and, dare I say, the majority of the Council.
The previous presidency had given its commitment to resolving the matter.
As the British Prime Minister said from where the President-in-Office now sits, the Austrian Presidency has been committed to it, but I have to say that the length of time taken, which the chairman, Mr Samland, referred to, was because of indecision by at least one Nordic Member State.
Quite frankly, it was a pathetic performance on that trialogue to get a conclusion to this decision, which really involved a small amount of money.
I hope I never have to go through that again because it was a waste of time if nothing else.
That is my personal view.
When we were coming to these conclusions, all three institutions were of a mind that the deal on the legal basis would be fine for the future, but we still have the problem of this year 1998.
That is why I advised caution at the beginning of my remarks.
I, and Mr Samland, Mr Colom i Naval, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Tomlinson - those who were involved in the negotiations - have to convince our group tonight, when we discuss the issue, that this report is worthy of a yes vote.
We need some clarification, certainly from the Commission, on those lines which were considered to be problematic.
There were four areas.
Last night I received a document chart showing the lines where the problems were, and hopefully the Commission has come forward with solutions.
This will be taken to our group tonight and we will do our best to convince.
But I seek the help of the Commission now to clarify those areas of doubt which will arise when Members see this, especially over lines B5-321 - action for the economic and social areas like cooperative mutuals, etc, - where a large proportion of the money has not yet been utilised and there does not seem to be a way of utilising it.
On lines B7-611, 851 and 852, where sums in the region of ECU 11.5 million remain unused, what will happen to those amounts of money?
In the areas which we did have problems with such as sport and minority languages, the bulk of the money has been used.
There will be small amounts left and it is fair to say that even without the problems we have had we could still have had those small amounts of money left.
I am therefore quite prepared to argue the case for them.
But there are those few lines which still give us concern, and I would seek help from the Commission to give us an assurance that those areas will not be left untouched - that the money will be utilised.
With that information I hope we can go forward to our group tonight and then vote positively.
One final point - we went to a lot of trouble to get this report put together and there was consensus on its content.
There are some amendments put forward - three or four by the Greens - which, while nice, are not necessary.
My recommendation to our group would be that we do not support the amendments but we stick by the report unamended.
I do not want anyone to assume that we do not sympathise with the contents of those amendments by the Greens, but we really want the report to be concise rather than elaborate.
Mr President, I should like to express the hope that we have found an eternal solution to an eternal problem, and that none of the three institutions will unravel the agreement which has been negotiated.
In resolving the legal bases issue, I believe that Parliament has proved - at least in recent years - through its work on the budget that it is not only consistent in terms of its political commitments, but also in terms of the way in which it funds these political objectives.
I should certainly like to congratulate the Austrian Presidency, therefore, on the skilful way in which it conducted the negotiations on 17 July.
Like Mr Wynn, however, I was present at the discussions, and at times I had the impression that there was no political objective at stake there, but that these were petty negotiations reminiscent of the bourgeois, about a couple of million ecus or so, and the next six months or year or so.
In parts it was indeed embarrassing, and one could not help thinking that at least some of those present were not concerned with finding a political solution, but more of an administrative, technical one.
I am inclined to believe, Mr President-in-Office, that you should not be given all the credit; the time was, quite simply, ripe.
Parliament kept stepping up the pressure, and in the end the Council either had to, or wanted to, give in.
Admittedly, both you and we in Parliament can be happy with the result.
There is certainly no doubt about that.
We - all three partners - now know where we stand for the future and, as Mr Wynn said, we still need to convince our colleagues in the House.
Under current circumstances, however, that should not be too difficult.
As rapporteur for the 1998 budget, I thought it was particularly important that on 17 July - to comply with the Court of Justice judgment - the Commission also tabled a proposal for the 1998 budget, a workable proposal in our view.
As a Parliament, we have also indicated - and in fact this is another significant agreement - that we are prepared to comply with the Court of Justice judgment, and that we are not able to increase the political pressure in this matter.
But some services seem to be taking advantage of the present unclear situation for their own ends.
Commissioner Liikanen, I would ask you to make it clear to all your services once again that, now that a solution has been found and agreed, they should apply it for 1998 as well. This is because we need the 1998 appropriations to be implemented as soon as possible, so that the NGOs affected receive the money they were promised.
Once again, I should like to warmly congratulate Mr Christodoulou, who is, of course, an old hand, and has worked on this issue for several years.
In Germany, we say that we sit problems out.
We have someone sitting at the head of the government there who sits problems out.
Mr Christodoulou has also sat this problem out and has succeeded!
(Applause)
Mr President, in a way one might say this issue represents much ado about nothing.
In financial terms, it is 60 million for pilot projects and 30 million for preparatory actions - less than 1 %.
The political issue, of course, is much more important: it is a sign that the relationship between Parliament and the Council has finally matured and a recognition that Parliament and the Commission, as Mr Christodoulou rightly mentioned, are putting forward initiatives.
Unfortunately - with all due respect - the Council has become an impotent body.
It can do nothing if it is not put under external pressure.
It was external pressure, via your decision, Mr President, to block a couple of hundred budget lines which finally made the Council aware that it could no longer delay this issue.
This is part of the budget debate in general and we are only talking about a few hundred million here and there.
But the political significance is that the Council and Parliament are finally regarding each other as equals.
That is the final element of this institutional agreement and it confirms the fact that both the Council and the Commission recognise that Parliament has taken useful initiatives which, as Mr Christodoulou rightly said, bring Europe closer to its citizens.
I have one specific question to the Commission, a question which I put two months ago in the debate in the plenary. If this institutional agreement is going to work in future, a lot will depend on the political imagination of the Commission.
Now that we are close to a result, can the Commissioner confirm that the Commission will always try in the future to propose a legal basis which is as useful as possible, to ensure that the codecision of Parliament is guaranteed?
Can it say that it will only use Article 235 in exceptional cases, because that article is a negation of parliamentary democracy? I cannot believe that the Commission - and especially this Commissioner, who is very much a democrat at heart - will ever use Article 235 to emasculate the powers of Parliament vis-à-vis the Council.
Mr President, the legal dogmatism of the Court of Justice resulted in the Commission blocking a hundred budget lines for a total amount of more than ECU 900 million.
This has led to the abandoning of many projects run by associations and NGOs in such sensitive areas as combating poverty and exclusion, development aid, the fight against racism, democracy and human rights.
The widespread mobilisation of the associations and NGOs, which our group brought to the attention of Parliament, made a considerable contribution to the interinstitutional agreement of 17 July which resolves the issue of the legal bases.
I welcome this agreement which, moreover, is of immediate application.
I regret, however, that projects for the benefit of elderly people and certain measures to combat poverty remain blocked, and would like to repeat the request already made so many times to the Council for it to adopt a new programme to combat poverty, in cooperation with humanitarian organisations.
The argument has been put to me in this House that, as the fight against poverty is a continuing one, it is not useful to grant appropriations in this field.
I find this argument unacceptable and invalid, as many associations are selflessly engaged in fighting this scourge.
I believe that this position should be reviewed and a new plan proposed in the fight against poverty.
To conclude, I would point out that the involvement of citizens in European mechanisms makes it possible to overcome obstacles and to arrive at solutions and that Parliament plays its role to the full when it sets aside specialist discussions and becomes the vehicle for the intervention and aspirations of our citizens.
Mr President, I too should like to endorse previous speakers' words of thanks.
I believe that this is a good agreement both for Mr Christodoulou and this House, and for the Commission and the Council.
Above all, I am pleased that Parliament was steadfast in its efforts to have the judgment of the Court of Justice recognised.
We were under extreme pressure from some non-governmental organisations to act as if this judgement did not exist.
I believe that the negotiations we had with the NGOs - the outside world in this case - on safeguarding the judgment contributed greatly to raising awareness of how we manage our money, and the fact that we do need legal bases for this.
All in all, I consider this to have been a success.
It still remains to be seen how far the agreement on legal bases will take us.
We in Parliament must now establish legal bases with the Council, and this makes us dependent, completely and utterly - as the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties intend - on the Commission's right of initiative.
That is why, Commissioner and Mr Christodoulou, I have tabled amendments pointing out that this interinstitutional agreement vests the Commission, as the initiator of legislation, with a huge responsibility, and that in the future this will force us to seek maximum powers of codecision for the Council and Parliament.
I look forward to working in cooperation with the Commission on this matter.
But let me now return to concerns related to the 1998 budget, which is quite rightly not covered by the future arrangements in the agreement, but does form part of the overall compromise.
Both before, but mainly after, the summer recess, I received a substantial number of telephone calls from people saying that their money had not arrived, even though the appropriations had been released.
In addition, there is still uncertainty about some areas, for example in my case about line B3-1000 and the European Youth Parliament.
I would be grateful, Commissioner, if you could give us some reassurance today that everything in your power is being done, and that by this evening, when we discuss this with our groups, we will, as Mr Wynn requested, have precise information about the parts of the budget which you do not envisage implementing, because the judgment simply makes it impossible to do so.
I believe that we need this clarity to be able to vote in favour of the agreement.
Mr President, as the longest-serving Member of this Parliament I remember a time when even before direct elections Commissioners assured us, and through us the citizens of Europe, that the Community institutions had a human face.
That will not be the case if these budget lines are blocked - it is as simple as that.
Think of it: the Foundation for Human Rights closed, NGO funding, abuse of children, the supervision of election procedures and the protection of minority languages, a subject dear to the heart of myself and John Hume who founded the budget line.
I am embarrassed to belong to a state that put this to the Court and caused it to happen.
I am amazed when Mr Wynn talks about speaking with two tongues.
Indeed, that is what he has done, because I was looking to a new government in Britain to change this and it has not!
It seems to be a government of much the same colour and speaking with two tongues.
There are over 30 minority languages that are a precious part of our common heritage, with their own literatures.
We have two in Scotland.
Blocking this is not going to give this Community a human face.
Mr President, I always like it when Terry Wynn speaks in tongues but I do not think it is Pentecost yet.
Mr President, I think we still have some difficulties with this first part.
Firstly the question of the legal basis. I agree with all those speakers who say that this is really an attack on the people's Europe.
There is no way the taxpayer is going to understand that a further 150 million guilders are being earmarked for PHARE, money which cannot be spent, whilst at the same time here we are rabbiting on about a few million in relation to the legal basis.
Mr President, I think we have to accept this agreement now, although I have serious doubts as to whether we can implement it easily, since the sums it contains are smaller than those which Parliament thinks are necessary.
We shall have to see how that can be resolved.
We have to take a decision on the matter and we must not make too much it one way or another.
We must simply share the damage out fairly.
The problem, as I see it, is this. As it happens, you are one of the leading lawyers in this House, but the fact is that the Treaty did not allow for this whole problem of legal bases.
The legal basis crept in via the Financial Regulation and the Council's efforts to blackmail Parliament.
That is how it entered the equation.
The lawyers then set to and in effect made a real dog's breakfast of it.
The matter could have been resolved in other ways which would have been perfectly acceptable from a legal point of view.
We now find ourselves in problematic situations of having to give a legal basis, on which in fact only the Council can rule, when we as Parliament have full budgetary powers, at any rate as regards non-compulsory expenditure.
That is an unacceptable state of affairs but we have to live with it for the sake of the people's Europe, in order to salvage something at least.
I accept this with a heavy heart, both as an MEP and a lawyer.
Mr President, the confidence our citizens have in the European Union ultimately depends on how well the EU can address the real, everyday problems people have.
Unfortunately, this trust has never been great.
The decision of the Court of Justice last spring, which was followed by the Commission's decision to freeze funds, caused this trust to slump even further.
While a legal base makes it possible to pour millions of ecus into the EMU campaign, funds for the national organisations were frozen.
Our citizens cannot understand why a legal base allows money to be spent on campaigns such as this, but does not make it possible to spend money on national organisations, the prevention of poverty, on organisations for the disabled, or for example on the promotion of minority languages, which is a very important issue.
I think it is extremely important that an interinstitutional agreement is realised soon.
I also hope that Council will listen to Parliament this time more closely than it has done hitherto.
Unfortunately, the situation has often been that it has been easier for Parliament to get agreement with the Commission than with the Council on matters that have to be dealt with.
Hopefully the Austrian Presidency will now find a solution to this difficult problem.
Mr President, I too should like to echo those who have complimented Mr Christodoulou on his report. He has, I believe, addressed one of the most complex issues we have had to deal with for a long time, and one which is very difficult to explain to the outside world.
This is something we have also felt during discussions in committee.
I would just like to comment briefly on some of the agreement's implications, which I would ask the Council and the Commission not to overlook, as they could affect our work in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, in particular our work in the field of democracy and human rights, but also our relations with Asia and Latin America.
Democracy and human rights - already referred to this morning - are, more than anything else, of central importance to the Commission's future policies - and I am addressing the Commission directly here - precisely because this is an area where the European Union really does come into direct contact with people.
Through NGOs, it deploys citizens from a wide variety of fields, on the one hand, as it were, to work for the EU and, on the other, to help those in need, or - and this is at least as important - to raise awareness of democracy and the rule of law throughout the world.
We hope that the legal bases established will be clear enough for these programmes to continue, and when they do - this is my request of the Commission, Mr Liikanen - there should be less bureaucracy, and hence lower administrative costs; more expertise on some individual issues; and perhaps also less cost to the EU - in short, there should be greater transparency.
We support the Committee on Budgets' non-selective approach in this matter, but we would like to ask you not to disregard these problems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased that you welcome this agreement.
I should like to make one remark, however, in response to some of the opinions you have expressed. I do not agree that the Council can only come to decisions - and in this case did come to a decision - when it is under pressure.
I really must refute this; I can tell you that the judgment of the Court of Justice put the Council in a very good position, and that the judgment was not the reason for the Council making a particular effort to resolve this issue very quickly together with Parliament and the Commission.
We felt compelled to do this for two quite different reasons.
The first was raised by many of you, namely the fact that this decision was important to many people in Europe, because the implementation of budget lines was at stake.
That is why it was a matter of concern for the Council to find a solution.
The second reason is that this has already remained an open question between Parliament, the Council and the Commission for around 15 years, and has hindered cooperation between the institutions.
It was also for these reasons, I believe, that it was high time to find a solution.
That is why I am very glad that one has been found, and I hope it will meet with your definitive agreement.
Mr President, the draft agreement on legal bases which the institutions reached on 17 July 1998 is a remarkable achievement, and not merely because it is the first agreement since the 1982 Joint Declaration, which turned out to be unworkable.
This is not because large sums of money are involved - those Members who mentioned this point were quite right.
The amounts concerned have always been a small proportion of the Community budget.
It is remarkable because progress has for once been made across the minefield of institutional competences.
The agreement strengthens interinstitutional confidence at the outset of the negotiations for the next interinstitutional agreement.
I must also congratulate the Austrian presidency for the great efforts it made on this issue.
At the same time, in this context, it is greatly to be welcomed that the British Government has decided to withdraw all pending court cases against the implementation of the Community budget.
The winners from the agreement are not only the institutions but, above all, the programmes and the hundreds of organizations concerned.
We have seen a particularly active period of non-governmental pressure groups around the Commission and the institutions.That clearly showed the importance of the actions concerned.
In the future these organisations can be sure that once an amount is entered in the budget the implementation of the budget line will not be challenged.
Some of the actions have to be redefined and not all may be continued for ever.
Such decisions in the future will be taken on the basis of clear budgetary and legislative procedures.
Our partners will be able to rely on the outcome.
The Commission is ready to sign the agreement.
The list of specific powers of the Commission annexed to the agreement is correct.
It can always be augmented in future preliminary draft budgets.
I want to emphasise this.
The autonomy of the Commission is not affected by the agreement.
As far as the budget for 1999 is concerned, the preliminary draft budget is compatible with the agreed ceilings.
With regard to the 1998 budget, the remaining budget lines have been unblocked over the last few weeks.
We have given you information on these particular budget lines.
An ad hoc agreement on 17 July permitted in addition an immediate re-opening of several particularly sensitive budget lines, e.g. the fight against violence towards women and children, actions against illegal content on the Internet and actions for human rights and democracy.
The conclusion of the legislative procedures for a voluntary youth service and for NGOs in third countries has cleared the way for the implementation of these programmes.
Adoption of further legal bases appear imminent.
With regard to the budget lines to combat social exclusion, which were at the heart of the conflict, the Commission is dealing with this issue at its meeting tomorrow.
It will decide on a communication which proposes to re-orient the lines towards preparatory actions for programmes on the basis of the Amsterdam Treaty.
With this re-orientation, which I hope will be decided tomorrow, they can be re-launched immediately.
If, after all this, an action remains blocked or partially blocked, the Commission will fully respect legitimate expectations and will also protect existing investments.
The indications from its services are that out of ECU 870m originally blocked for lack of a legal basis, only some ECU 30m may not be implemented by the end of the year for that reason.
Obviously some problems remain in the transition to the new regime.
Some are inevitable, as the ruling of the Court prevents the Commission from pretending that nothing has happened.
But joint efforts have succeeded in limiting the problems to the minimum, and from next year the implementation of the budget will be on firm ground.
I will now reply to the questions put by honourable Members.
Mr Wynn and Mrs Müller asked about budget line B-5321 on the social economy.
There is no current legal basis, but we are now considering the possibility of a transfer of these funds to budget line B-5512 (employment initiative) which makes possible a similar type of action.
Mr Wynn's other two questions are not connected with budget lines B 7851 and B 7852.
It is very easy to understand for someone who does not follow the budget.
Anyhow, these proposals for legal bases are with the Council, and I hope the presidency will make a major effort to accelerate the procedure, especially for the budget line concerning export promotion and Japan, which has turned out to be very useful.
Thirdly, in reply to Mr Tillich, our services must work on the basis of the decisions which have been taken.
I would say to honourable Members who have been contacted by organisations, etc; please get in touch directly with the services concerned.
That is the best way to guarantee rapid action.
The basic framework concerning the Commission has now been solved.
I have good news for Mrs Ewing on the matter of minority languages and she can have some warm words for the Commission.
Today we have been able to implement the budget line for minority languages practically in full.
A sum of ECU 400 000 is still in the reserve thanks to the European Parliament.
I am ready to propose that the Commission should very soon transfer it and if Mrs Ewing can convince her colleagues in Parliament to accept that transfer the problem will no longer be there.
I would conclude by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Christodoulou, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, and the President-in-Office, Mr Ruttenstorfer, for the extraordinary efforts they have made to achieve this historic agreement.
Motor vehicle emissions - Quality of petrol and diesel fuels
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. I believe that this is an issue where the European Parliament has bravely taken the helm, negotiated the obstacles and set a course for environmentally friendly mobility.
After hard, but honest negotiations in the Conciliation Committee, we have a result on the table.
That is why I should like to thank all those involved for their tough, but also unbureaucratic approach towards the negotiations.
It was not all hard work; there were also some more lighthearted moments.
The Commission, too, is happy with the result.
Hence the fact that it has given Parliament the opportunity to take the helm here; otherwise, the Commission could of course have taken the floor first to present this excellent result.
We are in fact on the right track.
We have taken the first step and successfully completed the first phase; passenger vehicles, light commercial vehicles and fuels.
The next obstacles, the next phases, lie just around the corner: reducing CO2 emissions from cars, and then from heavy commercial vehicles - and let us not forget motorcycles either - in order to guarantee environmentally acceptable mobility.
It is a fact that 80 % of journeys are made in cars.
Whether you like it or not, that is the reality!
In the long term, we certainly need to set ourselves new targets, but for now we need ways to make cars cleaner.
I believe the result achieved by Parliament in the negotiations to be a success on two counts: firstly, from the point of view of improved air quality and employment in Europe; secondly from an institutional point of view.
Firstly, on improving air quality: we have succeeded in introducing mandatory standards - stricter than anywhere else in the world - for passenger vehicles and light goods vehicles for the years 2000 and 2005.
We have succeeded - and I believe that this is almost even more important - not only in making procedures for registering new vehicles more stringent, but also in making sure that cars already on the road really do produce lower emissions throughout their lives, and not only when they are first registered.
To this end, we have tightened up the provisions on the durability of emissions control devices.
They have to be effective for 80 000 km or 100 000 km respectively.
They are continually monitored by an on-board diagnostic system and, if Member States are suspicious, they may also carry out in-use tests to guarantee durability.
All of this has been arranged so that there is nothing to stand in the way of free servicing or repairs, or the activities of automobile associations.
And this means that small and medium-sized businesses can also be involved in this process.
I believe that stabilising small and medium-sized businesses in this sector constitutes a further achievement, to add to those contained in the test itself.
The legislation as a whole has side-effects on employment.
This legislation to improve air quality will have a direct and unprecedented effect on the number of jobs created in the motor vehicle industry.
The statistics capture this very well: in this field alone, up to 6 % of jobs will disappear.
In the catalytic converter industry, 15 000 new posts have been created.
This is, therefore, a success because air quality will be improved, but also because jobs will be safeguarded and the sector's performance levels raised throughout the European Union.
I spoke earlier of a success on two counts.
This is also a success for our institution.
Parliament has bravely taken the helm in environment policy; it has combined three complicated directives in one package, dealt with them together, and resisted many attempts by lobbyists to exert influence.
I tell you, it has passed the elk test and has not turned over, and has added essential improvements to the texts.
On a list of 22 demands, only three are marked 'no'.
In every other field, Parliament has won through to a greater, or sometimes a rather lesser extent, but it has always won through.
We were quick, so you see Parliament not only works hard, but also quickly.
Suffice it to say that the second readings were on 17 February and, for light commercial vehicles, 30 April.
Incidentally, for the light commercial vehicles, the second reading only took one month, from 30 March to 30 April.
Today, we have the result.
Indeed, the conclusions of the Conciliation Committee were available as early as 29 June.
Parliament works fast.
Perhaps that may serve as a small example to all the European institutions.
Overall, this result is a success, a success because it will improve air quality and a success for our institution.
I am also pleased, and rather proud, that the comments about this legislation in the European press have been rather different from the usual negative headlines we are sadly so used to seeing in connection with other European matters.
A major German magazine carried an article about this legislation bearing the headline 'Good news from Brussels'.
That's the way it should be!
(Laughter and applause)
Thank you for that piece of good news, Mr Lange.
Mr President, I can confirm everything the other rapporteur, Mr Lange, has just said.
The conciliation was very constructive, and to some extent we even enjoyed it.
Now and then I, at least, could not help identifying with our opposing side, that is to say the Council.
So I can confirm that we worked in real partnership and both sides argued in favour of the proposals, and the discussion was at times at an intelligently high level.
I would sincerely like to thank all my colleagues for their cooperation and the spirit in which they worked to make it possible to carry forward this proposal in Parliament.
Its basis was the fact that the Commission two years ago proposed binding conditions for the quality of fuels only for the year 2000.
Parliament has improved on the Commission's original proposals quite considerably in cooperation with the Council.
We wanted binding conditions for quality for the year 2005 too, so that the consumer would be reassured that the air would really become cleaner, and so that industry would be able to invest with confidence.
In the end we got the proposal through.
The Conciliation Committee pushed through the proposal for binding conditions for fuel quality for the year 2005 as well.
We think this is very important because this really means that industry can concentrate on producing cleaner industrial technology.
This is vital for the car industry, as the car industry needs cleaner fuels to be able to keep up with the ever more stringent calls for cleaner exhaust emissions, but it is also important for the oil industry.
The legislative authority has now said what is expected of the oil industry by the year 2005.
At times we had the distinct impression during the process that the oil industry wished to blame Parliament for the structural problems there might consequently be in this sector of industry.
But we succeeded in showing that in fact it was high time the oil industry was also called upon to invest in cleaner technologies.
If there was overcapacity, at least more stringent environmental demands could not be blamed for everything.
During the conciliation process, we also managed to change the Commission's approach to the Auto-Oil programme.
Originally, we thought we would be starting with a very narrow cost-effectiveness analysis, but Parliament and various other national players brought other economic arguments to the discussion.
We were also able to show that costs sustained out of human illness have to be taken into account in the figures.
In this way we were widening the whole approach, as it were.
We believe that if the Auto-Oil programme continues in the Commission, the approach will now be crucially different from what it was at the outset.
The effects of this decision will be visible very early on, because cleaner fuels will be coming onto the market by the beginning of the year 2000.
This is a very clear signal to the market that these cleaner fuels are actually being awaited.
During the conciliation process, we also established that the Commission should in future turn its attention more positively to the question of tax incentives, which Member States will possibly wish to employ to encourage the use of cleaner fuels.
In this way, we hope that the quality of the air will start to improve very soon after this decision has come into force.
It will also obviously affect older vehicles.
I would strongly urge the European Parliament to approve this fuels package.
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the two rapporteurs and the other people who have been involved in the conciliation.
They have produced an excellent result which I hope will have the full support of Parliament today.
The proposal will ensure that this programme will make all European towns and cities better places to live and work and healthier places to bring up our children and go about our daily lives.
Towns from Aberdeen to Athens will be cleaner and healthier places to live.
In ten years' time there will be fewer people - children and older people - suffering from asthma caused by car fumes if the targets of this Auto-Oil programme are met.
At the same time, we are going to see a significant contribution made to reducing the damage caused to crops by pollution.
This is indeed a very useful package protecting the environment and public health.
We were very ambitious right from the beginning, wanting to be sure that the motor companies made cleaner, more efficient engines and obliging the oil companies to make cleaner petrol and diesel, whilst at the same time getting rid of leaded fuel.
This proposal has many beneficial effects and, although concern has been expressed about the cost, it is not great.
We have seen various studies.
But we can best explain it if we say that for the average motorist driving the average car in Europe it will cost only Ecu 5 to Ecu 8 more every year to realise the full benefits of this package.
Surely that is a price every motorist - and we are all motorists - believes is worth paying.
From the very beginning we have been determined to ensure that the burden is fairly divided between the oil industry and the car industry.
That has been difficult to determine at times, with all the different lobbying and conflicting information.
But I am now convinced that we have reached an equitable balance.
The car industry will have to change; it will have to bring in new models that are more efficient, cleaner and burn less fuel.
At the same time, the oil industry will produce cleaner fuels; indeed some of them are waiting for the deadlines.
I understand some of them are already putting cleaner fuels on the market now that comply with the specification we have demanded.
It is quite clear they are able to do that.
There may be restructuring in the oil industry in the next few years, but that will take place not as a consequence of the AutoOil programme but as a consequence of more general changes in the European economy.
Finally, this is an excellent example of how, when the Council, the Commission and Parliament all work together and reach a consensus through conciliation we can make a serious legislative impact that affects the lives of all the people of Europe.
We should be proud that we have managed to achieve this in this package.
I would urge all of my colleagues to support it.
Mr President. I should like to congratulate Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala on their reports.
I am not at all surprised to see so many Members jumping for joy today, but I do not wish to mark my agreement in such unqualified terms, because from an institutional point of view, I do not believe that this procedure was such a breakthrough.
Mr Bowe has just given me a cue, which means that I will have to restructure my whole speech.
You just said that the oil industry has announced today that it has had the fuels we are demanding for the years 2000 and 2005 for a long time.
This is the whole point.
Unfortunately, people forget all too often that, if a car is to produce clean exhaust emissions, it has to run on high-quality fuel. That is exactly what we did not manage to achieve in the Conciliation Committee, because the committee was under pressure of time.
It should all have come under consideration on 28 June; it had something to do with the Council presidency, and of course we were happy to do our bit to bolster a Council presidency.
It was a shame, because it would have allowed us to show those responsible for fuels in the Commission that we were prepared to take them on.
We would have been able to show the lobbyists that something which they had thought was completely impossible at the time - I put that on record at the reading here - was actually possible.
You admitted as much as soon as the meeting of the Conciliation Committee was over.
We in Parliament all showed weakness in this regard.
That should not happen again.
The oil industry is experiencing difficulties, not because of European standards, but because of structural problems and many other factors.
I do believe, however, that we have taken a step forward.
There are 200 million motor vehicles in Europe, and my group is firmly in favour of mobility, in contrast to the Green Members.
They would prefer to abolish mobility.
That is the prerequisite of this single market: mobility of persons, goods, products and services.
And because this is what we want, we need highquality fuels, so that we have clean engines and clean exhaust emissions.
There have been some improvements.
On-board diagnostic systems have in no way resulted in car bonnets being locked electronically, as we had feared. This would have prevented medium-sized businesses from carrying out repairs.
I am glad that the testing procedures have been improved.
I am glad that medium-sized businesses will, in many cases, have access to this market.
All in all, the battle is won, but in the future we must show a greater willingness to take on those who are working with us on this European project, so that we can be even more successful for the sake of our children, because they need a healthy environment.
Mr President, I too must start by congratulating Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange most sincerely on this result.
It is largely thanks to them that we have achieved these results, this progress towards better air quality in Europe.
For my part, I believe this is the best thing the European Parliament has done in this area over the last four years.
We have achieved quite a lot in the last four years.
We have of course had to compromise, but the compromises reached have been more in our favour than that of the automobile and oil industry.
In other words, we have won.
Mr Lange has already outlined what has been achieved. I shall not repeat him.
But when I look at the response of the automobile and petroleum industry to what the Council, Commission and Parliament have achieved by their joint endeavour and compare that with the attitude the industry was taking a year ago, there is a very marked difference.
The loud protest we were hearing a year ago has died down in the face of our shared determination to bring about an improvement in air quality.
That is what happens when the European Parliament speaks clearly and unequivocally. We were able to approve the amendments by an overwhelming majority.
I shall not go into the results in detail but I would like to say just one thing: the best result of all, I think, is that we have managed to make the limit values for both fuel content and vehicle emissions mandatory for the year 2005.
That will be a good basis for further agreements.
So we shall be more than happy to vote in favour.
Just one remark to end with, Mr President: I am less happy with the Commission, but we shall doubtless come back to that when we talk about the agreement with the motor vehicle industry concerning CO2 emissions.
That is part of the Auto/Oil programme with which I as an individual member and my group are less pleased, but as I say we shall come back to that.
Lastly, a word to my fellow members of Parliament.
I noted that a good many MEPs were absent from the conciliation procedure.
I found it humiliating to be facing a Council of 15 ambassadors, with just four, five or six people on Parliament's side.
So this is a word of exhortation to the House. Since we have this power of codecision, we should put in an appearance and use it.
Mr President, the Hautala dossier contains three directives, on the quality of fuels and the reduction of exhaust gas emissions from motor vehicles and light commercial vehicles.
The compromise proposed in this joint proposal was achieved following a conciliation procedure and reached after two months of negotiations.
The agreement is based on the levels adopted by the Council for the years 2000 and 2005, but the European Parliament has managed to make them mandatory for 2005 rather than guide levels.
With regard to the Hautala report, the principal issue was the compulsory reduction in sulphur content.
The levels for the year 2000 for unleaded petrol and diesel remain the same as in the Council's common position, which nevertheless includes a European Parliament amendment designed to increase the maximum oxygen content of unleaded petrol.
The specifications for 2005 make the Council's levels obligatory.
For diesel, the sulphur content will be reduced to 5 ppm, a reduction which will be rendered mandatory in the year 2005, whereas the Council simply wanted to start reducing the sulphur content from the year 2005.
For unleaded petrol, the European Parliament has accepted the levels proposed by the Council while making them obligatory.
In addition, for these two fuels, the Council has accepted the principle proposed by the European Parliament to authorise the early introduction, in the year 2000, of petrol and diesel fuels which satisfy the specifications which will be binding from 2005.
In a statement appended to the text, the Commission also indicates its intention to speed up procedures authorising tax incentives for clean fuels.
On this occasion, exemptions are only authorised for sulphur content, until 2003, by way of derogation from the specifications which otherwise apply from the year 2000, and until 2007 by way of derogation from the specifications which otherwise apply for 2005, while therefore respecting the minimum levels stipulated for the year 2000.
Finally, the Commission has also issued a statement indicating that it would consider whether clean fuel is available in sufficient quantities before granting exemptions.
The joint proposal can therefore be seen as acceptable to the extent that it guarantees the presence of superior quality fuel from the year 2005, or even from the year 2000.
Turning to the Lange reports, the text concerns both motor vehicles and light commercial vehicles.
The maximum levels are those proposed by the Council and obligatory from 2005.
Instruments for checking anti-pollution equipment, with which all diesel and petrol vehicles must be fitted, will be available to all garage owners, while the car industry wanted to limit access to authorised dealers.
The same applies to cold starting tests.
As we know that cold starting produces more pollution, we must remain particularly firm on this point.
To conclude, this joint proposal is acceptable to our group.
It has also been approved by all the Member States and the car industry.
Mr President, I naturally welcome this compromise text which resulted from many conciliation meetings and of course congratulate the two rapporteurs on their excellent work.
The European Parliament has shown real determination in the way it has handled this sensitive issue by pushing its environmental demands to the limit while always remaining within the realms of the possible and the realistic.
Negotiations between Parliament, the Commission and the Council, and all those involved in and concerned by this issue, should serve as a lesson to us all.
For myself, and I am by no means a newcomer to Parliament, they have served as a lesson on the conciliation procedure.
My hope is that the discussions which are now to begin on CO2 will go equally well.
I therefore propose that the House should give its full support to this text which, in itself, represents considerable progress.
Progress in reducing the sulphur content of fuels, progress in banning leaded petrol and progress in introducing engine technologies which permit the use of fuels with a low sulphur content.
All of this will bring a concrete change to the everyday lives of the Union's citizens.
The task now is to make known these decisions which provide the beginnings of an answer to the air pollution which has become the major challenge for this turn of the century.
In our countries and our constituencies we must lay to rest certain accepted ideas.
I am thinking in particular of the poor image of diesel.
Although this image was justified in the past, we must now acknowledge the huge progress made by car manufacturers to comply with European standards.
We must consider how to make the people and the media understand that, in future, clean diesel will cause less pollution than unleaded petrol. We must do so in cooperation with the car and oil indutries.
The response to this technological challenge does credit to our engineers.
Finally, Mr President, we will not have brought any real solutions to the problem of car pollution until we have dealt with the problem of rejuvenating the fleet.
We all know that this is a major challenge as 20 % of cars are responsible for about 80 % of all car pollution.
We must therefore find new and original measures which do not repeat the mistakes made in France.
It is not a question of making aid dependent upon the purchase of a new vehicle but upon getting rid of the old one, the funding principally coming from Europe.
I am thinking of the LIFE programme for example.
This measure will boost Europe's popularity.
Of that I am sure, being aware of its cost. But rather than constantly depleting our resources by providing a sprinkling here and there, I am convinced that it is politically important to be able, on occasion, to make a big gesture.
Mr President, sincere congratulations to Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange, the rapporteurs, who together with Mr Kenneth Collins have secured an excellent result.
Air pollution is a particularly intractable problem which needs to be tackled using an integrated, systematic and multidisciplinary approach.
It has direct implications for the health of humans, plants and animals.
In the longer term, the threat to the environment will be worldwide, as a result of acidification and climate change.
Consequently, the importance of legislation aimed at cleaner fuels and cleaner vehicles cannot be underestimated.
The outcome of the negotiations which we now have is a resounding success for a European Parliament which has singlemindedly succeeded in setting limit values for vehicle emissions and the quality of petrol and diesel fuels for the year 2005 and beyond.
The Council too, and specifically the UK Presidency, are to be congratulated on this result.
Proper arguments were brought to bear and swift progress was made.
But pleased as we are by this result, it is only one part of the problem, namely air pollution from traffic and transport; rapidly increasing mobility will quickly cancel out the benefit gained.
That calls for a policy on mobility which is geared to sustainable development.
The automobile and petroleum industries now face the major challenge of giving further thought, together with environmental and consumer organisations, to a sustainable technology which can responsibly accommodate the need for mobility.
It is my hope and my expectation that the Council, the Commission and Parliament will be ready to stimulate the debate on this and provide funding for the research that is needed.
Mr President, introducing mandatory limit values for fuels and vehicle emissions throughout Europe will certainly make an essential contribution to keeping our air clean.
The rapporteurs are to be congratulated, above all for their persistence in gaining acceptance of their views.
Of course, the derogation clauses hurt.
In the future, we will have to press for these derogations to be as limited as possible.
Such caution is well advised, as any member of this House knows who was besieged by lobbyists in the run-up to our debates on this directive.
The agreement on the use of on-board diagnostic systems is also gratifying; it constitutes a workable compromise between consumer interests and control systems.
The right of individual Member States to grant preferential tax treatment for earlier improvements should become a major pillar of European environment policy; at some point in the future, this should be taken as a matter of course and no longer have to be negotiated separately.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate the rapporteurs, and thank all those who served on the Conciliation Committee.
Their task has not been easy, and they have completed it quickly and successfully.
I would, however, like to introduce one further point into the debate.
The Auto-Oil package has, I believe, allowed us to prove for the first time that modern industrial policy is really environment policy. Only by taking account of the environment and recognising the need both to preserve the natural foundations of human life and to protect human health from possible damage can an industrial policy be formulated which will be valid for ten, twenty or fifty years, rather than just one or two.
I believe that we should take this as an example and examine the possibility of putting together similar packages in other sectors.
I think the chemical industry would be very much in favour of a one-off comprehensive regulation, which would allow it to initiate and plan its long-term development - again, not just for the next few years, but for the next ten, twenty or thirty years. It would thus develop in a way consistent with the principle of sustainability, something we have already discussed on many occasions and enshrined in all the Treaties.
A package of this kind makes it possible to balance out interests; it makes it possible to show clearly how the various industries involved in production interact, and to weigh them up against each other; it makes it possible to initiate developments which must, as in the case of Auto-Oil, be undertaken by the motor industry and the fuel industry together.
These are the methods we should adopt, and we should apply them to several sectors. I believe that this is the real policy of the future, industrial policy coupled with environment policy, or rather environment policy which determines industrial policy.
I should not, of course, like to miss this opportunity to note that one of the derogations granted to Austria in the negotiations was extended as part of this package. It means that we will not contravene Union legislation next year either, because we may continue to use fuels with a low benzene content.
One final comment: this was a first step; further steps - also in the field of development and mobility - will follow. They must, for the future of our industry and, above all, for the future of our people.
Mr President, the European Union and the Member States must work closely together and liaise with Europe's motor and oil industries at all times so as to guarantee that pollution is defeated once and for all in the near future.
If the overall social, human and environmental benefits of clean air are to be achieved then strict standards for reducing air pollution must be an imperative.
It is only right and proper that changes be introduced in a structured and coherent manner.
Europe's motor and oil industries must be able to comply with clearly defined targets in any new legislation, to ensure that they can plan in confidence for the next generation of motor vehicles and invest in better refineries.
On reducing exhaust emissions from passenger cars, I support the proposal that systems be installed in new cars from the year 2000 onward to monitor the durability of anti-pollution equipment in passenger vehicles.
Anti-pollution devices must remain effective for at least 80 000 km or five years from the year 2000 onwards, and for at least 100 000 km from 2005.
Tax incentives must be used to encourage the early introduction of vehicles containing advanced anti-pollution equipment.
I also support the proposed directive to improve the quality of petrol and diesel fuels in Europe.
By means of this directive no leaded petrol will be sold anywhere in Europe after January 2000, except where severe socio-economic problems would arise.
Moreover, unleaded petrol and diesel sold after 1 January 2000 will also have to comply with the new environmental specifications.
As a result of this new directive there will be a threefold reduction in the sulphur content of petrol in cars and a seven-fold reduction in the sulphur content of diesel by 2005.
I would like to congratulate the decision of the European Automobile Manufacturers Association to accept a timetable to cut CO2 emissions in new cars by 25 % by the year 2000.
The fact that the Commission does not have to bring forward legislation to push this issue through is an indication that the way forward is by consultation between all the interested parties.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thanks are due to both our rapporteurs.
I have drafted quite a few reports in my time, but I have never before experienced such a good level of cooperation, producing work with such solid technical foundations, which has been presented in such a comradely spirit!
For more than two years, since the Commission tabled its draft directive, the introduction of clean fuels has been under discussion in Europe.
Parliament has given its views on two occasions, clearly stating what is at stake.
Clean fuels directly contribute to reducing air pollution.
Clean fuels allow modern technology to be used in car engines, which will likewise lead to a substantial reduction in fuel consumption.
It will be remembered that several people were rather unwilling to accept this, and obstinately declared during the course of the negotiations that Parliament's aspirations were unfeasible and far too expensive.
Today, it gives us great satisfaction to hear that several oil companies want to put new fuels on the market as early as the year 2000, fuels which meet the specifications of the 2005 standard as they stand following conciliation.
Obviously, the positive outcome of the conciliation is already bearing fruit, even before entering into force.
The result of the conciliation is a good one.
Above all, the Parliament delegation has managed to gain acceptance of two important proposals.
The specifications for the year 2005 are not mere indicative values; they are mandatory.
In addition, it is also possible to phase in more stringent specifications earlier and, as we have just heard, there are already plans to do so.
The fact that the Council presidencies vied with each other to announce the result of the conciliation can certainly be regarded in a positive light, but even so, this sort of thing should not happen again: if we run short of time, we should not allow some issues to be dropped from the agenda just for the sake of producing a result.
A proportion of 30 ppm of lubricant film in fuel is still a target we should be aiming for, and our specifying 50 ppm at this stage will certainly not delay the development of modern technologies.
That is the upper limit value, after all, and there is nothing to stop people providing better fuels.
The motor vehicle industry is now being asked to lead the way in reducing CO2 emissions in Europe.
That it should do so by means of a voluntary agreement is something which Parliament has already criticised on several occasions.
This is not so much because we are questioning whether the 120 g CO2 /km now on the table is sufficient - I think we can live with that - but because the whole procedure seems to me to be rather lacking in transparency.
We should be aware that such an agreement is replacing a proper legislative procedure, i.e. the adoption of a directive by codecision.
I am rather sceptical about whether this Europe-wide test of voluntary agreements will be successful in terms of CO2 reductions.
All those involved should realise what is at stake here.
If it became necessary to take fiscal measures to reach the targets we have agreed, then I would consider this method to have failed.
Even though we have the possibility of cooperating by adopting legislation on monitoring, we should make it clear that voluntary agreements of this kind should be the exception where the environment is concerned.
Mr President, we are now witnessing the culmination of a long process, the results of which will have a major impact on human health and the environment.
What Parliament did in tightening up the provisions of the Commission's Auto/Oil proposal will, I am sure, be vindicated as wise and balanced. Stricter requirements are to be applied to vehicle specifications and fuel quality by the years 2000 and 2005.
Member States will also be able to introduce economic incentives to speed progress towards a better environment.
Higher quality fuels automatically lead to lower toxic emissions and encourage the development of catalytic converters for larger diesel engines.
Huge reductions in nitrogen emissions can then be achieved.
Let me use this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteurs on their sterling work.
Mrs Hautala perhaps had the toughest task, but the outcome of her endeavours demonstrates that the EU institutions can work together in the interest of the environment. The overall result is greater than the sum of individual efforts could ever be.
Yet we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. We must build on our success and push ahead along the road towards safer and more environmentally friendly motor cars.
A pro-active approach to the question of fuel consumption can pay dividends.
It should be possible to bring about a 25 % reduction in fuel use by as early as 2005.
In the longer term we are certain to see breakthroughs for the electric and the hybrid car - the latter running on a combination of electric power and internal combustion.
The challenge here is how to produce more electricity without creating greenhouse and other gases.
We should be looking to hydroelectric, wind and nuclear sources.
Mr President, in ten years' time, pollution from the Community's motor vehicles will have been reduced by a total of 70 % compared to what it was in 1990.
That will be the outcome when the package of the Conciliation Committee, covering cars, light commercial vehicles and fuels, is adopted.
It is a major victory, first and foremost for the environment and for the citizens of Europe.
It is a legislative package which, by improving air quality in Europe, will contribute significantly to raising the quality of life of our citizens.
The package is a shining example of how the Community can achieve decisive results for the benefit of the population of Europe.
And, make no mistake, they are results which the Member States could never have achieved on their own.
The package is also a unique example of how we can succeed - if only the will is there - in combining ambitious legislation with the concern to safeguard a competitive European industry.
The package will ensure that not only will industry be able to maintain its position on the European domestic market, it will also hold its own with the best in the world.
I therefore think that it is appropriate today to congratulate Parliament's negotiators, and that applies especially to the two rapporteurs, Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala, who have done an excellent job, but there is also good reason to thank Mrs Fontaine and Mr Collins for their efforts in the conciliation negotiations.
Such a result could - as you all know - only have been achieved thanks to a major, well targeted and competent effort on the part of all concerned, including of course the Council under the British Presidency.
Parliament has obtained quite significant concessions from the Council of Ministers in a range of important areas, such as comitology, mandatory standards for 2005 covering the main parameters, bringing forward the requirement for on-board diagnostic systems in diesel and light commercial vehicles, the early and gradual phasing-in of cleaner fuels and many other things.
In addition, it is a package which is secured for the future, a point that many speakers mentioned in the debate.
It contains provisions which will ensure that emission and fuel requirements beyond the year 2005 will be reviewed in the light of developments in air quality standards and technological possibilities offered by new fuels and propulsion systems in the future.
I must confess that, when I put forward the Auto-Oil package on behalf of the Commission two years ago, I did not think that we would make such progress in such a short time, and I have to thank Parliament for that.
The package is of course a compromise and it was therefore only to be expected that not everyone would achieve what they wanted in every detail.
Viewed as a whole, however, there is no doubt in my mind that the package represents such significant progress that it cannot but be adopted.
It is a particular pleasure for me therefore, on behalf of the Commission, to be able to recommend this ambitious package for adoption.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
The sitting will be suspended until voting time, since there would be little point in starting the next debate and then interrupting it after a quarter of an hour.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.40 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon)
VOTES
There is nothing new about attempts to legislate on the legal protection of designs and models, the first proposal for Community legislation dating back to 1993.
As legal traditions in this field are very different, if not divergent, it has been very difficult to arrive at a common position of the Council.
The major practical problem was that of protecting designs of spare parts used in repairs, which created difficulties for many industrial sectors.
The questions raised were so sensitive that the Council finally gave up trying to harmonise the rules.
Whereas some saw this as the antithesis of the single market, I believe it is more reasonable to view it as indicative of the limits to harmonisation.
It is impossible to harmonise all the legislation of 15 countries with their different legal traditions, and it will become even more impossible when the European Union is enlarged to include Eastern European countries which, until recently, were governed by totalitarian communist regimes.
We must not be frightened by this.
Competition can support legislative differences and it is pure fancy to seek a total uniformity which virtually amounts to a fossilising of the law.
Remember that the United States has very different legislation in its various states, and that does not seem to have caused any particular economic weakness!
However, Parliament had wished to include in the directive a 'compensation clause' which would have applied a system which my group and myself judged to be too complex and above all extremely difficult to implement.
This remains our position, and we considered at the time that the Council had been right to oppose this clause.
As no agreement was reached, a conciliation procedure was opened.
At the end of the day, the compensation clause was not adopted, which seems perfectly reasonable to us as it created great legal uncertainty for designers.
The solution adopted was to 'freeze' the legal situation of the Member States while allowing them to evolve in the direction of more flexible protection.
Once the directive is amended, spare parts manufacturers and constructors will be invited to conclude a voluntary agreement on the protection of drawings and spare parts, which we believe is a better solution than compulsory uniformity.
In fact, although we did not vote for this report, this was solely because we were opposed to the compensation clause as it had been formulated. We had not in any way lost faith in what is a successful outcome to the conciliation procedure.
In any event, and although I disagree with the rapporteur on this question, I would like to pay tribute to his work and to the conviction he has shown, even if this has not convinced us that the compensation clause is well founded.
Like my colleagues, I voted in favour of the Conciliation Committee's report on the draft directive concerning the legal protection of designs.
I would like to make it clear, however, that I regret that Parliament's discussion was confined to the economic and financial interests of the car spare parts industry, while existing legal problems were not considered.
Although I welcome the material effect of Parliament's proposed 'repairs clause' as being in the interests of the consumer, introducing it would have thrown all the principles of intellectual property protection overboard.
This compromise also gives us grounds to hope for a legally sound solution in the long term.
I am in full support of effective protection of designs in the EU Member States.
It is a positive development that the legal obstacles to the free exchange of designs are now being removed.
This initiative is absolutely essential to the maintenance of free competition on the internal market.
The fact that there was nevertheless substantial opposition to the directive is due to the disagreement over freedom to protect designs for spare parts.
I myself consistently advocated the view that there should be unimpeded freedom without remuneration to produce and use nonoriginal spare parts with no time-lag for the spare-part manufacturers.
The compromise represented by the text of the Conciliation Committee does not entirely accommodate this view, but I hope that in the longer term it will be possible to achieve improved rules in the spare-part sector with a view to incorporating them into the directive.
I am relieved that agreement on this important legislation has at last been reached between our negotiators from the European Parliament and the Member State governments.
It is of course the question of a 'repairs clause' which has proved the most thorny aspect of the new design directive.
I am glad to see that no obstacle will be allowed to hinder the free movement of the vehicle spare parts which in Britain many repair businesses use every day.
Whilst I recognise that the 'standstill plus' formula of this compromise agreement means that other countries could stick to their practices of forcing vehicle owners to go to the manufacturer when they need spare parts, I would recommend that they consider opening up the market in spare parts to garages and the like.
The customer in Britain benefits from the competition between manufacturers and repair companies when it comes to buying vehicle spare parts.
I believe that all European drivers should be able to choose their spare part supplier in the interests of fair competition.
From Parliament's point of view, neither the conciliation procedure itself nor its result can be said to be satisfactory.
At first, the Council was dilatory in dealing with this important bill, the Luxembourg Presidency passing it on to the British Presidency.
In the course of the negotiations, it became clear that it would not be possible to reach agreement on the contentious 'repairs clause'.
In the light of the obvious lack of political will to find a common solution to an issue which is so important for the single market, we have to agree with the rapporteur that, on the one hand, the current proposal will allow a common EU-wide legal basis for design protection to be made available to all the sectors concerned, but that on the other hand, it will not allow the legal situation of the repairs industry to deteriorate.
My group therefore voted in favour of the Conciliation Committee's draft decision.
Lange report (A4-0314/98)
I welcome this report and agree with the rapporteur that the importance of this legislation cannot be underestimated.
Reductions in vehicle emission are an absolute necessity and the report reflects sensible proposals which will achieve that.
I fully agree with the introduction of on-board diagnostic systems for all vehicles including diesel vehicles and light commercial vehicles.
This is exactly the sort of preventive measures which we need to put in place if we are to minimise environmental pollution.
It is also reasonable to phase in the application of on-board diagnostics.
The rapporteur has shown due regard to public concern in pushing the case for more environmentally friendly vehicles.
While we need to address the problem of how to address pollution from vehicles currently on the road, most of us would agree that the best way forward is the development of a culture of environmentally friendly vehicles.
In this regard I support the proposal for tax incentives to be introduced for the early production of vehicles which have advanced anti-pollution equipment.
Hautala report (A4-0313/98)
The Conciliation Committee is presenting a package of anti-pollution measures today which involves a series of important economic consequences.
Thanks to Parliament's efforts, three texts have been adopted.
From these is derived a directive which is directly descended from the recent Auto-Oil programme, an operation which involved the Commission and the motor and oil industries as well as our Parliament.
The priority objective today is to improve the quality of the air that we breathe, and that includes defining a European strategy for the reduction of vehicle emissions, through the launching, at long last, of absolutely clear Community legislation, which will consequently allow industry - especially the motor industry - to plan its sectoral investment with a view to the conversion needed to produce future generations of motor vehicles.
The oil industry, with a kind of self-protective attitude, appears to exaggerate the cost of the investment it considers necessary to prepare the construction of new refineries, which it claims will be a direct burden on motorists. However, we believe that the establishment of rules which actually provide tax reductions for motorists - the main consumers in the sector - may in the end make the necessary investment possible.
The agreement between the Council and Parliament will make it technically possible to improve the quality of the air, thanks to the compulsory provision for adding oxygen to diesel fuel, reducing the content of sulphur, benzene and aromatic substances in normal fuel and reducing emissions of anhydrous carbon.
Under the terms of the directive, leaded fuel will no longer be on sale after the year 2000, except where climatic conditions are favourable to its use or where very serious economic damage might be caused.
Furthermore, unleaded petrol and environmental diesel will have to obey stricter criteria as from January 2000.
The terms envisaged are reasonably binding, especially as application will have to be made to the Commission, which will be very sparing in granting derogations and will only do so after duly justified requests and for a very limited period.
The Auto-Oil directives had been the subject of considerable discussion and aroused some agitation in the world of industry.
While nobody disputes the need to protect the environment, it must be admitted that this also has a cost which it would be unreasonable to ignore.
After two readings in Parliament, the common position was sent to the Conciliation Committee.
It is this proposal, unanimously adopted by Parliament's delegation, which has been submitted to us.
The compromise achieved lies between the positions of the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.
An extreme ecologist position, unreasonable in economic terms, has thus been avoided.
Nevertheless, it must be pointed out that the specifications adopted are significantly more severe that those initially adopted by the European Commission.
The standards adopted by the Council of Ministers for implementation from 2005 were originally for guidance purposes only.
They are now to be made binding.
Most fiercely debated were the specifications for sulphur and aromatics.
It must be admitted that a major effort is being demanded of the oil and car industries.
For this reason, the European legislators must give these industries a guarantee that these standards will be stable and not embark on a race towards ever stricter standards, especially as technological innovations do not make it any easier. We must avoid creating industrial costs which are disproportionate to the benefits in terms of improvements to the environment.
As this common position represents an acceptable compromise, in terms of industrial constraints and protection of the environment, my group had no hesitation in approving it.
As I demonstrated during the debate in Parliament on 17 February this year, I am in favour of the Hautala report.
I am practically the only one who supports it among the Members from my Member State, and today I am again reiterating my support for the agreement reached between the Council and Parliament in the Conciliation Committee on the quality of fuels from the year 2000 and the year 2005. This is because, as I have already said here in the House and am going to repeat today, cleaner fuels, that is, fuels that cause less pollution, are a crucial step forward in defending the health of European citizens.
Today, as before, my vote is going in the same direction: giving priority to health and to the quality of the air we breathe, and not to the private interests of certain oil companies.
We choose to support the common position because more stringent requirements for the reduction of vehicle emissions will lead to a reduction in air pollutants and hence will benefit human health and the environment.
The identification of the need for a strategy to reduce emissions causing air pollution, with special reference to urban areas, we think reflects a responsible environmental policy because it is in urbanised areas that these problems are particularly acute.
We also think it is a step in the right direction that individual Member States should in special cases be able to require that fuels may only be marketed if they conform to more stringent environmental specifications than those laid down in the directive.
This upholds the right of the Member States to adopt environmental measures that go further than those adopted by the Community.
The encouragement of Member States to make more active use of fiscal incentives, in the form of differentiated excise duties, we think opens up attractive possibilities for the heavier taxation of substances which are especially polluting.
We would, however, point out that there is a problem in that individual Member States cannot act to differentiate excise duties without reference to Council decisions.
The concern for a better environment must not be used as a pretext for increased harmonisation of excise duties.
This is a very positive report. It promotes the two-phase introduction of stricter mandatory emission standards by the years 2000-2005.
Tax incentives may be used in individual member states to encourage the refitting or scrapping of older vehicles.
More stringent monitoring will be carried out of emission levels.
The ban on lead from 1 January 2000, as proposed in the Hautala report, will improve petrol and diesel quality.
Member States will be free to introduce tougher requirements, plus a differentiated system of excise duties.
So far, so good.
I also voted in favour of the reports, but what we really need is a strategy for getting petrol- and diesel-driven vehicles off our roads.
As an alternative, we should be looking to new clean fuels such as ethanol and methanol, and to means of transport which are powered in an environmentally friendly way. Examples would be the electric car and various types of hybrid vehicle capable of running off electricity in cities and built-up areas.
González Triviño recommendation (A4-0295/98)
The report by our colleague Mr Triviño comes at a particularly painful time, and we can only express our condolences to the families affected by the Swissair tragedy.
This recent tragic event makes the report even more pertinent, and we must acknowledge that the risks of air transport apply to all airlines, without exception.
Also, although there is no such thing as zero risk, our sole objective must nevertheless be to strive towards this result, and I welcome the amendments which the rapporteur is seeking to introduce to the Council's text.
In this respect, I share the Commission's desire for transparency which enables the consumer to choose in full knowledge of the facts.
We must also combat deregulation and the law of the jungle on prices which lower safety thresholds.
Finally, I would like to repeat that air travel is one of the safest means of transport, if not the safest of all, and I believe the European Parliament must not lose sight of the need to legislate in other sectors, in particular road transport, in order to significantly reduce the carnage we see on our roads every year.
Remember that there are fewer than 2000 deaths a year worldwide in aircraft accidents. In France alone, there are 8000 deaths a year on the roads.
I am happy to lend my support to the efforts of both our national governments and the author of this report to make our skies safer for the travelling public, airline staff and all of us who live under the flightpaths of Europe's busy airports.
It is only reasonable to demand that non-European aircraft using our airspace meet the highest safety standards.
This report is right to ask for swift inspections of such aircraft where the authorities have concerns that they may not meet international safety standards.
Just as important though is the call in this report for the public to be informed about those aircraft operators whose planes are grounded, as well as being told what corrective steps have been taken to put problems with these aircraft right.
Perhaps all MEPs speaking on this subject should declare an interest, as we need to use air travel to carry out our parliamentary duties at home and here in Strasbourg - but in truth all of us, whether we use air travel or not, have a vital interest in the safety of the aircraft that we see flying above our homes.
I know that the people I represent in the area around the busy Manchester Airport will want these safety proposals to be adopted as soon as possible.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Climate change
The next item is the Commission statement on its strategy following the Kyoto Conference on climate change.
I give the floor to Mrs Bjerregaard, for the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the context of preparations for the ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires, I am happy to be able to speak to you today on climate change.
Of course I hope that a few more Members will be here in due course.
Both in Rio and in Kyoto the EU showed that, by taking a lead, we can secure agreement on a problem of such global complexity as climate change, even though the positions of the main participants at the start were far apart.
The EU can also deliver results when it comes to its internal obligations.
The most recent data show that the Community is well on the way to stabilising CO2 emissions in the year 2000 at the 1990 level.
Since Kyoto, the EU has dealt with the matter at the highest political level.
We have continued our lead and sought to ensure that the Kyoto Protocol will take effect.
Let me just mention four milestones.
To begin with, the EU and its Member States signed the Protocol in April this year.
Now everything is being done to persuade the other parties to sign as well.
It is of crucial significance that the American Government and the Russian Federation are showing the political will to stand by their commitments and are signing the Protocol.
That should happen as far as possible before Buenos Aires.
When I meet the American and, I hope also, the Russian ministers in a few days, therefore, I shall be pressing for an informal ministerial meeting in Tokyo.
In that connection, I was pleased at the efforts made by Parliament to persuade Members of the American Congress to ratify the Protocol.
That is an important point, and we should all work to achieve a result.
Secondly, we succeeded at the Council meeting on the environment in June in reaching agreement on sharing the burden of the EU target among the Member States.
That is also an important message to the rest of the world.
Thirdly, I published a communication on climate change in June which lays down the first steps in an outline strategy on climate change for the EU.
Fourthly and finally, I held a meeting yesterday with all the ten applicant countries in which the very subject of climate and the meeting in Buenos Aires were high on the agenda.
I am happy to report to Parliament that there is full backing for the EU's line and that there is the political will to support it.
Many of the countries will also be ensuring that the Protocol is signed before Buenos Aires.
These four concrete actions have of course increased the EU's credibility, and that makes it possible to continue our lead.
It is our intention to get Kyoto put into effect, so now we can concentrate on those questions which must be resolved in Buenos Aires.
What do we want from Buenos Aires? Well, in my opinion the meeting is of the utmost importance in securing a common action plan which will map out the basic principles for the implementation of the Protocol.
The EU must again take the strain in ensuring that we make substantial progress in Buenos Aires, even in some of the difficult areas.
I hope to return from Buenos Aires with a comprehensive and ambitious action plan, together with a timetable for solving the remaining problems from Kyoto.
In any such action plan, we must be open to those which may help us to achieve our environmental objectives over a longer timescale, including the flexibility mechanisms.
In this context, the set of principles indicated in the resolution is also particularly interesting and merits further consideration.
However, we should not foster any illusions that it will be easy to find solutions when we have the so-called umbrella group, on the one hand, headed by the USA, which is calling for unrestricted application of the flexibility mechanisms, and G77 and China, on the other hand, which are committed to a more cautious and controlled application.
We must also not forget the other controversy influencing the negotiations, which has to do with a meaningful involvement of the developing countries as a condition for ratification by the USA.
Here, as in Kyoto, it may be EU leadership that secures a result.
And here I agree with Parliament that we must grasp every available opportunity for a dialogue.
However, let me take this opportunity to stress that early action on the home front remains one of the cornerstones of the Kyoto Protocol and one of the most important contributions to the fulfilment of the parties' obligations.
An important element in the national endeavours, not least in the EU, will therefore be joint and coordinated measures.
For that reason, I am particularly pleased that Parliament in its resolution refers to the need for economic and fiscal instruments.
In many areas, the EU is in the lead as regards energy and carbon taxes, environmental agreements with industry and the promotion of renewable energy sources.
We have already made progress in this way in combating emissions, and call on other countries to follow our example.
I am aiming to secure further progress on these issues in Buenos Aires, also on the principles we have worked out, and get them reflected in the action plan that we hope will be adopted.
In its communication on climate change, the Commission has defined a number of key principles regarding the flexibility mechanisms.
I am convinced that they can play a major role in fulfilling our commitments at least cost.
I therefore endorse the emphasis in the resolution on the need to use this flexibility.
I would, however, stress that flexibility which covers trade and other activities presupposes that the participants are able to monitor their own emissions - in other words, no trade without tracking.
It is crucial that we make progress in Buenos Aires on laying down the rules which are the precondition for flexibility mechanisms.
Let me further stress that strict supervision, hence also the possibility of imposing sanctions, must go hand in hand with the implementation of the Protocol.
If there is any relaxation in the enforcement of the Protocol, so that some get a free ride on the strength of other countries' efforts, we shall never be able to combat the effects of climate change.
I therefore urge the participants in Buenos Aires to agree on the rules for the implementation of the agreement.
Finally, it is my firm conviction that it is incumbent on the industrialised countries first and foremost to present proposals for the solution of the climate problem in practice.
Wecreated it after all.
Once we have worked out clear rules and secured strict enforcement of the flexibility mechanisms, it will make much more sense to talk to the developing countries about their obligations.
Until then, we must work more closely with them on the questions that preoccupy them most, such as mechanisms for sustainable development and technology transfer.
In order to follow up the meeting in Buenos Aires, and taking into account the national strategies which the Member States adopt, the Commission intends to present a wider-ranging implementation strategy for climate change in the first half of 1999.
An important step in the meantime will be for the Council to adopt as quickly as possible those proposals which are already on the table, for example the Commission's proposal for energy taxes or the proposals for a more effective transport policy.
I also expect that the climate change question will be gradually integrated into policies in other sectors, as requested by the European Council at its meeting in Vienna.
Mr President, I will close by thanking Parliament once again for the constructive efforts it has made to disseminate knowledge of the climate change problem, and for the support it has given to the Commission with a view to implementation.
Mr President, I should like to thank you for your statement, Commissioner and, before the beginning of the debate, recall once more the five principles on which the actual rules on climate protection, agreed in Rio, are based: the principle of common but differentiated responsibility; the principle of taking account of the special needs of developing countries; the precautionary principle; the principle of sustainable development; and the principle that measures taken to combat climate change have to comply with WTO rules on avoiding unjustified discrimination.
It is this last point in particular that I wish to recall, because if we are going to talk about solidarity and fairness in this debate, and if we are going to say - and here I can only reinforce what you said, Commissioner - that it is necessary for industrialised countries who, after all, have produced and still do produce high emissions of climate-damaging gases, to work harder at reducing them and set a good example - as we are trying to do in the European Union with the 'bubble', where we are also taking common but differentiated responsibility - then we also have to be fair when we are dealing with the various flexibility mechanisms.
We must state clearly here, as already stated in the Kyoto Protocol, that these must be additional and not exclusive measures. We also need clear indications of how emissions trading will be monitored and measured.
The same method of measurement must be used throughout the world, to avoid the developing countries thinking that the industrialised countries want to save themselves work, at their expense as it were, for a second time.
Technology transfer is a particularly important issue, and I eagerly await the action plan, because I believe that we in the Union can only assume the role of leader here if we ourselves forge ahead with measures, which in the end not only serve to protect the climate, but in actual fact also serve to modernise our economy.
Political will is presumably the most decisive factor, and I believe - as Mrs Brundtland said many years ago - that if the politicians making today's decisions will not be alive when the consequences of their decisions are known, then we politicians who are alive today have a duty to act differently, so that the climate does not change as much as it is feared it would do, if it was simply business as usual.
Thank you for your statement, Commissioner.
The Group Chief Executive of British Petroleum (BP) said yesterday that the oil companies would suffer if they continued to dismiss the evidence of climate change.
It is high time that Exxon and the other oil companies in the Global Climate Coalition realised that, if they do not change their attitude, they will have to face retaliatory measures by European consumers.
We have not acted in this way so far, but we may have to start down this road, because this group of companies is the main obstacle to the implementation of the Kyoto decisions.
Turning now to the text of the resolution which Parliament is going to adopt, it is plain that this is a very different animal from previous resolutions.
This text aims to establish a strategy for Buenos Aires, particularly with regard to the flexibility mechanisms, and does not just reaffirm our completely unaltered position on climate change.
We accept the full implementation of the Kyoto decisions, including the flexibility mechanisms or emissions trading.
However, these mechanisms must obey certain principles.
Firstly, they must be complementary and not absolute, which means that they must not under any circumstances replace domestic measures for reducing emissions.
Secondly, the overall objective of all the efforts of Kyoto and Buenos Aires is to obtain, in time, the progressive convergence of emission rights on a per capita basis among all the countries of the world.
It is right for this to be included, because the United States and Europe have a per capita share of emissions which is much higher than the per capita emissions of many of the countries of the world.
Thirdly - and this is important for Buenos Aires - it is essential to clarify the emissions trading, joint implementation and clean development mechanisms.
What is open for negotiation? This is not clear at the moment.
Who will do the negotiating?
By what amount should each emission right be reduced over the years? Who controls the emission rights and the way in which companies comply with the obligations of the trading mechanism?
None of this is clear to me at the moment and, so far, I have not seen any European Union positions which enlighten me as to the stance which will be taken in Buenos Aires.
It must also be made clear that the emissions trading mechanisms cannot just be full of hot air.
Commissioner, we are behind you. We support your attempts to ensure that a policy reversing climate change is adopted by the Members of the Commission.
So far this has not occurred.
The ecotaxes are at a standstill in the Council, but the Commission could already have done more.
The policy in favour of renewable energy and energy efficiency continues to exist only in statements and communications and has not yet been transformed into a mechanism, into an operational policy of the European Union.
We are behind you, Commissioner, but we are watching carefully.
Mr President, Kyoto was a great success, partly due to the powerful input of Commissioner Bjerregaard.
But now it is all to do again in Buenos Aires. These flexible mechanisms have to be worked out.
We have to look at 'joint implementation', at the 'clean development mechanism', at 'emissions trading' and all these flexible mechanisms, and if they can be sorted out satisfactorily this will hopefully persuade the United States to come into line on Kyoto and actually do something about the CO2 problem.
We have looked here at all manner of important questions - sinks, trading, hot air - all of which need to be resolved in Buenos Aires.
But above all, and here I agree with Mr Pimenta, something has to be done about caps.
We must ensure that countries do not use emissions trading as a way of getting round the domestic measures which they ought to take.
So this emissions trading must be subject to a ceiling.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if she will clarify her intentions in this regard.
Lastly, I note that the transport sector accounts for some 25 % of greenhouse gases and that this percentage is set to rise further. By the year 2010 it will be 40 %.
Looking at the voluntary agreement with the automobile industry, it just is not good enough.
I should like to hear what the Commissioner has to say about the voluntary agreement she has secured here with the automobile industry concerning CO2 .
In conclusion, I would urge the Commissioner to make Buenos Aires as big a success as Kyoto was.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not expect you to contribute to the increase in hot air, Commissioner, but to give us clear information.
Like a number of other colleagues, I would have liked to know what the guidelines actually say.
On the one hand, you spoke about 'milestones' and 'taking action at home', but on the other, you repeatedly emphasised the flexibility mechanisms.
How extensive should domestic measures be, compared with flexibility mechanisms?
In Kyoto you talked about a ratio of 50/50, and the Greens have tabled an amendment to that effect which will be put to the vote on Thursday.
I would be grateful if you could tell us clearly what the ratio is and what your position is on the amendment tabled by the Greens.
I actually believe that the Environment Committee's motion for a resolution does not go far enough.
To us it is tantamount to an act of political bankruptcy as far as climate protection is concerned, because it means that we are bowing to the interests of industry and the United States.
Reference is in fact made here to a quantitative ceiling on flexibility, but unfortunately, Mr Pimenta, the motion never once mentions the tax on energy and CO2 emissions.
We made a proposal for specific measures and for a demonstration model.
Unfortunately, it was not supported by a majority of the committee.
On the subject of emissions trading, the motion reads as though it had been dictated by the USA.
It states that unlimited emissions trading should be possible. That is a complete reversal of policy on climate protection in this House.
This is shameful, because to fail to set limits on emissions trading is to undermine the Kyoto Protocol.
We all know that it is cheaper for industrialised countries to buy hot air, than to implement even the simplest energy-saving measures at home.
We are opposing this about-turn on climate protection policy, because we know that giving up a consistent climate policy with its associated measures also means losing our leading role.
Without action on climate both at national and European level, emissions will have increased by at least 8 % by the year 2010, rather than, as promised at Kyoto, being reduced by 8 %.
I too should like to endorse what Mr Eisma said, and ask the Commissioner to say a few words about the voluntary commitment made by the motor vehicle industry.
I find the current proposal absurd.
I do not believe that we can talk of success, when we are giving the industry 22 years to reduce petrol consumption by just one single litre.
That is, I believe, a failure for climate policy.
It really is high time to take action!
Mr President, let me remind you that we went to Kyoto with the goal of reducing DEU emissions by 15 %.
Let me also remind you that the IPCC says that we need a 60 % reduction of emissions by the year 2100.
Let me also remind you that we all agreed that in the long term the emission rights all over this planet should be measured on a per capita basis.
Article 3(3) suggests that afforestation and reafforestation measures could be taken into account in order not to reduce our quota of emissions.
On the other hand we have the clear development mechanism which allows non-Annex I countries to become partners and allows us to finance projects which are targeted to reduce emissions in non-Annex I countries - developing countries, etc.
There is a big risk: the threat to biodiversity.
Plantations in non-Annex I countries could be financed by industrialised countries.
We have seen what that has led to in Indonesia.
I should like to refer to the excellent paper of the Austrian presidency concerning forestry - the paper which was submitted to the subsidiary body for scientific and technical advice.
The Austrian presidency says that we have always to consider the biodiversity issue.
It also says that forest management should not be taken into account to meet commitments for Article 3(3).
This is a guarantee that no country can continue to convert forests into fast-growing plantations.
We should stick to that line and congratulate the Austrians for making this proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, 15 000 US scientists recently signed a petition categorically refuting the concept of the greenhouse effect as purveyed by the media.
They claim, with the evidence to back them up, that the increase in carbon dioxide during the 20th century has had no negative impact on global meteorology, on climate and temperature, and that the predictions of catastrophe are not borne out by experience.
On the contrary, there has been a distinct acceleration in the growth rate of plants and thus in agricultural production.
However, nobody has been able to escape the global propaganda on the greenhouse effect.
The official thesis is that carbon dioxide emissions are warming the planet.
A series of misfortunes will befall us if we do not quickly close the Pandora's box of industry.
The polar icecaps and glaciers will melt, sea levels rise, low-lying ground and many islands will be submerged, tornadoes will increase in number and in violence, tropical storms will penetrate to our own regions, rainfall patterns will be disturbed, droughts will increase and render entire countries barren, etc., etc.
It remains to be seen, Mr President, what are in fact, behind this catastrophic vision, the true interests of the internationalist lobby which has created this global threat.
I am not speaking about the greenhouse effect, but the global socialisation of the economy, by means of ecological standards which will apply to some countries and not to others.
The developing countries which will soon be producing 50 % of greenhouse gases have been exempted, which one can understand, from any need to reduce their emissions.
Is this not, and I ask the question seriously, a new type of threat? The US scientists have organised a response, under the authority of Frederick Seitz, a former President of the US Academy of Sciences.
Mr President, even if your criticisms were correct, Mr Gollnisch, it would still make sense to save energy.
By so doing, we save our resources and reduce our dependence on imports.
At the end of the day, whether the climatologists are right or not is a scientific issue, and not something that can be decided in a parliament.
Here, it is more a question of taking precautionary measures.
For the first time, we politicians are faced with a very plausible-sounding hypothesis, to which we have to react, and if we do not react, then we might make the biggest mistake ever made by humanity.
That is why I think it is good that there is, after all, a relatively broad consensus in Europe in favour of reducing greenhouse gases.
Now I should like to address a few remarks to the Commission.
It was a good speech, Commissioner, congratulations, and I also believe that you meant what you said.
However, in the end, it is not the success of our speeches that will be measured, but that of our policy instruments.
We will measure to see whether we really have emitted fewer greenhouse gases or not.
And that is where I have my doubts.
Because what we are trying to do in Europe is to stabilise in an unstable situation. Take the transport sector, for example: cars are improving, but there are more cars, and in a few years' time, CO2 emissions from cars will presumably be much higher than they are today, even though each car is consuming a little less.
Households have not seen any change at all.
Household appliances are certainly improving, that is true, but households are increasing, both in size and number, because families are becoming smaller.
You can check up on all of this.
The Commission has carried out its own investigations and has described all this itself.
I am only referring to your own data.
This means that we have to go much further than the commitments made in our papers at present.
We have to translate them into practical policy.
That quickly brings us to the question - not of recognising the issues, we are all agreed on those - but of funding.
How do we finance technology, which is of course often available, in such a way that it will be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? In my experience, at least, this raises just one question: how to fund long- or medium-term programmes.
We are in a position to finance the Channel Tunnel, in such a way that those putting in the money only see a return on it in umpteen years' time. Why are we not able to prefinance improvements to our buildings in Europe, thus saving huge amounts of energy?
It would be worth it! Even with low energy prices, we are obviously not in a position to do this.
We have often made lofty declarations on renewable sources of energy too, but I still do not know how that is supposed to work.
You have my support on this, but how can it be done, given the low energy prices we have at present and the rightly criticised lack of an energy tax? Ecological tax reform is a sine qua non for changing the course of energy policy.
Finally, a piece of advice for Buenos Aires. In Kyoto, the fact that the American representatives presented a united front proved to work very much to their advantage.
Would it not be possible for the Europeans to form a single team, comprising national and European members of Parliament and the Commission, and to present a united front in Buenos Aires? After all, our views are, to a large extent, the same.
But we could play a much greater role there if we were more organised.
That is a plea to Parliament, but also to the Commission.
Mr President, unless the Kyoto Protocol is ratified and comes into force within the next few years, we shall in all probability never see the reduction targets achieved in practice.
The reason for that is that a race against time has been built into the Protocol.
For every year that passes with emissions of greenhouse gases still rising, the need for action becomes greater and the time to take that action shorter.
In the USA, for example, the postponement of ratification by three years will mean that the annual reduction effort almost doubles.
It is thus very worrying to hear reports that the Clinton Administration is considering deferment of ratification until after the next presidential elections.
Such a decision will only serve the interests of those who want to see the Kyoto Protocol overturned.
It will not be many years before proposals for a renegotiation of the commitments can be expected to find favour.
This Parliament should not just give its formal support to the work on climate, but should also make an especially concrete contribution to seeing that the results attained are converted into progress in the real world.
I have therefore tabled an amendment with the actual wording of the Kyoto Protocol to the joint resolution, and I hope that Parliament will vote for my amendment.
Mr President, Commissioner, the EU undeniably played a decisive role at Kyoto.
Without Europe's constructive input, the conference might well have been a failure.
We have nurtured a delicate plant; let us now ensure that we tend it in Buenos Aires in December.
In its communication 'Climate Change - Towards an EU Post-Kyoto Strategy', the Commission outlines what will be required to meet the Union's ambitious target of an 8 % reduction in CO2 emissions by 2008-2012.
This will not be feasible in my view without some kind of economic leverage, for example in the shape of a carbon tax.
Sweden already taxes CO2 quite heavily, but the Kyoto package accorded us a 4 % increase in emissions.
The need for this demonstrates the downside of having opted to decommission two nuclear power plants - a decision I personally deplore.
Maximum efforts should be made to meet the Kyoto targets, but we still need to keep a sense of proportion. By way of illustration, the Swedish reactors earmarked for closure produce more or less the same quantity of electricity as all the world's wind power facilities put together.
People are rightly calling for motorists to moderate their fuel consumption, but consider the following scenario.
If Sweden switches to electricity from Danish coal-fired plants as an alternative to nuclear energy from the decommissioned reactors in the south, the CO2 emitted will match the output of half of all the cars on the country's roads. Not to mention the fact that, according to WHO, sulphur emissions in Europe alone are responsible for around ten thousand premature deaths per year.
Recently the idea of carbon sinks has been put forward. Combustion gases would be fed into underground rock formations capable of binding the CO2 permanently.
Has the Commission any plans to investigate and cost this technology in the run-up to Buenos Aires?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have three observations to make in the debate.
First of all, it is important to make the point that responsibility for achieving the objectives set in Kyoto rests primarily with the Member States.
They must say how and by what measures they propose to achieve them.
The Union for its part must establish the framework within which measures can be implemented and its role is primarily to coordinate and support.
Secondly, the flexible mechanisms, including the emissions trading introduced into the Protocol by the United States, must be regarded as an additional means of fulfilling the pledges on greenhouse gas reduction.
Indeed, one of the main objectives at November's Buenos Aires meeting will be to agree on the balance between measures which the countries must take themselves and the proportion of their emissions they can trade, for example whether the ratio should be three to four or one to four.
Flexible mechanisms can play a significant part in helping Europe keep her promises on lower costs in order to ensure the competitiveness of European industry.
From this point of view, we have to favour the use of these mechanisms, subject to certain restrictions and following the step-by-step approach proposed by the Commission.
Thirdly, climate change has to be anchored more firmly in sectoral policy.
Policy on the prevention of climate change necessitates a redefining of a whole range of European policies on energy management, and possibly of sectoral objectives too.
Lastly, as you have already indicated, Commissioner, we must press the United States to ratify the Protocol as swiftly as possible.
According to some sources the US Congress is now reluctant to ratify the Protocol because it is unwilling to cut emissions in the USA.
We must urge it to ratify as quickly as possible, without making any concessions which would turn this Protocol into an instrument which allowed the emission of greenhouses gases to continue.
Mr President, Commissioner, this debate gives us the opportunity to recall that summits often serve to enunciate major principles and to conclude major agreements, while the most arduous work remains to be done.
Often, moreover, the timetable proves extremely frustrating.
We know that New York 1997 did not fulfil the promise of Rio 1992. This is not only because we are dealing with often wavering political commitment, but also because of objective difficulties, related in particular to different - if not opposing - perceptions on the part of the industrialised nations of the North and the industrialising nations of the South, and also because within the same major blocs there can be significantly different levels of productivity and thus of competition between individual countries.
These difficulties fuel the tendency towards pragmatism, and when you consider what can become of international negotiations on authorised CO2 emissions, there is reason to wonder if we are indeed dealing with major principles and ambitions or whether we are not moving towards progress in pragmatism and effectiveness.
Personally, I am not so sure that it is essential to decide one way or the other.
The important thing is for the debate to move forward and become richer.
We now know that standards must be imposed, but also that this is not enough.
National laws and regulations must also be passed and their application monitored.
But that still is not enough.
They must be enacted at European level and their application monitored.
Yet still there is a long way to go.
There is an increasing need for a pro-active and inventive European diplomacy which makes it possible both to standardise and to encourage, with the means both to penalise and to motivate.
The important thing is to understand that all economic activity has an impact on the environment and that the sooner we include the environment in international economic policy, the more we will be able to reduce its cost and preserve its capacity to create jobs.
In other words, we must on the one hand continue to enunciate our major principles, because we have no reason to give up making demands at such a level. Yet on the other hand, we must also become aware of what is at stake in terms of quality of life, our living environment, food, water and air quality, as well as in terms of public health and, quite simply, the psychological comfort of being able to live in restabilised climates.
We must also take into account the constraints, realising that production costs can include social dumping and also environmental dumping, but above all take into account the pressure which the consumerism of the North places on this level of the production cost.
It is a question of highlighting the benefits by demonstrating how the environment can bring new jobs.
The environment must therefore be included as an organic component of sustainable development, which means including it in the WTO negotiations.
Mr President. I should like to make three points on Kyoto and Buenos Aires, obviously without in any way claiming to be exhaustive.
The reduction targets are already a step backwards compared with the earlier targets set in Toronto, those set by the climate alliance and the Rio targets.
So we only have a basic level of agreement.
Secondly, we should be aware that the amount of CO2 we are emitting each day is the same as that previously emitted over 3000 years put together.
I do not need 1000 American scientists to tell me that this cannot be sensible, or that it cannot be a good thing. I do not need experts to tell me; common sense is quite enough.
If we now recognise this, then we should also recognise that the greenhouse problem is not just any old problem, but probably one of the greatest that mankind has ever had to face.
Traditional energy policy is on a crash course.
I think most of its pilots did their training on the Titanic.
The icebergs are clearly visible, and they are all saying: ' Full steam ahead'.
As regards the costs, when we debate energy policy and climate problems, we talk almost exclusively about funding.
I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, what chance a society has, which is prepared to invest in all kinds of things, but obviously is not prepared to invest in its own future and thus in the survival of its own species. From an ethical point of view, I believe that it is only natural that this investment should begin with us.
Mr President, Buenos Aires is about working out the rules and implementing what was agreed at Kyoto.
The biggest political problem we still face is the lack of political will by the United States of America, as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, to ratify.
If the US does not ratify the whole thing will fall apart.
So once again it seems to me that the burden falls on the European Union to work on this political problem and to take a lead in the negotiations.
We need to remember that none of the joint implementation mechanisms can begin to work until the majority of the parties have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
There are still enormous amounts of detail to be worked out on joint implementation and the clean development mechanisms.
We have whole rafts of questions still to be resolved such as: will there be bi-liability in emissions trading; how will the clean technology transfer mechanism actually work; what price would the south be paid for its emissions units; how will carbon sinks be measured; and how can we avoid trading super-heated air? One could go on for half an hour with these unresolved questions.
There are fears that emissions trading could be used by the West to avoid real cuts domestically.
That will simply not solve the problem of climate destabilisation.
If we simply go round the world trading what we already have, we will get nowhere.
I would ask any Bangaladeshi whether they are interested in the climate change problem just at the moment with two-thirds of their country under water.
It is very important that, despite the risk of annoying the US negotiators, we demand some sort of quantitative ceiling on the use of the flexibility mechanisms to ensure the majority of reductions are made domestically.
The current US thinking on trading prices is far too low and assumes that the United States will only seek to reduce its home emissions by about 3 % from the trend line.
If that is the case we have to ask if there is the political will to sustain a free market in permits.
Emissions trading must be built on the principle of equal per capita entitlements; this is very important to bear in mind as we go to Kyoto.
To come back briefly to what Rolf Linkohr said, it seems to me that the European Union does not present itself as a team.
I do not simply mean the gap between Parliament and Commission, which meant that MEPs last time felt they were trailing around the edges and not being treated in any kind of inclusive way.
The Commission also has a responsibility to bind in the Member States so that we speak with a much more coherent voice.
In conclusion, emissions trading should be arranged in such a way as to encourage developing countries, as well as our own, to move away from fossil fuels.
We have to go with the principle of contraction and convergence over a longer period than set down in Kyoto.
Clearly, Buenos Aires will not be the end of the story.
Climate change must remain high on our agenda in the European Union and we need to return to it on a daily basis, since we are certainly not about to implement our own promises with the mechanisms we have here on our home ground at the moment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after ten long days of negotiations, a protocol was agreed in Kyoto to reduce the gas emissions responsible for global warming. The Protocol was signed by 38 countries out of the 160 represented at the world summit.
For nearly all the countries, it means cutting the trend in emissions by between 20 % and 40 %.
This is a very modest step, but a positive one considering the background, and it is a first practical commitment which will have considerable repercussions at many levels.
But there are still some problems to be resolved in order to make the agreement operative: implementation of targets, definition of negotiable emission licences, application of the participation agreement between industrialised countries and developing countries, and not least, as other colleagues have said, ratification by the signatory countries.
There are various causes of emissions into the atmosphere: not just road traffic and industry, but also enteric fermentation of animals, various types of agricultural crops, the use of solvents and the destruction of the forests.
According to the forecasts, if the world continues on the current path, average global temperature and sea level will rise more rapidly than it ever has in the whole history of human civilisation.
The areas particularly at risk are those where sea level is critical: countless Pacific islands and all the small island states of the Caribbean and Africa, as we have shown in the basic report of the working group which I chair in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, which will meet next week in Brussels. All the most vulnerable states facing the greatest difficulties are involved and contributing.
It is vital to have a serious action programme, with the essential contribution of farmers and industry, and to publish a green paper on economic and fiscal instruments - including fiscal incentives - capable of reversing the trend of this climate change which is causing serious damage to the terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem, seasonal disturbance, erosion of coastlines and hence major problems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, any discussion of Kyoto and Buenos Aires should of course also take account of the measures we are adopting.
There is one sector in the European Union in which CO2 emissions are increasing out of all proportion, and that is the transport sector.
Since 1990, they have increased by 11 %.
In the first quarter of 1998 in the European Union, transport alone was responsible for pumping 179 million tonnes of CO2 into the air, which means that each of us - whether a Commissioner, MEP, baby or pensioner - consumes around 150 kilograms of petrol every three months.
We have to make a start here; we have to do something!
We have a commitment from the European motor vehicle industry, which wants to tackle the problem.
I was even somewhat surprised by the scale of the industry's undertaking.
To that extent, my assessment is rather different from that of Mrs Breyer.
The motor vehicle industry is offering to cut average consumption by 25 %, purely by taking technical measures.
If, in addition, we take political measures - whether it be tax incentives or car labelling - the impact could be even greater.
The approach itself is very sensible, but as so often, the devil is in the detail.
A look at the agreement and how it is to be implemented prompts a number of questions.
It states that a revision will only be possible from 2003 and that, at that time, checks will be made to see whether these technical measures are proving effective.
Unfortunately, the procedure to be applied here is not clear.
In the agreement, it states that the details will be settled in an exchange of letters between the industry and the Commission.
In spite of the high degree of confidence that we have in the Commission, we cannot regard simply having a future exchange of letters as satisfactory.
Secondly, the motor vehicle industry makes several assumptions, about fuels and about various other things, which have to hold true.
The Commission says, ' the assumptions will definitely hold true', but what happens if they do not?
That is left completely unresolved.
We need clear rules to cover this eventuality.
Nor is it clear what happens if individual firms, or the motor vehicle industry as a whole, fail to comply with the agreement.
That raises the question of sanctions, namely how we can punish somebody for implementing technical measures which prove to be insufficient.
We need to improve the situation and establish rules.
A third point: how do we actually deal with non-European manufacturers, who after all also sell their cars here? There would certainly be a distortion of competition if the German, French or Italian manufacturers were to make reductions and others not.
They should, therefore, also be covered by the agreement.
Only when these three outstanding issues are clarified, will Parliament be able to endorse this agreement.
Mr President, as we have already heard, there are many actors involved in what we have to do in order to meet our responsibilities.
I am quite convinced that some of these actors think we do not mean what we say.
Therefore, we have to make it quite clear that if there have to be changes in behaviour and technology they must be made or else there will be penalties.
We know that at least one third of emissions come from the transport sector.
I agree with what my colleague, Bernd Lange, has said.
It is not simply a question of car manufacturers and the technology they employ; the governments have been particularly timid in bringing forward incentives, shall we say, for people to use vehicles other than their cars so they are not persuading people to do so.
As far as energy is concerned, we have not seen any improvement in the sort of measures which should be taken: the rational use of energy, for example, and the concentration on cleaner energy sources.
I should like to know what has happened to the thinking behind the rational planning in the gas and electricity distribution sectors draft directive.
The Commission states in its communication on energy efficiency that it feels this directive is still needed.
This shows that there has to be coordination.
Even in this Parliament, if we are honest, we do not coordinate our efforts: the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Transport and Tourism are not making a cohesive policy move which would help us to meet the obligations we entered into at Kyoto.
If we cannot even do it in our own Parliament, we should not preach to others.
I would ask the Commissioner to make sure that, in her work as the lead Commissioner on this subject, she forms a team with Commissioner Papoutsis, Commissioner Kinnock and Commissioner Fischler, the Commissioners most closely concerned.
I am asking for cohesive action and for it to be made much clearer to the citizens how exactly these targets will be met - even if it is the hard way.
We could adopt the easy way.
We have been criticised on some parts of our resolution which make it look as though we favour the easy way, in other words bribing other people to take the measures.
We must take some of them ourselves.
We do not have a great deal of time.
We have seen appalling weather incidents this summer which have cost lives and caused devastation right across the world.
There is a link between that instability and our failure to take the necessary measures.
Mr President, thank you for the debate, which shows clearly that there is strong commitment on these problems in Parliament too.
Let me comment on some of the crucial questions which have been raised.
Firstly I have to say to those - Mrs Graenitz and others - who said how much they looked forward to the adoption of an action plan, so that it would be possible to see progress in connection with the Buenos Aires meeting: we are doing what we can in our preparations, and it is quite definitely also my view that it should end with an action plan staking out clear guidelines for the problems that remain.
In that connection, I do not entirely understand Mrs Pollack's remarks on the Member States and the Commission.
One of the main reasons why the European Union was successful in achieving a result in Kyoto was that there was very close cooperation between the Member States and the Commission.
This close cooperation continues.
In my introductory presentation, I pointed out that we succeeded in securing a result on the sharing of burdens arising from the new targets set in Kyoto at the Council meeting in June, and I referred to the communication the Commission has presented which will be discussed at the Council meeting in October.
I also stressed the support from the applicant countries in Eastern and Central Europe, which I consider crucial and which may also help strengthen our position in the impending negotiations, for I share the view expressed by many that we should of course do what we can to bring the Americans on side.
This is important to achieving any result at all in this area.
It must not mean, however, that we are departing from the principle - and this is an important point that Mr Pimenta also mentioned in his contribution - that these flexible mechanisms must be supplementary.
That is emphasised very clearly in the Kyoto text, and it has been the basis of our approach in all the preparatory work.
It also means that we think it necessary to have supervision.
It is necessary to have rules governing such action, and that was why I used the phrase 'no trading without tracking'.
Many speakers made the point that transport is one of the greatest problems and that transport accounts for a substantial proportion of total CO2 emissions.
I think Mr Eisma was the first to raise this issue, but Mr Linkohr, Mr Lange and several others followed with points to make on transport.
That was one of the reasons why we presented the communication on CO2 emissions from cars, which was based on three lines of action.
One was an attempt to get a voluntary agreement with the car industry.
We have such an agreement with the car industry, which means a reduction of 15 %.
Not 35 %, but still a significant contribution.
In addition, the communication proposed that there should be a monitoring mechanism, on which we have also presented a proposal, and that there should be a directive which would directly require fuel consumption labelling in vehicles.
Such a directive has been adopted in the Commission and will soon be before Parliament for consideration.
So we share Parliament's view that transport is one of the areas which we must take very seriously and in which there is much to be gained, but also one of course in which there are great difficulties.
Several speakers - not least Mr Linkohr - raised the question of financing.
We have proposals on the table covering this aspect too.
I earnestly appeal to Parliament to help get some measures adopted in the Council.
We all know the sad story of the CO2 tax and of the many other proposals that have been presented along the way. I have to say that I think the Commission has shown great creativity in this area, constantly putting new proposals on the table.
What we have not had are a few more decisions in this field.
I can say to Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens that, as regards the Member States' responsibility for implementation in this area, we are in complete agreement.
For the same reason, I wrote to the Member States at the end of July to request information on the measures they were planning to put in hand, because that would help us in drawing up the follow-up to our communication on climate change.
I said in my introductory presentation that we were planning a follow-up at the start of 1999, and for that we clearly need knowledge on what is happening in the Member States.
I share the view expressed by Mrs Taubira-Delannon that sanctions are also needed in this area.
Finally, let me say that I also share the view expressed by Mrs McNally that it is necessary to involve other Commissioners in the consideration of ways to deal with the climate issue.
That was indeed one of the reasons why the climate problem formed part of the integration strategy which was agreed in Cardiff and which now goes ahead in the preparations for the Vienna meeting.
In point of fact it was decided that Commissioners Kinnock, Papoutsis and Fischler would all be involved in the process.
I can say that the work in the Commission is well underway in this area. I think we have excellent cooperation, and all agree that the environmental policy cannot solve these problems alone.
Cooperation with other Commissioners is needed.
Let me close by expressing my satisfaction with the debate here today.
I do not think we have an easy task ahead of us.
I think we are endeavouring to prepare ourselves as best we can, and I very much hope that we can continue to provide the same leadership in Buenos Aires as we did in Kyoto, particularly in view of the fact that I find it difficult to see who else would take on this task.
Mr President, I asked a question earlier, which I consider to be very important.
Commissioner, I do not think you need to tell us what we already know.
We are familiar with your communication.
I have even read it.
The only problem is that it does not tell us anything.
The question - posed not only by myself, but also by Mr Pimenta and Mr Eisma, amongst others - was very specific: what proposal will you be making to the Environment Council? What are the views around the table in the Environment Council about the ratio of flexible mechanisms to domestic measures?
In Kyoto you proposed a ratio of 50/50.
I would be interested to know whether this figure still stands. Do you think the amendments along these lines are appropriate?
What will the position of the Environment Council be on this? Are we correctly informed that 12 Environment Ministers have already jumped ship on this issue and that only three are still on board?
Please give us straight answers to these questions.
The second question, asked by Mr Lange, Mr Eisma and others, was related to the voluntary agreements.
Labelling is all well and good, but what we were all concerned about here was the question of whether it might be appropriate, in this case, also to make legislative proposals, which would force the motor vehicle industry not merely to make a one-litre reduction over 22 years, but actually to show what it has achieved when the voluntary agreements expire.
These are fundamental questions, and I would ask you to give us some clear answers!
Mr President, I have already answered some of the questions Mrs Breyer has raised again regarding the proposals put forward.
Apart from the proposal on voluntary agreements, I mentioned quite specifically that there was a proposal on a monitoring mechanism for this area, and I mentioned that I had secured the adoption of a directive in the Commission concerned with labelling in vehicles, so that consumers would be in a position to know what the consequences would be of purchasing one car or another.
Among the preparations for both the Council meeting and the meeting in Tokyo, to which I am travelling tomorrow, there have been some discussions in the Council on how we are to use the term 'supplementary'.
There is no doubt as to the line we are pursuing in the EU, namely that flexible mechanisms cannot be used unless something is also done on home ground.
For the moment, the discussion is centred on whether it would be best to propose what could be called a quantitative ceiling or a quantitative target or whether it would be wiser to proceed in the direction of what has been described as a quality target or quality ceiling, whereby efforts would be concentrated on setting limits to the use of flexible mechanisms.
I naturally intend to take an active part in the current deliberations, which are also an extension to those that took place in Bonn, where the Commission presented a whole series of papers detailing the use of flexible mechanisms.
So it can be said that our line in this area is, on the one hand, to say that we uphold the principle that it is first and foremost a question of what one can do internally but, on the other hand, we do not intend to leave the flexible mechanisms to other countries but wish to take an active part in this debate ourselves, and we also intend to apply them.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I have received a motion for a resolution to wind up the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 noon.
Effects of plans and programmes on the environment
The next item is the report (A4-0245/98) by Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the assessment of the effects of certain plans and programmes on the environment (COM(96)0511 - C4-0191/97-96/0304(SYN)).
I call Mr Lannoye, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
Mr President, Mr Gahrton is indeed unable to be present, and I am all the more pleased to stand in for him as I totally share his point of view on the subject, together with that of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
This proposal for a directive, commonly known as the 'strategic environmental impact study', was favourably received by our Committee on the Environment insofar as it quite simply meets a need in regard to the European Union's environment policy.
Since 1985, we have had a directive on the assessment of the impact of certain public and private projects, a directive which was just recently amended. This amendment is to be transposed into national legislation by March of next year.
This represents an improvement in the situation, especially by means of an important extension in Annex I. But there is also a deficiency to the extent that there is a limit on the assessment of the project's impact.
As a result of this, decisions which could have a considerable impact on the nature of projects and which should, in principle, take into account environmental constraints, are taken too late in the decision-making process.
This is, moreover, what the Commission says to justify its position, namely that the impact study is carried out at too late a stage in the process of planning and decision-making.
This proposal aims to ensure that the environmental impact is assessed and the results taken into account when preparing and adopting town and country plans and programmes. It therefore usefully supplements the present legislation.
Does this mean that we find the proposal sufficient?
Certainly we believe - and when I say we, I mean the Committee on the Environment, the rapporteur and myself, deputising for the rapporteur - that it goes in the right direction. But we also find it too restrictive.
The Committee on the Environment has adopted 33 amendments which I hope the Commission will also accept. I would now like to explain to you their principal effect.
First of all, as regards the scope of the directive, as defined in Article 2, the Committee on the Environment is proposing that it should not be limited to town and country plans and programmes, but that it should extend to all plans and programmes with an impact on the land and marine environment.
Furthermore, we also adopted an amendment in the form of an addition which proposes a positive and non-restrictive list of plans and programmes for which a strategic impact study would be obligatory.
I believe that this usefully clarifies the situation.
I also believe that we have brought in a number of additional details and improvements.
First of all, the objective of sustainable development is more clearly explained.
Secondly, the situation is clarified, since the strategic impact study must be carried out at the initial stage of the decision-making process.
We also specify that agriculture, forestry and fishing are covered by the directive.
Details are also given regarding the access and involvement of citizens.
The reasons justifying the possible absence of a strategic impact study must be made public.
Finally, the alternatives must be analysed, including the zero option.
So much for the essentials.
Four amendments have been tabled for the part-session, which is not a great many.
I should like to just briefly comment on them.
First of all, there is an amendment tabled by Mrs Jackson and Mr Florenz which proposes in the preamble to refer to Article 130, paragraph 2 rather than paragraph 1.
I find that this is unacceptable, since referring to paragraph 2 implies the unanimity of the Council.
I am therefore against this amendment.
A second amendment by Mrs Estevan Bolea is certainly justified in principle.
This involves imposing a limit on the time allowed to consult citizens, but I continue to believe that three months is much too short.
The very nature of the proposal therefore leads me to conclude that it is not acceptable to the Committee on the Environment.
That is my personal opinion, as the committee has not yet been able to reach a decision.
In any event, I am opposed to it.
Finally, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, I myself and Mr Papayannakis have tabled two amendments, which I believe are extremely reasonable, for policies related to the environment to be included in the strategic impact assessment procedure at the time of the directive's first revision.
These are amendments of intent, nothing more, but which I believe bring an improvement to the directive.
Thank you, Mr President.
I also thank all the political groups which will be supporting this report and I hope that the Commissioner will view these amendments positively.
Mr President, strategic environmental impact assessment is an instrument used by governments to judge whether policy intentions, plans and projects are consistent with the concept of sustainable development.
It is an administrative policy instrument which can work well if government is convinced that it makes sense to use it. So it must not be viewed as a bureaucratic nuisance.
It helps to combine economic and environmental considerations effectively.
This avoids situations whereby certain plans and programmes are subsequently found to cause unnecessary environmental damage.Unfortunately, there is still some reluctance to allow sufficient breadth of scope to strategic environmental assessment.
The European Commission wants to restrict the directive to town and country plans and programmes. Like the rapporteur, I am in favour of having a strategic environmental impact assessment conducted at an earlier stage, rather than waiting until the local or regional impact is assessed.
Should not policy intentions, as well as plans and programmes, be subjected to an SEA? Some policymakers in the Member States are extraordinarily inventive in avoiding the terms plan and programme.
All of a sudden, sectoral plans or structural plans are called sectoral visions or structural visions; a programme becomes an outline.
Such practices must naturally be stopped. This requires the European Commission to be vigilant, and the option of expanding the scope of the directive to include policy intentions as well as plans and programmes must be kept open for the future.
I would refer the House to Mr Lannoye's amendments, Nos 34 and 35.
An essential part of the SEA lies in studying alternatives such as the zero option, which describes what the consequences will be if nothing is done, and the most environmentally friendly option.
Fundamental to the SEA is the principle of compensation.
The primary objective is to prevent damage to the environment.
Where possible, measures must be taken to preclude such damage.
But if they prove inadequate, recompense must be made as fully as possible for any damage to the environment which remains.
This is our concrete endorsement of the principle that the polluter pays.
Lastly, Mr President, I trust that the excellent piece of work which Mr Gahrton has produced, and on which I compliment him, will not be left by the Council to gather dust.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for many years all our countries have been carrying out environmental impact studies, even before the 1985 directive was adopted.
The 1997 amendment has meant that the obligation to carry out environmental impact assessments has been extended to encompass many other projects.
However, perhaps we need to take another step forward, assessing not projects, but plans and programmes.
This is a very difficult issue.
I know, Commissioner, that it is particularly difficult for you because all our countries, without exception, are opposed to it.
Perhaps, then, ladies and gentlemen, we should ask ourselves why all our countries oppose this plan.
They oppose it because they are, in fact, afraid that the principle of subsidiarity might be violated, that the responsibilities of local and regional authorities, or those of autonomous regions, might be taken over by other institutions.
They are afraid, too, of the delays in the consultation procedures.
Mr Lannoye, you know perfectly well that in many countries, the consultation procedure and the completion of the final environmental impact report - known as the statement of environmental impact - take two years, 18 months, 16 months or 12 months.
I wonder whether we can allow building work, a project or an urban planning, energy, hydraulic or waste plan, or any other sort of plan for that matter, to be brought to a standstill for 12 months, 18 months or two years.
We therefore understand why our countries are so afraid of increased regulation in the environment sector.
I believe that a consultation procedure of three months is more than sufficient.
In any event, the Committee on the Environment has approved a series of proposals by the Committee on Research and I am very grateful for this.
One of these, in particular, is extremely important.
For years, construction has been taking place in areas close to rivers, areas that are prone to flooding.
This, Mr President, has led to real catastrophes.
The Committee on Research proposes that before authorizing construction work in urban development plans, an analysis should be carried out to determine whether or not the areas are prone to flooding. This would help prevent many deaths and many accidents; it would prevent serious economic losses, but, more particularly, would prevent many human losses.
Moreover, if the work is done properly, we need not fear that the drawing-up of these statements of environmental impact means that building work might have to be brought to a halt.
It seems to me that this timid step that the Commission is taking whereby governments - be they national, regional or local - take account of the environmental aspects of their problems is already very important.
The directive now before the House is a very superficial one, Commissioner.
Nonetheless, you are having difficulties with the governments.
We are not going to support the majority of the amendments tabled by Mr Gahrton, because they add confusion to a directive that is already confused itself.
However, we do believe that it is very important to move forward in this area; we are therefore going to abstain.
Mr President, the PSE Group will oppose Amendment No 35 tabled by my friends, Mr Lannoye and Mr Papayannakis.
Emotionally, I am very much in favour of it but in real terms and as I perceive environmental impact, we have to take this line because it sets the picture too widely.
It might help if I explained to those tabling Amendment No 35 the detailed reason why I have difficulty with it.
Mr Gahrton, in his otherwise excellent report, refers to the definition of an SEA as an environmental assessment of a strategic action - a policy plan or programme; a formalised, systematic and comprehensive process of evaluating the environmental effects of that policy programme or its alternatives.
That I understand.
The difficulty is the question over policy.
I have always seen environmental impact as something which would be used as a precise tool by which those wishing to support a development could say it was a good thing and those wishing to oppose it could say it was a bad thing and pray in aid the environmental impact assessment which was part of the inquiry into that proposal.
We know, because Mr Gahrton rightly says so in his explanatory statement, that conventional project-orientated environmental impact assessments have not been entirely successful.
He mentions in that same statement the difficulties of assessing the sum of many small activities and the indirect effects of the impact of traffic routes on transport behaviour, etc.
So we all acknowledge - certainly in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the PSE Group - that environmental impact assessments, as such, need attention.
The question is whether the proposal on policy would not be too wide.
I contend that it is.
The proper place for the discussion of policy is not so much in a planning inquiry about a shopping development or an airport development or any of the other items listed in the Environmental Impact Assessment Report prepared by Mr Lannoye.
The proper place for the discussion of policy, in my submission, is in a forum like the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, in Parliament or a Commission meeting room.
That is where policies are formulated on the basis that people have been elected to discuss them.
Therefore what they need when they go to a planning inquiry, in my view, is to have recourse to a strategic environmental impact assessment as a planning tool.
Therefore, in my contention, Amendment No 35 is something that should be rejected.
We should discuss policies in the proper forum.
Mr President, the European People's Party is in favour of the environmental impact assessment directive process which was established under the directive of 1985.
We have problems with the directive we are now discussing.
I am not quite sure what Mr White's conclusions were.
I imagine, from what he said, that the Socialists will be voting against this directive.
Maybe they have changed their minds since the debate in committee.
But the starting point of the directive, as given in the explanatory statement, is as follows: the Commission says it is clear that evaluation of the environmental impact of certain projects is taking place too late in the development, planning and decisionmaking process.
In effect, this has the result of removing from consideration the possible adoption of alternatives, both to the individual project under consideration as well as to its particular location or route.
Its conclusion is that the present proposal is intended to address this inherent limitation by supplementing the 1985 directive with this directive requiring the assessment of town and country planning, plans and programmes.
Why then has the Commission based the directive on the wrong part of the Treaty? To quote the Treaty (Article 130s, paragraph 2), by way of derogation from the decision-making procedure provided for in paragraph 1 (qualified majority voting), the Council acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission shall adopt amongst other things 'measures concerning town and country planning'.
That is the point of the amendment that Mr Florenz and I have put forward. This must surely come under the unanimity rule.
What about subsidiarity? We are very unhappy with this directive because we recognise that the Member States all have their own methods of town and country planning.
In some cases, the consideration of the environmental impact is already very complex.
In others it may be lacking, but the answer is surely to make the 1985 directive universally applicable.
Mr Gahrton takes us a long way.
He says, among other things, that strategic environmental impact assessment should apply to agricultural and livestock development programmes.
That will be music to the ears of many farmers in the European Union.
We find the text is confused and badly drafted and consequently it looks as if a European Union directive may suddenly apply from on high to quite minor plans and programmes.
The European People's Party have proposed a fundamental amendment which must mean that this is now going to be referred to the Legal Affairs Committee.
In conclusion, I would like to extend my congratulations to the absent Mr Gahrton.
Mr Gahrton is renowned for his opposition to the European Union.
I imagine that he is now back in Sweden receiving some sort of European movement medal for proposing the acceptance of this very intrusive directive.
Perhaps he does not dare show his face here but he has certainly given the impression - through Mr Lannoye - that he is in favour of a directive which we find defies subsidiarity and will not do what it is intended to do.
Mr President, I can safely say that, on the whole, I entirely disagree with what Mrs Jackson has just said.
I think it is a directive which moves in the right direction, and it also moves in the right direction at a more primary level.
I personally cannot understand Mrs Jackson when she says that we must use the article on unanimity where this directive is concerned.
This directive relates to matters which have to be tackled in the individual countries; it does not concern itself with any particular action to be taken at Community level.
The plans covered by the article in question must affect the Community in a different way to that referred to here.
So I think this is a good step.
I think it entirely natural that we have this directive as a follow-up to the 1985 directive, which after all has clear limitations in relation to everyday life, where planning for various installations is concerned.
It is important that we include environmental considerations at an early stage, and that is just not happening at present.
I also think that the proposals of the Environment Committee are right, and I can support them, and I think that different politicians should be involved in the deliberations, which goes somewhat further than what the Commission is saying.
I always think that, when we discuss the environmental policy, we demand incredibly little - this applies on occasion to the PPE Group - in respect of investigations to be undertaken as regards the effects of plans on the environment, compared with what we demand when the effect of plans on the economy is at issue.
Mr Florenz, I did not say that it was always the case, but it certainly is occasionally.
In this instance, I have to say that I disagree with what Mrs Jackson said.
I think that equally stringent requirements should be imposed in respect of both investigations into environmental effects and the investigation of economic consequences.
They are in fact two sides of the same question, if we really want to establish sustainable development.
Mr President, assessments of the environmental impact of various specific projects have one way or another not been very satisfactory, as Mr Gahrton points out, and I think rightly so. We agree with most of his proposals.
Let me add that in Greece, for example, such assessments are often made after a project has begun and not before.
In other cases they are drawn up by the contractors themselves, and quite often the recommendations in the studies which relate to making good the damage to the environment are never implemented.
At any rate, until now no attention has been given to the overall and wider impact of integrated projects, groups of projects or interventions involving several individual projects.
In such cases, Mr President, we have a multiplied environmental impact, something more than the simple sum of the effects of each respective project.
That alone demands a different approach.
In place of our approach so far, which I would call 'tactical', we should adopt a 'strategic' approach.
Let me give an example, which concerns the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.
The Games will require separate sports facilities and many other related projects, each of which poses its own threat, for example to the Schinia wetland, to the suburban green belt around Athens, and to much of the coastline near the city.
However, no overall assessment has been made of all the consequences of the planning and environmental aspects on the urban complex as a whole.
The result is that, after facing facts for the first time, changes of the siting of many facilities are already being considered.
Amendments and revisions of the initial programme are being debated, which will cost a great deal, while the real effect on the environment remains unexplored and public information is non-existent.
The responsibility borne by the Greek Government, the local government authority and above all the Municipality of Athens is substantial.
However, Commissioner, the Commission has not so far played its part satisfactorily.
It has offered us no guarantees that Community standards under environmental legislation are truly being complied with for the Olympic Games.
Following the new directive, might it be possible for the Commission, even retrospectively, to carry out a strategic assessment of the Olympiad's environmental impact, now while work on the projects has not yet commenced?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the Green Group, strategic assessment is a milestone on the road to greater sustainability.
The proposal for a directive aims at improving environmental protection. It is also an instrument which would allow us to take environmental matters into consideration, comprehensively and early on, before the project stage.
For us - and here I would have to completely contradict Mrs Estevan Bolea - it is very important for many criteria to be reflected here.
One of these is doubtless the involvement of the environmental authorities and the members of the public concerned.
Making progress on projects in public is impossible without involving the public.
I would have thought that, as a Spaniard, this concept would be familiar to you, Mrs Estevan Bolea, since the disaster with the landfills in La Coruña could have been prevented if we had listened to the public, the environmental associations and the scientists involved.
It is regrettable that the German Government in particular, which usually leads the way, has been so negative in this process and has failed to make any constructive suggestions. It has effectively been left on the sidelines at European level.
Another important point which Mr Lannoye has also touched upon is that unfortunately we have not succeeded in including policy sectors that receive subsidies, such as agriculture, coal and shipyards. Here, public money is spent without ever once examining the effects of the plans involved on the environment.
We hope that strategic environmental assessment is not pushed to one side, and we would like to appeal to those Member States like Germany...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe's environment policy is characterized by two weaknesses. Firstly, an excess of lengthy, theoretical declarations of intent and an attendant lack of practical implementing provisions.
Secondly, environment policy in Europe is known for the priority it gives to patching up the effects of damage to the environment, rather than actively preventing it from occurring.
This is a policy which, by its very nature, must always lag behind events.
Environment policy can only be successful if it moves beyond this stage.
The rapporteur has done an excellent job of recognising this and, in the amendments, at least improves upon these defects.
If structures are actually created that lay down strategic environmental assessment in advance, then a quantum leap in the whole of environment policy would have been accomplished.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the discussion in this House on environmental impact assessment has been an astonishing display of self-congratulation.
It was just last year that we decided upon environmental impact assessment for industrial plants, and in this directive we have defined a large number of other areas where the law is going to apply in the future.
But when it came to a Europe-wide definition of environmental impact assessment, we all backed out.
We called for subsidiarity. The result is that the problems we have now are the biggest ever, and not only for us in Germany, Mrs Breyer, where we have been practising this system for five years now.
That just shows that you are not being realistic.
The rules are just being interpreted in completely different ways.
In Germany, an assessment is carried out and if you have not passed, then you have simply failed, and the building project is not implemented.
In all other countries this is handled more flexibly, sometimes better, sometimes worse.
I do not in any way wish to judge.
I would only say to you that we have created a single market and the aim is that rules within this single market should be comparable.
They do not have to be completely identical, because geographical differences also exist.
The issue here is not doing away with the EIA, rather it is a question of doing something sensible and comparable with the EIA, something where the rules are the same.
Then we would all agree with it and, what is more, agree quite willingly.
That has been taken up in many of the speeches here.
I believe that the legal basis of this directive is wrong.
The point here is whether we concern ourselves with town and country planning, not whether this can be rejected unanimously here or not.
This question of the environmental impact assessment of land-use plans is one that quite simply has to do with town and country planning.
We need only consult the relevant articles.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is in a much better position to do this than ourselves. We should quietly wait for them to do this.
This report basically contains some good ideas, but it is not ripe.
At the moment, not a single Member State supports it.
Helmut Kohl and the French President were right to say that the Commission is meddling in too many things.
Member States are clever enough and wise enough to carry out such assessments according to their own criteria.
In due course, we should take up this report once again.
I think at best now we should abstain, although we should actually be coming out against this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission's proposal for the extension of environmental impact assessment to plans and programmes is a typical route one approach, from the green table in Brussels to the offside position of practical implementation in the Member States.
Mr Florenz has already given us some indications as to how the present EIA has been faring there. The new proposal seeks to add some much more detailed elements.
It is many times more difficult than what we have had up to now, and even that was not adequately implemented.
Another attempt is being made solely to harmonise procedure and, in doing so, to interfere in the legislation and administrative authority of the Member States.
Moreover, the Commission in no way draws the obvious conclusions from the problems that have already arisen as a result of the EIA project.
I would suggest the following: before the Commission pursues this proposal any further, it should, in line with this proposal for a directive, apply the EIA to plans and programmes in its own area of responsibility, in order to gain experience with this instrument and prove that it is suitable for use.
I too am of the opinion that the legal basis is not an appropriate one.
It is the other legal basis that we need, because according to Articles 3 and 3a of the EC Treaty as amended by the Union Treaty, the EU has no legal competence for urban development, land-use plans and outline urban developments.
Since many areas of this proposal for a directive are clearly concerned with town and country planning regulations, such a proposal for a directive should, if anything, be based on Article 130s, paragraph 2.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, in particular the rapporteur, Per Gahrton, and now also Mr Lannoye, deputising for the rapporteur, for their contribution and their thorough treatment of this proposal.
Environmental assessments are a fundamental instrument in environmental protection, ensuring the early integration of environmental considerations into the decision-making.
The Commission's aim through this proposal is to supplement the existing environmental assessment system at project level by introducing measures at the planning and programming stage in the decision-making process.
The proposal introduces what is in our opinion a minimal and, in reality, quite simple procedure, which consists of internationally recognised principles of strategic environmental assessment, or SEA.
But it emerges clearly from the debate here today that opinion is really divided on this proposal, as was also the case in the course of its preparation.
For that reason, a large number of amendments have been tabled, and the Commission is happy to accept almost half of them, because we think they clarify or improve the wording of the proposal, not least by adding some definitions.
Obviously we are happy to accept improvements that make the proposal clearer.
The fact that we cannot accept some of the amendments may be due to technical reasons, but it may also be due to our adoption of a different approach for the proposal.
I will now indicate what we can accept and what we cannot.
Of the 39 amendments, the Commission can accept 18 in whole, in part or in principle.
Those we can accept in their entirety are Nos 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 16 and 31.
We can accept Amendment No 25 in principle, and we can accept Amendments Nos 14, 17, 19, 22, 27, 32, 33, 34 and 37 in part.
It is clear from this that we cannot accept a large number of the amendments.
I should perhaps make a few comments - several speakers raised this matter - on Amendment No 39, which concerns the legal basis for the directive.
It has been said here today that it should be Article 130s, paragraph 2, which requires unanimity, rather than Article 130s, paragraph 1, which requires a qualified majority.
We did of course ask the Commission's legal service before deciding on the legal basis.
The reasons why we opted for Article 130s, paragraph 1, are that it concerns procedures and that its main purpose is environmental protection.
In addition, it is our view that all the EU instruments covering environmental impact assessments should have the same legal basis.
As the environmental impact assessment directive, Directive 97/11/EC on projects, is based on Article 130s, paragraph 1, the same legal basis has been chosen for this proposal.
It has been pointed out in this debate that the plans and programmes we are talking about fall under the heading of town and country planning, and that Article 130s, paragraph 2, refers to 'measures concerning town and country planning'.
For that reason, some here have argued that this would be the correct legal basis.
That is not our view.
We regard Article 130s, paragraph 2, as an exception to the general rule in Article 130s, paragraph 1, which is to be interpreted restrictively.
According to the Court of Justice, it is the main aim of a directive that determines the choice of legal basis.
As has already been stated, the main purpose of this directive is to protect the environment.
It is not the intention of the proposal to intervene in town and country planning, but to give the planning authorities an instrument which they can integrate into their decisionmaking process with a view to improving it by providing a means of identifying, assessing and taking account of environmental effects.
I wanted to take a little time on this question because I have the impression that it has played quite a major role in the debate today.
I would like to comment on some other amendments which we cannot accept.
These are Amendments Nos 8 and 9 and to some extent 17, which propose an extension to the scope of the proposal.
They are amendments which propose specific sectors, such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries or leisure activities.
We think that the first area for the introduction of an environmental impact assessment system at the planning and programming stage in the decision-making process is that of town and country planning and associated sectors.
This is because we have carried out various investigations, and we have also done some fairly thorough screening in the Member States, and have formed the impression from this that it would be best to integrate these areas first.
To add sectors such as agriculture, forestry, fisheries or leisure activities explicitly cannot be accepted because these investigations have shown that there are, generally speaking, no separate land-use plans or programmes for these sectors of the type to be covered by the proposal.
Then there was a brief discussion - and I will not go into detail on it - of including the political level.
Mr White directly opposed the amendment put forward, and Mrs Jackson also presented arguments relating to it.
I think Mrs Dybkjær said that in her opinion it was natural that it should be included.
I can perhaps go so far as to say that my own personal view - which is perhaps not so surprising - lies closer to Mrs Dybkjær's view, but it is not taken up in the proposal as it stands.
Then there are amendments, Nos 22 and 25, in which it is proposed that means should be stipulated to ensure the quality of the information provided in the environmental assessment.
The intention was to avoid unnecessary delays in the procedure or further costs arising from the poor quality or lack of information in the environmental assessment.
We can accept these amendments either in principle or in part.
Finally, there is the question of Amendments Nos 3, 30 and 33, which concern a monitoring requirement.
Here too we have looked at the provisions of the environmental impact assessment directive, and we have followed the guidelines arising from it.
In conclusion, let me say that we regard the accepted amendments as an improvement of the proposal under consideration.
I believe that this directive will enhance the protection of both man and the environment and that in practice it may also assist industry, because it will give it a more consistent framework within which to work.
I naturally hope therefore that Parliament will adopt the proposal, but also that Parliament will help us to ensure that it is placed on the agenda for a Council meeting.
Mr President, I am sure Mrs Jackson did not intend to be mischievous - that would not be in her nature - but there was a suggestion that the Group of the Party of European Socialists might vote against this in plenary, whereas we have supported it in committee.
That is not the position.
We will support this in plenary, with the exception of the reference to policy - exactly as we did in committee.
Mr President, I am even more confused because as far as I can see the whole thing refers to policy. My question is to Mrs Bjerregaard.
She said that according to the Commission all European Union instruments which deal with the environment should have the same legal base.
Does she not accept that is impossible because the Treaty says that where measures concern town and country planning and land use, they must be subject to adoption by the Council of Ministers by unanimity? Does she not further accept that this directive, which is the one we are debating, says: 'Whereas the plans and programmes which should be assessed under this directive are those plans and programmes which are adopted as part of the town and country planning decision-making process' ?
Does she not see a contradiction between what she says and what the Treaty says?
Mr President, thank you for allowing me to speak on a personal note.
I would like to say to Mrs Breyer that she is reading the speech she has prepared and is not listening.
Mrs Breyer, I did not say that we do not hold consultations; in fact, in Spain, the consultations are very extensive.
What I said was that the length of these consultations should be limited to three months.
What we cannot do is to continue to hold consultations over a two-year period.
Nevertheless, please be assured that we do hold those consultations.
Mr President, I was referred to personally by Mr Florenz.
He is not here at the moment, otherwise I would have been very glad to give him a lesson on how environmental impact assessment works.
It simply is not the case that we wait for the result and then take the decision.
We all know what such an assessment is supposed to look like.
What is contained in the assessment is irrelevant afterwards.
Basically, the exercise is very successful for those who carry out the studies.
Finally, and this point has already been mentioned by Mr Lannoye, the zero options are missing. Let us consider for a moment what would happen if the project were not implemented.
I was also referred to by Mrs Estevan Bola. I do not think that three months are enough to bring about any serious participation by the public.
I have to stop you there, Mrs Breyer, because we are not going to have another debate.
I am very sorry.
I shall ask the Commissioner if she will respond.
Mr President, there have been several comments which have more to do with the debate itself.
I will not go into those.
In fact, I answered both Mr Florenz and Mrs Jackson quite clearly in my first response, in which I stressed that it was our clear understanding that the legal basis was Article 130s, paragraph 1, that the matter had been examined by the Commission's legal service and that we took the view that it was the correct legal basis, that Article 130s, paragraph 2, constituted an exception to the general rule and that it was not the intention of the proposal to intervene in town and country planning, but to give the planning authorities an instrument which they can integrate into their decision-making process.
Hence I feel that I have made it quite clear that the legal basis should be Article 130s, paragraph 1.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be postponed until the Legal Affairs Committee has delivered its opinion on the legal basis, which has just been discussed.
Civil subsonic jet aeroplanes
Mr President, the Community action programme on the environment and sustainable development explicitly calls for a further reduction in noise emissions from aeroplanes by the year 2000.
Therefore, the measure that we are debating today comes under this general objective.
In this respect, the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation is one of the main documents where the regulation of noise emissions from aeroplanes is concerned.
The Convention divides aeroplanes into three categories or chapters.
The first chapter covers aeroplanes that were among the noisiest at the time and may now no longer be used.
As regards the aeroplanes included in the second chapter, the 1992 European Union directive states that such planes can no longer be used in the European Union from 1 April 2002.
These Chapter 2 aeroplanes may, however, be equipped with socalled 'hushkits' so that they produce less noise and can be included in Category 3.
Chapter 2 aeroplanes equipped with hushkits do not yet pose a serious problem in the European Community.
The situation in the USA, however, is very different. There, the number of these aeroplanes will rise to about 1500 by the year 2000.
The US Noise Act 1990 requires all large Chapter 2 aeroplanes to be taken out of service by 31 December 1999.
It may be that, after this date, hushkitted Chapter 2 aeroplanes will be transferred from the USA to the European Community's aeroplane registers. This should be prevented through the regulation we are debating here.
The aim of this regulation is to prevent a further increase in noise pollution in the Community due to recertificated subsonic jet aeroplanes, as I have just mentioned.
A further objective is to limit the environmental damage caused by gas emissions from aeroplanes.
Provision has been made for exemptions where aeroplanes are used for emergencies or to assist with humanitarian aid.
With regard to the amendments, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection tabled six amendments that were adopted almost unanimously and it has tabled a new amendment for the plenary.
Following detailed study and serious reflection on my part, I am unable to accept this amendment, since it would break the political agreement we reached in the Committee on the Environment between the various groups. Moreover, it is not consistent with internal market measures nor with the urgency which this legislative measure requires.
Therefore, Mr President, I believe that we should be satisfied with this Commission proposal. We support it overall and sincerely believe that the amendments approved in the Committee on the Environment go along the same lines; therefore, both the proposal and the amendments have our full support.
In any case, we should remember that, in coming years, it will be necessary to introduce further measures aimed at reducing noise in the air transport sector, as already provided for in the Community programme.
Mr President, I welcome this chance to continue the work of my predecessor, Mrs van Dijk, so soon and to serve as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the Commission's proposal.
I am happy too to be able to say that the Commission's proposal on reducing the nuisance of aircraft noise, presented to us by Mr Valverde López, has the full support of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I should add that this is a small step which will, I hope, become part of a rather more comprehensive plan to reduce noise pollution from aircraft at European level.
I have three further comments.
Firstly, I would point out once again that whilst this proposal is well-intentioned, the benefit which this kind of positive development brings will regrettably be cancelled out by the ever-increasing number of aircraft movements.
In other words, there is an increased need, in respect of the number of aircraft movements as well, to take structural measures for the longer term to reduce the nuisance of aircraft noise.
Secondly I would stress that the matter is urgent.
Mr Valverde López has made that point already, and this prompts me to reiterate the importance of Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
Not a directive, but a regulation and in time stricter, newer standards on aircraft noise.
Thirdly, we also set great store by the rapporteur's Amendment No 6, the adding of a ban on night flights.
One way or another, this has to feature in the report - as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned, and it must be mandatory.
Maybe not before the year 2000, but it has to be included.
Lastly, Mr President, I would say that I and my committee believe that the future of aviation in Europe is one of the major concerns of the future and I am glad that we are able to take this small step forward.
Mr President, I wish to begin by welcoming the report, and I can assure the rapporteur on behalf of the Socialists that we will be giving him our support.
This is an important issue.
Noise pollution is an increasingly sensitive issue and something we are becoming more and more aware of.
The Commission itself has produced a green paper on this issue and is moving forward with action.
This first step is very welcome.
Aeroplanes landing and taking off represent a major source of noise pollution in and around airports and we welcome the steps that are going to be taken internationally to get rid of the noisiest of planes.
Hushkitting, as has been described by the rapporteur, is acceptable certainly in the interim but we do not want to see hushkitting for the noisiest aeroplanes used as a pretext for taking no further action.
It is right for the rapporteur to insist that further controls and restrictions are placed on the future use of hushkitted aeroplanes.
We need to see these plans implemented as quickly as possible.
Some of us - particularly in this Chamber, who are very frequent travellers on aeroplanes - do not realise the consequences of our moving around Europe for many of the people who find themselves in the flight paths of these aircraft near the many airports around the Community.
Therefore, we give our full support to the rapporteur, and I would urge colleagues in the House to vote for these amendments as well.
May I begin, Mr President, by complimenting Mr Valverde López on his excellent report.
Secondly, I must congratulate Mr Lagendijk on his maiden speech.
It was a fine one and I am confident that he will be an asset to the House.
Mr President, noise near airports is a major problem which causes us an incredible amount of trouble, certainly in densely populated areas.
In the case of the Netherlands, one has only to look at the problems surrounding the main airport of Schipol, but smaller-scale civil aviation as well.
It is fitting that we in the European Parliament should all be keen to address the problem of noise pollution and other environmental nuisance factors caused by flying.
Two strategies are possible.
One is quiet aircraft. We are taking a step in that direction today.
The other is restricting aircraft movements, but zoning too.
In the Netherlands, Mr President, we all too often believe, and wrongly, that by zoning we can control the environment and aircraft noise ourselves.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Let me give you an example. I live in Limburg.
We have an airport in Maastricht, and in Maastricht we tried the following strategy: one, redeveloping the facility; two, limiting the number of night flights; and three, denying landing rights to noisy aircraft.
And what happens? Barely 20 kilometres away, again with financial help from the European Union, a new airport gets built in Bierset, with no restrictions on night flights and access allowed to noisy aircraft.
So people living in that area are still stuck with the problem. So what do we have to do?
We have to seek solutions primarily at European level.
This is why I welcome today's proposal against noisy aircraft, and I think that this tightening of the rules is a good thing.
I agree with the rapporteur that the 'hushkitting' now envisaged for Chapter 2 aircraft must be curtailed as much as possible.
So I am happy to support his amendments.
But I wonder what we are going to do on 1 April when, as in the USA, we have a lot of aircraft which are registered here and can thus be operated too.
I wonder if the solution proposed by the rapporteur in his amendment to Article 6 will offer adequate solace?
Lastly, Mr President, I shall certainly not support any amendments which weaken the rapporteur's proposal.
I think that we must do our utmost in this European market to harmonise things, to achieve the highest level of environmental protection possible.
It really is crazy to compete at the expense of the environment.
Mr President, the Commission joins with others who have spoken here today in welcoming the report by Mr Valverde López.
We also very much appreciate how quickly the report was presented, because that makes it possible to get the proposal adopted within the time limits set. So we very much wish to thank Mr Valverde López and his colleagues in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
In considering the amendments proposed by the committee, the Commission feels that it is important to maintain a balance between the environmental improvements desired and the economic burdens which may be imposed on certain developing countries.
It is also important to send the right signals to ICAO, which is currently investigating the possibility of introducing more stringent standards for aircraft noise thresholds which would apply throughout the world.
I am therefore happy to say that the Commission can accept Amendment No 1 and that we can accept Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4 in part.
We cannot accept Amendment No 5, because the use of aircraft with noise attenuation equipment outside the territory of the Community is explicitly covered in Article 4, paragraph 2.
We also cannot accept Amendments Nos 6 and 7, because harmonised rules for the prohibition of night flights by certain aircraft are not in conformity with either the subsidiarity principle or the international obligations of the Member States.
There is also the fact that the Member States already have a procedure under Regulation No 2408/92 for the introduction of restrictions on aviation with a view to improving noise conditions around airports.
It is clear that there is broad agreement on this proposal, and the work done by Mr Valverde López and his colleagues means that this agreement can be translated into proper legislation at an early date.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Waste management
Mr President, the report we are submitting to Parliament comes under the Community policy on waste management.
The Commission's proposal is the first attempt on its part to present an assessment of the application by the Member States of the legislative framework for waste management. It covers the first generation of European law in this area, that is, the period up to 1995.
In accordance with this legislation, the Member States are obliged to submit regular reports on the application of this framework.
It is surprising that the Commission has taken so long to carry out this task.
It is assessing the situation after 20 years.
The scenario presented by this assessment is quite dreadful, due to the lack of enthusiasm shown by the Member States in applying the current rules.
No Member State has so far incorporated the European Waste Catalogue.
Many differences exist in terms of the interpretation of the rules, due to the lack of universal agreement on concepts such as industrial waste and hazardous waste.
It is essential for uniform terminology to be adopted.
There are serious omissions on the part of the Member States concerning their obligation to keep the Commission regularly informed.
In one particular case, not a single report has been submitted in 22 years.
The application of this legislative framework leaves much to be desired. This seriously endangers public health, the operation of the internal market, sustainable development and - what is worse - the Union's credibility, particularly as far as the applicant countries are concerned.
In December 1991, the Commission submitted a new directive standardising and rationalising reports in order to ensure that Member States fulfilled their responsibilities for the 1995-1997 period.
The Commission will present the results of this in the middle of 1999.
Since October 1997, it has begun infringement proceedings.
These infringement proceedings should be initiated in a more systematic fashion.
Similarly, Community legislation on the environment must be consolidated.
Existing legislation is very fragmented; up to 20 legal acts would need to be combined in order to improve its consistency and transparency.
We would call on the Council, when Regulation (EEC) No 1210/90 is next revised, to adopt the European Parliament's amendments. This would enable the European Environment Agency to provide reports on the application of waste management legislation in the Member States, while increasing its cooperation with national governments.
I would like to thank Mrs Jackson, Mr Bowe and Mr Eisma for having contributed relevant points of view that undoubtedly improve the report.
As regards the three amendments tabled, I agree with the first by Mr Eisma to paragraph 7, adding a new point.
However, while I thank Mr des Places and Mr Souchet for their interest, I unfortunately cannot accept the amendments they have tabled, Nos 2 and 3, because they are out of place in this more general report.
Mr President, the issue we are considering is important enough to warrant a wide range of changes: firstly, a change of attitude on the part of the Member States, and, more generally, changes ranging from industrial processes to living habits and from product design to new visions of the world.
I hope that the report will be approved by Parliament and that the Commission will take up our suggestions.
Mr President, I welcome this long overdue report.
Mr Campoy Zueco has done a great deal of work on this and has been very honest, very fair and very just.
I certainly would agree with everything he has said so far.
However, we need to continue to highlight the problems of non-implementation of waste legislation throughout the Union.
There is certainly confusion about definitions within the directives and there is a need for clarification of the texts to make them more coherent.
Equally, there is a clear failure by Member States to implement a whole range of directives, whether it is waste oil, sewage sludge or toxic and dangerous waste.
There are many areas where action really needs to be taken by Member States.
We also need firmer action from the Commission, which, after all, is the guardian of the Treaty and protector of the directives.
I therefore welcome the Commission's infringement action against some of the Member States which have not properly implemented the waste oils directive.
But more action is needed and it must be more systematic and automatic after a reasonable time period, not decades.
We also have to recognise that the Environment Agency set up in Copenhagen has a role in identifying problems and informing the Commission so that it can take rapid action.
But I feel the main responsibility lies with the Commission.
The enlargement process is going to face us with a whole series of new problems with regard to implementation and enforcement of legislation.
It seems to me that we must steel ourselves to take firmer action in this regard.
We are going to have to draw attention to the sinners who are not implementing European legislation and take fiscal action against those who are not implementing legislation.
The European Parliament is prepared to bring other elected representatives - ministers of Member States - to account and demand their presence here to explain the failure to implement legislation.
We are prepared to take action and we call upon others to do so too.
The European Union must be coherent and respect the legislation that we pass through this House.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate my colleague, Mr Campoy Zueco on his report and on the hard work that he has put in.
This is a very sad story and one which has been highlighted particularly by the British Members, and British Conservative Members, over many years.
The implementation of the directives which are examined in Mr Zueco's report by the Member States have been appalling and, indeed, as the Commission will confirm, it has experienced enormous difficulty in getting any information at all out of some Member States.
Quite plainly, European environment legislation in this field is not working.
We are using words that have no meaning, adopting directives which are neglected.
What are we going to do about it? The traditional answer is to say that we should take Member States which are not implementing the legislation to the European Court of Justice.
That may not work either.
What do you do if a country simply cannot pay for the legislation which it has not put into operation? That is the reason the legislation is not in operation.
Infringement actions also are unlikely to be welcomed by the citizens of some Member States who feel that the decision as to whether or not they should pay certain bills should, in the first instance, be that of their national governments rather than some more distant European forum.
I have two suggestions and one will not be news to the European Commission.
First of all, we have to make sure that every single environment proposal that comes forward from the Commission has a full cost-impact assessment in it, an assessment of the kind of cost that individual citizens and their local authorities will expect to pay if they are going to put this legislation into operation.
The Commission often says this is very difficult.
It will be very difficult.
It may well be that the Commission wants to add the cost of non-action, which is fine, as a comparison, but the citizens of Europe need to know what the bill is going to be.
Only then will Member States be able to show their citizens the cost of what they are prepared to sign up to when they agree to this legislation.
Finally, we also need, as Mr White has said, an enlargement cost statement.
Do these new Member States knocking at our door really have the slightest hope of taking part in our environment legislation procedure - which we assume they will be able to do - if we are simply adding new directives that add to the costs they are going to take on. We need a cost impact statement for the existing Member States and a cost assessment for the applicants.
Mr President, much has been achieved in recent years on the environment, yet this first-rate report by Mr Campoy Zueco shows just how limited European policy on the environment actually is.
A good environmental policy will work only if the Member States are one hundred per cent committed to it.
Sadly, the Commission's communication reveals that the adoption, implementation and enforcement of our directives on waste leaves much to be desired.
This poor level of compliance on the part of Member States is not only lamentable; the prospect of enlargement makes it downright alarming.
After all, we expect new Member States to respect our existing acquis .
I put down an amendment to this end which requires the granting of financial aid to applicant countries for waste management activities to be tied to acceptance of the present-day standards of the European Union.
I hope Commissioner Bjerregaard will accept the Liberal Group's Amendment No 1.
But it is hardly credible for us to insist that the applicant countries meet those standards if the 15 existing Member States cannot do so.
So I urge Member States to discharge their responsibilities and I expect the Commission to be more vigilant in making sure that they do.
Mr President, I support the resolution before us today.
It calls on the Commission to provide the European Parliament with a quarterly list of cases listing Member States taken to the Court of Justice in the field of waste management.
Moreover, it expresses the intention, in cases of a flagrant violation of European Union waste legislation, of inviting the responsible ministers of the relevant Member States to attend a committee meeting of the European Parliament to explain their policies.
From an Irish perspective the future of waste disposal does not lie in the continued search for more landfill sites nationwide.
This invariably has the contentious effect of arousing considerable local objections.
Local authorities the length and breadth of Ireland are still engaging in the process of finding new landfill sites for the future waste disposal programmes.
There is growing public concern about the long-term environmental impact in general of landfill sites.
Ireland is presently experiencing strong economic growth and part of our resources must be invested in alternative waste management schemes.
Investment in a clean environment in Ireland will, in the medium to long-term, justify the additional expenditure.
I strongly welcome the initiative taken by my government which has commissioned a study into the possible use of new and alternative forms of waste generation and disposal.
The implementation of the Waste Management Act (1995) is certainly a step in the right direction.
Under this legislation local authorities are required to prepare waste management plans either individually or jointly and the Environment Protection Agency is also required to prepare a national hazardous waste management plan.
However, when one considers that there was over 42 million tonnes of waste in Ireland in 1995 I am confident that the innovative proposals to deal with waste management in Ireland will receive a very favourable response from the Commission during the next round of European Union structural funding for the years 2000 to 2006.
I compliment the rapporteur on his excellent report.
Mr President, there is no doubt as to the opportunity this Commission communication represents, nor as to how apt the report by my fellow countryman Mr Campoy Zueco is, since the communication relates to the extent to which four directives have been applied.
It could refer to many other things, and I believe that we would also come to the same conclusion: that the majority of the Member States are blatantly breaching these as well as other directives.
I believe we must welcome the infringement proceedings begun against 13 Member States that have failed to adopt waste disposal plans.
In my opinion, this is a good idea.
What is happening means that perhaps these infringement proceedings should be faster and more automatic, because they continue over a period of time and that leads to an increase in waste, something that is particularly alarming when the waste is hazardous.
The information Mr Campoy provided was very clear: more than 20 often complex legal acts are making it difficult for governments to apply the directives more clearly, transparently and quickly.
I believe that our priorities should be to consolidate the Community law on waste management, as the rapporteur proposes, to support the work of the IMPEL network and, of course, to support the European Environment Agency with sufficient resources so that it can monitor and control the application of Community legislation in this area.
When we talk here about waste management, it is as if we are talking about something vague and ethereal.
However, Commissioner Bjerregaard, knows very well, because we sometimes send her information, that the increase in waste means a disaster for health and for the environment.
This is true for waste that is toxic and hazardous, such as the five million tonnes of phosphorus containers in Huelva, and is evident from what happened in Doñana. Similarly, we have seen it clearly this very week in León when visiting dumps connected with the exploitation of slate that are threatening the very lives of 700 people in a nearby town.
In other words, health and the environment are at risk because Community law is not being upheld.
Mr President, as the rapporteur has pointed out, one of the most obvious things about this Commission communication has been the lack of information from Member States.
Only scant information has been received.
It is clear that EU governments are failing in their obligation to provide information to the Commission.
In almost all cases Ireland, my own country, has failed to file the reports on transposition, application and the implementation of EU waste management directives which they are required to submit.
It is impossible to determine whether Member States have fulfilled their obligations under the legislation because of their failure to file reports.
This situation cannot continue.
The Commission must take immediate legal action against Member States who default on their obligations.
The Commission appears to have an extremely weak attitude towards enforcing legislation on waste management and, as a result, irresponsible countries like my own are allowed to continue with dangerous approaches to waste with the unsustainable option of landfill.
Ireland has one of lowest rates of recycling in the EU and one of the highest rates of landfill disposal.
In Ireland many dumps are on the periphery of large residential areas and, according to a recent study, are a serious threat to pregnant women.
Thousands of pregnant women living near landfill sites are running an increased risk of producing children with birth defects.
According to a study that was published recently in the medical journal The Lancet , spina bifida, holes in the heart, malformations of major blood vessels and a host of other defects are 33 % more likely in babies born to mothers living within 1.8 miles of landfill sites.
Many of these contain highly dangerous chemicals.
The Irish Government's failure to enforce EU legislation and the failure of Member States throughout the European Union to enforce the waste management regulations is unacceptable.
Their failure to enforce it and to comply with it should not be allowed to continue.
It is clear that waste is one of the most obvious problems facing the EU in the future.
It is about time that Member States lived up to their obligation to protect the public from dangerous and toxic dumps and irresponsible waste disposal.
We need to see an inventory of what has been dumped throughout the EU.
The people have a right to know and the people responsible should be taxed.
There must be taxes on industry to ensure that toxic waste is no longer produced.
There has to be a reasoned approach to waste.
Time is very short, and I would ask Members not to go beyond their speaking time.
I am now obliged to interrupt the debate for Question Time, and there are still four speakers left.
If there are no objections and the House wishes me to continue the debate so that we can take these speakers and conclude the matter, I could be persuaded to do so.
I assume that there is quite a large majority in favour of continuing.
Mr President, if you authorise the extension of the debate, please at least restrict each speaker to about one minute.
The last three speakers exceeded their speaking time by 45 seconds.
With a firm President who wields the necessary powers, we should be able to respect our timetable.
You are quite right, Mr Herman.
I have been much too generous, and that is why we are running late.
I would now ask the last few speakers to be very brief.
Mr President, the Commission's statement is the first step in drawing attention to the seriously deficient policy concerning waste management.
It is the first effort to record and assess the woeful situation so far.
For the first time, an attempt is being made to shed light on the situation prevailing in the Member States as regards the implementation of Community law.
The report also highlights the ineffectual application of the regulatory frameworks and Community rules worked out at European Union level.
There is a huge gulf: the European Union's bodies vote for one thing, but what is implemented and takes place in the Member States is quite another.
It is typical that not a single Member State has properly transposed Directive 75/442/EEC, and each applies it in a different way.
It should be noted that no Member State has incorporated the European listing of waste products in accordance with Directive 4/94.
In each Member State, different definitions apply for the limits of hazardous substances and the maximum acceptable concentrations.
The checking procedures are also different.
Moreover, there are serious problems connected with the directives on mineral oils and sewage treatment.
However, I would like to dwell on what is happening as a result of the directives on solid wastes.
The situation here is truly dramatic.
The Commission has tried to secure compliance from the Member States by bringing an action before the European Court of Justice and through the fines which Article 171 empowers it to propose.
Unfortunately, one of the transgressor countries is my own, in cases such as the Pagasitikos Gulf, the pollution of Lake Vegorritis and the River Soulos and, worst of all, the case of Kouroupito near Hania.
Consequently, despite bombastic declarations by the Member States about a Europe close to its citizens, it is the Union's own bodies which ultimately not only stand aloof from their concerns, but even strive to protect their own rights.
We believe that the Commission should begin preparing an overall record of the situation in all the waste management sectors, with the aim of formulating a uniform Community policy.
Accordingly, the Member States must realise that the proper management of all types of waste is at the core of the Treaties and of our concerns about the quality of life.
I would like to thank our rapporteur, who has really done an excellent job.
Mr President, I share the concerns and criticisms of the rapporteur, Mr Campoy Zueco, on the subject of the considerable delays in implementing the directives on waste.
Our commitment to sustainable development and the protection of the environment obliges us to advocate a completely different form of waste management.
We must reduce waste production at source, develop upgrading and recycling methods and neutralise the final waste.
But how are we to achieve this?
I would only go some way with our rapporteur when he stresses the need for infringement procedures.
We must take the full measure of the real obstacles to implementing waste legislation, not in order to justify present shortcomings, but in order for the legislation to be effective and workable.
Because this legislation has considerable financial implications.
We could of course reduce its costs and the Commission must submit proposals to this effect, in particular by means of tax incentives as the rapporteur proposes for waste oils.
But generally, should we not reduce VAT on waste treatment to the lowest possible level, or even create the conditions for a sufficient upgrading of recycled products which would then be able to compete with new products which are often cheaper?
That said, given the financial costs which remain considerable, how will it be possible to mobilise the necessary resources when the public authorities are compelled to reduce their budget, when companies are facing global competition and when people have inadequate purchasing power?
I believe there is a contradiction between the Union's economic and monetary policies, which are backed up by strict obligations and criteria, and environment policy, where laissez-faire and laxness can dominate, as witnessed by the report which we are now discussing.
Finally, I believe that the only way out of the present situation is to combine infringement procedures with the financial measures which will make it possible to remove fundamental obstacles and, above all, allow democracy to make a greater contribution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur and also express my dissatisfaction at the delay of the Member States in implementing coherent waste management policies.
Everybody knows that the way to protect an often abused environment, to reduce land, air and water pollution and to save on raw materials is to adopt better waste management - or quite simply any waste management at all - and to limit and recycle waste.
Admittedly, this initially brings additional costs, sometimes considerable, as wasting and polluting is cheaper in the short term.
But in the medium term a rigorous and more economic management is essential, especially for human health.
We must therefore show greater firmness in dealing with those who fail to apply the legislation, whoever they may be.
Of course they must be punished in fiscal terms, while at the same time we must certainly help those who make every effort to implement the legislation, in particular the local authorities.
Finally, like other Members, I also note that our debate has once again raised the problem of implementing the decisions taken.
We spend a good deal of time defining standards and agreeing measures, especially in the environment sector. Yet often we then forget to take stock of what is happening and when we do so, as today, the result is so utterly distressing.
Here too, the question of the political authority of Europe and its institutions is at stake more than ever before. It is an authority which must be strengthened.
Mr President, I will not prolong the debate unduly.
I greatly welcome the report presented by Mr Campoy Zueco today.
I have understood from the debate that there is general agreement on the urgent need for the legislation to be implemented, and that there is annoyance and disappointment over the fact that the Member States do not seem more able or do not have the political will to implement the legislation.
I hope that the resolution, which I assume will be adopted, will help to step up the debate. I am also grateful for the various pieces of good advice which have been given in the course of the debate today.
Some of that advice has, in my opinion, already been taken up to improve the situation, and I hasten to assure Parliament that we have no intention of letting the Member States off the hook as regards implementing legislation which we - it can be said - have made strenuous efforts to put into effect within the Union.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0482/98).
Question No 44 by Charlotte Cederschiöld (H-0763/98)
Subject: Social security in the event of moving abroad
Swedish courts have ruled on several occasions that Swedish legislation on social insurance is contrary to fundamental Community rules in requiring that a person must be resident in Sweden to receive benefits.
Despite these rulings, citizens entitled to benefit continue to be refused social security in the event of moving abroad.
Does the Commission consider that this situation is consistent with the principles concerning the freedom of movement of individuals? I should like to welcome Mr Monti and apologise to him for starting Question Time ten minutes late.
I would now ask him to reply to Mrs Cederschiöld's question.
The honourable Member raises the problem of assimilation of Community law on social security in Sweden.
Council Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71 established detailed rules for coordinating Member States' social security systems applying to European Union workers and their families resident in the Community.
The question implies that Sweden has not implemented these rules correctly, but does not actually provide enough information for the Commission to establish whether Community law has or has not been respected in a specific case.
So the Commission invites the honourable Member to describe the case in more detail to the services of my colleague, Mr Flynn, who is responsible for this matter, so that they can examine the matter in the light of Community law.
Thank you for your reply, Commissioner Monti.
This case concerns a women who, because she was working in England, was unable to draw her parental allowance.
I am pleased to hear that the Commission would like more information and I will certainly provide it.
I see a parallel here with another issue which is topical at the moment: the right to health care. The Court of Justice refers in this regard to the Treaty of Rome.
When it comes to freedom of movement, I do not believe that the status of people with social benefit entitlements differs substantially from that of patients, whose claims are judged on an individual basis.
There is no question of arbitrary assessment, nor can reimbursement be denied. Prior authorisation is not necessary either.
If Union citizens, be they patients or social benefit recipients, find themselves denied free movement, will the Commission undertake to support them in any proceedings they may initiate against the Member States concerned?
In this case too, I would ask Mrs Cederschiöld to be good enough to let us have further details.
I can only say - but on very general lines - that the Commission is trying to support the citizens of the European Union in the exercise of their rights, primarily with an information programme about the exact nature of those rights. And, as the honourable Member is aware, this framework encompasses the Citizens First programme which the Commission has been carrying out with the resolute support of the European Parliament.
On the specific health care case you raise, again I invite you to provide the Commission with further details so that we can do something more specific to help.
Question No 45 by Robert Evans (H-0764/98)
Subject: Voting rights for EU citizens
Is the Commission aware that some EU citizens, living outside their own Member State are effectively disenfranchise, unable to vote in European or local elections as they should expect to do as EU citizens?
The Belgian Government has once again shown that whilst being, 'at the heart of Europe', it is unable to provide nonBelgian nationals with their full voting rights, but it is not the only offender.
The case has come to my attention of EU citizens, employed for many years with the Council of Europe, who are now denied the right to vote both by their home country and by the French Government due to their 'quasi-diplomatic' status.
What action is the Commission taking to rid the European Union of these anomalies and ensure that all EU citizens can vote, at least in local and European elections? I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mr Evans's question.
Any Union citizen resident in a Member State who does not have citizenship there can exercise the right to vote and is eligible to stand in local and European Parliament elections under the rules laid down by the directive and incorporated into national law by all the Member States, with one exception.
Only Belgium has not yet implemented Directive 94/80/EC which establishes the method of exercising the right to vote and eligibility for local elections.
Following the European Court of Justice decision of 9 July 1998, finding against Belgium for failing to incorporate the said directive, the Commission will certainly take action under Article 171 of the EC Treaty if the defaulting Member State does not take steps to comply with the Court's ruling within a reasonable period of time.
As regards officials of the Council of Europe, the Commission is not aware of the facts reported by the honourable Member.
As far as the Commission knows, all citizens of the European Union resident in France can participate in local and European Parliament elections if they wish to, regardless of their personal status.
The French law transposing Directive 94/80/EC, which establishes the procedures for exercising the right to vote and stand for election at municipal elections, states that Union citizens are considered as resident in France if their actual domicile is there or if their residence in the country is continuous.
There are a huge number of anomalies in this legislation.
The Commissioner is quite right in what he says about the Belgian authorities.
Belgium seems to be making its own exceptions or its own regulations regarding this.
In certain communes, if 20 % of residents are not Belgians but other Europeans, they seem to waive the law and the legislation.
I hope very much that the Commissioner will do what he said in his answer to the previous question: enforce the enjoyment of their rights by EU citizens.
This raises a question: in the European elections next year, if the Commissioner was living in London he would get a vote.
It seems to me that EU Commissioners living in Brussels will not be able to vote in the European elections next summer even though they are working for Europe.
I must also draw the Commissioner's attention to the point that I raised about people working at the Council of Europe who are - in my understanding - not eligible to vote as they are not paying full tax in France because of their status as working for the Council of Europe.
I wonder if he could give me any further information on that?
Concerning the officials of the Council of Europe I can only refer to what I said in my initial remarks.
The French law transposing Directive 94/80, which establishes the modalities for the exercise of the right to vote and stand for election at municipal elections, states that Union citizens are considered as resident in France if they have their real domicile there or if their residence in that country is of a continuous nature.
I should like to add a few words concerning Belgium, a point raised by Mr Evans in his supplementary question.
The Commission is aware that there has been some progress on this matter in recent days in Belgium.
At its first meeting in September, the Belgian Council of Ministers adopted a preliminary draft which aims to amend the legislation in force to provide for the transposition of the directive.
This draft has now been submitted for examination in the Chamber of Representatives and the parliamentary committees responsible have resumed their discussions on the reform of Article 8 of the Constitution, which is also required to extend political rights to non-national EU citizens.
Although these are indeed complex matters, the Commission hopes that on the basis of work now under way, the necessary measures will be in place in sufficient time to allow Union citizens to vote and stand as candidates in the next municipal elections in Belgium, which are scheduled for the year 2000.
With this in view the Commission services are monitoring developments and pursuing contacts about this matter with the Belgian authorities.
Question No 46 by Willy De Clercq (H-0793/98)
Subject: Voting rights for the European elections which must be granted, pursuant to the Treaty, to all EU subjects
The resolution in the report on citizenship of the Union, adopted by the European Parliament at its sitting of 2 July 1998, requests 'the Member States and the Community institutions particularly to ensure that the rights to vote and stand as a candidate in elections to the European Parliament are recognized and can be exercised by all citizens who in accordance with Article 8 hold the nationality of a Member State and reside in the Union'.
The Government of the United Kingdom has declared that it recognizes as its nationals 'British Dependent Territories citizens who acquire their citizenship from a connection with Gibraltar' (OJ C 23, 28.1.1983, p. 1).
Why are residents of Gibraltar still excluded from participation in the European elections, and will the Council take any action in this respect before the June 1999 elections? I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mr De Clercq's question.
Pending the adoption of a uniform electoral procedure, the elections to the European Parliament are governed by the provisions of the Act concerning the election of representatives of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage of 20 September 1976, annexed to Council Decision 76/787/ECSC, EC, EURATOM, by the provisions of the Treaty on European Union and by national legislation.
The act in question contains an annex, constituting an integral part of the act, whereby the United Kingdom undertakes to apply these provisions solely to the United Kingdom.
In effect, this means that Gibraltar is excluded from voting in elections to the European Parliament.
The annex was formally endorsed by the representatives of the Member States, sent to the Member States for their approval, and ratified according to the provisions of their respective constitutions.
The Treaty on European Union, in particular Article 8b, does not change this legal situation in that it is limited to granting the right to vote to citizens of the European Union residing in a Member State of which they are not nationals, under the same conditions as nationals of that state.
The definition of the area of application contained in Directive 93/109/EC on the method of exercising that right is linked to the 1976 act, under which Gibraltar does not hold elections to the European Parliament.
It is significant that the provisions of Article 8b(2) expressly state that the political rights covered by it are without prejudice to Article 138(3) and the provisions adopted for its implementation.
In any event, Article 138(3) of the EC Treaty establishes that the Act of 1976 can be amended only by unanimous decision of the Council, after approval by Parliament and subject to ratification by the Member States.
As Mr De Clercq is aware, of course, the Treaty expressly urges the European Parliament to draw up proposals for elections by direct universal suffrage in accordance with a uniform procedure.
In view of the current legal situation, the Commission cannot take any initiative to grant citizens of the European Union resident in Gibraltar the right to vote, as sought by the honourable Member.
My question is very simple.
I understand from the Commissioner's reply that he is not all that happy with the situation created here by the United Kingdom.
Whilst I would stress that the British Government did at the time recognise citizens of Gibraltar as British subjects, and since the European Parliament's resolution says that all citizens of the European Union must be free to take part in European elections, it seems to me that the position of this Member State is in clear conflict with that resolution.
You say the Commission cannot take any action.
I agree with you, but I should have liked to hear your reaction.
My question is this: although you cannot take any action, can you not bring pressure to bear on the Member State in question to treat all its citizens equally, irrespective of where they happen to be?
Indeed, Mr De Clercq, the final words of my brief reply can be seen in the context of the law we are talking about, but I mentioned that the Treaty expressly urges the European Parliament to draw up proposals for elections by direct universal suffrage in accordance with a uniform procedure, because this Parliament, and not just the Commission, has a very important role in stimulating the Member States, and that applies here.
Certainly, if we are asking what chance the citizens of Gibraltar have of securing the right to vote in the European Parliament elections, the obligatory first step is to amend the United Kingdom statement annexed to the Act of 1976, and Council Decision 76/787/ECSC, EC, EURATOM, which requires a unanimous vote in the Council.
After that, the British Government would be responsible for the way the citizens of Gibraltar exercise their right to vote, and that lies outside the Commission's competence.
I might say for the sake of completeness that, in addition to Gibraltar, elections to the European Parliament are not held in the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man either.
The EC Treaty does not apply to the United Kingdom sovereignty zones in Cyprus, where the question of participation in the European Parliament elections does not arise.
As regards Denmark, the autonomous region of the Faroe Islands, to which the EC Treaty does not apply, and Greenland, which does not form part of European Union territory, are excluded from the elections.
Finally, I would note that Council Directive 93/109/EEC is applicable to the French Overseas Territories, to Ceuta and Melilla, to Aruba and the Dutch Antilles. I mention that to give you the full picture.
As the author is not present, Question No 47 lapses.
Question No 48 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0746/98)
Subject: Implementation of Euro-Mediterranean policies in Algeria
What are the immediate prospects facing the Commission with regard to programmes and projects for cooperation with Algeria? What results can it point to in the last three years?
I should like to welcome Mr Marín and ask him to reply to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
As you know, Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, the Commission has agreed with the Algerian Government, as well as with the other Mediterranean partner countries, a multiannual programme for bilateral financial cooperation within the framework of the MEDA programme.
Due to the difficult social situation - according to official figures, unemployment affects around 30 % of the working population, and probably affects more in reality - efforts in this multiannual programme have been focused for the most part on this question of support for policies aimed at reducing unemployment.
And what we are trying to do, through the programme on micro-enterprises, is to help create and consolidate open-ended jobs, and to use those projects aimed at completing infrastructures and public works to develop a network of temporary jobs.
That is the objective.
The Commission is also encouraging and supporting, under difficult circumstances, community development through socalled 'local initiatives'.
This is an area affected by questions of security and we have so far received no response from the Algerian Government, for reasons that are clearly understandable, on how to implement these local development initiatives.
The remaining issues in the current programme include aid for structural adjustment mechanisms, privatisation and modernisation of the financial sector.
We are having difficulties in developing these projects due to the problems involved in trying to employ qualified experts who are prepared to move to Algeria. However, for the moment, and with the necessary protection, we have managed to keep three teams of experts who are preparing the programmes for the privatisation of small and medium-sized enterprises and the modernisation of the financial sector.
The aim, which is under negotiation, is to be able to dedicate around ECU 100 million to these three programmes, since they are connected with the completion of the multiannual programme.
In terms of the negotiations on the association agreement, the Algerian Government, as you probably know, decided to take some time to analyse the Commission's proposal, primarily the section relating to the period of industrial restructuring, and in principle, the Algerian Government has still not told us when it would like to recommence formal negotiations.
In exchange, we have been asked to hold a series of explanatory seminars on the Euro-Mediterranean free trade area, the problems related to the establishment of a Euro-Mediterranean internal market, with its industrial restructuring and the possible impacts on the industrial fabric of Algeria, since they believe that this is a very sensitive issue. In addition, before resuming negotiations, they would like to have as much information as we can provide.
We are naturally willing to provide such information and when the Algerian Government informs us that it wishes to continue with formal negotiations, we will thus continue with them.
Thank you very much, Mr Marín, for that response; it satisfies my concerns over the current situation in Algeria.
However, I would like to ask you more specifically if it has already been possible to open a Commission delegation in Algeria.
I understand that there are three teams of experts, but I do not know if that point has been clarified sufficiently for me.
It is true that the situation in Algeria calls for a specific project for that country at the moment.
I believe that the Commission should ensure that provision is made within the Euro-Mediterranean process to allow us to initiate now - and especially now since early elections have been called - a specific programme for Algeria that can be implemented with a certain degree of flexibility.
In conclusion, I would like to know if the Commission is going to support policies that ensure democratic guarantees for the next elections, which President Zeroual announced would take place in February. And I would like to know, too, in what way we will be able to combat corruption and provide young people with opportunities and choices for progress.
As regards the delegation, the delegate has been appointed, as has the assistant delegate.
A building has been chosen which provides the appropriate guarantees of safety.
The security system has been negotiated with the Algerian authorities.
The only problem we have is that we have turned down, for purely legal reasons, the form of contract which the owner was offering us.
And this is the problem that, at a legal level, we are currently trying to solve.
However, the most important part of the decision has already been taken. As for international observing of the elections, you will know that in the last elections Algeria did not allow the participation of European election observers.
Observation of the elections was organised within the framework of the United Nations. And it was through the United Nations that we were able to participate, not as European observers but as observers from that international organisation.
What is the government's decision going to be with respect to the next presidential elections? Will they allow this observation to take place?
At this stage, I do not know.
As for the programme, what I have told you already clearly shows the efforts we are making to be flexible, within certain limits of course, since I have already said that we have employed three groups of experts who are working in very complicated situations.
This is basically because our problem is quite simply, as you know, that there are no employees - and unfortunately I have to say this - who are willing to do the work, particularly in certain programmes that involve security risks.
Question No 49 by Maj Theorin (H-0747/98)
Subject: Burma
The people of Burma have for several years had to live in extremely difficult circumstances.
Under the military regime, the people have suffered violent repression and forced labour, women have been systematically raped; the Karen people has been a particular target, but not the only one.
The situation has now lasted for several years. Since 1990 SLORC, the military regime, has been brutally and ruthlessly exploiting the country.
Parliament has adopted a number of resolutions condemning violations of human rights, and a report which recommended the removal of general customs preferences in industry and for agricultural products from Burma.
Unfortunately there seems to be no prospect of any change for the better for the Opposition and the Burmese people; on the contrary, reports of fresh excesses and violations of human rights are continually coming in.
The permanent International Criminal Court in Rome, which the EU played an active part in setting up, gives the international community a new instrument against genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression perpetrated during international conflicts or civil war.
Does the Commission plan to use this new instrument to start proceedings against the Burmese military government? I give the floor to Mr Marín to answer Mrs Theorin's question.
Thank you, Mrs Theorin, for your continued presence on issues concerning Burma, because I think that we need to show a political presence in the difficult situation which that country is experiencing.
Relations with Burma went through an extremely difficult period during the last meeting we had with the ASEAN group in Manila, in the Philippines.
At that time, as you will know, a serious incident had taken place concerning the leader of the opposition, Aung San Suu Kyi, and certain ethnic minorities. I was a witness to the political dialogue with the Burmese Government, and I can assure you that it was a very difficult situation.
We are monitoring the development of the situation and are negotiating with the ASEAN group to ensure that the European Commission's position on the situation in Burma is very clearly defined.
In terms of the situation that has been created in the wake of the International Criminal Court being approved, I must point out to you that it is still not possible to use this as an additional instrument.
You know that the Commission was present as an observer and actively supported the European Union's position in favour of establishing this Court.
As you are aware, for the International Criminal Court to become operational, the provisions require ratification by a minimum of 60 countries so that it can be established.
This has still not happened.
In addition, the modus operandi defined at the meeting in Rome means that the right to refer matters to this Court belongs to the member countries, the Security Council and the national prosecuting authorities.
However, the system of jurisdiction concerning non-member countries - as will presumably be the case for Burma, since I do not believe that Burma is going to sign the protocol on the International Criminal Court becoming operational - is a mechanism which, as the Convention states, will normally have to be set in motion by the Security Council.
My question has to do with the establishment of the new international court.
Like Mrs Maij-Weggen, I too would be interested to hear what steps the Commission has already undertaken, or intends to undertake.
I appreciate that a minimum number of countries must ratify before the Court can become operational.
The question was, however, whether there were any plans to utilise this new instrument to initiate proceedings against Burma's military government.
The case would clearly fall within the Court's remit, since this encompasses genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and acts of aggression committed during international conflict or civil war.
With this new institution, we have one more instrument available to us.
I believe that very strong pressure has to be kept up on Burma's military government.
Restricting investment would be one way in which the European Union could exercise influence in its own right.
As I already said, to make use of the International Criminal Court, the protocol on it becoming operational must be ratified by 60 countries.
When those 60 countries ratify the protocol, it will be possible to include the Burmese case.
But, as I said in my response, the right of initiative to request the intervention of the International Criminal Court, as stated in the protocol, belongs only to the member countries, the Security Council and national prosecuting authorities, and that was an integral part of the protocol.
As such, the European Commission will have no authority to initiate any proceedings in the International Criminal Court.
Those who will be able to do so when it becomes operational - and that is the issue here - are the Member States meeting in the framework of the Council of Ministers.
So this is an issue that both Parliament and the Commission will have to consider, firstly when the protocol enters into force and, secondly, when a decision has been taken by the countries themselves because - and I repeat - the Commission has no authority in this respect.
As the author is not present, Question No 50 lapses.
Question No 51 by Bernd Posselt (H-0772/98)
Subject: Christians in East Timor
What measures does the Commission intend to take to support the oppressed Christians in East Timor following the political changes in Indonesia? I give the floor to Mr Marín to answer Mr Posselt's question.
The Commission has often expressed its concern over the situation in East Timor in the meetings held with the Indonesian Government, and we are urging that government to find a peaceful and lasting solution for the area. In addition, at the last meeting held within the ASEAN group, statements were made by the Indonesians which could be described as innovative; we shall soon see what results they bring.
They related to an offer made to the other European country that feels it is directly affected - Portugal - concerning an avenue currently being explored in the United Nations under the responsibility of Kofi Annan, the Portuguese Government and the Indonesian Government. Their aim is to reach a decision that could be accepted at international level, while clearly taking into account, of course, the interests of the people of Timor.
Moreover, a visit has been made by the troika, while the European Union heads of mission in Jakarta have also visited East Timor.
And the General Affairs Council of 13 September adopted certain conclusions on the region's future.
In terms of aid, the European Commission, as you know, is providing a specific programme for East Timor.
In May of this year, an assessment mission took place and the relevant organisations are currently trying to determine the best method of implementing this specific programme for humanitarian, food and development aid that was presented by the Commission to the Council of Ministers.
Commissioner, I just wanted to ask exactly what this idea of the EU actually involves, and I wished to come back on two points in particular.
The first is a proposal from Bishop Belo on the demilitarisation of East Timor.
Is that being discussed?
The second relates to our programme for democracy.
Completely new parties are forming there and the danger exists that fanatical tendencies are also developing.
Is this newly emerging political spectrum also being monitored by ourselves in the context of the programme for democracy?
That debate is, in fact, still open.
During the meeting in the Philippines, the Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs very surprisingly, in my opinion, presented an offer to the ASEAN group relating to the East Timor problem.
One of the elements contained in this offer was, in fact, the withdrawal of the Indonesian military presence in East Timor and an offer to negotiate a status of autonomy.
This offer has been discussed among the Secretary-General, Mr Annan, the Portuguese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Jaime Gama, and Indonesia's own Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ali Alatas.
As far as I remember, this meeting took place in New York at the end of August.
I do not have any information from either of the two parties involved, so I do not know what conclusions this meeting produced.
This is logical to a certain degree, since I imagine that they will be very delicate and difficult bilateral negotiations.
In any case, this is the first time that the Indonesian Government has publicly demonstrated its willingness to proceed to the withdrawal of its military presence and to negotiate a status of autonomy. This must be looked on as a step forward towards finding a possible solution to the conflict.
However, I myself, on behalf of the Commission, do not have any information on these bilateral negotiations.
Question No 52 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0781/98)
Subject: Cambodia
What does the Commission consider the appropriate response to be on the elections held in Cambodia on 26 July this year? What will be the criteria which will have to be met by the Cambodian authorities if any future cooperation agreements are to be discussed?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mrs Kinnock's question.
First of all, I should like to thank Mrs Kinnock for her work as a special representative of the European Union at the Cambodian elections on 26 July.
I thank you, in particular, because I could tell that it was not exactly an easy task and that you performed it - in my opinion and in that of international observers - effectively and extremely well. You thus allowed us to consolidate the European Union's credibility and its participation in the electoral process, despite working in a political framework marked by the distrust of Cambodian politicians.
You also helped to assert Europe's presence within the joint group of election observers.
As you know, the assessment carried out by the Commission is still in keeping with the declaration issued on 27 July by the joint group of international election observers. This stated that the elections had been free and fair, and that they were a credible reflection of the will of the Cambodian people.
We believe that the overall process has been acceptable, although it is true that - as you could see - certain problems relating to both the voting and the counting were identified during the electoral campaign.
And, in principle, those problems are being investigated and resolved.
The problem of the elections as such does not worry me, Mrs Kinnock, as I think they can be justified.
What does worry me, and I am sure it concerns you too, is the situation that has been created since the elections when something happened that everyone, including yourself, believed to be the greatest risk: that the losers might not accept the result of the elections, since it is presumed that the winners always accept the result because they have won.
Unfortunately, that is what has happened and it is creating a difficult situation that does not allow for political arbitration.
I must inform you - although you are probably already aware of this - of the request that has been forwarded to us by the head of the observation group. It asks that we withdraw the European Union representatives on the ground from Cambodia for reasons of security and stability, that is, if we had decided to maintain the European Union presence in the region for a period so that an international presence might be guaranteed.
We are going to assess this week whether or not the situation in the area does, in fact, warrant the withdrawal of our observers because the security conditions are not being met.
Secondly, I must tell you that the President-in-Office of the Council has confirmed that the European Union agrees with the decision taken by ASEAN to send the Thai Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs to Phnom Penh to meet the King. He is currently working over there, and we hope that he will be able to determine whether it is possible to send international mediators back to the country to try to restore governability.
Consequently, and in conclusion, I would first like to thank you for your excellent and very difficult work.
Secondly, with the exception of some imperfections that must be corrected, the elections and their result can be justified at an international level.
Thirdly, we must currently look at what we are doing to ensure that a government can quickly be formed and that we do not return to a situation often experienced in that country, a country that has already suffered enough because certain political leaders can never come to an agreement.
This issue is a very important one, Mrs Kinnock, because we must not forget a fundamental point: this is the second time that the international community has been involved in organising free elections.
Elections were previously organised that led to the establishment of a government and sparked off a coup.
To correct this situation, the international community has returned in order to organise new elections.
The risk as far as Cambodia is concerned is that the international community might believe that it is a lost cause and that, as such, there is no point in putting any more effort into it.
I therefore emphasised to the Council of Ministers the importance of avoiding this situation of international fatigue that occurs when things are not working out.
Cambodia cannot be considered a lost cause.
That would be a terrible situation, and that is our opinion on the matter.
I thank the Commissioner for his kind words and the personal support that he gave me in what he acknowledged was a quite difficult task in Cambodia.
As he says, the protests continue and Prince Ranariddh said only yesterday that he feared the whole thing could shortly spin out of control.
I am very worried to hear you say that there is a likelihood that our observers will pull out because that will send a very serious message to the people of Cambodia who are clearly going through very difficult times.
There is a likelihood of a summit between Mr Hun Sen and Prince Ranariddh and Sam Rainsy.
I wonder how much you believe that this is a serious prospect?
I also wonder how likely it is that the hardliners in the government will call for a severe crackdown on dissent in order to stamp it out once and for all.
Thirdly, it is interesting that Thailand is involved in trying to broker peace.
I would like to ask where is the European Union?
It has invested resources and interest in Cambodia.
Is the Council likely to invest a little more at this time in terms of presence on the ground in Cambodia?
Mrs Kinnock, I have formally received the request from the head of observation to order the withdrawal of the observers, due to the security conditions.
Naturally, I shall first consult all of the Member States and this is something that we want to do on Friday.
We wish to take the final decision on Friday morning.
In this situation we are faced with something that often occurs: we have to assess the safety of the observers, the situation on the ground and the political damage that might be caused by withdrawing the observers.
But you have worked with them yourself, and you will understand that not even I can ask our observers to be heroes.
And if their head believes that at any stage the observers could find themselves in a serious situation, then it is very difficult to ask them - particularly those in the northern provinces whom you visited with me - to remain in an area where they could be killed or kidnapped, or where anything might happen to them.
In any event, I have told my services to prepare a draft decision for Friday, which we are going to submit to the Member States.
And I can tell you that the European Union has accepted the leadership of the ASEAN troika to try, in fact, to initiate this meeting on political cooperation among themselves. The aim of this is to see if the King finally takes the initiative, since that is the only possibility that remains, and to see if some kind of formula can be found.
Because what I truly fear is that, after the efforts the European Union has made in terms of representatives, observers and hard work, and after having spent USD 12 million, the situation might repeat itself.
I have already experienced other situations that have ended in fatigue, in fatalism, in 'there is nothing we can do'.
And when that happens in places such as Cambodia, then we can fear the worst.
Consequently, on Friday, I am going to take on my responsibility to make a decision one way or the other, and we shall see if the Council of Ministers provides us with a solution.
Mr President, Commissioner, in Cambodia, the genuine efforts to bring about peace have failed.
My question to you is the following: was the observation really as good as is being claimed today? The problem supposedly lay in the fact that it began too late, and that particularly as far as the media over there were concerned and the political developments in the run-up to the elections, fair conditions were not in place.
I believe that your colleague, Mrs Kinnock, could answer that much better than I could. I think that the circumstances were very risky.
It was very difficult to work, and the work that was done was, in my opinion, quite extraordinary.
There were obviously flaws in terms of access to the media and, in that difficult context, there were certain circumstances that prove to be unacceptable when analysed from a European point of view of what elections mean in Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain or France.
Were those elements sufficiently extreme to mean that the elections could not be justified? I do not believe that they were.
Given the difficulties, these elections produced some reasonable results.
And what is happening now is something we discussed many times with Mrs Kinnock, with the ambassadors and with all the observers.
The problem with these elections is not organising them, which is difficult in itself. The problem with them is ensuring that whoever wins is generous enough to find a solution that involves national consensus, while those who lose the elections must accept that they have lost.
And the problem is that those who have won have not been generous enough to look for national consensus and those who have lost say, on the basis of those arguments, that the elections are not valid.
In other words, it is a situation that, unfortunately, is a repeat of previous situations in Cambodia.
We have now come to the end of the time set aside for questions to Commissioner Marín, whom I would thank for his replies.
Questions Nos 53 and 54 will receive written answers.
Question No 55 by Astrid Thors (H-0739/98)
Subject: Commission communication on pan-European geographic information
EU ministers asked the Commission to investigate the status and role of pan-European geographic information (GI) in 1994.
DG XIII of the Commission initiated a wide consultation process which should lead to a communication to the Council and Parliament called GI 2000: Towards a European Policy Framework for Geographic Information.
The Commission first promised to deliver this important Communication in November 1996 and that date has been followed by several subsequent promises as to delivery dates, but to date the Communication has not been presented.
What is the Commission going to do to ensure that the Communication is presented as soon as possible? I give the floor to Mr Bangemann to answer Mrs Thors's question.
Mr President, the Commission had intended to adopt this communication in autumn 1998 and then to pass it on to the Council of Ministers, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee.
Over the last few years, we have received a number of letters from Member States supporting GI 2000 and requesting the Commission to take a pan-European initiative.
We therefore discussed this with the different players and at last a consensus has emerged as to pan-European activity.
It was for that reason that we set out the preparatory measures and projects within the INFO 2000 programme.
Some years ago, we made sure that industry banded together to set up a European umbrella organisation, and that happened, but in the past we have often been forced to the conclusion that, in spite of the importance of the subject and our efforts to support it in the research programme, European industry was not sufficiently interested.
That now seems to be changing, so we shall be presenting this communication very soon.
Thank you for that information, Commissioner.
I trust it was a language problem when you said the Commission thought that the communication would be forthcoming in the autumn. I hope it still thinks so.
This is indeed an important sector and the communication would be a logical follow-on to the standardisation work already done to assist job creation in Europe.
But I am concerned that so much time has passed since the first plans were put forward in 1994. Perhaps we do not need a communication.
Why not set up a high level working group directly? That would seem a more practical way forward.
I also wonder whether any appropriations have been earmarked in the Commission's budget for promoting this unified approach to boosting European competitiveness. The Commission's own work would certainly gain from a more uniform starting-point.
We shall be presenting this communication.
I believe it is necessary to do so, as we must now recapitulate our position.
Of course we will not stop conducting our other activities; they will be continued.
I have already said that we have taken a series of steps in the INFO 2000 programme to construct European databases and directories.
Those are, if you like, the first building blocks for a geographical information infrastructure.
We have a website at any rate, in which over 300 players are involved.
We have introduced the concept of GI 2000 time and again at conferences, and these programmes will be continued in the context of the fifth framework programme of research, as part of the new projects aimed at creating a user-friendly information society.
That therefore means that we have a whole series of activities that will, of course, be going on.
But ultimately these are all incentives.
Industry must itself take over and show greater interest than it has done hitherto.
That is why I believe that a communication of this type certainly does have a role to play.
As the author is not present, Question No 56 lapses.
Question No 57 by Mark Watts (H-0791/98)
Subject: Safer car fronts
When does the Commission expect to come forward with the proposal for a Directive requiring safer car fronts for pedestrians and cyclists which is anticipated for introduction in 1998 in the Commission's Second Action Programme for Road Safety? I give the floor to Mr Bangemann to answer Mr Watts's question.
Mr President, together with Parliament, the Commission pointed out at a very early stage that when it comes to head-on collisions, especially those involving cars and pedestrians but also those involving cars and other road-users, we need to take better precautions, and that technical regulations reduce the dangers associated with car fronts in an accident.
We presented a first proposal for a directive in 1996 to experts from the Member States, industry, consumer organisations and to those bodies responsible for traffic safety. In this document, we followed the testing specifications and performance requirements of the European Enhanced Vehicle Committee.
The consultations have shown that the opinions of those who participated are very diverse.
There are also many Member States which find that the costs are disproportionate when compared to the benefits.
Others are of the opinion that something should nevertheless be done.
That is why we have commissioned an independent expert with the task of examining the issue, particularly this contentious question of the cost-benefit ratio.
As soon as these results are available - and also, by the way, the final report which is expected in December - the Commission services will agree on a final version of the proposal for a directive, so that we should be able to discuss it in Council and Parliament at the beginning of next year.
Thank you Commissioner for that very comprehensive and helpful answer.
Obviously I would urge you to expedite that research but I also draw your attention to three independent studies already conducted by the UK's Transport Research Laboratories, the German Federal Highway Research Agency and the Dutch Institute for Road Safety Research.
All conclude that up to 2 000 lives a year could be saved and 20 000 serious injury accidents could also be prevented if this new directive to make cars safer when involved in collisions with pedestrians and pedal cyclists becomes law.
I believe that the burden of proof really does exist, that this measure is required and every month, every week and every day that we delay allows people to be unnecessarily injured on our roads.
I hope the Commissioner can confirm that we shall see this directive on the table within this Parliament so that we can expedite the matter early in the New Year.
I can confirm what I said as to the dates: we will try our best - provided we get the study in December - to propose to you early next year the necessary amendments to our original draft.
But the two or three studies you mentioned were exactly the reason why we have asked the EEVC again to incorporate them into their own studies so that we are at the level of the latest scientific findings.
That is the reason why we want to wait until December - so that the position can be given to us and we can then act accordingly.
Question No 58 by Niall Andrews (H-0830/98)
Subject: Malicious telephone calls
According to available figures, malicious telephone calls are on the increase across Europe.
Telecom Eireann last year dealt with some 30 000 formal complaints from customers.
In Ireland such calls are considered as a criminal offence with fines and/or prison sentences available for malicious calls.
Can the Commission indicate to what extent this matter has been considered at EU level and, if so, how does the Commission consider this type of crime can be effectively dealt with? I give the floor to Mr Bangemann to answer Mr Andrews's question.
Mr President, we have a legal basis to prevent such telephone calls in so far as is possible.
This is Directive 97/66/EC of 15 December 1997, on the processing of personal data and protection of privacy in telecommunications.
This directive stipulates that telephone users who are disturbed by malicious or annoying telephone calls are entitled to help from their telephone companies to trace the calls back to their source.
Member States are required in the directive to provide a means of legal redress and sanctions in cases where the rights of subscribers to and users of telephone services are not respected.
While we are on the subject, in the recently adopted directive on voice telephony, Member States are asked for the dates on which calling line identification will be introduced. This will enable users, before they pick up the receiver, to see from the number displayed whether the caller is someone they know, and whether they wish to take the call.
Experiments with this system in the USA have shown that malicious or annoying telephone calls can be reduced by 25 %.
We can of course go further, because such a display could lead to the telephone user never wanting to take any calls if they did not know the caller.
If the caller were to withhold their telephone number, then in accordance with the directive, it should be possible for the subscriber to decline the call automatically.
This means that if a telephone call were to come in and the number of the caller were not passed on, then it could automatically be refused, if that is what the subscriber wished to do.
I think that essentially that should be sufficient protection against such calls.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
Mr Andrews is indicating to me that he appreciates the information which you have given him.
That brings us to the end of the questions to Mr Bangemann, whom I should like to thank for his replies.
Question No 59 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0734/98)
Subject: EU membership and EMU
In an interview in the Swedish media the head of the Swedish National Bank, Urban Bäckström, recently discussed possible Swedish membership of the third stage of EMU.
According to him, Sweden could in future be obliged to choose between full participation in EMU and leaving the EU.
Does the Commission believe this to be a correct assessment of the situation?
Has the EU any means of forcing out a country which does not wish to use the common currency? If Sweden chooses to stay outside EU exchange rate cooperation, would it still be able to join in the single currency?
I should like to welcome Mr de Silguy and ask him to reply to Mr Sjöstedt's question.
Sweden, like any Member State, has undertaken to satisfy the conditions for entry to economic and monetary union.
The Treaty states that a Member State which fails to fulfil the conditions for entry to the third stage of economic and monetary union will be granted exemption.
That is the situation of Sweden.
It nevertheless remains a member of the European Union. On this point there is no doubt.
In its report on convergence of 25 March 1998, the Commission recalled that the Swedish currency has never participated in the exchange rate mechanism.
In the course of the two years under review, the Danish krone fluctuated against the currencies participating in the exchange rate mechanism, reflecting, among other things, the non-existence of a target exchange rate.
The Commission therefore rightly concluded that Sweden did not satisfy the convergence criteria referred to in the third indent of Article 109j(1) of the Treaty.
On 2 May last, the European Council accepted this Commission recommendation.
This conclusion remains pertinent and the Commission repeats that the conditions for entry to economic and monetary union will be strictly the same for the second-wave countries as for countries which adopt the euro on 1 January 1999.
I am deputising for Jonas Sjöstedt in putting his question. I wish him luck in the Swedish elections, and the same to all good anti-Union candidates in Sweden.
I want to ask whether it is not right that Sweden, regardless of the terms of the Treaty, should enjoy the same status as Germany following the Karlsruhe judgment, under which Germany acquired the right through a decision of the Bundestag to decide for itself whether it wanted to participate in the third stage of monetary union or not.
That right, enjoyed by Germany, should surely also apply to Sweden on the grounds of equal treatment.
No, I would very clearly point out that the Treaty is extremely explicit.
For two countries, namely Denmark and the United Kingdom, there is what is known as an opt-out clause, which means that even if the conditions for switching to the euro are fulfilled, these countries can and must state whether or not they wish to participate in economic and monetary union.
For all other European Union countries, the criteria apply as from the moment when the conditions are fulfilled.
Participation in economic and monetary union is automatic and there is no discrimination between Member States.
The Treaty is clear on this point.
It was strictly and unanimously applied by all the Heads of State and Government on 2 May last.
Question No 60 by Esko Seppänen (H-0735/98)
Subject: Coordination of EU countries' economic policies
The monetary policy of the countries signing up to EMU is the preserve of the European Central Bank (ECB) which is subject to no political supervision and has no political responsibility.
It has a monopoly of monetary policy.
The stability pact drawn up at Dublin and confirmed at Brussels is monitored by the Council, which has a monopoly of the coordination of the EU countries' finance policies.
Thus the EU's economic policy appears to fall outside the area of the Commission's responsibility.
What is the Commission's role in decision-making on EU economic policy, and what does it think could be done to rectify the democratic deficit in monetary policy? I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Seppänen's question.
I thank Mr Seppänen for his question, which allows me to explain that, as in the case of the switch to the euro, the Commission's role in the management device for economic and monetary union is central.
The particular responsibilities of each institution, including those of the Commission, are defined in the Treaty.
First of all, the Commission plays a major role in coordinating economic policy, and will continue to do so as from 1 January next year.
The Commission fully assumes its power to submit proposals when deciding the principal direction of Member States' economic policy, pursuant to Article 103 of the Treaty.
I would remind you that this document constitutes the framework instrument for coordinating economic policy in the Union.
Subsequently, the Commission is responsible for multilateral follow-up and monitoring, whether of the developing budgetary situation or the debt of Member States.
In this respect, the procedure in the event of excessive deficits, as laid down in Article 104c of the Treaty, cannot be implemented without a specific recommendation from the Commission.
I would also draw your attention to the stability and growth pact, which clearly confirms this essential Treaty provision.
Finally, the Commission has the power of recommendation in the field of exchange rate policy, pursuant to Article 109 of the Treaty.
I can assure you that on all these points the Commission will continue to fully discharge its tasks, as required by the Treaty.
At the same time, the Treaty confers responsibility for deciding and implementing monetary policy on the European Central Bank, and guarantees its independence.
I would remind you that, in order to ensure maximum coordination of economic and monetary policy, the responsible Member of the Commission, in this case the Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, can attend meetings of the Central Bank's Governing Council, even if he is not entitled to vote.
I can assure you that I for one will be attending all these meetings.
The President of the Council of Finance Ministers, ECOFIN, can also attend the Governing Council on the same basis and, as is the case for the Commission, the General Council of the ECB.
On the more specific subject of democratic control of economic and monetary union, a subject which has been frequently debated in this House - and rightly so - the Commission has always considered that independence and dialogue not only can but must go together, and that an ongoing dialogue between the institutions, which respects their individual competences and tasks, is the only way to develop a mix of balanced, flourishing policies which are favourable to growth and employment.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for a theoretical answer that was, to my mind, extremely comprehensive.
I would propose, as a follow-up question, a practical problem: how to determine the exchange rate between the euro and the US dollar under this decision-making procedure, and what the Commission's role would be in the matter.
I do not know if the Commission is very competent in the matter, but if there is one field in which neither the Commission nor the Council nor governments can impose their will or desires, it is that of exchange rates, since it is by definition the markets which determine the relative value of currencies the one against the other.
So we are ultimately unable to say at the outset whether the euro will be strong or weak compared to the dollar, as nobody in the world today is able to guarantee the stability of exchange rates. It is simply the markets which make an assessment on the basis of an economic situation.
What is a country's budgetary policy? What is its monetary policy?
What are the wage trends? Once these data are known, they are compared to those for other countries, the currencies are compared and a relative idea obtained.
That is how markets operate.
The important thing for the Commission is to ensure that the euro is a stable currency which can be used for most of our trading and which will therefore protect us against exchange rate fluctuations and make us less dependent on movements in the dollar.
For the rest, pursuant to Article 109 of the Treaty, the Commission will assume its full responsibilities, especially when it comes to defining Europe's joint positions and its representation on international bodies.
In accordance with the Treaty, it will make the necessary recommendations to ensure that the Council can take decisions and to ensure that, during major international negotiations, whether monetary or otherwise, the European Union is represented and able to defend its interests as well and effectively as it would wish.
Question No 61 by Paul Rübig (H-0737/98)
Subject: Denominating EURO banknotes
Now that all the basic decisions for the introduction of the common currency have successfully been taken, it is now more important than ever to make sure that these decisions are properly implemented.
The issue of EURO coin denominations was thoroughly debated at Parliament's part-sessions of November and December.
However, many users are now faced with the problem of the new banknote denominations.
Almost half of all Austrian banknotes currently in circulation are 20-and 50-schilling notes. On the other hand, the smallest EURO banknote (5 EURO) is roughly equivalent in value to 70 schillings.
What is more, the stamping of 'EURO-Cent' on the smaller currency units could lead to confusion with the EURO coins.
If, as experts fear, there is a fourfold increase in the present coinage, should consideration should not be given to the subsequent introduction of 1 and/or 2-EURO banknotes, and how might citizens be prepared for this situation?
How does the Commission feel about these matters? I give the floor to Mr de Silguy to answer Mr Rübig's question.
Here is a very practical question, of direct concern to our citizens.
In reply to Mr Rübig's question, I should first like to remind you that the denominations of the euro coins and notes were decided in 1995 by common agreement between the Council of Ministers and the central banks.
At the time, that is three years ago, this agreement took into account likely developments up until the date when the notes and coins would be effectively introduced.
This agreement was officially approved by the Board of the European Monetary Institute and the Council of Ministers and has never been called into question since.
In certain countries there are notes which have a value of less than five euro.
In other countries there are also coins in circulation worth substantially more than two euro.
That said, following an in-depth study, the Commission concluded that these notes and coins I have just mentioned have a relatively limited circulation.
As low value notes are not distributed in large quantities and high value coins are not generally accepted by vending machines, their practical use is limited.
It has also been decided not to have notes and coins with the same face value so as not to burden the management of the money supply.
As you know, the Commission does not intend to speak for the European Central Bank and the Council, which must assess the situation.
However, it does consider the 1995 agreement to be fair, for the reasons I have just mentioned.
On the basis of the initial estimates of the Member States, a summary of which I requested in order to be able to answer your question, it seems that there should be no increase in the number of coins in circulation in the euro zone compared to the present time.
I would even say that, on the contrary, the development of modern alternative forms of payment, such as electronic payment - and especially for small amounts - should help reduce the number of coins in circulation in Europe.
Generally speaking and to conclude, it is the responsibility of the Member States to instruct European citizens in the use of euro coins and notes, even if the Commission does make recommendations and even if, with the support of the European Parliament, we have launched information campaigns in order to increase public awareness.
But given the national competence in this area, the Commission has recommended the creation of local observatories which will be able to respond to consumer concerns on the ground and to monitor the introduction of notes and coins during the transitional period.
Mr President, at the moment I am giving a great many lectures on the euro, and I see that it is above all the small companies which are afraid that the circulation of coins is going to increase dramatically.
It is not only that we in Austria are going up from six coins to eight, but also that in the EU at present there are only two countries which have banknotes of a higher denomination.
The other countries are used to dealing in banknotes and do not have so much hard cash in day-to-day circulation.
That is why the question arises of whether we should not consider introducing a one euro note in future. If one looks at America for instance, there they have a one dollar note without which life could not be imagined.
This needs to be discussed.
I should like to answer honourable Members very frankly.
We are not here to conceal the truth.
I believe that we are engaged in a process in which decisions have been taken and in which we now have a considerable technological and industrial mechanism to implement.
For example, there must be around 75 billion coins to be minted in the European Union and some 10 billion notes to be printed.
That must represent 300 000 tonnes of metal - a considerable task.
The decisions have been taken, and today we are at the stage of implementation.
Some countries have already started minting the coins and are to start printing the notes at the beginning of next year.
I do not believe it is either realistic or reasonable to call into question at this point the decisions taken by common agreement by governments three years ago and which, in technical terms, are designed to meet a real industrial challenge.
All coins, whether minted in Austria, France or Germany, must be the same, be accepted everywhere, have the same security and be accepted by all vending machines.
This is therefore a major technical undertaking and the priority now must be to successfully complete it.
On the other hand, the honourable Member is right in saying that we have a great deal of information to provide and a lot of explaining to do.
A compromise was obtained between the different positions of the Member States.
It is now up to us, in each of our Member States, to explain the changes.
I believe that European citizens are sufficiently intelligent, developed and cultivated to understand and to adapt.
I also believe it is true that there is a need for a great deal of information in order to overcome the resistance of which you spoke and to resolve the real problems which that could pose.
We have three years in which to do it and I believe that this is a task for each and every one of us.
Question No 62 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0740/98)
Subject: EMU - 'A new Berlin Wall'
The single currency, the euro, is likely to create problems in Europe as the countries involved do not constitute an optimum currency area.
The bias of EMU towards price stability is therefore likely to increase unemployment and regional disparities in the EMU countries.
EMU will create a political and economic Union, just as many applicant countries in Eastern and Central Europe see their hopes dashed of becoming members of the EU/EMU in the foreseeable future. Does this not entail the risk that the EMU project will result in the erection of new walls in Europe?
What is the Commission's strategy for averting such an undesirable turn of events? I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Lindqvist's question on the erection of walls in Europe.
I must say I was a little surprised here.
Almost ten years after the Berlin Wall came down, I find Mr Lindqvist's question rather surprising. Why?
First of all, because the euro has already had positive effects.
The efforts made to improve our economies and finances in preparation for the euro are beginning to bear fruit.
I would remind you that public deficits fell from a European average of 6.1 % of GDP in 1993 to 2.4 % in 1997 and that growth, which was negative in 1993, at minus 1 %, stood at 2.6 % last year and is set to increase to 2.8 % this year.
The employment situation is also improving.
Two and a half million jobs should be created in Europe by 1999, and this is the result of the economic policies being pursued.
Another positive effect is that the euro, even before it is created, before its real legal birth, is already fully assuming its role of protecting Europe against the financial crisis in Asia and Russia.
I believe we will have the opportunity to discuss this during tomorrow's sitting.
Finally, I note that it is the countries in the euro zone which have the healthiest economies in Europe today.
The confidence of manufacturers and consumers is at present stronger in the euro zone than in the rest of Europe.
Growth in the euro zone is also 0.2 % higher.
So rather than erecting a new wall, I believe that the euro will facilitate the integration of the candidate countries.
They all wish to participate in the euro, and the European Council in Copenhagen established the principle that the candidate countries will adopt the acquis communautaire of EMU, even if they do not participate in the euro immediately they join the European Union.
Also, at the time of joining, the candidate countries will enter stage two of EMU and thus by adopting the acquis they will also acquire the means to progressively meet the conditions required for their participation in the euro.
I believe that far from erecting a wall, economic and monetary union is participating in this inclusive process of bringing together the countries and peoples of Europe.
Thank you very much, Commissioner de Silguy, for your answer to my question.
I concede that it was phrased rather provocatively, but that was really the idea.
What I was driving at with this question was the following. Those of us who are in favour of broader European cooperation - and I take it that Commissioner de Silguy counts within our ranks - fear that it could take a very long time before the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are ready to join up to closer cooperation in the shape of EMU - partly because the demands on new EMU members will be high, and partly because years of communism have left the CEEC economies so far behind.
Incorporating them into a system of broader European cooperation might therefore be a lengthy process; they could find themselves waiting on the doorstep for a good while.
If we seriously want wider European cooperation, this issue just has to be addressed.
Very briefly, since I do not want to prolong your sitting, I would say that Mr Lindqvist made a comment rather than asked a question.
It is a way of looking at things, a way perhaps of drawing attention to the dangers of a situation.
But it is the same as with every coin, which has its other side.
That does not mean that the other side cannot be dynamic.
The Maastricht Treaty lays down the principles of economic policy, the implementation of which has proved positive for the European Union, and I believe that the candidate countries, that is the Central and Eastern European countries and Malta, will ultimately reap the rewards of applying the formulas which have produced good results for us.
For the rest, I believe we should not confuse the exercises. There is accession to the European Union and there is the switch to the euro.
I believe it was wise not to require these countries to fulfil the conditions for switching to the euro when joining the European Union.
The distinction between the two is a factor of progress and will have a revitalising effect on the continuing process of European integration.
Question No 63 by Wayne David (H-0757/98)
Subject: Future of the British Royal Mint
Recently, the British Government announced that a new public/private partnership would be introduced at the Royal Mint, based in Llantrisant, South Wales.
Given the importance of the Royal Mint to actual and potential customers throughout the European Union, would the Commission like to express any views about future developments regarding the Royal Mint?
As we enter the final straight, Commissioner, I would ask you to reply to this last question and allay Mr David's fears regarding the future of the Royal Mint.
I do not know if I can allay Mr David's fears.
What I can say is that I would make the following observations in reply to his question.
First of all, even with the introduction of the euro, the minting of coins will remain largely a national matter, that is within the competence of the Member States.
Community competence relates solely to defining, and possibly modifying, the technical characteristics and the European side of the coins.
We have debated these two subjects and you delivered an opinion.
It was decided to keep the present principle for the minting of euro coins: each Member State will mint the coins it issues and, failing a sovereign decision by a Member State in the euro zone to have its coins minted by the Royal Mint, the latter will not be directly concerned by the launch of the euro.
The Commission is not therefore competent to comment on the possible future status of the Royal Mint, or indeed of any other national monetary institute.
However, it may be observed that while the issuing of coins is a prerogative of the public authorities, their manufacture is a traditional industrial activity, as is the production of notes.
In some countries this production is entrusted to the public sector, while in others it is entrusted to the private sector. It is for each Member State to decide.
I was rather hoping too that the Commissioner would allay my fears, but I am afraid he has not.
There is a very real concern here, not just in terms of the local economy in South Wales but also, I would suggest, in terms of the European Union as a whole.
At the moment we have an indication that five of the eleven Member States who are joining the first wave of EMU will have at least some of their coin blanks minted in Llantrisant, South Wales.
One of the reasons they have decided to go to South Wales is because of the certainty of production and the very competitive price which is available there.
If there is a change of ownership, whether it is privatisation or some kind of public/private partnership, there must, I would argue, be a question mark over the costing arrangements and the certainty of supply which currently exists.
I suggest, therefore, that it is not simply a domestic issue, there is also a European dimension to it as well.
I can perhaps try to allay the honourable Member's fears.
You are right to say that there may be problems comparing costs between various issuing bodies or between different companies which manufacture coins and notes.
Having said that, the decision which has been taken is that each Member State will manufacture the stock of notes or coins which it needs for its country.
For example, let us just at random say that a given country has three billion coins and 200 000 notes in circulation. That country will then manufacture the three billion coins and 200 000 notes in euros.
It will be its sovereign decision how to mint these coins and print these notes.
So, at least when launching the euro and when manufacturing the first stock of notes and coins, everyone remains free to proceed as they wish, and it is true that in strictly economic terms we have not taken into account comparative advantages or competitiveness.
While this may be regrettable from a strictly economic point of view, politically, given the present situation, I believe that your fears should be allayed.
Thank you, Mr de Silguy, for attending and for your responses.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of Question Time. We have run over our allotted time by 13 minutes, and that means that we have provided more work for our colleagues, in particular the interpreters.
I would like to thank them all and ask them to excuse this lack of timing in our work.
Since the time allotted for questions to the Commission has come to an end, Questions Nos 69 to 107 will receive written answers.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Comitology
The next item is the statement by the Commission on comitology.
If ever there was a controversial issue within the Community's system, and one which gives rise to a great deal of debate in interinstitutional relations, it has to be comitology, although from a strictly technical point of view the system has worked well.
Only in a small number of cases have difficulties arisen over the adoption of a decision, thus requiring it to be referred back to the Council - for regulatory procedures, only in 32 of the 3000 legal acts over the last five years. The number of decisions finally approved by the Council and not by the Commission is well below 5 %.
In quoting these figures, I do not wish to suggest that I am satisfied with the situation.
Please do not assume that is the case, I am simply relaying data.
Nevertheless, it is fair to say that two aspects have not always been taken sufficiently into account.
Firstly, transparency.
This has been lacking, due essentially to the complexity of the system, the variants of each type of committee and the uncertainty surrounding the choice of committee to be used for different areas.
Next, democratic control. In particular, control by this Parliament of the decisions adopted, a problem which has become much more serious following the introduction of the codecision procedure.
Nevertheless, the shortcomings of the system - and clearly these do exist - should not lead us to overlook the role of comitology, which is crucial to the operation of the Union.
The aim is to ensure better preparation for the many important executive decisions entrusted to the Commission, through consultation with representatives from the national administrations.
Historically, comitology was devised to ensure that executive decisions adopted by the Commission could be integrated efficiently into the national systems.
After all, in most cases, it is the national administrations who eventually implement such decisions on the ground.
These close links between administrations are now even more important following the enlargements and the granting of new powers.
Committee meetings have therefore become forums for the exchange of ideas, which has doubtless proved most useful to both the Commission's services and those of the Member States.
Secondly, in accordance with the Treaty, the Council - and I should remind you that until 1993 it was, for all practical purposes, the only genuinely legislative body - delegated powers to the Commission, and was therefore entitled to regulate the activity of the latter.
The only significant issue arising was how far this called into question the political control exercised by the European Parliament under the Treaty.
The first function, integration into national systems, is still essential, because at present, the acceptability of Union regulations calls for even greater transparency and for much wider consultation.
The Commission makes every effort to respond to these requirements to the best of its ability, within the limits imposed by the procedure, which is - I would stress - extremely complex.
On the other hand, the achievement of greater transparency has been the key issue in the exchange of notes between the Commission and the Parliament since 1988, and also in the modus vivendi of 20 December 1994.
As regards the second function, a change has taken place, due in part to the increase in the competences of the Union and in the powers of the European Parliament. Currently, in addition to relations with the Member States, we are confronted with the crucial issue of democratic control of executive decisions at European level.
This is the fundamental problem arising, particularly in the area of codecision, because any procedure from which such democratic control was excluded would obviously be unacceptable.
Indeed, this is one of the key problems raised by this Parliament.
I should remind you too that at present, in many instances where technical advances and rapid changes in the markets call for adjustment, the Commission has the power, within the framework of comitology procedures, to adapt or implement important aspects of Community legislation.
I am well aware of the confusion which sometimes arises in the Parliament as a result of such decisions, but I believe that this flexibility of regulation is a great advantage in a rapidly changing world, preventing the legislative paralysis which can set in all too easily nowadays.
I shall now proceed to present the Commission's proposal.
In accordance with the decisions taken at the Amsterdam European Council and the agreements entered into with the European Parliament and the Council during the drafting of the modus vivendi , the Commission has just submitted a proposal for reform of the Council's decision of 1987.
Essentially, we have attempted to deal with three problems.
First, the structure of comitology procedures has been simplified, reducing them to three as against the five variants which exist at the moment.
Secondly, the use of these procedures has been streamlined, and the type of committee to be used for each type of decision will be determined in the decision on comitology. Lastly, information and democratic control of the decisions adopted is guaranteed, taking into account the Parliament's new powers whilst allowing for the distinction between executive and legislative power.
The first point is simplification.
Any simplification will necessarily involve problems for the Commission, which has agreed to question practices to which it had become very accustomed, but which are now so complex and so difficult to understand that radical change is called for.
The procedures are therefore to be reduced to three main types, without the current variants.
The same applies to the safeguard procedures of which - as you know - there is currently one only.
I should like to stress the radical nature of the reform which the regulatory procedure is undergoing.
If the committee and the Commission cannot reach agreement, the measure at issue may only be approved by the legislative authority, that is to say, under the codecision procedure of the European Parliament and the Council.
I should also like to comment briefly on the streamlining.
We feel that this has been achieved because, for the first time, it is proposed to relate the choice of procedure to the nature of the decisions to be adopted.
Procedures in the management committee will guarantee a speedy decision on matters of financial and agricultural management, whilst granting the committee a significant right of investigation.
It is anticipated that the regulatory committee will deal with general issues relating to key aspects of legislation, and it will be much stricter with the Commission.
The issue of adapting to technical progress is a good example.
The procedure should, obviously, be much stricter for the Commission, and should allow the legislative authority plenty of scope to intervene.
Lastly, the advisory committee will deal with all other issues which the legislative authority considers straightforward.
We do believe that the proposed arrangements will result in greater transparency and will confirm and enhance the information available to the European Parliament, particularly in the area of codecision.
In this context, I feel it will be necessary to review the transmission and reception of information on the issue. There is a good deal of it, and it is certainly often of little use to the European Parliament.
I shall conclude with what I consider to be a key consideration.
This proposal requires the Commission and other institutions to adapt the current procedures to those outlined in the new decision, from the time it comes into effect.
The question we must ask ourselves - and which I am certainly asking myself - is this: how is the role of Parliament to be affected? Leaving aside, of course, the consultative role it plays in the approval of the proposal for a decision.
In its proposal, the Commission has sought to maintain and enhance the information procedures contained in the modus vivendi .
The Commission awaits Parliament's proposals, in the hope that an agreement can be reached which would be part of the decision itself. Alternatively, it would form part of the agreement between Parliament, the Commission and the Council or, if appropriate, of an agreement between the European Parliament and the Commission.
In an attempt to launch negotiations towards such an agreement, the Commission has circulated the draft declaration, which recognises that the European Parliament has an important part to play.
It is clear to us that the role of the European Parliament should be greater in those areas where the basic legal act has been adopted under the codecision procedure.
At no stage in the procedure should the European Parliament's control be excluded.
It is also clear to me that the Parliament must not assume an executive role.
I am sure it has no intention of becoming some kind of alternative power, or of taking part in an activity which must remain entirely within the Commission's competence if it is to be useful and efficient.
It is for the Commission to use its initiative and fulfil its responsibilities, studying each individual case and ruling on the legitimacy and appropriateness of adopting an executive decision.
It follows from these principles that it is for the Commission to rule whether, on the contrary, a new legislative procedure should be initiated.
As regards the relationship between the European Parliament and the Commission, no long-term clash is anticipated, except for a potential motion of censure. I am therefore of the opinion that any failure to agree with the Commission's proposals should only be expressed through strict procedures guaranteeing the involvement of the whole Parliament.
In my view, we should ideally establish procedures aimed at strengthening the relationship of trust between Parliament and the Commission, instead of carrying out such detailed and, in extreme cases, bureaucratic control of the Commission's action.
Written and public practice of this nature will promote transparency, as public opinion or, where appropriate, expert opinion will be able to make its voice heard.
I shall conclude there, Madam President.
It is the Commission's earnest wish that the debate and negotiations to be conducted prior to the approval of the new decision on comitology, proposed in July, should have three aims in mind, within the context of the measures to implement the Amsterdam Treaty. Interinstitutional relations need to be strengthened and improved, and our system of adopting decisions must become more transparent to the citizens of the Union and to national institutions, and also more acceptable to the latter.
We need to be seen to operate a more democratic and efficient system of implementing regulations and to be capable of adapting it to the current situation.
I trust you will be guided by these aims as you make decisions and proposals, and also in the discussions leading to an agreement. We shall then be able to rid ourselves of the long-standing difficulties we have experienced in establishing a clearly defined relationship between the institutions in this complicated area of the implementation of Community legislation.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that, in the introduction given by Commissioner Oreja, there may perhaps be an excess of optimism as regards the proposal presented by the Commission.
I believe that we too have it at heart to improve the legislative mechanism and the mechanism of executive proposal, but it appears to me that even if a few steps forward have been taken with this proposal, the main concerns and requests from the European Parliament have been somewhat sidestepped.
The European Parliament's initiative on comitology stems from problems of transparency and respect for legislative procedures raised by the current system, all the more unacceptable today with a Treaty of Amsterdam which has redefined the role of the European Parliament in the codecision procedure, bringing it up to parity with the Council.
It is therefore evident, not least in the absence of a modification to Article 202, formerly Article 145 - which refers to the acts adopted by the Council and not the acts adopted jointly by the European Parliament and the Council - that comitology is a grey area, with virtually no rules.
In the framing of new rules, it is necessary to bear in mind the increased responsibility of the European Parliament, which has indeed been recognised by the Commissioner.
In particular, I believe that responsibility for the delegation of executive power to the Commission and the controls on executive activity should be shared equally by the legislative authority, in other words by the European Parliament and the Council in the area of codecision.
When the Commissioner says that all will be improved by parliamentary control and information, I think that perhaps he is restricting the control function a little.
The European Parliament has decided to act at two points: to begin negotiations with the Council and the Commission as soon as possible on the basis of the resolution we are discussing today and - with the negotiations started or indeed swiftly completed - to express its final opinion on the Commission's proposal.
A satisfactory conclusion of the negotiations also depends on the willingness of the Commission and, above all, the Council to discuss Parliament's requests openly and without hindrance, as well as the willingness of Parliament to understand the reasoning of the Commission and the Council.
But it seems to me that there are fundamental principles lacking from the Commission's proposal and which the Committee on Institutional Affairs intends to raise in the negotiations.
The first principle is to guarantee full respect for the legislative procedure, in order to avoid a legislative act being adopted outside the regular codecision procedure.
This is something which all those who want the process to be transparent and democratic have at heart.
From this point of view, the definition of an executive act which is given in the Commission proposal is worrying, because it goes in the opposite direction to respect for the need for a more precise determination of the respective roles: the executive role of the Commission, on the one hand, and the legislative role of the Council and the European Parliament on the other.
In contrast to the Commission, we believe that an implementing rule cannot be amended, adapted or updated, these being the key elements of the basic legislative acts, including the annexes, and when we talk about 'technical adaptations', we know perfectly well that, very often, key elements of the legislation are dealt with in the annexes.
I think that if confusion remains in the executive sphere which is codified in the new decision, it will be inevitable that the basic acts become increasingly general rules - and this is a risk for everyone, not just the European Parliament - and that the committees see their role in the defining of key elements of legislation increasingly strengthened, which is what we are seeking to overcome.
The other essential principle for a correct and democratic balance between the different institutions is that the European Parliament should have the possibility of exercising real control over the implementing rules, in other words of intervening within a limited period to possibly contest the legitimacy or the procedural substance of the rule.
This would obviously mean that the Commission may have to revoke or change that rule, but it will be able to discuss the most appropriate way of achieving control by the European Parliament without this involving any interference in the executive role of the Commission or a slowing-down of the executive process in such a way as to prejudice citizens' rights.
We are very aware that these two points are essential in the framing of the new decision and the procedure for implementing legal acts.
Finally, as regards the principle of genuine control by the European Parliament, I believe that this is very strong and must remain so.
We hope that the Commission and the Council are ready to engage in dialogue and do not undervalue the role and the responsibility acquired by the European Parliament, whose legitimacy derives from the direct vote of the European people.
I hope that the dialogue will have a positive outcome, and I believe the European Parliament has every intention of asserting its position.
Madam President, Commissioner, I think it is right, especially after Amsterdam, to claim legislative parity for the European Parliament with the Council.
Starting from that parity, we need to define the elements of a new balance between the institutions of the legislative authority.
This is the great political, historical and legal context in which we have to operate.
Above all - and I say this very clearly to our rapporteur, Mrs Aglietta - we must not allow comitology to become an obstacle to or diminish legislative parity.
That is the political point.
I think the Treaty of Amsterdam did something else too, which may make the definition of this problem easier: it guaranteed a new effectiveness, through a procedural simplification, giving new responsibility to all the institutions of the legislative authority.
That is the framework in which we are operating.
The Commission has produced a text.
I think we should broadly support the judgement of the rapporteur, who is working extremely well in our committee, but I should like to emphasise one or two points.
We trust that the Commission's text will be capable of providing fresh impetus, and we call on both the Commission and the Austrian Presidency to reach an interinstitutional agreement rapidly.
I should like to highlight one interesting point: some common positions require amendment of certain annexes in codecision rather than in comitology, and there are not many precedents for this.
Where the committees act, we must of course work towards simplification - we appreciate some of the features of simplification contained in the Commission's text - and naturally also towards control.
Simplification means transparency, and comitology is the science of committees, but a science of committees obviously needs rules and the rules must be transparent.
A good many jokes have been made about the word comitology, but we should not forget that we are talking about the role of the institutions and the opening up of the legislative process to the citizens.
So, although it is bound up in a technical problem, this is actually a great political issue which affects our citizens, because the relationship between legislation, transparency and our citizens cannot be overstated.
Madam President, behind the technical aspects this is actually a question of power.
When the draftsmen - this is my term for those responsible for preparing treaties - decided to introduce codecision into the Maastricht Treaty, Articles 145 and 155 should have immediately been amended, technically speaking, but this did not occur.
Parliament remained silent on the matter, which was negotiated between the Commission and the Council.
When I made enquiries, I was told that it was too late, that the subject was too technical and that there was no opinion to be given on this.
We referred this matter to the Court of Justice and something quite astonishing happened there.
Disregarding 30 years of tradition whereby it had always tried to interpret texts according to the intention of the draftsmen, or legislators, the Court of Justice for the first time - actually not strictly for the first time, but almost - based its judgment on a purely formalistic interpretation.
This, incidentally, is another of the consequences of enlargement.
A major error was therefore made because, in all the constitutional systems all over the world, those responsible for deciding the rules and for laying down the laws are also responsible for specifying the implementing measures for these rules and laws.
This is not so in this case, as Parliament and the Council lay down the law together, but the Council decides the implementing measures on its own.
When the intended aims of the Maastricht Treaty were brought under the spotlight, the citizens of Europe were led to believe that, henceforth, the European Parliament would be given more power and would be placed on a proper equal footing with the Council.
This is not what has happened at all.
We are not, by any stretch of the imagination, on an equal footing with the Council because, in terms of implementation, Parliament does not participate and the Council makes the decisions on its own.
The Commission is quite happy with this situation.
There is no mention of this anywhere in its text, except to say that, as the Council did not want to change Article 147, the Commission is quite satisfied.
It is therefore allowing a right to be denied which is actually being asserted everywhere else.
This is tantamount to saying 'in principle you are equal, but in practice you are not, and we do not want to change Article 147' and herein lies the root of the problem.
Why are we protesting so vigorously? Not just on the basis of the equality of rights.
If this situation were restricted to consultation or even management as you suggest, there would be no problem, but you are keeping the rules.
And what do the rules say?
They say that if the Commission's proposals do not comply with the committee's opinion, they cannot be accepted.
And who takes the decision not to accept these proposals?
Answer: the officials of the national authorities, who are not answerable for anything, not to their national parliaments nor to the European Parliament.
Not for anything.
This is what is so worrying and what justifies our indignation.
At first sight, you have not been open to this argument, which is why we find it so difficult to accept the situation, while objectively recognising that this is actually progress on the current situation.
However, you are happy to remain within the framework established by the decision of the Court of Justice and by the refusal of the negotiators of the Amsterdam Treaty to amend Article 145.
So you have indicated your satisfaction with this situation.
Although it is true that you have done your utmost within this framework, I am sorry to say that, if you are hoping to put an end to the problems in this way, this will not happen, because Parliament will rightly demand that it be allowed to exercise all the rights which it has formally been granted but which, in practice, it is being refused.
Madam President, Commissioner, the excellent report from the Committee on Institutional Affairs prepared by Mrs Aglietta states that the Amsterdam Treaty, by extending the field of application of the codecision procedure of the European Parliament and by eliminating the third reading, has unambiguously expressed the equality between the European Parliament and the Council in the adoption of Community acts.
The Amsterdam Treaty could have been taken to its logical conclusion by reinforcing the control over the implementing rules so that the legislative procedure could be fully respected.
This was not the case and the Treaty entrusted the Commission with the responsibility of presenting proposals on comitology.
The Commission has responded to this request in the time required, for which it should be thanked.
Its primary objective was to strive for simplification and transparency and to introduce a more democratic system, giving Parliament a right to scrutinise the implementing powers for acts adopted under codecision.
However, and this is to be regretted, the retention of the regulatory committees in the Commission's proposal - underlined just now by Mr Herman - is extremely worrying, given that this removes the European Parliament's option of challenging an executive act. This is contrary to the Amsterdam Treaty, which stipulates that control over the executive activity of the Commission must be shared equally by the legislative authority, namely the European Parliament and the Council.
There is therefore a risk of undermining the codecision procedure, which would be restricted to acts with a very general content. This is why the report from the Committee on Institutional Affairs very logically establishes, as one of its priorities, the guarantee of full respect for the legislative procedure in order to prevent a legislative act, including the updating of acts adopted under the codecision procedure and the amending of annexes, from being adopted as an implementing measure outside the scope of the codecision procedure.
Commissioner, all these speeches have the same theme.
You have tried to make an improvement and to a certain extent you have succeeded but, in our opinion, you have not gone as far as we would have hoped.
Madam President, I should like to thank the Commissioner and the rapporteur for their involvement in this issue.
In every democracy there is the idea of the separation of powers so that no one institution has outright power over another.
There is a system of checks and balances.
Parliament has always therefore been somewhat fearful of the ideology of comitology.
I was somewhat amused to hear the Commissioner, in his opening statement, setting out the importance he would place on Parliament's role in ensuring that its power as a codecision maker, co-legislator, is respected and guaranteed.
There is a saying: 'You know me by my actions, not by my words' .
The actions of the Commission are somewhat disingenuous.
Tomorrow in Parliament we will be discussing the Miller report on excise duties.
In light of the fact that everybody knows that the Amsterdam Treaty is coming into operation, in light of the fact that everybody knows the opposition there is in Parliament to certain acts and decisions that were taken at Council level, a dispute has arisen with regard to duty-free sales and what excise duty laws would apply.
What did the Commission decide to do when this problem arose? The Commission decided to refer it to the Committee on Excise Duty, thereby totally precluding Parliament from any involvement in the decision-making process.
Therefore we, in Parliament, have to be very careful with regard to any olive branches held out to us by the Commission.
We have to be certain in our own minds that we, as the only directly elected, democratically accountable body within the European Union should stand up for our right to be the final arbitrators and decision-makers.
We should move away from this idea of regulatory committees and executive committees which are nothing more than glorified quangos - unelected, unrepresentative and unaccountable.
Let us bring power back to the people, back to Parliament, where it should be; to censure commissions; to criticise decisions.
Give us the power now to change and make better law.
Madam President, Commissioner, I should firstly like to congratulate Mrs Aglietta on the work which she has accomplished on a subject which is a very complex and technical one, which is difficult for the general public to understand.
However, behind this technical façade, comitology has clearly political implications.
In fact, just when everyone has accepted the need for transparency in the European institutions, it is clear that the comitology system is anything but transparent.
This system of control exercised by the Council over the implementing powers of the Commission is actually opaque, complex and subject to paralysis, particularly in the regulatory committees.
It is not a question of us being given identical powers to those held by the Council today, but rather of us having a power of recall where two institutions share the legislative power.
The hostility of the Council to any re-examination of the problem is becoming annoying, but what is worrying and serious is that the Commission, in its proposal of July, seems to be edging towards positions which are far removed from those of the European Parliament.
This proposal actually provides for the retention of the regulatory committees and does not allow Parliament the option to challenge an executive act.
It is therefore with the utmost urgency that serious negotiations should be started in order to conclude an interinstitutional agreement in this respect, with this agreement clearly going further than the current modus vivendi which, it must be said, leaves all the comitology procedures as they are.
Before ending, I must say that the comitology case is closely linked to one of the major problems pending in the European Union: the hierarchy of rules.
I remain convinced that it will be very difficult to find lasting solutions to this problem without the proper classification of European legal acts.
This subject was on the agenda of the intergovernmental conference, but was not resolved.
This is the purpose of the amendment tabled on behalf of my group and I hope that it will be supported by the House.
Madam President, there must be around a thousand committees in the EU.
We know the list from the budget, but we do not know every committee.
My group demands that not a penny should be paid in travel expenses to committees we do not know or cannot find out about.
We demand that all funds for meetings should be placed in budget reserves and the money released once we have been given sufficient information.
The committees should serve the voters; their agendas, working documents and reports should therefore also be available to the voters.
If legitimate interests call for confidentiality, those interests can be stated and access can be limited, for example, to the chairman of the committee, rapporteurs and an individual spokesman from each group.
But the principle must be that every document is also accessible to the democratically elected representatives when the document is outside the Commission, and I would like Mr Oreja to confirm that it is also his principle and that when a document has left the Commission it is also available to any democratically elected representative in this House.
It should also be a principle that matters from a committee can be put onto the agenda of the Council of Ministers.
The Commission and a committee must not be able to obstruct the legislative work of democratically elected representatives.
The essence of democracy is that we can vote in elections and get new laws. We cannot do that when power is switched to either the Commission or a committee.
Then only the Commission can put a matter back on the agenda of the Council of Ministers.
It is crucial therefore that the Council of Ministers and Parliament have a general right at all times to have a matter put on the agenda.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, comitology is neither about an esoteric lore nor a new religion.
In essence, it concerns rather democratic legitimation and the supranational nature of integration.
I wish to make this clear with regard to two points: firstly, the European Parliament is a co-legislator and budgetary authority with equal rights.
In the comitology procedure which was organised before the Treaty of Maastricht, the representatives of the Member States take a number of decisions in the expert committees which affect the legislative and budgetary powers of the European Parliament.
This has to be amended, because there was no codecision in 1987 and the codecision procedure has become the norm in Community legislation through the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is therefore provided for in the protocol statement that the Council will present an amendment by the end of 1998, Parliament's only involvement in which will be to deliver an opinion.
That is not sufficient for us.
We now therefore wish to begin talks with the Council, in order to assert our position strongly.
That is also the purpose of the resolution with which our debate today will end.
Secondly, the supranational nature of the integration process is a constant area of conflict between the interests of the individual Member States and the supranational perception of Community interests.
Legislative and budgetary procedures have until now largely done justice to this area of conflict.
At the level of implementing decisions, however, this balance has not yet been achieved.
Naturally, the interests of the Member States must be represented in doing this because the implementation of Community acts is mostly a matter for the Member States.
However, when implementing decisions of a general nature do not generally reflect the supranational level, what we have is back-door renationalisation.
The whole debate on subsidiarity demonstrates this problem.
In order to counteract this risk, the European Parliament is demanding a right of political control parallel to that of the Council of Ministers.
Certainly, the perception of common interests at supranational level is first and foremost your business, Commissioner, and is thus a matter for the Commission.
Since the management committee procedures often give the Council of Ministers the opportunity to outvote the Commission's position, however, the creation of a political counterbalance at parliamentary level is a sensible move.
We wish to have and we must obtain an interinstitutional agreement precisely on this basis.
Madam President, Commissioner, you yourself are also responsible for information, amongst other things.
You will therefore not be surprised when I tell you that I have not found the thread running through the labyrinth of comitology in the statements - which have indeed been produced with some effort - but that this term still, in my view, represents a kind of magic square for our citizens, who are unable to see through it.
When numbers are mentioned here, it must be said that the practice currently followed in what are estimated to be several hundred management and regulatory committees, consisting of representatives of the Member States and placed alongside the Commission to implement legal acts, has led to an unjustifiable mixture of legislative and executive functions and removed the classic separation of powers in the EU's system, and indeed done so in an unreliable way.
This does not just involve codecision, but also programmes in the field of external relations, for example, which are also controlled above a certain ceiling by these management committees.
We are not so concerned about Parliament intervening in the executive, but rather that the Council is intervening much more strongly in the executive authority of the Commission, and in an unacceptable way.
I think the Commission and Parliament really must try to obtain a form of control, as you have just pointed out, but for which the information available to us is actually insufficient.
Our citizens will be questioning us on transparency, clear responsibilities and democratisation in the next few months before the European elections.
Then we shall have to answer for you, rather than for your officials or indeed those of the Council.
This is where the root of the matter lies.
We are therefore very interested in the conclusion of a sensible interinstitutional agreement which sets out these elements with much greater force.
In this respect, we fully support the line taken in Mrs Aglietta's report, in all its complexity.
Madam President, all legislative systems have a procedure for conferring implementing powers on the executive.
This often means that the executive is empowered to enact detailed technical legislation, sometimes going further and under strict conditions modifying the basic legislative text within certain limits.
That is not unusual.
What is unusual in the European system is that the Commission as our executive is obliged to work in conjunction with committees of national civil servants.
One might think that is logical.
It is, after all, the Member States which have to apply European legislation once it is adopted.
It is perhaps sensible to involve them in the adoption of detailed implementing measures.
Why then does Parliament object to the comitology system? There are three or four main reasons.
Firstly, it is because these committees of national civil servants - and only these committees - have the right to block the Commission implementing measure and refer it back to the legislature or part of the legislature.
Parliament has no equivalent right.
We are not able to scrutinize the executive and blow the whistle.
Secondly, if something is referred back in this way, it is only to one branch of the Legislative authority - the Council - not to both branches - Council and Parliament - as it should be in the equal system of co-decision we now have in the European Union.
Thirdly, the whole system is so complex with so many committees, and agendas and procedures that are difficult to get hold of, that it is opaque and not transparent for the wider public.
Fourthly, we do not like procedure 3 and especially procedure 3b which can lead to blockages.
All procedures 3 can lead to a system whereby it is almost the same as the legislative procedure.
The Commission makes a proposal, it needs a qualified majority of national representatives to approve it, sitting in one of these committees but Parliament is cut out of the system entirely.
It is a way of excluding Parliament, often from very important decisions.
That is why we cannot accept this system.
The Commission proposal goes some way to rectifying this but it does not give us total satisfaction on all those four points.
It is not quite good enough.
We will now have interinstitutional negotiations and the resolution we will adopt will serve as a mandate to our negotiators.
Let the other institutions understand.
Parliament is serious and will be very tough in these negotiations.
We have already seen co-decision procedures fall down on the issue of comitology, and of implementing measures.
That may well happen again.
We have seen many hours wasted in conciliation committees arguing over this one issue whereas the legislation of substance could have been settled easily and earlier.
That will happen again and again until this issue is settled.
That means all institutions - Council, Commission and Parliament - have to work on a compromise.
But we will take this opportunity to sort out the system once and for all.
Madam President, I should like to sympathise with the Commission.
I feel genuinely sorry that it has been put in a situation where it has had to make a proposal on this matter.
We actually thought at the time of the modus vivendi that the situation had been put to one side and at the next revision of the Treaty the people who are to blame failed to come up with a proposal that put this matter to bed in spite of giving an assurance, at the time of the modus vivendi , that this was the only technical way of bridging the gap until the matter could be resolved.
At the next revision of the Treaty the matter could have been resolved entirely by the Council accepting the principle that colegislators could not only co-legislate on primary legislation but could be the co-legislators on other areas.
Our colleague's report on that matter addresses and makes the very best of a very bad situation.
I hope we can get away from blaming the Commission and put the blame where it lies.
The Council did not address its responsibilities at the last revision of the Treaty and it must do so either by an inter-institutional agreement or at the next revision of the Treaty.
Thank you, Mr Barton.
I would inform the House that I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Supervision of insurance undertakings
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0286/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0308/98-95/0245(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on the supplementary supervision of insurance undertakings in an insurance group (Rapporteur: Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the legislative procedure hitherto has shown that the basic objective of the proposal for the directive is widely approved by all those involved.
The supervisory authorities of the European Union are to be able to determine more effectively in future the actual degree of solvency possessed by insurance undertakings belonging to an insurance group.
This is a question of guaranteeing consumers - the insured parties - the highest possible level of protection.
They are to be protected in the event of the insolvency of their insurance company.
There is some dispute as to which precautions are necessary and appropriate in order to achieve this aim.
The Council's common position and the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights take clearly differing positions on some important points, aimed at limiting the financial burden to an appropriate amount.
In particular, the European Parliament welcomes the fact that the Council has adopted most of the amendments which aided clarification.
We are also particularly pleased that the Council has at least come closer in its common position to Parliament's call for all the aspects of solvency that apply to the supervision of individual insurance undertakings to be applied to the supervision of group undertakings too.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has said that it does not agree with the common position where this provides that the financing of insurance participations for insurance holding companies is now to be dealt with through other aspects of the provisions governing the solvency of individual insurance undertakings as well.
In practice, these are essentially subordinated loans and dividend rights capital, but not other financial instruments, such as loans, convertible loans and other outside funds.
This reduction of financing approaches at any rate seems inappropriate in holding companies.
Their shareholders are not insurance undertakings.
The target group of the increased protection is the insured parties and not the shareholders, who are not subject to individual supervision.
Amendment No 5, adopted in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, is aimed at reducing this excessive protection to an appropriate level.
The scope of the group supervision provided for in this directive remains the main point of contention.
The common position now includes any participation of an insurance undertaking in other insurance or reinsurance undertakings, whereas at first reading, the Parliament provided for its application only above a threshold of 20 % and where the influence was dominant.
This represents an increase against the first reading and the Commission proposal.
If the directive were adopted in the present version, it would have clearly negative effects on the capital structure in Europe and the European insurance industry.
The existing insurance groups would have to raise considerable funds on the money market to finance their increased own funds requirements.
Capital is expensive, and the insurance undertakings would try or would be forced to balance out the costs incurred either by increasing premiums or rationalisation measures.
Increases in premiums would be charged to the insured parties themselves, and the rationalisation measures would threaten jobs.
The directive would cause additional problems in raising capital for insurance undertakings such as mutual insurance organisations which do not have access to the money markets because of their legal form.
This problem may well be relevant in terms of competition.
There would be the danger that this would permanently undermine areas of insurance which have developed traditionally in individual Member States.
A compromise as regards the scope might be to modify the threshold values according to the respective regulatory areas.
This would fully meet the requirements of supervision in terms of transparency and transaction monitoring.
At the same time, however, Parliament's demands from the first reading would also be taken into account. These provide for limiting additional solvency requirements resulting from belonging to a group to cases in which risk-enhancing influences between undertakings may actually be possible as well, particularly where a dominant influence is being exercised.
Amendments Nos 3 and 4 were tabled for this reason.
The main reason for not continuing to include minority participations is that the holding of such participations without a dominant influence does not provide any opportunity for unfavourable intra-group transactions.
They do not produce any risk factors.
However, risks may well result from supervision being carried out inadequately on the basis of the existing rules.
Another point in this context is that, unlike the European rules on the solvency of individual insurance undertakings, the directive and the common position only harmonise the supervisory intervention criteria and not the supervisory measures themselves, to say nothing of the various methods permitted for calculating adjusted solvency which are only said to be equal to each other anyway.
This may result in the supervisory authorities of a Member State demanding increased capital when a deficit is established in calculating adjusted solvency as provided for by the directive, whilst the supervisory authorities of another Member State demand at most a report.
This inevitably leads to distortions of competition, which are specifically to be avoided through the directive.
Finally, another objection is that the responsibility for assessing the presence of a dominant influence is to lie with the competent authorities.
Madam President, I speak on behalf of the Socialist Group.
Firstly I should like to thank the rapporteur for all her hard work on this issue.
Secondly I would like to place on record the apologies of our shadow-rapporteur, Mr Rothley, who is unfortunately engaged on other important business.
He has as usual, been conscientious and assiduous in his work.
Insurance supervision is an important issue.
The sustainability and solvency of insurance companies is a crucial issue for the reassurance of consumers on a whole range of matters.
My group welcomes this report.
In the first draft from the Commission there were considerable problems.
We believe the common position is a considerable improvement on that initial proposal.
Although my group is not unanimous in its view, we feel that overall, given the improvement in the common position from the original draft, the common position should be adopted unopposed.
Therefore the majority view of the Socialist Group is that the common position should be adopted unamended.
Regretfully, therefore, we cannot accept the amendments that have been tabled for this reading.
However we still thank the rapporteur for her hard work, recognise the importance of this subject and trust that the Commission will expedite the successful conclusion of this report.
Madam President, the rapporteur is quite right when she refers to the difference between insurance undertakings and banks or credit institutions with regard to the risks to be taken by them.
On the other hand, everyone knows what is happening on the financial markets, and in this context we do not need to explain now how important such a directive and a commitment on this matter are, for which I naturally thank the rapporteur.
However, I want to use the rest of my speaking time, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, to explain the reasons why I am unfortunately unable to agree with your amendments.
It is for a quite simple reason, and that is the experience I have had with the mismanagement of holdings in the former GDR.
That is why, in this respect, I am for more rather than less monitoring.
This mismanagement of holdings has by no means come to an end and, unfortunately, it is not just happening in the former GDR.
I am afraid that what you have said in Amendment No 5 and now repeated once again shows me that there is quite a considerable need for monitoring here.
So once again, thank you very much for the work that has been done.
It is a pity that I cannot agree with your suggestions and that I am consequently proposing, on behalf of my group, the same decision as my colleague Ms Oddy.
Madam President, Commissioner and colleagues, my law professors, who were guided by the thinking of St Thomas Aquinas, used to say that, in order to assess a text, you first had to determine its aim and then examine the means used to achieve this aim. So what is the aim of this text?
To give better protection to the insured and to remove distortions in competition. What means are used?
The prevention of the multiple use of own capital, known as double gearing, the imposition of an obligation for major intra-group transactions to be declared to the supervisory authorities and, finally, the organisation of access for supervisory authorities to the information needed.
On examining these aims, the common position as presented to us seems satisfactory.
As underlined by the rapporteur, it contains numerous amendments made by Parliament and is therefore a fairly balanced text.
This is why, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, we unfortunately cannot vote for your amendments.
Amendment No 4 in particular seems to me to reduce the scope of supervision too far.
As for Amendment No 1, this could be considered acceptable in terms of its intention, as it might be thought that the assessment of the dominant influence should not be left to the competent authority but should be defined more objectively.
However, in its current wording, we cannot vote for this, since it is too restrictive and limits supervision to the parent company alone.
We shall therefore vote in favour of the common position as it stands.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to start my speech by thanking our colleague, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, for her important work.
She has gone to great lengths to achieve a broad agreement and this is why the Council's common position, which was adopted by the vast majority of countries - 14 of the 15 as I recall - contains in full or in part, either word for word or in terms of their intention, 18 out of the 24 amendments adopted by the House at first reading.
We therefore consider that the French Socialists are supporting a good compromise.
This evening our rapporteur is proposing amendments at second reading and I must inform her that we do not feel it is necessary to go down this road.
If these amendments were accepted, the balance of the common position would be severely undermined, to the detriment of the protection of the insured and of the mutual insurance association sector, remembering that this sector is particularly important to us.
I would add that currently, in France, the mutual insurance associations are already reeling from an action brought by the European Commission against France before the European Court of Justice.
As a result, the French Socialists, like the majority of the Socialist Group, will accept the common position without amendments.
They have asked me to inform you of this.
Madam President, as Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn has emphasised in her important report, the insurance groups directive is highly relevant to the purpose of completing the single insurance market.
As everyone knows, insurance firms must hold a certain level of reserves to ensure their solvency and the solvency margin is a guarantee of security for policyholders.
This directive is intended to prevent avoidance of this obligation by groups of insurance companies in contexts where it would otherwise be possible to use the same funds more than once in calculating solvency.
The Council's common position on the directive confirms the key elements of the Commission's proposal and accepts, with or without adaptation, 19 of the 24 amendments adopted by the European Parliament at first reading.
It is a balanced and consistent text, which has been approved in the Council by all the Member States but one.
I am afraid any changes to the common position would weaken the text, would reduce consumer protection in particular and might call into question the compromise achieved in the Council on a very complex text.
So I strongly recommend that Parliament accept the common position in its current version.
We now come to the amendments.
All the amendments proposed, with the exception of Amendment No 5, do seem to pursue the same objective: restricting the scope of the directive or making its application more discretionary.
The common position provides for the directive to be applied in cases where the holding amounts to at least 20 %.
Amendment No 4 explicitly limits the scope to parent companies and subsidiaries - with a participation of at least 50 % - so any insurance company which has a holding of between 20 and 50 % will be able to dilute the reserves it needs, which everyone considers necessary for an individual company not forming part of a group.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 have an analogous effect, in that they would make it optional and non-obligatory for Member States to include companies which exercise a de facto dominant influence on other insurance companies.
This optional character, which is acceptable in the context of a set of accounting rules such as the Seventh Directive on company law, becomes inappropriate in a precautionary set of rules like this, understood as guaranteeing that solvency requirements are respected at group level.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 would make it easier to elude the directive and would make the application more discretionary.
Finally, Amendment No 3 is understood as transforming automatic application, above the threshold of 20 %, into mere presumption.
The insurance companies and the supervisory authorities would then have the opportunity to exclude holdings greater than 20 % from the scope of the directive.
So I have to inform Parliament that the Commission could not accept Amendments Nos 1 to 4.
The Commission considers Amendment No 5 superfluous, since its aim is already achieved in the common position.
The common position already makes it clear in the recitals that any reference to the first directive on insurances must be understood as a reference to the amended version of the third directive and any other subsequent directive.
In debating the amendments, it is perhaps easy to forget the reasons why this directive is essential, reasons which make these amendments unacceptable.
In the last analysis, the directive fills a gap in the supervisory rules for insurance firms, banking and investment groups being already covered by Community legislation.
The directive protects consumers and here I am afraid I cannot say I agree with Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, because the directive does not contain additional capital requirements.
It is simply intended to eliminate double counting so it does not involve additional costs to consumers because it does not involve additional capital requirements, while it will mean advantages for consumers in terms of greater security.
The directive will bring companies belonging to insurance groups into line with individual insurance companies without saddling the groups with additional burdens, and it creates conditions of parity with the insurance mutuals which, by definition, cannot have holdings in each other.
Finally, a point which is often given insufficient prominence: if the directive is not adopted in an unweakened form, the Community's work on financial conglomerates in line with the recommendations of the G7 Joint Forum will be seriously compromised.
As everyone knows, the growth of these financial conglomerates at international level constitutes one of the main challenges we must confront if we wish to ensure financial stability in a global economy and, Madam President, I need not remind you today of the importance of financial stability and the financial operators in the light of the latest international developments.
Weakening the content of this directive would definitely send out the wrong signals, particularly at the moment.
Thank you, Commissioner Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Islam and Averroës European Day
The next item is the report (A4-0167/98) by Mr Mohamed Alí, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on Islam and Averroës European Day.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the celebration of Averroës European Day certainly provides the ideal opportunity for reflection on the relevance of the life and work of this great philosopher and commentator on Aristotle to contemporary society.
Averroës stated that the search for truth is an essential process in the development of every human being.
It proved particularly necessary for us as, when preparing this report, Averroës provided the opportunity of dealing with contemporary Islam and its role in Europe. This became a complex and difficult task particularly because - regrettably, but all too often - Islam tends to be identified with Islamic fundamentalism and the violence and intransigence associated with the latter.
There is no better example of this identification than the present political situation, dominated by the terrifying campaigns of the Taliban and by the horrific news of the continuing bloodbath in Algeria.
These latest events overshadow other atrocities currently being perpetrated in Kosovo as they were previously in Bosnia.
It is against this background that we attempt to reflect and to search for the truth. We find ourselves greatly influenced too by the ongoing tensions generated by the social crisis afflicting Europe, which can take the form of the insoluble human tragedy caused by unemployment or of exclusion and urban violence.
For these reasons, amongst others, debate on the presence of Muslims in Europe is particularly fraught and, in addition, Islam is all too easily linked to immigration.
This is neither the time nor the place to comment on the interesting content and conclusions of the report prepared by the Runnymede Commission, charged with studying the phenomenon of Islamophobia in Great Britain. Islamophobia results in the demonising of Muslims, thus preventing a calm and realistic analysis of the situation.
Reflex reactions such as that of Huntington, obsessed with the need to find an opponent to fight against in place of the former Communist threat are determined to prove the inevitability of a clash of civilizations.
However, the timely plan to pay tribute to the memory of Averroës is aimed specifically at highlighting the importance of his ideals of tolerance, progress and human development.
It may also provide an opportunity for more detailed consideration of the social, political and economic factors which foster ignorance, prejudice and obscurantism. These in turn result in exclusion and the break-up of society.
Only culture and education can raise our awareness of these risks and encourage us to work towards solutions.
From time to time, we meet people from a range of backgrounds and cultures whose world is structured in a different way from ours, and who have other values and other ways of investigating and making sense of the world around them.
We must display both tolerance and modesty because these are people who, although they come from another cultural background, do nevertheless belong to a different culture we could come to understand and appreciate if we made a minimal effort to listen and to engage in a sincere and respectful dialogue.
No one can ignore his neighbour when the latter seeks recognition of his human dignity, because as Javier de Lucas maintains, one should play down one's own way of life to allow for the demands of other forms of existence. One's own identity should never be put forward as universal, nor should any alternative to it be marginalised.
In short, we must strive for a continual increase in tolerance, reasoning things out in a sincere, rigorous and consistent manner. Islam should be seen as a culture, a civilisation and a religion, not just as one more facet of our multicultural society, but as a force inspired by those same values which are at the heart of a democratic, tolerant Europe.
The Swiss theologian Hans Kung stated that any religion must phenomenologically fulfil three essential functions, namely making sense of life, laying down rules and building a community.
Hence this theologian calls for Islam to be given the opportunity of integrating into the modern world whilst retaining those three functions, and on the same terms as Christianity or any other creed.
It is probably not for me to confirm or disprove Malraux's prediction, some time ago, that either the coming century would be religious or it would never come about.
In fact, as a Muslim, I should remind you that the 15th century after the Hegira has barely begun.
I can but make an appeal - hinted at in the report's resolution - naturally, the majority view prevailed - that the authorities in the Member States, and all men and women of good will should take into account the implications of the fact that Islam is now clearly the second religion in our societies.
However, on the one hand, Mr Chevènement - whom, incidentally, we wish a swift and complete recovery - assures us that couscous is a French dish, and on the other, we see that in Brussels, Muslims sometimes stuff tomatoes with prawns and serve them with chips to break the Ramadan fast.
Is all this a sign of cultural impoverishment, a sign of change or of the forging of new identities? In my humble opinion, these are certainly new experiences for Muslims, and changing times and circumstances will subject them to more.
It is more likely that we are on the brink of a process of integration in which, understandably, no one wishes their own identity to be unduly neglected.
It is therefore reasonable to suppose that we are witnessing the first expressions of European Islam. Perhaps those experts like Olivier Carré who claim that in Europe, Muslims and non-Muslims are moving towards the same practices are not too far off the mark.
And so, ladies and gentlemen, it is my earnest desire that Mohammed, Fatima or any other Muslim who serves us our daily coffee in Brussels or here in Strasbourg, absorbed in his or her work, should become again, for all of us in Europe, men and women to whom we can relate, neighbours whom we respect and accept because we have come to appreciate them as equals. In short, we should consider them our partners in everyday life, link hands with them and work together towards a fairer future.
We European Muslims, or those of us who live in Europe, are resolved to give of our best in the building of that Europe which, as Jacques Delors said, is in need of a soul we must all help to provide.
I am quite certain, Madam President, that the Muslim presence in the patchwork of European society will enrich it in many ways, but especially as it provokes thought on the place of spirituality in today's secular societies, ever more intent on unbridled and destructive consumption.
I have no wish to appear pretentious, Madam President, but I too have a dream.
Madam President, I would like to thank my colleague Mr Mohamed Alí for a very profound report, and its explanatory statement was particularly interesting to read.
I think you should appear as opening speaker at the symposium that you and Parliament probably also wishes to organise in honour of Averroës Day.
You really are to be thanked for having produced such an unusual report.
The Committee on Women's Rights have taken a position on this matter, as migrant women are often Muslim.
We have stressed the fact that they often have a disproportionate number of problems fully participating in our society.
We would urge the Commission and Council to improve the situation for female migrants who profess the Muslim religion.
I am glad to see how the rapporteur has taken on board remarks made by the Committee on Women's Rights.
The report emphasises the fact that gender equality must be taken into consideration in EU relations with Islamic states.
It calls for an end to discrimination against women and condemns their oppression in the family, for example the fact that genital mutilation is still being practised, although in many countries this is an illegal act.
Madam President, I should also like to thank Mr Mohamed Ali for all the work and patience he has put into this report.
I do not speak only on behalf of the Socialist Group but also on behalf of the many Muslims in East London whom I represent and who so enrich my constituency.
The report is timely given the recent unfortunate events which risk creating further conflict between Islamic and Western culture.
Given the multicultural nature of our societies, we have to try and encourage their peaceful co-existence.
This is where we can learn from the great philosopher Averroes.
Firstly, if you have not done soalready I recommend that you see the film Le Destin .
It is a brilliant exposé of Averroes's life and work.
If only it could be shown in every school and in every community across Community, it would do so much to help understanding.
It is unbelievable that I had to come here to the European Parliament before I heard the name of Averroes.
Our children should be introduced to Averroes as a role model.
He was a courageous and radical philosopher with a wide knowledge of science, sincere in his speech, consistent in his arguments and a promoter of the co-existence different religious faiths.
Not surprisingly he was persecuted.
His works were often banned.
And nothing has changed over the centuries; Salman Rushdie's books are still burned.
We have to use Averroes' legacy to promote pluralism of thought, free speech and respect for human rights.
These are the essential pillars upon which democracy rests.
We should insist that this is best achieved by the separation of church and state, which has not been completely achieved in all our Member States; the establishment of laws which outlaw religious discrimination, something we will take action on in the United Kingdom; and minimal censorship, with the emphasis always on freedom of expression.
I particularly like paragraph 10 which calls for the principle of secularism in education.
However, we have to work for more than just tolerance of other cultures; we have to appreciate and celebrate diversity in our society.
We have to condemn the violation of women's rights connected with extremist Islamic movements and make sure women are aware of their rights, including our policies in Europe.
We must make it easier for people to learn Arabic as a living language and promote the study of Islamic culture, history and politics.
The Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies is a very good example.
I ask the Commission and Member States to study the recommendations and propose action on the basis of this report.
Once again I thank the rapporteur.
We look forward to celebrating Averroes Day for many years to come.
Madam President, this own-initiative report, whose initial aim was the examination of cultural links between Islam and Europe on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the death of Averroës, has experienced many problems and has taken nearly two years to be produced.
The problem is that this report, in its current form, seems to have several objectives.
A number of points condemn any discrimination - it restates in this respect the contents of the resolutions on human rights adopted on every month, on a Thursday, by the European Parliament.
Other passages deal with the problem of religions, which is outside the European Union's field of competence.
In fact, this is what recently led to the rejection of the report by our colleague Mr Oostlander, which dealt with similar problems.
Furthermore, several proposals do not respect the principle of subsidiarity, in particular the proposal stressing the need to allow Islamic communities to express their views on the same terms as other religions.
We realise that these questions are very delicate and that they are answered with specific solutions in each country, depending in particular on the level of representation of the Islamic communities and the place given to each religion by each state, according to the constitutional rights.
Finally, as I have already said, this report, which has moved away from its original objective of dealing with cultural questions, does not tackle the essential political problems, such as the integration of immigrants, voting rights, social problems and the concept of citizenship, all of which are elements which are currently being examined in depth in the various states.
Europe has responsibilities in the Mediterranean countries and must assume these while still respecting other countries and other peoples.
It must also establish suitable measures for integrating immigrants from third countries.
We feel that this report does not indicate specific courses of action for immigration problems and that it is restricted to a superficial examination of various options.
For all these fundamental reasons, and on the grounds of competence, the ELDR Group will abstain.
Madam President, this own-initiative report has moved away from its cultural objectives, as my colleague Mr Monfils has just said.
We are perfectly happy to recommend an Averroës Day, but dealing with religious problems is no longer within Parliament's field of competence.
I regret even more having to make these remarks as the rapporteur's explanatory statement contained an interesting analysis of the influence which Averroës could have through his work, for example: ' A lesson in how to use our intelligences by showing us just whence intolerance springs'.
Unfortunately, the lesson in how to use our intelligences quickly turned into a lesson in Islam, telling us what we should do to be tolerant.
I have absolutely no intention of condemning this report. I only wish to say to its author that, although a fervent believer in the insertion and integration of a large population within European society, I regrettably have no intention of actively promoting the foundation of a Euro-Islamic university within the territory of the European Union, nor of encouraging the vocational training of imams, nor of implementing many other actions to suit religious rites.
I deeply regret the wayward direction taken by this report, although I do share the idea that intercultural dialogue is a source of enrichment and must be developed, and that we must be actively involved in this.
Finally, despite certain recommendations with which I agree, I also do not feel that this resolution can change the position of women, no more so than the application of the principle of secularism in education, even though I support the intention behind this.
I therefore believe that our group will abstain from voting on this report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the name Averroës stands for the Islamic interest in the traditions of enlightenment and emancipation in Europe.
Whenever Thomas Aquinas wished to quote the most important authority for him when commenting on Aristotle, he only needed two words: commentator dicit .
His contemporaries knew that Averroës was meant by that.
I learned in school that European culture is based on antiquity, Christianity and Teutonicism.
The important report which has been presented to us, and on which I can only congratulate its author, reminds us that there is a gap in both our memory and our history.
I therefore regard it as particularly important - unlike the previous speaker - that the idea of a Euro-Islamic university is taken forward.
Admittedly, this is also a reminder that the proposed programme can only become effective when the constitutional position of Islam and its believers in the European Union has been established beyond that of a merely tolerated marginal existence, and towards a publicly recognised and guaranteed position.
Madam President, this report, as presented to us today by our colleague Mr Mohamed Alí, is the result of many exchanges and debates which have taken place since it was first presented to us last year.
It has been clarified and important explanations have been provided.
I must, however, point out to my colleagues - as have several previous speakers - that it still contains ambiguities, particularly from the point of view of democracy.
I am not at all suspicious of your intentions to respect the freedoms as enshrined in our democracies, but I must nevertheless ask you this question.
Can the Koran, as it stands - and quite literally so, since the distinctive feature of the Koran for many centuries has been not to allow explanation and theological debate - imply anything other than a theocracy?
We must ask ourselves this fundamental question.
As I say, I do not suspect your intentions, but I do feel that we must be consistent.
If the celebration of the memory of Averroës causes us to ask all these questions, then we must ask them very frankly.
As for a university, instead of your proposal I would much prefer a European university in which, at the highest level and in all sincerity, in the search for truth and with mutual esteem, we could study the problems of the relationship between religion and politics, between faith and reason, in Islam, Judaism and Christianity in all its forms.
You will appreciate that this task is enormous.
I must pay tribute to the work which we have done together within this committee, but I cannot endorse your proposals without reservation unless certain ambiguities are eliminated.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report definitely had a difficult birth: we spent several months discussing it in committee and there were a great many complications.
I think the celebration of the 800th anniversary of the death of Averroës is an important occasion for presenting wide-ranging cultural programmes, strengthening dialogue and highlighting knowledge of the civilisation and culture of the Mediterranean basin.
Reciprocal knowledge between peoples is the basis of all human coexistence, and what better form of knowledge is there than literature itself? In Europe, much has been translated from Arabic and other Islamic languages, generally with excellent results.
There is a need to continue making the Arabic and Islamic classics available to the European reader.
It is also necessary to take care with the translations.
In particular, I have here the Italian translation of Averroës' work 'The Harmony between Divine Law and Philosophy', which can be interpreted in various ways because some sentences in it can have another literal meaning if presented in isolation.
So from a symbolic standpoint, this celebration could provide the right opportunity to highlight the modernity of Averroës' thinking, in seminars and public events, and take up the challenge of fighting against exclusion and xenophobia - the fruit of obscurantism, ignorance and prejudice - on the eve of the third millennium, within the European Community itself, for all that it is imbued with democracy, pluralism and human rights.
So we need to strengthen dialogue with the Islamic world, which means relations with the Euro-Mediterranean countries, through the MEDA programme and others, not only in socio-economic terms but principally in terms of culture and education, which form the basis of any civilisation and democracy.
Only a knowledge of our actual origins, history and traditions will enable us to understand the values of peace, solidarity and tolerance which constitute the pillars for the construction of Europe.
Fundamental rights and individual dignity, for both men and women in equal measure, must be respected and examined through calm dealings with the Islamic world, without any condemnation and discrimination, particularly as regards women.
Finally, I think calm dialogue is really necessary in this whole sector, but it is equally necessary for nothing to be imposed, because our culture, our education and our experience can only be enriched if we achieve what we consider important and what we have always asserted: a clear, calm period of information and face-to-face dialogue.
Madam President, 40 years after the death of the prophet Muhammad in 632, Islam attacked Constantinople five times, marking the start of a war with Europe which has lasted over a thousand years given that, on the eve of the 21st century, the conflict is still continuing.
Taking as a pretext the 800th anniversary of the death of Averroës, a Spanish philosopher from the Middle Ages whose questionable theories led to him being much disputed at the time and who still is today, our colleague Mr Mohamed Ali would like to instigate an era of peace between Islam and the European nations.
I respect the Muslim religion, which is the personal business of its believers.
However, how can we talk of peace when our honourable colleague obtained an invitation onto the European Parliament's Committee on Culture for the former director of the centre for Arabic philosophies at the Catholic University of Louvain who was, at the same time, publishing in Beirut a minor work in which he applauded the massacre of seven Christian monks in Tibehirine?
How can we talk of peace when, in 1995 in Rome, in the heart of the city of popes and Caesars, the largest mosque in Europe was inaugurated?
How better to deride our God while His priests are being savagely murdered on the other side of the Mediterranean? How can we talk of peace when the island of Cyprus, which is part of Europe, and Constantinople, an imperial city of Europe, are yet to be liberated?
Madam President, this report by Mr Mohamed Alí puts me in mind of the most interesting philosophy lectures I attended at my protestant university.
Lectures highlighting the parallels between European and Arab theology and thought. How is that?
It is thanks to people like Averroës who interpreted and commentated on Aristotle and introduced him to Europe, because that is the route by which he came to us.
I think it is most important that a report like this should also pay tribute to the contribution which Islam and the Arab world, but Islam in particular, has made to European culture.
I think that we must acknowledge that, because in both science and philosophy, culture and latterly of course in our social and economic life too, Muslims have made an enormous contribution to European society.
Islam is of course blamed for all manner of deeds done by just a few Muslims.
The same is true of course for acts perpetrated by Christians, socialists and liberals; Christendom, socialism and liberalism cannot be held accountable for all of those either.
I find it right and proper that the rapporteur should take the lead in stating the case here.
There are two serious points in the report to which we are opposed, both of which have to do with the separation of powers between religion and state.
One point is obvious, paragraph 11(f), which refers to a Euro-Islamic university.
I have been a fervent advocate of this for years and happily moves are now afoot in the Netherlands to set up something of that kind.
It sits well with the Dutch constitution, too, since religious beliefs enjoy equal rights under it.
That is a very good thing, as the Muslim communities can involve their imams who have a role to play in our own social and cultural life.
But we cannot dictate policy on what kind of theology must be taught there.
We can only hope that it will be a modern, liberal or European one, but we absolutely cannot stipulate that in a document of this kind. That would be a serious breach of the separation of powers.
The second objection is in paragraph 10, which introduces an anti-personal element which does not accord either with the position of present-day Muslims.
Even the Dutch Government, which has no Christian Democrats in it, has acknowledged that Dutch education based on a foundation of Islam is often an excellent system for promoting the emancipation of Muslims, up to secondary level.
The university I mentioned just now is also a part of that system.
I would regard it as quite wrong and very harmful to Muslims to have their freedom of choice restricted by this report.
We must not do that and we must not create suspicion by making a fuss over the kind of ideas which should be taught at their institutions, because we shall not succeed in that.
So I urge Mr Mohamed Ali to get rid of these two points along the lines we have suggested, otherwise he will not secure our votes.
And that would be a great pity.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I fear that we are doing Averroës a great wrong here this evening.
Indeed I fear that, in reality, he is far from the concerns which seem to be prompting all these speakers.
Averroës' journey within Islam is mysterious to say the least and, in any case, does not conform to the orthodox religion of Islam.
In a way, Averroës is to Islam the opposite of what Maimonides is to the Jewish religion.
For my part, I must urge Mr Mohamed Alí not to be concerned.
Whether you like it or not, I cannot support exclusion and xenophobia, and I have studied Averroës extensively.
But does Mr Mohamed Alí know, for instance, that we do not have the original Arabic translation of ' De Anima' - which is Averroës' main work - but only a very mediocre Latin translation produced by Michael Scot at the Court of Palermo for Frederick II? Furthermore, much of Averroës' work in its original Greek has been irretrievably lost.
I must also say that Averroës is the man of an era, but of an era which should be considered, not with ideological blinkers, but with all the requisite objectivity.
The great historian, Jean Dumont, director of Amiot-Dumont publications, dealt with this in his magnificent work ' L'Église au risque de l'histoire' , as did the great Jewish historian from Israel, Bat Ye'Or.
This is the history of the colonisation of Spain by Islam, and it is not idyllic like those who tell us stories on the subject would like us to believe.
The status of the Jews bears witness to that.
This is irrefutable, just like the massacres of the Christians.
This was the history of a colonisation and the Spanish Reconquista was the history of a decolonisation.
Could we be opposed in this House to decolonisation?
Mr Mohamed Alí regrets that more mosques are not being built in Europe. Would he be interested in a reciprocal situation?
Where are the churches in Saudi Arabia?
There are 1500 mosques in France - are there 1500 churches in Saudi Arabia?
Are there 100 or 10, is there even one?
Wahhabi Islam persecutes Christians and does not allow them anywhere to worship. And what about in Algeria and in the lands of St Augustine?
What Christianity is there currently in the Islamic world? Of course, there are men of intelligence in Islam who would like to see an end to the Islamic law which, as noted by my excellent colleague Mrs Seillier, currently represents a theocracy which, at the very least, is unsuited to the modern world.
We can therefore accept the thinking of Averroës, but not Averroës in all his aspects!
And if we want to organise an Averroës Day in Europe, let us do that, but let us also organise one at the al-Azhar university in Cairo.
Let us organise an Averroës Day in Tunis and another one in Saudi Arabia.
But I can tell you that this will not be allowed because Averroës is a devil in an Islam which does not allow Christians any freedom in the countries over which it rules, except in the case of a man as open as Saddam Hussein who allows cathedrals to be built in Iraq which the American planes then unfortunately bombard!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen: I have to say, Mr Mohamed Alí, that I was genuinely moved when I heard the name of Averroës mentioned in the House. We learnt about the life and thought of this great figure at school, and I offer you my sincere congratulations on your initiative.
Your initiative was certainly timely.
I do not intend to open a debate on historical issues at this juncture, but I would venture to say - indeed I must - that the presence of Islam in Spain was not simply colonisation.
It was much more.
It was a process of mutual enrichment which continues to benefit us in the present day. Indeed, any contemporary Spaniard is bound to feel indebted - as I do - to the legacy of Islam, to that of the Christian world and to that of the Jewish world.
I believe that the three cultures have combined to create the cultural identity of all true Spaniards.
I congratulate you on your report, Mr Mohamed Alí.
In particular, I congratulate you on proposing the celebration of an Averroës European Day. Not only will such an occasion provide an opportunity to honour a great thinker, a defender of tolerance, learning and rationalism, it will also, as your report suggests, encourage cross-cultural dialogue to prevent exclusion and do away with outbreaks of intolerance and xenophobia.
This became clear to me as I read your report.
The Commission is aware of the contribution made by Islam to European culture and also of the problems concerning the social and cultural integration of groups within European Islam. We must welcome them into our society whilst respecting their identity.
On this issue, the Commission is convinced of the value and importance of promoting free and open dialogue, particularly amongst the younger generations.
I would like to remind Members of the many initiatives which have been taken to stimulate such debate.
Under the Euro-Med programmes, collaboration between the Youth for Europe programmes and Mediterranean programmes is being developed.
In the area of vocational training, the Turin Foundation plans to broaden its programmes and open them to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
On the occasion of the Stockholm Conference held last April, a debate on culture and civilisation was held, as part of the follow-up to the Barcelona Declaration. In a few days' time - and I very much regret being unable to attend - a Euro-Mediterranean conference of Ministers of Culture and the Audio-Visual is to take place in Rhodes, on 25 and 26 September.
As for the cultural sector, the Commission has presented a new framework programme to Parliament and to the Council.
This programme is currently under discussion within our institutions, and it is worth noting that it places particular emphasis on the importance of cross-cultural dialogue as a prerequisite for peace and social cohesion.
I should like to say, Mr Mohamed Alí, that the Commission feels this report has probably arrived rather too late for the event you suggest to be held before the end of the year.
Specific measures must be taken, concerning both the organisation and financing of the event, and we do not really have the time and resources available.
Nevertheless, the Commission does believe - as Mrs Baldi so brilliantly put it - that study of the work and values of great Islamic thinkers like Averroës would provide an excellent basis for interaction between cultures and foster the spirit of tolerance and understanding which must underpin genuine dialogue between civilisations as rich and as varied as ours.
I can therefore assure you that your report will be borne very much in mind, and that we will do all we can to ensure that in the very near future, we do honour the life and work of Averroës, and give due recognition to the relevance of his thought to contemporary society.
Thank you, Commissioner Oreja.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11 p.m.)
Welcome
Before moving on to deal with the order of business for today, I should like to welcome the delegation from the Duma and the Federal Council to the official gallery.
In view of the significant role played by the Duma in recent developments in Russia, it is particularly appropriate that the European Union-Russia Joint Parliamentary Committee should be meeting here in Strasbourg today and tomorrow.
I would urge members of that delegation to make every effort to ensure the success of the working session, which is particularly necessary in the light of the present situation.
International financial crisis and political developments in Russia
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the international financial crisis and political developments in Russia.
I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when I look at the many political and financial crises in the world, I have to conclude that Euroland is a land of stability.
I am pleased that we did not follow the advice of those who, in the spring of this year, were still speaking of the euro as a premature birth.
Many of those who have held up the Asian model as an example to us are nowhere to be seen now, presumably because they are busy burning their speeches!
In my speech I should like to concentrate on the situation in Russia.
A united, democratic and stable Russia is of paramount interest to us Europeans.
That sort of Russia, as an equal partner of the European Union and of NATO, can make a decisive contribution to stability and constructive development in Europe.
For that reason, it is essential that the appropriate reforms are enacted in Russia, reforms which are the responsibility of Russia and Russia alone.
We can lend support, and we can help the Russians to help themselves, so that they will be able to clear away the ballast of the Soviet regime and the planned economy.
At the same time, we must get round to talking about the basics, by which I mean such fundamental elements as a functioning administration, which is the key to the implementation of social, environmental and, above all, economic improvements, as well as to a rational and balanced interactive relationship between central government and the regional authorities.
This is the only way to guarantee the rule of law and to establish the social market economy which will bring about the progress that is so urgently needed.
Such a market economy must be embedded in a framework of social justice and environmental responsibility as we understand them.
I agree with Mr Swoboda that we Europeans undoubtedly made a great mistake in the past, for although we gave money, we left the provision of advice to a host of Harvard professors who preached pure free-market capitalism.
I believe in a social market economy which takes account of all the national structures and is designed to strengthen small and medium-sized businesses, which are the basis of economic development in Russia.
These structures are absolutely essential if the public finances are to be put in order, if taxes are to be properly collected and if corruption and organised crime are to be curbed.
We must also seek ways and means of recovering the 150 billion dollars which has found its way into private hands within and outside Russia, so that it can be used for the nation's economic development.
We consider it essential that democratic structures and national political parties should develop.
I hope, Mr van den Broek, that the aid from the European Union, such as that provided through the TACIS programme, will be tailored to these requirements, but we shall surely have the opportunity to discuss this in greater detail.
If our position is to prevail during the preparations for the G7 meeting, the European G7 participants must coordinate their approach.
Mr President, the Russian crisis cannot be cured in the way that you would cure someone with a cold.
Many have underestimated the extent of the political, economic and social gauntlet thrown down to the Russians following the collapse of the communist regime and the end of the Soviet Union.
However, it would be as mistaken to predict a return to communism in Russia as it would be foolish to gloss over the bitter failure to implement reforms, which particularly reduces the alternatives in the current situation.
Also, simply pointing the finger at those responsible - or those supposedly responsible - for the current Russian crisis, whether this involves the IMF or other agreements, will not help Russia to escape the impasse.
I can only heartily applaud the analysis of the current situation in Russia presented a few moments ago by the President of the Commission.
However, I would add that, whatever the reforms possibly undertaken in Russia - which should target first and foremost better operation of the institutions and re-establishment of the main budgetary and macro-economic balances - the Russians, with the best will in the world, cannot resolve the situation on their own.
They are, in the short term at least, essentially dependent on the assistance of their European partners, with whom they are already forming an inevitable community, if only on the security level.
This assistance must not just involve the injection of another several thousand million ecus into the system.
Basically, as loans need to be granted, we should improve the system for granting these, with the nonchalance and thoughtlessness with which they were granted in the 1970s to middle-income countries being an example, par excellence , of what must be avoided.
It also seems essential to me, in the long term, to increase cooperation in all areas: political, economic, administrative and, I would add, between the citizens of the European Union and the citizens of the Russian Federation, so that progress can also be made on the local, micro-economic and humanitarian level.
Basically, we must make a personal investment in all these areas.
Mr President, there are two aspects of the world economy: the economy in practice and the economy on paper.
That on paper is the bubble economy.
John Maynard Keynes called it casino capitalism.
The world is an electronic casino, where the stakes are the various products of the stock exchange.
Every day, sixty times more currency moves around the world than is needed to pay the world trade bill.
That is why the world economy is unstable.
The banks and the other world casino players invested electronic money into the Far East, Russia and Latin America in the hope of high profits.
The money was used for the wrong purposes.
The capital market inflated.
When the bubble bursts, the consequence may be world deflation.
The Asian collapse has been paid for out of IMF funds.
Now there is not enough money for elsewhere.
We have all had to pay out via the IMF.
The IMF is asking its member countries to increase their subscriptions and for a special NAB system.
I would like to ask who we are really bailing out with IMF funds?
My reply would be that it is a great many speculators, casino players and thieves.
Western banks, under the leadership of Germany, invested perhaps ECU 100 billion in Russia, money which the Russian mafia have recycled back to the West for themselves.
The debts remained in Russia, and the money came back to the West.
Should the West, by assuming the burden of Russian debt supranationally, keep those in power who enslave their people with money and television? Must the West rescue a president in the name of a reform policy which has already received the verdict of the Russian people?
Poverty, despair and starvation are the judges of history.
Now we need a resurrection of leftist thinking in Europe. The right have destroyed the alternative they offered, and any prospect of a rescue from the crisis.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office, the example of Russia teaches us that a process of economic transformation must follow directly from successes in the development of democracy.
Democracy sustained such damage when the parliament building in Moscow was shelled in 1993 that it has not yet regained the necessary credibility in the eyes of the Russian people.
The West has ignored this fact and has continued to back Boris Yeltsin as the guarantor of democracy.
Reality in Russia, however, looks quite different.
The reality is that 80 % of economic activity is unofficial and that the West's neoliberal schemes have come to grief when confronted with the hard facts of Russian life.
It is an illusion to think that Russia need only hasten to implement the reforms that the IMF and the World Bank have wanted for the past seven years, and everything will then be all right.
But how can it do that when the system of government has collapsed?
The percentage of the population who live below the subsistence level has long included some of the middle classes, and as winter draws in, the people in Russia only have themselves to rely on, for they will not put any faith in the grand words of politicians at home or abroad.
This profound crisis of confidence has currently blocked all the political roads to democracy.
And yet I have the impression that Western politicians are less interested in this situation than in the fact that suppliers of yoghurt and cheese from the West have lost a market and that containers are piling up in Rotterdam.
Western economic relations, however, must be modelled in such a way that they foster stability within an economic system that is subject to ecological and social conditions rather than undermining the reform efforts in Russia.
The purpose of Western support must therefore be to help overcome this profound crisis of confidence; the West must recognise that the reconstruction of the social security system and the reinforcement of democracy are every bit as important as its economic priorities.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I will be speaking about Russia and my colleague, Henri de Lassus, will deal with the Asian financial crisis.
No one can deny that Russia is going through an extremely difficult period.
The economic, financial and social crisis is so severe that it could be viewed in terms of bankruptcy.
There is also a political crisis, with President Yeltsin having lost authority, the problem of choosing a prime minister, paralysing opposition between the Duma and the executive, and so on.
However, we should note that, despite the seriousness of this crisis, it has so far occurred within the institutional framework and in accordance with the constitutional rules.
In a country whose democratic traditions are still shaky, this is a not insignificant point which we must underline and encourage.
Faced with this multi-faceted crisis, we must re-examine, or revise, our policy towards Russia.
Any hesitation by the Union could have disastrous consequences in the Russian Federation, even though the future of Russia is clearly, in the main, in the hands of the Russians themselves.
So saying, I would like to welcome the delegation of members of the Duma who are in the official gallery.
Firstly, I am happy to note that no one here is considering abandoning our great neighbour and major partner.
I firmly believe that we need to continue our cooperation and our aid, using every possible means imaginable.
The Russian people need to feel that the European family understands and supports them.
It would be very easy for Russian nationalist extremists to depict the European Union as an organisation of rich egoists, untroubled by the misfortunes of Russia.
This would be very dangerous! We must ensure that our attitude can never be interpreted in this way as this could lead to the very worst xenophobic reactions in Russia.
Having said this, our cooperation and aid must themselves be reformed.
President Santer has just acknowledged this, as have several colleagues.
This is not the first time that Members of the European Parliament have expressed their reservations, indeed their criticisms, not only about the policy followed by the IMF, the World Bank and the West in general, but also about the policy followed by the Union, for example with the TACIS programme.
I must be brief, due to lack of time, and would say that we have on numerous occasions encouraged the establishment of a market economy. This is good, but we have assumed that the foundations of Russian society were firm enough to implement and operate this free market economy.
This assumption has been shown to be false.
Russia is not Poland or Hungary or Czechoslovakia, for example.
For historical reasons which should never be forgotten, Russia did not have in 1991 either the foundations of a true rule of law or the attitude and public-spiritedness to prevent the free market from turning into a wild jungle where anything goes, including large-scale organised crime.
Fundamental reforms - for example, the correct operation of a proper tax system, land-sharing, respect for undertakings and contracts, at least some social law and social welfare - are not the firm supports on which the subtle reforms requested by the West can be developed.
These fundamental reforms and a transformation of attitudes are still to be achieved.
This is where we must target the bulk of our advice and aid, Mr President, while hoping that the Primakov government can rise to the enormous challenge weighing on its shoulders.
Mr President, in January Mr de Silguy announced in this House that the Asian crisis would have only a marginal effect on our economies.
The shield provided by the forthcoming euro would be sufficient to protect us, as if by magic, from any fallout.
We had to face up to reality then, and once again we are confronted by an extremely tough challenge.
The same shining shield is now being held up for us by Mr Santer with regard to the Russian crisis. Still thanks to the forthcoming euro, we will be protected to some extent.
Surely it is rather presumptuous to predict that the Russian crash, which we were unable to foresee, will not have profound effects on our economic and monetary development?
On the contrary, we must not disguise the extent of the crisis. Furthermore, its immediate causes must be correctly identified, in particular the singular responsibility of a parliament, dominated by the Communists, which blocked the development of the legislative framework essential to the establishment of the rule of law.
It is true that the Russian banks, which are weak and fragmented, have been careless.
With debts in dollars and deposits in roubles, they can no longer honour their internal and external obligations.
They have lost the confidence of savers and investors alike.
As victims of excessive monetary restrictions, they have been the channel for a colossal flight of capital and have fed international corruption rings, into which a large part of the Western aid seems to have disappeared.
Who is to blame, if not first and foremost the Duma which refused to give the banking system the legislative framework it needed to operate? And who can pretend that the implosion of the Russian banking system will not have a serious effect on ours?
If the State is now powerless and unable to regularly pay its officials, this is surely primarily because the Duma refused to adopt the tax code and buried the proposed tax system under a mountain of amendments. Deprived of tax revenue and therefore of the means to act, the State is involuntarily contributing to the fragmentation of the country, leaving regional feudal systems and mafia networks to capture the real power.
Mr Primakov is facing two major challenges: to restore the authority of the State and the unity of the country.
If a European population, namely the Russian people, is threatened by the prospect of a real famine this winter, on the eve of the third millennium, surely this is primarily because its agricultural sector could not develop due to the complete blockage imposed by the Duma on the land ownership legislation. In order to feed a population which lives on the best land in the world, Russia must therefore import massive amounts of foodstuffs, which we produce, but for which it is now virtually unable to pay.
Are you trying to tell me that this will not have serious consequences, particularly on our agri-foodstuffs industry?
It is therefore high time that we completely reviewed the mistaken approach which we have taken up to now.
We must stop incessantly calling for reform, we must stop wasting our taxpayers' money on aid programmes whose assessment we have not received, but we must help Russia, genuinely and en masse , to train the new, competent and honest managers which the country urgently needs to restore the authority of the State, to operate the administration and to restart the economy.
Mr President, the economic crisis which has hit Russia, and consequently other countries' financial markets, is the result of a long-running political crisis. Inexplicably, this has not been paid sufficiently focused attention by either the European Union or other states or influential institutions, nor have they formulated any proposals for intervention.
The political crisis in Russia means that the process of market liberalisation and democratisation of access to the market has not really been taking place over the last few years.
In fact, since the collapse of the Communist system, the privatisations have not been implemented for the benefit of the population, but have been an instrument of immense profit and power for certain castes of the nomenklatura and, in some cases, have served to enrich parallel organisations in the criminal world.
Reforms like agricultural ownership or taxation continue to exist only in the dreams of the Russian people, and disturbing events for everyone, like the bombardment of the Parliament itself, should have demonstrated to the European Union just how far Russia still was from the road to normality and democracy.
I would mention one example at random: European officials working in Russia reported the incredibly dangerous state of the aircraft fleet in that country and the neighbouring countries, but no one ever did anything about it.
As a member of the delegation which visited Moscow, I have witnessed truly unbelievable situations myself.
So it is not up to us today to endorse one government coalition or another, but to seek to bring about, through the instruments of diplomacy, a Russian political system committed to promoting and implementing the economic and social reforms that are necessary for embarking on the road indicated by the Union's Foreign Affairs Ministers on 9 September in Salzburg. Furthermore, the European Union needs to do two things.
Firstly, the governments of the Union need to speak with one voice in the international institutions - the IMF, the European Bank and so on - to anticipate events and intervene multilaterally when crises occur. Secondly, they need to make arrangements for the support to Russia and the interventions agreed in the Union institutions to be provided in a way that avoids measures being taken piecemeal by individual governments, depending on the convenience of this or that national economic or productive power, as has often happened in the past.
Let us launch this second pillar, which is still absent in so many areas and sectors where it could be having an innovative effect, now that it can finally operate outside the traditional blockages paralysing any autonomous European initiative.
There is room for action, if Europe has the will to act.
Mr. President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, at the beginning of the summer we were still enjoying excellent economic health, and yet in a very short space of time, an ill wind from the Pacific brought us Asian flu, spread it to North America, struck South America and left the whole planet trembling.
Russia had already shown signs of weakness, so I shall leave it aside for the moment.
Now, what is the cause of this global collapse? Detailed explanations of the causes are already being put forward - rather like having a patient's disease diagnosed at the post mortem.
It appears to be a recurring problem.
Despite all the recent technological advances, predictions in this area are still far from accurate. In fact, there is a tendency for them to be made after the event, while we are facing the consequences.
The economic outlook for Europe remains quite good at the moment, so it would seem, except for businesses with close ties to Latin America, Japan or Russia.
It was only yesterday that the representatives of the Duma gave an assessment of the current situation within the framework of the Delegation for relations with Russia. I would like to welcome the representatives here today and wish them every success as they deal with the difficult situation before them.
It is not exactly a financial crisis, but a crisis resulting from the total lack of order, structure, the absence of a fiscal system and from a long list of other shortcomings.
It hard to imagine how a country so rich in natural resources could have become so utterly bankrupt.
We must make our methods and systems available as a matter of urgency, to help with rebuilding, but we should not send financial aid - you never know whose pocket it will end up in.
I would draw your attention also to the need for humanitarian aid to relieve hunger. Indeed, as a Finnish colleague mentioned at the meeting I referred to earlier, it could well be that the border between Finland and Russia will be besieged by Russians driven from their homes by hunger.
In times of distress, the best advice is always to avoid knee-jerk reactions.
We must continue to follow the best way forward for the economy, namely free trade and a world investment system under the aegis of international institutions such as the World Trade Organisation, The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
We must persevere, and continue to work within this framework.
Mr President, when speculative bubbles burst national economies can go into recession.
Invariably this leads to calls for controls on capital movements and speculative investments.
But exchange controls inevitably back-fire on the countries composing them.
This financial crisis can probably be averted by coordinated cuts in Western interest rates, by collective action to help third countries financially where they can use it, and by better international regulation and prudential supervision in the banking sector.
But it cannot be done if there is policy paralysis in Western Europe.
Frankly, it is time the Commission got its act together.
Last month Commissioner de Silguy was sounding like Cliff Richard: 'We're all going on a summer holiday' .
Last night Commissioner van den Broek sounded as if he was suffering from Beatlemania: 'You don't know how lucky you are to be back in the USSR' .
Was the Commission serious a fortnight ago when it described the consequences of the crisis for the EU and its candidate members as 'limited' ? We are in a grave situation.
We may be seeing a return to a command economy in Europe. We need decisive action.
Speed up the timetable for accession. Fight the advocates of protectionism and push on with the launch of the euro.
Mr President, I should firstly like to welcome the delegation from the Duma.
I have heard plenty of good advice given to the Parliament and to the new government of Russia.
Surely there are lessons which Europe itself can draw from the financial crisis which has continued to grow since May 1997? We should not be so easily reassured.
The economic and social situations in our own countries would not emerge unscathed from a long-term fall in world growth.
We must therefore react - and this is the sticking point for adherents of orthodox monetary policy.
To restart growth involves partly letting go of the obsession with the alleged inflationary danger and with ultra-restrictive monetary and budgetary policies.
The world order has changed, and to ignore this would be irresponsible.
Even the G7 nations are for the first time taking this into consideration, as demonstrated by their communiqué the day before yesterday which stated that the nature of the risks to the world economy has changed.
It also underlined that inflation is low and drew attention to the fall in demand.
The financial press regarded these declarations as a surprise and as a spectacular initiative which they claimed reinforces the theory of a concerted easing of the monetary situation.
Among the seven members of the G7, there are four countries which belong to the European Union, of which three, and important ones at that, will be in the future euro zone.
It would be logical for Europe in turn to take one of these spectacular initiatives, by reorientating its priorities towards boosting real growth.
However, this has not been the attitude to date of the European Central Bank.
Although its President, Mr Duisenberg, recently acknowledged that the global economic and financial environment of the future euro zone has clearly been damaged and that the current crisis will definitely restrict growth, he immediately repeated the Bank's sole creed: budgetary discipline.
Faced with such a contradiction and due to the exceptional gravity of the challenges, I propose, Mr President, that Parliament should invite the President of the ECB to explain himself to us.
The European Parliament would be within its rights to exercise democratic control over this institution and to develop, during a debate, its own vision of the situation on behalf of the citizens who elected us.
Mr President, Mr Santer is undoubtedly correct on one point.
There is indeed no turning back.
What we are looking for are new forms of global governance, a reformed and regulated market economy in which the adjectives 'social' and 'ecological' do not merely reflect wishful thinking, for that is the only way of avoiding the situation in which the weakest national economies are required to serve as a safety valve whenever the world economy undergoes a global structural crisis.
Bill Clinton, who, as you know, is still politically active, is pinning his hopes on the strengths of the international financial system.
Even senior representatives of the IMF speak of the need for control of capital movements as a key element in a new international financial edifice.
As Mr Wurtz has just said, the G7 have been talking again about boosting real demand.
In short, the issue today is about social and ecological regulation of the world economy as the common denominator in the enlightened self-interest of a Europe strengthened by the proper implementation of a single currency, and in the interests, which are forever being violated, of the peoples of this world, who are not prepared to be the pawns that are sacrificed in pursuit of capital accumulation.
To this end we need tailor-made transitional programmes, embedded in the necessary broad social and political consensus that only a historic compromise can achieve, to take the place of an economically and socially destructive policy of structural adjustment.
What is at stake today is the opportunity at long last to bring the sad chapter of neoliberal casino capitalism to a painless end for the great majority of mankind, to release the air from the balloon in a controlled way, instead of letting it explode.
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance does not wish to be associated with the joint motion for a resolution on the global economic and financial crisis which will be voted on tomorrow morning.
This motion seems to have little significance in relation to the capabilities and current responsibilities of the European Union.
Faced with a crisis which is affecting the whole of Asia, Russia and Latin America, we are entitled to expect broader and more precise proposals to be adopted by our Parliament.
We welcome the solidity of the euro, which has been developed to give coherence and stability to the monetary environment of the European countries.
The euro is based on powerful, organised and controlled economies.
The administrations of the Member States, whatever the criticisms which we sometimes lay at their doors, are proven administrations which take into account almost all business movements.
Our institutions were formed slowly.
They are supported clearly and democratically by all the people in the Union.
This is why the euro is basically stable and solid.
On the other hand, Russia and the majority of the emerging economies have institutions which are unfortunately fragile, newly created and lacking in deep-rooted democratic support.
Their administrations seem to be widely afflicted by corruption.
They control only part of economic activity, with the rest having been taken over by parallel or mafia-controlled economies which profit from the financial aid given to their countries by the international financial community.
However, institutions such as the International Monetary Fund continue to lend to these states, demanding that the latter put their economies or their institutions in order. And yet institutions like the IMF do not have the means to really make themselves heard, and they allow themselves to be pushed into a defensive position from which they continue to lend without any hope of return for fear of even more damaging chaos.
Faced with these problems, the motion for a resolution is restricted to calling for reform of the international financial institutions, without saying from where these institutions should draw their authority and allowing the assumption that they can simply remain technocratic.
We would have preferred a clear indication that the continued globalisation of trade would involve the establishment of a worldwide financial regulatory and supervisory organisation, with real democratic support.
We would have preferred, as indicated by the text of our amendment, the acknowledgement of the relative failure of the International Monetary Fund whenever it addresses governments and administrations ill-prepared for market economy mechanisms. This failure is due to the IMF not taking account of the devastating effect of parallel economies and not assessing the social consequences of the measures which it proposes.
We would have preferred, as indicated by another amendment, consideration to be given to a credible procedure for regulating capital movements, particularly through the establishment of an international tax on this trade.
The force of the observations made this morning by President Santer specifically on the situation of the institutions and the Russian economy shows the acuteness of the problems which we are facing.
Only a very firm political stance taken by the European Union can transform the current crisis into a useful step towards world progress.
We hope that the move towards a social market economy is assessed in each country concerned according to the institutional capacity of these countries to manage and regulate this.
The role of the Union should be to help accelerate the potential increase in the rule of law and democratic institutions which is essential to the vitality of the nascent market economies.
We believe that this is the role which the people of the world expect us to play.
Mr President, I should first of all like to welcome the delegation from the Russian Duma which is here in Strasbourg, and I must immediately denounce the hypocrisy of the West in its relationship with Russia.
Officially, of course, this is one of friendship as we have heard this morning, but in reality I fear this is not the case.
The great Greek historian, Thucydides, said that political power generally has three motivations: interest, fear and vanity.
The vanity of the West is evident.
For us in the West, it is too often wealth and human rights which concern us and we are encouraging our Russian friends to imitate us, as if we were a superior being.
The Western fear of Russia, even though it is often hidden, is perfectly real.
The aim is clearly to weaken Russia's military force and to gradually dismember this vast territory.
Interest is the basic motivation.
This involves economically colonising Russia by using Western resources.
Powerful interests in the West are clearly pressing in this direction.
These interests are the same as those which are pushing for transatlantic integration, which would result in Europe accepting a situation of permanent subordination to the American superpower.
This is the real situation.
And yet, cooperation and friendship between Europe and Russia are needed more now than ever.
We are firmly convinced of this.
However, this cooperation cannot take the form of costly and ineffective financial operations such as we have seen in the past.
The Russian economy must find solutions within Russia itself and the economic crisis cannot, under any circumstances, be resolved without the prior political condition of the end of anarchy.
It is this anarchy which is preventing the establishment of a true rule of law based on respect for the right of property.
Russia is primarily experiencing a crisis of authority, particularly because the political leaders have ignored the people too much.
The Kremlin can no longer ignore the patriotic majority in the Duma, because the State will keep its authority only while it heeds the interests of the Russian people as represented by their parliamentary assembly.
Reform in Russia is not a technical problem: it is a political problem.
Russia needs a strong State, and I repeat, a strong State, because the country is rooted in the traditions of its people. These traditions are obviously national ones, but they are also spiritual traditions resulting from the Orthodox Church.
The emergence of this strong Russia is also in our interest, if only to balance the domination of the American superpower which has won, we should remember, three world wars: the first, the second and also the cold war.
Everything else is really just peripheral and unconnected with the real situation in Russia, and reflects the egoistic interests of the Western multinationals.
This is why I hope that Russia can find its own way.
Mr President, it is very tempting to blame the problems in Russia on the world financial crisis.
That would be a good excuse for the new Russian Government which comprises elements of a past with which it has manifestly not yet come to terms.
But old solutions are no answer to new economic problems.
The Russian crisis, for it remains unresolved, is primarily political in nature and is the result of a political sham in which the genuine reforms which are needed have been neglected. The Russian people are now paying the price for that omission.
Regrettably the aid we have given in recent years has not contributed to real progress.
The outlook and debate on what is currently happening in Russia prompt a measure of gloom in me too.
The same goes for the Russian Government's warning that it may be necessary to keep on printing money so that people have the financial resources they need.
As we know, that will lead to a situation in which the economic difficulties get worse and worse, in the shape of hyperinflation, for example.
Our influence on developments is somewhat limited, but our interest is considerable.
Not so much our economic interest, as many speakers have already said, but rather our political interest.
But we must not back the wrong horse again but stick to our substantive position vis-à-vis economic reform in Russia.
It is on this that the new government will be judged and the aim is stability, creating greater confidence and working to build a properly functioning social market economy as part of a government structure which can be relied on.
Russia still has to put her house in order.
That was the purpose of our aid, and it will continue to be.
Russia has yet to find her place in the world economic order.
I think it is important to agree that we want to go on helping, using the instruments available to the European Union, but the answer to the question of whether we actually can help lies in Russian hands.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, ten and a half years ago, the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster signalled the end of Communism and the beginning of perestroika .
Today we are witnessing a return to perestroika in Moscow, which is reflected to some extent in personnel policy.
The Soviet Union responded to that disaster by entombing and isolating Chernobyl.
Today in Russia we are experiencing an economic and also political Chernobyl, but we cannot respond this time by entombing and isolating the problem.
What we need is an open, stable and democratic Russia with a social market economy.
The wheel of history cannot be turned back in Russia; new mistakes cannot be corrected by resorting to the old mistakes.
The goodwill of the European Union is there.
However, we must be realistic in assessing our scope for influencing the course of events.
Representatives of the Duma are here today, and we were told yesterday by the Vice-President of the Duma that the forces of reform were still present and intended to continue the pursuit of their goals; that is all very reassuring, but what has not happened so far in this crisis could yet happen, namely a fresh outbreak of money-printing.
The question is not only about the composition of this government; it is also about the influence its members will have and retain over the reform process in Russia.
The cause of our concern is clear.
The Russian Communist Party remains strong.
Unlike the Communist parties in Central and Eastern Europe, it has not gone down the road of democratic socialism.
We do not want to see the centre of power in the Russian State disintegrate and split up into a host of regional power bases.
But nor do we wish for a return or a seizure of power by military despots.
Not even that danger can be ruled out.
What we therefore need is a strengthening of the democratic institutions in Russia, particularly those whose mission is to guarantee the rule of law.
If we merely pump money into Russia, the wrong people will benefit.
However, one point of particular importance in this situation, a point that has yet to be addressed, is that developments in Russia make it absolutely imperative to press on with the enlargement of the European Union in order to stabilise the heart of Central Europe, so that this stabilisation can also have an impact on the situation in Russia.
Mr President, Mr Santer is right.
The main message emerging from today's debate is that Europe and Russia are mutually dependent. Cooperation between them means stability for the whole continent.
We cannot afford to turn our backs. Instead, our priority should be to support Russia in the ways we can: promoting sound administrative practices; fostering local government; strengthening civil society; helping the customs authorities.
All of these are important from the point of view of any future Union policy on the 'northern dimension'.
Today's debate is about Russia, but let us not forget that Ukraine too has been badly hit by the collapse of the international market.
Ladies and gentlemen, suffering human beings suffer in the same way, wherever they happen to live.
We must be ready to intervene if food shortages become acute. And we need assurances that aid will get through, without customs duties.
There has been a lot of talk about the IMF, but I would refer you at this juncture to what Grigori Yavlinsky said about having put too much faith in Boris Yeltsin. It was Yavlinsky who gave us advance warning of the crisis we are now in.
The euro has also been much discussed - and I wish to highlight its particular importance for a country like Finland.
Without the prospect of the euro, the Finnish economy and Finnish markka would not look as good as they do now.
Mr. President, I welcome the speeches by the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission.
There are some really worrying facts which should have been taken into account earlier.
I live in a region of Spain known as Murcia y Alicante. In recent years, it has become well known for the influx of Russian mafias who smuggle dollars into the area for laundering, thus proving the failure of the reform of Russian institutions undertaken by Mr Yeltsin.
Nevertheless, the West, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and G7 continued to support to the so-called 'reform' which showed signs of inefficiency for years, though these went undetected by the West, blinded by neoliberal fundamentalism.
Some statistics on health also give cause for concern: the increased death rate and child mortality rate, the spread of disease, epidemics, the lack of funding for hospitals, all of which suggest a dangerous social decline in Russia.
We in Murcia are also suffering the consequences of the crisis caused by the collapse of the pork sector, which incidentally should be receiving aid from the European Union.
And yet, when the democratically elected representatives of the people, the Duma, challenge Mr Yeltsin, the West - the European Union - backs him against the voice of democracy.
It is incredible how the West can apply these double standards and be so two-faced, supporting authoritarianism and stifling democracy.
It has to be said that along with other movements in Russia, the Russian Communist Party has made great efforts to guarantee the reforms and to guarantee democracy.
That is why I believe it is important for the European Union to support this Russian democratic channel, whilst also providing the necessary humanitarian aid which will be so crucial in the coming months.
Mr President, I would like to focus on the way the European Union and the international community have approached the situation in Russia.
It has been said that Russia must continue the process of freeing up markets and privatisation.
As if to say, as a word of warning, that there is no other path for them to take other than the one that has been chosen for them.
What, then, should they do now? Should they continue with the approach that led to the present catastrophe?
The problem with freeing up the market in Russia's case is that she has insufficient productive industry - if in practice she has any - taking into consideration her size, to serve as a basis for economic growth.
There are only speculative movements of money and capital based on quick profits, which do not achieve the objectives which the EU, among others, considers important.
Furthermore, privatisation in itself cannot be a cure for a situation where the private sector does not function rationally as a whole, but in a way that does not make it possible to include the social dimension, amongst other things, in the market economy.
The conclusion is, therefore, that we should permit and approve a certain degree of manipulation, where the State is concerned, in a situation which is about much more than whether the economy is collapsing.
The issue is that the entire structure of the country is being put to the test and is in danger of falling apart, which would mean a far more disastrous situation than we the one we have now, from our point of view as well.
I am not saying that the EU should dictate, but there has to be cooperation.
Mr President, nearly everything has been covered, but not quite.
Mrs Lalumière, although we must help the Russians - and no one is denying this - we also need the Russians.
Kosovo and the Balkans are a thorn in our side. Grave dangers threaten us.
And what are the Russians doing to help us in this area? What?
Do you think for an instant that Mr Milosevic could continue to flout the whole of the West, the European Union, the WEU and even NATO if he were not assured of the tacit and more or less secret support of Russia? We were flabbergasted yesterday when Mr van den Broek told us that we should not expect the Russians to change tack on this point.
That is the last straw.
I have no idea how he can justify that attitude.
Perhaps it is masochism.
You are telling us that we will help Russia, we will continue to demand considerable efforts from our taxpayers in order to help Russia, and in return Russia will continue to take a different line from us in a matter in which we are involved? You must be joking!
I sincerely apologise, but Milosevic must laugh when he hears us making our speeches.
And I would appeal at this point to the Duma: if you do not change, be assured that we will not continue to support you!
This is the message which I have not yet heard today, among all the speeches which I otherwise support wholeheartedly.
As for the international financial crisis, it is time to forget Russia.
We must now concern ourselves with Latin America, as this is where the problem lies.
It is too late for Russia: it has committed irreversible acts; it has used up its international credit; it has literally refused to pay its debts.
It is now to the countries which can still use our money that we must turn our attention, and it is a pity that it is Mr Clinton, despite his embarrassing situation, who has taken the initiative which we should have taken.
Mr President, the gravity of the financial crisis, with its especially serious repercussions in Asia and Russia, but also in Latin America, demands our closest attention.
And it calls in particular for Europe to assume its own position regarding the crisis, rather than simply echoing the ideas aired during the meetings of the G7 and between President Clinton and President Yeltsin.
This is no passing malaise; it is a crisis rooted in the ultra-liberal approaches that are prevailing throughout the world; consequently, its impact will become apparent, and indeed already has, in a downturn of growth, demand and employment in our national economies.
If the situation is to be resolved, a change must be made in the ultra-liberal approaches that are conducive to speculative activity, and this inevitably calls at the same time for a closer focus on social problems and on the reviving of domestic demand in order to achieve sufficient growth to bring about the recovery of productive investment.
It also calls for effective regulation of the movement of capital, with proper taxation in a context of appropriate international cooperation.
In Russia, the simultaneous crises on the economic, financial and social fronts cannot be viewed in isolation from the global crisis.
It does of course have its own particular features and assumes a prominence of its own.
The domestic factors responsible may be readily identified, as President Yeltsin has said.
But the external pressures and constraints cannot be ignored, particularly those exerted by the IMF, and indeed the European Union, which have systematically neglected social concerns.
We have followed recent political developments and the declared intentions for the future with the closest attention.
And we consider that the European Union can and should pursue a positive line of action based on treating Russia as a privileged discussion partner, not exerting pressure to implement economic measures that have proved to be inappropriate, but concentrating instead on achieving stability at home and in Europe.
Let us learn from the past and consider other alternatives for the future.
Mr. President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I am much more inclined to agree with the global analysis made by the President-in-Office than with the speech by the President of the Commission, which dealt solely with Russia.
We are indeed facing a crisis of capitalism on a global scale, and I am not referring now to what someone might have said in the Duma, but to what Mr Soros, a philanthropic speculator, said yesterday in the Banking Committee of the United States House of Representatives.
Given that we are confronted by a global crisis, we Europeans should not be asking ourselves what advice we need to give our Russian friends - whom I welcome here - but rather what our responsibility is and what role we have to play. We can make a significant contribution in two ways: we have the experience of building a civilised common market area over the last 50 years, and we also have the euro, a significant asset even before it is born.
I believe that, in the first place, we must take the lead alongside the United States and Japan, whom no one has mentioned and on whom everything depends at present.
Secondly, we must also act jointly.
I am concerned that Europe is currently making its voice heard through the G7 - no longer the G8 - rather than through ECOFIN and the Commission.
Thirdly, I believe we should call for a summit on globalisation, bearing in mind, as Mr Herman so rightly pointed out, that rather than being wise after the event, we should concentrate on current problems, and Brazil, not Russia, is the problem now.
The difficulty is that the Latin American economies, which had strengthened their foundations in recent years, have suffered a major setback.
What we need to do is decide what action to take.
In this respect, I should like to be informed of the opinions of the Council and the Commission on our policy towards the International Monetary Fund. Are we in favour of urgent action?
Should the Fund be reformed?
Should we contribute more funds? I believe these are very important issues and if we do not address them, we will just end up subsidising the speculators, both those who created predatory capitalism in Russia and those who operate on an international scale.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I share the view of the President of the Commission that any assessment of the situation in Russia will certainly also have to take account of the fact that the European Union has perhaps failed on occasion to manage the provision of assistance as efficiently as it might have done, but there again we are only human and are not infallible.
On the other hand, from my experience as a member of the joint delegation of the European Parliament and the Russian State Duma and Federal Council, I can tell you that on many questions of Russian reform policy, we have effectively been conducting the same talks with our Russian colleagues since 1994.
These talks relate to the very areas in which there has been an absence of reforms which would make Russia an attractive business location and investment target.
The first of these areas is the tax system, then come the facts that there is no code of real-estate law and that the system of banks and finance markets does not work, not to mention numerous other important shortcomings.
I have the impression that this discussion has been going on for years and has not really produced any results.
For a long time now in Russia, the executive and legislature have been blocking each other, and I can only wish and hope that the new Russian Government does not have to work in a political vacuum, but that there is a realistic prospect of it obtaining parliamentary support for its work.
It is and will remain one of our main tasks, especially for the Delegation of the European Parliament for relations with the Russian Federation, to be absolutely specific in our talks with colleagues from the State Duma as to where reforms are needed and to voice any criticisms of developments and political processes in Russia, not in a carping way but constructively, with a view to exerting influence that will promote the continuation and success of reform policies.
I believe that this will be the key task confronting the members of our Parliament over the next few days when we sit down with the Russian delegation.
Mr President, in my view we need an in-depth analysis of Russia and a search for fundamental remedies for the situation.
We must not do this behind closed doors, but through closer dialogue with our Russian partners.
We must not repeat the mistakes that have already been made, by exporting prescriptions.
I wish to make two points, which seem to me fundamental. Firstly, we are also responsible, as a Parliament, as a European Commission, as an International Monetary Fund, as international organisations, both for underestimating the factors in the crisis and for having accepted, or directly sought, processes which could hardly fail to result in this situation.
Secondly, we put unlimited trust in the political leadership and in economic processes which have already been rightly described by Mr Swoboda and Mr Barón Crespo as savage liberalism and speculation dressed up as the construction of a market economy.
This is not creating a real market economy - which would be a proper objective - in this country, and the State, which used to be everything, indeed too much, is being dismantled. Of course it needed to be changed and reformed, but now it seems to have been reduced to nothing.
We know that public impoverishment is often linked to private enrichment of the few, and it seems to me that this is what is currently happening in the country: public impoverishment is plain to see, and so is private enrichment of the few.
We often see evidence of this in our own countries: in recent years there has been an increased flow of Russian tourists - and I am pleased about that - spending more than the Americans spent in the 1950s and 1960s.
But there is one small difference: the Americans had the United States behind them, a solid economy and a strong country, and the Russians do not.
I do not know if it is true that only 8 % of Russian citizens pay taxes, but this would imply the dismantling of a whole political system: there is no going back, obviously.
So we need to rediscover a serious and lasting economic and political approach, and our work together with our Russian partners must be geared to making a concrete contribution which will improve the current situation.
Mr President, of course I share the view of those in this debate today who have said that the global economic system is in danger.
In this House and elsewhere in the Western world we have every interest in ensuring its maintenance and its strength.
But what we are talking about in this debate is what we should be doing about Russia.
We have seen this morning that the view of the majority in this House, apart from the fringe groups, is that we should follow a coordinated Western approach, so that Russia can implement its own economic reforms combined with specific well-targeted assistance.
Secondly we must show our willingness to ensure that Russia remains an active player in the global economic system, but without any big aid programmes which will go into unknown pockets.
Recognising that this is a long-term strategy, I agree with President Santer that we must coordinate our position before the next G7.
But there are three important points to consider.
Firstly, we must ensure that all our programmes - TACIS and others - are properly adapted to an emergency system if necessary, including food aid.
I would like an assurance that this is being done.
Secondly, our aid should be targeted on local and regional entities across the Russian Republic so that we actually know that the money is going into specific programmes. Last, but not least, is democracy.
President Santer said democracy is very important.
When I visited a Moscow school for political studies bringing young elected officials from all over the former Soviet Union to learn about democracy, I learned that their funding is being cut off at the end of this year.
It appears that under our Rules we are not allowed to finance anybody for more than three years, however important they are.
I would like the Commission's assurance that this funding will continue on a regular and multiannual basis.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialists on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy I should like to welcome the Members of the Duma.
Today we are not merely discussing the collapse of emerging markets.
As my colleague, Hannes Swoboda, recognised in his excellent speech, there is a financial and economic crisis in parts of Asia as well as Russia.
The situation in several Latin American countries is also precarious.
Developed countries need to contribute to a rapid and lasting recovery in these countries and the EU has a key role to play in this respect.
However today's debate needs to look beyond the effects of the crisis and the immediate remedies and consider the phenomenon of globalisation.
In this week's Economist Jeffrey Sachs, professor of international trade at Harvard, talks about the end of an era (and I was surprised to hear Mr Brok blaming Harvard professors for what has happened).
Yes, we all need to grasp the full consequences of current events and to acknowledge the failure of development concepts based purely on the free market, with the invisible hand bringing emerging economies into global capitalism at very little cost to rich countries.
We therefore need a sounder basis for globalisation.
If we could go beyond ideology and all agree on this objective, the present crisis will have at least had one beneficial outcome.
I believe Parliament's resolution to be adopted tomorrow will contribute to this objective.
We ask for a reform of international financial institutions, greater transparency of markets with more financial information, better supervision and regulation of the financial sector and controls over short-term lending and speculation.
In this reform process, Europe should play the leading role.
The so-called Washington consensus needs to be reviewed.
Europe, not least with the euro among the world currencies, can improve the international approach towards globalisation.
There is a need for better dialogue between richer and poorer countries.
Reform packages should not simply be imposed by IMF officials on the basis of purely technocratic standards.
There is a need for greater acknowledgement of social objectives in the development and reform process, be it in Russia, Indonesia or elsewhere.
The social and human costs have been and still are enormous and unacceptable.
It is right to help such countries as they strive towards economic development but not on the basis of purely economic standards and objectives. Otherwise we face the risk that public opinion in such countries will force their governments back into protectionism and nationalism.
I therefore urge the Council and the Commission to engage in a close dialogue with the European Parliament as well as our international partners, in order to establish a sounder basis for globalisation. Otherwise world prosperity will be seriously threatened in the longer term.
Mr President, Madam President of the Council, representatives of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, as the PPE Group coordinator for Asian affairs, I should like to confine my remarks to the financial crisis in Asia.
Let me emphasise that the reasons for the Asian financial crisis are indeed manifold and that each country's problem therefore has to be addressed in a different way.
In Japan, the main issue is still whether the Japanese can overcome the banking crisis.
Only if they manage to do that will they stand any real chance of pulling out of recession.
All parties in Japan are now called upon to get to serious grips with this legislation and not to be mutually obstructive, which will only serve to plunge Japan and all of us into serious difficulties.
In other countries such as Indonesia it is not just a matter of banking systems but of the entire economic order.
But without social and political reforms, countries like Indonesia cannot succeed in solving either of these problems.
Moreover, we also have the urgent task now of saving sections of the population from undernourishment and famine.
We welcome the fact that the People's Republic of China has not devalued its currency, but we must also ensure that this situation does not lead to upheavals in trade relations.
In China too, economic and political reforms are needed.
All in all, we must look at each individual country in order to assess how progress can best be made.
We Europeans can and must help to overcome the crisis, but what some speakers have said about Russia I should like to extend to Asia, namely that the key to the resolution of the crisis lies in these countries.
It is up to the government and parliament of each country to overcome the crisis.
We can only help.
The critical pressure for reform must develop in these countries.
They must not seek salvation in the short-term solution of protectionist measures against trade and the movement of capital - quite the contrary.
The uncontrolled banking system, the intransigent web of economic collusion, the corruption, the absence of a market economy embedded in social justice and the lack of democratic pluralism in these countries must be overcome, and that has to be done by these nations themselves.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis in Russia is part of a wider economic and social crisis, and it is on the latter that I wish to comment.
The worldwide economic crisis is like the falling of a row of dominoes.
Irresponsible borrowing and profiteering short-term investments by the Western banks, combined with irresponsible borrowing by the local banks and companies in South-East Asia, gave the first push which set the whole process in motion.
There is no doubt that in the medium term, the rules of the international money markets will have to be tightened because of this crisis.
The danger that a crisis in the system can be triggered by short-term capital movements is too great for us to allow those short-term movements to continue in the same unimpeded and uncontrolled way as in the past.
International supervisory bodies will have to reorganise themselves to respond to the new demands of our times, but the main focus of our effort just now must be reorientated away from the dominoes that have fallen - and I fear that Russia's economy is one of them - and towards those which are now under threat.
The threat has now shifted from Russia to Latin America, especially Brazil.
And of course, after Latin America and Brazil, the threat looms over the large domino of Wall Street, which would lead to a recession of America's economy whose effects would be disastrous all over the world.
Consequently, we cannot focus our efforts just on the deadlock of Russia's economy where, as Mr Herman very rightly said, the battle has already been lost and it will take a very long time for the economy to recover.
We must turn our efforts towards Brazil, and we must do something to adapt economic policy in Europe away from this mania of anti-inflation that has gripped us all, and towards some other urgent policy. Because an anti-inflation policy in Europe where inflation ranges from zero to 2 % under conditions of recession does not make sense, I would point out to the Commissioner and the rapporteur.
Mr President, I cannot disagree with much of what Mr Katiforis said, but I would like to say that at this time it would be wrong to let Russia remain in a state of decline and continual disaster and 'wash our hands', saying that the issue has been played out.
Russia is an enormous country and a great people, it is part of Europe, and I do not think we ourselves are blameless for what has happened.
At first, we tried to implement prescriptions which bore little relationship to the society and system in place there.
So we produced a misprint of a Western European or American economic situation there, which in the end did not last, as might have been expected.
We must not be surprised, for example, that the Russian banking system has collapsed.
As for the hundreds of banks there, the only thing most of them had in common in the banking sense was the name, and nothing else.
They were not banks, they were organisations whose preoccupation was how best to milk the economy.
And they did that very effectively, with very good results for them and bad ones for the economy.
So we must not abdicate responsibility.
We still have a responsibility and that is the framework within which we should intervene.
It is very difficult, Mr President, to continue believing that we can impose economic systems which suit us on a society not prepared for them, ones appropriate for traditional and true democracies, but which are not suitable for a country and society which somehow has never had such experiences.
When we say that we must stay out of it and let Russia solve its own problems, we ought therefore to think again.
Of course, our interventions will have to be much better - better thought out, aimed in the right direction, with the right kind of monitoring and directed at Russia, not at European organisations, as most European interventions have unfortunately been.
Only in this way will we be able to avoid what now looms as a great risk, the risk that the Russian people will come to think that its difficulties stem from the striving towards democracy.
That would be very dangerous for us all.
Mr President, our debate this morning is rather curious.
It consists of two closely related aspects: the Russian crisis on one hand and the global economic and financial crisis on the other.
Mr Santer, under the pretext that it is the Russian crisis which is of greatest interest to European public opinion, spoke only of Russia.
It is a pity that the Commission did not comment on the world crisis of recent weeks and that it did not outline any courses of action.
Faced with globalisation and the resultant risk of a general crisis, everyone, including economists, bankers and politicians, is moving towards more voluntarism and more regulation.
Politicians of all persuasions are finally realising that we cannot talk in abstract terms about people, their misery and unemployment and that we cannot leave the market to look after these.
It also seems that, although this wonderful globalisation can quickly create wealth, it can also totally destroy it, and even more quickly if it is not managed and disciplined.
The European model in this respect is telling.
As one French minister has said, for example, the euro is a formidable pole of stability in the world financial chaos.
I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the Socialist government of Lionel Jospin which has played a leading role in encouraging political voluntarism.
In this respect, I shall refer to what the French Prime Minister said in his analysis of the economic crisis, which was that crises create an illusion that the economic sector is independent, separate from the political system and from social organisation.
Mr President, the European model must be a compromise between market economy, openness, liberalisation and the political will to manage and organise the market.
This is a compromise between profit and concern for people.
That is why the European Union and in particular the euro zone must assume their responsibilities faced with this worldwide chaos.
How much easier this approach would be if the whole of the European Union were in the euro zone!
How much greater the influence of this zone would be in the world!
However, as things stand, the very least that can be expected is that the large and small countries in this euro zone are united with regard to the crisis.
As a minimum, efficient and effective coordination is required between the four large European countries which are members of the G7 and the other Member States in the euro zone, not only due to the Russian situation, as Mr Santer said earlier, but also due to the world crisis.
I should like Commissioner de Silguy to inform us of the Commission's proposals in this respect.
Mr President, the internal cohesion of the euro zone is an important political factor faced with the rest of the world.
If we want to work together and deal on an equal footing with the United States, Europe must prove itself to be truly united in this respect.
Mr President, the current Russian crisis has profound economic and political implications for the country itself, the region and wider geopolitics.
However, it has to be acknowledged from the outset that there is little the EU can do to resolve the situation.
It is up to Russia to sort out its own political mess which has directly led to the country's economic collapse.
All the EU can do at this point is to address the consequences of the situation.
Some EU countries are more exposed than others - Germany probably more than anyone else; but even we in Ireland are not unaffected.
The market for more than half of our autumn beef exports has been lost and the collapse of pig prices in Ireland is partly due to the fall in demand from Russia.
We must monitor the economic consequences of the problem and ensure the effects are minimal.
However, whatever the consequences for existing EU members, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe must view current developments with growing alarm.
The Russian crisis could roll the clock back in spite of the great historic changes that have taken place.
Those who have had reservations on enlargement in the past should realise that not only have their particular concerns been misplaced but the current crisis is in fact an argument for accelerating the agenda for enlargement.
That is the only way to guarantee permanent peace and security in the region.
As far as helping Russia itself is concerned, there can be no more financial aid without a genuine commitment to economic and political reform.
There is absolutely no point in throwing further funds into the bottomless pit of economic collapse in Russia, especially when there is continued political maladministration and corruption.
However, it must also be acknowledged that the harsh Russian winter is not far away and we must therefore prepare for it.
The Commission has an opportunity to plan for a programme of substantial food aid and it should do so without delay.
The Commission can also provide badly needed technical aid and expertise to help Russia restructure its economy.
Providing expertise is one thing, taking advice is another.
But if Mr Primakov and his administration do that we can help each other out of the present crisis.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the Union's major goals is greater stability in Europe.
European stability should serve to enhance the security of the world economic system as a whole.
For precisely that reason, it would be entirely inappropriate to talk the world into even more crises and disasters.
Nevertheless, one thing is necessary: we must do a certain amount of stocktaking.
Although we are talking about Russia today, the fact is that one third of the world economy is in the depths of recession, that living standards in the countries concerned are plummeting while unemployment rises.
In relation to Russia, this has meant that about one in four employees throughout the country has virtually received no pay for six months.
That is the social situation in a nutshell.
The additional slump in trade resulting from this delicate situation has assumed threatening proportions and has led to a further loss of confidence.
What is the issue? Russia needs some restoration work on its governmental administration systems and it needs structural aid.
The structural aid has to be approached in a sensitive manner.
The TACIS system must be developed and expanded.
That cannot by done by simply controlling capital movements.
Confidence is imperative.
Without loans the world would grind to a complete standstill.
Under no circumstances must the present crisis culminate in a credit crunch, for that would be disastrous for these parts of the world and especially for Russia.
But one other thing is certain, namely that it is desirable and essential that the ability of Russia, of all countries, to repay its loans should be re-established as quickly as possible if confidence is to be restored.
Perhaps, to take up a point that was touched upon today by our State Secretary, we should also adopt a more resolute approach on the international stage.
We should form an international commission, perhaps on the model of the Brundtland Commission.
It is a matter of putting the financial structure in order again and restoring confidence.
That is all.
We shall do it with the greatest of sensitivity, as the present situation demands.
Mr President, out of the many possible reasons - a government threatening to fall apart, a context of socio-economic underdevelopment, rich minorities, poor majorities - I wish to mention one, because it relates to the prevailing political culture which also flows in Europe's veins and has certainly not done Russia any good. I am talking about abstract ideology which does not bend to reality, but expects reality to bend to it.
In fact, when Communism fell, people thought that if an ideology was not left-wing it would not be rigid.
Narrow liberal thought applied as a miracle cure to the most disparate realities is another prison where policy is understood as a lay art of government and a result of the force of ideas.
Under dogmatic liberalism, and also under culpable pressure from the west, Russia was expected to make the leap, without a safety net, from 70 years of command economy to its opposite. No one asked if such a thing had ever happened before, or whether there was a proliferation of entrepreneurial capacity, or whether, after all, there might not be a danger of seeing the old oligarchy return, disguised as managers.
Instead of being renewed, the productive system is completely collapsing in upon itself and the government is in deep crisis.
The strange thing is, Mr President - and this has been echoed here in the House - that today Japan and the Asian tigers are indeed looking a little mangy alongside the fact that China is supporting its own currency and not devaluing.
That is curious, and it suggests that narrow thought does not help us understand reality, even less control it.
Mr President, the good thing about this first globalisation crisis which we are experiencing is that it is making us face facts: we need to manage the market and we need economic regulation, otherwise the market economy will turn against its own logic.
In these troubled times, the crisis has another virtue which is to show the validity of the European approach in terms of the euro adventure.
This is clearly no longer an adventure, but proof of great wisdom, which gives us a certain responsibility in the analysis which we will make of the crisis today.
With regard to the international regulatory authorities, we must ask ourselves about the operation of the IMF.
How can this major organisation be made to function without the financial participation of one of its main contributors?
How can we not consider transforming the interim committee of the IMF into a real decision-making body in the near future?
How can we not base the question of a world tax on capital movements, as proposed to us several years ago by Mr Tobin? How can we not consider taking into account, in our perception of how to implement market economy reforms, the social and environmental dimensions of these reforms?
How can we not accept that, under certain conditions, exchange controls must be re-established? How can we not imagine that the current situation will perhaps require, here or there, renationalisations in the banking sector, because without a structured and organised banking sector there can be no market economy?
All this implies State and regulatory power, and for us as Europeans, this also implies rapidly and urgently deciding on the question of the external representation of the euro.
We need this.
In these troubled times, Europe is the source of all that is new and creative as a result of the instrument which we have established - the euro.
We must make this an instrument of growth and stability.
This gives us a collective responsibility and we must not shrink from that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, now that we have discussed all these things here, one question remains: if Russia takes all the action we recommend, will it then be saved? Or are some of our words born of our despair in trying to comprehend something so totally unfamiliar?
'Russia is great, and the Tsar is far away' is what they used to say.
Everything we have been talking about is concentrated on Moscow. Russia is so great and so vast that it is also in our interest to find out what is happening in the provinces.
What structural measures are being implemented there? Is there a concentration of powers in the provinces too?
One lesson we must take to heart is that, whatever more stringent measures we think we can introduce against Russia, events in that country have a huge bearing on our own development.
Our direct aid, to be honest, is only a drop in the ocean of problems that are being experienced in Russia, and yet we talk about cutting TACIS or amending it and much else besides.
We must try to restore confidence through human contacts and by supporting the present government.
I believe this government deserves our trust, if only because the head of the government has said that there will be no change to the reforms and that the loans will be repaid.
We should not doubt his word but should encourage him to redeem these pledges, and for our part we must seek ways in which we can help to smooth his path towards these objectives.
I have heard from the presidency of the Council that it too has adopted a detached and clinical approach to the analysis of this situation and is responding to the task list with a slight shrug of the shoulders.
We have no patent solution, said Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, but we hope that whatever is done will be for the best.
However things may appear, external trade policy is synonymous with foreign policy at the moment.
We must put our trust in Russia and help it in this difficult situation.
Any attempt to turn back the clock would result in a collapse that would affect every one of us.
Mr President, I have just three questions concerning the current financial crisis. Who or what is to blame for it?
Who will have to pay the cost of solving it? How is the discrepancy to be addressed between whoever is to blame and whoever is to pick up the bill for it?
Consensus is gradually emerging about the cause of the financial crisis which is becoming increasingly international.
The most important factor was the excessively careless lending of money by private banks.
Banks took great risks in emerging markets, attracted by the prospect of large profits.
These profits were as high as they were because they included a risk premium to cover the eventuality of creditors defaulting.
Against this background it is of course baffling that the costs of the crisis have to be borne primarily by governments and are passed on by governments to the ordinary taxpayer.
I find it unacceptable that banks should make large profits by taking big risks, but that when things go wrong they should not foot the bill.
It is suspiciously reminiscent of the old saying 'private profit and public risk'.
So what can be done to ensure that the general public does not have to pay for the excessive risks taken by private banks? To start with evidently existing banking rules on equity capital and risk are still fundamentally inadequate.
The problems are still the same as they were at the time of the Mexican peso crisis of 1994, the Northern European banks crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s and the American savings banks crisis of the 1980s.
The rules thus need to be drastically changed and supervision tightened.
The question is, though, whether it is actually possible entirely to prevent a funding crisis under the current system where banks are obsessed with making maximum profits?
If it is not possible, then it is essential to tackle the discrepancy between those who cause a crisis and those who have to pick up the bill for it.
In financial crises too, it is ultimately the polluter who must pay.
To my mind that can only happen if a world crisis fund is set up, fed from levies on the private banks.
This could be done in one of two ways. By a specific levy on high-risk loans or by a levy on all capital transactions, the so-called 'Tobin Tax'.
The question is, who should administer such a fund and how it could be subjected to democratic spot checks?
I can see two candidates: a reformed IMF with more democratic voting or the Bank for International Settlements, which would first need to have a democratic supervisory board.
Some people talk about this crisis in terms of casino capitalism.
I think the situation is worse than that.
Casinos have strict rules, but financial markets do not even have those.
Let this be the last crisis in which all that elected governments can do is pick up the pieces after the disaster has occurred.
Mr President, if there is anything certain today in Russia, it is uncertainty.
The crisis is both a political and an economic one.
Learning what real democracy is has not been easy against the background of tsarist rule or the Soviet system.
A philosophy of social welfare and exploitation have produced, on the one hand, vast wealth concentrated in just a few places and, on the other, widespread poverty.
Money pouring in from the West has not helped.
It has got into the wrong hands.
Russia's politicians must themselves acknowledge the facts and act accordingly.
Work and real enterprise must be accorded their true value.
People must be encouraged to stand on their own two feet while adhering to the rules of democracy.
The EU now has to focus on humanitarian aid for its neighbouring regions.
We have to take care that food supplies do not run out.
Famine has before now been the cause of revolutions, unrest and uncontrollable floods of refugees.
For Finland, with its long, eastern border with Russia, the only EU country to have a border with Russia, it is important to underline the importance of this.
It is also important to see that aid reaches its proper destination without border or customs officials hampering operations or the goods ending up on the black market.
Political leaders in EU countries must support the new government, especially by improving the basis for commerce.
In this way, Russia can acquire the foreign currency she needs to discharge her obligations.
It also has to be emphasised that the idea of the regional redeployment of armed forces, which some in Russia have proposed, must be given up.
It would only increase distrust in the West and weaken our citizens' desire to deliver voluntary humanitarian aid to the people of Russia.
Mr President, it was significant that when the President of the Commission spoke to us this morning he talked about the Russian crisis and not the overall problem that we face in the global economy. That is a very worrying sign for the European Union.
While we talk about the fact that the Union intends to be a partner with the United States in managing the global economy, the Commission and the Council have to show confidence that with the coming of the euro we are actually going to exercise that responsibility.
What I would like the Commission to do, if it intends to reply today, is to say what it means to propose in terms of intervening in this global crisis; not just about the Russian crisis, which is partly institutional and political and partially due to the immaturity of Russia's market economy, but about the global operation of the world's economy. What role will we play in the global summit meeting that President Clinton has proposed?
Will we speak with one voice when we go to events in the future since we now have our single currency about to be born? Will we propose major reforms of the IMF and for the future role of the Bank for International Settlements?
Are we going to try and ensure a return to stability and confidence by having greater supervision?
Frankly it is not acceptable for the President of the Commission to come here and only talk about the situation in Russia.
Unless we can try to intervene as the European Union in the global economy, then the Russian situation will not improve.
I would like to see Parliament, the Commission and the Council take an initiative early in the new year to press for reform of the Bretton Woods institutions.
We have got to use institutions like the Bank for International Settlements to bring about greater supervision of cross-border lending, which would also help to bring stability and transparency in the system.
Commissioner de Silguy, if you intend to reply this morning, we would be very grateful for facts and firm commitments rather than simply an analysis of the crisis.
Mr President, Europe has gained in stability owing to the fact that many former Communist countries in Central and Eastern Europe have been trying harder than Russia to put their dismal past behind them.
Their systems are therefore not in the same state of collapse as the Russian economy. They are however affected indirectly - just like the EU countries - by disruption to trade and investment.
One key reason why reform has been taken more seriously in the CEECs is that they have applied for membership of the European Union and know what this entails.
No one would dispute that the Russian situation is extremely dangerous, but matters would be many times worse if Europe had not minimised the risk of a domino effect by preparing for enlargement to the east.
Equally, cooperation on EMU has helped us steer clear of much of the currency turmoil triggered by the crisis in Russia and south east Asia.
Confidence building is an issue for the EU, particularly when it comes to Eurosceptic countries like the United Kingdom, Denmark and Sweden.
In our future efforts to promote European cooperation, we need to stress the positive spin-off of the two major European projects: EMU and enlargement to the east.
If the EU countries can emerge relatively unscathed from the current crisis, they will be better placed to assist Russia financially.
A healthy economy at home should enable us to resume trade and investment. And, provided Russia gets back on its feet, we will be there to provide constructive support.
In its desperation, Russia might be tempted to return to centralised control. All the more important that there should be onetime Communist countries nearby with a track record of reasonably successful economic reform.
Communist nostalgia in Russia will soon fade once people see how well things are going across the border.
Mr President, Madam President-inOffice, Commissioners, the world is not yet on fire.
Flames are flickering, but there is no sign of a fire brigade or even of any firefighting plans.
The Asian crisis, the financial collapse in Russia and the difficulties in many Latin American countries demonstrate the fragility of the finance markets and of many national economies. Prosperity, growth and employment are in the stranglehold of these finance markets.
Reform of the international finance system is needed more than ever before.
Let us not be fooled by the calm in Europe.
The finance markets, after all, are entirely globalised and are independent of any political control.
Although only 3 to 4 % of the capital flow of USD 1300 billion has anything to do with trade in goods and services, these money movements have a huge adverse - or sometimes actually beneficial - effect on national economies, disrupt growth and investment trends and thereby destroy jobs.
The liberalisation and deregulation of financial markets, as well as progress in communications technology and the complete withdrawal of the State from financing have allowed the national finance markets to become intertwined.
International free trade undoubtedly requires an open global finance system.
However, the benefits of globalisation - better allocation of capital, cost-cutting, new means of hedging risks - must be weighed against the potential for instability in the finance markets.
Increasing monetary assets and leverage ratios lead to problems with volumes, prices and derivative instruments, and these problems vent themselves in the form of speculation, volatility and crashes.
The real economy cannot cope with that.
The exclusive growth of trade in derivatives - amounting to a volume of some USD 40 billion in 1994 - and the separation of this sector from the realm of economic policy have contributed to the malfunctioning of the financial markets.
Since national economic policies can no longer be pursued, it is high time that we had international cooperation and coordination in the domain of economic policy as a means of preventing crises.
Harmonisation is essential!
For that reason, I explicitly welcome the Clinton initiative and call on the Council presidency to endorse this initiative wholeheartedly and to become involved in it and help shape it.
The crisis-torn nations of this world must sit down at the bargaining table with the G7.
The development of the world economy is no longer determined by G7 meetings.
Perhaps we even need an international security council.
Such ideas must be discussed on a global scale by those who are now responsible for monetary, financial and economic policy decisions.
We need to find ways out of this crisis, as well as a new financial order which brings stability to monetary and financial relations through transparency and through supervisory, earlywarning and support systems.
The calls of some speculators for international credit-insurance systems must, however, be rejected.
Tolerating speculation is one thing, but using tax revenues to reward it is out of the question.
A common international economic policy would admittedly be difficult - of that there is no doubt - but it is necessary and must involve appraising the roles of the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements and the World Trade Organisation, without calling the institutions themselves into question.
We must organise an efficient new international regulatory and supervisory framework, as well as actually reforming the institutions and improving the ways in which they work together.
Above all, a regulatory system must include measures for the compulsory disclosure of financial data of a comparable standard, for transparency in all finance market transactions, for more efficient financial markets, for better supervision by creditors and borrowers, for measures to reduce the volume of short-term borrowing and to curb speculation, as well as incentives for long-term cross-border loan agreements.
In democracies, all economic data must be disclosed by governments, so the finance markets cannot be permitted to conceal such information.
Moreover, prosperity, growth and jobs are becoming increasingly dependent on these markets - that is undeniable.
Exchange rate stability will also be important in these globalised markets.
The euro will be able to contribute to this within a multipolar world currency system, even though I believe that target-area agreements are still a long way off.
But one thing can certainly be achieved, namely close cooperation between the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve, which is in the interests of all of us and will serve to promote stability.
This would also help Russia, since I believe that the Russians have reason to be disappointed with the G7 proposals.
Even if Russia does its homework, we cannot go on assuming that IMF policy will automatically put things right.
Manchester-style capitalism has been too much for Russia to bear.
Every possible step must be taken to ensure that a social market economy is finally established in Russia and that a socially acceptable transformation is effected.
I believe that even temporary controls on capital movements for Russia are tolerable and necessary from our point of view as a means of ensuring that the development process in Russia can be guided in a way which will benefit the Russian people too.
We have heard many wise words today about the world economic crisis, but especially about the situation in Russia, which the presidency and the Commission President have also covered in detail.
Let me round off this debate with a few observations, and my colleague Mr de Silguy will add a few more words on the economic and monetary aspects of the world crisis.
I would say to begin with that all today's speakers have expressed great concern, but also great solidarity with Russia in her time of trouble. The interest of this enormous country on our own continent of Europe is that the situation should stabilise as swiftly as possible.
That is not only in Russia's interest, but certainly in our interest too.
At the same time I should add, and a number of honourable Members have made the point in a number of different ways, that of course the impetus for real change, for real reform, has to come from Russia herself.
It cannot be imposed from outside.
All the international community can do, all we can do, is to give aid if Russia does indeed pursue a further policy of reform.
Consequently the top priority at present is to overcome the political crisis and to reach and develop a consensus between the government and the Duma, because without that, further reform can never be possible.
That political process is showing a few hopeful signs at the moment, at least.
We hope things will be clearer towards the end of the week.
Once more I would stress that reform in Russia is not a concession to the West but is in Russia's own interest.
And that those, like President Santer, who have pointed out that sound economic policy in itself clears the way for social policy must bring that point to the attention of members of the Duma - not for the first time either.
We can hold ideological debates, and that is very interesting and worthwhile, about what kind of market economy would be best for Russia, but a number of basic facts must on no account be neglected. This means that the total lack of any regulatory system in Russia, of any legal framework, makes all forms of economy and economic policy vulnerable to excess.
And this is precisely what we have seen.
If business profits disappear abroad, if taxes are not paid, if banks are not supervised, and so on and so forth, the whole system collapses.
Liberalisation is no bad thing in itself, but completely uncontrolled liberalisation or liberalisation solely for the benefit of a small oligarchy is a very bad thing indeed.
That too is a phenomenon we are clearly witnessing in Russia.
Much has been said about what specific action the European Union itself might take at this stage.
When preparing for this debate, I looked again at what exactly was contained in our TACIS programmes with Russia. As Mr Santer told you, some ECU 2 billion have been earmarked under these in recent years since 1991.
These were mainly programmes designed to restructure the Russian economy, plans for economic but also political reform to which we gave our support.
Specific examples include programmes intended to revamp the tax system, banking supervision, investment safeguards which would also give foreign investors more confidence to put more capital into Russia.
There are plenty of other examples: training programmes for young managers and so on.
A start has been made on many of these programmes, but the fact is and remains that on the Russian side their transposition into new legislation, checks on implementation or actual programmes which actually convert the reforms into real deeds, real practice, has been only fragmentary.
The best thing we can do just now is to see how far existing programmes need to be adapted further or to focus more closely on the most acute needs of the moment.
We have already put ideas on this to the Russian authorities, even before this crisis broke in mid-August, and we shall have to see to what extent further changes are needed to the programme being prepared for 1999, work on which has already started.
It has been said here, and President Santer has frankly admitted, that in implementing these programmes we are often held up by our own red tape.
With many of these programmes, once the management committee, which represents the Member States, has given its approval to certain programmes it then takes about ten months before a contract is actually signed.
Just as we did in consultation with Parliament over reconstruction in Bosnia, where the same complaints were heard, we are more than willing to try to speed up these procedures, whether or not this involves changing the regulation, though that would seem inevitable.
But to do that we shall need to have the Council on board as well.
But where we are able to speed up our procedures in-house, you can be sure that we shall do so.
We may perhaps need to deploy more people here and there in order to be more effective in the current crisis.
But I wish to avoid giving the impression that our aid programmes or even those of other international organisations, including the IMF, or insufficiently effective action on the part of the international community are in fact responsible for the crisis.
No, Mr President, the solutions have to be sought in the first place from within Russia herself.
This remark needs some qualification.
It is not really all that surprising, given all that had gone before, that after only seven years of the reform process in Russia, one cannot as yet point to any truly spectacular results.
Too little has been done.
There are countries which have had far more success with their reforms, but these are also countries with a different history, a different culture from Russia's.
I say that not as an excuse.
I am saying, by way of encouragement to Russia, that the present situation as such has to change if the political leadership and parliament in Russia are genuinely and jointly dedicated to pursuing true reform.
I am convinced that the international community too will be prepared, taking account of the present situation, taking account of the very difficult social situation, to adapt its aid as far as possible, provided there is some prospect of progress - and provided a number of basic rules are complied with, particularly that the establishment of all kinds of legal frameworks is not shelved.
Because that would mean just throwing good money after bad.
This is the basis on which we are currently negotiating with Russia.
I am particularly glad that the EU-Russia Joint Parliamentary Committee is sitting this afternoon.
I am glad to have the opportunity of addressing it at the invitation of both chairmen.
A summit is planned with the President of Russia in October.
Meantime there is an invitation from the Prime Minister to Mr Santer and myself to discuss the situation.
The G7 are particularly busy and are getting ready for possible new measures.
One thing is certain and I repeat it: it is Russia herself who is anxious to be part of the G7/G8.
It is Russia herself who wants to join the World Trade Organisation.
So Russia herself must take the measures which will allow her to play an effective part in these bodies and show results.
She will then be able to count on the full support of the international community.
Welcome
International financial crisis and political developments in Russia(continuation)
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) concerning the international economic crisis.
I have also received six motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) concerning political developments in Russia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since the vote is about to be taken, allow me to avail myself of the customary prerogative of the presidency to say a few words in conclusion.
First of all, may I thank you for this very interesting debate on absolutely crucial aspects of the Asian crisis, the crisis in Russia and the impending crisis in Latin America.
So what is the most important thing for the European Union to do? Let me summarise that again very briefly.
On the one hand the Council is naturally aware of the role that Europe is called to play on the world stage by virtue of its economic and financial strength.
I should like to place particular emphasis on that point, because it was raised in the discussion.
Of course the Council, like the Commission, will make its proper contribution to this effort.
On the other hand, the Council and Commission are to cooperate closely in formulating the proposals that we can present to the Russian side at the forthcoming meeting.
Optimum coordination within the European Union is of the essence.
This applies especially to the provision of European know-how in the areas of banking and finance, in administration, in the establishment of structures that will guarantee the rule of law and in the fight against organised crime.
The Commission will naturally also develop more proposals for ways of helping Russia to overcome these complex transitional problems, especially through TACIS but through other programmes too.
However, I should like to re-emphasise what has frequently been stated in the discussion and has also been referred to by the Commission, namely that the reforms must of course be initiated in Russia and that we can only provide assistance.
I consider it very important that the mechanism of the partnership and cooperation agreement should be used to intensify our dialogue with Russia.
The reflections of the EU Finance Ministers should naturally take full account of the human and social dimensions of the situation in Russia - another point that has been raised time and again in this debate.
Through our joint monitoring of developments in Russia and through their assessment by the Foreign and Finance Ministers of the EU as well as by the Commission, the coherence of the EU's actions can be guaranteed.
I believe that to be hugely important too.
Allow me to address a few key points that surfaced, so to speak, in the debate.
Both sides should continue to conduct their relations on the basis of cooperation, partnership and of a dialogue between equals.
There has, of course, been enormous solidarity on that point in today's discussion.
Secondly, I should also like to endorse what Mr Silguy said, namely that the situation should not be overdramatised.
It is a crisis, but we are certainly not starting from scratch, and much has already been achieved.
Early signals indicating the course that is to be pursued and prompt measures are especially important.
It is absolutely vital to stress, as I do once more on behalf of the presidency, that the current situation will not lead to a retreat by Russia's partners, but to an intensified dialogue.
What shape will this dialogue take? As you know, the troika of Foreign Ministers is to be received tomorrow by the Prime Minister, Mr Primakov, and on 27 October the EU-Russia summit will take place in Vienna; thorough preparations are already under way for the summit, at which we shall discuss all the matters that have been raised in the debate here today.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the votes.
VOTES
I should like to begin by informing the House that I have received a formal letter of opposition to the simplified procedure applicable to the sale of genetically modified maize in Austria, Doc.
C4-0373/98.
This motion was tabled in accordance with Rule 99 of the Rules of Procedure by Mrs Flemming and others.
The proposal is therefore referred back to committee pursuant to Rule 99(2).
I should also like to inform the House that I have received a formal letter of opposition to the simplified procedure applicable to the sale of genetically modified maize in Luxembourg, Doc.
C4-0374/98.
This motion was tabled in accordance with Rule 99 of the Rules of Procedure by Mrs Roth-Behrendt and others.
The proposal is therefore referred back to committee pursuant to Rule 99(2).
Mr President, I signed the request calling for these proposals to be referred back to the Committee on the Environment, but I would like to have some assurance from the committee that it will examine them properly.
On 24 June, the coordinators of the Committee on the Environment did in fact discuss the Commission's decision on the sale of genetically modified maize, but the proposal has not been examined in committee.
As a result, I would like to make sure that it is properly examined this time round.
Let me be clear.
We have no choice but to refer the matter to them under the Rules.
How they handle it will be a matter for the Environment Committee.
Mr President, we also naturally support the referral motion.
But I cannot help pointing out that the Green Group in the European Parliament tabled the selfsame motion before the summer recess, and those very Members who have now tabled the motion refused to discuss it at that time in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
However, my concern is this...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Colleagues, we are not having a debate on this matter.
The Rules are very clear. It has to go back to committee.
There is no room for explanations or justifications.
Mr President, this is a very complicated report and it would be to the benefit of the House if I briefly explained that the European Parliament is to vote now on two Commission proposals to modify the same regulation on financial and technical cooperation with the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
The first proposal was presented at the beginning of the year and the second in July.
The Commission, however, insists on maintaining the two proposals separately.
They are therefore being treated together.
They constitute the basis of the compromise between Parliament and the Commission, being sought after Parliament's vote on 18 June to send the first report back to the Commission under Rule 60(2).
On that occasion, Parliament approved 12 amendments to the first proposal.
These 12 amendments were all rejected by the Commission.
Some of the amendments on the first proposal have now been taken up in the second Commission proposal.
Following negotiation with the Commission for a global compromise on the two proposals, I, as rapporteur, managed to persuade the Commission to accept almost all the amendments, except those concerning comitology.
Here Parliament is examining the new Commission proposal on comitology and requires that what is decided in that context be applied here.
Therefore, before proceeding to the vote, the Commission should here in plenary first of all confirm that the Amendments Nos 1, 2, 7 and 8 to A4-180/98 voted by the Group of the European People's Party last June to the first Commission proposal have been incorporated already in their second proposal.
If the Commission can so do, they can be considered as withdrawn.
Secondly, it should commit itself to modify rapidly its second proposal to take in Amendments Nos 5 and 12, already voted last June, as well as the compromise Amendment No 1 to the first proposal, which is in the batch of 6 new amendments tabled for voting today, and also Amendment No 6 to the second proposal.
If the Commission can both confirm the first and commit itself to the second, I would recommend to the European Parliament that of the new amendments in Document A4-300/98 it should vote in favour of compromise Amendment No 1 and Amendments Nos 4, 5 and 6, and Amendments Nos 2 and 3 can then be withdrawn in favour of Amendment No 6.
The success of this agreement will depend on the rapid presentation by the Commission of a modified text of its second proposal respecting the political position of this Parliament.
Thank you, I am glad you said that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must first express my gratitude to the Committee on Budgets, and especially to the rapporteur, Lord Tomlinson, for their painstaking work.
On 25 June, the Commission presented a second proposal for the amendment of the Financial Regulation to Parliament and to the Council. In line with the promise I made at the plenary sitting of 17 June, this included various modifications suggested by Parliament to our initial proposal, namely Amendments Nos 1, 2, 7 and 8 to the first proposal.
I can therefore confirm that the Commission accepts them.
Thanks to the Parliament's determination to reach a pragmatic solution, you presented a single report which did indeed deal with the two proposals in two separate parts, and this has enabled us to resolve a large number of queries raised between the two institutions. Essentially, these concerned comitology, which as you are aware, is an area where the Commission would like to see change.
However, some issues requiring further consideration remained outstanding, and I can present our position on those today.
Firstly, the matter of the duration of the Financial Regulation.
The Commission had proposed an eight-year programme, from 1999 to 2006; but we can now agree to the five-year period, from 1999 to 2003, in the second proposal.
Secondly, the Commission also agrees to accept the other three modifications to its second proposal suggested by the House.
I am referring to Amendments Nos 5 and 12, to compromise Amendment No 1 suggested by Parliament for the first proposal, and to Amendment No 6 to the second proposal.
I can confirm this.
As a result of this compromise, from 1 January 1999 the Commission will have at its disposal, thanks to the European Parliament's help, a much more flexible and pragmatic method of maintaining the European Union's support for the Palestinian people and the peace process.
I have to point out, however, Lord Tomlinson, that unfortunately the success or failure of this ambitious programme for the peace process will depend on how that peace process develops, and we should be very much aware that at present, the situation is critical.
The Commission will therefore propose these instruments immediately, but it has to be quite clear that the implementation of these instruments on Palestinian territory will depend essentially on the peace process.
If the peace process moves forward, we shall be able to undertake a major programme of economic cooperation; if it remains stalled, we shall be faced with the kind of difficulties which I do not need to spell out to you.
(In successive votes Parliament adopted both legislative resolutions)
Mr President, I am not entirely clear about the substance of the matter on which we are voting.
May I ask someone from the Party of European Socialists to explain it?
Amendment No 4 calls on the Commission to submit proposals extending the right of family reunification to children and relatives in ascending line who are not entitled to maintenance.
Is that intended for citizens of the Union, or is it supposed to apply to nationals of third countries?
That would trigger a wave of immigration, which is why I am asking for an explanation as to what is meant here.
Does it only apply to citizens of the Union, or are third country nationals included? The answer will naturally have a decisive influence on the vote.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe the wording is clear as it stands.
It refers to those who live in the Union and to the reunification of families there.
That actually emerges clearly from the text.
It applies to all those who are already legally resident in the Union.
Amendment No 8:
Mr President, I would like to raise a procedural motion and ask the House to authorise a separate vote on one word.
I realise that this request is being made rather late in the day and I do apologise for this.
The word at issue here is 'political' in the last sentence which, and I quote, ' urges that such nationals...' - the nationals being discussed here are legally residing in the Union - ' that such nationals be treated in the same way as EU citizens with regard to their political, social and economic rights'.
On behalf of the French members of this group, I would like to call for a separate vote on the word 'political' since, whilst we are in favour of their right to vote at local elections, we are not in favour of the right to vote in national elections.
In this case, the idea of equal political rights encompasses both local and national elections.
So in short, if a separate vote is authorised and the word 'political' is deleted, then we will vote in favour of this amendment.
If this word is not deleted, then we will vote to reject the amendment.
I would like to be helpful but we have strict deadlines for informing the services of intention to request split votes.
I can tell by the mood of the House that if we take this as a split vote we will have a long debate on it.
(Parliament rejected the resolution)
How many times did you press the button? I will leave you to work it out.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Mr President, on a point of order.
On the subject of roll call votes, on a personal basis and on behalf of a few other Members of this House, I wish to make the following statement to you and have the matter checked.
For almost all of the first half of this year - I do not have the dates on me now - I was accredited with not voting, despite the fact that I knew that I was here and voted.
I raised myself afterwards the question of the soundness of my voting card.
In fact, Mr President, you yourself on one occasion asked for the machine to be changed.
But I still continued to question my voting card.
Today I arrived without the new card which I received in June and I went to the offices at the back of this building to obtain a spare card. I was given back my old card.
I then went to the technicians' office to have it tested, to find out that my old card, which I was dependent on in this House for the four or five months of this year, was not functioning correctly. I knew it all through that period of time myself.
I paid the price financially but that is not really what is at issue.
I was accredited with not being present in this House to record my vote when, in actual fact, I was here but my card was faulty.
I want to raise that matter with you now for the benefit of the other Members of this House who felt exactly the same way.
Thank you very much.
Mr President, I would like to ask that this report be referred back to the committee responsible.
At the opening of this part-session, the President of the Parliament made his wish to respect the Treaty clear, as well as his hope that texts which contravene the Treaty would not be submitted to the House.
As you will recall, this discussion was in relation to the Bösch report.
It would appear that we must show the same legal vigilance today with the Christodoulou report.
Articles 4 and 209 of the Treaty state that, for any expenditure, there must be a dual legal basis, both financial and legislative.
The Court of Justice made this very clear in paragraph 26 of its judgment of 26 May and only excluded non-significant Community actions that do not require this basis.
There are two main criticisms of the draft interinstitutional agreement we have received.
The first criticism is that it provides for appropriations entered in the 1998 budget to be implemented without a legal basis, whereas the Court only allowed this for appropriations which had already been committed.
The second criticism is that it expands the concept of pilot schemes, preparatory actions and specific measures, whilst putting a ceiling on the overall amount.
This concept of action limited in time was condemned by the Court, which specifically stated that there is nothing to stop significant Community action incurring limited expenses, or taking effect for only a limited period of time.
Therefore, nonsignificant actions were excluded by the Court, and consequently this is a highly irregular legal situation.
To check this, I suggest that this text be referred back to the committee responsible, as happened with the Bösch report.
Mr President, the judgment to which the last speaker referred, and which was delivered by the Court at the request of the United Kingdom, relates to the legal bases of European Union expenditure. In its statement of grounds, the Court makes it clear that insignificant amounts of expenditure do not require a legal basis.
The statement of grounds explicitly indicates that insignificance is not determined by the amount and duration of the expenditure, but depends on a decision that must be taken by both branches of the budgetary authority.
This is precisely the principle we followed when the Interinstitutional Agreement that is now being put to the vote was concluded by the 15 Member States, the Commission and the European Parliament.
This agreement is therefore the means by which the Council and Parliament have performed the task of interpreting and implementing this principle as the Court enjoined them to do at that point in its judgment.
Accordingly, there are no grounds for not dealing with Mr Christodoulou's report.
I move that the vote be taken now.
Mr President, I quite agree with what Mr Samland has said.
(Parliament decided not to refer the report back to committee)
Amendments Nos 1 to 4:
Mr President, these four amendments embody very sound principles.
However, I am compelled to ask for a vote against them, because they do not belong in the text we are referring to.
We have agreed about a plain text, and through the principles, I say again, are good ones, they are superfluous.
The same applies to Amendment No 5 by Mrs Ewing.
After the answer given by Commissioner Liikanen about the issue of less widely spoken languages, that amendment is superfluous.
I am therefore opposed to all the amendments.
Mr President, I thank the rapporteur, the content of whose report is consistent with the position of our group.
The amendments address the substantive points on which we sought clarification in the framework of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Since Mr Liikanen signalled clearly in yesterday's debate that every effort will be made to create these legal bases together with Parliament in future, as well as to guarantee maximum implementation of the budget in 1998, I am prepared to withdraw the amendment on behalf of my group.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, we appear to have a problem here as the text is entitled 'Transatlantic relations/Echelon system'.
Seeing as a few of our colleagues - and not just one or two of them either - have gone to great lengths to ensure that the word 'Echelon' does not appear anywhere in the text, I suggest that we delete the word 'Echelon' from the title itself, if the text remains unchanged. If this happens, then our colleagues will have been 100 % successful in their task.
Mr President, the motions for resolutions discuss problems linked to economic information and these are directly related to the Echelon system.
In view of this, we must keep the term 'Echelon' in the title of the motion.
Mr President, I should like to ask you not to take a block vote but to take separate votes, certainly on Amendments Nos 4, 12 and 13.
Moreover, there was an unfortunate mistake in the vote on the Schaffner report.
The motion requested a vote by roll call at the end of the debate, and I should like you to tell us why you did not allow a roll-call vote.
The services have just told me that it was their fault.
It was an administrative problem. We apologise for that.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Mr President, may I come back to your statement in reply to my previous question.
You said it was an oversight by the services in not passing on the motion for a roll-call vote on Mrs Schaffner's report.
That is just one of those things that can happen to anyone.
But you, as the President of the sitting, are able to have the vote taken again as a roll-call vote.
That is what I am now asking you to do.
The fact that a mistake was made is no reason for not repeating the vote.
I therefore request a roll-call vote on the Schaffner report.
It is on the suface a perfectly reasonable request.
However, the problem is that people leave and enter the Chamber and we will not have the same presence now as had when we took the vote.
It is an error on my part and I can only apologise for it.
I do not think we are in a position to repeat the vote.
Mr President, I refer again to Mrs Schaffner's report.
You have said that it is not possible to vote again now because the composition of the House may have changed.
But it is possible for you to defer this vote until voting time tomorrow, and that the groups themselves, knowing that the vote is taking place, can ensure that they are duly represented.
Then we can vote by roll call.
It does make a difference whether we vote by roll call or in secret; it even sways Members' voting decisions.
That, in fact, is why this request is being made.
I have admitted and apologised for an error.
But it is quite clear that once a vote is declared in this House you cannot at a subsequent date go back on that vote.
The result of the vote has been announced. That is the end of the matter.
Mr President, I just wish to respond to the comments made by Mr Killilea.
It is a shame he is not here to hear them.
As a Quaestor of this House I am surprised that he had to raise something like that on the floor of the House.
He, more than anyone else, should know how best to deal with that.
One has to wonder at his motives for raising it on the floor.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the annual report of the Europol Drugs Unit.
In view of the increase in international organised crime in fields such as drugs, it is very important that the Europol Drugs Unit should operate effectively.
The fight against organised crime will be most effective if Europe's police forces work together.
Europol is there to facilitate police inquiries in the individual Member States by providing a framework for the rapid exchange of information between police authorities.
Secondly, Europol can carry out overarching analyses of trends in crime which benefit the national police forces.
We cannot endorse any call for actual investigative powers to be assigned to Europol.
Europol must not acquire the character of a European police authority; the investigation of criminal matters must be carried out, as hitherto, by the police in the Member States.
Europol must instead prioritise the very important tasks it already has, for example exchange of information and expertise, support for investigations, analysis and training.
COM in rice (C4-0276/98)
As we give our opinion on the Council regulation on establishing an integrated management system and control system for certain regimes of Community aid and in particular for rice growers, I would like to ask my colleagues, the Commission and the Council to bear in mind the tragic situation of French rice producers who are mainly based in the Camargue region and in French Guiana.
Indeed, we have had lengthy debates here in the House highlighting the Commission's failings in its management of the cereals market.
Last year at the beginning of our campaign, when world prices were at their highest, the Commission did not issue any export certificates and, as a result, the EU lost the large Arab markets.
I must remind the House that a similar situation developed in the rice markets, if only because European production is on too small a scale to cater for our internal market.
The Commission agreed to import rice from third countries - albeit under pressure from the WTO - whilst 'forgetting' to manage our internal market.
Today, the producers' and cooperatives' silos are full and there is no longer any storage capacity specifically set aside for rice, such as ventilated silos.
Soon we will have to harvest our 1998 production, and what is the Commission suggesting we do to address this problem? Nothing.
Therefore, I am formally asking the Commission to take urgent action to allow our rice producers to continue with the 1998 harvest and to allow our cooperatives to stockpile our production.
Having progressively reduced aid to rice producers and having caused the bottlenecks in our silos, it would appear that the Commission does not want us to maintain any rice production in Europe? Or has it simply decided that the European Union should be dependent on rice produced in third countries for its entire rice supply?
Schaffner report (A4-0108/98)
Mr President, we have rejected the Schaffner report, although it deals with a very important subject, and all because of a number of unacceptable amendments, not least those tabled by Mrs Zimmermann, which explains why her Social Democratic Party is freefalling towards the 20 % mark in Bavaria.
Amendment No 4, for example, sought uncontrolled immigration of grandparents, unmarried and homosexual live-in partners and the like.
I believe that if Parliament continues to treat such important matters so flippantly under pressure from the Socialists and Greens, it will trigger protests among broad sections of the population.
Given these important responsibilities that are now being entrusted to us, we have a duty to return to constructive cooperation and to stop playing this sort of demagogic game behind the backs of our citizens and taxpayers.
It is indeed striking that a similar paper was referred back by the Socialists themselves when Mr Schröder was here in Strasbourg, because they were embarrassed by it.
But no sooner has Mr Schröder left than they are at it again.
(Heckling from Mr Schulz)
The Schaffner report on the free movement of persons has just been rejected in this House by a coalition formed out of contradictory reasons.
Nonetheless, we must point out that, before the report was rejected, Amendment No 8 had been adopted by a clear majority - 276 votes to 250 - and this should not be forgotten.
This amendment stated that 'the free movement of persons pursuant to Article 7a of the Treaty on European Union (Article 14 of the consolidated version) must also apply to third country nationals residing legally in the European Union' and then went on to ask 'that these members be treated in the same way as EU citizens with regard to their political, social and economic rights'.
The first part of the quote comes from the draft Amsterdam text, which sets a deadline of five years for the abolition of all border controls within the EU for citizens of Member States and for third country nationals.
The Europe of Nations Group is opposed to this measure as it would lead to us losing control of our territory - a fundamental basis for our sovereignty.
How can territorial integrity be preserved if we no longer have the right to control our own borders? How can we defend a territory, which the French constitution states must be defended and even, in Article 16, goes as far as allowing exceptional powers to be invoked for the defence of this territory?
Yet what follows Amendment No 8 goes even further than this.
It calls for equality amongst nationals and citizens of third countries as regards their economic, social and political rights. These political rights, for example, include the right to vote in all elections, ranging from council to presidential elections.
This text did not come about by accident.
It is indeed an expression of this House's lasting philosophy; namely the desire to erase any difference between citizens and foreigners in all areas. In our opinion, such a philosophy will not lead to the construction of Europe, but rather to its destruction.
French citizens must be on their guard: the Amsterdam Treaty allows for decisions on the international movement of persons to be taken by qualified majority voting in the Council, in codecision with Parliament.
If we grant such powers to Parliament, then they will be used as has been made clear today, and this will not change in the future.
This House will always remain a Parliament too far removed from its citizens and manipulated by pressure groups who only want to go over the heads of the different countries in order to destroy Europe.
I would ask French citizens to remember this when ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty.
We cannot support the Schaffner report under any circumstances.
The report is in our opinion completely out of step with reality and, at its worst, is an expression of EU federalism.
The Schaffner report shows a contempt for national democracies that is inadmissible - for example in paragraph 1, where it proposes that the Council implement Article 7a, which covers the removal of internal frontiers and the strengthening of controls at the Union's external frontiers, without any noticeable concern for national law.
At the same time we can only call on the Danish Government to stand firm in the Council and continue to block the Commission's proposal to extend Regulation 1408/71.
We do not merely oppose the élitist view of how political decisions can be implemented, we will also at all times fight to uphold the exclusive right of national parliaments to determine national border policy, visa policy, social policy, etc.
At the same time, having regard to the electoral process by which we have been elected, we will also affirm the obligation of democratic states to observe the international conventions that have been adopted under the auspices, for example, of the Council of Europe and the United Nations and will actively defend their principles.
In that context we energetically reject the proposal of the Austrian Presidency for a common EU policy on immigrants and refugees, which is in clear conflict with, among other things, the UN Convention on Refugees and common humanity.
Unfortunately, the Austrian initiative is not the only EU-related ploy in the refugee field which conveys a 'Fortress Europe' mentality.
The Danish Prime Minister even stated, in the context of the referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty, that a vote for the Amsterdam Treaty would mean fewer refugees in Denmark.
We are in no doubt that the Schaffner report is to be seen as yet another brick in the construction not just of the United States of Europe but also of a 'Fortress Europe'.
We are therefore voting against the Schaffner report.
Along with other members of the Liberal Group, I note with dismay that the European Parliament was unable to deliver an opinion on the reports from the High Level Group on Free Movement, chaired by a respected European and former Member of this House, Mrs Simone Weil.
The voting behaviour of the conservative side demonstrated a lack of any desire to create a level playing field for third country citizens legally resident within the Union.
Can we really speak of free movement if the rules apply to EU citizens only? The operation of such a system beggars belief.
Those British Labour Members who clearly abstained also bear responsibility for the fact that Parliament cannot fulfil one of its primary missions, namely to create a citizens' Europe.
The report charts the day-to-day difficulties dogging the lives of many people in Europe.
One of our main concerns should be to remedy this state of affairs.
Lannoye recommendation (A4-0278/98)
We are voting for the Lannoye report and particularly welcome the fact that Amendment No 4 has been withdrawn, since we do not want to see simplifications of existing standards enacted by committees.
We have indeed noted with satisfaction that the Commission has not included in its presentation - although this is what it originally wanted - formulations which would provide possibilities for future simplifications of existing standards to be carried out through the committee procedure, of which clearly we strongly disapprove because of the closed and undemocratic nature of committees.
Mosiek-Urbahn recommendation (A4-0279/98)
I would like to congratulate our rapporteur, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, on her work and on all the effort she has put into reaching an agreement on this important directive on supplementary supervision of insurance undertakings.
Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn has succeeded almost completely in getting different points of view to agree.
The Council has in fact adopted the amendments voted through at first reading.
The common position, adopted by 14 votes to one, seems to us to be a good compromise.
Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn does, however, suggest a number of amendments at second reading.
We regret to say that we do not agree with these amendments.
We believe that the balance struck by the common position is the right one and we are concerned that the proposed amendments will alter the directive and thereby jeopardize the protection offered to policyholders and the insurance groups sector - something which is very important in our eyes.
The French Socialists will therefore accept the common position without amendments, as will the majority of the Socialist Group.
I would personally like to ask the European Commission to defer its critical stance on the French mutual insurance associations and to reopen talks on this question with the French Government.
It is essential that both citizens and firms in the internal market can have full confidence in the insurance industry.
It is thus a very positive development that the European Union is now effectively seeking to prevent insurance companies from resorting to the very serious practice of circumventing the solvency requirements of the EU's insurance directives, which consists in counting the same capital twice in order to cover risks for which insurance has been issued by different companies.
After the first reading, the Council showed a very cooperative attitude in that it accepted the great majority of Parliament's amendments in its common position.
I also feel justified in expressing satisfaction at this spirit of cooperation.
Valverde López report (A4-0279/98)
We are voting for the report because it is necessary to prevent Chapter 2 aircraft, which generate more pollution and noise, from the USA ending up in EU countries when they are no longer permitted in the USA.
Even 'hushkitted' Chapter 2 aircraft cause more pollution and noise than 'proper' Chapter 3 aircraft.
In order to reduce noise pollution, we also support the ban on recertified aircraft taking off and landing at night.
There is a general need for a further tightening-up of noise reduction measures in the air transport sector in Europe and the world as a whole.
However, we strongly oppose Amendment No 1.
This area must continue to be regulated by a directive rather than a regulation.
Regulations enable further powers to be taken away from the national parliaments, and we cannot support such a transfer of legislative power from democratically elected bodies to the EU Commission.
It is regrettable that despite Parliament's almost unanimous approval of the amendments to the Green Paper on combating noise proposed by myself as rapporteur for the Committee on the Environment, we should now be presented with these modifications which are far from adequate for achieving noise reduction in the air transport sector.
It is unbelievable that aircraft fitted with hushkits should still be allowed within the EuropeanUnion, and that the exemptions granted in Article 4(1) should be abused.
Amendment No 5 to the Commission's text does seem reasonable.
It guarantees citizens' sleep, banning night flights.
I come from the Balearic Islands and have personal experience of the torture caused by Minorca airport, where there is no regulation of noise pollution during the busy tourist season.
It appears that the Parliament's unanimous position against noise on the occasion of the debate on the Green Paper went unnoticed. The Environment Commissioner did not even deign to attend, despite sending out splendid 'soundproofed' messages during the recent Copenhagen conference on noise.
Christodoulou report (A4-0396/98)
Mr President, last July the Europe of Nations Group spoke out against the actions of the Commission which, having been condemned by the Court of Justice for implementing expenditure without the appropriate legal basis, then came to Parliament and asked for its support.
The Commission was backed up by a host of letters from associations which were benefiting from these illegal appropriations. All these associations did of course claim that they were on the verge of collapse and that the most impoverished of them would suffer terribly if the European Union did not continue to pay subsidies to them.
We refuse to take part in this game.
We believe that aid for socially oriented projects will be more carefully and efficiently distributed if it remains under the control of governments and local authorities.
Today there is absolutely no reason to deviate from this principle, other than the Commission's wish to intervene in all areas and to build up a grateful client base.
Also, as the current Treaty requires a legal basis for expenditure, we find the Commission's proposed solution - an agreement between the institutions which interprets the Treaty rather liberally - completely unacceptable, since it would allow the Commission to continue behaving as it has been doing.
The Treaty was adopted by the people of Europe, and the Brussels institutions do not have the power to change its meaning without consulting the people once again.
Our position of principle was made clear in July and was strengthened today when we read the text of the draft agreement.
The text endorses all the Commission's requests to implement expenditure on its own initiative for hypothetical pilot schemes or preparatory actions or even for specific or indefinite measures resulting from its institutional prerogatives, and this last category does not even have an established maximum limit.
We consider this draft agreement to be unacceptable and we call on the Council to reject it.
Mr President, I voted against this report both for legal reasons and on a matter of principle.
I explained the legal reason for voting against this report during the final vote.
I would like to reiterate the fact that the Treaty calls for a dual legal basis before implementing any Community expenditure. There must be a financial basis, so it must be entered in the Community budget, and there must be a legal basis, so a secondary act must have been adopted.
In its judgment of 12 May, the Court of Justice highlighted these requirements.
Such bases were only not required for actions described as non-significant.
The Court held that actions limited in time or with a restricted budget could be other than nonsignificant.
The draft interinstitutional agreement does not comply with the Court's decision.
It allows expenditure to be implemented for pilot projects of an experimental nature, for preparatory actions and for specific measures.
As my colleague Mr Berthu pointed out, specific measures with a considerable budget can easily be drawn up in this way without a legal basis.
And then there is the matter of principle, which is very simple.
We cannot continue to have a European Union that is as devoted to interinstitutional agreements as this one currently is.
We demand that Treaties be drawn up and that they be ratified by Parliament, yet we deny the people the right to comment on the Treaties by using these interinstitutional agreements which do not go to the people or to national parliaments for comment.
Through such agreements, we add things, we amend things, we change the Treaties.
- Echelon system
The excellent STOA working document - An appraisal of Technologies of Political Control - does not appear to have received the attention it deserves: certainly not from the Commission, which denies knowledge of any agreements when it is known that a memorandum of understanding was signed by the EU states in 1995 but remains classified.
Also, it seems to me that only the Green Group exhibits any real understanding of the problem.
The main gatherer of information in the EU for the United States is the spy base at Menwick Hill in North Yorkshire, England.
This is a spy base set up by agreement between the British Government and the USA in 1948 among other purposes to monitor communications between the West and East and within the East in the cold war.
While many US bases in Europe have closed since the end of the cold war, Menwick Hill has expanded considerably and is currently having new security precautions installed.
With its powerful surveillance systems there is considerable evidence that while military-type spying continues, much of the surveillance is of private and business conversations.
Much commercial advantage is believed to be obtained and used to aid US firms in gaining an advantage over European firms in global competition.
There is no democratic accountability of the activities of Menwick Hill base and in view of all the evidence I believe it should be closed immediately.
An explanation by UCLAF is urgently required.
Transparency first and last.
It is self-evident that the two largest trade and economic powers in the world can and should develop a dialogue.
The question is, under what conditions, with what aims, and for whose benefit.
It should not be possible for the draft of an agreement to be rejected by the Council, indeed with some countries seeming to have imposed a veto banning its adoption, because it comes into radical conflict with the interests of European countries, and then, after just a few months, and in essence after changing just the title of the agreement, for that draft to be accepted under pressure from the United States and major capital.
It should not be possible for organisations financed by the Community itself to find that the economic and private lives of the EU's citizens and the telecommunications and electronic systems of its bodies are subject to monitoring and espionage on an extensive scale, via the Echelon system which penetrates worldwide telecommunications systems, and for the information it gathers to be used to the benefit of the United States, as for example in the case of the GATT negotiations, and for the Commission to allege that nothing of the kind has been reported to it.
It should not be possible for the EU to be a co-signatory to an agreement with the United States, which supposedly safeguards the interests of European companies against extraterritorial US legislation, such as the Helms-Burton Act on sanctions against companies which violate the economic embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba, and for Mrs Albright then to announce exactly the opposite to Congress, in other words that Europe is subject to US legislation.
In the face of this continual pressure from the United States and major interests, the European Union responds with continual concessions, in obedience to exactly the same monopolistic interests.
According to our information, the European Union's response to unacceptable monitoring by the United States of electronic and telecommunications systems and more generally the media of the digital combined services network, is to decide to set up an analogous system in collaboration with the FBI, quite beyond any democratic control and in clear contravention of the directive on the protection of natural persons in relation to the processing of personal data.
The aim of this dialogue should be to achieve developments which benefit working people, which safeguard and extend their democratic and labour rights both in the European Union and in the United States, and indeed which take into account that one is the other's largest partner in both trade and investment.
Unfortunately, however, that is not possible, because both sides are protagonists of the worldwide capitalist system and the attack it has mounted against working people, and seen in that light, the agreement being promoted supplements the mechanisms which serve their aims and ambitions.
A characteristic example is provided by demands for the more effective protection of investments by the adoption of basic principles such as expropriation and compensation, through the related Understanding between the European Union and the USA, which attempts to forestall even the Multipartite Agreement on Investments in the context of the OECD, which has not yet been accepted because of the enormous reactions to which it gave rise.
Campoy Zueco report (A4-0235/98)
Mr President, waste management is an extremely important matter for public health.
A country which is unable or unwilling to manage its waste in an ecological manner will have polluted waters and air filled with toxic elements churned out by bad incineration methods. On top of all this, that country's population will feel the full force of this pollution through its food supply.
So, as well as spongiform encephalopathy, hormones and genetic manipulation, we must now also reckon with the accumulation of dioxins and organochlorates in our food chains.
In this context, the use of sewage sludge in agriculture - although this may be stating the obvious - should be controlled by extremely stringent public health standards, since sewage sludge often contains high levels of heavy metals and other active substances.
The rapporteur is therefore right to be concerned over a certain degree of laxity being shown by the Member States.
However, how does he hope to initiate infringement proceedings against Member States when, as he himself freely admits, Community legislation is neither transparent nor coherent? The Commission's role should be to advise and to provide the necessary tools for a certain degree of convergence between Member States, not to intervene in a policing or fiscal capacity.
It is a shame that this idea slightly taints the overall tone of this report.
Mr President, I just wish to say that there is very little point in spending time debating and adopting environmental legislation if it is not going to be implemented.
We know there is a very low level of harmonisation in this field, which is of vital importance for the single market.
Is it not absolutely amazing that you see the manic determination to complete the single market with regard to duty free and nothing being done here?
It makes you stop and wonder.
In the short time available to me I wish to correct a remark made yesterday in plenary by my constituency colleague, Ms McKenna, and reported in the Irish Times today.
My understanding is that the study in the Lancet magazine referring to dangers for pregnant women living near landfill sites refers to sites where hazardous and toxic waste - not normal waste - is being dumped.
In this regard the Irish Government and authorities are not at fault.
Indeed, many references to Ireland in the report are out of date.
The only two legal cases pending against the Irish Government include one with regard to the provision of waste management plans (similar cases are being taken out against several Member States).
Plans are now being rewritten for Ireland and are practically ready for resubmission and so it is likely that this case will be dropped.
The second case pending against the Irish Government concerns the failure to supply the Commission with information on hazardous waste installations.
Again, I am assured by the Commission that this matter is now being addressed, and it is likely that legal proceedings will be discontinued.
Finally, I would urge the Irish authorities to address, without further delay, the deficiency we have with regard to recycling facilities and also the fact that in Ireland agricultural waste is not considered waste, and so we have the spectacle of beautiful lakes - like the lakes of Killarney - being full of phosphates and so on and fish being killed because agricultural effluent is going into these lakes.
I wish the authorities could do something about the fact that we still have a landfill site in Rogerstown estuary in north County Dublin, in an area which is a natural habitat for wild birds and so on.
I am deeply concerned about the festering waste crisis in Ireland.
At present the EU is taking action against Ireland for failure to implement a proper national waste management plan and in particular for failing to deal with hazardous waste.
Ireland has not been measuring up.
The EU is now demanding a major overhaul and a national hazardous waste plan with individual local authority plans.
Once more Ireland has been seen to be dragging its feet.
Toxic and hazardous waste have been the subject of studies in the UK which show that pregnant mothers are still at risk if living within two miles of a hazardous waste facility.
Babies born within two miles of landfill sites where hazardous waste is dumped are at serious risk of birth defects.
Deformities and illnesses such as spina bifida, hole in the heart and faulty blood systems have been noted in children born to mothers who live near industrial landfill sites.
Ireland has officially been exporting hazardous waste.
However waste has been found illegally dumped around the country and the Commission will be investigating complaints.
The key question is, who is going to pay for the increase in cost of waste disposal as the EU noose tightens on Ireland? If the polluter pays, this means a revolution with waste reduction and recycling playing the primary role and decreasing the need for landfill to 20 %.
This is an indictment of the lax attitude in this country to the enforcement of waste laws. Our green image is being undermined.
Agriculture is the biggest cause of river and lake pollution in Ireland and yet agricultural waste has been ignored in previous waste management plans.
The Commission is specifically aware of this.
A recent plan for County Waterford failed to provide for the management of approximately 1 million tonnes of agricultural waste per annum.
While the Irish Government is pussy-footing around legislation, the waste builds up and destroys our environment.
The Commission has called for a deadline for reports in September 1998.
Will Ireland meet the deadline or will fines be imposed?
It is very disheartening to note that no Member States have incorporated the European Waste Catalogue into national legislation and that the definition of waste therefore differs from one country to another, leaving large loopholes in the implementation of sustainable environmental legislation.
It is also particularly regrettable that the Member States do not implement the common policy on waste adopted through the four directives in question more effectively, let alone honour their obligations on reporting to the Commission.
Thus the individual Member States are failing to apply key environmental principles and, generally, to promote and apply a waste policy which meets the needs of human health and welfare.
We therefore favour giving the European Environment Agency powers to collect the necessary data on the implementation by individual Member States of the common policy on waste management, if these comparative analyses can promote the codification of European waste policy.
Nevertheless we are very critical of this report.
On the one hand, we do not feel that waste should be regarded as a commodity that can be traded across frontiers and hence be regulated as part of the internal market.
Waste policy is really an environmental matter and should therefore only be dealt with in the context of environmental policy. On the other hand, the report recommends in paragraph 3 that the question be covered by a regulation rather than, as now, by a directive.
This is not the way to improve implementation of the common environmental policy, let alone to pursue more effective, committed and democratic Community policy in general.
Through regulations, which have direct legal force in the individual Member States, power is taken away from the national parliaments.
They are deprived of influence on decisions affecting the concrete national implementation of Community law.
We cannot endorse this transfer of legislative power from democratically elected bodies to the EU Commission.
A genuine and responsible environmental policy cannot be forced through by legislation - otherwise many more Member States would have honoured their obligations - but requires a fundamental change of attitude.
The common environmental policy is indeed necessary, but not sufficient in itself.
I would first like to congratulate our colleague on the clarity and openness of his report.
Such openness is relatively rare and so is worth highlighting.
Also, I would like to show my support for the requests made by Mr Campoy Zueco and point out a few environmental truths.
Unfortunately, the Member States' reluctance to apply the directives on waste management is not limited to environmental matters alone.
I would also like to express my frustration at the repeated statements of good intent made by our governments, when their actions are so far removed from these declarations.
There is no point in drawing up a list of such breaches of regulations.
It is of the utmost importance that those in power fully assess the importance of the environment issue as the new millennium approaches.
At the risk of repeating myself, we cannot offload our problems onto future generations indefinitely.
The threats hanging over us are real and very worrying.
I would also like to show my support for the rapporteur's suggestions, both on a conclusive definition of waste and on taking all the necessary steps against recalcitrant governments. I agree with most of the analyses and proposals made by our colleague.
Lastly, although I am in favour of some tax incentives, there is a considerable risk of finding ourselves hemmed in by tightening budgets.
It is very likely that the next few years will be particularly rich in terms of environment policy, and we will have to show our strength, in this field as in others.
Of course we must help, but we must first punish those who do not respect the law.
Despite the good intentions of the Campoy Zueco report and despite the critical matters the report deals with, we cannot support it.
We think that the Campoy Zueco report touches on the fundamental problem of the EU, which is that the EU does not have legislative legitimacy.
This means that the Member States often choose to set aside EU legislation, despite the fact that they themselves joined in adopting it.
The Campoy Zueco report addresses breaches of the EU rules on waste management.
Let there be no doubt that we find it reprehensible that EU countries - and moreover other countries too - resort to sloppy practices in their management of waste, to the detriment of their own citizens, the national environment and the global environment.
Thus we can only call on all countries, not least the industrialised countries, to take their global environmental responsibilities seriously, also where waste management is concerned.
Our position is that the proposals of the Campoy Zueco report on an increased role for the Commission and the EC Court of Justice with respect to the Member States are unlikely to help all that much.
They are not proposals that will strengthen the EU's legitimacy in the eyes of the citizens of the EU Member States.
The best means of strengthening the will of the countries to take their environmental responsibility seriously is to strengthen national and local democracy, so that the citizens themselves can ensure that the elected authorities are aware of their responsibilities.
What we need is not more EU government from the top, but more democracy.
Waste management is such an important economic and environmental issue that we must step up our efforts in this field.
Firstly, on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, I wish to protest at the fact that, at Commission level, the definition of 'waste' in the European Union was deliberately omitted, even before the single market was established and therefore before customs checks were abolished on commercial transactions.
As a result, different interpretations of the definition of 'waste' in Member States have meant that hazardous waste has been channelled through some of the less diligent countries, and this is the main reason why we have seen a certain level of hazardous waste traffic develop.
Our group has tabled two amendments on ecotaxes.
For several years, we have seen ecotaxes becoming more common on packaging, and in this particular field, all measures introduced by the Member States must be coordinated at Community level.
All too often, these ecotaxes are established to hinder the internal market, and this is not acceptable.
In Germany and France, we have developed a common logo - a green dot - which means that all packagers marketing finished products in these two states must make a contribution and help solve waste-related environmental problems.
This sort of easy, clean and efficient measure must become more common and must be used to counter measures introduced by other Member States such as Belgium, which is trying to promote its national production by imposing particularly heavy and discouraging procedures.
Finally, on a more general note, the Europe of Nations Group can only regret the fact that European legislation is so cumbersome in the field of waste management.
There are in fact 20 different legal acts on this matter, undermining the principle of transparency, and this is further compounded since the concept of waste is not defined in the same way in the different Member States.
Consequently, we would like to ask the Commission to fulfil its proper role, rather than constantly creating a role of political initiative on all matters for itself, which it is not meant to do.
Its role is to coordinate and simplify legislation on waste management and related issues.
It is perhaps worth the House reminding the Commission of this.
Mohamed Alí report (A4-0167/98)
Mr President, we all agree with our colleague Mr Mohammed Alí in that Averroës is an important figure, just as the Arabian Montesquieu, Ibn Khaldun, was an important figure.
But if we are to believe Maimonides and the Catalan philosopher Raymond Lulle, Averroës could be the man who wrote the booklet 'The Three Impostors' about the Hebrew, Christian and Muslim religions.
So, to use this strong and free spirit to represent the new dogma of multi-ethnic society or the sentimental defence of human rights is an affront to his memory.
We all agree that a university should be set up, with Mediterranean sponsorship, to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Averroës's death, but to use this man to symbolise violent and arrogant immigrants is a rather odd thing to do with such a refined spirit.
Can you imagine Averroës going to a rap concert in Córdoba, or selling drugs on back streets, behind the wheel of a BMW, all made up and deceiving tourists on the street?
Are we, in fact, talking about two Muslim worlds? The world of Al Mansur dominated the West through its intellectual superiority, but today's Muslim world dominates us through its barbarity.
So we should not make Averroës the godfather of the Taliban, nor of the jihad, since if he were alive today, there would be a fatwa out against him and his throat would have been cut by Muslims, by the same Muslims that we want to use his memory to represent.
Mr President, I voted against the Mohamed Alí report, but not because I could not wholeheartedly endorse its underlying intentions.
I merely believe that a report which is so short that it only scratches the surface of its subject simply cannot do justice to this highly complex issue with which we are confronted.
There is much in the report that I can wholeheartedly support, for example its representation of the situation of women in Islam, but there are also parts with which I cannot agree.
I just believe it does not make sense to try and cover such a sensitive, complex, broad and important subject with a report of this kind.
It is the wrong approach.
The European Parliament has just adopted Mr Mohamed Alí's report which calls for Europe to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the death of Ibn Rushd - Averroës - a twelfth century philosopher with a liberal interpretation of Islam.
This report is accompanied by a rather unusual explanatory statement which describes Averroës: ' Averroës was born in the year 520/1126 and was called Abu-l Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd, which perhaps explains why we have since the Middle Ages preferred the much shorter name Averroës, just as we prefer to say Avicenna when referring to the other great Islamic philosopher Ibn Sina... Your rapporteur will first seek to familiarize you with Averroës, asking you to take an imaginary trip to the. cinema, to see 'Le Destin' by Youssef Chabine.
The splendid images, the music and the dancing tell the story of Al Mansur, vizir of Córdoba, the sheik Riad and Averroës. And the fact is that few of us were acquainted with the life of the cadi of Córdoba before we saw this film.
Averroës was the doctor of the emirs Yusuf and Al-Mansur, and a philosopher. He was attacked by the advocates of strict religious orthodoxy, fell into disgrace, was exiled and latterly rehabilitated.
Averroës, who died on 10 December 1198, ended his days as the premier doctor of the Court of Marakesh. Of all Spaniards, he is the one which has left the deepest imprint on human thought.'
The text which Parliament has adopted does not conceal its aims, since in the first recital, it announces that 'European society has multicultural, multi-ethnic and multi-religious roots which are vital features of its heritage and its multifaceted identity ...'
I am sorry to say that I do not agree with these claims.
The various societies of European countries are indeed different, but they have some very deep-rooted common references which come from their Christian identity and, if we go further back in time, from their Celtic, Gallic, Roman, Greek or Germanic roots.
Even if several religions have contributed to a common European background, their contributions cannot be regarded as having equal weight.
Islam in particular has helped forge our identity as much through contrast with it as through the positive contributions it has made.
In view of this, I am sorry to say that the Mohamed Alí report misjudges our identity.
Also, it concludes with some absurd proposals, such as calling on Member States of the EU to 'promote the vocational and academic training of imams and other religious leaders in Europe'.
We must admire the rapporteur's attempt to keep a balance, as he did write 'and other religious leaders' after mentioning imams.
Nonetheless, we would like to make our disapproval felt, as we do not believe that Member States should have to make compulsory payments to finance religions when some of the fundamental aspects of these religions go against the principles of our democracies.
Averroës was a brilliant scholar but, at the same time, he was a symbol of failure - the result of trying to combine Greek philosophy with Islam.
This is a lesson for all those who dream of seeing a distorted and secularised Islam which incorporates a human rights ideology.
I do not think that Islam will betray its own nature in this way.
I also believe that the nature of Europe is rather different, as it is Graeco-Christian.
Aristotle was more successful in the West than Averroës was in the Islamic world.
In his work 'Politics', Aristotle explains that all democratic cities are culturally uniform and that uncontrolled immigration can destroy the city.
We should therefore heed this example.
As regards Muslims resident in Europe, they should be able to practise their religion with dignity and in private.
Yet on a public level, Islam has no place in Europe both for its sake - so that it can maintain its purity - and for our own.
Other schools of thought, with the best of intentions, may wish to see a demagogic mix of people, yet history has shown that such hopes are in vain.
This is why Averroës was more successful in the West than in the Islamic world.
We should face up to this and learn from this clear lesson.
Our colleague Mr Mohamed Alí has single-handedly delivered this report.
His own-initiative report was conceived two years ago and has just been born.
In my home town, on the border between the French and Belgian Hainaut regions, when a mother-to-be is late giving birth, we say she will give birth to a donkey.
In spite of the two-year pregnancy, I find the new-born report we have just seen to be rather underhand.
By introducing us to Abu-l Walid Muhammad ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd as Averroës, the rapporteur portrays him as a link between Islam and the Graeco-Roman civilisations. He is using a deceit to make a bitter pill easier to swallow.
I would like to emphasise three truths; firstly, religious matters do not come under the competences of this Parliament and so this report should never have been born.
Secondly, Averroës was rejected by Islam and severely criticised by Christian theologians.
And lastly, we cannot talk of tolerance when mosques are springing up at a rate of knots in Europe, but the same cannot be said of Christian churches in Islamic countries.
The 800th anniversary of the death of the visionary and philosopher Averroës would be an excellent chance to review links between the European Union, Islam and its Muslims, a subject often viewed with suspicion and incomprehension by both sides.
Averroës's modern and humanist thinking should lead us to question the place of Muslims in Europe, without any prior ideological misconceptions.
The sensible proposals put forward by our Committee on Culture should be carried out in each of the Member States.
These proposals will be much more efficient than the security-based obsession with fighting a small minority that refuses to combine religion and modernity.
However, I think it is a shame that such a small amount of space was given over to the concept of secularity in the report, as this would help us to overcome divisive feelings and would be a true exercise in tolerance.
I also hope that more relevant future actions will be undertaken which will allow us not only to avoid social deprivation becoming the territory of a few fundamentalist movements, but also to make it easier for non-practising Muslims and all those who practise Islam privately to become a full part of society. I would like to point out that more than half of these people are nationals of one of our Member States.
I agree with many of the proposals, but this is not a matter for the EU or the European Parliament.
The problems described must be dealt with in alternative ways. And this applies to other religions too.
We voted against the report drawn up by our colleague Mr Mohamed Alí on 'Islam and European Averroës Day'.
This was mainly out of respect for the principle of subsidiarity - it is up to each of our different Member States to consider the questions posed by the presence of Muslims in their particular country. We also voted against the report because history is different from one country to another and there are different understandings of integration and secularity.
Also, as regards paragraph 12, point C, it is not up to Member States to provide training for imams, even if the author of the report does describe this as 'vocational and academic scientific and professional training'. This is a rather odd and simplistic way of viewing it, and could even be deemed outrageous from an Islamic point of view.
The Muslim community itself is responsible for training imams and it must therefore distance itself from, and even turn down, imams sent by Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries.
After some heated discussions in the Committee on Culture on the distinction between secularism and secularity, our colleague did claim to respect secularity.
At the root of secularity are Christ's words from the gospel: ' Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's'.
I do not doubt the sincerity of this report, but I am sorry to point out that this only represents the author himself, who does not claim to represent other members of his faith in any way.
There is also a certain ambiguity in the explanatory statement, as the rapporteur sometimes makes claims for Islam on a purely cultural level and sometimes for Islam as a religion.
But is such a distinction possible when seen from the Koran's holistic perspective, a perspective which states that the Islamic faith is inseparable from a religious way of life? It is indeed a culture but it is also a body of political legislation, a family code and so on, and it is the duty of the faithful to live by these rules as soon as they have the means to do so.
We therefore cannot agree to several of the demands made by Mr Mohamed Alí. Nonetheless, there is one point in paragraph 11, point F which, if amended, does seem very interesting.
Averroës day would be the ideal opportunity to set up a 'Euro-Islamic' university in one of our European countries to address matters such as the relationship between faith, religion and politics, from the point of view of Judaism, Islam, Catholicism and other Christian faiths in comparison with, for example, secularity and freemasonry.
What is the relationship between philosophy and theology according to all these different points of view?
Such an initiative would be a way of honouring Averroës's memory, whose thinking was undeniably important for European philosophers but - and this does not bode well - his thinking was not as important for the Muslim world.
The 'Euro-Mediterranean partnership' is not only a fervent wish.
It is based on a historical reality which, regrettably, is still largely ignored.
The European West would still be a nonentity today if it had not been able to develop over many centuries as the protégé and 'poor relation' of the rich and civilised Orient.
This applies quite specifically to Islam too, without the culture, literature and philosophy of which neither the modern 'enlightened' Europe nor the Latin Middle Ages, in which some of the main social and intellectual seeds of the Enlightenment were sown, would never have come about.
Without the Jewish and Arab, Talmudic and Islamic reception of Aristotelian and other Antique philosophy, from which the leading Arab and Islamic philosophers developed key concepts such as the univocity of being (Avicenna/Ibn Sina) and the differentiation of truth (Averroës/Ibn Rashid), the world would never have experienced either the flowering of Scholasticism, the Renaissance, or the modern sciences with the sense of mission that was shaped for them by Bacon and Descartes.
The historically conditioned suppression within Western Europe in the early modern age of the decisive contribution made by the Islamic East to the constitution of both the Christian and the humanist West has now become, if it was not already so, an ideological shackle in the quest to understand reality and in cross-cultural dialogue.
We can therefore only support emphatically anything that will help to create the conditions for our overdue broad dialogue with the Islamic world: colloquia, universities, educational curricula, religious equality, commemoration days, etc.
Instead of continuing to pursue a mythical Christian definition of the European identity, we should finally open our eyes to reality - to the multi-religious and philosophically pluralist reality of our common history, the multicultural reality of our societies and the multi-centred reality of the vast Mediterranean region, the peaceful common development of which demands, among other things, robust and mutual cross-cultural understanding.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Customs Union with Turkey
The next item is the report (A4-0251/98) by Mr McMillan-Scott, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on developments in relations with Turkey since the entry into force of the Customs Union.
Madam President, during the debate in the European Parliament in the autumn of 1995 on Parliament's assent to the Customs Union with Turkey, the Commission undertook to submit an annual report to Parliament on the evolution of relations with Turkey.
That was to include consideration of the economic and political aspects - among them the democratic process and the human rights situation in Turkey.
The Commission forwarded its first report to Parliament on 30 October 1996, followed by a second report on 3 March 1998 and then the European strategy for Turkey in July of this year.
The Commission's reports were divided into five sections: functioning of the Customs Union; other aspects of implementation of the agreements; economic situation in Turkey; the political situation; and human rights.
In both reports the Commission gives a favourable assessment of the functioning of the Customs Union, remarking on positive aspects such as the setting up of a competition authority, the signing of free trade agreements with a number of Central and Eastern European countries, progress in harmonising tariffs, and so on.
Mention of course is made of the political difficulties within the EU in making operational the financial instruments agreed by the Council.
As far as the economic situation in Turkey is concerned, the Commission notes the strong growth achieved but, at the same time, points to the difficulties in sustaining that growth - Turkey's ability to control inflation, currently at about 100 %, its public deficit and other structural problems.
Some may consider the Commission's report unduly pessimistic.
In the political, diplomatic and human rights fields the Commission sees few signs of encouragement and little in the way of progress.
With regard to human rights, the public recognition by the authorities at the highest level of the need to tackle this serious issue is seen as a positive development.
The European Parliament voted in favour of the Customs Union in December 1995 despite considerable reservations in the light of the political situation in Turkey.
In so doing, Parliament wanted to stress the importance of this partner in the geopolitical context (Turkey is a NATO member, a WEU observer and a participant in the new Euro-Mediterranean partnership), and, at the same time, to register a gesture of confidence in the Turkish Government, to encourage it to pursue the anchorage of Turkey in the democratic values of Europe.
Parliament has also reached an agreement with the Commission that a joint working party of the two institutions will examine whether the MEDA programmes with Turkey are in accordance with its resolutions, particularly that of 15 September 1996.
Myself - along with Piet Dankert, who is co-chairman of the EC-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee - are members of this working party.
The economic effects of the Customs Union appear so far to have been substantially beneficial for the EU.
I am very grateful to the REX Committee and its rapporteur, Mr Schweiger, for its examination of this particular point.
It should also be remembered that the Luxembourg European Council, on 12 and 13 December, confirmed Turkey's eligibility for EU accession and stipulated that it would be judged on the same criteria as the other applicant states.
Turkey was also invited to take part at the European Conference on 12 March - confirmation that it would in future figure in the enlargement process.
However, we are disappointed at Turkey's failure to appear at that meeting.
The entry into force of the Customs Union is an essential stage on the road to Turkish accession.
Although Turkey does not at present meet the accession criteria, its eligibility to join the EU at some stage has never been in doubt. It has been confirmed on various occasions.
The Union's general objective must be to help Turkey overcome its problems and continue its integration into the EU.
The Association Agreement and the Customs Union Agreement form the basis for the establishment of ever closer political and economic ties.
As part of this process the EU must give special emphasis to the following points: firstly, moving Turkey towards full democratisation and safeguarding human rights; secondly, establishing good neighbourly relations between Greece and Turkey; thirdly, observing the principles of international law; and lastly, finding a solution to the Cyprus question.
Madam President, the excellent report by our colleague Mr McMillan-Scott on the development of relations with Turkey has aroused a great deal of interest in the Committee on Budgets. The committee has tried to improve the report slightly by proposing six amendments which we hope will be considered favourably by the House in the final vote.
I believe that the European Union has a duty to offer a helping hand to Turkey.
Does not the word 'Europe' come from the banks of the Bosporus, a place of magical exchange between East and West and also the birthplace, over twenty centuries ago, of modern day Athens and scene of the Trojan war? I would like to be able to say today, as Jean Giraudoux said, that 'the Trojan war will not take place' and that the efforts made over recent years by the Turkish authorities are enough for us to open the doors of the EU to Turkey.
However, there are still a few remaining obstacles which are included as amendments.
The Committee on Budgets first asks that we examine in more detail the budgetary impact of the implementation and strengthening of the Customs Union in relation to the EU's revenue.
We would then ask that, as part of the MEDA programme, the work of the working party on democracy and the protection of human rights should be taken into account, since Parliament attaches particular importance to it.
In the third amendment, the Committee on Budgets calls on the Council to notify Parliament of initiatives jointly undertaken with the Turkish authorities to unblock the adoption of the financial regulation on special aid for Turkey.
Amendment No 4 highlights Parliament's interest in Turkey's participation in the Youth for Europe, Leonardo and Socrates programmes.
Lastly, Amendments Nos 5 and 6 note the need to use the European Union's budget to consolidate the Customs Union, which was also highlighted by the Commission.
But the Committee on Budgets would like to take this opportunity to remind the House of the role of codecision in the annual budgetary procedure and therefore of the need for the committee's approval if funds are to be made available.
Madam President, Commissioner van den Broek, ladies and gentlemen, in all its reports and opinions concerning Turkey, the position of the Committee on External Economic Relations has been based on practice and actual problems.
Its motto has been 'Out with all-or-nothing postures and in with a gradual deepening of relations'.
What we are discussing today is not the question of Turkish membership but the consolidation of the achievements of the Customs Union and the implementation of the accompanying policies that have not yet been put into effect; these things need to be done in a spirit of partnership and equality between the two sides.
Every step taken by the European Union and Turkey, separately or together, to solve the problems relating to the Customs Union and to develop accompanying policies injects fresh impetus into political cooperation and brings eventual Turkish membership a little closer.
It is therefore particularly gratifying that, in its memorandum of 23 July 1998, the Turkish Government responds to the proposals of the Commission and Parliament, abandons the path of confrontation with the European Union and returns to the step-by-step approach as formulated in Cardiff by our side, by the European Council.
We in the Committee on External Economic Relations support most of these proposals, such as the intensification of dialogue on the liberalisation of capital movements and the coordination of economic policies in general, as well as closer cooperation in the agricultural sector.
We are also gratified to note that the Turkish side is favourably disposed to our proposals on the opening-up of the market in services and calls for a relatively high consistent level of integration in the framework of the association agreement.
Initial steps towards this goal are a technical study and negotiations on the mutual recognition of diplomas and certificates.
The flexibility of the Turkish side on freedom of movement for Turkish workers in the European Union must also be welcomed.
However, the Committee on External Economic Relations also calls on the European Union and Parliament to remove obstacles and prior conditions where they still exist and to ensure that the accompanying measures provided for in the agreement on customs union are adopted at long last.
As Mr Giansily said, and as was also expressed in Mr McMillanScott's excellent report, we should let Turkey enjoy the benefits of the Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes as soon as possible so that it can work with us on these programmes, since they help to strengthen pluralist society and consolidate democracy.
The regulation on special financial aid for Turkey should also be released from the Greek veto as soon as possible and enter into force.
Here too the Commission bears particular responsibility in the search for a means of finally ending this blockage.
The same applies to Turkish participation in the tourist-related Interreg, Leader and Philoxena programmes, the specific conditions of which remain to be negotiated.
There is also a need for small and medium-sized businesses to be promoted through the extension to Turkey of the third multiannual programme.
The same applies to the Euro-Info Centres, PC Net, Europartenariat and Enterprise.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in contrast to the previous speaker, whose task on behalf of his committee was to highlight the economic aspects of cooperation within the Customs Union, the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has to examine the Customs Union from a different perspective, namely in terms of the human rights situation and the development of democracy in Turkey.
In his extremely interesting report, Mr McMillan-Scott addressed a number of such points, on which I should like to reiterate three fundamental observations that played a significant part in the debate on the Customs Union back in 1995.
In a two-stage process, the European Parliament held two debates in the spring and in the winter of that year to pave the way for its decision.
These debates were invariably dominated by three points.
Firstly, the intensification and advancement of democracy in Turkey is an indispensable condition for the development of the Customs Union into an instrument of ever closer cooperation.
Secondly, as a regional power, Turkey also has an obligation to proceed on the principle of peaceful resolution of external and internal conflicts and to be active in search of solutions.
Thirdly, as a partner of the European Union, Turkey must ensure that human rights are fully protected and defended by the Turkish State within its territory.
How do things look in practice? In practice, it looks as though some progress towards democratisation may have been made here and there.
The external and internal military conflicts remain unresolved.
On the human rights issue, although the freely elected government is trying hard - I certainly will not dispute that - it cannot be said that human rights are fully protected by the authorities in Turkey.
On the contrary, in some cases the authorities are still the instigators of human rights abuses.
That is why our committee does not believe that the circumstances we criticised in 1995 have altered very much in the intervening period, a view I can substantiate by reference to the Kurdistan conflict, the situation in the Aegean and the cases of torture that still persist.
Nevertheless, I do not wish to deny that Turkey has made progress, and we can only appeal to the politicians in Turkey to keep trying to achieve still higher levels of compliance with the criteria I have enumerated.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman for the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I would like to join Mr Schulz in expressing my general satisfaction with the excellent report drawn up by our colleague Mr McMillanScott.
As far as general principles are concerned, there are three elements in this report which we believe should form the basis for relations between the European Union and Turkey.
The first guiding principle should be that of non-discrimination.
Mr McMillan Scott quite rightly reminds us that Turkey should not be treated any more harshly than any other candidate country.
Any request for membership should be examined solely on the basis of respect for the Copenhagen criteria.
The second principle is not being too lenient.
We must not turn a blind eye to serious violations of human rights because Turkey is an ally, or because it is in a strategically important position, or because the majority of Turkish leaders are constantly announcing their desire to join the EU. Nor should we turn a blind eye to the lack of respect shown for minorities, the constant use of violence, or the temptation to resort to violence to solve problems with neighbouring countries.
This application for accession is a demand for quality.
It should not be considered as a safe conduct to do as they please, and nor is it a passport for impunity.
The third principle is to reject a policy of isolation.
The European Union will not make a worthwhile contribution to development and democracy by isolating Turkey.
It is in the interests of development and democracy that Mr McMillanScott's report suggests holding planned ministerial meetings, fully honouring all aspects of the Customs Union and developing aid for Turkish civil society.
On behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties in particular, I would like to express my pleasure at finding two requests in this report which match our priorities and which have already been pointed out by other speakers: the enlargement of the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes and the need for the Turkish Government to cooperate fully and actively with the European Union in the fight against organised crime and drug trafficking.
Before giving the floor to Mr van den Broek, I would inform the House that he unfortunately has to leave us after his speech for pressing reasons connected with the situation in Russia.
I would make it clear that Mr Monti will take over from him immediately.
My thanks to Mr McMillan-Scott and his colleagues Messrs Giansily, Schwaiger, Schulz and Deprez for their contributions to the debate and for Mr McMillan-Scott's report which I read with great interest.
More generally, I am grateful to him for his efforts to move forward our often rather complicated relations with Turkey, both as rapporteur and above all as a member of the European Parliament's contact group or Joint Working Party.
The conclusions of this report of Mr McMillan-Scott's broadly square with the Commission's own findings.
We share your view that generally speaking the Customs Union is working satisfactorily, despite a very considerable trade surplus in the European Union's favour.
At the same time, we note that progress has not been good enough in the areas of democratic reform and human rights, though I am happy to agree with Mr Schulz that there are signs of improvement here and there.
You rightly pointed to the importance of not isolating Turkey.
I think we have a duty to remain actively involved in developments in Turkey.
Using the means open to us and the MEDA programme on democracy, we must cooperate with nongovernmental organisations and give support wherever possible to positive and democratic forces in Turkey, with a view to consolidating civil society as a basis for stable, democratic developments in that country in future.
Turkish participation in student and teacher exchanges under the Socrates, Leonardo and 'Youth for Europe' programmes can make a very positive contribution here.
I am happy to echo Mr Schwaiger in saying that.
And I hope Parliament will be quick to support the Commission's proposal on that.
The European Parliament has always followed the progress of relations with Turkey very attentively and has played a very prominent part in them.
Through the Joint Working Party you are kept informed of what the Commission is doing under the MEDA programme.
Cooperation in this group is certainly working satisfactorily at present, we believe.
So far the Commission has accepted virtually all the European Parliament's opinions on project proposals.
So I honestly see no virtue in proposals to change the operation of this group even though in essence it is, I have to agree, an institutional anomaly.
Your report urges the Commission to submit an annual report on the functioning of the Customs Union to the European Parliament in advance of the budgetary procedure, before the end of October.
I promise you that the Commission will make every effort to get the report out as swiftly as possible.
But I should add that there may always be reasons for delaying publication, as you will recall from last year when the intensive discussions with the Turkish authorities, prior to the European Council in Luxembourg, warranted delaying the publication of that report.
And this discussion continued in Cardiff, as you will remember, where the conclusions of the European summit expressly reaffirmed Turkey's eligibility for membership of the Union.
As you know Turkey did not - much to our regret - take part in the first European Conference in March 1998 and also decided at the very last moment not to attend the proposed Association Council meeting in May.
And Turkey's decision following the European Council meeting in Luxembourg to break off political dialogue with the European Union in areas we regard as very important, namely Cyprus, Greek-Turkish relations and issues of human rights and democracy, naturally did little to move forward our relations in general.
I am convinced, Madam President, that the European strategy for Turkey which the Commission adopted in March and which received the blessing of the Heads of State and Government in Cardiff points the way towards a deepening of ties between the European Union and Turkey.
Turkey herself reacted positively to this document and the two sides will shortly be consulting on a programme and timetable for implementation of this strategy.
I hope that Turkey, in tandem with the deepening of the relations between us based on the Ankara Agreement of 1963, the Customs Union and the European strategy, will come to the realisation that she has everything to gain from reopening the political dialogue.
Cardiff reaffirmed that Turkey's future lies in Europe.
It was also decided that an annual progress report would be compiled for Turkey and for the ten countries in Central and Eastern Europe, plus Cyprus.
It was stated in Cardiff that this report had to be based on Article 28 of the 1963 Ankara Agreement and on the conclusions of the European Council meeting in Luxembourg. This report is no different, in terms of its approach, from the reports for the other countries.
I think it is in Turkey's interest to take part in the second European Conference scheduled for 5 October, given that issues of mutual concern will be discussed there.
But I understand, if the rumours are correct, that Turkey is not at present intending to take part in this meeting on 5 October.
As you know, the Commission made it clear in its document on a European strategy for Turkey that certain proposals could not be implemented without appropriate financial aid.
The Member States also acknowledged that in Cardiff.
Thus the Commission is currently, also at the request of the Heads of Government, studying the various ways and means of putting a proposal to the Council accordingly and it goes without saying that the European Parliament too will play an important part in that process.
To conclude, Madam President, I believe the European Union has made considerable efforts to get relations with Turkey back on track.
Madam President, we are delighted that at long last we have received the McMillan-Scott report in plenary.
It is a very important report that gives us the opportunity not only to look at the operation of the Customs Union but to give some preliminary reflections on the future direction of relations with Turkey, in anticipation of Mr Swodoba's report which hopefully we will have before the end of the year.
It also gives us a very important opportunity to stress once again in public to Turkey that as far as we are concerned: they are a strategically important country; we recognise their European vocation; and they will be treated exactly the same as other countries which seek to join in the European Union in terms of applying the Copenhagen criteria.
It is clearly important that we keep stating and restating that case.
Having said that, we should always bear in mind that Turkey is essentially an agrarian society rapidly transforming itself into an industrial society.
Many of the economic, political and social problems that we identify stem from that single fact.
Clearly part of our job is to aid that transformation to an industrial society and aid the transformation to a modern democratic, pluralistic society.
The Customs Union is part of the strategy which, as Commissioner van den Broek has indicated, the European Community has been pursuing since 1963.
Notwithstanding what Mr McMillan-Scott said about the asymmetrical nature of the Customs Union benefitting us more than it has benefitted Turkey, that position is definitely beginning to change gradually.
One of the effects of Customs Union is to encourage the business community and greater entrepreneurial activity.
That is the area we should be concentrating on in the development of the Customs Union; encouraging more entrepreneurial activity, more activity with the business community, more activity with the free and democratic trade unions.
We also need to improve administrative and professional standards in Turkey which are frequently woefully inadequate.
We must focus on that and indeed encourage the development of better academic and professional standards through exchanges and interrelations with academia in the European Union.
I am also told that one of the problems we have in Turkey is that there is often very poor quality of translation into Turkish from European Union languages, which leads to misunderstandings about standards.
Again, we could be working on those areas.
That is not to say we should ignore the areas which have been outlined by Commissioner van den Broek and Mr McMillanScott.
We still have to state constantly and categorically our concern for human rights and democracy in Turkey.
We also have to make it clear that Turkey has to recognise the right of Cyprus to negotiate to join the European Union if we are to develop relations.
Finally, I urge us to work with the media, work with politicians who are looking to liberalise Turkey and work with lawyers and members of the judiciary to improve standards in Turkey as a means of developing greater political dialogue.
Madam President, it is most unfortunate for the European Union and for the Turkish people that the leadership in Ankara and their lackeys in the occupied parts of Cyprus have no intention of complying with the basic principles of international law, or indeed with the rationale of pragmatism.
It will soon be a year since the Luxembourg decision which defined very clearly the conditions that would allow Turkey to extend its association with Europe and improve its prospects of accession.
Ankara's reactions during that time have been through every manifestation of unreasonableness: anger to begin with, indignation, abuse, threats, and an astonishing disregard for Europe's fundamental principles.
More particularly, against its neighbour Greece which, let it be noted, out of all 15 of our countries would be the one which stood to gain most satisfaction and benefit from Turkey's approach to the European family, Turkey escalated its harassments in the Aegean, which could have led to the outbreak of war, escalated its disputes affecting Greece's territorial integrity, and sabotaged every attempt to begin a constructive dialogue.
And top Turkish leaders were brought into the part of Cyprus still under military occupation, to direct its incorporation into Turkey if Europe's declared policy on the accession of that independent republic were brought to a successful conclusion.
Now, in the face of the impasse brought about by this intransigence, which has been confirmed by every envoy sent by Europe and America, Mr Denktash has set off like a firework the idea that he is disposed to negotiate a confederal solution, believing that some people might be naive enough to think that he has softened his attitude.
In reality, he is proposing to consign the successive UNO decisions to the dustbin, to reward the Turkish invasion and to perpetuate the 24-year tragedy of Cyprus.
Only if the European Union stands firm will any Turkish leadership see reason and open the way towards the closest and most effective possible cooperation, to the benefit of both Europe and the Turkish people.
Madam President, my thanks to the Commission for its reports on the operation of the Customs Union and, it goes without saying, to Mr McMillan-Scott too for his very readable and interesting document.
I expected nothing less from him.
The Commission's reports give us every opportunity to trace the pattern of developments in Turkey.
There is every reason why we should, because after all these years relations between the Union and Turkey have got considerably worse.
The Turkish Government's refusal to take part in the European Conference and Turkey's action in breaking off the political dialogue with the Union are bad and regrettable developments. Commissioner van den Broek was right in identifying them as such.
The Union's position is plain.
Turkey is treated just like all other applicants, very simply, on the basis of criteria, the Copenhagen criteria.
Turkey is and remains a candidate for membership.
But she does not meet the criteria which have been set. It is entirely up to her: if she changes things, the situation can be reviewed.
Meanwhile we have to work with the instruments we have to keep relations with Turkey on a good footing.
Happily, the Customs Union is working well.
The Commission is quite properly looking to see if ties can be consolidated in other areas too.
The impasse over the MEDA funds and the financial protocols is a cause for concern, but we hope that creative thinking on Europe's part and moves towards democracy on Turkey's part will lead us out of the impasse.
The Customs Union was not only about free markets, but also about European aid to Turkey.
Europe is willing to help.
All the Turkish Government has to do now is to act on its word - its word of March 1995.
We are still waiting for an improvement on human rights.
We are still waiting for a change in Turkey's position on the Kurds.
We are still waiting for a breakthrough on Cyprus.
Instead of a willingness to compromise, Turkey is showing rather the opposite, with a process of gradual but at least verbal annexation.
I urge the Turkish Government to resume its dialogue with the Union.
Only through talking can we find common ground.
Only then can we survive together.
Only then can we find solutions to the problems we share.
Only then can we make progress along the road to Turkey's accession.
Madam President, in his report Mr McMillan-Scott sets out all the problems which tarnish relations between the European Union and Turkey, and attempts with his well-founded comments to indicate, mainly to Turkey, the path it should follow if such debates are to become unnecessary in the future.
The problems are familiar and have often been explained.
In December 1995, the European Parliament gave the green light to the agreement on a Customs Union with Turkey, but it laid down specific prerequisites concerning human rights, which are constantly being violated, the Kurdish problem, and the more general issue of relations between Turkey and Greece - a Member State of the European Union - and the situation in Cyprus.
The Commission is still responsible for strict monitoring of the situation and for keeping Parliament informed well in time before the next year's budget is considered, and it is encouraging that Commissioner van den Broek promised to do this a little while ago.
The rapporteur stressed all this and also explained that any harsh statements he made apply to those in power in a Turkey under military control and not to the Turkish people, who have themselves had much to put up with.
Unfortunately, however, as we all know, nothing has changed in Turkey since the Customs Union.
Human rights violations have intensified and threats outside Turkey have multiplied.
On the other hand, in the West there are many who speak in favour of Realpolitik .
Europe, they say, has major economic and strategic interests in Turkey, so large, it seems, that it often sets aside some of its principles to accommodate them. But the question remains: what is to be done?
Mr McMillan-Scott's proposals are very interesting.
The idea is not to isolate Turkey, but to make it understand that Europe has set certain terms and that it insists absolutely on them.
Most of the measures proposed by the rapporteur go in the right direction, and so do the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets, which Mr Giansily referred to earlier and which we should support.
Madam President, I feel that at this stage, we need to ask ourselves two basic questions.
Firstly, how has the situation in Turkey developed since December 1995? Secondly, how far has the entry into force of the Customs Union, approved by this Parliament at that time, influenced developments?
I believe that the answers to both questions are fairly obvious, but also disheartening.
No positive developments have taken place in Turkish political life.
There has been no progress concerning democratic principles nor in respect for human rights.
Turkey is failing to observe international law and to control its dirty war against the Kurdish people.
In this sense, we did not send out the right message when we approved the Customs Union in December 1995.
The authorities in Ankara were not encouraged to move forward, to restructure and modernise the State, and start to transform Turkey into a fully democratic state, subject to the rule of law.
On the contrary, the effects of the message were patently harmful.
However, a few months ago, in Luxemburg, the European Council returned to the position of requiring exactly the same from Turkey as it does from all other countries, exactly the same as is required from any individual.
We have to be in favour of a relationship on equal terms between the European Union and Turkey. This relationship must be shown to be open and of mutual benefit, whilst contributing to the development of the country.
Anything else would be a mistake.
There is a great deal of truth in Mr McMillan-Scott's report, although it is, in my view, too weak.
Perhaps, on the occasion of the award of this year's Sakharov Prize - I understand that Mr Birdal has been nominated - Parliament will be able to send out the right message.
Madam President, I am especially pleased to see Commissioner Monti here with us today, but no national parliament would tolerate the minister responsible leaving the chamber during the debate.
Anyway, now to the matter in hand.
It is somewhat surprising to hear from the Commission or read in the Commission's dossier that more than two years on from the introduction of the Customs Union between the European Union and Turkey, that Customs Union is working satisfactorily.
Particularly of late, relations between the Union and Turkey have never been more tense. We have been on the very brink of a crisis.
I think we should be worried, ladies and gentlemen, that since the introduction of the Customs Union the economic benefits have been so unilaterally in the Union's favour, with so little benefit to Turkey.
I know there has been a slight improvement, but unless the balance is redressed properly in the near future this will naturally be perceived in Turkey as a very bad thing.
I well recall hearing a majority view during the debate here in the European Parliament that this Customs Union ought to benefit to both sides.
In economic terms at least, our finding is that this is not yet altogether the case.
Nor has this Union brought much by way of the hoped-for improvements in human rights, protection of minorities and so on.
But I very much feel that the prospect of membership should remain open, though that does not mean we can scale down the demands we have to impose by way of political criteria.
But I would like to make the point that the argument of non-discrimination, so clearly adduced here by everybody, would have carried greater weight if the European Union had taken a tougher line on Slovakia, since the Commission document clearly states that Slovakia does not meet the political criteria either.
Lastly, I hope that in the interests of the Union and the Turkish people, relations within the framework of the Customs Union will help to foster prosperity and democracy in both areas.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if the European Union was as it should be, we would not be here today debating the Customs Union with Turkey.
And the reason for this is very simple; Europe should be European and Turkey is not European.
Whatever the advantages, respect or friendship we can offer to this large country, the truth is that it does not share our common European civilisation.
Turkey is not similar to Europe, neither geographically, historically, culturally nor religiously.
And although for geopolitical reasons, stronger relations between the Europe and Turkey may seem an attractive prospect, to bring these relations into the EU's structures and to talk of possible membership is preposterous.
Yet the fact that we are indeed doing this shows how dangerous the current idea of Europe is, since it misjudges our identity completely in order to concentrate on purely commercial needs.
Worse still, on a purely economic level, all the indications are that bringing Turkey further into the EU will damage our productive apparatus because of major structural differences between Turkey and Europe, in particular the low labour costs in Turkey.
And this is without mentioning the fact that Turkish immigration in western Europe is destabilising the social balance of our nations.
Consequently, it is rather surprising to see the European Union consistently easing the conditions it claims to impose before granting aid. It is an appalling situation for the Union to be in, almost begging for greater cooperation with Turkey.
For our part, the National Front does not approve of the Customs Union and we refuse to accept Turkey's membership of the Union, whilst maintaining friendly relations, as such a policy is against the essence and the interests of Europe.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are examining the success or failure of the Customs Union with Turkey.
I should like to congratulate Mr McMillan-Scott on his report and to thank him for our close cooperation.
Since I am to present the next report to the House, this cooperation was very important to me.
As far as economic success is concerned, there is every reason to conclude today that, as Mr Titley has already said, after an initial phase of disequilibrium, a balance is gradually being established in economic relations between Turkey and the European Union.
To that extent the Customs Union can certainly be termed a success.
In social terms it is also possible to speak of success, in so far as those elements in Turkish society with an interest in a Western-style democratic republic have been strengthened.
I refer primarily to the entrepreneurs, employers' associations and trade unions, who can now cite the benefits of Customs Union to back up their call for a modern Turkey, for a country organised in accordance with the rule of law.
From a political point of view, however, I sadly have to note that progress on the way to parliamentary democracy, respect for human rights and the will to resolve the internal and external political problems and conflicts in a peaceful manner are not as much in evidence as we would wish.
For that reason, let me appeal most earnestly to the Turkish Government to remember that it not only needs good economic relations with the European Union, that it not only needs to develop democracy in Turkey but that it also needs to live in a peaceful environment if it is serious about joining the European Union.
I should like to stress once again that Turkey certainly has the potential to accede to the European Union and must be equipped to do so.
We shall assess Turkey against the same criteria, the Copenhagen criteria, which we apply to all the other candidate countries.
But Turkey should also make greater use of the existing Customs Union in order to carve out its own path towards the European Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a fact that relations between the European Union and Turkey have deteriorated over the past few months.
There are many different reasons for that, and we need not discuss them all today.
What is clear, however, is that Turkey has contributed to this worsening of relations through the defiant attitude it adopted after the Luxembourg summit.
Our concern - and the purpose of Mr McMillan-Scott's report, to which I add my support - is to find a new beginning.
Now that our colleagues have given us all these economic data on the Customs Union, it is time to make political progress, and there are some questions here for the European Union to answer.
For example, there is the question why we have not yet put the financial part of the Customs Union into effect after all this time.
Why have we failed to provide ECU 30 million to train customs personnel and to equip the customs services when there are Turkish customs posts at the external border of the European Union? Is this the proper way to proceed?
We have this coordination between the Commission and Parliament under the MEDA programme, and rightly so, but if we want to put our relations with Turkey on a sound footing again, we must face up to our own responsibilities.
That is why our group seeks a new beginning.
Despite the lack of progress on human rights and democracy, we want the Customs Union to be implemented in a balanced manner and we do not want to block its financial resources any longer.
We have tabled some amendments to this end, and I hope that the amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgets pursue the same objective, because at the end of the day how can we make it clear that Turkish accession is possible in the distant future if we cannot honour our own obligations pursuant to a valid international agreement?
That is why I argue that, despite all the problems we have with Turkey on human rights problems, the issue of the Kurds or relations with Greece, it is high time we fulfilled our obligations and thereby created a new basis for EU-Turkish relations.
Madam President, the McMillan-Scott report provides a basis, it contains a few ambiguities, but I believe that with the amendments it will turn out to be a good resolution.
As for Turkey, the issue must be made clear.
The problem is not that Turkey is an Islamic country, nor that much of it extends into Asia, nor that it has a large population, nor that it has underdeveloped zones.
Like any other European country, Turkey indeed has a right to become a member of the European Union, but it also has corresponding obligations.
Those obligations have been clearly stated with a view to justifying the Customs Union: the Cyprus and Kurdish problems, human rights, and relations with its neighbours.
But it has taken not a single step towards meeting those obligations, and that is why both the Turkish Government itself and the European Union's bodies are in an exposed position.
I think we must insist, we must say that the doors are open and that the ball is now in Turkey's court.
Especially today, we must lend weight to two issues and I call on the Commission and the Council to mobilise their efforts towards them and abandon their inertia.
One concerns the fact that with the presence of Turkey's Minister for Foreign Affairs the Denktash regime has rejected the UN basis for a solution to the Cyprus problem, in other words a federal two-zone entity, and is talking about a confederation and separate states.
The other is that Turkey must take steps to withdraw its forces so that more general demilitarisation can take place on the island.
Madam President, we expressed the view on 15 December 1995 that the vote on the Customs Union with Turkey could be nothing other than an act of political flexibility in recognition of that country's key strategic role, given the upsurge in intolerable and highly dangerous religious extremism affecting a number of Turkey's neighbouring states.
At the same time, we demanded a strong reminder of the need to respect human and political rights, above all those of ethnic minorities, first and foremost the Kurdish people.
Since then we have kept a careful eye on the delicate shifts in Turkey's domestic political situation: the formation of the 55th government and the Constitutional Court's decision to dissolve the Islamic party; the constitutional situation, including most recently the new law on police custody, while the irregular role of the army in society remains a cause for concern; the human rights situation - the Commission has provided a good deal of useful assistance to NGOs in this field - in particular the Kurdish question, the deterioration of which has caused the exodus that has brought thousands of Kurds to EU countries, Italy in particular, in search of refuge and a future.
Here we would reiterate the advisability of an exclusively political solution, in parallel with the one for Cyprus, as was agreed at the Edinburgh summit which - in point of fact - dissociated the start of accession negotiations from the peace process.
On 29 April 1997, the Union confirmed to the Association Council that Turkey was eligible to join the EU, stipulating that it would be judged on the same criteria as the other applicant states.
The same view emerged at the Luxembourg European Council.
Therefore, although the Commission's report points out that there has been little progress concerning human rights and democratisation in Turkey, Europe is still of the opinion that Turkish accession is a useful and sensible aim; the Customs Union was a significant step in this direction.
The Alleanza Nazionale intends to vote in favour of the McMillan-Scott report. We share in particular its assessment of the importance of the democratisation process and the safeguarding of human rights - including those of the Kurds - as well as the aim of establishing good neighbourly relations between Turkey and Greece, partly through a settlement of the Cyprus question.
Finally, Alleanza Nazionale endorses the proposal to open up Community programmes to Turkish youngsters, and calls on the Commission to appeal strongly to the Turkish authorities to step up their efforts to combat drug trafficking.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Roubatis, who is a member of the Committee on External Relations and cannot be here today.
I read Mr McMillan-Scott's report very carefully and I must say I find it very good.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and assure him of my support.
I also noted the amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets, and I hope they will be adopted because I believe they correctly express the call for a closer analysis of the financial consequences of Customs Union and for Parliament to be informed about any political initiatives undertaken by the Council together with the Turkish authorities.
I would also like to remind the House that when it approved the Customs Union on 13 December 1995, it specified a series of conditions such as compliance with international law, democratic functioning and the protection of human rights.
The consequence of non-compliance with those conditions is that Parliament should not be disposed to approve the items necessary for operation of the parallel financing protocol, as Mr McMillan-Scott rightly stresses in paragraph 8 of the resolution.
In many of its resolutions since 13 December 1995, the European Parliament has expressed its dissatisfaction with the meeting of those conditions.
There is no need to go into all that again.
The facts are known.
There is aggressiveness towards my country, the Cyprus problem is worse, there are violations of religious freedom in Turkey itself and, of course, the decision by the European Court of Human Rights on compensation for those who lost their fortunes and on their reestablishment in northern Cyprus was rejected.
That is a slap in the face for Europe's bodies and of course makes it impossible to see Turkey in a good light.
Madam President, I will end by saying that I both know what Turkey must do to become a member of the European Union, and assure you that I wish for it.
What it must do is what was done by a former province of the Turkish State, namely Greece.
It achieved a substantive change-over to democracy, which Turkey has not accomplished.
And until it does, I fear that it cannot possibly become a member of the European Union.
Madam President, when we discuss the question of the Customs Union with Turkey, we are dealing with an extremely sensitive subject.
The strategic aspects of this will be discussed in relation to Mr Swoboda's report later on, so I would simply like to make three comments.
The first observation is that when discussing relations with Turkey - beyond the question of the help we are now providing - we should ask what more we could do to reinforce democratic structures in Turkey, particularly by developing sectors such as energy, the environment, vocational education and administrative reform.
This is indeed what our rapporteur said, and he is quite right.
In order to do this, it is perhaps worth considering how financial aid to Turkey is managed and possibly unblocking certain budget lines.
My second comment is related to the MEDA programme. I believe that this should be fully implemented, as the rapporteur suggests, including those aspects of the MEDA programme which enhance democracy.
The third comment concerns our working party.
It is a unique institution that was set up for cooperation with the Commission.
But I do wonder what the future of this party ought to be.
I believe that an interim assessment of how the working party operates should be carried out and the possibility of it being institutionalised should also be discussed.
Madam President, when the European Parliament voted for the agreement on a Customs Union with Turkey, it was with great misgivings.
Parliament nevertheless voted in favour, in order to show confidence in Turkey.
What has Turkey given in return for this confidence? The answer is ready to hand.
Very little.
Let me give a few examples: arbitrary arrests, critics of the system who suddenly disappear, prisoners dying in political detention, laws which set aside the personal rights of ordinary people for up to three years, 6000 Kurds murdered in 1997 alone, prisoners of conscience like former Member of Parliament Leyla Zana, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison without evidence.
Until critics of the system like Leyla Zana and Celim Sadak are released, Turkey will fall far short of the EU's standards for a state governed by the rule of law.
If Turkey is still serious about membership, it needs to make many and radical changes, and it must do so right away.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, almost three years ago this Parliament assented to the Customs Union with Turkey.
Before I deal with that, may I thank Mr McMillan-Scott for the excellent work he has done in producing his report.
I can fully endorse its contents.
Let me take you back to the time when we took that difficult decision.
We took it because we wanted to give Turkey a tangible token of our trust.
At the same time as we gave our assent, we expressed four expectations.
Some Members have already referred to these, but I should like to list them again: progress on human rights, progress in democratisation, a constructive contribution to the solution of the Cyprus problem and a peaceful resolution of the conflict with the Kurds.
I can see today that our 1995 decision was based on a twofold error of judgement. We made the mistake of putting faith in the promises made by Mrs Çiller, and the Turkish Grand National Assembly made the mistake of doubting the seriousness of our intent.
I also note that the situation in Turkey has not improved in any of those four respects and indeed has deteriorated dramatically in some areas, for example in relation to Cyprus and the Kurds.
Let me categorically express my regret that relations between the EU and Turkey have reached this new low, because I was one of those who consented to the Customs Union at that time in the hope of bringing Turkey closer to the EU and offering her a chance of future accession.
Every day the policies pursued by the Turkish Government erode our hopes and undermine our quest for rapprochement.
There is little point in our trying - perhaps slowly but none the less steadily - to draw closer to Turkey if she is going to drift faster in the opposite direction towards an uncharted and risky future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Situation in Kosovo
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
Madam President, very briefly: we have the statements by the Council and the Commission about Kosovo, but because a coup is under way - things in Albania have not quite been settled - and because Albanian issues are related to those in Kosovo, I think this would be a suitable opportunity - today, and not tomorrow when it might be too late - for the Council and the Commission to express their position on events in Albania and their support for the legitimate democratic government of Albania.
Indeed so, Mr Alavanos.
- Madam President, I would like to say that the coup d'état took place over one and a half years ago, cloaked in the scandal which we are now aware of, and so it is not linked to last week's events.
What took place last week is the logical outcome of what has happened in the past.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will be dealing with all this when you come to speak, and I do not think that these are points of order.
I should like to welcome Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
I shall give her the floor in a moment.
Mr van den Broek is still detained elsewhere, but I would remind you that the Commission is a collegiate body and that Mr Monti is here with us.
He is perfectly competent to listen to our debate and Mr van den Broek will be rejoining us as soon as possible.
) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Kosovo conflict still constitutes an extremely long-term threat to European security and stability interests.
This conflict had been smouldering for years.
Again and again it was pointed out that it could explode.
Unfortunately, as it turns out, the international community's efforts here have proved inadequate.
After President Milosevic failed to respond to the peaceful policy of the Kosovo Albanians under Ibrahim Rugova for seven years, the province found itself in a kind of apartheid situation with the abolition of its autonomy and the Kosovars turned radical.
The assassinations by the KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army, provoked violent retribution on the part of the Serb security forces.
The situation today is alarming. There are now between 250 000 and 300 000 refugees and displaced persons.
Fifty to seventy thousand of them sleep out in the open in the forests and hills.
New refugees join them almost daily. Some people have cautiously returned to their villages and towns in recent days and weeks, but they are heavily outnumbered by those forced to abandon their houses and villages by Serb police and military action.
As I am sure you know, the approach of winter will unleash a humanitarian disaster unless the situation improves soon.
Those most at risk are of course the most vulnerable population groups, babies, children, women, the old and the sick.
It is quite plain that the Yugoslav Government is chiefly to blame for the large number of refugees and displaced persons.
The Serb and Yugoslav authorities keep repeating that they are merely defending themselves against terrorists and separatists, and that the military offensive, which has in fact continued unabated since late July, is simply a response to KLA raids and attacks.
That may be so, but anyone who has been to Kosovo recently knows that the military and police actions against the civilian population can only be described as disproportionate.
When you see the shelled houses, destroyed villages, burnt-down farms and schools, when you see the wheat fields casually set alight and the slaughtered cattle, it becomes clear that the reaction of the Serb police and the Yugoslav army to KLA attacks is excessive and indefensible.
Of course the KLA also bears heavy responsibility for the deteriorating security situation.
But we must keep a sense of proportion.
There are now 35 000 Yugoslav soldiers in Kosovo, supported by 20 000 Serb police and the notorious paramilitary troops of Seselj and Arkan.
These troops have heavy-calibre machine guns, tanks and artillery, which they indeed use.
The KLA, on the other hand, seems to consist of a core group of between 500 and 800 regular troops, plus several thousand, perhaps even tens of thousands of volunteers.
They may not always be fully organised but they are certainly prepared to use their weapons to defend what they consider worth defending, be it the ideal of an independent Kosovo or simply the safety of their village or family.
These figures show that neither side can achieve a military victory in this conflict.
That is a fact that the EU presidency is constantly trying to impress on both sides.
But unfortunately they both seem to be convinced that they can achieve their aims on the battlefield, the Serbs by the military destruction of the KLA, the Kosovo Albanians by waging a lengthy guerrilla war.
This bloodshed must be brought to a stop as soon as possible!
Clearly, a political solution is the only viable way.
There are three priority aims here. First, the Serb-Yugoslav offensive must stop and a ceasefire must be observed, informally at least.
Secondly, the humanitarian situation must be improved rapidly and radically.
Only when these two conditions have been satisfied can the third priority be achieved, namely the start of meaningful negotiations.
The EU presidency has taken a number of measures to bring the military action to a halt, ranging from calls for moderation to various economic sanctions.
But since both sides still seem to believe in a military solution, these endeavours have not so far proved successful.
Of course, military intervention by the international community could change the situation.
But that is not within the European Union's remit.
Moreover, most EU states are convinced that any military intervention would have to be authorised by the UN Security Council, and this is not the case, for the time being at least.
It would not be realistic to count on a UN resolution to this effect in the foreseeable future because of the balance of powers and interests in the Security Council.
I turn now to the second priority, the humanitarian situation.
Given the increasingly intolerable state of affairs here, the European Union is trying to step up its humanitarian activity.
Following an initiative by foreign ministers Mr Kinkel and Mr Védrine, the presidency has set up working parties in Belgrade and in Geneva made up of interested EU states, Russia, the UNHCR, the IRCC and the ECMM and KDOM observer missions.
Their aim is to take concerted and locally determined action to identify villages and areas to which the refugees now living in the open can return, in safety and dignity.
That would make it much easier to provide humanitarian aid.
The main obstacle to their return, apart from the mass destruction of housing as a result of Serb military action, is their fear of further persecution.
Incidents such as those in Orahovac, where the police took away returning Kosovars - especially males fit for national service - for so-called interviews and searched the houses to which they had returned, do not exactly encourage the inhabitants to come back.
The first priority, therefore, is for returning Kosovars to feel it is safe to come back; but only the Serb security forces themselves can ensure that.
The European Union and its partners can play a part here, if their observer missions carry out frequent patrols in the areas concerned, to convey the sense that there is some form of international monitoring.
The purpose of the Geneva and Belgrade working parties is, therefore, to identify localities suitable for projects of this kind that will encourage the inhabitants to return.
At present we have four such local projects: in Klina, Urosevac, Orahovac and Djakovica.
But this initiative is hindered by the constant clashes in these areas too.
If, as I said, the fighting comes to an end at some point and a substantial number of refugees can return, then political negotiations could begin between the conflicting parties on the future status of Kosovo.
The European Union has joined in the efforts of the international community from the outset.
Via a number of Member States and the current presidency, the EU is closely involved in the contact group that has drawn up a document setting out the options for the future status of Kosovo, which it has transmitted to the warring parties.
This document discusses possible means of reaching an acceptable solution to the question of autonomy.
Furthermore, the EU presidency is in close contact with what is known as the Council of Europe's Venice Commission, which is looking the constitutional aspects of the problem and trying to identify possible solutions.
The EU is also supporting the efforts of Christopher Hill, the US special envoy, who is currently examining the possibility of a three to five-year interim agreement, after which negotiations would begin on the final status of Kosovo.
At the informal Salzburg Council meeting of 5 and 6 September, the Foreign Ministers cautiously welcomed Milosevic's acceptance in principle of an interim agreement of this nature.
With regard to Kosovo's status, we support the following. We support neither Kosovar independence nor the continuation of the unacceptable status quo.
In realistic terms, the only possible lasting solution is for Kosovo to have a large degree of self-determination.
It is not so important whether this self-determination is called autonomy or by another name.
What will be more important is for the people of Kosovo to be able to decide and arrange their own affairs themselves, without interference, to have an adequate say in federal matters and for the rights of all population groups and minorities to be guaranteed in line with European standards.
Whether this self-determination is to be achieved in the framework of Serbia or of the Yugoslav federal state is up to the conflicting parties.
The EU sets no priorities here, but nor does it want either of these options to be excluded a priori .
The contact group's option paper sets out various European models of autonomy that Kosovo could adopt, ranging from South Tyrol via the Finnish Aland islands to Tatarstan in Russia.
Obviously none of these models could be taken over in its entirety, but perhaps various components of some of them could be singled out, put together and usefully adapted for Kosovo.
Each side has appointed a negotiating team, most recently Kosovo on 13 August this year.
Although this negotiating team includes only representatives of the self-styled President Ibrahim Rugova's KDL party and its coalition partners, the political parties opposing Rugova have not objected to it.
That is encouraging and means that the months of attempts by the EU presidency to persuade the parties in Kosovo to form a united political platform have succeeded to a degree that should not be underestimated.
International representatives will observe the negotiations, and they must be conducted without any preconditions.
Each side must have the right, at least at the beginning, to set out all its major demands.
What other initiatives is the EU presidency pursuing? In relation to the returnee project which I mentioned earlier, we are also endeavouring to bolster the ECMM EU observer mission.
The ECMM and the diplomatic observers from EU states working with it form the European contingent of what is known as the KDOM, the Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission, which also has an American and a Russian contingent.
In order to implement these returnee projects, the current European presence of 28 observers will be stepped up to 44.
But we must not forget that simply increasing the number of international observers will not in itself improve the situation of the civilian population.
It could even prove a mistake visibly to increase the number of observers while the humanitarian situation and safety of the civilian population in Kosovo worsened, since then these civilians might well complain of the inefficiency of the international community.
With each side constantly accusing the other of appalling war crimes, of mass shootings and even humanitarian crimes against women and children, the EU presidency has mounted an initiative to send a team of experienced international forensic medical experts to Kosovo.
In the past, Belgrade has in principle accepted the idea of international forensic tests, so we hope it will approve our recent request for visas and for the graves to be opened.
The European Union has imposed a variety of sanctions as a means of exerting pressure on Belgrade, including the refusal to issue visas to members of the security forces, freezing the foreign assets of the Serb and Yugoslav governments, a ban on new investment in Serbia and, most recently, the boycott on Yugoslav airline flights and landings.
The presidency is aware that so far the sanctions have not had any real impact on Yugoslavia's attitude.
But more incisive measures can be taken only if a qualified majority of EU states so decides, which is not the case at present.
Moreover, there is an EU-wide consensus that the sanctions must not harm the civilian population or the neighbouring states which have close economic ties with Yugoslavia and would find themselves in serious difficulties in the event of an embargo on Belgrade.
At the informal Council of Foreign Ministers' meeting in Salzburg, the European Commission agreed to investigate any loopholes in the current sanctions by the time of the October Council summit and to propose improvements.
The neighbouring states of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are already suffering severely from the Kosovo crisis, especially Albania and FYROM.
Given the highly unstable environment, it is most gratifying that in spite of the difficulties, Skopje has managed to retain a high level of stability.
We hope that the elections on 18 October will produce positive results.
In view of the current situation, I must add a few words on Albania.
After the disturbances at the beginning of the week, the situation is now a little calmer.
Yesterday's demonstrations in Tirana only tempted a few hundred people onto the streets and there have been no more acts of violence.
Yet the situation remains extremely tense, not least because Fatos Nano's government, which has gained strength again, is threatening ex-president Sali Berisha with arrest and proceedings for high treason, which is punishable by death.
Whether the unrest on Sunday and Monday really represented an attempted coup by Berisha, as the government alleges, or simply an uncontrollable outburst of popular anger at the murder of the much-loved opposition politician Azem Hajdari, as Berisha believes, can be discussed in due course.
The fact remains that Albania is still not really stabilised, that there is still a high risk of violence and uprising, so that unrest may erupt again at any time, and that neither Nano's government nor Berisha's opposition have behaved openly.
At any rate, Berisha was certainly largely responsible for the deterioration in the situation.
Ultimatums and threats from both sides will not help stabilise the country.
And the EU presidency is trying to impress that on the Albanian politicians.
Furthermore, we support the efforts of President Mejdani to organise all-party talks with a view to resolving the crisis.
Yesterday the presidency appointed a special emissary, who left for Tirana today.
Moreover, the EU presidency is taking part in a joint mission of the presidencies of the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the EU, which will be travelling to Tirana on Friday.
It is particularly important at this moment for the international community not to leave Albania in the lurch but to make even greater efforts on its behalf.
The international Tirana conference scheduled for late October will represent a suitable forum, provided of course that it can take place under present conditions.
We will continue to work towards regional stability, not just for abstract political reasons but primarily in order to protect the people against violence, expulsion and oppression.
Thank you, Madam President-in-Office, for that very full and informative statement. I shall now give the floor without further delay to Mr van den Broek, on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, in principle I quite agree with the basic points you made.
But the Commissioner's words suggest a certain dissatisfaction that more stringent measures were not taken.
I would like to know what these measures or proposals were and why the Council did not take them.
I am in favour of stronger measures. I was appalled at the difficulties that arose when it came to imposing the ban on flights.
What can Milosevic think of a Europe that finds it so difficult to take even such a minor measure? In that respect, I endorse what the Commissioner said.
One thing I wish to make clear. We must openly oppose all - and I mean all - the forces of nationalism, no matter how large, medium or small their responsibility for the current crisis.
This certainly applies first and foremost to the Yugoslav forces.
There is no doubt whatsoever that most of the blame lies at their door.
But it also applies to the KLA, which must realise that it too bears its share of responsibility and that its activities are certainly making it difficult for Europe to intervene.
The peaceloving forces, especially those around Rugova, must be supported.
Unfortunately, as I have said on several occasions, they were not supported at the right time.
Secondly, the situation is Macedonia is very precarious.
We are well aware that Kosovar independence or a greater Albania would create serious internal difficulties for this country.
But at the same time we must ensure that the policy Macedonia is adopting in principle, namely respect for the Albanian minority, is pursued consistently and, where possible, developed further.
Thirdly, Madam President, let me add a small footnote in regard to your approach to Albania.
As you indicated, Berisha is exploiting the situation in Kosovo to the hilt in order to destabilise the situation in Albania too.
Of course I too believe that Fatos Nano and his government must observe the rule of law in their pursuit of accusations, crimes, and so forth, and must not fan the flames.
But it must be made clear who is chiefly to blame for the current conditions.
In the final analysis, the pursuit of full independence would create the same difficulties and problems that arose in Bosnia.
This could further boost the growing power of the nationalist forces as reflected in the elections.
My final point concerns the refugee question.
Here we must offer our full support and oppose any tendency in Europe to say that because we did much for Bosnia, we cannot do as much for Kosovo.
We must do everything in our power to help the Kosovar refugees.
Madam President-in-Office, I listened to your report with interest but noted your use of a euphemism: you said that a battle is under way between the KLA and the regular Yugoslav troops to settle the Kosovo problem by force.
That is not the case.
Let us establish the true facts: firstly, the population of Kosovo is under attack from a criminal known as Slobodan Milosevic; ethnic cleansing is being perpetrated by a criminal who goes by the name of Milosevic and wishes to rid Kosovo of its Albanian population, which - as is well known - holds 90 % of the area.
So much for the true facts.
Secondly, I have heard it said, even by distinguished colleagues, that we cannot discuss the refugee question because we have already discussed the Albanians; rather, we should send them back to the villages razed to the ground by Milosevic.
I should like you, Madam President-in-Office, and the Commissioner to tell me how we can think of sending the refugees back to those villages which have been destroyed and occupied by Milosevic's troops.
Thirdly, I heard Mr van den Broek refer to a firm Europe: he said that our response must be a firm one.
Until now Europe has been inactive, impotent and cowardly; we have made ourselves a laughing-stock for the umpteenth time, as happened over Bosnia.
Our foot-dragging is allowing Milosevic to pursue his belligerence in the face of total impotence from the international community and Europe.
Parliament has outspokenly drawn attention time and again to the danger for Kosovo, but neither the Commission, nor the Council, nor the international community has listened to us.
The tragedy is worsening. I now hear talk of working groups and special envoys: I hope that this will not amount to the usual comitology, useful only for counting the dead and displaced persons.
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo has become more complicated since July.
Obviously, those most affected are the refugees, the people who are dying.
The situation has also become more complicated politically, not only there but in all the countries surrounding the region.
Take the situation in Albania, for example where Berisha is again attempting to subvert the democratic order and put the government against the ropes. It may not have been a very effective government, but it was the government the majority of Albanians wanted.
The fact is that, once again, the European Union has been shown to be lacking in muscle.
It has not been in the right place, it has been weak, it has failed to act as a body.
Initiatives have sprung up all over the place, a whole range of appointments have been made, boycotts set up but not applied - I am not referring to the country which is forever being condemned, it is the United Kingdom which claims that international contractual obligations prevent it from applying the boycott of air transport.
What must be done? Pressure on those responsible has be increased.
Those responsible are Milosevic and his government, for whom things are not complicated in the least, as they are on their way to getting what they want by fire and the sword.
Kosovo must certainly be granted self-determination within a democratic Serbia.
Mr President, I have listened to what the Council and Commission representatives have said, but in my opinion, the events in Kosovo call in addition for a short digression into history.
For over a decade, the Albanian community in Kosovo has been attempting politically and culturally to alter a state of oppression through non-violent means.
Moreover, throughout these ten years, the appeals for help to the international community from the Albanian political leaders in Kosovo have fallen on deaf ears, and non-violence has been taken for impotence or slavish acceptance of Serbian oppression.
It is, unfortunately, not surprising that now, in the face of such culpable inertia on the part of the EU institutions among others, the situation has degenerated and those involved have taken up arms.
The result has been many deaths, villages destroyed and 300 000 refugees; a peaceful solution now appears less and less likely.
All of this compounds the already grave situation in Bosnia and the earlier, similar policy of ethnic cleansing pursued by the leaders in Belgrade. They clearly take succour from the passivity of the European Union, which regrettably is devoid of a real common foreign and security policy.
Decisive policing by the international community is required in such a dire situation, exacerbated by the crisis under way in Albania, so as to bring about an immediate cessation of all armed activity within the context of a United Nations mandate, under the auspices of the OSCE, with active participation of the EU Member States.
A ceasefire is vital, both to prevent the conflict spreading to neighbouring countries and to initiate a dialogue leading to a real peace process, one which cannot overlook the legitimate aspirations of the Kosovo population for real autonomy in their own lands.
But peace will not be possible unless the displaced persons are allowed to return to their homes under international protection - partly because of the enormous difficulties which they would face in the winter - and unless homes are provided for those refugees whose villages have been destroyed.
This calls for full support for the humanitarian organisations, which must have complete freedom of movement in Kosovo.
One first symbolic act from the Commission could be the student housing project in Pristina, by way of demonstrable support for reconciliation among university students.
In conclusion, Mr President, the Green Group hopes that the Council and Commission will become more active in promoting a peaceful settlement of this conflict within the very near future.
Mr President, this debate is really a kind of sad exercise in repetition.
This is the umpteenth time we are discussing the situation in Kosovo and nothing much has changed for the better.
There is no prospect of a real solution and the situation has, if anything, become more rather than less complicated.
We are not quite up to date with the reality here, a reality which is primarily shaped by the Serbs and their brutal aggression; the President-in-Office has just brought us up to date on the facts.
There is constant talk elsewhere, as here, about tougher action by the international community.
But so far there have been only half-measures, for example the boycott on Yugoslav flights and the difficulties in enforcing it.
There are plenty of ideas, but how are they to be implemented?
I am glad to hear the Commissioner say that as far as he and the Commission are concerned, tougher measures of this kind should be taken against the regime in Belgrade.
This House too is discussing ways in which the international community might actively intervene.
The resolution drafted for this debate more or less intimates that the European Union might on its own initiative have to consider military intervention.
My group is opposed to that.
I am more inclined towards forcing the UN Security Council to pass a resolution which will open the way to possible military intervention, and both the President-in-Office and the Commissioner have hinted at that.
Let us go down that road first, and there is nothing to stop the European Union from taking that initiative and making it clear to Milosevic that there are limits.
It will also give an answer to Milosevic's insidious tactics which the Commissioner described when he compared present events with what happened in Bosnia.
We think there has to be a ceasefire, not only so that talks can begin, but also so that the necessary emergency aid can be given.
What we want, and this remains the starting position of the Socialist Group, is to keep trying for a political solution, because we do not believe the situation can be resolved by military means alone and we think that military intervention must always be part of a political approach.
So we reject this resolution because it baldly suggests that the EU must impose independence for Kosovo by military intervention.
We are against that independence, because we think this would open up a Pandora's box and lead to borders in Europe being challenged, in this particular region but elsewhere too.
In the case of Kosovo this not only goes too far because it makes a political settlement that much harder; we also think that solution is totally unrealistic, as witness what the President-in-Office of the Council has said on the subject.
Madam President-in-Office, Mr President, I believe that a new strategy is currently being tested in Kosovo.
Last week I had a chance to see it in action out there.
The new strategy is a scorched earth and ethnic cleansing strategy.
That is a method we simply cannot tolerate.
We cannot allow the militant Serb forces to roam freely three kilometres left and right of the main traffic routes and create a firing range there, destroy every tree and every house and leave scorched earth behind.
Nor can we check the flows of refugees into our countries, since we have no means of access there.
Apparently some 60 000 refugees are now living in the open in the forests or in inadequate shelter.
We do not know the exact numbers because we have no access. But we should demand access by all possible means and under all possible circumstances.
We must be more specific in our statements.
When we refer to autonomy, whatever form it is to take, we must also set certain basic, minimum conditions, such as very clear control of the police, the administration and the judiciary by democratically elected Kosovar forces.
That is one minimum condition we must set in our demands.
We must also use plain words to Mr Milosevic.
Let me say one thing quite clearly: the experience of the past eight years has shown that one cannot negotiate with him; at best one can negotiate about him, and that must be in The Hague.
Let me now also make a few comments on Albania. After all, this is not the first attack on Mr Hajdari.
He was murdered on the third attempt. We must not forget that on the first attempt he was shot at in parliament by a representative of the government party.
On the third attempt he was murdered.
We must not forget that it was a representative of the government party who fired at him in parliament the first time round.
I am very glad that Mr Swoboda has spoken up again; hearing him say that Fatos Nano is acting in accordance with the rule of law really makes me doubt his understanding of the law.
Fatos Nano is not observing the principles of the rule of law.
Think of the blockade of the Democratic Party headquarters yesterday evening - which does not say much about his understanding of the law.
We must use plain words and we must act!
Mr President, I did not intend to speak about Greece, but I think that Greece has very many problems which we do not always grasp very clearly, and crises of this kind can arise very easily.
I refer to Kosovo.
It has been mentioned that there are over 250 000 refugees and as winter approaches, some of them are expected to face greater problems.
There is information - the Commissioner already said as much - that the turmoil which has continued for months has had serious consequences for crops, which may result in a shortage of wheat during the winter.
So far, the international community has rather confined itself to the role of an observer, while a new danger is now on the horizon, namely the recent and very worrying events in Albania, which affect Greece a great deal; Greece, which has a lot of very strange neighbours, though we often forget that here. If these events continue, they may trigger chain reactions.
In that context, the safe return of the refugees is essential, as also is any mediation to normalise the situation.
The Kosovo problem is centuries old.
With things as they have become today, however, we must intervene with all the means at our disposal - the Commissioner mentioned them, as did the presidency of the Council - to put a stop to extremes and back the moderate forces in the area.
The absolutely unacceptable and foolish violence exercised by Belgrade and the atrocities by the Liberation Army must be stopped by any possible means, and a satisfactory solution must be sought for Kosovo without the right to break away, as the President-in-Office said.
That solution must be acceptable to all the interested parties, so that any other unpleasant developments can be averted.
Mr President, each time we in the European Parliament speak about the situation in former Yugoslavia, or in the Balkans more generally after the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, for which the European Union bears a heavy responsibility, militaristic voices abound in the European Parliament, with calls for military solutions to the problems.
There is one thing we must all realise: there is no military solution to the problems faced by the Balkans and Kosovo, the only chances lie in the direction of a peaceful political solution.
The question is: does the European Union support such a prospect?
Recently, Milosevic made a proposal which was accepted by Rugova.
The Council's response was to ban flights by the Yugoslav airline to the European Union.
Whom is the European Union supporting with that attitude? Is it not backing the intransigence of the Liberation Army?
And did not precisely such support for intransigent forces lead to the encouragement of those forces in Albania which has brought the danger of destabilisation in Albania itself today? Madam President-in-Office, let us ponder these responsibilities.
Mr President, I must say that the greatest humanitarian aid which the European Union could offer would be to bring an end to hostilities in Kosovo, because the continuation of the unsettled situation in Kosovo has direct and very unfavourable consequences for events in Albania.
The continuing situation or unrest, call it what you will, in the Kosovo area has a destabilising effect in Albania, where there is a very delicate balance, because Albanians in Albania have various beliefs and religions and it would consequently not take much to produce an uncontrolled situation.
In view of all that, I wish to put some specific questions to the Council. There is an initiative by Mr Hill who, according to the press, has brought the Milosevic and Rugova sides very close together, and we should support him.
But I have heard no support for him here, no support for this hero, so that a dialogue could begin.
But dialogue is not enough.
Dialogue, or an agreement in principle about dialogue should go hand in hand with the presence of a military policing force in Kosovo.
What was done after the Dayton agreement should happen again.
There is a precedent.
Dayton succeeded, and since it did I do not see why, within the scope of a more general agreement between the regime in Belgrade and Rugova, that agreement's implementation should not be safeguarded by the presence of a military force with a policing mandate.
Mr President, if the mass murderers Arkan and Milosevic were sitting here in the gallery and listening to us, they could rub their bloody hands with glee.
Our shameful policy of cowardice has given them victory time and again over the past several years.
Winter will soon be upon the refugees in the mountains of Kosovo.
They are without food, medicines and protection from the cold.
Milosevic wants to make them hostages by only allowing aid in special reservations, which he himself controls.
But as Emma Bonino has said: it is like letting Dracula stand guard over a blood bank.
No, Mr President, we must not permit a repetition of the mass murders in Srebrenica, where 7000 men were sacrificed to our policy of cowardice.
It is bad enough that our own governments are timid and indifferent to our ideals.
If we do not even dare help people in need, then the policy of cowardice has gone too far.
Emergency aid must be sent in convoys by land or by air, with or without authorisation from the UN, and the aid must be protected.
If the convoys are fired on, they must be permitted to defend themselves, and they must be armed to do so.
It was the democracies' fear that made Hitler smell blood.
NATO and the EU were set up to prevent a repetition of those events.
We must now show a minimum of courage, we must at least insist on aid to the victims without turning them and ourselves into hostages.
Mr President, it did not take much political acumen to realise that the desperate situation in Kosovo would have a negative and destabilising effect, as has happened in the entire area and in Albania.
It is an age-old story: Kosovo is the spark for a fire which is spreading throughout the Balkans. What can be done?
Words are powerless. Milosevic was extremely cunning in the timing of his clamp-down - July and August, when Europe's politicians go on their holidays.
And we duly went on our holidays!
The statements made, the policy of containment and the sanctions announced by Mr van den Broek have failed; as has been recalled in this House, not even the Cardiff agreement has held.
Madam President-in-Office, you said that armed intervention is unthinkable.
One might agree, but how in practice can pressure be exerted? At the same time, the German Minister of Defence has stated that NATO is to intervene within three to five weeks, once Milosevic has been notified.
Which line is Europe following?
I wonder whether it would be possible to step in with a policy of stabilisation, deploying troops along the Kosovo border, putting on pressure and, above all, achieving stabilisation in Albania, where the wrongs and rights are not so clear-cut - although Berisha has wrong on his side, so too does the Nano government.
We must not come out on one side or the other.
We must intervene to ensure respect for the rules of democracy, but those rules also entail the right of opposition.
If we fail to intervene, our policy will yet again have been a disappointment, and I should not wish the Austrian Presidency to be held responsible.
What is more, I fear that the cost for Europe could rise further still, as happened in Bosnia.
Ladies and gentlemen, clearly this debate is not just about Kosovo but also about the common foreign and security policy and what we can do in institutional terms.
I am sorry to say that we have simply not made any progress on the institutional aspects.
But as you know, the principle of unanimity applies in the Council and regrettably there are always some states that do not wish to take certain measures.
Unfortunately I have to say the same of the Security Council.
There too some permanent members, but perhaps others too, do not accept certain decisions that some of us would certainly like to implement.
So we are still in a situation where military threats are empty words.
That is not to say that they might not succeed in future.
But as I said earlier, at present there is little prospect of that.
I am glad to hear, which I did not know before, that unlike in the past the French might after all be interested in drafting a new Security Council resolution, for that could of course bring about at least some change in the situation.
Let me briefly address the question of stronger measures - measures other than military intervention - being discussed but not accepted in the end.
The measures we took to halt investment and also to freeze bank assets are fairly weak.
But here again it is because this was the lowest common denominator we managed to agree unanimously.
I must say that as President of the Council I have to defend this position for the moment; but that does not mean I necessarily support it.
Then I wish to turn to the question of who our special emissary in Albania actually is.
It is Ambassador Grobmeyer, who worked in Albania last year as representative of former Chancellor Vranitzky.
He is very familiar with the situation, can immediately open a new dialogue with all the parties concerned on the spot and will of course also coordinate with the OSCE and the other institutions.
I agree with the Commission that of course we must look at other options too, but unfortunately we did not manage to send a WEU mission to Albania in the past either.
In the final analysis, the OSCE did very good work there for a brief time, but as we can see, it was of course not in a position to build up the institutions in Albania again.
The question of safe havens was raised.
Of course we know the events that led to disaster in Bosnia cannot happen again in Kosovo in the same form.
I myself have discussed the refugee problem at length with Emma Bonino and, believe me, we too realise that what has been proposed so far is little.
But it is very difficult to take further-reaching measures at this point and try to achieve the maximum.
There was a dialogue between the European Union and the United States.
And in that framework we considered whether we could create a multi-ethnic police force to monitor the return of the refugees in situ and guarantee them a degree of safety.
But for the time being - I must say for the time being - that is not feasible either.
So the least we could do was to combine the ECMM and the KDOM, in other words to strengthen the two missions I referred to in my opening statement, for I believe one thing always worries Milosevic: monitoring and information being passed on.
I wish to address one further point. It was said that there is no means of contacting the refugees.
That is not entirely true.
The UNHCR and the International Red Cross Committee certainly have means of access.
Sometimes obstacles are put in their way, it is true; but by and large they have quite good access.
Emma Bonino, who was there herself recently, confirmed this to me.
Mr President, I still believe that there was a degree of consensus that the absolute priorities must be to achieve a ceasefire in Kosovo and to improve the disastrous humanitarian situation.
I believe we also more or less agreed that only when these two preconditions have been achieved will it be possible to engage in meaningful negotiations on the future status of Kosovo.
We will certainly continue to devote all our energies towards that end.
Mr President, I regard this debate as extremely important.
We cannot expect all the Members of this House to listen to the reports of the Austrian Presidency and the Commissioner, but I would ask the presidency of the sitting to invite at least those who speak to be here for their replies.
That is surely a necessary mark of respect to Parliament.
I appeal to your good judgement, which is well known to me!
Mr Bianco, this is a particularly important debate, it is true, but that rule should apply to all our discussions.
Mr President, let me first announce the good news that the presidency and the Commission have just received a note from Robin Cook stating that the United Kingdom has ordered all flights by Yugoslav carriers to the UK to be banned with immediate effect.
So our optimism that we would make headway there was not misplaced.
My final remark is that, on the basis of the experience and information that we all have - the experience of Bosnia and the information about Kosovo - it is quite clear that as long as there is no ceasefire, as long as the violence does not stop, there will be no meaningful political negotiations and there will be a continuous flow of refugees and displaced persons.
That misery will continue.
That is our experience and there is no indication that in this case it might be different.
To all those who have difficulty, as we had in Bosnia at the time, in making a clear distinction as to who should be considered the aggressor, who should be addressed as the main cause of the misery, I would say that the 250 000 people we are speaking about are not Serbs. They are Albanians in Kosovo.
That does not mean that the UCK does not use violence as such, but the one who carries the main responsibility should be addressed first.
In conclusion - and here the presidency has been very frank in depicting the situation within the Union - it is nevertheless extremely important for Parliament to speak as far as possible with one voice and encourage the Union to take responsibility.
That is why I repeat that I am very pleased to hear that, if the press information is correct, the French President has said this situation is intolerable and has told the Russian President that we need a meeting of the Contact Group and we need to speak about the Security Council.
I know that France and the vast majority of our Member States believe that the use of any type of force to end the violence should be covered by a Security Council resolution.
That is a legitimate point of view.
But I hope it will not take too long to pass such a resolution and bring about the peace that is needed before negotiations can be started to find the ultimate political solution, because for Milosevic and the UCK there is no military solution.
But I fear that outside pressures will be necessary to stop the violence and get the political process running.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Associated companies
The next item is the report (A-0299/98) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive on a common system of taxation applicable to interest and royalty payments made between associated companies of different Member States (COM(98)0067 - C4-0195/98-98/0087(CNS)).
Since it is essential to adjourn our debate at 5.30 p.m. for Question Time with the Council, I would call on Mr Secchi to present his introductory remarks as rapporteur, but I would inform him that we shall be obliged to continue the debate this evening after 9 p.m.
Mr President, I shall begin by protesting at what you have just said.
I find it rather odd to embark on a discussion of such a major topic and then adjourn it for several hours, during which time colleagues might quite naturally lose sight of the issues at stake and the various opinions expressed.
Surely the efficiency of Parliament's work would not be impaired if we were to run a few minutes behind schedule - especially as there has already been a good deal of slippage today.
Mr Secchi, in that case we could postpone your introduction until 9 p.m. this evening.
But we simply cannot hold up Question Time with the Council.
So it is as you please: either now or at 9 p.m.
Mr President, I am presenting the report adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on the proposal for a Council directive on a common system of taxation applicable to interest and royalty payments made between associated companies of different Member States.
This proposal was put forward by the Commission as part of the so-called 'Monti package' which, as colleagues will recall, is designed to implement the approach to fiscal coordination proposed by the Commission, and fully backed by Parliament. It is an attempt to steer the Member States' taxation systems in directions that are compatible with the smooth functioning of the internal market, averting the adverse effects of so-called harmful tax competition.
On 18 June, the House adopted an initial report on the first element of the package, namely the Code of Conduct for business taxation; today we are examining the second element, and the Committee on Economic Affairs has already begun its consideration of the third: the proposal for a directive on the taxation of nonresidents' income from savings.
This brings me to Amendment No 3, which has been adopted by the Committee on Economic Affairs and argues that the phased adoption of the various elements of the package should not be used as a tool by Member States to delay its implementation.
Ideally these provisions should be simultaneous, but they will inevitably be implemented as the legislative process advances.
The purpose of the measure before us is to eliminate double taxation between associated companies of different Member States in the single market.
The Committee on Economic Affairs also proposes, in Amendment No 2, that this system should gradually be extended to all companies operating in the single market so as to avoid double taxation.
In Amendment No 1, we stress the importance of this measure, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, which are less well equipped to face such problems.
We therefore believe that the rapid adoption of this directive will speed up the process of Europeanisation and allow full advantage to be taken of the internal market.
In Amendment No 4 we propose restricting the Member States' discretion in the implementation of the directive.
I realise that this is a very sensitive area, but I do think it was right and proper for us to make the suggestion.
In our fifth amendment, we propose that the adoption of this directive should be an incentive for Member States to undertake a general review of their company taxation systems, in keeping with the spirit of this directive and of the whole package, in particular the Code of Conduct, in order to promote the process underlying this entire set of measures.
Finally, our sixth amendment asks that at the end of the three years, when the Commission has to report on the operation of the directive, there should also be a review to ensure consistency with the other elements of the new approach to taxation.
Mr President, I should like here and now to express my opposition to four amendments tabled by the Green Group: No 7 is superfluous and open to misinterpretation, No 8 repeats ideas already contained in Amendment Nos 1 and 3 by the Committee on Economic Affairs, No 9 is better worded in our Amendment No 4 and, finally, No 10 seems to me contradictory, in that it grants the Member States two additional years to implement the directive.
I shall end there, Mr President, but it is unfortunate that the debate has to be adjourned.
Thank you, Mr Secchi.
I appreciate that the fact that we have to interrupt the debate now is causing you some inconvenience, but you will know that our Rules of Procedure state that the order of business is adopted at the start of each of our part-sessions, and we have agreed that Question Time is to begin at 5.30 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0482/98).
Question No 1 by John McCartin (H-0724/98)
Subject: Schengen Agreement
Can the President-in-Office state whether any negotiations have been undertaken at Council level with the British and Irish Governments with a view to incorporating these two States into the Schengen Agreement, thereby extending the possibilities for passport-free travel to citizens of these States? I should like to welcome Mrs Ferrero-Waldner and ask her to reply to Mr McCartin's question.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the United Kingdom and Ireland are fully involved in all Council negotiations and take part in all Council working parties, especially in regard to incorporating the Schengen Agreement in the acquis of the European Union and to the negotiations with Iceland and Norway.
At present Ireland and the United Kingdom are not bound by the Schengen Agreement, nor, pursuant to Article 4 of the Schengen Protocol, will they be so after the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
However, they can request the full or partial application of that agreement at any time.
But there is no such request at present.
I thank the President-in-Office for her reply.
The difficulty with Ireland is that it already has freedom of movement between Ireland, Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
Therefore, if Ireland were to ratify the Schengen Agreement without the United Kingdom, we would impose new restrictions on the movement of Irish people which would create great difficulties.
My concern is that the Single European Act, which both countries have ratified, obliged all members who ratified it to eliminate all borders by 1 January 1992.
In the intervening period we have observed that other countries of the European Union, by going their separate ways, have in a rather roundabout way put the Single European Act into effect.
But the United Kingdom and Ireland have stayed out.
Can we oblige those countries to live up to their obligations under the Single European Act?
Mr McCartin, Article 7 of the Single Act was never really accepted, which is why I must repeat that so long as Ireland and the United Kingdom have not submitted a request for the incorporation of some or all of the provisions, there can be no negotiations in this regard.
If the United Kingdom or Ireland or both countries make such a request, the Council will discuss it and take a decision.
Under Article 4 of the Schengen Protocol, this requires a unanimous decision on the part of the 13 Schengen members and the applicant or applicants.
That is what I have to say on the subject.
As the author is not present, Question No 2 lapses.
Question No 3 by Alan Gillis (H-0727/98)
Subject: Algeria
Given the current appalling situation in Algeria where hundreds of innocent men, women and children are being massacred by militant Islamic extremists, and given the apparent lack of will on the part of the Algerian Government to take action to protect their own citizens, what steps does the Council envisage in order to impose on the Algerian Government the need to take radical steps to end these gruesome murders of innocent citizens? I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Gillis's question.
Mr President, Mr Gillis, the Council shares the honourable Member's concerns about the continuing violence in Algeria, whose main victims are innocent civilians.
It has on several occasions called on the Algerian Government to make every effort to protect its citizens from terrorist attacks and acts of violence.
At the same time, given the criticism that has been voiced about the measures the Algerian Government is taking to combat terrorism and fundamentalist violence, the Council has emphasised that these measures must comply with international human rights standards and the principles of the rule of law.
Furthermore, the Council has pointed to the need to tackle the underlying cause of the violence -namely the poor progress made with political, economic and social reforms - if the threat to Algerian society emanating mainly from extremist groups is to be overcome.
I myself took part in the Council's troika mission on 19 and 20 January 1998 and familiarised myself with the situation at first hand.
I have also kept in contact with several leading figures with a view to examining possible solutions.
Even if the reform process was not pursued as energetically as it should have been, some signs of greater transparency seem to have emerged since the troika's visit to Algiers, as also since the European Parliament delegation's subsequent visit in February - I am sure you have more detailed information about that.
The Council is looking very closely at the political and legislative decisions needed to bring forward the political reform process.
The Council also hopes that the recent visit of the group of senior officials appointed by the UN Secretary-General - led, as you know, by Mr Soares - will strengthen the cooperation between Algeria and the international community and further improve the situation.
For the rest, the presidency remains in active contact with Algeria with a view to preparing for a broadly based dialogue.
Indeed we are expecting a meeting between the troika and the foreign minister Mr Attaf in Vienna in the near future.
One of the main issues to be discussed there would, of course, be how to bring the violence to an end and what role the Union could play there.
We have always indicated that we are ready to play our part.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office for her answer.
I am encouraged that there are some developments and possibly we will get some breakthrough.
Obviously, serious reforms are needed and will have to be pursued.
I am wondering if there is any further action.
We need to try to get the maximum amount of action to encourage an end to this bloodshed and violence.
If we can do that I think we have moved very far.
Mr Gillis, there is no further action at this time.
However, we hope that further political dialogue will be possible during the troika visit, which has been scheduled in principle, and that we can then review all the questions raised during the earlier troika mission.
Of course they included the question whether the European Union could provide humanitarian aid, which Algeria rejected out of hand at the time.
As you know, Algeria kept returning to the question of aid to combat terrorism, to which the European Union replied that the Union as such is not competent here, although the individual states could of course assist Algeria in this respect.
Naturally, there are ongoing contacts here.
Question No 4 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0728/98)
Subject: Inspection of vessels in the Dardanelles, in violation of the Montreux Convention
The rules governing the passage of vessels through the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits are set out in the international Montreux Convention.
Major economic and political interests of the Community and its Member States, together with the interest of countries on the Black Sea are immediately bound up with the correct implementation of the provisions in the above convention.
Since Turkey has in the past and more recently been carrying out inspections on such vessels and preventing their passage through the straits, justifying its action with reference to their freight, can the Council say whether, under the Montreux Convention, Turkey is entitled to carry out inspections if no legal proceedings are pending regarding the vessels concerned? Is it entitled to carry out inspections and prevent passage on the assumption that a vessel may be carrying arms?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Alavanos's question.
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, I am sorry to have to tell you that it is not the Council's business to give its views on the interpretation of an international agreement and, in particular, on the scope of the contracting parties' rights and obligations.
This is a very brief answer, but there is little I can add.
Mr President, I must say that the President-in-Office quite disarmed me with her answer, with which I do not at all agree.
I think that transport through the Straits is of concern to all the European Union's countries, especially those in the south, and in that sense I think she should comment on the fact that, despite the Treaty of Montreux, Turkey is trying to control it.
My question, then, is: does the Council not care that Turkey is infringing the Treaty of Montreux by illegally trying to control the shipping going through?
Secondly, is the Council considering the possibility of discussing with Turkey the subject of the International Convention on Maritime Rights, which the European Union has signed but which Turkey rejects?
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, the freedom of vessels to sail through the straits governed by the Montreux Convention applies to all states and not just to the small group of contracting states.
Article 7 of EC-Turkey Association Council Decision No 1/95 of 22 December 1995 on implementing the final phase of customs union provides that import, export and transit bans or restrictions are admissible for, among other things, reasons of public law and order and security.
These bans or restrictions may not, however, be applied either as a means of arbitrary discrimination or as a disguised means of restricting trade between the contracting parties.
With regard to the possibility of settling this dispute, let me point out that Turkey has accepted neither the binding jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice nor the dispute settlement procedure under the Convention on the Law of the Sea, since it is not a contracting party to that convention.
So let me repeat: unfortunately the Council is not competent to decide the interpretation of the provisions of an international - and I emphasise the word international - agreement to which Turkey is clearly not a contracting party.
Question No 5 by Friedhelm Frischenschlager (H-0731/98)
Subject: Road-use charges
Traffic within the EU has increased sharply in recent years.
The situation has worsened dramatically, particularly in the case of north-south transit traffic through the Alps.
France and above all Austria are suffering the effects not only of the general increase in traffic but also of the diversion in transit traffic caused by the special regulations in Switzerland.
What measures will the Austrian Presidency introduce in the direction of EU-wide, generally applicable road-use charges, which would permit the internalization of the external costs of road transport while at the same time providing an opportunity, on the basis of the revenue thus collected, for European rail (freight) transport to be subsidized by the more environmentally damaging road transport? I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Frischenschlager's question.
Mr President, Mr Frischenschlager, this question is broadly covered by the proposal for a directive on levying charges for the use of certain transport routes by heavy goods vehicles.
The Commission presented this proposal, commonly known as the 'Euro-Vignette' directive, in July 1996.
The Council is still deliberating on it and the Austrian Presidency will do all it can to reach a conclusion as soon as possible.
The discussion of this dossier will, therefore, continue apace during this six-month term, and this item was thus put on the agenda of the Council of Transport Ministers.
It was not debated at the informal Council meeting in Feldkirch.
Madam President-in-Office, following on from what you said about the Feldkirch meeting of the Council of Transport Ministers, the problem, after all, is that because the negotiations with Switzerland were not completed, Austria and France are suffering severely from the diversion in transit traffic.
Since we keep being told the negotiations are nearing their end, although in fact no headway is being made, the following problem also arises: could the European Union not allow France, Switzerland and Austria to harmonise their road-use charges so as to put a stop, for the time being at least, to the transit traffic diversion?
I am putting this supplementary question because of what the French Transport Minister said at the Feldkirch meeting, where he openly supported an ecological transport policy for the Alps, which after all are not just Austrian, but indeed European.
Mr President, Mr Frischenschlager, let me go a little further into this question.
Transit transport within the Community can really only be resolved by certain new provisions in the road cost directive, the Euro-Vignette.
The suspension of the transit traffic diversion caused by the Swiss regulations would also ease the situation.
But this can only be done in the framework of the negotiations between the EU and Switzerland.
Austria wants to keep the Brenner toll at the existing level and to put an end to the traffic diversion resulting from the restrictions applied in Switzerland.
At present, as we know, Switzerland restricts heavy goods vehicles to 28 tonnes.
Austria believes it is crucial to have a comparable charge level and structure in Austria and Switzerland.
Higher charges in Switzerland should result in equally high toll rates for the Brenner Pass.
At the Council of Transport Ministers on 10 and 11 December 1997, the ministers called on the Commission actively to pursue the negotiations with Switzerland, while strictly observing the principle that Swiss charges, like Community charges, must be geared to infrastructure costs.
A breakthrough came in the EU-Switzerland talks at the meeting between Mr Kinnock and Mr Leuenburger, the Swiss minister of state, on 23 January, in the form of what is called the Kloten compromise.
It brought political agreement on an average charge of ECU 200 for the longest transit route through Switzerland, namely Basle to Chiasso.
Other points agreed were: the 40 tonne quota for transit through Switzerland, 120 000 journeys a year for the time being, then 300 000 from the year 2003, and no restrictions from the year 2005.
The ban on night driving ban was to remain in force in Switzerland.
That too was part of the settlement.
Moreover, in case train use declined, Switzerland was to be granted a protective clause.
In March this year, the Commission believed there was little room for manoeuvre left in the talks with Switzerland and that the ECU 200 road toll was now a fixed rate.
It regarded the calculations submitted by Switzerland as by and large plausible.
The Commission also pointed to the advantages of concluding an agreement with Switzerland, especially because if the talks failed, Switzerland could autonomously levy a road toll, that it could then also take account of the external costs and that this would put any further tunnel building in Switzerland at risk.
On the other hand, the conclusion of an agreement with Switzerland would mean that as from the year 2005, 40-tonne HGVs could drive through Switzerland quite freely and the road-use charge system would be fair.
So the Commission regarded the transport negotiations with Switzerland as concluded, although Austria and most of the other Member States do not agree.
During the discussion, several Member States called for further improvements in the draft agreement and, in the event that this was not possible, for it to be rejected; these states were the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Greece and Italy.
The others were in favour of accepting it.
We too believe that there is little margin for improvement.
That means that our acceptance or rejection of it depends on whether a satisfactory solution can be found to the question of the Euro-Vignette.
I must say that the matter you have just raised again is more or less what we have already discussed.
It is now up to the Commission to see whether there is a chance of achieving a uniform rate acceptable to all parties concerned.
As I said, there was only a short, informal debate on the subject and the next step envisaged is the initial consideration of overland transport under the Austrian Presidency in the Council of Transport Ministers on 1 October, although again merely as a policy debate, since presumably the question of charges will not be debated formally before the German elections.
As the author is not present, Question No 6 lapses.
Question No 7 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0738/98), deputised for by Mrs Eriksson
Subject: Leaving the EU
There is great dissatisfaction in Sweden with membership of the EU, and a series of opinion polls has shown that the majority of the population is against membership.
At the same time there is a debate on the consequences if Sweden voted against the third stage of EMU in a referendum, and whether this could put the country on a course to leave the Union.
For example, there is talk of the possibility of organizing a referendum on withdrawal after the people rejected EMU.
The matter is complicated by the fact that the Treaty contains no clear provisions on withdrawal from the Union. What is the Council's view?
What are the requirements if a country is to leave the EU?
What actual procedure would be involved? I give the floor to the President-in-Office to reply to Mrs Eriksson.
Mr President, Mrs Eriksson, pursuant to Article 240 of the EC Treaty, that Treaty is concluded for an unlimited period.
No provision is made in the Treaty for a Member State to withdraw unilaterally from the European Communities.
The Council has never been faced with this question to date and nor has it ever discussed it.
I know that the Council has not discussed this issue, but I would put the following consideration to the President-in-Office.
Joining the EU is an act of free will.
Surely it is not unreasonable to call for discussion on what should happen if people, of their own free will, decide that they no longer wish to belong. It is high time we addressed this eventuality - and not just because of disaffection in my own country, Sweden.
Mr President, Mrs Eriksson, I can only add a few theoretical comments on what the doctrine is in principle, but it has in fact never been applied and no provision is made for it in the Treaty.
Neither the EU Treaty nor the three Treaties establishing the Communities provide for the right for an individual state to withdraw.
It follows that, in principle, it is out of the question for a Member State to withdraw or resign.
The Member States are the masters of the Treaties and their commitment to these Treaties is founded on their resolve to accept long-term membership; of course in the final analysis - according to doctrine at least - they can suspend this by an act to the contrary, an actus contrarius .
But the withdrawal of one Member State would require the agreement of all the others and would probably require amending the Treaty and observance of all the general requirements set out in the Vienna Convention on treaty law.
Thank you for the answer, Madam President-in-Office.
Does that mean that membership of the EU bears no relation to international law and the Vienna Convention? Is it not possible under the Vienna Convention to terminate membership of a body, if the preconditions are no longer present or for other reasons?
That was one point. The other matter is that a question was put to Mr de Silguy yesterday, to which he replied that Sweden was obliged to participate in economic and monetary union and did not have the same freedom to decide for itself as Germany acquired under the Karlsruhe judgment.
Is it really also the view of the presidency of the Council that Sweden is obliged to participate in economic and monetary union and does not have the freedom that the German Bundestag enjoys?
Mr President, Mr Bonde, I already said quite clearly in my initial reply that, firstly, the Treaty does not make provision for this matter and, secondly, it has never come up; I have also explained the prevailing doctrine.
To consider a theoretical, hypothetical case is one thing; the real situation is another, and in general terms, as I indicated, there is the Vienna Convention on treaty law.
That means I can only repeat what I just said.
If you like I will repeat it again.
Thank you very much, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
Mr Krarup, do you not feel that the explanation has already been repeated and that the President-in-Office made it clear that she had no further explanations to offer? If you insist, I can give you the floor for one minute, but I must remind you that subjects cannot be prolonged when no further discussion is possible.
You have the floor for one minute.
I agree entirely with you, Mr President, in that the President-in-Office has given an answer to the effect that, if all the other Member States agree, a Member State can terminate its membership, and that is, I suppose, selfevident in law.
At the same time, the President-in-Office referred to Article 240, which states that the Treaty is concluded for an unlimited period.
I therefore understand the statement of the President-in-Office to mean that the EU Council of Ministers takes the view that a Member State cannot withdraw from the European Union unless all Member States agree.
In view of the prevailing uncertainty, I would like to ask the President-in-Office to confirm this understanding.
Mr President, Mr Krarup, I did not say that.
I said that I am speaking on behalf of the Council and that pursuant to Article 240 of the EC Treaty, this Treaty is concluded for an unlimited period and that there is no provision made for unilateral withdrawal.
But I also said that the question has been discussed in theoretical terms, and that is all I have to say on the matter.
I believe if you want to go into this question in more detail, you will have to consult an expert in international law, not the Council whom I represent here.
Question No 8 by Maj Theorin (H-0742/98), deputised for by Mrs Lööw
Subject: The white-slave trade
Trafficking in women is a serious problem which does not get a great deal of attention.
Thousands of young women are working as prostitutes in the Member States of the EU.
Many of them were lured or abducted from poverty and unemployment in the East to be exploited as prostitutes in the West.
Their lives are spent held captive by pimps in complete isolation from the outside world.
Their passports and identity papers are taken from them and, deprived of any rights, they are forced to earn the money the pimps paid for them.
This is a modern slave trade and it is beyond belief that it should be happening in Europe today.
What steps does the Council intend to take to prevent this abuse of human beings? I give the floor to the President-in-Office to reply to Mrs Lööw.
Mr President, Mrs Lööw, the Council is well aware of the serious problems raised by the increasingly worrying phenomenon described by the honourable Member and has taken a number of initiatives aimed at putting a stop to it, both in the general context of trafficking in human beings and with specific reference to trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
As regards trafficking in human beings in general, given the various dimensions of this phenomenon, the Council has taken action at different levels, covering aspects of migration policy and judicial and police cooperation.
On 29 November 1996 the Council adopted a joint action on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, establishing an incentive and exchange programme for persons responsible for combating trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children, what is known as the STOP programme.
On 16 December 1996, the Council adopted a further joint action, also on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, extending the mandate given to the Europol Drugs Unit to cover, inter alia , the exchange of information and intelligence in relation to crimes involving clandestine immigration networks and traffic in human beings.
On 24 February 1997, the Council adopted a joint action on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, concerning action to combat trafficking in human beings and sexual exploitation of children.
These joint actions require the Member States to take specific action at national level to make trafficking a punishable offence under national law.
It also establishes forms of judicial cooperation in the investigations and judicial processes relating to trafficking in human beings.
From 24 to 26 April, an EU ministerial conference was held in The Hague with the aim of drawing up a list of measures in line with the UN General Assembly's Resolution No 5/66 on combating traffic in women.
These measures are summarised in the final declaration of the High Ministerial Declaration and European Guidelines for Effective Measures to prevent and combat Trafficking in Women for the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation.
In addition, the Council is following with great attention the developments taking place in this matter within the United Nations, specifically the initiatives aiming at the conclusion of universal instruments against trafficking in children or trafficking in illegal immigrants.
The Council is coordinating the positions of the Member States with a view to a rapid successful outcome of these initiatives.
Concerning trafficking in women for the purpose of sexual exploitation, in particular, in April 1998 the European Union launched two information campaigns in Poland and Ukraine, together with the United States - and in the framework of the new transatlantic agenda - to combat such trafficking.
All I really wish to do is to thank the President-in-Office for a very thorough answer.
The purpose of Mrs Theorin's question was to obtain an assurance that the Council agrees with the Commission and Parliament on the need to address this matter.
We are all aware of the difficulties involved.
It is a hidden problem and therefore not easily located.
An efficient system of police cooperation is required, and I am pleased to see that Europol has now had its mandate broadened accordingly.
The whole issue also needs to be raised in the context of enlargement.
We have an ideal forum here for real dialogue with the Central and Eastern European countries. In Sweden at any rate, it tends to be women from the CEECs that are exploited the worst.
Mr President, Mrs Lööw, I certainly have a few more comments to make on this particular question.
In autumn last year, the federal minister presented a draft convention on trafficking to the UN General Assembly.
In his statement to the 52nd General Assembly, he said that this draft would probably be submitted to the next meeting of the UN Commission on crime prevention.
That has now been done.
After the very positive feedback from this initiative, it was agreed with Italy to pursue this initiative jointly, with the Italians concentrating mainly on the question of trafficking on the high seas.
At its meeting in April, the UN Commission on crime prevention decided to further pursue the project of an international framework convention against organised crime, although restricting its scope to general legal assistance and extradition provisions.
Specific crimes were to be dealt with in protocols to the framework convention.
It was agreed to draw up a protocol against trafficking as such. It was also agreed to draw up protocols on traffic in women and children and on handguns.
With a view to formalising the negotiations on this framework convention and the protocols, the UN General Assembly's Commission on crime prevention recommended the adoption of a resolution providing for the creation of an ad hoc committee to draft a framework convention.
This committee was tasked immediately to start negotiations on a trafficking protocol on the basis of this Austro-Italian initiative.
At the first informal meeting of the ad hoc committee in Buenos Aires from 31 August to 4 September this year, Austria and Italy submitted a draft protocol on trafficking supported by the EU, which was endorsed by the 60 or so delegations who attended it.
Formal negotiations on the protocol will begin in Vienna in January and it is expected that we shall conclude them by March.
The convention is scheduled for completion in the year 2000.
On the question of traffic in women and children, it was emphasised that it is particularly important carefully to observe the procedure under the human rights convention for drafting an additional protocol to the convention on children's rights.
But since we do not yet have a draft text for that protocol on traffic in women and children, the USA agreed to submit one no later than March; so this too is an ongoing process.
In addition to specific provisions on police cooperation and combating trafficking on the high seas, the protocol provides in particular that the traffickers must either be punished or extradited to other treaty partners, aut dedere aut iudicare .
However, the illegal immigrants must not be punished as accessories.
They can only be accused of infringing immigration provisions but not of having committed a crime.
That is what I wished to add.
Question No 9 by Nuala Ahern (H-0744/98)
Subject: Proposed measures by the Council on the unacceptable risks to citizens and the environment posed by nuclear plants
What steps will the Council take during Austria's Presidency to intervene in cases such as Mochovce in Slovakia and Sellafield in the UK, where nuclear plants pose unacceptable risks to citizens and the environment of neighbouring states? I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mrs Ahern's question.
Mrs Ahern, as I pointed out in my reply to you and Mr Rübig during Question Time at the July part-session, the Council attaches enormous importance to protecting the population from the risks of ionising radiation and to the question of nuclear safety both within and outside the borders of the European Union.
So it is closely monitoring the observance of the internationally recognised principles of nuclear safety.
It pays special attention to this question in external relations and in particular in its relations with the Central European countries that wish to join the European Union.
The principles, priorities and aims of Slovakia's accession, of which the House has been informed, provide specifically that Slovakia must apply the internationally recognised principles of nuclear safety when the Mochovce nuclear power station comes into operation.
Furthermore, accession involves carrying out a realistic programme to shut down Bohunice.
The corresponding measures must form part of a long-term overall energy strategy, geared to efficiency and diversification.
The Council has regularly monitored the progress of work on the Mochovce nuclear power station and taken every opportunity to draw Slovakia's attention to the importance of nuclear safety.
After the Austrian Government informed the Council at its meeting of 25 May of the imminent entry into operation of the Mochovce nuclear power station, the President of the Council wrote to the Slovak foreign ministry to repeat his concern and at the same time to express his confidence in the competence of the Slovak nuclear supervisory authority and his conviction that the Slovak authorities would cooperate closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
It is worth noting that Mr van den Broek has made a similar approach to the Slovak authorities.
In adopting Euratom Directive 96/29 fixing the basic safety standards to protect the health of workers and the general public against the dangers of ionising radiation, the Council also tightened up most of the existing Community provisions in this field, by making the relevant standards more binding.
In this respect, it should also be noted that this directive applies in all Member States, so that it covers the Sellafield nuclear plant to which Mrs Ahern refers in her question.
Your attention is also drawn to the provisions of Chapter III of the Euratom Treaty concerning health and safety and Chapter VII on safeguards for nuclear plants within the European Community.
As I said in July, the Council will examine any proposals submitted by the Commission on improving the health protection of the population and the safety of nuclear power stations with all due care.
Let me assure Mrs Ahern that these questions really are of central concern to the European Union and our presidency.
I have to say that, expressions of concern apart, there do not appear to be any concrete proposals.
It is quite contrary to what I heard from a government minister when I visited Austria with the Green Group in July for the commencement of the presidency.
We had assurances that Austria would act and be proactive and make proposals.
Has the Austrian presidency made any efforts to make proposals in relation to transfrontier contamination or emissions or accidents from radiation? Has it considered tabling any amendments or made proposals to do so to the Euratom Treaty to allow for peer review from another Member State for a neighbouring nuclear power station?
Mr President, Mrs Ahern, let me emphasise yet again that we take very seriously any possible threats to the safety of the people of Europe arising out of possible defects in nuclear power stations both inside and outside the Community.
The Austrian Presidency takes the view that any reasonable policy of protection against nuclear radiation must involve full observance of the EU and international provisions in force, if not of more stringent rules.
By applying these principles, the presidency seeks to give new impetus to its examination of the Commission's proposals on the accession of the Community to the nuclear safety convention and the joint international convention on the safe management of irradiated fuel and radioactive waste.
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, please stay with us on this subject, since I have another supplementary question from Mr Smith.
However, before I give him the floor, I must say that I have been intrigued to see that Mr Smith has moved towards the right of the House, along with Mr Falconer, and I wonder if this has any political significance.
It is just a case of presidential curiosity on my part.
I give the floor to Mr Smith to put his supplementary question.
Of course, I have moved to my left and Mr Falconer has moved even further left.
That may give you some cause for concern.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for having replied to Mrs Ahern and for her well-expressed concerns about safety.
I would therefore draw to her attention a report by the British Health and Safety Executive about the safety of the Dounreay nuclear installation where it says that the team (Health and Safety Executive) found many chronic safety problems and, in the fuel cycle area, conditions ranged from the good to the very bad.
It is my understanding that the directive applies to the United Kingdom. The Euratom Treaty too applies to the UK.
Why has it taken so long to find out this serious state of affairs at Dounreay?
Thank you, Mr Smith.
I am not at all clear as to what you consider to be the right and the left of the House.
I ought to warn you, however, that if you continue to move towards what you term the left, you will find yourself in the Group of the European People's Party.
It is up to you.
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, you now have the floor to answer Mr Smith's supplementary question.
Mr President, Mr Smith, I would ask you to put this question about the Dounreay nuclear installation to the Commission, because it is up to the Commission to ensure observance of the Treaty and specifically of the provisions laid down by the Treaty.
So it has all the necessary information to give you a reliable answer.
But in general terms, let me tell you once again that of course the Council will always check to ensure very stringent compliance with the Community standards and international principles that are in force in the nuclear sector, especially with regard to accession negotiations.
Question No 10 by Sören Wibe (H-0749/98), deputised for by Mr Falconer
Subject: Relations with Israel and Palestine
It is most important that the outside world should put pressure on Israel to perform its part in the peace process.
What action does the Austrian Presidency intend to take to bring the collective pressure of the EU Member States to bear on Israel to persuade it for example to hand back the land it confiscated from the Palestinians and to repatriate Palestinian refugees? I give the floor to the President-in-Office to reply to Mr Falconer.
Mr President, Mr Falconer, the European Union is extremely concerned at the continued deadlock in the Middle East peace process, which is a constant threat to stability in the region.
The Union regards the peace process as the only means to achieve peace and security for Israel, the Palestinians and the neighbouring Arab states.
The Union is taking an active part in the endeavours to promote the peace process.
It will apply all its political influence to finding a solution.
In this context, the Austrian Presidency is seeking a dialogue with all the conflicting parties.
The visit to Vienna of President Arafat on 30 July, during which the Austrian Presidency gathered up-to-date information on the Palestinian point of view, forms part of that endeavour.
In spite of our attempts to enhance the European Union's role in the region, we are aware that for the time being the USA will remain the main mediator in the peace process.
The EU will therefore continue to give strong support to the US mediation efforts in every way and to coordinate its own approach closely with that of the United States.
A few months ago, the USA launched a determined mediation effort to secure a further Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank in accordance with the Interim Agreement and the 1997 Hebron accords.
The European Union believes that the American efforts, which have been followed by the resumption of direct bilateral negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians, offer good prospects for getting the peace process started again.
With the appointment of an EU special envoy for the peace process in 1996, the Union considerably enhanced its commitment and presence in the region.
Ambassador Moratinos is in constant contact with all the parties.
He is putting forward the European Union's point of view and advancing specific EU initiatives, for example to overcome the effects of the Israeli policy of closures.
Another area of EU activities is the strengthening of the anti-terrorism capabilities of the Palestinians.
The EU is also preparing input into the final status talks on the autonomous area.
One area on which the EU is concentrating is precisely the question of refugees, which will be a central and very difficult point of the final status negotiations.
Since early 1997, the EU, through its heads of mission in Tel Aviv, has been monitoring Israeli settlement activities, the situation in Jerusalem and the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Union has made public the information it gathered in extremely summary form.
As you know, the European Union is by far the largest donor to the Palestinians and will without any doubt continue this supportive role in the forthcoming pledging period, beginning in 1999.
Supporting the Palestinian people economically and in the humanitarian field is in itself giving a strong political signal to Israel to break the deadlock in the peace process.
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office for her answer to the question.
Israel is an island of pluralist democracy in that part of the world and obviously we all wish it well.
But we cannot stand idly by whilst it occupies land which belongs to others illegally in the face of United Nation resolutions calling for the land to be handed back, which was the crux of the agreement you referred to earlier.
May I draw the Council's attention to its remarks about its role in certain matters.
This Chamber is empty because you are the Council, you are the cornerstone of democratic accountability, and it is not good enough to pass it over to the Commission.
Therefore, I ask you to coordinate a response with the Commission by examining our trade agreements in order to expedite this matter and perhaps assist in resolving this whole tawdry mess we have got ourselves into.
Mr President, Mr Falconer, the further Israeli troop withdrawal from the West Bank provided for in the Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is long overdue.
For several months now, the USA has been trying to mediate with a view to persuading the Israelis to withdraw from a further 13 % of the West Bank.
An agreement to that effect would enable the parties to resume the negotiations on the final status of the Palestinian autonomous area, which are due to be completed by 4 March 1999 according to the original timetable.
Although the US proposals do not match up to the Palestinian wishes, Mr Arafat accepted them.
The Israelis reject them on the grounds of security interests, but have proposed a 10 + 3 % formula, which provides that 3 % of the land around Israeli settlements would be a nature conservation area over which Israel would retain final responsibility for security.
Of course I know that the Security Council resolutions to which you referred are most important here.
And we are endeavouring to make the European Union's role in the peace process more visible too, because the foundation stones for resolving the conflict remain - and I agree with you here - the principles of Madrid and Oslo, in particular 'land for peace', full implementation of the existing contractual provisions of the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement and the relevant UN Security Council decisions.
We strongly support continued EU economic assistance to the Palestinian people.
Palestinian economic growth is a prerequisite for political stability.
Your other point, namely the question of trade agreements, does in fact primarily concern the Commission.
So I would ask you to put that question to the Commission.
Question No 11 by Jens-Peter Bonde (H-0751/98)
Subject: Right of access to documents and plea of confidentiality of Council discussions
The plea was concern for the confidentiality of Council discussions when access to documents was refused in 6890 instances in 1996/97 compared with 4490 in 1994/95.
Why has confidentiality apparently increased so much when the desire for transparency has been trumpeted to such an extent? I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Bonde's question.
Mr President, Mr Bonde, the information the Council has on this matter does not seem to tally with the questioner's.
For the second report on the implementation of Council Decision 731/93/EC on public access to Council documents suggests that the proportion of documents transmitted rose from 58.7 % in 1994/95 to 78.3 % in 1996/97, although the number of documents requested had increased substantially.
That means that of the 3325 documents concerned in the period 1996/97, 2605 were made available.
Over the period 1994/95 only 378 documents were requested, of which the applicants were granted access to 222.
This trend reflects the experience the Council and its General Secretariat have gleaned in the practical implementation of this policy and proves - as indeed the Council noted in the conclusions it adopted on 29 June 1998 - that Decision 731/93/EC on openness and transparency has been effective.
The Council will continue its efforts to make its activities more transparent.
In this context, in its conclusions of 29 July this year, the Council expressed its resolve to ensure as wide as possible access to documents relating to acts that it issues as legislator and only to apply Article 4(2) of Decision 731/93/EC where absolutely necessary.
We have all noticed that many more documents are being supplied in both the Commission and the Council than before, and it is good that Parliament's campaign for greater openness has hit home.
We are glad of that.
But in the latest report there is a tiresome tendency for the argument, which we really hate in Parliament, invoking the confidentiality of discussions to crop up more and more often as a reason for making refusals, which are - it is quite true - relatively fewer, but that justification - the secrecy of discussions - does crop up increasingly often, and I find it difficult to see what valid arguments support this view.
The public interest must weigh more heavily in almost all cases than concern for the confidentiality of past discussions.
Mr President, Mr Bonde, I have just given you detailed figures that show that confidentiality is in fact being applied less and less.
At the forthcoming extraordinary meeting of Heads of State and Government in Pörtschach in Austria, we will raise the questions of bringing Europe closer to the people, transparency, subsidiarity, and so forth.
This will certainly offer another opportunity to call for even greater transparency.
But by and large, I believe that these Council figures - and I am only speaking for the Council here - show that we are taking a quite different approach now from in the past.
Let me add that on 19 March 1998 it was decided to make a data register available to the public as soon as possible to supplement the existing system of electronic data transmission.
This multilingual data register will be available on the Internet so that every citizen can access Council documents by title, date and number.
Question No 12 by Olivier Dupuis (H-0752/98)
Subject: Georgia
Georgia is about to become a full member of the Council of Europe.
It has to contend with a bitter civil war in Abkhazia, brought about largely by forces and interests outside its control. It has taken a unilateral decision to bring its legislation into line with Union law.
It stands at the crossroads of communications with Central Asia, a matter of strategic importance to the Union.
It holds a decisive key to the vast Central Asian oil reserves.
However, notwithstanding all these considerations, it does not appear on any 'list' of applicant countries.
Given that Georgia plainly has a crucial role to play on the European stage and the region in which it lies is of paramount economic and political significance for the EU, does not the Council believe that it would be in the Union's best interests and highly desirable and essential from the political point of view to send a message to the Georgian authorities that any Georgian application to join the Union would receive the utmost attention? What moves, if any, has the Council already made in that direction?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Dupuis's question.
Mr President, Mr Dupuis, when signing the partnership and cooperation agreement with Georgia on 22 April 1996, the EU stressed the common values it shares with Georgia and recognised that both sides wished to strengthen existing links and widen established relations.
The EU further recognised in this context that support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia would contribute to the safeguarding of peace and stability in Europe.
The partnership and cooperation agreement established regular political dialogue on bilateral, regional and international issues of mutual interest and supported the wish of Georgia to establish closer cooperation with European institutions.
Pending the ratification and entry into force of the partnership and cooperation agreement, the European Community, wishing to ensure the rapid development of trade relations with Georgia, concluded on 29 April 1997 an interim agreement with Georgia, which entered into force on 1 September 1997.
This agreement aims to provide for the speedy implementation of the trade and trade-related provisions of the partnership and cooperation agreement.
The Council considers that the full potential of the partnership and cooperation agreement should be implemented as a priority before considering new initiatives or agreements between the Community and Georgia.
I should like to thank the Minister for the long answer which she gave, but I fear that once again, although a great deal has been done, we have not done what is really necessary.
Georgia is in a strategic position, since it has common borders with Russia, which is currently not in a very good situation.
It is in a strategic position for the EU and for some countries within the EU, particularly the Minister's own country.
I believe that we could do a great deal more, but we need a political signal, a political signal that has never reached the ears of the Georgian authorities. It is a signal which never reached the ears of the Yugoslav authorities either and led to the tragedy which we are all too familiar with, even though we were aware of the situation in the early 1980s.
There is also the parallel problem of Abkhazia in Georgia, or the problems in Ossetia - in fact there are many problems, but there are also some positive aspects.
Azerbaijan is very close to us and we could conceivably draw up a far-reaching plan which, using Georgia as a platform, would create an area of stability in this region.
Does the Minister think that we could go a little further and work towards a political approach to the situation?
Mr President, Mr Dupuis, let me point out first of all that an application for accession represents a statement of political will on the part of a third country to become part of a wider community of states such as the EU.
But to date Georgia has not applied for accession to the EU.
For the rest, as you know, the European Union's normal practice in its relations with third countries consists first of exhausting all the opportunities offered by existing agreements, such as the partnership agreement; which has not yet been done to the full.
Prior to taking any other steps, the EU must first act within that framework and develop its economic relations and extend its cooperation with Georgia.
Let me also tell you that the Austrian Presidency of the Council did indeed initiate a new discussion of principle, at the informal Salzburg Council, where we considered how we could involve states that do not at present have any prospect of accession in a special partnership system, for instance a partnership for Europe, similar to the NATO partnership for peace.
We discussed that informally in the Council at the time, but many states still felt the time was not yet ripe and rejected the idea.
Question No 13 by Alex Smith (H-0753/98)
Subject: Radioactive and toxic waste
Following the ministerial agreement at the meeting of the Ospar Convention controlling the discharge to sea of radioactive and toxic wastes, held at Sintra in Portugal in July, what monitoring of policy commitments by EU Member States not to radioactively pollute neighbouring states is planned by the Presidency? I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Smith's question.
Mr President, Mr Smith, no proposal to this effect has been presented to the Council since the conference of Ospar contracting parties in July, and as the honourable Member surely knows, the presidency does not have the power to introduce an instrument or mechanism for monitoring whether the Member States have fulfilled their obligations in relation to environmental pollution.
The Council notes that Articles 21 and 23 in particular of that agreement contain provisions for monitoring whether the contracting parties are fulfilling their obligations and ensuring that they do so.
That means the contracting parties can do so, but not the Council.
President-in-Office, it is a pretty sad state of affairs if we have no instrument to ensure some monitoring of commitments freely entered into at ministerial conferences.
Could I ask the Council, before the end of the current presidency, to give us a progress report on how these commitments have been carried out during the presidency?
Mr President, Mr Smith, I am sorry but unfortunately I have to deny your request, since it is not within the Council's power to introduce environmental monitoring instruments.
Madam President-in-Office, we are all concerned about nuclear safety.
Can you envisage a new legal basis for settling nuclear safety questions on a Europe-wide basis in future?
Mr President, Mr Rübig, this is a question the Council has not considered so far.
I believe we ought to discuss it in the appropriate working parties.
I am quite happy to do so.
But we do not have a proposal from the Commission, which is usually the first step.
And we must have a Commission proposal before we can discuss any options at all.
Madam President, Slovenia is operating a nuclear power station near the Austrian border.
We have been informed that irradiated waste is being stored in a surface storage facility, but that final storage has not yet been decided.
We find this unacceptable and unsafe.
If accession talks are held with Slovenia, will the question of nuclear safety and final storage also be raised in those negotiations?
Mr President, Mr Pirker, in general let me say that this and similar questions are of course raised during accession negotiations, in particular the question of nuclear safety.
The Council will always ensure during accession negotiations that the Community norms in force, and in particular all the international principles in the nuclear sector, are stringently observed.
For the rest, the Austrian Presidency holds regular bilateral talks with Slovenia.
That is a subject I do not want to go into here, but the talks do also cover these specific matters.
As the author is not present, Question No 14 lapses.
Question No 15 by Wayne David (H-0756/98)
Subject: Human rights in Iraq
Is the Council aware that the Muslim spiritual leader, Al-Shaik Mohammed Al-Ghorawi and three of his aides were killed in Najaf, Iraq on 18 June, possibly by Saddam Hussein's agents.
What pressure is the Council bringing to bear on the Iraqi regime in order to end abuses of human rights of this kind? I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr David's question.
Mr President, Mr David, the Council is deeply concerned about the massive and systematic violation of human rights in Iraq.
However, the fact that Iraq is under a severe UN sanctions regime, and the very limited EU diplomatic presence in Baghdad, limits the Union's possibilities for monitoring and taking steps in reaction to specific cases of human rights violations in Iraq.
I thank the President-in-Office for her reply.
I am encouraged to hear of the Council's concern over the situation in Iraq and in particular the death of these four clerics. I should like to emphasise the gravity of the situation.
Bad as these four murders are, there is a strong suspicion that Saddam Hussein's government is seeking to eliminate the entire leadership of the Shiite Muslims in that country.
This is completely intolerable.
I would urge the Council in the strongest possible terms to do whatever it can to make sure there is at least some modicum of respect for human rights in Iraq.
I therefore call on the President-in-Office, as a matter of urgency, to make sure that all efforts are made to put the greatest possible pressure on the regime in Iraq to improve the situation.
Mr President, Mr David, let me reply as follows.
In its resolution submitted at the 54th meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in March/April 1998, the European Union set out its position on the situation in Iraq and condemned the widespread and systematic violation of human rights and the use of terrorist measures. The Union will do the same in a resolution to be submitted at the next UN General Assembly and will once again urgently call on Iraq to cooperate with the UN human rights agencies, and in particular with Mr Max van der Stoel, the special rapporteur for Iraq, whose mandate was extended for another year at the 54th meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission.
Unfortunately the European Union's presence in sovereign Iraqi territory is extremely limited, which makes it impossible for the EU to denounce the human rights violations by Saddam Hussein's regime and effectively monitor the respect for human rights.
But the presidency will not fail to seek detailed information about the case you have raised here and will then discuss this question again with the UN General Assembly and with Mr van der Stoel.
Question No 16 by José Apolinário (H-0758/98)
Subject: Political situation in East Timor
In view of the latest developments concerning East Timor, and, in particular, the positions taken by the Council, can the Presidency state what initiatives it intends to take over the political situation in East Timor?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Apolinário's question.
Mr President, Mr Apolinário, in pursuance of the objectives set out in its common position of 25 June 1996, the European Union continues to support the initiatives undertaken in the UN framework; these may contribute to resolving the question of East Timor through a fair, comprehensive and internationally acceptable solution which fully respects the rights of the East Timorese people, in accordance with the relevant resolutions of the UN General Assembly and in conformity with the principles enshrined in the UN Charter.
The European Union sent a troika mission to East Timor, which was there from 26 to 30 June.
Following a Council decision, the troika mission report was published on 24 July.
The main outcome of this mission is as follows.
Firstly, according to its members, any long-term solution to the East Timor issue must respect the wishes of the East Timorese people.
Secondly, a dialogue should be opened without delay, which should include the representatives of the East Timorese people.
Thirdly, all partners must show flexibility in the negotiations.
Fourthly, visible confidence-building measures should be implemented immediately.
Let me also emphasise that the all-inclusive intra-Timorese dialogue has now been held three times, with Austria acting as host on all three occasions.
The next round of talks is scheduled for October, again in Austria.
On 3 and 4 August, tripartite talks were held in New York between the UN Secretary-General and the foreign ministers of Indonesia and Portugal. The European Union noted the results with satisfaction.
These include closer involvement of the East Timorese people in the search for a solution.
The members of the troika mission also supported this.
I believe it is enormously important that we make further progress in confidence building among the various East Timorese groups, and I believe that in future we must play an even greater role in seeking a satisfactory solution acceptable to all parties.
Mr President, I would like to begin by acknowledging and thanking the Austrian Presidency for its comprehensive, exhaustive and diligent answer to my question; I would also like to emphasise that, since Austria hosted the Timorese discussions, we naturally have the highest expectations as regards the Austrian Presidency's endeavours concerning East Timor and would urge it to pursue an active policy in order to advance the situation there.
I should also like to raise the matter of the steps the presidency intends to taken in the light of Parliament's insistence on the unconditional release of all political prisoners, particularly Xanana Gusmão, and given that, in the context of relations between the European Union and the ASEAN countries, it is becoming necessary and desirable to enhance the protection of human rights and respect for fundamental freedoms and, finally, to secure the right of the Timorese people to self-determination through consultation.
I would like to acknowledge the presidency's response and restate my confidence that the Austrian Presidency will persevere with the efforts begun by the Austrian Government in hosting and promoting intra-Timorese dialogue, thereby contributing to the advancement of this issue.
Mr President, Mr Apolinário, thank you for your words of encouragement.
Let me add a few comments.
On 22 July, shortly before the summer recess, I myself spoke with Ramos Horta in Lisbon; he told me he was prepared to support the proposed autonomy provided this was only an interim solution, and that a referendum would be held on East Timor's final status in a few years' time.
Let me also say a few words about the matter of the prisoners that has been raised.
We too are monitoring the health of the prisoners being held in Dili jail with great concern.
Last week this matter was discussed in the Asia-Oceania working party.
The presidency's representative in Djakarta is in constant contact with the Red Cross, which keeps him up to date on the health of all the prisoners on hunger strike.
He has also urged the Indonesian authorities to provide the necessary medicines and medical care.
According to the Austrian embassy in Djakarta, which represents the presidency, a doctor visits the hunger strikers regularly and has confirmed that the health situation is under control.
On Xanana Gusmão, let me point out that of course the question of the prisoners and the release of Xanana Gusmão was also raised during the talks with Ramos Horta, but clearly there will have to be further talks under the aegis of the United Nations in New York.
As you know, a few of the East Timorese who took refuge in the Austrian embassy in Djakarta are still there.
Here too, we are seeking a solution acceptable both to the East Timorese and to the two conflicting parties.
Madam President-in-Office, I have two quite specific questions.
The first concerns the proposal to demilitarise East Timor that keeps coming up in the discussions.
The second concerns the emergence of new parties in Indonesia, where a new phenomenon is arising, namely that some of them are Islamist.
We know that East Timor has a largely Christian population.
There are fears that this could create tensions, and I wish to ask whether it might not be possible to involve the newly emerging parties in Indonesia in the democracy programmes on a partnership basis.
Mr President, Mr Posselt, on the first question, demilitarisation, I can tell you that the talks held under the aegis of the United Nations in New York are quite certainly aimed at the withdrawal of the Indonesian troops so that the first stage of demilitarisation can commence.
The freedom fighters are pursuing the same end.
On the question of political parties, all I can say is that the Austrian Presidency is seeking to invite as many future parties as possible to the dialogue in East Timor in an attempt to move forward here too, as there is little chance of a future peaceful settlement without political parties.
As the author is not present, Question No 17 lapses.
Question No 18 by Jan Andersson (H-0765/98)
Subject: Structural aid to larger countries
Aid to particularly deprived areas of major cities is a completely new feature of European structural policy.
The application of the rules on aid to urban areas contained in the Commission's proposal for a programme for cities in the European Union is, therefore, a somewhat inappropriate instrument in countries with a small, sparsely distributed population since the rules are geared to regions and not parts of cities.
The Commission should, therefore, exempt certain areas with low population density from the nominal criterion of 100 000 inhabitants.
What action does the Council intend to take on this matter to avoid the somewhat inconsistent treatment ensuing from the present proposal?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mr Andersson's question, which will be the last in this Question Time.
Mr President, the Commission has submitted no proposal to the Council for a programme for cities in the European Union.
As the honourable Member is aware, certain general Community aid measures are provided for cities of more than 100 000 inhabitants under the URBAN Community initiative for the period 1994 to 1999.
By its nature, this initiative falls solely within the remit of the Commission.
Furthermore, on 18 March 1998 the Commission submitted a proposal for a Council regulation laying down general structural fund provisions, which include structural aids for deprived urban areas.
The Council has not yet completed its examination of this proposal.
Nor has it determined the selection criteria for deprived urban areas.
So the Council is unable to answer the honourable Member's question.
I am grateful to the Council for its answer.
I can appreciate that it has not yet adopted its position, but I would nevertheless like to draw attention to a problem arising from the proposal submitted by the Commission.
I can point to my own country, Sweden, as an example - although the problem undoubtedly also arises in Austria and several other countries - since only two per cent of the population can benefit from this aid, which in my country means 185 000 people.
We have no areas with 100 000 inhabitants, but some with perhaps between 30 000 and 50 000 inhabitants which are fictitiously depicted as having 100 000.
In my country, this means that just one area is likely to be able to receive assistance, so that very little of this aid can be put to use.
I therefore hope that you will bear this in mind when considering this matter in the future.
Mr President, Mr Andersson, all I can say is this. There are two articles that provide for exemptions regarding the size of the target area.
Article 9 provides that, in exceptional cases, urban areas in fairly small cities - i.e. cities with fewer than 100 000 inhabitants - can also be included.
Article 10 of that European Commission communication defines this rule more precisely and provides that, in duly justified cases, support can also be given for actions in small and mediumsized cities suffering from general economic decline.
So this means that smaller cities can also be supported under the URBAN programme.
Thank you, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
Since the time allotted for Question Time has now come to an end, Questions Nos 19 to 43 will receive written answers.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council once again for attending, and for the high quality of her answers.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Associated companies (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0299/98) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive on a common system of taxation applicable to interest and royalty payments made between associated companies of different Member States (COM(98)0067 - C4-0195/98-98/0087(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I have closely examined Mr Secchi's report, together with the opinions and the Council directive on a common system of taxation applicable to interest and royalty payments made between associated companies of different Member States.
The first point I would like to make is that it seems to me that we should be discussing this directive in conjunction with another draft directive relating to savings in general, about which we have already been informed but which has not yet been submitted to the European Parliament.
I therefore feel that attention should be drawn to a certain inadequacy in the coordination and discussion of such important matters as income tax harmonisation.
We could, indeed perhaps should, have drawn up a multilateral agreement on harmonisation which the different countries could have used as a basis for bilaterally regulating their interests in the area of investments, economic affairs and taxation.
However, an alternative approach was adopted and I should certainly say a few words about that too.
The directive still contains a number of discrepancies regarding particular definitions, such as the concept of the establishment of a company for tax purposes.
As we all know, traditionally the location of the registered office or effective administration has been the relevant factor in international tax relations.
Here, a different criterion has been adopted.
The concept of interest, for example, and that of permanent establishment will no doubt give rise to a number of problems, particularly between those Member States which enter into agreements to eliminate double taxation of income.
In my view, this topic needs to be examined in greater detail.
Mr President, the question which is before us for discussion here is certainly a difficult one, and one and a half minutes is really only long enough to examine one aspect of it.
I think that the point about reducing VAT on labourintensive jobs is the most far-reaching.
Here, of course, the extremely difficult question of delimitation arises.
If we include broad areas, it undoubtedly leads to endless debate.
We would have to establish very clear social and ecological criteria, including first and foremost the employment requirement, and we would have to define a limited list on which to negotiate.
Basic principles, then, will enable us to make headway along the right lines.
There is a willingness to tackle this issue, and individual Member States have generally had very positive experiences here.
If the Commission were able to make progress along these lines, then we could actually achieve political success in this otherwise very technical sector.
Mr President, we are beginning to make progress with the agreement to monitor fiscal differences, which are so counterproductive for the economic future of the single market.
I welcome this first directive, which sets us on the path we need to take, and my only comment is on the timetable for its development.
I think that this report by my colleague Mr Secchi, whom we should thank for his work, should give a certain impetus and specify dates and undertakings.
Progress on fiscal matters may have to be made 'slowly but surely', as we say in Spain, but we should not allow the fact that the directive is to be revised in three years' time to create doubt as to whether what we approve will also apply to other companies.
I think that we should consider a three-year period long enough, and we should announce now that this measure that is being established today for associated companies will definitely be applied to all companies.
This would prevent associations from relocating and would give legal security to this process, which is what I think it needs most.
Fiscal harmonization requires maximum political support - which this Parliament is giving - and maximum legal security.
Congratulations Commissioner Monti, my dear colleague.
I should like to begin by thanking Mr Secchi not only for his excellent report on the proposed directive on interest and royalty payments, but also more generally for the guidance and support on taxation matters which he provides in this House.
I should like furthermore to thank the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and, indeed, Parliament as a whole for your support for the Commission's initiatives. Your speed of response is tangible evidence of your supportive attitude.
As you know, this proposal is one of three measures contained in a package adopted last December by the Ecofin Council, and I shall say a few words at the end on the state of play concerning the other two measures.
Like you, I too regard this instrument of Community law relating to interest and royalty payments as very important because, at present, neither unilateral measures introduced by the Member States nor bilateral agreements outlawing double taxation have succeeded in eliminating completely the phenomenon of double taxation on such payments.
I am delighted that the honourable Members are supporting this proposal.
I have taken careful note of the amendments put forward by Mr Secchi and, in particular, Amendments Nos 1 and 2 stressing the importance of the directive for SMEs and the advisability of extending the scope of the directive to non-associated companies in the future.
The Commission shares the spirit of these two amendments, Mr Secchi, and will endeavour to ensure that it is reflected in the wording adopted by the Council.
The other amendments from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, Nos 3 to 6, stress that the approach designed to produce a package of measures should not be used as a means of destroying the various elements making up that package.
These amendments also seek to restrict the Member States' autonomy to deny companies the benefit of this directive, and to ensure that this proposal is in keeping with the Code of Conduct and the other elements of the taxation package.
The Commission endorses the thinking behind Amendments Nos 3 to 6.
The Commission nevertheless thinks that it would be inopportune to accept them at the moment and in their current form.
Indeed, the proposal for a directive was submitted in its present form after much thought, with the intention of balancing the interests of the various Member States: those wishing the directive to apply to all types of companies and those standing to lose a considerable amount of tax revenue following the abolition of withholding tax; those wishing this directive to be closely linked with the other elements of the package and those wishing it to be taken in isolation.
You will appreciate that, in an area still governed by the rule of unanimity, it is not easy to find an ideal solution.
In any event, the amendments have been carefully noted and will all be taken into account during discussion in the Council, once the Member States' positions have become clearer.
The same applies to Amendments Nos 7 to 9 from Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, Mrs Hautala and Mr Wolf.
As to Amendment No 10, I agree with Mr Secchi that it would be inadvisable to delay the entry into force of the directive.
Once again, Mr President, I am extremely grateful to the Members of this House for their assistance. I shall conclude with a few words concerning recent developments on the other two measures included in the taxation package, because we are all convinced of the need to preserve a close linkage - both logical and political - between these measures.
With regard to the Code of Conduct, all the Member States have emphasised their commitment to the principles of the Code drawn up last December, and have agreed a work programme and timetable ensuring that an initial report will reach the Ecofin Council by next December.
In order to conduct an initial assessment of the measures relating to inter-group services, financial services and off-shore companies, two sub-groups have been established under the Code of Conduct Group, which is, as you know, chaired by Mr Primarolo. One sub-group is likewise chaired by the Minister, Mr Primarolo, the other by Dr Noltz.
Several meetings of these sub-groups and the main group are scheduled for the autumn.
The proposal to ensure a minimum of effective taxation on income from savings is currently before the European Parliament. The rapporteur has been appointed, and I am confident that this House will see fit to express its opinion within a few months.
In general terms, the Commission is to report on progress made with the various elements of the package in time for the Ecofin Council on 1 December 1998.
We therefore have a ship that is not easy to steer, charting an ambitious course.
We are all convinced that its route will be followed with the greatest attention.
There will be no lack of opportunities to report back to this House, but let me take this opportunity to thank Parliament once again for its support on this difficult voyage which is in all of our interests.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Welcome
Common system of VAT - Products subject to excise duty
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0084/98 by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC on the common system of Value Added Tax (the Value Added Tax Committee) (COM(97)0325 - C4-0365/97-97/0186(CNS)); -A4-0064/98 by Mr Miller, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 92/12/EEC on the general arrangements for products subject to excise duty and on the holding, movement and monitoring of such products (COM(97)0326 - C4-0394/97-97/0181(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Professor Monti has just explained that tax policy in Europe is an example of how not to take the easy way out.
The matter we are dealing with here today - amending the VAT directive - also falls into this category.
This subject has been on our agenda once before, in March, and at that time we postponed the report because the Council had failed to reach unanimity.
We decided by agreement with Commissioner Monti to allow more room for manoeuvre so that a majority could be obtained in favour of an amended proposal, even if this were under the new Austrian Presidency.
In March this majority could not be obtained.
Professor Monti has now worked out a compromise proposal, which is going to be dealt with on 12 October at the ECOFIN Meeting.
It is not the full proposal from March, but an amended one, which should at least make a Commission committee responsible for dealing with the main problems arising from cross-border treatment of VAT issues.
Professor Monti, Parliament welcomes the fact that there has been progress.
I would particularly like to thank you on behalf of all my colleagues here, because you belong to that group of Commissioners who set such a good example in fostering cooperation with Parliament.
You are always telling us about the Commission's latest initiatives, you involve us.
Although we unfortunately only have the right to be consulted and unanimity in the Council is required for tax harmonisation, I would nevertheless like to emphasise our gratitude - the Parliament compliments you for your exemplary attitude.
When we need to criticise, then of course we do so - but in this case we can only praise.
The Member States have been very selfish in this field, which is why we have not been able to reach agreement hitherto.
But I believe that, once we have a single European currency, the Member States will be no longer be able to maintain their delaying tactics on harmonisation of VAT and other excise duties (Mr Miller's report follows a similar line to my own). The single currency is a fact.
It will come into force on 1 January 1999 and by 1 July 2002 at the latest it will be the only currency, the only means of payment in the participating countries.
If we have not resolved the interpretation question by then, we should not be surprised at the huge extent of VAT and excise duty fraud in Europe.
According to recent estimates from the European Court of Auditors, the volume of fraud is now on a par with the European Union budget.
The President of the Court of Auditors, during a hearing of the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs four months ago, estimated the amount at about DM 150 billion - the sum total of the European budget.
If we fail to resolve these issues, we no longer deserve to be taken seriously in the fight against fraud.
Professor Monti has proposed that the existing VAT Committee, which up to now has had only an advisory capacity and could only present and discuss proposals, should in future have regulatory powers on matters of interpretation.
In Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs there was widespread support for this proposal.
I also believe that the fact that it is part of the overall Commission programme shows that we are thinking along the right lines.
Up to now the VAT Committee could only recommend non-compulsory guidelines, but in future, at least in the implementing provisions, it is to have wider powers to prevent double taxation and, conversely, to prevent non-taxation, in other words to excluding possible ways of legally avoiding tax.
I must admit that the Member States are being very reluctant about this.
The Federal Republic of Germany has said, with reference to Article 99 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 23(2) to (5) of the German Basic Law, that the unanimity principle could be circumvented and the co-decision powers of the German Bundesrat no longer observed.
I consider that to be a superficial argument, because all the fundamental decisions will in future still have to be taken by a unanimous vote in the ECOFIN Council.
Professor, we have tabled two amendments.
If this Committee is to have greater powers, then we would like the Commission to draw up annual reports on its work.
Furthermore, we would like to see the administrative and legal provisions transposed by 1 January 1999, in other words when the single European currency comes into force.
Mr President, I agree with a lot of what my colleague, Mr Langen, has said tonight, and he has covered a lot of the ground I was going to touch upon.
As Members will remember, we had to take this item off the agenda in March to allow the Commission and the Council more room to manoeuvre.
I understand that, as Mr Langen has pointed out, there is a compromise position going to the ECOFIN Council in October.
It might not have been 'the Full Monty' that we would ask for in the UK but at least it is something.
Turning to the report on excise duty which is in front of us, one of the problems that a report like this highlights is that much of the decision-making within the EU is surrounded by secrecy, which, I am sure, a lot of citizens are very worried about.
At the moment there are about 43 comitology committees dealing with indirect taxation.
To me, that is 43 too many.
We have to accept that they are there, but what we have to do is make them far more open and transparent.
That is why I and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have submitted a number of amendments.
I shall begin by going through the amendments.
The first one I found to be somewhat ironic. It corrects a statement made in the directive.
The directive states that: 'it should be borne in mind that the finishing line for Community harmonisation of excise duty was crossed only a few months before the entry into force of the single market.'
I do not know who wrote that or whether that person had actually been sampling some of the products of excise duty prior to writing it.
But if you go to places like Dover or Malmö and see the goods that have been brought in from other areas, you realise that there is no harmonisation within the field of excise duty.
For somebody to write that the finishing line has been crossed is a total falsehood.
Obviously we have to correct that.
I was gentle on him; instead of putting 'finishing line' I just said we have crossed a 'starting line' , because I realise that Commissioner Monti is moving towards harmonisation in the field of indirect taxation, and I wish him all the best.
The other amendment I have tabled concerns the Plumb/Delors agreement, which, if my memory serves me right, was six or seven years ago.
It was an initial agreement in an exchange of letters between the President of the Commission at that time, Jaques Delors, and the President of Parliament, Lord Plumb.
That was supposed to have been implemented in order to highlight and open up the whole question of these comitology committees.
It has never been implemented fully.
We are asking the Commission to go back and look it.
We are not asking to have power over the committees, we just want to have a look at the work they are doing.
The third amendment by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy concerns the computerised monitoring system.
We ask for that to be introduced when the computerised monitoring system for Community transit comes into place.
Again, a technical amendment, which I would have thought very acceptable to both the Commission and business.
We would also be prepared to accept the fourth amendment by Mr des Places.
It does not say a lot but in effect it says that the administration procedure should be improved, and nobody really could argue against that.
I wish to finish on the plea that these comitology committees are operating in secret. We are not doing anything to remedy this.
We ask the Commission to please let us have more information, so that the public in the EU can see what it is doing.
Maybe that will dispel some of the mistrust that surrounds us today.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal to change the status of the VAT Committee from an advisory to a regulatory committee and the two amendments in the Langen report certainly represent progress.
The current transitional system of VAT has done a great deal to help the development of the single market, but administrative procedures in the Member States and the different interpretations they have given to the basic directives affect the operation of the single market and the legal certainty that should be guaranteed.
Until there is a uniform interpretation and the VAT rules are applied uniformly the neutrality of the VAT system cannot really be guaranteed and we shall continue to have a problem.
The discrepancies in the way the legislation is applied in practice undoubtedly have something do so with the Commission's lack of executive power.
The proposal to give the Commission the executive power it needs and to make the VAT Committee a regulatory committee will put both in a stronger position and should certainly mean that the implementation of the VAT regulations is brought into line in all Member States.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was right to agree to this, but of course we also need to ensure that we in the House can continue in our role as political watchdog over the executive arm, which is why the amendment proposing an annual report from the VAT Committee deserves support from all groups.
We shall certainly be voting for it.
Thank you, Mr President, and my congratulations to the rapporteur.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by supporting the speech I have just heard from Mrs Thyssen, which highlights two important aspects.
One is that unfortunately for years we have been using a provisional scheme for applying Value Added Tax, not for want of hard work and effort from the Commissioner responsible for the matter, Mr Monti, but because, as you know, in order to arrive at a definitive VAT system we need unanimity between the Member States, and this is unfortunately not possible.
We therefore welcome and approve the proposals to amend the relevant directives that we are examining this evening in these two reports on taxation. We support the main points proposed by the Commission and especially those aspects which refer to making progress, although in our opinion, and I suppose also in Commissioner Monti's opinion, the rate is too slow.
However, we have to continue to make these efforts if we are to arrive at a system which we hope will be definitive.
I would particularly like to highlight one of the proposals put forward, because I feel it is especially relevant for the sector of business which is most important for economic development and employment in the European Union: small and mediumsized undertakings.
We understand that under the Commission's proposal, the regulatory powers given to the committee - as highlighted by Mrs Thyssen - and the scope which this would then give the Commission itself, would obviously improve the way things work, simplifying the system, giving more security to all businesses and especially offering a greater guarantee for small and medium-sized firms, which form the basis of Europe's economy.
Mr President, I should also like to welcome the comments from the Commissioner and, in particular, from the two rapporteurs.
The points that they touch on are very important.
The sixth VAT Directive, which was originally designed to allow the abolition of tax frontiers and the creation of a common tax system, is a very important political message, particularly now when we speak about a market of 340 million people.
It is essential that we simplify and modify the VAT collection system to guarantee that success.
However, as those speakers have mentioned, very little progress has been made on this, partially because of the unanimity requirement under Article 99 but also because of a lack of action on behalf of the Commission and other institutions to force out the boat with regard to giving proper representation to the true ideals of the single market.
Members have mentioned the question of comitology.
Last night in Parliament we had a discussion with Commissioner Oreja on comitology, the proposal coming from the Commission.
I highlighted to him last night, in the context of our discussion on Mr Miller's report tonight, that when the issue of abolition of duty- and tax-free sales arose an excise question arose, namely where excise would be paid on sales etc.
The Commission, instead of submitting a proposal to Parliament and discussing with Parliament how to overcome this problem, referred the matter to the quango of unelected, unrepresentative officials from Member State governments, to make a decision in secret and not refer it back to Parliament.
What we are looking for is more consultation, more interaction.
The euro coming into operation provides an opportunity to simplify the bureaucratic procedures.
Finally, as my Liberal colleague said, we need to have a differential VAT regime to allow for employment creation and employment growth, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises.
Mr President, I should like to start by apologising, as I have just opened up the wrong file in my head.
I have a belated comment to make on the Secchi report.
This is rather unusual, I know, but it is a practical point.
We tabled our amendments because we do not want the necessary changes that Mr Secchi has suggested to lead to new opportunities for tax evasion and tax avoidance being created.
We would like the Member States themselves and Community legislation to take steps to ensure this does not happen.
Moving on to the issue of the VAT system, I have already made some comments on this.
What has basically happened - and here for once I really am of the same opinion as Mr Langen - is that the single currency has made the Member States prisoners of their own selfishness. If there is a way to break out of the prison then it is through binding Community regulations.
For that reason the Green Party also welcomes the regulatory powers that are being envisaged for the VAT Committee.
Like Mr Langen, we also believe that the report to the European Parliament, which will provide transparency and also facilitate dialogue, constitutes a type of precondition. We agree, too, that the provisions must be transposed by 1 January 1999 if the system as a whole is to be efficient.
We also regard Mr Miller's comments as useful.
We need to look at comitology once again, going back to its origins in the Plumb/Delors Agreement, and we need to be sure that we are indeed creating a logical and coherent system, one that guarantees transparency and efficiency.
That, however, is another matter.
Mr President, we are discussing the proposals for Council directives amending the Community's taxation system.
In such a fast-changing world as that of the new market which is taking shape, as little as five years can render a directive obsolete, causing it to need updating in the light of a Community framework that is constantly moving closer to companies - especially small ones - on the one hand and, on the other, to consumers.
The current difficulties and limitations of the system of excise duty and VAT, necessarily geared towards harmonisation among the Member States, must be overcome so that a real single market can be launched.
The advent of the euro should accelerate fiscal harmonisation.
To this end - as rightly recalled by Mr Langen in his report, for which we thank him - it is essential to ensure neutrality of taxation and to eliminate the remaining obstacles to the free movement of goods and services between Member States.
The fiscal requirements of certain economic and social sectors, especially in respect of VAT, must be taken into account and paid greater attention in this and the forthcoming proposals for directives.
I am thinking here of the non-profit and voluntary sectors as well as, in the production sector, the hotel and restaurant trade, and, finally, in the tertiary sector, commerce and tourism above all.
A more efficient VAT system, not to pay fewer taxes but to pay them more effectively, should ultimately help these sectors to create growth and investment, and hence new jobs. After all, unemployment regrettably remains the European Union's number one problem.
Mr President, Commissioner, all of the groups in this Parliament are unanimous in criticising how slowly the VAT process is moving.
What could we do in order to move a little more quickly? Would we be able to explain to society just how much the inefficiency of not having fiscal neutrality costs?
Perhaps we should mention those countries which, instead of thinking about the justice and fairness of the system, are thinking about how much more or less they would collect depending on the form of the Commission's proposals?
You are right, Commissioner Monti, to appreciate the political impetus which this unanimity between the groups gives Parliament.
And you should also take advantage of the impetus, the élan vital that is going to permeate so many areas of the economic life of the European Union once we have the euro, in order to try and speed this process up a little.
Once you have identified which countries do not want to overcome the cost of inefficiency, then, Commissioner, you will have - as you know - the complete support of this Parliament.
I think that we need to find a way to encourage the Council to see that adopting the definitive VAT system involves more than just calculating exactly what each Member State collects, and to bear in mind that the Member States have a lot to gain from the establishment of a definitive system.
I think that, in this era of the euro, if the single market is to be efficient, VAT needs to have a definitive procedure.
We will all support it, Commissioner.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs for the other reports that they have drawn up, and to encourage them, because we need to adopt a different tack if we are to speed up this inefficient process, the cost of which, I would suggest, Commissioner, should be assessed quantitively.
Mr President, it is doubtless a wonderful advertisement for the closer integration of Parliament into the law-making process when we do not only discuss abstract political subjects here in the plenary, but also talk about actual examples of implementation.
This morning, for example, we talked generally about comitology and debated the need for this House to be included in the process of formulating objectives, and now with the Miller report from the Committee on Excise Duties, we have the possibility of putting this into practice.
This Committee is a very important instrument.
It has more than an advisory role, it also ensures the uniform interpretation and application of provisions on excise duty.
Our concern is with preserving transparency and the rules of democracy, particularly because Parliament deals with common legislation.
We need to know about developments in the various committees and we have to implement parliamentary guidelines.
This also applies to the Committee on Excise Duties.
In this respect, then, I find the proposal from DirectorateGeneral XXI that the Committee should not apply certain procedures in Directive 97/12 and particularly Article 7 interesting.
That would automatically mean amending the law without involving Parliament.
That is why I would ask the Commissioner how this proposal ties in with the general wish for Parliament to have more say and with the policy being pursued by the Commission in its reform of comitology?
I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mr Langen and Mr Miller, and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy for the support which they are giving, through these reports and resolutions, to the Commission's general aim of applying the legislation on VAT and excise duty in a more uniform manner.
I am particularly pleased that the draft resolution calls on the Council to notify Parliament, should it intend to depart from the Commission proposal.
In this respect and in general terms, I deplore the fact that the existing legal base does not allow for greater intervention in matters of such importance for the functioning of the single market.
As concerns the report by Mr Langen, whom I thank for his kindness, the purpose of this proposed directive is that the Council should confer on the Commission the power to adopt implementing rules in the field of VAT.
The Commission will be assisted in this specific task by the VAT Committee, which needs to be endowed with regulatory powers to this end.
The procedure envisaged for the committee is that of Article 2(III)(a) of Council Decision 87/373/EEC, the so-called 'comitology' decision.
The proposal is a response to the demands put forward unanimously by all economic sectors.
Indeed, operators wishing to transact business in other Member States find themselves facing difficulties caused by divergent application of Community legislation on VAT.
This prevents them from enjoying all the potentially considerable advantages of the single market.
In other words, operators find themselves without legal certainty and, often, exposed to the risk of double taxation.
This is one of the unnecessary costs which our operators have to bear when carrying out commercial activity in another Member State.
For some operators, especially those whose turnover is on the small side - and, as has been recalled, future economic growth and employment in Europe depends very much on these firms - the lack of uniform application of Community rules on VAT is an insurmountable barrier to the European market.
Such barriers can and must be removed.
The remedy consists in adopting the right measures to ensure uniform application of the Community rules on VAT throughout the European Union.
The proposed procedure allows the Commission, together with the VAT Committee, to address and overcome these difficulties.
The Commission welcomes Parliament's favourable response, as demonstrated by Mr Langen's report.
I fully share the spirit of the amendments tabled, and it is for purely formal reasons that I am obliged to reject them.
The Commission acknowledges Parliament's desire to be informed about the work of the committees assisting it; this aspect, however, is dealt with in a Commission proposal relating to a new decision of the committee.
In relation to the matter in hand, the proposal makes it possible, by way of an across-the-board approach, to avoid specific predictions in the individual legislative measures.
With regard to the second amendment, I fully agree that the date appearing in the proposal is unrealistic, in that it has already elapsed.
I am nevertheless rather uncomfortable about replacing it with 1 January 1999.
That would in fact mean that we are very optimistic concerning the timetable for adoption and implementation.
Given that the proposed new procedure does not require transposition by the Member States, the Commission would prefer to remain free to set a new date once the proposal is on the point of being adopted by the Council.
To conclude on the Langen report, allow me to thank you once again for your valuable support which, I believe, will enhance the likelihood of early adoption by the Council.
I should now like to touch briefly on the report drawn up by Mr Miller - to whom I am also most grateful - on the proposal for a directive, presented by the Commission in July of last year, seeking to expand the regulatory powers of the Commission, assisted by the Committee on Excise Duties, in respect of the implementing rules for the Community provisions on excise duty.
This proposal became necessary because, once the (limited) existing regulatory powers have been exhausted, all the Commission and the committee can do to tackle new problems is to exercise their advisory role.
The major challenge of combating fraud and contraband calls for joint action by national administrations, for which common rules are indispensable.
Furthermore, the legitimate expectations of operators to be able to enjoy, here too, all the advantages of a single market are sometimes hampered in practice by the burden of bureaucracy which varies from one Member State to another.
There are, therefore, two reasons to call for increased regulatory powers.
So much for the proposed directive in general.
Turning now to the content of the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, the Commission has to express some reservations concerning Amendment No 2, adding two new sub-paragraphs to Article 24(2).
The first of these additions basically seeks to confer legal status on the informal agreement of 1988 on transparency in the activities of committees, known as the Plumb/Delors accord; the second aims to implement the Commission decision setting up the Advisory Committee on Customs and Indirect Taxation.
As far as the first addition is concerned, I would point out that last June the Commission submitted a proposal for a decision to the Council, amending Decision 87/373/EEC which governs the activities of committees.
This proposal stipulates in particular that the European Parliament should be informed on a regular basis about the work of committees.
It will accordingly receive meeting agendas, draft regulations and the results of votes.
It will also be kept informed of all measures, or draft measures, sent by the Commission to the Council for adoption.
For this reason, a reference to the Plumb/Delors accord within the directive would appear superfluous.
Concerning the other matter, the Advisory Committee on Customs and Indirect Taxation is already operational.
Nevertheless, the Commission would prefer not to mention this committee in the proposal for a directive now before us, the purpose of which is to increase regulatory powers in respect of excise duty.
The joint Committee on Customs and Indirect Taxation, by contrast, is a purely advisory committee.
Finally, the Commission agrees in principle with the last amendment.
Computerisation of excise duty monitoring is one of the Commission's priorities in this sector.
Certain initiatives have already been taken to this end, on the basis of existing provisions, namely Articles 18 and 19 of Directive 92/12/EEC, and under the Fiscalis programme.
In this context the Commission has issued a call for tenders for a feasibility study to be carried out next year.
I would however point out that the establishment of a computerised system is not the responsibility of the Commission: excise duties, unlike customs duties, are national resources, and consequently subject to supervision by the Member States.
In other words, the Commission cannot conduct monitoring instead of the Member States, nor can it fully fund such a computerisation project.
I would conclude by thanking the European Parliament once again for its support, on which we are counting for the negotiations.
There are so many linkages between the different taxation initiatives under review this evening, Mr Wolf, that I can well understand how easy it is to confuse them.
I would also recall that, over and above the individual technical aspects of the efforts which - with Parliament's support - we are making to better coordinate taxation, the ultimate object of the exercise is growth and, in particular, employment.
Without improved coordination of taxation it will be extremely difficult to create new jobs in Europe, especially for young people, who are so much in need of these job opportunities.
Young people, then, are our main concern, and how well represented they are in this House this evening. If I may, Mr President, I should like to add my voice to yours, and on behalf of the Commission welcome the large group of youngsters here this evening.
The joint debate is closed.
The votes will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Tax harmonisation
The next item is the report (A4-0252/98) by Mr Castagnède, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission to the Council and to the European Parliament in accordance with Article 12(4) of the Sixth Council Directive of 17 May 1977 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to turnover taxes - Common system of Value Added Tax: uniform basis of assessment (COM(97)0559 - C4-0119/98).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, contrary to what the ambiguous title may lead us to believe, the report we will be debating today deals with the harmonisation of VAT rates in Europe and, more specifically, with areas eligible for reduced VAT.
As you know, current Community legislation on harmonising VAT rates provides for a minimum standard rate of 15 %.
It also authorises Member States to apply one or two reduced rates which may not be lower than 5 % and which may apply solely to the provision of goods and services described in the categories referred to in Annex H to the Sixth VAT Directive.
Every two years, the Council reviews the scope of reduced rates on the basis of a report from the Commission.
The last report, drawn up in 1997, has been submitted to us for consideration.
Before getting to the essence of the report, we would like to highlight the importance of Parliament's role in this matter, which is in effect to give its consent to tax in a field which is already widely communitised.
Also, given that we are discussing VAT rates within the EU, Parliament should properly fulfil its role as representative of the EU's citizens.
Having analysed the current situation with the reduced rates, the Commission has confirmed that there are indeed considerable disparities.
Only one country, Denmark, does not apply any reduced rates. Four countries apply two reduced rates but many states which are meant to apply only one rate do in fact apply several special derogation rates such as zero rates, superreduced rates and the so-called parking rates, as they are allowed to do during the transitional period.
The Commission does not believe that the current disparity between rates causes significant harm to competition, even if certain distortions to trade have been observed.
The Commission is also not in favour of changing the list of goods and services eligible for reduced rates.
For our part, we strongly believe that the current situation of reduced VAT rates within the EU is unsatisfactory.
It is not in accordance with the demands of the single currency in the single market, nor with the attempt to introduce a new common system of VAT based on taxation in the country of origin.
It is not even in accordance with the changes to fiscal policies required in order to keep pace with developments in economic and social needs.
Next year, when VAT-inclusive prices are displayed in euros, at least in participating countries, the lack of neutrality of VAT rates in intra-community transactions will become apparent and will cause distortions in competition and increased deflection of trade.
These problems will almost certainly be amplified by developments in electronic trading.
Consequently, it is easy to understand that, for political and financial reasons, governments prefer to maintain the status quo.
As soon as this proves impossible it would, in our opinion, be much better to prepare for change.
As regards the introduction of a new common VAT system, bringing rates closer together has, until now, been seen as the last stage or as the icing on the cake.
However, we believe that the excessive disparity in rates and the conservative attitude demonstrated by Member States on this matter have considerably hindered the transition to the final system.
In view of this, although full harmonisation of these rates may be an unrealistic objective in the short term, we do believe that efforts must be made to streamline the rates structure immediately on the basis of a progressive and realistic method.
This type of method should be based on adopting precise definitions of categories of goods and services eligible for reduced rates.
It should include a time-frame for eliminating derogations which would give countries a certain amount of leeway on fixing one, or better still, two reduced rates.
We are relying on the Commission to implement a mechanism to streamline the structure of rates and this mechanism will have to be subtle.
The most important thing is that this process is started.
We also feel that the categories of goods and services eligible for reduced rates should not remained fixed.
Technologies develop, as do economic and social needs, and VAT is, by nature, a regressive tax.
The aim of applying the reduced rate is to make it applicable to a wider range of essential goods and services.
Certain categories in Annex H should be adapted in this way and this is why we are in favour of certain amendments along these lines.
Generally speaking, the structure of the EU's tax systems is detrimental to one production factor - employees.
Commissioner Monti's proposals are extremely interesting as they apply, albeit on a trial basis, to some labour-intensive activities.
This type of proposal could benefit employment and could lead to a decrease in the underground economy.
Above all, these proposals are a sign of the EU's commitment to fighting unemployment and to encouraging full employment.
It is for this reason, above all others, that we will support this proposal.
Mr President, the operation of the VAT system in the European Union is not something we can be proud of.
It is in fact not one system but 15 variations on a system, which makes it extremely complicated.
We all know that the reason for this is the requirement in the Treaty that changes must be approved unanimously, which means in effect that national exceptions to the general rules are never going to be eliminated.
It may be that giving the VAT Committee regulatory powers, as we have just been discussing, could indeed promote harmonisation here, but the Castagnède report is a good opportunity to look in detail at the proposed changes to the system.
The Commission proposal is still to replace the country of destination principle in VAT with the country of origin principle.
In other words goods and services will no longer be zero-rated if they are being sent to other Member States, but will be taxed at the national rate applicable for those goods and services.
This country of origin principle already applies for consumer purchases, of course, unless exceptions are made such as for mail order purchases and new cars.
It also now seems likely that the country of destination principle will continue to apply for telecom services and purchases via the Internet, which is clearly an enormous growth sector.
In the face of this growing list of exceptions we might begin to wonder whether the original idea of switching to the country of origin principle should not be reviewed, particularly as a number of conditions for ensuring that the country of origin system operates without distorting competition seem to be unrealistic and undesirable.
Although different rates can easily continue to apply for goods or services in which there is little cross-border trade, such discrepancies will largely have to disappear for products in competitive sectors.
This means that the standard rates in the Member States are going to have to converge very drastically, and the Member States will then effectively no longer be free to change the rate at their own discretion.
In short, VAT will cease to be an economic instrument or a means of increasing tax revenue.
This is a major drawback given that budget expenditure is also restricted by the stability pact and that taxes on labour, which is the easiest factor to tax, are to be reduced rather than increased.
I myself have raised these problems on a number of occasions, and I take it as a sign of weakness that the Commission has failed to come up with any solutions yet.
Perhaps the Commissioner could finally take his head out of the sand this evening, or at least promise to give us a reasoned reply.
Finally, a completely different point.
What sort of progress is being made on reducing VAT on labour-intensive services, a subject we are both interested in?
Can the Commissioner give us a firm promise that this problem will be on the agenda for the European Council in Vienna, and is there any chance of progress being made or not? Both I and my group regard this as a high priority, and we also intend to bring pressure to bear on the Austrian Presidency on the subject.
Mr President, the harmonisation of VAT rates is an ongoing saga.
The introduction of the transitional system was certainly a step forward, but the discrepancies are still too wide.
The Commission communication appears to show that the different rates are not producing distortions of competition or deflections of trade.
It may all be working from a macro-economic point of view, but in micro-economic terms there is a real problem, as businesses in frontier areas are constantly pointing out.
I gathered from discussions in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that the Council and the Commission have no plans to change Annex H while the transitional system is in force, and it seems that we can look forward to uniform definitions of the categories listed in this annex.
I would like to hear from the Commissioner what the timetable is for these plans and whether this will be one of the first jobs for the VAT Committee in its new capacity.
The euro is just around the corner and the definitive VAT system based on the country of origin principle is in the pipeline.
All of us here in the House realise that both of these will mean that the price differences resulting from the different VAT rates will affect the competitive position of market operators more directly than is currently the case.
Commissioner, businesses are seriously worried about all this.
They are not afraid of competition, but they want a level playing field.
They accept and understand that the rates cannot be standardised immediately, but they will not accept that we are not pushing for greater harmonisation.
The discrepancies need to be reduced as quickly as possible.
If the rate categories are being considered for the definitive system, we expect the signals we send out in today's debate and tomorrow's vote to be clearly understood.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Castagnède's report has a few points in common with the observations that I made in my previous speech.
Firstly, because it agrees with the observations and the position expressed by Mrs Thyssen, and also because we are trying to move forward in certain areas which will allow us to improve the current system. We know this system is not ideal, but we have to make do with it for the moment, given the lack of agreement between member states on having a definitive VAT system that is applied at European Union level.
With regard to the Castagnède report, the basic idea, as the rapporteur explained very well, is to try to harmonise reduced VAT rates.
Obviously this implies that there is, in some cases, a serious distortion of the basic principle of the single market, and there is discrimination which we would like to see eliminated.
I would point out that I had the experience of being a rapporteur in the Spanish Parliament when VAT was introduced as a result of Spain joining the European Union, and I know of the enormous pressure that comes from every sector to be included in the reduced tax rate band.
There are always reasons to be in the reduced rate band, but obviously there are some sectors for which it is justified and some for which it is more debatable.
This puts us in an uncomfortable position when we come to debate certain amendments, such as those which propose incorporating some specific points into certain articles.
We in the Liberal Group, despite the fact that it is a rather unhelpful political position to take, will not support this, but we will support all the amendments and the rapporteur's suggestion that the Commission should draw up a proposal for genuine harmonisation of the reduced rate at European Union level.
Mr President, I would like to voice my disagreement with the first paragraph of Mr Castagnède's report, which blames the current problems existing in cross-border zones on the lack of VAT harmonisation in different countries.
We believe this is the wrong interpretation of the situation.
As shown in the amendment tabled with my colleague Mr Edouard des Places, our group believes that the lack of VAT neutrality in cross-border transactions is the result of inadequate administrative procedures which cause problems in applying and controlling the rates.
I realise that some people here would like to see VAT rates harmonised and they see this as the next stage in the development of a federal super state as such a step would restrict national governments' decision-making powers in both financial and fiscal matters.
The question being asked about cross-border zones is: how can economic operators be on an equal footing on opposite sides of the border and yet not commit VAT fraud?
The solution suggested here - harmonisation of VAT rates - does not solve this problem at all, and is irrelevant.
The real solution to the fraud problem lies in developing better administrative follow-up, in improving control procedures and in developing a harmonised system of sanctions.
The administrative procedure established as part of the single market has serious shortcomings which have already been highlighted by national administrations in different meetings held with the Commission.
And I am sorry to note that the Commission, instead of trying to find a lasting solution to its own operational shortcomings, prefers its tried and tested method of running away and using technical problems as an opportunity to promote a political project which is not mentioned in the Treaties: VAT harmonisation.
The Commission would use its time more wisely if it were to provide a technical answer to a technical problem, to present a report on the problems with existing procedures and to draw up a draft regulation transposing the requested improvements as soon as possible.
Mr President, it is important for Parliament to remind the Commission of its duties.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Castagnède's report brings us back to the ongoing saga of harmonisation.
Apparently, it is only a technical matter, with perhaps some rather more exciting elements such as reduced rates for records and CD-ROMs.
The former mayor of Strasbourg is an expert on all this.
There was also talk of harmonising VAT on catering, depending on whether the sandwich was eaten in a fast food restaurant or in a bar.
And then there are the super reduced rates.
The French government, for example, wants to apply a rate of 2.10 % on refunded medications.
The main point made by the Castagnède report, which is well-observed, is that, six years after the arrival of the single market, VAT rates have still not been harmonised.
The standard rate varies between 15 or 25 % for Denmark and there are ten or even twelve points difference in the reduced rate.
Yet in spite of all this, the single market still functions.
At the end of the 1980s, however, we were told it would be the end of the world.
The Cookfield report advocated a two-band rate and the European Commission wanted a kind of clearing-house.
A single way of thinking prevailed and today we have realised that it was all a lie, and an extremely costly one at that.
Between 1990 and 1993 the Socialist government reduced VAT on caviar, diamonds, Porsches and fur coats by 15 percentage points - in other words on socialist goods.
We lost billions which could have been used to cut taxation on employment. We were also told that VAT should be charged in the country of origin.
But charging VAT in destination countries also works well.
We were told that the euro would change things.
Yet the single currency of the dollar does not stop New Jersey and the State of New York having different local tax rates.
We were told that electronic trading will lead to distortion but electronic trading represents such a marginal amount, not even 1 %.
The truth is that behind these debates lies a huge amount of waste. In a European Union with 20 million unemployed, we should have thought more carefully about it.
For example, how big a part does European overtaxation play in unemployment?
In a large transatlantic market, can the pressure on taxation allow there to be ten points difference in compulsory payments? And I would like to end there, with the ultimate question: should we have included a fifth criteria for the transition to the euro - a ceiling for compulsory payments of, for example, 40 %?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, it must be pointed out that VAT is an unfair tax which weighs most heavily on those with low incomes and who have less purchasing power. This is because it is an indirect tax and is also not linked to income.
Also, the European Union's objective should be to lower VAT, not to harmonize it.
This is vital for social justice. It is also vital if we are to increase internal consumption and, therefore, growth.
Lowering VAT can contribute to job creation by regenerating consumption and also through the selective effect this can have on jobcreating employment sectors.
Therefore, it seems to me that harmonising VAT should be looked at with a view to decreasing it.
This is why I personally am in favour of creating a zero rate or at least of keeping it in place where it has already been introduced and even, eventually, of the EU considering a super-reduced rate.
I am also in favour of a broader scope for reduced rate VAT and, in this respect, I believe that the Castagnède report opens up several options and a certain number of amendments help to widen this scope.
Therefore, we will support them.
I am mainly referring to cultural products such as CD-ROMs.
We could also consider including the press, particularly the written press which should be supported and encouraged.
VAT must also be reduced and the scope for reduced rate eligibility broadened in labour-intensive sectors.
The Commission and Commissioner Monti suggest we experiment in this area.
I would hope that Parliament will be slightly more radical and include categories such as housing, social housing, catering in all its forms and, in short, extend reduced rate eligibility to include all labour-intensive sectors.
I know the argument usually put forward for restricting reduced rate eligibility - it is invariably the loss of revenue.
But it is precisely here that this House and its Members have to choose.
There are ways of obtaining tax revenue, even harmonised revenue, within the European Union.
I would like to remind the House that the Commission is meant to make proposals on at-source taxation on savings revenue.
This is a much fairer option. Taxation systems could also be introduced for capital movements, and I believe that the recent crisis has shown how appropriate this would be.
Taxation systems could also be devised for the main money-making sectors of our societies such as financial speculation, savings and accumulated wealth. This would lighten the VAT burden on a large sector of society and could contribute to increased employment.
I therefore hope that the harmonisation suggested in Mr Castagnède's report will be approved by Parliament and that the Commission will be strong enough, in the balance of power with the Council, to continue along these lines.
Mr President, each time we talk about VAT we end up having a repetitive debate that would not bear serious analysis.
We say that VAT is regressive, and so the groups argue with each other about the amendments needed to prevent this regressive tax from hitting those taxpayers who are least able to pay.
But VAT, like other indirect taxes, is neither regressive nor progressive.
It is direct taxes that should be progressive.
If we want to increase progressiveness, let us change direct taxation.
Nor should we forget spending policy, which is the element in every budget that tries to compensate for the lack of progressiveness in indirect taxation.
Let us be quite clear about this: we all want to protect the weak and it is not the exclusive domain of any party or of any political stance. Some of the amendments being debated, which I hope will be approved, aim to use VAT - and I stress, VAT rather than many other measures that could be taken - to reduce contributions and social burdens.
The intention is that labour-intensive products should be relieved of some of the tax burden through direct taxation.
This is extremely complicated to implement.
I have been involved in tax administration in Navarra, and I know how difficult it is to decide which products should be included in each of the tax categories.
These are good intentions, but perhaps they might not stand up to technical analysis, and I will be pleased to hear what Professor Monti has to say.
There are some other amendments such as, for example, one from my colleague, Mr Cassidy, which perhaps could be developed, such as making it possible for NGOs that do humanitarian work in the Third World to reclaim VAT.
This could ensure a certain level of social justice, also through VAT, for non-profit-making organisations.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the fourth time Parliament has produced a report supporting the necessary tax harmonisation.
We have all expressed our opinions already and I do not want to reiterate them.
I would like to encourage you Commissioner.
As my colleague Mr Langen said, you have to break through the steel defences.
Forza , Commissioner.
Mr President, I would like to express our support for this report on the harmonisation of VAT in the specific area of reduced rates, and also to commend the Commission's report on which this present Parliament report is based.
Along with many of my colleagues who have spoken this evening, I would like to draw attention to the problems which are always encountered when harmonising tax, even in a sector such as indirect taxation and particularly VAT, where the tradition of tax harmonisation is so lengthy that, as everyone knows, VAT has become known as 'the European tax'.
However, this European tax has not managed to keep pace with developments in the economic structure of the Union.
The Member States and the European institutions, which have succeeded in completing the single market - as will become even more apparent with the advent of the euro - have not been able to agree on a definitive VAT system which corresponds to the demands and the philosophy of the single market, and so, unfortunately, we still have the transitional system.
With regard to this generally acknowledged problem, I would briefly like to mention the Commission's strategy, which I think is a good one, led, in this particular case, by Mr Monti.
It is a cautious strategy, taking small steps forward and gradually establishing what we could call the climate of opinion necessary to make the progress that everyone knows is needed, but which tends not to happen when the political decisions are taken.
This report on the conditions for applying reduced rates forms part of this strategy.
I would briefly like to make the following points: firstly, we support the unification or at least the substantial harmonisation of the levels of reduced rates.
Secondly, we support making Annex H non-optional for the application of the reduced rate. Finally, we strongly support a point which has already been raised, that when deciding on reduced-rate operations, special consideration should be given to those which relate to labour-intensive products or services.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me first of all to compliment Mr Castagnède on his excellent report, on which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs based its work.
I find it extremely useful that the House has taken the initiative of producing this report, which gives the Commission a full understanding of the European Parliament's opinion on the need for further harmonisation of VAT rates.
In the Commission's view, the resolution before Parliament today shows an understanding of the position outlined in its report of 13 November 1997 on reduced rates of VAT.
Clearly the subject of VAT rates cannot be dissociated from the general issue of the new common system of VAT, and I believe that this House has fully understood this link.
The Commission takes on board your message concerning the need to push ahead with the harmonisation of VAT rates.
The Commission has begun drawing up a legislative proposal relating to VAT rates, and will present it as soon as possible.
Buoyed by the active cooperation of this House, which is so well reflected in Mr Castagnède's report and in the draft resolution, the Commission has high hopes that Parliament will be equally supportive when the time comes to examine our proposal.
I should like now to turn to two matters that have been raised during the debate: first of all, the possibility of a reduced rate of VAT on highly labour-intensive services.
I can confirm that the Commission, which last year aired this hypothesis in its communication to the Luxembourg European Council on Employment, hopes that the idea will not remain a dead letter.
The Member States have not yet managed to agree on the scope of this measure.
I have been pondering of late on a question which is relevant to this evening's topic.
On the one hand, we would like more harmonisation of VAT rates; on the other, we are tempted by the idea of allowing the Member States to experiment with reduced VAT rates for highly labour-intensive services, even though this would admittedly establish a basis for less, not more, harmonisation of VAT rates, should some Member States but not others avail themselves of this opportunity.
So, I wonder, is there a contradiction between these two approaches to taxation policy? I think not, given the nature of the idea floated by the Commission regarding reduced VAT rates on highly labour-intensive services: this concession to Member States would by definition affect services with very little or no cross-border content, and so would not distort competition between Member States.
I therefore believe that, in a limited field such as this, a reduced rate of VAT could be granted on an experimental basis in support - we hope - of employment, without it conflicting with the general approach of seeking greater harmonisation in VAT rates.
My final comment relates to Mrs Lienemann's observations concerning the taxation of capital.
Mrs Lienemann raised two points: the Commission is against one of them; on the other, which the honourable Member deems desirable for the future, I can say that the Commission has already acted.
The hypothesis which you mention, Mrs Lienemann, and which the Commission is against, relates to a tax on the buying and selling of foreign currency, the so-called 'Tobin tax'.
We consider that this would be very difficult to apply; indeed, it would infringe the fundamental principle of free movement for capital.
As to the other point, namely your call for a proposal for a directive on the taxation of savings - in other words taxation not on capital movements but on income from capital - I can tell you that such a proposal was adopted within the Commission on 20 May of this year and forwarded to the Ecofin Council on 5 June.
Moreover, this House has already appointed a rapporteur on this proposal for a directive.
We are therefore moving, at least in part, in the direction you desire.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Late payment in commercial transactions -CEECs/programme for SMEs - European capital market -European Observatory for SMEs
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0303/98 by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive combating late payment in commercial transactions (COM(98)0126 - C4-0251/98-98/0099(COD)); -A4-0309/98 by Mr Rübig, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposals for Council Decisions concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the participation of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic in the Community programme in the field of small and medium-sized enterprises (COM(98)0113 - C4-0203/98 to C4-0209/98-98/0078(CNS) to 98/0084(CNS)); -A4-0202/98 by Mr Hendrick, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission Communication on a European capital market for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises: prospects and potential obstacles to progress (COM(97)0187 - C4-0433/97); -A4-0255/98 by Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the fifth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs (1997) (C4-0115/98).
Mr President, 'cheat early by paying late' has been the by-word of big businesses and public authorities for too long in their dealings with Europe's small businesses.
It is time to outlaw these cheating practices and give SMEs the confidence to boldly go into the single European market knowing that they will be paid on time in full and without fuss for their goods and services.
That is why Parliament supports the Commission's directive entitled 'Late Payment on Commercial Debt' , for which the legal basis is Article 100a, on the single market.
Unless we do something, more and more small businesses will be killed off by late payment.
We know that one in four insolvencies are attributable to late payment; one in five businesses would export more if this problem were solved.
SMEs' cash flows are disrupted and the problem is worse when trading across borders in the single market.
In the United Kingdom SMEs are owed £20 000 million in late payments at any one time.
The situation in the UK is one of the worst in the European Union.
The average EU delay is 13 days, but in the UK it is 23 days after the due date.
In the European Union one in three cases of late payment is deliberate, in the UK it is one in two.
But across borders the deliberate delays rise to two out of five for the European Union as a whole and three out of five for the UK.
Incidentally, the New Labour Government has introduced new legislation which outlaws late payment by introducing a statutory right to interest.
The main purpose of this directive is to introduce a statutory right of interest on late payment, calculated at 8 % above the European Central Bank repo rate of say, 3 %, ie 11 %, plus the recovery of all reasonable costs - administrative, legal and financial - associated with pursuing the debt.
The total could be 20 %.
The total penalty must be higher than the debtor borrowing money from banks or other financial institutions. We must make sure that SMEs are not being used as sources of cheap money.
But there are other flanking measures which the Commissioner brought forward: accelerated recovery procedures for undisputed debts (nine out of ten of the debts are not disputed by the debtor), simplified legal procedures for the small number of disputed debts, new quick procedures for debts below ECU 20 000.
We are also introducing payment periods into public procurement contracts.
Why? Public institutions, e.g. local and national governments, and the European institutions themselves are amongst the worst late and slow payers.
They can lead by example by getting government departments to pay on time.
But a warning is in order - late pay and slow pay are not the same thing.
Late pay is paying late after the agreed payment and slow pay is widening the payment period between the invoice or delivery date and the agreed payment date.
Slow pay is a terrible problem afflicting SMEs especially in the southern Union states like Spain.
Examples of 300 days payment periods are demonstrated, for example, in supermarkets in Spain and they are amongst the biggest culprits.
But the late pay directive does not tackle slow payers as opposed to late payers except in respect of public procurement and public authorities, although it does introduce a 21-day payment period in the absence of contracts or where contracts are silent on the point for ordinary contracts.
Will it work?
Sweden and other Nordic countries have had a statutory right of interest since the 1970s.
What is the view of the European Parliament? - broadly supportive!
We also believe in adding the licensing of debt collecting companies who are an important and cheaper alternative to lawyers as a means of recovering debt. We need to license these companies.
Some of them are cowboys. Here is an example of one of these debt-collecting agencies who put this note through my office door in Chester in the United Kingdom: 'Do you owe money?
Do you feel robbed?
Are you angry enough to send my team of collectors around to the debtor's premises? Don't worry, we don't break the law but we get results and we can prove it.
We operate world-wide.'
These are the cowboys that we need to train and get into line by registering them.
In conclusion, this directive, if implemented, could be the Viagra of the single European market, allowing SMEs to grow and expand to the satisfaction of all.
Mr President, the night sitting makes me feel very positive and confident.
Positive, because the debate to come will focus mainly on SME policy and its implementation in Europe.
The situation of SMEs does indeed deserve this emphasis. They are quite rightly described as the backbone of the European economy, and more specifically as the driving force for creating extra jobs.
And I feel confident, because the individual reports take stock of the current situation in practice and describe the main trends for Europe's SMEs.
Firstly, my own report, which deals with the ambitious goal of enlargement of the EU.
Speaking recently in Vienna, the Pope called for the process of Europeanisation to be driven forward with even more energy.
I can only agree with him on that.
But we all know that this process cannot occur overnight in the applicant countries.
We also, and indeed above all, need preaccession strategies for the SME sector, with particular emphasis on personal contact between people.
That is why it is sensible to enable these countries to participate in the Third Multiannual Programme for SMEs and thus to familiarize them with the working methods and policies of the Union.
That is also true for each of the priority objectives that the Commission has defined.
The environment for companies, be it administrative or financial, should be simplified or improved.
Their activities abroad should be supported and their competitiveness in general enhanced.
Along with that goes easier access to research, innovation and training.
The applicant countries are, in large part, financing their own participation, and this is being topped up by PHARE funding.
In implementing these objectives, I am particularly concerned - and this is an idea that we have incorporated in the report - that successful participation is guaranteed, calling for competent management and a well-prepared administration on both sides.
I would also mention the new public management instrument, which can be used during the required evaluation.
The project is not reserved only for the seven countries currently included: other applicant countries could also be brought into the programme very soon, once the administrative and financial requirements have been fulfilled.
I am, however, also convinced that participation in the Multiannual Programme will be mainly political.
In view of the anticipated expense, it is better for us to adopt a specific rather than a general approach.
In the light of the recently renewed debate on subsidiarity, we should finally consider how far a pre-accession strategy of this kind can be transferred to the national level.
I should now like to move on to this evening's other topics.
The planned enlargement of the EU, and the pre-accession strategies that go with it, are not ends in themselves.
Rather, we will be endeavouring to produce a win-win situation from which both sides should benefit.
We can see just how important this is for the SME sector from the problems it faces today, such as the situation of SMEs on the capital markets or the effects of late payment on SMEs.
New ways of capital procurement are currently a top priority for the SME sector.
The figures for Austria alone, which I believe are similar to the European average, confirm the need for action.
If we look for instance at the proportion of equity capital in small-scale trades and businesses - in SMEs in other words - we find figures of only around 10 %.
What particularly stands out here is that the smaller the size of the company, the worse the figures are.
Sufficient equity capital, however, is essential for the long-term success of a company.
The lack of it is an important if not decisive reason for insolvency.
That is why the attitude to shares has to change and share-ownership must be encouraged as an additional source of equity capital.
Accounting rules need to be standardised where exchanges of experience are being hindered.
Finally I am grateful for the speed with which the Directive on late payment has been handled.
I particularly welcome the fact that it is not only large companies, but also governments and therefore also the EU that are to lead the way.
That is why I would also agree with Mr Harrison - if we introduce this directive quickly, we will be giving priority to providing greater equity capital for SMEs.
Mr President, employment is top of Europe's agenda and SMEs form a crucial part of this job-creation strategy.
We have seen today how various regions in the EU Member States are approaching the issue of SME capital markets as a catalyst for SME growth.
As the author of the European parliamentary report on the issue of capital market SMEs, I wish to outline what European institutions and, in particular, the European Parliament are doing to improve the environment for growing small firms.
In 1994 the visionary Delors White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment placed SMEs at the heart of the Community's policy for generating employment.
This has been reasserted almost continuously since then, in particular at the Luxembourg Summit.
SMEs are equally valuable in pushing forward cutting-edge research.
This is an area where Europe is most competitive in creating high-quality, high-tech jobs.
Software, telecommunications, biotechnology and microelectronics are all areas led by innovative technology-based small firms.
The United States has proved itself far more effective than Europe in backing new ideas with ready cash.
Perhaps the clearest example of this is in the computer business which, since 1980, has seen the fastest accumulation of wealth in history.
Investors are earning returns of over 50 % a year for the average firm and more than 100 % for the most successful.
Many believe that the Internet market will be three times as big.
Why has Europe been unable to match this? To get some answers to this and other questions I visited the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq at the end of last year.
It is recognized here that the US has a more entrepreneurial culture but I believe there are three more concrete reasons.
Part of the reason for America's success is the size of its domestic market.
If a company is successful in a home market of 250 million customers, who speak the same language and use the same currency, this can finance several years of expansion.
More importantly though, Americans are much more prepared to accept risk, for example by investing in small companies.
Europe's big institutional investors are more wary of involvement in SMEs than their American counterparts.
Finally, stemming from this, the US has Nasdaq, a stock market for SMEs that makes it easy to invest in small firms to fund their expansion and development.
We have a great deal more to do in that area.
But the EU is fighting back!
The European single market now allows companies the run of the whole European marketplace.
This offers a marketplace and internal market of 380 million people, the largest economic integration project ever undertaken.
Moreover, final preparations are now being made for the launch of the euro, a logical conclusion to the single market.
The single currency will, at a stroke, let Europe benefit from the same advantages as the US, with one market and one currency.
On top of this there is some evidence that attitudes to investment in Europe are changing.
We have seen massive demands for shares during the privatisation of state utilities, such as telecom companies, but now we must extend this demand to the high-gain but higher risk stocks on SME capital markets.
A long term perspective needs to be encouraged amongst investors.
Indeed, I am floating the idea of running campaigns to show that shares in small firms are a worthwhile investment.
Another obstacle to the expansion of SME markets is restrictions on pension funds.
The liquidity that comes with institutional trading is essential to small capital markets.
Pension reform is under way in most Member States and with the publication of the Green Paper from the Commission this will put funds under greater pressure to invest in equities.
Above all I believe that Europe must take note of the lead that the US enjoys in these matters.
The simplicity with which American private investors can buy shares and the new opportunities offered by electronic commerce are trends that Europe has to follow.
The individual is important: private investors rather than institutions make up nearly half the transactions of the Nasdaq.
Employee share ownership in the US is exploring new forms of worker participation in firms and is opening up share ownership to a new public.
Again, information campaigns should be considered in order to raise awareness of the opportunities which exist.
Europe should take those opportunities and Europe will take those opportunities.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to thank the European Observatory for SMEs for the consistently high quality of its work which makes it such an important reference point in both economic and scientific circles.
The considerable work it does regularly produces a wealth of information, essential for everyone; political, economic and financial decision-makers alike.
It allows us to analyse issues relevant to 19 million active businesses in Europe in very different sectors and conditions.
These SMEs, which employed nearly 78 million people in 1997, face the same challenges as larger businesses: globalization and its effects on competitiveness and fair competition, adapting to rapid technological development - an essential element in competitiveness - and practical preparation for the new size and conditions of the European market following the transition to the euro and the enlargement of the Union.
Faced with these new challenges, SMEs must be able to mobilise the necessary human and financial resources rapidly.
They therefore need a long-term strategic vision, but must not sacrifice the key to their dynamism, namely their rapid reaction.
In fact, the apparent vulnerability of SMEs is often a considerable bonus in terms of ability to adapt rapidly, internal communication and mobility.
It is Europe's responsibility to develop a plan of action which will help SMEs make the most of these qualities.
Firstly, Europe must monitor the markets in order to prevent unfair practices, in particular international dumping. The Union has a clear responsibility within the WTO on this matter.
The EU must also contribute to the development of these markets.
It is therefore indisputable that the euro, and more generally, economic and monetary union, can act as a powerful stimulant for the dynamism of SMEs, as long as they are fully informed and prepared for the new reality of EMU.
We must also adapt the administrative rules to the specific constraints faced by SMEs.
Starting up a business should no longer be such a long and painful process, and it is now vital that we establish a new harmonised classification of SMEs at European level.
Viewing very small enterprises with one or two workers in the same way as an enterprise which employs five hundred people is an unacceptable way of thinking.
I therefore call on the Commission to submit proposals on these matters.
We are also in favour of implementing voluntary policies which enhance SMEs' human resources, especially by providing help with training.
We also paid particular attention to the chapter in the Observatory's report on SMEs and the environment.
This highlights the fact that there is potential for creating jobs and a possible chance of improving competitiveness.
It is true that deciding to invest in environmental technologies may sometimes seem a luxury for SMEs. Nonetheless, in several cases such investments have reduced costs through putting resources and raw materials to better use, and they have allowed SMEs to anticipate the general trend towards stronger environmental legislation.
The majority of these observations are equally valid for tourism - another sector rich in potential for SMEs.
The quality of the analyses underlying this report and the relevance of its remarks has led us to ask the Observatory to extend its work and we would like to suggest some concrete proposals for further analysis.
Firstly, a new harmonised classification for SMEs needs to be established in the EU, as we have already mentioned.
Secondly, the situation of social security systems and the impact of their welcome forthcoming harmonisation with regard to SMEs must be examined in order to draw conclusions at an operational level.
Finally, the possible impact of home working and teleworking and the possibilities that these can offer must also be considered.
It is important that we combat isolation among people who have opted for teleworking.
Detailed consideration should be given to facilitating the integration of SMEs in areas which are difficult to access, such as run-down districts, difficult rural areas and peripheral regions.
The development of SMEs in these areas can often lead to important joint local initiatives.
Eight amendments have been tabled, seven of which have my full support.
The eighth is a repetition which seems rather pointless.
Ladies and gentlemen, SMEs are difficult economic subjects for legislators to address in Europe due to their diversity and large numbers.
The Observatory's report allows us to fully grasp the complexity of this issue and should help to improve the necessary Community instruments to make them more flexible and more accessible.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Harrison very warmly for his report on which I congratulate him.
I would also like to thank the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for having asked the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights to give an opinion on this proposal for a directive, and also for ultimately accepting the majority of the amendments that we proposed.
Nevertheless, I would like to express my regret that because this proposal was rushed through its first reading so quickly it did not receive the discussion time it deserved.
It is the first time that the Union has delved so deeply into the institutions and procedures of civil law, the codes of civil procedure and the judicial and legal systems of our Member States.
In my opinion it does not have an adequate legal basis to do so, and judging by the Commission proposal it has demonstrated a legal superficiality which does not show due appreciation for the subtle differences of civil law and the need for a European legal system of high standing and quality.
Both of the committees dealing with this genuinely tried to iron out at least the worst inconsistencies in the Commission's proposal, but even if our proposed amendments are approved tomorrow, it will still be impossible for us to be truly proud of this item of European legislation.
Too many inconsistencies remain and others will emerge in the course of transposition and application.
The Committee fully supports the aim of the Directive, but we cannot agree with all aspects of the proposed measures.
There are two points in particular on which we take a different view from that of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights does not agree that Member States should in future be obliged to have three different types of debt-recovery procedures.
It is going to be complicated and expensive and it will also bring about less legal certainty.
We therefore suggest that of one of these, the one in Article 5, be omitted.
We are equally opposed to debt-collection agencies being granted additional rights in future, and being in a better position than lawyers when it comes to cross-border services.
We also have to take account of a judgment by the European Court of Justice which ruled that the requirement to employ a lawyer was solely a matter for the Member States.
As the representative of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and of my party within that Committee, I would therefore recommend voting against Amendments Nos 8, 12 and 25 and in favour of the rest, especially No 25.
Mr President, first of all I have a point of order, which I consider to be important.
In the list of MEPs who took part in the vote on the Harrison report, neither Mr García Margallo or I are included, despite the fact that we took part in the vote and tabled amendments.
Secondly, I would like to congratulate Mr Linkohr and the Commission on this initiative.
It is an important proposal for SMEs, which are so vulnerable to delayed payments from their customers, whether they are supplying public authorities or large companies, or subcontracting for them.
SMEs, as has been said, are faced with the high financial costs of short term bank loans, high interest on overdrafts and administrative costs due to late payments.
They often find themselves with their hands tied, specially in public sector contracts, by large companies who impose disproportionate payment periods on them in their contracts - which they can 'take or leave' - despite the fact that the authorities are generally already obliged to pay the large companies within a certain period.
If this occurs on a national level, we can imagine the reluctance and fear that many SMEs must feel about venturing into cross-border operations in the single market.
We therefore welcome the fact that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has approved three specific amendments which propose improvements to the Council and the Commission such as banning the main companies in a public contract from asking or demanding that their subcontractors waive their legal rights, and requiring that the obligation of transparency demanded from public authorities should also apply to the relationship between the main contractor and the subcontractor in public procurement contracts.
Finally, I think it is important to highlight the amendment which proposes that subcontracting or supplying companies should be given conditions which are at least as favourable as those granted to the main company by the public authority, by guaranteeing that all the fees due are paid within a determined period.
In our opinion, more specifically in the opinion of the Spanish socialists, these three proposals from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy deserve the support of the Commission and the Council if we really want to guarantee the survival of these companies in the public contracts sector.
Mr President, all of the subjects covered in this debate on SMEs are important, but I shall confine myself to talking on behalf of the PPE group about the proposal to combat late payments.
Excessive payment periods and late payments have become a nightmare for businesses.
The statistics beggar belief.
Add to that the fact that the time and money involved in taking cases to court puts SMEs off trying to seek legal redress, and that the situation is ten times worse in cross-border trade, and we can see that it is high time for us to flex our muscles and take action.
The PPE finds the Commission proposal quite good, but we think it could be better.
At this point I would just like to thank the rapporteur, Lyndon Harrison, for his extremely knowledgeable and responsible approach.
I enjoyed working with him and it is a pity that he is not here to hear me say so.
I shall focus on the points which my group feels should be given particular attention at the vote or by the Commission.
First of all, there are three amendments on debt collection agencies, which are still encountering obstacles despite the single market.
A majority of the Committee on Economic Affairs obviously want this problem to be dealt with in this directive, and the PPE group agrees that Europe should take a close interest in the organisation of this work and ensuring the free provision of services.
We can also see that there is common ground with the proposal before us, but we do not think that rules on the free provision of services by debt collection agencies can simply be introduced just like that by amending this directive.
Better solutions, both politically and legally, can be found, and Mrs Berger is dealing with your concerns.
I would like to hear from the Commissioner what the Commission thinks about this and whether it is prepared or is planning to come up with separate proposals on debt collection agencies.
There is another problem with paragraphs D and E in Amendment No 14, which propose that a contractual due date of more than 45 days should be accepted only where payment on the due date is guaranteed by a bill of exchange.
We are quite happy to consider the question of additional guarantees with excessively long payment periods, but 45 days is really not all that long and a bill of exchange is not an appropriate instrument.
Either some arrangement should be reached with the groups now so that we can discuss the matter again at second reading, or else my group will be forced to vote against paragraphs D and E of Amendment No 14.
My group would also like to do something to improve payment periods for public contracts.
The shorter the better, that is our motto, but distinguishing according to price is for various reasons neither as useful nor as relevant as distinguishing according to the nature of the contract.
This would bring immediate benefits with goods and services contracts.
Fourth, we regret that subcontractors have been ignored in the proposal.
We have rectified this and we hope that the Commission will agree with our amendments.
Fifth, there is unfortunately a comitology problem, and after yesterday evening's debate this is not something we can afford to ignore.
The PPE Group can accept the procedure provided for in Article 9 for charging interest for late payment and it can accept the level of interest, but not the change to the ceiling that determines the scope of the simplified procedures for taking legal action for the settlement of debts, a figure which is vital for the way in which the Member States organise these special procedures.
Sixth and last, my group wishes to stress the following. We are convinced that the credibility of the European Institutions will be undermined if they do everything they can to encourage others to pay up on time while shirking their own responsibilities.
The European Institutions are hardly the promptest payers themselves and, like other public authorities, need a little encouragement.
So for goodness' sake let us include ourselves in the scope of this directive.
This is all I wanted to say.
I hope that the Commission will support our views, and for my colleagues in the House and the vote tomorrow I should like to hear what the Commissioner thinks about the debt collection agencies, the bill of exchange, Amendment No 33 on the payment period for public contracts, and sub-contractors.
I would also like to know why the European Institutions are not included.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to begin by congratulating the four rapporteurs on their excellent work.
I should like to talk today about the subject of capital markets for SMEs.
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of these capital markets.
SMEs are the hardest hit by the administrative burden and find it most difficult to gain access to capital, yet they account for the majority of all jobs created.
This was why the EASDAQ was so urgently needed when it came into operation at the end of 1996.
Since then, according to the rapporteur, there has been a total of over ECU 170 million in capital investment which has helped to create more than 10 000 jobs.
The completion of the single market and the arrival of the euro are certain to increase the liquidity of the pan-European stock exchange, which in turn will benefit employment.
So we are on the right path.
But that is not the end of the matter.
We also need to encourage venture capital.
Some of the enormous potential which the pension funds have at their disposal, estimated at ECU 10 000 billion by the year 2020, must be directed towards venture capital funds, which in turn will help rapid growth businesses with funding and know-how.
As the rapporteur, Mr Hendrick, has already said, the requirement which some Member States impose on pension funds to invest part of their capital solely in government bonds is discriminatory and is thus contrary to the spirit of the principle of free movement of capital enshrined in the Treaty.
Individuals also need to be encouraged to invest capital in small, rapidly expanding businesses, and such venture capital should be subject to favourable tax conditions throughout the Union.
Some Member States already have special tax arrangements, but these should be extended to investments in other European capital markets.
We think that these measures could bring about substantial improvements in the undercapitalisation of SMEs.
Finally, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether the Commission has already investigated other innovative financial instruments which it mentions in the multi-annual programme and the on the final page of its communication? I would be interested to know what creative ideas the Commission can come up with here.
Mr President, our group will be voting in favour of the Hendrick and Scarbonchi reports on smalland medium-sized companies.
A comprehensive policy must be put in place for SMEs, which are increasingly the backbone of our economies.
SMEs are the main creators of employment in Europe because they are situated locally.
They inject life into a country and into the Union as a whole.
The red-tape environment in which SMEs operate must be simplified.
The setting up of new firms must be encouraged.
They must be helped to modernise where necessary.
We need to see that new initiatives can be put forward to lighten that burden.
They must be prepared for the euro.
Their small size must not discriminate against them in the euro area.
It must be made possible for SMEs to compete for public contracts across the Union.
There must be positive discrimination in favour of SMEs.
Everything possible must be done to encourage the emergence of new entrepreneurs, new sources of financing and access for SMEs to the new technologies and innovation.
Ireland is a nation of small businesses.
Up to 98 % of our non-farm businesses employ under 50 employees.
Some 90 % of small businesses employ fewer than 10.
The importance of creating an environment in which existing small businesses can flourish and new ones can be created is therefore self-evident.
In Ireland 35 county enterprise boards have been set up with the objective of promoting the development of micro-businesses at local level.
Under the development programme a target of 4 600 enterprises was established.
By the end of 1997 about 7 000 people had set up their own business with partnership help.
Overloading the employer and employee with heavy taxes and heavy social insurance contributions is anti-jobs.
My country is competitive in European terms in relation to indirect labour cost.
There is a clear lesson: an over-burdened tax wedge spells disaster for job creation and job maintenance.
Small is beautiful.
Governments must not tax SMEs out of existence.
Mr President, I will begin by saying that I have been eagerly awaiting a report which would promote discussion on giving SMEs access to capital.
However, the Hendrick report is not that report.
Instead, it approaches the capital market for SMEs from the point of view of potential savings as part of the financial and monetary speculation manipulated by transnationals.
Given the manner in which they operate, capital markets are of no use to SMEs, particularly the small and micro-enterprises which make up some 99 % of European businesses and account for over 50 % of employment, and they therefore do not serve to strengthen the economic fabric of the Member States of which SMEs are the backbone.
In addition, I consider it essential that associations of SMEs should be created at both national and European levels, and I therefore welcome the fact that Mr Hendrick has accepted my proposal to this effect.
Such associations could provide excellent financial services and centralise the credit needs of its members, thereby reducing the cost of obtaining capital.
It is incomprehensible that in the current climate of financial crisis, capital and financial instruments should be permitted and encouraged to move totally freely and unchecked, leading to a casino economy.
Paragraph 13 of the motion for a resolution, which rejects the Tobin tax, appears out of place in a report on SMEs and access to markets.
This was why I supported the proposed amendment to paragraph 13 of the motion.
I would also like to say a few words on the Scarbonchi report, since the Annual Report of the European Observatory for SMEs contains information and analyses of their situation in the European Union from which an assessment can be made of the situation and dynamics in the European Union, and also of the effectiveness of the instruments which it has available.
It is regrettable, however, that the report does not dwell in greater depth on certain basic issues relating to the importance of SMEs in strengthening the economic fabric, and I regard it as excessively conformist at a time when change is needed.
This is reflected in the proposed amendments I supported.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps it was, as they say, revealing that Viagra was wrongly categorised here as having something to do with a satisfied sexuality.
But if you believe that, you may also think that the broad distribution of shares and pension funds through the whole of the SME sector could in any way be a step towards democratising the economy or decentralising economic power.
We have to face up to the fact that support for SMEs is an unequal race, one between Achilles and the tortoise, or between the hare and the hedgehog in the German fable, but unfortunately without the help of mistakenly thinking that movement involves small, intermittent steps and without the help of the hedgehog's loving wife and companion.
In other words, the concentration and centralisation of capital is marching inexorably on, and the new niches created along the way are only of minor importance.
The situation of SMEs is not improving, but worsening.
We cannot therefore think that unleashing market forces while at the same time developing SMEs would work.
That is why, in the reports, there is also what I would call the 'fallacy of misplaced concreteness'.
Of course we should do something to combat late payment but we should not exaggerate.
The entrenched economic downturn expresses itself in different ways, including late payment.
Of course, what Mrs Thyssen said was true, the EU institutions cannot exempt themselves from rules applicable to public bodies.
As far as raising venture capital is concerned, it is certainly true that this is difficult in Europe. But one should not believe that making it easier to set up a business would also mean improved chances of survival.
Until we reform the bankruptcy law, people will not be very quick to start a business.
Mr Hendrick, simply believing that readiness to take risks has something to do with people's psychological make-up really does not provide the level of analysis that we require.
And anyone who believes that pension funds are the only way to reform pensions has simply not looked at how social security systems have developed on the European continent.
What we need is not simply deregulation, but better regulation.
People need advice, information and favourable local and regional conditions.
These are the things we should be tackling, but unfortunately, they are missing from these reports.
I could continue at length, but I shall finish now, as my speaking time has run out.
Mr President, in this joint debate on small and medium-sized businesses I should like to talk about the report by Mr Scarbonchi.
As a substitute member of the Committee on Economic Affairs I followed the progress of this report at one remove, which is why I should now like to comment on its contents here in the plenary.
The section I am referring to is recital B in the motion for a resolution.
If you add up the figures it mentions you can see that the number of jobs in Europe is supposed to have increased by almost twelve million in just one year, which would mean that unemployment had fallen by 65 %!
I only wish this were true, but in fact the opposite was the case between 1995 and 1996, when unemployment actually went up slightly.
This fact is clearly stated on page 14 of the annual report.
I would therefore recommend that Mr Scarbonchi withdraw recital B. The figures he quotes from the 1996 and 1997 annual reports are based on different definitions of the size of SMEs.
The fifth annual report gives a useful overview of SMEs in Europe.
One worrying point is the fact that labour costs are rising too rapidly in SMEs, indicating that greater wage restraint and flexibility are needed on the labour market.
The worst thing we could suggest is to have further reductions in working hours for the same pay (see Amendment No 3), which in my view would mean the downfall of SMEs in Europe.
I am particularly grateful for the study on SMEs and the environment.
At the informal Environment Council in Amsterdam last year it was concluded that SMEs are a major source of environmental pollution, and the annual report goes into this in more detail.
Fortunately it appears that more and more small firms are taking action to combat pollution.
The growth of the 'eco-industry' also offers a positive outlook, particularly in terms of employment.
In order to promote this further we shall have to do more to shift labour taxes onto raw materials and energy, thus also fulfilling our Treaty obligation to integrate environment policy into all other aspects of public policy.
What does the Commissioner think of the proposal that environmental legislation should be better tailored to what SMEs want?
In the five years that it has been produced the annual report seems to have assumed a very clear role not just as an important reference work, but also as a useful source of guidance.
Member States can identify policy differences and similarities and copy good practice from each other.
These benefits could be further improved if the report compared specific legislation and the associated administrative burden.
Perhaps a special study could focus on this in future.
Finally I have a question for the Commissioner.
It is now September 1998 and we are discussing the 1997 annual report which contains figures mostly relating to the situation in 1996.
When will the report on 1998 be ready? I understand that the tendering procedure is not even finished yet.
Does this mean that the report is going to have to be rushed through? The quality is bound to suffer.
Would you explain how you think we can make up the delay? The last annual report was already out by October 1997.
Mr President, I would like to focus on one particular aspect which appears to me to be important and which is dealt with for the first time in the report by Mr Scarbonchi, namely the need to concentrate aid on SMEs in tourism.
The lack of a European policy on tourism means that large sums from EU aid coffers are not being deployed in the right way, with huge concentrations of rather dubious tourist accommodation as the result.
Over-capacities are being created that are distorting competition.
But SMEs, which are the typical European tourist business both in terms of quality and quantity, are being left out in the cold.
In future, European aid policy in tourism must set clear priorities geared towards improving the quality, competitiveness and marketing capacity of SMEs.
It is especially the SMEs in tourism that have shown they are in a position to safeguard jobs and to create extra employment.
An extremely significant question about the future is handled in paragraphs 6 and 7.
Programmes to link up agriculture, tourism and commerce are needed to stop people and companies from leaving rural areas with difficult conditions, such as Alpine areas. They must prevent whole valleys and regions from becoming deserted and turning into disaster areas.
Mr President, I have asked for the floor in order to speak about the Harrison report on late payments.
There are two basic points to make about this problem of late payments: firstly, that there is definitely a general delay in payments in both public and private contracts, and secondly, that the situation varies considerably from country to country within the EU single market.
Southern countries, among them Spain, are always cited as bad examples of this, and rightly so.
In our country, Spain, it is commonplace to talk about the lengthy period of time that it takes for the authorities to pay companies, particularly those awarded public works contracts.
What is not said so often is that these companies treat their suppliers, small and mediumsized enterprises, in an even more draconian manner.
The figures are as follows: public administrations wait an average of four months in Spain - which is long enough - before paying their creditors, but the companies awarded the contracts wait twice as long - eight months - before paying their suppliers and subcontractors, which must make life very difficult for them.
There are plenty of reasons for tackling this problem at European level and we welcome the fact that this directive has been proposed in addition to the various recommendations that have proved so ineffective in the past.
We strongly support this draft directive and we also support the amendments made to it in the Harrison report.
With regard to the amendments, I would like to focus on two points: firstly, we are strongly in favour of the amendment that introduces a new article on the use of debt-collection agencies or services in the single market. Secondly, we feel it is important to mention the various amendments that take into account the problem of small and medium-sized enterprises.
With regard to the situation of SMEs, the fact that the rules laid down in the directive are binding is very important.
Take the discretion allowed in Article 3, which states that the maximum payment period will be of three weeks - 21 days - unless otherwise provided for in the contract of the general conditions of sale of the vendor.
Certain limits need to be imposed here, because otherwise small businesses will be unprotected and faced with large companies which practically have a buyer's monopoly or are in the position to impose their own conditions on small businesses.
Therefore we strongly agree with certain amendments that have been introduced by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy which try to limit this potential abuse of discretion by large companies.
I am referring, for example, to Amendment No 24 to Article 7(d), and Amendment No 28 and others which tackle this problem - in my opinion - in the right way, correcting certain defects in this draft directive.
Mr President, when assessing any draft regulations, we first have to establish what objectives we are pursuing and what aspect of life in society we are trying to put in order.
There is no doubt that the draft directive on late payments is responding to the needs felt - suffered, we could say fairly - by small and medium-sized enterprises, and especially by those that are suppliers to powerful economic bodies.
It is an incontestable fact that postponing or delaying payments is being used for purposes far removed from that of financing the commercial cycle.
There are undoubtedly other problems too, for example slowness and disparity in legal proceedings.
For these reasons, we should welcome a European initiative in this field, and particularly this draft directive.
However, I must point out, like other speakers before me, that it contains legal problems that have to be tackled and I trust that these will be resolved in the dialogue between the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
I could begin and end by saying that I completely agree with the excellent speeches by Mrs Berger, Mrs García Arias and Mrs Thyssen.
There are, however, a few points I should like to make.
Firstly, I wanted to stress the need to tackle head on the problem of delays in contract payments in general, not just in public procurement contracts.
It is strange that the person saying this should be a lawyer who always takes the legal point of view, unlike all the economists, because actually, it is in business practice where the distinction between contractual period and lateness or slowness in paying is not always clear.
On many occasions the manager of a small business hears the 'big store' saying: ' Don't send me the bill now, send it to me in two months time.' And what does this amount to?
Disguised delayed payment, as the 'big store' is exploiting its capacity and power to force the small supplier to accept its conditions.
We therefore have to take care that regulatory measures do not end up having a very limited effect, because in applying the theoretical principle of contractual freedom, which, as Mr Pérez Royo highlighted very well, can only be a theoretical principle when the two contracting parties are not in equal positions, in practice large companies are allowed to continue to impose their will on small and medium-sized enterprises.
If the proposal came into force as the Commission has proposed it, we could predict that the only limiting effects would be on the public sector and on cases where the creditors are large companies that can defend their interests against SMEs, whether in commercial or other sectors.
I therefore think that it is essential to approve section d) of Amendment No 14 with the idea that, between the first and second readings, we will have to try to reformulate this amendment in a way which is reasonable and acceptable to the different Member States and their national legislations.
Secondly, I would like to stress that, from a legal point of view, it is essential to overcome the problems posed by the retention of title as established in Article 4, if only because it confers different rights and powers in the different Member States.
Thirdly, I hope that the amendments tabled by the Committee for Economic Affairs are not approved, as they aim to regulate the setting up of debt collection companies, and this should be the subject of a separate directive as the subject matter involved is substantial enough to warrant one.
Another aspect which requires serious thought is the question of the debt recovery procedures in Article 5.
They are too rigid and they could paralyse the legal system, but more importantly, we are entering territory which is comes under the competence of the Member States.
The same goes for the issue of lawyers.
Finally, I endorse what Mrs Berger said about the Commission's powers.
The Commission should tackle other areas, for example publicity and transparency on late payments, or setting up a European register of slow payers.
I will finish by saying that we also need a change of culture, as was apparent yesterday when, debating this directive, a colleague rolled his eyes and said 'Oh dear, I haven't given my son his pocket money for four weeks.'
We need to change our mentality too.
Mr President, the introduction of the single currency on 1 January is a positive step on the road to European integration.
The elimination of transaction costs and the lowering of interest rates is good news.
Small and mediumsized enterprises must be able to reap the benefits from the new climate created by the single currency in the immediate future and they must be helped to do so by national governments and state agencies.
On a broader front, I cannot emphasise strongly enough the importance of SMEs to both the Irish and the European economies.
I deplore the proposed cutbacks by the European Council in funding for SMEs at a time when this is supposed to be a central plank in the EU's action to combat unemployment.
The Council's decision in this matter must be overturned.
We need a positive operational environment for SMEs.
In Ireland we are developing a nationalist strategy to ease administrative burdens and small businesses, relieve burdens on small businesses and improve access to finance, as well as support business start-ups.
Ways of strengthening the entrepreneurial, technical and vocational dimensions of second level curriculum must also receive particular attention in the context of assisting SMEs in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Alleanza Nazionale can endorse the positive opinion of the rapporteur, Mr Scarbonchi, on the fifth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs.
However, I believe that we should highlight certain matters which have not been adequately covered by the Observatory.
I refer in particular to small businesses operating in disadvantaged zones and rural areas, where they must work under extremely difficult conditions because of the lack of infrastructure, the remoteness from markets, the almost total absence of new technology and computer systems, and a shortage of vocational training.
Added to this is the difficulty of obtaining loans.
In some Italian regions falling under Objective 1, for example, banks lend money to SMEs at a rate 3 or 4 % above the rate offered in other more economically sound regions of Italy.
Criminal organisations are often the ones to gain from these circumstances: they step in and offer loans at exorbitant rates when the banks refuse to support small businesses whose assets are not a sufficient guarantee.
We therefore appeal to the Commission to strive to eliminate such impediments to the growth of SMEs in some parts of the European Union.
We will enthusiastically support all amendments highlighting these aspects.
Mr President, on a point of order.
There is no point in you talking about Members speaking for a short time or speaking within their limits when you have allowed that last speaker to go 60 % over the time accorded and, indeed, other speakers as well.
You are the President.
You have to make sure that Members speak for the time that is given to them.
Mr President, this evening we are talking about small and medium-sized enterprises.
We all recognize that small and medium-sized enterprises are major job creators.
Unfortunately, we do not treat them as such.
One of the major problems for small and medium-sized enterprises is that they have been forced to bankroll large companies in two ways: through long payment periods in contracts, and through non-payments.
Fortunately, the Commission has put forward a directive which aims to solve the second problem, and I welcome this as a step in the right direction.
I think that Mr Harrison's magnificent report, with its amendments, also makes a major contribution to solving the problem, and I hope that the comments that have been made here by Mrs Palacio and the representatives of the Committee on Legal Affairs will help to make certain improvements on the legal front.
I think that we are going in the right direction.
However, we need to remind the Commission that we expect something to be done about payment periods, because, as some speakers have already said, contractual freedom is sacred but it also has its limits and, in practice, what are officially free contracts are in fact commitments, like the contract that I sign for electricity from an electricity supplier.
The same, or something similar, is true of the contracts that small and medium-sized enterprises sign with large distribution companies.
There are amendments tabled in Mr Harrison's report that are worth considering.
Perhaps a certain amount of adjustment and modification is also needed, because the impact on a small or medium-sized enterprise that is not paid after an agreed payment period of 120 days is not the same as after only a 30-day period.
Obviously, this is another matter to be dealt with in this directive.
Mr President, I shall confine myself to a few remarks concerning the Harrison report on late payment.
I believe, in any event, that I have spoken enough about SMEs over the past four years.
First of all I wish to thank the Commissioner, Mr Papoutsis, for his commitment to this sector, which he has again demonstrated by finding legal instruments to regulate late payment.
In other words, at last we have an army that is waging war with the right ammunition.
The problem of late payment does not affect small businesses alone; it affects SMEs more than any other businesses.
But all economic sectors will naturally reap the same benefits.
Compliance with terms of payment is a condition fundamental to the economy as a whole.
Let us begin with the concept of freedom of contract: those who buy and sell must respect ethical principles, but also practical, operational ones which underpin the economy. Conditions of contract are one of these fundamental principles governing company sales.
The Commission's proposals are reasonable and acceptable.
In the absence of a written contract, we think that payment should be made at the latest 21 days from the invoice date; this would apply only when the payment period is not laid down in the contract.
Public institutions are the real problem: here, the proposal is for a maximum payment period of 60 days from the invoice date.
Despite freedom of contract between vendor and purchaser, including in respect of due dates, such relationships needed to be regulated, above all because of excessively late payment by public institutions, and above all in defence of SMEs.
We must therefore endorse what was said by Mrs Palacio and Mrs Thyssen about Mr Harrison's report - and we thank him for his work, particularly within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Amendment No 14 needs to be altered, especially in paragraphs d) and e), where reference is made to 45 days, to make it at least 60, and above all to change the operational instrument.
Allow me just to read out the amendment, to prove how ineffectual it is: 'where the due date specified in the contract or in the seller's general conditions of sale is longer than 45 calendar days, the buyer shall provide the seller, at the buyer's cost, with a bill of exchange, specifying explicitly the date for its payment...' .
We are talking about commercial freedom; the contractual condition of freedom underpins the economy.
Here we are seeking to regulate forcibly a sector which has never been regulated before and which, perhaps because of this very absence of rigid rules, has found a way of operating flexibly and contributing, as we all know, to the growth of the economy and, hence, to development, investment and increased employment.
I thank the Commissioner and hope that tomorrow, when it comes to the vote, colleagues will bear in mind the points raised by Mr Harrison in his report, but will uphold freedom of contract as a fundamental element in the conduct of business.
Mr President, the EU has quite correctly focused on the role of small and medium-sized companies both generally and more especially as creators of job opportunities.
Today we are discussing four reports which set out to create opportunities and remove obstacles.
Mr Hendrick's report discusses the key to solving Europe's employment problem.
It talks of small and medium-sized companies and the biggest problem they have for their development and success, namely being able to acquire the venture capital for the vital investments they have to make.
The United States has managed substantially better than Europe in creating an active venture capital market for SMEs.
This is very clearly visible from the difference in the figures for unemployment in the world's two largest economic areas.
The European Union and its Member States, however, have, over the last decade, begun moves to get a lead over the USA.
A capital market aimed at European SMEs has been developed.
Obstacles to that development have been removed.
The problem has arisen, however, of this market's ability to function.
General rules, according to Mr Hendrick, do not solve everything.
It is especially important for the smaller countries that special financial institutions are also created to allow credit to SMEs and to provide substitute capital when it is otherwise unavailable.
The EU should establish a better framework for European investment banks to provide funding for the SME sector on a broad scale and to create various loan security schemes for collective funding arrangements for that sector.
Mr President, the European Observatory for SMEs continues to prove its usefulness in recognising and promoting these businesses which make such a vital contribution to our development.
I do not have time now to go through all the benefits I have listed on previous occasions, so I will confine myself to pointing out that SMEs continue to make an unmatched contribution to job creation, with 7 million new jobs created between 1995 and 1996, as compared to 4.8 million created by large firms.
In the report before us, whose rapporteur I congratulate, we welcome the inclusion of two specific studies on SMEs and tourism and SMEs and the environment, both of which are of particular importance to Portugal.
Tourism is a prime sector of activity in which small and medium-sized enterprises and a large number of people all over the country are engaged, and which offers the added advantage of serving to promote cultural values and bringing the citizens of different countries together.
The measures proposed therefore deserve our support, particularly those intended to ensure that the most disadvantaged areas are not neglected.
Regarding environmental protection, we welcome the acknowledgement of the fact that public support, particularly within the European Union, must be given to small and medium-sized enterprises, which might otherwise be placed at a disadvantage compared to enterprises which benefit from economies of scale and wealthier countries with established demand patterns.
We also welcome the reference to concrete measures in such different areas as social security, reducing bureaucracy, access to the capital market or adapting to the launch of the euro.
These are all appropriate measures which will not distort competition but will, on the contrary, allow better use to be made of the opportunities offered by the market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Third Multiannual Programme of the European Union is a cornerstone of our policy for SMEs and that is why Mr Rübig's report is terribly important.
The fact that now, in the context of EU enlargement, we are opening up this programme to include Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic, is more than welcome.
It would also have been nice if Slovenia, Latvia and Lithuania could have been alongside them.
I cannot accept that these countries are being singled out for non-participation for formal reasons.
I hope that this will change in future.
Looking at this massive project, it appears to me important that we see this Community programme as a part of the preaccession strategy, and for that reason we should be looking at the economic structures in these countries at the same time.
But no amount of money is going to produce what we need for SMEs at this point, which is vision.
This SME policy can guide companies towards it, but it can also, and this is especially important to me, strengthen the spirit of SMEs.
It is all about having a certain attitude to certain things at this point.
We need own-initiative, entrepreneurial commitment - i.e. alongside money, we need advice, training and incentives.
Therefore I believe it is important to try to do something about bureaucracy in these countries, to promote legal certainty and to provide support.
We must, in other words, improve the overall package with accompanying measures.
The problem here has something to do with the fact that in these countries too, less government is what is needed and not more. With our programme we should be contributing to increasing own-initiative.
Mr President, I shall speak briefly concerning the report by Mr Harrison, to whom I am grateful for his work and for having raised the profile of such an important issue, the running sore of Europe's economy, in other words late payments to SMEs.
I would merely stress what has already been made abundantly clear by my colleagues, and in particular by Mrs Thyssen. I too would draw attention to the content of Amendment No 14, paragraph d).
We have said that freedom of contract, where it is explicit, should be left intact; it is the basis and the life-blood of trade.
It is therefore important to try and eliminate all constraints liable to undermine express contractual freedom in any way.
I hope that tomorrow we shall be able to vote along these lines.
I should also like to emphasise the most important problem raised in the report, namely payments by public institutions.
Amendment No 26 states that in public authority contracts the main contractor has to grant conditions to the subcontractor and suppliers which are at least as favourable as those granted to the main contractor by the public authority.
That is right and proper, but let us not forget that it is all too often the public authorities' contracts themselves that cause the main contractor to have difficulty in paying the subcontractor and suppliers.
The focus should therefore be placed on the public institutions: contractors should receive guarantees covering onerous contracts with the public authorities, so that they in turn can provide guarantees to subcontractors.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today the European Parliament is considering four reports concerning SMEs.
Let me deal with each of those reports in turn.
I will begin with Mr Harrison's report on late payment.
That phenomenon has serious consequences for all European companies.
As was stressed a short while ago, one in four bankruptcies is caused by late payments.
33 % of companies in Europe regard late payment as one of the most serious problems they face and one which, in many cases, threatens their survival.
Late payments impede the correct development of trade within the Community and also impede the smooth operation of the single market.
Though it is a general problem all over the European Union, it is true that there are great differences in the payment practices between the Member States.
21 % of European companies could export more if they could ensure prompt payment from their customers abroad.
The Commission proposal for a directive on late payment comprises a package of measures to combat this problem in trade operations within the European Community.
The measures relate to late payments between all companies and between companies and the public sector.
They also fully respect the principle of the freedom of contract.
The proposal's general aim is to encourage compliance with contractual payment deadlines, to the benefit of all companies.
It also provides a legal basis for discouraging debtors from delaying payment.
It will entitle creditors to adequate compensation when they are not paid promptly, and will provide or improve procedures for the recovery of the sums due, ensuring that those procedures are effective, cheap and quick.
The proposal also contains special measures to improve the payment practices of public authorities.
On that point, let me assure Mrs Thyssen that the Commission has taken the necessary measures to improve its own compliance with the 60-day payment deadline and, in cases where Commission departments delay payment without good reason, they will have to pay interest for the period of delay.
The Commission believes that this proposal will secure substantial benefits for companies, especially SMEs.
It will also have a positive impact on employment, precisely because there will be fewer bankruptcies in Europe due to late payment.
Mr President, I should like to thank the European Parliament for its continual support here.
I should also particularly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Lyndon Harrison, for all his hard work, not just on his report on the directive, but for all his efforts in recent years on behalf of SMEs, always sounding the alarm bell and most of all in connection with the late payment issue.
Let me also thank the Legal Affairs Committee and especially its draftsman, Mrs Berger, for her contribution during the process of Parliament's scrutiny of the directive.
Many of the amendments tabled clarify and supplement the Commission proposal and I can tell you straight away that we accept them.
In particular, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 19, 20, 22 and 31 as they stand.
There are also some other amendments which the Commission mostly agrees with in substance, but we would like to reserve the possibility of rewording them to make them compatible with the rest of the directive from the legal standpoint.
I refer to Amendments Nos 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 21, 24, 26, 28 and 32.
In contrast, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 5, 6, 8, 12, 17, 23, 25, 27, 29, 30, 33, 34 and 35.
Mr President, I should like now to move on to the Rübig report on the participation of a group of seven applicant Central and Eastern European countries in the Third Multiannual Programme for SMEs.
First of all I want to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work.
We can accept the amendments tabled and approved by the relevant parliamentary committee on 3 September.
Indeed, in recent years the number of SMEs has increased in all those countries and today account for over 90 % of all companies.
We know, however, that many efforts will still have to be made in the coming years to improve and simplify the administrative and legal environment within which those companies are active, and of course we would like to see still more of them become active in the future.
In past years the PHARE programme has played an important part in supporting the development of SMEs in those countries and I am sure that this will continue.
Today, in most cases, the policy on promoting the development of SMEs needs to be made more clear and, in my opinion, more specific.
I am particularly pleased that today sees the opening of the Third Multiannual Programme to a first group of seven countries for the period 1998-2000, namely Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic.
Later the programme will be opened to Slovenia, Lithuania and Latvia, when they too are ready, and it is now being opened to the Republic of Cyprus.
Now that those countries are getting ready to join the Union, I sincerely believe that the time has come for them to participate creatively in the Third Multiannual Programme for SMEs.
I would again like to thank you for your support here.
Mr President, I now come to the Hendrick report on European capital markets for SMEs.
First of all, let me thank Mr Hendrick for his excellent report and his positive assessment of the Commission's 1997 statement.
Developments in that area since then have been particularly positive, though I believe there is still much to be done.
As you know, both the EASDAQ market and the Euro-Nouveau Marché have continued to expand and they now deal in the shares of around 200 companies.
Though EASDAQ's figures fall far short of those of NASDAQ, the corresponding American market, it remains true that it represents a very important achievement, especially bearing in mind that it is still less than two years since EASDAQ opened, while if we look at the American experience we see that NASDAQ took about five years to become established.
The 200 companies involved today account for capital of ECU 2.7 billion, i.e. on average ECU 14 million each.
That is a sum which could not have been obtained from traditional banking sources.
In parallel, it has enabled the companies to gain access to the bank finance they need, since their balance sheets have been strengthened by share capital.
Those companies are just the kind of active, high-tech enterprises which the European Commission wishes to encourage.
The result of their incorporation in a stock market has been to increase their working capital over these two years by an average of about 30 %.
Moreover, the successful expansion of those two markets has contributed generally towards stimulating increasing cooperation between stock markets and towards encouraging the creation of capital markets for SMEs in other Member States as well.
However, their development needs to be stimulated still further, and I believe that it will certainly be boosted by the arrival of the euro, since they will benefit greatly from the added transparency that will result from the adoption, implementation and use of the single currency.
Now, as for future action, we will focus our efforts on implementing the plan of action which was part of our statement at the Cardiff European Council in June 1998.
In that context let me mention six specific initiatives which are either under way already, or will begin very soon.
First, the Round Table concerning the fragmentation of venture capital markets, aiming to remove barriers and facilitate the access of SMEs to that type of finance.
Second, the review of all national and cross-border share issuing procedures, aiming to make the initial sale of shares to the public simple, standardised and cost-effective.
Third, the Third Round Table for bankers and SMEs.
Within the scope of this Third Round Table's work, best practices will be defined for the financing, creation and start-up of enterprises, especially ones with a high development potential which could become candidates for flotation on a European stock market.
Fourth, new measures on seat capital, which will be called CREA.
Fifth, a self-assessment guide to the markets for SMEs, which will help entrepreneurs decide for themselves whether their companies have the potential for stock market flotation.
Sixth, a study on the techniques used to assess both risk and the credit rating of companies, with special reference to SMEs.
Finally, Mr President, I come to the Scarbonchi report on the fifth annual report by the European Observatory for SMEs.
Let me first thank the European Parliament for its continual interest in the Observatory, and sincerely congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Scarbonchi, on his work.
I made a careful note of all your views about the Observatory's future work.
A call was made for a study of how the various European programmes for SMEs are coordinated, but I imagine that is already largely covered by the publication you all have at your disposal, on action on behalf of SMEs and the small trades sector.
As for the other views expressed, let me assure you that they will be taken into account when preparing future reports on the Observatory, which will need to contain more up-to-date, ready- processed facts and figures. Since the reports have previously been published on an annual basis, perhaps we need to allow more time than just one year, so that new and better processed data can be included.
Finally, I should like to say how glad I am that the Observatory's importance has been recognised as a point of reference, a centre which prepares a major report giving very important information not only about the European institutions, but mainly about the governments of the Member States and the various agencies working in the SME sector.
I also want to assure you that the Commission intends to continue the Observatory's work in the future and to contribute by supporting its activities.
The joint debate is closed.
The votes will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 0.10 a.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Your comment concerned a linguistic correction, Mr Pompidou, and we must clearly do all we can to improve the text and make it more accurate.
We shall proceed accordingly.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, I was told that yesterday Mrs Schierhuber's assistant was attacked and robbed in Brussels, and Mr Schiedermeier's flat was broken into.
When will the request signed by over 150 Members for improved safety measures in Brussels be acted upon?
That is a very relevant comment, Mr Rübig, and as you know, we are trying to put a stop to all this, but we cannot do it overnight.
However, I can assure you that a number of measures have been taken of the kind that you and many other Members have repeatedly called for.
Madam President, I would just like to make a brief statement to inform the Parliament and my fellow Members that, although the Portuguese Government subscribes to Christian principles, we have seen the current demonstrations by farmers who have been brought to the verge of bankruptcy following several years of bad harvests met with armoured vehicles, helicopters, storm troops and dogs.
If this really is the humanism of my Government, I must protest.
I have always been involved with agriculture; I have myself participated in lawful, peaceful demonstrations.
I would like to draw attention to the fact that, even in a democracy, it is difficult to shrug off some of the habits of dictatorship.
As you will appreciate, Mr Rosado Fernandes, I let you speak even though that was not a point of order.
I would ask Members only to raise genuine points of order.
Madam President, my comment possibly has more to do with the world's agenda rather than Parliament's, but I would ask you to give me just a minute of the House's time.
This morning it was announced that the country of Burkina Faso has ratified the Ottawa Treaty on anti-personnel mines.
This brings the number of countries which have ratified the Treaty to 40, which means that it came into force on 1 March 1998 and the process of ridding the world of landmines can now begin on 1 March 1999.
Parliament worked very hard to promote this Treaty, so as well as congratulating the government of Canada and the government of Burkina Faso for becoming the 40th ratifying country, I think we also deserve to feel quietly proud of ourselves.
Thank you, Mr Bertens.
While that was not a point of order, everyone will realize the interest and the importance of what you told the House.
Madam President, this may not be a point of order, but I have a question I should like to put to you.
Five months ago, on 7 April this year, I sent a written question to the President of the European Parliament about contracts for the supply of furniture for Parliament's bar and restaurants.
I have yet to receive a reply, despite making a number of telephone calls to the President's office.
What I would like to ask you is this: how am I to obtain a reply?
I cannot give you an immediate answer, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, because I was not aware of this letter.
However, I will ask the President to reply to the question which you put to him in April, if - as you say - he has not already done so.
Integrating gender issues in development cooperation
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0291/98), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0307/98-97/0151(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on integrating gender issues in development cooperation (Rapporteur: Mrs Junker).
Madam President, strengthening the situation of women is a fundamental objective in itself.
Human prosperity generally would increase if women enjoyed the same status as men and had the same opportunities and the same social, economic and legal rights as men, including the right to reproductive health and protection against genderspecific violence.
This creed does not stem from some feminist manifesto, but a fact-filled United Nations publication on the situation of women in the world in 1995, which was published on the occasion of the fourth World Women's Conference in Beijing.
The lessons which can be learnt from it correspond with the European Commission's mainstreaming approach for integrating gender issues in all areas of policy, including development cooperation.
In Beijing the European Union, I am glad to say, having been there myself to witness it, played a positive and constructive role.
Through the Action Platform and the Final Declaration approved in Beijing, all the participants committed themselves, in their respective areas of responsibility, to introducing targeted measures to contribute to the elimination of discrimination and to the genuinely equal treatment of women in all fields of life - upbringing, education, training, work and family, society, politics, the economy, science, justice, culture, the media, etc.
The proposal for a regulation which you have before you is a welcome attempt to increase awareness of the fact that improving women's rights is the very key to the sustainable development we hear so much about.
The aim of earmarking the funding allocated, which is unfortunately fairly modest, for awareness-raising measures rather than operational projects, certainly deserves our support.
Hitherto, women and their interests have not been adequately integrated into important spheres of development cooperation such as agriculture and livestock farming, the fishing industry, forestry, drinking water supplies, emergency and disaster aid, and also trade, food processing and light industry. This is due not least to stubborn prejudices and cultural and religious barriers that go hand in glove with ignorance.
I will not go through the whole list of disadvantages that women face in all cultural areas.
The problems are well-known.
We can say that the proposal for a regulation is a step in the right direction.
It is nevertheless a small step that must be followed by others.
I recognise the fact that many amendments from the first reading were accepted, but there is a crucial shortcoming as far as the Council's common position is concerned - it has limited the period of validity.
I think it is right for us to review how the programme has fared in five years' time, but the problem will certainly not have been dealt with by then and further efforts will still be required.
In this regard, I would suggest that the time limit be taken out, and I am counting on broad agreement from the House.
This further supports the idea that the integration of gender issues in development cooperation must be regarded as a horizontal task, as something to be practised across the board in development cooperation.
It depends on achieving a substantial multiplier effect, as the programme intends to do.
Coordinated action is needed with the Member States, because awareness must be raised not only in the developing countries but also at home.
All decision-makers, both male and female, must be appropriately trained at Community level, not only as far as the 'hard factors' are concerned, but also in the new areas of development cooperation which are becoming increasingly important: human rights, democratisation, the rule of law, participation of the civil society, good governance, trade, macroeconomic analyses, satisfying basic human needs, combating poverty, reproductive health.
In all of these areas, the priority is to use existing structures and local capacity in the developing countries.
However, the best of intentions and the finest regulations will come to nothing if there are not enough people to put them into practice, and this is particularly true here.
For a long time the European Parliament and its committees have complained there are not enough staff working on 'women and development' at the Commission.
Now the low point has been reached.
The Agrade official who was responsible for gender issues in the directorate-general has left the post and there is no sign of a successor.
I hear that the original job vacancy notice has apparently been blocked.
Now, there is just one expert from Sweden holding the fort.
I would very much like to hear what the Commission has to say about this, as it does cast doubt on its credibility.
The Commission has an obligation to Parliament here, but it has even more of an obligation towards women in the developing countries.
Madam President, we also looked very closely at the subject of development cooperation and genderspecific aspects of it in the Committee on Women's Rights.
I went to Beijing as the rapporteur, and all I can say is that what was decided there was right.
The Action Platform provides us with a framework for action.
If we fail to implement what was undertaken there, then the most vehement statements of continued support will not help in the least.
If we have already recognised that women are the key to development, then the Regulation must come into force as quickly as possible.
We heard from Mrs Junker that the Commission is having a lot of problems with implementation here.
We also have two budget lines that are currently being blocked.
With the regulation, we will obtain the legal basis that we urgently need in order to translate gender concerns into reality.
The good work done in the past by the units in DG Ib and DG VIII was also mentioned.
They not only supervised pilot projects on mainstreaming, but also developed procedures which made it possible to evaluate the gender impact of the individual projects.
The effects of the various projects on girls and women in the countries with which we cooperate were closely examined.
Measures were also taken to raise awareness among staff in the Commission and other services of gender issues in development cooperation.
We cannot stop now, we must keep going.
If the few posts in the Commission are now to remain unfilled, then all our efforts will be frustrated.
That is why I believe that we must continue our attempts to release the appropriations for both the budget lines concerned, B7-611 and B7-631, as soon as possible.
The utilisation rate of the resources in these two lines was very high at 93 %.
The measures for areas such as crisis prevention, human rights, democratisation and basic education must be implemented as soon as possible in the cooperation countries.
I would emphasise once again that, as Mrs Junker has already said, a time limit does, of course, very much curtail the effects of the regulation.
If we agree - and I am assuming that we will have a majority here in the House - that the time limit should be removed, then that is a very important decision.
Constant evaluation of the effects of this policy would nevertheless still remain necessary.
Removing the time limit is, however, a central issue.
Madam President, with subjects such as these we are used to seeing just the women of the House here.
I especially welcome the fact that a few gentlemen are present, particularly on our side of the House, and indeed more here than on the side which in general appears to be so sensitive to these kinds of issues.
The fact that Lord Plumb has just chosen the wrong moment to leave is another matter!
Ladies and gentlemen, time and time again people complain about the fact that development cooperation does not adequately deal with or take into consideration the cultural conditions in the respective countries.
Even when we try to take account of gender issues in development policy we are still faced with the fact that societies in other countries have a traditional division of responsibilities, and we all know that trying to make radical changes never works.
So our first concern should be to identify the areas which especially affect women and then to step up our support for them.
Projects that are put forward for instance in the field of food provision or health are particularly successful.
For the same reason, in a whole series of countries, projects involving personal loans to women are also working. Their repayment ethic is well documented in all the reports.
In my opinion however, education should still be our top priority, not only because the proportion of illiterate women is especially high, but also because a higher level of education and training brings greater awareness of the issues of demographic development, and educated women would be more open to birth control.
We must, though, remember one thing - whenever broadening the scope for women affects the scope for men, there are two possibilities: the outcome is either conflict or consensus.
The latter is certainly always better for families.
We should also not allow women to be encumbered with the entire responsibility for demographic development, particularly with regard to family planning.
This is an unusual approach, where the gender aspect means that both sides, men and women, have responsibility.
This report, like those on other subjects, calls on the Member States to cooperate.
This is a subject that crops up again and again at every opportunity in the field of development.
I would be very grateful if the Commission could give us feedback on successful examples of cooperation, so that we can at least cross off one area and say that it actually works there.
My thanks to the rapporteur.
Madam President, Mrs Günther will be glad to know that the Greens are so advanced that we have a man speaking on this issue.
In fact, I presented the report by Nel van Dijk in the Women's Rights Committee when Nel was absent, so it is a subject I know about.
I think it is a very important area.
I have just returned from India, from visiting the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala.
If we look at village life in India and the central role which women play in the community, and the need to target women to act as the motors of development within the village, it should be clear that this is an area the EU needs to highlight more.
I think Mrs Junker's report is excellent because it stresses the key issue, namely that we should be using our money to train, develop and promote women within the developing countries and not necessarily spending all the money on training women within the Commission in Brussels.
That may be important - the sensitisation and feminisation of policies within the Commission and within the rest of the Union - but the key should be to spend money from these budget lines on women's projects in the developing countries themselves.
That is an important part of her report and I hope the Commission will respond positively.
We talked on the Women's Rights Committee about how we should feminise the policies more: to have effective standing committees with more women on them, to make sure there is better representation of women from the developing countries on ACP delegations, to make sure that we monitor and evaluate all development projects from the EU in terms of the impact on women within the developing countries, and to make sure the reports are fed back, not only to the Commission but to Parliament too, so that we can see that there is a true feminisation of EU development aid.
If we did this it would be a considerable advance.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I must first thank the rapporteur and all the members of the Committee on Development and Cooperation for their work on integrating gender equality in the European Union's development cooperation.
In the words of the Jean Ferrat song, women are men's future.
That is especially true in development issues.
Anyone who has been to Africa, for example, will have seen the major role played by women in the development process.
They make a vital contribution both to the economy - especially its informal or popular sector - and agriculture.
Similarly, their contribution to the rehabilitation and reconstruction process cannot be too highly praised.
Do we even need to mention their role in preventing conflicts or in building peace? Yet, although they are the vehicles of development, in developing countries women are the victims of serious inequalities, social, family, economic and political discrimination, and their contribution to development is made despite considerable obstacles to their achieving equal treatment.
The European Union should now go beyond declarations of intent, develop the positive resolutions that it has adopted by subscribing to the platform of measures and the declaration of the 1995 Beijing Conference, and put them into practice, especially in its development aid policy.
We can therefore only welcome the proposal for a Council Regulation, which aims to give women the role they deserve as the vital element in development by ensuring that all development operations and strategies systematically include an analysis of gender issues.
It is, after all, vital that European Union development measures should respond to women's needs and priorities locally.
They must be able to play a full part in designing and implementing development projects.
I therefore wish to tell you, on behalf of my group, the European Radical Alliance, that I am fully behind the recommendation of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, especially since for us taking gender issues into account in Community development activities is a vital element in their success.
I should add that I do not think it is appropriate to fix a period of validity for this regulation, given the ambitious scale of its programme.
That is why, along with all my committee colleagues, I opposed the time limits suggested by the Council and I hope that it will heed the European Parliament on this point.
The concept of equality between men and women must always be kept in mind.
It must also be taken into account in all European Union development aid measures in the future.
Madam President, as a man and as a Member of Parliament, I cannot but acknowledge that we live in a society, be it in the north or south, in which women find it very difficult to enter decision-making positions in social, political and economic spheres.
This inequality of opportunity between men and women represents a huge waste of potential and ability, which is particularly flagrant in the less developed countries.
I disagree with a regulatory system based on quotas or rules.
I believe we should concentrate on raising awareness of this problem, and the European Parliament has played an exemplary pioneering role here.
We have a saying in Portugal that the softest water will eventually wear away the hardest stone.
I agree with the retabling of the proposed amendments to the regulation since we must ensure that small-scale operational projects are not neglected, that it is made clear that the European Union has only one policy on cooperation, and that we identify priority areas where the participation of women may be increased, such as emergency and crisis-prevention operations, human rights and democratisation, economic analysis, trade and sexual and reproductive health matters.
Special conditions must be removed and normality restored in the award of contracts on the basis of tenders from recipient countries and from developing countries in the same region.
The European Union cannot take away with one hand what it has given with the other.
And lastly, why decree the end of a programme which seeks to strengthen the presence of women in the European Union's development agencies and policies, writing its death certificate five years in advance? We should know better than to expect miracles when we see the slow pace at which the major social changes of the last 15 years have taken place in the developing countries, the slow-but-sure improvement in life expectancy, infant mortality, literacy, birth rate and per capita GNP.
Unfortunately, it would seem from the Council's position that we will see Mrs Junker clamouring for woman power in the Commission services and bodies for a good many years yet.
Madam President, firstly I should like to welcome Parliament's recommendation and express the Commission's appreciation of the support given by Parliament both for the creation of this budget line in 1990 and also for the Community's policy on mainstream and gender issues in development cooperation since the Beijing Conference on Women in 1995.
I am very pleased to have the opportunity to thank Parliament for the excellent work done in particular by the rapporteur Mrs Juncker on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation and Mrs Gröner on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights.
It is recognized that the high level of experience and commitment is fostering good cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission in this area.
This proposed recommendation aims to provide a coherent and stable legal basis for measures which are of key importance to the quality and effectiveness of our development cooperation as well as for social justice and equality.
It is absolutely essential that we get the regulation through as quickly as possible so that we can use the money for the intended purpose.
In the past development interventions have often neglected two important considerations.
Firstly, they have often failed to take proper account of the various economic and social roles carried out by women in the project areas.
Consequently projects could be designed on the basis of an incomplete picture and without the participation of those most concerned.
That is exactly the point made by Mr Kerr.
Such an approach of course reduces their chances of success.
Secondly, they have given insufficient weight at policy and programming level to the persistent and severe differentials between women and men in developing countries.
That is the point made very forcefully by Mrs Günther.
These differentials reduce the possibilities for women to make a significant economic and social contribution and they act as a brake on the development of society as a whole.
They also keep women in subordinate roles.
So we are trying to get on with exactly what Mrs Gröner said, namely implementing the platform agreed worldwide at Beijing.
It is for these reasons that a strategic and catalytic approach is so important.
Simply to fund additional projects in favour of women would risk marginalising the importance of the issue.
It would not have sufficient effect and its impact on the quality and long-term effectiveness of mainstream development activities would be minimal.
Instead the proposed regulation provides measures to support the comprehensive inclusion of gender issues within the mainstream of the Community's development cooperation policies and programmes.
That is the point which was made in Beijing so far as the platform is concerned.
At the same time, it will encourage special interventions to reduce differentials between women and men, financed from existing allocations, and on an appropriately large scale.
We think that is the right approach.
This accords with the mainstreaming approach favoured by the recent Council conclusions and earlier resolution and in particular by the Beijing Conference.
The broad mainstreaming approach is what we are trying to promote.
The task involves a thorough, imaginative and ongoing re-thinking of traditional approaches and working methods.
International experience suggests that this is not an easy or rapid task.
However, the first progress report of integrating gender in development shows that considerable work has already been done and a good start has been made.
Mrs Juncker made a very strong point regarding personnel and we recognize the importance of her observation.
We are trying to maintain existing staffing levels but I have to say that this is not easy.
The present difficult staffing climate leaves us very little room for manoeuvre in this respect.
Specialized expertise is not always readily available and cannot be transferred easily within the directorate.
The point Mrs Juncker and Mr Kerr made is being taken on board.
It is important to develop training both in-house and for those in the developing countries.
The Commission's position on the 20 amendments submitted for consideration and voting is as follows: We can fully support six amendments, Nos 1, 7, 9, 10, 14 and 20, and also parts of Nos 11, 17 and 18.
We can also partially embrace Amendments Nos 2 and 4, although we consider that some rewording is needed to retain a clear focus on the mainstreaming approach of the budget line.
We are talking about one budget line here, which incorporates two previous budget lines.
We are unable to accept the following amendments: Nos 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16 and 19, together with parts of Nos 11, 17 and 18.
Let me outline very briefly the main reasons for the Commission's position.
Some amendments, for example Nos 12 and 13 and part of 18, would cause new procedural constraints, particularly related to interinstitutional requirements.
These would jeopardise the proper administration of the budget, given the limited human resources that are available in the Commission.
In the case of Amendment No 8, although we agree with the intention, the activities proposed are too ambitious for our staffing resources.
Finally, several amendments - Nos 16, 19 and part of 11 - would be inconsistent with the existing interinstitutional agreements or would involve changing existing committee procedures.
Others - Amendment No 15 and part of No 18 - would affect the Commission's existing competences.
As you know, there is some urgency about the passing of the regulation.
The budget line for integrating gender and development is currently blocked until the legal base can be established.
So we are grateful for Parliament's support in our efforts to try to progress this measure as quickly as possible.
Three years after the World Conference on Women at Beijing a lot has been achieved.
That is agreed.
A considerable and growing proportion of Community aid resources are being targeted at the Beijing priority areas.
Important steps are being taken to improve the gender sensitivity of Community aid programmes so the adoption of this regulation on integrating gender issues in development cooperation will provide a stable basis for this work and enable us to intensify our efforts.
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Women: impact of unemployment
The next item is the report (A4-0272/98) by Mrs Marinucci, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the impact of unemployment on the situation of women.
Madam President, unemployment is the European Union's number one problem.
It manifests itself to varying degrees in the different regions of Europe, but it represents a serious threat to family peace and institutional stability everywhere.
There has been a succession of studies, research projects, national and Community measures over the years, plus the Delors White Paper, Councils of Ministers and summits, all of them suggesting more or less feasible remedies - implemented to a greater or lesser extent - but the problem remains and is likely to worsen.
There is just one positive aspect to this picture of gloom: for the first time in history it has not occurred to anyone to suggest the traditional expedient of reducing male unemployment by sending women back home.
This undoubtedly signals a victory for present-day feminism, which has also revolutionised approaches to employment issues.
It signals the victory of all those women in every corner of Europe who are joining the labour market in increasingly large numbers, thus indicating their unshakable desire to play a full part in work outside the home.
But it goes further than that!
Not only has no one seen fit to dust off the old recipe, tried and tested time and again - since the dawn of the industrial revolution - in the post-war periods and at times of crisis, but, what is more, since the Essen Summit the European Union has fully integrated women's issues into the debate and proposals on employment in Europe, with major repercussions in all the Member States.
Why then, some might ask, was there a need for this own-initiative resolution?
Because appearances conceal certain ambiguities which could bring back in through the window what has gone out through the door, because many measures are still not being applied, many measures are inadequate, and because there is a need to point up the numerous contradictions pervading the whole issue of female employment and unemployment.
The first contradiction is that there have never before been so many women in paid employment outside of the home; at the same time, neither have there ever been so many women out of work.
The reason is that the growing supply of female labour is offset by an accelerating decline in the demand for both male and female workers in private firms and public institutions.
The second contradiction is that, whereas female employment is increasing, the increase is primarily in part-time, insecure and fixed-term jobs.
Part-time work is on the increase, but this does not always mean that it becomes easier to reconcile domestic activities with work outside the home, because this work might take place at weekends, on public holidays, in the evenings or at night.
Jobs lasting a few hours and a few days a year boost female employment, but social protection is reduced.
What is more, social protection provided on a non-individual basis prevents women from taking paid employment, and - in some countries - even the transition from passive to so-called active labour market policies deprives women of welfare benefits which are not readily replaced by income from employment, for instance in the case of single mothers.
The third contradiction is that although girls are performing better at school, female employment is not increasing proportionately.
This is undoubtedly because of the segregation of girls in school, which results in women being segregated in traditionally female jobs. What is more, there are female graduates out of work in traditionally male sectors, often with better qualifications than their employed male counterparts.
The same can be said of vocational training, which does not lead to significant levels of female employment when it is targeted at sectors already dominated by women, nor even, sometimes, when targeted at sectors dominated by men, if these sectors are themselves contracting.
All these contradictions - at a time when women are furthermore suffering, as mothers and wives, the effects of the substantial difficulties being encountered by young people trying to enter the world of work, or the tragedy of husbands losing their jobs - convinced us of the need to bring this issue back into the spotlight.
We women are disappointed, firstly, both by the approach of the Employment Guidelines adopted at the Luxembourg Summit - which failed to incorporate the subject of women's employment into the first three pillars, marginalising and compartmentalising it in the fourth - and by the national action plans, some of which have glaring shortcomings and are devoid of any quantified targets. We are disappointed, secondly, in the outcome of the meeting of EU Ministers for Women in Belfast which ended without any concrete decisions.
Therefore this resolution, the fruit of cooperation and valuable additions in the form of amendments from female and male colleagues from all the groups, urges the Commission, Council and Member States to include in the next Employment Guidelines - and, Mr Flynn, in the guidelines for the Structural Funds - benchmark targets with quantified objectives and clear timetables and budgetary resources for implementation.
These benchmarks should be based on the average of the three most successful Member States.
We call for a more precise definition of unemployment and a clear definition of part-time work, and we call on the social partners to conclude a framework agreement on all forms of atypical work.
We should also like the Commission to issue a framework directive on childcare services - I would be delighted if the Commissioner were to announce it today - and we hope that this House will back our proposals.
Madam President, today, we in the European Parliament have once again shown ourselves to be a genuine lobby for women's rights with this wide-ranging debate on the subject.
I think that equal rights and opportunities for men and women in education, training and the labour market are one of the cornerstones of the construction of Europe.
Gainful employment is, as we all know, more than just earning one's living.
The talents, qualifications and creativity of the female sex, in the EU and beyond, are all valuable assets upon which we must build.
Nevertheless, as the Marinucci report clearly shows, to this day, women are remarkably disadvantaged.
Der Spiegel's survey of the labour market shows that on average women are 30 % more affected by unemployment, not to mention the fact that in some regions of the Union female unemployment is twice as high as the overall rate, more women are being pushed out of the labour market, women are forced into insecure, unprotected jobs (so-called atypical work) and, in spite of their qualifications, they are disadvantaged when it comes to career advancement.
We in the Group of the Party of European Socialists see an increasingly dangerous risk that, in the long-term, major disadvantages affecting women are going to become worse, such as differences in income (women earn one third less), serious discrimination in career advancement and the danger of increasing unemployment.
The Marinucci report contains a whole series of very specific suggestions to make it easier for women to reconcile family and work.
Basically, however, a rethink is urgently needed, as is coordinated action between the Member States and the EU institutions.
The Employment Summit has started the ball rolling, but the proposals in the national employment plans for ensuring equal treatment for men and women are completely inadequate.
We must underline the fact that measures to promote employment will have to do much more to include women.
I am very much in favour of adopting benchmarking and laying down guidelines, with time-limits, on how to eliminate discrimination.
In the motion for a resolution, and especially in paragraph 23, the report makes tangible proposals as to how the disadvantages and the gender gap could be reduced and on how we should take the lead from the three most successful Member States here.
The Marinucci report makes a number of good suggestions.
I should like to thank my colleague for her work, and I think that the Member States do have to be made more aware of this problem.
At the last informal Council of Ministers in Austria, three Member States were not represented at all: Germany, the UK and France. They had not even sent ministers to the informal meeting.
Member States' awareness of the problem does have to be increased.
We expect the Council of Social Affairs Ministers in October to implement the reports that are approved here today.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have made further progress in the fight against unemployment.
In Essen, in 1994, under the German Presidency, we laid the foundations for a comprehensive strategy on cooperation between Member States.
In the five spheres that have been identified, there are actions in favour of those groups particularly affected by unemployment, of which a disproportionately high ratio are women.
At the Employment Summit in Luxembourg in 1997, action plans were decided upon to combat long-term and youth unemployment, and to move from passive to active measures.
These concern women especially.
What is known as atypical work has long since become typical - voluntary work, fixed-term contract work, and help from family members.
Part-time work is sensible if it allows the demands of work and family life to be better reconciled, including through homeworking and teleworking.
It is not sensible if working by the hour is extended so much that it more or less becomes a full-time job, and an underpaid one at that.
Part-time work without social cover, opportunities for further training and career advancement is merely something for companies to fall back on when they have a lot of orders.
Here, as the PPE Group has pointed out in its amendments, the danger of dismissal is ever-present.
The social security section of the 1997 Directive on Part-Time Work needs to be fleshed out.
In order to make it easier for women to enter into their preferred career, skilled child-care is also needed.
It should be affordable, appropriate and with flexible and extended opening hours.
Germany's Law on nurseries, which lays down the right to a nursery place, is a good beginning which other countries should copy.
We in the PPE Group support Mrs Marinucci when, in her committed report, she calls for it to be made easier for women to return to professional life.
A person who interrupts their career to bring up children, look after elderly dependants, in the service of someone else in other words, should not be held back.
They must be supported, even by taking this into account when it comes to pension entitlements.
I cannot however share one of the assessments made by the rapporteur, of the value of education and training.
Of course it is unacceptable that women, who happily by now make up the majority at universities, should suffer more from unemployment than their male counterparts and should be over-qualified for many jobs.
Nevertheless, higher education qualifications are always worth having, even if they are no guarantee of a job.
They increase the chances of securing a job and increase selfconfidence.
There are still considerable difficulties in climbing up the career ladder.
Companies headed or founded by women are still in an all too obvious minority.
That is why promoting the enterprise culture, or easier access for women to financing and loans, are top priorities for the PPE Group.
At the suggestion of our Committee on Women's Rights, let us do what we can to ensure that these ideas are adopted by the economy and society.
Madam President, the rapporteur, Mrs Marinucci, has explained very clearly why women still need to be given special consideration on the labour market, yet in the Committee on Women's Rights I abstained.
Why? We in the Liberal Group feel that the general approach adopted in the report is too defensive, too concerned about the need for flexibility on the labour market and, in places, unrealistic.
Take flexibility.
According to the rapporteur this is a terrible headache, yet young men and women are increasingly coming to realise that inflexibility will not help them to find work.
They are not looking for jobs for life, they are happy to diversify, they operate through agencies and work flexible hours.
Of course, Mrs Marinucci, the social partners need to introduce some rules here, preferably at European level, but rigid legislation is the kiss of death.
The same goes for childcare.
We do not need European legislation, we simply need the European recommendation to be implemented. All the Member States signed up to it, so we should keep on at them until they apply it.
But how can childcare be free? Someone has to pay for it.
Here is another great idea.
Are you suggesting, as I think you are in paragraph 19, that European funding should be used to set up centres for the elderly? I sincerely hope not.
This is surely the responsibility of the Member States.
Next, mainstreaming.
Mrs Marinucci is quite right, this is something we simply have to hold out for.
There is still a long way to go and Parliament must do everything it can to help. We need quantified targets and timetables, we need experts on gender issues, the National Action Plans must be evaluated and responsibility must be taken for the way in which the money from the Structural Funds is spent.
However, my group feels that it is too soon to break away from mainstreaming by demanding a quota for women in the Structural Funds, and this is why we want to have a number of paragraphs removed from the text and a number of amendments adopted.
We would then be perfectly happy to vote for the resolution.
If not we will be forced to abstain, which would be a pity, because we think the report also contains a number of very good proposals.
The truth is that women still need a helping hand, particularly in the form of active encouragement for women entrepreneurs.
We have to create opportunities so that people can take advantage of them, and I hope that the current trend for women to become increasingly well trained - often better than men - continues, so that by 2005 we find ourselves having to set up a Committee for Men's Rights.
Madam President, let me begin by congratulating Mrs Marinucci on this report.
As she stresses, official statistics underestimate the problem of women's unemployment relative to men's unemployment, since they do not reflect the diversity of economic activity by women, while the definition of unemployment as a concept takes no account of the various categories in which a female presence is particularly important.
She also stresses the contrast between the level of education among women, which is generally superior to that of men, and the proportion of reduced or qualitatively inferior employment, since women are in the majority where informal work is concerned, as everyone has been saying.
The latest Eurostat figures show that unemployment affects women more, with an average throughout the European Union of 12.3 % compared with 8.9 % for men.
There are countries in which that difference is even larger, for example in Spain the corresponding figures are 27.8 % and 15 %, while the 1996 labour force survey showed that women account for 63.5 % of the officially unemployed population.
The rapporteur presents a series of very important proposals designed to facilitate a more accurate evaluation of economic activity by women, and measures to be implemented by the Commission and the Member States in order to give women easier access to the workplace and improve the quality of their jobs.
Part-time or occasional work may allow women to care for their children, but it must be recognised that such jobs are very often an enforced and necessary choice to which women object.
Mrs Marinucci's proposals provide answers to these very complex issues, since new initiatives must clearly be adopted to reduce the inequality which continues to exist between women and men, even in here.
Madam President, we agree with Mrs Marinucci's report and the concerns it expresses.
In the short amount of time available, I would like to refer to three or four of the central issues arising from this report.
Firstly, women's unemployment. Mr Mann said that education was necessary and that it needed to be continued.
But it is not only a matter of education, given that in countries of the South, such as Greece, Spain and Italy, women that have attained university-level education occupy half as many jobs as men with the same level of education.
Unequal pay must also be highlighted.
These days, in spite of the 1975 directive - with which Mr Flynn is very familiar - on equal pay for men and women, there continues to be a 25 or 30 % gender gap in earnings for the same type of work.
Also, the participation of women in part-time work merits attention.
It is true that some are in favour of part-time work for women as it enables them to reconcile professional and family life.
However, this means that they receive fewer social benefits during unemployment and on retirement.
It would of course be highly desirable if, as well as sharing work outside the home, we were able to share domestic chores equally with men inside the home.
This would be good for women, men and families in general.
There are no statistics available to show how the Structural Funds were previously used to attain equality between men and women, or how this famous mainstreaming was achieved, although I prefer to talk in terms of using all the mechanisms at our disposal through European policies to eradicate inequality.
I think that the proposals put forward by Mrs Marinucci are highly appropriate given that they are aimed at eradicating inequalities in pay, jobs and life in general.
Madam President, I am delighted to hear that the European Commission understands that women are needed on the labour market.
Social development demands it and, of course, women too have the right to be in the job market just as much as men have.
Earlier speeches have given an accurate picture of the obstacles women face in finding employment outside the home.
We are impatiently awaiting solutions to the social security problems that come with atypical work, and we are also impatiently waiting for the Member States to get to grips with the issue of childcare.
It appears that nothing much has happened in this area since the Council, a few years ago, approved the recommendation which called for a guarantee of high-quality childcare services.
I would be interested to hear whether the Commission has good news for us on this matter.
Mrs Marinucci's report proposes the notion of 'caring years'.
I support that idea strongly.
It would mean that anyone interrupting their career to bring up their children or look after their parents should be compensated so that they do not have to suffer in terms of work or social security, simply because they have attended to their family obligations.
Mr Flynn, you were at the conference on Structural Funds that was held in Oporto, Portugal, a few days ago.
According to the newspapers you criticised Parliament for not having paid enough attention to equal opportunities in its position on the Structural Funds.
I imagine you have been quoted wrongly.
Perhaps you would like to tell us if you were, once we have finished discussing your proposals on equal opportunities in the Structural Funds. We will certainly listen with considerable interest.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mrs Marinucci and thank her for her work.
Her report and the other reports being debated here today offer us a further opportunity to look at the situation of women.
But they also lead me to ask certain questions.
Will the fight for equality between men and women one day become obsolete, particularly in the field of employment? Since the 1980s, the level of female unemployment has remained stubbornly high and is still on the increase.
Female unemployment is far higher than male unemployment in the 15 Member States of the Union, with the exception of the United Kingdom and Sweden.
Discrimination in the labour market remains very strong and little change has been registered in wage inequality.
In a country like Spain, where the rate of unemployment is very high, women are finding it extremely difficult to find a job.
France and Finland are also experiencing record levels of female unemployment.
To put it clearly, the gap between women and men is still wide.
Yet the action taken by the international community as a whole has had some effect on the fight for equality, not to mention everything that went before it.
It was 20 years ago that the first conference was held, 20 years in which a real and beneficial improvement has been made to the status of women throughout the world.
It has been a laudable effort and the results have been encouraging, if inadequate and disappointing.
Not only are women hardest hit by unemployment but the family constraints by which they are bound still have a negative impact on the level of unemployment benefits that they receive.
They often work part-time or at home, interrupt their careers, and drift into the services sector, doing temporary or poorly paid work.
As our rapporteur points out, since unemployment benefits are calculated on the basis of income in most Member States, it is clear that women are hit harder by unemployment in such cases.
It is also clear that where legal protection exists, such as minimum wages, wage discrimination between men and women tends to be less marked.
Why therefore do we not apply this rule more widely in the 15 Member States? The rapporteur proposes a raft of measures likely to offer women a chance to benefit considerably from protection against unemployment.
My group fully supports this report and in particular paragraph 20 of the motion for a resolution, which is a practical expression of the desire to guarantee women a place on the labour market.
The Commission has produced a large number of strategies, recommendations and studies aimed at contributing to the achievement of this aim.
It is now for the Member States to put them into practice.
A good many are endeavouring to do so but others are still at the stage of wishful thinking, although a few have made efforts in certain sectors.
Bringing about sexual equality and guaranteeing a new partnership between the sexes based on equality and shared responsibilities are subjects which have always been at the heart of the European Union's policies.
These are the points that the rapporteur has underlined; the rest is up to the Member States.
Mr President, Mrs Marinucci's report is very thorough.
It takes into account our discussions in committee and I must thank the rapporteur, in particular, for paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 on page 14 of the explanatory statement.
However, you will not be surprised to hear that my amendments go beyond the recommendations contained in those paragraphs.
Pertinent though it is, the issue of equality does not accommodate those women who want to balance the special time of motherhood, not only pregnancy but also the time when they bring up their children, with their working lives.
That is the difference between women and men.
You cannot therefore speak of equality without taking account of that special aspect.
I think we have to go further.
Your response is that we need very extensive childcare systems which are both affordable and high quality.
However, we should not just consider the socialist option - which may be yours, but which does not necessarily and automatically take care of all children.
If a mother is paid a sum of money to care for her own children for a period of time of her own choice, is she not herself offering a high-quality, low-cost childcare service which benefits children, women and society as a whole?
I wish to thank Mr Flynn for organising the conference to be held in Rome on the ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Marinucci on a report which sums up clearly and simply all the aspects of female unemployment, emphasising how often this problem is underestimated as compared with male unemployment, owing to a number of cultural prejudices.
We broadly share the views expressed, especially as they are borne out by recent studies and statistical data: eliminating obstacles to employment, promoting the participation of women in vocational training, improving access to social protection for the unemployed and, furthermore, drawing up more detailed legislation on all forms of atypical work, which affects a huge number of women.
I should like to highlight one point in particular: women must be allowed and entitled to choose part-time work, so as to be able to reconcile working life with their domestic and family responsibilities.
I nevertheless share all the rapporteur's concerns about part-time work, and would add that women must equally have the right, for economic or career reasons, to choose fulltime work: for example single women with dependent children.
Thus there is a need to create proper social structures to assist working women: approved childcare facilities, but also proper services to care for the elderly and handicapped.
All too often, as we well know, women have sole responsibility for looking after the handicapped and elderly as well as children.
All these facilities are of course costly for the Member States, especially at a time of recession, but we must safeguard the right of women to have a job, without this standing in the way of their right to have children, because in a society where the birth-rate is falling children benefit us all.
Finally, let me stress that it is absolutely scandalous that, on the threshold of the millennium, despite national regulations and laws, and despite clear provisions in the Treaty, there still exists an enormous pay differential in women's disfavour.
Special efforts are required to monitor and eliminate this unacceptable form of discrimination: removing it is part and parcel of true democracy in Europe.
Mr President, Mrs Marinucci's report is an excellent synthesis of Parliament's demands.
I wish to draw your attention to one point, namely part-time work, which has played a vital part in the development of the female workforce in the 1990s.
Women now occupy the majority of part-time jobs: 83 %.
This is an extraordinary figure.
Part-time work is often presented, traditionally at least, as a positive element enabling women to reconcile work and family life.
However, Eurostat statistics show that this is not the case and that preference would go to full-time work if possible, mainly because factors such as the working hours, weekend work, the lack of promotion prospects or training for qualifications all give the lie to the idyllic picture painted of part-time work.
Contrary to what tends to be claimed, part-time work is not chosen by women but, in most cases, by employers; in any case, it is a real problem inherent to our way of life.
It is seldom found in industry or in jobs with responsibility; it is often limited to low-skilled jobs or particular sectors.
The rapporteur feels that, whereas part-time working should be encouraged in the current labour market, it should be extended to skilled work, men should be encouraged to practise it, and all part-time workers should be guaranteed training and promotion opportunities.
These ideas may well remain a dead letter, since there is no evidence of any political will to turn them into reality.
It seems to me that the most radical proposal is that of promoting female employment by drastically cutting back on part-time work and changing everyone's working hours, women and men alike.
Since this will never be achieved without a fight and without carrying out gradual reforms over time, the European Union must begin by examining all the discriminatory effects that any employment policy is likely to entail.
Mr President, during the economic crisis in the 1930s, certain countries, including mine, passed legislation or regulations forbidding access by women to the civil service, for example.
After the Second World War, when I began work - for a trade union, I would point out - I was warned that I would be sacked if I got married.
In the 1950s, it was still common practice in my country to sack women when they married.
Even today, some men and women think, and even dare to say, that with unemployment as it is, women should stay at home, look after the family and not compete with men on the labour market.
It is obvious that our laws and, in particular, European directives on equal treatment and equal opportunities for men and women prohibit the direct forms of discrimination that I have just described.
But, alas, although the laws have changed, you still find people who tend to blame women for wanting to take advantage of their right to work and they continue to influence certain policy-makers.
The Committee on Women's Rights was therefore right to draft an own-initiative report on the special impact of unemployment on women.
I think it was Talleyrand who said that all that is exaggerated is insignificant.
Some passages in this report contain exaggerations or over-generalisations, and unrealistic claims are made.
This runs the risk not of being insignificant but nonetheless of harming women. If we try to overprotect them or treat them as a special case, we could turn them into a workforce that is too costly or too difficult to manage, and therefore too difficult to be successfully integrated into firms.
That is why we have tabled a certain number of amendments to remedy these exaggerations, which Mrs Larive also referred to.
Let us not forget that the greatest service we can offer women, young or old, who are looking for jobs or hoping to play a part in the economy, is if we diversify their job options and offer them sound training; we can also help them to face competition on the labour market by eliminating all direct and indirect discrimination and by taking positive action, as and when required, in order to guarantee them equal opportunities.
I hope that by November, we shall be able to debate my report on the matter in the House.
We shall help women more, and above all, by guaranteeing them and their partners a free choice between a career and family life.
Since Mr Flynn is here today, I should also like to remind him that we should not forget the invisible workers, women working for their self-employed husbands, who have work but no status.
I should like to ask Mr Flynn what progress has been made on his proposal to amend the 1986 'decaffeinated' directive on which Parliament unanimously adopted a report. It has been the subject of round-table discussions but still has not produced anything in practice.
I should like to take this opportunity, Mr Flynn, to ask you to give us further information on this subject.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Marinucci's report quite rightly stresses the fact that greater unemployment among women calls for special action to be taken.
For me the big question in the future for both men and women is how prepared we will be to share the workload between humans and machines.
Are we going to accept the global model where only 20 % of human beings will be really needed and the other 80 %, the majority of them women, will be a sort of surplus population? I believe that we wish to see a more balanced future for Europe.
Any improvement in the employment situation, particularly for women, requires a change in attitude to one that is more flexible.
We need a much more holistic approach to life when it comes to making changes in the area of work.
The various stages of a woman's life call for different solutions in the link between her job and her family.
She should be able to enjoy flexibility in returning from part-time to full-time work, if this is what she wants to do.
Time off work for family reasons and part-time work must also be options for men, those who are highly trained and those who are highly valued.
'Caring years' must be put on the agenda.
Otherwise this sort of time off can easily become a trap that discriminates against women in matters of work.
Female entrepreneurship is a resource that is still very rarely tapped.
That is why we need special projects to encourage and train women to make use of their many entrepreneurial skills and abilities.
Training, financing and networking lie at the heart of the support needed.
In addition, women in regional development schemes have up till now been the victims of discrimination in spite of all the equality targets, although we underline the importance of these in Structural Fund reform programmes.
I hope that we can make better use of funds than we do now for programmes to promote equal opportunities.
Madam President, if ever there was a topic where shortage of time was worrying, this is it.
The matter of women and employment raises endless theoretical and practical issues.
I will concentrate on two.
The first is that of the new profile given to employment.
Without going into notions and concepts of social class - although this certainly does not mean that these have not changed - we are witnessing an expansion of the services sector which, for historical and other reasons, has resulted in an increase in the number of women in employment.
In objective terms this promotes and speeds women's access to the 'world of work', although this may be reversed at certain times, and it highlights the problem of organising time and the use of the labour force, what I would call the 'organisation of living time' .
The second point relates to the matter of training.
The quality of the labour force is becoming increasingly important, reflecting the fact that work is becoming more human and social.
More training and qualifications are particularly essential for women who, as a social group, are still the victims of the sexist, discriminatory social division of labour.
In a recent report on the competitiveness of the textile industry I took the opportunity to propose this approach, which was accepted.
I mention this simply to support the considerations raised in the report by Mrs Marinucci, whom I congratulate on her work.
For that reason alone, it would have proved extremely useful.
Mr President, Mrs Marinucci's report is a good one, since it makes a very eloquent point: the unemployment rate among women is higher than that among men.
Of course, like her, I am in favour of equality between women and men at work, in favour of equal pay for the same work, in favour of equal opportunities for men and women seeking employment, and for reducing the gap between men and women in terms of unemployment.
All of these inequalities are quite shameful since our laws are very clear in each of our countries on this subject.
Like you, Mrs Marinucci, I think that we should be more flexible with women's working hours and mothers should be offered appropriate childcare and crèche facilities.
In fact I agree with you on a number of points.
Only, it has to be said, your report may be paved with good intentions but many of them are utopian and impossible to achieve.
For example, one of my colleagues earlier spoke of crèches. It is true that in a recession it would be difficult to make them free of charge.
On the other hand, while we agree on the principle of integrating women in the world of work, we do not agree with you on certain ways of bringing that about.
We are resolutely against the system of quotas that you propose, for example in paragraph 17 of your motion for a resolution, since being a woman should not be regarded as a disability.
This policy will not help to create new jobs but, on the contrary, will be another step backwards for women and the effect will be to reduce the role of women to that of an assisted person and saddle them with an inferior status.
We are also against compulsorily penalising countries for failing to respect equal opportunities between men and women as you see them.
Offering women opportunities to succeed in the world of work while, in certain cases, tending to their children and family life, does not mean that they should be forced to do this at all costs.
It is also a shame not to propose a parental income in order to facilitate free choice for everyone.
For these reasons and depending on the votes on the amendments, we shall take our final decision when the time comes.
Mr President, may I congratulate Mrs Marinucci on the excellent report now before us.
This report, for the Committee on Women's Rights, clearly reflects the interest that these subjects deserve and we hope that they will soon be further developed by the Commission and incorporated into national employment plans.
Commissioner Flynn, in his inspiring address last Tuesday during the seminar organised in Portugal by the Commission entitled 'The Integration of Equality between Women and Men in the Structural Funds' , which I also attended, he not only refrained from criticizing the European Parliament but he actively supported it, showing himself to be entirely open and committed to advancing along the road that we are discussing here today.
I would like to draw attention to four points that I consider to be of the utmost importance.
Firstly, female employment is essential both for economic growth and for maintaining the European social model that we wish to preserve.
Indeed, in the light of expected demographic trends, were it not for female employment and the corresponding social security contributions, the system would not be able to meet its responsibilities in ensuring a decent living for pensioners.
Men are now discovering that, if women do not work, revenues will not be sufficient to meet social security obligations.
I hope that the appropriate conclusions will be drawn in terms of education policy, vocational training, regulation of nonstandard employment, support for new working time systems and new forms of work and, in particular, the social economy.
But do not think, gentlemen, that we are prepared yet again to serve merely as a labour pool, to be set aside when our services are no longer required.
This time women are on the labour market to stay.
Secondly, far-reaching changes are required within the family, to allow both men and women to reconcile their private and working lives. Funding from the Structural Funds should be allocated to companies which offer facilities to care for children, dependents and the elderly, and support should be offered to companies created by women to enable them to resolve such problems.
It is also essential that the good practices identified within the European Union in this sphere should become more widely publicised and imitated.
These might include, for instance, the decision by the Finnish Prime Minister to take a week's parental leave in order to devote himself exclusively to being a father.
This example deserved to be much more widely publicised, particularly on the Internet, instead of reports which are inappropriate and are swallowed wholesale by the world media.
Thirdly, the recognition of women and men as individuals with their own rights within the family.
In many countries, existing policies in the areas of taxation or benefits to couples serve as a disincentive and exacerbate the difficulties faced by women who wish to work.
Lastly, I would suggest that the definition of 'unemployment' should be refined and that, once and for all, the shameful statistical classification of 'non-active' for women who work tirelessly in the home, in the family or on the land and receive no remuneration whatsoever for that work should be reviewed.
Commissioner Flynn, who has promised us more accurate statistics broken down by gender, could do much to end this indignity.
Mr President, first of all I wish to compliment Mrs Marinucci on her excellent work, and to thank her for giving such careful consideration to the amendments tabled by the political groups.
Thank you, Mrs Marinucci, for your commitment and your excellent work.
Disparities between men and women have of course always existed, although some societies have demonstrated greater civility than others.
The latest official Eurostat data, based on the International Labour Organisation's definition of unemployment, do not properly reflect the current social situation.
This analysis indicates that female rates of unemployment are higher than male ones, but does not probe the real reasons or explain the true significance of part-time work. If it were governed by legislation and extended to the professions, part-time work could solve the problem of unemployment as long as it was offered on a voluntary basis.
Given the current state of the labour market and the income differentials between men and women, the latter receive less unemployment benefit on average. This is in spite of the policy of equal opportunities, providing for equal pay for male and female workers, as sanctioned by Article 119 of the Maastricht Treaty, an article with which we are very familiar and have discussed several times in this House.
The Commissioner, Mr Flynn, is also well aware of it.
Furthermore, women are often left in the dark as to the few opportunities offered by the labour market, nearly always finding out belatedly and only after an initial selection has been made.
Well-qualified job-seekers and early, precise information are therefore crucial elements in a fair share-out between men and women of part-time and other work, as well as in eliminating pay discrimination between the two sexes.
It is true that we have discussed equality between men and women many times in this House.
The steps to be taken are tangible ones, but until a true culture of equality has been established, beginning in schools, it will be very difficult to implement anything decided here, however thoroughly we discuss it.
Therefore it is necessary above all else to start working with young children so that they are imbued with this culture of equality.
Mr President, I should like to start by making a fairly basic comment. In this debate, the term women's lobby was mentioned, or lobby for women's issues.
This gives the impression that what we are discussing here is the concern of one section of society, which I very much doubt.
We will have immense problems in our society if we do not resolve the difficult issue of the unequal treatment of men and women on the labour market, which is only going to get worse as problems on the work front become more pressing.
It is therefore a problem for society as a whole.
One point in the report particularly interested and even alarmed me.
Although women have more than caught up with men when it comes to education, and even partly overtaken them, their problems in the world of work remain.
Women with a higher qualifications are especially affected.
The main problem for women lies in working and having children.
This must be our central starting point in future - we have to set up approved, all-day child care in our countries.
It is not only women, but also fathers raising children alone who face the problem that work and bringing up children are incompatible, which can only be resolved if there are competent institutions for looking after and educating children.
Society, the public authorities and private initiatives should tackle this.
That is the central point.
Mr President, it really is a great pity that, I suspect for ideological reasons, this excellent report by Mrs Marinucci, which makes a number of very interesting points, takes no account of the fact that in many families one of the couple - usually the woman - leaves the regular labour market entirely voluntarily in order to stay at home and look after the children.
I personally think that this is not just a perfectly legitimate choice to make, but that the work that these women do at home deserves to be fundamentally re-evaluated both financially and morally after decades of feminist indoctrination.
Do not misunderstand me, I have nothing against this report, which is very good for the most part, and I have no objection to most of the recommendations it makes, which are ultimately designed to give men and women greater equality of opportunity.
But I find it completely incomprehensible that this report on unemployment does not call first and foremost for a full parental wage for the homeworking parent.
It would offer an alternative which hundreds of thousands of people in Europe would certainly be delighted to take advantage of, and it would for the first time offer people a genuine choice between working at or outside the home.
I have the impression that this freedom of choice is being boycotted for purely ideological, feminist reasons which do not serve women's best interests.
Moreover, the report, which deals with a great many different subjects, could easily devote a paragraph to the issue of tax discrimination against married couples.
In my country at least married couples pay far more tax than couples who are living together, with all that this implies.
Finally, I must point out to Mrs Marinucci that ideas such as, and I quote, having 'to provide a place in schools where young people can discuss equal opportunities' is the sort of ridiculous nonsense that has no place in a parliamentary report, and that even the European Parliament needs to have some sort of minimum standards.
Mr President, how can we use the EU to bring more women into work, and how can the EU play a part in ensuring that help is given to women working in casual and precarious forms of employment, under the constant threat of becoming unemployed? Through the Amsterdam Treaty - thanks to an initiative by the Danish Social Democrats - we ensured that employment was put on the agenda.
And at the special summit on employment in Luxembourg, the heads of government committed themselves to taking coordinated action to combat unemployment.
One of the aims was to improve equal treatment on the labour market.
In the new objectives, we must therefore insist on setting more ambitious goals for equal treatment of this kind.
We need clear goals and clear timetables, and the financial resources for achieving them must be made available.
The new objectives must include the following: a drastic reduction in the gender gap in unemployment; the labour market has to be made less gender-oriented, with affordable childcare schemes; the training opportunities for women must be improved, and leave arrangements need to be framed in such a way that they also appeal to men; the differences in pay between men and women must be eliminated.
However, it is not the EU alone which must ensure equal treatment on the labour market in the Member States.
The bulk of the work is needed in the Member States themselves, but the common objectives should ensure that the Member States have to live up to their promises.
When the Member States have to present their action plans to one another and to their citizens, it will be possible to expose those countries which are failing to meet the common objectives - a kind of EU competition in equal treatment on the labour market.
In other words, we should be thinking about equal treatment in relation to all political initiatives at both national and European level.
I am therefore extremely pleased that we in Denmark have introduced the requirement for an assessment of the implications of all proposed legislation for both men and women, and that through the Amsterdam Treaty we have succeeded in establishing the principle that equal treatment cannot be seen as an isolated policy, but must be included as part of all the EU's initiatives.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if you only have three minutes to change the world it is a pretty hopeless task.
I shall therefore confine myself to just three comments on the excellent and interesting report by my colleague Mrs Marinucci.
First, if you look back over the last forty years there is no doubt that the European Union and European integration have been very important for women, indeed the creation of the Union went hand in hand with the declaration of the principle of equality.
This has since been developed in a number of directives, we have had various action programmes and the Amsterdam Treaty has given us ways to fight discrimination and to use positive action where possible.
Interestingly enough, the Union actually means something to women: survey results indicate that women generally have a more positive view of the Union than men, and that they feel more in sympathy with it, particularly when they expect to get more out of it.
Italian women, as I hardly need to point out to the rapporteur, are particularly in favour: 43 % of them expect to benefit from the Union.
In Sweden the figure is 11 %, which is only natural since Swedish women are already in a better position.
We now need to take advantage of this pragmatic, logical approach by women.
There are three steps we need to take.
First, as people have already said today and as the report points out, we should practise what we preach.
Nowhere in the Union do women receive the same pay for the same work.
Even in my country, the Netherlands, the difference is about 30 %.
We must put a stop to this.
We cannot preach equality for 40 years without putting it into practice.
Secondly, ' mainstreaming' is an empty expression which needs to be firmed up.
We should insist that all the employment programmes clearly state, not in a separate paragraph but as a standard part of the text, just what mainstreaming means for women.
Third and last, and this is a question for the Commissioner, should we not carry out a major 'State of the Union' survey as we did in 1980, focusing on the situation of women, in order to draw attention to a problem on which a great deal of progress has been made, I admit, but to which we are still unfortunately a long way from finding an ideal solution.
Mr President, many of the long-term unemployed and those in part-time work in almost all EU countries are women.
The increase in fixed-term employment contracts has created an air of insecurity in the lives of women.
Differences in pay for men and women compound the problems women have regarding unemployment protection and pension allowances, which are far greater than those men experience.
It seems incredible that in the late 1990s we should still be having to think about how to solve problems such as these.
It should be patently obvious that people should be paid the same for doing the same work, regardless of gender.
This should also apply, by the way, to the salaries of the Members of the European Parliament.
There should be more investment in retraining, and particularly vocational training, for the unemployed.
Campaigns are under way in Finland to increase women's interest in the natural sciences and technical subjects.
We nevertheless have not been able to draw women to these traditionally male sectors to the extent we hoped we would. What is the reason for this?
Are the old attitudes learnt at home still firmly rooted in us? There is still room for improvement in our own attitudes.
We are still terribly wary.
We do not dare to take on demanding jobs or try something new.
I do not understand why we are trying to patch up the problem by means of quotas.
We need other kinds of measures.
I believe the Commission should carry out more detailed research into the cause of the problem and prevailing attitudes throughout the EU.
Automation has developed many of the so-called male sectors in such a way that physical strength is no longer a prerequisite for being able to do the work.
However, it is not a question of women being less well trained than men.
On the contrary, girls outperform boys at school, and there are more women than men at college or university.
This again causes all sorts of problems.
Nevertheless, women miss out, to some extent, in those countries that have a military reserve system or N.C.O. training courses, which provide training in leadership.
There is no equivalent for women.
As I said, there is room for improvement in the attitudes of women.
We must believe in our own abilities and have confidence in ourselves.
I certainly welcome the Marinucci report.
It focuses on the specific characteristics of women's unemployment in the European Union.
I thank all those who have contributed to the constructive debate this morning.
In its first part the report highlights the gender gap in unemployment since, in almost all the Member States, women's unemployment is higher than men's.
It also focuses on the obstacles women are facing if they want to work.
The report has rightly stated that care facilities are not sufficiently developed in all the Member States.
I was quite taken by the number of people who referred to that, exactly in accordance with my thinking on the matter.
It also makes the important point that parental leave and extended career breaks can, paradoxically, hamper women for the rest of their working lives in terms of career advancement, social protection and access to the labour market, if such leave is taken almost solely by women.
The report is even more interesting as it goes much beyond the unemployment situation of women as such.
It also discusses the position of women on the labour market generally, the efficiency of education and training, and the European employment strategy from Essen to Luxembourg and Cardiff.
It stresses the need to mainstream equality in the employment guidelines alongside the promotion of positive action in favour of women.
That is the two-track approach which was stressed during the joint conference which was organised in January this year by Parliament and the Commission on the employment guidelines.
I fully support what happened there.
Can mainstreaming be realised without gender-segregated statistics? The Commission will, in cooperation with Eurostat, continue to work to improve the provision of statistics on the labour market situation for women.
The annual report on equal opportunities for women and men in the Union contains a lot of gender-segregated statistics on several issues related to equality.
It is our intention to continue this publication with its great wealth of statistical data.
You cannot evaluate without the basic statistics for comparative purposes.
I accept that fully.
On the issue of mainstreaming, progress was achieved during the British Council presidency. The conclusions of the Cardiff European Council in June 1998 call on all the Member States to ensure that equality between women and men will be mainstreamed in all aspects of their employment policies.
That is an important step forward.
We are going to hear a lot more about that in our 1999 guidelines, which will be discussed here before too long.
The issue of care, which was highlighted in the political agenda, during the British Council presidency, is also discussed in your report. This issue looms large in the 1998 employment guidelines.
I am very pleased at the number of people who made remarks concerning care services, the great need there is for them and also the need for high standards; the need for nonselective availability insofar as care and its provision are concerned; and, particularly, the need for training.
That is going to be highlighted.
It is not well done in the Member States.
I am going to pay particular attention to that insofar as the 1999 guidelines are concerned.
The fourth pillar of the employment guidelines on strengthening equal opportunities policies states that the Member States should strive to raise levels of access to care services where needs are not met.
Our concept of caring has been enlarged and now refers not only to child care but also to the care of all dependent persons, including the disabled and the elderly.
Progress has been made on this important issue.
Mrs Seillier makes that point.
This was confirmed at the Belfast meeting of the ministers for women and equality in May.
There was a very clear agreement that affordable, accessible and high-quality child care, parental leave and other schemes in family-friendly working policies are essential to enable women and men to combine work and family responsibilities.
I believe that unless you get the care thing right you are never going to effectively increase the level of participation of women in the labour market.
There is a huge amount of work still to be done if we are to meet the objectives for care provision.
We will be looking closely at how the Member States address this issue, the policies they develop, and the resources they apply in their employment action plans for 1999 and subsequent years.
The European employment strategy has already shown its value in the way it has placed equal opportunities firmly at the heart of all the national employment plans.
From now on we will be looking at strong action to give effect to the commitments set out in the guidelines.
Member States are clear about what they must do.
The challenge for 1998 was to get the process up and running.
That has been achieved.
For 1999 it will be to develop the actions to match the objectives and to show action on the ground as against all of the guidelines.
That is the point as regards equal opportunities.
Mrs Lulling makes the point about the 1986 directive of helping spouses.
We have had two round table discussions with experts on this, resulting in no consensus, even amongst the experts, about amending that directive.
The report is quite detailed and has been published, Mrs Lulling, and I shall take the opportunity to send you a copy of it - you might find it interesting.
Mr Delcroix, Mrs Angelilli, Mr Schäfer and other Members made a very good point about part-time work and the part-time directive.
The vision there was that women and men can move from part-time to full-time and vice versa without any discrimination and without losing their employability.
That was one of the key issues in the part-time directive, which, as you know, was the response to a collective agreement between the social partners.
I am grateful to Mrs Hautala for raising the point about the speech in Portugal.
I am better pleased that Mrs Torres Marques said I did not criticise Parliament and she is quite right.
She was very gracious in her remarks about the speech on Tuesday in Portugal.
I did not criticise Parliament, but what I said - and I very much want to say it again here - was that I wanted to encourage Parliament to do exactly what it is doing today: to focus on the very broad picture in relation to the employment strategy and equal opportunities and to the reform of the structural funds.
Finally, in that speech I went out of my way to encourage Parliament to press the Member States to adapt their policies to make it easier to combine family and working life and for women to retrain when they re-enter the labour market after an absence spent caring for children or other dependents.
We must also focus on the artificial barriers in all parts of the labour market that cause segregation and discrimination.
These have to be dismantled.
That was the message I was giving in Portugal, and I should like to have Parliament's support in pursuing that policy.
Thank you very much for raising the issue.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken today at 12 noon.
Role of cooperatives in women's employment
The next item is the report (A4-0270/98) by Mrs Colombo Svevo, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the role of cooperatives in the growth of women's employment.
Mr President, allow me to begin with a word of thanks to Mrs Marinucci. Her report identifies the structural problems of the market and their links with female unemployment, paving the way for me to examine in detail one aspect of the context outlined in that report.
My own report investigates one specific aspect of employment, namely the linkage between cooperatives and women's employment.
It does so because we realised that experiments are under way throughout the cooperative sector - or, rather, throughout the social economy of the 'third system'. We have sought to highlight these, and the Committee on Women's Rights saw for itself what is being done in Italy when it visited some cooperatives.
Mrs Ghilardotti has moreover recently lent strong support to this phenomenon within the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. I myself believe that the European Union is duty-bound to spread these new ideas, and that the conference to be held next week in Brussels is a significant move, certain to raise the profile of what is going on in this sector.
What have we learnt from this investigation? Firstly, that cooperatives have generated employment, just like SMEs, and that small cooperatives in particular have played a positive role in women's employment.
Secondly, cooperatives have the potential to generate employment, as has often been identified by the European Union, both in traditional sectors such as personal services and in innovative sectors.
On this point I would say that even cooperatives working in traditional sectors, such as social welfare, have been innovative, in that they have been firmly rooted in the local community and have responded to local needs.
Thirdly, cooperatives have helped to insert into the world of work not only people who have been out of work for some time, like so many women, but also persons who may just have left the labour market for a certain period; at the same time, I would stress, they provide on-the-job training.
Indeed, many women are now chairing cooperatives and even consortia of cooperatives. Thus the development of entrepreneurship among women is an additional benefit.
Furthermore, cooperatives have been flexible in their work organisation, in respect of both working hours and personal time: such flexibility, importantly, is not a factor of marginalisation because, generally speaking, cooperatives are organised with full involvement of their members.
In hearing me list the elements brought to light in our investigation, you will realise that many of these characteristics - adaptability, reconciliation of duties, reinsertion - are fundamental to women's aspirations to enter the labour market.
Indeed, recent studies conducted in Italy have demonstrated women's interest in this particular type of firm.
I therefore believe - and here I am addressing the Commissioner, Mr Flynn, as I know that he is sensitive to these issues - that the European Union should play a truly active role in the social economy as a whole.
Research is needed into the scale and nature of the cooperative sector and, in particular, its development in the various countries.
A communication has been drawn up on voluntary organisations and foundations; we should like to see a White Paper on cooperatives, so as to highlight the changes under way and make it possible to compare different experiences.
A legislative framework is required, not to set in stone the present state of affairs - that cannot be done, because by their very nature these organisations evolve in response to needs - but to clarify the legal situation so as to avoid the very spirit and purpose of the cooperative movement being undermined.
Also needed are specific rules, for instance on contract work, the introduction of reduced rates of VAT and, finally, economic support for the social economy, including through the measures designed to benefit SMEs.
As far as training is concerned, the Social Fund should consider providing appropriate training in this field, geared to the acquisition not only of technical skills but also project management skill and team spirit.
We have kindled a hope with this report, Mr President: we sincerely hope that we have brought home the need for further consideration of this issue.
This debate now stands adjourned until 6 p.m.
Mr President, I would also like to talk about this issue.
Yesterday, as Mrs Dührkop Dührkop said, the terrorist group ETA announced a truce.
This declaration must indeed be welcomed but cautiously so.
It is not the first time the terrorist group has declared a truce and it will evidently remain to be seen if it has anything to do with the forthcoming elections in the Basque Country.
In any case it gives us hope.
We continue to have confidence and hope for a definitive end to the violence and we believe that this step forward comes as a result of the spirit of dialogue and harmony that prevailed and encouraged those who formulated and drew up the Spanish Constitution.
Mr President, you will all have to listen to several speakers from Spain saying that they have confidence in the peace process.
We must be cautious, but at the same time have faith in the democratic values that we have been fostering in Spain since democracy returned.
On many occasions we have come here to condemn terrible crimes, indiscriminate assassinations as well as those directed against the nation's elected representatives.
This announcement fills us with hope but also with caution.
I think that I am speaking here for myself and on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left.
Mr President, the Basque people and the Basque nation have endured many years of violent conflict that have ravaged our society.
Tonight we received the welcome news that the Basque separatist organization ETA has declared a unilateral, indefinite and unconditional truce.
This is the first time that ETA has declared a truce of this kind.
I hope that all of our political forces - and here I also call on Europe's political forces and European society for their support - will rise to the occasion and be capable of advancing a negotiated peace process which meets the expectations that the vast majority of Basque people have for peace and hope.
I think we are all ready to share the hopes of our Spanish colleagues.
VOTES
On Paragraph 1d I wish to change the '45 calendar days' to '60 calendar days'.
May I accept the rapporteur's oral amendment?
I see that there is no objection, so I will put it to the vote.
Amendment No 33
May I just explain that what I am doing here is accepting Amendment No 33 as a whole, this would replace the paragraph up to 'the maximum payment period' in my Amendment No 26.
After that, the rest of Amendment No 26 would remain.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, according to my sitting notes, if Amendment No 14 is adopted, Amendments Nos 4 and 18 lapse.
I should like to say that if Amendment No 14 is adopted, No 4 does not lapse.
It can be voted on as an addition and I would ask you to put it to the vote as such.
You have set me a problem, Mr Weber, because Parliament's services inform me that the content has been deemed incompatible.
Mr President, I agree with you, since both amendments refer to the same paragraph of the resolution, and if my group's Amendment No 14 is adopted, Amendment No 4 by the Group of the European Radical Alliance should lapse, unless my group adopts Amendment No 4 as an addition, which we refuse to do.
Mr President, contrary to what Mrs Roth said, our amendment concerns the preservation of biodiversity which her group's does not.
I therefore insist that our amendment be put to the vote as an addition.
I also agree with you.
All those who tabled amendments - the Group of the European Radical Alliance, the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Green Group in the European Parliament - must have the opportunity to have their say; we have to be fair, after all.
I agree with you that they are not identical, as our amendment seeks solely to establish precisely how much emission trading is taking place and to what extent own measures are being taken.
For this reason, I strongly contest that the adoption of Amendment No 14 should cause the other two, including our Amendment No 18, to lapse.
Amendment No 18
Mr President, we do not need to waste time on unimportant issues.
In the context of the Socialists' amendment we discussed whether there should be a reduction.
Our Amendment No 18 specifies the form which this reduction should take.
If we had followed the correct voting procedure, our amendment would have come first, and then we would have had the correct sequence.
I insist that our Amendment No 18 be put to the vote, and anyone who can read will see that it is different.
Mrs Breyer, I respect your view, but there are other views and other opinions in the House.
There was no problem about putting your amendment to the vote, but in our opinion that was not the right thing to do.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, thank you for giving me the floor, as I think you were a little quick on the draw over the ARE Group's proposal.
I am slightly taken aback because at other times you take your time.
That is all.
You are right, Mr Sainjon.
I did go quickly, that is true, but we have a very long series of votes.
I should not like to keep Members here until three o'clock this afternoon.
The result was so clear that there was really no room for any doubt.
(Parliament adopted the resolution) Joint motion for a resolution on the situation in Russia
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I should like to propose an oral amendment which takes the last part of this amendment - and the spirit of it - and says: '... points to the importance of the cease-fire declared by the PKK on 28 August 1998 and calls on the Turkish authorities to seize the opportunity thus created to seek a peaceful and negotiated political solution to the Kurdish question' .
We would like that oral amendment to be accepted and then added to paragraph 16, which deals with the Kurdish issue.
I should add that there is a report in the German press that the PKK cease-fire is over.
I am assured that report is wrong.
The cease-fire is still in effect.
So the words: 'point to the importance of the cease-fire declared by the PKK on 28 August 1998 and calls on the Turkish authorities to seize the opportunity thus created to seek a peaceful and negotiated political solution to the Kurdish question' , are to be placed at the end of paragraph 16.
I understand that this amendment has Mr McMillan-Scott's approval.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr McMillan-Scott informed me this morning that other political commitments would prevent him from being present during the mid-day voting.
He has asked Mr Schwaiger to deputise for him, and I think Mr Schwaiger can speak on Mr McMillan-Scott's behalf on the amendment Mr Titley is now proposing.
If Parliament has no objection, I will put it to the vote.
Mr President, I would point out that the media have reported that the PKK cease-fire has ended, so it is now very difficult to approve this amendment, the object of which was actually very good.
However, if an oral amendment is possible, I would propose that we emphasise the need for a cease-fire and leave the remaining text unchanged, without mentioning the PKK.
In this case, we could approve the following: 'points to the need for a cease-fire and calls on the Turkish authorities to seek a peaceful negotiated political solution to the Kurdish question.'
Mr Schwaiger, these very sensitive political issues always bring out very fine distinctions, like the one you have just made.
Since you are amending an oral amendment, I fear there may be some confusion.
Mr President, if, on that basis the PPE will vote 'for' , then I will accept it.
Is there any objection to my putting Mr Titley's amendment to the vote, as amended?
Since there is none, I put it to the vote.
Mr President, I have the impression that Mr Titley's amendment seeks to delete the first part of Amendment No 25 and vote only on the second part, which he drafted and which was changed to my wording, but not on the first part, which has been withdrawn, unless the Green Group wishes to retain this first part.
We would then have to vote on this.
Mr Schwaiger, I think there may be some confusion. The first part is not covered by the Titley amendment.
Mr President, my amendment, which has now been accepted, was to be added to paragraph 16.
We still need to vote on paragraph 17.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The Commission's proposal is rightly aimed at including the gender aspect as an important factor in all areas of development cooperation.
Giving conscious attention to the gender aspect - and we should even be talking here about 'affirmative action' in favour of women - is a necessary precondition for effective and sustainable development in the developing countries.
The aid will simply be disorganised and not benefit the right people unless women are taken properly into account in development cooperation.
Our strategy should be a consistent one which applies mainstreaming across all measures.
Otherwise, there is a risk that they will be hit-or-miss affairs which do not have the desired effect.
Mrs Junker must be congratulated on her report, which strengthens the common position in a number of areas.
This applies to Amendments Nos 15 and 16, for example, whereby the developing countries will be given priority in the award of contracts.
However, we are obliged to oppose the amendments which concern the committee procedure and the timescale.
As regards the committee procedure, Mrs Junker and the Commission are in favour of having an advisory committee.
Given a choice between two evils, we would rather see a Type IIB management committee being used, as the Council is proposing.
We are also voting against Amendments Nos 6 and 11, which concern the timescale.
Although we do not usually support time limits, they are necessary in this case as a means of bringing pressure to bear on the Commission.
We also approve of having a financial reference amount in this situation. The Commission should not be able to ask for more money to employ consultants and so on.
The gender aspect should be included as a natural part of an effective and rational development policy.
In addition, we should like to highlight and endorse the initiative in the common position which makes it possible for the Commission to hold meetings with representatives of the Member States and the recipient countries with a view to increasing awareness of the gender aspect in new areas of development cooperation.
Harrison report (A4-0303/98)
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Harrison on his excellent, pragmatic report on late payments.
This is an important subject, which brings practical benefits to small- and medium-sized companies.
Late payments can cripple companies with their cash-flow situation.
One in four bankruptcies are caused by cash-flow problems.
In the UK in particular, British banks have not been particularly sympathetic to small- and medium-sized companies.
I welcome this report as a positive improvement.
I voted in favour of several amendments, and in the final vote I voted for the Harrison report, because I believe that it considerably improves the text proposed by the Commission.
It has not changed my mind, however, and I am therefore rejecting the text proposed by the Commission because it contains provisions which clearly go further than we actually want and which do not fall within the remit of Europe's legislative powers.
Although my amendment to the legislative resolution did not obtain a majority, I believe that my opinion has been confirmed, not least by what people have written on the subject.
Large-scale intervention in national civil law and civil procedure is not warranted by the measures to combat late payments, although they are, in principle, to be welcomed.
I am glad that we are acting today to put right the costly scandal of late payments facing our entrepreneurs in small- and medium-sized companies.
SMEs are the engines of our economic growth, as well as employers of most of our fellow citizens who work in the private sector.
As such they deserve more respect from big business and the public sector, to which they provide services and goods on which we all rely.
The most important recognition of the work SMEs do would be for them to be paid on time for their hard work.
This goes above all for the larger companies and public sector organisations which can afford to settle their bills but who perhaps like the idea of deferring payment to net more interest on the money in their bank accounts.
No doubt such bad practices have been encouraged by the failure of past rules to demand prompt payment to smaller firms.
Big business has had the clout and the lawyers to force SMEs to wait for their money.
Setting some minimum standards for the time allowed for payments to be made to SMEs and to allow debt collection agencies to do their job across the EU as the author of this report calls for are a sign that we as politicians are prepared to help the 'Davids' of the business world to get fair treatment from the 'Goliaths' .
I might add that the European Commission needs to set a good example by making certain that all of its own bills are paid on time to SMEs!
SMEs represent an ever growing percentage of Europe's fabric of production, particularly in less developed European regions.
Therefore all moves or initiatives in support of small businesses promote Europe's economic growth in general and are certain to help in achieving regional economic cohesion.
I therefore welcome the Commission's interest in initiatives to open up European capital markets for small and medium-sized enterprises, and I fully agree with the rapporteur, Mr Hendrick, about the need to carry out information campaigns for individuals and organisations so as to encourage greater investment in SMEs, funding their expansion and development.
I also back Mr Scarbonchi's view that it is necessary to improve European programmes and initiatives to promote SMEs: those concentrated in rural areas above all owe their survival and future potential to better coordination between industry, agriculture and tourism.
Finally, I can endorse the thrust of the Commission's proposed directive establishing a fair payment term for the settlement of sales invoices: cash-flow difficulties and liquidity crises are in fact among the main reasons for bankruptcy among SMEs.
Secchi report (A4-0299/98)
We cannot accept the way in which Amendment No 4 to Article 6(2) undermines the fight against tax evasion.
A number of obstacles are still preventing the single market from operating to its full potential.
Direct and indirect taxation can be counted among those obstacles.
Obviously it is neither possible nor would it be healthy to make the 15 tax systems of the Union's Member States uniform.
On the other hand, any distortions which harm the operation of the single European market ought to be removed.
In March of this year, the European Commission presented a proposal on the payment of interest and fees between associated companies in different Member States.
The aim was to eliminate double taxation of these payments and avoid situations where cross-border companies might be penalised by discriminatory tax regimes.
I welcome both the directive and Mr Secchi's report, which proposes extending the directive's provisions to tax on interest and fees between non-associated companies, in the context of the consolidation of the single market.
It seems fair to propose that these payments should be taxed in the Member State where the companies being paid interest or fees are established.
On the other hand, the question arises as to whether it is desirable to complicate the system by allowing derogations to this principle, as the directive proposes.
In the long term any derogations should disappear and these payments should only be taxed in the country into which they are being paid.
Langen report (A4-0084/98)
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of the report by Mr Langen on a common system of VAT and the report by Mr Miller on products subject to excise duty.
We did so because we wish to see an internal market in which goods can be transported between Member States without barriers to trade.
One such barrier is the difference in the VAT systems between Member States.
The different systems of VAT have nothing to do with VAT rates, but concern the way in which a product is taxed when it crosses a national frontier.
Where different VAT systems exist between two countries, businesses may risk having their products taxed twice, while in other cases they may not be taxed at all.
The Commission's proposal is designed to produce uniform systems of VAT, but the powers which it is proposed to transfer to the Commission give it almost a free hand to lay down VAT rates in the individual Member States, and that is something we cannot accept.
The Commission is proposing to extend the powers of the advisory VAT Committee and to convert it into a regulatory committee which would take decisions by a qualified majority on the basis of Commission proposals.
The new Committee on Excise Duties makes the 'Plumb-Delors accord' redundant, and in addition Parliament would no longer have the right to be informed of the committee's work, which would mean the House losing some of its influence.
Since the harmonisation of such things as VAT rates will have extremely far-reaching consequences for the Member States, this should be carried out by cooperation between the countries.
It is therefore important to insist that areas which involve politically sensitive subjects, such as the harmonisation of VAT rates, are not dealt with by the Commission, but by the Council acting on the basis of Commission proposals.
This will ensure that the principle of subsidiarity is upheld in the area of taxation.
The Danish Social Democrats are therefore strongly opposed to the idea of extending the Commission's powers in the field of tax and excise duty policy.
Miller report (A4-0064/98)
When the single market was created, four directives were introduced to enable the application of this specific type of tax to alcohol, tobacco, oil products and gold, as part of the free movement of goods.
These directives concern the rates of excise duties, the structure of the categories of products subject to excise duties and their movement.
In 1992, a special committee, the Committee on Excise Duties, was created.
It comprises experts from the Member States and has only an advisory role.
On several occasions, it has already been called upon to deal with urgent problems that were impossible to solve given the existing provisions.
The advisory role of the Committee on Excise Duties presents a certain legal problem, particularly since its opinions do not oblige the Commission to propose improvements to its regulations either on the structure of the taxation or on the movement of products.
In other words, even if a Member State abides by the guidelines adopted by this Committee, those same guidelines may be contested in court, including the EU Court of Justice.
Furthermore, new Member States after any future enlargement of the European Union would not be obliged to agree to these guidelines.
We are all aware that products subject to excise duties, especially tobacco, wine and other alcoholic beverages, have always been involved in illegal activities.
Until procedures are harmonised among the Member States, the possibility of fraud and smuggling will remain.
The Commission must introduce new computerised controls on the intra-Community movement of goods subject to excise duties, linked to the computerised system for Community transit.
At the same time, this new procedure will undoubtedly make it possible to limit VAT fraud in transfrontier areas: in order to bring this about, there is no use whatsoever in harmonising VAT rates, regardless of the proposal set out in the Castagnède report.
I must also point out an important flaw in the Commission's rules on the movement of products subject to excise duties.
Is it right that wine-growers wishing to sell their wine to a private consumer in Germany should be obliged to have their product transported by an 'approved' operator who will charge them a hefty fee, just so that they can claim back the excise duty, which is zero? This is an utterly ludicrous situation and is a genuine obstacle to the single market.
Another example to show how far removed the Commission is from economic reality: a private customer in a Member State can come and buy up to 90 litres of wine on the wine-grower's property (with four in the car they could take away 360 litres of wine) without having to pay any excise duties, while a wine-grower cannot go and deliver a single litre of wine unless it is transported by an 'approved' operator.
Once again the Commission is applying regulations of benefit to large companies and to the detriment of small operators.
All of us here know that the only companies creating jobs are small and medium-sized undertakings, yet the Commission penalises their development and as a result penalises the creation and development of employment.
To conclude, we call on the Commission to incorporate the recommendations by the Committee on Excise Duties in its proposal to the Council in order to avoid bureaucratic problems in the procedures that it imposes on all European Union operators.
Resolution on climate change (B4-0802/98)
Mr President, in the year 1000 people were afraid of comets.
Now they are scared of the hole in the ozone layer and the greenhouse effect.
McCarthy basically saw communists everywhere.
Our colleagues here see racists and fascists everywhere.
And now the latest neurotic obsession is seeing CO2 and greenhouse gases everywhere.
According to them, methane and carbon dioxide are going to heat up the planet and melt the poles and glaciers.
The sea is going to rise and we are all going to drown except, of course, for our centrist colleagues who know how to swim.
That said, you would have thought that Buenos Aires and Kyoto might have tackled the causes of the problem, such as by banning Pinatubo from emitting gases and banning human beings and the like from breathing so that we do not exhale CO2 .
Another solution would be to illuminate the earth 24 hours a day so that chlorophyll can play its part.
But, of course, that was too difficult so we have found the magic answer: taxation.
After family taxes, investment tax and cinema tax we now have taxes to cool down the climate and purify the atmosphere.
It is even stronger than Viagra.
Instead of taxing taxpayers now we are going to tax gas.
Buenos Aires and Kyoto started out as an obsession and have now turned into a knockabout comedy.
There is only one serious thing in this story: we now know that mad cow disease is transmissible to man.
The proof is that there are Greens and ecologists.
While the EU Commissioner for the Environment, Ritt Bjerregaard, gives yet another pious speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg about the pioneering role of the European Union in the field of climatic protection, two-thirds of the surface area of Bangladesh lies under water.
The unfortunate consequences of natural disasters have been affecting human beings for a long time, yet neither the Commission nor the Council of Ministers takes the omens of natural disaster as seriously as they should.
And even the European Parliament, in this case its Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, is failing to come up to the mark with its statements on climate protection.
Far from it. Its once extremely advanced efforts have now been watered down to the point where we have to say, sadly, that its policy on climate protection has changed.
The USA's persistent refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol, with its completely inadequate reduction targets, has obviously set the ball rolling again, but in the wrong direction.
Under the guise of supposedly making political instruments more flexible, we in Europe are also now backing international trade in emission licences, without having the least idea of how they can work and be monitored.
The Commission's most recent publications do not provide any information on this subject.
Ritt Bjerregaard also has obviously no idea who could organise, monitor and, in the event of abuse, decide on punishment in future wrangles over polluted air.
Her claims that flexible climate protection measures of this kind should only be used in addition to national reduction targets are not convincing.
She refuses to comment on the Commission's recommendation that national CO2 reductions should be separate from reductions achieved by 'flexible' methods.
Her silence on this issue before the European Parliament certainly does not bode well for the environment.
She no longer even mentions the proposal put forward in Kyoto that at least 50 % of reduction requirements must be met domestically in the relevant polluting countries themselves.
In the run-up to the Buenos Aires Conference this is a worrying development, but one which unfortunately seems to fit the picture of a European policy which is becoming increasingly dependent on deregulation and in which weak, voluntary undertakings from industrial associations are obviously more important than clear political goals.
Green climate policy has always warned against developments like this because, as well as all the problems concerning controls and sanctions, international trade in pollution licences is not producing any short or medium term improvement in the world's CO2 levels.
Bartering between those who do not (yet) emit particularly high levels of CO2 and those who in recent decades have grown rich at the expense of the environment, only continue to heat our climate.
Global reduction targets cannot be met in this way, not even the ridiculous Kyoto targets and certainly not the reductions of at least 60 % in greenhouse gases which experts consider necessary by the middle of the next century at the latest.
Even the stereotype pioneering role which Ritt Bjerregaard claims the EU has played in the area of climatic protection is not worth much.
The reality is different: emissions are increasing.
More and more cars mean that, despite fuel-saving technologies, CO2 emissions are increasing.
There is a similar situation in Europe's homes: the success of more efficient technologies is completely cancelled out by the increasing number of single households and micro-families.
Energy prices continue to be too low.
And the only promising programme, that of introducing environmental tax reforms as quickly as possible, continues to be debated again and again in the relevant committees.
Even European energy-saving programmes such as ALTENER II and SAVE II are merely paid lip-service by the Commission and the Council, but are not given adequate funding.
It is pathetic.
To make matters worse, in the wake of the CO2 discussion, nuclear energy is also threatening to make a comeback.
Contrary to all dictates of common sense, its advocates acclaim it as the last hope of preventing climate change; in so doing, they are simply replacing one evil with another.
After all, promoting this kind of outdated technology takes away urgently needed resources from renewable energies.
If Europe really wants to play a pioneering role in world climate policy, a great deal must first be done in Europe itself.
We did not support the amendment seeking to introduce a tax on aviation fuel, even though we are against the exemption enjoyed by air transport in this respect.
It would have been out of place in this resolution on the current worldwide negotiations on CO2 emissions.
Resolution on the international financial crisis
Mr President, during this debate on the international financial crisis we heard Jacques Santer tell us that the prospect of the euro is protecting us from the threat of widespread financial instability.
First of all, I should like to thank the President of the Commission for remaining relatively modest and not having claimed, like some others and even some members of the Commission, that the euro is protecting us from the Asian crisis as a whole.
That obviously would be a far-fetched claim.
The Asian crisis is the result of the transitional problems facing emerging countries, due to their excessively fast growth.
These problems obviously do not exist in Europe and there is no danger of seeing, here, a crisis similar to that hitting Korea or Indonesia.
Nonetheless, I disagree with the claim made by Mr Santer, albeit a more limited one, that the euro is protecting us from financial instability.
There has been no significant reason up to now for instability to spread in Europe and any coordination, with a little discipline, among the central banks would equally have resulted in relative stability.
The rest is nothing but propaganda.
In particular, the current situation has nothing in common with the situation in 1992-1993 which led to major fluctuations among European currencies.
At that time, the problem was peculiar to Europe - the reunification of Germany obviously involved the realignment of internal monetary parities.
Today the problem lies outside Europe but it is affecting us all, to some extent.
The euro per se is barely protecting us now but it might, on the other hand, become a severe handicap in the months to come.
If the crisis deepens different European countries may need to find different solutions.
Yet the harmonisation of exchange and interest rate policies will prevent that.
There is in other words a risk of a growing conflict between the euro and Europe's interests.
The text of the motion for a resolution on the international financial crisis is very disappointing.
In its analysis, to begin with, it fails to criticise the foundations on which the world economic and financial system is based (the discrepancy between the financial bubble and the real economy, speculative and accumulative mechanisms, the absence of political, social and environmental regulation, growing irregularities within and between countries, transnational companies getting richer while the ordinary people are getting poorer), and we should not think that recognising the market economy and accepting this financial and transnational form of capitalism are the same thing.
The text is inadequate since it proposes no possible ways of reforming the world monetary system in depth: the need for a new Bretton Woods, the organisation of large regional groups to define coherent monetary areas.
Similarly, the resolution does not suggest any ways of bringing about fiscal regulation such as might be launched with the introduction of a tax on capital movements (Tobin tax).
As far as advisory and decision-making bodies are concerned, the text recommends that we simply fall into line with the position adopted by President Clinton, ie the institutionalisation of the Group of 22.
It would be better to give the IMF's Interim Committee (which at least brings together developed, emerging and developing countries) genuine political decisionmaking powers.
The text says nothing at all about the risks which this crisis might pose for certain industrial or banking sectors in Europe and therefore fails to consider the necessary support and adjustment measures which could be useful for protecting jobs in different sectors.
More generally speaking, it recommends nothing in particular for the European Union even though the G7 itself has stressed the need for measures to promote recovery and growth.
Unfortunately, it is the workers of the European Union who are likely to pay the price for the current inaction of our institutions.
Resolution on political developments in Russia
The IMF hands out credit.
The gurus of the Anglo-Saxon style liberal economy give lessons in privatisation, market laws, free competition and other liturgical instruments of the religion of the 'invisible hand'.
After five years of this magic formula, the disastrous results are there for all to see: an economy in ruins, society devastated, life expectancy plummeting to under 60, poverty, destitution, violence, empty public coffers and a government entrenched behind the walls of the Kremlin.
This is what liberalism has done for Russia.
The current situation was the inevitable result of the sudden removal of economic barriers and the brutal changeover from a protected economy to the fierce competition of speculatory world capitalism.
It should have been tackled progressively, in gentle stages.
Instead we have seen nothing but excessive, dogmatic and brutal behaviour.
Russia has turned from the Communist ideology to embrace liberal ideology with no transitional period in between.
Instead of the dictatorship of the Communist nomenklatura, the country is now in the grip of by mafias and oligarchies.
To make matters worse, the institutions that were set up have turned out to be a hindrance, given that the President is able to govern against the will of the majority in the Duma.
The risks for Europe are alarming, with nuclear arms practically being handed over to what remains of the army and the danger of Russia falling apart on the Caucasian-Muslim front and in the far east.
So what can be done? Firstly we must learn our lesson from the failure of dogmatic free trade and free Europe from this trap while there is still time.
Then realistic choices must be made in terms of Russia's institutional needs. In other words, it needs a real government which can cope with the enormous size of this country-continent, and which is in step with its deep-rooted sociological and historical reality.
The motion for a resolution that Parliament has just adopted considerably increases the aid given to the new Russian government.
I regret the fact that it does not, at the same time, mention any of the errors of analysis or the serious failings that the Russian crisis has revealed in the European Union.
It was an error of analysis to have so seriously underestimated the long term effects that seven decades of Soviet rule, seven decades of the welfare state and hardship would have on people. And also to have underestimated the effects of the absence of any liberal traditions that could have taken over once the Communist system had collapsed.
It was a serious error to have given a free hand to the most dogmatic economists, Western liberal experts and those who are least familiar with Russian reality, who mainly came from across the Atlantic.
We have let them transform Russia into a laboratory experiment, encourage blind imitation, prescribe shock therapy that they would never have dared recommend to their own governments, and apply pressure to obtain quick deregulation and uncoordinated privatisation.
The result is that today 'market economy' for the Russian people has become synonymous with unemployment and destitution.
Let us therefore start by ceasing to act like imperious advisors and dictating the rhythm and nature of Russia's reforms.
We note that what Russia is most in need of today is clearly a strong, competent and honest government, a State that we have been unable to help build.
We have squandered European taxpayers' money on programmes and aid which have yet to be evaluated - despite our demands - and which the Emerson affair has shown to be subject to few or no controls and often the source of fraudulent activity, just like those of the European Community Humanitarian Office (ECHO).
Our first duty was to do everything we could to help train this new political, economic and administrative elite that Russia so urgently needed in the European Union.
Only the Communists had a network of trained administrators, but we have been unable to help the new Russia overcome this situation and create its own alternative networks.
Yet our traditions of stateintervention, our post-war experience, our progressive conversion from economies that were largely administered to the common market put us in a better position than others to help to train a new Russian elite capable of handling the progressive changeover from a planned economy to a real economy.
The speed with which Russia embraced the techniques of democracy proves that if we had provided this training early enough and on a large enough scale it would certainly have been successful and would have helped Russia become part of a rediscovered greater Europe.
One might also wonder what purpose the CFSP serves, since it has proved incapable of providing the basis for any joint action to speak of in this area, which is so import for the future of the European Union.
The European Union was unable - failed even - to identify or recognize the new priorities that emerged as a result of the end of the two-superpower world and the collapse of the Soviet system.
Due to their shortsightedness and lack of foresight, Community leaders did not see the Russian crisis coming, neither were they able to predict the scale of it or what the consequences would be. And what is worse, they failed to provide aid which met people's real needs.
This shameful lack of foresight may indeed have fearful consequences for our own growth.
The European system, as it currently operates, has proved incapable of adequately helping our Russian neighbour to tackle the transition period or the enormous challenges it faced when conditions were favourable, and it has therefore failed to deal with a key issue for the future of our countries.
We would perhaps be better advised to put as much energy into actually achieving far-reaching reforms as into preaching about them.
It is therefore up to the Member States, whose role is pivotal, to once again seize the initiative.
McMillan-Scott report (A4-0251/98)
Mr President, I shall be brief in view of the time.
Almost three years ago in December 1995, we were required to deliver our opinion, for a second time, on a Customs Union with Turkey.
I decided not to vote in favour of a Customs Union with Turkey, for four reasons.
Customs Union was presented, and accepted in Turkey, as a simple step towards full accession to the European Union.
Given its geographical location, its culture and religion, I cannot ever imagine this country forming an integral part of the European Community with its Judaeo-Christian tradition.
The second reason I gave was that, although Turkey had made progress in the area of human rights, much remains to be done.
Voting in favour of a Customs Union would have meant accepting a situation that is clearly unacceptable.
My third reason was the situation with Cyprus since 1974, and my fourth, which is by no means the least important in my opinion, is the fact that Turkey has still not acknowledged the Armenian genocide in 1915, and even goes so far as to deny it ever happened.
I was not - as I said - unaware of the trade benefits of this agreement.
But in my heart and soul I could not endorse it for the reasons given and my opinion has not changed.
I can see that, several years on, Parliament continues to be guided by the same philosophy of hoping that Turkey will change if we help it.
This is not the answer.
It will only change because of its people and how they vote.
Neither the Customs Union nor economic factors will change the Turkish people or the nature of their leaders.
This is why I was unable to endorse Mr McMillan-Scott's report.
Three years ago a few MEPs visited Turkey to prepare for a Customs Union and to assess the Kurdish problem and the human rights situation there.
I returned from this rewarding visit feeling optimistic about longterm progress.
Since then, the political situation has become much more complicated, economic growth has been hard to sustain and progress on democracy has not met our expectations.
In spite of all of this, the Customs Union has developed positively.
However, we remain concerned about the future: will the Turkish government be able to sustain growth and control inflation? How does it intend to improve respect for the principles of international law, human rights and democracy?
Will it find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish and Cypriot problems?
At the present time we do not have answers to these questions, but I am convinced we should not give up.
The report by our colleague Mr McMillan-Scott is absolutely clear: we have to push ahead in the interests of both Turkey and the European Union.
Our relations must become deeper.
Isolating Turkey would do nothing to improve the living conditions of its people or the human rights situation.
Young people in Turkey should have the chance to participate in the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth Exchange schemes and programmes.
The economy needs help to adapt and restructure.
Administrative reform cannot be achieved without cooperation.
I therefore endorse the McMillan-Scott report, but I should like to highlight in particular the progress to be made in the field of human rights, democracy and the intensive cooperation needed to combat the international drugs trade.
The European Union has made considerable efforts here.
Now it is Turkey's turn.
Little seems to have improved in Turkey's domestic situation since the Customs Union between Turkey and the EU came into force.
It was Turkey's internal affairs which led many Members of the EP to vote against its accession during the negotiations with applicant countries.
There is as yet no sign whatsoever of the political reforms demanded as part of the Customs Union, and the army still has far too much influence in Turkish society.
The McMillan Scott report gives a clear picture of the situation, but although it looks in detail all sorts of areas which have not improved, with the poor human rights situation at the top of the list, the general drift of the report is that Turkey should be allowed to join the EU.
Yet Turkey shows no sign of trying to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem or of trying to be sensitive in its dealings with religious minorities and respecting their basic rights.
I agree with most of what the report says, but I voted against it because of its suggestion that if Turkey meets certain criteria it can 'automatically' join the EU.
I simply cannot go along with this.
As far as we are concerned Turkey is not a European country either geographically or culturally and it therefore cannot become a member of the EU.
Relations between Turkey and the European Union have always been marked by the unsaid, or even hypocrisy.
The most fundamental question has never been addressed: is Turkey a European country? Does it really have the right to join the European Union?
Turkey does indeed have a very small part of its territory in Europe.
But is this enough for it to constitute a European nation, in other words one which is akin to European culture and civilization?
Let us be clear, Turkey's history has been taken up with the Ottoman Empire's struggle against the nations of Europe.
Neither its history nor its civilization link this great Asian and Middle Eastern country to Europe.
Would it therefore not be more realistic and honest to put forward ways of cooperating which are consistent, strong, even close, but which do not form part of an accession process, a prospect that we are continually offering, but continually putting off?
Having said that, Mr McMillan-Scott's report highlights some of the obstacles to Turkey's accession over and above the fundamental objection that I mentioned earlier.
Is it acceptable that one of the applicants for accession to the European Union is at the crossroads of the international drugs trade and, in another criminal area, of organised counterfeiting on an industrial scale? In the human rights field, we must also remember that, for example in the legal domain, all states need to observe fair procedures that guarantee the right of defence.
The fight against terrorism, which must be unrelenting, can only be strengthened if there are clear laws and penalties.
Can we also accept the fact that, in contempt of UN resolutions, Turkey continues to illegally occupy part of the island of Cyprus?
Mr McMillan-Scott's report also stresses the need to make the armed forces answerable to the political authorities.
This point illustrates the difficulties in applying our ways of thinking and our cultural habits to an historic reality that is very different from our own.
Since Kemal Ataturk, the army has always been regarded as the guardian of the Turkish Constitution and the secular nature of the State.
In practice, the army today acts as a buffer against Islam.
So we can clearly see the care needed in addressing the situation in Turkey.
In short, it seems clear that for reasons of history and civilisation and because of the human rights and economic situation, Turkey cannot form part of the European Union.
Therefore, we must endeavour to establish open, clear and close relations between the European Union and Turkey that take account of the specific characteristics of this great Middle Eastern nation.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the report on the annual review of the Customs Union between the EU and Turkey.
There should be no doubting our concern that no significant improvements have taken place in terms of the human rights situation and the democratic reforms in Turkey.
We wish to see the Turkish Government actively supporting:
continued democratisation and protection of human rights and consolidation of political control over the armed forces; -the establishment of good neighbourly relations between Turkey and Greece in particular; -respect for the principles of international law in resolving the disputes in the Aegean; -a peaceful settlement of the Cyprus question.In our view, the principle of respect for human rights should be more closely linked to participation in a number of training programmes, and the human rights aspect should be included in the future work of the interinstitutional working party.
Also, the Customs Union must be cost-neutral in terms of the EU's general budget.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Situation in the Great Lakes region
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the situation in the Great Lakes region.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis in the Great Lakes region, today at the centre of our concerns, broke out more than four years ago and has now once again entered an acute phase, with the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo which broke out in August.
Unfortunately, our frequent predictions, our fears that this crisis might spread to neighbouring countries have been confirmed in recent days.
A total of six eastern, central and southern African countries are now militarily involved, and there is also a risk that other countries might be drawn into this conflict in Congo-Kinshasa.
Of special concern at the moment is the possibility of Sudanese forces intervening in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on the government side, which would probably lead to an escalation of the conflict involving Sudan's own neighbours.
In Congo-Kinshasa, as we all know, the fall of the Mobutu regime and the coming to power of the new regime did not put an end to the structural, political, economic and social crisis which started a long time ago.
They turned Congo, the former Zaire, into a focus of constant destabilisation in the heart of central Africa.
The Members of the European Parliament are all aware of the analysis of the current conflict and its link to the situation in the Great Lakes and ethnic problems - not only in Rwanda and Burundi but also in the province of Kivu and Lower Congo - and know that we believe that no solution can be found by military means or, in other words, by armed intervention.
We have said time and time again that it is vital to hold political negotiations in order to find a solution to the far-reaching political, economic and social problems besetting this region of Africa.
Furthermore, we are extremely frustrated not only that it is impossible to pursue a development policy but also that the infrastructures and institutions to which the European Union and its Member States have contributed in the past, not without some difficulty, have now been destroyed.
The European Union has taken a clear stance on this, especially in recent times, and its statement of 27 August is clear as to the conditions to be met in any attempt to solve this crisis.
We have lent our support to Africa's own attempts at mediation, which have unfortunately not yet been successful, namely the talks begun by President Mandela at Victoria Falls and the Organisation of African Unity meeting in Addis Ababa, as well as the more recent SADCC meeting in Mauritius, all of which have so far met with little success.
An immediate visit by the Special Envoy to the region, where he still is, in order to try and find ways of facilitating dialogue and pinpointing solutions to the conflict, was fully justified.
We think that it might be worthwhile to explore the possibility of an African peacekeeping force, in which the European Union might participate.
One thing is certain. It will not be possible to create conditions for dialogue as long as foreign troops remain inside Congo and until an end is put to the racist and populist talk which only encourages inter-ethnic violence.
Nor will it be possible to reach peace without solutions based on respect for Congo's territorial integrity and the security of its neighbours.
The regional conference we have spoken about so much is due to be held under the aegis of the Organisation for African Unity and the United Nations, though this does not, of course, preclude any contribution that the international community, in particular the European Union and its Member States, could make to its success.
Ladies and gentlemen, at the present time the situation between the armed forces suggests two different scenarios. One would be the consolidation of the current spheres of interest on both sides, albeit with a continuation of the war between the Congolese army (and its allies) and the rebel militia (and their allies).
This might just, in the medium term, lead to a solution, with a gradual retreat by the other countries in the region and an internalisation of the conflict to involve only Congolese forces.
The other scenario, which is more likely, includes a large-scale counter-offensive by the group close to Kabila, which would result, quite understandably, in a supra-regional conflict on an even wider scale.
Either of these two scenarios would be extremely worrying because, even in the first case, with the internalisation of the problem within Congo, instability in Congo vis-à-vis all of the neighbouring countries and the well-known situations of insecurity in those neighbouring countries would make it impossible ever to bring about stability in that part of the African continent.
It is for this reason that the European Union insists, as it has insisted in the past, on the need to look at the region as a whole rather than just the individual crisis points.
I would also add, ladies and gentlemen, that one of the tasks for our Special Envoy will be to meet the Secretary-General of the United Nations and other senior United Nations officials currently monitoring the situation in the Great Lakes and in Congo.
We hope that our envoy will be able to report back to us in early October, when we shall once again assess the situation and any political proposals that have been made.
I should also like to inform you that we are in close contact with the United Nations Development Programme and with the World Bank, in order to see whether it might be possible to take joint action on the overall rehabilitation of the whole area, which obviously would be an important contribution to any global conference on the region.
As for the humanitarian situation, the military conflict is obviously having a serious impact here.
There have been reports of violations of human rights by both sides in the conflict, and the authorities on both sides are using ethnic confrontation as a means of uniting the population around their political or military platforms.
There is no access to the rural areas of Kivu and the province of Lower Congo, where the greatest human suffering is concentrated.
Information on the humanitarian needs of thousands and thousands of displaced persons is still very scarce and patchy.
Apart from that, the knock-on effect into the neighbouring countries, especially Rwanda and Burundi, could destabilise still further the fragile rebuilding of ethnic cohabitation in those countries.
The cities of Kinshasa and Kisangani are currently facing severe food shortages and water supply problems since all supplies have been cut.
Our main worry - apart from these difficulties in Kinshasa and Kisangani - continues to be focused, however, on the humanitarian situation in the province of Kivu. We might be about to witness a mass exodus of Congolese people either within the Democratic Republic of Congo or into Tanzania, Burundi or other countries, and that could transform the humanitarian situation into a full-blown disaster.
To deal with this new crisis the Commission has earmarked a new budget of ECU 55 million for the Great Lakes region, of which around 10 million are destined for the Democratic Republic of Congo immediately.
However, I should like to say that it is extremely difficult for organisations providing humanitarian aid to gain access since security conditions are virtually nonexistent, and therefore we are trying to negotiate a code of conduct with the authorities on both sides to see whether it is possible for humanitarian action to take place with at least minimum guarantees for those involved.
I would like once again to raise a question which I have already raised before the Commission and the Council and which calls for discussion in this Parliament: it is the question of whether we can justify continuing sending aid on the same terms - ' business as usual' - to countries involved in armed conflicts which waste up to 30 % of their budgets on arms and military equipment, and whether we should not take a thorough look and ask ourselves whether the aid we are paying to their social and other budgets might not actually be being used, indirectly, to finance their wars.
This is not an easy question, but I think that the European institutions - since Europe is Africa's biggest donor - might have trouble with our taxpayers and with our own consciences if we do not look into this issue more closely.
I hope that we can come back to this question in a few weeks' time and that we will have had further thoughts on the matter. All the Community institutions should consider jointly what measures need to be taken and what guidelines adopted.
That is all for now, Mr President.
Mr President, Commissioner, my group broadly agrees with your analysis and thanks you for it.
For decades, Zaire has experienced political dictatorship, corruption, poor economic management and human rights violations.
Although the Mobutu regime was clearly condemned and progressively isolated by the international community from 1982 onwards, the wealth of the country offset the economic isolation that should have resulted.
The triumphant arrival of the Alliance troops under Laurent Kabila appeared to have put an end to dictatorship once and for all.
The military situation appeared to be under the control of the Alliance leadership and we were convinced that Congo now had the chance to start rebuilding itself, with all of these active democratic and progressive forces working together.
We have to admit that the situation did not develop as originally hoped.
The new leaders withdrew into themselves, proving intransigent and so depriving themselves of the support of a large part of the population that did not accept the authoritarian procedures of the Alliance.
One of the few points in its favour is that it has given towns more security.
Recovery here is probably impossible without international aid, which has not been forthcoming, mainly due to a lack of confidence.
It is a vicious circle.
A lack of confidence on the part of Western governments in the political will of the Alliance to democratise the country, and a lack of confidence on the part of potential investors and private companies in security, particularly legal security, and fear that their investments will not be profitable.
Congo has once again plunged into a war which is involving armies from several countries in the region. The tragic pictures that we receive daily show massacres and the suffering of the people.
Statements made by some of the country's most senior officials inciting ethnic hatred are completely unacceptable and do not bode well for the future.
The rebellion is made up of a group of heterogeneous forces who are all pursuing diverse interests, but are united in their opposition to the present regime.
It is being politically and financially supported by former leaders of the previous regime.
The threat of a fresh outbreak of violence in Congo is very real and, as always, would be very damaging for the poorest regions of this country, affecting the most vulnerable members of the population.
What is more, it is setting a very dangerous precedent for other countries in Africa.
In this context, we hope that the European Union will call for an immediate ceasefire and support African initiatives, in particular those of Nelson Mandela, to try to prevent unrest in the region and find a negotiated settlement to the Congo crisis.
The European Union and the Member States must speak with one voice, carry out an active diplomatic effort and coordinate their action in order to guarantee peace and security in this part of the world.
This is the reason why my group supports the European Parliament's joint resolution, since it is a joint resolution, .
Let the European Parliament speak with one voice because we, like the other democratic groups in this House, want to guarantee peace in this part of the world.
Mr President, I agree with my friend Mr Tindemans that there is indeed no European policy on Africa.
But, as today, this has never stopped us from talking about it.
The people of the Democratic Republic of Congo are having to watch themselves becoming the victims of yet more violence in this endless conflict.
Thirty years of dictatorship and Kabila's military takeover have not been enough.
Civil war is raging again, and Kabila has only himself to blame.
The country is still drifting out of control.
The people are still facing deepening poverty, death, destruction and suffering.
Human rights are still regularly being violated on an enormous scale and democracy is, of course, nothing more than a pretence.
Yes, the rebel attack was on a legitimate and recognised authority, and yes, action must be taken against it.
But Kabila has yet to prove that he deserves support in the longer term.
Up to now he has certainly not deserved it.
He will also have to accept international mediation which has to involve the rebels, otherwise there can be no mediation.
I appreciate the efforts that South Africa has made here, and as Mr Tindemans said, finding an African solution to a problem in an African country by means of African intervention using African weapons is a return to how Africa used to be before colonial times.
It may be a hopeful sign that the African countries want, and perhaps are able, to help to resolve conflicts in their own continent themselves, since Europe has no policy on the subject.
The Union could perhaps act as a facilitator, creating the right conditions to enable the Africans themselves to resolve their own conflicts.
Mr President, Mr Tindemans was quite right: Europe is fiddling while the heart of Africa burns.
The genocide of the Tutsis and the fall of Mobutu have opened Pandora's box and war is now raging from Brazzaville to Addis Ababa.
Traditional labels such as colonialism and ideological differences between East and West are no longer relevant.
The individual African rulers are only concerned with protecting their own positions of power.
Political opposition groups are not given any opportunity to function democratically, and this often leads them to seek support from related tribes over the borders, which in turn gives the dictators an excuse to take cross-border military action.
This tangled web results in terrible suffering for the people and the squandering of money and humanitarian aid.
I think the Commissioner uses UN agreements as a convenient shield to hide behind, but I would like a clear answer.
Do the Commission and the Commissioner not feel that it is now high time that we started raising our voices in protest, for example to the government in Luanda which simply sacked seventy opposition MPs, replacing them with unelected members and threatening them in their homes?
Is this not likely to exacerbate the conflict in the region? Will you tell me, Commissioner, why we as democrats have not already sent the signal that we as Members of Parliament must now give?
Members belong in Parliament and must not be threatened. If you fail to do so, Commissioner, the Angolan government will think that it can get away with its current practice of using profits from oil and diamonds to buy weapons, and humanitarian aid, no matter how well-intentioned, will be pointless.
If we feel for Africa, we should be critical of all those involved in the fighting.
Mr President, a number of specific issues have emerged from the crisis that we have been witnessing over the past few weeks, such as the fact that President Kabila has not kept his main electoral promises and the fact that the opposition parties are still unable to carry out their normal activities.
What is more, opponents are being imprisoned and, it appears, summarily executed.
The Congo is therefore clearly not a democratic country and appears a long way from holding free elections.
It can also be said that other neighbouring countries are involved in this conflict, such as the barely disguised presence of Uganda and Rwanda, which possibly still harbour plans to divide up the Congo and de facto seize control of some parts of the country.
But although these issues are important, I believe that they are not the most important. There are more general issues to be addressed, given that we are faced with the first regional war in Africa in recent times.
There are many questions we should be asking.
For example, why is it that organizations such as the Organization for African Unity are not capable of crisis management or conflict prevention?
Why have the United Nations also been unable to intervene in this situation?
And why have even relatively powerless movements like the Non-Aligned not tried to intervene in this crisis?
As a consequence there are no opportunities for mediation, nor are there any conflict prevention or crisis management mechanisms, making political solutions difficult to achieve.
We could insist that a regional conference is needed to put an end to what is happening.
We could also strongly urge that a neutral African military force be set up.
But who would organise it and what would be its policies and objectives? What is more, who would support it given that EU support alone would not suffice?
We would also have to find out where, for example, the United States stands on this conflict, because the United States has always claimed to have one position and then adopted a different one on Africa.
There is a clear lack of regional management structures, of structures that facilitate genuine cooperation in Africa between African countries themselves and which go beyond the existing structures between these countries and other regions such as the European Union.
We have in fact reached a point where a crisis of this nature could erupt again if Europe, as well as taking specific measures now, does not look further ahead and try to establish a policy on Africa that provides for the creation of these kinds of structures.
Of course, if I had to answer the Commissioner's question as to whether it is possible to continue to cooperate with countries at war or that arm themselves for war, I think the answer would be no.
We have no right to favour this type of policy, and still less to misuse the resources of European citizens.
Mr President, I have to say that I am torn between anger and despair when I read that the EU should play an active role in promoting peace, security and stability in the Great Lakes region.
In view of the absence of the UN in recent weeks, in view of the passive attitude of the European Union and the withdrawal of humanitarian aid, all talk of responsibility or even the claim, Mrs van Bladel, that it is now the Africans who are to blame for everything, is enough to make me sick.
We cannot so quickly rid ourselves of the responsibility for the monsters we created as colonial powers in Africa.
Of course, it is a positive development that the Africans have begun to recognise that they have to find joint solutions for their major regional problems.
Despite its failure, the Victoria Falls meeting was a useful start.
They have joint responsibility for ensuring respect for human and civil rights, which at least means that borders become less important.
Mr Bertens is absolutely right: the European Union has the opportunity to begin a new chapter and to help the Africans to find their own solutions.
In addition, we should not behave as if friendly relations with Bill Clinton give us the right to take unilateral military action.
Of course, Uganda and Rwanda do not have the right to introduce a unilateral military solution as they see fit, and we cannot now push Angola into the background because it has resisted this.
Nor can we simply declare Unita to be a political opposition party after 30 years of civil war and the sabotage of the peace process.
Unita must at last fit in with the constitution of the second Angolan Republic and assume a constructive role as an opposition party.
This is what almost all Angolans want.
The forces of democracy in Congo have made a series of demands which we should actively support: defence of unity and self-determination, opening up the government for democratic forces, precise arrangements for future elections, clear dissociation from xenophobic tendencies, mobilisation of the interministerial commission for the protection of Tutsis and expansion of this to the whole territory, establishment of a ceasefire, withdrawal of all foreign troops and return of Congolese refugees to their home territory, the need to establish clearly who attacked whom, use of the media to promote peace propaganda rather than the propaganda of war and hatred, and, not least, provision of a peace-keeping force to ensure peace between the Democratic Republic of Congo and its neighbours in the Great Lakes region.
This is a programme that we can really do something about, and if the Union would commit itself to achieving it with all the diplomatic measures at its disposal, we could really give the people of this region fresh hope.
Mr President, the European Union is finding it extremely difficult to define and implement a policy in the Great Lakes Region in line with its fundamental principles.
What is more, is it a matter of European Union foreign policy or that of one or two of its Member States? In fact, judging by the list of signatories to the various motions for resolutions, one has the strange impression - strange but by no means new - that the Great Lakes situation is only of interest to Belgium and France, two countries that are dictating Europe's position because of the interests they have inherited from colonial history.
But let us come back to the fundamental principles that are so dear to Europeans.
First, as has so often been said, we must ensure the territorial integrity of our former colonies, which is almost all the OAU is concerned about.
In fact, one and a half years ago, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs said that he believed Mobutu was the only one who could guarantee Zaire's territorial integrity.
We have since seen what his opinion was worth, and today, in fact, nobody any longer believes that territorial integrity is possible in a country whose government authorities long ago lost control over it.
However, there are many who were in favour of Katanga seceding but at the same time continued to affirm the inviolability of the frontiers, whereas eastern Congo has been placed under the sovereignty of Uganda and Rwanda, both of which are anxious to guarantee their own security by legitimate methods.
Another more important fundamental principle is the passion we demonstrate for the democratisation of Africa.
Just a few months ago, in our own resolutions, Mr Kabila was described as the self-proclaimed president, his government as provisional, and his political practice as cracking down on freedom.
Has Mr Kabila become a democrat? Is he ever likely to hold elections or do away with corruption?
Not at all. The only change that has taken place is easy to identify: Mr Kabila has broken off relations with his former Rwandan and Ugandan allies and because of this alone the European Union can establish relations with him.
Are we concerned about the principle of humanitarian solidarity and the fate of the refugees? We have been deeply and rightly moved by the fate of the Rwandan refugees over the past few years.
But no-one has ever seen, and I have certainly never seen, Parliament show concern for the millions of Rwandans that were condemned to live outside the borders of their countries until 1994.
It does indeed appear that the genocide, which Mr Tindemans so modestly referred to as a wave of violence, perpetrated in Rwanda in 1994 has failed to stir the consciences of European politicians.
Those who, yesterday, helped Habyarimana or Mobutu are, today, the first to recognise Mr Kabila as the legitimate president, unlikely as this seems.
The fact is that Europe needs to concentrate its efforts on three objectives: security in eastern Zaire must be achieved, wherever the national border may be; we must help the real refugees to return to their countries, particularly Rwanda; and the would-be refugees who have been living in Congo and Europe for four years must be brought to trial for their part in the genocide in 1994.
Mr President, Europe remains an onlooker, searching for words, as concerns the recent tragic events in the Great Lakes region.
It is clear once again that the Africans must consolidate the still very fragile regional balance within the region through the widest possible consultations and, for instance, the establishment of a strong, powerful stabilisation force.
Thus the main theme of the forthcoming major WEO Conference in Lisbon could be the safeguarding of peace and security throughout the African continent.
During 1996 the domino theory, so popular with Soviet-trained African dictators, affected 14 of the 53 African states, causing internal conflicts and the exodus of thousands of people: UN figures speak of 8 million refugees.
Rivalries that could have been settled by discussion not only still persist but have degenerated into serious strife sparked by ethnic or religious claims.
Africa is made up of young nations which are consolidating their democratic systems with every day that goes by.
The regional and national equilibrium is very precarious, making for a very unstable peace.
But the Africans themselves must take action in this area.
A pan-African intervention force, along the lines of the so-called Kompiega 98 Cohesion Force, could demonstrate the Africans' desire to equip themselves with a conflict prevention mechanism, a kind of surveillance system, and avoid producing one Kabila after another. Worse still, Kabila enjoys support from people like Dos Santos in Angola, who is capable of quashing hard-won popular representation in Parliament by forcing out the UNITA democratic opposition.
Participation and responsibilities shared among several countries could usher in a new era of peace and well-being, with the now indispensable help of Africa's European partners.
Mr President, Mr Hory, it is by no means only Members from Belgium and France who are interested in this conflict, as can be seen from my speech.
But there are always only a few who can support these resolutions.
One should not conclude from this, however, that others are not interested.
Quite the contrary.
We all wish for peace in Africa, a peace that leads to prosperity and stability.
However, the situation in reality does not make this easy.
But despair should not lead to resignation, Mr Wolf.
I know that you do not want that either.
Of course, it is sometimes depressing when we try again and again to make progress, to provide support and assistance, and yet things do not turn out as well as we would have wished.
But we must persist in our efforts to find ways to settle the conflict, and particularly to strengthen and include all political forces in Africa which can, and above all wish to, contribute to bringing about stability and a solution to the conflict.
The ACP-EU Joint Assembly is meeting in Brussels next week and we hope that all the parties involved will sit round one table with us there.
We have been dealing with the conflict in the Great Lakes region for years, and now it is on the agenda once again.
It has become a constant history of suffering.
However, I think that these meetings help us - and there are positive signs here - to talk to each other and to sound out possible ways of solving the conflict.
Firstly, we must, together with all the African representatives who will sit at the table with us, put all our energies into overcoming ethnic hatred, one of the main causes of this conflict.
I will not list all the atrocities, human rights violations and acts of violence here.
A great deal has already been said about this.
However, it is particularly sad that those who have themselves been victims of discrimination and hatred in the past, today show the same hatred and discrimination towards each other.
This is something which we cannot tolerate.
Yet neither can we approve of military intervention - regardless of which side it comes from - rather than efforts to choose the path of peace and to urge neighbouring countries to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict, while upholding the principles of democracy.
Conflict prevention is often on the agenda.
We have used up a great deal of paper on this issue.
I think that, in practice, we must attach even greater importance to preventive methods of conflict avoidance than we have up to now.
We must give particular emphasis to the fact that peace talks can only be successful if all parties to the conflict sit at the same table.
This is what we must try to achieve.
Mr President, the water of the Great Lakes of Africa is troubled and bloody, sullied with death and suffering caused by human blindness, madness and ambition.
Scarcely had the guns fallen silent in Guinea-Bissau than a new focus of instability had flared up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, spreading its conflict into a series of neighbouring countries, from Angola to Zimbabwe, from Namibia to Rwanda, from Uganda to Burundi and Tanzania.
Through the smokescreen of the many interests at stake it is difficult to see any rationality behind what is happening in Congo at the present time.
We are witnessing the clashes of age-old ethnic hatred, stoking never-ending wars of extermination and retaliation, the reasons for which are lost in the mists of time.
We are also witnessing the consequences of ill-defined borders, some of which were drawn on colonial maps in the last century.
International economic interests are far from innocent parties, hovering like vultures ready to share out the vast natural wealth hidden in that part of Africa.
Added to that is an uncontrolled profusion of armies from several countries, mercenaries of all kinds, on the payrolls of many bosses, bandits roaming at large or just ruthlessly bloodthirsty fighters.
If they were only wallowing in desert sand and dust, we would not be here discussing a conflict that is threatening to turn into a massive regional tragedy.
President Laurent Kabila did not take the opportunity to install a genuine democracy in his country and dashed the hopes both of his own people and of the international community.
He is now the bogus ruler of an enormous area where nobody respects anybody, where the law is based on summary execution and rifle butt justice, where the civilian population makes the biggest sacrifices, with more than two million refugees and countless dead.
Every attempt at bringing about a cease-fire has failed, from the Victoria Falls meeting to the recent meeting in Addis Ababa of the defence ministers of the countries involved.
Since they cannot come to an understanding, I think we should question the Council about its political inaction and whether it might not be time for the European Union to make a fresh analysis, as Commissioner Joäo de Deus Pinheiro said, of the entire framework for cooperation with the countries involved in the civil and international conflicts in the Great Lakes region.
Although the Commission - rightly so - has just stepped up its humanitarian aid to Congo, other European cooperation measures cannot be allowed to continue to feed other leaders' warmongering instead of benefiting the ordinary people involved.
All of this needs to be re-examined, and we should look into the possibility of taking measures to suspend certain cooperation budgets unless the warring countries show that they have come to their senses.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Congo crisis, the crisis in the Great Lakes region, faces us with a new political and geo-political problem in some respects.
Until now, in fact, two principles had been virtually sacrosanct when discussing Africa's problems.
One was that local conflicts and wars were in a sense proxy wars, behind which lay the Western powers; the other was that Africa's borders were set in stone.
The Great Lakes crisis now teaches us, first of all, that the Western powers with traditional interests in the region - Belgium, France and latterly the United States - have largely abdicated their responsibilities, and, secondly, that a regional conflict seems to be casting doubt on the status quo of borders which, in many cases, were drawn not by Africans but by the European nations at the time of decolonisation.
Political judgements must therefore be made prior to any intervention on our part. Are these borders really inviolable?
And, while reflecting on this matter, should the European Union not cast aside platitudes such as the maintenance of peace or respect for human rights? Not because they are unimportant, but because we should begin by setting ourselves a political goal: namely to help re-establish the balance and find what positive elements exist amidst so much human tragedy, by encouraging the African countries to become more self-aware and more autonomous.
The European Union must ensure that this process is a peaceful one, that reason prevails and not force, as happens in the total absence of a strong foreign policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we know that the recent conflicts in Africa, initially triggered by local ethnic issues, are now rapidly turning into all-out regional conflicts, affecting several countries and leading to thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, a progressive domino effect.
It is against that background that I wish to remind you of the situation in Angola.
Although the presence of Angolan troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo is significant in itself, even more worrying is the decision of the Angolan Government unilaterally to suspend members of UNITA from their government functions and also to suspend members of that party from the Angolan National Assembly, even though they were democratically elected.
Those members of parliament are now being held in Luanda, unable to leave the city, subjected to all kinds of pressure and in many cases deprived of food and drink.
This is a clear violation of the Lusaka Agreements, and now it looks and sounds as though the country is preparing for war.
I think that the Council and the Commission should have something to say about the situation since it is a clear violation of democratic principles.
We also feel that systematically denigrating and isolating UNITA, which is currently prevented from gaining access to Angolan or international communications, is doing nothing to help the Angolan peace process.
We still think it is possible, with the new mediator and support from the European Union, to avoid a new war whose scale, effects and duration cannot be predicted, apart from the fact that it could also result in a further escalation of existing regional conflicts.
That is why we maintain that the European Union must do all it can to support the initiative of a regional conference, under the aegis of the United Nations, to bring about a final and lasting peace in the region.
Mr President, I had intended to participate in this debate by forgetting my personal opinions and telling myself that perhaps I would hear something new that would enable the problems in Africa to be solved.
I decided to put all my convictions temporarily on hold.
I have therefore been listening very closely to all of the speakers.
I heard them admit to having been taken in by Kabila, in the same way that tomorrow we shall be forced to admit to having been taken in by Mandela, though we know his good intentions are genuine; but all the news that we are receiving from South Africa speaks only of the ever worsening situation there.
I listened to Mr Tindemans go through the usual arguments laying the blame on colonisation.
But decolonisation took place a long time ago now.
It is true that colonisation did have its darker side, but the fact remains that, even if we contest the borders which the colonial powers established, we still have to admit that they often brought an end to wars that pitted African nations one against the other.
Colonisation was by no means perfect, but when I visit the countries of the former French Union, I am not ashamed of what my country did there.
They were not banana republics.
There were ports, airports, roads, schools, health centres.
Today, the reality is that barbarism has engulfed many of these countries. However, when I hear people here saying that we need to help the Africans - although what does that really mean, if not advising them and arming them, which is tantamount to neocolonialism? - I am afraid that what people really want, in a very hypocritical fashion, is to impose a new colonialism that will cause more deaths than the old.
Giscard d'Estaing used to talk about Africa for the Africans; he perhaps was not wrong, but I think we now should leave them alone.
We cannot do anything more for them.
I would inform the House that I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Mr President, the by now multiple and widespread crises and conflicts in the Great Lakes region, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and also in other nearby regions, are probably the most striking and far-reaching shake-up in the national and regional status quo since the era of decolonisation.
Crises are no longer occurring within states, as in the past, but between states, calling into question a regional order which prevailed for almost forty years, albeit with many problems and severe injustices.
This seems to me to be what is new about the current situation.
I believe that it is vital to try and prevent the status quo from disintegrating completely in this fashion. Not because the situation to date was inherently the most equitable, but because there is now a very real risk that new powers will gain control - powers based on ethnic oppression, in some cases genocide, on trafficking in arms, in some cases in drugs and in many cases in important natural resources.
Therefore, respect for national integrity and a refusal of any drastic changes to national borders would prevent the situation deteriorating further and an even more unfair balance of power replacing the previous one.
My second point is this, Mr President.
Until three or four months ago, it appeared - especially across central Africa, from Eritrea to Angola - that a new African order had taken shape, with new leaders, based on the geo-political premise of strong relations with the United States.
That order has crumbled very rapidly: it was probably false and illusory, and in fact has probably now disappeared for good.
This shows that it is not enough merely to seek out certain faithful or powerful - sometimes violent - allies in Africa; rather, it is necessary to construct and consolidate genuine processes for transforming and repositioning international alliances and relations.
Europe's role, in my opinion, is to intervene in such processes and launch new forms of cooperation to motivate, strengthen and render more useful our commitment to cooperation.
Negotiations on the future of the Lomé Convention are to begin - with some difficulty, I believe - in a few weeks' time. Our commitment at these, Commissioner, must be to help design a new order, the protagonists in which must be the Africans themselves and their countries' democratic representatives.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the remarks that we have just heard from Commissioner Pinheiro showed a great deal of prudence, which to me seems absolutely essential when faced with a problem on such a scale and of such complexity.
But such prudence must be accompanied by a great sense of humility on the part of the European Union, two things which, to my mind, go hand in hand.
Last April Mr Ajello, the European Union's special envoy in the Great Lakes region, when speaking about events that were taking place there, said that there was no military solution to be found.
But neither, as everyone is well aware, is there a political solution that could be imposed on the states of the region.
It is firstly up to them to find a solution to the problem through dialogue and negotiations.
Our role is to support initiatives aimed at establishing such dialogue and not to change potential participants or try and impose our point of view.
We must show humility, as I said.
Even though we want to secure peace as quickly as possible, we must remember that, in other regions at other times, the dialogue established to resolve such conflicts was long and drawn out.
We should tirelessly encourage the heads of state concerned, but we cannot blame them for not finding an immediate solution, neither do we wish to impose one on them.
I would like to make two more remarks, ladies and gentlemen.
We should not, unfortunately, expect too much - and I am the first person to regret this - from the Arusha Tribunal.
We should, of course, give it our support, as the Port-Louis ACP-EU Joint Assembly resolution reminded us in April, but let us not forget the very accurate, if sceptical remarks made by the Union's special envoy in the region.
One only has to visit Arusha and listen to a few comments to understand that, locally, they do not expect much except - and this is the heart of the matter - the assurance that such tragedies will never happen again.
My second remark: the Commission must, as called for in the Port-Louis resolution, maintain the supply of humanitarian aid and this issue alone requires as much attention and more resources than all the others.
This was also reflected in the decisions you referred to earlier, Commissioner.
You told us you were going to study this matter in greater detail before offering us any answers.
I shall be very interested to hear what you have to say to us. Until then I am still in favour of continuing this aid.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone will have understood that, whilst my group supports the joint text, I personally do not think that the Union can guarantee peace, security or stability in this part of the world.
As one of the recitals in this texts says, I believe we need to help secure peace and not simply to ensure peace.
Mr President, Commissioner, as I wrote to you, I visited Kinshasa at the beginning of August, at the time of the first curfew.
I walked about the streets alone with no problems whatsoever.
At no time did I feel threatened.
I had the opportunity to talk to young and elderly citizens alike, all of whom told me of their sympathy and support for Mr Kabila.
They also told me how they did not understand why Europe had abandoned a Congo that had finally been liberated from the dictator Mobutu.
They especially did not understand why European and American embassy officials had, as they saw it, fled.
We need to intervene on a large scale in order to help the people of Congo out of this poverty and suffering by means of emergency medical and food supplies.
We also must control the arms build-up in certain regions and ask ourselves who is selling these arms and who is profiting from the sales.
Belgium and other European states owe a large part of their current wealth to the exploitation of former colonies in the Great Lakes region.
We therefore have a moral duty to these people, whatever their ethnic background or religion.
Africa is a natural complement to Europe; they have the resources we lack; we have the technology they need.
Let us use this complementarity to benefit these stricken people.
I will end, Commissioner, by asking you why we are not taking the political initiative to confiscate, on behalf of Congo, the personal fortunes in property and liquid assets that Mobutu and his henchmen have amassed in Europe, including Switzerland?
Mr President, I shall be very brief and make just three comments.
The first refers to a matter raised by two speakers here about the UNITA members of parliament who have been unilaterally suspended from the Angolan parliament.
This is a question of principle: under no circumstances can the European Union allow members of parliament, freely elected in elections regarded as free by the local population, to be unilaterally prevented from exercising their function.
This is a matter of principle on which I believe the European Union has already directly or, at least, bilaterally made its opinion known to the Angolan Government.
The second question concerns humanitarian aid: under no circumstances have we proposed or do we propose suspending humanitarian aid.
This is a matter which supersedes ideology because it concerns human beings.
As far as humanitarian aid is concerned, I must tell you that the men and women working for non-governmental organisations who dare to go inside the Democratic Republic of Congo are genuine heroes, I repeat genuine heroes.
They are going to places where some countries did not even want to send their armed forces because they were considered too dangerous.
Finally I should like to say, with regard to the Democratic Republic of Congo, that a number of promises were made after Mr Kabila came to power, in particular by our partners on the other side of the Atlantic.
I should like the European Parliament to know that what was promised - and I do not even know whether this has been paid yet - was up to 20 million dollars, in addition to the 90 million dollars which the European Union donated through the Commission just for rebuilding the roads leading to Kinshasa and for health measures (separate from other humanitarian aspects).
You will, therefore, understand that when people call for consultation and concerted action with other partners who are not even willing to make funds available, I am very reluctant because it seems that sometimes other people want to spend our money for us.
They will not be able to count on my support for that.
That concludes the debate.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The first item is the joint debate on the following three motions for resolutions on Albania :
B4-0831/98 by the ELDR Group-B4-0836/98 by the PSE Group-B4-0843/98 by the PPE Group
Mr President, I believe it is very important that the European Parliament deals with the issue of Albania.
I agree fully with the content of the resolution and would like to add only one point: it is absolutely clear that in a country such as Albania, where events are influenced so strongly by nationalism and violence, an opposition which takes advantage of the situation will inevitably bring the country to its knees.
In this situation, it is important that we make it very clear that the European Union will not under any circumstances recognise border changes which are brought about by means of violence, regardless of which side this comes from, as this is obviously one of the fundamental causes of the dispute between the opposition and the government in Albania.
We should make it very clear to all sides that the European Union will never recognise border changes brought about by violence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I would like to point out that I was present at the elections in Albania as an election observer.
On the day before the vote, President Berisha received both myself and a fellow Member of this House as guests and pleaded with us to urge the socialists to recognise the election result.
The election result, which many representatives of this House considered to be absolutely just and fair, despite all the problems which arose, gave the socialists an absolute majority.
However, the situation which then arose was one in which President Berisha and his Democratic Party did not recognise the elections in Albania.
This is one of the main causes.
Mr Karl Habsburg yesterday accused me of disregarding the law.
I reject this accusation.
I am not excusing anyone for the current situation in Albania.
The assassination, like any assassination, is to be condemned completely.
Parliament did so at the time, and we have also condemned it.
Yet the fact is that today the former president and some of his party do not wish to recognise the results of the last election.
Therefore, I fully agree with Mr Frischenschlager that the European Union must not recognise any border changes brought about by violence, and not in Kosovo either, given all the problems that I dealt with yesterday.
To begin to do so would be to trigger a conflagration in the Balkans on a scale bigger than any we have seen in recent years.
Similarly, however, this House must recognise election results which have been achieved democratically.
I would therefore ask our conservative colleagues to suggest to President Berisha and his supporters that they put an end to violence, recognise the election results and work in the Albanian parliament in a peaceful and cooperative way towards a better future for their country!
Mr President, I must say quite honestly that the resolution that we hope to adopt today, and that we drafted in a joint initiative, makes me sad as my group has tried constantly in the course of the last few months to implement a resolution on Albania and on the crisis in Albania, but unfortunately this failed in Parliament because of certain other groups.
It is alarming that it required the assassination of Mr Azem Hajdari, a charismatic opposition leader, before a resolution on the actual crisis situation was drafted, particularly if we consider that this was the third attempt on Mr Hajdari's life.
One assassination attempt took place in the Albanian parliament and another in his own home, where an attempted shooting took place.
Many people try to place the full blame on the opposition alone.
The fact that the resolution was tabled here only after the assassination of an opposition leader shows that this is not quite true.
I would also like to discuss the fact that we only ever mention the Democratic Party in Albania.
It is not the only opposition party.
There are seven opposition parties in total, who usually speak with one voice and who have confirmed unanimously that the situation is not as clean and as legal as the government would often have us believe.
Of course, Mr Swoboda, we in the House recognised the elections by a majority vote, despite the difficulties which you mentioned.
However, we must also acknowledge that these opposition parties are all of the view that, where the law is concerned, there is a considerable state of confusion, not only in the opposition but also in the government, and that the most unfortunate methods are being used by all concerned, which undoubtedly aggravates the situation.
We must clearly do everything we can, particularly considering Albania's circumstances, to bring about stability.
Mr President, as Mr Swoboda said, the European Union helped Albania to acquire a democratically elected government in order to create and establish democratic institutions after the crisis a year earlier.
Today we have a new crisis, and we are again called upon to play a role which I think must be decisive.
It is right to condemn violence, whatever its source, but we cannot pursue a policy of keeping our distance equally from both sides, because we are then doing nothing to help the development of the democratic institutions, and the problem in Albania is that one party - Mr Berisha's party - does not accept the election results, a thing which we would consider totally undemocratic if it happened in one of our countries.
I believe that today we should support democratic constitutional normality in Albania, because as Mr Swoboda correctly said, and I too would like to stress the same thing because I come from a country which borders Albania, any crisis there affects us all and any change of the political scenario brought about by an escalation of political violence will increase the political uncertainty in Albania, and not only increase it but create dramatic developments all over the area.
Mr President, when I hear certain people going on about democracy, I would like to remind them that Fatos Nano himself came from a totalitarian party, that he was a long-time dictator and that he was removed from power and convicted of criminal activities.
I mention this because this no one else has!
Similarly, much too little has been made of the fact that events are happening very quickly due to the assassination of one of the opposition leaders, following two attempts on his life.
It is simply wrong and hypocritical to place all the blame on one side, as certain people are trying to do here.
We must work towards finally restoring law and order in Albania.
The government has broken the law just as much as the opposition.
It is obvious that this will, of course, be a very difficult task, as Albania is currently in a very dangerous situation.
We must be very clear that there is a danger that the situation will assume epidemic proportions, but this is likely to begin in Kosovo rather than in Albania.
We have not yet done anything decisive about Kosovo.
We only threaten again and again to take action, one example being the various air manoeuvres which in any case came to nothing.
Our credibility has suffered greatly, and we should at long last present a more resolute front to the dictator, Milosevic, and commit ourselves more strongly to finding a solution in Kosovo.
We hope that the situation in Albania will then soon ease.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the murder of any politician, whichever side he belongs to, is repugnant to every true democrat. In this particular case it throws into sharp focus Albania's pressing need for political, institutional, cultural and economic - but above all ethical and moral - reconstruction.
Those who, like myself, have had the opportunity to speak with Albanian refugees in Italy know that what they need more than anything else is a government, that government which it is so difficult to rebuild in such tormented circumstances.
But the main reason for EU intervention is that, otherwise, the welcome being given to the Albanians by certain countries including Italy could turn to indifference, to general paternalism, the source of further problems and not a solution to the existing ones.
Mr President, after the events of last year there were high hopes when at last democratic solutions were found and elections and parliamentary alliances finally produced a new government under Fatos Nano, who had been illegitimately imprisoned.
That government has achieved some important steps.
It imposed relative calm in the country, restored a number of basic functions in the fields of public economy and administration, and pursued a moderate and realistic foreign policy, mainly thanks to the assistance and encouragement of the international community and the European Union.
It has not completed certain basic constitutional and administrative reforms, and has recently been facing a complex crisis in Kosovo.
Some people in Albania have grasped that opportunity to try and create unrest and reclaim the power they recently lost, by exploiting the national sentiments of the Albanian people and pushing them into an impasse, in a nationalistic and irredeemable direction, taking advantage of the country's social and economic conditions and of the government's dispassionate attitude towards the illegal possession of thousands of hidden weapons.
That is the opportunistic and irresponsible way in which Mr Berisha is behaving, with his inflammatory statements and actions.
Such behaviour is dangerous for Albania and for the whole of south-east Europe.
It destabilizes the fragile political order in Albania and increases the risk of dangerous interventions in the Kosovo crisis - and let us not forget that.
It could lead to new waves of refugees, which we are already seeing in Greece and Italy.
We cannot undermine the legitimacy of the elected Albanian government by keeping equal distance from it and from the armed factions which dispute it, calling for new governments in which the armed groups too participate.
It is a different thing for us to ask the Albanian government to show prudence and moderation in consolidating the democratic regime and legitimacy.
So far it has shown signs of doing so, and it merits our assistance in every way in the economic and political sectors.
Mr President, anyone who knows anything about the situation in Albania knows that it is extremely serious both socially and economically and from a humanitarian point of view, and they know that what is needed from both government and opposition now and in the future is restraint.
Restraint in overcoming political differences, and willingness to talk.
What this means now, in my view, is that the Fatos Nano government must do everything it can to find out who was responsible for the murder of Azem Hajdari, and also, first and foremost, that Mr Berisha and the democratic party must stop the provocation of the last week and their polarisation strategy of recent months.
What happened last week was just the latest in a long line of incidents triggered by Mr Berisha over the last few months and we need to put a stop to them.
I would therefore - and I hope the resolution will be adopted - urge everyone in the House who has supported Mr Berisha in the past to pass on the message that restraint and dialogue are the only solution to the situation in Albania.
Mr President, in the opinion of Alleanza Nazionale, the terrible crisis afflicting Albania - amply demonstrated by the events of the past few days - not only derives from institutional, economic and social shortcomings, but finds its roots and apparently inexhaustible succour in the loss of civic and moral values by most of the Albanian population.
A few pathetic, incorrigible hard-liners, nostalgic for five-year plans and massed crowds marching towards bright futures, venture to blame evil capitalists and the market economy, but clearly this disaster is the consequence of decades of Communist collectivism, where no initiative could be taken unless it was authorised by the party nomenklatura, and where individual enterprise was crushed by the worst of the East European Communist dictatorships.
So, present-day events are showing us that the only defence left to the Albanian population has been to resort to pre-industrial, pre-democratic values based on clans and tribes. Meanwhile the flight of illegal immigrants to Italy seems unstoppable.
Vast areas of the countryside have been transformed into drug plantations, and prostitution and trafficking in stolen cars flourish under the direction of various Albanian bosses.
The first political judgement we can make is that the international mission led by Italy has been a failure, and the reasons are probably the self-imposed limits to its intervention and the lack of coordination between its different components.
In conclusion, the European Union cannot but take a joint approach both to crises occurring on its borders and to those in the Mediterranean basin.
Mr President, obviously the Commission is also extremely concerned at the recent events in Albania.
The assassination of Mr Hajdari, a leading politician in the Democratic Party, and the unrest which followed, if it was indeed a result of that, reveal the considerable instability within the country.
Increased violence obviously makes national reconciliation more difficult, even more difficult than it has been until recently.
It is therefore fundamental, we agree, to establish calm and public order, and to carry out an investigation into the assassination and the mayhem which followed it.
At the same time, all interested parties should try to contain the situation, both in their statements and actions.
We welcome the fact that Mr Berisha has already called for moderation although the calls for Prime Minister Nano to resign will not help to resolve the situation.
We also think that it is inappropriate and disproportionate to request the waiving of Mr Berisha's parliamentary immunity and that of other members of parliament belonging to the Democratic Party with the aim of arresting them. That obviously would suggest that the aim of the unrest was a coup d'état, which is not what we think.
It is important to restore a climate for political dialogue and, from this point of view, we should support all mediation efforts, both those by the President, Mr Meidani, and by Ambassador Everts on behalf of the OSCE.
Obviously we hope that the Democratic Party will take an active part in these talks.
The main aim of the European Union's strategy must be to continue to help Albania work towards political stability, recovery and democratisation.
Obviously, issues of public order and security are some of the most vital political priorities.
We are waiting for the WEU to propose a document containing options on strengthening public order and security, so that we can decide which actions we could support apart from those that we are already supporting.
One thing is for sure: Albania is part of Europe and insecurity in Albania does not help to stabilise the Balkans.
What is currently happening in the former Yugoslavia and in Kosovo is more than enough for us to deal with.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, this is the third time this year that we have had to have an urgent debate on the deteriorating situation in Burma, and the third time that we have had to ask the Council and the Commission to take stronger measures against one of the most malignant regimes in the world.
Let me give you some examples of what they do.
Members of the opposition are systematically arrested, imprisoned, disappear, are tortured and killed.
In the last two weeks alone 187 members of the NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi's party, were arrested and imprisoned.
This brings the total number of MPs and party leaders imprisoned since the beginning of the year to 783, 196 of them elected members of parliament.
Aung San Suu Kyi herself is under permanent restraint.
This summer we have seen her twice detained on a bridge outside Rangoon, and prevented from talking to her supporters.
Just yesterday she was again threatened by the military authorities, who warned her that if she continues to speak out against the government she will be imprisoned.
What is the European Union doing about all this? Burma's minorities are still suffering repression.
They are used as forced labour on a huge scale and treated so badly that 130 000 have fled across the border and are now in refugee camps in Thailand, Malaysia and Bangladesh.
I spent two weeks visiting those camps and I was shocked at the terrible stories I heard.
What is the European Union doing about the refugees who are sent back from Bangladesh simply to be used for forced labour again? What is the European Union doing about this?
Then there are the enormous quantities of drugs that Burmese farmers produce, often under duress, making Burma the largest exporter of drugs in the world, bigger even than Columbia, for example. What is the European Union doing about this?
We have taken certain steps, but I have to say that they have done nothing to change the situation.
What we urgently want to see, and I am speaking here for the whole House, are measures such as those backed by the United States, in other words a ban on investment and a total economic boycott.
That seems to be the only thing likely to make this terrible regime think again.
Commissioner, do something, put proposals to the Council and make it take action.
Mr President, Commissioner, for ten years now Aung San Suu Kyi has been calling for democracy in Burma.
We have become used to it.
For ten years now life has been made impossible for her party and for her herself.
Fortunately their activities have drawn the attention of the world press, but she is occasionally forced to take the rare step of appearing or going into hiding in unusual places in order to keep that attention focused.
Fortunately the students have now taken up the gauntlet and thousands of them demonstrated to commemorate the violent clampdown of August 1988.
It was the biggest demonstration since 1996.
The international community must not forget Burma, which is rightly one of only five countries which does not have relations with the Union.
But, as Mrs Maij-Weggen said, we need to go further.
The fact that democracy and human rights are being repressed justifies an economic boycott. It is quite simple.
Foreign investors are the lifeline of this military regime, and half of the profit that the Burmese junta makes from investment goes to the army.
We must go through with the boycott, otherwise the pressure on the regime will achieve nothing.
Mr President, Commissioner, I shall not look in detail at our motion for a resolution which, of course, condemns the Burmese military junta and calls for political prisoners to be freed, including the many members of parliament elected in 1990 and arrested a few days ago, and which refuses to accept Burma's participation in the EU-ASEAN and ASEM meetings and, through Amendment No 7 bis, calls on the European Union not to contribute to the controversial UNDCP project in Burma.
I would like to take this opportunity to say that, within the framework of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, and on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on 2 September I put forward a proposal - which was accepted by the Committee - that we should launch the operation 'One thousand Members of Parliament for Burma' .
One thousand members of parliament, as Michel Rocard proposed, including MEPs and MPs from the 15 European Union countries represented in this House - and I call on all my colleagues to sign up for this operation that we intend to launch - and from the Interparliamentary Union, so that this junta, which is both deaf and blind and only survives thanks to the drugs it trafficks, finally understands that it is faced with a large majority of elected representatives from the world's democratic systems. What is more, this is the best support we can give to this wonderful woman Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi.
Mr President, the three things we have to have an impact on in Burma to make the regime change are drugs, oil and tourism.
All three were highlighted in a recent film by John Pilger on British television when he took secret cameras into Burma and filmed the slave labour from the prison camps under armed guard being used to build new tourist projects - a re-enactment of the building of the bridge under the Japanese terror in the Second World War.
We must put a stop and try to boycott - and encourage everybody else to boycott - any tourist developments within Burma.
The European Union has a special responsibility because the major investors are in Europe.
Premier Oil from the UK and Total from France are the major investors in oil.
If the US Government was rather more active in stopping the drugs trade emanating from Burma than it is compared to South America, that would also be more effective.
So if we deal with these three things, we might convince the SLORC that it is time to change and to restore democracy to Burma.
Mr President, I would merely like, on behalf of my group, to draw attention to the fact that in paragraph 2 they have criticised the Commission on one point, which is something that we have never done before in this House.
Until now, we have always supported the Council and the Commission, of course, when they have made a statement against extra-territorial actions.
You will surely remember the lively Helms-Burton and d'Amato debates which we had here in the House.
We have held many debates, and the Commission and the Council have always had our full support.
I would like to ask you to change 'criticises' in paragraph 2 to 'notes' .
This is a neutral observation.
It would be in line with our overall policy.
If you cannot approve this, we will be in danger of no longer being able to explain our policy in future to the United States, which has always taken the same line on this (it is also the only one the State of Massachusetts follows).
It will make our policy illogical, which will lead to a situation where the Americans laugh at us and we make ourselves look ridiculous.
I would ask you to amend this point.
I would be very pleased if the Greens and also the conservatives in this House could support this.
I believe that this was probably simply a small mistake.
I do not believe that the House has suddenly changed its political beliefs from those it had in all the other resolutions and decisions that we have drafted thus far.
Afghanistan
Mr President, the tragic death of Colonel Calò, a United Nations officer, is the ninth in Afghanistan since the beginning of the year.
The treatment meted out to women and, more generally, the lack of respect for human rights are there for everyone to see.
The West, and the European Union in particular, could find themselves caught unawares by the Afghan question, out of a misguided sense of respect for cultures different from our own.
Human rights are fundamental, the rule of law is fundamental, and both transcend cultures.
We must have the courage to assert this with determination, so that the Taliban regime, recognised by only a very few States, soon has to either change course or step aside.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think we need to dwell too much on descriptions of the regime installed by the Taliban.
We are well aware of what it means in terms of fundamental human rights violations.
I would particularly like to draw the attention of the Commissioner and the Council, which is notable by its absence, to a problem that concerns not only Afghanistan, but also - as Mrs Maij-Weggen mentioned earlier in relation to Burma - the huge programmes aimed at wiping out drug cultivation.
Mrs Maij-Weggen said that in Burma drug cultivation was on the increase.
The same is true of Afghanistan.
And this occurs in spite of our very costly programmes which have been implemented by a special kind of taliban, by Mr Harlaki, of the UNDCP.
Consequently, our motion for a resolution calls on the Council and the Commission to intervene so that, at least in countries where there is a dictatorial regime such as Afghanistan and Burma, these inefficient and very costly programmes are withdrawn at the earliest possible moment.
Mr President, here we are talking about Afghanistan again, and there is no end in sight!
If the Taliban in Afghanistan did not already have a reputation for disregarding all rights, we would have to remind one another of it daily.
Who, apart from those in power - that is, those in possession of weapons - still has rights in this country once known as the land of the free? Contempt for human beings, in particular contempt for the rights of women and for political rights, is bad enough, but terrorism and massacres for ethnic reasons and murder are even worse.
However, refusing one's own people humanitarian aid is among the worst.
Drugs cultivation has also been mentioned.
We fully support this resolution's request to the European Union, the UN and the UNDP to revise their programmes and introduce new measures to ensure that the money which we really urgently need in other areas does not fall into the wrong hands.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the violence of the Taliban regime, the widespread suppression, the violation of fundamental human rights, the international impact and the danger of an escalation of the conflict beyond Afghanistan, are all increasing daily.
The European Parliament must, therefore, call upon the international community finally to take coherent action.
Priority must be given to affording the international aid organisations the necessary diplomatic protection to allow them to continue their work to help the impoverished Afghan population.
This requires decisive and coherent action from the international community.
It means that an attempt must be made to put an end to any form of support for the Taliban regime.
The EU must bring pressure to bear on those states which, on the grounds of cynical political calculation, will still not stop at using the Taliban to further their own interests.
Death penalty
Mr President, we have here three resolutions on the death penalty in the Philippines, in Gaza and in El Salvador.
Three death penalties in three different continents.
The death penalty cannot be changed once it has been carried out, but the reasons for which it is imposed are varied and some of these certainly can be changed.
From the point of view of human rights, therefore, the death penalty should not exist
We in the House have opposed the death penalty for a long time, and for this reason we call upon all three countries not only to refrain from executing the death sentences imposed, but also to amend their laws so as to abolish the death penalty or prevent its introduction.
The death penalty has not been applied in the Philippines since 1976.
In Gaza, human rights organisations have criticised both the procedure and its enforcement.
In El Salvador, circumstances are somewhat different.
It is planned to introduce it there, but a three-quarters majority is required to do so, which is why it is not even being put to the vote.
So we should not really even be voting on this issue, but if a vote is taken we would like to ask the other groups to adopt our amendment, in the interests of cooperation and equal treatment.
However, our main demand is still that the death penalty should be abolished or not introduced.
Mr President, human dignity is inviolable, and the motives for the death penalty are contrary to human dignity.
I believe that the House is in agreement on this.
The right to life, contempt for state murder under the pretext of punishment, the risk of miscarriage of justice, the disproportionate number of victims among the poor, and violations of human rights by the criminal prosecution authorities are, at least in the Philippines, where 600 are currently under sentence of death, arguments for upholding the moratorium and appealing to the newly elected president to exercise his authority and adhere to the aim of abolishing the death penalty.
Leo Echegaray's repulsive crime must not be used as a pretext for getting round this policy.
I think that we should be in agreement on taking joint action on this.
Mr President, the Liberal Group is vehemently opposed to the death penalty.
There is no crime that can justify murder.
It is also certainly not an effective instrument of criminal justice, either in Europe or anywhere else in the world, and this is why my group is very concerned at the recent developments in the Palestinian territories.
Two people have been executed there recently and President Arafat refused to exercise his prerogative to commute the sentence despite appeals for him to do so.
At a time when the movement against the death penalty is gaining support throughout the world, the Palestinians are going in the opposite direction.
Fortunately a great deal of criticism has been voiced within the Palestinian community, and it is to be hoped that criticism at home and abroad will persuade Mr Arafat and his supporters not to allow any more executions to take place and to make appropriate changes to legislation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make particular reference to the motion for a resolution tabled by the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party on a matter which concerns us: the possible extension of the death penalty in El Salvador.
On the one hand, El Salvador will be in breach of the American Convention on Human Rights which it ratified on 23 June 1978 and, on the other hand - as my colleagues Mr Bertens and Mrs Lenz have pointed out - it will also go against the position of the European institutions and of this Parliament itself.
I believe it is time to voice our concerns following the introduction of the proposal in the El Salvador Legislative Assembly by President Armando Calderón on 27 July.
We hope that the motion will not be ratified, but think it is necessary to inform the El Salvador Parliament of our opposition to this matter and also to show that we intend to support the amendment tabled by the Group of the European People's Party.
Mr President, our group has for a long time rejected and fought against the death penalty.
This is because we believe that with such a fundamental right, moderation becomes a vice when compromise is rejected.
This is why we reject the death penalty, not only in El Salvador, but in China and the United States too, because we believe that if there is one thing that should be advocated in relation to human rights, it is their global and universal character.
This is why I believe it is important that this Parliament, in developing its international initiatives, should not apply double standards.
For example, this week we have been discussing transatlantic relations and it has not occurred to anyone to question our relations with the United States, where the death penalty is still used quite frequently. Neither has anyone imposed any conditions for relations with the United States.
This is why we condemn the death penalty with the same vehemence that we condemn the terms used in paragraph two of the motion for a resolution, which makes cooperation with a sovereign country like El Salvador - a positive and active partner of the European Union - subject to certain conditions.
Mr President, I should like to make the following point in reply to what Mrs Lenz, Mr Salafranca and of course Mr Gasóliba said: what is happening in El Salvador is a dangerous development and the president is sending out the wrong signal in seeking to extend the scope of the death penalty.
I do not think that it was really the intention of President Calderon and the El Salvador Assembly to breach the 1978 American Convention on Human Rights, under which capital punishment is banned.
I can reassure our colleagues in the PPE Group that the Liberal Group will of course be voting for the amendment linking European aid and relations with the non-adoption of this law.
In other words we will do as Mrs Lenz asked.
Mr President, in discussing these three motions for resolutions, we are in fact talking about specific situations which are clearly unacceptable, namely, the executions that have taken place on territories under President Arafat's administration and the proposals that are being debated and discussed in El Salvador and the Philippines.
In this last case, Amnesty International has just condemned the fact that, if the moratorium on executions is lifted, one of the first victims could be a deaf-mute who has not even been able to hear the accusations levelled against him during his trial and of course has not had the opportunity to express his point of view.
Lastly, the key issue here is that on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights we could find ourselves taking a huge step backwards if, out of these three countries, the moratorium is lifted in two of them; in one the scope of the death penalty is extended; and in another more capital punishments are carried out.
My outright rejection of the death penalty was reflected in the words used by my colleague Mr Salafranca.
Cambodia
Mr President, our group tabled an urgent motion for a resolution on Cambodia to put forward three main points.
Firstly, if the conditions in which the elections took place on 26 July were not entirely satisfactory - and they were far from it - it seems clear to everyone that we will not be able to build a democratic and peaceful future in Cambodia if this vote is disallowed.
It is necessary therefore for everyone to accept it, even though, I repeat, voting conditions were not satisfactory.
Secondly, no political party, following these elections, is in a position to claim power on its own constitutionally and so a moral, political and constitutional obligation was created for the three main parties to cooperate.
What is more, since we tabled this motion for a resolution - and perhaps this is a sign of the efficiency of this Parliament - these three parties have made unquestionable progress in terms of collaboration.
Thirdly, over the past few weeks, the Khmer government authorities have behaved in a worrying manner and they need to be aware that the European Union will not accept any measures to undermine either the spirit of the Paris agreements or the fundamental right of the opposition to express its views and hold demonstrations.
We will not tolerate the threats opposition leaders have received to their freedom and lives.
To counter this we have an important lever in the form of European and international aid.
This is, to our minds - and this needs to be stressed - inextricably linked to respect for the Paris agreements and to the reestablishment by all the parties involved, and in particular the party that controls the armed forces, of an attitude based on compromise and interpartisan agreement which will help to restore peace.
Mr President, as I am sure you know, I was present in Cambodia as an election observer on behalf of this Parliament.
I must say that the elections were, on the whole, fair and just, and 96 % of the European observers and 93 % of other international observers agreed on this.
What is very unfortunate, as in the case of Albania, is that those who lost are not prepared to recognise the result of this election.
However, there has been a welcome turn of events, in that the second largest party, the royalist FUNCINPEC, has given up its parliamentary boycott and will take part in parliamentary work.
This does not yet mean that they are prepared to take joint parliamentary responsibility, but a considerable force in the country has nevertheless given up its boycott, which may contribute greatly to bringing peace to this country.
This is what the country needs most urgently and what we must support.
I regret that I cannot comment more specifically on this.
We can endorse the resolution, but I would ask for an addition to take account of this latest development, which is, after all, a positive one.
Mr President, I really wonder whether the elections that were held in Cambodia could possibly have been free and above board.
I myself was an observer at the elections organised by the United Nations four years ago, the largest peace operation which the United Nations has ever carried out in the area.
In a country shunned by political leaders for years and where they were not even welcome, you can hardly expect the political climate to be neutral.
The way in which the media were refused access to a number of political parties which were not in power was highly significant.
The results are clear.
Whoever the winner was, one thing is clear: democracy and the people of Cambodia are still the losers.
Political demonstrations are the logical follow-up.
We have already seen this and heard it, and for now all we can do is to call, quite simply but sincerely, for dialogue and for restraint from all parties.
Hun Sen must be made to realise that he can forget about international support if he continues down the path he has chosen of ruling on his own instead of by coalition.
I have to say that I agree with Mrs Junker's amendment, which was tabled too late.
Equal rights for homosexuals
Mr President, for many years the European Parliament has tried to eliminate criminal legislation discriminating against gay and lesbian relationships, and it has done so successfully, as the Member States of the European Union have gradually abolished all such provisions, with the exception of Austria.
I very much regret this and, therefore, hope that a large majority will vote in favour of the resolution being debated here today.
I would add that the European Union is constantly described as a community of values, and this includes human rights.
Therefore, I consider it to be really reprehensible, particularly in the case of human rights issues, that an objection on the grounds of interference in internal affairs should be raised in a debate of this kind.
That is what has happened in this case, and I think it is important that the European Parliament remains consistent and makes itself heard on human rights issues, even if this is unpleasant for my own country.
Human rights represent a significant part of the European Union and, particularly in view of the forthcoming enlargement of the EU, it is important that the current Members have a clean record in the area of human rights.
That is what this resolution is for.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, while we are here debating in the European Parliament, those who drafted this resolution are in Austria being publicly accused by the Christian Democrats of fouling their own nests.
Regardless of this slander, we believe that human rights are indivisible.
This Parliament is a reliable voice for human rights, but sometimes we have the impression that this voice grows louder with distance and quieter the closer we are to a place where human rights are being violated; if it happens within our own ranks, this voice often becomes almost inaudible.
Parliament, the European Commission of Human Rights and the Council of Europe have in numerous resolutions and declarations described the difference in the minimum age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual activities as a violation of human rights.
It is not acceptable for countries to distance themselves from these human rights and to continue to practise their traditional antipathy, moralising arrogance and hubris on innocent people and violate people's privacy in order to indulge their own feelings of resentment.
I believe that it is time to treat these parties here in the European Parliament with the same intolerance as we treat other human rights violators throughout the world.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I would like to welcome the fact that we are today discussing the discrimination that continues to exist on the grounds of sexual orientation, both in our Member States and in applicant countries.
As an Austrian Member of Parliament I, like the previous speaker, regret that our country has not yet succeeded in eliminating from the penal code one of the main forms of discrimination, the different age of consent for heterosexuals and homosexuals.
Mrs Flemming, the protection of girls should be as important a concern for us as the protection of boys.
Repeated attempts in Parliament have failed due to the opposition of the conservative parties.
It is because of this that in Austria alone we have approximately 20 convictions every year under this discriminatory offence.
This does not set a good example to those countries wishing to join the Union and which we expect to maintain the highest of standards in this as in other areas.
In discussion, certain political groups always deny that non-discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation is a human right.
It was only after the decision of the European Commission of Human Rights in the Sutherland case that this issue received a very positive response, and it was made clear that a different age of consent contravened Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
I find it equally difficult to understand the argument that the EU bodies and in particular the European Parliament do not have the power to deal with this issue.
As a Union we were already obliged to respect human rights, and since the Amsterdam Treaty came into force we are even more so.
This will give us the chance - however inadequate - to achieve something.
It is well known that, in future, the Council - even if only by unanimous vote - could take the necessary steps to combat discrimination on grounds of sex, race, ethnic origin, religion, ideology, disability, age or sexual orientation.
The Commission will have the right of initiative for this.
In conclusion, therefore, I would like to ask the Commission whether it has any plans to make use of this right of initiative.
Mr President, let me first make it quite clear, though this is not meant to be an apology in advance for what I am about to say, that I do not make the mistake of lumping all homosexuals in the same category as those that display such bad taste in the 'pink parades' we sometimes see in my country.
I respect everyone's right to privacy and no-one can accuse me of homophobia.
But I have to say that I find it completely indefensible that this resolution should be classified as a particularly urgent and important issue and even worse that it should be dealt with under the heading of human rights.
In my opinion this is positively insulting to those facing genuinely serious and urgent problems, and I think we can safely say that the problems confronting people in Tibet, Iran, Cambodia and elsewhere are far more serious than what we are discussing today.
I also think that we tend to be extremely offhand in the way we deal with the protection of minors these days.
I applaud responsible politicians for not systematically lowering the age of consent, and I also think that we must respect the different traditions which the Member States have here, even where the minimum ages for heterosexual and homosexual relations are different.
I think that anyone like myself who has children of 13 or 14 should really consider whether they want to see their children involved in sexual experiments with 17- or 18-year-olds, for example.
As far as I am concerned - and this may sound oldfashioned but I am not ashamed to say so - I cannot approve of it and I believe that the vast majority of those who elected the Members of this Parliament would not approve of it either.
Sudan
Mr President, Sudan is the sort of country that Mr Vanhecke was talking about.
350 000 people are facing death for the umpteenth time and the Sudanese government is refusing to allow humanitarian aid through or to help it to be distributed.
It is an unpardonable crime against humanity, and we have said time and time again that we must do something to stop it.
The international community must be prepared to make sure that its humanitarian aid reaches those hundreds of thousands of people instead of being used as a pawn in a political power game.
We have tabled this motion for a resolution now because the ACP Assembly is due to meet next week in Brussels, and the Sudanese delegation is bound to complain again about the US bombardment and missile attacks and the suffering they caused.
I could tell you now, word for word, exactly what the representative of the Sudanese parliament, if we can call it that, will say.
I do not want to say anything about the American attack, of course, but I would like to point out that Sudan has now found yet another reason to suspend talks with the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the countries surrounding Sudan which are trying to broker peace between Sudan and the south.
As you know, there has been civil war there since 1956 but nothing was known about it until CNN began its broadcasts, because nothing exists without CNN.
I hope that if this motion is adopted the European representatives at the ACP Assembly will make the point to the Sudanese that this is not just another resolution, but a resolution supported by the delegation and the whole of Parliament.
Mr President, when I spoke on the threatened war against Iraq in January and February of this year, I called it 'the war of Mr Clinton's penis' .
I have to say that the bombing of Khartoum in Sudan - for which we have an amendment from the Greens - could be described as 'the war of Monica Lewinsky's dress' .
You will remember it was three days into the hearings and was clearly a device to distract the world's attention from the Starr report and to reinforce Mr Clinton's image.
That is why we have put this amendment down.
We do not like the Sudanese regime, but we certainly do not approve of the American bombing of Sudan - or indeed Afghanistan.
It is quite clear that there was no evidence at all that this was a weapons factory.
It was a pharmaceutical plant, as lots of technicians testify, producing drugs to help people in Africa.
So whilst the resolution rightly condemns the Sudanese regime, we also want to condemn the United States Government.
We hope we will get support from all Socialists, including new Labour Members.
I am sure the President himself will be voting for this amendment.
I look forward to his support.
Thank you for warning me.
Mr President, I shall try to be as brief as possible.
As far as the situation in Burma is concerned I should like to tell the European Parliament that in July the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Manuel Marín, and the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Wolfgang Schüssel, met the Burmese Minister of Foreign Affairs in order to express the European Union's condemnation of the country's treatment of Aung San Sun Kyi and other opposition politicians.
Later, on 9 September, the Presidency of the European Union issued a statement on behalf of the European Union condemning the detention of opposition activists, a statement that obviously deserves the Commission's full support.
I should also like to say that the Commission is still loath to support the United Nations Programme for the International Control of Drugs, designed to cut opium production in Burma, since under the present regime this project is unlikely to make any progress.
The European Union's position on Burma will be reassessed in October to decide how the current position might be changed, if at all, as of 19 October.
I should now like to make three brief comments.
As far as sanctions are concerned I should like to stress what was said by Mrs Erika Mann on extra-territoriality.
You will recall that the European Union was and is involved in a battle with the United States in the World Trade Organisation, because we fully reject the idea of the extra-territoriality of laws.
In this particular case, it seems that Massachusetts intended to apply sanctions to companies which entertained any form of economic relations with Burma, be they American or foreign, in particular European.
Under no circumstances, as a matter of principle, can we accept this approach.
That does not mean that we cannot regard the use of sanctions as something positive but those sanctions have to be applied in the context of the international community and according to rules accepted by everyone.
I should also like to say that the ASEAN forum will definitely be used by the European Union once again to raise the question of political rights in Burma.
Finally, we have decided to fund jointly with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation the opening in Brussels of a Euro-Burma Office to publicise the situation and put pressure on the Burmese authorities.
As far as Afghanistan is concerned, I think that everything has been said.
I should like simply to emphasise that, apart from our concern over the massacres in Mazar-I-Sharif and other equally dreadful situations, we are convinced that in no way can Afghanistan be considered as applying the law correctly.
Similarly, we feel that human rights, in particular those of minorities or women, are afforded no protection whatsoever in the country.
We have experienced certain difficulties with the Afghan authorities in conveying the idea that humanitarian aid has to be linked to certain basic principles of human dignity.
We are trying to negotiate with the Afghan authorities ways and means of being able, once again, to support those very minorities which are most vulnerable and least protected.
You already know, and I confirm, that we continue to think that we should not formally recognise the Taliban movement and that we should continue the ban on all forms of trade links with the Taliban regime. We also still think that the problem of Afghanistan cannot be solved by military means or interference by neighbouring countries.
On that score, that I should like to say that my colleague, Emma Bonino, who has had first-hand experience of the Afghan situation, is still extremely active, both as Commissioner and as a woman who defends women's rights and human rights in general, in her attempts to change the state of affairs there.
I think that we should pay a great tribute to her for her efforts which are so difficult and sometimes so little understood.
As far as the death penalty is concerned I should like once again to emphasise the fact that the Commission can take no other position than to support its general abolition, since from our point of view it does nothing to promote human dignity or develop human rights, nor has it been demonstrated to reduce crime.
We recently made this clear to President Arafat of the Palestinian Authority, we have high hopes regarding El Salvador and, in the case of the Philippines, we hope that the moratorium will continue to be applied.
As far as the situation in Cambodia is concerned, I should like to say that I fully agree with what Mr Bourlanges said. He very clearly indicated the various factors involved in Cambodia.
I repeat that, regardless of what has been traditional practice, we support this resolution without any reservation.
As far as homosexuals' rights are concerned, I would draw your attention to the following: all Member States of the European Union are signatories to the European Convention on Human Rights; the recent Amsterdam Treaty, in particular Article 6A, stipulates that we must fight all forms of discrimination based on sex, race, ethnic origin, religion, conviction, disability, age or sexual orientation.
As a result the Commission can act in any of these areas to combat any discrimination that might take place.
Similarly, in respect of the accession of future Member States, it is obvious that these rules will also be applicable to applicant countries.
I am referring in particular to a provision in the Romanian Criminal Code, Section 200, which we hope will be amended as quickly as possible.
Finally, concerning Sudan, I must say that the problem of Sudan is an old one, a serious one, and one which led to the suspension of cooperation relations between the European Union and that country. There have been various attempts to bring about constructive talks with the Sudanese government and to support mediation attempts.
We welcome the recently agreed cease-fire, for a period of three months, and we hope that it will be extended, not only in time but also geographically, so that humanitarian aid can reach the people there.
This is something of an encouraging sign.
It is also encouraging that the parties in the conflict, as a result of mediation by IGADD, have also decided to meet once again in Nairobi in six months' time.
This is positive since the round of talks which took place recently was unfortunately marred by an incident due to a lack of consensus on the solutions found.
The European Union actively supports IGADD mediation and the efforts being made by IGADD's forum of partners but we repeat that in no way can we consider at present resuming cooperation with Sudan, because sadly the principles that led us to suspend that cooperation still apply.
Mr President, Mr Bertens and I have not quite gathered - our Portuguese is not very good - whether the Commission is now prepared to consider a proposal for a ban on investment in Burma to be submitted to the Council.
We did not hear the Commissioner's answer on this specific point - could he repeat what he said?
For the third time this year we have asked the same crucial question in our motion for a resolution on Burma: is the Commission is prepared to follow the United States' lead by submitting a proposal to the Council for a ban on investment in Burma?
That is the central issue, and since neither Mr Bertens nor I were able to understand the first part of the Commissioner's speech in Portuguese, I would ask him to give us a clear reply to our question.
It is the focal point of the motion.
I can answer some of the questions on sanctions.
The Commission is not empowered to impose sanctions.
It is up to the Council, and on the basis of respect for our international commitments.
You cannot impose sanctions that go against some of the things to which we subscribe.
That does not mean that sanctions are altogether excluded but we will have to watch it carefully, in order, for instance, not to put into question the GPA, the agreement made on government procurement, in the WTO.
That is one example.
Sanctions are not excluded, but first we have to have a political decision by the Council, and then we have to study technically how we can introduce them without putting in danger some other signatories to some international agreements.
Have you followed me now?
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, the sheer scale of the unprecedented flooding in China has prompted me to put down this motion for resolution expressing sympathy with the people and Government of China.
The entire Yangtze valley and its tributaries have been flooded - a region in which 380 million people live, as many people as live in the European Union.
Thirteen million hectares of crops have been destroyed which would be, I imagine, sufficient food to feed 80 to 100 million people.
Three thousand people have lost their lives.
I suspect that many more lives will be lost.
Five million homes have been swept away and $20 billion worth of economic damage has been done to the country, 4-5 % of GNP.
I want to impress on the Commission and the Community the importance of showing sympathy and solidarity with China in this horrific disaster and urgently extending what help they can.
Mr President, I am sympathetic to the people of China, who have made enormous efforts to combat the floods.
But I have to say that one reason for the floods was that the Chinese regime has systematically deforested and destroyed the environment in many areas, not only in China, but in Tibet, which they are still illegally occupying.
They are now suffering the consequences.
That is what I told the Chinese Consul when he came to see me this week.
I think the Chinese have now learned a lesson: they are going to have to reafforest, take care of the hydraulic system which coped with the floods for hundreds of years and try to protect the environment instead of raping it, as the Chinese regime has done over the past 40 years.
Mr President, in my country, the Netherlands, we too have suffered floods on a number of occasions.
There is certainly no comparison in terms of the scale of the disaster, but there are similarities.
In both cases environmental damage was the main cause.
In the Netherlands it was high density development on the river banks and the lack of water storage capacity that caused the floods.
In China it is widespread deforestation and the construction of a dam on the Yangtse river that have been largely responsible for the flooding.
I welcome the fact that the Chinese authorities have now become aware of the ecological problems that have caused this disaster, and I am delighted that the Chinese government has banned tree-felling along the Yangtse river.
But I hope it will not stop there.
I would urge the Chinese government to continue its policy of discouraging deforestation, and I rely on the Commission to support this policy in order to prevent such disasters from happening in the future.
Floods in Bangladesh
Mr President, I am talking about the floods in Bangladesh and China.
The situation is almost unprecedented.
I realise that in both countries a contribution has been made by a lack of attention to the environment, but nevertheless, the major cause is clearly climatic rather than anything else - partly precipitated by changes to the global climate regime.
In China it is the worst floods in 40 years, affecting 240 million people - one-fifth of the population.
In Bangladesh 30 million people are directly affected and 10 million need urgent financial aid.
The Bangladesh Government appealed for $576 million of assistance and many people in the European Union - tens of thousands - have been moved by the graphic pictures they have seen of the devastation in both these countries.
Of course we welcome the fact that ECHO has put in ECU 1 million but it seems less than fully adequate.
Last week-end I was at Holy Trinity church in Ashton-under-Lyne in my constituency at a function and it was decided that the traditional collection there, which normally goes to church funds, would be made available to alleviate the suffering caused by the flooding.
The Commission can take note of this and find other ways to give short-term humanitarian aid to both these countries.
At the same time, as it says in the resolution, in Bangladesh and China it will be useful for us to give long-term technical assistance to help them alleviate some of these problems that may be caused by a lack of attention to the environment but it is in everybody's interest to ensure that both in China and Bangladesh these issues are solved in the longer term and do not reoccur.
Mr President, the presentation of the resolution on forest fires in southern Europe is not intended as a ritual act: as in every other year, once the summer is over we come back and talk about fires.
Certainly not!
Unfortunately fires have become a veritable scourge for Europe: many lives are lost and irreparable damage is done to flora and fauna.
Sadly, this year's toll has again been a severe one.
But whereas the environmental, economic and social consequences are serious, the reasons for the fires remain an equally serious cause for concern.
Climatic conditions have undoubtedly played their part, but it has to be noted with regret that criminal action has much to do with the spread of this phenomenon in southern Europe.
The response of the various EU countries' governments to arson, which could be described as eco-terrorism, has proved inadequate.
The problem must therefore be raised once again at Community level, not merely to ask the Commission for a detailed report on the damaged areas, and not merely to request special aid for the stricken areas, but to pose a broader problem.
We ask that more attention be devoted to forestry under the reform of the common agricultural policy; further, it is increasingly necessary to relaunch the environmental policies with a view to prevention, including education and training work to improve man's respect for the environment, but harsher punishment for arsonists is also needed.
To take up one point from my resolution, I believe that governments should institute a 'crime against the environment' and, above all, create a register of the areas destroyed with a view to establishing an absolute ban on building there. The fact is, speculation remains central to the interests of criminal organisations.
Mr President, if I could begin with what our colleague Mr Burtone has just said, perhaps it would be better if fires were not categorised as 'natural disasters' because they are not natural disasters.
They are disasters caused by man, mostly for base economic reasons, and we find them on the agenda again and again.
Farmers' interests and especially the environment are hardest hit.
This morning we approved a resolution on climate change and one of the sources of CO2 emissions are fires like those that this year occurred not only in Spain and Greece, not only in the south of Europe, but also in Indonesia, Brazil and in many other parts of the world.
I therefore think that measures need to be taken in Europe and in the Member States to improve the Community's forestry policy, and we also need to work on ways of preventing and punishing those who cause disasters of this kind.
Mr President, to be honest, as a colleague pointed out before, the thought of discussing a resolution every September that simply reiterates that tens of thousands of hectares have been devastated in some Mediterranean countries fills me with sadness and even feelings of collective responsibility.
This is because - as Mrs González Álvarez said - we are not talking about natural disasters but very often the irresponsible acts of individuals.
And, sometimes, of institutions.
We must always ask ourselves if we or our national governments are doing enough to prevent this phenomenon from happening every summer.
There are 'base' reasons as was said before, but the lack of coordination in government activities is even more depressing, because we are talking about the protection of nature.
Mr President, all I want to say is that it is highly regrettable that this situation occurs year after year.
Mr President, if it were not so sad, it would be laughable.
Every year, in September or October, we have massive forest fires in southern Europe, and we have had a great many fires, more than 5000 this summer in Greece, sometimes more than 200 a day. And this year, of course, we want to debate the issue again.
As is clear from the resolutions, this is partly due to the fact that we do not really discuss the underlying causes.
These are, firstly, controversial development and, secondly, unsustainable forestry.
We need to do more than discuss a few methods of prevention, airborne firefighting teams, insurance issues and claim settlements.
First of all, we need adequate legislation, full implementation, qualified personnel and effective administration, and rather than lifting controls on development, we need to introduce compulsory reforestation.
Secondly, we need a form of forest management which makes proper use of biodiversity, spatial organisation and the separation of cultivated areas and natural vegetation in order to create forests in the Mediterranean region as they were in 500 BC.
I would now like only to mention one crucial point, which is the danger represented by eucalyptus.
This burns extremely quickly and, in addition, destroys water reserves.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the context of the joint motion for a resolution supported by our group, the Group of the European Radical Alliance, we have tabled three amendments on the methods of combating these scourges, particularly through the establishment of a European fleet of water bombers.
The study we carried out and the statistics published show that an average of 400 000 hectares every year fall prey to forest fires in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and France.
These fires have many different causes and they play a role in upsetting the ecological balance.
They lead to flooding, landslides, climate change and the destruction of flora and fauna.
To fight them, each country has set up airborne teams, and has a system of operating that is difficult to change during the summer period.
As a result, bringing together national resources and making them available to help other countries is becoming a very appealing proposition.
Bilateral agreements have been concluded for land-based civil defence operations, but these do not apply to the airborne fight against fires inside the countries since they only cover the border areas.
Our motion involves providing the relevant countries with the resources they need to fight the fires.
In order to this, we would have to lease five Hercule C 130 type aircraft; this is a very effective land-based aeroplane with delayed dropping and a capacity of 12 tonnes.
The base of this fleet would be established at the most central point of those areas at risk.
This would result in more rapid, decisive intervention, since we know that the power of the resources used, along with the speed of their deployment, together represent the most important factor in the effectiveness of the fight against forest fires.
The cost of this operation for one summer period of three months and for five aircraft, with an approximate one-hour flight, would be approximately ECU 6 million, which could be assumed by the Union and by the countries making use of the facilities.
It is not an exaggeration to say that it is financially viable.
Your agreement on these amendments, ladies and gentlemen, could lead to an own-initiative report, which is likely to confirm the viability of the European fleet of water bombers and allow it to become operational as soon as possible.
Forest fires in Portugal
Mr President, rather than speak about Portugal, where measures, including material means, have been coordinated and there has been a political effort, I should like to take this opportunity to emphasise the overall context of the joint resolution on which we are to vote, a context which underlines the importance of adopting a Community forestry policy along the lines suggested in the Thomas report, taking account of the specific requirements of the Mediterranean region.
I should like to emphasise the need to adapt the forestry policy aspects of the common agricultural policy in future, and also to highlight the importance of regional and local planning for forest areas.
These are regional planning issues and questions of protecting environmental wildlife in southern Europe and in the Mediterranean countries because, when it comes down to it, these September resolutions have resulted from the fact that other measures were not adopted in time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again this summer a large number of huge forest fires hit various southern European countries including Portugal.
First of all, of course, we should think of the victims and call for Community aid.
Apart from the call in the resolution for the Commission to earmark the necessary budgetary amounts, the European Parliament ought also to look into the advantages of creating its own budgetary line for assistance in cases of disasters.
We are aware that some of these fires are of criminal origin while others are the result of climatic changes leading to lengthy droughts and heatwaves.
It is therefore vital to pay more attention to prevention, and greater support will be needed from the European institutions to help increase efficiency in fighting forest fires.
For example, the common agricultural policy could help to prevent these disasters, and a European forestry strategy is also something we should look at. It was supported by the European Parliament when it approved the Thomas report.
For all of these reasons, along with other colleagues we back this motion for a resolution and seek the support of the European Parliament as a whole.
Mr President, I will not take all my speaking time but I cannot speak with all the voices I have around me, so please ask Members to be a little quieter.
It is a fair point, you are quite right.
Would Members please take their seats.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to say that, contrary to the opinion of all those who have claimed that we must set up a complete 'fire industry' to combat fires in the summer, I should like to say that when it comes to Mediterranean forests it is a common mistake to think that fires can be fought in the summer or that fleets of planes or hundreds of firemen are needed.
Mediterranean forest fires must be fought in the winter, in the autumn, in the spring, when there is no heat - in other words, by cleaning and preparing forests, by monitoring them, by sending workers into the forests to clean them up, since generally forests are owned by all kinds of different people and bodies and nowadays they are not populated as they were a hundred years ago.
The only way of protecting forests is by cleaning them up, the only way of protecting forests is by building roads and paths which block fires and prevent them from crossing from one side to the other.
We therefore need to pay forestry workers to create fire-breaks or fire-lanes, 50 to 60 metres wide.
There are areas in Portugal where there are no fires. Why?
They are huge areas but they are guarded and kept clean and they are protected by fire-breaks and fire-lanes.
Otherwise it is not possible.
Here I am speaking of fire disasters because European policy on Mediterranean forests has been a disaster - mainly because of systematic opposition from countries with well-kept forests but also with more temperate, cooler climates than ours.
We have to counteract the idea that fires are fought with the help of planes in the summer.
Fires are fought in the winter by preparing forests so that they do not catch fire.
Colleague, let me interrupt you.
Mr Willockx, it really is very rude to have a series of conversations round the Chamber when someone is trying to speak.
Would the colleagues around Mrs Mann please take their seats.
The speaker is finding himself disturbed by the noise.
Mr President, let us set them on fire!
Forest fires in Greece
Mr President, the facts and results of the forest fires in Greece are well known, and are mentioned in the resolution we are debating, which I of course support.
The consequences for the future are more dramatic: flooding, micro-climatic changes, and the deterioration of the environment and the ecosystem.
Mr President, even at the risk of becoming monotonous, let me repeat the causes: the absence of a land register, which encourages people who presume they are free to encroach upon the land, complete anarchy in the disposal of waste, which leads to illegal landfills that the local authorities cannot or do not wish to control, and unclear laws and shortsighted draft legislation in Greece concerning the reforestation of the areas devastated by fire.
Let me however say a word about the Commission too.
It is not acting as it should.
Since July, following an urgent question of mine, Mr Fischler should to have informed me of the number and efficiency of plans for fire-prevention in Greece.
He did not do so.
That is not just an irregularity, it is a sign of indifference about what happens in Greece, and that neither reflects credit on the Commission nor helps us.
I would also like to thank all those who, from Italy, Germany, France and Russia, by sending pilots and aircraft, helped us this summer to keep the vast damage due to forest fires in our country down to the minimum possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall try to be brief.
On the subject of the floods in China, apart from confirming the numbers already quoted during the debate, I should like to say that ECHO is already present in China although, as you can imagine, the scale of the disaster is such that ECHO is having to concentrate on certain more priority areas and in particular food and medical assistance to the least favoured.
In any case, ECHO has sent its expert to China to identify and assess the needs so that ECHO's actions can also be coordinated on the ground.
I should also add that, as part of the relations between the European Union and China and as suggested in the European Parliament's draft resolution, we can clearly cooperate on offering assistance and co-financing studies aimed at identifying the environmental and other causes and finding possible solutions to these disasters.
As far as Bangladesh is concerned, this is another catastrophe of huge proportions - after all, it has affected 60 % of the country's territory and around 30 million people - and there, too, ECHO is involved with humanitarian assistance, in particular in terms of food and public health.
I can also now announce that a task force has been set up by the Commission, involving ECHO, DG I-B and DG VIII, with the task of ensuring the coordination of the European Union's response or, at least, that of the Commission to the disaster in Bangladesh.
ECU 1 million has already been sent but it is obvious that more will have to be sent since the estimated needs are far greater than that.
As far as the fires are concerned, I should like to say that Community action on forestry, the protection of risk areas and protection measures have always been carried out in close cooperation with the Member States.
I can also say that between 1992 and 1998 around 700 of the fire prevention projects presented by the Member States were approved and received Community co-funding to the order of ECU 84 million.
This cooperation is carried out within the Standing Committee on Forests and, in particular, thanks to the Community system of information on forest fires, a very useful assessment and monitoring instrument which could be more effective had not the budget authority reduced its budget from ECU 23.5 million in 1996 to ECU 16 million in 1998.
I should also like to say that the current regional development programmes include a number of fire prevention measures such as reforestation but, as you know, the Commission does not have the extra funding to assist affected regions.
Any action will have to be part of a reprogramming of the Community support frameworks or of single programming documents negotiated with the Member States.
In response to one Member, I should also say that, as part of Agenda 2000, the Commission is still proposing forest protection and reforestation measures.
Last of all, I should like to inform the European Parliament that the Commission is preparing, on the basis of the Thomas report, a proposal for a European forestry strategy which will obviously be presented to the European Parliament and to the Council - at least we hope - by the end of this legislative period.
Thank you, Commissioner Pinheiro.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the votes.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy first wishes to raise a point of order.
This is not Question Time, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, and we cannot respond to every report that appears in the press.
I note what you say, and we shall see what comes of this report.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has a point of order.
Madam President, I should like to make a personal statement under Rule 108.
A motion for a resolution has been tabled on capital punishment in the Philippines, and we naturally read through all the texts very carefully.
We in the PPE Group are opposed to capital punishment.
Now, I realise that in the nine years or so that I have been here I have made a few enemies, because I have not always been able to please everyone all of the time.
I also realise, and some of you know more about this than I do, that the Philippines may also have a little score to settle with me, but looking at the text of the motion on the Philippines, the words 'whereas the newly elected President, according to a Reuters report, has said on radio that he would not grant clemency to Oomen-Ruijten, one of those under sentence of death' really seem to be going a little too far.
I would therefore ask you to change the text.
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTES (continuation)
Madam President, I should like to ask you something.
The person in seat number 85 has taken a number of photographs of this side of the Chamber today.
Mr Seppänen regularly takes photos of this side of the Chamber.
I know that Hans-Gert Poettering is very attractive, but I would really prefer people not to take photos in the Chamber.
I wonder what they are for?
Taking photographs in the Chamber is not allowed without permission.
I would ask you to stop doing so.
Madam President, I would simply like to know what is going to be done with this film.
I hope you have been reassured and that we can continue with the vote.
No, Madam President, since we have rules in this House I would ask you to ask the gentleman in question, or perhaps he can explain himself, what he is doing with his camera.
Perhaps there is no film in it, in which case I would be perfectly happy.
Taking photographs in the Chamber is not allowed without permission.
We shall look at this incident, since this particular matter is not covered, and it will be considered in the Bureau.
Madam President, we are all quite open with each other here in the House, and I would like to ask Mr Seppänen through you why he is taking photographs and whether he would be prepared to hand over the film, if there is a film in it.
I would prefer not to have a detailed discussion here.
A Member is entitled to be here in the Chamber, but this incident is a rather unusual one and so we shall look at it in the Bureau. I do not wish us to discuss the matter any further now.
Madam President, I have made a personal statement on behalf of this side of the Chamber.
I gather that Mr Seppänen would like to reply, and I would like to ask him exactly what he is doing.
It is not the first time that I have seen him do it.
Do you wish to make a statement on this now, Mr Seppänen?
Madam President, I have taken photographs of the European Parliament sitting, to keep as mementoes.
I cannot go up there to take photographs as I am a Member of Parliament, and, obviously, I am entitled to take home mementoes for my own use.
Madam President, rules are rules and I think Mr Seppänen should hand over his film.
Mr Cox wishes to raise a point of order.
Madam President, I wonder why the honourable Member did not find the Liberal Group photogenic.
We are so upset we were not included.
(Laughter and applause)
I would say that that resolves the matter.
We can now continue with our work.
That concludes the votes for today.
Madam President, I would ask for the attention of the House for a moment.
We concluded our discussion of the Marinucci report this morning.
There is no need to postpone it as we can certainly vote on it.
It should not take long, given your very capable chairmanship.
Today's sitting lasts until 8 p.m. and we cannot simply go on beyond then.
Tomorrow we have a whole series of votes on women's issues, and so it would have made sense to group them all together.
I shall now ask the House if it wishes to vote on the report now.
Your wish is my command!
(Parliament decided to continue voting)
Madam President, could you tell me whether or not the roll-call votes that took place during the votes this evening will be taken into consideration for Parliamentary allowances. If they are, all those who left straight after the votes at midday will be surprised next week.
The rule is, Mr Happart, that all the votes on a Thursday are taken into account.
Each and every Member is aware of the implications of that.
Madam President, we agree with the rapporteur.
I would like to propose an oral amendment because we have been misunderstood.
We are not calling for legislation to establish the right to part-time work, but for legislation to regulate voluntary part-time work.
Therefore, the text would read as follows: ' Calls urgently on the Member States to provide legislation on voluntary part-time work and calls on the Commission to encourage and coordinate action in this field'.
We cannot, in fact, ask that everyone everywhere has the right to part-time work.
Companies would no longer function.
It is unrealistic.
But the House must understand what we mean, as I think the rapporteur does.
The rapporteur has signalled to me that she agrees to that.
I do not believe that is the same.
The question is whether firms should be forced by a specific individual right to take the relevant organisational measures.
That is something quite different from what Mrs Lulling has proposed.
Mrs Lulling is only calling for provision of legislation on the issue.
But here it is a question of a clear individual right.
That is something different.
We really must not confuse the two.
A request was made to which the rapporteur agrees.
But if this is to be approved, I also need the agreement of the House, in other words if there are objections, they must be respected.
If 12 Members object, I cannot put this to the vote, since because an objection has been raised and must be respected, the text must be put to the vote in its original form.
(More than 11 Members rose to object and the amendment was thus not approved)
Madam President, my colleague in seat 10 A is speaking into a mobile phone.
In my opinion it is inappropriate from the point of view of other MEPs here to use a mobile phone in this Chamber, and I would hope the President takes note of the matter.
The use of mobile telephones is not allowed here.
I hope that no one is now going to ask for a recording to be made.
I really would ask Members to stop behaving in this way, which is becoming quite ridiculous.
Madam President, I think I should tell Mr Seppänen that I have just used my mobile phone, because this telephone is out of order, to warn the secretary-general of my group to find out what has happened to Mr Seppänen's film.
That may once again be a reason, but I would point out that all the political groups have telephones here for making urgent calls and they should be used in such cases.
I should like to make that quite clear again.
Madam President, thank you for having taken the vote, and I thank my colleagues for having adopted the report.
I would however say that the vote against the possibility of earmarking a part of the Structural Funds to tackle women's unemployment is highly regrettable.
I know it is not true that Mr Flynn said as much in Porto, but if he had done so he would have been right, because now it is Parliament which chooses not to request these funds.
You did not say so in Porto, Commissioner, and you told us as much this morning. The press said it but you denied it - and I believe that - but now you could say it: regrettably, this House has told you today - and I do not know why - that it is not right to earmark a part of the Structural Funds to tackle women's unemployment.
I do not know who voted that way, or why, but I believe that it was a mistake.
Madam President, it is an incredible disgrace for this House that, due to the intransigence of some parliamentary groups, we were not in a position to adopt a text on Kosovo, and this in the dramatic situation of unutterable misery which currently exists there.
In my opinion, we must in the near future concentrate vigorously on two points.
The first is to demilitarise Kosovo and to replace the mercenaries and groups of soldiers marauding there with an international peacekeeping force, and the second is to put police, administration and jurisdiction back into the hands of the elected authorities in Kosovo.
We should be able to reach agreement on this minimal programme.
We should concentrate on this, and then we can avoid disgraces such as we have seen today.
Madam President, I agree with Mr Posselt that it is a disgrace that we cannot reach agreement.
However, I would like to request that Mr Posselt and his friends look for the common ground in this difficult issue.
If you think that a majority can only be achieved by taking a tough line, you have seen today that this is not possible.
Please seek the common ground with the social democrats in the House on this important issue, and then we will be able to reach agreement.
We voted differently from the majority of our group on the resolution on Kosovo.
We consider that the use of military force requires authorisation from the UN Security Council.
In addition, we consider that neither the European Parliament nor the Council should take a position on the use of military force, but that that decision belongs to NATO, the WEU and to individual Member States.
Castagnède report (A4-0252/98)
A review of the VAT system is to be welcomed. The Commission also proposes application on a trial basis of a reduced rate to certain labour-intensive activities.
There is no need, however, for any immediate approximation of rates.
Several countries with high levels of value added tax put the accruing revenue towards public sector expenditure.
The French socialists, as they said during their election campaign a year and a half ago, are in favour of a general reduction in VAT.
It is an indirect tax and affects people regardless of their income; I would even go so far as to say that it damages the most disadvantaged social categories, since they represent the group that spends the highest proportion of its income on consumption.
At the same time, we know all too well that we must do everything in our power to ensure that the launch of the euro takes place under conditions that inspire confidence, particularly as regards budget balance.
So what should we do?
In my opinion, we must find pragmatic and prudent responses to the problem that are also effective, in other words, implement reductions in VAT targeted at certain goods or services which we believe are essential, as Annex H of the Sixth Directive on VAT provides.
I am thinking firstly of a reduction in the rates applied to CD-ROMs, with a view to both ensuring that this product receives the same treatment as books, and promoting a technology of the future, in which it is essential for the European Union to be competitive.
That is why we voted in favour of Amendment No 4 tabled by the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
We also believe that lower rates should be envisaged for the construction and refurbishment of local authority housing, collective refurbishment, and access to justice for the most disadvantaged.
Such provisions already exist - or, in the case of low cost housing, are about to be completed - in France, but we believe that we need to go even further.
We need to go further in lowering rates, and further in coordination with our European partners.
To guarantee the single market and fiscal harmonisation, and to prevent unfair competition, we must move forward together and with consensus on these issues.
We are also in favour of the ideas behind Amendments Nos 3, 5 and 6 by the ARE Group that stress the desirability of such a coordinated reduction.
Finally, I would like to say that I support, in particular, the request from the European Parliament to the Commission in paragraph 6 of the resolution of the report by Bernard Castagnède for a directive that would allow reduced VAT rate to be applied to certain labour-intensive services 'on a trial basis'.
I am thinking particularly of the provision of home-based services, a category which forms part of the French National Plan for Employment drawn up in the wake of the Luxembourg European Council. The Commission stated that it was prepared to support this category in its communication of 12 November 1997 on labour-intensive services.
But I must add that, in this field, we cannot be satisfied with experiments.
We must move as quickly as possible to a binding legislative text.
The Commission and the Council must be aware of our determination to move forward on this issue.
It is of extreme importance and reflects a long-standing concern of French socialists, who are convinced that such a measure would not only benefit consumption but also employment.
This report contains a comprehensive proposal to harmonise VAT rates in the individual Member States and for a new common VAT system based on taxation in the country of origin, something we are unable to support.
In our opinion, tax and excise duty policy is a purely national matter, and the Union therefore should not interfere in the Member States' ability to pursue an independent economic policy.
The report emphasises that reduced rates of VAT may be desirable on social grounds, with a view to avoiding the regressive consequences of VAT.
It is also indicated that lower VAT may have beneficial effects on employment and limit the extent of 'black' working.
We agree with these points, not least because the rates of VAT on food, for example, impose the same burden on high and low income groups and thus have an unequal financial impact on different groups in society.
However, we believe that it must be left to the individual Member States to decide what kind of social and labour market policy they wish to follow.
Social policy considerations should not be used as a pretext for further integration within what are separate areas of cooperation.
The report also states that rationalisation and updating of the scope of the reduced rates of VAT must not have any significant impact on the level of public revenues.
This is an important point.
In Denmark, we have a standard rate of VAT of 25 %, which is substantially higher than that in other Member States.
The proceeds from this source of revenue provide a major part of the financing for the Danish welfare state.
It is therefore important to point out in this context that it appears from a background note from the Danish Tax Ministry to the European Committee of the Folketing on the proposal for a Council directive amending the Sixth VAT Directive that a change in the rules on allowances and the establishment of a system of rebates, with reimbursement of VAT on purchases made in other Member States, 'would involve a loss of yield to the Treasury of between DKR 1 and 2 billion' (Tax Ministry ref.
5.98-221-29).
Implementing the proposals in the report would inevitably have considerable economic consequences for Danish society and thus affect the level of public revenues.
We regard these economic consequences as unacceptable.
We also believe that it is the people and the elected Members of Parliament in the individual Member States who should take the sovereign decision on economic targets and the resources for developing their societies.
Such measures should not be dictated by the EU.
This report is therefore a step in the wrong direction.
I cannot vote in favour of this report since I do not share the view that value added taxes should be approximated (paragraph 8).
Neither do I believe that our VAT system should be based on the principle of country of origin (paragraph 1).
I have already taken the opportunity to discuss certain points concerning the issue of the reduced rate of VAT for labour-intensive services and products, mistakenly in reference to Mr Secchi's report.
I would now like to look briefly at Commissioner Monti's arguments.
I think it is a very good idea to take account of local or regional economic importance in order to agree an experimental clause with the aim of compulsory harmonisation or coordination of tax policy in the future euro countries, an aim which we, in principle, support.
I only wish that such positive reference to local or regional economic cycles would become a central element of EU policy.
The motives of protectionism (Amendment No 2 of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations) and the promotion of certain industries (Amendment No 8 of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left) would be best left out of the difficult process of developing a European value added tax system; otherwise, we would never achieve workable common regulations.
Hendrick report (A4-0202/98)
It is by now undisputed that small and medium-sized enterprises, or SMEs, play a key role in the European Union.
They play a leading role in economic growth in Europe and are one of the main sources of job creation, which is highly significant in view of the current situation in the Union where we have 20 million unemployed.
And we should not forget that at the 1997 Luxembourg jobs summit the heads of state or government set themselves the task of improving this intolerable situation.
I should mention that SMEs currently make up 99.8 % of companies currently in existence in the EU - with small and medium-sized enterprises making up over 80 % - in which 66 % of Europe's working population are employed; their turnover accounts for 65 % of the EU total.
The importance of these companies in the EU is also highlighted by the fact that, firstly, they react quickly to market developments and are thus particularly useful in promoting new technologies, and, secondly, they can concentrate on economic niches and thus increase Europe's competitiveness by creating highly-skilled technology-related jobs.
They also play a considerable role in supporting regional development.
I can say this as a native of South Tyrol, as I come from a small region which has a healthy economy based exclusively on the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises.
In my opinion, support from the EU should concentrate in particular on standardisation and training networks, environmental management and access to sources of finance.
It is in these particular areas that SMEs come up against hurdles and obstacles.
For this reason, the Commission should develop specific programmes for young entrepreneurs which promote and support training in administration, the use of new technologies and above all the creation of networks between companies.
What I hope to highlight in this speech is that the creation of several capital markets in the EU in favour of SMEs is highly desirable, partly because SMEs often find it very difficult to obtain capital for start-up and investment.
In brief, I fully agree with the comments made by the rapporteur, Mr Hendrick.
I must congratulate our colleagues on these two reports on the fifth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs and the communication from the Commission on European capital markets for SMEs: prospects and potential obstacles.
SMEs have, in fact, represented this year the greatest source of job creation.
However, unfortunately, the large European institutional investors and the banks are all too often cautious towards small and medium-sized companies that, for them, represent a risk.
Nevertheless, the European market has certain capital markets for certain categories of SMEs, often the most innovative and the most competitive.
The fact remains that the number of European SMEs quoted on the markets is very low in relation to their potential to generate wealth and employment.
The communication from the European Commission is therefore a step in the right direction.
Nonetheless, the points highlighted by our rapporteur are fundamental and I hope that the Commission will be able to give them greater consideration.
I would emphasise, in particular, the importance of completing the single market as soon as possible; it must form the basis of the new European capital market for SMEs.
Moreover, we welcome the fact that the fifth annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs for 1997 concentrates mainly on assessing the effects on SMEs of the completion of the internal market.
The report also proposes new and interesting ideas that should be explored, particularly in the fields of the environment and tourism.
These two specific areas are the subject of a very interesting analysis that highlights the issues that are unavoidable for our SMEs from now on: taking account of the competitiveness of companies when establishing environmental legislation, new markets for ecological products, etcetera.
Mr President, I voted for both of these reports and I am happy that the House has adopted them with such a large majority.
I cannot vote in favour of this report because I disagree that, in order to create jobs, taxes on labour should be reduced (paragraph 11).
This is quite the wrong approach.
Neither do I believe that the levying of a 'Tobin tax' constitutes a threat to capital markets (paragraph 13).
As an instrument to combat the speculative wave currently engulfing our economies, the Tobin tax has an important role to play.
And I cannot go along with what is said in paragraph 12.
Scarbonchi report (A4-0255/98)
On reading the fifth report of the European Observatory for SMEs, we are pleased with the structured overall view of SMEs and craft enterprises in the European Economic Area provided by the European Network for SME Research.
In fact, although the report is quite general and includes many topics, we welcome its independent character.
We also support the report since it once again views the Commission's activity in the context of combating unemployment; we must remember that SMEs are still a source of growth and employment.
In this respect, we agree with the Committee on Economic Affairs: there is still a great deal to be done to improve and simplify the administrative environment of SMEs, and to effectively target Community aid, with a view to avoiding 'waste'.
We have paid particular attention to the issues highlighted in the report: general reduction in bureaucracy; improvements to the fiscal environment; professional training; and the development of research and technological innovation.
However, in our opinion, it is essential to state our commitment to respecting the principle of subsidiarity, particularly since the companies involved are, in general, intrinsically private companies.
It is important to ensure that they do not come to expect and passively accept Community aid, for that would encourage 'easy charity'.
The managers of SMEs must retain their spirit of enterprise.
They must be capable of coming up with innovative ideas: we must avoid turning them into civil servicelike 'administrative machines'.
It is essential, too, to lighten the administrative, legislative and regulatory burdens that enterprises are subjected to on a daily basis and that are becoming more and more difficult for them to handle.
As regards fiscal measures, which vary from country to country, we must not forget, in the light of recent debates in the House, that the power to modify these still lies with the Member States.
To conclude, Mr President, I must say that I am surprised that the report remains silent on the euro, while it devotes a detailed section to the tourism sector.
Whilst I have nothing against the content of this report, I do wonder whether we should be spending our time on such things.
A lot of unnecessary work has been done here. No other parliament on the face of the earth would bother itself to draft, debate and vote through a text dealing with the annual report of the European Observatory for SMEs.
The rapporteur has done a good job, but the exercise as such renders this House risible.
Marinucci report (A4-0272/98)
Thank you, Madam President.
Despite certain positive elements, my group has not been able to vote for your report, Mrs Marinucci.
Our first amendment states, on behalf of freedom of choice, that women must be able to choose between immediately finding a job or delaying entering the labour market in order to devote a number of years to having children and bringing them up. This amendment was, in fact, rejected.
The report does contain certain positive points, particularly where you recognise that we need to discuss whether family dependant care should be given recognition in national accounts. However, in spite of such points, I cannot support the general philosophy of your text, which represents a collectivist socialist option for the care of children.
Mrs Marinucci, children do not only need to be looked after; they are not only a problem for the organisation of their parents' professional life.
They also need to be educated, more than they ever did before, and there are men and women who wish to educate them.
I met many young women during the run-up to the Beijing Conference.
You say that you are sorry that women in Europe are forced to give up their careers.
That is all very well, but I would also point out that, at the moment, many young women in Europe are saying that they regret having to give up having more children because there is no genuine family policy worthy of the name in Europe.
This has negative repercussions on demography, which is currently a structural cause of Europe's unemployment.
But that is currently a taboo subject in Europe's institutions.
Madam President, I would have preferred not to have to give an explanation of vote and I understand Mrs Marinucci's disappointment after having made such efforts to find some common ground with me as far as the amendments are concerned.
She agreed with our amendment to paragraph 4. But, unfortunately, Mr Wolf got the wrong end of the stick and succeeded in misleading many of our colleagues.
Neither Mrs Marinucci nor I want that, any more than those who voted in favour of it without knowing why they were voting. They voted to ensure that Member States are from now on forced to regulate the right to a voluntary job, anywhere and at any time.
If someone wants a voluntary job, an employer must provide him with one.
You are calling for such legislation within the Community.
But this is totally absurd.
We want part-time voluntary work to be regulated, and to be well regulated, as is the case in my own country.
Other countries also have rights concerning voluntary work, under certain conditions.
But if everyone can just demand the right to part-time work, anywhere and at any time, as I said, companies will no longer function. But we want companies to function.
Mrs Marinucci had understood this very well; she said that that was not what she wanted to see.
I am very sorry, but this was why we had to abstain because, quite honestly, people can ask us to do many things, but we cannot be expected to vote for such absurdities.
I hold Mrs Marinucci in very high regard, but I have had to reject this motion because it was ideological, it infringed completely the principle of subsidiarity and more or less stated that all young women in the European Union should pursue a career after their education.
This is completely absurd!
Mrs Seillier proposed that we should leave it up to the women themselves to decide whether they devote themselves to their family and the home or to professional life.
This was rejected.
This is an ideological delusion and I really must say that we in the European Parliament are making complete fools of ourselves with reports of this kind.
In my opinion, we should approach such important issues as women and the family with much greater care.
The motion for a resolution drawn up by Elene Marinucci is an excellent summary of the demands the House should be making in the present context.
I would like to draw your attention to the points concerning parttime work, which, in my opinion, are at the heart of the problem.
Part-time work has represented the most important element of the development of the female workforce in the 1990s.
Today, women hold the majority - 83 % - of these jobs.
Part-time work is traditionally presented as a positive element that allows women to reconcile their professional and family lives.
However, Eurostat statistics show that many women with part-time jobs would prefer to have a full-time job, and that the benefits often mean they have to work late hours or during weekends. This penalises women in their attempt to reconcile their job and their family and contradicts this idyllic view.
The reorganisation of working time has led to a considerable increase in the number of precarious or atypical forms of employment: part-time jobs, temporary work or agency work. It has also led to a reduction in social protection and to a deterioration in the quality of life of many women.
Contrary to a hackneyed cliché, part-time work is not the choice of women, but most often represents the choice of employers; and for the women who hold such posts, it is a real constraint.
There are very few part-time jobs in industry and very few posts with responsibility; in addition, part-time work is limited to low-skilled jobs and is linked to very specific sectors.
Moreover, part-time workers can only rarely invest in training due to the demands of the working hours involved in part-time jobs.
Danièle Meulders, a lecturer from the Université libre de Bruxelles , has demonstrated the difficulties part-time workers experience in terms of social benefits.
Almost half of them do not receive any protection if they become unemployed.
Mrs Marinucci rightly points out that the 1997 Directive on part-time work does not cover social security and expressly authorises the Member States to maintain national thresholds that exclude so many part-time workers from the scope of the directive.
The rapporteur believes that if we have to encourage part-time work in today's labour market, it is essential that it be extended to skilled jobs, that men be encouraged to take up part-time work, and that training and social security cover be made available to all part-time workers.
I would, however, like to point out that these wishes risk going unheeded, for nowhere do I see the political will to turn them into a reality.
The most radical proposal for the promotion of female employment in Europe would be the drastic reduction of part-time work and an overall reduction in working time for everyone, women and men, with full employment for all, without exception.
We will not arrive at such a situation without a struggle and without progressive reforms. Therefore, if the European Union wants to convince public opinion of its determination to truly progress towards equality between men and women on the labour market and to reduce the differences in the levels of unemployment between the sexes, it must first look systematically at the discriminatory effects that each employment policy might produce.
For the next European summit on employment, we should ask each Member State to provide the following information:
1.breakdown of part-time jobs by sex and age; 2. reasons why part-time work is chosen by companies and in national policies; 3. hourly pay for part-time work; 4. levels of segregation by profession for part-time work in comparison with full-time work; 5. skills required for part-time jobs; 6. relation between part-time work and poverty; 7. effects of part-time work on pensions and other replacement incomes; 8. effect on income throughout working life; 9. access to early retirement.This information would provide us with accurate statistics on the extent to which part-time work discriminates against women.
But we could go even further and question each of the Member States presenting their action plan on the following points:
1.What are the potential effects of each of the policies proposed on the situation of women in terms of volume and quality of work?2.
What measures are taken in relation to training policies to ensure that women receive equal treatment to men and, in particular, what proposals are put forward for part-time work?3.
How do countries that believe that part-time work is the best solution to sharing employment? Do they plan to extend this part-time work to include men and to skilled, well-paid jobs, and what measures are taken to ensure that part-time workers receive adequate pensions and unemployment benefits?In conclusion, I would like to make a general comment.
Commissioner Monti has shown that the Member States that wanted to keep capital on their territory were subject to market forces and had to reduce taxation on capital by 10 % in 12 years.
And since they had to find revenue to offset this, they increased labour taxes by 20 % during the same period.
These labour taxes, also according to Commissioner Monti, are responsible for a third of Europe's unemployment.
I will leave you to contemplate this statistic, linked as it is to the development of information technologies and to the fact that of the four freedoms set out in the Single Act, the free movement of capital, contrary to the wishes of the founders of Europe, was the first to be achieved.
In view of the increase in unemployment among women in Europe, this own-initiative report by Mrs Marinucci is particularly important.
In February 1998, the rate of unemployment was 12.3 % among women and 8.9 % among men.
The unemployment rate is higher among women in all European countries except Sweden.
Therefore, in its resolution, the Committee requests that the Commission provide more precise statistics on employment figures, which are broken down according to sex.
The Committee calls on the Member States to provide legislation on the right to part-time work; the social partners are to conclude a framework agreement on all forms of atypical work and the Commission is to submit a proposal for a framework directive on childcare services in the Member States.
Women who are not registered unemployed are also to be entitled to participate in the training programmes.
I am pleased that, in implementing the EU's Employment Guidelines, Austria has included, in its National Action Plan for employment, special measures to create equality, measures which are taken into account not only in Chapter IV of the NAP but, in the spirit of the gender mainstreaming programme, also in the other chapters.
We will try, therefore, to give greater consideration to this aspect in the discussion on developing the Employment Guidelines and measures relating to structural policy, and to force it to be included in all policy areas of the European Union.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has a point of order.
Madam President, I had asked to speak during the votes.
I did not insist on doing so because you did not allow me. However, just now, during the vote on the resolution on Sudan, and more particularly on Amendment No 1 to paragraph 6, I wanted to speak, since someone had at least to point this out for the Minutes, because there is a striking contradiction.
You held a separate vote on the original text and on the amendment.
You put the original text to the vote, then the amendment, and finally returned to the original text.
You therefore held three roll-call votes instead of two, which is very expensive for us since one roll-call vote costs FF 8 000.
In addition, you contradicted yourself in that you led the House to vote against the first part of what you called Amendment No 1, that is, the original text of paragraph 6, before holding another vote on this paragraph 6 and allowing it to be adopted.
Therefore, in terms of the roll-call votes, the Minutes will contain two contradictions, two contradictory votes, and I just thought that someone should point this out.
We need to understand that an amendment is not the original text.
When we ask for a separate vote on the amendment, that means that we vote first on the amendment alone and then on the original text.
That is a misunderstanding, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
We voted first on the amendment.
That was rejected, one part after the other - the two parts were each put to the vote separately and rejected, and then the amendment in its original form was put to the vote, since some people wanted just the one part and some people just the other.
But then - if that is rejected - there must be another vote on the original text.
Only the parts were rejected, and not the whole text.
Role of cooperatives in women's employment (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0270/98) by Mrs Colombo Svevo, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the role of cooperatives in the growth of women's employment.
Madam President, Commissioner, I would like to thank Mrs Colombo Svevo for her contribution to the joint effort that the whole of the European Union is making to promote and create employment.
Such an effort implies the search for new types of employment as well as new forms of employment organization, and orients social protection towards employment.
This report rigorously researches and sets out in a socio-economic and innovative spirit how cooperatives and firms in the social economy can help integrate women into the labour market, in particular those that have no professional experience or who have been absent from the labour market for family reasons for a number of years.
These firms enable women to reconcile work and family life and, at the same time, provide high quality, affordable services which are largely aimed at lessfavoured groups.
Because of their flexible and intangible nature - and because of the urgent demands of the service sector, in particular social and public health services - the cooperatives can convert jobs that were traditionally done by women alone and which afforded them no social status or financial remuneration, into paid business ventures.
Our society has set itself specific demographic and social targets which focus on the elderly, handicapped children and the lack of financial independence for women, with the subsequent feminization of poverty.
The rapporteur calls on the Committee to produce a White Paper which draws on both the very positive experiences observed in several European countries and the role of gender in these experiences.
She also calls for support from the European Social Fund in order to channel female business potential towards this new system of cooperatives and encourage the creation of consortia, networks and social economy agencies that provide advice and offer training and organizational support as well as legal help, access to credit and financial and fiscal incentives.
Commissioner, the Amsterdam Treaty gives the European Union a new remit to combat social exclusion with innovative measures.
This report puts forward measures which we support.
We hope that you will too.
Thank you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, demographic surveys show that the population is ageing and that, as a result, the need for certain social services is increasing.
This applies in particular to women who have not had a good education and who are probably those most affected by conditions on the labour market.
However, there are often very high non-wage labour costs involved in employing these women in the service sector, thus the danger arises that these women may drift into the black economy.
For this reason, any models which differ from this, such as cooperatives, associations and relief organizations, should be used to counteract these problems.
In its 1993 White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment, the European Union defined a job creation strategy and recommended an active labour market policy.
A new White Paper is a welcome development.
The European Commission considers domestic services to be an area in which a high number of jobs could be created.
One possibility would be service contracts which facilitate work in private households, where the employee would automatically have social insurance as a result of the contract, even where a low number of hours are worked.
This model offers an opportunity to many women, particularly in social economy services.
The disadvantage in this is certainly that wages are low.
However, it should not be overlooked that these social services constitute a good start for unemployed women who are less qualified.
I hope, therefore, that the models described represent a significant step towards fairer integration of women into the labour market.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Colombo Svevo on the quality of the report.
She has stressed the important role that cooperatives and the social economy in general play and will continue to play in job creation and in promoting equal opportunities.
The social economy will enable us to tackle a number of tomorrow's economic and social challenges and will create new jobs that are very often more secure and longer lasting, with better social and working conditions, whilst generating profits that are redistributed and reinvested.
This report points out that the social economy can respond to unmet needs that should be viewed as potential new sources of employment, in particular for women.
It should be noted that the 1998 employment guidelines contains a separate pillar which deals with equal opportunities for women and men.
Strengthening the equal opportunities policy is a full but completely new component of policy, aiming at creating employment and fighting unemployment.
The approach outlined in this report fits in very well with our employment strategy and, in particular, with the equal opportunities aspect of the strategy.
It is a very good example of the mainstreaming that we have been talking about here in the House.
I should like to deal with a few of the main points raised.
The report raises the need to adapt European statutes for these sectors.
European statutes remain a priority for the Commission, even though the proposals for directives and regulations have been on the table with the Council since 1993.
I agree that this sector needs a clear-cut legal and fiscal framework in order to evolve within the single market.
The Commission will look very closely at the proposal for a study to be carried out on the size and impact of the social economy, the impact it has on employment and, in particular, on female employment.
The Commission is going to draw on the work of the Consultative Committee for cooperatives, mutual societies, associations and foundations established by the Commission on 13 March this year.
The Consultative Committee is, and will remain, one of the Commission's main sources of advice and information on the situation on the ground.
We can also draw on the experience gained from NOW, Horizon, Integra and other such programmes.
We will present a full report on voluntary organisations and foundations next year.
The report will contain recommendations on how to enhance the social and economic role of voluntary organisations and foundations.
A European conference on cooperative entrepreneurship in the year 2000 is going to be held in Bologna on 30 November and 1 December.
It will be very useful because the conclusions of that conference will enable us to decide on the best way to respond to your demand for the White Paper on cooperatives and social enterprises.
The Commission will also look at possible ways of allocating funding, specifically to help women set up their own businesses, particularly in the social economy area.
I take Mrs Bennasar Tous' point there that the Social Fund has a role and perhaps could be used more effectively in that area.
Within the third multiannual programme for small and medium-sized enterprises this year, we launched one call for proposals for pilot actions concerning training for spouses' partners.
We also launched a call for tenders concerning, amongst others, women entrepreneurs and aiming to determine the requirements they have when creating and running enterprises.
At the same time, together with the Swedish National Board for Industrial and Technical Development, we are preparing a conference on women entrepreneurs to be held in Stockholm from 30 November to 2 December next.
So the Commission would lend its support to the establishment of a European network on social economy agencies and it could be managed jointly by the public authorities and by the social economy sector.
They could provide information, documentation, training and assistance in project development and in the establishment in particular of partnerships for funding and financial guarantees.
The Commission intends to pursue its efforts to promote the development of the social economy in the various policies and initiatives undertaken by the Union.
It will strive to ensure that equal opportunities for women and men become a reality and that entities in the social economy, particularly those managed by women, get the maximum support to enable them to play a full part in the social and economic life of the Union.
There is considerable potential and we will give full support to the efforts to achieve it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Single mothers and one-parent families
The next item is the report (A4-0273/98) by Mrs García Arias, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the situation of single mothers and one-parent families.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to point out two amendments to the text.
When we voted for this report in the Committee we removed references to two countries, the United Kingdom in recital F and the 'United States model' in paragraph 12.
I ask you bear this in mind when it comes to the vote.
We are talking here about a sizeable group of families within the European Union.
Demographic changes together with changing trends in cultural and social patterns have given rise - albeit in some countries more than others - to the phenomenon of the single-parent family.
Although there are also men who, for various reasons, are solely responsible for the care of their children, this report mainly focuses on women who are alone, single, separated, divorced, widowed or who have been abandoned and face life on their own, endeavouring, in the face of a great many difficulties, to give their children a good start in life and in some cases help other family members.
This debate is particularly relevant because, at a time of economic growth and - somewhat contradictorily - of budget cuts and cuts in social expenditure, a lot of talk about concepts such as competitiveness and employability and work ethics in societies where there are high rates of female unemployment and insecure jobs, some models are beginning to make an impact. These models - obviously imported from across the Atlantic - appear to call into question the social benefits which protect these women and their families, and in some cases label them as social parasites who deliberately abuse the social welfare system.
Strangely enough, some of these accusing voices - as we have heard this morning - are those who sing the praises of motherhood, who defend the family as the nucleus of society and on some occasions champion the cause of a wage and social security for housewives, naturally at the expense of social welfare budgets.
This debate follows on from the excellent reports by our colleagues Mrs Marinucci and Mrs Colombo Svevo, who have clearly outlined the situation of women in relation to employment, the difficulties they face in terms of training, the lack of an affordable childcare infrastructure, discrimination in gaining access to jobs and the need for partners to fulfil their responsibilities as regards childcare and housework.
If this is indeed the situation for the majority of women, we cannot begin to imagine the additional difficulties faced by those families that do not receive either an extra income from another partner, or have this person present to share the burden of housework.
I do not think I would be exaggerating if I said that we are referring to one of those socially vulnerable groups that are exposed to poverty, failure at school in the case of the children, and social exclusion.
For this reason single-parent families need specific help and attention as well as the support of governments in general, even though some of these women might have found jobs.
Unfortunately, more often than not, the jobs are poorly paid and insecure.
This report calls on the Commission and the Member States to consider in detail the obstacles that many women come up against and to develop political and economic measures that contribute to the social integration and economic independence of women, including the use of Structural Funds.
It also specifically calls on the Commission to look into the reluctance and discrimination that many employers display when faced with an applicant who has children.
If this is already happening, Commissioner, we should also bear in mind the particular difficulty some of these women must face in looking for employment when the employer knows that they are the head of the family.
But the report - and this is my last point - also calls on absentee fathers and, to a lesser extent mothers, to take on their responsibilities, and urges that divorce arrangements and other legal practices and systems be improved to ensure that both parents fulfil their parental obligations.
Mr President, the report by Mrs García Arias must be seen in an overall context, like the report by Mrs Marinucci, which we have already voted on today.
I hope that the Council of Ministers for Social Affairs, which is meeting on 5 October, will incorporate the conclusions of the House in its decisions, as the single mothers on whom this report concentrates need action to be taken urgently.
We realise, of course, that it is primarily up to the Member States to fulfil their responsibility; the social partners must also do more for single mothers.
However, the European Union also has a great deal of responsibility in this area.
The risk of poverty is increased in the Union when men and women divorce, as can be seen from statistics, particularly in Germany.
Those who then become single parents drift very quickly into a situation where they survive on social benefits and find it very difficult to escape from this.
This is why the measures proposed here, particularly regarding good and affordable childcare facilities, are indispensable.
There are still large gaps in this area in the European Union.
I would like to make a further comment.
Paragraphs 16 and 18 propose working towards joint custody for parents in the case of divorce.
However, I fear that, in issues on which the parents disagree, this may be to the detriment of the children.
I would urge that clear regulations be drawn up to ensure that children are not treated unfairly.
On the issue of reform of the Structural Funds, it has become quite clear that we must include gender mainstreaming.
The Marinucci report did not stipulate a percentage figure for the inclusion of women, but in accordance with the Employment Guidelines it is not just equal opportunities that need to be considered: specific emphasis is required for single parents.
We must be open to new models, for example the introduction of reduced working hours into wage agreements for single parents.
Mr President, I wish to thank the rapporteur for her work and for having taken account of the various positions put forward in the committee.
We are dealing here with a phenomenon which is already significant and is increasing constantly: 10 % of families with children are in this situation.
Their circumstances vary considerably: divorces, separations and the birth of children outside marriage.
All such circumstances reveal a weakness of family structures, which should be the subject of careful thought, unless we wish to reduce ourselves to a sort of neutral observatory of change. We wish, on the contrary, to understand the causes, the tensions that exist within the family - still a cherished institution in Europe - and the conduct which often weakens it.
Although well aware of the deep differences between ourselves and the rapporteur on this issue, I believe that we must back her ultimate objective, namely to ensure support - be it social security, welfare or economic - for single-parent families, whose weaknesses are all the greater given that 85 % of them are headed by women.
They experience psychological, economic and social difficulties, which call for a well-focused mix of policies as different as the situations concerned.
The report lists such possible measures, and I shall not repeat them.
I would nevertheless stress the wisdom of rejecting benefits as a solution, as the report does, providing instead for parents to shoulder their personal responsibilities. Yet, at the same time, the report rejects the preconceived view that anyone in need of an income is merely a parasite, who should simply be forced to work and get by on their own.
Often people simply cannot get by on their own; hence the need for these measures.
Europe has standards of civility in this field: I believe that this strong, commonly held sense of responsibility and solidarity forms an integral part of its identity.
Mr President, being a single-parent family does not have to be miserable.
You and I know many loving, happy households where the mother goes out to work.
But single-parent families, the subject of this excellent report by Mrs García Arias, make up a large and vulnerable group in which, as has already been pointed out, 80 to 90 % of the single parents are women.
A minimum income might appear to be the best solution in the short term both for the government and for the parents, but in the longer term it helps no-one.
It simply creates financial and social dependence which benefits neither the parents nor the children.
This is why we, and I think all the groups feel the same, are calling not for paternalism but for active support, good childcare facilities, encouraging parents to attend training courses with childcare provided and helping them to find work.
This is the only way that these families are going to recover their financial and social independence in the long run and the only way to prevent them from being marginalised in society.
We will also be helping the children to grow up in an environment that gives them the security they need and sets an example for their own lives, so that they do not end up in a vicious circle.
My group takes the view that social security must be individualised.
I would recommend Amendment No 1 tabled by my colleague Mimi Kestelijn to paragraph 19.
We feel, however, that paragraph 20 is dangerous in calling for improving the situation of single-parent families to have priority over public budget deficit considerations.
Reducing budget deficits and applying the EMU criteria in full is in everyone's interests, including those of single families.
We too reject the United States model.
The British model at least gives us a starting point for a structural approach, because we must stop thinking of mothers of single-parent families as helpless victims.
We need to use structural measures to ensure that they can play an active role in society.
This is the way we need to go, in the European Structural Funds too.
Commissioner Flynn, do not fix any quotas, we do not need them at the moment because we want to give mainstreaming a chance first.
But we are counting on you to ensure that many single mothers are given opportunities through the Structural Funds.
Mr President, Mrs García Arias' report sets out demographic changes and changes in social structure in Europe today and the need to adapt services and resources to this new reality.
In discussing this report we are in fact talking about the increasingly insecure nature of female employment, the lack of services to facilitate women's integration into the labour market and the failure of both national and Community policies to promote equality through concrete and effective measures.
The amendments to this report represent two different approaches: the first, which could be termed conservative or traditional, that protects the family and considers the single-parent as something to be tolerated but not accepted as the norm; and the second, that I would term 'progressive' , which accepts this new family model as a result of the development of society and the economy, and as such, one that should be protected and respected.
The amendments that we and other progressive groups have tabled, in my opinion, adequately address the vulnerable situation of single-parent families and force public authorities to acknowledge their problems and offer solutions.
They also take into account the fact that single-parent families could be the result of personal choice and in the same way need a strong support structure.
I would like to congratulate Mrs García Arias on her report and for the progressive vision she has demonstrated. She has also managed to accommodate other views, which I believe will encourage the majority of the House to vote in favour.
I too, of course, should like to offer our support.
Mr President, firstly I should like to compliment Mrs García Arias on an excellent report.
It is very comprehensive and has a vision about how Member States and the European Union could help the position of single parents, who are one of the most vulnerable groups in our society.
However, I want to pick up on her reference to the United Kingdom, which, interestingly, she wants to remove from the text.
I understand the embarrassment of my Labour ex-comrades and can see that they would like this removed.
The truth is that it is absolutely accurate.
The UK has cut benefits for single parents as part of its budgetary saving procedures but also because of its ideological commitment to a workfare model.
That is to say there is an element of compulsion in the UK now: you either accept training, education or work or you may have your benefits cut off or reduced.
That is moving towards the other alteration that Mrs García Arias made, which is to remove the United States.
I have taught and researched in the United States.
I have seen workfare at first hand.
I have seen women getting up at 5 o'clock in the morning to take their children to day care facilities in order then to go on to work or to education or training. because the alternative is to be cut off from benefits altogether.
The United States President, Mr Clinton, is in trouble over a little sexual problem, but the real complaint I would have against him is that he is the most reactionary American president when it comes to welfare and single parents.
He has cut the AFDC programme and limited it to two years.
This has had a crucial impact on single parents, most of whom are women, and force them into low-paid, slave labour employment, or sometimes into training schemes which are very inadequate.
So I think you should leave these references in.
They are both very relevant.
Finally, this is the sixth report I have spoken on today on behalf of the Green Group.
Perhaps you could ask you services to check whether this is a record.
Mr President, the situation of many widows and widowers in Europe with young children in their care calls for a necessary progression in our legislation in order to help them.
For divorced women or men caring for children, the situation is also very difficult and must be looked at; the law must be changed to take account of the different situations.
But I cannot allow it to be said that there is no longer a family model and that all family models are equally valid.
This is an irresponsible adult concept; for children, it is always preferable to have a father and a mother and for the two to take on the responsibility not only of their material needs, but also of their education.
Yes, single-parent situations do result from accidents of life: death of a spouse, divorce, etcetera. But I cannot accept as an alternative model elective single-parenthood - often involving women - or that the sort of life someone chooses should require society to reorganise itself as a consequence.
Mr President, I am delightedly to have the opportunity to speak on this subject at this particular time. The election campaign in Sweden is on its final lap; the country goes to the polls on Sunday.
And, lo and behold, people are belatedly waking up to the fact that single mothers have a vote!
First of all though, let me say how much I appreciate this report.
I particularly like the emphasis on preventing single mothers from becoming Aunt Sallies in these days of savings and cutbacks. The rapporteur rightly calls for policies based on a spirit of solidarity rather than recrimination.
My time is short, so I have chosen to concentrate on one issue only: childcare. Admittedly a much discussed topic, but I hope to broach it from a slightly new angle.
When we talk about combating unemployment, there is a tendency to focus on investment in infrastructure.
We build railways, roads, bridges and airports: big, capital-intensive projects, funded by the taxpayer and involving more machines than human beings.
Meanwhile, putting money into health and welfare is seen as burdensome.
How misguided we are! Each pound spent from the public purse has a veritable multiplier effect.
People are free to work; job opportunities are created; parents and children find their social horizons widened; better parenting skills across the board enhance society as a whole.
I very much regret not having more speaking time, Mr President.
I should like to thank all those who have contributed to this debate.
European society is changing and the interest in the situation of families and its implications for employment and social policy has been expressed in different forums.
There appears to be a growing conviction of the need for increased international cooperation on family issues as part of the global effort to advance social progress and development.
Although the Community has no direct competence in the area of family policy, it has increasingly turned its attention to social and economic trends in society as they affect families.
Member States have different ways of looking at the role of the state in economic and social life, the family's place in society and its rights and duties, the roles of men and women in the family and children's rights.
I thank Mrs García Arias very much for her report on all these matters.
The family is and always has been of essential value for European citizens, although its form varies and is changing.
New models are developing.
Single parent families represent one form and raise the entire range of equal opportunities issues.
The report makes clear something that we all know: that the vast majority of single parents are women.
Community policy on equal treatment for women and men does not contain a specific component for single parents but it has a crucial impact on their situation, especially with regard to the reconciliation of work and family life, a challenge central to the whole range of social issues.
Changes in the composition of the labour force, new forms of work organisation, the restructuring of social protection, changes in the distribution of caring work between women and men, all have a very important bearing on the lives of single parent families and, in particular, single mothers.
The Maternity Directive, the Parental Leave Directive and the Part-Time Work Directive are all good examples of the European Union's commitment to supporting both women and men in their role as parents.
The recommendation on child care, suggests that action should be taken to provide child care for parents in employment or training, to make the workplace more responsive to the needs of workers with children and to involve men more as carers.
We paid particular attention to that when ministers and interested groups came together, particularly in Belfast and then in Innsbrück.
The 1998 employment guidelines are important here because they give a very important impetus to the objective of reconciling work and family life which should benefit all parents.
A further important aspect of the lives of single parents, also dealt with in your report, Mrs García Arias, is the fact that twice as many single parent families fall into poverty and social exclusion as two-parent families.
This is a very disturbing statistic which has also been referred to by other speakers.
Thus I would see them as one of the groups who will be very much in our minds as we prepare to take action against exclusion.
I intend to be doing something positive about that when the Treaty is ratified under the new Article 137.
That will happen as soon as we have the ratification process cleared.
I am happy to report that our plans took a very important step forward just yesterday.
I was able to secure the agreement of my colleagues in the college to a relaunch of spending under three of the 1998 budget lines which had been blocked following the Court's judgment in May, so that we can have preparatory actions leading to programmes under Article 137 later on when the ratification process is complete.
But I would like to start doing something in preparation this year.
I hope that in 1999 we can use our new Treaty powers to put the fight against exclusion where it deserves to be - right at the heart of Community policy.
Interestingly enough the Treaty has given us the authority to do that without fear of being challenged later on, which can only be to the benefit of lone parents.
The social and political situation has undergone profound changes in the past decade or so.
New family patterns, new concepts of the role of men and women have emerged.
The European Union has an important role to play in identifying the similarities and the differences in the way the Member States react to these changes.
We can also stimulate Union-wide debate on the family by encouraging the Member States to share information and pool their experiences whilst at the same time respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
Poverty is the real threat here.
Good child care, as Mrs Gröner says, is absolutely essential and is being highlighted now as a key issue for attention by the Member States.
They are all committed to it.
Let us put them to the test now.
Finally, Mrs Larive summarised what we have to do when she said that we should give mainstreaming a chance.
That will be the focus of the 1999 guidelines: to give mainstreaming a real chance by utilising the European employment strategy to the full, making the funds more receptive to that concept and using the Treaty support.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Fisheries monitoring
The next item is the report (A4-0277/98) by Mr Provan, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on fisheries monitoring under the common fisheries policy (COM(98)0092 - C4-0134/98).
Mr President, first of all I welcome this report we are discussing from the Commission.
It is helpful in the debate we are always involved with in the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee.
I had a telephone call from Commissioner Bonino this afternoon apologising for not being able to be here.
She has a number of portfolios to deal with, and I quite understand the difficulty she found herself in with having to be recalled to Brussels.
We have no complaints about that and we welcome you, Commissioner Flynn, instead.
This report will be followed by Mr Teverson's report, implementing some of the ideas that we in Parliament want to discuss regarding fishing control.
We believe, as the Parliament, that we are at the forefront of driving the Commission forward in trying to achieve better control of the Common Fisheries Policy.
We recognise that control needs industry support, and that, at present, we do not have that support from the fishermen themselves.
They see control as excessive and bureaucratic and they do not really accept it.
We therefore believe that extraordinary measures are required and we find it amazing that the Commission does not have the power of direct on-line and instant access to databases within the Member States regarding fisheries policy.
This must be put right.
We do not believe the data should be generally available inter-Member State but that the Commission certainly should have access to those files and those bits of information which are necessary if we are to have proper implementation of control of the Common Fisheries Policy.
Common penalties for common offences are another thing Parliament feels strongly about.
I hope the Commission can start taking some action to ensure that the jurisdiction of the individual member courts are coordinated to such an extent that we get common practice for common offences.
The main problem with control mechanisms within European Community waters is driven by the fact that we have excess fishing capacity in our fleets.
This creates pressure on fish stocks and is an incentive for fishermen to break the rules.
That cannot be a good thing.
That is the main problem we have to combat.
The Commission argues quite correctly that effective monitoring is only part of the overall picture and that the excess capacity in the Community fleets results in the problem I have just described.
There are a number of failures in the present situation which the Commission recognises and which we recognise in Parliament.
We do not have real common standards within the individual Member States so that we know what is what.
For instance, no standardised measurement of engine power, no common definition of what constitutes a proper inspection at sea or what are fraudulent trans-shipments of catches and how they should be monitored, no common definition of what constitutes proper inspection in port.
We have inequalities in the checking system between Member States, and that does not bring respect to the Common Fisheries Policy.
We have inadequate controls to enforce and recognise the proper landing of fish once it is caught at sea and following it through to the marketplace and therefore to the consumer.
We have a wide divergence of penalties in the individual Member States.
What has the Commission done to enforce control mechanisms within the Member States - what has it done where a Member State does not comply with the existing regulations? I am not aware - and the Fisheries Committee is not aware - of how the Commission is actually trying to enforce the regulation that we currently have.
If we could start getting some answers to those questions, we can actually achieve something together.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank Mr Provan for his comprehensive report on fisheries monitoring under the Common Fisheries Policy.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of our group, it is a very good report.
It is a pity, therefore, that we are discussing it before an almost empty House.
I am sure that today will not be the last time we will discuss the problems which arise concerning effective monitoring of the Common Fisheries Policy.
The importance of comprehensive controls can be seen in the communication of the Commission.
Those who have read it carefully will recognise how great the difficulties actually are, particularly in the critical areas.
One weakness of the monitoring system lies in the fact that not all Member States apply it in the same way.
This is not only our point of view; in this, we agree fully with the rapporteur.
Direct responsibility for monitoring lies with the Member States, while the problems arise at Community level.
The Commission assessment shows clearly the main source of the problems.
There is no doubt that the Commission plays an important role in coordination at Community level.
In our opinion, its powers should not only extend to supervising national monitoring and to guaranteeing transparency and fairness, but should also require Member States to impose penalties for similar infringements.
Factors which are important in ensuring the effectiveness and acceptance of the monitoring system include: involvement of fishermen's associations, access to national data in suspicious cases, effective networking of monitoring agencies in the various Member States, and, in particular, equal treatment.
A particularly explosive issue is the monitoring of third country vessels.
There are also specific problems in this area.
We know that the monitoring that takes place is not watertight and will not be so in future.
The current system could be improved if instruments currently available were used effectively and improved.
We are very much in support of the rapporteur's demands but see a great need for further action, despite the considerable progress already made.
Mr President, today's fisheries debate is the first we have had in the House without our friend Allan Macartney.
We extend our deepest sympathy to his family.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my congratulations to you, Mr Provan, on your excellent report.
It is analytical, critical and positive.
Our main problem in fisheries policy is the inefficient management of fish as a resource.
Despite all our efforts over the years, we have not succeeded in striking a sustainable balance between resource and allowable catch.
With some exceptions, practically all types of fish are subject to overfishing.
We have identified excess capacity in fishing fleets as the greatest obstacle to proper management of our waters.
We will have to wait and see whether MAP IV, the last multiannual guidance programme for the period 1997-2000, has solved this problem.
In the meantime, we must use other methods.
The European Community's control policy, for which Member States still have primary responsibility, plays a crucial role in the management of our waters, and for a long time this was the focus of our criticism.
In its report the European Commission identified existing weaknesses.
For example, there are problems in standardising the measurement of engine power between the Member States.
There is wide divergence between Member States in the way in which inspections at sea are implemented.
Member States do not comply with requirements concerning registration of landings.
The list is very much longer and would require more than the three minutes I have available, but what it boils down to is that we sometimes have the impression that the Member States do not comply with the requirements of a strict and consistent control policy.
From our delegation visits on the ground and from talks with the fishermen concerned in the Committee on Fisheries, we know that the fishermen feel they are treated extremely unfairly because they are treated differently from each other.
This is not a good basis.
We have always been of the opinion that a good control policy can exist only with the help of the producer, and Mr Provan emphasises this in his report.
I therefore support the proposals in the report to allow greater involvement of the fishing industry and producer organisations in control policy.
The report includes positive elements and also calls for the use of positive experiences from the past, for example experience which international fishing organisations such as NAFO recently had with controls.
In addition, the report provides further constructive ideas for an even more effective monitoring of the fisheries policy.
I would therefore ask you, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to approve this inspired report.
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mr Provan on his very important report.
The common fisheries policy is one of the few common policies we have in the European Union and so the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers have a very important role in terms of legislation.
It seems to me that the requirements for good legislation are that we can measure what needs to be measured (which is not often the case), that the law should be applied equally throughout the Union (which it is not in the common fisheries policy), that there is the same chance of contraventions being identified wherever they occur and that the penalties for contravention are roughly the same throughout the Union.
That does not occur in the common fisheries policy and this document and the legislation that I hope will follow are all about making that happen.
At the beginning of the year the British presidency stressed that things have to change.
The Commission document is slightly less strong but still says 'yes, let us make things better' .
In a couple of months we will be moving to the Commission proposal which is even slightly weaker.
I call upon the Council of Ministers - who, of course, are not here - and also the Commission to remain strong and determined and tackle the problem.
There are two key areas: the first is equal enforcement right through the supply chain to the market.
Secondly we must make sure that our own inspectors have real powers equivalent to those of national inspectors and can enforce the uniformity that we all want.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion, measures to monitor the application of fisheries policy will only have tangible effects in ensuring the exercise of responsible fishing which duly respects stocks if they are incorporated in a much broader series of practical measures for the sector.
Monitoring alone will not suffice.
All the interested parties must participate in the discussion, dissemination and implementation of monitoring measures.
In addition to policing compliance, the stability of the sector must be guaranteed by introducing social and financial measures to compensate for the reduction in fishing, the current status quo must be maintained regarding access to stocks and greater transparency and fairness must be introduced into the system as regards landing, import, first point of sale, transportation and marketing of fish.
In this connection, and to demonstrate that a global rather than an isolated approach to monitoring is essential, I would point out that a highly regrettable incident occurred two days ago in my home town in Portugal, which culminated in the destruction of a Spanish fish lorry.
In my view, what happened can only be explained - of course, it cannot be justified - by the mistrust that exists regarding the effectiveness and transparency of monitoring measures.
Because, not only are incomes declining, but there is growing suspicion about where fish really comes from; people do not understand, for example, nor do they readily accept that it is legal to catch 12 cm horse mackerel in the Mediterranean, but not in the Atlantic where they must measure 15 cm.
Therefore, the outrage of the Portuguese fishermen was triggered by mistrust.
If the controls between landing and the point of sale were reliable and efficient, if the minimum size of fish were harmonised, such mistrust would not exist and this highly regrettable incident would not have occurred.
We must therefore give further consideration to monitoring measures, with a view to making them transparent, effective and fair, without forgetting that we must simultaneously implement other practical measures to guarantee the stability of the sector and the income of those who work in it.
Mr President, we should not forget that the problem of the fishing industry worldwide is overfishing and overcapacity.
I remind you of Patricia McKenna's report last year which concluded: 'Fishermen are forced to cheat in order to meet their financial obligations.'
Mr Provan said it in more diplomatic language by talking of incentives for fishermen to break the rules.
The concept of inspection has been rightly mentioned.
There is unequal implementation by Member States, inadequate controls of proper landing, and grossly unequal, I would say iniquitous, sanctions for breaking the rules.
Therefore, consequently, effective surveillance and control is one of the fundamental pillars of the CFP.
Both the annual report and control have shown there are many changes which need to be made before control is adequate.
We welcome in particular the Commission's discussion paper which is the subject of Mr Provan's report.
It clearly points out the ways in which control has improved over the past several years and also note the milliard failures.
We broadly support what the Commission says in this paper, as well as the specific proposals for amending the control regulation which it has put forward recently.
We will support the Provan report.
We further agree with Mr Provan that effective control will continue to be problematic as long as there is such an excess of capacity in the EU fleets for boats are built to go fishing and not to sit at the dockside.
However, this discussion has tended to focus too much on control in EU waters, with insufficient attention paid to control of EU activities in international waters and in the waters of third countries.
For instance we should exert fully and consistently our flagstate responsibility.
The FAO code of conduct for responsible fishing requires states authorising fishing and fishing support vessels to fly their flags to exercise effective control over those vessels so as to ensure the proper application of this code.
We should also help coastal states to exert their rights of control.
We should not just give them money and paper but give them real capacities.
Mr President, as the rapporteur rightly points out, the European Parliament has for a long time stressed that the effectiveness of the common fisheries policy depended to a large extent on improved monitoring.
However, I would point out that the best form of monitoring is a system that is reliable, fair and inexpensive, and one that entails only minimum additional constraints for fishermen, since the constraints with which they are currently burdened are already extremely heavy.
In the comments he makes at the end of his explanatory statement, the rapporteur makes another relevant observation that in its communication, the Commission forgets what is perhaps the key point.
For a monitoring policy to function, it must win and maintain the support of fishermen.
They must be convinced of the validity of the monitoring measures that apply to them and that these measures are implemented fairly and justly.
In the report I presented, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on satellite monitoring, I stressed how such monitoring was needed, how reliable it was and the improvements it would bring, but I also pointed out that fishermen needed to be given genuine guarantees that such monitoring would be applied fairly if they were to be convinced of its relevance.
It is also important to involve the fishermen as much as possible in the drawing up and definition of monitoring measures, which, as far as possible, should not just be thrust upon them.
The first amendment I tabled to this report with my colleague, James Nicholson, is aimed at underlining the importance of ensuring that monitoring is fair.
Many fishermen in the Member States are regularly forced to fish in the same waters, drawing from the same resources.
The fishermen of one Member State must not be allowed to have any doubts or suspicions as to the effectiveness of checks carried out on fishermen belonging to another Member State; if this happens, uncertainty feeds fears which are not always well-founded.
It is therefore essential to perfect the monitoring arrangements, but I do not believe, unlike the rapporteur, that in order to do this we need to recruit an army of Community monitors.
I think that the Member States should continue to carry out the checks and that the strengthening of Community monitoring must relate to the actual system of national controls and the methods used.
It is essential to fine tune and harmonise the monitoring arrangements.
Some fishing grounds are actually overmonitored, whilst others certainly are not.
Some essential readjustments must be made.
That is the reason for the second amendment that I tabled to a report that is, in general, satisfactory.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission's document.
As a representative of Irish fishermen I have no difficulty with it at all.
I thank Mr Provan for his report, which is a fair representation of the almost unanimous opinion of the Fisheries Committee.
Regarding the problems he raises such as the different standards of horse power, I have heard complaints by our own fishermen.
This leads to serious misunderstanding and mistrust.
The necessity to follow up the catch into the marketplace to make sure that we know exactly where the fish that are marketed in a given market are coming from is extremely important.
That is good for the market, good for prices and will lead to a more orderly situation in which prices will be easier to maintain.
We know about the problem of black-market fish and what they can do to a market situation at a given time.
The big difficulty is, as always, the trust of the fishermen.
I imagine it is the same in Scotland as it is on the west coast of Ireland - a serious mistrust exists.
That mistrust is to some degree - and maybe unintentionally - fostered by the national authorities and departments who represent the Commission as the oppressive force which is responsible for all the regulation.
They do not own up to the fact that it is mainly unanimous agreements in the Council of Ministers that lead to the making of the regulations that the Commission tries to supervise and enforce.
Often that is not made very clear.
Very often when there is bad news and restrictions it comes from the Commission.
But when you have a situation like we had in Ireland recently where a ECU 60 million package is announced for the development of the white fish fleet we have national ministers in the limelight, not people from the Commission or Parliament who provide the money and design the plans.
That is part of the problem that exists.
Finally, since we would like to have a sort of regionalisation, a 30-mile limit would be immensely helpful to employ the goodwill of fishermen in the business of reorganising.
Mr President, I should like to say that my colleague Emma Bonino sends her apologies.
She would like to have been here.
I am pleased to take the report.
I have a personal interest and I know just a little about it coming as I do from the fishing coast on the west of Ireland.
The Commission welcomes Mr Provan's positive response to our communication.
With regard to fishing monitoring, the Commission's main concern is to avoid any new amendments to the existing regulations which might not be strictly necessary and would not fit in well with the overall strategy.
A strategy for improving fisheries monitoring firstly requires strong political will and then adequate human and material resources.
It requires an efficient organization and increased awareness on all sides as to what is at stake.
The Commission's objective was, therefore, to carry out a detailed examination that went beyond the limits of the annual monitoring reports, which do not allow us to take a step back and take a good hard look at things.
That is the aim of the communication we are discussing here today.
The Commission would therefore like firstly to highlight the significant progress that has been made.
The implementation of recent decisions, notably in the use of satellites would speed up that progress quite a lot.
However, if we look at the implementation of the different parts of the common fisheries policy, from the fleet monitoring which is mentioned, to the markets, which were also mentioned, it all shows that some major improvements are still needed in various areas.
It will not be enough simply to implement what has already been decided on.
So technical details aside, two main problems are emerging.
They have been referred to but it is as well that I should mention them.
They are: a lack of transparency between the Member States, and a lack of cooperation often within the individual Member States themselves.
With these thoughts in mind the Commission has already proposed two documents to try to bring together and shape up an overall strategy and policy.
The proposal for an amendment of the regulation establishing a control system and, secondly, the action plan to improve application of the common fisheries policy cover the main points that have been mentioned in this communication.
The Commission is extremely appreciative of the positive reception that Parliament has given to the communication. We take note of the new suggestions that have emerged during the course of the debate and they help give us a key to a constructive form of support.
I noticed what Mr Provan said about action against the Member States.
We need legally unassailable evidence here and we lack good powers to get it.
The powers of inspection are poor, and the Commission's work will be much more effective if, in addition to their recognized right to dispense with giving advance notice, Community inspectors could gather information more freely with a view to establishing any shortcomings in the national control systems.
That would greatly advance the situation.
Secondly, you make the point of access to information and to the databases.
In the proposal which has followed on from this present one, we are taking that on board and I think it would be very useful.
I feel Mr Teversen has a very good handle on this in that we are not acting in an even-handed way across all the parameters.
That is where the problem arises.
Personally, I very much like the whole question about following the chain of events right to the market.
That is not done well.
Mr McCartin also mentioned that point.
That would be a good way of checking back in the whole system.
We would like to think we could do something about that.
Finally, there are some initiatives over and above this which have been considered.
We should take full account of the great potential available with the use of new technologies.
Data processing and satellites are not yet fully utilised.
Something could be done there.
Perhaps we might consider finance of research in that area and some studies.
In the future fifth programme we could put controls in as a bigger priority.
I would like to see that happen.
Finally, there is the possibility of having an international conference on this next year and that could lead on to a lot of good conclusions and recommendations that would fill out the strategy for what everybody seeks, namely creating the level playing field that Mr Teversen refers to.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, in yesterday's Minutes I am not registered as having been present.
Please could that be corrected, because I was here all day.
You did indeed chair the sitting.
I think we can all testify to that.
Are there any other comments?
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the House on the completely unfathomable decision it took yesterday evening on the Scarbonchi report to increase the number of jobs by 12 million from 1995 to 1996.
I am now curious to see whether the European Parliament decides to put the millennium back a year.
Madam President, a photograph was taken in this House yesterday.
I do not wish to make an issue of this, but could we have an assurance that the photograph will not be used for any public purpose and, if it is, could the Bureau make certain not only that it does not happen again but also that the Member is punished because he has given an assurance to this House that the photograph was only for personal use.
Our colleague told us yesterday that it was a private photograph.
Madam President, in the light of that, could we also have an assurance that no private telephone calls made from mobile telephones in this Chamber will be used for any purpose like that either?
I have taken note of your suggestions.
Mr Kerr wishes to speak on the Minutes.
Madam President, you will notice from yesterday's Minutes that I spoke six times on behalf of the Green Group on six different reports. I asked whether this was a record.
Have the services had time to count yet?
It is very good of you to help us with something that is not always done automatically.
(The Minutes were approved)
VOTES
The rapporteur has informed me that the words 'such as the United Kingdom' have been mistakenly included in recital F and should be deleted.
Madam President, I am a member of the Committee on Women's Rights and coordinator of the Greens.
It is my recollection that this alteration was not made at the meeting.
I would request that it is not removed from the report and that we take the report with the words 'the United Kingdom' and 'the United States' in it.
This is an attempt by my New Labour colleagues to save the British Government embarrassment.
We should leave the report as it is and vote on it as it is.
If not, I will request that full tapes of the committee proeedings are heard and I will prove that this amendment was not made at the committee.
I suggest we leave the report as it is and vote on it as it is.
What is the rapporteur's opinion?
Madam President, I am extremely surprised at Mr Kerr's reaction because he should clearly recall the day when we agreed, and subsequently voted, in the committee to remove references to countries.
The text of the original proposal, not only of these two paragraphs but also of other paragraphs, had been agreed, but the agreement to which I referred was reached in the committee and should have been included in the minutes.
This is why I call on Mr Kerr to think back to the day of the vote. I remember it perfectly well, Madam President.
So recital F and paragraph 12 should be corrected to show that we are criticising 'models' and not 'the model' and as a consequence the reference to the United States should be removed.
Thank you, Mrs García Arias.
This deletion therefore has nothing to do with the United Kingdom, Mr Kerr, since no references to any countries are being made.
Madam President, I suggest the best way to deal with this is to treat it as an oral amendment from the rapporteur.
If the House accepts the oral amendment it can be voted on in that way. If twelve Members object it is not accepted.
No, that suggestion is not appropriate.
As the rapporteur has explained, the committee found a clear solution which is in accordance with what has been said here, and no further amendments can be accepted.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
It seems that in order to respond better to the real needs of our societies, we need to clarify certain concepts, such as that of the single-parent family: are we talking about a widow or widower responsible for children, a divorced man or woman with children, a single mother with a child or children ...?
Whether it is the result of the hardships of life or of a woman's personal choice, being a single parent family is always difficult to cope with, both from a financial point of view and for the children's education, as the rapporteur points out several times.
This is why I do not understand why our amendments have been rejected, when they are acting in the financial and moral interests of children in calling for a policy to prevent single parent families as much as possible, by educating people to be responsible.
Indeed, thirty years on from 1968, the disastrous consequences of 'sexual liberation' are becoming ever clearer.
Provan report (A4-0277/98)
I congratulate Mr Provan on an excellent report which reflects the commonly held view that fisheries monitoring must be improved if we are to conserve fishing stocks and provide a livelihood for future generations of fishermen.
In this report, Mr Provan has underlined an important point of strategy which too often seems to be lacking from Commission thinking, that point being the need to get the fishermen themselves on side.
In doing so we will be making the fishermen equal partners in the monitoring process rather than what can sometimes seem to be the subject of a spying operation.
Fisheries monitoring will only become fully successful once the fishermen themselves can feel fully confident in the process.
I have to say that it is difficult to deal in one's mind with this subject without also giving thought to the political direction of EU fisheries policy.
Those of us who represent areas in which the fisheries industry has suffered from decision making at political level cannot help but wonder whether clever monitoring cannot make up for the damage caused by opening our fishing waters to all and sundry.
Having said that I certainly welcome the proposals to tighten monitoring of third country vessels operating in EU waters.
This is a useful report which gives further substance to Parliament's continued insistence that the Commission does more to address weaknesses in the CFP.
I hope that we are seeing the beginning of a Commission attitude of listening to Parliament in this subject.
This report contains many good ideas and suggestions.
Yet I would like to see a more critical stance taken on the EU's fisheries policy as such.
It is, after all, this policy that has led to the exhaustion of fish stocks in the waters off the coast of Africa, a state of affairs that cannot be remedied by improved monitoring, but only by a different set of policies.
EC-Madagascar fishing agreement
The next item is the report (A4-0282/98) by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of a Protociol setting out the fishing opportunities and financial contribution provided for in the agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Madagascar on fishing off Madagascar for the period from 21 May 1998 to 20 May 2001 (COM(98)0390 - C4-0456/98-98/0217(CNS)).
Madam President, at the outset I wish to say how extremely grateful I am to all those who have assisted me in the preparation of my report and, in particular, the secretariat of the committee, the members of the Committee on Fisheries who actively participated in the debates in committee, the personnel from the Commission and, of course, those who prepared the opinions on behalf of the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
This report is based on the Commission's proposal to renew the protocol attached to the fisheries agreement between the EU and the Republic of Madagascar for the three-year period from May 1998 to May 2001.
The first protocol with Madagascar was concluded in 1986 and this protocol is the fifth.
It deals exclusively with tuna and it will involve 45 freezer vessels and 30 longliners.
The authorised catch will be 9 500 tonnes. The overall cost of the agreement to the Community will be ECU 2.28 over a three-year period.
The financial compensation will be ECU 912 000, which is 40 % of the overall cost.
The remainder will be used to finance measures to aid the Malagasy fishery sector by funding scientific research programmes and monitoring programmes such as inspection and surveillance operations.
It is vitally important that funding is provided to assist in the development of small-scale coastal fisheries. This will also involve training grants to assist the fishermen in the coastal states of Madagascar.
It is important to note that, for the first time ever, the funding is linked to a legal obligation on the part of the Malagasy authorities. They must provide a detailed annual report to the Commission on the funds allocated to the scientific programmes, the monitoring programmes and technical assistance.
The payment of the funds is tied to the implementation of these measures, which is a welcome development.
Additional information may be requested by the Commission and payments may be blocked by the Union if it is not satisfied with the further information. This is very much in line with Parliament's thinking and will also ensure total transparency, which is absolutely essential.
To ensure that the Malagasy authorities and the people of Madagascar benefit from this, Community vessels must obtain the services and supplies they need from the Malagasy authorities.
This protocol provides that the agreement may be extended to other fishery activities. These are not specified, but there is a very clear reference to shrimp, which have considerable economic value and are at the moment governed by private agreements.
This international fisheries agreement provides some of the Union's vessels with opportunities to explore for fish outside the Union zone, giving our vessels a right to fish stocks in third-country waters and alleviating the pressure on many of our stocks within the Union.
The opportunity to fish in third-country exclusion zones should not be confined to the vessels of only some Member States. It should be open to vessels from any Member State which are capable of steaming long distances and fishing the stocks concerned.
Countries without traditional rights must have the same opportunities and should not be prevented from exploring the fishing grounds for tuna and migratory species that move in the waters off several coastal states between March and June each year.
Only a cooperative regional management system will ensure proper conservation.
I do not have to remind this House of the importance of conserving renewable resources.
We are the custodians and we must ensure those resources are available to future generations.
Indeed, those who understand this most are our fishermen who want to ensure that stocks are there for their generation and future generations.
In conclusion, I have tabled a number of amendments. This is in line with Parliament's thinking, calling for detailed, coherent information to be supplied to Parliament.
I commend the report to the House and ask the House to give serious consideration to my amendments, which I believe, will make it a better report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets I should like to congratulate Mr Gallagher on his report, and I should also - which is not often the case - like to congratulate the Commission.
It is always good to see civil servants who are willing to learn, and with Madagascar the Commission has for the first time succeeded in concluding negotiations two months before the protocol expires instead of at the eleventh hour.
Of course, it would have been nice if they had been concluded 4-6 months in advance to allow time for the entire legislative process to be completed, but two months is a step in the right direction, certainly as far as the code of conduct is concerned.
However, we would have preferred to avoid having to apply the protocol provisionally, since we would then have avoided a situation where we are once again simply rubber stamping what has already been decided, which, as we all know, considerably limits our rights as part of the budget authority.
One further point. We in the Committee on Budgets naturally have a different view on the matter of classification.
We continue to regard the expenditure on international fishing agreements as non-compulsory, even if some of our colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries think otherwise.
I just wanted to make this clear. It also applies to the agreement with Gabon, of course, but we are to debate this later.
We will certainly not be able to clear up this dispute later in the legislative process, so it is really a question of waiting for the next Interinstitutional Agreement.
Madam President, I would firstly like to congratulate rapporteurs Mr Gallagher and Mr Girão Pereira who presented their reports to the House this morning, for the excellent work they have done on the fisheries agreements with the Republic of Madagascar and the Gabonese Republic.
I should like to point out that both agreements provide for the continuation of the European Union's Common Fisheries Policy as regards international fishing agreements, and they help to consolidate these agreements as one of the fundamental pillars of the Common Fisheries Policy which, as was pointed out in the Crampton own-initiative report, continues to be a fundamental condition for attempting to reduce the European Union's trade deficit as well as both directly and indirectly safeguarding jobs in fishing and in the Community fisheries sector. This is something that chiefly affects peripheral regions that are both economically backward and heavily dependent on the fishing industry.
As regards Mr Girão Pereira's report, I wanted to mention that the fisheries agreement with the Republic of Gabon is a new agreement that exclusively applies to tuna fishing over a five-year period and which will mean the funding of 9 000 negotiated tonnes.
But it should also be pointed out that, for the first time, the financial contributions that shipowners have to make are being increased - which is quite incomprehensible and worrying - from ECU 20 to ECU 25 per tonne and, as a consequence, Community contributions are being reduced from ECU 80 to ECU 75 per tonne.
I do not see how this can be justified and if it were, I think that such an increase should always be accompanied by a similar increase in both the fishing opportunities and the participation of the vessel owners in negotiations, in view of their larger contribution.
On the Gallagher report on the conclusion of a new Protocol on relations with the Republic of Madagascar, attention must be drawn to the fact that this is also a new agreement that exclusively applies to tuna fishing, in which the number of tuna seiners remains the same and the number of surface longliners has been increased along with the size of the annual catch from 9 000 tonnes to 9 500 tonnes.
The total cost of the agreement has slightly increased, but it is worth noting that, unlike the observations we made in relation to the Gabon agreement, the Commission has kept the same level of contributions for vessel owners that have been applied in agreements of this type up to now.
This means that vessel owners will contribute ECU 20 to the cost of each tonne and the Commission will contribute ECU 80 per tonne.
Lastly, I would like to say that the amendments to Mr Gallagher's report approved by the Committee on Fisheries were very positive, particularly because they call for the Commission to submit a general assessment report to Parliament in the final year of the Protocol, on the application of the agreement and on the progress of negotiations with a view to its possible renewal. On the basis of this report, Parliament can then adopt recommendations to be taken into account before the negotiations are concluded.
Despite improvements in interinstitutional communication since the previous Protocol, thanks to the implementation of the Interinstitutional Agreement on improving the provision of information to the budget authority on the 1996 fisheries agreements, much more needs to be done.
Mr Gallagher's report sets out new ways of collaborating which would strengthen the European Parliament's contribution and potentially lead to substantial improvements in the procedure for applying and implementing international fisheries agreements.
, Madam President, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur for a fine report. It is very gratifying to witness the conclusion of such an agreement between the EU and a number of developing countries.
With this type of agreement, the key is to find a balance between various interests. From a business perspective, the terms have to make economic sense.
Environmentally, it is all about sustainable management of a particular resource, ensuring that it will still be there for a long time to come.
From the development point of view, we are seeking to help countries in theThird World.
It is not particularly easy to reconcile all these elements. I would not claim that we have succeeded yet, but we are at any rate on the right track.
I note that the Committee on Development and Cooperation is dissatisfied with the level of attention being paid to the regional aspects of administration and research. The Commission should bear this in mind when embarking on future activities.
The Liberal Group has proposed that no subsidies be given to fishermen in the context of these agreements. I should like to comment briefly on that.
Of course assistance is needed in a situation where agriculture and fisheries lack the wherewithal to keep pace with international competition. Subsidies must however be phased out in the long term.
Madam President, with your indulgence, I will return to this subject when we come to the next report. An identical amendment has been tabled there.
Madam President, when the House discussed the last fisheries agreement with Madagascar more than two years ago, the European Parliament heavily criticised both the content and the procedure because we had not been given any chance to have our say.
The rapporteur called for the agreement to be rejected, but the majority in the House did not agree with him.
Mr Baldarelli, on behalf of the socialists, said that this was the last agreement that they would approve.
They have supported every single agreement since then.
What is actually happening in practice? If we compare the two agreements we can see that there is still no appropriate regional management structure, that there are still no effective control measures and that Parliament is still only being consulted.
We welcome the fact that the zone where fishing is permitted has finally been extended from two to twelve miles, and high time too, since this was included in many other agreements long ago.
As this is yet another agreement which mainly concerns tuna fishing, we need to focus attention on the fact that the use of a particular type of net - bag nets - presents a considerable problem with by-catch, though not in this case dolphins, which are not found in the area.
A very recent study by French scientists has shown that many other species are caught, such as bream, mackerel and skipjack, to name but a few.
There is also the problem of very young tuna being caught far too early.
As a number of these species are also caught by non-industrial vessels, this means that our fishing concerns have a considerable impact on the livelihoods of local fishermen.
It is also noticeable that whereas most of the other tuna agreements require two local fishermen to be employed on each vessel, this agreement provides for only two for the entire fleet.
So in our view the whole question of controls needs to be tightened up. We therefore support the liberal amendment which is heading in the right direction in calling for the vessel owners to be more involved.
Madam President, the debate we are having today on two European Union fishing agreements, one with Madagascar, the other with Gabon, is concerned, exclusively in the case of Gabon, and mainly in the case of Madagascar, with tuna-fishing agreements.
This discussion comes two days after the meeting of the intergroup on conservation and sustainable development which highlighted the beneficial effects of our fishing agreements both for the European-ACP tuna network and for the signatory developing countries, especially those which have ports used by licensed vessels.
This is particularly the case with Diego-Suarez in Madagascar where, as in Abidjan, Dakar, Mahé, Ghana and Mauritius, the fishing agreements have made it possible to set up major industrial activities on the ground and to create a significant number of jobs.
The tropical tuna network in the ACP countries of landing has therefore come to play a central role in local economic development.
The smooth functioning of this whole economy depends on the fishing agreements section of the Common Fisheries Policy and the tariff provisions of the Lomé Convention, which allow duty-free imports of tinned tuna produced in ACP countries into the Community.
The development of this tuna network in the Indian and Atlantic oceans also depends on the moderate fishing of deep sea resources, which are particularly abundant and are closely scientifically monitored, notably by France's Orstom and Spain's IEO.
This type of fishing is therefore not going to compete with the food-producing activities of local small-scale fisherman, who can continue to use their driftnets freely and legitimately.
The European-ACP tuna network is one of the great successes both of our fisheries policy and of our cooperation policy.
Everyone in the industry and all the contracting national authorities are pleased with the way these agreements have worked and have asked that the current economic balance of the tuna network should not be upset or weakened in the new Lomé Convention.
They quite rightly want to see special rules introduced during the transitional period for the new convention, to maintain the preferential Lomé market for processed tuna, especially with regard to the GSP, as this is what has allowed our network to develop in competition with the Asian giants of Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, which is Asia's main tuna producer.
Parliament will therefore have to keep a close eye on things here, and on the Commission's tendency to agree to exemptions willy-nilly without thinking about the consequences for the fishing sector: GSP is addictive, and annual quotas and trade agreements with various regions such as Mercosur are in danger of creating direct competition that our ACP partners in the Lomé Convention cannot withstand.
We need to prevent such initiatives from destroying what we have achieved through the CFP and the Lomé agreements.
It is essential that we carry out detailed studies of the impact on both the interests of the European economy and those of the Lomé signatory countries before each of these negotiations, especially for the fisheries sector.
Finally, like the rapporteurs I too am extremely interested in the provisions of the new agreements with Madagascar and Gabon on monitoring, training and scientific studies, which account for 60 % of the total financial compensation and are increasing.
I also think it is a very positive step that a section for the development of small-scale fishing has appeared for the first time in a fishing agreement.
All in all, Madam President, these are two excellent reports which should be approved by the House.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Gallagher for his report. He certainly gives a lot of very detailed information which enables us to evaluate the situation.
It is normally argued that these fisheries agreements are a favour to a particular region of the Community.
I agree with Mr Gallagher that it is mainly the Spanish, French and Portuguese that exploit the possibilities, but I do not think people in the more northerly Member States are in a position to exploit them, even if they had full information and the opportunity to do so.
I note from the figures that the cost per tonne seems to have gone down.
I wonder why we are paying less in this agreement than in the earlier one and why we have increased the number of ships by something like 30 longliners, in addition to the freezer ships that were part of the first agreement.
Nevertheless we welcome the improvements that have been made to this agreement in order to conserve fish in the area and move from a 2-mile limit, which we never should have allowed, to a 12-mile limit.
This gives greater protection to local fishermen, who are quite capable of exploiting every resource within that limit.
If we did not have this agreement this migratory species would not be conserved for the benefit of the local fishermen and would probably be exploited in any case.
Madagascar makes a profit out of this that it would not otherwise receive, so its economy does benefit to some extent.
It is a relatively small amount of money when you consider it as regional aid to fishing ports in any part of the Community.
This agreement gives us approximately ECU 10 million worth of fish.
When you deduct the cost of catching them, it is obviously not an immense amount of regional aid but all these little agreements have to be taken in the context of the whole.
I would prefer the number of vessels going into these waters to be more transparent.
It is very hard to know what is happening when licences are granted to 70 or 80 vessels to catch such a small amount of fish.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Gallagher, the rapporteur, for this report on the Commission proposal for the renewal of the tuna agreement with Madagascar for a further three years.
Whilst the Republic of Madagascar should be entitled to use the proceeds of this agreement as it sees fit, I am pleased to see that the major part - 60 % - of the total remunerative package of ECU 2.28 million is to be used for scientific research, conservation and training and therefore will be of direct benefit to the coastal regions and the people who live there.
Direct financial aid and the transfer of technology and expertise to developing countries are the hallmarks of the European Union's development policy.
I am glad to see that our fishing agreements with developing countries combine some financial aid with a commitment to improving structures and training facilities and providing better opportunities for local fishermen.
However we can and should do more, as part of both the fisheries agreements and our overall development policy.
Very often third countries such as Madagascar are not able to monitor or police the fishing activities of the EU fishing fleets. Indeed many Member States' authorities are not able to control their activities either.
However we must find a system that will allow the countries concerned and the Commission to monitor fishing agreements effectively and ensure that there is no over-exploitation of the limited resources.
Over-fishing or over-exploitation of any limited resource will damage that resource to the detriment of all and therefore is absolutely unsustainable.
There is one area where we could help third countries more.
We should give local fishing boats a larger exclusive zone in which to fish.
The current practice of providing a 10-mile zone could and should be extended to 15 miles without serious disadvantage to the EU deep-sea fleets.
This would give the local fishing interests a wider scope and a more solid basis on which to plan their investments.
Madam President, the Commission would like to thank the Mr Gallagher, for this excellent report on the new terms for fishing agreed by the Community fleet in the waters off Madagascar.
I also thank the Members who have complimented to the staff on their hard work on these agreements and the success they are having.
The Commission considers that these measures will permit a more efficient exploitation of the agreement in line with the fundamental principles of resource conservation.
The Commission also considers that the new protocol with Madagascar contains significant innovative features aimed at promoting sustainable fishing in coherence with the Union's development policy.
The new procotol to the agreement opens up fishing in Madagascar's exclusive zone to Portuguese and Italian tuna boats for the very first time.
It assigns 60 % of the financial compensation, i.e. about ECU 1.368m over the three years, to targeted actions, namely scientific research, fisheries monitoring, training and the development of traditional fisheries.
It also allows the Malagasy authorities to monitor the movements of Community vessels in the zone, thanks to new provisions in the protocol annex on control procedures, including notification of entry to and exit from the exclusive zone.
The Commission accepts the substance of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Fisheries, but not the form in which they are put.
It would point out that Parliament is already regularly informed about take-up levels for fishery agreements through statements and reports to the committee.
So the Commission cannot accept Mr Teverson's amendment.
Fishery agreements are concluded at Community level and it is up to the Community to pay the financial compensation, and to vessels fishing in the waters concerned to pay the fees.
We thank the House for its consideration.
Thank you, Commissioner Flynn.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I cannot vote in favour of this report. It effectively endorses the EU's fisheries policy, which has led to the exhaustion of fish stocks in the waters off the coast of Africa.
Madagascar is the country affected here. What is more, the EU's policies are impoverishing local fishing communities.
A thoroughgoing review of the whole system is needed.
EC-Gabon fishing agreement
The next item is the report (A4-0283/98) by Mr Girão Pereira, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the conclusion of the agreement between the European Community and the Gabonese Republic on fishing off the coast of Gabon (COM(98)0376 - C4-0458/98-98/0212(CNS)).
Mr President, I am deputising for Mr Girão Pereira, who was to present his report yesterday.
Since it was postponed until today and it is impossible for him to be with us, I will replace him as best I can.
Before us we have the first agreement with Gabon to reach the implementation stage.
An earlier and broader agreement was concluded in 1988 relating to tuna and demersal species but was never ratified on account of political developments in Gabon at that time.
In 1995, Gabon approached the European Union, as did Madagascar, about concluding an agreement on tuna.
Other agreements are in force in that region, specifically with São Tomé and Principe, Cote d'Ivoire and Equitorial Guinea, where Community vessel owners, particularly French, Spanish and Portuguese, now operate.
Given that tuna are a migratory species, it is of particular interest that this agreement should be concluded so that vessel owners can operate throughout the entire region, thereby maximizing their effectiveness.
It should be emphasised that, unlike some agreements, in this instance there is no particular clash with the local fishermen, since the activities of these vessels are conducted on the open sea, 12 miles off-shore, while the small-scale fishing fleet of Gabon comprises vessels with which we are all familiar, particularly the Portuguese.
This agreement has a relatively long time frame of five years, with financial compensation of ECU 810 000 for the first three years for a total catch volume of 9 000 tonnes per annum.
The Community will also pay ECU 1 215 000 in respect of measures relating to resource conservation in the area, and to scientific and technical aid for the fishing sector in Gabon, particularly scientific and technical programmes intended to promote better understanding of resources, programmes for the protection and monitoring of the fishing zones and, finally, study grants and practical training courses.
Allow me here to add, as a comment of my own, that frequently these programmes do not work because the European Union does not always have the courage to draw up reports which carefully and accurately reflect what is happening on the ground or, in this case, in the sea.
Much of the problem of money ill-spent may be attributed to the Community's lack of care and courage in this regard.
The government of the Gabonese Republic undertakes to submit an annual report to the Commission on the application of these measures and the results achieved, with failure to comply resulting in discontinuation of payments.
Substantial funding (some 60 % of the financial compensation) is allocated to the management and conservation of resources and to scientific and technical training in the Gabonese fishing sector.
Another significant aspect of the agreement is the increase in the financial contributions of vessel owners, from ECU 20 to ECU 25, representing a rise of over 25 % per tonne, with a simultaneous reduction from ECU 80 to ECU 75 per tonne in payments from the Community budget.
Finally, I would also like to say that the new agreement is in line with the Council's conclusions of 30 October 1997, for which reason we support it.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur Mr Girão Pereira for his magnificent report and also, on this occasion, the Commission, for having negotiated a thoroughly satisfactory new fisheries agreement.
I would like to draw your attention to a matter which I believe is of great interest, and one that we are following with the utmost concern - it is indeed a shame that our colleagues from the Committee on Budgets have already left the room, Mr President - since the agreement with Gabon marks a turning point in our policy on agreements.
This Protocol is the first in which the Commission carries out its intention of sharing out the costs of these agreements, with the result that vessel owners will pay more and the Community budget less.
The background to this initiative is highly debatable given that we believed the Common Fisheries Policy was inextricably linked to international relations.
Although this is an exceptional step to take, I perfectly understand why part of the cost should fall to the direct beneficiary of a common policy.
However, I fail to understand why a high proportion of the financial cost of the agreements remains the responsibility of the vessel owners when they receive no compensation, since - as we are well aware - the Commission continues to have sole responsibility for the negotiations.
If this is the path we choose to follow, and if they do indeed rebalance payments - to use Commission terminology - all other initiatives should receive the same treatment, giving Community vessel owners responsibilities in negotiating agreements, especially bearing in mind that the Commission does not always negotiate with the sector's interests at heart. This is a sector, let us remember, which in the agreements to which we are referring here - access to resources in return for financial compensation - is already paying approximately one third of the total cost of the agreements.
Neither should we forget the discrimination that exists between vessel owners in the different Member States, and on this point I should like to contradict what some of my colleagues said earlier. This is not discrimination in the sense that we have spoken about, but quite the opposite, since whereas vessel owners in certain fleets - as in this case - are paying increasingly more, in other kinds of agreement they benefit from fishing possibilities at no cost to themselves whatsoever - and here I am referring to agreements with Nordic countries in which southern fleets are not involved.
These are agreements which are the exclusive preserve of certain fleets, preventing the rest of the Community's fleets from having any access whatsoever, for example in the case of Greenland. Yet the new Protocol with Mauritius - and the Commission will correct me if I am wrong - provides for pelagic fishing possibilities for countries such as Germany or the Netherlands.
This is why, at its meeting in October 1997, the Council asked the Commission to carry out a study - a cost-benefit analysis - on fisheries agreements.
And while it waits - in accordance with Council guidelines - for the Council to deliberate on the basis of this study, it has asked the Commission to study how and with what means vessel owners benefitting from fisheries agreements with third countries could share the financial costs of these agreements with the Community in a fair and nondiscriminatory manner, taking account of the interests of the Community and its vessel owners as well as of the third countries affected.
I therefore think, Mr President, that the Commission has gone too far too quickly in this matter and so we ask it to make the same careful considerations to which the Council also refers.
Mr President, when I spoke previously, I discussed the need to balance economic, environmental and development interests.
This time I wish to focus on the issue of subsidies - and, of course, to congratulate the rapporteur for producing a good report.
It behoves us to remember the role played by fishing and agriculture in times gone by.
These traditional activities financed the beginnings of industrialisation.
The yield from their labour fed and educated the people who went on to work in manufacturing and the service trades.
Subsidies actually went from agriculture and fisheries to the other sectors.
We are now still living through the intervening period of interregnum which followed. Increased efficiency has led to increased production.
Fear of food shortages drives us to maintain production at levels slightly above the optimum. As a result, the world market goes into surplus and prices fall.
If we are to avoid massive structural transformation of a senseless and unnatural kind, the less affected sectors of society must contribute towards keeping the best parts of these traditional activities alive. And I refer here to both agriculture and fisheries, since the two are comparable, as are our policies for them.
In the long term, we should of course be aiming to eliminate the differences between world and national markets.
We need to create a new equilibrium, with involvement of more than just a few countries.
Once this has happened, subsidies can go. Mr Teverson somewhat jumps the gun.
In his amendment, he says that the fisheries sector should bear the costs itself.
I confess to being too close to the realities of the situation to be able to support this ELDR proposal - although I understand the thinking behind it.
I will therefore abstain when it comes to the vote.
Thank you very much Mr Olsson.
Ladies and gentlemen, in its other capacity as paediatrician the Presidency of the House would like to welcome to Parliament a young child, a young European of just a few months old, and we hope that our speeches do not make him cry, but instead dream sweet European dreams.
Mr President, a study carried out in April this year by the World Bank describes the effects of subsidising the fisheries sector very clearly.
According to the World Bank subsidies mean considerable reductions in fishing opportunities for local fishermen, and in most cases the compensation paid does not reflect the full economic value of the fish.
Second, the study draws attention to the fact that local food requirements may be affected, and that long distance fleets now tend to fish the most profitable species.
Third, trade is also affected, since trading opportunities that should be open to the developing countries with all their raw materials are almost certainly reduced.
It therefore remains a dubious practice and one that we should deal with very cautiously.
As Mrs Fraga Estévez said, the Council issued a number of guidelines in October, but if we look at them more closely they appear extremely vague.
There are no clear criteria which agreements have to meet.
Something is said about the need for a fairer distribution of costs between the vessel owners and the Community, but as we can see from the Gabon Agreement, the owners' contribution is to increase from ECU 20 to ECU 25 per tonne, while the Community is to continue to pay ECU 75.
So in our view we still need more specific details, a more cautious approach and better monitoring in line with sustainability.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Girão Pereira for his report and to say that I support this deal made on behalf of European fishermen.
Firstly, we are dealing with a country that is not exactly the same as the other countries in sub-tropical Africa. It has oil and forest resources and a GDP per capita double that of the average African country.
So its representatives are in a better position to stand up for themselves and make their own deal.
Nevertheless, I am still concerned about the limited means at the disposal of the European Union to police such deals.
There 9 000 tonnes are a relatively small amount of fish.
Nevertheless, we are talking about licences for 70 boats - 120 tonnes per vessel, if all of them go in.
We do not know whether they catch 120 tonnes or double that figure.
Nevertheless, I agree with Mrs Fraga on the whole matter of whether or not it is right to charge the fishermen for the privilege of fishing.
The European Union has a resource which we hand out without cost or charge to our fishermen, and we extend that resource through these agreements.
As long as the agreements are designed in such a way as to do minimum damage to stocks which would not be utilised by the local fishermen in any case, it is reasonable for the Union to pass on the benefit of that, just as we pass the benefits of our own stocks in our own waters to the fishermen that get the licences to exploit them.
So I accept the principle as reasonable, but when fishermen from a particular region go to exploit these resources, in some instances we should consider whether we should rebalance the resources within our own waters.
Thank you, Mr Flynn.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I cannot vote in favour of this report. It effectively endorses the EU's fisheries policy, which has led to the exhaustion fish stocks in the waters off the coast of Africa.
Gabon is the country affected here. What is more, the EU's policies are impoverishing local fishing communities.
A thoroughgoing review of the whole system is needed.
EC-Azerbaijan trade agreement
The next item is the report (A4-0287/98) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion by the European Comunity of the interim agreement between the European Community, the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, of the one part, and the Republic of Azerbaijan, of the other part, on trade and trade-related matters (COM(96)613-5467/97 - C4-0315/98-96/0299(ACC)).
Thank you, Mr President.
Mr Schwaiger, I should like to congratulate you on the excellent sauce and accompaniments you have served up, and the care you have taken with your preparations.
Unfortunately, carrying on this morning's theme, the fish itself is not very fresh and leaves a rather bitter taste in the mouth.
The interim agreement is designed to implement the trade elements of the partnership and cooperation agreement first.
Given the history of the last 500 years it is simply hypocritical to claim that free trade somehow automatically generates democracy and human rights, or else it shows a cynical disregard for the problems of the people involved - not on your part, I hasten to add, but by those who have negotiated the agreement and who use the safety clause so one-sidedly.
There are sure to be misgivings about this in the Member States too, which this interim agreement is designed to circumvent.
The human rights situation is disastrous.
Despite the OECD's insistence that a peace agreement had to be reached the war with Armenia is still continuing.
I do not wish to go into detail here and would simply mention a few salient facts. On 12 September the police assaulted 34 journalists on the fringes of a demonstration organised by the opposition and confiscated their equipment.
On 1 September the journalist Tai Hamid was dragged from his car and assaulted.
In such a situation we should use the existing CIS agreements to provide aid and to develop relations, instead of allowing trade to monopolise our attention.
We therefore intend to abstain in the vote on your report.
Mr President, if we look at the map we can see just how important Azerbaijan is to us.
You would sometimes think that our political leaders had no maps in their offices, only paintings, yet they should really be looking at the geographical details over and over again.
A glance at the map should give us serious cause for concern: the risk of war is mounting around the world.
Think of what is still going on in Africa, and the tension between Iran and Afghanistan that could so easily spill over the borders.
In Azerbaijan there is still the problem with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian-occupied areas of the country, a problem which needs to be resolved before it is too late.
All too often problems have been put off and put off until they become completely intractable, as could well soon be the case in Bosnia.
You only have to watch what is happening in Kosovo.
Azerbaijan is also important to us for other reasons.
It is a country with enormous economic potential, and even if its problems have meant that its economy has not developed as it should - the farming sector in particular leaves a lot to be desired - it still remains of considerable importance to us in the long term.
There is another reason why Azerbaijan is of interest to us: its close relations with Turkey.
When I visited Atatürk's mausoleum there was a book in which visiting heads of state could write their thoughts, and Azerbaijan's president had written 'Atatürk, your Turks are back'.
This was when the Soviet system collapsed, and it shows how important Turkey is in the region and how vital it is to cooperate with Turkey, yet we keep doing all sorts of things that prevent us from cooperating, which is politically very short-sighted.
The tension between Iran and Afghanistan shows the sort of long-term risks that we need to prevent from arising in the first place, because once things have started it is too late to turn the clock back.
This is why I believe we need to recognise the importance of Azerbaijan.
The negotiations that we have allowed to drag on and all these little details that may help to solve small issues fail to get to grips with the main problem.
Our overall relations with this whole area are symptomatic of enormous weakness, are causing major irritation and are simply further proof of the need to make rapid progress in this field.
Although it is only one small step, I should nevertheless like to offer my warmest thanks to Mr Schwaiger for his report, and I can only hope that his dynamism will help to ensure that considerable further progress is made in relations with Azerbaijan.
I too should like to join with the Members in thanking Mr Schwaiger for his report on the interim agreement with Azerbaijan.
We especially welcome the positive view of the need to deepen our relations with that country.
The interim agreement is the first overall agreement between the European Union and Azerbaijan.
It will provide us with an important platform to regulate and consult with Azerbaijan on all trade and trade-related matters.
Azerbaijan is an important strategic partner for us due to its geographical location and its significant petroleum resources.
Mr von Habsburg's point is well-taken here.
Azerbaijan is expected in the coming years to realise its potential as a major energy producer and as a transit point for trade passing between Europe and Central Asia.
Our bilateral trade last year rose by 59 %, albeit from a low base, with a significant surplus in the EC's favour.
The interim agreement will help to set the right conditions for EC companies to compete in Azerbaijan.
European companies need to work hard in order to maintain their economic presence there given the keen competition from the United States, Turkey, and Far Eastern and other Asian countries.
This competition will increase even further once oil exports increase to their full potential.
The EC is also a major donor to Azerbaijan.
At the end of last year we had allocated more than ECU 220 million to Azerbaijan, not including important TACIS regional cooperation projects, for which Azerbaijan is a key player.
The Commission is proposing to provide Azerbaijan with financial assistance to help with social reconstruction.
As you are aware, the proposal is currently under discussion in the European Parliament.
This report is of great importance to Azerbaijan.
Currently the country is facing a very difficult economic situation, with 70 % of the population on or below the poverty line.
As a result of low oil prices, revenue from the oil sector has been reduced.
The country is unlikely to become a major oil exporter for at least another five years.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been referred to and it has made the economic situation in Azerbaijan even more difficult.
About 20 % of the country is occupied by Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian forces.
Furthermore, the country has to support nearly one million refugees and internally displaced persons.
However, the governments of both Armenia and Azerbaijan have recently made some conciliatory statements, in particular in the margins of the Baku Transport Conference, to which Armenia was specifically invited at the Commission's request.
The European Union supports the resumption of negotiations in the OSCE Minsk Group.
An essential part of the Union's policy towards Azerbaijan is the promotion of human rights, which was referred to by Mr Wolf.
We are also concerned about democratisation and securing peace and political stability in this region.
The Azeri authorities are well aware that we consider democratisation to be an essential element of our partnership.
Commissioner van den Broek made this very clear to President Aliyev when they met in Baku last June.
Though the interim agreement is, formally speaking, a trade agreement, it has become standard practice to discuss human rights issues at joint committee meetings.
Furthermore, the agreement contains a clause which allows for its suspension in case of significant deterioration of democracy and of human rights.
The partnership and cooperation agreement - the PCA - formally provides for dialogue on these issues and includes certain commitments to democracy.
The Commission is monitoring progress on these issues and has offered to assist Azerbaijan's transition towards democracy through the democracy programme and the TACIS action programmes.
We are liaising with the OSCE and the Council of Europe on these issues.
I thank the House for its indulgence.
Thank you, Mr Flynn.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, on a point of order.
I thank Parliament's staff for their contribution towards Members' fitness.
On the basis of the length of time between ringing the bell and voting I think we all need the gym.
Thank you, Mr Ford.
I will pass that comment on.
Mr President, after the votes we are always shown how Members have voted.
It is extremely important for us to be able to tell journalists and members of the public what the majority was.
However, the results of the votes are usually shown so quickly that there is no time to write them down.
I would therefore ask you to show the results for longer so that people have time to write them down.
Thank you Mr Rübig.
We will bear your comments in mind and endeavour to proceed at a pace you feel is appropriate.
Mr President, I have another technical question.
My office is in IPE I and it was fortunate that I was keeping an eye on the monitor because the bell is not working there at the moment.
It would be a good idea if all the parts of the building where Members have their offices could be checked in the two weeks before the next sitting.
Thank you, Mr Van Dam.
I have noted that and will ensure that this occurs.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 10.44 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 18 September 1998.
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
(The order of business was adopted without amendment)
Mrs van Bladel has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, my point of order relates to Rule 42(5).
On 3 August, I put a priority written question to the Commission on the threat of war in Angola.
Officially, one has to allow three weeks for a reply.
Now 70 members of the opposition have been suspended and last Friday there was an armed attack on the leader of the opposition, Chivu Kuvuku, who survived this attack as he survived the earlier one in 1992.
Now that members of parliament are under attack in Luanda, I think it is time this House made its voice heard in protest.
I read in the Portuguese press that the Mayor of Lisbon is doing everything possible to protect the lives of these opposition leaders.
On behalf of us as Members of Parliament, Mr President, I would urge you to register a protest with the government and above all to ask the Commission for a reply to my question.
Thank you for giving me the floor.
I have made a note of your priority question.
We will look into the matter and try to answer it as soon as possible.
Waiver of Mr Le Pen's immunity
The next item is the report (A4-0317/98) by Mr Wibe, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for the waiver of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen's immunity.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has the floor.
Forgive me, Mr President, but Mr Wibe's report makes no mention of the result of the vote held in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Even though a roll-call vote was requested, I believe unanimously, by the committee members present. I would like to ask why there is no mention of this in the report.
Why does this roll-call vote which, by definition, shows how each individual has voted, not feature in Mr Wibe's report?
I shall give the floor to the chairman of the committee in a moment.
I would remind you that, on issues of immunity, the decisions of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Verification of Credentials and Immunities are taken in camera, so there is no question of anything being revealed until the report is published.
Mr Fayot has the floor.
Mr President, a roll-call vote was indeed requested on Mr Wibe's report, and the vote was held in camera. This request was backed by the requisite number of committee members as specified in the Rules of Procedure.
So a roll-call vote was held, the result of which is shown in the report, that is to say the exact number of honourable Members voting for, against or abstaining.
I do not see that it is necessary to give the names of those who took part in this roll-call vote.
What matters is publishing the result, and I do not see anything in the Rules of Procedure which says we are obliged to include in the report the names of those who voted.
That is how I see it, and I think we can move on now to the debate on Mr Wibe's report.
Yes indeed.
I would also say to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy that the result of the roll-call vote is given in the minutes of the Rules Committee meeting.
Any member of the committee can consult these minutes and find out the result.
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists recommends adopting the report and waiving Mr Le Pen's immunity. He called the gas chambers a detail of history.
That is a crime under German law.
If Parliament lifts his immunity he will be charged. He will be summoned before the court and if he does not obey this summons he will be arrested if he ever enters the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany again.
Under German law it is a crime to deny Auschwitz or to minimise it.
The purpose of German law is to protect the truth, including the truth about the most terrible epoch of our history!
We must look this horror in the eye. That is the only way to make sure it never happens again.
That is why German criminal law makes this a punishable crime.
The truth alone can free us, and when we fight against people like Mr Le Pen we are fighting for our own future.
It is not true that this criminal law restricts freedom of expression.
This historical truth is a legally established right that must be protected and it is a universal law.
Nor is it true that it restricts freedom of research.
Over recent years - and I do not want to comment further on this - we have witnessed a long-standing dispute between historians.
This law does not curtail freedom of research either.
What we are most concerned with is protecting young people against the falsifiers of history and the political rabble-rousers. I am very glad that the far right failed to get in at the recent Bundestag elections in the Federal Republic of Germany.
That is a sign of the maturity of our democracy and it makes me proud of our country!
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish first and foremost to point out that the majority of my colleagues in the Group of the European Radical Alliance will be voting tomorrow in favour of lifting Jean-Marie Le Pen's immunity.
Personally, however, I am not convinced that this is the best way of opposing Jean-Marie Le Pen's views, and I am therefore expressing the minority view of my group.
It should not come as a surprise that the leader of a party founded on intolerance should seek confrontation over the freedom of expression enshrined in our democratic system.
He practises intolerance, and he wishes us to respond with equal intolerance, so that he can go to court in Germany and carry on hitting the headlines for weeks if not months with those remarks, those appalling words which he uttered repeatedly last year.
This, however, is dangerous ground.
Years ago, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure refrained from voting in a similar case concerning the waiver of Mr Le Pen's immunity, for the very reason that it thought such a vote might not only be manipulated by him but would also infringe that very principle of freedom of expression which Mr Le Pen - through his intolerant views - would have us remove, resulting in a head-on clash between two opposing forms of intolerance.
So all eyes will be on tomorrow's vote.
This - I repeat - is the minority position of my group, but I did wish to voice it.
I give the floor to Mr Le Pen for three minutes.
Five minutes, Mr President!
No, Mr Le Pen, you have three minutes.
You could just shoot me without a hearing.
You have the floor, Mr Le Pen.
Ladies and gentlemen, in considering this request for the waiving of my parliamentary immunity, which the German public prosecutor's office in Munich has initiated and which the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities is asking you by a majority to grant, you should ask yourselves just one question, irrespective of all other partisan considerations: was our colleague Le Pen entitled to express an opinion on the gas chambers, and not on the Holocaust as you said?
As a citizen he, like any other citizen, is guaranteed this freedom of thought and expression by our democratic constitutions.
Implicit in that is the refusal to impose truths born of dogma, the refusal to accept just one way of thinking and the rejection of ready-made ideas.
In the case of a Member of Parliament this applies even more forcefully, and for this reason you should overwhelmingly reject this request for a waiver because immunity is there not to protect the person of the Member of Parliament but to protect freedom, his freedom to think, his freedom to have his own views.
Parliaments are only legitimate if their members are free, and this political freedom is indivisible.
It is not my parliamentary immunity which I am defending, but the immunity of my function, and thus of yours too.
But if you want to push this and prejudge, you must ask yourselves one simple question. In what way can this statement 'the gas chambers were a detail in the history of the Second World War', which I made at a press conference in reply to a journalist's question, constitute a crime of denial?
The phrase in question does not deny anything.
I did not deny the existence of the gas chambers, nor did I play down their significance.
And the word 'detail', in French at least, carries no such connotation.
A detail can be anodyne, but it can also be essential. In the event the text was falsified by the Munich public prosecutor who added the word 'anodyne' and the word 'mere'.
That prosecutor lied!
No one can deny that a whole is made up of details.
To illustrate that formula I said 'In a thousand-page history of World War Two there are on average two pages on the deportation of the Jews and a few lines on the gas chambers'.
That is a detail. There is nothing dismissive in a statement of that kind.
I added that if my words had been construed in ways which caused distress to people of sincere beliefs, then I was sorry, because I respect the dead and the sufferings of the living.
There is no mention of the subject, even in the war memoirs of Churchill, De Gaulle and Eisenhower.
Millions were killed in the great battles of the war. And civilians were killed in the aerial bombardments too.
These events are details of World War Two.
Like so many millions of Europeans, I too am a victim of that war. It ruined my family and my father died, blown up by a German mine.
The first real ordeal of my life was when, at the age of fourteen, I had to go with my mother to identify his body on the beach where he fell, with no eyes, no nose, his mouth full of sand and his shapeless corpse knotted in a tarpaulin.
So I find it personally shocking and hurtful, 55 years after the war, to be summoned before a German court which falsified my words in order to make them part of its charges against me.
This mendacious procedure is a scandal.
Mr President, I would ask you to quote from the judgment of the Court of Human Rights.
I would add...
Mr Le Pen, I gave you three minutes. You have now spoken for four minutes and thirty-five seconds.
(Protests from Mr Le Pen) The Group of Non-attached Members could have given you whatever time it wished.
It chose instead to give its time to Mr Gollnisch.
That was their decision.
Mr Gollnisch will have...
(Interruption from Mr Le Pen: 'What about the judgment by the Court of Human Rights!') We are not dealing with the judgment by the Court of Human Rights here today.
You were able to state your case freely before the committee responsible.
I gave you three minutes which were not ...
(Protests from Mr Le Pen) Please listen to what I am saying.
I was asked to give you some speaking time so that you could state your case in the House.
With the agreement of your group, I gave you three minutes.
It has happened, in other similar cases, that Members have been given time by their group.
The non-attached Members chose instead to give their time, all six minutes of it, to Mr Gollnisch.
That is their decision. I gave you three minutes.
When Mr Gollnisch comes to speak, I shall give him the six minutes which he could have given you before, but which he cannot give you now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it goes against the grain for a democrat to request the waiving of a Member of Parliament's immunity, particularly when the request is motivated by things that have been said, by a speech.
Because freedom of expression is one of the fundamental principles of democracy and restriction of that freedom really must be the exception to the rule.
The European Parliament has twice upheld the immunity of our friend Mr Le Pen, despite the antipathy he arouses here, in anyone who is a democrat.
This is particularly disagreeable since one might have hoped, nearly 60 years after the Shoah, that no popularly elected representative could possibly question the barbarity of the acts committed at that time.
But friend Le Pen cannot help himself.
Anti-Semitism is his passion, denial of the Holocaust his joy.
To his inhuman way of thinking the death of a Jewish child, gassed for being born a Jew, is comparable to the death of a soldier in battle.
And he cannot even see that the arithmetic is against him.
This House was obliged to waive his immunity first on 11 December 1989, for his reference to 'Durafour crématoire ' - a nasty pun in French - and for a second time on 12 March 1990, for his attacks on world Jewry.
The French courts have on several occasions censured friend Le Pen for his vicious and racist statements.
Freedom of expression does not include the freedom to make racist remarks.
For this reason a French socialist and democrat takes comfort today in responding to the request of a German judge.
The National Front's claim that Mr Le Pen is a victim of political opprobrium, of political manipulation on the part of French justice in an attempt to wreck his electoral chances, does not hold water.
There was something particularly despicable in repeating the word 'detail' in Munich, surrounded by former Waffen-SS.
There is something particularly pleasing in acceding to the German judge's request so that a case can be brought.
I see in this a clear sign of this European conscience which we are developing, born of the European democracy which we are working to build.
To conclude, the European Socialists will take great pleasure ...
(The President cut the speaker off.)
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Drugs
The next item is the second report (A4-0211/98) by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament with a view to establishing a common European Union platform for the special session of the UN General Assembly on international cooperation in the fight against drugs (COM(97)0670 - C4-0113/98).
Mr President, the report on European cooperation on drugs policy was placed on the agenda for this plenary some months ago.
We asked you then to refer it back to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs because I as the rapporteur hoped that a reopening of the debate might enable the differing views on the matter to be reconciled. To a large extent, Mr President, they have been.
The report has been reworked in such a way that it provides a balance between the two approaches to the drugs problem which exist in our Member States, notably the moral-legal approach and the so-called medical approach.
The moral-legal approach wants to achieve a society free of drugs, while the medical approach acknowledges that there has always been drug abuse but seeks solutions which will minimise the risks, for example prescribing methadone or handing out fresh needles to prevent infection with HIV.
A balance between these two points of view means that harmonised measures are not possible because each Member State believes in its own policy, but you can combine the positive results of both approaches.
Consequently, as rapporteur for the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I recommend among other things that more and better research should be done into the effects of different policies on drugs by the Monitoring Centre for Drugs in Lisbon.
We are very pleased that this Centre is gaining more and more expertise and that the search for indicators has produced positive results.
But the report calls not only for research results, but also for the pooling of practical experience by those who work with problem drug users and for cooperation, especially in border areas.
We are sympathetic to the idea of important initiatives at local and regional level because it is here that there is often the best understanding of how one should respond to specific problems.
For this reason, Parliament and the Commission too have already organised a number of successful conferences on this matter.
I would ask the Commissioner to think about how we can follow this up, because it really was extremely useful.
Mr President, my efforts to strike a balance between differing points of view inevitably meant that once again a large number of amendments were put down.
It goes without saying that those who believe in one way only are disappointed by a middle way which tries to combine the positive effects of a range of policies on drugs.
If you really think that 'this is the only way', a middle way seems weak.
So there are many amendments, some of them from those who want a far more liberal approach, and others from those who see every drug user as a problem user necessitating legislative and other measures.
I oppose these amendments, Mr President, because they upset the hard-won balance in the resolution.
Only a few, two from the Socialists and three from the Christian Democrats, do not do that, and I thus commend them to the House.
The report seeks to make it clear that it must be possible to transcend existing differences and work together where it is helpful and necessary to do so, because if we want to put an end to the drugs problem and the crime which goes with it, we must be prepared to acknowledge that no one, no single Member State, has all the answers.
I in turn would like to thank the rapporteur for her report.
It is no secret that she and I have highly diverging opinions when it comes to how to tackle the drugs problem.
But comparing the text we have in front of us today with the one tabled in January, I too must concede that it looks very different - and the changes are certainly for the better from my point of view.
Let me cite two of these improvements.
The report now states expressly that we must endeavour to honour the international conventions we have signed - and so we should.
Secondly, the difficult - but patently necessary - policy goal of a drug-free society is acknowledged.
Some minor flaws do nonetheless remain and I have put down a few amendments, two of which I should like to mention here.
One is to recommendation 12, which deals with harm reduction projects.
I am not against evaluating these; on the contrary, the results need to be assessed.
What I would like to see, however, are some comparative studies.
We need to know how a strategy such as that followed in Switzerland actually fares when the results are set alongside those of different policies implemented in other countries. We can then form an opinion as to where the strong points of the various approaches lie.
As for harm reduction, I have no objections per se - although I would like to see some of the references to it removed from the report.
What I do not want to see is harm reduction elevated to the status of our paramount objective.
That must never be allowed to happen.
The paramount objective of drugs policy must be to stop people in general, and the young in particular, from ever starting to use drugs.
That is what narcotics policy is all about.
A sound anti-drugs strategy should be based on an approach comprising preventive action, control measures, provision of proper care and treatment, plus coordinated work at international level.
Of these four integral elements, preventive action is the most important.
Mr President, Mrs d'Ancona's new report is a compromise document but nonetheless puts forward many sensible, pragmatic suggestions which the great majority can support and which I recommend to the Commission and Council to heed.
Our main objective has to be to keep as many young people as possible from becoming slaves to drugs.
This means practical cooperation and the ability to learn from one another.
In many respects we have come a long way compared to ten years ago.
The drugs monitoring centre in Lisbon has been set up and Europol, official this week, is now up and running but has a long way to go.
The monitoring centre can only work effectively if national information gathering and supplying agencies are properly funded and if statistics are supplied on a common basis.
Europol can only do a proper job if it is able to analyse, as well as exchange information, on drug trafficking.
In both cases the aim must be to establish what methods in countering drugs are working and what are not; what monies are well spent and what are wasted.
The Dutch and the Swedish have very different drug policies but surely no one should query that both would be in a much stronger position if they had objective information available which shows what parts of their policies are successful and what can be bettered.
There are many common questions: which youngsters are most at risk from drugs?
How best do we get to them?
How best do we educate them not to take drugs or rehabilitate them if they are taking drugs? These questions must be answered.
We are also in need of imaginative new schemes for keeping young people out of trouble and helping addicts back to a normal life.
This requires, in many cases, both a national and local approach.
My good friend, Hubert Pirker will no doubt talk about drug-free schools.
I believe that we should be embarking upon a concerted TV advertising campaign across the whole of the European Community.
We need to think about a network of youth clubs across the Community to help keep young people out of trouble and to stop that gap between the time they leave school and their parents come home.
We need to do much more with therapeutic rehabilitation.
We need the help of local communities working together to give leverage to what is being done at top level and that is why this report gives so much emphasis to work at urban and local level.
To conclude, the main objective must be to provide a balanced and objective anti-drug policy backed up by sufficient funding to make these worthwhile.
I hope the Commissioner will agree with what I have said and that we can expect a positive response from her.
Mr President, Mrs d'Ancona's report is of course a bit like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, and that is just as well.
To start with the plan was that we should take part in the United Nations conference on drugs in June, and happily we did not do so. The initial thrust, after all, was that the criminalisation of drug use should no longer be a central issue.
A kind of legalisation was mooted together, with the possibility of obtaining heroin on a doctor's prescription.
This approach was far too controversial and would only have been counterproductive, so referral back was the safest course for us to adopt here in the January part-session.
The second version of this report, which we have before us now, is more balanced.
There is less to object to in it.
It is disappointing, as Mrs d'Ancona says, that the time is not yet ripe for policy on drugs in Europe to be properly harmonised, because there is much to be said for that.
As long as differences in approach persist, Member States will suffer as a result.
The Netherlands has had a great deal of trouble with drugs tourism as a result of its excessively tolerant policy and other countries in turn have suffered as a result of the Dutch policy.
So cooperation has to be the name of the game.
What form should it take?
Action in three areas. Briefly these are prevention, treatment andcontrol.
Lastly, European cooperation is essential for those who advocate legalising soft drugs, cannabis too, because if we legalise them we have to opt out of the existing UN conventions and that can only be done at a European level.
That is for the long term.
For the short term, I think we have to work towards a low level of drug use in society.
Mr President, this report, by my good friend Mrs d'Ancona, has both positive and negative aspects.
The positive is the clear objective stated in Recommendation 11 that the aim of anti-drug efforts is a drug-free society. This is fully in line with point 12 of the political declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly last June, which also calls for the active promotion of a society free of drug abuse.
We would view any change in this objective as a reason for voting against the report.
Nowhere in the UN political declaration is there a reference to support for 'harm reduction' policies. Such policies leave the addicts addicted.
Harm reduction is the thin edge of the wedge leading to legalisation.
The United States report suggests that legalisation there would lead to around a 100 % increase in heroin consumption and around a 50 % increase in that of cocaine.
Last June 150 countries adopted a global UN strategy to tackle the worldwide drug problem.
The political declaration they adopted requires governments to implement new strategies and programmes to reduce drug demand, and new laws to counter money laundering by 2003.
The report commissioned for the June conference warned that the international financial system has become a money launderer's dream, processing a large part of the estimated $200 billion worth of drugs money every year.
Every means possible, including confiscation of assets, which we introduced in Ireland, must be part and parcel of an internationally agreed strategy.
We fully endorse the concerns expressed by the UN declaration.
In particular we highlight the view that drugs destroy lives and communities.
Our group will have to decide tomorrow on this report, on the basis of what amendments are passed by the House.
Mr President, drug addiction is a real challenge to civilisation today.
More specifically, it is increasingly the young who are becoming addicted, at an ever earlier age, and the more precarious their lifestyle the greater their dependency.
And the free movement of goods and capital is a veritable gift to the drug traffickers.
So far, fine words by the UN or Europe on the war against drugs and all policies based on outright suppression of drugs at all costs have proved ineffective.
Faced with so vast and so complex a problem we cannot simply chant slogans or recommend middle ways.
On the contrary, we must not shrink from opening up scope for further debate, experience and proposals which will point us down new and realistic roads.
Mrs d'Ancona's first report was consistent with this approach, but it was too much for some in this House, who preferred to hide behind the walls of their conviction.
The second attempt has smoothed off the rough edges and simply gone along with the US conventions.
The consensus rule, a veritable disease of old age in this House, has once again prevailed and we end up with the noble objective that 'the aim of anti-drugs efforts is a drug-free society.'
You don't say!
Extend this theory to all areas of society and we shall have this, for example: 'the aim of the fight against violence is a non-violent society', or 'the aim of the fight against stupidity is a society without imbeciles'.
Brilliant!
You will agree with me that there is still a long way to go.
But the report acknowledges the need for an independent, scientific, objective and rigorous study of the US conventions on drugs, to update and complete them.
A study of this kind must draw on the views and suggestions of people on the ground; it must be conducted with no holds barred and with a political courage which is all too often lacking.
For my part, I have three specific suggestions.
First and foremost, we must abandon laws which punish the user as severely as the trafficker and we must move resolutely towards decriminalising drug use.
We must give priority to preventing the risks, by strengthening structures for counselling and treatment and not forgetting the related social issues.
And we must step up the fight against the big international traffickers by greater international cooperation and by doing away with tax havens, which only serve as centres for laundering the proceeds of drug and other illegal trafficking or allow speculators to avoid taxation.
Finally, if the objective truly is to combat drugs, public health and education budgets must be increased to meet the challenge.
Mr President, I can be brief in commenting on Mrs d'Ancona's recommendations.
In some respects these are very good, for example the wide-angled approach and the fact that there is scope for local and regional experiments.
In a number of other respects, and regrettably there are many of them, it is very obviously a compromise compared with the draft recommendation of 1996, as Mrs d'Ancona herself admits.
I hope that this debate and subsequent debates will persuade both those for and against to abandon their ideologically entrenched positions, because otherwise this debate in Parliament is likely to become an exercise in repetition.
We believe the debate is important with a view to local and regional experiments.
I am convinced that the answers to future policy on drugs will be found in all those towns and villages, not only in the Netherlands but in Europe as a whole, where people are looking for careful and controlled solutions to the problems which we all acknowledge.
The solution will come from the bottom up, not at European level and not at national level, but as a result of these local and regional experiments.
Mr President, my apologies to our rapporteur, who is a well-loved member of the House.
There are some interesting things in her report, but also things which are unacceptable.
As Mrs Pailler said, there are references to a 'drug-free society', which is absurd.
There is also the fact that these interesting things tackle a marginal facet of the drugs problem but not the root of the problem, namely the reality that this huge trade accounts for 8 % of world GDP; there is the power of this international mafia which is corrupting our police forces, our magistrates, our journalists, our economies, by pouring dirty money into sectors of the economy which are healthy.
There is all that, and on all that the report says nothing.
This House is not prepared to face up to reality.
The international conventions of the United Nations have been in existence for thirty years and for thirty years, year on year, we have seen a rise in the consumption of drugs.
Mr Andrews made the point that this year alone there has been a recorded increase of 50 % in heroin use, and so it goes on.
The European Parliament does not want to know about all that.
We are hiding behind an absurdity.
Mr President, an attempt to shut the stable door after the horse has bolted, that is how Mr Wiebenga described the proposal for a recommendation we are debating today, and he is right.
The UNGASS Special Session took place last spring, so one wonders at whom the recommendations of this report are in fact targeted.
More important still: what exactly is the recommendation recommending? It seems to me to be pretty neutral stuff.
To my mind a few changes are needed here and there, as proposed by Mrs Lindholm and the PPE Group. But even so I wonder what the point of the report is.
No new views are put forward. The recommendations are not actually directed at anyone in particular.
It is apparent, from the large number of amendments which have been put down, that other people are dissatisfied too.
In short, all this report does is cause irritation, and I think it was pointless putting it before the House again.
Another point of irritation is part B, the explanatory statement contained in the d'Ancona report.
Now that the recommendations have been drastically altered, the explanatory statement makes no sense. It seems to me obvious that it has to be revised.
The majority of Parliament seems not to share Mrs d'Ancona's political view. It seems to me that she can draw her conclusions from that.
What Mrs d'Ancona said just now about the legal-moral approach as opposed to the medical approach seems to me to be a false comparison which clouds the issue.
The experience of delinquents who instead of serving out their time are forced to kick their habit tells a different story.
Serious addicts previously at death's door are brought back to life and can contemplate a future.
We cannot and must not give up on these people.
So 'harm reduction' is not the answer, any more than free heroin is.
Just take a look at last Saturday's Nieuwe Rotterdamse Courant .
I was against including this report on the agenda.
Including it when there is nothing much of substance in it does nothing to enhance our image as a serious parliament.
Mr President, first of all I must pay tribute to the spirit of consultation and dialogue shown by the rapporteur. Throughout the slow process culminating in this report we are discussing today, she has shown herself to be very much open to dialogue.
Knowing where she herself stands, we can appreciate the effort she has had to make in putting together a text for us which pulls together the threads of so many and so passionately held controversial views, which have to be considered in the drafting of a policy on drugs.
Conscious of the wide differences which separate us, she opted for a policy of a little at a time, gambling that despite our differences in thinking we would manage to agree on a number of moves forward which would enable the damage done by certain drugs to be reduced: reduction of the risks and of demand, social measures to support this, entitlement to medical support and, above all, support for a number of pilot experiments.
Speaking for myself, I approved of her approach even though, obviously, I am far from happy with the result.
But I think it is unfortunate that the concessions have been all in one direction and that some of the amendments tabled and voted on in committee upset the balance which Hedy d'Ancona was seeking.
I am not referring here to the numerous amendments tabled in the plenary.
So what exactly is the position? On the one hand the advocates of a restrictive policy argue in favour of a drug-free society, but offer no new suggestions on how to achieve it, other than following unflinchingly the policy we have at present even though everyone acknowledges that it has failed.
And to prevent any departure from this line, to block any form of new experiment, they endlessly hold forth about compliance with the UN conventions which are so ill-adapted to present-day society that very few countries are able to apply them.
That leads to a truly surreal and unhealthy mismatch between what the laws of the Member States say and the way in which they are implemented.
Ah, the utopian dream of a drug-free society!
I had it in mind to make a few ironic comments, but Mrs Pailler took the words out of my mouth in exactly the terms I would have used.
So I will let that pass, but if this slogan had merely been unrealistic, utopian, it would be less of a problem; in the event, I regard it as frankly dangerous.
Nurturing false hopes in the public mind, foisting on them false remedies which will resolve nothing, will further fuel scepticism about the impotence of political action and promises which are not kept.
What are we asking for, in the face of these people who so confidently argue in favour of retaining the status quo? We want it to be possible to explore other avenues which have produced encouraging results, where these have been tried.
And the UN conventions must not impede and prevent such exploration.
Mrs d'Ancona said again that harmonisation is not possible at present.
So there is no question of imposing rules on a state which does not wish to implement them.
And if our Swedish colleagues are happy with their policy, let them continue with it.
No one wants to stop them.
We just want them to accept that we may not all think the same way.
All we want is a calm debate based on impartial considerations, without arbitrary edicts and without anathema.
Surely that is not too much to ask?
I agree with Mr Blokland that, in terms of principle, it was a mistake to refer this report back to committee.
Hedy d'Ancona's earlier rallying cries for the legalisation of cannabis and the authorisation of heroin maintenance treatment have, however, been silenced, and we have before us a set of recommendations which are in line with the PPE Group's fundamental approach to narcotics. Our group's coordinated stance has contributed towards this acceptable result.
Combating drugs is unequivocally the issue. The question is how we do it.
I am not too happy about centralising the management of rehabilitation and therapy for addicts.
We do not need a supranational approach to matters which can equally well be handled at the local level. The EU should restrict itself to things that it alone can do effectively: working with Europol, coordinating policy on border checks, etc.
European cooperation is a unique instrument when it comes to fighting international crime.
I am not so sure about its place on our city streets, in drugs ghettos and treatment centres.
We all deplore the damage done by drugs and wish to limit the suffering caused.
The details of how this should be done remain to be defined.
The concept of harm reduction has been marred by the failures of some programmes to break addicts' dependency.
The PPE Group and I have therefore tabled a number of amendments designed to tighten the supervision of harm reduction programmes and introduce stricter regulatory provisions.
Drug abusers need therapy, education, and social back-up if they are to overcome their misery and appreciate that there is more to life than drugs.
The UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child grants children the right to a drug-free life and we in the EU would be well advised to adopt as our own the drugs policy objectives outlined by the UN in June.
Mrs d'Ancona's report is not perfect, but I would nonetheless congratulate her and commend her stamina.
It is in our mutual interest to find out more about one another's methods. We can then select those that are working and set about solving the problems.
Mr President, it is useless to take the moral high ground when debating about drugs.
The drugs scourge has many sides to it but it is, above all, about wasted lives and human suffering. It requires more than an ideological straight- jacket; it requires policies that achieve results.
The d'Ancona report was written in this spirit. It calls on the Member States to make it possible for authorities at different levels to engage in new, innovative, results-oriented approaches.
We support this message because we feel that no policy should simply be ruled out.
The drugs problems requires pragmatism and an open mind.
I therefore prefer the approach of Sir Jack Stewart-Clark to that of Mr Blokland.
Of course across the new Member States the approaches to drugs are different.
This creates problems of its own, not least in the form of drug tourism.
In an ideal world we would have harmonisation of legislation.
The d'Ancona report is realistic in this regard - we only have to listen to this debate here.
It recognises that harmonisation is premature and instead calls for concrete and enhanced cooperation between the authorities at national, regional and urban levels.
This is necessary to settle contention between the Member States as a result of different policies.
It will also help to promote a better understanding of which policies are effective and under which conditions. This surely will be one of the founding blocks of an effective European drugs policy.
In practice we might find that our experiences of which policies work are not so different from one another.
I was in Sweden and I do not see that in practice the police in Sweden are doing things much differently from what is done in Holland.
Here the d'Ancona report touches another sore point: it calls for an end to the gap that exists between the policy that is preached and the one that is implemented.
Let us end the hypocrisy between the law and practice.
The legal instruments that are at our disposal must be adapted to the new reality.
The UN General Assembly on Drugs held in July 1998 could have been an opportunity to address the most severe discrepancies between legislation and implementation, as well as incorporating in the Convention the recent developments on the drug scene.
That is why I prefer the human approach of Mrs d'Ancona's report to the ideological approach which I still hear too much in this Hemicycle.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs d'Ancona on her attempt to try and bring about a consensus in the House with regard to what is a very difficult subject, on which there are many divergent viewpoints and opinions in this Parliament.
However, Parliament is acting a bit like a political eunuch, because we are talking and making recommendations about a UN extraordinary session on drugs that has already occurred.
Bearing that in mind, as well as the comments made by other Members, it is important that a certain number of key factors are laid down so that the public can understand what we are about within this Parliament.
Firstly, we are in favour of protection of the people of the European Union.
Secondly, we are in favour of helping the people around the world who are dependent on growing drug crops because of the economic conditions in their own countries.
Thirdly, we are in favour of ensuring that we can give the best education and the best tools of knowledge to our young people to guarantee that they can make informed decisions about their own personal lifestyle.
Fourthly, we are in favour of getting rid of useless and wasted ideologies and, in particular, we are there to take a political stance and a visionary outlook with regard to how best we can help everybody to live within a drug-free society.
It is not a perfect solution, it may not be totally achievable.
But if we allow ourselves to be complacent and say that we can accept a certain percentage of drug addiction, then we have already lost the battle.
We should strive for the best possible Utopian ideal and work towards that.
Mr President, I found the climate in this House fascinating last time this report came up.
One thing was blatantly clear, namely that we were miles away from any serious commitment to harmonisation.
The drugs debate generated more heat and talk than any other I can remember - bar the discussion on our own allowances and benefits.
A lot has been said about Sweden's attitude to the whole issue, so perhaps I might pass on one interesting result from a survey published last week of young people in their early teens.
The numbers experimenting with drugs turned out to be on the decrease. That this was so had nothing to do with moralising crusades, but was rather the result of massive investment in outreach work in the areas of our towns and cities where marginalisation is at its worst.
What better demonstration could there be of the need to proceed with pragmatism, particularly when dealing with our young people - who primarily crave a helping hand.
We should also be looking at how to give shape to a restrictive, as opposed to a repressive policy approach.
Mr President, the world community has given out a clear signal as to what it expects of drugs policy. We now have the three UN drugs conventions, plus the political position taken at the New York meeting from 8 to 11 June this year.
Under the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the community of nations - including the EU and its Member States - undertook, in Article 33, to protect children from illegal drugs and involvement in unlawful production and distribution
Today, 5 October, is International Children's Day.
We all share responsibility for ensuring compliance with the conventions our Member States have ratified.
I therefore urge the House to vote against any amendments and recommendations which violate the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Otherwise we will be running counter to the goal of a drug-free society.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the debate we have been engaged in for months and, so far as I have followed it, in today's debate too, Members seem less concerned with how to tackle prevention and rehabilitation most effectively than with trying to show that their opinion or the strategy being pursued in their country is better than that in another country.
What does this endless debate teach us?
Firstly, there is no royal road to combating the drugs problem. At any rate, there is nobody either in the House or outside it who can say: I have found a way to tackle both the prevention and rehabilitation problem.
I do not know anybody who can do that.
Secondly, that means that whatever the different approaches we take to combating drugs, one thing remains certain: that we are helpless and at a loss here because none of the many different attempts that have been made has managed effectively to combat this phenomenon.
We really have to take that on board and then, in my view, we must draw the same conclusion as Mrs d'Ancona.
Basically it goes like this: taking account of the historical background of the various societies in the various countries, taking account of their special cultural features, taking account of the different national structures - because the medical system can differ widely from country to country - we must, to put it in simple terms, obtain results that are country-specific. I am not suggesting that the Netherlands is doing anything dishonourable, or Sweden either.
There are two opposite poles in the debate and the two countries take very different approaches. Both have the same problems.
We should respect both approaches because both countries are trying just as hard.
Yet we should also stop pretending there can be any meaning in a debate in which one country tries to convince the other that its approach is the better one.
That is why Mrs d'Ancona endeavoured, after a lengthy debate, to put forward a compromise proposal in which she says: I have my own position - and she has described it better than I could - but within the framework of my position there is room for all sorts of different approaches, each of which should be regarded as of equal value, rather than pretending one is better or worse than another.
I regard that as an excellent means of attempting to reach at least a minimum consensus.
On behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I therefore thank Mrs d'Ancona for her report, in which she at least attempts to bring about a consensus, even if it represents the lowest common denominator.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the consumption of drugs, not just in Europe but everywhere, is rising sharply.
I believe we all share the same aim: to protect young people and society as a whole as best we can against drugs and drug consumption.
We are also agreed that we can only combat drugs with a package of measures and that we need to establish a balance between prevention, repression, treatment and rehabilitation.
Anyone who disregards this balance - as Mrs d'Ancona did in her first report in which she called for the decriminalisation of drug consumption and the free sale of cannabis products and heroin on production of a medical certificate, must accept the consequences.
That report was rightly referred back to committee.
Today's report reflects a different approach. It tries to establish this balance.
It incorporates much of what our drugs expert, Sir Jack Stewart-Clark, proposed and lays great emphasis on the social aspect.
This report can therefore be supported.
But what I find most striking is that amendments have once again been tabled that attempt seriously to disturb that balance and to talk this Parliament into legalising drugs.
That is quite unacceptable!
What we need for the future is for people to realise that prevention will protect.
So let me ask you to support prevention: drugs-free schools for children, for society, but severe punishment for dealers, and aid to help dependent youngsters to get off drugs.
Our only chance to achieve a drugs-free society, a drugs-free life, is by establishing a balance between these three measures.
Mr President, Parliament's image will have been enhanced by the decision, supported by my group, to refer this report back to committee.
Our proclaimed goal is now a drug-free society. I cannot, however, endorse all the recommendations.
Some of the points I would wish to make have been covered by Jan Andersson.
This debate is highly polarised.
It is being claimed that those who back my kind of policy cannot simultaneously advocate harm reduction. I disagree; there must be some misunderstanding here.
I too want to mitigate suffering, and references to Trojan Horses are misplaced in my view.
People say that our prisons are in the state they are in because of our narcotics policies.
I maintain that it is our policy on crime that is wrong.
Finland has proportionately fewer prisons than many other countries, yet it takes a tough approach to crime.
It is possible to reconcile the two objectives.
The Council of Europe would be well advised to address the whole area of crime and punishment in an effort to rectify the situation.
A much better option is to provide people with improved social and health care facilities.
Mr President, I would ask for your understanding.
I do not want to delay the proceedings, but both Mr Pirker and Mrs Thors got the facts wrong in their statements.
The report was not referred back by the plenary; instead I asked, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, for it to be taken back from plenary to the committee.
That is a rather different matter.
Members keep implying that the House said: we don't want this rubbish.
The fact is that Mrs d'Ancona requested me to withdraw the report so as to give us an opportunity to negotiate compromises.
That is a considerable difference!
Let us not split hairs, Mr President.
You should not argue in this way.
I used a word that covers both the situations you referred to.
Återremiss in Swedish means cases where it is asked that something is taken back and it is then taken back to the preparatory body.
Mr President, the real truth is that the report was sent back to committee because the British Labour Group - the single biggest part of the Socialist Group - was going to vote against it. It was under instructions from the British Home Secretary whose son had just been done for drug dealing and it was embarrassing for it to support the report.
Mrs d'Ancona's original report was a very good report.
This, unfortunately, is not so good although there are some good things in it.
There is a sweet smell of hypocrisy in this Chamber tonight which mingles with the smell of a drug outside - a drug called tobacco which kills half a million Europeans each year.
This Parliament cannot even stop people smoking in areas where they are not meant to smoke, such as right outside this Chamber.
Instead it tries to water down a sensible policy which Mrs d'Ancona put forward on drugs.
I know that many British Labour Members have in the past smoked dope and some of them still do.
But they will all vote against it because of the hypocrisy that is prevalent in this Chamber.
We need a sensible policy on the decriminalization of cannabis, as they have in Holland, in Australia and in many parts of the world.
Then we could deal much more effectively with the real problem of hard drugs and the young might take us seriously.
Mr President, I think the fact that we have Mrs d'Ancona's report here in its present form is a major step forward.
In any event, the fact that it states a few clear principles will attract interest in my country.
For example, the principle of a drug-free society, 'life without drugs', is one of the principles stated: limiting demand, greater emphasis on implementing laws and international agreements.
In other words, this means abandoning the policy of tolerance.
I have the feeling that ideas like 'the tolerant society', which I used to read of in liberal party manifestos, have quietly died the death as far as drugs policy is concerned.
And I think this is most important because drugs are a major nuisance both to the user and to the people around him, especially, as we all know, amongst those who are at the bottom of the social pile.
And I think it goes without saying that, at a given point, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats should agree on an issue such as this, because it is surely our first guiding principle to combat suffering amongst those who are the most vulnerable.
And I find it quite proper that a drug-free society should be held up as an ideal.
I am very surprised that this ideal is rejected by some, as if the ambition of full employment, the ambition to eliminate poverty, the ambition of a society where right prevails and imbeciles are kept out of Parliament, are not also ideals which we should pursue with vigour.
So I think it is splendid to have this report. It is a compromise, but fortunately it does outline a policy, and that is what matters.
Mr President, Mrs d'Ancona has produced a thorough report on this subject.
This second report is clearly a more rational, more composed and, above all, more constructive one than its predecessor.
I believe that the long and stormy parliamentary debate on Mrs d'Ancona's reports has strengthened the view of most that the battle against drugs cannot be won by proposing that the harmonisation of EU Member States' drug laws should be achieved merely in terms of a liberal approach to the drugs problem.
We are all, in our own way, victims of drug abuse.
The fight against drugs in the Member States of the Community must be an active, not a reactive, one.
Simply focusing on the control of problems that are the result of drug abuse is not the right approach.
The debate on synthetic drugs has shown that the EU should be giving special attention to educational programmes for children and young people.
The fight against the various designer drugs used by young people, such as ecstasy, is the only way to make it difficult for people to get hold of drugs.
We urgently need to develop and enhance systems for sharing information among the relevant authorities and setting up joint databases for the registration of new narcotic substances, with the help of EU funding.
I would finally like to point out that the opinions being expressed in the gallery are, to my mind, out of order, Mr President.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome our return to the subject of drug addiction this evening, especially since no miracle solutions are being put forward: drug addiction cannot be overcome with a magic wand!
No solution can be found that transports us immediately, overnight, into a drug-free society.
We have a good deal of hard work ahead of us: not just the European Parliament, but all the Member States too must commit themselves to a global strategy - as was stressed at the last UN General Assembly - a strategy which calls on us to opt above all for the prevention route and attempt to reduce the demand for drugs in our Community, providing information and education, in the knowledge that synthetic drugs are a major risk.
Prevention is not enough.
Young people who are travelling through the tunnel of death, the tunnel of drugs, need above all to be cured, not only with a view to damage limitation, but in the knowledge that the voluntary sector has a wealth of experience of working in a spirit of solidarity.
Therapeutic communities have brought many youngsters back to life.
Prevention and cure go hand-in-hand with rehabilitation, reintegration and finally repressive policies, not just against small-scale trafficking but primarily against large-scale trafficking in hard drugs.
In attempting to lance this boil, priority must be given to the issue of banking secrecy, because enormous and lethal flows of money are passing through the legal economy. The European Parliament should turn its attention to this problem in the first instance.
Mr President, I read Mrs d'Ancona's revised report with interest. Today's debate has been very stimulating.
Drugs policy is an area where the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the Commission have been cooperating closely and fruitfully for several years now.
We have organised some important conferences together and the exchange of information between us has been good.
Last summer, representatives from the European Parliament were included in the Commission's delegation to the United Nations General Assembly special session on drugs.
Like Mrs d'Ancona, I look forward to more of this effective cooperation in the future.
As I have said many times before, and cannot repeat enough, cooperation is the bedrock upon which to pursue a constructive and focused dialogue on the central issues of drugs policy.
Past evidence of this is the way in which we collaborated to get synthetic drugs onto the political agenda.
Europe emerges strengthened from such exercises, for we are seen as standing shoulder to shoulder in the battle to halt the spread of drugs.
The EU's political priorities undergo adjustment, bringing them more into line with the concerns and fears of ordinary citizens.
Thanks also to our cooperative efforts, we now have a situation in which legislation and regulatory practices are similar across the EU. This is partly because the UN conventions offer a shared basis from which we all start.
The Union's common rules on money laundering and chemical precursors have also had an important part to play, but we cannot afford to close our eyes to the major discrepancies still in existence as regards narcotics.
Penalties for possession, dealing and trafficking vary, as do attitudes to possession for personal consumption. Views differ on whether to classify some substances as less dangerous than others.
Furthermore, there are major variations in the way existing laws and regulations are applied. These differences are not irrelevant; they reflect a fundamental disagreement over the future design of drug strategies.
More work needs to be done before we have a coherent European approach to narcotics policy. But let us not exaggerate the discrepancies.
Otherwise we will end up devoting valuable time and energy to relatively minor issues, losing sight of the really significant ones. The problems are out there, and to resolve them we need consensus and a pooling of joint resources.
Mrs d'Ancona's report also states clearly and unequivocally that our common goal now and in the future is, and must remain, a drug-free society.
I welcome that, for there is no place for ambiguity here.
Mr President, the combination of preventive and restrictive policies we see across Europe is the result of efforts extending over almost 30 years.
Various methods have been tried out by different Member States at different times, but the overall conclusion certainly seems to be that preventive action and social measures are just as important as bans and restrictions.
Three things are necessary when it comes to the practical shaping of a policy for drugs: demand-reduction, access-limitation and international cooperation.
These formed the foundation for the EU's five-year action plan, adopted in 1994. It is that plan which is currently being updated.
The key elements are continuity and sustainability - an assessment borne out by the conclusions of the final text adopted by the UN at its special session in the summer.
I am particularly pleased, therefore, to see such unequivocal commitment to the UN conventions in one of the recommendations in the d'Ancona report.
A clear statement of this kind is salutary and sets the parameters for our future policy to combat drugs.
We now need to fine-tune and adjust our methods of cooperation, so that we are better equipped to meet the current challenges.
There is no place, however, for revolutionary change or high-risk experimentation.
Mr President, most people here today appear to agree that the emphasis should be on preventive action.
The way forward is not to call for more policemen and customs officials, or to mete out harsher punishments, or to launch a merciless crackdown on drugs-linked crop production.
What we need is an established framework within which to work, coupled with a willingness to shoulder social responsibility.
I appreciate the fact that the rapporteur devotes space in her text to the Community's financial programme, under which funds would be made available for preventive measures to combat drug abuse.
The Union has earmarked ECU 27 million over a five-year period to support preventive work in the Member States.
The programme offers a unique opportunity for cooperation between government bodies and voluntary organisations.
There will be scope for methodological work - devising new ways of evaluating the results of prevention strategies in the Member States, for example.
The idea is to pinpoint strategies which foster a broader exchange of information and experience.
I wish to say loud and clear, however, that the Community programme cannot be viewed as a source of support for experimental work in the field of drugs. Unfortunately there are occasionally some misunderstandings on this front.
By way of conclusion, let me make it clear that the task of updating the Union's action programme has only just begun. I am responsible for coordinating the Commission's contribution.
A first draft should be ready around the beginning of next year.
Between now and then, I will be working alongside others in the Commission on evaluating the range of measures taken over recent years in this area.
As coordinating Commissioner, I am sure that there will be plenty of opportunities for me to discuss matters with Parliament, both here in the House and in committee.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Combating corruption
The next item is the report (A4-0285/98) by Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on a Union policy against corruption (COM(97)0192 - C4-0273/97).
Mr President, the report which I am presenting to the House today for debate and vote relates in particular to the Commission's communication of last year setting out its proposed approach.
Furthermore, in view of the many interesting developments taking place internationally to thrash out a strategy to combat corruption, the report outlines and assesses priorities, as well as identifying some urgently needed initiatives.
In actual fact there are many proposals and ideas before various international bodies: concrete steps are now needed to bring them to fruition.
I should like to give a brief overall assessment of the Commission's communication, reserving the right to return later to certain aspects.
The document is a good one, but it has two glaring omissions: the first relates to the lack of action even in fields for which the right of initiative lies with the Commission and is not delegated to other agents; the second - politically even more significant - lies in the fact that there is no hint of the problems, risks and possible measures relating to internal corruption in the EU institutions.
Certain very high-profile cases have arisen recently - the latest being that of ECHO - and these show how necessary it is to put one's own house in order, at least in terms of rules and priorities, before giving lessons to others.
The report outlines various proposals in this area, and I sense that the Commission is willing to carry this further.
This very matter is, moreover, dealt with in Mr Bösch's report, which we shall be discussing tomorrow.
As far as the general picture is concerned, I would recall that alarm has grown considerably over the past three or four years.
This is clear from the sensational cases which have occurred in various parts of the world - Kenya, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Italy, Spain and France - where leaders or entire leaderships have been caught up in corruption cases.
Further, it is estimated that 5 % of all direct foreign investment into the most exposed countries disappears through corruption, without counting internal corruption.
We had in fact noticed the growing alarm, because even bodies which until a short while ago were afraid to utter the word corruption are now placing it at the top of their agendas.
I am referring, not to be controversial but to emphasise this aspect, to the Monetary Institute, the World Bank, the OECD: all bodies which - as I said - have never previously adopted a stance, despite witnessing many and widespread cases of corruption, for example in international trade.
I am very pleased that now, faced with the latest dangerous upsurge, the business community and these institutions have acknowledged the situation.
In this connection, on 14 and 15 April we - the Council, Commission and Parliament - held a very interesting joint seminar on corruption in the business community, and the latter made some very important undertakings on that occasion.
We are now awaiting confirmation and a follow-up.
One very important new element that I would mention here is the emergence of an NGO - Transparency International - which has been active in Berlin since 1993, fighting corruption from the perspective of the business community.
I would merely list the new elements to which it has led: a European Union convention, recently approved by the Council along with the Protocol on the protection of financial interests and, above all, in December, a heavyweight OECD convention, which is perhaps the first joint act by such a large-scale forum with the express intention of combating corruption.
I would also recall that the new legal base established at Amsterdam has strengthened the mechanisms available for fighting corruption.
All of which shows that mechanisms do exist. I should like now to touch on a few points from the conclusion to my report, which sets out to identify the main approaches and priorities for action in this area, assuming that action will be far-reaching.
It draws attention to the need to ratify these conventions, and in particular the need for the Member States and Commission to take measures against the tax deductibility of bribes - a scandalous practice still going on in our countries - and lists a whole series of measures to prevent corruption, such as transparency and the reduction of red tape, ensuring that politicians too commit themselves to fighting corruption.
Judicial independence is vital but, if corruption is to be combated effectively, a moral commitment is required from citizens and - if I may say so - from institutions and politicians likewise.
Personally I believe that many Members of this House wish to be respected and not merely tolerated as politicians, and the fight against corruption is the ultimate test here.
Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has highlighted five measures which either already existed or are to be introduced to tackle and remove corruption.
In particular, the Legal Affairs Committee would like the Commission to bring forward legislation to extend the scope of the existing money laundering directive to cover criminal activities such as corruption.
We would also like the Commission to name explicitly those Member States which permit tax deductions for the bribery of foreign officials, so that the tax-deductibility of bribes paid to such officials can be abolished.
We would also like the Commission to bring forward legislation to clarify the conditions of access for tenderers to public procurement procedures, with the aim of eliminating any person convicted of corruption from participating in these procedures in future.
We would also like the Commission to study the criteria which would enable steps to be taken to establish a comprehensive system to blacklist rogue undertakings and exclude them from competing for or being awarded future contracts and subsidies, and to alert third parties to possible risks in conducting business with such undertakings.
Clear criteria for inclusion on such a blacklist, and appropriate appeal procedures should be established by the Commission.
Finally, the Legal Affairs Committee believes that all competitors for specific projects should give a written undertaking that they will not use bribery to obtain a contract for public procurement. We believe this is worthy of further attention.
While we understand that the Member States have the remit in terms of criminal law, these are five measures we would like to see the Commission introduce at European Union level.
Mr President, first let me thank Mr Bontempi for his good report and for incorporating many of our suggestions in it.
On the question of corruption the Commission might be well advised to put its own house in order first, before lecturing others.
That was the main point we made when the Committee on Budgetary Control adopted its opinion on the Bontempi report on 21 October 1997, i.e. nearly a year ago.
We noted at the time that the Commission's communication on an EU policy to fight corruption does indeed contain much that is true and worth considering, but that it does not address the question of corruption within the Commission and the other EU institutions.
To be quite frank, this aspect of the matter was simply suppressed.
Now it has been under intense discussion for days if not weeks. That confirms how right Parliament was to defer the discharge to the Commission this spring.
At the time we made two crucial demands: firstly, that Parliament be kept regularly informed of all ongoing internal investigations into cases where EU officials might be involved in fraud and corruption and, secondly, that the appropriate judicial authorities be informed rapidly and fully of any suspected cases.
Regrettably we note that these conditions have still not been satisfied.
People are getting worked up about particular cases just now, but what is far more serious is that we do not have a reliable overview of the scale, nature and results of the suspected internal cases investigated by the Commission.
All we have is a number: 27 cases which may well also involve Commission officials are currently under investigation.
Yet the Commission almost systematically denies us any access to the relevant reports. We have not even been given a list of the cases.
Unless this situation changes rapidly and radically, the Commission will not just be jeopardising its own political future, but also doing serious damage to the reputation of the European Union as a whole.
And in that case it has no right at all to lecture others about the right way to fight corruption!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bösch has very sensibly stated his position today in anticipation of tomorrow's debate.
So I will not add any further comments to what Herbert Bösch said, given his personal commitment. We will be dealing with the matter in depth tomorrow.
But there is one fact that is quite undisputed: corruption is a phenomenon that represents a huge danger to the rule of law.
We must be fully aware that corruptible representatives always pave the way towards the destabilisation of a constitutional state.
Be they freely elected Members, be they officials, anyone who carries government responsibility, anyone who assumes de facto government responsibility in the free economy and is susceptible or open to corruption helps destroy the cornerstone of democracy, which is transparency, the visibility of government action.
This goes hand in hand with the destruction of trust in democracy, and the moment the public loses its trust in democracy, democracy is finished.
That is to say that the fight against corruption is not just a fight against crime, but also a fight for the stability of the democratic institutions. We must bear that in mind when we discuss Mr Bontempi's report.
To return to what Mr Bösch said, that is why we must realise that with the European Union in its present form we have built up an organisation in which huge economic powers are amassed, in which huge financial opportunities are being created, but all within a structure that is becoming ever less transparent. It is not that I am blaming anyone here, let me make that quite clear.
I would remind Mr Bösch that it was very often the Commission that supported our Parliament's calls for more transparency.
The fault lies far more with the Member State governments, with the Council of the Union, which is responsible for what I have just described, i.e. the accumulation of more economic power, more financial power, without a corresponding build-up of powers of control, in particular of Parliament's powers of control.
So I say that if such an important structure as the European Union, in the form in which it now exists, transfers the powers of economic and financial action to an executive which cannot be adequately controlled, that will obviously open the door to corruption.
To return therefore to what I said at the beginning, we are facing the internationalisation of economic power in Europe while national structures are still being used to combat the abuse of this economic power - which is precisely Mr Bontempi's point of departure.
We need to standardise anti-corruption systems internationally with the aim - which I believe we share with the Commissioner - of eventually incorporating them in EU legislative structures. That would mean giving the EU its own margin of power and discretion in the fight against corruption, which brings us back to the Bösch report which is on tomorrow's agenda.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all my compliments to the rapporteur, Mr Bontempi, on his report which the PPE Group will be endorsing without reservation.
I think that I can seamlessly agree with Mr Schulz, who made the point that many forms of corruption which have come to light in the last ten years in various Member States of the Union have caused great alarm in public opinion and in the population in general.
So without exaggeration one can speak of a crisis of values of the kind we like to evoke when we talk about democracy in Europe.
A series of scandals has raised grave doubts as to the integrity of persons in high positions of responsibility in industry, government and political life.
In addition to the example already quoted by Mr Bösch and Mr Schulz on the fraud surrounding the ECU 700 000 intended for humanitarian aid to former Yugoslavia, I would point to the notorious case currently going on before Belgium's Court of Cassation in connection with hundreds of millions allegedly spent by Agusta and Dassault on helicopters and aeroplanes for the Belgian armed forces.
So work is needed to arrive at a final definition which will distinguish active and passive corruption from other criminal or non-criminal deals.
This definition must be applicable in all Member States of the Union, jointly and severally. I do not think that this practicable definition will be enough.
It is of course a necessary precondition, but more is needed.
We have to have preventive and punitive measures as well.
Prevention can be assured by making public tendering procedures, government procurement, trade agreements and other policy measures as transparent as possible.
That is the main thing; transparency, the ability to check, the ability to measure against standards and criteria, and these supervisory mechanisms are an essential part of democracy.
We should learn from the experience of Europol and UCLAF, Commissioner.
So we need a Community window to look through in addition to all these conventions, international agreements, OECD codes of conduct and so on, and we are counting on the European Commission to provide us with that window.
Mr President, corruption undermines the legally constituted state and corruption threatens our democracy. On that I fully agree with Mr Schulz.
Mr President, I should like to begin by complimenting the rapporteur, Mr Bontempi, on his excellent work.
One point on which I think we must all agree is that corruption is a highly destabilising factor, not only of our democratic structures but, in a more obvious way, of the free market and free competition.
It seriously disrupts free competition, so that the winner is not the best bidder, the one offering the most efficient service, but the craftiest, most dishonest and most corrupt.
This phenomenon deserves our attention.
In the light of this increase in corruption - clearly, corruption has existed since public institutions and government bodies were first created, in other words virtually since the world began - we must all consider whether a greater use of penalties and repression is the right response.
I believe on the contrary, as the last few speakers have said, that corruption comes from within.
Surely it is often the mechanisms themselves that provoke criminal behaviour and generate corruption: it is the barriers placed between commercial or economic operators and the pursuit of their business that opens the door to corruption.
I therefore welcome the acknowledgment by the rapporteur - and the Committee on Civil Liberties - that in combating corruption we must begin by reducing bureaucracy, simplifying procedures and making contracting arrangements more transparent.
Mr President, I am in favour of very firm and effective action to combat corruption and fraud.
We must strengthen our common efforts by ensuring that UCLAF and Europol function optimally, we must demand that the Commission work out a common strategy for the fight against fraud, and we must ensure that this common strategy is translated into concrete initiatives.
But we do not want a common prosecution service or a common criminal justice system.
On the other hand, we must coordinate our action and strengthen the practical cooperation that exists between our countries.
Furthermore we must be ruthless in dealing with corruption in the EU institutions.
Unfortunately we are discussing an all too topical subject here.
The Commission has some troublesome matters on its conscience at the moment, and that is something that does not exactly enhance the Commission's already rather tarnished image in the eyes of so many EU citizens - the image of a closed and élitist institution that looks after its own.
In this connection, I would ask the Commission to give an account of a very scandalous affair.
I am thinking here of the cancellation of the Commission's selection test.
One point is the general disorder that prevailed during the tests, with a lack of supervision of toilet visits and use of mobile phones.
We would be right to call it corruption, when Commission staff supply the answers to selected persons taking part in the tests.
I think it is disgraceful. We have a problem when we come to explain to European taxpayers that this selection test had been planned for three years and had cost ECU 12 million to hold.
Mr President, an atmosphere of outright scandal reigned when I left Portugal this weekend, after the former president of a State entity which has extensive influence in matters relating to public works had revealed practices of the most blatant corruption (so he claimed) in connection with the financing of political parties.
I travelled by way of Belgium, where the news has been dominated for several weeks by the corruption scandal relating to the 'Agusta' case involving former members of government and political parties.
And we go higher yet, to the portals of the European Union, and we learn that a competition involving tens of thousands of 'Eurocrat' candidates was cancelled on account of serious irregularities. We even know of rather dubious situations in connection with humanitarian aid.
There are two factors which appear inevitably to be present in the underworld of corruption: bureaucracy and an absence of transparency in decision-making.
We agree overall with the rapporteur's assessment and proposals.
However, in tackling the matter of contributions to political parties in the context of combating corruption, we must have the courage to call a spade a spade, to recognise that the democratic contest for power fought by political parties and politicians, given over as it is to the dictates of marketing, advertising and the use of information to manipulate voters, takes vast sums of money which are obtained, for the most part, from generous donations by powerful economic interests.
These obviously do not loosen their purse strings simply out of sympathy to a particular politician, but because they expect advantages in return, what in Portugal we call 'giving a sausage in exchange for a fat pig'.
Unfortunately, we are undergoing a red- and pink-tinted phase, in which public opinion polls have become more important than beliefs for those who are supposed to govern or to offer alternatives in power.
This is the so-called third version of democratic socialism which, backed by enormous funding, is sweeping through the western world, and which obviously has no interest in taking the courageous step, for instance, of banning private financing of political parties.
It is as simple as that.
Member of the Commission. I have read Mr Bontempi's report on corruption with great interest.
It gives us a very useful overview of the various initiatives in this area.
As you know, the Union has been increasingly active in fighting corruption during the last years.
In 1996 the Convention on protection of the financial interests of the Community was enlarged with the first protocol. This protocol criminalised bribery by or against national or Community officials which affects the EU budget.
A further protocol adopted in 1997 criminalised laundering of the proceeds of corruption.
The same year the Council also agreed on the Convention criminalising corruption affecting official duties of national or Community officials.
Unfortunately, none of the instruments that I have just mentioned has as yet been ratified by any national government.
This sends a conflicting message. We all agree on the need to fight corruption, but when it comes to passing Union legislation through national parliaments the process grinds to a halt.
The Commission's communication on the fight against corruption from last year covers many areas: tax deductibility, public procurement, financial transactions, blacklisting of shady operators, civil remedies and the fight against corruption in development assistance and in the pre-accession strategy.
I will briefly review the progress achieved.
The OECD Convention signed in December 1997 criminalises the bribery of foreign officials in the context of international business transactions.
The Convention will probably enter into force in 1999.
Most Member States have either already changed their laws or are committed to doing so.
Member States should obviously change their tax laws to ensure that such kickbacks are not tax-deductible.
A questionnaire has now been sent to Member States.
The Commission and the Council will review progress in November.
To give you an example, disallowing tax deductibility only where there has been a conviction of a foreign official for bribery is not enough.
It must be clear in tax law that only lawful expenses may offset taxable income.
So it is possible that EU legislation is required, as suggested by Mr Bontempi.
As regards public procurement, it is common knowledge that transparency in the marketplace acts as a powerful brake on corruption.
The Commission has pushed for more transparency concerning prices and tender conditions.
We have also advocated the inclusion of specific anti-corruption measures in public procurement procedures.
Tomorrow the Advisory Committee on Public Procurement will discuss how Member States may exclude companies or persons who are being investigated for involvement in organised crime.
The Commission is also suggesting that Member States cooperate on these aspects.
The Vade Mecum on grant management will enter into force on 1 January 1999. The Vade Mecum provides for minimum standards for the award and monitoring of certain subsidies.
The aim is to ensure more transparency, publicity and efficiency in the proceedings.
In May, the Commission launched a discussion on reform of the statutory auditing.
Better audits must become a deterrent against fraud and corruption.
A new committee on auditing is going to check the auditors' approach to fraud.
Fraud risks must be reported by auditors and company boards.
The Commission has also looked at professional risk.
Certain professions such as accountants, notaries, lawyers and auditors may be vulnerable to corruption and influence by organised crime.
The Commission is currently gathering information from their representatives to gain a full picture of the risk and to pursue the reflection on the need and feasibility of establishing at Union level some basic ethical requirements.
As regards money laundering, Mr Monti intends at the beginning of 1999 to propose a stronger directive to cover several professions beyond the financial sector.
Mr Bontempi sees combating corruption inside the EU institutions as an important issue.
The Commission and I myself share his concern, and as you know the Council has asked all institutions to help UCLAF to conduct internal inquiries.
We will come back to this tomorrow in the context of Mr Bösch's report.
However, the Commission has already been quite active on the preventive side.
The sound and efficient management programme for the year 2000 aims at streamlining administration, simplifying procedures, improving transparency and reducing red tape throughout our administration.
A number of supplementary steps are now being taken by my colleague, Mr Liikanen, to make sure that all decisions and management principles are carried out properly.
The Commission's own fraud fighting service, UCLAF, is also active. Its efforts are beginning to bear fruit.
I have recently strengthened its independence and its organisation, and a dedicated anti-corruption cell and a legal unit have been set up.
An early-warning system was put into place last year. It identifies dubious beneficiaries of Community funds who may be involved in corruption.
The Commission is at present checking whether such grey- or black- listing systems could be introduced in all EU policy areas where EU funds are spent.
As regards the candidate countries, the fight against corruption is a priority in the pre-accession strategy.
The accession partnerships outline the programmes and their financing. They all require progress in the fight against corruption.
The Commission is currently developing two new anti-corruption actions.
Within the horizontal programme for justice and home affairs, all ten candidate countries will be involved in a two-year joint project with the Council of Europe, Octopus 2, with ECU 1.5 million against corruption and organised crime.
It will focus on improving investigative means, inter-agency cooperation, protection of vulnerable targets and criminalisation of corruption.
Also, a new facility called a pre-ins or catch-up facility, which concerns ECU 100 million for 1998/1999, has been launched to help Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia.
Among the three priority areas is the fight against corruption.
Obviously, all the candidate countries must improve their record on corruption in order to fully live up to the first Copenhagen criteria.
The fight against corruption is also high on the agenda for development assistance. It now constitutes an essential principle for good governance.
Concerning the ACP states, the communication on democratization, the rule of law, respect for human rights and good governance highlights the good governance concept to be followed. It proposes an action plan aimed at the protection of the financial interests of the Union.
It also suggests that this be used in other areas of external assistance and cooperation.
On all these points, I am prepared to regularly brief Parliament on progress made, as requested by the rapporteur.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Common fisheries policy: control system
The next item is the report (A4-0331/98) by Mr Teverson, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2847/93 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy (COM(98)0303 - C4-0357/98-98/0170(CNS)).
Mr President, it is always a great thrill to speak to such a full Chamber, in particular at this time of the evening.
I congratulate colleagues who have turned up for what is a very serious issue.
I would like to make clear to the Commissioner that control and monitoring of the common fisheries policy has attracted a great deal of unanimity, going beyond almost any other issue which has come before the committee.
It is one which we feel particularly strongly about as was shown in Mr Provan's excellent report which we debated at the last part-session.
It is clear to us as legislators involved in the fishing industry and the fishermen themselves that this is a common policy.
And if we say it is a common policy then there is an expectation that we will have the same rules throughout Community seas, equal enforcement across those seas and similar penalties for wrongdoers throughout the European Union.
That would be a just and acceptable common policy.
It is, however, equally clear that we do not have that at the present moment.
So as a committee we very much welcome the Commission proposals to tighten up control and monitoring of this particular policy.
Having welcomed that report, I would say that we still found areas that were wanting and areas that could still be strengthened.
These are areas which the Council of Ministers should strengthen when it makes its decisions later this month.
What are these? Firstly, there is the issue of Community inspectors.
We are very aware that much of their time recently has been taken up with the tuna fleet, with NAFO and with many other areas of Community involvement in the fishing industry.
But their core task is making sure that the common fisheries policy is working properly. Clearly that is not happening.
So we are saying to the Commission that not only are we asking it to implement its own proposals to strengthen those EU inspectors but also to increase their powers to those of national inspectors.
They should not be mere observers but should be able to take initiatives so that all EU fishermen can be assured that rules are being enforced equally.
The report also says that the way to enforce the fisheries policy must be primarily through landings and what happens subsequently through the supply chain.
That is the way to bring pressure to ensure that these rules work and are enforced.
We are saying in this report that there should be a legal liability - not just paperwork as in the Commission proposal - that flows down through the supply chain so that people who knowingly sell or transport illegal fish - whether they are undersized or out of quota - also take legal responsibility.
At that point we will start to have a real tightening up of this policy.
What else do we need? We need better information.
When cooperation between Member States increases we must have a proper exchange of information so that prosecutions can take place in a straightforward manner by national jurisdictions with information supplied by the Member States.
This will expand and increase the powers asked for by the Commission.
Mrs Fraga has brought forward the idea that we must make sure that third countries dealing with fish products in Community waters and landing in Community waters are treated in exactly the same way as our own fleets. It is a matter of justice and equity.
We have a great opportunity here.
I know that the Commission is very much in favour of strengthening control and monitoring.
We have an annual report that needs to compare like with like and make sure that we can assess what is going on.
We are fully behind you and ask you to strengthen the proposals through amendments and make sure that the Council of Ministers later this month passes a regulation that has backbone to ensure that there is equity so that everyone can at last have confidence in this common policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, there has been a sharp increase in deep-sea fishing capacity of late.
The trend towards the consumption of frozen fish has had a bearing here; probably it has not been possible to keep pace with the equivalent increase in aquaculture, although aquaculture is responding satisfactorily to a certain growth in the market.
Demand for fish is high.
There is no doubt that the proposals contained in Regulation No 2847/93 go a long way: simplifying the procedures, conducting more meticulous checks before and after landing, and using electronic devices. We endorse these proposals, and are likewise convinced that those being made by the Committee on Fisheries, involving inspectors, will lead to a more responsible attitude on the part of governments.
There is however a broader issue here, which is beyond our control, namely that of international conventions and how to ensure that the fishing industry really does act responsibly.
Regarding international conventions, we are concerned that the agreement on deep-sea species to which we ourselves signed up - both the committee and the European Union - has been ratified by only 18 countries.
This is a major political weakness: we have done our best, but many countries reject such agreements.
We are likewise convinced that the protocol on responsible fisheries, proposed by the WWF, would be a solution, but not all countries accept it.
The FAO code of conduct could be an extremely useful measure in respect of surplus capacity - and in the long term, surplus capacity is a very serious problem for shipowners.
In short, what is needed is an international framework of reference, enabling us to do our job properly and extend our activities to international level.
Moreover, this argument applies not only to fishing effort but also to broader issues concerning fisheries.
Thus I agree on the need to go the extra mile to comply in full with Directives 96/61 and 91/676, the latter on nitrates, the former on preventing and combating pollution. After all, both of these aspects have a direct impact on the environmental balance.
Without a doubt, however, a good deal of innovative research is required to devise new and more selective types of fishing gear.
In this context, satellite monitoring has an important role to play, and we are all in favour of it, but selective gear is also important.
Although the multiannual guidance programme sets out certain important aims, the Member States must abide by these aims whilst at the same time carrying forward research.
For example, experiments performed with netting, square mesh and other selective gear have led to significant findings.
So have experiments carried out in the English Channel with technical gear for catching shellfish.
In short, the fisheries policy is operating in a range of areas, and control and monitoring are crucial.
This draft regulation is welcome, but clearly everything possible must be done to make fishermen themselves adopt a responsible attitude, since they are the main players in an environmentally friendly fisheries policy.
Mr President, I think the Commissioner recognises the fact, and in the Commission's proposals it is very clear, that along with common regulation we need common control, and that really ultimately means common penalties.
Robin Teverson and I have been working very closely together on this issue over the last months.
It is significant that Parliament is discussing control measures two months running and it shows the importance attached to this issue by the Committee on Fisheries and by Parliament.
Last month the report went through unanimously. That was a very important issue too.
This report is really putting flesh on the bones of what we discussed last month.
It is important, when we make regulations, that we make sure that they are applied properly.
Regulations need to follow through not only the catching industry, as Robin Teverson stated in this report, but right through to the retailers: right through the processors and right through to the retailers.
A number of us were very impressed when we visited Norway a couple of years ago and saw their regulatory system: simple, unbureaucratic and supported by the fishermen.
That is what we have to try to achieve within the European Union.
We do not want too much bureaucracy.
I have to say that there are a couple of amendments in this report, supported by the Green Group, which we in the EPP Group will probably not support when it comes to the vote tomorrow.
That is not to say we are against control, it is only that we are against an extra layer of bureaucracy.
We would rather see the control mechanisms from the bottom up, rather than from the top down.
We need the fishermen's support, we need to ensure that the programmes work properly, and that means local control with the fishermen's involvement rather than too much heavy bureaucracy.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Teverson on the presentation of a very fine report, which I welcome.
It is a comprehensive and thorough report, containing many innovative proposals and, indeed, amendments.
I agree that there should be, as a matter of priority, intensified inspection and surveillance of vessels against which regional or international fisheries organisations have taken measures of any kind.
This will put pressure, in particular, on those who repeatedly offend with impunity.
The standardisation of engine-house power and tonnage across the Community is long overdue.
There are too many grey areas.
In order for control systems to be fully effective, monitoring effort must be measurable, comparable and transparent between the Commission and Member States, and between the Member States themselves.
There has to be harmonisation and it must come as quickly as possible.
I also agree that procedures must be adopted to ensure that comparable penalties are imposed for comparable infringements across the Community.
It is essential to ensure accurate verification and recording of trans-shipments and landings.
However laudable all of these proposals of the European Union are, they will come to nothing unless there are adequate national inspectors on the ground.
Irish and UK fishermen claim to be the most controlled fleet sectors in the Union, and that need for evidence of inspectors on the ground applies to all of us.
However, when we look to the antics of quota-hoppers and see the hostility of fishermen and other companies challenging TV crews, we can hardly be surprised if both Irish and British fishermen have serious questions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal attempts to improve the control system for the common fisheries policy, with a view to making it more responsible and to conserving stocks.
This is apparent in the amendments relating to the more reliable measurement and comparison of vessels' engine power and tonnage and to harmonising penalties and inspection procedures.
However, it is equally apparent that these more onerous requirements and procedures are not accompanied by increased funding which, bearing mind that this relates to a common policy, can no longer continue to be borne almost entirely by the Member States.
It is also clear that the control exercised over Community vessels may well continue to be much more stringent than over third-country vessels.
It is quite possible that even in Community waters and/or ports a balance may not exist, while quite considerable differences could well exist in other places.
The lack of funding and absence of equal treatment between vessels of different origin could give rise to suspicion and cause the regulation to be less efficiently and transparently implemented than is desirable and possible.
I would like to take advantage of Commissioner Gradin's presence here to request her to clarify her own position and that of the Commission regarding the amendments proposed in the Teverson report.
Mr President, all the speakers before me seem to agree on the need to improve, through this regulation, the control and monitoring of the common fisheries policy, and hence the fisheries situation in general.
I wish to say, on behalf of the Green Group, that we endorse the spirit of the Commission's amending regulation, but we also agree with the amendments put forward by Parliament's Committee on Fisheries.
We believe that all the amendments should be adopted, obviously including those - and I turn here to Mr Provan - tabled by our group, which we think are especially relevant in terms of improving controls and monitoring.
It is true to say that Amendment No 8 refers to a convention so far signed by only 18 countries, but it is a good thing for the Community to be in the vanguard of such developments, in the hope that they may spread throughout the world.
Mr President, my interest in fish goes back a long time - longer than anyone in this Parliament - to 1975.
I remember when we had no common fisheries policy.
When we got it we all thought that we would have inspectors who would have the powers of national inspectors in any port, any place in the whole of our association, before it was called the European Union.
At last , in Mr Teverson's report, we have this very proposal that was envisaged from the word 'go', namely that inspectors will have the right to make observation visits without notice to vessels, sites, documents, to every aspect.
For that reason I really welcome this report from the Commission and from Mr Teverson.
We must have a system that is seen to be fair.
I liked the word in the explanatory statement about trust.
Fishermen are always suspicious and trust is important.
Unless the system is seen to be fair to all they will never have trust and it will never really work.
The UK has many faults, failure to support decommissioning and many other things, but Spain has faults too.
For many years some of the fishery inspectors of Spain lived in Madrid.
We have seen films on television showing under-sized fish on sale in supermarkets in Spain.
To be fair to Spain, Britain does nothing about it; it just lets the situation continue.
At last we have a proposal to try and be even-handed on penalties and inspection. I really welcome that and the linking of landings, and all the difficulties with trans-shipment.
There is a proposal to amalgamate fish and agriculture.
All fishing interests oppose this, the chairmen of the Committee on Fisheries and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development are against it.
We have taken 10 years to get a common policy.
How dare anybody suggest that farmers are the best people to decide about this vital industry!
At the last part-session we discussed ways of improving the implementation of the common fisheries policy and, in approving the Provan report, stressed the essential part which monitoring had to play in it. Today we are debating the amendment of the regulation on the control system.
As amended in the Committee on Fisheries, Mr Teverson's report contains conflicting provisions.
Amendment No 1, tabled by the Committee on Fisheries, conflicts with Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10 adopted in committee with the backing of the rapporteur.
Amendment No 1 says that if a system of monitoring is to be fully effective, fishing effort and results must be measurable and verifiable.
Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10 require skippers to record in their logbook the species and quantities of fish discarded, something which is not only an additional constraint but also totally unworkable.
How can one check that this logbook is correct? It is quite simply impossible.
If this measure were to be adopted, fishermen might well reject the whole of the inspection process.
Efforts to introduce measures which are unrealistic, uncheckable and which carry penalties can only undermine the credibility of the inspection system.
For this reason, our group will oppose the adoption of these amendments.
Admittedly, the problem of discards is a very real one and we are all aware of it, since the Committee on Fisheries is currently drafting an own-initiative report on the matter to be presented to the House shortly.
Other, truly effective ways must be found of limiting discards, which have been blamed for the decline in stocks of certain fish species and which rob us of a valuable source of protein.
We are, however, fully behind the rapporteur in her proposals to harmonise penalties.
Fishermen are in no way hostile to inspections, quite the contrary, provided they know they are fair - fair between Member States, and fair between themselves and non-Union countries.
A good system of inspection must also be simple, easily implemented and not cumbersome, and it must discourage fraudsters.
So it should be possible, Mr President, to make a marked improvement in the monitoring process without adding to Community bureaucracy, but by encouraging exchanges between national inspectors, stepping up checks on non-Union countries and making use of professional expertise.
Mr President, Commissioner, this new proposal for a regulation represents the practical implementation of the European Commission's communication amending the regulation establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy, which we discussed here in the House in September.
We must finally remove some of the weaknesses of the current policy for monitoring fisheries. That means simplifying the keeping of logbooks in which catches are recorded, more stringent monitoring of landings of catches, careful registration of fisheries products from the catch to the final marketing stage, Commission access to Member State databases, more careful monitoring of fishing vessels flying the flag of a third country and the possibility of inspections without prior notice by Community inspectors in the Member States.
This is a whole package of measures, which we have long called for in the European Parliament. Now they are to be implemented.
That is why we note today's proposal for a regulation from the Commission with satisfaction.
However, in my view a wide range of problems remains unresolved. This includes, in particular, the question of a uniform list of penalties for the entire Community.
The penalties applied for infringing the control rules differ from country to country - indeed too much so.
The question of how to measure engine power has not been finally resolved either.
So today's proposal will not be the last amendment of the original proposal, particularly since some very important suggestions were not incorporated, such as involving the fishermen themselves more closely in the monitoring policy - which should, after all, be a matter of course.
Yet we have made quite good headway.
So I thank the rapporteur for his constructive and important report and ask you to endorse it.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Teverson for the effort he has made in his report to again identify the main weak spots in the Community control policy and, in particular, the lack of harmonised standards on infringements, inspections and penalties in the various Member States.
Very little action can in fact be taken against fleets which fail to meet these standards if each Member State continues to apply different rules for the same infringements and also if the data sent to the Commission is so varied that no useful analysis can be made.
Although control is a national competence, we believe that the Commission can do a great deal more to force Member States to harmonize their legislation.
Even so, it is clear that the Community sector is subject to much stricter standards than that of third countries, at least on paper.
We therefore welcome the new article in the regulation controlling the activities of third country vessels. However, we also note that there is a lack of forceful measures relating to vessels with flags of convenience and the activities of such vessels are becoming an increasingly serious problem.
These vessels do not respect any standards whatsoever, be it in terms of conservation, safety or on how they work. This is what allows them to fish in any circumstances and to lower prices to the point where they are jeopardizing the future of many businesses that do respect international standards.
For this reason, we would like to ask the Commission to immediately adopt the control measures put forward by the regional and international fisheries organisations. We would also like to ask that, within the framework of the regulations to be applied to vessels from third countries, priority be given in Community ports to inspecting and monitoring vessels that have been the subject of any infringement proceedings initiated by these organisations.
Given that Mrs Ewing mentioned my country, I have to say, Mrs Ewing, that for quite a while you have had very little to do with matters relating to fisheries. And I would simply ask you to examine now how many inspectors there are in the various autonomous communities in my country.
Mr President, first of all may I thank Parliament and the rapporteur for this report which will be helpful to the Commission, especially in our debate with the Council scheduled for the end of this month.
I have three things to say in the interests of having a frank debate with you.
I fully acknowledge the importance - I see it every day - when one has a common policy, of giving fair consideration to other aspects, namely controls and penalties.
I am pleased to see Parliament becoming more and more federalist - even though, at present, this word has very unhappy connotations.
I am also grateful to Mrs Ewing for at least mentioning the effort we have put in to improve the system of control and monitoring, though some responsibilities still remain with the Member States.
Secondly, Mr Teverson, we may step up our controls but we cannot make a special case of fisheries.
Even in agriculture, the common agricultural policy has inspectors and penalties which are far from being harmonised, and the inspectors, who also come under my area of responsibility, really are far from having all the powers you would like, even if they ought to.
Quite simply, we have not got that far yet.
Personally, I am not even sure the Council will agree to inspectors carrying out observation visits without prior notice, even though this is something we would very much welcome, not in an attempt to displace existing inspectors but simply to have some additional tools.
In any case, Parliament is going further than the Commission's proposal. I am grateful, even if I cannot accept all the amendments, for legal reasons.
As regards the substance, there are no points of disagreement between us but, since you asked me to be specific, the Commission thinks that Amendments Nos 1, 5, 7, 10 and 12 - we are happy with the substance of these - are already covered in the action plan.
I could perhaps do more, Mrs Fraga Estévez, and the Commission is trying its best, even considering an action plan for monitoring, which is a unilateral measure.
In any case, I welcome Parliament's support, and I can tell you that your councils and your governments do not show quite the same willing spirit.
As always, each minister thinks that his own Member State does things right and that it is the others who are the culprits.
I can tell you, since you have seen the latest monitoring assessment report, that the Commission considers monitoring to be mediocre everywhere in Europe, and even in non-Union countries.
A propos of the latter, the international rules are very clear, namely the coastal state has responsibility within its own waters and the flag state is responsible for vessels.
The international rules of maritime law cannot suddenly be overturned.
This is why the Commission has to reject certain amendments, not because it does not acknowledge the problem, but quite simply because international law has not yet developed to a stage where we can cope with them.
But that does not mean that considerably greater progress cannot be achieved already through regional conferences.
I suggest that Parliament does a few sums one day to work out how much fisheries monitoring costs us.
We may find that if we go on as we are doing, the fish we eat will become disproportionately expensive.
That is why we are endeavouring to use new technologies.
We are trying to give fishermen more and more of a say in all this, but without overburdening them unnecessarily.
For example, the amendments on logbook offences, exceeding the 50 kg limit on discards, are frankly unacceptable.
These things are hard to check.
We are in danger of setting rules which, in the case of discards, cannot be policed.
But I agree with you that we ought increasingly to have uniform penalties, which is not the case in all sectors of common policy.
This is something we are currently thinking about: until such time as we can achieve a little more harmonisation, let us at least introduce greater transparency.
Let us make it possible for the sector to know what the penalties are in the various Member States so that interested parties can compare them.
It is far from possible at present.
As regards access to records, I agree, it is just a question of finding the right wording.
It is not legally possible to give the right of access to all records because there is after all a measure of confidentiality to be observed in respect of trade secrets.
Nevertheless, access can already be quite extensive, provided confidentiality is maintained in respect of commercially sensitive information.
As for research, Mr Baldarelli, the problem again is that research is the province of the Member States.
We for our part carry out pilot studies, for which provision is made in our fisheries budget.
We are trying more and more to get Member States to do research and I have to say that, with a few very specific exceptions, generally speaking they are not interested.
We put in a great deal of effort for very little result.
So I hope you will appreciate that we cannot accept the amendments on penalties or inspectors' powers.
Nor can we accept amendments which are already covered by Article 26 of the action plan.
We agree with the principle of them, but we think they would be better included in other legislative instruments.
As regards personal liability, Mr Teverson, and this will be my final point, since we have opted for monitoring of the whole supply chain, the legal liability will, in our view, flow from Articles 9 and 28 as stipulated in the regulation, in the sense that once you have the papers, any infringement means that the individual is legally liable.
This is how our Legal Service construes it.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, I await your own-initiative report on fisheries monitoring.
But I wanted to assure you that this is one of the fisheries dossiers with which we are most keenly concerned.
We are using every instrument we can, including codes of conduct.
I know these are not perfect, but that is the way we have to go when we cannot use regulations.
Thank you again for your support and at the end of the month, in the Council, I hope to achieve some of the success which has not been forthcoming so far.
Mr President, I do not wish to infringe upon the procedures of the House or the interpreters' time, but the Commissioner made an important point when she said that she thought Parliament was becoming very federalist.
I say to her that probably everybody would agree that the Committee on Fisheries of this Parliament is very anxious to make sure that we get to the stage of more regionalisation of the management of the common fisheries policy and the economic zones.
That is an important point. She should recognise that this is the background to the report.
On a point of order, Mr President.
The television sets in our offices can, I believe, receive 36 channels.
One of them was a Dutch channel carrying the Dutch morning, midday and evening news.
Well, it is no secret that since the start of the week that channel has vanished from our screen.
Can you please ask the authorities responsible to reinstate it so that we can once again receive the news from the Netherlands in the morning, at midday and in the evening?
Certainly, Mrs Maij-Weggen, we will see to that.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I see that my name does not appear in yesterday's Minutes.
I do not know whether this is due to an oversight on my part but I would be grateful if it could be rectified since I was present.
We will try to do that, Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza.
Mr President, I wanted to draw your attention to an article which has appeared in the European Parliament magazine.
It is entitled: 'The EPLP's selection controversy'.
Much of this article is political commentary which is of no interest to Parliament as an institution.
However, it contains some allegations which are worrying, including one to the effect that persons who wished to become Members of the panel for the forthcoming elections were compelled to sign a memorandum making over some of their staff allowances to the Labour Party.
It is claimed - perhaps justly - that this may be a breach of European Parliament Rules.
Is it possible for the presidency to examine this question and give us a ruling?
Mr Coates, let me say for a start that the magazine you are referring to is not a European Parliament publication and Parliament is therefore not responsible for it.
It is a magazine which receives support from the European Parliament so that it can give information about Parliament, but the Bureau and our services are not responsible for the content of articles published in it.
Mr President, you are going to have a number of these incidents over the next months.
It is pure politics on Mr Coates' part.
He is one of the disappointed in this Chamber.
He is someone who is no longer a member of the Labour Party but who was elected as a Member of the Labour Party.
And if he had any decency he would resign his seat now and let us hold a by-election.
I would not like this discussion to become a personal confrontation between Mr Coates and yourself.
Mr President, would you be prepared to agree with me that anonymous articles quoted in evidence are about as useless as statements by Mr Coates?
(The Minutes were approved)
ECB: minimum reserves - ECB: sanctions - ECB: statistical information
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0332/98 by Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the recommendation of the European Central Bank for a Council Regulation concerning the application of minimum reserves by the European Central Bank (ECB0002/98 - C4-0451/98-98/0808(CNS)); -A4-0329/98 by Mr Katiforis, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the recommendation of the European Central Bank for a Council Regulation concerning the powers of the European Central Bank to impose sanctions (ECB0003/98 - C4-0452/98-98/0809(CNS)); -A4-0327/98 by Mr Hendrick, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the recommendation of the European Central Bank for a Council Regulation concerning the collection of statistical information by the European Central Bank (ECB0001/98 - C4-0450/98-98/0807(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report on minimum reserves is one of the many building blocks in the intensive dialogue conducted between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank for the purpose of formulating a set of basic conditions for monetary measures.
In his address to the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs on 22 September 1998, Wim Duisenberg re-emphasised the importance of a minimum reserve requirement as a potential instrument of monetary policy.
As the parliamentary rapporteur on this topic, I am pleased to be able to assist in fleshing out the concept of this monetary instrument.
In the discussion on minimum reserves over the past few months, three key functions of this instrument have taken shape.
First of all, a system of minimum reserves could contribute to the stabilisation of short-term interest rates.
Secondly, such a system could help to increase demand for central bank money, thereby creating and increasing a structural liquidity shortage in the money market.
The ECB considers this helpful, because it gives the Bank greater leverage to operate efficiently as a provider of liquidity and to respond effectively in the longer term to the development of new payment procedures, such as electronic money.
Thirdly, the minimum reserve system of the ECB could also serve as an instrument for controlling the supply of money, since it is able to influence demand for money by means of interest-rate elasticity.
Nevertheless, the use of minimum reserves an instrument of monetary policy is not universally accepted, since it can result in distortions of competition with countries outside the economic and monetary union.
Against this background, I welcome the ECB decision to fix the minimum reserves at a fairly low level on the one hand and to set the interest on these minimum reserves close to market rates on the other.
Both of these measures reduce the risk of transactions being shifted to financial centres outside the euro zone.
In this context I should like to highlight two other important elements of this report.
The first is that the ECB should submit a study dealing with the inclusion of off-balance-sheet items in the basis of assessment for the minimum reserves.
In view of the explosive growth in off-balance-sheet transactions, especially in derivatives, the stability of the entire financial system would benefit from the inclusion of off-balance-sheet items.
The second point I wish to make is that, in view of the increasing importance of electronic money, which the ECB itself has also recognised and studied, something it had not yet done a short time ago - at the hearing there was talk of a 10 % ratio, but a good deal more thought has been given to the matter since then - the policy on minimum reserves should be devised in such a way that it can respond flexibly to such future developments.
The inclusion of electronic transactions in the basis for the calculation of reserve requirements could prove to be an important aspect of the control of money supply.
Let me stress that the purpose of the present report is to provide the ECB with an effective instrument and to enable the Bank to make flexible decisions on how to use the instrument to respond to present and future developments.
That is why I assume that the Council will adopt this recommendation at the next ECOFIN meeting on 12 October 1998 in order to support the ECB in the implementation of its monetary strategies.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, despite the technical character of this debate, we can say that it is of historic significance because this is the first time that our Parliament has been called upon to legislate on issues relating to the European Central Bank, and I think we should take note of that.
The special draft legislative resolution I am bringing before the House concerns the adoption of a Council regulation on the powers of the European Central Bank to impose sanctions.
Under Article 34(3) of the ECB's Statutes, the ECB is entitled to impose sanctions in connection with its rules and decisions concerning the carrying out of its duties in the area of formulating monetary policy and, in a more limited way, in the area of monitoring the banking system.
Mr President, I think it must be seldom that circumstances can have made a debate on a rather technical subject as topical and important as this one.
The events of the last few weeks in the money markets have revealed three things: firstly, that the scope of speculation is virtually uncontrolled; secondly, that it has brought us to the brink of economic ruin and, thirdly and most importantly of all, in relation to what we are debating here today, that the people responsible for those events and dangers are not only private speculators, but that those who are supposed to be monitoring them are also involved, i.e. the central banks, which not only cover up their speculative activities but also, when the markets happen to impose sanctions, hasten to redeem the losses they would have sustained.
I am referring to the well-known affair, the notorious scandal of the Merriweather hedge fund in the United States.
You may say that such things only take place in the United States, but the ethos and dogma of the central banks are the same everywhere, and we in Europe have no guarantee that things would have been better over here.
Because what is happening is this: we have the phenomenon of the Central Bank of Italy, which itself speculated with public money in the hedge fund that was speculating in Italy with Italian government bonds, which the Central Bank of Italy is supposedly committed to protecting so as to maintain some discipline in the market.
Now, Mr President, who is to keep tabs on the Central Bank of Italy is an interesting question, because the Treaty is quite incomplete as regards the subject of controls on credit institutions.
Who is to keep tabs on the Central Bank of Italy? The Italian authorities?
The bank can retort that it is independent.
We have made central bankers independent. The European System of Central Banks?
The bank can respond by invoking the principle of subsidiarity. So what with independence and subsidiarity, central bankers have managed to acquire rights and powers unmatched even by the divine right of kings.
And they are supposed to be serving democratic regimes.
It is a dangerous situation - how dangerous is clear from what has happened in the last few days - and of course it is unacceptable.
The weapon we will be putting into the hands of the Central Bank to enable it to exercise control and impose discipline is quite inadequate, because we are dealing with a procedural decision - which we must of course adopt, which is certainly excellent from the technical standpoint, as shown by the fact that not a single amendment has been tabled - and your rapporteur's opinion is that we should approve it and commend the quality of the work.
But we should be aware that what we are doing is quite inadequate, because the checks must become much more substantial if the public is to be protected against the situations that are developing in the international money markets.
Because, with the powers we are conferring upon them, the central bankers should understand that their job is to make sacrifices on behalf of the public and not on behalf of speculators, as they have unfortunately been doing until now.
Of course, central bankers point to their triumph in relation to inflation.
But where inflation is concerned, many factors have played a part: not just the policy of the central banks, but the financial policy and the policies of governments in the area of prices and incomes.
But in the very place where the central banks should have achieved their greatest success against inflation, i.e. in their own back yards, they have completely lost control because the inflation of shares and bonds resulting from speculation - which they did nothing to control, but covered up as we are now finding out - has reached a peak and has created an enormous danger for European stock markets, American stock markets and for the worldwide economy.
We are giving them a weapon today, as indeed we ought to, but at the same time we must warn them that weapons they receive from democratic regimes are intended to serve Europe's peoples and not its speculators.
Mr President, Article 5.1 of the Statute of European System of Central Banks requires the European Central Bank, assisted by the national central banks, to collect statistical information for carrying out the tasks of the European System of Central Banks.
The information is to be collected either from the competent national authorities or directly from economic agents.
The draft recommendation for a regulation is quite straightforward in a number of respects.
However, I am concerned about certain matters relating to the confidentiality of statistical information supplied to the ECB.
It appears to me that the ECB, in its drive to be as independent as possible, would like all the benefits of this statistical regime but without the responsibility that Eurostat are placed under by Community law.
The good faith of the NCBs in collecting the information on behalf of the ECB should not be prejudiced by the ECB failing to respect the confidentiality of the information in its possession.
In this respect, I have tried in my amendments to tighten up these aspects.
In order to collect the information necessary for carrying out the tasks of the ECB, particular attention must be paid to 'the reference reporting population'.
A number of issues were raised.
Firstly, on sanctions: if no information is received by the ECB or NCB by the established deadline, a daily penalty payment not exceeding 10 000 euros may be imposed.
Secondly, if the information supplied is incorrect or incomplete, in a form not complying with the requirements, a fine not exceeding 200 000 euros may be imposed.
If the reporting agent obstructs the verification of the accuracy of the information, again a fine not exceeding 200 000 euros may be imposed.
Confidentiality is a big issue and, in order to gain and maintain the confidence of the reporting agents, I consider it a prerequisite for high quality statistical data.
Such data should remain confidential wherever possible.
Looking at the regime itself, recital 22 argues that the confidentiality regime in this Regulation 'must differ to some extent from the general Community and international principles on statistical confidentiality'.
This is the argument about it conflicting with the Eurostat provisions.
The justification for this is unclear and the use of information should therefore be made to conform with the provisions on confidentiality in the Council Regulation itself.
Concerning the imposition of sanctions, there is no 'get-out' clause to allow for circumstances where reporting agents are themselves unable to provide statistical information, i.e. there is no provision for a fax machine that does not work.
There should be provisions for this and my report makes provision for that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in exactly 87 days' time European economic and monetary union will begin.
The preparations for the introduction of the euro by the European System of Central Banks are well under way and are keeping to schedule.
Today's adoption by Parliament of the secondary legislation permitting the imposition of sanctions for failure to comply with the monetary element of minimum reserves and on the collection of statistical information represents a very important step in this direction.
We should take this occasion to remind ourselves that monetary union is a project without historical parallel.
For the first time in history, nations are ceding sovereign rights to a federal European institution.
In so doing, however, they are gaining in sovereignty over monetary policy.
This point has just been proved once again by the current turbulent state of the finance markets, in the midst of which the euro zone has emerged as a haven of stability.
In this situation, every effort must be made to create the technical and legal basis on which the European Central Bank can best perform the tasks assigned to it in the Treaty.
It is a matter of ensuring that the secondary legislation is implemented as soon as possible.
The European Parliament has arranged its timetable with this objective in mind.
This means that the ECOFIN Council can now complete the adoption of this legislation on 12 October.
The involvement of the European Parliament in this legislative process is only one element in establishing the democratic legitimacy of European monetary policy through monetary dialogue between the European Central Bank and the European Parliament.
It is not only a question of guaranteeing the democratic accountability of an institution which enjoys a historically unprecedented degree of autonomy; conversely, it is also about the fact that only a policy backed by the public acceptance and credibility that comes from democratic legitimacy can achieve the goals imposed upon it by the Treaty.
That is why a monetary dialogue with the European Parliament is in the best interests of the European Central Bank, enabling it to acquire credibility and acceptance in the marketplace and among the population at large.
The Hoppenstedt report rightly draws attention to an important instrument of monetary policy.
If the European Central Bank is to achieve the aims set for it in the Treaty and if monetary union is to succeed, care must be taken to ensure that the ECB has a set of differentiated and efficient monetary instruments at its disposal.
The minimum reserve is one such key monetary instrument; it is able to steady the banks' demand for central bank money and thus to prevent highly volatile short-term interest rates.
Active use of this instrument to prevent speculative flows of capital, as happened in Germany, for example, in the early 1970s after the abandonment of the Bretton Woods system, does not feature in the armoury of European monetary policies at the present time.
In view of the worldwide financial crises and the speculative movements of 'hot money', minimum reserves will serve even more purposes in the future.
Potential developments in the domain of electronic money, which could supplant cash and thus reduce demand for central bank money, it is important that the ECB should have this instrument in its monetary toolkit.
Minimum reserves do, however, create problems, in that their use acts like a tax on the banking sector and could result in competitive disadvantages for financial markets in the euro zone.
Now that the ECB Council has decided in favour of moderate reserve ratios and the payment of interest on money deposited with the ECB by way of minimum reserves, the way is clear for the introduction of a compulsory minimum reserve.
The European Parliament can assent to this proposal, as the Katiforis report has also spelled out very clearly in connection with the right to impose sanctions.
So the European Parliament rightly has no objections to the draft regulation.
Similarly, the collection of statistical data is a necessity in the European Union, especially when the money supply has to be controlled in this way; since the development of money-management and saving patterns in the European monetary union is an unknown factor, a broad database will be vitally important.
As Mr Hendrick and also the draft regulation rightly state, the European Central Bank must be given the legal authority to assemble an adequate database.
It goes without saying that the European Central Bank cannot act in a legal vacuum in this area.
The general precepts of the law must be the yardstick against which its actions are judged.
That is why the Hendrick report is right to draw attention to the problems of confidentiality and protection.
It is important, in other words, that proper provisions are adopted, as the European Parliament has underlined in the compromises proposed in its amendments.
As has been the case over the past few months, European monetary union is still on schedule and undergoing thorough preparation so that it can begin 87 days from now, on 1 January 1999, and can do so with an European Central Bank which is equipped with an efficient set of instruments.
Mr President, a few days ago, Mr Duisenberg, the President of the European Central Bank, addressed the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, which is chaired by our colleague, Mrs Randzio-Plath. He assured the subcommittee that the relevant deadlines and provisions were being met as required to ensure that the operational mechanisms of the European Central Bank run smoothly when the euro comes into effect on 1 January next year.
However, he did suggest that there were still some important aspects that needed to be clarified sufficiently before the euro came into effect.
These three reports, which were approved by a large majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, refer to some basic points of those issues that are essential to ensure the smooth running of the European Central Bank.
And, as the various rapporteurs have demonstrated, there are still some fundamental questions that must be taken into account. Similarly, any observations that have been made in this respect must be included, for example on issues such as the reserves, the relations between Member States and the European Central Bank, the level of sanctions, the application of these sanctions, etcetera.
As Mrs Randzio-Plath said, there are less than 90 days left before the euro is introduced and, in these times of economic and financial upheaval, it has been shown that the euro will provide extremely important security and stability for the euro area.
But the euro must be consolidated for this to happen.
And I believe that - from Mr Duisenberg's speech and the comments that have been made here in committee debates on these basic issues - there is still an excessive imbalance between the running of the European Central Bank and the application of economic and monetary policies by Member States and their own central banks.
This is a matter that we should resolve as soon as possible, and we must take all the necessary precautions to ensure that the euro runs smoothly from 1 January next year.
Mr President, today we are dealing with three regulations pursuant to Article 106(6) of the Treaty, covering the application of minimum reserves, the power to impose sanctions and the collection of statistical information by the European Central Bank, which have been drawn up according to a special procedure laid down by the Treaty.
In this case the European Central Bank and the Commission are agreed that the bank itself prepare the projects for recommendation to avoid duplication.
With regard to the regulation on the collection of statistical information, our group, for its part, considers that the amendments adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy define yet again the area and the methods of collecting statistical information by the bank.
The text before us seems to be satisfactory.
With regard to the regulation on sanctions, I note that the bank has been granted powers in a wider area of responsibility than most national central banks on the subject of statistics.
It is not unusual that the armoury of sanctions foreseen by the regulation is vast.
In Article 2 the regulation specifies that the sanctions must be proportionate to the faults committed and provides, before their implementation, for a detailed procedure to be followed which guarantees that the establishments threatened by sanction can evaluate their position before the competent authorities.
That appears to be a good idea.
I come now to the regulation on obligatory reserves.
We must remember that in July the European Central Bank announced the constitution of obligatory reserves from 1 January 1999, which would be paid at the rate of their principal operation of refinancing of the European Central Bank; this would guarantee a remuneration at the level close to the rate of the monetary market.
We must remember, nevertheless, that this point does not appear explicitly in the draft regulation.
The legal base on which this is based is Article 19(2) of the European Central Bank statutes.
This does not allow it.
On the other hand, certain Parliament amendments propose to include more explicitly in the assessment of obligatory reserves a due date which is linked to posts outside the estimate and particularly to derivatives 'to support a monetary policy aimed at stability' and contribute 'to the stability of the whole financial system'.
Some here question the merits of these amendments in the sense that the request is already covered by Article 3 of the draft regulation.
On the other hand it belongs to the ECB to determine, according to the objective criteria, the coefficients which should apply to each category of requirement.
In any case the inclusion of derivatives in the assessment of obligatory reserves could not be justified for precautionary reasons, as seems to be suggested in one of the amendments.
Finally, the obligatory reserves are an instrument of monetary policy aimed at stabilising the rate of interest of the monetary market and at mastering the growth of money supply.
From this point of view, in our opinion, the inclusion of certain derivatives in the assessment is justified.
Mr President, the reports of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy unreservedly approve the three draft regulations concerning the powers of the European Central Bank to impose sanctions, apply minimum reserves and collect statistical information.
These regulations demonstrate the excessive power of the Central Bank.
The direct management of the measures involved would effectively be handed over to the ECB without any intervention by national governments or even national central banks.
No political control would be exercised over the ECB at Community level because the 'euro' Council is, at the moment, a powerless structure.
Yet I am hearing that the euro zone will be a zone of stability.
I would say my colleagues are being rather optimistic.
If the global financial crisis weakens the economies of the emerging countries, everyone knows that the industrialised countries will also be affected.
This is actually already happening, and it is also clear to everyone that this will have serious economic and social consequences.
Obviously, it is therefore imperative that we begin considering this matter and that we put forward proposals on the objectives and operating procedures of the European Central Bank.
We cannot allow the Central Bank to become the censor of national budgets by imposing policies, in the name of the fight against inflation, which are restrictive in social and employment terms.
It is a matter of urgency that we change the priorities and redefine the objectives of the Central Bank so that it can help by boosting appropriations for employment and growth and so that it can act to limit the free movement of capital and to curb the power of the financial markets.
Our citizens and their elected bodies must have the means to control this Central Bank.
It is therefore essential to establish the transparency and democratic control of its activity, particularly through control by the European Parliament and the national parliaments and by opening up the major economic and monetary challenges to public debate.
Beginning work to redefine the objectives and activity of the Central Bank is essential if we wish to start gradually redirecting European integration so that it really can respond to the needs and aspirations of the people of Europe.
Mr President, here we are in the last furlong of a trotting race that is suddenly being taken at a gallop.
Suddenly there is an unholy rush to complete in a matter of months the work that has lain undone over the years.
We should at least admit that the whole thing is making us somewhat breathless.
It is indeed true that minimum reserves are a key dimension of monetary policy.
Mrs Randzio-Plath has already explained why.
However, we should also perhaps go on to ask whether we ought not to envisage minimum reserves as a means of stabilising the euro in the global context and to create a broader basis for the reserve requirement.
I can encapsulate the reasons for this in the words 'derivatives' and 'casino capitalism'.
As far as sanctions, supervision and control are concerned, Mr Katiforis has already said that these are not enough.
When irresponsible traders operate with enormously potent hedge funds, the guarantees set out here will be insufficient, and as far as the statistics are concerned, not even a broad database will give us any genuine influence on real economic developments.
For all we may be on schedule, it is still worrying, I must say, that the present level of technical preparation for the introduction of the euro offers no guarantee against the eventuality of our being confronted with major problems.
As far as political support, adjustment and preparation are concerned, however, I do hope that the essential last-minute adjustments will indeed be effected.
Oskar Lafontaine certainly shows a clear understanding of the problem when he enumerates the main economic goals as follows: reducing interest rates as the key monetary task, putting economic governance into effect, incorporating equal rights as an employment target and contributing actively to the stabilisation of the international financial edifice.
Mr Katiforis rightly said that it is simply not enough to keep closer tabs on the situation.
More supervisory control is essential.
We cannot only protect the rights of those who own monetary assets; it is high time we also closed the open wound resulting from the lack of democratic legitimacy and control of the European Central Bank.
Mr President, we are in the final stages of launching the euro, which will come into force in under 90 days.
And, as promised by its President Wim Duisenberg, the European Central Bank is sending Parliament its recommendations in connection with the Council's approval of the necessary regulations to ensure the smooth operation of the ECB and the achievement of the stated goals. The first of these is price stability, but economic and monetary measures are also needed to maintain Europe's present economic expansion which is jeopardised by the monetary crisis in Russia, Asia and Latin America.
The three regulations in question relate to the application of minimum reserves by the European Central Bank, the power to impose sanctions and the statistical information to be provided by the Member States.
The rapporteurs were respectively Messrs Hoppenstedt, Katiforis and Hendrick, whom I congratulate.
These are essential measures in ensuring the smooth operation of the third phase of monetary union, and they are no doubt consistent with the way in which the money supply in the 11 euro countries will be controlled with a view to making the markets not only more attractive but also safe, which is no simple task or foregone conclusion.
The requisite measures are covered by these three regulations which, overall, deserve our approval.
In respect of Mr Hoppenstedt's report on the application of minimum reserves, there is a clear need to balance the advantages and security offered by this measure against the need for flexibility to ensure that there is no distortion of competition.
As we know, a system for the application of minimum reserves has three fundamental functions: first, to stabilise interest rates on the money market; second, to create the conditions to deal with a structural liquidity shortage and third, to control monetary expansion.
The 10 % level proposed by the ECB, on which interest is payable and including electronic money which is increasingly widely used, and the broader scope of its application merit our approval, as do the remaining proposals.
With regard to Mr Katiforis' report on the ECB's power to impose sanctions, I agree with his sound and sensible conclusions.
The balance between the ECB and the national central banks under the regulation is particularly appropriate: while both the ECB and national central banks can initiate a sanctions procedure, decisions can only be handed down by the competent bodies of the ECB.
It is thereby simultaneously ensured that the central banks remain vigilant and that the sanctions procedure is uniform at all levels of the system of European central banks.
Lastly, let us consider Mr Hendrick's report on the collection of the ECB's statistical information.
Everybody knows that exchange rate and monetary decisions should and can be taken on the basis of the most accurate statistical data possible.
This explains the precautions contained in this regulation and all the provisions that it includes.
I share the rapporteur's belief in the absolute need for confidentiality of the information that is made available by national central banks to the ECB.
The proposed amendments are more stringent in this regard.
We are living through an extremely important, difficult and interesting period: the birth of a new euro currency which is designed to be stable and is shared by countries whose economies are pursuing rigorous budgetary control policies, but where growth remains strong, in a climate of widespread monetary crisis and instability.
We hope that this new currency will become a factor of stability, not only in Europe, but throughout the world.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have less than three months to go before the euro is with us and the European Parliament is being been asked to give its view on a number of technical points.
Let me use this opportunity to say that the Union should be proud of what is happening. A new process has been launched - promising stability and growth - and I once again lament the fact that Sweden is stuck with a government committed to remaining outside.
The right monetary policy instruments must be deployed if the European Central Bank is to enjoy credibility. Equally important, however, is the collection of sound information upon which to base policy decisions.
I think that Mr Hoppenstedt has produced a very good report.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was invited to comment on the ECB's recommendation for a Council regulation concerning the application of minimum reserves.
In his excellent explanatory statement, Mr Hoppenstedt notes that the importance of minimum reserves is waning.
If monetary policy objectives can be achieved using the other instruments available to the ECB, he argues, the possibility of a 0 % lower limit could be envisaged.
I believe that the scope for adjusting liquidity via open market operations is probably adequate and agree with what the rapporteur said earlier about incorrect use of minimum reserves leading to distortions of competition.
The reserve requirement is also a temptation for itchy-fingered bureaucrats who are eager to tax the banking system.
We can therefore support the proposal for a regulation, since it gives the ECB plenty of leeway to assess whether minimum reserves are necessary and, if so, how high they should be.
The PPE Group has no doubts as to the ability of the Central Bank's management to make the right judgements and decisions.
If the European Central Bank is to act credibly and effectively, its decisions must be based on correct information.
Monetary policy has to be underpinned by reliable statistics, verifiable by outside parties.
The Hendrick and Katiforis reports cover the provisions for imposing sanctions on institutions which fail to meet their responsibilities and honour their commitments.
I congratulate the two rapporteurs on their good work.
Forwarding statistics to the ECB is a sensitive matter and presupposes a climate of trust between the national and European levels.
Data must be of high quality and based on common standards. We cannot afford any lack of clarity, although the reporting burden should not be too heavy.
Provided it has the right foundation upon which to work, I am confident that the ECB will be capable of taking the necessary monetary policy decisions.
If it is open in its dealings with the markets and transparent in its decision-making, the foundations for a successful European Central Bank will have been laid.
Mr President, over the last few months it has become commonly accepted that the IMF has failed in its task of rescuing the world's organisation of its finances.
We are on the brink of worldwide deflation.
The IMF has prescribed policy cures for different countries that have not improved, but only served to make worse, the disease brought about by the virus of speculation.
In all its operations the IMF has been guided by an invisible hand: liberalist logic.
The IMF, with our money, has baled out supranational banks, instead of individual countries.
The ECB is now being given the means to prevent a financial crisis in Europe caused by speculation.
For that reason, according to Mr Hoppenstedt's report, we have good grounds to include all the financial institutions in the minimum reserves base as well as many of their off-balance-sheet items.
The securitisation of credits and speculation in the derivatives market could generate a bank crisis.
However, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is mistaken in its second recommendation.
The banks should not be paid market rates of interest on their minimum reserves.
In that way the ECB will be able to more effectively protect the banking system from overheating, which has recently been the case in Asia, Russia and Latin America.
The job of the ECB is not to rescue banks, but societies.
The ideology of the European Central Bank is the logic of free capital markets.
The ECB faces the impossible task of overseeing the same monetary policies for different countries.
It should take heed that Europe does not fall under the control of the logic of capital market inflation and deflation of the real economy.
Mr President, I would mainly like to speak about Mr Hendrick's report, which concerns the powers of the European Central Bank to collect statistical information.
The European Central Bank creates a source of information from these statistics as a basis for practising a common monetary policy.
This information is in principle collected from various agents in confidence, but as the rapporteur and the committee state, this proposal for a regulation is not absolutely clear from the point of view of confidentiality.
That is why the committee is proposing that this notion of confidentiality should be made more precise and that another Community regulation should be observed in so doing, one that concerns the confidentiality of statistical information.
Information can in principle be very sensitive.
It can even contain industrial secrets, and it may be that inner-circle problems will be caused if this information, surrendered as it is to the Central Bank, does not main entirely confidential.
Information that is not directly identifiable can be deduced, just as the rapporteur says, so this really must be clarified.
All this makes for continued tension when it comes to the demand for openness on the part of the ECB.
The ECB should therefore draft general rules on the public's right to access documents in its possession without delay and to acquaint themselves with the open regulations on restrictions and exceptions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the euro must be strong and dependable.
In the present economic turmoil of Asia and Russia, we can see that money and monetary policy are inevitably tied to the economy, social relations and politics itself.
Confidence in the market is not enough.
It is the confidence of our citizens that is needed for the euro.
That means the need for more democracy, supervision of the Central Bank and responsibility to democratic bodies.
A central bank for democratic states cannot shut itself away merely to execute monetary policy.
It has to realise it is part of a broad economic policy that takes the social dimension into account, with the emphasis, as we have pointed out here, on employment.
For that reason, I am in favour of the idea of creating a secretariat in contact with ECOFIN, for example, to prepare questions relating to finance and economics.
Supervision of the ECB must be in accordance with today's standards - standards that acknowledge social responsibility.
With the ECB, money appears to be getting further and further away from democratic systems of decision-making, circulating as it is in electronic form and in worldwide networks.
We seem to have given up the monitoring and control of money, which has resulted in money controlling us and currency speculators controlling entire states.
The decisions of the ECB affect the economy and thus have an impact on employment.
Consequently, the degree of unaccountability hitherto granted to the Bank and its jealously guarded secrecy are no longer acceptable.
Changes have to be made.
The ECB must be accountable and that is because neo-liberalism, which has wrought havoc in the lives of ordinary people, has come crashing down in all major recent elections.
Is the message not clear enough?
We have to address the big issues like the control and regulation of speculative money and the global giants.
Income tax has risen tremendously in the last few decades, while tax on capital has fallen.
Most lucrative of all business occupations is thought to be that of international currency speculator.
It falls entirely outside the scope of taxation.
At the same time SMEs, which actually employ people, complain that they are taxed too highly.
We have to remember that we have 18 million SMEs and 17 million unemployed.
This is the wrong sort of ratio.
The wrong people are paying excessive amounts of tax.
The euro must be in competition with the dollar, but more is required of the euro than the dollar in the ethical sense.
Ruthless speculation on the stock market causes a great deal of damage.
The speculators are the ones who enjoy the fruits of human labour.
As my colleague Mr Katiforis said, instead of trying to penalise the speculators, we are helping them.
And there can be no good grounds for this.
Many particularly large companies are prepared for the third stage of the euro, the figure being 64 % of them in my own country, Finland.
This is hardly true of the SME sector.
Only 7 % have started to prepare themselves in this way.
The situation is even worse in companies in the service sector.
The SME sector, however, as I said, is the main employer in Europe.
This being the case, I hope that the Commission will produce a guidance package for the SME sector as we move towards the single currency.
Mr Hoppenstedt mentions in his report that minimum reserves act like a tax on the deposits of the banks' clients.
As a result, there may be a shift from domestic activities subject to minimum reserves requirements to foreign activities free from such requirements.
The banks in the euro area will thus be placed at a major competitive disadvantage compared with non-member countries.
The worst situation of all will be the one that bank employees will face here in Europe before long.
It has already happened in Finland.
Mr President, Commissioner, with regard to the Hendrick report, in my opinion the independence of the European Central Bank and its role of ensuring that the euro is a strong currency fully justify this regulation. This will allow the ECB to collect the statistical information needed for carrying out its tasks.
Unlike our rapporteur, I am not worried about the confidentiality of statistical information supplied to the ECB.
We have entrusted the European Central Bank with the task of independently managing our European currency - the euro - whether or not this suits some of my colleagues sitting opposite me who are clearly nostalgic for systems which have failed where they have been applied, for example in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I therefore believe that it would be absurd to try and impose obstacles which would block the production of carefully interconnected statistics within the European Union.
Confidential statistical information on, for example, cross-border financial transactions may prove to be necessary.
Preventing confidential statistical information collected in this way from being used to respond to additional requirements would be as overprotective as trying to labour the point using the provisions of such a regulation. This would just be in vain and would involve, for example, the need to limit the constraints imposed on people subject to the reporting obligation.
Everyone is agreed on this.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy voted for some of my amendments, including those which specify that the statistical information may be used to carry out basic tasks, in accordance with Article 5(2) of the Treaty.
These safeguards, I would say, are quite adequate.
With regard to sanctions, we should refrain from proposing texts such as Amendment No 4 which would only benefit lawyers, by giving them plenty of work, without really limiting the burden inherent in the preparation of declarations by undertakings, however these are affected.
There can be no question, in an area as delicate as the management of the single currency, of allowing reporting agents to gamble on the payment of fines instead of supplying information which the ECB would certainly not collect if this was not essential to its task.
We should not forget, Mr President, that a central bank, as with any other political or other type of decision-maker, will make poor judgements and decisions if it is poorly informed.
Mr President, these three reports on the European Central Bank obviously emanate from the need to regulate the activities of the new institution.
Which, it may be said, is not only necessary but positive.
Regarding the first regulation on the application of minimum reserves, there is clearly some concern about the possible distortion of competition if such reserves are seen as a tax on deposits, and also about the broad margin of manoeuvre that is permitted.
This might be a good time to reflect on the role of reserves in the banking system.
But what we would like to emphasise in this brief statement is that the approach and philosophy adopted in the other two regulations give the ECB substantial power to impose sanctions.
We have already sharply criticised the ECB for not being sufficiently democratic and for having disproportionate powers which are not subject to political control, in the name of unrestricted independence, and our criticisms and concerns can only be exacerbated by this power to regulate and impose sanctions.
We do not question the need for reliable and timely statistical information, but the power to impose sanctions, particularly in connection with statistical information, could create a series of obligations and pressures whereby the ECB acquires new and more broad-ranging power without the necessary political and democratic constraints and limitations.
These regulations, as proposed and as supported by the House, serve to strengthen the powers of an institution which is beyond all form of control.
We therefore feel that these powers have become excessive.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the three reports before us, dealing with minimum reserves, sanctions and the collection of statistical information, were unanimously adopted at the committee stage - to all appearances, three more or less routine reports, but in view of the latest developments in the international finance markets they are anything but insignificant.
Allow me, therefore, to make a few basic remarks about these developments.
The background, briefly, is as follows: in the early summer of 1997, the failure of a building loan triggered mass hysteria among creditors in the South-East Asian finance markets and plunged the 'little tigers' into a gigantic economic and social crisis.
This crisis of confidence then spread to Japan, South Africa, Latin America and finally, for political reasons, to Russia as well.
The results are sufficiently well known: growth forecasts had to be scaled down, and plummeting share prices led to worldwide losses in the order of four trillion dollars - equivalent to Japan's entire GDP.
Many of these crisis-torn countries are caught in a liquidity trap from which only an injection of funds can extricate them.
The G7 decision to set up an emergency fund must be seen in this light and is naturally a welcome step.
One of the crucial factors in this whole crisis, however, has been the failure of the IMF to perform its supervisory function properly.
The real economic impact of the speculative movements and the loss of growth that has resulted from this crisis of confidence, which actually has nothing at all to do with purely economic developments, cry out for a change of system.
The present system simply costs the general public too much.
The opinion that finance markets should be subject to control and regulation is gaining ground, even among major owners of capital.
Europe, with its converging economies and stable currencies, has largely succeeded in keeping clear of this crisis.
This stability has had to be bought time and again with high interest rates.
That affects growth rates in turn, but - and this is a decisive point - the use of interest-rate policy as a means of currency stabilisation, especially through the minimum reserve ratio, is an object lesson to European banks on how to behave in a deregulated supranational economic system.
It provides the Central Bank with the means with which to restrict the commercial banks' lending activities and to control the money supply.
This national instrument, as it has hitherto been, must now become a European instrument of supervision and control.
This is the line of thought that has to be pursued.
One reason for this is that up to 1.8 trillion dollars is moved around daily on the international finance market in the form of speculative transactions - that represents about 10 % of global GNP.
In the case of Thailand, for example, the lowering of the minimum reserve ratio generated a rash of high-risk short-term transactions.
This naturally provided greater scope for the hedge funds, which operate not only in the money market but also in the commodity market and which, because they can be quickly liquidated, lead to a doubling of costs for entire industries.
If, for instance, commodity prices soar because of poor cotton harvests, buyers can already expect to be charged an additional hedge-fund supplement, as it were.
Surely that is not the name of the game!
It certainly has nothing to do with work or with innovations in the finance market.
The general public have to foot the bill, which is precisely why I really do believe that it makes more sense to base a minimum reserve policy to a greater extent on the true-cost principle than on remuneration for so-called competitive reasons, which is somewhat contrary to what Wim Duisenberg has been saying.
But Mr Duisenberg, of course, need not always be right.
Excessive deregulation makes expectation the main determinant of the finance markets, which stop using economic development as their yardstick and allow their actions be governed by competitors' performance patterns.
Growth and employment must have priority, and that must be reflected in political decisions.
This means that the open market must be governed by recognised international rules.
The minimum reserve is one such rule.
The discussion is not about abolishing it but about making it into an effective instrument.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the present reports we are consolidating the strength and independence of the European Central Bank.
May I congratulate Mr Hendrick on his report.
I believe that he has grasped the main thrust of the case.
It is very important that we give the ECB the greatest possible degree of independence, but at the same time its activities must be governed by the legal principles that apply in the European Community.
I am especially pleased to see that, with regard to the collection of statistical information, we intend to take special account of the interests of small and medium-sized businesses.
We know from many surveys that the administrative effort required for the collection of data, which is often badly structured, tends to get out of hand and to hamper companies in the performance of their actual work.
We intend to combat this problem by means of Amendment No 7, which seeks to establish thresholds in order to ensure that compulsory reporting does not apply to all small businesses - and even, in extreme cases, to households - as soon as they engage in cross-border transactions.
The European Central Bank itself is to set these thresholds and is to set them quite liberally.
This preserves its independence and the efficiency of the system.
Lastly, it is perfectly natural that the sanctions provided for in the regulation should be governed by the general principles of criminal law and statistics.
For that reason, penalties must be determined in accordance with the proportionality principle and with the degree of culpability.
In the case of force majeure , in other words if failure to transmit data is caused by factors beyond the control of the reporting agent, sanctions are not to be imposed at all.
The present proposals strike a reasonable balance between the need to collect data and the aim of avoiding additional burdens on businesses and households.
The key role played by small and medium-sized businesses in job-creation within the internal market shows why these specific refinements are necessary.
Mr President, we are debating three Council regulations which confer enormous powers on the European Central Bank and which should be considered very carefully indeed by the European Parliament, especially at this time.
I sometimes wonder whether the current financial crisis is happening on some other planet.
The scope of speculation is uncontrolled.
The vast worldwide economic crisis, which is still very much alive and shows no sign of coming to an end, is most evident in the stock markets and the financial credit system, but it will soon have a direct impact on working people, with higher unemployment, lower disposable incomes, drastic cut-backs of consumption and international trade, and a significant fall in production all over the world.
Can it really be that the central banks have no responsibility for the tragedy being experienced by millions of people all over the world? Authoritative international economic organisations are already sounding alarm bells in connection with the creation of the euro.
The reports we are debating today concerning the European Central Bank express a historic irony.
At a time when the world's economic leaders, under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund, are debating how to deal with the impact of the crisis, even to some extent, the European Parliament and the European Union persist in applying old and outdated prescriptions.
These reports place the low cost of banks and freedom of competition above exchange-rate security and protection of the public, and entrust to the central bankers the task of monitoring speculators, a control which should be exercised by politically and democratically elected organisations and bodies.
An agonising question is emerging.
Who is to guard us from the guardians? Who is to impose political and democratic control on the uncontrolled European Central Bank?
Mr President, as we know, Sweden will not be taking part in monetary union.
The explanation lies not with the Swedish Government's attitude - as stated by a previous speaker - but with the climate of public opinion. Swedes in general are highly critical of EMU and they have the support of an overwhelming majority of academic economists, who see a threat to monetary stability if control over exchange rates is lost.
Yet I did not take the floor to talk about Sweden, but rather to comment on these three excellent reports we have before us.
My main focus will be the provisions governing minimum reserves.
Minimum reserves constitute an extraordinarily important monetary policy instrument - one which we deployed with great success in Sweden until 1985.
Minimum reserve requirements were then abolished in the wave of banking deregulation which followed.
The result was financial mayhem, with annual increases in borrowing of 25 %.
The main lesson for us is that minimum reserves do matter in terms of monetary stability.
Admittedly any such system has its shortcomings. l have three particular areas of concern.
For a start, new liquidity is constantly being created.
Mr Hoppenstedt refers in his report to the recent rise in the number of promissory notes circulating 'off-balance-sheet'. The effect of this is to boost monetary demand.
Secondly, we have trading in derivatives - which also swells liquidity.
And I can readily imagine that once people have got used to trading in derivatives, they will soon move on to derivatives of derivatives. This will alter the price of derivatives and trigger further rises in liquidity.
Reference has already been made to my third worry: electronic money.
All these elements make it very difficult to come up with precise rules on minimum reserves - and, over time, there will anyway be a loss in effectiveness.
It is not easy to draw a line between institutions which should be subject to minimum reserve requirements and those which should not. Do we focus solely on the banks, or should we take in other financial institutions?
Swedish experience suggests that it is wise to have as broad a base as possible. The constant risk is that peripheral companies will be created, whose very position will enable them to circumvent the regulatory structure.
Another point touched upon was the competitive disadvantage that could arise from the introduction of a minimum reserve requirement throughout the euro area.
Capital is a volatile thing and there will always be a strong tendency to move business to parts of the world where there are no rules on reserves.
My conclusion is that we must have minimum reserves, but these are not enough in themselves to create monetary stability.
Other regulatory measures are needed. In a global world we have to look to global agreements - primarily in order to pre-empt the kind of unhealthy competition just described.
I have just one further point concerning the Hendrick report on the collection of statistical information by the ECB.
My concern is not so much confidentiality as the quality of inflation statistics. International research has frequently highlighted how easy it is to overestimate inflation by not taking account of improvements in the quality of products.
Mr President, can I first of all just pick up the point that was made by Mr Wibe, when he said that the reason why Sweden was staying out of the single currency was because it could manage much better on its own.
Given the turmoil in financial markets in the global economy, Sweden, like the other countries, would be very wise to look to more rapid membership of the single currency because the one area of Europe which is stable in terms of monetary policy is that of the eleven countries that are planning to join the currency on 1 January 1999.
That is why the Conservative Party in my own country that voted yesterday to have nothing to do with the single currency for 10 years, is a real ostrich sticking its head in the sand and doing nothing for British or indeed European industry.
On the critical question of minimum reserve requirements, it is very timely that we are discussing this matter today.
When you look at the collapse of LTMC in the United States, it had own capital of US$ 5 billion.
The leverage it was able to exert was $ 200 billion initially; then the other estimates are somewhere in excess of one trillion dollars.
The problem that we have at the moment in financial markets is the leverage that major financial institutions are exerting around the world.
We have no control over that.
We need to ensure that we have strong minimum reserves and complete transparency, particularly with regard to the leverage that financial institutions are exerting.
We have also to ensure that this is the responsibility of central bankers.
When Commissioner Bangemann responds, and certainly when the Central Bank responds to us, we need to ensure that they understand it is their responsibility to monitor this process and to ensure transparency.
We need to strengthen central control given the size of some of these financial organisations.
If you look at the gross domestic product globally, some of the largest GDP producers in the world are not countries - they are actually companies.
Therefore we have to ensure that the central banks are involved when financial institutions conduct their business.
We need transparency and less subsidiarity in this area.
We do not want individual Member States or other states operating their own rules.
This is one area where pooled sovereignty is going to help to solve the problem.
We need to clarify the powers of the European Central Bank in two areas: firstly, its role in relation to its own member states and secondly, its role in relation to financial institutions in general.
In conclusion, it is now a matter of urgency that this House holds a major hearing, and brings the people who have been involved in G7 and G22, brings Mr Duisenberg and the head of the European Bank for International Settlement together as quickly as possible to look at the conclusions of what has been going on in Washington.
We must exercise our authority as a democratically elected Assembly to make sure that they bring about this transparency and this clarification of future roles.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Telecommunications equipment
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0337/98), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0342/98-97/0149(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on radio equipment and telecommunications terminal equipment and the mutual recognition of their conformity (Rapporteur: Mrs Read).
Mr President, colleagues on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy will know that this is the second attempt we have made to reach a working directive on this matter.
The previous proposal from the Commission in 1990 relied on the 'test house' method of ensuring conformity before terminal equipment could be placed on the market.
For a variety of reasons which are now, I think, shrouded in history, that directive did not work particularly well.
The Commission has quite properly brought a second proposal here which is shifting the emphasis away from a 'test house' method of certification to a method involving a manufacturer's declaration.
I, as the rapporteur, think that is the right approach and have no quarrel at all with the Commission's ideology on this matter.
The Commission has also properly included radio equipment as part of the remit of this directive.
Again, I think that is perfectly proper.
I was lobbied in the early stages of the first reading on behalf of radio amateurs who were fearful that their own activities could be affected by this, but they are now well on the way to being reassured about that.
I have spent a considerable amount of time - perhaps the Commissioner could comment on this - on the vexed question of harm to the network and the likelihood of harm to the network.
I have tried to ensure that my recommendations on this matter, both in the first and second readings, are in proportion to any likely damage.
Many people concerned with implementation of the directive were naturally interested in this matter.
The proposal, and Parliament's response to it, also recognise there have been very major technological changes between the first and second proposals.
We have tried to take account of that, as indeed we have tried to take account of the question of consumer interests and liability and, particularly, to take into account the needs of disabled consumers, particularly blind and deaf consumers.
There has been an enormous amount of work, for which I thank colleagues in Parliament, the Commission and the Council, to arrive at a workable text which satisfies all of those reservations.
There was considerable pressure to avoid a conciliation on this.
It is right to say it openly.
I am sure that the Commissioner will appreciate Parliament's sensitivities about this.
We know that there is to be a major review of all of the legislation next year.
I am sure that if there are any points about this that prove not to be workable in practice, they can be reviewed at that time.
I want to be able to explain at the time of the vote why the compromise text in the name of my colleague, Mr Hendrick, is particularly to be commended.
This is Amendment No 18.
This is the best option.
I hope Parliament will support it, not just to avoid a conciliation - although that has been a goal - but more importantly to make sure that we come up with a directive that can help the industry, help consumers and particularly help the most vulnerable consumers.
I commend the text to you.
I very much hope it is going to get widespread support across the groups when it comes to the vote later this morning.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the rapid pace at which new telecommunications equipment is developed these days, the liberalisation of telecom markets and the fiercer competition which this creates all mean that swift procedures are needed to introduce telecom equipment such as phones and faxes onto the market.
The directive we are discussing today, the RTTE Directive, relieves the manufacturers of these products of the burden of difficult and protracted national approval procedures.
Our thanks are due to Mrs Read for her help with the broad lines of this highly technical directive and also for the excellent cooperation we have received from her in recent weeks and months.
I must thank the Commission too for the constructive manner in which it has worked with the European Parliament and the Council to improve this proposal, which was very unclear to begin with.
The focus of the directive is the essential requirements which telecommunications equipment has to meet in Europe.
It is very important to telecom companies with their own networks to keep inferior products out of them, because otherwise consumers may get the impression that the network is not efficient.
So the Economic Affairs Committee, on the basis of a proposal from the European People's Party, accepted an amendment to the effect that competent national authorities may exclude inferior equipment from the network if it is apparent that there are problems and that these are documented.
Why is it so important that they should be documented? In the Netherlands if a telephone company, such as Telfort, for instance, can show that an item of equipment seriously harms or abuses the network, the national radio communications authority in Groningen can decide to remove that equipment from the market.
But imposing the condition that documented problems must have arisen before equipment is taken off the market will stop operators from possibly abusing this directive in order to keep new competitors out of the market.
At the same time, this proposal by the European Parliament will provide an incentive for network operators to spend money on expanding and improving the quality of their networks.
Better innovative products do, after all, place more demands on the network.
Operators cannot resist these products on the grounds that their networks are not up to it.
So I believe that this balance safeguards the interests of both operators and the manufacturers of terminal equipment.
Regrettably, Mr President, the industry was not involved to a sufficient degree in the preparation of the Commission proposal.
Happily, the common position adopts my suggestion that the Commission must regularly consult the representatives of network operators, consumers and manufacturers.
This guarantees that these market players will have a say in future developments.
This directive takes account of the needs of the 50 million or so handicapped people in Europe and all praise to Mrs Read for that.
Parliament has made it a part of the directive that disabled people must be able to use telecom equipment either without or with only minimal adaptation.
The directive assumes that manufacturers will operate self-certification but that ultimately each Member States will have a body to oversee compliance with the directive.
So I think this flexible approval procedure will allow the fast-growing telecom market to work better.
Mr President, any scheme that simplifies the European system of telecommunications terminal equipment is surely to be welcomed, as is the special emphasis on the need to ensure that such equipment can be used by people with disabilities.
In actual fact we are faced with another problem, to which too little attention has perhaps been paid.
There is an enormous disparity between the prices of the equipment which consumers can buy in Europe at the present time and equipment prices in other continents.
More and more inhabitants of the European Community are returning from holidays in the United States or Asia with equipment that is considerably cheaper than in Europe.
A method must be found to enable the Member States to exclude substandard equipment from the market without affecting competitiveness.
We have one more wish to add to the list of outstanding tasks, namely simplification of market transactions between the United States and Europe.
Mr President, as always, it has been a real pleasure to work with the rapporteur, and the outcome we are discussing today is a considerable improvement on the common position.
This is reflected in the fact that we are able to accept all the amendments apart from Nos 1 and 13, and our objections to these are purely formal, as the rapporteur knows.
We also support the proposal she has presented again here on merging Amendments Nos 15 and 18 into a compromise to avoid the need for conciliation with the Council.
The very fact that this directive replaces two directives that we previously adopted, as well as about 1500 national instruments, is proof of its importance.
This means that our change of approach will eliminate a great deal of red tape, and I believe that this alone will enable us to achieve an improvement in telecommunications markets.
The new instrument takes very good account of many special needs, and may I say to Mrs Read, as Mr van Velzen has already indicated, that the provisions which have now been formulated also seem to guarantee compatibility with the networks, so that no unduly serious problems ought to occur in this respect.
It is true that, come what may, we shall have the opportunity next year to review this entire matter if necessary, and I should like to express my gratitude for this opportunity to continue our cooperation.
I believe that the position we have now adopted on the information society in the widest sense is the envy of our main competitors.
We have become leaders in this field, primarily through our technological development, but also through the way in which we have monitored and promoted this development on the political side.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Changeover to euro
The next item is the report (A4-0304/98) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on the impact of the changeover to the euro on Community policies, institutions and legislation (COM(97)0560 - C4-0591/97).
Mr President, we are dealing today with a report on the impact of the changeover to the euro on Community legislation and policies, a report that dates from the end of 1997.
It was tabled by the Commission before the decisions on the 11-country euro area were taken, and we are able to affirm today that some of the tasks referred to in the report have already been completed.
Quite a substantial amount remains to be done, particularly in terms of implementation by the Member States, but progress has been made in the intervening period with the homework assigned to the Commission itself.
The decisions in favour of the euro, I believe it can be said at the start of a debate on this subject, were highly gratifying, and the stability of the European economic and financial area throughout the Asian, Russian and Latin American crises has shown that a large euro area will benefit the people of Europe and the world economy in general.
We can therefore see clearly now that the decisions on the euro may be unreservedly reaffirmed and that this European monetary union can enter into force on the appointed date of 1 January 1999.
One of the subjects addressed in the report is the agrimonetary regime, a matter we have discussed in connection with Mrs Schierhuber's report, which is on the agenda for Friday; this relates to the new scheme that must at all events be ready for entry into force on 1 January 1999.
The Commission has tabled two draft regulations on this point; these will be discussed on Friday and are also dealt with in the present report.
The Commission communication covers three sectors in all: the Community budget, agricultural policy and administrative expenditure.
You can judge the intensity of our parliamentary discussions from the fact that a total of five committees were asked to deliver an opinion, and we have finally reached agreement on a report that incorporates the arguments from the budgetary, agricultural, regional, external economic relations and legal perspectives.
The second field is the amendment of Community legislation to provide the legal framework for the euro and the main implications of the euro for Community legislation.
The third field covers the operational aspects of the changeover, which relate to statistics, treasury and financial management, information systems and communication issues.
Let me refer briefly to the main sectors covered by the communication.
First of all, there is the Community budget. The problem of exchange-rate crises and the cost of the financial management these entail have been a considerable burden on the Community budget.
On the expenditure side, about 44 % of payments have been made in ECU and just under 56 % in national currencies, while the vast majority of the EU membership contributions are paid in national currencies.
In the past this has necessitated an enormous input in terms of financial management and resources, since all payments were based on national exchange rates and currencies, but this will not be required in future for the 11 participating states.
As for the agrimonetary regime, in addition to the variable official ECU rate, there has also been a so-called green rate, the purpose of which was to counteract exchange-rate fluctuations, thereby guaranteeing comparable incomes for farmers in all countries of the European Union.
Agricultural conversion rates were used for this purpose, and in recent years these rates have deviated more and more from the actual market conversion rates and thus from the value of the ECU.
When exchange rates shift, the fixed prices and payments in national currencies change in value; according to the Commission, the old form of the compensatory system, which had to be abolished in 1995, was costing ECU 8 billion per annum.
Even today, the reformed system can still cost ECU 1000 to 1500 million every year; in other words, an allocation of almost three billion marks is required in extreme cases.
Only a new agrimonetary regime will be able to prevent these expenses, subject to a five-year transition period, and will only apply to non-participating countries, but we shall discuss that on Friday, especially the question whether a country such as the United Kingdom which has chosen not to sign up for monetary union should receive the same compensatory payments in future as it has received in the past.
The third sector is administrative expenditure, which amounts to about ECU 2.7 billion.
There are 30 000 EU officials; 90 % of them live in Belgium or Luxembourg, and since both countries have signed up for EMU, some of the problems are surmountable.
But it will no doubt be quite a task to encourage the Member States in which EU officials live to complete the conversion as quickly as possible and to ensure that the European Commission does likewise.
I should like to express my sincere thanks to all the committees which have delivered their opinions.
The report, I hope, will secure the support of a broad majority.
The two amendments tabled by the Group of the European Radical Alliance are misguided, in my opinion.
Particularly in the light of last week's discussion with the President of the ECB, Wim Duisenberg, in the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs, I firmly believe that the House will not feel able to approve these amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, I would like to congratulate Mr Langen on his excellent report and on the goodwill and generosity he has shown in including the modest contributions from our committee in the report.
The Committee on Regional Policy agrees with the warm welcome the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has given to the communication from the European Commission on the impact of the changeover to the euro on Community policies, institutions and legislation.
As the rapporteur points out, this Communication is the result of a wide-ranging dialogue within the European Commission and with other Community institutions.
It is clear that, within the framework of the Structural Funds, the fact that contributions and payments are already expressed in ecus will make the changeover smoother and, at the same time, the exchange risk will be eliminated for participating countries in the euro area.
The situation of the 'pre-in' countries is indeed very different and we must ensure that these countries are not penalized in terms of their structural measures by the fluctuations of their national currencies against the euro.
The changeover to the euro will have a significant impact on Community statistics and, therefore, we support Eurostat's intention to re-scale the time-series for primary statistics to guarantee the continuity of this series.
We also welcome the fact that in his report our rapporteur has asked that priority be given to a common conversion policy for the entire European statistical system.
Our committee asks, too, that we use this opportunity to create a cooperation network for administration in the fields of informatics and statistics in order to guarantee coherent systems, not only for routine follow-up financial information but also, and above all, for the general information needed in decision-making.
The Committee on Regional Policy believes that in its information campaigns the Commission should do its utmost to ensure that regional authorities and beneficiaries of Structural Funds are well informed of the impact of the changeover to the euro.
Finally, we would like to point out that there is still a need for a more efficient and detailed study of the impact of monetary union on existing disparities between regions in light of the principle of cohesion.
And we are therefore anxiously awaiting the findings of the general study that the Commission is currently preparing.
Mr President, in what is undoubtedly a good report, the rapporteur has made it very clear how much work awaits the European institutions and how important a prompt changeover to the euro will be to the future of the Community, not only because some 4000 legislative acts will be affected by the changeover, but also because the coming of the euro age will manifest itself in substantive changes to the positions adopted by the European institutions.
The brunt of this effort will naturally be borne by the national administrative bodies, from the tax offices to those responsible for the conversion of parking meters and the levying of public charges, but what we are concerned with here is that the budget of the European Union, agricultural conversion rates, emoluments and pensions should be converted into euros and converted in good time.
In adopting the Green Paper on the introduction of the euro, we in the European Parliament made it very clear that we believe the public sector must lead the way in the introduction of the euro.
Sadly, we could not fail to observe that this has not been the case in the Member States or within the Commission, for it must be remembered that the communication has been in circulation since 1997.
We see no signs of further progress in the domain of secondary legislation, even though the Commission has rightly agreed that there will be further legislative acts.
For the private sector too, I consider it very important that clarity should prevail and that numerous provisions of 'winmark' legislation in the realms of statistics and accounting should be regulated as soon as possible.
One reason why this is so important is that it will enable even more businesses to make arrangements for the timely introduction of the euro, since the statistics still tell us that only about 24 % of European businesses actually intend to conduct their non-cash transactions in euros in the new year when the euro age has dawned.
It will therefore not only be important that the budget is changed over to euros, for although the budget is currently drawn up in ECU, most payments into it are made in national currencies, while disbursements are made in both ECU and national currencies.
We can make truly enormous savings in terms of exchange-rate risks and the cost of financial management, and - as the rapporteur has expressly indicated - the agrimonetary system will benefit when prices and subsidies are fixed in euros, since the old regime with its distortions and pressures will be swept away.
The regulation on the introduction of the euro and the other European monetary legislation have created legal certainty and guaranteed the continuity of the Treaty.
No one may be compelled to use the euro, nor may anyone be prevented from using it; the European institutions are called upon to prove by their involvement in the euro changeover that the euro age has indeed dawned, but that fact must not turn out to be the Achilles' heel of the changeover process.
I am relying here on fresh dynamism and a new wave of activity from the European Commission and the other European institutions.
Mr President, I congratulate the Commission and Mr Werner Langen on their reports which deal, in some cases in great detail, with very important aspects of the implications of the changeover to the euro in such diverse spheres as the Community budget, including agri-monetary payments and operational spending, customs tariffs and contracts, as well as statistics and financial management.
Their analysis confirms the anticipated positive micro-economic impact of the euro in all these spheres, as a result of the elimination of transaction costs, uncertainty and the current calculations required by the existence of different national currencies.
Indeed, the Commission itself concludes in its report that the overall assessment is clearly positive.
However, we surely cannot expect to cover every last detail in all these different areas.
For instance, it should be accepted that the communication proposed in conclusion No 27 detailing all the monetary references in the 4, 000 Community acts in which the monetary denomination will change to euros is of secondary importance.
Judging by the manner in which the process is currently proceeding, both economic operators and citizens in general will immediately identify with the new currency.
I believe, therefore, that every effort should be made to continue the successful information campaign regarding the euro and, with possibly greater implications, to continue to make the necessary adaptations, ranging from equipment to commercial management, particularly in small and medium enterprises.
Also, although it is not a subject of this report, we should continue with the dissemination of the euro abroad, given the interrelationship between all world markets.
The expectations generated by the euro are prompting companies to publicise their choice as a sign of efficiency and modernity, as is occurring for instance in my country.
This represents a form of widespread promotion, and is of benefit simultaneously to companies and to the new currency that we are launching.
Mr President, the report now before us shows, from the point of view of the Commission and of the rapporteur Mr Langen, how many complex procedures we shall have to complete together before the introduction of the euro.
So I think it is most important to be properly informed.
The Commission's and Mr Langen's reports tell us that the change will bring considerable savings because in agriculture alone, for example, there will be no more monetary compensation between Member States and abolition of the green rates will save about one to one-and-a-half million.
This prompts me to ask what will happen to the money saved?
Is there a chance here of extra aid to industry or for information purposes? I should like to know a little more about that.
I should also like to say that our group will be supporting the ARE Group's amendments.
We believe that the euro countries must speak with a single voice vis-à-vis the outside world and that the ECB is the body which must speak for our monetary authorities in international summit gatherings such as the G7.
Our group has drafted some oral questions on this point for the next part-session.
We shall certainly be voting in favour.
Lastly, Mr President, there is the possibility of new distortion or discrimination between countries which are and countries which are not adopting the euro.
We face wide-ranging reforms as part of Agenda 2000, and we saw with the MacSharry plans that some countries handled the reforms neatly by devaluing their currencies.
Similar things may happen here.
My question is this: how are the two regulations to coexist in the longer term and are we not going to have new forms of discrimination here?
Mr President, it is imperative, when the new euro currency and the euro rate come into existence in January 1999 and when the green pound is abolished, that farmers do not lose out in terms of the value of their income supports under the common agricultural policy.
In Ireland at present there are two green rates: the first is for CAP support, such as the payment of export refunds and intervention stocks and has varied substantially over the last eighteen months.
The second green rate is for direct income support for farmers such as premium payments.
The green rate for these payments has been frozen at a favourable level since 1995 and therefore has not been subject to currency fluctuations.
I support Mr Langen when he states that he is concerned to see that European farmers do not lose out as the new euro currency comes into play.
His draft resolution recognizes that agricultural compensation will need to be put into place so that all sectors of society can benefit from the EMU regime.
Those close to our farming sector will be aware of the growing concern about the future viability of our traditional family farm structure.
The continuing decline in the number engaged in farming and the deteriorating age profile of farmers are social indicators which we ignore at our peril.
The Commission has brought forward proposals to the Agriculture Council on this issue outlining possible courses of action.
A working group has been set up in Europe to bring forward conclusive proposals on the basis of draft regulations which have been drawn up, so that a level playing field can be reached on this issue.
Compensation measures for beef price reductions are included in the new draft regulations, but more work needs to be carried out to guarantee that Irish and European farmers are fully protected when the new euro changeover takes place.
The present agrimonetary system in Europe is a very complex regime mainly as a result of the dual rate, whereby expenditures increase due to CAP conversion rates which are higher at times than market values.
There is currently a need for simplification to be brought into any new arrangement, with the minimum of red tape.
This would serve a very positive function for all farmers in receipt of CAP payments in future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Langen report deals with the impact of the changeover to the euro in three sectors, namely national and local authority budgets, agriculture and administration.
As far as agriculture is concerned, it is not enough to limit the changeover to the euro to purely administrative action.
The euro will gain in stability if we adopt a completely new agricultural policy, as this House has so often advocated and demanded, and if the new Commission proposals for this domain are recognised internationally, i.e. throughout Europe.
Let me make one point on the information campaign. It has emerged time and again in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that the information campaign is a very important central element in the changeover to the euro.
However, let me express this earnest plea quite clearly here and now to the responsible Commissioner in particular: in the domain of consultancy, please do not portray women, for example, as disabled persons, but rather adopt a different approach to the issue.
Allow me to add a few words on the SMEs.
It is not enough for us to launch an information campaign in this area.
The consultancy service offered to SMEs must include the free conversion of computer software and of other facilities.
We must press vigorously for such provision.
We can thus bring the euro closer to the people and remove the hurdle that the euro still has to overcome in this respect.
A brief comment on the preceding debate regarding the European Central Bank: I have the feeling that the previous speakers have been asking too much of the European Central Bank and have been weighing it down with a great amount of unnecessary baggage.
Transparency and control are what the European Central Bank lacks.
That, indeed, must be the core policy on the euro.
Even at this early stage, when I look at the example of Italy and see how little transparency the European Central Bank can operate with, it becomes crystal-clear that transparency is precisely what it will take to prevent future weaknesses and instability.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I did not quite understand the reference made by our colleague from the Green Group to Italy and the lack of transparency in the handling of Italian monetary policy; she can explain it to me later.
I should now like to turn to the Langen report, naturally to announce that our group will be voting in favour, but also to ask colleagues and the rapporteur to consider the two amendments put forward by Mr Castagnède and myself.
It seems to me - and current events and the latest meeting of the ECOFIN Council have made this abundantly clear - that, over and above the many and varied important points made in the report - not only technical ones, but political ones too, of course - one of the key problems in the changeover to the euro is the external representation of the euro. This is missing from the report, despite being at the very heart of the debate over the past few weeks.
It is no accident that the ECOFIN Council has still not managed to give a clear indication as to who will represent, in international forums, the monetary and economic policy, the economic and monetary union of the euro zone members.
I think that it is important for this issue to be pointed up in the Langen report, so that we can come back to it later and be involved in the overall debate.
To my mind, the President of the European Central Bank, and he alone, would be the person to participate in international meetings on behalf of the euro zone members, in the name of EMU.
Parliament must, I believe, make it absolutely plain that this issue can no longer be fudged - first all three are to participate, then they are to take turns, then it is to be someone else - because all of this only adds to the confusion, puts us in a poor light and prevents the euro from obtaining the confidence which is crucial to its success.
In conclusion, I hope that you will accept these two amendments from the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
Mr President, I have often heard two one-sided opinions expressed in the debate on the euro.
One says that the euro will bring nothing but benefits, and the other that it will bring nothing but drawbacks.
I have little time for either view.
The financial benefits of the euro for the Community budget are obvious.
It is only logical, when the number of currencies involved is ten fewer.
Great savings are also expected in the agrimonetary system.
The so-called 'dual rate effect' will disappear because there will no longer be a green rate.
But the new agrimonetary system is still open-ended in that compensation will be paid for revaluations but no action will be taken for devaluations, even though the income of the farmers concerned will temporarily have improved.
There is something of a distortion of competition in that.
The financial risk to four Member States is far less great.
The saving of 1.3 billion guilders seems to me to be a cautious estimate.
But if the European Union is to be enlarged by new Member States which do not take part in EMU, the Commission will have to do something about the open-ended nature of the system if it wants uncontrolled excesses to be a thing of the past.
Finally, I cannot understand the political and symbolic significance of wanting to express the salary payments of Community staff in euro as of 1 January 1999 - certainly not when the money concerned is still largely spent in Belgian or Luxembourg francs.
For the staff's sake I think it is most important to proceed with clarity and care here.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the economic and monetary turmoil in the world, as I said before, is so great that it is producing shockwaves in the lives of ordinary people far and wide, including people in countries other than those it which it began.
The issue in Russia is more of a political crisis which has economic consequences.
For that reason, I think that the next EU summit should have on its agenda the question of currency speculation, its taxation, and its control in general.
We would have more than enough to discuss on that subject.
We also have to ensure in particular that, at the start of stage three, structural funds are used for currency reforms, so that Union policy may be fully applied in the transition stage too.
There are examples of many types of operation, such as the administration of TACIS funds, that must be properly in place.
Obviously, the EU's own institutions have to lead the way here.
I agree with my colleague Mr Langen that reforms to the agrimonetary regime are a sensible idea and very necessary.
The changeover to the euro will reduce losses of income for those who practise agriculture, at least in the respect that exchange rates will become stable.
The position of those Member States remaining outside monetary union will become a problem.
We have to bear in mind that the notion of the single market should hold true in those areas too.
The prospect for the currency of the euro area would appear to be one of stability.
But our citizens need to have faith in this currency, and questions of responsibility have once again to be considered.
I am worried about the position of SMEs in this respect.
In Finland they are barely prepared for the change.
There is a lack of know-how.
For this reason I would like to refer back to the suggestion that the Commission should produce an information pack with SMEs employing staff in mind, in particular for the service sector, which seems to be the furthest behind in preparation for the changeover to the euro.
Mr President, there are now roughly one hundred days to go until the launch of the single currency, and the Commission intends with this communication to assess in full the effects which the changeover to the euro will have at Community level, as well as its repercussions on the Member States.
There will be both risks and opportunities; obviously the latter will outweigh the former.
We must use these three years, when technically speaking nothing will be compulsory and nothing forbidden, to prepare as best we can, involving the private and public sectors, companies and institutions, and conducting targeted information campaigns for the public as well as training within companies.
Mr Langen's report quite rightly details all these moves, and says in essence that a number of positive elements should be borne in mind.
The first is the disappearance of exchange-rate risks and the elimination of banking and foreign currency charges; the second is peace of mind for a whole series of people, be they public servants, for example Community officials, or pensioners; and the third is certainty for firms that - from 1 January 1999 onwards - at least 75 % of their turnover will no longer be subject to exchange-rate risks, whereby they stand to gain one year or month and lose the next, because all their buying and selling will be done in a strong currency, one which will be a match for those other two strong currencies, the dollar and the yen.
So there will be risks and opportunities, but we must above all assess the risks - even though at present they are outweighed by the opportunities - so as to be ready technically and psychologically for the advent of the single currency.
On this subject, let me end with one minor point.
I would ask the Commission to defer by one year the printing and issuing of the 500 euro banknote.
This denomination is too high, given that we will also be getting to grips with six other notes with new denominations.
In my country, for example, 500 euro are equivalent to a million lire, and the highest value note in Europe corresponds to half a million lire, or 250 euro.
What is more, all of this should be linked to the well-known fact that counterfeit euro designs are already in circulation. One print plate has already been stolen.
Hence the need for psychological and also practical assurances for the single currency, which will usher in more opportunities than risks.
Mr President, in expressing my thanks to the rapporteur, may I also ask him and the Members who have been taking part in this debate to accept the apologies of my colleague Mr de Silguy, who is unable to be here this morning.
He is on his way back from Washington and has asked me to state the case for the Commission on his behalf in this discussion.
It is true that a considerable time has now elapsed since the communication was adopted, and so it might be appropriate for me to give you a brief résumé of the present situation.
I shall begin with the adaptation of Community law.
In cooperation with the interinstitutional working party, we examined the body of Community law systematically to identify where changes would be required.
Up to the present time, all deadlines for the formulation and implementation of amended provisions have been met.
We have presented the following proposals: amended financial regulations, on which Parliament is currently deliberating and which, if my information is correct, can be in place by the end of the year, amendment of the regulation on staff retirement pensions and emoluments, which will be fixed and paid in euros from 1 January 1999 - this proposal can probably be adopted in November - and the much-discussed amendment to the agrimonetary regime, which is designed to phase out the difference between the green exchange rates and the fixed exchange rates; this process can be completed for the countries in the euro zone by the end of 2001 and for the countries that have not signed up in the first wave in the year 2004.
This proposal can also be adopted before the end of the year.
The amendment of customs and fiscal legislation is also running to plan.
For that reason, we do not consider it necessary to take up the rapporteur's suggestion and publish a list of the legislative provisions affected by the introduction of the euro.
Incidentally, in accordance with your wishes, we have decided, in agreement with the participating Member States, to establish a new uniform system of commercial interest reference rates for the euro.
The new system will shortly be presented to the members of the OECD; responsibility for its implementation will lie with Eurostat.
As far as the practical aspects of the changeover are concerned, as your rapporteur has recommended, we are preparing for the changeover of all internal information systems to the euro.
The most urgent changes relate to the switchover to euros for the drafting of the budget from January of next year.
Here too, Eurostat is continuing its work on the conversion of the statistical systems and data files.
Mr Langen has rightly drawn attention to the importance of the information campaigns directed at the staff of all European bodies.
The first phase of this campaign was launched at the start of this year, and a second phase is now being prepared.
Before the end of the year we intend to distribute to the entire staff of the Community bodies, including superannuation recipients, a brochure explaining the effects of the introduction of the euro on pay and pensions.
I therefore believe we can say that the targets set out by the Commission in its communication have been achieved on time, so far at least.
In response to the wish expressed by the rapporteur, we can certainly also submit a report on the entire process that is taking place to prepare the Community for the euro, and we shall probably manage that by the end of November, which I hope will ensure that Parliament is not only informed about the present situation but is aware of the action that remains to be taken.
Thank you for your comments and suggestions.
Mr President, may I express my thanks to the Commissioner for his review of the situation.
On behalf of Parliament and in my own name too, I should like to commend the Commission for its timely and focused performance of all these tasks and to thank you especially, Commissioner, for acceding to our request for the presentation of a general report to the House at the end of November.
We shall then be able to use the report as the basis for another discussion of the various specific measures that we in Parliament can take to ensure that this process is successfully completed.
However, I should like to put one question to you, and I do not know whether you are willing or indeed able to answer it, because this is not your own area of responsibility.
Following on from the request made by Mr Dell'Alba, I should like to ask whether the issue of external representation of the euro area and the role of the European Central Bank in international conferences could also be included in the report.
As I mentioned briefly before, ECB President Wim Duisenberg said last week that there will be considerable problems with the legal status of the ECB in international organisations because the ECB is not a state, and only states have hitherto been actively represented on these bodies - the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the G7.
The question is whether the ECB needs to have itself drawn into the political realm in this way at all or whether its role is purely advisory.
In any event, Article 105 of the EU Treaty gives it a quite clearly defined responsibility for the maintenance of stable exchange rates and prices.
Should political decisions run contrary to this objective, the ECB might be required to implement them, even though that could cause problems.
One question, Commissioner, which I am aware may be unreasonable: could you provide us with any information about the Commission's thoughts, and perhaps even those of the Council too, on the subject of external representation?
Mr President, may I thank Mr Langen for asking that question, because there is nothing I like better than wandering outside the confines of my own portfolio.
However, I must point out to him that there is quite a considerable difference between the subject of the report we have been dealing with today and the issues he has raised, very important though they undoubtedly are.
The report deals with the practical problems that occur in connection with the implementation of our decision to create a common currency.
I think we have reached agreement about the fact that we have done what had to be done and have observed all the deadlines, so far at least.
At the last ECOFIN meeting, when these problems were also discussed, the Commission was entrusted with the task of making proposals in a report of its own.
These are complex and difficult issues, which naturally have to do with the legal character of the Union and with international organisations that are perhaps a little helpless in the face of the dynamism we have been developing here.
We plan to submit that report before the end of this month, so that you can then enter into the discussion, and together with the Council and yourselves we can adopt a position which will ensure that the European Union is duly and properly represented in the global institutions where monetary and economic decisions are made.
There are no grounds, of course, for assuming that, having given an entirely new dimension to global monetary policy by introducing the euro, we should then retire to the sidelines.
That must not happen.
I presume that in this report we shall not only emphasise the need for our involvement but shall also make sound proposals to that end.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. and resumed at 12 noon)
VOTES
In the previous vote, in other words the last vote, I wanted to vote in favour and I voted in good time, but the machine is just not working.
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the report extending Regulation No 1408/71.
The regulation currently only applies to EU citizens and to stateless persons and refugees.
This amounts to discrimination against the 13 million citizens from third countries in the Union, who pay their taxes and social contributions in a Member State but lose their entitlement to social security if they move to another Member State.
The problem is, however, that to be covered by Regulation No 1408 presupposes that the persons concerned already have the right to freedom of movement.
As things stand at present, citizens of third countries do not enjoy freedom of movement within the Union.
We therefore think that a solution should first be found to the problem of freedom of movement for third country citizens.
Once that has been settled, the question of extending Regulation No 1408 can be addressed.
I welcome this proposal from the European Commission because it will remove an anomaly in current social security rules for third country nationals.
This anomaly was flagged up by the European Parliament and I am pleased that the European Commission has taken up this issue and produced this sensible proposal.
Third country nationals who are legally resident in one EU country working and paying tax will be able to transfer their social security contributions to another EU country if they move for work.
This is particularly important in the UK where the national health service has about 40 000 overseas doctors working for it.
Many are very well qualified and are offered consulting positions in other EU countries.
It is completely unjust that at present social security contributions cannot be transferred.
I commend this proposal to Parliament.
We support the principles behind this report which extend the same rights to legally resident third-country nationals who are workers and their families (as a means of extending equal treatment) that apply to EU citizens.
We wish to await further consideration of the implications of the details contained in the proposal as they affect the UK, which will take place on 4 November by the Select Committee, before determining our final position, in view of the possible effect upon the non-contributory benefits system.
Leperre-Verrier report (A4-0342/98)
I am fully in favour of Bulgaria participating in the Youth for Europe programme.
It is important, under the pre-accession strategy for such countries, to provide instruments like this which help to educate people about Europe and give them an understanding of Community policies and their operation.
The urgency of this measure is linked above all to the punctuality and precision with which Bulgaria has provided all the information requested for its inclusion in the programme, particularly in respect of the purely financial aspects.
Wibe report (A4-0317/98)
Madam President, future historians, if any have the courage to study the role of this Parliament, will consider today's vote against Jean-Marie Le Pen as an abject detail in a long list of even more abject details.
The only freedoms which the majority in this House is prepared to defend are the freedoms of division, decadence and now even drugs, in defiance of the morals of the Decalogue and natural law. This Parliament refuses to defend the freedom of thought or the freedom of expression.
Nowadays, the great French Jewish historian, Robert Aron, would be condemned for having written on page 178 of his memoirs that he and others took for granted the horrors of the Hitlerian regime of the Gestapo and its work and that, for the rest, they did not go into this in detail.
Similarly, the immunity of the great aircraft manufacturer and Gaullist deputy, Marcel Dassault, who was deported to Buchenwald, would be waived given that he described in length in his memoirs the role of the Communist 'capos', led by the Communist, Marcel Paul, and given that, in particular, he described the reality of this camp in a manner far removed from the legend which some are trying to impose here.
Shame on this Parliament which is behaving like a reserve of the Stalinist thought police; this is a Parliament where no inquiry, no evocations, no condemnation have ever occurred about the endless depiction ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, since 1989 the European Parliament has received 50 requests for the waiver of parliamentary immunity.
It has approved only five, rejected 32, and the other 13 were inadmissible or incomplete.
No request has been approved since 1994.
The case law of our Parliament actually takes the view that, in any case where the offence which a Member of the European Parliament is alleged to have committed forms part of a political activity, immunity is not waived, and the freedom of expression must prevail.
This is specifically the position which we took recently with regard to our colleague Mr Campos.
Our case law would therefore indisputably advocate the rejection of the request for the waiver of Mr Le Pen's parliamentary immunity.
To approve this request would be to take a decision based on who Mr Le Pen is, on the specific nature of the offence committed and on the words spoken.
However, when using its power to waive or not to waive parliamentary immunity, the European Parliament must not take any account of the person involved.
It must not establish a hierarchy for the offences committed, it must not consider the merits of the case, as pointed out in Article 5 ...
(The President interrupted the speaker) Madam President, you allowed the previous speaker 30 seconds more; please allow me to have my say.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, I note that the majority of the Members of this Parliament claim to be rationalists and are proud of it.
Whether they are Liberals, Socialists, Christian Democrats or of other political persuasions, they all claim to be supporters of the 18th century rationalism of Voltaire, Rousseau or even Kant or Goethe.
And yet here we have all these rationalists yielding to a totally archaic ideological taboo which is a real insult to the freedom of thought, because Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen clearly stands accused on the grounds of freedom of thought.
To say, as Mr Rothley does, that the German law aims to protect the truth is the very essence of totalitarianism.
The purpose of the law is not to protect dogmas, but rather to protect freedom of thought, because no one holds a monopoly on the truth.
Consequently, this German law whose defence is being claimed in this case is based in the tradition of the Third Reich.
This is no cause for celebration.
I consider that immorality rules in this Parliament, since the freedom of speech, which is an essential human right, is not being respected.
Gutenberg, who lived in Strasbourg, and Goethe, must be turning in their graves.
Madam President, I should like to address the German members of this Parliament who voted to waive the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, by reminding them that German bullets, bombs, shells and mines killed tens of millions of men and women in Europe and caused infinitely more deaths than the gas chambers.
However, as you seem keen to reopen 50-year-old wounds, we will remind you of your duty of remembrance.
Jean-Marie Le Pen remembers the German mine that killed his father, but he has forgiven the German people.
Now, 55 years on, a German public prosecutor has the arrogance to ask for an explanation from Jean-Marie Le Pen, a war victim and a war orphan, relating to a comment on events for which Germany is solely responsible.
Do you have so much to be forgiven for that you must look for the guilty among your victims? It is not Jean-Marie Le Pen who built the concentration camps.
These camps were yours, not ours.
If you want to settle accounts among yourselves, as Germans, that is your problem, but the time has passed when you could impose your laws on France and the French.
The Occupation is over, the French people are free, and we are too.
Madam President, in waiving the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the European Parliament has committed an error.
It has deliberately forgotten that parliamentary immunities were rightly established to guarantee the freedom of speech of elected Members.
Obviously, the freedom of speech only comes into its own in the case of words which risk causing offence, which may even be shocking, even if this was not the intention of their author.
This is an example of witch hunting. In France, the definition given in dictionaries for the word 'detail' has been changed to allow more room to condemn Jean-Marie Le Pen.
In the European Parliament, the last speaker from the Socialist Group, Mr Ford, lied to justify the unjustifiable.
He lied by stating that Jean-Marie Le Pen had described the Holocaust as a 'point of detail', which is false.
He lied by attributing revisionist opinions to Jean-Marie Le Pen, because the latter, in a weekly paper, denied the existence of the gas chambers at Buchenwald. However, official historians acknowledge that there actually were no gas chambers in Buchenwald, and this is since the statements made by Doctor ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, Article 9, on legal matters, of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities limits immunity, if I may say so, to the performance of duties. What does the performance of duties mean?
Should it be interpreted in a broader or a narrower sense? Since this is a guarantee, it should be interpreted in a broader sense.
In fact, the Court of Justice of the European Communities has widened the interpretation of this so far that it covers a Member's whole term of office and not just the session.
And what is the criterion for interpreting the performance of duties? For the rapporteur, it is a geographical criterion.
A Member is performing his duties when he is in the European Parliament building.
If Jean-Marie Le Pen had said these words in the building of the European Parliament delegation in Germany, then depending on which side of the door he was standing, he would or would not have enjoyed immunity.
That is quite absurd.
The interpretation must in fact be teleological, relating to the intended purpose.
This is so true that the accounting rules for the reimbursement of travel expenses are not based on the official nature of the building to which we travel, but on the political purpose which we are pursuing.
And this is also so true that, on 23 June 1789, when the Revolutionary Assembly considered immunity for the first time, it decided that those who attacked the State were to be regarded as traitors and criminals acting against the State.
However, it is true that for you, the State ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, I would ask you to examine, as a matter of urgency, whether this European Parliament is a platform for speeches that repeat the same thing time and again, the selfsame thing for which Mr Le Pen has been cited.
My blood boils, my stomach turns and I am deeply saddened to think that anyone here can desecrate the memory of the Holocaust victims by conducting a debate of this kind.
May I ask you to consider urgently whether we cannot restrict this platform to one such speaker rather than permitting all of them to speak.
Everyone has the right to speak here, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, and everyone speaks for themselves.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this Parliament has just taken a vote which goes totally against what it claims to defend and embody.
Your vote represents a very serious blow for democracy in Europe, because one of the essential principles of democracy is the separation of powers.
It was precisely to protect the legislative power from the judicial power that parliamentary immunity was established.
Now, the judges themselves intend to define what politicians can or cannot say.
This is what the Munich judge is trying to do, and this represents the total negation of the independence of the elected members.
And you, through a petty hatred for politics, are denying these essential principles. By waiving the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen, it is not just his rights which you are denying but also the parliamentary institution which you are calling into question.
Now, because of you, democracy in Europe is moving closer to that of Stalin ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, I deliberately refrained from participating in the vote on the waiver of Mr Le Pen's immunity. I took it for granted that this House would vote in favour of the waiver, whereas personally I believe that Voltaire's famous maxim should apply even to the odious politician from beyond the Alps: 'I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it'.
I would point out that I am deputy chairman of the parliamentary delegation for relations with Israel.
In my view, Mr Le Pen represents the worst that politics has to offer: racism, intolerance, incitement to hatred and bigotry.
The German judiciary wishes to try him for having said that the gas chambers are a detail of history: a ludicrous assertion, but still only an assertion.
Democracies must not use against their enemies the same intolerant methods as those used by Mr Le Pen.
Madam President, I voted in favour of waiving Mr Le Pen's immunity.
From the contributions that we have heard from the right of the House, there seems to be some confusion about what parliamentary immunity actually is.
We have parliamentary immunity in our Member States, which includes immunity for Germans in Germany and for the British in the United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom we have the right to say anything we wish in the parliamentary chamber.
We have full parliamentary immunity, as Mr Le Pen has here.
Despite my abhorrence of his views I fully support that.
But you do not have that right outside Parliament, not in Germany either.
Mr Le Pen, either by commission or omission, overstepped that mark.
Whether he is guilty or innocent is an entirely different matter.
That is something that the courts will decide.
The contributions from the extreme right in the House seem to indicate that it is not on the same planet as the rest of us.
If the aliens ever do take over they may have the same view of history as it does.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen: 'I do not agree with what you say, but I will do my utmost to ensure that you can continue to say it'.
This is a concept which is at the very heart of democracy, and from which we are a long way removed today.
Conversely, two centuries ago, the bloodthirsty Saint-Just invented an expression which gained a following among all those in favour of totalitarianism.
He said that there can be no freedom for the enemies of freedom.
That says it all.
When those in power become both judge and judged, when they lay the foundation for a single line of thought, when the majority imposes silence on the minorities, when the freedom of speech is challenged, then it is clear that democracy no longer exists.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are no longer in a democracy.
Madam President, I have to say that this is the first time I have voted to waive the immunity of Mr Le Pen.
Hitherto, my stance has been dictated by the arguments put forward which, according to Parliament's case law, reject the waiver of a Member's immunity when the accusations against the latter are clearly political in nature.
This is the case with the statements of Mr Le Pen, with these statements as with others.
And yet I have changed my mind, for a simple reason: the fact is that the relationships between the executive, legislative and judicial powers, and particularly the reinforced independence of the judiciary, now mean that it is unjustified for a Member to benefit from any exemption over and above the exemptions that our citizens may enjoy. What Mr Le Pen would call a privilege of establishment is also therefore unjustified.
Mr Le Pen yesterday asked to be treated like a citizen.
That is precisely what I wish to see.
Madam President, although I demonstrated yesterday the perfidy of the Munich public prosecutor, 420 Members have voted to waive my immunity.
I would say to them: 'Many enemies, much honour'.
I noticed yesterday the spokesmen for the political groups in Parliament giving their voting instructions, which resoundingly proves that this is basically a political matter conducted on the orders of those who wish to censor individual thought.
The 'Europeanists' and 'Euro-internationalists' of this Parliament have seized this opportunity to oppose the President of the National Front, a patriotic Member who prefers his native country, France, to the Europe of lobbies, unemployment, immigration, insecurity, taxation, corruption ... and even cowardice.
Madam President, as expected, this Parliament has once again brought disgrace on itself.
Faced with the diktat imposed on it, nearly all its members have bowed.
Why this fear? Why are the words of Mr Le Pen regarded as blasphemy when they would have raised no objection if they had referred to any other comparable drama of the twentieth century?
What is the still uncertain truth of this history, discussion of which is forbidden?
Why this strict ban? This senseless taboo is primarily down to the Communists, their Socialist allies, the Conservatives and the Liberals who have been so accommodating towards each other because they want to ensure that their own long lists of crimes are forgotten.
However, the involvement of Israeli extremism and its international connections must also be considered.
The precarious situation of the Israeli extremists and their desire for power requires the burden of guilt to be generally and perpetually imposed on everyone else so that they can assert their moral superiority.
The absence of any critical capacity is a prerequisite for the extravagant financial demands which they arrogantly claim should follow on from the reparations which Germany has stopped paying.
If certain Germans, Socialist internationals ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, as a printer by profession, I am therefore particularly attached to the freedom of thought, which is also the first freedom acquired thanks to Gutenberg, who is well known to Strasbourg.
I am therefore horrified that Parliament could vote to waive the parliamentary immunity of Mr Le Pen for a crime of thought.
This House brings disgrace on itself with such actions and lowers itself to the level of a Supreme Soviet.
The fact that everyone is voting according to group instructions and not according to their consciences is particularly shocking.
This waiver of parliamentary immunity today concerns our colleague Mr Le Pen.
Tomorrow it will be someone else's turn.
So today is a day of mourning for freedom and particularly for Strasbourg.
Madam President, it is incredible and scandalous that this Parliament is today waiving the parliamentary immunity of a man whose father was killed by the Germans.
I myself am the daughter of Resistance fighters.
I just missed being born in a concentration camp and I find it difficult to accept these lessons and these actions.
Yes, we have suffered at the hands of the Germans.
It is true that, today, in order to forget an extremely troubling past, we are prepared to do anything.
Immorality rules in this Parliament.
Drugs are allowed, but Jean-Marie Le Pen is refused the freedom of expression.
Shame on this Parliament which is disgracing itself!
Shame on those Members who have not had the courage to be independent, as the great philosopher Voltaire was!
The lifting of parliamentary immunity of a public elected Member of the European Parliament is a very serious matter.
However, the European Parliament has had to look at this issue following a request made on 17 April 1998 by the Public Prosecutor's office in Munich relating to statements which Jean-Marie Le Pen had made at a press conference in December 1997.
Mr Le Pen stated that 'the gas chambers are detail in the history of the Second World War' and 'the extermination of those who were killed in the gas chambers is to be considered as merely an insignificant part of the history of the Second World War'.
The Public Prosecutor's office in Munich has asked the European Parliament to lift the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen on the basis of Articles 130 and 220 of the German Criminal Code, which provides for a maximum prison sentence of five years or a fine to be imposed on anyone who publicly approves, denies or presents as inoffensive any act committed under Nazi rule.
Mr Le Pen uttered similar statements in France which subsequently led to him being fined substantially.
Censorship is always a very difficult issue to address and the European Union and national Member State governments of the EU must strike a balance between freedom of expression and the protection of public policy.
The right of free speech is enshrined in the Irish Constitution but there comes a time when the State must be given the necessary power to tackle naked hatred which can result in breaches of national public policy or national public security.
I support free speech but not in an unfettered manner.
In Ireland we have the incitement to hatred act, which is a legislative device giving the State power to prosecute those who seek to promote naked hatred in society as well as enshrining freedom of expression as a fundamental right in our constitution.
Mr Le Pen's comments were made in Munich in December 1997 during the presentation of a book 'Le Pen, the Rebel' written by the former MEP Franz Schönhuber, the leader of the German Republikaner Party.
His comments were wholly inflammatory and an incitement to hatred and if the German criminal legal system wishes to pursue the matter, the European Parliament should not stand in its way.
I condemn the statements made by Jean-Marie Le Pen in Munich, with regard to both their basis and their form.
The gas chambers are not a 'detail in the history of the Second World War'; on the contrary, they are an essential aspect and it is indecent to choose such a serious and painful subject on which to cause a political controversy.
I believe that the French and among them, I am sure, the majority of the electors or members of the National Front, share this opinion.
However, today, the Members of the European Parliament are not being asked about the merits of the case.
They are being asked only if, in response to the request of the Munich public prosecutor, the parliamentary immunity of Jean-Marie Le Pen should be waived.
In this respect, it could be asked whether, in countries such as ours which support the freedom of expression, it is really the State's role to bring proceedings against the author of certain words, even if we believe that these words are false and reprehensible.
These proceedings would contradict the very idea of the freedom of thought, which contributes to the strength of democracy.
Where would the abandonment of this principle lead us?
The error must be eliminated by exposing the truth.
However, we are not setting a precedent which could be used in the future by public authorities to intervene in an authoritarian manner in other, as yet unknown, debates.
In order to combat a risk which, in my opinion, is non-existent - namely the risk of a revisionist contagion on the question of the gas chambers - we should not risk committing an abuse which is much more palpable, much more immediate and much more menacing in many ways - the abuse of muzzling the freedom of expression by an official line of thought.
Once again Jean-Marie Le Pen is trying to pass himself off as a victim, the scapegoat of a vast European political plot.
He likes this situation, because each time it helps to raise him to the rank of martyr.
By describing the gas chambers as a 'detail of history', Jean-Marie Le Pen is defiling the memory of those who lost their lives, or their loved ones, during this period.
By saying these words on German soil, he is consciously seeking to provoke the European democrats!
He has outraged the German people with his pardon for the victims of the Shoah!
Jean-Marie Le Pen intended to open Pandora's box, in an attempt to let out the old demons of our common past; but he has made an error which could cost him dear.
Whereas he tried to obtain a favourable electoral situation from the first two waivers of immunity, the third is likely to prove fatal to him!
This is why he has offered us a new set of words, in an attempt at pathos ...
But he has not moved me.
For the peace and solidarity of our people in Europe, I will therefore vote to waive his parliamentary immunity.
I voted today in favour of waiving the immunity of Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, just as I voted some time ago in favour of waiving the immunity of Mr Bernard Tapie. This is because I am personally in favour of abolishing parliamentary immunity, which is no longer justified.
The fact that I politically and morally condemn the theories and points of view expressed and defended by Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen does not enter into the equation.
Therefore, ignoring any political-media context, I would always vote in favour of a request to waive immunity, whatever the circumstances, the legal arguments and the Members concerned.
The principle of parliamentary immunity is nowadays outrageous.
It seems to me to be a privilege which is no longer justified.
The judiciary is now independent and the states making up the European Union all apply the rule of law and are all democratic, and within these states all citizens without exception must be equal before the law.
By this, I am defending a real equality, not a biased equality suited to the political or media circumstances. Crimes and judged offences must not be subject to the vagaries of fashion.
The vote to waive immunity must never prejudge the decision delivered in due course by the competent court on the merits of the case.
Since immunity will not be abolished, I hope that this can always be the case.
Nothing is more alien to the radical beliefs which I hold than the anti-Semitism and racism which are the very basis of the ideology of the extreme right.
All those involved in politics must understand the feelings of the survivors, of the families of victims and of all men free to listen to the despicable words of Mr Le Pen.
However, I will not vote to waive the immunity as requested, and my reasons for this are as follows.
In strictly legal terms, this request poses serious questions.
Together with Alain, the Radicals believe that democracy is not the power of the majority but the rule of law, and that even the most guilty have the right to the protection of the law.
In this case, the aim of parliamentary immunity is not to shelter the Members, but is one of the guarantees of the freedoms of our citizens.
It may be assumed that legal proceedings are always based on punishable offences.
We should therefore, on this basis alone, grant all the waivers of immunity which are requested.
This is not the practice of our Parliament, and I believe that we have been right in the past to more often than not refuse the waivers requested, including those involving Mr Le Pen.
Our opinion must not therefore be based on the legal argument of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the weakness of which reveals other motivations.
Might these be political? There are several political methods of opposing the extreme right and its ideas.
If it were thought that these ideas constituted a real danger to democracy, it would not be necessary to fight tactically against the parties of the extreme right: they would simply be banned.
As this has not occurred, we must not pretend to be shocked when their leaders say obnoxious things inspired by the anti-Semitism and racism which are part and parcel of these parties.
However, would a ban on the extreme right not be an extraordinary acknowledgement of political weakness, in view of the ambiguous fascinations which it exerts over part of public opinion? For my part, I believe that an unsound idea is best combated by ideas, reasoning and confidence in the intelligence of our citizens.
I believe that the obnoxious words of Mr Le Pen do him much more harm than they do to democracy.
I also believe that, particularly in France, the extreme right profits from the intellectual and political bans which it provokes and which feed the paranoia of its leaders and its misled electors.
Is this a case of political morals? It is pointless to insist on a web of complicity between the extreme right and a large part of the right which today is assuming a position of condemnation.
There is no need to underline the objective use which a number of the parties of the left make of the neo-fascists in their respective national arenas.
Morals do not come into these choices.
Is morality really profiting when an assembly elected by universal suffrage is asked to pursue one of its own who is also elected? I do not think so, and I would invite my colleagues to reflect on the use which could be, which may be or which might be made, in another context, of this fearsome weapon.
In the end, talking about political philosophy with regard to Mr Le Pen honours him greatly.
I wish to do this, however, in order to remind you that the Radicals have a method - that of reason.
In this humanist and secular philosophy, there can be no revealed truths, carved in stone or catechised.
There is no truth with a capital letter, indisputable and revered without the help of critical reasoning. Truth is humble, non-majestic and republican to a certain extent.
It constantly fights against lies and falsification and keeps away from acts of faith.
Are Mr Le Pen and his cronies denying the Holocaust? Are they quibbling about the total horror of this?
Do they view the gas chambers as a 'detail'? Let them speak so that the contemptible poverty of their thinking can be confounded, unmasked and revealed to everyone.
This is the best fighting option open to the truth.
This is also the only homage which politics can now pay to the victims of this barbarism.
Read recommendation (A4-0337/98)
We voted in favour of the report, since the telecommunications market requires a regime of the kind described.
We would stress, however, that the commercialisation of the telecommunications sector has brought severe administrative problems. There is now a danger that regions and consumers alike will receive differential treatment.
Difficulties will also be caused by the complex fiscal problems remaining to be solved.
It would have been far better to maintain the national monopolies, with proper structures for public supervision and mutual cooperation.
Hoppenstedt report (A4-0332/98)
The European Central Bank has just made a proposal to the Council for a regulation allowing the ECB to impose a system of minimum reserves on banks, which may help to regulate the liquidity of the market.
There can have been no doubt that the 15 governors of our central banks, meeting around a table, would end up producing this purely technical text.
However, we would actually be interested to know how this is all going to work, not from the point of view of the technical relations between the banks - we know that the bankers can sort this out themselves - but from the point of view of the economic, budgetary and social balances which must be preserved, even within the single currency.
Firstly, an important question must be asked between now and the end of 1998 relating to the convergence of the short-term interest rates which will be unified on 1 January 1999.
The gaps are currently very wide, ranging from 3.2 % in Austria to 6.4 % in Ireland.
These reflect the different positions of the Member States in the stages of the economic cycle.
Should these gaps not now be gradually reduced? The end of December is only three months away, and it seems unthinkable to unify everything suddenly.
However, Mr Duisenberg, who is very proud of having finalised the rules on minimum reserves, is incapable of answering this basic question.
Similarly, nobody seems able to answer the question about the new mistrust of the markets which, in view of the varying impact of the Russian crisis, have reintroduced increasing gaps in the long-term debt ratios of the Member States.
Is it not the case that Austria has just withdrawn from issuing a government loan due to the fear of having to pay more for it than Belgium?
Finally, also, nobody wishes to answer the question about the increase in budgetary deficits which is starting to be predicted for 1999, the first year of the euro, and which is becoming very worrying in the case of Italy.
The Italian Prime Minister, Mr Prodi, has just proposed using the central bank reserves not transferred to the ECB in order to carry out a policy of major infrastructure projects which could revive the economy.
He seems to be ignoring the fact that these reserves are already, in the main, invested in the economy.
Germany will not be reassured by proposals of this kind.
All these unresolved questions simply underline the great lie of the single currency. There has been an attempt to ignore the real differences between countries so as to improve the success of the monetary unification project, which is the springboard to federalism.
In other words, ideology has made governments blind, and reality will soon have its revenge.
The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the reports on minimum reserves (Hoppenstedt), powers of sanction (Katiforis) and collection of statistical information (Hendrick) for the European Central Bank.
This should not be taken as a change of signal in the Social Democrats' policy on Denmark's reservation with regard to the third stage of EMU, but as a statement of our keen interest in what happens in this area.
The content of the Hoppenstedt and Katiforis reports will have no direct consequences for Denmark of any kind, since it only concerns countries which participate fully in EMU.
The Hendrick report will to a limited extent have implications for Denmark too.
The application of minimum reserves means that credit and financial institutions are required to maintain a certain liquidity reserve, which is sensible for a variety of monetary policy reasons, for example the money market interest rate is stabilised, and better control of the country's money supply is achieved by restraining the creation of money by private banks.
The proposal for sanctions is to ensure a uniform procedure within the areas covered by the European Central Bank when fines are imposed on the individual Member States, on institutions and on firms.
The aim of the Hendrick proposal is to give the ECB the right, in cooperation with the national central banks, to collect relevant statistical information so that the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) can carry out its work.
The information collected will of course be treated as strictly confidential, in the same way as statistical information from Danmarks Statistik , the Danish Central Statistical Office.
Furthermore the proposal provides the possibility of imposing sanctions on countries or institutions which do not report on time, which is also wholly in line with the practice of Danmarks Statistik .
The Swedish Parliament decided that Sweden would not participate in the third phase of EMU, which will see the introduction of the euro as of 1 January 1999.
The Centre Party is against Swedish membership of EMU and I therefore abstained in the vote on the three ECB reports: Mr Hoppenstedt's on the application of minimum reserves, Mr Katiforis's on powers to impose sanctions and Mr Hendrick's on the collection of statistical information.
With regard to Mr Hoppenstedt's report, the maximum rate of 10 %, with a practicable minimum of 0 %, represents a clear sign of flexibility in the use of this instrument.
Therefore, without prejudice to the use of other methods available to the European Central Bank, geared to pursuing monetary policy objectives and through which a 0 % reserve rate could be imposed, I agree on the need to remunerate sums lodged with the Central Bank in accordance with market rates, so as to avoid distortions of competition between different financial markets.
I approve of the report in its entirety.
Turning to the report by Mr Katiforis, I am in full agreement with the way in which the European Central Bank wishes to go about imposing sanctions on any public or private operator transacting business with the ECB. The chosen solution guarantees two requirements which are vital to the functioning of the entire system: flexibility and freedom of action for companies, on the one hand, and the need to protect the public on the other.
I am likewise in favour of allowing national central banks to initiate sanctions, whilst giving the ECB alone the final say: greater controls at local level will be matched by more uniform treatment throughout the ESCB.
As far as the Hendrick report is concerned, although I think that it is essential to introduce a confidentiality regime covering statistical information provided by persons subject to reporting requirements, I do not see why this cannot be handled under the provisions of Council Regulation No 322/97 on Community statistics.
A lack of compliance with these requirements would mean that poor quality information would be obtained from suspect 'informers'.
Finally, I agree on the need to tone down the provisions in the draft regulation imposing rigid, irrevocable sanctions on reporting agents who have not managed to furnish the statistical information by the deadline or in the required manner, or have done so only in part.
Sanctions should not be applied where reporting agents are unable to transmit the data for reasons beyond their control.
Katiforis report (A4-0329/98)
The draft Council regulation concerning the powers of the European Central Bank to impose sanctions will perhaps surprise even well-informed citizens who did not realise that, in 1992, they gave such supranational powers to the new institution managing monetary union.
There is, however, a legal basis for this regulation even though it is not particularly obvious: the sixth paragraph of Article 106 of the Maastricht Treaty effectively gives the Council the right to 'adopt the provisions referred to in ... Article 34-3 of the Statute of the ESCB.'
Article 34-3 of this Statute, which is not contained within the Treaty but in an annexed protocol, discretely states that 'the ECB shall be entitled to impose fines or periodic penalty payments on undertakings for failure to comply with obligations under its regulations and decisions.'
At the end of this legal trail, the ECB gains quite extraordinary powers. It will itself be able to decide on the sanctions to be imposed on undertakings which do not apply its own rules, and these sanctions will be directly applicable, without passing through the filter of national governments, national central banks or Community courts.
In order to properly appreciate the excessive nature of this, it should be remembered that the Commission - a largely supranational body - does not as a general rule have such an independent power of sanction.
It should also be stressed that the ECB is not subject to any democratic control.
In other words, the powers granted to the ECB constitute, in their principle, a very worrying supranational and antidemocratic precedent.
What is more, the Bank is clearly determined to use these powers to the full. It is quite revealing that the draft regulation deals only with sanctions and does not mention the obligations which these sanctions are supposed to guarantee.
Therefore, Article 2 fixes the ceilings for the fines and periodic penalty payments without any mention of the infringements to which these ceilings will apply.
This quite farcical situation at least has the merit of showing that the ECB is primarily concerned with the repressive side of its action.
The European Parliament's rapporteur, Mr Katiforis, is enchanted by these provisions which he considers to be real finds, satisfying 'all the fundamental principles of the rule of law' and avoiding 'any dictatorial tendency'.
That is not our opinion.
We do not know what association of ideas led the rapporteur to the expression 'dictatorial tendency' but, in any case, the question deserves to be asked.
The ECB recommendation we are debating, concerning a Council regulation on the powers of the ECB to impose sanctions, provides in Article 3(8) that revenues derived from the imposition of fines belong to the ECB.
This proposal is justified by the ECB on the grounds that it is an expression of the ECB's economic independence.
No amendments were tabled on this point, even though the destination of the product of the fines as income for the ECB might be questioned, given that it is not a direct but an indirect result of the ECB's monetary function.
For my part, I voted for the proposal as it stood, considering that revenues from the imposition of fines represent only one aspect of the issue.
On this question, I would point to the European Parliament's resolution before the Intergovernmental Conference - document A-0102/95, paragraph 34(v) - in which, amongst other things, we called for 'the ECB's income (income from seniorage) to be considered as an own resource of the Community'.
Subject to the constraints of what is provided for by the Treaty, it would be appropriate for the whole issue of ECB revenues to be more generally debated at some stage.
Hendrick report (A4-0327/98)
The proposal before us today would allow the European Central Bank to adopt rules for organising the collection of statistical information useful to its work, based on an arsenal of sanctions which it would be alone in deciding.
The aim is to provide comprehensive indicators of monetary development in the Member States 'which are viewed as one economic territory'.
These provisions result logically from the principle of a single supranational currency, as adopted at Maastricht.
Leaving aside the question of the principle of the single currency, this text poses three major problems relating to confidentiality of information, equality of treatment and uncertainty as to its limits of application.
With regard to confidentiality, the ECB, which prepared the draft, seems to want to take its quest for independence to the extreme, even to the extent of absolving itself from Community rules on the preparation of statistics, as observed by Eurostat.
This behaviour is even more open to criticism as the Bank would like to be granted extensive discretionary powers. These would allow it to send its own agents directly into reporting undertakings and to examine the books and files of these, in order to verify the information reported or to carry out the compulsory collection of this.
We would ask that the ECB be subject to all the standard rules of confidentiality, in particular the Council Regulation of 17 February 1997 on Community statistics.
The second problem is that all the members of the Union would be subject to the statistical rules of the ECB, but only those participating in the euro zone would be subject to the sanctions.
This curious lack of symmetry may lead to doubts about the reliability of the future statistics. If the threat of sanctions is really essential to the quality of the statistics, what point is there in introducing obligations which are not backed up by sanctions for some members?
'We are preparing for their future integration into the euro zone' say ECB officials. The citizens of the countries concerned, who so far have refused the euro, will appreciate that.
Thirdly, how can the text be applied to national official authorities which themselves produce statistics or which define the conditions for the production of these statistics by other bodies? The draft regulation prudently avoids the problem, but leaves options open which could pave the way in the future to recalcitrant states having sanctions imposed on them by the ECB.
But this will be dealt with at a later stage.
It is obvious that, in the eyes of the Eurocrats, a draft as delicate as this one cannot be immediately put at risk.
d'Ancona report (A4-0211/98)
Madam President, I voted against Mrs d'Ancona's final text because, although based on the best of intentions, it has been ruined through fear and hypocrisy.
Yet again this House is guilty of distasteful hypocrisy.
No one is prepared to admit that prohibition has been an utter failure, that 95 % of drugs are moving around freely, that 80 % of crime in our cities and towns is drug-related, and that over 50 % of our prison population is made up of drug addicts.
Once more, Parliament has chosen to close its eyes and believe that the response to all of this is empty words, the idle chatter of hypocritical prohibition.
It is an unpleasant episode for this House, which I hope will soon change its mind.
We have now reached the final stage in this report's lengthy passage through the House.
The strongly liberalising stance taken in the original version has now been substantially altered after meeting a great deal of resistance in committee. I highlight this because of the fears expressed when the report was referred back to committee.
These fears have proved unfounded; the referral decision was not a way of giving a pro-liberalisation report a second chance.
We have maintained our commitment to say 'no' to any European-level harmonisation of narcotics policy.
We undertook from the outset to combat every single pro-drugs statement in the European Parliament and to press the case for an approach to drugs based on human respect and social concern. We argued for preventive action, rehabilitation for those who had fallen prey to addiction and compliance with international conventions.
This is an area where the Union has no competence to act. That should especially be borne in mind given the controversial nature of the subject, with dissension cutting across party lines and national frontiers.
Now the whole exercise has become somewhat irrelevant in any case. The idea was to take recommendations to the UN General Assembly's extraordinary session on coordinating the international fight against drugs.
That session was held last June and the report is therefore being discussed three months after the event.
The amendments which we jointly tabled have met with a positive reception across party and national boundaries. We are calling for a drugs policy based on prevention, rehabilitation and respect for international conventions.
The European Parliament's position on these amendments and its attitude towards the undermining of the wording of recommendations 10 and 11 were the criteria guiding our voting behaviour.
Whenever Parliament has been poised to send out what could be interpreted as a pro-drugs message, we have refused to play along. And we intend to maintain that stance in future.
The fact that this report and its predecessor have taken so long to produce surely demonstrates that the European Parliament is not a forum for the promotion of liberal drugs policies.
It is without doubt crucial that EU measures to combat drugs should not be restricted exclusively to repression, given that drug addiction is not merely a judicial or police matter.
For these very reasons, it would appear illogical to adopt the proposed attitude of damage limitation, including the decriminalisation of soft drugs such as cannabis and controlled administration of hard drugs.
A drug-free society, such as the one described by the UN General Assembly, cannot be built on a so-called 'pragmatic' anti-prohibition policy.
Furthermore, delegating anti-drugs measures to local and regional authorities could create 'islands' in Europe which depart from national regulations and, hence, from the democratic will of citizens in the Member States.
The reference in the explanatory statement of the d'Ancona report to Article 129 of the Amsterdam Treaty would appear quite inappropriate to the report itself: that article confirms the Member States' commitment to take action against drugs-related health damage, including through information and prevention. This is in no way consistent with damage limitation, which consists in the possible - but far from proven - reduction of the damage, and not in fighting drugs as an escape route out of social difficulties.
Experiments conducted to date, for example in Switzerland, prove better than any report the negative effects of such experimentation, which has always led to huge upsurges in the consumption of drugs. The proponents of legalisation have then calculated that a smaller percentage of deaths from AIDS and overdoses has occurred.
Nor would an anti-prohibition policy solve the problem of new synthetic drugs, which would exert constant pressure for the legalisation and controlled administration of new substances.
The European Union must not adopt a policy which amounts to resigning itself to a society compelled to live with drugs, and merely trying to limit the damage they do.
On the contrary, it must step up its action and boost its resources, targeting them at prevention and assistance for welfare and health bodies, the rehabilitation of drug addicts, exchanges of information between Member States and the harmonisation of statistical and scientific reporting systems.
Positive action should above all be focused on young people, so as to reduce the demand for drugs, improve social conditions, and combat marginalisation and unemployment.
For these reasons we ask you to vote against the d'Ancona report.
Since the start of our parliamentary year, we have on many occasions considered the problems linked to the use of drugs.
Today we are dealing with an essential point: cooperation in the fight against drugs.
Experiments have been carried out for over 30 years, the results of which are well known.
These results must be widely circulated whenever possible or they must lead to additional experiments.
Currently, this cannot be sufficiently achieved or is not being sufficiently achieved.
The cooperation needed in this respect must be better planned.
We have an instrument for this in the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
It is up to us to intensify its research and monitoring work.
I can therefore approve the d'Ancona report, given that it develops these aspects.
I must, however, indicate my disagreement with two other subjects contained in this report.
The d'Ancona report cannot be blamed for wishing to link drug problems to poverty and unemployment.
However, a failure to take this analysis further would be rather simplistic.
Everyone knows that the levels of drug use do not necessarily go hand in hand with those of unemployment.
The other criticism I have of this report is the weakness of its arguments when repeating that we are overwhelmingly in favour of a drug-free society.
With the exception of the two reservations just mentioned, I consider that the d'Ancona report is heading in the right direction: that of cooperation in order to solve one of the most crucial problems facing us at the end of this century.
There is a clear contradiction between parts A and B of the report.
The proposal for a recommendation B4-1238/96 is extremely dangerous.
It might have been written by a clever lobby of drug traffickers if it had not been different.
It is based on recital C, which indicates the failure of repressive policies.
This is not true.
The policy against drug trafficking, as conducted in Singapore, is apparently producing excellent results.
The report complains that the current policies restrict individual freedoms - on page 17 - although it is obvious that the repression of illegal trade is always going to restrict freedoms.
There must therefore be a balance between freedoms and the authority responsible for protecting human beings.
To forbid the freedom to kill someone by drugs is perfectly legal!
The policy of decriminalising and demarginalising the use of drugs and the 'controlled distribution of heroin' would profit only the traffickers, as indicated by the former head of Interpol, Car Persson.
It is a disgrace to this Parliament that this report could have been put on the agenda of a plenary session.
Is there any point to Mrs d'Ancona's report on European cooperation in the framework of the UN General Assembly special session on drugs? This question may be asked on two counts, firstly because this text is an ambiguous compromise and secondly because the UN General Assembly special session on drugs took place last June and the idea, therefore, of adopting this report in October makes little sense.
The text before us actually says very little because attitudes on this subject are basically irreconcilable. This, incidentally, is what caused the first draft report to be returned to the committee.
While it is positive that the report asks the Member States to 'acknowledge that the aim of anti-drugs efforts is a drug-free society', it is to be regretted that the explanatory statement has little coherence with the actual text of the recommendation.
In fact, this explanatory statement is marked by the spirit of the first d'Ancona report and is couched in terms which are definitely not neutral.
Thus it talks of a more restrictive or more repressive approach, involving policies which ban the sale and use of narcotic drugs, and of more pragmatic approaches, with policies of liberalising narcotic drugs.
The whole explanatory statement therefore tries, without saying as much, to push forward the idea that the future, imagination and realism recommend the liberalisation of the so-called soft drugs, whereas prohibition measures would be repressive and archaic.
These are the reasons why we cannot vote for this report, the ambiguity of which clearly has an ulterior motive.
Drugs are one of the main scourges which our societies must face today as they represent approximately 8 % of world trade.
The drugs problem must be tackled with a comprehensive approach, guaranteeing our efforts both in the context of prevention and also through medical treatment and social measures.
Mrs d'Ancona stresses in her report that the decriminalisation of cannabis and the supply of drugs on medical prescription must not be identified, as the Council is doing, as the opposite of the repression of the illegal traffic in narcotic drugs.
The two approaches are not mutually exclusive!
Moreover, in this respect, the European Parliament approved a resolution three years ago which underlined that a policy of complete repression had not produced any tangible results.
Next June, during the UN General Assembly special session on drugs, we must be united.
Despite the rather different approaches of the European Union countries, the various national laws are gradually moving towards each other.
As underlined by the rapporteur, I am convinced that we must base our European drugs policy on the success of local experiments and that we must develop strategies of cooperation.
Having been referred back to committee, the d'Ancona report on European drugs policy has emerged looking considerably more balanced.
We now have a set of recommendations on how to prevent drug abuse and the calls for liberalisation have gone.
The adoption of two of the rapporteur's own amendments, however, means that there is no longer any reference to the aim of creating a drug-free society, nor are the Member States expressly called upon to comply with the UN conventions.
Two important elements from our point of view have been dropped and we therefore find ourselves obliged to vote against the report. Policy goals are not clearly stated and the wording in places lends itself to ambiguity.
I am pleased that this report by our colleague can finally be discussed in plenary sitting.
It has taken five months of patience and relentless consultations on the part of our rapporteur to arrive at this consensus resolution, which will hopefully gain the approval of the House.
I am unreservedly in favour of establishing and recognising experiments carried out locally, as in my commune we have been supporting for years the associations fighting against drug addiction and tackling the drugs phenomenon from the medical and social perspectives.
It is now accepted that a purely repressive policy has not brought any progress in the fight against drug addiction.
Let us therefore allow the people 'on the ground' to put their ideas into practice, according to the local situations. And we should surely help them, in successful cases, to disseminate their methods.
This is the role which the European Union ought to play.
This is what our Member States should agree to support, at international level, by granting the European Commission a Community negotiating mandate for the United Nations Conference - with this mandate based on a pragmatic approach to the drugs problem - and, at national level, by implementing an urban policy able to assist the anti-drugs policies developed locally.
This is what Mrs d'Ancona's report demands, and that is why I voted for it without any qualms.
Illegal drugs are one of the scourges afflicting our societies and also one of the most tempting sources of illegal profits.
As stated by our rapporteur, this problem has many causes: pursuit of profit, social impoverishment and marginalisation, and also curiosity, prosperity and fashionable trends.
The fight against illegal drugs must therefore be undertaken within a comprehensive approach which combines sectors of action as diverse as the information and education of young people, the transformation of objective socio-economic conditions which contribute to the development of drug addiction in all its forms, assistance for drug addicts, the fight against traffickers and money laundering, and the economic and social development of the producing countries.
Everyone knows how crucial and burning this issue is, with the partisans of prohibition and the tenants of an 'alternative policy' often poles apart.
We must now advance beyond this fruitless debate and concentrate on how to implement, as effectively as possible, the conclusions of the UN General Assembly special session on international cooperation in the fight against drugs which was held in June.
This is even more important now as it is clear to everyone that the eradication of illegal drugs - which must be our common aim - requires, more than anything else, close international cooperation, particularly in the areas which are wanting, highlighted by the UN special session: reduction of production and demand by 2003 and international legal cooperation in its various forms.
If we are at long last to talk meaningfully and realistically about one of our century's worst scourges, drugs, we must first decide to remove the narcotic gag of hypocrisy, wishful thinking, embellishment and cover-up from the mouth of tragic truth.
Dilemmas such as whether or not to legalise hard and soft drugs are disorienting, dangerous and false, because reality is always harsh, both for drug users and for society, which always ends up paying the high price.
Thousands of people, most of them young, are dying each year as the result of drug abuse.
Every day, tens of thousands of people lose their dignity, personality and basic identity and fall victims to the cure-all 'fix' that shields them from the problems they face.
It is those problems which are the first and greatest cause of drug dealing, and the ones to blame are those who bear a heavy responsibility for creating them, those who then shed crocodile tears about the extent of the problem and how difficult it is to deal with it; the policies which create conditions of occupational, social and emotional insecurity and marginalisation, which have corrupted values and created decadent societies; the modern capitalist societies you are so proud about that you amplify their main characteristics every day - the pursuit of profit, the prevalence of the laws of the jungle in the markets, the devaluation of man and the deification of money; a system incapable of creating real and earthly paradises which leads to wretchedness, personal and social isolation and the quest for false avenues of escape and paradises via drugs.
The capitalist system will never solve the drugs problem, not just because it is the inherent cause of its existence, but mainly because it is both served and nourished by the problem.
It numbs the conscience, reactions and resistance, it absorbs the emotional, existential shocks and dreams of certain specific social groups, mainly the young.
'Escape' gives life to the establishment and is the best possible safety valve for the smooth and untroubled operation of its markets.
Let us not deceive ourselves: apart from anything else, the drug market deals in vast sums of money, supports governments and 'adjusts' markets.
We cannot, however, remain indifferent and inactive to this gangrene, nor to the ineffectiveness of our policies so far.
Large-scale organised crime must be attacked, and we must expose the links between the various forms of authority which provide what is drug trafficking in name alone with all the protection it needs for the transfer and 'laundering' of the huge sums of dirty money it deals in.
The most substantive approach to preventing and dealing with the problem is the struggle to create a different society, one centred upon man, in which man's values and dreams will not be subject to the fluctuations and crises of the money markets - a society to which people have access and in which they can participate, and one which respects personalities and creativity.
I voted for this report as did most Labour MEPs because I feel that in this highly charged and controversial area, the rapporteur has achieved in her resolution a good, balanced approach.
It proposes greater coordination and cooperation between Member States in dealing with the serious problem of the escalating use of illegal drugs, whilst recognizing that - with the current divergences of view in the policies adopted by different countries - full harmonization is not practicable at the present time.
There are many good, sensible proposals contained in the resolution for expanding education about and awareness of the dangers of drug taking - especially amongst young people - and on the health treatment and care of addicts.
Also practical suggestions for improving EU cooperation in apprehending and prosecuting drug dealers and for seeking support from the authorities and people of those countries which are the main sources of illegal drugs.
This resolution is certainly not soft on drugs.
It embodies tough - but practical and realistic - proposals for tackling this worrying problem.
The tenor of the drugs debate in the European Parliament clearly demonstrates that harmonised legislation is not feasible. Nor do we consider it desirable.
Amendment No 3, which calls upon the Council to confirm that drugs legislation should be handled at national level, therefore determined our decision on the final vote.
I welcome this report from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs of the European Parliament which highlights the dangers of synthetic drugs in society and the need to fight organised crime in drug trafficking.
Synthetic drugs such as ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines are dangers to the public health of the people of the EU and I am happy to see that the vast majority of Members in the European Parliament recognises this fact.
Our young people simply do not know the long-term physical and psychological effects of the use of these dangerous and addictive drugs and more research is required into the effects of the use of such substances.
Some members of the Green group of the European Parliament had previously tabled draft amendments defining users of synthetic drugs as only consumers and endeavouring to have the use of synthetic drugs regulated and legalised.
We must remember that the UN Convention against illicit traffic in narcotic drugs prohibits the use, manufacture and distribution of ecstasy, LSD and amphetamines and that is the way it should remain.
While most European governments including the Irish Government are trying to implement policies which have the objective of reducing drug use, some members of the Green group of the European Parliament are promoting policies which clearly have the effect of increasing drug use with its resulting social problems.
I would like to welcome the fact that the Irish Government has set up a young people's facilities and services fund at a cost of £30 million which was put in place earlier this year.
The purpose of this fund is to develop youth facilities including sport and recreational facilities and services in disadvantaged areas where significant drug problems exist.
The Irish Government is also correct to take a tough line with those people who try to sell drugs in Ireland.
I fully support the provisions of the Criminal Justice Bill 1997 which introduces mandatory prison sentences for those caught in possession of controlled drugs valued at £10 000 or more.
We find it rather strange that Parliament should reject Amendment No 4, which argues that the development of new strategies to combat drugs should be in line with the UN's drugs conventions of 1961, 1971 and 1988.
The European Parliament has also said no to cooperating with UNDCP and the Member States in establishing evaluation indicators. The view seems to be that EMCDDA and other European bodies are sufficient.
We have sadly come to doubt the European Parliament's willingness to cooperate within the spirit of the UN and to work with its institutions.
It is both shocking and distressing that a sizeable majority should have voted against Amendment No 3, which sought assurances that no Treaty provisions would be used to force Member States to harmonise their drugs legislation.
Given the way it voted on Amendment No 10, it is also clear that Parliament has no interest in learning from those countries that have been implementing restrictive policies.
Priority is instead given to preventive action.
For some inexplicable reason, the principle that the goal of treatment and care should be to promote a drug-free life was also rejected.
This is particularly lamentable and we look ahead with concern and trepidation to Mrs d'Ancona's next report, which will deal with the EU's drugs policy for the years 2000-2006.
For these reasons we voted against the report.
I would like to begin my comments by commending the Irish police and all the Irish state agencies involved in their unenviable task of defeating illegal drug circulation in Ireland as well as assisting drug users in rehabilitation programmes.
There is a drugs problem in Ireland.
While the main drug circulated in Ireland is cannabis, the most serious problems relating to drug abuse are associated with heroin, ecstasy and other drugs such as LSD.
In fact the use of ecstasy is very much on the increase.
In Ireland, in 1991, there were 429 ecstasy tablets seized compared to 17 516 tablets in 1997.
The 1997 Annual Report on the state of the drugs problem in the European Union, published by the European Monitoring Centre for drugs and drug addiction, points out that the upward trend in the number of drug-related deaths has continued in Ireland.
In fact, the report indicates that 4 out of 10 Irish school-going teenagers admit that they have used cannabis, which is twice the average in most EU states.
I would like to briefly turn to comment on a few of the measures which the Irish Government is taking to address the rising drug problem in Ireland.
A multi-agency approach, involving the Department of Health and Children, Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Environment and Local Government and Education and Science and their respective agencies have been identified by the government as providing the best possible framework to deal with the drugs problem in Ireland.
I fully agree with this strategy because the need for a coordinated approach is especially apparent to those charged with law enforcement.
The connection between drug dealing, drug addiction and crime is well established.
Measures to improve the EU response to the drugs problem have continued through the activities of the Horizontal Drugs Group.
A key part of this work has been the development of a post-1999 EU drugs strategy and the elaboration of priorities for the period 1998/1999.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is another important element in the EU's fight against drug trafficking and organised crime.
It sets out a more specific mandate for closer cooperation between police forces, customs authorities and other law enforcement agencies within the European Union, which is also to be welcomed.
The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the d'Ancona report on European cooperation in the framework of the UN General Assembly special session on drugs.
Legislation on drugs varies considerably from one Member State to another.
We should therefore not under any circumstances try to harmonise the Member States' legislation in this field.
At Community level we must have practical cooperation under which effective action can be taken against organised crime, which is smuggling and selling drugs across frontiers on a grand scale.
Beyond that it is up to the Member States to lay down national policy on drugs.
That should of course not prevent us learning from each other's experiences, both good and bad.
Common drugs legislation at EU level is neither appropriate nor desirable.
The report on drugs contains many positive and good elements.
It is important in gaining an understanding of and in any work on drug addiction to focus on the individual's social conditions and marginalisation in society.
To believe that it is possible to achieve a completely drug-free society is utopian.
It is therefore crucial to focus efforts on prevention and treatment.
However, we think that drugs legislation is a national matter; it is thus not desirable, let alone possible, to force the Member States to harmonise their drugs policies.
We cannot therefore vote for the final report, since it does not accommodate this view.
The d'Ancona report makes a large number of positive recommendations which would be of enormous use in the fight against drugs.
I strongly support the emphasis on prevention and on providing better treatment facilities for addicts.
I also welcome the fact that a recommendation in an earlier draft, suggesting that more consideration be given to legalisation of some drugs, has been dropped.
The main thrust of the recommendations has received qualified support from organisations in Dublin working on the drugs problem.
Europe must work towards trying to achieve a drug-free society.
Too many people are consigned to a lifetime of drug use - even if prescribed and under supervision.
Methadone, according to recent research, is not the panacea for controlling or treating the problem.
A higher profile should be given to drug-free lifestyles and to treatments and rehabilitation programmes that work towards this aim.
I also want to see the EU acknowledging and directly supporting the role of local communities in combating the drugs problem, particularly in relation to community and family support systems to cope with the consequences of drug addiction on the health of the family as well as on the individual.
Europe must also actively support treatment and rehabilitation programmes relevant to community needs.
This is a unequal struggle.
In comparison to the astronomical profits of drug traffickers, the funds available to those who seek to oppose them are laughable.
The uncontrolled expansion of synthetic drugs, which are manufactured close to consumers, has further complicated the task.
Police and judicial resources may be increased; Legislation may be harmonised; People may have illusions about the liberalisation of consumption; Any number of conventions may be signed; Money laundering may be more heavily sanctioned; Drug plantations may be bombed; Armies may be mobilised; All this may be done!
But the frontline of the fight against drug trafficking and drug addiction is called PREVENTION, and the FAMILY, SCHOOLS and LOCAL COMMUNITIES are the ones who implement it.
Education within the family and at school are essential.
A family that is well-informed and a school that provides information are half the battle in preparing young people for their first inevitable contact with drugs and in helping them to resist the attraction of instant pleasure and easy profit.
For this reason we strongly support recommendations 15 and 17 of this proposal.
But we also believe that, where prevention is concerned, the strategic field of battle lies in each municipality, in each local community.
Who is more familiar with the tragic dimension of the problems caused by drug addiction than family and neighbours? Who is better placed to notice the sudden affluence of some and the physical and moral degeneration of others?
The local COUNCILS, in direct partnership with FAMILIES and SCHOOLS, have a decisive role and should receive ample financial and technical support from the European Union and the Member States.
MUNICIPAL PLANS TO PREVENT DRUG ADDICTION must be drawn up.
Information must be disseminated; help must be provided for those who need it; the phenomenon must be studied in the context of each community; young people must be given leisure and activity facilities; rehabilitation and social and professional reintegration centres must be built for drug addicts.
Another aspect that should be dealt with in this proposal relates to cooperation with the management of night entertainment centres to implement joint prevention and suppression measures. They have no interest in a low-income clientele of drug addicts who spend their money on drugs and merely parade the effects of their addiction.
Drug dependence is the direct cause of much of the unhappiness which torments our families, feeding insecurity and violence, dragging human dignity down to unimaginable depths.
It is our duty as citizens and as people with political responsibility to take an active part in this struggle.
The danger is upon us.
We hope that the Council is equal to assuming its responsibility because, as the Portuguese anti-drug campaign states, 'drugs are the end'.
The series of recommendations contained in the d'Ancona report certainly demonstrate a very positive endeavour to seek consensus on the issue of combating drugs.
Indeed, the connection between the drug addiction phenomenon and the social causes which are largely to blame, be they unemployment, poverty or social exclusion, is an important aspect of this report.
So is the need to tackle dependence as a public health issue and to deal with the whole question of prevention, treatment and recovery, while simultaneously warning of the need to increase the budget of the Community and of Member States to deal with these matters.
Other positive recommendations are those which warn against concentrating on the role of the police in combating drug addiction, and those which advocate a greater focus on the aspects of education and prevention, on awareness-raising and information campaigns and on the need to enhance cooperation between the Member States and within international organisation s with a view to coordinating activities, carrying out research, harmonizing statistics and making them compatible.
However, the report falls far short of what would be desirable and possible in the area of combating drug trafficking and money laundering.
Only one of the 27 recommendations deals with this important (and decisive) dimension of the fight against drugs.
No explicit mention whatsoever is made of tax havens; no explicit mention is made of financial havens; no mention is made of the need to consider, therefore, the possibility of lifting banking secrecy; nothing is said about the ramifications of the euro in facilitating money laundering.
It was because of these fundamental shortcomings, which mean that the report fails to deal with a decisive element in the fight against drugs, that we abstained.
Yesterday's debate and today's vote on Mrs d'Ancona's report on drugs is a victory for common sense.
United, this House can achieve a very great deal; divided, it is without influence.
On a subject as sensitive as drugs abuse, where very different points of view exist, not everybody could have their way.
What has resulted is a sensible, human and positive report.
We have emphasised the importance of cooperation at all levels.
We have stressed the need to learn from one another.
We have asked that both the European Drugs Monitoring Centre in Lisbon and Europol should be made full use of, and that Member States must fully cooperate in providing adequate and meaningful information.
We are happy that Parliament has been able to vote clearly for helping youngsters to lead a drug-free life and that we have supported the upholding of the United Nations drugs conventions.
Both are essential if we are to have effective policies for helping young people to stay off drugs and for tackling drugs traffickers and their accomplices.
In conclusion, I am glad that my Group has been able to support this report.
The erratic course of the Ancona report which is once more before the House, in a more coherent but much weaker version, reveals the disorientation in the minds of politicians which in turn accounts for the disparities between national drugs policies.
And the problem is that as long as the battle to achieve harmonisation of national legislation based on common indicators is not won within the European Union, traffickers will continue to grow rich and the toll of young victims will continue to increase.
Combating drugs relies, primarily, on three types of positive measures: information/prevention (for the general public), reduction of risks and recovery (for drug addicts) and support for producer countries (to grow alternative crops).
Police clampdowns are just a marginal aspect in comparison to the main issue and, have hitherto served merely as an 'aspirin' which relieves the problem but does not solve it.
Such clampdowns attack traffickers but do not eliminate them, and indeed goad them to outdo themselves, as is apparent in the growing volume of business, the low prices of products and the appearance of new drugs that are now produced on our doorstep.
Unfortunately, we now have sufficient evidence that implementing United Nations conventions is actually counterproductive.
And sufficient experience exists in a number of Member States to show that the only course is to change priorities in combating drugs.
The need now is to change policy and to boost or, rather, to rechannel and concentrate resources.
It would appear that fairer winds are now blowing in Portugal, judging by the report that was submitted this week to the government.
On a number of previous occasions, Portugal has pioneered new legislation, having been the first to abolish capital punishment and, more recently, with its 'family laws'. It is my hope now that my government will heed these winds and set a course in the right direction.
I regret that I must abstain from voting on this very important topic, but I consider that the Parliament has not succeeded in reflecting the urgency of the situation in its text.
What will it take to wake Europe up?
Bontempi report (A4-0285/98)
Corruption must be fought tooth and nail, but there are limits to how far one should go when it comes to choosing the way to do it, for we run the risk of giving the EU more tools to extend its powers than it already has at present.
The Bontempi report on corruption has some good things to say on such aspects as openness and the damage corruption does to the public.
At the same time it talks of 'centralised registers' and 'specialised units' to be set up in the Commission's Directorates-General, and it calls on the Commission '... once the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force - to make immediate use of its right of initiative in the field of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters...'.
The Danish June Movement will not be party to the writing of such a blank cheque for centralisation.
Among the good things in the report, Parliament draws attention to the need for the EU to combat corruption within its own system.
It refers in particular to the Commission and points out that the rules which are there to ensure openness are insufficient.
The report rightly points out that there is a problem for the individual citizen when corruption takes place.
Every time, for example in a tendering procedure to decide which firm should get a contract, that a firm is selected on the basis of corruption rather than on a factual assessment of the firm's tender, our citizens are damaged.
In such cases, taxpayers' money is not used to obtain the best quality, safeguard environmental interests in the best possible way and get the work done at least cost, instead it disappears into the pocket of the staff member who has been bribed by a firm to ensure that the order is placed with that firm.
It is a situation which should be avoided.
But it is also a situation that can arise more easily when the office authorised to place contracts or select firms submitting tenders is part of a large, impenetrable and bureaucratic system.
The EU is just such a system.
Rather than react to the problems by introducing further centralisation, some of these contracting and selection procedures should revert to the countries themselves.
A single language and press and the fact that each country in isolation makes up a smaller unit than the EU will make it easier to maintain democratic control over money that is used on the citizen's behalf.
If there is an area where the sensitivity of European citizens is particularly acute, it is corruption.
Together with expectations which are never met of social Europe, tax harmonisation and democratisation of the Union, the revelation of cases of corruption - with those occurring within the European institutions being at the top of the list - causes feelings of rejection which are extremely damaging to European integration and from which the extreme right profits.
The Bontempi report has the merit of establishing the broad outlines of a comprehensive anti-corruption policy, and I congratulate its author for having attempted this integrated and coherent approach which is the only one likely to succeed.
However, at the same time as implementing measures aimed at reducing corruption at international level, both inside and outside the frontiers of the Union, I feel it is both useful and imperative that, as a priority, Europe reinforces the fight against corruption within its own institutions by using firm and visible measures encompassing prevention, detection through increased controls and sanctions for all forms of corruption committed by natural or legal persons.
This is of prime importance.
On the one hand, how can we give lessons to others and be credible without first washing our own dirty linen in public? And on the other, for about ten years, too many allegations have been repeatedly made without the Commission reacting in a convincing way.
In this area of the fight against corruption, citizens keen on democracy demand transparency.
Setting up a central office for fighting corruption, as the report requests, is not enough; it should also be insisted that cases of corruption are brought out into the open - for example by means of communications to the European Parliament - as well as the administrative, civil and disciplinary sanctions arising from these cases.
As with all European texts, this transparency must apply to the decision-making processes, to the simplification of the law and also to the financial situation of anyone - including MEPs - who occupies a post open to corruption.
It is also essential for these people, officials in particular, to undertake special training enabling them to be fully informed about the different types of corruption and the means to effectively combat these.
Furthermore, a close link must be established between the report before us and the Bösch report which we are also considering at this part-session.
The latter concerns the independence, role and status of the Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention, UCLAF.
This report requests the replacement of UCLAF with an anti-fraud office - OLAF - whose jurisdiction would extend to all the European institutions and which would be supervised by a supervisory body appointed by the European Parliament in agreement with the other institutions.
These two reports closely complement each other even though certain points should be dealt with in more depth, such as what is meant by the 'independence' of OLAF.
In my opinion, this body cannot become a new Community institution, which would involve a revision of the Treaties.
While remaining within the Commission, OLAF should enjoy broader independence, guaranteed initially by the choice of its supervisory body.
Tax fraud, money laundering, organised crime and international crime have found extraordinary scope for development in the liberalisation of trade and the globalisation of economic activity.
For those engaging in these activities, which are as lucrative as they are criminal, corruption is clearly one of the favoured means of action, both in the public and the private sector.
Recent events have shown how our countries and our institutions are also to a greater or lesser extent affected by this world phenomenon.
The need is clear for the Commission to follow a decisive initiative, within its terms of reference, in the fight against corruption.
The challenge is a fundamental one.
We should make no mistake about it: democracy, the rule of law and corruption are incompatible.
The development of one necessarily leads to the perversion and then the destruction of the others.
The fight against corruption must therefore be one of the priorities of the European institutions and of our states.
Legal and cultural differences are clearly so important in this respect that it would for the moment be unrealistic to set the objective of achieving legislation which is identical in all points in all the Member States.
It is therefore right that the Commission is proposing to proceed gradually and to concentrate for now on simplifying the concepts and approximating the laws of the Member States.
In making this joint effort, it is also the responsibility of the Member States to eliminate, as quickly as possible, the most shocking aspects of their laws, particularly those which tolerate or encourage corrupt acts in other states, and to rapidly formalise the undertakings to which they have already agreed.
The Commission cannot wage the battle against corruption on its own, or assisted by an internal structure such as UCLAF.
If we are to prevent corruption and fight fraud, one necessary condition is that every citizen and every journalist should be in a position to find out what is going on within the Commission and the other EU institutions.
We therefore need a fully-fledged system of open government in order to halt corruption.
The risk of internal fraud will be drastically reduced once EU officials know that their activities can be investigated by anyone, and not just by a handful of colleagues from their own institutions.
The ECHO case illustrates the need for measures to combat the kind of fraudulent practices that are patently rife inside the EU system.
The manner in which the Commission has tried to put a lid on the issue, refusing to come forward with information on what has been happening, demonstrates that it has confidence neither in the competent supervisory authorities, i.e. the European Parliament and its Committee on Budgetary Control, nor in the public at large.
A sorry pass has been reached when an organisation indulges in self-protection of this kind.
The report talks about 'debureaucratisation', but it is not clear what is meant by this.
If we are truly to cut red tape, we must set about it in the right way.
There has to be a proper system of record-keeping in place when taxpayers' money is at stake, or when public calls for tender are launched, so as to avoid the 'disappearance' of sensitive documents. On the other hand, in-house monitoring - checking to whom officials say what - is indeed unnecessary bureaucracy.
Employer-employee solidarity is not achieved by means of submission and obedience, but through an open debate about what needs to be changed.
The Bontempi report covers a very relevant and serious subject which is a scourge the world over, namely corruption.
The problem of corruption is, as the Bontempi report points out, one that also affects the EU's Member States and, not least, the EU's institutions.
The question is then how that scourge is to be combated.
There is no doubt that, with the globalisation of economies, the problem is spreading its tentacles across national frontiers.
But the view taken by the Bontempi report that the first duty of the individual Member States and the individual EU institutions is to put their own house in order when it comes to combating corruption in their own ranks is entirely correct.
If the EU Member States and the EU's institutions do not take their responsibility absolutely seriously and honour the range of initiatives and conventions that have been adopted in the field internationally over the years, even the best declarations at EU level have no value.
A combined strategy for the EU to combat corruption is not relevant in my view as long as the Member States fail to honour the commitments they have already entered into.
The arguments of the Bontempi report for more centralised arrangements at EU level to combat corruption, including a central body for the purpose, mean that I cannot support the report, despite the good elements it contains.
The political and technical anti-fraud measures proposed here are sound, and I therefore voted in favour of the report.
The introduction of a system of open government, with protection for those providing information, would however constitute the single most significant step towards combating fraud.
If all EU documents were to be made public as a matter of principle, and the right to inform the media were properly enshrined, then instances of corruption and deception would be more easily uncovered and we would have less of a problem.
Langen report (A4-0304/98)
The European Commission has just published a communication pompously entitled 'Impact of the changeover to the euro on Community policies, institutions and legislation'.
Contrary to the impression given by the title, the communication contains no comprehensive analysis of the impact of the euro on the development of European integration, but only a list of the legal amendments required in various technical areas such as the budget, agricultural policy or administrative expenditure.
The Commission and the European Parliament are taking this opportunity to congratulate themselves on the 'considerable simplification' which the euro should bring.
Certainly, everyone is firmly persuaded that monetary union may make the management of Community finances, or subsidies, simpler than with 15 national currencies.
However, the real question is not whether the euro will facilitate the life of European officials, but whether this will facilitate the life of the citizens of the Member States.
Viewed from this essential angle, we have extremely serious misgivings.
Leaving aside the question of the transition and adaptation problems, I would simply point out that the imposition of a single currency on countries in different situations will cause major lasting problems of conciliation, generating incessant conflicts and likely in the end to divide Europe.
The President of the European Central Bank, Mr Wim Duisenberg, confessed to us, at the meeting of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of 22 September, that the establishment of a monetary strategy was proving to be more complex than he had previously anticipated.
And this is the real crux of the matter: in simplifying internal exchanges, the euro will complicate all other exchanges and even make them matters of conflict.
In the end, Europe will have been the victim of an optical illusion which will have led it down the road to ruin.
The introduction of the euro will have overall positive effects for the whole zone.
Nevertheless, it is interesting to look in more detail at more specific sectors in order to assess its effects.
The Langen report, therefore, following the example of the communication from the Commission, targets three sectors in particular: the Community budget, the agrimonetary arrangements and administrative expenditure.
With regard to the Community budget, the introduction of the euro will result in considerable simplification.
In fact, the Member States' contributions are currently paid in national currency and then have to be converted into ECU.
Part of the Community expenditure uses national currency, in particular agricultural expenditure which constitutes the largest part of the expenditure of the European Union. The rest of the expenditure is in ECU.
The departments responsible for finance must therefore buy ECU on the free market, with all the inherent exchange-rate risks.
It is clear that, with the euro, the exchange-rate risk will be eliminated as expenditure and income will be in a single currency without any conversion being necessary.
In respect of the CAP, agricultural prices are set in a unit of account which is based on the ECU.
This means that, in the event of a devaluation or revaluation, agricultural prices are directly affected, leading to considerable variations in the agricultural income of the Member States affected by these exchange-rate fluctuations.
In order to cancel out these effects, agricultural prices must be converted through the EAGGF.
With the introduction of the euro, these problems will disappear as prices and amounts will no longer have to be converted, and the fear of trade distortion will automatically disappear.
On the other hand, the problem will remain for the four Member States outside the euro zone, which will then be obliged to convert prices and amounts into the euro, under the scheme established by the CAP.
The introduction of the euro will also positively affect the sector of administrative expenditure.
This expenditure is at present incurred in national currency.
The salaries of officials, calculated in ECU but paid in national currency, obviously must remain constant.
This involves adjustments and sometimes greater costs due to the exchange-rate variations.
In fact, the budget expenditure in ECU varies every month.
With the euro, these variations will disappear.
Since Mr Langen's report gives a good assessment of the impact of the introduction of the euro on these various sectors, I have voted in favour of it today.
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the Langen report today.
This should not be taken as signal indicating a change in the Social Democrats' policy of reserving our position with regard to the third stage of EMU, but as a statement of our keen interest in what happens in this area, despite the fact that we are not participating in the third stage.
It should of course be borne in mind that the countries which are not participating in the third stage of EMU will still need exchange rates.
The euro will have consequences, primarily on Community legislation: 4 000 Community acts will have to be amended to take account of the change in unit.
When you consider that, in the laws of the Member States, all the monetary references in tax, criminal, commercial, social and other codes will also have to be altered, the extent of the administrative and other costs involved in carrying out these simple legislative adjustments can be appreciated.
Certainly, for the European institutions, the euro may lead to a reduction of the costs of budget management, since 56 % of Community payments which are currently converted into national currency will remain in the euro, hence the disappearance of the exchange-rate risk.
The euro may also give an advantage in the agricultural sector by allowing the agrimonetary conversion arrangements to be abolished. These each year cost between ECU 1 000 and 1 500 million.
We also believe that the payment of the salaries of 30 000 officials, of which 90 % work in Brussels and Luxembourg, will be simplified.
There will be no more payments in the national currency of the country of employment, which is currently the case for 76 % of the ECU 2 700 million in administrative expenditure.
In respect of salaries and pensions, the administrative burden will be partly lifted.
But this is not the most important point.
In addition to the IT and administrative costs, the euro will accelerate competition between the 11 participating economies.
In order to adapt to this, undertakings must therefore cut their costs, leading to a reduction in pay, social protection and jobs.
This will lead to euro-unemployment, euro-rationing of investments and welfare and also euro-inflation, because traders will round prices upwards.
But there is even worse to come.
In a Europe with a large population of senior citizens spread over several generations, everyone over 65 years of age will have their internal money clocks disrupted.
The oldest and weakest in our societies will fall victim to increased fraud, due to pensions, for example, being paid in a currency unit which the majority of the elderly may no longer be able to take on board.
It would have been so much simpler to have an intelligent euro by making this a reasonable common currency instead of this single dogmatic currency.
It is not even certain that, at the end of day, the euro will be as effective as expected in a globalised market whose finances are destabilised.
Even before being introduced, the euro has been shown not to be up to the basic problem: the limitations of the IMF, the international financial chaos and the money dumping carried out by the dollar.
As with federal Europe itself, the single European currency is perhaps the light of a star which has already faded, given that globalisation and internationalisation have happened so quickly - more quickly anyway than the construction of a federal Europe.
So much so that, in the final analysis, the nation states themselves are revealed to be the only ones able to protect the people and their freedoms as required.
I share the optimism concerning the introduction of the euro as a single currency in Europe: its entry into the marketplace will facilitate the implementation of Community policies and help the European institutions to operate more efficiently and effectively.
The advantages of the euro for agricultural policy are also obvious: its introduction from 1 January 1999 will facilitate trade in all products, including agricultural ones.
Indeed, the advent of the euro will coincide in that sector with a new, radically simplified agrimonetary regime, whereby the 'green rates' - used to convert agricultural aid and prices established in ECU into national currency - will disappear altogether.
Here, however, transitional measures are required to soften the adverse impact of the new agro-monetary system, in that farmers will no longer be compensated for the negative effects of exchange rates.
Finally, I too am optimistic that the euro will have a positive effect on the drawing-up of the Community budget, as well as on Community staff management. Salaries and pensions will be calculated on a constant basis, no longer subject to the vagaries of exchange rates.
That concludes the votes.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.28 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
UCLAF
The next item is the report (A4-0297/98) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on UCLAF's independence; sound financial management and administration; opposing irregularities, fraud, corruption (Court of Auditors' Special Report 8/98) (C4-0483/98).
I should like to welcome the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, together with Commissioners Liikanen and Gradin, and first give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Bösch.
Mr President, we must not lose sight of the fact that we are concerned today not specifically with the Commission's position on ECHO, on tourism, on instances of corruption inside the Commission or other European institutions in general.
The purpose of this debate is to consider the report of the Court of Auditors which highlights a number of serious shortcomings in the functioning of UCLAF.
But at the same time, the Court of Auditors' report makes the point that over 80 % of European Union money is spent in the Member States and that scrutiny of that spending depends very largely on the willingness of Member States to cooperate with UCLAF.
So far it has gone well, so we must not throw out things which are working well just because we have no better alternatives.
Mr Bösch has just presented his report and I think we are totally in agreement on a number of essential points.
The Socialist Group too is resolutely opposed to fraud and corruption both in general and in the institutions - where there is much room for improvement.
We agree too that for a number of reasons UCLAF is not adequately equipped to do its work, that one of the shortcomings is that it is not sufficiently autonomous.
UCLAF must be given greater independence.
But there are differing views on that, namely on how this should be achieved.
My group applies a number of principles in considering how we can counter fraud more effectively and make UCLAF more independent.
I think it is a pity that the Commission President skated round this a little.
First of all the Commission is the guardian of the Treaties.
That task is conferred on it by the Treaties and it has a duty to fulfil it.
The Commission also has responsibility for implementing the budget.
The European Parliament's role is nothing less than to exercise scrutiny of the Commission and it can rap the Commission over the knuckles, as we are doing now, if it fails to discharge its responsibilities.
I believe that a new institution, separate from the Commission, requires a Treaty amendment, the procedures for which are set out in the Treaties themselves.
Also, there are a number of institutional issues which arise over the combating of fraud and corruption. The combating of fraud and corruption is only partly a Community matter.
Most of the law-making and action in this area is decided on in intergovernmental cooperation under the third pillar.
And in the short term it is unlikely that Member States will be willing - I find it regrettable, but they are not - to set up a European Public Prosecution Service or a European criminal law area.
So we cannot expect an institution or unit responsible at European level for anti-fraud measures - to the extent that such powers exist at that level - to be able to do much more than collect and analyse information and cooperate with national authorities in the detection of fraud.
Because of these principles and the complications I must, on behalf of my group, reject Mr Bösch's proposed solution of a new institution, separate from the Commission or semi-linked to the Commission, because any new institution of this kind will necessitate a Treaty amendment or a treaty under the third pillar.
Amending the Treaties is not an option, Mr President. A treaty under the third pillar invites the question, to whom is that institution to be politically accountable?
Even after Amsterdam, the European Parliament has no powers in this area.
A treaty under the third pillar would also have the drawback of inadequate legal safeguards for individuals, given that the powers of the Court are limited.
In short, there would be the danger of a legal and/or a political vacuum.
But a fully independent OLAF or Anti-Fraud Office, semi-linked to the Commission, is not the answer either.
It is a contradiction in terms, or at any rate would be a total abrogation by the Commission of its responsibilities in this field, responsibilities which the Commission as guardian of the Treaties cannot delegate. Could the Commission be held liable in such a case for the functioning of OLAF?
Or who should be? All Parliament can do is make the Commission mindful of its responsibilities and grant the Commission a discharge - or not, as the case may be - or in the last analysis dismiss the Commission.
As President Santer rightly said, a board of directors is not the answer.
It means that the Commission would be subject to direct scrutiny of its internal workings, which is contrary to the Treaties, and it would mean a total intertwining of the responsibilities and powers which are separately defined in the Treaties.
So it is not possible, Mr President.
So, ultimately, I have to reject the solutions which Mr Bösch offers and I hope the Commission will come up with a meaningful proposal which will give real and considerably greater independence to UCLAF.
Mr President, I must point out that the Bösch report is being presented to the plenary at the behest of Parliament's resolution of 22 October 1997, which required Parliament and the Committee on Budgetary Control to submit the report.
I must also say that I am very pleased about the proposals we have heard from the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, which largely adopt the thinking and general lines of approach which Mr Bösch has set out in his report, and I must tell you that the Group of the European People's Party will support Mr Bösch's report, because we think it is correctly based.
I gather that the Commission feels the same, in other words that there is an element of deceit in relation to the management of the Community's budget and the Union's Member States, while on the other hand there is an internal issue regarding what is going on in the Community's various institutions and whether those Community institutions and their services are functioning as they should do.
I think we are quite right to go ahead with the creation of OLAF, and I personally agree that it should be clearly separate and that UCLAF will have to remain in place to scrutinise relations between the Member States and the Community's bodies.
On that subject you must know, Mr President of the Commission, and the Commissioners too, that in recent times we have been bombarded by reports from the Court of Auditors.
But nothing has happened to change us into detectives.
We are obliged to respond to and verify what the Court of Auditors says.
And you will agree with us that we cannot cover up anything, but on the contrary, we must respond to the Court of Auditors' indications with the greatest transparency and sincerity.
The issues of ECHO, tourism and MEDA have their origins in initiatives and special reports by the Court of Auditors.
The same has happened concerning many other subjects which you will be hearing about as the days go by and which perhaps will also influence Parliament's attitude towards the Commission's discharge in respect of the implementation of the 1996/97 budget.
At this point, I should also like to say that in our cooperation with UCLAF over the past two years, there were occasions when UCLAF came along, we asked for information, and we were told that the information could not be given because the upper echelons of UCLAF would not allow UCLAF to give us information.
That is one of the things you too pointed out, and I hope that it will be cleared up soon.
You will understand that the issue is a very serious one, and I am glad that this evening you have told us you are looking into it, and that you will be coming back with specific proposals.
Mr President, I will start by congratulating Mr Bösch on this report.
I am glad that it has finally been put on the agenda so that we can have a debate on this important subject.
I very much agree that there is a need to strengthen UCLAF.
The many cases convey an unmistakable message but, most important, the investigation of the Court of Auditors contains clear criticism of the present situation and gives concrete indications of what can be done.
The situation is quite unacceptable, and that is why it is so important for us to strengthen the role of UCLAF and give it more powers and better tools to get to grips with fraud and corruption.
As regards Mr Santer's answer today, I have to say that it is no use chiding us for criticising the Commission and complaining that things are moving at a very slow pace.
If Mr Santer had sat with us hour after hour in the Committee on Budgetary Control just trying to get the key information out of the Commission, he would understand our urgent desire to see real action and to see a change in the present procedures. There is quite simply a need for a more independent office.
After all we have received a clear answer from the Commission to the effect that the proposal Mr Bösch has brought before us does not require a Treaty amendment, which means in other words that it is a viable way forward.
So, Mr Santer, what we need is something more concrete from the Commission on what the Commission really intends to do in this area.
But is the true position not that an external office will in fact require a Treaty amendment and that the Commission has in this convenient way again secured a postponement of the decisions long into the future?
It is so crucial to people's confidence in the EU system that more decisive action be taken on corruption and fraud.
And once again it is the European Parliament that comes up with a concrete initiative on what should happen and on how we can get better procedures.
It may well be that it is not a final or a complete proposal, but at least the debate has got underway.
I am glad that Mr Bösch's report on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control has enabled us finally to get a reaction and initiate a discussion on what additional arrangements are really needed in order to make it possible to combat fraud and corruption more effectively.
Mr President, President of the Commission, I still think that controls mean controls and that they actually serve a useful purpose.
You gave us a list of reasons why such controls are absent, which I accept.
But I also know that fraud and corruption are combated both upstream and downstream of where they occur.
The fact is that the whole system of projects and programmes in the Commission functions in such a way as to give officials responsibility for very substantial sums of money which they frequently cannot themselves control adequately.
Hence, what is missing is a prevention policy which, as in firefighting, is the best way to combat such occurrences.
Fight the fire in the winter and not in the summer, when it is already raging.
Consequently, the whole system must be changed, in such a way as to make Commission officials and Commissioners themselves more responsible for the programmes they administer within the Community and indeed beyond.
We know that the ECHO issue is extremely disagreeable: a billion ecus are at stake.
We also know that today, in 'Le Monde', UCLAF said that the control carried out was of a metaphysical nature.
Making allowance for UCLAF's irony, it is obvious that it feels in considerable difficulties.
So, we know that controls are necessary.
But controls are not just to catch prevaricators.
To control is to prevent, and that is why I stress that prevention is essential.
But if prevention is to exist, the will must also exist on the part of Parliament and the Member States.
We all know that although the Committee on Budgetary Control has issued this report, the Committee on Budgets vetoed it and voted against the purchase of scanners which would make it possible to take preventive action against fraud in European ports.
And the fact is that there are certain European ports which are genuine havens for those who wish to smuggle contraband or to avoid paying taxes, be it VAT or consumer taxes.
We also know that criminal legislation has not been harmonised. And we know that the Member States themselves hamper UCLAF's work by frequently failing to make available material which could be provided if they really wanted to combat fraud in their territory.
Of course, I am not blaming the Commission for all this.
Let nobody think so for a moment, since it is in fact the Member States that are largely responsible for what is happening.
It is up to the Commission to make people aware of this, it is up to the Commission not to condone, by its silence, what is happening in the Member States.
Without giving up their individual powers they must join forces to combat organised crime, to ensure that the Community is not somewhere where crime pays and where people get rich quickly by breaking the law and engaging in every manner of cheating at the expense of Community funds.
It would also be advisable to persuade the Member States that Community money is not national money, it is Community money, and they have an obligation to defend it.
My group will vote for prevention, and for increased resources and protection for UCLAF.
Mr President, there are hundreds of cases of fraud against the Community budget every year, involving large amounts.
And yet these are only the declared or detected offences.
The real figures are no doubt much higher.
The Bösch report indicates that UCLAF has only a limited capacity for action.
The feelings aroused by certain current events therefore demand greater vigilance.
The Commission frequently cites the responsibility of the Member States which manage 80 % of the expenditure. It is demanding of them, so it should also be demanding of itself.
Parliament is rightly asking for explanations and measures to put an end to the current cases of embezzlement and to impose sanctions on the guilty parties.
The transparency mentioned by the President of the Commission must become a permanent reality. In this respect, I would highlight the importance of the proposal aimed at creating a body to combat fraud which is independent of the Commission and which has resources allowing it to successfully carry out its task.
The fact that it is not possible to be both judge and judged is a basic principle.
A colleague has asked that UCLAF should be a little more independent.
Surely it can be either independent or not independent - degrees of independence are impossible.
However, the fight against fraud cannot be discussed without noting that total freedom in the circulation of goods and capital - that is, the absence of any controls - favours fraud and trafficking on a large scale.
Commissioner Gradin therefore underlined last May that fraud against the Community budget is increasingly due to international criminal groups, namely the Mafia.
This situation definitely requires attention and measures at the highest level.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, what we are discussing here today is not only the question of the independence of UCLAF but the question of the independent investigation of fraud, corruption, nepotism and mismanagement in the Commission itself.
We are not discussing specific cases such as ECHO, MED, BSE, tourism or the security service, affairs which have accumulated into an almighty crisis among the European institutions.
What we are discussing here today is how the Commission can escape the threat of non-discharge as well as - and this, ladies and gentlemen, is the key issue - the question of political responsibility.
The ECHO case is only a symptom of a deeper malaise.
I should like to emphasise that we are not talking about normal minibudgets.
Falsified contracts, imaginary reports and disappearing documents are apparently regarded by the Commission as high-spirited pranks.
But I have now learned a new expression from you, Mr Santer. From now on we shall call these things 'administrative acrobatics'.
The bottom line is that this attitude has prevented the adoption of any disciplinary measures.
Anyone who believes, like Mrs Bonino, that it is possible to gloss over the whole thing quietly by simply saying, 'Oh yes, the Commission will naturally assume responsibility' has, if you will forgive my saying so, failed to understand what political responsibility really means.
Responsibility is not just an empty word that can be used at will to terminate a debate and hasten on to the next item.
Responsibility means being prepared to answer for those things for which one is individually accountable.
The ECHO case, I believe, is a prime example.
When Commissioner Marín found out in February 1994 about the illegal practices that were taking place in his sphere of responsibility and was unable, for whatever good reason, to put an immediate stop to it, who but he should have accepted responsibility for it and therefore tendered his resignation? The collegiate nature of his institution does not enter into the equation.
This, Mr Santer, comes right back to you.
What does the President of the Commission do in such a case? Regrettably, you have kept silent thus far.
The people of Europe must see responsibility being borne; that applies to ECHO and to all other cases.
If there are no consequences other than the punishment of the actual fraudsters - and I am certainly capable of distinguishing between frauds and irregularities - that would only enshrine the principle of the end justifying the means.
That, however, is untenable, not only in this case, in which, after all, aid funds amounting to ECU 2.4 million were misappropriated - not embezzled in the legal sense, but nevertheless channelled into other directions.
What is far worse is that it discredits all the good work done by the administration - and the great bulk of their work, I may say, is good. That, Mr Santer, cannot be what you want either.
The Staff Regulations provide for various disciplinary measures, but the powers that be within the Commission are apparently reluctant to apply them.
What exactly has to happen before the flagrant circumvention - that is what Commissioner Van Miert called it - before the flagrant circumvention of rules is punished? In the talks I have attended, I have even had the impression that people were afraid to take action.
If things have come to that pass, something has to change drastically!
Do you not agree, Mr Santer? You are accountable for a huge conflict of loyalties among the staff of the Commission.
How many of them long for certain abuses to be rooted out and for some straight talking to be done at long last! It is time you took action, not least for the sake of your honest and committed employees.
The Commission lives in an ivory tower.
The lack of communication between Parliament and the Commission is primarily due to the fact that our quest for information and supervisory powers is systematically interpreted as distrust, because the principle that good administration must, with few exceptions, be publicly accessible has been inverted by the Commission, at least in those areas in which criticism is voiced and in which Parliament exercises its supervisory powers.
My speaking time is up.
I also intended to speak about the culture of distrust, about the right to apply Article 206 and about the fact that the Commission must expect discharge to be refused if it does not give a clear and appropriate signal.
Those who wish can read the full text of my speech, including you, Mr Santer.
I shall have a copy sent to you shortly.
Thank you very much for that speech, Mr Vandemeulebroucke, and thank you also for your many years of hard work here in Parliament.
The House has shown its gratitude to you by its applause, and I should like to thank you once again.
Mr President, I should like to thank our colleague Jaak Vandemeulebroucke for 17 years of acquaintance and friendship.
I hope we shall meet on numerous occasions when you have left Parliament.
You have done a great deal to combat hormone fraud in Belgium. You have always had a great social heart.
I hope we shall meet again.
In the municipality I live in, no taxpayer would accept that 10 % of the local authority's budget should be lost in fraud.
Nor would it be accepted in my country as a whole. I think it is the same for everyone in this Chamber.
How can we allow 10 % of the budget to be lost in fraud, just because the money is sent via Brussels? In my view the explanation lies in the distance from the voters, the distance from those who have to pay.
The decision-making processes in the EU make it possible to adopt support arrangements that no country would adopt if it had to foot the bill itself.
The solution therefore is no more Brussels, with more staff, more grants, common criminal justice and police.
The solution is to do away with most of the support arrangements, to focus on something less in cross-frontier matters, and to do the work better.
The cheapest and best way of dealing with fraud is to ensure complete openness on appropriations.
Anyone who receives support from the EU must accept that the voters and taxpayers should be able to see what has been appropriated and what has been spent on what.
That way journalists and a critical public would enforce the necessary self-accountability.
Post the budget records on the Internet, and the rest follows of itself.
We prefer full openness to a new bureaucracy in Brussels, a leaner and more transparent EU instead of fat times for yet more fraudsters.
Mr President, the persistent increase in fraud perpetrated at the expense of the Community budget requires an immediate solution, especially since the phenomenon appears to have spread to the institutions themselves in recent months.
We do not need to recall here the ugly episode concerning ECHO and irregularities in the former Yugoslavia and in the Great Lakes region - still to be proved - nor the much-discussed anomalies in the research sector, on which the Committee on Budgetary Control is awaiting clarification.
However, we certainly cannot say that we are satisfied with the results we have been able to obtain regarding either the detection of irregularities and fraud or - above all - the lack of effective judicial action at EU level.
I would recall that some time ago the Committee on Budgetary Control, thanks in particular to the efforts of its chairman, Mrs Theato, called for the insertion into the Treaty of a legal base making it possible to introduce anti-fraud regulations, perhaps under the codecision procedure, and to draw up legislation obliging Member States to protect Community funds as they do their own.
The rules must be harmonised at administrative level, by centralising sanctions and controls, but also in legislative terms through the ratification of the 1995 Convention on the protection of the Union's financial interests, which has remained a dead letter until now. This convention is accompanied by two protocols, which are without doubt important but have aroused the suspicions of the Member States and made it unlikely that they will ratify it directly.
We too are of the opinion that the judicial authorities, and not UCLAF, should be empowered to intervene in the private affairs of suspects. However we wonder why, even when UCLAF or Financial Control amasses sufficient proof of serious violations, the Commission only very rarely institutes disciplinary proceedings.
The creation of an anti-corruption unit, responsible for fighting corruption and fraud within the EU institutions, should be backed by assistance from the institutions concerned. I would refer for example to the possibility of securing rapid access to documents and where appropriate seizing such documents, but leaving the task of verifying and punishing corruption to the judicial authorities, which possess judicial and police powers that the anti-fraud unit cannot and should not have.
Mr President, may I thank President Santer for his words to us.
Allow me, however, to confess to a certain doubt and to express it in the following words: 'I hear the words, but I lack faith'.
In a similar vein, I should like to say to you, 'Help us to believe', so that we can make up these deficits together.
I should like to come back now to the Bösch report on today's agenda and to begin by expressing my thanks and appreciation to Mr Bösch for having overcome a good many difficulties to put the report on the table today.
As is clear from the title and substance of the report, it is based on special report No 8/98 of the Court of Auditors and hence on Article 206 of the Treaty.
Our Committee on Budgetary Control has never subscribed to the misinterpretation of this legal basis.
Such misinterpretations, however, have delayed the presentation of the report to a plenary sitting of Parliament.
This is regrettable because, in view of the revelations of alleged abuses in the European Community Humanitarian Office, a rapid response by Parliament in the form of proposed remedies would have been useful.
The ECHO case has subsequently received exhaustive coverage in the media.
We could certainly have done with quicker and more comprehensive information from the Commission.
Once again, this case illustrates the way in which the EU still has to struggle to win the fight against the misuse of its resources with one hand tied behind its back.
Long-familiar cases, such as the MED, transit and tobacco frauds - I could name more - still await full investigation and prosecutions.
The special report by the Court of Auditors proves that Parliament is right to be dissatisfied with the present structural competence of UCLAF, especially when it comes to internal Commission investigations.
This is not the fault of UCLAF's officials or its excessive reliance on temporary employees, but rather on the unsystematic manner in which it processes its cases.
The Court of Auditors mentions more than 1300 pending cases, not including those opened after April 1997, a point to which Mr Bösch also referred.
An inadequate flow of information and poor coordination are another point.
In the event of suspected corruption within the Commission, the Court of Auditors notes, powers and procedures are not clearly regulated, nor is there even a requirement to inform the prosecuting authorities.
It is to be feared that the introduction of the euro and the enlargement of the EU will create further scope for fraudulent operations.
These are only some of the reasons for the demand that the function, structure and powers of UCLAF be given more incisive and independent shape in the form of a Fraud Prevention Office. That is what Mr Bösch has put on the table.
Today, however, we are not taking the ultimate step by approving OLAF.
But this Parliament, as a controlling authority, has to do something that will enable us to devise jointly a means of tackling the new challenges that confront us.
For that reason, we are not making a legally based proposal but are marking out the basic shape of our ideas.
We beg the Commission earnestly to take serious note of these markers and to include them in its deliberations. Otherwise, I fear, we shall have a rather lengthy discussion ahead of us before we find another efficient way to combat fraud.
Mr President, it is clear it is an urgent problem.
Let me begin by declaring a personal interest: as a former Director-General at the Commission I know the difficulties of a staff situation and of new tasks.
But we must make swift decisions.
The Bösch report gives a clear political signal and we must heed it.
Personally, I am still doubtful about what we should do in concrete situations. I wish to exemplify this by a few specific points.
Mr Bösch rightly said that the present situation cannot continue.
Institutionally, I have doubts as to whether his position of having a structure which is half inside and half outside the Commission is the right one.
A board of directors from five institutions means that the director of UCLAF or OLAF will have five bosses, and someone who has five bosses has no boss.
That point must be addressed.
In view of the very short time available, I wish to address myself to the President of the Commission.
The President of the Commission said that we must have an external inquiry function, and I understand that.
But my question to the President is: does that not mean that the Commission ultimately will lose its own final responsibility in the whole fight against fraud?
That is a very important point.
This Parliament only has the institution responsible for the budget as the institution with which it dialogues.
If that situation is lost, to whom is this external inquiry office responsible? To begin with I would like to see a strengthened UCLAF within the Commission, but with full independence.
Perhaps the director should be nominated by the Court of Auditors or the Court of Justice and with an institutional agreement to work together with other institutions.
But I wonder whether an external inquiry at this stage is the right solution if we do not know to whom that external inquiry will be responsible.
Are we then not in a worse situation? I hope we can come to a positive reply.
There should be something happening so that Mr Bösch will not be voted down but I do not think that this is the end of the debate.
As Mrs Theato said, it is the beginning of the debate, but there is great urgency to respond.
Mr President, the investigation by the Court of Auditors into the issue under discussion certainly went to the heart of the matter.
Neither the minimum necessary resources nor the basic conditions exist to combat fraud and corruption which, for their part, certainly do exist and are proliferating.
UCLAF does not have enough staff and they are not all available to operate on the ground.
UCLAF's structural dependence also prevents it from acting horizontally in an effective manner at institutional level.
Therefore, if we are to combat fraud, a lot must change not only in the area of external action but also, and most importantly, as regards internal action.
Without going into specialised analyses, I would venture to say that such a change should be undertaken in two principle directions: by strengthening the scope of Community action, particularly by strengthening UCLAF, freeing it from constraints imposed by supervisory bodies which restrict its action and guaranteeing adequate resources, and, at the same time, by ensuring satisfactory cooperation with equivalent departments in the Member States.
Transparency, independence for the body responsible for fighting fraud and more widespread action by all the institutions, including the Commission, seem to me to be essential and of priority importance.
The ECHO case and the dubious manner, to say the least, in which it has been dealt with by the Commission, particularly in its relations with Parliament, have guided us to this inevitable conclusion and we therefore welcome the proposal to turn UCLAF into an independent body.
Obviously, there are limits on our expectations.
On the subject of external action, I would stress that little progress will be made if there is no cooperation between the Member States, as I referred to earlier, and if they do not show a genuine political desire to act.
And I also consider that a certain degree of caution is necessary, particularly in the areas relating to crime and external action.
But none of this detracts from the significant step forward proposed by the rapporteur, which is essential as a minimum response to certain situations of which we are all aware.
Over recent years we have seen various ways in which the Commission's way of operating has proved conducive to fraud.
This is simply not acceptable. The Court of Auditors' latest reports have contributed evidence of the need for an external unit to fight the internal corruption and fraud that are clearly occurring within the EU institutions.
But I do not believe we can leave it there.
Mr Jacques Santer once announced eloquently 'We need openness and transparency.'
Fine words are not enough, Mr Santer, action is also required.
Applying the principles of open government is one of the better ways of preventing internal corruption, as the Commission ought to know.
Mr Santer, please do not use the pretext of employees' rights to avoid talking about what is actually going on in the Commission.
We are dealing here with taxpayers' money. We demand to know what is happening.
And please do not deny the Committee on Budgetary Control the information it needs to pass on to us if we are to be able to grant the Commission discharge. That would be no way to behave towards a parliament.
Finally, I wish to make it clear that I am not calling for the new body called OLAF to be given the status of a judicial authority.
The results of its inquiries should be passed on to the national judicial authorities.
I am not interested in seeing some kind of EU-level public prosecution service set up. All I want is an external unit capable of monitoring what the Commission is doing.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, please let me say a heartfelt 'thank you' to Jaak Vandemeulebroucke for his 17 years of service to the European Parliament and for all the work he has done with us over those years. I wish him every success in everything he does following his resignation from Parliament.
Mr President, I should like to thank you for your speech, because you have asked the questions which needed to be asked in a debate whose purpose has largely been eclipsed by problems which are certainly serious, but which have made us forget the report that is before us today.
You have done a good job of dotting the 'I's, and certain speakers have got to the heart of the matter.
Others have preferred to continue making exaggerated statements on subjects which should be dealt with at other times and in other places. In respect of these, decisions must be taken which are transparent, but without this transparency, to which we are all attached, being combined with leaks and incriminations, which can only poison the atmosphere between us, instead of creating calm.
Your speech was therefore a very timely one.
You told us that you had met with the President of Parliament and that you were going to take steps so that certain information which we wish to obtain in the context of another dossier - I will not go into this today - can be communicated to us as soon as possible.
I hope that this is the case, in the interests of both our institutions.
I believe that the Court of Auditors' report has not been mentioned sufficiently, given that the Bösch report is based on this.
It is a quite overwhelming document which leads me to ask the question that was asked in ancient Rome: Quis custodiet custodes ? The climate is one of concern, as stated in the Bösch report.
We are rightly asking ourselves where the Community's resources are going, and in particular what use may have been made of them at a given moment. However, it has not been mentioned that the Court of Auditors' report highlights serious shortcomings in the operation of UCLAF itself: lack of transparency, lack of security, lack of permanent officials - half the people working for UCLAF are temporary staff - deficiencies in the Unit's database, and so on.
It is said that UCLAF's computer system was set up by the Perry-Lux company, and some are even going so far as to refer to the risk of misuse of the data.
Mr President, I agree with your acceptance of the improved operation of UCLAF and your rejection of the creation of a new institute, as also voiced by Mr Dankert.
I believe that our work should be improved and extended so that UCLAF can be truly independent, within the possible structures - that is the current structures - so that it can be strengthened, and so that there is an end to these leaks and incriminations, which only poison the atmosphere and which do nothing for either ourselves or for Europe.
Mr President, Mr President and Members of the Commission, there can be no doubt that measures to combat fraud within the European institutions need considerable improvement.
The Court of Auditors' report has brought a number of serious shortcomings to light. One of them is the fact that UCLAF has hitherto been able to conduct investigations only within the Commission, not in other EU institutions.
The rapporteur rightly makes the point that all the institutions need effective safeguards against fraud.
He advocates the setting up of an Anti-Fraud Office, with an interinstitutional remit.
Like other honourable Members, Mr Dankert and Mrs Wemheuer, I would prefer to see that broader remit given to the UCLAF we already have.
I would also stress that this body must concern itself only with in-house detective work, the identifying of fraud within the EU institutions.
The responsibility for investigating outside the institutions, for example cases in Member States of frauds against the Community budget, remains with the Member States. And that will not change after the Treaty of Amsterdam is ratified.
Investigation outside the institutions is not reconcilable with the laws of Member States or their criminal justice systems.
I thus reject outright recitals L and M, in which the rapporteur calls for a European criminal law area and a European Public Prosecution Service.
Action against fraud outside the EU institutions can best be improved by ensuring that the national investigation services are as efficient as possible and cooperate well with each other.
The anti-fraud units of the Commission have an important coordinating role to play here.
Mr President, Mr Bösch's report is clear in its assessment of the situation and explicit in its demands.
However, I do not consider it helpful to vest the Commission with the power to appoint the staff of OLAF.
The proposal that OLAF should be overseen by an independent five-strong inspectorate, on the other hand, is to be welcomed.
But OLAF would not possess real autonomy as long as the Commission enjoys even indirect authority over OLAF personnel.
Only an independent OLAF, cooperating with the Court of Auditors and, of course, with the Commission and answerable to the European Parliament, will develop into an incisive instrument in the fight against fraud and cooperation.
I believe that an inspectorate operating in a vacuum, as Mr Bösch called it, can indeed be successful if it is endowed with a sufficient number of first-class personnel.
That investment would surely pay dividends.
Mr President, I rise as the parliamentarian responsible for recommending discharge for the 1996 budget.
I have listened to this debate with great interest as this is one of the main subjects, within the granting of the 1996 budget discharge, that we must decide upon before the end of the year.
I would like to make a couple of personal comments on this debate.
Firstly, I very much welcome the fact that the President of the Commission came to our Chamber this afternoon to tell us how he felt about the conduct of matters and to look to the future.
On the first point, the conduct of matters, I very much welcome his wish to give us further information so that we can better understand what is happening within the Commission.
What has driven some of us to put the 1999 ECHO budget for humanitarian aid in reserve is precisely this lack of information and inability to be able to judge for ourselves.
I hope this will be done as soon as possible.
In his remarks he made a comment which seemed a little strange, saying it would not be proper to impose individual sanctions on officials who committed these irregularities for the sole purpose of keeping departments going.
One wonders where responsibility begins and ends.
Edith Müller was absolutely right to say that, in certain instances, without of course conducting a witch hunt, where there is responsibility then that responsibility must be taken up.
Secondly, as the Court of Auditors report said, on the broader point of improving the system, we want to strengthen the UCLAF operation rather than weaken it.
The EPP would like to support the Bösch report even it is not supported by his own colleagues because we believe that progress must be made.
No doubt once we have had this debate and voted, we can also take into account the remarks made by the President of the Commission, so that we can have a really efficient procedure for anti-fraud to take us into the 21st century.
Mr President, there is method in madness, but if madness is the only source of our method, a new type of method is needed.
The Bösch report contains sound proposals that should be fully endorsed.
The circumstances surrounding the report were anything other than satisfactory.
The Bösch report has been held up, and what has subsequently hit the headlines has been disastrous.
It is reminiscent of the time of the BSE crisis and of many other problem cases that have been mentioned today.
Documents disappear; the information is not there, and we cannot check anything.
The guilty parties have gone too, either promoted or sent away with a golden handshake.
The responsible Commissioner is no longer there either.
Even today, and I particularly regret this in view of the latest ECHO revelations, neither Commissioner Marín nor Commissioner Bonino is here, and the same thing happened last time for part of the hearing.
Mr President, we welcome your proposals that the ideas put forward by Mr Bösch be further developed. We believe it is right and important to do that.
Entering into contact with the President of Parliament is a first step, but many more steps must follow, and above all must follow quickly.
We cannot seek protracted or long-term solutions, because we need to send out credible signals now.
You, Mr President, have assumed political responsibility. When will the two main defendants, Commissioners Marín and Bonino, do likewise?
How quickly will the promised disciplinary law become fully operative? How long do we really have to wait until each of the relevant documents is available?
I believe there is one thing that really would be a problem, namely if the debate we are holding on this report today were to be shelved until next year when the new Commission is appointed, and we should then have to sanction all the mistakes that have been made during the present five-year term.
And one final word: the fact that the Group of the Party of European Socialists has left its rapporteur out in the cold makes me think and should make us all think.
Would it do the same if the incriminated Commissioners had different affinities?
Mr President, as we will shortly be reaching the end of this debate, I would like to put all conflicting points to one side so that we can come to some agreements.
And, in order to do this, I am going to discuss the crux of the problem, and the points in the Bösch report on which I am sure we agree.
I believe that we all agree that UCLAF has gone through a stage that has involved more positive than negative points, but also that it has reached a point where it is in need of more economic and human resources. It is at a point where its powers need to be extended to include all Community institutions and, above all, it has reached a point where it must be transparent in order to be credible.
I hope that no-one will throw up their hands in horror if I say that whilst examining the report on ECHO, Parliament lost faith in the anti-fraud unit.
Therefore, the time has come not only to provide UCLAF with all it requires but to create a truly new version of UCLAF so that its credibility can be salvaged.
UCLAF must ensure that it leads the way in the transition from the current system to becoming a true officer of the court with an enhanced group of criminal experts.
And there is no better way to redefine its organisation and legal framework than to make use of this key moment in relations between Parliament and the Commission.
We can face up to the challenge before us: the Council, the Commission and Parliament are responsible for doing everything that is necessary to establish an anti-fraud office. It must have real experts and professionals whose code of conduct will be based on respect for the law, and, although it is a body that will be dependent on the Commission, it will have full political independence.
In short, it will be an office with the necessary equilibrium to ensure that its work is in the interest of the Community and not any particular Member State.
Mr President, when voting on the Bösch report, there can only be one way to vote: either we are for or we are against change.
Mr President, many thanks for a diverse and constructive debate.
Parliament and the Commission need to work together on the basis of mutual trust, and I am therefore in favour of plenty of discussion of this proposal in the House.
UCLAF is still young - not yet ten years old - and of course it has experienced growing pains.
Over time, though, it has developed into a very good organisation, in my opinion.
Three years ago UCLAF's staff were scattered throughout the Commission. Today the whole operation is under one roof.
It is capable of coming to grips with cigarette smuggling; it has recently turned its attention to the Central and Eastern European countries, and to the PHARE and TACIS programmes, among others.
I should however like to iron out one or two misunderstandings.
Several speakers stated that the Court of Auditors has uncovered cases of irregularity and fraud, yet it was UCLAF, not the Court, which did the uncovering.
The Court of Auditors' report dealt with the organisational side of UCLAF.
Its data system was felt to need modernising; there was a call for improved record-keeping. And this call was heeded by both the Commission and UCLAF.
We have now made changes in working methods. In July a new programme was adopted, laying down how UCLAF's investigations should be organised and, importantly, providing for protection for individuals supplying information.
I believe that UCLAF is on the way to becoming what Mr Bösch and many others in the European Parliament want it to be: namely an even better organisation, ready to perform the tasks expected of it by taxpayers in the Member States.
As a parallel exercise, we have launched SEM 2000, the aim of which is to overhaul our general administrative culture and turn ourselves into a fitter and more modern institution.
I should like to conclude by saying that my personal experience has taught me that openness and transparency are of great value in pre-empting fraud and corruption in an organisation.
That is why we in the Commission, with the help of the Amsterdam Treaty, are working alongside our partners to foster more open and transparent practices for the future.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
1996 discharge
The next item is the report (A4-0289/98) by Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the discharge procedure for the 1996 budget:
Section I, European Parliament-Section IV, Court of Justice-Section V, Court of Auditors-Section VI, Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions.
Mr President, allow me to begin by saying that this report is far more than just my own.
First and foremost, it is a report by the Committee on Budgetary Control which was the subject of long and transparent reflection and thought and was finally approved almost unanimously.
I would also like to say that the differences that may exist between the report we are discussing today and the version I would have preferred do not prevent me from approving it in its entirety.
I am making these apparently unnecessary statements for two simple reasons: first, because I cannot but be surprised by the comments that have been made about it, particularly in various Parliament bodies, but never in the Commission on Budgetary Control and without any involvement by any of its members and certainly not its rapporteur. Second, and no less important, because I fear that if a disagreement arises on a particular point, however important, the fundamental problems which most urgently need a response will be neglected.
Having said that, let us move on to the substance of the report.
There are two factors that have had a particularly marked effect on the discharge procedure for 1996.
First, Parliament lost an excellent opportunity to reduce the final cost of the D3 building in Brussels by some ECU 30 million, which had been our priority for this financial year; second, the administrative irregularities revealed by the audits carried out by the Economic and Social Committee itself and by the Court of Auditors cannot be overlooked.
It is important that these two particularly serious factors should not, however, lead us to ignore other matters relating to the implementation of the budget which also deserve attention and appropriate action to correct them.
Let us consider the matter of the ECU 30 million.
Without wishing to take the place of the Parliament's Bureau which decided to institute an inquiry that has now been completed, the particular responsibilities of certain services are clear, namely the authorizing officers, firstly, but also other services involved, and the absence of cooperation between them is patently obvious.
My particular concern in the report, from the outset, was to examine these two issues in a balanced manner, as this is the only way to show people the various errors which led to the loss of the sum in question and, consequently, the opportunity to pay for D3 in advance.
Indeed, the errors were legion.
Use was not made - in this, as in other earlier processes of a similar nature - of the option unilaterally to establish the sum to be paid in advance. It was argued that this was established practice.
The situation was further complicated to the point of absurdity when it came to the wording of the additional agreement, and particularly the amount to be specified, to the extent that what had been done on previous occasions appeared to be forgotten, with everything meanwhile growing increasingly complicated, as though there were no deadlines to be met whereas they were in fact about to expire.
Opinions were given and comments were made, some of them contradictory, others too late and irrelevant, contributing nothing to the satisfactory and timely solution of the matter but only complicating things still further.
Not even the main priority was observed, no attempt was even made to keep the losses to a minimum, as would have occurred if at least the advance payment of ECU 29.5 million had been made.
Some lessons should at least be learned to prevent any recurrence of such situations.
Everything must be done to ascertain not only the professional qualifications but also the solid professional experience of the institutions' main administrators.
Maximum transparency and stringency are essential in filling such posts, and all possible steps should be taken to ensure efficient and continuous cooperation between the various services of the House.
I would like to end this point on a positive note by mentioning the measures subsequently taken by the Secretary-General to remedy such administrative errors and to ensure the success of recruitment competitions.
Still on the subject of Parliament, I would like to draw attention to a few other points, including the increase in cancellations of appropriations, the various refusals of approval, particularly regarding interpretation, and the need to regularise the discrepancy of some ECU 4 million between the cash situation and accounts, which has been outstanding for several years.
On the subject now of the Economic and Social Committee, as I said before, the audits carried out both internally and by the Court of Auditors reveal obvious irregularities and manifest administrative negligence in connection with the travel expenses of members.
It should be remembered that the Council itself, when it learned of the results of the audits, stated its opinion on the matter in the clearest terms.
However, certain measures have subsequently been instituted and remedial action taken but, if discharge is to be granted, it is essential that the Court of Auditors and UCLAF take note of the conclusions, particularly as regards responsibilities, the reliability of the new system of reimbursement and the conditions for recovering sums overpaid.
It is obvious that until these matters have been settled, we cannot grant the discharge.
We likewise regret the irregularities revealed by the Court of Auditors regarding the Committee of the Regions, and we take due note of the interim report which brings us back to the matter of recovering sums incorrectly paid and the administrative measures taken.
Meanwhile, we consider that the Court of Auditors should also verify that the measures taken are appropriate.
Two brief points regarding the Court of Justice and the Court of Auditors.
First of all, we need to improve financial forecasts for the amounts and the justifications given for the various budget headings.
Secondly, we need to include the Court of Auditors systematically in the horizontal audits carried out.
Lastly, I would emphasise that Parliament's particular responsibilities in the discharge procedure mean that the Commission needs to draft amendments to the Financial Regulation promptly.
And they make it essential that Parliament should be consulted prior to the appointment of the treasurer and financial auditor of each of the decentralised institutions and agencies.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group in the absence of Mrs Wemheuer, the coordinator and Mr Tomlinson who is our spokesman on this issue.
In my five minutes I cannot really say a lot but I know there were four points that Mr Tomlinson wanted to be highlighted and these are as follows.
Firstly, the 'mopping-up' transfer, which the rapporteur has described quite eloquently.
This was nothing short of a disaster for Parliament. Many of us considered that to be the case.
We have gone through the implications of it, we have gone through the reasons that it occurred and whatever else.
One can only hope that it is now in the past, and there is a statement in the report which welcomes the actions taken by the Secretary-General to make sure that this type of thing will never happen again.
It should not have happened and the fact that it did did not help Parliament's budget one iota.
That is one item that the rapporteur has already dwelt on.
The second item concerns qualified staff as outlined in Paragraph 14.
Mr Tomlinson would say that there is a lack of qualified staff, certainly when it comes to accounting and financial control within Parliament.
Here again we welcome the action being taken by the Secretary-General.
We should not forget that this report is based on the 1996 budget and we would hope that the staff who will manage the resources within Parliament will be as the Secretary-General expects and certainly as we expect.
Another item was the inventories.
Paragraph 19 says: 'Regrets the 1994 triennial inventory check has not been completed by the end of 1996'. In other words, we do not know what Parliament owns.
We do not know what Parliament's total resources are.
Not long ago I received in my office a piece of paper which was in effect an inventory check. It asked me to fill in what I had.
Quite frankly that was an open invitation to nick half the stuff in my office.
I could fill in the desk and chair and take everything else.
That is not the way to do an inventory and it is one of the points I know Mr Tomlinson and our group have been commenting on for quite some time.
One would hope it can be rectified.
The main item Mr Tomlinson would want to emphasize is in paragraph 15. It is the comment about the legal services.
I know that there will be amendments to this paragraph and therefore I intend reading it out so at least it is on record before it is amended.
It says: 'Parliament...reaffirms its support for the drawing up of quality opinions by the Legal Service which should enable decision makers to protect Parliament's interests swiftly and effectively'.
The part which seems to give offence is as follows: 'Notes the shortcomings in the quality of legal advice provided by the internal legal service of this institution, as identified by its rapporteur and as reflected in cases lost in national courts, in the European Court of Justice and in the Court of First Instance; asks its Secretary-General to commission a study into the effectiveness of the results of the legal service's advice over the past ten years. Calls on its Secretary-General to provide the Committee on Budgetary Control with comprehensive job descriptions for the A-grade officials in the legal service'.
That is paragraph 15 in its entirety.
If, at the end of the day that is amended significantly, at least that now is on the record and I would hope that the services can take cognizance of what has been said there and can act upon it.
It is not a condemnation of individuals within that service but it is a hope that we can have a better legal service for the future for Parliament.
Mr President, Mr Miranda's report, for which I thank him, contains two proposals for decisions giving discharge and one motion for a resolution postponing the discharge decision.
I should like to highlight the discharge given to the Committee of the Regions and to inform the Committee that we are very concerned about its staff policy and that the latest exchanging of posts approved by the budgetary authority with the Economic and Social Committee cannot exactly be regarded as progress.
As far as Parliament is concerned, we are closely monitoring the measures that were adopted on the basis of the Court of Auditors' report in relation to Members' expenses.
We had to delay by several months the discharge that can now be given to the Secretary-General, because our committee wished to await the findings of the inquiry conducted by the Bureau into the cancellation of funds amounting to about ECU 30 million.
The Bureau has decided on the question of personal responsibilities, and we respect that decision.
However, we are duty-bound to state that the decisions of the budgetary authority could not be implemented and that this was due to procedural errors and inadequate administrative structures.
We note the reforms and decisions adopted by the Secretary-General and we hope that these will eliminate the defects.
The administration of the parliamentary budget is fraught with many more difficulties, which are enumerated in Mr Miranda's report.
I only wish to point out that the problems dealt with by the Court of Auditors in its report on Members' allowances will have to be considered in our discharge for the 1997 financial year, since we only received this report two weeks ago.
I should also like to stress that we are not satisfied with the present arrangement whereby we grant discharge to the Secretary-General while responsibility for overruling a decision to withhold approval rests with the Bureau.
The 1996 budget was not affected by this anomaly, but it would be useful if we could reach an agreement with the Bureau as quickly as possible.
What concerns me most in Mr Miranda's report is the postponement of the discharge decision in respect of the Economic and Social Committee.
The situation described by the Court of Auditors is so serious that the Council, in its recommendation on discharge, asked the Court of Auditors and UCLAF to conduct an inquiry in order to establish the precise scale and implications of the irregularities..
This is also one of the reasons why we have been calling for the Bösch report on the independence of UCLAF and demanding that UCLAF be permitted to conduct its investigations in the other institutions too.
What we have discovered to date tends to suggest that the Economic and Social Committee is not taking our demands seriously.
It evidently considers the matter closed, but there is nothing to suggest that such irregularities cannot recur at a future date within the Economic and Social Committee.
A Financial Controller was appointed without our being given the necessary assurances concerning his independence.
For these reasons, we cannot guarantee at the present time that we shall grant discharge.
Everything will depend on how the Economic and Social Committee responds to our requests.
I hope we shall have the opportunity to apprise the new Secretary-General of the situation at our next meeting.
It seems to me that a separate vote is necessary on each of these three proposals.
Mr President, first I want to praise the courage of the rapporteur, who has tackled a difficult job over many months.
It is not easy to be responsible in this place and to make recommendations to the Committee on Budgetary Control and Parliament, because we are monitoring other institutions.
I know that Mr Elles is looking after the Commission's discharge, but Mr Miranda looks after the rest.
This Parliament cannot be guilty of double standards.
If we are to criticise others we must make sure that our finances are dealt with in a correct way.
We must not hide our embarrassment and we must not be seen to break the rules of transparency in our procedures and our accounts.
In paragraph 4 we are dealing with the matter of the ECU 30 million.
The word 'deplores' is strong.
But the paragraph does not mention that the financial controller had, before the event, advised against the idea of using the automatic carry-over procedure.
There was not time enough.
However, almost because he made that recommendation, the procedure of automatic carry-over was tried.
What happened? Parliament fell on its face and we missed the deadlines.
It is my belief that in many of our Member States a minister would have lost his job in such a case.
I have put down an amendment which has been refused.
I will refer to that at a later date and I will name names later.
The Secretary-General has an easier job in ensuring correctness.
He must make sure that Parliament staff follow the financial regulation and follow Parliament's internal rules.
If that had happened we would not have lost ECU 30 million.
In paragraph 13 we mention consultants.
I am not opposed to outside consultants.
I do not believe this House contains all the wisdom.
We must be prepared to ask other people's advice, but the rules must be followed.
The rules must be laid down and proper contracts must be made so that we are not paying on-running sums in order to make sure that the advice is paid for.
Paragraph 19 refers to the 1994 inventory, not completed by 1996.
This is disgraceful.
But the previous one was a farce. We did not get to the bottom of it.
Inquiries showed that some of the items said to be missing had not been received by Parliament but had been paid for.
The Members' Cash Office case is also mentioned, with the loss of money which came to light in 1982, 16 years ago. It has not yet been dealt with.
It is before the courts, I know, and they are responsible for the delay.
But some of the delay in the courts is due to the fact that we did not follow proper procedures in this House in 1982.
The matter was dealt with wrongly at the time. This leaves us in a very serious position.
Year after year we have to mention in our accounts that so much money has been lost to Parliament and we do not know yet whether there is any chance of recovering it from the insurance companies.
It was sloppy procedures in the House that made it possible for this affair to start and it has been procedures in the House which have prolonged it.
l congratulate Mr Miranda on the way in which he has looked into ECOSOC and the Committee of the Regions. Both needed his close attention.
Mr President, we live in difficult times where any lack of control can lead to irregularities or to fraud, and I am making a clear distinction between the two as Mr Santer previously requested.
Every day the media sound the alarm bells to report that certain things are not running smoothly within the European Union.
They report that the apparently efficient Community machinery is not as efficient, as honest or as incorruptible as we used to believe.
This did not begin yesterday as there have been signs of a deterioration for some years now, and this has given rise to books, press articles, television programmes and individual and collective accusations.
When this parliamentary term began we, the new Members, were surprised with Parliament's building policy at that stage.
It is possible that many of the problems that are still hanging over us today date back to this time, when inadequate property management made the Members of the European Parliament seem like the main characters in a play when we were only really spectators, and passive spectators at that.
In politics, the sin of omission or passivity is doubly serious: it is a blow to the legitimacy of the system and it abuses the goodwill of the citizens who vote for us.
We should never, and particularly from now on, allow inaction or omission in this House to lead to situations being overlooked, situations that may later become deadly weapons aimed at the heart of the European Union, that is, its credibility and its honest image.
It is for this reason that the discharge procedure is so important.
If Parliament does not discharge the budget that this Parliament voted for, then the honesty of the discharge procedure is called into question and we will have to immediately take action to restore freedom, honesty and trust.
The rapporteur, Mr Miranda, suggests that we discharge specific sections of the budget.
This House has complete faith in Mr Miranda and we therefore support his conclusions.
However, I would like to clarify two specific points.
The first is that my colleague Mr Edward Kellett-Brown is right: we are a Parliament and we have a duty to report any irregularities, giving first and last names.
Transparency does not hurt anybody and it often helps to provide an honest environment.
And secondly, we must not harm Parliament's bodies that are responsible for legal certainty.
The legal services of this House may have their limits, and their operation must certainly be improved, but to cast doubt on them does not help our work.
The amendment we are tabling reflects this and we hope that it will be adopted by the House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products
The next item is the report (A4-0338/98) by Mr Tappin, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) 297/95 on fees payable to the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products (COM(98)0021 - C4-0284/98-98/0135(CNS)).
Mr President, firstly I should like to thank the Commission and colleagues from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and the Committee on Budgetary Control for their support for this report.
Part of my thanks goes to the Council and the Commission, which recognise that as part of the budgetary authority Parliament has a role in deciding the future of the fee structures for this agency.
The basic regulation only requires consultation of the industry before the Commission presents its proposals to Council.
Getting that inclusion has come after a considerable delay and a great many problems have been created for the Agency in London as a result of that delay.
This year alone the agency finds itself ECU 4m overspent and the Director risks finding himself operating from an illegal position.
The Commission has started proceedings for a transfer, but the lateness of the transfer will mean there will still be some difficulties.
This situation must not be repeated in the future.
We have an obligation to make sure that Community bodies operate legally, efficiently and to the ultimate benefit of the Community.
So the first two points which need to be stressed as far as this report is concerned are: firstly, Parliament must automatically be involved in future decisions affecting fee levels without delay; secondly, as and when fees are revised in the future that must be done within a budgetary deadline so as to allow the agency to manage its affairs in a proper and efficient manner.
Failure to achieve agreement within that deadline puts an automatic obligation on the Commission to ensure the agency's ability to carry out its function is not adversely affected.
This particular agency has always been most accommodating of Parliament's requirements concerning budgets of the Community's decentralized bodies and is to be congratulated on the excellent report it received from the Court of Auditors.
We have always insisted: firstly, that an agency's resources should be budgetised; secondly, that as an instrument of European policy, agencies should be accountable and transparent to the budgetary authority; thirdly, that all surpluses should be returned to the budget.
These are outlined in the Kellett-Bowman report.
This agency has always supported those principles inasmuch as it could.
However, it was unable to give me all the necessary information on the costs involved in processing applications, etc., simply because it does not have that information.
It does not even have a breakdown of how the Member States use the money they receive from an agency to pay for the action study of an individual product.
The actual evaluations are carried out by the Member State rapporteurs, who receive 50 % of the agency fee to cover the costs of producing the report.
The agency did not decide on this fee any more than it decides on what the pharmaceutical companies should pay for the evaluations as a whole.
The Commission claims that the fee levels do not cover the costs incurred either by the Member States or the agency and that they should therefore be increased.
Parliament may remember that it was the Council that reduced the fees the last time.
In general we would agree with the Commission and Mr Valverde López, who has produced an excellent opinion on behalf of the Environment Committee, an opinion which I have happily endorsed and for which I thank him.
But, since the figures given by the Commission can only be guesstimates we feel that future evaluations should be made on the basis of real information provided by both the agency and the Member States.
So our next recommendations are that: firstly, with the assistance of the Commission - for which we thank Mr Mingasson and his staff - the agency should complete its installation of a complete automated financial system, which will provide a breakdown and facilitate a cost analysis of the work of the agency; secondly, the Commission should require member State agencies to make similar information on their costs available to us as the budgetary authority; thirdly, in two years' time we come back to a full review of fees based on an evaluation of real data.
This will tell us if it takes longer, for example, to evaluate an application for a veterinary product which would end up in the food chain as opposed to one which does not, or whether a variation of an original application takes the same amount of work or only half or quarter as much.
Such an analysis will also resolve the question of how much time is spent by the agency on evaluating commercial products or carrying out public health related tasks on behalf of the Community as a whole.
The pharmaceutical companies feel it is unjust that they should have to underwrite these costs. They warn that if the fees are set too high or at levels which undermine their profitability, they will cut back on research and development.
They are obviously determined to protect their vested interests as we all are.
Members may be aware that the European Union has just taken a series of decisions on the desirability of maintaining work on orphan drugs, on pre-accession technical cooperation, on mutual recognition agreements with third countries and so on.
It is in all our interests that this important Union business is carried out effectively and efficiently.
It is in everybody's interests, including the Member States', to reduce the costs of medicines since much of that cost is eventually subsidised by the state through public health programmes and medical care.
Although it was envisaged that the agency will become self-funding, we have to recognize that it is not going to happen in the immediate future even though we have continued to diminish the EU contribution as a proportion of the agency's total budget year on year.
It is also clear that the future financing of this agency will rely on the structural mechanisms we put in place to guarantee the stability it needs to do its work properly.
These principles will apply to all agencies, not just London.
Although the starting premise has to be that each agency is different and must be treated as such, the sort of framework I am referring to is designed to ensure that the levels of accountability, transparency and financial efficiency, once assured, can be relied on.
Firstly, Parliament requires a mechanism to be introduced to adjust the budgets of the agencies automatically up or down, to compensate for the effect of exchange-rate fluctuations or changes to the institutional weighting allowances.
It is ridiculous that bodies such as the agencies, which are tied to institutional statutes and which have their budget levels decided after much debate and consultation by the budgetary authority, should have all that consideration thrown out of the window in mid-year by an institutional decision, which must be obeyed, on the weighting adjustments to their Title 1, or by a decision of Mr Soros or one of his financial speculator friends to raise or wreck a particular currency.
The EMEA has suffered huge losses as a result of the strength of the British pound.
The point is not whether they lose or gain money, but that an agreed budget should be a budget which is executed.
We have also introduced a new line this year which would hold additional funds in reserve for all the agencies, except Torino which is in category 4 and, therefore, cannot draw down the line from category 3 to cover the operational costs of activities and programmes relating to Union policies which the agencies may implement.
This is not to be used as a slush fund.
We will require that the agencies show the greatest attention to cost management.
This is not instead of the Council and the Commission agreeing to increase funding for the agencies when they wish to increase their workloads - and this is important.
As we squeeze the budgets generally, some people might imagine they could transfer activities out to agencies without transferring the matching fundings, and thereby shift their budgetary problems to someone else.
This new line is to allow additional activities to be incorporated into the agencies' work programme, as long as doing so does not involve increases in staffing or capital expenditure beyond the limits of existing budgets.
To make sure that London and all the other agencies maintain their support in the future of the principle, we have established and drawn up a code of conduct.
This involves, for example, agreements on reporting and transparency such as, firstly, asking agencies to report on any changes to their budgets to the budgetary authority; secondly, reporting of their organigrammes and work programmes for consideration in the drawing up of their budgets.
Just to make sure there is no delay in getting this agreement through, we are putting 10 % of all agency budgets in reserve, subject to their signing and returning the agreements.
This could be done before the second reading.
I must stress that the vast majority of agencies have been totally supportive of the code and, indeed, it has been drawn up in consultation with those involved.
We have also had agreement, in the main, on the harmonisation of the founding regulations.
Although this passed through Parliament, it remains with the Council awaiting agreement.
It has been there far too long and we should be putting every pressure on the Council through the budget procedure to urge it to deal with this as a matter of urgency.
We have also included a section in the general budget which will cover the agencies' buildings.
It seems ridiculous that the EU has assets or liabilities in the Member States of which we have no details.
What conclusions can we draw? Over the three years in which I have been standing rapporteur for the agencies for the Committee on Budgets, I have been fortunate to have the very positive support of people like Edward Kellett-Bowman - my colleague across the way - Mr Mingasson, and the agency directors.
We have tried to demystify the satellite agencies: to bring them down to earth as it were.
We want to make sure that, although they operate at a distance from the central places of work, they are still part of Community bodies, still accountable to the democratically elected Members of Parliament, controlled but not overwhelmed either by lots of different groups which have dropped in to check up on them and their work, or by the bureaucratic demands of people trying to assess what is going on from a distance.
We wanted to strike a balance.
Many of the agencies are still in their start-up phases. Many were frozen in mid-growth by the standstill budgets of the past two years.
Some may never achieve the format originally set out in their establishment plan, and there are still ideas for more agencies in the pipeline.
Once there is a code of conduct and the harmonisation of regulation is achieved, we have all the transparency necessary to enable the budgetary authority or the standing committees to ask the questions they need.
The automated financial systems, which not just London but almost all the agencies will have up and running in the near future, will help.
This project, which has been developed in a spirit of cross-agency cooperation, is typical of what has been achieved in requiring the agencies to avoid duplication of effort in activities and to make themselves more aware of how they can increase their own efficiency.
It will also permit electronic financial control.
Our satellite links will never have been better.
The next agency budgets will take place in the new parliamentary term.
By then all the mechanisms and structures should be in place to make arguments about budget levels much more informed.
The budgetary authority should be able to make its assessments on the basis of real evidence of need and performance, surely the best basis for judgement.
To conclude, I commend my recommendations specifically on the fee structure for the EMEA but, in general, for those which will impact on this and other agencies' abilities to produce the work we require of them in the most efficient and effective way.
I hope the House will support my amendments and the amendments of the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Tappin. Clearly he has become an acknowledged expert on the workings of the decentralised bodies and agencies.
The conclusions of the Budgetary Control Committee are brief, and read as follows: 'The Committee on Budgetary Control welcomes the proposal of the Commission whereby the EMEA charges its customers fees that are more commensurate with the costs it incurs, and also takes this opportunity to congratulate the agency on operational progress made.'
I wish to make four points.
Firstly, the agency is a splendid example of subsidiarity.
Here pharmaceutical manufacturers around Europe can get registration at one place which works in all the Member States.
This is far more efficient and certainly cheaper.
The fees problem has been well outlined by Mr Tappin.
The agency is squeezed by the way we go about it. However, I am puzzled by one point - why veterinary products should attract a much lower fee than human products.
So many of the former products will ultimately be getting into the human chain and I wonder whether they should not actually incur a higher cost, but that has not happened.
Some months ago the House passed amendments to Statutes, as mentioned by Mr Tappin.
I am assured by the Council that those amendments are not blocked in the Council, but are merely behind schedule.
I hope the conciliation meetings will find an opportunity to raise this matter with the Council.
The fourth point is that the European Court of Auditors' initial report on this agency for the past year gives them a clean sheet. This is highly creditable.
It looks as if they might even be the first body to get the certificate of assurance within the European Community.
This certificate has eluded the Commission and all other bodies over the years since the Maastricht Treaty brought it into being but I see this agency as being a candidate for taking the blue ribbon very soon.
Mr Tappin has produced a good report. I encourage the House to support the amendments and his report.
Mr President, I would firstly like to add my congratulations to those for the rapporteur, Mr Tappin, as he has drawn up an excellent report. In this case, the report was based on the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products but it also affects the overall structure of the running and financial control of the rest of the Agency.
The agencies are proving to be an excellent working instrument within the Commission.
And, in fact, although the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products only came into operation in 1995, it has already received international recognition. The entire sector and all those involved are very pleased with the exemplary running of this Agency.
Therefore, the three committees that have drawn up reports all express their support for the Agency and its excellent work.
It was necessary for fee levels to be updated - as provided for in the regulations establishing the Agency - and I therefore believe that it is appropriate for this Parliament to support the change in these fee levels.
Above all, I believe that the annual fee proposed by the Commission is extremely important as it will help meet the costs of post-authorization surveillance and maintenance activities, which are very important in this sector.
But perhaps we must also remember that these fees are not taxes and should only be paid for services rendered.
That is the basis of some of the amendments I have tabled - and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the rapporteur, Mr Tappin, for having taken over the seven amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection - and these amendments aim to graduate fees in accordance with the work carried out.
However, Mr President, whilst I support an increase in fees, I would like to highlight the pressing need to maintain the Agency's independence.
The contribution from the EU budget must be safeguarded - in other words, it should be maintained and reductions be avoided - as the Agency is working for the pharmaceutical sector in Europe but it also has the interests of millions of patients, health professionals and consumers at stake.
We must remember that Parliament has always supported this fundamental question of the Agency's independence.
The European Union and its pharmaceutical industry - the largest in the world - need a strong Agency that has the necessary scientific resources. And this will only be achieved through transparent and adequate funding.
Only recently, Mr President, in connection with the marketing of the Viagra pill, we saw how useful the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products is, because it was on the strength of the Agency's opinion that the Commission decided to license it.
It is just one example of how important this body is.
It can only grow in importance, bearing in mind that it has only been operational for three years.
We too regard the EMEA as to some extent a government body.
I quite agree with the rapporteur because this Agency is to some extent concerned with implementing the policy of the single market and safeguarding public health.
So I think that most of the EMEA's revenue should come from fees, but that some of it should continue to come from the EU budget.
But as the rapporteur points out, it is rather unsatisfactory to know that there has still been no in-depth study of the costs of processing applications.
Like the rapporteur, I find that regrettable. It would give us a better idea in future of what proportion of the Agency's work is taken up by the public health responsibilities laid on it by the institutions.
I hope we may quickly have a result on that.
The rapporteur also says that the Agency made a loss of 20 % due to currency fluctuations and the effect of the corrective coefficient or weighting.
Will the Commissioner tell us what she thinks about that?
How does the Commission deal with this question of currency movements and the weighting in the Agency's case?
Lastly, we think it is important, and this must be clear, to guarantee the payment of a certain sum from our budget.
As rapporteur on the budget for the Environment Committee I argued in favour of an extra ECU 2 million over and above the present figure of twelve million.
The Committee on Budgets decided last week to give one million more, or half of what we had asked for.
But as you see, we in the Environment Committee are doing our best to safeguard the budget for this Agency.
I am very pleased that it has been possible to have this item on the agenda of the plenary session so quickly.
I would therefore like to thank all those who invested a considerable amount of work on this draft proposal.
The current level and structure of fees payable by the pharmaceutical industry to the European Agency for the evaluation of medical products was set out in the 1995 Council regulation.
In accordance with Article 10 of this regulation the Commission submitted a report on its implementation.
In the light of that exercise we proposed the definitive regulation in January 1998.
In preparing this report the Commission has sought to ensure two aims: first, not to place undue burden on applicants; second, not to endanger the achievement of the EMEA's primary task which is to provide scientific advice of the highest possible quality in relation to the authorisation and supervision of medical products.
The proposed increase in fee levels is clearly demonstrated and supported by a cost survey of the national competent authorities and the EMEA.
Particular attention was given to the fact that fees should normally be lower than the total of fees charged by 15 Member States.
The Commission's proposals also foresee some major new orientations: the introduction of an annual fee; the introduction of a fee for scientific advice and protocol assistance; a reduced fee for certain variations which do not involve detailed scientific evaluation; fees for the establishment of maximum residue limits for clinical trials; administrative charges; the introduction of differentiated fees for the initiation of Community referral procedures.
I am pleased to announce that the Commission will take up several of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament.
We will therefore shortly produce an amended proposal.
It will take on board the following issues: the suggestion that future amendments to the fees regulation will be based on a complete evaluation of all costs of the Agency - Amendment No 16; clarification that the fee for evaluation covers all strengths and pharmaceutical forms of a product - Amendments Nos 10 and 11; increase of the additional arbitration fee for veterinary medical products - Amendment No 12; increase of the fees for changes to a maximum residue limit of a veterinary medical product - Amendment No 13; the introduction of a flexible fee for scientific advice; Amendment No 14.
Unfortunately we will not be able to take on board all amendments. This is for several reasons.
Some issues cannot be taken up for legal reasons. For instance, it is not possible to change the legal basis for the regulation.
Article 10 of the 1995 regulation already gives a precise and specific legal basis which has to be respected.
In other cases we think that the suggested amendments might bring about a possible risk for public health. For example, by encouraging an inflation in different presentations of one medical product.
The proposal to make the first fixation of a maximum residue limit for several animal species more expensive cannot be accepted.
This would be contrary to the Commission's policy to encourage and stimulate applications for fixations of new MRLs.
Other issues will be laid down in horizontal legal texts and not in the fees regulation.
This includes, for example, the mentioning of the euro and budgetary details.
Thank you once again for your quick and fruitful cooperation on this issue.
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner how she proposed to deal with the question of currency movements and the effect of the corrective coefficient. The Agency has lost 20 % because of these.
What is the Commission going to do about it?
Mr President, I am representing Mr Bangemann and I will ask him to give you a written answer.
Mr President, I think that as Mr Kellett-Bowman might well attest, in the budget arrangements for 1999 we put in a series of amendments to ensure that the Commission actually tops up on the third or fourth payments every year the losses made by any agency through exchange rate fluctuations or the weighting arrangements.
If the budget goes through the first reading in early December, that will actually be operational.
Similarly, if agencies win out, they will lose their grant the next year, so there will not be a win-win but rather a win-lose situation.
I hope that clarifies the position.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended until 5.30 p.m.)
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0483/98).
Mr Liikanen has just arrived and is probably running on Finnish time, which is not exactly the same as our own.
Nonetheless, we would like to welcome him and ask that he answers Question No 30 by Marjo Matikainen-Kallström (H-0885/98)
Subject: The impact of the crisis in Russia on the country's energy production and nuclear safety
The deepening economic, social and political crisis in Russia has given rise to fears that the coming winter may cause major energy management problems there.
It has also been suggested that serious economic problems, as well as unpaid wages and the possible neglect of maintenance operations, may adversely affect the country's capacity to produce nuclear energy safely.
Russia has nuclear power stations, inter alia near the Finnish border, whose technical condition and safety are not entirely certain even under stable conditions.
Because of this, the impact of the crisis, which is now rapidly becoming more acute, on Russia's energy management and nuclear safety should be investigated as thoroughly as possible and above all quickly.
In view of the above, how probable and how serious does the Commission consider the adverse consequences of the growing crisis in Russia for the country's energy management and nuclear safety to be? What will the Commission do to help the Russian authorities to avert and eliminate any safety hazards arising from the above energy problems?
I give the floor to Mr Liikanen to answer Mrs Matikainen-Kallström's question.
Mr President, there is nothing to indicate that the present situation in Russia is having a negative impact on the energy sector and nuclear safety.
There have been signs that the government intends to pay employees in the industries concerned the salaries that have remained outstanding. In this way there could be a positive effect on the present difficult situation.
The Commission is monitoring the situation and makes a daily assessment of developments, mainly through its delegation in Moscow.
At the same time the implementation of the TACIS programme which is currently under way, particularly in the energy sector, will enable us to acquire the information that we need.
In this way, the situation with regard to nuclear power plants can be monitored continuously.
It is with this programme very much in mind that the Commission and the Russian authorities are developing fresh strategies.
Since the start of the programme around ECU 300 million has been made available to improve nuclear safety in Russia.
Safety standards have improved mainly through cooperation between the European Union and most of the Russian nuclear power plants.
It is hoped that the strategy will be fully in place before Viktor Kliman, Jacques Santer and Boris Yeltsin meet in Vienna on 27 October.
Mr President, I wish to thank the Commissioner for his reply.
I would still like to have it clarified what guarantees the Russian authorities have given to the employees that their salaries will be paid, since it is an absolute requirement for the employees concerned to stay on in these plants, as well as for the safety of the plants to be ensured.
Mr President, I am not aware of any legal guarantees on the subject, but only of a political commitment.
Let us hope that the matter can be resolved.
Obviously, our problem is that Russia's economic difficulties cannot be overcome with the support of the international community alone.
Ultimately, it is Russia herself that must solve these structural problems, which include paying the outstanding salaries.
I shall pass the question on to the Commissioner responsible.
If we learn any more, we shall glad to forward the information to the honourable Member.
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
I would like to stay with this matter as, pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, I have received two supplementary questions.
The first is from Mr Rübig, who has the floor for one minute.
You have the floor, Mr Rübig.
Mr President, we know that we spend a great deal of money on the safety of nuclear power stations; that is done under Euratom. But what is the situation regarding minimum standards?
Are there not even any plans to introduce minimum safety standards for nuclear power stations in the European Union, particularly with the enlargement of the EU in mind? I believe it is time we all sat down to develop a common programme of safety standards for Europe, one reason being that it could serve as a basis for the applicant states to raise their own standards.
Mr President, I will gladly convey this suggestion to Mr Papoutsis. He will be here tomorrow at the Commission meeting, and I will ask him to reply separately to you on that point.
Mr President, does the Commission really have any idea at all just how dangerous the Russian nuclear plants are and what condition they are in? We know that any nuclear accident there would pose a truly grave danger to the population of the European Union.
Mr President, as I stated at the beginning, there has been a good deal of cooperation with the Russian authorities to improve nuclear safety through the TACIS programmes.
ECU 300 million has been spent on this, and there has been an immense amount of cooperation among experts.
I believe the Commission has a very good overall picture of the situation, but I am prepared to ask our experts in the field to provide the honourable Member with detailed information if she so wishes.
Question No 31 by Pedro Aparicio Sánchez (H-0896/98)
Subject: Spanish nationality requirement for Spanish airline captains
Despite the fact that Article 48 of the Treaty bans discrimination between workers in the EC on grounds of nationality, the Spanish Government does not authorise Spanish airlines to appoint persons of non-Spanish nationality as aeroplane captains.
The government justifies this restriction (laid down by law in 1960) on the grounds that, inter alia, 'the job of the captain of an aeroplane includes duties of a kind that would normally be carried out by a civil servant'.
This restrictive interpretation is upheld in the face of requests for its abolition from various bodies and individuals, and in particular the Spanish Airlines Association, which represents 26 Spanish private companies.
Does the Commission believe that the Spanish nationality requirement for Spanish airline captains constitutes an infringement of Article 48 of the EC Treaty?
If so, does the Commission intend to force the Spanish Government to rectify the situation? I give the floor to Mr Liikanen to answer Mr Aparicio Sánchez's question.
Mr President, only posts having judicial powers or involving the public interests of the State are reserved for citizens of the country in question.
These would include such jobs as police officer, judge or state minister, together with certain top executive posts in the public administration.
The crew of a commercial airliner clearly does not fall within this category.
According to international law and practice, however, the captain of an aircraft is a representative of authority on that aircraft, since he or she is responsible for the safety of the plane and for public order and, ultimately, for the lives of the passengers.
On this basis, it could be said in a general way that the captain of an aircraft wields judicial power, or at least may wield it if called upon to do so.
This is the practice adopted by most Member States and that approved by the Commission.
Any condition of nationality for certain kinds of employment is, however, an exception to the basic principle of Community law that all European citizens should be treated equally in matters of employment.
This exception must therefore be interpreted within certain limitations.
It is possible that, in certain cases, the captain will not normally be called upon to exert his or her judicial powers because of the nature of the aircraft itself or other circumstances.
In such cases, the condition concerning nationality is without foundation.
However, such a case would be an exception to the general rules concerning the typical work of the captain of an aircraft, so the burden of proof should remain with the party invoking this exception.
Commissioner, thank you for your kind response that, personally speaking, gives me great pleasure.
The Spanish Government argues that the captain of an aeroplane performs duties such as authorising marriages on board, registering a new-born child or guarding diplomatic bags. Although the government does not class them as civil servants, they do hold a position of authority.
Therefore, in my opinion, this is a rather out-dated and old-fashioned interpretation of the role of a captain of an aeroplane. But I fear that the extremely powerful Spanish pilots' trade union is behind this oversight by the Spanish Government and that it is exerting considerable pressure to keep the labour market restricted.
Question No 32 by Frode Kristoffersen (H-0910/98)
Subject: Preselection tests in connection with the Commission's open competitions COM/A/8/98, COM/A/9/98, COM/A/10/98, COM/A/11/98 and COM/A/12/98
What measures does the Commission propose to take to ensure that preselection tests for Commission posts are conducted in future in such a way that it is not necessary to discard candidates' papers? What penalties will the Commission impose on the persons in the Commission who are responsible for these irregularities, and on the candidates in the tests who broke the rules for the conduct of such tests?
I give the floor to Mr Liikanen to answer Mr Kristoffersen's question.
Mr President, the Commission decided on 23 September 1998 to annul the preselection tests for competitions COM/A/8/98 to COM/A/12/98 held on 14 September this year, since there are sufficient grounds to believe that there has been a leak of information regarding at least one of the tests and at least one of the competition languages.
To ensure equal treatment for all candidates, the Commission will be organising new preselection tests as soon as possible for the start of 1999.
An investigation was begun immediately to discover who was responsible for the leak.
The legal authorities are being contacted with a view to bringing possible proceedings.
Those found responsible will also be liable for damages in respect of the Commission.
The Commission is aware of problems at two of the test venues on 14 September, including a mobile phone being used and certain candidates not following the instructions of the invigilators.
For this reason, the Commission intends to tighten up considerably the rules on competitions and their supervision, so that all candidates can take part in them on an equal footing.
The Commission deeply regrets the inconvenience which this situation has caused to those candidates who participated in the competitions honestly and in good faith.
Commissioner, I would like to ask whether consideration has already been given as things stand to ways of tightening up the rules and improving them for the purposes of future tests.
Do you not agree with me, Commissioner, that this is a very serious and unhappy affair, since in reality it concerns a large number of young people in Europe who have applied for jobs in the EU? Indeed it has implications for the EU's reputation too.
Do you not also agree with me, Commissioner, that it is really necessary to get a grip on this affair, in the interests of improving the image of Europe? I can promise you, Commissioner, that we will be given a hard time in the election campaign that is due to get underway soon now.
All these negative developments currently hanging over the European institutions are no help to us whatsoever in advancing the European cause. Do you share these concerns with me, Commissioner?
Mr President, I agree completely.
I personally organised three meetings on this issue, and we had to conclude, among other things, that the rules on entry to the competitions, which were the same as usual, were not strict enough for candidates.
We must clearly tighten them up, for example as regards what the candidates are allowed to bring in with them when they sit the competition.
The second area in which I think the rules are lax concerns the invigilators' right to intervene in disturbances, or when someone is cheating, for example.
In my opinion, the invigilators must have the right to intervene directly and not, as has hitherto been the case, only at a later stage through the system of appeals.
I agree with the honourable Member that this has been a very unfortunate and disagreeable affair.
That is why it is important that the Commission's decision to annul the competition was taken quickly, and that a whole new competition should be organised carefully and thoroughly.
The third point is something that will obviously have to be discussed, and that is whether in future it will still be appropriate to hold these large-scale competitions, or whether it would be preferable to try and restrict the number of candidates so that the competitions can be better controlled.
You will appreciate that organising a competition for 30 000 candidates in 11 languages at 40 different sites is an enormous logistical task.
This is not a defence of the misconduct that has taken place, but it does oblige us to consider whether or not the competitions should in future be made more controllable.
Thank you very much, Mr Liikanen.
This question has certainly aroused a great deal of interest in the House to the point of four supplementary questions being tabled.
The Rules of Procedure only allow me to admit two.
Therefore, I will first give the floor to Mr De Coene and then to Mr Rack.
Mr De Coene, you have the floor for one minute.
Commissioner, your principled reaction does you credit and you have done what was necessary.
Nevertheless, I would appreciate some clarification of the notion of 'penalties' here.
As the questioner rightly said and you confirmed, a moral as well as a financial loss has been sustained here.
So my question is this: do you indeed believe that those responsible for this loss, whether it be the organisers or invigilators, or those sitting the examination, must bear the cost of the loss which the institution has sustained?
Secondly, can you tell me the exact cost of these preselection tests which had to be declared invalid thanks to the behaviour of these people? I specifically want to know if you will tell me what the cost was, because I cannot imagine that any employer would stand for the good name of the Union being besmirched in such a way by these members of its staff.
Mr President, there have obviously been problems in three areas here, and in these there are two guilty parties.
Firstly, the candidates are obviously guilty who entered the competition fraudulently.
If necessary, this will have to be pursued under the law.
Secondly, the officials are also guilty - if they are officials - who are responsible for the apparent leak, since this has done enormous damage to the administration.
Thirdly, we have to judge separately the responsibility of the administrative staff in this case, in the light of how feasible the present rules governing supervision are. This is also a judgement that we shall clearly have to make.
But the main responsibility lies with the perpetrators of the deception and with those parties who assisted in it.
As for costs, the total costs of the competition were high, amounting to ECU 1.2 million.
It is unlikely that we shall be able to spend anything less the next time round either.
As for the question of financial responsibility, we shall obviously return to that when the investigations are over.
Mr President, Commissioner, will all those who were admitted to the test this time be admitted next time?
Is there any means of excluding from the next test those who have been unmistakably caught circumventing the rules, because we surely do not want that kind of official in the Commission in future? Thirdly, is there also scope for reimbursing those candidates who have expended material resources in order to be able to sit this test, who have taken a day off and may therefore have been expected to pay their own travel expenses?
Mr President, it is difficult for me to anticipate any future legal decisions.
But I agree entirely with the questioner: neither the Commission nor any other institution of the Community needs in its service people who flout all the Community rules in the selection tests.
This has to be viewed very seriously, and action must be taken accordingly.
As for the problems arising from the reorganisation of the competition, they are being addressed at this very moment.
I cannot yet reply in any more detail.
Unfortunately, I am afraid that most of the candidates will have to make the sacrifice once again.
That is why the deception that has occurred is so deplorable.
It is important in terms of people's rights that no one should profit from the deception, but that everyone is genuinely in the same situation in the new competition.
Question No 33 by Angela Sierra González (H-0912/98)
Subject: Death of Semira Adamu in Belgium
The death by suffocation at the hands of the Belgian police of a young Nigerian woman who was to be deported to Togo, after she was smothered under two pillows in the aeroplane which was to take her from Brussels to Lomé, has caused widespread concern among Europe's citizens.
Semira Adamu asked for asylum in Belgium to escape an arranged marriage with a polygamous 65-year-old. Does the Commission not consider that Community policy on asylum should include sexual abuse among the criteria to be taken into account?
I should like to welcome Mrs Gradin and ask her to answer Mrs Sierra González's question.
Mr President, I share the sadness and indignation felt by so many over the circumstances surrounding the death of Semira Adamu.
Exactly what happened is currently being looked into by the Belgian authorities.
Regardless of eventual explanations, this kind of thing simply should not occur.
The Commission is not in a position to comment on the procedural handling of the Semira Adamu dossier.
We do not know all the facts and are not empowered to speak out on individual cases.
Mrs Sierra González asked about the possibility of granting refugee status to a person who has suffered sexual abuse, or who might risk such abuse if deported.
The basic principles are enshrined in the 1951 Geneva Convention. This states that a person shall be deemed to be a refugee if he or she has well-founded fear of persecution on account of his or her race, religion, nationality or affiliation to a particular social group, or of his or her political beliefs.
The individual concerned must be outside his or her country of citizenship and be unable, or not want, to benefit from the protection of that country.
For many years now it has been my view that rape as an act of war should be treated as torture.
A woman subjected to rape in such circumstances would therefore be entitled to refugee status, according to my criterion.
The EU Member States have endeavoured to achieve a common interpretation of the Geneva Convention.
On 4 April 1996, a common position was adopted on the definition of refugee in Article 1 of the Geneva Convention.
This interpretation does not, however, cover the issue of gender-related persecution or sexual abuse - which is a great pity. We should certainly be seeking an updated definition.
In addition to refugee status, the EU Member States often offer alternative options to individuals in need of international protection.
Compassionate leave to remain may be accorded on purely humanitarian grounds if there are strong reasons for allowing someone to stay.
At the moment it is up to each Member State to decide, and practice differs considerably from country to country.
Discussion has already begun on introducing certain minimum standards for this type of protection.
The question is included in the Council of Ministers' work programme.
A survey of the various national rules and practices was carried out during the spring.
An initial analysis has been produced and will form the basis for future work.
Parallel discussions are under way in Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
I imagine that this committee will also address the difficult issue of what our attitude should be towards people seeking protection on the grounds of various forms of sexual persecution and I look forward to being informed of the results of that work.
There are two shocking facts concerning the death of Semira Adamu.
The first is that it involves the violent death of a young person who had come to the European Union seeking protection against the moral injustice being forced on her in her own country in the name of tradition. The second - that is equally important - is the fact that the methods used by the police were perfectly legal, even though they were not only violent but also degrading.
In view of these facts and other deaths which have occurred during expulsions from other European Union countries, does the Commission believe that the severity of such procedures, which hide behind the Schengen Agreement, needs to be reviewed?
As I said in my reply, I agree with the questioner that these things should not occur, but we must remember that it is the national authorities who bear responsibility for ensuring that their police forces and government departments behave in a decent fashion when deporting individuals from their territory.
I assume that countries are capable of handling these matters themselves.
This is not just to do with the fact of people being denied the right to asylum, but it has to do with how they are treated afterwards.
It is completely unacceptable that a person, even if denied asylum, should be treated worse than an animal would be treated.
The EU has a responsibility.
People here praise the Amsterdam Treaty for the fact that now human rights will be brought into the treaties. Countries - particularly Belgium - are in breach of human rights standards.
Surely some measures have to be taken against those countries that do this. It is not just Belgium.
The treatment of people seeking asylum in all EU Member States is absolutely appalling.
They are not treated like human beings; they are not treated like ordinary people. They are treated in some sort of inferior way that completely denies them any basic right or dignity whatsoever.
The Commission and the EU as a whole have to deal with this.
There should be proper codes of conduct and proper measures brought in to ensure that this kind of thing cannot happen.
As I said, I am as sorry as you are that this girl has been handled as she has.
But it is the responsibility of Belgium to look after their policemen's behaviour when they send a person out of the country.
This is something I expect every country to be able to take care of.
Commissioner, in relation to your speech on the Status of Refugees and the Geneva Convention, I would like to ask if the Commission is considering recommending to the European Union countries that, in all matters relating to political asylum for women, and in matters that exclusively affect women, such as abuse and other gender-linked issues, this political asylum be extended.
As you know, there have been many years of debate as to whether we could widen the definition of political refugee status. This has not been successful.
Nobody wants to change the Geneva Convention but we can complement the Convention.
We could do this as we have proposed in other areas in the Union such as when we are talking about persecution of third parties, or about refugees staying for a shorter time.
My personal wish would be that, with Parliament's support - and particularly the support of the women - we should take up the question of rape and sexual abuse of women.
That could be a humanitarian angle.
Question No 34 by Mark Watts (H-0864/98)
Subject: Registration of EU citizens visiting another Member State
Are EU Member States entitled to require hotels and guest houses to demand that visiting EU citizens provide exhaustive details of their travel documentation (including type of travel document, when and where issued, expiry date and document number) as a condition of their stay? Are the authorities in Member States permitted to fine proprietors of establishments who fail to record such information from guests?
Does the Commission agree that this practice, which I understand exists in Austria, makes a mockery of the principle of free movement, and what action will the Commission take to end this procedure? As well as welcoming Mr Oreja, I would like to thank him for battling against the elements to get here.
We knew that he was having a rather difficult journey getting to this sitting. So, thank you for coming, and I would like to ask you to answer Mr Watts' question.
Current Community law on the free movement of the Union's citizens allows Member States to request that they are informed of the presence of nationals of other Member States in their country.
In some countries, EU citizens staying only for a short while have to declare their arrival to the administrative authorities or the local police.
In order to make this easier, some Member States allow citizens of other countries to declare their arrival through forms completed in hotels, campsites or guest houses and a copy of this is sent to the local authorities.
In this way, citizens do not have to go through any additional procedures and these pre-printed forms contain all the information needed to identify a person, as they include the number, place and date of issue of the passport or identity card.
The Court of Justice has accepted that these systems for declaring arrivals are compatible with Community law.
Indeed, according to the Court, this type of system cannot be contrary to the principle of the free movement of persons if the imposed time limits for declaring an arrival are unreasonable or when the penalties for not fulfilling this obligation are disproportionate to the seriousness of the infringement, for example, if they lead to a prison sentence or to expulsion.
Thank you Commissioner for your answer.
The trouble is that it highlight dual or treble standards operating throughout the Community.
After all, one of the benefits of the Community is supposedly free movement and if, for example, one takes a day trip to another Member State or stays in private accommodation, there is no such requirement to provide details of identification documents or passports.
It just so happens that when a business person or holidaymaker goes to a hotel these rather ludicrous and petty-minded bureaucratic restrictions are imposed.
The citizens of Europe demand an answer from the Commission as to why these dual standards are applied.
If it is in the interests of security or information on visitors, why is the information not required from every visitor? It is clearly not.
Therefore the information is not effective and, as the Commissioner implied, there should be an agreement between Member States to try to remove this artificial barrier to free movement.
As Mr Watts well knows, the same system does not exist in all Member States. That is to say that, in practice, situations vary considerably.
In some Member States, such as Denmark, Greece, Portugal, Sweden and the United Kingdom, there is no system for declaring the arrivals of EU citizens only staying for a short while. Nor is there a police-controlled registration system operating in hotels.
Such systems do exist in the other Member States.
And, in the group of countries with no such system, there are certain countries that have a general system for declaring arrivals that is equally applied to EU citizens. Other countries, if they have not devised a system for the declaration of arrivals for EU citizens, have instead established a specific registration system in hotels and public accommodation that comes under the general duties of the police.
Consequently, there is no single system.
What I do believe to be important is that which the Court of Justice has maintained until now, in other words, that such arrival declaration systems are compatible with Community law.
Perhaps what Mr Watt is asking is if these systems should be harmonised in the future, that is, if the free movement of persons encourages us to establish an identical system in all the Member States.
This is a matter that has yet to be resolved and at the moment there are two main ideas being discussed.
The first is that there are certain standards, those that the Court of Justice has applied; the second is that different systems are acceptable, as long as there are limits. In other words, these limits cannot be disproportionate to the seriousness of the infringement if, as I said earlier, they lead, for example, to a prison sentence or expulsion.
This is the rule as it stands at the moment but I have made a note of Mr Watts's comments on the possible harmonisation of the different Member States' positions.
Question No 35 by Joan Vallvé (H-0865/98)
Subject: Inclusion of the Misteri d'Elx on the World Heritage List
The Misteri o Festa d'Elx (Mystery Play or Feast of Elche) has been put forward for inclusion on UNESCO's World Heritage List.
The Festa, whose origins date back to the late 14th century, is staged in the city of Elx (Elche) on 14 and 15 August each year to commemorate the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.
It is the sole theatrical representation of mediaeval origin of its kind to have survived in Europe.
Does the Commission intend to support this initiative to gain explicit recognition for this centuries-old tradition of such great artistic and cultural importance? I give the floor to Mr Oreja to answer Mr Vallvé's question.
The European Commission is aware of the importance and significance of the Elche Mystery Play (Misteri d'Elx ) in the history of European religious and musical theatre.
And, as the procedure for inclusion on the World Heritage list dictates, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee is the body that has statutory responsibility for taking decisions on these matters.
As Mr Vallvé is aware, it is the responsibility of local and national authorities to initiate the UNESCO procedure and these authorities must support any project which they wish to see recognised as a World Heritage project.
Within the framework of its powers, the Community does not have any formal or material possibilities, as far as Article 128 of the Treaty is concerned, that allow it to intervene in the procedure of naming World Heritage events.
Nonetheless, the Commission hopes that the authorities in Elche are successful in their bid, as this would give an extremely important European cultural event the world-wide status it deserves.
Of course, I am fully aware of Mr Vallvé's sensitivity in this area and I completely agree with him as I have been privileged enough to witness the Elche Mystery Play. It is indeed a spectacular event and is proof of something I believe to be very important: the cultural identity of a people.
I believe that we should try to see the distinctive elements that exist in the varied cultures of the people and, undoubtedly, one of them is this Elche Mystery Play, which also has a universal dimension.
In other words, it is a locally acclaimed event but, at the same time, it has world-wide significance and it is for this reason that we believe it deserves to be recognised as a World Heritage event.
Mr Vallvé can rest assured that, if consulted, the Commission will stress the importance the Elche Mystery Play deserves.
I would simply like to thank the Commissioner for his response.
I did not doubt his sensitivity in recognising these cultural events, which have old traditions - the Misteri d'Elx dates back to the end of the 14th century - and which have continued up until today. This is, in some way, proof of the multi-culturalism inherent to Europe.
For example, the Misteri d'Elx is a play in Catalan which takes place every year during these holidays.
What is more, they are known throughout Europe and acknowledged internationally. Therefore, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his kind words and I am sure that the local authorities in Elche will take the necessary steps to ensure that this play receives the recognition it deserves from UNESCO, as European heritage to be shown to the whole world.
Commissioner, if you know the Misteri d'Elx or if you have seen it, then you know how spectacular and unusual it is to see the Assumption of the Virgin Mary portrayed in this work of European art and culture.
In any case, I, too, wanted to say this to the House today as I am a devoted fan of this play.
Yet, whilst acknowledging how important it is that this celebration be included on the World Heritage list by UNESCO, and as you are here today, I wanted to take this opportunity to put a request to you. Is there any possibility, apart from this recognition, which is extraordinary in itself, and within the Commission's powers - although I know that the Commission cannot do anything -, that there might be a budget heading that could be used to help this group of artists, not as part of the World Heritage procedure but as a different category, if possible?
These people do not of course do this exclusively, but they dedicate their free time to keeping this marvellous European cultural display alive.
Mrs Sornosa, I obviously share your interest in the issue you have raised and there is one possible option.
As you know, the new framework programme for culture is currently with the two branches of the legislative authorities - the Council and Parliament - and will come into force as of the year 2000.
It provides for three types of action: promoting networks; special actions; and high-profile projects.
If anything can be called a high-profile project, then it is the Misteri d'Elx . Therefore, why not initiate the procedure?
I call on you, and all those interested in this matter, to take the appropriate steps to take this to the Commission. And I assure you that I will follow this matter very closely.
But I would point out that I do not make the final decision; a committee decides.
Nonetheless, the word from the Commission, through me - if my colleagues permit it - is that I think that the Elche Mystery Play will be recognised as a high-profile project.
I am aware of Doctor von Habsburg's great sensitivity in this area and I must add that, scarcely a week ago, I passed through one of the villages in that area where I saw that one of them has, in fact, a street dedicated to Otto von Habsburg.
And in that street you can see the moros y cristianos festival being prepared. I therefore believe that all this points to one thing - and it is important to highlight it -, namely, that Europe's wealth stems from the differences in the varied cultures which exist in Europe.
The Commission's role will probably be to basically determine what the different European cultures have in common, but beginning with the distinguishing features of each of the cultures.
Consequently, I believe that these aspects should either come under the heading of high-profile projects or under special actions. Therefore, I am making a special note of all these initiatives, and I hope I can continue to rely on them.
And now that we have, in fact, reached the legislative stage, I would like to ask that this stage be speeded up as much as possible in Parliament, and that it progresses quickly at first reading, so that on 17 November, if possible, the Council can adopt a common position, and so that we might already have this framework agreement before the end of the year. Initiatives such as those we have been discussing this afternoon will, of course, come under this framework agreement.
Thank you, Mr Oreja.
Your respect for speed and rapidity has been fully noted and we thank you for being here with us today.
We have reached the end of the questions for Mr Oreja and so we wish him farewell and a safe but not too speedy journey back. We hope you arrive as safely at that end as you did here.
Question No 36 by Patricia McKenna (H-0833/98)
Subject: The Ilois people of the Chagos Archipelago
Is the Commission aware that, when it was negotiating its accession to the then EEC, the UK was forcibly removing approximately 2000 indigenous Ilois people from the Chagos Archipelago, which is now an overseas territory of the EU called the British Indian Ocean Territory, and that the unstated purpose of the clearance was to lease one of the islands, Diego Garcia, to the USA as a military base? Has the Commission previously considered the matter, and in any case does it regard these people as citizens of the European Union, even though they are living in forced exile in Mauritius, many living in very poor conditions there - many, indeed, having committed suicide - and despite the fact that a financial settlement was reached with the UK Government some years ago?
Whether citizens or not, does the Commission believe that these people would have legal rights within the Union, sa displaced occupants of what is Union territory, or, in a sense, as EU refugees?
What does the Commission intend to do to uphold the Treaties in relation to these unfortunate people?
I give the floor to Mr Pinheiro to answer Mrs McKenna's question.
The European Commission is aware of the Chagos issue but has never taken part in official discussions on the matter.
The question of whether the Ilois people of the Chagos Archipelago would be entitled to British citizenship is a matter between the UK Government and the concerned persons.
The European Community is a major donor in Mauritius and finances, through the European Development Fund, a number of projects and programmes which aim at reducing poverty among the most fragile elements of the country's population, whatever their origin.
The Commission has recently launched a detailed study of poverty issues in Mauritius in order to establish a clear picture of this problem.
Although general poverty has been eradicated in Mauritius, due to impressive economic development in the last two decades, there still exist pockets of poverty among marginalised elements of the population.
The focused poverty alleviation programme will be set up early 1999, financed by the EDF, from which associations or NGOs of Ilois people might of course benefit.
I do not think the Commission is actually addressing the issue.
The issue here is that basically these are overseas territories of the EU.
The people of Diego Garcia have been denied the right to live in their own homeland.
Surely they must have some rights under EU law as EU citizens.
They have been forced off their islands to live in exile in other places.
It is not acceptable. The EU has to look at this.
I should also like to know if the Commission has any legal advice on this matter.
I would be very grateful if you could supply me with the legal advice you have on it.
But I do not think it is just an issue for the Member State, because if that is the case, could not any government in the EU decide that minority groups in some part of its country can be shipped off somewhere else? Have they no rights under EU law?
It does not make any sense.
By virtue of the fact that they were actually living on an island that was a British island, they should have rights as EU citizens.
They have been living in exile now for almost 30 years.
That is not acceptable. There is an onus on the EU to recognise the plight of these people.
Although the European Commission is aware of the problem, this is the first time it has been raised, be it by the Mauritian Government, the UK Government or the Ilois people concerned.
We therefore have no legal advice except to say that it is a complex issue.
We know that the governments and the people concerned are discussing this issue but apart from that I cannot go any further.
Question No 37 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0845/98)
Subject: Commission studies on trade with ACP regions
Would the Commission please indicate the current status of the studies undertaken on trade relations with ACP regions? Is it true that they have been completed but are now being revised by the authors at the Commission's instigation?
When will MEPs be given the access to the information contained in these documents that they were promised in order to enable them to formulate their response to the Lomé negotiating mandate? I give the floor to Mr Pinheiro to answer Mrs Kinnock's question.
I am pleased to inform Mrs Kinnock that the studies on the economic impact of introducing reciprocity into the trade relations between the European Union and groupings of ACP countries are now in their final phase.
During the summer, the Commission received draft final reports for five of these studies.
The last one should be sent, we hope, very soon.
According to the terms of reference and normal Commission practice, the services gave their comments to ensure that all the reports were clear and complete.
We have now just received three final reports on the Caribbean, the Pacific and the SAADAC region.
As I have already explained during the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, I can assure you that it has always been my intention to share the results with you and everybody else as soon as it is possible, in order for everybody to have a comprehensive view of the issues at stake during the forthcoming negotiations.
Thus, you and other interested Members will receive copies of all the final reports, via the Secretariat of the European Parliament, by the beginning of November.
The Commission is also preparing a synthesis of all the studies, which you will also receive together with the reports.
I thank the Commissioner for that very helpful answer.
Presumably, Commissioner Pinheiro, you will want those studies to support the Commission's view that FTAs would actually help ACP countries to be integrated into the global economy.
Therefore, I would like to ask you whether you heard - as I know you did - the clear warning we had last week at the opening of the negotiations given by Minister Billie Miller from Barbados, maintaining that ACP economies are far too fragile to withstand any kind of asymmetrical deal with the European Union?
In the light of the recent breakdown of the negotiations with South Africa, are you prepared to say that Minister Billie Miller is wrong?
We can all have an opinion on the future and the prospects of what the future holds for us.
My assumption and my position is that I hope and expect that our proposals will help the ACP countries, but I am not dogmatic.
That is why we should look very carefully at all the studies that are currently being made and will be made afterwards in order to give an in-depth view and perception, because not every country is the same and the situation might be different from country to country or region to region.
I am prepared to be extremely open in discussing these issues but, so far, I still keep my opinion.
As to the speech of the Minister of Barbados, I am afraid the response applies just to the position of Barbados, which had been previously stated by the Prime Minister.
As far as I understood the speech was not cleared with the ACP group.
From what I heard from many ambassadors and ministers from the other regions, they do not entirely share some of the concerns of Mrs Miller.
Having said that, I gather asymmetry and the opening up of borders is inevitable if the trend towards liberalisation continues.
We propose that opening takes place gradually and that countries should be assisted in that opening rather than their having to cope with a blind and horizontal opening, such as one dictated, for instance, by the WTO.
At the same time, we reckon that the fragility of those economies is such that they cannot endure any shock.
That is quite clear.
Therefore, whatever the solution, things will have not only to be gradual but monitored very closely in order to avoid derailment of the situation.
As for South Africa - and since I know you are going there very soon - there are three outstanding issues more of a political nature than a trade nature which I hope will be solved.
At the end of last week I made informal proposals and in mid-October I will see the Minister for Trade and Industry in order to try to see whether we can solve these political issues one way or another.
But I am still convinced that it will be possible to close the negotiations with South Africa by the end of October/beginning of November.
Question No 38 by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0847/98)
Subject: Supreme Court injunction on financing any new projects because of the EU's legal basis for granting aid
In the light of the suspension of all grants from a number of budget lines involving the Commission's DG VIII (possibly including the one relating to the 'Gender action on the WTO' project), which puts all projects on hold until the spring of 1999 at the very earliest, what has the Commission decided to do about projects that are directed towards development education and advocacy work concerning the preparations for the WTO's Third Ministerial Conference due to take place in the US in the autumn of 1999? The preparatory work on issues relevant to the WTO's agreed agenda and possible new issues is already under way after the summer recess at national level and will continue at EU-level from the winter of 1998/9 and spring of 1999.
(The Supreme Court's injunction has stopped a number of projects relating to the WTO that were on the verge of being approved).
I give the floor to Mr Pinheiro to answer Mrs Sandbæk's question.
The Commission fully realises the importance of integrating developing countries - the ACP states in particular - into the world economy.
This is why the Commission supports the full participation of ACP states in the WTO and has taken several initiatives to promote this.
At the same time the WTO can only play its proper role if the concerns of all participating states are met.
That is the reason why I insist that trade and development have to be firmly on the WTO agenda and that the particular constraints of developing countries must be adequately assessed and taken into account during all multilateral trade negotiations.
This is truly essential.
I am personally committed to this, and I use all opportunities I have in our relations with trading partners to build support for our position.
By the way, I have just come from Washington where I participated in a G8 meeting on development, and it was thanks precisely to my intervention that it was possible to ensure that the next G7/G8 meeting on development will include trade and development and the concerns of developing countries as one of the main topics of the agenda.
As for the initiatives on WTO which the Commission has taken for the ACP states, and which I referred to above, I would like to mention the following.
In spring 1998 an informal working group was set up with the ACP secretariat for exchanging information, discussing and possibly coordinating positions for the next WTO negotiating round.
From January 1999 - and this is extremely important - an antenna of the ACP secretariat will be set up in Geneva for coordinating ACP positions within the WTO.
The Commission is financing this.
Also we financed a preparatory seminar before the second WTO ministerial conference held in May 1998. We have also financed seven forthcoming regional seminars regarding the WTO agreement and its implementation.
The Commission also confirms that it has a received a proposal for gender action on the WTO presented by the International Coalition for Development Action, for financing under budget line B7-611.
As a result of the ruling of the Court of Justice, the implementation of this budget line remains suspended.
It is not therefore possible at the moment to give a favourable response to the above request.
The Commission is, however, ready to examine project proposals for eligibility under other existing budget lines which are open to development education and advocacy projects and which already possess a legal basis and can therefore accept projects for financing.
Mr President, it is the last part of the Commissioner's answer regarding the other budget lines that I am interested in.
If other budget lines are found, is word then sent back to the NGOs that these budget lines are available, or are they simply told that money has already been appropriated via these budget lines? There is, for example, NGO cofinancing.
It is normally very large amounts that are appropriated via that budget line, but many of the amounts that are currently being sought for seminars or other forms of training in the ACP countries with a view to participation in the WTO negotiations are very small.
Is it possible, for example, to take money from the NGO cofinancing budget, where it currently is, and in certain cases make transfers, even if the amounts are very small, so that money can be made available for this very, very important area? We are after all in complete agreement that it is essential for the developing countries themselves to be included in the WTO negotiations.
There are different issues at stake here.
The first is WTO as a whole.
The second is about gender issues and the promotion of these issues as regards not just WTO but all concerns of development.
This has already been approved and it is mainstreamed.
So in my opinion it is fully justified that WTO - trade and development and trade-related issues - should also be mainstreamed as regards gender.
What I suggested - I could be a bit more specific - is that for some of those actions we could appeal to the B7-6000 budget line, which is for cofinancing with NGOs, which offer possibilities for the scope of the project concerned. If it is proposed under that aegis it stands a good chance of being eligible.
Question No 39 by Marie-Arlette Carlotti (H-0907/98)
Subject: EU support for the presidential elections in Gabon
In the framework of the support traditionally given by the European Union to the ACP countries in organising democratic and transparent elections, could the Commission tell us what technical and financial arrangements it intends to make for the presidential election due to take place in December 1998 in Gabon? I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mrs Carlotti's question.
In a letter dated 23 July 1998, the Gabonese Prime Minister asked the Commission to send an observer mission for the whole electoral process.
In its reply of 3 September, the Commission confirmed what it had already indicated during previous contacts, namely that it was prepared, in the context of a coordinated effort with the government and interested outside partners, to help Gabon to prepare and organise the presidential election.
In this respect, the contribution of the Commission might involve training, particularly for election agents and Gabonese observers.
Such an approach, conducted with the assistance of all the political forces, would allow the necessary conditions to be created in Gabon to ensure the essential transparency of the future elections.
The Commission is waiting at the moment for a reaction from the Gabonese authorities to this offer.
Thank you, Commissioner, for such a precise answer. However, I am concerned because the Gabonese authorities are spreading the rumour that they have not received any answer from the Commission; this answer of 3 September to which you have just referred is not being mentioned.
What can we therefore do to let everyone in Gabon, the ruling majority and the opposition alike, know that the ball is in their court? What can we do, in addition, to indicate publicly that we are not losing interest in the democratic process in Gabon?
What can we do as a matter of urgency?
You mentioned training, yet the longer this situation goes on, the more difficult it will be to train observers.
I share your concerns about the time which is passing, particularly since Gabon is currently an extremely important country in this region of Africa.
We all know that President Omar Bongo is the most senior of the African leaders.
He has tried to play a peace-making role here and there, and it is absolutely essential that the presidential election in Gabon is totally transparent.
It is not appropriate to offer financial assistance since Gabon does not need this. However, training - and good training at that - is absolutely essential.
Our letter of 3 September deserves a response and I believe that it will get one.
And I can assure you that, following this question, I shall personally look into what is happening and insist on having a response as soon as possible.
Thank you, Commissioner.
We have now come to the end of the questions to Mr Pinheiro, whom I would thank for his replies.
Question No 40 by Eryl McNally (H-0844/98)
Subject: Rational Planning Directive
What progress has been made on re-introducing the Rational Planning Directive or equivalent legislation? I should like to welcome Mr Papoutsis and ask him to answer Mrs McNally's question.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission approved the proposal for a directive on rational planning techniques in September 1995.
As you will remember, the proposal's purpose is to contribute towards the Community's aim of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
The European Parliament gave substantial backing to that directive through Mrs McNally's report which, as I had the opportunity to say then too, was an excellent report which Parliament adopted on 12 November 1996.
Many of Parliament's amendments were incorporated in the amended proposal and served to clarify the directive.
Unfortunately, during the Council's working group discussions, the proposal received only limited support and some Member States declared that they would prefer the proposed directive to be changed to a recommendation.
In the Commission's recent statement on energy efficiency, we reiterated our position on rational planning techniques and stressed that the Commission still regards this directive as important, particularly in the light of the development of energy services that will stem from the liberalisation of the market.
And we also said that we will try to find the best possible way to carry the matter forward.
I thank Mr Papoutsis for his continuing work in this area.
Does he agree with me that a directive of this sort would be an excellent contribution towards giving us credibility in the negotiations at Buenos Aires, which will be coordinated - from the European Union's point of view - by Commissioner Bjerregaard, with whom, I understand, he is working closely? Energy efficiency really is the key to meeting the promises that we made at Kyoto, particularly in the domestic sector.
It is in the domestic sector where we need to find ways to encourage firms to supply not simply electricity or gas, but electricity or gas as a means to have cool or warm houses, fridges, the electricity that is needed.
Many people cannot make those investments of their own accord.
They need encouragement and those firms need help.
I quite agree with you, Mrs McNally, that this is a particularly important and topical objective, especially since we are operating in the context of negotiations based on the commitments we entered into in Kyoto.
I too genuinely believe that carbon dioxide emissions from electric power generation account for over a third of the total carbon dioxide emissions in the European Union.
That is why we must find new ways and methods to restrict those emissions.
I sincerely believe, and that is why both I and the Commission insist, that a directive would be a very important contribution towards the efforts by Member States to achieve that target.
Question No 41 by Ludivina García Arias (H-0852/98)
Subject: Approved state aid to the HUNOSA mining company
The European Commission has finally given its approval to the Spanish plan for providing assistance to the mining sector but has again demanded cuts in coal production by the HUNOSA mining company, which means that for the second time it has failed to recognize the agreement between the Spanish Government and the social partners.
Does the Commission not think that in future it should sit at the same negotiating table so that any intervention on its part is rendered more transparent and is not seen by the Asturian public as the result of an agreement between the Spanish Government and the Commission to demand greater cuts? I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer Mrs García Arias's question.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission applauds the fact that the restructuring of enterprises to which Mrs García Arias refers was decided on the basis of agreement in the context of the social dialogue.
And it is a positive element that attention was paid to the future of the working people affected and the future of their families, and that measures are also envisaged for the economic conversion of coal-mining areas with a view to finding alternative ways and means of economic development.
Yet when the Commission expresses its opinion about that restructuring, it has a duty to ensure that the decisions taken are compatible with the provisions of the Treaties.
The Commission's decision on aid for the Spanish coal-mining industry is indeed an important one.
For the HUNOSA company alone, aid was approved to the tune of almost PTA 262 400 million, i.e. ECU 1 590 million.
The Commission made very great efforts to reach a decision which helps the industry and which it considers compatible with Community law and can therefore now defend, if necessary, before the European Court of Justice.
Throughout the process of negotiating the Spanish agreements, the Commission showed the greatest possible respect towards all the parties involved in the dialogue, naturally making it clear that it was willing to cooperate at any time and also to express its opinion if asked to do so.
The Commission notes, however, that the social partners taking part in the negotiations made no approach to it, even though they were perfectly aware of their rights in the matter.
As for the amendments which Mrs García Arias says were made to the text prepared by the Spanish authorities, the Commission never asked for additional production cuts by HUNOSA.
The Commission's comments concerning that company's production in 2001 are based on a substantial and transparent analysis of developments over the last few years.
And that analysis showed that, because of the theoretical basis of certain calculations put before it, the production from underground seams envisaged in the said agreements for 2001 would not in reality be reduced by the amount estimated.
The Commission could therefore not accept that method of calculating the cut-back of activity, and it consequently asked for the agreement to be kept on the basis of the real figures.
Mr President, let me emphasise that Mrs García Arias was able to experience the openness and receptiveness of the Commission in person when she took an interest in discussing the problems of the HUNOSA company.
We are always at Mrs García Arias's disposal to inform her about everything which was drawn to our attention and which we knew about at that time.
Perhaps the question should have been: how vigorously has the Spanish Government defended or explained the contents of the Hunosa plan? According to rumours and comments in circulation, the government and Mr Benavides agreed a document relating to the second stage of cuts.
However, Commissioner, I have my doubts.
When Decision 3632 was discussed here in Parliament, I was the rapporteur.
You know that it does, in fact, regulate Community interventions.
And, in both the Council and Parliament, the concept of European reference costs was explicitly rejected and the text therefore talks of social and regional reasons and of working towards reducing costs.
Although it is true that I have spoken to your representatives from the Commission on various occasions, I have never obtained a clear grasp of what those specific scales are, since there is no regulation governing this decision. I am not even convinced that the Commission has business criteria that it uses so that it might, in fact, say whether or not staff levels should be reduced by so much or production should be reduced by so much.
I also believe that the directive is being interpreted in a rather limited manner as we are talking about reducing costs here and that does not necessarily mean reducing production.
Any company can increase production and reduce the costs of that product.
I still do not understand those business criteria.
Mr President, I say again that the Commission is always ready to cooperate with the Member States concerning problems of a sensitive nature at national level, especially problems with particularly sensitive social and regional dimensions.
In this particular case, the Commission has done all it could to deal consistently with the problem facing it.
The Commission also respected the agreements signed between Spanish companies concerning cuts in production.
The difference of opinion between the Commission and the Spanish companies concerns the fact that the Commission, with a view to ensuring transparency, took into account the true level of production, while Spain took account of a theoretical approach to production.
From the analysis carried out by the Commission's services, it emerged that the production of 2 100 000 tonnes in 2001 from underground seams proposed by Spain for the HUNOSA company corresponded almost exactly to production in 1997 from the underground seams.
This means that no cut-back at all of deep-seam production would be taking place, and consequently no reduction of activity either.
So the Commission took into account the aim of the net cut-back in annual production mentioned precisely in the agreements which had been signed, and held to this rigorously.
We did not call for additional cut-backs, and I repeat that we will continue to deal with this issue with the greatest possible degree of social sensitivity, recognising the special problems which exist in the Asturias region.
I believe that it will be no surprise to Mr Papoutsis that Mrs García Arias and I are the Members who speak when discussing Hunosa, as we are Asturians.
I understand what he is saying about the aid from the Commission and I understand when he talks of the need for reductions.
I would also like to thank him for suggesting negotiations between the social partners.
But, Mr Papoutsis, what happens is that the Spanish Government reaches an agreement with the social partners on cutting jobs and cutting production.
The problem appears to be solved but then, very soon after, the regional press reports - and there is a newspaper archive there that we can consult on this - that the European Commission is putting pressure on stating that the agreement reached is not being completely fulfilled and that it is putting pressure on to cut production and jobs.
And you know that Asturias is a region that suffers a great deal. Therefore, our concern is: why does the Commission not join forces with the Spanish Government and the trade unions to draw up a definitive plan, one which does not vary depending on the government's or the Commission's situation at that particular time?
Mr President, yet again I wish to repeat that the Commission was at the disposal of the Spanish authorities and the social partners at any time during the agreement's negotiation.
Since the finalisation of the agreement, the Commission has respected it absolutely, deeming that the cut-back already agreed should be implemented, but always with reference to the true level of production.
From then on, the Commission's only intervention was to assess whether the agreement is compatible with the Treaty.
Beyond that, since the conclusion of the agreement, the Commission has never come back to ask for additional production cuts, as I explained earlier in response to Mrs García Arias's supplementary question, apart from a return to the correct way of estimating the production level in 2001.
That is all.
Question No 42 by Esko Seppänen (H-0858/98)
Subject: Use of appropriations for energy programmes
The EU has adopted the objective of doubling the use of renewable energy resources by 2010.
At present they account for 6 %, and the aim is therefore to attain 12 %.
The bulk of renewable energy now in use is hydroelectric.
For practical reasons it will be difficult to increase the use of this type of energy.
This being so, the objective of achieving a six percentage point increase is highly ambitious and is unlikely to be attained with the resources currently allocated.
Will the EU increase the funding of programmes to promote the attainment of the objectives? I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer Mr Seppänen's question.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission agrees that the objective set by the White Paper's plan of action for renewable energy sources, i.e. to double the contribution of those sources to the Union's energy supply from 6 % to 12 % by 2001, is an ambitious but at the same time a realistic objective.
The White Paper analyses in some detail the way in which that overall target can be achieved, on the basis of the most reliable estimates available of the probable contribution from each renewable source.
The proposal presented on the strategy for increasing renewable energy sources in each sector is based on the best combination of technologies and makes it possible for the Union to achieve its aim within the framework of existing technical, practical and economic limitations.
Estimates of the future share of the various renewable sources are certainly indicative, and will help in the monitoring of progress and to ensure that each technology is utilised within a clear policy framework.
It is true that most renewable energy technologies are in the phase of technical maturation.
This also means that the cost of producing energy from renewable sources is continually falling, steadily decreasing.
So we are at a stage when great efforts are needed to promote them in the market and to apply the policy of promoting renewable energy sources in practice, in all the Member States.
It is clear that, in addition to financing basic research and demonstrations, at the stage we have reached today it is still necessary to continue providing economic support for renewable energy sources.
As for the level of finance, the Commission agrees that it is important to secure the necessary appropriations for the promotion of renewable sources.
The Altener programme aims precisely to promote the use of renewable energy sources in the Community and is part of the Commission's proposal for a framework programme on energy, which Parliament will debate on Thursday.
The Commission's proposal goes together with an indicative financial allocation covering the period 1998 to 2002.
The allocation refers to an increase in the budget for Altener from ECU 14.4 million in 1998 to ECU 17.1 million in 2002.
I think it is clear that this represents a substantial increase compared with the present funding for Altener.
However, as you know, it is you in the European Parliament together with the Council who have the final say in budgetary matters.
The Commission awaits your decisions.
Mr President, Commissioner, the technological possibilities of renewable energy are infinite and they have been analysed in a white paper.
But in addition we need political decisions.
There have not been any political decisions taken in the EU that might lend support to the exploitation of renewable energy sources.
What does the Commission think? Could electricity produced from renewable energy sources be introduced into the grid at a price that is different from electricity that has been produced by traditional means, so that electricity generated from renewable sources could be subsidised by means of authorised price fixing?
Mr President, the Commission has done everything possible to present all the proposals that could be put forward in the context of agreements within the Commission and in the Member States, to give a powerful impetus to the use of renewable energy sources.
That is why we first produced the Green Paper on renewable energy sources and later the White Paper with a specific plan of action, which we believe can really move things along.
I would remind you that in the plan of action we chose four specific initiatives: firstly, a million photovoltaic installations, about a million roofs; large wind farms generating 10 000 MW; biomass installations generating 10 000 MW; and the introduction of renewable energy sources in 100 local communities.
This is the action programme in which we have invited industry, the Member States and all the other relevant agencies to take initiatives with a view to collaborating in the promotion of renewable sources.
In addition, however, I would remind you that in the directive on the internal electricity market, the Commission proposed that there should be privileged access for renewable sources to the network.
That is something we hope all the Member States will follow up and make use of.
Beyond that, though, the Commission has no powers as such to do anything else.
So it is up to the Member States to make the most of all these possibilities provided by the European Union's legal framework and, at the same time, to utilise the Community finance available from various Community programmes to help industry produce cheaper technology, while at the same time making it possible for the regions and large cities of the Member States to exploit the new technologies for making use of renewable energy sources.
As the author is not present, Question No 43 lapses.
Question No 44 by Mihail Papayannakis, which has been taken over by Mr Alavanos (H-0916/98)
Subject: Sex tourism involving children
According to the results of research undertaken by Eurobarometer (April-May 1998), European citizens condemn the practice of sex tourism involving children and 88 % of them believe that it is vital for the European Union to take action to combat this phenomenon.
The Commissioner responsible for tourism has said that the initial response by European public opinion will prompt the EU to take practical measures aimed at combating tourism based on the sexual exploitation of children, a practice particularly widespread in the countries of Asia, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe and closely linked to poverty, social exclusion and international trade in minors.
Will the Commission say whether there is a common approach to combating this scourge, whether the action taken so far has proved successful and what firm measures it intends to take to tackle this problem effectively?
I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer this question by Mr Papayannakis, for whom Mr Alavanos is deputising.
Mr President, the results of a survey carried out by Eurobarometer at the request of the Commission contain some particularly useful facts and figures for everyone involved in the fight against sex tourism which victimises children.
As far as we are concerned, combating that phenomenon is a matter to which we attach particular priority.
I therefore agree with the finding of the survey that intervention by the European Union is now seen not just as desirable but indeed as essential by a vast majority of Europe's citizens.
As the survey shows, 88 % of those questioned considered that Community intervention was important and essential.
All the activities envisaged in the Commission's statement of November 1996 have been implemented as a matter of urgency.
At the end of 1998, the Commission now intends to submit to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions a report on the implementation of all these measures and on the progress that has been achieved.
However, the fact that Europe's citizens already recognise that the Commission is active in this area provides real encouragement for us to continue our efforts.
Let me refer briefly to an initiative concerning support for the coordination at European level of national information and awareness campaigns against sex tourism which victimises children.
The information activities currently being carried out, which are supported by the Commission, are based on the development in various Member States of two complementary programmes.
The first aims to design, produce and distribute a video on flights to destinations noted for the phenomenon, and to inform and raise the awareness of the staff of various airlines.
The second aims to design, produce and distribute first of all information leaflets for travellers and, secondly, files with data concerning sex tourism intended to increase the awareness of those in the tourist trade.
In addition to these information activities, another important event is being staged: the first European meetings of agencies involved in the fight against child sex tourism, due to take place in Brussels from 24 to 26 November as part of the Brussels Travel Fair 1998.
Within this tourism exhibition, the Commission will have at its disposal a substantial area in which it will present all the initiatives it has taken to combat child sex tourism.
We shall also organise meetings of specialists and personalities, and six round-table discussions will be held to consider in detail all the issues and all the joint action we can take at European level in the future, both with non-governmental organisations and with the tourist industry and the governments of the Member States.
Mr President, let me thank Commissioner Papoutsis, because I think he has taken some important initiatives which go beyond mere words and extend to the promotion of practical measures, no matter how difficult they may be and how many obstacles have to be overcome.
I wish to ask two brief questions: firstly, as regards the countries of Eastern Asia, for example, where sex tourism is rife, very often with children as its victims, has the Commission made any approaches to Member State governments at a political level? Secondly, in the Commission's opinion, have all 15 Member States taken action with equal sensitivity and practicality concerning these issues?
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
We have overrun our allotted time for questions to the Commission by ten minutes.
I am not sure whether to call on Mr Papoutsis's generosity and that of Parliament's services, but Mr Titley is here. What do you think?
Can we answer Mr Titley's question? Many thanks, both to you and to Parliament's services.
Question No 45 by Gary Titley (H-0900/98)
Subject: Follow-up to Parliament's support for the Harrison Report on late payments
What action is the Commission taking to ensure that it complies with the spirit and letter of the Harrison Report on late payments adopted in September, to make sure that small and medium-sized businesses which carry out work for the Commission are not the victims of late payment by the Commission? I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer Mr Titley's question.
Mr President, the Commission did indeed have occasion to express its satisfaction with Mr Harrison's report on this proposal for a directive on late payment, and it will take into account most of the amendments proposed in the report.
According to the Commission's proposal, the payments made by Community bodies are not covered by the directive.
However, the Commission will submit appropriate proposals for these payments too, aimed at establishing rules equivalent to those envisaged in the directive with regard to public authorities.
In accordance with the working document on the amendment of the Financial Regulation of 22 July 1998, the Commission intends to harmonise the current provisions concerning payments, so that all the Community's bodies will work to the same standards laid down in the proposed directive.
In parallel, the Commission has undertaken to carry out a study on its own delayed payments, the conclusions and proposals of which will be announced before the end of the year.
In the meantime, however, the relevant Commission services will make every effort to respect in practice the guidelines of the directive we have proposed.
Will the Commission not admit to the embarrassment that is caused by the Commission on the one hand saying it wants to develop a directive on late payment while it is frequently guilty of leaving companies waiting for a long time for money? Companies are constantly complaining to me and I know they complained to the Commissioner when he was kind enough to come to my constituency.
Will he not accept that this is politically undeliverable unless the Commission takes action?
Mr President, I accept that the Commission has indeed been slow in some cases, and I understand that there are some justified complaints from some companies, and possibly some in Mr Titley's constituency.
Yet I must say, and I must insist on this, that the Commission makes every possible effort in procedural terms, because sometimes we receive erroneous invoices and it takes time to establish if the invoices are correct or not.
In any event, the Commission makes every effort to respect the framework proposed by the directive and to comply with it in practice.
Beyond that, however, and I wish to stress this point, in July 1997 the Commission approved the principle of paying interest in cases of late payment, to compensate the beneficiary for the delay.
So far as we know, no other international organisation pays interest in cases of late payment.
I do wish to emphasise this, because it really proves that in practice the Commission has taken on board both the framework and the spirit of the directive we have already proposed concerning late payments.
Thank you, Mr Papoutsis.
Questions Nos 46 to 86 will receive written answers.
That concludes Question Time to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.18 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Ro-Ro ferry and high speed passenger craft services
The next item is the report (A4-0310/98) by Mr Watts, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on conditions for the operation of regular ro-ro ferry and high speed passenger craft services in the Community (COM(98)0071 - C4-0162/98-98/0064(SYN)).
Mr President, just over four years ago in September 1994 the roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry Estonia sank in the Baltic with a loss of over 900 lives.
This Parliament resolved then that such an incident must never happen again.
The Estonia tragedy was only one of many ferry disasters in the past decade.
I can name others, including The Herald of Free Enterprise , back in 1987, or, indeed, the more recent Scandinavian Star .
Parliament then asked the question: why were the lessons not learned? Why were the lessons of the loss of The Herald not learned?
Why was next to nothing then done?
Never again is this Parliament's aim.
As Parliament's rapporteur on ferry safety, I am very pleased that we are making real improvements now today in ferry safety.
Indeed, thanks to the determination of Commissioner Neil Kinnock, we have witnessed a series of measures to learn and apply the lessons.
Firstly, the International Safety Maritime Code has been made compulsory to ensure that management, master, officers and crew put safety first.
Secondly, passengers will in future be counted, and data vital in the event of an emergency will be collected.
Thirdly, the stability problems of roll-on/roll-off vessels are being tackled as a result of the Stockholm agreement as it comes into effect.
Today we are considering the latest and the most ambitious measure so far.
In future, Member States will authorise the operation of each ferry and high-speed craft operating in the EU regardless of the country of registration.
In other words, operators will no longer be able to evade international safety laws by opting for a flag of convenience.
In addition, in future, black box voyage data recorders will become compulsory.
In future, Member States will no longer be denied the right to investigate maritime incidents.
As rapporteur, I fully endorse these measures, not least because many ferries are still, despite recent tragic events, simply not safe enough.
A recent Commission-funded survey found that almost one in three of the ferries checked had serious safety defects.
These included fire hydrants rusted shut, faulty life jackets, faulty lifeboat engines and locked emergency exits.
We must, therefore, secure the speedy adoption of this proposal and ensure that it is fully enforced throughout the Community.
Although we fully support this measure, we wish to see it simplified and strengthened in a number of important ways.
Firstly, we believe all ferries - old and new - should be fitted with black boxes within five years, closing the loophole in Article 5 which would allow exemptions from compliance in perpetuity.
Secondly, we believe that the results of the safety surveys communicated to the Commission under the terms of this directive, should be made publicly available.
Thirdly, within 12 months of the entry into force of this proposal, a thorough assessment should be made to determine whether enough has been done or whether further measures are required.
As a further guarantee of ferry safety, we believe an annual safety report should be produced.
All this information must be made publicly available.
These three amendments reflect our determination to make ferries safer, to guarantee that ferry safety remains at the top of our agenda and, indeed, to enlist the support of the citizen and passenger in ensuring that these high safety standards are met.
I hope that the Commission tonight can agree with these measures.
I also have a number of questions for the Commissioner. Firstly, given the reliance on Member States to enforce the new safety regime, what resources will be made available to ensure compliance throughout the Community?
Secondly, when does the Commission plan to review the Stockholm agreement to ensure ferry stability standards keep pace with the latest technological developments? Thirdly, given the reported failure of both black boxes in the final minutes of the Swiss air flight that recently crashed off the coast of Canada, will the Commission ensure that the black boxes in all ferries are fitted with auxiliary power supplies?
Finally, I wish to thank all my colleagues and our staff.
Together, we are determined to prevent another ferry disaster.
Never again!
This proposal, together with our amendments and if properly enforced, will ensure that the 141 million passengers who travel on a ferry in European waters each year will get safely to their destination.
Mr President, in an election year such as this, people often ask us: what do you actually do in the European Parliament? I am always happy to tell them that we in Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism have worked unremittingly, in Strasbourg and Brussels, to improve safety in all forms of transport.
Transnational, cross-frontier traffic must be made safe through obligations imposed on a common basis.
Our commitment to ferry safety, in particular, is well known, which is reflected in the report we are discussing today.
The figures - over 140 million passengers spread over 500 ferries - speak for themselves.
I do not mind saying that I myself make 200 sea crossings a year, so I know the ferries.
It is quite funny when you think of it that, when international rules drawn up by the IMO are to be enforced, we have to transpose them into a directive.
After all, they should apply throughout the world.
But that is the way it is.
Given the profusion of flag states and different legislation, it is necessary to have directives which ensure that trained seafarers are employed, port state control is applied and so on.
Critics of this directive will no doubt try to find new ways.
Ferries will be moved outside the EU and so forth.
But, as I have said, one might wish that this approach based on the Watts report and the Commission proposal could be the beginning of a global initiative which will ensure safety at sea everywhere.
Again and again we come up against the need to incorporate IMO measures into Community law.
It would be better if we had something that was enforceable throughout the world.
At this time - unfortunately, it might be said - a book is coming out in Denmark which deals with the Estonia accident.
So some of us will be reliving that disaster all over again.
I hope that this directive, but not least the implementation of the directive, will help to strengthen the common legislation and guarantee safety in the future.
Finally, I have to mention one or two Danish problems in connection with this directive.
They relate to Amendments Nos 2, 15, 16 and 17, since it is debatable to what extent the Commission should have the power to act.
It could be the next question to investigate, when we have all the statistical information.
But leave that to one side for the moment.
I support the report as it has been adopted in committee, but have particular misgivings with regard to Amendments Nos 16 and 17.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the PPE Group supports Mr Watts' report wholeheartedly, with two small exceptions, namely Amendments Nos 9 and 14.
I think they go a little too far, but then Mr Watts is after all a perfectionist!
On the matter itself, however, we entirely agree with him.
More than 2000 of our fellow men have lost their life in ferry accidents in the past years.
Unfortunately, Mr Watts, the ADAC study this year showed up considerable safety defects even in countries flying Member State flags.
I think the Commissioner knows what I mean.
We must ensure that all Community ferries flying a European flag fulfil the safety requirements.
Like Mr Watts and his colleagues, we maintain that the Commission proposals for ro-ro ferry operating conditions must be tightened up further.
We agree with the view that it is no longer sufficient to rely on the flag state's safety checks.
We have fallen into that trap too often.
We must ensure that the host state, i.e. the state to or from whose ports a ship operates a regular service used by its citizens, applies an effective, mandatory survey system.
We entirely agree that passenger ferries must be fitted with a voyage data recorder, which must also be equipped with its own battery, as also on the need for strict compliance with the transitional provisions that have applied hitherto.
Passenger safety must be the same for everybody, as must accident investigation, regardless of the age of the vessel or the Member State in which it is registered.
We also agree with the rapporteur that the Commission's database of incidents on or relating to ferries must be accessible not only to the Member States, but also to the public who want to travel on them, so that everyone can find out which shipping lines and which ships are safe and draw their own conclusions.
If shipping companies look at their bookings and find they have fallen, that might lead them to consider bringing their vessels up to the latest standards in order not to lose passengers.
It is certainly also right to accept safety standards in the form that applies during the checks and not as they apply when this directive is adopted, since I believe we will still have to tighten up some areas.
In conclusion, let me draw your attention to a point we keep raising, and I am keen to hear the Commission's reply to the other questions put by Mr Watts.
Our main problem is always that even if we adopt the right directives and hope the Member States will implement them properly, the key question is still this: do the Member States actually apply them, and if so how?
Do they all carry out equally careful checks; in the event of defects do they all draw equally stringent conclusions? I believe quite a lot remains to be done here and I am eager to know whether the Commissioner can say a few words on this.
Mr President, we certainly welcome this further legislation, which is absolutely essential for the safety of passengers for whom this is one of the main forms of travel between Member States.
There are a number of areas that are important about this particular report such as the fact that we have included high-speed passenger craft.
Now there is increasing competition between ro-ro ferries and this type of transport we need to make sure that there is an equal emphasis on both these forms.
I want to comment, in particular on enforcement.
This has been mentioned by the EPP group and concerns me in a number of areas of legislation.
Europe is moving ahead quite rightly with its legislation for safety on ro-ro ferries which is a form of transport that is both theoretically and, as we have seen, practically potentially a very unstable form of craft.
What I should particularly like to know from the Commission is how an enforcement system will be successfully implemented for the public good.
This is a key area for the European Parliament to be involved in.
Citizens regularly travel on ferries.
We need to ensure their safety.
I should like to thank Mr Watts for his report which is an extremely good one.
Enforcement is an absolutely key area.
Mr President, we too believe that Mr Watts' report on checking the safety of ro-ro ferries and high-speed passenger craft services in the Community is a very important one, and after the many accidents that have happened we must include it in the framework of legislative initiatives on safety.
The presence of a voyage data recorder, and the Transport Committee's proposals such as those for an annual report on the safety of ships and for a data bank open to the public, are in my view important steps, although still not sufficient.
We think that ship safety issues should be covered more broadly still, and in particular that their implementation should be monitored, because from a practical standpoint we can see that the situation is a long way both from what we are calling for here today, and from the measures enacted in the European Union.
Implementation must take place in ways which the European Union itself sometimes does not allow to proceed.
Given this opportunity, perhaps I ought to mention that we were very concerned indeed about the fact that, in another directive on the safety of passenger craft, which requires the refitting of vessels which will be 27 years old in October 2000, Greek vessels are being exempted.
As a Greek MEP, I would like to say that we cannot in any way accept this exemption, which might have been acceptable for economic or social reasons in other sectors such as textile factories or shoe manufacturing, for example, but which is not acceptable when it comes to the safety of passenger vessels, when Greek ships can be temporarily exempted from refitting, but at the same time the ships thus exempted will not be allowed to sail into European ports, thereby in effect making our country a banana republic.
Mr President, this directive is indeed an important link in our strategy to increase marine safety.
It forms part of a series of measures decided by the Council in the wake of the Estonia disaster in December 1994.
No one will be surprised to find me supporting this proposal, since the Finnish Minister of Transport at the time of that disaster was Ole Norrback, the former chairman and leader of my party.
Importantly for marine safety, the directive stipulates binding survey requirements, establishes clear rules for the investigation of accidents at sea and calls for the fitting of voyage data recorders or 'black boxes'.
Although this will entail higher costs for maritime transport, I still support the proposal.
We need a level playing field, because the provisions governing EMU tend to be interpreted in different ways and this creates uncertainty.
Privatisation of public administrations is not feasible where the economic interests involved are too great; this emerged clearly from the background studies carried out in preparation for this directive.
Yet I am sure everyone would agree that a system of quality control and best practice will be essential to ensure that the public bodies are doing their job.
It is good to see that countries other than traditional maritime nations like the United Kingdom, Ireland and Finland are now supporting this proposal.
I am fully behind Amendment No 3, which calls for the provisions to apply to traffic to and from the same port.
This is precisely the kind of operation we have in my area of the world.
Amendment No 12, on the other hand, runs counter to the subsidiarity principle, in my view.
The question of cost allocation should be dealt with by the Member States themselves.
I am not one to heap thanks on rapporteurs, but this time I really would like to say thank you to Mr Watts for the good work he has done.
On behalf of all of us in this House, I wish him every success with his evaluation of the ADAC report he refers to in his explanatory statement.
His report is certainly an excellent memorial to the victims of the Estonia disaster.
Mr President, I too - together with the rest of the House as we have seen - can only welcome the report by Mr Watts and applaud his work, as well as the amendments he has tabled and which I believe Parliament will approve tomorrow by a large majority.
I must say, however, that the Commission has made a great deal of progress in this area and has proposed a substantial number of directives and regulations on the safety of ships.
And, quite rightly, those directives are adopted and pass into law.
But it has largely neglected measures to assist European shipping.
Let me remind you that, until the end of the 1980s, the Commission was literally bombarding Parliament with proposals for measures to support European shipping.
Then, all of a sudden, there were no further proposals or discussions about positive measures to preserve European shipping, and the only issues which now concern the Commission are ones involving safety.
That is not blameworthy in itself, but there is an imbalance.
At this time, the people who have to run these shipping lines see a ship's operating costs increasing, since it must be modern and properly equipped with all that Mr Watts' report quite rightly says it should be.
However, there are no positive measures on behalf of shipping.
Shipping has been forgotten as an industry.
There is no interest in shipping, and so we have Hapag Lloyd leaving Germany, P & O leaving Great Britain, Stena Line leaving the Scandinavian countries, all of them going to well-known tax havens because only by avoiding taxes can they cope with the increased costs of operating their vessels.
I am saying all this because I want an answer from the Commission on what it intends to do about measures to support European shipping, even at this eleventh hour.
Because without European shipping there will be no European seamen.
A sure way of making the European seaman disappear as a species is for there to be no ships under European flags.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, maritime safety, the object of this proposal for a directive, is something of vital importance.
Things had reached a point where the European Union just had to do something about it.
So I congratulate the Commission and the Council on completing the legislative architecture they have gradually been putting into place in recent years after the tragedies we saw at the start of the decade.
The proposal for a directive now before us follows on from a number of initiatives designed to deal with the safety of ro-ro ferries.
It is the third text which the Commission has presented in response to the Council's wishes in respect of maritime passenger transport safety.
And so, following the regulation imposing compliance, ahead of time, with the International Safety Management Code and the directive requiring the compulsory registration of persons on board passenger ships, the proposal for a directive covered in Mr Watts' report seeks to set up a system for compulsory monitoring of all passenger ro-ro ferries leaving or entering European Union ports, and to allow Member States to inspect all such vessels for safety, including the right to conduct inquiries into any accidents at sea.
These legislative texts are all the result of a Council resolution of 22 December 1994 on the safety of ro-ro passenger ferries, adopted after a number of tragic accidents to ferries operating between European ports.
We all remember the Herald of Free Enterprise , Scandinavian Star and Estonia disasters, to name but few of the more recent ones.
These disasters, let us not forget, took the lives of close on 2 000 people.
The Union had to act.
The proposal for a directive will cover nearly 550 vessels and high-speed passenger craft and 277 European ports.
The rapporteur tells us that 141 818 786 passengers were carried in 1996.
That shows how timely it is to consider the issue.
In this respect standardisation, the harmonisation of safety regulations at Union level is altogether paramount if passengers are to travel in optimum safety.
In conclusion, may I compliment the rapporteur on the quality of the arguments outlined in his report.
I know that maritime safety is a subject dear to his heart.
He has done an outstanding job and put in a great deal of hard work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to say that I am speaking for the European Commission on behalf of my colleague Mr Kinnock, who is very sorry that he cannot be here at today's sitting, since he is in Luxembourg at the Council of Environment Ministers, deputising for my colleague Mrs Ritt Bjerregaard, who has had a slight accident and is unfortunately out of action.
I am particularly pleased that Mr Watts' report is in favour of introducing into the Community an extensive and mandatory survey regime, with routine investigations in the event of any incidents on regular passenger vessel routes.
I am glad to be able to tell you that the Commission will support a substantial number of the amendments proposed in the report.
To be specific, with reservations about a few changes to the wording, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 5, 10 and 11, and can also accept in principle Amendments Nos 9, 12 and 15.
Many of these amendments seek to ensure and maintain consistency with other directives and regulations concerning maritime safety.
However, the same concern about consistency prevents us from accepting Amendments Nos 3, 7 and 14.
Amendment No 6 proposes that the IMO guidelines, the International Maritime Organisation's Resolution No A.746, should apply as they stand during the surveys, in accordance with Article 13.
While we appreciate the wish to apply the most up-to-date rules, as legislators we cannot contemplate the automatic application of future amendments to official IMO acts.
However, the Commission's services are working on a proposal to deal with that situation, and I am confident that it will satisfy Parliament.
One of the most important measures proposed for the system of investigations after incidents is the obligatory presence on the vessel of an instrument to record data related to the journey, the voyage data recorder, or VDR.
The Commission has taken due note of the technical difficulties that could arise during the fitting of such instruments to existing vessels.
For that reason, our proposal allows the Commission to make exceptions regarding certain technical demands which must be satisfied by VDRs.
We think this possibility of allowing exceptions is fundamental, and consequently we cannot accept that it should be limited to five years as in Amendment No 8.
As regards the information on the particulars of ro-ro ferries, Amendment No 13 proposes firstly that these should be made publicly available and, secondly, that they should form the basis of an annual report to be drawn up by the Commission.
While we echo the demand for transparency, I must draw Parliament's attention to the risks that could stem from the publication of these data, particularly in relation to trustworthiness, security and commercial fraud.
The Commission's interest in precisely this area led it to propose a comitology procedure to determine the prerequisites for access to such data.
The issue of transparency brings us to Amendment No 15, which requires the Commission to assess progress in the area of ro-ro ferry safety in the light of the 1994 Council resolution.
The Commission obviously agrees with the need for regular assessments relating to measures adopted by the Community, provided such assessments are carried out at the right time and at reasonable intervals so as to be effective.
For that reason, I propose that the assessment called for should take place three years after the directive comes into force, and the related submission of the annual report should take place within the already existing framework for submitting reports on the implementation of Community law.
Amendments Nos 16 and 17 propose that Member States should provide additional information on the customer services facilities and about the number of crew members employed on a regular service and the number employed on a temporary basis.
Given that these matters are not included in the requirements of international conventions or in Community laws on the safety of shipping, I see no need to add that information, nor any value in doing so.
I should like to thank the rapporteur Mr Watts, and the European Parliament too, for facilitating the early approval of the common position on this important measure, one which I sincerely believe will open the way towards improving the safety of European citizens travelling on the Community's waters.
Turning to the questions put by Mr Watts, Mr Jarzembowski and Mr Teverson, I would like to say that as regards the possibility of the directive being implemented by the Member States, of course the Member States are responsible for implementing Community law.
The Commission encourages the implementation of these decisions, takes care to see that the national legislation is adapted promptly, and of course takes action if there are protests.
Precisely because the subject is a serious issue, we believe the Member States ought to respond quickly.
As for Mr Watts' next question, I should like to say that the Commission is monitoring the application of the Stockholm review and the implementation of the directive on specifications for passenger vessels.
I assure you that if we see a need to act in that context, we will do so at once.
Turning now to Mr Watts' third question, let me say that as regards the reliability of black boxes on ships, we must be quite clear: there is no guarantee of 100 % reliability even in air transport, and nobody can guarantee 100 % reliability in the use of black boxes, especially after many years.
However, the Commission will certainly continue trying to ensure the highest possible specifications in accordance with the IMO rules, in other words the specifications relating to equipment and operation.
And finally, on the question put by Mr Stenmarck, I would like to say that to improve the safety of ro-ro ferries, we must fully implement the Community laws that we have adopted over all these years.
That indeed is the challenge and the duty of us all.
Mr President, very briefly, on some of those points, most of us would welcome the comments in relation to Amendment 15 regarding the safety assessment.
But we still need to receive a clear explanation from the Commission why these voyage data recorders cannot be fitted within what seems to us to be a very generous period of five years from the date of implementation of this directive.
Secondly, why can we not trust the public to decide for itself whether or not ferry travel is safe? If we can make the data available to the operators, we should have the courage of our convictions and make the data available to the public and indeed to the passengers themselves.
I welcome the answers regarding enforcement of the Stockholm review but I note that the Commissioner failed to answer my specific point regarding auxiliary power for black box voyage data recorders.
Without such power, in an emergency these black boxes are potentially worthless.
While I appreciate that a response may not be forthcoming tonight, I would appreciate a response in writing to that particular point of detail.
I would like to thank the Commissioner nonetheless.
Mr President, first of all, I think that my answer to the questions concerning Amendment No 8 was complete and I do not think it could be made any more so, particularly in relation to the technical specifications we use to record the data.
As for the other technical questions raised by Mr Watts, I sincerely promise on behalf of the Commission that he will be answered in writing.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Pan-European transport network
The next item is the report (A4-0241/98) by Mr Sisó Cruellas, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament 'Connecting the Union's transport infrastructure network to its neighbours - towards a cooperative pan-European transport network policy' (COM(97)0172 - C4-0206/97).
Mr President, the cooperative pan-European transport network policy must be seen as part of a dynamic process that has already found expression in different procedures and in the previous pan-European conferences that were held in Prague and Crete and that certainly did not end in Helsinki.
However, what we are discussing now is bringing the results of these conferences to fruition by putting the ideas developed into practice.
One of the priorities should be to establish and consolidate a global strategy that will finally lead to the creation of an integrated and multimodal pan-European transport infrastructure network.
Such an ambitious objective may only be attained through a complex and sustained process of coordination of the different participants and complementarity of the available resources. It also requires the harmonisation of the principles and criteria that should govern the actions required if the Union is to play its key role of stimulating and guiding the overall pattern, bearing in mind that the various starting points are very different.
And, above all, we need to have the cooperation of the governments, the international financial institutions and the private sector.
But if we are to achieve the desired results from this process, it must be carried out in a transparent manner.
It is vital that information be made available so that we can assess progress to date and determine what still has to be done at any given moment.
The role of the TINA group is to analyse the existing transport infrastructures, to calculate the estimated growth in the volume of traffic, to assess infrastructure needs and to determine the future trans-European transport networks in an enlarged Union.
The careful completion of this work is extremely important as only in that way can we ensure that Community resources and activities are being used appropriately.
The fundamental issues which, in my mind, must be highlighted when trying to overcome obstacles to the establishment of the transport infrastructure networks that Europe needs are: interoperability, funding, the availability of mature projects, and any uncertainties that exist.
The actions aimed at guaranteeing the interoperability of these networks require, and will continue to require, a considerable technical effort and considerable investment.
This is all the more important since the modern transport infrastructure networks of the Member States have been developed according to a vision that is completely different to that of the possibility of a market without borders and the role the infrastructures must play in the development of this market.
The interoperability of networks is therefore a matter that should be resolved beforehand, because if there is no interoperability, there will be no free movement.
But I believe that if obstacles to interoperability are to be removed, then creating objective conditions that will eliminate any positions and interests that are objectively contrary to interoperability will be just as, if not more, important than developing agreed Community standards on every aspect involved.
As always, the main problem is how to finance the construction of the transport infrastructures.
When public debates on financing transport infrastructures use the word 'finance' with no other clarification, they usually overlook or misunderstand the difference between financing in the strict sense and paying.
Therefore, the fact that the resources allocated and the participating agents in each of these operations can be - and often are - totally separate is overlooked.
From this standpoint, financing transport infrastructures, in the strictest sense of the word, implies an intermediary operation which involves obtaining and providing the immediate resources required to allow investment to be made and objectives to be met.
However, paying for transport infrastructures is a more final operation which involves providing final resources that will allow the economic cycle of investment to be brought to a close.
In the present economic circumstances in the European Union, with deficit amounts and public debt being severely limited, it is very difficult to find the levels of investment needed for the pan-European transport infrastructure networks.
The variety of theoretically valid formulas for the intermediate financing of the transport infrastructures springs from the wide variety of possible responses to the identification and assessment of economic flows, which may become a source of finance and be allocated to a private agent.
The Community's obvious concern over the problem of private funding for transport infrastructures has led the Commission to present a communication on public-private partnerships in the trans-European transport network projects.
A careful reading of the communication and an evaluation of the real problems that, in the last analysis, gave rise to such partnerships suggest that the key issues are those I mentioned earlier.
One of these issues is the inadequacy of European long-term capital markets: these markets are vital in managing the risks involved in an investment that matures over a long period of time. Other key issues are the absence of mature projects and the distrust and uncertainty of the private sector as regards the current and future activities of the public sector, particularly in terms of the cooperative pan-European transport networks proposed by the Commission that encompass the Union, the governments of the Member States and of the other countries involved, the international financial institutions and the private sector.
We must offer potential investors, construction enterprises, transport service providers and the capital goods sector a stable framework for their financial transactions.
If stability is to prevail, the governments of the partner countries will, of course, have to take on their responsibilities and create a clear political and legal framework. This will allow investors to be fully aware of the political and administrative risks involved in the projects and, at the same time, to respect EU legislation on competition, the environment and public contracts.
Mr President, better connections between European transport networks and those of our neighbours is an objective which the European Union has been pursuing for many years.
That said, the process has for a long time been fragmentary, not to say chaotic, resulting in a whole mosaic of provisions.
The Commission communication on connecting the Union's infrastructures is a coherent and rational response and is altogether consistent with the implementation of the findings of the third Pan-European Transport Conference in Helsinki.
So we should welcome this desire to coordinate and bring some order into the situation, because the action plan is undeniably a step forward.
The concept of interoperability, with all it implies by way of adapting standards and legislative measures, is especially interesting because it will allow the combination of very different technologies and partnerships between public and private structures.
Clearly, the prospect of enlargement makes this multi-directional approach all the more essential.
That being so, this strategy applies equally to the newly independent states and to the Euro-Mediterranean countries.
But the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are concerned primarily with the creation of these nine corridors, which have now become ten.
This requires these applicant countries to modernise their infrastructures and find the funds to do it.
They will receive money from PHARE for the purpose, but they will also need loans from the EIB, EBRD or World Bank.
The REX Committee congratulates the Commission on the general structure of this communication, but has raised a number of questions in its opinion.
I am grateful to the rapporteur for taking our comments on board in his excellent report.
Whilst we see improved transport infrastructures as a factor for development and thus for growth and believe that this will ultimately bring the CEECs closer to the countries of the Union, financing these networks may prove difficult.
Nor must we underestimate the environmental and social problems which a growth in transport, especially road transport, will bring.
So answers have to be found to pressing problems: the development of piggy-back transport, definition of anti-pollution standards, and so on.
These observations apply to all aspects of communications in and around the Mediterranean basin; the same problem arises in our relations with Switzerland, and this is something I should like to touch on, ladies and gentlemen, both on my own account and on behalf of my group.
I refer to the progress of negotiations between the European Community and Switzerland on transport and towards a settlement of the dispute between ourselves and that country over the Swiss concern that transit traffic through Switzerland should not cause congestion in the Alpine valleys.
So we can only welcome the result of the Swiss referendum of 27 September last, even though the negotiations are not yet completed.
Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, in our debate this evening this matter is far from insignificant.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my colleague Mr Sisó Cruellas's report is so excellent that I really have nothing to add, for it has all been said.
I just want to address one point which the Socialists smuggled into the committee discussions but that really has no direct bearing on the report, namely paragraph 25, which we must reject.
The proposed agreement between the European Union and Switzerland on overland transport negotiated by Mr Kinnock and supported by the Group of the Party of European Socialists contains what we regard as unacceptably sharp rises in transit charges for HGVs, which would fall on the transport industry, the economy and, in the end, the consumer.
It is unacceptable that a lorry should be made to fork out a charge of 325 Swiss francs for a one-way trip from Basel to Chiasso from the year 2001 instead of 25 Swiss francs, even if it is one of the 40-tonne lorries that will then be authorised.
It is unacceptable!
Even if, as Mr Swoboda and the previous speaker said, 57 % of Swiss people agreed to the introduction of this kind of performance-related freight charge in the referendum of 27 September, all I can say is that this may be an endorsement of the Swiss Government's position but surely it cannot dictate the negotiations with the European Union!
Then we might as well do the same and hold a European Union referendum that Switzerland would have to accept.
This cannot be true!
So I would call on the Commission to perhaps regard this referendum result as an endorsement of the Swiss Government's position, but certainly not to allow or accept it.
In the interests of our hauliers, our industry, our consumers, we must have reasonable transit charges.
At any rate, let me say to my colleagues in the Group of the Party of European Socialists that we cannot accept the proposed agreement with Switzerland, if only because we do not even know whether Switzerland will approve the construction of the two new railway tunnels and the necessary funding in a month's time.
If the Swiss people reject the construction of the railway tunnels and the funding required, there would be no commercial reason left for having the agreement with Switzerland.
We are making overland transport more expensive and telling people to use the railway tunnels; and then we reject railway tunnels too!
That is pointless!
That is why we must tell the Swiss that we insist on a mutual rapprochement and expect an approach based on partnership.
Let me briefly reply to Mr Swoboda's questions.
We are in favour of rail.
We are glad the German railways, like the Dutch and Swedish railways, are implementing Directive 91/440.
Other Member States have not even begun to implement the 1991 directive, as they should have done by 1995.
But since Mr Swoboda pleaded so strongly for the railways, let me make a brief comment.
I entirely agree with him, we should not preach something to Eastern Europe that we are not doing ourselves.
But in that case we really should tackle the special project decided in Essen in 1994 and make a start on building the Brenner tunnel; perhaps you should discuss this with your government some time.
Mr President, may I begin by complimenting the rapporteur, who is becoming a real expert on infrastructure and how to improve it.
But we have to agree that we are in effect getting further and further away from the original purpose of the trans-European networks and their extension to non-Union countries, because the initial idea was to link up our own national networks.
What we are embarking on now is a gigantic undertaking.
The bill for it will be gigantic too, and we do not have the money, certainly not for Eastern Europe, where infrastructure is virtually non-existent.
So we now face the problem that the people in Eastern Europe want more road transport, they want us to pay for it, and such infrastructure as they have, namely railways and inland waterways, is being sorely neglected.
So I think we have to hold fast to the objective of multimodal transport.
This brings me to the point we are considering to some extent this evening, the debate on Switzerland - though that is not the main issue here.
Let us be very clear.
Mr Swoboda has gone, but Austria has yet to turn a single sod towards building its own rail tunnel under the Brenner.
So it is all very well me holding forth about Switzerland, but we should first take a look in the mirror.
The second point is that we want to avoid road transit traffic through Austria, but that means that the Swiss are themselves busy improving their infrastructure and so we need to be sure of agreeing a fair solution with them.
So the current paragraph 25, which Mr Jarzembowski does not like, is very much appropriate here, and my group will be supporting it.
Regrettably, Mr President, I have to say that while there is much that is good in Mr Sisó's report, it is guilty of the same shortcoming of which he himself accuses the Commission, namely it is a very general proposal containing little by way of specifics.
I am very keen that Parliament should take prompt action to follow through the proposals made by the Commission and by Mr Sisó too.
But the problem arises of which way we should now go, because the opening-up of Central Europe, for example by connecting it to the trans-European networks, will lead to an enormous growth in freight and passenger traffic and thus to environmental degradation.
So I am glad to see that Mr Sisó's report several times raises the question of environmental pollution and suggests how it might be controlled in future if Central Europe joins the European Union.
I think it is likely, in my view, that it is not so much the law of the inhibitory head's start which will obtain, but rather what I would call the law of the innovation lag.
What do I mean by that? I believe it is possible, or should be possible in future, to make use in Central Europe of the latest sustainable and environmentally friendly technologies which we have only been to apply in Western Europe very recently, in a way which will avoid the mistakes we have made for too long in Western Europe, namely paying too little heed to public transport and continuing to build far too many roads for far too long.
The danger of the same thing happening in Eastern Europe is a real one, and we must all work to stop it.
My group sees two priorities here.
I agree with those who say that because money is tight we must rein ourselves in and refrain from grand designs - we should confine ourselves to a few plans which meet the criteria of sustainability and transparency, and we should not lose sight either of the fact that things are happening in Eastern Europe which hint at the imminent collapse of forms of public transport which in fact work perfectly well, whilst more and more people are travelling to work under their own steam.
I am very anxious that the Union should spend time and money on reversing this trend and clearing the way for sustainable transport systems in Eastern Europe too.
Mr President, there is nothing more satisfying than to sit in front of a computer drawing infrastructure, roads and railways, then doing some calculations, thumping the desk and saying 'that is how it will be'.
Mr Swoboda also said something on those lines.
Many of us feel the same way about all these traffic planners.
We suspect them of making it a little too simple.
But let me warn them: it is a long way from theory to practice.
We must be clear that the aim of this communication from the Commission is to secure the strategy.
Let there be no doubt about my support for that.
But the strategy only works if one is able to ensure that neighbouring countries and Member States are serious and will honour their commitments.
I have three comments of a general nature to make on this.
To begin with, the partnership which is to create a transport network extending into the next century will also, in the context of an enlarged internal market, help to secure growth possibilities and have a decisive influence on the sustainability of the pan-European project.
That has something to do with prioritisation and realistic economics.
I cannot associate myself with Mr Wijsenbeek's remarks regarding the new applicant countries.
They are currently spending more of their gross national product on their transport networks than we are.
Secondly, the communication represents a huge leap forward, without subsidiary aims or description of methods.
That has also been mentioned.
Perhaps they are not appropriate at the present stage, but we ourselves know the situation when neighbouring countries disagree over strategy and method.
It is even more difficult when the Union takes one view and the neighbouring country takes another.
I could conceive of a process of step-by-step agreements, so that a common way forward is assured.
Now the Commissioner will perhaps say shortly that that is how it is done.
Yes, but I know of both good and bad examples.
I know of a good example as regards shipping in the Baltic area, but I also know only too well of a bad example in connection with the development of motorways.
A third comment relates to ambitious technological projects, such as satellites, telematics, traffic service, etc.
These are good advances, but they can only be exploited if the transport carrier has the equipment for them and they can only be exploited if the law provides for their use.
We talked earlier about black boxes.
Now, for the fourth year, I am rapporteur on what is called 'vessel traffic service', which means that, by analogy with air traffic control, ships can be assigned sailing routes via satellite.
That would indeed be a way forward, which could prevent many accidents, but unfortunately we cannot implement these proposals.
I am certain that we are on the right road, but I am also convinced that, if we do not follow up what we decide on operationally, we shall have some problems.
Mr President, one of the most worthwhile projects we can pursue is providing the physical infrastructure to link the EU candidate countries with the existing Member States.
A bird's eye look at Europe reveals the dividing line drawn after World War Two between those countries which received Marshall aid and those that did not.
This is the division we now need to bridge as part of the current reunification and integration process.
There are those who say that the enterprise will cost a great deal of money.
Quite true - and it will inevitably take a number of years, but we should remember that spreading prosperity is in our mutual interest.
Improvements in road and rail networks on the other side of the old Iron Curtain directly benefit the countries concerned, but all of us will gain from the improved situation.
Any such investment has a positive spin-off for everyone.
Increased growth and new job opportunities can be expected, not only in the candidate countries, but within the whole area of what I hope will one day become a much larger European Union.
The rapporteur has indicated one major problem: access to private capital.
Perhaps I might ask the Commissioner responsible what further steps the Commission intends to take to boost private investment in roads and railways in the former Communist countries.
Mr President, there can be no doubt as to the need for a global transport strategy.
The transport sector is vital to socio-economic growth in the Community, and so a long-term, across-the-board strategy is needed for the development of social relations within the European Union.
A pan-European, multimodal transport infrastructure network is therefore needed, one which is well balanced and encompasses the entire continent, including the Mediterranean basin.
In this context, the Commission has drawn up an impressive communication setting out its five themes for action: development of the concept of nine pan-European corridors, plus the latest one for the former Yugoslavia; extension of the Union's trans-European networks to the applicant countries; a joint approach to the use of interoperable technologies; intelligent network use; and cooperation in research and development.
Nevertheless, all of this could remain hypothetical unless attention is paid to the sources of funding to be used.
Therefore our request to the Commission is that it provide more precise information, both on the progress and timetabling of these actions and on the relevant sources of finance.
I should like to end by reminding the Commission that a fresh commitment to improving links with the East European countries should not divert the EU from the equally vital task of improving transport links with the Mediterranean basin. These too are without doubt crucial for the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, transport routes have been vital to trade and commerce since time immemorial.
The economic growth of a region and the prosperity of its people depend on opening up trade routes.
Rural areas in particular need an effective transport infrastructure which, together with other infrastructure measures, can prevent rural depopulation and decline.
Products can reach the buyers and consumers, there is more chance of employment in rural areas and that of course boosts competitiveness in general.
That is why we must support a coherent, efficient and safe, but also environmentally compatible transport system in the Union.
But the European Union must also pay attention to link-ups with neighbouring states and the development of the Central and Eastern European countries' transport infrastructure.
Both they and the European Union will profit from improved transport links, since this can further strengthen export and trade.
Under the PHARE and TACIS programmes, interregional and cross-border projects are to be supported.
The rural areas of Central and Eastern Europe need a well thought-out transport infrastructure for their development, to prevent large-scale migration to the towns and to promote employment and economic growth.
But we must realise one thing: within the Union, and in view of enlargement, our priority aim must be to shift traffic to environmentally friendly transport modes. Here I am thinking in particular of combined transport, rail transport and, above all, inland waterway transport.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Joaquín Sisó Cruellas on his excellent report.
As has already been said, we are honoured to have a Member such as Mr Sisó Cruellas in our midst with such knowledge of the field of transport.
Secondly, I would like to briefly refer to the Commission's well-chosen title for this communication: 'Towards a pan-European Policy'.
Transport policies should indeed be Community policies, they should continue to be Community policies and they should continue to come under heading 3 of the budget and not heading 2, as some think, since this may be structural expenditure.
It is strictly a Community policy and, therefore, should remain under heading 3.
Transport networks are, undoubtedly, one of the most direct factors of development and, as a result, we must pay close attention to the fact that, with the future enlargement of the Union, we will have to give priority to such networks.
Yet we should not offer more than a helping hand as there are severe financing problems.
We cannot raise expectations and then realise that we are unable to finance them.
Therefore, the time has come to involve the free market as much as possible, and to bring private businesses and private investors into the construction and financing of these networks. In this way, the unfortunately small amount of money we will be able to take from the budget to finance these networks might act as an incentive so that those businesses, banks and groups of investors can get a return on their investments in the medium term.
It cannot be denied that the trans-European networks will be the making of the European Union.
Now - and in the future with enlargement - we must believe that the European Union will be more of a union in that it will be more united. Also, trans-European networks will no longer be a pipe dream, and this will be shown in the budget with a sufficiently large amount to encourage public or private initiatives to help develop these networks.
Mr President, the rapporteur's aspiration is for a system which is coherent, safe and kind to the environment.
That is a good thing.
Today, the overwhelming volume of road freight transport is a typical example of practices which are incoherent, unsafe and dirty.
Goods trains are disappearing from our railways, waterway transport is stagnating.
At the same time, the proliferation of heavy goods vehicles on the roads is pushing up considerably the cost of maintaining our major highways and the number of road accident victims too.
The report passes over in silence a question which is nevertheless a fundamental one: who is to pay for infrastructure, the user or the taxpayer?
At present there are two coexisting systems as far as the roads are concerned, which means duplication and many forms of wastage.
It is not good for the environment, or for our finances either.
We shall have to choose between these two systems one day.
Nowadays we have the technology to apply the principle that the user pays, and to make its application widespread.
Modern on-board electronic equipment means that we can measure exactly how much a vehicle costs.
This is the most environmentally friendly and fairest solution, and the one which uses taxpayers' money to best effect.
Some aspects of the report are problematic.
Firstly, the action plan does not specify which measures are needed, concrete problems are not identified and there is no timetable.
The rapporteur himself deplores this.
Secondly, the manifest intention is that European taxpayers should pay for infrastructure in the countries of the Maghreb, in Turkey or the Middle East and I, for my part, am opposed to that.
As regards Russia, and even beyond, as the report says, I am in favour of certain agreements with Eastern Europe but there would seem to be areas which require far more urgent attention, not least the energy sector, before we reach into our pockets for infrastructure in Russia which, let us not forget, the West has already funded in the past for no return at all.
For all these reasons and because I do not think this has been thought through sufficiently, I am in favour of referring this dossier back to committee.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in our policy on transport infrastructure in Europe, there is a clear distinction between on the one hand the strategy concerning the transport network on the continent of Europe as a whole, and on the other hand the special situation applying to countries which are candidates for accession to the European Union.
For that reason, the Commission's communication firstly deals with the enlargement of the Trans-European Transport Network of the European Union, which was designed to serve the needs of the internal market and the social and economic cohesion of an enlarged Europe.
Secondly, it deals with the pan-European corridors and transport areas which provide appropriate links throughout the continent.
And, thirdly, it deals with links between Europe and Asia.
I need not repeat the details of the differences between those concepts, since it is clear from the report by Mr Sisó Cruellas that you agree with our view about the appropriateness of that approach.
To form the Pan-European Transport Network, we propose that a partnership should be set up which covers the continent as a whole.
The Helsinki Conference supported the idea of that partnership, recognising that it concerned us all.
It concerns the countries involved, it concerns the European Union, the European Investment Bank, the other international financial institutions, it concerns private sector investors, and of course it concerns the social partners.
The massive challenges awaiting us can be met only by joint efforts and, in addition, by the development of flexible but effective means of cooperation.
The report by Mr Sisó Cruellas refers in particular to the need to coordinate investments related to infrastructure in Europe, and also to the need to monitor the creation of the appropriate transport infrastructure for the benefit of European citizens, for the benefit of those in the professions, traders, and European travellers too.
Precisely that aim will be served by the partnership which, while remaining an unofficial one in legal terms, is intended to facilitate cooperation and the monitoring of progress.
The Community provides sufficient finance for the implementation of its policies, and that is a basic concept in which we believe.
Our policy in the area of transport infrastructure has two basic priorities: first of all the creation of a cohesive transport network for an enlarged Europe involving a reasonable price structure and, secondly, the mobilisation of the necessary financial resources for the establishment of that specific network.
It is clear that the cost of these investments will be borne mainly by the countries involved, a particularly painful burden for the national budgets, which are already under severe pressure.
Of course substantial loans will be granted by the international financial institutions, among which the EIB will of course lead the way.
But there will also be a substantial contribution from the EU's budget, at least for the countries which are candidates for accession.
Between 1992 and 1998, the PHARE programme provided a total of some ECU 1000 million.
We hope that from 2000 onwards the contribution from the instrument for pre-accession structural policies, ISPRA, will propose the provision of an annual sum of around ECU 500 million for the transport sector.
Estimates of the cost of developing satisfactory and modern transport networks in Europe vary, but I should like to mention, by way of indication, that an estimate of the transport infrastructure needs in Central Europe has given a figure of ECU 100 billion by 2015 for the modernisation of 20 000 km of rail and road networks, to bring them up to the current specifications.
We also give priority to the mobilisation of sufficient financial resources for elements of the European transport networks outside the future enlarged Union, in the Community of Independent States or even in the Mediterranean basin, so that the necessary infrastructure can be created in good time.
However, the potential for providing Community finance for those areas remains limited, given that the TACIS and MEDA programmes can at present only provide finance for technical aid.
As for cofinancing by the public and private sectors, we are clearly aware of the realities.
However, even the most optimistic assumptions make it clear that the national budgets, the budget of the European Union and the international financial institutions will not be able to find the necessary resources to bridge the gap in the area of infrastructure in good time.
Consequently, I am sure that the need to mobilise financial resources to improve the quality of the projects, but also to increase economic productivity, which led the EU countries to set up various partnerships involving the public and private sectors, will now provide an important incentive for similar efforts in Central and Eastern Europe.
The combination of those needs, the new problems arising and the new practices in the context of the transforming economy of Central and Eastern Europe could substantively prepare the ground for the establishment of new financing instruments and new ways to manage infrastructure.
Mr President, the Commission's contribution towards adapting Europe's infrastructure to meet the requisite standards has been and will continue to be substantial.
We will of course continue to keep Parliament informed on a regular basis about the progress being achieved.
With these comments, I would urge the European Parliament to approve the report by Mr Sisó Cruellas, whom I would also like to congratulate on his work and on his dedication to the task of developing transport networks in Europe.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Transport telematics
The next item is the report (A4-0246/98) by Mr Baldarelli, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission on a Community strategy and framework for the deployment of road transport telematics in Europe, and proposals for initial actions (COM(97)0223 - C4-0239/97).
Mr President, the Commission communication seeks to establish a framework for action at EU, national, regional and local level, and puts forward five priority areas: traffic information services, based on the RDS-TMC system; transport data exchange/information management; electronic fee collection; the human/machine interface; and system architecture.
The Committee on Transport has no objection to the identification of five areas in the proposed strategy, but we consider that the range of priorities should be extended to cover goods transport, and that there should be a clearer specification of the place of public transport, in particular to encourage the development of coordinated multi- and intermodal transport.
This area is not spelled out clearly in the Commission's document; it does appear among the other actions of the Commission, but this does not satisfy us.
Another point concerning the Commission's document is as follows: the Commission sets out its intention to develop telematics and illustrates the advantages, but does not analyse the costs of not using telematics.
This might be a semantic point, but in actual fact the costs of not using telematics are closely related to its advantages.
Looking at these advantages, the VMS system should bring about a 30 % reduction in accidents and a 40 % cut in the numbers of dead and injured, an average reduction in speed of 10 %, a 30 % reduction in rain-related accidents and an 85 % reduction in fog-related accidents.
The system of emergency satellite or cellular links should cut reaction time for the emergency services by more than 40 %, and the survival rate should increase by between 7 and 12 %.
The collision alert system, coupled with on-board computers, should increase driver safety and, what is more, the VMS should cut traffic delays by 20 %.
All these aspects are very important, and you will appreciate that, when analysed in terms of cost, their advantages are significant indeed.
Some interesting research has been conducted into the internalisation of infrastructure costs.
These data should, I believe, be investigated further in respect of the cost of not using telematics; in other words, the social benefits should be assessed in financial terms.
Turning to the aspects not directly addressed by the Commission, but which could be taken up more specifically in further measures, and indeed in future communications, the principle of universal access for all the Union's citizens must apply to telematics.
Ultimately, telematics establishes hierarchies and leads to democratic authoritarianism, so somehow we must ensure that telematics will benefit everyone.
This is the principle of free and universal access. We would envisage telematics being freely and universally available for certain basic services: emergency situations, traffic congestion, dangerous goods and meteorological conditions.
These aspects could be extremely useful, and could be managed in the interests of the community at large so as to benefit all users. Other actions need to be devised to this end.
We are very keen on the financial possibilities opened up by the fifth framework programme of research.
We are convinced that a good job of work has been done here, and would encourage the Commission to work along these lines. However we are also convinced that the financial resources for the trans-European networks need to be committed somehow or other - we discussed this a short while ago - with the involvement of the regional authorities.
I would conclude with a word on the local, regional and national authorities: regional, local and even national authorities tend to undervalue these issues.
Much more needs to be done in terms of public transport too.
Mr President, I must start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Baldarelli, on his excellent report which, generally speaking, we agree with.
Nonetheless, as the rapporteur knows, our opinions do differ on a few minor points.
For example, it would have been logical to regulate the equipment requirements for vehicles with technological instruments or the tendency towards abusing tollbooths, even in protected areas.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I would like to highlight the most significant elements of this Community strategy.
It certainly deserves the most resolute and urgent political support from all the European institutions and, of course, from this House.
It is clear to us that no real progress will be made if research and development is not given the maximum support possible, and the fifth framework programme should not forget this.
Mr President, this strategy must be the first in a series covering each of the interfaces of all other modes of transport, as telematic applications for the various forms of transport must fit into a strategy aimed at developing a general, integrated transport system.
The Commission must also calculate the costs involved in the overall programme in order to allow an assessment of the correlation between the resources used and the practical results.
Nor should we ignore the principle of correcting territorial imbalances.
Similarly, the research programme should cover the development of telematic assistance systems for use when driving in fog or should seek to create the possibility of using on-board receivers of the 'no hands' type with GSM functions.
Community strategy in support of telematic safety measures in the carriage of dangerous goods should also be strengthened, as Mr Baldarelli stressed.
There is an urgent need to improve traffic management systems, particularly in the large European urban areas, with a view to using telematics to improve mobility in congested cities.
In this respect, we also need to devise a range of models for cooperation between the public and private sectors.
And finally, Mr President, although this may seem obvious, we must ensure that we protect consumers.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Baldarelli's fine report continues the discussion on transport telematics that we started at the beginning of our legislative term.
This Commission communication differs from the last one in two ways. Firstly, unlike the earlier one it is not concerned with specific telematics applications but with Community strategies and with the framework conditions for the Europe-wide deployment of telematics.
That reflects the very rapid developments in this field, or at least in the area of road transport telematics.
This brings me to the second difference from the earlier communication. We are concerned here only with telematics applications for one mode of transport, road transport, which is a good thing in that it leads to proposals for practical action.
But it is also a bad thing, because it is not a multimodal approach.
When we speak of an integrated transport system in transport policy and say that is the only way to achieve sustainable mobility in the long term, that means we consider two types of integration necessary: quantitative integration of the individual modes of transport beyond national borders, and qualitative integration, namely linking up the transport modes to form a multimodal transport system.
We have a particular need for telematics with regard to the second aspect.
The integration of road transport alone could even prove counterproductive for the overall project.
So we expect the Commission to set out a strategy and propose practical actions for multimodal transport telematics.
Turning now to the strategies for road transport telematics, even if the communication and the report are very belated, since most of the strategies have already been implemented, let me say this.
One: we welcome the strategy of introducing RDS-TMC-based transport information services; we do, however, expect that this will be done across the board, Europe-wide, and not just in Germany.
We also expect a parallel strategy for introducing the technically superior DAB system.
Two: the exchange of traffic data and the creation of an information management service should be geared to intermodal transport from the outset.
Three: the effect of the Memorandum of Understanding on technical norms and operating reports needs checking.
Four: greater efforts should be directed at making the systems of electronic fee collection interoperable, since there is some need for political action here - at least in my view.
If we can sharply reduce what are called the external costs of road transport by means of telematics we must also be able to ascertain and apportion the residual costs on a uniform basis.
Five: we need comprehensive socio-economic studies on human/machine interfaces.
Six: the attempts to define an open, European system architecture are lagging behind recent developments.
That is why we look forward to the Commission's next communication on telematics.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is rather like a family party here tonight!
The PPE Group supports the development of framework conditions for the deployment of telematics in road transport because transport telematics can significantly increase road safety, improve traffic flows and thereby reduce the environmental damage caused by traffic.
We thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
But let me make two points of criticism. We Christian Democrats believe that, firstly, the advantages and disadvantages of road pricing need to be checked thoroughly.
Secondly, we categorically reject new charges for driving into towns.
On my first point, electronic, distance-related charges - called road pricing in short - for goods transport by road or even for private motorists may in theory be fairer than non-use-related charges.
But we Christian Democrats fear that the costs of introducing and maintaining this kind of gigantic electronic system - for all 15 countries and not just one or two, and here I agree with Mr Stockmann - will be so enormous in practice, for the Member States, the private HGV companies or indeed the individual citizen if this kind of system is also applied to private cars, that it will no longer have any economic advantages over the current system of road-use charges or tolls.
In that case it would be better simply to give up the idea of road pricing altogether.
At any rate, we Christian Democrats totally reject a road pricing system that would involve a special charge for lorries or cars entering the inner cities.
Inner-city parking fees, whether on the roadside or in car parks, are enormous, in my country at least. It costs DM 2 to park for half an hour in my home town, Hamburg, which is pretty steep!
So I believe that we really would be putting too much of a burden on the consumer, the customer, if we also introduced a road pricing system for driving into the inner cities.
High charges would in effect put an end to delivery traffic into towns, and also make it impossible for customers to reach business centres.
On the one hand, we keep saying that we must revive our inner cities.
On the other we force drivers out to the suburbs, to the big shopping centres, so that they no longer come into town. We want jobs in city centres, we want the inner cities to be alive and well.
That is why we emphatically reject charges for entering the inner cities!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Baldarelli, for the excellent report he has brought before us.
Like Mr Baldarelli himself, we too recognise the importance of road transport telematics services in our common effort to make our roads safer, cleaner, more competitive and more effective.
Telematics can serve individual citizens, vehicle fleet operators or indeed emergency service providers, and of course they can benefit public transport agencies, while at the same time creating opportunities on the labour market for our industries and helping to ensure a more efficient use of energy resources.
It was for all those reasons that the Commission drew up the communication we are debating today.
It provides a framework for the development of a broad range of telematics services and systems for road transport, in a flexible way so as to respond to both local and Community needs.
We also share the view that RTT services will only be more effective if they have been incorporated in transport strategies aimed at achieving specific policy aims - in other words, RTT is a tool to help in the implementation of political decisions.
The communication published in May last year identified some very specific actions for the sectors with first priority, and also indicated actions in other sectors.
Most of the first-priority actions have already been completed, as many Members will know from the excellent hearing held by the Committee on Transport and Tourism at the beginning of this year.
For example, we have already concluded memoranda of agreement in the RDS-TMC sector for the radio broadcasting of data and road traffic messages and for the exchange of data, which have already been signed by the main players in these sectors.
As for the arrangements being made by the various bodies to put these memoranda into practice, they too have made significant progress.
Alongside these arrangements, the situation is now developing through European regional projects and national projects financed by the budget for trans-European transport networks.
And we have already started examining certain other sectors which Mr Baldarelli's report rightly regards as important, for example information before and during a journey, public transport and multimodal transport.
Indeed, in the next few weeks we expect to be submitting a communication on interoperational systems for electronic fee collection in Europe.
The importance of European regional projects as a driving force for the development of RTT is also recognised in the report presented to Parliament.
These projects envisage the creation of RTT services in cross-border regions and have already attracted the participation of 12 of the 15 Member States.
Their contribution is of truly fundamental importance in securing the interoperability of RTT systems and the continuity of RTT services across the borders of these countries.
They presuppose the monitoring and management of traffic on the main arteries, including the formulation of new itineraries, information before the journey, information during the journey via message signal converters and the RDS-TMC services.
This presupposes the cross-border exchange of data between traffic monitoring centres.
In some projects, indeed, there is already cooperation in the sector of interoperational systems for electronic fee collection.
The Commission agrees that there is a need to establish standards at a high technical level for this sector, and for that reason it has commissioned the European Committee for Standardisation, the ECS, to carry out a project on matters which we regard as having particular priority for the achievement of our aims.
We asked the ECS to draw up a new working programme which would exactly reflect all those priorities.
Indeed, given the global nature of RTT markets, we will also be examining, again in collaboration with the ECS, to what extent the arrangements for the cooperation of the ISO on common standards are satisfactory from the standpoint both of the aims of a transport policy and those of our industry.
It is clear that the security of RTT systems on vehicles must be of great concern to us all, and that is exactly why it has been included as a priority among our actions.
Today, then, I am in the happy position of being able to tell you that an operational group set up by the Commission has drawn up a list of principles, and after consultation that list will undergo further refinement so as to give more accurate information about exactly what is required.
The Commission hopes to submit detailed proposals both to Parliament and to the Council on how this can be transformed into a self-imposed memorandum of agreement, a code of practice with which manufacturers of equipment and motor vehicles, and those who assemble them, will have to comply.
At any rate, I can assure you that if the self-imposed system we have proposed does not work, the Commission will not hesitate to submit new proposals for legislation in the sector.
Finally, another concern which runs through Mr Baldarelli's report is that RTT must not be available only to a select group.
The Commission shares that view completely.
However, we will have to work closely with Parliament and the Member States to make sure of that.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Tourism
The next item is the report (A4-0247/98) by Mr Novo Belenguer, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission report to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on Community measures affecting tourism (1995/96) (COM(97)0332 - C4-0576/97).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the report I am presenting to you today will be my last parliamentary initiative as, regrettably, I am giving up my seat tomorrow and leaving it in your hands to develop from now on a true Community tourism policy.
The Commission's report arrived at a key moment for the future of the Community tourism policy, between the problems of fraud concerning certain actions in the early 1990s and the major challenge that the start of the new millennium represents for us.
Perhaps for this reason, my intention as rapporteur is to present the report more from a strategic point of view than from the point of view of giving due recognition to Community activities in the field of tourism in 1995 and 1996, although it must be acknowledged that there have been many such activities and that they have been extremely varied.
The Commission's communication on Community measures affecting tourism in 1995 and 1996 was presented to Parliament in accordance with the requirements laid out in Article 5 of the 1992 Council Decision, which establishes a Community action plan to assist tourism.
I would point out that this plan ended on 31 December 1995 and has not been renewed, mainly due to the lack of a legal basis in the form of a multiannual programme.
For this reason, we have tabled an amendment - Amendment No 9 - that calls on the Council to adopt a Community framework for actions in this extremely important sector.
In any case, the resolution suggests that the tradition of presenting an annual report to Parliament on the Community measures affecting tourism should continue, together with an evaluation of the actions.
This will allow us to hold an annual debate in Parliament and to impose democratic control on future Community measures.
I would also like to highlight the main problems that, in my opinion, are hindering the development of a Community policy.
Firstly, there is the unwillingness of national authorities to entrust the European Community with the role of coordinating activities and supporting the tourism sector.
This was reflected in their refusal to adopt the PHILOXENIA programme last year, which meant that there was no legal basis to finance supplementary actions at Community level.
We are now in danger of making the same mistake once again for 1999.
Secondly, there is a lack of confidence, once again on the part of national governments, in the Commission's own services that does not allow it to develop an action programme; this is mainly due to the incidences of fraud detected in 1991, European Tourism Year, and in the most recent action plan.
Thirdly, the lack of human and financial resources means that the European Commission is having difficulty in developing a tourism policy that effectively coordinates the various Community policies affecting this important sector.
Finally, there is a lack of planning and long-term strategy.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is shocking that, in this day and age, there is no shared vision between the Community institutions and the various Member States of a sector that makes up approximately 14 % of GDP and provides 10 % of jobs in Europe. However, it seems to me that now is the right time to relaunch a Community tourism strategy.
Since I began to prepare this report, I have been calling for a complete reorganisation of the Commission's services, which would signal, from this moment on, a new beginning for European tourism.
This would provide the Commission with the necessary human infrastructure to enable it to contribute a real added value to the activities of the Member States, and to the different regions. Therefore, I can only be grateful to the Commission for announcing this summer that a directorate for tourism is to be formed from three units within Directorate-General XXII.
And I believe that, by and large, we agree on the abilities and competences these units should have. They include, firstly, guaranteeing cooperation and systematic consultation with other Directorates-General, maintaining a close and permanent link with the industry and with national tourist offices, carrying out the ex-ante and ex-post evaluation of all Community actions to promote tourism, and increasing the amount of information made available to tourists, particularly on those aspects relating to their rights and responsibilities as consumers.
Secondly, we also believe that the time is ripe for this as, in July, the Commission itself published its official response to the report by the Court of Auditors on the previous, allegedly fraudulent actions.
The Commission has identified all of the most problematic actions of the period in question, without prejudice to the legal proceedings that the national courts have yet to complete. It estimates that approximately 9 % of all the actions carried out or financed between 1990 and 1995 show irregularities.
It also points out that it is taking action to recover funds that were overpaid and is referring the matter back to national authorities where appropriate.
Thirdly, the meeting of the group of experts on tourism and employment, chaired by the Commissioner, was an excellent initiative and we are currently awaiting its conclusions and recommendations.
In conclusion, Mr President, I defend and support the added value that the European Community can bring to tourism in Europe.
All we need is for the Member States to recognise this.
Mr President, as draftsman for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I could restate the conclusions that we reached, but I will refrain from doing so.
I have to say that tourism policy, and the Commissioner knows it full well, is something of a poor relation in terms of Community policy, and this is actually strange, because neither the Commissioner nor the rapporteur needs to be told that tourism is the biggest employer in the Community and is also a sector which could generate a great deal of economic activity in areas whose economy is in difficulty.
In short, we have a duty to see to it that something is made of tourism policy.
That means first of all that we have to do a good deal more about quality, and it means too, as we say in this opinion from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, that we have to do something about the recognition and equivalence of diplomas.
Secondly, Mr President, we referred to fiscal policy.
Precisely because tourism is increasingly international, fiscal policy hugely distorts the level playing field, notably with regard to VAT. Le me give you just one example.
Take the way in which theme parks are treated in one country...
... the President's own country.
Parc Astérix is regarded as a cultural attraction and is subject to a low rate of VAT, whereas other countries view this kind of park as a tourist attraction and so apply a high rate of VAT.
(NL) Having said that, Mr President, I would point lastly to Amendment No 9, on the new Article 7a, in which the rapporteur says that a framework programme constitutes a legal basis.
Not so, Mr Belenguer.
Framework programmes are not a legal basis, only Treaty articles are.
So once again our committee calls for the inclusion in the Treaty of an article which properly addresses tourism.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate not only the rapporteur, Mr Novo Belenguer, but also the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Both present us with a series of conclusions of great interest, and the clarity, conciseness and the scope of the proposals contained in Mr Wijsenbeek's opinion, in our view, add a great deal to the report.
Although no specific legal base exists for tourism, Commissioner Papoutsis has succeeded not only in reorganising the tourism service in keeping with the guidelines drawn up by the European Parliament, but he has also continued to submit to us proposals with an obvious impact on this activity which is so important for Europe.
Although the principle of subsidiarity applies to this sector, in that each country should maintain its specific features and differences, and since tourists travel in quest of difference, it should nonetheless be carefully analysed, because the countries of the European Union have benefited from using the Structural Funds to maintain the specific features of each region and in particular to defend their own cultural heritage.
Information about the introduction of the euro and the greater freedom of movement within the Schengen area should be disseminated at Community level since citizens of the European Union account for some 90 % of the tourists received by these countries.
Even where third countries are concerned, action at European level is justified, since action taken individually by countries is of limited effect while action taken jointly can have a far greater impact and far more significant results for European tourism.
I would once more stress the need for a specific legal base for tourism in the Treaties.
Until then, Commissioner Papoutsis, continue to endeavour to coordinate the 6 % of the Structural Funds that are spent in the tourism sector and use all the possible legal bases to continue the Commission's action in support of the increased competitiveness of the European tourism industry.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate Mr Novo Belenguer on his report and on the excellent steps he has taken during his time in this Parliament.
I would also like to take this opportunity to mention the pressing need for an action programme covering all the aspects of tourism that have already been identified as providing added value to this sector at European level. Whilst showing the greatest respect for subsidiarity, it is vital that we promote the quality and competitiveness of this sector.
With the reform of the Structural Funds and the process of enlargement towards the East, this is a crucial time.
Tourism is the industry that has proven to be most effective in stimulating depressed areas by creating economic activity and employment.
Its effects are extremely beneficial for regional development, be it urban, rural or coastal.
There is a great deal that we can teach the Eastern European countries and that we can share with them so that they do not make the same mistakes as we did and so that they can reclaim their historical heritage in a coherent way and make it profitable through tourism.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is added value.
All responsible Europeans value and are aware of the fact that tourism must be sustainable and that tourist destinations must be clean.
We are in favour of protecting the environment.
In today's world, if environmental factors are not included, then the idea of quality in tourism has not been fully understood. These factors include integrated plans and hotels, no waste, clean water, solid waste monitoring, clean energy and harsh measures against atmospheric, noise or visual pollution.
Tourism in Europe is coming to the final stage of a long process that will lead to good value for money and increased competitiveness for SMEs.
Some countries promote cultural tourism, others promote rural tourism, good weather, beaches, sport, business tourism or tourism for children or older people.
Yet all countries are trying to diversify what they can offer, trying to break with the seasonal nature of tourism and to create employment.
Added value means promoting quality in training and the exchange of experiences.
Added value means projects for applying new technologies to tourism in reservations systems or in tourist destinations.
We would like to congratulate the Commission for having promoted the organisation of a conference on the impact of the euro on the tourism sector in order to help develop changeover strategies for businesses and consumers.
The euro will promote tourism in Europe and will promote Europe as a tourist destination.
We are looking forward to the report from the 'group of experts' and we strongly support continuing actions to combat sex tourism.
Ladies and gentlemen, everything I have mentioned here is added value.
We must inform and convince the Council of this.
I believe that there are sufficient elements to warrant an action programme that could form a legal basis and that would be warmly welcomed by the Member States.
I hope that the Council will be forward-thinking on this issue.
Mr President, I should like to say first of all that I agree with the report tabled by Mr Novo Belenguer, and I think that he has put some extremely important points before the House.
In particular, he is right to stress the links between tourism and numerous other sectors falling under EU jurisdiction. Therefore, although the lack of a clear legal base is a very real problem, it is also true to say that tourism has links with many other activities and sectors where the legal bases are clear.
Be that as it may, the problem of the legal base remains and must be solved.
Unfortunately, as we all know, the Intergovernmental Conference in Amsterdam did not come up with a satisfactory solution, and the consequences are evident in that the Philoxenia programme, dating back to 1996, has still not been adopted because there is no legal base and hence no budget line.
In view of all these factors, we believe that efforts should at last be made to find a legal base, an appropriate programme and appropriate budget lines, and to recognise tourism as an issue in its own right.
For us Greens, this means in particular saying 'no' to tourism that destroys the land, 'no' to tourism that has so often led to the land being concreted over, but 'yes' to sustainable and eco-friendly tourism.
This is why we Greens have tabled a number of amendments, and I would draw particular attention to one of these. It seeks to take account, when assessing tourism, of the tolerance threshold of individual areas affected by tourist activities: we propose a so-called eco-label for tourist areas and bodies.
In this way, we can give a clear indication of how tourism can itself become a part of sustainable development.
Mr President, I was councillor for tourism in the Campania region for three years, and during that time I heard many people maintain that tourism is an important factor of development and an essential economic activity.
Unfortunately, these statements of fact were never followed up by any tangible administrative, legislative or economic measures of support.
The Commission's report likewise recognises the importance of tourism, both from the point of view of protecting and promoting our countryside, history and culture, and from that of economic expansion and job opportunities.
And yet, at European level, we have this state of affairs whereby tourist sector activities do not receive due recognition.
I therefore believe that immediate action is needed in three fundamental areas, which have been highlighted both in the report and by previous speakers.
Firstly, the determination of a legal base to promote tourism at European level: there is no title in the Maastricht Treaty, and nor does the Amsterdam Treaty allude to it.
Secondly, an undertaking should be made to insert a specific title into the Treaty at the next revision, as was said at the European Study Days held in Naples in 1996.
Finally, a Directorate-General for tourism should be created and, in the reform of the Structural Funds, particular attention should be devoted to integrated projects which identify tourism as a factor of development and environmental protection.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, tourism is an important economic sector in the European Union.
It is also important to job creation.
And let me remind you that it is not only urban and coastal tourism that are important, but especially tourism in rural areas.
This brings in extra revenue and also supports regional development.
Of course it also creates jobs, which benefits the entire region.
Priority must be given to soft tourism here.
The European Union ought to create a suitable framework for the future development of tourist policy, as is being discussed in the Philoxenia programme.
Another positive step would be to submit a white paper, following on from the Green Paper, to define the future strategy - not the communitisation of tourist policy but a strategy.
It is important to maintain and promote specific, individual customs and traditions.
I believe that we must give real priority to training those employed in the tourist industry.
To conclude, let me once again protest strongly in this House about sex tourism.
I call on the Commission to do its utmost to combat and finally put a stop to this truly shameful form of tourism.
Mr President, let me, as a representative of the most tourist-intensive country in the European Union, say a few words on this excellent report.
After all, Austria derives 6 % of its GDP from international tourism.
The domestic pressure of competition is enormous, as a result of extremely cheap offers in areas with good climatic conditions.
Tourist companies are faced with a totally uncoordinated and inefficient EU tourism policy.
There is no uniform concept of tourism.
Twice now the Council has rejected the Philoxenia programme, which offers some really positive ideas.
In my view, this kind of action programme should obey the principle of subsidiarity and give priority to advertising particular regions, because I believe that would be the best way to find third-country customers for the European market.
The report calls on the budgetary authority to make a functioning budget available for direct Community measures for 1999.
Budget line B5-325 is the only one that refers explicitly to measures to promote tourism.
Then it emerges that this budget line, which was virtually non-existent in the past given that it only accounted for ECU 2 million, is to be cut even more under the Council and Commission proposals.
That is incredible when you think that the Commission described tourism as one of the five economic factors most likely to create jobs.
Tourism is to be promoted via the Structural Funds and various Community initiatives that were not originally geared to tourism.
As the Commission report shows, this results in an unfair distribution of resources, which is a serious disadvantage to Austria, among others.
Mr President, tourism in the European Union does not have its own fundamental law.
And since the Treaties omitted to mention it, it has no legal base.
And since it has no legal base, neither does it have any activities: the PHILOXENIA programme is still on ice.
Consequently, it has no budget: the budget proposal came to nothing and the Committee on Budgets made sure that the amendment proposed by the Committee on Transport and Tourism, involving the modest sum of ECU 3.5 million for 1999, came to nothing.
How is it that, when everybody agrees that tourism is such an important sector for the European Union in terms of jobs, economic activity, investment and sustainable development, it did not merit even a tiny paragraph in the Treaty of Amsterdam?
Why should it be bound by the unanimity rule in the Council of Ministers, even for decisions relating to minor measures, in a way which undermines the very process of European integration? Why is it that, although it is so clearly a sector which cuts across the greatest number of other sectors, from transport to the environment, from regional policy to employment, from trade to agriculture and rural affairs, the Council insists on denying tourism a minimum of institutional dignity and delegates it to a dark and shameful corner in the basement of DG XXIII?
I know that subsidiarily should be the rule.
We all know that regional policy supported tourism-incentive projects during the 1994-99 period to the tune of ECU 9 billion, but this cannot be used to justify the absence of a Community action plan for tourism, because there are areas in which potential exists for Community added value, with external promotion outside the European Union, reduction of seasonal variations, coordination of the activities of different programmes and policies where they affect tourism, fiscal harmonisation, classification of tourism structures, safety and information for tourists as consumers.
If tourism is to acquire some dignity, it must be given a higher budgetary profile.
It is now up to the political groups of this House to achieve a consensus which will put an end to this irrational situation of a tourist sector with no foundation.
Mr President, there is good news and there is bad news for tourism in the European Union.
The good news first.
The introduction of the euro will make travel and tourism in 'Euroland' easier and cheaper.
I have worked out that, thanks to the euro, one day out of a two-week holiday in the European Union will be free.
Another piece of good news is that there is every indication that travel and tourism will be the number one growth sector in the next few years, although the less optimistic economic outlook suggests that this growth may be less spectacular than we had thought until recently.
Now the bad news.
The crisis in Asia and Russia will reduce the numbers of tourists from those countries visiting Europe.
At the same time, these countries will become more attractive because of the devaluation of their currencies.
I am thinking of the important sector of conference tourism, where we shall get more for our money.
My question is this: what is the Commission's response to this development? We urgently need a strategy to enable Europe to benefit from the level of growth expected.
The watchwords of this strategy should be: quality and greater competitiveness for Europe's tourist industry, particularly with regard to SMEs.
In this context, I would like to see a uniformly low rate of VAT being levied on tourism. Tourism does, after all, provide a great many jobs.
We must in future have tourism which is sustainable.
My second question is what part does DG XXIII play in the allocation of sizeable sums of money from the regional funds to tourism? And my last question, Mr President, how does the Commission rate the chances of getting Philoxenia approved by the end of the year, given the energy displayed by the Austrian Presidency?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Europe should assert its difference in tourism as it is doing in the information society.
The European tourist industry must, increasingly, be an industry of quality.
A European concept of tourism exists which links it closely with the promotion of the environment, culture, regional development, health and the safety and well-being of individuals.
The Novo Belenguer report appeals for a European tourism policy, and rightly so.
This policy should, on the one hand, seek to create within the Commission a structure that is able to carry out studies, compare statistics, promote training, encourage innovation and facilitate cooperation networks and, on the other, encourage coordination structures in the Member States to enable Europe to maintain its leadership as a tourist destination.
The recent example of the establishment of the 'Europa Traditionis Consortium' to promote tourism in traditional private homes is just one example of a joint initiative in society which is on the right track, but which will be but a drop in the ocean if it is not publicised and extensively replicated.
The European Union could and should have a role to play, both in promoting cooperation networks and in training professionals, making them aware of the medium and long-term advantages for the sector itself of a sustainable type of tourism which respects nature and heritage.
If the Council persists in hesitating to deal with tourism policy at Community level, it should but consider the impact of its failure to do so on the competitiveness of the sector in Europe and on the development of its peripheral regions.
Under the present conditions of increased competition, with the absence of coordinated measures and common policies in the areas of mobility of professionals, efficiency of communications and marketing, in short with the failure rapidly to upgrade the sector as a whole, Europe could well lose its leading position, which it would subsequently find it difficult to recover.
Mr President, as the last speaker, I shall touch on certain matters which have merely been alluded to by others, above all ones relating to the economic and employment potential of this sector.
The statistics tell us that tourism is now the world's third industry, after the oil and automobile industries.
The same statistics state that, in the year 2000, tourism will be the world's number one industry.
There are figures to substantiate these claims.
Between 1990 and 1995, revenue from tourism rose by 8.5 %: it was USD 400 billion in 1996; by 2000 it will be USD 700 billion.
Currently tourism around the world accounts for 12.5 % of GDP; in 2007, the statistics say, this figure will rise to 12.8 %.
Here are a few more numbers in spite of the late hour: 19.1 million people are employed in tourism today in the European Union, the equivalent of 12.8 % of total jobs.
65 % of these posts are occupied by women; by 2007 there will be an additional 1.8 million jobs.
That, then, is the economic scale of a sector which is progressing, growing, increasing, and to which Europe's institutions still seem not to give proper consideration.
But I believe that, in spite of subsidiarity - which still remains a valid principle at territorial level - tourism can at the same time be promoted for Europe as a whole.
Yes, let us spread the word about this old continent of ours, just as the United States of America now speaks with a single voice, and similarly certain Eastern bloc countries.
Competition is worldwide.
We have the reasons; we lack the money.
ECU 10.5 million to promote Europe!
My region has 450 000 inhabitants - true enough, we can offer Lake Garda and the Dolomites - and alone spends ECU 7 million, almost as much as the European Union.
Perhaps it is an example worth following!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me firstly thank the rapporteur, Mr Novo Belenguer, for his detailed report, and Mr Wijsenbeek for the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
This report conveys an important message, namely that it is time we did something to improve the efficacy of Community action in the tourism sector, and to maximise tourism's contribution towards achieving the Union's objectives.
Of course, the necessary appropriations have to be secured, because the lack of specific finance for the budget line relating to tourism is creating serious practical limitations.
I am optimistic, however, that the Austrian Presidency's efforts will bear fruit and that we shall achieve agreement on the very important Philoxenia programme in the coming months.
Let me now refer briefly to the basic priorities you have set out in the motion for a resolution and which many of you have just mentioned in your speeches.
First of all, I too agree that tourism-related action must include employment, training and education.
As you know, after the European Conference on Tourism and Employment in Luxembourg, we set up a high-level group whose mission was to examine how best tourism could contribute towards employment.
The first stage of that process is already nearing completion, and in the next few weeks I shall be receiving the group's recommendations.
My intention is that the Commission should send the European Parliament and the Council a communication by the end of the year, in which an overall assessment of the report will be presented, along with guidelines for future action.
Secondly, there is the issue of modernising the tourism industry and improving its competitiveness, especially that of SMEs involved in tourism activities.
I absolutely agree that the application of new technology and the smooth operation of the internal market are essential prerequisites if Europe's tourism industry is to maintain the strong position it holds today at world level.
I therefore believe it was appropriate to adopt an initiative which provides a basis for the development and dissemination of technical knowledge concerning the use of information technology in tourist services.
The Commission is already looking into the specific needs and actions required for tourism, which will have to be taken into account when implementing the fifth programme of research and technological development.
Thirdly, there is the matter of the introduction of the euro and the challenges this presents for both tourists and tourism companies.
As you know, we have been involved in far-ranging consultations about the preparatory measures being taken for the euro's introduction.
Taking part in those consultations were banks, credit institutions, professionals in the tourism sector, and of course consumer associations.
The results of that work will be presented at the conference due to take place in Brussels on 18 October.
User-friendly guides for tourism companies are in the final stages of preparation and will be available by the end of the year.
Fourthly, there is the issue of the Structural Fund reform proposed in Agenda 2000 and the opportunities which could arise in that context for full exploitation of tourism potential in the less favoured parts of Europe, or even in declining areas.
In the context of the Structural Funds, then, the Member States are drawing up plans and indicating their sectoral priorities.
Experience shows that almost all the areas eligible under the Structural Funds have included plans related to tourism and its programmes.
However, application of the new operating rules for the Structural Funds is an opportunity for interested regional and national authorities to assess and reconsider their plans for the development of tourism, and in this way to determine coherent measures to upgrade tourist infrastructure and improve the quality of tourism-related services in those areas.
Fifthly, there is the question of applying the principle of sustainability to the development of tourism.
I agree with you that tourism cannot be developed successfully unless the principle of sustainability is fully respected.
I also agree on the need for a more widespread use in tourism of Community resources to protect the environment, and to protect and promote Europe's cultural heritage.
Together with the Member States, we must strive for broader dissemination of the results of certain previous worthwhile programmes in that sector.
And finally, there is the matter of overall monitoring and assessment and the preparation of the reports on Community action that affects tourism.
I agree with you that these reports are a way to improve transparency, a means of helping to ensure the democratic control of Community activities.
I can therefore accept the continuation of the existing arrangements regarding preparation of the reports.
In conclusion, I should like to take this opportunity to tell you about some administrative developments, because this is an issue which is touched on by the recommendations in the motion for a resolution now before the House.
Recently, under the umbrella of DG XXIII, we have created not just a sector, not just a working group, but a directorate - a directorate for the coordination of Community measures and coordinated action related to tourism.
This directorate includes three operational units respectively concerned with matters of policy, competition and sustainability.
Before I end, I would certainly like to mention the Community action to combat sex tourism which victimises children.
Thanks to your support, and especially thanks to the decision by the budgetary authority to establish a special budget line, very considerable progress has been made in connection with informing the public about the problem.
We are continuing our initiatives along these lines, and towards the end of the year I am glad to say that I shall be able to put before Parliament a report on what has been done in this area over the past two years.
Lastly, Mr President, I would once again like to congratulate Mr Novo Belenguer on his work and to thank all the Members of Parliament who have steadfastly maintained that tourism is and will remain a major and dynamic industry, which must be actively supported by the Community, I would say even more so than at present.
Mr President, my thanks to the Commissioner for his answer.
I did not get an answer either to my question of how he rates the chances of getting Philoxenia approved by the end of the year, given the energy displayed by the Austrian Presidency.
May I also take this opportunity, Mr President, of saying how much I appreciate it that there is still a representative of the Council in the Chamber for our debates, despite the lateness of the hour.
It is right and proper that there should be, but thank you nonetheless.
Mr President, I wish to assure the House that the Austrian Presidency has indeed launched an effort by presenting a compromise proposal which contains ideas which I believe are fully in keeping with the spirit of Philoxenia.
It is based on the compromise proposed by the Luxembourg Presidency, and the Austrian Presidency is currently in consultation with the other Member States.
However, after the German elections we do not yet have the new government in the Federal Republic of Germany, and we are consequently waiting to consult with that new government because, as you will be aware, Germany is the only country, apart from certain reservations expressed by the United Kingdom, which has reacted against the acceptance of the Philoxenia programme.
I hope these negotiations will result in success.
And I certainly hope that the Council of Ministers for Tourism which the Austrian Presidency has scheduled for the beginning of December will be the meeting which approves the Philoxenia programme.
In any event, however, I sincerely hope for the European Parliament's active support so that these efforts may be successful.
The European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions, the whole of Europe's tourism industry, all the agencies involved in the tourism sector and 14 out of the 15 Member States are in favour of this programme.
At last, I think the time has come for the Philoxenia programme to form the legal basis for a multiannual programme on behalf of tourism.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Novo Belenguer, since this is the last report that he will be presenting, and to wish him every success in his future career when he leaves the House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.40 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I refer to an item in the Minutes concerning my report on ferry safety.
The Minutes indicate that Mr Papoutsis answered my question in response to his statement to this House.
In fact, the record should show that Mr Papoutsis gave me an undertaking that he would respond to my question in writing.
I would appreciate it if the Minutes could be changed to reflect that particular assurance he gave this House.
Mr Watts, I have taken note of that so that it can be corrected.
Mr President, this is not really related to the Minutes, but today I must once again draw your attention to a very unpleasant state of affairs in Brussels.
Two weeks ago, at 7.30 p.m., one of my assistants was attacked in the vicinity of Parliament.
I really do think that action should finally be taken - in the interests of Brussels and Belgium as well - to stop this kind of thing happening!
I would also ask you to bear in mind that New York was once one of the most dangerous cities in the world, and within a short space of time has become one of the safest.
I believe that all of us who work in the institutions have a right to live and work in safe surroundings!
(Applause)
Mrs Schierhuber, I must admit that problems in this area of security are serious and have often occupied the Bureau's attention.
Just the day before yesterday, Mrs Schleicher raised some problems of this kind.
I admit that we still cannot deal with them and we will look into how we can do so more effectively.
Mr President, if the Austrians are starting to defend Strasbourg and attack Brussels, and if the Bureau is dealing with the matter and the Quaestors are starting to get involved, then we know for sure that nothing will ever come of it.
But I would point out that one of the three flights from the Netherlands to Strasbourg has now been dropped, making Strasbourg even more difficult to get to, so it is now high time that we started meeting for longer and more often in Brussels.
Mr Wijsenbeek, you are enough of an old hand in this House, and for years we have become used to hearing comments about that sort of thing from you, and of course from other Members who have the same view.
Now is not the time to begin discussing the issue.
Mr President, I should like to mention, in reference to the last comment, that there is not a single direct flight from Finland to Strasbourg, so I suggest we meet in Brussels only.
(The Minutes were approved)
European Conference/Malta
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the European Conference of 6 October 1998 in Luxembourg, including the current situation in Malta in connection with enlargement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday the European Conference met for the first time at foreign ministerial level.
As well as the 15 EU Member States and the Commission, the 11 applicant countries - the 10 Central and Eastern European countries and Cyprus - and the Swiss Foreign Minister, Mr Cotti, participated as members elect.
Turkey had already indicated beforehand that it would not be taking part in the Conference.
Discussions during the first Conference session centred on problems related to cross-border organised crime and regional cooperation on environmental issues. There was also an opportunity for a group photograph with our partners.
During the working lunch, the situation in the western Balkans, in particular in Kosovo and Albania, was also discussed.
The presidency thus tried to cover a wide range of business and, with the exception of the subject of competitive economies, actually tried to contribute something on all the topics which the Heads of State or Government, meeting in London, had agreed should be addressed by the Conference in the future.
Let me now turn to the topics in detail.
By way of an introduction under the heading of cross-border organised crime, the presidency reported on the work of the group of experts on drugs and organised crime.
This group of experts, known as the COLD Group, was set up by the London European Conference in March of this year and held its first meeting on 10 June in Brussels.
At the meeting, participants expressed their support for the presidency proposals for the types of problem the group should address.
Those from countries outside the EU then gave detailed information about the organised crime and drug-trafficking situations in their own countries.
They informed the group about the action they are taking to combat these problems at home.
All participants agreed that effective international cooperation must be guaranteed.
This cooperation should be as broad as possible and include the police, customs authorities and criminal prosecution authorities.
They also agreed that every effort should be made to ensure that information could be exchanged between those involved as quickly and smoothly as possible.
In this context, it was also discussed whether structures to aid cooperation, or networks, already in existence within the European Union, should be extended.
Those participating in the meeting of the group of experts also proposed an extensive list of topics for their further work.
At the end of the discussion, it was agreed that several proposals, such as arranging contact points and inviting people to seminars, should be implemented quickly.
It was decided that other ideas, for example measures on criminal prosecution and combating money laundering, should first be examined at further meetings.
The group of experts will be meeting again under the Austrian Presidency.
In moving to the main topics for discussion at the Conference, the presidency referred to the importance that the EU attaches to the fight against organised crime.
The danger posed to our society by international networks of criminals should not, after all, be underestimated, since they have now infiltrated many different areas of human life - politics, economics and the law.
In the view of the European Union, two areas of organised crime are particularly abhorrent, because their victims are the weakest sections of society, children and migrants.
In the discussion on preventing and combating the sexual exploitation of children, the Conference participants agreed that protecting children, who are both the weakest members of society and the source of our hopes for the future, needs to be a particular priority of the international community, because, as well as being exploited economically and persecuted in times of war, children are the victims of a particularly detestable form of violence, that of sexual abuse.
Usually this takes place behind closed doors.
Such acts of violence are known to occur throughout the world.
Since the advent of business, the exchange of information and tourism on a global scale, the sexual exploitation of children has been a matter of concern to all countries.
The Conference participants agreed, for this reason, that effective measures to counter it also require productive international cooperation in the various fora.
The reports on the discovery of cross-border paedophile rings are something we all recall with horror.
Fighting paedophilia, and related evils such as sex tourism and child prostitution, on the one hand, and taking action to prevent child abuse within the family and the production and distribution of child pornography, above all on the Internet, on the other hand, therefore present a very particular challenge, not only to the Member States of the European Union, but, we believe, to all states.
The Conference participants here reaffirmed that these challenges should be tackled across national boundaries.
The presidency referred to the European Union's intensive work in this area in recent weeks and months, giving an overview of the various activities being undertaken in that field and reporting on the progress of discussions in the General Affairs Council.
From the EU's activities, the presidency singled out, in particular, the joint action to combat trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children, which the Council adopted in February 1997.
This joint action contains proposals for improving judicial cooperation in the fight against trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children.
A number of the participating states reported on their experience of working in this field to the Conference and, at the end of the discussion, the participants agreed to invite the European Conference group of experts on drugs and organised crime to examine in detail, which of the EU's legal instruments the European Conference partner countries might be able to adopt.
Finally, the Conference participants agreed to step up coordination in the United Nations, so as to fight together against the sexual abuse of children.
Under the topic of cross-border organised crime, the Conference participants also discussed the problem of illegal immigrant couriers.
Lately, in particular, there have been repeated reports about the huge influx of illegal migrants trying to reach the richer countries of Europe and North America.
This new wave of migration, which is growing every year, has led some countries to tighten their immigration laws.
The final topic discussed in the first session was that of regional cooperation on environmental issues.
The various representatives reported on their involvement in environmental initiatives, through European regional organisations: the Central European Initiative; the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Group; the Council of Baltic Sea States and the Council for the European Arctic Regions of the Barents Sea.
Conference participants emphasised that environmental policies should be complementary.
For the future, they agreed that, as a first step, the presidency would invite the various bodies responsible for regional cooperation, along with the European Commission and the Environment Agency, to submit contributions and suggest solutions to the problems identified.
Over lunch, we discussed two further topics, developments in Kosovo and the situation in Albania, but I do not wish to address these now, because they will be the subject of a subsequent debate.
Mr President, with reference to yesterday's European Conference in Luxembourg, I would just like to say how much I welcomed the fact that the presidency decided to include on the agenda the important issues that Mrs Ferrero has just raised.
The fight against organised crime, the sexual exploitation of children and illegal immigration are all presently at the top of our political agenda, and we therefore feel that it is of the utmost importance that they should be discussed in a forum which brings together all the future Member States and the current members of the European Union.
It was particularly interesting yesterday to hear what the future Member States are doing or intend to do in these areas and how we can further strengthen cooperation.
I think that once the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified we will have a number of new instruments to make transnational cooperation more effective, including with the new Member States.
I am thinking here of the activities which the Amsterdam Treaty has transferred from the third pillar of the Maastricht Treaty to the first.
This and all future presidencies can count on the Commission's support in putting these areas of cooperation into practice.
These are all areas which are directly related to bringing Europe closer to the people and about which people are, I think, rightly very concerned.
Mr President, looking at the screen in front of me I can see the words 'Conference' and 'Malta'.
I am not sure whether I am supposed to say something about Malta now.
We all know that the Maltese Government has reactivated its application to join the European Union, which it withdrew, or rather postponed, two years ago, and has resubmitted it to the presidency. As normally happens, the presidency and the Council have asked the Commission to deliver an opinion on it.
What this means in this particular case is that the Commission must now examine what effect the two-year gap in preparations for membership has had on Malta's current political and economic situation.
We have therefore told the Council that we will be updating the opinion delivered on Malta in 1993, and that we will be delivering a new opinion on how Malta can best be reintegrated into the accession process.
It is rather difficult to give a precise timetable for all this.
The Council sets great store by having extremely detailed information, which means that we are having to work through the 1993 opinion and compare it with the current situation in Malta.
Finally, as I do not need to tell you, when I was in New York I had the opportunity to talk to Guido Di Marco, Malta's new and also former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and I told him that we are delighted that Malta has renewed its application.
I also said that the Council is definitely expecting Malta to try to make this application a bipartisan matter, that everyone knows that the application withdrawn two years ago when the present opposition party came to power has been reactivated, and that the Member States are delighted that the people of Malta are so keen to become part of the European Union.
The minister told me that that was also certainly the intention of his government, and that as the integration process progresses it will also become easier to convince more and more people that this major political step that Malta is taking is both useful and necessary.
A second point was that the question of introducing a system of VAT in Malta was extremely important last time round and was even one of the main reasons why the coalition that has just returned to power lost the last elections but one.
It is another point on which clarification is needed.
This is all I can tell you for the moment about Malta's application to join the European Union.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, I believe the topics focused on by the European Conference to have been wisely chosen and worthy of our full support.
I also endorse the words of the Commissioner, who said that it is important to address those issues which are of particular interest to people, which give them cause for concern -whether this is justified or not - and to which they demand a response at European level.
My colleague, Mrs Malone, in particular, will be commenting on Malta; I do not, therefore, wish to go into detail on that now.
I should, however, like to make a number of fundamental remarks and ask a number of fundamental questions. Firstly, I believe - and this is something of which the House should be aware - that the way we chose to deal with the applicant countries, using the European Conference as a kind of umbrella forum to negotiate with some of them, was the right way.
The elections in Latvia - as well as the referendum on integrating the Russian-speaking population - and the elections in Slovakia have shown that it was right to accept these countries as applicants.
Nevertheless, we must give them time and provide certain incentives for them to put the appropriate measures in place.
I am glad that this has actually demonstrated that we proceeded in the right way, even though our course of action was disputed in certain quarters of this House.
The incentives method - providing support for improvements on democracy, the rule of law and minorities - has proved to be the right method.
We failed - unfortunately, at this European Conference too - to secure the participation of Turkey.
I wonder how topics such as international crime, drug trafficking and so on can really be dealt with effectively without Turkey.
I should also like to take this opportunity to express my particular concerns about the current strained relations between Turkey and its neighbour, Syria.
Nobody should support terrorist groups and thus enable them to be active in other countries.
But if Turkey is not capable of solving the problem itself by peaceful means, then it has neither the legitimacy nor the right to take action and organise activities in another country.
I should like to ask the presidency whether this was discussed; what the presidency's views are on this issue; and whether, perhaps jointly with the Americans, a clear statement could be made to Turkey about its relations with Syria.
My final question for the presidency, however, is whether an initiative was put forward at the meeting of foreign ministers in Salzburg to extend this project to embrace other countries, as well as those in the European Conference.
Both the countries of south-east Europe and those in the Barcelona process are, of course, very much affected by issues such as crime and drug trafficking, but also immigration.
I wonder how these issues should be dealt with in the future.
The initiative did not exactly meet with enthusiasm or approval, but in principle, I believe it is the right approach, even though it was perhaps not prepared as well as it might have been, and the details still need to be considered. The topics discussed, quite rightly, at the European Conference, relate to problems which can ultimately only be solved if, at the very least, the countries of south-east Europe and the countries in the Barcelona process are involved.
I should like to ask you, Madam President-in-Office, whether you can comment on how people envisage this in the future.
That apart, I would repeat that the issues you are addressing are of central importance for our continent.
I wish the European Union every success with the European Conference, so that we can find solutions to these problems.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have the impression that the topic of Malta came as rather a surprise, not only to you, Commissioner van den Broek, but also to you, Madam President-in-Office, because I had actually expected you to comment briefly on this in your statement.
As vice-chairman of the Malta Delegation, I do, however, appreciate the opportunity to discuss this issue here today.
Admittedly, I had expected a rather clearer signal from the Council, given the remarks the Commission made in the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security, which were, even at that stage, along the same lines as those it made today.
The Council now tells us that it is waiting for a Commission communication, so as to first ascertain its assessment of the situation.
The procedure is rather bewildering, because on other enlargement issues, the Council has always taken the initiative.
Indeed, perhaps it is also the Council that should take some responsibility for the somewhat confused situation, because it gave Malta the brush-off and said that its turn would come after the preceding enlargement.
Malta was then, as it were, catapulted into the ranks of those countries which are experiencing severe difficulties in preparing for accession to the European Union.
In the two intervening years, Malta has not closed any doors.
The government, too, in the meantime, has done all it can to give a subsequent government, of whatever political hue, the possibility to reactivate its application for membership.
Besides, the Commission must certainly also have been aware of these signals from Malta, through the regular reports of its delegation.
The intention of our motion for a resolution is to call on the Council to send out a clear and immediate signal, first of all, to indicate that it welcomes Malta and that Malta is now once again a part of the European Conference.
For Malta belongs in this forum, if only because of its constructive role in the Barcelona process.
Mr President, I welcome the report we have heard in the Conference; the sensitive way in which it has dealt with dossiers such as crime, sexual exploitation and illegal immigration will prove very helpful when eventually we have to move into the serious negotiations and the application of the new powers of the Amsterdam Treaty.
I would like to use the opportunity of this debate to slightly broaden the focus, because also this week we had the important news that on 10 November next we will have the accession Conference, which is an integral part of the general Conference reported today, and marks an important psychological and political threshold.
In that regard, with the Council and the Commission present, I wish to make a number of political points.
My own Group, the ELDR, strongly believes in a wider and deeper political Union.
Now that we have crossed the threshold with the five plus one States for November, we must add new vigour to the search for the institutional reform of our own institutions urgently in advance, lest it become an obstacle later; none of us want to see that happen, but it has that capacity.
Secondly, politically, we strongly welcome the green light which was given this week to Cyprus as part of that process.
But this, too, must add a new urgency for the Council and the Commission in respect of an EU-led political initiative to resolve the Cyprus problem under the aegis of the United Nations lest, again, we should institutionalise inside the Union an intractable and difficult problem on that divided island.
In this regard, I wish to say to the Council that my Group deplores the continued failure by the Council to agree a legal base for a financial protocol with Turkey.
It is little wonder that Turkey does not participate.
We really need to get our act together at Council level there and indicate a capacity for a maturing EU relationship with all the states in that region.
My final political comment, in general terms, with regard to the upcoming Vienna Summit, is that this will afford an opportunity to review the claims of other applicant states.
My Group believes, especially in the context of the Russian political and economic crisis, that we need to review our position with regard to the Baltic States.
They have exhibited a deep commitment to reform and have made commendable progress.
This must be recognised at Vienna as, indeed, must the renewed interest in Malta.
Mr President, the election of Mr Adami as the new Prime Minister of Malta is going to have the effect of reactivating the application of Malta to join the European Union.
He recently stated that there would be two objectives for his new government: firstly, the application of Malta to join the European Union; and secondly, the repairing of the public national finances in Malta.
Both these issues are interlinked to a small extent, particularly in the context of economic criteria laid down in the Maastricht Treaty which prospective participants in the European Union must comply with in the single currency system.
The revival of the Maltese application to join the European Union will ensure that it is dealt with in the context of the next round of enlargement negotiations, in accordance with commitments given by EU Heads of Government at Corfu.
In fact the issue of Malta joining the European Union will be discussed at the November summit and the benefits of joining the Union for the 370 000 inhabitants of Malta are real and tangible.
There will be access to a frontier-free trading bloc encompassing over 20 European countries, assuming that the accession negotiations with the countries of Eastern and Central Europe prove successful.
The European Union with its internal market and free movement of goods, persons, services and capital is a positive economic prospect for a country which is seeking to find more markets for its domestic manufactured goods.
Malta has a lot to gain if it manages to align itself more closely with EU membership rules.
Signs of Malta's close ties with the EU are clearly evident on the island.
In fact, one of Malta's stronger arguments for entry rests on the close affinities that exist between the island's economies and the European Union.
Many industries in Malta which export a wide variety of semi-manufactured goods are owned by British, French, German and Italian companies.
As a result, 66 % of the visible Maltese import and export business is done with EU states.
Malta's other important cash income activity is tourism, which also depends on EU markets for its survival.
However, many of Malta's administrative, legal and fiscal structures have already been aligned to European Union standards.
The accession negotiations still have to overcome other difficult issues such as state support to industry and levies on imports, but I believe they can be overcome.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen. This Parliament did not wish the European Conference to be left to drift along as a kind of token event, but wanted to enhance its status and make it a forum for discussing issues in the common interest.
That is a step in the right direction.
However, it still lacks a coherent strategy, and has not developed into a pan-European body, capable of meeting ecological and social needs and fulfilling this continent's hopes for stability and peace.
A failed and internationally highly dubious European migration policy, which has manifested itself in some astounding ways, in particular under the Austrian Presidency, cannot be boiled down to the problem of illegal immigrant couriers and is, if you will forgive me, Madam President-in-Office, hypocritical.
Regional cooperation, on the other hand, is an important step in the right direction.
I hope that the Council will now also succeed in developing joint programmes and, when the money is distributed between the regions, that it will not differentiate between them this time, but will allow the regions to develop in parallel and along the same lines.
Finally, I hope, Mr van den Broek, that your Directorate-General will at last take a step in the right direction, and amalgamate the PHARE and Interreg funds.
Mr President, Madam President of the Council, Commissioner, I would like to speak about Malta, because today is a very important day for Europe and, I believe, for Malta itself.
I am delighted that Parliament agreed to the request made by my group, the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to have the relaunching of Malta's application to join the European Union put on the agenda for this part-session, in the presence of the Council and the Commission.
As chairman of the delegation to the EU-Malta Joint Parliamentary Committee, I have been a privileged and attentive observer of Maltese political life for two years.
It goes without saying that our delegation has always shown the greatest respect for the positions expressed by the various governments, since the will of the people must always prevail over partisan interests.
However, I am not going to hide the fact that I have always felt that deep down the Maltese people have had a real desire to share with the other peoples of Europe a similar common destiny, a destiny that included, on the eve of the reunification of the continent, full membership of the European Union.
I am convinced that after having made certain necessary technical adjustments, Malta can be immediately integrated into the enlargement process.
In fact, agreements were reached in 1995 that stated that negotiations with Malta and Cyprus would begin six months after the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference. Therefore, I personally believe that, in accordance with these agreements, it should be possible to begin accession negotiations with Malta in January 1999.
I truly hope that a decision in this direction will be taken by the Vienna European Council in December.
There is an additional reason why we should be pleased with the relaunching of Malta's application to join the Union.
On an institutional level, Malta's return will mean that the process of institutional reform will have to be speeded up. This is a necessary condition, in Parliament's opinion at least, for successful enlargement.
I would point out that, in accordance with Article 2 of the Protocol on the Institutions in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the process of institutional reform is automatically initiated when the Union is faced with the prospect of having 20 members, which would be the case here.
Without Malta, the Union, Europe, would never feel complete.
Mutual coexistence will constantly enrich both parties, Europe and Malta. It will also be an important asset in relations between the Union and the Mediterranean countries involved in the Barcelona process.
Mr President, when examining Malta's application for membership, which the Commissioner has confirmed has been resurrected, the Union must, I believe, take into account the following points in particular: firstly, consideration should be given to whether, from the point of view of its infrastructure, Malta is in any kind of a position to run a Council presidency.
A similarly small country such as Luxembourg, for example, cooperates with Belgium in this respect.
No such possibility is open to Malta.
Secondly, I believe that it is essential that value added tax, which has been abolished in Malta, should be reintroduced.
While other Member States are obliged to have a minimum rate of 15 %, a derogation clause on this point would put this country, when it accedes, at an unacceptable competitive advantage.
But, with your permission, I will close with a general comment on the value of the European Conference.
This instrument was created, as a matter of urgency, as a forum for dialogue between the EU and Turkey.
The fact that this state has again failed to participate should give EU strategists cause to rethink their policy on this matter.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the Presidency and the Commission for the reports they have presented to us here today.
I am very glad that such relevant matters as drugs and child prostitution were debated yesterday, as well as all the other matters that are of concern to us here this week in Parliament.
We did ourselves debate the whole question of the harmonisation of the pharmaceutical industry.
As Parliament's rapporteur on Malta's accession, I am delighted that Malta was there yesterday at the European Conference and that such a welcome was given to its renewed application for membership of the European Union.
On behalf of my Group, which also welcomes this renewed request for accession, I wish to say that we also welcome the Maltese Government's decision and indeed the opinion, shared by the opposition, that there will be a referendum held on the conclusion of the negotiations.
That is of vital importance.
Our Group also naturally considers it important that the renewed request should be dealt with both expeditiously and in full accordance with the proper procedures laid down in the Treaty.
My Group has therefore taken the initiative of calling on the Commission to present an updated opinion on Malta's renewed application, and, as Commissioner Van Den Broek has said, to see if and how they can catch up on the past two years while the application was frozen.
My Group will also, by way of amendment, be defending Parliament's absolute right to express our opinion on the Commission's updated opinion on Malta's renewed application.
We consider that Malta has a natural vocation, both in terms of its democratic institutions and respect for human rights, to form an integral part of the European Union.
We look forward to receiving the Commission's analysis of the economic and political developments since the freezing of the previous application in 1996.
I was interested to hear what Commissioner Van Den Broek said about the VAT situation being much clearer here, but, as the Commissioner is aware, there were other problems associated with some small industries and so on.
There is also the whole question of neutrality which has not been touched on.
I know this is a very sensitive and divisive issue in Malta as indeed it is in other Member States including Ireland.
Finally, when we receive the Commission's updated report, I hope we will be able to quickly resolve any outstanding problems, so that the Maltese people can themselves decide once and for all on their future place in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating our friend, Prime Minister Eddy Fenech Adami, on his recent electoral success in Malta.
His success is all the more significant given that, at the same time, the electorate came out in favour of Malta's accession to the European Union, thus confirming the line taken by the previous Fenech Adami government, and which obtained a favourable opinion from our institutions in 1995.
The determination and speed with which Prime Minister Adami renewed Malta's application for EU membership, as one of the new government's first acts, should not only reassure us as to the possibility of including Malta in the first round of negotiations on enlargement, but should also give us great satisfaction.
Indeed, Malta complies with the criteria for accession to the Union to a much greater extent than other applicant countries, and we can also be sure that a rapid recovery and return to the Maastricht criteria - already achieved in the recent past - will reward this country's legitimate aspirations to join the monetary union.
We need only recall that in 1995, Malta achieved a deficit of 3.9 % of GDP and inflation of 2.9 %, and that the Maltese lira has been pegged to the ECU for eleven years.
Once it is fully integrated in the European Union, in my opinion Malta will constitute an important outpost in the Mediterranean basin, likely to form a natural bridge between the cultures and economies of third countries and of the European Union.
Therefore, I can state both out of the conviction deriving from my role as former vice-chairman of the delegation for EU/Malta relations, and for the reasons I have just given, that Malta should be considered in the first round of negotiations for EU enlargement by 2002.
I should like to hear the views of the Council presidency on this point.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there has obviously been a communication problem between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, since the Commissioner only realised what was happening at the last minute thanks to the prompt on the screen.
We have not heard anything from the Council, although I am assuming that this will be covered in the response at the end.
Everyone in Parliament is delighted that Malta has decided to reapply, and I think that politically speaking it is important for the consolidation of the Barcelona process that the Mediterranean presence in the European Union should be a little larger.
The Barcelona process could certainly do with a little consolidation.
It is also a clear illustration of the fact that Europe is expanding not just towards the east, but towards the whole of the continent of Europe.
Secondly, I think that it is very important for the people to have the chance to have their say and to distinguish between voting for a party and voting for membership, and we naturally support the calls for a referendum here.
Finally, I do not think we need to adopt a paternalistic attitude towards Malta.
Malta is strong enough to protect its own interests, and I think it may also come to illustrate perfectly what Europe has always said about the first and second waves, which is that it is very easy to move from the second to the first.
This is what we want to see.
Mr President, I was delighted to hear the report from the Council on the activities in the European Conference.
It is clearly a very thorough conference.
It is important to know that the conference is prepared to deal with issues which are important to the ordinary voters of the European Union, such as drugs and the battle against crime.
It is important to know how seriously governments are now taking the way crime undermines the basis of a democratic society.
I am pleased the conference was able to find a mechanism to deal with these problems now rather than wait until we have negotiated full European Union membership.
I believe it is a step forward in the security of the continent.
I am particularly pleased to hear that attention is being focused on one group of people who are often ignored by politicians, namely children.
The situation in Europe, quite frankly, is an affront to civilised society; it is an affront to civilisation to have abuse of children and to have, in effect, the return to Europe of slavery.
Clearly it would undermine the democratic legitimacy of the European Union if the ordinary voter began to get the impression that the people who most benefited from the freedom of movement in the single market are the murderers, the blackmailers, the criminals, the junkies, the paedophiles.
We must make it very clear that we are not prepared to allow them to abuse what we wanted as economic benefits.
I would like to hear the Council say something about what it feels is the future of the European Conference.
Mr Swoboda has already mentioned certain countries which he feels should participate in the conference.
I would add to that list Ukraine.
I believe that is important because Ukraine is tied very closely to the West.
I would like to hear the presidency give us its observations about where we go from here in the conference, because it can be a major force.
On Malta, like everybody else I welcome the decision by the Maltese Government to apply for European Union membership.
But we must not get carried away.
This is not the return of the prodigal son.
This is not the opportunity to slay a few fatted calves and have a feast.
This is simply a democratic government expressing the will of its people.
Our enthusiasm must not blind us toward the many problems that come with Malta.
EU membership still remains a political football, which is not the best way to prepare for full membership of the European Union.
Secondly, the Commission in its avis identified certain weaknesses, particularly in relation to the structure of the economy.
What we have to do now is look again at the situation in Malta and judge it on the same basis as any other country.
Talk of Malta jumping to the front of the queue - which I have heard in Parliament - is nonsense.
Malta has to be judged the same as any other country.
But we are delighted that it is part of our family again.
Madam President-in-Office, I very much welcome the fact that you gave pride of place at the Conference to issues which are without doubt crucial, such as drugs, paedophilia and new forms of slavery, subjects which we hope to return to on other occasions for further consideration.
Nevertheless, I cannot refrain from expressing a certain amount of disappointment - which I hope you will be able to dispel in your reply - regarding your silence on the matter of Malta's accession to the European Union.
The Commissioner, whom I have heard speak several times in meetings of the joint committee, likewise struck me as rather more lukewarm this time than others, even though we now have before us a firm request for accession from the new Maltese Government.
We should like to hear more warmth, as much enthusiasm for Malta as for the other applicant countries.
Malta is not demanding special favours, Mr Titley.
Its Prime Minister has declared his intention to comply with the Maastricht criteria in full.
Some slippage has occurred over the past two years, it is true, under the Labour Government, as compared with two years ago when Malta met the Maastricht criteria in full, and now it needs to catch up again.
As for the neutrality issue which has been raised here, the Prime Minister has singled it out and said that the problem can be solved.
So Malta has all its papers in order.
I do not believe that a credible Mediterranean policy can be pursued without Malta being a member of the European Union.
The benefits would be considerable, especially as the Mediterranean will be a major policy area over the next few years.
It is our second main border, and we cannot tackle the problem of large-scale migration unless we conduct a serious policy, in conjunction with Barcelona.
Malta is a much-needed protagonist in all of this; that is why we are strongly in favour of Malta's accession to the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although I did not mention Malta earlier, because I was not aware that it was included in today's discussion, I would like to say that we did take the first available opportunity.
You know, of course, that Guido De Marco emerged as the winner in the elections on 10 September, and obviously we took advantage of the first Council meeting after that to discuss the subject.
I believe that a very positive signal was sent out yesterday.
The Commission - as you know - has been requested to present, as soon as possible, an updated version of its opinion of July 1993, which, naturally, needs to be re-examined and revised.
In addition, the President of the Council was authorised to send a letter of reply to the Foreign Minister of Malta, referring to the procedure which is now necessary, namely the updating of the opinion.
I do believe that we responded as quickly as we could, and I in no way wish it to be understood that we harbour any feelings of resentment against Malta.
I should like to make that quite clear.
On the contrary, we are delighted that Malta is back on board, if I may put it like that.
Secondly, I should briefly like to mention Syria and Turkey.
Obviously, both the European Union and the Council are concerned about the tensions in the region, and at the moment we are supporting Egypt's efforts to restore a certain degree of calm to the situation.
On the Partnership for Europe, you are aware that at the informal Council in Salzburg, the Austrian Presidency pursued the idea of finding some kind of basis for bringing in those countries which are not applicants or have no prospect of acceding at the present time.
Unfortunately, perhaps because it had not been prepared in sufficient detail, many countries provisionally rejected this idea in Salzburg, saying that it was premature.
I myself believe, however, that opportunities will certainly also be provided in the future for these countries - Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, etc. to at least have the prospect of working in collaboration with Europe.
As regards institutional reform, which was also mentioned, I should like to say that it will soon be the Pörtschach summit.
Admittedly, this issue will not be to the fore, but perhaps one or other of the delegations will in fact address the subject of institutional reform, which will, of course, soon be back on the agenda as part of the follow-up to ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But obviously, we know that institutional reform is one of the preconditions for our really being in a position to accept further applicants for membership.
On Cyprus, I should like to emphasise once more that we, the Austrian Presidency, are very pleased that we have succeeded in being able to start negotiations on membership with all the countries in the first wave - five plus one, Cyprus - on 10 November.
This could not be taken for granted, and we struggled over it to the last.
It is, therefore, all the more gratifying that we have managed it.
Obviously, we support starting the negotiations on membership, and hope that this will also have a renewed positive influence on the political negotiating process; in this respect, we are in close contact with the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.
As far as Turkey is concerned, I should like to point out that the Council presidency is still endeavouring to establish the Association Council with Turkey, and of course here too, talks are being held with both sides, but as yet we have not achieved a breakthrough.
We will continue our efforts, to the end of our presidency at the very least.
I should like to make one more point on migration.
Although we will be debating migration issues next, I simply cannot let the accusation stand that our action in this respect is hypocritical.
The Austrian Presidency produced a working paper, which gave rise to a number of misunderstandings, because obviously under no circumstances were we going to do away with the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees and its instruments; in fact, it was only referring to complementary protection measures.
Incidentally, there has been cooperation on migration and asylum within the European Union for longer than you think.
But I will say more about that during the next debate.
The debate is closed.
I have received seven motions for resolutions on this subject pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Situation in Kosovo
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is now exactly three weeks since I last spoke to you on the subject of Kosovo.
Since then, the situation has again worsened dramatically.
The High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, visited Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania just last week.
She reported that there were an estimated 200 000 refugees and internally displaced people, around 50 000 of whom are spending the night out in the open, in the forests and hills.
Almost every day, more displaced people join them.
Belgrade's repeated proclamations that the fighting was being stopped and the Serbian forces withdrawn have proved to be either untrue, or a tactical manoeuvre on the part of President Milosevic.
In talks with Mrs Ogata, Mr Milosevic even denied the existence of a humanitarian crisis in Kosovo and gave assurances that the Yugoslav Government was endeavouring to ease the suffering of the displaced people and make it possible for them to return home very soon.
The reality, as perceived by Mrs Ogata and regularly reported by the KDOM, tells a different story.
So do the statements made by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in the report he presented to the Security Council the day before yesterday, in which he records that the Serbian security forces are waging a campaign of terror and violence against the civilian population in Kosovo.
Unfortunately, it is all too obvious that, given that winter is approaching, we are heading for a humanitarian catastrophe, unless the situation changes soon.
The Kosovo Albanians currently seeking refuge in the forest have no fresh drinking water, increasingly scarce supplies of food, no sanitation and no medicines.
The situation is, therefore, particularly serious for children, the elderly and the sick.
There is no doubt - and this needs to be repeated here - that the main responsibility for there being such large numbers of refugees and displaced people lies with the Government of Serbia and Yugoslavia, that is to say with Milosevic himself.
The Serbian and Yugoslav authorities are always claiming that they are, after all, only defending themselves against terrorists and separatists, and that the military offensive is merely a response to the attacks carried out by the KLA.
Obviously, the KLA bears some of the responsibility for the worsening security situation, but we should keep a sense of proportion.
As for the European Union, what I said three weeks ago still stands.
It demands an immediate halt to the violence and early negotiations to find a political settlement to the crisis.
From the political point of view, the Union supports the proposal, drafted by the United States and expressly approved by the Contact Group, for an interim agreement, and sees this as the most important starting point for any negotiated solution.
The Union is particularly active in the humanitarian field.
In the margins of the United Nations General Assembly, EU foreign ministers agreed to appoint the Austrian Ambassador in Belgrade, Wolfgang Petritsch, as special EU envoy to Kosovo.
Two days ago, the Council also adopted the corresponding formal decisions.
The main tasks of the new special envoy will be to coordinate the EU's humanitarian activities with those of the international humanitarian organisations and, at the same time, to act as a point of contact for the Belgrade government and as an intermediary between it and Kosovo's political leaders.
Revisiting an initiative of foreign ministers Mr Kinkel and Mr Védrine, the presidency has also set up working groups in Belgrade and Geneva, composed of interested EU states, the USA, Russia, UNHCR, the ICRC, and the ECMM and KDOM observer missions.
The aim, by undertaking concerted action agreed on the spot, is to identify villages and towns to which the displaced people, at present living in the open air, can return, in safety and with dignity.
Within the last few days, the presidency has also presented 'Project Home' to its EU partners.
This initiative aims to make it easier for displaced people living in the open in the Komorane and Lapusnik area to return home. In addition, it provides for a number of accompanying, confidence-building measures.
Admittedly, all initiatives of this kind were called into question by renewed clashes and fear of further persecution, destruction and massacres.
I refer, in this context, to what happened in places such as Gornje Obrinje, where dozens of innocent people, including in particular elderly people, children and pregnant women, were tortured and murdered.
At its meeting two days ago, the Council condemned these atrocities and their perpetrators in the strongest possible terms, and called on the Belgrade authorities to investigate these abominable crimes without delay and punish those responsible.
Furthermore, it requested all those involved to cooperate with the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in the investigation of these crimes.
Besides this, in the light of repeatedly levelled accusations that horrific war crimes were being committed, the presidency has for months been arguing in favour of sending a team of experienced forensic experts to Kosovo.
The resulting invitation from Belgrade University to a forensic team from Helsinki University on 2 October, represents the first modest fruits of our efforts.
Finally, from the Union's point of view, I should also like to recall the decisions the EU made on sanctions.
As you know, these consisted of refusing entry visas to security force officials, freezing the overseas assets of the Serbian and Yugoslav Government, banning new investment in Serbia, and lastly banning the Yugoslav airlines from flying and landing.
More far-reaching measures can only be taken with the support of a qualified majority of EU States.
Moreover, there is an EU-wide consensus, that the sanctions should not affect the civilian population or Yugoslavia's neighbouring states, which would themselves be faced with severe difficulties if there were an embargo on Belgrade.
In the same way, it is agreed that, wherever possible, Montenegro should not suffer as a result of the sanctions applied.
Nevertheless, at the most recent Council meeting, in Luxembourg, it was decided to examine the gaps in the current sanction regime and make proposals to close them.
In the Council's discussions and many other events over the last few days, however, another more fundamental development has become apparent.
A certain shift of opinion on the crisis in Kosovo can be observed within the international community.
There is increasingly clear support for tougher action from the international community.
Resolution 1199, adopted by the United Nations Security Council on 23 September, was the first outward sign of this.
The current mission of the American special envoy, Mr Holbrooke; the consultations in the Security Council on the report tabled by the United Nations Secretary-General; the preparations being made in NATO for possible air strikes; and the forthcoming meetings of the Contact Group and the North Atlantic Council, should, in the meantime, have made it abundantly clear to Belgrade that the international community's patience is running out.
There is no doubt that the decisions which lie ahead are also of tremendous significance for the European Union.
After all, they affect the security and stability of the whole continent.
For the sake of the presidency, which is involved in the work of the Contact Group, I do not wish to pre-empt these decisions.
In any case, it is clear to me personally, that Europe and the international community can no longer stand by and watch, while the acts of violence and massacres in Kosovo continue.
It is precisely because hundreds of thousands of people are threatened by a humanitarian catastrophe, that I believe that it is time for clear answers, if the Security Council's decisions are not implemented immediately and in full.
Mr President, in Kosovo we have seen torture, burnt-out villages and violence against men, women and children - and a great deal of it. Just as there has been a great deal of talk in this House and at the United Nations, but we have not actually done anything.
I am filled with dismay, especially since I get the feeling that a number of today's speakers have some sympathy for the Serbian position.
Maybe they want Serb forces to crush the Kosovo Liberation Army before we undertake any steps. That would soften up Kosovo, rendering it more pliable over the question of continued union with Serbia.
Despite all the fine-sounding resolutions, I sense that some people would not mind seeing the violence go on. Afterwards it would be that much easier to impose a solution.
Take Mr Titley, who just had the floor. His actions to date could well have helped bring about what has happened in Kosovo.
He won applause today for saying that we must intervene. Yet when he himself could have intervened, when he could have demanded that measures be taken, he did nothing of the sort.
I read in the newspaper this morning that President Bill Clinton is now saying that the time has come to end the violence in Kosovo.
That time came a long time ago, in my opinion.
I call upon this Parliament to have the courage of its convictions and to state - even if somewhat late in the day - that the time really has come. Our own humanist values are on the line.
Let us demonstrate that democracy can muster a little strength at least.
Mr President, I really do feel that, at this stage, we could do without speeches and meetings.
I believe we have to make very clear statements and, in particular, specific requests to the Council.
We all know that the situation in Kosovo is worsening by the minute, and we are all aware that Milosevic is about to attain his objective and complete his ethnic cleansing.
We are also certain that he will ignore Security Council Resolution 1199, as he did all the preceding ones.
In the face of all this, what is the key question? The key question is whether Milosevic really believes that the international community is prepared to implement the measures it announces with monotonous regularity every two or three weeks.
I believe that the European Community must take some simple steps.
For instance, the Council should urge the United Nations to adopt a resolution to implement Resolution 1199, military action and humanitarian aid.
In this connection, I believe that the European Union should conduct an honest debate amongst its Member States to inform public opinion as to which governments are fully prepared to implement the United Nations resolutions and which are not.
I also feel that, on the whole, public opinion needs a clear signal on this matter.
The Council must also take into account what Felipe González, the special envoy, has so often stressed: the solution to the Kosovo problem depends, as do so many other things, on Serbia becoming a democratic country.
In this connection, I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if the latter is really prepared to support Mr González and act on his recommendations.
Finally, I earnestly hope that this Parliament will not become a laughing-stock and fail to agree on a resolution on Kosovo, as happened a few weeks ago, in September.
Mr President, unfortunately in Kosovo we are witnessing the umpteenth Balkan tragedy, but as always we utter the same predictable and futile words.
However hard we in this House have tried to hurl curses or to trust in the prospect of peace, the facts remain the same.
Europe has been unable, incapable or unwilling to play a political role in preventing the massacres which have been going on for months now.
The big shots in this Parliament, as well as in the other European institutions, have opted to slow down - or rather to halt - the process of Europe's political unification, so much so that Europe, bereft of a common foreign policy, now counts for nothing whatsoever.
We can trot out endless tedious, repetitive resolutions on human rights, and we can emphatically welcome monetary union, but the truth is that, without a political focus, our single currency will not create a single job for a long time to come, just as we shall go on standing cravenly on the sidelines of atrocities and massacres whose roots are lost in the dark past of Balkan history.
I would remind you that in the fourteenth century, the Muslims put all the Kosovan Serbs to death by the sword and brought in Albanians.
Ours is still the Europe of individual foreign ministers, isolated policies and the interests of nations which regard themselves as the strongest.
If we really wished to do our duty, we would all of us together, today, demand that the mandate given to the EU representative in Yugoslavia should be entirely free from constraints and conditions, and that at the same time the Member States' Foreign Ministers should refrain from cultivating bilateral relations with this or that rival faction.
Milosevic has been able to act undisturbed, in the knowledge of Europe's cowardliness. The massacre of this European people must finally be brought to an end, but only with the intervention of a European Union peace force: it is time to stop relying on action from the United States alone, allowing that country to go on asserting its hegemony over others.
Mr President, I think it is time to draw a line under the situation in Kosovo.
The hour is fast approaching when action must be taken, as I think everyone here would agree.
Despite all the international pressure that has been brought to bear we still have not managed to put an end to the violent repression.
The report by Secretary-General Kofi Annan confirms that Belgrade is thumbing its nose at the UN demands, for which the report harshly criticises it.
The guilty party has been clearly identified, as we asked.
The mission by the American envoy Richard Holbrooke has so far been a failure.
President Milosevic seems bent on out-and-out conflict and is clearly counting on support from Russia.
Either that, or he is playing cat-and-mouse as he did before, and plans to agree to some concession or other at the last minute.
We must not on any account be drawn into such games and must put an end to this situation, as I said.
We welcome the fact that NATO is ready to enforce compliance with the UN demands and to enable help to get through to the refugees, because everyone is now talking about their terrible plight and we cannot wait much longer to get humanitarian aid to those who are suffering.
Winter is approaching, as people have pointed out.
I say that I welcome possible military action by NATO because I realise that a political solution, however desirable it may be, is becoming increasingly unlikely.
Belgrade refuses to budge and clearly expects us to accept the present situation, but this is out of the question.
The Security Council must decide in the next few days on whether to take military action.
If Milosevic refuses to budge, such action will become inevitable, in my view.
We would urge the Council to play an active part in this process.
It would be irresponsible to delay any longer, and the European Union must also adopt a clear stance here.
We are trying to find a UN-led solution, but as we have often said, the fate of the people of Kosovo must not be allowed to depend on details of international law.
The people of Kosovo cannot understand this, nor can our own citizens.
I hope that Russia does not force us to choose between our principles and our relations with it.
If it does, I would choose to stand by our principles.
We do not want military intervention.
President Milosevic has forced our hand and he must now face the consequences.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, what we are seeing in Kosovo is a humiliating display of powerlessness on the part of both the European Union and the international community, embodied by the international Contact Group and the UN.
The Amsterdam Treaty, not yet ratified by all the EU Member States, will, in theory, provide a means for us to undertake peace-enforcing, peace-keeping and humanitarian action in the form of Petersberg missions; the EU will have the option of giving the Western European Union, which would itself have to call on contingents of NATO troops, a mandate to undertake action of this kind.
But until the Treaty is ratified, this is just pie in the sky.
The dilemma facing the European Union is that it does not have effective security instruments at its disposal, does not have the military backbone, to lend credibility to its demands for a political solution to the Kosovo crisis.
The crisis of credibility - and this is the tragic part - does not just affect the European Union, however. It also affects NATO, which has hitherto waited for the green light from the UN Security Council, but which must be aware that this green light to take military action will not come, because of opposition from Russia and China.
My question to the Council is - and I respect the Austrian Presidency's policy of contributing to the political solution and the effort to avert a humanitarian catastrophe: what will Austria's position be, as holders of the Council presidency, if NATO, to avoid this crisis of credibility, now intervenes and sends out a military signal, given that there is not even a consensus within the Austrian Government about our security options?
Mr President, this morning we witnessed another show, another performance, on the television news. We saw buses full of soldiers - or made out to be full of soldiers - which were said to be leaving Kosovo and returning to Belgrade, like a sort of Barnum's Circus caravan.
At least that is what Milosevic would have us believe, one of the many yarns that he spins us, given that every week he tells us he is withdrawing. Then, here, we have seen a few conversions on the road to Damascus: some who believed until ten days ago that it was possible to do business, to negotiate, with Milosevic, and who actually did negotiate with Milosevic, regarding him as a statesman who was vital to the balance of peace - peace, I repeat - in the Balkans; well, this morning I have heard them call with great conviction for military action, intervention and bombing.
I, on the other hand, have long denounced Europe's impotence in respect of Kosovo. Given that this House has drawn attention several times to the enormous risk being run, I now ask you all what we intend to do with Milosevic, before or after military intervention.
Do you believe that the problem will be solved by dropping bombs on Kosovo? I believe that with Milosevic we need to act immediately, so as to salvage some of our democratic credibility.
Milosevic must be hauled before the International Criminal Court; he must no longer receive any support from anyone, and certainly not from ministers, such as the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, who even now still believe that Milosevic can be a reliable partner.
Mr President, in the Middle Ages, monks used to call meat fish and were therefore easy in their consciences when they ate it.
Here today, we are doing just about the same thing.
We are calling NATO bombardments a humanitarian enterprise and a mission of peace.
That is hypocrisy in all its glory.
Peoples are not laboratory animals on which the European Union can test its ability to exercise the foreign policy of an international police force.
Instead of criticising the European Union and the Member States for lack of substantive will, substantive political will for a peaceful solution of the Kosovo problem, we are rebuking the European Union's bodies because they have not yet taken military action.
But when have military interventions ever proved to be a solution of any problem to the benefit of the people, which might lead us to think that such an attack can achieve this? What we need to do now is to discuss some substantive intervention to find a political solution, if we wish to respect the rights of the people in Kosovo and in Yugoslavia as a whole.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as happened in previous conflicts we are once again hearing the same platitudes, the same calls for peace, but also the same threats against those disobeying the new world order.
In 1990 it was the people of Iraq, who, I might add, are still subject to sanctions which are responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of children.
In 1991, it was the Croatians, guilty then of the double crime of freeing themselves from the federal and communist straitjacket of Yugoslavia.
Our European leaders, particularly Jacques Delors, threatened them.
Mr Santer, President of the Council and head of the Luxembourg Government, even went so far as to claim that Croatia was not large enough to become a country.
Everyone supported their communist comrade Milosevic whose army bombed the civil population, razed Vukovar to the ground, massacred injured people in the hospitals and committed all the atrocities with which communist armies have become associated.
At that time, we were the only ones who condemned this complicity, who maintained that our governments would have a heavy responsibility to bear for the Balkan unrest.
Similarly, we had warned the nationalist Serbian leaders that they were committing a fatal error by becoming comrade Milosevic's back-up troops.
Rather than wearing themselves down in a terrible war, the Serbs should have, on the one hand, toppled the communist regime and, on the other, turned their attention towards their southern border.
The danger was not Croatia; it was the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism.
Today, Serbia risks losing all, or at least part, of its province of Kosovo where, in less than two generations, there has been a demographic revolution.
Muslims, who were previously a minority, now make up 90 % of those who live there thanks to a soaring population, continuous immigration and the collapse of the Serbian birth rate.
Our governments, which seem to be committed to getting the birth rate down and which open our borders to immigrants from all over the world, would be well advised to learn from this.
If, in the future, France wanted to keep its sovereignty over a Provence where the majority of the population were Muslims, would it also be threatened with bomb attacks from NATO's air force? Today it is the Serbian people, dragged into this deadlock by their communist leaders, who are being put in the dock by internationalists.
NATO is getting ready to bomb Serbia.
That will not resolve anything; it will only serve to inflame the Balkan situation further.
It is indeed strange that NATO, which was established in 1949 to protect Europe from communism, has never come to the aid of any Europeans invaded by the Red Army.
What did it do in 1953 for the people of Berlin? Nothing.
What did it do in 1956 when Soviet tanks violated Hungary's sovereignty and entered Budapest? Nothing.
What did it do in 1968 in Prague?
Nothing. It has done nothing after 70 years of communist terror, after one hundred million deaths.
Was this out of cowardice in the face of the USSR or was it due to complacency?
Although, today, I have no sympathy for the Serbian methods of repression, I cannot help but find it incongruous to hear a few people expressing such manly, warlike sentiments. For in the past, when the Christians in Lebanon were dying in their tens of thousands, when the Chaldean Christian villages were being razed to the ground, or when massacres took place in Sudan, there was total and absolute silence.
But Christians are inferior human beings who can no doubt be massacred at will, because they do not form part of the new world order.
Mr President, we need to express our frustration, but we must also send out messages, because we are trying to present military action as an alternative to political action. I must remind you that the most powerful weapon at the disposal of any parliament is the spoken word and, in my opinion, we can send out three messages.
The most important of these must be to the Serbian people, the first victim of that apparatchik turned nationalist, which is what Milosevic is.
He has laid a carefully planned trail of destruction: beginning in Slovenia, continuing in Bosnia and turning his attention now to Kosovo. It is worth mentioning that we have checked his progress on occasion.
In December 1996, Felipe González, our special envoy at the time, succeeded in making Milosevic admit that the elections had been fraudulent. Milosevic lost the support of the people, who turned against him.
However, he is an experienced apparatchik , and regained the lost ground in four months. Essentially, he is an expert in survival.
I believe that, firstly, the Serbian people should be told that at present, a separate solution to the Kosovo problem and a genuine democratisation of the former Yugoslavia are not possible, and that the onus is on them to reverse the situation.
I do not advocate a James Bond-style commando raid to get Mr Milosevic to The Hague, not because I think it would be a bad idea, but because it would provoke a nationalist reaction which could be in his favour.
I do feel that this message should go out to the Serbian people because he really has become an outcast from the international community.
Secondly, as regards Russia, we do have a significant relationship with that country, as Commissioner van den Broek has mentioned.
I believe that now is the time to raise this issue and to deal with it seriously within the framework of our relationship with Russia.
To conclude, I think there is another important message for the Council and for the Commission.
It is just not acceptable that, having appointed a special envoy, he should be vetoed by Mr Milosevic for three years, and that during that time, a whole series of Community political representatives should troop off to Belgrade.
This enables Milosevic to exploit any divisions between us, and also places him in a position of power. We should be consistent here.
If we appoint envoys, it is for them to deal with Milosevic when appropriate.Finally, we must urge the Council to support the implementation of the United Nations resolutions - Milosevic understands that language very well indeed - not just to resolve this situation, but to achieve a lasting solution. Then in five months' time we will not need to start complaining all over again about the latest chapter in that gentleman's murderous and destructive history.
Mr President, as the President-in-Office has made very clear, this so-called political climbdown and withdrawal of troops is a typical tactical ploy by President Milosevic to give the countries of western Europe and Russia an excuse to do nothing.
I particularly welcome the fact that the President-in-Office spoke so unreservedly about this.
She also mentioned NATO intervention, and I think it would be a very good idea for Austria to take this opportunity to apply for membership of NATO in order to underline how much it values the role it plays in international peace and security.
On the subject of the Council, our general view is that it has not acted particularly effectively.
We also have the impression, as the Commissioner also mentioned, that fear of being inundated with refugees is dominating the decisions and positions being adopted, rather than compassion with the huge numbers of victims.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council report of 5 October calmly recommends that we should send migration experts to investigate the causes of the refugee problem in greater detail, which sounds absolutely ridiculous given the seriousness of the situation.
It also indicates that the Council's position may not be guided by the best possible motives.
This is borne out by its failure to enforce sanctions: the ban on flights has simply put money in the pockets of the Yugoslav airlines, there are plenty of ways to get round the ban on investment, and nobody even knows how the visa restrictions are supposed to work.
Perhaps this all stems from the fact that parliaments, not just ours but parliaments in general, often have too little influence over what actually happens, and the indignation and moral questioning of our citizens have too little effect on policy.
We can see this from the reports issued by the French Parliament, for example, describing how the French Parliament was involved, or rather was actually not involved, in France's intervention in Rwanda.
I would also make the following point to the Commissioner: he said he understood Slav solidarity, but I think this is a very dangerous thing to say to the Russians.
People in the Netherlands did not show solidarity with white South Africans during the apartheid regime.
The law must prevail, not demonstrations of ethnic solidarity.
We must not give the Russians the impression that we will tolerate it.
We cannot force anyone to live under a criminal dictatorship, and this is why the regime in Belgrade will ultimately have to change, but for the moment nothing is actually happening.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, European foreign policy cannot consist of successively demonizing countries as dictated by American interests and their new world order.
Indeed, we might wonder why the United States is still militarily involved in the NATO summit in Europe, 50 years after the end of the Second World War and 10 years after the end of the Cold War.
Europeans should finally be left to deal with the conflicts within Europe and to build up their own security system themselves.
Why do we have to have this eternal American supervision?
Furthermore, the current global media campaign against Yugoslavia is quite simply scandalous.
What is happening is, of course, appalling on a human level. We all agree on that.
However, does a substantial part of the responsibility not also lie with the Kosovan terrorists who want to change the borders and separate Kosovo from Serbia? Why have we never spoken too of the bullying that has been inflicted on the Serbian minority in Kosovo for many years?
The indignation is all one-sided and peace will never be achieved unless we respect the integrity of Serbian territory. Humiliating this nation through sanctions will not bring any sort of viable or humane solution.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, I have now listened to the debate and heard much criticism and strongly-worded contributions.
I believe that we all need a clear idea of what we want, and how we intend to go about achieving it.
We want to come to the assistance of a people which is being brutally suppressed, sometimes to the point of death, and whose possessions are being destroyed, by its own government.
We can only do so, and that should also be clear, by sending assistance to Kosovo, accompanied and protected by ground forces, with two objectives - and we should indeed use ground forces if Milosevic does not give in.
The first is to provide large-scale humanitarian aid directly to those on the ground, and the second is to lay the foundations for Milosevic to agree to negotiate with the Kosovo Albanians about a new structure for Yugoslavia.
This may make NATO air strikes or air operations necessary.
But surely - and this may not have emerged clearly from the debate - two or three military air strikes will not be enough to change this grave, catastrophic situation.
We have to realise that if we are prepared, as an international community, to act as a protecting power, in much the same way as we did in Bosnia, then we will have to be involved for many, many years.
In my view, it would be a great mistake to believe that a handshake or a short attack on strategic targets would achieve anything.
I do not know whether the European Union is aware that this course of action will inevitably mean that NATO, and on the civilian side the European Union, will have to maintain a presence there for some considerable time.
I should like to say to Mr Oostlander that Austria has in fact already played an active role in other NATO operations, such as in Bosnia.
So, I do not see any reason for any stumbling blocks there - the EU has to realise this.
Obviously, I fully support all the efforts being made to win over Russia and China.
If every conceivable effort is made, and still no agreement is reached in this respect, then I believe that we must go to the assistance of the Albanian people in Kosovo all the same.
It is quite out of the question for Europe to watch while a people is - I have already expressed it thus - butchered; that is not compatible with my conscience as a European.
Of course, it must also be clear - I should like to emphasise this here - that this is no licence for the KLA to take action, to a certain extent on the back of the NATO troops or whoever it might be. No, the KLA has to exercise the same restraint.
Madam President-in-Office, perhaps you could say a brief word about whether it is agreed, that, in the event of a military intervention, this will not be a short-term operation, but that back-up operations on the ground will also be necessary immediately afterwards, to provide humanitarian aid and, at long last, to achieve a political solution in Kosovo.
Mr President, I must say, and I must remind Parliament and the Council and the Commission, that three Balkan countries, one of them a Member State of the Community - Greece - and two candidates for membership of the European Union - Bulgaria and Romania - have ended up by agreeing on joint action concerning the issue we call Kosovo.
Consequently, I must stress the need for continual and constant communication between the Council and the Commission and those three Member States, which just recently, only ten days ago, established a tripartite military force precisely so that those countries, which are directly affected by what happens in Kosovo, will be able to deal with any consequences of the situation.
Our first concern is the protection of Albania, and of course the defence of our own frontiers too.
I will agree and say that everything the various speakers have said here is correct, given the standpoint from which it was all said.
But the solution to the Kosovo problem is above all else political, and if a military intervention of any sort takes place - I will not go into details, because I am not a military man; my only military experience was when I did my national service, so I will leave that to the Council and the Commission - it will have to be an action stemming from a predetermined policy.
We cannot go ahead with military interventions in a vacuum, but only if those military interventions take place within the framework of a political solution.
And I would say that the most important thing to emerge from the harsh resolution we will have to vote upon tomorrow on the Kosovo issue is the message we convey to the Serbian people.
That nation, which has at present become the instrument of a clique, a military and political establishment in power in Belgrade, must see that there is hope and that we stand by them to offer support if they wish to go in search of solutions which, however, they must find for themselves.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, if the situation were not so tragic, the situation in Kosovo not so dreadful, then people would actually see an amusing side to the debate we are having in the plenary today.
If you recall the debate we held on Kosovo in this plenary a month ago, it really is hard to imagine that the great thinkers on foreign policy in the Socialist Group - Messrs Titley, Wiersma and Swoboda - were not able to foresee at the time what was actually going to happen in this country.
At that time, we knew exactly what was going to happen. So, what has happened over the last month?
What has changed? The whole situation has deteriorated significantly, as what we had already observed, in the countries where Milosevic had behaved in the selfsame way in the past, had indicated it would.
I also have to say that I am astounded to see everyone waiting today, as they did yesterday, for a possible United Nations resolution to bring about some kind of miracle.
In this respect, it increasingly seems to me that anything in which the United Nations has a hand comes to nothing.
Surely we cannot expect countries such as Russia and China suddenly to change their position, their opinion, on a situation, which closely resembles that in parts of their own countries, and which is dealt with in exactly the same way there, as we are seeing in Serbia and Kosovo at the present time.
By way of an example, I recall what we saw in Russia during the war in Chechnya; that was a very similar situation.
And we see China treating its colonies in much the same way.
We cannot expect these countries to have a sudden change of heart, and so we cannot wait for a miracle from the United Nations.
Madam President-in-Office, you rightly said that our patience is running out.
It has to be said, I believe, that our patience actually ought to have run out some time ago.
We see what is coming; we see what is happening here, and it is unacceptable.
There are only a few possible solutions - I have to grant you that, Mr Swoboda: he gave a very accurate picture of the military option and its implications.
But I believe that first of all, we must repeat that one of the political solutions, which must be at the very top of the list, is that Mr Milosevic come to The Hague and that negotiations be held, not with him, but about him.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will certainly give the Council a detailed report on the general feeling in this House, which has been clearly expressed in today's debate.
Obviously, I also believe that the use of military force - as mentioned in the debate - cannot in itself automatically resolve the political problems.
Even so, experience in Bosnia has shown us that there are situations in which military force - and air strikes, if need be - can be necessary to bring the adversaries back to the negotiating table.
That should also be stated quite clearly.
I expect Russia, in particular, also to make a constructive contribution to bringing the crisis in Kosovo to an end, given the influence which Moscow can exert on Belgrade, and its responsible role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.
I am also saying this because Moscow should be aware that Milosevic has not in any way kept the promises he made to President Yeltsin either.
Opinions on the question - raised by several speakers - of the legal basis for military action against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, have hitherto diverged in the European Union.
I have already mentioned that intensive consultations are underway in the United Nations and NATO at the present time.
Discussions in the Alliance involve 11 out of the 15 states, which is why I do not expect the positions of the EU and the transatlantic community to differ on this issue.
In the light of the constantly changing situation, I thought it would be wrong to make definitive statements one way or the other on this very complex issue today, on behalf of the EU presidency.
I should, however, like to emphasise once more that - like Mr Swoboda and many other well-known representatives of the European Parliament - I personally believe that the international community simply cannot stand and watch, when there is an endless series of massacres and acts of violence in Kosovo, and the threat of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Finally, I should like to address one more issue you raised.
I do actually believe that it is quite legitimate to ask whether, in the event of a negotiated solution being implemented, a multinational peace-keeping force on the ground might be appropriate, on the Bosnian model for example.
These kinds of issues are under consideration at the present time, but it is too early to go into more detail.
Mr President, I very much support what the presidency said, including the last comments.
For the benefit of those who mentioned Russia's role here, I would just like to repeat what I said at the beginning: I understand Russia's situation, not just the Slav solidarity aspect, but also the traditional alliance between Russia and Yugoslavia, the position of the Duma, its unwillingness to set a precedent with military action that could be repeated in its own country, and so on, but I did not mean that Russia should be given the power to veto measures designed solely to end a humanitarian emergency or crimes against humanity.
I think we can expect a country like Russia, which we regard as our partner, not to do such a thing.
We are not asking it for active cooperation, but we must oppose Russia's use of any sort of veto.
That is what I meant.
Finally, I think that the international community and the European Union now have a duty towards these hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons to stop going on about the problems and repercussions of possible military intervention and to make it clear that it is time for action, not words.
Discussions are already advanced about whether a military presence will be required afterwards.
NATO is not naive.
Most of the Member States of the European Union are also members of NATO and everyone realises that once the violence has stopped and the shockwaves have died down, that may not be the end of it and a political solution may not automatically emerge.
There are more than enough models for such solutions already, but the atmosphere is not ripe for negotiation because there is at least one party that is dominating the situation and has opted for a military rather than a political solution.
We need to change this state of affairs, but as I said the time has now come for action, not words.
Mr President, in the heat of the debate Mr Cars made some remarks about me which perhaps go slightly beyond the normal rules of debate in this House, although they would be unexceptional in the British House of Commons.
So I feel I need to respond by making it clear - as I did in my speech - that I have always supported diplomatic solutions to this problem.
That is not inconsistent with taking the view that we have now reached the end of the road in that respect.
I want to make that position absolutely clear.
I have received seven motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.15 a.m. and resumed at 11.30 a.m.)
VOTES
I would inform the House that Amendments Nos 1 and 2 are inadmissible.
That is the decision of the Chair.
Mr President, on behalf of the PPE Group, I wish to propose that the Miranda report be referred back to committee.
I wish to stress that this is no reflection upon the work of Mr Miranda and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In fact I described his report yesterday as courageous.
As you mentioned, there was a difficulty with two amendments.
For the first amendment, which I put down under the Rule which requires 29 signatures, I got 43 without any difficulty from four political groups.
One wonders how many signatures and political groups would be required for the amendment to become acceptable.
The second amendment was exactly the same as a group amendment.
It will give the Budgetary Control Committee an opportunity to consider the wording of the amendment and, if necessary, to consult the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and alter the wording accordingly, in which case a report could go forward with general support.
We therefore have a request for referral back to committee, pursuant to Rule 129.
I shall ask if there is a speaker in favour, a speaker against and, if necessary, seek the opinion of the rapporteur.
Mr President, I should like to express my support for a request from the PPE Group.
I believe that the Miranda report, which was the subject of considerable work in the Committee on Budgetary Control, should be more detailed in the section on Parliament.
We have no hesitation in refusing to give discharge for the section on the Economic and Social Committee, yet we are much more indulgent when it comes to our own institution.
As regards the problem raised by Mr Kellett-Bowman, I must say that it is not new.
For a few days, a few weeks even, we have watched amendments being judged inadmissible, even though I am not sure whether our Rules of Procedure provide for the power to examine the merits of amendments.
When we want to declare something inadmissible, we move a motion of inadmissibility.
We do not just declare like that that an amendment is inadmissible.
Therefore, for all these reasons, I support the request made by Mr Kellett-Bowman on behalf of the PPE Group.
I would urge that this report should not be referred back to committee. It is a very sound report that was examined in detail in the committee concerned and adopted by 23 votes for to one against, clear proof that it was supported by a large majority.
On the subject of the amendments, it is true that two were declared inadmissible.
I have no particular problem with this and I think it would be a complete waste of time for the House to refer the whole thing back to the committee just because of those two amendments.
We feel this is quite unnecessary.
The report is perfectly acceptable and also contains certain criticisms of how the House operates.
Mr President, I would briefly like to say that I also oppose the request to refer this back to committee.
I understand the procedural considerations raised by Mr Kellett-Bowman, but I do not consider that there are any fundamental, substantive reasons to do so.
Indeed, the report was discussed at length and in depth in the committee some months ago.
The vote was practically unanimous. Only yesterday a normal debate took place and today it has been the subject of only one amendment.
There is of course the matter that has been raised regarding the two amendments but, even in that connection, I must point out that one of them was rejected by the committee itself.
Therefore, I do not think that there is any justification for postponing this report, which obviously affects the normal functioning of the institutions involved.
Consequently, I think we should vote to proceed with the discussion and vote on this report.
To avoid any misunderstanding of the vote we are about to take, I would just point out that these two amendments have been ruled inadmissible by the President of Parliament, following detailed consideration of them by our services, and not just because of the naming of a specific person.
To prevent any misunderstanding, therefore, they were not ruled inadmissible simply because they referred by name to a former official.
We shall now vote on the request for referral back to committee.
(Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee)
(In successive votes, Parliament adopted the two decisions and the resolution)
This Council regulation offers an excellent illustration of the complexity of the CAP compensation system. In order to follow it, we need to go back to 1984.
Community legislation passed at the time took no account of the special situation of producers who had neither supplied nor sold milk during the reference year. These farmers were in fact taking part in a conversion programme introduced under a 1977 Council regulation and had agreed to refrain from selling their produce.
Over the years, case after case has gone to the European Court of Justice, and many a regulation has been adopted in an attempt to remedy the situation.
Sweden has not been a member of the Union for very long, but already we have seen milk producers deprived of hundreds of thousands of kronas in compensation payments because they have filled in the wrong coloured form.
These examples demonstrate how creaky the whole system of subsidies has become. We clearly need to reform the whole CAP.
Linkohr report (A4-0350/98)
The Agreement on wide-ranging scientific and technological cooperation between the USA and the EU, negotiations for which were completed at the end of 1997, provides a basis for historic technological progress by both parties to the agreement.
The very considerable tasks that remain to be accomplished in such fields as biotechnology cannot be tackled in isolation from country to country or from continent to continent.
It is therefore crucial to bring about ever closer cooperation between different regions of the world, so as to facilitate coordination of research carried out by the most talented investigators and by scientific institutions working together.
It is thus a cause for great satisfaction that Parliament and its rapporteur, Rolf Linkohr, recommend rapid implementation of the EU/USA Agreement.
Le Rachinel recommendation (A4-0349/98)
I am pleased to see that this procedure aimed at harmonising the distinguishing signs to be attached to motor vehicles is to succeed.
Although it might appear to be a minor matter, this measure is likely to make life easier for the millions of motorists from the European Union who cross its internal and external borders every year.
At the same time, the general implementation of the 'Community' identification will contribute to developing the common sense of belonging for the 375 million citizens of the European Union.
This is true both for them and for all those who will see vehicles registered with the Union's colours pass them by, wherever work or tourism leads our fellow citizens beyond our borders.
That is also something we should welcome.
However, I do have one regret: the proposal for a regulation leaves it to the Member States to choose between 'national' plates and 'Community' plates.
Although such latitude might be an application of the principle of subsidiarity, I would have preferred a slightly greater element of compulsion.
Watts report (A4-0310/98)
The objective of the proposal is excellent and I support the aims:
(1) Effect a greater harmonisation of international ferry safety provisions on services within the EU.(2) Ensure effective application of these provisions.(3) Ensure transparency of operating conditions for regular ferry services (including high-speed vessels) within the EU, whatever the flag they are flying.
I also support the specific proposals of the Commission:
list all the safety conditions that companies and flag states have to fulfil; -establish a regime to verify and inspect compliance with all conditions, both prior to entry and subsequently at regular intervals; -ensure the participation of host states in any maritime accident, including the use of voyage data recorders (black box); -avoid unnecessary regulation by allowing derogation from the expanded port state control inspections where conditions are met; -facilitate the operation of ships and craft on specific regular routes which are in compliance and the transfer of such ships and craft to other regular services.The rapporteur welcomes the initiative which forms part of a raft of measures to improve maritime safety - port state control requirements, registration of passengers, transposition of international maritime safety codes into EC law and harmonising minimum specifications for passenger vessels.
Scottish waters are amongst the roughest in the Community yet for much of the island population there is no viable alternative.
Ferry safety is thus of paramount importance.
The report and proposal deserve approval.
Following a number of high profile shipping disasters in recent years we must do everything possible to avoid any more 'Titanics'.
Among the large number of Commission initiatives on common rules within the EU for safety at sea, this proposed directive is both necessary and particularly relevant.
The growing interest in scheduled sailings within the Community among companies operating ferries under third country flags imposes the need for uniform safety rules applicable to all.
I am therefore happy to give the report my support.
In order to draw up his report, our colleague Francis Watts had organised a hearing on the proposal for a directive on conditions for the operation of regular ro-ro ferry and high speed passenger craft services in the Community.
Unfortunately, this hearing did not arouse a great deal of interest among our colleagues.
They were mistaken!
In fact, the hearing that was held on this proposal for a directive brought to light safety problems that really give us food for thought.
We must therefore thank our friend Francis Watts for having taken the initiative to request and organise this hearing. More than one of the experts who attended highlighted an unbelievable lack of safety, despite the fact that IMO regulations already provide for a wide range of safety measures.
During the hearing, German experts showed us image after image to support this. Of 30 European car and passenger ferries, eight were classified as 'deficient' or 'very deficient' on safety features and only five of the 30 ferries were deemed to be in good condition.
It is therefore understandable that shipowners hardly look favourably on the report by a courageous Member who is fully committed to ensuring greater safety for the hundreds of passengers carried every year on these boats.
However, it is not the role of a Member to make the public aware of the problems that might affect people's safety or that of their families. Our colleague Francis Watts has already been the rapporteur for reports on the safety management of ro-ro passenger vessels and on the registration of persons sailing on board passenger ships operating to or from ports of Member States of the Community.
I truly believe that he was right to table amendments that go further than the Commission's proposals.
The 2000 human lives that were lost through the tragedies of the Herald of Free Enterprise , the Scandinavian Star and the Estonia should be sufficient to mobilise all the European institutions and transport companies to do everything in their power to improve safety on these boats, which are unavoidable for many travellers.
In any event, I am glad that the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, which has under its flag some 84 ships with an average age of seven years and a gross tonnage of 970 000 tonnes, does not have any ships or high speed vessels carrying passengers on its register.
For if that were the case, my conscience would not be as clear as it is now.
For all these reasons, I voted in favour of the report by Mr Watts and I hope that the shipowners will take this warning from the European Parliament seriously.
I am backing this report and my Labour colleague Mr Watts' call for the setting out of standards for safe operation of the many ferries using EU waters.
Like many British people I recall the tragic loss of life in the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry disaster at Zeebrugge.
As always the rescue services did a courageous job of trying to save as many people as they could.
However we should not put ourselves as travelling members of the public or our emergency services in this kind of situation in the first place.
Setting out the toughest possible safety standards is in the interests of all of us - travellers, ferry crews and, not least, the ferry operators who need to assure their passengers of the best safety standards on board if people are to continue to use ferries in their journeys around the EU.
I hope that the industry will cooperate fully with our governments and the EU to make further strides towards the highest possible safety standards.
Teverson report (A4-0331/98)
As has been stated throughout the debate, the Commission proposal, as amended by some of the amendments introduced by the report, represents a credible working basis in endeavouring to reach consensus regarding a possible control system that is more reliable, transparent and efficient.
It is essential that objective criteria should be established, once and for all, regarding engine power and tonnage in order to compare capacities and productivity and ascertain (non) compliance with POP commitments.
Other positive developments are the attempt to introduce common definitions and practises with regard to inspection processes and the definition of infringements, while simultaneously seeking to move towards the establishment of comparable sanctions.
Meanwhile, a lack of clarity exists in the attempt to make the Member States responsible for monitoring vessels in non-Community waters, particularly in waters which are subject to international conventions. There are no plans to allocate additional funds and operational problems could occur.
Ambiguities also remain to be clarified regarding responsibilities in and the scope of monitoring for vessels of third countries. These appear to remain in a privileged situation which could continue to give rise to unfair competition and, naturally, suspicion and opposition to the control system by Community fishermen and vessel owners.
Moreover, if Community inspectors were to be given broader scope, it would be useful if they could be accompanied by national inspectors, and observers from other Member States should attend only on pre-arranged inspections.
Likewise, prior permission should be sought for on-line access to data bases.
Imbalances therefore remain, even in the Commission proposal, despite the amendments made by this report.
We will therefore abstain in the vote.
We only hope that it will be possible to achieve consensus in the Council.
The development of the fishing industry in recent years has necessitated the modernisation of control systems.
That is both logical and correct.
Unfortunately, the Commission proposal must also be seen in the context of poor cooperation between the Member States in the monitoring of fisheries.
It is reasonable for the Commission to want a reinforcement of controls after the landing of catches.
This initiative is also necessary in the interests of restoring confidence in the EU's control systems.
Increased monitoring of fishing vessels from third countries too is a worthwhile and necessary initiative.
Bösch report (A4-0297/98)
Mr President, I would like to present an explanation of vote on behalf of the Liberal Group.
I think it important to note that a concrete step has now been taken in determining how the fraud investigation unit, UCLAF, can be strengthened.
Parliament has once again taken the initiative and put forward a concrete proposal.
So now it is up to the Commission to react to that proposal and draw up measures to strengthen UCLAF.
It may well be that the model presented is not complete, and it may well be that a few things need to be changed.
We in the Liberal Group have had discussions, as have others, on what the absolutely correct model should be.
Opinions differed as to how the structure that is absolutely right should be achieved; these differences were also reflected in the voting.
What is crucial for us is that something should happen, that the fraud unit should be strengthened, so that we are in a better position to combat internal fraud and corruption.
It is important to stress that we cannot accept a model that would require an amendment of the Treaty, because that would delay the process for a long, long time, which would not do at all.
It is vital that the system be strengthened now, so that we are better able to combat corruption and fraud.
We would begin by thanking the rapporteur for a thorough text, which reflects both his competence and his commitment.
Recent revelations of irregularities and corruption within the Commission underscore the need for visibly tougher supervision of activities - managed by the Commission or the Member States - paid for out of Community funds.
Confidence in the Commission has now been undermined and criticism of its ability to handle taxpayers' money is justified.
The statement in the report that this might well be just the tip of the iceberg brings home the gravity of the situation. It is therefore incumbent upon the Commission to crack down on irregularities, whilst at the same time ensuring that legal and political responsibility is taken for any wrongdoing.
Both the Bösch report and the Bontempi report, which was discussed earlier in the week, spotlight the role of the European Parliament in pushing for fresh and stronger action to prevent the occurrence of further irregularities.
We should not underestimate our position or our strength when it comes to fighting fraud and pressing the Commission to take measures.
The Commission will be making a rod for its own back if it sets about hampering the operation of existing channels of communication with Parliament, thereby obstructing openness and transparency.
We do not feel that the proposal for establishing a new structure called OLAF is necessarily the right way to combat irregularities in the handling of Community funds.
There is no basis in the Treaties for such an entity, which would not be subject to democratic oversight and could justifiably be criticised on that count.
A greater degree of scrutiny must be exercised in this area, and this can best be achieved through a combination of measures. Several of the amendments put down suggest some interesting options in this respect.
Given the severity of the situation, the proposal discussed in Mr Bösch's report should not, however, be totally thrown overboard. We should be using the leverage it gives us to persuade the Commission to come forward with further suggestions.
The steps it is already undertaking are welcome and necessary, but still more action will be required.
The European Parliament will have a significant role to play, and the proposals in the Bösch report provide us with a good negotiating position vis-à-vis the Commission.
The Bösch report, which follows on from the Special Report of the Court of Auditors on the running of the Commission's Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention (UCLAF), presents overwhelming conclusions. During the 10 years this unit has existed, it has not managed to finalise its procedural rules, nor to obtain the independence and security in handling information that would be needed for effective financial control.
So we see an endless procession of incidents of fraud, waste or administrative irregularities. These are three distinct categories that must not be confused - and the Commission is right to underline this - but all three of them are very much in evidence and they give an appalling image of the construction of Europe.
The Bösch report proposes granting greater independence to UCLAF by transforming it into OLAF (Anti-Fraud Office). Why not?
This reform will not, however, be enough, for the problems run much deeper.
In this respect, I have often had the impression in this debate that the European Parliament was trying to salve its conscience by condemning its own sins in others.
We have to realise that certain European policies that are supported by Parliament, particularly those involving agricultural refunds or the Structural Funds, generate fraud just as surely as clouds bring rain.
And, in particular, the 'Euro-worship' that has hitherto surrounded the Commission's actions has created a climate that is scarcely likely to promote efficient financial control.
If a third party tries to criticise anything, he is told: 'We are working for Europe; if you criticise us, you are being anti-European'.
My group is well placed to know that.
The result is that Brussels has become submerged in a sea of waste, just like all the institutions that are not controlled and that believe themselves to be above the law.
Europe can only be regarded as adult when it accepts real external controls, by the Member States in particular.
But until that happens, I have no hesitation in saying that the worshippers of federalism who dominate here, and who want to kill off criticism at any cost, are indirectly abetting fraud.
Recently, in addition to the articles traditionally devoted to fraud committed at the expense of the Community budget, the press has also mentioned the possibility that wrongful acts might have been committed by officials of the European Commission.
The possibility of such activities shows just how relevant the report is that we are giving our opinion on today.
Our rapporteur points out that the effectiveness of the Unit for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention (UCLAF) is restricted by a strict legal and organisational framework that limits its independence.
Moreover, its has a staff of only some 30 officials who can work on investigations.
It hardly comes as a surprise, therefore, to read that UCLAF has a limited capacity for action at the moment.
The credibility of the institutions and of the construction of Europe obliges us to step up the fight against the fraud undermining the Community budget and the criminal acts committed by European officials in the performance of their duties.
I agree with the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control who voted in favour of the report that it is important to improve swiftly the resources the institutions have available to combat fraud. And the best way of achieving this is to establish an Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) that is not only independent, but that also has the necessary human and budgetary resources available.
I therefore fully support the report submitted to us.
The EU anti-fraud unit, known as UCLAF, has a primary function to protect the financial interests of the European Union.
This is an unenviable task, particularly if one reads the recent annual report for 1997 on the fight against fraud in the European Union.
According to this report cigarette fraud in the European Union amounted to over £1.28 billion in 1997 alone.
Three hundred and thirty million pounds of this figure related to the loss of EU receipts and the remainder covered the loss in indirect taxation such as customs and excise duties and VAT within the national territories of the 15 EU Member States.
This one example should put into perspective the magnitude of the problem facing the European Union if we are to successfully defeat organised criminal groups who intend to counterfeit the euro currency notes from 1 January 2002.
On this date the euro currency will flood the territories of 11 Member States of the EU encompassing a population of over 291 million.
The law enforcement agencies of the EU must be extremely well prepared if the counterfeiters of the euro are to be defeated head-on.
I support a coordinating role to be given to UCLAF, the EU anti-Fraud Unit, as well as to Europol, the European police agency, to oversee this extremely important counter-intelligence operation.
Action must be taken to protect the credibility and authenticity of the euro currency when it is launched and replaces national currencies.
In light of the fact that EU Member States presently have different structures for preventing and combating counterfeiting, there will be a need for structures for exchanging information between all the EU law enforcement agencies.
There will also be a need for a common definition of currency counterfeiting and arrangements must be put in place to combat it in a concerted and structured manner.
The Amsterdam Treaty provisions give more powers to Europol by putting in place coordinated structures between European Union police forces and related law enforcement agencies, so as to ensure that organised crime can be tackled effectively at European level.
These new powers are only right and proper in light of the fact that we live in an international market where a free movement of goods, persons, services and capital operates.
However, these provisions can and must be utilised to the maximum so as to ensure that the evil of the prospective counterfeiting of the euro currency will be defeated.
The resolution on the independence, role and status of UCLAF aims to strengthen the control of fraud against the Community budget.
We of course think this is a positive idea, not least in view of the identification by the Court of Auditors of a number of irregularities in UCLAF's present organisation and functioning.
However, we cannot support the report, because it calls for the control of fraud, corruption and financial irregularities to be dealt with through the establishment of a European criminal justice area and the setting-up of a public prosecution authority for the EU.
In our view, this initiative in principle presupposes that it should be possible to harmonise the criminal law and administration of justice of the individual Member States.
The legal formulation of the Member States' criminal justice provisions and criminal law should under no circumstances be a matter for the Union.
Any further transfer of powers to UCLAF and the appropriation of more financial resources for the recruitment of officials must be undertaken as part of the control of fraud in the EU's own institutions and must not constitute a move towards a European prosecution authority.
The many specific cases of fraud and corruption in the EU system should instead be taken as a basis for: firstly, launching a debate with a view to abolishing a whole range of the support measures which provide the opportunity for fraud; secondly, introducing greater openness in the system, so that taxpayers and voters can see what their money is being used for.
The report also refers to Article 280 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which opens up new possibilities for the control of fraud on a Community-wide basis.
Paragraph 4 of Article 280 states that measures in the field of the fight against fraud 'shall not concern the application of national criminal law or the national administration of justice'.
We feel it is important to draw attention to this because it specifically states that the EU may not interfere in national policies in this area.
The fight against fraud at Community level should, however, not be pursued on the basis of conventions and additional protocols which have not been ratified, as is also intimated by the comments on Article 280 in the report.
Clearly the EU cannot assume legislative powers in areas for which provisions have not been ratified by the individual Member States.
The fight against fraud and corruption is a key issue for the Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament.
Let there be no doubt that combating fraud directed against the financial interests of the EU must always be a top priority.
Hence coordination of the fight against fraud - as understood by UCLAF - must always be placed on the best possible footing.
The report proposes the setting-up of a new unit to investigate fraud internally in the EU institutions.
We do not think that is an optimum solution.
It should be possible for this work to be carried out by UCLAF, but it should have a more independent status with respect to the Commission.
The Edinburgh agreement of 1992 states that 'Denmark will participate fully in cooperation on justice and home affairs on the basis of the provisions of Title VI of the Treaty on European Union'.
In practice, this means that Denmark will participate in that cooperation as long as it is intergovernmental.
For that reason, the Danish Social Democrats cannot support any moves to set up a common prosecution service or eventually to introduce a common criminal justice system.
However, as has also been stated in Denmark's reservation in this area, we will also not stand in the way of others who wish to intensify cooperation in the legal field.
The Danish Social Democrats have therefore chosen to abstain from voting on paragraphs K, L and M. That does not alter the fact, however, that the main intention of the resolution is to strengthen the fight against fraud both in the Member States and internally within the EU system.
The Danish Social Democrats have therefore chosen to support the report as a whole.
I support the Bösch report because his proposals were a possible way forward for UCLAF.
In 1980 I proposed that the Community should have a flying squad.
So I was delighted when UCLAF was set up at this Parliament's initiative.
Parliament has over the years added resources for the unit's work.
However, we discovered that UCLAF's investigations were inhibited when working within the Commission itself.
Mr Bösch's proposal for an independent OLAF offers the answer to this problem.
All institutions can be looked at including this Parliament, which I welcome.
Mr Santer's reply was helpful and constructive.
The House wisely, in my view, resisted attempts via amendments to emasculate this proposal.
I congratulate Mr Bösch.
Vigorous measures are required to fight fraud and corruption. There is a problem within the EU itself and there are irregularities involving Community funds going on inside and outside the Union.
The latest allegations corroborate this, as does the report from the Court of Auditors.
The report calls for the setting-up of a separate body - OLAF - with extended powers and increased resources. This would be one way of ensuring that the necessary internal inquiries are carried out.
If OLAF is to be truly independent, the Commission cannot be allowed to act as the appointing authority. It must not take the decisions on nominations, or be responsible for instigating disciplinary measures.
A European criminal law area is not what is required, and OLAF should not be given the functions of a public prosecutor's office.
This whole debate on fraud, corruption and vanishing funds is evidence that all is not well with the EU.
It is too big, too cumbersome to grasp and virtually impossible to oversee.
The single most effective way of fighting fraud, irregularities and corruption is to introduce Nordic-style openness and transparency, with guaranteed protection for those who provide information.
If all the EU's documents were to be made public as a matter of principle, and the right to divulge information to the media were safeguarded, then our fraud detection rate would increase and our problems become fewer.
The Commission is living in an ivory tower.
The lack of consultation between Parliament and the Commission is mainly due to the fact that when we request information and apply to carry out checks, this is taken per se as a sign of mistrust.
This is because in the Commission, the principle that good management must always - with a few exceptions - be open to public scrutiny, has been turned on its head, at least in those areas where criticisms are being voiced and Parliament wishes to exercise its rights to carry out checks.
Then, everything is suddenly classified secret, reserved, internal and confidential.
But I ask you, Mr Santer: what is there in an internal report on financial control that needs to be kept secret from Parliament? Why should we not be told speedily and plainly where overspending has occurred?
Who has anything to hide from us here?
The culture of mistrust within your Commission has even undermined the rights assigned to us by the Treaty.
Article 206 provides that the Commission shall submit any information necessary for the discharge to Parliament.
How do you explain, then, why Parliament did not receive the UCLAF report, or why we only received it when we brought out our biggest guns, namely completely blocking appropriations for humanitarian aid? It is a shame that this is the only language you appear to understand.
Yes, we do not simply have a problem, but a serious crisis in relations between the Commission and Parliament.
When there are no transparent and reliable rules; when the Commissioners do not appear to have the courage to take action against cronyism and time-servers in the various Commission departments; when Commissioners are mixed up with people from the demi-monde ; when Parliament is stalled for months with excuses and 'no comment', it is not possible to engender trust in good management.
In Germany, the people have just decided what happens to those who only want to sit out crises.
If the Commission is not sensitive to this, and does not react accordingly and send out the appropriate signals - and this does not seem likely - then it should be aware that we will have to refuse to grant it a discharge in December.
Fraud against the Community budget is one of the most serious problems in the 50-year history of European cooperation, both because of the financial loss caused by fraud and - in particular - because of the immense damage it does to the EU's image in the eyes of the public.
The Commission's central service for the fight against fraud, UCLAF, is therefore an EU body of exceptional importance to the Union as a whole.
UCLAF has already accomplished some major tasks since its creation, but it is clear that the lack of judicial cooperation between the Member States has made UCLAF's work considerably more difficult.
And there is currently no prospect of any significant progress.
Thus greater independence for UCLAF may be one of the few steps that can be taken at the present time to make the unit more effective in its action against fraud involving the EU's financial interests.
I wholeheartedly support this initiative.
I can support most of this report, but I do not agree that our goal should be to create a European criminal law area and establish a European judicial authority. Nor do I wish to see Europol given new powers.
That is why I did not vote in favour of the report.
The best way of combating fraud and corruption within the Commission is to enshrine the principle of full openness and transparency.
Fraud will be uncovered much more effectively if the public and investigative journalists alike have access to Commission records.
The current system, which shrouds in secrecy what happens to taxpayers' money, is not acceptable.
If things continue as they are, the logical consequence will be that the Commission have to cease its activities in those areas where major problems have arisen.
Sisó Cruellas report (A4-0241/98)
A European transport network offers enormous advantages in very different areas.
It is vital that we promote this development, particularly in view of the fact that the infrastructure is not interoperable.
The rapporteur makes some extremely important points about this.
We are very much in favour of developing a sustainable transport network and exploiting technological possibilities, and we were therefore happy to support the report.
However, we still have some doubt as to whether the projects under the European transport network are financially viable, calling as they do for major investment from both the Member States and neighbouring countries.
If this has to come from the public sector it will mean a heavy burden on the national budgets, so private capital will be needed.
We need to develop a climate in the Union which makes investment in such projects attractive for the private sector.
Its influence must extend beyond the purely financial: it is a major source of knowledge and know-how that must be put to optimum use in order to achieve the best possible benefits for society.
To sum up, we must use the knowledge and funding available carefully to produce a sustainable and sound transport network, and this report provides a very useful starting-point.
The main concern of the Sisó Cruellas report is that the EU should play a role in strengthening the infrastructure of Eastern and Central Europe as a precondition for trade between the EU and Eastern Europe.
The TEN programme, which has been extended to cover Eastern and Central Europe, must however be seen in the light of the political and economic pressure that the EU has put on the Eastern European countries in association with demands for certain investment in infrastructure.
This criticism is not to deny that there is a need for massive investment in the infrastructure of Eastern Europe.
On the other hand, the EU's transport policy does call for some criticism in principle.
The infrastructure projects in Eastern Europe which the EU has supported, for example through PHARE and the European Investment Bank, cater for the interest the big industrial concerns in the EU have in opening up Eastern and Central European markets for their products by improving east-west communications.
The question is just what significance this massive input of capital will have for Eastern European trade and industry.
Even the World Bank has gradually realised that major infrastructure programmes intended to bind the centre and peripheral regions together will not by themselves boost economic development in the peripheral regions.
On the contrary, it has been shown that the increased exposure of local markets in peripheral regions to competition from the central regions can bring about economic decline in the peripheral regions.
At the same time, the EIB has maintained an almost completely closed attitude to Eastern European environmental organisations, such as 'Bankwatch', and to the Eastern European public in general when it comes to publicising the environmental assessments it claims to carry out before lending money for a range of infrastructure programmes in Eastern Europe.
For these reasons we cannot vote in favour of the Sisó Cruellas report.
For historical reasons, the road, rail and inland waterway networks on the European continent, as well as the ports and airports, have, apart from a few rare exceptions, been designed on grounds of national interest.
It was only during the 1980s that a debate was opened on a genuinely pan-European transport policy.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of our colleague Günther Lüttge, the European Parliament, with the help of the Commission, was able to organise Pan-European Transport Conferences in Prague, Crete and Helsinki.
These were a great success.
For the first time, elected representatives of the people of western and eastern Europe could discuss and adopt political resolutions on transport problems together.
Today, we are presented with a new proposal from the Commission on connecting our infrastructure network with that of our neighbours in eastern Europe.
The infrastructure needs assessment process is coordinated by the TINA group, which is made up of senior officials from the Member States and applicant countries and which has its secretariat in Vienna.
This is all very well, but I would have liked us to have been first given information on the state of progress of the 14 projects adopted in the common position.
As far as I can tell, of the 14 projects accepted at the Essen Council, only the link between Denmark and Sweden (Oresund) has been finished and the Milan-Malpensa airport is currently being completed, but without the rail shuttle and the rapid road link required by the Commission, the EIB and the European Parliament.
But how are the other projects getting on?
It would seem that large sums have been spent on studies and on various plans, but for the rest, there has been complete silence!
This silence is difficult to understand given that Willi Piecyk stated in his report that the completion of the trans-European transport network would require investments of at least ECU 400 billion over the next 15 years and that the most urgent measures to be taken by the year 2000 already required around ECU 220 billion.
I can still hear Jacques Delors advocating these trans-European networks, which he felt would create many jobs, and I still remember the decisions taken at the Luxembourg Employment Summit, but I am now waiting to see some concrete results.
I know that up until now major national infrastructures have been financed to a large extent by public money.
National investment could have been greater still if all the taxes and duties on transport had been used for investment in infrastructure, but that has not been the case.
Indeed, we are all aware that, in order to build the trans-European networks, we need enormous financial resources, financial resources that the Member States cannot supply in the short term.
We must therefore find other sources of funding.
We assume that the European Investment Bank will certainly do all in its power to finance and promote at least some of the various cases.
Equally, we hope that financial resources from the different Structural Funds will be made available at last to begin to build infrastructure networks and, consequently, to create jobs. However, in spite of all this, I do not believe that we will have sufficient financial resources to pay for the 14 main priority projects.
In my opinion, we must try to do everything to ensure that private capital also goes into the projects. Without it, the programmes might have to continue for decades, if not forever, in order to satisfy all our hopes and needs.
Do we need to think about introducing a general European toll if the funding cannot be found from conventional sources? I do not know, but I sincerely believe that in practically every country it is very difficult to envisage an increase in revenue or public expenditure, and that we must find other possibilities of cofunding for certain infrastructure projects.
I am saying all this because we are faced with considerable problems in terms of making progress with the construction of Europe. But the problems are surmountable, if nothing unforeseen occurs.
However, in my opinion, the unforeseen is already on our doorstep.
The first estimates by the TINA group indicate that additional expenditure in the region of ECU 45 billion to ECU 150 billion is required. Where are we going to find this extra money?
Can we link aid to certain conditions, such as that 40 % of the investment in transport infrastructure, which is deemed to be the most important, must be devoted to rail transport, 25 % to road transport and 15 % to combined transport? These are questions that are not answered in the report by Mr Joaquim Sisó Cruellas.
Without wanting to stand in the way of aid to the other neighbouring countries of the European Union, I wonder whether we are not holding these negotiations at a dangerously fast speed.
For all these reasons, I voted against the report by Mr Sisó Cruellas.
Baldarelli report (A4-0246/98)
The continuous increase in the various forms of road traffic calls for integrated management of this traffic at all levels: local, regional, national and European.
The constant progress in information technology allows us to give serious consideration to such a hypothesis from now on.
That is why the Commission communication and the report we are voting on today are of such interest.
The foreseeable developments in road transport telematics are significant and their consequences are positive in that they are likely to have a beneficial effect on the quality of life of all road users, particularly in terms of safety and time-saving.
The possible economic and financial advantages are equally obvious: improved traffic management in terms of time and space, multimodal transport, etcetera.
A balance exists between the jobs lost in the production and marketing sectors that become obsolete due to the application of new technologies to the network and to road traffic, and the jobs created in this new area of activity. I agree with the rapporteur that whether this balance is positive or negative will depend, for the most part, on whether or not our businesses are able to take the lead in the current trend.
Consequently, I totally support the idea that we must help our businesses and, in order to do so, allocate substantial Community resources to the development and implementation of road transport telematics, in order to ensure job creation and sustainable development.
Novo Belenguer report (A4-0247/98)
We congratulate Mr Novo on his report, which deals thoroughly and in detail with what is such an important field.
I regret, and I shall continue to say so, that the minimal reference to tourism was lost from the Treaty of Amsterdam. In my view, it was needed to enable us to provide appropriate protection for tourists and the industry, and of course to ensure the quality and environmental safety of the chosen holiday destination.
It was for that reason that I also proposed the creation of a European Agency for Tourism.
Mr Méndez de Vigo and I fought hard for the inclusion of a joint amendment to this effect in the Bourlanges-Martin report, because unlike certain sectors of the tourist industry and certain other Members, we believed that tourism is much more than statistics. We felt that, in the long term, the loss of this reference from the revised Treaty would result in more problems than benefits, even for the tourist sector itself.
Having said this, and to leave nobody in any doubt, I wish to make it quite clear that I welcome this new report, which is an effort to fill the legal vacuum somehow, although unfortunately outside the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I am pleased that the European Parliament is discussing a report relating to European Union measures for the tourism industry.
This is very important from an Irish perspective considering the tourism industry plays a very considerable role in generating jobs in the Irish economy.
In fact, according to the mid-term evaluation on the spending of EU monies in Ireland carried out by the economic and social research institute, over 30 000 jobs will have been created in Ireland during the present Community Support Framework programme 1994-1999.
The present tourism operational programme accounts for 369 million pounds, which is over 8 % of the overall Structural Fund programme presently spent in Ireland.
I am confident that the Irish tourism industry will develop and prosper over the next few years.
The introduction of a European single currency should have a positive effect in this regard.
The elimination of transaction costs in eleven Member States within the European Union encompassing a population of over 291 million people will means that the cost of travel and the cost of holidays should reduce even further.
A single European currency brings with it a frontier-free capital zone where 'bureaux de change' no longer exist and costs are reduced.
A single European currency will bring with it an increased number of tourists which will mean an increase in the number of jobs created in the tourist industry in Ireland over the next few years.
The Irish Government has a role to play so as to guarantee that the Irish tourism industry develops to its maximum potential.
Discussions will take place shortly between the Irish Government and the European Commission relating to the next share-out of EU Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006.
The Irish Government will have to formulate a National Development Plan outlining our social and economic investment priorities for the seven-year period post-1999.
In light of the fact that over 30 000 jobs will have been created between the years 1994-1999 in the tourism industry in Ireland, it is therefore very clear that substantial provisions must be included in the National Development Plan concerning future EU and national funding for the tourism industry in Ireland.
The Danish Social Democrats today voted against the Novo Belenguer report on Community measures affecting tourism.
We do not think that the Community should start harmonising the Member States' tourism policies, as is advocated in this report.
It must be up to the individual countries to draw up sensible policies of their own in conformity with the subsidiarity principle.
There is thus no need for a directorate for tourism in the Commission, and there is also no need to appropriate more funds for this sector.
The Novo Belenguer report sounds too much like a plea for an EU tourism policy.
We think it would be difficult, if not impossible, to promote 15 countries of such diversity in one and the same campaign.
After all, Mr Novo Belenguer himself writes in his report that promotional campaigns for specific national or regional destinations in Europe (for which read 'the EU') should be left to the Member States and their national and regional tourist boards.
We could not agree more, and that is precisely why we think that the attempt of this report to get tourism covered by a common EU policy, amongst other things by setting up a directorate for tourism, entirely misses the mark.
The Commission report on Community actions with an impact on tourism carried out in 95/96 clearly demonstrate two essential aspects.
First, it shows the usefulness of these measures which either directly or indirectly seek to meet the needs of a sector which, despite an overall drop in demand of almost 10 % between 1975 and 1995, continues to occupy a crucial place in the economy and in employment in the European Union (approximately 6 % of Community GDP, over 9 million jobs).
The usefulness of such measures allows us also to conclude, as we have previously stated, that cooperation between shared interests may be ensured without changing the existing legal framework, which shows just how unrealistic some attempts have been to communitise policy in the sector.
In addition, it is abundantly clear that these Community actions should be continued, without changing the legal framework and with the allocation of funding to increase the capacity for direct action and, simultaneously, to enhance synergies with other Community and/or national policies (planning, environment, culture, arts and crafts, heritage, employment policies, structural actions, new technologies).
This is a positive report and I would like to emphasise one aspect which we consider to be essential.
It is not enough merely to state that the tourism sector is of fundamental importance where employment is concerned.
It is essential also to guarantee the quality of that employment.
Therefore, we share the conclusion that highlights the need to draw up policies and allocate funds (for training, among other things) with a view to guaranteeing a maximum number of stable jobs, minimising the effects of seasonal fluctuations and ensuring that competitiveness is not achieved at the cost of low wages.
Mr President, I am on record as having said at the time when we had the strike in this House that the institution was made up of its Members and the officials.
Not everyone agreed with me but I still believe that.
This House is well served by many officials and I salute them for it.
However, in this case I want to say that there are many cases which reveal gross incompetence over many years which was rife in DG VI (Administration).
That prolonged litany of negligences and errors has damaged the image of this institution.
The former Director-General for Administration Jean Feidt should carry responsibility for that deplorable situation.
I must stress that these remarks are made with no consideration of nationality or political persuasion or membership of clubs or secret societies but because over the years - and I could list them if there was more time - this House has been let down by poor administration in DG VI and Mr Jean Feidt should carry that responsibility.
Our group voted against the Miranda report because of its key element, that is, the discharge given to the section on the European Parliament for the 1996 financial year.
As regards, in particular, the famous carry-over of appropriations from the 1996 financial year to 1997, the rapporteur has once more decided to defend the authorizing officer by blaming the Legal Service and the Financial Controller. However, the Financial Controller did his job correctly by suggesting that, in order to solve the problem of the absence of the President of Parliament's signature within the allotted time, the non-automatic carry-over procedure be followed.
Nonetheless, this suggestion was not taken up by the administration.
It was not until the end of January 1997 that the administration learnt that the additional agreement had never actually been signed by the President.
The former President of Parliament was then asked to sign it retrospectively, more than a month after the deadline, which he obviously refused to do.
This did not prevent the Secretary-General from putting the same request, once more in vain, to his successor.
There is an even more astonishing fact. According to financial statements that were circulating between the services of the authorizing officer and the Financial Controller, the ECU 30.76 million involved did, however, form part of the appropriations automatically carried over to the 1997 financial year.
Moreover, this sum was also marked as legitimately carried over in a document dated 20 January 1997 and signed by the appropriate authorizing officer.
This document also certified for the Financial Controller and the Secretary-General that the necessary procedures had been successfully completed, while its author had meanwhile tried to get the President of the European Parliament to sign the retrospective additional agreement. The Secretary-General was perfectly aware of this.
The rapporteur is asking us today to give discharge to the administration of the European Parliament, despite the fact that this episode demonstrated the alarming inefficiency of the procedure for closing accounts: despite the absence of the President of Parliament's signature to the additional agreement, this procedure allowed ECU 30.76 million to remain in the list of appropriations actually carried over to the 1997 financial year.
What is more, at its meeting of 25 February 1997, the Committee on Budgetary Control approved the closing of the 1996 accounts, including the automatic carry-over of the appropriations in question.
We are trying today to play down this affair by suggesting that, strictly speaking, there was no loss of funds, and that the Member States will do what is necessary to ensure that Parliament's budget is able to finance the D3 purchase within the allotted time.
However, Parliament's administration did not submit the additional agreement to the President for his signature, nor did it then resort to the non-automatic carry-over procedure. Moreover, it tried to backdate the additional agreement and, finally, took for granted that the appropriations would be carried over to the 1997 financial year.
In this way, Parliament's administration completely failed in its responsibility to actually carry over the ECU 30.76 million in accordance with the financial regulations.
It is this unbelievable series of breaches and failings that we should have penalised today by refusing the discharge, in order to avoid this happening again.
In addition, my group is pleased with the decision not to give discharge to the Economic and Social Committee.
Nevertheless, we are surprised that the Miranda report, while deploring the extremely incomplete nature of the information contained in the revenue and expenditure account and financial balance sheet of the Committee of the Regions and the absence of a consistent staffing policy, did not choose to do the same for that institution. Yet certain irregularities in the running of the Committee of the Regions were brought to light in the Court of Auditors' annual report for the 1996 financial year.
I voted in favour of the 1996 discharge report by Mr Miranda on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It is quite right that we should be postponing discharge for the Economic and Social Committee, since serious shortcomings and irregularities have come to light.
These must be investigated internally by the EU's Court of Auditors and UCLAF and, if necessary, externally by the competent national authorities.
Discharge cannot be granted until this has been done.
I personally think that there are problems too within the European Parliament and I would cite, among other things, procedures governing tendering and the use of consultants. There also seem to be shortages of qualified staff in the accounting and legal services.
The difficulties in the Parliament appear, however, to be structural in nature. Unlike the ESC, Parliament has not given any cause to suspect fraud.
I therefore suggest that we ask the Court of Auditors to look more closely at the problems.
Work has already begun in the European Parliament, but some assistance from 'outside' would be useful in my view.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.55 p.m. and resumed at 3.05 p.m.)
Colleagues, unfortunately we are not in a position to start the session because the first speaker will be Mr Santer, the President of the Commission, and we are still waiting for him to return from the lunch with the King of Spain.
He is en route and should just be two or three more minutes.
I wanted to let you know why we have this delay.
(The sitting was suspended at 15.05 and resumed at 15.10)
Own resources (budget procedure)
The next item is the Commission statement on own resources and the budget procedure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has just adopted its report on the operation of the own resources system.
It is an important report, not only because of its content, to which I will return, but also because of the point in time at which it is being presented.
Article 10 of the own resources decision states that the text should be presented in 1999.
We have decided to do so earlier for one simple reason: the financing system for the Union budget is a vital factor in the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
Without this report, we could not possibly conclude these negotiations, as agreed, in March 1999.
Now that we have all the aspects of the problem before us, I would appeal for Agenda 2000 to be tackled with renewed determination.
The report the Commission has adopted today is comprehensive, transparent, objective and open.
It is comprehensive in exploring all conceivable avenues for a fair but also adequate future financing system for the Union.
It is transparent in hiding neither the difficulties nor the advantages of each potential choice.
It is objective in that it is based on indisputable figures. And it is open as, for the time being, it puts forward only options.
With this report the Commission hopes to take some of the passion out of what will be a difficult and politically delicate debate and give it an objective basis.
In a new departure, the Commission is openly tackling the issue of net balances.
This is, I feel, essential as I would like the inevitable discussion on this subject to be based on clear and objective figures.
But I would add that it is a concept that must be handled with caution, as our report clearly shows.
Mr President, after these introductory remarks, I would like to present the broad lines of our document.
It is presented in two parts.
The first deals with the operation of the present system and possible future developments.
The second addresses the issue of budgetary imbalances.
The development of the present system in recent years reflects the changes introduced by the 1988 and 1994 decisions on own resources.
Contributions have become fairer as they are now a more accurate reflection of Member States' ability to pay, as expressed by their gross national product.
What is more, the existing arrangements have provided the Union with adequate resources to finance expenditure without the financial crises that the Union has experienced in the past.
In some respects, however, the present system has its shortcomings, one of which has been repeatedly underlined by the European Parliament itself.
Financial autonomy, which is fundamental to the very concept of own resources, has gradually been lost as the proportion of the Union's budget financed by national contributions has grown.
In addition, the current system lacks transparency, partly because of the complexity of the correction mechanism for the United Kingdom, but also because of the debasing of the VAT resource which, with the capping of the base, now amounts to little more than a national contribution based on gross national product.
The present system also encounters management difficulties connected with the collection of customs duties and agricultural duties, which we know as traditional own resources.
If we are to move towards a more transparent and logical system, we have two radically different options available.
The first possibility would be to simplify the present system.
This could be done by enhancing the role of the GNP resource in the system of contributions, even though this runs counter to the very concept of own resources.
A bigger role for gross national product would no doubt make the present system simpler and fairer, but it would not give the Union greater financial autonomy.
In this context, following the Cardiff European Council, the Commission has examined the proposal made recently by Spain with the backing of Greece and Portugal to insert a progressive element in the system of contributions.
But this proposal raises problems.
For instance, the solidarity objective is currently pursued by the expenditure side of the Union budget.
This approach guarantees more effective convergence efforts than a simple budgetary transfer to the less prosperous countries.
A second option would be to introduce one or more new own resources, in order to broaden the tax base of the own resources system.
This is something that Parliament has advocated on many occasions.
Apart from the greater financial autonomy which would ensue, the main advantages of introducing new own resources in the system would be to enhance political accountability and visibility in the eyes of the public.
Our report contains a long list of proposed or suggested resources.
If we measure this list against a certain number of essential criteria, such as fairness between Member States or efficient collection procedures, we have to conclude that there are very few options that satisfy all the criteria.
Only actual VAT, as proposed by the European Parliament in 1994, would appear to be a viable option for the medium term.
I will now turn to the sensitive issue of budgetary imbalances.
Let me begin by repeating - as the Commission has always said - that the very concept of budgetary balance is difficult to grasp and to handle.
The costs and benefits of belonging to the European Union cannot be reduced to a simple arithmetical calculation.
But Germany, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden have referred to the Fontainebleau compromise, which stated: 'Expenditure policy is ultimately the essential means of resolving the question of budgetary imbalances.
However, it has been decided that any Member State sustaining a budgetary burden which is excessive in relation to its relative prosperity may benefit from a correction at the appropriate time.'
If we look at this from a purely budgetary angle, the budgetary balances of these four Member States have indeed, for various reasons, worsened and are now of the same magnitude, or even bigger, than that of the United Kingdom before correction.
In fact, the United Kingdom is no longer - and will probably be even less so after enlargement - in a unique position as regards its budget balance and relative prosperity.
The special situation it was in at the start of the 1980s is now becoming rather commonplace.
As regards the future size of the net balances of the four countries mentioned, excluding the cost of enlargement, Agenda 2000 may have no more than marginal, and not necessarily negative, effects on these.
But it is too early to say with any certainty what will happen on this front since so much depends on the final agreement on the reforms of the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
Despite its reservations on the very concept of net balances, the Commission has not shied away from the issue.
It has considered a number of options which may allay the concerns expressed.
I would, however, like to put them in context.
Firstly, the source of budgetary imbalances is to be found on the expenditure side of the budget, as was recognised at Fontainebleau.
Secondly, if there had not been a serious effort to contain Union expenditure - in which you played your part - the imbalances would have become more pronounced.
Finally, the cost of enlargement has to be shared out fairly by reference to the ability of all the present Member States to contribute.
Should it be agreed that a response must be found to the question of budgetary imbalances, the Commission has identified three fundamental options that, in addition, are not mutually exclusive.
A first option would consist of a return to a unified and simplified financing system.
There could be a simplification of the financing system in favour of a mechanism based more, or even entirely, on the gross national product resource.
This simplification could include the gradual elimination of the existing correction mechanism.
Secondly, it would be possible to make a correction on the expenditure side.
As I have already said, the Fontainebleau agreement underscores the role that Community expenditure should play in the correction of budgetary imbalances.
A large part of the budget, intended for structural expenditure, does of course contribute to these imbalances, but this is deliberate since this expenditure is explicitly designed to strengthen the economic and social cohesion of the least prosperous Member States.
The other major component of budget expenditure is the common agricultural policy, which is not intended as a means of redistributing wealth between Member States.
Since the common agricultural policy is the source of certain budgetary imbalances, the possibility of reducing the Community contribution to direct aid for farmers could be considered.
This would clearly not amount to renationalising the common agricultural policy as farmers' rights will remain unchanged and decisions will continue to be taken in Brussels.
A third option would be to introduce a generalised correction mechanism.
This mechanism would apply for all the Member States meeting the necessary conditions.
To avoid any explosion of the gross resources, which would have to be redistributed between Member States, this option would have to involve a system of partial reimbursement of negative budgetary balances above a certain threshold.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reason why the Commission is today presenting its report on own resources is, I repeat, because it wants to see all the cards on the table for the final stage of the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
Having said that, the Commission continues to believe that the discussion on budgetary balances must not overshadow our reflection on an effective and fair financing system.
On this score I would once again stress that in its report the Commission presents various options but does not express any preference for one or the other.
Finally, whether we like it or not, we must allow for the differences, in terms of decision-making procedures, between Union expenditure and the financing system.
I would remind you in this connection that, in the Commission's view, Agenda 2000 can be applied without any financial resources in excess of the current own resources ceiling. It will not therefore require any urgent amendment of the own resources decision, a process which we all know is highly complex and cumbersome from the institutional angle.
This may mean that we have an adequate margin - possibly until the next enlargement - to allow us to consider the questions raised in the report and to take the necessary decisions with a clear and calm mind.
Mr President, Mr Santer, thank you for the Commission report.
Long awaited, much longed-for!
You did say that you had drawn up the report dispassionately.
I would have liked to have seen some passion, because then we would perhaps have had a decision on the table which it was worth discussing.
Instead, we have a whole array of options, admittedly with certain qualifications, but nothing more than that.
Be that as it may, we have also had a focused discussion in Parliament and have already reached one or two conclusions in the Committee on Budgets.
We take as our starting-point the fact that we are bound by rules in the Treaties.
Thus, Article 130a states that the Community is committed to solidarity between the poorer and wealthier Member States, and establishes one of its aims as being to reduce disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least-favoured regions.
That is the first point.
At the same time, the performance of Member States' national economies - as you also described it - is, even in the VAT system, an essential factor in determining their relative contributions to the EU budget.
If we look closely, we note that this is actually true for all Member States except the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom generates 15.9 % of Community GNP, but only contributes 9.9 % of the budget.
You described why this is the case, namely because of what is known as the British rebate.
Nevertheless, although contributions to the budget are indeed more or less based on performance, Member States are still demanding reduced contributions!
We have already had counter-proposals for a progressive system of raising revenue, or increasing the budget above the present ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP.
All of this was reflected in the minutes of the Cardiff summit.
The Member States calling, more or less vociferously, for their contributions to be cut, base their arguments on the so-called concept of net contributors.
They have made comments on this, and so their equivalence-oriented approach - which, as a method, stands on extremely shaky ground - requires no further comments from me.
One thing is clear, however; on closer inspection, it becomes apparent that, all the same, there are definite imbalances between the wealthier Member States.
For, example, it is immediately noticeable that Denmark, with the second most powerful economy in the Community, receives considerably more from the budget than it puts in.
At the same time, countries such as Sweden and the Netherlands, with lower GNPs, bear a much higher proportion of the financial burden than the portion of the common budget that they receive.
But if, as I have just said, the cause for these imbalances is not on the revenue side, then it must inevitably be on the expenditure side.
And here, I believe that our discussions and also our lines of argument in the Committee on Budgets were more focused than those proposed in your report.
We note, namely, that Member States' participation in the common policies varies considerably.
This uneven distribution is particularly apparent in the common agricultural policy.
Member States with a large farming sector and a high proportion of farms which qualify for support, such as Denmark or France, receive higher returns - regardless of their economic performance - than Member States with a smaller farming sector.
Sweden and Germany's proportional contribution to the Community budget is thus twice as large as their proportional participation in the agricultural policy.
But because 45 % of the budget is spent on the agricultural policy, it is obvious that this is where the source of the imbalances lies.
We are, therefore, rather pleased that you also examined this, our approach towards reducing the imbalances, in your report, which is for agricultural policy to be cofinanced.
An important precondition for this is that agricultural policy should tend to move away from price guarantees and towards a system of direct income aid coupled with measures to promote stewardship of the countryside and the protection of the environment.
This trend should be further reinforced by Agenda 2000.
Already, between 50 % and 60 % of agricultural expenditure is of a structural nature.
Because these measures are applied directly on the spot in the Member States, it is appropriate to involve them in the funding, as is the case with the other structural policies.
This would not, therefore, amount to a break with the system, another point you mentioned.
That is why this scheme for national cofinancing of the agricultural policy is being proposed.
It would not only be a logical development, but would also go a considerable way towards alleviating the problem of net contributions.
Much can be said about our proposal - which we are discussing here for the first time, so have not yet formally agreed - for example, that it will propel the common agricultural policy forward, but it has one additional, indisputable advantage over all the other options you mentioned, namely that it will be possible to implement.
It does not require unanimity in the Council: only a qualified majority.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you will hear many opinions today, Mr Santer, but one undeniable fact stands out: if the Union's gross domestic product does not grow by at least 2.5 % a year, the current ceiling of 1.27 % of own resources will not suffice to enable us simultaneously to extend Community policies, maintain the cohesion policy and finance enlargement to the East.
You must be aware - and I address myself now to the Commission, as Mr Santer is not present - that in this House you will encounter many Members who are firmly of the opinion that any financing system which does not encompass fiscal progressivity and relative prosperity as basic principles is unfair and divisive from the start.
Mr Liikanen, the Commission of which you are a member has become infected by the virus of the theory of net balances and fair returns, and you have therefore taken the political decision to recommend a redistribution of expenditure to compensate for the net balances, instead of recommending a redistribution of income based on fiscal progressivity.
It has to be said that the proposal the Commission has put before us will not solve anything.
It will not produce a single euro more for the Community's budget, and will result in the Commission being starved of funds and unable to operate effectively.
Secondly, however you look at it, the proposal the Commission has put before us is regressive, regardless of which alternative is eventually chosen.
The proposal is also counter to financial solidarity and cohesion, and it is unfair, as the committees involved in the parliamentary procedures will tell you, along with the European farmers.
It is inadequate, as you will also be told by the European Council and, furthermore, the proposal is somewhat unworthy of a European institution which should be defending the common interest, as I imagine this Parliament will tell you.
Mr President, we have no doubt as to the importance of a detailed debate on the system of Community own resources and we will analyse this document with particular attention.
However, certain points must first be clarified.
Financial matters cannot be divorced from their corresponding economic context.
This is also true if we wish to base our thinking on a foundation of redistributive justice and solidarity.
A balance must be achieved, both from the revenue side and from the expenditure side.
Our second concern relates to the fact that we must either define objectives and find the appropriate resources and means to realise them, which is the position we hold, or we must specify the resources from the outset and immediately lay down the objectives that may be achieved with those resources, which would appear to be the Commission's solution, on the extremely restricted basis, as we know, of 1.27 %.
Following the first line of reasoning, it is indeed possible and desirable to have a debate on the system of own resources, particularly with a view to resolving the distortions that have already been caused by the current system, those which are anticipated and others of which we are aware.
It is very difficult to operate on the current basis.
However, the Commission is distorting the discussion to some extent in that, before it has even begun, it has already opted for one of the two courses it suggests.
This is because its main concern would appear to be to settle not the problem of own resources, but that of existing imbalances.
It knows that it is not feasible to terminate the UK financial package, it knows that the system of a fair return would mean the end of the very concept of the Community and the end of the principle of solidarity; it does not believe, as we have seen, in the possibility of a progressive system founded on GNP.
It is left with a single option which does not involve own resources but seeks to resolve the problem by reducing spending.
That is what the Commission has brought us, which is to say nothing at all, because this debate contributes nothing new.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am glad that the Commission is considering the option of cofinancing agricultural policy.
Cofinancing agricultural policy is, I believe, the right way forward.
This proposal attacks the nub of the problem, because it takes the expenditure side of the budget as its starting-point.
In addition, as has already been said, this option can be decided by a qualified majority in the Council and does not require a unanimously agreed revision of the decision on own resources.
The discussion on net contributors, led by the former Minister of Finance, Mr Waigel, can thus confidently be consigned to history, along with the Finance Minister.
If the Member States were to pay for half of the direct subsidies in the agriculture budget out of their own pockets, Germany would make a net saving of DEM 2 400 million.
The United Kingdom would also stand to benefit considerably from a reform of this kind, to the tune of around DEM 2 000 million.
The British rebate would thus be rendered obsolete.
If some of the financial burden were transferred from the Union to the Member States, then the EU budget would also have to be reduced by the same amount.
Otherwise, there would be an outright increase in the EU budget, which would meet with resistance, in Germany too, from those who then had to pay for cofinancing out of their own pockets.
In my opinion, there should be no question of using the resources released to fund trans-European networks and research policy, as a kind of European employment programme.
Responsibility for large-scale employment policy must continue to lie with the Member States; it is not possible to fund this at European level.
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you very much for your presentation.
In actual fact, for the first time in the Community, we have a document on the table which gives detailed figures and makes it clear what is realistic in this debate and what is not.
We agree with Mrs Müller that the rebate proposed by Mr Waigel was, from the very moment the idea was conceived, unrealistic.
For anyone who thinks that the Portuguese Parliament will agree to foot the bill for the cuts that the Germans want to introduce through a ratification decision, is living in dreamland.
That is why it is good that this file has been closed.
It is also good that the file has been closed on the proposal made by the Spanish Government, which thinks that there is a possibility of the net contributors forking out even more in the future, and that the current injustice can be stretched even further.
That is also nonsense; these are just initial negotiating positions for next March.
At this stage, however, I wish to emphasise quite clearly - I have said this here many times already and I underline it once more - that the European Union is not a savings bank into which everyone pays their contributions and then receives them back with as much interest as possible.
We are, as Mrs Haug said, a Community committed to solidarity, and the system of own resources also has to be capable of bearing out this claim.
On the other hand, it has to be said that the system is unfair, and this is made unusually clear and easy to understand here.
The report also takes the wind out of the sails of those who are shouting the loudest - I shall not take those from my own country, but those from the Netherlands, who are shouting loudly with us - because if you adjust the figures to take account of the Rotterdam effect, then the balance sheet for the Netherlands as a net contributor looks quite different from that repeatedly claimed by the Dutch Government.
In that respect too, these figures are very helpful.
Incidentally, if Mr Santer had still been with us, I would have said - and the Luxembourgers should take this on board - that if staffing costs are included, they have to keep quiet.
I agree with you that they should be more accommodating, when they are taking over premises in Luxembourg and expecting us to continue paying for them...
(Applause) ... they should keep quiet, because there we are a kind of living structural fund!
But now to the policy itself: it is a question - and this applies in Brussels in just the same way - of evening out the imbalances between the rich Member States in the Community.
It will not do for a country such as Denmark - which, measured on per capita GNP, is the richest in the Community - to be a net beneficiary, and a country such as Sweden to be a net contributor.
Something must be wrong with the system there.
Where does the fault lie? Precisely where one of the three options makes it clear that it lies: with agriculture.
It lies with the repayments.
47 % of expenditure goes on agricultural policy.
A country with a large farming sector receives more money back and is thus a net beneficiary.
The amount the Danes pay in is not unfair, but our spending policies give them more back, with the result that they are net beneficiaries.
That is why I believe that the proposal made here for a corrective mechanism, based not on renationalising, but on cofinancing - and cofinancing is already the rule in the case of the Structural Funds, research appropriations and indeed appropriations in general - is a step in the right direction.
It has - as Mrs Haug said - the great disadvantage of only needing a qualified majority to become a reality.
That will put those wishing to retreat to a veto in a very bad position.
A second issue must be addressed, namely the British rebate.
It came into force in 1984 - I wish to state this clearly here - at a time when 71 % of the budget was spent in the agriculture sector, 71 %!
It came into force then because at that time the repayments the British were receiving from the agriculture sector were around 8 to 10 %.
Today, as a result of this rebate on their contribution, the British also receive a rebate on policies which have come to be of decisive importance for the Community since 1984, for example regional and structural policy.
In the future, it will be enlargement to the East, and I say this to you, Mr Wynn: my social democrat friend, Tony Blair, will also find it hard to explain why the British, who are calling for enlargement at the tops of their voices, should receive a further rebate from the other countries.
They will find it hard.
(Applause) Now, I know that this is a much more difficult area, because here decisions are by unanimity, and that is why I state very clearly: this Community has always distinguished itself by not making any radical demands.
But what we need to prepare ourselves for, what my British colleagues need to prepare themselves for, is the need to find a sensible way to have those parts of the rebate phased out which are not 'agricultural', namely regional and structural policy and thus solidarity within the Community, and future enlargement to the East.
One final sentence. I believe that the package put on the table in this House is a good package, which complements Agenda 2000 and will help us to reach a compromise next March: united backing for cofinancing on the one hand, and sound, sensible solutions for the British rebate and for reforming agricultural policy on the other.
This is the big issue, and I believe that we will find a good solution to it.
(Applause)
Mr President, it was the current Federal Government, Mr Samland, and at its head Helmut Kohl and Theo Waigel, which demanded that the existing system of own resources should be corrected.
Other Member States endorsed this demand, and it is good that the Commission is now proposing this reform and admitting that there is an imbalance.
Two points need to be considered for the future: what financial resources does the EU budget have at its disposal, and how much does each Member State contribute?
Only on that basis will it be possible to have an honest discussion about the expenditure side, namely Agenda 2000.
No one is calling into question the principle of solidarity, as laid down in the European treaties.
And yet, the words spoken by the King of Spain this morning are still ringing in my ears.
He stated that the EU has changed, and all of us in this House have agreed on several occasions that the EU will continue to change.
That is why we should not assume that this system should be able to operate in the future, in the same way as it does now.
In some Member States, gross output has increased constantly over the last few years.
However, the money going back into these countries has, in principle, remained at the same level.
The current system of rebates, applied to one Member State, has lost its raison d'être - you said it yourself: they even accepted a rebate on BSE.
Traditional sources of revenue have lost their significance, and contribute more to the general confusion than to transparency.
That is why Theo Waigel proposed that each Member State's contribution should be restricted to a specific maximum amount, calculated in terms of Member States' GNP.
This restriction is no straightforward rebate, Mr Samland, but should, above all, be seen in the context of the spending reforms, and not only in the agricultural sector, but also in the field of cohesion and structural policy.
This is the basis for a larger Union.
And now you have it: cofinancing in the agricultural sector was the idea of our colleague, Mr Böge; but, as always when there is every prospect of success, many people seem to have had the same idea.
(Mixed reactions) I do not agree with the Commission's statement, in its summary, that there is no need to reform the current system of own resources at the present time, and that the system would remain practicable even in the event of an enlargement.
I do not believe this statement, in the Commission's summary, to be justified.
Mr President, the question now is who is going to pay for EU enlargement?
If the Cohesion Fund is cut, it will be the cohesion countries that will pay.
If the Structural Funds are cut, it will be the EU regions scheduled for development that will pay.
If the EU funding of agricultural policy is cut, it will be the farmers of the EU countries that will pay.
If common agricultural policy funding is shifted into the national budgets of Member States, it will be the taxpayers who will pay.
If Germany pays less into the EU budget, the others will pay more for expansion.
If Britain is paid a smaller rebate from EU funds, it will be the British taxpayers who will be paying more for expansion.
If the customs revenue which the Netherlands calculates as its own share is deducted from its contribution, then it is not such a large net contributor as it claims.
As for my own country, Finland, I might point out that, if customs revenues were taken into account in the budget, we too would be net contributors.
I thank the Commission for its statement.
These matters have to be discussed frankly.
We shall not achieve a politically justified enlargement without all the present Member States putting money into future member countries.
It is impossible to accept that a country which supports enlargement should not share in the cost of it.
On the basis of this statement, we have to begin looking at who is going to pay.
Mr President, I am deeply disappointed.
I listened carefully to the Commission's presentation and I have to say, quite plainly, that I had hoped for more.
What was uppermost in your minds, Commissioners? Europe or the Member States?
The Commission has put forward three proposals which, if you look at them carefully, are really four, like the musketeers, and none of them is brilliant.
In fact, on this occasion and even more obviously than for Agenda 2000 as a whole, the Commission has put forward unduly cautious proposals, for fear of annoying the Council and, in particular, of annoying certain members of the European Council.
All Member States are equal, but clearly, some Member States are more equal than others in the eyes of the Commission.
Political realism or pragmatism should not be mistaken for shirking responsibilities which is what, in my view, the Commission's proposal amounts to.
Europe is at a critical stage just now.
We have gone beyond Amsterdam.
The Treaty is in the process of ratification.
We shall be using the euro in a hundred days' time, at least in the financial sector.
We are on the threshold of the ambitious project to enlarge the European Union.
Yet the standard of debate in Europe is quite simply not up to the challenges it faces.
The debate often tends to focus too much on Member State or Community budget balances, which is a more or less covert way of advocating the principle of fair returns which we all condemn loudly but insincerely.
The media and many national parliaments refer to national contributions, forgetting that not only have they been obsolete for years, but that the Maastricht Treaty itself - a good few years ago now - repealed Article 200 which would have provided for them.
Electoral fever is whipped up in national parliaments over something which does not exist either in practice or in legal terms.
In addition, we should remember that nobody is in the European Union for budgetary reasons. If anyone were, they would be rather poor.
And since we are on the subject of balances, why not talk about other balances? Why not talk about trade?
Why not talk about finance? These are far more complex issues than any of the possible interpretations of the budget balance.
How can one evaluate the political and economic advantages of belonging to the European Union? In my view, the Commission should have had the political courage to put forward proposals which would facilitate political progress.
I do not know if this is a case of short-sightedness or of political cowardice.
They have not dared to break with the nationalistic approach which is really marring the European atmosphere and, in my opinion, they should have put forward a truly European proposal.
There is talk of lack of democracy, but none of the proposals addresses it.
They are merely national contributions by another name.
We need to produce a European budget which is transparent and can be understood by the citizens.
None of the proposals goes in this direction.
It is quite unfair that each citizen's contribution to the European budget should br determined by his country of residence, and not by his income or his wealth.
In theory, we are all agreed on this principle.
Why not propose a European mini-income tax? I am not talking of a heavy tax.
I am talking about a tax to finance a European budget which, translated into everyday terms, would amount to one cup of coffee a day at the University café throughout the year.
That is what the Community budget costs, ECU 240 per citizen.
Not everything would be financed through the tax I am suggesting, though.
A very simple tax would suffice.
Why not separate out the Community share of VAT on bills? One part would be national VAT, and the other European VAT.
The European institutions would have to become more transparent and democratically accountable.
If the political courage to do so is lacking, we should at least apply the principle of the ability to pay in Europe. This replaced the principle of benefit as a basis for calculating tax in European countries as far back as the nineteenth century, and the principle it replaced has not been applied in the Member States for more than a century.
At the very least, I should like to stress that the Commission is as little inclined to move forward as the Member States themselves. If we cannot make progress and have to restrict the debate to an analysis of these proposals, I suggest that the majority of the proposals made do not even constitute a good discussion document, but are in fact regressive.
Mr President, if I am not mistaken, the world economy is heading for recession. At the same time, the European Union is on the threshold of the difficult business of establishing the euro, under such economic conditions and while we are facing the challenge of enlargement.
Under these circumstances, what would one expect from the European Union and in particular the more powerful countries? One would expect some signs of solidarity and generosity.
But here, in the debate taking place in here, we are presented with a sorry picture of mean self-interest and nationalism, and we see Denmark opposite Germany and the United Kingdom opposite the Netherlands, representatives of some of the Union's most powerful countries, and what are they interested in? What message are they broadcasting?
How we can keep more money in our own pockets than we give to the European Union's budget.
I believe this is an unacceptable situation, one which fails to respond either to the climate or to the great challenges facing the European Union.
From this platform, I simply wish to appeal to the Greek Government, the Greek Prime Minister, when faced by the risks in particular of nationalising agricultural policy and burdening the national budgets with the costs of the agricultural policy, to adopt a serious approach to these challenges instead of publicising the non-existent Santer packages which are on the way.
Mr President, I too believe that the virus of net financial positions could spread a lethal disease throughout the European Union. We must all bear in mind the net gains that we have all made from Europe, particularly the strongest among us.
Some are now suffering, however, and I do not think that the fear of evoking a lethal virus should lead us to ignore this problem completely.
On the contrary, Commissioner, I am convinced that this discussion should have been initiated rather sooner, because it has been smouldering beneath the ashes for too long.
The dangers are now becoming clear.
Clearly there will be much discussion of this second option, the one concerning agriculture, because - if nothing else - it has the advantage of not requiring an immediate unanimous decision.
The danger is that this proposal will completely bypass the discussion of CAP reform contained in Agenda 2000.
Consideration of the proposed reform of the COM has already reached an advanced stage, including in Parliament, and I wonder whether some people might take this as an opportunity to say: 'Let's throw our hats in the air and start all over again; there's nothing else to be done'. The risk then is that decisions on the CAP will be postponed for even longer, whereas in my opinion they are more urgent than ever.
The imbalances in the CAP have not been invented today, but have existed for a good while. They were not ordered by the doctor, but are the fruit of political decisions.
I remember Commissioner MacSharry, when he proposed the reform in 1992, saying: 'We must redistribute the effects of the agricultural budget among countries, among producers and among regions'.
Specific decisions were taken in the Agriculture Council - where the ministers often resort overhastily to their calculators when taking decisions - which have prevented the original goals from being achieved.
If, by opening this discussion now, we can at last raise the quality of the whole debate on how to build more solidarity into the CAP, then I very much welcome today's discussion.
But if the final outcome is to hand money back to the Member States, just to redress the net positions of certain countries, then I have serious objections.
Instead, I believe that the whole approach to the CAP should be reviewed.
There are also other, alternative means of giving greater scope to high-quality policies - the structural policies - which are the missing second pillar of national farm policy, rather than constantly harping on about the risk of national rebates.
As we all know, national rebates are a real threat, but this road is already being followed implicitly even now, and in my opinion an inverted form of solidarity is the worst possible form of fair returns. That is what we should be discussing.
Mr President, it really is true that I always speak in front of Mr Liikanen with the feeling that it is not my turn.
I think that this is a bad omen for the general report on next year's budget and I would simply like to say a few words on the proposals we have just heard from the Commission.
I believe that the Commission is doing some very interesting work in trying to resolve a problem that is totally unsolvable - in other words, it is trying to square the circle.
How can you satisfy all the contributors to the European Union budget with a budget such as this? On the one hand and quite rightly, it is a budget based on vertical distribution, which benefits the less developed countries but which the more developed countries see as penalising them.
On the other hand and also quite rightly, it is a budget based on transferring resources between sectors, from 97 % of the population to 3 % of the Community's agricultural population.
When you have a budget of this nature, it is obvious that everyone, or a least a large majority of people, are going to be dissatisfied. The solutions envisaged by the Commission are based on a paradox worthy of Lewis Carroll: the tax that each of us must pay to the Community varies according to what we receive from the Community.
The fundamental principle behind both capping budgets and cofinancing agriculture, is: I will give you what you need, as long as you pay for what I give you.
Such an approach is obviously unsatisfactory, but the Commission is forced to carry out this exercise.
The only real solution is to get out of the contradiction into which the Member States have thrown us, in other words to unblock Community expenditure.
As long as we do not have a true Community policy, involving the 15 Member States in objectives such as environment protection, transport networks and town and country planning, the taxpayers in the European Union will not receive full recognition in the Union's budget, but this is something the Member States must do for themselves.
Mr President, I just want to say one thing.
It is very important that the Commission come forward at this particular time with a communication on resources.
As President Santer said, it is the condition for a proper discussion on enlargement.
My group's point of view is that it is very important that we fundamentally attack the concept of the juste retour .
A juste retour based on net contributions only cannot resolve the problem.
Obviously the approach should be to achieve a more equitable solution but that requires a north/south balance and also progressivity in the budgetary contributions from all Member States.
That is the approach we will take.
It is up to the Member States to take up their responsibility but we would compliment the Commission for taking a position at this time.
Probably you were wise to simply sum up various alternatives but it is these alternatives which must now be politically on the table.
Mr President, perhaps it is good to remember that this report represents an obligation which was given to the Commission to a large extent already in Edinburgh.
The Edinburgh Summit decided that the Commission must, first of all, give a report on the operation of the financing system, on the own-resources system.
That is one part of this whole report.
Secondly, we are under an obligation to give a report on the British rebate system, which is also a part of this report.
Thirdly, the Commission was given an obligation to give a report on the potential new own resources.
There is a wide-ranging annex on this subject.
I hope we have time to pay attention to that - it is about 30 pages.
You received the papers very late.
The decision was taken by the Commission just before 12.
So take your time, study it all.
As to the question of the fair return and transparency, we have two objectives which are not always easy to reconcile.
Firstly, we are against the concept of fair return.
There is no concept whereby every country should get back what it pays.
Of course we are against it.
Europe and the European Union generate a lot of added value which is shared by all the countries.
You cannot make it just an accounting exercise.
That is one side, and that is clear.
Secondly, we are in favour of transparency.
We cannot play a game of hide-and-seek where the figures are not all out.
Now we have released all the figures and also there is a separate annex on that explaining how difficult the question of defining different net positions is.
There is no simple solution to that issue; we present them all here.
As to the character of the report, I wish to emphasise that we have proposed three options with a great number of variations.
Today the Commission decided that the options presented in the report are interchangeable, can be added to and can be spread over time.
So if there are new options which are well founded, and get the support of the European people and Member States, discussion is wide open.
I shall make just one remark on the elements of some proposals.
In our decision today and in our report we state that the shifts in the burden of financing implied by some of these options present regressive elements that might need to be redressed in the context of our solution.
That is clear and, before any other solutions are implemented, this element of certain regressive features must be solved.
We cannot do it before we have reasonable consensus to go forward.
The Commission has now opened the debate.
This has been the first public debate on the matter.
I am sure it will continue in the Member States and, in good time, we can draw the conclusion whether it is possible to submit a proposal.
This has not been a proposal: this is a presentation of the report and options.
The debate is closed.
Migrants
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0484/98 by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Council, on migrants entering the EU from Mediterranean; -B4-0485/98 by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on migrants entering the EU from Mediterranean; -B4-0486/98 by Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Council, on entry into the European Union of immigrants from Mediterranean countries; -B4-0487/98 by Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on entry into the European Union of immigrants from Mediterranean countries; -B4-0488/98 by Mrs Roth, Mr Orlando and Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on immigration from the Mediterranean area
Mr President, the oral questions about the uncontrolled waves of migrants from Mediterranean countries are primarily an expression of our concern for human beings who are seeking a better life, fleeing civil war or natural disasters and driven away by violence and oppression.
But often, instead of finding freedom, they end up dying a horrible death, becoming victims of the trade in human beings or finding that they are not welcome in their 'promised land'.
It is a human drama, but one which cannot and should not have to be resolved by the Member States most affected by this type of immigration.
It is the concern and the responsibility of us all, and this is why, as we have so often said, we need European solutions and a European immigration policy.
The Council's 'couldn't-care-less' attitude here stands in stark contrast to the panic that is typical of all the Member States' refugee policies.
The Austrian Presidency is to be applauded for having the courage to put this issue on the agenda, but it was hypocritical of the Justice Ministers to refuse to deal with it because it would conflict with the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
This is indeed the case, and Amnesty International, the ECRE and the UNHCR were right to criticise, but the position adopted by the Member States simply hides the fact that their own asylum policies parted company with the Geneva Convention a long time ago.
There is now a huge gap between principles and reality.
Europe's approach at the moment is making nimbies of us all, the burden is not being shared but pushed on to the next country, and asylum-seekers are shown degrading treatment in the way they are detained and expelled.
This cannot go on.
We need to introduce a single European asylum and immigration policy immediately.
Austria's revised strategy paper must be used as the basis for concrete plans, and we need to consider whether we can organise common reception and asylum procedures at or just outside Europe's borders so that refugees can then be directly distributed among the Member States.
This plan, which was put forward this week by a Dutch MP, will certainly require a European approach because, as we have already said, the Mediterranean problem requires a European solution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, one day the right to choose where to live will be recognised as a fundamental human right.
In the meantime, we should like to make a few remarks on the documents under discussion this afternoon.
We believe in particular - I myself, like the Green Group - that a motion for a resolution is unacceptable for the following reasons. First of all, migration is not a problem relating to the Mediterranean alone.
The Socialist Group's document refers solely to a problem which seems to come exclusively from the south, as if migration cannot come from the east, west or north.
The second point concerns Europol.
We are not convinced by the reference to Europol and its involvement, because there is still no proper protection of data; nor is there a clear legal context for Europol's activities in this sector.
Our third point relates to the need to step up the fight against the illegal exploitation of immigrants and against the criminal organisations which exploit the right to migrate.
Lastly, migration cannot be regarded as a police or border problem; it is an overall cultural and economic problem, which calls for an EU policy of development in the migrants' countries of origin.
Finally, I hope that the mystery over the Austrian Presidency's strategy document has been solved. As announced, it should have borne the date of 1 July, but it now seems to have been replaced by another document which has still not been forwarded to this House.
This does not set our minds at rest as regards the Austrian Presidency's intentions in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since the Austrian strategy paper was one of the first things to be mentioned here, I should like to say a few words on that, before I go on to make some comments on the question of relations with the Mediterranean countries.
There is something I would like to say right at the outset, as there have been a few misunderstandings here. The Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, and its instruments, should not be considered as in any way irrelevant as a consequence of the Austrian strategy paper.
On the contrary, the paper is concerned, amongst other things, with complementary systems for protecting persons fleeing from war zones, exceptional humanitarian cases, and other areas not included in the Geneva Convention.
I should also like to say that the subject of asylum and immigration is not actually a new one at all as far as cooperation in the EU is concerned, because in 1991, the European Commission was already giving some thought to establishing a strategy on migration policy at European level in two communications on immigration and the right of asylum.
But I am not going to go into what was a historic initiative at the time, I would prefer instead to set out some of the essential details of the strategy paper.
There is, in fact, a 1992 declaration of principles on migration policy, which included some specific strategic points which should now be useful for guiding future European policy on the subject.
Among these are the common desire to reduce the causes of migration through appropriate measures relating to the regions of origin, the development of a common policy for the temporary protection of the displaced, the fight against illegal immigration, the conclusion of agreements with countries of origin and transit, the ratification of the Dublin Convention and the adoption of the convention on external borders.
This declaration of principles did not exert any lasting influence on the migration and asylum policy of the European Community at the time.
The actual declarations of intent were also hardly implemented.
Then, in 1994, the European Commission made an extensive new attempt at developing a plan for migration policy, by submitting a very comprehensive and substantial communication to the European Parliament and the Council on immigration and asylum policy.
The purpose of the migration plan, which was seen in isolation in those days, was to come up with an integrated and coherent answer to what was happening on the ground, to identify the key elements for effectively regulating migration and to define a new framework for the Union's action.
The main elements were defined by the Commission as measures to stem the tide of immigration, effective supervision of immigration and strengthening the position of legal immigrants.
As for the degree to which this concept has been implemented, we find that today, after four years, clearly visible and measurable success has been achieved in only three areas.
In this regard, we should not overlook the result of work in the third pillar, which has resulted in some 70 legal acts from the Council in the area of migration.
Perfectly respectable work has been done.
But the European Union has not really succeeded in learning any lessons from its experiences of the reality of migration.
We believe it is necessary to approach this subject once again now, and that is the reason for the Austrian strategy paper.
It will be forwarded to Parliament at the earliest possible moment after a first round in the K4 Group.
I should like to say a few words now about the Mediterranean countries.
Over the last few years the Council has adopted a series of legal acts on illegal immigration, which also apply to relations with Mediterranean countries.
Particular attention was paid to issues associated with the return of illegal immigrants to their homeland and to transit countries. The following legal acts were adopted: a standard travel document for the return of third country nationals, a specimen draft of a bilateral agreement for repatriation between a Member State and a third country and standard clauses that in future are to be included in various agreements.
In addition, I would also like to point out that, in accordance with its decision of 16 December 1996, the Council regularly examines the actual implementation of the legal acts it has adopted in the areas of illegal immigration, repatriation, the illegal employment of third country nationals and cooperation in enforcing deportation orders.
The Council knows that the standard EU travel document is being successfully used by some Member States in their relations with third countries.
Moreover, the standard clauses for repatriation are presently serving as a basis for negotiations on the Euro-Mediterranean association agreements with Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.
Now a final word to Mr Orlando on Europol and the problems he raised.
The Council and the Council Presidency are also aware of these problems and solutions are being worked on.
As far as development cooperation with the Mediterranean countries is concerned, this is included in the MEDA programme.
Of course we have our contribution to make here but this is one of the main elements of the Barcelona process, and a great deal is being done in this regard too.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission shares Parliament's concerns on the influx of migrants from Mediterranean countries trying to enter illegally the territory of the Member States.
As has been made very clear, on behalf of the presidency, this phenomenon not only affects the southern Member States; migratory pressures constitute real and complex challenges for the whole of the European Union.
Very often organised crime stands behind this phenomenon.
These would-be illegal immigrants are recruited among those who are desperately looking for better conditions of life and they sometimes become victims of the trafficking in human beings.
The fight against this shameful crime deserves urgent and specific attention.
I entirely agree that the only viable response is to adopt a comprehensive and long-term strategy, as stated in the Commission's 1994 communication on migration and asylum policy, to which reference has already been made.
That document identified three types of measures: actions addressing the root causes of forced migration, actions to manage migration flows, and actions to integrate legally resident third-country nationals.
It is clear that we need a multi-disciplinary approach involving all the relevant actors.
Law enforcement actions are essential but not enough.
We have to combine coordinated actions in the field of judicial and police cooperation, foreign policy, trade policy and development cooperation.
Some activities have already been developed at European Union level.
In 1996 the European drug unit's mandate was extended to cover the fight against trafficking in human beings.
When Europol is fully operational, it is our hope that these activities will be strengthened.
A specific programme on the training and exchange of persons responsible for combating trafficking in human beings, the STOP programme, was adopted by the Council in November 1996.
The Commission has also tabled two proposals dealing with temporary protection and solidarity amongst Member States in cases of mass influxes of displaced persons.
These proposals will enable the Member States to cope more efficiently with situations like the one that we now face in Kosovo.
The need to give international protection to persons fleeing from war zones is, of course, a different issue from illegal immigration and Parliament itself took the initiative for two new budget lines concerning the reception and repatriation of such people.
The first preliminary report on the implementation of these budget lines has already been transmitted to Parliament.
In order to tackle these migration flows, improved cooperation with the third countries concerned is essential.
The framework for this cooperation, having regard to this part of the globe, is the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
One of the basic purposes of MEDA is indeed supporting economic transition and socio- economic development in the Mediterranean region.
By doing that we contribute to increased prosperity in the region and hopefully reduce the pressures for migration.
In addition, MEDA can support specific measures under the Barcelona Declaration to help cope with illegal immigration.
We shall, for example, be financing a seminar in Spain for police training on this subject.
We are also supporting a meeting in the Netherlands on a whole range of migration issues.
It must be understood that, under its own regulations, MEDA cannot be used to finance measures in Member States to fight legal immigration.
That would be against the regulation and, more important, it would send a wrong political signal to our Mediterranean partners.
The Commission shares the view that improved cooperation at European level is crucial to manage immigration flows.
The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty will provide a good opportunity to enhance our efforts further and develop new and more efficient tools in all these areas.
I can assure you that the Commission will make the most of these new provisions in order to help manage immigration flows, to improve the fight against trafficking in human beings and also to improve the situation for victims.
I was glad to hear the replies from the Council and the Commission before speaking myself.
I agree that we need to take medium-term and global measures.
However, that should not prevent us from taking other measures, immediately, to deal with the problems we are experiencing and those looming before us.
Some parts of the European Union are not much more than ten kilometres away from the north of Africa, and that narrow strait is becoming a gigantic common grave for some of those who try to cross it.
They die in the attempt, having first paid their undertakers handsomely.
Hundreds of human beings have died this tragic death.
They only appear on our television screens if something extremely serious happens, as it did on the coast of Italy.
The catalogue of deaths that take place every day goes quietly unnoticed, and is rarely in the news.
Other people are detained and placed in camps which are more or less well equipped to receive them.
The Algerians, for instance, whose situation is not so very different from that described by the Commissioner when referring to Kosovo, leave their homeland, which is now a powder keg, yet we in the European Union do not notice or do not want to notice what is going on.
They end up herded together, living in cramped conditions in Ceuta or Melilla, for instance, two cities which are not far from their own country.
I believe that the European Union does have the resources to deal with this situation, more resources than we sometimes draw on.
I am referring, as did the Commissioner and the President-in-Office of the Council, to the mechanisms provided under the third pillar for the control of cross-border traffic.
I am referring, of course, to police cooperation, and dialogue with third countries to enable us to make a joint attempt to fight against trafficking in human beings, and to fight together against everything with contributes to this disaster.
Nevertheless, Mr President, we must also take appropriate measures here and now to respond to the victims' plight. We need to deal with the situation of those who, through mafias or through their own initiative, leave their homeland in search of a better life and try to reach our shores.
Very often, they do not intend to live in the southern European countries, but plan to continue travelling north. Some of these people have been arrested near my home - in Catalonia, which is in the north of Spain - as they attempted to enter France, in the hope of reaching the countries of northern Europe.
We need to deal with them, and we need centres where this can be done.
Measures must be taken to control the Straits of Gibraltar, the Straits of Messina, and the most popular crossings. Above all, however, we must not look the other way, waiting for press headlines on large or small numbers of corpses washed up on our shores, waiting to have to regret the situation all over again.
Mr President, the problem of illegal immigration deserves specific attention because of the intense human suffering involved.
Not only are lives lost, but many people also fall prey to gangs of organised traffickers, who run criminal businesses, risking the lives of desperate people.
Faced with this situation, we need to increase cooperation within the European Union, strengthening, as has already been stated, the regular exchange of information on the criminal networks organising illegal immigration.
The fact is that the illegal immigration these gangs are involved in is essentially - I would stress - a crime. We need to target the organisation of these networks.
Sanctions will have to be effective, however, and the various administrations will therefore need to cooperate.
The legislative work undertaken by the Member States and the administrations themselves constitutes a great change.
Nevertheless, in order to resolve this problem we must speed up the creation of a common judicial and police area, and of a coherent and homogeneous policy on immigration and asylum in the Union.
This problem affects us all and, as we have often emphasised in this House, it can only be successfully resolved through cooperation.
Such cooperation should also include the administrations of third countries. If necessary, European aid should be made conditional on strong government action against illegal immigration in those countries.
The Council and the Commission should warn the Maghreb and the Mediterranean countries that unless they take action against illegal immigration, the European Union will, regrettably, be forced to reconsider Community aid to those countries when the MEDA programme is reviewed in 1999.
Of course, countries which make a greater effort to stem the flow of immigrants will benefit from more favourable treatment by the European Union.
The same applies to commercial and association agreements.
The European Union - the Austrian Presidency has already commented along these lines - should not sign any more agreements in the region unless they include the clause on the repatriation of illegal immigrants, which in my opinion will be of considerable help in resolving this problem.
The solution lies in control and collaboration, and if the administrations do not collaborate, the situation will not be resolved. I very much fear that if we do not take appropriate measures, we shall have to mourn more tragic victims in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to begin by congratulating the authors of this import and laudable initiative, which is highly topical in the light of current events now and in forthcoming weeks and months.
The migration of peoples is part of world history.
There has never been a time in the history of this continent when peoples have not been moving from one place to another as a result of famine, war, scarcity, poverty or persecution. So to think that migratory flows can be checked by building fortresses or barriers - which this time would have to go through the middle of the Mediterranean Sea - seems to me altogether illusory and over-ambitious, not to say stupid.
Clearly the problem must be tackled not as a problem but as an opportunity, because migration will be our future in the next century.
Public opinion in our countries would do well to understand this, and therefore all xenophobic campaigns, or ones based on keeping foreigners out, are a huge mistake which will rebound against us.
So we must make a major effort: convey the fact that there are, nowadays, many jobs which our fellow citizens no longer wish to do, and that immigration can therefore be a major opportunity, not least an economic one.
So let us no longer consider immigration as an uncontrolled influx of labour supply - and it is clear that controls are important here - but as being driven by demand, in line with the future requirements of our economies.
If we can alter our mind-set in this way, we shall give hope for the future not only to citizens from the other side of the Mediterranean, but also to our own fellow citizens.
Mr President, despite the sad tone of some of the preceding speeches, I feel obliged to point out to you that immigration into Europe from the southern Mediterranean countries is becoming a wide-ranging problem with dreadful consequences for those who attempt to reach Europe. It is a problem which has much to do with the European Union's present approach to north-south cooperation policies.
Immigration is on the increase, as a result of the worsening social, political and economic situation in the countries of the southern Mediterranean, and international criminal gangs trafficking in immigrants are expanding. At the same time, immigrants are dying in flimsy craft trying to reach the shores of Europe, and the Member States are introducing ever more repressive measures to protect their borders and often mete out inhuman treatment to the refugees.
This is the situation with which we are faced.
I believe the time has come for the European authorities to take swift and effective action to resolve this problem.
Above all, the European Union must formulate, once and for all, a policy of genuine cooperation with these Mediterranean states.
Such cooperation must be honest and fair and not be based solely on economic interests. Rather, it must attempt to deal with the structural and immediate causes of the migration flows.
In the context of such a policy of north-south cooperation, based on a quite different philosophy from the present one, the European Union must combat illegal immigration, its networks and traffickers in an effective manner. It must put in place a common immigration policy based on principles of cooperation and solidarity with those states, and not on principles which are essentially economic and repressive, designed to protect fortress Europe.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to quote some words spoken yesterday in Madrid at the launching of Sami Nair's latest book, entitled: 'Mediterráneo hoy, entre el diálogo y el rechazo '.
At the launch, Joaquín Estefanía said, and I quote: 'The belief that these matters can be dealt with through recourse to economics alone is false.
Europe must return to politics in the search for a solution to the Mediterranean situation'.
Let us hope that this will be the case, and that history does not find us wanting yet again, for failing to live up to our responsibilities.
Mr President, for many years now thousands of people from North African countries have been trying, by taking risks that are well known, to cross the Mediterranean and gain a foothold in our continent.
They ask for asylum, they ask for jobs and they ask for lives for themselves and their families.
The attitude adopted by all our institutions up to now has been appalling: we turn them back, we send them back, we try to contain them, we make things up as we go along, we improvise ad hoc rules, we guess what the Geneva Conventions say, etc.
Even here, nationalist hypocrites are thriving, wrapped up in their sense of belonging to a bogus Christianity.
That is quite convenient; the whited sepulchres are not there today!
But meanwhile, the smugglers and crooks are making a fortune and dozens of drowned bodies are being recovered between Tangier and Algeciras.
Men and women, who have already been victims of these gangsters, are then locked up, deported, humiliated and murdered by policemen in aeroplanes, in front of dazed passengers, who had no idea that things like that happened in our countries.
For them it is a matter of survival.
It is a matter of eating every day, of working, of existing and of being able to send their children to school.
Europe, which is beset by its own problems, must not just sit back and build ramparts, in case it becomes a fortress.
Our society obsessed with profit, our society of the cautious and short-sighted, might one day easily bring calamity to us all.
Madam President, the European Parliament is beginning to show concern at the influx of illegal immigrants from the southern Mediterranean, and it is right to do so.
But in the joint motion for a resolution, it proposes as a solution the reform of the immigration policy provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam and, in this respect, it is wrong.
This reform, which has not yet been debated in France, has three main negative aspects.
The first is the abolition of all controls relating to the movement of persons at internal borders within five years, including those relating to nationals of third countries.
Such a measure would make illegal immigration from the South a great deal easier: the immigrants would only have to look for a weak point somewhere to be able to enter and then scatter throughout the rest of Europe.
The second is the European Commission's monopoly over the right of initiative, which would also become automatic after five years.
This measure would be dangerous and even dictatorial, because it is unthinkable that in the future national parliaments and governments might no longer have any right of proposal in the field of immigration.
The third is the move to qualified majority voting on a simple decision of the Council, which would also be a mistake.
In fact, the abolition of sovereignty and national frontiers would remove all sense of responsibility from the Member States.
No-one would gain from that.
On the contrary, we must rely on the present Member States to negotiate a common immigration policy, to make our territory secure again while respecting the will of each nation and, if need be, to establish different forms of cooperation between the countries involved.
Madam President, as I only have 90 seconds of speaking time, I shall have to confine myself to just three points.
Firstly, the countries of Europe are not immigrant countries, yet they are currently facing enormous problems with foreign nationals and are simply not in a position to take any more immigrants.
As I see it this has to be the bottom line, the central principle of our policy here.
Secondly, it is in the interests of all the countries of Europe to maintain the best possible relations with the countries across the Mediterranean, which is precisely where political and economic circumstances could trigger a new wave of migrants at any time.
We need to focus our development aid as far as possible on those countries and conclude agreements not just to rule out further migration, but to leave the door open for both illegal and legal immigrants already in Europe to return home.
Thirdly, I still think that a territoriality principle must be introduced for political asylum-seekers, so that genuine political refugees - and these make up only a very small percentage of the total - are not given asylum in Europe, but in neighbouring countries on the same continent, preferably countries which have basically the same culture as the country of origin.
Most people in every country in Europe and every section of the population would be glad to support such a humane policy, which is certainly not the case with the 'open borders' policy.
Madam President, the problem of migrants coming in to the EU from across the Mediterranean affects us all.
Most come by sea but some come by land.
Few Members, I imagine, except the Spanish Members of Parliament, were aware that the European Union has a land border with Morocco and I had the opportunity recently to visit the two Spanish towns in Morocco, Ceuta and Melilla, with my colleague, Terrón I Cusi.
Hundreds of migrants from both sub-Saharan Africa as well as from Algeria are increasingly coming into these two Spanish towns.
The former are economic refugees and the latter are asylum seekers.
Groups of them build up in the two camps, the one in Ceuta, which is very sub-standard, and the more well- established camp in Melilla, which has been funded partly by the EU.
From time to time the economic refugees, most of whom are French or English speaking, are decanted over to Spain where they are issued with temporary papers and then promptly disappear northwards.
That is something that should concern us.
Equally, however, we have the problem of the asylum seekers.
Some of them are in my view genuine asylum seekers, suffering repression from the authorities and others in Algeria, and they of course are not allowed in.
They are sent back to Algeria where they suffer oppression, torture and even on occasion death.
What we need is a common European policy on these issues, as Sir Leon mentioned.
It is a European problem - it is not just a Mediterranean one.
We need to make sure that Europol helps to catch the criminal organisations that are engaged in this vile trade.
We need to ensure that we have asylum legislation that actually works and that those who are in fear of torture or death can come into the European Union and seek our protection.
We equally need to put pressure on the countries of origin and countries of transit to make sure that they play their part in helping to staunch this flow.
Finally, as a number of speakers have stated, we have to help remove the causes.
We have to help make sure that we get economic development in the countries of origin.
We have to ensure that the political situation there is such that its people can remain there rather than have to flee, abandoning their homes and, in many cases, their families.
These are difficult issues.
In the climate of xenophobia we have in Europe, they are increasingly difficult; but they will not go away unless we tackle them.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Group of the European People's Party calls on the Commission, and above all the Council, to ensure that this problem is tackled thoroughly, in political and practical terms - under the third chapter of the Barcelona Declaration, and more generally under the European Union's third pillar - by introducing specific actions for the monitoring and assistance of clandestine immigrants and by negotiating specific measures concerning readmission.
What I would stress is the essential need for coordination at European level on a problem which, although it has an immediate impact on the EU states bordering on the Mediterranean, in actual fact also affects continental Europe, which in most cases is the ultimate goal of most immigrants.
It is pointless to leave it up to the individual Member States to handle a crisis which is in no sense bilateral - it cannot be handled by EU countries individually - but is global and European.
It would therefore be advisable to institute a form of multilateral cooperation, perhaps based on cooperation between the Council of Ministers and third countries, and on Community framework legislation designed to tackle the repatriation of all clandestine immigrants in the same fashion, always with due regard for their basic rights, and helping at the same time to consolidate democratic, social and economic development in the countries of migration.
Only by means of such an approach, which should be incorporated into both the MEDA programme and the Schengen Agreement, will it be possible in future to protect the rights of immigrants, who should no longer be clandestine but sought out by Europe on the basis of a new employment policy and new, clear, social legislation enabling them to be integrated into Europe's social and economic framework and to develop their own potential to the full.
Madam President, our colleagues' questions, and in particular the one from Mrs Schaffner, once again raise a question of substance: how is it possible to handle in a humane and civil fashion a migratory flow coming from poor countries, in some instances ones torn apart by ethnic wars, without there being a common policy in the European Union?
A common policy would prevent individual Member States from passing the buck or implementing dissimilar, contrasting policies both in terms of reception, expulsion or insertion into the world of work - with the ensuing social prerogatives - and in terms of the concomitant and much-needed policy of developing economic activities and production in countries where people are still today dying as a result of famine and warfare.
The Commission's umpteenth listing of figures today is pointless. What is needed is a firm stance, leading to the immediate introduction of a common policy on immigration.
We need cooperation projects and measures to combat organised crime, which is causing a real exodus of desperate people who are destined to become the foot-soldiers of these criminal organisations themselves and the victims of prostitution rackets.
Madam President, I do not think that we should be discussing immigration policy in general terms today; we should be considering new approaches, such as those outlined just now by Mr Caccavale.
Above all, we should be focusing our attention today on what is happening in the southern part of Europe, the region which on the one hand is the most exposed to migratory flows - including illegal ones - but on the other is most encumbered with the burden of repeated refusals to take in the numerous immigrants and refugees. This can lead to dreadful tragedies at sea, as has already been recalled.
All of this results from a lack of coordination with the North African countries and from the pressure of highly organised, highly efficient organised crime.
Last year I visited the Kurdish refugee camps in southern Italy, and almost all of those to whom I spoke - Kurds from Sri Lanka and from Pakistan - told me how many millions of lire they had paid to middle-men to be brought to Italy, from where they would set off for Germany or the Netherlands.
We must bear all of this in mind - the worst possible exploitation of dreams, hopes and needs - and we must realise that it is more than just a matter of numbers and monitoring: of course monitoring is required, but cooperation is required too, and this should not be left to the countries on Europe's southern flank.
Whereas it is fair to expect us - Italy, Spain, and Greece when it joins the Schengen area - to carry out careful surveillance of our coastlines, it is also fair to equip us to fulfil our tasks properly, not only of monitoring but also of cooperation and humanity.
With regard to reception centres, for example, if immigrants are to be housed in dignity and with respect for their human rights, there is a pressing need for many more such centres, ones that are far superior to the existing ones in Italy and other countries.
The substantial investment which is needed in this area must at the same time be directed to improving cooperation.
I would also stress one further point: agreements with the countries on the opposite shores of the Mediterranean. Some interesting agreements have already been drawn up in this area, for example by our government.
We urge the Austrian Presidency, or at the latest the German Presidency, to implement all the measures being called for during this debate: humanitarian assistance, joint monitoring, funding and cooperation. They should do so before next summer - which will soon be here - because that is when there is an increased risk of deaths in the Straits of Gibraltar, and an increased likelihood of the inhuman conditions that we have seen in the Sicilian Channel.
Our mission, and the possibility of future humanitarian cooperation, would likewise be jeopardised.
Madam President, all the Member States of the European Union have contributed to the Euro-Mediterranean policy, and they should also all contribute to helping the Member States who have to deal with these problems.
In no way are the illegal bodies washed overboard from these flimsy craft the responsibility of one Member State alone.
We must all play our part in dealing with this problem.
As we know, this problem has arisen as a result of the immoral differences in earnings between the northern and southern Mediterranean countries, which can be as much as tenfold.
The southern Mediterranean countries are begging us to make a determined effort to come up with solutions quickly.
Yet the levelling-out - if that is indeed our aim - has to be achieved through favourable treatment of those southern countries, giving them advantages, making their task easier.
Promises of financial aid alone are not enough.
We have to be seen to act.
We should make use of those very television channels through which we have created the myth of a European wonderland, making many young people from the Maghreb believe in a European dream.
We should use those same television channels to broadcast information, dissuading these young people and informing them of the very real risks they run, telling them about the slavery which awaits young people in Europe if they do not possess the necessary documents.
It is both laughable and incredible that the European Union as a whole should declare itself powerless to fight against these mafias which exploit human beings, namely impoverished youngsters.
We need to create opportunities for temporary emigration, with offers of jobs and training.
Madam President, were you aware that the very doors we are opening to young people from the CEECs are being closed to young people from the Maghreb? We need to give them a better reception, showing greater respect for their dignity.
After all, we are decent human beings. Those young illegal immigrants whose corpses are washed up are, in the main, the victims of a European dream we are creating here, in the European Parliament, as we use empty words to describe a non-existent European wonderland.
Madam President, nowadays, the European Union is a prime destination for many who, travelling from the Eastern countries, Latin America, and northern and central Africa, wish to cross its borders in search of solutions to the most pressing problems in their daily lives. What we are discussing today, however, is a flow of migration into the southern flank of Europe.
Spain and Italy are being besieged by migrants fleeing from the conditions in their home countries.
Highly dangerous methods of crossing from Africa are resorted to, some of which have been referred to earlier - these flimsy craft - and, as a result, thousands of corpses have been washed up on the coast of the south of Spain or the north of Africa, and a shameful traffic in human beings has developed. Clearly, we cannot remain indifferent to it.
Ladies and gentlemen, this problem will not be resolved through a debate on whether the Union's borders should be open or closed, or through repressive or police action. It will not be resolved either through the Geneva Convention or regulation of the right to asylum.
The problem has to be approached from a position of human solidarity, through the economic and social development of the migrants' home countries. The political stability of those countries must be promoted, and they should make the best use of their human and natural resources to transform the Euro-Mediterranean area into a balanced, stable zone.
The association agreements - the negotiation and ratification of which is unacceptably slow, the Barcelona Conference - full of good intentions but with few practical results, and the MEDA programmes are valid instruments through which to express our solidarity with the development of the people of the Mediterranean.
Countries such as Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia must receive special priority treatment where the Union's foreign and cooperation policies are concerned.
The Commission and the Council must include meetings and ongoing studies of migration flows in their schedules.
As I live in Melilla, a town on the border between the European Union and Morocco, I have witnessed the Spanish Government's determined effort to make a serious attempt to resolve these problems. The Commission itself has gained first-hand experience of the work under way during its visits to the town of Melilla, and also to Ceuta.
However, resources are needed.
In this area too, an effort must be made to help the European countries responsible for policing and controlling our borders, a task which is often unrewarding indeed.
I should like to leave you with a final thought on illegal immigration.
We should stop talking about the fight against illegal immigration.
Instead, we should talk about the fight against those who traffic in human lives, and about the fight against drug traffickers.
We should not and must not give the impression that we think of the migrants as invaders or criminals, because that is not what they are.
Thank you, Madam President, for allowing me to speak at the end of this debate.
As I am sure you are aware, the Liberal Group has signed the joint motion for a resolution.
We had no problems in doing so but I would, however, like to raise several points that I feel strongly about in relation to the debate on immigrants from the southern Mediterranean.
We must emphasise that it is essential to put a stop to this influx of immigrants. What is more, there is no doubt that the misery that has just been described affects us all deeply; we have to find a solution to it.
We must also take account of the fact that immigration is due to deep-seated causes that go beyond the purely technical aspect of crossing external borders that has been mentioned today.
I believe that, in this respect, we need to highlight the despair of the immigrants who have no hope of a future in their own country and who therefore believe that the only solution to their sorry fate is to flee to the countries on the other side of the Mediterranean.
We must hope that the authorities in the southern Mediterranean countries will cooperate fully with the Member States of the European Union in implementing measures to control illegal immigration.
We believe, too, that the police treatment of illegal immigrants and the legal provisions relating to them are inadequate.
Community policy must focus more on improving development in the Mediterranean countries and, consequently, the future prospects for their citizens.
Allow me to add one comment in conclusion.
These policies are in direct competition with other policies for which budgetary assistance from the European Union is desired. Therefore, we must highlight the importance of a systematic evaluation of the European Union's policy concerning the Mediterranean with a view to making this policy more effective, rather than useless.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have followed this discussion and debate with great attention.
I have observed that many Members from the Mediterranean region have spoken here and that is why the issue of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership is an essential part of this debate.
I would like to point out that this partnership includes three areas: political dialogue, the economic issue (which of course includes socio-economic elements), and then the additional question of culture and other related items.
In the European Union of course, we very much try to provide support for countries south of the Mediterranean Sea, i.e. North African countries.
I would point out that we are also trying to conclude free trade agreements with them.
But we should also be aware that, unfortunately, many of these agreements fail because of the quota problem.
I do not want to go into detail here but I think you all know what I mean.
Secondly, of course you are right that improving the economic situation is of fundamental importance when it comes to seizing the problem of migration by the roots.
It is something that we are all aware of and are working on.
In the MEDA programme, especially, there is a lot of money for this purpose.
On the whole, there are enough funds and I would like to emphasise that.
Thirdly, I believe - and I said this in my statement at the beginning - that, on the question of migration, we must tread a new path.
The instruments that the Geneva Convention made available to us are no longer enough today on their own.
We must find a way of deterring criminals, especially traffickers in human beings (whom I shall discuss later), on the one hand, and accepting legitimate humanitarian refugees on the other.
We must also, however, show solidarity, and that is something that I would call for especially as President-in-Office from a country which has done a great deal for refugees, without always being able to count on the solidarity of every Member State in doing so.
This issue was raised by one Honourable Member only in relation to the Mediterranean region, but I would point out that in the case of Bosnia, for instance, we have as you know accepted between 85 000 and 90 000 refugees.
That is almost equivalent to 8-9 % of the Austrian population and is the largest per capita share.
That is why we must call upon solidarity from all other countries as well.
This is the basic idea behind our strategy paper, which does of course still need to be debated and revised, but on which we can ultimately reach a consensus.
I agree with what was said in the debate - it is also true that we should, of course, tell countries that they are not just going to find a paradise here, that we also have unemployment and that they cannot automatically expect to be taken in.
But I would also like to say that exactly the same applies to the central and eastern European countries.
My country harbours the same fears about those countries as Spain probably does about the Maghreb countries.
Finally, I would like to mention the despicable trade of trafficking in human beings.
The Austrian presidency has tabled a draft for a convention on this within the UN General Assembly, partly in cooperation with Italy.
But this question is being worked on very closely in the European Union context too, as we consider it to be important not only with respect to the Mediterranean countries but also for the whole of the central European region.
It is not for nothing that this issue was also a subject at the European conference yesterday, but as I talked about this in detail earlier on, I will not repeat myself.
EU/Hong Kong
The next item is the report (A4-0312/98) by Mr Cushnahan, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the Commission communication to the Council on the European Union and Hong Kong (COM(97)0171 - C4-0214/97).
Madam President, when the handover of Hong Kong took place on 1 July 1997 many fears were expressed as to how the situation would develop.
It was widely acknowledged that if the transition was unsuccessful there would be far-reaching implications for political and economic stability in the region and for relationships between world powers.
Having closely monitored the situation for 15 months, including a visit to Hong Kong to meet and listen to a wide cross section of viewpoints, I believe that the transition was more successful than many of us would have dared to hope.
However, I have a number of concerns in relation to the implementation of democracy, the operation of the rule of law and the protection of human rights, which are detailed in my report and which the European Parliament must continue to observe closely.
The holding of elections on 24 May this year marked an important milestone in the development of democracy.
The relatively high turnout is an emphatic answer to those who would argue that Hong Kong residents are not interested in democracy.
However, this satisfaction is tempered by the fact that the electoral system is less than fully democratic with too much power vested in the hands of the elitist functional constituencies.
Suffice to say that as a consequence 140 000 functional constituency voters elected half the Members of the 60-member LegCo whereas 2.8 million voters were able to elect only 20 members for the geographical constituencies.
It is unacceptable that despite winning a clear majority of the popular vote, pro-democracy parties obtained a mere third of the seats on the Legislative Council.
It would be reassuring for Members of this Parliament, and others elsewhere including in Hong Kong itself who are committed to democratic principles, that a firm and unambiguous timetable was put in place for holding all elections on the basis of universal suffrage.
Additionally, a free and democratic society cannot exist unless the rule of law operates, untrammelled, within its borders. The rule of law requires that all laws apply to all citizens equally, that they are enforced impartially, that they are justiciable in open courts accessible to all.
The implementation of the rule of law requires that the powers of government, judicial, legislative and executive, be separate from and independent of each other so that each is a check on the others, thereby ensuring that none can abuse its power.
In the unusual, indeed unique, HKSAR constitutional arrangements where autonomy is threatened by surrogacy, the independence of the judiciary assumes extra importance in discharging its role of upholding the rule of law and if necessary drawing attention to any democratic or constitutional deficit which is inhibiting the application of the rule of law to the citizens of Hong Kong.
Any objective observer must worry that a number of recent cases, notably the Xinhua case, the Hong Kong Standard case, the Ma Wai Kwan case and the right of abode case call into question the efficacy of the rule of law in the Hong Kong SAR.
These concerns have been intensified with the passage of the Adaptation of Laws bill.
As regards the protection of human rights, a number of issues perturb me.
The introduction of the concept of national security is a worrying development.
We must ensure that it is not used to curb political dissent as has been done in the People's Republic of China.
The suspension of labour laws, attempts to undermine the editorial freedom of the press and the implications of the introduction of laws under Article 23 of the Basic Law are all warning signs confirming the need to monitor the situation and to guarantee that there is no erosion of fundamental human rights and freedoms.
The European Union has a very important role to play in the evolution of Hong Kong.
The EU must fully support by deed and action the continuation of Hong Kong's international autonomy in economic and trade matters.
We must pursue cooperation at all international levels, particularly as a partner in the WTO.
We must strengthen existing links and establish new ones and it is of fundamental and symbolic importance that all Member States should grant free access to HKSAR and BNO passport holders.
Our strategy must at all times consistently and continuously underpin the 'one country, two systems' concept.
I hope the Commissioner, who I am glad to see here for this debate, will take on board the recommendations included in this report when he produces his own annual report.
I look forward to receiving that report and our committee will respond in due course.
Finally, I would like to thank all those who contributed to the drafting of this report.
I welcome the cooperation from all political viewpoints on the committee.
Of most significant importance were the views I received from within Hong Kong itself.
I hope we have advanced the debate.
I hope this is a balanced report and I hope it charts the way forward.
Madam President, it is customary on these occasions to congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
What is perhaps less customary is the fact that I actually mean it when I congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
This is a good, thoughtful and thorough report.
I would particularly like to thank the rapporteur on the way he went about producing his report and the cooperation he showed with others in the committee.
The report has taken on board many of the observations we made in discussion in committee.
That has meant that we have managed to keep amendments to the minimum and thereby kept the cohesion of this report.
I think that is important.
I should like to thank him for that.
This report emphasises the importance of Hong Kong to the European Union and indeed to the global economic system, as we have seen in the last few weeks.
But our main message has got to be, quite frankly, that we have to recognise that the hand-over of power has gone very well.
The worst fears of many people, expressed in this Chamber, have not been realised.
The idea of 'one country, two systems' appears to work.
There has been political, press and religious freedom.
There has not been widespread corruption as was feared.
Indeed the high quality of the Hong Kong civil service continues to shine through. Of course there are areas of concern and Mr Cushnahan has outlined some of them.
There have been questions about political influence being used for appointments to statutory advisory bodies such as the housing authority.
That is an area that needs to be watched.
There were rumours that Chinese security advisors were to be installed in the Chief Executive's office.
I am glad to see that was denied by the government.
There was the attack on Radio Television Hong Kong by a member of the Chinese Peoples' Political Consultative Conference.
While the Chief Executive, Tung Chee-hwa was somewhat dubious in his response, President Jiang Zemin was very clear in condemning any influence in Hong Kong affairs.
I am very glad to see also that the new guidelines that will be introduced for Radio Television Hong Kong will be based on those applying to the BBC and other international broadcasters, thus helping guarantee its neutrality.
Our main concern was always about the existence of the provisional legislature.
We must recognise the positive step forward reflected by the elections to the Legislative Council.
We should celebrate the high turn-out in those elections and the fair way in which they were conducted, although we should still register our concern at the severe reduction of the franchise in the functional constituencies and the possibilities for abuse of corporate voting in the functional constituencies through the registration of shell companies.
We therefore look forward to full democracy in Hong Kong as soon as possible.
There have been concerns about some of the decisions taken in the Hong Kong courts, which Mr Cushnahan describes in detail in his report.
One particular issue is the question of the immunity of state bodies from prosecution and whether this applies to the New China News Agency.
That worry has been accentuated by the case of Emily Lau, who has been involved in dispute for nearly 12 months with the New China News Agency.
The precise status of the New China News Agency should be clarified as a matter of priority.
The rule of law, as Mr Cushnahan has said, is crucial to the future of Hong Kong.
One further area which will need to be watched carefully is the need for the new Legislative Council to pass legislation on issues such as subversion and treason under Article 23 of the Basic Law.
How Hong Kong handles that will be a key to the continuing success of 'one country, two systems'.
The best sign of the success of 'one country, two systems' has been that Hong Kong has been able, so far, to weather the Asian crisis, and to do so without interference from China, but with support from China.
I would be interested to hear Commissioner Brittan's observations on that aspect.
Clearly Hong Kong has to have autonomy in its own economic affairs but it also has to have the support of China.
Finally, I would endorse Mr Cushnahan's remarks about granting visa-free access to residents of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
I believe this would be an important step forward in developing greater commercial ties between the European Union and Hong Kong.
In conclusion, I would say so far so good; in fact, better than we had hoped for.
Let us hope that we can continue to work closely with the authorities of Hong Kong to develop a better future for the residents of Hong Kong and to develop Hong Kong's important status as a keystone in the Asian economy.
Madam President, this high-quality report from Mr Cushnahan should serve to enhance the profile of the European Parliament.
The background information provided in part B is illuminating and offers a sound basis for the proposal for a resolution.
Hong Kong's economy grew rapidly thanks to extensive economic freedom, a culture of individual enterprise, generalised private saving and free trade.
Per capita GNP is now higher than in some EU countries.
Hong Kong's success story demonstrated early on the advantages of a market economy system over old-style socialist economic planning.
The country came more and more to be seen as a role model by developing countries fighting their way out of poverty - a factor which certainly contributed towards the spirit of economic reform in China.
In the run-up to the handover to China, there were many who felt that, ideologically, Hong Kong was taking over China.
Be that as it may, few would dispute that China has - so far at least - broadly respected the agreement it entered into regarding Hong Kong. Economic freedoms ultimately form the basis for freedom in the wider sense and the system guaranteeing those freedoms has remained intact.
As Mr Cushnahan says, a number of worrying things have nonetheless been happening recently.
Elements of the democratic structures that were built up have been undermined.
This Parliament and the European Union as a whole must keep a watchful eye on developments.
By adopting this resolution, we will be putting down a marker in that regard.
We need also to take steps in our own countries to alleviate the situation, for example through generous visa policies and a commitment not to introduce trade restrictions.
For many years, Hong Kong was a refuge for large numbers of people fleeing repression and dictatorship.
Let us use our influence to maintain it as a home for freedom in the future.
Madam President, the Commission communication is called 'Beyond 1997'.
Well, we are beyond 1997 and the sky has not fallen in.
I organised a visit of MEPs to Hong Kong at the time of the elections to the new LegCo in May of this year.
It was the fourth such visit in four years.
We concluded that the elections were free and fair, that there is no very tangible change in Hong Kong and that by and large the citizens continue to enjoy the freedoms to which they have become accustomed in recent years.
Hong Kong retains economic autonomy too: its high-rise economy has withstood the pressure of the financial turmoil from Typhoon Thailand.
The actions of the Hong Kong monetary authority may not have pleased classical economists, but their response bore the hallmark 'made in Hong Kong' and not 'made in China'.
Yet, as this excellent report shows, it is important not to be naive.
A democratically elected Parliament has been abolished and replaced by a new Legislative Council rigged in favour of Beijing and against the free will of the Hong Kong people.
A sometimes supine judiciary, and suspicions of self-censorship, give grounds for concern.
There has been a gradual but consistent repeal of human rights laws and undermining of institutions essential to their protection.
The new police guidelines on demonstrations, issued a week ago, are just the latest example of this.
Hong Kong people must speak out against every potential abuse, and we must support them in so doing, not just by giving them visa-free entry to the European Union but by supporting education in democracy in Hong Kong.
There is an unseemly haste in Europe's new approach to China.
Tony Blair, as the Prime Minister of a Member State, is visiting China this week and almost ignoring human rights.
President Santer must not show the same myopia when he visits Hong Kong for the Commission next month.
We live in a time replete with political possibility.
If we are to feel our way towards a new relationship with China, let us welcome China's signature on Monday of the ICCPR; but we shall know them also by their actions.
Our watchword must be vigilance.
Madam President, we have all been surprised to see that Hong Kong has remained one of the most free and open markets in the world since the UK handover.
Last week one of Hong Kong's most powerful men, Sir Donald Chang, visited my country, and while in The Hague gave a further illustration of how Hong Kong, as a special administrative region in China, is determined to maintain transparency and the strict application of the laws of the market.
Last month the authorities did, admittedly, intervene in the share markets to prevent speculation - successfully, according to reports I have read - but in my view this was a one-off measure.
There was just one thing that Sir Donald Chang was seriously concerned about, and that was the extremely slow and ineffective measures that Japan is taking to restore order in the Asian crisis and in the crisis at home.
Finally, it would be extremely useful to hear how the EU bureau has expanded its activities and in particular to receive a report on its human rights monitoring.
I have talked to colleagues who know Hong Kong better than I do, and they are extremely uneasy.
I think we should ask for a report as soon as possible.
Lastly, I congratulate Mr Cushnahan on his report, which has the support of my group.
Madam President, the historic and decisive fact about the issue we are debating is that after 100 years of forced British colonialism, Hong Kong has rejoined and is an inseparable part of the vast nation of China.
Whatever happens from this point on in that province of China cannot but be influenced in one way or another by that historic fact.
While that is the situation, I fear that Mr Cushnahan's report, in the ten recitals and 19 paragraphs of its motion for a resolution, is governed and permeated by suspicion and mistrust, and not, I would say, by good faith in what is happening.
There is something wrong with everything, everything must be regarded defensively and with doubts.
He goes so far as to say: elections for the legislative body are all very well, but they are suspect, undemocratic, because the electoral system is not democratic. Mr Cushnahan, what kind of electoral system is there in your country?
In my own?
In all the European countries?
Are we happy with those systems? Are they supremely democratic or are they anti-democratic?
But beyond that, Madam President, I fear that this report wishes to appoint the European Parliament, the European Union as a joint detective agency, inquiring into what is going on and what must happen in Hong Kong as if it were populated by Belgians, Germans, Englishmen, Greeks and other Europeans.
But Hong Kong is populated by Chinese, and what goes on there is mainly if not exclusively their business.
There is even a naive view that what happens in Hong Kong in one way or another may become a springboard for changes all over the vastness of China.
That is naive and indeed suspect, because it shows that all the concern about what is happening in Hong Kong is just viewed as a springboard, a tool for us to meddle in China's internal affairs and bring about changes which suit our own purposes.
That is not the right attitude, it does not help relations between the European Union and China ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, the most important message emerging from Mr Cushnahan's excellent report is that China has fundamentally respected the agreements it entered into on Hong Kong. We find that this former British colony de facto enjoys a greater degree of democracy today than it did during a large portion of its time under British sovereignty.
This confirms the impression I received when the China delegation visited Hong Kong in June this year.
I am not saying that there are no problems.
Reference has been made to Article 23 of the Basic Law, which could be used as a tool for infringing democratic freedoms. This is a point that requires careful monitoring.
The ILO is currently looking at trade union rights, which for me are of vital importance.
We must draw attention to any problems in that area.
Lastly, let us not forget that Hong Kong is an integral part of China. Developments in Chinese policy will affect the former colony more than ever before.
The EU must not start pushing reform in a way that will trigger mass unemployment in China. We do not want to see Russian-style social chaos overtaking the country.
That would be disastrous and put a halt to any form of democracy. Hong Kong's relatively positive position would also be threatened.
Madam President, up until now China has, at least formally, fully honoured the commitments it had made regarding Hong Kong. We should be pleased about that.
However, the establishment of a form of parliament such as exists in democratic countries is not likely to happen before 2008.
Universal suffrage for the election of all of the citizens' representatives will not come into effect for another 10 years.
We must be extremely vigilant over these 10 years and show great solidarity with the democratic forces at work in that country.
The public authorities have until now maintained Hong Kong's reputation as an open and incorrupt business centre, as Mr Cushnahan very rightly pointed out.
But this seemingly exemplary attitude, this openness to the world must be supported and encouraged in an environment which is far from favourable.
We must stress in passing that it is important to grant entry to those holding a passport from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region without requiring a visa, just as the citizens of the European Union have access to Hong Kong without a visa.
The high volume of trade and movement of people, ideas, capital and goods is of vital importance for Hong Kong.
We must be committed, active and supportive in these areas.
It is not only the wellbeing of this advanced region of China that is at stake, but also our own wellbeing.
Madam President, the Asian, and particularly the Chinese, economic area holds immense potential for the European Union.
Without a doubt, Hong Kong plays a key political as well as economic role as regards links with the region.
That is why good relations with the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region are of great importance for the European economy.
The EU must undertake every necessary effort to foster appropriate contacts, and above all to speak out against the alarming anti-democratic tendencies cited in the report, and the lack of constitutionality which has been justifiably criticised.
Only a democratic order based on the rule of law can be regarded as the guarantor of a permanently independent Hong Kong economy.
On the issue of visa-free access to the Schengen area, I cannot agree with the rapporteur's current request for this to be given to all HKSAR and BNO passport holders.
In my opinion, this question should be treated separately, as the Commission has suggested.
Madam President, we all have good reasons for following developments in Hong Kong - which are examined in great detail by the rapporteur, whom I congratulate - for itself, for its inhabitants, and for what it can mean for a country as important as China.
In my own case, being Portuguese, the situation is of particular interest given its inevitable implications for the integration process for Macau.
That will take place, a quarter of a century after the Portuguese revolution of 25 April 1974, under conditions that are much more favourable from every point of view.
On the one hand, it has been possible over these years to provide the territory with infrastructure and services which have been particularly important for its development and for the quality of life of its population, including the airport, the university, the new port, the waste processing plant, etcetera.
Moreover, and of particular significance, the Legislative Assembly has been approving the territory's own legislation, in complete freedom and in accordance with universal values that are also the values of its population.
Having already had an identity of its own - Macau is a member of the World Trade Organisation and has a cooperation agreement with the European Union - we have every interest in its continuation in the future.
But over and above our own interests and those of Macau, we consider that the interests of China are at stake here, which has in Macau an area of openness and development of which it may be proud.
It is important, therefore, that the Commission - and for that reason, I address the Commissioner - should give Macau a higher profile through its representation in Hong Kong or, preferably, by opening a representation in Macau, whose administration, we are sure, would not fail to offer whatever support was needed.
Madam President, I am one of those who have visited Hong Kong since the transfer.
Things have developed very differently from what we expected just over a year ago.
At the time, the thinking was that in economic terms maybe things would be fine in Hong Kong, but that in political terms things would go very badly.
As my colleague Mr Watson and many others have said, we must remain very vigilant.
That is the usefulness of this report on the political side.
In practical terms one must acknowledge that in the Hong Kong situation, overall, the development of - albeit a limited - democracy has been scrupulously observed.
At the present time the concern is rather with economic developments taking place in that part of the world.
If things go wrong economically they will certainly have a negative political impact.
I should like to ask the Commission one specific question, touching also on the visa issue.
Of course we should not only be concerned about visas.
That is quite true.
Nevertheless it is one of the few specific things where Europe as a whole can do something more.
I am still concerned about this, particularly when I hear some speakers say that the visa question is something we do not take seriously, and that only eight countries admit visa-holders to Europe.
The Commission can play a role because Schengen will be incorporated in the Treaty of the European Union.
I hope that the Commission will say that it will take an initiative on this point.
This is the kind of concrete solidarity which we must maintain.
I hope that with next year's report we can say that things are better than they are at the present time.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I too welcome Mr Cushnahan's admirable report and the motion for a resolution.
I would like to comment on some of the key points.
Firstly, a number of speakers, of whom Mr Titley was one and Mr Watson another, also Mr Gahrton and most recently Mr Brinkhorst, have commented generally on the nature of the handover and on the broad adherence by the Chinese authorities to their political commitments.
I would welcome those statements and I entirely agree with what has been said.
I really want to underline the remarkable nature of what has occurred because it is true to say that the introduction of the one country/two systems arrangement is unique, and to introduce it as successfully as has been done is a remarkable achievement; tribute is due both to Hong Kong and to China itself for that fact.
Nonetheless, a number of critical points have been made and Mr Brinkhorst summed it up by saying that we must continue to be vigilant.
And so we shall be.
The resolution calls for the acceleration of the introduction of universal suffrage.
In his visit to Brussels last February the Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said: 'It is up to us, the people of Hong Kong, to decide for ourselves the further development of the democratic process with the ultimate aim of universal suffrage'.
I can assure you that the Commission will continue to pay close attention to the development of democracy in Hong Kong.
During my own last visit to Hong Kong I stated publicly that Hong Kong would earn credit at little cost by announcing as early as possible that it intends to introduce universal suffrage by a reasonable and specified date in the future.
We should recognize, however, Hong Kong's efforts so far, as Mr Cushnahan has done, while keeping up the pressure for a clear timetable to full democracy, as he urges us to do, and as Mr Pradier has also urged us to do.
There are signs that the financial crisis to which Mr Brinkhorst referred is already emboldening those calling for more democracy in Hong Kong.
I can assure you that is a point on which President Santer and I will not be silent when we visit Hong Kong at the beginning of November.
Referring to the visa question, the European Parliament resolution urges Member States to grant visa-free entry to SAR passport holders, and Mr Burenstam Linder has drawn attention to that.
While the Commission has no direct responsibility over EU visa policy, which is still intergovernmental until a common visa list is introduced under the Amsterdam Treaty, we strongly support Hong Kong's efforts to secure visa access.
That is one key way in which the European Union can support Hong Kong's economic autonomy and reinforce the one country/two systems concept.
In fact - and Mr Brinkhorst has perhaps been a shade too generous to the Member States in his statement of the position - it is the case that the eight referred to admit visa-free only BNO passport holders, but there are only two Member States that allow visa-free SAR passport holders, who are of course in the majority.
It is equally important that Hong Kong should convince European countries that its immigration, policing and customs procedures are efficient and reliable.
We have urged them to run special visitors' programmes for European national officials with that in mind.
Such programmes now exist and I hope they will help to persuade those Member States who have yet to be persuaded of the merits of visa-free entry for SAR passport holders.
With regard to the WTO, the EP resolution advocates close cooperation between the European Union and Hong Kong within the WTO, and I would agree with what Mr Porto said about applying that to Macao as well.
The Commission is convinced that Hong Kong's liberal economy, not least its open trading regime, underpinned by WTO membership, will act as an example and a spur to continued economic reform in China, notwithstanding the current problems related to the Asian financial crisis.
Within the WTO there is good cooperation between the European Union and Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is one of the staunchest supporters of our initiative to launch a new millennium round, and the Commission regularly discusses Beijing's WTO membership bid with Hong Kong.
Hong Kong of course supports it, and provides a unique example to China of the benefits of WTO membership.
The resolution also calls for wider cooperation in order to strengthen EU-Hong Kong relations and reinforce Hong Kong autonomy.
We believe that stronger bilateral ties are vital to the underpinning of the one country/two systems concept.
We are on the verge of concluding a customs cooperation agreement with Hong Kong which I hope President Santer will be able to initial when in Hong Kong, while also exploring the possibility of more ambitious agreements.
We need to take account of the delicate division of responsibilities between Hong Kong and Beijing in the foreign relations field but we need, nonetheless, to explore what Hong Kong can do to the maximum possible extent.
The European Union continues to pursue deeper bilateral relations in other areas, notably by encouraging business-to-business links; the first plenary session of the EU-Hong Kong Business Committee took place last year in Brussels, and the second will take place in Hong Kong during our visit there at the beginning of November.
The motion calls on the Commission to monitor the autonomy and financial stability of the Hong Kong market.
The Commission is monitoring the financial and economic situation from our office in Hong Kong, but also by means of frequent visits from officials in the SAR and through visits of high-ranking officials to Brussels.
That monitoring will be reflected in our first annual report on Hong Kong which we will be publishing shortly.
Mr Titley is right, in my view, to say that Hong Kong's problems have been formidable but nonetheless the crisis has been weathered there very much better than in many other countries in the region, and I would agree wholeheartedly with what Mr Burenstam Linder has said about the fact that it is liberal economic policies which have brought about that situation, for all the difficulties that Hong Kong is currently undergoing.
During the year Hong Kong has acted to increase liquidity, for example by cutting the savings tax and by expanding its repo market.
Lately it has resorted to more drastic measures, to curb speculation by traders seeking to depress the currency in order to hike up interest rates and benefit from the resulting fall in share prices.
The measures which were referred to by Mrs van Bladel are three-fold in character: a decision to buy shares in the stock market which boosted the share index by 19 % over two weeks; further measures to strengthen the currency board, increase liquidity and calm the volatility of inter-bank interest rates; and, thirdly, measures to improve transparency and enforce greater discipline on the stock market. We are analysing those measures closely and will comment on them in our first annual report.
Parliament's resolution declares that the EC office in Hong Kong must be able to play a significant role in the development of EU-China relations and suggests that staff resources should be increased.
I entirely agree with Mrs van Bladel that an effective and well-staffed EU Office in Hong Kong is essential, and staff deployments have recently been made to strengthen the resources of the office.
Finally, the EP resolution welcomes our intention to produce annual reports; we are now finalizing the first one and hope to transmit it to the Council and Parliament by the end of October.
As I mentioned, President Santer and I will be visiting Hong Kong at the beginning of November, so the publication of our report will be timely.
It will look closely at the full range of relevant economic, political, judicial and other issues that have characterised Hong Kong life during the first year of the SAR.
Needless to say, we will take account of, and greatly benefit from, the observations and recommendations made in Parliament's reports and resolutions, and particularly Mr Cushnahan's excellent report and the points made during this debate.
Thank you for that very comprehensive reply, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0483/98).
I should like to welcome Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
Question No 1 by Patricia McKenna (H-0832/98)
Subject: Mistreatment of journalists in UK
Is the Council aware that the UK police are mistreating members of the National Union of Journalists, especially freelance members, by not recognising their press cards, arresting them for trespass or obstruction or even under the Harassment Act (intended for preventing 'stalking'), assaulting them, holding them until their deadlines have passed, preventing them from taking pictures, confiscating their photographs with court orders and erasing their video material, as well as restricting their public access during protests ?
Is the Council further aware that, although written police guidelines do exist for relations with the press, journalists have not been allowed to see them?
Do such activities breach the Treaties, including the Treaty of Amsterdam, in particular the articles relating to Justice and Home Affairs, for which the Council is largely responsible? If it wishes to be taken seriously outside the EU on such matters, will the Council instruct the Commission to ensure that journalists may operate freely within the EU before pursuing that issue elsewhere?
Mr President, may I say the following in response to the Honourable Member's question: the ruthless treatment and the harassment of freelance journalists is a matter which unfortunately does not fall within the Council's remit.
I can therefore tell Mrs McKenna that the Council has not discussed this matter at any time.
Upholding public order in the sovereign territory of a Member State is actually, as I should also point out at this time, the sole responsibility of the police authorities of the country concerned.
Also, I should stress that respect for human rights and democratic freedoms, and also of course the preservation of press freedom, form the cornerstone of the entire construction of Europe, of that there is no doubt.
It is true that the Council cannot rule out occasional shortcomings at local level. However, it is truly convinced that in their actions the governments of Member States will always be guided by the basic principles mentioned above, principles without which the Community would have no future.
I just wish to point out to the President-in-Office that there is written and video evidence concerning this harassment.
When you say that you cannot prevent occasional shortcomings as regards freedom of the press, you have to ensure that it is prevented because Article F of the Maastricht Treaty states that the European Union shall respect the European Convention on Human Rights.
This is an abuse of that Convention.
These journalists were covering social justice and environmental issues.
They have been harassed by the police, their offices and homes have been raided, equipment has been confiscated and the pictures they have taken at protests have been used against protesters in evidence.
This is a gross abuse of the freedom of the press and of the freedom to report what is going on.
If you allow it to happen in one Member State, it is the thin end of the wedge: it is going to happen in other Member States as well.
There is an onus on the European Union, if it adheres to the EU Treaties and respects the European Convention on Human Rights, to do something.
It is not enough to say that sometimes, as the President-in-Office said, the Council cannot prevent occasional shortcomings.
Perhaps you cannot prevent what has happened, but you can ensure that it does not happen again and that this will not be a signal to other Member States to follow suit, because freedom of the press is an extremely important aspect of democracy.
Mr President, Mrs McKenna, our remit is clearly laid defined. I have just explained - and I would like to stress this once again - that the Council is not authorised to say anything about the conduct of police forces as regards measures to uphold public order in the sovereign territory of a given Member State.
I would emphasise again, if it is necessary to do so, that only the competent authorities of the individual state have the power to judge police behaviour in that Member State.
Mrs McKenna's question would therefore probably meet with a greater reaction if it were to be asked in the UK House of Commons.
However, there is something I can add: there is the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights, and complaints can also be made to the European Commission of Human Rights.
Mr President, I listened to the first answer given by the President-in-Office and to the one she has just given.
I am struck by the fact that her answers are inspired by the 'Pontius Pilate' tactic, whereas it was pointed out to the President-in-Office that even the Treaties provide for some kind of intervention by the Council.
But I would like to put a supplementary question.
Would she answer in the same way if such incidents of flagrant violation of the freedom of the press were to happen in Hong Kong, for example, which we were debating a little while ago? The report refers to such matters and we considered that we were fully competent to intervene, debate and criticise, and the Commissioner praised those points.
So how can we be Pontius Pilate in one case, while in the other we jump in with both feet, as it were, into the internal affairs of a country? I should like the President-in-Office to explain her view, and perhaps she could forgive me for my attitude, but such occurrences and such answers are very vexing.
Mr President, Mr Ephremidis, I have to tell you once again that we only have certain powers.
The Council is indeed responsible for external relations and that is why it can talk about a lack of press freedom in a third country.
It is not responsible, however, for internal matters, such as the conduct of police forces in a Member State.
I can only repeat the answer that I gave a short while ago to Mrs McKenna.
Question No 2 by Felipe Camisón Asensio (H-0836/98)
Subject: Funding of the Almendralejo-Oviedo gas pipeline
What level of funding have the EU institutions provided for the construction of the gas pipeline which is to go from Almendralejo (Extremadura) to Oviedo, in Spain as part of the programme for the distribution of natural gas in that Member State?
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, the gas pipeline that the Honourable Member refers to is part of Project E4 listed in Decision No 1254/96/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 June 1996 on a series of guidelines concerning trans-European networks in the energy sector.
E4 is part of the 'Introduction of natural gas into new regions' section, and deals with the development of gas networks in the regions of Galicia, Extremadura, Andalusia, the south of Valencia and Murcia, and also with a liquefied natural gas facility in Galicia.
In accordance with Article 6(2) of this decision, following an opinion from the committee provided for in Article 9 of the Decision of 11 July 1998, the Commission laid down the specifications for projects of common interest cited in Decision No 1254/96/EC, so that financing could be provided.
In the Decision of 14 May 1998 for the years 1997 and 1998, the Commission made a sum of ECU 103.16 million available from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) to support the entire Western Gas Pipeline project, of which this pipeline is a part.
In this case, the President-in-Office of the Council has not responded like Pilate.
In fact, she has replied very succinctly, and I am very grateful for the information she has provided. This gas pipeline is of great socio-economic importance.
We should not forget that this is a corridor, all covered by Objective 1 of the Structural Funds, and with hidden potential for development which has to be exploited.
However, I do have some supplementary questions. Does the programme outlined to us complement the Interreg IIB Community initiative concerning trans-European energy networks?
Further, does it also complement the Straits of Gibraltar - Córdoba gas pipeline, through which Spain receives natural gas from the Maghreb?
Finally, have these programmes allowed for the current tendency towards a reduction in the consumption of natural gas, evident in many Member States of the European Union? In other words, had the Council foreseen this tendency towards reduction?
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, these are questions of detail that you are putting to the Council.
In view of the explanations already given, I would refer you to the Commission, which will provide you with more precise information on exact amounts and specific questions, especially as to whether or not this also falls under INTERREG.
I cannot, unfortunately, provide any oral information on this but if you wish, I would be happy to answer in writing.
Question No 3 by Roy Perry, which has been taken over by Mrs De Esteban Martín (H-0838/98)
Subject: Petitions
Can the representative of the Council of Ministers indicate how many times representatives of the Council have attended meetings of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament (either since the start of the year or the start of the Austrian Presidency) and what additional procedures the Council has available to monitor petitions to Parliament, especially as frequent allegations are made concerning the failure of Member States to honour their Treaty obligations?
Mr President, in response to Mr Perry's very interesting question on petitions, I should stress that the Council regularly takes note of Parliament resolutions, including those concerning the right of petition.
As far as possible failures on the part of Member States to comply with the Community's legal provisions are concerned, let me refer you also to Article 155 of the Treaty, which says that one of the duties of the Commission is to 'ensure that the provisions of this Treaty and the measures taken by the institutions pursuant thereto are applied.'
Madam President-in Office of the Council, I appreciate your reply, but I am sorry to say that I am not happy with it.
The question was on measures to be adopted by the Council and, in particular, we queried whether the Austrian Presidency has any plans to ensure that the Council will indeed be present at meetings of the Committee on Petitions.
As you are aware, the right to petition is a fundamental right of European Union citizens.
Unfortunately, it is frequently the case that the Member States fail to comply with many Community rules, and no proper mechanisms exist for the Member States to reply in an appropriate way to such justifiable petitions from Community citizens.
I would therefore be grateful, Madam President-in-Office, if you could tell me whether arrangements are being made to ensure that the Council will be present at meetings of the Committee on Petitions, and when this might happen.
Mr President, Mrs De Esteban Martin, in replying to this supplementary question, I cannot really add anything of substance to what I said a moment ago, namely that the Council takes formal note of all the resolutions approved by Parliament.
In addition, I can say that in a case where the responsibilities in question are the Council's own (something that is purely hypothetical, as I said), then it would carry out a careful analysis of each element of the dossier, and take appropriate measures if necessary.
Of course, the Council is very concerned with the application of the provisions of the Treaty and the secondary legislation.
However, in this matter, I would refer the Honourable Member to the division of powers between the different institutions established in the Treaty, according to which it is primarily the Commission, and where necessary the Court of Justice, that ensures that Member States are correctly applying Community law. That issue has already been addressed in this case.
I am a very experienced and active member of the Committee on Petitions.
In the past, a few years ago, an official from the Council used to attend the committee regularly.
This lady just took notes, which was not very satisfactory, but it was better than nothing.
In the past few years, all we have had is an occasional visit from a representative of the Council, sometimes when the Ombudsman was present to give a report to the committee - which is welcome - but very rarely when there was a matter of particular concern to one of the Member States.
Most of Parliament's committees are regularly attended by representatives of the Council.
We are not talking about ministers but of a civil servant from the representation of the government holding the presidency at that particular time.
Could the same apply for the Committee on Petitions so that we can have dialogue between the Council and the members of that committee, as happens in other committees of Parliament? That will help our petitioners and it will be in accord with the Treaty of European Union and the rights of the citizen under that Treaty.
Mr Newman, thank you for that comment, we shall ask the Council Secretariat to look into it.
I shall talk to Secretary-General Trumpf about this, and if it is as you say, then a solution can certainly be found.
That is very kind of you.
Question No 4 by Olivier Dupuis (H-0849/98)
Subject: Results of the Dayton agreements
According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), when the Dayton agreements were signed in December 1995, more than 1 million Bosnians were displaced within the territory of the Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, while nearly 1 million were refugees in third countries.
Moreover, again according to the UNHCR, only 400 000 of these roughly 2 million refugees and displaced persons have returned to date to their place of origin.
Does the Council not consider that, nearly three years after the signature of the Dayton agreements, the fact that only 20 % of all the refugees and displaced persons have been able to return to their place of origin means that the Dayton agreements have essentially failed, confirming, de facto, the project for ethnic partition that was conceived, wanted, planned and implemented by the regime in Belgrade - a project which, we should remember, entailed war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal crimes which are now known throughout the international community?
Mr President, the Council agrees with Mr Dupuis that far fewer refugees have returned than the international community had been expecting for 1998.
That is true.
The return of refugees constitutes one of the main challenges facing the international community in the implementation of the Dayton/Paris Peace Agreements.
It has never been problem-free, and the fact that most refugees who have not yet returned must go back to areas in which they will form a minority complicates the situation still further.
Many refugees are disinclined to return to Bosnia, or at least to their original homes and villages, often even where they will be part of the majority.
Apart from the obvious political constraints, other key factors are the absence of a sense of personal safety, and the availability of jobs and housing.
Consequently, the strategy of the international community has been aiming at the longer term, and its most important task consists of improving the local security situation, such as by improving the police service, and of creating a sustainable improvement in economic prospects, thus encouraging refugees to return to their country for good.
The Council will never accept the ethnic partition of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It entirely supports the ideals envisioned by the Peace Agreement of pluralism and multi-ethnicity as the key to full democratisation and lasting peace.
The Council would like to reaffirm the fundamental right established in the Peace Agreement of all refugees and displaced persons freely to return to their homes of origin.
It continues to support fully the use of the High Representative's authority to remove any public official who infringes this right and attempts to prevent refugees from returning.
The state of progress in Bosnia will be measured in October, when the EU Commission carries out its regular six-monthly review of compliance with the criteria laid down in the EU's regional approach, which was established in April 1997 for all countries in the western Balkans region.
At the last review in April, the Commission ruled out establishing cooperation agreements with Bosnia, Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, citing overall concerns on democratic reforms, respect for human rights and minorities, and the slowness in helping refugees return.
Madam President-in-Office, you stated that the Council would never recognise the partition of Bosnia.
We have heard so many false promises and repudiations from the Council that it may be rather risky to say such a thing.
But on the subject of the refugees, your comments are more like wishful thinking than an actual policy.
In fact, given that it is now three years since the Dayton agreement was signed, I think that we should be starting to learn our first lessons from the situation.
We should also ask ourselves what exactly Bosnia is today.
It is certainly not a state in any real sense of the word.
Mr President, Mr Dupuis, I believe that there is one thing in particular that you can say about Bosnia-Herzegovina, and this is that if the international community had wanted to break its promises there, as you suggest, then it would certainly not have sent multinational troops, and would not have such a heavy commitment there to this day.
It is precisely because we want to implement the Dayton Agreement that we have all agreed on involvement and it will continue.
For the first time since the Dayton Peace Agreement was signed, moderate parties in favour of the Dayton Agreement are in control of the legislative branches in both territorial areas and at all national levels of government.
For the first time the whole of the State Executive was able to support the Peace Agreement.
Although the result of the presidential elections in the Republika Srpska does constitute a symbolic defeat, it is compensated for by the substantial gains for parties supporting Dayton at all levels of government.
It remains to be seen over the next few weeks whether the Sloga coalition in the Republika Srpska will be able to retain control of the Parliament and whether they will still be putting the prime minister forward.
As for the Croats, the new member of the State Executive, Antejelavic, is going to organise a meeting of the party in October in order to reform the HDZ.
The EU has the following thoughts on these developments. Firstly, measures need to be taken to guarantee the coherence of the Sloga coalition.
Secondly, the Republika Srpska should be shielded from the effects of the Kosovo crisis.
Thirdly, at the HDZ party conference, more specific reforms should be decided upon.
Fourthly, the preparations for the local elections in 1999 should be taken in hand. Finally the integrity and transparency of the financial conduct of elected bodies should be ensured.
These considerations should enable us to be prepared when we go into the next Peace Implementation Conference in December in Madrid, where we will continue to advocate a multi-ethnic, pluralistic Bosnia.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, I have to be honest with you - I have one specific problem with the entire Dayton Agreement, and it is that one of the parties to it is Mr Milosevic.
In the course of the last few years we have seen that he is not at all willing to keep to any part of the agreement.
There has been very minor progress in a few areas.
The greatest advances by far which, while not being enough, at least represent progress have come from the Croats. They have set up a consulate in Banja Luka and made rapid changes to the law, especially as far as the right of abode of certain persons in Krajina and West Slavonia is concerned.
Big concessions have been made on the Croat side.
But basically, as long as the other party is Milosevic - and we are seeing at the moment what is happening in Kosovo - I have to say honestly that the Dayton Agreements have no real value, aside from the symbolic. We should consider the possibility of deferring certain elements of the agreement as long as he is one of the parties to it.
Mr President, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, there are a good number of areas in which the Dayton Agreements have certainly brought advantages.
The most important is probably that, through the Agreement, we have managed for the first time to consolidate the ceasefire and give the different parties the chance to live with one another again.
But of course not everything is perfect, particularly as far as Milosevic is concerned, and we are aware of that.
I just think that there were hardly any other alternatives under the circumstances.
To suspend the Dayton Agreements now is, to my mind, not a good alternative either.
The civil society and democracy must be strengthened.
For that, I think that both the media and the electoral system need to be reformed and, as you know, there is a whole series of projects which are designed to do just that.
The continuation of the economic reforms is another reason why Bosnia and Herzegovina should still receive support from the international community.
As for the constitutional state, the creation of an independent multi-ethnic judiciary, a professional multi-ethnic police force, and resistance to all forms of parallel structure are also prerequisites for a democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina, and here I think that the international community has achieved something in the last few years.
I do not say everything, and I do not say that the situation there could not be improved a great deal in a few years time, but I think that we must continue the fight to strengthen the joint institutions and reform the Council of Ministers, and to set up an authority to monitor the revenue of the state and of the territorial units.
Mr President, I would like to ask the President-in-Office if she would agree with me that the small number of refugees returning may surely also be put down to the fact that the host countries have offered them a new home, in a truly generous and remarkably humane manner.
I know that in Austria, many Bosnian refugees have found housing, work, and integration into society, and that is also another reason why they do not want to go back home.
Mr President, Mrs Flemming, of course it is true that some countries, like Austria for instance, have taken in refugees, not only from Bosnia, but also elsewhere, and have done so quite generously.
Today, in the discussion on migrants, I told you that 85 000 to 90 000 have been admitted to Austria.
That is equivalent to 8-9 % of the Austrian population.
Nevertheless, our goal must be to return the refugees as far as possible.
It is their home and they must rebuild their own country.
Of course, the return depends on how fast we are able to build up the economy there, so that they can find work, and how quickly we can create security so that they have some guarantees when they go back to their country.
Question No 5 by José Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra (H-0853/98)
Subject: US-Cuba relations
Is the Council aware of the letter of 3 August sent by Mrs Albright, United States Secretary of State, to Mr Helms, Chairman of the US Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, which was published by newspapers and other media?
Does the Council intend to respond to this letter or take a stance on this matter?
Does the Council consider that the interpretation placed on the terms of the declarations of 18 May by the US Secretary of State is in keeping with the spirit of the remarks made to the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs in May by the Commissioner responsible?
Does the Council agree that this agreement represents an extraordinary reaffirmation of the principles underlying the Liberty Act?
Mr President, Mr Salafranca Sanchez-Neyra, the Council is of course aware of the letter sent by Secretary of State Mrs Albright to the chairman of the US Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, Jesse Helms, on the 'Understanding with Respect to the Disciplines for the Strengthening of Investment Protection'. This is a part of the important package agreed at the EU-US summit meeting in London on 18 May.
The letter was not, however, addressed to the Council and therefore it would not be appropriate for the Council to respond.
The Union's position on the matter is set out in the EU unilateral statement, which also forms part of the London package, and which was confirmed by the Council on 25 May.
The Council accordingly looks to the US to take the necessary steps arising out of the London summit package.
The EU will similarly respect its political undertakings.
The Union does not accept that anything in the London summit package in any way vindicates the principles underlying the Liberty Act, particularly not the imposition of secondary boycotts and retroactive legislation with extraterritorial effect.
This is the position of the Commission and the Member States.
On the question of expropriation, in a letter to Mrs Albright of 18 May which is also part of the London package, Sir Leon Brittan has accepted that according to information from the United States it appears that, having regard to the discriminatory provisions of Cuba's Law 851, the expropriations in a number of cases were contrary to international law.
Thank you very much for your reply, Madam President-in-Office.
Obviously, I had not expected the Council to reply to this letter.
It is a letter addressed to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States Senate by the Secretary of State.
The problem is that in the interpretation of the agreements between the European Union and the United States set out in that letter, it is stated that this interpretation serves as a basis for the philosophy and general aims of United States legislation.
I should like to know whether the presidency agrees with that interpretation.
I am aware that the European Union does not agree with it, at least not according to the unilateral declaration issued in May.
The first question I would therefore like to put to you is this: what reaction does the content of this letter produce in the Council?
My second question is: what time period does the Council consider is needed to implement the terms of the agreement, and in particular for the amendment of Title IV of the Act to take place, since this requires the approval of the US Congress? I have the impression, Madam President-in-Office, that in view of the present situation in the United States, President Clinton will not be able to count on the majority required to ensure the amendment of Title IV of the Act.
So, in brief, I would like to know, firstly, whether the Council shares the philosophy of the letter and, secondly, what would the Council consider a reasonable period of time to elapse before some other measures are taken. Indeed, if Congress does not amend Title IV of the Act and the United States therefore does not keep its part of the bargain, what action would the European Union contemplate?
It is all very well to seek an amicable solution, but as I see it, this is not altogether appropriate, given that this Act lacks an acceptable legal basis.
Mr President, Mr Salafranca Sanchez-Neyra, allow me to start by saying that I myself first met Cuba's Foreign Minister in New York, both as President-in-Office of the Council and also of course as Austria's State Secretary.
On that occasion, it was noticeable that Cuba seemed willing - and I deliberately say 'seemed' because it remains untested - to accept a type of dialogue similar to the EU-China human rights dialogue if necessary.
We are currently considering this.
I believe that a new form of dialogue could naturally have positive effects on EU-Cuba relations, and also perhaps on the EU/US/Cuba triangle.
As to the detail of your question, I have to tell you that at the moment a change in the position I have outlined is not likely.
But as I said, if I have interpreted things correctly, I can see some fairly positive opportunities for the future.
I should like to ask the President of the Council, in the event of the agreement of 18 May coming into force - which appears unlikely at present - if the Minister can assure the House that this will not lead to the creation of serious obstacles for European traders seeking to carry on business activities in Cuba, those being implicit in Mrs Albright's letter? Can she assure us that we will stand by the statements which have been made on a number of occasions in this House, at least by Sir Leon Brittan?
Mr President, Mr Newens, the European Union is greatly interested in improving transatlantic relations and especially in foreign policy cooperation, and differences in opinion on Cuba should not impair the effectiveness of these.
The EU's policy here consists of two main features. Firstly, dissuading the US from internationalising bilateral problems - in this case between the US and Cuba - by applying extraterritorial legislation.
Secondly, persuading the US that the critical-but-cooperative dialogue between the EU and Cuba is more successful in the longer term for the international community's relations with Cuba than the US approach of bringing pressure to bear and of threats.
That would be my response to your question.
A number of questions have in fact already been put to the President-in-Office.
There is probably little more she can say in reply, but I do share Mr Salafranca's concern, in the sense that the Commission and the Council should reply to a letter Mrs Albright has written to Mr Helms.
In fact that letter is surprising, to put it mildly.
It states that the European Union has undertaken not to award loans, subsidies, grants, tax advantages, guarantees or political risk insurance, or to give any kind of favourable treatment to European businessmen wishing to invest in Cuba.
We were present at a hearing organised by the Committee on External Economic Relations at which European businessmen voiced their serious concern and explained how this very agreement, which is not at all clear, has disrupted investment in Cuba.
The letter goes on to state something even more surprising, namely that the European Union must refer to the information which the United States holds on expropriated assets before helping any business wishing to invest in Cuba.
We still think this is a cause for great concern, and I appreciate the reply from the President-in-Office. However, leaving everything else aside, if only for the sake of the large number of businessmen - many Spaniards and other Europeans who have interests in Cuba - we would like the situation to be clarified.
Mr President, Mrs González Álvarez, allow me to state my view on this once more.
At the end of May 1998, Cuba claimed that with the summit agreements the EU had in fact accepted the principle of extraterritoriality it had always previously fought against.
Most importantly, the provisions of the Helms-Burton Act which had resulted in numerous restrictions on trade and transport remained in force and therefore the extraterritorial nature of the US embargo was essentially intact.
According to Havana, the only thing which the US offered in return was a vague undertaking to the EU by the US Administration that they would try to have Titles III and IV of the Helms-Burton Act waived.
Cuba also warned the EU at the beginning of June 1998 against inciting opposition groups and human rights activists.
Such subversive activities would not be accepted by the Cuban administration and could result in appropriate measures being taken.
But the US is increasingly asking for this type of commitment, to demonstrate to the US Congress and to the American people that the EU is not distancing itself from the central statements of the common position.
Of course the EU will not accept that anything in the package of measures agreed at the London summit in any way vindicates the principles of the Liberty Act, particularly not the imposition of a secondary boycott and retroactive legislation with extraterritorial effect.
This is the position of the Commission and the Member States.
As I have already mentioned, the issue of expropriation has been commented on by Sir Leon Brittan.
Question No 6 by Gerhard Hager (H-0854/98)
Subject: Strategy paper on EU migration and asylum policy
On 1 July 1998 the Austrian Presidency tabled a strategy paper on EU migration and asylum policy.
What progress has been made in the discussions on the strategy paper tabled by the Austrian Presidency? Which delegations have already made written submissions to the K4 Committee?
What is the content of these submissions?
Has the current Presidency already dissociated itself from many areas of the proposal?
If so, from what areas, and why?
Mr President, Mr Hager, let me first of all repeat what I said during the discussion on migrants today, that the Presidency's paper is a discussion document which aims to promote further thought and consideration about how to get to grips with problems in the areas of migration and asylum.
It does not claim to provide an overview of future EC-policy in these areas, but does - as similar initiatives earlier (like the Commission's communication of 1994) - try to ensure that in determining such policy, the decision-makers have at their disposal as broad a basis as possible on which to take their decisions.
As stated in the paper, the Presidency invited delegations to submit comments in writing by September and has received contributions so far from the German, Greek, Swedish and UK delegations and from the Commission.
In the light of these comments, and also of observations made by all delegations at the K4 Committee in September, the Presidency is revising the document.
This revised version will be forwarded to the European Parliament through official channels as soon as possible.
This will also be the first version that we have been able to forward, because the opinions of the fourteen other delegations have not previously been included.
But, just to repeat this, I would like to dispel any misunderstandings that might have arisen from incorrect reports in the press and some of the other media.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, I regret the fact that my question has lost some of its relevance since it was submitted - this has all become common knowledge in the meantime.
Of course I have followed the discussion here this afternoon, and I am glad to have the information available at present confirmed by an authoritative source.
But let me ask a supplementary question.
If I take what you have said and what you explained in detail this afternoon about withdrawing parts of the paper, and turn the argument on its head, can I assume that the wording used in Articles 41 and 132 is still valid? They say that a shift towards less constitutional and more politically-oriented concepts of protection in the field of asylum would also be perfectly feasible.
If this is the case, then I would very much like to know what the Council position is.
Mr President, Mr Hager, I cannot now respond in detail on each piece of drafting, because I do not have the text in front of me.
I can only tell you that we gave a discussion paper to the press and another paper was discussed in the press even before it was made official.
That led to certain misunderstandings.
A paper which is to be officially debated by various bodies is of course not going to contain wording that could be offensive in any way.
I have already explained that there was a certain misunderstanding - we clearly never intended to do away with the Geneva Convention.
But it needs to be expanded in certain areas, as I explained in our discussion today.
Secondly, this is not a new subject.
In 1991 it was discussed for the first time, and in 1992 and 1994 it was taken up by the Commission.
As our discussion has shown, this question is certainly extremely complex today. On the one hand we have to find a way to combat the despicable trade of trafficking in human beings, while on the other we must also find a way to create humanitarian possibilities for refugees, and take in those people who are most in need of help.
I have the document we are discussing in front of me, and I was both surprised and disappointed to see what it contains.
Plenty of repression and very little humanity characterise this Austrian proposal.
Practice at the EU's frontier points is already somewhat brutal and this would only make the situation worse. Illegal immigration is effectively being encouraged and we see hundreds of deaths every year as a result of illegal attempts to cross the borders.
If the policy advocated in this minutely drafted text were to be implemented, refugees with a justified claim to asylum would not even reach the EU. Tighter visa rules and more stringently enforced carrier liability would prevent them from filing their claim.
Unfair demands would be placed on our neighbouring countries, with the EU expecting them to apply unbelievably restrictive measures. Relations between the various Central and Eastern European countries could well become disrupted if they were forced to close their borders.
I have one question for the President-in-Office.
Reference is made here to the SIS register, which is currently used to check asylum-seekers.
Yet we know that this register lacks elementary legal safeguards.
Asylum seekers have no right to see the information recorded and cannot therefore verify whether it is correct.
Might the presidency consider taking steps to enhance legal certainty for refugees by allowing for more effective scrutiny over the SIS register?
Mr President, Mr Sjöstedt, I do not think it is very sensible for us to enter into discussion on a paper that is not even officially before us, and in which the positions of the other Member States have only just been included.
We really must wait until the paper is officially forwarded to the European Parliament and then we can hold a discussion on it.
I appreciate that perhaps there has been some confusion about this report, and that it is simply a discussion paper.
Nevertheless, there is great concern in Parliament, in particular in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, that Parliament seemed not to have been involved as we would have hoped from the earliest stages.
I hope that I can have an assurance that the revised document will be made available in time for Parliament to consider it and to express any views before the next meeting of the Judicial and Home Affairs Council.
Further to that, I wish to say that I am sure the President-in-Office will be aware that there has been a lot of concern expressed about some of the suggestions - admittedly no more than suggestions - within this draft paper, to the effect that we should modify in a major way the existing Geneva Convention and possibly remove the individual right to seek asylum.
Of course many of the refugees coming into Western Europe today are coming in a different way to that perceived 50 years ago at the time of the Geneva Convention.
However, it seems to me that their plight and the problems they suffer are the same, whether they are being persecuted by a government or simply fleeing disorder, civil war or chaos in society from which the authorities of their country are unable to protect them.
Many of us feel the individual right must be preserved.
Mr President, Mr Elliott, on your first point, the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees is not to be encroached upon in any way.
In the first draft, and especially in the version passed on to the press, there may perhaps have been some unclear wording, but the revised version does not contain any passage which could honestly give rise to such an idea.
Secondly, the procedure we have followed is entirely in keeping with the usual practice of not putting a first draft, which does not take into account the general positions of all the Member States, before the European Parliament until it has been handled by a Council working group.
That is precisely our procedure here.
After the first revision, this text will be made available to Parliament as soon as possible.
Question No 7 by John McCartin (H-0860/98)
Subject: Cost of motor vehicles and vehicle insurance in Ireland
Is the Council aware of the wide divergence within the EU of the cost of motor vehicles and the cost of motor vehicle insurance and does the Council consider that this contributes to a distortion of competition in the single market and are any initiatives being taken by the Council to resolve this situation?
Mr President, Mr McCartin, as the Honourable Member rightly points out, the creation of a single market for motor vehicle insurance has been a priority for many years.
The third coordinating Directive on non-life insurance (Council Directive 92/49/EEC) basically completed the internal market in the insurance field.
Alongside the non-life directives designed to safeguard both the right of establishment and freedom to provide services, the Council has in addition adopted legislation concerning compulsory motor vehicle insurance.
The aim of the general and specific legislation is to ensure that all Community citizens have access to the widest possible range of insurance products.
This increases competition in this sector and should in time lead to reduced costs for insurance.
As regards the cost of motor vehicles, reference should be made to Regulation 1474/95/EEC which is a Commission Regulation laying down certain rules applicable to distribution contracts in the car sector.
Its aim is to ensure a better balance in contractual relationships between manufacturers, dealers and final consumers.
On the subject of possible distortion of competition in the single market regarding the cost of motor insurance and/or motor vehicles, it is up to the Commission to take whatever steps it deems necessary to ensure the proper application of the relevant legislation and to ensure the smooth running of the internal market in general, as well as in this specific field.
I thank the President-in-Office for that very detailed reply.
Perhaps I made a mistake in putting this question to the Council rather than the Commission, because there is immense frustration in Ireland, with young people in particular.
Young men looking for their first job, if that job involves driving a car in Ireland, have to pay something like ECU 50 for insurance per week.
If they were in Brussels or in a city in the UK, they would probably pay only a quarter of that.
So it is felt that the European Union has failed to bring about a single market in the whole area of insurance.
The fact that we have failed, and the Council has failed, to harmonise taxation, creates a situation in which motor vehicles cost a lot more in the first place, and this has some knock-on effect in the insurance sector, but it is not sufficient to explain it.
The fact that insurance companies in the UK, Belgium and Germany are not competing in the Irish market was due, I felt, to a failure of the European Union to enforce the right of establishment and the right to equal access to the market.
Mr President, Mr McCartin, as I have already explained in my earlier reply with particular regard to the car sector, the Commission has adopted a number of rules to ensure that there is transparency in car prices across the whole of Europe.
In this connection, it would be useful to point out that under Chapter 5 of the Treaty, common rules on competition are the particular responsibility of the Commission, and as you rightly suspected, it would be in a position to answer your questions considerably better and in more detail.
In the insurance field, I would refer the Honourable Member to Directive 92/49/EEC, which aims to regulate activity in this sector and ensure greater competition.
If it is established nevertheless that distortions in the car market are occurring, then of course the Council will devote its full attention to any proposals the Commission deems necessary to remedy matters appropriately.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, do you think that the introduction of the euro will lead to more transparency in the cost of cars and motor insurance?
Mr President, Mr Rübig, the only thing I can really say to that is yes, of course.
I think it will certainly increase competitiveness.
It will naturally also mean stronger competition and lower prices, because better comparability will allow consumers to look all the more carefully at where they actually buy.
I believe that the introduction of the euro will definitely have positive effects for the consumer in the long term.
Mr President, the discrepancies between the different prices are so great that we have instances such as this: people who work in Germany, young working people who bring to Greece a car which their parents have bought, are in the end forced to give it up to the Greek state because they cannot afford the huge tax imposed by Greek law.
There are many such examples, which are dramatic at a personal level.
I agree with Mr McCartin.
So I would like to ask: can anything be done for this special category?
And, in any event, is there a date beyond which we will be able to say that the prices of cars will be comparable throughout the European Union? Because the fact is that we have been talking about this in the European Parliament for decades.
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, I quite understand the problem you have raised here like the honourable Member who spoke before you.
Let me point out once again that it is the Commission's job, not the Council's, to see that the single market functions smoothly and that the rules on competition are respected.
Allow me also to remind you that fixing insurance premiums falls within the remit of Member States.
As for the completion of a single market for insurance, I would once again request the Member to contact the Commission, because that is the body responsible for ensuring that individual rules on competition are complied with.
Incidentally, I would be happy to pass this on to them.
Mr Posselt has a point of order.
I am sorry, Mr Posselt, but I gave the floor to the Members who asked first.
I am sorry you were not called, but under the Rules of Procedure I can only give the floor to two speakers.
Question No 8 by Anna Karamanou (H-0862/98)
Subject: Role of the media in the increased sexual exploitation of women
According to a recent statement by the Council of Europe, women are the main victims of sexual exploitation using the networks, which constitutes a serious violation of human rights.
The way in which women are depicted by the mass media is contributing to the increased sexual exploitation of women in Europe, while those involved in the white slave trade are making increasing use of modern media and new technologies.
What action does the Council intend to take and what measures will it adopt in response to this serious problem?
Mr President, Mrs Karamanou, in response to your question, I would first like to stress that the Council is fully aware that this issue and the points you have raised are an extremely serious problem.
The Council's position is that everything should be done to prevent international criminals working in prostitution from making increasing use of the latest information and communication technologies.
The Austrian Presidency shall therefore try to the best of its ability to bring to an early conclusion the consultations currently underway on issues such as the joint action to fight child pornography on the Internet, the Community action plan on encouraging the safe use of the Internet by fighting illegal and harmful content, and the Community action programme on measures to combat violence against young persons, women and children (DAPHNE).
The presidency is confident that, with the impetus it gives, Member States will be able to find a joint basis for adopting these instruments.
You must however know how far-reaching the influence of these criminal organisations using prostitution is - this abhorrent business, which disregards the individual freedom of victims, operates at an international level.
Because of the international nature of the Internet, the Council's view is that the fight against organised prostitution must take place at an international level, and for this of course the United Nations is in a good position.
I am therefore certain that the Community and the Member States will devote their full attention to initiatives taken under the auspices of the UN.
These involve in particular a plan to end crime organised on an international level, a protocol on trafficking in women and children and a draft voluntary protocol to the agreement on the rights of the child, which deals with the sale of children, their sexual exploitation and also child prostitution and pornography.
I thank the President-in-Office for her answer, although I think it falls far short of satisfying not only me but even herself, since so little has been done by the Union about such a vast problem - tragically little.
The European Parliament has repeatedly called for the Council and the Commission to adopt drastic and effective measures to do something about the international networks of modern white slavers, the slave traders of today.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office what the Council has done to create new, appropriate and effective European institutions, capable of developing joint action at international and European level and of establishing common sanctions and penalties that fit the seriousness of the crime.
International criminal networks certainly call for an international and multi-dimensional response, as the Minister herself recognised.
In other words, I would like to ask: does the Council intend to apply Community law and measures across national borders, to suppress a phenomenon which is steadily taking on more explosive dimensions and which is an affront to our very civilisation? And also, Minister, I would like you to tell me how far we are along the way towards ratification of the Europol Convention by the Member States, and what resources are available to enable that service to fulfil the increased workload it is undertaking.
Mr President, Mrs Karamanou, allow me once again to point out that the matter you have raised is an especially important one for the Austrian Presidency too. We have also taken a series of initiatives in this area.
Before I go into more detail, I should like to tell you that this very issue was discussed at the European conference which took place just yesterday in Luxembourg, and which I reported on this morning.
We are beginning to discuss this important problem and look for solutions not only in the EU context, but also with all the applicant countries.
Significantly, Europol's powers have been extended to include this area.
The aim is not just to create more bureaucracy, but to try to fight this evil that you correctly identify together and effectively.
I would point out that in the last two years the Council has already adopted countless decisions that are now being applied.
I would just mention the following: two joint actions, from 29 November 1996 and 24 February 1997, for an exchange programme and measures to combat trafficking in people and the sexual exploitation of children; extending Europol's mandate to include the prevention of and fight against trafficking in people, as I said before; the 28 April 1997 action plan for fighting organised crime; the EU-US common initiative against trafficking in women (it seems to us important that this issue has now been taken up in the transatlantic dialogue); and finally the Council conclusions of 19 March 1998 on 10 principles for an action plan proposed by the G8 to combat crime in the leading sectors of technology.
I have here a cutting from a Finnish newspaper which came out last week.
The article describes in detail the methods cited by previous speakers for changing women's identities, dyeing their hair and branding them with tattoos once they have been recruited.
I note with satisfaction that the Austrian Presidency believes this to be a priority issue and commend its action to date. Yet I worry that we may be taking too many decisions and doing too little to follow them up.
You cited the DAPHNE programme, Madam President-in-Office, and I wonder when the Council intends to adopt it.
I am also keen to hear whether the Council and the Austrian Presidency support action to rehabilitate young girls.
Bulgaria, for example, has introduced a programme called La Strada .
And are the rumours we sometimes hear in this Parliament true that hundreds of thousands of young girls and children are being brought illegally into the EU from the candidate countries?
Mr President, Mrs Thors, I believe that I have tried to underline how much this Presidency in particular sees this problem as related to the larger one of the fight against organised crime.
On 1-3 October the Austrian Presidency organised a conference in Vienna for eastern and western countries on the trade in women, which the EU Commissioner for Immigration, Home Affairs and Justice, Anita Gradin, attended. Its aim was to inform the public about the basic and country-specific organisation of trafficking in women, and to offer the representatives of NGOs and of national and international institutions the opportunity to exchange experiences in the field of prevention and intervention and to develop further strategies to fight trafficking in women in eastern and western Europe.
The European Parliament and the Commission are to run a campaign next year against violence against women.
The Austrian Presidency has also organised a conference on the work of the police against violence against women. It will be held from 30 November to 4 December of this year in Baden and aims to contribute to the preparation of Member States' activities for 1999.
The conference intends, in the light of international experience, to raise the issue of standards which are in keeping with the times and to look at good examples of measures taken to combat acts of violence perpetrated by men against women.
It will looked in particular at the situation women are faced with in criminal proceedings when they have become the victims of domestic violence, the specific aspects of violence against female migrants and their special need for protection because of their legal and economic situation as foreigners, and the impact of each of these on the work of the police.
I have already explained how important this subject was at the European conference, particularly in view of the need for future EU member countries to find joint solutions to this problem.
Mr President, as you know, many criminal acts are now perpetrated on the Internet.
This is also true of child prostitution and trafficking in women, and the trade in organs which often goes with them.
We now know that the DAPHNE programme is to be launched for a longer period up to the year 2004, and that it is to be quite generously funded.
My question is, since so much crime goes on through the Internet, can we think about setting up a kind of cyber-police to monitor communication on the Internet and take appropriate countermeasures as a remedy and to combat crime?
Mr President, Mr Pirker, you have indeed raised a very topical problem here, to which the Austrian Presidency is devoting great attention.
Since the Internet is a completely new medium, every possible measure must be examined closely.
We have to look at what can be done on the Internet.
Maybe we should be thinking in terms of some type of code of conduct for the user, because it is going to be very difficult to develop specific legislation.
But at the moment, we are in the process of looking at this in detail with experts, and we hope that either during this Presidency or shortly afterwards, we shall have something ready for presentation.
Question No 9 by Astrid Thors (H-0867/98)
Subject: Reduced VAT for labour intensive activities
Commissioner Monti at one time proposed that the Member States reduce VAT on labour-intensive activities to encourage job-creation.
The Commission recently carried out an analysis of the impact of VAT on the internal market, employment being one of the aspects covered.
When does the Austrian Presidency intend to have this matter discussed by the Ecofin Council?
Mr President, Mrs Thors, the problem you raised is currently being examined by the Council's services, particularly with a view to obtaining an expert opinion on the questions raised by some delegations on the subject.
On the basis of this review the Council will then judge whether the Commission should be requested to present a proposal on the area referred to in Mrs Thors's question.
I regret that I cannot give any further information on this at the moment.
I too am sorry that the Council cannot provide more information, especially since the newspapers have been reporting over the past week that the Member States have sent in their replies to the Council working group.
I wonder why it took so long before they were given a proposal to which to respond.
The Commission produced its communication on 13 November last year.
It is now October 1998, one year on, but the timetable has still to be set.
Why the delay?
There are rumours that no conclusions will be drawn in the Council working group until the end of the year at the earliest. Yet we have 18 million unemployed.
Many of us are convinced that the measures being discussed could be the answer to reducing tax fraud and increasing jobs. Our current self-service society might then shift towards a proper service society.
Mr President, Mrs Thors, firstly of course I share your concern about the level of employment and about the need to combat unemployment wherever possible.
That is not in question.
At this time of economic globalisation the Council is particularly aware that everything must be done in order to maintain the level of employment and if possible to raise it even further.
In fact, the Council is of the view that the employment issue constitutes the greatest challenge for the EU at the turn of the millennium.
I personally am deeply convinced that the future generation of Europeans is going to measure Community policy by the success it achieves against the scourge of unemployment.
That is why for the time being, I can only reiterate that this is of course an extremely complex and multifaceted problem, which needs to be very closely examined in relation to all the implications tied up with it.
That is what is presently happening. It is currently under review, and a suitable proposal will be put forward at the appropriate time.
But because of the complexity of the situation it is too early at the moment to make specific statements on content.
Taxation offers us a way of dealing with our desperately high levels of unemployment and creating more jobs.
Fiscal policy is primarily a national matter, however. We all know how sensitive people are to being told by the EU what tax policies they should adopt.
I should like to take up the second part of the President-in-Office's answer.
Perhaps we could hear what types of general measure the presidency plans to introduce before the end of its term. The President-in-Office referred to what she described as the biggest challenge facing us in the run-up to the millennium: bringing unemployment down for the next generation and providing more jobs.
Has the presidency any plans to come forward with specific proposals before the end of the year?
Mr President, Mr Lindqvist, you know that the Austrian Presidency in particular attaches the greatest importance to fighting unemployment, and that we intend to draw up specific guidelines for the European Council which should be approved at the European Council in Vienna.
I do not have all the details in front of me right now, but these are primarily based on the best practice, as it is called, of the different countries.
In other words, we learn from each other. At the moment we are also looking at how additional jobs have been created in the various countries.
I am thinking here of the great flexibility and mobility in Holland and the Austrian model of 'dual training' which involves both an apprenticeship and vocational school - theory and practice alongside each other - and which has made us the leaders in youth employment.
Similar ideas are being looked at very closely by experts, so that models that other countries have found useful can also be taken on by others.
This is the direction which the Austrian Presidency's guidelines on fighting unemployment take.
Mr President, in relation to the labour-intensive industries the problem is competition from third countries, the cheap labour countries.
If we reduce VAT we do not improve competitiveness since there is VAT on the imported as well as the home-produced goods.
So we probably only expand the market a little bit and give a bigger opportunity to the cheap labour areas.
I have this problem in my own constituency.
A very big multinational company - Fruit of the Loom - is pulling out of a labour-intensive industry with thousands of jobs because they want to get the product manufactured in Morocco.
I would suggest that the direction to take - if the President-in-Office could comment - is to reduce our income tax and social charges which are too high, thereby improving the competitiveness of European industry.
Is it a question for Member States or is it an initiative that must be taken by the European Union?
Would it be in violation of our obligations under GATT? Something needs to be done or we will have no clothing, footwear and such labour-intensive industries.
Mr President, Mr McCartin, thank you very much for that comment.
You are right of course that the measures that are now being discussed will have an impact within the whole context of globalisation.
On the issue of reducing labour costs - how would this be passed on? These questions are also particularly important in the framework of the Lomé negotiations that we have just begun.
Of course I cannot go into details on this question now - I am not really an expert on these financial negotiations - but I can tell you that you were right in making the point that every aspect of tax management naturally has a major effect on the entire global economy.
Thank you, Madam President-in-Office.
It is now 7 p.m. and I am afraid I have to bring Question Time to an end.
I commiserate with those Members who have been waiting patiently, but that is the way of things here in Parliament.
We also owe it to the President-in-Office to stop at this point, so that she can catch her flight home.
Thanks to her once again.
Questions Nos 10 to 29 will receive written answers.
These which will be put in Members' pigeon-holes this evening.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Pollution-related diseases
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0333/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0340/98-97/0153(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (1999-2001) (Rapporteur: Mr Cabrol).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have the task of considering the common position established by the Council with a view to adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related diseases.
In order to understand the exact context in which the amendments may and should be voted on, it is essential to realise that the purpose of this programme is not to take direct action to combat the emission of pollutants, nor to combat pollution-related diseases, as has already been the objective of other directives.
The current programme aims to review existing knowledge of pollutants, to collect all available data on pollution-related diseases and to draw up a list of these pollutants. In this way, we can inform the Member States, which must collect the data, and the citizens of the European Union, so that they are aware of the pollutants and can protect themselves as far as possible against them.
It is therefore essentially a programme to produce a list of pollutants and the diseases they cause.
It is also an information programme for the public on pollutants and related diseases.
That is what we want to reassert in the amendments tabled: the first part of Amendment No 5 and Amendments Nos 10, 12, 13 and 14.
But this programme does not contain anything else, and that is why, to stay within this ambit and to avoid encroaching upon the direct action to combat pollutants and pollution-related diseases, I personally will not support the last paragraph of Amendment No 5, nor Amendments Nos 9 and 16, which go beyond the scope of the present programme.
This programme also aims to pool the experience of the Member States, international organisations and various third countries.
Naturally, a programme of this nature will need to be evaluated while it is in operation and any follow-up monitored.
On the whole, we believe that the common position is satisfactory.
We welcome, in particular, the fact that it covers diseases related to all forms of pollution, as we had requested at first reading.
Nonetheless, there are certain points on which we take issue with this text.
We had called for the information on pollution-related diseases referred to in Article 1(2)(a) to include clear information on those diseases, a point that has not been incorporated in the common position.
Furthermore, the duration of the programme has been reduced to three years, although it was set at five years in the original proposal.
Consequently, the financial framework, which is set at ECU 1.3 million per year, is now limited to an overall total of ECU 3.9 million.
We could accept these changes in the duration and funding provided this proposal was actually, as the European Commission claims, only a first step in this field.
But if that is not the case, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection asks, in Amendments Nos 2 and 4, for the duration of this programme to be extended once again to five years, and for the overall financial framework to be set at ECU 7 million.
This is the basis of Amendment No 7.
Once the programme has had its duration and funding reinstated, we will have to go a stage further, in other words, we will need to conduct coordinated epidemiological studies on pollution-related diseases.
That is the aim of Amendment No 11.
We must also take action to promote knowledge of the behaviour patterns, ways of life and eating habits that make it possible to reduce the risk from various forms of pollution, as we stress in Amendment No 15.
We must also point out that, in the Commission's view, the reference to Article 228 in Article 6 on international cooperation is inappropriate, as the text relates to technical cooperation rather than international agreements as such.
Finally, I would like to highlight, in particular, the evaluation and follow-up of the programme.
The European Commission takes the view that it would be premature to draw up a report during the third year of a programme's operation.
In Amendment No 8, we ask that the report be drawn up once the implementation of the programme is complete.
With regard to follow-up, we call on the European Commission to report to us, in the six months following the adoption of this project, on the measures taken to ensure that this programme is consistent with and complementary to the other programmes in the field of public health, the environment and research.
That is the aim of Amendment No 6.
This should also help us to make the necessary adjustments, as requested in Amendment No 1.
We hope, in this way, to provide the final touches to the proposed programme and increase its effectiveness while, finally, stressing that we believe that it is essential for the programme to be followed by other, more ambitious proposals setting out the measures to be taken to combat effectively the formidable consequences of pollution.
Madam President, I will begin by saying that the proper speaker this evening, Kirsten Jensen, is ill.
I hope it has nothing to do with the pollutants which we do indeed notice here in Strasbourg.
We are confronted with a classic dilemma where the EU and health policy are concerned.
The real powers to implement health policy lie with the Member States and not the EU.
It is the Member States which decide what taxes and insurance rules should apply in this area.
We also know that a large part of health policy is further decentralised.
At the same time, with a programme like this, we arouse expectations as regards active measures on the part of the EU to deal with pollutants and diseases related to them.
Yet it is not really the EU's business to solve these problems.
Of course the EU does have a role to play, partly by pledging money for research, partly by facilitating the exchange of experience in the field of health and partly - most important of all - by ensuring that its own policy is healthy, integrating health aspects into both transport and industrial policy.
The Treaty of Amsterdam enables us to do this.
As regards the programme we are now debating, we can choose between either letting it die of its own accord, which one might easily think is the likely outcome when one reads the Commission's budgetary proposals, or strengthening it so that at least it meets the expectations it awakens.
Our choice is for the last option - hence the amendment from the Environment Committee calling for a bigger budget.
For me, this choice is also underpinned by the fact that the patients' associations in the field which carry out work on pollution-related diseases actually consider the programme to be worthwhile.
For that reason, we propose that ECU 7 million be set aside for this programme.
As Mr Cabrol has quite rightly pointed out, the programme does not in itself prevent the emission of pollutants, but it calls attention to the fact that there is a link between pollutants and diseases.
It may, we hope, lead to more effectively integrated policy on the environment and health. It is one thing to explain to people that they should not go out when there is smog, but it is another matter to prevent smog from arising.
It is one thing to treat babies with hormone ointments for rashes, but it is another matter to try to locate the link between the rashes and pollution and hence eliminate the exposure which causes the rashes.
It is further necessary to develop a better understanding of diseases such as multiple chemical syndrome or damage caused by hormone-altering substances.
These diseases and their links with the modern chemical world are an uncharted problem area.
I therefore look forward to the Environment Committee's health hearing later in the autumn, which will be dealing with the field of health impact assessment.
We know that it is worthwhile to link policy on the environment with that on health.
We can see that lead and sulphur emissions are gradually disappearing from our cities.
We hope that this will also have an effect on the related diseases.
In other words we have everything to gain from integrating health aspects into policies.
Madam President, these programmes aimed at improving the European dimension of public health as always receive the support of Parliament and, in particular, that of the Group of the European People's Party.
At the same time, we must remind the Commission that, although we are offering our full support, we are still in need of more documentation.
In other words, Parliament should have access - especially in view of the next stage in which this Parliament will have greater legislative power - to the Commission's background documents on the basis of which it drafts its proposals, so that we perhaps might be able to avoid some inappropriate interpretations or interventions.
We are all aware that European Union competence in public health policies is of a complementary nature - as stated in the Maastricht Treaty and again in the Treaty of Amsterdam -, but we need to let all the citizens know that the European Union is concerned about these issues and is launching complementary methods of working and of organisation.
We are not claiming that these programmes will completely solve the problem, but we do want to ensure that all the entities involved, be they health sectors, regions, or states, are working to guarantee consistency and complementarity in all their policies.
I therefore believe that we must be positive in the message and support we give to this programme.
At the same time, however, we must provide information for the citizens and explain to them why we are undertaking such programmes.
This gives the impression that the actions that we are going to undertake are at an initial stage when we actually have sufficient information, and the necessary premises exist, to take decisive action.
This is because when they see that all the atmospheric pollution and other forms of pollution that we are suffering from have done more damage in the last 20 years to buildings such as cathedrals, that are centuries old, than they have in previous centuries, they will be aware that something is happening.
If our forests have decreased by 30 %, it is because something is happening.
In short, we cannot imagine humankind being able to put up with more damage than cathedrals and forests.
This therefore gives us a clear - and I would say urgent - reason to act.
And, of course, everything related to respiratory diseases and allergies gives cause for alarm.
Over the last ten years, the number of allergies has multiplied by 120.
In short, we support the complementary proposals, Professor Cabrol's amendment and the general proposal from the Commission.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group supports the Cabrol report, but we have two comments.
Firstly, at first reading I proposed that the Member States should be encouraged to introduce a register of environmentally-related health problems, since this is a phenomenon that is causing people increasing concern.
Having a notification centre for these problems would give people confidence that there was somewhere where they could report their suspicions about illnesses or allergies.
The Netherlands already has a notification centre and my country, Flanders, is also looking into the subject.
I regret the fact that neither the Council nor the Commission are in favour, and I am surprised to see that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has apparently accepted their position.
When we talk about environmental health problems in my country we are mainly thinking of air pollution, such as near incinerators.
The disturbing incidence of children with genetic defects and cancers brings home the fact that there are serious and even life-threatening diseases involved.
This action programme must make the authorities, industry and the general public realise how certain pollutants can affect human health.
We need to learn the necessary lessons for the future, such as that incinerators must not be located in built-up areas such as Drogenbos on the outskirts of Brussels.
Finally, we wholeheartedly welcome this action programme and we hope that it will promote greater knowledge and better prevention.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our group agrees with Mr Cabrol's report and thanks him for his excellent work.
The process of forming a correct and comprehensive European Union public health policy has a number of gaps that are gradually being filled.
What is more, we believe that we are moving in the right direction since the action programmes are actually meeting this need of the population and the citizens.
In the context of this particular issue, these diseases appear to act as a kind of warning signal and a point of reference in trying to understand what is happening to the model of industrial development that exists in the European Union.
This is why we think that the proposal being put forward is highly relevant, as are all the amendments tabled by Mr Cabrol.
We support the amendments on extending the programme to five years and on its complementary funding, and those concerning the need to acquire more overall knowledge and to initiate coordinated epidemiological studies. We also support those aimed at improving public awareness and perception, because it is in this way that individual and collective behaviour will gradually begin to change.
Finally, the European Parliament must carry out the necessary follow-up work to ensure that this is effective.
However, we are still concerned.
We are taking action, but our growth model is the cause of these diseases, and this cause must be attacked at its source.
Madam President, firstly I am rather surprised that our rapporteur Mr Cabrol has said that he is not supporting Amendments Nos 5, 9 and 16. These were accepted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and represent the committee's position.
Furthermore, these points are extremely important because one relates to actions to prevent pollution-related diseases, one to combating pollution-related diseases and, finally, one to the whole issue of allergies.
I would like to point out to the Commissioner that in the original Commission proposal these were all included.
After the Council met it was decided to exclude these extremely important requirements.
I would hope that the Commission will take on board Parliament's position, which is the position of the Environment Committee.
There is no point in carrying out research to find out what pollution is related to pollution-related diseases, and what is causing pollution-related diseases, if these findings are only going to be put on a shelf and nothing done about them.
It is extremely important that action is taken to ensure that we reduce the amount of pollution-related diseases.
In any city in Europe you can see the amount of respiratory and allergy problems caused by pollution in our cities.
We have to reinstate Parliament's original position and the original Commission proposal.
It is no good carrying out studies which we are not going to follow up.
The onus is on the European Union to tackle the pollution which is causing health problems and which could be avoided.
This must be tackled; without ensuring that action is taken, it will not be effective.
Furthermore, a timescale has to be brought in.
Three years is not enough.
We need at least five years.
As well as that, funding is extremely important.
We need to increase the amount of funding.
Madam President, in welcoming this report I should like to pay tribute to the rapporteur.
Mr Cabrol has certainly earned the respect of this Parliament for his commitment to protecting our people from the effects of pollution.
I recognise that the common position adopted by the Council is an advance in this field but, like many other Members, I do not feel it goes far enough.
By reducing the duration of the programme from five to three years, financing for it has effectively been cut.
Consequently we must question the Council's sincerity in seeking to address what is a major area of concern throughout the European Union.
We need a more ambitious programme.
I worked on the proposal for a sharing of resources amongst Member States, international organisations and third countries.
I firmly believe that the views of the sufferers' organisations should also be included.
Many of these organisations are doing valuable work by collating information on the effects of pollution and related diseases.
Such an organisation in my own area has drawn attention to the use of organaphosphorous sheep-dip.
Information which can only be provided by such organisations should be taken on board.
The more information available from all quarters, the more the aim of the programme to enable citizens of the European Union to protect themselves as much as possible against pollution will be realised.
Preventive action must be the primary aim of the programme, but this must be coupled with the recognition of the needs of those who contract the diseases too early to enjoy the protection now planned.
Mistakes have been made in the past.
We must now take the opportunity before us. The chance is there to put those mistakes right.
Many diseases, and particularly many cancers, are caused by the presence of pollutants in the air, in water and even in food, without a relation of cause and effect being clearly established or even quantified.
This prevents, for example, justice from working effectively.
People die but no-one is responsible and no-one is to blame.
We must not only focus on just the concept of pollution.
Various technological methods are used whose impact on health has not been seriously analysed.
This is true for electromagnetic fields, for the microwaves used for mobile telephones, for the glutamate used in food and also for the agricultural chemicals that have caused human fertility to fall over the last 30 years in western countries.
It is outrageous to hear a European Commissioner state, here before the House, that the market will decide whether a product is good or bad.
That negates the essential nature of research and prevention, and, in particular, is an admission that we are treating people like guinea pigs.
I would like to thank Professor Cabrol for shedding a little light on this rather nebulous world.
And I would like to thank Mrs McKenna for trying to make the report even more effective.
Madam President, this programme is practical proof of support for the efforts being undertaken today to investigate and prevent diseases caused by pollution, i.e. by environmental conditions and hazards.
The effects of pollution not only contribute to the manifestation of respiratory diseases, but extend to disorders of other systems which can become apparent after prolonged exposure and as a result of probable synergism between various pollutants.
These effects may be toxic, infective, allergenic, carcinogenic, and indeed they may be acute or chronic, reversible or not, local or systemic.
Exposure to these reactions may take place by breathing, by ingesting food, by absorption through the skin, or directly, as happens with radiation.
We should also note that through the placental route, harmful substances from the environment may pass from the mother to the embryo and do it harm.
Consequently, all environmental hazards that have adverse effects on human health and produce diseases ought to be monitored epidemiologically.
Indeed, if we bear in mind that we are not at risk from just one harmful factor but from many simultaneously, then we can surmise that their cumulative effect may even have an impact on the resistance, ageing and life expectancy of the human organism.
The phenomenon must therefore be investigated for pathogenic interactions between two or more environmental pollutants, as mentioned in Amendments Nos 12 and 13.
The quality of nutrition is also inseparably related to the content of various chemical compounds in foods, and a systematic study is needed of the consequences of food pollution, so that these risks to the health of Europe's citizens may also be reduced, as envisaged in Amendment No 15.
On the basis of the exchanges of information and experience which it is proposed should take place between the Member States, I am confident that new and useful data will be recorded and that conclusions will emerge concerning effective ways to combat diseases caused by or related to environmental pollution.
This is bound to bring action which will include the dissemination of the data, and information of the public and consumers, as mentioned in Amendments Nos 10, 14 and 16.
To conclude, Madam President, I believe that Parliament ought to vote for this programme because it will contribute directly towards improving the health of European citizens.
Madam President, the issue of pollution-related diseases is a really important and topical one, as the Commissioner well knows.
Diseases caused by pollution are on the increase in all the industrialised countries.
Combating these diseases cannot, however, be just a matter of health policy, but their prevention requires action in all areas of social policy.
I can give you one example of a Finnish success story regarding the reduction of lead in the atmosphere.
Lead is one of the most dangerous heavy metals, causing, amongst other things, retardation in the physical development of children.
In one decade in Finland we brought about a dramatic fall in the lead content in the atmosphere by reducing the tax on unleaded petrol, i.e. through a policy of taxation.
An important aspect of the programme now under discussion is passing on to one another any useful experience we have had of the matter, as in our case.
I give my enthusiastic support to the rapporteur's view that the original length of the programme should remain at five years.
I also support the suggestion that the financial framework for the programme should be increased toECU 7 million.
Madam President, after the decision on health monitoring, for which I myself was rapporteur, and the one on the network for the epidemiological surveillance of communicable diseases, also tabled by Professor Cabrol, this decision, adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related diseases, sets out to provide the Member States with a catalogue of data relating to diseases caused by pollutants, and to do so independently of direct action to combat pollutants of the air, water and ground, which falls under other programmes.
In the short time available to me, I merely wish to say that I can endorse in full Mr Cabrol's excellent report, and I hope that the 16 amendments seeking to improve the draft decision, unanimously adopted by all the political groups within the Committee on the Environment, will also be adopted by the House.
This is an initial step towards the adoption of more ambitious programmes in the increasingly tough fight against growing pollution in our society, which has such an impact on the state of health of the EU's citizens.
Let me thank you, Mr Cabrol, for your work on the proposal and, indeed, for your support for the common position.
The proposal is a key element of the Community's overall approach to the prevention of pollution-related diseases.
Pollutants persist in our environment because it is not always feasible to reduce or limit them for technical or economic reasons.
It is therefore necessary to complement our actions on emission controls and exporter limits with activities in the area of public health aimed at reducing the health risk caused by the various forms of pollution.
The prevention of pollution-related diseases through better understanding of how the pollutants cause or aggravate them is one of the objectives of the proposed programme.
Emphasis is also placed on improving knowledge.
This is a key point made by Mr Cabrol - how health risks are perceived, assessed and managed.
Respiratory diseases and allergies, which are of increasing public health concern throughout Europe, are an area which the Commission considers should be given very special attention.
I agree with Mrs Ojala there.
We propose sharing the experience that exists right across the Union, reviewing the effectiveness of preventive measures undertaken and reinforcing and promoting successful actions.
I note that Parliament is particularly supportive of this activity.
At the first reading the Commission accepted four of Parliament's amendments.
Subsequently the Council adopted a common position and to avoid any ambiguity I will say immediately that the Commission has accepted the common position.
But I will not hide from the House that the Commission does not consider the common position to be perfect.
I address that to Mrs McKenna.
The curtailment of the scope and the duration of the programme is particularly regrettable to me, to say the least.
A statement to that effect was placed in the Minutes.
However, the Commission considered that the political compromise in the Council was the best that was available at the time.
Consequently the Commission is only able to accept two amendments today: Amendments Nos 1 and 15, since these do not have legal or budgetary consequences for the common position text.
The Commission is unable to accept the other amendments for the following main reasons.
Amendments Nos 2 and 8 imply a duration for the programme beyond the three years set out in the common position.
Amendments Nos 5, 10 14 and 16 extend the scope of the common position beyond policy development.
Amendment No 6 is not considered workable with the timing envisaged; in broad terms its objective is covered by the general obligation on the Commission to ensure complementarity and coherence.
Amendment No 11 cannot be accepted because the nature of the duration and, indeed, the financial resources and the scope of the programme do not allow for the support of meaningful, large-scale epidemiological studies.
Amendments Nos 3, 12 and 13 would lead to omissions or inconsistencies in the text.
I should like to emphasise that the Commission considers that we need to have this very important programme on pollution-related diseases in place as soon as possible.
Then we can look forward to some extremely useful work on a subject of growing public concern.
What we are trying to do here is to get ready for the new framework programme.
The aim of this particular programme is to see how we can influence policy in that public health framework.
I should like to say that to Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens and Mrs McKenna since they also make the point very strongly.
We really are now trying to develop policy initiatives so that after the three years we can move into the mainstream and do better in the new framework.
I also agree with Mrs Hulthén that we need better links with research.
That is being taken on board.
All in all I have to thank everybody who contributed.
We are now going to make the best use of this programme, and put together all the benefits of the research so that we can move into the mainstream in the new framework.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Rare diseases
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0336/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0341/98-97/0146(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on rare diseases within the framework for action in the field of public health (1999-2003) (Rapporteur: Mr Viceconte).
Madam President, several thousands of people in Europe are affected by rare diseases, some of them of genetic origin and extremely serious.
In some ways, these thousands of European citizens seem to have been left to their own devices.
Research by the pharmaceutical industry is utterly inadequate: in these cases the profit motive obviously does not apply for pharmaceutical firms, given that the market for these drugs is limited by the relatively small numbers of people affected.
Hence the importance, from a humanitarian and health point of view, of the programme of Community action on rare diseases, which is one of the proposals being made in the field of public health in Europe for the four years 1999-2003.
At our first reading, the European Parliament considered this action programme to be of undoubted benefit, and greatly improved it through 28 amendments, which among other things provided for the people most directly affected - the sufferers themselves - and their families to be involved in the programme.
This could be a good opportunity to establish real Community cooperation by setting up a programme on rare diseases, pooling knowledge and then taking the best possible action.
Indeed, it is necessary to avoid duplication, which wastes time and money and leads to inefficiency.
Very few of the suggestions contained in the amendments tabled at first reading were accepted by the Council: of the 28 adopted by this House, the Council took up only two in full and four in part.
At the initiative of your rapporteur, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has adopted 20 amendments for the recommendation for second reading. These are now being tabled again and will form the basis of discussion at conciliation.
The situation in Europe varies from country to country.
In some Member States, data are collected and measures are more or less well organised; in others this does not happen.
Here, as in other sectors, we must centralise the gathering of up-to-date data and all necessary information as to the development, number and clusters of cases of the rare diseases concerned.
These data must be fed into a central European database and made available to everyone.
We are pleased with the Council's decision to fund the programme for the entire five-year period, bearing in mind that the original proposal provided for funding for the first year only.
Nevertheless, your rapporteur draws attention to the inadequacy of the budget.
The Committee on the Environment has once again proposed the sum of ECU 14 million, as opposed to the ECU 6.5 m proposed for the five years of the programme's operation.
It is likely that, at conciliation, the usual clash will occur with the Council on this matter.
There is no point in salving our consciences by presenting a programme of great value in health and humanitarian terms, unless it is endowed with adequate funding.
This is not a way of either saving face or salving our consciences and, above all else, it will not meet the expectations of sufferers and their families.
Nor does the committee agree with the Council on the subject of comitology. We prefer an advisory committee rather than a mixed advisory/management committee, which would ultimately restrict the Commission's activities.
It is true that similar mixed committees are envisaged in other public health programmes, but in this specific one, considering the type of measures intended, we find the position adopted by the Council to be entirely inappropriate and unwarranted; it would appear, moreover, that the Commission too has reservations in this regard.
We are therefore retabling the amendment concerning the requirement that one of the two representatives nominated to the committee by each Member State be a representative from a patients' help group or other directly relevant NGO.
Further, it is very important to involve specialist doctors and general practitioners; the latter can make a vital contribution, since they are the families' first port of call and the principal agents of accurate, early diagnosis.
By the same token, in the draft regulation on orphan medicinal products, the Commission also proposes to involve general practitioners.
In essence, therefore, your rapporteur is inviting the House to reiterate the position expressed at first reading, by approving all the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which have been accepted by all the political groups.
Madam President, there is probably no one among us who has not, at least once, had to listen with great regret and a touch of shame to reports of the solitary conditions experienced by patients, but also their families, who are afflicted by these diseases, the rarity of which entails difficulties, delays and sometimes even initial errors in diagnosis, as well as expense, travel and inconvenience for treatment.
The rarity of these conditions has made it very difficult until now for each Member State to collect data and information, and of course to engage in prevention and cure.
Therefore the Commission's initiative of proposing a programme of Community action on rare diseases has been very well received by the European Parliament. Moreover, we had pressed for it several times, especially since the Commission had also announced - and has now presented - a proposal on orphan medicinal products.
For this reason, on the basis of Mr Viceconte's excellent report and amendments, the European Parliament has merely sought to strengthen the Commission's proposal in a few respects: in particular concerning centralised data collection, training and information for health workers and patients' families, the funding of the programme, as well as the involvement of patients' families, their associations and, more generally, NGOs in various countries which are funding research into different rare diseases, and all bodies likely to follow through this action programme.
Let me dwell just for a moment on funding.
It is always very upsetting, Commissioner, when the European Union chooses to save money on the health of its citizens, but whereas this is true in all cases it is much more so in this one.
The rarity of these diseases does not admit of a proper, thorough approach in any one of our Member States.
It really can be said that the serious problem of rare diseases can only be tackled on a European scale, so as to create the necessary critical mass.
It is very short-sighted of the Member States not to wish to fund adequately this European programme, which could lead to results that are unimaginable in an individual country.
The Party of European Socialists, on whose behalf I have the honour of speaking, lends its full support to the Viceconte report and to all the amendments adopted in the Committee on the Environment, and endorses the call for this programme to be better financed.
Europe should not let this major opportunity pass it by.
The European social model offers opportunities which are not offered by the system in the United States, but our internal divisions also sap our cultural and economic energies.
For the sake of these most unfortunate citizens, the Member States should welcome Parliament's proposals, which I very much hope the Commission will support.
Madam President, we fully support the proposals put forward in Mr Viceconte's report as well as Professor Poggiolini's remarks.
And for our part, we believe that the Commission is aware that with a proposal of this type, which is aimed at tackling a very scattered problem - and this is precisely the reason why it does not have any sponsors -, we need coordination at all levels, and all aspects will certainly need to be examined in depth here.
Similarly, I believe that a flexible approach to the application of these programmes would enable the Commission, through its three main lines of action - informing people, helping patients' support groups and implementing actions to deal with clusters of rare diseases -, to tackle what I believe are the two most fundamental issues. These issues are the initiatives designed to increase the number of specialist doctors and those designed to strengthen high-level reference hospital centres.
And in this context we will be unable to fully extend such initiatives to all countries and regions. We will therefore have to bring all the patients together and concentrate our efforts on these two issues - which, in my opinion, are essential -, leaving aside the rest of the proposals and initiatives that are provided for in the programme.
Madam President, I think that all of the speakers support Mr Viceconte's report on the programme of action on rare diseases.
And we are prepared to support it because he was very flexible in the debate and discussion on his draft report and accepted all the amendments tabled by the various groups.
These are amendments that were relevant but that were not finally accepted by the Council.
As Mr Poggiolini says, out of a total of 28 amendments, only two were totally accepted and four partially accepted And the rapporteur is perfectly right - and in doing so is supported by the Committee on the Environment - to include the amendments in this second reading that he deemed to be of particular importance.
In the short time I have available, I will focus on four of these amendments that are of particular importance to both the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment.
Firstly, I should naturally like to stress the issue of funding.
We are always aware that money is scarce, but if a programme is set up to address these rare diseases and does not receive sufficient funding, it will not be effective.
Therefore, the rapporteur proposes - and the Committee on the Environment approved his proposal - an increase in funding from ECU 6.5 million to ECU 14 million.
Secondly, a central database is very important.
Information is collected in the various countries but we need a centralised data base that allows for the exchange of information.
Thirdly, we propose that a consultative committee be set up.
We always have disagreements in this Parliament with the Commission over comitology.
And fourthly, we need to encourage the participation of non-governmental organisations and of relatives who experience at first hand the seriousness of a patient's disease and the difficulties he has in coping with it.
Madam President, the action programme on rare diseases which we are debating supplements a series of efforts to improve public health in the European Union.
The field on which the programme focuses is in itself a particularly important area in which to adopt Community measures.
This is not simply because we do not have accurate statistics about the number of people suffering from rare diseases, but even more so because there is a complete lack of appropriate means - in other words resources, networks and organisations - for the identification, monitoring and effective combating of these diseases.
The programme's objectives are, firstly, to improve the data, information and knowledge concerning rare diseases; secondly, to reinforce the teams that provide assistance; and, thirdly, to create a rapid-reaction group for the contingency where several cases of rare diseases occur all together, as happened for example in the case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or new-variant CJD.
The programme concerns rare diseases, i.e. those with fewer than five cases per 10 000 people.
Since these diseases have to be combated by a combination of efforts, the programme we are voting on should be promoted.
Rare diseases form a sensitive category because each of them affects just a certain number of people and, because of the impacts and social consequences to which they give rise, there is a need to support action to cooperate with the sufferers and their families and with organisations that are active in the context of those diseases.
It is also essential to support measures which encourage and promote the provision of information to doctors and health science professionals, so as to improve the early diagnosis, recognition, treatment and prevention of rare diseases.
An essential factor for the coordination of these efforts is to create a network for the monitoring and control of rare diseases, which will provide data and information to the public but must also include the potential to provide immediate assistance.
To achieve the programme's objectives, we consider that the budget for the period from 1999 to 2003 should be set at ECU 14 million, and not ECU 6.5 million as proposed by the Council.
To conclude, Madam President, I should like to ask Parliament to vote for this programme, as formulated by the Committee on the Environment.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Viceconte for his efforts, Mr Poggiolini for standing in for him this evening and all the members of the committee who helped to prepare the report.
The added value of the European Union's action is particularly obvious in this area.
The low prevalence of these diseases and the limited means for scientific research into them make it less likely that swift progress will be made in their diagnosis, treatment and cure.
On the whole they have a limited impact on public opinion.
However, they are far from insignificant either in human or economic terms, and providing effective advice and diagnosis in health intervention tends to cost disproportionately more than similar provisions for more common conditions.
Thus, it is clearly sensible for the Member States to come together through a Community mechanism which will coordinate the actions, which would otherwise take place in isolation.
Mr Valverde López's point is very well taken here.
The Commission has proposed that the programme would run for the five years with three targets, namely, to provide knowledge about rare diseases especially for patients and their relatives, health professionals and researchers.
This is the very point made by Mr Traketellis and I support his point of view.
It is one of the main ideas behind the programme.
We also want to foster measures to strengthen the voluntary organizations involved in supporting people directly and indirectly affected by rare diseases.
This corresponds exactly with what Mrs Marinucci thinks is important and we agree.
We have in place an effective system of monitoring in order to ensure the rapid identification, assessment and handling of rare diseases and disease clusters, and they would be an important matter also.
This is consistent with ongoing activities in biomedical research, and with the recent proposal for a regulation on orphan medicinal products used for the treatment, prevention or diagnosis of these rare diseases where the commercial return is insufficient.
You first saw this proposal last March during the first reading.
At that time you adopted 28 amendments of which 16 were accepted either fully or partly by the Commission's subsequent amended proposal.
Since then the Council has adopted a common position on the programme which reflects fully only some of the amendments from the first reading, but the Commission has entered a reserve on the common position with specific reference to the Council's treatment of these amendments from the first reading.
As regards the 20 amendments under consideration today, the Commission can accept 11 either fully - that is Nos 3, 12 and 16 - or, partially - Nos 1, 6, 7, 9, 11, 15, 17 and 19.
Of the remaining nine amendments, Nos 4, 8 and 13 are not acceptable for legal reasons; Nos 5 and 20 are not acceptable for internal consistency; Nos 2 and 10 are considered to be unacceptably limited; No 18 is covered elsewhere, and No 14 is unacceptable because of budgetary reasons.
I shall elaborate a little on the reasoning behind the two key amendments, No 14 (the budget) and No 15 (the committee).
I know that the budget is an issue that Parliament feels very strongly about.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has voted again for ECU 14m for the years 1999 to 2003.
The financial perspectives as they currently stand simply do not allow for such a sum of money.
Some progress has been made since the first reading.
The common position has introduced a financial envelope of ECU 6.5m over the five-year period.
And that gives the programme at least a clear budget situation and certainly goes beyond 1999.
So the amendment concerning the programme committee is partially acceptable.
The Commission agrees with Parliament as regards the preference for an advisory committee, rather than a mixed advisory management committee as favoured by the Council.
This is part of the Commission's reserve on the common position.
The experience gained from the implementation of the existing programme shows that a mixed management advisory committee is inappropriate and excessive especially considering the limited budget allocation.
However, the Commission cannot accept that one of the two representatives from each Member State must be drawn from voluntary organisations.
We say that from a legal point of view. This is not in line with the comitology decision and would affect the right of Member States to appoint the delegation.
I would end by saying that I hope that Parliament will give a favourable vote on the programme.
We share the desire to put in place Community action for this neglected and often forgotten area of real human suffering.
On the point raised by Mr Poggiolini, Mrs Marinucci and Mrs Gonzalez Alvarez concerning the database, the wording of the common position does not exclude the possibility of creating a European rare diseases database.
The problem will be dealt with and addressed during the implementation phase.
Thank you for that reply, Commissioner, and for answering all our colleagues.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Activities in favour of consumers
The next item is the report (A4-0334/98) by Mr Whitehead, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a general framework for Community activities in favour of consumers (COM(97)0684 - C4-0077/98-98/0028(COD)).
Madam President, we all welcome Commissioner Monti into the Chamber to reply to this debate.
When the historians look back on the fourth elected Parliament and its relations with the Commission between 1994 and 1999, I think there will be a significant chapter on consumer protection.
It is a chapter that will begin with the creation of DG XXIV and the arrival of the formidable Mrs Bonino.
It will cover the hideous tragedy of the BSE crisis, which brought Parliament to the brink of a vote of no-confidence in the Commission on issues of public health and safety.
It will cover President Santer's response in January 1996 to that crisis and the consequent undertakings written into the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It will see the establishment of a firm legal base as a framework for consumer protection, and as a necessary entrenchment in an area where, as we all know, the Community will benefit from common action for all its citizens.
I say to Commissioner Monti that a healthy countervailing power is a thing that, more than anything else, will make the single market not only efficient but also an informed and healthy market and community.
In urging the adoption of my report I should properly declare a non-financial interest myself, as an elected Council member of the Consumers' Association of Great Britain.
I also want to thank some very staunch allies, some of them present here today in Parliament: the representative on the Committee on Budgets of our own committee, Mr Eisma, and most notably Mr Pimenta - I am glad to see him present today.
Mr Pimenta flits between the parties, but his heart is always in the right place as it is in this debate tonight.
I should especially like to thank my assistant, for whom this report was the culmination of four years of specialised work in this area.
It is for her an appropriate introduction to her new life in the Commission.
We have no time to lose in debating the Commission's proposals.
They need to be accepted by Parliament and the Council by the end of this calendar year.
Much has already been imperilled by the lack of a legal base after the European Court of Justice ruling, including the special measures with regard to food safety, which were rightly adopted after the BSE disaster.
As my report states, we are dealing here with only one-quarter of one percent of Community spending and yet this, unlike a good deal of other Community spending, directly benefits all of the 375 million citizens of our Union.
I may be told that I cannot take the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, and therefore of the draft Article 153, for granted.
Maybe.
But I think it would be grossly irresponsible for this Parliament and for its partners in the Union to approach the budget for the next five years without at least an apprehension that these responsibilities will come to the Council - the heart of what was agreed at Amsterdam, taking consumers' interests into account across the broad range of policies and activities, extending monitoring, promoting consumer information and education.
Indeed the last of these is at the heart of what the Commission is now doing, in alliance with long-established and embryonic consumers' NGOs throughout the Union.
The coming of the euro adds to this need for greater consumer awareness.
It is a common feature of the opinion of Mr Pimenta and of my own report that we note that the traditional role of the Commission in supporting activities within the Member States - particularly those in the south of Europe where consumer movements have not been widely developed - has been imperiled by the transfer of resources needed by a Commission which has been strapped for the money to do what is necessary.
BSE has already loaded a very heavy burden on DG XXIV and on the Commission as a whole in terms of the expanded inspectorate and the information campaigns that it has had to launch.
We have to will the proportionate means to match these pious ends.
Otherwise, this Parliament is just an empty vessel.
We have to be able to say what is necessary.
That is why, in my own amendments, I propose an increase over the next five-year period to prevent a real deterioration in consumer protection.
This amount would be ECU 130 million over five years, as opposed to ECU 114 million from 1999 onwards set out in the original proposals.
That is not there for some grandiose increase in spending or empire-building, but simply to maintain both the Commission's well-proven support for consumer movements and the new responsibilities in health protection, the monitoring of hazardous materials and products, information on the euro and access to justice.
I particularly commend to the House Amendment No 16 from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection which added the provision that access to justice for the citizens of Europe is a necessary provision, and one which was not taken sufficiently into account in the original proposals which came to us from the Commission.
I have some reason to believe that the Council would accept some amendment of this order.
We look forward to their proposals, perhaps next week.
I hope the Council can also accept the strongly-held view of Parliament that a starting budget of ECU 24 million in 1999, rising in the proportions set out in Agenda 2000, would produce a financial envelope for the legal base of between ECU 120 million and ECU 130 million.
We are not saying here that this is a matter of endless increase.
I have said in my report that there are elements within the current consumer budget, like the financing of EHLASS, that really should not be there.
They belong in another part of the Community budget.
If they were moved to it there would be a saving to the 'consumer' appropriation of over ECU 7 million over the five-year period.
The British presidency acted swiftly to untangle the knots caused by the European Court of Justice ruling which it sought, together with other Member States.
I should like to commend the Austrian presidency which has shown considerable dispatch in moving towards a viable and sufficient legal base.
They deserve our salutations for that.
I should like to say not only to Commissioner Monti, but also to the Member States and the Council - to all of them, including my own: do not betray Europe's consumers and citizens.
Allow this modest proposal to go through.
Above all, do not claim to be consumer champions, with glossy leaflets and public clamour, unless you have the civil courage to sustain in private what you commend in public.
The only single market worth having is the one where we can all make informed choices about what we buy, what we eat and how we live.
This report is intended to bring that one small step closer.
Madam President, may I begin by greeting Mr Whitehead, not only in his capacity as rapporteur, but also as chairman of the consumer protection inter-group.
His work has been outstanding and this report, which I fully support, bears this out.
This report was urgently needed.
A legal base is necessary and it is positive that the Commission should have proposed it.
However, there are points that must be improved, in particular access to justice, which Mr Whitehead mentioned.
Amendments Nos 16 and 33 are essential.
When I held that particular responsibility in Portugal, I found that rapid and efficient access to justice was one of the key elements in protecting the consumer.
Second, how can we overcome the crisis of confidence on the part of European consumers towards European institutions, particularly as regards the Council and the Commission, brought about by the BSE crisis?
Amendments Nos 4, 6 and 22 seek to move towards a solution to this problem.
Third, the Commission proposal is inadequate regarding the impact of the euro and the achievement of genuinely single markets, particularly in financial services.
We already have immense experience of countless cases of contracts where consumers have been taken in by misleading advertising or bad contracts.
I support Amendments Nos 24 and 26.
Fourth, the effective implementation of European legislation and its correct application by the Member States.
It is certainly necessary to continue and to improve what has already been done, but the Commission proposal is defective here.
Fifth, the guaranteed review of the present action programme following ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam (Amendment No 21).
It is essential that the Commission should present the revised version after ratification.
Lastly, the recognition of the vital role of non-governmental organisations and the clarification of rules under which they are given assistance or contracts are concluded with them (Amendments Nos 17 to 20).
I wish to end by supporting the rapporteur's statement regarding the budget.
I consider that the budgetary framework which the Commission presents for executing such an ambitious project is not adequate and, therefore, in this regard, in the context of Agenda 2000 and in the preparation of policies up to 2006, the Commission must review the budget if it wishes to have a consumer policy that is supported by 320 million persons who will thereby also be supporting the construction of Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that it is vital to pursue a proper policy of consumer protection.
Consumers are justifiably puzzled by the suspension of funding, as ordered by the recent Court of Justice ruling, and the programmes intended to consolidate consumer organisations in Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece and the Irish Republic would certainly become less efficient if this ruling continued to jeopardise certain categories of discretionary expenditure.
Article 129a of the Maastricht Treaty and then Article 153 of the Amsterdam Treaty set out certain actions, which however are not sufficient unless a programme of priority measures is established for the implementation of the existing general framework. This framework at last makes it possible to have a legal base for promoting actions in the interests of consumers, allowing for a budget line amounting to ECU 114 million over the next five years.
The actions which are possible with this financial support range across four sectors: consumer health and safety, the protection of consumers' economic interests in respect of goods and services, consumer education and information, and the promotion and representation of consumers' interests.
It is, however, also important to support the scientific committees and experimentation, so that the information campaign will adequately promote access and participation by consumers.
We often forget that the five-year period 1999-2003 will be a particularly important and difficult one for consumers, who find themselves facing challenges such as the advent of the single currency, continued growth of the information society, accession of the applicant states to the EU, and information on food safety and quality.
In conclusion, consumers will need to be provided with adequate means of assessing risks and taking legal action where necessary, in other words monitoring and inspection will need to be speeded up.
Madam President, greater consumer protection for ordinary citizens is imperative.
I support the recommendation of this report to increase expenditure on consumer protection by 15 % for the period 1999 to 2003.
The amount of work that needs to be done out of this budget is enormous, ranging from research to investigation to ensure that adequate legal redress be available when needed.
Give the billions of pounds spent by consumers every year on a vast array of products and services, the ECU 130m being sought in this report is a very small amount in relative terms.
Many people in the United Kingdom are very worried about what happens to consumers when the euro arrives.
Is it going to be like the change to decimal currency - a rip-off?
International cooperation between the various consumer interest groups is also important given the global market that now operates across virtually all sectors.
Finally, this Parliament has a duty to ensure that consumers are properly informed, educated and protected.
The implementation of this report will help to do that and I congratulate Mr Whitehead on bringing it in.
Madam President, we in the Green Group were very concerned at the Court's decision to freeze the budget line for consumer activities.
What we in fact wanted was for these activities to be expanded and more resources to be allocated.
For us that is the crucial point.
We support the Commission proposal.
However, we believe it is most important that resources are made available not just to the classic consumer organisations but also to the NGOs.
May I remind you that in the Federal Republic very considerable resources are spent on an advertising campaign to promote meat as a vital energy source.
But there we are talking about marketing companies, which must not be confused with consumer organisations.
So the aim must be genuinely to strengthen the consumer organisations, which also means that key consumer protection organisations must receive funding from that budget line.
But this must not lead to funds being diverted from, for instance, the action programme concerning environment-related diseases or from activities in favour of consumers.
So we consider it most important that key consumer organisations also benefit from these resources.
The money really must be used to inform the consumer and not to market certain products in the European Union to the benefit of industry.
The consumers need these resources, because they have a great need for information.
Madam President, I remember the report on priorities in consumer policy for 1996 to 1998.
The rapporteur at the time warned the Commission not to move too fast, yet now that is exactly what he himself is doing.
He is not just calling for more funding, but also for more policy areas to include consumer activities.
I feel that the Commission document is more in tune with the limited opportunities open to consumer policy at European level.
The proposal to extend consumer activities to all areas of policy seems completely unrealistic.
The Commission's decision to go for transport and public health seems a sensible one, in that it is based on experience from the last few years and also fits in with the next action programme.
The increase from ECU 114 million to ECU 130 million which the rapporteur proposes in Amendment No 14 is far too little to be able to cover all areas of policy, and some scope must be left for dealing with unexpected consumer problems.
Part of this must be earmarked for defending consumers' interests when the euro is launched, and here I agree with the rapporteur: these interests can best be defended by supporting measures taken by the consumer protection organisations.
This brings me to my final point.
I welcome the shift in consumer policy which the establishment of this general framework represents.
We will no longer just be drafting regulations, but will actually be working to strengthen the position of consumers.
Consumer protection begins with the consumers themselves.
Strong consumer representation improves the operation of the market, while statutory regulations simply disrupt it.
In conclusion, it is not the quantity of measures to benefit consumers that needs to be improved, but their quality.
Madam President, the Whitehead report discusses how European consumers are to be protected when the euro is introduced and how the Union is to deal with existing concerns over the safety and quality of foods.
I think it is a good report that touches on some important questions.
I think that the BSE crisis has taught us that we must adopt the precautionary principle when it comes to food, in other words also take measures even when it is only suspected that humans can be adversely affected by a food.
We should now devise rules to reduce the use of antibiotics in animal husbandry.
I believe that stable and firm rules create consumer confidence, as does labelling which provides sound information to the consumer.
I am, however, opposed in principle to increasing the budgetary provision in the proposal from ECU 114 million over five years to ECU 130 million, which the rapporteur is proposing.
I trust that the Commission has done its homework here and has got the right results.
In addition, I think that measures of a different kind are as effective in this area as central increases in budget appropriations.
I have a feeling that politicians sometimes tend to adopt measures which are not entirely necessary.
I do not think that we politicians should underestimate the civic forces in society. Consumers themselves have a major responsibility.
Perhaps we politicians are inclined to say that it is we who must solve their problems. In the long run, this can lull consumers into a false sense of security.
We must of course be exacting in our demands on safety, but we must also allow the consumers to use their power - which is now considerable - to take the necessary decisions. A consequence of this will be that producers become more attentive to consumers' demands.
Madam President, we must strike a blow for consumers, not because some elsewhere might think that the European Parliament lacks faith in itself, but because the consumers' interests need to be brought into focus.
As a justification for the legislative proposal, the Commission states that the purpose of the general framework is to make it possible for consumers' interests to be taken more into account in the context of the EU's other policies and activities.
I am surprised that the Commission then only gives public health, research and transport as examples and does not mention the integration of consumer concerns into areas such as agricultural policy, competition, financial services and, last but certainly not least, the EU's food policy.
Apart from that I think it extremely regrettable that the Commission proposal limits support to 50 %.
This rule makes it impossible for many smaller consumers' organisations to take part in projects, because they simply cannot afford to pay the remainder themselves.
Also consumers' organisations in the smaller countries, including the Consumers' Advisory Council in Denmark, have problems with this form of financing.
The EU should pursue consumer policy in such a way that it is actually feasible, for smaller consumers' organisations too, to take part in projects.
The financial resources of the organisations are tied up in wages and other administrative costs.
And it must also be remembered that it is often the EU, rather than the consumers' organisations themselves, that wants to launch various campaigns, and that in this context the EU needs reliable consumers' organisations, indeed organisations like the Danish Consumers' Advisory Council, to take charge of these campaigns.
Hence it is not reasonable to ask the organisations to cover as much as 50 % of the cost themselves, certainly not when the campaigns are an EU priority but not necessarily a priority for the consumers' organisations.
Also we find it unacceptable that the administrative part of the EU's consumer campaigns is often so complex that it demands an incredible amount of patience for the staff of the organisations to take part in these EU projects.
There is also a tendency to forget that the EU's campaigns derive great benefit from the credibility and reliability of the national and European consumers' organisations, but that the EU currently only pays half price for that credibility.
Finally, having said that, I would like to thank Philip Whitehead because, once again and - as usual - in an excellent report, he has struck a blow for consumers' interests. I wholeheartedly support the report.
Madam President, I am particularly pleased that Mr Monti is here with us this evening: as we are all aware, he is the Commissioner responsible for the single market - or the internal market, to use a more agreeable term, given that we are dealing with consumers.
The needs of this single market, encompassing 370 million citizens in their capacity as consumers, must increasingly be taken into account by all the Community institutions; we must keep up with the winds of change sweeping through the consumerist world.
We very much agree with the call for increased funding, voiced by the rapporteur and strongly endorsed by Mr Pimenta: these improvements are merely a recognition of the new circumstances whereby consumers are the protagonists in all public and private activities.
Consumers first!
We can call him client, user or whatever we will, but the consumer remains king: it is he who, in a changing market, in the public and private spheres, constantly demands new or improved products, calls for simpler and less dangerous packaging, seeks more information on what he is consuming, clearer labels, eco-friendly and less polluting materials and, finally, demands modern and efficient services; in other words, more assurances all round.
These consumers move around more, wish to broaden their horizons and want to make better use of their time.
Their children might practise a different occupation from their parents, perhaps in a different country, but undoubtedly on a scale which is no longer just national but at least Community-wide, spanning all the EU countries.
The major innovation in this whole scenario is the advent of the euro.
Day one of the new single currency, which will revolutionise purchasing habits and consumer patterns, is 1 January 1999.
It is our duty to brief consumers exhaustively on the advent of the single currency, on the one hand to train businesses, and on the other to inform the citizens.
Only yesterday, during the discussion on the euro, I requested that the issuing of the 500 euro banknote be postponed by one year, because it could cause substantial difficulties for consumers within the new monetary system.
Their interests are the focus of our day-to-day efforts.
Madam President, over the past decade the Union has considerably stepped up its consumer policy, especially since the entry into force of the Treaty on European Union.
Further developments in respect of consumer policy and health protection are provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I very much agree with all those speakers this evening who have remarked, albeit in differing terms, that consumers are the protagonists of the European single market.
This proposal outlines the legal framework for activities eligible for Community funding under the policy relating to consumers and health protection.
For decades now, actions undertaken in the name of EU consumer policy have been financed through the Community budget.
During this period there has been no basic legal act geared to financing such action, nor a formal description of activities eligible for funding, with the sole exception of the references contained in Article 129a, introduced into the EC Treaty in 1992.
In the light of continuing European integration, it clearly becomes necessary to assure the citizens of the Union, in their capacity as consumers, that their rights and interests will be adequately protected in the new enlarged single market - and that market is taken a stage further with the single currency.
Consumers' interests must be taken into account in the same way as those of the other economic players.
This general framework should not be confused with a multiannual action programme.
Indeed, it would be impossible to predict with accuracy, on a five-year basis, all the problem areas in which the Community needs to intervene for the purposes of consumer protection.
By the end of the year, the Commission is to present a programme outlining its priorities for the years 1999 to 2001.
This programme will explain the actions which the Commission intends to undertake over the next three years.
The decision now under discussion constitutes the legal base for financing the activities set out in the priority programme.
Following the Court of Justice ruling last May, rapid adoption of this proposal has become necessary, given that, in the absence of a legal base for the expenditure, most of our activities in the field of consumer policy and health protection would have to be suspended.
I wish in particular to thank the rapporteur, Mr Whitehead, for his excellent report, for his constructive work and for the way in which he has managed to accelerate Parliament's internal procedures, making it likely that a decision will be reached by the end of the year.
Almost all of Parliament's amendments are acceptable to the Commission, and incidentally I would thank the rapporteur for having extended the indicative list of activities, notably in respect of consumers' rights.
However Amendments Nos 12 and 16, on the adaptation of this decision to the Amsterdam Treaty after its entry into force - amendments with which, I must say, I broadly sympathise - are too general and sweeping in the Commission's opinion; therefore they cannot be accepted in their present form.
I can nevertheless undertake here and now to present to the Commission, as soon as the Treaty enters into force, a proposal taking account of the implications of the Amsterdam Treaty for consumer policy.
As regards Amendment No 13, on the financial allocation, the Commission will provide Parliament and the Council with all necessary technical assistance to enable them to reach an early agreement on this matter.
I would merely point out - and I do so more to the Council than to the European Parliament - that, once the financial allocation has been set, its adaptation to the implications of the Amsterdam Treaty would seem rather unlikely; therefore the financial allocation must take account, as of now, of the new activities which will result from the Treaty's entry into force.
We are currently at the stage of the first reading, and the Council is to announce its position on this proposal on 3 November.
As I have already said, Parliament and the Council have undertaken to speed up the decision-making procedure for the adoption of the proposals which constitute the legal base providing for Community funding.
The Commission will do all it can to enable Parliament and the Council to reach their decision at second reading by the end of this year.
I would like to end by reiterating my thanks to all those who have spoken: their comments will be fully taken into account when the new three-year action plan to which I referred is drawn up.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Conditional access services
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0325/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0421/98-97/0198(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on legal protection of services based on, or consisting of, conditional access (Rapporteur: Mr Anastassopoulos).
Madam President, with this recommendation for second reading of the directive on the legal protection of encrypted services which we are considering today, we are taking the penultimate step so that, with the Council's acceptance of our two amendments, it will at last become possible for this directive to be approved in the near future.
That will enable us in the European Union to do something more effective and more coordinated about a pirate activity which represents a real threat.
The illicit decoders produced by the pirate industry are estimated to account for perhaps as many as 20 % of all decoders.
The loss of income for encrypted services exceeds ECU 200 million per year and the effect on the European film industry is truly appalling, since 34 % of its income comes from that source.
In any event, it is enough to mention that, in just four months, there have been on the celebrated Internet over a million advertisements for illicit pirate devices, just to give us a picture of the extent of illicit activities in this sector.
These are activities which militate against the proper operation of our internal market, impeding the further development of industries specialising in new technologies and the development of new means of communication to facilitate trade.
They create consumer protection problems and weaken the protection provided by agencies dealing with intellectual property rights.
Designing more sophisticated decoders with more powerful features offering increased protection in order to combat piracy has been shown to be both costly and ultimately ineffectual, because the pirate industry has always managed to adapt at lightning speed and neutralise any protection system with even more advanced techniques.
The only thing left, therefore, was a Community approach to the problem involving harmonisation of the rules protecting services based on, or consisting of the provision of conditional access.
The Commission and the European Parliament in the first instance, but then the Council too, have shown that they understand the urgent need for this measure, because piracy has not ceased to flourish. Between the Commission's Green Paper and the second reading of the draft directive, which Parliament called for following my first report in May 1992, only two years have gone by, a period which can certainly be regarded as brief in the context of Community procedures.
My second report on the draft directive, which was approved by a very large majority on 30 April 1998 by the House, included 24 amendments.
In its amended proposal, the Commission accepted 18 of these in whole or in part, and the Council has essentially followed suit.
The result is that we have before us a common position adopted by the Council whose text has several improvements compared with the original text.
The definitions have been reworked and have become much clearer.
A new Article 1 clarifies the directive's scope.
The rental and distribution of illicit devices have been added to the illicit activities, and the factor of addition has been established in the new explanatory concept 21 by the Council.
These important elements, however much they satisfied your rapporteur, were nevertheless unable to offset the refusal by the Commission and the Council to extend the directive's scope.
In its amendments, Parliament had asked for the protection of conditional access, with the aim of providing more general protection of the economic value of the services and not just ensuring remuneration for their provision.
However, the Commission and the Council insisted on limiting themselves to that last point alone.
The disagreement could have become more acute and prolonged if Commissioner Monti had not given an undertaking to authorise a study to ascertain whether it would be appropriate to extend legal protection to services which use conditional access for purposes beyond just securing remuneration.
Following that undertaking, which brings the prospect of more extensive protection in the future, your rapporteur felt that there was no need to resubmit the amendments tabled by Parliament at first reading.
With Amendment No 2 to Article 7, I thought it preferable to keep the door open for a later stage and generally to make things easier for the Council, always provided that just the two amendments which go together with the recommendation for second reading are accepted, so that the final draft directive can be approved quickly.
Madam President, our hope is that even though the Council and the Commission have restricted its scope, the directive will help to deal more effectively with decoder piracy.
In that hope, I have the honour to submit this recommendation for second reading to the House.
Madam President, as the rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, said, Parliament's main concern was to fill a legal vacuum, and we must bear in mind that the three institutions have worked very effectively. Consequently, in only one year and two weeks, this directive, which is aimed, as the rapporteur said, at combating piracy in information society services, television and radio broadcasting, etcetera, has been approved.
The directive is a genuine one in that it does not contain provisions of a regulatory nature. It leaves Member States sufficient leeway to develop legislation either through criminal law or simply through civil responsibility, which to me seems quite reasonable.
The directive is also noteworthy because of the comprehensive way in which it deals with the issue.
As Mr Anastassopoulos said, we have chosen to close the matter for now, but have left open the option of carrying out a short-term review through Amendment No 2, should any inadequacies be detected.
And, apart from Amendment No 2, which is aimed at quickly rectifying any inadequacies, the Committee on Legal Affairs has also tabled Amendment No 1 that refers to the general need for each state to protect services that are remunerated.
I think that the three institutions are carrying out some good work and as always - as Commissioner Monti is well aware - the Committee on Legal Affairs has been very keen to collaborate.
I think that Parliament will be able to approve the text tomorrow with the amendments tabled by the rapporteur, and a step forward will therefore be taken.
We must, of course, remember that we are dealing with the protection of certain fundamental rights, such as the right to information, which is, moreover, compatible with the exercise of private activities that effectively enable this information to be transmitted.
I believe that Community law will soon be developed by Member States and that this matter will thus be dealt with without many difficulties.
Madam President, I should like to begin - and this is not just rhetoric - by congratulating the rapporteur on behalf of my group, the Group of the European People's Party.
I think that by accepting the sensible and well-reasoned amendments that were tabled, this directive has satisfactorily concluded a very complicated issue in a very short space of time.
This success has undoubtedly been achieved thanks to the combination of the rapporteur's rigour and skillful negotiating.
As far as the issue itself is concerned, the proposal for a directive covers a wide range of interactive broadcasting services, independently from the method of transmission used.
The market for conditional-access services is growing rapidly due to digital technology, but such growth may be threatened by the equally rapid development of piracy, a parallel industry - which is currently booming, as the rapporteur pointed out - that manufactures and markets the devices that facilitate unauthorized access to these services.
Apart from harming the industry, to paraphrase the rapporteur, this piracy has a number of adverse effects, not only in terms of the loss of income from subscriptions to service providers but also in terms of the economic damage it causes to conditional-access and content providers.
Furthermore, it will mean higher prices and less choice for the consumer, who is often the victim of fraud because he is not told where the pirated device he buys is from and is also led to believe that the device being bought is an authorized one.
The discrepancies between our legal systems have very serious and negative implications for the development of these services and also - as the rapporteur mentioned - for the internal market.
So, in simpler terms, this proposal for a directive is an instrument that is both necessary and useful to combat one of the many facets - but a very important one - of technological piracy. It is a facet that, through technical devices, facilitates access to encrypted services without paying the legal established fee.
This characterises the directive's field of application, its very structure and its purpose.
It does not aim to protect access to any type of distant encrypted service. Rather, its purpose is limited to those services that depend on previous authorisation aimed at guaranteeing the remuneration of the service, as well as services provided on the basis of this conditional access.
This limited field of application - as highlighted by the rapporteur - gave rise to a fruitful debate, an interactive debate - if you will pardon the pun -, between the Commission and Parliament.
As a result of this interaction, Parliament accepts the arguments put forward by the Commission, which advise against including the broader concept of economic value as a protected legal interest alongside the concept of remuneration.
Tomorrow we shall vote in favour of the Commission and the Council's approach and, in this case, we will support the argument that the legal instrument would lose some of its effectiveness since its precepts would have to be defined in very general terms in order to respond to very different situations.
By accepting this, the House understands that the Commission has committed itself to immediately initiating the necessary proceedings to ensure that those other services that are rendered without payment are also protected by European legislation as soon as possible. As far as these services are concerned, there is no doubt that criminal activities also damage an interest that can be legally protected, and this, in the last analysis, affects them economically.
This therefore resolves one of the controversies that has plagued these proceedings and, to a large extent, justifies Amendment No 2 by the Committee on Legal Affairs.
This was voted for unanimously at the suggestion of the rapporteur, insofar as it expresses concern regarding follow-up work, so effectively led by the rapporteur himself. The text of the common position contains clear improvements, not only because it follows the guidelines of the first reading report drawn up by this Parliament in its capacity as co-legislator, but also because it offers substantial improvements from a technical and objective point of view.
The rapporteur referred to the clearer definition of Article 1 but, in terms of clarity, it is worth studying the strengthened definitions in Article 2.
At the same time, a number of gaps have been filled, such as the inclusion of activities relating to the renting and distribution of illicit devices among those activities that are brought to prosecution and those liable for prosecution. In addition, punishments are being better adapted in their current form to the different national legal systems.
We must also be pleased with the fact that, for example, difficult, specific and overly technical expressions, such as the seizure of illicit devices, that in some systems - for example, the Spanish system - would be difficult to implement from the transposition of the directive, have been replaced by more generic forms, such as the removal of illicit devices from commercial circles. This now appears in the text and is being introduced under the premise that each Member State will adopt it in accordance with the structures of their own legal system.
Lastly, the new recital includes the element of intent, which enables national legislation to prosecute the perpetrators of illicit activities who can be shown to have had fraudulent intent.
This addition must not, in any case, modify the concept of civil responsibility that in all our legal systems is of an objective nature, in other words, independent of any form of subjectivity.
To sum up, this directive is important in that it does fill a gap, albeit partially.
For us, it is a stage in implementing wider legal protection.
The ball is now in the Commission's court.
Let us hope it acts soon.
Madam President, Commissioner, it could be said that in this Chamber we are 'cryptic correspondents', who go in for coded messages.
I do not know what I am now expecting from the interpreters.
To begin with, I regret that we have not taken up the amendment that was discussed in the Legal Affairs Committee.
What we wanted to secure by that amendment was that anything deliberately devised in order to circumvent this protection should have been made subject to criminal sanction.
I regret that this has not brought into the plenary debate.
Secondly I wish to take up the serious matter - in the light of information we have recently received - that it is not just the French but also the Spanish Government that persists in fragmenting the market in encryption products.
I have already taken up this question with Commissioner Monti.
I am very sad that we are not achieving progress, indeed we seem to be moving backwards as regards encryption in other sectors.
It is really my hope that this will form part of the work to create an area of peace, security and freedom which we have been talking about since the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs, and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Anastassopoulos, for their alacrity in examining this important and complex proposal.
I also wish personally to compliment the rapporteur, who obviously has a thorough knowledge of the subject as well as great political sensitivity.
As a result, I hope that the directive will be adopted and implemented very soon.
I would refer in particular to the withdrawal of the main amendment put forward at first reading, seeking to extend the scope of the proposal.
As stated in the report explaining the reasons for the recommendation, the Commission has undertaken to conduct a study to investigate the use of conditional access techniques for purposes other than that of ensuring remuneration, and to take into consideration the legal and economic implications for the single market and the need to introduce appropriate legal protection.
The call for tenders for this study was published in the Official Journal of 10 July 1998, and I am happy to announce that the administrative preparations for the relevant contract are now in their final phase.
Therefore the Commission welcomes Parliament's second amendment, designed to create a legal base to allow for periodical adaptations of the directive and in particular of the definitions under Article 2, in the light of technical and economic developments.
The first amendment introduces a new recital which helps to clarify the aims of the directive; it reflects the content of Amendment No 10 tabled at first reading, which was incorporated into the Commission's modified proposal but rejected by the Council.
I note with satisfaction the rewording of this amendment, and can tell you that the Commission is happy to accept it.
The Commission will defend the new modified proposal in the Council, taking account of the European Parliament's amendments, in an attempt to convince the Council to draw the appropriate conclusions and, in its turn, adopt the revised text.
Once again, Madam President, I thank Mr Anastassopoulos and all those who have cooperated in what we really can describe as a further example of rapid and successful interaction between our two institutions.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Recognition of qualifications
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0319/98), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0422/98-96/0031(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive establishing a mechanism for the recognition of qualifications in respect of the professional activities covered by the Directives on liberalization and transitional measures and supplementing the general systems for the recognition of qualifications (Rapporteur: Mrs Gebhardt).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Monti, first let me thank all those colleagues who helped me to draft this report.
That made it easier to reach a result that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights could approve unanimously, which creates the best basis for making the necessary amendments to the common position.
That document concerns the mechanism for the recognition of qualifications in commerce and industry.
In Article 3(1), the Council provides that, in case of doubt, evidence can be provided by an adaptation period or an aptitude test, at the choice of the host Member State.
I regard this as an unnecessary bureaucratic imposition.
The Legal Affairs Committee agrees with me that it should be left to the applicant to choose the mechanism for providing evidence of adequate knowledge and skills.
There are sound reasons for this.
An individual who wants to settle and work in another country can work out for himself how to provide evidence of adequate professional qualifications that fulfil the host country's requirements.
So he should also be able to decide for himself whether to sit an aptitude test or to attend an adaptation period.
He must not be burdened with the demands of a bureaucracy that he may find quite alien.
After all, we are trying to dismantle rather than build up obstacles.
Applicants were given this choice in the first two horizontal directives on the recognition of diplomas.
It is important and necessary for the coherence and transparency of European legislation to adopt a corresponding rule for the third horizontal directive we are discussing here.
To that end we must amend the common position, and I do not think we will find that particularly hard to do.
I assume that not many more monitors will be turned on in Members' offices at this time of night than there are Members present here in plenary.
But it would be wrong to take that to mean that we are merely killing time on a trivial matter.
The directive on recognition in the field of commerce and industry is in fact a highly important one.
I can give you one figure to demonstrate this.
We are turning 35 liberalisation and transitional directives that have come into being over the years into one single one.
When it enters into force, 35 earlier laws will suddenly lapse.
That is what I see as the consolidation of European legislation.
It creates more transparency, even if the layman would probably find his head spinning at the sight of this document.
That should not necessarily be the case.
If we really want to come closer to the people, we must strive in future to make our texts more readable.
Otherwise even a minimum of legislation will frighten people off.
I cite my own amendment as a bad example.
It is four sentences long, but only amends one point of the common position.
The German version of the draft amendment consists of no less than 36 lines, and even the first sentence is an endless 82 words long.
The second achieves a proud count of 50 and the third a mere 30.
By comparison, when journalists had to measure their dispatches in words, 500 words represented a full-scale report on an important event far away.
Or look at the Ten Commandments.
They say much in few words.
That is not because Moses was lazy, did not have a computer and had to engrave it all laboriously in stone - it is a simply a well-drafted text!
So much for the ugly facade of the directive on recognition, which is designed to sweep away 35 old rulings in order to create greater clarity and legal certainty.
I think that is most important.
Others could say the directive is an industrious piece of work, a successful technical repair job on the legislation and no more than that.
But it is more than that.
In fact this directive is much more - if we take a serious look at it.
It helps to implement an important civil right in the European Union, the right to freedom of movement.
Remember, it is only since Maastricht that civil rights have become a part of the Treaties on which our European Union is based.
They are basic rights, although they are not drafted in particularly lavish terms.
Article 8a on freedom of movement provides that every citizen of the Union shall have the right to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States, subject to the limitations and conditions laid down in this Treaty.
This could be termed conditional freedom of movement on paper.
The present directive creates an area of genuine freedom of movement that is recoverable by law.
For surely the truth is this: freedom of movement has to mean freedom to reside and work in the place of one's choice.
We have made a beginning with two other directives, now we are giving the green light to activities in commerce and industry.
Bureaucratic obstacles have been removed and the proposed amendment will ensure the necessary fair treatment.
That is how the road looks that runs from civil rights on paper to living reality.
The recognition of diplomas is a big step along that road.
It not only loosens the bonds restricting young people in the exercise of their profession, but is also an important means of combating the scourge of unemployment in Europe.
Why? Because by guaranteeing professional freedom of movement we can counter what is often an unfair distribution of work.
After all, we all know about the complaints of numerous sectors that could offer enough jobs in certain regions, but cannot find suitable workers.
And then there will be the young person who does not dare to learn the trade of his dreams because it is not needed in his particular region.
The freedom of establishment guaranteed by the directive we will vote on tomorrow will ensure the necessary labour mobility.
This is not just an economic necessity, but for many who love their work it is also a matter of personal happiness.
I cannot imagine doing a better political service to our citizens than helping to fulfil their wishes and dreams.
Now that we are completing economic and monetary union with the introduction of the euro, we can turn our eyes to the people of Europe and their rights.
It is up to us to breathe life into citizens' rights.
I believe that looked at from that perspective we can see the true importance of the recognition directive.
But it must not remain an isolated one.
There are many ways of making Europe useful to its people through citizens' rights.
Just a few months ago we adopted a whole range of measures with the De Clercq report.
Let us implement them!
In conclusion, let me clear up an imprecision in the wording of the amendment.
In some languages, the term 'beneficiary' crept in instead of 'applicant'.
Only the word 'applicant' makes sense and corresponds to the word 'demandeur ' which I chose in the original French text.
I would ask for this to be corrected in all the language versions.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, operators in the commercial, industrial and craft sectors will soon receive recognition, from the Member State in which they intend to establish themselves, of qualifications obtained in their Member State of origin.
What we are about to approve at second reading is an across-the-board system of recognition, according to the recognition mechanism referred to by the Court of Justice in the Glassopoulo ruling.
This complements Directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC, the first relating to university degrees and the second to vocational training, which are currently being updated to incorporate the Glassopoulo case law and to carry out some helpful simplification.
The Commission and the Council have accepted the amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading.
The Council has moreover put forward some highly commendable modifications, such as the easing of the criteria concerning the length of training, giving priority to practical experience.
Before authorising someone to operate in the industrial, commercial or craft sectors, the Member State concerned will have to conduct a comparison of the knowledge and skills certified by the professional diplomas and qualifications acquired in other Member States and the skills required under its own national regulations.
If there is equivalence, recognition must be granted.
The host Member State must complete this procedure within eight months of receiving the application.
Legal action may be taken if the application is rejected.
If there are differences between the training provided in the Member State of origin and in the host Member State, the migrant worker must prove that he has acquired the additional knowledge through an updating course or an aptitude test.
The only outstanding point at issue between Parliament and the Council of Ministers concerns the responsibility for choosing between a course and an aptitude test.
In its common position, the Council states that the host Member State should have this choice, albeit taking account of the migrant's preference, but the Committee on Legal Affairs decided unanimously - and quite rightly, in my opinion - that the choice should be left up to the migrant worker. There are two reasons for this: the administrative difficulties encountered by people wishing to obtain recognition of their qualifications in another Member State, which would be further compounded; and the need to keep a parallel between this directive and the general system of recognition of qualifications, already established through Directives 89/48 and 92/51, which give the migrant worker the right to choose between an adaptation period and an aptitude test.
Another important aspect is the procedure for updating Annex A of the directive.
I believe that the decision to abide by the codecision procedure already laid down for the body of the directive is correct, because aspects of a legal nature which would merit a legislative procedure can often sneak into annexes.
Finally, in complimenting Mrs Gebhardt on her work, I hope that the Council of Ministers will take on board the points raised by the European Parliament, and that the directive will be adopted very shortly in its final form.
Madam President, Commissioner, supplementing the recognition system for examination certificates is essential to increase the free movement of citizens and to improve standards of equality among them and safeguard their legal protection.
People seeking the recognition of qualifications should, however, be allowed to choose a method themselves by which they can show their qualifications: either through application tests or adaptation periods.
I too hope, as has been said already, that the Council will adopt this amendment by the rapporteur.
The result would thus match the existing practice in the horizontal directives.
The whole area of reciprocal recognition of examinations and qualifications is a vital one in the practical development of European cooperation.
The issue concerns not only the movement of skilled and professional people, but also the participation of students and young people in educational and exchange programmes and the wish for them to acquire experience alongside their studies, as well as developing a facility for European cooperation.
For example, the Socrates and Leonardo programmes, which are at present being reorganised, are good tools for reciprocal understanding and for the development of European awareness.
But at the same time, there has to be an awareness that the education programme must also include the recognition of examinations passed and qualifications gained in another Member State
One problem is still a lack of knowledge of the workings of the common system for recognition and the possibility of an appeal.
We have to develop ways of spreading information on working conditions and vacant posts through the Eures network.
Furthermore, the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training does much good work for the reciprocal recognition of professional qualifications.
The Commission should now look very closely into the experience gained from the application of the recognition system and the possible practical problems that exist, and embark on the further action needed, on the basis of a comparative study and the progress made.
Madam President, I have a good deal of sympathy for one remark made by the rapporteur, Mrs Gebhardt.
It may well be that the Chamber is not very full at this hour, yet for all its simplicity - and because of its simplicity - this directive really is extremely important.
And for three reasons: it is a tremendous simplification; it directly affects the people's Europe; and it relates more particularly to mobility of labour, which is so important in terms of enhancing the freedom of individual citizens, especially in an economic and monetary union.
It is vital in an economic and monetary union that labour should enjoy a high degree of mobility.
As we are only too well aware, in Europe, unlike the United States, we shall always have the factor of language diversity - and would certainly not wish to lose it - but at least we can and must minimise man-made obstacles, including all the difficulties which this directive seeks to overcome.
I am pleased that this House is able to approve the Council's common position almost in its entirety.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Gebhardt, and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for their constructive attitude.
The amendment granting the migrant the right to choose between an aptitude test and an adaptation course is acceptable to the Commission, as it is designed to facilitate freedom of movement for workers.
This directive is important because it not only simplifies Community law by merging 35 directives into a single text, but also extends recognition to qualifications for certain occupations which are not yet covered under the general system.
I would also recall that, very logically in my view, this proposal has received the support of Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as a contribution to combating unemployment, an area where it is so difficult to come up with effective, straightforward measures. Here we have one!
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Court of First Instance
The next item is the report (A4-0290/98) by Mr David W. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the draft Council Decision amending Council Decision 88/591/ECSC, EEC, Euratom establishing the Court of First Instance of the European Communities to enable it to give decisions in cases when constituted by a single Judge (6290/97 - C4-0218/97-97/0908(CNS)).
Madam President, the Court of First Instance was created in 1988 and first heard cases in 1989.
The reason for its creation was that the Court of Justice itself could no longer cope with its case load.
The reality is that the Court of First Instance only had to deal with 55 cases in 1989 and in 1997 it had 624.
Although 624 cases is a considerable number, it should have been possible for the Court of First Instance to deal with these efficiently.
Unfortunately, the backlog at the end of 1997 was 1 106 cases.
So we have a crisis.
Clearly the Court of First Instance cannot cope with its workload and delayed justice often impacts on the quality of justice.
We are anticipating a further increase in the workload of the Court of First Instance when appeals against the trademark decisions start to feed their way into the system.
The Court is naturally and rightly looking at ways to speed up the rate at which it handles cases.
In essence the proposal before us today is that certain types of cases, primarily those that raise non-complex legal issues, should be heard by a single judge instead of by chambers of three or five judges.
This item was very controversial and the vote ended in a dead heat the first time we voted on it, eight Members voting in favour, eight against and four abstaining.
Eventually we voted again and the committee agreed to support the proposal.
Briefly, the arguments against the proposal were that by moving towards the system of having a single judge, we would undermine the multinational nature of the Court.
Many members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights felt that it was important that different legal systems and different legal cultures were expressed in any judgment.
There was also a danger that a judgment would be identified with a nationality.
For example, an Italian judge who consistently gave judgments in a particular way against his colleagues might wrongly be impugned as having a national interest in his or her decision.
So it was felt that to be able to identify the nationality of a judge might start to weaken the confidence of the general public in the Court.
Other members felt this was a false argument, that we were part of a European-wide organisation and we should have confidence in any judge no matter what nationality.
In the end the committee voted in favour of this proposal because we had no other concrete proposals in front of us to improve the speed at which the Court of First Instance handles cases.
Although it would not save us much time as the Court claimed, we felt that having a single judge would save some time.
Perhaps 10 % more cases a year could be handled.
Neverthless, that leaves us with a significant problem and no one on the committee - whether for or against the proposal - believed this was the ultimate solution to the problems that the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance face in terms of handling their workload.
The committee has suggested that in the future we should be looking at the possibility of increasing the number of judges in the Court of First Instance, improving the staff structures in the Court, moving towards the use of specialised Chambers to speed up cases and even reconsidering at a future IGC the powers of the Court of First Instance. For example, should staff cases be a Court matter?
Would it not be better to find a tribunal to handle staff cases. These cases take up a considerable proportion of the Court's work.
So, although in the end we have decided to come out in favour of this proposal, it is with some reservations and it is with a view that this will not be the long-term solution to the Court of First Instance's problems.
Probably at an Intergovernmental Conference - but certainly at some sort of forum in the future - we are going to have to come back to this issue.
Madam President, the absence of Ms Mosiek-Urbahn this evening leaves me with the honourable but difficult task of presenting the majority position of the Group of the European People's Party in favour of the Council's proposal for a decision to enable the Court of First Instance to operate under a single judge, even though I personally have a number of reservations that I shall come back to later.
I would now like to make particular reference to the excellent speech given by the rapporteur, which is simply a culmination of the way in which this complicated and controversial report has been conducted. I should firstly like to highlight the fact that the vote by the Group of the European People's Party in favour of the proposal - and I do not doubt that the House will vote the same way tomorrow - is proof of its confidence in the Court and those who work there, given that our competence is limited to presenting a report on the amendment of Article 2(4) of the Council Decision.
In other words, neither Parliament nor indeed the Commission have any institutional competence to give an opinion on the amendment of its Rules of Procedure.
However, it is very difficult to assess the legislative proposal without considering the amendments to the Rules of Procedure, including future amendments, since they will determine the circumstances under which this body may be called to give a verdict in a specific case.
I would stress the fact that Parliament will tomorrow be signing a blank check whose content and possible expiry date will be the sole responsibility of the Court and the Council.
Ladies and gentlemen, there can be no more trust than that.
Let us now turn to one of the arguments outlined by the rapporteur.
The Group of the European People's Party welcomes, shares and encourages the concern over budgetary efficiency that this measure has generated since, according to the best estimates, the total number of cases handled will increase by 10 %, without any increase in costs.
A constant concern of this Parliament is to get the maximum return from every Community ecu that is spent, and in this respect we are pleased with the proposal.
The argument put forward by the distinguished judges is also relevant as it states that the biggest threat to the Court's legitimacy is the slowness inherent in the running of the body.
And as the rapporteur has already said: late justice is not justice at all.
The Court's legitimacy will be strengthened as the time taken to handle each case is reduced.
This is certainly true.
But justice still has to be administered if the Court is to be strengthened.
Lastly, a vote in favour of the proposal tomorrow will prove that the House has confidence in the ability and equanimity of the Court with a single judge.
And throughout its history there has certainly been no shortage of proof of the opportunities for the Presidents of the Chamber after they have fulfilled their role of assigning cases.
The vast majority of the Group of the European People's Party will therefore vote in favour of the proposal.
Allow me now, Madam President, to speak on behalf of those of us who have reservations about this solution, that we shall express tomorrow through a constructive disagreement with the majority.
An attempt to offset a critical situation - a situation that looks set to worsen with the imminent arrival of trademark litigation - by increasing the number of cases handled by between 5 % and 10 % is nothing more than a makeshift solution.
Because of the way the institutions operate, it will also prevent this issue from being dealt with decisively in the near future.
And, given the institutions' heavy workload, let us not forget that it will be difficult to 'come back' to the issue.
According to the judges already mentioned, 150 appeals at the end of the year from Alicante would lead to a serious crisis.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to be a prophet of doom, but a crisis appears to be the inevitable outcome of this solution.
However, the reservations held by those such as myself are not only of a practical and temporary nature, but also stem from concerns relating to substance.
The rapporteur spoke of pluralism.
It is true that cultural pluralism and the pluralism of legal heritage form one of the foundations of European legal integration.
And this is particularly true in terms of the Court of Justice.
It is not a matter of mistrusting anyone, less still the institution itself, but who would deny that a joint, plural ruling, at least at the present stage of the construction of Europe, would receive wider public acceptance?
And, Madam President, if justice comes from the people, then the people should perceive it as such.
Who would also deny the fact that since the times of Ancient Greece one of the functions of the collegiate has been to integrate into one body those that, in the end, must always speak with one voice, with the same voice, and with the coherent voice of all those who come from very different backgrounds and who have very different, diverse and disparate experiences?
And lastly, would it not be understandable, predictable even, that, in the face of collapse and the lack of solutions, the Court and the Council - since, as we have already said, neither Parliament nor the Commission would be anything more than powerless witnesses - might increase the number of cases in which a single judge could be used? This would undoubtedly constitute a saving but only in the very short term and it would not take into account the social cost - in addition to the economic cost - that it would inevitably also entail.
Madam President, this issue therefore needs careful consideration.
Further to the solutions put forward by the rapporteur, I would like to add that of the review of certain privileges for officials in relation to costs.
And finally Madam President, to paraphrase Churchill, justice is expensive, but if the European Union is to fight for one thing, it should in fact fight to build a Europe of law.
Because Europe will either have its own body of law or it will not.
Madam President, we really have an odd situation here: all three of us who have spoken so far, including myself, are actually against the proposal.
We also have a situation in which the legal services of all three institutions find, for somewhat different reasons, that the proposal is not desirable.
My impression is that the core of their argument relates, firstly, to confidence in Community law and, secondly, to the fact that the problems of effectiveness are not solved.
It is precisely this point, the effectiveness problems remaining unsolved, that previous speakers have been addressing.
The key issue for me is to uphold the principle of collegiality in decision-making.
Collegiality needs to be maintained when difficult decisions are to be taken.
I think we must now take a serious look at the situation as regards the defence of the Community justice system.
A congress was recently held here in France, a political congress, at which the Community legal system was ferociously attacked with claims that, for example, Community justice no longer works directly for citizens.
We see many attacks of this type on Community justice, which is nevertheless what holds our legal system and our EU together.
We must, however, look very seriously at the need to have courts that function in such a way that citizens can have confidence in them.
The essence of this is the collegiate system.
I therefore hope, Commissioner, like David Martin, that you will give serious attention to this question of the functioning of the courts in the forthcoming IGC, preferably as soon as possible in Vienna, but at least when the mini-IGC begins.
For my part, I will endeavour to ensure that it becomes an objective for the Finnish Presidency, since this is important in holding together a Community based on the rule of law, which the EU is.
I will merely say in conclusion that a large section of the Liberal Group will vote against the proposal.
Madam President, Commissioner, even as one who is well aware of the reservations about introducing single judge decisions by the Court of First Instance put forward during the discussion in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and has now heard them repeated, let me on behalf of my group plead for adoption of the Martin report, now that the Committee on Institutional Affairs has decided to do so too.
My reasons are these.
The initiative for the new ruling comes from the Court itself, which set out its views in some detail in the Legal Affairs Committee.
The new rules can only be applied after a Chamber decision, i.e. only on the basis of a Chamber decision.
Their scope is so carefully circumscribed that there is no risk of legal uncertainty.
These new rules on single judge decisions cannot be replaced by any other potential proposals with regard to the composition of the Court of Justice.
My other reason is, I believe, the most important one, and perhaps I can remind you of it even at this near-midnight hour: the European Union has to prepare itself for tasks on a quite different scale, not least with regard to its jurisdiction, in view of the forthcoming accession of the Central and Eastern European countries.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Court of First Instance is faced with an enormous workload.
The deepening of European integration and the simultaneous realisation by citizens of their rights under Community law are adding to this workload.
The effect on the average length of lawsuits has been inevitable: it has now reached 29.3 months.
This is a cause for concern, particularly in view of the litigation likely to result from the application of Regulation No 40/94 of 20 December 1993 on the Community trade mark.
The procedures and structures therefore need to be altered, so as to clear the backlog and enable the CFI to cope with the increase in litigation.
The proposal is to entrust a single judge with certain less important, repetitive cases, such as staff appeals.
There would, however, be no change to the principle whereby the CFI sits in chambers composed of three or five judges.
Referral of a case to a judge-rapporteur, as a single judge, would moreover be optional and confined to situations determined in the Rules of Procedure, with the decision taken in every case by the chamber comprising three judges.
The changes to the Rules of Procedure which have been submitted to the Council of Ministers provide for an important set of limitations and restrictions.
The resulting legal framework would have a beneficial effect on the length of proceedings, without making Community jurisdiction any less authoritative.
In any event, as proposed by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, the impact of this measure should be assessed three years after its entry into force.
Finally, in thanking Mr Martin for his valuable work, I would say that I am in favour of the proposal but look forward to seeing other more comprehensive and fundamental initiatives, which will of course require more detailed examination and more time.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the Commission expressed its view on the issue of the single judge in the opinion forwarded to you last June.
Reading the introduction to your draft resolution, on which I compliment Mr Martin, I note that our reactions to the proposal from the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice are broadly similar.
Indeed, how could we fail to sympathise with the concerns expressed by the ECJ and CFI? In a Community based on the rule of law, it is vital that judges should be able to perform their duties within a reasonable time-span; otherwise the citizens' backing for the building of Europe will be compromised.
Judges must therefore be given the means to work efficiently.
Nevertheless, the dilemma is this: is the single judge the most suitable means? If I am to be guided by the main argument put forward by the ECJ and CFI, in other words the huge increase in the volume of litigation concerning trade marks, I have grave doubts.
Indeed, according to the proposed criteria, delegation to a single judge will only be possible after a number of years, once an established body of case law already exists.
In that case, why lay down as of now the composition of the judiciary body for litigation the actual scale of which no one yet knows, especially as - I would stress - the huge increase anticipated in 1997 has so far failed to materialise, meaning that its complexity cannot yet be assessed?
Perhaps it might be wiser to think in terms of a chamber specialising in all fields of intellectual property, rather than a single judge system.
Referring to the statistics submitted by the Court, including its sentencing rate, I am convinced that what is urgently needed is something else.
As the Court itself acknowledges, the single judge will have only a marginal impact on efficiency, since such judges will only be able to handle cases considered to be minor ones, following an investigation of the case by the chamber.
Undoubtedly, and the Commission has taken this into account, when reading these statistics one is bound to conclude that no request for help, however modest, should be neglected. At the same time, however, is it reasonable to ease the CFI's workload to such a marginal extent by introducing, without further reflection, a reform as far-reaching as the introduction of a single judge into the Community's legal system?
The Commission has voiced many doubts in this regard.
Indeed, it strikes the Commission as extremely hazardous to seek to transfer to the Community's legal system solutions adopted in the Member States, in other words in homogeneous settings, as a means of coping with an increase in lawsuits.
Obviously, there are some minor cases, such as disputes concerning annual staff reports, or certain cases, such as those mentioned by the ECJ concerning milk quotas or customs agents, which basically only require the application of the principles of so-called 'pilot' rulings.
Such cases could undoubtedly be left to the discretion of a single judge, but the texts proposed by the ECJ and CFI go much further.
They relate to litigation over trade marks and plant varieties which, for the reasons already given, cannot as of now be regarded as suitable for consideration by a single judge.
The same applies to public service litigation in general: such litigation, which draws its solutions from various general rules and principles of the Community's legal order, cannot in the Commission's view be regarded as minor.
Finally, appeals in cases concerning the non-contractual liability of the Community are involved here, as are all manner of other cases which, on the strength of somewhat vague and subjective criteria, would be judged by the chamber and the judge-rapporteur to be not particularly complex.
In the Commission's view, the proposed system should under no circumstances be approved in its present form.
In any event, and irrespective of any changes which might be made to the proposal from the ECJ and CFI, the Commission believes that it is premature to adopt, without further reflection, the principle of the single judge as a normal operating method of the Court of First Instance in the future.
And this is precisely the point here.
Indeed, once the principle of the single judge has been adopted, and in the absence of any other reform of the CFI, the CFI will inevitably be tempted to extend the competence of the single judge, simply by modifying its Rules of Procedure, in order to cope with its burden of work.
Under these circumstances, the Commission considers that the most urgent issue is not so much that of the single judge, but of conducting a thorough reform of the Community legal system as a whole.
The Court of Justice should not forget that it too is experiencing certain difficulties, and that it will soon be faced with competences deriving from the Amsterdam Treaty, particularly in the field of asylum and immigration, fields which by their very nature lend themselves to a fair number of disputes.
The Commission therefore believes that it was imperative to appoint a group of wise persons to launch a joint process of reflection with the ECJ as soon as possible, in order to determine what reforms are needed prior to the forthcoming enlargement.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 11.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I wish to lodge a complaint regarding the fact that, for some time now, the night sittings - such as that on Tuesday - have not been covered in the press reports. In my opinion, we cannot discriminate against individual policy areas.
Please be so good as to find out why this is happening.
Thank you, Mr Stockmann.
We will look into that for you.
Mr President, I should like to raise a point which I have already raised at previous Strasbourg sittings.
On 7 April, I tabled a written question to the President of Parliament, in other words to the Chair, concerning the supply of furniture for the bars and restaurants of the Leopold building.
I tabled this question on 7 April. That is nearly six months ago, Mr President, and I have still not received an answer.
The question has been put to you, and and I wonder why I have not received an answer.
I would repeat that I have raised this on several previous occasions.
Thank you, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel.
We are preparing the reply and I hope you will receive it very shortly.
But I will do my best to ensure that the presidency sends it to you as soon as possible.
(The Minutes were approved)
5th framework programme
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0324/98), on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0419/98-97/0309(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision concerning the rules for the participation of undertakings, research centres and universities and for the dissemination of research results for the implementation of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Community (1998-2000) (Rapporteur: Mr Marset Campos).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at this second reading I would like to thank the efforts of the Commission and the Council in accepting a considerable number of the suggestions put forward by our Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
In this respect, I should like to point out that the two debates that took place in committee were marked by unanimity and a common desire to accept the proposals put forward by the Commission through increased effort.
I would like to briefly outline the main issues that our committee thought should be retained at second reading so that they can be taken into consideration by the Commission and the Council.
The first issue relates to the nature of innovation in scientific research.
Our colleague Mr van Velzen is quite right to stress that in some innovative projects an exception may be made to the rule that an enterprise filing a request must have been operational for less than a year, and that those involved must guarantee the necessary scientific abilities as a group filing a request.
Another of our suggestions in relation to the advance financing period follows similar lines in that, for the same reason I mentioned earlier, highly innovative projects should not receive such funding for more than six months.
And finally, I shall mention the last point in relation to this issue of the importance of scientific innovation.
We are putting forward a proposal that states that in a rapidly changing market in terms of innovation, highly innovative projects may be altered while in progress.
We believe that this is important for certain research sectors so that they can increase their competitiveness.
We are also putting forward another proposal aimed at guaranteeing the European Union's right to the knowledge resulting from work carried out where the cost borne by the Community is higher than 50 %, and not when it is below this figure.
In addition, we are anxious to improve access to the dissemination and assessment of the results obtained, and to facilitate electronic communication through methods that currently exist, from the Internet to other forms that are continuous, efficient, flexible and fast.
And here we must reiterate our constant request that all European Union languages be used.
Finally, another basic question remains at this second reading, which arises as a result of the growing awareness in our Community of potential fraudulent activity.
Such awareness is understandable within the European Union and it is therefore important to have this opportunity to put forward suggestions aimed at preventing it from occurring.
We have seen this happen recently in some of the decisions made by this very House in relation to some highly sensitive issues, such as humanitarian programmes.
In addition, for some time now the committee has been receiving complaints from both university departments and companies concerning possible discrimination and flaws in respect of equal conditions.
And I would like to refer to the fact that, with the implementation of the fifth framework programme, we can introduce amendments that will detect possible irregularities and thus take the appropriate measures that are necessary to eradicate them.
The Commission's response to this suggestion surprises us because it says that we lack the legal framework to enable such decisions to be taken.
Our support for this proposal is based on a ruling by the European Court of Justice that does, in fact, make this possible.
I believe that when it comes to guaranteeing public funds and the interests of the Union, Regulation No 2988/95 provides for this.
So we do not understand its negative response when it is evident that these issues need greater attention.
Mr President, we are therefore proposing these measures in the hope that the Commission and the Council will accept them and that they will be voted for in this House.
Mr President, I believe that the rapporteur clearly explained the amendments approved in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and I shall therefore not go over them again.
I would, however, like to stress the fact that, as this is a second reading, it would perhaps be worth refreshing our memories as to what the dissemination of results implies.
We have often spoken about ways in which we can link scientific research and social and economic cohesion.
This is an essential step towards ensuring that research results do not remain in captive markets or limited to those areas that carry out the research, but that they can benefit initially the entire industrial sector, and then the research sector in general.
We have often tended to repeat research activities and to invent the wheel far too many times in various research projects.
I believe that the dissemination of results is of vital importance to enable a substantial section of the research and business sectors to benefit from European Union investments, and not only in the areas where the research has been carried out but throughout the European economy.
And in relation to the fifth framework programme, I have to say that it is precisely those areas that have an impact on the dissemination of results that are scarcely accepted and considered from a budgetary point of view.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to thank the rapporteur for the exceptionally constructive and enjoyable manner in which we were able to cooperate.
We are now at second reading, and when you look at the document you find we have the same amendments as were submitted at first reading.
I am rather disappointed at this, as I have the feeling that the discussion between Parliament and the Commissioner fell on deaf ears somewhat.
In my view, Parliament proposed some excellent amendments, but the Commissioner ultimately decided to ignore them completely as her letter was already ready when we discussed them in Brussels and she simply failed to take them into account.
I therefore sincerely hope that now at second reading we will receive more support from the Commissioner.
In this instance, I should like to ask Commissioner Papoutsis if he can perhaps convey a different message than Mrs Cresson did at first reading.
It is of course Articles 4, 8, 10 and 12 which are at issue here.
I should simply like to say that the research contracts under the fifth framework programme and the dissemination of research results are at least as important as the content of the fifth framework programme itself.
If these contracts are not correctly drawn up, then we could find ourselves involved in a lot of discussion about money, as this is what is ultimately at stake.
It is essential to realise that if you want rapid innovation - and that is what we want to promote, since it is that which creates employment - then you cannot have bureaucracy and you must make provision in advance for the nature of rapid innovations.
This also means flexibility in the regulations, with which a number of our amendments are concerned.
The second point is the following. We have concluded, notably following the research undertaken by this House in connection with ESPRIT and the telecommunications and applications programmes, that there is room for a great deal of improvement in the area of evaluation.
One of the key points is that the contract does not state what evaluation output criteria a project must satisfy.
If this is not laid down in advance, it is difficult to subsequently determine the results of such a project.
The contract also fails to include requirements concerning the dissemination of a project's results.
In this respect, much greater use must also be made of electronic communication.
I believe that if we include a number of proposals of this kind in the contracts for the fifth framework programme it will prove all the more effective and efficient.
This is why I hope that this House will once again approve these proposals and that the Commissioner will finally adopt them.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group supports the initiative of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy to submit for second reading all Parliament's amendments which were not accepted by the Council.
This is because the amendments in Mr Marset Campos's report are excellent, as is the report itself.
I therefore regret the arrogance shown by Mrs Cresson on this matter.
My group would like to underline two particular points.
First of all, Amendment No 5 which states that the research contracts must lay down how the research results obtained must be disseminated and implemented.
In addition, the contract must stipulate the output criteria.
My group fully supports this amendment, and I will shortly be returning to this point myself in my report on innovation in SMEs.
I will also be returning to the matters which Mr van Velzen has just mentioned.
Ladies and gentlemen, research under the fifth framework programme must not be an end in itself.
Research without making use of the results and thus without follow-up of implementation is of no purpose.
The provisions of Amendment No 5 can solve this problem.
Research must lead to innovation, by which I mean product innovation, because in that case European research strengthens our industry's ability to compete and this in turn creates employment.
My second point, ladies and gentlemen, concerns adequate financial management.
Research projects must be subject to control and measures to combat fraud. We owe this to European taxpayers.
This applies to contracts and it also applies to the Commission.
The Commission is repeatedly a poor payer when it comes to research projects.
Small businesses are particularly hurt by this.
My group therefore hopes that the directive approved last month with the aim of tackling this problem of late payments in the Union will also stimulate the Commission to pay more promptly.
Mr President, first of all I wish to congratulate Mr Marset Campos and the whole committee on an excellent decision.
I think the rapporteur made exactly the right decision in repeating his views as expressed at first reading.
The views of the committee were well reasoned from the start.
None of the aims have vanished into thin air, but are well-founded, concrete and serious.
I think it is most odd that Council has not been able to approve them.
For example, the agreement procedures that are involved in highly innovative projects must be very flexible, as the rapporteur states.
The research market changes very quickly and the results of research must also be put to use very quickly.
This requires flexibility in the agreement procedure.
I also think that the view on combating fraud is particularly important.
It should be an aspect of all financial aid that the EU makes available, including that given to research, obviously.
Fraud prevention should also be common to, and standard in, all Union activity and should also be clearly and tightly regulated to a sufficient extent across the board.
Although I imagine that fraud is rarer in the field of research than elsewhere, there must be vigilance in this area too.
It is also a matter of the trust of our citizens, however - trust in how the EU works and how funds are used there.
Mr President, Europe is clearly lagging behind in research and technological development. The research effort is extremely patchy, the link between research and innovation is inadequate, coordination between the various individuals involved presents problems, the rules about disseminating research results are weak, and investment is too limited.
Quite obviously, in the current era of globalization, our backwardness gives cause for concern to say the least.
So there is a vital need to promote innovation and coordinate it with various specific programmes involving businesses, research centres and universities more closely, thus ensuring consistency and continuity of methods and synergies favouring innovation.
There is a clear need for greater transparency and clear rules, and a simple horizontal framework needs to be created to promote scientific progress.
Taking account of the responsibilities involved in carrying out the specific programmes, this should include measures to promote innovation and ensure the transfer of technologies, it should incorporate and guarantee effective coordination with the activities envisaged by the specific programmes, and it should facilitate the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
They must be assured of positive exchanges of experience, dissemination of results and transfer of technology by improving existing laws, and especially by using liaison and innovation centres intensively, and rationalising data bank systems.
The development of human potential needs to be highlighted in the context of innovation, with incentives provided for training, mobility and researcher and scientist exchanges, in particular for SMEs, and contacts between the academic, scientific and industrial communities need to be strengthened.
Finally, the downward trend in funding and the impact this has on basic research are a danger signal for the future of the framework programme for research, and particularly threaten to accentuate the brain-drain in European researchers. That really must be avoided.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank the rapporteur for his cooperation and also for completing the report early enough to allow it to be used in the areas of the consultations on the fifth framework programme specifically relating to small and medium-sized companies.
It is small and medium-sized enterprises which are very often highly innovative and create the jobs that we need in order to cope with the difficulties experienced in Europe today.
Because they are highly innovative but also relatively small, they have greater difficulty in gaining access to European programmes than large companies.
For this reason I would once again urge the Commission to continue the measures it has already introduced in order to facilitate access: simplifying administrative procedures, shortening the duration of the processes involved and, in particular, providing reasons for rejection, which is simply a question of courtesy.
In addition, I would like to raise a point which is covered in one of the amendments: there have to be controls where taxpayers' money is being spent, but this does not mean that each applicant should automatically be treated as a potential criminal, which sometimes happens, or at least this impression is sometimes given.
Finally, I would urge that we should use a flexible definition of the term SME, as in the framework programme.
Of course, we must agree on limits, but above and below these limits there must be room for a degree of flexibility which can be applied without having to debate it at length.
Mr President, the application process for research projects is a difficult and awkward one, so it has to be made easier and less cumbersome in order that SMEs are also better able to participate.
A whole new profession has now emerged, solely engaged in the drafting of applications.
In addition, negative decisions and the reasons for them have to be submitted in writing.
The importance of information technology in communications between the different parties involved in projects cannot be emphasised enough.
I hope that Council will consider Parliament's request, as information technology can also help to reduce red tape and the rigidity that exists in administration.
In this way, there will be sufficiently more resources for researchers to carry out their research work.
We have to make rules in the fight against fraud so as to be able to intervene quickly and effectively when there are problems.
Investigators in such cases must have all possible resources to intervene, and we must not have a situation, such as that publicised here recently, where not all the documents are to hand.
There has to be more openness, therefore, but not at the cost of the protection of information.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, as this is a very important part of the whole fifth framework programme, which we will hopefully be implementing on schedule.
Mr President, in the application of Community science and research policy, the aspects of participation and dissemination are of central importance for countries such as Portugal.
I had the opportunity to speak at greater length about the Marset Campos report at first reading.
Therefore, I will now confine myself to the single matter of SMEs.
In the Council, Portugal, together indeed with the majority of Parliament, defended the importance of maintaining the definition of SMEs at the level of 500 workers.
This is the only way in which to guarantee the participation of the most innovative and dynamic companies in research projects in smaller countries.
The Council did not agree, and in its common position of last June it adhered strictly to the definition of SMEs contained in the 1996 recommendation at a level of 250 workers.
Having lost that battle, we must now win the war.
It is the war of the SMEs.
And the question is an eminently political one, concerning the role that must be given to SMEs in the execution of the framework programme and its individual programmes.
The possibility of strengthening the Europe's science sector and its capacity for innovation and flexibility depend on our emerging victorious from this war.
In this matter, small continues to be beautiful.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me first thank the European Parliament and especially the rapporteur, Mr Marset Campos, for the work accomplished during consideration of the Council's common position at second reading.
In part, this common position reflects the position Parliament expressed at first reading, and which helps to make the rules of participation and dissemination clearer and easier to understand.
Thus today we have a text which takes into account both the experience gained from past framework programmes and the objectives of the fifth framework programme.
The Commission understands Parliament's concerns, which are embodied in the amendments tabled at second reading.
Despite that, for the reasons given at first reading, the Commission cannot accept them.
In fact, some amendments either tend to introduce rules of day-to-day practice into texts of principle which are required to form the framework within which the whole of research policy is to operate - and I refer here to Amendments Nos 7 and 10 - or are already covered by existing provisions, such as Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 11.
The Commission also considers that for other amendments, such as Amendments Nos 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9, the rules of participation and dissemination do not constitute the appropriate legal instrument to make them acceptable.
However, more especially as regards combating fraud, the Commission intends to make an early start on the work which should eventually lead to the publication of a sectoral regulatory measure relating to research in particular, in accordance with the provisions of the Council regulation on the protection of the Community's financial interests.
To sum up, the Commission takes the view that the Community should have proprietary rights over results stemming from measures whose cost it has borne in full, as mentioned for example in Amendment No 6.
The rules of participation and dissemination are an essential phase in the context of the next framework programme's implementation.
For the moment, the Commission's aim is to set the fifth framework programme in motion at a rapid rate.
It also aims to ensure the continuation of research activity in the Community.
Of course, I agree with you completely that access by SMEs to research and technology programmes should be facilitated.
However, the fifth framework programme is clearly orientated towards such enterprises.
As regards the definition of SMEs, there is indeed a common position from the Council.
However, the Commission has undertaken to look further into the matter so that we can find the best possible solution and definition, in order to ensure the maximum possible participation by SMEs in research and technology programmes.
We rely on you to help us realise that aim and achieve the overall approval of the framework programme, which will make available the means we need to face the challenges to which it will have to respond.
Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for your attention and for the cooperation we have enjoyed so far, both on behalf of the Commission and in particular on behalf of my colleague, Mrs Edith Cresson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
Energy sector - ETAP - SURE - Solid fuels - SYNERGY
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0340/98 by Mr W.G. van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual framework programme for actions in the energy sector (1998-2002) and connected measures (COM(97)0550 - C4-0070/98-97/0302(CNS)); -A4-0335/98 by Mr W.G. van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual programme of studies, analyses, forecasts and other related work in the energy sector (1998-2002) (ETAP programme) (COM(98)0423 - C4-0487/98-98/0233(CNS)); -A4-0323/98 by Mr W.G. van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual programme (1998-2002) of actions in the nuclear sector, relating to the safe transport of radioactive materials and to safeguards and industrial cooperation to promote certain aspects of the safety of nuclear installations in countries currently participating in the TACIS programme (SURE programme) (COM(98)0423 - C4-0488/98-98/0234(CNS)); -A4-0339/98 by Mr Adam, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a multiannual programme of technological actions promoting the clean and efficient use of solid fuels (1998-2002) (COM(97)0550 - C4-0074/98-97/0372(CNS)); -A4-0322/98 by Mr Soulier, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation adopting a multiannual programme to promote international cooperation in the energy sector (SYNERGY programme) (1998-2002) (COM(97)0550 - C4-0073/98-97/0369(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate the Commissioner on the publication of this framework programme.
It is an exceptionally important initiative, since it is in this way that we can incorporate all the energy programmes within a single framework.
I also believe that it is necessary in order to prevent overlapping and simply to make the energy framework programme more transparent.
When you have small programmes for every possible field, it is of course very difficult to gain an overall view of what exists in the various programmes and what the difference is between SAVE, Altener and ENERGY for example.
I believe that this energy framework programme satisfies a major desire on the part of the Council and the European Parliament.
An energy framework programme naturally has a great many consequences.
It therefore requires considerable thought.
First of all, it means that horizontal coordination within DG XVII must be increased in order to ensure that programmes are coherent, but secondly - and in fact we believe this to be even more important - it means that there will be horizontal coordination between the DGs.
I will give you two examples to illustrate why this is so important.
We all know that after Kyoto savings are going to have to be made in the energy sector.
Energy policy will play a crucial role in this.
Energy policy must not become a part of environment policy, since in that case the two other objectives of energy policy, namely security of supply and price competition, will be made subordinate to the environment objective and of course we do not want that.
But it is of course clear that a great deal must be done in this field.
I therefore believe that we must ensure that energy policy plays a more prominent role and that subsequently a contribution can also be made to achieving the Kyoto objectives.
The second example is of course what is taking place at the moment in Central and Eastern Europe.
Enlargement is on the way.
Yet there is no acquis communautaire , neither in the energy field nor in the nuclear field.
This also means that the energy sector must play an important role in this respect.
It is therefore important for Commissioner Papoutsis to have an instrument available, in relation to his colleague Mr van den Broek of DG I A, in order to also impose horizontal coordination.
I believe this is to be welcomed, and I therefore also hope that the Commissioner makes use of the new instrument and am also pleased that there is already talk of coordination and discussion between the DGs under Director-General Benavides.
I believe this is the right approach.
The legal bases were of course necessary for the two other smaller programmes: ETAP and SURE.
ETAP is clearly very important as it provides the information needed in order to implement a long-term energy policy.
In connection with the general energy framework programme, we have become rather more ambitious by calling for more attention to be paid to a couple of points: first of all, to combined heat and power and, secondly, to implementing the gas and electricity directive, where it is important to monitor the situation.
Amendment No 9, point 1g is very important.
We therefore hope that the Commission will report regularly to us on this aspect of the implementation of the gas and electricity directive, because we believe this to be of key importance.
The fourth paragraph of Amendment No 9 is also very important, as this can permit further horizontal coordination, not only to include the European Union but also other bodies, such as the European Investment Bank, which could implement a great many projects. A certain form of control from the European Union is exceptionally important in this area.
Mr President, nuclear energy commands our constant attention.
Under the SURE programme we have made the greatest possible efforts to ensure the highest possible safety standards.
But I hope that the coalition we now have between the SPD and the Greens in Germany will not result in an abandoning of the position previously taken on nuclear energy by the Socialist Group.
That would be to engage in national coalition politics, and we must not use the European Parliament for that purpose.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to speak as part of the consultation procedure on a multiannual programme called SYNERGY, which is aimed at promoting international cooperation in the energy sector.
We have three main objectives here: to help third countries to define, formulate and implement energy policies, to promote industrial cooperation on energy between our Union and third countries, and to coordinate the European Union's external activities in the field of energy.
The programme is already under way.
Moreover, the way in which the Commission is carrying out this task is quite remarkable, Commissioner.
Current measures include providing advice and training on energy, analysing forecasts, establishing dialogue, encouraging the exchange of information, improving frameworks for cooperation and training people.
However, let us be clear about one thing: SYNERGY is not the type of programme that would involve building a power station, for example, or that would enable us to reform an entire gas sector.
No, this is a small programme: it only has ECU 36.4 million available over five years, which means that it would be very limited if it was aimed at specific schemes.
The objective is, in fact, to take part in general discussions and prospective analysis, and to enable some projects to get off the ground, before they are taken over by large programmes such as PHARE, TACIS or MEDA, and we have expressed the wish to have this complementarity clarified.
What defines the specific character of the programme, to which we are very committed, is that it constitutes a forum for exchange and a source of experience and knowledge that helps third countries to control their production and consumption of energy.
I would just like to highlight two or three points.
We know today that energy consumption in the world is constantly increasing.
I have heard what has been said on the television about the hole in the ozone layer, which is constantly growing.
We must not let go of our concerns about energy; we must keep them in mind.
This increase in energy consumption is going to continue, certainly at a moderate pace in the OECD countries, but more rapidly in Asia and in Latin America, and, to a slightly lesser extent, in the Mediterranean basin.
Secondly, it is essential that we work with others, because our resources are not inexhaustible and Europeans are in a position of energy dependency, which affects their security.
It is obvious that helping South America or Asia to draw up more reasonable energy policies that are more environmentally friendly can only be beneficial to the planet as a whole, and this directly concerns our security.
My last point is that SYNERGY is not an entirely new programme.
We have had a legal basis since 1995, and the funds for the programme are tending to decrease, despite the fact that, as I said, SYNERGY is essential in terms of international cooperation, in talking to others, and note that I did not say 'in talking to foreigners'.
This is why I have asked in an amendment that the contribution to SYNERGY be fixed at 18 % of the total amount earmarked for the Framework Programme for Energy, as otherwise funds could be cut further.
In conclusion, I would say that this programme is obviously a small one, but it has proved itself.
With limited means it has managed to achieve some interesting goals that have real implications.
It may appear less important when compared to other big programmes such as Save and Altener, the two other major components of the Framework Programme for Energy, but that would be forgetting that SYNERGY alone is responsible for the external aspects of energy policy.
We would therefore be ill-advised and lacking in foresight to deprive ourselves of such an instrument for international cooperation.
Mr President, when we talk about energy, we are talking about a way of life and a policy of security.
Energy consumption is growing, as has been pointed out already, but non-renewable energy resources are not being renewed.
As a result, people living in industrialised countries may be in for a shock when it comes to their way of life.
Furthermore, it has to be seen than dependence on imports is increasing.
More and more energy is being imported from countries outside the EU area.
This is because traditional energy resources are cheap.
Fossil fuels are cheap - I would say too cheap, because there is no incentive to alter the basis of energy production.
By the year 2020, the EU area's dependence on oil importation will have increased to a figure of 90 %, and the figures for coal and gas will be 80 % and 70 % respectively.
We now have to ask ourselves if this is a desirable state of affairs to be in.
Is this our aim? If we do not want this kind of dependency on imports, we shall have to implement urgent measures for energy production in the EU area.
Those regions from which we import energy are often unstable.
Oil comes mainly from the Middle East, and gas from Russia.
If nothing is done, there will be no alternative but to rely on production in these regions.
Now the Commission has produced a common framework programme for the various energy programmes.
It is a good legal basis for budgetary spending in the EU.
But we really have to start from the notion that the EU ought to be using more resources for these sub-programmes, because if nothing is done, we shall be strategically dependent on imports from unstable countries.
We also have other restrictions on the use of energy, which have to be taken into consideration and to which EU countries are committed.
We have the Kyoto agreement, which is aimed at preventing climatic change.
If nothing is done, the EU will not embrace the aims spelt out in that agreement.
Member States have not yet embarked on measures to prevent carbon dioxide emissions.
The framework programme presents measures connected with pollution in an unsatisfactory way, and in particular pays too little attention to the fact that energy-saving schemes can help us try and have an impact on people's lives.
The matter was explained in a more satisfactory way in a Commission statement on the effect of Kyoto on traffic, and there are radical demands for a change in people's lifestyles that should be taken into account in other Union energy programmes.
Moreover, in the framework programme the question of taxation is hardly touched on.
Taxation is an indirect way of influencing energy-saving schemes and it is perhaps the most effective means of all, since other technological saving schemes may be noticed in the market, but the price in the consumer's mind is the decisive factor, and the price can be influenced by saving energy.
As for individual programmes, the CARNOT programme for the improvement of energy efficiency is really very modest and is founded mainly on an exchange of information.
It should be considered whether it is generally worth going ahead with such small-scale programmes, which receive so few resources.
I suggest that when the Commission reports back for the first time on the implementation of this programme, the whole thing should be reconsidered.
As for the alternatives, they are also mentioned in the framework programme.
The most important of them is Altener, which we will return to in the future, though personally I think it is going to be very hard to achieve a 12 % share for renewables in total energy production, if nothing is done.
Energy consumption is growing, then; dependence on imports is increasing, and the aims of the Kyoto agreement and the proposed objective in Altener for a 12 % share for renewable energy sources will not be achieved in this way.
With regard to this, I hope that Mr Papoutsis will change his rhetoric at our meeting on Tuesday, endeavouring to foster, as he does so, a spirit of hope and belief in these objectives.
It would be better if the Commission were to realise that these objectives will not be met.
Let us acknowledge the facts, including the fact that Member States are not really committed to these objectives at all.
Mr President, I agree almost one hundred per cent with what Mr Seppänen said.
I particularly liked his reference to the dangers of increased dependence on imports, which the Commission has also referred to on several occasions.
In this context, I would say that, when the euro is in place, any sudden rise in energy prices would represent a risk not only for energy policy but also for monetary policy.
We do not have time to debate this now, but I believe that it is clear.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs, Messrs van Velzen, Adam and Soulier, for these three excellent reports.
I would also like to thank the Commission for presenting this logical multiannual programme for the energy sector; as we have already said, it creates greater transparency and ties together various other programmes.
I am also very pleased that the question of safeguards, in other words the monitoring of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, has now been mentioned expressly within a programme.
Even if it does not involve much money, it is nevertheless a programme which is capable of improving our safety significantly.
One thing I would criticise - and this is not the fault of the Commission but that of the legal bases - is that we have a plethora of different articles which are enough to confuse the ordinary observer.
One programme is based on Article 35, another on Article 130s and a third on an article of the Euratom Treaty.
That is just how things are.
I repeat that I am not blaming the Commission but the European Union, which today has still not managed to bring energy issues together into one chapter, as is the case for the European networks, for example, and still has not allowed the European Parliament full co-decision rights.
If we are honest, all we do is to sit here and deliver opinions.
We are consulted, but no one really has to listen to what we say here.
Consultation means that you can give your opinion, which is then translated into eleven languages and finally thrown in the bin.
I know that the Commission takes what we say very seriously, but it is not obliged to do so.
This is unsatisfactory, and I would like at this point to emphasise once again that it is highly important for energy policy to be given its own legal basis and for Parliament to have full co-decision rights..
It has already been said that the cost of this programme is relatively low.
I have calculated it roughly.
Let us suppose that approximately ECU 150 billion is spent on energy investment per year in the European Union.
If the figure I have estimated is correct, this programme constitutes 0.03 % of total investment in energy.
It is not a huge amount, but we must be clear about what we can achieve with it.
At this point I would therefore like to propose that we concern ourselves not only with financial programmes but also with financial engineering.
I cannot think of any better term for this than the English one.
This involves gaining banks as partners in energy policy so that they can fund projects which border on being economically viable, while the particularly risky projects are financed from public funds.
I would urge the Commission and also Parliament's Committee on Budgets to attach greater importance to this issue.
Perhaps we can develop techniques - some are already available - to promote energy investment within the European Union.
I would like to thank the Commission once again for bringing the various programmes together, and I would also like to thank the rapporteurs once again; I hope we will continue to work on these issues in future.
Mr President, Commissioner, I, too, would like to thank the three rapporteurs for their work on a programme that, although modest in financial terms, is of the utmost importance.
We all know why energy is not featured in the Treaty. However, Commissioner, the most important economic issue is in your hands, in your Directorate-General XVII.
Without energy, there is no quality of life whatsoever; without energy, there is no production.
In fact, if we take into account the world's commercial activities, the leading trade is the oil trade.
Out of the 10 largest companies in the world, more than half are energy companies. It was time for DG XVII to initiate work, work that constitutes a beginning, an embryo, but that needs to go much further.
And I would like to say, Commissioner, that more needs to be done than is currently feasible and you therefore have many tasks pending.
All environmental problems, or at least 80 % of the major problems, are in some way linked to energy.
And I think that DG XVII is somewhat shortsighted in its approach.
You need to examine the possible solutions and this is why I think the ETAP programme is so important.
We have liberalised some of the markets - electricity and gas - but you need to look at the direction in which we are heading.
To some extent, the security of our supplies is at stake, although there are now very cheap resources, as is our energy efficiency, as has already been pointed out; the intensity of Europe's energy use is extremely high.
We must use less energy in our production processes, and you have the task of working for everyone - and this House will also endeavour, through its Committee on Budgets - to ensure that more economic resources are allocated.
Now I should like to turn to the issue of coal, which also needs careful consideration.
Europe is lacking resources.
Apart from the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands to some extent, because it has gas, and, of course, Norway, the other countries have scant resources.
Spain's external dependency is around 70 %, and whatever little there is - be it good or bad -, we have to use.
This is why, in my opinion, the CARNOT programme is so important.
With enlargement, countries that will consume large amounts of coal are going to join.
Therefore, Commissioner, the issue of coal needs to be examined in depth, especially since we are continuing to use it: 50 % of the electricity produced in the world is generated by coal.
In the United States, this figure is higher and China's consumption is going to grow considerably, as is India's.
We need clean fuel but, above all, we need fuel that is efficient.
And, in fact, environmental issues, which are so closely linked to energy, should be the subject of unofficial declarations and tackled through technology.
I am convinced that not only the fifth framework programme - I am rapporteur for the specific programme entitled 'Energy and the Environment' -, but all of the energy-related programmes, together with the means you will have at your disposal in the future, will help solve these problems.
In any case, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs and the Commission - DG XVII - on their work.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to express my pleasure at Commissioner Papoutsis's proposal to incorporate all the energy programmes within a single framework programme.
My group has stressed the need for this on many occasions and we welcome this initiative, even if it has come rather late.
I would also of course like to congratulate all this morning's rapporteurs on their excellent reports.
A single framework programme covering all energy measures has the advantage of allowing energy measures to respect a clear strategy.
This prevents overlapping between programmes.
It also permits a better use of limited budgets.
My group regrets that the Council regularly allocates insufficient financial resources to programmes aimed at energy efficiency and the promotion of sustainable energy.
This conflicts with the Union's undertakings at Kyoto.
It will not be possible to achieve the Kyoto objectives without new resources for research into new energy technologies.
Furthermore, Agenda 2000 identifies SAVE and Altener as priority programmes.
But what does the Commission mean by this, because the Council has drastically reduced the budget for these programmes? What are the priorities?
It is thus to be hoped that the approaching Union enlargement will cause the Union to reflect, because it is precisely investments in Central and Eastern Europe which prove doubly profitable.
Ladies and gentlemen, the future energy situation of Europe and the world is being principally determined by the environment issue.
The Liberal Group has been arguing for an integrated approach to energy and the environment for many years.
My group believes that a single framework programme for energy and environment policy under the joint name of 'sustainable development' must be the Commission's next step.
Mr President, the current framework programme on energy makes it strikingly clear once again what an obstacle it is that we do not have a separate chapter on energy.
The current framework programme on energy is by no means coherent, with a variety of legal bases, as Mr Linkohr already mentioned.
Funding is at laughably low levels and is not even worth discussing.
Under these circumstances it is impossible for us to fulfil our Kyoto commitments; the current situation will not provide a stimulus for the necessary innovations, nor will it allow us to become one jot less dependent on imported energy.
What is even more astonishing is the very awkward attempt in the form of the SURE programme to edge nuclear energy into the normal energy sector. It is a Euratom matter, so there is nothing more to be said.
It covers only safeguards and the transport of radioactive materials, and while safeguards are certainly very important, they have nothing to do with this issue.
As far as the transport of radioactive materials is concerned, what is lacking in the Commission proposal is, firstly, a uniform and compulsory notification system.
We do not have this at all, as we saw with the scandals in my country in the spring, although they did result in all transport of radioactive materials being banned since then.
Then we need to agree on the requirements to be met by containers used to transport radioactive materials.
It is not acceptable that only computer simulations should be used, as has recently been the trend.
Incidentally, this is banned in America.
Here I have to tell Mr van Velzen, who thought that we were suddenly in favour of animal experimentation, that this is nonsense!
But we do have vertical-shock tests and fire tests, and so on.
Currently, in the EU, very different containers are used for rail transport, and most of these should be banned as they no longer meet requirements.
Yet this would mean, firstly, that we would have to have an energy framework programme with substantial funds and uniform legal bases behind it, instead of organising a little bit here and a little bit there, and, secondly, that we would, of course, have to deal with every aspect of nuclear energy.
We finally need to get to grips with the issue of nuclear waste disposal, which will involve spending a great deal of money.
What will we do with existing nuclear waste? It is only ever moved from one country to another, and no one knows where it goes.
Ideas in this area include transmutation techniques and vitrification.
We should invest our efforts and our funds in this; it is not sufficient to examine this issue only very briefly in the context of the transport and energy sector.
These are the tasks for the future, but they do not feature in the proposals under discussion.
I regret this very much.
I recognise the Commission's good intentions, but they fail to put us on the right track.
Mr President, in creating or attempting to create an energy policy I totally agree with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz that we must have this one coordinated legal base and - I would suggest - one Commissioner to deal with it.
That would make a lot of sense.
We are told that the result of liberalization would be cheaper fuel.
However, I am sceptical about this being achieved in my own Member State under the current government.
Dependence on imports is phenomenal and will be even more so by the year 2020.
One speaker mentioned a figure of 70 % dependence for energy as a whole: oil 90 %; coal 80 %; gas 40 %.
Another speaker mentioned the fact that we would have to rely on imports from very unstable countries: this must worry us.
In relation to renewables, there are many possibilities but very little money is available and very little is being done.
In the UK the power of the nuclear lobby effectively stopped an excellent programme of hydro-electricity.
The Hydro-Electricity Board owned lots of land for more programmes but this was ended.
The nuclear lobby was too strong.
Then there was a marvellous programme from Professor Salter of Edinburgh University.
He invented something called Salter's Duck, a cheap way of producing wave energy.
My part of the world is entirely suitable for this, as it is for wind energy which has been very little developed - indeed, we could take a leaf out of Denmark's book with regard to its development of wind energy.
Salter's Duck was killed by the nuclear industry which said it would not be effective.
In the last year the UK Nuclear Inspectorate spent 136 days in Dounreay in my constituency.
If you work it out you find that each inspector was getting £5 000 a day.
They came out with 23 grave criticisms of Dounreay.
So, do not send your waste to Dounreay under any belief that it is going to be safely disposed of.
Recently the House of Commons was told after the event that Dounreay had taken in waste from Georgia in the interests of the safety of Europe.
It turned out that when it got there the license to reprocess had been withdrawn by the Nuclear Inspectorate, which had spent 136 days complaining about the discharges into the sea, into a waste shaft and into the land.
The House of Commons Trade and Industry Select Committee was critical of the culture of secrecy.
Going back to Salter's Duck, Tony Benn was the Secretary of State for Energy and admitted that he had misled the House of Commons that nuclear energy was safe, cheap and non-military.
It turns out that in June of this year it was admitted that the government had sent 73 kilogrammes of weapons-grade material to Aldermaston for military purposes.
This secrecy must stop.
Please do not let your countries send waste to Dounreay.
We are not allowed to reprocess it.
Mr President, there is a need for a radical change of course in the EU's energy policy. Its sights should be set on the fastest possible transition to sustainability, with renewable energy sources explicitly stipulated as the main aim of the energy policy and energy prices clearly reflecting the real environmental costs.
Without such objectives set, the framework programme will lack the necessary vision.
Apart from a zero contribution to CO2 emissions, renewable energy sources offer long-term security of supply and remove the element of threat from the geopolitical context.
The Danish experience is unequivocal.
Good results were obtained by providing stable growth opportunities for private popular initiatives with satisfactory economic terms for the consumers, and without interference from the State.
Directives, central control and liberalisation actually constitute a potential threat to stable growth in the use of renewable energy.
There is instead a need for a broadly based effort, in which energy solutions for the future grow out of local initiatives promoted by both high-profile consumer groups and smaller institutions and firms. In contrast, the current heavy demands on administration and the high component of own financing in energy programmes have led to a concentration on established institutions and large firms with substantial capital resources, which do not need support.
I would welcome a framework programme based on the principles I have outlined, so I strongly urge you to support the Green amendments opposing nuclear energy, in particular Amendment No 17.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our colleague Alain Pompidou who is the UPE coordinator for the issues we are discussing, has been detained away from this House and I offer his apologies.
It is my job to express our group's position in this joint debate on energy.
By way of introduction, I want to highlight the three aims of the Framework Programme for Energy, which would be set up for a five-year period from 1998 to 2002. It would aim to provide transparency, coherence and coordination of the actions carried out by the European Union, thus contributing to the security of supply, to competitiveness and to the protection of the environment.
The Framework Programme is based on three main objectives: providing a stable legal basis for the actions carried out by the Union; strengthening the coordination of all actions under the authority of the Commission's Directorate-General responsible for energy; and setting up a new framework for the coordination of activities in the energy field under other Community policies concerning, among others, the Structural Funds, external aid programmes and research programmes.
Our group will support the rapporteur's proposals aimed firstly at guaranteeing closer monitoring of the implementation of the 1996 directive on electricity and the 1998 directive on gas, with a view to ensuring the complete success of the internal energy market, in the interests of both European companies and households.
Secondly, we will support the proposals that aim to highlight the role that the Framework Programme should play in helping the enlargement process.
Thirdly and finally, we will support the proposals aimed at increasing transparency in monitoring, while stressing the fact that the budgetary funds allocated to the Framework Programme for Energy should enable it to face the challenges of the next decade.
What is more, our colleague Mr van Velzen has brought improvements to the ETAP programme through amendments that aim to strengthen the prospective analysis and monitoring of the market in two ways: the first involves the progressive liberalisation of the electricity and gas markets; and the second aims to guarantee a greater security of energy supply.
The SURE programme aims to ensure safety in the transport of radioactive materials, especially in view of the enlargement to include countries that already participate in the TACIS programme.
It has our support.
With regard to André Soulier's report, to its great credit it ensures international cooperation in the field of energy policy from 1998 to 2002 by continuing the SYNERGY programme, which we support unreservedly.
Mr President, it is obviously a good thing to achieve a high level of security, in the nuclear field as in all other fields.
I think that the French nuclear industry, which has a high level of reliability, should be used as a reference for this matter.
Nevertheless, I would like us to discuss the energy issue in more detail.
I am among those who think that nuclear energy, whatever the level of security, is truly like a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.
There are many types of risk.
Some are frequently discussed, while others, strangely, are passed over in silence. These include the human risk, of course, where an error in operation could cause a catastrophe like Chernobyl, and the technological risk linked to the ageing of materials.
Who can tell us that our successors, the political leaders in 20 or 40 years time, will be wise enough to renew nuclear equipment, especially if there is a serious and chronic economic crisis?
There is also the terrorist risk, which does exist, and finally, there is the risk of war, which is never discussed.
Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, what the prime targets would be for possible missiles in a conflict? They would be the power stations, of course, and therefore nuclear power stations.
All nuclear power stations are thus vulnerable to being destroyed, no matter how reliable they are.
In any case, it has long been accepted that zero risk does not exist.
The conclusion seems obvious to me: we need to stop, progressively of course, but we do need to stop, using nuclear power.
Mr President, congratulations to the rapporteurs and Commissioner Papoutsis, who has not had an easy task here.
He never does have an easy task, given that the implications of energy spread across several committees.
It has been very interesting to hear so much consensus this morning.
I feel extremely European after hearing more or less the same speech in 11 different languages, albeit with some differences of emphasis and with different views, clearly, on nuclear matters.
We welcome the framework.
It provides a sort of legal base.
Having struggled with the budget of the energy programmes over the last two years I was aware of that lack.
It gives us that legal base for a set period although I have the same reservations as Mr Linkohr about the lack of a uniform legal base.
The budget is inadequate.
I too regret, as previous speakers have, the failure of Member States to insert an energy chapter during the discussions in Amsterdam.
There are far more aspects to energy than just environmental aspects.
Mr Adam clearly indicated the export possibilities for coal technology.
I like his phrase 'lean and clean'.
Perhaps it does not translate well into all languages, but in English it is an excellent sound bite.
Not all aspects of energy are included in this framework.
Some of the Euratom aspects are missing, as well as research, structural funds, MEDA and large aspects of PHARE and TACIS.
Development aid, agriculture, transport and tax all have energy implications.
If there is to be a restructuring of the committees in Parliament let us not fall into the trap of thinking that an Environment Committee could possibly undertake to look at all the aspects of energy.
We need quite complex discussions on energy in the event of any sort of restructuring, which may well be an interesting idea.
I have said before that the Euratom Treaty was a very efficient way of promoting nuclear energy, on which we have varied views.
We need an intergovernmental agreement which gives us something similar in the field of renewable energy and energy efficiency.
I have put my suggestions before you.
Maybe 'charter' is a better word than 'treaty', and certainly more achievable.
I hope the Commissioner will do some work on this.
We will shortly give him a tool to encourage him to carry out work on that basis.
I am pleased that some of the Euratom work is now being incorporated into a comprehensive energy framework, so that one management committee will encompass the work of the SURE.
That should be continued and encouraged.
It is quite absurd to have two separate Treaties dealing with something as fundamental and complicated as energy.
Mr President, we are facing an immense challenge.
While we plan enlargement towards the east, our dependence on imported energy is growing.
We have to try and make sure the energy is delivered.
But just as much a priority, I think, is the development of high standards of safety in all nuclear power stations and in the transportation of radioactive materials.
These demands must also feature in negotiations on membership.
The aims in the energy document for cooperation between Eastern Europe and the EU in matters of safety, the environment and energy must be implemented.
The added benefit of combined heat and power production is an effective means of getting nearer to the Kyoto objectives and will have a positive impact on EU environmental policy.
That is how a cost-effective use of energy will make progress in Member States in the short and medium term.
Combined production ties in closely with the national objectives of Member States, but in spite of this we also need investment at Community level.
The Union should try and adopt an overall view of the promotion of combined production and allow the market to decide on the competitiveness of fuels.
If the aim is a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, the only feasible solution to the basic energy question is nuclear power and renewable energy sources.
Mr President, in my view we have before us two major tasks facing society in the energy field.
The first is to stimulate environmentally friendly energy sources which are sustainable in the long term, especially biological energy resources, for example wood fuels, pellets, briquettes and biogas, in order in that way to achieve sustainability in energy use.
The second task is to phase out nuclear power, oil and coal, which are not sustainable in the long term.
It is important that all this be done in stages: we who are elected representatives promote measures to phase out nuclear power and the burning of the fossil fuels, oil and coal, so that the market in turn gets the stimulus it needs to concentrate efforts on the development of renewable energy sources.
If this is done in the right way and with vigour, we shall in the long term be able to stimulate a sustainable energy market in environmentally friendly fuels for future generations.
Mr President, when we listen to speakers here, we hear the words 'environment', 'long-term', 'secure and sustainable energy systems' and affirmations that these are what we should be building on.
That means of course that the majority here will also be voting today for the amendments tabled by the Greens. These seek to promote precisely those ingredients: environment, sustainability, security and long-term action.
In Sweden we are about to start on the phasing out of nuclear power.
Following the change of government in Germany, nuclear power will also be phased out in Germany.
The EU must adapt to reality too and have some faith in the future.
The EU cannot continue to hold the nuclear power industry in its embrace indefinitely, but must break loose and set its sights on development and the future and on renewable energy sources.
These do not include nuclear power, oil or coal!
I therefore hope that the majority here will support Mr Bloch von Blottnitz who, on behalf of the V Group, has tabled these amendments calling for nuclear power to be phased out.
Mr President, the energy sector is changing fast.
The gas and electricity market has been further liberalised.
In the future, we will be increasingly dependent on energy sources outside the Union.
This is why we strongly advocate energy savings and the further stimulation of alternative energy sources.
Every effort must be made to greatly increase the relative share of sustainable energy sources.
In order to arrive at a share of 12 % or even 15 % in 2020, we need more in the way of tax and agricultural policy.
Research to improve and further develop solar energy must also be encouraged.
Coordination and integration by means of a framework programme is desirable in order to coordinate the individual energy programmes.
It is a good thing that the proposed framework programme will actively monitor developments, including analyses and forecasts.
But when it comes to activities in the nuclear sector we could not be more reluctant.
As long as there are good prospects of alternative energy sources, which are safer and for which waste production is less of a problem, then our preference goes to them.
We agree with the rapporteur to also include candidate Member States in improving nuclear safety.
Mr President, the decision concerning the future use of energy in Europe is one of the most crucial questions facing the European Union.
I have a feeling that the Commission has not yet fully recognised the significance of the energy issue.
Certainly some praiseworthy efforts can be seen, such as the announcement that the White Paper on renewable energies is to be implemented.
But the ALTENER II programme, which has almost no funds, is insufficient to achieve a change in energy policy.
There are five reasons why we need to change our energy policy.
The environmental reasons are clear.
Then there is also job creation, the protection of resources and the export market which we cannot afford to leave to Japan and the United States.
The most important point is that wars are currently being waged for energy resources, and as these energy resources are depleted the number of wars will increase.
Nuclear power is certainly not the solution.
Even in recent weeks we have heard of reactor problems in France, the quintessential nuclear state, where even security of supply was not guaranteed.
Yesterday the dreadful news came from Chernobyl that a worst-case scenario on a larger scale than 1986 is possible.
The changes to the programme proposed in Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz's amendments are therefore vital.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs for their work. I will concentrate on two points.
The first concerns the legal basis.
As some of the previous speakers have already mentioned, it is very good that with this multiannual programme for energy we have created a legal basis at least for a period of five years.
However, I think it is only a stop-gap measure.
What we really need is an energy chapter in the Treaty covering all forms of energy, so that they all receive equal attention and so that we do not have a situation like the present in which nuclear energy receives more funding than all other types and is given preferential treatment.
In my opinion, an energy chapter of this kind would also help us achieve what Mr van Velzen mentioned, an acquis communautaire in the sector with uniform standards and rules on how certain power stations - and here I do not mean only nuclear power stations - must be set up and what sort of security measures must be taken.
In this way we could also help improve transparency of cost in the internal market in electricity.
A power station which converts renewable energies into electricity requires the local fire brigade in case of emergency.
A nuclear power station requires a range of security measures, and it is possible that a whole area may no longer be habitable if an accident occurs.
The second point which I would like to discuss is the need for a sustainable energy policy to achieve the Kyoto targets.
In this area it is not sufficient to pay lip service.
Otherwise we will not achieve the Kyoto targets, and we will miss the chance to gear the European economy to a modern awareness of the needs of the environment, climate and the protection of resources.
Since the Americans think too much in the short term and have not yet recognised that switching the economy over to energy-saving measures and the use of alternative energies gains much more than its initial cost, we as Europeans have the opportunity not only to take the lead in wanting to protect the environment, but also to push our own industry towards innovation.
When resources were scarce the pressure to innovate was always considerably greater than when we could rely on having a plentiful supply and did not have to concern ourselves with how energy and other resources were used.
I would like to conclude by repeating a sentence which I first said in the House when the Auto Oil Programme was passed.
Modern industrial policy is the same thing as environmental policy, and in order to allow the Union to develop better we must allow energy policy to overlap with environmental policy too.
Mr President, if we are to integrate into a framework programme the wide range of activities in the spheres of international cooperation studies and analyses, renewable energies, energy efficiency, efficient use of solid fuels and nuclear safety, we clearly need an appropriate strategy for developing the sector.
Since the van Velzen, Soulier and Adam reports deal individually with the programmes in question, and very competently, I will say only that I hope to see the programmes that are currently in force, including the ALTENER and SAVE programmes, incorporated in the first framework programme for energy, although I know that some members of the Council are opposed to this.
Whether such programmes are incorporated in the framework programme or not, they should in any case be given an increased budget, since convergence in this sphere is far from complete and cohesion in Europe should include energy as well as economic and social matters.
Moreover, the Union's energy policy must be sufficiently clear and strong to prevail over the nuclear lobbies.
I will end by saying, on the subject of including the environment in the co-decision procedure, that I think it would be preferable if the programme had both Article 235 and Article 130 as its legal bases.
The quality of the framework programme can only benefit from an emphasis on the environmental dimension and from the fuller involvement of Parliament in decisions.
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for trying to bring together various elements of European energy policy.
I know how difficult that is because energy policy is really a difficult terrain.
I would like to comment further on two points.
The first concerns the way in which we deal with nuclear energy. The majority of countries in the European Union eschew nuclear energy, and some countries which formerly used it are currently preparing to abandon it.
Even one of the larger Member States is now taking significant steps to begin this process.
However, in a programme to which all countries make a financial contribution, the money cannot only be used to carry out research and work on the safety of nuclear energy.
I think we must also provide significant support for the efforts made by countries no longer using nuclear energy to move away from this type of energy completely.
It is not acceptable that all countries should pay so that a few can use nuclear energy; instead, we must lay further emphasis on moving away from this.
The second point is that the budget only pays lip service to energy policy in Europe. It does not allow us to bring about a change of direction in energy policy.
We need legislative proposals to supplement this programme, firstly on energy taxes, and secondly on the promotion of renewable energies through a pan-European electricity supply directive.
For this reason, Commissioner, I urgently request once again, particularly in view of the change in government in Germany, that you devote your efforts to advancing the proposal for a European energy tax, so that a proposal for a pan-European electricity supply can be on the table as soon as possible.
Mr President, in the short amount of time available I shall only refer to the CARNOT programme.
Although Mr Adam is not here, I would like to congratulate him on his report.
But the European Commission should firstly be congratulated for presenting this multiannual framework programme for actions in the energy sector, which is an attempt to coordinate and focus the work of the various sectors in a coherent way.
I believe that a programme such as the CARNOT programme was needed in order to encourage exports of clean coal combustion technology.
It was also needed to encourage the dissemination of results and cooperation both within the European Union and at international level. This is especially important in relation to other European countries that are heavily dependent on coal, countries whose entire coal industry needs substantial modernisation and to be adapted to the environmental requirements we have laid down.
However, Commissioner, I would like to use the time I have left to make a few general remarks on coal research because I think it gives us cause for concern.
In this technological sector, as in many other industrial sectors, both the medium and long-term prospects need to be borne in mind, and in this respect the situation is uncertain at the moment.
The Council decided that what was left of the ECSC Treaty budgets for steel and coal - which is what we are referring to now - should be taken over and integrated into the Union.
And yet, the information that the Commission itself provides in relation to coal research shows that we are in a hopeless situation.
And here we are discussing the fifth framework programme.
The Commission has once again proposed to include this research in that programme, which will be a programme for the future. However, with the exception of Germany, Mr Estevan Bolea, with the exception of Germany, the other countries, including Spain, are against the inclusion of coal research in the fifth framework programme.
It would therefore be a great shame to lose this scientific aquis, particularly concerning issues relating to the clean and efficient use of coal, because Europe's technological level, which I believe to be so important, is on a par with, and in certain areas even above, the situation of the international market.
It is true that a country can continue to carry out research on its own, but the point is that the wealth of all this research has been the European cooperation up until now, and myself and others would like to see this continue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the three rapporteurs, Mr van Velzen, Mr Soulier and Mr Adam, for their excellent work.
The Commission's proposal for the framework programme on energy is vitally important for the future development of a Community energy policy.
That programme promotes three strategic objectives.
First of all, the creation of a stable, multiannual legal base for action in the energy sector.
Secondly, the creation of a coherent, complete and flexible framework for all activities in the context of energy policy.
And thirdly, the fullest possible coordination of energy-related action undertaken within the scope of other Community policies.
Today, as you know, we face great challenges in the energy sector.
Our first priority most certainly concerns reliability of supply, and that is why we must make better use of endogenous energy sources, while at the same time developing international cooperation.
More especially, as Mr van Velzen stressed, in the light of the enlargement process, such cooperation is critical so that the candidate countries will be able to adapt to what represents the Community norm in the energy sector.
Urgent measures are also needed to improve the competitiveness of European industry.
The creation of a productive internal energy market would certainly make a major contribution towards that.
We also attach great importance to ensuring compatibility between our energy policy and the Community's environmental objectives.
This requires effective measures in the areas of both energy production and use.
To meet these major energy challenges effectively, Community energy policy should focus more upon specific aims, it should be more integrated and it must certainly be better coordinated than are the other Community policies.
Beyond that, the Union's energy policy must have a clear international dimension, since energy is a powerful element of international cooperation, the political importance of which has been highlighted by Mr Soulier in his exceptional work and in his speech to the House today.
On the one hand, that too requires an integrated approach, but on the other hand it requires better means for coordination and cooperation between the parties involved.
That brings me to the main objective of the framework programme on energy, which is to ensure the cohesion, transparency and productivity of coordinated action in the context of our energy policy.
I am particularly glad that Parliament agrees with this approach by the Commission, and I believe - and at least, the early indications suggest this - that the Council too echoes the same view.
Now, as for the subject of finance which many speakers have raised - I noted Mr Linkohr, Mrs McNally and Mr van Velzen - I would like to point out that our proposal is accompanied by a financial statement whereby, as an indicative amount, a sum of ECU 213 million will have to be provided for the framework programme.
Let me add, however, that I personally regard that sum as a bare minimum.
At any rate, as you know, the budget will be determined on an annual basis by the budgetary authority.
For that reason it is largely up to you, up to the European Parliament, to ensure that there are enough appropriations to cover the activities in question.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission will agree with many of the amendments you have tabled.
For the sake of clarity, I shall deal with each report separately.
First of all, as regards Mr van Velzen's report on the framework decision, most of the proposed amendments clarify the Commission's proposal.
As far as enlargement is concerned, I completely agree that energy has an important part to play in the enlargement process.
For that reason the Commission accepts Amendment No 5.
As for liberalisation of the energy market, I quite agree that particular attention must be paid to the application and monitoring of the directives, and I can therefore accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 4.
I cannot agree with the proposal to establish a separate programme on the monitoring of the internal market.
The Commission has already done everything proposed within the scope of a new sub-programme of that kind, since it is obliged to by virtue of the Treaty and the directives relating to the internal market.
We are already working towards beginning to set that mechanism in motion.
Moreover, monitoring of the internal market will be part of the ETAP programme.
Consequently, I cannot agree with part 17 of Amendment No 9.
I would also like to point out that part 5 restricts the flexibility of the CARNOT programme, and that is why we cannot accept it.
However, the whole of the rest of Amendment No 9 is acceptable.
Amendments Nos 3, 6 and 11, which seek to improve coordination and transparency, are also acceptable.
However, having regard to the resources available, the Commission cannot agree with the last sentence of Amendment No 8, given that the amendment prejudices future financial perspectives.
But the Commission can accept the first part of Amendment No 8, and Amendment No 7 too with one small change of wording.
The Commission also cannot accept Amendment No 14, because that would disturb the overall balance of the proposal.
I also wish to say that while I do not disagree in principle with the contents of Amendments Nos 12, 13, 15 and 16, we consider that they are already covered by the programme, so we prefer the existing wording.
In addition, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 17, 19 and 21 since they conflict with the Commission's views on nuclear energy, while Amendments Nos 18, 20 and 22 are not compatible with the statutory provisions of the Treaty.
We also cannot accept Amendment No 23, because it is already covered by the initial proposal.
At this point, however, let me make a comment about nuclear energy.
So long as this form of energy exists, it is our duty, the European Union's duty as it emerges from the Euratom Treaty, to ensure that the maximum degree of safety is achieved.
As you know, it is up to each country to decide whether to have nuclear energy or not.
In any event, as you will be aware, we in the Commission are also striving to promote new forms of energy, to establish a new energy balance for the future.
Moving on to the ETAP programme, the Commission can accept most of the proposed amendments.
In other words, we accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5.
More particularly, Amendment No 2 is acceptable in principle, but I think we should add consumer organisations to the list of those able to participate in the programme.
Now, as for Amendment No 4, the objective of analysis relating to renewable energy sources is very important, but it is already covered by the special action of the Altener programme.
However, there must be coordination between the ETAP and Altener programmes in that sector, and in that sense, of course, the Commission undertakes to supervise the best possible coordination between those two programmes.
Thirdly, regarding the SURE programme.
The Commission accepts Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7, since they clarify the programme's objectives and stress the need for greater transparency.
More particularly, so far as Amendment No 3 on common safety standards is concerned - and this is in fact what I want to say in answer to Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz - the Commission can today accept the content of this amendment on common safety standards, even though that clearly falls mainly within the competences of the Member States.
At any rate, the Commission believes that the SURE programme could give even greater impetus to cooperation between the Member States.
The Commission also accepts Amendment No 6 with a few minor changes of wording, concerning industrial cooperation with the CIS countries and Russia, in other words the countries which can benefit from the operation and use of the TACIS programme.
In our view, there is a need to stress the fact that this cooperation should lead to the application of equivalent and high-level safety standards.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 8 and 11, because they conflict with its views on nuclear energy.
We also cannot accept Amendments Nos 9 and 10 and the conclusions they lead to concerning the transport of nuclear material.
We can accept Amendment No 12 in principle, but we think it is already covered by Amendment No 7.
Now, as for the Synergy programme, we can accept the amendments tabled by the Committee on Energy, except for Amendment No 1.
More particularly, the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4, but cannot accept Amendment No 1 because we believe it simply restricts finance flexibility, a flexibility which is needed in light of the speed with which developments are taking place all over the world today.
Finally, on the CARNOT programme, I am glad that Parliament agrees with the great need for a programme in the sector of using clean coal.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 4, but not Amendment No 3 on the programme's duration and its budget, because the result would be to reduce flexibility in the implementation of the programme.
I also consider it exceptionally important to ensure that the programme's duration is the same as for all the programmes included in the framework programme, but apart from that I agree with Mr Adam that we must ensure that the results of research in this sector are published.
We also cannot accept Amendment No 5 for formal reasons, given that it equates the former Soviet Union republics with the Eastern European countries, with which we have concluded overall cooperation agreements.
Cooperation with countries covered by the TACIS programme in the solid fuels sector is certainly important, but we must comply with the official framework established for that cooperation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I once again wish to thank the rapporteurs - Mr van Velzen, Mr Soulier and Mr Adam - for their excellent work.
As you have heard, the Commission can accept most of the amendments tabled.
Before winding up, however, I should like to draw the House's attention to the two remaining programmes of the framework programme on energy, namely SAVE and Altener.
I am sure that our cooperation with the rapporteurs on those two programmes, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and Mr Robles Piquer, will be just as constructive as the cooperation we have had on the programmes we have been talking about today.
Thanks to Parliament's efforts, the Energy Council on 13 November will be able to carry the framework programme on energy forward substantially, taking due account of the political aspects of the subject.
I look to the adoption of final decisions by the Council in relation to the framework decision and the ETAP, SURE, Synergy and CARNOT programmes, as indeed I look to that Energy Council for confirmation of the political will to support the SAVE and Altener programmes.
Mr President, I would like to ask a brief question.
The glaring contradiction between the announcement that you intend to step up the promotion of renewable energies, which I fully endorse, and the laughable budget figures before us - according to your proposal it should be ECU 11 million, after a figure of ECU 22 million was discussed in the preliminary draft - is, in my opinion, painful and regrettable, and we hope that we can bump this amount up a little.
The reason given is that more than ECU 11 million cannot be administered.
This is completely incomprehensible to me given how far behind we have fallen in the new biomass and photovoltaics markets, and also the considerable opportunities to promote exports, especially for small and medium-sized companies in this sector. Could you please explain your position once again as I do not consider this to be a valid argument.
Mr President, I am glad of the opportunity to answer the honourable Member's question.
Indeed, I too agree that major impetus should be given to the use of renewable energy sources and to the spread of new technologies which can contribute towards advances in that sector.
In its proposal on the budget and the financial statement, the Commission limited itself to a sum which, according to present forecasts and demands, we estimate could be utilised sufficiently and in a rational way.
That is what we proposed, but it does not mean that in the future we would wish to continue just with that amount of finance and no more.
Obviously, a policy to which we are giving political backing will need more finance in later years.
As you know, however, the budgetary authority - Parliament and the Council - took a different view in drawing up this programme within the overall framework of the financial perspectives.
In that respect, then, it is up to you, up to the European Parliament and the Council too, to decide on the level of finance and of course the degree of political priority that should be given to the issue of renewable energy sources.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
(The sitting was suspended until 12 noon)
Welcome
VOTES
We do not care for the idea of an action programme at EU level on pollution-related diseases as a basis for work in this field.
We think it is superfluous and inappropriate to give the Commission powers in this area.
It would be far better to coordinate efforts in intergovernmental cooperation under WHO auspices, since pollution-related diseases are not restricted to the EU's territory.
As regards matters that require special European cooperation, this should be pursued through the European section of the World Health Organisation, which is based in Copenhagen.
In the second reading of the Cabrol report, however, we only have the opportunity to consider the individual amendments.
We therefore opt for a pragmatic approach and vote for the increase in the financial framework plus the amendments regarding additional evaluation reports from the Commission, but we cannot support the demand for further actions to be put in hand by the Commission.
For several months, we have been giving our opinion on proposals linked to public health.
I want to reiterate what I have already said about Mr Cabrol's skills in this field.
I would also like to reaffirm my support for our colleague's relevant proposals.
I have already explained how I voted and the importance of implementing a specific policy in the fight against pollution-related diseases, and therefore the fight against pollution.
This summer was once again marked by peak levels of pollution in many cities in the European Union.
This deterioration of the situation does not look like it is going to improve.
It is even more important to realise the urgency of the situation given that water quality is causing great concern.
The cases of pollution that France has seen in the last few weeks are not, in my opinion, particular to France and cannot be considered as purely a French problem, but as a European or even a global problem.
Moreover, while I cannot understand the Council's attitude with regard to the budget margins available, I do not think it is reasonable to cross out with the stroke of a pen the provisions that we had advocated, not long ago, in the context of the action programme on pollution-related diseases.
While waiting for a global policy on the environment to yield its first results, it is Europe's duty to deal with the risks associated with pollution and its consequences for health.
Viceconte recommendation (A4-0336/98)
It is important that patients with rare diseases are not forgotten, but are helped.
This should in principle be achieved at intergovernmental level under the auspices of the World Health Organisation.
Patients with rare diseases do not only live in the EU; besides we do not want the Commission to have powers in this area too.
We are voting against the amendments concerned with the setting-up of a Community database, comitology and continuing training programmes.
However, we are voting in favour of the amendments that seek to clarify the text.
Despite our position in principle, we wish to promote a pragmatic approach and are voting for the budget increase.
I recognize that the Commission accepts five-year funding for rare diseases.
Nevertheless, the main work is yet to be done, as resources now need to be given to this policy guideline.
However, we must approve the Community approach that our colleague Guido Viceconte wants to launch in the field of rare diseases.
The common sense, which in this case is not at all a derogatory term, involved here responds to a logic linked to the small number of people affected by this type of disease, some of which are particularly serious.
Therefore, the battery of provisions proposed by the rapporteur seems to me to be capable of responding to the research needs in this field, which is so specific and often absent from the immediate concerns of national governments.
In saying this, I do not wish to accuse the governments in any way, but it must be recognised that the amounts needed to further specialist knowledge require investments that the Member States alone cannot provide from their funds.
Europe must therefore intervene.
Finally, I think that the proposal to involve all those affected by rare diseases in this programme is a step in the right direction, and could help families and volunteers, who are often left to fend for themselves in their daily lives.
Let us hope then that the European Parliament's position will help to achieve the necessary goal of raising the public's awareness in this respect.
The Danish Social Democrats today voted for the abovementioned report.
However, we would stress that the question of comitology has not been settled.
We refer to the Commission's statement on comitology, according to which the Commission wishes to propose to the legislative authority that the comitology provisions in all previous legislative measures be amended in order to bring them into line with the new comitology agreement.
I would like to congratulate Mr Viceconte on his excellent report on rare diseases, which I fully support.
I completely agree with his analysis of the importance of this issue and the urgent need to establish a true Community programme in this field.
In fact, the issue of rare diseases, like that of orphan drugs - which will soon be discussed in committee in Parliament and, I hope, in the House before the end of the legislature -, is indeed a matter of public policy.
Research into these diseases and the necessary treatments are not sources of profit for pharmaceutical laboratories.
For this reason, they are reluctant to use financial resources for research.
Nevertheless, these so-called 'rare' diseases are only rare to those who are not affected by them, and no supposed rarity can justify leaving sufferers untreated under the pretext of non-profitability.
The sufferers themselves are 100 % affected!
It is therefore the responsibility of public authorities to put some sort of constraints on pharmaceutical laboratories by virtue of a 'public health service' obligation.
This constraint, this responsibility, must of course be accompanied by support that stimulates research in these areas.
In this respect, it is therefore essential to have an appropriate budget available.
This programme, like that on orphan drugs that is soon to be discussed, must thus be provided with budgetary resources that are sufficient - unlike the usual scattering of resources - to give rise to real initiatives.
We should also think at some stage about directing Community health programmes towards providing direct support for research and not just towards attractive awareness campaigns.
Finally, in order to avoid the inevitable scattering in terms of Community programmes, we have to tackle the issue of comitology.
The mysteries of this clandestine science do not interest us here.
What is important is that we adopt the management methods that will enable us to finance projects according to their quality and not according to the nationality of the participants.
I therefore think it is essential that we have parliamentary monitoring and greater transparency.
Anastassopoulos recommendation (A4-0325/98)
My group is voting in favour of the Anastassopoulos report. Thanks to the rapporteur's persistent but prudent negotiations we have a compromise which ensures that Parliament's wishes, which are not reflected in the current text of the directive because they were rejected by the Council and the Commission, will at least be pursued further by the Commission in this form, and also that by prompting research it allows investigation of ways in which the legal arrangement sought by Parliament could in future be realised.
It is necessary to extend the protection of conditional access electronic media services in such a way as to ensure appropriate remuneration but also to protect the economic value of the service from technical abuse.
We agree with the rapporteur's decision not to endanger the existence of the directive by insisting on Parliament's amendments, following the statement by the Commissioner responsible in favour of taking the protective measures recommended by Parliament.
Gebhardt recommendation (A4-0319/98)
I regularly point out here the progress that has been made in European harmonisation: the single currency, the freedom of movement, the standardisation of social protection systems, the struggle for high-quality public health, etcetera.
There is, however, an area in which, at the moment, we cannot guarantee equality to all our citizens.
Diplomas, certificates and other professional qualifications are recognised in different ways depending on whether a person chooses to work in their country of origin or in another country of the European Union.
Considerable progress has been made since the directive of 8 February 1996, especially in the legal and medical sectors.
But there is still more to be done to the system that has been set up, especially in the sectors associated with industrial businesses.
Up until now, the length of training received has always taken priority over the skills acquired.
It is therefore time to put an end to this inequality that each year prevents many young people from exercising their right to free movement.
The fight against unemployment and to create stable jobs is the permanent concern in the majority of the decisions that the European Parliament takes with the Commission.
In this field, as in many others, liberalisation can provide answers and solutions.
A greater liberalisation of diploma recognition, far from leading to services or products of lesser quality, may, on the contrary, allow skills that are currently too often neglected in their country of origin to be better distributed among the 15 Member States.
We must not close the door to employment on young people who are prepared to leave their countries, as long as we recognise, without too many administrative or bureaucratic complications, the training that they have acquired in their country of origin.
It is for this reason and from this perspective that I therefore support the Gebhart report.
This new reading of Mrs Gebhardt's report gives me some satisfaction, as the Council has accepted the amendments tabled by our House, which is proof that we can change the course of some decisions and provisions.
We now need to make sure that this directive is applied at national level for, in this field like in many others, it is one thing to legislate at Community level, and quite another to translate this initial will into action.
Whatever happens, the recognition of qualifications is a tool that is working relatively well, and this is something to be pleased about.
I also think, like our colleague, that the choice between an aptitude test and an adaptation period should be left up to the candidate.
However, although considerable progress has been made in this field, I wonder about the conditions in which those who have had their qualifications recognised are going to be able to practice their profession.
Problems with taxation and the freedom to reside in another Member State are very real and do not seem to be improving, at least in some countries of the European Union.
I am backing this report aimed at improving the recognition of people's hard-earned qualifications across the EU.
Too many people in the past, including constituents of mine, have faced in effect discrimination because they happened to earn their qualifications in another EU country from the one where they would like to work.
The single market we are still waiting to see operate in all its aspects for capital, goods and services is also supposed to apply to people seeking work in another EU country than their own.
In practice though we see bureaucratic hoops put in front of such people which they are then asked to jump through - perhaps being required to undertake a new course in their adopted country in order to practise a profession they are already trained in.
If the powers that be in the European Union think we can negotiate recognition of standards for goods traded between Europe and other parts of the world, then surely it is not beyond the wit of the governments and the Commission to agree on mutual recognition of qualifications between our own EU countries!
I would first like to congratulate our rapporteur.
I think, too, that we should be pleased with the fact that in its common position the Council has taken over almost all the amendments adopted by our Parliament at first reading.
We must realise that these amendments all deal with fundamental issues, including, notably, the definition of 'manager of an undertaking' and the Commission's obligation to present a report after five years on the implementation of the directive.
By annulling the 'liberalisation' and 'transitional measures' directives, this text responds to the need to simplify and clarify the Community legislation currently in force concerning the practise of these professions.
It will therefore allow, in accordance with the 1990 judgement by the Court of Justice of the European Communities in the Vlassopoulou case, the recognition of qualifications not covered by the general system.
This is an essential objective, as it plays a very specific role in achieving the principle of free movement of people within Community territory.
Marset Campos recommendation (A4-0324/98)
Madam President, we have just voted on the Marset Campos report on the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in the research programme and I would like my vote against Amendment No 6 to be shown in the Minutes.
This is not a mere detail.
I did not have the opportunity to speak earlier, and I want to do so now.
This amendment seeks to change the rules governing the publication of the results of research partially financed by the European Union, placing the results of the research more easily in the public domain.
If that were to happen, small and medium-sized firms would feel both motivated to participate in the framework programme for research and put off from doing so at the same time. It is vital to have tough protection for intellectual property so that small and medium-sized firms with short product-development horizons can genuinely participate, and I am glad the Commission was equally negative about Amendment No 6, because I cannot see it as positive.
It is bizarre that the Council has not reached agreement with Parliament on openness in the fight against fraud.
We need clear, transparent rules to help all concerned to work effectively.
Parliament's proposals have been long-fingered by the Council and Commission and we cannot tolerate this.
The report by our colleague Mr Campos responds to two of our Parliament's requirements, which is why I will support the author's opinion.
Beyond simply disseminating research results, efforts should of course be focused on the contents of this research.
It is, for example, regrettable that projects, particularly innovative ones, should be so behind in comparison to what is at stake in the next few years.
Once again I must denounce the time-lag between words and actions.
In such a specific and uncertain field, we must be able to bet on the future.
If this constant timidity on the part of the authorities, but also on the part of the investors, continues, Europe cannot hope to play a significant role in the new technologies sector.
I also support the rapporteur's desire concerning the absolute need to be transparent in the fight against fraud.
We do not want to create conflict, but we have every right to question each other.
This does not only refer to the research sector, but to all European Community intervention programmes.
On several occasions, our Parliament has unanimously expressed the wish to step up the fight against the various types of crime, and particularly financial crime.
It would be absurd if this will, which has been demonstrated by the various authorities involved, were not extended to monitoring the use of Community funds, including those for research.
Finally, I agree with Pedro Marset Campos that simpler mechanisms should be set up in order to strengthen and coordinate more efficiently the teams taking part in the projects.
The adjustments that we are requesting are not foolish.
I believe that they correspond to the expectations of the majority of those who may be affected by the fifth joint programme on research and development.
I hope that the Council and the Commission will take account of these remarks, since their only aim is to improve the existing mechanism.
Our contacts with the research community show clearly that the EU's research programmes involve too much bureaucracy for researchers. If we really want to foster research, the best way of using these resources would be to pass them back to the national research councils.
The EU's research programmes are well meant but ineffective and bureaucratic. Research is not well served by them, and they should be scrapped.
Whitehead report (A4-0334/98)
I would like to reiterate the position I previously expressed in this Hemicycle: without consumer confidence in products and services, the internal market cannot operate properly.
This was also acknowledged in the Luxembourg Council's declaration on food safety, following the BSE crisis.
However, this harmonised approach to the protection of consumers, to their right to redress and access to justice, and to the introduction of effective international methods of monitoring and inspection requires an increase in the Community budget.
What is more, the imminent entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam and Article 153 also call for this increase because without it both the scientific committees and validation checks would not operate with the necessary rigour, which would be disastrous for the consumer.
The Europe of citizens is, in many regards, the Europe of consumers, and for this reason I shall also vote in favour of developing a sustainable food policy in the interest of consumers.
The report on the establishment of a general framework for Community activities in favour of consumers contains a number of initiatives which may prove to be of benefit to consumer protection.
I therefore take a positive view of the content of the report.
I am abstaining from voting, however, because consumer protection and consumer health should in principle be a national matter and not a field in which the EU should dictate measures.
The recitals to the report draw attention to the need for consumers' organisations to be given more opportunity to contribute actively to the definition of consumer policy.
It is also stated that the general framework must make provision for the necessary financial support to ensure the provision of high quality and effective control and inspection methods in connection with the protection of consumers and consumer health.
The emphasis on the role of consumers' organisations and consumer protection in general I think is important in principle and I can agree with the need to promote food safety and quality, but that does not alter my view that consumer policy, along with health policy, social policy, etc. is a purely national matter.
The fact that the establishment of the internal market has to a large extent rendered a national consumer policy impossible is an argument for ensuring that the national political levels retain a right to maintain and adopt national rules which go beyond the EU's rules in the field, as opposed to the current and future position in which the EU dictates total harmonisation rules.
Indeed, in a large number of cases it has been shown that concern for the functioning of the internal market takes precedence over consumers' interests.
The three food additive directives, covering colouring agents and other additives in food, show that EU standards in the consumer protection field are often significantly lower than in national legislation.
Thus, in the context of the drafting of the EU's permitted list, Denmark had to raise its limits for a large number of additives in food, despite the fact that there are grounds for suspecting that some of these substances can cause allergic reactions in children.
This example shows with abundant clarity that consumer protection and consumer health should be a national prerogative and not a matter for the EU.
Consumer policy and questions of product safety and health must be given greater weight in political work at all levels, including the European level.
The EU's rules for consumer protection must be minimum rules, i.e. an individual Member State must have the right to apply more stringent rules.
Martin report (A4-0290/98)
We thank the rapporteur for a thorough job on an important report.
We think that the difficult situation caused by a heavy workload in the Court of First Instance must be resolved in order to ensure that the Court of First Instance is able to perform its duties in an effective and credible way.
The proposal under consideration for a single judge procedure to be adopted in certain cases can therefore be viewed as acceptable under the circumstances.
The single judge procedure must, however, be applied to a limited extent and under very stringent control, so that legal security and proper judicial legitimacy in the conduct of cases are safeguarded.
The introduction of single judges is a measure that can only be justified by the specific case load prevailing in the Court of First Instance.
The single judge expedient should thus not be pursued as a measure applicable in principle and more generally in other contexts.
The Court of First Instance now faces a huge backlog of cases and a further increase is expected when appeals against trademark decisions start to flood in.
The situation is clearly untenable.
However, the proposed decision to allow a single judge to decide a limited number of cases is not the solution.
Although in favour of clearly defined areas where single judges can sit, the proposal is uncertain and its scope unclear.
The scope of the proposed decision can be extended without further recourse to the European Parliament or the Council.
It is essential that the multinational and collegiate nature of the Court is maintained.
A ten per cent increase in efficiency will not solve the vast problems facing the Court and the Community justice system.
It is not even a temporary solution.
It would clearly be premature to approve the decision in its present form.
A more radical and urgent overhaul, including an increase in the number of judges and the introduction of specialised chambers, is necessary.
I therefore voted against the proposal.
We have chosen to vote against the report, partly for reasons of legal security and partly out of consideration for the anti-federalist principle.
The Martin report proposes approval of the proposal from the Council - which had originally been drafted by the Court of Justice - that the Court of First Instance should be able to hear cases with only one judge.
It is clear that the risks of error and hence miscarriages of justice increase if the number of judges is reduced to only one in cases handled by the Court of First Instance.
The Court of First Instance currently deals mainly with competition matters, agricultural rules, state aid, trade policy protection rules, structural fund disputes, anti-dumping measures, intellectual property law and disputes between the institutions and their employees.
The criteria in the rules of procedure proposed determining what cases a single judge may be able to hear, in our opinion, lack sufficient precision for legal security to be considered assured.
Yet the solution is not to be found in increasing the number of judges or in reducing legal security, but rather in applying a more restrictive policy as regards the transfer of decision-making powers from the Member States to bodies concerned with Community legislation.
This is an especially important point for the majority in the European Parliament to consider, which invariably proposes supranational solutions for practically every problem.
A solution can also be found, however, in a transfer of decision-making powers from the EU to the national parliaments.
That would get rid of much of the workload of the EC Court of Justice.
The proposal of the Court of Justice to change the working procedure in the Court of First Instance is welcome.
The Court of First Instance has become overloaded, a consequence of which is that the time for proceedings to be completed has become unacceptably long.
We take a positive view of concrete proposals on how to arrange the Court's work so as to achieve reasonable completion times.
Making the work more effective must not result in loss of legal security.
If the Court is to decide on cases with only one judge, these cases must only be ones which are entirely uncontroversial from the legal point of view.
I cannot vote for this report because I think that a reduction in the number of judges in the Court of First Instance could easily jeopardise legal security.
However, I do recognise the good intention of the report, i.e. the proposed change would in many cases mean an increase in effectiveness.
van Velzen report (A4-0340/98)
We voted against the van Velzen report on a framework programme for actions in the energy sector. We did so because we think that there is a need for a radical change of course in the Community's energy policy.
It is quite obvious that it should be geared directly to the fastest possible transition to sustainability.
That means the most strenuous possible effort to promote renewable energy and environmentally correct solutions.
We also think it scandalous that the proposal is not also based on Article 130s of the Treaty.
If this entire politically important and sensitive sector cannot be governed by provisions which take environmental considerations into account, no EU legislation should be formulated at all in this area.
Legislating in the field of energy without taking Article 130s as a legal basis in our opinion sends the wrong signals about the Community's energy priorities.
The intention of the proposal is to standardise and streamline the EU's energy policy.
The report of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy boosts these intentions as far as the centralisation of energy policy and the strengthening of the EU's powers in the field are concerned.
This position should be challenged.
The Danish energy supply system is unique because it is consumer-led, and there is a risk of that being destroyed if energy supply is to be streamlined according to an EU model which is producer-led.
We have therefore supported the amendments tabled by the Greens.
As regards the use of taxes, this is something we can support where the environment is concerned, provided the proceeds are channelled back to the Member States.
I have decided to vote against the van Velzen report.
A key reason for this is that I think the report wholeheartedly accepts the EU's electricity and gas liberalisation directives.
In the electricity sector we have already seen the first negative consequences of the Electricity Directive, not just for the environment but also for democracy.
The owners of the Barsebäck nuclear power plant in Sweden are invoking the Electricity Directive in order to get round the legislation enacted by the Riksdag under which nuclear power is to be phased out in Sweden.
Thus the option of pursuing a national energy policy has demonstrably been abolished by the EU in favour of free market forces in a field which, for environmental and supply-related reasons, must be subject to extensive democratic control - and as far as I can see it is only the national parliaments and authorities that can exercise that democratic control effectively.
The one-sided focus of the electricity and gas directives on energy as a commodity that can be freely exchanged frustrates the ability of Member States to maintain and extend a national energy policy in which, for example, the phasing out of nuclear power and power generated from coal in favour of renewable energy is a high priority.
van Velzen report (A4-0335/98)
We voted against Mr van Velzen's report today.
According to the explanatory statement, the overall objective of the ETAP programme is to ensure that decisions at national and Community level on energy matters can be taken on common analytical bases, i.e. in terms of common economic studies and analyses and common energy forecasts and in terms of the dynamics of energy systems.
This sounds very trustworthy.
But an elaborate common system easily leads to intellectual strait-jackets and analytical orthodoxy.
Such a programme of analyses could easily end up serving industrial policy interests.
I would point out that it was not the nuclear power industry or the interests behind the coal and oil-fired power stations that analysed their way to the conclusion that there is a need to develop renewable energy.
Since the explanatory statement to the amendments of the Energy Committee clearly shows that these interests are poised to boost centralised energy policy in the EU still further, it is important to vote against them.
We also think that it is questionable whether the EU has any business implementing a programme such as ETAP at all.
Energy policy should be decentralised as far as possible. The ETAP programme only makes sense if energy policy is centralised at EU level, which strengthens the existing major players.
If the EU wants to spend money on analysis programmes, it should strengthen diversity and support independent research institutes and the grass roots.
van Velzen report (A4-0323/98)
The reason why we voted against Mr van Velzen's report today is that the SURE programme serves to develop, not to phase out nuclear power production.
In our opinion the production of nuclear energy should be phased out, and programmes that promote it should be rejected.
With regard to the transport of nuclear material, it is obvious that all shipments should be undertaken in a responsible manner.
But we do not think there should be any transport of nuclear material from nuclear power stations at all.
We would far rather see the processing and, where necessary, dumping of nuclear waste carried out at the place where it is produced.
The transport of nuclear materials should be avoided.
Adam report (A4-0339/98)
The intention of the CARNOT programme is to support the exploitation of solid fuels - especially coal - in such a way that emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants are minimised.
The aim is to promote technological actions for the clean and efficient use of solid fuels.
It is an excellent objective, but is it enough in the long term? We would like instead to get away from an energy supply system based on the burning of fossil fuels in the longer term.
In the short term, however, it is necessary to burn coal, gas and oil in order to avoid what is worse, namely an energy supply system based on nuclear energy.
We are abstaining from the vote on this proposal because we do not know what the ultimate aims and implications of the proposal will be.
Are we to continue burning coal unchecked? Is it about the environment or industrial policy?
We note that the rapporteur is proposing an increase in the budget for this energy policy programme from ECU 4.1 million to ECU 7.4 million.
Unfortunately it has become a bad habit in this Parliament for every rapporteur to seek an increase in the field with which he or she is concerned in the report in question.
These increases are sought at a time when public authorities around Europe are cutting back on their activities and dismissing staff because of tighter budgets.
We feel that Parliament must restrict its activities in this respect and that such routine demands for increases in the budget for this or that item must cease.
Soulier report (A4-0322/98)
The aims of the SYNERGY programme are a) to assist in the definition, formulation and implementation of energy policy for third countries; b) to promote industrial cooperation between the Community and third countries in the energy sector; and c) closer coordination of the Community's external activities in the energy field.
To support third countries in the definition of an energy policy stands out as a very sensible thing to do.
However, it is more difficult to see anything sensible in the EU sacrificing resources for the other areas.
The energy industry in the EU does not need public support for 'closer coordination', whatever that may mean.
Besides there is a good deal of uncertainty as to the demarcation of the scope of the programme in relation to other EU programmes.
Altogether the programme seems rather superfluous; the resources could no doubt be used to better effect in the development of renewable energy and programmes to promote energy saving.
We are therefore voting against the report.
We support the principle behind the multiannual programmes in the energy sector which are being discussed today, and all efforts towards research and development in this area.
On the basis of the acquis communautaire , Austria, like other EU Member States, has declared itself against operating nuclear power stations.
At European level, Euratom's central tasks of health protection and safety monitoring must be guaranteed and consolidated.
For this reason we give priority to promoting scientific advances to improve the overall safety of nuclear energy, including the development of pan-European safety standards.
Greater emphasis must also be given to innovative forms of energy production and renewable energy sources such as solar energy, wind energy, hydropower and biomass, as real alternatives to nuclear power.
Dangerous nuclear power stations must be shut down immediately.
Given the above, the reasons for our votes on the various reports are clear.
Joint motion for a resolution on Kosovo
Madam President, unlike the last part-session the result of today's vote on Kosovo was very welcome, and I congratulate the groups on this.
In particular, I would like to thank the Greens for tabling an amendment which we rejected by a very large majority and which sought to make a UN Security Council vote a prerequisite for military and humanitarian intervention already long overdue.
This was rejected by such a large majority that we can say that this House has now voted strongly in favour of military intervention in Kosovo on the grounds of the current legal situation.
Without military intervention of this kind, we will, within the foreseeable future, witness the death of huge numbers of people.
For this reason we hope that by the time of the next part-session we will already be able to discuss what measures to take following successful military intervention.
In my opinion, these measures must involve putting Kosovo's entire executive and judiciary powers into the hands of the elected representatives of the people.
I am voting in favour of the joint resolution on Kosovo tabled by the various political groups in Parliament, but I think it ought to be associated with a firm call to the UN and NATO to take action, after the irresponsible 'no' to the American negotiator.
Yet again we have proof that the Serbian leader only understands the logic of force.
Immediate action must be taken unless we want to pay an even higher price tomorrow.
We will ask the Italian government to liaise closely with the other European countries and the United States, and to make its territory fully available for the inevitable military intervention designed to persuade the parties to negotiate and come to a sensible peace agreement.
The situation in Kosovo and Europe's paralysis are once again demonstrating - as if this were needed - the urgent need for a political Europe.
It is important to be a great economic power, especially one that is armed with a single currency, but that does not guarantee peace, security, or even democracy.
In order to achieve this, we need a common European diplomacy, a common military force and therefore a European political authority to decide what Europe wants.
We are very far away from this!
Each state tries to play its part, or else its card, without really worrying about the others, while the Serbian President gloats.
We might have hoped that the sad Bosnian affair would have borne some fruit, but nothing came of it.
This is both tragic and ridiculous.
Europe is disgracing itself by allowing civilians to be massacred and by serving the interests of tyrants.
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the resolution on the situation in Kosovo today.
It is not the first resolution the European Parliament has adopted.
Innumerable resolutions from democratic assemblies in the UN, NATO, the WEU, the OSCE and the EU have condemned Serbian action in strong terms.
The West must now react.
It would be comforting if the United Nations Security Council could honour its responsibility and adopt a resolution putting some force behind its constant threats.
But, if this is made impossible by some mistaken loyalty towards Russia, other responsible - preferably European - politicians must step in.
It is not only our credibility that is on the line.
It is human lives.
The FPÖ is of the opinion that the existing UN resolutions are sufficient for intervention by NATO.
It is essential to find a speedy solution to the conflict in order to prevent further bloodshed.
Therefore, the FPÖ supports the motion for a resolution as a whole, but points out that it is not in agreement with paragraph 8, as it is particularly those countries bordering on this trouble spot that should receive the humanitarian aid and financial support they need to allow them to take in as many refugees as possible.
This should prevent Austria from having to cope with most of the refugees coming into the EU.
Joint motion for a resolution on migrants
Madam President, in my speech yesterday on the issue of illegal immigration from the South, I explained to our House why, in the opinion of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, the reform provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam could aggravate the problems instead of resolving them.
I would now like to tell you what proposals we would have liked to have seen in the resolution voted for by the European Parliament, and which, unfortunately, do not feature in it.
It must be understood that, in a united European area in which there are no controls on people at internal borders, as proposed by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the overall level of security will always be that of the weakest link in the chain.
However, maintaining national controls means that the risks are limited, while giving the responsibility to each state, which knows that if it accepts illegal immigrants due to a weakness in its system, it will not then be able to get rid of them by passing them on to its neighbours.
But this is not enough.
Many illegal immigrants have already managed to enter our territories, creating serious problems, and if more of them enter, they could destabilise our societies.
On this level, Europe can be useful.
We need to draw up extensive programmes to return these people to their countries, and the European states would participate in these on a voluntary basis.
I do however believe that the majority of them would agree to participate in the programmes, as it would be in their interest to do so.
Obviously those to be returned to their countries also need to be willing, and in order to achieve this, the conditions for returning and their reintegration into the local society need to be attractive.
This means, unfortunately, that it is going to be expensive or relatively expensive.
But we need to get used to this idea.
It will still be cheaper than keeping these non-integrated people in our societies.
In the same way, on the voluntary basis of various types of cooperation, I think that neighbouring states should help each other to guard their borders when it is in their common interest to do so, and without questioning each state's responsibility for its internal or external borders.
Should not France, Austria, but also - and why not - Switzerland, launch a joint programme to help Italy financially in guarding its external borders? I think that such an initiative would be common sense.
Madam President, I voted in favour of the text but I believe we must improve it considerably, particularly on the issue of quotas, which we must fix in order to ensure that the burden is shared.
The problem is that we spend a lot of time debating these issues but we are actually neglecting the central question.
Therefore, I welcome the much-criticised Austrian strategy paper because it has brought completely new ideas into the discussion, because it is honest and because it makes it clear that we must aim to prevent the causes of refugee problems as well as reducing the burden and ensuring that it is shared equally. We live today in a Europe in which Bavaria and Austria also border on the Mediterranean and Spain shares a border with eastern Europe.
Only true solidarity can help here and not the Saint Florian principle of hoping that the lightning strikes elsewhere.
We abstained from the vote on the joint resolution because we cannot support the formulation of a common EU immigration and asylum policy on the basis of Title VI of the Treaty on European Union.
We are similarly opposed to Schengen and Europol, which are also mentioned in the resolution.
Clearly we think that immigrants should be treated correctly and we support a humane national policy on refugees.
The Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of a resolution on immigration questions today. Indeed we must cooperate in combating illegal immigration and organised crime associated with illegal immigration.
That said, we must ensure that immigrants and refugees who are resident in the Union get the necessary protection.
We can do that by joining together in laying down certain minimum rights for immigrants and refugees.
We must point out, however, that Denmark has a reservation regarding supranational cooperation on immigration and asylum questions.
This reservation can only be changed, if required, by a referendum in Denmark.
I voted in favour of this resolution because of the many positive proposals contained in it to tackle the problem of illegal immigration, both by increasing the security of the external borders of the European Union and by curtailing the activities of criminal organisations assisting and promoting illegal entry.
I also commend the proposals to improve humanitarian assistance to illegal immigrants, who are often the unfortunate victims of the criminals who exploit their need.
However, I and other British Labour MEPs are unable to support recital F, which unjustly deplores the five-year limit for full integration of asylum and immigration policies, despite this having been agreed in the Amsterdam Treaty by the governments of all Member States.
We are also unable to support paragraph 2, which on similar lines calls for the creation of a common EU immigration and asylum policy.
In conformity with what we have previously stated, we do not think that the EU should develop a common refugee and immigration policy.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
The sitting is now suspended and will resume at 3 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0897/98 by Mr Goerens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the tragic death of Semira Adamu and asylum policy; -B4-0909/98 by Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the death of Semira Adamu following an expulsion order; -B4-0915/98 by Mr Collins and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the tragic death of Semira Adamu; -B4-0921/98 by Mr Pradier and Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the murder of Semira Adamu and the increasingly repressive immigration and asylum policy in Europe; -B4-0927/98 by Mr Chanterie and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on expulsion procedures, following the tragic death of Semira Adamu; -B4-0935/98 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the death of Semira Adamu and the need for a more humane policy on refugees; -B4-0937/98 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the forcible expulsion and death of Semira Adamu.
Madam President, we would like to express our distress at the tragic death of Semira Adamu.
Her tragic disappearance also, and above all, reflects a profound unease in our societies with regard to the countless nationals of third countries who, wanting to escape poverty, persecution, violence or violations of their rights, often do not find the legal means to do so.
The few measures adopted today to help find an acceptable solution to the problem raised in this resolution, and the slowness that characterises the search for humane solutions, only serve to demonstrate the embarrassment that our societies feel when faced with the victims of the unequal distribution of wealth and a lack of rights and freedoms.
This resolution does not aim so much to point the finger at the Member State in which the fatal tragedy involving Semira Adamu took place - although that Member State must of course initiate the necessary judicial enquiry and bring it to a conclusion -, as it aims to stress the need to introduce future measures in full respect of the provisions of the Geneva Convention on refugees.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two weeks ago Semira Adamu, a young Nigerian woman, met a violent death as a result of her forced expulsion from Belgium.
I believe it is right for us in the European Parliament to also express our shock at this event and to condemn what happened.
As Mr Goerens said, it is extremely important for Belgian justice to provide absolute clarity regarding the circumstances of and the responsibilities for Semira's death.
I believe it is also important that the Belgian Government has finally abolished the harshest aspects of its asylum policy.
But the death of Semira also confronts the European Union with its responsibilities.
Semira is not the first victim of a restrictive refugee policy practised by Member States of the Union and also by the Union itself.
Heavy-handed expulsions have already caused deaths or serious injuries in other countries.
It is also not the first time that the European Parliament, together with many human rights organisations, has sounded the alarm about the tendency for Europe to adopt an increasingly severe asylum and refugee policy.
In this context, I do not believe it makes much sense to once again debate all the European Parliament's positions in defence of a more humane asylum and refugee policy.
But I do believe that Semira's death obliges us to place two very important problems on the Council's European agenda.
Firstly, Semira was fleeing a forced marriage in Nigeria.
I know that some people doubt her story, but I do not believe it is for us to judge that.
But it is our job to once again stress that all the European Member States should generously apply the Geneva Convention and thus give protection to women who are the victims of forced marriages, rape or sexual mutilation.
Europe does not need to wait for the world to review the Geneva Convention.
The Council can itself take the initiative, and I am very pleased that Commissioner Gradin has supported us in this during this week.
Secondly, difficult decisions to send people home can also be handled in a humane way.
The return of refugees whose asylum applications have been refused must not be an enforced deportation in which individuals are violently expelled from the country.
A humane return policy is possible by means of intensive support at this end, in which people are given the time, resources and help to prepare for their return.
It is also possible by means of resettlement aid in the country of origin and guarantees for their safety.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is more to international cooperation than simply standard return clauses or transit contracts.
All the Union countries should therefore make radical changes to their deportation policy.
This must also be an urgent task for the Council.
The Member States and the Union itself certainly have the right and the obligation to decide on the residence rights of refugees.
We believe the decisions must be made at European level.
But I believe there is a much more humane alternative to fortress Europe which is at present on the European drawing board.
Madam President, she was 20 years old.
She refused to be expelled.
Some policemen killed her in a Sabena aeroplane.
It is as simple as that.
Of course, there were protests, demonstrations and a resignation, which is to the credit of the Minister concerned, and there are asylum-seekers who pay with their lives for so-called departure formalities.
There are others, in France and elsewhere: there have been those who have been discussed and those who will never have been discussed.
A foreigner who is to be expelled leaves via a detention centre.
I fear that few of our colleagues will have been curious enough to go and see what a detention centre is really like.
The buildings are not necessarily deep, dirty dungeons covered with wet straw.
Oh no!
Behind Charles de Gaulle airport there is a detention centre with acceptable rooms, a reading room, a meeting room and a television.
The only thing is that you are taken there by force between two policemen and handed over to the administration, with no contacts, no means of appeal, no lawyer, no possibility of altering the course of events and no power to do anything apart from wait for expulsion, which, of course, does not take long - from a few hours to a few days.
The State - with a capital 'S' - takes measures for which it is accountable to no-one.
Here, there are no rights to be respected, not even human rights.
There is no trial, no judgement, no appeal, no defence.
The machine keeps going and the steam roller moves on, crushing everything in its path.
However little you demonstrate your relative disagreement with the decision that has been made, you are handcuffed and your ankles are shackled. You are then taken away by civil servants - who all look very good in the eyes of their superiors -, with as much consideration as you can imagine, in a police van to the foot of the detachable steps that lead to the aircraft.
That is how it happens in Europe.
A foreigner to be expelled is first and foremost a security and public order issue.
Well, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, that has got to change.
The Ministers for the Interior of the countries of the Union have to be accountable to us and to those who have sent us here.
It is in our name that these barbaric acts are carried out, and in our name that these terrible deeds are done.
Our request for the Council to come here very shortly to explain to us precisely what the policy is, what measures have been taken and, finally, how Semira Adamu's murderers are being punished, is not a simple request; it is a demand.
Madam President, on behalf of the PPE Group, I should also like to say that we are deeply shocked by the tragic death of Semira Adamu.
We trust that the judicial inquiry will shed full light on the circumstances of this tragedy and determine the respective responsibilities.
The tragic death of Semira Adamu demonstrates the need to implement a responsible asylum policy.
This must take into account the right of political asylum as laid down in the 1948 Geneva Convention, but also the commitments made within the European Union and the Schengen zone.
We should like to stress that this policy must be efficient and that it must be implemented with respect for human dignity and the fundamental rights of every individual.
I believe there are two elements, two lines of approach, which must be stressed: asylum and immigration policy must be founded on the best possible organisation of authorised immigration and the granting of protection to those in danger or in need of protection.
At the same time, asylum and immigration policy must also be designed to prevent and combat illegal immigration.
In this respect, our measures must be principally directed against the organisers of trafficking in human beings and those who abuse the situation of these poor migrants.
But an individual who remains illegally in a Member State must also be expelled from that country.
There is no way round that.
However, the need to respect human rights when doing so is of essential importance to the organisation of asylum and immigration policy in all its aspects.
This respect must be present during the asylum procedure and when removing persons illegally present in a country.
It is also important for asylum-seekers to quickly obtain legal security.
But we must also acknowledge the fact that the Belgian Government assumed its responsibilities following the death of Semira Adamu and congratulate the Belgian Government on seeking to adapt its policy and render it more humane.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes Members of this House are heard to say that Europe needs to develop a soul.
Well, Europe has a soul, and it is expressed in its universal thinking.
The prerequisite for this has always been love of the unfamiliar, openness, respect for and even curiosity about the unfamiliar.
In Semira Adamu's terrible death we have witnessed the death of Europe's soul.
Xenophobia has become an epidemic in our continent.
Cases such as the death of this woman could happen at any time.
This should come as no surprise in a Union where for years the right of asylum has been systematically undermined.
It should not surprise any of us that attempts can be made to violate the Geneva Convention, that it is possible to introduce deportation, which makes a mockery of human rights.
If we allow this, we will not only be responsible for further deaths, but we will also be killing Europe's soul, and there will be no point in looking for it any more.
Madam President, once again we must denounce and condemn the use of violence in forced expulsions of immigrants by security forces in certain Member States of the European Union.
It is not the first time that the technique of using a pillow to smother the cries of those being expelled has been condemned.
Everyone will remember that Amnesty International has repeatedly denounced this method but, unfortunately, the issue was ignored.
This method, employed quite frequently in Belgium by police authorities to silence the cries of expelled refugees, led to the death of Samira Adamu.
Her murder constituted an unequivocal attack on human dignity and respect for human rights. And this must be said emphatically and clearly, rather than using the euphemisms so often employed.
We most strongly regret and condemn the use of such practices and ask that those responsible be punished appropriately.
Nonetheless, we know that this tragic event is nothing more than proof of the repressive aspects of the immigration and asylum policy implemented within the European Union.
At the same time, I would like to highlight, in this context, the pressing need for sexual abuse to be taken into consideration as a factor for granting political asylum. This is something that has not occurred, not even in the case of the expulsion of this young woman who was forced to marry a polygamist who was 65.
From a more general point of view, I find it worrying that the European Union is implementing a policy that massively restricts the influx of immigrants, and that gives the impression of a fortress - as we already said yesterday in a similar debate - behind the measures that are adopted.
In addition, the document recently published by the Austrian Presidency also gives particular cause for concern because it highlights the serious threat to the already reduced right of asylum.
In this connection, we would like to state that we believe that any asylum policy that is developed within the European Union must be inextricably linked to the Geneva Convention.
Finally, I would like to stress and reiterate once again to this House that the immigration and asylum policy must be based on political measures of solidarity and not economic measures.
The first step to solving the problem of immigration is to consolidate in the European Union a genuine policy of generous and united cooperation that helps ...
(The President cut off the speaker)
I am sorry, Mr Mohamed Alí, but you are already a minute over your time.
Madam President, on 22 September, a young Nigerian woman died in Belgium, smothered by indifference, smothered by violence, smothered by selfishness.
She was 20 years old and had fled Nigeria because she was being forced into an arranged marriage.
She had hoped that in a European Union country she would find refuge, comfort and hope.
She thought that here the universal values of peace, freedom and equality were respected.
Poor Semira!
What she did not know was that our countries are too often insensitive to suffering and to personal or collective tragedies.
All our countries have ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and signed the Geneva Convention on the status of refugees.
They all have, of course, their own laws on asylum, expulsions and immigration.
The Belgian law, the so-called Van De Lanotte law, has therefore been the focus of all the criticism and uproar.
It allows men, women and children who do not fit the criteria defined by the Aliens Office to be detained in closed centres, often for very long periods of time.
The tragedy involving Semira has shaken our society and, while maintaining the political force of the law, Belgium has taken measures to make it more respectful of people and, of course, to prevent the use of cushions.
It is up to the European Union to start the process, as quickly as possible, to define a real common European policy on asylum and immigration.
Mr President, in the case of the indeed very regrettable death of Mrs Adamu, so many lies and untruths have been told today that I should first like to remind the House of two facts.
Fact one: Mrs Adamu was, with all due respect, an asylum-cheater who even joked herself about the fact that people in Belgium swallowed her story about an enforced marriage.
This is clear, for example, from the shocking testimony of the Reverend Herman Boon, the chaplain at Zaventem Airport.
It should also be remembered that Mrs Adamu first stayed for some time undisturbed with a friend in Lagos, and then also left unhindered for the Togolese capital Lomé where, without encountering problems of any kind, she boarded a plane for Europe.
She was thus anything but a bona fide refugee.
Fact two: the fact that Mrs Adamu, incited by a far-left 'Collective against Deportations', succeeded on no fewer than five successive occasions in preventing a completely justified departure by screaming and fighting and more, simply means that the asylum policy is much too lenient, and certainly not the opposite.
The figures prove this.
In my country the greater part of rejected asylum-seekers, which means asylum-cheaters, if you will pardon the expression, are not repatriated but disappear into illegality.
Since 1990, this has been the case for 100 000 people, but that does not seem to be a problem.
Finally, I must also say that I am deeply shocked to see the police officers who have to escort refused asylum-seekers become the victims of slander. They are being labelled as murderers, even in this House.
These people have to work in the most difficult circumstances and deserve every support.
The fact that they are also being maligned by the former Foreign Minister, the socialist Mr Tobback, I see as nothing short of scandalous, because it was not the police force and not even the Vlaams Blok , but the socialist Mr Tobback, the big boss of the socialists who are here today, who described the refugees, and I quote from his book 'Black on White', as 'gulls who come to rest on a rubbish tip here because that is easier than fishing at home or farming the land'.
I would never dare to say this.
They are Mr Tobback's words.
I recall that not a single Belgian minister resigned in the summer of 1996 when the four children in the Dutroux case were found, that nobody resigned when ten paratroopers were gruesomely murdered in Rwanda, and that nobody resigns in my country when its nationals are the regular victims of rape, robbery or murder carried out by illegal immigrants or asylum-seekers, for example.
I would end with this question: are there perhaps first class victims and second class victims of a defective policy?
Madam President, this resolution must not obscure our own failings in moving towards harmonising asylum and immigration policies. What have we done over recent years?
We have made declarations, but we have done almost nothing tangible.
We cleared our consciences through the Treaty of Amsterdam by deciding that, in the five years following its ratification, minimum rules would have to be adopted in this sector.
So my question is the following: is Europe going to wait five years before acting? Is it not now time to present the 15 Member States with a set of measures leading towards a common vision, across all of Europe, of the conditions concerning both asylum and the status of refugees?
In so doing, Europe would show that it is not only an economic machine, but that it is also capable, when united, of facing the difficult challenge posed by the attraction our society has for those who flee their country of origin due to its political regime, poverty or the violation of fundamental rights.
If Europe does not do its duty, if the Council of Ministers does not progress on this issue, there will, unfortunately, be other Semira Adamus.
Madam President, the dominant fact is that a 20-year-old girl has been brutally murdered by organisations of the State.
All the rest that was said a little while ago by one of our young colleagues is unacceptable, being not devil's advocacy but a defence of crimes and criminals.
And the criminals are not simply the police, but the executive bodies, the government, the Belgian legal system and the more general legislation prevailing in the European Union on asylum, immigrants, foreigners - the very framework outlined by the Council of the European Union within which that legislation operates.
We must overthrow these things, and while our pain and anger over this matter may well up, we must remain calm and vigilant, and look out every day from now on for what can be changed and how to humanise the murderous legislation currently in force.
Madam President, a few days ago the new Greek Archbishop spoke of 'the barbarous East and the civilised West', but it seems that his prophetic powers leave something to be desired, since we have all seen where barbarism lies.
It is at the heart of the civilised West.
And we must change that heart, not tear it out but change it, make it truly civilised so that it does not just pay lip-service to humanity, human rights and other such mirages.
Madam President, I will not allow the words of Mr Ephremidis to pass when he says that, in Belgium, murders are only committed by illegal immigrants and that Belgian law does not comply with the Convention on Human Rights or with the European legislation.
Making such statements simply cannot be allowed, not even in the European Parliament.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the fact that my colleague Mrs Gradin gave the House a clear and lengthy account of the Commission's position last Tuesday, I will refrain, if I may, Madam President, from repeating my colleague's words and merely express my personal sadness at what occurred.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0898/98 by Mr Frischenschlager and Mrs Thors, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the political situation in Slovakia; -B4-0913/98 by Mr Wiersma and Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the situation in Slovakia; -B4-0928/98 by Mrs Stenzel and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on elections in Slovakia; -B4-0936/98 by Mr Voggenhuber and Mrs Schroedter, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the political situation in Slovakia; -B4-0938/98 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the situation in Slovakia.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I spent the whole of the first week of September in Slovakia as a member of the international team assessing the pre-election situation there.
I was a witness both to the doubts concerning the fairness of the approaching elections and the fanatical efforts of the democratic parties and NGOs to ensure open, fair and correct elections.
Through the very high turn-out in the election and by voting in the way they did, the Slovaks clearly demonstrated their commitment to democracy, the rule of law, freedom and justice.
The way the elections themselves were organised over the two-day period and the votes counted is also very encouraging.
A smooth transfer of power, the speedy formation of a new government and an energetic approach to the necessary reforms in order to come into line with our acquis must make it possible for Slovakia to be recognised as a candidate Member State.
The Commission and the Council owe it to the Slovak people, Madam President, to recognise the changed political circumstances.
Mr President, I am pleased that we can now have a debate on Slovakia with a very positive undertone.
I hope that for the time being this will be the last urgent debate on Slovakia, and that from now on we can discuss this country normally.
This is indeed the result of the elections which were successfully held on 25 and 26 September.
A small delegation of observers from the European Parliament was present, and we could confirm for ourselves that the elections were conducted in a manner which was orderly, well organised and fair.
This also allows us to make a new evaluation of Slovakia and to have a new discussion on the question of whether it should be included in the first group of accession countries.
We assume that the incoming government and the new Slovak Parliament will be announcing a programme of political reforms, designed to strengthen the country's democratic structure, protect the rights of minorities and better regulate the country's free and independent media.
If they succeed in this, they will have removed the principal obstacles to Slovakia being included in accession negotiations.
We hope that not only the incoming government but also the political parties which are now negotiating will clearly understand that this programme of political reforms is also very important to the European Union, because over the past year the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council have all stressed the need for a number of these reforms.
If they are implemented, we must give serious attention to the formal and informal undertakings we have given to Slovakia.
But there is a certain time problem to which I would draw attention.
This is also referred to in the motion for a resolution.
Formally, the Commission's screening reports are to be published on 6 November.
The Commission will clearly not have enough time to pay sufficient attention in these to the new political situation in Slovakia.
It is also unlikely that the new government will have come up with a concrete programme for political reforms by that date, and even less likely that certain actions will actually have been implemented.
The transition in Slovakia no doubt comes too close to the Vienna summit, and the Vienna summit will not be able to take a decision on whether or not Slovakia can be included in the first group of acceding countries.
We call on Parliament and above all on the Commission and the Council to show some flexibility, and to consider whether it is possible - if Vienna does not seem to be feasible, if in Vienna it is not yet possible to form an opinion on the political reforms - to draw up some kind of additional interim report on Slovakia in the spring for those points laid down as criteria for membership, namely rights for minorities and democratic stability.
The Council would then be able to decide under the German Presidency whether or not to include Slovakia in the first group.
It would be a very bad signal from Parliament, from the European Union, if we were to keep Slovakia waiting until December next year after everything we have asked of it.
Madam President, the elections which took place in Slovakia on 25 and 26 September have caused a major upset.
The Slovak population has demonstrated political maturity by voting out Prime Minister Meciar and giving the Democratic Coalition a majority vote.
This is a departure from post-communist despotism and represents a particular success for our sister party, the Christian Democrats, who are the main political force in the new government.
The European Parliament, therefore, rightly congratulates the Slovak population on the results of this election.
There are grounds for hoping that a strong and stable government will now be formed quickly.
The victorious opposition, the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK), has found its feet in the determination to oust Meciar.
It unites such different forces as Christian Democrats, Liberals, the reformed Communist Left and the Party of the Hungarian Coalition.
It is a heterogeneous group which is going to have to work to maintain its cohesion.
However, there is a strong chance that it can create a government which fulfils the Copenhagen accession criteria, particularly in terms of achieving institutional stability as a guarantee of democracy based on the rule of law, of respect for human rights and of respect for and the protection of minorities.
There are now calls for the European Union to support Slovakia so that it can fulfil the political criteria for accession.
The political change in this country favours the integration of Slovakia into the European Union and represents a welcome element of stability in Central Europe.
Madam President, the European Parliament has repeatedly expressed its dissatisfaction with the progress of democracy in Slovakia, which was also the reason it was not included in the first group of accession countries.
However, I believe that anyone expressing dissatisfaction and criticism should also be prepared to recognise change and progress and to assess them fairly.
The elections in Slovakia were fair and correct, as I observed for myself.
The question for us now is whether the Union is capable of responding to this situation quickly and firmly and of assessing it appropriately.
I believe that the current resolution is too vague, too 'wait and see', too cautious.
My group believes it is possible to bring Slovakia into the first group sooner, particularly given that the new forces of democracy could use all the support they can get not only on the path to democracy but also on the path to Europe.
Madam President, as other Members have mentioned in their speeches, I would like to welcome the fact that the general elections held in September in Slovakia took place under acceptable conditions. They will surely constitute a decisive step towards establishing in that country a democratic system and the rule of law worthy of such names.
If this is indeed what has been achieved, there is no doubt that Slovakia will be in a similar position to the first group of countries that are already negotiating their accession to the European Union.
What is more, the Members of this Parliament should welcome this positive development. However, they should also take into consideration that perhaps, in one way or another, the opinions given by this House - as well as those of the European Commission and, of course, the Council - when determining the groups of countries and the processes through which they were to negotiate their accession have aroused a great deal of interest in Slovak society and public opinion, which has finally opted for the path of democracy and respect for the rule of law.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not usually one for debates involving associated countries on Thursday afternoons such as this, but today really is a welcome exception after the excellent decision made by the Slovak electorate.
I think that it is not so important for Mrs Stenzel whether it is the Christian Democrats or other parties who received a larger share of the vote.
In my opinion, it is crucial that this has given a very clear signal in favour of Europe.
In this context, I, as co-chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, would like to offer my warmest thanks to my colleagues from the OSCE, the Council of Europe and this House for acting as election observers and contributing significantly to the generally smooth running of the elections.
I feel that this is also an appropriate time to remind you that the decision taken by the European Parliament to hold the door open for Slovakia, despite recommendations to the contrary by the Commission, was correct and was in the end rewarded by the voters.
However, we will have to judge the incoming government and the incoming majorities in Slovakia by what happens in future.
We expect appropriate parliamentary monitoring of the secret services.
We want a law on minority languages, as agreed, and I believe that Slovakia will need a different form of political culture than has hitherto been the case.
We believe that there have been some highly encouraging signs so far, and we in the Joint Parliamentary Committee and in the European Parliament must help to ensure that the changing situation is given appropriate acknowledgement in the form of increased cooperation.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, 84 % voter turn-out speaks for itself.
I myself was in Slovakia for three days as election observer, and the enthusiasm of the Slovak people when they went to the polls was tangible.
I was also very pleased to note that the political representatives at the polling stations had had excellent training.
Training sessions often lasted up to five hours, and the use of videos ensured maximum preparation for the elections.
Young people were palpably pleased to vote in this election and it was clear that the official representatives, who regarded each other with great scepticism, really did monitor procedures right to the end.
It is for these reasons that I believe this election was a huge step forward for Slovakia.
Today, we can confirm with a clear conscience that the elections took place in a correct and objective manner, that new majorities were made possible and that Slovakia now has a real opportunity to forge ahead on the path to Europe.
We noticed that the Slovak population were very pro-Europe.
Another vote took place at the same time as these elections and had a very low turn-out, yet 84 % voted in the election involving the 17 parties that stood, so we know that the Slovak people had both practical and emotional reasons for voting the way they did.
I also call upon the Commission to ensure that Slovakia's democratic election leads to appropriate action being taken.
Madam President, although this has already been said, there is reason to note that the Slovak people have realised that in a democracy it is possible to change the future of one's country.
The people there have shown their desire to belong to the European democratic fellowship and have understood that having a functioning democracy makes a difference.
We note this with satisfaction. However, I join with Mr Bösch in maintaining that it is important also to achieve results in the governmental work, both as regards developing a functioning administration, a stable democracy and, not least, when it comes to resolving minority questions.
I am not entirely happy on that point, having heard certain first reports from Slovakia.
We must await results on this point, but our signal and our debate today are a clear gesture to the Slovak people: thank you for the result you have achieved.
Finally I will merely point out that we are quite surprised that Finland was not invited to participate in the organisation to observe the elections.
Madam President, in March of this year Parliament expressed its concern at the political situation in Slovakia.
The departure of President Kovac followed by the appointment of Prime Minister Meciar created an even more worrying situation.
The undemocratic behaviour of Meciar and his party towards the opposition and the Hungarian minority caused much criticism from abroad.
Not so long ago, Slovakia was a candidate for membership of NATO and the European Union.
Unfortunately, under Meciar the country turned its back politically, legally and economically on European standards, its political situation excluding it from the first group of potential EU Member States.
Fortunately, times appear to have changed.
Prime Minister Meciar's party suffered heavy losses at the elections to the National Council at the end of September, giving the Slovak opposition the unique opportunity to put right much of what had gone wrong under Meciar.
The high turn-out at the elections shows that the people are convinced of the need for change.
Meciar has lost the trust of his people, but his party nevertheless remains the largest.
The job is not over with this victory for the anti-Meciar parties.
A difficult task awaits the opposition.
The door of the European Union remains open to Slovakia, provided it has a democratic government.
The situation is worrying, as both before and during the elections the opposition had one thing in common above all else, namely their opposition to Meciar.
There was no agreement on a political programme.
Political and economic power are closely linked in Slovakia.
Although the election victory gives the opposition political power, economic power is still largely in the hands of Meciar and friends.
This is why the opposition must cancel many of the political appointments, look at the legality of the privatisation, and regain the trust of the international community.
They must show that they can provide stability.
Slovakia's recovery is dependent on these opposition parties drawing up a political programme which gives substance to the aforementioned points.
It is in this way that a genuine coalition will be created.
They must also hold together for four years.
In this, they need the political and financial help and support of the European Parliament.
Together it is possible to work constructively on ensuring that Slovakia can join the European Union, like its former partner the Czech Republic, for example.
Madam President, the Slovak people have demonstrated, through their high turnout and their civil and peaceful behaviour on the occasion of the recent parliamentary elections, a firm commitment to democracy and a willingness to use this democratic opportunity to bring change to political life in the Slovak Republic.
The Commission encourages Slovakia to make full use of the opportunity thus created to address the problems highlighted in the Commission's opinion of July 1997 which have hampered its accession process.
We hope that the outgoing government will facilitate the process of formation of a new government and that, in the interests of Slovakia, the process will be conducted quickly, avoiding unnecessary delays.
It is hoped that there will be a rapid improvement of the political climate which will lead Slovakia closer to the European Union in terms of democracy.
The European Commission is firmly committed to facilitating the process of integration of Slovakia into the Union; it encourages the future government to accelerate preparations for accession by showing clear commitment to removing the obstacles indicated in the opinion, and to address the accession partnership priorities.
The new government is encouraged to consolidate and enhance the momentum of political reform, including in the area of protection of minorities, and to promote confidence and stability in key state institutions, including the presidency.
Macro-economic equilibrium needs to be promptly re-established and maintained; economic reform, particularly in the financial sector, transparency in economic-decision making and better corporate governance all need to be pursued urgently.
As you know, the Commission is currently preparing the first regular progress report.
We will take the changes in Slovakia into account as late as possible in that process.
But the government has not yet been formed so, for the moment, it is too early to make definitive judgments.
Thank you, Commissioner Pinheiro.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Taslima Nasreen -B4-0906/98 by Mr Collins and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on Taslima Nasreen; -B4-0920/98 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on Taslima Nasreen; -B4-0934/98 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Taslima Nasreen; -B4-0939/98 by Mrs González Álvarez and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the death threats levelled at Taslima Nasreen;
Malaysia -B4-0899/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the human rights situation in Malaysia; -B4-0908/98 by Mr Collins and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on Anwar Ibrahim; -B4-0914/98 by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the human rights situation in Malaysia; -B4-0933/98 by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on human rights in Malaysia; -B4-0944/98 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the recent political detentions under the Internal Security Act in Malaysia;
Capital punishment in Iran -B4-0900/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on the human rights situation in Iran; -B4-0919/98 by Mrs Roth and Mrs Aglietta, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on capital punishment in Iran; -B4-0926/98 by Mrs Sandbæk, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, on the situation of human rights in Iran; -B4-0930/98 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on capital punishment in Iran; -B4-0941/98 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on human rights in Iran;
Capital punishment in the United States -B4-0911/98 by Mr Barzanti and Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the sentencing to death of an Italian national; -B4-0917/98 by Mrs Aglietta, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the sentencing to death in the US of Rocco Derek Barnabei; -B4-0925/98 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on capital punishment in the US; -B4-0940/98 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on capital punishment in the US;
Leyla Zana -B4-0945/98 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the release of Leyla Zana;
Georgia -B4-0931/98 by Mr von Habsburg, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on human rights in Georgia.
Taslima Nasreen
Madam President, we are concerned about one of the great women of this House.
Taslima Nasreen was awarded the Sakharov Prize here for her work, for her political commitment and for her commitment to human rights.
She received the Sakharov Prize, lived in exile for four years and has now returned to Bangladesh where she is being persecuted.
We are alarmed that fundamentalist parties such as Jamal-e-Islami in Bangladesh have been holding demonstrations against Mrs Nasreen since 14 September and demanding that she be executed.
We are worried that the police in Bangladesh are hunting for her after a court in Dhaka issued a new warrant for her arrest and for the seizure of her possessions, renewing the charge of blasphemy made in 1994, and we are alarmed that a new reward of FRF 33 000 has been offered.
Why is she being persecuted? She incurred the anger of the fundamentalists in Bangladesh mainly because she defended the rights of women in the context of certain Islamic traditions.
Increasingly, we hear reports from Bangladesh about brutal and arbitrary behaviour by the police and about the inability of the organs of state to defend the rights of the victims of this violence.
We are dismayed by all of this and concerned that Mrs Nasreen has had to go into hiding, that she is being persecuted and that she may be facing death.
Therefore, I call upon the Commission and the Council to support the great lady of this House, the Sakharov Prize laureate, as I said, but also in particular, Madam President, to support this Parliament.
In two weeks a parliamentary delegation will be travelling to Bangladesh because of the devastating flood disaster.
That is a different problem, but I believe it is the duty of this delegation to address the human rights situation during talks with the government and to do everything possible to ensure that Mrs Nasreen can move freely.
Madam President, in 1994 the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize to Taslima Nasreen.
In her book 'Lajja', which roughly means 'feelings of shame', she described the life of a Hindu family and outlined Muslim extremism, intolerance towards the Hindu minority and everyday discrimination against women in a male-dominated world.
The book was banned in her own country.
Anyone accused of injuring religious feelings can expect a prison sentence of up to two years.
After four years, Mrs Nasreen came out of exile and is back in Bangladesh.
Was it recklessness that drove her to do this?
On her Internet website she gives her reasons for returning home.
One is homesickness and attachment to a country that is much too important to be allowed to fall into the hands of extremists.
The other is her mother who is seriously ill with cancer.
She wants to be with her in what will probably be the last weeks of her life.
Almost as soon as Mrs Nasreen arrived in Bangladesh under a false name and went into hiding, the streets were full of soldiers.
We have reliable reports of serious outbreaks of violence. A reward has been offered, as Mr Telkämper mentioned, and demands for her death are circulating once again, initiated by fanatical Muslim extremists.
So Taslima Nasreen's life is once again in danger.
It is still unclear how long the government, regarded as liberal, can hold its ground against the fundamentalists.
We call upon the Prime Minister, Mrs Hasina, to apply the human rights enshrined in the constitution and to protect Mrs Nasreen.
The demands for her to present herself voluntarily before the courts is a double-edged one, given the possibility of a prison sentence, uncontrollable pressure and the danger of attacks by extremists who are almost impossible to keep in check.
I hope, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, that the Sakharov Prize has the necessary international standing to finally help to free this brave fighter from danger.
Madam President, as other Members have already mentioned, after four years of being away from her country, Taslima Nasrin has returned there for personal reasons, perhaps to visit her mother whose health has deteriorated or because she missed her country.
She has returned and once again her life has been threatened.
We should ask ourselves exactly how being awarded the Sakharov Prize has helped her and her other colleague Leyla Zana - who will be mentioned later-, who continues to be held prisoner in Turkish prisons, after having received a further sentence of two years for writing an article.
I therefore believe that it should be very important for the European institutions to exert considerable pressure, in this case, on the Bangladeshi Government to prevent fanatics from killing a woman who has defended human rights in general, and the rights of women in particular.
The defense of human rights in general and the rights of women are of great importance to this Parliament, especially in those countries.
The Commission, or the Council, on its behalf, should apply severe pressure on that country in order to prevent something from happening.
Malaysia
Mr President, the recent events in Malaysia, and more particularly the tribulations of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, provide further evidence of the fact that authoritarian and undemocratic regimes ultimately devour their own children.
This has nothing to do with any supposed differences in culture or national character. It has everything to do with accepting arbitrariness as a governing principle.
The Malaysian Prime Minister and his government cannot expect their country to be accepted as a full political partner if they violate fundamental human rights.
The Internal Security Act, which permits detention for long periods without any form of trial, violates the most fundamental principles of human rights, as does the criminal discrimination against homosexuals and the threats, persecutions, arrest of critics, mistreatment of detainees, refusal to grant legal assistance and much more.
My group supports the appeal to the Malaysian Government to stop this behaviour and calls on the Council and the Commission to apply human rights as the essential criterion in its relations with Malaysia.
Madam President, the arrest of Anwar Ibrahim, former Deputy Prime Minister and heir apparent to Mahathir Mohamad, along with 11 associates, demonstrates the short shrift that is given to democratic freedoms and human rights in Malaysia today.
Despite his previous status Mr Anwar had a black eye and other evidence of the physical abuse to which he had been subjected when he appeared in court.
It is likely that the charges of unnatural sex acts and corruption are fabrications to justify his removal and imprisonment while the real motive is to remove a rival when the Prime Minister's standing has been shaken by the Far East economic crisis.
Regardless of this, however, the punishment of homosexual acts between consenting adults by flogging and up to 20 years imprisonment is an outrage.
Mr Anwar and his friends are by no means the first politicians to suffer at the hands of the Malaysian authorities.
A draconian set of laws threaten dissidents and journalists who speak out and people like Lim Guan Eng, an opposition MP, are already in jail for sedition; Irene Fernandez, head of a women's organization, is on trial for publishing allegations of abuses in immigration centres; Param Kumaraswami, a UN special rapporteur, faces a $25m defamation suit brought by two Malaysian companies, and the government refuses to recognize his immunity.
There have been large demonstrations in Malaysia, and in the European Parliament we must speak out clearly in favour of the release of Mr Anwar Ibrahim and his colleagues and all political prisoners, and the abolition of laws which deny the right of free speech or other basic rights.
We are deeply concerned about the economic crisis and its impact on the peoples of Malaysia and all south-east Asia, but we must continue to raise our voice against the flagrant abuse of fundamental political and human rights.
Madam President, Commissioner, we have recently heard repeated reports from the media about the terrible ill-treatment of the deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, and the utterly grotesque accusations against him.
A representative of the Adenauer Foundation had the opportunity to visit him a few days ago and was able to confirm our worst fears.
I think we should take a brief look at the history of Malaysia and point out what Tunku Abdul Rahman, the founder of an independent Malaysia and one of the greatest figures in the whole of Asia, said about Mahathir Mohamad 15 years ago. He warned people against him and said that he was a great demagogue who could bring disaster to Malaysia.
In my opinion, our worst fears about Mahathir Mohamad have proved to be true.
He is one of the greatest demagogues and perhaps one of the greatest experts when it comes to pushing aside troublesome rivals or unseating others who come to power.
The last obstacle to his seizing full power in Malaysia was undoubtedly deputy prime minister Anwar, one of the greatest economic experts in the whole region.
He was regarded by several newspapers as one of the genuine hopes for the future of Malaysia, and he was also someone who might actually have achieved something, particularly in these times of serious economic crisis.
Of course, the Anwar case also shows us that something is wrong with Malaysia's basic laws.
It has already been stated that under the Internal Security Act people can be detained without a warrant, for an investigation period of up to 60 days, if they are suspected - only suspected, mind you - of threatening Malaysia's national security or economy.
Furthermore, the Minister of Home Affairs may issue a detention order of two years without any significant reason.
We must protest against this and stand up for this man.
Madam President, in recent years Malaysia has enjoyed the benefits of being at the centre of the economic boom, and human rights violations have not been a central issue, any more so than the Internal Security Act, a law from the colonial period. For as long as I have been in this Parliament, we have criticised this law as being clear proof that Malaysia is not a democratic constitutional state.
We have now been alarmed by the arrest of Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister, and a further eleven people who were detained with him under the Internal Security Act, and by the arrest of Mr Nallakarupan, a businessman.
We fear that they have been subjected to ill-treatment during their detention.
Why? This Internal Security Act is an arbitrary law.
People can be arrested simply on suspicion.
They can be held in detention and then imprisoned for two years, which can be extended indefinitely.
Currently, 200 people appear to be held in detention, and we demand their immediate release.
We also condemn the Malaysian penal code, under which homosexual acts between consenting adults are punishable by up to 20 years' imprisonment and whipping.
Some people have been imprisoned on these grounds, and we call upon the government to act in a constitutional manner and to release these people immediately.
Mr President, most people think that the situation in Iran has changed slightly in recent times but it is still very much the same.
I want to mention that during the first year of the new President there were 260 public hangings, hundreds of secretly-executed political prisoners; 7 people stoned to death in public, not to mention those stoned to death in secret.
Very recently the authorities have brought in new legislation for separate single-sex hospitals.
Women will be in one, men in another.
Women will be treated only by female doctors and men only by male doctors.
As we know, the vast majority of patients in hospitals are women.
This happens for a variety of reasons, not least because they are the ones who give birth.
The numbers of patients will be far in excess of the doctors available, who are mostly male.
This situation has to be addressed.
You cannot have single-sex hospitals.
The fact is that Iran has changed very little in recent times.
The only thing that has changed is its PR approach.
Salman Rushdie's death penalty has not really been lifted.
We have to be vigilant.
Mr President, the reason for this resolution on Iran is that once again two death sentences have been passed on Baha'is in the country.
We should remember that since the Islamic government came to power in Iran, in 1979, death sentences have been carried out on 200 Bahai'is, but that these stopped in 1992 following international protests - until this summer, that is, because in July another member of this group was executed.
That is why we are very concerned that these two individuals who have now received the death sentence may in fact be killed.
The first appeal in this resolution is an appeal to Iran not to take this road once again and to allow some religious freedom and certainly not murder people for their religious beliefs.
This violates every international convention in the Western world, and I believe in many more countries too.
Asia also rejects such practices.
This then is the first and most important aim of this resolution.
But I should also like to take this opportunity to express my great concern at what is happening in Iran. Because Iran is now showing two faces to the world.
One face that suggests a little tolerance, a slightly improving situation, the famous show by Mr Cook and the Iranian Foreign Minister in New York, while on the other hand there is the repression which is not letting up at all, just taking place a little more behind closed doors.
There are many indications of this, but they are now rather more hidden, such as death sentences which in general are still being passed, but are now being carried out in private courtyards rather than on public squares in front of the cameras, as was previously the case.
Someone even told me that smaller stones are now being used and no longer the large rocks.
To be honest, I do not know which is worse, whether you are stoned to death in a private courtyard with small stones or with large rocks on a public square.
The repression against women is also continuing unabated.
Recently this has taken on an additional and very serious form. Women can no longer be treated by male doctors, which has led to women dying in regions where there are no female doctors.
The fact is that it looks better than it is, that we must not allow ourselves to be deceived and must know the truth about Iran and therefore keep up our protests until things are put right, not just on the public stage but behind the scenes too.
The human rights situation in Iran remains unacceptable.
Mr President, in view of what my colleagues have said, I find the situation in Iran worrying because we have sufficient information to imagine what turn political events might take.
We know that a violent State regime generates violence and resistance. And we risk focusing our attention solely on the plight of women, trade unionists and other religious groups, when we really should be concentrating on the development of the fundamental right of association and political expression.
What can the European Union do in relation to this matter? In my opinion, this critical dialogue has failed and we must doubt whether sufficient changes have taken place to enable the people to express political opinions without being suppressed.
I am therefore appealing for us here to focus our attention on the political developments that are needed.
Mr President, the issue here - the eternal persecution of the Baha'is - is similar to one mentioned earlier.
The Iranians always say that these people are enemies of the country as the core of the Baha'i religion is actually based in Israel.
This is the pretext that is always used.
We should do everything in our power to help the Baha'is to regain the religious freedom that they had before Khomeini seized power, and the freedom to which they should be entitled once again.
There have been positive signs, but unfortunately the opportunity passed all too quickly.
I would strongly urge that we should begin our protests once again, as they helped in the past.
If we continue they should help this time too.
Mr President, one of the things that fill me with pride at being a European and belonging to the European Union is the clear stand we have taken and continue to take in this part of the world against the death penalty.
What is happening in Iran is terrible.
It applies of course not only to the exposed group associated with the Baha'i movement, but also to a great many other people who are being put to death by the Iranian authorities.
We must protest at this process in all its manifestations.
One of the consequences of it is that it casts a shadow over the religion of which those in power in Iran say they are the staunchest interpreters.
I refuse to believe that Muslims act that way or advocate the kind of action pursued by those in power in Iran.
I think we must unequivocally condemn their measures and proclaim that they are in contradiction, not just with the principles of humanism, but with those of all reputable religions.
Capital punishment in the United States
Mr President, we are calling for the death sentence on Rocco Derek Barnabei, due to be carried out on 28 October in the American state of Virginia, to be commuted or at least for a stay of execution to be granted.
Rocco, a young man of 31, the grandson of an Italian emigrant, was accused of killing his fiancée in 1993.
His financial circumstances did not permit him to prepare an adequate defence.
New evidence has come to light which I gather may change the guilty verdict.
The condemned man should have the right to prove his innocence.
So the death penalty must not be carried out.
Furthermore, the resolution of 3 April 1998 of the 54th UN Commission calls for a moratorium on executions with a view to complete abolition of the death penalty.
This resolution must not fall on deaf ears yet again, nor must the General Affairs Council decision of 29 June 1998, requiring constant and determined action by the European Union at international level against capital punishment, be regarded as an empty statement of principle.
Save Rocco Derek Barnabei's life!
No court, no judge, no power can take the life of a human being.
Anywhere where this dreadful barbarity survives and has not been stamped out cannot claim to respect fundamental human rights.
Mr President, this year, for the second year in succession, the UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution calling on those states which still have the death penalty to impose a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.
The United States is, of course, one of the countries which owes the largest amount of money to the United Nations.
As a so-called civilised country, it totally ignores international opinion on this issue.
It is completely unacceptable that it carries out the same barbaric acts as countries like Iran -it is basically in the same category as Iran.
Despite the fact that it holds itself up as the moral police force of the world, it is murdering people every year - and thinks that is right.
A strong message has to be sent out and it has to be forced to toe the line on this issue.
In this case, in particular, the fact that although fresh evidence has come to light and a re-trial has been denied is despicable.
This is someone whose life is going to be terminated and his right both to produce new evidence and a fair trial has been denied.
It is of fundamental importance that the United States adheres to the principles of human rights.
I would like Mary Robinson, the UN Commissioner on Human Rights, to put pressure on the United States to abolish the death penalty.
It is long overdue for a so-called civilised country to abolish such a barbaric act.
Mr President, battles are often fought - if not won - over similar situations in our countries - and some of these battles give rise to a sense of unease.
While we can feel sure we are doing the right thing, because any battle against the death penalty reinforces human dignity, there is also a feeling of deep regret for all those who are condemned to death, yet do not find a sympathetic audience like our Parliament.
Today we are dealing with an urgent individual case, where there is possible new evidence and an inadequate defence which might now be better presented.
But I think we should be starting from the decision of the General Affairs Council aimed at strengthening the European Union's international action against the death penalty, because these individual cases are increasingly becoming the focus of our determination to urge the United States and the United Nations towards a moratorium on executions. The final outcome of such a moratorium must of course be the abolition of the death penalty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is not much to add to what has already been said by previous speakers in this debate.
But it is still worth emphasizing that there are two sides to the case of Rocco Derek Barnabei: one is the European Union's overall, clear, precise and agreed condemnation of this barbaric punishment over many years, and the other is the rights and wrongs of the individual case, it being understood that we refuse to accept the legitimacy of the death penalty.
In this particular case rights of defence and full presentation of evidence were not guaranteed, and those are fundamental to a legal system like that of the United States, where advocacy of civil liberties is a matter of pride and it is often considered preferable to let the guilty go free than to condemn the innocent.
That is precisely the point we must rely on in calling for the sentence to be commuted or, if necessary, for a stay of execution, at least.
Leyla Zana
Mr President, by awarding the Sakharov Prize to Leyla Zana, our Parliament has taken a clear position against the violation of human rights in Turkey and in favour of a negotiated and political solution to the Kurdish issue.
We do so on behalf of universal values, but also drawing lessons from situations of conflict in Europe, such as Northern Ireland, and in the world, and from the way in which they have been resolved.
Obviously, the leaders in Ankara are refusing to listen to this message from the democratic and progressive forces of the Union.
Worse still, the new sentences that the country has just passed against Leyla Zana and that threaten many leading members of HADEP, show that those leaders are locked into a repressive and military strategy from which there is no escape.
In this situation, our Parliament must not only demonstrate its human and brotherly solidarity with our colleague Leyla Zana and all those who are the victims of repressive measures, but it must also reaffirm its total support for all the forces that are fighting in Turkey to achieve democracy in that country.
This is the aim of the resolution that we have tabled, which calls, in particular, for the immediate release of Leyla Zana and all the political prisoners, and for a peaceful, political solution to the Kurdish issue through direct negotiations with the representatives of that people.
Mr President, the Leyla Zana case is unfortunately symptomatic of the whole Kurdish problem in Turkey.
When we go there we are told by the PKK that this is the last battle.
The Turkish side answers with the same argument, that it is the last advance against the PKK.
There are several reasons why a solution has not yet been reached.
On the one hand, the Kurdish forces are fragmented; on the other hand, there are areas of withdrawal and also support from outside.
Therefore, I support the resolution, which demands that a political solution be found, as a military solution has so far not succeeded.
The current situation, in which there is considerable tension between Turkey and Syria, shows how dangerous it is to delay a political solution.
I myself once visited Leyla Zana in prison.
She was paraded as their star inmate.
I find it outrageous that a country that aspires to join the EU should imprison people because of their political beliefs.
Mr President, I am pleased that the whole Parliament is so united on the subject of Leyla Zana.
But if I may, during the one minute's speaking time allotted to me, I should like to point out that this subject has been on Parliament's agenda at least five times in the past two years, and regrettably nothing at all has been done to improve her situation.
She is indeed a recipient of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize.
She has been sentenced to a further two years in prison and of course it is not only her, Leyla Zana, who is the issue, but also all the other Kurds and members of the so-called banned political parties who are being arrested and given long prison sentences.
This is a violation of human rights in Turkey against which we must continue to loudly protest.
The only thing we can do is to continue to bombard the Turkish Government with our views on the violation of human rights.
When I visit Mr Demirel in Ankara next week with an environment group, I will certainly present him with this resolution of the European Parliament and ask him to comment personally on it.
Mr President, first I want to express the support of the Green Group for this resolution from the members of the GUE Group. Our support also reiterates the commitment of the Greens to sending a tangible signal of support from the European Parliament to the Kurdish people, through Leyla Zana.
It is absolutely incredible that even though the European Parliament has sought to highlight the lack of respect for human rights in Turkey through Leyla Zana, today she is still under such a heavy sentence, with another two years in prison for the article she wrote. Other Kurdish Members of Parliament are facing the same treatment and other people are in prison just for saying what they think.
The signal from the European Parliament would obviously look extremely weak if we did not use this vote to underline the significance of the award of the Sakharov Prize to Leyla Zana.
So I hope Parliament will recognise the importance of the resolution put forward by our GUE Group colleagues and that it can form the basis for creating the conditions to get the Turkish government properly involved in these issues.
As long as these things are happening, we cannot accept that there should be attempts at dialogue going on which do not stress the importance of human rights in Turkey.
Faced with a deteriorating situation - and certainly no improvement - we cannot, as the European Union and as the European Parliament, fail to uphold the commitment we have made in other resolutions and by awarding the Sakharov Prize to Leyla Zana, and we must forcefully stress that Europe and the countries of the world cannot tolerate countries which do not respect human rights and other people's ideas, and which use incarceration as an instrument of political struggle.
Georgia
Mr President, we have already discussed various human rights issues at length.
Georgia, however, is quite a special case.
In April of this year the UN human rights section examined the case of certain prisoners in detail, obviously with the aim of setting an example for others, since it is the general treatment of people in Georgia's prisons that is simply scandalous.
I was co-opted into the Georgia Helsinki Group a long time ago, and as a result I receive information directly.
It is shocking what people are going through there.
This was why it was good that the UN dealt with this.
It wrote a report, which was adopted by the UN, calling on the Georgian Government to put an end to this scandalous situation, particularly with regard to the three people I have named in the resolution.
Since then nothing has happened.
The UN has made several inquiries but there has been no reply from Georgia.
The government remains silent.
In my opinion, it is now time for us Europeans to have a say.
After all, we must not forget that Georgia listens to us very seriously.
Therefore, it would almost be a service to Georgia if we were to take up this issue and call upon the Georgian Government, as stated in the resolution, to finally comply with the UN's proposals following lengthy, serious studies based on a broad range of evidence.
I only hope that the resolution is adopted in its current form, because I believe it can really achieve something.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr von Habsburg has already said that we have a fundamental problem here.
As we have seen, the signing of partnership, cooperation and interim agreements does not automatically improve the human rights situation in the partner countries in the manner provided for by European Commission of Human Rights.
Although the Commission always claims that these agreements are necessary in order to help improve the human rights situation, this is not the case.
Nothing is being done.
The interim agreement with Georgia was signed a long time ago and nothing has happened.
I believe that, particularly when a democratic society is being constructed, a democratic judiciary and humane conditions in prisons are a highly sensitive area.
Ukraine and Russia have an action plan in this field through TACIS.
Georgia does not.
This is why it is important that Georgia also has an action programme for democracy, in cooperation with the Council of Europe, through the TACIS programme.
I am pleased that Mr von Habsburg supports our amendments provided that the first amendment takes the form of an addition.
We would then make an oral amendment to the second amendment.
Mr President, the Commission has followed the case of Taslima Nasreen very closely since 1994 when she was obliged to leave her country to escape prosecution and death threats.
Article 1 of the new cooperation agreement to be concluded with Bangladesh makes clear reference to respect for human rights and democratic principles as laid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This includes, of course, the freedom of speech and expression, as demanded in your resolutions.
I can assure you that, once concluded, the Commission will closely monitor the overall implementation of this agreement with special regard to the human rights situation.
Meanwhile, the Commission is preparing a human rights programme for Bangladesh of around ECU 1.5 million which will be accomplished before the end of this year.
The actions that we intend to finance are mainly in the sectors of women's and children's rights and voters' education.
This programme will be implemented by different NGOs specialised in human rights issues.
With regard to the resolutions on Malaysia, the Commission deplores the recent events in Malaysia, in particular the arrest of Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim under the so-called Internal Security Act, which allows for indefinitely renewable detention without trial.
We also deplore the ill-treatment of Mr Anwar Ibrahim in detention, as well as the arrest of a substantial number of Anwar's supporters also under the so-called Internal Security Act.
Therefore, the Commission associates itself fully with the declaration made by the presidency, expressing the Union's concern about these incidents and calling upon the Malaysian authorities to guarantee the rule of law and to respect the human rights of Anwar Ibrahim and other detainees.
The release of some of the prisoners is a positive step forward as is the examination of Mr Anwar Ibrahim by an independent physician.
However, the Commission is deeply concerned by the current restrictions applied by the Malaysian authorities to the rights of assembly, free speech and communication.
The Commission has instructed its delegation accredited to Malaysia to follow closely developments in that country.
Regarding the death penalty, the Commission is keenly aware of the sensitivity of the imposition of the death penalty and considers that, in all cases, the guarantees laid down in the International Pact on Civil and Political Rights and the other international instruments ought to be respected.
Needless to say, because we have reaffirmed it quite often, we are firmly against the death penalty, whatever the situation.
In the case of Iran, the Commission is concerned at the continuing grave violation of human rights of the Bahai and calls on the Iranian authorities to refrain from pronouncing death sentences on the grounds of religious belief or apostasy.
Furthermore, the Commission deeply regrets the execution of Mr Ruhu'llah Rawhani on 21 July 1998.
An EU-Troika demarche to the Iranian Government in Tehran was made on this matter on 5 August 1998.
However, I must say that we were satisfied with the clarifications of the Iranian Foreign Minister in New York on 24 September last concerning the death threat (fatwa) on Salman Rushdie.
The assurances given are a very positive step to remove one of the impediments to better relations with Iran which are being pursued in the new European Union-Iran dialogue.
In the case of the United States, the Commission believes that the legal system contains the guarantees necessary for a normal and objective discharge of justice, with particular reference to the right to a proper defence and the existence of appeal procedures.
With respect to the particular case of Rocco Barnabei, the Commission is able to provide the following clarification, as obtained from official United States sources.
First, contrary to the suggestions in the draft resolution before us today, there is no execution date set in this case and it is likely to be some time before one is set.
Second, we have been informed that Mr Barnabei is an American citizen and not, as indicated, an Italian citizen.
Third, the recent newspaper accounts of a US Supreme Court rejection of the case appear to be inaccurate.
Mr Barnabei has just begun all of his appeals and is a long way from a hearing before the US Supreme Court.
I am given to believe that the court has, in fact, not heard anything about this case because it is not yet time for the court to do so.
It seems from this information that there is nothing irregular in this case and its appeals process.
Nevertheless we will continue to be attentive to this matter and we shall reiterate to the United States, as we have done so often, that we are absolutely against the imposition of the death penalty.
The Commission shares the preoccupations expressed by the European Parliament concerning the fate of Mrs Leyla Zana and has insisted several times to the Turkish authorities that they make a significant gesture in this particular case.
The new condemnation of Mrs Zana by the Ankara State Security Court on 17 September is particularly worrying as it has inevitable consequences for the situation of freedom of expression in Turkey.
As you are aware, the Commission closely follows all aspects of the situation of human rights in Turkey.
In this context, the Commission fully agrees with the conclusions of the European Council held in Luxembourg in December 1997 which recalled that: 'strengthening Turkey's links with the European Union also depends on that country's pursuit of the political and economic reforms on which it has embarked, including the alignment of human rights and practices on those in force in the European Union...'
In all its contacts with the Turkish authorities, and despite the decision taken by Ankara to suspend any political dialogue with the European Union, the Commission is determined to continue to express its concerns on these matters.
As for the situation in Georgia, the three prisoners referred to in the motion were condemned in 1995 for murder and terrorist acts.
The conditions under which they were tried and also the state of Georgian prisons have been extensively criticised both inside and outside Georgia.
An important step forward was the decision of the Georgian Parliament last November to abolish the death penalty.
Following this, the death sentences on Mr Gelbakhiani and Mr Dokvadze were commuted.
They are now serving 20 years in prison.
I know that the state of Georgian prisons was frankly discussed when the European Parliament delegation for the South Caucasus met with President Shevardnadze in June.
The Georgian Parliament and Ombudsman are actively monitoring this.
It is a promising indication for the future.
The Commission takes the view that Georgia has made important progress in strengthening its democratic institutions, especially its parliament, but that it must continue to reinforce the rule of law.
The Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which we expect to enter into force next year, will provide us with a platform to address these issues directly, both through political dialogue and through meetings of the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.
Mr President, the Commissioner has not responded to the worsening situation of women in Iran, as presented by three fellow Members, namely the fact that women can no longer be treated by male doctors and that women doctors in Iran are few and far between.
An extreme policy of apartheid has also been introduced on buses and elsewhere.
We should like to draw the Commissioner's attention to this, and ask the Commissioner to be careful in creating the impression that the situation is improving, when for women the situation in Iran is in fact getting worse.
I believe that this should be clearly stated in the resolution.
Madam, I was addressing the issue of the resolution, not the speeches in Parliament.
But if you are asking what the position of the Commission is then, without consulting my colleagues, I can reassure you that this is absolutely unacceptable.
As you know - and this also concerns other discussions today in Parliament - the Treaty of Amsterdam rejects any kind of discrimination, as will any future treaties.
So it goes without saying that we ought to fight for that in all circumstances and especially when faced with clear-cut cases.
There is no doubt whatsoever about the position of the Commission.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0902/98 by Mr Collins, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the closure of Levi Strauss factories in Belgium and France; -B4-0903/98 by Mr Vandemeulebroucke, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the planned restructuring of Levi Strauss in Europe; -B4-0910/98 by Mr De Coene, Mr Caudron and Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the planned closure of Levi Strauss works in Gits, Wervik, Deurne (Belgium) and La Bassée (France); -B4-0916/98 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Lannoye and Mr Wolf, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the closing down of Levi Strauss works in Gits, Wervik, Deurne and La Bassée; -B4-0929/98 by Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on Levi Strauss restructuring plans; -B4-0942/98 by Mrs Elmalan and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on restructuring of Levi Strauss textiles.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Levi Strauss affair is demonstrating once again how devastating the effects of a badly controlled globalisation can be in human, social and economic terms.
Beyond the reasons officially cited by Levi's, the problem we are facing is, in fact, again one of relocations and social dumping.
The restructuring plan announced by Levi Strauss provides for the closure of four of its 12 factories in Europe.
Three of them are in Belgium and one in France, in La Bassée, a village in Nord/Pas-de-Calais, a region that is already severely affected by unemployment.
These closures will lead to around 1 500 job losses, 530 of which will be in France.
We cannot be indifferent and apathetic to these announcements.
Moreover, we have every right to question whether the closures are justified, particularly since we know that some of the factories in question are profitable, not to mention the fact that they have perhaps received aid from the European Union or the Member States.
Let us not forget that on top of the very painful human consequences of these site closures, an entire local economy is going to be turned upside down.
Are you aware that Levi's has been in La Bassée for 30 years? It is true that a procedure has been announced for consulting the works councils involved, but this consultation is obligatory due to a directive that obliges multinational companies to consult union representatives prior to any restructuring.
This is why, while respecting companies' freedom of management, we have to be vigilant on this issue.
We must do everything we can to find alternatives to redundancies.
However, allow me, in this respect, to express my doubt as regards the effectiveness of the pseudo-solution of the 35-hour week, as is proposed in France.
I would prefer to see a discussion on reducing social costs along with the necessary safeguards to avoid the negative effects of such a reduction.
Levi Strauss is citing overproduction as justification of its decision, but we have also learnt that it has signed a contract with a Turkish subcontractor whose production costs would be much lower.
We are therefore dealing with a de facto relocation.
However, since we have to consider all the eventualities, if the site closures were unfortunately confirmed, we would insist that strong measures be taken as a result.
I would point out, in particular, that the La Bassée area, and the Nord/Pas-de-Calais region in general, is already experiencing serious economic and social problems.
It therefore has every right to expect a level of support during the restructuring of the site that is worthy of the name.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for some time now multinationals like Levi Strauss have no longer lived inside our societies but outside them.
They have their own isolationist code of practice, their own high technology and even their own kind of democracy, namely the so-called democracy of the shareholders, no more and no less.
Human or social considerations have no place in this world, where there is just one ideal: profit.
Of course the very high wage costs have been invoked.
That is true, but it is also totally inadequate.
Compare the figures: in the United Kingdom wage costs are 11 dollars an hour, in Hungary three dollars an hour, in China 0.56 dollars an hour.
So much more is required than simply invoking high wage costs.
Back on 14 July, the European Parliament stated that the Commission's plan for this sector was insufficient and should be more practical and above all more concrete.
I should like to refer to the compromise resolution, and in particular paragraph 7.
In this we demand a clear and comprehensive overview of all subsidies Europe may have granted to Levi Strauss.
Were there any subsidies under the Retex textile and clothing industries, under the TACIS, PHARE and ESPRIT programmes, or under the Structural Funds? The Commission has known the answer to this question for some time already, and I would now like to receive a clear reply.
I should like to point out that Mr Vandemeulebroucke, who will be leaving the House after 18 years, has just made his final speech.
I had the pleasure of sitting with him as a group chairman some years ago now, and we all wish him every success.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Levi Strauss, the jeans manufacturer, wants to close three factories in Belgium and one in northern France by the end of the year, with the result that 1 461 people will then lose their jobs.
This action by Levi Strauss can only be described as perverse, because they first organise overproduction outside the European Union precisely in order to subsequently invoke this overproduction as a major factor in deciding to make these closures.
Levi Strauss is honest enough to admit that it has a marketing problem, and apparently, at least judging from the reports of the Board of Directors, nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done about that marketing problem for the last ten years.
So it is therefore people lower down the ladder, the ordinary workers, who have to pay for the failure to take the necessary initiatives.
I should also like to point out that in 1997, Levi Strauss recorded net profits of more than BEF 430 million at its Belgian factories. This is the Levi Strauss which, at these Belgian factories, was able to transfer BEF 380 million to the financial reserve for restructuring, the Levi Strauss that in Belgium was able to set aside an even greater amount, in order, it was claimed, to be able to pay the workers a double wage in 2002.
So these are not people on the breadline, these are not poor people.
It is a company which is perfectly able to keep open its factories in Belgium and northern France.
What is more, the workers in Belgium and northern France have themselves made the necessary efforts to secure their jobs.
They have accepted shorter working hours with wage cuts.
They have accepted greater flexibility. But all to no avail.
This is why we in the Socialist Group are calling on Levi Strauss, when the trade unions submit their alternative plans tomorrow, to seriously discuss them, to seriously consider them, so that there can still be a chance to offer the company a future, including in our regions.
Together with my colleagues Gérard Caudron and Anne Van Lancker, I have tabled a motion for a resolution, because there is European work to be done.
We can actually do something, and yet Liberal Members say that this is a non-event.
Well, it is not.
We must tighten up on the directive on collective redundancies, and we must tighten up the directive on European works councils.
There is also something else on the political agenda.
The European Union can lend the Member States a helping hand in reducing social wage costs.
For this, we must coordinate our tax policy on companies and capital earnings.
That is the only way of putting a stop to the lethal competition in the fiscal area.
We therefore call on the Member States to follow up on the efforts of the European Commission and Commissioner Monti in particular, and for an agreement to be achieved.
Mr President, Levi Strauss intends to close various factories in Belgium and France and to cut 1 461 jobs.
The group was not making a loss; on the contrary, it made a profit last year of several hundred million Belgian francs.
It is the company's relocation policy.
A new factory has been opened in Turkey, and the factory in Hungary has even doubled its output.
We disapprove of the strategy of the group's management, which has announced that it is restructuring because of overproduction while increasing production in low-wage countries.
There has also been talk of a hearing for the employees.
This hearing, or this promise of a hearing, is a joke; if restructuring is ready to go ahead, any hearing has to be a sham.
We declare our solidarity with the employees, and for this reason our first demand is that the project be stopped.
Secondly, we call upon the Commission to request that companies that have received subsidies from the European Union budget or the Member States' budgets should refund what they have received in the past five years if these companies have undertaken mass redundancies despite having made a profit.
Thirdly, we call upon the Belgian Government to finally introduce implementing regulations for mass redundancies so that sanctions can be imposed in the case of closures and redundancies which are not carried out correctly.
I consider these measures to be necessary in the interests of the employees and in order to solve the problem of unemployment in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Tuesday 29 September 1998 will be known as Black Tuesday among the workers at Levi Strauss, because in a single morning 1 500 people were sacked, despite the repeated assurances by management throughout the year that there would be no job losses.
Closures and redundancies must respect the legal obligations which apply in Belgium and the European Union.
These obligations must not be seen as a formality.
It is dishonest to submit to the workers a redundancy proposal when that proposal is already a company decision and simply remains to be implemented.
On behalf of the PPE Group, I say that workers must be given full and proper information.
It is doubtful whether this happened in the case of Levi Strauss.
Consultation must mean giving the workers the chance to submit their suggestions and alternatives, and these must be seriously discussed.
It is therefore doubtful as to whether or not the Levi Strauss management is prepared to take any other new factors into consideration.
The aim of the whole dialogue and negotiating process must be to save the maximum number of jobs.
Secondly, we must look at the situation of the factories which are to close and the development of the whole group.
It is unacceptable for a profitable factory to close, factories which are among the most productive in the whole group.
It is certainly not a question of closing old factories at one location for reasons of overproduction, when at the same time new factories are being opened at other locations.
Thirdly, there must indeed be stricter European regulations on closures and redundancies.
I should like to end by saying that you do not build a social paradise in an economic graveyard, but neither do you build an economic paradise in a social graveyard.
Companies also have a social responsibility, which is something that Levi Strauss has totally forgotten in this case.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few weeks before announcing the closure of four of 12 factories in Europe, three of which are in Belgium and one in France, the Levi Strauss management congratulated itself on profits that had quadrupled in four years, reaching more than FRF 5 billion in 1996.
So what do they care about the consequences of more than 1 500 redundancies for the employees concerned and their families or for the economy of the region, which already had high unemployment!
What is more, Levi Strauss is also announcing redundancies in other factories, while increasing its production capacity in low-wage countries.
Following on from Renault in Vilvorde, Levi Strauss has chosen the destructive route, which is an even more unacceptable decision since the workers have made major efforts to improve productivity.
Following Vilvorde, Levi Strauss' attitude demonstrates once again the results of a European policy that gives priority, within the context of the Maastricht Treaty, to competition and the liberalisation of capital and, as a result, restructuring and relocations.
It is profit versus employment and social progress. It is the financial crisis that is crushing all economies.
In this context, we must undoubtedly welcome the response from the workers in all the group's European factories, and their demonstration on 5 October, which reduced the management's attempts at division to nothing and meant that some initial results were achieved.
Our group, which deplores the decision by Levi Strauss', welcomes the determination shown by the workers and their unions.
We call on its management to reconsider its decision and to negotiate with the unions in order to draw up an alternative solution to the closures, particularly through a reduction in working hours, which would preserve jobs.
At the same time, we propose that new rights should be granted to workers and that European works councils should be strengthened in order to fight relocations that put populations in competition with each other by playing on social and wage differences.
Above all, however, the decision by the management of Levi Strauss and the reaction of the employees show once again that it is necessary and possible to change the direction of the construction of Europe in a progressive way by freeing it from the domination of the financial markets, by making it democratic and by ensuring that its central aim is to respond o the needs and aspirations of its citizens.
Mr President, let me first of all express the regret of the Commission at the proposed closure of four units of Levi Strauss in Belgium and France and the loss of more than 1 400 jobs.
Let me also give you complementary information on some aspects related to Levi Strauss's announcement and, in particular, on the way in which things are being conducted.
The Levi Strauss management engaged last week in discussions with worker representatives, both at national and European level, and worker representatives are apparently now preparing proposals with a view to finding alternative solutions to the closure or to the dismissal of the workers likely to be affected.
Therefore, we should welcome the fact that the concerned parties are finally sitting around the table to discuss the current situation.
It is to be hoped that these discussions are productive and contribute, at least, to alleviating the social impact of the closures.
The relevant European Union legislation appears to have been properly respected.
Both the Collective Redundancies and the European Works Council Directive have proved again to be useful instruments in ensuring that decisions seriously affecting workers' interests are taken and implemented within an adequate social framework.
The Commission is certainly aware of criticisms of the manner in which the rules concerning membership of the European Works Council may give rise to an imbalance in the numerical representation of workers.
The Commission will, next year, evaluate the way the European Works Council Directive is working, and how issues like this are dealt with will inevitably form part of that evaluation.
But even if the provision of these two Directives appear to have been properly observed in this case, there is a general question of how best to deal with major crises within companies and how best to avoid closures.
Anticipation of changes in the market and their effects within companies is crucial. This requires much more permanent, employment-geared and forward-looking information and consultation procedures, compared to the formality of much of the present rules in this field.
It is this that is behind the current initiative of the Commission on 'Information and Consultation of Workers in the European Community'.
We are waiting for the final decision of UNICE next week as to whether or not it will engage in negotiations with the ETUC on this issue.
The Commission believes that ideally the European-level social partners should decide to take in their own hands this task which concerns them primarily.
But, if there is no agreement among them, the Commission will put forward a proposal for appropriate legislation in this area.
Anticipation is also a central element of the European Employment Strategy.
On 14 October, the Commission will adopt proposals for the 1999 employment guidelines, together with the assessment of how the Member States are implementing the agreed employment strategy, and a report indicating areas where Europe's employment performance has a real potential to improve in the future.
An announcement like the one Levi Strauss made last week is always regrettable.
Let us hope that the current discussions lead to acceptable solutions for the people concerned.
Closures such as this underline again the need to work to put the European employment strategy fully in place to prevent long-term unemployment and to promote new employment.
Finally, as to Mr Vandemeulebroucke's request for data on potential support for Levi Strauss, I am sorry that is not possible.
But we will try to comply with the one-month period laid down in the resolution, although even one month is very short.
We will try our utmost, because it is politically important for the House and for us all to know whether any European money has been given to Levi Strauss.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0901/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party, on payments to the United Nations; -B4-0907/98 by Mr Collins and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the financial crisis in the UN; -B4-0912/98 by Mr Ford and Ms Oddy, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on payments to the UN; -B4-0918/98 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on financial contributions to the UN; -B4-0922/98 by Mr Castagnède, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on payment of contributions to the UN; -B4-0932/98 by Mr Provan and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on contributions to the UN; -B4-0943/98 by Mrs González Álvarez and Mr Ojala, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on payments to the UN.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the United States owes the United Nations about USD 1.6 billion for the regular peace-keeping budgets.
How are we to judge that? In what I like to call a geo-political way.
Since the fall of the Soviet empire, the role of international policeman calls for rather more delicacy.
To prevent that role being carried out only by the United States, the only solution is for such action to take place under the aegis of the United Nations.
So it is rather worrying that the United States is failing to pay its dues to the United Nations. This could be the prelude to a deliberate devaluation of the role of that highly important international organisation, perhaps with a view to its explicit replacement by the United States itself in order to gear all international policy to its own interests.
Mr President, on 27 June of this year Glyn Ford and I attended a vigil outside the US Embassy in London to protest against the United States Government's failure to pay its dues to the United Nations.
USD1.55 billion are owing, which is approximately two-thirds of the total UN budget.
There is a mass campaign in the United Kingdom.
110 MPs have signed in support of the vigil, plus 58 peers and and 27 MEPs.
The governments of France and the Irish Republic have also joined the campaign as of that date.
The fact that we now have cross-group support for this resolution shows the intensity of feeling which exists in this House against the iniquitious failure to pay by the United States.
The United Nations is a very important global organization.
Its responsibilities have increased with its peace-keeping role and I know from my own experience in Sri Lanka from where I brought thousands of documents about disappeared people, that the United Nations needs more money.
When Alex Smith and myself delivered the documents on disappeared people in Sri Lanka, only four people in the United Nations were working on disappearances for the whole world.
The budget of the United Nations should be increased, not decreased in this very unfair way by the United States.
It should be setting a much better example.
Mr President, I rise on this subject with more than my usual ambivalence.
While I accept that the behaviour of the US Congress is reprehensible, I am more interested in the detailed problems which face the reform of the United Nations, and the whole governance process at global level.
We in Parliament should be devoting ourselves to questions of how to find new resources to finance the United Nations that are not dependent on this problem of the American veto, and of reluctance to pay by national governments.
I would like parliamentarians to have a say in providing those resources so that we, as parliamentarians, feel some sense of ownership in the United Nations.
While I am sympathetic to the aims of what we are trying to do, I very much doubt that an 11-minute debate under the urgency procedure is the right way for Parliament to deal with this matter.
There is, at present, a report before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy looking at the whole question of UN reform and UN governance.
I doubt also that it is going to move one single vote in the US Congress, even if someone as distinguished as Christine Oddy shouts at them across the Atlantic.
I am sympathetic to what Parliament is trying to do but, yet again, the mechanism which we have chosen gravely risks interrupting our own credibility in this matter and limits our ability to make a difference.
I commend the resolution to the House, but I hope the House will return to it with greater wisdom and thought, and perhaps with an occasional new idea at some stage during the rest of this mandate.
Mr President, I completely agree with Mr Spencer that we perhaps need to act with greater wisdom.
A resolution may not be enough for a problem of this nature.
We were also critical of the current structure of the United Nations.
We think that it should be more independent, more transparent, and that it should work towards removing the right of veto.
In other words, we believe that the United Nations should be more democratic.
But we do not want to call on the countries of the European Union - which are net contributors - to withdraw funds, because we are aware that the work it carries out on peace and humanitarian issues is very important.
That is why I agree with Mr Spencer that we have to find better solutions.
In any case, allow me one final joke, even though the Commissioner is no longer present. Many of us would like to say to the United States: look here, Article 19 of the United Nations Charter states that whoever does not pay will have no vote, and just for once, we could adopt the same attitude as they usually do and tell them that they have lost their right to vote.
But do not worry, we are all very benevolent and democratic in this Parliament and we will not deny the United States its vote.
But we would call on the United States Congress to at least accept Mr Clinton's request to release part of the funds that are owed to the United Nations, not to mention from the more imaginative solution that we shall continue to work towards, as suggested by Mr Spencer.
Mr President, the US political strategy in this area is dangerous. It is indeed a political manoeuvre we are talking about since the USA, by not paying its debt of USD 1.6 billion, is using blackmail in order to attempt to control UN policy and prevent the reforms the UN needs, which I think we are all agreed on in this Chamber.
The UN is important and needs to be developed.
Development demands reforms but, as long as the USA does not pay, it is tremendously difficult to get any major changes put into effect.
Other countries have paid their dues to the UN.
Despite formidable economic difficulties that many countries face, they have paid nevertheless, which the USA naturally should also do.
For in a 'green' world order, the UN has a key role to play. One country cannot be allowed to set the agenda and direct policy at world level; it must be done through the UN itself, so that individual states cannot throw policy off course and steer it in a particular direction.
Mr President, Bill Clinton can pile all the blame in the world on Japan, the American Congress or the crisis in the world's financial system.
But the United States' 1, 500 billion dollar debt to the United Nations is to be attributed to other reasons of a political nature and, more particularly, as has already been said in this House, it has to do with the desire to undermine the United Nations itself in order to promote the role of the United States as policemen of the world.
The fact is that Japan, despite its domestic difficulties and in a climate of sharp recession, meets its international commitments and owes nothing to the United Nations; the fact is that the political pornography novel between President Clinton and Congress has only recently escalated; the fact is that, only four months ago, the stock market euphoria and the expectations of world economic growth remained high, just as the American economy was in excellent health.
But the United States' arrears to the United Nations are not recent.
It is a growing debt that has accumulated over the years.
The Americans did not pay, because they did not wish to, just as they are not participating in the capital injection for the IMF to the tune of the 18 billion dollars as is their allocated quota.
This is an extremely serious precedent, it is an appalling example on the part of a country which aspires to be world leader and it jeopardises all humanitarian aid and peace-keeping activities and indeed the very future of the United Nations.
Unfortunately, the current political weakness of the American Presidency, which discredits that country in the concert of nations, offers no guarantee that this situation will be resolved in a positive and prompt manner.
But the pressure of the international community on the United States, headed by the European Union, must not flag.
Mr President, the fact that certain countries - the United States first and foremost - do not pay their full contribution to the UN budget should be regarded as evidence of the malaise the international community is suffering from.
These debtor countries are to be criticised first of all because their failure to pay reduces the UN's total resources and hence its ability to intervene in crisis sectors, thus limiting peace-keeping possibilities; and they are even more to be criticised because their example - and what an example, when we are actually talking about the leading world power! - might have a domino effect bringing all UN activity to a halt and might make countries which have accepted the terms of UN resolutions in full, and have participated, like Italy, in peace missions, much more cautious, not to say reticent.
But the Alleanza Nazionale delegation calls on Parliament not only to condemn the defaulting countries, but also to enquire into the real reasons for the crisis facing that institution.
In our opinion there are ethical, structural and political reasons: ethical, in that the various episodes of waste and sometimes of corruption, nepotism and patronage which have occurred in this increasingly untransparent organisation are notorious; structural, because the staffing levels and organisation have become elephantine and bureaucratic, hindering rapid and efficient decision-making; political, finally, because the majority of UN resolutions remain dead letters, and they will continue to remain dead letters until there is a proper executive arm or alternative strict sanctions to enforce respect for those resolutions.
Mr President, as you know, the Community contributes substantial funding to projects carried out by the United Nations' funds, programmes and agencies.
However, as an observer, it does not contribute to the United Nations general budget.
Nonetheless, overall, the Member States of the European Union contribute some 36 % of the United Nations' operating budget together with some 39 % of the budget it allocates to peace-keeping activities, .
These levels are considerably higher than the percentage of the world's gross national product accounted for by the European Union, which stands at 30.8 %.
Moreover, the Member States of the European Union pay what they owe in full, promptly and without conditions, and the European Union makes a point of insisting that the other members of the United Nations comply in the same way with their international obligations.
The current payments crisis undermines the efficiency of the United Nations, jeopardises current endeavours to reform the organisation and is extremely unfair for other contributors.
On 31 August 1998, the United States owed the United Nations 1, 613 billion dollars, accounting for 60 % of the arrears owed to the United Nations.
The American Congress has adopted legislation authorising the payment of 926 million dollars.
However, this legislation will doubtless be vetoed by the President since it also contains a provision which bans support for organisations which defend abortion.
In all events, even if these measures were carried out, only 57 % of the United States' arrears to the United Nations would be covered.
The European Union has repeatedly expressed its concern regarding this American legislation which provides for insufficient payment under unacceptable conditions.
The European Union has taken steps in connection with this matter and the Presidency, the Member States and the Commission will continue to raise the issue with the American administration and with members of Congress whenever the opportunity arises.
That concludes the debate on payments to the UN.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
We shall suspend the sitting for a quarter of an hour to enable Members to take their seats for the vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.15 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
We now come to the vote.
After the vote on Slovakia
Mr President, in my hurry to join the vote I pressed Mrs Reding's button instead of my own.
I would like the record to show that I only voted once but I voted in the wrong spot.
Mr President, I can only presume that in Mr Cassidy's hurry to join the Socialists he forget to tell us.
Mr Cassidy, are you going to join the Labour Party? I walk into the Chamber and here he is!
I am not sure the Labour Party can swing that far to the left.
Mr President, the question you could pose is: Is there any difference between Old and New Labour and between New Labour and the Christian Democrats?
Mr President, I should just like to note for the record that this afternoon our colleague Mr James Moorhouse MEP joined the Liberal Democrats.
I look forward to welcoming him as a member of our group next week.
JET
The next item is the report (A4-0311/98) by Mrs Ahern, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy on the Proposal for a Council Decision approving amendments to the Statutes of the Joint European Torus (JET), Joint Undertaking [COM(98)0013 - C4-0137/98-98/0063(CNS)]
Mr President, the EU fusion project has just completed a six-year engineering design activity at a cost of nearly ECU 1bn.
Meanwhile the US Congress is expected shortly to pull the plug on US involvement in the international thermonuclear experimental reactor, a 6-billion nuclear fusion project.
In July this year, the USA was unable to sign the proposed extension to the ITER-EDA, essentially because the US Congress is currently unwilling to provide any more money for continued US participation. EU fusion design teams are in place in San Diego, Naka in Japan and in Garching in Germany.
But what legal basis now exists for their retention, continuation or even for the payment of their salaries?
This question is particularly crucial given that in December 1996 the European Court of Justice delivered a judgment ruling that the different treatment of employees at the European Joint Fusion Project, JET, was illegal.
The Commission proposal is intended to implement the Court judgment by amending the JET statutes so as to remove the discriminating elements.
According to the 1978 Council decision on the establishment of JET, the project was to be completed by 1990.
Since then a number of extensions to the project have been agreed, most recently until December 1999.
The JET statutes state that the staff provided by the host organisations, the UK Atomic Energy Authority, will remain in service to that organisation.
The staff provided by the other members of JET were temporarily seconded from their national laboratories and all received temporary Euratom contracts.
Finding this difference in treatment a form of unjustified discrimination on the grounds of nationality, the staff brought a series of cases in the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
In 1987 the Court ruled that there was indeed discrimination but that the discrimination was justified owing to the temporary nature of the Joint Undertaking.
The changes in staffing provisions are of significance, even if they will only apply to new recruits up to 1999, and there are not expected to be any.
They will constitute a model for a possible JET staffing system after 1999 with a new legal structure.
In order to put an end to the present unlawful system, a new uniform system of secondment of personnel from the members of the Joint Undertaking is proposed.
In future, all staff who might still be recruited after modification of the statutes will remain in the employ of the member organisations.
The new formulation stipulates that there will be only one category of new staff to be recruited, namely staff seconded by their national laboratories.
But the precise way in which these changes are to be implemented and, more remarkably still, the new conditions of service which will apply to new JET staff, are not included in the Commission proposal at all.
Rather, they are left to the discretion of the JET Council, presumably under the assumption that they are mere implementing measures.
This really will not do.
Fusion's lack of transparency and democratic accountability has now clearly been shown to have had disastrous consequences and has, in fact, probably damaged the project itself.
The notion that staff pay and conditions in a project largely financed by the Euratom budget should be decided by a body which is completely unaccountable to one half of the budgetary authority, namely the European Parliament, is simply unacceptable.
There is another problem.
The first part of the new Article 8.4 reads as follows: 'staff made available by Parent Prganisations shall be seconded to the Joint Undertaking and shall... remain throughout the period of secondment in the employment of their Parent Organisations on the terms and conditions of service of these Organisations.'
Article 8.7 states: 'All staff expenditure, including reimbursement of staff expenditure incurred by the seconding Parent Organisations... shall be borne by the Joint Undertaking.'
Why is this peculiar system being proposed? Simply because if the Parent Organisations had to pay the national salary component - as they do for teachers in the European Schools and all other seconded national experts working in the Community institutions - the Member States would, in effect, be asked to provide a net increase in the already agreed fusion budget - a prospect they would not relish.
While there is agreement to amend the JET Statutes in line with the European Court of Justice ruling, Parliament must be consulted on any proposal based on the Euratom Treaty to extend the life of JET beyond 1999.
It would be completely unacceptable to make this extension, with such significant implications for the EU budget, an executive implementing measure within this specific programme, on the basis of confidential contractual arrangements with the national associations.
In regard to the reimbursement of the national salaries of seconded national experts from the Euratom Community budget, such a thing is normally illegal in the Commission, i.e. contrary to the Financial Regulation, since it mixes up parts A and B of the budget.
The JET plan may get around this because it will be done via a series of contracts with national associations to provide services.
It sets a remarkable precedent for the renationalisation of the European civil service.
The Committee on Budgets has added its opinion on this report, but it is not as stringent as we would normally expect of this committee.
I wonder whether this is because pork-belly politics are being played out by some members of the Committee on Budgets.
I refer in particular to Mr James Elles in whose constituency the JET undertaking is.
I would like him to be as stringent on JET in his constituency as he is normally in the budgetary considerations of the European Union.
Mr President, I must confess that there were considerable periods during Mrs Ahern's speech when I wondered if she was addressing the report which is under her name.
I should like to draw to your attention paragraph 1 of the draft legislative resolution which states: 'The European Parliament approves the Commission proposal'.
That indeed is the motion that is contained in the report.
The Socialist Group welcomes the Commission's proposal for the alteration to the JET statutes.
Let us put the matter in a more reasonable context.
The situation regarding staff goes back for a good number of years.
Perhaps we ought to reflect that the terms of employment for various people may at that time have seemed reasonable, and were certainly accepted by all the people that were employed, but that was 20 years ago, perhaps more.
Conditions change.
Therefore it is not unreasonable that, over that period of time, situations arose where the British staff were dissatisfied with the situation and took the matter to court.
The resolution of that has certainly been long-winded and that it has taken so long reflects no credit on the Commission, the JET Council or anybody else.
We started on this in the last Parliament, not this one.
At least we have got somewhere.
We have not been able to complete the arrangements for all the staff for the simple reason that there are still court cases pending.
That is why the situation only applies to new staff.
The arrangements that will - possibly - apply beyond December 1999 I think are quite reasonable.
I hope that they will be acceptable to the staff.
Certainly, if they are not, there are procedures in place whereby they can be changed again.
I hope that it would not take so long.
There are a lot of comments made in the report about the fusion programme, but they are not relevant to this particular discussion.
However, since a lot of comments have been made, perhaps I ought to say that there are some of us in this House who believe that the fusion programme should continue.
We are not certain how it is going to work out, any more than we are certain about any research programme that we have.
But it has made considerable progress.
If Members want further information I can assure them that all they have to do is to lift the phone and get on to the people at JET and ask the director for information.
I have never had any difficulty in getting any information about the project at any time.
This is what Members have to do if they want the information.
It is very easily done.
I have to admit that the most recent report I have on the advice of the JET Scientific Council is a little bit difficult to understand.
I will deal with this situation by phoning the director and asking if this cannot be put in slightly more understandable language for the Members of this Parliament.
That is the sort of approach we want, not a great harangue about obscure points which do not help anybody in this debate.
That is the approach of the Socialist Group.
We welcome the Commission proposal.
We hope that the disagreements amongst the staff will be completely resolved very soon.
We believe that they have worked very hard, that they have worked very successfully.
We in the Socialist Group wish them well.
Mr President, I would like to commend Mrs Ahern on the brevity of her report.
I cannot say the same, however, for her unwelcome slurs on my colleague Mr Elles, particularly as he is not here to answer them.
I hope Mrs Ahern will reconsider what she has said.
It seems that when JET was set up, the original arrangement was a pragmatic attempt at fair treatment both of the UK employees, in relation to their corresponding numbers at UKAEA, and of staff from other Member States, in an attempt to secure continuity of employment rights for all.
However, it clearly did not take very long for the differences in salary and conditions between JET and the AEA staff to emerge, and unsurprisingly the latter wanted a better deal.
I share Mr Adam's view that it is a pity it has taken quite so long to sort it out.
It seems to me, however, that the Commission's present proposal is basically a tidying-up operation to amend the Statutes and remedy the situation for any future recruits.
This seems to be a typically European solution, rather an elegant one, which only applies in future and therefore has no budgetary implications here and now.
It is particularly cunning since the future of fusion research, once the current phase of JET ends next year, is clouded in uncertainty.
The only certain aspect seems to be the consistent prediction that fusion will come good as a major source of renewable energy in 50 years time.
Twenty years ago it was going to be happening in 50 years time.
Clearly, the ECJ was correct to conclude that this is not a short-term project, although the jury may still be out on the word temporary.
This situation highlights the risks in having any sort of job which has a different rate of pay if performed at European level rather than at national level.
For example, proposals in this House for a Common Members' Statute would expose Members of this House to criticism from national members of parliament in their own country if MEPs were to be paid significantly more.
In other words I support the principle that if you are on secondment, and we are only here on a five-year term after all, the rate of pay should be at national levels, but reimbursement of expenses should be at a common level.
That seems to me the fair and equitable approach.
The other substantive point about this set of proposals from the Commission is made both in the explanatory statement of the report and in the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
It is that, although the European budget pays most of the cost, it does not have most of the say.
I urge that this be looked at when the project moves on to its next phase.
Mr President, these amendments to the Statutes are indeed necessary, good and keenly sought, both the amendments which the Court of Auditors has recommended and those resulting from the judgment of the Court of First Instance according to which the illegal discrimination clauses had to be taken out.
In the new wording for the passages in question, the Statutes stipulate that there shall only be one category for new staff taken on, namely staff seconded by their national laboratories.
Thus there is still an element missing, namely stipulations on how the rules are to be applied to the new staff.
The new conditions of service are not covered at all by the Commission proposal, which one could cite as a deficiency.
They are now left to the discretion of the JET Council, presumably on the assumption that they are only implementing measures.
This will not really do.
The lack of openness and democratic accountability of the fusion programme has been called into question and must be made good.
I do not think it is enough to know that we parliamentarians can telephone JET and ask for information, I think that it should be regulated somewhat better.
What is at issue is, after all, the parliamentary scrutiny and control of JET, which is extremely poor at present.
We must exercise better supervision over the EU's fusion programme, because it is tremendously complicated, as Mr Adam pointed out.
It is technically very complicated.
Certainly we have become knowledgeable in Parliament through the reports we have presented, for example Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel's report, and have improved our knowledge, but how do matters stand with expertise in the Council of Ministers, where the decisions are taken? It is hard to say.
The Green Group put forward a number of amendments in committee, precisely in order to ensure that the European Parliament becomes more involved and can find out what has happened.
I think it a pity that these amendments were voted down in committee, as I believe they were a very good and necessary improvement.
However, that is a matter to which perhaps we can return.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Parliament and the rapporteur Mrs Ahern for their work on the Commission proposal.
As you know, we are proposing the approval of a number of changes which the JET Council wants to make to the Statutes of the Joint Undertaking.
Some of these are technical adaptations.
A substantive change is the introduction of a new system of providing staff to the project as a response to the findings of the Court of First Instance that certain aspects of the existing system are unlawful.
As you know the Joint Undertaking will expire at the end of 1999 so these proposed modifications will only apply in principle for a limited period of time.
Your Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Budgets has approved the proposal without modification and I am confident that you will follow their recommendation and support our proposal to approve amendments to the Statutes of the JET Joint Undertaking.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
EEC/San Marino: Protocol to the Agreement
The next item is the recommendation (A4-0238/98) by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the Protocol to the Agreement on Cooperation and Customs Union between the European Economic Community and the Republic of San Marino, consequent upon the accession of the Republic of Austria, the Republic of Finland and the Kingdom of Sweden to the European Union (6788/97 - C4-0262/98-97/0022(AVC)).
Let me start by thanking the rapporteur for his report and for the words he has just pronounced.
A positive opinion of the European Parliament marks an important step forward in the conclusion of a long ratification process and brings nearer the actual implementation of the agreement.
This agreement, signed in December 1991, should be the centrepiece in the process of deepening and broadening our relations with San Marino.
Besides its customs and commercial provisions, the agreement allows for a widening of cooperation in different areas, including social policy.
The Commission regrets that the agreement has not yet entered into force.
I hope that the often complex ratification procedures will be completed soon by the national parliaments in order to allow for the effective implementation, in the near future, of the agreement with that very beautiful country.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Community Statistical Programme 1998-2002
The next item is the report (A4-0321/98) by Mrs Lulling, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Proposal for a Council Decision on the Community Statistical Programme (1998-2002) [COM(97)0735 - C4-0197/98-98/0012(CNS)]
Mr President, I am one of the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy who cannot produce a so-called 'big' report, in line with the theory that small reports are for small countries.
However insignificant our Bureau considers this report on the five year statistical programme to be, the overall effect of this is that we are discussing it today at an evening sitting and will vote on it tomorrow, Friday, when not even half of the Members of this House will be present.
I know, of course, that we cannot fire the public with enthusiasm by means of statistics and reports; these will not arouse anyone's interest.
Nor are those who have to provide the information for these statistics particularly enthused by having to fill out so many questionnaires, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises, which consider statistical questions to be a tiresome duty.
I know about this as rapporteur for the SLIM programme, which aimed to simplify statistics for cross-border trade in the internal market.
However, it is not the case that industry as a whole is fighting against statistics, as it needs good statistics, such as on trade within the Community, to develop its commercial policy.
As rapporteur, I have been in a situation where European organisations, such as COOP or even Comité Vins, have begged me to compile statistics on, for example, how much white wine or red wine is exported from Rioja to Bavaria.
I must point out, of course, that if the Amsterdam Treaty were in force, the codecision procedure would be applied here, which would of course make our colleagues pay more attention and make the Commission and the Council pay greater heed to our opinions.
Be that as it may, we must not forget that political decisions of the utmost importance are going to have to be made during this programme which runs from 1998 to 2002: the reform of the common agricultural policy, enlargement of the EU, and the operation of the single currency, which will require highly harmonised statistics on the convergence criteria for the euro zone and compliance with the Stability Pact.
The development and monitoring of the labour market following the Luxembourg Employment Summit and the preparations for the definitive VAT system are further challenges for which all decision-makers will need as much information as possible.
As I have often said, a poorly informed citizen and in particular a poorly informed politician make poor judgements and poor decisions.
This being so, we need the best possible comparable and independent data for all the decisions I mentioned, and we need to have them in good time.
This will only be possible if we provide Eurostat with the necessary resources.
It is impossible, particularly in this area, to continue to demand better and faster information and studies and at the same time to try to reduce resources for Eurostat.
Reductions of this nature cost the Community, the Member States and the citizen much more money than timely, reliable statistics.
It would be preposterous if, for example, we were to measure inflation using consumer indices which are not sufficiently harmonised, if we were to calculate budget deficits and long-term debt as a percentage of domestic products which are calculated so differently that one includes the black economy, including prostitution, and the other includes unpaid work by housewives as a net product.
This may be appealing. But if these calculation bases are not harmonised, the countries which boost their gross domestic product in this way are, of course, more likely to fulfil the Maastricht criteria than those which do not.
Countries which include in their unemployment statistics only those who are entitled to benefits and not those who are looking for work will have a lower rate of unemployment than Member States which do not do this.
These are only a few examples to show just how important the five year programme is.
I must congratulate the Commission on its clear presentation, which is why we had to reject the request by the Committee on Budgets to delete the stated aims from the appendix.
This would be tantamount to ruining a very clear, comprehensible text.
We have included in the report the reasonable requests of all the other committees, twelve of which were asked for an opinion.
The Commissioner is now sure to tell us that they all find favour with him.
I would like to thank the committees asked for an opinion, which provided us with useful suggestions.
Apart from the amendments adopted unanimously in committee, we have only one additional amendment, from Mr Blokland.
I do not like it.
In a text which says that the statistical programme must take into account the priorities arising from Community policy, which include competitiveness, growth and employment, Mr Blokland wishes to replace the word 'growth' with 'sustainable and environmentally friendly development'.
This terminology is not found anywhere in the Treaty, nor does it appear in the conclusions of the Amsterdam Summit as a replacement for growth.
For this reason, I think we should reject this amendment.
By my calculations you exceeded your time by 20 % but since you are always so entertaining we do not mind.
Mr President, statistics can be quite tedious, but they are also immensely important.
Eurostat usually produces the statistics on which the decisions we take are based.
It is mostly politicians like us who use statistics in one way or another.
It is therefore of great importance that the statistics should be produced correctly, that they should be made comparable, and so on.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for Eurostat to provide all the statistical information needed to keep track of the growing policy requirements arising in the EU.
Through the Treaty of Amsterdam the EU has acquired even more power, which means that we shall be taking more and more policy decisions, which means in turn that we need better documentation on the basis of which to take our decisions, and this must be supplied by Eurostat.
This applies to both old and new areas.
We must also remember that the relationship between Eurostat and the national authorities is based on the subsidiarity principle.
The Commission document says: 'this present level of resources cannot satisfy all needs'.
It is rather sad that priorities have to be set when it is a question of policy decisions for which the EU is responsible.
In the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy we have concentrated on the parts dealing with research and technological development and with energy questions.
One of the important points to which we draw attention is that Eurostat must be accessible when it is a question of disseminating information within the research community, on what has been produced and how it can be used in different contexts as an innovation indicator.
The same applies to the energy field: in order to pursue a sound policy on energy and the environment, we need to have the same statistical background and to be able to make comparisons so that we can take the right decisions, decisions that are necessary in order to bring about sustainable development, amongst other things in the context of the strategy laid down at the Kyoto Conference on climate change.
In this connection statistics are immensely beneficial, usable and necessary.
Eurostat thus needs resources in order to cope with these demands, which is important in view of the fact that much of the decision-making is being moved from the Member States to EU level.
Mr President, I will begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, for giving close attention to, amongst other things, the conclusions we reached in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
There is an increased need to improve statistics in this field, not least following the Luxembourg summit.
We now have to monitor the guidelines which were adopted there and which are now resulting in national action plans.
There are still deficiencies, particularly as regards comparability.
There are also other deficiencies, however. The process takes too long, for example; we could do with shorter time lags before we can make comparisons.
We have set quite a lot of priorities in committee in those areas we are responsible for, i.e. employment, but also social affairs and education.
They apply of course to the four pillars of the Luxembourg guidelines.
They apply to statistics on active or passive measures for labour market policy.
They apply to hours worked per year and per week; in this context it is important to have sex-specific data, for example, in order to see how much unpaid work has been performed and what persons perform that unpaid work.
Those were some of our priorities.
As regards the social field, household budget surveys should be carried out more often.
Statistics are also needed on supply and demand for child care and on parental leave.
In the education field, it is important to see how the transition from vocational training to the labour market operates, to compare school drop-out rates in the various Member States and to see how the transition from sheltered employment for the disabled to the open labour market operates.
These are some examples of priorities we have in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
We look forward to receiving better statistical information from the Statistical Office in this area, especially as we have new tasks to accomplish since the Luxembourg summit.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I should like to wish Mrs Lulling the best of luck with her report.
On a number of cardinal points, she has commented on the European Commission's programme and put forward amendments.
I agree with her that the European Parliament must be careful to ensure that Eurostat is independent.
In a democracy, statistics must be objective and reliable, which requires sufficient financial resources.
I should like the Commissioner to consider making Eurostat independent of the European Commission, because only then can it be really free of political influence.
I am curious to know his reaction.
A second point identified by the Environment Committee concerns the absence of priorities per policy area.
There are limited financial resources.
So why does the Commission not set priorities? And how does the Commission think it can make a meaningful evaluation, without making clear from the outset the most important key points of policy for the next four years?
On behalf of the Environment Committee, I would urge that environment policy should give priority to providing insight into pressure on the environment in those sectors of the economy facing the biggest environmental problems.
I hope that the Commissioner agrees with this and will give a positive undertaking here this evening.
Thirdly, I would draw your attention to Amendment No 15, which relates to Article 2 of the draft decision.
The objective of 'growth' as it is formulated in the Commission proposal contradicts both what Mrs Lulling said and Article 130, second paragraph, of the Maastricht Treaty.
Nor is it in line with the fifth action programme on the environment, as drawn up by Parliament and the Council.
Why once again this uncompromising striving for economic growth? This is not in the interests of society.
I have repeatedly stressed that it is in the interests of citizens and companies for economic growth to be ecologically acceptable.
I hope that Parliament, the Commission and the Council will now take this aim seriously and no longer regard the Treaty as a paper tiger on this point.
So let us in future always speak of sustainable development, if we are interested in more than the rise or fall in the gross national product.
The gathering of statistical data is intended to provide information which can be readily used in decision making, in the widest sense of the term.
I therefore urge Eurostat to provide an insight into the links between developments in the fields of the economy, environment and employment.
There is no point in compiling separate statistics for these three fields.
They must be linked to the different economic sectors in the national accounts.
How can you make policy adjustments if you do not know what developments are taking place and the links between them? I am sure Eurostat shares this view.
In November 1995, Parliament also made clear statements about this, in the Díez de Rivera Icaza report.
It is important to be able to identify the pressure on the environment from each area of economic activity.
That is the purpose of Amendment No 13.
The accession of the Central and Eastern European countries is a major challenge.
A sound environment policy is a key point in adapting to the acquis communautaire .
Eurostat must ensure a complete gathering of statistics in this field of policy and in other key areas.
Yet this point is not featured in the present programme.
What reason does the Commissioner give for this?
Finally, there is the definitive VAT system.
I wonder whether the original principle is so flexible in practice.
A new statistical system is needed in order to levy VAT on intra-Community supplies.
Canada spent CAD 90 million on such a system, and the Union must make a similar effort.
In addition, companies which are now used to the transitional system will be burdened with additional administrative tasks.
For these reasons, I believe that it is better to agree with the Council's view that the transitional system should remain in place for now.
Mr President, Commissioner, the objectives of improving and extending statistics as provided for in the Community programme for 1998-2002 deserve our full support when, as emphasised by Mrs Lulling, we are facing extremely important challenges which include enlargement, the functioning of the single currency with the pact for stability and growth, the reform of the common agricultural policy, the preparation of the final VAT system and even, for example, the development and monitoring of the labour market.
Since I am the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations, it will be clear why I particularly emphasise the need to ensure the same quality in gathering statistical information in third countries, including some countries that are closest to us.
Since the EFTA countries are already covered by the system, the greatest urgency no doubt lies, as has been correctly stated, with the countries of central and eastern Europe which have applied for membership, since this will be the only way in which to prepare adequately for their accession.
Thus, there is every reason to provide the necessary support.
However, in a global economy in which multinational corporations are assuming an increasing prominence, we cannot confine ourselves to the European area.
Moreover, we cannot confine ourselves to the flow of goods in a world in which other economic flows are assuming increasing importance, including the provision of services and capital flows such as foreign investment.
At all events, a correct balance must be found between the need to provide the most extensive possible information, and the need to refrain from excessively burdening companies, particularly small and medium enterprises, and citizens in general.
Indeed, experience shows that when you ask too much, you receive less than you have asked for and bad quality at that.
Lastly, it does no harm to emphasise that statistics, which are a public asset, must be accessible to everyone, including small entrepreneurs or students, which is why the increasingly prevalent practice of requiring that they should be paid for not acceptable, since that effectively restricts them to selected sectors with the greatest purchasing power.
In addition to general economic interests, what is at stake here are the values of a democratic society in which the conscious participation of properly informed citizens is required.
I think this is a point to which attention must also be drawn.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for the five year statistical programme contains a series of interesting projects.
Implementing these could really provide us with very useful insight.
During the period of the preceding programme, demand for harmonised statistics increased greatly, particular in relation to the convergence criteria.
I consider this to be a very important factor in our decision.
The Commission's demands for statistics that are comparable and of a high quality are, therefore, legitimate and understandable, and should be supported by Parliament.
However, as many speakers have already mentioned, this creates an enormous bureaucratic burden for many small and medium-sized enterprises.
The lesson to be learnt here is obvious.
What appears to be needed urgently is a period of consolidation, a pause for breath.
Priority must be given to this in the new five year programme.
It would also be useful to appoint an ombudsman specifically for issues relating to the statistical burden.
Just two days ago, Parliament decided that the burden placed on companies as a result of the European Central Bank's statistical reporting requirements must be kept to a minimum.
As a monitoring authority with corresponding powers, an ombudsman could ensure that such principles are observed.
He would be a point of contact for those affected, either by being asked to provide disproportionate detail or by quality requirements.
We must not lose sight of what is feasible using statistics and of the burdens associated with them.
For the future and for the current five year programme we need regulation of this kind more urgently than ever before.
We must avoid the risk of endangering the whole statistical system by imposing an unnecessary burden, as without the cooperation of those concerned and of the various companies, it is not possible to compile high quality statistics.
Therefore, it should be a goal for all of us to convince the companies.
They must come to have confidence in the fact that they will only be asked to do what is absolutely necessary.
We should consider putting this on a voluntary basis and setting up a system of incentives instead of penalties and threats.
We should also consider how we can advance automation and avoid duplication of information collected.
Possible methods include sampling, market research, opinion research; I believe it pays to consider how we can obtain statistics more quickly and more efficiently.
Mr President, it is immensely important, perhaps the most important element in the report, that Eurostat is being called on to provide sex-related statistics.
I therefore congratulate my namesake for that.
The word I use in Swedish, 'namna ', does not really exist. I have coined it for the occasion, because the rapporteur and I have the same first name.
I congratulate her on the requirement of sex-specific statistics.
What I find missing, however, is a reference to the need for statistics in future to be produced in such a way that they can be coordinated with geographic information, so that Eurostat can form part of a process of Europe-wide cooperation in this area.
We should, however, be able to popularise the information available on statistics in our countries. Then they could become more comparable.
I hope that we shall soon get a communication on this, so that we can have common standards and can popularise this better.
Commissioner Bangemann has promised such a communication, and Eurostat is mentioned explicitly as a cooperation partner in the draft for the communication.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs was looking for better unemployment statistics and labour market statistics.
This is a perennial problem, but I actually think that the solution has already arrived. According to my information, on the one hand we use statistics more often - every month data have to be sent to Eurostat - and on the other hand we can have more uniform statistics by applying the ILO Convention.
I wonder what needs to be improved.
What perhaps needs to be improved is the production of statistics at regional level; but that is precisely something we can use the geographic information for.
Also, in other discussions during this part-session, we have sought better information from the European Information Network on Drugs and Drug Addiction.
I wonder whether, as I hope, Eurostat and this network could in the future cooperate, so that we could get common definitions and could get the authorities actually to supply the information needed.
Finally, let me say that nothing lies like bad statistics.
In our country we experienced the consequences of that when we passed on statistics on violent crime to Eurostat, including both homicide and attempted homicide.
After that, reports circulated in the British press that Helsinki was the most violent city, whereas others had supplied statistics in which only the number of assaults which had actually led to fatality was given.
Remember the old saying: 'lies, damned lies and statistics'.
It must not be like that in the future!
The arguments put forward by the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, in favour of allocating a sufficient budget to support the Community Statistical Programme 1998-2002, are entirely convincing.
Eurostat must be in a position to compensate for the lack of efficiency of national statistical offices. Apart from the fact that they do not have the resources to effectively carry out their role, they are too often under the influence of the government, which prefers to ignore figures or, worse still, to manipulate them in order to better convince citizens that, all things considered, 'Everything is fine, Madam'.
Are you aware, for example, that in Belgium - just to take my own country as an example - the Minister for Employment and Labour cites a figure of around 500 000 unemployed people for the entire country, which is gross misinformation, as the Minister only takes into account those who are fully unemployed, who are on benefit and seeking employment?
Intellectual honesty would require the Minister to add to this the unemployed who are on benefit and not seeking employment, those who are exempt from checks, and those in agreed early retirement. He should also add those on guaranteed minimum income benefit, that is, those dependent on welfare, the homeless, the disabled who receive sickness and invalidity insurance and those who receive benefits from insurance companies due to accidents at work.
This would increase the published figure of 500 000 unemployed to 1 million.
Are you aware that in Belgium it is impossible to find out how many illegal immigrants there are or how much the immigration policy costs the taxpayer?
Are you aware that in Belgium, while we know the volume of trade with foreign countries, we do not know anything about what the Walloons buy in Flanders, and that there is a refusal to carry out any sort of linguistic census in Brussels and its surrounding area?
Ladies and gentlemen, in order to have better transparency and real democracy, I think that Eurostat should be given the necessary resources to respond to our legitimate questions.
Mr President, may I begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, for the quality of her report.
In addition to the Committee on Economic Affairs, a further 12 committees participated in the drafting of your opinion on the draft Community Statistical Programme submitted by the Commission.
This bears clear witness to the interest devoted by your institution to the introduction of a coherent, transparent and reliable system of Community statistics.
The Commission welcomes this commitment.
You share the convictions held by other institutions of the European Union that the successful democratic operation of our institutions is not possible without good Community statistics.
Before giving the Commission's opinion on Mrs Lulling's report, I would like to say a few words about Community statistics.
Over the last decade, their role has been considerably strengthened.
Many important political decisions require a very stringent level of comparability and, therefore, a high level of harmonisation of Community statistics. These naturally include the introduction of economic and monetary union but also, for instance, the common agricultural policy, economic and social cohesion and budgetary policy.
If further evidence were needed, you would only need to look at the report approved during the last meeting of the Commission on the possible modification of the own resources system to see the importance of having reliable and comparable statistics.
During the last five-year statistical programme, the first priority centred of course on statistics relating to the convergence criteria, which were completed on time and with the necessary quality to serve as a basis for the decision taken on 2 and 3 May this year.
Another important priority for EUROSTAT was the preparation of statistical data for the Employment Summit which took place in November 1997, and the preparation of indicators for monitoring the employment guidelines adopted at the summit.
The Commission decided to make the Member States wholly responsible for gathering statistical data, in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity.
Thus, a sort of network was created between the statistical systems of the Member States.
This network jointly lays down the harmonisation methods to be adopted and its implementation will reap the full benefit of the experience of some 70 000 statistical experts involved.
In the context of its commitment to ensuring efficiency in the administration of the resources at its disposal, EUROSTAT, in conjunction with its national partners, introduced a series of measures intended to boost productivity, limit the volume of data submitted by companies (particularly by small and medium enterprises), adopt the methods offering the best cost-benefit ratio, improve the overall quality of its products and, lastly, to assess the results of these products.
On the subject of Mrs Lulling's report, the Commission cannot fail to welcome the improvements proposed, particularly in the areas of employment, the environment, equal opportunities for men and women, as well as in the area of statistics connected with a future VAT system.
However, the Commission cannot support Amendments Nos 5, 7 and 8 and, in part, 9, for the following reasons.
Amendment No 5 is redundant in the light of Amendment No 4.
It should be pointed out in this connection that the scientific independence of statistics experts is one of the fundamental principles embodied in Council Regulation No 322/97 regarding Community statistics.
The principle is likewise embodied in the new Article 285 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Commission cannot support Amendment No 7 since it intends to retain responsibility for assessing this programme.
This does not of course exclude the possibility of calling in an independent expert or experts to assist in this task, as provided for in Commission communication SEM 2000.
The Commission likewise intends to call in the European Advisory Committee on Statistical Information in the Economic and Social Spheres (CEIES), which includes users' representatives.
Amendment No 8 would not appear to be relevant since the 'other spheres' referred to are covered by the programme in question.
Lastly, the Commission does not support the first part of Amendment No 9 since EUROSTAT does not have the power to draw up forecasts.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasise the importance of this new Community Statistical Programme for 1998-2002.
The Commission welcomes the excellent cooperation between our two institutions, which augurs well for the imminent implementation of Article 285 of the Treaty of Amsterdam providing for the establishment of the co-decision procedure in the sphere of statistics.
In connection with the question raised regarding the independence of EUROSTAT, I would like to add that the Commission makes it a point of honour not to exercise any political influence whatsoever over EUROSTAT.
This was clear, indeed, when EUROSTAT had to publish its statistics for Economic and Monetary Union, and departed from a specific decision of the Commission, not just for the purposes of that particular exercise, but as a point of honour in its usual practice.
Mr President, I think that as the rapporteur, I must respond to what the Commissioner has just said concerning certain amendments.
I agree that Amendments Nos 4 and 5 overlap.
If you do not want to state that the work should remain independent from political pressure, I could perhaps withdraw Amendment No 5, because in a way it duplicates the previous amendment.
This does not however prevent us from adopting it and leaving the Council the option of choosing one or the other.
With regard to Amendment No 7, I am somewhat surprised that you should want to evaluate your work yourselves.
This is indeed work that requires independent evaluation, and you state that the Economic and Social Committee should do this.
I personally know the Economic and Social Committee very well, as for some time I was the intellectual 'harlot' of the unionists there, and I have to tell you that I do not see this Committee evaluating your statistics.
If you draw up a report, it could, if need be, provide an appraisal of it, but it will not do an evaluation report.
As regards the budget, I know that additional funds could turn out to be necessary.
If they are not necessary, all the better, but, if it appeared that they were needed, then it is better to say that we want the required resources to be available.
As far as Amendment No 9 is concerned, I think, Mr President, that there is a misunderstanding.
We are not actually asking Eurostat to make forecasts of the movement in agricultural spending.
We are asking for statistics 'enabling' the political decision- makers to make such forecasts.
Eurostat will not make these forecasts, but we need its statistics to enable forecasts to be made of the movement in agricultural spending in the various areas.
I therefore think that there is a misunderstanding here.
I hope, nevertheless, that Parliament will support me in adopting these amendments, which we consider to be necessary and important.
Mr President, I have a point of order. On a previous occasion, I requested that the results of votes be displayed for longer after the vote so that we can make a note of them.
Perhaps it would be possible to have access to the results of the electronic votes on paper so that we can follow them better.
I am told that the services can always provide you with a printout of the votes at any time after the votes have taken place.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.05 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
We take note of that, Mr von Habsburg, and I should be grateful if you could provide us with this letter.
I have it here with me, Madam President.
Madam President, on page 58 of the Minutes there is an account of an exchange between the President and certain Members concerning who is currently a member of the British Conservative Group.
Unfortunately, the President's remarks have been edited and his full wit and humour have not been reflected in the Minutes. Could we have a full record?
Could we have an assurance from the Conservative Group as to whether Mr Donnelly and Mr Stevens are currently members of that group or not?
I gather that yesterday they came in and out several times.
For the record, we should know what the current state is
That does not concern the Minutes, Mr Kerr, but the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
It is the Minutes that we are currently approving.
Madam President, my comment is also on the Minutes, because I note that Vice-President Martin was successful in having expunged from the record his comments about having to telephone No 10 Downing Street for instructions on how to vote.
If that facility is available to Vice-Presidents - and good luck to him - is it available to other Members?
By the way, Mr Kerr, the Conservative Group remains as it was yesterday.
That also does not relate to the Minutes, but to the Verbatim Report of Proceedings.
Madam President, this is, of course, a reference to the Minutes - page 21.
Mr Cassidy apparently crossed the floor of the Chamber.
I would like some clarification from the Chair, because according to the Guardian newspaper today, John Stevens and Brendan Donnelly, members of the Conservative Group opposite, were expelled and then later reinstated by the Tory Party; they later resigned and then, after a hasty compromise, were persuaded to stay.
Could somebody please tell the electorate in Great Britain whether these two people are now members of the Conservative Party or whether they are now independents?
Ladies and gentlemen, you are persistently confusing the Minutes wit the Report of Proceedings.
We are only approving the Minutes here.
We have heard what you said, but it would seem that no one else has anything further to say about the Minutes.
Madam President, I wish to say, for future reference in this Chamber, that if Members want to behave like schoolboys, do it outside.
Some of us have other work to do.
(Mixed reactions)
Everyone has their own way of seeing things.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, you referred to the common position on the directive on consumer goods and guarantees.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights was asked to deliver its opinion at the first reading. It should do the same for the second reading, but it was not mentioned.
We shall look into that.
VOTES
Madam President, following the debate we had yesterday evening with the Commissioner, I should like to table an oral amendment to Amendment No 7.
The other amendments can be put to the vote together.
We actually asked for an independent evaluation of an independent evaluation report on the programme. The Commissioner said that it was the Commission's responsibility to produce this report and I understand that.
I would like, with your agreement, to propose deleting the word 'independent' in the first subparagraph so that it reads 'will provide for a mid-programme evaluation ...' And in the second subparagraph, I would also like to delete the word 'independent' so that it reads 'shall provide for an appropriate evaluation report on the implementation of the programme', and adding the words 'taking account of the views of independent experts', as the Commissioner promised.
I would ask you to accept this oral amendment, which is justified, and with this amendment and your agreement, we can put Amendments Nos 7 to 14 to a block vote.
It is very questionable whether the EU should devote large amounts of funding to the fusion research establishment, JET.
It would be better to direct such funds to renewable energy resources.
I have therefore voted against the report.
Pigmeat
The next item is the statement by the Commission on pigmeat.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, to make things quite clear from the outset, the background to the difficulties we are currently encountering in the pig sector is probably the fact that 1996 and 1997 proved extremely productive years for the pig farmers, which led them to make enormous stock increases.
Furthermore, with the decline in swine fever, products from the Netherlands are fully back on the market again.
These two factors have increased European pig production to 17.2 million tonnes this year, an increase of about one million tonnes of pigmeat or 6 % more than in 1997.
This trend obviously exerts enormous pressure on the European pigmeat market.
But the situation has become even more acute in the last few weeks with the almost total disappearance of the extremely important Russian exports, the falling demand in Far Eastern markets and the increasing competition from other exporting countries, especially the USA and Canada.
The Commission has taken a number of measures to support the pig sector.
In mid-May we re-introduced export refunds for fresh and frozen pigmeat on the bone. At the time that stabilised the market for several weeks on end.
But when prices began to slump again in late July, the Commission increased these refunds by 50 % and introduced the same refund rates for meat off the bone. That measure also had a very positive impact on exports.
But then, as I said, Russian exports fell drastically and were eventually blocked in mid-August, and European market prices fell by nearly ECU 10 per kilogramme in the space of three weeks.
To protect exporters from direct harm, we thereupon began by prolonging the validity of export licences to Russia by 60 days.
At the last meeting of the pigmeat management committee, it was decided rapidly to introduce private storage aids, which have been granted since 28 September.
This action allows the industry to freeze freshly slaughtered pigs at the Community's cost and to store it for four, five or six months.
But when these products are taken out of storage, it is compulsory to export them to third countries.
Part of the stored amounts, together with the expenditure on this action, however, come under the WTO export obligations for the pigmeat sector.
Under this action, some 70 000 tonnes of meat can be stored in the 1999 financial year.
Let me stress that the traders can incorporate storage in their export activities in the appropriate way, which will also make them more competitive on third-country markets.
Some Members are in favour of a further increase in the refund rates and have called for that.
In this regard, I would ask them to consider that it is pointless to increase them, especially for exports to Russia, so long as the Russian market remains completely closed and we have no partners there with whom to conclude export contracts; moreover, for the time being the other third-country markets do not need higher export refunds.
Of course we will follow further developments on the European pig market very, very closely and we will certainly discuss the matter further at the next management committee meeting, which is due to take place on 14 October.
And as soon as the Russian markets open again, we will certainly review the refunds.
Let me conclude with a remark that some Members may not find very welcome.
In spite of the current crisis which, as I said at the outset, can be traced mainly to the expansion of pig stocks, there are still, particularly just now, some official organisations, advisory services and also regional authorities and even governments that are calling on pig farmers to expand rather than restrict pig production.
To be quite frank, I think that is bad advice.
The Commission may be able to moderate and cushion the effects of a temporary rise in production, but it cannot protect the sector from price falls caused by structural overproduction.
Madam President, I think Commissioner Fischler's statement on the crisis in the pig sector showed a sense of responsibility and can be broadly supported.
Our group recognises that the Commission has taken action, partly at the request of the European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture, in setting up this aid scheme for private storage as from 28 September and increasing export refunds.
As the Commissioner said, these measures are certainly not going to resolve the entire problem, but they can help us to deal with one particularly worrying element of the crisis. The crisis is actually very uneven, because although a highly globalised market is a feature of the pigmeat sector, there are segments within the European market which are holding up better than others.
The situation is serious even though, as you have rightly said, Commissioner, producers in the sector have been making good incomes in recent years and the swine fever crisis which led to the adoption of rationalisation measures has been pretty well overcome.
Now some very important producer regions - in France, Germany, Denmark, Holland and the United Kingdom - have seen prices collapse to an all-time low and that is why we should be very concerned.
The problem today is part of the international crisis affecting the world markets and the agri-foodstuff sector above all, and there are a number of possible routes we can take.
But I do not think we should follow the route of throwing everything over and abandoning all the Agenda 2000 plans to reform the CAP, because this crisis on the world markets has thrown everyone off-balance.
I am well aware that there is talk on the other side of the Atlantic of the United States re-opening the debate on the Farm Bill, because this crisis is also hitting American producers and calls for aid measures at the same time as measures relating to loans and financial guarantees.
That could alter the rules of the game at international level and undermine European Union producers.
But I do not think that this means we should give up; on the contrary, we need to deepen and extend the process of reform we have started, improving the internal market as well.
In fact I think the proposals to reduce cereal prices could also help the recovery of the pigmeat sector.
Finally, this crisis must not be used as an opportunity to water down environmental measures and abandon supply policies which are more indispensable than ever, in my view.
Commissioner, you have just reported to us on the steps the Commission has taken to resolve this desperate pigmeat crisis.
You also mentioned that one of its causes has been the huge increase in production.
But clearly that growth has not been the same in all countries, so the solutions cannot be the same for a country where over-production stands at 104 % and for others where the level of supply exceeds 470 %.
The measures you described could be improved and there are others which you did not mention.
An effort has been made on export refunds - we are pleased that boneless meat has been included - and also on the issue of private storage, but 70 000 tonnes is a very small amount especially considering that we have further reserves of over 600 000 tonnes from last year as well as the reserves from this year.
Furthermore, there are two other measures you did not refer to and to which I would draw your attention.
The COM is operating in a free market, and we can tell you here and now that Article 3 applies. This article states that in case of exceptional price falls, intervention buying can take place, and the price cannot be used as an excuse - which is what the Commission's officials have done - because it is fixed in Article 5 in relation to the Community base price.
So intervention buying can take place.
What is more, we have the Community food aid system, which could help all the NGOs, charities, the Dominican Republic - which has suffered a terrible disaster - and Russia too.
There are solutions, Commissioner.
Let us be brave and take these measures.
In an exceptional market situation exceptional steps need to be taken.
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Fischler for his statement, and I think the analysis he gave is essentially correct.
A pig cycle is nothing new.
Anyone here in the Chamber who knows anything of economics knows that pig cycles are mentioned in just about every economics book.
What makes the present cycle special is that it has coincided with the crises in Russia and Asia.
I think that the pigmeat sector can generally be proud of the fact that it costs so little.
Expenditure in 1997 was ECU 168 million out of a budget of ECU 41 billion, and in 1998 the figure is likely to be some ECU 330 million, which is an excellent achievement.
I therefore feel that the special measures being taken are fully justified, since crisis situations call for special measures.
The Commission says that the root of the problem lies in the fact that pigmeat production has increased so dramatically.
This is certain to be the case, since increased supply means lower prices.
But is not the Commission's policy of reducing grain prices also to blame? And is the problem not simply going to get worse over the next few years when grain prices come down still further with Agenda 2000?
What does the Commission think the effect will be on pigmeat production then? All the types of meat produced using a lot of grain will have a clear advantage over other types of meat, it seems to me.
Does the Commission have any sort of long-term policy in mind here?
I have another question: if reports are correct, something like six to seven billion dollars of extra support are to be made available to American farmers in the run-up to the elections.
What does the Commission intend to do about this? Is it going to react?
My final question is this: if the Dutch newspapers are to be believed, Commissioner Fischler has praised the Netherlands' policy on pigmeat production, which includes a quota system.
Is the Commissioner in favour of introducing this throughout Europe?
Madam President, Commissioner, we have witnessed a breathtaking drop in the price of pigmeat since the end of the summer both in the European Union and worldwide.
The Community production sector, and particularly small family producers, are in a state of emergency.
What has happened? First of all, Europe has overproduced, as you said, Commissioner, largely due to the irresponsible expansion of some farms.
Supply in Europe therefore increased from 16 million to 17.2 million tonnes between 1996 and 1998, which is an increase of 9 %.
At the same time, we have seen pig numbers in the United States increase by about 8 % in two years, which has allowed the Americans, who set unbeatable prices, to conquer the external markets to the detriment of the European Union: we are in the middle of an economic war.
The situation is also explained by the Asian and Russian crises, which also deprive the European Union of a potential market.
At present, we are seeing the consumption of pigmeat in the Community stagnate because of strong competition from other white meats.
The Commission must now resort to drastic remedies - as they say in my country -, otherwise the crisis will persist and drag on.
Emergency measures are necessary.
Firstly, the level of export refunds must be adjusted as needed to ensure that the markets can be recaptured, including the Russian market.
Secondly, a promotion campaign should be swiftly launched within the Community to increase awareness amongst the general public and boost consumption in Europe.
Thirdly, meat stocks in the European Union must be reduced by adopting the principle of humanitarian aid, particularly for Russia, yet without calling into question present commercial distribution and putting future distribution at risk.
Fourthly, supply and demand should be controlled, as well as production, and farms should be managed rationally.
Fifthly, we must ensure that the production of pigmeat is not transformed into a huge business that no longer has anything to do with agriculture, rural development and compliance with environmental standards.
However, I fear that it may already be too late as far as this last point is concerned.
Madam President, the origin of the current crisis in the pigmeat market lies in the supply and demand imbalance produced by the growth of industrial farming.
On top of that the heavy reduction in exports resulting from the Russian crisis has made this a crisis of unprecedented depth.
The victims of this crisis will be small and medium-sized farms.
The Commission ought to be proposing measures to correct this situation, using specific aid for small and medium-sized farms and disincentives against industrial farming.
All in all, the biggest problem is that the effects of the Russian crisis may also be repeated in other sectors.
This is the most serious aspect in my opinion, and the Commission is leaving itself without mechanisms for managing this crisis because the only instrument it is planning to use across the board is private storage; this is to be the sole intervention mechanism in the majority of sectors.
The social fabric of Europe's farming community cannot afford the destruction of its base - the small and medium-sized farms - or additional job losses.
So it is the Commission's duty to correct the social impact of the structural crisis in pigmeat by providing aid for small farms and disincentives against industrial farming.
I want to draw attention to the most recent events, because if the Commission felt even the slightest sense of responsibility it would revise some of the proposals it is making with regard to the various COMs.
Any COM worth its salt must have market regulation mechanisms for dealing with cyclical variations in production or short-term crises in all sectors.
My colleagues in the committee are right to call for exceptional efforts in the face of increasingly ineffective measures.
Madam President, Commissioner, you should have begun with the observation you made at the end.
Everyone in the pig market knows why we have this crisis.
Our farmers' associations are still busily trying to encourage the growth of the pig sector and argue in their publications that we should at last reacquire the market shares which the Netherlands lost as a result of swine fever.
Of course, the same applies to the Netherlands as to other Member States.
They are attempting to promote industrialisation in the pig sector, where possible with public funds. They want the resulting market pressure removed by raising export subsidies.
The taxpayer who has to pay for it, the smaller undertakings and species-friendly stock rearing all fall by the wayside.
We must resist this attempt - and on this point I would contradict Mr Pérez, which also relates to the joint resolution, which we did not sign; we must not give in to this attempt to set up a common organisation of the pigmeat market with state intervention, which would eventually lead to constant surpluses here too.
We must ensure that the market is cleaned up and dissociates itself from those who want it to expand and we must take measures to ensure that species-friendly stock rearing and small-scale pig-farming do not fall by the wayside.
That means that we must make it clearly understood by the Member States, at European level, that agro-industrial production is not entitled to privileges and may not be established in rural areas like other types of farm production, but must be treated as an industry; that means it may only be established in industrial areas and is subject to the appropriate emission rules, like those which other commercial and industrial undertakings also have to observe.
Any privileges must go to farming based on land utilisation, which also applies to pig-farming.
We must also support the regional market.
I personally am not affected by this crisis with my pig production - which is, admittedly, rather small - because I market directly.
Nor am I affected by the collapse of the Russian and Asian markets, because my markets are on my doorstep; the people who want to buy from me - and who are not concerned about Asia or Russia, nor do they believe they ought to eat more meat because of the growth of agro-industrial production - stick to their standards, as I stick to mine.
Nor have I expanded my production.
So I think this is a homemade crisis.
But it also shows the particular risks of gearing production to export and to the world market, because small parties then muddle up all manner of things that could in fact be regulated sensibly in the large single European market.
So I would ask you to let this pig surplus regulate itself and to protect those who must not be disadvantaged, namely small family farms, which might otherwise draw the short straw.
Madam President, firstly, I welcome the Commission's statement here this morning on the crisis in the pig sector throughout Europe.
The fact that we received this statement means that the Commission recognises that there is a serious problem within the pig industry in the European Union.
In my own constituency of Northern Ireland, the situation is perhaps even worse than in other parts of Europe.
It was aggravated by the loss of one of the processing factories due to a fire last June.
I know the Commission is probably aware of this.
This resulted in a massive backlog of pigs on farms during July and August.
Despite politicians' best efforts, no resolution could be found to this problem, either within Northern Ireland, in the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in London, or in Brussels.
No matter where we went, we were told 'we are sorry, everybody is on holiday'.
The pigs did not go on holiday. They had to be fed and we had a serious problem.
It is not very good to go to your constituents and say 'I am sorry but everybody is on holiday in Brussels'.
While I appreciate that people are entitled to their holidays, in future there should be at all times an official of sufficient standing in every cabinet in Brussels who can make a political decision if a real crisis occurs in some part of the European Union.
It does not enhance the image of the European Union when we have a situation like this.
I know there are no easy solutions.
I know the crisis in Russia has aggravated the situation, but to simply start with the introduction of export refunds and aid to private storage is not enough.
We need a better mechanism to recognise the problems before they arise.
The pig industry is important.
It keeps young people on the farms who might not otherwise be there.
It also provides substantial employment off the farm.
I fear the pig industry, in my particular area, is at a stage where it may not survive this present crisis.
I would ask the Commission to set up a task force to look into the situation and ensure that it is not repeated and that we can evolve a long-term policy for the future of pigs throughout the European Union.
Mr President, the pig industry in Northern Ireland has been hit worse than all the other sectors in agriculture which are already in crisis, as the Commissioner knows.
In the midst of the crisis the pig industry was robbed in one night of 40 % of its slaughter capacity and curing capacity.
A new Malton factory costing £10 million was burned to the ground.
An industry already in crisis losing 40 % of its capacity is in danger of total collapse.
What representation did the Commissioner receive from the United Kingdom Government about this dire emergency?
What proposals for financial help were requested? In any other region of this Union, if this had happened and 40 % of an industry had been destroyed something decisive would have been requested of the national government and undertaken.
The pig industry is a jewel in the crown of agriculture in Northern Ireland. It is going to go under, as my colleague has mentioned, and cease to be viable if immediate aid is not forthcoming.
With pig farmers contemplating suicide, and some committing suicide as a result of the problems, the situation is desperate.
I would press the Commissioner to send one of his officials to Northern Ireland immediately to assess for himself the tragedy and gravity of the situation.
Agriculture is Northern Ireland's largest industry.
It accounts for £2.28 billion of its trade and employs 10 % of the total civil employment pool.
The whole industry is in crisis.
Farm incomes have been slashed. In 1997 they were down 38 % from 1996, to £203 million.
Finally, a further drop this year in farm incomes is expected, to the extent of £50 million.
That is the gravity of the situation. We are looking to Europe to do something for us.
Madam President, I raised this question originally.
I am happy that a large number of people in this House and indeed, the Commissioner, are well aware of what the problem is and how serious it is.
It is not just a question of farmers failing to make a living. It is a question of farmers losing money rapidly and being in danger of having to lose their homes and entire business.
Farmers throughout Europe see the European Union as being responsible for agriculture.
We spend 17 billion annually on arable crops. We spend 5 billion annually on beef.
We managed to find 2 billion extra when the beef industry got into trouble even though the pig meat sector is twice as big - there is twice as much pigmeat consumed in the European Union as there is beef.
In the dairy sector we spent 3 billion. We merely spent 300 million on pigmeat, a sector which is twice as big as beef.
It is extremely important that we take note of the situation and seek to find emergency solutions because this is an emergency.
To my colleague, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, who thinks about these things seriously, I have to say that there are big factory farms involved, but the ones that will be there when this crisis is over are the big factory farms.
The ones that are going out are the smallest and most vulnerable.
We do not make a case here today for the large factory farms.
We ask for emergency measures for the family farms that are in dire need. They will go down first as the crisis develops.
Madam President, Commissioner, I thank Mr Fischler for his statement, which fully explained why the pig industry has reached this situation of overproduction.
The Commission's decision to support private storage is right, but it is not enough on its own.
To reduce the size of the pigmeat mountains we need a proper injection of aid for exports, so that surpluses can be shifted onto the global market. We have to find funding for that.
In addition, pigmeat production must be cut in the EU in relation to consumption and the existing outlets for exportation.
The responsibility for this lies with the Member States, which have been increasing their production beyond the level of consumption over the last two years.
In a case like this, those governments that are still recommending increased production are being irresponsible.
In reducing production we have to stress the importance of the effect on the environment of production, and reduce production particularly in environmentally protected high risk areas.
My question to the Commissioner is this: is it possible to spend EU environmental aid on reducing pigmeat production that puts too much of a burden on the environment?
Balancing production is urgently required, as otherwise it will take place through a broad sweep of competition.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the crisis in the production of pigmeat is unacceptable for small and medium-sized producers. It must lead to joint action in the form of effective financial measures on the part of the Commission and the Member States, in order to enable farms to get through this ordeal without any difficulties.
Yet, at a time when Europe has a surplus of 600 000 tonnes, how can we allow authorisation to be given to set up huge factory farms that give rise to opposition from the surrounding population and the farmers themselves? Does Europe not need a moratorium on this type of farm?
The present situation in Europe and in the world must, in fact, result in a policy aimed at controlling production through a genuine common organisation of the market. We need to ensure a decent income for small farms within the framework of small-scale production that generates jobs and guarantees respect for the environment and harmonious use of the countryside.
However, who within the Union's bodies will have the will and the courage to change the direction of Community agricultural policy and attack this extreme liberalism, which, according to the chairman of COPA, is at the origin of the crisis? Can we believe that the Commission is prepared to act effectively to that end and against the collapse of pigmeat prices when it proposes an identical price trend for cereals, milk, and beef and veal?
Can we believe this when it proposes, with no real balancing mechanism, enlargement to include countries where agricultural prices are between 30 % and 60 % lower than those in the Union?
And can we believe this when it relentlessly pursues this extremely liberal headlong rush by negotiating the opening up of the European market to the United States and to Mercosur?
Is it not urgent to escape from this market dogma that regulates the market, and to send the idea of the reform of the CAP and Agenda 2000 back to the drawing board?
We are not starting with nothing.
When adopting the Cunha report a few weeks ago on the reform of the CAP, our Parliament outlined the framework of another agricultural policy. It is a policy that is far more concerned with society's needs in terms of decent incomes, jobs, the quality of food and the environment, the balanced management of our territory and international cooperation.
This is the policy that should now be at the centre of debates within the Council and within our Parliament.
Madam President, like many Members here I have been in touch with pig farmers in my constituency during the last week. I found that many of them are close to financial ruin.
People who have made a long-term commitment to producing a first-class product now suddenly find that pigs which previously sold for £34 to £40 are now being sold for £10 or £12.
They are not asking for subsidies or for charity. But they are asking for help.
There are several ways in which our pig farmers could be helped.
We could introduce an export credit guarantee scheme.
We could look at assisted retirement from the market.
We could look at ways of managing the rationing of new entrants to the market.
Referring to the point Mr Fischler made about the Russian market - Russia is in a state and our pig market is in a state. So why do we not make a gift to the Russian people at least of our lower value cuts of meat.
Let us give it away; let us put it on to the Russian market; let the Russians use that meat to feed their people; and let us relieve pressure on our own markets.
There are other issues.
British pig farmers have additional problems brought about by the unilateral adoption of stock-rearing rules.
We must make sure that these are consistent across the European Union. We must also ensure that when imports come into the European Union they too conform to those rules.
Finally, rules on labelling should be tightened so that pigmeat can develop its own brand loyalty over time.
This will discourage the vast supermarkets switching sources so that they can follow lower commodity prices.
My pig farmers do not want charity but they do want a chance.
Madam President, the causes of this crisis have already been widely debated, but I would still like to make a modest contribution to trying to find some possible remedy.
The immediate solutions, which have already been mentioned, are institutional and they are the simplest to apply: private storage and export refunds - but the Commissioner is avoiding the latter as impracticable, because lack of demand means there are no exports, so even the refunds would automatically fall.
What other measures could be taken? There is a danger that everyone is preoccupied with their own problems, so Member States' governments should be made aware that they must not take unilateral action - unidirectional action, I call it - partly out of panic and partly because of trouble-makers, since this would only have a palliative effect.
A second suggestion to the Commission is to take a firm hold of supply management, to get it back into balance and coordinate it.
Then, considering the United States' close marking of the European Union on all issues affecting our international relations, why not counterattack, and find out if the United States really is breaking WTO rules by subsidising its producers?
Further proposals would be to carry out a careful investigation of the fundamental causes of the Russian and Japanese crises so as to prevent further ill-effects, and, finally, to ensure that the major agri-foodstuffs companies share the responsibility.
In short, we cannot resign ourselves to the biblical prophecy about the seven lean years and the seven fat years. If four years of high prices are going to be followed by four years of low prices, it will be a catastrophe, Commissioner.
Madam President, last Friday I too met with farmers in my constituencies.
They all have great anxieties about the current catastrophic decline in their incomes, in particular those in the pig sector whose animals are fetching such low prices in the market that they are making a loss on every animal.
British farmers, normally a very phlegmatic, law-abiding group of people, are far less prone to demonstrate than their opposite numbers in some other countries.
For them to take to the streets, as they did at the Labour Party Conference in Blackpool last week, or blockade a port to stop pigmeat being brought into the UK, as they did in Immingham in my constituency a few weeks ago, things have to be desperate indeed.
Travelling around my Lincolnshire constituency I often see pigs out in the fields enjoying a very normal active life with high welfare standards.
Their owners feel very bitter that the very low prices they are currently receiving for their pigs are not reflected in the prices of meat in the supermarkets which import meat raised to lower welfare standards.
Farmers need help now to get through to Christmas.
A number of short-term measures can be taken quickly to ease the situation.
Export refunds will help the market by assisting producers to find new markets outside the EU.
Private storage aids can relieve an over-supplied market in the short term.
However, when released, such meats should be exported or used as emergency supplies outside the EU - possibly to Russia, as has been said - to avoid recreating the problem of over-supply.
Export credit guarantees can help exporters to reduce risk and compete outside the EU with more confidence to find new markets.
An intensive marketing programme throughout the EU similar to that introduced for beef two years ago, for which I wrote the Parliament's report, could also play a significant role in boosting consumption and thereby reducing surpluses.
There also needs to be help for farmers wishing to retire from the sector.
Measures should be the same throughout the EU to ensure no one Member State gets an unfair advantage.
Through you I urge the Commission and the Council to reach decisions and take urgent action following the meeting on 14 October.
Europe's farmers need help now.
They cannot wait another two or three months for action.
Madam President, Commissioner, although it has all been said, not everyone has spoken yet.
So I shall be very brief.
I want to address four points.
One, pig prices for farmers have fallen more sharply than the prices passed on by the trade. That too needs pointing out.
Two, the Commissioner said nothing about evaluating the results of the recent pig counts.
After all, he must have good figures here since his expert on pigs learnt his trade on my farm.
That is why he is such a capable man - let us say that quite plainly here!
Three, now would be the best opportunity, and here I agree with Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, to implement the directive on nitrates and to look into the excessive stocks of animals in the Community, so that we can bring them back to a normal level and establish a sensible ratio of fodder land to land spread with liquid manure.
This is the best opportunity to do so.
I am doing so, obviously.
We have all been doing so for ages.
Only the Lower Saxons are, of course, very backward here. And nevertheless one of them has actually become Chancellor of Germany.
That just goes to show the possibilities in our country!
Four, it needs to be checked to what extent the sharp fall in the grain price has had an impact on or stimulated the processing industry.
The farmers are seeking higher value creation.
That is quite clear, and then we shall never be able to resolve this dilemma.
(Applause)
Madam President, there are two points I would like to make, but first I would like to make it quite clear that I welcome the fact that we are debating this issue this morning and I think that a number of measures are needed to help get us through this difficult stage.
To be honest, Commissioner, your latest statement did not surprise me, and I think we ought to distinguish between the structural causes underlying this crisis and the circumstantial causes which have aggravated it.
The Russian market, for example, has exacerbated a crisis engendered by over-production and the misguided policy some Member States have been pursuing.
This policy must be corrected because it threatens to penalise even areas which are traditional producers of pigmeat used primarily for quality products - for processed products like ham, salami, etcetera - which risk paying the price of errors in the calculation of demand.
The second point I want to make is that we should only intervene with contingency measures, and we should try not to use this crisis to move towards regulation of the sector, which up to now has managed fairly well without subsidies.
We must try to avoid going down the road of traditional assistance because of a short-term crisis in the sector.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you warmly for this debate. I was asked whether I can show you the trend in production.
Production in the first six months of 1998 compared with the same period in 1997 was as follows.
In the Netherlands, production rose by 17.9 % - as I said, that was mainly due to the swine fever the year before; in Spain by 7.8 %, so that Spain is now the second pig producer in the European Union; and in Portugal it is also over 7 %.
But in some countries production actually fell, for instance in Italy, Luxembourg and Finland.
In Germany it rose by 4 %.
Let me now briefly answer the questions you raised. On the specific question of the fire in Northern Ireland, let me say that, firstly, the UK Government has requested a national subsidy for this, which is currently under consideration.
Secondly, according to our information that firm has now bought a replacement slaughterhouse.
Thirdly, if structural aids for reconstruction are needed, they must be given under the structural programmes.
Fourthly, do not say we were not available!
In fact the matter was discussed with my services twice in August!
To turn to Mr Hallam's question about giving food aid to Russia.
I believe that first of all we should talk with the Russians themselves.
It would certainly be counterproductive to make an offer - as some have already tried - when the Russians want nothing to do with it.
So far the Russian Government has declared that it attaches priority to the resumption of normal exports to Russia.
Moreover, if we considered such aid, we would first have to reach agreement at international level, to ensure that a food aid programme was not charged to our exports, landing us in further difficulties.
Above all, we must determine how this kind of programme would be financed.
So we are not against this kind of programme on principle, from the outset and under all circumstances, but first the conditions need to be determined.
We also consider it extremely important that, in the event that we grant this aid, we also receive guarantees that it will go to those in genuine need and not just to anyone.
On the question of price consistency from the producer price to the supermarket price, if you find that this is not the case in your country, the fault lies in weak competition and not with the Community; it is in fact up to the consumer associations and other organisations to ensure this consistency.
I come now to the more long-term aspects. In our proposals in relation to Agenda 2000 we considered the probable future trend of competition between pigmeat and beef.
Because we think that pigmeat, like all white meats, will have more advantages than disadvantages in future, we believe that is precisely why beef prices must be cut more drastically, to maintain a balance.
The trend of demand is more towards pigmeat.
I do not think when you add up the figures here that you should look at the billions the Community pays for field crops separately and pretend that it has nothing to do with pigmeat.
Quite logically, many pig producers in fact receive farm premiums because they produce their own cereals and fodder.
On the support for American producers, President Clinton has announced that he will give more support for American agriculture as a whole - which is indeed facing a serious crisis at present, especially grain cultivation.
But of course the same applies to the Americans as to us: they must comply with the agreed GATT undertakings. Of course we will monitor this very carefully.
Should we find at any point that this is not the case, we will take the appropriate steps.
I must admit I see the question of a world market orientation rather differently from the way it was presented a moment ago.
Obviously we do not want to disturb the local or regional markets which, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf described so graphically, continue to operate independently of the crisis; on the contrary, we want to strengthen and support these regional markets.
But we cannot market the entire European production solely on regional markets, for there happen to be others too, and we cannot simply disregard them.
I agree with him on one point, which brings me back to Mr Mulder's question.
The proposal on reducing stocks in the Netherlands is directly linked to the directive on nitrates.
The Netherlands is attempting to implement the nitrates directive in relation to pig production, and that is also how the Netherlands Government presented the matter.
But you all know that many Member States have still not implemented that directive.
I am quite willing, following the debate here today, once again to request the appropriate services and my colleague Mrs Bjerregaard to make the appropriate approaches to the Member States on this subject, for in my view that is the best way to protect indigenous production in Europe.
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Joint motion for a resolution on the crisis in the pigmeat sector
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, pig farmers are quite familiar with the phenomenon of yo-yoing prices, and it is not for nothing that we talk about pig cycles in economics.
The decline of the substantial Russian market has produced the very serious problems which the pigmeat sector is currently facing, and I therefore welcome the fact that the European Parliament has made a statement on the subject.
We support the calls for the Commission to take further measures and we voted for the resolution.
But what do we mean by further measures? The general wording of the recommendations indicates that Parliament still has very different ideas about this.
One idea is to introduce a subsidy regime for slaughtering piglets, like the Herodes premium for calves.
We resolutely oppose this as being ethically unacceptable and bad for the image of the sector.
Other possibilities mooted include intervention for pigmeat and reducing the slaughter weight.
We have our doubts about both of these, since they would involve changing the entire organisation of the pigmeat market, which would take some considerable time.
It seems to make no sense to change a light-handed system into a heavy-handed one just because of the current crisis.
We would advise the Commission to make optimum use of the existing instruments, even though they are restricted to the light-handed system.
But by using the private storage scheme and increasing export subsidies the Union could do a lot to help solve the problems.
The Commission must also be very careful to ensure that the support measures introduced by the various Member States do not contravene European rules.
An especially hard line must be taken with Member States which have unilateral support systems, such as interest-free loans and help in maintaining surplus production.
That is just counterproductive.
The ARE Group has not signed this so-called 'joint' resolution, tabled by the PSE, PPE, UPE and GUE/NGL Groups.
This resolution has surprised us by its lack of bite.
In fact, the text seems to us to accurately take stock of the present crisis in the pigmeat sector, but it is nonetheless hollow.
Above all, this resolution refrains from drawing lessons from the crisis and is devoid of any concrete proposals, which are, however, necessary and urgent for the farmers directly affected by this crisis.
This crisis could have been predicted: it resulted from the combination of an uncontrollable industrialisation of pigmeat production, attractive, artificial prices that were maintained for four years, thereby encouraging overproduction, and the absence of a genuine European policy to control production.
The sudden drop in pigmeat prices coupled with the loss of export markets, particularly following the Russian crisis, are only symptoms of the structural weakness of the sector, which has been created by the absence of political will and a certain amount of vote-catching.
Each crisis in the pigmeat sector forces out the smallest farmers to the advantage of the factory farmers, who themselves are primarily responsible for the present situation.
It is not with the modest and timid proposals in this resolution - which merely calls for the blind perpetuation of the present system without even calling into question the foundations of the policy implemented until now - that the Community will be able to respond adequately to the concerns of farmers.
The ARE Group had proposed taking clear measures with a view to controlling production effectively and on a long-term basis.
The decentralisation of production, which would allow quality to prevail over quantity, is also amongst our priorities.
With this in mind, the group is in favour of the Commission maintaining the ban on subsidies designed to increase production capacity in areas with a structural surplus.
The Commission should be encouraged to favour aid to the producer aimed at promoting extensive farming methods that respect the connection with the ground and that use feedingstuffs originating in the Community.
Finally, the ARE Group considers that any specific measure concerning aid to the sector must be dependent, in accordance with each region's particular needs, on measures relating to marketing, processing, the protection of the environment, the decentralisation of production and the conversion of companies. It must also form part of a global strategy to control production and achieve quality.
We will, however, be voting in favour of this resolution as a sign of our concern for the scale of this crisis and our solidarity with the farmers affected.
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the joint motion for a resolution on pigmeat today.
We did so taking the view that the resolution is acceptable overall.
Certain products which are exported to the Far East, for example, do not qualify for export refunds. This amounts to discrimination against the producers concerned.
We therefore favour support for the private storage of products that do not qualify for export support.
In the longer term of course, we think that the best way of bringing about balance on the market is to give the animals reasonable conditions and to care for the environment.
We favour a reform involving the alignment of prices to world market prices and a reduction in export refunds.
The pigmeat market is characterised by over-supply.
In fact, EU exports to the Asian and Russian markets account for almost 40 % of the total volume of exports to third countries.
Both markets are experiencing particularly worrying economic situations and are no longer in a position to stock up with the same quantity of supplies as before.
On an internal level, an epizootic disease (swine fever) was certainly rife during the past two years in two Member States: the Netherlands and Spain.
However, through the near eradication of this disease, production in both these Member States has returned to the level of previous years.
While the emergence of a surplus could have been predicted, the Commission, rather than analysing the inadequacies of the COM for pigmeat, instead quoted us the case of pigmeat production as an example to justify its proposal to reform the COM for beef and veal (private storage, abolition of public intervention, reduction of production prices, etcetera).
Here or elsewhere, it is good form to systematically condemn the increase in agricultural production and particularly that of off-land units, as has occurred notably in the area of pigmeat production.
However - and I think it important to point this out -, it is not the farmers who are responsible for this situation.
For many years, the Commission has implemented a policy that favours this increase in regions close to the provision of feedingstuffs.
We know that to produce pigmeat at competitive prices on the world market, the cost of feedingstuffs must be reduced as far as possible.
By favouring the imports of proteins of crop origin, such as soya cakes, manioc, etcetera (the European Union only provides 15 % of the proteins of crop origin it requires), and the imports of cereal substitutes (corn gluten feed) without any import duties, the European Union has a direct responsibility for the concentration of farms around supply ports along its western coasts.
The competitive advantage of these coastal production regions has been such that production in Europe has been completely relocated and concentrated in limited areas - the Netherlands, Belgium, Brittany, Denmark -, leading to the consequences we are now aware of in terms of the environment and risks of epizootic disease.
However, this increase in production has also had a perverse effect on the farmers themselves. In fact, they have had to make large investments in high-technology animal housing.
When analysing the situation of agriculture in France, for example, we see that pigmeat producers are among those farmers most in debt.
During the market depression that we are experiencing, they are obliged to produce, even at a loss, and to sell at very low prices.
What is the situation like for the consumer? Now, after several weeks during which the price per kilo has remained lower than FRF 6 per kilo of live weight, consumer prices are still the same.
In actual fact, the middlemen are profiting from this situation and are not passing on the decrease in the price of the raw material to the advantage of the consumers.
I do not want to finish without emphasising the serious repercussions for farmers of certain insufficiencies on the part of the Commission.
Our colleague Jim Nicholson, a Member from Northern Ireland, has told us about the dramatic situation experienced by his region this summer, as a result of the Commission's incompetence.
In Northern Ireland, one of the two slaughterhouses for pigs was burnt down during the summer and was no longer able to slaughter of pigs.
The one remaining slaughterhouse, although running at full capacity, was unable to compensate for this problem and the farmers could not have their animals slaughtered.
It was therefore necessary for the Commission to authorise the slaughter of pigs from Northern Ireland in the Republic of Ireland.
But the Commission was on holiday.
There was no-one in charge in Brussels.
No-one was able to take a decision.
Everything was blocked. And during this time, the animals exceeded their optimum weight.
This tragic situation shows us once more the negative effects of a technocratic type of decision-making system, which is very far from the real world.
Finally, I should like to point out here the significance of a proposal put forward by our colleague Edouard des Places.
In the opinion he delivered last year on the Agenda 2000 communication, he pointed out that it was necessary to introduce the principle of income insurance.
This system has the advantage of being authorised under the GATT-WTO agreements.
Yet, as the Commission regulations on Agenda 2000 are gradually being put forward, we note that this proposal is still not present.
However, if pig farmers had previously been able to take out this type of insurance - cofinanced by the European Union - when prices were higher, it would have been easier for them to deal with the market situation we are experiencing now.
Instead of a reform of the CAP and main COMs based on a reduction of prices and its partial compensation through allowances, we call on the Commission to seriously and quickly consider creating new tools that enable farmers to have stable incomes.
Is the Commission capable of imagining anything other than the progressive dismantling of the CAP that it is currently implementing? Is it capable of presenting European farmers with any other prospects besides that of merely enduring the fluctuations in the dollar and the changes in world prices for agricultural raw materials?
If the answer is no, then the transfer of powers from which it has benefited is no longer justified.
The euro and the CAP
The next item is the report (A4-0320/98) by Mrs Schierhuber, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on:
I.the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing agrimonetary arrangements for the euro (COM(98)0367 - C4-0406/98-98/0214(CNS)); II.the proposal for a Council Regulation on transitional measures to be applied under the common agricultural policy with a view to the introduction of the euro (COM(98)0367 - C4-0407/98-98/0215(CNS)).
Mr President, the single currency - the euro - will, of course, save a great deal of money: most European Union countries will not require agri-compensation payments after 1 January.
The 'green rate', as we know it, will go and for the countries not in 'euroland', the staged currency fluctuations of the present green pound will end and be replaced by a currency exchange rate based on the declared daily rate.
The European Union countries not in 'euroland' will have a compensation formula until the year 2002 - for the next three years.
I am concerned about ensuring that farmers requiring compensation will not have that compensation payment delayed.
If our aim is to help when farming income drops, it will not help if the payment is delayed until after the farmers have gone bankrupt.
The proposed direct aid, when there is a revaluation of over half a percent, must be received by the farmers and not too late to help them.
One point we must address: my country, the United Kingdom, is now suffering from the high pound on international currency exchange rates.
Cheap imports are flooding in and we have economic problems.
The same situation in 'euroland' could happen if we develop free trade with North America.
We really have to think of the cost to the common agricultural policy in our negotiations.
To conclude, I respect the amendments tabled.
I think we will agree.
I congratulate the rapporteur.
Mr President, Commissioner, of course I fully support what Mrs Schierhuber has described to us so excellently.
She also raised a number of points into which I would like to go in more depth.
It is quite plain that agriculture has suffered most from fluctuations in currency values and therefore also had to accept considerable income fluctuations and falls.
But I have been struck by a document published by the German Bundesrat to the effect that the current compensation rules are not fair and cannot adequately protect farmers from the losses to which Mr Wilson has also referred.
This document starts from the assumption that 1 % compensation represents DEM 600 million, and we are working with a fluctuation band of 2.6 %.
So in any country where this 2.6 % fluctuation band is breached, say in Germany, agricultural prices could face losses of 1.5 billion - according to the German Bundesrat.
So, of course, I pricked up my ears and said to myself that I must put that before you here.
I would not like to stand up in front of my people and be asked why nobody said a word.
So I would now ask you and your watchmen: could this happen, and would that not mean that the compensation had to be renegotiated?
Mr President, Commissioner, congratulations to Mrs Schierhuber on her important report.
According to the Commission's proposal, the Community will be making, in the form of direct aid, a 100 % compensation payment for lost income in the first year to all Member States outside the euro area.
I see this proposal as establishing some sort of precedent.
When new member states are admitted to the Union, they will hardly be coming straight into the euro area.
I should like to ask whether we will be recompensing these countries too with an automatic 100 % payment in the form of direct aid to make up for loss of income arising out of fluctuations in currency values in the first year?
The national currency used to be one means of protecting domestic production of food.
Now the euro is laying bare differences in competitiveness and food prices within the EU.
The steady 7 to 8 % fall in the value of currencies like the Swedish krona and the Danish krone, which are the currencies of non-participating countries, compared to, say, the Finnish markka, give these countries a competitive edge in production.
Now, according to the report under discussion, the risk that the agrimonetary scheme will cause distortion of trade is being removed.
However, the countries outside the euro area are gaining a competitive edge stemming from fluctuations in the value of currencies, which to my mind have not been sufficiently explained in preparing for the euro.
I would like to ask if the Commission intends to monitor the changes in the value of currencies outside the euro area and their effects on the competitor counties, i.e. the euro area.
Finally, I would like to say that, apart from Germany, Finland's main competitor countries - and the ones we export to most - are those very countries remaining outside the euro area, and in that respect this matter is extremely important for us.
Otherwise, I think the euro is a perfectly good thing. It allows us to protect ourselves from a currency market that is now in turmoil.
Thank you very much, Mrs Anttila.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to call Mr Hallam now, but before I do I must inform him that the Chair noted his absence on the Friday of the last part-session.
Mr President, the reason I was absent was because I went to a selection procedure which I subsequently failed and I will probably not be a Member of Parliament in future.
It was quite a poignant fact that I was away on that particular Friday.
Nevertheless there are ways in which politics move sometimes that are quite mysterious.
I would like to endorse my colleague, Mr Wilson, and certainly the comments by Mrs Anttila about some of the concerns that we, in the pre-in countries, have about the way in which the monetary system will work following the single currency.
I also want to place on record some of my concerns about some of the things you may have been hearing about British politics in terms of the way in which the Conservative Party - the main opposition party - has now decided to slam the door on the euro forever.
I still have my reservations.
I have always believed that John Major's policy of 'wait and see' was actually a sensible policy.
I am very concerned that by appearing to slam the door forever, the opposition party in our country is talking down jobs in my constituency.
We need foreign investors in places such as Telford, north Shropshire, Hereford, Ross-on-Wye and Wyre Forest. I know that the news that a major opposition party is slamming the door on the euro forever is going to have a detrimental effect on future foreign investments.
Quite clearly, these people only speak for a tiny minority now.
I want to make it clear to the House that the British people are waiting, looking very carefully and considering.
There is growing pressure, from British businessmen in particular, to join the euro.
Mr President, Commissioner, you put proposals before us for a radical reorganisation of the agrimonetary system in good time, some months ago.
That will indeed be necessary with the introduction of the euro as a single currency and you did not need letters from Members, which were presumably only aimed at the gallery and at currying favour with the farmers, to point this out to you.
Those familiar with the admittedly extremely complex system of agrimonetary compensatory payments knew these payments would no longer be necessary for farmers in the euro zone, as our rapporteur, Mrs Schierhuber, explained very clearly.
However, they may still apply to farmers from what are called the pre-in Member States if their currencies are revalued against the euro.
I think that is crux of the matter.
I want to know why a Member State that deliberately does not join the euro can be eligible for 50 % of any compensatory amounts out of Community funds and why that Member State can even be exempt from contributing its national share of subsidies.
With the introduction of the euro the entire agrimonetary problem could, after all, disappear overnight and we could save far more money.
I would certainly not want farmers in countries that do not want to join the euro to be penalised.
Yet I do not see why those countries' decision not to join should possibly cost the other Member States hundreds of millions.
I believe we should see whether we cannot find a solution in the EU financing framework, because these countries cannot have it both ways.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur Mrs Schierhuber for this report.
The introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 as the single currency for Europe will add greatly to the integration of the Union.
It will give the in-countries a huge boost and for countries like Ireland, which exports a high percentage of its total agricultural production, the euro will reduce costs as there will no longer be a need for conversion when the euro becomes a means of payment in its own right and not just a unit of account like the ecu.
The CAP will be much simpler to operate and will be a lot better for farmers.
Food exporters, trading on both the EU and third-country markets, will have the distortions of trade caused by agri-monetary and conversion factors eliminated from their contracts, thus reducing their risks and costs.
I welcome the excellent preparation work by the Commission and the real possibility of saving over one billion euros per year to the EU budget.
But as the report shows, different mechanisms are required for the in-countries and for the non-participating Member States.
This fact once again highlights the trade difficulties Ireland will experience in its dealings with the UK, as a result of the UK's refusal to participate.
Clearly the sooner the United Kingdom decides to join in, as I believe it inevitably will, the better for all of us.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first let me offer warm thanks to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and, in particular, to Mrs Schierhuber, the rapporteur, for this excellent report.
I am glad that the rapporteur and the committee have endorsed the Commission's main reform aims, which are as follows.
Firstly, we want to make the existing regulations much simpler.
Secondly, with the introduction of the euro and the new currency situation that will produce, we want to adapt the existing rules.
Thirdly, we want a system that adjusts to any given market situation and, not least, we want to prevent any farm income losses.
As a means of achieving these aims, the Commission has proposed abolishing green exchange rates and replacing them by specific conversion rates for those Member States that have not yet joined the euro and by irrevocably fixed conversion rates for those that have.
Similarly, for the pre-ins, the system of definitive facts is to be continued and that of agrimonetary compensatory amounts retained with minor changes.
I am pleased that the European Parliament welcomes all these proposals, as also emerged in the debate on the Langen report on Tuesday.
Mr Funk expressed some reservations in regard to the margin of fluctuation and the threshold level.
The 2.6 % margin of fluctuation is nothing new; it already exists within the present system and is already being applied.
This threshold is, in a sense, the counterpart to the flat-rate calculation of income losses resulting from falls in prices or in the non-direct subsidies in the respective national currencies.
The flat-rate approach produces more risk of overcompensation, which is why we have set the margin at 2.6 %.
But that in turn has nothing to do with the 0.5 % payment threshold, which also already exists under the present system.
This threshold is simply designed to prevent compensation having to be paid for very minor income changes, as otherwise we would face the absurd situation of administrative costs being higher than payments to the farmer.
All in all, the Commission's proposal is an example of how simplifying a proposal can also make it more transparent and intelligible.
I turn now to the amendments, which with one exception concern only the recitals.
I note with satisfaction that the rapporteur endorses all the other articles.
But since the recitals have a close bearing on the articles themselves and were drafted with that in mind, and since moreover they say only what is absolutely necessary, I would prefer to retain them in their existing wording.
I would just like to bring up Amendment No 6, on the use of the euro by the pre-in states.
That is an important aspect of the proposal.
The amendment seeks a wording which is not at present consistent with the corresponding article.
Yet the Commission is quite prepared to raise the reservations expressed in that amendment during the Council discussions.
On Amendment No 8 to Article 4, I still maintain that it should be up to the Commission and the agrimonetary committee to change the criteria for adjusting to the market situation when calculating cuts in agrimonetary subsidies.
After all, these are purely technical adjustments, which it is important to undertake very quickly to prevent the situation that was complained of earlier, namely delays in the calculation and payment of the subsidies.
That is our only intention here.
To conclude, let me thank Parliament again for its kind support for this reform, which will ensure that the common agricultural policy can adjust completely and promptly to the great milestone that monetary union represents in the construction of Europe.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Before we move to the vote, I would ask you to take a minute to listen to a speech from Mrs Schierhuber, who has asked for the floor as rapporteur.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have listened very carefully to what you said.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which adopted all the amendments unanimously, had not actually intended to change the text, i.e. the Commission proposal, but simply to give it more depth.
In that sense, I would ask you to reconsider this at a suitable opportunity.
Thank you, Mrs Schierhuber.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
The I-EDN Group voted for this report because the six amendments that it had proposed in committee were adopted.
These six amendments stress that one of the fundamental principles of the CAP is that of equal treatment of the farmers of the EUROPEAN UNION Member States. They also emphasise the need to ensure that the introduction of the euro does not penalise the farmers of the Member States and particularly those of the Member States that have to integrate the single currency.
It has been said and repeated too often that farmers would benefit from the euro due to the absence of so-called competitive devaluations.
In fact, when we examine the Commission proposals, we see that no study has been carried out on the impact of the euro on farmers' incomes.
What is even more surprising is that these proposals state that no compensatory aid will be granted when this amount is less than 0.5 % of a revaluation, nor in respect of amounts to which a rate lower than the new rate was applied in the 24 months before the entry into force of this regulation.
Yet what are we seeing at present?
We are witnessing a global financial crisis that started this summer. The repercussions of this crisis are already significant as far as the parity of currencies is concerned, that is, those participating in the euro and the dollar.
We know that world prices for agricultural raw materials are fixed in dollars.
A strong euro will therefore penalise European agricultural exports.
What will our farmers do when they see their prices go down in euros, even if the basic prices in dollars remain stable?
In the Commission proposals on Agenda 2000, the only issue is that of lowering prices and therefore significantly reducing farmers' incomes, given that the allowances in compensation will only be slightly revalued before the WTO negotiations.
I therefore fear, like all the members of my group, that European agriculture will suffer a great deal from the introduction of the euro.
Under these conditions, what will the future of the rural areas of Europe be like as a consequence?
Instead of asking this question, the French National Assembly is currently debating, in a completely surrealistic manner, a basic law on agriculture introducing territorial contracts for farms, which aim only to encourage farmers to become local agricultural civil servants.
But that is another story!
I am in any case very afraid for the future of a profession that is the cement of our European society.
Agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs
The next item is the report (A4-0280/98) by Mr Mulder, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on a quality policy for agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs.
Mr President, when we talk about Europe's agriculture policy these days there are two main strands to the discussion: firstly that the agricultural policy needs to change and, secondly, that the food we produce needs to be safer and more animal-friendly.
The European Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is trying in this report to give the discussion a certain orientation.
First of all, the Commission has clearly stated that whatever proposals may be made about income subsidies, the average farmer and grower will always prefer to derive his income from the market rather than by filling in all sorts of forms to obtain a subsidy.
One of the possibilities we see for improving prices is to put the emphasis on food quality rather than quantity.
This is something that the Commission has already acknowledged, and it is hardly a new idea.
The Commission put forward proposals on organic vegetable production in the early 1990s and there will soon, we hope, be proposals on organic animal production.
But how we can actually change market trends is another matter, since organic products currently account for only 2 % of the European agricultural market.
The second Commission proposal is to place greater emphasis on regional products.
We in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development think this is an excellent idea, since we agree that there needs to be a much greater focus on such products, and they need to be marketed more vigorously, allocated promotional funds and so on.
There is certainly room for improvement here, as regional products currently account for only a very small percentage of the market, some 8 % if the Commission's figures are correct.
This means that 90 % of all Europe's agricultural products reach the market at various stages of production.
Some producers are heavy polluters, others are not, and the market has a certain influence here.
There is a wide range of quality marks in Europe, some 1500 or so, on which the Commission has just carried out a study, I believe.
The ones that stand out are those relating to integrated production, which is currently starting to develop all over Europe.
The concept here is 'from the stable to the table', with every stage of production being monitored.
We in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development feel that this form of production should be encouraged.
The consumer wants to know what he is eating, and farmers like to know what production standards they have to meet.
It will also make the huge range of quality marks slightly more transparent if there is one common European mark.
This is the thrust of the main section of the report.
We are calling for a European quality mark for the top end of the remaining 90 % of the market.
It does not mean that all existing national, regional or other quality marks should be dropped. Everyone is free to produce what they want, but if certain claims are made they must be checked out.
This should form the basis of the system initially: farmers and growers should be able to join the system voluntarily.
The technical criteria must be completely open and easy to monitor, and checks must be carried out independently, either by a government body or by an officially approved body.
The system must also be paid for by those involved, so that it does not impose any extra costs on the European budget.
The only thing the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development wants from the European budget is a little extra money for promoting these sorts of products.
Why is this quality policy important?
Firstly, because the market in Europe is becoming increasingly open to the world market, and it seems completely unreasonable to ask European farmers and growers to be more environmentally-friendly and animal-friendly in their production methods while at the same time opening up the market to products from farmers elsewhere in the world who are not subject to the same requirements.
This is unfair competition, which is why we would urge the Commission to put these quality marks on the agenda in the WTO.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Mulder on his excellent report, although we must ensure that it is used as basis for future work and that we do not simply stop here, satisfied with what the Commission has done.
I personally am not satisfied with what the Commission has done, despite the claims of some DG VI officials that with the quality policy the whole CAP is no longer geared to the Ford approach, as it used to be.
I think that is only true to a very small extent: we still have a common agricultural policy excessively geared towards quantity.
If we do not begin to introduce quality concepts into the common organisation of the market, decoupling the aid from production tonnages, the actual scope for quality policies and producer responsibility will remain too small.
This is not to say that some positive signals have not come out of the Commission, for example the logo, this August, for PDO and PGI products.
Then I see that there is a new site dedicated to quality products on the DG VI homepage on the Internet, and I know that promotional measures are also being studied.
I have often had the opportunity to listen to the reports of the European Consumers Organisation in Parliament's Committee on Agriculture: they are unhappy about quality products, they have not grasped the fact that it is all about standards, seeing it as a protectionist measure to give producers an income and cheat the consumer.
This means we still have a lot of ground to make up, a cultural battle to fight, and I think that here the rapporteur's proposals for a quality category based on environmental criteria are very interesting.
Of course, we talk about these things and then, in Agenda 2000, not enough attention is given to quality, taken in the environmental sense.
The Regulation 2078 increments are too small and, above all, this idea of leaving it entirely to the Member States' discretion to link income support levels to environmental factors is unconvincing.
Then there are the promotional measures, which are not developing fast enough.
We now have 500 typical PDO and PGI products registered at European level, and I think there ought to be special ambassadors to promote the European way of producing and consuming worldwide, and to be the means of supporting new promotional measures at international level.
Finally, I agree with Mr Mulder that the Community needs to be very careful about protecting its quality policy in international forums.
In the WTO they talk about meat with hormones and genetically modified foods as if they were televisions: I do not think that is acceptable.
Mr President, the PPE Group supports Mr Mulder's report and we are grateful to him for the work he has done in the Committee on Agriculture.
We have decided not to retable our amendments here, because the vote was carried in committee and we reject changes to the voting list because the improvements have already been made in the Committee on Agriculture.
I would just like to underline some very important aspects of the report.
The first concerns the need to establish a comprehensive strategy for quality policy, through a specific set of rules operating throughout the chain and covering every aspect of quality.
When we talk about quality we often only mean that a product must not be harmful to health.
Quality is more complex than that, and we must try to cover the principle in all its aspects.
The second point is about defending our typical products in the World Trade Organisation.
The third important point, in my opinion, is the need to develop a new breed of professionals to protect and enhance quality, and to spend a much greater amount on promoting typical products and quality products.
Too little is being done in this area. More needs to be done, but we must avoid creating more bureaucracy.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly my congratulations to Mr Mulder on an important and well-informed report.
Consumers get confused by too many quality marks, trademarks and labels showing origin.
I therefore give my enthusiastic support to the coordinated scheme referred to in Mr Mulder's report, whereby quality marks and approval systems are regulated at Union level.
This will by no means be an obstacle to national, regional and local policy on quality, which is also very important.
In Finland, we have just established a basis for a policy on the quality of domestic foodstuffs.
It involves cooperation all along the food industry chain, quality control from the field to the consumer's table.
This quality policy has to embrace an industry which at the moment, at least in Finland, competes solely through food prices and totally ignores the meaning of high quality.
Quality means a higher price, because it costs more to produce it.
I support the proposal in Mr Mulder's report for an environmentally-based European quality category, because the European Union will never survive in global competition except through a policy of high quality and legitimate higher prices.
Mr President, I thought the quality of my speech was worth two minutes, but it seems I have already been cut to the European mark.
Anyway, I want to say that we agreed with Mr Mulder's position, we continue to defend the view that one of the quality standards must be product flavour, and we maintain that, as well as standing up for flavour, we must also defend the ethical context in which the product is manufactured.
The Commission cannot solve this problem alone: it is a cultural problem and consumers need to be involved as well.
The consumer associations must be alerted so that they themselves monitor the products they consume.
It does not seem to me that this is an acute problem, given that life expectancy in the west has been increasing strongly and now even presents a political problem.
So we are not taking poison on a daily basis, and I am not obsessed with the hysterical notion that what we are consuming is poisonous.
But just as I do indeed defend quality, just as I believe quality should be respected and the 'MacDonaldisation' of the world should be prevented, so, at the same time, I insist that this process must not become too bureaucratic. I also think that product flavour must be defended at the World Trade Organisation and defended against all those people who are accustomed to eating any old thing.
I defend European quality as the true quality of the things I like to eat, and that is what I call quality.
Thank you, Mr Rosado Fernandes, and I want you to know that the Chair had no intention of cutting your eloquence by 30 seconds.
That is why - in spite of what the clock said - I did not use the gavel to stop you.
I hoped you would speak for the full two minutes because it is always a great pleasure to listen to you.
Mr President, Commissioner, I bring greetings from the northern regions of the European Union.
It is a paradox that we have adverse natural conditions, but we produce better quality food than they do in countries with favourable natural conditions. That is because we have family farms and not industrial production methods.
It is an ecological method of production that we have.
We have a winter, with cold conditions, which sees to it that there is less residual pesticide about than in the countries of the south.
We oversee the ban on hormones and antibiotics differently from the way they do in countries with favourable natural conditions.
Free trade within the EU has worsened the quality of our food and, for that reason, we give our support to labels, signs and codes that speak for quality, the environment, and which give information on content, all of which increase consumer protection and consumer choice.
Mr President, Mr Fischler, you said earlier that we could not sell everything on the regional markets.
But what we are discussing now is precisely the opposite of what we discussed before.
Before, we were concerned not with selling quality goods on the world market but surpluses, which we can only get rid of by dumping them at low prices and for little money.
I have nothing against putting quality goods on the world market when it is a matter of competition.
Austrian wine, French wine, Parma ham: the same logic has to be applied on the world market as on the regional market.
What I want to say is that we must aim at quality and not at getting rid of surpluses from what is one of the largest food import areas in the world.
We do not have any surpluses.
But surpluses do exist in all areas where intervention attracts them.
That is why this report is so important.
We must aim at production geared to quality, and then let us certainly produce for the world market, but I beg you, not with state aids but by finding customers and areas on the world markets that actually want to buy these products.
One last thought.
Mr Fischler, of course we also depend on the rest of the market in regard to our quality products.
If the pig market collapses now, it will of course become far more difficult to keep the regional quality market at a certain price level than if the price is generally stable.
That is why the two aspects are not entirely separate and it is in our interests to promote the overall quality of the market.
Mr President, our quality policy for agricultural products and foodstuffs, although new, is incomplete.
It is based on three regulations that have dealt with organic vegetable produce since 1991 - and this regulation is currently being extended to include animal products -, and protected geographical indications and certificates of specific character since 1992.
The report by Mr Mulder, whom I congratulate on this reliable work, puts forward two interesting lines of thought for extending this policy.
Firstly, it proposes the adoption of a regulation improving the transparency and authenticity of quality marks.
It states that checks must be performed by bodies accredited by the Member States and truly independent of producers and traders.
It then proposes the creation of a European quality mark based on respect for the environmental criteria for production.
Mr Mulder, I think it should be pointed out that quality is a global concept that cannot be reduced to just a single element, be it hygiene, aesthetic quality, taste or absence of residues.
For agricultural products, quality is linked to variety, production methods, the environment and methods of conservation.
For processed products, it is linked to the initial quality and processing methods.
To complement this concept, my group proposes introducing the concepts of nutritional value and optimum health in Amendment No 8.
As regards monitoring, experience in the area of organic farming shows that checks must be rigorous so as to avoid distorting competition at the level of imports from third countries, but also between the Member States.
This is the basis of Amendment No 8, which recommends that checks should be the same for imported products and harmonised for Community products.
To conclude, I should like to say that between the two extremes of organic farming and factory farming, there is in fact room for an intermediate, but heterogeneous approach, which must be regulated in the interest of the consumer and of the producers who practise integrated agriculture.
A comprehensive regulation should define its procedures for production as well as its procedures for granting a European quality mark, which should be authenticated by a single logo likely to give rise to and merit consumer confidence.
Mr President, everybody is talking about the concept of quality, but in actual fact it covers very diverse dimensions.
Some people talk about the health quality of a product, and in this respect the BSE crisis shows us that the consumer is increasingly sensitive to this issue.
Others talk about the organoleptic quality of a product and others, finally, talk about the quality linked to the tradition of local products.
Our rapporteur, whom I should like to thank very sincerely for his report, has successfully analysed the first two dimensions, to which the consumers in the northern Member States of the Union are particularly sensitive.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has, for its part, tabled three amendments to our colleague's report, which aim to strengthen the third dimension of the concept of quality.
In fact, due to the globalisation of trade, the market in agricultural raw materials is becoming increasingly dominated by the concept of price.
I think, Mr President, that the 'tradition' concept of quality represents a considerable opportunity for the rural areas of Europe.
The market in agricultural products is therefore no longer linked exclusively to price, but to the region.
In France, we have a long tradition of products with a registered designation of origin.
The 'Institut national des appellations d'origine ' has enabled high-quality wine-growing to develop and the quality of certain cheeses and meat products to be established and protected. We see that where agricultural production is linked to a product with a registered designation of origin, the enhanced value of agriculture in the area of production is protected.
Maintaining this enhanced value in the designated areas both protects agricultural jobs and prevents a shift towards production methods that are harmful to the environment, by protecting the biological diversity.
Some cheeses of designated origin require the use of milk from specific dairy breeds, and in winegrowing, only traditional vine varieties may be used.
These examples just go to show that this dimension of high-quality products, local products and traditional products represents an opportunity for certain production areas in the rural areas of Europe.
As mentioned in the report, it is time that we had a real policy on the quality of agricultural products and foodstuffs in the European Union. This policy must cover all aspects of the concept of quality.
These three dimensions must be combined to enable us to respond both to the consumer's demands and those of the processing industry, but also to the need for a greater balance in rural society.
Employment, Mr President, will only develop in rural areas if agriculture shows that it is capable of adapting its production to the demands of consumers and the various operators involved in the sector, and capable of protecting, as far as possible, the added value close to the place of production.
Mr President, Commissioner, cultural identity is, to a great extent, not only expressed in the way we feed ourselves, but also, and more particularly, in what we eat and drink.
Products of designated origin must be based on very precise qualitative criteria, whether they relate to the product's origin or the way in which it is produced.
In this way, we will guarantee the survival of cultural characteristics, but we will also maintain a significant economic potential in the rural areas that do not have other products or other alternatives.
For two years, since the conference in Cork, we have been stressing the need to protect jobs in rural areas and looking for consistent ways to achieve this.
Products of designated origin with specific qualities are a concrete response to this problem.
We talked about the pigmeat crisis this morning. It could certainly have been predicted.
It is cyclical.
What is the alternative? For example, to produce Ardennes ham, the pig must be raised and fattened up in the Ardennes, with cereals produced in that same region, and the meat must be processed in accordance with precise specifications for each stage of production, from the farm to the consumer's plate.
Of course, that does not mean that we can do whatever we like with mass-produced products with no designated origin.
The safety and the quality of foodstuffs must not suffer due to laxity.
Human health is above all protected by the way in which we feed ourselves and, in particular, by the quality of the products made available to the consumer.
I am not going to point out to you the reprehensible laxity of the relevant British authorities in the criminal problem of mad cow disease.
I hope that all those responsible in Europe have understood that the concern for the profitability of a minority must never prevail over the health requirements for the majority.
Under no circumstances, and on no account, must specific characteristics of high-quality products that enhance the value of regional traditions be renounced in order to mass-produce these products, which become commonplace and are shaped by the constraints of the global market.
Making products commonplace will never create as many jobs and will not give as much satisfaction to the consumer as maintaining regional characteristics.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Mulder has drafted a very good report on quality policy for agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs.
The consumer still finds it very difficult to identify many of the regional quality marks in the single market, which is why we should really all welcome the proposed supplementary European rules.
The European consumer is attaching increasing importance to the protection of the environment and animal life.
As representative of a large women's association, I still seriously question whether double labelling - i.e. a regional and a European quality mark - really will persuade people to pay higher prices for foods produced under more stringent rules.
In my experience, the public is prepared to pay higher prices for clothes, housing, cars and travel than for actual food.
But the double label does not necessarily have to raise prices.
As many previous speakers have said, we need a European code of good agricultural practice in integrated farming to put before the Americans at the WTO negotiations as a European agricultural model.
But we still have to explain to our citizens that if we want better environmental protection, better animal protection, then logically we must also be prepared to pay a reasonable price for goods produced under these more stringent conditions.
By establishing a European quality mark we now want to help consumers in the single market to recognise other Member States' national and regional quality marks too, since they say something about the special quality of this food.
In that way, a Spanish housewife looking at German products with a quality mark she does not recognise can be quite sure that this food complies with strict and transparent requirements.
Recognised European quality marks should satisfy very specific basic requirements, and I think that thanks to Mr Mulder's report we will be able to open up an even larger market for these products.
At present we have two European quality categories for agricultural produce: organic farming and the Community protection of traditional specialities.
We in Parliament would like to add a third category covering organic products that also comply with environmental and animal protection criteria.
That would satisfy the consumers' demand for environment-friendly products and give added importance to integrated production, something that has been widely discussed but in my view not yet clearly defined.
Mr President, I too believe that size, shape and appearance of food are not the only criteria by which quality should be judged.
I do not very often agree with Mr Rosado Fernandes in this House but I agree with him wholeheartedly that taste, flavour and nutritional value are the real benchmarks of food quality.
I was recently in Poland for the Joint Parliamentary Committee.
At the end of three very intensive days' work I felt amazingly well and healthy.
When I thought about it, I put it down to the excellent quality of food I had enjoyed during those three days: fresh fruit, vegetables, fresh fish and meat and the most delicious bread I have ever tasted.
And yet we in the EU tend to regard Poland as having inefficient agriculture.
We have to look at our methods of agriculture within the Europe of the 15 and the way in which we define quality.
Intensively produced, bland-tasting produce that looks nice is not real quality as even the big supermarkets are beginning to acknowledge.
Naturally-produced foods untainted by excessive use of pesticides etc., food with real favour and nutritional value are increasingly what European consumers are quite rightly demanding. Europe's farmers, food manufacturers and supermarkets should be adapting to meet that demand.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to Mr Mulder on his report.
Quality policy is vital to European agriculture, although we note that the definition of quality still keeps provoking differences of opinion.
Quality production must also be reflected in the price and in farmers' incomes.
Let me point out that in Austria during the BSE crisis the sales of products with recognised quality marks and designations of origin did not fall.
Although we cannot yet have a uniform European quality mark, our aim should be, as stated in paragraph 8 of our resolution, to pursue this road steadily.
The vast majority of European farmers do not live in advantaged areas.
That is why they cannot significantly increase their incomes by increasing their production.
So quality production must be the number one criterion for European agriculture and its distinctive character; it is essential to obtain guarantees to that effect at the next round of WTO negotiations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too have read Mr Mulder's report on a quality policy for agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs with great interest.
From my point of view, I can only welcome the ideas put forward as a matter of principle.
I am sure the Commission should also look at all the points made in your motion for a resolution with great interest and attention, but I would prefer to concentrate here on the two main headings of your report.
First, on introducing a European quality mark to coordinate the existing quality marks, I would draw your attention to one particular point.
In principle, in all new legislation we must first consider whether the questions concerned can or cannot be regulated effectively within the existing legislative framework.
Here I would remind you of the Commission's basic concept of legislation, as set out in 1985 in the White Paper on the completion of the single market.
Since the adoption of that concept, harmonised common rules have been proposed in regard only to health and consumer protection, environmental protection and sound commercial practice.
Any questions that do not fall within the scope of these harmonised rules must be regulated by mutual recognition of national rules, laws or technical requirements.
The obligation to notify the Commission of norms and technical specifications makes it possible to evaluate whether the objective has been achieved, i.e. the removal of technical obstacles to trade in the Union.
If the content of the quality marks differs widely from one Member State to another, that could represent a quite substantial obstacle to trade within the EU. This has become clear from the activities of the Commission services and various Court of Justice judgments.
In the early 1990s, the European legislative authority therefore laid down a legal framework for protected designations of origin, protected geographical indications, specialities guaranteed as traditional and organically farmed products.
This was justified because common measures have proved more effective than individual national measures - if you like because of the European value added.
Proposals on quality indications or certificates of special qualities of products with the exception of traditional specialities were, however, rejected.
At this time the Commission cannot see that anything has changed significantly with regard to the basis for that decision.
The unsatisfactory experience we gained with the European eco-label is further evidence, which is not to say that we will not continue to monitor developments closely.
Let me now turn briefly to the second main proposal, for a new European quality category based on environmental criteria.
As you know, in the case of integrated production we already have a number of Community measures, studies and research programmes, special support under the common organisation of the market, such as that for fruit and vegetables, and the financing of agricultural environmental measures under Regulation 2078.
All these aspects are in fact to be given further support under Agenda 2000.
So we should continue thinking at that level and, for example, work out guidelines that take account of the variety of our products, the different farming methods, local conditions and the use of technology.
I am firmly convinced that the further development of integrated agriculture really will benefit the environment and contribute to sustainable land use.
But that is precisely why we first need a clear strategy.
If a comprehensive strategy shows that it would be useful to introduce a European quality mark and we can take joint measures to make it sufficiently consistent, then it might well be appropriate to do so.
At this stage, it still seems a little too soon to take a final position on this question.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Congratulations to Mr Mulder on the adoption of his important report.
Mr President, I have one more question for Mr Fischler before he leaves.
By adopting paragraph 5, we have now voted that animal products should be included in Regulation 2092/91 on organic production methods and that this should now go ahead.
You know that a joint Commission and Parliament proposal on this subject has long been on the table, yet the Council has still not put it on the agenda.
This gives me another opportunity to call on you and Parliament to exert pressure to at least put it on the agenda of the Austrian Presidency, because I know that organic farming plays a very important role in your country, on which I would like to congratulate you.
Mr President, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, ladies and gentlemen, I am quite prepared to put Parliament's request to the current presidency.
But I can also tell you that the presidency has already said that it intends to consider this question during its current term of office.
Most of the land area of my constituency and many of the people I represent here in Parliament are engaged in the production, processing and marketing of food. Food for domestic consumption and also for export.
All my constituents are food consumers.
So food safety, quality and hygiene are matters of the utmost importance to us all.
It is very clear that the BSE crisis and findings of the Committee of Inquiry have focused the attention of both producers and consumers.
Producers realise as never before that respect for consumers' interests and meeting their needs is an absolute prerequisite for success in the marketing of food.
Consumers for their part, rightly demand transparency and openness - good production methods, high standards in animal husbandry and animal welfare.
They also demand more environmentally friendly farming systems which will ensure a sustainable agriculture.
I am fully supportive of the principle of quality marks.
I have, as a producer, participated for many years in the development of such a national quality market.
However, I have some doubt whether an overall EU development mark could be superimposed on existing quality marks without damage to one or the other.
Manufacturers and retailers are using quality markets to reassure their customers - not alone to give them information on production methods and origins, but also as a very important sales and promotion tool.
The concept of an overall EU quality mark would require a tightly controlled monitoring system to ensure that very high standards are maintained across the EU.
It is also important that existing quality markets be identified separately and continue to show a benefit for their huge development costs.
An overall EU quality mark could also be used in the context of WTO to force compliance with EU health standards for imported food products.
The Danish Social Democrats voted for the Mulder report on agricultural products and agri-foodstuffs today. We did so taking the view that the report is acceptable overall.
We support the introduction of a European quality mark, which takes account of animal welfare and the environment.
However, we think it important to specify what is meant by animal welfare and the environment.
Concrete rules must be laid down, and those countries which do not observe the rules should forfeit the right to use the mark.
Many Member States still view quality as something linked to taste.
We also think that quality is animal welfare and concern for the environment.
It is important to establish transparency for consumers where such a mark is concerned.
Various Member States have developed quality marks for integrated farming products.
To provide the consumer with greater transparency, Mr Mulder is calling for a study to be carried out into whether such marks could be brought under one European quality mark.
We in the Dutch sub-group support this idea and we voted for the Mulder report.
However, there are a few comments we should like to make.
A European logo should not be used to replace existing national, regional and local quality marks, but at most to supplement them.
Every region has its own rural and cultural values and environmental problems, which is why regulations on integrated farming and its quality marks can only partly be harmonised at European level.
A further factor here is that quality marks stand or fall by the confidence that consumers have in them, and existing marks have now developed a reliable image.
It remains to be seen whether consumers will have the same confidence in a European mark.
On the other hand, we can only agree with the idea of a European quality mark if it really does mean something.
The products concerned must have a clear added value compared with other accepted products, not just in terms of intrinsic quality, but also from an ecological point of view.
Otherwise the European quality mark will be nothing more than a cheap marketing ploy.
In short, we support a study into the viability of a European quality mark, but we will reserve final judgement until we see it in practice.
There are two important points here.
Enough scope must still be left for national and regional marks, and the products concerned must have a clear advantage over other accepted products in terms of environmental protection.
Objective 2: job-creation
The next item is the report (A4-0213/98) by Mr Vallvé, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions entitled 'New regional programmes 1997-1999 under Objective 2 of the Community structural policies - priority to job-creation' (COM(97)0524 - C4-0641/97).
Mr President, Commissioner, we are about to debate this particular aspect of the Objective 2 programme for the years 1997-1999.
I do wonder whether there is much point in debating this communication, which was presented by the Commission nearly a year ago - on 14 November 1997, to be precise.
It contains an analysis of the period 1997-1999, but the document reached us when almost a third of the relevant period had already elapsed.
We are also debating this document at a time when the Committee on Regional Policy has already drafted its five reports on Agenda 2000 which are to be discussed in committee next week.
But I think it is positive that we are taking advantage of this debate to talk about regional policy, as that does not often happen in Parliament, and we should not forget that the European Union devotes 34 % of its budget to regional policy.
I particularly want to thank the Commissioner for being here for this report. I am not surprised, because her dedication to the work of the Committee on Regional Policy has been constant.
I am not going to use this report on the years 1997-1999 as an opportunity to talk about what could and should be the regional policy of the European Union in the future, in other words, to analyse Agenda 2000.
I am not going to do that. That will be the subject of future debates in this House, possibly in the November part-session.
I want to highlight the changes that were made to Objective 2 for the years 1997-1999, which primarily affect abstract elements, the development of firms - especially SMEs - innovation and product development, training and professional qualifications, and also the measures which need to be adopted for the protection of the environment.
Commissioner, I believe these changes mark a departure from the use of the Structural Funds - and specifically Objective 2 funds - for infrastructure development, operating as a substitute for Objective 1, in a sense.
Objective 2 relates to the conversion of industrial areas, and the word 'conversion' is maintained in Agenda 2000.
This is conversion with a wider scope: the reference to industrial areas will also include rural areas, urban areas and fisheries areas.
Conversion is a fundamental instrument for the promotion and improvement of economic and social cohesion in the European Union.
Clearly the top priority for 1997-1999 is job creation.
It is a fundamental goal in a Europe where - we should never forget - there are 18 million people who cannot find a job.
It is regrettable that there was no coordinated assessment of the measures certain Member States were already taking with social groups likely to be at risk of long-term unemployment in the future.
There are four priority factors: competitiveness, development of research, training and equal opportunities, and environment protection.
These are very important in relation to conversion and the development of competitive regional economic structures.
However, I very much regret that the increase in expenditure has applied basically to research and development, with virtually no increase for the other elements.
The 1997-1999 programmes obviously maintain continuity with those of 1994-1996.
I must also stress that the new Objective 2 guidelines for the year 1997 - this is one of the advantages of analysing reports retrospectively - have led to full take-up of the available resources.
The principle of additionality and proving its application when programmes are being approved continues to present problems at times. The conditions need to be defined more clearly.
The cooperation principle needs to be strengthened as well, and the role of the regional authorities and social partners is fundamental here. I understand the Commissioner has already made plans for the future in this respect.
It is also important to stress that due account must be taken of the nearness of Objective 2 areas to Objective 1 areas.
Finally, I am grateful for the amendments that have been tabled, although I do not want to incorporate those which refer to the Agenda 2000 project.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has drafted a joint opinion on the Vallvé report and the Howitt report, which was discussed last week and refers to the adjustment of the Structural Fund programmes up to the end of 1999 and the new Objective 2 regional programmes for 1997-1999.
What these reports have in common is a proposal for a medium-term review of the European Union's structural interventions and, as Mr Vallvé said, we are already halfway through that period.
We share Mr Vallvé's concern because jobs are actually the main priority in this proposal. We believe it is necessary to harness the potential of the four sectors he mentioned: SMEs (over 80 % of jobs in the European Union are in small and medium-sized firms); the environment (sitting on the Committee on the Environment, I am very well aware of the new sources of employment in very important sectors drawing on the potential of the environment, and it is very important to take that into account); research and development; and, of course, equal opportunities - once and for all, women must have the same opportunities as men.
We endorse the criticisms about the failure to evaluate the previous period, because that would have improved the conditions for making proposals for the future.
We saw how difficult it was for the environmental authorities and the social partners to participate in each of the previous programming periods, and there has been no real evaluation of the role the new sources of employment have played in spending the Structural Funds to create jobs, especially in regions in industrial decline like my region - I am Asturian.
So we think it is very important that we should take account, in the ongoing reforms which we will continue to debate next week, of the need for across-the-board implementation of the principles of transparency, participation, equal opportunities and sustainable development - only 5.2 % is devoted to sustainable development - and for a balance between policies to preserve and create jobs and economic policies which do not destroy jobs, because sometimes economic policies do harm employment.
We also think the budget for infrastructure should be reduced, because the employment it creates is short term, and there should be more money for new sources of employment, because they create longer term jobs.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I wish to express our very strong support for this current programme of measures to combat unemployment in Europe's areas of industrial decline.
Support, because job creation and an end to the scourge of unemployment must be the first priority of our Structural Fund programmes; support, because people living in our coal-mining, textile, steel and defence regions did not ask for the economic shock waves that have taken the heart out of their communities and no one can ask them to rebuild their economies without public support; and support, because this ECU 9bn of expenditure - more than £7m - represents the people's priorities on how European money should be spent.
In congratulating Mr Vallvé on his report, I note there are many areas of agreement with my own parallel report on guidelines for Objective 1 and 5b areas over the same period.
We agree on the need to ensure stricter adherence to equal opportunities and environmental objectives in all of the programmes.
Five per cent for the environment: that means that 95 % of the money could be harming our natural resources, and that is not good enough.
We agree on the need to support the guidelines process to ensure common themes underlie the programmes in each of our countries, and the need for a full consultation on those guidelines by the European Commission.
I hope the Commissioner will take the opportunity this morning to guarantee to us that the new sets of guidelines will be ready by 31 December.
We agree that the delayed agreement of the programmes in the first period - 12 % of the money being carried over - causes unacceptable damage in the regions and localities which wait too long and then are forced to spend too quickly.
On behalf of my own country, we appreciate that the United Kingdom is the biggest beneficiary of this programme: some ECU 2.7bn - over £2bn.
More than 150 000 small and medium-sized companies in Britain are being helped today thanks to that money.
With some 14 % of all public investment in metropolitan France represented in this programme, it demonstrates, beyond doubt, the value of the safety net, which we argued for in the next programming period, to avoid a sudden disappearance of this very significant level of support.
I thank the Commission for accepting what we had to say.
The Socialists will support the vast majority of amendments before the House today.
In particular, we support the conclusions of our colleagues from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs that more money must be allocated to new sources of employment, including the cooperative sector, environmental projects and local development initiatives.
We agree with them that the complete lack of evaluation of the number of disabled beneficiaries is a marked failure to achieve the mainstreaming, which the Commission so often talks about.
Let me explain where we must disagree.
Firstly, we cannot support specific amendments which single out maritime fisheries or urban areas for special priority, whatever our personal sympathies, because this represents a balanced package in which no one special interest can be advocated above any other.
Secondly, we cannot support proposals for the split in funding or criteria in relation to the new Structural Fund regulation.
That debate is being held in committee, and it would be premature to resolve those issues today.
Thirdly, we will not single out the Commission for specific criticism over underspending or for its failure to address the horizontal objectives sufficiently.
We share the concerns, but we prefer to work together with the Commissioner to constructively tackle the causes of these problems in the future.
Finally, in our resolution of 14 February 1996 we stated our demands for this programme to the Commissioner. I am delighted that those were largely agreed.
14 February is Valentine's Day - a day for sharing messages between lovers.
With the greatest respect to Mrs Wulf-Mathies, even if we cannot guarantee such a close relationship today between Parliament and the Commission, we thank her and congratulate her on the very important work being achieved in this programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, like Mr Vallvé, the rapporteur, I welcome in principle the definition of guidelines to establish the Commission's priorities. They are designed to ensure a balance between economic policy, creating and preserving jobs and the other specific Union policies.
These have already been mentioned: competitiveness, support of SMEs, environment and sustainable development, together with innovation and equal opportunities.
The Objective 2 measures remain extremely important to creating and preserving jobs.
I welcome the emerging evidence of the broader continuity of the various new programmes with the previous programming period.
But one point of criticism I must make is that the quality of the programmes still does not always meet expectations, and the findings of the mid-term reviews are not turned to account early enough for planning future assistance.
The principle of additionality and its evaluation still cause problems because the necessary documents are not always forwarded.
We welcome the introduction of conditional clauses for the second payment.
However, the new provisions on assessments need to be made much simpler.
We support the Commission's intention to give the Member States more room for manoeuvre in future by combining national and Community criteria.
We do not really think the rapporteur is justified in his fear that the Member States might abuse this room for manoeuvre.
In my view, the Commission's subsidiarity-based approach is a step in the right direction.
Mr President, Commissioner, the four areas, small and medium-sized enterprises, the environment and sustainable development, equal opportunities for women and men and promotion of research and development, are good priorities for the creation of new jobs.
I wish to draw special attention to the environment, with new environmental products and new environmental systems, as an area for development. Good technical solutions and environmental technology will be needed throughout the world in the future.
We must of course exploit that and make sure that we are well ahead in this area.
There is a downside, however.
Appropriations must be used more effectively.
There must not be empty chairs and money for projects remaining unused for several months or for half a year.
Evaluation must be improved through correct environmental impact assessments and equality assessments in all programmes, so that the main rules that have been laid down on equal opportunities, the environment and sustainable development are actually adhered to.
I especially welcome the inclusion of coastal, island and archipelago regions in the new Objective 2 areas, i.e. the old Objective 5b areas.
I for my part will support Amendment No 4, which covers increased national influence.
Mr President, the European Union has almost 20 million unemployed, and this is an extremely worrying situation.
That being the case, the issue of employment represents a major challenge.
The results of the fourth phase of the Objective 2 programme, whose priority is job creation, are relatively pleasing. But there is still a great deal to be done.
We can make a certain number of conclusions from the report.
However, let us go beyond this partial assessment and examine the Commission proposals under the future Objective 2.
There is a risk, in our opinion, that the performance reserve might damage the effects of extending the programmes to ensure their necessary continuation.
We are also sceptical as regards the fixing of indicative percentage figures relating to the allocation of the volume of the programmes' interventions between the different priorities, and as regards the extreme diversity of this objective, which might damage its coherence and effectiveness.
Finally, it is absolutely necessary to continue to grant a substantial amount of aid to regions in industrial decline in order to allow them to continue to develop, as the majority of them have already started to do. This development could be strongly compromised by a reduction in aid.
In conclusion, we must be able to put the lessons drawn from the current Objective 2 to good effect in order to obtain the best possible results from the interventions of the future new objective for employment.
Thank you, Mr Donnay.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will now ask Mr Manuel Escolá Hernando to speak on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
Mr Escolá Hernando is speaking for the first time in this House.
I would like to welcome him, and I speak from my personal knowledge of him and his career when I say that I believe he will make a very positive contribution to our work together in Parliament and to the progress of the European Union.
Mr President, as you said, this is my first speech before Parliament, and on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance I would like to express our support for this report.
We would especially like to underline the point made in paragraph 18 of the report, which we entirely agree with, about the Commission's proposals for the new Objective 2.
The point is concerned about the very significant increase in Member States' discretionary power which might be introduced if the proposal goes ahead to have a combination of Community and national criteria for selecting regions theoretically eligible to receive aid under the new Objective 2.
Ladies and gentlemen, some might interpret this formula as an abdication of responsibility by the Commission to the internal political interests of each Member State.
It might even suggest a certain renationalisation of the structural policies, and that could not only distort the results the Commission is looking for with the creation of the new Objective 2, but could even undermine its fundamental aim, which is to support declining regions with structural difficulties.
It could mean that areas suitable for Objective 2 selection are excluded, while others which are not so suitable are included to serve the internal political interests of Member States.
In view of this, we think it is vital for the future of Objective 2 for the Commission to make the selection criteria more objective.
Mr President, the Objective 2 Structural Funds deserve very special consideration. They are extremely important, but very difficult to apply correctly.
As industrial areas in decline are involved, extreme care must be taken to ensure that the industries concerned have prospects and, more specifically, to ensure that each individual company is viable.
If so, they must be given the direct support they need, correctly applying the 'ageing industries' argument.
If this is not the case, or if the industries or companies are not competitive in the medium or long term, it is in the interests of all, and of course in the interests of the workers, to find valid alternatives in a competitive world where a return to closed borders is neither likely nor desirable.
As Objective 2 now also covers urban renewal, this needs to be kept very much in mind, although it is not something which can be attained unless there are clear and balanced national promotion policies.
If, as happens in my own country, we persist with policies of polarisation or, at best, bi-polarisation, concentrating all our efforts to improve quality and introduce dynamism on only one or two towns, there will still be population movements and there will still be sensitive social problems of exclusion and insecurity.
It will be like trying to hold back the waves, and all the national and European Union funding directed at it will be inadequate.
Comparative experience in Europe is very clear: countries with a balanced urban network do not have problems like this; they are able to keep people in their region of origin, thus achieving a better use of resources.
We cannot simply go on forever dealing with the social problems suffered by people who are not to blame for misguided policies.
We must keep making progress towards fundamental solutions which will benefit all of us.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, structural policy always implies labour market policy too.
There is a cycle to life in the regions.
People simply tend to live where the jobs are.
But they prefer to work in regions that offer not just jobs but also an intact environment, which means a well-kept and healthy natural environment, a good infrastructure and rapid transport connections between work and home.
The ideal job also requires a good cultural environment.
There must be schools and educational and further training facilities, together with a range of cultural activities to be pursued in leisure time.
If one of these cogs in the life cycle disappears, imbalances will appear and whole regions bleed to death.
People do not live in places where there is no work and, conversely, there is no work in places where no people live.
This is the situation that structural policy must address; we must look at all the surrounding factors and not just at jobs in isolation.
When we look at roadworks, we tend to see large machinery with very few workers actually in evidence, but that road may be a lifeline for the region.
The evaluation of the individual programmes has shown that where EU funding goes, additional cofinancing also goes, but in particular private sector money.
For every million ECU of EU cofinancing, the Member States contribute another two million and 20 % of total resources come from the private sector.
So this creates quite a strong centrifugal force.
We must take a long-term approach, and I agree with the rapporteur, Mr Vallvé, that three years is too short a period.
We must take a broad view of the whole question, so that the people of Europe can lead a life worth living.
Mr President, Commissioner, while there is almost a year before the period of the programme we are referring to lapses, in essence we cannot do anything other than to draw conclusions and lessons for the new programme period.
It is therefore important - and this is my first comment - that according to the Commission's estimates, for the period we are talking about 880 000 jobs are being created in the Objective 2 areas.
The number could have been even larger, but clearly it could also have been smaller.
And consequently I express myself well content with the fact that we have concentrated on four priorities, namely competitiveness, environmental protection, equality of the sexes and innovation, which I regard as very important.
At the same time, however, there are problems, which other speakers have mentioned, relating to the quality of the programmes and to the forecasting of job creation, and it would be desirable to deal with them.
Now, as for the new programme period, we as the European People's Party, I must tell you - although you know it already - have many doubts about the Commission's effort to deal with the new Objective 2 and at the same time with the difficulties of industrial and rural areas which are facing problems of conversion.
Beyond that, however, we think it necessary, if nothing else, for there to be some guarantee that we will have a coverage of 10 % - I mean in population terms - at European level for industrial areas and 5 % for rural areas within the regulation.
We are also in favour of the Commission's proposal to have both national and at the same time Community criteria for the selection of those areas.
This is made necessary by the principle of subsidiarity.
And we also favour the Commission's proposal for a safety net, in other words a maximum reduction of the order of 33 % for regions covered at present by Objectives 2 and 5B.
Thank you, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
The debate is closed.
Before we proceed to the vote, Mr Kellett-Bowman has a point of order.
Mr Kellett-Bowman, the request for a roll-call vote was properly made.
The Chair can only apply the Rules.
I do not have the power to do anything else, but your comments will be noted in the Minutes.
Mr President, I should merely like to answer Mr Kellett-Bowman in one sentence.
When we see the debate and the votes, we are happy that we requested roll-call votes.
One of the amendments has been accepted, others have been rejected by just a few votes, and we think that we were right to put forward this request.
Thank you very much, Mr Berthu.
The Chair has already stated that the proposal was made in accordance with the Rules, so there are no grounds for changing anything.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I voted in favour of Amendment No 4, because I wish to see greater flexibility, especially in the matter of state aid.
Mr Vallvé's report is presented as a diptych.
Its first section attempts to evaluate Objective 2 in the 60 eligible regions for the 1989-1993 period.
The rapporteur is fair in noting that we are totally in the dark here: the data is 'rarely available' and the performance indicators 'are not standardised'.
Simple rigour should therefore have led the rapporteur to distance himself from the fanciful overall assessments that the Commission has produced with regard to the number of jobs created or preserved due to the existence of the Objective 2 programmes.
Mr Vallvé does indeed recognise that 'these figures are to be taken with caution due to missing or incomparable data, their estimative character and the missing link to targets...
Targeting was still exceptional in these programmes, an assessment of the degree to which the programmes were successful', the rapporteur adds, 'thus proved difficult'.
However, he finally accepts an overall figure - obviously carefully worked out for propaganda purposes since the statistics have no relevant meaning -, of 450 000 to 500 000 net jobs attributable to the Objective 2 programmes.
The reality is that no-one is in a position to assess the real impact of these Structural Funds, which are very significant in terms of employment.
We had tabled an amendment taking up exactly the same reservations as the rapporteur himself expressed in his explanatory statement, which strangely were not then followed up on by their author.
The second section of Mr Vallvé's report relates to the future prospects of the new Objective 2.
The rapporteur examines the heterogeneous nature of the new objective and seems to make a euphemism when he questions 'the Commission's optimism on being able to assure coherence in such a diverse objective'.
He also fears that the population ceiling established by the Commission will lead to inappropriate criteria for defining theoretically eligible regions.
I am sorry that the rapporteur totally ignores the importance of the maritime coastal areas of the EUROPEAN UNION Member States, which are, however, one of the major characteristics of the countries in the west of our continent.
The risk of a population drain is, in fact, real in a large number of areas, particularly those whose peripheral disadvantage is going to continue to deteriorate.
Summer tourism would not alone be able to permanently maintain life along our coastlines.
A purely regional logic, introducing significant differences in the system from one coastal sector to another, could be extremely disruptive.
Therefore, the Member States must be allowed, in general, the necessary flexibility to enable them to promote balanced planning of their territory and to face the risk of a progressive population drain in certain regions.
With this end in view, the distribution put forward in terms of geographical coverage of 10 %, 5 %, 2 % and 1 % respectively could not be interpreted strictly.
Our group has tabled several amendments in this direction.
This flexibility is particularly important in the areas dependent on fisheries, where it is essential to be able to continue to compensate for the various constraints imposed on fishermen through a carefully targeted intervention of structural aid. This is a necessary condition for the effectiveness and continuity of a fair common fisheries policy.
If not, it is no longer even worth the trouble of still talking about a CFP: it will represent nothing more than an empty shell.
It is interesting, finally, to note the oh so careful reservations of the liberal rapporteur that Mr Vallvé represents in relation to the link between employment and public subsidies.
It is a paradox that he has not thought to point out that the best way of safeguarding or creating jobs was, for the Member States, to reduce their taxation and alleviate the administrative constraints they impose on companies and, for the European Union, to better promote fair trade.
For all these reasons, our group has not been able to give its support to this report.
ARIANE - KALEIDOSCOPE
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0355/98 by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 2085/97/EC establishing a support programme, including translation, in the field of books and reading (ARIANE Programme) (COM(98)0539 - C4-0544/98-98/0282(COD)); -A4-0356/98 by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending Decision No 719/96/EC establishing a programme to support artistic and cultural activities having a European dimension (KALEIDOSCOPE Programme) (COM(98)0539 - C4-0545/98-98/0283(COD)).
Mr President, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to talk about the Ariane and Kaleidoscope cultural programmes in 1999.
Ariane is a programme of Community support, including translation, in the field of books and reading and was introduced for the period 1 January 1997 to 31 December 1998.
Over those two budget years, the European Union has provided support for the translation of some 300 literary works, the dissemination of literature by around 80 minority language authors translated into Europe's main languages, the realisation of 60 cooperation projects involving libraries, cultural associations and so on, and training for around 900 literary translators.
In short, Ariane has worked very well and deserves to continue.
The second cultural programme, Kaleidoscope, provides Community support for artistic and cultural activities with a European dimension and was set up for the period 1 January 1996 to 31 December 1998.
Over this period, Kaleidoscope provided support for 420 cultural projects whose development and execution involved some 1500 cultural institutions from the 15 Member States, the European Free Trade Association and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The programme has also contributed to the activities of 50 000 creative or performing artists and other specialists in the cultural sector.
It helped 20 000 young people to have access to artistic and cultural activities, it sent 10 000 plays and exhibitions on tour, it paid for 600 traineeships and many other activities.
In short, it made a significant contribution to the development and maintenance of artistic and cultural activities in the Union.
It would therefore be a great pity if Ariane and Kaleidoscope were to finish on 1 January 1999, only for another programme to begin a year later on 1 January 2000.
The Commission's answer here, having caused the problem in the first place, was to launch pilot projects for 1999 to bridge the gap, but it came to nothing because the European Court of Justice ruled that there was no legal basis for such pilot projects.
However, a miracle occurred on the weekend of 12 and 13 September in Linz, when Commissioner Oreja and Austria's Secretary of State for Culture, Mr Wittman, succeeded in persuading the Culture Ministers that it was essential to continue the current programmes.
The budget for 1999 was adapted in record time with the help of all the members of Parliament's Committees on Culture and Budgets, and a proposal to create a legal basis was considered.
The decisions were adopted unanimously.
However, for technical reasons which I very much regret, the Commission proposal contains smaller budgets than those agreed in the interinstitutional agreement.
The decision was to continue on the basis of the 1998 budgets, and this is why today's proposals contain an amendment to increase the budgets to 1998 levels.
Parliament is having to do the Commission's homework for it, and we are glad to do so.
For the sake of form, I will give you the figures: ECU 4.1 million for Ariane and ECU 10.2 million for Kaleidoscope.
The decision will, I hope, be taken shortly to extend these two cultural programmes next year.
In the year 2000 we hope to start a new combination of the programmes, perhaps with a new structure: the first framework programme for culture 2000-2004.
It is now up to the Council.
The unanimous decision taken by the Culture Ministers will have to be reconfirmed, and unfortunately the Council must decide unanimously.
At the last Coreper meeting, people clearly did not know about the Culture Ministers' decision, because there were some Member States that were still raising objections.
I would therefore urge the Council and all the Member States to adopt this decision before the first budget reading in Parliament, so that the actual amounts, currently listed as 'pm' entries, can be included.
Mr President, I just wanted to add a few words to what Mr Pex said.
It is of the utmost importance that we finally convince the governments that after completing the preparations for the euro we are entering a new phase of European development, in which real priority will be given not just to the economy but also to culture.
This does not seem to be fully understood yet in the higher echelons, hence all these delays, these difficulties that continue to hamper the cultural programmes.
I thank Mr Pex very much for insisting that at least after the millennium we must at last have cultural programmes that preserve the great diversity of European culture.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you know that with its proposals to extend Kaleidoscope and Ariane the Commission is seeking to ensure the continuity of Community cultural activities for the year 1999.
The aim is to bridge the gap in time until the first European Community cultural framework programme for 2000 to 2004 is adopted.
Initially, the Commission had planned preparatory measures in the coming year as a transition between the first generation of Kaleidoscope and Ariane and the new framework programme scheduled for the year 2000.
These measures were to be geared even then to the main points of the new framework programme.
But after the Court of Justice decided in its judgment of 12 May that all Community expenditure requires a legal basis, the Commission preferred to abandon the planned measures, extend the duration of the two programmes and thereby at least ensure continuity.
One major concern here was not to jeopardise the success of the cultural cooperation to date, which has taken the form of the partnerships and networks on cultural matters to which, I am pleased to note, the rapporteur also referred.
At the informal trilogue on 21 September, the three institutions agreed to extend the duration of Kaleidoscope and Ariane for 1999, under the same conditions and with the same allocations of funds as in 1998.
Since the Commission proposals are based on a lower amount, to ensure consistency with the 1999 preliminary draft budget, the proposals now need to be amended in the framework of the legislative and budgetary procedure; you will be taking your decision on that shortly.
I can only endorse the request by Mr Pex and Mr von Habsburg that we now conclude this chapter with a positive signal.
I wish to thank Parliament and in particular Mr Pex, the rapporteur and chairman of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, for their constructive cooperation.
I would also like to thank them for making possible this improvement - which will benefit the Community's cultural activities in 1999 - in such a short time.
In this way, they have shown once again how much importance they attach to culture in the context of European integration; let me also emphasise that although subsidiarity and diversity go hand in hand, that definitely does not preclude our having a common awareness of this subsidiarity and diversity and highlighting it through exchanges and through the visibility of our Community activities.
Mr President, I apologise to you and to Parliament for taking advantage of your unfailing patience.
This time I want to make a point which, in my opinion, has a direct bearing on the two reports we are debating, the Kaleidoscope report on support to artistic and cultural activities and the report, also by Mr Pex, on a programme of support, including translation, in the field of books and reading: the Ariane programme.
I say this because yesterday the Nobel Prize Committee awarded the Nobel Prize to a great European writer, José Saramago, who is Portuguese but resident in Spain, an adopted son of my island of Lanzarote, where he lives.
I would like to ask the President of Parliament to send a message of congratulation to Mr Saramago, who has actually visited Parliament and taken part in those activities.
Thank you very much, Mr Medina.
You know there is an old saying that you can never have too much of a good thing.
So your remarks are welcome, but the Minutes show that yesterday, immediately after we learned of the award, I did address Parliament along those lines. And I will certainly not forget the matter when we take our leave today.
Mr Medina's remarks will of course be included in the Minutes and I am sure they will reinforce what I said yesterday and that the President of Parliament will indeed contact Mr José Saramago.
The joint debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
Ladies and gentlemen, I would congratulate Mr Pex on his excellent work with the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, which he chairs.
I greatly welcome today's legislative proposal on extending the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes.
Even before the summer, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media had criticised the fact that without cultural programmes and with only pilot projects the year 1999 would entail a 40 % cut in the culture budget.
Thanks to the efforts of Dr Peter Wittman, the Austrian Secretary of State, a political decision was taken at the informal Council of Culture Ministers in Linz on 11 September 1998 to extend both programmes by one year.
With great encouragement from Mr Pex, the chairman of the Committee on Culture, we agreed the amended budget in committee as early as 14 September, and on 21 September the Council, Parliament and the Commission reached political agreement to extend the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes by a year.
This agreement provides that the budgetary allocation will remain at the 1998 level, namely ECU 14.3 million rather than the ECU 10.9 million in the Commission proposal.
I am sure Parliament will endorse this justified proposal and that Dr Wittman, the President-in-Office of the Council, will persuade the Council of Culture Ministers to endorse the decision on the ECU 14.3 million at its meeting on 17 November 1998.
The extension of these programmes is an outstanding example of the excellent cooperation between the European Parliament and the Austrian Presidency of the Council.
That concludes Parliament's agenda.
The Minutes of today's sitting will be submitted for Parliament's approval at the beginning of the next part-session.
Ladies and gentlemen, before the Chamber lights are turned off, I have the pleasant task of thanking Parliament's services for their patient and efficient assistance.
But I would also like to take advantage of the opportunity that Fridays offer for informal statements, to express a feeling which I am sure I share with all of you, at least in general terms.
I feel this has been a week when the blue of the European Union flag has been slightly tinged with the colours of the Iberian Peninsula, the colours of the Portuguese and Spanish flags. This week we have seen events which I believe enrich our cultural heritage and our political heritage, although they spring from two very different sources.
On the cultural side - as Mr Medina reminded us - Mr Saramago has just been awarded a richly-deserved Nobel Prize. Obviously it is a recognition of his literary powers, but it is also a recognition of the Portuguese language, part of the cultural heritage of our institution.
It is an important language not only because of its history and its current contribution in this House, but also because it is a linguistic hand of solidarity and cooperation stretched out towards South America. I think we should congratulate ourselves on that.
And the other point, ladies and gentlemen - and this affects me a little more closely - is that this week the Spanish Head of State, King Juan Carlos, paid us a visit.
I think we were all united in giving him a warm reception and, indeed, in laying great emphasis on the value of his pro-European remarks.
A superficial observer might have been surprised to find both republicans and monarchists expressing the same feelings, but I say superficial, ladies and gentlemen, because King Juan Carlos is a democrat, and he is no passive democrat. No-one with an honest recollection of recent history can deny the positive contribution he has made to the peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain.
What is more, he was at the forefront of the defence of our democratic constitution when there was an attempted coup d'état on 23 February one year.
I wanted to say that, ladies and gentlemen, because the contribution to cultural and political heritage which these two figures have made is at one with the modest day-to-day work that we do here and personally, at least for me, that renews my faith in the future of the European Union.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.45 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 9 October 1998.
Statement by the President
It gives me enormous pleasure to be able to share with you all today my joy at the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to John Hume and David Trimble.
Over the years the European Parliament has been constant in its support for the peace process in Northern Ireland.
The road to peace is not assured.
Just as the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to John Hume and David Trimble must fortify the people of Northern Ireland in their quest for peace, so must the award reinforce our own solidarity and that of the international community as a whole in the peace process.
Here in the European Parliament we are proud to salute our colleague John Hume.
(Applause)
Mr President, perhaps it would be a good idea to wait a moment until Mr Hume arrives so that we can say this on our groups' behalf whilst he is actually present.
Mr President, I think we should congratulate not only Mr Hume himself, but the whole Irish people too on the fact that the Good Friday agreement has created fresh opportunities for peace.
I think it would be appropriate if Mr Martens, our group chairman, conveys his good wishes to him again in the House tomorrow, and through him our good wishes to all those who now have a chance to make peace a reality.
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
I chose to make this statement at the beginning of the sitting because I was not sure if Mr Hume would arrive within the next half hour, and I felt that the opening of the sitting was the most formal moment to make this statement before the honorable Members.
That does not mean that we cannot repeat our congratulations to Mr Hume when he is with us.
Mr President, thank you for giving me the opportunity of congratulating John Hume who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday last.
Coming from the border counties and representing part of that historic province of Ulster, I was overwhelmed, as were all the people of Ireland, when John Hume was so rightly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In all his press conferences and all his interviews on Friday and Saturday last John Hume was magnanimous.
He said this was for the people of Ulster. It was for all those who helped to pursue the peace process culminating in the peace agreement of Good Friday.
I sincerely hope - as do all in this House - that this will further the peace process and bring us to the day when in the North of Ireland we will have peace with justice.
John Hume has spent 30 years of his life on this, ably assisted and with the strong support of his wife Pat - and I would pay tribute to her also.
John Hume was always a righteous man but not necessarily a self-righteous one.
Deánaim comhghairdeas ó mo chroí le John Hume as ucth na dúise Nobel a bhuachan.
Bí se tuillte go maith aige tar éis 30 bliain ag obair thar ceann na síochána.
Mr President, I would also like, on behalf of my group, to congratulate the Nobel Committee in Oslo on such a splendid and well-balanced choice.
My group unanimously nominated both men for the Nobel Prize, and I am glad that it was awarded as a double prize, so that the idea highlighted would be that of peace and not the cause of one side or the other.
We know John Hume here in Parliament as a man who has consistently worked for peace - certainly during the 19 years I have known him here.
When he comes tomorrow we can pay tribute to him.
My group has also had the opportunity to meet David Trimble on a few occasions and have only words of praise for the Protestant side in the peace settlement.
He showed very great personal courage when he had six members of his group against him in Westminster and only three with him in his bid for peace.
I do not know how many group chairmen in this House would put forward proposals if they were part of such an obvious minority in their groups.
I think that Mr Trimble has made a very impressive contribution to the peace process. I therefore feel that the Nobel Prize Committee is fully justified in awarding the prize equally to both sides in the conflict.
My group was the first in Parliament to hold study days in Belfast. I urge all the other groups to hold study days in Belfast, to get to know that beautiful area and see how, together, we can lend a hand in the peace process in Belfast, for they deserve it after so many years of war.
Mrs Green, had you arrived a few minutes earlier, you would have heard that I contacted Mr Hume's office in an attempt to find out whether or not he would arrive in time to hear these statements.
But, just a moment ago, before I came in, Mr Hume's own office was unable to tell me what time he would arrive. That is why I took this decision, and I informed the House of it just before you came into the Hemicycle.
) Mr President, I prefer not to wait but to echo all those who have spoken before me and say on behalf of my group how happy we are to see Mr Hume given this honour, which he fully deserves.
We are very pleased for him.
And we shall make sure that this evening's meeting of the Socialist Group receives a letter from our group, to be given to him personally.
I also wished to take up the second point which Mr Puerta mentioned, namely the fact that the European Union currently has something of a political hot potato on its plate in the British Government's decision to arrest the former dictator, General Pinochet.
This is an extremely important political issue which Parliament addressed or kept returning to many years ago.
It is of course particularly unfortunate that this week is one in which we do not normally have a topical and urgent debate where this matter might be discussed.
My group's question is whether, given the close involvement here of two European countries, the United Kingdom and Spain, we ought not to make sure that the European Parliament gives a clear statement of its position. We are asking the Bureau to make sure that provision is made for this matter to be addressed.
And, on behalf of all members of my group, I congratulate the British Government for its courage in detaining Pinochet, because it restores our faith that people with serious crimes on their consciences can ultimately be brought to book, even if they have held the very highest political office.
(Applause)
Mr President, some time ago Mr Jarzembowski put a question to the Commission concerning the appropriateness of the American secret services' practice of tapping telephone conversations held in the European Parliament and the Commission and of intercepting emails. The Commission confirmed this information at the time.
Mr President, I should now like to ask what measures you have taken to put a stop to such practices.
After all, even nations with which we are on friendly terms, but with which we are in economic competition, should not be able to hear all our conversations and read our emails. Nor should nations with which we are not on friendly terms, needless to say!
I would therefore like to know what technical measures have been taken in the new buildings in Brussels and Strasbourg.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, may I draw your attention to the fact that the House has already debated this matter and decided not to adopt any resolution on the subject.
(Protests from Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz) No, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
I repeat that this House has already had a debate on this matter and did not adopt a resolution on the subject, and it is therefore difficult for me to ensure compliance with resolutions that have not been adopted.
In the new building, all possible guarantees will naturally exist to ensure that interference, of this or of any other kind, does not occur.
This is stipulated in the specifications and will obviously be stuck to as far as technically possible.
Approval of the Minutes
Mr President, I too, would like to add my congratulations to Mr Hume and Mr Trimble on the award of the peace prize and express the hope that it is not a premature award.
I rise on the minutes of last Friday in which I am referred to as having spoken on the subject of membership of the British Conservative Party.
While I am always happy to speak on that subject, the main reason that I spoke was to comment on the success of a Labour MEP in having his remarks about having to ring No 10 Downing Street to find out which way to vote expunged from the record.
I asked a question at that time: is this facility open to other members?
I wish to put that on the record in the minutes.
We will check on the content of your statement and include it in the Minutes.
Mr President, I merely wanted to state that I was present at the sitting of Tuesday, 6 October; I was also allocated speaking time and I participated in the vote. However, my name was not on the attendance register.
I would ask that this be corrected.
Mr President, I would like to share the sentiments expressed by Mr Puerta and Mr Medina in welcoming the arrest of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte in London, although I would like to emphasise two aspects that I consider important.
First, the governments of the Member States have an obligation to collaborate unconditionally with the justice system and, consequently, it goes without saying that when the Spanish judiciary requests the extradition of this man, we all hope that the Spanish Government will subsequently take appropriate action.
However, in all sincerity, Mr President, and following on from what Mr Aelvoet said, I am not content with this agenda.
I would like to make an appeal, if I may, that a proposal be made in the relevant bodies that the chairmen of our groups should consider the possibility of including a specific point whereby this Parliament may express its opinion in the form of a resolution on the arrest of the dictator General Pinochet, and on the need for Member States and their governments to collaborate with the justice system.
I think we should go a little further than what we are doing at present, and I believe that this is possible; budgets should leave room for politics and, in this case, for solidarity.
Therefore, I would like us to consider the possibility of introducing a specific point to this effect in the agenda at the appropriate time.
(The Minutes were approved)
Welcome
I have great pleasure in welcoming Mr Raymond Langendries, Speaker of the Belgian House of Representatives, who has taken his seat in the official gallery.
Mr Langendries attended a meeting we held this morning with other speakers, Mr Violante, Mr Fabius and Mr Fischer, in preparation for the meeting of speakers from European parliaments in Vienna at the beginning of December, for which he will prepare the keynote speech.
Membership of Political Groups
Mr President, I merely wish to observe that Mr Moorhouse is far too left wing to have a place in the modern Labour Party.
Mr President, I should like to inform the Labour Party, having made that comment, that Mr Moorhouse has obviously found the real third way, which is liberal democracy.
We shall welcome him here tomorrow.
Agenda
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed, to which no changes have been proposed.
(The order of business was adopted)
Mr President, I asked you a quarter of an hour ago if a proposal could not be made regarding the week's agenda to allow us to discuss the detention of the dictator General Pinochet.
I have not had an answer, and now you say that there are no questions in connection with the agenda. I asked a question, and a very specific one at that.
Mrs Aelvoet, as you well know, under the Rules of Procedure, I cannot make this proposal at the present time.
I will be able to do so once the chairmen of the political groups have been consulted. Later on, after consulting them, if the majority is in favour of the subject, I will propose it, and the House can amend the agenda at that time.
I cannot do so at present because the request has not been made in time and the group chairmen have not as yet expressed a view on the subject.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has the floor.
Mr President, if a number of groups have not asked for this, it is because we do not need to deal with it this week. According to the Rules of Procedure, Mr President, we would have had to submit the proposal to you one hour before the start of the sitting.
That did not happen. Consequently, we do not have to discuss it.
As a result, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, what I intend to do, once this initial part of the sitting has finished, is to consult the chairmen of the political groups in order to see what they think and to establish whether or there is a majority regarding this proposal.
Mrs Green, do you wish to take the floor?
Mr President, as the leader of my group I can tell you now that it is our view that, having raised this issue, it would be more appropriate to have a proper discussion about it in the next plenary.
Mr Carnero, who has already put forward his proposal, wishes to speak. And I believe that he is not speaking on behalf of his group.
Therefore, Mrs Lulling has the floor.
Mr President, Mr Giansily's report on the expiry of the ECSC Treaty will feature on the agenda tomorrow.
The secretariat of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and I myself at the beginning of last week drew the attention of the sessional services to the fact that my opinion had been wrongly reproduced in this document.
I did ask for this document to be reprinted.
However, I see that the text available in distribution is still the incorrect version of my opinion.
I ask you to rectify this immediately.
Mrs Lulling, our services have told me that a corrigendum is being prepared.
I hope it will be available as soon as possible.
Mr President, the fact is that on the loudspeakers I heard that 'since Mr Carnero is - apparently - not speaking on behalf of his group, I will not give him the floor'.
I do not consider this to be correct.
I have a mandate as a Member here and it seems to me that I can express the opinions and put forward the proposals that I consider to be appropriate. In this case, moreover, I believe that my group and the majority of this House are calling for a resolution welcoming Pinochet's arrest and also urging the governments to do their duty.
Mr Carnero, we have already listened to your opinion, just as we have listened to the opinion of other Members.
I will use my powers at the appropriate time and will put the proposal to the House after holding the relevant consultations.
This is the established procedure in such cases and, as always, we will adhere to it.
Mr Puerta, do you wish to take the floor or do you think it is not necessary?
Mr President, I simply wish to make it plain and clear that, as group chairman, I have expressed the hope that the judicial and government institutions will take full advantage of this opportunity to put an end to General Pinochet's impunity and I think that all the political groups should support a serious and comprehensive debate.
In this respect, and in principle, subject to the agreement of my group at a meeting of the entire group, I support Mrs Green's proposal for a proper debate during the next part-session.
Mr President, I should like to reassure Mrs Lulling that the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on my report was adopted unanimously and in full by the Committee on Budgets, without the slightest alteration.
It can therefore easily be included in the final vote.
Transport of dangerous goods: safety advisers
The next item is the report (A4-0351/98) by Mr Koch, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the harmonisation of examination requirements for safety advisers for the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterways (COM(98)0174 - C4-0242/98-98/0106(SYN)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission proposal concerning harmonisation of the Member States' examination requirements for safety advisers is directly connected to the regulatory content of Directive 96/35/EC.
This Directive requires the Member States to take the necessary measures, including training and examination, to ensure that by 31 December 1999 all companies whose activities include the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterways, or the loading and unloading connected with such transport, are able to appoint safety advisers.
By guaranteeing a consistent and high level of training of safety advisers, Community legislation will help, firstly, to improve transport safety - which is also a priority of this Parliament - and, secondly, to dismantle distortions of competition and to harmonise competitive opportunities between companies from the various Member States.
I welcome the fact that the proposed Directive is concerned not with formally obtaining a vocational certificate but with a certificate that guarantees that each safety adviser has a high level of knowledge, ability and skill in preparing, implementing and analysing the transport of dangerous goods correctly and expertly, and the ability to deal with dangerous situations which may arise suddenly.
I expect, therefore, that persons being examined will not only be required to sit a written examination involving a minimum number of questions from a range of clearly-defined subject areas, and therefore from different fields, but will also have to prepare a case study.
In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, the Member States may include more than the minimum number of questions and may also provide for supplementary oral questions.
At the same time they guarantee mutual recognition of vocational certificates that are obtained at national level, but with strict application of the present Directive.
In order to maintain a correspondingly high level of examination, I expect the Member States to assist one another by constantly exchanging information, particularly concerning the list of questions and the form which the examinations are to take in terms of test methods, the duration of the written examination, and the documents permitted.
In order to keep administration and loss of information to a minimum, information should not be exchanged directly by the Member States, but through the European Commission.
For safety advisers who are concerned only with specific dangerous goods, for example only with explosives, gases or radioactive materials, an examination limited to their specific activity is to be permitted, provided of course that this is clearly indicated on the training certificate issued.
This type of training certificate then has only limited validity, with the result that the holder may only work in his particular specialised field.
To enable safety advisers to be employed with effect from 1 January 2000 in all European companies involved in the transport or loading of dangerous goods, the current Directive needs to be transposed into national law by the end of 1999.
I therefore recommend the report, which was adopted unanimously in committee, to the House, inclusive of all amendments.
Mr President, the proposal for a Directive that we are about to discuss follows on naturally from Council Directive 96/35/EC on the harmonisation of examination requirements for the training of safety advisers in the field of transport of dangerous goods.
The Directive to be transposed could even be considered to be innovative in that it is the first text, in terms of derived Community law on transport, that deals both with safety and with the three terrestrial means of transport: road, rail and inland waterway.
Given the purpose of the Directive, it can be included in the series of measures aimed at preventing the risks inherent in the transport of dangerous goods. This is because it stipulates that the companies concerned must appoint safety advisers with adequate professional qualifications in order to reduce the risk of accidents by promoting all action that will help to ensure compliance with regulations relating to the transport of dangerous goods and to establish optimal safety conditions.
The Socialist Group supports the final aim of the Directive in this instance, even though a number of issues need to be clarified.
For example, in certain countries, the majority of professional drivers have taken an examination and refresher courses to obtain an ADR vocational training certificate and as a result receive quite substantial increases in salary.
Could they use these qualifications to gain employment as a security adviser?
The Annexes clearly outline the tasks to be carried out by the security adviser, whose certificate of training is valid for five years.
Given that the transport of dangerous goods, and consequently the risk of accidents, is increasing significantly, we wonder whether the introduction of annual refresher courses might be considered to enable security advisers to update their knowledge of safety procedures.
Another issue which needs to be addressed relates to the obligation faced by companies to appoint one or more safety advisers.
This would not pose a problem for bigger companies.
But where would it leave smaller companies that have few employees? A safety adviser could be appointed from among the company's staff or could take on this role as an independent expert.
But where the company director takes on the role of safety adviser we must ensure that he/she has obtained the required professional qualification.
Whatever the case, the Commission's assertion that the Directive will not lead to extra work or higher costs must be carefully examined.
Even if Member States can no longer notify the Commission of their penalty provisions before the deadline stipulated, it would have been interesting to hear what type of penalties the Commission has in mind.
For example, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg provides for prison sentences of between eight days and five years for breaches of the Directive and fines of between 10 000 and 1 million francs, or either one of these penalties. This is a warning to all amateurs, and may subsidiarity continue to prevail!
Mr President, from time to time - but far more often than is desirable - the world is shocked by news of accidents occurring during the transport or handling of dangerous goods.
Whether they involve explosives, gases, radioactive materials, mineral oils or other liquid or solid substances, road, rail and waterway accidents are regular occurrences leading to loss of life and ecological damage.
As was expected, the entry into force of the European Economic Area has increased trade volumes among the signatory states with the result that thousands and thousands of lorries, tankers, containers and wagons now circulate loaded with dangerous goods.
The risks can be reduced if stringent controls and safety and technical standards are imposed on firms in this sector.
Since firms have until 31 December 1999 to appoint one or more safety advisers, it made sense for the standards and content of the vocational training courses and exams for the safety advisers to be harmonised.
That would avoid any unfair competition while guaranteeing a high level of preparation for the advisers, so that they can deal with dangerous situations and materials.
That is why we congratulate Mr Koch on his report and support the ten amendments that have been tabled.
We regret the fact, however, that the Council did not receive the European Parliament's proposal in time. We proposed that whenever accidents take place it should be compulsory for the adviser of the firm involved to draw up a report within six months, and the Member States should be required to present the Commission with an annual report on all accidents taking place on their territory.
Mr President, this report deals with the qualifications and criteria for granting a safety advisor's permit for the transport of dangerous goods.
Of course, we will be voting for the report even though, as a group, we think it is a timid one. The main blame for that, however, may not lie with our colleague Mr Koch, but with the Commission and the Council.
The scientific qualifications of the safety advisors are not described in detail, and in particular, nothing is said about their personality, trustworthiness, and especially about any relations they may have with any economic or industrial lobbies.
You all know exactly what I am implying, and I believe we ought to attach particular importance to it.
Taking advantage of the presence of our esteemed Commissioner Mr Kinnock, I must say that there is something else that should have been in this report, and Mr Koch again cannot be blamed because it is not in the Commission's proposal.
Commissioner, it is not just safety conditions during transport that matter.
It also matters where the dangerous goods are going, especially radioactive materials, where they are buried, where they are stored, and under what conditions. I imagine, Commissioner, that you will be aware, since an official announcement to that effect was made by the Bulgarian Government, that radioactive mushrooms have been picked in Bulgaria and they are now looking to see whether it was because nuclear waste was not buried properly or because of a leak from the nuclear plant at Koslodui which is still in operation.
Should such matters too not be mentioned in this report? I wonder!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner Kinnock, I will be brief in what I have to say on this excellent report, on this excellent initiative.
All our safety measures in the Union have been well received among the European public.
Standards and rules are quickly taken up, whether they relate to motor vehicles, boats, trains or aeroplanes.
Our everyday existence is marred by too many accidents, so improvements are welcome.
Point 9 of the report describes the cooperation between the Member States and the Commission.
It is my firm conviction that, despite the fact that it is the Member States' responsibility to ensure implementation, we need to have a form of annual reporting, an annual discussion on how things are progressing.
We need to have an overview so that we can ascertain whether what we have agreed is being implemented.
There is nothing more annoying than to see a neighbour or competitor cheat.
Education and examinations are one thing; how safety is assured in everyday practice is another matter.
I am sure that the Commission wants to get the Member States' cooperation in such a scheme on a voluntary basis.
I will say to Mr Kaklamanis that, if only we can get this report by Mr Koch adopted and implemented, then we shall have achieved a great deal.
I do not think that we should concern ourselves with what is lacking at this stage.
We must do that another time.
It is my view that the Member States are perhaps slower to implement common rules of this kind than we realise.
But I wish the Commission every success, and of course we support the proposal.
Mr President, may I first of all thank the rapporteur, Mr Koch, for an excellent text.
I feel that he has improved the original proposal in a number of respects.
As everyone involved in transport policy knows, facilitating free movement within the Union is one of the main challenges facing us today.
Freight transport in particular needs to move freely - which is why so much effort is going into the TENs project and expanding transport infrastructure on the other side of the old Iron Curtain.
Once the links are in place, greater quantities of hazardous goods will inevitably cross the borders.
We need assurances that those handling such consignments have the necessary knowledge and skills.
Legislation varies from country to country, and any harmonisation must be based on the highest possible safety standards. This is especially important when large volumes of all kinds of dangerous goods are constantly moving across borders everywhere.
A body of Community legislation has been built up over time to ensure that all Member States treat dangerous goods in the same way - whether they are being transported by road, rail or water.
Corresponding standards need to be maintained at the external borders of the Union. This is an important point, and I should like to ask the Commissioner one or two questions regarding our external frontiers.
Will provisions introduced in the EU Member States also be binding on the EEA countries?
And what sort of rules will apply to dangerous goods coming into EU Member States from candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe? Some clarification here would be most welcome.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Koch on his excellent work in drafting this report on the harmonisation of examination requirements for safety advisors for the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterways.
I think it is of the utmost interest to have specialised, well-trained people to plan the transport of dangerous goods because many accidents have been caused by inexperience and a lack of preparation when handling dangerous goods during transport.
Frequently, we consider it sufficient that vehicles transporting dangerous goods do not come within a given distance from population centres, but I believe that safety should be based not so much on where the vehicle goes, but rather on the technical specifications of the vehicle and on the transportation technique employed.
I witnessed at first hand an accident of this type that occurred years ago in the Spanish province of Tarragona, and it was truly horrifying.
When the vehicle exploded, a huge tongue of fire leapt an immense distance at high speed, burning everything in its path, including people, animals, plants, buildings, etcetera.
Hence, it is necessary to genuinely seek to ensure the safety of the means of transport and the logistics of that transport. This should make it very difficult, or practically impossible, for an accident to happen because, if it does, it is often not possible to calculate the effects or repercussions it will have, in terms of either harm to people or to the environment.
For this reason, I welcome this proposal, which I consider to be very important and which will ensure greater safety in transport.
Mr President, could I first of all thank the Committee on Transport and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Koch, for his very useful contribution to the improvement of the Commission proposal on the safety adviser examination.
As the House will know, the 1996 directive relating to safety advisers already ensures that all companies whose activities include the transport of dangerous goods by road, rail or inland waterway are obliged to appoint at least one safety adviser whose professional competence is to be achieved by special training, subjected to examination and proved by certification.
However, the minimum requirements for this examination have not yet been agreed, and the present proposal addresses that important issue.
I am glad to note the support for the Commission's proposal which was generally voiced again in today's debate and indeed was set out in the Koch report.
I am also pleased to say, therefore, that the Commission can accept Amendment No 1, both parts (one and two), Amendment Nos 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 10 since they are consistent with the aims of the proposal.
The remaining amendments must be rejected, but only for the simple and uncontroversial reason that they are unnecessary because they are already covered either in the 1996 directive, as in the case of Amendment No 1, part three, and Amendment No 6, or are already envisaged elsewhere in the current proposal, as in the case of Amendment Nos 3 and 8.
I listened intently to all the speakers in the debate and I would just like to tell Mr Sindal that I agree with everything he said and to say to Mr Kaklamanis not only what Mr Sindal said about progressing with the certainty of this proposed legislation, but also that many of the issues quite properly raised by the honourable Member would be more appropriately addressed to my colleague, Ritt Bjerregaard, the Environment Commissioner, and of course to DG XI.
I am sure they would be glad to hear from the honourable Member and happy to try to provide him with a constructive response.
So far as Mr Stenmarck's questions are concerned, I can offer him what I think will be good news: the Central and Eastern European countries, including obviously all those which have applied to become members of the Union, are already covered by the relevant ADR agreement, the agreement on the transportation of dangerous goods by road, and in addition Community legislation including this proposal will be proposed for inclusion in the ADR.
That is what you could call a 'belt and braces approach', and I know it is consistent with the desires expressed by Mr Stenmarck.
The large measure of agreement between the House and the Commission is further evidence of the fruitful collaboration between the Transport Committee and my colleagues in DG VII.
I am grateful for that and I am happy to recommend Mr Koch's report to the House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Inland waterway vessels
The next item is the report (A4-0352/98) by Mr Konrad, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 82/714/EEC of 4 October 1982 laying down technical requirements for inland waterway vessels (COM(97)0644 - C4-0066/98-97/0335(SYN)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if we want to promote the creation of a single market, particularly as we prepare for the enlargement of the European Union towards the east, we must ensure that we do not have different safety, environmental and social standards on our waterways; nor must the authorisation procedures and documents which are of importance in inland waterways shipping be different.
The current directive aims to help to achieve standardisation.
Inland waterways shipping in Europe is and remains an extremely environmentally-friendly mode of transport with a promising future.
We are told that there is still reserve capacity available and that we should use it.
It is important to discuss inland waterways shipping because it no longer transports only bulk goods; it is now also possible to transport high-technology, high-quality goods, which means that new cars can be transported, hundreds at a time.
Of course, it is said - and in my opinion this is correct - that the opening-up of the markets will now lead to increased capacity in Eastern Europe also.
This is precisely the point that we must discuss.
We need to make arrangements to ensure that all those involved are able to move into line with the new conditions as the situation changes.
In agreement with the Central Commission for Navigation on the Rhine and the UN EconomicCommission for Europe, this Directive can contribute to achieving uniform technical standards for inland waterway vessels throughout Europe, and thus to harmonisation.
It was important to Parliament - and this is, incidentally, a very old requirement - that this directive should include provisions not only for freight goods transport but also for passenger vessels.
In future, therefore, this directive will also apply to passenger vessels carrying more than 12 passengers. I consider this to be a proper and important measure.
We want a modern, competitive fleet on our inland waterways in Europe, with maximum safety for the vessels and their crews.
We also want to achieve clear, agreed environmental standards in Europe, and we want all of this in the context of market liberalisation.
I must state expressly that for the PPE Group as well as for myself, as rapporteur, it is absolutely essential that markets are opened up and that we achieve liberalisation in this area too.
Liberalisation is particularly needed in the tariff system if the market is to be expanded.
I think it is very important, in the arrangements we make, that we do not aim for standards that are too high and that cannot be achieved in this form by the applicant countries, at least not in the next few years or decades.
An important point for me - and this is why I am addressing this topic - was that in the hearing that we had in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, we were able actually to talk about the issue of enlargement towards the east with the applicant countries, as the eastern Europeans were also present - the Rhine-Main-Danube canal being the keyword here - and discussed matters with us.
Their fear was that the introduction of over-strict standards would create the impression that the old EU Member States were to a certain extent trying to erect protectionist barriers.
This cannot and should not be allowed.
I believe that the current directive and the report speak a different language.
We are open to competition, the markets are open, Eastern Europe is welcome, and inland waterways transport will prove itself in competition.
Mr President, my credentials for speaking about canals are based simply on the fact that the Forth and Clyde canal starts in my constituency at Bowling, near Clydebank and goes right across to Grangemouth.
The Commissioner comes from a country where they have a very important canal, the Llangollen canal, which is very much used by tourists.
It is important that we bear in mind that inland waterways represent a very viable means of transport.
Perhaps in the UK they have not been used to the extent that they could have been - a situation we should really think about changing.
As far as the Forth and Clyde canal is concerned, we are now going to use Millennium funding and structural fund money to modernise and try to regenerate it.
To turn to the issue of the Konrad report, it is a very good report, actually.
The Socialist Group would like to congratulate Mr Konrad on this report which was unanimously adopted by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
It is specifically a technical report that aims is to update the technical requirements for carrying dangerous goods on inland waterways.
Both the proposal and the committee report deal with these technicalities but the rapporteur, in my opinion, has successfully explained the complexities of the three different regimes in Europe for carrying dangerous goods on inland waterways.
The rapporteur very eloquently explains the operation of these three different regimes.
One is the Central Commission of the Rhine, the first transnational body, the first genuine European body established after the Congress of Vienna and confirmed with the Mannheim Convention in 1836.
Having worked on my own report, which is a similar report to Mr Konrad's, I have been very impressed with the way that the Rhine Commission has gone about its work and managed to get agreement in a transnational area and even has its own police force monitoring compliance with the rules for shipping and cargoes on the Rhine.
The alignment of technical and safety standards to the highest possible level is extremely important.
The developments we have had in Eastern Europe, particularly the linking of the Danube and the Rhine by a canal in 1992, have led to a second body, the Danube Commission.
Coupled with enlargement, it is important that we get agreement, harmonisation and standardisation of best practice and conditions.
It is still more important, as Mr Konrad states in his report, that inland waterways will be a way of opening up Eastern and Central Europe in the future.
This is something we should consider in the context of enlargement.
The Rhine rules are very efficient.
We had a hearing on this issue with the representatives from the Rhine and the Danube who came before the committee.
The clear message was that we have good working rules here and we want the best practice adopted for the rest of Europe.
At the moment the Commission is involved.
I do not know if Commissioner Kinnock is involved personally, but the Commission is involved in discussions in Geneva on this issue, working out what will precede harmonisation to establish standardised procedures for inland waterway vessels. This is of crucial importance.
The Konrad report is important in these discussions.
Its adoption will assist in updating technical requirements and achieving a uniform system.
The other issue which will not be so easy is achieving mutual recognition of boat master certificates etc. Mr Konrad highlights this in his report.
This is an issue to which we will have to return in the future.
Like the speakers before me, Mr President, I must refer back to the hearing we held in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, because that hearing confirmed the importance of inland waterways and outlined their essential structure.
We support the reports of Mr Konrad and Mr McMahon, but they are only part of the important place we need to attribute to inland waterways.
We can lay down the technical rules, Commissioner, yes, but there is more to it than that: vessels which carry passengers and freight are involved, as the recent accident at sea off Catalonia again reminded us.
Anyway, I agree with the rapporteur.
But, Commissioner, in addition to technical rules we need a decent policy for modernising the fleet.
That means permanent compensation for breaking up vessels and, secondly, better infrastructure.
There is none of that at present, Commissioner.
Mr McMahon said as much already.
We need better infrastructure for our inland waterways to improve our links with Eastern Europe, and there is not a single inland waterways project in the TENs, nor is there a single project under our programmes of aid to Eastern Europe. That needs to change, and fast.
Mr President, as the honourable Members will know, the aim of the Commission proposal is to update Directive 82/714/EEC in line with the technical progress made since 1982.
The proposal is based on the latest technical standards in operation on the Rhine; it will create a single set of rules for all inland waterway vessels operating on the Community network and it will provide certainty for the participants in the inland waterways sector, including the shipbuilding industry operating in a single and liberalised market.
At present, as the House will know and as we have already heard in the debate, there are two sets of rules for inland waterway vessels in the European Union: those applicable on the Rhine and those applicable on the other inland waterways.
Whilst the Rhine certificate gives vessels access to the Community waterways, the Community certificate does not give access to the Rhine.
Given that operations on the Rhine represent more than half of the inland waterway transport in Europe and the applicable technical standards are among the highest in the world, the Commission believes that the uniform set of rules that is now proposed for the whole Union will be in the interests of the whole industry.
This development means upgrading to Rhine standards; it means automatic recognition between the Community certificate and the Rhine certificate for inland waterway vessels; and the clarity and uniformity which will result will, of course, also facilitate the negotiations with the candidate countries in Central and Eastern Europe, whose technical standards will, obviously, have to be adapted before future accession to the Union - a point raised by several honourable Members in the course of the debate.
The proposal allows the Commission to update regularly the annexes of the directive, with the assistance of a committee consisting of representatives of the Member States.
That mechanism will ensure that the rules applicable in the Union take full account of the latest technical standards, in particular those developed in the context of the Rhine.
Against that background, the Commission welcomes the report of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, prepared very ably, as we have already heard, by Mr Konrad, and the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, drafted by Mr Miller, is also welcome.
The reaction of those committees demonstrates the high level of awareness among honourable Members about the potential of inland waterway transport in Europe, as Mr McMahon has just said.
They also present a very clear picture of the necessity for the modernisation and harmonisation of technical standards in the interests of the inland waterway industry.
The amendments tabled support and reinforce the Commission proposal.
I am glad to say, therefore, that six amendments can be accepted with some minor redrafting changes where appropriate.
Amendment No 4, however, which asks the Commission to report to the European Parliament at regular intervals on substantial changes made to the annexes in the directive, cannot be accepted because the present rules on comitology, which are to be revised, do not provide for regular notification of Parliament on the work of committees created on the basis of the cooperation procedure.
The Commission is, of course, willing to inform Parliament at any time, but it cannot make a formal commitment in the articles of this directive simply because of that procedural reason.
The current initiative could assist in the efficient high-quality functioning of the inland waterway transport mode and that, of course, is highly desirable for the economic competitiveness and sustainability.
I, therefore, thank Mr Konrad and Mr Miller for their work and this Parliament for its continual understanding and support.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Protection of water against pollution
The next item is the report (A4-0284/98) by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission reports on the implementation of Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources and on measures taken pursuant to Council Directive 91/676/EEC concerning the protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources (COM(97)0473 - COM(98)0016 - C4-0040/98).
Mr President, despite the existence of the 1991 Nitrate Directive which was supposed to reduce the nitrate in water from agricultural sources, very little progress has actually been made.
In fact, despite a requirement that all Member States should present action plans by the end of 1995, by spring 1998, nine Member States including my own country of Ireland has not done so.
This irresponsible attitude shown by Member State governments towards protection of the environment should not be tolerated.
The Commission is being far too lenient towards Member State governments that are totally disregarding EU directives on protection of the environment in some cases.
These governments must be forced to implement fully and as quickly as possible the 1991 directive.
I cannot understand why infringement proceedings have not already been taken against Member States that have not implemented, or have incorrectly implemented, this directive.
Serious health problems are caused by nitrates.
Nitrates in drinking water are considered a health problem for human beings because nitrate rapidly reduces to nitrite in the body.
This results in the inability to transport oxygen to the tissues.
The reduced capacity to transport oxygen manifests itself particularly in young babies up to six months old and causes a condition which is commonly known as 'blue baby syndrome'.
There is also a serious problem with nitrite when it reacts with compounds in the stomach to form products which have been found to be carcinogenic in many animals.
In the EU the concentration of nitrate in water has been regulated by two directives: the 1975 Surface Water for Abstraction of Drinking Water Directive and the 1980 Drinking Water Directive.
Both establish a maximum admissible concentration of 50 mg/l.
Although this level is now widely accepted for human health, Greenpeace is campaigning for an even stricter limit value of 10 mg/l, especially in order to take account of the health impact on babies.
Also the UN organisations - the WHO and FAO - advocate the same limit value because this is the level at which drinking water is safe for bottle-fed babies.
Apart from the health problems, we have to take into account the problems of eutrophication.
This is the enrichment of water by nitrogen and phosphorous compounds which causes the accelerated growth of algae, bloom and other plant life which results in an imbalance of organisms present on surface water.
This has a knock-on effect not just on biodiversity of the seas and the waters but also on tourism because of the serious problems of poisonous algae and fish kills etc.
So even if the present trend towards intensive animal husbandry is stopped and reversed now, it will take some 20 to 30 years before the surface and ground waters of Europe are healthy again.
In some areas it may take 40 or 50 years before an ecologically sound situation is restored.
Despite the fact that action programmes should have been presented by all Member States by 28 December 1995 at the very latest, by spring 1998 only six Member States, namely Austria, Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden had done so.
My own country, Ireland, maintains that there is no problem as regards nitrates but the most recent coast watch survey published in December last year displayed some quite alarming findings.
The most alarming was the high incidence of nitrate pollution with 40 % of the 242 inflows tested showing levels of 25 % mg/l or more and in 15 cases over 100 mg/l. This is way above EU limits.
The most recent Eurostat report shows two Member States where levels of nitrates have risen even though this is in breach of the directives. These countries are Ireland and Germany.
When it comes to implementing the Nitrate Directive the regions which show the least willingness to deal with the problem - despite the fact that they have the greatest problem - are the Netherlands and Flanders.
They show total disregard for the problems, and it is clear that the kind of farming methods used have to be examined and the number of animals per hectare reduced, because of the problem of animal manure.
I would draw your attention to Amendment No 13 tabled by the Socialist Group.
This amendment is looking for money to deal with large-scale installations which handle animal waste. It is seeking a 25 % Community subsidy.
In the Netherlands this was tried but failed.
I would like to know the Commission's opinion.
The farmers are again looking for more money to deal with problems they have themselves created.
This is not acceptable to the European taxpayers.
I should like to begin by expressing my thanks to the rapporteur from the Environment Committee.
We in the Agriculture Committee take this matter very seriously.
It is not often that a Community regulation seems to be totally ignored by the Member States, but to a large extent that is very true in this case because most Member States have moved very slowly on this issue.
We find it extraordinary, therefore, that, in its report, the Commission has not really delved into the background to see why the Member States have not been implementing this properly.
The Commission has failed to try and assist, and in the future we hope that they will be less authoritarian but perhaps try to get more cooperation and persuade the Member States to encourage the farming industry to do something about it.
Agriculturalists and the farmers themselves fail to recognise the problem.
I know very well that there are many who feel that eutrophication, for instance, is a problem not necessarily created by agricultural industry.
I have seen with my own eyes lochs in the hills of Scotland around which there is no agriculture other than the grazing of sheep on a very light basis, and yet there is eutrophication in the lochs.
It is a complex issue that no-one really understands: increased hours of sunlight is very often an argument that is put forward.
The Agriculture Committee feels that the Commission could have done more to guide the Member States to try and make this directive more effective in the future.
It has to be more effective and we recognise that shortcoming.
Substantial improvements are needed in the directive itself because of the lack of progress that has been made, and the Agriculture Committee feels that there must be a better understanding of the total problem so that the agriculture industry can react as part of the reform of agricultural policy as a whole.
Mr President, the biggest problem with the nitrates directive is - as Mrs McKenna has said - not the directive itself, but the lack of action to implement it in the Member States.
Many countries are still not properly implementing national legislation to ensure cleaner groundwater.
It cannot be the intention that tough environmental rules which are adopted in the EU should be simply shelved in the Member States.
It is damaging to mutual trust among Member States when individual countries cock a snook at the common policy.
It creates problems for farmers if only some farmers are obliged to pay to reduce nitrate run-off.
It cannot be right that some farmers who apply more environmentally friendly production methods should end up in a more disadvantageous competitive situation.
It is vitally necessary that pressure be put on all Member States to implement the nitrates directive, so that the burden is evenly distributed.
Countries which have not implemented the nitrates directive on time should not be rewarded by higher support from the EU than those countries which have already implemented the directive.
Besides, it would mean that the EU is throwing money away.
When the environmental policy is not adhered to, cross-compliance should be introduced as proposed in Agenda 2000.
The last point I wish to mention is the deplorable situation with regard to reporting to the Commission.
We in Parliament must support the Commission in its efforts to put pressure on the Member States.
The Member States must be made to report correct figures to the Commission, so that it can prepare overviews of how the nitrates directive is working in practice.
Furthermore, the figures reported will be an effective tool in the fight to get the nitrates directive properly implemented in all the countries.
After all, that is unfortunately the main reason why the reporting does not take place. The Commission can hardly charge a Member State with circumventing the directive if there are no data at all.
It is necessary to put pressure on the Member States to ensure proper implementation and better reporting, if the nitrates directive is to have any relevance at all.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report deals with the Commission reports on the implementation of the Nitrate Directive, which, amazingly enough, has been in existence since 1991.
The problems connected with nitrate are not new, nor are the solutions proposed here.
We should not be intimidated by this. We should concentrate on continuing the work which has already been begun, while at the same time avoiding trying to take on too much.
We all agree in principle.
We now need to implement the directive in the Member States and ensure that it is transposed and applied consistently.
We do not need to change it.
The European Parliament should encourage the Commission to take stricter action against the Member States which have not yet fulfilled their obligations arising from the directive.
Sometimes we get tired of playing this game.
On the one hand, we have constant demands from some quarters for greater subsidiarity, and on the other hand the Member States are not willing or able to play their part in areas in which there is no question that Community cooperation is needed, such as here on environmental policy.
The amendments tabled by my group aim to emphasise the demand for consistent implementation and application of the directive.
There is little point in overloading Parliament's resolution.
For example, we cannot make it compulsory to comply with the code of good agricultural practice if it has not even been defined at European level.
Furthermore, the requested limitation of the number of animals per hectare will not be necessary if the Member States apply the directive in the first place.
In addition, we reject absolutely the inclusion of Agenda 2000 criteria in this report.
The Agenda, as we know, is currently only under discussion, and demands of this kind tend to dilute Parliament's actual intentions and are only grist to the mill of those who advocate subsidiarity, and who would accuse Brussels of stipulating the number of cows in the fields!
We should concentrate our efforts and insist that whatever is necessary be done, and what needs to be done is already stated clearly in the Nitrate Directive.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Liberal Group will be supporting Mrs McKenna's report.
Her analysis of the situation in the Member States is critical but fair, given that no fewer than eleven Member States are disregarding a 1991 directive, either totally or in part.
This is the case at least in Flanders, where the position is serious.
I cannot contradict the rapporteur when she speaks of a lack of political will in Flanders.
The problem will not be solved just by ignoring the European standard. This is what has been done so far in Flanders where, for example, the fertiliser action plan for 1998 sets standards for the use of fertilisers on pasture land which are twice as liberal as the European standard.
How should we address the problem? The European standards have to be enforced.
Starting from the principle that 'the polluter pays', we should target and tax fertiliser surpluses rather than fertiliser production.
Let the sector itself decide initially how it will resolve the problem.
If it does not succeed, we may have to think about the compulsory reduction of livestock headage.
But let us try other ways first.
Mrs McKenna, your report has stirred things up a bit in Flanders and has caused the talks on a new fertiliser decree to move up a gear. I am most grateful to you for that.
Mr President, environmental protection is now a priority for most Member States, and European citizens are increasingly aware of its social and economic potential.
Farmers who are, in the main, the custodians and managers of the landscape are responding in a positive manner by conforming with changing environmental guidelines, many of which have a cost factor for which they deserve to be compensated.
Nowhere is there the same positive commitment to environmental management as in my own country.
Ireland as an agricultural country has a greater dependence than any other EU Member State on agricultural exports.
Our quality food products are closely linked to our grass-based natural environment.
Our tourism, and in particular our agri-tourism, are closely linked to the countryside.
Employment in both the food and tourism sector is dependent on our quality image.
It is wrong and harmful to suggest that the government and farmers are indifferent to environmental protection.
The government has responded positively to Commission comments with regard to nitrates in groundwater and has in fact established that phosphorous represents a greater threat.
In both cases the government, farming organisations and farmers are committed to eliminating any possible threat to the environment and in particular the quality of groundwater.
One only has to look at Ireland's interest in the rural environmental protection scheme and the number of farmers participating in that scheme to see how positively we in Ireland are committed to a natural environment.
A final comment: without farmers there would be no environment. There would be no custodians of the rural environment, and I would caution people to take that particular matter into consideration.
Mr President, as the rapporteur has said, this is a matter of public health and of systematic non-compliance with Community law.
It is a matter of public health because, as far back as 1975, directives relating to the quality of water established that the level of nitrates should not exceed 50 milligrams/litre, but some countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands exceeded that by 100 milligrams/litre.
And it is a public health matter, too, because the World Health Organisation and the FAO say that it is necessary to remain below 50 milligrams/litre and that, for the safety of nursing infants, the level should not exceed 10 milligrams/litre.
And it is a matter of systematic non-compliance with Community law because the directive not only suggests that a selection should be made of vulnerable areas for the application of good agricultural practices, but it also provides for two action plans, the first to end next year and the other in 2003. Despite this, in 1998, only six Member States submitted anything resembling an action plan in this respect.
This is therefore a clear case of non-compliance with Community law.
I understand the concern of the rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture, as well as the concern of some members of the Committee on Agriculture who tabled amendments, where they state that there should be more information for farmers, that aid should be forthcoming, and that perhaps the European Commission should take a less authoritarian position.
Nonetheless, we feel that the European Commission has done the right thing in initiating infringement procedures because it is the only way to persuade the governments to take measures relating to the nitrates in drinking water.
It is up to us to defend public health, as the Treaty very rightly states and as we take great pains to emphasise, and compliance with Community law offers a guarantee not only for consumers but also for the future of Europe itself.
Therefore, we consider that infringement proceedings should be initiated and that, in any case, farmers and Member States should be helped to implement this and other directives with a bearing on public health.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it will be clear that for a variety of reasons, no one in the Netherlands is happy with the conclusions which Mrs McKenna has very clearly and properly outlined: the environmentalists are not happy, the farmers are not happy and the government is not happy.
If nothing is done, if drastic action is not taken, the Netherlands will not even come close to meeting the requirements set out in the nitrates directive by the year 2002. The Dutch Government has said as much itself.
Rarely has a report delivered so clear a message.
So we say to the Dutch Government, to Minister Pronk, do something! If you do not, the Netherlands is heading for disaster.
Nitrate levels in the environment are far too high, and it will take tens of millions of guilders to clean up our drinking water. More certain still is that by the year 2002 the Netherlands may face a fine of 500 000 guilders a day.
This summer, the Dutch Government took refuge in the fact that it was a caretaker government. This allowed it to escape being hauled before the courts by the European Commission.
That will probably happen now at the end of the year.
A failure on the part of the Netherlands, how else can one put it?
It is scant comfort to know that the polluter will pay in the end.
Mr President, I come from a region, Flanders, where there is not a single well yielding water that you can drink.
To paraphrase what our previous speaker said here about agriculture, I put it to you that without clean drinking water you cannot have a stock breeding industry, nor can you have public health.
So I welcome Mrs McKenna's report, and I hope that Flanders will cease to be one of Europe's slowest pupils as regards learning to combat the pollution of our drinking water by nitrates.
At present, the nitrate levels in our drinking water are four times the levels permitted or envisaged.
To save time, Mr President, I refer the House to what Mrs Kestelijn said on the subject.
But even though the Commission has twice, in 1995 and 1997, found Flanders to be in breach of the rules, things have still not improved.
When I compare Flanders with Denmark, where things were bad to start with too, I feel ashamed, although I have to say it is not my fault.
It is not the majority of the population that wants this - the majority currently in power in Flanders has given in to the farm lobby, which has secured a fertiliser action plan for 1995 that in no way meets the targets set in the directive, neither as regards standards nor as regards a code of good farm practice.
No vulnerable zones are named, but I can understand that, Mr President, because the whole of Flanders is a vulnerable zone, one big vulnerable zone.
So the action programme is nowhere near adequate.
I would like to ask the Commission how things stand as regards following up these letters and these infringements?
Are we really going to rely on the goodwill of the sector, because I no longer have much faith in that goodwill.
I see that the sector is in crisis and that we have nevertheless failed to take obvious steps such as cutting pig production, for example.
Mr President, cuts will not be enough and I am convinced that less intensive and more environmentally and animal-friendly farming is ultimately the best thing for human beings.
Mr President, first may I compliment Mrs Maes most warmly on her maiden speech.
I heartily agree with what she says.
The point of adding fertiliser is to make the soil more fruitful; implicit in this is that one must not add more fertiliser than the crops can absorb.
So it is most important to stop nitrate from leaching into groundwater and surface water.
The implementation of Directive 91/676/EEC is very relevant here, but the picture as regards its implementation is a sorry one.
Years ago, all the Member States agreed on a standard of 50 mg of nitrate per litre of groundwater, but most Member States have not got anywhere near that.
Some Member States have not even made plans, so that the European Court was forced to intervene.
It is now time for all the Member States to be serious about implementing the directive - including the Netherlands, which is not in this instance the good little boy it so often claims to be.
However, responsibility for the current problem rests not only with the farmers, but also with consumers, who eat a great deal of meat relatively cheaply.
In the past, that was often encouraged by government.
These intensive farming methods naturally create a number of problems.
Indeed, even if we were to stop using fertiliser now, nitrate would still be leaching into the groundwater 20 years from now.
In short, real solutions require a long-term view, and it is this which we must now work hard for.
Mr President, the issue of nitrates in water does indeed pose a problem, but it is one which forms part of a wider and more global problem that I shall endeavour to outline here.
For fifty years, our countryside and natural resources have been systematically destroyed by intensive and polluting agricultural practices.
It has taken five thousand years to shape our countryside and only fifty years to spoil its greatest gifts. For fifty years we have emptied the land of its farmers, torn out hedges, filled in ponds and poisoned our soils.
We have squeezed the earth, prevented it from breathing and have even prevented rainwater from reaching groundwater supplies; instead of penetrating the earth, the water flows along the surface and carries the humus to the closest river.
In some areas of Normandy, where I live, soil erosion sweeps away up to twenty tonnes of humus per hectare per year.
Such irresponsible practices have a great many consequences, but some are more serious than others.
Intensive methods of production have caused a large number of farmers to leave the land, which has contributed greatly to overcrowding in urban areas.
This therefore creates a genuine problem in terms of land-use planning.
Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other chemicals also act as spermicides.
In fact, since their widespread use, these poisons have halved the level of human fertility in western countries. There is now a medically proven cause-effect relationship between the two, so this constitutes a major public health problem.
Whether or not it rains, groundwater supplies have difficulty maintaining their levels and replenishing supplies.
Due to these low levels, pollutants such as nitrates tend to become concentrated.
The reduction in water resources and the reduced level of potability gives particular cause for concern, especially as we are all well aware that this water will become one of the major strategic issues of the next century.
It is therefore also a considerable geopolitical problem.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are no longer living in the world of fifty years ago, at the end of a war, at a time when the many shortages justified the need to produce large quantities.
This is no longer the case today.
We should have redirected our efforts a long time ago and focused not on quantity but on quality.
Since the 1950s, however, we have been caught in an unstoppable spiral, fed by agro-chemical multinationals and banks.
No, the farmers are not to blame for this situation, though many have been the first victims of it, strangled simultaneously by the problem of debt and the race for subsidies.
Those who have struggled hardest to respect the environment have been wiped out, both literally and figuratively speaking; here one has only to look at the suicide rates among agricultural populations.
We must recognise that the European Union is jointly responsible for this situation.
In fact, it is not in the best position to give lessons on the environment to Member States since, for a long time, it has systematically favoured intensive farming practices by means of subsidies.
To conclude, anything aimed at raising awareness should always be welcomed and Ms McKenna's work is indeed praiseworthy, but I am convinced that the solution to all of these problems lies essentially in the banking and industrial sectors which, ladies and gentlemen, are unfortunately far more influential than we are.
Mr President, it has been a real problem for the EU that implementation procedures for directives on the environment have gone so slowly, and, as we have heard repeated here so often, this Nitrate Directive has been especially slow to be implemented.
Current farming practice, as has also been stated here, has been responsible for most of the effluent in our waterways and the reason for their eutrophication.
Eutrophication and other problems really get noticed when they show up in the places where we swim locally, and the places where we moor our boats.
That is what has happened in the Baltic Sea, for example.
Now people are demanding that the pollution and eutrophication of the Baltic should be kept in check.
We cannot put the blame for the eutrophication of the Baltic solely on the Baltic States and Poland, as we normally do, since statistics show that it is Member States of the EU that are at fault.
That is why this matter requires special attention and action.
I especially wish to point out that Finland has not put together any kind of plan itself, but, at least, it has promised to lower its nitrate emissions by fifty per cent.
This is very important, because we not only have a coastline but we also have an inland waterway system.
At present I can say I still drink the water from the lake by my summer cottage.
The agricultural policy which is part of Agenda 2000 is an important instrument for controlling agricultural emissions.
No direct aid will be forthcoming unless we observe the regulations that are in place.
We should allocate special aid for the rural environment to those places where real action is being taken and the state of the environment is being improved.
Mr President, in principle we can fully support the motion for a resolution in Ms McKenna's report.
However, during our considerations, we should perhaps engage in a little self-criticism regarding the manner in which we draw up our reports.
Perhaps we ourselves fail in our reports to respect the greater transparency demanded of the Commission and thus, when we say that a certain number of Member States comply and that others fail to comply, perhaps we should specifically name those Member States that fail to comply and those that comply in certain circumstances.
Therefore, in the section to which we are referring, I would have thought that the three countries that meet the general requirements for ground water - Sweden, Austria and Finland - should have been named.
And it should also have been emphasised that only four Member States have transposed the directive, namely, Denmark, Spain, France and Luxembourg.
In my view, in these sittings, relating to the monitoring of Member States, we must be specific and proceed in a transparent manner.
I also feel that we should not personify our resolutions.
We should not talk about a Parliament being shocked; we as individuals might be shocked, but perhaps we should use other types of expressions for institutions.
We should therefore analyse our own resolution, and this is not a specific criticism of a draft, but perhaps rather of the work that we do.
And this brings us to a point on which I agree fully with all the Members who have taken the floor, that is, the discretion of the Commission in initiating proceedings, since its action in this regard perhaps leaves much to be desired. This House should certainly express its concern that the Commission is not more effective in fulfilling this obligation to ensure that Member States comply with Community legislation.
Its discretion in this matter is excessive.
I think that the cornerstone might be to ensure compliance with codes of good agricultural practice.
As regards the final paragraph of Ms McKenna's report, which advocates that 'energy production at small-scale... plants should be promoted', it might carry more weight if mention were made of encouraging and offering incentives to achieve such objectives.
Mr President, I entirely agree with Mrs McKenna's conclusions, despite coming from a country whose record on this is very poor.
Her report contains one or two errors concerning the situation in the Netherlands, but that in no way invalidates the truth of the charges she makes against the country.
As a Liberal, I am no great lover of official do's and don'ts, but in the Netherlands we have found that the fertiliser problem cannot be resolved without recourse to instruments of this kind.
The Netherlands has done everything possible to resolve the problem, short of cutting back on livestock production.
Levies on fertiliser surpluses was one method tried, but it did not work to good effect for us.
We are stuck with 14 million kilos of fertiliser which we cannot get rid of.
I should like to think that this will be a lesson to other countries facing the same serious problems.
I appreciate that each country must be free to seek the solutions which suit it best, but there is one thing we have to admit: quite simply, we produce too much in the European Union.
We have far too many animals and so it is vital to restructure the stock breeding industry.
There is no more time to lose.
Mr President, it is obvious that Commission directives are often based on studies that do not reflect the agricultural situation as a whole or the environment Europe-wide.
I come from an area in southern Portugal with barely one head of cattle per hectare - if that.
In other areas in Portugal there can be as many as five head per hectare.
In other words, even in a country as small as ours there is a difference between small-scale agriculture in the north, and larger-scale agriculture in the south.
It is obvious that, in a country like mine, with large climatic differences between the dry season, which we are in now, and very wet seasons, i.e. the winter, the only time of year when the weather is settled is, in fact, the summer.
And in order to produce crops in the summer you have to irrigate. And if you irrigate you must also fertilise because unless you do you will have no harvest.
However, the problem in Portugal is not the same as that facing Sweden or the Netherlands.
The problem is a completely different one in that, when we spread nitrates on the soil, we do so in the summer when there is a smaller chance of polluting the groundwater.
Nonetheless, good farming practice is needed.
But how can you find a good farming practice that enables country-dwellers to survive? Do we want to keep the European farming model or apply with quasi-inquisitorial rigour the notion of pure European breeds?
How can the two be made compatible? We must find a solution to this problem, through education first of all.
We must educate people visiting the countryside to stop them from polluting it.
Secondly, pollutant industries, including intensive farming or wineries, need to be curbed.
Thirdly, we need to give attention to the issue of biogas, one way of practising and developing agriculture while making use of something that pollutes our countryside.
That is an issue waiting to be tackled.
Mr President, I am glad that we are getting another opportunity to debate this important subject.
The extent of the nitrate problem is alarming.
Leaching from 22 % of agricultural land in Europe exceeds 50 mg per litre, which is the generally accepted health limit.
The figure should in reality - as the rapporteur also pointed out - be down to 10 mg per litre, as recommended by the WHO, FAO and Greenpeace, since at this concentration drinking water would become safe for children.
We must not forget that the nitrate issue is a serious health problem and, in the light of the very serious environmental and health-related nature of the nitrate problem, the calls made in the report with a view to bringing about a solution are too vague.
The fact that the Member States have not implemented the legislation adopted in the field is clearly irresponsible.
I of course, along with everyone else, wholeheartedly support the call for the Commission to expedite the infringement procedures.
However, that is not enough.
The Commission must also be called on here to bring about a radical change in the EU's agricultural policy, so that it becomes attractive to farmers to minimise water pollution caused by nitrates.
To begin with, this must involve a massive increase in the use of resources under the common agricultural policy for conversion to organic farming, so that it becomes attractive to conventional farmers.
A comprehensive switch to organic farming in the EU in this way would also bring with it innumerable other environmental and health-related gains.
Moreover, it is important to note that the nitrates directive is not sufficient in itself to ensure clean water in the EU.
I therefore call on the Commission to take the initiative to introduce common nitrogen levies in the EU, with the explicit proviso that the proceeds of such levies be passed back to the Member States. Such levies may provide a means of furthering the aims of the nitrates directive.
With these comments in mind, I hope that the European Parliament will give its support to the report, since its demands constitute an important step in the right direction.
Mr President, there is no doubt that nitrate pollution is mainly caused by the excessive use of fertilisers on crops and by intensive livestock breeding.
And of course, since the amounts of nitrates involved are excessive, the plants cannot use them all, they pass into the soil, pollute groundwaters, and the results are twofold.
On the one hand, eutrophism in rivers, coastal areas and seawater, with all its consequences, and on the other hand a danger to public health through drinking water, because as we all know, nitrates are reduced in our organism to nitrites and nitrites transform haemoglobin to methaemoglobin.
The result is that oxygen is less efficiently transported from the lungs to the tissues, which can be particularly dangerous for infants.
There is no doubt that the aims of the directive, namely to reduce and prevent nitrate pollution, were correct.
Unfortunately, Member States did not respond as well as they should have, and I particularly regret the fact that my own country too has failed in this respect, because although four vulnerable areas have been identified, no decision has yet been taken on how to protect them, nor have any related action programmes been submitted.
I believe that the European Commission should monitor the implementation of the various directives more decisively, because it is not right that we should enjoy a good standard of living but not care about protecting the environment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, fighting the pollution of groundwater calls for an integrated strategy to fight the various causes of that pollution, be they agricultural, industrial (of whatever kind) or even domestic.
We welcome the reference in the report to the need to carry out research to compare the importance of the various sources of groundwater pollution.
As far as the pollution of groundwater by nitrates is concerned, Community legislation must urgently be transposed into national law, which should already have been done.
Nonetheless, the rules should be implemented in each country on a consensus-basis in such a way as to cater for national characteristics and regional differences, as we tried to introduce into the report in our amendments.
We tried, for example, to insist that special attention be paid to some easily identifiable and well-known agricultural areas of certain countries - some of them have already been referred to - where the situation is serious and levels of pollution already far exceed tolerance thresholds as a result of intensive farming practices which, in the short term at least, make farms more competitive either because productivity is increased or because they more easily attract Community support.
In some cases, these are particularly vulnerable areas. This is undoubtedly a situation that needs tackling as a priority.
Generally speaking, we think that if we are to deal with widely different situations, we need comprehensive knowledge both of the different crops and production systems and the practical situations in the different Member States and their regions, if we are to prevent artificial discrepancies, by-the-back-door privileges or greater injustices.
Special attention must also be paid to the number of head of cattle per hectare. All decisions must bear in mind both absolute and relative figures together with regional differences in farming structures.
However, on the same subject - leaving aside the proposal to create biogas production plants, which we agree with - we feel that appropriate aids and incentives are needed so that properly supervised manure collection and processing plants can be set up on all cattle farms. This idea is not explicitly tackled in the report but is one that, we hope, will be introduced through an amendment that we have tabled.
Mr President, I wish to begin by referring very briefly to two women.
Firstly, my colleague Ritt Bjerregaard who, unfortunately, suffered a rather nasty accident at her home a couple of weeks ago and is quite seriously injured.
The good news is that she is making an excellent recovery and should be back with us very shortly.
The difficulty she is experiencing in part accounts for my presence here tonight at this fascinating debate.
Secondly, I wish to congratulate Mrs Maes on her maiden speech.
This is her first day in this Parliament.
She managed to speak within about two hours of becoming a Member.
She managed to speak for three minutes when she was down for two minutes, so her constituents can be very satisfied at the fact that instead of one Member they have got one and half Members and that, I am sure, bodes well for the future.
I wish her well in her career in this Parliament.
I thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and, in particular, the rapporteur, Ms McKenna, for this very welcome own-initiative report that focuses attention on the critical need to ensure implementation of the 1991 nitrates directive.
They say that the wheels of God grind exceeding slow. The transposition and implementation procedures of Member States make the wheels of God look positively rocket-propelled by comparison.
The report rightly highlights the slow pace of implementation of this directive.
As Ritt Bjerregaard made clear before, the present situation is indefensible and completely unacceptable to the Commission.
The resolution before the House calls on us to speed up our infringement proceedings, and what I will try to do this evening is to explain in some detail exactly what progress has been made since the implementation report.
It appears that Member States are beginning to take their obligations seriously but it is still a case of too little too late.
Three out of the five non-transpositions have been rectified; two out of three missing codes of good agricultural practice are now in place; and all three of the missing reports have been produced.
But only two out of seven Member States with no vulnerable zones have now made their designations and only two out of ten in breach of the action programmes - the critical application - have established them.
It is clear that the progress that has been made is solely the result of stringent enforcement and it is also clear that the present situation is grossly inadequate.
The Commission will therefore intensify pressure.
Thirty-two cases have been opened against 13 Member States - all except Finland and Sweden - of which 9 have been closed because of the progress that has been made.
In the case of the action programmes, the reasoned opinion issued at the time of the implementation report has now gone to the Court.
In addition, seven more reasoned opinions and three letters of formal notice have been issued and many of those will end up going to court this year if no effective action is taken.
The Commission will also follow rapidly with proposals for penalty payments.
I realise that even these efforts, strenuous though they are, will not produce total satisfaction amongst some honourable Members.
Indeed, the Commissioner herself is not totally satisfied with it, as Members of the House who know her can well imagine.
But we have to strive to secure implementation of a Council directive by the Member States which actually voted to make the directive law.
If they are slow or reluctant, then all we can do is undertake our best efforts, as everyone in this House, will know.
Some commentators have said that to get proper implementation we need, as a Community, to support farmers with additional funding.
Frankly, the Commission is not convinced by that argument: it runs completely counter to the polluter-pays principle.
While we provide funding for pilot projects for reducing nitrate pollution, we do not provide any funding for compliance with mandatory requirements.
The agri-environment measures, for instance, support a number of nitrate schemes, but only where they produce an environmental benefit over and above the requirements of the directive.
Meanwhile, the request in Ms McKenna's report for the Commission to produce an annual report is supported.
That is essential in order to publicly identify those Member States that fail to make progress.
It will also enable this Parliament to follow developments in infringement proceedings.
However, we believe that a communication on promising an effective solution - it could have a happier title - to the nitrates problem suggested by the report might provide a further excuse for delay in implementation.
Since we consider that all attention should be squarely focused on ensuring that the directive itself is properly implemented, we would be reluctant to provide that facility for what could be another excuse for delay.
I hope that the honourable Member understands our motivation in that.
Integration is another basic concern, and reference to it is timely in view of the recent commitment to integration made by the Heads of Government at the Cardiff Council.
Considerable progress has been made on environmental integration into the structural funds where Commissioner Wulf-Mathies has collaborated closely, as the proposal for increasing the environment share of the European Regional Development Fund already shows.
On the common agricultural policy, the agri-environment measures are obviously evidence of progress.
Since the present Commission came into office, intense efforts have been made to develop and establish these measures which include support for organic farming.
They are testimony to Ritt Bjerregaard's work and they will be further reinforced in Agenda 2000, which also continues the decoupling of aid from production and proposes new instruments of potential environmental interest.
The integration strategy, obviously, also involves Member States and this Parliament, as well as the Commission.
I welcome the report as further evidence of Parliament's close interest in a policy to secure healthy and potable water.
One of Commissioner Bjerregaard's main priorities is clearly to make sure that existing legislation, and the new water policy which follows it, are properly implemented.
The strong position that Parliament has taken and continues to take on this issue, as is evidenced by this report again, will greatly assist that effort by the Commission, and both my colleagues and I express our gratitude for this.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Endocrine-disrupting chemicals
The next item is the report (A4-0281/98) by Mrs Kirsten Jensen, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
Mr President, we all recognise that chemicals can cause acute poisoning, and they can cause allergies, cancer and brain damage.
But in recent years it has emerged that chemicals can affect our health and our reproductive ability in an insidious manner, which is why we must question both the maximum values and the sectoral approach by which we have regulated chemicals in the EU.
Some may have thought that, with the biocides directive, the EU had finished regulating chemicals, but that is by no means the case!
Hence this own-initiative report from the Environment Committee.
We have rules for chemicals in agriculture and for chemicals in the workplace.
But there is no sense in regulating these areas - which are relatively easy to police - in isolation, when chemicals also produce their effects in leisure activities, in kindergartens and in other situations which are not covered by any rules.
The widespread use of synthetic chemicals is a post-war phenomenon.
I cannot forget how, in the mid-1970s, the first pale green blouse mass-produced from man-made fibres was celebrated at an exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary History in East Berlin.
During the years I have worked on European chemicals legislation, I have tried to get male decision-makers to listen, asking them whether they knew that there was something here that could affect their ability to reproduce.
It proved to be an argument that opened their eyes.
In my report, I first list the possible effects on men and then move on to women and children.
Ability to reproduce is not the only thing that is threatened.
Scientists talk of weakened immune systems.
Sperm counts are falling, while rates of testicular cancer and breast cancer are rising.
People are getting totally incapacitating forms of allergy, and children are developing behavioural problems which may be attributable to man-made chemicals in the environment.
We know from serious cases of medication wrongly prescribed by doctors that foetuses have been damaged in the mother's womb, in some cases involving damage that only manifested itself when the young person reached the age of reproduction.
Other instances of morbidity are occurring; cases of feminisation have been observed in the animal world, for example both individuals in a pair of gulls around a nest full of sterile eggs being hens; and animal experiments show that quite small doses at a precise point during pregnancy can be fatal, which raises the question of whether it is the dose or the point in time that is dangerous.
Recently the Commission came out with some vague pronouncements on the subject of phthalates in babies' teething rings.
Here the precautionary principle gave rise to national bans, but there was no EU regulation.
The maximum limits are fully utilised, even though so much controversy surrounds them in these cases, and there are precious few instances of the Commission adhering to the precautionary principle, as required by the Treaty.
In the past month, the Commission has admitted that the risk assessment process is not working, and one has to agree with that when only a tiny fraction of the 100 000 chemicals already on the market have been subjected to a health or environmental assessment.
The system is not working, and that is why the report from the Environment Committee draws attention to group classification.
Moreover, we ask whether it would not be appropriate to reverse the burden of proof, so that anyone who wants to market a substance must show that it is harmless.
This would give industry a much more powerful incentive to provide information on and to investigate its own products.
The provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty on sustainability and its emphasis on the precautionary principle make it possible to intervene in the interests of health and the environment, so that these principles take precedence in the approval of individual chemicals or product types.
We therefore propose that the Commission should put forward a list of substances which can have an endocrine-disrupting effect.
The Commission must screen all EU legislation to see whether we have sufficient resources to intervene on endocrine-disrupting substances.
It must also get a serious grip on its system of risk assessment and systematically apply group classification. The Commission must present proposals to reverse the burden of proof.
It must also support research in priority areas, such as long-range studies of sperm quality, and must support research on the causes of the increase in rates of breast cancer and testicular cancer.
The EU must apply the precautionary principle in concrete instances and hence consider phasing out substances which are simultaneously carcinogenic, allergenic and bronchially irritant.
When this report was being discussed in the Environment Committee, we were given some very unsatisfactory answers by the Commission's officials, so I hope that the answers we receive this evening will be clearer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, endocrine disruptors are substances that act chiefly by mimicking the action of natural hormones or by interfering with their metabolism.
This is particularly the case for pesticides and certain medicines.
For my part, I am reluctant to give my full support to the rapporteur, even though his dossier is a particularly difficult one.
Why? Because the scientific data available to date is full of contradictions and requires an in-depth analysis and an experimental approach that is both rigorous and independent.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I would like to draw your attention to the absence of a scientifically-proven direct relationship between exposure to endocrine disruptors and effects on health.
Hence the need for in-depth epidemiological studies on exposed populations in order to ascertain the possible risk of cancer, endocrine disruptions in women, the influence on fertility levels among men, which are measured not on the basis of sperm counts as all current studies are - these being subject to individual or seasonal variations - but rather on the quality of the sperm.
This is why experimental studies carried out under laboratory conditions are needed to examine the synergistic effects of several substances, with a view to ascertaining a dose/effect relationship, which is the only way to demonstrate whether there actually is a direct relationship between endocrine disruptors and their effects on health.
In this instance, recourse to the precautionary principle should be linked to empirical data and should lead to the implementation of a monitoring system.
It is with this in mind that I have tabled several amendments aimed at guaranteeing better coordination of national initiatives in the area of research, implementing a research network in conjunction with the JRC, and improving the compatibility of research findings thanks to a classification system that will afford the necessary prevention for the various classes of exposure.
Aside from the linguistic amendments to Recommendations Nos 7, 29 and 31 by the rapporteur, I am tabling an oral amendment to Recommendation No 28 by the rapporteur, which is aimed at establishing the existence of a dose/effect relationship. This is essential to guard against making simple assumptions and also to take the necessary measures based on objective, independent and experimental arguments.
Mr President, in its opinion on this highly sensitive issue, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has intentionally dealt only with pollutants of agricultural origin, namely pesticides, which have often created a stir because of other harmful effects on human health and the environment.
In its report, the Committee lists 25 pesticides which are permitted in the Union but are suspected of having a harmful effect on human and animal hormone systems.
Four further substances, including Atrazine and Diuron, have already been clearly proved to have an effect on hormones.
Such substances must be taken off the market immediately.
We must rapidly update the authorisation procedures for pesticides and require environmental impact assessments to be made of their hormonal effects.
Our committee has requested that the authorisation procedures test the hormonal effects not only of the pesticides themselves but also of their waste products and additives, as it is precisely additives such as softeners and emulsifiers which are known in other areas of the chemical industry for their harmful effects on hormone systems.
It is astonishing that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development should make stricter demands in the area of pesticides than the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I hope that the House will approve the amendments we have retabled so that the wide availability of hormone-mimicking pollutants can be limited following the much-needed tightening of the authorisation procedures.
I would urge the Commission and the Member States to follow the 'better safe than sorry' principle, if in doubt, and take hormone-mimicking pesticides off the market.
I should also like to raise a point with Mr Pompidou.
Sometimes I get the impression that we have to bury ourselves in research before we can take action.
Yet it is incomprehensible that we react only when the damage has been done.
This is why we propose that research should be a means to achieve approval more quickly.
It is only under these circumstances that I can approve Mrs Jensen's report.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I want first of all to endorse the remarks made by the rapporteur. She has given a very clear assessment of the dangers posed by this new chemical threat.
Again, on behalf of the Socialists, I want to say that we will be voting for this report tomorrow and looking for European Union action on chemicals which mimic hormones and which have been shown to cause all sorts of strange health and reproductive difficulties in fish, birds and other wildlife.
Those chemicals called endocrine disrupters - not endocrine modulators, as some would have them known - are present in many different plastics and many other products including food wrappers, paints and pesticides.
It is certainly feared - and there is sound scientific research to show it - that these chemicals are responsible for the apparent drop in sperm counts amongst men in many Western countries.
Their long-term effects could be even more serious, including hypospadias, undescended testes and a range of reproductive difficulties in both males and females, which we really must take action about now.
Many of the chemicals which may be the source of this problem have quite frankly not been properly tested. We are uncertain as to their real power or impact.
The prime effects so far appear to be during the period of foetal development, rather than in adults.
The effects we have seen in the natural environment have tended to be water-borne and to affect fish, shellfish, some birds and other animals which feed on marine life.
But that is no excuse for not adopting the precautionary principle and taking action to protect human life now.
For that reason, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I hope the European Commission will pick up the demands in this report, draw up a list of substances which are known to be hormone- mimicking, take action to start to phase out those substances or minimise their use, start to look at legislation on pollution control and water quality legislation to ensure these substances are reduced to a minimum or completely eradicated in the environment, and really put some effort into a research programme which will look into the real mechanisms of endocrine disruption.
Finally, we have to recognise that we are limited and do not have an acceptable internationally-recognised test to identify hormone-mimicking activity by chemicals.
That has to be a key issue for the Commission to work on and bring forward as quickly as possible, along with American and Japanese researchers.
The long-term effects of these chemicals are certainly very serious on the basis of the evidence we have seen.
They are hard to predict, but on the basis of the effects they have on creatures with much shorter life cycles than human beings, it is quite clear we should be seriously disturbed and prepared to take action.
Parliament will continue to demand of the other European institutions that action is taken, that an international effort is made to tackle what is clearly a global problem.
The European Union is in an ideal position to take that action.
We call upon the Commission to act.
Mr President, I think that it is important to reiterate, for the benefit of public opinion, that this report was drawn up on the initiative of Parliament, that this Parliament is a political and not a scientific body, and that what we do is to forward our concern to the European Commission so that it may determine whether this concern of ours is founded or not.
That is the first point that should be clarified.
Second, I agree with the clarifications and remarks by Mr Pompidou to the effect that we cannot inform the general public of our concerns unless there are sufficient scientific grounds.
Nor can we suggest through our debate that all or most of the blame should lie with pesticides, simply because these are topics that are dear to us and that we have discussed on earlier occasions.
However, it is important that we encourage the Commission, and we should do so with some urgency, to put all its mechanisms into operation.
The fifth framework programme should of course include some action in this respect.
I believe that we cannot fail to mention, too, that there are independent research teams in the European Union that have been working on these topics for some years.
I am a lecturer at Granada University and I know that for more than ten years the Granada Faculty of Medicine has had an excellent research team working on these topics and on certain products that are not mentioned in the resolution, products that are to be used in orthodontic treatments.
I do not believe, however, that in a resolution we can make statements of a general nature regarding the negative effects of chemical substances, because all that remains at the end of the day are these general allegations.
We must remember that there are also many chemical substances that are very beneficial.
Nowadays, we need look no further than the Nobel Prizes for Medicine that have been awarded for the discovery of the mechanisms of such a traditional product as nitroglycerine, which had already been in use for a good many years, and which is something you, Mr President, know a great deal about.
The discovery of the mechanisms allowing these products to act in the walls of blood vessels represents one of the major discoveries of recent decades.
Therefore, we must not go too far as regards chemical products in general.
Paragraph 35 of our rapporteur's resolution is particularly important, where she calls on the European Commission to review the procedures relating to the marketing of chemical products for this purpose.
I believe this to be a very important conclusion.
Mr President, I would like to intervene on a point of order to ensure that the interpretation given is not used by anyone else.
My colleague Mr Valverde López referred to NO, which is in fact nitric oxide.
This was translated by the interpreters - and this was not their fault - as nitroglycerine, which is a dangerous explosive.
So it must be stated clearly that the Nobel Prize was awarded for nitric oxide, and not for nitroglycerine.
Mr Pompidou, Parliament is not a scientific centre, it is a political body.
Mr President, there are more than 100 000 synthetic chemicals in use and only a fraction of these have been tested for endocrine-disrupting affects.
Some which have been tested have been banned in the West but are still in use in developing countries.
Why are they a cause for concern?
They destroy cells which form natural hormones.
They impair reproductive functions.
They affect body weight and temperature. Most importantly, we know that they have a trans-generational affect passed from the mother to the offspring.
We find them in industrial discharges, in pesticides, in detergents, in plastics, in canned goods and in personal care products.
We know of their effects on animals.
In the Great Lakes some 16 species have been affected.
In the UK, as Mr Bowe has pointed out fish and snails have been affected. In the United States alligators have been affected.
There are routes of human exposure to these chemicals. Through the womb, via breastmilk, drinking contaminated water, absorption via skin from shampoos and so on, and inhalation and ingestion from pesticide sprays.
We have no solid proof that they are yet affecting humans but there are many indicators such as the decline in sperm counts, and the rise in testicular and breast cancer.
In December 1996 the Commission said there was no cause for alarm.
I would question that.
Liberal Democrats in this House are supporting this report and in particular the call for a cautionary approach, the call for more research and its implications for the budget for the Fifth Framework and the need for international cooperation.
We congratulate Mrs Jensen on this initiative.
We believe we have a duty to future generations to act now to make sure these chemicals do not become more widespread.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we also congratulate Mrs Jensen on her report.
It was important for the European Parliament finally to take an initiative, as it seems to me that the Commission buries its head in the sand and merely observes the problems.
What we need is action at European level, particularly as the data are more than alarming.
We constantly hear shocking information, such as that softeners can also find their way into the food chain, as they can be absorbed in fatty foods.
We have heard the alarming news that these endocrine substances are carcinogenic, and we now know that we must finally have a European ban on PVC.
I also think the way in which the Commission is dealing with the data on phthalates in children's toys is scandalous.
Although it has been known since February that there are at least three highly toxic substances, the Commission has failed to take any steps.
Instead, research results have been manipulated or, more precisely, research methods altered so that the Commission does not need to take action.
This is particularly bad because it is an out-and-out violation of the precautionary principle and because, due to neglect, the health of children is being put at risk.
This is why we have gone further than Mrs Jensen's report and requested that these highly toxic phthalates be taken off the market immediately.
There are alternatives to them, so we do not need them at all.
I should like to point out to the House at this point that we will ask for a roll-call vote as it is very important that we now increase pressure on the Commission on this issue.
Furthermore, until we have managed to ban PVC - and for us this is crucial - we call for these substances to have to be labelled, so that the consumer can at least be aware of the dangers and so that we can increase pressure on the industry to begin a genuine search for alternatives.
Mr President, during my childhood in Austria under the occupation of the Four Powers, when we had to travel from one sector to another we not only showed ID, but also those of us who lived in the American sector were always dusted with DDT on the way back, and this happened to many people several times a day.
At that time we saw only the short-term effect, which was that DDT killed the fleas, lice and other insects that we had in Europe after the war.
What we did not consider, and what we still do not always consider sufficiently today, is that chemicals have not only short-term effects but also long-term consequences.
For this reason I would like to thank Mrs Jensen very warmly for her report because she has drawn the attention of Parliament, the attention of the public and, I hope, Commissioner, the attention of the Commission to the fact that short-term thinking is a mistake where the authorisation of chemicals is concerned, and that it is often only after several years, perhaps even after decades, that we see the changes which are brought about in the environment, in animals and finally also in humans as a result of the use of chemicals.
Some of the chemicals from thirty or forty years ago are now banned, but many others are still around today, and we have neither adequate methods for testing them nor appropriate labelling for many of them, nor - and this is much more important, as many problems are transferred by air or water - the international agreements necessary to ban these chemicals.
Negotiations are currently taking place at international level to draw up a list of chemicals that are particularly hard to break down, and which we must undertake to ban rapidly.
I would ask the Commission to allow this list to remain provisionally open so that substances which we are still testing, and which may be proved to have harmful effects on the endocrine systems of animals and probably of humans, can be added to it.
We have the precautionary principle in the Union, which people often talk about and pay lip-service to.
We must now actually implement this precautionary principle in legislation on safety in the workplace, consumer safety and environmental safety, and above all we must increase the amount of research carried out, as further research will certainly reduce the health effects already visible today to levels compatible with the precautionary principle.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, various studies have revealed that the introduction into the environment of certain chemical substances, among the hundreds of thousands known to us, can have extremely disturbing effects on both animals and human beings, in that they interfere with the functioning of the endocrine system.
These substances, such as pesticides, DDT and their derivatives - industrial products and medicines - and pollutants in general, deemed harmful or suspect under the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North East Atlantic - the OSPAR Convention - or by the OECD working group, mimic the effect of natural hormones and thus disrupt the natural balance of organisms.
Worrying phenomena have already come to light: fish which change sex during their lifetimes, a steady rise in human male sterility, due to a sharp decline in both the number and the quality of sperm, an unprecedented upsurge in dysfunctions of the thyroid and other glands in large population groups, as well as carcinogenic effects in man: there has been an otherwise inexplicable increase in cancer of the testicles and prostate.
However, experts are not yet in unanimous agreement as to a direct link between exposure to such substances and these phenomena.
It is therefore necessary, taking due account of the international studies already carried out on this topic, to develop a research strategy at European level, geared to a deeper understanding not only of sperm quality but also of the nervous system, the varying effects of these substances on the internal glandular system in man, and the resulting disruptions to the quality and quantity of the hormones produced.
The Commission must therefore ensure that each chemical product is labelled in an easily understandable way to show what level of substances not occurring in the natural environment it contains, making sure that the category of risk is shown.
I would conclude by complimenting the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen, on her excellent work. I hope that the resolution will receive broad-based support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that Mrs Jensen deserves credit for tackling an important issue and making good proposals to take it forward.
However, dealing with this issue is difficult in that the empirical basis, that is the data, is not just shocking, as Mrs Breyer said, but downright inconsistent and poor.
That is the problem, and it is why research and coordination of research are priority tasks here.
What is most important for the European Union, as Mr Valverde López said, seems to me to be the establishment of appropriate research priorities in the fifth framework programme of research.
As rapporteur for this individual programme I will do my best to promote this, and I hope that the reports we have heard are not correct that the Council has already decided on the individual programmes, even though the framework programme has not yet entered into force.
The Community's Joint Research Centre could serve as a coordination and control centre for this research and could be responsible for creating a European research network.
Moreover, the Commission, if possible in agreement with the OECD, must urgently provide a provisional definition of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in order to make empirical data substantially more comparable.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has therefore taken great care in drafting its opinion, and I regret that it was adopted only hesitantly by the committee responsible.
I should like to thank Mr Pompidou in particular for reintroducing a number of what I consider to be very good proposals that we had made.
In our opinion it is high time that we coordinated our research efforts.
In this area, actionism is both economically and environmentally counter-productive, so we should take care not to become actionist, but we should at the same time take action.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, chemical substances which make their way into the environment could be a possible cause of endocrine disruptions.
For this reason it is absolutely essential that we test chemicals for their effects on the endocrine system.
Should they prove to be dangerous, it is imperative that they are banned or substituted.
However, it is important that such precautions or countermeasures are based on a scientific risk assessment, yet there is currently no question of having sure scientific proof of damage to endocrine systems by chemicals.
In the amendments which I tabled in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and also in the Committee on Women's Rights, I have tried to draw attention to this.
In my opinion, the Commission should develop a research strategy which helps to clear up uncertainties in the area of endocrine disruption.
Measures based solely on suspected causal connections are, of necessity, of dubious effectiveness.
I would ask, therefore, that we keep a cool head despite our concern.
Our motto should be not to resort to actionism but instead to invest our energies in increasing our knowledge.
We can then use this as a basis for specific health protection measures.
We owe it to the responsible citizens of the European Union to proceed in this manner, as we do not want to frighten them but to inform them, and their health protection must be our main priority.
Mr President, I wish to begin by expressing the Commission's appreciation for Parliament's initiative in addressing the topic of endocrine disruption and for the work of the rapporteur, Mrs Jensen.
I would also assure the House that the concerns voiced here throughout the debate and, indeed, in Mrs Jensen's report, are shared by the Commission.
The suspicions relating to adverse health effects on humans and other creatures arising from exposure to specific chemicals clearly need to be investigated by research scientists to gain additional essential information.
They also need to be assessed by public policy-makers who are committed to the precautionary principle.
The Commission will, therefore, propose a strategy on endocrine disrupters and it can at this stage accept the general lines of this draft resolution which calls for the reinforcement of the research strategy to improve the legislative framework, to provide information to the public and for participation in international efforts to address the problem.
As Mrs Jensen's report makes clear, it is obvious that research is vital if we are to gain greater insight into the phenomenon of endocrine disruption.
The Commission is already working closely with Member States and the OECD to help to develop a harmonised approach to the screening and testing of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
In addition, projects are already being funded under the fourth framework programme on R&D, as has already been pointed out in the debate, and the topic will be reflected in the priorities under the forthcoming fifth framework programme.
The Commission also plays a key role in bringing together researchers from different projects to exchange information and to coordinate activities.
From a regulatory standpoint, it will naturally be necessary to consider basing policy on proper scientific advice and to provide a means of responding quickly and effectively to specific concerns when evidence comes to light at short notice.
The Commission can, therefore, support the calls in the draft resolution to examine the adequacy of existing legislation and, if necessary, to consider adapting it appropriately in order to address endocrine disruption.
Similarly, on the basis of the precautionary principle, we foresee the need to consult the scientific committees of the Commission for independent scientific advice in cases of direct or indirect consumer exposure to potential endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
The role of the scientific committees is, of course, to provide independent scientific advice and not to coordinate regulatory activities in Member States.
Continuing on the theme of improvement of the legislative framework, there are a number of concepts such as those proposed for labelling requirements and for risk assessment which are being actively considered within the overall chemicals policy.
It must also be remembered that agreed test methods are a prerequisite for legislative action, like the proposed amendment to Directive 91/414 on plant protection products, and the establishment of a definitive list of endocrine-disrupting substances.
In the international context, there is a clear need for coordination in order to pool resources, to avoid duplication of work and to facilitate harmonisation of any regulatory actions, taking due account of international trade factors.
To this end, in June this year the European Community signed a protocol on persistent organ polluters under the 1979 ECE Convention for long-range transboundary air pollution.
The Community is currently participating in international negotiations for a global instrument on POPs.
The Commission is also playing an active part in several research-related international initiatives, together with organisations, such as the World Health Organisation, UNEP, OECD and with representatives from the United States of America and Japan under the auspices of the intergovernmental forum on chemical safety.
In addition, under the recently signed European Union/United States Science and Technology Coordination Agreement, endocrine disruption has been identified as one of the four priority projects.
As the House would expect, the Commission supports the call made in Mrs Jensen's report for effective communication to the public.
Not unnaturally, the perception of risks by the public sometimes differs from that of the scientific community and, in the case of endocrine-disrupters, public concern may, to some extent, be due to a lack of clear and comprehensible information about the phenomenon and also about the actions being undertaken in order to address it.
It will, therefore, be necessary to make dependable public information available through appropriate channels in a more efficient and effective form, as indeed the report recommends.
Finally, I wish to assure Parliament that the Commission will be looking at recommendations for short-, medium- and long-term actions which will address the central points raised in the draft resolution.
I repeat my thanks to the House and to Mrs Jensen for providing a good quality report and an opportunity for consideration of an increasingly important issue, not only in this House but, I hope, among the wider general public who are very interested, for obvious reasons, in this theme.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Biodiversity
The next item is the report (A4-0347/98) by Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a European Community biodiversity strategy (COM(98)0042 - C4-0140/98 and SEC(98)0348 - C4-0155/98).
Mr President, the fact that biodiversity is being impoverished is one of our biggest environmental problems.
This is an issue that has to be addressed. There are sadly no indications to date that the threat to plant and animal species is lessening.
Extinction is a real possibility in some cases.
Today we face an extremely serious situation. The UN's Convention on Biological Diversity has been signed both by the EU and the 15 Member States individually.
All the EU countries are now working on special - albeit different - programmes to enable them to comply with the wide-ranging provisions of the Convention.
We now have before us a proposal from the Commission for a European Community biodiversity strategy capable of bringing us into line with the requirements of the UN Convention.
My report is a response to the Commission communication, which quite rightly concentrates on what the EU as such can do. Competence in this field is shared between the Member States and the Union.
The key idea running through this whole communication is that a concern for biodiversity must be extended into other policy areas. I wish to stress this point.
Whilst it is important to fulfil the requirements of the habitats directive and so on, we shall not be doing justice to the UN Convention unless we take an all-embracing approach to conservation. Protecting special areas is not enough.
The communication lists five headings under which specific measures should be taken: natural resources, including areas covered by the habitats and birds directives; agriculture; fisheries; regional policy, together with town and country planning; and development cooperation.
Generally speaking, I am happy with the Commission's communication.
It is a high-quality document, containing good suggestions as to the policies we should implement. The overall thrust is right, but there is a tendency to remain at the level of generalities.
It is hard to imagine what will happen in real terms.
In politics, there are two ways of not getting things done.
One can decide to take no action; or one can agree to a project in theory, but never implement it in practice.
There are some areas of Commission activity where it will not be easy to draw practical consequences from the communication and move from words to deeds.
We really do need to know from the start how issues are to be tackled - and proper provision must be made for follow-up.
Realistic planning and a fixed time-frame are of the essence. Work could be linked to efforts to safeguard particularly endangered species, for example.
Programmes must, however, be comprehensive in their overall design.
The Commission apparently sees no need for action on transport and energy.
Reference is simply made to work on climate change and acidification, but that is not good enough.
I as rapporteur have the whole committee behind me in calling for measures in these two fields.
We would also like the Commission to report back to the European Parliament. It is not sufficient simply to be informed of future activities; we would hope to exercise some influence over forward planning, and we need to be involved in evaluating ongoing work.
The actual drawing-up of measures should be an open process, with input from environmental groups and national experts.
I have two questions to the Commissioner in this context.
The first has to do with reporting back to us.
I wonder how much influence Parliament will be allowed to have over the future shape of proposed measures. And my second question concerns transport and energy.
Is the Commission willing to come forward with any plans in this area?
Moving on to the more political dimension, our biggest problem is that much of what the EU does - for example in the agriculture, transport and fisheries sectors - is directly harmful to biological diversity.
Set against the provisions of the UN Convention, much of what we do is downright destructive.
Our main task is to change the thrust of EU policy.
Enlargement places major responsibilities on us.
We know that many areas in Eastern Europe enjoy great biodiversity.
Some of Europe's greatest riches are to be found in the applicant countries.
Integration is fraught with danger, since higher levels of biological diversity are partly due to lower levels of development - in farming, for example.
The drastic upheavals bound to occur as agricultural policy is reformed could have a devastating impact on biodiversity. Great care will be needed to pre-empt this.
We would urge a more cautious approach to investment in infrastructure.
Close examination of EIB lending policy towards the Member States is called for here.
I do not have time to go through everything in the report, but we trust that due attention will be paid to the various other points which it contains.
Mr President, the astonishing variety of thousands of life forms is the result of the biodiversity created by nature itself as one of its most important expressions.
It is the quintessence of the dynamic equilibrium between the various forms of life and the various ecosystems.
It is also an important source of economic wealth, and is directly related to mankind's quality of life because it relates to man's day-to-day environment and man's recreation, as well as being part of man's natural heritage.
Unfortunately, the natural rules which created the dynamic equilibrium between life forms on our planet have been violated by human activities, which in recent years have accelerated the reduction of biodiversity.
Yet we can do something to help, though incentives are needed if the stresses on many ecosystems are to be identified and neutralised.
A strategy must be developed for the management of biodiversity both at Community level and worldwide, if harmonious co-existence is to be achieved between economic development and biodiversity.
In any case, that is an essential ingredient of the model of sustainable development which the Community is promoting, but it also emerges from the International Convention on Biodiversity.
It is of primary importance to incorporate that strategy in the various Community policies in the context of the Agenda 2000 programme.
In general terms, policy is being developed along four main thematic lines.
The first is the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity.
It is a sine qua non to conserve ecosystems and populations of species in their natural environment, though of course protection should also be given to unprotected areas through the implementation of measures both in situ and ex situ .
The second is the distribution of benefit from the use of genetic resources.
The creation of a legal framework and, in parallel, protection of the use and development of genetic resources, are powerful incentives towards the distribution of benefit from the use of those resources.
In parallel, we must consider the adoption of positive financial disincentives.
The third line relates to research, monitoring and information exchange, and the fourth to education, training and increased awareness.
In conclusion, the general aim must be to highlight the importance of biodiversity for the future of mankind as a source of economic and ecological wealth, and mainly as a basic factor in the preservation of life on our planet.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the present communication from the Commission on an action plan for biodiversity says too little about the area of fisheries.
For this reason, the Committee on Fisheries presented the following conclusions to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the committee responsible, for inclusion in its resolution.
The Committee on Fisheries calls on the Commission to set up a scientific working party to develop an action plan for research into the interaction between fisheries and marine ecosystems.
Here we would stress that a biodiversity plan for fisheries needs to be drawn up in order to counteract sectoral interests and to ensure that environmental aspects are more fully integrated in the fisheries sector.
In addition, we call on the Commission to use the precautionary approach, as defined in the UN Agreement on Highly Migratory Fish Stocks and Straddling Fish Stocks, in its management of fish stocks.
We urge that all regional fisheries management bodies in the EU also adopt this precautionary principle.
We ask that conservation measures be strengthened in the long term in all fisheries agreements to which the EU is signatory.
We call on the Commission to explain how the objectives stipulated in the biodiversity strategy can be implemented, and we wish to be consulted by the Commission on this issue.
In order to secure our fish stocks and the valuable food commodity of fish, we must not delay any longer in drawing up and implementing an appropriate environmentally-friendly, sustainable strategy for which those who work in fisheries will also be responsible.
The research results available so far are, in this area at least, inadequate.
Mr President, if we consider that there are an estimated 20 to 30 million species of living organisms in existence, of which only about 1.4 million species have even been discovered and described by scientists, but that 1.5 million will have become extinct within the next 25 years, we can see the urgency of the situation.
We need to take action.
For this reason we in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development cannot comprehend why the regulation approved by the Commission and Parliament on the placing on the market of plant varieties has still not been adopted by the Council, why the Commission's support for cooperation between the Member States' own programmes, the gene banks and the informal sector has only been half-hearted, cumbersome and ineffective, and why even DG VI is toying with the idea of allowing the only integrated programme for the conservation, characterisation, collection and use of genetic diversity in agriculture to expire in 1999.
In order to preserve biodiversity, we need to promote extensive farming methods and organic farming.
We must also implement Community initiatives and targeted project support, particularly in the context of Agenda 2000, rather than allowing projects to run out of funding and personnel, which is unfortunately what is happening at the moment.
The degree of biodiversity in the applicant countries is still very high, and we must take action as soon as possible to promote and support this and to extend existing programmes to these countries.
The last two opinions of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development were drafted by my colleague, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, and it has been my honour and pleasure to present them on his behalf.
Mr President, I must repeat a point already made by previous speakers, namely that the most recent studies of the dispersion of different species in our natural environments point to a steady decline in biodiversity in Europe.
The reasons for this decline are well known, and are attributable to highly intensive farming and land use, the break-up of natural habitats through infrastructure - most notably transport and urbanisation - as well as mass tourism and the pollution of water, air and land.
It is therefore most important that, in application of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the issue of biodiversity should be integrated into Community policies thanks to this communication.
However, despite the considerable impact of transport and tourism policies on ecosystems conservation, the communication maintains that there is no need for the implementation of specific action plans on transport and tourism 'as the development and implementation of the Community strategies on climate change and acidification... together with the implementation of adequate environmental assessment procedures should be adequate to achieve the biodiversity objectives in these policy areas'.
This decision on the one hand prevents the implementation of adequate control procedures in the areas referred to by the European bodies, and on the other hand limits the scope for the promotion and development of related policies by the Community.
It is for these reasons that the Committee on Transport and Tourism is calling for specific action plans in these areas - transport and tourism - and indeed the Committee on the Environment agrees with us here.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism wishes to highlight the following points in particular: the unlimited growth of transport and tourism; the problem of transport flows, currently channelled into areas of great biodiversity; the need for a shift from road to rail, a means of transport with a lower environmental impact, as stated in the international Alps Convention; the need, identified by the Commission, to internalise external costs; the fact that the Kyoto Agreement sets out specific aims which necessitate appropriate transport policies; the impact of transport infrastructures on biodiversity; and the need for a thorough environmental impact assessment and strategic environment assessment on the trans-European networks.
Our committee demands that there should be no new infrastructure which has an impact on areas protected under the Natura 2000 Network, and that tourism should be sustainable and not of a kind to endanger biodiversity: it is therefore necessary to identify maximum absorption capacity limits in sensitive areas.
For these reasons, we are calling for an eco-label for sustainable tourism. Furthermore, Mr President, looking beyond transport and tourism issues, I think that it is vital to take account of the points made by the Committees on Research and the Environment concerning the potential impact of genetically modified organisms.
Mr President, this is a very important report. At stake is the legacy of bioversity that we pass on to future generations.
The rapporteur's interesting text has been complemented by many good suggestions and ideas from other committees and individual Members.
I believe there is a broad agreement within Parliament on this issue and will restrict myself to just a few comments.
Biological diversity, upon which we are all so dependent, is heavily influenced by other environmental factors.
Acid rain from the atmosphere, together with sulphur and nitrogen oxides, have destroyed biodiversity in many northern European lakes. This has been the case in Sweden and elsewhere.
Last spring, Parliament aimed high and called for reductions in emissions to a level the environment could absorb. The effects on biological diversity should gradually be felt.
Swedish newspapers reported yesterday on the threat to coral reefs as a result of an above-average increase in sea temperatures.
It is quite obvious that such developments endanger biodiversity.
There could well be a connection between the greenhouse effect - which has often been debated in this House - and the steep rise in water temperature.
We could doubtless support the call for measures in this area with the need to safeguard biological diversity.
I also wish to touch upon the role of private ownership. A broad spread of land ownership can have an impact on biodiversity.
The desire of individuals to tend and protect nature has often led to rich biological variation.
Yet there are circumstances where the burden of caring for unique biotopes is too much for one single owner. It makes sense then for the State to intervene and provide compensation for possible losses.
In the long term, however, respect for private ownership will further biodiversity.
Financial incentives in this area have in the past produced positive results.
In its opinion, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy referred to biotechnology as an additional means of maintaining, and even re-creating, biological diversity.
That is certainly an interesting perspective and should be borne in mind for the future, despite the fact that the proposal was rejected in committee this time round.
Mr President, I am standing here in my shirt-sleeves because it is so unbearably hot in the Chamber.
It bodes ill for biodiversity that the temperature regulation in our own Chamber should be so bad.
Perhaps you can do something about it?
In any event, I regard the Commission's communication on biodiversity as enormously important, because it touches the essence of Europe's policy on nature and nature conservation.
I am pleased with this communication, but only as a first step.
We know that the Commission draws up all manner of action plans for the conservation of natural resources, agriculture, fisheries, regional policy and economic cooperation.
This list, as the rapporteur rightly points out, is not complete. Transport and energy are missing.
I find that a pity, since these sectors in particular have major repercussions on biodiversity.
I think that action plans of this kind are needed for transport and energy too. I shall be very interested to hear Mr Kinnock's response to our questions about this sector.
Looking at the situation as it is at present, the incorporation of environmental safeguards into other policy areas is still nowhere near good enough.
To give you a recent example: the Union gives subsidies to sheep farmers in Crete, which leads to overgrazing and soil erosion, with terrible consequences for biodiversity.
I believe we must call a halt to projects of that kind which are directly harmful to biodiversity.
As draftsman on the budget for the environment, I have argued for better integration of safeguards for the environment and the natural world into other policy sectors.
My idea is that the Structural Funds could also be used for Natura 2000 and for implementation of the habitats and birds directives.
I hope the House will endorse this idea from the Environment Committee when we vote on the budget on Thursday.
It will be a great step forward for Europe's protection of nature, and a good way of combining biodiversity with structural policy.
Mr President, I share the rapporteur's concern regarding the possible effects of intensive agriculture, trans-European networks, the reduction of fisheries stocks and so many other activities connected with Europe's economy on natural resources and biodiversity.
In line with the agreement the Member States have signed, I wish to join with him in expressing the need for rapid and immediate action plans that Parliament is informed of.
And, since the best way of showing how biodiversity is threatened is to give an example, this weekend, in my country, in the province of León, I visited a forest where 5 000 hectares had burned during military exercises, a wood where plants and animal species disappeared and will probably not reappear for another 50 years.
If we do not promptly draw up action plans, it will be difficult to maintain biodiversity, and to maintain life in the manner we would wish.
Mr President, our biodiversity is exposed to many threats.
The latest issue of the Malaysian-based journal Third World Resurgence reports on how a few large western corporations are effectively destroying biological diversity in the agricultural sector by their abusive exploitation of genetic engineering techniques and patent rights.
This problem was also raised at the fourth meeting of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, held earlier this year in Bratislava.
Many delegates expressed unease over the use of what is known as 'terminator technology'. Patented techniques are used to manipulate the genetic composition of seed, rendering the resulting plant sterile.
Patent rights and genetic engineering are being wielded by the big corporations in a bid to prevent farmers from reproducing their crops. That was the message emerging from the meeting.
In the light of all this, I particularly support paragraph 43 of the report. It affirms that all states enjoy sovereign rights over their own genetic resources and that this principle shall be paramount whenever the EU enters into agreements with third parties, especially in the field of patents.
Mr President, today, as a European environmentalist, I am embarrassed.
I am not happy that many of the Member States have not yet done their homework.
Not all of us have drawn up a national action programme to meet our commitments under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
We Europeans like to criticise countries elsewhere in the world which continue to destroy their natural forest or to convert them into plantations.
On the other hand our forests were converted centuries ago - some were destroyed and only very few natural forest ecosystems remain in the EU.
Unfortunately we are not very keen when it comes to the reconversion of forests to their natural state.
The implementation of the habitats and birds directives has also been blocked.
The success in establishing the Natura 2000 network has so far been very limited.
Seven countries have not yet drawn up their plans for conservation, amongst them France, Germany and Luxembourg. That is indeed embarrassing.
I hope that the forest strategy on which the Commission is working so hard now will give us the opportunity to establish protected areas to meet our commitments under the biodiversity convention.
And funds are needed to set aside protected areas.
Let us not repeat the mistake that was made with the announcement of Natura 2000. Nobody has yet proposed a serious funding plan for Natura 2000.
Let us change that.
Mr President, the Commission says in its communication on biodiversity that a Community strategy is needed to turn the tide in Europe.
Measures taken to date are not enough to stop the loss of biodiversity in Europe.
I welcome the Commission's concern for nature in Europe. This is an international issue which warrants joint action by the Member States.
But the Commission's policy on biodiversity has to be consistent.
The Commission is still funding activities which adversely affect biodiversity.
Where these are necessary activities under the CAP or TENs or the regional policy, I think that recompense must be made for the damage, for example by the creation of extra nature conservancy areas.
It is of course highly unsatisfactory to have the Commission undermining its own measures in favour of maintaining biodiversity.
So I would urge the Commission to take due heed of what the resolution says on this subject.
Lastly, I feel I have to point out that one or two things in this resolution are said twice.
Combining one or two paragraphs on fisheries, TENs and the periodic evaluations that are required would have made the resolution neater and more concise.
Mr President, I think we all support this communication from the Commission, which reflects the concern of the Community's institutions in complying with international agreements and in carrying out another of our obligations, that is, making environmental policy a dimension of all other policies.
We must also send a message to the national governments and regional and local authorities, since policies at those levels must converge and be consistent with those of the European Union.
There are a number of areas in this regard that offer major opportunities and we must highlight this for all our citizens.
For, it is not only the responsibility of the authorities but of each and every one of us since, as consumers, we can make a positive choice in this field and also, as actors in local democracy, we can help support those communities that really defend biological diversity.
However, the most important part of the entire communication is the general warning that nobody in a position of political responsibility can consider themselves exempt from this general concern.
And I would also like to very firmly express my support for the rapporteur's conclusions.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Sjöstedt, and the Committees on the Environment, Transport and Tourism, Fisheries, Agriculture and Rural Development and Research, Technological Development and Energy for their opinions and for the comprehensive report that has been the subject of the House's consideration this evening.
Clearly this Parliament is actively engaged in promoting the integration of environmental concerns in all areas and the Commission welcomes the support given to the biodiversity communication by the opinions from the committees and, indeed, by this report.
With the presentation of this communication, the Commission has committed itself to the integration of biodiversity concerns into Community policies and instruments.
We are now starting to develop action plans and other measures to implement the biodiversity strategy. The Sjöstedt report will obviously be useful in this process.
I would only add that action plans, whilst very useful and very welcome, are not prerequisites of effective environmental policy and practice, as I am sure honourable Members will readily understand.
In the transport area, for instance, our commitment is to sustainability.
That means action, as contributors to the debate suggested, along a broad front, whether it is the encouragement of the use of rail passenger and freight transport; or the securing of an effective agreement with Switzerland; or the introduction of fair and efficient pricing policies for the use of transport infrastructure; or emissions reduction; or a number of other strategies, none of which neatly fall into the definition of action plans for the protection and furtherance of biodiversity but all of which are extremely valuable in securing environmental sustainability by improved transport policies.
I am sure that will be understood.
This report, apart from its generally agreeable nature and effectiveness of the analysis, includes some requests that the Commission will not able to satisfy.
When I provide some detail about our thinking I hope the House will understand why we cannot accept every particular part of the report.
First, in paragraph 14 there is a request for an action plan to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council - or at least for all the plans to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council.
However, we consider that such a procedure would unnecessarily slow down the implementation of the strategy.
We had envisaged the adoption of the action plans by the Commission in the form of communications to the Parliament and the Council but not necessarily for adoption by them. Legislative proposals that may be contained in those action plans must obviously be adopted in accordance with the legislative procedures.
Secondly, in paragraph 16 there is a request for the development of specific action plans for the energy and transport sector to which I have already referred.
In our view many of the biodiversity concerns in these areas are already covered by the climate and acidification strategies that address the relevant emissions which may have an impact on biodiversity and by the existing or envisaged proposals on environmental assessment.
Beyond that the Commission does not consider that substantial new policy actions need to be developed in order to integrate biodiversity into relevant instruments in those areas.
Thirdly, in paragraph 43 there is a request for some principles under the biodiversity convention to take precedence over other international agreements concluded by the Community, for example under the World Trade Organization regime.
The Commission's position is that environmental agreements are at the same level as trade agreements and should be implemented in a mutually consistent way.
But there is no a priori hierarchy of norms.
Fourthly, Recital J suggests that the European Union should finance the compensation of damage deemed to be caused by TENs, by the common agricultural policy and by regional policy.
The Commission position is that the Community biodiversity strategy should help to prevent the networks policy, the agricultural policy and regional policy from causing damage to biodiversity and that therefore there should be no need for new compensation mechanisms.
Naturally the Commission would be grateful if this House could take these elements into consideration.
On the specific questions raised by the rapporteur: he has asked about the system we have used for reporting to Parliament on the implementation of the strategy.
The Commission will be reporting both to Parliament and to the Council regularly on the implementation of the strategy.
Indeed, in June the Environment Council June requested the first of those reports to be available by June 2000.
Obviously that report will also be transmitted to Parliament.
Then there is the question Mr Sjöstedt raised about consultation not only with experts from Member States but with NGOs and other relevant interested parties about what he described as national action plans.
We are not talking about national action plans; these are Community action plans and they have an added value as a consequence of that.
The answer to his question is that the consultation will takes place with the same breadth and same thoroughness as took place in the compilation of the strategy itself.
Everybody would acknowledge that was an extensive operation with networks now very firmly established and they will be exploited fully in ensuring that consultation about the action plans take place systematically and sincerely.
I hope that meets the requirements that Mr Sjöstedt and his colleagues have.
It is clear, as several Members in this and many other debates have said, that biodiversity is essential to life on earth.
It is also evident that it is being eroded more quickly now than at any time in the history of the planet.
The Community has a legal, moral and self-interested obligation to assume its responsibility and to cooperate with third countries in efforts to change that pattern.
Cooperation with Member States and with a wider public in this process is obviously vital in order to ensure that in conjunction with national efforts, the implementation of a Community biodiversity strategy helps to reverse those negative - indeed, ruinous - trends, as biodiversity is reduced, not only in the Community but also more widely in our continent and indeed throughout the world.
I know that this House shares this conviction that the rot has to be stopped and the process reversed.
I express the appreciation of the Commission for the way in which that conviction in this Parliament is continually manifested through useful initiatives like Mr Sjöstedt's report.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I want to apologise for my absence yesterday. This was due to Air France notifying my travel agent that my flight from London City was cancelled.
In fact the flight went but by that time I was re-routed to Basle and finally got here at 7.30 p.m. instead of 5 p.m. for the opening of the sitting.
I wonder if your services would drop a note to Air France asking them not to do this again.
However, I have to report that I managed to get here in time for the production of Don Giovanni at the Strasbourg Opera.
I thank the City of Strasbourg for allowing me and several other Members to go - a splendid production.
Madam President, my name is not on the attendance register.
I should like this to be corrected as I was here yesterday.
The same applies to me, Madam President.
I cannot see my name on the attendance register, but my neighbours can confirm that I was here.
Madam President, my name is also not on the attendance register, yet I too was here yesterday.
I would be grateful if my name could be added.
That will be corrected.
(The Minutes were approved)
Statement by the President
I would inform the House that I have received a request from five political groups - the Group of the Party of European Socialists, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, the Green Group in the European Parliament, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left and the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations - asking for a topical and urgent debate under Rule 47 to be held on Thursday from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the arrest of General Pinochet in the United Kingdom.
I should first like to inform you of the implications of this, because we adopted our agenda yesterday.
This is therefore an amendment to the agenda.
If this proposal by the groups is accepted, the whole procedure under Rule 47 will have to be applied. This means that the Conference of Presidents will have to be convened this morning.
The results of its meeting will have to be announced to Parliament at the beginning of this afternoon's sitting.
Any objections will have to be tabled by 8 p.m. this evening and put to the vote at the beginning of tomorrow morning's sitting.
The deadlines would then be as follows: motions for resolutions would have to be tabled by 4 p.m. today, and joint motions and amendments by 4 p.m. tomorrow.
Madam President, there was a preliminary discussion of this yesterday.
After the group chairmen met last night there was agreement among a great many of the groups that we should use the opportunity this week to have some immediate discussion of a political nature in this House.
Clearly an urgency debate is the most relevant, given that this is not an issue on which we need a statement from either the Council or the Commission.
It was the feeling of all of us that this should be put to the House.
I regret that it has to be through such a bureaucratic procedure as you have just described.
If that is all that our Rules allow, then so be it.
My group is in favour.
Madam President, I want to speak against this motion, but first I want to explain why to my parliamentary colleagues.
In the last few hours, significant legal decisions have been taken in my country which affect this debate.
For one thing, the examining magistrate has amended the warrant.
For another, the public prosecutor's office has appealed against the warrant on the grounds that, in its opinion, the judge is not empowered to issue it.
And, finally, the judge has established a period for the parties involved - the accused and the prosecutor - to state their positions on a possible asylum appeal.
So I think we should let the court do its work and only indulge in political interpretations once the court has made its decision.
This makes it inappropriate, in my view, to interfere in the work of the court at this time and I call on my colleagues in this House to make the cries for an independent judiciary compatible with political initiatives that in fact, taken at the wrong time, do nothing but put pressure on the independence of the judiciary.
Madam President, this Parliament has been calling for General Pinochet to be put on trial for a very long time.
This should normally have happened in his own country, Chile, but apparently this has not been possible because the dictatorships have been maintained.
The Community treaties now provide for a European legal area, so what is involved is the application and implementation of that European legal area.
Parliament is not going to interfere in the legal procedures, but it ought to take this opportunity to highlight the unity of all our peoples and all our governments in the fight against the international terrorism represented by the dictatorship, genocide and cruelty that General Pinochet inflicted on his people and on European citizens. According to the most recent estimates, almost 100 European citizens were assassinated by General Pinochet's government.
Therefore, this Parliament must immediately give its opinion on the issue.
Having heard one speaker for and one against, I now put the request to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request)
Decision on urgent procedure
The next item is the vote on the request for urgent procedure concerning the proposal for a Council Directive amending Council Directive 94/4/EC and the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) 355/94 and extending the temporary derogation applicable to Germany and Austria.
Madam President, this proposal for a directive relates to Austria and Germany's derogation from the duty-free arrangements.
There has been a legal vacuum here since 1997, because the arrangements were in force until December 1997.
That is why we are rather surprised that the proposal was only forwarded to us in September.
We have hardly had any time to consult on this, and yet we do consider it to be an important matter.
I propose, therefore, that we reject the request for urgent procedure.
We will endeavour to produce a report for the November part-session, but at the latest for the December part-session.
(Parliament rejected the requests for urgent procedure)
1999 Budget - Expiry of ECSC Treaty - 1999 ECSC Budget
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0360/98 by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Communities for the 1999 financial year (SEC(98)0800 - C4-0300/98); -A4-0361/98 by Mr Viola, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Communities for the 1999 financial year - Section I, European Parliament - Annex: Ombudsman; Section II, Council; Section IV, Court of Justice; Section V, Court of Auditors; Section VI, Economic and Social Committee - Committee of the Regions (C4-0300/98); -A4-0330/98 by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the communication from the Commission on the expiry of the ECSC Treaty: financial activities (COM(97)0506 - C4-0573/97); -A4-0363/98 by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft ECSC operating budget for 1999 (SEC(98)0966 - C4-0394/98).
Madam President, I pointed out yesterday that my opinion on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy had not been reproduced in full in Mr Giansily's report.
The President said that a corrigendum would be published.
However, I have just been to get this, and Mr Giansily's report is available, but without opinions from any of the committees.
How is this possible? Madam President, I would ask you to ensure that this document is correctly printed!
The matter you have raised is being investigated, Mrs Lulling.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, before getting into this debate on the budget, I would like to thank all the members of the Committee on Budgets' secretariat, not just for their great professionalism in preparing this budget, but also for their good humour which always kept me going.
I would also like to thank my fellow rapporteurs from the relevant committees for their close collaboration.
The 1999 European Union budget we are debating today, the first in euros, falls within an unusual context compared with previous financial years.
The 1999 budget is the last under the current financial perspective and will therefore mark the end of an era.
But at the same time it should constitute the point of departure for a new interinstitutional agreement and a new financial perspective that must fulfill the provisions of Article F.3 of the Treaty on European Union concerning the availability of means. In addition, it must also provide - and we have all committed ourselves to this - the pre-accession financing to facilitate the future enlargement of the Union towards the east, and it must respond to the challenges of monetary union.
Therefore, in its guidelines for the budgetary procedure, voted on at the beginning of April, Parliament came out in favour of making the 1999 budget a transitional budget, a bridging budget, rather than one representing a fresh start.
At that time, Parliament already wanted to send a clear signal to the Council indicating that the negotiation of the new financial perspective and the 1999 budget are not two separate issues, but are directly linked in time and content, and that if no interinstitutional agreement is reached, the 1999 budget will serve as the basis for the draft budget for 2000, in accordance with Article 203.
The budgetary guidelines adopted also set out the conditions that Parliament regards as the sine qua non for reaching agreement and fulfilling the commitment to adopt a budget that is roughly in line with the average increase in payments by the Member States.
In its preliminary draft budget, the Commission notes an increase of 6.4 % in commitment appropriations over 1998.
So this draft budget broadly balances Parliament's priorities, Member States' demands and its own needs, and it must be financed with 1.11 % of the Member States' GNP.
However, a figure of 1.09 % of GNP is specified to finance the Council's draft budget - 0.18 % below the ceiling of 1.27 % - yet we must take account of the fact that, in accordance with the Council's forecasts, compulsory expenditure commitment appropriations have increased by more than 11.5 %.
The Council's apparent rigour as regards the overall figure is, nonetheless, conditional on compliance with the unilateral decisions of the Edinburgh and Cannes Councils, whose funding is strictly met by the Council with no thought to the effectiveness of the expenditure, while other policies suffer significant and apparently arbitrary cuts.
Let me give one very telling example: in the explanatory statement to its first reading of the budget, the Council recognises the undoubted success of the Leonardo da Vinci programme but it then immediately moves on to cut the programme by the reasonable sum of EUR 100 million.
The infinite consistency of the Council becomes even clearer if we take the trouble to read the Cardiff conclusions of 16 June and contrast them with the Council's first reading.
Evidently, accountancy is the Council's only concern: the bottom line is all that matters, regardless of any policy aims.
In this situation, which deep down is no different from previous financial years, Parliament's task is to form a political budget that is consistent with its priorities as expressed in the guidelines.
Moving on to Category 1 - agriculture - I would point out that, for the first time in a budgetary year, Category 1 and Category 2 expenditure is almost balanced.
This responds on the one hand to the compliance with the last year of the financial perspective and on the other hand, and most important, to the development of the ad hoc procedure that has made it possible to reduce agricultural expenditure over the last few financial years, clearly demonstrating that, in the past, the Commission has overestimated budgetary needs.
Consequently, the agriculture budget is now well below the guideline, which has become a ceiling that is far above real needs and not likely to limit the increase in agricultural expenditure.
In its resolution on the ad hoc procedures provided for in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993, the European Parliament stresses the importance of a number of longstanding issues that, in its opinion, ought to be included in the procedure.
But, as rapporteur, I really must express my disappointment at the development of the ad hoc procedure for the 1999 budget.
Instead of making progress, we have, I think, taken a step backwards because of the Council's unwillingness to look at the main elements proposed by Parliament - classification, the creation of a reserve, the legal basis for this process - and hold a serious debate on them before first reading.
The Council is thus postponing crucial parts of the debate until the Commission presents its Letter of Amendment after Parliament's first reading.
This stance by the Council will not facilitate negotiations ahead of second reading where the agenda is already full.
But it must be clear that Parliament confirms its commitment to the ad hoc procedure - by way of derogation from Article 14 of the Financial Regulation - which should take account of Parliament's requests, irrespective of the category of the expenditure.
Consequently, Parliament is obliged to reiterate at its first reading the requests presented in the conciliation on the Council's first reading.
As regards Category 2 - Structural Funds - I also want to mention Parliament's guidelines first. They include absolute respect for the financial perspective and the Interinstitutional Agreement, but ask for the possibility of extending the programming period to be considered in order to facilitate cofinancing.
That is why at first reading an amendment was tabled to place EUR 1 500 million of commitment appropriations and EUR 250 m of payment appropriations in a special reserve pre-allocated only to Member States that have a lower than average rate of uptake and on condition that these appropriations can be extended, if unused, for the benefit of the same beneficiaries.
The same amendment reduces the payment appropriations for the Funds by EUR 500 m, given that this decision is compatible with the forecast of needs and above all with Letter of Amendment No 2/98 to the supplementary and amending budget and the Notenboom procedure which increases the payment appropriations by EUR 871 m.
However, before any Member States rub their hands with glee, it must be quite clear that the amendment sets out some explicit conditions. To make matters even clearer, it would perhaps be appropriate to remember that Category 2 is non -compulsory expenditure.
Within this category, Parliament is committed to financing the PEACE initiative for Ireland, aware that the Stormont Agreement represents a historic step forward.
It accepts the Commission proposal on this, but readjusts it in line with Parliament's decision on the RECHAR, REGIS and RESIDER initiatives.
In its guidelines, Parliament states that it wants to adopt a budget which takes account of its priorities, and that it must be a budget for the citizens.
The human dimension of the budget is nowhere more tangible than in Category 3 concerning the Union's internal policies.
However, at its first reading, the Council transforms this category into the ultimate dogsbody, cutting it to levels below the 1998 budget.
The view of the Committee on Budgets is that even in a strict regime, the activities financed should demonstrate to the citizens the importance that Parliament attaches to their priorities: employment and other social actions, education and training, the protection of the environment in accordance with the Kyoto commitment, consumer information and, finally, transport safety.
That is why it wants to increase funding for measures where the European dimension can be clearly seen, as in the creation of pilot projects and preparatory actions in the areas of education, innovation and training leading towards a Europe of Knowledge, actions intended to improve multicultural integration, and actions to combat violence against women.
I do not want my remarks on Category 3 to turn into a long list, so I will just highlight two points.
First, I call on the Council to reach an agreement quickly with Parliament on the financing of the fifth framework programme for research, and to permit an exact allocation of the funding for the programme during the 1999 budgetary procedure.
At first reading, Parliament is opting to allocate the amount proposed by the Commission in its draft budget.
Secondly, with a view to the forthcoming entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and Article 73k in particular, Parliament is creating a European Refugee Fund under Category 3, taking account of the common interest to the Member States of a European Union asylum policy.
While Parliament needs to keep an eye on the internal policies of the Union, it is also concerned about its external policies.
Parliament is committing itself to the Cannes agreement - although it never accepted it - provided that it is not implemented at the expense of the Union's other external obligations.
In its draft, the Council makes large cuts to Category 4 with no credible or realistic explanation.
If I were cynical, I might say that the cuts are simply due to the need to square the accounts now that the PHARE programme has grown by an additional EUR 150 m.
It is somewhat strange that the Council forgets budgetary rigour when increasing a programme that has serious difficulties in terms of absorption capacity, with implementation figures well below the amount allocated.
In total consistency with its guidelines for the 1999 budget, Parliament proposes to distribute EUR 200 m of PHARE funding to all chapters on external actions.
In line with previous financial years, and given the difficulties involved in correctly implementing the external programmes, Parliament is allocating EUR 30 m to the reserve for Item B7-541 - reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia - until the Commission presents a new draft regulation for this action. It is also proposing to allocate a significant share of the funding for the TACIS programme to the reserve while waiting for the Commission to present a global strategy to Parliament for responding to the serious financial crisis in Russia.
And, as I come to the end, I want to focus on two fundamental points relating to Category 5.
The first point could be called 'the BAT story' - although it has nothing to do with Batman - as it deals with a subject many chapters have already been written about. It began, in fact, before the steady rise of the so-called mini-budgets, when it was decided to convert these appropriations into staff posts - some 2000 - by transferring expenditure from Part B to Part A of the budget, a change that will be completed in 1998.
However, it must be noted that the Commission has continued to use external staff through technical assistance offices financed under Part B, that is, from operational expenditure.
In turn, this has meant considerable reductions in the total operational amounts for the programmes.
For example, EUR 14 m of operational expenditure for the Socrates programme has been used as administrative expenditure.
Parliament reaffirms its attachment to compliance with the Financial Regulation, which divides the expenditure between Part B and Part A, and is tabling amendments along these lines. However, at the same time, it is committed to a radical revision of the structure of the budget to focus more on an objective-based budget.
That is why it is asking the Commission to provide the details for the new presentation of the tables annexed to chapters 11 and 70.
I regard the second item in Category 5 as a source of shame to the Member States, given that it involves the funding of the officials' pensions.
It turns out that up until 1997 the Member States only partly paid, and indeed before 1982 did not pay at all, the employer's share of the premium for the staff's pension scheme, with the result that the intended budget for pensions is still in deficit in 1998.
And I have to ask: what would happen to a businessman who did not fulfil his social security obligations in any one of the Member States?
Parliament is therefore proposing the budget structure for an adequate pension fund for the staff of the institutions and bodies of the Union, and is calling on the Commission to present a proposal for a pension fund before 31 March 1999.
The Commission must present a proposal for the amendments to the regulations applicable to officials and other servants of the European Communities, 'Staff Regulations', which might be needed to establish such a fund.
And we should also remember that the British Presidency already recognised, during its first tripartite dialogue with Parliament, the need to find a solution in this respect as soon as possible.
That is why Parliament is asking for this matter to be included in the negotiations on the new Interinstitutional Agreement.
Everything I have said is intended to affirm that Parliament is going to adopt a budget with a new balance, in response to its obligations towards European citizens.
Finally, and this particularly concerns the Council, which has patiently listened to this statement of everything they already know, I have here 'the final outline' which means going back to the start of my speech, recalling the link between the 1999 'bridging' budget, the negotiations on the new financial perspective and the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Parliament realises that is necessary to make the Council aware that time is pressing and that an agreement should be reached before the European elections in June 1999.
At the same time, it notes that the Council has not demonstrated a great deal of interest in seriously initiating dialogue.
Therefore, Parliament is tabling some amendments to raise the 1999 budget to around 1.17 % of GNP.
It must thus be understood that these amendments to reserves are simply intended to safeguard the rights of Parliament in case there is no agreement on the financial perspective.
But as I used pyrotechnical terms earlier, I must make it very clear that these amendments are not, however, the result of fireworks from Parliament.
The rights that Parliament wants to see safeguarded in the Interinstitutional Agreement, in view of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, are contained in Parliament's mandate to Joan Colom, who joins me in signing the amendments on reserves.
As rapporteur for the financial perspective, he will be speaking on that issue.
And now I really am ending, Madam President, but I would like a few more seconds: I want to call on the Council to agree with Parliament's position.
I would like to carry out a short exercise in accounting with the Council.
The small saving the Council makes in its accounting at its first reading represents roughly 40 000 pesetas a year for the Spanish citizen.
With 40 000 pesetas the Council and I could share about 200 beers, at 200 pesetas a beer, over the next 12 months.
I sincerely believe that this is no way to respond to the challenges facing the Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the total for Category 5, administrative expenditure, has been set at EUR 4.7 billion, with an increase of 4 % - or EUR 182 million - over 1998.
Of this sum, EUR 1 579.5 m represents the total budget for the 'other institutions', with an increase of just under 1.55 % as compared with 1998.
This, clearly, is a modest increase, an indication of the rigour shown by all the 'other institutions' when drawing up their budgets. Rigour has been applied in particular by Parliament itself, which accounts for almost three fifths of this amount.
Despite the option of purchasing IPE IV in Strasbourg, Parliament has curbed its expenditure, registering an increase of just 1.7 %.
I believe that this is worthy of note, as it is indicative of the extreme restraint demonstrated by Parliament's administration and by the Budgets Committee, a body very well aware of the need for reliability, rigour and austerity.
In the case both of Parliament and of all the 'other institutions', this budget is unusual in certain respects: it is the first budget in euros, it is the one which will mark the turn of the millennium, with all the ensuing implications for computers, and it is the one which will see the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the new elections to the European Parliament, with the related expenditure for both Members and the data-processing sector.
Let us now turn to the individual budgets, beginning with our own.
Parliament's budget is EUR 923 779 000, with an unused margin of almost 21 million, which confirms that we have always understood this margin not as a target but as an expenditure ceiling.
The most significant decisions have been the introduction of a new chapter and a new Article 390 - to be appropriately named to cover the new arrangements governing parliamentary assistants, which are currently being drawn up by the committee responsible and the Council.
Yesterday, following the meeting of the Bureau, the Budgets Committee took it upon itself to adopt an amendment, in the light of decisions taken by the Conference of Presidents...
Excuse me, Mr Viola, but I would like to correct that.
It was not the Conference of Presidents, but the Bureau of Parliament.
I am afraid there is still some confusion over that within the House.
You are absolutely right. That was a slip of the tongue; I meant the Bureau of the European Parliament.
In the light of the decisions taken by the Bureau, our committee took it upon itself to adopt by majority vote an amendment which, on the one hand, recognises that Members' travelling allowances must be reimbursed on the basis of the real costs, with a detailed breakdown of these costs, and, on the other, links the implementation of this decision to the Statute for Members, to be brought before this House by 15 December.
I believe that the solution adopted in the committee is a well-balanced one overall, and that it tackles the matter head-on: a Statute for Members, the lack of which creates unequal treatment, inequality and injustice.
The crux of the matter is that this fixation with travel expenses is out of all proportion!
That is why we turned our attention to this issue and adopted the amendment, which we hope will serve to ensure that the Council, together with the parliamentary committee responsible, will find a solution as soon as possible, as has long been desired by Parliament and as was asserted at the last summit.
As far as the next elections are concerned, the impact on the budget will be approximately EUR 17 m, fully in line with previous years.
On staffing, we have shown great restraint here too by allocating only ten new temporary posts, only five of them at grade A, to reinforce the parliamentary bodies involved in the enlargement procedure.
Significant progress has been made in the data-processing sector, although some things still remain to be done - especially on e-mail applications within and between the institutions - and the effects of the transition to the year 2000 need further investigation.
For this reason we have decided, through an amendment signed by the chairmen of the two largest groups and by myself, to release EUR 5 m from the reserve. This will be discussed tomorrow.
With regard to buildings policy, it has been decided that the option to purchase the IPE IV building should be exercised with ten-year refinancing, on terms comparable to those applicable for the D3 building in Brussels.
This obviously entails substantial budget expenditure: EUR 10.8 m.
On the other hand, the saving of EUR 8.3 m made by calculating the annual lease payments for the D3 building was more favourable than expected, and is indicative of a policy leading overall to a considerable reduction in expenditure on property.
This has already happened for 1999, and will undoubtedly continue in future years.
As regards the Ombudsman, his increased workload has been noted and, by agreement with the Council, an increase of six posts, three of them in the reserve, has been granted pending submission by the Ombudsman of a global action plan to restructure his secretariat, whereby many temporary posts may need to become permanent.
I would just point out in this context that, from now on, the budget for the Ombudsman should constitute a section in its own right.
This is provided for in the amended financial regulation discussed in the Budgets Committee, and with some justification, I believe.
With regard to the Court of Justice, which had requested a sizeable increase in posts for the translation directorate, in line with the Council's wishes we have allocated ten new LA posts for translators and four new B5 proofreader posts.
As for the Court of Auditors, its budget has been increased by 11.69 % in view of the decision to allow an extension to its building, for which such a commitment is necessary, and for which total funding of EUR 25 m over five years is planned.
We have entered the first five million for to 1999 in the reserve, whilst awaiting the conclusion of the new interinstitutional agreement, which - at least in the Commission's proposal - allowed for this expenditure in the financial perspective, and also whilst awaiting alternative solutions from the Court of Auditors as regards the appropriateness of building a new chamber, given that sufficient chambers already exist in buildings located in Luxembourg.
Moving on to the Committees - the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - it is worth stressing that the role of the latter is much enhanced under the Amsterdam Treaty, which is why we have seen fit to increase the appropriations for meetings, as emerged from the implementation of the 1998 budget.
As we are all aware, Protocol 16 provides for the abolition of the joint organisational structure.This protocol must be applied as soon as the Treaty enters into force, and we have invited the ESC and the CoR to submit their proposals to this effect.
We hope that all due regard will thereby be paid to the need to avoid dual expenditure and to guarantee a homogenous staff policy for the ESC and the CoR, with a view to long-term interinstitutional cooperation.
Finally, as regards buildings policy, we were pleased to learn that the ESC and CoR have undertaken to occupy the Belliard I and II buildings, as was suggested by Parliament.
These premises are in need of refitting: we have earmarked sums for this refurbishment and hope that it will be undertaken as soon as possible by the two Committees. We believe that they should begin by occupying these two buildings, and only if - as seems likely - these do not prove adequate, should they then occupy the Atrium building.
These are the most significant aspects of the budgets for the 'other institutions'.
I believe that we have all done a good job of work, and I should therefore like to thank my colleagues in the Budgets Committee. I hope that this House will endorse our committee's decisions.
Thank you, Mr Viola.
I should like to emphasise one other thing at this point, namely that for the first time our budget is being expressed in euros, with the ECU being replaced after 20 years.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, each year I have the honour of presenting to you a report on the ECSC budget. This year it is accompanied by another report, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council on the expiry of the Treaty.
In my opinion, these two reports are linked because they have been affected by various events which I wish to highlight and which, as I see it, are not helping to improve Community policy or increase solidarity between the nations of Europe.
Firstly, we should remember that, last year at the same time, by just a few votes and contrary to the opinion of the rapporteur - namely, myself - this House voted in favour of removing the compulsory levy on the turnover of the coal and steel industries.
In addition to its symbolic nature, in that this eliminated the only real joint financial contribution binding the European coal and steel industries together, this decision conclusively cut off the source of fresh money which formed the bulk of the ECSC budget. The reason given for this was that the restructuring of these industries was virtually complete and that there was enough money to pay for the management fund until 2002, commitment funds until 2007, the guarantee fund until 2019, the special reserve until 2021 and the former pension fund until 2026.
In fact, the ECSC coffers contain ECU 1.2 billion which will basically be enough to finance the operating budgets until 2002, when the Treaty expires, and to pay for the last pensioner until 2026.
Should we take the view that this sector is now positively thriving? First of all, we should remember that it is still shedding jobs: about 11 000 jobs will probably be lost between 1998 and 1999.
It may well be possible, in view of the very high volume of funding, to allocate additional appropriations, in line with the positive opinion of the Committee on Budgets, in order to establish an additional ECU 3 million for redeployment aid which could help, as stipulated in Article 56 of the ECSC Treaty, to create new activities capable of reabsorbing the redundant workers into productive employment.
In the same respect, it may be possible and desirable to carry out the proposal in the Communication of 9 June which would allow ECU 60 million to be transferred from the operating budget of the ECSC to the Union's general budget in order to reinforce the Rechar II and Resider II Community initiatives.
These two programmes are capable of absorbing the funds in question, between now and the end of 1999, and are totally consistent with the aim of protecting jobs.
Finally, on the initiative of our colleague, Joan Colom i Naval, paragraph 12 of the motion for a resolution before you calls on the Commission to earmark appropriations from the PHARE programme for activities in conjunction with the coal and steel sectors of the applicant countries.
We only need to think of Poland or Romania to see that there are good grounds for this request.
In fact, by agreeing to the end of this excellent instrument - the ECSC - in 2002, i.e. just before enlargement, the European Union is preventing the countries of eastern Europe from having access to an instrument on which the Union was founded.
Is this right? Whatever, it is now clear from the direction taken in recent months, particularly at Amsterdam, regarding the allocation of the ECSC's assets after 2002, that a number of points have now been decided.
The first is that the ECSC will certainly expire on 23 July 2002 and that the ECSC assets and their management will most likely be transferred to the remaining communities in the final days of the ECSC.
The second point relates to economic and industrial policy aspects.
The Committee on Budgets unreservedly supports the Commission's proposal to allocate all the interest earned on the assets to the promotion of research in the coal and steel sectors.
Finally, the third point, which I must highlight and which is exactly what our committee said it wanted to see, is that, with regard to intellectual property rights, the dissemination of results to SMEs is to be an element of the sector's research programmes.
To conclude on these two reports, I must acknowledge that they have gained the virtually unanimous support of the members of the Committee on Budgets, unlike last year when the fee problem divided the House.
Both texts concerning the ECSC in 1999 therefore have a broad consensus and their adoption on Thursday should not pose any major problems.
Furthermore, I should like to thank the draftsmen of the opinions of the other committees, Mrs Graenitz, Mr Blak and Mrs Lulling, who have made a significant contribution to the report of the Committee on Budgets.
I would stress to Mrs Lulling that her report does indeed form an integral part of the final report, despite the technical difficulties which seem to have dogged its route to the printers.
I will now, as agreed with the Sessional Services, give the opinion of the UPE Group on the draft budget for 1999.
The budget on which we are required to deliver an opinion at first reading will be a difficult one: difficult because of the current situation of uncertainty and the need for rigour, and difficult too because, although this is the last budget coming under the financial perspectives and Interinstitutional Agreement of 1994, our task is to outline the profile of future budgets and to overcome financial constraints, at the risk of surrendering any ambitions we might have.
In preparing the 1999 budget, we must be aware that anything is possible, but nothing is guaranteed. Will the Interinstitutional Agreement be renewed in 1999 and under what conditions?
Will the next financial perspectives be sufficient to ensure that spending develops? And if the renegotiations fail, will the reversion to Article 203 of the Treaty and the application of the maximum rate of increase be carried out under conditions acceptable to Parliament?
What is certain, in this case, is that budgetary rigour is required of the legislator. Besides, the European Parliament committed itself to this by accepting, in its March resolution on the budgetary guidelines for 1999, a budget whose rate of increase would not be higher than that of the national budgets.
This rigour was both imposed on us and freely accepted by us.
We still have to agree on how to correctly apply this rigour to spending.
The Council's interpretation, which is just to gamble on the levels of under-spending, particularly on internal policies, is unacceptable.
What the Council actually wants is a general reduction in all expenditure and, in this respect, it has submitted a draft budget in which appearances are deceptive, in that it confirms the agricultural envelope and the Structural Fund appropriations but also blocks, through significant reductions, any progress in Headings 3 and 4, particularly for research, i.e. internal policies and external measures.
We must not be taken in by this.
Although the draft budget presents an overall increase of 2.8 % in payment appropriations and 6.1 % in commitment appropriations in relation to last year, actually, by keeping the budget at 1.10 % of the GNP ceiling - whereas, strictly, 1.27 % is available - and by limiting expenditure in the headings which are the most decisive for the future development of the European Union to the ceilings fixed by the Interinstitutional Agreement, the Council is ensuring that future budgets will be paralysed.
This planned rigour amounts to sacrificing the future, which is not acceptable.
The rigour required of the budget must be compatible with the development outlook, and the 1999 budget must prepare for the budgets of tomorrow by allowing the Community to meet its commitments, particularly with regard to enlargement.
This is why we support the rapporteur's approach which aims to establish special reserves as viable calculation bases for forthcoming financial perspectives in the 2000-2006 period, in accordance with the provisions of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Like the rapporteur, we hope to reach an agreement with the Council on these special reserves because it is the survival of future budgets which is at stake.
If the Interinstitutional Agreement is renewed, it must have adequate bases so that the future financial perspectives ensure the development of Community policies and, should the renegotiation of the Interinstitutional Agreement fail, the re-application of Article 203 of the Treaty should not condemn the European Union to the planned spending paralysis.
The choice is clear and we approve it.
However, we do not want Parliament's assertion of its prerogatives to cause it to make an unfortunate exception for agriculture expenditure by seeking to limit the appropriations to well below the ceiling of the guideline, in other words to reduce the actual financial requirements of the CAP.
Neither must the aim of the budget be to reform the CAP or limit the growth in agricultural expenditure. The aim should be to ensure the correct financing of this while complying with the provisions of the Interinstitutional Agreement and ad hoc procedures.
I have a further comment about the problem of putting the funds intended for humanitarian aid into reserve. Here, Parliament must confirm or reject the position of the Committee on Budgets and must indicate whether the letter of 9 October from Mr Jacques Santer to the President of Parliament is sufficient to allow us to forgive the ECHO managers for their despicable actions which led to the UCLAF report that everyone is talking about but the Members have not yet seen.
Just reading the Commission's answers to Members on subjects relating to the budget sometimes produces a real feeling of revolt.
For the last ten months, for example, Messrs Papoutsis and Liikanen have been refusing to take responsibility for the former's incapacity to make his departments comply with a legal provision unanimously adopted a year ago by the Committee on Budgets and then by Parliament, for the reason that this is inconvenient to the department's director who really could not care less about the parliamentary vote.
Answers phrased in hackneyed, Soviet-style language have now taken over from the initially condescending replies.
The scorn displayed by officials towards the Members of this House will only strengthen our resolve.
The ECHO scandal proves one thing: that if some Commission officials are doing what they like, it is because the Members of the Commission are too preoccupied with their own interests - I am thinking of ECHO - to waste time supervising them. And it is also because malpractices and bad habits are now second nature, which has led to the development of a principle of out of sight, out of mind, undermining the Commission's credibility.
In this Parliament, in our group at least, we are not ready to let the electors believe that we are only interested in retaliation, and we are therefore waiting to find out exactly what happened with ECHO before adopting any position.
More generally, the Council, the Commission and, unfortunately, Parliament too are suffering from Fontainebleau syndrome, each fighting its own corner in pale imitation of Margaret Thatcher, each considering that the State which it represents must reassert its position, regardless of the Community policies founded on solidarity.
We will return to this matter in detail when we discuss the report on own resources.
However, on behalf of my group, I would like to prepare the ground.
Because the common agricultural policy is the cause of certain imbalances, and based on the Fontainebleau agreements among others, the Commission's proposals include reducing the Community contribution to direct aid to farmers and introducing cofinancing for this direct aid between the national exchequers and the European Union budget.
The rest of the common agricultural policy as we know it would then be reduced to a vague agricultural structural policy.
It is clear that such a proposal, although attractive at first sight, would allow some Member States to reduce their contribution to the European Union to the detriment of the common agricultural policy.
This would mean that agricultural policy would have to be partially renationalised and it would also compromise European solidarity, as happened last year when it was decided, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, contrary to my proposal as rapporteur, to remove the ECSC levy for the last five years of the ECSC budget.
In the wake of the abandonment of this unique Community tax, the Commission is now proposing to attack the European Union's only integrated policy. Are we mad?
Is our Europe of shopkeepers turning into a Europe of horse-traders?
Do we really believe that, after having ruined the IGC and botched Amsterdam and Luxembourg, we should now dismantle this unique Community policy because the socialist governments of the United Kingdom and Germany are implementing ultraliberal tax policies in order to win votes? It is time to reflect on this and to seriously ask ourselves what the technocrats, who only have their own interests at heart, are planning for us.
Mr President, as the budget procedure for 1999 progresses it becomes clear that the broad consensus among the institutions of recent years on general budgetary stability for the Union will continue in 1999.
All the institutions agree that rigour has to be maintained.
At the same time the obligations of the Union in particular with regard to the decisions of the Edinburgh European Council have to be respected.
Discussions continue on some aspects.
As far as compulsory spending is concerned, the Commission has an amending letter on its agenda for 28 October. It will assess probable additional spending requirements as tightly as possible.
With the amending letter for 1999 and the recently transmitted amending letter to the supplementary and amending budget for 1998 all elements are on the table.
This should permit the budgetary authority to come to an overall agreement for 1998 and 1999 by the time of the Budget Council of 24 November at the latest.
But this budget exercise is not only about numbers.
It also marks further important improvements in the financial management of the Union, and I should like briefly to raise three.
Firstly, the 1999 budget is established on the basis of the new interinstitutional agreement as regards the legal basis.
The budget procedure has already shown that the agreement works.
At the same time new and experimental activities can still attract initial funding from the Community budget.
The Commission and the organisations concerned will benefit from this clarity when it comes to implementing the budget.
These were major successes for Parliament in the budgetary field.
Secondly, significant progress is also being made with regard to the Community subsidies.
There is a Commission communication imposing clear minimum rules on publicity and collective decision-making for all Community subsidies.
It is the result of many parliamentary initiatives.
Both Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Tillich have invested a lot of effort in this field and I note with interest that Barbara Dührkop Dührkop is pursuing these same lines.
The new Commission rules come into effect for the execution of the 1999 budget, and efforts are under way to inform and discuss the matter with actual and potential beneficiaries.
A third issue concerns the possible use of operating resources for administrative purposes.
In particular the Technical Assistance Offices or 'BATs' as the French abbreviation has it.
I understand that the European Parliament wants to change certain practices immediately to improve transparency and control.
These objectives are shared by the Commission.
I regret it if this has not come out clearly enough in its recent communication on the Technical Assistance Offices, but work needs to continue to make sure that the short-term decisions are also a step towards the medium-term solution.
The Commission has put ideas forward in its communication and in its working paper on renewal of the financial regulation.
Both seek to establish a closer link between the decisions on the financial and the human resources required for each Community action.
Finally, Parliament is preparing to vote to introduce important additional credits into the 1999 budget by means of its bridging amendment.
I understand the role of this in the bargaining process towards the next interinstitutional agreement, but should such an agreement and the cancellation of the bridging credits not occur early enough then the Commission would have, some time in 1999, to call up more funds than needed from the Member States.
Let me conclude by expressing my sincere respect for the formidable work of the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola, as well as the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland.
As this is a joint debate with the reports of Mr Giansily on the European Coal and Steel Community, I would like to add some further points on this subject.
With regard to the financial consequences of the expiration of the ECSC Treaty, I note that solutions are emerging which have both the approval of the Council and Parliament in many respects.
The administration of the heritage of the ECSC by the existing Communities and the financing of research activities in the steel and coal sector from the interest generated from this now seems to be established.
Further discusssions are required on ownership of the heritage, on questions related to future enlargement of the Union and on the distribution of research funding between the sectors.
The Commission will submit a further contribution to these discussions before the end of the year.
As far as the 1999 operating budget is concerned, the Commission shares the regrets expressed by Mr Giansily that the Council does not appear to be willing to approve the transfer of funds to the general budget to reinforce the Community initiatives RESIDER and RECHAR.
I note that the draft opinion already foresees an alternative solution based on Article 56 of the ECSC Treaty.
The Commission may indeed have to orient itself in this direction even though the possibilities for absorption need to be carefully examined.
The Commission will have another look, as proposed by Mr Giansily, at the funds for steel and coal research.
These funds should gradually descend to the level which can be sustained in the medium term after the expiraty of the ECSC Treaty.
Let me again thank the rapporteur, Mr Giansily, for his substantial work.
Mr President, two minutes is not very much time in which to explain the significance of the EU's foreign and security policy for the European Parliament.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has, nevertheless, identified its priorities for the budget.
Achieving democracy and the protection of human rights and supporting peace processes should be a significant aspect of all programmes, in particular those concerned with the applicant countries, but also the Euro-Mediterranean programme, MEDA, and programmes concerned with Eastern Europe.
The interpretation of the Court judgment on the legal bases of programmes on democracy and human rights caused quite a stir amongst the general public, because it is these programmes which are carried out by numerous NGOs and which are effective at grass roots level.
Fortunately, the conciliation in July between the Council, the Commission and Parliament made it possible to remedy this situation.
Creating a new budget line exclusively for the Royaumont process is intended to serve a similar purpose, namely the building or strengthening of civil society.
As part of this process, it is proposed to organise projects in Central and Southern Europe, involving applicant countries, associated countries, Member States and states formerly part of Yugoslavia.
It is for the same reason that we are supporting the Masters degree in human rights, which is intended to provide training and instruction in human rights, and in which numerous universities are already participating.
We have made proposals on stepping up cooperation with Latin America, Asia and South Africa, as have the other committees involved, either directly or through the appropriate institutes.
Events surrounding the arrest of the former President of Chile, General Pinochet, show how fragile democracy still is in Latin America.
We also wish to support the work of the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague and Rwanda. The Analysis and Evaluation Centre has started its work on conflict prevention and laying the foundations for peace.
We wish to support it.
Yesterday, there was a heated debate in the Committee on Budgets about whether this chapter should serve external relations, external experience, or something else.
What we want is for our measures to serve the European Union's foreign policy and, in doing so, to gain a higher profile.
Mr President, at this stage of the budget negotiations we have to look at more than just non-compulsory expenditure on agriculture.
As draftsman of an opinion on the 1999 farm budget, I think it is my duty to ensure that the efficient procedure set in train by Messrs Tillich and Mulder for the 1998 budget is used for the forthcoming budget too and further clarified if necessary.
So it is not right, for example, to include in our resolution on the 1999 budget pronouncements about lowering or at least stabilising farm spending.
We must consider the Commission's latest estimate of future spending which it will shortly be putting before the Council and Parliament in its letter of amendment.
It is clear that international markets are currently subject to change, which will undoubtedly affect agricultural spending.
It proves that our new approach to the budget is right.
In setting the budget we must base ourselves on the latest market and currency data.
Last year, one of the main political questions was whether anything should be done about the supposedly excessive compensation paid to British arable farmers, for example.
It is good to see care being taken, by our Committee on Agriculture amongst others, to ensure that our policy is constant and reliable, because the world market has again reached a low point and the fall in value of the pound sterling has hit the British per hectare premiums hard.
A striking feature of this budget is the marked rise in expenditure on accompanying measures - in itself a sound farm policy development, provided spending is appropriate to the end in view.
It is essential for the Commission to submit the agreed evaluation reports on this to the Council and Parliament, because otherwise we shall be groping in the dark as things move on.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the economy is crucial to job creation.
That is why we have lent our full support to the strategic programme on the internal market, and in particular to the 'new approach'.
This means that where standardisation is concerned, our aim must be to ensure that products sold in Europe, which are licensed for sale in one country, are also automatically licensed in another country.
We need similar work on standards in the telecommunications sector.
It is precisely the telecommunications sector which plays a major role in creating new jobs, and here we wish, above all, to promote electronic commerce.
Because this is also something new in the education sector, it is necessary to improve the applications of these telecommunications networks.
Through the IDA programme, in particular, we are trying to link up schools, administrations, small and medium-sized enterprises and public hospitals, and to disseminate this new knowledge.
Obviously, this can also have harmful consequences.
We are aware that there are many problems associated with the Internet.
That is why the European Parliament is advocating an increase in appropriations here.
A further important point is the construction of trans-European transport networks.
I believe that investment in this sector will not only create new jobs in the short term, when this infrastructure is built, but also, and more significantly, that the knock-on effects will open up entirely new opportunities.
My final, and perhaps most important point concerns training and continuing education.
The Leonardo programme is a vital one, because it gives young trainees the opportunity to go to other countries and work in companies there, and that leads to success.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has studied the 1999 budget very carefully.
There are two reasons for this.
Firstly, as far as energy is concerned, we need to step up our efforts at European level to promote alternative sources of energy, in order to meet the commitments we entered into in Kyoto.
The second point is research policy.
Here, of course, we are faced with the huge task of implementing the fifth framework programme in the 1999 budget.
On both matters, we received the support of a majority of the Committee on Budgets, and for this I wish to thank the rapporteur in particular, and her colleagues in the Budgets Committee in general.
An increase in appropriations for Altener and SAVE, as has now been decided, was urgently needed and has been achieved.
The situation with the fifth framework programme is more difficult.
We still do not have a decision, which also means that at today's first reading we have no legal base.
At this stage, I should like to urge the Council to do all it can to make it possible for us to find a solution - a lawful one - at our next meeting on 10 November.
I should also like to state quite clearly, that the guillotine clause is unlawful and incompatible with the Treaty.
We are awaiting sensible proposals from the Council here.
But - and this is the Budgets Committee's great achievement in the budgetary procedure - enough room for manoeuvre has been secured for it to be possible to implement Parliament's funding proposals.
I think that this constitutes a great success and strengthens Parliament's negotiating position in the conciliation.
By the second reading, we will in any case have closed the conciliation procedure, one way or the other, whether we find a solution or not, so the situation will be clear.
One further request: next year I should like us to devote some time quite specifically to the Joint Research Centre.
We discussed this once again yesterday in the Committee on Budgets; we will be saying something about it in the motion, and Parliament urgently needs to have a clear line on this.
Once again, I should like to thank colleagues for their constructive cooperation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, more than two thirds of the amendments tabled by the Committee on External Economic Relations were accepted either in full or in principle by the Committee on Budgets.
These are directed towards securing the necessary funding for incentives for opening up and penetrating third country markets with European Union products and services - a traditional preoccupation of the REX Committee.
We were also able to win support for our views that, although financial assistance to the Central and Eastern European and Mediterranean countries is necessary and of prime importance, it is only sensible to the extent that these countries are able to use the help to help themselves.
In the future, when it is drawing up the draft budget, the Council should, together with the Commission, give more careful consideration to the capacity of the applicant countries, in particular, to absorb this aid.
In this context, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's proposed reserve of around ECU 200 million for external economic activities is a step in the right direction, and will improve the way in which the funds available are distributed.
The amendments now being retabled by the Committee on External Economic Relations have three purposes. Firstly, restoring funding for humanitarian aid in Kosovo to an adequate level, and also making p.m. entries for Turkey, the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes, and the exceptional financial assistance for Azerbaijan.
Secondly, the necessary extending of trade cooperation with Asia, Latin America and South Africa, as well as cooperation with economic and social groups, chambers of commerce and industry, employers' organisations, unions, farmers, small and medium-sized enterprises, consumers and environmental organisations.
This is, as it were, multicentric cooperation, involving real people from the economy and society.
Remarks to this effect should also be included.
And lastly, there is market access and budget lines for opening up the Japanese market.
I should like to take this opportunity to thank Mrs Dührkop Dührkop - for being a sympathetic listener, for examining our proposals and for her excellent cooperation - and also the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, for his patience in the face of my obstinacy.
Finally, I am grateful to the advisers to the Committee on External Economic Relations, Christian Augustin and Francisco Gomes Martes, especially for their excellent cooperation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, two central objectives guided the Committee on Regional Policy with regard to the 1999 budget: first and foremost, ensuring that the agreements reached in Edinburgh were respected in full.
Fundamentally, the final proposal meets that objective.
The Committee on Regional Policy also expressed doubts about the level of payments, after having presented proposals aimed at guaranteeing adequate capital flows.
The proposal does achieve that, albeit by different means.
Let us hope that it will work in practice.
Our second main objective was to restore appropriations for Community initiatives.
Our committee still questions whether the Council should be allowed to cut back amounts earmarked for Community initiatives, using delays in their execution as the pretext, even though those delays have never been specified or explained.
In the committee's view, given this vagueness, Community initiatives should have their initially earmarked appropriations restored to them and, in addition, the PEACE initiative should be given an extra ECU 100 million - but that does not mean cutting amounts for the other initiatives.
It is a significant and regrettable fact that the demand made by the Committee on Regional Policy has not been met in full. Instead the proposal that we are discussing today does nothing to restore appropriations for Community initiatives in full.
Mr President, as draftsman for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I must begin by thanking Mrs Dührkop most warmly for her ready cooperation.
Clearly she is all in favour of a green budget and looks kindly on matters of the environment.
An indication of that is that the budget for the environment has been increased by nearly 5 % compared with the Council's figures.
We have achieved much towards the greening of the budget, notably as regards the Structural Funds, which can now be used to implement the habitat and birds directives - a major gain.
If the other Members of this House are willing to endorse the amendments which the Committee on Budgets has already approved, we shall of course be very pleased.
Notwithstanding this, I have tabled some further amendments on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
These concern the heading 'tropical forests' and the programmes for cooperation with third countries.
We in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection proposed that 10 per cent of MEDA be allocated to the environment, and this was agreed.
It would be logical to do the same for PHARE and TACIS too.
That amendment was not approved by the Committee on Budgets, which is why we have tabled it again to be voted on in plenary.
It will make for greater consistency in the budget if we extend this line to TACIS and PHARE.
Lastly, Mr President, I believe we must not only take account of the environment in all areas of European Union policy; it must also be systematically integrated into the everyday internal activities of the European institutions.
Through an amendment to the Viola report, we call on all European institutions, including our own European Parliament, to draw up an action plan for a more environmentally friendly internal administration.
Energy, mobility, recycling, all these aspects must be reflected in the way in which the European institutions manage their own affairs.
If we improve our own behaviour in this way, we can make our institutions into a model for other organisations, not just in Europe but worldwide.
Mr President, I wish to say that the initial Commission proposal was a slight disappointment to us, specifically in the culture sector where we saw a cut of 43 %.
However, the Committee on Budgets, and specifically Barbara Dührkop Dührkop, who understands the need for a strong cultural sector within the EU, have given it priority.
The committee is extremely grateful for that.
The Culture Committee is divided into three parts: education and youth, cultural and audiovisual, and information.
Throughout the process we have been trying to build on the principles of openness and transparency.
Our task has been to set out criteria and then to allow open competitions to take place.
Of course the whole process this year has been dogged by conflicting reports on the interpretation of the Court judgment on the legal base but, somehow or other, we have managed to find a way through.
A new approach has been initiated, creating a Europe of knowledge.
This has found expression in a new budget line called 'connect' - the brainchild again of Barbara Dührkop Dührkop.
This will give an opportunity for cooperation between different programmes.
It will allow much more flexibility and fluidity, especially between the cultural and educational budget lines.
In the education sector, we are pleased to be able to resolve the problems regarding lesser-used languages, and we look forward to a legal base being proposed by the Commission on this.
The culture lines were the biggest headache of all, and still are.
I am, of course, referring to the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes.
The problem has been one of timing: these programmes were due to finish in 1998 and, of course, the new culture programme is not meant to start until the year 2000.
So what we have here is a year's delay, and we were very concerned that we would lose the momentum we have gained through these programmes.
We are pleased to see that the Commission and the Council are coming around to our way of thinking and we have set money aside ready for an agreement on this; we are grateful again to Barbara Dührkop Dührkop for ensuring that money is available if and when that agreement comes through.
In the audiovisual sector, we are slightly disappointed that not more money has been made available for the experimental actions to help to develop a stronger, more vibrant audiovisual sector in Europe.
Finally, on the whole information sector: the governments of Europe talk about creating a more people-friendly Europe.
I think they should open their eyes because we already have a people-friendly Europe.
The problem is that people do not know about it, which is why we need to develop a better information policy.
It is critical that, especially during the time of the introduction of the single currency, this is carried through, and I hope that Members will reverse the bizarre vote in the Committee on Budgets on cutting the money for decentralised actions.
All in all, the Culture Committee has a great deal to be happy about, and we thank Barbara Dührkop Dührkop for her courageous support.
Mr President, first of all I should also like to pay tribute to the general rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, with whom I worked extremely closely.
She has shown a tremendous amount of empathy for the work of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
However, I still have a number of concerns, first of all about ECHO.
I wholeheartedly agree - no-one would disagree - that we have to stamp out fraud and corruption.
Fraud and corruption are bad enough and have to be condemned, but when they actually concern food aid to some of the poorest people in the world, that makes it even worse.
Therefore I wholeheartedly agree that we have to condemn it.
But to hold these poorest people in the world hostage whilst we sort out the administrative problems of the Commission is not fair.
Therefore I very much hope that this particular problem will be resolved.
Then we can get on with doing the work that we are supposed to be doing.
Secondly, on assistance to the ACP banana producers, we all know the desperate situation that these farmers face as a result of the WTO ruling.
We very much want to see the money placed on the line there.
People will have noticed in the last few weeks the horrendous destruction that the recent hurricane has caused in the Caribbean.
It is for that reason that bananas are produced in that area - because they actually grow within six months.
We know how important they are.
We want to see the money on the line to make sure that compensation is provided.
We would also like to see, as far as the Development Committee is concerned, the Committee on Budgets reconsider a couple of lines.
First of all, on landmines, we were all absolutely thrilled and delighted when the 40th country in the world ratified the Ottawa accord.
We know that on 1 March 1999 the ban on landmines will become a legally-binding treaty of the United Nations.
But there are still something like 110 million of these landmines killing or maiming someone about every quarter of an hour of every day of every week somewhere in the world.
Therefore we would like to see this particular budget item restored to what it was last year.
On gender, we would like an increase in that line up to what was ECU 5 million because we recognise the importance of gender as far as the development world is concerned.
If someone asked me what single action would make a huge difference as far as the developing world was concerned, I would have to say it would be educating girls.
We know how important gender is.
I conclude by saying that overall we are relatively happy with the outcome so far of the Budget Committee.
There have been a number of increases which we are pleased with, in particular the budget line on Nigeria, which has been increased by ECU 1 million because there is still a huge amount of work to be done there.
Many thanks, once again, to the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I must firstly tell our general rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, how pleased we are with the attention which she has paid to our concerns.
We had five priorities within the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs which have basically all been met.
Our first priority was the creation of the European Refugee Fund, and here I should like to thank not only the rapporteur, but also Mr Brinkhorst who played a leading role in this area.
The creation of this budgetary fund augurs well for the continuation of the European Union's policy in this area of strategic importance. It will soon be brought under the first pillar and there are currently political discussions on how to share the burden.
The second priority for our committee was the continuation of measures to combat violence against women and children, sex tourism and the use of the Internet for criminal purposes.
The rapporteur took our request in this particularly sensitive area into consideration and we thank her for that.
The third priority for our committee was the integration of refugees and the fight against racism and xenophobia.
These budget lines were in a delicate position because they have no legal basis and the rapporteur proposed a solution with whose wording and amounts we are satisfied.
The fourth priority was our insistence, as has been the case for several years, on a Europol line being included in the budget, because we consider that part of the appropriations intended for Europol must appear in the Union budget, even if this is through a p.m. entry. We are grateful that our request was noted.
We have one regret with regard to cooperation in the fields of justice and internal affairs.
We wanted a small programme to help the Member States to agree on ways of fighting urban crime, particularly crime committed by groups of youths.
I clearly was not convincing enough as this small programme - and this is my only regret - has been rejected.
Mr President, our committee is not very much of a spending committee.
But we look towards the future as far as the Amsterdam Treaty is concerned.
So it is against that background that the Institutional Committee was very pleased that it is possible to actually align the new budget on the new priorities.
Our colleague, Mr Deprez, has just mentioned this for civil liberties.
It is important that we provide orientations on Europol and on European refugees so that it is clear that once the first pillar receives the aspect of the third pillar we can actually do that.
Also, it is important that the Amsterdam Treaty takes into account the new rules on comitology.
It is against that background that we fully supported the orientation that we must discuss with the Commission and the Council, namely that on comitology there will be shared responsibilities between the European Parliament and the Council.
It will be one of the tough issues of the future.
A hierarchy of European Community norms is the essence of the Community of the future.
It is this kind of democracy and accountability which the Commission should take a forceful position on.
Mr President, until now, the procedure in the Committee on Budgetary Control has meant that, every year at the October part-session, we would vote on a motion for a resolution on the implementation of the current budget.
As a result, this was either confused with or clashed with the debate on the next year's budget.
That is why this year, the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Budgets have agreed a new procedure, namely that we should give a more comprehensive opinion on the coming year's budget, and ask the rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets to take account of this opinion in their deliberations.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, for doing just that.
Now a few comments, both on the debate on next year's budget and on the 1998 budget.
Since the summer, we have had a decision on legal bases.
The situation has thus been clarified and the uncertainties of the previous years finally dispelled.
At the same time, however, I should like to repeat my request to the Commission and the Council to actively work on those areas where they have given us assurances that the legal bases still required will be established, both those for the 1998 budget - before the end of 1998 - and those for 1999.
On the ad hoc procedure, I should like to support Mr Sonneveld.
Last year, we introduced an ad hoc procedure, the Tillich-Mulder procedure.
In so doing, we thought that we had at last found - through the Commission presenting a letter of amendment in late autumn - a feasible way to forecast agricultural spending, and would thus be able to discuss the budget on a realistic basis.
That is why, should the Commission present a letter of amendment this year, it must also be possible - this procedure provides for it - for increased demand to appear in the Commission's modifications; both reduced and increased demand are possible.
We have taken account of this.
On Category 3, we have a request for the Commission. In the 1998 budget procedure, we adopted the SME technology facility in the hope that it would have a positive impact on employment.
I would ask the Commission to provide regular reports on the practical results, as the legal base was only adopted this summer.
One further comment on Category 4: the Commission itself refers in internal documents to the fact that it is having considerable difficulties utilising the appropriations in MEDA and PHARE.
The Commission must take the necessary steps to improve this situation.
Mr President, first of all I would thank the rapporteur for her work.
I must say on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries that in general we are satisfied with the content of the budget: we are won over by the approach to international agreements; we are content that the specific operation in favour of small-scale fisheries and coastal fishing has been maintained; above all, we are certain that Parliament's efforts in respect of small-scale fisheries have facilitated the establishment of projects which create employment, especially for young people, as well as land-based assistance for fishermen.
We are however mystified by some of the proposals relating to controls: funding is actually being cut back in this sector, and Item B2-901 is inadequate in our view.
We have therefore put forward an amendment concerning the allocation earmarked for controls under Item B2-901, namely an increase from ECU 41 m to ECU 45 m.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, who has continued the process begun in recent years of feminising the budget and has already incorporated the concept of gender mainstreaming - enshrining equal opportunities in all policies - in the budget lines.
We are, however, still waiting for this principle to be applied consistently, as shown by several working documents on the 1998 and 1999 budgets, and as I can prove - for the areas in which the Committee on Women's Rights is competent - from extensive correspondence with 15 of the Commissioners.
A further priority in our opinion was the fourth action programme on equal opportunities for men and women, and combating violence.
The Daphne programme is being discussed in the meantime, but as I recall, we in this House - namely 350 Members - supported calls for a European Year and a campaign to combat violence against women by signing the Declaration in May.
For reasons we fail to understand, this amendment to the remarks, tabled by the Committee on Women's Rights, was not adopted in the Budgets Committee.
A new amendment is before the House, and I hope that all our colleagues will be consistent and vote in favour of it.
Mr President, in the Petitions Committee's opinion, we emphasised that the funding provided for the committee's work and the Ombudsman must be commensurate with the tasks we are asked to undertake.
The Treaty on European Union gives every citizen the right to petition, and to lodge complaints about the European institutions with the Ombudsman.
The Treaty of Amsterdam provides a more solid basis for Union citizenship.
The incorporation of part of the third pillar, justice and home affairs, into the first pillar will have an impact on the powers and the scope of the activities of both the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman.
The right of petition and complaint is an important instrument for a democratic Europe.
That is why we warn against being over-zealous when making proposals to rationalise the committees' facilities, and the danger of only focusing on legislative work and budgetary duties.
Framing policy can and must amount to something more than austerity measures.
The Committee on Petitions asks to be given priority when changes to the establishment plan are being considered. We also need resources to make better use of information technology when exchanging documents with citizens.
We support the Ombudsman's requests, and regard them as objectively justified.
The proposed solution to the problem - treating the Ombudsman as a separate institution for the purposes of the budget - allows additional posts to be created.
We are grateful to the Committee on Budgets and Mr Viola for this idea.
This will allow us to consolidate and continue to build up this institution, which is vital for democracy.
Mr President, I should first of all like to thank the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets on the expiry of the ECSC Treaty, Mr Giansily, for incorporating all the conclusions in my opinion - adopted unanimously by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy - in his motion for a resolution, which was also adopted unanimously by the Committee on Budgets.
If all Members agree with our sensible and just proposals, then the ECSC money - most of which was, after all, amassed by the coal and steel industries themselves, in the form of the levy they have paid since 1952 - will, after 2002, be used to promote research of future significance in the interests of these industries.
In my report, I have made it clear, for example, that only 20 % of steel's potential as a material has been exploited, which means that both from the quantitative and, especially, the qualitative point of view, steel has a bright future.
The steel industry is not a sunset industry, and if it is able, by stepping up its research efforts, to meet customer demand for ever more sophisticated applications, then its bright future will become a reality.
The Amsterdam European Council has already decided to use the revenue from the reserves existing after 23 July 2002 for a research fund, which will benefit the sectors related to the coal and steel industry. It is therefore obvious to me - and this is also the easiest and most straightforward solution - that ownership of the ECSC assets should be transferred to the remaining Communities.
The ECSC Treaty of 1952 has a more developed sense of social issues, a stronger competition policy and an exemplary statistical system.
That is why we are asking the Commission to make proposals, in good time, on integrating these instruments, which have certainly proved themselves, into the EU framework.
It would actually be irresponsible and a great shame if we were to lose these instruments from the first European Community.
Mr President, the expiry of the ECSC Treaty presented us with a difficult task, because despite this Treaty being concluded for a limited period, it did not include any kind of winding-up provisions.
I can endorse very much of what the previous speaker said.
For the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, it is obviously particularly important that funding for research continues to be available.
We know from analyses of research in the steel and coal sectors that, by virtue of being closely connected to industry, this exerts a particularly large influence on the development of European industry and has, in broad areas, inordinately strengthened the competitiveness of this European industry compared with the United States, and also Japan.
It would be a shame if the Commission were now not to make the appropriate proposals, firstly so that this research can continue, and the expertise and instruments can continue to be utilised and, secondly, so that in the event of an enlargement, the states concerned can participate in these specific research programmes, in particular those related to coal.
Mr President, the wings of history are beating through Parliament today.
We are not only discussing the budgets of this and all the other institutions for next year, we are also looking back to the launch of the European Coal and Steel Community in order to perform the annual exercise of winding up the financial part of the old Treaty.
The proposal that has been presented contains the idea that the interest income on the capital of the ECSC should be used for research programmes within the coal and steel sector.
But it is not ambitious enough.
It is perhaps precisely this sector which is in the greatest difficulty in Europe today.
If we are to achieve the objectives of the Amsterdam Treaty in terms of growth based on sustainability and respect for human beings, we must think on other lines.
We must think in terms of more housing, more research and many more jobs.
That is what Europe needs, and that is also what Europeans need.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to preface my remarks with two pleasing points.
Firstly, on behalf of the presidency, I should like to congratulate John Hume who, together with David Trimble, has been awarded the 1998 Nobel Peace Prize.
I believe that Parliament can be proud to have Members of such calibre in its ranks.
Secondly, I should like to emphasise how glad I am that the 1999 budget is, for the first time, being drawn up in euros. This makes it very clear that economic and monetary union is becoming a reality, thus bringing Europe even closer together.
Parliament has voiced the criticism that the cuts made to the appropriations in the initial budget estimates were not always in tune with the Council's political declarations on the sectors concerned, in particular in Categories 3 and 4.
In this connection, I should like to remind you that the Council based the decisions it made on 17 July on the 1999 draft budget on several principles: firstly, establishing clear priorities for the financial resources available; secondly, entering realistic amounts in the budget, which will be possible to implement but do not, in our view, hinder important Community policies; taking account both of the criteria in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993 and the Court ruling of 12 May 1998 on legal bases; and, finally, taking account of minor items of expenditure and retaining considerable room for manoeuvre beneath the ceilings of the financial perspective.
The Budgets Council did not, therefore, make its decisions exclusively on the basis of the priorities set by the Council; it also took into account the budgetary principles I have just outlined.
That explains why - in accordance with strict financial management, which we are constantly striving to achieve - the appropriations, even in areas which are Council priorities, have in some cases been reduced.
I would like to confirm, however, that a special effort needs to be made in the Council procedures to ensure that the various interest-groups involved are adequately coordinated.
In that sense, it was particularly important for me to hear about the matters of particular concern to Parliament, and of course to understand them. Obviously, I will bring these into the Council's discussions.
Examples mentioned were an agreement on the fifth framework programme of research, and the continuation of Kaleidoscope and Ariane, so as to guarantee a healthy cultural policy in the Union.
I am also glad that Members addressed the issue of the alleged irregularities and cases of fraud which have recently been uncovered.
Like the European Parliament, the Council is concerned about these alleged irregularities and possible cases of fraud, which were of course recently the subject of a detailed report.
In the Council's view, it is extremely important that the funds at the disposal of the European Communities are disbursed correctly and in such a way that gives no grounds for suspicion.
As one arm of the budgetary authority, the Council feels a high degree of responsibility to the taxpayer for the way in which public money is used.
Moreover, as a European institution, the Council is firmly convinced that the European ideal should not be allowed to be damaged by dishonest behaviour.
The Council is therefore very keen to see the Commission speedily carry out further thorough investigations into these cases, and to see all the necessary conclusions being drawn from their findings.
On 23 November, in the light of the Court of Auditors' Special Report No 8/98, the Council will consider how the efficiency of UCLAF - following the considerable progress already made - can be further improved.
In addition, the Council is familiar with the various observations, studies and reports - in particular Mr Bösch's report - about a possible reform of UCLAF's status.
Finally on this issue, I should like to stress that the recipients of ECHO aid are in no way responsible for possible administrative shortcomings.
Throughout the world, needy people are dependent on the resources which were set aside for them.
During the budgetary procedure, the needs of these people will, no doubt, be given the consideration they deserve by all those concerned.
Finally, I can assure you - as I have already said - that I will bring all your comments to bear in the Council's continued deliberations.
I should also like to express my confidence that, through further constructive discussions with your representatives - but also with the Commission - we will produce a good budget for 1999, a budget which is good for the people of Europe.
(Applause)
Mr President, I shall be speaking in general terms about my group's position.
Several later speakers will go into more detail.
I would begin in the usual way by thanking the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, Mr Viola and certainly Mr Giansily as well.
His report has been supported by our group with the small amendments which occurred in committee.
In the light of the President-in-Office's remarks that we are not quite as much in tune with things as the Council, I have to say that in July the Council made known its decisions: one of the problems in July was that we did not have a dialogue on the PDB because all the time in conciliation was spent on the legal base.
So it is a great pity that we did not have the discussions we should have had.
By the same token, we have not had the ad hoc procedure which we should have had.
This is a breakdown in communications between our two institutions and it needs to be rectified next year.
Having said that, I thank the President-in-Office for the work he has done on the legal base. It was appreciated.
It has helped to establish next year's budget, certainly in Categories 3 and 4.
We consider it to be a prudent budget; we consider it to be a reasonable budget.
We have tried to make reductions where we think they are necessary.
The problem for the Council is the strategic reserve, the bridging budget that Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has spoken about.
We are going to leave no margin.
As you know it is our insurance policy, as the Commission has said.
It is our guarantee because if we do not get an interinstitutional agreement we have to have a fallback position.
Let us be clear: Agenda 2000 depends on the financial perspective.
The financial perspective depends on an interinstitutional agreement.
From our side of the House we want to see an interinstitutional agreement but if we cannot come to a conclusion on that then, make no mistake, we will go back to Article 203.
But to have Article 203 we need the finances for future years.
As the Commissioner said, if we adopt that strategy the Commission will have to call on own resources from the Member States earlier in the year.
There is a way round that which the Council should be discussing.
That was mentioned by Mr Samland in one of our discussions: namely, we need to get an agreement between our institutions before the end of the year which says that if there is no interinstitutional agreement, the basis for Article 203 in the future will be the maximum amount of spend for the year 1999.
If the Council could take that on board it might solve some of the problems which Member States have.
I know they have these problems because they keep contacting us on this side of the House.
We now have more socialist governments than ever and they keep contacting us to say it is not a good idea.
We have to explain the strategy to them time and time again.
I turn now to the different areas.
Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has covered Categories 1 and 2.
I would like to add the part that the peace programme funded by the European Union has played in Northern Ireland.
Parliament and the Council - and the Union in general - have something to be quite proud of with the role that money has played.
John Hume was instrumental in making sure that each year we had a case to make for that.
Let us add our congratulations to those the President-in-Office extended to John Hume.
On Category 3, one of the reasons why things have been so easy is because the legal base solved a lot of our problems.
The recommendations made by the rapporteur on the pilot programmes and on the preparatory actions have taken a lot out of the debate.
We have not been arguing over small lines.
I was quite surprised how easily we came to a conclusion on those amounts of money for the pilot programmes etc.
The vast majority of actions on the lines that have disappeared have been placed elsewhere on other lines.
So, all in all, between the Commission, Council and the rapporteur, a decent job has been done in getting over the problem of the legal base.
Hopefully that has now been solved and we can move on in the future to have a better basis for the budget.
On the Fifth Framework Programme we are still looking for a solution.
While the Committee on Budgets voted the PDB, it may at the end of the day be far too big.
If we get an agreement in which it is less than the PDB - and if we are realistic, it probably will be - if, in second reading, we then reduce that figure we may have a gap and that affects our strategy for the bridging budget.
One thing that crosses my mind - and it has not been discussed in our group - is that we may have to frontload the Fifth Framework Programme in the 1999 budget to make sure that the margin is kept to an absolute minimum.
Concerning Category 4, I should first like to mention Turkey.
The vote in committee was straightforward.
It is a token entry on the line and ECU 50m in reserve.
But there is no legal base for that line.
Whilst we voted for that in the committee because we consider it to be a political statement rather than a common sense action to vote out the line, we went along with it.
Since then our group has discussed the matter and our approach would be not to support that line; not to support the ECU 50m in reserve even, because there is no legal base.
Our problem is how to do it because there are no amendments to scrap the line.
If we can get a split vote, that is what we on this side of the House will do when it comes to the line on Turkey.
On ECHO, in committee we voted against the money going in reserve and we stand by that position.
Regardless of the statements made elsewhere about the pressure being put on the Commission, we have to say the work done by Mr Liikanen and Mrs Gradin in trying to get this problem solved has actually gone unnoticed in many areas.
We want to pay tribute to the work they have done.
We thought it was wrong to put the money for humanitarian aid in reserve under threat for next year - we were penalising the people who needed those resources.
I could understand it if we were going to put the expenses of the Commissioners involved - or even the salaries of the people involved - in reserve, but we did not.
My group and I consider that putting actual humanitarian aid in reserve is the wrong thing to do.
We will therefore be voting against that amendment and if we vote against it, it will not get 314 votes and consequently the money will go back on the line.
Also in category 4 there are two items which Mr Cunningham mentioned, and others will mention, which have given cause for concern: one is tropical forests and the other is the line on anti-personnel mines.
I should like to explain why we voted the way we did.
On tropical forests it has been ECU 50 million for the last two, if not three, years.
Each year the Notenboom procedure takes money which is unspent from that line.
This year the Notenboom procedure will be taking ECU 11 million from the tropical forest line.
That is why our group has voted for the ECU 40 million.
A similar thing has happened with the anti-personnel mines.
We went along with the reduction proposed by the rapporteur because there are many other lines which have the facility for de-mining those areas which cause a danger to personnel in those areas. We have agreed with the rapporteur in the resolution that we should get some concrete statements from the Commission on both these areas.
What is the situation with tropical forests? Does it need ECU 50 million or does it need ECU 40 million?
On the anti-personnel mines, do we really need a plethora of lines for this action or can it be concentrated in one area? The Commission would help tremendously if we could get some clarification on that.
Still in category 4, we have a problem with bananas.
We have always had a problem with bananas.
The Treaty of Rome was held up for 24 hours before it was signed because of bananas.
The final GATT round was not concluded until the EU had finalised its agreement on bananas.
We have problems even in our group about this.
The reality is that the majority of our group will be voting against the amendment which will put the money on the line.
This is an area where there is a lot of confusion and once again the Commission could help if they could clarify the difference between the 'spends' in category 4 on this and the 'spends' in the EDF and why it has to be done in one and not the other.
On Mr Viola's report, most things can go through smoothly.
The one thing that will not go through smoothly on Thursday is the Members' allowances and the Statute.
Our group was split on the vote last night and I am sure our group will be split on the vote on Thursday.
I will state now that the Socialist Group does not have a definitive position.
Whilst we discussed and voted on it last week, I am sure that position will change come Thursday.
I am sure you will see hands going up in several directions on the various votes that appear next week.
Finally, Mr President, the Court of Justice.
We voted against an increase in personnel there because we are being consistent.
All the political groups have had a policy of no increases in personnel in all the institutions, and that should also apply to the Court of Justice.
Mr President, this budget debate is the last one of this particular House before the elections next year and, indeed, when we come back to discuss the year 2000, we should have an institutional agreement and a financial perspective which will be different from those we have today.
Before coming to my remarks on institutional budgets and the Commission budget, there are two general remarks I wish to make about the 1999 budget as a whole.
Firstly, I believe it is a sign of Parliament's sense of responsibility that it has left large margins untouched in the budget.
It is true that the overall strategy will be earmarking some of the funds in the margin in the reserve but we have made it very clear from our Group's point of view that these are not funds which will be committed - they are for strengthening Parliament's negotiating position for the financial perspective and the interinstitutional agreement.
We have a budget which is very stringent: it has shown how, over a seven-year period, the figures that one is now voting on are very different from the financial perspective which we negotiated back in 1992.
But these are unexpected developments: the CAP is well under the guidelines, as the rapporteur for the Commission budget has said, and much of the structural funds has remained unspent and uncommitted and handed back to taxpayers.
My second remark on the budget as a whole is that there is a real danger that we are moving into a period where the annual budget has no relevance whatsoever; where we have multiannual programmes which have decided the figures year by year, and a financial perspective which has allocated funds well into the future.
This is why when it comes to the negotiations on the future financial perspective, we want to make it absolutely clear that there will be sufficient flexibility, both in terms of the allocation of funds and in the structure of a financial perspective.
Otherwise we would be better going back into 203 and into the annual budget process where Parliament can have its real relevance.
But we must ensure that the annual budget is a place where we can discuss the figures rather than the present state of affairs.
I have had the feeling we have been talking about small amounts rather than some of the bigger issues which we are concerned with in the European Union.
Above all, we must avoid what I would call a kind of Soviet-style rigidity in the way in which we set our budgets in the European Union in the 21st century.
Let me move now to comments on other institutions.
I wish to congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Viola.
It is not an easy task to be rapporteur on the budget when there are really sensitive issues around that the House has to decide on.
But we in the EPP Group have not taken the line that we have to be absolutely rigid: where there is a justifiable case for extra staff, as the Court of Justice convinced us, then we have voted for those credits for 10 LA staff.
We also want to make sure that next year, when Parliament comes back after the European elections, that we can have a properly organised system for information technology, which is why we will be voting to clear all the credits out of reserve on information technology.
The most sensitive issue is quite clearly travel expenses, where we, as a group, have held together so far - and I expect that this will be the position on Thursday - for the overall Committee on Budgets' compromise which links the question of travel costs taken at actual cost for Members' allowances to the overall question of the Statute.
The vast majority of us believe that the most sensible thing is to come to an overall agreement on this, linked to our signature on the interinstitutional agreement at the end of March next year, so that then we can have a really strong and satisfactory means by which Members know what their rights and duties are and we will then know how we will be paying for our travel costs for the next Parliament.
Because it is illusionary to think that simply having a transitional decision - which the Bureau decided last night - is something we can live with for a future Parliament and settle all our problems.
We would like the Statute to be resolved and decided as soon as it can be on the basis of the Rothley report.
I move to the Commission budget.
I congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, on behalf of my Group.
I know only too well it is not easy either to navigate that kind of thing through the House.
There are three points here which stand out from our particular perspective.
Firstly, there are still some minor points which we wish to see instated, which have not been instated by the Committee on Budgets, relating to such issues as information outlets - I can assure Ms Morgan we will be voting in favour of that on Thursday (B3-0301) -, on Alzheimer's, tourism, and tropical forests: these are issues which we want to see part of the budget that is adopted.
Because we know that the provisions on the legal basis have not eased our decisions this year in terms of how to decide on what are pilot projects and what are preparatory actions.
Presumably this will get easier now as we move into a different process.
It is always the first year which is the most difficult.
Secondly, on the external budget, last night in the Committee on Budgets we voted on a proposal by my Group for Russia.
We want to ensure that credits have been set aside so that we can respond to the request for humanitarian aid which Mr Primakov has made to the European Union institutions.
We do not know what it is going to be, but these credits should be set aside for the budgetary authority to be able to take specific action, should the need arise.
That is the purpose of that amendment.
Lastly, I come to ECHO.
This is a question which has caused some real concern, but this arose because we in the EPP Group decided that it was intolerable that we, as parliamentarians, should have to go to look for a particular report in the Commission offices and that we could not actually view that particular document as parliamentarians on Parliament's premises.
So that was the major condition which we attached to unblocking the funds on humanitarian aid.
Whether wilfully or not, this has been blown out of some proportion by many in this House because they did not vote in favour of it.
It always said in the amendment that this was up to the second reading.
It was a tactical reserve.
Now Mr Santer - and I thank the President of the Commission very much for the letter he has sent - has fulfilled those two conditions, and tonight I will propose to my Group that we release the reserve on this line for the vote on Thursday.
In my view, this has been a significant victory for Parliament in terms of making the Commission more open and accountable.
This is the only way we can really make our citizens confident in the financial process in the future.
Mr President, you may remember that about two years ago in 1996, when the House was debating the 1997 budget, the Council and the Commission made a statement designed to overcome the European Parliament's objections at that time.
They told us then that the 1997 budget was the last austerity budget.
Not only was that commitment not honoured, but subsequent budgets, including the one for 1999, have been adapted to the dictates of a phoney EMU and have bowed to decisions made by bankers.
The common agricultural policy has come under attack.
Not only has European expenditure on agriculture fallen to 46 % of the budget, but the partial renationalisation of the CAP is already being planned, and the promoters of this strategy, which threatens Europe's political cohesion, are the supposedly socialist governments of the neo-liberals Mr Schröder and Mr Blair.
The gulf between the poor South and the wealthy North will yawn still wider, and our farmers will have their backs to the wall.
Europe's social cohesion and public health are again at risk.
Training activities for the benefit of workers' organisations have been cut compared with 1998, with payment appropriations falling from ECU 8 million to ECU 6 million.
The social dialogue shows a very small increase, just ECU 50 000.
Funding for solidarity between generations is almost halved, in terms of both commitment and payment appropriations, from ECU 4 million to ECU 2.4 million.
Payment appropriations for the suppression of violence against children, young people and women - line B3-4109 - have been increased very little, from ECU 2 million to ECU 3 million.
For health issues, payment appropriations are down on the previous year, including in the areas of training, the fight against cancer and the fight against AIDS.
For employment, in lines B5-502 and B5-512 the increases are just ECU 1.5 million and 4.7 million respectively.
Payment appropriations for actions against anti-personnel mines are down by 1.5 %.
Interpreters and conference technicians are also victims of the new budget, with the corresponding budget items cut by ECU 1.5 million.
I am sorry, but as a non-socialist I cannot vote for such a budget.
I congratulate Mrs Dührkop Dührkop on her hard work and the trouble she has taken, but my own philosophy is different from hers and from the philosophy of the Council and the Commission.
Mr President, first of all I wish to congratulate the rapporteurs, especially as they have had to deal with such complex matters.
The current budget procedure has to be tackled by two distinct but inseparable approaches: not only, as you would expect, as a forecast of revenue and expenditure for the next financial year but also as a reference for the new financial framework due to be introduced at the end of that financial year.
In the light of this twofold approach the Commission - and the Council, even more so - have presented an extremely tight budget which, as a percentage of GNP, represents a sharp reduction compared with the 1998 budget.
Their aim is to pursue and intensify a strategy intended to set an example for meeting the convergence criteria and the stability pact requirements, to bring spending levels down somewhat lower than the ceiling on own resources established at Edinburgh, to provide continuity in the next financial year, and to make significant savings in readiness for enlargement.
The final value of this budget - after first reading but without taking into account the special reserves - is lower than was set out in Agenda 2000 for the current 15 Member States and for the next financial framework. The European Parliament is inevitably involved in this strategy, and in terms of fixing priorities its hands are tied.
It should therefore come as no surprise that we are rejecting this strategy today, as we have always rejected it, and its consequences on the budget. Let us say right away that the problem is not so much what we shall be voting for on Thursday but far more what we are not voting for.
For example, the fight against unemployment still has not met with the necessary response.
Furthermore, this new budget is being drawn up without the slightest regard for the world financial crisis or the need for Community measures internally and also externally, in particular to help Russia and Latin America.
On this score, it is obvious that the proposal approved in committee to set aside a special reserve of ECU 500 million for Russia only scratches the surface, because it is not just Russia that is at stake, and in any case I do not think that this is a matter for a special reserve.
On the subject of the reserves and the overall strategy of which they form part - creating a 'virtual' or 'reference' budget - we feel that they should be adopted, in view of the current situation and to avoid the failure to sign a new interinstitutional agreement.
We therefore go along with the rapporteur in this important area because of the tight budget proposed for 1999, as I said earlier, and because that would in a way enable the European Parliament to avoid going along with the medium-term strategy I also referred to earlier.
I should also like to voice our dissatisfaction at the backward step in the ad hoc process.
A different form of cooperation between the European Parliament and the Council is essential.
I should now like to turn to some of the other central aspects of the budget process and say a few words on the legal bases.
In this area, we also essentially go along with the position adopted by the European Parliament, although we have to point out that certain budget lines by which we had set considerable store, especially in the social field, have been sacrificed.
Even so, we consider that the tripartite agreement reached means we can salvage something of significance that would otherwise have been lost.
For our part, we regret the fact, for example, that the appropriations earmarked for migrant workers, tourism and small-scale inshore fishing have been scrapped.
Now for some more specific issues.
Above all, I welcome the fact that, generally speaking, the structural measures agreed at Edinburgh have been acted upon.
Putting into reserve certain amounts for Structural Fund authorisations and payments is acceptable to us, since negotiations on their future use are scheduled and because the actual take-up of the funds by the different Member States is being taken into account.
In our view, it is right not to make the innocent pay for the guilty.
As for the ECU 500 million reduction in payments, although that is technically understandable, at first reading we would have preferred it to be limited to the ECU 250 m placed in reserve.
Two more issues result from votes in the Committee on Budgets, both of them in the field of cooperation.
The first concerns humanitarian aid and the ecu.
We do not think that the best approach has been taken.
The decision to select a given heading and initially place the total amount of aid in reserve, leaving the final decision to the Commission provided that certain conditions are met, shows how the European Parliament caved in on its initially successful demands.
In the light of the positive if limited response by Mr Santer and the decision to go the whole hog and place the whole amount in reserve, the European Parliament was effectively in a catch-22 situation and, in the end, saw this as the only satisfactory response. But, in doing so, it renounced any means of exerting pressure in the future on this vital matter.
The situation would be different if, as we have always contended, the reserve was more limited (albeit significant).
The Council statements that we have just heard on this subject, which we welcome, should enable us to do something about this issue in the current budget procedure.
The second issue also concerns cooperation: the cancellation of the line for banana production by ACP countries.
This is an especially delicate subject and, of course, we shall be voting against the proposal approved in committee.
May I also say that, although we consider the issue of parliamentary expenses to be extremely important, it is not a major issue - other issues are more serious.
For our part, we done our best to help the various bodies of the European Parliament to resolve this matter.
A consensus must be reached and we have said that we are quite willing to share that consensus provided that there is no demagoguery.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
It is done; we have a budget!
And that is why I should first like to thank the rapporteurs.
In this bridging budget, Mrs Dührkop herself has been a bridge between the many wishes of the House and has constructed a very well-balanced budget.
Many thanks to her.
(DE) Much of this procedure has also been painful, in particular redesigning budget lines in connection with the legal base.
Social policy was the most affected.
On the other hand, genuine priorities have successfully been set.
The decision of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, in the context of the Agenda 21 process, to support the promotion of renewable energies, sends out an important signal.
The fact that we managed to top up research funding in the fifth framework programme by 33 % marks the start of a genuine new trend.
This will not only have a positive impact on climate protection; it will also provide increased employment opportunities in forward-looking technologies.
The much-discussed reserve for ECHO has had the effect that, from now on, the Commission has to make the UCLAF report and all future UCLAF reports available.
All the legal reservations which the Commission has hitherto used in its efforts to circumvent Parliament's right to be fully informed have now disappeared.
I well remember informal discussions with four Commissioners and a secretary-general, and also other discussions in the Commission, when I was repeatedly told that there were legal reasons for our not having sight of the documents.
These have now been eliminated.
Parliament has managed to have Article 206 turned the right way up again.
But Mr Santer's letter does not mean that all the conditions have yet been fulfilled.
That is why my group has tabled our original amendment to put 30 % of ECHO funds in a reserve for Central and Eastern Europe, as a kind of cushion, to give the Committee on Budgetary Control time to take full stock of Mr Santer's letter and to scrutinise the UCLAF report.
For the future, it would be helpful if the Commission were to be more specific about the staffing problems it regularly reports in this context - being well aware that in the case of ECHO this was no ordinary mini-budget - and if it were to discuss these with the Committee on Budgets to see whether the Liikanen facilities or alternative possibilities might provide a solution.
Turning now to travel expenses, one might say that once you have lost your reputation, you can do as you please, and the Bureau has palmed us off with a new set of rules which could only be described as a joke, if this were not such a serious matter.
Last night's vote produced a majority in favour of our group's proposal, which was subsequently supported by Mr Dankert, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
That was a good starting-point.
However, the addition, which calls for a link with the Statute for Members, undermines the positive statements and stands in contradiction to the first part.
That is why Thursday's vote in the House will depend on each and every Member.
This will show whether Parliament is capable of organising its own affairs and reforming itself or not.
Unfortunately, the Green Group is not represented in the Bureau.
Last night's discussion of our proposal showed, however, that there will only be new rules on allowances - and, in this specific case, travel expenses - if the Green Group is involved.
For three years, my group has been working to ensure that those who work in the European institutions receive a pension.
A huge shortfall has occurred, which means that a new approach is needed.
Thanks to the work done in cooperation with Mr Viola and Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, there is now a joint proposal from all the groups to set up a pension fund for all pension entitlements arising after 1 January 1999.
A reserve will first be created to make up the shortfall.
This is sustainable, forward-looking budgetary policy, and it remains to be hoped that an agreement will soon be reached with the Council on this matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to congratulate Barbara Dührkop Dührkop for the excellent work she has accomplished, under conditions which were particularly difficult this year, on a budget which is effectively the last of this legislature and therefore full of ramifications, particularly in view of the expiry of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
In this respect, my group and I subscribe to one of the strategies proposed in this document, which involves reminding the Council of the political, moral and even legal arguments in support of the commitment to conclude a new Interinstitutional Agreement.
We would like the approach which we are proposing to Parliament, as the Committee on Budgets, to be adopted on Thursday to show that this Parliament will not be pushed around and that it is ready to use its powers to stand up for what we feel is a good working instrument which has proven its effectiveness.
I also welcome the agreement on the legal bases.
I believe that we have opened the way to a more comprehensive agreement which will allow a, shall we say, healthier view of things for many lines and several projects which are very important to the future of the European Union.
I hope that the Council, for its part, contrary to what has happened so far, will do everything in its power to ensure that the regulations are approved and that emphasis is not laid on Parliament's budgetary powers to the detriment of its legislative powers.
With regard to the budget itself, my group and I are particularly annoyed that some people have tried to mix up our roles.
We have a budgetary role and we have a budgetary control role.
I believe that our control role must be exercised with the greatest possible rigour if we want healthier, more transparent institutions which are more capable of responding to people's expectations.
If there are problems, such as fraud or misuse of Community funds, we must of course resolve these using the instruments which are available, but we must not act emotionally or make a big song and dance about them, because this always leads to a lot of coverage in the press.
We must not mix up our roles or use the examination of the 1999 appropriations as an opportunity to ask for explanations on the 1993 and 1994 appropriations.
I believe that this is not the way to go.
I believe that there were other instruments we could have used, in addition to the amendment putting the ECHO appropriations into reserve, and that it was precisely those instruments which helped to produce a very wise decision, in my opinion.
Where we need to protect a group of interests, including the interests of those presumed guilty of certain misdemeanours, I believe that we must act with a certain respect.
This is what happened.
Clearly, we played our part here, but it was in our budgetary control capacity, not our budgetary capacity, and we should have underlined this.
When I hear criticisms in a budget debate such as those made by an eminent Member of this House, Mr Giansily, I want to reply, as General de Gaulle did thirty years ago, by saying 'reforms yes, chaos no!'
I therefore believe that, in this respect, we are not helping Europe by mixing up our roles.
I really hope that, between now and Thursday, we will be able to sort things out.
Our group is hoping, in any case, for an end to this blackmail which is undermining one of the most fundamental and important programmes that the European Union has managed to develop in six years.
For the rest, Mr Liikanen, we are waiting on you.
However, I am also waiting for my colleagues to shed light on the other cases.
We cannot have just one case filling the newspapers whilst others are completely ignored.
It rather depends on the person, I would say.
So we should settle this case, if there is one, and use it as an opportunity to resolve them all.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I would strongly urge you to vote wisely and to vote in a manner consistent with the dignity of the House.
Mr President, as the rapporteur pointed out, the unique feature of the 1999 budget is the fact that it will be the last under the current financial perspectives.
This has led the Committee on Budgets to propose to us today not a budget, but a negotiating document with a view to concluding a possible future interinstitutional agreement with the Council.
The absurd thing about this is that it has led the Commission to propose structural measures up to the ceiling for each heading, so that all the funding decided in Edinburgh is effectively committed.
The Council, probably because it alone knows the real value of money, has rightly recommended that the structural measures should also be subject to the same discipline as everything else.
Parliament, however, intends to continue to give structural measures a privileged status, with an increase of over 16.6 % in commitments, yet everyone knows that these appropriations have been underspent.
Budget expenditure other than on structural measures and internal policies has been strictly limited by the Commission, releasing sizeable margins compared with 1998.
The Council has applied even greater rigour.
As a result, agricultural expenditure, ever Parliament's scapegoat, is alone in having no increase over 1998.
In real terms, this expenditure is actually lower than 1998 and will, this year, represent no more than 42.2 % of the total commitments.
Internal policies, which the Council insists must also be subject to budget discipline, have been increased by more than ECU 300 million by the Committee on Budgets to a total of ECU 6.15 billion, an increase of over 7 %.
This is far removed from our budget guidelines of the spring which recommended a maximum increase of 2.5 to 3 % on last year's figure.
The creation of four special reserves, totalling ECU 1.6 billion in commitments and ECU 4 billion in payments, is unacceptable.
It is a gamble by the Committee on Budgets in an attempt to put pressure on the Council, because the committee rejects a draft budget set at 1.09 % of GNP.
I refuse to allow European taxpayers to be used as hostages once again in a European Parliament stand-off with the Council.
The draft budget has been artificially increased to 1.17 % of GNP to serve as a calculation basis for the 2000-2006 period, but this is an increase of 7 % over 1998, or 12.5 % if you consider just the non-compulsory expenditure.
Finally, we condemn the scandalous manoeuvre in the committee which resulted in the removal of subsidies to banana producers in the ACP countries and the pseudo-ultimatum issued to the Commission by placing appropriations for humanitarian aid into reserve.
The discharge vote will be the appropriate time for assessing the ECHO scandal.
A final word on the Viola report: we welcome the fact that our amendment on the reimbursement of actual travel expenses incurred has finally been adopted.
However, it is clear that this is a transparency measure which should not be linked to the Members' Statute.
It is the responsibility of the Member States to alter MEPs' pay if necessary according to the respective situations of their various MPs and their assessment of their role and importance.
Mr President, the proposal before us today is not a budget, it is an exercise in budgetary inflation, a ballooning of appropriations.
Although inflation is under control and indeed almost non-existent, and although the Member States are subject to restrictions in connection with the introduction of the euro, the European Union budget is increasing wildly.
We have a 6 % increase in commitment appropriations and a rise of nearly 3 % in payment appropriations in the draft budget, and an increase of over 7 % for commitments and nearly 4 % for payments in the budget which the European Parliament is preparing to vote on.
Of course, Parliament is always ready when it comes to spending without counting the cost!
This is not justified.
The bulk of agricultural expenditure will fall in real terms.
Furthermore, in its document on the reform of Community finances, the Commission is proposing to reduce direct agricultural income subsidies in the EAGGF Guarantee Section. This will result in a transfer of the burden from the European Union to the Member States.
Under these conditions, how can the overall increase in the budget be explained? Firstly by the increase in the Structural Funds budget: 18 % more in commitment appropriations and 9.5 % more in payment appropriations.
These figures are devoid of any reality and any rigour.
The European Union is throwing open the doors to regional favouritism, without any regard for the taxpayers and without any concern about the waste which will inevitably result.
The increase can also be explained by the growth of over 8 % in the budget for internal policies, whereas under the principle of subsidiarity the responsibility for this should lie with the Member States, the regions or the local authorities.
Finally, we have the increase of over 5 % in the budget for external measures.
This is also open to question.
Is the European Union right to be proud of the humanitarian measures which lead to the proliferation of fictitious activities and fictitious jobs? The only thing which is not fictitious in these humanitarian measures is the lifestyle and the self-publicity of those in charge.
Is the European Union right to be proud of its TACIS projects and its activities in the former Soviet Union when it shares with the IMF the responsibility of having given Russia the advice and structures which have led to its economic and social collapse?
What can be said about the food aid which is now proposed by the Committee on Budgets when the production and distribution systems have been disrupted wherever food aid has been provided?
Unjustified for internal policies, harmful for external measures and a source of waste for the Structural Funds, this inflationary budget will cost taxpayers dear: FRF 95 billion for French taxpayers alone, which is one third of income tax revenue, with an annual increase of nearly 4 %, more than any of the other main headings in the French budget.
This being the case, the National Front Members intend to vote against this draft budget, which is a budget for the Europe of Maastricht and Amsterdam and which is not in the interests of the taxpayers or citizens.
Mr President, I shall be happy to use the time; besides, the great advantage is that the House will fill up now, and a few more colleagues will discover all the things that people have to say about the budget.
The 1999 budget is also a rather special budget for me, because it is my last whole budget in the European Parliament as chairman - and also a member - of the Committee on Budgets; as you know, I intend to leave this august assembly next year.
A leaving party will be held in due course.
Anyone who has followed this budget for ten years - as I now have - and who knows more or less all the figures in this budget, will understand many of the speeches made by colleagues from the technical committees.
There were complaints that only ECU 40 million, rather than ECU 50 million, was set aside for tropical forests.
These colleagues should tell us why we should enter the money there when it is tantamount to putting it in a bank, because in the last three years - 1996, 1997 and 1998, as explicitly stated in the Tillich report - we have consistently had utilisation rates of below ECU 27 million.
In some years, they were even worse.
If this is going to be repeated in 1999, then if I enter another ECU 10 million, it really is like putting the money in a bank.
Unless I argue that the Commission is not implementing it properly, in which case we would have to identify ways for the Commission and the administration to improve this, but not simply enter the money there.
I know all about these discussions.
That is why I wish to concentrate on five points today: firstly, the strategy.
Mr President-in-Office, this particularly affects you, because you have announced, have you not, that you also want to pass this on to your colleagues.
That is a good thing.
As Mr Wynn has already said, the number of Social Democrat governments has increased, which is why we have received more concerned telephone calls.
What is absolutely clear is that you have two alternatives open to you, which I will explain here once again, because they represent the opinion of the whole House.
In so doing, I wish to use a metaphor.
Where do we, the European Parliament, stand? You tell us that we should adopt a rigorous budget, containing as little money as possible, because we all need to economise.
So you take our shirt and you say, we are taking your shirt, because we promise you that in the future financial perspective from 2000 to 2006, you will be able to keep your trousers.
But all we can be sure of is that you are voicing the assumption that we will be able to keep our trousers.
Because we do not trust you - experience has taught us not to trust you - we have said that we would prefer to wear a belt with our trousers, and that we will decide on that ourselves.
The belt is what we are talking about here when we are discussing the ECU 3.9 billion which we have entered in the strategic amendment.
Nobody in this House really wants to spend this money in the 1999 budget.
We are prepared to go the way of a rigorous budget.
But you must see: if an interinstitutional agreement is not concluded, then the basis for the Article 203 calculations, the 1999 figures - which will, after all, determine expenditure for the next seven years - has to be on a par with that provided for in the 1993 Interinstitutional Agreement.
That is the purpose of this strategic instrument.
We are quite prepared to cooperate, so that you will not have to make payments up to general budget levels in January, February, March, April and May, provided that you give us an assurance that our condition will be met too.
I wished to say that again to avoid there being any misunderstanding.
This budget represents 1.13 % of GNP.
That means that we are way below our estimates for the 1992/93 budget, when the new Interinstitutional Agreement, which started with 1.20 % of GNP, took effect.
We have a retrogressive spending policy; today's spending is at 1988 levels.
That is why no one in the Community can stand up and say that the European Union is a pot overflowing with money, like the porridge in fairy tales.
No, the opposite is the case: this arm of the budgetary authority, the European Parliament, has pursued a sensible budgetary policy of trying, as far as possible, to fulfil the aims of the Community, while taking account of the restrictions which exist throughout the European Union.
Secondly, we have already made a concession, Mr President-in-Office!
In connection with the Notenboom procedure and Supplementary and Amending Budget No 1/98, we did in fact agree to a reduction in payments for the Structural Funds of the order of ECU 500 million.
We are expecting you - because we trusted you - to give us something in return.
This is another of the safety belt's purposes.
We are expecting you to comply with our wishes on agricultural expenditure.
I should like to address Mr Kaklamanis here: it is not liberal, but basic social democracy, when earmarking expenditure for agricultural policy, to consider withdrawing appropriations from large, even huge, suppliers of products, which no one in the European Union wants to eat or consume any more.
If we take the money from those who are creating the need for storage and give it to labour-intensive farms in the European Union, then that is not liberal but pure social democracy.
If, added to that, these are not only labour-intensive farms, but also farms which are labour-intensive because they employ ecological farming methods, then this even forms the basis for a new German government!
That has nothing to do with liberalism.
I should like to add something on research.
Mr President-in-Office, this is also important, because you will actually be sitting at the table with us in the conciliation on 10 November when negotiations are held on research policy expenditure.
In reality, the 15 Finance Ministers will be sitting there, but those sitting opposite us in the conciliation always have to telephone you.
I would kindly request that, on 10 November, you spend a long time in the places where you can be reached by telephone, so that the people with whom we are dealing are finally able to reach a decision.
It is unacceptable to prepare forecasts for a budget which is still fluctuating between total expenditure of ECU 14.3 billion on the one hand, and ECU 16.3 billion on the other.
We are, after all, playing with sums of up to ECU 200 million; the budget is either 200 m more or 200 m less, and that has a significant impact, both on Category 3 expenditure and on general spending trends within Category 3.
That is why I repeat my request: when the first man rings up, keep hold of the receiver and tell your other colleagues - especially the British, Spanish and German ones, who are still very hesitant on this issue - to give an answer as quickly as possible, so that we can find a solution in the conciliation on this expenditure before your second reading in the Council.
That is necessary and important, so that we have a clear amount with which to plan Category 3 expenditure.
On Category 4, I should like to return to the subject of ECHO.
Commissioner, I have a request for you here.
This is an important point.
Will those who are coming in sit down and listen. This affects you too, this is important for you!
It is about the following problem. It is about the fact that two conditions were attached to the reserve for appropriations for emergency aid.
Unlike other colleagues here in the House - who do not yet have such a clear understanding of this matter - I have put a great deal of trust in the President of the Commission, whom I did not elect.
I have said that the letter we received relating to the UCLAF report is sufficient for me, because I believe him when he says that this guarantees that the condition will be met, as we decided in a conversation with Mrs Theato, the President of the European Parliament, yourself and Mr Santer.
But there was a second condition, Commissioner. The second condition related to the question of how the cases arising from the UCLAF report will be referred to the competent judicial authorities in the appropriate places.
Commissioner, it would be very much easier for us - and I believe that the whole House would find it much easier to give up this reserve - if you were able to give an immediate undertaking that you will respond to this second condition by making a declaration in the Committee on Budgetary Control at the next available opportunity, in camera, away from the public debate.
Such a declaration would be very helpful to us; if you were prepared to do this, then that would certainly be a step towards improving relations between the two institutions.
My final point concerns the issue of the other institutions.
Ladies and gentlemen, I can understand it: those who listened to this House in the past and are now in the Court of Justice or the Court of Auditors, have certain interests.
They are well organised as lobbyists because they know this House extremely well.
These people have a good lobby, and this has again done excellent work in endeavouring to create additional posts for the various Community institutions: the Committee of the Regions; the Economic and Social Committee; the Joint Organisational Structure; the Court of Auditors and the Court of Justice.
Once again, I tell you quite plainly: our approach - and I am saying this in the light of the discussion about ECHO, on which my views are also entirely personal - our approach assumes that it is only by redistributing tasks, and not by constantly supplying new staff, that one can be sure that additional expenditure is required.
That, Mrs Schmidbauer, applies both to this House - that is, to us here - and to all the other institutions.
We cannot politely ask the other institutions to redistribute their tasks and to abandon those which are no longer necessary, while we ourselves do nothing of the kind.
That will not do!
That is why our line, which is not to take on any more staff, is right and proper.
Because over these many years, I have learnt one thing: it is only possible to introduce a new staffing policy when budgetary restrictions are at their tightest.
Otherwise, the numbers of staff are always increased because it is easier that way.
Tasks will be redistributed.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for noting these points.
I hope that we will have a very constructive conciliation, at least as constructive as the one we had over the legal bases, but hopefully not quite as long.
(Applause)
Nobel Peace Prize
Honourable Members, yesterday I had the opportunity at the beginning of the session of expressing the great satisfaction of the House at the Nobel Prize which has been awarded to our colleague, Mr John Hume.
(Loud and sustained applause) Many Members expressed the wish that our colleague should hear their congratulations directly, so I propose that one member of each group should now extend congratulations to our colleague, for one minute.
Afterwards I will give him the floor.
We can do today what was impossible yesterday.
Mr President, it is a very great privilege and honour for me, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to very warmly congratulate Mr Hume on his outstanding achievement in being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
I wish to congratulate him and his wife as well, who had to stand with him during a very lonely vigil down the many years.
I have watched Mr Hume very closely over the many years in which he has been trying to promote peace with justice in Northern Ireland.
There was a time, particularly, when he had very few friends: he was very unwelcome at most doors that he knocked on to plead the case for people who deserved what we take for granted here today.
I watched John Hume as a young man with a small band of loyal and dedicated followers trying to stir up the consciences of many people.
He made a great breakthrough, initially, here in the European Parliament.
It was here that he learned how the Member States could cooperate with each other after a very difficult time during World War I and World War II.
He brought this experience home to Ireland and asked people why, if the Germans, French and others can do it in Europe, we cannot do it in Northern Ireland.
This was a lesson from Europe which worked in Ireland.
Europe responded strongly to Mr Hume's request in helping him to make it a reality.
I very much hope that the recent recognition - much deserved and much valued - that Mr Hume has had bestowed on him by the Nobel group will act as a further incentive to Mr Trimble and all the others that are there to follow right through to the end of the road, knowing that they have the full support, not only of Parliament, but of the entire world.
Well done, John.
We wish you God speed in everything you are trying to do.
(Applause)
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Group and especially my colleague Nuala Ahern, I would like to warmly congratulate Mr Hume on this honour.
It is an honour not just for Mr Hume personally, it is also a great honour for this House that a Member has received the Nobel Peace Prize.
He now follows in the footsteps of other great men of peace, for example Nelson Mandela.
It is also an honour for all the other people who have worked for peace in Northern Ireland.
Less than five years ago when I came to this Parliament it was still very difficult for John Hume, and there was a lot of opposition from the mainstream media in some countries, including my own, to the initiatives he had taken.
He has been proved right and what he did was clearly right.
It has moved peace along.
There is a lesson to be learned from this, and it is that very brave initiatives taken by people, who stand up to bitter and strong criticism against themselves, their families and their followers, can prove extremely important in achieving peace when in the end they are proved right..
As many people have said, we still do not have peace in Northern Ireland, but we are getting there and I hope that the generation that is growing up in Northern Ireland, in particular young people, have the right to grow up in a demilitarized society where guns are seen not as the norm but as something unusual.
John Hume will have contributed to that.
On behalf of the Green Group I congratulate him most warmly for what he has achieved.
He has sent out a clear message to other people in the world that we must take courageous action.
It is the only way forward.
Mr President, on my own behalf and on behalf of my group, I wish to offer my warmest congratulations to a colleague, someone I have worked with as a Member of this Parliament for over nine years.
I offer my sincere and warmest congratulations on the award he has received not only to John but to his wife, Pat, whom I know very well indeed.
Indeed, there are occasions when, if you want to get something done, it is Pat I have to contact and not John.
I should also like to congratulate my own leader, David Trimble, who has shown remarkable fortitude and courage as the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.
I know better than anyone else the risks he has taken and, indeed, the challenges still before him.
His courage should not go unnoticed.
(Applause) I also wish to say that, as someone who has been in political life in Northern Ireland for the last 25 or 26 years, I know the difficulties, risks and challenges and what it is like to plough a long, lonely furrow through the last 30 years in Northern Ireland.
I have to echo the words of my leader at the time: he just hoped that it is not too soon.
We all hope and pray that it is not too soon and that we are on a route from which there will be no turning back to the last 30 years we have experienced.
We have a challenge before us.
I think we will face that challenge.
While there may still be a long way to go, I certainly believe that there will be no turning back and no looking back.
It must be said that John and myself, and indeed Mr Paisley, have shown by our cooperation within this Parliament what can be achieved, what is possible and how we can achieve it.
The challenge is there for us all to take up.
I know my party leader and I know John, and I know that my party leader and Seamus Mallon will be in Brussels at the part-session at the beginning of November.
We have an opportunity in this Parliament to recognise the work and the task and the deeds before us.
I end by congratulating John again, and wish him every success with the award.
(Applause)
Mr President, I am clearly very moved by today, and I thank you all for the warmth of your support.
Obviously, I was very honoured to achieve this award, but I see it not just as a personal award.
I wish to express my deep appreciation to the members of my own Group here and to the members of other groups who nominated me for this award.
As I have said, I do not see it just as a personal award: I see it as a very powerful expression of the international goodwill and support for peace on our streets.
I have no doubt that it is strengthening the will of our people to continue in the enormous task of ending a quarrel of centuries and bringing lasting peace to our people.
Throughout that peace process I was very grateful for the enormous support that the process has received from this House and the institutions of the European Union and, in particular, the programme for peace and reconciliation which was unanimously endorsed by this House and which is doing so much work at grassroots-level.
It is so positive that it deserves to be studied now by other regions of Europe.
But, most important of all, I have to say that, as far as I am concerned, the peace process in Northern Ireland has been most heavily inspired by the example of this House.
When I first came here in 1979 - I tell this story often - I went for a walk across the bridge from Strasbourg to Kehl.
I stopped and I thought: 30 years ago if I had stood on this bridge and said: 'Don't worry, although there are 25 million dead for the second time in a century and for centuries these peoples of Europe have slaughtered one another, now it is all over and in 30 years they will all be together' I might have been sent to see a psychiatrist.
But it happened.
Let us not forget that European Union is the best example, as we have learned, in the history of the world of conflict resolution.
The philosophy that created European Union and the peace of Europe is a philosophy - if you study it - that is at the heart of our agreement: respect for difference and for diversity, the creation of institutions which respect that diversity but which allow all sections to work together in their common interests and economics - spill their sweat, not their blood.
In this way the real healing process of breaking down the barriers of centuries begins and a new society evolves.
That is the philosophy of European Union and it is the philosophy of real peace and, might I add, that is the philosophy that we should be sending to areas of conflict in the world.
We should not be sending armies, we should be sending a philosophy.
The philosophy we have in this building is a philosophy that will resolve conflict everywhere because, at the end of the day, all conflict is about the same thing: it is about seeing difference as a threat.
What we all have to learn is what the peoples of Europe have learned and we are learning in Northern Ireland: difference - whether it is race, religion or nationality - is an accident of birth and is not something we should be engaged in conflict about, it is something we should respect.
Thank you very much for your support today.
(The House rose and accorded the speaker a standing ovation)
VOTES
Mr President, the text of the French version needs to be harmonised.
Sometimes the term 'principe de prudence ' is used and sometimes the term 'principe de précaution '.
'Principe de précaution ' is the usual term and paragraph 7 must therefore be changed accordingly.
Paragraph 29, in the French version, calls on the Union to ensure that sperm count surveys are carried out.
Counting the sperm of the whole of the European Union would be difficult.
I therefore propose that this is changed to sperm sample surveys.
This will probably mean that the other language versions will also have to be changed, but I am not sure how this would be phrased.
Finally, in paragraph 31, second indent, the term 'anomalies de genre ' should be replaced by 'anomalies sexuelles '.
Mr President, I can assure Mr Pompidou that I agree with his first two objections.
On the other hand, I cannot make a judgement on the third. I will therefore say that if what Mr Pompidou is proposing conforms to the original Danish text, i.e. reads the same as the wording of the original text, I can also agree with his third oral amendment.
But if there is a difference, I cannot agree.
Mr President, I should like to draw your attention to the fact that in the German and English versions, recital B states that the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe is developing guidelines for tests on hormones.
This organisation is certainly very important, but it is not responsible for hormones.
Or has not been up until now, at any rate.
It should read the OECD, at least in these two language versions, and I assume in all the others too.
When I see what hormones do to some people, the OSCE is the appropriate organization.
Nevertheless, we will ensure it is corrected.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
It is with great pleasure that we vote for this report, since it represents an improvement of the present methods for the assessment of environmental aspects.
The key consideration is that the environmental assessment enters the picture at a much earlier stage in the process, and hence takes account of many more factors than was the case with previous assessments.
Hence this assessment approach can also represent a saving in economic respects, in addition to its coverage of environmental aspects, which means that this proposal links together environmental and economic aspects in an effort to secure sustainable development.
The fact is that a good environment must be a concern in all our activities.
We are voting against the Koch report on the harmonisation of examination requirements for safety advisers, because it is not an area that should be of concern to the EU.
In our opinion, it is the job of the national parliaments to formulate examination requirements for training courses, and the award of examination certificates is not an EU matter, but should continue to be handled by the national educational institutions.
It is also our view that the subsidiarity principle should be applied in precisely those areas of policy.
I should firstly like to thank our colleague, Mr Koch, for his work on this important and serious subject.
It concerns a particularly grave and important issue which affects the daily safety and lives of not only millions of our citizens who live near roads, railways and rivers, but also everyone else, given the potential extent of the damage caused by chemical, bacteriological and nuclear disasters.
This once again demonstrates the importance of Europe's role on these major issues, and also the prominent role of the European Parliament.
Our fellow citizens should be better informed about these matters.
Specifically, we are asking for safety advisers with identical training in every company.
I approve the report without reservation, particularly as this harmonisation will reduce distortions of competition while at the same time increasing safety.
If we could similarly manage to harmonise the working conditions of drivers, this would also ensure greater safety and less distortion of competition.
I hope that the momentum generated by this report continues.
In our society there is, alas, in many respects no getting away from dangerous substances.
Using these substances means that they have to be transported.
Given the risks attached to moving them, there must be appropriate safeguards in place.
To guarantee this, persons professionally involved as advisers must possess sufficient expert knowledge and ability.
Because many transport operations cross international borders, it is important to consider the issues here in a European context.
In view of this, I gave my backing to the Commission proposal and to most of the amendments, aimed at harmonising the level of training required of these advisers within the Community.
A consistently high level of safety demands that all advisers satisfy stringent requirements.
I am sorry to see that the final proposal talks about minimum requirements rather than uniform standards.
The danger here is that countries which operate a strict system of examination will price themselves out of the market.
If certificates are valid throughout the Community, people will, after all, tend to take the easiest option, that is to say the easiest examination.
Although I have doubts about possible variations in the difficulty of the examinations, I think this proposal represents an advance on the existing situation and for that reason I voted in favour.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, obviously we supported the McKenna report, because today the European Parliament has made it clear that the game is up for the agricultural well-poisoners.
The resolution will force the Commission to snap out of its lax attitude to nitrates.
It is terrible that, seven years after the nitrates directive's entry into force, it should still be possible to ignore the limit values and escape unpunished.
The Federal Republic of Germany is one of the prime culprits here, and we hope that the new German Government will change that.
The Commission has neglected to implement the action programmes on cleaning up groundwater.
It has given in to the lobby of farmers' organisations, which put short-term yields ahead of preserving an uncontaminated environment.
The nitrate map reveals the EU to be an ecological disaster zone.
In almost 90 % of the agricultural area in the EU, nitrate concentrations in groundwater exceed the guide value.
In almost a quarter of agricultural land, they are even well above the limit value.
Even if animal husbandry were to become much less intensive, it would still be over 20 years before the surface and ground waters in the EU were even reasonably healthy again.
The blame mainly lies with the Member States - which are bowing too much to pressure from the farming lobby, and are not incorporating the relevant provisions of the directive into national law - but also with the Commission, because it is turning a blind eye to the well-poisoners.
The Commission must insist on the dilatory Member States keeping strictly to the maximum quantities of animal manure stipulated in the directive and, if necessary - and this is very important - also bring them before the Court of Justice.
Moreover, there should be no more EU aid for farmers who do not comply with the nitrate norms.
There are also calls for a nitrogen levy on animal manure and artificial fertiliser to be introduced, as several Member States are already planning to do.
We need to ensure that the precautionary principle is applied.
This is also about guaranteeing biodiversity and protecting the seas and lakes from becoming polluted.
It is always difficult tackling a subject where national passions often rule over reason - and agriculture is always a real minefield.
I would therefore congratulate Patricia McKenna on the quality of her report.
However, I have a few points to make which go beyond just the agricultural pollution of waters.
Firstly, we should remember that the current water situation is the result of a policy pursued over many years, the basic principle of which was to subsidise intensive production and therefore the excessive use of fertilisers.
In all conscience, I believe that if the common agricultural policy continues as it is, or even slightly altered, nothing will change with regard to the ecological risks run by both the environment and the consumer.
If we are to obtain tangible results, the common agricultural policy needs to change direction.
This is in the interests of farming and therefore of farmers.
The French government, through the former Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Louis Le Pensec, has begun this change.
It shows courage when you consider how certain farmers have been known to react.
However, we should note that many farmers seem to have got the measure of the challenges, aware that changes must be made in this area as consumers may no longer be happy to subsidise certain excesses.
I therefore believe that it is vital, in the context of Agenda 2000, that we realise the importance of promoting good-quality agriculture which respects the environment.
Although I admit to having certain concerns about the commitment of some of those in charge, as a result of certain particularly active lobbies, I believe that the effort will be worthwhile.
It will certainly be in everyone's interest.
Ladies and gentlemen, the House's debates on these matters have often lagged behind the national politicians responsible for agriculture, but attitudes are changing.
We must seize this opportunity to confirm our desire to reform the agricultural and rural policy of the Union, with the constant aim of defending and promoting European agriculture while ensuring the best service for consumers.
The Commission's report highlights the almost complete failure by all Member States to meet the terms of the 1991 Water Directive.
Excessive levels of nitrates in drinking water can cause a reaction in the blood's capacity to move oxygen around the body and can be carcinogenic.
As a result of the uncontrolled growth in algae, high levels can also ultimately 'suffocate' ecosystems.
The Irish Environment Minister, Noel Dempsey, must comply with the terms of the directive and publish the results of the government's most recent study on nitrate levels in Irish drinking water.
The Irish Government says that an extensive programme of monitoring was carried out in 1992-93 to establish the extent of the problem in Ireland and that the results of this monitoring showed concentrations well below permitted levels.
It adds that a follow-up study is presently being carried out.
While the problem may not be as serious in Ireland as in other countries, we cannot afford to be complacent.
Ireland's economy has grown by almost half since 1992.
We know we have a problem with phosphorous but do we now have a problem with nitrates? The Minister should complete the follow-up monitoring study as soon as possible and let the public know whether nitrate levels in Irish drinking water are still below recommended levels.
If so, he should implement the 1991 directive in full.
There is little point in the Irish Government signing up to European legislation if it makes no real effort to live up to its obligations.
Whereas, like many Members, I have reservations about the amount of time given over in this Parliament to the discussion of own-initiative reports, Mrs McKenna's concern over the poor implementation of the Nitrates Directive certainly justifies the use of the procedure.
I have sympathy for the case which Mrs McKenna has outlined.
This comes from recent experience of how disastrous poor implementation of the Groundwater Directive could prove to be to the environment in my own constituency.
Fortunately, a public inquiry managed to avert the danger but that was no thanks to my own Government.
I am pleased that infringement proceedings have now commenced.
Mrs McKenna's report highlights the sometimes appalling record of our national governments in implementing environmental protection measures.
I agree with the view expressed by Commissioner Kinnock that the present situation is grossly inadequate.
However, I do not agree with his view that it is the farmers and the farmers alone who should pay.
Implementation requires more than legislative action.
It is easy for the Commission to say the world must be cleaner and farmers must pay for it.
Unless more funding is made available the benefits to be won from the Nitrates Directive will not be achieved.
Ironically, just as the European Parliament was discussing measures concerning the protection of waters, and more particularly their pollution by nitrates from agricultural sources, French television was broadcasting a documentary on the misuse of proteins.
Apparently, thousands of miles from Strasbourg, at Chimbote in the Pacific, fish meal factories are dumping millions of cubic metres of water polluted with blood, fat, etc. into the sea.
This fish meal is being bought at low prices by the European agri-foodstuffs sector to supply its salmon farms and to feed its intensively-bred pigs, poultry and cattle. We then find these products, whose quality is strictly defined, on supermarket shelves at competitive prices and bearing a 'special offer' label.
Another protein is genetically modified soya, referred to as a 'substitute product', imported into Europe in accordance with the WTO agreements, which is used in the same way and for the same purpose as fish meal.
Given the abundance of examples like this, and without wishing to minimise the negative effects of nitrates, we should consider this issue as a whole and apply the Community preference measures in the general interest.
By reducing imports of proteins, Europe would encourage the rebalancing of production, which in turn would be more likely to protect groundwater.
Finally, Mr President, I would point out that, on behalf of my group, I have tabled a series of amendments referring to the link between nitrate pollution and farming systems.
Rather than establishing an intensification rate calculated on the basis of a number of animals/surface area ratio, it is essential to carry out a comprehensive analysis.
Too often certain regions have undergone agricultural intensification and specialisation which have led to an excessive increase in animal density. This in turn can cause major epidemics, in addition to the pollution of waters by nitrates.
The recent example of swine fever clearly shows us the risks of allowing over-specialisation and concentration.
Jensen report (A-0281/98)
Mr President, this is an extremely important report because of the health implications.
I am quite alarmed at some of the amendments adopted today.
Amendment No 11 states that 'sounder scientific data is therefore needed before relevant legislation can be drawn up' regarding the setting of limits values.
It is quite clear that this goes completely against a precautionary approach which should, firstly, ensure that even without sounder scientific data precautionary measures are taken to ensure that people's health and the environment are protected.
As regards some other amendments, such as Nos 6 and 8, it is quite clear where these are coming from and which vested interests are involved: the plastics industry and Mr Pompidou, who probably supports their interests.
It is clear that those amendments weaken the report because industry's research departments should be involved in research.
Even though industry itself has all the capabilities to employ expert researchers, when it comes to protecting people's health, Amendment No 11 asks that sounder scientific evidence should be available first.
There is a total contradiction between the two.
It is quite clear that the precautionary approach is the first thing to be taken.
I am quite surprised that our Amendment No 2 was not adopted because this is extremely important as regards toxic chemical substances which persist and accumulate in organisms and which have serious and irreversible effects on health and the environment.
We asked for these to be phased out immediately, and we cannot see why this is not acceptable.
We also consider that labelling is an essential requirement and should be introduced immediately.
I cannot understand why Parliament cannot accept such a thing.
Firstly, we have to protect people's health and, secondly, we have to make information available to the public to give the consumer the opportunity to decide whether or not to purchase something which may be harmful to health.
There are a lot of contradictions here, the main one being the contradiction between the precautionary approach and the notion of sounder scientific evidence being available first.
It is clear that industry has enough sound scientific evidence to try to counteract the activities of the environmental and health movements.
Parliament has a duty to the health of the consumer, and the environment to protect their interests first and foremost.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted against two amendments from the Greens on an immediate phasing-out of PVC and three phthalates - not necessarily because the Greens are wrong, but because the own-initiative report already contains a demand for the Commission to present proposals for the phasing-out of endocrine-disrupting substances.
The rapporteur's text describes a large number of potentially harmful effects of chemical substances on the endocrine balance in humans.
I emphasise the term 'potential' effects, because the jury is still out on these effects.
Science has not yet established clearly and conclusively that there is a direct link between these chemical substances and changes in the endocrine balance in humans.
Nevertheless, this is a matter of deep concern to me.
The potential effects of these substances are not insignificant.
If it is true that these chemicals cause an increase in certain types of cancer, impair fertility or are dangerous to the unborn child, then something has to be done about them.
Human life deserves protection.
With a view to doing that, we need to know as much as possible about these substances.
All praise to the rapporteur in not yielding to all kinds of emotional arguments in writing her report.
In it, she stresses the importance of research.
In many Member States of the European Union, extensive research is being done on the effects of various chemicals.
We need to be abreast of this.
Until we know exactly what the effects of the substances in question are, it is difficult to take far-reaching decisions on removing certain products from the market.
So I did not support the Greens' amendments on phthalates.
Regarding Mr Pompidou's amendments, to my mind these points are covered sufficiently in the resolution.
I voted against his amendments in order to avoid duplicated and impossible pieces of wording.
The rest of the amendments I did support.
Once again, the main reason for voting for this report and this resolution is the seriousness of the changes which these chemicals might potentially cause.
Changes are taking place in the environment and in reproductive ability.
Hence there is increasing concern over the impact of chemical substances with hormone-mimicking effects.
The public is worried.
It is providing front-page stories for the press.
On the other hand the Commission dithers, and legislation is falling behind - legislation for which there is a crying need.
It should in fact be following the consumers' wishes, which are that the precautionary principle should be applied and that our sights should be set on phasing out these substances, or at least that provision should be made for suitable labelling, with classification into risk categories if a risk assessment has been carried out.
If a risk assessment has not been carried out for the substances, this must be stated on the label.
We consumers have the right to a life without poison!
I should like to congratulate Kirsten Jensen on her own-initiative report, which emphasises the precautionary principle and contains a number of practical recommendations that could be a good, but also necessary, springboard from which to move forward.
I would draw special attention to the ideas on labelling rules, independent scientific studies which are not in the pockets of industrial interests, the phasing-out of chemicals, and better and new testing procedures.
But I also strongly endorse the call made in paragraph 19 for openness and transparency in connection with legislation on the environment.
This highlights a recently adopted convention on public access to environmental information in connection with environmental legislation.
I hope that the debate today and the European Parliament's position will send a clear signal to the Commission on phasing-out and the amendment of legislation - we owe that to the consumers of Europe!
We can always ask for better scientific evidence.
However that does not solve the problems, but only brings delay and does not benefit the legislation or the main objective.
It is no longer a question of more or less safe or unsafe data, it is a question of adopting a precautionary approach in legislation, which does not even need to involve added costs to industry.
In Denmark we know this debate only too well, especially when it concerns phthalates in toys.
Denmark in fact wants to prohibit the use of phthalates from November this year, but may face a court challenge if the ban is introduced.
Ritt Bjerregaard and Emma Bonino earlier in the year called for emergency intervention to ban those phthalates that are used to make plastic products more flexible.
But Mr Bangemann, and perhaps a number of industrial interests, called it an overreaction and wanted to have further scientific documentation.
The Commission waited for a Dutch report.
When it arrived, it found phthalates not guilty.
The problem is simply that scientific studies, especially those that are not independent, can prove exactly what one wants.
The result depends on the premises on which the study is constructed.
A similar report from Austria advises against the use of phthalates.
Why was this not the report to which the Commission paid attention?
We do not need more delays, we need legislation which takes account of consumers and the precautionary principle.
Although one does not vote on the reasoning behind a report, Mrs Jensen's line of reasoning has such a weak scientific basis - and gives the impression that it is on this basis that we are voting in Parliament - that I am voting against this report.
Under the Amsterdam Treaty, the EU is called upon to act in the important area of public health.
We need, however, to distinguish between the roles of the World Health Organisation, the EU and the Member States.
The report looks at some extremely detailed issues, but Parliament has no legislative powers in this area. A resolution will be adopted, but there is no formal scope for influencing policy.
This is a very good and thorough report, but the real question is whether we should be devoting so much energy to a subject more suited to cooperation between the Member States and the WHO.
One example among others of what I mean can be found in paragraph 29 of the resolution, where the rapporteur calls for international sperm count surveys and the collection of data on sperm quality.
Sperm quality is an important issue, but it is already being worked on in many countries and at WHO level.
There is hardly a need for the EU to become involved.
I would not wish to play down the many problems and shortcomings with regard to public health, but the EU is not best equipped to deal with them.
Sjöstedt report (A-0347/98)
I have been on the record of the House many times before on the issue of biodiversity and biotechnical matters.
Biotechnology is a new form of innovation which in general terms must be welcomed, but at the same time controlled mechanisms must be put into place to safeguard the public interest and public policy.
Any debate which takes place at European Union level in relation to understanding what legislation must be implemented on this subject must take place in an environment that is even-handed and balanced.
The problem I find with the debate taking place on biotechnology is that the opposing sides - whether in favour or against biotechnological inventions - are engaging in sensationalism with regard to the merits or demerits of biotechnological developments.
For farmers who are the custodians of our land resource and responsible to society for guaranteeing food safety and quality it is of the utmost importance that the benefits of science and research are made available and applied to the sector.
It is to the credit of those who manage our land resource, that they have been at the forefront in the application of modern technology which has helped in advancing food quality and safety.
It must be borne in mind that the world's productive land resource remains constant and much of it will not respond to established agricultural practices.
It is only through ongoing research, the application of new science including safe and tested biotechnology that the full potential of the resource can be harnessed.
Biotechnology is not a recent discovery.
It has been applied in varying degrees since the 1970s.
There is now a greater understanding of its potential and benefit for mankind.
It is one of the key technologies of the 21st century and there is an obligation on us to use it in a careful and planned way.
As should be the case with the application of all new research, transparency and proper information for consumers are important.
I fully support the need for the labelling of all genetically modified food so that the consumer can ultimately decide whether to purchase GMOs or not.
The future of our agricultural systems and the profession of farming itself, the health of our citizens and those who are employed in the food sector are dependent on the modernisation and development of our agricultural structures in a balanced and even-handed manner.
It is pointed out in this report that there is a need to take into account the issue of biodiversity in the reform for the Common Agricultural Policy announced under the Agenda 2000 programme.
The strategy also stresses the ecological role of rural areas and the devotion to agricultural methods which favour biodiversity.
I support these recommendations in principle.
With regard to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and the possible impact of their release on biodiversity, it is proposed that the matter be dealt with by means of national legislation under which Member States would explicitly be allowed to adopt more stringent measures than those imposed at European Union level.
I do not particularly agree with this approach, because I feel that the European Union - through the European Commission and the European Parliament - should have the necessary foresight to legislate in a tough and reasoned manner.
I feel that this matter should be dealt with at the level of the European Union so as to ensure uniformity in the rules which apply within all the Member States and territories of the EU itself.
I am happy to give my support to this report which calls for our attention to be more focused on preserving the biodiversity of our natural environment.
Biodiversity is a scientific term of course - to me it means the sheer variety of animals, birds and plants we find, or sometimes used to find, in our countryside.
In my own country one of the mistakes of past EU policies for the agricultural sector is now increasingly acknowledged as the active encouragement of intensive, large field farming.
The most visible sign of this in Britain has been the destruction of mile after mile of ancient hedgerows, which in the past had acted as homes and corridors for countless species of animal and plant life.
I am looking to the reforms to be agreed for the future common agricultural policy to move from intensive agriculture to more environmentally-friendly ways of farming and rural development - how about moving a little subsidy from excess crop production to the replanting of British hedgerows?
As I follow the enlargement of the EU to central and eastern Europe, I will be backing the report's idea that applicant states should make biodiversity protection a key part of their membership bids.
The East should not be encouraged to repeat the mistakes of the West in our CAP designed for the 1950s when environmentally-friendly farming was hardly the fashion.
(The sitting was adjourned at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
1999 Budget - Expiry of ECSC Treaty - 1999 ECSC Budget (continued)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the 1999 budget and the ECSC.
Mr President, I would like to take up the debate where the previous speaker, the socialist chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, left off. He argued very clearly in favour of placing the humanitarian aid in the reserve in view of the Commission's refusal to let Parliament have the UCLAF information and that concerning the financial control of the so-called 'serious irregularities' in ECHO.
Thanks to the pressure from this amendment and the good offices of the President of Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles, we have succeeded in obtaining an agreement from Mr Santer by which he undertakes, by letter, to ensure due compliance with and broad interpretation of Article 206.2 of the Treaty.
And that is why last night, in the Committee on Budgets, the common factor of the speeches of all the members of the Group of the European People's Party was raising the reserve.
As regards Mr Santer's letter, I want to make it clear to you that when he says the rapporteur for the ECHO report had still not been to look at the file, it is because the Commission's Secretariat-General has not allowed me to study it with a translator and an official from the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Tell Mr Santer that when he talks about omitting the names mentioned in the ECHO file on grounds of confidentiality, he is being disingenuous, because all the names have already appeared in the European press before anyone in Parliament has seen a single paper.
And please do not fail to remind Mr Santer that there is no greater lie than a half truth, so the UCLAF and financial control files must be handed over entire and complete, both to Parliament and to the courts.
How can they explain the fact that UCLAF recommended the immediate dismissal of an official from his position and the order was not transmitted until eight months later?
Mr President, I could not conclude without saying that this is a serious matter, recognised as such by the Court of Auditors, the Anti-Fraud Unit and the Commission's financial control.
This is another reason to deplore the demagogy used when claims have been made that the PPE Group and the Greens have taken the starving children of the Great Lakes, the women of Sudan or the widows of Bosnia hostage.
Yes, yes, it has been said that we are holding them hostage in our private war with the Commission.
But that is demagogy, because the only thing we want to do is kidnap fraud and corruption and make them disappear.
Because if we do not make fraud and corruption disappear, then ECHO and MED and PHARE and TACIS and so many others will disappear. And above all we must make no mistake, we must not look for fraud where the aid is destined, we must look for fraud at the origin of the programmes, because there are no luxury hotels in the Great Lakes, nor are there any large brand new cars with Bosnian licence plates.
And anyone looking for an enjoyable weekend goes to Haiti, not Sudan.
Mr President, who is taking hostages: those who want to end corruption or those who are trying to hide their responsibilities behind the misery of the most unfortunate? It does little service to the future of the Union if we believe that this is all about northeners avid for transparency hounding corrupt southerners.
It is precisely we southerners who need to see the end of fraud and corruption, because when the last euro gets to its destination we will no longer find that talking about the new financial perspective means talking about cuts in the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. If the net contributors want to pay less, there they have the scissors and pliers to cut down and tear up fraud and corruption, since there is no need to cut programmes and policies with a legal basis.
The 1.27 % of GNP is worth a great deal more.
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate all those who have prepared the various reports.
Looking at last year's budget, ECU 40 billion out of some ECU 83.5 billion was paid to the common agricultural policy, which is one of the core elements of the annual budget.
The common agricultural policy is an integral part of the European Union and it is designed to keep farmers on the land, protect the European Union food supply and enhance rural development.
The policy has been in place since 1962 and has at all times been centrally administered by the Commission.
This is the way it should remain.
I refer to this issue because of the recent publication by the Commission of possible options for the future spending of Union funding.
One of the options under consideration which alarms me somewhat is that 25 % of direct income supports for European Union farmers be directly paid out by the exchequer of the Member States of the Union.
This is a dangerous proposal for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it would only suit those Member States which are not dependent on the agricultural industry, while it would have devastating effects for countries which have strong agricultural industries.
Agriculture as an industry is three times more important to Ireland's economy than to that of many other European States.
Last year Ireland received some £IRL 1500 million under the common agricultural policy.
If it were to be implemented, this proposal would lead to the renationalisation of the CAP.
It would have horrendous effects whereby different EU governments would engage in a process of outbidding each other in terms of the amount of grants they could allocate to the national farmers.
Let us be abundantly clear about one thing: the renationalisation of CAP would lead to a fragmentation of the CAP itself which would fly in the face of the social and economic policy objectives of the Union.
On another note, the European Union can never prosper, notwithstanding its economic success, if it alienates the less well-off and marginalised in a society, many of whom are farmers in my country.
More work needs to be done regarding the twin evils of long-term unemployment and social deprivation.
The decision to reduce the allocation for structural fund programmes in 1999 is certainly not to be welcomed.
In particular I want to welcome the proposal to provide another ECU 100 million for peace and reconciliation which was referred to so many times today by our Nobel Prize Winner, John Hume.
I am delighted with this, but we have to look to the future - there is no provision for the future.
Now that the foundations have been laid, it behoves all of us to find additional monies for the future to pursue peace in Northern Ireland through peace and reconciliation which has been such a success.
Mr President, the policy buzz-word in today's euro economy is discipline.
The neo-liberalist discipline of the single-alternative policy concerns just people, but not capital or markets.
On the consecrated ground of the market-place discipline is synonymous with deflation, and is not considered to be a third way.
In global and electronic capitalism the markets are sacrosanct and safely beyond the reach of policy, or, in other words, discipline.
You can control people with policy, but not markets or capital.
Therefore people cannot trust policy that does not have alternatives.
While record sums of money are being made in the stock exchange sweepstakes, the price is being paid for it in the shape of mass unemployment.
Monetary policy is a European Central Bank monopoly.
We need a democratic body to oversee it, a council on financial policy that is concerned with employment and social matters. The devaluation of the dollar is not only a monetary policy issue.
I would like to draw attention to one item in the budget, or rather not so much the item itself as the thinking behind it.
The European Parliament is imposing conditions in the budget for the provision of aid for Russia under the TACIS programme.
For aid to be continued, and it has been the western consultancy agencies that have done better out of it than Russia has, Russia is being told to continue with its 'policy of reforms'.
In Russia reform and poverty go hand in hand.
They are synonymous, as are reform and racketeering, and reform and corruption.
The European Parliament's resolution therefore wanted poverty, racketeering and corruption to continue in Russia before we supply it with the TACIS new technology aid.
In practice this might mean that our aid programme to Russia will end.
That might well be a good thing, if the only alternative is the continued programme of reforms we demand of Russia and our support for Yeltsin's sick and corrupt administration.
The best human rights policy for Russia would be if the EU ended aid to Yeltsin.
There are a lot more victims of Yeltsin in Russia and Chechnya than of Pinochet in Chile.
Before we tell others how they ought to behave, it would occasionally be a good idea to take a look in the mirror and put our own house in order.
I am referring here to the urgent and fundamental reforms needed in MEPs' salaries and travel expenses.
In the Nordic countries a politician cannot earn more than ECU 10 000 net per month after expenses for public duties, as I, for example, am getting today in this Chamber.
We have to create a new expenses claims system, and it should be brought into effect this week here in Strasbourg.
For this we need a single-alternative policy: travel expenses may only be claimed for bona fide costs incurred.
The Committee on Budgets has laid down the lines in this matter.
We need a Statute for Members, but we cannot wait forever.
Mr President, I have a comment on what Mr Seppänen was just saying.
Of course we cannot accept the principle of travel expenses being organised as part of our salary, and we should also lay that idea to rest this week.
I wanted, however, to say a word on the general debate: gone are the days when we could simply say that economising is certainly a good thing, and deregulation is fantastic; today, the situation is rather different.
The expiry of the European Coal and Steel Community shows - and this is actually the issue I wished to address - that the radical belief in market forces over the last 15 years has claimed unnecessary victims.
Instead of developing the European Coal and Steel Community into an agency on industrial policy, which would be able to tackle the problems of the energy and raw materials sector in a really constructive way, we have simply dissolved it and said: the market will see to the rest.
Now we have to deal with the problem of what to do with the enormous reserves accumulated.
It is quite right that we should allow them to benefit the sector, and here we need to consider more generally how, through a targeted industrial policy, we can revitalise this sector in the long term.
Mr President, nearly ECU 100 billion, or 750 billion Danish kroner, can be spent in the EU next year.
The Danish contribution will top DKK 15 billion by the turn of the millennium.
Danes are now going to pay more in their contribution to the EU than farmers and others in Denmark receive from the Union.
A typical family with a father, mother and two children will be paying DKK 11 000 on an annual basis.
The problem is not just that it is expensive insurance.
The problem is that a great deal of EU spending does not prevent, but causes damage.
Consumers and taxpayers pay high prices for products which encourage the use of pesticides and growth promoters, which gives rise to new expenditure for storage and destruction, without the farmers getting a reasonable income for their daily toil.
The net effect, it seems, is that we pay directly for the spoiling of our water.
Imagine if we stopped all the support for destruction and let our EU contribution assist a changeover to organic farming or promote sustainable development in poor countries and regions, or imagine if the budget and the accounts were made so transparent that democratically elected representatives could check every record and citizens could see what had been appropriated for whom.
Why not post all the EU accounts on the Internet, Mr Liikanen, so that it would be more difficult for fraudsters to live off EU funds? Here in Parliament too, we shall be able to set a good example on Thursday by cleaning out our own pigsty and finally switching to the procedure of only refunding expenses actually incurred.
I would urge everyone to vote for our amendment to the Viola report.
It is the thirty-eighth time we have tabled it, so I hope that it will also be the last.
Mr President, one question immediately occurs to us on examining this budget, which meets the need for rigour imposed by present circumstances: will Europe's citizens be footing the Union's bill out of their own pockets yet again? After Edinburgh, where it was decided that the EU budget for economic and social cohesion would be raised to 0.46 % of GDP, we are today being presented with a tight budget, one justified by the need to assist the Member States in their efforts to gear up for the euro, but above all to provide structural support for enlargement.
We wonder how the various Member States' difficulties in terms of cofinancing projects can be resolved during these hard times, when a reduction of ECU 500 m in payment appropriations alone is being recommended for next year. How, above all, can we convince our citizens that the Community is justified in showing solidarity towards the new democracies of Eastern Europe, which face an overwhelming task in developing their infrastructure, environment, production sector and human resources?
The Commission has opted for a radical solution, harnessing the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund in their entirety to the requirements of enlargement: Alleanza Nazionale is convinced that this is necessary and proper, especially if we consider that the CEECs have only recently emerged from under the Communist yoke. They are, nevertheless, in equal need of support from a political union - culpably slow in the making - which could at the very least lend some shape to a disparate array of policies, and of an institutional reform to give the citizens a voice at long last by placing the European Parliament at the forefront of the legislative and decision-making procedure.
The European people require strong signals and the knowledge that they are supported by representatives who are mindful of their interests and demands.
Unfortunately, we hear all too much nowadays of poor financial management in the case of the PHARE and TACIS programmes, and even of fraud and irregularities in that of ECHO.
Finally, I would like to speak out in favour of Europe's public servants, who are now being faced with enforced cutbacks in the establishment plan, staff freezes and overhauled social security and pension schemes.
Let us beware, because a civil service under fire and demoralised would endanger the efficiency and independence of the institutions!
Mr President, in very sincerely congratulating the rapporteur I want to go beyond formality and parliamentary courtesy.
I have been through enough budgetary procedures by now to be able to say that this is undoubtedly one of the most peaceful as regards conflicts and frustration amongst committees and groups, at least as far as the rapporteur's area of responsibility is concerned.
I also want to highlight the fact that this is the first general rapporteur from the Socialist Group who is a woman.
And she is also the first Spanish Member to occupy the position.
Moving on to the substance, I have two roles to fulfill: one as rapporteur for the Interinstitutional Agreement and the financial perspective, and the other as a representative of the Socialist Group.
My group has asked me to concentrate on the link between the Interinstitutional Agreement, the financial perspective and the present budget - the one we are debating - which is a fundamental concept for the rapporteur and our Socialist Group.
Although the State Secretary has gone, I am sure that the representatives of the Council will pass this on to him.
In addition, I have seen enough members and officials of the Committee on Budgets here to be sure that what I have to say will reach the Council.
Mr President, nobody is more convinced than I am of the general usefulness of a budgetary interinstitutional agreement and some medium-term prospects.
Some people miss the never-ending conflicts of pre-1988 budgets. I will not go so far as to quote the saying about living in interesting times, but I prefer to reserve my excitement for other occasions and causes and to keep the budgetary peace as far as possible.
I think the 1988 and 1993 agreements were a sign of progress.
They were agreements on major decisions that allowed the harmonious development of the principal European Union policies to take place in peace and serenity at important times of change, such as the single market, the single currency, etcetera.
This peace and serenity is also required in facing up to the challenges of the first years of the 21st century, including pre-accession and perhaps even accession.
In the past I criticised - and I do not take back a single word - the flaws in the Commission's proposal and underlined the weakness of some of the hypotheses on which it is based.
I will not labour the point.
But I do want to highlight two negative aspects of the financial perspective the Commission is proposing that are relevant today: if Article 203 of the Treaty were strictly applied and the increase in gross national product were 2.5 % a year, as the Commission assumes, the Member States' budgets would, in fact, have to fall annually by 1.1 % to equal your proposed figures.
A higher percentage - for example, if the fall were only 0.5 % - or even any positive percentage would mean that the Article 203 option would turn out to be more advantageous than the Commission's financial perspective.
Furthermore, the proposals mean that the European Parliament will decide throughout this period - 2000-2006 - on some EUR 20 billion less of non-compulsory expenditure than this Article 203 would permit and, in addition, it could do this or would do this in a new context without restrictions in terms of Article 203.
What is offered in exchange for that sacrifice of Parliament's powers? The answer is basic and we have already stated it several times: political power.
There are two areas where we can make progress: one is the resolution of old disputes, such as classification, which has dragged on since 1982, but above all there is flexibility.
I would say that flexibility is the key word, covering revision clauses and certain opportunities for transfers between categories or carryovers.
We must define it and we are ready to look at any formula.
But be aware, representatives of the Council, that without flexibility there will be no agreement.
The Council does not seem to understand that to sign an interinstitutional agreement there must be at least two parties, usually three, but at least two, and one of these two is Parliament.
The same thing happened last time.
It took us a year and a half to draw up the Agreement.
After Edinburgh, the British Presidency thought it had completed the negotiations but the Agreement was signed by the Belgian Presidency a year later.
The next Belgian Presidency is in the year 2001.
I hope to sign before then, but if there is no flexibility I give you advance warning that we may end up signing in 2001.
In view of the lack of dialogue with the Council and because we have no faith in its capacity for reaction, we have been obliged, with the general rapporteur, to table some amendments - the ones we call strategic amendments - which use up the ceiling of the various categories.
Their objective, their real intention - as we know, and as we have always stated - is certainly not to be wasted but simply to give those responsible for the budgets in the Member States heart attacks.
Or rather, joking apart, their objective is for Parliament to do its duty properly and bequeath to the new European Parliament, which will be elected in June 1999, either an adequate and flexible agreement or a sufficient basis for non-compulsory expenditure allowing the new Parliament to define its budgetary priorities easily if it has to do so using Article 203.
Do not accuse us of squandering now.
After a great fuss, it turned out that last year - or the financial year in progress, 1998 - the Member States increased their budgets by more than the European Parliament increased the Community budget.
So do not accuse us of that, representatives of the Council.
This Parliament has been thrifty and you know that. It has spent ECU 80 billion less than was agreed with you for the 1988-1999 period.
If we had put that in a savings bank, we would now be paying for the enlargement in cash, but we gave it back to the Ministers for Finance, representatives of the Council.
But you have no guarantee that the Parliament elected in June will follow that thrifty path.
Take that on board.
If we reach agreement, we all know perfectly well that the Treaty and the Financial Regulation contain methods of removing the dreadful inconveniences these amendments might cause the treasuries of the Member States.
In this context, you will understand that I was opposed to an amendment seeking to create a reserve of EUR 500 m for emergencies in Russia and the former Soviet Union.
Its aim is undoubtably laudable, but it lacks any legal basis and contravenes the agreement on legal bases that we signed on 17 July last.
I would call on my colleagues who proposed it yesterday to think again.
We will lose credibility if this amendment is approved in the House.
If it were approved, it would weaken and undermine the negotiating capacity and the credibility of this institution in the negotiations in progress on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
So I ask you to think it over and not to support it in the House.
The other point I would like to make relates to the famous 100 % reserve of part D operational appropriations.
In my opinion, one of the European Union's most positive external actions, our emergency humanitarian aid, has been taken hostage to resolve some irregularities that are out of all proportion to the sanction.
It has been said that saying this is demagogy.
Obviously I do not share that view.
I think taking these appropriations and putting them in the reserve is demagogy.
That is indeed pure demagogy.
You cannot call for action in Kosovo or Russia and at the same time put the necessary appropriations in a reserve which begins on 1 January and so prevents us taking action in Kosovo or Russia on 1 January.
The only plausible explanation, in my opinion, is that it is easier to vote this reserve through in public than to shoulder the political consequences there would be for the discharge procedure if there were a real belief in the statements made.
Contrary to what some people here say, this is a way for Parliament to duck its political responsibilities.
Parliament has a path to follow: the discharge procedure, not the budgetary procedure.
I would like to make two very personal final points, ladies and gentlemen.
First, I want to support the proposals we made in the Committee on Budgets and also highlight all references to anti-personnel mine deactivation programmes as far as possible. At the same time, I want to congratulate the rapporteur on her formula for resolving the financing in favour of minority languages.
Having said that, let me appeal to the conscientiousness of the current Council Presidency so that between now and December we can make progress towards the solutions needed for the European Union budget over the coming years.
Mr President. I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop.
As the rapporteur for the 1998 budgetary procedure, I know what is on her mind at present, and what will be on her mind in the weeks to come, because we have entered the decisive phase of the budget deliberations.
She has endeavoured to present us with a balanced budget.
She has consistently strived for a greater degree of transparency and efficiency where expenditure is concerned.
That is why I agree with Mr Colom I Naval that the 1999 budgetary procedure is nothing out of the ordinary.
I should therefore like to draw your attention to a few special features of this budget.
Last year, we cut back on the number of Commission studies - which are, after all, assigned to every single budget line.
This year, the rapporteur has made a more radical proposal - in itself a good idea - to move this expenditure into part A of the budget in connection with the BUTS.
This will improve the Commission's control over the expenditure and will increase our confidence in this respect.
Last year, we laid down criteria for the subsidies in part A of the budget.
In the course of the 1998 budget, the Commission has responded to this and taken measures.
It has not only introduced criteria for the subsidies in part A of the budget, but has also decided on some for part B and introduced them.
Now we have a problem - the problem which is overshadowing the whole of the deliberations on the 1999 budget - namely spending by ECHO and spending on PHARE and TACIS, where the Liikanen facility is concerned.
Parliament and the Commission are very distrustful of each other here.
At its first reading, the Committee on Budgets decided to enter a reserve for humanitarian aid.
This happened after the hearing of the three Commissioners in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
We listened to the Commissioners' comments and explanations, but the Committee on Budgets thought that this was insufficient.
That is why the reserve was created.
The majority of the Budgets Committee were in favour and thought that the reserve would help to increase the pressure on the Commission to provide us with more information, along the lines of the UCLAF report.
The target of the reserve - and I am emphasising this in view of the fact that journalists and visitors are listening to us from the gallery - is not humanitarian aid and its recipients.
That means that we are not trying to stop or hinder humanitarian aid, but to ensure that spending on humanitarian aid is transparent and that the humanitarian aid actually reaches those for whom it is intended.
But what has happened since the reserve was created? The Commission has reacted.
The President of the Commission made a statement at the last part-session.
The President of the Commission has had an exchange of letters with the President of Parliament, and has also said that he is willing to make the necessary documents available to Parliament or the Committee on Budgetary Control for their perusal.
Regarding what Mr Samland said, I do not agree that Mr Liikanen or the President of the Commission should inform the Committee on Budgetary Control, in camera, of whether a complete set of documents is now also available to the courts.
I would like the Commissioner to address this issue today, as it is actually a familiar one.
I agree with Mr Wynn that the 1999 budget should not penalise humanitarian aid.
We in the Group of the European People's Party invite all Members of this House to fight with us for the principle of transparent expenditure.
Because - and, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I should like to recall this for the sake of all those who have forgotten it again today - we concluded in letter K, that there has been a substantial increase in payment appropriations earmarked for humanitarian aid, in view of the developments in the sector in the last years, and that we are, therefore, in favour of an increase.
However, in the light of UCLAF's inquiries in connection with irregularities in the execution of contracts for humanitarian aid, such funds should be put into a reserve in order to encourage the Commission to give Parliament full information on the situation between the first and second readings of the budget.
Yesterday or today there were reports in Le Monde and Die Welt stating that there are also irregularities associated with Altener, Thermie, and technical assistance in the case of Chernobyl.
That is why this matter cannot be regarded as closed, and we still have to face up to this task.
I would sincerely invite you to do so.
Mr President, I was very pleased to see how much importance the rapporteur attaches in her text to continuing the procedure we used last year in setting the farm budget.
I think this is most important, because the agriculture budget has to be based on the best forecasts available.
Secondly, this increases the influence which Parliament is able to exert, and that is good for democracy.
It is premature at this stage to say that the farm budget should remain at the same level or maybe even be cut.
What counts most for me is that the Commission and thus the European Union should stick to what has been agreed.
If it is true that expenditure turns out to be higher than expected, then that is unfortunate, but if it is lower, then automatically that is regarded as a welcome bonus.
We have to proceed on a basis of budgeting as realistically as possible, and at the same time we must discharge the obligations we have entered into.
There is one thing I have to say about the farm budget.
Last year, we expressly asked the Commission to clarify an important budget line, namely accompanying measures.
These are particularly important in that there will be more and more talk in future of cross-compliance with regard to income subsidies. We asked the Commission for a report on those measures.
It came at the very last moment, just ahead of the second reading.
But it was a report made up solely of statistics - somewhat on the lean side.
Surely it was not beyond the Commission to produce an analysis of which environmentally friendly farming methods had been the most successful in the Member States?
How is it that only five of the 15 Member States draw on the budget lines for accompanying measures, when everyone talks about a better environment and so on? These, I think, are the essential things we need to know as we prepare for the forthcoming round of Agenda 2000 and all the rest.
So I would welcome an assurance from the Commission that it will supply us with comprehensive information on the budget line for accompanying measures.
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly in this debate.
I welcome in particular proposals in the draft budget for an 8.8 % increase in appropriations which would provide adequate funding for the current round of structural funds.
I believe this is important.
I do not have to remind the House of the importance of structural programmes as an instrument for the economic and social development of the regions.
I hope that these programmes continue into the future.
I wish, however, in particular to put down a marker in the context of future EU budgets, particularly in the period 2000 to 2006, and to reject proposals emanating from the Commission which suggest a move towards the renationalisation of the common agricultural policy.
The people responsible for this heresy need to be stopped in their tracks.
The economic and social philosophy of the European Union is clearly outlined in their own treaty.
To these new, self-appointed architects of European reconstruction I say: you are doing a serious disservice to the concept of European solidarity and undermining the foundation which has brought us to where we are today within the European Union.
From an agricultural perspective this Parliament is now aware of the serious threats to the European farm model based on family farming.
We are aware of the role of farmers as guarantors of food security and quality.
We are aware of the serious threat to Europe's rural infrastructure through rural depopulation.
We have brought forward proposals to address many of these problems.
We must now stand up to those who would deny us the lifeline to implement the policies which are necessary to deal with these massive European problems.
Mr President, the constraints linked to the introduction of the single currency in 1999 are weighing on the national budgets and on the Community budget.
It is the sectors of education, social welfare and employment which are most threatened in these rigorous budgets, including at Community level.
We cannot debate the 1999 budget without considering the European Commission document on future financing.
Under pressure from Germany, the Commission has submitted several options, with the aim of rebalancing the national contributions to the Community budget.
The Commission is attempting to satisfy Germany, without regard for any harm which may be caused to the fundamental principles of European construction, such as financial solidarity.
This is particularly true both with the extension to other countries of the rebate on the UK contribution and with the partial renationalisation of aid to farmers.
Germany, which initiated these proposals, seems poorly placed to demand lower payments when you consider the economic and commercial advantages which it gains from the single market.
Its trading surplus should exceed FRF 500 billion in 1998, the majority of it from the Community market.
This is a real record.
I agree with the recent assessment by the future German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Joschka Fischer.
Germany is, physically and politically, the main net beneficiary of the European integration process.
This being the case, there is no justification for Germany being given even more advantages.
Beyond the budget discussions between the Member States, with the rise in importance of the fair return principle which Parliament has always criticised, Europe is managing to paint a sad picture people in the Member States and the applicant countries.
This principle is the very negation of the European Union.
I propose a completely different approach.
We must move away from the shopkeeper mentality, whose only aim is to satisfy the appetites of financiers, and reverse the logic of the Community budget by basing it on the principle of solidarity: solidarity with those sectors which are struggling the most and with the poorest regions; solidarity with the European people, by responding to their need for jobs, purchasing power and social welfare; solidarity with the people of the applicant countries, by respecting their experiences and their desires and not imposing on them the diktat of the acquis communautaire
In order to ensure this solidarity, the Community appropriations must be used differently, for example by concentrating them on the sectors in crisis and on the most underdeveloped regions, by imposing a ceiling on aid to farmers and by developing employment and training policies.
However, we must also generate new income without burdening taxpayers, for example by looking for resources from the financial markets which have broadly profited from the liberalisation of capital.
Why not plan a new Community resource based on the taxation of financial transactions?
Mr President, I certainly would like to make a small contribution to this debate.
I congratulate the rapporteurs and all involved.
I welcome the continued support for the special programme for Northern Ireland.
I would like to thank the Committee on Budgets for the way in which it has controlled this issue on this occasion.
We did not have the hype we have had for the past two years.
In Northern Ireland the Peace and Reconciliation Programme has been doing a very good job.
It has created new ideas and shown new ways forward.
However, the whole future of the structural funds has to be borne in mind as well and there will be a fair battle ahead in this Parliament over the next six to nine months when we discuss Agenda 2000 and the entire reform package.
While we continue to give massive support to the agricultural industry, throughout the European Union the industry is bleeding and dying.
In my own area farmers in my lifetime have never had it so bad.
The situation is impossible.
We are still putting all this money in, so we have to ask the question: where is it all going? Is it going the right way, or where are we going wrong?
Surely the time to examine this is over the next six to nine months.
Farmers cannot continue as at present. We are going to destroy the whole fabric of rural society if we allow the present situation to continue.
Money itself will not solve this problem.
We need to have a new look at where we are going.
We need to have a new look at our markets.
We need to take a positive position on the way forward.
I appeal to the Commission to take this point on board.
The defence of our small family farms and our rural farms structure must be maintained.
Mr President, I should like to examine certain aspects which, in truth, represent only a tiny percentage of the budget but are of major relevance to Parliament and its relations with the European citizens.
I refer to the education and culture programmes.
This year the budget discussions have been especially tough in this field, and my colleagues and I are very satisfied with the agreement reached on the legal bases.
Although this agreement is positive in respect of interinstitutional relations and at last clarifies thelegal options and creates transparency in the budget, it has placed the rapporteur in a considerable dilemma.
The rapporteur has done a tremendous job concerning the sum earmarked for pilot schemes and preparatory actions, managing to take on board the demands of all the committees and of Parliament as a whole, as well as - most importantly - those of the citizens.
The so-called 'other social operations' are always something of a Cinderella in the budget, even though they are a means of enabling citizens to identify with Europe and to expect that their problems will be addressed.
The work of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Budgets Committee pre-empted the Amsterdam Treaty, in a sense.
I really would have expected the Council to be equally bold at its first reading.
Although it was not, we were.
I hope that, at second reading, the Council will not assess Parliament's decisions in its traditional manner, but will comply with the undertakings it made when drawing up the agreement on the legal bases.
In particular, I think that it is important to satisfy the voluntary sector, which has been seeking in recent years to confront problems that cannot be solved by either the Community budget - not being competent to do so - or the Member States.
I should like to draw attention to one final aspect: training.
As the rapporteur said this morning, education and training shape the future of our young people, enabling them to find their way in this frontier-free Europe and look forward to a brighter future.
Finally, I should like to thank the rapporteur once again for having done whatever could be done, and indeed more - within such tight budgetary constraints - to satisfy all concerned.
Mr President, I believe that we should welcome this budget and also the absolutely excellent improvements by the general rapporteur.
I will confine myself to three remarks.
The first is to underline the structural development of this budget.
When you look at the balance of spending, it is clear that equality has virtually been achieved between agricultural expenditure and expenditure on structural measures.
I believe that this represents considerable progress which may partly, but only partly, calm the fears of those who consider that the budget has traditionally been too concentrated on agriculture, i.e. on 3 % of the population.
The room left for non-structural internal policies is still relatively inadequate and joint measures should be developed in this area so that all the taxpayers of the Union can be represented in the budget.
My second remark is that this budget is a rigorous one, as it should be, but that it must not be so forever.
We were keen, I believe, to restrict ourselves to an extremely limited increase in expenditure, even though the increase in structural commitment appropriations gives a slightly different impression and even though, for the strategic reasons which have been indicated, we have put a certain number of appropriations in reserve with the aim of bringing pressure to bear in the interinstitutional negotiations.
Despite these two elements, it is clear that we are on course for a rigorous budget and an increase comparable to that of the national budgets.
This situation will not last forever and I hope that we can get away from the idea that the European Union must always have a budget whose increase is modelled on that of the Member States, whereas the European Union is continually expanding and the responsibilities of the European Union and the policies which we have to finance are also growing considerably.
The budget of a European Union which is constantly expanding both geographically and politically cannot be judged using the same yardstick as that used for national budgets which are set within a stabilised framework.
For the future, I believe that achieving greater flexibility in the interinstitutional negotiations is essential.
I also believe that it is in the everyone's interests - the Council's and the Commission's - to recognise that greater flexibility between categories also means better management and the optimum allocation of resources.
Having said that, Parliament must not ignore the fact that more flexibility also means genuine co-decision and that if we are to play a bigger role in the future in the area of compulsory expenditure, we must accept that there should also be genuine co-decision here.
We must therefore find a balance and I hope that the Interinstitutional Agreement which we are trying to negotiate will help to achieve this.
Finally, I must stress the need for good management.
We never pay quite enough attention to staff matters.
We must get away from the idea, which is still there in our resolutions and our reports, that we can continue to manage an enlarged European Union with unchanged administrative and staff resources.
We must be daring in this respect too!
Mr President, yet another rigorous budget, yet another budget prepared against a backdrop of disagreement about the future financing of the European Union: this exercise, which is repeated every year, is becoming monotonous.
However, this debate should not allow us to forget two important aspects.
The first concerns our desire to bring the Union closer to the concerns of the citizens, which would have been condemned to oblivion if those responsible for implementing the budget had not had to draw lessons from the recently publicised problems.
I do not need to add that each failure in this respect only serves to make people more sceptical, particularly when we are preaching the virtues of rigour at them.
We cannot claim, and this is my second point, to be in tune with the concerns of our fellow citizens if the lack of adequate legal bases means that whole areas from cooperation to social development and commitment are paralysed.
I hope that the Interinstitutional Agreement will put an end to a situation which, in the community arena, has blocked the activities of the most committed people in our society and withheld aid from those who most desperately needed it.
The monotony of the exercise should also not make us forget that the closure of the next financial year, on whose budget we will vote on Thursday, will coincide with the passage from the second to the third millennium.
1999 will be a transition year which will raise yet more questions about the future of our societies and the way in which we intend to meet the major challenges. It will only be positive if our management capacity from our past, and more particularly from the 20th century, remains intact.
In this respect, I am very pleased that the Committee on Budgets accepted our amendment about the republication of the Nuremberg records in the various languages of the European Union.
Although the sums reserved for this may seem derisory, they are still evidence of our desire to substitute our duty to history for our duty of remembrance, given that our memories are failing and history, when widely taught and understood, constitutes the best protection against the pollution of revisionism and denial.
Mr President, let me use the short time available to comment on two seemingly minor points in the budget, which could nonetheless have major consequences.
Just over a year ago, I tabled a proposal here in this Chamber for a campaign to be undertaken in 1999 to combat violence against women.
There was a large supporting majority in the House and the Committee on Women's Rights put forward a proposal for a very modest budget of ECU 5 million to fund the campaign at EU level.
A majority in committee then rejected the proposal.
I hope that the ECU 5 m will be reinstated when we vote on the budget. There are hundreds of thousands of women throughout the Member States who agree with the majority in this Parliament that this is a matter of great importance.
People might be wondering whether this would lead to an overall increase in the budget. It is worth remembering that we managed to add ECU 5 m for participation in the Hanover World Fair.
I am sure that Europe's women would appreciate a similar reallocation here too.
I should also like to use this opportunity to say how pleased I am that we voted in favour of having our expenses reimbursed on a real cost basis.
There is of course a problem with linking the expenses issue to a Statute for Members. In my opinion, we are here to represent voters back at home, not to represent the EU institutions vis-à-vis our electorate.
Mr President, a word or two on two important points - the overall budget strategy, but firstly the refunding of expenses.
It is high time Parliament sorted out the matter of expenses.
Already when it looked at the estimates for 1998, it adopted an amendment that travel and subsistence allowances should be paid on the basis of the actual costs incurred.
A full year later, nothing has been agreed.
This is largely the fault of the Bureau which, up to yesterday evening at least, seemed incapable of dealing with the question of expenses.
Members of the Committee on Budgets quite properly took matters into their own hands.
The amendment by Mr Dankert and others, adopted yesterday evening by the Committee on Budgets, contains some excellent proposals.
Unfortunately, at the insistence of the PPE Group, an addition was made to the effect that the payment of expenses should be covered in a Statute for Members.
This is a malign connection, because it may take a very long time for the Council to approve a statute of that kind.
I urge all Members of the House not to tolerate any further delay in reforming the payment of expenses, and to undo this connection.
Turning to the question of overall strategy, the 1999 budget debate looks like being pivotal in the discussions on the financial perspective for 2000-2006.
To give Parliament maximum room for manoeuvre, the rapporteur is seeking in 1999 to have the margins beneath the expenditure ceiling carried fully as reserves in the budget.
If Parliament does that, it will be sending out a completely wrong message.
The European Union cannot wriggle out of the budgetary discipline which it is demanding of the EMU countries.
The talks on an interinstitutional agreement envisage the management of expenditure.
It is not acceptable for Parliament to opt for an alternative which will mean maximising spending in 1999 and beyond.
Mr President, I will talk specifically to two amendments.
Firstly, B1-3800.
We must increase funding for the promotion of beef-eating; we must advertise beef; we must cut the amount of beef in very costly intervention storage.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development tabled these amendments, the Committee on Budgets rejected them.
Since then, we have had confirmation of the loss of our Russian market: 400 000 tonnes of European beef went to Russia last year.
That will have to go into expensive storage this year, in addition to the 580 000 tonnes already there.
A huge beef mountain of a thousand million tonnes!
The Committee on Budgets turned down a proposal to increase beef promotion to cut this intervention storage.
If we vote this extra money, we could save on intervention costs - probably up to ECU 100m.
Let us spend ECU 20m to save ECU 100m - this is good economic sense.
Secondly, I hope we will support line B2-518N which would help fund the creation of future jobs involving the exploitation of sheep wool.
Sheep farmers all over Europe are having serious problems.
If only we could get added value for the wool of sheep, besides the meat, it would help our rural areas.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, overall this has the potential to be a sound budget, and I should particularly like to thank the rapporteur for her commitment to this budgetary procedure.
It is a bridging budget to the next financial perspective, and it should also be a budget which will help to prepare the ground for introducing the necessary flexibility in the future agreement between the institutions.
I also think that the way in which the European Parliament has framed a sound budgetary and financial policy in recent years should make it easier for the Council to take the first practical steps towards concluding the necessary agreements with Parliament over the next few weeks.
On Category 1, I think we need to develop the Tillich-Mulder procedure further, to allow agricultural expenditure to be forecast as precisely and accurately as possible, but at the same time to formalise, in the budget, the commitments entered into.
Our experience with this procedure has been good.
But I also wish to add that this procedure will only be able to prove itself in the long term and receive the support of this House if it is adjusted, firstly to take account of budgetary discipline, but also to provide some room for manoeuvre one way or another in the decision-making process, before the final decision is made.
The Tillich-Mulder procedure - I will say this quite explicitly - is not meant to make the management of agricultural expenditure one-sided.
Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, yesterday in the Committee on Budgets we made some slight changes to the original text of your motion for a resolution.
There were some phrases which might have compelled those concerned not to trust completely the singing of the Agenda 2000 sirens, and also to be a little sceptical about the Tillich-Mulder procedure for the same reason.
I should like to say something about two particular points concerning us in this budget which are obviously of particular interest to the public - because in the end, the budget itself gives less cause for general concern than the ensuing use of the appropriations - in the light of current problems regarding ECHO, MED and TACIS, to mention three examples.
In the Committee on Budgets, we put the money for ECHO in the reserve and set two conditions for its release.
In the meantime, we have received the letter from the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, which I welcome.
But I would add that these are promises for the future.
We all know, do we not - from other committees and committees of inquiry - that promises for the future are only made for the purposes of overcoming present difficulties.
That is why, Mr Liikanen, I would very much like a statement from you, in today's plenary debate, on how the Commission proposes to deal with the second condition, that is the question of handing over documents concerning the fictitious contracts to the judicial authorities competent in each case. Has that already happened?
Is it going to happen? I say to all Members that this is not about taking humanitarian aid hostage.
We have plenty of time before the second reading.
But anyone whose resolve is weakening today will basically take us into a difficult discharge procedure in December.
That is why we are well advised to tell the Commission that there are two conditions and that these need to be met.
Otherwise, the money will stay in the reserve until the second reading.
In view of the motion, we will certainly also have to take further clear action on this.
One final word on the Viola report and the arrangements for reimbursing Members.
I tell you clearly: without a Statute for Members, we only have the bare bones of a proposal.
Secondly, the Bureau's proposal does not solve the problem, but is actually a further step towards the realms of the absurd, with obvious preferential treatment for particular groups.
It is just one dubious proposal in place of another.
That is why the motion, adopted yesterday by the Committee on Budgets, is an attempt to form a majority in this House and to take action, so that together - without trading accusations - we can take practical steps towards finding a workable solution, not only for travel expenses, but for the whole issue of allowances, reimbursement arrangements and the legal status of Members of the European Parliament.
Mr President, the European Union's draft budget for 1999 is a particularly harsh and restrictive austerity budget, a budget dictated by the harsh financial policy imposed by progress towards EMU and the stability pact.
Once again the Commission and the Council have become exponents of monetarism at the cost of social policy and the social rights of working people.
The Commission and the Council have learned nothing from the continuing worldwide financial crisis which is already a threat to the real economy, to development and to employment.
They have learned nothing from the dramatic consequences of the restrictive policy squeezing Europe's citizens.
Farmers, mainly those in the South, working people, entrepreneurs in the small and medium-sized cottage industry sector, young people and pensioners have all reached the limits of their endurance.
They cannot cope with still more austerity.
These financial perspectives and budgets are not going to improve the situation of citizens or of the Union's less prosperous countries.
The European Parliament, as the Union's only elected body, must at some point speak up for Europe's citizens and send out a message denouncing this policy and demanding that it should be reversed by voting against this austerity budget directed against the peoples of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must say first of all that the budget on which we will be voting on Thursday morning has the peculiar characteristic of containing some very high figures for research and development. Clearly, these are purely theoretical figures as they relate to a sort of game within the European Parliament which has produced a compromise between the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the Committee on Budgets based on the preliminary draft budget tabled by the Commission.
Actually, the conciliation procedure between Parliament and the Council of Ministers is not over, and I must say that the situation as it stands does not give cause for optimism.
We had hoped that a conciliation agreement would be reached just before the vote in the Committee on Budgets.
Unfortunately, this is clearly a long way off, to the extent that I cannot today guarantee - and I am personally quite pessimistic - that we will have an agreement before the second reading of the budget. This would certainly put us in an extremely difficult situation.
How can we give a legal basis to the research expenditure which we would be required to allocate from 1 January 1999 if there is no agreement with the Council?
My pessimism is based on the gap between the Parliament and Council positions - 16.3 billion for Parliament and 14.3 billion for the Council, give or take a little - and particularly on the atmosphere in which the conciliation procedure is taking place.
We really do not feel that the Council of Ministers wants to reach agreement here.
On the one hand, the Council is completely obsessed with the revision of the financial perspectives and it wants to impose on Parliament a clause which goes against the rights conferred on Parliament under the Treaties.
On the other hand, we have the impression that, despite everything, the Council wants to advance very carefully, as if it were already convinced that the financial perspectives would be even more unfavourable than at present in terms of resources.
We are therefore at an impasse and I cannot exclude the possibility that we may attempt an agreement with the Council for just one year, 1999, and defer the overall agreement for the following four years of the framework programme until after the revision of the financial perspectives.
We must therefore consider this seriously when we vote on the research budgets on Thursday and we must ensure that the Commission, which is an important intermediary - I nearly said mediator - between the Council and Parliament, and particularly the Council bring whatever pressure is necessary to bear on the ministers for research.
Finally, I would draw your attention to the fact that the operation of phasing the ECSC into the budget of the framework programme for research has still not really been dealt with, as we are not sure whether the framework programme will include research on coal.
Mr President, I will not go into details of the various articles and chapters of the budget - other speakers have analysed them sufficiently - but will restrict myself to expressing a number of general thoughts concerning the role of the budget and how that role is developing.
In fact, if we consider the development of the European Union's budget over the years, it is evident that it has contributed to the promotion of policies that have influenced the Union's development.
In other words, it has basically been a policy instrument, and its manifestations and expressions at various levels demonstrate as much.
The common agricultural policy and its development, the issue of the Structural Funds and the efforts towards convergence, the European Union's foreign policy and the way it has been financed without bureaucratic impediments at times and has therefore been able to be effective on the few occasions when it has been used; all this shows that the European Union's budget is basically a policy instrument.
However, the goal of EMU, whose achievement has entailed the exercise of rigorous financial policy at national level, has encouraged the idea that the Union's budget must itself be just as strict.
As a result, the budget has been drawn into a short-term mentality which is gradually altering its basic function and leading to the view that revenues should be saved or, more precisely, that Member States should contribute less to the Union's budget.
In fact, we are going back to 1988 levels in terms of the proportion of GNP contributed, as other speakers have already pointed out.
The worrying thing is not the austerity of the budget as such, which will naturally increase awareness that excesses must be avoided and that appropriations must be allocated and utilised sensibly.
What is worrying is the emerging trend of using the net financial contribution, which is somewhat arbitrarily defined, and the principle of subsidiarity, which is equally arbitrarily defined, as a means of partially depriving the budget of its ability to function supportively in the context of EMU and adequately to offset the consequences of differences in the regional development of the EU's Member States.
In other words, the budget will cease to play an active part and become a completely passive book-keeping exercise.
The European Parliament, which is the custodian of the real policy the budget ought to be pursuing, because that is its role, has certainly grasped the need for the budget to be drawn up and implemented in a sound manner.
The current budget demonstrates that, and further proof is to be found in the recent agreement on legal bases which already applies to the budget under review.
That agreement is very important and it has already begun to bear fruit.
It must, of course, be applied consistently and must not lead to ad hoc deviations which would undermine Parliament's credibility.
What that agreement achieved was to rid us of many situations not entirely in keeping with the spirit of the European Union in which legal bases were exploited without anyone's endorsement.
So austerity is not an end in itself.
The 1999 budget is very important because it can become the basis on which financial perspectives are developed.
We must therefore be very careful about the way we formulate it.
We must also distance ourselves a little from the Council's book-keeping approach which unfortunately tends to prevail.
In the past, when we were drawing up the budget, we started off with the policy we wished to implement.
In other words, we used to say that this is the European Union's objective, this is the policy it wishes to implement, and then we found the resources. Now, unfortunately, we do things the other way round and we say: this is the money available; what can we do with it?
That does not help the European Union, especially during the critical period we are going through at the moment, a period when everything is changing and which will require genuinely positive action on the part of the European Union. We will have somehow to reconsider how to restore to the EU budget its true political role.
Mr President, it was stated in this Chamber earlier on today that the European Union budget sends an important message to the citizens of Europe about what issues the Union considers important.
In my opinion, one of the most vital messages that we should be sending out is that we have a sense of responsibility towards those Europeans who are in danger of becoming excluded from society as a result of unemployment, poverty, disability, homelessness or other problems.
In the draft budget we are now discussing there is a proposal for a new item covering measures to combat social exclusion.
ECU 10 million has been allocated for the measures for next year.
When the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into force and places obligations on the Union in this area too, we must be ready and willing to commit much larger sums in the future.
The Council of the European Union has begun a campaign of global solidarity.
I hope that the European Union, and its Member States, will bear a part of this responsibility.
Finally, greetings to Mr Liikanen from the inter-group meeting.
Everyone agreed that the reason for the Commissioner's absence was perfectly understandable.
Mr President, it goes without saying that ever since the 1980 budget, I find myself looking back nostalgically to 203, but at the same time I cannot deny that the financial perspective has done much to secure budgetary calm, budgetary balance in relations between the institutions and within Europe too.
So I find it most unfortunate that we currently have finance ministers in Europe who, seeing that the ceiling has not been reached, think that a policy of zero growth has to be applied to the budget.
It is as if they had been bitten by a millennium bug which sets the clock back to 1980 and before.
There are some who have sought zero growth even in their own national budgets.
That defies belief, of course.
It cannot be and it must not be.
Looking at how the budget has developed in recent years between Parliament and the Council, I see that the budget has developed in a very controlled manner, that it has been very close to zero growth and would even have been below that had it not been for the Council - the Council - deciding to make a considerable increase in the Structural Funds, which in fact I welcome, and which led to this extra growth.
Parliament has not been guilty of profligate spending even in recent years.
We too have shown great restraint in the budgetary process.
But that does not mean you can now say that zero growth must be the rule for the next few years.
We are in favour of enlargement.
Whilst the Commission has already done a few sums on the cost of enlargement, it is not clear exactly how much the cost will be.
My feeling is that the Commission errs on the side of caution.
And then, looking at the agricultural markets - the honourable Member behind me raised the question of meat just now - the CAP will be yielding fewer windfalls than it has done in the past.
Payments out of the Structural Funds will fall due after 2000 which are not included in the financial perspective.
In short, then, it is not possible to meet all the challenges facing us if at the same time we decide on this zero growth which is so popular at present with a minority of the Council.
I think that will bring us to a far more serious budgetary situation than we experienced in the early 1980s.
We shall have to try to steer a good course for this budget, maintaining our role as joint budgetary authority, namely Parliament and Council together, and not just a minority of the Council.
So I welcome the fact that Mrs Dührkop does not suggest lowering the financial base for the 2000-2006 negotiations to the level to which the financial perspective for 1999 will bring us.
The difference is about ECU 4 billion, soon to be four billion euros.
We certainly do not want that money to be spent, as has already been said here.
We want to go on having room for manoeuvre in budgetary policy, though the attitude of some finance ministers seems to be threatening its survival.
The budget must make a confident transition into the twenty-first century so that the European Union can take every opportunity which that century affords.
I have a few comments to make on the system of reimbursement of Members' travel expenses.
And I have to put these to you, because in all honesty I wonder which parliament our Bureau actually represents.
Parliament instructed the Bureau to come up with a proposal for the realistic reimbursement of travel costs.
The Bureau decided on a system in which it is apparent on three counts that an income is being paid as well as travel expenses.
Previously that was hidden in the reimbursement of travel expenses, but now it is explicitly stated in the proposal.
Mr President, if you want problems over this in one or two Member States, that is the right way to go about it.
I recall the judgment of the Court of Justice about travel expenses in the case of an English lord.
If the lawyers get to look at it, the system is doomed from the start.
So the Bureau has failed to carry out its instructions.
Mr Böge said just now: I have a far better solution.
I will put off any solution for ever and a day.
I will vote in favour of actual costs, but I will not introduce the system until we have a Statute.
The Christian Democrats see that as their negotiating position.
I think it is a bad one.
I think the only thing we can do is to accept a proposal based on the Bureau's decision, namely that reimbursement should be made for actual costs incurred for actual travel.
Amendments have been tabled to that effect.
The Committee on Budgets achieved some progress yesterday, though it was later reversed by Mr Böge's additional demand.
It is not a compromise, because we are fundamentally in disagreement.
It has to be the case that actual travel costs and only those costs are reimbursed.
Lastly, Mr President, mention has already been made of this, but for the sake of political clarity I will refer again to Turkey.
The Socialist Group advocates scrapping the reserve in the budget line for financial cooperation with Turkey.
That is a direct consequence of the Court of Justice's decision that a legal basis should be required for budgets.
There is no denying it: there is no legal basis here, and as a result the reserve must go.
It is a pity that some people put a political construction on this.
That is not the intention.
It is the inevitable consequence of what the Council itself has sought to push through in the budget.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the 1999 budget reflects current European policies as they were enshrined in the interinstitutional agreement leading to the Delors II package.
As such, it could be regarded as a good budget all in all.
I wish to express my sincere thanks to our rapporteur, Barbara Dührkop, who with intelligence and perseverance has done an excellent job.
Nonetheless, I should like to make the following points. The 1999 budget respects in full the amounts set aside for Chapter II on the Structural Funds whose application has generally proved to be a success.
The cohesion countries are now either already in the euro zone or, in the case of Greece, making progress towards it.
What has happened in my country, Portugal, is proof of that.
Ten years ago it would have been unthinkable that Portugal would now be part of the founding group of the single currency.
Our extraordinary growth rate shows that, if correctly applied, European regional policies, along with the opening and creation of the single European market, are a vital instrument of cohesion and harmonious development.
When negotiating the next interinstitutional agreement and Agenda 2000 we should bear those results in mind. Otherwise, we risk destroying the European development model achieved after so many years.
I should also like to welcome the fact that, in the chapter on the Structural Funds, the European Parliament's budget proposal calls for more money to help the ultraperipheral regions - in the case of my country, the Azores and Madeira.
On agriculture, the policies applied in this budget do nothing to correct the unfair imbalances between different types of agriculture and farmers.
I hope that current discussions on CAP reform will bring an end to this scandal.
As far as internal policies are concerned, the European Parliament's proposal bolsters the action programmes on environmental protection, renewable energies, consumer protection, school exchanges, historic heritage restoration, occupational and social integration for those with special difficulties, sexual equality, NGOs, job creation, assistance for SMEs, and others.
In effect, the European Parliament has done what the Council was loath to do. It has scrutinised the programmes and policies that give the European Union a human face, seen what progress has been made, and demanded and approved the amounts needed for them to continue.
Showing a total lack of consistency and, I would even say, stupidly and cynically the Council of Ministers brutally cut back these programmes even as the Heads of State and Government were heaping praise on them in their European Council statements.
On foreign policy, I would like to stress the role of the European Parliament and my political group in insisting on having more details about the rumours of fraud and misuse of funds in the ECHO Programme.
The Commission has tried to cover up these very serious accusations in order to protect someone - exactly who, we do not know. Were it not for the decisive action taken by the European Parliament there would have been no transparency nor would plans have been made to set up an independent body with more teeth than the current UCLAF.
Just another couple of points: we wish to support the amendment tabled to restore the ECU 50 million to be spent on tropical forests.
We also support the strategic global reserve so that the Year 2000 budget can start out from a reasonable base should the European Parliament and the Council fail to agree on Agenda 2000.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to reiterate what Mr Böge said about ECHO.
Mr Liikanen, please take this matter seriously.
We both know that we have not yet heard the last of these suspected cases of fraud for this year, and it is important that you give us a clear indication here of how seriously you view this whole business.
In a few days, the summit on the European Union's responsiveness to citizens will take place in Austria, and I believe that it is legitimate, in this context, to ask how responsive the European budget is to citizens.
I recently read the following - and I will quote it in English - in the Financial Times : 'Opening up the whole budget system to make it more simple, more fair and more transparent is a political nightmare, far easier to keep it complicated.'
In this context, I particularly welcome the European Commission report, 'Financing the European Union', on the operation of the own-resources system.
I have already said in committee that the Commission could perhaps have been a little more emphatic about its own position, but this is a very good report.
It also examines the individual proposals on financing the Union in detail, considering the revenue's visibility to citizens, its yield and how easy it is to monitor.
It is a first step in the right direction. Mr Liikanen, I hope that you will keep to this path.
As regards the expenditure, on which we have to take a final decision on Thursday, I should like to highlight in particular - in connection with the theme of responsiveness to citizens - the successful resolution of the legal base problem under the Austrian Presidency.
All the budget lines now have a legal base, and the appropriations can also be disbursed.
After many years of squabbling over legal bases, the citizens of Europe can now have confidence that appropriations entered in the budget will also be converted into expenditure.
I believe that here the European Parliament has proved itself to be a reliable and valuable partner.
After all, we have cancelled 16 budget lines without a legal base amounting to some ECU 124 million.
It was our rapporteur's idea to create a closer match between certain Union policies and promises.
Look at the Leonardo programme - seemingly a priority in Cardiff - now cut by ECU 100 million.
Look at external actions, where even more appropriations have been entered against PHARE, even though we know that the money cannot be absorbed.
I believe that to be our rapporteur's achievement in the 1999 budget.
On this I offer her my warmest congratulations.
Mr President, I want first of all to thank the rapporteur for the good work she has done and indeed to compliment that small group of experts in the Budget Committee who work extremely hard and apply a lot of skill and expertise to this whole business and also the excellent Commission staff who have a lot of patience.
Sometimes the mood in these meetings can be very combative, sometimes unnecessarily so.
Nevertheless, I often see the whole apparatus as a big locomotive pushing a little wheelbarrow, a bit like children playing shop sometimes, because there is not so much substance there as people would like to believe.
This one per cent is all that we deal with.
By contrast the national governments elected with smaller numbers of people and having less mandates than we have in so many ways control 50 % of public spending throughout the European Union.
If you look at the major newspapers, you see that nobody worries about the effect any decision we take will have on the stock market.
Turn on 'World Business Today' and unless they are making some kind of joke about us, they will not be making any comment on the importance of the decisions we are making here.
It is important for us to say that because this whole budget of the European Union is so small, it makes little difference.
The only place where it makes a real difference is in agriculture where the recipients get real money - six million farmers throughout the European Union are the recipients of real money.
On the other hand, if you look at the Structural Funds, while in agriculture the average is ECU 5000 per farm-family throughout the European Union, assuming a figure of 7 million farmers, in Structural Funds spending comes to between ECU 200 and 300 per capita in those regions.
It is a relatively small amount of money.
Nevertheless we welcome the fact that the agricultural budget is as big as this.
In relation to agriculture let me say briefly that, as Mr Nicholson said, all sectors of agriculture are going through hard times, in spite of the fact that real money is being spent.
We have to look at it again and say this must be more to do with marketing and processing and our trade regulations, because throwing money at it is not resolving the problem.
Agricultural spending has maintained the same level for the last ten years, while the number of farmers has dropped from something like 12 million 10 years ago, to 6 million today.
In real terms we have maintained spending without resolving their problems.
We should tell farmers that we have made a real effort and applied real resources.
On the other hand, there is a regrettable tendency at national and European level to say there must be a balance between what people put in and what people get out. If this sort of calculation is going to be made, we must do it over a wider front.
Firstly, we have to look at the countries which make the biggest contribution.
These are the countries which gain more from the single market and which have a surplus in their balance of trade with other members of the Community.
We should draw attention to that.
If we enlarge the Community, the countries that pay most at the moment are probably the countries that will gain most from enlargement.
Some policies suit some parts of the Community, others suit others.
We are not going to resolve the problem by reducing the size of the budget and making it smaller.
It will be resolved, as Mr Christodoulou and Mr Bourlanges said, by developing new policies.
We need a bigger budget for the European Union.
We need it because we have a wider vocation than just financing agriculture and collecting a few shillings in tax.
We are trying to create a real political union and if this is to be a Union of regulation only, then it will alienate ordinary people.
One only has to look at what impact ECU 100 million had in Northern Ireland.
Two communities were anti-Europe and both communities have been largely reconciled by the spending of small amounts of money.
Thank you, Mr McCartin.
I must admire your commitment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is the last budget of this parliamentary term.
It has been my first term in Parliament and in the Committee on Budgets.
I have greatly admired the massive expertise on budgetary matters and the dedication shown by my fellow members of the Committee on Budgets, but I should add that I do not think this expertise and dedication have had enough of a political impact in shaping the major policy options chosen by Europe.
We have been careful stewards of Europe's coffers.
In so doing, we have done a very important job, but that is not enough as a political authority.
Much of this is down to the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Piet Dankert reminded us of the background, of the pros and cons: an agreement which one way or another means a voluntary limitation of our budgetary powers.
In the next few months, this Parliament will have to weigh thoroughly the pros and cons of a new interinstitutional agreement.
The reports of Mr Colom I Naval contain enough material to serve as a specification against which any negotiating result can be measured.
I agree with Mr Bourlanges that the notion of flexibility between the chapters must be paramount here.
The 1999 budget is a good run-up to the final talks on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
The extra reserves built in provide a good basis which we can fall back on, if we need or want to switch to Article 203.
The next six months will be crucial, not only for the budget of this Parliament, but for the future of the European Union.
The Interinstitutional Agreement, the financial perspective, Agenda 2000 and the debate on own resources are all up for discussion and are indissolubly linked together.
On the subject of own resources, we should not avoid any of the issues.
It all has to be discussed - expenditure, agricultural structural spending and revenues.
The rebates granted in the past will also have to be reviewed and tested against the reasons for which they were granted.
They have to be updated.
I have to say I was not happy with the first debate we had on the budget in the Committee on Budgets.
We must at all costs avoid a situation in which the European Parliament connives at renationalising European policy and European politics.
We must try, as the European Parliament, to rise above national interests and exert firm pressure on the European Council to overcome the unanimity rule and secure a reasonable new package.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, Europe has sadly lost credibility.
John Hume has proved here how noble a project Europe is.
If there is one point on which we can show exemplary credibility, it is our own Statute.
Please let us do our utmost to achieve, before the end of the year, a revised system for reimbursing travel expenses and, ideally, a new Statute for Members.
On the eve of the elections, we owe that much to the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, the rapporteur has handled a complicated budgetary exercise quite brilliantly.
It is complicated because it coincides with the debate on Agenda 2000, the financial reform of the Union and the negotiations on the Interinstitutional Agreement, that is, all sorts of ingredients that the rapporteur must mix together in one bowl, cook and finally serve up to the citizens of the Union as something edible.
I think she is on the right track and that we will be able to come up with a dish that everyone likes.
The rapporteur is right to get Parliament working on a hypothetical failure of the negotiations on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
If these negotiations were to prove fruitless in the end, we would find ourselves faced with an Article 203 under the worst conditions for us.
Therefore, her bridging amendments, which commit the available margin of the categories, are, firstly, an imaginative solution to strengthen the role of the European Parliament and make the Council face up to its own inconsistency and, secondly, proof that the ceiling of 1.27 % of own resources is ridiculous and does not help deepen Community policies.
I think that the Committee on Budgets is more aware of this inadequacy today thanks to the proposals by Mrs Dührkop.
Within that strategy, we would like to look at the reduction of EUR 1 500 million in commitment appropriations and another EUR 500 m in payment appropriations in Category 2, Structural Funds.
This reduction is bound to cause at least a certain amount of fear and suspicion.
The rapporteur calls this the 'flag and amount' mechanism, tying a reserve in Category 2 to the degree of uptake of the appropriations in each of the Member States.
In theory, this will prioritise budgetary effort and good implementation.
But bear in mind that, for the first time, this Parliament is going to accept a change to the Edinburgh Agreement which could result, in the worst case, in payment problems in Objective 2 in 1999.
But, of course, from a budgetary point of view, the strategy is consistent with the interinstitutional negotiations that are still to be concluded.
However, in the end, we are going to rely on variables outside our control, such as whether the Council does or does not approve an amending and supplementary budget or, more simply, how the Notenboom transfer evolves.
In other words, we are going to give the Council a negotiating advantage without keeping any for ourselves.
So it is risky and we should perhaps take advantage of having Commissioner Liikanen with us to obtain more details from the Commission on how it expects payment appropriations to evolve in 1999.
If they are not going to, or if the expected evolution is not sufficiently adequate, perhaps politics and the budget are on different tracks here.
Finally, I want to express my very sincere thanks to the rapporteur for her goodwill and the open and conciliatory way she has handled the whole parliamentary procedure.
Mr President, I should like to concentrate my remarks on the two excellent reports Mr Giansily has presented for this House's consideration.
As he said this morning, unlike previous years, there has been a unanimity of views in the Committee on Budgets.
Two years ago, as draftsman for the EMAC committee for the ECSC budget I said: 'Most of all we need to know that there are no plans to transfer any of the ECSC funds away from the programme and that any surplus funding will be treated as the rightful inheritance of the ECSC, the foundation of its future existence in whatever form it may take'.
We are now looking at that future existence.
In a period when the Coal and Steel Community still faces big problems, let us look at the changes in global markets, the collapse of the Far Eastern economies and the flood of steel into Europe which is undermining our own steel industry, the effects of enlargement, of ongoing job losses and our need to upgrade technology.
I am delighted that the Commission has proposed that Article 4 should be used to accommodate Parliament's concerns and that this money should not be lost in the budget, or be subject to any complicated and costly procedures and that in this way we can maintain, specifically, targeting in relation to ECSC funds.
However, I am less than delighted that the Council is not showing the same spirit of cooperation.
By failing to authorise the transfer of ECU 30m for use in time to be able to commit appropriations by the end of next year's budget, the Council is failing to support the aims expressed by Parliament to help create jobs in areas suffering from the consequences of sectoral closures, principles echoed so clearly in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I hope the Commission will make every effort in line with Articles 49 and 56 of the Treaty to use its powers to implement the proposals by other means.
The difference this money will make to the social and research programmes will be significant.
I want to remind this House that we are looking at a predicted 17 000 job losses in coal and steel for 1999.
For the candidate countries it is obvious that the inclusion of their low-tech, over-manned coal and steel plants will have a huge impact on the Community.
It is equally clear that the required modernisation will have enormous social consequences for the regions concerned since there is a massive geographical concentration of production.
We are talking single-sector dependency here.
Parliament has expressed its awareness of the problems and its desire to take positive action.
I hope that neither the Commission nor the Councill will show themselves any less committed to these problems, and that we shall see, starting with this budget and continuing throughout the process of change accompanying the ending of the ECSC, the positive, direct and effective measures put forward here operationalised by the Commission and supported by the Council.
We want to make sure that ECSC money goes to help restructure the communities the coal and steel industry has served.
After all, that is the legacy we are being left with.
We must make sure that people in those communities have a future.
Mr President, first let me compliment the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop and Messrs Viola and Giansily, most sincerely on their reports.
We have here a budget which is rigorous, but nevertheless meets most of the reasonable demands made by Members of this Parliament.
At a time when there is turbulence in Asia and Russia and when the Americans too are panicking a little, the European Union, thanks to the euro, remains an oasis of calm and stability.
That has to be underpinned by the right financial policy.
In absolute terms the budget is up, but as in recent years, its relative value is down - which is more than can be said for some national budgets.
I think that national Member States would do well to take a leaf out of our book when it comes to budgets, especially when they find, after an election, that they cannot quite deliver on what they promised before it.
We have also shown that we are able to be a reliable and constructive partner for other European bodies.
We are seen to be responsible.
Despite the financial perspective, which allows for a ceiling on expenditure of up to 1.27 %, we are well below that ceiling.
So the idea of a spendthrift European Parliament is a misconception.
Few parliaments in Europe would be prepared, with this perspective, to stay below the expenditure ceiling, and the Council and Commission should realise this, though often the Council does not seem to do so.
Let us hope that our record has a positive influence on the talks on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
A few comments on the additional amendments which have been approved.
They are of course intended solely as a basis for negotiation.
It was never intended that they should stand as they are.
That is not what Parliament intends.
It is not what anyone intends, but hopefully it will make the Council willing to negotiate.
So far, I have not put that willingness to the test with a number of governments.
The budget lines for social policy and employment are up on the preliminary draft, at ECU 48.3 million and 14 million respectively.
But spending this year is down on last year, largely due to the debate on the legal basis for matters relating to the social area.
The Court judgment caused some confusion.
I think Parliament has now largely succeeded in clearing up the confusion, but it has complicated matters very much this year.
And we have to take the conclusions of the Luxembourg summit seriously.
It is important to conduct an investigation into the effectiveness of the trans-European networks and the money tied up in them.
For Category 3 this is a great deal of money, and the size of the sum may even put the rest of it in jeopardy.
So I think we must be very careful not to find that, after one or two projects, we have spent all the money that we have.
Happily, the Committee on Budgets has reconciled the various parts of internal policy.
And I am very pleased with the extra ECU 99 m for the Leonardo programme.
Here again, the Council is being particularly unreasonable.
The money is being well spent, and there is a great deal of interest in it in the Member States.
It is money within the envelope of the financial perspective, and yet the Council is trying to cut it.
One last thing, Mr President.
Will you take a look at the text of the amendment to the Viola report which was tabled by the Greens and adopted by the Committee on Budgets?
In two respects, the text really is no good and to my mind not altogether consistent with what was agreed in committee.
It is vital, with an eye to the future debate, that we should check this.
Thank you, Mr President.
I just wanted to make a few comments on Mr Giansily's two reports on the ECSC Treaty, although it is of course tempting to give an immediate response to what colleagues have just said.
But that is not my intention now.
The ECSC Treaty might not expire for another three years, but Parliament has already spent some time considering the question: what actually happens afterwards?
The ECSC's political aim has undoubtedly been achieved, namely to secure peace in Europe by putting the coal and steel sector - which played a decisive role in post-war economic regeneration - under supranational control.
There it has succeeded.
But its economic achievements should not be underestimated either.
In providing economic and social assistance and supporting structural change in the coal and steel industries over the past decades, the ECSC Treaty has overall proved itself to be a very flexible, very effective, and thus very helpful tool.
On the basis of the Treaty, several specific economic and social instruments were developed, which were very useful to the coal and steel industries and regions during their difficult processes of readaptation.
Without it, it would have been very much more difficult to manage the dramatic structural change in these two sectors in a socially acceptable way.
I know what I am talking about, because I come from just such an area of coal and steel production, and now I live in one.
Now we all know that the restructuring of the coal and steel industries has not yet been completed, that these sectors continue to lose jobs, and will possibly do so at an even greater rate in the future.
Moreover, the importance of the coal and steel sector will again increase with the admission of the first Central and Eastern European countries into the European Union.
That reinforces our view that we cannot simply bid the ECSC farewell and leave nothing in its place.
Our firm intention - as reported by Mr Giansily and agreed by the Budgets Committee - is to continue the phasing-in to the budget, to use the provisions and reserves accumulated by the ECSC as the capital for a future Coal and Steel Foundation, to do all this on the basis of a transparent and uniform budget, and on no account to give up the European Union's powers within any such multilateral organisation.
Bearing in mind the points I have mentioned and in keeping with them, we have put forward our proposal for the ECSC budget.
We urgently call on the Council to give the go-ahead for our funding of conversion activities in the coal and steel industries and regions.
We want to create and convert jobs, and to do so we need support for training and continuing education for employees in these regions.
We are expecting the Council to approve the EUR 30 million for 1999 and to bring in the 30 million from 1998 through the supplementary and amending budget.
We want to use this to generate further momentum on jobs.
Areas of coal and steel production are in particular need of our help.
Mr President, first I want to congratulate the rapporteurs, Mr Viola and Mrs Dührkop, on their excellent work.
I am aware of how difficult it is to reconcile politics and various interests, as well as of the need to set priorities in a budget because, in the end, that is making politics.
And I am delighted to say that our rapporteurs have succeeded in doing that, so I will vote for this budget in its entirety.
What would a European citizen say about this budget? First, he would say that it is a budget that strengthens the cohesion policies and the cross-border solidarity of the European Union, and that it is a budget that fulfills the Edinburgh Agreements considerably better than last year's.
And it does so in a key year - 1999 - when the financial perspective and the principal European policies for the next few years will be determined.
The cohesion priorities concentrate on the least favoured areas, the so-called low income Objective 1 areas. But there is also an effort to assist other areas of the Union that have suffered conversion processes and are regenerating their economic fabric or running training programmes for their human resources - for the people - geared towards employment, or for regions dependent on the countryside, so that people can live in a rural environment, work and be assured of services and infrastructures.
To give a simple example, the Basque Country, which I represent, will receive 37 billion pesetas under those headings - covered by Objectives 2, 3, 4 and 5 - for next year.
This investment is no doubt helping to boost our economic fabric with positive results because the whole of society is making an effort.
It is a joint effort that is giving rise to a real convergence in terms of the Community income.
And, to give you an example, the Basque Country's GDP has risen from 79 % to 91 % of the Community average over the last 12 years.
This budget also strengthens the Union's internal policies in the face of the Council's planned cuts.
In this respect, the amendments by the Committee on Budgets strengthen culture and education through programmes such as Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe, and, as Jacques Delors said, promoting projects like these is, in a sense, creating the European soul. I think we all support the project of continuing to build this Europe that respects diversity.
And I want to mention one particular cultural point: the item on support for less common languages, because if anything is crucial in supporting cultural diversity, it is these languages. They are less common but that does not mean that they are unimportant, because they are spoken by over 10 % of Europeans.
ECU 4 million is inadequate from any angle, but maintaining it against the Council's intention to cut it is a step towards consolidating a stable programme of support for these languages at European level.
And I want to thank Mrs Dührkop personally for the effort she has made on this, as a Basque and as someone committed to cultural pluralism.
There has been controversy, in the approval of this budget, about placing the amounts intended for the humanitarian aid office, ECHO, in the reserve.
This is a necessary measure from any point of view, because our duty as managers of public money is to fight fraud and corruption and there was enough information to indicate that a clear misappropriation had taken place.
We have not taken the weakest people hostage, those who need humanitarian aid, by establishing this reserve because, first of all, the reserve affects next year's budget, so we have not paralysed any project today given that we are at first reading.
And, in the second place, the establishment of this reserve has borne fruit because the letter received from Mr Santer contains a clear signal that this Parliament will receive precise details from UCLAF, and promptly, on possible cases of fraud and corruption that might affect the Community budget.
Therefore, Mr President, thanks to this operation we will be able to go on granting humanitarian aid and improving the routes so that this aid effectively reaches the weakest, and perhaps we will be better able to control the corruption that, unfortunately, often accompanies aid programmes to some extent.
Mr President, this is probably the most important work Parliament does in the whole year.
Therefore, I was very sorry this morning to see that Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, after more than a year's work behind the scenes, was harried by the President in the Chair while making her presentation this morning.
It was unfortunate.
I want to address the two contentious items in the budgets today.
The first is the scandal in ECHO, which concerns humanitarian aid.
Some would say - and some did last night in the Committee on Budgets - that we should not mix together the work which the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Budgets does.
The fact is that four agents are involved on the European scene when trying to deal with fraud and irregularities: the Court of Auditors; UCLAF; and the Parliament in the form of the Budgetary Control Committee and the Committee on Budgets.
If the Budgetary Control Committee cannot get satisfaction, the teeth of this House are in the voting on the budget.
I want to pay credit to Mr Fabra and Mrs Müller for the work they have done in the field of ECHO.
It is unfortunate that the non-governmental organisations, the people who work for us and with this aid should be the ones that suffer.
But if the you look at the way the budget is structured, because the Commission would like to see 'umbrella' lines in the budget, it is very difficult to target those areas which one wishes to target.
So the weak suffer with the strong.
The President of the Commission must have been rather embarrassed to have to write that letter which was addressed to the Committee on Budgets.
He referred to misunderstandings.
The fact is that they were not misunderstandings; they were questions of principle.
This is why the Budget Control Committee and the Committee on Budgets took a strong line.
I have to say that the UCLAF reports must be dynamite if it is necessary to go into bomb-proof shelters in order to read them.
I feel sorry for President Santer.
This House is empowered to dismiss the whole of the Commission.
This has never happened.
I think when we look at the Treaty in the future we might make an amendment which empowers the President of the Commission to retire one or two of the members of his Commission if he thinks so fit.
I turn now to the European Parliament budget: expenses of Members of this House.
In 1979 the failure of the Council, acting as a summit in that case, to agree a salary for MEPs meant that we had a temporary solution put into operation by the Bureau of Parliament.
That temporary arrangement was to compensate those MEPs on low salaries compared with the others by way of a rather generous travel expenses system.
That temporary system has been working for 19 years.
It is a great pity that we are now arguing about a Members' Statute.
We put into the budget for 1980 a token entry for a Members' Statute.
We are still waiting for this statute.
I realise that the present Council had nothing to do with the origins of the problem, but I look to it and its immediate successor to make the Members' Statute fair for Members of this House.
I cannot support any proposals unless I can be assured that those less well-paid Members of this Parliament are not made worse off by the proposals put before the House.
Mr President, in making my comments, I should like to focus on Category 4, external actions.
We are still dealing with the repercussions of the Cannes decisions, and I am still of the opinion that the Council acted unwisely in making them.
It decided that we should focus our external policy in particular on our immediate neighbours in Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean basin.
I still think this is questionable, for two reasons.
Firstly, I have my doubts about whether the money is really put to good use everywhere; with MEDA in particular, these doubts are increasing rather than abating.
Secondly, this has its consequences, which the Council brutally forces through every year, unfortunately often supported by the Commission.
Cuts are repeatedly made in the field of traditional development policy, that is, for the poorest of the poor.
I am glad that the Committee on Budgets, and Parliament as a whole, do not go along with this policy, and that we continue to attach importance to showing solidarity with the people of Asia, Latin America and Africa.
In my view, budget line B7-6000, 'Cofinancing of schemes carried out by NGOs', is particularly important.
People are at work here who, with great idealistic vision and very considerable resources of their own, repeatedly make project proposals, and all they receive from us is support.
That is expressed by the word cofinancing, which is also, I believe, a guarantee that this money will be used very efficiently.
We still have the problem that the office which processes the applications is grossly understaffed, and I call on the Commission once again to improve the staffing situation in this administrative office, by carrying out an internal reorganisation.
A few words on ECHO from the point of view of development policy.
I believe that it is in the interests of development policy for us to get right to the bottom of this scandal, because the fact is that we have problems making people understand why we are providing more resources for development policy when, after all, times are hard at home too, and when we cannot prove that the money is being put to good use.
These problems of gaining acceptance will become worse.
That is why I am very disappointed by the statements Commissioners Marín and Bonino have made on this subject in recent days and weeks.
But whatever we do, money will still be tight in Category 4, and we need to think very carefully about how we spend these meagre amounts of money.
That is why I am also against cofinancing being provided here, for areas which have little or nothing to do with development policy.
I am talking about bananas.
There is a dispute here, mainly to do with agricultural policy, to which the proposed solution is, in my view, inadequate. Appropriations are being taken from Category 4 - appropriations which are actually intended to benefit the poorest - and are being used to promote the banana industry.
You see, the money does not go to small farmers.
That is why I tabled an amendment to exclude multinational concerns from this budget line through its legal base.
This was rejected by the Commission.
So the money will go to the multinationals.
Taking money from the poor to give it to banana multinationals - regardless of whether these have European or American names - is wrong.
That is why I support the Budgets Committee's proposal not to withdraw the appropriations from this line, but to consider whether they can be taken from Category 1 or from the European Development Fund, where we have surpluses every year.
One final remark on the subject of population policies, budget line B7-631, an important area which Parliament has always supported. We struggled over the legal base for this topic and made it clear that population policies have nothing to do with abortion, but that other methods are to be chosen here.
Now the Committee on Budgets is proposing to change the title of this budget line. My question for Mr Liikanen is this: what does the Commission think about changing the title of a budget line when we actually have a legal base?
Will we not get into a terrible mess if we constantly change the title so late in the day, having established the legal base?
How do the Commission experts view this proposal? I would be glad if the Commission could give its position on this specific point.
Mr President, I will not need three minutes to tell you of my surprise.
My colleague, Mr Le Gallou, and I have tabled nearly one hundred amendments to the Committee on Budgets, based on three guidelines.
Firstly, respect for Community responsibilities and the principle of subsidiarity; secondly, respect for moral values which are the cement of any civilisation; thirdly, respect for transparency, namely, a reasonable, detailed and well-defined use of public funds, because we owe it to all European taxpayers to provide them with accounts.
We have to say that there is a great deal of complicity evident in the refusal to give the people of Europe precise accounts, just when the news is full of stories about millions of ecus having been embezzled within the Commission and funds having been stolen from appropriations allocated for international cooperation.
This is a curious concept of cooperation, and also of morality and public health, given that the aid will be distributed to the associations without the slightest transparency!
We wanted to prevent public funds from being used by anyone and everyone, particularly for subversive purposes, as is the case with certain bodies which try to legitimise what is illegal, for example illegal immigration or drug use.
We also wanted to guarantee the concept of Community preference, in other words ensuring priority for aid to nationals of the Member States, which seems the least that we can do.
This has also been rejected.
So, for example, vocational training will not be reserved for Community workers and apprentices.
Once again we are paying for the whole world.
We also wanted to prevent public funds from being used for the electoral campaigns of certain candidates or certain parties.
This concern is also not shared by our colleagues, all of them very obedient, I have to say.
The federalists, or rather the fusionists, will therefore continue to enjoy the ongoing campaign in favour of the euro and the forced integration of states within a single supranational entity known as Euroland.
Euroland: it has the flavour and name of a theme park, but is much less entertaining. It actually genuinely undermines democracy and the principle of subsidiarity, it undermines our individual freedoms, those of our regions and those of our nations.
Mr President, those still here listening to our debate are punch-drunk from the dozens of speeches we have heard.
But may I ask you to consider briefly one of the nicest areas we have to deal with, namely tourism.
In the course of this month, we shall be receiving the findings of the committee of wise men and women who have been looking at tourism and employment.
The enviable expectations of growth in many countries, and in the European Union too, mean that we ought to give greater consideration to sectors that are likely to create more jobs.
And tourism is one such sector.
At the same time, we have to acknowledge that currency devaluations in a number of South-East Asian countries will make it harder for our own tourist industry to be competitive.
The weaker dollar does not help either.
I am thinking in particular of conference tourism, which is very important for jobs in our countries.
I urge the Commission to respond appropriately to the recommendations which the committee of wise men and women will be making shortly.
The Austrian President-in-Office of the Council has reassured us that the action programme for tourism currently under consideration will be approved by the end of the year.
So we shall need a legal basis for that.
In these circumstances, it would be a missed opportunity not to include a modest sum in the budget for this objective.
Sadly, neither the Commission nor the Council has done that so far.
I have a very specific question for the Commission and the Council President. Can we be sure that, if necessary and depending on what happens now, they will be resolute in proposing a budget amendment to take account of this point?
I think that the many, still far too many, people in our countries who are out of work have a right to expect that.
I should very much appreciate a specific reply to this question of mine to the Commission and the President-in-Office.
I wish to begin by expressing my pleasure at the broad participation in this debate: we have been here more than five hours.
Many participants have other engagements now, so only a few have been able to resist the pressure to go elsewhere.
That is why I shall reply only to those questions put by Members who are here now.
Firstly, on the tourism issue, I cannot take a position on the conclusions the Commission will adopt on the basis of a report yet to be submitted.
We will study it carefully and then, I am sure, the Commission will inform Parliament on the follow-up.
Secondly, on the question of the legal base and the title of the budgetary line, I have not been able to take the requisite legal advice but my position is that it is the substance of the action that matters.
If the action has a legal base, the title of a budget line is secondary.
Thus the substance of the action must have a legal base.
Thirdly, the question put by Mr Samland, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and others on the documents transmitted to the Luxembourg authorities.
During the debate I consulted our services and I can read the four points of the French text I have on the so-called issue of fictitious contracts.
Firstly, the department of public prosecutions has been informed of the relevant facts relating to the four contracts in question, i.e. the fictitious contracts; secondly, the department of public prosecutions has been given the facts specifically relating to the links between an official and the contracts in question; thirdly, the UCLAF report has been sent in full; fourthly, to avoid any ambiguity, the department of public prosecutions has access to any other documents which it may consider useful when examining the case.
Of course, the Commission has cooperated in full: the department of public prosecutions will be sent any documents which it deems useful.
Mr President. Since this is such an important issue, I should like to ask Mr Liikanen one more question: what did you mean by 'the court' just then; which court were you referring to, please?
Mr President, I put a question to the Council too.
Given that the Council is the budgetary authority, together with Parliament, I would also appreciate an answer from the Council.
If it cannot be given now, I would be glad of an assurance that it will be provided in writing.
There was obviously a problem of translation.
'Parquet' means 'Luxembourg judicial authorities' here.
No other court is meant, only the Luxembourg judicial authority: the 'parquet Luxembourgeois'.
I see from the Council's representative that an answer will be given in writing, if necessary.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
European Union progress in 1997
The next item is the report (A4-0357/98) by Mrs Spaak, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the European Council report to the European Parliament on the progress achieved by the European Union in 1997 (Article D of the Treaty on European Union) (8690/1/98 - C4-0411/98).
Mr President, Commissioner, Representative of the Council, the European Council report for 1997, pursuant to Article D, adopts, as in previous years, the purely perfunctory approach of listing the legislative and other activities carried out in the year under review.
Disregarding the criticism of the European Parliament, it makes no assessment of the progress achieved, the problems encountered, or the shortcomings still to be remedied, even though Article D itself requires the Council to generate the impetus required for the Union's development.
It is regrettable that the real political impetus is stemming, for example, from certain Heads of State or Government, as could be seen when Mr Kohl and Mr Chirac wrote their letter just before the Cardiff European Council.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs has therefore decided to focus on the elements that appear to give the necessary impetus to the Union's development.
In this respect, I support Mr Corbett's amendment, which is aimed at modifying the procedure by providing for a European Parliament debate on the Council's annual report immediately after it has been presented, without referring it back to the Committee responsible.
I call on the Council - and I am not sure whether it is present and listening - to give us its opinion on this matter.
This brings me, Mr President, to the second half of my speech.
With the entry into force of economic and monetary union and the prospect of enlargement, we can no longer put off answering the questions that we have been hearing so often for years; why Europe, what sort of Europe, and what ambitions do we have for this Europe?
Last week, the President, Mrs Ferrero Waldner, in her work with the Committee on Institutional Affairs, told us that she shared this concern and that it had been included on the Pörtschach Summit agenda.
This has not been done for years.
For fear of revealing a lack of consensus, and in order to avoid dangerous clashes, Member States have for decades preferred, at an institutional level, to use the policy of the lowest common denominator.
Today this procedure is no longer viable.
Public opinion supported the political impetus given by the founding fathers because after two terrible wars that united the victors and the vanquished in the same disaster, the peoples aspired to peace and democracy.
So two generations have passed, during which time the European Community has established free movement, the single market and the single currency, ratified treaties and authorised the accession of 15 new Member States.
It is an impressive record of achievement, but during this period European citizens witnessed company closures and relocations, experienced constraints linked to meeting the convergence criteria and were the powerless witnesses of events in Europe, Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo.
The link with the past was broken.
The whole raison d'être of this great adventure escaped them because, as President Delors himself said, one does not fall in love with a single currency.
The aim today - and this is something that needs to be reiterated clearly and emphatically - is for the European Union to be a unique political project in the world, because it is based on peace, democracy and values: human rights, solidarity between peoples and generations, the establishment of a model of society that allows the people in it to blossom and prosper as much as possible.
This morning, John Hume gave us a wonderful example of these values when he said that one of the things that Europe and the European Parliament have taught him is respect for difference and diversity.
It is this aim, remembered and shared by all, that gives full meaning to any discussion relating to the type of institution we need.
I would like to add that the forthcoming discussion on the budget will stem from the same urgency and must take into consideration the same criteria as regards the aims of the Union.
The intergovernmental method has failed to bear fruit at institutional level.
This is the great weakness of the Amsterdam Treaty.
We must learn the lessons of this failure and reactivate the Community method, whose effectiveness was recognised when the Treaty of Rome, the Single Act and the Delors Committee were established.
The next institutional reform should be completed before the first accessions take place, to ensure that they can proceed in all clarity, without risk of delaying or compromising their success.
Furthermore, the objectives of this reform should be included in the Community acquis .
These, Representative of the Council, Commissioner, are some of the challenges facing the Austrian Presidency, to whom we offer our best wishes.
Thank you, Mrs Spaak.
We must hope that the Council also heard what you had to say.
Mr President, tomorrow we shall hear Commission President Santer deliver his annual statement on the European Commission's plans for 1999 - the 'state of the Union message'.
Today we are debating the progress made during 1997.
Mrs Spaak has compiled an excellent report on that, and I would have thought it better to have a joint debate on this report and the state of the Union report.
Looking forward carries much more weight if you have some positive achievements to look back on.
The resolution and Mrs Spaak's report make a number of pertinent criticisms in that respect.
Mrs Spaak finds, for example, that the Council shows little vision in its 1997 report and really gives just a summary of decisions taken in the course of that year.
As regards the Amsterdam Treaty, the rapporteur notes that Parliament's position that a number of reforms are needed prior to enlargement is acknowledged in a letter from Messrs Chirac and Kohl, that the Commission has since set up a working party headed by ex-Commissioner Frans Andriessen to seek solutions, but that the Council has done very little.
What is the Council doing here? We wait with keen interest to see what the informal summit in Austria will produce.
A third criticism is that no real progress was made in 1997 on crucial topics such as foreign policy and internal security.
The paralysis is as great as ever.
In that context, Mr President, may I anticipate tomorrow's debate and set out my priorities for the informal summit.
Firstly, there must be a solution to the permanent stagnation in the Union's foreign policy.
The only way to achieve this is by removing the need for unanimity.
This requires at the very least an annex to the Amsterdam Treaty.
I hope a decision will be taken to that effect.
A second priority is the democratic deficit, which has partly been eliminated in respect of Parliament's legislative duties.
In our view, the final obstacles need to be removed too. These remain primarily in the field of agriculture.
Here too the Treaty must be improved.
The third priority lies in the field of justice and home affairs and the fight against international crime.
The Treaty needs to be tightened up here as well, and a decision is needed at the informal summit.
The fourth priority concerns own resources.
This is something which looks set to bring everything grinding to a halt in the very near future.
We think that a better, neutral formula must be found in order to distribute revenues more fairly.
That too must be discussed at the Austrian summit.
The fifth priority concerns the question of refugees and asylum seekers.
We think they have to be shared more fairly among the Member States and that decisions have to be taken on this.
This is a further subject which the informal summit in Austria must address.
Lastly, of course, the institutional problems have to be resolved, as Mrs Spaak says, in particular the question of voting and unanimity.
Well, Mr President, it would have been better if this problem had been expressed more clearly, not least in the Council's report.
If we had known we were so far from achieving our goals, we would have had a better basis for improving things, and we fervently hope that the Austrian Presidency will see its way to making some small progress on that front.
Mr President, Commissioner, I also criticise the Council's report for comprising too few declarations of political intentions and objectives.
I sometimes have the impression that the Council is developing more and more into a gathering of 15 Heads of Government, who merely place the individual interests of their countries at the centre of their political intentions and objectives.
I consider this to be a dangerous development because the Council is the political centre of the European Union, and the political initiative for further integration in Europe should come from it.
I therefore think that there are some very crucial points that must now be clearly established as political intentions and objectives.
The first is a clear declaration that we are really seeking to achieve enlargement of the European Union.
I sometimes have the impression that the objective of enlargement is becoming something that we merely preach about and that, when all is said and done, many people will be happy if, in the end, it does not happen at all.
That is the first clear objective that the European Union, the Council and all of us must tackle.
The second is Agenda 2000.
I understand that there is a growing body of opinion, right up to the President of Parliament, that it cannot be adopted within the period stipulated.
We must realise that Agenda 2000 is the most immediate objective that needs to be met in order to be able to keep enlargement on track and also to maintain the ability to make decisions within the European Union.
The third is the transition to majority voting.
That is a prerequisite for the European Union's ability to make any decisions at all in future.
These objectives must be tackled immediately, and I hope that the Council regains its political strength on the path towards Europe and further integration.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in order to prepare my speech I went on a journey in time back to 1997.
Then I realised that it is nearly 1999.
This type of report - regardless of its quality on which I must congratulate our colleague, Mrs Spaak - is only useful when it is adopted in good time.
I hope and predict that there will be no more journeys back in time like this.
Now for the content of the report.
Paragraph 11 deals with finding a different approach to 'closer cooperation', a new concept to be found in the Amsterdam Treaty.
If I remember rightly, Parliament has already adopted the Méndez de Vigo-Tsatsos report and, more recently, the Frischenschlager report which contradict, or seem to contradict, these proposals.
By adopting this report, as far as this particular point is concerned, we might puzzle some people, especially those whom it targets.
We really ought to avoid contradictions of this kind.
In any case, I have to say that if we deepen the European Union we must respect what the different States want.
We talk about a Europe of citizens and states, although certain powers may be delegated, as and when we agree to do so.
Closer cooperation might be one way of achieving the objective of European integration.
Accordingly, we feel that the arrangements made in the Treaty should be left unchanged because, in our view, the arrangements are not the main reason why the new institutional framework of closer cooperation is still ineffective.
Institutional reform is also tackled in this report.
Let us begin with the proposal to give the Union fresh impetus, especially the arrangements for revising the Treaties.
Unfortunately this report makes no substantial reference to the role of the national parliaments, contrary to what is specifically said in the De Giovanni resolution already adopted by the Committee on Institutional Affairs, to be voted on tomorrow.
We think that measures aimed at deepening and widening the Union need to be supported by the citizens of the different states through their elected representatives.
As for Council deliberations, this report contains a proposal to boost qualified majority voting.
There is no doubt that, if the European Union's institutions are to be made more effective, one approach would be to broaden the scope of their powers and even to increase their respective weightings.
However, in my opinion, there are still areas, especially of a constitutional nature, that should continue to be decided upon unanimously.
We think that this rule could strengthen solidarity and political cohesion among the States making up the European Union.
If we are to strike an institutional balance, then we must definitely transfer certain powers from the Member States to Community bodies, voluntarily and in an acceptable way.
Mr President, the rapporteur is naturally right to draw our attention not to European Union progress in 1997, but to the numerous unresolved problems that lie ahead, and she expresses the impatience and discontent of this Parliament that have been reflected in dozens of resolutions of this House, though without particular success.
We have not managed to put any real political pressure on the Council and Commission.
Our resolutions are in increasing danger of becoming a general lament.
A glance at 1997 certainly explains the causes of this inability on the part of the Union to take action: responsibility lies with the failure at Amsterdam to reform the institutions, as well as with an Intergovernmental Conference that, as an instrument and a procedure, has increasingly become a setting for fighting out national interests.
A type of imperial college of princes has become established here instead of a European Council.
This Parliament is urged to exert greater political pressure and to exert a firmer influence on the Commission and Council in order to remove the blockade to enlargement towards the East, the blockade to the development of political union, and the blockade to the establishment of a European democracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank our rapporteur, Mrs Spaak, for her report and for the manner in which she has drawn it up. And in this connection, I would like to highlight the disappointment felt by the Committee on Institutional Affairs as regards the sheer scale of all that could have been achieved and was not, of all the ideas that we will have the opportunity to take up again tomorrow in the De Giovanni document, which in our opinion remain on the agenda in view of the Union's development in 1997, even in 1998 and beyond.
I therefore think that the report's criticism will give the Commission food for thought, as Commissioner Oreja and Parliament wish to work together to develop a joint project, whatever shape this may take, and I very much hope that the Council will support this approach.
A number of paragraphs in the resolution are addressed to the three institutions and I, personally, fully endorse the text.
I would like to draw the attention of the House and of the Commissioner to one particular paragraph that I consider to be important in the context of a foreign and security policy that is one of the weakest links in this Union. Proof of this can be seen both in Maryland and in Belgrade, where the two major issues of foreign policy remain, as usual, beyond the scope of the European Union and of each of its Members.
I therefore draw your attention to a paragraph of this resolution which focuses on two measures that could be taken and that in our opinion would by their very nature increase the European Union's standing in the world.
The first is the creation of a military and civil intervention corps - particularly a military one - for the European Union as a whole; the second is the idea of establishing joint diplomatic representation at Union level by means of setting up joint embassies where fewer than four Member States have diplomatic posts.
Mr President, when our ideas about Europe were once outlined in committee, the rapporteur responded by saying: 'That is not our Europe'.
Precisely these words came to me when I read her report, which in itself is thorough and of a very high standard.
It is just based on a completely different philosophy from ours.
We reject an unrestrained move towards integration.
We consider the poor Amsterdam results to be a sign that there is a lack of willingness among citizens for further integration.
We consider the contents of the annual fraud reports, the collapse of the concours , and the news of misappropriation in connection with various programmes, which is growing almost daily, to be indicators that the Union has reached the limits of its manageability.
We know that the majority of our citizens do not want over-hasty enlargement that includes neighbouring states.
Therefore, we would have liked the report to deal in greater depth with the position of our citizens, and their wishes and concerns, and with the issue of their integration.
My amendments, which were rejected by a majority in committee, also proposed this line of action.
If we do not want to allow the concepts of transparency and closeness to the citizen to become merely empty cliches, we must show by means of concrete examples that we take the wishes of our citizens into account and that we take them seriously.
Let me give you a brief example of how this concept is put into practice.
A few days ago, when my assistant requested a Commission document on my behalf, which incidentally was quoted in an answer to a question, the official in charge refused to forward the document because the Members of Parliament only mess around with them anyway and because that gets 'on his nerves'.
If even Members of Parliament are treated like this, then you can imagine how our citizens are treated.
That may be an isolated case, but I am convinced that the means to make the Union more acceptable to our citizens lie precisely in the detail.
Mr President, I should like to raise two matters.
One is the question of the financial framework.
It is very clear that the whole development of the European Union will hinge on the finances for the next century, and the Commission has recently put forward a new financial perspective and a new financial division of responsibility between European Community countries.
Paragraph 15 of the resolution very clearly indicates that the new financing of the European Union must be such that a continued solidarity and cohesion remain the key words.
By putting forward a number of choices, the Commission has given a certain vision of the future.
It has been courageous on the issue of agriculture for instance.
It has also been very clear that a number of continued approaches - like having a British-style rebate for four other countries - will not work.
For this reason it is very important to demonstrate that this Parliament wants to reject the concept of 'juste retour' for future developments.
Secondly, Schengen.
Paragraphs 22 to 24 deal with justice and home affairs.
We should be very concerned that the division of Schengen between the first and the third pillar has not yet taken place.
I regret that the presidency is not here, because if the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force without any agreement, the net result will be that everything will stay in the third pillar.
I would like to ask the Commission how it judges the situation; if that is happening, we can forget the free movement of workers, we can forget the free movement of persons, we can forget the beginning of an asylum and common immigration policy.
Why is it that 15 months after the signing of the Treaty of Amsterdam there is not a single agreement in sight for the division between the first and the third pillar on the question of Schengen? That is my serious question to the Commission.
Mr President, I want to address my remarks to the section on the common foreign and security policy in the Spaak report.
On reading this report I wonder whether this was a product of politicians on the Committee on Institutional Affairs or academics living in intellectual ivory towers.
It does not seem to me that what is here relates necessarily to what I find out in the real world.
Turning to paragraph 17, it says the Union plays no political role on the international stage.
Self-evidently that is nonsensical.
Of course the European Union plays a role on the international stage.
We may question how big that role is but it is nonsense to say it plays no role.
Similarly to suggest that in the pubs and clubs of Bolton the public are concerned about this on a daily basis is also rather to exaggerate matters.
What my electors tell me they are concerned about is that the European Union should play a much firmer role in crisis prevention and crisis management, and peace-keeping and peace-making.
So we need to be specific about what it is our citizens want.
Turning to paragraph 19, the suggestion seems to be that we could have resolved the Kosovo crisis if we had better institutional arrangements.
I really do not see how anybody can actually come forward with that idea.
Kosovo was a failure - if it was a failure - of political will.
Whatever institutional arrangements you have will not make any difference whatsoever.
The fourth indent of paragraph 20 seems to imply that the Institutional Committee thinks that the European Union is a member of NATO.
Of course the European Union is not a member of NATO.
Certain Member States of the European Union are members of NATO.
I therefore do not understand the point that is being made by the Institutional Committee.
What we should be focusing on is to make sure that the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty and the Berlin Declaration on the European defence identity are implemented.
Finally we come to paragraph 21.
I know this has been something which Parliament keeps approving in its resolutions, but do we really believe that there is a demand among the public for a European military intervention corps?
We already have NATO; we already have a whole range of organisations around the WEU - joint ventures, Eurocorps, Anglo-Dutch Brigade, etc.
What is a European intervention corps going to do that the others do not do? We should stop chasing down these intellectual cul-de-sacs and address ourselves to practical measures which will secure the defence of the European Union and the better security of its citizens.
This section on a common foreign and security policy quite frankly does not achieve that.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to congratulate Mrs Spaak on her work.
I think the spirit of Article D of the Treaty on European Union was about trying to distance oneself sufficiently from debates and day-to-day issues to be able to think more generally about the meaning of European action.
That is what I expect from the report the European Council produces each year. It should be a report on the progress of the Union and specifically correspond to the European Council's role in guiding and driving forward the Union's general policy.
I agree with Mrs Spaak's appraisal of the report and I have to say that I also share her disappointment.
I think there is nothing for it but to recognise, once again, and in spite of the criticism last year and in previous years from both Parliament and the Commission, that this report by the Council is actually limited to presenting a balance sheet of activities that is merely factual and often lacks the political scope it ought to have in accordance with the actual spirit of the Treaty.
Perhaps, instead of recalling what a political action means, it would be preferable to offer an overall view allowing us to go more deeply into the various issues and see what impetus the European Union can be given with a view to the future.
In this respect, I also agree with Mrs Spaak's analysis of the importance of certain objectives achieved during the past year in terms of the construction of Europe, and specifically what is implied by the signing of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the launch of Agenda 2000 and the preparations for Economic and Monetary Union.
In fact, the challenges we have to face in each of these fields are well-known and the responsibility we all have is to see how we can put the citizen at the centre of our concerns, how issues as important as growth and employment can be renewed and how the European Union can prepare for enlargement, in both financial and institutional terms.
Clearly, these debates continue to be highly topical.
It is the Commission's intention to provide different responses - concrete responses - through actions inspired precisely by those objectives.
I could mention here, for example, the conclusion of the Treaty of Amsterdam. It is evident that the long process of negotiation has culminated in a text that has been frequently criticised, and I have criticised it myself.
I came straight from Amsterdam to Parliament, to the Committee on Institutional Affairs and Mrs Spaak was there. We finished at 4.30 a.m. and at 10 a.m. on the same day, 18 June 1997, I was in Parliament to give my reaction.
And at that time I expressed some disappointment, which has probably become much more muted with the passage of time, because there was a series of questions and it seemed to me that if the plans that were on the table a week earlier had been adhered to, we would probably have obtained different results from those that were achieved as a result of some amendments that were introduced in the last 72 hours.
All the same, my disappointment was probably most intense at that first moment and the passage of time has made me see things more calmly and see the more positive side of the Treaty.
I have heard some very negative comments about it here.
I believe that if we want to highlight the positive aspects, we can, for example, stress - as Mrs Spaak does - an issue that is very important and that has been with us as long as the institutions and the Treaty, ever since 1958: institutional balance.
I very much like the way Mrs Spaak emphasises the issue of institutional balance.
I remember how a person I respected a great deal, Emile Noël, who was Secretary-General of the Commission for many years, always talked about the magic of the institutional balance, and I think it is one of the things we must safeguard, especially now, with the prospect of enlargement.
Enlargement cannot be allowed to introduce imbalance.
There was balance with six.
There is balance with 15.
There must be balance with 25.
And I also think we should remember the efforts that have been made to strengthen the role of fundamental rights and the impact of society in the European Union, not forgetting the responses the citizens expect from the Union.
The whole issue of fundamental rights, which was in a sense outside the scope of the Treaty, has been somewhat included in the Treaty with the Amsterdam reform.
And there are some very telling examples in this respect, as there are in areas such as all the issues relating to employment, which was excluded and is now included, and the creation of the great area of security and justice, much of which comes into the Community arena.
Mr Brinkhorst - who is not here now - mentioned this issue just now.
It is what the Commission wants, but I hope and trust that it is also what the Member States want.
A major contribution of the Treaty has been Schengen, which was excluded from the Treaty and is now included.
It was impossible to include it in the Treaty originally, so it remained outside.
And that was an anomaly; it was outrageous.
Now Schengen is included in the Treaty.
Obviously, we must look at what remains to be done.
And I share Mr Brinkhorst's concern over whether it will be included in the first or the third pillar, because, clearly, if we did not do anything, there would be nothing left in the third pillar. There are some issues that must continue to be intergovernmental, such as cooperation on criminal or police matters, but there are other issues that must come under the first pillar.
This is probably one of the things the last minute changes at Amsterdam prevented, that is, having a time period - three, four or five years - for issues to come into the Community arena simply by majority decision.
Nevertheless, the change introduced at the last minute was that such a decision must be adopted unanimously, which means that, over the five years, a single state can stop the transfer to the Community arena. Of course, that was a step backward, but it was a real step forward that what was outside the scope of the Treaty at Maastricht - because it was simply under the umbrella of the European Union - is now included in the Treaty, and we will have to see what form that inclusion takes.
Furthermore, the reform of the CFSP instruments will mean - and we hope this happens - that the Union can express itself on the international scene with a single voice.
A moment ago, someone mentioned that some progress had been made on issues relating to the common foreign and security policy.
It is clear.
What is happening is probably that the fact of merely having the instruments is not enough.
The instruments are there.
What is lacking is the political will to act in foreign policy, and that is a different matter.
It is perhaps regrettable that, in institutional terms - and Mrs Spaak highlights this - the results have not been very encouraging.
Parliament has certainly achieved an unprecedented extension of its powers as a co-legislator, but certain important and longstanding problems remain unresolved. However, there was not enough time to resolve them at Amsterdam, and that is why so many important issues are outstanding, such as an increase in qualified majority voting, the weighting of votes in the Council, or the number of Commissioners.
So there is some unfinished business here. These points are clearly set out in the Treaty itself, so we therefore know that another Intergovernmental Conference is going to be required, and it needs to be held soon.
We hope the Treaty of Amsterdam will soon enter into force. But it still has not done so and, as a result, it may be premature to draw up a balance sheet and make new plans for reform.
However, it is clear that we must start getting ready to be able to respond, firstly, to the questions that actually appear in the Treaty, the issues the Treaty itself asks us to respond to. This is the case for institutional issues - the ones I mentioned a moment ago - and security issues, for example, everything that affects the integration of the Western European Union into the European Union.
This will also require an Intergovernmental Conference, at the appropriate time.
It is therefore obviously necessary for each institution to carry out its work and play its part in accordance with the Treaty, and to seek what we have called for on so many occasions, namely, effective and democratic solutions for the future.
And in this connection, the Commission has already announced, in Agenda 2000, that it wants a new Intergovernmental Conference to meet immediately after the turn of the century.
Moreover, the arrival of the euro, the opening of the enlargement negotiations and Agenda 2000 are also long-term projects initiated in 1997 that commit us to the future.
Parliament and the Commission have worked very harmoniously on those issues.
I am coming to an end, Mr President. These questions clearly go far beyond the framework imposed by a calendar year or even a legislature.
I am sure these challenges will be present in the minds of the Heads of State or Government meeting in Pörtschach on 24 and 25 October, and we hope that this meeting will be an opportunity to launch a joint study of the European Union's mission in the 21st century.
That is all I have to say, but just one more word, if I may.
Mr Hager referred earlier to a document he had asked the Commission for and the fact that no-one had bothered to reply.
If he will tell me what he wants, I will make sure he gets an immediate reply to his request.
I cannot understand why a request from a Member has not been given consideration.
So I am at his disposal and I will gladly try to sort this out because it was probably due to a misunderstanding that he did not receive a response to his request.
In any case, all I can say is that although I may not be the relevant Commissioner, I am speaking here now so I am happy to offer to seek a response to Mr Hager's request.
Commissioner, thank you very much for your offer. However, it is not at all about the document not being forwarded, but about the way in which this was refused.
By this I mean a Member of Parliament being told that Commission documents are often messed around with, and the official in charge saying that what the Members of Parliament do with them - and I quote - gets on his nerves.
I protested against that, nothing else.
However, I would be pleased to give you more detailed information, though I do not want to do so before the House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.15 p.m.
Commission statement on MAI
The next item is the Commission statement on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
Mr President, the Asian financial crisis has reminded us that investment and other financial flows can have a dramatic effect on the growth of competitiveness.
Long-term, good-quality investment can help strengthen economies and is the opposite of short-term speculative flows.
Such good-quality investment is clearly vital if developing countries are to move forward in an increasingly globalised world.
Investment has already made a significant contribution to world economic growth and the benefits are innumerable.
The European Community is the world's largest outward investor.
Developing countries receive fresh capital, technology and know-how, and investors themselves gain access to new markets.
Investment can bring with it a raising of local labour and environmental standards, rather than a lowering of them.
There is also the question of the rooting out of corruption and unacceptable business practices.
The transparency that any general framework of rules would bring with it in this area would be very helpful to combat corruption, unacceptable practices and, indeed, crony capitalism generally.
Although investment decisions are ultimately taken by private companies, the policy environment makes a vital difference.
Predictable and transparent laws and regulations offer a prospect of greater investment flows, lower risk premia and higher returns.
At present, investment rules are set by a complex network of bilateral and regional treaties.
Important as these are, they lack many of the disciplines needed to create a transparent rule-based framework.
Moreover, their coverage is far from complete.
The question is: how to deal with this situation?
I have always believed that the WTO is the best long-term home for work to create a predictable framework of investment rules.
There are already some WTO rules. In particular, the Uruguay Round agreement on trade-related investment measures, which impinge on investment.
Further work would not, therefore, be a new departure for the WTO, although it would offer the prospect of extending the existing rules in ways which would directly benefit both the European Union and developing countries.
In that context, I strongly supported the decision in December 1996 at the WTO Singapore ministerial meeting to establish a WTO investment working group to examine the relationship between trade and investment.
I believe it is important, as we move towards the WTO ministerial meeting next autumn that we should continue to press the case for investment rules to be tackled substantively in the WTO.
Meanwhile, of course, negotiations on a multilateral agreement on investment, the MAI, have been in progress since May 1995 in the framework of the OECD.
The EC and its Member States have participated in these negotiations on the basis of a strategy adopted by the Council in April 1995 and accepted by the European Parliament in its resolution of 14 December 1995.
This March I responded to the Kreissl-Dörfler report by setting out the state of negotiations at that time.
Since then, OECD ministers decided in April on a period of assessment and further consultation of civil society, bearing in mind among other things economic concerns and political, social and cultural sensitivities.
As part of that process the Commission and the Council have held consultations with European industry, trade unions and a number of NGOs, including those particularly interested in the environmental, development and cultural aspects of the MAI.
These enabled some key aspects of the current draft to be discussed.
We were able to assure NGOs and others that, for example, it is not the aim to allow the MAI to undermine national observance of internationally recognised core labour standards as set out in ILO Conventions, nor to weaken the observance of internationally agreed environmental standards.
We were also able to reassure NGOs that on cultural matters we would stoutly defend the Community's acquis , including the outcome of the Uruguay Round on audiovisual matters.
I believe that this dialogue, and parallel dialogues held by Member States with civil society, have gone some way to reassure those who had originally questioned the effect of the MAI on labour, environmental, cultural and other public policy issues.
Nonetheless, of course, the MAI negotiations continue to generate strong feelings in some quarters and in some Member States.
In particular, on Wednesday last, 14 October, the Prime Minister of France announced in response to a parliamentary question that France would withdraw from the negotiations.
As a result, the planned meeting this week of the OECD negotiating group will not now take place.
Instead, consultations under the chairmanship of the Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD will be taking place in Paris today with the participation of the Commission and Member States.
Coordination of the EU'S collective attitude towards the MAI negotiations is still in progress.
We note the French Government's view, on which it is in touch with the Commission and all Member States, and expect the implications to be discussed in the Council in due course.
We will clearly need to consider, against the objectives set in the unanimously agreed mandate of 1995, what the best way forward now would be on further work on trade and investment, including the MAI.
Let me, however, give you my own views on the issue.
It seems to me that we have made substantial and strong efforts to achieve the kind of transparent framework within the OECD which would benefit both the European economies and those of other MAI participants.
The MAI negotiations have already done much to clear the ground on investment and to highlight those issues which are of key importance to the EU, including to civil society.
Nevertheless, I have always taken the view that the WTO is the best long-term home for this work, for which the MAI has already provided valuable signposts.
In present circumstances, the chances of bringing the current MAI negotiations to a successful conclusion frankly do not look at all promising, to put it mildly.
The Commission and the Member States, however, will need to continue to discuss collectively the outcome of our contacts with civil society, set against the objectives in the original negotiating mandate agreed by the Council of Ministers.
I shall, of course, keep Parliament and the Council closely informed of developments on this important issue.
Mr President, Sir Leon Brittan, you have outlined the background to the debate that the House is holding once again on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, and you have also described the different points of view and interests, some of which vary a great deal.
In addition, you have dealt with the position of the French government, and with the Kreissl-Dörfler report.
Allow me to mention a few points, perhaps. They all concern an aspect which you have mentioned.
Which strategy should we in fact be developing in future in view of this situation? This is practically the only remaining issue of interest.
Moreover, like you, I believe - this is my personal opinion, and I do not want to pretend that I share the view of the majority of my Group on this - that we need an international agreement on investment, and that this should have a high level of protection.
I am also grateful in this connection that the Commission has just drawn up the REIO clause, and it was a success!
Nevertheless, we have made mistakes, and we should learn from these mistakes because we will have new rounds of negotiations, as you have mentioned, hopefully in the framework of the WTO, and we will in fact have the opening of the next WTO round.
I feel, and I also fear, that the widespread uncertainty and criticism, in part justified, are linked to two aspects.
The first is that there is growing uncertainty, and there is increasingly the feeling that globalisation or international trends and institutions undermine national sovereignty.
This is seen in America, and we are also witnessing a similar trend here.
We often follow the Americans anyway, and it seems to me that we are also following the Americans in this area, instead of going against them, which in my opinion would be the better position for Europe.
You were right to say that it must be in our interests to strengthen Europe's international position, and in this respect this would be a step in that direction.
However, the second difficulty, as I see it, is that we do not know how to deal properly with sensitive issues.
We have not learned to include sensitive issues, such as culture, the environment and agricultural policy, in international negotiations, with the result that we always discuss them in a negative sense only.
We always say simply that we do not want them to be included, which is also right, and that we want the acquis communautaire to be preserved, which is right too; that is our position.
However, we constantly fear that international agreements serve to gradually undermine us, because the others, our opponents so to speak, are clever.
We always assume that they are cleverer than we in the European Union are.
I believe we must now, with the help of an extremely open strategy, learn how to deal with this and perhaps also to convey the message that both the European Commission and the European Parliament are capable of formulating very good and very firm positions.
Finally, I am also concerned that if we fail do this, the non-governmental organisations will increasingly take on a parliamentary role, and this is something that I would not like, since I still firmly believe in a parliamentary democracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I accept the basic statement by Mrs Mann, who made a personal remark on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, namely that we need an international agreement on investment.
We should not talk around the issue, as we simply need it.
Conversely, fears of globalisation and many other things actually protect us from making mistakes.
Anyone who wants there to be investment in the Third World must also make sure that a protective framework is in place for those who invest their money, precisely because of what we have experienced with the Asian crisis, for example.
We must also stop making an ideology out of this.
Of course, I understand that everything is discussed at length here in the European Parliament, and we always see problems somewhere or other.
No, we need an international agreement on investment.
That is why the Group of the European People's Party states quite clearly that we need a multilateral agreement.
Secondly, we must redress the balance between the rights and obligations of investors.
The European Parliament must always be fully included in this issue, and you always do so, Sir Leon Brittan; I know that you like to be praised, as I am doing here.
I must also explain that we have stated clearly that the WTO negotiations need to be concluded soon.
In parallel with this, the matter must be considered within the OECD, because it is legitimate that we consider in the OECD what the situation is in the WTO: with 134 countries in the WTO, how are we to achieve anything if we are not prepared to provide a framework.
In conclusion, the French Government is a sovereign government.
It may allow itself to be pushed into a corner by the Greens if it wishes. Yet, as an industrial nation, France will not in the end be able to avoid making a clear statement here on what we all want.
I would therefore be pleased if the parliamentary groups were to talk a little more calmly with each other about how this can best be achieved.
Mr President, the multilateral agreement on investment is designed to provide greater freedom for international investment, to protect it and set up a machinery for resolving disputes between governments and investors.
All in all a good thing, I would have thought, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it will put an end to the more than 1 800 bilateral agreements on foreign investment.
These will be replaced by one large, transparent agreement, making for a framework of greater legal certainty and so expanding the investment formula, which will then lead to greater economic growth and prosperity.
Secondly, it seems to me logical that a multinational agreement on trade should be complemented by a multinational agreement on investment.
Trade and investment are after all closely interlinked. Cui bono?
Who benefits? In the first instance, the multinationals.
And why not? Are they not entitled to equal treatment, just like any ordinary citizen - and thus entitled to protective measures and compensation in the event of appropriation or other measures which deprive them of their assets?
But the developing countries too will benefit from this agreement. Foreign investment creates jobs which would not otherwise exist.
And growth in the new export sectors driven by foreign investors, multinationals amongst them, brings spill-over effects which benefit the whole economy.
The facts bear this out.
To take just one example, wage increases in Taiwan and South Korea: whilst the hourly wage there in 1975 was on average just 6 % of that in the USA, by 1995 the figures had risen to 34 % and 43 % of it respectively.
This positive development is a direct result of investment.
There are of course some undesirable situations.
But these have nothing to do with the investment agreement.
There are of course countries which pay no heed at all to social and environmental standards in their efforts to attract investment.
And these countries do not need the agreement, because they are for the most part authoritarian regimes.
So the answer is not to weaken or block the multilateral agreement, but rather to bring political democracy to these regimes, in other words what is needed is not only economic liberalisation but political liberalisation, an MAD, a multilateral agreement on democracy, as well as an MAI.
The conclusion is that most of the criticism is exaggerated, indeed unfair, though the draft agreement certainly has some shortcomings.
The developing countries must be directly involved in the negotiations on the agreement.
Ideally, the negotiations should be conducted under the aegis of the World Trade Organisation, and the MAI should be inspired by the principles of the WTO.
The dispute-resolving procedure must be more balanced, so that the host country is able to take action against the investor.
My final point is that we think the MAI must be made more democratic and that the present draft text must be amended in a number of respects.
But for the rest I am convinced that the agreement on international investment needs to be concluded as speedily as possible.
Mr President, over the last ten years, growth in direct investment has increased at twice the rate of growth in world trade.
This observation concerns all products and all sectors of the economy, and it is because of this that the idea of a Multilateral Agreement on Investment, or MAI, has been proposed since the beginning of the 1990s.
However, if there is indeed an emerging need for a multilateral framework, as several speakers have mentioned, we must note that the United States has always preferred to conduct these negotiations within the OECD, with industrialised countries, whereas the European Union tries to hold them within the WTO, a global organisation that brings together all countries concerned with investment, including the less developed countries.
The MAI is aimed at protecting investors' rights and guaranteeing stable rules of operation.
But the proposals put forward so far do not respect the cultural exception clause that Europe fought to obtain in the GATT or the integration procedures employed by the Union to facilitate the progressive accession of central and eastern European countries into the single European market.
Neither do they respect the social and environmental standards laid down by the European Union, less still the sovereign right of the Member States of the European Union to determine them.
Lastly, this agreement stipulates that American extra-territorial laws be recognised, and we object to these laws being implemented indiscriminately.
So within what framework should these negotiations be pursued, or not, as the case may be? In the OECD each state negotiates on its own behalf and, in this way, the US seeks to undermine the solidarity between the states of the Union.
On the other hand, if the Union grants Sir Leon Brittan a mandate to negotiate this matter within the framework of the WTO, which is what we want, this mandate must include the exception clauses, for example the cultural exception that the Baladur government fought so hard to obtain in 1994, along with the other clauses that we do not want to retain.
How can we fail to see that the United States is trying, by means of the OECD, to take back with one hand what they have given to the GATT with the other, and to undermine our social and environmental framework in their quest for absolute liberalism.
The position of the UPE Group is that negotiations should continue within the framework of the WTO.
Mr President, I have noted that the Commission persists in supporting the philosophy behind the MAI, according to which private investors have all the rights, the states have all the duties and all countries are subject to US domination.
I would like to remind you that on 11 March Parliament called on governments not to accept the MAI in its present form.
This draft treaty has considerably mobilised progressive forces and leaders in our countries, and this has paid off.
Following a six-month suspension of negotiations, the French Government, through its Prime Minister, concluded that this agreement could not be reformed, and announced that France would not resume the MAI negotiations.
Commissioner, I would like you to withdraw the pejorative remarks you made in relation to the French Government.
This far-reaching decision is a noteworthy example for any government concerned about its sovereignty.
But its success should not lead us to lower our guard.
The MAI should not simply be replaced by a newer version inspired by the same principles, such as the PET, which you, Sir Leon Brittan, negotiated without a mandate in London on 18 May, and which to me amounts at the very least to an abuse of power.
France has already stated that it was in no way bound by these negotiations.
I would therefore like to ask the following question, and this time I would like an answer; what use is a declaration that has been concluded by one Commissioner who has not been granted a mandate to do so by the Member States?
The content of the MAI must therefore be discarded.
Any new negotiations must take place on an entirely different basis and within a framework other than that of the OECD, which brings together the richest countries.
We need to recognise the sovereignty of states in the choices they make in relation to development and their social, cultural and fiscal policies.
It is not American or Japanese multinationals that should lead the world, but governments that have been elected by the people.
The rejection of liberalism and a desire for change were expressed during the last elections held in France, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany.
The European Union and global agreements must take this into account, as failure to do so will lead to their outright rejection by the people.
Lastly, new negotiations, which could be carried out under the auspices of the UN or the WTO, should be transparent: the people, the elected representatives and associations need to be aware of the major issues that affect the future of their countries.
Mr President, the Prime Minister, Mr Jospin, chose the only correct option last week in announcing that France was to withdraw from the OECD negotiations on the MAI.
As rapporteur on the legal framework for the MAI, I am extremely pleased by this, Mr Kittelmann.
The European Parliament's resolution in March established clearly that the draft agreement not only has serious shortcomings, but that it even goes completely in the wrong direction in many areas, because it gives priority to the rights of investors over everything else, for instance.
We therefore urged that the agreement should not be signed in this form.
The Commission's answer to this was certainly incredibly disappointing.
Yet we have seen the effect of Parliament's resolution, of the widespread international mobilisation of hundreds, if not thousands, of citizens' interest groups, non-governmental organisations and trade unions in Europe and worldwide, Mr Rübig, and the same applies to the sound report produced by Mrs Lalumière for the French Government, and to the important signals given by the Greens in France.
Sir Leon Brittan, you now have clear evidence that European politicians, European governments and European civil society do not share your line on free trade!
Accept the consequences of this, bury the MAI, shelve it.
Mr Jospin rightly said last week that the MAI cannot be reformed.
That is why it also makes no sense to transfer it to the WTO in the near future, because the WTO is anything but democratic, and is urgently in need of reform itself.
Developing countries would be overlooked once again, with disastrous consequences for them.
Nevertheless, one thing is clear - pay attention now, ladies and gentlemen -, we need an international agreement to regulate and supervise investments, the number of which has increased and is increasing by leaps and bounds. However, the crucial issues are: who takes part in the negotiations?
Are weaker parties granted an equal right to a say in the matter? Are all those parliaments affected, including the European Parliament, granted power of codecision, and what is in it afterwards?
This is really crucial. That is why this agreement should not lower environmental and social standards.
It must establish political control of the economy and make democratic supervision the norm.
Please inform the French Government of this, Sir Leon.
You always place emphasis on the developing countries yet they were not even at the negotiating table.
Please read the texts first!
Mr President, the MAI as formulated by the OECD is dead.
Let us not beat around the bush or waste time with a text that has lost all credibility.
France, quite rightly, has definitively rejected this MAI in the light of Catherine Lalumi&#x010D;re's excellent report, which showed the extent to which this pseudo-agreement attempted to strike a fatal blow to the social, cultural and environmental acquis .
What is more, France has stated openly what a number of governments, trade unions, NGOs and even some Members of the Commission have been thinking.
The MAI has been in the spotlight for some time now.
But how many other agreements of this type are concluded by the OECD to then be rendered inapplicable? The shipbuilding industry is one example.
They are inapplicable because they are prepared behind closed doors by people who are completely cut off from reality.
People who are doubtless very competent but perhaps a little too confident, to the extent that they take over from the political officials and make the decisions that they are supposed to make.
As a result, this type of institution finds itself in a situation in which technocracy prevails over politics and in fact over democracy itself.
This is why I personally question the role of the OECD and think that today we should no longer hesitate to call its very existence into question.
You will be aware, Mr President, that the Chateau de la Muette in Paris, where the organisation has its headquarters, has become rather like the Bastille at the end of the 18th century, in other words a symbol that has lost its purpose.
I myself strongly believe that the dissolution of the OECD should be accompanied by a strengthening of the WTO.
It is within this organisation, and no other, that this type of debate on investments should take place.
But if we want to be as efficient as possible - and here I am specifically referring to the millennium negotiations - we should consider a more democratic way of monitoring the WTO.
This is why I would like Parliament to agree to create a powerful committee, one which is fully involved in monitoring the work of the WTO, along the lines of the system already in operation in the US Senate.
If the French Government has dealt a fatal blow to the OECD's MAI, it did so in order to better create a new dialogue, one that involves all actors, both large and small, who have a part to play in the globalisation of the economy.
Once again Mr President, this should take place in the WTO and nowhere else.
Mr President, I have been listening carefully to Commissioner Brittan, but I would like to remind you that we were among the first to draw attention to the detrimental nature of the MAI project developed by the OECD, mainly because it called into question the vital regulatory role played by the states, it introduced a new legal hierarchy amongst international actors by favouring investors and it marginalised developing countries from the negotiation process.
I would like to welcome all parliamentary and extra-parliamentary initiatives, including Mr Lannoye's initiative, in which I am involved; these have mobilised a large part of the European political community against a draft treaty that is both unreasonable and unamendable.
The way it has been drawn up would, in practice, have prevented major European interests and specific characteristics from being defended (cultural exceptions, high social and environmental standards, unacceptable extra-territorial legislation).
These initiatives have in my opinion contributed to a significant shift in position for some Member States, including France, and of course I welcome this.
The definition of a clear regulatory framework along with complete and harmonised rules would indeed be very useful.
Consequently, a number of Member States think that negotiations should be resumed but on a completely different basis and within the appropriate framework, one that allows participation of all parties concerned.
This is certainly not a touchy reaction, Commissioner.
The debate calls for negotiations to be carried out within the WTO and not the OECD.
But the rules of the WTO - let us not forget - do not take into account the social and environmental concerns so dear to our peoples.
We shall therefore once again have to be extremely vigilant: the Council must be very precise in the way it draws up the new mandate that it will grant the Commission, and we in the European Parliament and the national parliaments must monitor its implementation rigorously so that in the long term investment flows benefit all our populations.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, initially an attempt was made behind closed doors over many years to work out an international agreement that aimed to achieve complete control of financial capital.
This attempt was temporarily unsuccessful due to an indiscretion in Canada, which attempted to eliminate national, social and environmental legislation that had been secured previously by years of legal cases.
The structure of the MAI programme has made every democrat aware of how quickly fundamental democratic rights can be lost.
We are facing a large-scale redistribution throughout the world.
Multinationals no longer make their profits predominantly from production; up to 70 % of profits are now a result of speculating in money.
This is a system that is bound to go wrong, and is already doing so to a degree, and one that leads to mass unemployment and widespread poverty in favour of a small number of people.
The MAI was an instrument that aimed to remove even the minimal residual risk from this speculation, and to undermine the remaining sovereignty of the nation states.
You are unsure, and that is why you feel the need to interrupt.
I know I am right. That is why I do not need to interrupt you!
Mr President, the MAI can be reduced to a simple formula: multinationals have all the rights and the states have all the duties.
However, at a time when some multinationals have bigger budgets than some Member States of the European Union, I do not think it is the multinationals that need protection, as Mr De Clercq proposed.
It is to this Parliament's credit that it has debated and endorsed the Kreissl-Dörfler report, which serves as a warning to Member States that the Multilateral Agreement on Investment could endanger democracy itself.
As it was the cultured men and women in France who immediately took action to preserve the cultural exception, it very quickly became clear that this MAI affected every area and that, had the agreement been signed, a national parliament would not in future be able to adopt a text that was not in line with the provisions of the MAI.
As Prime Minister Lionel Jospin stated, the arguments against this draft agreement do not hinge on sectorial or technical points, rather they relate to the very reasons behind these negotiations and pose fundamental problems as regards state sovereignty, given that each state would be obliged to make an irreversible commitment.
Irreversible!
So what would be the point of changing government, voting, changing policies, if everything were determined elsewhere?
It is one thing to confer sovereignty on delegations within the framework of this Community, in a state-controlled procedure and a historic adventure, as we perceive and currently shape it, and which for us is of considerable importance.
But it is quite another thing to confer sovereignty on private interests.
Therefore, for those of us who campaigned against the MAI, Lionel Jospin's decision to leave the negotiating table is very satisfactory, and is not a touchy reaction, as Commissioner Brittan said.
It is a decision that was thought through carefully and taken following the excellent work by Mrs Catherine Lalumi&#x010D;re.
Does this mean that we are against all agreements? No, it does not.
But we very much hope that none of the agreements currently under discussion, be it the MAI, the New Transatlantic Market or the Transatlantic Economic Partnership, are devised in secret or abandon the rights of the people in favour of private financial interests.
It is to be hoped that future debates will take place under the auspices of the WTO, for example, where developing countries will be able to have their say and will no longer be presented with a fait accompli .
In short, democracy should still have a purpose and a future.
Mr President, I welcome Sir Leon Brittan's statement.
Criticism of the MAI is largely based on a misunderstanding.
It is not a matter of instituting privileges for foreign investment, but of establishing guarantees of equal treatment.
Under an investment protection agreement, a country may adopt the environmental provisions of its choice, provided they are not used to discriminate against foreign investment.
Contrary to what some critics seem to believe, the MAI would not facilitate short-term capital movements. The underlying aim is quite the opposite: promoting long-term investment.
For the underdeveloped countries, long-term investment can be preferable to short-term borrowing or foreign portfolio investment.
If the economic situation changes for the worse, short-term capital of this kind can easily be moved away - with potentially dire effects.
Since it is usually the best companies that invest abroad, the social conditions on offer are likely to be better than average.
These companies will normally engage in transfers of know-how and technology, providing better support for long-term development than national exchequers could achieve by means of transfer payments.
There are more than 1 600 bilateral investment protection agreements.
One MAI could replace this contractual jungle with a more transparent system.
There is no obligation on countries to join.
If the current criticism leads to negotiations being broken off, long-term investment in the developing countries will be one of the first casualties.
All the more so if a renegotiated MAI, instead of enshrining non-discrimination, were to impose higher requirements on foreign companies than on domestic ones - which is what some critics seem to want.
Private investment does not come on demand. And slowed investment flows would be to everyone's disadvantage.
Many developing countries today are so keen to attract foreign investment that they are offering subsidies to foreign companies. An agreement involving extra burdens on business would undermine their attempts to make themselves attractive to investors.
The purpose of some opponents' endeavours to block the MAI could precisely be to put obstacles in the way of international investment.
There is a widely held belief that, if companies cannot invest abroad, they will do so back at home.
Protectionism of this kind can easily have the opposite effect.
Companies unable to invest abroad - in support of new market strategies, for example - might then find it hard to do business at all on the domestic front.
Maybe it was a mistake to hold the negotiations under the auspices of the OECD. Suspicions are bound to arise when the lead organisation has such a limited membership, with a mere handful of developing countries participating.
As Sir Leon said, even though its remit is primarily trade and not investment, the WTO is probably better placed to handle the negotiations.
Mr President, the French Government's decision to withdraw from the OECD-level MAI negotiations was a courageous one, and leaves me gratified on two counts. Firstly, the agreement that was being worked on would grant unilateral rights to multinational companies at the expense of democratic principles, and that is totally unacceptable.
Secondly, the decision demonstrates that democracy works; the will of the people can prevail. Nothing dictates that the multinationals will have their way, with unfettered free trade as the be-all and end-all.
The French decision puts down an important marker in this respect.
I am surprised that other governments calling themselves left-wing - the Swedish one, for example - have not followed the French lead.
Instead, they have simply absorbed the underlying philosophy of the MAI.
We should now jettison the current proposal and start the process all over again, basing ourselves this time on a more socially and environmentally oriented agenda, and offering a place at the discussion table to the third world countries.
Mr President, in my opinion this incantatory talk of the virtues of liberalism is not likely to restore health to a project that is so obviously ailing.
Following the French Government's decision to withdraw from negotiations, it seems quite clear that political conditions are no longer appropriate for these negotiations to continue.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the French Government is not alone.
The Belgian Government was greatly disturbed by what happened in Paris, and the future government of Germany is also questioning the relevance of a project that is evidently flawed.
We are talking of transferring negotiations to the WTO.
Firstly, I would like to remind you that the WTO is not the temple of democracy people presume it is, and that the small states of the South barely have their voices heard in this forum.
So as Mr Sainjon suggested, we will certainly also have to review the way in which the WTO operates.
Furthermore, to transfer the debate without changing the basic project would not change a great deal.
In this respect, I am very concerned to hear Commissioner Brittan reiterate during meetings his faith in the virtues of the present project.
It is a project that can be likened to a poor-quality film, or what we might call a 'turkey'; changing the set or adding extras to crucial scenes will not turn it into a good film, especially if the script and the stars appearing in it are the same, and if it continues to be directed by the multinationals.
I therefore think that if future negotiations take place within a new framework, the conditions in which they take place should be discussed democratically, and that Commissioner Brittan and the European Commission should be given a clear mandate that is monitored democratically; otherwise we are in real danger of misleading ourselves totally in this debate.
Mr President, an agreement on investment is doubtless needed, but not simply any agreement.
The present draft MAI treaty almost caricatures the concept of ultra-liberalism.
We are told that it is aimed at protecting non-national investors who, it would appear, have a lot to fear from the states.
But this protection is to be put before the rights of citizens and the rights of the states.
This would give non-national investors the opportunity to question any government policy or action that might reduce their predicted profits.
It would also grant them the right to full and constant protection, and this would ban the states not only from taking future nationalisation measures, but also from taking any measure that has the equivalent effect. In addition, there would be a special clause that would render irreversible any liberalisation measures laid down by a government.
How could such a monstrosity ever have been negotiated? Did the OECD believe that science and money create world peace?
No, world peace is the result of an agreement between democratic governments who create and protect it.
Investors are able to prosper within the framework of this peace, on the condition that they do not destroy, undermine or evade these democratic agreements.
Public opinion is well aware of this, as it has demonstrated in the space of a few weeks by speaking out against this very attractively packaged draft agreement purporting to guarantee that in future everything would be free and without discrimination, with a couple of exceptions, namely cultural and audiovisual exceptions which the states, like naughty pupils, would be granted on the condition that they submit a specific request.
Is this promise that everything will be free and without discrimination for foreign investors aimed at the non-democratic states?
Of course not. We are all aware that they can sign treaties and have absolutely no intention of respecting them unless threatened with war.
We are therefore getting closer to the real reason behind these negotiations: they are intended to facilitate foreign investment in developed democratic countries and ensure that investment comes directly from multinationals or indirectly from the various mafia or dictatorships in the world.
But of the democratic countries being targeted, it is evident that the countries of the European Union are being targeted most, because they constitute a huge market that is gradually placing social issues high on the agenda and becoming a unique democratic force in the world, one that is capable of making human rights a priority.
But the fact remains that democracy is a lengthy process and we have still not completed the task of defining all our environmental or consumer protection regulations, or even our minimum social requirements.
Neither are we equipped with political institutions that are strong enough to ensure our choices are respected and to negotiate with one voice.
So it is understandable that some are keen to create the conditions which would destroy this democratic construction by imposing other laws, such as the law of money, or even that of the United States.
It is therefore a very bad project, one that has been carried out outside civil and democratic society, as Catherine Lalumi&#x010D;re's report so clearly highlighted, and that should be discarded.
Not because of a touchy reaction, Sir Brittan, but in order to start again at a later date, for example within the framework of the WTO.
Mr President, I should firstly like to thank Sir Leon Brittan for continuously helping to objectify the debate.
I believe that the most important thing is to go into what this agreement is actually concerned with.
I should like to thank Mr Kreissl-Dörfler for stating very clearly that an agreement is necessary.
I believe we can also say that increasing demands are being made on politics as a whole.
It is also repeatedly said that we must come to grips with globalisation.
Mr Kittelmann said today that we in the European Parliament must also determine the rules of the game for increasing world trade.
That is why I should like on this occasion to take up the cudgels for the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
I believe the mystery should be removed from the whole project, because this is about nothing other than ensuring that foreign investors and investments do not enjoy less favourable treatment than domestic investors and investments.
This is the core issue, and I believe we must all declare our support for it.
We are seeking to ensure high standards, rational liberalisation of investment rules, and an effective disputes settlement procedure.
I believe it is essential that we settle conflicts satisfactorily in this area.
The current negotiations on the MAI have led to an increase in the information needs of the general public.
The importance of this issue was also recognised.
Cross-border investments have meanwhile become the most important driving force in the world economy.
Impressive figures support this statement.
In the last 13 years annual investment flows have increased 17-fold, from USD 25 billion to 424 billion.
In my country alone, Austria, 8 % of the gross domestic product is apportioned to investments from abroad.
This secures many jobs.
No less than 1 500 bilateral agreements are in force throughout the world for concluding such investments.
It goes without saying here that the need to create adequate legal frameworks has increased greatly; a legal framework such as has existed for trade in goods since 1947, in the form of the GATT, and since 1995 for cross-border trade in services.
The current draft agreement now secures equal national treatment as well as most-favoured nation treatment.
For instance, it guarantees the French employer that competitors in the market cannot draw any competitive advantages from discriminatory locational factors.
Mr President, the effects of the MAI would be felt around the world - which explains why it has met with such near-universal condemnation.
Some 560 organisations from 67 countries have come together and launched a joint plea for the right of scrutiny. They want greater transparency and openness, more free debate and the involvement of civil society.
I wish to congratulate all those - including my colleagues in the European Parliament - who have contributed towards uncovering the true face of the MAI.
What lessons have been learnt? What has this discussion taught the Commission, the negotiators, Sir Leon Brittan - and even Mr Burenstam Linder?
Well, they have been made to understand that this is not the way to proceed. An investment agreement should be facilitating, not restrictive, and should help us to meet our international environmental commitments.
We must state unequivocally that our environmental objectives are of paramount importance.
Priority should be given to fulfilling the agreements and commitments entered into at the major UN conferences; international investment agreements are not exempt from these overarching criteria.
The MAI will not meet with general approval until human rights are given precedence over the rights of big business.
There is a wider degree of consensus on this issue than the protagonists would wish to admit.
The fact of the matter is that most people, but not all who have spoken, see the merits of an international agreement on investment, and they are right to do so.
They are right to do so, because it is an absurd caricature to present such an agreement, provided it is of the right kind, as being something that is simply for the benefit of multinational companies.
Not at all.
If we are concerned about those who are suffering from the Asian crisis, if we are concerned about the fact that there are in a country like Indonesia literally millions of people who are now below the poverty line because of that crisis, then we have to be interested in attracting investment to those countries, because that is one of the ways to recover.
It will not attract investment unless there is an adequate framework to enable people to invest safely.
That is the reality of the situation.
You cannot force investment to take place.
You can do what you like.
You can shout and you can scream slogans from the sky, but people will not invest unless they believe that there is a possibility to get a return.
That is why it is in the interests of the poorest people in the world that there should be a proper framework for investment.
That does not mean that there should be any agreement.
The question is what agreement should there be and where should the forum be.
I have to say, in particular to Mrs Moreau, that some people who have spoken in response to a Commission statement seems to have decided what to say before they heard what the statement was, and seem to have made comments which are completely unjustified by the statement.
In particular, I said right at the outset that, as far as we were concerned, the primary forum for such an agreement should be the WTO. The primary forum for such an agreement should be the WTO, because it is there that the developing countries are present in person and there that their concerns can most fully be met.
I said that quite clearly and I have said that many times before.
Of course one has to look at what has happened in the OECD in the context of that view.
I did not make any pejorative remarks about the French Government.
If that was heard by the honourable Member, she heard what was not said.
She should withdraw that, because nothing of the kind was said.
The fact of the matter that we now have to consider, coolly, if we now have to go to the WTO - which is likely and which I have always favoured, in any event - is indeed one of the lessons to be learnt from the negotiation that took place in the OECD.
I do not reject that negotiation as being one that was invalid or inappropriate.
The fact of the matter is that that negotiation was commenced on the basis of a mandate which was supported unanimously by the Member States, all of them democratic governments, after debates in this Parliament as well - not on the basis of some go-ahead of an irresponsible kind and abuse of power by the Commission.
It is nonsense.
Last year the Council of Ministers commended the progress that had been made and asked that further progress should continue to be made.
So it is not a frolic of our own that we have gone on, but a responsible negotiation in a responsible place.
It was legitimate for the Member States - including every single one of them - to believe that a negotiation in the OECD could provide a platform from which one could proceed to a negotiation in the WTO and it could provide lessons that could be drawn from it.
All of that is clear.
I have made it clear in this House time and time again - and most recently today, for those who are prepared to listen - that we, on behalf of the Member States of the European Union, were not prepared to complete a negotiation and to enter into an agreement which did not provide adequate protection for the concerns that have been expressed about the environment, for the concerns that have been expressed about audiovisual and other cultural matters and for the concerns that have been expressed about the observance of ILO labour standards.
We did not conclude the negotiation and were not going to conclude the negotiation without reflecting on the legitimate concerns of the Member States on those subjects, because that was the mandate.
The sole question was whether there was a reasonable chance of completing those negotiations with an acceptable agreement or not.
I believe that we will never know the answer to that question because the negotiations are likely not to be concluded in that way.
I do not know what the answer would be, but what I do know is that there is absolutely no basis for suggesting that the Commission would reach an agreement, when we have expressly said that we would not do so without meeting the legitimate and reasonable concerns that have been expressed!
Now it may well be that the scene shifts to the WTO.
I have said that we regard that, in any event, as the preferable forum and as the main place in which a negotiation should take place.
To achieve that we have to persuade everybody that there should be a new Millennium round and we have to persuade people that a negotiation on investment should take place in it.
We will be able to do so and we shall be accountable to the democratically-elected governments of the European Union and, as has been generously said by at least one distinguished speaker, the Commission accepts its responsibilities to the European Parliament as well.
One thing I must say, and one thing that is dangerous that has been said, is that there has been a lot of talk about sovereignty.
What does that mean? As far as sovereignty is concerned any international agreement on any subject is to an extent an acceptance of a limitation of sovereignty.
The agreement setting up the European Union is an expression limiting sovereignty.
The Treaty of Maastricht limits sovereignty, the Treaty of Amsterdam limits sovereignty, but it is being done by democratically elected governments with the support of democratically-elected parliaments, because they believe that internationally we can reach an agreement which is for our benefit and achieve thereby something that cannot be done just by individual governments acting on their own.
If you take this argument about sovereignty or au pied de la lettre in the way that has been argued today, you would never have an international agreement on anything.
Of course you may want to have provisions in agreements that allow you to withdraw from them at a certain time and on certain conditions.
That is reasonable and it may or may not be appropriate in this case.
But the argument about sovereignty is an appeal to the emotions and a contradiction of everything that we have achieved in the European Union over the last 40 years, because if that argument had prevailed, we would never have started and none of you would be here today.
I value your presence, I hope that we can work together to achieve the right results in the right place but we will only be able to do so if we speak with a clear head and shed some of the emotions which have wrongly entered a subject which is important but where it is necessary to have a little more light and a little less heat.
Mr President, I would like to come back to the remarks I made earlier, which were corrected by the Commissioner.
I heard a comment made that the French Government reacted touchily to the MAI.
In French, a touchy reaction means an unconsidered one, and this is why I think that this is a pejorative comment in relation to my government, which is democratically elected like the others.
Several speakers have also repeated this expression and this is why I am asking Mr Brittan to withdraw his remark.
Mr President, I am sorry the honourable Member has had a problem with the translation but as it happens I was following the text very closely and I will repeat what I said about the French Government and the only thing I said about the French Government.
I said:
' I am aware, nonetheless, that the MAI negotiations continue to generate strong feelings in some quarters and in some Member States.
In particular, last Wednesday the Prime Minister of France announced in response to a parliamentary question that France would withdraw from the negotiations.
As a result, the planned meeting this week of the OECD negotiating group will not now take place.
Instead, consultations under the chairmanship of the Deputy Secretary-General of the OECD will take place in Paris today with the participation of the Commission and Member States'.
That is what I said.
It is not what the honourable Member heard and I am sorry that either through her conviction or as a result of a problem of interpretation she thought she heard what she did not hear and what was not said.
I do not intend to reopen the discussion at this point.
I shall just briefly give the floor to two colleagues.
Mr President, Sir Leon Brittan, of course it is absolutely clear to everyone in the House that international treaties, including the Treaty on European Union, limit sovereignty in certain areas.
And we do not have anything at all against this.
But what Mr Jospin said, and what we are also saying, is really that this agreement on MAI limits the sovereignty of a state in a particular way that is no longer linked to the way in which an EU treaty limits sovereignty, for instance.
The issue here is preferential treatment in the area of investment: great.
But the EU is much more than purely an internal market.
This is a project for the whole of Europe, and that is really the crucial difference.
We will gladly give up sovereignty for this, but not for an MAI in this form.
I hope you can agree with me on this, as that would already be important progress.
Mr President, I do not know whether you share my opinion.
I sometimes have the impression at the moment that we are sitting in the French National Assembly and not in the European Parliament.
It will have been well received at home.
I should like to support you, Sir Leon Brittan, on one issue and pass on your conviction.
Without a Multilateral Agreement on Investment there will be no investment.
I urge all those on the Left, who are so vociferous in their views, to explain this to the Third World countries when there is no investment.
If you want to invest your own money, your personal money, in something, then you also require security.
The agreement will be amended, and further negotiations will take place.
However, if the Third World no longer receives aid in the form of investment, you have caused more damage than merely to prevent an agreement on ideological grounds.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Emissions from diesel engines
The next item is the report (A4-0364/98) by Mr Lange, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 88/77/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the measures to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from diesel engines for use in vehicles (COM(97)0627 - C4-0194/98-97/0350(COD)).
Mr President, I do not want to take up a great deal of the House's time, but first I would very much like to congratulate Mr Lange on his continuation of work on these very technical and important matters.
As rapporteur on air quality, I simply want to highlight the importance for air quality of these issues.
This report probably has to take the prize for lengthy and difficult titles but it is a very important measure in the battle to improve air quality and, as a result, the health of our citizens.
The limit values which are being been laid down in the first daughter directive on air pollution which is currently between first and second readings in this House depend on the whole package of measures under Auto-oil of which this is really an intrinsic part.
The air quality directives have emission limits for 2005 and 2010.
So the text that we are debating tonight is a very necessary piece of this jigsaw.
In Britain around 80 % of our goods are now moved by road compared to rail, waterways and other means.
Heavy lorries, therefore, have major implications for the health of our citizens.
Heavy lorries mostly run on diesel engines and these are responsible for a large amount of pollution from particulates and oxides of nitrogen.
They also contribute to the creation of ozone and summer smog.
We know all about those problems.
Several of the amendments supported by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection especially refer to particulates and Nox, recognising the difference between what pollutants are released in cities and what escape from long-range haulage.
The research studies which have been carried out on particulates, or black smoke, underline the necessity to specify 2005 under this proposal, precisely so that industry will have to create the necessary anti-pollution devices such as particulate traps, and have the lead-in time to be able to do so.
We have only recently pushed through the legislation demanding low-sulphur fuels by 2005.
This is the logical other side of that equation.
We must not listen to the voices calling for delay.
I simply want to emphasise, in conclusion, how essential it is to maintain the toughest possible emission limits as we have demanded in other parts of the Auto-oil programme.
To ensure the health of our future generations is one of the most tangible parts of the work that we do here in the European Parliament to meet the needs and desires of our citizens.
I fully support Mr Lange's amendments and his work on what is a very technical area.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am glad that in the last few months we have been able to discuss and approve a number of interesting reports in the House, some of them by means of the codecision procedure, which gives meaning to the single market in the areas of transport and mobility as well.
If we all realise that the single market is a success story, then it follows that we also want to have mobility.
I would very much like to see mobility, not only of persons but of goods and services too.
That is indeed the point of this single market.
It is the answer to the global challenge, and this is why we in Europe need to have calculable values for mobility and for the hauliers who will in future have to pay out a great deal of money to drive vehicles with purified exhaust gases, and will indeed wish to do so.
But before that, we need to have calculable and reliable values.
I am not quite sure whether it is the Commission or the Council that procrastinates and says to itself 'Oh God, no! We cannot adopt such strict values!'
I think that those guilty of procrastination come from both institutions.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for his presentation, which we will be glad to support.
Again, I would like to point out that I consider the on-board diagnostics system to be an important issue.
But it is equally important that this system does not automatically result in a bonnet crammed full of electronics, and that small and medium-sized companies continue to have access to these electronic steering devices.
Commissioner, I would be much obliged if you would continue the work on OBD in this paper, should you be offered and accept the task, to ensure that SMEs are able to carry out maintenance work.
All in all we have certainly made some progress.
I would like to say once again that the Auto-Oil programme was the breakthrough.
We had stubborn partners but Parliament provided some good reasons as to why responsibilities should be given to this House.
We were happy to assume them and we were also pleased to share them with you.
Mr President, Mr Lange has produced a first-rate report, which is no less than we would expect of him.
The amendments to the Commission proposal incorporated in the report are altogether consistent with the amendments which Parliament pushed through earlier through the conciliation procedure when we looked at the other part of the Auto-Oil programme, passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.
Now we are looking at heavy-duty vehicles.
The matters at issue are compulsory on-board diagnostics, the durability of emission purification systems and the standards which will be compulsory by 2005.
Looking at the Lange report, the proposals - the standards for 2005 in respect of diesel fuel - would seem to be realistic.
But if we are in favour of the use of 'best available techniques', we can aim to improve air quality rather more.
The expectation is that fast developing technology will enable heavy-duty vehicles to meet the standards easily by the year 2005, even without clean-up technology such as catalytic converters.
So Mrs Hautala's amendment is more ambitious.
We have just discussed it in the Liberal Group, and the overwhelming majority of my group believe that we should support this Hautala amendment.
We have to be somewhat ambitious, to set our standards rather high, because then we shall have a good starting position for the conciliation procedure with the Council.
And I hope the Commission, having learned from experience with the Auto-Oil programme, will back us over these more ambitious targets for diesel emissions.
If we achieve that, we shall be on the way to getting environmental imperatives integrated into the transport sector.
Mr President, Mr Lange continues his splendidly competent work, this time in connection with heavy-duty vehicles.
Everybody must surely realise how important it is to clean up emissions from buses and lorries.
I would like to propose, however, that we should be a little more ambitious in one respect, namely the matter of particulate emissions.
My colleague, Mr Eisma, has just mentioned that if we make use of the best scientific know-how at our disposal we could propose a more stringent limit value for particulate emissions for the year 2005.
It may interest all of you who are still sceptical that the ACEA, the trade association for the car industry, appears to regard this as technically feasible.
I have seen the documents with my own eyes.
The other side of the coin is that they want to avoid binding obligations in a way.
But we in Parliament have already stated in the Auto-Oil programme that we wish to give a clear signal to industry and, with that in mind, we want binding limit values, as Mr Lange proposes.
What we need to do now is to think seriously about the decisions reached in the Auto-Oil programme.
We are bringing onto the market cleaner, low-sulphur fuels, which are just what we need for a more progressive approach to vehicle technology.
We have given a signal that we want new generation catalysts and filters for particles that are a danger to health.
In fact, these technical solutions are already on the market.
For example, the United Kingdom's largest supermarket chain, Tesco, has decided to fit all its vans and trucks with very effective particle filters that do much to lessen particulate emissions, while low-sulphur diesel fuels are still being used.
Mr President, Commissioner, Bernd Lange has produced a very good report on reducing emissions from heavy-duty vehicles.
I agree with him on most points and support his proposal, although there is one area where he is being over-ambitious in my view.
Mr Lange is calling for a limit value of 2.0 for emissions of nitrogen oxides, whereas I would suggest 3.0.
The automobile manufacturers' association ACEA believes that, by 2005, it will be possible to reduce nitrogen emissions by 30 %, the reference value being 5.0 in the year 2000.
This corresponds to 3.5 g per kWh, but brings with it a rise in fuel consumption, which is a problem from the point of view of the greenhouse effect.
Greenhouse gases have been the subject of discussion on many occasions in this House; keeping them down is one of our main environmental objectives.
I still feel that we can afford to be a little more radical than ACEA suggests, dropping to 3.0 g per kWh.
Thanks to the efforts of Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala, we achieved good results in Parliament on the Auto-Oil proposal.
Research evidence has shown that our suggestions - for example on fuel quality - have solid underpinning.
As for diesel engines, comprehensive trials are still being carried out.
Before we submit proposals, we need to evaluate the results of this work
Lastly, I would like to support Mr Lange's call for financial incentives to encourage changes in motoring behaviour. If we are lucky, we might even manage to surpass his strict target values.
Mr President, the differences of opinion that I have from time to time with Mr Lange shall not prevent me from praising him on the quality of this report.
It is of interest to us too.
But it has already been mentioned in the discussion that, following preliminary consultations, the Commission - and also incidentally the Member States - started out from a different basic idea.
With passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, we managed to propose having a second stage with indicative values, but that was changed.
In this case though, we believe that because the necessary test procedures have not yet provided all the data, it would not be sensible, particularly in terms of making better use of the technical possibilities, to fix mandatory values at this early stage for 2005.
And all the more so, Mr Lange, because we have committed ourselves to presenting values for a second stage by the end of 1999. That means that we - or industry - have another five years.
We would still have time to include the results of the Auto-Oil II Programme, we would have more data, and above all, we would have better international coordination by then.
We also want to implement these values internationally, so please understand that the Commission cannot accept this fundamentally different proposal.
I also presume that I am right in predicting that the Member States will be more inclined towards our approach.
I would therefore now like to talk briefly about the individual amendments.
We can accept Amendments Nos 11 and 12 fully, we can accept Amendments Nos 6, 16, 17 and 24 in principle, in other words we shall have to look at the wording again, but we still have time to do that.
We can accept in part Amendments Nos 3, 5, 7, 8 and 20, on the need for high quality fuel to achieve future emission standards (No 3, second part), and on the need to link future standards with durability requirements (No 5).
Mr Florenz, we wish in any case to put together a package which also includes the OBD requirements.
It is to be a coherent package because each element supports the other.
Because we are striving for international regulations, we can of course accept Amendments Nos 7, 8 (second part) and 20 (second part), supporting the idea of a worldwide harmonised test cycle.
We cannot accept the other amendments for the general reasons I have already cited.
I think that because we are at the first reading stage here, I do not need to go into each amendment and explain in detail why it cannot be accepted.
That is the present situation and now we shall see what the Council decides.
It is indeed possible that the common position will be approved at the next meeting, so that we shall be able to go on with consultations quite soon.
Then there will be the second reading and there we will see what the outcome of the subsequent wrestling match is.
The Commission is relatively calm about it, because we think that this proposal in any case represents a considerable improvement.
Mr Lange is right that the matter has simply been ignored for a long time, by all of us; I cannot remember Parliament ever urging us to make progress in the area.
But that does not excuse us.
Now we are making progress, and I think that perhaps we are even moving faster.
If, as Mr Lange has said, technology develops equally quickly, then it may even be possible that in the course of 1999 we are able to make proposals which, when they become mandatory in 2005, will come close to what Mr Lange is now proposing.
But as we do not want to do that until 1999 - not because we are lax but simply because we still have time and therefore we should use it - we do not need to have a big argument on the basics here.
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me to ask a supplementary question.
You are now a very experienced Commissioner and, in a manner of speaking, caught up in the European institutions.
Could you once again enlighten me as to the percentage of cases in which the Commission has submitted a proposal by the specified date? Secondly, if you put forward a proposal for the 2005 stage in autumn 1999 at the earliest then, in view of the experience with the first Auto-Oil programme, where it took over two years, and considering also that the time needed to develop the engines of heavy goods vehicles is about twice as long as that for passenger cars (about five years), how much time are you estimating for legislation?
Mr President, I believe that we comply quite closely with our deadlines.
I do not have an overview, and can only comment on my own area where I am very familiar with the situation.
It may occasionally be the case that a Commission proposal comes one or two months later than promised, but in my sector the deadlines are respected fully.
As the responsibility for this one is thankfully my own, I shall present the proposal before the end of 1999.
Then it will be up to you how quickly you can deal with it.
I shall not criticise you of course, as I am not entitled to do that, but if I remember correctly, this proposal was presented by us in December 1997 and you are dealing with it now.
It has taken quite some time, but we had to tackle questions of detail, which we will not have to do with this new proposal, or so I would hope. I imagine therefore that this matter may be concluded within a year.
As industry also follows the debate when a proposal is submitted to see what is in store for them, the five-year period would have to be complied with approximately.
I do not consider this to be a decisive point.
We will be able to do it, above all when we have a standard with comprehensive worldwide validity.
That is naturally of great importance for industry, which does much more international business in this area than in any other.
I do think that we can try.
But I will take your comment as another request for us to be as punctual as possible.
Mr President, to set matters straight, the Commission did indeed adopt the proposal in December 1997, but it only reached Parliament six months later.
So it took six months to cover the 200 metre distance between the Commission and Parliament!
Mr President, to clarify the matter I must point out that we passed the documents on to the Council, as is the usual practice, but after that it was no longer in our power to see whether the Council dealt with them with appropriate speed.
I must stress that we are not the guilty party here.
The Council cannot comment on this as it is not here, but that is just the way it is. Les absents ont toujours tort .
I agree with Mr Bangemann.
I do not think that now is the time for us to deal with the question of why it took several months to cover 200 metres.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12.15 p.m.
Volatile organic compounds
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0358/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0389/98-96/0276(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on limitation of emissions of volatile organic compounds due to the use of organic solvents in certain activities and installations (Rapporteur: Mr Cabrol).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal for a Directive seeks to limit volatile organic compound emissions, or VOCs, emissions which occur due to the use of organic solvents - which are themselves volatile organic substances - in many industrial activities.
The aim is to reduce these emissions by 67 % in comparison to the 1990 rate.
The proposal for a Directive puts forward three different ways of achieving this aim.
The first involves respecting emission limit values which are mentioned in Annex II A. This means that thresholds or values are indicated for each industrial sector and undertakings must respect them.
Secondly, Member States could implement national plans giving the same results across all industrial sectors as those obtained through the first method.
The third method involves implementing reduction systems as defined in Annex II B, allowing each undertaking to use solvents containing fewer VOCs, either by changing processes or treatment materials or by using a combination of both to achieve the same results as those obtained through the first method.
The common position has kept some amendments, which is an improvement that Parliament wanted to see, but other amendments have not been kept and the Committee on the Environment calls on you to either vote in favour of those amendments which have not been retained, or rather put them to another vote.
The amendments are as follows; Amendment No 1, although slightly unrealistic, calls for the total elimination of emissions rather than attempting to reduce them as much as possible.
Amendments Nos 2 and 8 demonstrate our concern to safeguard the health of people who by virtue of their occupation are exposed to organic solvents.
Amendment No 3 calls for the best available techniques to be promoted in accordance with Directive 96/61/EC.
Amendment No 4 calls for solvents used by painters in the building trade or for DIY to be included since these solvents account for 30 % of total emissions.
Amendment No 5 proposes to examine how installations operating below the thresholds laid down by the Directive can be brought within the scope of future rules.
Amendment No 6 is designed to enable certain Member States to impose more stringent restrictions.
Amendment No 7 calls for the time period in which regulations are implemented to bring existing installations up to standard, to be extended to two years.
Amendment No 9 aims to allow volatile organic compound emissions to be measured by any method equivalent to continuous measuring. This means that enterprises can select which method to use, providing the overall result produced is the same.
Amendment No 10 provides for wagons and trailers to be included under 'vehicle refinishing', a clause that will be easier for professionals to apply and is just as effective in terms of results.
Amendment No 12 provides that the solvent management plan should be done every three years, which appears far more understandable and more easily applicable than to request an annual management plan.
Lastly, Amendment No 13, which mistakenly bears my name but was in fact tabled by the PPE, refers to the principle of the best available techniques, as already mentioned in Amendment No 3.
However, despite the fact that some of these amendments have been accepted by the Committee on the Environment, I, for my part, and from a purely personal point of view, should like to remind you - because I have not always been understood in these cases - that I will oppose the second part of Amendment No 11 due to the fact that it might lead to difficulties in the leather industry because it limits the solvent consumption threshold.
I will also vote against Amendment No 14 which, incidentally, has already been rejected by the Committee on the Environment and retabled by the PPE, because it rejects national plans which are so useful.
I think Amendment No 15 has been withdrawn.
To conclude I would simply remind you, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, that this Directive concerns more than 400 000 undertakings and 10 million jobs across a broad range of industrial sectors.
It therefore merits our full attention, and we must consider all the potential threats it could pose to jobs in these companies if we implement measures that are either too stringent or do not take the reality of the situation into account.
Mr President, I should like firstly to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work.
His first report at first reading was very balanced and achieved a very high standard of protection for human health and the environment whilst, at the same time, recognising the needs of industry and the difficulties it has - certainly small and medium-sized enterprises - in achieving some of the standards laid down in this proposal.
We think that the common position is in large part acceptable.
It has for the most part taken in a large number of the amendments we tabled at first reading.
But we do not think it is perfect.
The rapporteur has quite correctly addressed some of the deficiencies of the common position and the Socialist Group will certainly support the amendments he has tabled.
We hope the Commission will do so also.
I and other colleagues have complemented his amendments with several others, seeking to plug the holes through which some of the VOCs might still continue to escape from the common position and cause problems for us.
Finally, I feel the Commission must support us and press for these amendments with the Council.
They will undoubtedly bring about a significant improvement in the technical proposals within the directive will continue to strengthen protection for human health and the environment and fully and properly establish a level playing field across the Union, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises, in such a way that they can achieve the objectives of these proposals and at the same time remain viable, effective and functioning businesses.
I would urge the Commission and the Council to accept these amendments and give us a directive that we in the European Union can all be proud of.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Council text on the common position is a considerable improvement to the original Commission proposal.
In the PPE's view the common position constitutes a balanced regulation for restricting VOC emissions, from both an ecological and an economic point of view.
The proposed measures can achieve the goal of an EU-wide reduction in the emission of VOCs resulting from the use of organic solvents in the biggest industrial and commercial sectors by at least 50 % by the year 2010, by comparison with 1990. This Directive is thus an important step towards reducing the precursors to ground level ozone and therefore to fighting Europe's summer smog.
As Professor Cabrol has already said, we have here practicable regulations on authorisation and registration procedures for the approximately 400 000 predominantly small and medium-sized enterprises in Europe.
The numerous amendments that the European Parliament tabled at first reading have also contributed substantially to these improvements.
Where Parliament has only been partly successful is in restricting these national reduction plans, as they are known, to existing installations.
Unfortunately at second reading the Socialist Group withdrew its support for our amendment completely eliminating national reduction plans.
These plans are useless in protecting Europe's environment.
Proof for me of the ineffectiveness of national action plans and reduction plans is the European Commission's report on the implementation of the Nitrate Directive.
I cannot begin to understand why the Commission is holding on to the instrument of national plans in spite of all the negative experiences we have had.
We shall certainly have the opportunity to examine the results of these measures over the next few years.
The rapporteur, Professor Cabrol, has kindly included some of the amendments which neither the Commission nor the Council took into account, but which were particularly important to us, for example the request for additional rules on the marketing of products containing solvents.
In the main, therefore, our Group can support the present amendments.
Mr President, the late hour stands in stark contrast to the importance of the proposal we are now debating.
It is indeed a question of a good or a bad life, or even death, for many people who work with or are exposed to VOCs.
We therefore have good reason to thank both the Commission and the Council for not bowing to the massive pressure from industry, which was in favour of getting the matter shelved.
These substances may be said to be doubly dangerous.
On the one hand they are carcinogenic and cause brain damage and many other forms of damage by their direct effects, i.e. on people who work with the substances.
That is a major risk in a large number of working environments.
On the other hand, if they are released into the natural environment, they can undergo chemical or physical changes and, amongst other things, create an ozone layer.
As good and necessary a thing as that may be 10 km above the earth, it is harmful at ground level.
It can harm both people and animals.
Raised ozone concentrations constitute a formidable health risk.
A number of studies have shown that peaks in ozone concentrations bring with them serious disorders, such as asthma, eye diseases, constant headaches and, in extreme cases, death.
With the directive and Mr Cabrol's report we have moved a step further in the right direction.
The ELDR Group cannot support all the amendments, because we do not actually feel that they all represent improvements.
But there is one amendment I would mention in particular, which is Amendment No 1, because it is the only solution to the problem.
We cannot protect ourselves against the problems arising from VOCs.
There is no use trying to do that.
We must quite simply be rid of them.
The aim is straightforward: VOCs must be replaced by a better product, and that is precisely what Amendment No 1 demands.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that Mrs Dybkjær has pointed out very strongly the dangers associated with these volatile organic substances.
For my Group I can say that we are not very happy with the compromise that has been reached.
It is more than lax, and hardly constitutes an ambitious approach.
The common position merely stipulates that values which have been in force in the Federal Republic of Germany since 1987 should be implemented in the EU only by 2007.
That is absolutely ridiculous, because it means that standards that already apply in Germany would only need to come into force in the EU 20 years later.
I think that belies all claims that this proposal is revolutionary.
Nevertheless, I think that Parliament has taken two initiatives that are very worthy of support. The first is a Directive on paints, as we know that a third of all paints are also responsible for VOCs.
In the future we should be looking at developing and using more water-soluble paints, rather than those based on organic substances.
Secondly, and this is something which particularly concerns me, it is essential that we launch an initiative for people who have been harmed by solvents.
Mrs Dybkjær has just indicated once again the problem of carcinogenic substances, especially for people who come into contact with them in the workplace.
Considering that these people often suffer life-long damage we really should be doing everything possible to make sure they receive more rights.
We must also be resolute in fighting for greater safety, particularly for employees, in order to drastically reduce the number of people harmed by solvents.
In this day and age we really should not be exposing people to this danger to their health by negligence.
Mr President, the present Directive is a further step towards a strategy to combat ozone, one which the European Union desperately needs.
We know that the Union area is permanently covered by a layer of tropospheric ozone. The slightest incident can cause this layer to become so concentrated that it may endanger health, and even in areas where the air is clean, plants may be damaged to a degree that has serious consequences for agriculture.
A number of Member States have shown that we could have been stricter, which is why it is no surprise that Parliament has once again tabled an amendment that states: 'Member States which have progressed further than the Community in substituting dangerous organic solvents must be permitted to impose more stringent restrictions'.
I think that we will have to continue in this way, and if necessary look again at whether abandoning the use of VOCs cannot be done more quickly, perhaps even before 2007, especially in the paint industry where many alternatives are already available. Or maybe we could move over to more closed systems in companies so that fewer harmful substances can leak out.
I also think that it is very important to worry not only about the health of the general population, but also to direct our attention to those people working in factories and workshops, and who come into contact with such substances.
We should introduce special programmes for them, to restore their health or to prevent it from being too seriously damaged.
Mr President, let me begin by congratulating Mr Cabrol on a well-drafted new report.
Some points are not fully developed, however, and I would underline what Mrs Dybkjær said just now, namely that the main purpose of this exercise should be to replace VOCs once and for all.
They belong to a bygone age.
New technical solutions will have to be found.
It is no good telling just the big companies to comply with the directive.
It may seem strange, but most operators in this sector are in fact small or medium-sized businesses. And they are now being offered exemptions.
We appear to be shooting ourselves in the foot.
We have a prime opportunity here to illustrate how the needs of the environment and the demand for jobs can be reconciled. This is something we have talked about on many occasions, and it is a real pity that the report fails to address the question adequately.
Everyone knows that substitutes for VOCs exist.
We could surely strike out a little more boldly with these directives that affect our future.
The solutions advocated take us backwards, not forwards and I regret that.
The environment makes no distinction between small and medium-sized companies.
It does not say 'Oh, those emissions are coming from a small plant, never mind.'
The consequences are the same, regardless of the size of the works concerned.
If I had a wish, it would be for a little bit more imagination to be shown. Let us find solutions for tomorrow's world, and leave these symbols of the past behind.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.15 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 10 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Schierhuber has the floor.
Mr President, my name is Schiedermeier!
Mr President, I only found the Minutes of 19 October, in other words Monday's Minutes, in my pigeon hole yesterday afternoon, and although I was present and signed in, unfortunately my name is not on the list of attendance.
Could I ask you to correct that?
Mr Schiedermeier, I must apologise to you on two counts.
Firstly because due to my age and the distance involved, I had not recognised you, and secondly because there is indeed an error in the Minutes, which will be corrected.
Thank you.
Mr President, my name does not appear on yesterday's attendance list, although I was, of course, here.
I would like this to be corrected.
Thank you.
Very well, Mrs Lalumière, that error will be corrected.
You will be included in the list.
(The Minutes were approved) Now, following our usual practice, I shall address the House in order to open the debate on the state of the Union.
State of the Union - Meeting of heads of state and government of 24/25 October
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, this is the last debate on the state of the Union to be held before the end of the current parliamentary term, that is to say, before the elections due in June 1999.
I will not, however, succumb to the temptation of summing up the current term.
It is too soon to do so, and much can be achieved in eight months.
Nor shall I anticipate Parliament's position in the run-up to the informal meeting of heads of state and government.
I should like to express my gratitude to Chancellor Klima for convening it, and for extending an invitation for Parliament to take part in one of these informal summits for the first time.
It will provide an opportunity for us to express our initial thoughts on the future of our Union in the coming century. Today's debate will help us to formulate Parliament's contribution.
We are gathered here today at a time when the sunny outlook before us just a few months ago has been overshadowed by two crises - in Asia and Russia - and by the danger of these causing a domino effect which would affect other parts of the world.
In addition, there seemed to be a paucity of leadership at world level for a time.
Nevertheless, news received in the last few days does seem to suggest that the mechanisms for responding to the crisis have moved into action and that the danger of a widespread recession is receding.
Thanks to the launch of the euro and the process of restructuring and economic convergence leading up it, the Union has withstood the upheavals in the money markets well.
As a result of its union, this part of Europe has become a solid, stable and powerful trading and economic bloc.
Such an achievement should not be overlooked or undervalued..
Nevertheless, our union has not made us invulnerable, nor could it.
An open economy, as ours in the Union already is, could not continue to expand if the rest of the world went into recession.
For our own sake, therefore, we must not remain passive but adopt an active stance, using all our influence to promote stability in those areas where the crisis could affect us most.
I have in mind first Russia, our nearest and most powerful neighbour.
We should offer every assistance to enable Russia to make a successful transition to democracy and the market economy. This transition is proving much longer, more painful and more complex than had been anticipated.
We should also give strong support to the processes of unification and liberalisation in Latin America, not only to develop an ever more attractive market, but also to consolidate the progress made along the road back to democracy.
For this active policy to be implemented, the Council must take the necessary measures to ensure the effective external representation of the eleven Member States in the euro area, as agreed at the Cardiff European Council.
There is no need to invent complicated structures or a new Mr Euro.
Many-headed giants are only frightening in fairy-tales.
Applying the institutional framework of the Treaty of Rome to this area also will suffice. After all, it has so far proved the best suited to the needs of a united Europe.
Certain weaknesses in this framework have of course become evident over the years.
Some of these can be remedied without calling another intergovernmental conference, and we have no time to lose.
There is an urgent need for the Union to define a political approach.
To start with our own response to the need to review with these weaknesses, Parliament is required to adapt its procedures to the new powers conferred on it by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In this connection, work on the adjustment of its Rules of Procedure and administrative structures is fairly well advanced. A proposal for a European electoral system based on common principles has been drafted.
A draft common Statute for Members should be ready by the beginning of December. Quite clearly, Parliament has not waited for the Treaty to enter into force before outlining the rules needed to make it more efficient and to strengthen the independence and democratic accountability of its Members.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I trust the Council and the Commission will respond to our cooperation and hard work by undertaking to study and discuss these documents as soon as possible.
This same desire to anticipate the entry into force of the Treaty has been evident in our Parliament's relations with the national parliaments.
The positive attitude of the latter has facilitated ever closer and stronger cooperation over the past year. Such cooperation has extended to preparations for the planned reform of the Treaties, which will be the subject of an interparliamentary summit immediately prior to the Vienna European Council.
Clearly, this proactive attitude highlights the urgency of ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Parliament has organised its work so as to make it possible for Agenda 2000 to be debated and approved at second reading, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Lastly, I must stress yet again that amendment of the Treaties is not a precondition for an interinstitutional agreement providing for the Parliament to be consulted prior to the major decisions to be taken by ECOFIN in the context of economic and monetary union.
The present situation is obviously undemocratic and unacceptable where such a sensitive issue is concerned.
It can only be remedied through the involvement of this House.
In 1958, the Council was a directorate composed of six members.
By 1998 it has become a committee of 15 members, soon to be increased to 21 and later to 27 or 30.
In other words, it is an amalgamation of committees whose number is also increasing.
For it to operate effectively, certain measures are called for which require the reform of the Treaties.
Such measures include a new procedure for taking majority decisions, and the creation of an efficient presidency. The present system of rotation every six months and spreading the presidency among a number of ministers does not seem appropriate.
Nevertheless, there is scope for improving the coordination of the Councils and the preparation of their decisions in advance of the reform.
The larger the political bodies, the greater the need for coordination.
A convoluted decision-making structure, involving the proliferation of specialised councils which fail to coordinate their activities, is inefficient by nature.
This was proved in sixteenth- century Spain, and we ought to learn from history.
The same could happen to our Union if coordination between the various memberships of the Council is not strengthened.
I am delighted that the current presidency has taken the initiative here. However, I do wonder whether it is appropriate for Foreign Ministers to continue coordinating Councils at which decisions with enormous implications for the internal affairs of Member States are being taken.
In practice, the tendency seems to be rather for the European Council to assume this role. Its members alone are empowered to carry out the necessary arbitration, at both internal and Union level.
Improvements to the Council's operation are not all that is required.
Prior to the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Council must take some far-reaching decisions, on the integration of the Schengen package into the Union's arrangements, for instance, and on the institutional and organisational aspects of the new framework.
Such decisions are essential to the creation of a European area of freedom, security and justice, and should be taken at the Vienna European Council. This should not be too much toask.
If they are postponed, it will probably be too late.
As regards the Commission, it must adopt the new role assigned to it under the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Its role is now like that of parliamentary governments.
On the one hand, it is called upon to take the lead where the budget, legislative and political issues are concerned, and on the other it must, in a spirit of loyalty, fully accept Parliament's control.
Expressed in the clearest possible terms, this amounts to the following.
Firstly, implementing, with no prevarication or delay, any corrective measures adopted as a result of control - in the case of mad cow disease, for instance. Secondly, unreserved acceptance of what is a prerequisite for any control procedure, namely that it is the body carrying out the control, in other words Parliament, which decides on the data and documents required to enable it to carry out its task.
The data and documents should be handed over without further ado.
It is equally important for the Commission to carry out its duties with the good of the Union as a whole in mind.
There has been a tendency of late for the Commissioners to act as representatives of national positions and interests. This duplicates the Council's function, achieves nothing, and could indeed be very dangerous.
I think we should always remember that the Commission is fulfilling its role effectively when it presents European solutions to European problems, outlining a European policy which must not, by definition, favour one state or group of states.
Institutional reforms are not required here either, only a return to the original spirit of the Union.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, the Union came into being because a group of outstanding Europeans realised the need to pool resources and policies in order to overcome the legacy of the war. We have prospered over the last 40 years, through the creation firstly of a common trading area, and later a common currency.
Agriculture and much of industry have been run jointly too. We have shaped the future together, and not gained ground at the expense of others.
In this way, it has been possible to maintain and consolidate the European social and economic model, a model which is strongly cohesive, based on the concepts of social and territorial solidarity.
We are now called upon to rise to great challenges: the enlargement of the Union to Central and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and Malta, the strengthening of internal security to create that great area of freedom and justice, and the development of our external action.
If we depart from the approach which has proved so successful and let ourselves be guided by the demands of poorly understood national interests, allowing the mechanisms for solidarity to be downgraded and policies and resources to be renationalised, we shall be unable to rise to these challenges.
I sincerely hope that Parliament will continue to be the guardian of that philosophy of joint progress and that it will tackle the difficult issues of Agenda 2000, the changed financial outlook and the fight against unemployment in a spirit of social and fiscal justice. We should work towards a Union financed by each and every one of its citizens, in proportion to their means.
That will enable enlargement to strengthen rather than loosen the links in the Community.
An effort of political will is required to offer Europeans a more clearly defined and better future.
This Parliament hopes that the will to do so will be displayed at the Pörtschach meeting.
It is my firm belief, however, that we can do a great deal, starting here and now, to ensure that the European Union takes a lead, as it should do, in world politics. We can also ensure that it remains an area of stability and economic development, whilst continuing to uphold the principles of solidarity and cohesion.
Thank you for your attention.
I now give the floor to the President-in-Office of the European Council, Mr Klima.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure and honour to address you for the first time in this House in the debate on the state of the Union, about the present and future state of our Union a few days before the informal meeting of the heads of state and government in Pörtschach.
Mr President, I am also pleased that you have accepted my invitation to discuss the European Parliament's views with the EU heads of state and government, something I was very much in favour of, since I believe that good cooperation between the European institutions is most important to our common success.
And we have achieved important successes in recent years.
Allow me at this point, as President-in-Office of the European Council, also to thank Helmut Kohl for contributing so much to our common Europe.
They are successes we would never have thought possible only a few years ago: economic convergence and the participation of a broad group of states in economic and monetary union, the beginning of the accession process for new Member States, the first steps in implementing a common employment strategy.
This has given European integration a new quality, one which also presents our common policy with new challenges and means that we must redefine our future journey along the road to integration.
One thing is clear when we look at the final destination: the process of economic integration that is now nearing completion cannot be the end of the project of European unification.
From the outset this was a political project, a project to guarantee peace and to realise the values that are so characteristic of Europe: the values of democracy, social balance and cultural diversity.
So the road towards a new Europe is not a road into the unknown, for these European values act as clear signposts.
I am firmly convinced that the European economic and social model is the best basis for pursuing the further development of our continent.
However, this means that we must also muster the necessary resolve to innovate, and to adapt this model to the challenges of our time.
It is especially important, at a time when undertakings are operating on an international basis and the economy has become global, to act at supranational level in political terms too, so as to ensure that the harmonisation of social and environmental standards improves rather than worsens the human condition; one instance would be for Europe to adopt common positions at the WTO negotiations.
The successes of the past show that we have good reason to be optimistic for the future.
They have shown that it is possible to achieve ambitious aims, provided the necessary political will is there.
We are not the victims of international economic events, even though we do of course all know that individual countries now have less political room for manoeuvre than in the past.
But by acting together, at national, European and global level, we can take effective measures, which we must indeed do for the sake of employment and our people.
Let me now address some of the main challenges.
We can rightly say that, even before its official introduction, the euro has already gone through its baptism of fire.
It has proved a pole of stability in the international monetary system in regard to the financial crises in Asia and Russia, and now also in Latin America.
However, we cannot simply assume that Europe will not be affected at all if the situation on the financial markets worsens.
So Europe will have to take on its international economic responsibility and make its contribution to combating the financial crisis and strengthening international economic growth.
That is also in our own interest and will ensure that we have the conditions for stability and growth in the Union.
To that end, we need to make the appropriate reforms to the international financial architecture.
Several proposals are now on the table and we should reach agreement on them quickly.
I am confident that the Finance Ministers will soon put recommendations on the matter before us.
But we also need an economic policy mix that is effective enough to fully exploit the potential for growth in Europe.
If the euro is to succeed, we will have to use the opportunities we have to carry out further economic reforms, coordinate economic policy more closely with all the players involved, hold a dialogue on monetary policy too - which I consider most important, although we must not, of course, call the independence of the European Central Bank into question - find a rapid solution to the external representation of the euro zone and, last but not least, of course, continue working towards stable exchange rates.
We will be discussing the questions and expectations of the heads of state and government in relation to this subject in detail in Pörtschach.
Without exaggeration, we can say that 1998 will enter into the history of the Union.
With the accession process that began under the UK Presidency in March, the citizens of the European Union and the citizens of the future Member States now have a chance for the first time to bring Europe together in peace and freedom, after all the countless conflicts.
Today, only a few years after the opening-up eastwards, it already seems a matter of course that democracy and the rule of law have been established in the Central and Eastern European countries.
There is no doubt that the people of these countries are primarily responsible for their democracy and stability.
But I believe that the prospect of joining our European Union has also played its part.
We must now promote this process rapidly and with the necessary care.
Austria is very proud that it will manage during its presidency - in fact as early as 10 November - to start practical negotiations on the first chapters with six applicant states.
We regard that as an important signal, a signal also called for by the European Parliament.
But we must also ensure that this process is an open one and obeys objective criteria: open for those states that satisfy the conditions of the Luxembourg decisions in the light of the Copenhagen criteria; objective in relation to the extent to which the performance of the individual candidates satisfies the accession criteria.
In that context, the European Council in Vienna will also be looking into the progress made by all applicants for accession in fulfilling the accession criteria.
The applicant countries are our partners in the enlargement process and our colleagues in tomorrow's Union.
They have already achieved a great deal but there remain difficult tasks to tackle, for which they need our common support.
Here we must always bear in mind that enlargement of the Union benefits both us and the applicant countries.
We must not disappoint the hopes of the citizens of the applicant countries, but at the same time we should remain honest and realistic in the aims we set.
Everyone must realise that enlargement of the European Union must be carefully planned, so that both the existing Member States and the applicant states can prepare for it.
I am assuming that the appropriate transitional periods will be fixed in sensitive areas, such as the free movement of workers and services, in the interests of the applicant countries but also in the Member States' interests.
The Union of tomorrow which the applicants will join must and will look quite different from today's Union.
The negotiations on the future of the common agricultural policy, on a balanced structural policy, on financial support for the applicant countries and on the efficient use of financial resources for the Union for the first seven years of the next century are without doubt a touchstone for the solidarity of our Community.
In Cardiff, we undertook to make considerable progress on the main components of the package by the next European Council in Vienna.
The Austrian Presidency is working very hard to carry forward the negotiations in order to achieve this objective.
Let me strongly emphasise, however, that this will require the necessary will and solidarity on the part of all the Member States.
I also know that you in this Parliament are taking a very close look at all the aspects of Agenda 2000, to help ensure that it can be concluded in good time, and let me stress how important cooperation between the Council and Parliament is in this particular process if Agenda 2000 is to be achieved during the current parliamentary term.
Our citizens probably regard a successful employment policy as the biggest challenge on the road towards further integration.
Anyone who remembers how strongly some Member States resisted a common employment policy before the Luxembourg summit will, I hope, be glad to note the very definite swing in opinion today.
Employment policy has now become a fixed component of European economic policy.
(Applause) And we are becoming ever more persuaded that we must pursue an employment policy at all levels, at global level just as at European and national level.
What we must do now, and what the citizens of Europe expect of us, is to show the same resolve and consistent approach we demonstrated when we the adopted the convergence criteria.
As you know, the structure and the problems of the national employment markets differ.
Accordingly, the draft report on employment which the Commission submitted last week shows that the Member States have prepared very different packages of measures, in each case adapted to their particular problems.
But in my view that still means that we must develop a monitoring system to clearly reflect how seriously we take the whole process; here too the Commission's report on employment offers very positive suggestions.
But I hope that in future we will embark on a road that takes us beyond what we have achieved so far.
As you know, in Luxembourg last year not all the Member States endorsed the practical definition of quantitative aims.
At the time, some states argued that one should not arouse unrealistic expectations and that employment policy did not lie only within the governments' sphere of influence, but is also strongly influenced by the social partners.
I can understand these arguments, but would point out that clear aims can also be realistic aims.
The Member States have already demonstrated that with their national action plans for employment.
Clear aims can also be self-chosen aims that can relate to each Member State's specific problems.
Clear aims must guarantee an efficient and transparent monitoring procedure, without restricting the Member States' right to choose their specific package of measures.
Clear aims by no means preclude the need to include the social partners in the responsibility for employment policy.
On the contrary: in my view an effective employment policy also means an effective social dialogue, it means realising that cooperation offers both parties more than conflict does, which is why it will also become necessary; it is our common intention to promote and strengthen this social dialogue in Europe.
(Applause) You know that employment policy must be broadly based, that there are no longer any patent remedies and that we must therefore examine the impact on employment of all policy areas.
That includes, for instance, the key area of enhanced support for research and technology.
Europe has a great potential in research and technology.
We must simply make better use of that potential in future. We must use it by creating the right conditions for translating the research findings of the universities into new products and processes, and hence into new jobs.
We must make better use of the dimensions and of the synergies of our common Europe, our common market.
That is why I hope we will soon manage to find a solution that enables us to conclude the fifth framework programme on research and technology, in which we emphasise this need.
It is not just a question of technology, it is a question of future jobs.
Mr President, I have listened to your statement with great interest.
When we meet you, the heads of state and government and the President of the Commission in Pörtschach in four days' time, you will have a chance to take stock and to consider the improvements needed in order to make Europe more acceptable to the citizens of the Union.
We began to discuss the future of Europe in Cardiff; this process should be intensified in Pörtschach and be continued at the Vienna European Council and during the forthcoming presidencies.
In my view - and all the heads of state and government I visited during my tour of the capitals in the last few days agree - Pörtschach will send out the signal that a single market and currency are not the be-all and end-all of European integration.
(Applause) We will have to discuss a timetable for enhancing economic stability and employment, internal security and Europe's political role in the world.
These are matters that directly affect the citizens, where they expect us to make progress.
That is what is meant by a policy close to the people.
And of course that means that we need viable institutions that promote policies that bring Europe closer to the interests of the people in an efficient and democratically credible manner.
That is my understanding of subsidiarity.
Let me now address two points that I am sure will not be raised at Pörtschach.
There will be no question of halting or even reversing the process of integration and attacking or weakening the institutions.
Nor can there be any question at this point of embarking on those institutional reforms on which no agreement could be reached in Amsterdam until all the Member States have ratified the Amsterdam Treaty.
What must be discussed at Pörtschach is our institutional future and, even more importantly, how to breathe life into the Amsterdam Treaty, which of course already contains a number of new measures to bring the Union closer to the people.
As President-in-Office of the European Council, I have invited you, Mr President, to Pörtschach because I am convinced that it is up to all of us together to determine this new road for Europe to follow, for I am sure that the European Parliament can and will make a significant contribution here.
In the next millennium Europe must acquire more political power alongside its economic power.
Of course we are still far from achieving a viable foreign and security policy today.
But we should remember that other major integration projects, such as the single currency, were also rejected as utopian in the early days.
I personally am convinced that in future the European Union will need a stronger common foreign and security policy. That will serve as an important instrument for securing peace in the world.
Europe must be visible to the outside world and manage to speak with one voice if it is to be able to take common action with its partners.
That is why we have decided to take a first step in the right direction and if possible to appoint the official referred to in the Amsterdam Treaty, Herr or Frau GASP, Monsieur or Madame PESC or Mr or Mrs CFSP, during the Vienna Council.
This must and will be followed by further steps, because the development of a common foreign and security policy will determine the future quality of the Union.
Transatlantic relations will always play an important role here.
But we also need a European dimension, for only then can and will Europe be a strong partner for its friends.
The men and women of Europe expect us to view the challenges of the twenty-first century not so much as a risk but as an opportunity, and to tackle them openly on the basis of our European values.
Let us continue to work together on building our great European project, which offers us security and stability.
Let us continue to build on the foundations laid down by our founding fathers.
Let us jointly build on this opportunity.
There is still much work to be done!
(Applause)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the European Council, Mr President of the Commission, on the eve of the informal summit in Pörtschach, the first summit under the Austrian Presidency, what state is the Union in?
I would like to begin by welcoming the efforts of the Austrian Presidency in a certain number of areas that I would look at in more detail if I had time.
These include, for example, human rights.
Recently, in Vienna, a number of Members of the European Parliament attended the ceremonies commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in which Austria participated, and we can vouch for its efforts in this respect.
Similarly, in the fields of culture and audiovisual media, Austria is endeavouring to move several issues forward.
I could go on, but I would like, in particular, to highlight the issues that invariably reappear and that are becoming more and more worrying every day.
In Pörtschach, Chancellor, as you have just said, you are going to discuss the future of the Union, its objectives and its raison d'être .
That is all very well. Such basic reflection is essential, but we already know that one of the elements of this future is the forthcoming enlargement.
And indeed, among the decision-makers and the public in general, we can sense uneasiness and fears.
You yourself, Chancellor, said in Luxembourg last March that enlargement was certainly necessary, but that it was not exactly enthusiastically welcomed.
Without concealing the difficulties, is it not essential today to put more emphasis on the progress and positive aspects of enlargement? A statement from you in this direction would be very welcome.
You have already begun, this morning, to send out this optimistic message, without ignoring the reality of the situation.
As regards the necessary reform of the institutions as a result of enlargement, I know that you are waiting for the final ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam before you really tackle this issue.
But I do not think that it is premature to put forward innovative ideas concerning the operation of the Council of Ministers, not forgetting the necessary coordination of the various Councils of Ministers.
The President of the Commission has just talked about the operation of the European Parliament - and I would stress here the need for a Statute for Members of this Parliament - and the operation of the Commission.
He also spoke of greater coordination of economic policies, particularly within the euro area, and the institutional resources required for this cooperation and for the euro area to be represented beyond our borders.
In a third fundamental area, that of the Union's finances, the Austrian Presidency can make a valuable contribution on resources and expenditure.
As far as expenditure is concerned, I would like to stress that solidarity must continue to be one of the main guidelines for the Union's actions.
Solidarity must not, of course, lead to waste, but budgetary austerity must not serve to undermine solidarity or - and this is something that you all hold dear - social justice.
It is time to consider a possible change in the way we look at our resources. Should we keep VAT or look for resources based on income?
This is a good question that we are considering at the moment. How can we avoid the mistake of renationalising common policies, particularly the CAP?
Should we introduce a major system of European loans to encourage investment that generates employment, since employment is our priority? Finally, can we avoid reviewing the method for calculating the contributions of our different countries?
These are important questions that must be considered in the very near future.
In conclusion, Mr President, I will say a brief word on the CFSP.
Once again, the Union has appeared hesitant and absent on the international scene in recent months.
We hope that in December, the appointment of someone with overall responsibility for the CFSP, a male or female politician - and I stress the word politician - will mean that we can give real impetus to this policy that is so vital for the Union's future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are at least two ways of assessing the current state of the Union: the first is the one rejected by Mrs Spaak yesterday, the bureaucratic and formalistic way, namely to enumerate the legislative or other activities carried out during the period concerned; the second is to evaluate the processes under way in the Union with reference to the international context and the economic and social situation of the Member States, so as to reflect on the political nature of the European venture and fine-tune its aims.
If we take this second approach, we must acknowledge with some disappointment that no progress whatsoever has been made.
The Amsterdam Treaty is one cause of this stagnation, this political paralysis, but not the only one: the other is bad will on the part of governments, and the intergovernmental method has proved unfit to overcome the institutional difficulties.
As we have stated before, Amsterdam is one of the most insipid fruits to have been borne by the low-profile UK Presidency, at a time when the Union's aims need to be redefined and adjusted in the light of the profound changes being brought about by the single currency and enlargement.
If there is merely to be a mechanical listing of what has been done, then we must denounce clearly and firmly the comatose state of the operation, which is only making progress - alas - in the declarations made by those in power.
Yet again the Union has been unable to respond in unison, as it should have done, to the challenges of the crisis in Kosovo: no joint proposals for a solution to that problem have been forthcoming at diplomatic level, and no concrete initiatives have been put forward to throw the Union's weight behind the negotiations.
Almost all the governments regard the UN as a precondition and NATO as a guarantee here, as if to shirk any direct responsibility of their own.
And what about Europe? And our foreign and security policy?
Whatever became of the eagerly anticipated planning and evaluation unit, which was to ensure the coherence and effectiveness of our policy in a truly joint operation, making the Union's foreign policy more visible to public opinion?
Until such time as the political union is launched, we shall have cause to repeat year in, year out this tokenistic, meaningless ritual of discussing the state of the Union.
The state of the Union should at long last be tackled by pursuing common European policies.
Mr President, I believe that Pörtschach is a major opportunity for the resumption of an institutional political dialogue.
We are all aware that no decisions will be taken at Pörtschach, which is to be an informal summit, but this, in a sense, might make it easier to take stock of the political will to carry Europe forward.
In my opinion, it would be quite an achievement if, on the eve of enlargement and the adoption of the euro, Pörtschach were to contemplate the deepening of the Union and Europe's new position in the world, because both the external representation of Europe and a means of balancing stability with growth will clearly have to be addressed.
If employment really is one of our aspirations, how can we establish a link between Europe and employment policies unless we create a relationship between stability and growth?
I am thinking in terms of an area of freedom, security and justice where human beings - and not just goods - can move around freely, with all the associated problems concerning jobs, legislation, judicial guarantees, security and basic rights.
How can a new balance be established here between the national and the supranational dimensions, both of them necessary? That is the point.
Mrs Green referred to the need for our citizens to feel a sense of belonging to Europe: that sense of belonging can take shape most effectively in an area of freedom, security and justice.
It is therefore necessary to continue building a European democracy and to determine a new balance between the institutions of the Union.
We need to know who does what.
This is why, in accordance with the work programme drawn up at Cardiff, our resolution stresses the importance of subsidiarity to the shaping of democracy; without demonising it, we place it within certain limits.
In the resolution to be put to the vote tomorrow, we reject subsidiarity as a pretext for the renationalisation of Community policies, we reject fears of over-centralisation in the Union, and we reject the idea of creating another institution or body to take responsibility for subsidiarity. We highlight the connection between subsidiarity and solidarity, as well as between subsidiarity and cohesion.
We have sent an important political message to national parliaments by drawing up this resolution together with some of their representatives.
This implies a change, since we must overcome the mutual diffidence of the past.
I do believe that it is vital to minimise the grey areas and emphasise fields for cooperation.
Finally, Mr President, Mr Santer among others spoke of taking a fresh look at institutional policy.
I agree with what he said: there is a need for both more and less Europe.
In my view, we also need a political Europe.
For example, our foreign policy has need of appropriate institutions, and in the field of employment it should be possible to take decisions at European level, but by the same token there should be more delegation of powers when it comes to implementing decisions, so as to create a fresh equilibrium between the Member States and the Union, because there really is a problem here.
Administration should therefore be less partial: all the institutions must become more democratic and more efficient, and it is no accident that we have insisted on proportionality.
Last of all, I believe that certain things can be done without amending the Treaties; others cannot.
Amendment implies a new method of revising the Treaties, and we shall strive to ensure that, once Amsterdam has been ratified, the Commission takes the initiative of consulting all the institutions about Treaty reform.
Madam President, as we debate the state of the Union, I think it is appropriate to refer to the comparison made between our Union and a Gothic cathedral. The President-in-Office is very familiar with Gothic cathedrals, as he comes from a city with one of the best in Europe.
Gothic cathedrals were the work of many generations. They were started in one style and finished in another.
I think that, at present, the European Union is just like a Gothic cathedral.
It is only half finished. There are pillars which do not support anything, galleries leading nowhere and we even have areas which are not provided with any type of Community safety net.
Furthermore, it is often said at the moment that the European Union grows at times of crisis. That is to say, when everything is normal, it develops very slowly, and then, at times of crisis, development is accelerated and the Union becomes stronger.
I believe that in the speeches they have made here today, the President of the Parliament, the President of the Council, and the President of the Commission have all pointed out just how a structure created for another purpose, the euro, has enabled us to withstand the international financial crisis.
The euro came about for other reasons but, thanks to the euro, our stock exchanges and our currencies remain unaffected. I do therefore agree with the view that the Union matures at difficult times, for it has become stronger as a result of the financial crisis.
Of course, the main problem facing the Union is that, like a typical Gothic cathedral, it is still unfinished.
Completion will take another two or three generations, and at present we need to consider how best to enlarge it.
Gothic cathedrals began as little Romanesque churches which were enlarged time and again until some of them encompassed the whole of an old city, as Vienna Cathedral does, for instance. We are being called upon now to enlarge our cathedral to accommodate the countries which lie between the Baltic and the Mediterranean.
Over a hundred million people are involved. They have a right to be here, and we must find ways of providing for them.
Well, there is one very simplistic solution. You could say, 'seeing that all these people will not fit into our cathedral, let us knock it down and start from scratch'.
In other words, 'Let us get rid of the common agricultural policy, Community funds, Community policies, and we can all start from scratch together'.
To use a German expression which can be translated into Spanish, this would amount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
So, Mr President of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, we are genuinely concerned that if we go down this road, we will end up without a cathedral or even a storehouse.
Arguments are currently under way over tiny percentages of the Community budget.
Countries which, for example, have what used to be a national port and has now become a Community port are complaining that they have to contribute too much to the Community budget.
I do feel, Mr President, that this is not the time to argue over tiny percentages. What we should be doing is pressing ahead with our great project, so that we can build a real home for the whole of Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have good reason today to take stock of the state of the European Union and also to consider the future and how to bring it closer to the citizens, because there is a strong sense of dissatisfaction at large.
In my view, it is not enough to hold big conferences at which the participants merely swap slogans, which may make for good sound bites on television but produce no results.
Mr President-in-Office, I therefore want to establish one thing quite clearly with a view to Pörtschach: the European Union's objectives, timescales and practical projects are all there; what is not there is the courage to take decisions, the courage of the national governments to take decisions.
The problem with the European Union is not the much-discussed Brussels centralism; it is the weakness in decision-making, the poor capacity to resolve problems on the part of the national governments and therefore of the Council.
What I hope Pörtschach will do is give clear political signals on the main problems.
A clear 'yes' to enlargement of the European Union, and under the same conditions we ourselves set in Europe, at a point when the countries concerned are able to fulfil these conditions, even at some political and financial cost.
A clear endorsement of institutional reform, the improvement of our decision-making structures, so that we remain capable of taking decisions, and a clear 'yes' to a common foreign and security policy that is really worthy of the name, in the interest of peace on this continent and in the world.
The focus of power in the European Union lies in the Council, the heads of government and the national governments.
They must act, they must decide, and therein lies the weakness in our present situation.
Hence my appeal to you to shed light on these fundamental weaknesses during your term of the presidency.
We in the European Parliament, the Members and the Commission will gladly help to promote the project of European integration in the interest of all our citizens.
But without doubt it is primarily up to you, up to the national governments to do so.
Madam President, we appreciate the desire of the President-in-Office of the Council to make progress towards a genuine political union, in order to promote employment and the development of the social model.
Yet we cannot help but point out the discrepancy between his intentions and the behaviour of our institutions in the face of current problems. We believe that it is particularly essential for the European institutions to assume their responsibilities in the face of the international financial crisis and the very real slowing down in growth that is bound to ensue.
The Member States have been guilty of maintaining a feeling of euphoria by saying that the euro marks the end of all the hard work and will give us permanent protection.
This is a totally false assessment and we face some very painful days ahead.
It is therefore the responsibility of the European Parliament to shake up the Council and the Commission.
The present circumstances force us to review the effects of the budgetary stability pact and the EU's monetary policy on the different national situations.
The Community is going to have to take initiatives to support economic activity and, in particular, to create plans for sustainable development.
What we need is genuine coordination of economic policies, with democratic controls.
We must get the instruments of solidarity working and the Union must, as a matter of urgency, define its views on how to regulate the global economy.
In order to pursue these objectives, we recommend a form of joint responsibility between the Council, the Commission and our parliamentary bodies.
The resolution by the Committee on Institutional Affairs is right to recommend qualified majority voting and to balance subsidiarity with solidarity.
But, in our opinion, it goes in the wrong direction by trying to confer the majority of executive power on the Commission.
The Commission cannot move forward without a Council that assumes its political responsibilities.
The European Parliament itself has a duty to promote public debate on the basic choices in economic, financial and social policy, in cooperation with the national parliaments and the civil society.
The House has failed in this task.
It must therefore reconsider its duties towards citizens, employers and trades union bodies, with a view to allowing them to become more involved in our institutional system.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, you said that the special Pörtschach summit should consider the future of Europe.
But the list of subjects on the agenda tells us that it is more likely to discuss everything and anything.
Many of us fear this meeting will turn out to be the most expensive boat trip in the history of the Union.
Mr President-in-Office, when politicians consider the future they should remember the promises they have made to the people and the tasks to be tackled in the present.
There is indeed no lack of broken promises and unfinished tasks in the Union.
We have been promised since Maastricht that the serious democratic deficits in the Union would be dealt with, that parliamentary and constitutional principles would be underpinned.
The people are still waiting, while the Council is not even able to make its legislation visible.
The democratic deficit of the European Union still goes by the same name - the Council.
It has promised us since Amsterdam to remove the internal barriers to EU enlargement.
We know that this requires a comprehensive reform of the EU institutions.
But so far the Council has not even managed to produce a binding timetable.
Instead, it tends to fuel fears about enlargement towards the east.
Since the decision on monetary union, we have been promised that European integration would be given a social dimension, that instead of a market and money-based Europe, we would have a political union, a social area.
But so far the political statements about fighting mass unemployment have not been followed by deeds.
No sign so far of a coordinated economic policy, of an end to fiscal and social dumping throughout Europe!
Council summits are increasingly turning into a bazaar of conflicting nationalist interests.
Mr President-in-Office, there are some things we do know about the future of Europe.
We know that it can only succeed as a democracy, that it must overcome the division of Europe, that it can only flourish in a climate of social peace.
The Pörtschach summit will be measured by whether it takes practical steps to open the door to this future a little wider.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, from one year to the next, the report on the state of the Union sends out the same message of self-satisfaction.
We are led to believe that 'euroland' would keep France safe from the chaos of the world, from the threat of an international recession, and from the fluctuations on the foreign exchange markets.
In reality, all the forecasts of economic growth are currently being revised downwards, not only in France but also in Germany, and we might wonder whether the 3 % government deficit target will be met in 1999.
On the subject of international economic relations, we should remember the statements made at the Uruguay Round, that $100 billion or $200 billion of additional wealth would be created in 10 years, particularly in South-East Asia and in the emerging countries, from which Europe would undoubtedly profit.
We should remember, too, the assurances given by Mr Delors, who, in 1994, in response to a question I put to him, promised that the preparatory phase of the euro would not involve any form of recession, and the ode to joy on 2 May this year, which only Mr Trichet spoiled, and which, at 3.00 p.m. precisely, should have announced the long-term prosperity ahead.
But, fortunately, we are protected by the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam, which will in future enable the people of Europe to do together whatever they no longer want to do alone.
In any case, with or without a legal pretext, you know that France's leaders will give you what you dare not even ask for, without asking for anything in return, and once you have it, you will hear these so-called leaders claim the fact that they have not asked for anything in return as a success for France.
Mr President of the Commission, your message appears to me to convey a certain weariness, because we are all aware of the artificial nature of the construction of Europe.
One day you will not be able to avoid the real question: what is all this for?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when Chancellor Kohl and Jacques Chirac wrote to Tony Blair a few months ago calling for Europe to be brought closer to the people, they were speaking from the hearts of many.
The people are aware that the list of the Union's shortcomings is a long one.
Let me just list the most recent headlines.
A Union of fraud cases and secret Council meetings, a Union unable to speak with one voice in foreign policy and take action in a common foreign and security policy; a Union that puts forward a best practice model while unemployment stands at 18 million.
The expectations of a political declaration on the subject raised by the subsidiarity letter have accompanied us right up to the special Pörtschach summit.
What signals will this special summit send out? Pörtschach is no longer concerned with closeness to the citizens.
Any debate on the meaning of subsidiarity has been buried prematurely with the lethal argument of renationalisation.
Pörtschach is concerned with the future of the Union, or so I have read.
But it does not want any quarrels about Agenda 2000 or net contributors.
Yet these questions that are to be excluded from the discussion are in fact questions of the future.
We are told that the institutional reform of the Union cannot be discussed at Pörtschach because Amsterdam has not yet been ratified.
The truth is, in my opinion, that the presidency of the Council is rather relieved to have this as an argument for not opening up a Pandora's box.
I fear that in Pörtschach nobody will be keen to burn their fingers on difficult issues. So they are to be left out of the discussion.
Yet many areas need reform, even without amending the Treaties.
This could have been a chance to show a little more courage and send out a signal for Europe.
If Pörtschach is to become a summit of missed opportunities, then I would ask you to consider, Mr President-in-Office, that the loss of credibility and sense of disappointment may lead people to ask: 'what for?'.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, what does the future of the Union depend on? It undoubtedly depends on two major advances.
The first is related to the need to define, codify and validate, through democratic consultation, the nature of the contract between the Union and its citizens, on the basis of the European social model and the values we hold dear.
We need to define this contract and establish goals which will allow us to regain the support of the people of Europe, to legitimize the action we take, to establish a sound basis for the courage needed, and to verify the accession requirements for new members.
We must also provide ourselves with the tools to exercise our responsibility and to assume our dynamic role, in the midst of global chaos, in order to contribute to better regulation.
Given this long-term perspective, what do we expect in the medium term from Pörtschach? We do not want any grand declarations.
It is an informal European Council.
Bravo!
Make sure it remains an informal European Council, Mr President; that is what we expect of you.
The agenda is already very crowded.
This informal European Council is welcome, and we will certainly need more of them.
It is only the start: you must then also make a success of Vienna, whose timetable is very full with the national action plans on employment and the question of the external representation of the euro. Do not overload the timetable.
Beyond this informal European Council, you will also have to discuss broad guidelines with the new Commission and the next European Parliament.
You must remember that.
So what are we hoping for from Pörtschach? We must start discussing these questions about our future and the institutional issue.
And do not tell us that you are going to wait until everyone has ratified the Treaty of Amsterdam, because, as you well know, for certain countries - and particularly my own - it is not enough to say: ratify first, then we will negotiate.
We know full well that the issues at stake are very complex, that the deadlines are short, and that the process of enlargement is already under way.
In order to ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam, some countries, including my own, need guarantees in terms of the timetable and method to be used for this reform of the institutions, for what is contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam today is not enough for us.
Let us now look briefly at the broad institutional guidelines as we would like to see them, on the basis of the proposals made by the chairman of our Committee on Institutional Affairs.
Yes, the General Affairs Council needs to be reformed.
And you have begun deliberations on this issue.
Well done!
You need to follow these deliberations through, transform the General Affairs Council into a purely Foreign Affairs and Defence Council, and set up a body to coordinate with senior ministers meeting once a week.
Great emphasis must be laid on this, while the importance of the Ecofin Council must be balanced out.
I have nothing against the Ministers for Economic Affairs and Finance, but they are not the most important generator of social transformation.
Next, as far as the Council-Commission balance is concerned, we must insist on the balance initially provided for by the authors of the Treaty, which is a fair one.
We must not over-interpret this or that provision of the Treaties to the benefit of one or other of the institutions.
That is not the way the Heads of State or Government have chosen to act up until now, and that is only fair.
We simply need a strong Commission and a strong Council.
In this respect, we need the Commission to rediscover its sense of collective responsibility and to drop the 'non-aggression pact' which it sometimes seems only too happy to hide behind.
I will not say anything on the Euro Council, despite the fact that there is a great deal that could be said, particularly as regards the dialogue that we will have to enter into with it.
I would like to make a last comment on subsidiarity.
This principle must not serve as a pretext for renationalisation.
It must promote effectiveness and cohesion, but we will not achieve this by defining groups of responsibilities.
There are numerous examples that demonstrate that we must act on all levels, with each of us doing what we are responsible for.
Madam President, two questions spring to mind in the context of this debate on the state of the Union and the Pörtschach informal summit.
First, what is the true state of the Union, and second, what can we hope for from the Pörtschach informal summit to help us out of the state we are in?
I believe, following the recent elections in a number of Member States - and the declarations by the Prime Minister of a certain small but rich Member State which is part of the European Union, threatening to veto the whole of Agenda 2000 if he does not receive a cheque like the British one - that what we are witnessing is, at the very least, a renationalisation of the Community debate.
I feel that we are placing far too much emphasis on a particular, though nevertheless valid vision of Europe. We are concentrating on the Europe of the net balance, the taxpayer and the beneficiary, a Europe of the cash register and material goods.
Europe, Madam President, is more than this. To use a phrase of Madariaga's, it is more than coal and steel.
As a result of placing too much emphasis on this vision of Europe which is, I would stress, a valid one, we are becoming blinkered and forgetting the basics: the Europe of values, of peace, of understanding, of harmony and of solidarity, yes, especially the Europe of solidarity, Mr Santer. As you have heard in the House this morning, Mr Santer, many of us believe that the Commission's report on the future of own resources is in fact a break with the line of solidarity, a backward step for the Commission, and a muddled exercise in which income and expenditure are confused and in which you threaten the powers of this Parliament as you refer to Community policies.
Europe has to wake up and get back on the right track. How can this be achieved?
By strengthening its internal operations through the provisions of the internal market and of economic and monetary union, and by making its presence felt in the world, because the European Union has to be more than the body which pays up and signs the cheques to sort out all the major disasters in today's world.
What can we hope for from the Pörtschach summit? There is no point in being too optimistic.
There will be no operational conclusions, as it is an informal summit.
What this Parliament is requesting is, in fact, the introduction of the Community method.
The President of Parliament has explained what duties lie with Parliament as of right.
For its part, the Commission must overcome its internal differences - it should be remembered that the ECHO case has shown up the differences between four Commissioners - and resolve to work in tandem with our Parliament, setting a course for the project of European integration.
The Council has to prioritise its objectives, and bring coherence and rigour to its work. It must understand too, once and for all, that if each Member State does not seek its own advantage within the common advantage, we shall have to relinquish some degree of sovereignty to other powers which are perfectly well aware of the benefits to be derived from union and integration.
I agree entirely with the majority of the objectives put forward by the President-in-Office of the Council, but I should just like to make a small correction concerning myths. Myths are a basic ingredient of human life, but what we have to do is to replace false myths with true ones.
True myths respect reality and yet are not content with it, they do not bring violence to bear on the present situation, but are not satisfied with it and aim higher, grafting our hopes and aspirations onto the present. Madam President, what we hope is that, as Mr Martens has said, Europe will not fail to live up to its aspirations to be a world leader in the twenty-first century.
Madam President, let me say a few words about this motion for a resolution from Mr De Giovanni and the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
It is a very federalist resolution.
Were it to be implemented, the countries of the Union would effectively be on the road towards a 'United States of Europe'.
What is the problem, you might ask. The problem is that there is no demand for any such thing in the Member States.
I come from northern Sweden and the calls for a stronger Commission, or for the integration of the WEU, are few and far between.
Opinion polls even show that only a fraction of those Swedes who are in favour of EU membership endorse these further developments.
The real problem with the EU is its lack of proper democracy and the absence of adequate scrutiny of legislation.
That is why we should now be demanding across-the-board democratisation. If we are to have a sound basis upon which to build, national parliaments must, in the foreseeable future, exercise oversight where the real legislative work is being done.
Madam President, the motion for a resolution by Mr De Giovanni on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs makes a series of assertions in the run-up to the Pörtschach meeting of heads of state and government.
Paragraph 22 states, for example, that we should lay the groundwork for the integration of the WEU's areas of competence into the EU sphere. This is effectively a call for militarisation of the Union and runs totally counter to the goal pursued by a majority of Green Group members, who seek to build a peace-loving, demilitarised Europe.
The Swedish Greens will be among those voting in favour of the alternative resolution put down by the Danish 'June Movement'. The Cardiff summit sent out a plea for greater democratic legitimacy and proper application of the subsidiarity principle.
This alternative resolution better reflects that view.
My colleagues and I will sadly have to vote against several amendments from our own group, in particular the one seeking to grant the European Court of Justice jurisdiction in the field of justice and home affairs.
Since judicial powers are invested in the Member States, we cannot support such calls.
Mr President, I should first like to remind you, and this is important in this debate on the state of affairs in the Union, that there is such a thing as the decision of the Karlsruhe Court, which specifies that the European Union is a union of states and not in any way a European superstate in the making. I believe that this fact and this decision cannot be repeated and confirmed often enough in this House.
Secondly, I should like to draw the attention of the President-in-Office of the Council to the fact that many areas of European decision-making are not only unclear and untransparent, but also fundamentally undemocratic.
This applies, for example, to the excessive power of senior civil servants appointed on a party political basis, namely the European Commission, and also to a great many European directives.
In my country, Flanders, there are still a great many problems connected with the transposition into Belgian law of the European directive of 19 December 1994 on voting rights for European citizens.
Both the Maastricht Treaty and this binding directive itself were approved with a simple majority in Flanders, despite the fact that under Belgian law a constitutional change to voting rights should only have been possible on the basis of a two-thirds parliamentary majority.
This supremacy in practice of a European directive over the Belgian Constitution means that Europe can override the constitutions of the Member States, which to my mind cannot be in line with a correct interpretation of the Union as a union of states in the sense of the binding Karlsruhe decision.
Flanders is facing the problem that granting voting rights to EU citizens in Brussels and Flemish Brabant will in practice mean an ethnic cleansing at the expense of Dutch-speaking Flemings.
Nobody in this House should therefore be surprised if, at the time of next year's elections for example, Europe proves extremely unpopular in Flanders.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, what some Members see as a summit that will weaken the European Union can, should, indeed must turn out to be a summit that strengthens the European Union.
That does not mean the European Union should take on everything and anything; no, in fact we should distinguish clearly between national and regional tasks.
But in what the Union can and should take on, it must show greater commitment and efficiency.
One example is the foreign and security policy, about which there has already been some discussion today.
We have seen from a number of recent examples that if the European Union pursues a common, clear and definite line it can be successful.
On the question of Kosovo, as we have said often enough: when the European Union took a united stand and when it coordinated with NATO, it managed to make Milosevic bow to its will.
And if we continue to take a united stand then, I believe, Milosevic and also the KLA will bow to it and begin peace talks.
On enlargement, we told the people of Slovakia and Latvia that we do indeed want to negotiate with them, but they must take a few more steps towards democracy, respect for human rights and the rights of minorities.
Both countries have now done so, which shows how successful we were.
It also shows, however, that we must now send out signals to the effect that we have understood, respect and support their efforts.
Mr President-in-Office, you spoke of the important decision to appoint a Mr or Mrs CFSP.
I too believe that this is an important decision.
But we must be clear that this has to be a strong personality, someone who can coordinate and negotiate with the members of the Commission and the individual countries.
In this area, uncoordinated action would do more harm than good.
Mr or Mrs CFSP must realise that too.
You made it plain that the social market economy is a model, a model that we have not just adopted in Europe.
I came back from Russia yesterday, where I noticed how ultra-liberal advisers, mostly of American origin, have put the wind up and misled the Russians, but also Europe, which means that there is much that we must now put right again together.
Of course Russia itself must also put matters right, since it is partly responsible for producing the entirely free market economy, especially given the conditions that have prevailed in Russia over the last few years.
My last comment, Mr President-in-Office, concerns Mr Medina's description of the European Union as rather like a Gothic cathedral.
But sometimes it looks more like a post-modern building with Greek columns, Italian piazzas all around, patios from Spain and Portugal, English and French gardens, bits of German Gothic and Austrian Baroque.
Even a structure like this can be attractive, but in the end it has to be based on a uniform plan.
I hope it will prove possible in Pörtschach to convince all the builders we have here in Europe - sadly there are not enough women builders - to apply all their different styles and nonetheless build a uniform, common structure.
To that end, I wish you much success in Pörtschach!
Madam President, it seemed to me - particularly in what the President-in-Office of the Council said - that I detected a new slant on the very important, high-profile issue of unemployment, which is hitting all developed societies very hard.
This is something new, because it has been said until now, both within and outside this House, that unemployment is a national problem, affecting the individual Member States and not the Union, which clearly has other matters to deal with.
At last we are discovering - or rather, rediscovering - that the Union too has a role to play.
In other words, politics is seeking to return to the arena from which ideology - in this instance a laissez-faire attitude - had sought to expel it.
Of course, we are only just taking stock of the problem - solutions are a long way off - but at least this is something, or rather it would be something if we could sweep away the ideological conviction that public institutions are nothing other than guardians of whatever the market is able to do by itself, as though economic policy were not an essential component of the introduction of the single currency.
The Council, however - and I congratulate it - has seen the need to follow up the euro with a harmonisation of economic policy, aiming not only for stability but also to fight unemployment, which degrades those affected by it but also reflects badly on those, both institutions and people, who perhaps shed a tear but do not engage their brains in respect of this problem.
As the Gospel puts it, 'Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven'.
All this re-opens the question of properly functioning institutions, one linked not so much to reforms of what already exists, but to the creation of what does not.
EU foreign policy, thus far confined to mere aspirations, proves the point well: for as long as the institutions remain bogged down - and unfortunately there seems to be very little movement here - we cannot have high hopes.
A foreign policy without a proper government, without a common army, is at the very most an exercise in rhetoric which smacks of irksome and inevitable impotence.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful for this detailed debate, which gives us an opportunity to incorporate your views, your policy line, in the discussions of the heads of state and government on a specific subject area, prior to the Pörtschach summit.
It is widely accepted that this subject must not and cannot be renationalisation but, as stated in Cardiff, that we must focus on the future of Europe.
There is also a large majority in the European Parliament that believes we must discuss the key political aspects of a more closely coordinated economic policy aimed at stability and employment in Europe, while also considering what responsible contribution Europe can make to the stability of the financial and global economic markets and the question of internal security.
In this context, I am not satisfied with the rate of progress towards achieving this area of freedom, justice and security in Europe.
We must also address the frequently raised question of a self-confident Europe in the framework of a stronger common foreign and security policy.
I am aware that it is not enough simply to appoint a political figure, who must be a good coordinator but also a doer, as the high commissioner for common foreign and security policy.
But we must take this process seriously, and it must be followed by further steps towards genuinely enhancing Europe's role in the world.
Mr Frischenschlager, I do not share your view that we have already determined the common direction precisely and laid down precise timetables.
For example, I certainly believe it is important, if I may make this observation, to ask the Finance Ministers to study the prospects and possible time-frames for the progressive harmonisation of tax policy - not because I believe we should aim at some sort of levelling-down of tax rates in Europe, but because I believe we should set up a system under which in future it is not just those who cannot defend themselves, the consumers and the workers, who contribute to financing government tasks; instead, we must find a system under which something which is now very mobile, in other words capital, also makes a fair contribution to financing our common national and European tasks.
I believe that in Pörtschach we will, of course, have to address the question of improving our relations, improving coordination, but also the question of greater efficiency, together with initiating a process of greater democratic legitimacy.
But, and let me make this quite clear, we must also address the question of subsidiarity, which has still not been resolved.
It was never our intention that subsidiarity should imply a move towards renationalisation.
Subsidiarity means strengthening common policies in areas where the citizens of Europe would derive advantages, derive European added value, from common decisions.
And it also means that in cultural policy, for instance, where we do indeed have these post-modern cathedrals constructed out of a variety of cultural building blocks, a sense of European nationality, a European spirit can represent a plus but does not mean that regional or national cultural identity should or must be destroyed.
It will be our common task, in line with this Amsterdam protocol on subsidiarity, to breathe life into it, to look at each decision in terms of whether it will produce European added value for the people.
This is one task the Commission has set itself.
It would certainly be possible for the national parliaments to discuss an annual subsidiarity report by the Commission in order to counter the at times unjustified sense that too many decisions are taken at European level which it would be more reasonable to take at another level.
I think we must prepare ourselves carefully for the Vienna summit, and let me promise you again that the Austrian Presidency will do its utmost to achieve substantial progress on Agenda 2000. I appeal to the common resolve of the Member States to make this progress possible.
I believe that it would also be very good for the Members of the European Parliament if this question were resolved jointly by the European elections; this would act as a positive sign of the capacity to solve problems, rather than a sign of weakness, a sign that we are not prepared and not able to implement the necessary internal reforms.
I also believe that if we give this sign that we are taking a positive attitude to the enlargement process at the beginning of the negotiations, we will also be able to hold a very open and honest debate on the Commission's progress report in Vienna in September.
Without wanting to interfere in Slovakia's domestic policy, I must say that I very much welcome the fact that at the elections, the people of Slovakia expressed strong approval for pursuing the road to democracy, the road to a constitutional state. They thereby endorsed the European Parliament's position, namely that Slovakia must not be isolated, as a reasonable political position for the future too.
I also believe that, if we have a Statute for Members by then, we will discuss and consider it in Vienna.
We will get a discussion going, because it makes sense to determine rules for Members before the elections to the European Parliament.
Thank you for this debate.
We have many common tasks.
I wish us the success that the European idea deserves and I look forward to a second discussion with you after the conclusion of the Pörtschach and Vienna summits.
Many thanks!
(Applause)
Thank you very much for that speech, Mr President-in-Office, and I believe the President of the Commission would also like to say a few words.
I shall gladly give him the floor.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I will confine myself to answering a number of points in order to clear up certain misunderstandings that emerged from what certain Members said.
Firstly, the report that the Commission presented for the purposes of the decision on own resources does not contain any Commission proposals or guidelines on future own resources.
However, the Cardiff European Council instructed the Commission to examine several lines of thought, precisely in order to facilitate negotiations relating to the Agenda 2000 proposals for reform.
The Commission has not therefore put forward any own-initiative proposals for the renationalisation of the common agricultural policy.
Nor did it propose taking net balances into account when establishing net contributions.
The Commission has done its duty simply by indicating the possible lines of thought in order to make the negotiations in the various Member States easier.
If it should happen that agreements were reached within the Member States on the entire package and on the financial perspective, the Commission would then, and only then, take the initiative to make specific proposals.
However, at this stage, the Commission has only made the negotiators aware of the possible lines of thought in one direction or another.
It is now up to the Member States and the Council to give their opinions.
This was intended to clear up any misunderstandings.
As for the rest, Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with all those who have told me that, in order to ensure its future, the European Union must be closer to its citizens.
You know that this was, in fact, the leitmotiv of my investiture speech before the European Parliament, and I support all the efforts of the Austrian Presidency in this direction.
Europe is not just a market and the euro is not an end in itself, but they are important instruments for defining and promoting a European model of society, a model of growth based on the spirit of solidarity, where economic and social cohesion must remain one of the fundamental pillars of the construction of Europe.
This must be the spirit behind the debate on subsidiarity: in my opinion, subsidiarity and solidarity are two sides of the same coin, two sides that cannot be separated if we truly want to build a Europe that is closer to its people.
As for the rest, I am convinced that Europe can fulfill its responsibilities on the international stage, within the framework you mentioned, Mr President-in-Office.
However, I fear that, once again, Europe might not be able to seize this opportunity and that the projects most of you support are becoming bogged down in bureaucracy.
This is the great danger, the great risk, and I know what I am talking about, having heard what has been said at various Council of Ministers meetings.
That is where the European Council must intervene, and where the deliberations of the Heads of State or Government can give fresh impetus so that Europe can face up to its responsibilities to its own citizens and its partners, as well as its responsibilities on the international stage.
If this is the path taken in Pörtschach, then Europe will certainly increase its credibility in the eyes of its citizens!
Thank you, Mr Santer.
I have received two motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
Madam President, hopefully the speeches that come after the keynote speeches of the Commission and the Council will not be of any less value than those that preceded them.
It is very important to mention that we are not living in a ready-made Europe, but one that is continually changing.
Our success will be determined according to how well we are able to meet the challenges of the future.
It is thus vital that we continue the debate on whether the policy we have chosen to follow, and the one that is in place here and now, is a feasible one.
Europe has clearly coped better than other continents with the growing economic problems that exist worldwide.
In a world ravaged by one crisis after another, European stability is regarded highly even by those, who, for various reasons, have opposed European cooperation.
This is seen, for example, in opinion polls, which show that the single currency is growing in popularity while, at the same time, support for the European Union, which gave birth to the euro, is diminishing among our citizens.
A common economic and monetary policy requires greater coordination on economic policy between the Member States than ever before, in order to guarantee effective development in the future.
In economic policy we have to pay special attention to those areas of European cooperation which our citizens judge to be important.
We have to promote a European model of society, with greater compatibility in social, ecological and economic action.
The central tenet of our economic policy must be to try to improve the employment situation.
For this we can thank the United Kingdom, which held the previous presidency, and the current holder, Austria; we have got to grips with issues much more so than before.
The international economic crisis is unfortunately creating pressures for Europe too.
We especially hope that, in our neighbouring regions, Russia will solve its present economic and political crisis as speedily as possible.
The initiative still to be discussed this year on the EU's northern dimension will create much-needed sustained and systematic cooperation between Russia and the EU.
In economic cooperation with Russia we have to stress the absolute necessity of making genuine structural changes, such as in the banking and administration sectors, and for this we need to redirect the TACIS cooperation programme for Russia.
It is now time to develop the TACIS programme so that it reflects current requirements.
The right policy is not to freeze TACIS resources but, as I said, redirect them more efficiently than before.
Thank you, Mrs Myller. I should like to say, for the benefit of those Members who are due to speak in this debate, that the President-in-Office and the President of the Commission were obliged to leave us.
That is why they wished to speak when they did, but the Minister for Foreign Affairs is here and is listening with great attention to everything Members may have to say, as is Commissioner Fischler.
Madam President, you are asking us to talk in the desert, but we are used to it here in Parliament, and this desert is actually highly populated since the Minister is here.
I would like to use the two or three minutes I have to simply send out a message.
We have the feeling today that something quite strange is happening in the European Union at institutional level.
We are seeing a certain increase in consensus on the idea that institutional reforms are necessary, but at the same time, this consensus tends to relate to very subtle aspects.
To tell the truth, the further we progress in the institutional debate, the more we have the impression that the elements to be reformed are fading away, disappearing before our eyes, so much so that the process has now been reduced to a 'nominal reform' of the weighting of votes, a tiny extension of qualified majority voting and improvements to the Commission's organigramme.
I believe that these twin developments are worrying and that we cannot accept reforms on the cheap.
Indeed, what is at issue in the European Union is not simply incidental adjustments to three institutions, but the overall concept of the Union itself.
How can we operate, what must we do together, and with what resources, and, at the end of the day, what policies do we want to have in common? This lack of fundamental thinking is what is causing the drift I was just referring to, a minimal drift towards reforms that are almost non-existent.
I think that it is time to show concern about this drift and to protest against this worrying development, for enlargement requires a fundamental reform, not only of the Treaties, but also of our customs, our administration and our political will.
As the former French Prime Minister, Raymond Barre, put it, in the European Union, the more we are, the greater the problems.
Madam President, the informal summit next weekend and the one due to be held in December will be of major importance for political life in Europe.
Moreover, the European elections in June 1999 and the reappointment of the Commission are approaching.
The political debate in Europe is therefore gathering speed.
As far as the content is concerned, I think that recent election results in the Member States have clearly demonstrated people's desire for proactive policies, such as on employment, their refusal to allow the market to determine most political decisions and their demand that the social model that workers struggled so hard to achieve through this century should be maintained and developed.
We must therefore offer the citizens genuine choices in society, both at national and European level.
For that purpose, we also need to have political instruments at our disposal and I agree with President Santer when he says that European governance involves all public players, national and European.
I would like to look at four aspects of this European governance.
Firstly, there are still no European political parties worthy of the name.
Article 138a of the Maastricht Treaty is more or less a dead letter.
We know that, in national politics, it is the parties that give structure and dynamism to political life.
There is nothing of this sort at European level.
Who is to blame for this?
The responsibility comes down to the national parties. They should be aware of the need to build strong European parties, able to take majority decisions and with efficient mechanisms and democratic structures.
Secondly, fleshing out the concept of European citizenship, another aspect of European democracy, is proving very difficult.
Not enough non-national Community citizens take part in European and local elections in every country of the European Union.
This is a genuine flaw in European democracy.
Thirdly, some people believe that we can improve democracy by increasing the number of assemblies, such as by adding to the assemblies we already have an assembly made up of members of the national parliaments responsible for ensuring respect for subsidiarity.
This is absurd.
The only thing this would do would be to make the process less transparent.
Fourthly, how can we make European political life more interesting, with a little imagination, but without amending the Treaties? Madam President, the 'Notre Europe ' association, chaired by Jacques Delors, has proposed that, during the next European elections, the European parties should each choose a candidate for the position of the future president of the Commission.
Neither Jacques Delors, nor the members of his association, myself included, are exactly frivolous people.
If they have made this proposal, it is because there has been a clear drop in the number of people voting.
So, in the spirit of the age, we would be well-advised to add a personal touch to European politics, and the most politically prominent European figure is and will continue to be the President of the Commission.
Moreover, I believe that it creates a very bad image democratically to keep the allocation of this role out of the democratic process.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the future of Europe presents us with some major questions, to which we must not give trivial answers.
In today's debate we are discussing real issues, and quite rightly not fighting mock battles.
To make the EU fit for the twenty-first century, we must gradually continue the integration process we have begun by also embarking on institutional reforms; that does not mean adhering only to what has been achieved and certainly does not mean renationalisation.
The crux of the debate on subsidiarity lies in the fact that the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties have shifted the EU power structure more towards common policies, and that this fact has simply not yet been recognised in national policy-making.
Most European questions have now become internal policy questions that have to be resolved jointly with the EU.
It is important for the governments to say quite openly to their citizens at home: yes, we will and must decide on a common European basis, because that is good for our country and because our country can no longer resolve central issues on its own.
The Euroscepticism we see among some sections of the population stems from a certain attitude: if the sun shines in the morning, it is thanks to our country; but if we wake up to snow and mud, then it is the EU's fault!
Europe must assert itself!
Globalisation and a growing international division of labour can only be established and influenced by a Community with strong instruments at its disposal.
There are many areas in which we must reverse our policies, since we believed too much in deregulation and purely market solutions in the 1980s and 1990s.
The European model still remains a state-based model.
The euro was one milestone, the common employment policy must be another.
I wish the Austrian Presidency great success along this road and warmly salute it: as we say at home in the Ruhr, 'Glück auf ', good luck!
Madam President, economic union will change Europe, it will create an orderly political framework for the internal European financial market and it will also pave the way to political union.
Without it, the European Union will not manage to achieve Agenda 2000 and enlargement eastwards.
But we also need to develop a stronger Community spirit.
The German writer Peter Schneider is constantly being disappointed in his hope for a perfect Europe because the dynamic of a strong and viable internal market created by a single currency is not being reflected in other policy areas.
But every market needs a regulatory framework if society is not to be damaged, and I would remind you that the money for the people does exist.
That is why monetary union offers the European Union an historic opportunity to successfully master the consequences of globalisation.
The crises in Russia and other parts of the world on the one hand and the progress in price stability on the other show how very important the euro is to European and international monetary stability.
The euro-11 zone is like a lighthouse in the stormy waters of economic and financial turbulence.
We in the Union must not sit back; we must organise social stability alongside monetary stability.
It is not just markets, people too need to have confidence in this Europe.
That is why it is now important to formulate and coordinate the economic, employment and social policy aspects of monetary union.
Here I would appeal to the presidency of the Council and also to the Commission finally to give Parliament an equal say in coordinating economic and employment policy and finally to conclude the interinstitutional agreement with us, so that we can play our part in promoting this important and necessary progress in the Union.
We in Parliament organised the democratic dialogue with the European Central Bank; the first monetary dialogue has taken place, but now we also need to see progress at political level, as also at international level.
The European Union, and in particular the euro-11 zone, must speak with one voice both on Central Bank and political matters, and it must do so with the participation also of the Council and the Commission.
We must take measures against fiscal, social and environmental dumping, against tax havens and for a minimum company tax.
The euro will prove to have its own dynamic and establish itself on the markets and among the people.
We also need to organise measures for the real economy, so that as from 1 January 1999 this euro-11 zone can contribute to constantly improving the state of the Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I share many of the views already expressed in this debate.
I would nevertheless stress that 1998 has undoubtedly been a landmark year in the history of the European Union: it has seen the establishment of the single currency, a crucial push towards closer integration among our countries going well beyond its face value.
The credit for this obviously goes to Mr Santer who, together with Mr de Silguy, has met the deadlines set out in the Maastricht Treaty.
Thanks likewise go to the governments, which have ceded part of their own sovereignty for the purpose of attaining a major, historic common goal and, first and foremost among them, the government of Chancellor Kohl, who has left the leadership of his country after 16 years but has ensured himself a place in the history of the Union.
Last of all, particular thanks are due to the EU citizens, who in certain Member States have had to make yet more difficult sacrifices to enable these countries to meet the convergence criteria.
However, this success should not distract our attention from the fact that the Union needs to rest on a more solid foundation if it is to play a more important, determining role.
The much-discussed pillars, which cannot yet be said to carry the entire institutional load, are what will make the Union a political - not just an economic - force to be reckoned with worldwide.
The serious problem of unemployment, the inadequacy of the common foreign and security policy, as well as the long-awaited reform of our institutions, in my view constitute the real challenges which still require an appropriate response.
These then are the tasks which must be placed at the very top of the Union's agenda, not least because we owe it to our own citizens and those of third countries to do so.
I would stress here my view that the Union has still not devoted sufficient attention to the Mediterranean basin, and would recall that international relations should not be motivated solely by commercial interests.
There are in fact well-founded reasons of a social, ethnic, cultural and strategic nature which must be translated into a more sensitive policy aiming to solve the problems which have been affecting the Mediterranean region for much too long.
Madam President, allow me just a couple of seconds to welcome, in this regard, both the establishment of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum and Malta's return to the process of European integration. I should like to see Malta in our midst as soon as possible to make up for lost time.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
VOTES
Voting time will be quite short today because owing to the flood of requests from the political groups for separate votes on the resolution concerning the Extraordinary Summit Conference, we have had to postpone the vote on that issue until tomorrow.
That should be of some concern to the political groups, and I think that we ought perhaps to set a shorter deadline for tabling requests for separate votes.
Mr President, you will note of course that I am in the Chamber.
My point is directed to you because I know the matter is of great concern to you.
It is on communications.
I recently sent an e-mail from Parliament's new computer in Brussels to my office on Thursday.
After involving a number of the administration staff, the e-mail finally arrived in my office today.
I do not think it is a good example of progress in the Union for an e-mail to take almost 5 days to go from Brussels to my constituency office.
I understand it is the fault of the Groupwise server which Parliament employs for this task.
As Vice-President Haarder is already looking at these matters, perhaps he could look further into this and advise us if we are receiving value for money and if there have been other complaints of this nature.
This proposal forms part of the EU's overall policy in the field of air pollution.
It concerns stationary installations using organic solvents.
The main burden of the proposal relates to air pollution and the consequences for public health.
However, aspects which may have to do with the internal environment of the workplace, the working environment, are not included.
The Danish Social Democrats have therefore supported the committee's amendments on the possible effects on human health in general and occupational exposure in particular.
I support the thrust of this report. We need more stringent requirements for organic solvents, particularly when they are being used intensively for industrial cleaning purposes, as straight solvents or as preserving agents.
I shall be voting in favour, on condition that the individual Member States are given the right to maintain or introduce stricter requirements - in other words, only if Amendment No 6 is carried.
The precautionary and substitution principles must be followed.
Chemical substances should not be used unless they are compatible with the interests of human health and the environment and pose no risk. And less dangerous substances should be used where they are available.
Experience from the health services in all countries has shown that volatile organic compounds per se are harmful to human health.
Furthermore these compounds contribute to the formation of ozone, which also gives rise to health problems.
A reduction in these substances is therefore a vital step to take in the interests of preventing a whole range of diseases, particularly bronchial conditions.
Parliament contributed very positively to the improvement of this proposal on a range of points during its first reading. This applies in particular to the demand for organic solvents arising in painting also to be taken into account.
It is to be welcomed that the Council's common position meets the main demands from the first reading in Parliament.
Lange report (A4-0364/98)
The proposal for a directive to reduce exhaust emissions from heavy-duty vehicles is part of an overall Community strategy and follows on from the directives reducing emissions from passenger cars and light commercial vehicles recently adopted by Parliament and the Council by conciliation procedure.
This new legislation is a success for cleaner air in Europe.
The new set of agreed proposals goes far beyond the original text included in the European Commission recommendations and will certainly guarantee that new passenger cars and light commercial vehicles will in the future be less polluting than in the past.
The European Parliament has also succeeded in imposing better fuel qualities in this new revised arrangement.
Low sulphur fuels are an integral element in these sets of proposals which seek to reduce the amount of emissions from diesel engines.
Sulphur content in fuel will be substantially reduced and this new fuel will easily adapt to the new emission reduction technologies for commercial vehicles as well as for exhaust purification systems.
We must remember that the Kyoto conference set down a strict global timetable for the reduction of CO2 emissions and related hazardous pollutants so as to help redress the effects on the depletion of the ozone layer and climate change.
The legalisation before us today is an intrinsic part of the programme of reform being implemented by the European Union to comply with the guidelines laid down by the participants at the Kyoto conference.
CO2 emissions from heavy-duty vehicles are a continually rising percentage of total road traffic emissions.
These vehicles must therefore be covered by the Community strategy for reducing CO2 emissions as soon as possible.
Moreover, tax incentives to ensure that commercial vehicles meet the new requirements and that older vehicles are re-equipped must be brought forward so that the strict deadlines are met under this new legislation.
This report on more stringent rules for diesel emissions is most welcome.
It complements the earlier decisions taken by Parliament, requiring lower fuel emissions and higher fuel quality for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, etc.
The report is basically a sound one, and I voted in favour.
I supported Amendment No 26 by Mrs Hautala, in which she calls for a further reduction in emissions, with 2005 as the target year for compliance.
Events surrounding the introduction of catalytic converters demonstrated that the automobile industry can meet a deadline, provided a clear policy is in place and a fixed date specified.
Spaak report (A4-0357/98)
The report by Mrs Spaak on the progress achieved by the Union in 1997 asks that the forthcoming adjustment of the European Treaties for enlargement be used to try out a more Community-based method of decision-making led by committees of experts.
It calls on the Commission, which it would thus seem to include among the experts, to draw up a preliminary reform plan before the end of the year.
In the opinion of my group, this method involving committees of experts seems extremely questionable.
As a general rule, it will simply be an attempt to present people with a fait accompli dressed up as some sort of God-given truth.
In addition, I cannot understand why this idea is not taken up in the De Giovanni resolution on the political future of the Union.
Perhaps chairman De Giovanni also has his doubts.
As regards the European Parliament, it has no legitimate codecision role to play in this review, where it would simply be supporting the most federalist pressure groups, as usual.
On the contrary, this is a matter for the nations.
National parliaments must put forward proposals and give their opinions, according to each country's system, before the final Council in the negotiating mandate they vote to give their governments.
Finally, the Commission should only have an implementing role here, not an initiating one, but since, in this particular case, the present Commission seems to have drawn up draft reforms for the post-Amsterdam period, it should publish them.
At least the French, who are soon going to have to debate the ratification of the Treaty, will be enlightened as to its genuine aims, as they are interpreted in Brussels.
We are not willing to depart from the principle of enhanced cooperation, as described in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We cannot therefore support paragraph 11.
The coordination of defence policy should also be carried out in the way indicated in the Treaty. Nothing else is acceptable.
We believe that the Union should be primarily involved in coordinating peacekeeping efforts, with the aid of the WEU.
The fact that some countries are members of NATO should not prevent the EU from acting independently here, no more than the non-aligned status of other Member States should be an obstacle.
We cannot therefore support what is said in paragraph 20, indent 4.
It has already been some months since we began the enlargement negotiations, and we are going to have to organise ourselves in future with 13 new Member States.
It is therefore becoming increasingly essential to establish precise rules in order to ensure a new balance.
Of all the risks we face, the most serious, in my view, are the fact that the decision-making bodies are so widely scattered and the watering down of both the European Union's decisions and its common policies.
That is why I support the comments made in the Spaak report, particularly where it underlines the need to carry out an institutional reform of the European Union as soon as possible before the next enlargement.
A tight schedule must therefore be established in order to make up for the negative impression given to the people of Europe by the IGC.
This should also make us consider who should be leading these types of negotiations: all the Member States together or, directly, a body that is democratically elected at European level?
The negotiations that have been held up until now have shown that they are incapable of achieving the desired objective.
We now need real progress, or else there is no chance of stepping up the preparations.
It is vital that the accession negotiations should run alongside the institutional reforms.
The slightest hint that the IGC had failed would spell disaster for the negotiations already under way and would bring all the applicants' efforts to a standstill.
I will therefore vote in favour of the Spaak report, while highlighting the importance of trying to find an institutional balance.
The Danish Social Democrats today abstained from voting on Mrs Spaak's report.
In certain areas, we disagree with the wishes being expressed.
We think that the Amsterdam Treaty is good, and we want to see how it works in practice.
Institutional reforms must not hold up the enlargement process.
In this report before the European Parliament today, the rapporteur, Mrs Spaak, calls for institutional reform to take place before any prospective enlargement of the European Union.
We know that negotiations between the European Union and the six prospective members from Eastern and Central Europe who are set to accede to the European Union in the early part of the next century is due to commence in November next.
The President of the European Commission, Jacques Santer, has already gone on the record that another intergovernmental conference will be held to reform existing European Treaties so as to ensure that the enlargement process can take place in a structured manner.
What he is primarily saying is that decision-making procedures within the European Union will have to be changed if the European Union is to operate effectively when Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia and Cyprus accede to the EU.
I fully agree with the general principle that decision-making procedures within the European Union must be reformed but any reform must take place in a balanced and open manner.
Certainly the Single European Act introduced the cooperation procedure and the Amsterdam Treaty has extended the power of codecision for the European Parliament in many fields of political, economic and social activities.
I support the continuation of this process.
However, it has been suggested in reports from the European Parliament in prior years that the size of the European Commission should be reduced.
I remember the Bourlanges report before the 1996 Intergovernmental Conference which suggested that the European Commission should be reduced in size to only ten members.
As a consequence of the discussions relating to the Amsterdam Treaty, it has been agreed that the five larger Member States of the European Union will lose one of their two nominees to the European Commission when the next round of enlargement negotiations take place.
I believe that this is very important particularly from the perspective of smaller Member States like Ireland who recognise the importance of maintaining a nominee to the European Commission.
Since 1973, Irish Commissioners have held such wide-ranging and important portfolios as the Directorate of Social Affairs, the Agricultural Directorate, the Competition Directorate and the Transport Directorate, and it be wholly inequitable if Ireland were to lose out from nominating its Commissioner at a future date.
What I am saying here on the record of the House is that any future intergovernmental conference must maintain the right of smaller Member States to nominate a member to the European Commission at all times.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson, Seppänen and Sjöstedt (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm, Lindholm and Schörling (V), Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(DA) Among the events that took place in 1997, the Amsterdam Treaty was signed and over 50 000 people protested against the EU in Amsterdam, while the negotiators - behind closed doors - thought that they were looking after the interests of the population.
We think that 1997 was a year of retrograde development, not progress, in the areas covered by the report, i.e. the Amsterdam Treaty, the euro, the CFSP and EU powers in the field of legal and other matters, to mention only a few. We cannot therefore support the Spaak report in any way at all.
The Amsterdam Treaty is not a project of the peoples, as has already been stated; neither is EMU.
In 1997 there was widespread opposition to the euro, opposition which still flourishes now towards the close of 1998, just a few months before the introduction of the currency.
Legislative power must be transferred back to the national parliaments and not vested in an EU Court of Justice, which in many respects is more of a legislative than a judicial instance.
We are opposed to the implementation of certain provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty before it has been ratified.
We think that shows a lack of respect for the parliaments and hence the populations of those countries in which the Treaty has not yet been ratified.
How can the European Parliament claim to represent the 'European' people if it will not respect their democratic processes?
We believe that EU cooperation should be intergovernmental in nature. We cannot go along with the report's express advocacy of moving towards a 'United States of Europe'.
The rapporteur calls for more decisions in the Council of Ministers to be taken on a qualified majority basis, with the European Parliament exercising greater influence. This would mean confusion in all Member States as to who is responsible for policy-making.
The report also goes further than the Amsterdam Treaty requires with regard to foreign and security policy.
We agree with cooperating in pursuit of the Petersberg tasks of peacekeeping, conflict resolution and humanitarian intervention. We do not, however, support military defence or the establishment of military or civilian rapid deployment corps.
The meagre report submitted to us for our consideration and its sparse content lead us to wonder about the usefulness of a procedure that requires Parliament to give its opinion in plenary on the 'progress' achieved by the Union, six months after the presentation by the Council of a report that is no less meagre and that itself relates to the previous year.
This assessment of the 'progress achieved by the European Union' in 1997 naturally includes a chapter on the common foreign and security policy.
We find there, of course, the usual regrets at the inherent impotence of the CFSP and the formulas to cure it: its Viagra will be the future institutional reforms and the fact that 'the provisions laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam will be implemented prior to its ratification'.
Does that mean that the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam by our citizens would be superfluous? In fact, Mr Santer has just announced to us this morning that the Vienna European Council would be called upon to give its opinion on the appointment of someone with overall responsibility for the CFSP, before our citizens have given their opinion on the treaty that creates this role.
Does the European Union thus mean to create a new legal category: to paraphrase Hayek, the legitimate anticipation of a treaty that is not ratified, a category that is exempt from any sanctions by the people.
Let us be clear about this: such shifts lead to a situation where the rule of law no longer applies.
In desperation, the Spaak report states ultimately that 'the Member States will have to demonstrate firmer political resolve'.
And that is all.
But it is not exactly all. The finishing touches are still needed and we must therefore 'set up European civil and military intervention corps'- although the House did not want this - and establish - which the House certainly does want - ' diplomatic representation at Union level in non-member countries where fewer than four Member States have diplomatic posts'.
That is the quota fixed by Mrs Spaak.
What can this sort of repetitive, conventional and unreal language contribute to the debate?
Diplomacy is not a matter of arithmetics.
Those who claimed, with disarmingly simplistic arguments, that through its sheer size and the accumulated influence of its constituent powers, the European Union would go beyond the diplomatic capacities of the individual Member States, were wrong.
What the non-existence of the European Union on the international stage demonstrates is quite simply its lack of political existence, which is inherent in its nature.
We should not therefore expect the CFSP to give us what it cannot.
We must not overestimate its potential.
Both now and undoubtedly for a long time to come it will only be a modest addition to national diplomatic actions.
If it tries to go beyond this role to become a restrictive mechanism, then it is going to provoke harmful self-censorship and transform itself into a system characterised by self-intimidation, mutual neutralisation, self-blocking, paralysis in terms of initiative and impetus, and idle, self-satisfied talk that encourages a lack of political will.
It will dissuade those who could act effectively on its behalf from taking any action.
We must therefore be careful to ensure that the CFSP does not become a sort of quicksand into which the failing determination of the Member States is dragged down. They would only wish then to be freed from the duties of sovereignty, to enjoy their common impotence and lack of responsibility, and to leave the burden of preserving their interests to others.
That will not make a good common foreign policy.
Although the European Union is silent on the international stage, the Member States are more vociferous than ever.
They are the living entities, the only real elements that the diplomatic game recognises as true players, because they represent what is at stake.
What do recent crises show us? They show us that when Europe is not present through its major national diplomatic figures, it is not present at all.
One very clear example of this was the second Iraq crisis where, contrary to what happened during the first crisis, Europe played a significant role of its own in preventing an imminent conflict.
It was the two oldest nation states of Europe in diplomatic terms, France and the United Kingdom, which took action in accordance with their national traditions and interests - traditions and interests which are admittedly different, but which together are powerful enough not to need to fit in with the Community's low profile, as Christophe Réveillard rightly pointed out. These countries ensured a strong presence for Europe and played a real and important role in managing the crisis.
And all things considered, it was not a bad result for the international community.
It is illogical to work relentlessly to take sovereignty away from the Member States and to condemn Europe's diplomatic weakness.
One causes the other.
Strong, motivated and active diplomacy is the expression of the independence that embodies the will to exist and the cohesion of people who are anxious to preserve their identity, promote their interests and contribute to the international balance.
Denying the will of nations to be independent through the procedure of majority voting is even more dangerous for foreign policy than for any other field.
The countries of Europe are having a tough time with economic, financial and cultural globalisation, they see whole chunks of their sovereignty being whittled away, and they are being made to suffer a mutilating process of economic and monetary integration. The field of foreign policy is just about the only area they have left where they can still exercise their freedom.
A certain number of them, at least, would not tolerate having their desire for independence denied, which we see most of all in their diplomatic initiatives. By trying to deprive them of these initiatives, Europe itself would lose all possibility of independent external action.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, the only way at the moment of conceiving and implementing European actions is to rely on the national democracies.
The more we try desperately to deprive them of power, the more we weaken the foundations that allow us to take joint measures.
These are the real questions that the Spaak report should have looked at in connection with the CFSP.
We are a long way short of the target, so no-one will be surprised that our group has rejected this report.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party supported the Spaak report but with serious reservations.
We did not support paragraph 8 which calls for the extension of qualified majority voting to all decisions except those of a constitutional nature.
The EPLP also has concerns about the paragraphs on the CFSP in Mrs Spaak's report.
We supported Amendments Nos 1 to 3, by Gary Titley, on behalf of the Socialist Group.
Parliament's rejection of Amendment No 2 was surprising.
This made the obvious point that any failures in the EU's efforts to resolve the crisis in Kosovo result far more from an absence of political will than from institutional considerations.
Paragraph 20, as voted by Parliament, suggests that the European Union is a member of NATO.
It is not.
The future of the European Union is of direct concern to the citizens of its Member States and, more generally, to all European citizens, especially those who are the first victims of the EU's anti-populist, anti- labour and neo-liberal policy: the millions of people who are unemployed, poor and wretched, women, the young, and the hundreds of millions of working people who are facing a head-on attack by the EU, an attack aimed at abolishing their fundamental and basic rights.
The European Council, however, despite its much-advertised social-democrat majority, remains faithfully fixated upon monetarist, neo-liberal attitudes and persists with the same policy as its predecessor.
The central reference point for this Council too will be the completion of the single internal market and Economic and Monetary Union, the faithful implementation of the stability pact, and commitment to the nominal pointers established in Maastricht.
The EU's leaders have not only failed to wake up to the popular reaction and resistance of working people, not only failed to draw appropriate conclusions from the crisis affecting the world's economy and from the increasingly acute problems in a series of countries and regions such as Russia, South-East Asia and Latin America, but they are trying to defend monopolies and large companies both against their enemy within, in other words popular movements and the workers, and against the Member States themselves, which in exercising their sovereign rights could try to prevent them from doing what they want.
That is why the central issues for the European Council are to be internal security matters, with further progress on Schengen as decided upon in the Treaty of Amsterdam, reinforcement of the forces of oppression and persecution at European level, strengthening of the CFSP and promotion of the requisite statutory changes which will establish the abolition of the veto and unanimity, and the generalisation of the majority-vote rule.
The enlargement of the EU and the Agenda 2000 choices are an attempt to kill two birds with one stone.
On the one hand, the aim is to acquire new markets for European capital, while reducing the Union's 'cost', making drastic cuts in the contributions from the more developed countries and further reducing the already grossly inadequate resources earmarked by the EU for development and agriculture. Responsibility for the consequences of economic policy is being transferred to the Member States and this, together with the financial discipline imposed, will mean restricted expenditure on services such as education, health and social policy, while resources are made available for major monopolistic enterprises.
On the other hand there is an attempt to disarm popular movements and the Member States, depriving them of the means to resist at national and international level, and to promote new anti-populist international agreements such as the multipartite agreement on investments, which advocates the immunity of foreign investments from state control and safeguards the interests of 'investors' against the claims of the labour and popular movement.
The people in the countries which have applied to join the EU will also fall victim to those attempts, since a prerequisite for accession is acceptance by their governments of the acquis communautaire , in other words the institutional, legal and operational framework of the European Union.
Working people in all the Union's Member States but also in the countries about to join have only one way to resist those choices and that policy.
The struggle of the workers will provide a response to the choices made by the monopolies and will open the way towards another Europe, the real Europe of the future, which will serve their interests, the interests of human beings and not those of capital.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking as rapporteur on inland waterway vessels and wish to make the following statement in this context.
Evidently a change has occurred in the drafting of the press releases issued by the House.
For example, there was no press mention at all of the inland waterway vessels report in the Monday afternoon German-language edition of the press release.
In fact, German-speaking journalists have already protested about this in the House.
I wish to join in this protest and make it known to the public, on behalf of the German-speaking Members.
Clearly the Secretary-General, Mr Priestley, unilaterally decided to change the rules, which is not acceptable.
We in the House decide on press releases!
So I would strongly urge the Bureau to ensure that this is remedied as quickly as possible so that it can never happen again!
Mr Konrad, I have taken careful note of your comments and, of course, we will look into the matter and see what must be done to avoid the problems you have referred to in future.
Mr Schwaiger, I have already told Mr Konrad that I have noted what he said.
Personally speaking, since I am responsible for information in the Bureau, I have always thought that this is an area in which we unfortunately still have many problems.
I have always said as much, both to the Bureau and in reports to the Members which you have all received.
I am very well aware that we still have many problems in that area.
It is one of the major issues for us, though we have unfortunately not yet been able to do anything about it, and we will look into that aspect very carefully.
I am sorry that our German colleagues are experiencing these problems.
They are not the only ones, but in any case it is very distressing that Members who devote so much time to presenting excellent reports or other work here are not accorded even rudimentary recognition.
Mr President, thank you for your statement. I also want to thank you because you are known to be a Vice-President who tries to ensure that we create transparency, that we work closely with the public, to stop them from looking only at questions such as travel expenses, scandals and so forth.
The journalists must receive prompt information from us, and you as Vice-President have done much to ensure this; the statement you have just made to us is encouraging.
We will be happy to take the opportunity to pass on the personal statement you have just made to the journalists.
I see that as a good and encouraging sign and hope you will continue along precisely these lines.
That is why I am especially glad that you have presided over the debate on this question today, and I believe we had good reason to address you in this regard.
Thank you very much!
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Situation in Kosovo
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, I shall be brief after the elaborate exposé of the presidency and confine myself to saying that the Commission also, in close cooperation with the presidency, is working hard to see what further contribution can be made to the humanitarian situation which has, of course, the highest priority.
We have funds available for that, it is a matter of coordination.
As the presidency has just said, we are in close contact not only with it but also with the High Commissioner for Refugees to ensure that the return of displaced persons and refugees can get under way.
It is a slow and difficult process because it also requires a secure environment.
Although we may be content that the worst violence and clashes have subsided since the agreement between Mr Holbrook and President Milosevic, we cannot be certain that the situation will continue - vigilance is absolutely necessary.
We believe that the SACEUR, General Clark, has made quite clear to President Milosevic exactly what is required in military terms, notably as far as the withdrawals which, up till now, have not been completed, are concerned.
As long as that is not the case, there is still a danger of the hostilities flaring up again, with all the human suffering that may entail.
In the meantime, the Commission continues to prepare proposals for the Council, as requested, to sharpen up the sanctions policy and package which has been in place for quite some time but which contained some loopholes that needed to be closed.
We will continue our work on that.
With the presidency we abhor and condemn the law adopted by the Yugoslav parliament yesterday which bars a number of independent papers from publishing their views and radio stations from transmitting Serbian language programmes from foreign radio stations.
It is clearly an expression of the entire political climate in Yugoslavia these days where fundamental rights and freedoms - and notably the freedom of the press - have been the subject of constant oppression, and that continues.
I can only hope, along with the presidency, that the situation will stabilise, that the withdrawals will actually take place.
That is not only a prerequisite for the peaceful return of refugees and displaced persons, but it is also absolutely necessary to allow aid workers to do their work without personal danger.
It is extremely important that the large verification mission of 2 000 people is able to work in safe conditions.
Last but not least, the absence of violence and the fulfilment of the obligations of President Milosevic will also determine the political climate in which a political solution will have in the end to be negotiated.
With the presidency, I repeat that we see no other ultimate solution to the Kosovo problem other than a political one.
The only question is whether that also goes for President Milosevic.
That remains to be seen.
Mr President, it goes almost without saying that we in the Socialist Group are delighted by the progress that the President-in-Office of the Council has been able to report.
We congratulate the presidency on all its efforts in the last couple of weeks.
We are clearly delighted that we seem to be edging towards a solution in Kosovo and that President Milosevic appears to have accepted, at long last, the principle of self-government for Kosovo and, therefore, we have a basis for moving forward.
Clearly we are all concerned to ensure that the message that goes out of this Chamber is that the cease-fire has to apply to all sides in Kosovo.
The murder of four Serbian policemen over the weekend, supposedly by the KLA, only helps those who wish to undermine this process.
So we must make clear that all sides must abide by the cease-fire.
We also have to be aware of what might be called the CNN factor, i.e. once we stop seeing this on our TV screens we think the problem has been resolved.
We should be clear again today that we are seeing the beginning, not the end, of a process.
It is going to require a major effort to keep Milosevic on board to this agreement and, as we have seen, and as the President-in-Office and Commissioner van den Broek have mentioned, one of his first acts has been to ban the independent media in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, clearly a sign that he is still up to his old tricks.
We must not forget that it was only the credible threat of military force which forced Milosevic to the negotiating table, and we must maintain that threat.
That is why it is important that deadlines are kept, particularly 2 November.
We must bear in mind that going for the solution of over-the-horizon military force puts us at risk of Milosevic playing cat-and-mouse games.
At what point do you release your military force? So we must be determined to maintain the deadlines.
It is also a beginning in the sense that what we now need - and we have seen it all before in Bosnia - is the full commitment of the international community to the stability and security and reconstruction of Kosovo.
Countries cannot go away thinking the job is done: the job has not even started to be done, and we have to build upon that.
I would like to see, as Commissioner van den Broek has indicated, us tightening the sanctions and looking to work on a further UN resolution that goes beyond 1199 and makes it very clear that military force could be used if Milosevic does not adhere in every aspect to this agreement.
If we do not, then we will find that in six months time we are back to playing games again.
I really do not want us to go back to the tragedies, particularly of the last three or four weeks, when the entire situation went beyond anything that any humane person would be prepared to listen to and be prepared to watch.
Mr President, Mrs Pack is unfortunately quite right.
There was a mood of despair in this Chamber when we debated these matters, and with good reason.
Posterity will remember our impotence in Bosnia and Kosovo in the same way that our parents remember Hitler's first years in power, when he exploited the weakness of the western powers.
Picasso gave form to that tragedy in his depiction of Guernica.
Perhaps in a few years a painter will create a similar work which he will call 'Srebrenica'.
However hard it may be to imagine, Srebrenica is worse than Guernica, and it happened in our lifetime, in a time when we were elected to look after our part of the world.
And it was our troops who failed, and were failed.
If it is unleashed all over again because of the weakness of the West in Kosovo, we shall once again ask: how many bodies does it take before help comes?
I know that it is NATO and not the EU which holds the means of exerting military pressure.
But nearly all our countries belong to NATO, and we have something we call a political union, we have a vision of speaking with one voice.
What have our countries done to get NATO to act more promptly? We cannot lay the blame on NATO, and certainly not on the USA.
On the contrary, we must praise and thank the USA which fortunately - unlike ourselves - is able to step in when we disintegrate because of our divisions and national special interests.
I hope that the Council of Ministers will get its act together and learn from the tragic consequences of these divisions.
One Member State would not even uphold the sanctions on air traffic, which had been agreed, and another Member State curiously maintained reservations and acted as a brake.
Yes, Mr President, I am thinking of Britain and France, but my own country, Denmark, is no better.
Because of the negative outcome of the referendum in 1992, Denmark has limped along with a dismal reservation which even prevents our government from taking decisions on mine clearance, evacuation and humanitarian actions, so we are not the slightest bit better.
What is inconceivable is that there are still some who fear that the cooperation will go too far. Anyone can see that the risk is exactly the opposite, that it will come to nothing - and that the best we shall manage is to sweep up and count the bodies after the accident has happened, and to receive huge flows of refugees, by which we shall be doing Milosevic the greatest service of all.
Commissioner, can we now be sure that everything is being done to help as many as possible, in the mountains too, even if the KLA and the Serbs start shooting at one another?
Can we be sure that it will not end with a new Srebrenica, in which those who should help merely leave their positions at the slightest threat and consign the people to their fate. I go to Kosovo on Saturday, Commissioner.
I know that some excellent work is being done down there, but are they also getting the back-up they need? I would really like to have an answer to that.
Mr President, the debates on what has happened since the break-up of Yugoslavia often adopt a rather high tone.
Kosovo is now the most acute problem.
It constitutes a risk to the stability and security of the entire region, and threatens to affect the European Union itself if the disturbances spread to the south.
We therefore need to be as objective as possible, because very often the loudest voices are heard from those who do not themselves face any direct danger.
There is a ten-day extension of the NATO ultimatum and a fragile agreement has been reached which may not be perfect and may be being violated by both sides, but it is a positive first step, as the Presidency too has stressed.
We must give it our backing and demand respect for it.
We are only too aware that fanatics will always react against such agreements and try to sabotage them, but this is all the more reason to persist.
The savage Serbian attacks on civilians are beyond doubt, as are the human rights violations and Belgrade's efforts to muzzle the press.
But there is also no doubt about the intransigence of the so-called Albanian liberation army which is restricting the options of the moderate Rugova.
We must also consider whether the systematic marginalisation of the entire Serbian nation promoted by the west may not simply have lent strength to the fanatics and the nationalists, and whether what the non-nationalist Serbian opposition says about Milosevic might be true, namely that he is fostering the conviction that everyone is against the Serbs and that they have to fight in order to survive.
The European Union must exert every possible diplomatic pressure to back the agreement achieved and demand respect for democratic principles and human rights, together with the reforms mentioned in connection with Kosovo.
Everyone agrees, and the UK Foreign Minister said the same thing again yesterday, that there is no question of independence.
However, NATO military intervention in an independent state outside its jurisdiction and without the agreement of all the permanent members of the Security Council is also no simple matter.
There are other ways of intervening, which the Presidency has spelled out very carefully.
If we hold our line political agreement will be achieved, the people of Kosovo will be settled under the new agreements, and the Serbian people will more easily put the ghosts of the past, which they too find oppressive, behind them.
Mr President, this is an agreement which contains a number of elements and has a certain timetable.
It is a very welcome development, even if it is only temporary, to stop the bloodshed and the violence, even if the agreement is sometimes violated by irresponsible and fanatical elements on both sides.
However, the agreement also has a number of shortcomings and disadvantages.
It was imposed by pressure from outside, by threatening the use of excessive force, even going as far as military intervention.
Secondly, it shows a certain bias, because whenever there is talk of conflict, we only think - even here in the House - about imposing obligations on one side while ignoring the other.
As if there were not two sides which, rightly or wrongly, each feel that they have right on their side.
And finally, this agreement will have to prove itself in practice if we are to welcome it as we welcomed the agreement in Ireland a short while ago: the whole of Parliament gave that agreement a standing ovation for ten minutes.
An agreement of this type needs to be sincere and to look towards peaceful, political solutions which are fair and even-handed to all sides.
Mr President, as I stated in this House just a month ago, now that some sort of an agreement is in place, what is still plain is the lack of action on the part of the European Union.
What is more, no real action has been taken for over ten years in support of peace and the non-violent protests of the Albanian population under the leadership of President Rugova.
So it has to be said that, once the Albanian population had been making non-violent efforts for ten years to obtain their inalienable rights, the clashes which occurred were virtually inevitable.
And here the EU's blatant lack of involvement in solving this crisis is self-evident; in fact we have delegated our role to the United States and to NATO.
This of course fits into the broader context of the absence of a common foreign and security policy in the EU, but we are duty-bound to highlight the Union's lack of involvement here.
As at other times, our potential powers have not been fully exploited during the current phase: why, for example, has the European negotiator, Mr González, not stood alongside the US negotiator, Mr Holbrooke? Could it be that the Union was concerned not about the plight of the refugees, but solely about the risk that the Albanian refugees from Kosovo might enter Europe?
Is this our only concern?
This certainly reveals that scant attention is being paid to what is happening in the Balkans, as well as the absence of any real policy to involve the whole Balkan region in the future eastwards enlargement of the European Union.
These, to my mind, are the real problems.
But having said this, we must of course welcome the fact that an initial agreement was reached on 14 October, entailing an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from the region and the presence of 2 000 observers.
Of course, two thousand would seem a rather small number of observers for this purpose.
Regrettably, this was not the outcome of real negotiations but merely resulted from the threat of bombing by NATO, which only reveals Milosevic's true spirit and disinclination to negotiate.
We believe that an immediate and full withdrawal must be guaranteed, in an attempt to avoid any confrontation; not only Milosevic but the KLA too is responsible here.
We are concerned that the cessation of hostilities should not merely be an end in itself, but a real starting-point for a dialogue leading to a definitive solution of the Kosovo problem, beginning with its autonomy. We must aim to solve all the problems of the Balkan region, bearing in mind what is now happening in Serbia - the closure of certain independent newspapers - and in Macedonia, from where the signs reaching us are anything but encouraging.
Mr President, Madam President of the Council, Commissioner, I would first like to say to Mr Titley that you would really have to be very brave to say that in the last few days a solution for Kosovo has been found and that progress has been made.
I think that after all the attempts made by some of us during recent months, we have to give in to the evidence and perhaps make the Council and the Commission face reality.
The reality is the constant denial on the part of the European Union today in the face of the serious and tragic situation in Kosovo and Serbia, which is the same denial that was shown by Europe towards what was happening in Czechoslovakia and then in Austria and everywhere else in the 1930s.
I find it truly scandalous that it should be the Americans who have been putting in the hard work in Kosovo while the European Union seems to be abandoning any sort of intervention, any sort of policy and any sort of political objective.
As long as Mr Milosevic is in Belgrade, there will be no peace, either for Albanians, Serbs, Hungarians, the gypsies, or for anyone in the small republic of Yugoslavia.
We need to face up to this problem now and get down to fighting this nationalist-communist regime.
With all due respect to our socialist friends who are rightly celebrating the legal action that has been brought against Mr Pinochet, they need to finally have the courage to start working towards bringing Mr Milosevic before the court in The Hague as soon as possible. This will enable the Serbs and the Albanians together to rebuild a democracy and solve their problems, which involve living peacefully together, while our problem, and I repeat, involves whether or not we support a nationalist-communist regime.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in Kosovo is still problematical and confused, and Milosevic remains utterly unreliable.
Despite NATO vigilance and the presence of a few OSCE observers on the ground, according to the press the bombing in Kosovo has resumed over the past few days.
So the tragedy continues: more people are being forced to leave their homes and take refuge in the forests.
Furthermore, because of the resumption of hostilities, the UN has even been forced to delay sending humanitarian assistance to the region.
Albanian sources report that, instead of withdrawing their troops, the Serbs are actually sending reinforcements to Kosovo, in total contravention of the conditions laid down in the UN Security Council resolution.
Meanwhile, the crisis is deepening even further for the 60 000 or so people who have fled to the woods and for all the others, including large numbers of children, who are seeking safety and peace through a mass exodus to the countries of Central Europe and onwards to Italy.
Indeed, in Italy alone, over 1 500 Kosovars have landed on the coast of Puglia in recent weeks, creating obvious difficulties in terms of receiving and assisting them.
Once again, by devolving its powers to other international organisations, the Union has lacked the courage and ability to thrash out even a basic strategy under the common foreign and security policy, proving itself unable to adopt a coherent and clear-cut stance on this crisis.
Everything is left to the UN and NATO.
One of today's Italian newspapers carries an interview with Tony Blair in which, perhaps under slight provocation, he stressed the urgency of appointing a European Union representative to NATO, a sort of EU Foreign Minister.
And yet the EU's sole practical contribution to date is the OSCE observer mission, whose establishment in Kosovo is proving painfully slow.
There was talk of 2 000 observers, but as far as I can tell there are 200 or 300, so even they are not fulfilling their role.
Thus Europe is in effect absent, while the Serbian forces are delaying their withdrawal, playing on the misunderstandings and invective within NATO. Meanwhile Mladic and Karadzic are still on the run, evading international justice, and the Serbian authorities are being allowed to muzzle the press, closing down on a flimsy pretext all newspapers which disagree with the regime.
We wonder why the European Union, so attentive to human rights issues, is not drawing up a more effective and hard-hitting policy.
While an entire people is enduring unspeakable injustice and suffering, we press on with our interminable, sterile discussions, memorandums of protest, verbal censure and study groups.
I would end by asserting that we must promote much tougher initiatives.
I agree with Mr Dupuis in calling for an international arrest warrant to be issued at long last against Milosevic, so as to put an end to his war-mongering and, I believe, criminal actions.
Mr President, I find the atmosphere so far of the discussion here today rather surprising.
It all seems rather downcast with regard to what Mr Holbrooke and also our intervention have achieved, as if there had been no progress over recent weeks.
I reject this idea.
Despite all the doubts which you may have, I think that we are now seeing a form of progress, and I would certainly not have described dropping bombs as progress.
I am pleased that it has not come to that.
Two weeks ago, I stood here fearing that NATO would be intervening in the Kosovo conflict.
We then also expressed support for taking a hard line against the government in Belgrade, but at the same time we hoped that this would not result in a rift within the United Nations and that a political solution was perhaps still possible. I want to stress this point once again.
We have always said: above all else, continue to strive for a political solution.
That has been our position and it is still our position.
Violence must only be used to combat violence as the very last resort.
Two weeks later, we can be cautiously optimistic.
The threat of military intervention and Mr Holbrooke's negotiating skills have caused Milosevic to back down at the very last moment, despite the fact that, as usual, he himself presented it as a victory while at the same time taking a swipe at the independent media.
By next week, Serbian troops must have left Kosovo.
It is proving a laborious process, we are seeing that, and there remains the risk that interested groups will once again try to inflame the conflict.
NATO's military threat must therefore remain in place, while pressure must also be put on the KLA not to violate the peace.
Both parties are responsible for implementing the agreements.
We reject provocation from either side.
The Serbs must allow an autonomous Kosovo, but it must again be made clear to the Albanians that, as far as we are concerned, independence is out of the question.
On this basis, and after full implementation of UN Resolution 1199, we can begin negotiations on the future of Kosovo, without preconditions.
It is now important for the OSCE to be present as quickly as possible.
Observers must be in place without delay in order to reduce the risk of incidents.
I agree with those who have expressed their concerns at the risks the observers themselves are facing.
I believe that over the coming weeks we must take a good look at how these people can be protected as effectively as possible.
We are also pleased that the Union has allocated funds for humanitarian support.
We hope that the General Affairs Council can provide the necessary legal basis as soon as possible, but this aid must also be made available as quickly as possible.
The solution which has now been achieved could be described as the least worst solution, but it is nevertheless a solution which could mark the beginning of a process in which the problems concerning Kosovo can be resolved. In any event, it is a solution.
I did not hear my colleagues who expressed their criticisms say what would have been a workable solution.
It is a fragile solution, and vigilance is therefore required and its implementation cannot simply be left to the parties to the conflict. The continued involvement of the international community and above all of the European Union is therefore both necessary and desirable.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, I hope you will not take it amiss if I do not endorse your cautious optimism, because I find that rather difficult.
The events of recent years and in particular Mr Milosevic's behaviour in recent years have taught us quite a lot.
In fact our own behaviour in the last few months should also teach us some lessons.
If when the situation in Kosovo worsened we had taken it more seriously, perhaps we would now find it much easier to join in the general optimism.
But in fact we let things slide for a long time, for a long time we reacted very little, if at all.
We waited till the house had actually burned down before calling the fire brigade.
Thank God the fire is now gradually beginning to burn out by itself.
But there is no doubt it is still there, and it really ought to be up to us to remind people again and again that the fire in this house is still burning and has not yet been extinguished.
In this connection, I am really very sorry that I have not heard a single word in this debate about the concept of the people's right to self-determination.
I think we should always uphold that concept and reiterate it as a principle - for it is enshrined as such in the OSCE and not just in the EU.
We failed to apply the principles of the right of the people to self-determination during the war that originally broke out following the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, and we are failing to do so again.
Mr Wiersma, I am very sorry to have to tell you that some of the words you use are quite simply neo-colonialist, because you are setting preconditions for the people of Kosovo which they should in fact determine for themselves.
You set preconditions and say that you cannot conceive of autonomy in independence. But it is not up to us to decide that, it is up to those concerned.
We should be very careful about anticipating what will actually happen.
Let me make one more comment. We should now look at the factors of stability in this region and support them.
At the elections in Macedonia last Sunday, the old Communist regime was voted out.
There will be a second ballot in two weeks' time, when it is very probable that a new government will get in which said right at the beginning of the campaign that it definitely wanted to build up entirely different relations with the Albanian population in Macedonia.
Many of the constituencies were won by Macedonian candidates - especially by the Democratic Alternative - and I hope that in future we shall see a region of stability here right next to Kosovo.
We in Europe should provide the necessary support.
Allow me in conclusion briefly to touch on the ceterum censeo that we desperately need. We must not forget that the source of all evil is in fact called Milosevic and that we cannot negotiate with him, but only about him, and we must do that in The Hague!
Mr President, at last the resolute action taken by the international community has borne fruit, and we Europeans once again have the United States to thank.
I would like to express the Liberal Group's appreciation of the agreement between Mr Holbrooke and Milosevic, with its provision for observers and so on.
Commissioner van den Broek did however say that military withdrawal is not yet complete, and referred to Belgrade's imposition of tighter restrictions on the media and free speech.
I am pleased to hear that NATO is now ready to intervene militarily if Milosevic fails to honour his undertakings by 27 October at the latest.
Can the President-in-Office assure me that action really will follow, or is there a risk of still more procrastination?
The plan is for negotiations between Milosevic and the Kosovar leadership.
Yet surely, Madam President-in-Office, the Kosovans will be attending these talks with their hands tied behind their backs. Will they be free to claim liberty and independence as their goal?
The answer is a resounding 'no'. They will be allowed to negotiate a greater degree of self-government, but the EU and NATO are forcing them from the outset to accept Mr Milosevic as their head of state.
I am right, am I not, Madam?
The European Liberals would have liked to see negotiations without preconditions, and we very much regret the fact that this is not to be the case.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the scene has shifted slightly in these two weeks: yet again it has been decided to negotiate with Milosevic, and to regard him as part of the solution to the Balkan problem, this time Kosovo, like Bosnia before it and Croatia before that.
In my view we have yet again set out in the wrong direction, first and foremost because Europe is yet again bringing up the rear, standing on the sidelines and waiting for our American daddy to come along and solve our problems.
Yet again Europe has shown itself to be a political dwarf, incapable of taking any political initiative in our own backyard.
Secondly, I cannot imagine that this agreement, wrung out of Milosevic at the eleventh hour, will make him adopt a responsible attitude.
Milosevic has already perpetrated ethnic cleansing in Kosovo; he has already attacked the Kosovars, chased them from their homes and razed to the ground at least 700 villages in that region.
I ask myself and I ask you how the clock can possibly be turned back; I ask myself and I ask you how we can trust a man who has proved yet again, in these latest events, that he is a criminal, a murderer of women and children, confirming that he is not part of the solution but is in reality the problem, the real problem of the Balkans, of Kosovo and of Yugoslavia.
There will be no peace, either in Kosovo or elsewhere, for as long as Milosevic remains in charge of the Yugoslav regime.
Yet again I urge absolute firmness in respect of Milosevic. I call on Europe to propose that he be tried for war crimes and hauled before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in The Hague.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on two occasions I have already expressed my opinion and that of my colleagues on Kosovo, recalling on the one hand the overwhelming responsibility that lies with Milosevic but also with the European and French authorities - Mr Delors, Mr Santer, Mr Mitterand - who in the past, with their federalist ideology, had encouraged him against the wishes of the Slovenian and Croatian people. On the other hand, I have highlighted the illegitimacy of NATO's intervention, which in the past steered well clear of supporting people who were fighting against communism; this intervention would undoubtedly only aggravate the situation and make the crisis in the Balkans even more inextricable.
Yesterday I listened carefully to the eulogies that were bestowed on our colleague Mr Hume, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, for his work towards an agreement in Northern Ireland.
In his moving response, which was unanimously applauded - including by us, aside from our differences on other issues -, he said that anywhere in the world, instead of sending troops or bombers, it was infinitely more preferable to adhere to his philosophy of respect for differences and in all cases to reach settlements similar to that achieved in the Irish situation.
I am well aware of how difficult this is.
That is all the more reason for us to get down to work.
I therefore propose that peace missions, supervised or directly led by Mr Hume himself, should be set up with a view to finding a solution to the situation in the Middle East, as we in Europe have effective links with Israel and the Palestinians and therefore cannot distance ourselves from this issue.
We must naturally work to ensure the implementation of the UN resolutions on Lebanon.
We also have to work for peace in Sudan, where real genocide is taking place, with the Christians and the Animists in the south doomed to famine and the civil war that is raging in the north.
However, the closest conflict to us is indeed Kosovo.
A Hume mission must go there, and quickly.
I have no doubt that our Parliament is determined to put pressure on the Council, as shown by its applause yesterday, in order to avoid not only destruction and death among the Serbian people, but also a real outbreak of violence in the whole region.
Mr President, I endorse my colleagues' assessment of the agreement and their denunciation of the crimes committed, and I hope that we shall not have to wait 25 years to bring that criminal to justice.
Where I disagree with them is in analysing the situation and looking to the future.
Here we are found wanting: the Council, the Commission and Parliament too.
To my mind, such important institutions cannot simply issue denunciations and sign the agreement reached - above all thanks to US intervention - and then, as you quite rightly said, undertake to implement the agreements.
We are contributing money and men as usual, but in my opinion the problem is our piecemeal approach to the Balkan problem.
And here we are making a mistake.
If we claim that this problem is a duel between two parties, Milosevic and Kosovo, we are confusing the issue.
We know full well that the problem, an intractable one, is how - or how not - to give a people the freedom to express all their human, political, civil and social rights, and not least the basic rights of culture and language.
What I find unconvincing is the belief that once Milosevic has been done away with, as it were, the problem will have been solved.
No!
The Balkan question will still be there in the form of a clash between conflicting nationalisms, still smouldering beneath the ashes, one being the Communist nationalism of Milosevic, and the other the nationalism of a greater Albania.
After all, we saw what happened in Bosnia.
So the question is what alternative strategy the European Union can adopt to tackle the issue of peace and stability in the Balkans.
We must reflect on the need to address this question as a whole, while undertaking to implement these hard-won agreements and ensuring that there is a real cease-fire and a complete withdrawal of Milosevic's special forces.
Why not investigate the idea of an international conference on the Balkan issue as a whole, attended by all concerned, in other words several different European countries - Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia - as well as their internal minorities? This is how we can begin to make a contribution, in my opinion.
We cannot call on the European Union to do more, and then persist with a narrow, blinkered approach.
Thank you, Mr President. Ladies and gentlemen, it has been said here repeatedly that the agreement with Milosevic is not an ideal one.
That is certainly true. But we must accept that although Milosevic has very often broken his promises in the past, he has sometimes kept them - under pressure of course.
Think for example of the Dayton Accord provisions.
So it is difficult to decide how to judge his present concessions in the Kosovo conflict.
I believe it is up to the entire international community to be resolute and simply to take the appropriate steps if he does not respect the agreement.
After all, the threat of a NATO military attack remains, and in fact that alone led to the agreement.
I believe we must keep up this political pressure.
And the Kosovo Verification Mission is surely very important. It has not been mentioned much during this debate.
But after all, 2 000 observers in Kosovo is quite a lot of people.
Let me say in response to the suggestion by various Members that the EU is not making its presence visible enough that the European Union will provide more than 1 000 members of this Verification Mission, while the Americans will only be contributing around 200.
So that assertion is not true either.
Secondly, it was frequently said during the debate that the Americans were the only ones to take action.
It was indeed Mr Holbrooke who negotiated this agreement, but he acted on the basis of our instructions and, as you know, within the Contact Group.
The Contact Group held its last meeting at London Airport, and this last attempt was very much a joint EU and American venture. Why?
So as to take the Russian Federation on board too, for of course that is also of some political significance.
We now have that political agreement, but of course I think it is most important to continue exerting military pressure.
Let me also briefly respond to the criticism that this Kosovo Verification Mission is not visible enough.
There are continual complaints that the EU is not being visible enough here.
Let me also point out that the question of who is to head this mission has not been settled finally.
The head of mission will be an American, but the Political Committee in Brussels is still considering whether there should not also be a deputy head from the EU.
I also want to address the question of the safety of these observers.
That too was raised during the debate.
I believe it is a most important and delicate aspect of the Kosovo Verification Mission.
Of course the observers will be unarmed.
That is why I consider it so very important for the OSCE and NATO to work together very closely.
But we must take on board that Milosevic has after all accepted a restriction of sovereignty. That is at least a first step.
Apart from monitoring on the ground, NATO will also be carrying out air surveillance; so here too there will be joint action.
For the rest, as the UK Member said, the United Kingdom is putting another draft resolution before the Security Council.
It was discussed last night and there is a chance that the Security Council will adopt that resolution tonight, so that it can offer us all a certain basis for further action.
In summary, Mr President, let me repeat: we all know this is not a perfect agreement, but in the circumstances it offers some kind of a solution which allows one thing in particular: the return of the refugees.
Surely we all regard that as important, and the fact that it will continue to be underpinned by the military threat.
We hope - although we are none of us sure - that Milosevic will recognise the seriousness of the situation and use the time to negotiate and not to break this agreement again.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to protest because the President-in-Office of the Council is leaving.
I see no point in continuing with my speech, since neither the relevant Commissioner nor the Council is present.
Consequently, to make things easier for other colleagues too, I am protesting because we are being deprived of the right, those among us who happen to be last in line, to have at least an answer either from the Council or from the Commission, since neither Commissioner van den Broek nor the President-in-Office are here. The latter of course spoke at great length, even though there were only two speakers from Parliament.
I thank you, and in protest, I am giving up my chance to speak.
Mr President, I cannot follow the debate in the way it is taking place, with platitudes and ravings and with each country expressing its views separately as if they were the views of the entire European Union.
What has happened in Kosovo may be a positive step, or it may not amount to much at all.
It may even be a mistake.
And the same question applies to Bosnia now and will apply tomorrow to Tetovo and the day after tomorrow to other regions which speakers here who like to solve all our problems at a stroke will hear about for the first time.
What I feel is missing is an overall cohesive framework policy for south-eastern Europe or, as we call it otherwise, the Balkans.
Neither the Council nor the Commission have one.
They should develop one as soon as possible, having done the same thing for much more remote areas, and of course it will have to be a policy with a long-term European and Community perspective.
It must prove itself in the long term, otherwise we will for ever be reacting spasmodically.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Sarlis, we cannot overlook the presence of the Commissioner who is here and who represents the Commission.
Ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by fully endorsing the position of the Council and its presidency.
I do so not because it is an Austrian position, and certainly not for party-political reasons, but because I really do believe that it is based on the right considerations.
I have been saying for some time that we will not achieve a peaceful settlement in Kosovo without the threat of military attack.
However, I do not accept the view expressed by some Members here that we must take military action under all circumstances.
Nobody knows what the consequences would be of an air raid.
Everything we have to do now, we would also have to do after an air raid, with the many, many disadvantages which that would entail and which we would have to take on board if no other solution is found.
One disadvantage - and let me emphasise this, because I was in Moscow on Monday and talked with members of the Duma, with the chairman of the foreign policy committee and others - is that with the fall of the Iron Curtain and Communism we must do all we can to incorporate Russia into a European security system. But I also said that even if Russia vetoes it, we must be present and, if the worst comes to the worst, launch a military attack.
Nonetheless, it is naive not to say dangerous, it is playing with fire to believe that we could certainly find some way to leave Russia out of it and even that we should provoke Russia.
After all, the nationalist forces in Russia are just waiting for this kind of attack to change the climate in Russia accordingly.
To take the example of the bear, we all know that an injured or weak bear is often more dangerous than a strong bear.
I think it would be a totally wrong approach deliberately to annoy Russia.
I think the right approach would be, as the President-in-Office said, to involve Russia as far as possible in a peaceful solution, without however abandoning our objectives.
That is the Council's position.
That is why I think we should adhere to this position.
It must be made clear that the observers sent to Kosovo will of course be protected.
If any problems arise there, these units, these monitors, must receive adequate military and police protection.
We cannot gamble with the lives of these helpers.
But it must be made clear that the less we seek to achieve that aim with armed forces, the more we can achieve it with civilian forces, the better for us all.
After all, we must not forget what happens to a country, to a people that is being shelled.
As I said, this would not just engender corresponding support for the forces of nationalism, for example in Russia, but perhaps also keep Milosevic even more firmly in the saddle.
We must remember that if we follow this road.
That is why we should not play with fire, Mr President, but keep to a sensible but hard line, as we have done in the past.
We should continue to take this common approach!
Mr President, I hope that some Council staff are also present to witness what we have said in the presence of the President-in-Office of the Council himself.
The Commissioner has just correctly stressed that he has no confidence at all in agreements with Milosevic.
He has already seen a good many of Milosevic's signatures, and knows better.
He is also right in saying that aid workers do extremely dangerous work.
I am increasingly wondering who they are in fact, this group at present described as verifiers? To my surprise, my administrative trainee, a girl of 22, told me that on a visit to NATO she was invited to join them.
Just come along as a verifier, she was told.
It seems to me highly irresponsible to just allow people to engage in such dangerous work for which they have received no military training whatsoever, in addition to being unarmed and also, as we have heard, with an appeal to the Serbs to help evacuate them in an emergency.
You are then calling on those who are themselves playing an exceptionally dangerous role to evacuate unarmed young people, who are untrained and so forth.
They are simply hostages.
I saw a wonderful cartoon in a Dutch newspaper in which Saddam Hussein with his feet up on his desk was cheerfully telephoning Milosevic to warmly congratulate him on his 2 000 unarmed hostages and relishing all the fun in store.
This is the situation we are facing.
In the past we sent blue helmets.
They were at least soldiers, but were sent under such conditions that they could easily be taken hostage.
Now we are making an even more serious mistake.
I wonder whether this is really a good policy, and whether Mr Holbrooke, who - as I have understood it - was acting in part on behalf of the European Union, could not have achieved a better result.
Unfortunately, I believe that we must realise that Milosevic and his kind can only be convinced by a much clearer forceful stance, although I am not at all in favour of using violence if it can be avoided.
But we must understand that money and fine words do not help much in the Balkans.
I also find it a pity that this House remains so divided.
The same was true in the past over Bosnia.
The Social Democrats, supported by the far left, have always pursued a policy which more or less failed to take account of Milosevic.
I simply cannot understand this.
There is an anti-militaristic tendency behind it, but I would say that defending the rule of law demands rather more.
I hope that the time will come when this House overcomes its divisions on this question.
The President-in-Office of the Council certainly has an unpleasant task. Please note what she had to say here: patience has run out, just like two weeks ago.
She has given dates, 27 October and 3 November, by which time things must have changed. She is not going to come back with 4 November, I hope?
Our patience has run out, just like two weeks, four weeks and six weeks ago. This really is losing all credibility.
I must say I find it a great pity to hear Mr Wiersma say that the Kosovars cannot have independence. I find that too patronising.
You should not have to live under a criminal dictator, even if we do want Kosovo to remain part of Yugoslavia. This really cannot be ignored.
Mr President, I have a number of comments.
First, it has been proved that diplomacy has potential, provided that it is accompanied by patience and persistence.
It has potential in Yugoslavia, Palestine and Ireland, and there is no need to rush to resort to arms.
Secondly, it was unfortunately again the United States and not the European Union, even though Yugoslavia is our neighbour, which led the persistent and difficult negotiations and pressure that produced this peaceful resolution.
The third point I want to stress is that there are certainly forces which want to undermine the package agreed upon, on both sides, as we saw with the murder of a number of Serbs a few days ago.
That is why the international community, everyone involved in this process, must look in both directions and not just at one side.
Fourthly, it is important that we should stress the framework within which developments in Kosovo - full autonomy while at the same time respecting the existing frontiers in the Balkans - are to take place.
My last point is addressed to Mr Bangemann.
I would like to ask why it is that the European Union, the Commission and, indeed, all of us are so keen to take up the cause of Kosovo, of the Kosovo Albanians, and even resort to military threats, but when it comes to occupied Cyprus or the Kurds, the Commission is happy not only to turn its back on threats and political pressure, but even to manipulate policy so that finance for Turkey can go ahead.
That is a very sad state of affairs, and it reflects badly on the European Union, Mr Santer and all the Commissioners.
Mr President, it is good to have hope but it must not misplaced and it must not blind us to reality.
I want to be optimistic but I am fearful that Milosevic is still playing a cat-and-mouse game.
I believe he has been encouraged to do this particularly because of the inaction of the United Nations.
While I recognise that there were problems with China and Russia, I cannot help but feel cynical when I compare and contrast the UN response in Kosovo with its response during the Gulf War.
Obviously, if Kosovo, like Kuwait, were rich in oil the UN would have acted differently.
The lesson of Bosnia-Herzegovina has not been learnt.
Because of procrastination then hundreds of thousands of people needlessly died in ethnic cleansing.
But once the US and its European allies took action, the situation changed dramatically.
This point should not be forgotten, especially if Milosevic fails to honour the US-brokered agreement and comply with UN security resolutions in letter and in spirit.
His failure to do so should be met with only one response and that is the military option.
I regret to say that I believe that is the only language that will be understood and that will lead to a resolution of this particular crisis.
Thank you, Mr Cushnahan.
The debate is closed.
Economic crisis in Latin America
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the economic crisis in Latin America.
I give the floor to Mr Bangemann, on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, the current economic and in particular financial situation in the world is having a number of adverse effects which, of course, also affect Latin America.
There is a difference between the real economic situation and the situation of the financial markets.
This difference is particularly marked in countries like the Latin American countries, which basically have a fairly stable economic situation that offers some good prospects, while at the same time being threatened by financial uncertainty.
Because of this situation, because of this difference, we must not overreact to these uncertainties.
The sober fact, which nobody can overlook, is of course that the uncertainty on the global financial markets has led to situations of crisis in some regions of the world, including Latin America.
But at the same time, we must point out that the current economic situation and the prospects in the Latin American countries still look promising.
That is to say that the situation can be assessed in two different ways, depending on the factors we take into account.
But perhaps these two different points of view can be coordinated if we realise that we must not try to make a self-fulfilling prophecy, in other words that the financial uncertainty should not lead us to regard Latin America's economic prospects unfavourably, which would only help worsen the real economic situation, since the statistics paint an entirely different picture.
In 1997, Latin America's economic performance was the highest in decades.
Average growth in the region was over 5 %.
Per capita GDP rose by more than 3 % and inflation tended to fall throughout the region - certainly not to the level we consider acceptable here at home, but what is important here is the trend.
All this reflected the rise in investment, the massive influx of capital.
Let me remind you that during the time when people were speaking of a lost decade, the flight of capital was quite substantial.
Today we have the reverse situation, which is why, looking at the statistics, the picture is certainly quite different from that suggested by the financial situation alone.
All the Latin American governments have also set themselves the aim of achieving general economic stability through reforms, and the majority of these governments have carried out some radical reforms, based on sound financial management and economic openness.
The Commission therefore believes we can regard this as a solid foundation for tackling the current financial problems.
Of course the economic downswing in Asia - less so in Russia - has an impact on the region.
That impact varies depending on the countries' economic links with the Asian region.
Brazil conducts 12 % of its foreign trade with Asia, 25 % of Chilean exports go to Asia, and 13 % of Peruvian exports.
This means that the economic decline in Asia will certainly affect some countries more than others, and that despite greater diversification and the increasing importance of the processing industry and the services sector, raw material exports will continue to play an important role and therefore also make some countries economically vulnerable.
The Asian economic downswing will, therefore, necessarily be reflected in these countries' current account balances.
But that is not the real danger.
We are convinced this decline can be absorbed.
The immediate danger is that the Latin American currencies may weaken.
The loss of confidence in the international capital markets and the growing awareness of risks following the Asian and, more recently, the Russian financial crisis have made the Latin American currencies more vulnerable to potentially destabilising capital movements.
That is why Brazil has now taken stringent measures to combat speculation and Chile, Mexico and Colombia will no doubt follow suit.
These rapid and resolute reactions show that the region is better equipped than in the past to meet the challenges of the globalisation of financial markets.
Argentina is one outstanding example of how joint international efforts can support a country in this respect.
Although growth has also slowed in Argentina in recent months, we believe the country has solid economic foundations and that the reforms introduced earlier this decade are now having an effect, and a very positive one too.
Yet at the beginning of this month there were great fears that the worldwide financial instability would overtax its economy.
On 5 October, the World Bank therefore approved loans of USD 5.7 billion to reassure investors and because foreign banks were hesitating to provide Argentina with the necessary resources.
This guarantees that Argentina will be able to meet its financial obligations by the end of March next year.
It is also a clear sign that the international community will also help other countries - if it proves necessary - which means we have good reason to evaluate Latin America's future realistically and also positively.
However, the radical political and, more importantly, economic reforms on which so many Latin American countries embarked at the end of the 1980s must be pursued to their end.
It would be suicidal to conclude that because of these difficulties, the reforms must be brought to an end and a different policy pursued.
The Commission will therefore support every measure that encourages the continuation of these reforms.
That is the only chance for the continent.
You know that we are taking very practical steps in many areas: both political but also, where necessary, financial measures in the area of industrial cooperation, and of course in the area of traditional cooperation.
With this statement we want to help prevent a collapse, which could not be justified in any rational, realistic economic terms, but could only be the result of an overreaction.
The key point of this debate, in our view, is to help prevent this overreaction.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for the information he has just given.
This debate certainly provides a good opportunity for us to review relations between the European Union and Latin America. The fact that contact has been made with a view to preparing the final phase of trade liberalisation agreements with Mercosur, Chile and Mexico proves that the Union is genuinely committed to strengthening and moving forward with the agreements, and is not just expressing a vague desire to come closer together.
Likewise, the Latin American economies have made a genuine effort to modernise, fight inflation and meet their international obligations such as debt repayment.
As the turn of the century approached, growth was becoming quite marked, and expectations of a strong economic recovery were high.
It was hoped that a fairer distribution of wealth would begin to do away with the polarisation of Latin American societies into the haves and the have-nots. Increased international investment, improved growth, the encouraging progress made towards integration, along with marked political stability and strengthened democracy had all played their part.
However, as the Commissioner just mentioned, most of the progress made has evaporated in just a few weeks, following a crisis which was probably partly exaggerated, causing a panic reaction.
Certain economies still have structural problems and some had not yet felt the benefit of the spectacular growth in other countries. For them, the consequences have been devastating.
After a decade when our relationship has grown so much closer, there is a degree of mutual trust between us, and Latin America is therefore hoping we will do more than make a fine statement of intent.
My group is concerned for the citizens, for social stability and democracy.
We therefore wish a firm political stand to be taken. Let me explain what I mean by this.
We must make a determined effort to tackle the debate on the workings of the international financial system in what is now, to all intents and purposes, a globalised economy.
The joint resolution takes this approach and is a positive step which will have a calming effect and spread confidence in those markets most affected by the crisis.
However, the practical effects of this resolution must make themselves felt soon.
My group urges the Commission to take the initiative, because due to the extent of our social development and the size of our economy, of our financial system, of our share of the world market and of our profits - which must be mentioned here - we are called upon to take a lead in today's world. We should not shy away from this role, particularly in situations such as the one we are currently discussing, when the international monetary institutions fail to play their part in resolving the crisis and persist in applying conventional solutions, thus generating worldwide unrest and loss of confidence.
Mr President, the economic crisis we are confronted with is certainly real. It began in the Asian countries, moved on to Russia with serious consequences, and is now threatening to spread to Latin America.
Yet, as Commissioner Bangemann explained so clearly, there are no objective reasons for it. What the Commissioner neglected to mention was that in the meantime the European Union, its institutions, and almost all the Member States have failed to become involved in the debate and consequently in providing solutions, maintaining a silence which has baffled everyone, our Latin American partners most of all.
It is bad enough that the European Parliament has not made time to debate the situation until today, but it is even worse that the European Commission has shown itself totally lacking in initiative and that the Council has been unable to adopt any decisions on the matter.
For us to claim a place on the world stage, as the major economic power we are, and to hope to take on the responsibilities and the leading role which the arrival of the euro on the world economic scene could create for us, when we lack the breadth of vision called for in today's globalised world - overlooking even the view, that fortunately for us, Latin America is the only emerging area not so far shaken by the crisis - would be a contradiction in terms.
We ought to bear in mind too that, only this morning, the Commission reduced our forecast growth for next year by six tenths.
Thanks to the determined effort made by those countries to carry out structural reforms during the last ten years, they have been able to withstand speculation from a strong economic base, created by developing sound economic policies.
Fiscal and monetary discipline, liberalisation and regional integration have been the key elements of Latin American economic policy in recent years.
Without these, Latin America would have suffered grievously already.
Now is the time to reiterate and emphasise the need to resist the temptation to block the free movement of capital, and adopt protectionist policies which are irrelevant at the end of the twentieth century.
Of course, for us, this new vision of a globalised world economy must be subject to certain restrictions imposed by the values of democracy, solidarity and social cohesion.
At this juncture, therefore, we feel we should draw attention to the social consequences of financial instability.
My group therefore supports the call made at the recent summit of Latin American nations for discussions to be held with a view to establishing minimum rules of conduct where major flows within the financial and economic worlds are concerned.
In this context, we should certainly welcome the unblocking of the United States' contributions to the International Monetary Fund and the reduction of interest rates, but more is needed.
For its part, Spain has contributed USD 3 000 million to the International Monetary Fund to provide for a reserve or contingency fund for Latin America to be established.
So you will understand, ladies and gentlemen, how pleased I am that, in the hope of extending it to the Union as a whole and to the Member States, this initiative has been included in the joint motion for a resolution with which this debate will close.
Responsibility for developing the initiatives and putting forward further measures now rests with the European Commission.
In this connection, I think it is worth mentioning, Commissioner, how very low the utilisation of the budget allocation for Latin America has been - barely 2 % in the first six months of this year.
We would urge the Council to make every effort to further the processes now in place for progressive and reciprocal trade liberalisation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I must say how much I welcome Commissioner Bangemann's statement and the concern both he and the Commission have expressed regarding a situation which is affecting international financial and economic stability.
I have reflected on the reason behind the progressive impact of this international financial and economic crisis which has hit the economies of Latin America so hard. It is worth mentioning, in the first place, how fragile they are.
These economies are still emerging from a long period of internal conflict, and excessive debt.
They have, in fact, as has already been mentioned, made a great effort - on the one hand, to achieve stability, setting up democratic regimes and, on the other, to restructure their economies. They have also tried hard to open themselves to the outside world.
To date, the attempt to open up to the outside world had proved successful when coupled with good access to foreign markets. Furthermore, as Commissioner Bangemann remarked, the flow of investment had been most beneficial.
Unfortunately, according to a range of statistics, the price of raw materials has plummeted.
For instance, the price of rubber fell by 32.9 %, that of wool by 31.8 %, that of maize by 9.3 %, and that of cotton by 14.6 %.
Expectations for economic growth have been dramatically revised: growth has halved from last year to this. Furthermore, participation in trade and production has been drastically reduced, for example by a third of exports from Chile or 23 % of exports from Peru.
Clearly, the situation must be retrieved, and this should be done through financial arrangements which restore international confidence in these economies.
As we see it, two essential elements are involved.
Firstly, the process of internationalisation and opening up the markets on a world scale must not be jeopardised and, secondly, genuine economic, social and political stability must be guaranteed. Progress has already been made in these areas, and the importance of transparency and support for the economies must be emphasised.
In conclusion, therefore, I should like to join with the previous speakers in calling on the Community institutions and the European Commission to play a more effective role in this area. Unfortunately, although the launch of the euro is now almost upon us, they are not yet making their presence felt in the international financial institutions.
Commissioner Bangemann, you will have realised that all the Members who have so far spoken have done so in Spanish. Naturally, we are particularly sensitive to the situation in Latin America, and we know many of our colleagues in the House share our concern.
However, when we speak, we do so as Europeans.
We are not alarmist. When we speak as Europeans - in my case, as spokesperson for a group on the left - we do not wish to be prophets of doom, but we do wish to register our concern.
Following the so-called lost decade of the 1980s, the International Monetary Fund's structural adjustment applied a coercive mechanism which produced a mirage of recovery and growth.
We can now appreciate that the reality is quite different, and that Latin America is very vulnerable to the effects of the Russian and Asian crises.
And not only is it psychologically vulnerable, its structures are vulnerable too.
This does not bode well for countries which have suffered under a succession of authoritarian regimes.
We feel that the responsibilities we have acquired through our role as Europeans require us to respond to the serious challenges posed by the loss of production, loss of employment and drop in salaries.
That is not all: we are also witnessing an exodus of capital, a drop in internal and foreign investment for fear of insolvency in the private sector, and a progressive deterioration in the fabric of society. The outlook is far from bright for this region, which should be very dear to us in Europe for historical and cultural reasons.
My group believes that, due to globalisation, the crisis may have a negative impact on societies in regions which have just emerged from what were often bloody conflicts. Most of these societies are embarking on major processes of internal restructuring.
We therefore appeal to the Commission and accept as Members of this House that we have a duty to act as well as to consider.
We have to work responsibly and not be motivated purely by our self-interest as Europeans. It is true, however, that the Latin American crisis may destabilise the European economy if we fail to express our solidarity and to take prompt and decisive action to safeguard the future.
An enhanced role for the European Community could counter the influence of Japan and the United States, and result in a better framework for the globalisation of the world's economy.
Our group does not defend the simplistic notion that economic policy should be surrendered to politics and solidarity.
We are in favour of social adjustment which takes the human factor into account, but we know that if the economy is disregarded, costs will spiral and benefits vanish.
We therefore support the resolution which will be put to the vote in the House today. We urge the Commission to play an active role in these processes of regional integration, demonstrating strong support for and solidarity with Latin America, and facilitating the emergence of stable, democratic and highly developed societies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis that is currently gripping more and more regions in the world and therefore also Latin America is not a disease, but the logical consequence of a world economy that has gone awry.
So there is no risk of contagion, no point trying to vaccinate with new financial injections, as various groups are proposing in their compromise resolution.
On the contrary, injections of finance would only be grist to the mill of those people who have been unscrupulously amassing fortunes in Latin America for years.
All the fiddling and cheating that has been going in Brazilian banks in the last ten years alone can only be described as criminal.
Let me just remind you of the famous 'pink file' affair two years ago.
It contained a list of politicians from António Carlos Magalhães to the former President Sarney who had been receiving illegal transfers for years; the only reason it did not come to court was because these same politicians voted against setting up a committee of inquiry.
Large private banks collapsed by the dozen, the State took over the debts, balance sheets were forged unscrupulously and the ordinary people lost all their savings.
Anyone who in such a situation calls for more liberalisation, fewer controls and nothing but measures to, and I quote, 'ensure that confidence is regained among investors' is asking for trouble.
Just offering funds to service the external debt simply makes the vicious circle rotate even faster.
In the face of the growing poverty in Latin America, it would be cynical of us once again to miss the opportunity to incorporate brakes in the financial roundabout.
Fresh money, new investment must remain in Latin America; at least they must remain there for a minimum period, and they must be used to support local production and promote local consumption.
At the Latin American summit in Lisbon last week, even President Cardoso was prepared to remember his own left-wing past, in view of the crisis.
It was he personally who called for a tax on short-term capital movements and for the resulting revenue to go to poverty programmes.
That is exactly what the so-called Tobin tax is meant to achieve.
It may not be a way of gaining the confidence of irresponsible speculators, but will certainly attract investors who look to the long term.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you endorse our amendments in this regard, we would also be prepared to support your resolution.
Mr President, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his statement.
Ladies and gentlemen, try to imagine a scenario where a country experiences a steep rise in the interest rate, a dramatic fall in the stock market, an increase in the national debt, panic amongst financial investors, the threat of currency devaluation - in short, a major crisis of confidence and the collapse of economic reforms in progress.
Well, this is exactly what befell many Asian countries last year, then Russia during the summer, and is now happening in Brazil. There is a danger that other countries in Latin America may soon be affected.
Fear, particularly financial fear, comes free of charge.
If we do not put a stop to this domino effect, there can be no guarantee that the United States or the European Union itself might not soon be affected, even though their economies are solvent.
We should, of course, hope that this possible domino effect will be arrested thanks to the solid democratic basis established across South America, following the many agreements signed with the European Union.
In our view, long-term measures should be taken to deal with the situation, namely the reform of the institutional framework which developed from Bretton Woods. Medium-term measures are also called for, to promote greater transparency and the regulation of financial institutions.
In the short term, we should find ways of offering immediate financial support.
Spain, for instance, has set up a fund to assist Brazil, and the United States has followed suit, offering lines of credit to countries threatened by similar financial problems. It is to be hoped that the European Union too will act swiftly and decisively in the near future.
I stress the need for swift and decisive action, because we need to move quickly to prevent the crisis spreading across Latin America and resulting in the withdrawal of foreign capital and a regional recession. It has been estimated that the Brazilian stock market is currently losing a million pesetas a second.
Ladies and gentlemen, this cannot be allowed to continue.
Mr President, the scale of the financial crisis that is affecting the countries of Latin America, as it is affecting nearly all countries with emerging economies, and the extent of the impact it is bound to have on the European economies and particularly on the countries in the euro area, have been largely underestimated in Europe up until now.
Here, in fact, we have incessantly heard the political cant about the euro shield and the European exception, as if Europe could remain an island of stability, due to a mistaken understanding of the importance of intra-Community trade, and as if we were trying to ward off the crisis and its impact on us through a show of optimism that is infantile and irresponsible.
Our primary task as responsible elected representatives should be, on the contrary, to consider the true reality of the crisis as it stands, even if this in fact threatens to make the introduction of the euro more tricky than we thought and might even lead us to question the possibility of introducing a new currency in the middle of an international financial upheaval.
The declaration that has just been made by Commissioner Bangemann on Latin America is at least a sign, in part, of this essential return to realism, and we are beginning to see such signs in various quarters.
The Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Mr Junker, is saying that the euro is not an eternal shield.
The winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics, Amartya Sen, is expressing his fears of seeing a single monetary policy guided solely by anti-inflationary concerns having devastating effects on Europe when faced with a sustainable drop in American rates.
The Asian and Latin-American financial crises and their effects on the value of the dollar could indeed be the first asymmetrical shock to affect the various countries of the euro area.
Their economies, I remind you, are still far from being in line.
The Iberian economies will therefore be affected earlier and to a greater extent than the others by a major Latin-American crisis.
It is in this context that we will be able to judge whether the euro really acts as a shield or whether the countries of the euro area can together withstand the wide gap between the very heavy constraints of the single currency and the shocks that each of the countries is going to suffer as a result of the crisis, to different degrees, in different sectors and at different times.
Nor can we fail to ask whether it is really the right time for the various countries committed to forming the euro area to deprive themselves of flexible monetary resources that are tried and tested means of adjusting to an economic crisis, at a time when we appear to be verging on a major world financial crisis!
Mr President, the overall economic situation in the countries of Latin America is not good.
It is not good in the banana republics exploited by North American trusts.
It is not good in the countries where the communist guerillas are pillaging, raping and killing.
In Peru, the so-called 'Shining' Path is massacring entire villages.
Nor is it good in Colombia, especially in Caguán, where the extreme left-wing Columbian revolutionary armed forces receive payments from drug traffickers whose cultivation and trade they are protecting.
Only one country, which was put back on course for a sound economy several years ago, is showing a clean bill of health all round.
That country is Chile.
The Chilean model is therefore an example for the other countries of Latin America, but also for the African countries and for Russia.
The bulletin of the French Embassy, which I consulted yesterday on the Internet, says that growth is continual and that stability is guaranteed for prices, the currency and public finances.
Chile is the country where investment is being made and where financial reserves are increasing.
In 1973, the situation was different.
The Marxist dictator Allende had ruined the country, which, following the lorry-drivers strikes, was experiencing a revolt among housewives.
Everywhere, extreme left-wing armed groups were ruling with violence and murdering more and more people.
It was like Spain in 1936, where the right-wing majority, Gil Robles' CEDA, had its activities curbed and its leaders and militants assassinated, not to speak of the anti-Catholic atrocities.
Then a republican officer took a stand: General Pinochet.
He took a stand, like General Franco in the past, to avoid the grip of communism that, there as elsewhere, was preparing to set up its gulags and fill the mass graves.
The army and the police dealt with terrorism and the violence of subversion with warlike methods and every type of regrettable abuse.
And, on the pretext that torture is institutionalised and widely practised in Israel, are preparations being made in London or Madrid to imprison Benyamin Netanyahu, whose army has killed more Palestinian resistant fighters than Chile has killed revolutionaries? Is General Sharon going to be arrested in Washington or Paris for all the savage repression that has taken place under his authority?
We are forever appealing here for the rule of law, but the ambush on General Pinochet, organized in a joint Spanish and British plot, cynically violates all the rules of international law.
However, no committee of inquiry and no people's tribunal has been set up to judge 80 years of red terror in the world and those responsible for 200 million deaths, if we add the victims of the wars to the 100 million who have died in the organised famines and mass executions of communism, an impassable scenario of modern slavery.
Mr President, allow me to add a few words to Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's comments.
He is naturally quite right to cite corruption as one of the causes of the economic instability.
The fact is, of course, that there are some thoroughly corrupt states - one could call them military dictatorships.
Mr Antony just referred to a country that used to be a military dictatorship.
These countries are certainly stable economically.
But there are also some properly governed states that are economically vulnerable.
There are many reasons why this can be so.
We are seeing this situation in Latin America at the moment.
There is a certain psychology that applies to financial markets when they obviously no longer have confidence in the fixed exchange rates of Brazil, for instance.
It leads to a flight of capital, as in Asia and Russia.
That happens for psychological reasons. It has no economic basis, as Mr Bangemann rightly pointed out.
But there is also one factor over which the states often have no influence at all, namely the fall in raw material prices.
The advantage Europe is currently deriving from cheaper oil is quite simply a disaster for Mexico, Venezuela and other countries.
That has nothing to do with corruption, it is because of the fall in raw material prices, which really should give us food for thought.
How can we also stabilise raw material prices in the long term?
It is also due to the disappearance of Latin America's Asian markets, through no fault of its own.
Furthermore, with the disappearance of the Asian markets and the devalued Asian currencies, Latin American goods are now faced with cheap competition from that region.
That is why I think we must take a very practical approach to this problem.
Looked at in practical terms, that means Brazil must be stabilised at this time.
Brazil is the key economy in Latin America.
Let me refer you to paragraph 9 of our motion for a resolution, in which we call for a special fund - something which has been discussed in the past - supported by the international financial institutions, to help Brazil cope with the present difficult situation.
If Brazil collapses, if Brazil has to devalue, the entire region would be affected.
We would be exactly where we were in the early 1980s, namely confronted with a disastrous situation in which the ordinary people, the people of Latin America, have to pay the price for the inability of the financiers to maintain order in the world.
So I ask you to approve our motion for a resolution and thereby to support all the efforts made by the Commission and the Council and also by others to prop up the Brazilian economy at this time.
That does not excuse them from the homework that needs to be done in these countries, with which we would be happy to assist them.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Bangemann for his ever-positive and involved presence amongst us.
Following the debt crisis, Latin American countries have in recent years made a considerable political and economic effort towards structural adjustment. This has involved enormous social costs.
It so happens, Mr President, that although those countries agreed to the clause on democracy in their cooperation agreements with the European Union, they receive the worst treatment, in real terms, under the Community budget.
Not only do they not enjoy any budgetary advantages, but they do not benefit either from the preferential trading treatment granted, for example, to the countries of the Lomé Convention.
With the advent of this crisis, the Latin American countries have been punished twice over: they have been the victims of the adjustment, and they have also been the victims of the system we advised them to adjust to.
Clearly, the solution to this crisis lies beyond the competence and sphere of influence of the European Union. Nevertheless, Commissioner, much can be done at Community level.
Mr Marín, the Commissioner responsible, is aware that I have always supported him in the past, and that he can continue to rely on my humble self to support any initiatives he may put forward with a view to strengthening relations between the European Union and Latin America.
I do have to say, however, Commissioner, that on this occasion a clear, effective and diligent response from the Commission was sorely lacking.
In such difficult times, the European Union cannot and must not shirk its responsibilities, nor may it resort to silence.
Mr Bangemann, it is regrettable that year after year the Commission should propose the same amounts for the main budget lines for Latin America. No account is taken of the new agreements with Chile, Mexico and Mercosur, of the challenges next year's Rio summit will present, or of the current crisis affecting the economies of Latin America.
No provision is made either to compensate for the rate of inflation.
I therefore share the concern expressed by Mrs Miranda in this regard.
I trust all the political groups which have participated in this debate - Mr Puerta's or even Mrs Miranda's, since the general rapporteur for the budget is in her political group - will be able to support the amendments to the draft budget for the coming year put forward by both Mrs Miranda and myself. As it has consistently done, my group also supports the amendments I have proposed.
I do hope, Mr President, that following this debate the Commission will tackle the situation with enthusiasm and imagination and will consider a suitable response at Community level. What is needed is not just a declaration, but a package of budgetary measures, investment, more credit from the European Investment Bank, Community guarantees and trading agreements.
The Old World has to find a way of expressing its solidarity with its long-standing and long-suffering friends in Latin America.
Mr President, although the financial and economic crisis in Latin America is undoubtedly linked to those in the Far East and Russia, being a consequence of them, it has certain specific features of its own.
There is a clear disparity between, on the one hand, all the admirable proposals and efforts being brought to bear by the parties concerned - the international community, the Monetary Fund, the European Investment Bank and the World Bank - and, on the other, the utterly inadequate results achieved.
This is a sign that the treatment is perhaps not the right one: we should stop showering Latin America with aspirins, which have disastrous effects, but should perhaps prescribe for it a course of antibiotics, or in other words - as Mrs Kreissl-Dörfler put it - adopt an alternative policy approach.
Tough decisions must be taken to break the vicious circle of debt which only produces more; debts should be written off once and for all.
Measures should be taken with all due respect for human rights; equitable growth should be pursued in both Europe and Latin America, without applying different standards.
Finally, excessive liberalisation should be avoided, since that serves only to make matters worse, and we should put an end to unconditional guarantee funds, which have contributed to the disaster in Russia.
Mr President, not so long ago, Latin America was regarded as one of the most promising regions for the world economy.
Today the economic and financial crisis in this region has had very serious consequences, and not only for the people there.
The Latin American countries rely heavily on the trend in raw material prices, and it is an established fact that this crisis is seriously disrupting the international financial markets.
We keep rightly declaring that so far the euro zone has reacted in a relatively stable way to the international network of crises.
But we must realise that all the worldwide economic problems are bound to have an impact on the European Union too, unless internationally coordinated measures are taken.
We shall have to tackle the problems at their roots if we wish to resolve them and revive the world economy.
One problem is that the level of real interest rates is at times too high.
We must improve the quality of management systems, supervisory systems and, in particular, financial systems, on an international basis.
Mr President, dear colleagues, Commissioner Bangemann, it matters little that the fundamentals of the real economy are sound, as you said at the beginning of your speech, because in a monetary economy, a market economy, the disease always comes from the money side.
It is the money side that we have to somehow cure if we are going to stop the financial crisis from spilling over and overwhelming the real economy.
The question is what are we doing to achieve this?
The answer is that we, the developed world, are doing very little indeed, yet we are asking Latin American to bear the burden of the adjustment.
What is Latin America doing? Latin America is actually doing quite a lot.
Brazil has raised its interest rates to 50 %.
You can appreciate what effect that is likely to have on its real economy.
Next year Brazil will have negative rates of growth: -2 or -3 %.
You can understand how that will exacerbate the poverty and misery in that country, which are already considerable.
Now we are asking them to do more.
We are asking them to reduce a deficit of 7 % in Brazil to 2 or 3 %, as if they were going to join the euro.
You can understand what that will do to their public services: it means taking the food out of the mouths of starving children.
This is what this pressure implies.
We threaten them with a repeat of the speculative attack on their currency.
The speculators, we tell them, are waiting to see what we will do on 25 October after the election when the new measures will be announced.
What can they do? They are starving already, what more can they do to save the Western financial system, Mr Commissioner?
What can we do to save our own system? President Cardoso spoke in favour of introducing a Tobin tax.
For four years we have been talking about a Tobin tax and we have not made any progress.
We need to have a fund to rescue them.
What size should this fund be? Between $40 and 100 million say the specialists - that money does not exist in the financial institutions, Mr Commissioner.
It is a mistake to think that we are talking about their interests alone.
If Brazil falls, any person in a responsible position will tell you that Wall Street will fall and if Wall Street falls the consequences for Europe will be terrible.
Mr Commissioner, it is our interests that we have to defend and we should defend them at our cost and not at their cost.
When one hears the ominous sounds coming from Latin America do not ask 'for whom the bell tolls?' - it tolls for you.
Mr President, after all these economic and political considerations, let me point to another aspect.
We all breathed a sigh of relief when we heard in the early 1990s that the economic upswing in Latin America heralded the end of the lost decade of the 1980s.
In addition to this economic upswing, which in fact differed widely from one country to another, we also saw more stable democratic governments emerge in all the countries - and I believe this is most important for us - with the exception of Cuba.
True, this was sometimes accompanied by severe political difficulties and social crises, and there were still many human rights violations.
But what was important was that democracy and economic recovery gained ground and gradually also filtered through to the people, as reflected at least in some degree of political stability.
Now the Asian economic and financial crisis has also reached Latin America, where structures that are still weak are being further weakened and threatened.
We must not allow the new financial crises to make the people begin to doubt in democratic structures that are, in any case, still very inadequate in some respects.
By now we in Europe should be familiar with the disappointment people feel if the chain of democracy, the rule of law and prosperity does not match up to their expectations.
Europe, the EC and the democratic parties provided much support in their time.
Despite all the problems engendered by the changes in Eastern Europe, which have brought similar problems in their wake, we should not forget these partners, and especially not the risks which this kind of disappointment can entail.
The current debate about Pinochet shows how thin the protective cover actually is, although here we are dealing with an established democracy, namely Chile.
Nor must Mercosur, with its high ambitions, become a victim.
It too is in a sense our godchild, and we must attack the human rights violations that accompany every economic and social crisis, even if the two aspects may seem quite unrelated.
Certainly, the Latin American markets are future markets for us.
We would ask the Commission to take these factors into consideration in any initiatives now taken, given also that the word has now spread in what are called the worldwide and international financial institutions that the two aspects are indeed interrelated.
Mr President, despite the Commissioner's upbeat tone, the financial crisis affecting Latin America is bound to cause alarm and concern in the European Union, not only because of the need for the EU to play a role in international monetary cooperation, but also because Europe has for many centuries been linked to that vast area of central and southern America through ties of culture, language, religion and civilisation, and - perhaps - because everything possible has not yet been done to establish a special relationship with that market.
Naturally we welcome the idea of a financial package for Latin America, geared to creating new jobs and boosting domestic consumption.
We are equally pleased to note the increased growth of recent years, but there can be no doubt that reforms aimed at achieving economic stability and financial transparency have now become absolutely essential, and that we must ensure that a loss of confidence by financial markets does not weaken the currencies of Latin America.
How should the challenges of the future be tackled? The World Bank has already assisted Argentina; it could obviously do likewise for other countries.
But the European Union cannot refrain from playing its own part, by reinforcing political cooperation, intervening more effectively and ensuring that capital does not stop moving freely around Latin America. Rather, strict controls should be put in place to prevent speculation, and new investors encouraged with incentives targeted in particular at small and medium-sized enterprises.
At the same time, human rights must be complied with in full, and democratic conditions respected.
Unless the European Union can assume a leading role in the shaping of a new international monetary system, the much-vaunted launch of the euro could result in partial failure, like a Ferrari without an engine: good enough to display in the shop window, but not to set out on the long road towards international solidarity.
Mr President, the economic crisis in the world today clearly demonstrates the fact that few countries are immune from the consequences of economic shocks in other parts of the world.
Asia is important, but Latin America only sends 1 % of its exports to Russia.
It was, however, badly affected by the flight of capital triggered by the situation in Russia.
If Latin America is plunged into deep crisis, this will inevitably have a very serious effect on the American economy and pose the threat of a world crisis more serious than any since the pre-war era, which could devastate Europe.
It was hoped that the low inflation rates and improving levels of growth in Latin America would provide the basis for real progress and, as Mr Bangemann said, in 1997 the average rate of growth was over 5 %.
This was attributed by many observers to liberalisation, privatisation, deregulation, etc. encouraging an inflow of capital.
However, the present crisis has shown that such policies leave their practitioners vulnerable to events totally beyond their control.
As the Managing Director of the IMF, Michel Camdessus, put it: 'At times one has the impression that markets do not differentiate properly the good players.'
While it would be totally mistaken to consider returning to closed economies or narrow protectionism, there is a need for agreed international regulation to deter huge and sudden capital flows, particularly of short-term funds, and to work towards globally coordinated interest rates.
Consideration must also be given to a rescheduling or writing-off of huge foreign debts which rose for Latin America as a whole from $83bn in 1975 to $627bn in 1996.
Structural adjustment programmes, liberalisation and fiscal reforms have also frequently involved cuts in health, education and social and poverty alleviation expenditures, and these should have been avoided in the past and must be resisted in the future if poverty is not to be rapidly increased and demand further reduced.
It is incumbent on us in Europe to adopt policies, such as the easing of interest rates, to encourage growth, and the provision of appropriate financial support - not, however, just to help the rich and the speculators.
The crisis in Latin America and in the world as a whole should alert us to the necessity of questioning the neo-liberal policies which became the conventional wisdom and seeking to construct a new model of development involving regulation at the global level, a new international financial agreement, reform of international financial institutions and a new deal to reverse the trend to ever greater income inequality and vast poverty.
Mr President, I very much appreciated Mr Bangemann's introduction, and I believe there is no need to stress that - as virtually all the previous speakers have said - the violent financial turbulence which has hit all markets in recent months, sparked by the crises first in Asia and then in Russia, could have particularly serious adverse effects on the economy of Latin America.
This possible development is all the more worrying, given the efforts made in recent years by most of these countries to stabilise their economies and equip themselves for a satisfactory move into world markets.
These processes of adaptation have demanded considerable sacrifices on the part of the populations of Latin America, not least in terms of reduced real incomes and living standards.
The first green shoots are nevertheless emerging, as proved by the growing interest in that area on the part of economic operators, in terms of both financial flows, trade and investment in production.
Unfortunately, our assessment is less upbeat in the case of countries claiming to be friends of Latin America, in particular the European Union.
By way of example, we could mention the deadlock reached over the draft cooperation agreement with Mercosur and Chile, not to mention the one with Mexico.
Indeed, despite the Commission's efforts and the support from this House, the selfishness and short-sightedness of certain Member States - more concerned to protect narrow farming interests than to develop a broad-based vision of international economic and hence political relations - are preventing the launch of initiatives which could have extremely important repercussions, primarily for Latin America but also for Europe.
Whilst this unacceptable stalemate should be criticised in no uncertain terms, it is equally necessary to encourage the Commission and Council to do whatever they can, not least through financial measures, to consolidate the results achieved to date and prevent the efforts made by Latin America from degenerating into a new and untenable 'lost decade'.
For example, referring to the figures quoted by Mr Katiforis, whereas it might be entirely inconsistent with the principles of sound economic policy management to think of using for domestic purposes any excess reserves of the European central banks which might be generated once the euro is introduced, it would seem quite reasonable to devote part of these sums to extraordinary financial support for Latin America, by agreement with the other international institutions, with a view to avoiding a situation where - as has already been underlined - those countries' problems could soon become ours as well.
Mr President, I would like to draw three lessons from this.
The first is that in a very interdependent world, the possibility of infection means that we have to make it our priority to stop the spread of disease, if I might say so.
We have scarce resources: the intervention methods of the Monetary Fund.
We have wasted them.
Going to Mr Yeltsin's rescue, in the circumstances in which it was done, was a waste.
And we no longer have these resources to give to countries that show that they have a State and a market structure, which is not perfect - nothing anywhere is perfect - but which, when compared to the void with which we are faced in Russia, is totally different.
This is, therefore, the first lesson to draw: we must initially block the spread of the disease.
The second lesson to learn is that the problems of balance of payments or of collapse of credits are not simply problems of credit or of advancing the necessary liquid assets.
There needs to be a framework, a culture, a set of institutions that work.
A market is not a jungle.
The market is the result of a civilised legal and political structure.
That is what a market is.
Those people who today - and this is the third lesson - want to do away with the entire condemned system and replace it, because the failures we have seen are the result of uncontrolled collective behaviour, are not saying what they want to replace it with, but we know that they are thinking of systems that have brought no results.
Protectionism, which for 20 years has been called support for the Third World, has yielded no results.
Billions have been spent on helping regimes that have done nothing to ensure the development of the population, and this was done in order to have a clear conscience.
I therefore think that, all things considered, integration into a globalized economy according to very precise rules is the best solution, in the long run, to guarantee development.
The example of Chile has shown this.
There have been others, and the fact that at a given time things may get out of control, for very specific reasons, must not make us give up.
We know very well why things got out of control in Japan, Thailand and elsewhere.
What we are dealing with is not so much poor management in those countries, but rather the arrival of a short term influx of capital, which was withdrawn at the first sign of a setback, and then the collective chain of events led to a difficult situation.
That is what we need to solve, that is the lesson to learn.
We must not throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I have received five motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Telecommunications, media and information technology
The next item is the report (A4-0328/98) by Mr Paasilinna, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission: Green Paper on the convergence of the telecommunications, media and information technology sectors and the implications for regulation (COM(97)0623 - C4-0664/97).
Draftsmen (Hughes procedure): Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, Mr Hory for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and Mr Kuhne for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, last spring I had the honour of being appointed rapporteur of a Parliamentary report on a Green Paper dealing with the convergence of telecommunications, the media and information technology.
The Commission's document was very technical and perhaps even meandered somewhat.
I, for my part, tried to keep the report brief.
Too lengthy a report might not have led to any action being taken, since it might have been difficult to see the wood for the trees.
Convergence is such a complicated and unpredictable matter that reports should at least not end up making it even more obscure.
My position is based on advocating an open European information society for everyone, in which there is no division between the information-rich and the information-poor.
Information is not an ordinary commodity.
Regardless of its mode of dissemination, it has great social and cultural value.
Bytes are not neutral.
I maintain that participation in the world networks should be the modern right of every European citizen, which also means having as extensive a market as possible.
Likewise, the SME sector, which employs so many, must have a basic right to flexible access to the new, integrated environment. Convergence does not necessarily mean the merger of different sectors of industry - trends indicate that it is actually more a way of transcending borders.
It is then that new and partially overlapping activities and services will co-exist.
To safeguard the availability, interchangeability and multi-functionality of the networks, the transmission of information has to be regulated within the terms of a standard regulatory framework.
Regulation has to meet the challenges of employment as well as the rights of citizens, while at the same time satisfying the needs of new economic strategies and the synergy interests of companies.
As sectors are developing fast so must our legislators also work fast and keep up-to-date.
I have in mind a model for flexible regulation.
It will not hamper competitiveness in European industry, but will actually aid it.
Nevertheless, regulation will be available if any sector runs off the rails.
I did not approve of the delay in drafting this report: on the contrary, when it comes to competitiveness, we have to press on.
I await prompt action on the part of the Commission to get legislative initiatives into place so that we can bring the matter to a conclusion when Finland holds the Presidency.
The current framework for regulation is still feasible, then, but convergence is happening right now and the transition period we have is short.
Competition already exists, for example, among the telephone and the cable television networks and between the fixed telephone network and mobile phones.
You can get music and television programmes off the Internet.
For this level of technical transmission a new, separate legislative code must be created, one that will cover all the many systems that exist today.
We most definitely do not need a European supervisory authority to take responsibility for content or services.
They will naturally remain a matter for the Member States, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity.
The part mobile phones play in our society was perhaps not done justice to in the Green Paper.
For example, recently in my own country, Finland, there has been an explosion in the number of mobile phones, which is showing no signs of abating.
They are used for paying bills, for surfing the net and playing computer games, and soon you will be watching TV programmes on them.
The mobile has seen convergence, if anything has.
The mobile is a way of life: you are always close by, yet you have your freedom.
When we consider equivalence among the networks, equal and fair terms of allocation have also to be ensured for service providers.
In this connection, we must strongly oppose the auctioning of mobile communication frequencies.
Auctioning would lead to monopolies, and then the American and European giants would start dividing up the frequencies among themselves.
That would be going against everyone's interests, especially the consumers, as prices would rise.
The amount of money a company has is no indication of how good a service it can provide.
Under the Treaty of Amsterdam, the preferential treatment that public service broadcasters are getting is bound by special conditions governing the content and quality of programmes.
In addition to effective regulation, we need an enormous injection of investment into education and training, the European information industry, and employment.
Above all, we have to promote the notion of an information society which is open to everyone.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of all the committees involved in the Green Paper on convergence, I should first like to thank the rapporteur for the excellent cooperation which has produced a coherent report.
Convergence of the telecommunications, media and information technology sectors is a major challenge for policy-makers and legislators.
The keen competition between the various technologies makes it extremely difficult to predict what the situation will be in the future.
But what is certain is that the arrival of new services will lead to an expansion of the information market as a whole.
This will bring new opportunities for economic growth and employment.
A new environment for communication services also provides opportunities to improve the quality of life of European citizens by offering the consumer more choice and lower prices.
Applications and services are becoming independent of the supporting infrastructure, which is why technology is clearly a motor for change.
Support for research and development activities in the field of ICT under the fifth framework programme can make a major contribution to the convergence process.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy therefore much regretted that the budgetary resources proposed by the Council for the Technologies of the Information Society programme are lower than under the fourth framework programme.
This is not in keeping with the economic and social importance which the Green Paper on convergence rightly awards to information technology.
Technological developments influence the regulatory framework and vice versa.
Regulations must not be an obstacle to the interoperability of different technologies and must therefore, if nothing else, be technologically neutral and non-discriminatory.
Rules should also preferably be applied worldwide.
The convergence of telecommunications, media and information technology is essential to a flourishing electronic trade.
The relatively high cost of data and telecommunications in Europe and the lack of security on the Internet means that electronic commerce has so far remained principally limited to the transfer of data between large companies and their suppliers and customers.
Lower telecommunications costs due to liberalisation and the possibilities offered by the Internet will facilitate access to electronic commerce for small and medium-sized businesses and the consumer.
There is a real shortage of factual material - by which I mean good statistics - with which to assess the rate and direction of the development of ICT services currently used in trade and industry in other areas of society.
Measuring computer use or Internet use, for example, is just one of the elements.
Good benchmark studies, preferably at international or European level, are necessary in order to judge whether or not it is desirable to regulate.
We must learn to live with the fact that government cannot keep up with all these developments at the legal level.
Finally, Mr President, convergence is not an aim in itself.
It is a matter of eliminating barriers to the supply and use of ICT products.
National legislation for telecommunications or for information technology or for printed media alone must therefore be adapted.
In this context, the capacity for innovation and the opportunities for risk-taking must be sustained, and not hindered by an excess of rules and regulations designed to channel convergence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would love to see a more detailed debate on how an uncontroversial and positive technical process can fall victim to an interest-led ideology of deregulation, regardless of its market capacity or the behaviour of users and viewers, regardless even of everything that is recognised and known as necessary to the economic strengthening of the production and use of European content.
In the view of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the report before us must also contain the following points, in addition to the emphasis on public broadcasting and the Amsterdam protocol on the subject, i.e. not having programme requirements laid down by an EU Commissioner. They include what are called 'must carry' obligations for network operators in respect of the programmes of public service providers; a form of regulation which reflects a balance in the law on the media, telecommunications and competition, to ensure security for investors and legal certainty; the continued enforcement of regulatory principles such as pluralism, cultural diversity, protection of young people and the production and marketing of quality programmes, even in a world with no shortage of frequencies; and the submission of a draft directive on media ownership and the protection of pluralism.
Precisely in view of the growing convergence of transmission channels for all forms of electronic communication, access is quite rightly an important factor with regard to acquiring market power and must therefore be subject to democratic control.
I believe we still have quite a lot to do here, which includes supplementing and correcting the motion for a resolution by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy along these lines.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder why this curious combination of vulgar Marxism and speculation keeps cropping up whenever we discuss the information society.
According to Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, technology is the motor of development, which is simply not true.
The question of productive forces and production conditions is not that simple, not even according to Marx, although that is another matter.
Even good statistics are no use in themselves.
We need to look at quality.
We need to understand what is happening.
Until we understand that, there is no point in producing statistics.
Vague ideas about where market opportunities might exist do not help open up markets; what helps open up markets is careful regulation, investment security, definite rules.
Careful regulation cannot be used as a blanket excuse for continuing to apply the deregulation ideology in the way it has been applied in the past.
In that respect, I welcome Mr Paasilinna's report.
By taking a specific approach and by clearly defining his terms in his report on convergence, he is shedding some light on the obscurity which the Commission report unfortunately creates, and is establishing at least some basis for a discussion that really can answer the question: what does careful regulation mean here?
Two words, information and communication, can in effect serve as a gold mine, a weapon or a lever for democratic participation.
But that depends on how they are applied in the various areas, what the people need and expect, and what needs and expectations must be supported, created or indeed scaled down by the appropriate rules; because of course only a vulgar Liberal would believe that we can simply let things take their course and surely something good will come of it.
That is not the real world either.
Mr President, I take the floor to deputise for Mr Hory of the ARE Group, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
I fully support his views, and shall now continue in French, since we discussed this speech in that language.
Mr President, in drafting this opinion, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights set itself the prime objective of studying the legal problems presented by the phenomenon of convergence.
This phenomenon is mainly a result of the technical developments of digitalization and compression, which permit various types of infrastructure functioning independently of each other to transport various types of content.
This infrastructure despecialization erodes the traditional distinction between telecommunications and broadcasting, and is bringing about a debate on the desirable regulatory changes in this sector.
The Committee on Legal Affairs therefore felt it was important to adopt a functional approach that is not limited to the three options proposed by the Commission's Green Paper.
This is why our committee has proposed a model for the future that, while maintaining the traditional distinction between infrastructure and content, aims to simplify the regulatory framework.
The new framework that is proposed is subdivided into five different sectors.
The first involves infrastructure provision: resource access and interconnection arrangements.
The second relates to network operation: routing and transporting of communications content.
The third concerns access system management: allocation of Internet numbers and addresses and browser systems, including electronic programme guides.
The fourth relates to general content, that is, the content of television and Internet programmes, including intellectual property rights.
And the fifth relates to specific content, that is, the provision of services such as voice telephony and Internet access.
The Committee on Legal Affairs also emphasises that due to the speed of technological change, simply applying Community legislation on competition, which is there to stop, a posteriori, the formation of cartels and the abuse of dominant positions, is no longer enough to respond effectively to the large-scale process of alliance-making and vertical integrations within the industry.
Our committee therefore considers it necessary to broaden the ONP-type open provision rules whenever bottlenecks threaten to limit competition between businesses and to compromise consumer protection.
It therefore calls on the Commission to do its utmost to ensure that digital TV decoders in Europe are compatible in future and to draw up a draft directive to close the remaining loopholes, notably in the protection accorded by consumer law to consumers of goods or services offered via new technologies.
Mr President, I should like to start by thanking Mr Paasilinna for an excellent report.
The Green Paper and the report defined convergence as growing together and interchangeability of networks and channels for communication, and, in addition, the integration of distinct technologies in the new forms of applications and services.
They also talk about convergence of content which I will discuss a little later.
The divisions of the past into the technical areas of voice telephony, broadcasting and new services have led to a complex legislative and regulatory framework which has arisen due to a variety of different technologies being applied.
These technologies made the distinction between a telephone call, a television broadcast and an Internet page access quite pronounced in terms of delivery and content.
In network and technological terms those services will still be delivered in a similar fashion as they are today but the technologies applied will be predominantly digital rather than analogue and predominantly fibre-optical and satellite-based rather than electrical, cable and terrestrial broadcast based.
Therefore, the delivery mechanisms will not greatly affect the way in which these services are delivered or consumed.
They will, however, provide and offer new services of a form and nature which will break down the traditional boundaries that exist between current forms of communication.
This will mean that traditional forms of content can be stored, transmitted and received by the same media and means.
The content will, by the technology at least, be treated indiscriminately.
For that matter, why should we, as regulators, discriminate between different forms of content other than to cost added value, protect copywrite and provide security when the boundaries between the traditional forms of content break down? We are, in effect, experiencing convergence of content.
Is a video-conferencing session between four people a telephone call with vision?
Is it a live television broadcast to multipoint destinations? Is it a new service which should not be covered by European telephony or broadcast regulation but treated like a new service such as Internet shopping?
I believe it is none of these.
The review of communication into a single regulatory framework to be carried out by the Commission next year is to be welcomed.
On the basis of its Green Paper on convergence and Parliament's response in the form of the Paasilinna report, it will provide a framework that will contain light and simple regulation to promote economic and industrial objectives such as competition and interoperability.
It will also enhance the concept and implementation of universal service so that everyone is information-rich and cultural diversity is maintained.
The Commission's Green Paper and Parliament's response make those arguments.
I commend Mr Paasilinna's report to this House.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, globalisation and convergence are the prevailing slogans of our time.
That is why the Green Paper described the review of the traditional regulatory system in terms of its relevance to the future as the most important challenge.
The Commission launched this discussion in December last year.
It is clear from the huge participation of media representatives, consumer associations and industry in the consultation meeting that was then organised, with 270 contributions and more than 80 000 visitors to the Internet site by July 1998, that there is enormous interest and an enormous need for action in this area.
How should we respond? Depending on the various interests of the parties concerned, the proposed solutions range from trust in the self-regulatory powers of the free market, through a partial regulation of specific areas, to excluding certain areas of public service.
My position in this discussion is that we are standing at the beginning of a development whose effects we cannot clearly predict, with the best will in the world.
There is certainly no consensus in the forecasts on the future use of digital services.
It is too soon to say anything for sure, because there are still too many unknown variables.
So we must take care not to place too much importance on any one aspect, which could distort the discussion and spoil our future chances on this potential European market.
I wish to congratulate the rapporteur warmly on his first report in this Parliament, in which he has endeavoured to strike a balance between the various demands.
He says to the Commission, and I quote: 'a cautious attitude towards regulating new services should only be introduced where and when it proves necessary for the safeguard of the interests of consumers', adding, 'and if self-regulation by the industry based on these principles appears not to be efficient enough'.
Here I can only agree with the rapporteur.
However, there are some points, though only a few, on which I differ with him.
I think that, at this stage of the discussion, to over-regulate by focusing the debate on the impact of convergence on content could have some adverse effects.
Mr Kuhne, of course I believe in recognising today's evaluation of the importance of public broadcasting, but all the various areas must be included in this discussion, and on an equal footing.
We must create a favourable climate, so that everyone can find their own place in future developments, by which I also mean the future role of public and private broadcasting in this changed environment.
We are still in the first year of the discussion, which will extend over another two or three years with the further measures planned by the Commission.
So at this initial stage, I would urge that we do not block the way to further discussions by laying down rules that are too specific.
We are only at the beginning of our search for the best solutions for all the areas concerned.
Mr President, perhaps I might cite two topical examples of convergence.
Today we experienced a world - or at least a European - first. The Finnish Parliament's 'debate on the future' was broadcast live over the Internet.
Using my notebook computer, I was able to follow in real time here in Strasbourg.
Moreover, the promoters of Sami Radio in Finnish Lapland have designed a website. Now the Sami people in Sweden, Finland and Norway have a cheap and easy way of keeping in touch across the borders and exchanging news about what they are doing.
Samis account for four to five thousand of Finland's five million inhabitants.
I am quoting these examples to illustrate the need for us media folk to stop thinking that, as long as we copy the Americans, everything will be fine.
Instead we should have the confidence to go our own way, offering variety and opening the door to all groups in society. Danish film producers have recently pointed us in the right direction.
It is our duty to ensure that minority groups have their own channels and that small producers are given the scope they need. Journalistic quality should be a priority.
More channel space will become available over time, and greater specialisation will increasingly be an option.
We need to prepare ourselves for less regulation, as several speakers have said.
We need common EU rules more than ever before.
This means more transparency in the telecommunications sector, especially with regard to tariffs.
This is certainly an exciting area and no one has all the answers. Dizzying developments are underway.
This partly explains why we in the ELDR Group cannot support the rapporteur's Amendment No 13, stating that TV will increasingly become the prime means of locating and processing information.
It is a pity we are not discussing Mrs Ryynänen's report on the role of libraries in the modern world until Friday.
Lastly, I should like to inform the President and the rapporteur that Amendments Nos 1 to 4 in the Swedish version of the text make no sense at all.
Thank you, Mrs Thors.
We have taken note of your comments on the Swedish versions of the amendments.
That will be looked into.
Mr President, first and foremost, I wish to pay tribute to the rapporteur for the preparation and presentation of the report.
We cannot deny that developments in the telecommunications industry and in the information technology sector are verging on the astounding.
Examples of new products being delivered include home banking and home shopping over the Internet, Voice over the Internet, e-mail data and Worldwide Web access over mobile phone networks and the use of wireless links to homes and businesses to connect them to the fixed telecommunications network, web casting of news, sport, concerts and other audiovisual services.
Such developments represent concrete examples of an information society that has the potential to touch the lives of every citizen in the Union.
They also highlight the significant change and the range and diversity of traditional telecommunications and media services.
The changes described in the Green Paper have the potential to substantially improve the quality of life for all the citizens of Europe.
They will also have the effect of assisting the process of integrating the regions of Europe in the heart of the European economy.
Legislation by means of regulation must be introduced to oversee the working of the new evolving sector of e-commerce, because the general good might not always be protected if unfettered market rules were to apply.
On the separate but related matter of media pluralism, I support the recent initiative by the Irish Government to maintain free access to major sporting events for all viewers.
This is a commitment of the Irish Government and it is a programme for government, and legislation will be enacted, thereby giving pride of place to this important social objective.
Sport must remain an outlet for all people, regardless of class or background.
Legislation must be enacted which ensures the principle of equality of access for all prospective viewers to our important national sporting events, such as hurling and football, all-Ireland finals and, of course, the Irish Grand National.
We must recognise that the new multimedia conglomerates are continually endeavouring to buy up the rights of many sporting events worldwide.
The Member States of the Union must not lose sight of the fact that cultural and regional diversity can only be protected if national sporting events are accessible to all viewers who wish to see them.
Mr President, there is one aspect of this debate on the Paasilina report that I find especially important and should like to highlight.
This report was approved in committee by 49 votes for, 1 abstention and 2 votes against (those of our group).
The reasons why we voted against it are very clear.
We believe that convergence in the sectors of telecommunications, the media and information technologies, in the framework of the information society, should not mean treating everything as if were merchandise, ignoring cultural specificities and identities, or calling into question the notions of creation and copyright, intellectual property or the fundamental concept of public service in this area.
We are quite convinced that our stand is the right one, which is why we have tabled eight amendments in keeping with the reasons why we voted against this report - apparently in a minority.
It is both curious and significant that the rapporteur has had the courage to table 16 proposals for amendments to his own report.
We congratulate him on this as some of those amendments suggest that we are on the same wavelength, although we would not have chosen to word them as he has.
But these amendments refer both to the role of the authorities as an essential component of public service and the preservation of cultural diversity and we welcome that.
We shall therefore wait and see what fate the plenary has in store for these amendments before we decide which way to vote.
They reflect an approach that goes beyond merely looking upon these phenomena in terms of the economy or trade. That might restore to the text the stances taken by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment rejected by the Commission.
Mr President, tomorrow we will have to answer the main question posed by the Commission's Green Paper: what will be the impact of the use of common technologies, particularly revolutionary ones, by the audiovisual and telecommunications sectors? One does not need to be a genius to imagine what consequences such a technological breakthrough will have on our daily lives, consequences that will not only be economic and legal, but also cultural and social.
Despite this, we must not be discouraged by the scale of the task.
On the contrary, I welcome the fact that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has recognised the need for European regulations.
In this respect, I would like to offer my congratulations for the contributions from Mr Kuhn, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Culture, whose work is an example of clarity and precision, and from Mr Hory who, in the Committee on Legal Affairs, led with intelligence and talent a thorough discussion on the legal implications of the issue.
We therefore need a clear separation between the regulations to be applied to electronic communication infrastructures and those relating to content.
Maintaining current Community regulations and setting up more flexible regulations for the mixed interactive services offered by the Internet fulfill the requirements of public interest and also the need to take cultural concerns into consideration.
This means that priority would be given to a combination of options 1 and 2 proposed in the Green Paper, as advocated at the Birmingham Conference.
However, we need to remain vigilant because technology moves faster than political decision-making and there is a great temptation, when faced with changing concepts, to strengthen competition law or make sacrifices to the religion of ultra-liberalism.
Moreover, the European Union, which has already lost the battle of Hollywood, is in danger of losing the battle of Silicon Valley if our various Member States do not realise the urgency of regaining technological control by putting in place a common multimedia policy.
We will thus belie the statement by Mrs Irina Magaziner, an adviser to President Clinton, declaring that the Internet is not an international resource, but the fruit of American investment.
Mr President, I want to start by offering my congratulations to my colleague, Mr Paasilinna.
I know how much careful preparation and extensive consultation has gone into his report. I commend him on it.
Colleagues, it is normal when considering issues like this to look to the future.
But I want to illustrate my own comments on Mr Paasilinna's work and the Commission proposals by looking to the past, to a book written by Mark Twain called 'A Connecticut Yankee at the Court of King Arthur'.
The Connecticut Yankee was a telephone engineer in America who sustained a blow to his head and was transported back to the time of King Arthur.
He used his skills and knowledge to intervene in the wars of that time, mainly to save his own skin - it has to be said - rather than from any philanthropic designs.
He understood from his own practical experience the importance of access to networks and services.
He knew, as does Mr Paasilinna, that these proposals are not just about technology, they are about how technology can address the needs of citizens and consumers.
But what the Connecticut Yankee did understand - I quote from the motion for a resolution - ' takes the view that the convergence of telecommunications media and information technology sectors must be reflected in European rule-making in such a way that inter-operability of various technologies is not hampered'.
It is that point that I think was so crucial at the time of King Arthur and is going to be crucial not just in the future but now.
The Green Paper and the rapporteur can but guess at the speed of change.
Other speakers here have commented on how this whole world of telecommunications and broadcasting and transfer of data has changed in a relatively short time.
What seems very clear is that the market can deliver on some of this but there is a need for clear rules at European level about much of it to make sure that the European industry remains in the forefront of these changes.
The Connecticut Yankee was not particularly concerned about competition rules.
He had all the information and for understandable reasons he kept it to himself.
But the rapporteur - as well as this House and the Commission - is concerned that the rules are clear, that there is a price to pay for anti-competitive measures, but that the needs of citizens and consumers are not lost sight of.
I commend Mr Paasilinna's report to you.
I also commend to both the Commissioner and the rapporteur - and anybody else who is interested - that you read Mark Twain's work.
It was remarkably prescient and really repays reading.
Mr President, the Green Paper on convergence is devoted to an issue of great importance and, I believe, the main question it raises is that of three options for future regulatory work: the first is to extend existing regulations and keep the different sectors distinct; the second is to create a new incremental framework for services as and when they become available; and the third, more ambitious one is to create a new global framework.
I agree with Mr Paasilinna's reasoning, and would refer in particular to the fourth paragraph of his conclusions, which inclines towards the third option, that of a global framework.
I believe in fact that within a reasonable time-span, perhaps not immediately, we shall have to move on from a legislative approach based on the means of transmission, the hardware, to one based on the type of transaction, and hence the user and the added value of the transaction.
In the meantime, however, work must continue both on updating the existing regulatory framework and on defining the new statutory framework requirements occasioned by the new media. I am thinking here of the Internet initiative launched by Mr Bangemann, which we shall be discussing at the next part-session.
Time is pressing, but very briefly, what two points must be taken into account in this move towards a global regulatory framework? The first is interoperability, in other words the promotion of open systems and standard platforms.
Even though Europe is not the leader in this sector, it must hold its head high, and I believe that the fifth framework programme will help it to do so.
The second rule is competition.
Whereas, on the one hand, the huge transmission capacity generated by digital technology will reduce the pressure on a shortage of transmission channels and on the public utilities, on the other hand new forms of public or private monopoly could arise - I refer in particular to the Microsoft case, which we are all currently following with interest - and the rules of competition might need to be reviewed in the light of new technological opportunities, so as to reorientate alliances along these lines.
Mr President, the Commission's Green Paper presents some open options, but underlying them is a basic approach: that the convergence of modes of transmission would lead to the convergence of content. This amounts to treating cultural works in the same way as any type of goods.
This liberal approach is of particular concern because it would have an adverse effect on creation, information and public service, and would end up calling into question cultural policies and legislation on authors' rights and intellectual property.
The Paasilinna report recognises some of the risks and dangers of this approach, but it is based overall on the respect for competition law.
Moreover, it is significant that the positive amendments by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Culture have been rejected.
My group has therefore tabled amendments that are all based on the principle that cultural works, especially films and television programmes, cannot be treated like other products.
It is essential to maintain specific regulations for the audiovisual sector that are justified with regard to the issues of freedom of expression, pluralism, cultural diversity, minority cultures and preserving the public interest.
The current regulations, which need to be improved and not abolished, should be complemented with a directive on pluralism and the concentration of media that takes all forms of communication into account.
I would like to refer to what was said by one of Mr Bangemann's own compatriots - to repay the Francophile approach he often shows towards me -, namely Walter Benjamin, if you will excuse my pronunciation: letting things take their course is a recipe for disaster.
They are his words and I agree with him.
By adopting these amendments, our Parliament will express its will to oppose the Commission's ultra-liberal approach that contributed to the failure of the MAI, one of the objectives of which was, I recall, to liberalise the audiovisual sector.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am especially addressing the two of you, as you have a lot of experience of parliament and government, in order to draw your attention to the ridiculous situation that we are in.
We are debating the Paasilinna report, to which there are about 20 amendments from a certain Mr Paasilinna, on behalf of the Socialist Group.
I am wondering which is the real Paasilinna, Paasilinna I or Paasilinna II? It is like the films: Rambo I, Rambo II.
It must be a Nordic saga I do not understand.
But perhaps tomorrow the real Paasilinna will tell us what position the rapporteur Paasilinna intends to take on the Paasilinna amendments tabled to the Paasilinna report.
You must admit that, in the world of information technology, it is a little difficult to work it out!
Personally, I am in favour of Paasilinna I and against Paasilinna II.
I am saying this so it will be clear in everybody's mind.
Aside from this exercise - which was not at all rhetorical, because it seems to me to be somewhat contradictory, Mr Paasilinna, as you must realise -, I would like to say that even Paasilinna I, which I personally support, seems to fall a little short of what we might have expected.
We are faced with a global challenge.
In Europe we have 20 million computers.
There are 70 million in the United States.
Silicon Valley is in the process of taking over all our minds, as my colleague Mrs Leperre-Verrier rightly said, and here we are, saying that maybe we could...
We should have given Mr Bangemann a lot more scope to include this as a main point in the Agenda, in the interest of our countries, in the interest of research, etcetera.
I think this little report lacks ambition.
Mr Bangemann, I would like the White Paper to be a little more equal to the task, and to set out the huge challenge that we are facing.
Either we face it, or we will be dominated by the Americans in this field, too, as we already are in others.
Mr President, let me first of all commend this sterling report by Mr Paasilinna - although I should point out that some parts are not easy to comprehend in the Swedish translation.
How we move forward towards an information society is a very important matter, and I wish to make three points in this respect.
Developments are not moving at the same pace in the USA and in Europe; the Americans are clearly ahead.
US companies are much more successful than their European counterparts.
Some people may wonder whether we should seek to offset Europe's competitive disadvantage with some kind of development programme to help us catch up.
I think not.
The theory of comparative advantage teaches us that it is quite natural for a country to be ahead in certain sectors.
In return, other countries will be on top in other sectors.
Take the Nordic area, where we currently have two of the world leaders in mobile telephony.
I see no reason for concern that America is ahead on computers and the Internet.
My second point has to do with market regulation, which - as the rapporteur says - is not all bad.
Nor does it necessarily stand in the way of technological development.
In fact, evidence shows that regulation in a particular branch can actually boost innovation.
It is above all the Internet that needs attention, in my opinion. I am no advocate of regulation for regulation's sake, but the Internet is an essential tool for certain new varieties of crime.
Standard use cannot sensibly be regulated, however.
It would be like trying to stop people in a crowd chatting to one another. One watchdog per individual would be required.
Comprehensive Internet surveillance is just not possible; every single computer would need monitoring.
The role of public service companies is the third area I wish to cover.
I am fully behind the rapporteur when he says that we must have a strong public service sector so as to prevent the commercial companies - whose taste is not always of the best - from taking over.
Throughout Europe and the USA, we have terrifying examples of how privately-owned media concerns, particularly in the television sector, are pursuing flagrantly political goals.
One does not have to be paranoid to realise that the concentration of ownership we now have poses a potential threat to democracy.
Mr President, both the Commissioner and Mr Paasilinna are tackling a difficult subject, and I pay tribute to their commitment and efforts in this field.
Technological developments proceed at such a pace that PCS, TVS and so on are able to do things which until recently we never thought possible.
But naturally there is also communication between the fixed and the mobile network, and we are seeing that it is possible to telephone via the cable system and so forth.
In short, traditional legislation is changing.
The answer is often technology-independent regulation, but I should like to ask the Commissioner if he could name any cases where technology-dependent regulation exists.
Mr President, the market players are involved in all kinds of integration processes, such as mergers, alliances, and the rest.
It is of course necessary to avoid the creation of huge monopolies or parties with a dominant market position.
The consumer's choice must not be limited, and that is particularly important when access to the customers is via systems of conditional access or even decoders.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner if on that point he envisages strictly enforcing the rules of competition.
The UMTS, the successor to the GSM telephony which has been so successful in Europe, is an example of a convergence system.
Does the Commissioner know at the present time the situation regarding the allocation of frequencies in the Member States?
I believe this to be of essential importance. But convergence also involves international compatibility.
It is very important that the business community is now busy with this in the context of the Internet manual. But what are we doing in the public field?
What is the role of politics? Can the Commissioner explain the current role of politics in this field?
Finally, it is a question of consumer confidence in the field of privacy.
I therefore believe that it is very important for the electronic signature directive to come before Parliament as quickly as possible, and I hope that vigorous efforts are being made to ensure that this is the case.
Mr President, I agree with our rapporteur that convergence is not a technical, legal or economic issue.
It is first and foremost political, and concerns individual rights, employment, cultural polymorphism and consumer protection, all of them issues which cannot be left to market forces.
However, with the public sector being unseated in the converging areas, the ever-shrinking world and the creation of huge, global monopolistic conglomerates through the many takeovers and mergers taking place, disquiet about what is happening to citizens' rights is growing.
In light of these developments the Green Paper should first consider and highlight the connection between convergence and the way the market is being controlled more and more by monopoly interests, the prospect of vertical integration in the sector, the imposition of restrictive policies and the control of critical resources and services, and the consequences for employment and labour relations. It should indicate measures for the protection of the service as a whole, for people's right to have access to a broad range of services, for the avoidance of artificial cost increases, etc.
Technological progress is necessary and one way or another advances will be made.
However, it is not right that citizens' rights should be denied in its name and that the interests of the market and the monopolies should be put first.
Mr President, Mr Dell'Alba has summarised my feelings about this debate very well.
He was, of course, far better able to do so than I could, because if I had put it the way he did, the rapporteur, who has done a remarkable job, and perhaps some others too, might feel offended.
This debate has brought to mind the first discussion we held on what we have called the information society.
At that time, exactly the same arguments were put forward: the information owners and non-owners, the social role of the public monopolies, the question of how to apply competition law, a whole catalogue of fears which have now proved groundless, when we look back at the information society, and in particular at telecommunications.
Mark Twain offers a good example. The success of market mechanisms takes me back to Huckleberry Finn, who was made to paint his fence.
He does so with such fervour and enthusiasm that all his friends who are watching think it must be so much fun to paint the fence that they offer him a few cents to allow them to paint too.
What this means is that we are not dealing here with the question of regulating, but with a development that has arisen from the needs of people and from technology.
Nobody, and I say this to Mr Kuhne, can define convergence.
You say in your opinion that we have not even defined it.
That is typical of the lawyer's attitude, who wants a definition before he can do anything, instead of looking at life, at what really happens.
Convergence is not something that was defined by the Commission, or by myself as an ultra-liberal; it is something that happens on a day-to-day basis.
To say that convergence, if it exists at all, relates only to technology and cannot relate to its content is fundamentally wrong!
Even now you can of course find content in what used to be called telecommunications that used to be found only on television.
One of the problems, Mr Kuhne, if I may say so, is that in discussions of this kind, the public television networks keep letting themselves be represented by people who once had dealings with them of one kind or another.
The rapporteur for the Federal Constitutional Court was the head of Norddeutsche Rundfunk , a public television corporation.
That is a hindrance to discussion. Why?
For example, you say that quality should be the deciding factor.
I can only reply that if you want to make quality the yardstick - and I am quite prepared to take the time to watch the television content produced by public corporations for nights on end with Mrs Pailler, indeed especially with Mrs Pailler - then you will have to ban half the programmes, at least half of them! I am certainly optimistic in this respect.
Walter Benjamin for instance, if I am pronouncing his name correctly, was a total individualist.
He was, if you like, a left-winger in the broad sense of the term. But he would never have been given a job in public television.
Never!
Because he was far more of an individualist than those people.
Then there is Mr Wibe, who has now left - it really is a bit much to put forward some kind of argument in a debate with the Commission and then to go away.
I find that appalling!
Anyway he said, well, we need the public broadcasters so that they can evaluate things in a politically neutral manner.
Of course there are private broadcasters who are political animals.
As we saw in Italy.
But there are also public broadcasters who push their political views, Mr Kuhne!
If I turn on the television instead of the radio in the morning and know after about three seconds that this can only be Westdeutscher Rundfunk , that is because of the political slant of that corporation!
So please do not try to argue that we need public broadcasting because of its political impartiality.
That is a total myth, nothing else, and it is misleading for the public!
What we have here today is something quite different.
I tried to point out during the first debate with Parliament that we should not let ourselves be drawn into this discussion.
In the first place, the public television companies have a right to exist.
Of course they have, if they are doing a job.
If you read the Amsterdam protocol properly you will see exactly what it says, namely that no treaty provision may be annulled; of course it cannot.
The competition rules remain in force.
If the Member States want to apply the right to operate public companies, then they would be well advised to begin by defining what that public purpose is in the first place.
But I do not want to pursue this further, otherwise I will be making the same mistake you made, namely concentrating on this question.
The key question is a quite different one.
We are seeing closer convergence not only of the technology of various media and communications areas, but also, therefore, of content.
I do not know who said this, I think it was Mrs Thors, and Mr Hendrick also pointed it out, but of course today we can obtain all forms of content via the Internet. We can telephone through the Internet.
The question that interests us right now is not how to guarantee the continued existence of public television companies.
That would be like having a discussion on agricultural policy in the context of economic policy in which every farmer asks whether his son can still be a farmer in the future.
Likewise, you go to a television company today and every journalist asks whether journalism has a future. Can my son still become an editor or head of department in a public television company?
Mr Wolf, a little while ago I accused you of vulgar Marxism.
You obviously took that very much to heart.
I do not know what this is about, perhaps vulgar corporatism or something like that.
But that is not the point.
The point is whether we can apply the rules we currently have in telephony to the provision and use of Internet telephone services.
The question is, according to what rules can purchasing agreements, for instance, be concluded on the Internet?
As Mr van Velzen rightly pointed out, these are the real problems!
And does the report mention any of this?
Not in the least.
You are chasing shadows, talking about things that will never happen!
Just as I said at the time about the deregulation of telecommunications, there will no disadvantages for the consumer.
On the contrary, when you look at telephone charges today - in fact they are no longer charges, they are prices - when you look at the various offers, you discover that everyone benefits greatly from this.
Meanwhile, the job losses that initially occurred with the earlier monopoly companies, because these were unproductive jobs, have actually been offset.
We still have a positive balance here today.
Mrs Pailler, as a member of a Communist party, you are quite right to consider this question.
We are counting on the creation of a substantial number of jobs in a few areas, including precisely the area of telecommunications, over the next few years.
We already have about 500 000 new jobs in the Union, and we reckon on another 1.5 million jobs by the year 2005.
If we do not create the appropriate market conditions, we will simply find others trying to take over that market.
Today, if you want to accept an offer on the Internet, you will find it virtually impossible to identify the source of that offer, and if we want to make all this impossible by trying to apply the restrictive rules of traditional telephony, we might as well say goodbye to the whole business!
Then it will not happen here. That is the real problem.
We asked questions about this in the Green Paper.
I admit that those to whom we sent the Green Paper were rather conservative in their replies.
They are - well, I do not want to insult anyone again, but it is nothing personal when I insult you.
I am quite prepared to work together with you, but your response to the Green Paper is inadequate, with a few exceptions, as a means of supporting us in our efforts.
Mr Gallagher? He is gone too.
The sporting events he described to us again with such aplomb are matters that have all been settled already.
There has been a European Union rule for more than a year now which leaves it up to the Member State to decide whether access to certain outstanding sporting events is free.
So that no longer needs saying here.
He puts it forward with great aplomb as a contribution to the debate, and a few people clap because it is such fun.
You could say that if Newcastle United played against - I can't think of an Irish club at this moment - let us say some Dublin team, the game must be accessible to everyone.
Of course it must, we have already decided that.
That is not the problem.
The problem is that if this game is to be freely accessible, can it only be made accessible by a public company or could a private TV company do so too? These are the kind of questions that arise.
I was also told that first we must see how things develop, and then we would have to react as fast as possible.
True enough.
But we have two trends that we cannot control.
The first is the rapid development of technology, the other, as Carsten Hoppenstedt said, is that we are living in a global system.
That means we can no longer lay down rules for ourselves alone.
You have not yet realised, if I may say so, that the general, traditional regulatory framework we have is inadequate here, for two reasons.
Firstly, because we can never keep pace with the speed of technical progress.
We need at least two years to get a directive through, by which time, of course, everything may have changed entirely.
Secondly, if we did manage to keep pace with developments, we would never achieve global rules.
That is precisely why we are now trying to produce global rules for the Internet with the participation of private companies.
It would have been nice to have answers or contributions to the debate that could have helped us on our way.
I hope that will be the case in future discussions.
Mr President, many thanks to the Commissioner for what was a very colourful and arresting speech.
I would, however, say that there can be no information society without rights, either in Europe or the world at large.
That is something we want to assert strongly.
It is why we have traffic regulations and other rules.
There are no phantoms in the report, as you suggested, since we now have enormous international global companies that operate in these regions and spend larger sums of money than many EU Member States.
The big question is how we can work together so that both culture and business and firms both large and small can operate successfully.
For this reason we need some sort of framework.
I do not think we disagree on this issue.
It is an important one.
Mr Paasilinna, I did not dispute the fact that we need a regulatory system.
I said so myself at the end of my statement.
We need a regulatory framework which is appropriate to technical progress, to its speed and to globalisation.
That is what we need. It is a regulatory system.
But that is something different from the traditional rules, directives and regulations we normally produce here.
That is the problem.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Third stage of EMU
The next item is the report (A4-0341/98) by Mr Giansily, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on foreign currency reserves in the third stage of EMU.
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Giansily, for five minutes.
Ladies and gentlemen, what are the currency reserves of the central banks used for? This question was at the root of the debate we had in the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs and in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on this own-initiative report that I have the honour to present to you.
The first use of these reserves is to enable intervention in the exchange market when there are major disruptions and especially when there are attacks against the currency concerned, which are mainly massive sales of currency that cause the price to fall.
The second use is to cover balance of payments external deficits.
Having pointed this out, let us now look at what is stated in the Treaty establishing the European Central Bank.
In Article 30(1) it states 'that the European Central Bank shall be provided by the national central banks with foreign reserve assets, other than Member States' currencies, ECUs, IMF reserve positions and special drawing rights, up to an amount equivalent to 50 billion euros.'
Naturally, the removal of the need to have exchange reserves among the 11 currencies that, through the application of the principle of fungibility, will become subdivisions of the euro on 1 January, could lead us to believe that a substantial proportion of the reserves in question will become useless and that this supposed excess of reserves could be used elsewhere.
In other words, once the reserve of 50 billion euros has been set up - in fact, as 50 billion euros was planned for 15 countries, this sum is reduced to 40 billion euros for 11 countries, 39.46 billion euros to be precise -, we can estimate that the excess that will remain in the coffers of the banks that are members of the ESCB will represent around 400 billion dollars.
This is why one could, through a somewhat summary analysis, imagine that those funds might be redistributed on the economic circuit by massive injections into the markets of the reserves that have thus become useless.
I held the opposite opinion in the debates in the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and I would like to thank my fellow committee members for supporting me on this point, and particularly Fernand Herman, who improved my draft without actually altering it.
We must not, in fact, believe that the euro will be the sum of the 11 currencies that are going to be absorbed: it will be something else entirely.
It will be, above all, another great world currency, as President Jacques Chirac called it, and its role as an exchange stabiliser will be the first truly positive act in the world monetary system since President Nixon's unilateral denunciation of the Bretton Woods agreements on 15 August 1971.
The euro is a new currency, it has been well received by global operators since it has become clear that it is really going to come into circulation, and on the global monetary market it will find itself mainly in competition with the dollar, while the ESCB will have a reserve of 400 billion dollars.
Injecting massive amounts of the American currency into the market, with the risk of causing it to fall and thereby increasing the competitiveness of the products of our principal competitor on the world industrial and agricultural markets, would be completely counter-productive in economic terms.
We therefore need to be extremely cautious and, as a consequence, not lose sight of the fact that the quality of the euro will be assessed according to three main criteria.
The first of these will be the ability of the governments of the 11 countries involved to respect the stability pact and, consequently, to keep, dare I say it, the spirit of Maastricht alive.
The second will be the ability of the directors of the European Central Bank and the ESCB to give credibility to the management of this currency, notably through the amount of outstanding credit that will be granted.
The third will be the response in terms of reserves in the event of 'disfiducia ' concerning our new currency.
In this particular case, it is better to be envied than pitied and to preserve and keep what we have.
I will conclude with two points.
Our committee thus approves the decision dated 8 July to make an initial transfer in gold of 15 % of the exchange reserve assets from the national central banks to the European Central Bank.
The second point is that we also want a gold euro coin to be minted, the value of which is still to be decided, but which in the future would be an important marker in the general disorder that has been reigning for too long on the world capital market.
Mr President, one of the major changes which the euro will bring is that 11 countries which are strongly or very strongly exposed to exchange rate risks will immediately become a single zone which is only very slightly exposed to such a risk.
The average exposure to exchange rate fluctuations will be reduced by a factor of three, while foreign currency reserves will remain unchanged.
That is a luxury.
The other principal reason for keeping foreign currency reserves, namely a balance of payments deficit, will also not apply to the euro-11 zone.
Unlike the United States with its huge deficit, the EU in fact has a modest surplus.
Yet despite this large balance of payments deficit, the United States has relatively modest foreign currency reserves, opting to print new dollars instead.
This is all very well as long as there is no alternative to the dollar as a world currency.
The euro provides just such an alternative, and as a result the US will have to take a more critical look at its balance of payments deficit.
At the present time, with the global economy on the brink of crisis, this balance of payments deficit, which is just a symptom of an even greater US trade deficit, is the principal motor for the global economy.
Without the US deficits, the rest of the world would be unable to build up surpluses.
The privilege of being a global currency therefore also brings responsibilities in respect of the global economy.
In practice, the US helps provide liquidity in the world trade system, even if largely at the expense of the rest of the world, the so-called seignorage which comes with issuing the global currency.
The question now is whether or not Europe is prepared to take on, even if only in part, this role currently played by the United States.
The euro will certainly mean the end of an all-powerful dollar.
The euro will become a trading, monetary and reserve currency.
There will be seignorage and the euro will be stashed away in safes and socks.
The euro zone will grow rich at the expense of the rest of the world, but are we going to give the rest of the world anything in return, apart from a stable currency to hoard and to pay with? The answer could be yes, if the euro further appreciates in value.
Although this would not be good for the internal economy, as it would worsen our competitive position, it could prove necessary as a result of our global responsibility.
It would be the quickest route to a situation in which Europe would also contribute to economic recovery in Asia, the former Soviet Union and Latin America.
With a more expensive euro, our trading partners in the second and third world can more easily export themselves out of misery, just as Europe recently did by virtue of the high dollar.
But what has such a philosophy to do with the Giansily report? A great deal.
Because the vast quantities of foreign currency reserves held by the European System of Central Banks, USD 400 000 million, would most certainly make the euro more expensive if they were released onto the market in large quantities.
The Giansily report argues against doing this at present, partly in the belief that a more expensive euro is undesirable at the present time.
I should like to see the surplus reserves released more quickly onto the market, because a more expensive euro can act as a much-needed additional motor for the international economy.
Also, because the euro zone is a much more closed economy than that of the 11 individual countries which comprise it, the euro zone will be better able to cope with a more expensive euro. One thing is clear, however.
The euro will not automatically become a global currency.
We must also earn it, and have the courage to assume our global responsibilities.
Mr President, let me thank Mr Giansily for his excellent analysis and for his efforts to deal with a difficult subject.
The entry into operation of Economic and Monetary Union, and consequently too the European Central Bank's assumption of responsibility for monetary policy, coincide with a period of exchange-rate fluctuations and pressures which, I would like to hope, are temporary but, as it seems, are not an isolated phenomenon but one that is fairly generalised and needs careful and prudent handling.
For that reason, the management of foreign reserve assets is extremely important from the very beginning.
In fact dealing with the crisis will entail coordinated action and international cooperation, which unfortunately does not seem to be happening at the moment, especially between countries whose currencies occupy an important position in the world economy.
So determination of the optimum level of foreign reserve assets will depend to a large extent on the efforts to stabilise the euro, particularly against the dollar.
It is also vitally important to lay down clear rules for the exercise of the powers granted by the Treaty to the national central banks, so that decentralised foreign exchange interventions can be effective and will not go against the objectives we hope to achieve.
Of course, the sums involved are not very large, and with the enormous volume of money that is circulating internationally, foreign exchange reserves sometimes appear too small to be able to withstand difficulties.
However, it should be noted that in the early stages of a profiteering raid, well organised and coordinated intervention by the central banks can have the effect of preventing profiteering from getting out of hand.
And this is precisely where foreign exchange reserves play a major part.
That is why we should not hurry to reduce them.
Reductions will be made by the national banks according to circumstances: if they see that the conditions require or allow a reduction of foreign reserve assets, they will reduce them.
If the conditions are otherwise, then they will naturally hold on to those assets.
Consequently, I think we should deal with the issue more calmly, in other words we should not propose reductions of foreign reserve assets until the situation becomes clearer and we are in a position to decide that there is no need for interventions of the type I mentioned earlier, which anticipate more general crises.
On the subject of utilising foreign reserve assets for other purposes, I must say that foreign reserve assets are not something we keep hidden in a drawer and which we can take out when we like and use for anything we want.
They are already resources in circulation, they are in use, countries have invested them, and consequently they are not just there like something that grows on trees, to be used as we wish.
I therefore think that we should have been rather more conservative in the amendments we tabled, and for that reason my group, having consulted those who introduced those amendments, would prefer not to adopt this rather superficial and premature approach to the problem.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, today we are discussing something quite sensational, namely that there is money in the bank and everyone seems to admit that it is in a sense money surplus to requirements.
We know from everyday experience that it is not that easy to get it out of the bank.
And what Mr Christodoulou said is quite true: we must look at the circumstances and not be too hasty.
But we really should accept the arguments Mr Metten put forward here, namely that an economic area which does away with the old concepts of external and internal trade and then, to be realistic, still has a foreign trade dependence of less than 10 %, does not need the same currency reserves as the pre-euro economic area, with its foreign trade share of somewhere around 60 %.
Secondly, the balance of payments is in fact positive, structurally positive, and that is no mere chance.
Consequently, it is important to realise that these two factors together produce a potential quantity of surplus money in the hands of the European system of central banks.
Of course we will not manage to get hold of it by breaking in with a crowbar - that would indeed be silly - but we shall have to liberate it and use it for purposes compatible with the aim of stabilisation in the euro zone, perhaps in the framework of the European Investment Bank.
I believe that is the point we are discussing today.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we share Mr Giansily's point of view in that we are against reducing the reserve assets of the ESCB during the changeover phase to the introduction of the euro.
However, we share this point of view on the basis of an analysis that is not exactly in keeping with that of our rapporteur.
Mr Giansily expresses, in fact he endorses, an opinion that states that a level of exchange reserve assets of around 400 billion dollars would be excessive in terms of international standards.
However, one could question the nature or the relevance of the standards to which he is referring.
Obviously, the introduction of the euro, in a geographical area where trade will take place mainly between the participants, will reduce the need to cover possible external deficits.
We feel, however, that the need to have the ability to intervene in order to prevent disruptions on the currency markets has been underestimated.
It has been underestimated firstly in respect of the economic risk presented by monetary disruptions associated with the fluctuation of considerable flows of private capital; we should recall that the loss of wealth through the devaluation of shares that followed the crisis that began in Asia a little over a year ago is estimated at between $1 600 billion and $3 500 billion. It has also been underestimated in respect of the role we believe the euro should play in stabilising monetary relations in the world and even in reorganising the international monetary system.
A significant stock of reserve assets is likely to act as an effective deterrent against monetary turbulence.
That is one of the main reasons, along with that set out by Mr Giansily, for ensuring that we do not give in to the temptation to reduce the reserve assets of the ESCB.
So monetary union will have the effect of transforming a fraction of the exchange reserves of the national central banks into internal assets.
We think that this fraction could be usefully employed in some cases to reduce public deficits or for investment spending that supports growth and employment.
This would in some way be a bonus for joining the euro that could make it even more acceptable to the citizens of the countries taking part and encourage those countries that are still reluctant to participate.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Giansily report explains extremely well how part of the reserves of the national central banks will be pooled in the future single currency system and how the relations between those banks and the European Central Bank will be organised in order to manage them.
Nevertheless, we would like to ask here for clarification on two points.
Firstly, what will be the exact relationship between the ECB and the national central banks with regard to the management of the free reserves, that is, the reserves that fall outside the 39.46 billion euros that will be placed at the disposal of the Central Bank, in accordance with the Statute? Article 31 of the Statute of the ESCB mentions the possibility of authorisation from the European Central Bank for the most significant operations carried out by the national central banks.
This authorisation is therefore provided for in the Treaty, but it is quite an outrageous procedure concerning reserves that, in principle, remain entirely the property of the Member States.
We would very much like to know at least what the limits are.
Secondly, will exchange reserves in gold be physically transferred to Frankfurt or not? The Giansily report is not entirely clear on this point.
It leaves the issue open to several interpretations.
You know, Commissioner, that the French Minister for Economic Affairs, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, took a very clear position on this before the French National Assembly.
When he was questioned on 31 March by members of our Assembly's committee on finance, he stated very reassuringly that the ECU 50 billion that is the sum of the contributions to the European System of Central Banks will remain the property of the various Member States.
He then added that only the management of the reserves was transferred and that for the currencies and bonds concerned, it is only a matter of simply signing them over, while the gold will stay in the cellars of the Banque de France, without even being physically transferred.
I would therefore like us to be equally reassured of this at a European level and to be given confirmation that there will be no physical transfer, as this does not seem to me to be essential, from a technical point of view, for the smooth running of the system.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to recall that, two months away from the introduction of the euro, some very important issues have still not been clarified, such as the exact degree to which the Council is involved in defining the exchange-rate policy, the democratic control of monetary union or the resolution of liquidity crises.
These ambiguities obviously reflect, in my opinion, structural defects.
The International Monetary Fund has recently expressed its concern about this, stating that there will be an increase in systematic risks to the banking system at the time when the single currency is introduced, due to the fact that a large number of important decisions have not been taken.
To conclude, we do not know where we are going, but we are going anyway.
This seems to be the motto of our politicians, who are caught up in the spiral of their so-called irreversible commitments to the single currency.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Giansily on his balanced report and agree with him that the extremely high currency reserves may act as a necessary safety net during the transitional period.
A successful speculative attack on the single currency during this phase could in effect have serious implications for the European economy and do considerable damage.
It is clear, however, that surplus currency reserves of up to USD 200 billion must not remain unused in the long term.
In my view, it is therefore quite legitimate to begin considering even at this stage how this money could be used in future to combat the high unemployment rate in Europe.
In any event, it would be unjustifiable to leave it lying around unused any longer than is absolutely necessary.
Everybody knows that neither the Community nor most of the Member States have enough funds for research.
Here the situation is markedly better in the United States and Japan.
With more support for research and innovation, we could manage to make our firms more competitive and thereby give impetus to employment policies.
In particular, this would enable us to strengthen the SMEs - which form the backbone of the EU - in terms of technology and also make them more competitive.
So let me conclude by calling for the surplus currency reserves to be targeted at practical research programmes, when the time comes, so that we can successfully tackle our main problem, namely massive unemployment.
Mr President, Mr Castagn&#x010D;de is right, the reserves are not only necessary for settling international payments.
They are necessary, too, in order to intervene in the markets and they also serve to offset the issuing of the currency.
So people are wrong when they think that the reserves can be put back into the budget to be used for something else.
That money does not belong to the State, or to the budget, but to the banks.
Even when the banks are completely nationalised, in order to reduce reserves, there has to be a reduction in the currency circulation that offsets it.
So for goodness' sake, let us think a little about the basic workings of the currency in Europe.
Before using money that is not there, for political objectives, we must take account of how the current banking system actually works.
Having said that, I completely support Mr Giansily, especially as at the start, when we still do not know how things are going to develop, it is essential to have a minimum amount of reserves in order to be able to play the markets.
I know that it will be rather through changes in interest rates that we will be able to influence prices, but we also know that it is better to have several strings to our bow than just one.
If it broke, we would be left with nothing.
But when we have considerable reserves here, we can intervene if the manipulation of or changes in interest rates are not enough to deter some speculative attacks on the future euro.
This, Mr President, is why I completely support the Giansily report and we will vote in favour of most of the other amendments that have been tabled, apart from taking account of the fact that some of them could be modified in order to take the international economic climate into consideration.
Mr President, the creation of the euro zone means that the Member States with a relatively very open economy will immediately be part of a relatively closed economy.
As a result, a large part of the present official external reserves will in time prove to be superfluous.
In due course, they can therefore be disposed of. But it must be done in a way which does not cause market turbulence.
Care is required.
The European System of Central Banks must be on its guard.
There is no reason to suppose that it will not be.
In this respect, the resolution we have before us supports the proposed policy.
Part of the problem will solve itself.
Around one quarter of the present official external reserves are in currencies which will be converted into the euro.
From 1 January 1999 these will no longer be part of the reserves, but internal resources.
There is no question of them being used to pay off the national debt.
Monetary financing is in any event prohibited by the Treaty.
In this debate, we must be careful not to be solely concerned with a euro which is valued too high against the US dollar.
In fact, a relatively strong euro stimulates US imports and hinders European exports, while a weak euro is very attractive for US companies contemplating merging with or even taking over European companies, which is not the intention either.
We believe there is one conclusion to be drawn from this: the internal price stability of the euro must always be the priority.
The euro's external value is the result of monetary policy.
Depending on the possibilities offered on international currency markets, the official external reserves can be reduced to a lower level.
Payments to international organisations, such as the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund, are an excellent means of doing this.
But we must always remain very attentive to the impact of this on exchange rates.
The necessary changes having been made, this also applies to reducing the gold reserve.
I do not much like the idea of a gold euro coin - it would be a strange symbol of European unity.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Giansily on his judicious report.
The report concludes that the 330 billion in foreign reserves can ultimately be reduced.
I agree.
The American Federal Reserve Bank keeps relatively smaller reserves, and in the future the US situation will be comparable to that of Europe.
The Federal Reserve adopts a policy of benign neglect with regard to the dollar's external value, comparable to what is expected to be the approach of the European Central Bank.
In terms of openness and exports, the US economy as a bloc is also comparable to the future euro zone.
The central banks themselves also have cause to keep an efficient quantity of foreign reserves, since in future part of the income from foreign reserves will be added to the reserves of the national banks.
In the Netherlands, the ratio is 95 % to 5 %, with 95 % going to the state.
A less than optimal mix will result in reduced transfers to the reserves.
But foreign reserves are necessary.
At the end of December 1998, it may be possible to intervene on a large scale on foreign currency markets against the agreed rates.
Until that time German marks, French francs and so on can be used.
After that, the European Central Bank will start to apply its monetary policy.
Assets in German marks and French francs will then automatically be domestic assets.
But a considerable proportion will remain in dollars and gold.
For the durability and credibility of the bank, it may be important to keep significant reserves.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to what extent he has received signals that the financial markets believe in the rates which have been established.
One more very urgent matter, Mr Commissioner.
There is already some discussion in the Netherlands of how the euro coins and notes are going to be introduced.
The scenario of the legal big bang, which is supported by the Dutch Parliament, makes it necessary to distribute euro coins and notes before 1 January 2002 when they are not yet legal tender, in the same way as a tourist buys pesetas before going to Spain.
He is not yet able to use them. This so-called 'frontloading' requires permission from the Central Bank.
Will the Commission and the European Central Bank try to reach a speedy and positive decision on this point?
For the rest, I am indeed in favour of gold coins, and precisely for that reason, Mr Blokland.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for this fine report.
Commissioner, it has been said, with slight Gallic exaggeration, that the introduction of the euro is the most important event which has taken place in Europe since 1917.
It is certainly true, however, that we Europeans have been absorbed by the internal repercussions of the euro and have been slow to consider its external impact.
Conditions inside and outside the Union have changed since the Washington Conference two years ago, at which these matters were first raised, and even since the spring, when the decision on the countries to be included in the first group was taken.
Forecasts for growth have been revised downwards, as a result of the Asian crisis, the Russian crisis, the Latin American crisis and the fall in the value of the dollar, as the Commissioner has mentioned this very afternoon.
In these circumstances, we should be glad that the report recommends prudent handling of the reserves.
The key question, Commissioner, is this: in these circumstances, what action has to be taken to ensure that the euro does not become too expensive and does not make our exports dearer, threatening jobs?
In the present situation, prudent handling of the reserves alone will not suffice to save us from such consequences. Development has already been slowed down enough.
As the report states, what is required now is greater coordination between the governments concerned, and between European governments and the governments of countries outside the Union regarding the management of the international monetary system.
It will be difficult to achieve such coordination until the euro makes its presence felt on the wider political scene. It will be difficult too to review the system or set up a system like Bretton Woods until the euro is managed by a political authority, until we install a pilot at the helm of the vessel we are about to launch.
I shall begin by congratulating Mr Giansily on his magnificent report with which I agree.
Apart from some more technical problems, the main concern when the reserves of the European Central Bank are created must be the dollar reserve assets at its disposal.
They come to an enormous amount, some US$ 400 billion, the 'legacy' of the reserves of the various national central banks.
No useful or immediate use can be found for them, if we bear in mind that trade between euro-countries will no longer be external trade.
Realistically, we might foresee the need, even in the future, for between US$ 50 billion and 200 bn, i.e. only one eighth or, at most, one half of what is at the Bank's disposal.
We must not be tempted by any objective, however noble, for using these reserves at once, flooding the world markets with dollars and drastically reducing that currency's value against the euro.
A strong euro might be attractive for prestige's sake but we must also maintain the competitiveness of the European economy.
Realistically that would be jeopardised if the euro were to be over-valued.
The European business community would react against such a move and that would lead to less investment and, in turn, to fewer jobs.
The credibility of a currency, after all, does not depend only on very high parities.
If it is to be genuinely and durably credible its parity must be the right one externally, which in turn will depend on its internal stability. We must therefore do all we can to ensure that the stability and growth pact is achieved, as the rapporteur rightly stressed.
... but his plans to use some of the reserves of the euro zone Member States' central banks - an idea shared, as it happens, by Lionel Jospin - for taking a major political initiative to boost economic recovery in Europe, with job creation as the main target, fail to provide the necessary safeguards.
That is mainly because the proposal still applies very little rigour to the so-called surplus currency reserves of the European System of Central Banks.
It is true that, with the advent of the euro and stage three of Economic and Monetary Union, the exchange risk inherent in transactions using national currencies will be considerably reduced.
It is also true that most external trade will be transformed into internal trade, because it will take place within the euro zone itself, drastically reducing the need for currency reserves as a means of international payment.
But the exact size of that surplus is still a mystery.
Figures quoted range from US$ 50 billion to as much as US$ 300 bn.
Nor can it be ascertained for sure that reserves are the same as surpluses, especially since sizeable reserves set up in DEM will automatically be converted into euros as of 1 January next, and will no longer be regarded as currency reserves. They will become internal assets.
On the other hand, it will not be easy to violate the broad autonomy granted to the national central banks for managing their own reserves, and make them use those reserves in specific ways to suit the political decisions taken by the Member States' governments.
This all suggests that the right strategy will prevail, namely a hands-off approach to the management of assets held by the ESCB. That would reduce the risk of a sharp depreciation of the dollar against the euro, something that would be disastrous for exporters in the European Union.
Maintaining a significant volume of currency reserves in dollars and yen will undoubtedly be the best safeguard for preventing the speculative turmoil that might hit international financial markets in this stage of transition towards the euro. That will enable stability measures to be taken so that the euro can earn prestige, based on soundness and credibility, as a major international reference currency.
Mr President, I promise to give as global and as brief a speech as possible, and I thank you for agreeing to prolong this debate slightly.
Ladies and gentlemen, at a time when the European Central Bank is establishing how it is going to function, it is right that Mr Giansily is calling on you to discuss the problem of currency reserves in the third stage of EMU.
First of all, I must point out that I am speaking here today without prejudice, of course, to the position of the European Central Bank, which, under Article 105, is responsible for managing the reserves.
I do not wish to interfere with the independence of this institution.
In general, the Commission agrees with most of the analysis made by the rapporteur.
However, there is one point on which I would like to speak, as it could cause problems for us.
It is the question of the optimum level of exchange reserve assets.
Of course, there will no longer be a need to intervene in the exchange markets in order to stabilise exchange rates between the currencies of the participating countries, and this obviously removes the need to keep reserves for this purpose.
However, moving from that position to deducing that the total amount of reserves held by the ESCB will be higher than the optimum level of exchange reserve assets requires a step to be taken, and I hesitate to take that step, because we are not sure how we should estimate an optimum level of exchange reserves.
Mr Wolf, exchange assets are not superfluous money lying dormant in the coffers of the national central banks, and as I think Mr Herman rightly pointed out, the amount should not be exaggerated and its usefulness should not be underestimated.
I think that, in the context of the euro area, to answer this question we need to consider a series of factors.
Firstly, even after the introduction of the euro, on 1 January 1999, the exchange reserves of the euro area will still be considerably less than those held by the main Asian countries.
I am thinking here, for example, of China, whose ratio of exchange reserves to external trade will be twice that of the euro area.
However, China does not have a convertible currency.
Secondly, for industrialised countries at least, the traditional link between the volume of international trade and the level of exchange reserves needed is in any case extremely difficult to establish for reasons associated with free movement and the liberalisation of capital movements.
I have consulted a whole series of studies in order to try to estimate, to quantify, the surplus level of reserves within the ESCB.
I have seen results that vary from zero to 200 billion euros - 200 billion dollars -, and that is the how vague the results are.
The third important factor is that the national central banks will adjust their balance to the introduction of the euro.
The changeover to the euro will therefore automatically diminish the reserves in European central banks for purely technical reasons, notably the removal of reserves in currencies that are going to become part of the euro, for example, the reserves of German marks in the Banque de France.
Fourthly, high exchange reserves are an effective means of maintaining the banking system with its structural need for liquid assets.
By definition, this is essential for the sound running of monetary policy and for defining interest rates.
The fifth factor is that a high level of reserves in the ESCB will contribute to its credibility, which is absolutely essential at the launch.
It would be inappropriate for us to now reduce that credibility, especially considering the turbulence that we are experiencing on the financial markets.
I would like to remind you, and particularly Mr Metten, that if the credibility of the ESCB were affected, the credibility of the euro would also be affected, and this could, in fact, lead to a rise in interest rates, which is completely the opposite result to what we are seeking by introducing the euro.
You can be assured that the reserves are not there to turn Europe into an international powerhouse, but if there is a need to inject liquid assets into the system, there are other means of doing it apart from liquidating the reserves, which would affect the credibility of the currency.
I think, however, that this point was strongly and rightly highlighted by your rapporteur.
To conclude, while congratulating Mr Giansily on his serious analysis and cautious conclusions, I would like to point out that in this field - and I think this was highlighted by Mr Christodoulou, who is more skilled than I am in this respect having been the governor of a central bank -, only experience will allow us to decide on the appropriate level for exchange reserves, and this is principally the work and the responsibility of the ESCB.
The Commission therefore has every confidence that this task will be adequately carried out by the members of the Governing Council of the Central Bank.
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Protection of workers
The next item is the report (A4-0353/98) by Mr Correia, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending for the second time Directive 90/394/EEC on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens at work (COM(98)0170 - C4-0310/98-98/0093(SYN)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report deals with the Commission proposal amending for the second time Directive 90/394/EEC on the protection of workers from the risks related to carcinogens at work.
The main purpose of this proposal is to extend the scope of the existing Directive to include hardwood dusts (oak and beech), category I and II mutogens and vinyl chloride monomer.
Pursuant to Article 118A of the Treaty on European Union, the Council must adopt, by means of directives, the minimum provisions to promote the improvement of working conditions and guarantee workers the highest level of health and safety protection.
We welcome any initiative taken to achieve that and this is one such initiative.
It is, however, a shame that the Commission did not take this opportunity to broaden the scope of the directive even further to consolidate the provisions of Directive 83/477/EEC on wood dust. The failure to amend the established general framework means that significant difficulties would arise should the Member States or the Court of Justice opt for a restrictive interpretation of the provisions of that directive.
Furthermore, under the terms of Article 118A, we are supposed not to impose any 'administrative, financial and legal constraints which might inhibit the development of SMEs'.
During discussions on this report, we were told by the Commission representative that an impact study had been carried out into these constraints but, as far as we know, it has not been published. We do not therefore know what the consequences of the publication of this directive might have on SMEs.
It was against this background that we tried, with welcome help from other Members of Parliament, to reconcile workers' inalienable right to health with the desirability of financially healthy businesses, with special emphasis on SMEs, the main job creators, but also not forgetting the major industries in this sector.
Nor could we overlook the fact that in the European Union there are more than 42 000 industries, the overwhelming majority SMEs, employing around 1.9 billion workers.
At a time when the main priority is fighting unemployment we must create tax and financial incentives or derogations to make sure that costs of applying this directive are kept as low as possible and do not fall solely on the shoulders of the entrepreneurs, as that would have a knock-on effect on their workers. Any bankruptcies caused would naturally lead to job losses.
As to protecting workers' health, which is the main focus of our approach, we understand that the Commission will have to take into account - as it rightly proposes - levels which are about average for the limit values encountered at the workplace.
We should mention in passing that there are no accurate scientifically proven figures - opinions vary from 2 to 20 mg per m3 .
The choice of 5 mg/m3 is not based on any scientific evidence but it seems to me to be pitched about right.
We cannot say the same of the types of wood covered by this proposal for a directive.
Although it has been scientifically proven that oak and beech dust may be carcinogenic and, when inhaled, cause nasal adenocarcinomas, we think that, given the biochemical similarities of various other hardwoods, and based on estimates, this directive should as a preventive measure include all hardwood types - which does not mean that research into the potential carcinogenicity of wood dust when inhaled should not be continued, as long as it is extended to cover all types of wood.
We have tabled some amendments to the Commission text on the basis of these arguments.
Bearing in mind that the vote in the Committee on Social Affairs on these amendments was unanimous, we hope that the Commission will accept them and amend its initial proposal.
Finally, I should like to thank everyone who contributed to my report.
I welcome this report from Mr Correia because I know that considerable hard work has gone into it.
Health and safety is not the most popular pastime in the European Parliament, but within the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs Mr Correia has spent some time developing what I hope will be a future career in this area.
The committee has achieved certain compromises which, I believe, will effectively win a proper vote in plenary this week.
The carcinogenic effects of hard wood, as we have just heard, have been of the greatest concern to the European Union's Member States.
The fact that we now embrace all hard woods in this particular directive is a sensible start.
The limit values which have been set, as Mr Correia indicates, are for a common European standard.
Of course each Member State will be able to set standards much higher than that - that is up to them, but one thing is quite clear: this is something which will be revised in years to come and which, I am sure, we will all wish to revisit in order to be able to accord the highest standards to workers in the industry across the European Union.
This is nevertheless a start.
I will say that in terms of those compromises financial assistance for such changes is something which will perhaps cause some concern, and maybe the Commission may respond to that particular issue.
We have clearly indicated that we can no longer tolerate the carcinogenic effects in these particular industries where the mass production of wood dust which people breathe in clearly leads to the mutagens which cause unidentified mass illness and sickness within our Community every year for many of our unprotected workers.
I would like to end here with a quick remark to say that Mr Correia has spent a difficult and courageous time discussing this in committee at times and I commend his report to all here today.
Mr President, health and safety is a subject of great importance to us all.
The European man in the street regards it as one of his most prized assets.
And the European Union has done a very great deal for health and safety as part of its social policy.
Numerous directives have been issued and this is one of them.
Each directive seeks to address an area which is not as yet regulated and which is harmful to health.
But the hapless reader finds it rather difficult to pick his way through the maze of directives.
So before I deal with the rest of the report, I have a question for the Commission.
Might it not be possible for the Commission to have a study carried out, by the University in Florence, for example - I see that Mr Monti is with us and so the University in Florence immediately comes to mind - to see if the whole body of directives might not be made rather easier to navigate through, arranged according to a different ranking system. I know that Florence tried to do that with the European Treaty, and quite successfully, though unfortunately it has not been emulated by the policy-makers.
I would like to propose something of the kind here and ask you if a study on the matter might be commissioned.
Regarding the directive, I must compliment Mr Correia on all his hard work.
I think it is very important that he sought to broaden the issue a little.
The point he mentioned just now, whether or not effects were scientifically proven, is a rather difficult one.
I think he has managed to secure some good compromises here. I think that too is something on which we should congratulate him.
We did not in fact support all the amendments.
We voted against two of them, Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
Amendment No 1 because it is not clear what is meant by a transitional period.
Is that the normal transitional period, or is it one which starts when this directive comes into force? That is not clear at all.
It creates confusion.
Amendment No 2 is wrong in principle, because Member States are asked to give financial aid to companies in difficulties.
Those kinds of problems have to be solved under our system by the directives themselves.
And I want to hear the Commission's view on that, which will doubtless be forthcoming.
I have no problems at all with the rest of the opinion, indeed I am very pleased with it.
I would like to see the first two amendments scrapped, though.
I trust the majority of the House will agree with me on that.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal for the carcinogens directive to include exposure to wood dust from oak and beech wood is an excellent one.
There is good reason to adopt this approach.
Directives have to be supplemented as we acquire more scientific evidence, such as the evidence we have now obtained on oak and beech wood.
As for other hardwoods, we can state, on the basis of research, that they are likely to have carcinogenic effects on human beings, but that has yet to be conclusively proven.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has decided to apply the precautionary principle in this matter and propose that the directive cover all hardwood trees.
There is, however, no such proof in respect of softwood trees.
These produce a softer wood than the harder deciduous trees, which makes their dust less harmful.
For example, there is still no scientific evidence to suggest that there is any danger of cancer with Finland's main industrial timber types: pine, spruce, and birch.
Naturally the directive will have to be amended again if we acquire new data on these.
However, it is hardly worth broadening the directive to include all species of tree at this stage, as there is no evidence to justify doing so.
We nonetheless have to remember that possible carcinogenicity is not the only problem with wood dust.
All wood dust causes health problems, such as allergies, but this is an area outside the scope of the directive.
The Commission finally proposed a limit value for hardwood dust of five milligrams per cubic metre, which is very high.
In many countries that will not mean any change at all to the situation that already exists.
Our committee, however, agreed to the high limit value once it had received an assurance from the Commission that the value would be amended downwards.
We did hear that such a proposal might appear even within the next two years.
If the health of workers is to be protected at the workplace, there must be an assurance that people at work are in no way exposed to carcinogens.
Whatever limit value is set, with the obvious exception of zero, means we are giving our approval to a situation where workers' health is at risk.
In setting limit values there are always compromises between workers' health, on the one hand, and the economic and technical consequences of worker protection, on the other.
Now that wood dust is covered in the directive on carcinogens we can only hope that the Commission will produce new proposals as speedily as possible to supplement this directive and lower the limit values set.
Mr President, my group, the Greens, is delighted that this directive is being extended to cover wood dust and hard woods.
The text we have before us is now very good indeed, thanks to the combined efforts of the rapporteur and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I particularly appreciate the call for fixed limit values. Numerous studies have revealed that workers are constantly at risk as things stand.
And not only from the types of wood cited in the Commission's proposal; all hardwoods cause problems.
We cannot be sure either that softwoods are not carcinogenic, as Mrs Ojala said. We need to establish the facts and then take action where necessary.
The tenor of Amendment No 1 is somewhat disturbing.
The implication is that jobs and employees' health are at odds with one another.
Transition periods and derogations should never be used as an excuse for not doing what needs to be done. Nor should they be a means for companies to wriggle out of investing in resolving the problems.
Society only ends up footing the bill - not to mention the cost in terms of human misery.
I really do not like the wording of Amendment No 1.
Mr Pronk argued that companies should be given no assistance with redesigning premises and making the necessary adaptations.
That is quite the wrong approach, in my view.
It is Union policy, after all, to apply the precautionary principle.
That could well mean offering help to companies to remove carcinogenic substances from the workplace.
The Greens will be voting in favour of this report.
Mr President, there is still a need for minimum directives in the field of the working environment, so I am glad that the Commission has taken this initiative. But the Commission proposal to amend the cancer directive is far from satisfactory.
The Commission proposes that the directive should be extended to include work involving wood dust from beech and oak.
That is quite unacceptable.
The Scientific Committee has concluded that dust from other tree species is in all probability also carcinogenic.
I therefore urge you to vote for dust from all woods to be covered by the directive.
A person exposed to wood dust runs a serious risk of developing cancer of the nose, chronic bronchitis and allergies.
We should help to ensure that European employees get real protection from this risk.
If there are doubts as to the carcinogenic effect of a substance, we should apply the precautionary principle.
Besides, it is difficult in practical work at a plant to have different safety arrangements for different types of wood dust.
The Commission proposal for a maximum value for wood dust of 5 mg per cubic metre is also unjustifiable from a health point of view.
The Commission does not explain why it has opted precisely for 5 mg.
The Scientific Committee has not given an opinion on the matter.
It is thus not possible to set a maximum value on the basis of any assessment from the Committee.
It is therefore appropriate to refer to the maximum values applied in the Member States.
In many Member States, the limit is much lower than the 5 mg proposed by the Commission.
Experience from these countries shows that it is a relatively simple matter in purely technical terms to adhere to these limits.
It can also make sense economically.
Danish studies have shown that, by halving the maximum value from 2 to 1 mg, it is possible to save considerable amounts on the cost of hospitals, absenteeism and early retirement.
It is of course a minimum directive, so Member States with lower limits will not be forced to raise their maximum values, but we must still work to ensure that workers throughout Europe get the best possible protection, especially when such serious diseases as cancer are involved.
We must therefore, at the very least, oblige the Commission to examine the question of lowering the maximum values as early as two years after the directive has been implemented.
We have also achieved a reasonably good compromise in committee, so I urge you to vote for the report since, in many ways, it represents an improvement on the Commission proposal. I would also like to praise the rapporteur for a job well done.
Mr President, I would like to extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteur for the good job he has done.
The European Parliament places a high value on the protection of health, as does the second amendment of this directive.
While the other issues are relatively easy to resolve, the problems of hardwood dust are more difficult.
A strict interpretation of the term by Member States, in so far as one is technically possible, could not only signify an end to furniture production, but could also pose a threat to the production of hand-crafted work.
Within a context of globalisation, the EU cannot cut jobs by laying down excessive requirements, which would lead for instance to the creation of yet more jobs involving higher health risks for workers in third countries.
That would not make sense.
The technical expenditure that is being called for should therefore be commensurate with the resulting protection of workers' health.
It would also of course be logical to do further research into possibly improving the way in which limit values are fixed.
A solution is not possible without transitional periods.
According to one of the rapporteur's amendments, Member States may need to provide financial assistance.
The SMEs affected do not by any means receive assistance, however, because if one Member State helps out its companies a great deal, and another cannot or does not want to do this, then a huge distortion in competition could arise.
That is why I would ask the Commission to make sure that the technical requirements and the limit values remain within a range that can be respected, and that the Union provides appropriate support so that conditions end up being more or less equal everywhere. Ultimately we do not want a situation where workers enjoy excellent protection against carcinogens and hardwood dust as a result of the new version of Directive 90/394, but at the same time have no work because their company has had to shut down due to the excessive requirements.
That is not what the amendment of this directive is trying to achieve.
However, I will, of course, be voting in favour of this report.
Mr President, the report says that wood dust is a substance that causes cancer, but completely fails to mention an even more important substance in this connection, asbestos.
Its use is allowed in Belgium, for example.
It would have been easier for the Berlaymont to hoover up wood dust rather than having to take years and years to dispose of sheets of asbestos.
What is the situation with the new Parliament building with regard to asbestos?
Asbestos is a notoriously dangerous material.
During the first years of the new millennium more than ten thousand people will die from diseases caused by it, mainly lung cancer, every year.
Asbestos can be effectively replaced by other materials that have the same properties but which are considerably safer.
Why has this not been done? The use of asbestos in new applications is already banned in the Nordic countries, in Germany, the Netherlands and France.
The Commission, however, for one reason or another, has dragged its feet in deciding to ban the use of asbestos.
If the Commission allows its continued use in new applications, national bans will no longer be able to prevent the importation of machinery and equipment that pose a risk in terms of asbestos.
I have asked the Commission what progress has been made in drafting a directive to ban the use of asbestos in new applications.
Urgent decisions have to be taken precisely because asbestos is so dangerous.
In addition, certain manufacturers use asbestos as a competitive tool against safe but more expensive substitutes.
People's health should take priority and it is about time these urgent decisions were taken.
The directive is being drafted but the investigation stage is taking up too much time.
The experience of many countries over many years should vouch for the use of substitute materials.
Mr President, if we support the social dimension of the European Union, we must give it practical expression by giving priority to the protection of the health and safety of workers.
I support the extension of the existing directive on carcinogens to include dust from oak and beech wood, category 1 and category 2 mutagens and vinyl chloride monomer.
I also support the rapporteur's view that the directive should cover wood dust from all types of hardwood.
Some may argue that sufficient scientific evidence has not been produced to justify this. I dispute that approach.
Often action is taken too late in relation to health and safety matters. In this context it is much better to be ultra cautious.
To put it quite simply, I would suggest that it is better to be safe in the short term than sorry in the long term.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Correia for his excellent report, as well as the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for the constructive way in which it has examined the proposed amendment to the directive on the protection of workers from the risks related to carcinogens.
The aims of the proposal are relatively straightforward.
First of all, we wish to extend the scope of the directive so as to include dust from certain types of wood, and category 1 and 2 mutagens.
This is an important initiative within the Community's efforts to guarantee better protection of workers from the risks related to carcinogens at work.
Secondly, with a view to simplification, we are taking this opportunity to incorporate the provisions of the Council directive on vinyl chloride monomer into the directive on carcinogens.
I am pleased to say that the Commission can accept most of Parliament's amendments since they help to make the proposal more effective.
I am referring to Amendment No 3, the first part of No 5, and Amendments Nos 6, 7, 8, 10 and 11.
I shall explain briefly why, in contrast, the other amendments are not acceptable.
Amendment No 1 stipulates that the provisions relating to wood dusts will only apply to existing places of work after a transition period.
Mr Pronk touched on this point among others.
In the Commission's opinion, the time granted in the draft directive for undertakings to make technical adaptations to their workplaces is adequate.
Amendment No 2, referred to by Mr Skinner and Mrs Schörling among others, proposes that the Member States should provide undertakings with financial assistance to help them meet their obligations.
If a Community instrument were to impose such a duty on Member States, it would conflict with the principle of subsidiarity.
What is more, it would set a precedent and, in our opinion, it would be a mistake to suggest subsidising employers to fulfil their responsibilities in terms of the health and safety of their workers.
Amendment No 4 sets out to fix limit values for wood dust at a level which rules out any risk to workers.
We have every understanding for the underlying idea here, but, given the characteristics of carcinogens, we should not fix unrealistic limits.
The Commission's proposal puts forward a workable limit in this regard.
The second part of Amendment No 5 is deemed superfluous, given that the Commission accepts the first part of this amendment.
My final comment relates to Amendment No 9: it is unacceptable to the Commission because the date of entry into force of the directive must coincide with the repealing of the directive being replaced.
Finally, I take note of Mr Pronk's interesting suggestion of examining the feasibility of grouping together various directives.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Insurance
The next item is the report (A4-0307/98) by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens Rights, on the draft Commission interpretative communication on freedom to provide services and the general good in the insurance sector (SEC(97)1824 - C4-0049/98).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, to come straight to the point, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights welcomes the Commission's initiative.
The single European market has created an integrated financial market, and this has lead to increased competition and the free movement of persons and capital in Europe.
Of course this also impacts on the insurance industry, where existing barriers have to be broken down gradually.
On 1 July 1994, the 'third-generation' insurance directives came into force, creating the conditions for an insurance undertaking to do business in the entire territory of the Community.
The single market in insurance is based on the principles of mutual recognition and uniform authorisation, and makes it possible for insurance companies that are registered and authorised in one Member State to do business in any other Member State in the context of freedom of establishment and freedom to provide services.
Prior inspection of contract conditions and premium rates has been dropped, but financial supervision of the insurance undertaking in the Member State of establishment has been stepped up.
Although there are indications of an increasingly integrated market and there is a more competition-based environment in the Single European Market, particularly in insurance products for what are known as high-risk companies, the effectiveness of the single market in insurance still remains restricted due to a number of legal and fiscal barriers and barriers arising from the policies of individual countries.
Recently Eurostat also arrived at the same conclusion, expressly bearing out the Commission view and underlining the necessity and importance of this draft communication.
The Commission rightly thinks that one of the reasons preventing insurance companies from taking advantage of the fundamental freedoms in the EC Treaty is the uncertainty which still surrounds the interpretation of fundamental concepts such as 'freedom to provide services' and 'general good'.
The inexact legal concept of the 'general good' is used in the Third Insurance Directives with respect to services as well as freedom of establishment, and means that in each case of cross-border insurance activity it must be ensured that the application of national legislation to foreign providers of services can be justified for compelling reasons of the general good.
In its extensive case law, the European Court of Justice has many times clarified and decided in individual cases the conditions under which legitimate non-economic interests can be recognised in the interest of the general good.
The rules on the general good must apply to all persons or undertakings operating within the territory of the State in which the service is provided in so far as that interest is not safeguarded by the provisions to which the provider of a service is subject in the Member State of his establishment.
In addition, such requirements must be objectively justified by the need to ensure that professional rules of conduct are complied with and that the interests which such rules are designed to safeguard are protected.
The usefulness of this communication from the Commission consists above all in the overview it provides of the important and typical instances of difficulties in interpretation.
The Court of Justice has partly already clarified matters by means of judgments; some cases are still pending, and there are others in which the Court has not yet intervened.
Therefore the communication provides the parties concerned with a useful and sensible guide.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights very much welcomes the fact that the Commission itself has made it clear in its draft communication that its communication does not in any way prejudge any interpretation of matters by the Court of Justice and is not normative.
A Commission communication on pension funds has already been declared void by the Court of Justice in another case.
We cannot endorse the criticism made of the Commission for referring in its study to practical examples of what it considers to be infringements of Community law in cases which are still pending.
Rather, the Commission's role as guardian of the Treaties requires it to bring its legal opinion, which may of course be examined by the Court of Justice, to the public's attention at an early stage and without qualification.
We agree with the Commission's observation that the fact that cross-border business activities in the insurance sector are rather slow in getting started is also attributable to corporate policy.
Most European insurers have hitherto obviously preferred to establish themselves abroad through takeovers and build up their network in the EU through subsidiaries.
But the introduction of the euro is going to have a huge impact on the insurance market in Europe.
It should simplify the cross-border sale of insurance services, make it easier to compare products, and lead to a reduction in costs.
So it can be expected that the euro will considerably boost the cross-border insurance business, which today could often be described as underdeveloped.
That is another reason to have this communication at this time.
Mr President, I am a lawyer and I also worked in the insurance industry, but I did not expect to be leading the Socialists on this matter this evening.
But, obviously, Mr Rothley is still dealing with his onerous task of the Statute for Members and so on.
When I started my insurance career a long time ago - practically 30 years ago - I remember the first week I was in the company, and the boss told me: 'The big challenge facing us is that we are going to have to deal with competition from Europe!'
Little did I think 30 years down the road that nothing would have changed, and I hope the same happens to duty-free.
As we know, over recent years we have adopted a considerable body of legislation aimed at achieving a single market in this sector. However, it is having no real effect.
It is obvious to us all that the single market is just not working in this sector, especially when you look at the high cost of car insurance in my own country, Ireland.
Young male drivers, for example, face insurance costs at least twice as high as in other European countries, and that is on top of the higher car prices in Ireland anyway.
So that is not a single market: no competition there, no help to the consumer.
Member States have had sufficient warnings.
The Commission must make full use of its powers under the EU Treaties, especially Article 169, to open up the market.
Member States are adding too many cumbersome requirements to European directives, thus making it difficult for insurance companies to operate in other Member States.
In Ireland, insurance companies trying to operate in other Member States have highlighted problems to me, such as different rates of tax relief on premiums paid to locally established insurers; the requirement to appoint tax representatives - fiscal representatives as they are called (we are not familiar with this notion and most companies do not have to appoint such agents) - and to fill out detailed questionnaires; there are also the problems associated with different rules on languages, and finally, there is the vexed question of minimum policy terms.
In my view, insurance companies should not fear the entry of other European competitors into their national markets.
A single European market should be seen as an opportunity rather than a threat. It would, of course, make it easier for other firms to enter, but it would also make it easier for Irish companies to do business abroad.
I would like to agree with what the rapporteur says: the consumer must be looked after, and that means competition. I wish to congratulate her on her report.
Mr President, I have noted very carefully what my Irish colleague has said.
I am very surprised that she was working in an insurance company 30 years ago: I did not think she was that old, so she wears her age well.
I welcome the Commission's initiative in this area.
Many of us had hoped that the single market would have produced strong competition in the insurance sector, resulting in lower premia for consumers.
Regrettably, this has not happened and, clearly, no real single market in insurance exists at the present time.
I agree with the honourable Member that it is disappointing, especially for young Irish people. They pay exorbitant rates for motor car insurance, and I had hoped, like many people, that competition would force prices down.
I urge the Commission to investigate insurance rates for under-25s in Ireland to ensure that no abuse of the market exists.
I welcome the fact that the Commission is investigating whether or not the general good clause is being misused.
Finally, I hope that with both this Commission initiative and the introduction of the single currency, we will witness more transparency, more shopping around by consumers and, consequently, the eventual creation of a real single market in insurance.
Mr President, there is considerable uncertainty surrounding certain key aspects of the general good clause concerning the freedom to provide services. In particular, these relate to the implementation of the directives on insurance.
We should be aware of the dangers of the possible use of this clause as a means of discriminatory restriction.
In fact, as the report states, the harmonisation achieved through the directive of 5 April 1992 has not prevented insurance undertakings wishing to operate in Member States other than the one where they are domiciled from having to comply with cumbersome requirements imposed by the host state.
True, the relative failure to establish an internal market in insurance is not due solely to the tendency to interpret the general good clause in a biased way. Problems in the internal operation of the undertakings themselves have also played a part.
Nevertheless, the clause must be clearly defined. In my view, it does not matter how this is achieved.
The best way may be through subtraction, as the Commission - supported by the rapporteur - is suggesting, or there may be another way, but what is important is to arrive at a clearly stated legal position.
To sum up, if a clear legal position is to be established, it is essential to approximate the most important provisions of the law on insurance contracts and insurance conditions. Our citizens will then be able to shop around in an open market and make a choice which is in their own best interest, not that of the insurance undertakings.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, both the Commission communication and the report by Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn deal with a central concept in the interpretation of Articles 59 and 60 of the EC Treaty on the freedom to provide services.
We know that in its insurance judgment of 4 December 1986 the European Court of Justice identified the 'general good' as justification of the restriction of this freedom to provide services.
But even a lay person in legal terms would see at once that such a broadly framed concept as the general good has to be protected from falling prey to misinterpretation.
That is exactly what the Commission communication aims to do.
Like the rapporteur, we should support the Commission, and I also think that we should be behind her in encouraging the Commission to resume its efforts to approximate the provisions on insurance contracts, which have become bogged down, and to make its legal opinion known in spite of the fact that procedures are pending.
I hope that in future this will be a reason for many policyholders to be thankful to both the Commission and the rapporteur for their commitment to the freedom to provide services.
Perhaps even Mr Cushnahan may yet have cause to be pleased about this.
Mr President, I thank Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn and compliment her on her report.
Almost four years after the entry into force of the third insurance directives, the European passport system which they introduce has already had a major impact on the operation of the market.
The abolition of insurance premium controls and the prior notification of policy conditions have increased competition on national markets, especially in respect of certain types of activities previously excluded from competition.
Nevertheless, the Commission has noted that the potential of the single market has by no means been exploited to the full yet, as various speakers have mentioned.
Our contacts with economic operators - insurance companies, brokers, insured persons and consumers - lead us to conclude that the main reason for this lack of integration is the Member States' diverging interpretations of two fundamental concepts of Community law: freedom to provide services and the general good.
These differences in interpretation not only tend to produce considerable legal uncertainty, impeding the development of the market, but also serve to perpetuate the national barriers which prevent the single market from functioning properly.
Clearly, there are legitimate targets for protection by the Member States in the name of the general good, the most significant being perhaps consumer protection.
I can assure you that the Commission has no intention of calling into question any genuine concerns in this regard.
It is equally evident, however, that in many cases the Member States make excessive use of the discretion conferred on them by the concept of the general good, to justify applying their whole panoply of national regulations to foreign service providers.
Rules on the general good are not in fact harmonised at Community level; nor would it be possible to do so, since national interests vary from one Member State to another.
The concept of the general good should nevertheless be interpreted very restrictively, in that it limits the fundamental freedoms established by the Treaty.
Improper use of this concept by Member States can be avoided through compliance with the criteria established by the case law of the Court of Justice: non-discrimination, proportionality, necessity and non-duplication.
These criteria for ascertaining the general good circumscribes the legitimate use of this concept.
In order to remedy this situation, the Commission deemed it necessary to draw up the draft interpretative communication in terms which clarify its proposed interpretation of the concepts of freedom to provide services and the general good.
The Commission intends in this way to provide greater clarity and legal certainty concerning the scope of these two concepts.
I must say that, as you know, a similar initiative in the banking sector has proved most useful.
Having set the scene, please allow me now to comment briefly on the European Parliament's report.
I wish once again to thank the honourable Members and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn, for having taken part in these consultations and conducted a thorough analysis of our interpretative communication.
The report from the Committee on Legal Affairs focuses mainly on the question of the general good, which is in fact the main issue dealt with in the communication.
The report corroborates the Commission's view that diverging interpretations from one Member State to another constitute a major impediment to the proper functioning of the single market in insurance.
Finally, it endorses the use of practical examples and defends the right of the Commission, as guardian of the Treaties, to express its own legal opinion.
I would moreover stress once again that the purpose of our communication is to improve transparency and clarify Community legislation, whilst at the same time increasing legal certainty.
It is clear, however, that this interpretation by the Commission can neither be binding on Member States nor impose fresh obligations on them.
Nor does it prejudge the interpretation of the Court of Justice, which obviously is ultimately responsible for the correct interpretation of Community legislation.
I would also recall that the Commission is likewise duty-bound to bring infringement proceedings against Member States in the event of serious violations of Community law.
Encouraged by this resolution from the European Parliament, we shall now be even better placed to complete our work by adopting the final version of this interpretative communication.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Preferential tariff arrangements
The next item is the report (A4-0262/98) by Mr Nordmann, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Commission communication on the management of preferential tariff arrangements (COM(97)0402 - C4-0447/97).
Mr President, the report that I am to present on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation relates to issues that go quite far beyond the scope of the Union's development policy, as it involves suggesting improvements to be made in the management of the preferential tariff arrangements that the Union grants to some of its trading partners. This is done in several forms: for some countries it is in the conventional form of negotiated cooperation agreements, in particular, of course, within the framework of the Lomé Convention, but also in the form of autonomous preferential tariff arrangements such as the Generalised System of Preferences, which is unilaterally granted by the Union.
It seems that these preferential tariffs are subject to a certain amount of fraud, and the irregularities that have been uncovered, for example, amount to the very substantial sum of ECU 220 million.
This fraud affects textiles, fisheries products, industrial products and agricultural products, and one of the main attractions of the Commission communication is that it lists the products affected by fraud.
The mechanism of fraud here obviously involves the misuse of the certificates of origin that are granted by the customs authorities of the trading partners and that involve many cheques drawn on the Union's funds.
The only thing is - and here lies the limit of the comparison - that in the case of cheques that have no funds there is no payment, and the surplus comes from the Union's funds and therefore from the Union's taxpayers.
The fight against fraud, which is the main objective of the Commission communication, involves a certain number of improvements to the system and a certain number of control measures as well as training measures, especially for the trading partners. Indeed, it has to be said that they do not always have the technical and administrative infrastructure to combat fraud where it is not actually encouraged, and this is something that also has to be recognised.
The Commission communication looks at a number of actions to be undertaken.
We would also like to add that we must raise the awareness of and encourage greater action on the part of the Commission's delegations in the partner countries, which should play a driving role in this field.
The Committee on Development also hopes that there will soon be an initial assessment of the impact of the new 'binding origin information' procedure.
This should allow importers in the Union to ascertain, before customs formalities have been completed, that the products qualify for preferential tariff treatment.
This binding information procedure gives some sort of customs validity to the products for three years.
We also hope that the penalties mechanism that was put in place in 1995 will be effectively applied, when appropriate.
Up until now it has only been used once and that was in a case arising from social problems and not from commercial fraud.
We hope that it can be implemented.
To conclude, I would like to point out that, notably in a very interesting hearing before the Committee on Budgetary Control, which in the end did not, unfortunately, give an opinion on this issue, the debate was centred around strengthening the legal certainty of importers.
In this respect, there is a difference in perspective between the report by the Committee on Development, which mentions that certainty, which must be improved, and the opinion by the Committee on External Economic Relations, which gives great emphasis to the problem.
We think that the responsibilities must be shared and that the Committee on Development's wording is undoubtedly more balanced than the opinion - and this is quite normal as it comes from the Committee on External Economic Relations - that highlights only the issue of the certainty of importers.
This is the reason for the indications that I have given regarding the amendments, and I wanted to make that clear now.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations on this matter, I read Mr Nordmann's report with great interest.
At the beginning of his report, he rightly points to the importance of the preferential arrangements in Europe's trade policy.
The main aim of this, fostering the development of less developed countries like the Lomé and ACP countries and helping applicant countries prepare for membership of the European Union, deserves our full support.
The problem is that the reality falls far short of the ideal. Not for nothing did the Council ask the Commission in May 1996 for a study of the matter and for proposals to improve the system.
The Commission points in its communication to fraud over the rules of origin and a significant portion of Mr Nordmann's resolution, the first nine paragraphs, deals with this in greater detail.
Of course we have to work hard to counter fraud, in the interest both of the European Union and of the beneficiary countries.
The Commission places the emphasis mainly on direct measures against fraud, using supervisory bodies and penalties.
To my mind, more has to be done to counter fraud by indirect means.
The preferential tariff arrangements should be made more effective.
That may prove more beneficial than penalties, control mechanisms and all the other administrative rigmarole.
What I have in mind is more flexible and simpler rules of origin and improved cooperation between Member States and beneficiary countries.
An early warning system, whereby the importer is alerted early on to possible irregularities, may be useful too.
But that means the current inadequate system has to be faster and more reliable, as Mr Nordmann advocates in his report.
A second consideration is protection for importers in Europe.
I was disappointed that the Commission communication contained nothing to protect those who import things in all good faith.
This was precisely one of the reasons which prompted the Council to ask the Commission for a communication.
The Council wanted the confidence of importers and the validity of certificates of origin to be protected, so that they no longer faced sky-high duties and the risk of going bust.
On this precise point, the Commission has done nothing.
That is unfair.
Mr Nordmann alludes to this obliquely in paragraph 10 of his report, but it has to be raised more specifically.
Our starting-point has to be that the risks must not be borne by the importer alone.
For this reason, I have tabled Amendments Nos 3 and 4 to paragraph 10.
They derive from the opinion which the Committee on External Economic Relations adopted unanimously on this subject.
Amendment No 5 is from our Committee too, and takes up the Council's question.
It concerns importers who, in applying the preferential arrangements, are disadvantaged by irregularities in the decisions of beneficiary countries.
I would urge the Commission to put forward a proposal to protect them where they cannot reasonably be expected to have known about such irregularities.
Lastly, given the aim of the preferential arrangements, I think it is important that they should also benefit the least developed countries.
So I urge the Commission to ensure that the system really does improve the market access of these most vulnerable countries.
This is the thrust of Amendment No 6, once again tabled by the Committee on External Economic Relations.
I hope that the rapporteur, Mr Nordmann, will incorporate these crucial amendments into his resolution, which is an excellent one.
The improvements which I advocate are of great importance to the continuing existence of the preferential tariff arrangements.
The Commission's communication is helpful, but does not go far enough on these points.
So it is up to the European Parliament and the Council to act.
The present situation is bad not only for the least developed countries, but also for firms in the European Union.
Given this situation, I believe that we have to conclude, irrespective of political allegiance, that the current system is ineffective and unfair.
We should take action accordingly.
Mr President, Mr Nordmann and Mr van Dam have studied this whole issue from the point of view of their respective committees and have thus largely made comments of a technical nature.
I should like to make some comments which are rather more political, on this proposal and on Mr Nordmann's report.
Firstly it would seem, superficially, that the purpose of the system of preferences is to enable a number of third world countries to export their products to the European Member States on more favourable terms.
The reality of course is rather different.
The reality is that these products compete with products from our own European Union, and that is the main reason for charging import duties on products from the third world.
We then ease that burden a little by lowering the rate of duty imposed.
I say this because I think this system of preferences is viewed from within the European Union as a kind of concession to the developing countries, whilst the developing countries themselves see it above all as a minor concession, in areas where the European Union is struggling and setting import duties which are far too high, largely to protect farm products produced within the European Union itself.
In all honesty, it is actually a somewhat hypocritical system.
That is the first point I wished to make. It is a general political observation.
When we then find that massive frauds are perpetrated on the system in the developing countries, we have to ask ourselves what is the point of such a complicated system and what is the need for it.
ECU 220 million, or half a billion Dutch guilders - that is a lot of money, if it is indeed the total sum being lost through fraud.
And knowing where that money has gone - into textiles, fisheries, agriculture and the countries of Asia - I really wonder whether far more fundamental changes to the system are not warranted.
The rules of origin should be radically revised, for example, but perhaps we should concentrate the whole system rather more on the really poor countries and not have to keep adapting the current system in this way.
Since we have a system of penalties and sanctions for humanitarian reasons, why can we not apply these sanctions in cases of fraud and abuse? If there is real abuse of the preference system, I think sanctions could be imposed there too.
Perhaps Mr Monti will tell us what he thinks of that idea.
Lastly, I agree with Mr van Dam that if importers are losing out under this system, that is a very good reason to review the whole procedure.
That, Mr President, is my political critique of the system as a whole, but the essence of my criticism is that it is a hypocritical system, because we start by charging duty on goods from the third world and then take a bit off again, all because of the scale of protection given to agricultural products, textile and fishery products in our own European Union.
It is hypocrisy, it is a cheap trick, and as we know the European Commission can do little about it.
Perhaps it would be better to get rid of the system altogether.
Preferential tariff arrangements, whether under the Lomé Convention or the generalised system of preferences (GSP) are still under-used because of contradictions between the European Union's own policies.
While recognising these systems as a strong weapon for helping the developing countries and a vital element of cooperation policy, the Union sticks so closely to the demands and red-tape bound up with rules on origin that they become a protectionist practice which defends European industries to the detriment of their competitors in the developing countries who are supposed to be benefiting from them.
Many of the least-developed countries will not have any opportunity to compete in the open and free international market.
Throwing them into the lion's den of the World Trade Organisation is tantamount to condemning them to eternal poverty and suffering.
Putting an end to the preferential tariff arrangements is therefore out of the question.
Not only are they necessary but greatly improving them should be one of the EU's priorities.
That does not mean turning a blind eye to fraud or tolerating beneficiary countries' lackadaisical or uncooperative attitudes.
But fraud cannot be combated without an effective and practicable system of sanctions.
Suspending the benefits of a preferential tariff arrangement, a sanction so far only applied in the case of Burma, should not be limited to cases of fraudulent trading practices, unfair competition, slavery, forced labour or relations with the drug trade.
Certain countries benefiting from the GSP have high incomes.
Countries where child labour and discrimination against women are the rule continue to benefit from the GSP.
But let us not exaggerate.
The ECU 220 million of fraud detected comes to only 0.25 % of the Community budget.
What is more serious is the fact that an excessive onus is placed on European importers when it comes to checking certificates of origin, a discouraging factor for trading with the beneficiary countries of this system of customs tariff exemptions or reductions.
That responsibility, as the rapporteur has said, has to be shared.
We support the consensus reached between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament on the measures needed to increase the exchange of information, strengthen the control mechanisms, reduce red-tape and apply the system more flexibly.
But now we need action not words.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the Committee on Budgets, I am always concerned with speaking out in favour of fair structural conditions.
I would like to come back to what Mrs Maij-Weggen said.
I think that in principle we should from time to time reflect on the worth of certain regulations, and attempt to lay down objective criteria as to where provisions are still relevant and where they could be removed.
Own resources is a sensitive area for us because it consists of amounts of money which are important for the EU.
I think that it is very easy to use forged certificates of origin, because monitoring the flow of goods (which is often independent of financial flows), and dealing with the accompanying papers and the people involved in the operation is so difficult.
Any groups that have specialised in fraud would of course know the weaknesses of our system and also how to hide their cheating by staggering the four flows into a favourable chronological sequence.
I think it is necessary to offer better training in this area.
There has been some progress, but it might be necessary, especially in the field of statistics, to develop increasingly precise methods in order to determine what the likelihood of fraud is in each of the four flows.
I would also like to point out our request that OLAF should, together with the Court of Auditors, undertake intensive monitoring.
There is also of course the issue of jurisdiction, and of who is really laying down the measures that will lead us to fair structural conditions.
Mr President, the image of the European Union has suffered greatly because of recent scandals relating to fraud.
If we do not close the loopholes that facilitate fraud we will compound our problems, resulting in increased cynicism and hostility towards the European Union.
It is therefore frightening that the Commission's 1996 Annual Report concludes that there were irregularities to the tune of ECU 220 million in the EU's system of preferential imports.
Mr Nordmann - I congratulate him on his report - is correct to cite the need to tighten fraud detection systems in the countries of origin.
Unfortunately the preferential tariff arrangements enable goods to be imported into the EU from under-developed nations, either duty-free or at a reduced rate.
Regrettably fraud occurs by falsifying certificates of origin.
While the Commission is correct to propose simplifying the rules of origin, I support the rapporteur in his view that all risks should not be borne by EU-based importers and furthermore, that the poorest countries should not be penalised in any reform.
Mr President, preferential tariff arrangements have become a mainstay of the European Union's external economic relations.
They are difficult to manage because of the need to play off political interests against economic ones; as Commissioner responsible for both customs policy and the single market, this matter is of particular concern to me.
I wish to express my sincere thanks for the work of the rapporteur, Mr Nordmann, and to the Committee on Development and Cooperation for having highlighted so clearly that the challenge of improving on the present system for the future lies in establishing a balance that more effectively meets today's economic requirements.
When discussing preferential arrangements, account must be taken of all the aspects involved: trade policy, development aid, public funds, customs rules, industrial interests, importers' liabilities, etc.
This whole set of issues must be addressed in the search for a solution to the current problems: taking isolated measures affecting individual elements would only distort the system and could ultimately compromise its credibility.
Every economic operator must fulfil his obligations: the beneficiary country - and on the subject of beneficiary countries I would remind you, in relation to the remarks made by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Cushnahan, that the European Union is the biggest donor of preferences; the Union grants new possibilities of access to less developed countries through specific measures and derogations - must guarantee that the products exported satisfy the conditions of admissibility, especially the rules of origin.
The importer, for his part, must assume the normal commercial risk associated with all commercial transactions.
The importing country must guarantee that no fraud is committed and that public resources are safeguarded.
I realise that economic operators have felt themselves to be particularly disadvantaged by certain irregularities which have occurred in the past.
The Commission has taken due note, and I should therefore like to comment on the matter of importer liability.
There are - I would recall - two types of customs rules: the first, rather outdated and abandoned some time ago by the Community and the Member States, consists in checking every single consignment of imports as it is cleared through customs.
This cumbersome procedure, which is feasible only when few goods are moving around, does have one advantage: as soon as the goods have been cleared through customs, the importer knows whether or not everything is in order from a regulatory point of view.
Thus there is no need for subsequent checks.
The second type of rules is much more up-to-date and was adopted by the Community in 1992 through the Customs Code; its purpose is to promote trade.
Imported goods are no long subjected to systematic checks, and thus their freedom of movement is not slowed down. Only a small percentage are checked at the time of customs clearance.
But in return for this freedom, importers must assume legal liability.
That is why the Community's customs authorities may demand that for a certain period of time - three years, which moreover the Commission has recently suggested to the Council should be reduced to two - customs duties must be paid on goods which have been imported.
At the same time, I am aware of the administrative shortcomings in certain third countries, which create both economic and legal uncertainty for operators.
We are exploring suitable measures to remedy this situation.
I would merely emphasise the main principles which we believe should guide us in our efforts.
These are the guidelines contained in our communication of July 1997, the thrust of which was to prefer a global approach to this problem on the grounds that - as I said a moment ago, and as I think has been confirmed by this evening's interesting debate - to focus on an individual aspect in isolation, neglecting the others, would not lead us very far.
This same reasoning was followed by the Internal Market Council on 18 May 1998.
The Commission is therefore of the opinion that the following should be promoted: first and foremost, a responsible approach by all operators of these arrangements and better cooperation among them; secondly, improvements in the rules on origin; thirdly, greater awareness in the beneficiary countries and an offer of assistance to their customs administrations; and fourthly, an examination with the Member States of customs-related and financial measures to be adopted.
Finally, it is important in the Commission's view to seek to improve the mechanisms designed to enhance the security of commercial operations.
I am thinking, in particular, of the introduction of effective penalty clauses into preferential arrangements, supported by a mechanism for providing regular information to importers, like the one put forward by the Commission in its recent proposal on the new generalised system of preferences.
I would also refer you to other measures encouraging greater recourse to the 'binding origin information' procedure.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would reiterate what I said at the outset: we cannot envisage measures relating to just one element of the system, for example merely extending the notion of good faith on the part of importers.
Here I am pleased to note that Mr Nordmann's report gives strong political backing to the Commission's initiative to update the management of preferential tariff arrangements.
The challenge for the future is the need to combat fraud effectively, whilst at the same time shouldering our responsibilities to third countries and to economic operators.
I am gratified to note that the Committee on Development and Cooperation broadly shares the Commission's intended approach in this difficult area, and I hope that Parliament as a whole can endorse this reasoning.
Commissioner, I have a further question.
We have of course a system of penalties in this area.
Do you think that we might make more progress with a system of incentives or that, in the course of time, this could be turned into a system of incentives?
Mr Rübig, we see assistance and cooperation between administrations and, in the final instance, penalties as complementary.
As you know, the system is currently in the throes of change, and we are striving to improve it with this cross-cutting approach, whereby no aspects can be overlooked, I believe, including the possibility of penalties. I think we are right to maintain that cooperation and assistance are a step in the right direction, in an area which - I would emphasise - is highly complex and requires many conflicting demands and interests to be taken into account.
I thank you once again for the suggestions and encouragement which the Commission has drawn from this debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 10.25 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I wanted to inform you that 100 francs have disappeared from my petty cash.
That is the second time this has happened.
Would you please ask the parliamentary security service to take action to prevent these thefts, of which an average of 10 to 15 occur here every month.
Thank you, Madam President.
As you know, Mr Rübig, we try to provide the best possible security in all our places of work.
Thank you for this piece of information. I can assure you that we shall step up our efforts further still.
Madam President, yesterday I made a statement to the House which was recorded in the Rainbow. However, it was not mentioned in the Minutes, apart from the comment that I was in the Chamber and was not voting.
I took part in all the votes yesterday.
Therefore I would like the Minutes to be altered accordingly.
Thank you, Mr Falconer.
That twofold mistake will be corrected.
Madam President, I have a question which we should like the Bureau to answer as soon as possible. There has always been a regular press digest produced by Parliament.
The German version, entitled 'Plenum aktuell ', has recently been radically shortened, a situation which still obtains.
I have not checked the other versions.
In the item on the Spaak report, for example, apart from the Commissioner and the rapporteur, nobody else is mentioned at all.
I should like an explanation for this. Is it only the German version which is affected, or is this part of a general savings drive?
Precisely because this digest is designed to give the public a picture of our work, I believe that such measures are totally unjustifiable.
I cannot imagine that these are measures to achieve savings, Mr Rack.
In any event, we shall look into it.
I think it is very important that the reports should be as accurate as possible.
Yes indeed.
Thank you for those comments.
Once again, we shall look into the matter.
Madam President, I would like to join the two previous speakers and point out that half the staff of the European Parliament were not allowed to come to Strasbourg for this second October part-session. This saves money on the administration side.
Given that we must come to Strasbourg, Madam President, we must also have the necessary staff available so we can do our work properly.
(The Minutes were approved)
VOTES
Thank you, Mrs Dührkop. I think it would in fact be preferable if you gave us the necessary details when the time comes, so that Members know exactly what they are voting on.
Madam President, I believe a mistake has been made.
This is my group's original amendment on the 30 % reserve, and I should like to emphasise that it does not relate to the condition for the establishment of this new reserve, but rather to the conditions we had for the 100 % reserve, because one of those conditions, namely the surrender of the documents to the Belgian prosecuting authorities, has not yet been fulfilled.
Madam President, I did not fully understand what Mrs Müller said.
If she wishes to make an oral amendment in a very complex and very long voting procedure, I will oppose it and I believe that other colleagues will also oppose it.
Let us vote on her amendment as it stands. This is the only way to proceed in such a complex vote.
Therefore, I would like to ask you to put Mrs Müller's original amendment to the vote, as it stands.
Yes, that is what I intended to do, Mr Dell'Alba.
Thank you for your support.
Madam President, should we not hear the opinion of the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control here? She is surely in the best position to tell us what exactly is behind the amendment.
Madam President, I request that EUR 16.5 million be approved in commitment appropriations for this line in place of the amount proposed in the amendment by the Committee on Budgets.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the amendments to Section I.
Mr Martens has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I should like to ask, on the basis of Rule 115(3), that we should first vote on the fifth paragraph of Amendment No 899 relating to the link with the Members' Statute. Could I just take two minutes to explain why?
For the last 20 years, we have had a system of flat-rate travel expenses.
The Court of Auditors' report indicates that this is no longer acceptable.
We need to find a fair solution, and this is only possible if we link it to the Members' Statute.
Our group is opposed to having a complex and untransparent system which, it has become clear, is extremely difficult to justify to the general public.
Secondly, and this is something I would ask you to think seriously about, we fear that if we accept a transitional system, certain members of the Council will use it as an excuse to reject the Statute.
The Statute has to be adopted unanimously.
Parliament has to put forward a proposal, the Commission will deliver its opinion and the Council must reach a unanimous decision.
We fear that the fair solution that relies on linkage with the Members' Statute will not be possible if we accept a transitional system.
What we need to do instead - and this is what my group has decided - is to formulate a proposal based on the Rothley report that Parliament can then put before the European Council on 11 and 12 December in Vienna.
We are therefore prepared to approve the Rothley report as the basis for an interinstitutional agreement.
The only guarantee we have is if you, ladies and gentlemen, agree to vote on the fifth paragraph first and approve it.
I think we would then be on the right road towards, firstly, dismantling an untenable system and, secondly, establishing the Statute for Members.
(Applause)
Mr President, if I have understood correctly, this request has been presented to you pursuant to Rule 115 on the order of voting on amendments.
I do not see what reason there is for changing the order of voting as it currently appears on the list of votes.
In the Committee on Budgets, this problem had already arisen.
Subsequently, we had voted on the paragraph that you are now being asked to vote on first.
There is no link between the first vote and the vote concerning the statute for Members.
The first vote is asking us to express our opinion firstly on an opinion, that is, on how allowances should be reimbursed.
The statute for Members is a different matter altogether.
Therefore, there is no reason, neither legal nor political, to ask for the order of voting to be changed.
I do not think it is necessary to continue this debate because the second paragraph of Rule 115(3) of the Rules of Procedure states, Mr Martens, that the President shall establish that it is not opposed by at least 29 Members.
And I would ask you whether or not you are standing by your position, because it seems clear to me that it will be opposed by at least 29 Members, but I have no problem in counting them.
If you tell me that you are standing by your position, I will ask the Members who are opposed to stand and we can count them in no time.
Are you standing by your position, Mr Martens?
It is clear that there are more than 25 Members opposed to changing the vote.
All I am asking is that, whatever else happens, we should vote separately on the fifth paragraph.
Yes, Mr Martens.
This split vote was requested at the appropriate time by the groups and will take place.
After the votes on Draft Amendments Nos 899 and 537
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to avoid the pervading confusion, I would like both you and us to draw our conclusions from the votes that have just taken place.
In other words - and I am completely in favour of this interpretation - the Bureau's decision of 19 October on a transitional system of allowances is to be enforced.
I would like to ensure that this is clear.
Mr President, we have rejected several remarks regarding particular budget items.
These same remarks are reproduced as a draft amendment to the text of the motion for a resolution.
Can we carry the previous vote over to the motion for a resolution?
Of course.
Parliament has stated its position.
We will not vote twice on the same texts simply because they are in two different places.
The rapporteur, Mr Viola, has asked for the floor to speak on block 28.
The rapporteur has asked for the floor.
Mr President, before proceeding to the vote on the motion for a resolution, I would like to make three remarks concerning the vote on Section III that we have just completed.
Firstly, I would like to repeat what I said before the vote to the effect that Parliament voted first on Amendment No 888 relating to the strategic reserve, for which the proposed payment and commitment appropriations will now need to be adjusted in terms of the limits of the financial perspective, and leaving margins in each of Categories 3, 4 and 5.
The amounts I propose are: in Category 3, EUR 400 million; in Category 4, EUR 990 million; and in Category 5, EUR 150 million.
Secondly, I would like to thank the President and, equally, Mrs Fontaine for so ably conducting this vote on the budget and making it slightly easier.
I would also like to thank Parliament's services and the staff of the secretariat of the Committee on Budgets for their excellent work, without which this budget vote would not have been so easy.
I would also like to say to the Council that I think we have adopted a budget for the citizens of Europe and to urge the Council once more to conform with Parliament's position.
Mr President, this block contains paragraph 21, which contradicts the position we took when voting on the budget.
I would ask the rapporteur to withdraw it, since it conflicts with our vote of a moment ago.
Mr President, paragraph 30 would also appear to me to contradict the vote we held previously and should, in my view, be removed from the resolution.
Mr President, with regard to paragraph 39, on which we are about to vote, I would ask that, in the report which the Commission is to forward to the budgetary authority, it should also give the appropriate information on the situation of the other institutions in the context of interinstitutional cooperation.
To save space in the text, I think that we could dispense with this paragraph in the resolution on the other institutions.
Mrs Dührkop, what is your position on Mr Viola's request?
Mr President, it seems to me that this amendment is redundant since it already features in Mr Viola's other resolution, where it mentions all the institutions.
I would therefore like to put my opinion on record although, of course, I leave the outcome to the wisdom of the House.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, as you said quite rightly a moment ago, Amendments Nos 1, 4 and 5, which are related to the vote expressed a short while ago on the budget, should now lapse, since they contradict the outcome of the budget vote.
With your agreement, I would propose that the House should endorse a decision taken by the coordinators of the Committee on Budgets, by which I mean the coordinators of all the various groups. This decision relates to cases exactly such as this one, where no amendment at all is adopted.
It was nevertheless agreed to enter an oral amendment to the budget resolution, merely stating two points of fact, without adding anything.
If I may, Mr President, I shall read out this oral amendment.
The new text of paragraph 8 would read as follows: 'recalls that it has requested the Council to support unreservedly the principle of a statute for Members of the European Parliament, as provided for by the Treaty of Amsterdam; draws attention to its resolution on the outcome of the European Council meeting in Cardiff of 15/16 June 1998, in particular paragraph 20 thereof'.
Mr President, the argument given by our rapporteur is unquestionable in terms of Amendment No 1.
This is the amendment from the Committee on Budgets that repeats all of the text that was rejected earlier by split vote.
On the other hand, his theory is more questionable in relation to Amendments Nos 4 and 5, namely, our group's amendment and the amendment by the ELDR Group.
These amendments contain measures which most certainly were not mentioned earlier.
Amendment No 4 assigns the Bureau a task which is entirely different to the one in Amendment No 1.
Amendment No 5 - and I apologize for speaking on behalf of the ELDR Group - provides for new allowances and different conditions. Therefore, I do not think they should be considered obsolete.
As regards the oral amendment by Mr Viola, I reserve the right to oppose it, when the time comes.
That is, of course, the correct interpretation and the Presidency's services have verified this.
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 are not affected by the previous vote and I will put them to the vote after solving the matter raised by Amendment No 1.
Amendment No 1 has lapsed but now an oral amendment is being tabled.
Are there any objections to this oral amendment?
Mr President, given the fact that this is such a difficult and sensitive issue, I myself might be very tempted to vote for that.
However, this whole issue is so controversial that it would be better if we did not actually vote on anything in this connection.
If we accept that Amendment No 1 by the Committee on Budgets was lost, as it was earlier, then we should just accept its loss and do nothing.
There are clearly more than 12 Members who are opposed to this oral amendment, so I cannot put it to the vote.
Mr President, it is clear, as Mrs Green said, that we are now in a position where we have established the principles from the earlier vote, and we should try to accommodate that at this stage.
We know where we stand; we have recorded votes on the basic principles of the budget vote, and it would be helpful if we avoided trying to replicate something about which we have, in substance, already reached a decision.
Mr President, basically I believe that this amendment to paragraph 31, tabled by the Socialist Group, is no longer relevant after the votes which have been taken.
Instead, I think that paragraph 31 of my resolution - the text from the Committee on Budgets - should be modified to remove the words 'to create four permanent B5 proofreader posts', given that this proposal fell during the earlier votes on the budget.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, please allow me - I could not do so just now - to join Mrs Dührkop in thanking the entire staff of the Committee on Budgets. Their assistance in the course of my work was absolutely invaluable.
Mr President, I would just like to point out that we rejected the substance of this third indent when we voted on the budget.
These are two different resolutions, and while they may say the same thing, I have to put both of them to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, I would like to ask whether you said there were mistakes in certain language versions.
For example, there is one in the Finnish version.
It talks about hardwood and coniferous trees, yet the committee has constantly stressed that we are only talking about all deciduous trees, not conifers.
I just wanted to make it clear to everyone that there was a mistake in the Finnish version.
You are quite right, Mrs Ojala.
There is a corrigendum to the German, Finnish, Spanish and Swedish versions, and a second corrigendum to the Danish version.
This will all be looked at very carefully.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Different political groups in the European Parliament will always vary as to how best they feel the European Community budget should be spent at any given time.
I myself would like to put on the record of the House that I feel that appropriate financial resources must be put aside at all times to help the marginalised and disadvantaged in our society.
I give you one example, the Irish Government is presently formulating a National Development Plan outlining our social and economic investment priorities for the period 2000-2006.
We have been told that Ireland has spent the Structural Funds under the present Community Support Framework 1994-1999 very shrewdly with the consequent economic benefits.
There are many people within the European Union, some notably from Germany and the Netherlands, who feel that Ireland should not be given extra resources under the next round of EU structural funds, 2000-2006.
The person who invented the phrase 'the Celtic Tiger' has not done Ireland a favour.
In Dublin city and county for which I am a Member, there are presently still 70 000 people on the live register.
The Irish Government must include concrete proposals in the National Development Plan which is being sent to the European Commission to help combat this problem which is highly concentrated within the Dublin city and county region.
One of the priorities must relate to the need to continue to put into place more innovative training programmes so that the evil of long-term unemployment can be defeated once and for all.
Notwithstanding the fact that Ireland as a country will not qualify for Objective 1 status for the seven-year period post 1999, Dublin city and county still merits the receipt of EU structural funds for particular projects. The EU budget must reflect this at any given time.
The priority number one area must be to ensure that the European Social Fund is made available for measures to help combat youth and long-term unemployment.
However, other areas which will merit the assistance of EU Regional Fund monies will also relate to the need to implement an integrated transport system as well as introduce innovative measures to deal with our growing waste problem.
Through our voting strategy we have sought to reduce the total EU budget, which we feel is too all-encompassing. We are particularly concerned about the Structural Funds and the CAP.
We also voted consistently against funding propaganda ventures such as the Prince programme.
As regards the vote on Members' travel expenses, yet again the majority in this House has managed to avoid voting for the only ethical option, i.e. refunding individuals for expenses on an actual cost basis.
The system under which Members of the European Parliament can stuff their own pockets will continue, a state of affairs which we deplore.
It should go without saying that reimbursement should cover what we actually spend on travel.
The recent decision by Parliament's Bureau, soon to come into effect, will leave the situation largely unchanged.
The majority of MEPs have once more demonstrated their inability to come to grips with this important issue. This perhaps tells us more about Members themselves than about the European Parliament as an institution.
We do not think that it would be a good idea to remunerate Members on a common basis. We therefore voted against the proposal in Amendment No 899, fifth indent.
The amendment calling for funds for a project to put an end to violence against women is, however, very much to be welcomed and we therefore voted in favour.
Although I reject many of the budget items, particularly the support for nuclear energy and for fusion research, the contributions to the NATO golden jubilee and some agricultural premiums, I voted for the budget because the prudent measures it finances outweigh the others.
I explicitly voted for actual travel costs to be refunded, yet without linking this decision to the new statute for Members.
This statute is vital if there is to be greater clarity, but the two issues cannot be linked.
I regret that, as a result of this Parliament's vote, a decision by the Bureau is now in the process of being applied.
This decision is incorrect for at least two reasons.
Firstly, it is only applicable from 1 May 1999, one week after the close of this session. Secondly, those Members who already receive the largest allowances will then receive an additional allowance.
I voted against all the proposals advocating 'more Union'.
There is something wrong with an institution which, because it lacks grass-roots support among the people, has to resort to ceaseless propaganda campaigns in order to sell itself. Look at what is happening over the euro, for example.
I supported the proposals for changing the way the CAP and the Structural Funds operate. I welcome calls for less regulation and more straightforward procedures in these areas, and am therefore behind much of the Agenda 2000 package.
I voted against EU funding for Turkey, since it has not met the commitments it entered into when the Customs Union agreement was signed. Turkey undertook then to stop waging war against the Kurds and to cease persecuting them.
It also promised respect for human rights, democracy and freedom of expression.
I voted in favour of the proposals to reimburse travel expenses actually incurred, on production of receipts.
By voting against the Members' Statute or 'common statute', I rejected calls for a standard level of remuneration, accompanied by low EU tax.
The indecipherable tangle of account-settling, bogus contracts and nepotism in the domain of humanitarian aid - the ECHO programme - has aroused indignation, and rightly so.
In fulfilment of its obligation to control and inform, the European Parliament reacted immediately; because of the inadequate response from the Commission and its glaring failure to provide the elected representatives of the people with sufficient information, we froze all humanitarian aid as a first step.
In the face of this pressure, the Commission relented and promised to hand over to Parliament all the documents held by the anti-fraud unit UCLAF.
Moreover, the Commission undertook to submit the documentation on the bogus contracts to the judicial authorities.
Not all the problems, however, have been solved - far from it.
That is why it would be irresponsible to take the pressure off the Commission now.
On the contrary, Parliament must use all the means at its disposal to have this appalling business fully cleared up.
For that reason, I supported the Green Group's Amendment No 584, whereby 30 % of the TACIS funds were to be set aside for as long as it took to resolve the outstanding issues - an independent audit of ECHO, disciplinary proceedings and the handover of the documents.
The Commission would then have been required to practise transparency and to shed light on this matter between now and the second reading of the budget in December.
I deeply regret that the opposition on the Socialist side has killed this amendment.
Parliament has thereby thrown away an effective means of enforcing those demands that would have served to promote honesty and transparency in European politics.
Although I reject many of the budget items, particularly the support for nuclear energy and for fusion research, the contributions to the NATO golden jubilee and some agricultural premiums (such as the 'Herod premium'), I voted for the budget because the prudent measures it finances outweigh the others.
1) In the light of this turbulent debate on travel expenses, I should like to make the following points. The Belgian Socialist delegation continues to support a system in which only the expenses actually incurred and for which evidence is supplied are repaid.
We ourselves have already introduced such a system. Anne Van Lancker, Philippe De Coene and I only ever claim the costs we have actually incurred.
2) It is true that there are considerable differences in the salaries paid to Members from the different Member States.
If we are to move to a system of reimbursing actual travel expenses, it may therefore be desirable to introduce a fair transitional system for Members from certain Member States.
The system provided for in the decision of Parliament's Bureau is excessive, questionable under tax law and therefore unacceptable for the Belgian Socialist delegation.
3) In addition to reforming the travel expenses system, we also need a new Statute for the Members of the European Parliament.
However, if we are to find an efficient solution we must not link these two things together.
Dührkop Dührkop report (A4-0360/98)
Madam President, we voted against the budgets and I would like to explain the additional reasons for this, that is, those that were not mentioned during the general debate.
Of course, three votes did receive our approval.
The first was Amendment No 439 where we deleted the amounts included in the reserve for Turkey.
The second was Amendment No 866 where we withdrew financial aid to ACP banana producers, which is a good decision.
We also deleted the special reserves for external policies and we welcome this move.
On the other hand, we believe there are two decisions that are reprehensible.
Firstly, we got rid of the reserve for humanitarian aid with Amendment No 784.
Secondly, Amendment No 1, our amendment to the resolution, was rejected.
As regards humanitarian aid, I see that, having shown its fighting spirit in the face of the ECHO scandal, the European Parliament is once again satisfied with explanations and a mere letter. However, Madam President, we have still not, and I repeat, still not received the UCLAF report that sparked the whole affair.
Finally, our Amendment No 1, on the exchange of information with the relevant committees in national parliaments was a repeat of the initial version from Mrs Dührkop Dührkop's report.
It was merely a repeat of what she had initially stated in her report.
I see now that, on all sides, people are constantly talking to me and to us of closer links with national parliaments.
In this report there was a simple measure that allowed the relevant committees in national parliaments to become more involved in terms of the budget.
At a time when the budget is causing more and more problems, when we are asking more and more from the Member States, when some even envisage asking Member States to once again finance certain expenditure, how can we accept this refusal to allow such vital collaboration with national parliaments?
These are the additional reasons for our opposition to this report.
Madam President, I did not vote for the agricultural chapters of the budget.
Not because I do not wish there to be an agricultural budget: indeed, I consider this to be a very good budget, with the exception of those funds which are to be spent on supporting certain activities that not only I but also an ever-increasing number of citizens of the European Union reject, fail to understand and simply no longer want.
We are using the 1999 budget to go on financing the Herod premium and subsidising the transport of live animals.
I am entirely on the side of Europe's farmers, who have to work very hard to earn their living in the service of our citizens. Let not a single ECU be taken from the farmers!
But do let us seek ways and means of paying our dues to the farming community without financing the transport of livestock to the Middle East and the Herod premium.
My intention in casting this vote was to speak for those people who would not otherwise have a voice in this Chamber.
In today's vote on the budget the Commission, its President and the Commissioner responsible for relations with Turkey have received a firm political response from the European Parliament concerning finance for Turkey.
Parliament voted by 365 votes to 135 not merely to consign financial aid for Turkey to the reserve but to delete it from the reserve altogether.
I hope we will give the same response when we vote on the Commission's new regulations, which I am sorry to say constitute an institutional coup d'etat.
I also hope that Turkey will soon meet the European Parliament's demands with regard to democracy and compliance with international law, if the financial aid is to be unfrozen.
I voted against the motion for a resolution (A4-0360/98) on the Draft General Budget of the European Union for the financial year 1999 to protest against the neglect of and discrimination against the tourism sector and the fact that Amendment No 75 was rejected, thus preventing the inclusion of any budget heading on measures to help tourism and thereby depriving it of funding.
This majority decision by the European Parliament comes in the wake of the rejection by the Committee on Budgets of an amount of ECU 3.5 million and the proposal, currently under discussion, to restructure the parliamentary committees, which would mean that tourism would cease to be the subject of any committee in its own right (there is currently a Committee on Transport and Tourism).
This anti-tourism attitude seems to be echoed by a majority of the Council. The fact that it is now finding its way into the European Parliament is an affront to the most important economic activity in the European Union, in terms of employment, investment and per capita GDP, a sector still facing problems requiring a specifically European approach.
The European Parliament's only concern seems to be to open a budgetary heading on the Campaign against Sex Tourism in Third Countries (B7-663), and it has abandoned the European tourism sector altogether. That sector is now bereft of the resources and legal basis needed for Community measures to be taken.
I am a member of the European Parliament representing a country, Portugal, where tourism is a vital sector in the economy, and the Algarve, a region where tourism is extremely important, and so I have to express my disappointment at the attitude shown by the European Union institutions and vote against this report.
Spending on the Structural Funds and agriculture is compulsory expenditure. The Council of Ministers takes the decisions, even though Parliament's President ultimately signs the budget.
We challenge the need for much of the EU's expenditure in these two areas.
Unfortunately, we cannot use our votes to influence spending on those parts of agricultural and regional policy which we dispute.
We believe that competence for regional policy should be given back to the Member States.
Speedy root-and-branch reform of the current common agricultural policy is needed for reasons of efficiency, and in the interests of forthcoming enlargement.
And support for wine and tobacco growing should cease as soon as possible.
There are also a number of dubious budget items, the purpose of which - according to the remarks - is to promote the 'idea of Europe'.
We particularly object to providing 'grants to organisations advancing the idea of Europe', or' grants for projects organised by associations and federations of European interest'. We have even come across an item devoted to preparation and support for economic and monetary union.
We are firmly opposed to such items.
Viola report (A4-0361/98)
Madam President, we voted against the Viola report and I would like to stress the main reason for our position on this report, namely, what happened in relation to the reimbursement of travel expenses during the vote.
Amendment No 899 to the remarks by the Committee on Budgets was rejected.
It received only 224 votes. The amendment by the Liberal Group, which said it was in favour of actual costs, received 214 votes.
Our group's Amendment No 4 to the resolution obtained 143 votes and the Liberal Group's amendment received 188 votes.
Each year, during the budgetary debate, we have asked that the travel costs reimbursed to Members are those actually incurred.
The rejection of these amendments, which took place today, shows how irresponsible our Members are.
In fact, how can we maintain a system that allows Members to receive a fairly significant allowance depending on how far they live from Brussels or Strasbourg, an allowance that is not provided for by any treaty nor any Community act and that is not taxable?
We hear talk of the problem of the statute for Members, and of inequality, but the Member States are responsible for the situation of their Members.
It is the Member States which must decide whether or not there should be a different allowance in relation to members of their national parliament.
Since the European Parliament has not been asked, it is not responsible for providing a system of compensation, a system that also compounds inequality, as the level of compensation increases when one is geographically further away. The level of compensation is not related to the amount of the parliamentary allowance in each country.
This is why we are opposed to this report.
It is wrong to claim that the Bureau's decision is a good one.
The Bureau's decision institutionalizes a system that reimburses fictitious costs.
We are against this system and will continue to oppose it in the future.
In connection with this year's budget round, the issue of Members' travel allowances has once again been raised.
The current system allows Members who travel cheaply to keep the difference between the amount actually spent and the flat-rate allowance.
We have always said that we support those proposals which seek to replace the existing travel allowance with a reimbursement system based on the real cost of travel. This is preferable to a flat-rate allowance for the distance covered.
We have worked throughout for a proper, comprehensive solution to the problem.
The system that has now been adopted is not satisfactory.
If we as parliamentarians want to enjoy the confidence of the electorate, we must resolve the question of our allowances once and for all.
The four of us have therefore agreed that, as from the beginning of next year, we will accept reimbursement of the actual cost of travel only; any surplus will be returned to the Community budget.
This initiative is designed to create transparency and counter the suspicion that travel allowances are used for purposes other than those envisaged.
On this much-discussed question of travel allowances, we of course voted in favour of reimbursement of the actual cost of travel, and no more.
This has been our stance throughout.
Anything else is quite unethical.
Amendment No 1 - which was based largely on the Green Group's proposal - was lost because of the way the earlier vote went. Apart from the paragraph on the Statute for Members - which we oppose - the text with that amendment would have been eminently acceptable from our point of view.
We voted in favour of two of the amendments taken in plenary: Nos 4 and 5.
We have our doubts about the proposal in Amendment No 5 for a further allowance to cover travel in a Member's home country.
We would have voted in favour, however, had the principle of reimbursement on the basis of real costs been carried.
Yet again, the European Parliament has proved incapable of taking the necessary decisions.
The only sensible and ethical solution would have been to introduce real-cost reimbursement.
What we have now is a situation where Members are free to pocket any surplus allowance that is not needed for travel.
We very much regret that not even Amendment No 3 on 'greening' the administration of the EU institutions was adopted.
Since the really important points in this text were dropped, we chose to vote against the whole report.
I voted in the Chamber for Amendment No 537 and paragraphs 1-4 of Amendment No 899 in the belief that Parliament would at last be prepared to adopt the practice whereby travel expenses may only be claimed for the actual costs incurred.
Such a practice would be consistent with a sense of fairness and the expectations of our citizens.
The new situation, in other words the fact that the decision of the Bureau is to come into force, will not improve matters as we had hoped, but on the contrary will confuse things even further.
Parliament does not seem to understand that such spectacles and resolutions only diminish our credibility still further, which I seriously regret.
The EU Member States have for years been suffering as a result of reductions in social spending, which have affected social care and public services. And all because of the convergence criteria.
Unemployment seems to be stuck at around 20 million in the 15 Member States.
We believe that the time has come for careful evaluation of the EU's budget; serious questions need to be asked. Many of the Union's activities look very lightweight and low-priority when set alongside the social policy work currently being stopped by cutbacks in the Member States.
Long-stay wards are being closed down in Sweden's hospitals, and we deplore the fact that the EU is pouring money into bodies whose results and raisons d'être are highly questionable.
Obliging Parliament to shuttle between Brussels and Strasbourg is a terrible waste of financial resources.
Huge sums are being spent on the new buildings in both places.
Throwing away money like this does no good for the Union's image with the European public.
The EP's total expenditure on premises in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg amounts to ECU 149 610 706.
The situation is made all the more absurd by unnecessary local costs.
Yet nobody appears to have a remedy for this state of affairs.
We, however, do have a few suggestions as regards the European Parliament's budget:
MEPs' travel costs could be brought down if we introduced a special credit card for travel, rather than paying out generous flat-rate allowances as we do today.
Receipts would obviously have to be produced in support of expenditure on the card.-The Members' pension fund should on no account be topped up out of general EU funds when the books fail to balance.
Participants in the fund should not simply reap the profits when the going is good; they should likewise stand any losses.
The money hitherto paid into the pension fund from the EU budget must be recouped.We also advocate the rejection of any proposals to grant financial help to political parties operating at European level. In times of general belt-tightening, it looks very bad if politicians authorise further privileges for their own organisations.
European parties should see to it that they obtain funding from their affiliates.
Finally, we would challenge the Economic and Social Committee's very raison d'être .
We really wonder whether the work this body does justifies its running costs.
Meeting of heads of state and government
Madam President, I voted against this resolution because it goes completely in the wrong direction and totally ignores the citizens of the Member States and their rights and the rights of national parliaments which are much closer to the people than the European Parliament or the European institutions.
It is extremely important that Member States allow their citizens to have as great as possible a role in decision-making and that national parliaments should have the right to scrutinise all the EU institutions.
In particular, it is quite incredible that Parliament should not criticise - since it has often criticised - its role as regards the Commission and that we should not be able to dismiss individual Commissioners rather than the Commission as a collegiate body, because Parliament will never use that power.
As regards the role of the common foreign and security policy, it is clear that Parliament and the EU institutions are obsessed with the development of a common defence policy, yet the question of whom we are defending ourselves against has never been clearly answered.
It is basically in the interests of the militarisation of Europe, which is not in the interests of people in the long term.
We need to look at demilitarising Europe and the world instead of going in this direction.
But this resolution fails to address the democratic deficit of the European Union and completely ignores the rights of ordinary people in the Union.
Madam President, in his introductory speech to the debate on the state of the Union yesterday morning, the President of the European Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles, expressed his concern over the complete lack of progress in the Council's work on how to incorporate the Schengen acquis into the Treaty.
In fact, we know that the protocol incorporating Schengen, as it was adopted by the Amsterdam Council, states in Article 2 that the Council, acting unanimously, shall determine the relevant legal basis for each of the Schengen provisions. In other words, the Council will distribute them between the first and third pillars by sovereign decision.
This procedure is completely extraordinary and, in my opinion, goes against the French constitution, as it allows the Council of Ministers to determine which aspects of the Schengen agreement can be dealt with by majority voting and which will still require unanimity, without any parliamentary ratification nor any control over constitutionality.
This, for France, is one of the many reasons why we reject the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Council working party has been considering this distribution for a year and has still not produced any tangible results. If the situation were still the same after the Amsterdam Treaty had been ratified, all the Schengen acquis would be attributed to the third pillar, creating an incredible legal imbroglio with the area of freedom, security and justice that was automatically attributed to the first pillar by the Amsterdam Treaty.
Given these conditions, we can understand that the President, Mr Gil-Robles, is calling on the forthcoming Vienna Council to breath new life into this work.
But what can the European Council do? In reality, the working party's paralysis shows that the Amsterdam Treaty, as it was signed, appears to be completely unworkable on this point.
How can the Heads of State or Government have put their signature to such measures?
This will have to be clarified later but, for the moment, it would indeed be a relief if France did not ratify the Amsterdam Treaty.
In the event of a majority vote in favour of the original text:
We would point out that, in paragraph 3, the Swedish words 'ett så kallad rättvist återflöde ' do not accurately reflect the French 'juste retour ', which should be translated as 'exakt ' or 'precist återflöde '.
The context of the invitation to this meeting has been changed by the German general election.
The meeting was an idea put forward in a joint letter signed by President Chirac and Chancellor Kohl. Therefore, what purpose can this meeting serve other than to give Mr Schröder and the 14 other Heads of State and Government a chance to meet each other?
Nonetheless, the proposal by the Committee on Institutional Affairs contains some good points which, if they are taken into account, could just enable the 'summit' to reach the kind of conclusions to give a fillip of a proactively European political nature to the fight against the root-causes of the crisis and the upsurge in reactionary nationalism. Those factors are making it even more difficult to stick to an already extremely complicated political programme, what with the international financial crisis, enlargement to the east, Agenda 2000 and the future financing of the European Union.
In my view, what makes this resolution interesting - for once getting away from the petty and monotonous institutional demands continually being drummed out by the European Parliament - is that it makes the political future of the European Union dependent upon four fundamental conditions:
the need to play a decisive political role, apart from the market and the single currency, and to try to promote human rights and peace through its foreign policy; involvement in the regulation of international economics and finances in order to bring about economic progress and social justice (see the proposal by Mr António Guterres made on behalf of the summit of Heads of State and Government of the Ibero-American countries, meeting in Oporto last weekend, for the EU summit on 2425 October dealing with the international financial crisis), and in the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice; -achieving enlargement in a fair way while maintaining cohesion between old and new Member States; -applying subsidiarity not as a pretext for renationalisation nor in a spiral of centralisation but as a 'dynamic criterion' in order to determine who, the Member States or the European Union, should exercise their powers in order to guarantee that the aims of the Treaty are effectively attained; -carrying out an institutional reform to guarantee greater democracy, transparency, citizen participation and effectiveness - aspects which this resolution, unlike others, rightly and expressly considers to be unconnected with the question of the weighting of votes or other issues linked to the power-related status of the larger Member States.This is a resolution which, by laying such emphasis on subsidiarity, by defending the vital participation of national parliaments and by realistically enhancing the decisive role of the Council in a union of sovereign States, demonstrates that the widespread fears of federalism were unfounded - a federalism that only produced bugbears of benefit to nationalists. What has won the day is an authentically federal approach applicable to those powers already transferred, ensuring participation and democracy at that level, in particular by strengthening the European Parliament and giving the Commission, which is effectively responsible to the European Parliament, a bigger say.
At the same time, the resolution does not ignore the fact that it is more urgent than ever to make progress towards European unification and that the ways of bringing that about require the appropriate institutional finances for meeting the aims of the Treaties to be made available - or, to put it another way, the governments must show willing!
Last but not least, the resolution puts economic and social cohesion and the European social model on a par with democracy, human rights and the market economy as the fundamental elements of the new constitutional pact being worked out in the European Union.
These are further reasons why we are voting in favour of the motion, denouncing the small-minded interests of those who confuse politics with accountancy and are defending come what may the anti-Community theory of the so-called juste retour .
Whatever committees we work in, the political future of Europe concerns all of us as Members of the European Parliament.
As the Pörtschach European summit is deemed informal and as the Amsterdam Treaty has not yet been ratified by the Member States, the Committee on Institutional Affairs has wisely based its resolution on the issues announced at the Summit: subsidiarity and the democratic legitimacy of the institutions. This is so that its voice will be heard by the Heads of State or Government of the 15 Member States in a clear and concise political message.
This pragmatic approach must not prevent us, the socialist Members, from looking further ahead into the future, to a possible overall institutional reform, and we should remember that the next six presidencies of the Union will be held by governments where socialists are in office.
We should therefore ask ourselves what the words of our resolution mean: 'go beyond the completion of the internal market and the introduction of the single currency and move towards a real political union'.
Twenty years of neo-liberal utopia have taught us the hard way that political globalisation is needed in order to face today's financial and commercial globalisation, to face the deregulation of financial flows and to face monetary fanaticism.
For this reason, the development of the European Union represents an essential step forward in constructing a regional world power.
In today's world, the economy, technology and the development of the information society are evolving in an increasingly international arena.
Those who wish to change society must have a supranational political structure available that will compensate for the influence individual states have lost on such developments.
The European Union has allowed us to benefit from globalisation whilst protecting us from its disadvantages.
The Union has become a strong economic block that makes businesses more efficient.
A single market has been created and it guarantees, albeit belatedly, the free movement of goods, services, capital and persons.
National trade barriers have been eliminated.
In 1999, national currencies will begin to fade out and the euro will take over.
The Union has become one of the major commercial powers in the world and has many instruments available to allow it to face the challenges of the international economy.
Moreover, with the euro, the European Union will become a world power on a monetary level.
A specific policy has also been developed to assist less-developed regions in Europe.
This structural policy has generally been successful.
At the same time, the European Union is protecting peace in Europe.
Of all its achievements, this remains the most remarkable, even if it does have its faults.
For half a century, the Member States have lived in peace.
Confrontation has given way to cooperation.
Nonetheless, public opinion is turning away from Europe due to the unjust nature of the integration imposed by the single market.
Europeans as consumers, workers, unemployed people and citizens have often been neglected.
Although the Treaties have given the European institutions a clear mission, this mission has not been accomplished in terms of social, employment and environmental policies, nor in terms of fiscal and security policies.
European policy on these matters has been inadequate.
Therefore, there is an urgent need to develop these policies.
The introduction of the single currency will only increase this need further in social and fiscal matters.
And until people see the European Union solving their problems, their confidence in Europe will not be restored.
The Europe of Citizens only has meaning if it refers to a project that allows Europe to respond to the everyday concerns of its citizens.
Raymonde Dury, my predecessor in this European mandate, was fond of saying that if the European Union as an entity asked to join the Union, it would be refused on the grounds that it was not sufficiently democratic.
We are a unique showcase in history as the whole, the European Union, is less democratic than each of its parts, the Member States.
This is why the main aim of the institutional reforms must be to build true democracy and to achieve even greater efficiency.
This democracy and this efficiency will only be achieved in Europe by means of a federal model.
In this model, the Commission would become a true government.
The European Parliament would become a first chamber representing the people.
The Council would become a second Chamber representing the Member States and their bodies.
The entire structure would be founded upon a true European constitution.
The Court of Justice would become a European constitutional court.
Democratization means European decisions would be made within a framework where the essential guarantees of democracy would be real guarantees, namely, the principle of majority rule, the political accountability of the authorities, control of parliamentary institutions and transparency in decision-making procedures.
Strengthening the democratic nature of the institutions would allow their efficiency to be increased whilst reducing the weight of their bureaucracy at the same time.
This would first mean strengthening democratic controls in the first pillar and then bringing the two intergovernmental pillars fully within the Community arena.
This would also strengthen the role of the Court of Justice.
Democratization must therefore go hand in hand with a streamlining process, based on fundamental changes within the three major European institutions.
The main aim of reforming European policies is to increase efficiency.
Enlargement is forcing the European Union to review the efficiency of its policies.
In a European Union with 500 million inhabitants spread over the whole continent, all European initiatives must be reviewed.
The need for efficiency must be given more consideration.
And this, more to the point, is the basic meaning of the principle of subsidiarity.
The role of the European Union needs to be reduced in certain cases and increased in others.
As a result, the European Union is still too weak in its fight against the negative social and cultural repercussions of globalisation.
On the other hand, some of its forms of intervention, and occasionally some powers, have lost much of their meaning.
They add to the cumbersome bureaucracy and budgetary expenditure yet achieve very little.
Certain forms of intervention must be reviewed, such as those relating to the fight against social exclusion, to social, environmental and fiscal matters and to agricultural policy.
The Cohesion Fund, in its current form, no longer has a raison d'être .
It must become a growth fund offering Member States loans that will facilitate a policy of budgetary adjustment.
It will then be easier for them to respect the convergence criteria in times of financial crisis.
The resolution from Mr De Giovanni and the Committee on Institutional Affairs contains a series of points in the run-up to the October meeting of heads of state and government.
Most of what is said takes us too far along the road towards integration and federalism.
Paragraph 22, for example, states that we should 'lay the foundations for integration of the powers of the WEU in the European Union'. This of course means militarisation of the EU, which runs counter to our desire for a peaceful and demilitarised Europe.
The alternative resolution from the EDN Group is much better, since it calls for a strengthening of democracy and the application of the subsidiarity principle, as formulated in Cardiff.
The whole thrust of this resolution is that the EU should become more supranational, transforming itself into a 'United States of Europe'.
In paragraph 10, the European Council is warned 'against the temptation to use subsidiarity as a pretext for the renationalisation of Community policies'.
Paragraph 11 'underlines that fears of over-centralisation in the European Union are greatly exaggerated'.
Our premise is that the EU should function on the basis of cooperation between independent states.
We therefore cannot vote for the resolution.
We also reject the idea that the European Parliament should have its own Statute.
The link between Members of the European Parliament and national parliaments is vital as a matter of principle.
A uniform EP statute would shore up federalist leanings further still. Huge pay rises for most MEPs would inevitably ensue.
Many citizens who are currently going through hard times would find that difficult to swallow.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party supported the De Giovanni resolution, but with considerable reservations.
This month's special Council meeting is a welcome attempt to address the gulf that is perceived to exist between the European institutions and the EU's citizens.
Its purpose is to explore ways of reconnecting the EU with its citizens, to address the concerns of Europe's peoples rather than to tinker further with the institutional framework.
To concentrate on the EU's institutions and propose institutional reform for future IGCs - when we know that previous IGCs have damaged the EU's legitimacy by making it appear ever more remote from the concerns of its citizens - is to miss the point of this special Council meeting.
On the specifics of the resolution, the EPLP abstained on paragraph 5 which calls for the EMU countries to be represented by a single voice on international bodies.
The EPLP voted against Amendment No 40 to the fourth indent of paragraph 18, extending the responsibility of the Court of Justice to all areas of EU competence.
The EPLP voted against the second indent of paragraph 21, calling for the extension of QMV to all legislative acts.
We voted against Amendment No 35 to this paragraph, which would extend QMV to all appointments made by the Council.
The EPLP supported Amendment No 19 to paragraph 22, which called for a more effective focus on crisis management and conflict resolution, and greater coordination of EU Member States' defence policies in pursuit of the effective realisation of the Petersburg Tasks.
The EPLP voted against paragraph 23, which calls for the next revision of the Treaty to be prepared using the Community method.
Correia report (A4-0353/98)
The latest medical data from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that occupational cancer is constantly increasing in the European Union. Such cancers account for a significant share of mortality statistics.
We no longer underestimate the impact of certain environmental factors on cancer and we should treat industry in the same way.
When hereditary tendencies are added to these unfavourable circumstances, we know that cancers then develop on a large scale.
As a doctor, I have had the opportunity to study this health problem.
Besides the human aspect, all this inevitably incurs an economic and social cost.
Today, the wood industry, in particular, is under close scrutiny.
Nonetheless, the answer does not lie in imposing measures that are too strict and that, in practice, cannot be applied.
It has become essential to consider the economic aspects of this problem.
The implications in financial terms and in employment terms affect several hundred European businesses in the wood sector.
Therefore, we must know how to act in this respect and take measures that will preserve human life but that will not condemn a sector that employs a large labour force.
If we act hurriedly and without proper judgement then thousands of jobs will be a stake.
Part of the European Parliament's role is to advocate a progressive conversion to stricter standards on eliminating wood dust.
It is also important in this field to ensure that precautionary measures are harmonised for all countries in the European Union and for all businesses, no matter what size they may be.
A major part of the efficiency of this protective measure lies in the time allowed for transposing it and applying it to the various national legislations.
Our proposal is sufficiently flexible to allow it to be adapted over time.
I voted in favour of the Correia report.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for an amendment to the directive on carcinogens.
The Commission proposal is not good enough.
It only proposes that the directive be extended to apply to work involving exposure to wood dust from oak and beech.
There is enough scientific documentation to justify all species of wood, both soft and hard woods, being covered by the directive.
In practical work at a plant it is also difficult to have different safety arrangements for different wood species.
We have therefore voted for all species of hard and soft wood to be covered by the directive.
The Commission proposal for a maximum value of 5 mg/m3 is also not acceptable.
The limit is lower in many Member States, and the Commission has not given any scientific justification for its choice of 5 mg/m3 .
We have voted for the maximum value to be reduced to 1 mg/m3 and for the Commission to be required to review the question of maximum values two years after the directive has been implemented.
Paasilinna report (A4-0328/98)
As a consumer I am glad that new technologies are opening up new possibilities such as the opportunity to use the Internet for telephone calls.
The possibilities for this kind of 'convergence' between different sectors of the communications industry are exciting.
Perhaps such technological developments will help to open up access for disabled people and others for whom past systems have been difficult to use.
Almost by definition we must adopt a light hand to regulating services offered by the Internet, which is independent of any national or regional control.
However the fact that we as legislators are currently often left to rely on industry self-regulation to see that consumer interests are safeguarded should not mean that we simply forget the needs of consumers.
We can, and should if needed, act against monopolies which could limit customer choice.
And the new communications service providers should remember that just as technology can be made to maximise profit, other experts perhaps employed by the public sector could be asked to come up with systems to check quality of service to paying customers.
I hope that the industries involved in the new communications services will serve all their customers to the highest standards and remove the need for devising what they would complain of as red tape regulations - if they do not, we should be prepared to act to make sure that everyone benefits from new ways of communicating.
It will surely make things clearer if I briefly outline the situation regarding these amendments as I see it.
Amendments Nos 1 to 15 are nothing other than a necessary cancellation of the conservative-liberal 'carvery party' organised by the majority within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in the Paasilinna report.
The left-wing and ecological majority which this House is able to muster will, I hope, remedy the situation.
Amendments Nos 18, 19, 20, 21 and 23, tabled by the Confederal Group of the European Left - Nordic Green Left - are already covered by the text of the report and/or the aforementioned amendments.
For that reason, the overwhelming rejection of these amendments must not be interpreted as an expression of the position of this House on the substantive issues under discussion.
We Greens reject them in any case, because we do not approve of the practice of adding supplementary amendments which contribute nothing new and merely serve internal party-political ends.
Perhaps this was not deliberate, and it simply happened that way, in which case the amendments could equally simply be withdrawn.
These remarks do not apply to Amendments Nos 16 and 17, which repeat valid points from previous reports, and Amendment No 22, which is substantively indisputable.
These amendments will have our support.
Giansily report (A4-0341/98)
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for Mr Giansily's report on currency reserves in the third stage of EMU.
That does not mean, however, that we have abandoned Denmark's reservations on the third stage of EMU, which remain in place, but that we are interested in what happens in this area, since the third stage of EMU will have great significance for Denmark, with or without our participation.
The proposal will in fact ensure that the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) holds a considerable currency reserve in the transitional phase between introduction of the euro and its final implementation.
This will assure the participating countries that their exchange rates remain stable during the transitional period.
Mr Giansily's report raises the problem of foreign currency reserves in the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union.
The introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 will mean that part of the current reserves of the national central banks (NCBs) will cease to count as foreign currency reserves and will become de facto internal assets.
Nonetheless, the fact remains that the NCBs will still have considerable foreign currency reserves, particularly in dollars and in gold, but also in IMF reserve positions and in SDRs.
The overall amount is estimated to be $400 billion for the whole of the euro area.
Given that the NCBs are transferring the equivalent of 50 billion euros to the ECB, a considerable amount of currency will be left in the NCBs' accounts.
Currently, these reserves can be used to carry out interventions to prevent exchange market disturbances or to cover possible balance of payments deficits.
With the single currency, interventions in currencies of the euro area countries will no longer exist.
What, then, should be done with these surplus reserves?
We might think at first that this considerable amount will be used to enhance the stability of the euro by discouraging possible speculative attacks.
It is then important, for the euro's stability, not to dispose of these surpluses in one fell swoop.
Such a move would result in a sharp appreciation of the euro in relation to the dollar and would harm the competitiveness of our economies.
For the euro as an international currency, it would also be wise to avoid any unnecessary disturbance on the exchange markets.
To conclude, I would like to come back to a point which, to my mind, has not been sufficiently developed by our rapporteur. The Statute of the ESCB states that the NCBs shall continue to be allowed to use their currency reserves, in particular to fulfil their obligations towards international organisations.
If these interventions exceed a certain amount, each NCB will have to obtain the approval of the ECB.
Our rapporteur should undoubtedly have stressed the risks of manoeuvring involved in such a procedure and the need for meticulous control of these interventions.
Besides this one observation, Mr Giansily's report is a good report and I will vote in favour of it.
Since Sweden will not be involved in the introduction of the euro over the period 1999-2002, we decided to abstain in the vote on this report.
This is a matter for the Member States who will form part of the euro zone.
We do however have a point on gold reserves. These carry with them a high emotional charge and tend to be seen as the safest form of emergency reserve for an independent nation.
The pooling of gold reserves would be another nail in the coffin of the independent democratic state.
In the resolution our colleague Mr Giansily is submitting for consideration, the question is being raised of how the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 will affect foreign currency reserves currently held by Member States participating in the euro.
Article 30 of the protocol annexed to the EC Treaty on the Statute of the European Central Bank states that, in proportion to their share in the capital of the ECB - their share of Community GDP and of population - the national central banks shall transfer foreign currency reserves to the ECB to a total sum of approximately ECU 50 billion.
The stated objective of the system thus established is that interventions should be carried out on the one hand to prevent disturbances and, on the other hand, to cover possible balance of payments external deficits.
But, as Mr Giansily explains, the economic and monetary area created by the third stage of EMU should reduce the need for reserves, even though we must exercise the utmost caution during the changeover period in order to ensure that the euro enjoys a certain degree of credibility in the international arena.
If we take France as an example, a swift calculation shows that France will have to transfer just over 50 billion francs to the ECB.
The official foreign currency reserves of the French Government had increased to 400 billion francs by the end of February 1998, of which 150 billion were gold reserves in the coffers of the Banque de France.
Therefore, once the euro has been introduced, the French Government will possess just under 350 billion francs in surplus foreign currency reserves. The assets in ecus - around 67 billion francs - and in national currencies - the 11 currencies of the euro area - will have to be deducted from this amount and these assets will be converted into euros.
Given that the ECB should not use these currency reserves to establish the euro, the fundamental question remains: how are these reserves to be used?
In addition, it ought to be pointed out that the level of reserves needed should increase according to how far an economy opens up to others.
The more an economy opens up, the greater the risks and the higher the level of reserves needed.
So, given that European economic integration and the introduction of the euro will reduce extra-Community transactions and exchanges, one amount, estimated at ECU 80 billion, appears to be rather excessive!
In the light of these figures, what conclusions can be drawn?
The concrete result for the Member States is a loss of reserves, which is equivalent to a loss of revenue, as these reserves generate interest.
What is more, not content with whisking these financial resources away from the Member States - resources which also act as a means of reducing budgetary deficits - the ECB should find itself sitting on a real 'war chest'.
So what does the Bank intend to do with it?
As a result, we cannot vote in favour of Mr Giansily's report as it seems to us that the vital question of how these reserves will be used has not been raised. Nor has the issue of highlighting the financial resources given to the ECB been raised, where these resources appear to be proportional to the loss of real monetary sovereignty in the Member States.
Finally, it is clear that the aim of transferring financial resources to the omnipotent ECB cannot conceal the partial transfer of monetary sovereignty from the Member States to this Community body, which is devoid of all democratic legitimacy.
This debate should actually be seen in two broader contexts:
1.the determination of the future international role of the new Euroland, particularly within the global financial system, and2. the establishment of a European credit policy as an essential component of a funding framework for sustainable investments in our social and ecological future.In both respects, the rapporteur has been overcautious.
The bank funds of USD 200 billion which are available in the medium term are certainly not chicken-feed!
In our amendments, we have tried at least to initiate a structured debate to find out how we can exercise the necessary diligence and avoid undue haste, but still come up with measures that can lead to the gradual elimination of mass unemployment.
This is surely the very least that the 27 million and more unemployed Europeans can expect of us, and indeed of this House as a whole and of the Commission.
It would naturally also be useful and would serve the true interests of the European people if some of these reserves were used to finance a structured and regulated underpinning of the international financial edifice.
(The sitting was suspended at 1 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent subjects of major importanceArrest of General Pinochet
The next item is the debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0975/98 by Mrs Green on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Mr Cox on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, Mr Puerta on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, Mrs Aelvoet on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament and Mrs Lalumière and Mr Escolá Hernando on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on the arrest of General Pinochet in London; -B4-0976/98 by Mr Galeote Quecedo, Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the arrest of General Pinochet in London.
Mr President, as you have just said, it falls to me to speak on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, although I will be putting the case for a motion for a resolution submitted jointly by five political groups of this House, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, the Group of the European Radical Alliance, the Liberal Group, the Green Group and the Socialist Group itself.
I believe that this resolution is couched in very carefully considered terms in which we confine ourselves to welcoming the arrest of General Pinochet in London and urge the Spanish Government to hasten the extradition procedure, once the judicial authorities have submitted a formal request, in order to ensure that General Augusto Pinochet appears before the Spanish courts.
There is a reason for this which is that dozens of Spaniards were among the many people murdered during the Pinochet regime; it is estimated that over 3 000 people were murdered during that black period in the history of the delightful country of Chile.
We now find ourselves in a European judicial area.
We have gone beyond the borders of the Union as both the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 and the new Amsterdam Treaty of 1997 lay down principles of judicial cooperation and, above all, the new Article 31 of the Amsterdam Treaty provides for cooperation in the field of extradition.
The mere mention of figures, of the thousands who disappeared, fails perhaps to convey the true human dimension of the tragedy that the Pinochet dictatorship inflicted on Chile.
I will refer to only one case, because it concerns someone I knew personally.
That person was Carmelo Soria, an international official of the United Nations.
I met him in person at the United Nations shortly before he went to Chile.
He went there full of enthusiasm, during one of the better stages of Chile's history.
He was going to work as an international civil servant.
And this man, whose only crime was to be an official of the United Nations and to have a somewhat liberal ideology, disappeared, was tortured, was ill-treated, was murdered and his remains were even destroyed in order to give the impression of an accident.
He has left behind a family; he was Spanish; he was a man who was internationally protected as an international civil servant.
The endeavours made in this House to see the authors of this crime brought to trial in Chile have been to no avail, despite a number of promises, and now we have the opportunity, through collaboration between the authorities of different countries of the Union, to bring the main culprit of this and over 30 000 more murders before a Community judge, before a Spanish judge.
I think that the least we can do in this Parliament is to ask that General Pinochet be made appear before a Spanish court to answer for these crimes.
Mr Medina, you know that our group has been most adamant in condemning the regime of the dictator Pinochet, but the motion for a resolution tabled by the Socialist Group urges the Spanish Government to take steps to ultimately request extradition and that is simply not necessary because the Spanish Government - as you well know - has already expressed, through its President, its respect for the decisions of justice and of the relevant courts. When the time comes, as I am sure everybody is aware, it will be the British authorities who will have to grant extradition.
Therefore, I presume that nobody in this House will oppose a request for collaboration, too, with the justice system of the Government of the United Kingdom, that nobody will oppose our stating and repeating the principle of non-interference in the course of justice, and that, equally, nobody will have anything against our restating our support for the democratic institutions of Chile in the process of consolidating the rule of law.
I hope and expect that all these positions in particular, together with others contained in the amendments tabled by my group, will receive the support of the majority in this House.
However, if anybody is using this initiative to conceal the hidden, unacknowledged intention of causing problems for the Spanish Government, I would like them to know that it is very sad, and also very revealing, while also being completely useless.
Mr President, Pinochet, like his supporters, has nothing to oppose the imprescriptible charges pressing down on him other than his immunity which, on this occasion, the British authorities deem worthless.
It is as if following the Second World War, Belgium had made Léon Degrelle a life senator in order to shield him from legal proceedings by that very act.
Our joint resolution calls on the British authorities to seek a favourable outcome to a possible demand for General Pinochet's extradition.
This would allow justice to run its course and would also be a sweet partial victory for those who have been fighting against the impunity of those responsible for crimes against humanity since the Nuremberg trials, the Eichmann trial, the setting up of international tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, not to mention the International Criminal Court.
Pinochet's arrest and the legal consequences involved will test the credibility of the international legal measures that can be applied in this respect.
That is why my group supports the joint resolution.
Mr President, the arrest of General Pinochet in London at the official request of Spanish judges has given rise to the hope that his crimes will not go unpunished.
Twenty-five years ago, Pinochet violently destroyed the Chilean democratic system, causing the death of President Salvador Allende and thousands of Chilean and foreign citizens, including dozens of Spaniards.
In a premeditated and systematic manner, the country's population and its intellectual, political and trade union leaders were repressed on a large scale.
Let us look at a number of symbolic cases: the singer Víctor Jara, the United Nations official Carmelo Soria, General Carlos Prat in Argentina, and the diplomat Orlando Letelier in the United States.
Pinochet's criminal activities knew no bounds; he respected neither human rights nor democratic legality and he disregarded all forms of extraterritorial status.
Today, through the action of Spanish and British judges, this long impunity may be contested.
It was made possible by the fact that, for some time, individuals and organisations have not lost hope and have worked tenaciously towards this end.
Human rights associations, the Salvador Allende Foundation under its President, Joan Garcés, and the Spanish United Left have all been involved, from the outset, in lawsuits concerning the disappearance of Spanish citizens in Chile and Argentina.
The request to arrest and extradite Pinochet is based on a separate proceeding by the Court of First Instance No 5 of the Spanish National Criminal Court, at the official request of the United Left, on the basis of the documents on the so-called Operation Condor in the Southern Cone of Latin America.
In this respect and in keeping with the successive resolutions of the European Parliament and with the Treaties of the European Union, both the Maastricht Treaty and the Amsterdam Treaty that is currently being ratified, our group is tabling and supports this joint resolution. It urges the judicial authorities and the governments involved to fulfil their obligations and ensure that it is possible to hold a fair trial of General Pinochet that will put an end to his arrogant impunity.
It is to be hoped that this opportunity will be the point of departure for a universal and effective defence of human rights that must undoubtedly pass by way of the International Criminal Court.
It is to be hoped that this signal will help the Chilean people to complete their process of democratization.
We in the European Parliament cannot allow hope to be hijacked yet again.
Mr President, the case of Augusto Pinochet is a model case in every respect.
It is quite probable that he did not kill anyone with his own hands, at least not after gaining power.
On the other hand, it is almost certain that he caused, authorised, encouraged and explicitly ordered the torture and murder of thousands of citizens of his country, and even of foreign countries, who did not share his vision of the world.
A Spanish court, more concerned over the fate of its fellow citizens than many European bodies, has put out an international warrant for the arrest of the suspect, General Pinochet, and this warrant has been relayed by Interpol, which does not take these warrants lightly.
The charges hanging over him do not all carry the same weight, in particular the genocide charge, which could well prove to be questionable.
In spite of all his efforts, Pinochet did not become Adolf Hitler.
This arrest, as well as encouraging those who long for peaceful justice, has also sent out an interesting warning to those who have ordered, supported and encouraged other crimes against humanity on this continent.
It must be said that it would be most unwise for them to set foot outside their own countries in the coming years.
The Spanish legal system will do its best with this case, but we cannot fail to acknowledge that legal and political powers will unfortunately weave a tangled web around it.
Never has the need for a permanent international criminal court been so glaringly obvious, a court protected from all forms of pressure and one that will allow this type of situation to be handled in the best possible manner in future.
Mr President, I should firstly like to say that I have considerable reservations about debating this subject at all this afternoon.
It is a judicial matter and not a political one. It should be dealt with in a different way.
Although we in this Parliament may give our views this afternoon they will have no great effect on the ultimate outcome.
It falls within the competence of the United Kingdom authorities who will cooperate with the Spanish authorities, and I am sure they will follow the correct procedure.
We recognise the strong opinions which society holds about Pinochet.
I understand only too well the feelings of Spanish colleagues in this House.
I am conscious of their views.
Like them, I want to make it clear that many of the evil deeds carried out during his time deserve retribution.
I understand only too well the feelings of the families of the 'disappeared'.
In my own area for the last thirty years there have been families who have sought the return of the bodies of their loved ones for burial.
So I understand them.
But it should properly now be left in the hands of the Spanish and United Kingdom Governments to go through the due process of law.
I am sure they will do that thoroughly.
Mr President, the arrest in London of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, on a warrant issued by the judge Baltasar Garzón, has fulfilled the two aims pursued by the immense majority of European public opinion of bringing to trial a person guilty of crimes against humanity and of beginning to break the previously armour-plated glass of impunity.
We in the European Parliament must fully support Judge Garzón in his actions, call for continued cooperation and justice on the part of the British Government in these proceedings and, most importantly, demand that the President of the Spanish Government, José María Aznar, moves away from his current position of unacceptable ambiguity and makes a public and formal commitment to immediately and unconditionally forward the request to extradite Pinochet to Madrid.
Aznar should instruct the public prosecutors, Mr Cardenal and Mr Fungairiño, who are the authors of a de facto doctrine of exoneration of the Chilean military regime, to desist from denying the competence of the Spanish justice system in this case, and he himself should defend it politically from his position in the government.
We should also send a double message to Chile: firstly, to its President that he should not try to defend a person who, if he had been able, would have murdered him, as he did Salvador Allende; and secondly, to its government and people, to let them know that Pinochet's trial will certainly not be an obstacle to increasingly close cooperation between the European Union and Chile, and, in fact, should be the opposite.
It is to be hoped that these events will finally make it clear that no national sovereignty or diplomatic immunity will stand in the way when it comes to defending human rights.
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying that we have heard a lot about the rule of law this afternoon.
I would hope that General Pinochet, from the luxury of the London clinic, is reflecting on his failure to apply the rule of law to the citizens of Chile in 1973 when he was installed in a coup by the American CIA, with, I have to say, British collaboration.
Perhaps we should reflect on what happened to President Allende, the legally elected President of Chile, whose palace was strafed and bombed by the Chilean airforce.
That might give us some pause for thought on the way Pinochet is being treated currently.
For the thousands of people imprisoned in the football stadium in Santiago who were tortured, beaten and who then disappeared, that is what the rule of law meant under Pinochet, so I do not think we should have too much tender mercy for him at the present time.
The question is what we do with him now?
I have just spoken to Mr Medina who tells me there is a law in Spain which says that you cannot go to prison if you are over 80 years of age.
So I would be a bit worried about sending him to Spain.
Perhaps we should try to find some more creative radical solutions.
We could keep him in England for a period, take him to a football stadium every week and subject him to English football hooligans.
That might make him reflect a little more.
More seriously, we have to insist that he is brought to justice in the courts either in Britain or in Spain and an appropriate sentence handed out.
I am a little worried that the British Government may be leant on by the Americans.
The CIA which installed him originally in the 1970s like to look after their own and there is a suspicion that the Americans are leaning on the British Government to let him slip quietly back to Chile in the night.
If that happens this Parliament should come back and reflect again on those measures.
Bring him to justice and throw the book at him!
Mr President, every day we face new challenges which are the logical consequences of decisions we have taken earlier.
Today it is the arrest of General Pinochet, the man who will stand in next century's history books as the symbol of repression, human rights violations and dictatorship in Latin America.
He deserves to be prosecuted.
We will not let legal hair-splitting about immunity get in our way.
Of course there are always controversial aspects when new ground is broken like this, and a good many lawyers will probably have a field day, but we must have the courage to do it.
We also have warrants out for the arrest of Karadzic and Mladic, and we have the International Court of Justice.
Pinochet must be prosecuted for crimes against humanity, and human rights, as Mrs Maij-Weggen said, are universal, even in Latin America.
That is why my group, as we have already said, supports the Spanish and UK authorities for taking this courageous step.
We hope there will be effective cooperation not just between those two countries, but between all the Member States.
It is not our intention here to influence the judicial process.
The rule of law comes first, of course, but it will ultimately be a political decision by the UK Government to agree to the extradition.
We wish the government courage and wisdom. I was also pleased to see the reactions of the Norwegian and Canadian Foreign Ministers in the International Herald Tribune, wishing us all courage.
I can assure Mrs Maij-Weggen that the Liberal Group also intends to support the amendments.
Mr President, over and above judicial technicalities, General Pinochet's arrest in London has a fundamental significance for democracy in that it signals the end of impunity for those who, from behind the shield of power, violate the human rights of the peoples under the control of their regimes.
The principles of sovereignty and non-interference in countries' domestic affairs do not cover these cases of crimes against humanity.
Indeed, from now on, humanity is protected against any abusive exercise of sovereignty.
Let dictators be aware that these things are never over and done with.
The European judicial area, which is effectively being inaugurated with this case, could not have a better beginning.
Judicial cooperation in the defence of the values that are inherent in the construction of Europe is a foretaste of what will happen when the International Criminal Court becomes operational and justice will not have to wait until the dictator of the day takes a trip to Europe.
This is something we should welcome and we should urge the governments to demonstrate their real, as opposed to merely nominal, commitment to those values when the time comes for the judicial authorities to submit the request for extradition.
This does not mean, as the Group of the European People's Party fears, that we are meddling in the course of justice, but that we are carrying out our political role.
This case offers us the opportunity to show unambiguously to the people which side each of us is on: on the side of human rights or on the side of judicial subterfuges in the interests of those who violate human rights.
As socialists, we are on the side of justice and in this respect we are going to vote in favour of the joint resolution by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and other political groups in this Parliament.
Mr President, the argument put forward by General Pinochet's legal representatives that his detention in London pending possible extradition to Spain is a breach of certain legal niceties would not have cut much ice with his administration in Chile in 1973.
The status of President Allende as the democratically-elected head of government which he, General Pinochet, was pledged to uphold did not deter him from bombing the presidential palace, leading to the President's death.
The rights of Chilean citizens, including elected representatives, were not respected when they were confined in the sports stadium, tortured and killed.
Over 2 000 disappeared and were never seen again.
Even foreigners or people with dual nationality were not accorded their just rights and many European citizens were woefully ill-treated and some killed.
I helped to organise the first protest demonstration in London against the 1973 coup and I have never forgotten the heart-rending stories told by some of the refugees who came to Britain of suffering, of losses, of relatives barbarously killed.
If human rights are of any importance, there can be no impunity for those who organise a reign of terror.
But General Pinochet's own rights will be scrupulously respected, unlike those of thousands of his victims as he faces the judicial process here in Europe.
I strongly support the action which has been taken.
Mr President, I am a parliamentarian and not a lawyer.
I want, for a moment, for all of us to consider our intent as we take part in this debate this afternoon.
Are we after individual justice, after collective vengeance, or after finding some way of producing future deterrents against military dictators? It seems to me that the political question this afternoon is not the rule of law but the effectiveness of legal institutions at global level.
Do we have a genuine global jurisdiction in human rights? Almost.
Do we have the institutions for enforcing that global jurisdiction? Probably not.
But if we are going to attach all our longings, all our wishes, to those institutions, then we must make sure that global justice is blind; that global justice applies to everybody; that global justice is enforceable; that it does not look out from under its blindfold with one eye, either left or right.
I am not convinced that we yet have those institutions for bringing such dictators to book.
We had better be very careful that we do not destroy such global justice as we have in the emotion of a particular case, because if we apply this to Pinochet, are we now to arrest Castro the next time he is on European territory; or the Chinese leadership; or a dozen African dictators existing or retired?
I think the British Government will find that it has blundered into a very difficult legal minefield.
If it had had half the wisdom of the French it would not have let Pinochet in in the first place.
I look with interest to see how the British Government conducts itself.
I trust it will conduct itself in line with the rule of law and not in line with the kind of politics of sound-bite that Mr Mandelson indulged in at the weekend.
What matters here is not the reputation of one man or one government, but our future chances of a proper institutional structure for this planet.
Justice can be pursued through the courts.
We can do something as politicians about future deterrence, but vengeance is the Lord's.
Mr President, as we close this debate, ignoring certain requirements that are as dissonant as they are senseless, what is the leitmotif of this resolution? It is that the defence of human rights, Mr President, is the basis of our ideology and the foundation of the judicial order both of the Union and of the various Member States.
It is that the powers and responsibility granted to this institution by the Treaty on European Union today require us to be rigorous.
It is that Parliament must certainly shun any opportunistic voluntarism that detracts from the impact of a statement that, when all is said and done, involves almost 300 million European citizens.
Therefore, it is important to state - and Parliament should certainly do so loudly and clearly - that the rule of law is based on the independence of the judiciary and that this principle, and its corollary of scrupulous respect for judicial rulings, must prevail over any other interest, however legitimate.
Parliament must restate its defence of the principle of universal justice and its commitment to the International Criminal Court and we must also restate our unequivocal support for the society and democratic authorities of Chile in their process of consolidating democracy.
We must certainly raise the level of the debate from that of the petty wrangling of party politics to an expression of a position worthy of this Parliament.
In this respect, we must insist that the extradition procedures fall equally to the Spanish and British Governments and we should therefore address them both. If I were to be pressed, I would say that it falls particularly to the British Government, since anybody who is familiar with the Treaties knows that the relevant legislation requires that in the case of crimes committed in a third country, the extraterritorial competence invoked by the applicant state may be contested politically, almost at its discretion, by the state to which the application is made.
Is this why the Socialist Group flatly refuses to accept that the term 'British Government' should appear in the resolution? Well, Mr President, if that is New Labour, the third way, then we really are in big trouble.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if I may make something clear from the outset, the European Commission opposes any form of totalitarian government of whatever political hue.
My colleagues and I are firmly convinced that a society can only develop properly on a democratic basis.
It is a universally known fact that human rights were violated during General Pinochet's 15-year rule in Chile, sometimes flagrantly so.
Our deep sympathy is therefore with all those who suffered or even lost loved ones and those who had to leave their homes to escape wanton persecution.
Under the Treaty on European Union, the European Commission has no jurisdiction in the domain of mutual assistance in criminal matters, which is the sole prerogative of the Member States.
It is therefore a matter for the Member States concerned, subject to their obligations under the applicable extradition treaties and their national legal systems, to make and process applications for extradition.
It should, however, be noted that two conventions on extradition have now been adopted, but because the Member States have not yet ratified them they remain a dead letter for the time being.
Thank you, Commissioner.
As you know, the President of the sitting should not normally make any comment.
Let me say, however, that in my view Parliament was right to put this subject on its agenda, and that the House has used this time to good effect.
(The sitting was suspended at 3.50 p.m. and resumed at 4 p.m.)
Decommissioning of nuclear power stations
The next item is the report (A4-0354/98) by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on decommissioning of nuclear power stations and other nuclear installations in Europe.
Madam President, the aims of this report are to review the current situation in the nuclear energy industry with regard to decommissioning, to bring a wider awareness of the strategies, techniques and costs of this part of the nuclear cycle and to make suggestions for further action at a European level.
I visited six sites around Europe where decommissioning activities and research into them are taking place.
Before learning about all the expertise and experience that exists in Europe in this field, I shared some of the misunderstanding and concerns caused by the much-repeated myths that nobody knows what to do with nuclear power plants at the end of their working life and that nobody knows how much it will cost.
The fact is that not only does the industry know how to dismantle a nuclear power station but dismantling has been done safely and successfully to 'green field' status.
The experience gained in the many decommissioning projects already undertaken shows us that the cost is known and calculable at around 15 % of construction costs.
This is a far cry from the public perception.
So what should be done? The report calls for action in a number of areas which come under the general heading of public awareness.
The nuclear industry itself must meet its responsibilities to be open and proactive in education and information activities.
The Commission must do more to contribute to public knowledge, to make research results more readily available and to reassure public opinion.
The report also reminds us where the responsibility for decommissioning and its financing rests, namely with the operators within the Member States.
It seems to me to be vital for public confidence that people be aware that there is accountability and that it is subject to rigorous regulation by independent inspectorates.
Much emphasis in the report is placed on requirements for safety and health of the highest order.
People are anxious at the mention of radiation and radioactivity, so it is right to call for the most stringent requirements on protection measures.
Yet the fact is that once a reactor has been defuelled, by far the greater part of radioactive material has been removed and 90 % of what is left of the structure of the power plant is not radioactive and can be recycled safely.
There is a debate about which strategy should be adopted, namely whether to proceed in phases over a longer period of time to allow residual activity to decline and make dismantling even less of a risk or to carry out direct or accelerated decommissioning to reach that 'green field' status as soon as possible.
There are arguments in favour of both approaches, and we would be wise to refrain from saying that there should be only one way to do it.
Either way, the operators and the regulatory authorities have a duty to see proper financial provision is made for the costs of decommissioning.
The report calls on the Commission to study the various options to see how they might best be applied to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe where most help should be concentrated.
In that context, we must not become complacent about Western European skills and expertise: there is always room to improve techniques to find new, safer and cheaper ways of tackling the task of decommissioning.
This field of activity represents a great industrial opportunity for employment in the decades to come.
It is an immensely important opportunity for European businesses and engineering skills.
The fact is that whatever your views may be on nuclear energy, this part of the cycle cannot be abandoned or shirked.
We have a duty to see every power plant that reaches the end of its useful life decommissioned safely and effectively.
I want that to be the case so as to encourage people to plan ahead for and build new, modern design nuclear power stations for the future.
We derive too much of our electricity from nuclear energy to turn our backs on it.
If we are to stand a chance of meeting those Kyoto CO2 emission targets, then we must continue to generate nuclear electricity, safe in the knowledge that we know how to decommission the power plants.
Madam President, I am rather sorry that Mr Chichester chose to end his contribution with a plea for building more nuclear power stations.
That is not what his report was meant to be about and he has misused his available time on something that is inappropriate.
Back in the 1950s, at the time of the Euratom Treaty, there was an optimism about nuclear power which was, frankly, unrealistic.
It was to be 'electricity too cheap to meter'.
There were several snags which should have been thought about, but were not.
Firstly, the relatively small risk of a very serious accident with huge implications.
Secondly, the whole question of how one disposes of nuclear waste.
Thirdly, the techniques, costs, etc. and financing of decommissioning.
Had all those things been discussed, the optimism would have been much less.
It is not true to say, as Mr Chichester implies, that this has been completely solved, that everyone knows exactly how to do it and how much it costs.
I would refer him to the area near my place of birth, Trawsfynydd in North Wales.
Here no clear decision has been taken about what should be done: the site of a nuclear power station has not been returned to a state in which it can be used for other purposes, and we have a legacy of nuclear waste which will stay in the mountain for a long time.
Of course we are very much in favour of openness and transparency.
The links between the nuclear power industry and the nuclear weapons industry for many years led to an ethos of tremendous secrecy and a refusal to admit anything could ever possibly be wrong.
There is some indication that is changing, but Mr Chichester is right to say that unless there is openness and transparency, there will most certainly not be any sort of public confidence.
Incidentally, it is not a matter for the European Union to tell Member States whether or not it is appropriate for them to have early decommissioning of their nuclear power stations.
Whether or not nuclear power stations are taken out of operation at the planned date or earlier is entirely a matter for the Member State concerned.
That should not be in his report.
We know how you cut apart pieces of metal and how you transport them; but we do not have a publicly-acceptable solution to what happens to the radioactive part of nuclear power stations.
Here, in the European Union we have the problem of decommissioning our nuclear facilities at our Joint Research Centre.
We have not calculated the cost of that decommissioning in the correct place, and it is currently, completely irregularly, being put into a research budget.
Decommissioning of nuclear power stations is not research.
That is not the appropriate place for the decommissionining of the JRC's facilities.
Something which concerns me greatly - and I mentioned it during the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy's debate - is the use by some nuclear utilities of contract workers for the more dangerous aspects of decommissioning and accident work. That is deplorable.
If the intention of using contract workers is that the monitoring, which must be long-term monitoring, does not need to take place, this is unacceptable.
I do not see either that it is appropriate in this report to talk about 50 to 60 years' extension of nuclear power plants.
Mr Chichester may hold those views, but they were not for this report.
His last remarks, as I have said, are about the construction of more nuclear power stations: this is completely inappropriate and nothing to do with the subject he was asked to report on.
Let us solve the first problem before we do any such thing.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate Mr Chichester for two reasons.
First, I would like to congratulate him on taking the initiative to draw up this report, since I consider it to be particularly timely and, second, I would like to congratulate him on its quality.
Moreover, I fully endorse what he said at the beginning and at the end and, in fact, I think that he could have gone further.
We will miss Mrs McNally, whose work I admire tremendously - as I do her beautiful English -, but not the many confused issues she has just raised, which were so mixed up that I was, quite frankly, unable to follow her.
I think that the main issue in connection with the closing down and decommissioning of power stations relates to the closing of the cycle.
I wish, ladies and gentlemen, that we were as clear about what we are doing in other areas as we are about nuclear energy.
Some countries say that they are going to decommission power stations, but I seriously doubt that they will do so for another 30 or 40 years.
The United States is extending the life of its nuclear power stations up to 40 or 60 years.
Europe will also do so, as will Japan.
Why? Because it is clean energy, it is safe energy, it is cheap energy, and that is what we need in a liberalised electricity market.
It would be most important to internalise the cost of decommissioning power stations in electricity generation as a whole.
Oil platforms, for instance, are to be decommissioned: a number of such procedures have already been approved for companies in the North Sea and there are several Commission communications on the subject.
Meanwhile, as regards nuclear energy, ladies and gentlemen, in the eight countries of the European Union that generate electricity in nuclear power stations, all costs relating to waste management and the decommissioning of nuclear plants have been internalised and, as Mr Chichester rightly said, the costs are very low, and considerably lower than is claimed by those who have not studied the matter.
And how do I know that they are low? I know this because Spain is decommissioning the large, 460 Mw Vandellós 1 power station, because its technology is obsolete - French technology using natural uranium that was not considered very useful - and not because of any nuclear problems as such.
It is a major power station but the decommissioning costs are well below even the 15 % mentioned by Mr Chichester, just as it is well below in terms of waste management costs, despite what is frivolously stated by those who have not studied the matter or looked at it in depth.
I think Mr Chichester hit the nail on the head when he said that this advanced technology that is going to be used represents a further opportunity for our industries. It is a new field of industrial activity that we should all take advantage of, because we will have to wait 40 or 60 years, although there are research centres and power stations that will have to be decommissioned at some point.
Congratulations, Mr Chichester, and I hope that you will continue to work with the same rigour.
Madam President, nuclear power is an outmoded energy technology. Mr Chichester's report demonstrates this very well.
He therefore did not need to start talking about new nuclear plants at the end of a statement on a report which describes how decommissioning is gathering pace around the world.
There are major risks inherent in nuclear power, beginning with the possibility of radioactive emissions during the mining of uranium, running through the operating life of a plant, and on to transportation for final disposal - not to mention the danger of the proliferation of plutonium waste for weapons purposes.
The problem of the final disposal of nuclear waste has not been resolved.
In the light of considerations such as operating and transportation risks and the fact that new waste is constantly being produced, nuclear power should be abandoned as a source of energy.
Each country should decide independently on when and how to decommission.
It is also up to each country to take charge of its own radioactive waste.
Sweden - and other countries which, thanks to their research effort, now have sophisticated disposal methods - cannot be allowed to become dumps for the whole of Europe's reactor waste. States must be in a position to make their own decisions on the import and export of waste.
Nuclear waste has to be taken for what it is; we cannot afford to pretend that it is just any old product.
The report is a good one in many respects.
I agree with most of what is said about research, preventive measures, health protection, transparency, contact with the public and the export of decommissioning know-how to the Central and Eastern European countries. This latter point is extremely important.
More and more nuclear plants are being shut down.
Sweden has decided to abandon nuclear power, and two of our twelve reactors will be decommissioned this year, 1998.
The Euratom Treaty will need to be wound up in the foreseeable future and transformed into a treaty for the development of renewable and environmentally friendly energy sources.
I can support all of the amendments, apart from Nos 6 and 9.
Madam President, in 1997 there were 128 nuclear power plants operating in the European Union and 39 were in the process of decommissioning.
The Chichester report, drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, highlights the fact that the efforts made at Community level, particularly as regards research on decommissioning nuclear power plants, have allowed us to reach a high level of expertise.
Yet even more effort can still be made, as the report shows, in order to reduce health risks and to promote the recycling of material obtained from decommissioning.
The report also quite rightly shows that the closure and decommissioning of nuclear installations for political reasons, before they reach the end of their natural life, cannot be economically justified.
In my opinion, there are two main pitfalls to be avoided in today's extremely controversial field of nuclear power: blind faith and irrational fear.
Nuclear power, which generates up to an average of 35 % of the electricity used in Europe - and more than 75 % of the electricity used in France - is an advantage that should not be dismissed but rather developed.
Environmental constraints, especially the importance of decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, have given nuclear energy a new lease of life as it is the least polluting form of energy.
Using technological development and European know-how as a basis, additional efforts must be made in the fields of the environment, safety and public health.
Also, employees in nuclear plants and the public should be more closely involved in this field.
High-level investment is particularly necessary to eliminate radioactive waste and reduce radioactivity levels in order to allow for its terminal storage, without endangering future generations.
Finally, in the face of threats that have become more real due to the liberalisation of the energy sector - set in motion by the directives on gas and electricity -, I believe it is very important that Member States are able to maintain their sovereign right to opt for the energy form of their choice.
I believe this choice should be respected.
Madam President, it is, of course, remarkable and gratifying that after decades of unbridled subsidising of nuclear technology, consideration is now being given to what we should do when nuclear facilities reach the end of their operational lives.
It would naturally have been far better if, before embarking on this whole nuclear adventure, we had given some thought to the disposal of the resultant waste.
It is a fact that no place in the world is safe enough for the final disposal of high- and medium-level radioactive waste.
Experts are even still arguing about the host rock we should choose and the type of matrix in which the waste should be sealed.
Mr Chichester may now claim that some facilities have already been dismantled and turned into green fields, but that is simply not true.
We have demolished one single nuclear power plant in the European Union, namely Niederreichbach, which had only been in operation for 14 days and was not at all contaminated.
Then in Greifswald the Lugmin reactor was dismantled but was not even connected to the grid, and what you perhaps saw in Reinsberg was a research reactor, which cannot be compared with an operational power station.
And so I can tell you quite categorically that we neither know what sort of technology to use nor do we have a final storage place.
To turn the argument round, before dismantling anything we must first think about where to put it, and since we do not know that yet, the decommissioned nuclear plants should be safely sealed off, naturally without removing the fuel rods; these should stay in the plant, so that a stop can be put to this senseless practice of transporting them around Europe.
What we also need urgently, of course, is a ban on recycling and on the mixing of different contaminated and uncontaminated materials.
It is surely unacceptable that roads, for instance, should be built with contaminated materials.
What are we demanding of workers? Let me tell you that the steel industry as well as the entire precision-engineering and light-engineering industries cannot do anything at all with contaminated steel.
That is another constraint.
Moreover, we need an amendment of the European regulation on protection from radiation, because it is possible to make progress through this regulation as far as the sorting of decommissioning waste is concerned.
This also means, of course, that we urgently need a decommissioning fund, which should be based on the polluter-pays principle.
I do not wish to suggest that we should suddenly have to fork out this money.
Certain parties have been amassing huge profits over all these years at the taxpayer's expense, because they had a monopoly; their prices had to be paid, and they built up enormous reserves with their tax-free billions.
That certainly must be halted. But we do need a decommissioning fund to ensure that the population is protected from radiation.
We could also take the money from the ECSC budget, which runs out in 2000 and still amounts to more than ECU 100 million.
So there are possibilities.
But this does not alter the main point: if we create waste, we must decide where to dispose of it.
That decision is your problem, and it still needs to be solved.
You always tell us everything is fine, they will all be turned into green fields, it will cost nothing, and recycling is no problem, but the reality and the truth of the matter look quite different, otherwise there should not be overfilled interim storage facilities everywhere, and we should not have great mountains of nuclear waste at the reprocessing plants.
I believe it is high time we faced up to reality, instead of constantly producing more and more waste.
Madam President, anyone listening to the debate here between the supporters and opponents of nuclear energy would certainly think that there will never be agreement between them.
Yet we have before us a report drawing attention to a common need to ensure that power stations are decommissioned safely, because people's health is at stake.
I have to say, Mr Chichester, that your reassuring words about Belgium are not entirely accurate, because the nuclear waste problem is being passed from one office to another like a hot potato, and a genuine solution has yet to be found.
Thanks to pressure from a strong nuclear lobby, nuclear power stations were built all over the place, despite the fact that there is no way of disposing of highly radioactive waste, as the previous speaker tellingly described.
Nevertheless, a number of stations are going to have to close over the next few years, and now that the Cold War is over, we no longer need military installations - in fact, in my opinion we do not need them at all - and there are hopes that we will switch to other methods of electricity production, and so on.
The working life of the power stations is also limited, though opinions differ as to just how long that life is.
But in the end they all have to be decommissioned, and there are unfortunately no general rules about how this should be done.
The report refers to the possibility of direct complete dismantling and of staged decommissioning, where dismantling to 'green field' level takes 135 years - none of us would even live to see it.
I feel that this is totally irresponsible.
Financial arguments are bound to be raised, because despite all the warnings, the cost of decommissioning has never actually been included in the price of the power stations or the electricity.
Critics of nuclear development have always pointed out the financial risks.
Nevertheless, decommissioning must be done very carefully, and we support the report on this point, although we have to say that any decommissioning will automatically generate further mountains of waste, some of it highly radioactive.
At this point I would just mention the irresponsible risk of having old, disused installations next to others which are still in use.
International rules must continue to be applied and short- or long-term storage monitored until the risk is completely eliminated.
Experience with the Third European Programme in the Field of Decommissioning indicates that this is technically feasible for 15 years after shut-down.
It is a difficult job, and funding needs to be made available for it.
This is why we want to make international bodies face up to their responsibilities, and we have tabled an amendment for a European decommissioning fund.
We support most of the recommendations in the resolution, but we still felt we needed to table a number of amendments, although not all the members of the ARE Group are prepared to vote for them.
But as democratic nationalists and regionalists, we would stress that we are preparing for a future without nuclear power stations and we are therefore also against recycling, because it is still not a real solution to the problem of highly radioactive waste.
I am sorry, Mrs Maes, but I really do have to stop you there.
You have already gone one and a half minutes beyoond your time.
Madam President, during a previous debate on nuclear power, I expressed a certain number of concerns about this form of energy.
One of these worries related to what I then called the economic risk, that is, the temptation to push the usage of such power stations beyond their natural life expectancy in a crisis situation.
On reading paragraph 14, I realise that I had underestimated the truth as this temptation is already emerging, here and now, in a situation of relative prosperity.
We must show staunch opposition to this unacceptable aim.
A few years ago, certain negligent airlines were the victims of a series of disasters.
Very old-fashioned Boeing aeroplanes, well beyond their use-by date, were crashing then with alarming frequency.
If we make the same mistake with nuclear power stations, we would inevitably have similar results.
So, for goodness' sake, do not let us go down that path.
It would also be an excellent idea if we were to better inform the people and I would even go as far as saying to train people on how to act in an emergency.
It would be an excellent idea, for example, to begin preventive distribution of iodine tablets to combat the risk of thyroid cancer.
Transparency in terms of the cost of nuclear power is also a fundamental issue, because we cannot carry out a fair comparison with other forms of energy until the cost of nuclear power has been accurately calculated.
I regret the fact that recital N defends, and I quote, 'the future development of nuclear power'.
Yet the French version of Amendment No 4 goes to the other extreme by referring, as if taken for granted, to - and again I quote - ' l'abandon obligatoire du nucléaire' , that is, stating that it is an obligation.
This may well be a mistake in the translation since one might have expected something along the lines of ' l'abandon souhaitable' , a term I would have accepted in that it would represent a wish rather than an obligation.
If this is not a translation error, then I would be grateful if Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz would clarify exactly what obligation she is referring to.
Finally, Amendment No 7 by the same author is quite excellent, as we must be resolutely opposed to the release of radioactive materials, and even low-level radioactive materials, into normal commercial circulation.
That would mark the beginning of a process that would both spread radioactivity and make it a commonplace phenomenon.
Madam President, when archaeologists comb the countryside today and find the bones of prehistoric dinosaurs, they are delighted and can prepare and exhibit these finds in perfect safety.
I do not believe that it is quite so simple with the energy dinosaurs of today. Future archaeologists cannot be let loose on them willy-nilly, nor can we give any reassurances about their safety.
On the contrary, we have to be extremely cautious with these nuclear dinosaurs, because they carry a real danger, posing a risk not only to ourselves but also to succeeding generations.
In other words, today's dinosaurs have to be treated very differently to those of bygone ages.
I thank Mr Chichester for having taken the initiative to compile this report, even if his ideas diverge markedly from my own.
It is clear that we need to get down at long last to disposing of these energy dinosaurs in a way that will not endanger future generations.
I am pleased that this need is being increasingly recognised.
In the European Union we have about 130 nuclear power stations, 19 of which are in Germany.
Happily, the new Federal Government has decided to proceed with the longoverdue removal of these hazards.
There is an additional need for decommissioning techniques, for safe methods of closing down these plants, but so far no one has developed the appropriate technology.
For that reason we need research, and we also need decommissioning techniques for different types of nuclear power station.
I must stress that we really do need new techniques.
We should not merely try to find some sort of hiding place, Mr Chichester.
That is why I cannot subscribe in any way to the idea that extending the remaining useful life of a nuclear power plant is part of the decommissioning process.
No, we must be resolute in our intention to condemn this prehistoric technology to the same fate as the dinosaurs.
There is, of course, the additional matter of reaching agreement as to who should foot the bill, and we need to let honesty prevail here.
There are energy supply companies which have been profiting from these power plants for years and even decades.
The plants will be written off, and the companies will invest the proceeds in telecommunications and suchlike.
Now that disposal is on the agenda, we are supposed to create yet another fund from the public budget for decommissioning.
No, I say, that is not an option!
Those who have made money from nuclear power stations must be handed the bill for decommissioning them.
Of course, the most awkward question is basically what happens to the waste.
This question has not been resolved.
Final disposal is the key question we have to study.
We must stop focusing our attention on the development of new safety technology designed to ensure that the nuclear plants will still be operational in 100 years' time.
No, we must examine which final-disposal technique is the safest.
One reason for this, I need scarcely say, is that we can no longer afford to send nuclear waste back and forth across Europe like coachloads of tourists as a way of deferring the decision on final disposal.
On the contrary, we must get down to creating specific arrangements for safe final disposal.
That is the crucial problem.
Not until we have done that, for the sake of generations still to come, for the sake of our children, can we be sure that future generations will be able to practise archaeology without anxiety.
Madam President, I would like to draw your attention and that of the House to a number of outdated Soviet-design nuclear reactors which are still in operation and now constitute a threat to the people of Europe.
For example, the continuing operation of the Koslodui nuclear station in Bulgaria is a permanent nightmare for my own country, but also a direct threat to the whole of Europe because of the huge risks related to its operational safety.
The plant has 6 high-pressure water reactors of Soviet design, numbers 1 to 4 of which are of the VVR 440 230 type and are among the most antiquated and the most dangerous.
The other two reactors, numbers 5 and 6, are VVR 1320 reactors which are considered less dangerous because stricter safety criteria were applied during their construction.
Despite that, problems have been identified even with those reactors too, and experts estimate that even after they have been upgraded to western standards, they will not be able to operate safely for more than two years without continual safety checks.
It should be noted that the most recent incident at the station took place only last May and was provisionally classified as a level-2 incident.
Since 1991 the European Union has granted more than ECU 50 million from PHARE for improving the station's nuclear safety, and more than ECU 70 million for the adoption of short-term urgent measures in the traditional energy sector.
There is therefore a clear need to shut the station down immediately and to decommission the more dangerous reactors 1 to 4.
In any case, the Bulgarian government committed itself to that in the agreement on subsidies from the European Investment Bank for the upgrading of units 5 and 6.
Any appeal for more time or to change this commitment would be an extremely dangerous development, and would undermine Bulgaria's efforts to join the European Union and dramatically worsen its relations with it.
That has already been made clear in a letter from President Santer to the Bulgarian authorities.
However, the EU must be ready to assist Bulgaria, taking an active part in the reduction of its dependence on nuclear energy.
For that purpose, instead of standing by and watching huge sums from the PHARE programme accumulate unused, the Commission should take immediate action to develop and fund appropriate measures.
Risks are presented even by uranium mining and processing facilities, nuclear fuel production plants and plants for the processing of spent fuel and the storage of waste from Koslodui.
Capacity for the storage of radioactive waste has already been exceeded, with the result that it is now being stored temporarily at the site where the Koslodui station is located.
Furthermore, the cross-border radioactive contamination of the river Nestos is an indisputable fact.
The Commission must approach the Bulgarian government with a view to securing its cooperation in eliminating cross-border radioactive pollution.
Madam President, today nothing is more important for Europe's citizens than avoiding another Chernobyl, which is what could happen if the dangerous reactors at Koslodui continue in operation, not to mention other Soviet-design nuclear reactors still operating in Europe today, with all the dreadful consequences we already know so well.
We must therefore act very promptly before it is too late.
The Commission should tell us what it intends to do about Koslodui and all the other Soviet-type nuclear reactors, and more generally, nuclear reactors whose working life is over and which pose a deadly threat to the people of Europe.
Madam President, the proposal we are debating contains some very useful suggestions about what must be done when the time finally comes to decommission a nuclear station.
Yet, the basic problem that concerns me is the level of support for nuclear energy, the dangers involved, and the real costs.
On those questions Mr Chichester's report provides only indirect answers.
It contains some views which seem odd, to say the least, such as that the nuclear industry should educate us so as to increase our awareness, and that the decommissioning of unsafe nuclear stations should be encouraged.
But how safe are the rest? And not just those of Soviet design.
What is the 'proven' probability of accident, at what 'cost' and with what hopes of recovery, in how many hundreds or thousands of years? What does the Commission have to say about all that?
I also think that this report underestimates the cost of decommissioning.
We have information from France and Spain which puts the cost at tens of billions of francs, and which indicates that possibly as many as ten years may be needed for decommissioning, which is a further cost factor and one that cannot be calculated.
It is therefore high time, Madam President, to find a different strategy which will replace all nuclear stations and promote other sources of energy for which modern technology exists and for whose development investment is required.
That investment will certainly be much smaller than was required for the development of nuclear energy, which is ultimately proving not to be cheap.
I think we must applaud the governments in the Union, or at least those which say they are coming round to this view, as happened recently in Germany.
Madam President, I welcome this report by my colleague Mr Chichester.
The Chernobyl disaster changed the public perception of nuclear energy, and many of those who live in the shadow of nuclear power plants are apprehensive about current levels of safety.
This is particularly worrying for European citizens who share a border with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
It does not help that the industry itself acts in a secretive way when a problem occurs.
If it were more open and more transparent, it would be more reassuring to those who have legitimate cause to be concerned.
This debate about decommissioning comes at an opportune time, and in our discussions with the applicant countries in the enlargement process we must press for the decommissioning of plants that are unsafe.
However, I would like to point out that this applies as much to the Member States of the European Union as it does to countries that share our borders.
In particular I would like to reiterate the concerns of my fellow Irish citizens regarding the Sellafield-THORP plant.
There have been too many incidents, too many scares and too many coincidences of health problems along Ireland's eastern seaboard.
With the change in government in Germany, as you would know, Madam President, Germany's nuclear policy will obviously be re-evaluated.
This could mean that the reprocessing shipments that have normally gone to Sellafield-THORP will be discontinued, thereby raising questions about the economic viability of that plant.
As well as the concerns that have already been expressed, I should like to draw the Commission's attention to paragraph 15 of my colleague's report which calls on the Council and Commission to encourage the closure of unsafe nuclear power stations in Europe.
In that regard I would ask the Commissioner to examine seriously whether or not Sellafield-THORP would come into that particular category.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mr Chichester for his detailed report, but I should also like to thank the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy for dealing with this report and particularly for their very close cooperation with the various departments of the Commission, which has done much to promote understanding of the current problems in what is undoubtedly a highly sensitive area.
The Commission is well aware of the industrial and ecological challenges that have to be faced in our Member States in connection with the decommissioning of nuclear power stations or other nuclear facilities.
At the present time, some 110 nuclear installations in the European Union are being decommissioned, although the preparations for decommissioning are at widely differing stages.
Looking at the existing nuclear facilities in Western Europe, we cannot but conclude that the first decades of the new century will see the decommissioning of an ever-increasing number of nuclear installations.
By the year 2020, it is expected that at least a further 150 installations will have to be wound down.
The planned enlargement of the European Union will further exacerbate the problems, because there will then be a need to decommission nuclear plants that do not necessarily meet the generally recognised safety standards.
According to initial estimates by the Commission's services, after enlargement about 50 more installations in the new Member States will have to be decommissioned.
By that time, decommissioning strategies will have ceased to be adopted on a case-by-case basis.
The fact is that an industrial-scale process will then be in place, a process in which tens of thousands of European workers will be engaged and which will involve considerable amounts of material, especially low-level radioactive material.
In view of the large quantities involved and in an effort to develop more and better cooperation among the Member States and harmonisation within the Union, the Commission advocates the establishment of some general guidelines for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.
For that reason, the Commission is in general agreement with the views on decommissioning expressed by Mr Chichester.
Let me deal in more detail, however, with some of the points that were raised.
In paragraphs 3 and 5, the Commission is called on to preserve a high level of expertise in the European Union and to take steps to ensure the dissemination and transfer of know-how in this domain.
On that point, I can tell you that, within its present framework programme of research and technological development, the Commission will continue to set up and develop databases in order to simplify exchanges of information on technology and costs between current decommissioning projects.
In paragraph 6, the rapporteur stresses how important long-term technical aid is to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
In this context, the Commission is presently funding a whole series of studies which deal with the strategic and technical aspects of decommissioning in the Central and Eastern European countries and the newly independent states; these studies will be of great assistance to the governments concerned as they strive to develop their own strategies.
On paragraphs 8 and 11, let me say that the Commission naturally shares the view that the public have to be kept informed. The Commission will continue to play its part in the pursuit of that goal.
The fourth Commission report outlining the present situation and assessing future prospects with regard to the disposal of radioactive waste in the European Union should be published by the end of the year.
Like you, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission takes the view that the question of funding as well as the possibilities of reducing quantities of waste and cutting the cost of decommissioning are among the main related issues to which paragraph 8 refers.
The Commission will take these facts into account in the preparation of its communication on decommissioning.
At the present moment, however, the Commission is not in a position to make any forecasts about extending the useful life of nuclear power stations, the issue that is raised in paragraph 14.
However, studies into the question of extending the useful life of nuclear reactors will be conducted as part of the fifth framework programme of research and technological development.
I hope that the results of these will help the Commission to arrive at an accurate assessment of the present situation and of future prospects.
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Agricultural production and the environment -Forestry measures - Mountain areas
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0345/98 by Mr Iversen, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the application of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2078/92 on agricultural production methods compatible with the requirements of the protection of the environment and the maintenance of the countryside (COM(97)0620 - C4-0075/98); -A4-0346/98 by Mr Otila, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the application of Council Regulation (EEC) No 2080/92 instituting a Community aid scheme for forestry measures in agriculture (COM(97)0630 - C4-0076/98); -A4-0368/98 by Mr Santini, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on a new strategy for mountain areas.
Madam President, I think we have achieved a good compromise on this report.
Our task here in Parliament is, after all, to ensure that what happens is what we wish to happen.
On the one hand, we have to put resources into programmes which promote environmentally friendly production methods.
On the other hand, we have to look at whether we are getting enough for the money we spend.
Are we getting enough environment for the money we allocate to these schemes?
Indeed, we are not talking about small change.
A total EU budget of ECU 3.8 billion has been allocated to this programme for 1997, on top of which are the Member States' contributions amounting to ECU 2.5 billion.
So we are talking about significant amounts, and of course we need to look at how we spend this money.
Are we getting enough environment for the money?
It is EU taxpayers' money we are talking about. It is therefore important to ascertain how well this programme works in practice.
We may complain that there is no actual evaluation report, but that was not the intention anyway - that should be said in the Commission's defence.
But, in these circumstances, it was difficult for me as rapporteur to draw any final conclusions as regards the environmental effects of this programme.
I understand from the Commission - with whom, moreover, I have had excellent cooperation during the drafting of this report, for which I wish to say thank you - that it is still waiting for two of the national evaluation reports and that it will have a general report ready by April next year.
That is good, but it would obviously have been much better if we had been able to produce our report on the basis of an actual evaluation from the Commission.
It is indeed difficult to evaluate a programme such as this, because it lacks actual objectives or criteria for success. What is it that we want?
How far do we want to go?
What do we need to have before we can say that it is good enough? I think it should be borne in mind that a good evaluation requires explicit evaluation criteria, and I also think that in the future the objectives should be stated more clearly than has been done hitherto.
I will also say that the Commission's report contains a number of very, very positive effects in a large number of areas.
Amongst other things, many farmers have been encouraged to switch to organic farming, and that is no bad thing after all.
But the figures we already have also show that there has been insufficient take-up of the programmes.
There may be many reasons for this.
The Member States have indicated that it may be attributable to factors such as start-up difficulties, incomplete information on the programmes, lack of national cofinancing, and it may be due to a lack of willingness on the part of farmers to commit themselves for such long periods ahead as are necessary to take part in these schemes; there have also been complaints that the remuneration arrangements did not cover expenditure during the conversion of production.
The Commission should therefore, in my opinion, present proposals on how the scheme can be made more transparent for farmers in the future.
There are currently three different support arrangements for environmentally friendly production methods, and it may be difficult for the individual farmer to decide which scheme is the most economically viable for him in a given situation.
I would therefore call on the Commission also to bear in mind that information on the scheme is an important prerequisite for successful implementation in the Member States.
But publicity and information are not necessarily enough to ensure that potentially interested farmers choose to take part.
The low take-up rate is most pronounced - and I greatly regret this - in areas where agriculture is most intensive.
We are thus in the situation that nothing is really happening in those areas where these schemes are really needed.
We are seeing that there is no real scope for converting intensive agriculture to extensive agriculture.
I think that is a serious deficiency in the programmes, since it is in those areas that there would have been the greatest environmental effect.
The problem with the present scheme is that it clearly cannot pay farmers applying intensive farming methods to avail themselves of these programmes.
I believe we need to think again about what success criteria we should be applying and what objectives we should be pursuing.
On a somewhat more critical note, I must say that, on the basis of the information I have received from the Commission, which has been very open on these matters, I get the feeling that a number of the things that have been carried out as a result of these schemes, for example conservation measures, would have been carried out anyway.
This means that some people have received money for doing something they would have done in any case.
I therefore think that we need - as I said before - to do some thinking about success criteria and objectives.
I also feel that there must be a possibility of graduating the support so that there is a stronger link between the amount of the support and farmers' expenditure in relation to environmental effects.
Our job as a Parliament in this context - and I will make this my last point - is, on the one hand, to look after the environment and to check whether we are getting environmental improvements.
I think that we are getting them.
On the other hand, we must also carry out investigations to determine whether the environmental improvements we get show a reasonable relationship to the expenditure we incur.
It may be difficult to tell exactly whether that is the case with these schemes, so I will say once again that we look forward to getting a proper evaluation.
I was pleased at the cooperation we have had, and I also hope that Commissioner Fischler can confirm here today that he will give the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development an initial evaluation even before the peace of Christmas descends upon the Union.
Madam President, Council Regulation (EEC) No 2080/92 was a flanking measure introduced as part of the 1992 CAP reform.
Its main aim was to organise afforestation as an alternative use of agricultural land, so that surpluses in agricultural produce, which are politically and economically harmful to the Community, could be reduced.
There was a stipulated amount to pay to farmers in compensation for losses of income resulting from lower prices and reductions in output.
At the same time the Community would improve its stock of afforested land, while restoring the ecological balance in its efforts to combat the greenhouse effect.
There were thus two aspects to the scheme: the reduction of agricultural production, and increased afforestation and improvement of woodlands in the Community.
Aid is paid to compensate for the costs of afforestation and the initial maintenance of saplings, and for the improvement of woodlands on farms.
Community co-financing in the Objective 1 area is 75 %, and 50 % elsewhere.
The Commission's activity report submitted to Parliament does not, however, answer the question as to whether the general aims of the regulation have been achieved.
There is no information in the report on reductions in agricultural production or on losses of income incurred by farmers as a result of the reforms which have been compensated for with forestry aid.
The report states that agricultural land has been reduced in three countries by around 0.95 % to 1.35 %, and in other countries the amount is noticeably less.
In the absence of such information the European Parliament is unable to give a clear evaluation of the effectiveness of the measures taken, which have cost the Community approximately ECU 0.8 billion over the period 1993-1997, and which, if we include the contribution made by the Member States, totalled around ECU 1.8 billion in all.
Only a short time has passed since the creation of the scheme, so I understand that it has not yet been possible to give an overall evaluation.
As rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in this matter, however, I am asking for a proper evaluation to be made on the implementation and viability of the scheme.
In my opinion, the Court of Auditors should submit a report to Parliament of the costs and benefits arising from the Council Regulation so that we can get a comprehensive picture of the viability of a scheme that has paid out billions of ecus in the European Union.
In addition, a comparative analysis should be made in particular of the possible advantages of the forestry regulation and Council Regulation (EEC) No 2078/92 relating to agri-environmental measures.
My colleague, Mr Iversen, has produced an excellent report on the latter.
Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of the scheme is its uneven distribution of aid.
Member States are obliged to observe the regulation within the framework of the principle of subsidiarity, but they apply it according to their own priorities.
In practice the regulation has had a significant effect in four Member States: Spain, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Portugal, which account for 81 % of the total EU hectarage quoted, or approximately 500 000 hectares.
During the implementation period, the total area covered by the whole of the EU forest improvement programme was around 185 000 hectares, and 7 312 kilometres of lumber truck track were constructed.
It would seem that Member States have applied the regulation according to their own forestry and environmental policies, without paying attention to the original purpose of the regulation or its policy on agriculture.
It seems odd that the Commission should have wished to produce this activity report at such an early stage and with insufficient information.
Most Member States did not approve the scheme until 1994.
Furthermore, I found the figures given in the activity report to be incomplete or even wrong while I was drafting the report for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, mainly perhaps because of the delay in the implementation of the regulation.
This, however, is not an indication that the costs of the scheme were any less than was believed, but that generally the scheme had not worked and does not work as programmed.
I believe we are entitled to enquire whether the action the regulation calls for should continue in the way it now does, as the desired aims, with few exceptions, have not been achieved.
We must return to this issue again when discussions are held on the legislative proposals for Agenda 2000.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on forest strategy in the Community in January 1997, which states that forest policy is not mentioned in the Treaty of Rome and therefore does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Community.
I would like to remind everyone of this important fact.
I believe that in the future agriculture has to operate primarily according to the dictates of the market economy and that there should not be any new aid schemes.
There is a heated debate going on at this very moment at EU level on a possible forestry strategy and the different systems of certification there are with forests.
In this debate we have to keep our feet firmly on the ground and face facts, and not join the environment organisations in calling for finance mechanisms.
Madam President, I wish to say first of all that this own-initiative report on a new strategy for mountain regions in Europe goes back quite a long way and picks up on previous work which clearly needed updating.
It also goes back a long way as far as this term of Parliament is concerned.
I would recall that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development held a hearing on mountain regions, and in particular on hill farming, on 27 January 1997.
Since then, Parliament's Directorate-General for Research has produced an extremely useful update study.
This is a very recent document, published less than a month ago, for which I should like to thank all those concerned.
I am holding up this volume now, and as you can see it is an extremely weighty one: it is most enlightening for anyone wanting to find out about Europe's mountain regions, and not only in respect of agriculture.
Lastly, another major incentive was the attention devoted to this matter, and the studies produced literally in the last few days, by the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
So we in the European Parliament were keen to make our own contribution to this range of analyses, and above all proposals, geared to putting some order into measures in favour of mountain regions.
Here we should be careful to avoid any misunderstanding, since mountain regions form part of what are generally known as disadvantaged or less-favoured regions of the European Union.
But I shall return to this matter when I comment briefly on the amendments which have been tabled.
This study - and indeed this initiative - starts from the premise that mountain regions account for 30 % of the territory of the EU and 20 % of its usable agricultural area, a sizeable proportion where life is extremely difficult, moreover.
I would just remind you of some of the reasons why: altitude, first and foremost, gradients which make it hard to use mechanised farming methods, land fragmentation, poor soil fertility, depopulation and the ageing of the resident population, difficulties for communications and transport, remoteness from centres of habitation, constant environmental risks - making it difficult to plan for the future - and the need for basic infrastructures, roads, schools and general services.
Mountain regions have a cross-cutting role which not only affects those who live in them: environmental protection and land management, hydrogeological monitoring, the promotion of agri-tourism, improved utilisation of resources, stabilisation of low-lying areas - it is not a commonplace to say that, in many instances, city defences lie in mountain regions - and also, where appropriate, cross-border cooperation and the management of forestry and grazing activities.
These considerations give rise to certain proposals, not to say pointers for reform, which in general terms lie within two spheres of prime concern to the European institutions as a whole: the first is safeguarding jobs - given that we have undertaken to create new employment, let us try not to lose existing jobs - and the second is environmental protection, a commitment which underpins all the reforms.
But if this approach is to succeed, it must above all be global, integrated, coherent and sustained, not based on one-off measures.
As I indicated earlier, the European Union has already adopted a strategy for lessfavoured areas, which include not only mountain regions but also Arctic areas and coastal areas threatened by desertification.
This own-initiative report paves the way to two other possible in-depth studies, attesting to the fact that the legislator's job is to design a broad avenue, from which pathways branch off into the real heart of the matter.
Mountain regions are one aspect of the matter; Arctic areas are another, and are the subject of an own-initiative report to be presented very shortly by Mrs Anttila.
At some future date, perhaps during the next parliamentary term, someone might turn their attention to coastal areas threatened by desertification.
Thus it is quite unnecessary to address ourselves to the issue in its entirety on every occasion: that would be a retrograde step, a pretext for more solemn declarations of principle and sweeping proposals, but without indicating in practical terms and in detail how to get to the very heart of the matter and produce tangible measures.
So, what tangible measures do we mean? I shall briefly mention a few of them.
First and foremost, an integrated approach is required.
The rural population should be encouraged to stay on the land by granting them fixed - not unpredictable - additional income for ecological and social services over and above what must remain their main activity, namely farming.
The main regulations having an impact on mountain areas should be published in a single volume, thereby creating an EU mountain code.
Seminars should be held to explore the issues in greater detail, the Commission should draw up a communication for the Council on EU mountain regions, and on that basis a Community action plan for mountain areas should be produced.
Lessons could be drawn from pilot projects under the TERRA and LEADER programmes, and a whole series of other initiatives is required. They can be examined in detail by Commissioner Fischler, to whom I - as rapporteur - now hand over this study, so that it may be taken into account when charting the new course of rural development in the context of Agenda 2000.
Madam President, our group welcomes these two Commission reports on Regulations 2087 and 2080.
Mr Otila said that both reports were drawn up too hastily; I fear that the opposite is true, and that they have come along rather late in the day.
The regulations on the CAP accompanying measures date back to 1992; now, in 1998 and six years on, this is our first across-the-board assessment of these measures.
I think that such innovative initiatives, which were so full of significance when they were first presented, would benefit from more regular monitoring, bearing in mind that this is a fastchanging area, in constant need of updating and revision.
As Mr Iversen said, the problem is the lack of critical assessments of the effectiveness of these measures: this loophole must be closed, and such assessments must be made public.
We must have all the necessary information on how these substantial financial resources have been used, not least because we must now start to look at new proposals. I am sure that those who advocate the greening of the CAP need very sound facts and arguments, because many people object to a renewal along environmentalist lines of traditionally market-oriented policies.
I would encourage the Commissioner to proceed on the basis of these initial experiences.
The new regulation on rural development does include the actions contained in Regulations 2078 and 2080, and yet we have three areas of doubt.
Firstly, as Mr Iversen says in his report, the financial allocation for the new accompanying measures is still somewhat meagre.
In certain circumstances, the compensation paid will probably be too limited to meet the need, which is why we should perhaps consider cofinancing these measures at differential rates.
Secondly, Regulation 2080 is still overshadowed by the ambiguity concerning Community actions relating to forestry per se - it is true that the Community has no direct competence here, but we said in the Thomas report that a whole series of measures could be introduced at Community level - and compensatory allowances for non-food production, for example that of timber.
I believe that this reminds the Commission of the need to present specific proposals on forestry policy.
Thirdly, the new Agenda 2000 proposals provide for cross-compliance which is left rather too much to the Member States' discretion.
Subsidiarity is all very well, but should not be taken to such lengths.
The track record of Regulations 2078 and 2080 should be assessed, maintaining some common rules which leave scope for independent initiative by the Member States.
Turning to mountain regions, I should like to compliment Mr Santini: his report paints a picture of mountain regions which is more than just a postcard view, and which we now need more than ever before.
Many points are set out, and I would merely add that these initiatives should not be taken at Community level alone.
Indeed, I always fear that we expect rather too much of the Community.
They must be carried out in tandem by the Member States and regions, because the new thinking behind the CAP is to give the regions greater freedom of planning within their own confines, taking account of all the areas which have physical and natural handicaps and therefore need special help and consideration.
Madam President, Commissioner Fischler, the agricultural environment programmes of the European Union have met with widely varying responses from one Member State to another.
A scientific analysis conducted in Germany to assess the approval rating of the EU agricultural environment programmes highlights this very clearly.
In your home country, Commissioner, 86 % of farmers welcome such programmes.
The acceptance rate in Germany stands at 30 %, while the figure for France is 17 %.
Three years after the entry into force of this environmental regulation, the Commission has now presented the European Parliament and the Council with an assessment of the way in which the regulation has been applied.
The rapporteur, Mr Iversen, on whose report my remarks are chiefly based, has generally tended to adopt a somewhat critical tone, to my mind, in his report.
He points to weaknesses in the aims of the regulation, which he feels should be more stringently defined, as well as calling for clearer details of the quantitative improvements to be achieved by farmers when they implement the programmes.
One of his demands is that the agricultural environment programmes should be far more strongly result-oriented.
This may mean that further increases in grants and incentives will be needed in particular sectors, and perhaps a little more democracy too.
At the present time, there are ceilings on the grants that can be cofinanced from Community funds.
However, it may be necessary to adjust these ceilings in accordance with actual requirements.
In my view, Member States which developed and implemented their own agricultural environment programmes even before the reform of the common agricultural policy have a certain advantage in terms of experience.
The main reason for the varying acceptance levels of agricultural environment programmes in the EU is not a lack of willingness among some farmers to take part in the programmes, but rather the financial priority and organisational resources that the Member States feel able to assign to the creation and planning of such programmes.
In my home region, the farmers already have quite some experience of these things.
There was undoubtedly a great deal of resistance to begin with, but I believe that the subject has now been aired as thoroughly as possible.
The greatest quantities of newly formed groundwater have been found under farmland. Who has ever mentioned that?
In areas where the whole countryside is under cultivation, the production of drinking water is another major contribution of the farming community, alongside the other contributions - food production and care and conservation of the agricultural landscape - that we never tire of citing.
That is why I believe it makes sense for us to deal jointly with these reports on forest and mountain regions in terms of these factors too.
For these important reasons, I too am committed to ensuring that agricultural activity is maintained in naturally disadvantaged regions as well as in good farming areas.
To that end, transfer payments are necessary and warranted.
In conclusion, may I say that one of the aims of the agricultural environment programmes is to strengthen the farming economy, with its wealth of useful functions, in peripheral areas too.
In that respect, Regulation No 2078/92 makes a very important contribution to the stabilisation of rural areas.
Madam President, Commissioner, congratulations to my colleague on an excellent report.
Agreements under measures contained in the CAP reform have been signed with only 17 % of all EU farms, and environmental aid is only going to five countries.
The scheme must be made more attractive, such as by making it a condition for receiving aid.
Environmental aid in the future can also be used to lessen the burden production places on the environment.
Environmental protection and sustained development are becoming ever more important to consumers when they choose the food they buy.
Sound principles are required for Europe's agricultural production if we are to achieve a sustainable base for high-quality European food, as Mr Mulder states in his report on food quality.
The European Union will only succeed in the global food market in the area of high-quality produce.
Mr Otila's report shows that the afforestation scheme has not worked out as expected.
When Finland and Sweden joined the Union the northern coniferous zone became a brand new part of the area. Sustainable use of the forests, and their reform, have been the backbone of our economy for decades.
As Mr Otila said, forestry in the future must operate according to the principle of the free market.
Community policy must be responsible for coordination in order to produce benefits and added value for the sustained use and exploitation of forests in the EU area.
EU action is needed to ensure, for example, that WTO negotiations cover the free access of the timber industry's products to global markets.
The Union must also define the criteria for sustainable forest maintenance and reform for forestry products in the EU area, as only then can we prevent the introduction of certification that would increase the power of environmental organisations which are biased.
Certification schemes are being developed all the time by Member States, and that is why we need an umbrella scheme at EU level to cover the individual systems.
Proposals on this have already been put to you, Commissioner, and I would like to ask you this: when will you come up with a proposal for such an umbrella scheme?
Mr Santini's report deals comprehensively with the special problems of mountain areas.
I can see that mountain areas and the Arctic region have very many problems in common with agriculture: a short growing season, vast distances, a sparse population, difficult growing conditions, and so on.
The European Union can function in a sustainable way only by acknowledging differences, and taking greater notice of the different needs of the regions.
I believe these reports now under discussion will be an excellent opportunity to give more weight to the whole question of differing needs in the regions, which undeniably exist in the vast area of the Union, and the report on mountain areas covers this in detail.
Madam President, Commissioner, I have been given a mountain of minutes but I do not want to reach the very summit because I do not want to tire everyone else out if I climb that high.
Nevertheless, I am going to be speaking about three reports: the Iversen, Otila and Santini reports.
The Iversen report, of course, reveals extensive knowledge, especially of those agricultural areas with the luxury of being able to carry out more intensive forms of agriculture.
That is not the case in my country, or in Greece, where in certain areas it is impossible to carry out intensive farming even if you wanted to - unless you want to set up industrial pig farms.
There are, however, environmental differences and huge environment-related differences between the various countries.
How can all of that be assessed? By means of studies and asking university institutes and others to assess the situation as a whole.
There is no doubt some countries cannot combine development with environmental protection.
In others development only harms the environment.
So who can decide? That problem will not go away.
Is some bureaucrat always going to decide what is good farming practice for me? Of course, I do agree with Mr Fantuzzi when he says that we must have general rules for Europe as a whole.
As for the Otila report it deals with an extremely useful aid measure.
We all know that this is not enough to solve the forestry problem in Europe but it can, at least in countries like mine, withdraw certain marginal areas from production.
But a study must be carried out into this, too: to see which varieties are planted in poor areas, whether those varieties will be of any economic value in the future and who should take decisions about those varieties in conjunction with the farmers themselves or about which marginal areas should be withdrawn from production.
Who actually decides? Money is needed and we must assess what has been done in each country.
I am completely against the notion of taking under-used funding away from one country and giving it to another country that makes better use of it, because I feel that the Commission should also play an educative role and work in conjunction with the national governments.
As far as my friend Mr Santini's report is concerned I have to say that Mr Santini is more Tyrolean than Italian.
There is no doubt that he is much closer to Commissioner Fischler's land of yodelling than he is to the country of Italian ballads.
That is why he has produced a report for the mountains - not for the Tyrol but for the Italian mountains that are an extension of the Tyrol.
I know the poor mountains, the dry mountains, snowless mountains, mountains where farmers cannot double up as skiing instructors.
That is why, out of my friendship for him and my great respect for his work in the European Parliament, I proposed that he should also look at mountains in arid and semi-arid areas.
I succeeded in tabling some amendments and he kindly took them on board.
Of course, in a previous parliamentary term, Mr Görlach drafted a report on the arid and semi-arid areas.
But I think that they should be paid more attention because, as a rule, science pays attention to the rich areas because it is paid to do so.
Science does not pay any attention to the poor areas because they do not have any money to pay for it.
That is why I would call on the Commission to think about much more comprehensive studies of the real situation in Europe.
I have now reached the top of the mountain and I do not want to go any higher.
I shall stop there even though I have one more minute to go - but I did not want to bore you all stiff.
Madam President, Commissioner, I believe that the three reports that have been presented to us are particularly important when considering the Union's policies.
In fact, they question which agricultural and forestry policies would be more ecological and would ensure the best use of land, as well as the maintenance and development of human activities.
These issues are major concerns for our societies.
They came to be of such concern through the rejection of productivity-based policies that weakened the quality of production and of the environment, led to job losses and to desertification in fragile areas.
Every effort should be made to allow these alternative policies to succeed, but this is not the verdict handed down by our rapporteurs, in spite of the lack of information from the Commission.
In fact, they note that the objectives have not been achieved.
The decline in agricultural activity has often transformed agricultural areas into fallow land and wild forests, which are not valued and are extremely prone to fires, particularly in southern Europe.
Difficult and mountainous regions continue to see their populations drift away.
Areas of intensive production that threatens the environment have not been affected by the agri-environmental measures.
This failure is the result of a CAP that put agricultural and forestry produce at the mercy of a market that tramples on prices and on human beings.
Alternative policies do exist.
Both the Cunha report, which was adopted by this House, and the basic law on French agriculture, call for a reform of the CAP that would use public funds to develop high-quality production that encourages land use, that respects the environment and that develops employment.
In difficult mountain areas, prices and premiums should guarantee a reasonable revenue for small production structures.
In all areas, premiums should have a fixed upper limit per operation in order to slow down the productivity race and to finance production contracts that work towards quality, employment and environmental protection.
In the largest cultivated forest in the Union, in the south-west of France, as in Mediterranean forests, implementing new resin production techniques could bring people back to the now deserted areas.
These are only three specific projects that reflect the spirit of a policy that would allow the financial resources committed by the Union to be used to meet the needs of our society.
Madam President, thank you for the ten minutes.
I already had one from my honourable colleague, so that makes eleven.
I shall begin with my own three minutes.
First point: We must remind ourselves clearly of the aim of these accompanying measures under Regulations 2078 and 2080.
Mr Fischler, you were not yet the Commissioner at that time, and Austria was not yet in the EU.
The aim was not to create an innovation programme, but rather, as the term 'accompanying measures' suggests, to establish mechanisms to accompany price reductions. These reductions had not been properly implemented and, as a result, certain farming activities outside the high-performance areas had been pushed to the brink of unprofitability.
The intention was to compensate for this, which is why Regulation 2080 gives farmers the opportunity to afforest land that has been taken out of production.
That was the aim behind these environmental measures.
The fact that it has now developed into an innovation programme - and this is my second point, Mr Fischler - has nothing to do with its aims, but rather with the way it has been used by interested parties.
Austria is a good example.
The Austrians joined when the scheme was already operational and soon began to use the special production methods dictated by these environmental requirements as a cachet of quality for marketing purposes.
The same applies to the organic farmers, some of whom are not even based in less-favoured areas, who have also joined this scheme and have been able to live with these rather small compensatory payments because the environmental tag has secured higher prices for their produce.
It says here in Mr Iversen's report that the farmers and regional authorities in the more favoured areas have not otherwise availed themselves of this scheme, but that is precisely because these measures and the payments granted for them would not have compensated for the loss of earnings in these areas.
So it was an accompanying programme, and the interested parties have turned it into an innovation programme.
My third point concerns the funding issue.
This scheme, of course, came under the heading of compulsory expenditure.
I recently spoke to the Basque Agricultural Minister. He had visited Austria and was quite astonished to discover how much Austria obtains under this scheme.
And so I asked him why the Basques had not been doing the same over the past few years.
It was a notifiable Commission programme.
Measures would have had to be paid for, because it was a compulsory scheme and was covered by the guarantee section of the EAGGF.
In this way these funds could have been increased, we should have had a higher budget today, and there would have been no need for us to press for this increase.
My final point relates to the future of this programme.
Here I agree with you.
This programme must be incorporated into the second pillar, and the way to do this is to take what has actually been done, to take this scheme that was launched as an environmental programme and turned into an innovation and marketing programme for special organic produce, and to combine it all with a structural programme for the integrated development of rural areas.
So I am in agreement with you here.
What I do not agree with, of course, is that you as a Commissioner are making the mistake of...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, the promotion of more environmentally-friendly farming is not easy.
It becomes even more difficult when profit margins are in question.
It takes extra money to develop into new areas of production because of the cost of new buildings.
So we have to be realistic and sensible in what we hope ultimately to achieve.
It is also very clear that if there is an opt-out clause then many national governments will not make available the matching funding, with the result that the proposal is not put into effect.
This is the real problem that will have to be remedied when we look at the reform package.
We are in danger, I believe, of creating a very uneven playing field.
We must ensure this does not happen within the European Union.
Mr Santini's report - which I welcome - focuses on mountain areas. That is fine.
I do not have any problem with that.
But it strikes me that these mountain areas are very similar to the less-favoured areas.
Parliament and its committees seem to be developing new ways of getting support into areas like the islands, peripheral regions and mountain areas now, but we could be in danger of spreading ourselves too thinly and not really helping them.
Surely the general structures that are provided should be able to handle this.
Action for the peripheral regions must be more broadly based.
The future of the less-favoured areas is extremely bleak at the moment, with a serious drop in income.
That is what we have to address and that is where we have to target our proposals in the future.
Thank you.
We shall now suspend the joint debate, which will be resumed after the votes.
VOTES
Madam President, I have the honour to be the spokesman for the five groups which have drawn up this resolution, namely the Socialists, the Greens, the GUE and ARE Groups and, of course, the Liberals.
I would like to inform you that these groups support only two amendments tabled by the PPE Group, Amendments Nos 5 and 8, and we will support the latter only on condition that this new text becomes paragraph 2.
Madam President, I would like to make a reference to the Rules of Procedure pursuant to Rule 102, as the amendments relating to this resolution are not available in French.
I am quite happy to say that I would willingly vote in favour of this resolution but I believe it is absolutely impossible to express an opinion when the amendments are not available in all languages.
I waited for 10 minutes where the documents were being distributed.
I was told there were no amendments left in French, that it was impossible to find any and I was advised to wait.
I waited as long as I was supposed to and stopped waiting when I came into this sitting.
Therefore, we do not have the amendments available in one of the languages in use in the European Union.
Madam President, together with Mr Dupuis and others, I signed a number of amendments calling for action to be taken against numerous other dictators and ex-dictators.
I cannot find any of these amendments in our documentation, and now I hear that the administration has declared them inadmissible, as it were.
Let me ask you this: since when has the administration had the power to decide which dictators and ex-dictators we may and may not pursue?
You are labouring under a misapprehension, Mr Posselt. The administration does not decide whether or not an amendment is admissible, but the President himself.
In this context, we are dealing only with the arrest of General Pinochet, and nothing else.
Consequently, all the amendments which go beyond that subject are inadmissible.
The authors have also been informed of this in writing, to the best of my belief.
Madam President, I never questioned the existence of a French version of the amendments.
I simply said that this version was not available.
But thanks to the goodwill of one of our colleagues who has now become an usher as well, I received the document in French after I had taken the floor.
I am delighted by this.
But, besides all this, I question the reasons why we are deciding, and I wonder on what authority we are deciding, that the amendments relating to certain dictators are admissible, whereas amendments relating to other dictators are not.
(Applause)
You may table as many motions for resolutions as you wish, but this time we are dealing only with a single person, and nothing else.
Madam President, I accept Mr Bertens' proposal but, when we vote on this text, I would like to table an oral amendment, which I am sure will be accepted by the Socialist Group and, therefore, I would ask you to allow me to state it now.
Before the vote on Amendment No 8
Madam President, when we make mention here of our commitment to the principle of universal justice and, consequently, call on the competent authorities to interpret it in accordance with the principles of the Treaty on European Union, I would like to add after 'competent authorities' the words 'in particular those of Spain and the United Kingdom', which are the authorities involved in this matter.
I am sure that the Socialist Group will understand, since it is entirely logical, that both the Spanish judicial and government authorities - the latter having the authority to convey the judges' request - and the British authorities - which have the authority to grant extradition - are those involved in this case and, consequently, will accept this obvious reference to them.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
That was recital G. We asked for a separate vote on each part.
May I question Mr Chichester on one point?
It may be that something has been mistranslated here, but the German version says that the radioactive waste which is currently produced is principally medical waste.
That, of course, is entirely wrong from a factual and a technical point of view.
If it has been mistranslated, fair enough, but if not, we shall naturally have to delete the reference to 'principally medical waste', because that is not true; it is nonsense, as everyone knows!
Madam President, this was an amendment which was originally introduced by the Green Group at the committee stage so I do not know what they are on about now.
Surely, we have not quite reached the vote.
We are having a separate vote on the three parts of Consideration G, so why do we not just vote?
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Madam President, we are very pleased with the substance of this report, in which Mr Chichester gives a realistic and objective description and assessment of the problem. We were therefore happy to vote for the resolution.
The decommissioning of nuclear power stations is going to become an increasingly important industry in the future.
The report rightly stresses the need to protect public health through prevention in all the activities associated with decommissioning.
Because of the huge range of differences inside and outside the Union, it is not feasible to harmonise decommissioning, and the responsibility therefore falls to the Member States and the power station operators.
It is up to them to choose whether to go for direct, complete dismantling or staged decommissioning, and the cost of decommissioning should, of course, be included in the cost of the electricity produced.
Exchanges of knowledge and experience should be encouraged, as should research, education and information activities.
Giving the general public clear information on why and how nuclear power stations are decommissioned also gives them greater insight into the problems associated with decommissioning and the storage of nuclear waste.
However, there is one small criticism we would make about recital N: requiring social acceptance of decommissioning and the storage of nuclear waste as a condition for the future development of nuclear energy seems a little excessive, which is why we voted against it.
According to its title, this report should be dealing with decommissioning nuclear power stations, but it looks more like a defence of nuclear energy.
I find that unacceptable.
Nuclear power is not safe and should therefore be abandoned.
The report ought to be focusing more on how decommissioning is to be organised and, fundamentally, on the technical measures required to ensure that it happens safely from the radiation point of view.
I am sorry that the majority of the House felt unable to support the important amendments tabled by the Green Group.
Several EU Member States, including Sweden and Germany, have decided to begin decommissioning, but this is not mentioned in the text.
I therefore voted against the whole report.
Representing a constituency in a region which has for many years played a leading role in the civil use of nuclear energy, I welcome the initiative of Mr Chichester in producing this report on the future of decommissioning nuclear plants.
Nuclear energy inspires both strong support and strong criticism.
Here perhaps is a nuclear issue - how to retire nuclear plants safely as they reach the end of their useful life - which can unite us all!
I acknowledge the skills of nuclear energy workers such as the many people in the north-west of England who work in this sector and help the modern economy to function.
I have faith in their ability to manage the decommissioning of old plants in the future, just as they have risen to the challenge of reprocessing spent fuel in the past.
I back the principle of this report that such work is best left to national authorities and the industry's expertise rather than the EU.
However, the report is also right to ask that, as in research, where the EU can play a useful role in decommissioning, its work should as a matter of course include the many Central and Eastern European nations whose communist-built nuclear plants need help to decommission safely.
That concludes voting time.
Agricultural production and the environment -Forestry measures - Mountain areas (continued)
We shall now continue with the joint debate that was interrupted earlier.
Madam President, in the context of agriculture and the environmental impact in different terrain, I have to say that all the arguments put by Mr Santini apply equally to less-favoured areas.
Rural depopulation is a problem, particularly in my country of Wales.
Young people - parents - are leaving the rural areas for the towns and their place is being taken by retired people or those who use rural areas as dormitories while their economic activity takes place in the town.
This has disastrous effects.
The economic vitality of youth is replaced by the recreation of the elderly.
Schools and shops close and bus routes close down.
We have to devise new methods to keep young people in rural areas.
We have to ensure affordable public services in all these rural areas.
One way we can help is to find better methods of compensating rural inhabitants for the provision of environmental services.
The Hill Livestock Compensatory Allowances should be used to compensate for natural handicaps and not to achieve environmental goals.
Separate schemes to encourage intensive farming, like Tircymen in Wales, should be funded through separate agri-environmental schemes.
The identities of people in sparsely-populated areas must also be respected.
We must not think of rural areas as the playground of visitors from the towns.
We want the economic benefits of tourism, but we need investment in bread-winner jobs as well.
We must always beware of the environmental impact of all development. But we must also evaluate the economic impact of all our environmental considerations.
Madam President, Commissioner, it is absolutely vital to discuss the Commission's report on forestry measures promoted as an alternative use of agricultural land, before taking a decision on the proposal for a significant increase in afforestation aid as part of rural development policy under Agenda 2000.
The rapporteur, Jyrki Otila, is absolutely right when he says that the Commission has failed to address the essential question of whether the objective of reducing agricultural production has been achieved with the enormous amounts of aid spent.
At the end of the day, what we require is a comprehensive, detailed report on the cost-benefit ratio of the afforestation programme, the actual amount of money spent and how it was allocated, and giving an in-depth survey of the impact on the environment.
The vague and weak aspects of the scheme have to be put right before aid policy is extended in any way.
I genuinely hope that the Commission will now give a clearer response to the questions posed than it did, for example, in the reply I received a couple of weeks ago to a written question of mine on the evaluation of forestry aid.
In the explanatory statement of his report the rapporteur refers many times to Parliament's proposal on forestry strategy.
Parliament's proposal emphasises that forestry must continue to operate according to market forces, without aid that would distort competition, and primarily under State guidance.
The added value of the role of the EU in forestry policy has to be strictly limited to action that supports the multi-functional use of forests and economic exploitation in accordance with sustainable development.
For example, there could be support for the certification of European holdings engaged in forestry that promote the use of wood, as an alternative to the FSC scheme, which strives for monopoly status.
Madam President, the Community has no common forestry policy, not only because none is mentioned either in the founding Treaties nor in their later revised versions, but also because practical experience over 30 years proves as much. The Community - its institutional bodies - always comes up with improvised and random measures, trying to patch up the deficiencies.
In my view this Community policy on forests and forestry is responsible for the destruction of our forests.
Tens of thousands of hectares are destroyed every year throughout the European Union, especially in southern areas and more disastrously still in Greece.
The Otila report, which attempts to address the issue, adopts a similar view, Madam President, but negatively so because it says that reforestation is an alternative use for agricultural land. In other words, reforestation should spread to areas used for growing crops.
This is sheer hypocrisy because thousands of hectares are still awaiting reforestation in vain, and now we want reforestation in areas where the land can be cultivated!
Unless we decide to adopt an organised forestry policy with the necessary resources for the research, science and technology needed to prevent and combat fires, what we are debating today is only so much hot air and there will be very painful economic, social and ecological disasters.
Disasters which may prove to be totally overwhelming.
Thank you, Mr Santini, for a very good report.
Mountains cover one quarter of the EU's surface area.
Soil quality is poor in these areas, and very few people live there. In Sweden, the figure is a mere five inhabitants per square kilometre.
Holdings are small, with a mixture of farming and forestry activities to make ends meet. Often, people farm only part-time, because they cannot earn a living from the land alone.
The migration rate away from such regions is high. There are many elderly people, and the young move away to escape the tough living conditions.
Not to mention the climate - winter lasts seven months in Scandinavia; it is dark for four months of the year, and vegetation survives a bare 160 days.
Yet these environments are unique, with rich biological diversity.
The agriculture that does exist is environmentally friendly, the natural world is full of variety, there is a strong culture and much else besides.
We have to acknowledge that mountain farmers cannot compete with those in flatter places.
Specially designed and flexible measures are required, and account needs to be taken of the real circumstances in mountainous districts, which are so different from other areas in which agriculture is practised.
Madam President, Commissioner, the promotion of farming methods which are not harmful to the environment, nature or the countryside deserves serious attention.
The Union's agri-environmental measures can provide an incentive here.
Agreements had been concluded with 17 % of the Member States' holdings by halfway through the 1997 budget year, and the scheme has grown into a major policy field within the CAP.
The Commission report indicates that the scheme is facing a number of teething problems.
Spending has been far less than estimated, partly because the programmes started late, and a number of Member States are making little, if any, use of the scheme, which is worrying.
We need to analyse the reasons for this, and in particular to find out whether the fact that the Member States themselves also have to provide funding has anything to do with it.
I feel it is important to find out about this, especially in view of the possibility currently being mooted of introducing cofinancing for income support as well.
The Commission report unfortunately does not analyse the beneficial effects of the agri-environmental measures on the environment and the countryside.
If, as the rapporteur suspects, agricultural activities are being subsidised which should not be receiving subsidies, then the scheme needs to be reviewed.
I would therefore urge the Commission to produce a detailed evaluation report as soon as possible, and certainly before any final decision is taken on a new programme.
The agrienvironmental subsidies must not be allowed to become a form of disguised income support, and I feel it is extremely important here to clarify the requirements in the regulation and to monitor compliance more closely.
A report on the effects of the agri-environmental measures is also needed for the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
The Union must be able to prove that the subsidies bring advantages for the environment, so that they can stay in the 'green box'.
So there is every reason to ensure that the fullest possible use is made of these subsidies in restoring the environment and the countryside.
Madam President, it is probably appropriate today that we have a group of visitors in the gallery from the lovely country of Scotland, which is our key forestry area in the United Kingdom.
I would just like to put a tiny question mark against Mr Otila's report, and that is that we always take it for granted that we want more trees.
I have trees in my garden, I have planted trees in my garden and I like to see trees when I am driving around.
I would like to ask the simple question: are we really certain that we will need those trees in the future for the production of wood?
It is quite obvious in my constituency of Shropshire and Herefordshire that, at the moment, our wood industry is under tremendous pressure.
In fact some people responsible for saw mills say that it is the worst situation they have experienced in 45 years in the industry.
The market for British wood - and only a tiny part of the British market is actually supplied from within the UK - has actually contracted by some 25 %.
In southern England eight saw mills have closed in the last three months.
There is real concern for the future of our wood industry.
It seems that part of the problem arises as a result of the raising of the Iron Curtain.
It seems that the former Soviet Union is dumping wood at ridiculously low prices simply to get foreign exchange.
I would like to say yes, by all means let us plant more trees but let us at least have some concrete idea as to whether in the future there will be a market for the wood produced.
At some point in the future it might be necessary to place a moratorium on trees under this scheme being put on to the market so that we do not in the future damage the wood industry.
Perhaps we need an import levy from non-EC countries to ensure that we protect our own market.
I am concerned that we are following this path and are in danger of overproducing, and I would certainly like to hear the Commissioner's response to that point.
This might be the very first time that anybody has stood up and questioned whether we should plant more trees.
In the light of current circumstances, faced by at least the British wood industry and wood industries in other parts of the EU, it is a question we need to ask.
Madam President, I want to welcome all three reports and say that these schemes are all complementary to the overall goals of agricultural policy.
The environmental scheme serves the purpose - as I believe it should - of providing supplementary income in regions where incomes are so low people would move out in greater numbers if that scheme did not exist.
It serves a purpose in relation to tourism, in helping to make the countryside more attractive, and from my experience of the scheme, it is certainly beginning to take effect.
It was slow to start, as Mr Iverson pointed out, at any rate in Ireland, but this was because we did not have enough training or experience and we needed to get people who could advise farmers.
The scheme has taken off and is beginning to have a remarkable effect on the countryside.
It also has an effect on farm income.
I am not one of those people who believe that we ought to direct our resources towards producing organic food.
I do not believe that organic food is automatically healthier and better than food produced in more intensive situations.
I do not believe that it necessarily improves the general environment to reduce everything to the organic levels that we had in the past.
I remember the time when nearly all farming was organic.
It was not a pleasant world - there were more hungry people around then than there are today.
If, for instance, you plough a hectare of land to get four tonnes of wheat, then that is more environmentally-friendly than if you plough four hectares of land to get four tonnes of wheat.
We should not automatically assume that, because we use more energy, use tractors and have more erosion in intensive agriculture, it is less environmentally-friendly.
If you extrapolate from the Dutch example, you only need an area the size of France, Holland and Belgium to feed all the people of Europe and therefore you have all the rest of Europe for environmental purposes.
I am not suggesting it should be done that way, but it is not necessarily dangerous or bad for the environment.
As regards afforestation, some aspects of afforestation are popular with rural dwellers.
In Ireland we lamented the loss of our forests 200 years ago, and today farmers resist afforestation as some sort of evil.
Nevertheless the forestry scheme that has been introduced by the Commission has encouraged forestry in the farming sector and has improved - and will continue to improve - the environment, as well as helping to reduce surpluses in all parts of the Community.
Madam President, the package of three agri-environmental reports under discussion is an extremely interesting one.
I wish to thank the rapporteurs for their thoroughness.
For now, I only want to refer to Mr Otila's report on forests and woodland.
The word 'forest' carries with it different images in different parts of the European Union.
In Finland and Sweden the forest is the normal natural environment. Cultivated fields just appear as odd patches in the midst of the forest.
The forest is also a very valuable renewable resource.
Rural regions that remain uncultivated become afforested naturally, which is also the case with areas of woodland that have been cut down or burnt.
In central Europe the forests are mainly recreation areas and parks, where people can interact with the countryside.
The forests of the Mediterranean region are a key factor in protecting the landscape and nature in general.
Forests help prevent soil erosion, they make for more evenly occurring precipitation and regulate its effect, and they improve the climate.
For these reasons, forest maintenance varies from country to country.
It is influenced by ecological, social and economical factors, which is also why forestry policy differs from country to country.
The basic aims, philosophy and methods cannot be the same, so forestry policy cannot be harmonised, because different conditions call for different policies.
This may also be the main reason why the Treaty of Rome does not bring forestry policy under the jurisdiction of the EU.
For all these reasons I cannot agree with paragraph 8 of Mr Otila's report, which advocates efforts to harmonise national forestry policies, but I support his Amendment No 3 in the same way as I support his other amendments.
Joint development of the forestry sector must be promoted, but if it were part of Community policy the sector would be subject to much bureaucracy and would be a shambles as far as funding is concerned.
Madam President, I have read Mr Otila's report and what he says in it has made me very worried.
My first concern is that this regulation seems to enjoy varying and rather disappointing degrees of success in different countries, as I think is only natural given that it was designed to reduce agricultural production and to use the development of forests as a vehicle for doing so.
In other words, it was the main vehicle for increasing the incomes of certain farmers.
In that sense, I think that its success was limited from the start so far as forests and their development in the European Union are concerned.
My second point is that it is a pity the European Union does not have a forestry policy and unfortunately, in the absence of an EU policy, there are countries such as Greece whose forests are being devastated and which also have no forestry policy.
The last speaker said that situations vary.
Of course they do.
But, for example, the EU has a policy on islands.
The United Kingdom is an island, Ireland is an island, and so is my small island in the Aegean.
This does not mean that the same policy will apply to all islands.
And it is a serious omission, especially when Mediterranean forests are now being destroyed and the environment of half of Europe is being degraded, with consequences for tourism, civilisation, and the development of Europe itself.
In that sense, I cannot agree with Mr Otila's report, and in particular paragraph 8 in which he seems to assume that there will not be a forestry policy in the European Union.
On the contrary, I believe we ought to try to include the issue of forests in the Treaties.
That, of course, does not mean that the same measures would be adopted in Finland and in Greece!
Madam President, I have a few points about the accompanying measures designed to promote environmental protection and conservation.
The Member States are making increasing use of these types of measures, which pay farmers for protecting nature and the environment by using extensive farming methods in particular.
Austria, Finland and Sweden are all countries making above average use of them, and their attention must clearly have been drawn to them during the accession negotiations.
An important condition for using this form of Community aid is that considerable national cofinancing also has to be provided.
Not all countries are equally prepared to do this, which explains why the take-up of EU funding available also varies.
This is actually a good example of an area of shared political and financial responsibility between the EU and the Member States within the CAP.
The aid benefits farmers making an extra effort to help the environment and nature, but it is also a matter of agricultural policy in that it is also about the fairly widespread use of extensive farming methods.
We could well imagine that, if the support we are discussing today is maintained, the idea of sharing political and financial responsibility between the EU and the Member States could also apply to some of the income support provided for under the 1992 price support reductions and subsequently under Agenda 2000.
In that case, the environmental criteria would not need to focus so much on extensive farming, but would cover all farms applying what we now call good agricultural practices.
Social criteria could also be added.
This is a lesson we can learn from Regulation 2078: it is better to have a custom-built system of cofinancing subject to national environmental and social desirability criteria than to have a uniform system of income support allocated centrally by Brussels alone.
Actually, even Regulation 2078 seems to have been inspired not just by environmental criteria, but by social necessity too.
Such an approach will also automatically qualify these sorts of measures for the WTO green box.
Mr President, Commissioner, what is sadly lacking in European policy is the ability to confront the problems faced by citizens living in a rural environment, and mountain regions are part of this environment.
Amongst other things, it does of course cost a great deal of money to maintain a farming population in these difficult areas.
But there is also a high price to pay for the exodus of these citizens, who leave their poorer regions to move to towns and their suburbs, where they find very few jobs.
The more poor people there are in the towns and their suburbs - often called shanty towns - the more insecurity there is and the more police officers or security guards are employed, and this also comes at a high price.
The decline of agriculture in mountainous regions has also led to an increase in the number of avalanches, particularly in northern areas.
And look at the human tragedy this entails: every year, avalanches claim many victims.
Neglecting pasture land and not maintaining undergrowth increase the risk of forest fires. These fires are causing more and more damage and are becoming more and more frequent, mainly in southern Europe.
Imagine how much all this must cost.
We should pay shepherds for services to the environment, we should pay them in order to save a considerable amount of money.
We must also consider farming forest areas with a view to producing alternative green energy sources par excellence .
Research must also be carried out on how to obtain rapid growth species, such as eucalyptus, and on developing power stations for such plant matter, or on producing methane, which could be extracted to be used for other thermal power stations.
And perhaps, rather than saving money with no positive outcome, the general rule should be to better organise the integration of less-favoured areas into the economic development area by making considerable financial efforts, as indeed you do so well in Austria, Commissioner.
What is more, nowadays, given the amazing developments in communication and exchange technology, it would be possible to encourage high-quality job creation in these areas, through remote working, for example. And why not send some of the staff of the Commission's various Directorates-General to these troubled areas, where they can do routine office work?
Commissioner, I am also counting on you and on your collective intelligence to achieve this and so allow the rural world in general, and less-favoured areas in particular, to be transformed from the dead weights they were to a catalyst for the harmonious development of all our peoples, throughout Europe.
Madam President, I want to say something briefly about the reports by Mr Iversen and Mr Otila.
It is notable that although both argue for alternative agricultural activity, both rapporteurs conclude that there has been no evaluation by the Commission.
That is unfortunate because it is difficult to promote them as measures before we have some sort of evaluation.
As far as environmentally-friendly farming is concerned, I certainly would support it.
However, I suspect that part of the problem is that it is quite expensive to set up.
Maybe the Commission should look at the levels of grant aid.
As regards forestry, I have always supported it.
The reason I have supported it is that I saw it as an opportunity to supplement the incomes of farmers, especially those with poor land.
But one must ask the question if that was the intention, are they the ones currently benefiting?
It seems to me that a number of the forestry schemes that operate in Ireland most of the benefits go to speculators, particularly from outside the country.
I question whether that is a sensible direction for forestry policy.
I would much prefer that the income went to farmers themselves.
There are also some serious questions relating to planning because some of the afforestation is also unsightly.
Perhaps that is something that our local authorities should look at: whether or not forestry schemes should require planning approval.
Those are the comments I wanted to make regarding those two reports.
I urge the Commission to carry out an evaluation in these two areas to see if there is more potential in them as initiatives in the field of agricultural activity.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, for the sake of simplicity, I shall deal with each of the three reports in turn, in other words beginning with the Iversen report, moving on in the second part of my remarks to deal with the Otila report, and finally stating our position on the Santini report.
The Iversen report testifies on the one hand to a thorough understanding of the complex issues involved.
On the other hand, though, it is also a highly critical report, and its criticism is levelled both at the Member States' authorities which produce and implement the programmes and at the Commission.
The main focus of the report is certainly on the question of evaluation.
That is also the principal concern of the Commission itself.
Before I deal with these matters in detail, I should like to draw your attention to some basic facts of agri-environmental policy which are also recognised and confirmed in the Iversen report.
First of all, the main principle underlying our policy is that we should pay the farmers for their environmental contributions, not in the form of so-called income-support grants but as remuneration for the work they do, as reimbursement of their increased expenditure and as compensation for loss of income.
Secondly, because the programme has been monitored, we now have concrete evidence that successes have undoubtedly been achieved through our environmental measures in cutting back on the quantities of nutrients introduced into the soil and in protecting the natural world.
These successes are acknowledged in the report too.
Thirdly, further improvements are needed in the format and administration of the programmes.
Fourthly, the various rural development measures and the market measures contained in the common agricultural policy must be more effectively integrated and coordinated in general terms, just as we have envisaged in our Agenda 2000 proposals.
To these central points enumerated in the report I should like to add a few more. A fifth point would be that the ecology of the European countryside is determined to a great extent by agriculture and forestry.
New research findings show that biodiversity and the landscape which has developed over centuries can only be preserved with the aid of appropriate systems of land and forestry management.
Point number six: attitudes in European society, including farmers' attitudes, will have to change. We must make our position clear on the need to improve the protection of the environment, since that is the only way in which we can justify the cost of such measures now and in the long term.
In principle, our strategy for the future is based on two considerations. The first of these is that farmers must attain a certain minimum standard in order to qualify for compensatory payments.
This is taken for granted in any industry, and is no more than the population expects.
In my view, the minimum standard must be good farming practice.
The other consideration is that, if farmers go beyond this minimum standard and do more to improve the environment, society must compensate them for the loss of earnings or additional expenses this entails.
In a world that is increasingly ruled by competition, farmers must necessarily minimise their costs.
This could mean that the contributions to the protection of the environment which they used to provide virtually free of charge as part of normal farming routine will no longer be possible in future.
That is why we need to provide remuneration for agri-environmental measures.
Many farmers are prepared to enter into a contract to provide these protective measures.
But the fact is that they will only do so if they are adequately recompensed.
Let me now deal with the question of evaluation to which I referred.
I welcome Parliament's interest in this matter, because that really does help us to impress our positions more forcefully on national and regional authorities.
The Commission has already taken important measures with regard to the evaluation of agri-environmental schemes.
We have been vigorously urging the national and regional authorities to have such evaluations carried out as a first step.
We have also provided these authorities with appropriate guidelines.
And in addition, we have included in the implementing regulation a provision which unequivocally lays down the Member States' obligations in the field of evaluation.
Lastly, we have been working continuously on evaluation-related questions by investing research funds under the PHARE programme and by commissioning other studies.
Of course I understand the sometimes critical stance of the national and regional authorities.
Most of the programmes they are implementing were not launched until 1995 or 1996, and it is only logical that a certain time has to elapse before measurable results actually start to emerge.
Moreover, it must be admitted that environmental protection is a complex business and that the monitoring of biodiversity and the monitoring or recording of nutrient input, for example, are physically and technically difficult tasks.
Nevertheless, we have received no fewer than 158 evaluation reports from the Member States, although 53 of these were only completed this year or are only available in draft form for the time being.
We therefore expect another large batch of reports in the coming year.
As far as the findings of these reports are concerned, I can well understand why Parliament is becoming impatient as it awaits the results of these important measures.
However, I can inform you today that this additional report will be completed within the next few days and will then be transmitted as quickly as possible to the chairmen of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Budgets.
Mr Funk indicated that he wanted the Member States or regional administrations to have a greater say.
I must point out to you, Mr Funk, that responsibility for drawing up these programmes already lies with the Member States and regions.
It is in fact the Commission which merely has a say here, while the actual programming is done by the regions.
That is how it is, Mr Funk!
This brings me to the second part of my remarks, which focuses on the Otila report.
This report contains numerous relevant points, some of which have already been incorporated into the Commission proposals for Agenda 2000.
In its proposal for a new regulation on rural development, the Commission has considered a number of amendments to the aid regime which correspond to some of the conclusions set out in the Otila report.
In particular, the Commission proposes an end to the distinction between full-time and part-time farmers that is made in the present regulation, since this differentiation has frequently obstructed the successful application of the aid regime.
The Commission also proposes that the implementation of the measures in the Member States should cease to be compulsory and become optional.
However, the Commission cannot endorse all the conclusions of the parliamentary report.
We believe that caution should be exercised in formulating the final conclusions regarding the application of Regulation 2080.
As we argued in our report, afforestation of farmland is a lengthy process.
It is almost certainly too early to judge after so few years how the regulation is working and, in particular, the extent to which it is helping to reduce agricultural production and improve forestry resources.
May I also take this opportunity to state that timber supplies in the European Union are not diminishing but are increasing from year to year.
So no one need fear that our forestry stocks are being depleted.
We take the view that the farmland afforestation schemes will contribute to rural development in the long run by promoting diversified employment opportunities, a dynamic land-use strategy and proper conservation of the rural landscape.
Moreover, we firmly believe that this regime will have a beneficial impact on the environment.
The Commission agrees with Parliament on the need to assess the implementation of Regulation 2080.
I can also assure you that we shall go all out to complete this task and to submit the results to Parliament.
To do this, however, we must first have reliable and representative data.
With regard to the forestry strategy of the Community in general, and in particular the question whether forestry activities should be governed by Community legislation, the Commission will also shortly reach a decision on such a forestry strategy, which will likewise be communicated to Parliament.
Without seeking to anticipate the view of the Commission, let me say now that I personally am not in favour of forestry policy becoming a Community responsibility.
And so to part three, on Mr Santini's report.
I believe Mr Santini has addressed a very important subject, and I should like to express my sincere thanks to him and to all the other rapporteurs.
It is now over 20 years since the subject of mining and mountain regions was first addressed in the Communities, and back then a framework was created for less-favoured areas.
Mountainous areas were given an especially prominent position within that framework.
The difficult conditions in which farmers work in mountain regions also warrant special consideration in the common agricultural policy.
However, we must not overlook the fact that there are other regions which have to struggle with specific problems, such as Nordic regions, dry areas and places with various other types of natural disadvantage.
We must not therefore make the mistake of examining the needs and wishes of farmers in mountain areas in isolation, without reference to all the other less-favoured areas.
This is clearly reflected in the wish expressed by individual Members that this report should be extended to arid and semi-arid or Arctic zones.
Moreover, an excessively individualised approach to the features of any specific type of rural area would run counter to the need to simplify our policy.
Allow me, in response to this report, to outline to you the way in which we intend to approach the problems of mountain areas in Agenda 2000 and the solutions we are offering.
We want to introduce greater degrees of flexibility and subsidiarity into rural development policies so that the Member States will be better able to achieve their objectives in terms of supporting rural areas.
In my opinion, the two principles underlying this approach open up interesting prospects for our mountain areas, because in the future it will be possible, by combining the existing subprogrammes and measures into a single programme, to set clear priorities in order to select from the many options those which guarantee the most fruitful development.
In this way the whole can become greater than the sum of its parts, and the specific needs of mountainous areas can be more effectively addressed.
Restructuring and topping up the compensatory allowance also create greater scope to reward specific contributions made by the farmers living in the less-favoured areas.
The place of mountain areas in the new provisions on rural development is therefore secure.
Madam President, Mr Fischler has said nothing about the question of funding.
We have tabled an amendment which states that cofinancing by Member States should be fixed at 25 %, with a 75 % input from the EU; similarly, we have this discussion about the other premiums, the compensatory premiums, which have always been paid in full, as you know.
It seems to me that the political assessment of these measures we are discussing here is often dependent on this figure of 50 %, and we should agree here on a lower national and regional cofinancing rate, so that the programmes will actually be accepted.
Madam President, may I begin by reminding the House in quite general terms that environmental policy and environmental measures in the agricultural sector cannot be a matter for the Community alone, but must also be a concern of the Member States and regions.
After all, these regions are where the people of Europe live.
With regard to cofinancing, then, let me point out that we already have 75 % Community funding in Objective 1 areas and 50 % in the other areas.
Since we are seeking to extend these measures, and since I also have the impression that the Member States are availing themselves of these schemes more and more frequently, we have laid down in the Agenda 2000 proposals, under which these environmental measures would be integrated into the overall rural development programme, that the cofinancing of environmental measures should at all events remain at 50 %, because in other situations, for example development aid for the less-favoured areas or mountain regions of many countries, the Community cofinancing rates fall considerably short of the 50 % mark.
In that respect, environmental measures outside the Objective 1 areas will certainly attract a higher cofinancing rate in future than other rural development measures.
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
EAGGF: 26th financial report
The next item is the report (A4-0298/98) by Mr Rehder, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the twenty-sixth financial report concerning the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF), Guarantee Section (1996 financial year) (COM(97)0589 - C4-0112/98).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, while it is certainly true that anyone reading this rather cryptic title will be taken aback, the report before the House is considerably more interesting than the title would suggest.
This report was drawn up because the European Parliament, representing the taxpayers of Europe, has the right and the duty to carry out exhaustive checks on the management of Union finances.
And the precept of good housekeeping - a virtue in men and women - enjoins us to ensure that taxpayers' money is being used economically and that any misuse of funds is identified and penalised - to ensure, in short, that something is done here to stop such abuses.
This agricultural budget attracts particular public interest because it accounts for almost half of the entire EU budget and because, sadly, sufficient care has not always been taken in the past to comply with this housekeeping principle of economical and proper use of tax revenues.
We know that not only the Court of Auditors of the European Union but also the national audit offices of the Member States apply very stringent criteria.
For all their necessary rigour, glaring errors do still occur.
Some of the objections and defects undoubtedly result from the impenetrable application jungle, which causes many applicants to make unintentional mistakes.
There, now, is a task for you, Commissioner - to cut a swathe through this forest of bureaucracy; this would be one type of deforestation that every environmentalist would support.
We could then plant freeflowering vegetation there which would create its own natural environment and would not have permanent links with the waste-paper bin.
Please have pity on the people who have not been trained to fill in forms but are entitled to aid by virtue of their farming activities.
A major part of these shortcomings, however, is down to subsidy fraud and often - and we sometimes forget this here in our parliamentary discussions - to a lack of willingness on the part of the Member States to prosecute and, if necessary, punish those who misappropriate EU funds with quite the same vigour as they apply to breaches of national law - despite the fact that the European Union even makes funds available to the Member States for verification purposes.
This is an utterly untenable situation.
It is also intolerable, as the European Court of Auditors noted, that a mere fraction of wrongfully received support funds is actually reclaimed, thanks to the continuing inadequacy of the statutory instruments available.
If this were to occur in the average small municipality, in the treasury of a county town or in any other town hall or city chambers, the mayor or members of the administration would face suspension from office in countries where the law so provides.
In this context it would be advisable, if only for educational reasons, to prescribe cofinancing in future in the realm of the EAGGF. I say 'educational reasons' because it would be a means of bringing home more clearly to the Member States that it is basically their own money or the money of their own citizens and taxpayers that is being managed so casually and - I have to be blunt - often sloppily too.
Another point which merits criticism is that a significant proportion of allocated budgetary funds are still not being used.
When we examine this report, we see that in the reporting period, the year 1996, this sum only amounted to ECU 1.3 billion. That, however, was a result of the BSE crisis, which created a demand for considerable extra resources; in 1995 a total of ECU 3.5 billion went unused.
To the taxpayer, that is an enormous amount of money.
And that brings me back to forestry policy, where we could surely have put those funds to far better use in Germany over the past eight years.
These vast surpluses show that the contingency planning which is necessary in every political domain has been overdone in this case.
The present legal position - and this is the crux of the problem with this whole business - is that these funds have to be returned to the Member States.
For many Member States, including my own, the agricultural budget has developed into a sort of cash box which offers governments an annual opportunity to plug revenue gaps which their own policies have created and to convey the impression that national fiscal policy can more or less ensure survival.
But the agricultural budget is not a cash box; it is the principal means of preserving the rural areas of Europe for those who inhabit them and for everyone else.
Every penny is needed for that task, because we must also try to reverse the sins of the past.
For that reason, I have proposed in the report that an annual reserve of ECU 1 billion should be created from the agricultural budget.
If there is a surplus at the end of the year, this reserve should be used to improve the rural infrastructure in general and above all to fight unemployment, which naturally exists in rural areas too.
Mr Mulder took up this idea and, being a experienced budget specialist, perfected it.
Thank you, Mr Mulder.
This demonstrates that such joint efforts across the party-political divide are effective, and that we can achieve progress if our minds and our work are not dominated by these divisions.
The European Parliament is far more agreeable in that respect than is sometimes the case, unfortunately, in other parliaments.
On the downside, however, there are other Members of this House who have been fighting tooth and nail - unsuccessfully, thank goodness - to prevent any further public identification of the real problem within our agricultural support policy, namely the fact that about 80 % of agricultural subsidies are still being paid to only 20 % of all farmers and that the beneficiaries are the most prosperous farmers rather than those whose need is greatest.
There is not an ounce of social justice in that, Commissioner, and I am certainly grateful to you for having replied last year to a written question from a doubting Thomas - his real name is not Thomas - in the PPE Group, by reaffirming that there has been no fundamental change in this intolerable situation.
Not until we have eliminated this problem shall we obtain the support of the European taxpayers for a new and sustainable policy for rural areas.
We need that, not least because of our 20 million unemployed, and we need a support system that will put an end to this lunacy whereby a farming millionaire - whose millions I do not envy him, because he and I will meet the same end - to this ludicrous situation whereby this farming millionaire receives tax subsidies he does not need while there are others in rural areas who need them desperately: smallholders, for example, who basically have no option but to work themselves into the ground to eke out a living.
We then need an effective support ceiling, which should only be raised if we resurrect old solidarity requirements, and I refer specifically to the requirement that everyone should have the right to a decent job.
If this additional requirement is fulfilled, we can think further ahead.
We also need - and this, of course, is something we have been discussing today - a new integrated policy for the less-favoured areas.
I emphatically endorse everything, Commissioner, that you and some of the Members of this House have said about the danger of starting to think again in terms of several little money jars - one for mountain regions, one for maritime regions, one for moorland regions, one for wetland regions.
All of these regions do deserve help, but they deserve help because they all have a shared problem: they simply cannot compete with the economically stronger regions, but they still have to be kept alive.
That is why I would warn everyone against a continuation of this piecemeal approach.
The basic elements of the Commission's ideas which I have read about are undoubtedly sound.
An integrated rural policy must also ensure that new jobs are created in rural areas.
By that I mean not only employment in agriculture or related sectors, but also high-tech jobs.
Advanced technology does no harm to rural areas.
That is why the microchip factory in Untermagerbein, which is near my home, must be basically feasible.
These things need not always be in the centres of population; they can be located elsewhere.
We have actually talked enough about all these principles.
In 1996, we adopted my report by a large majority, and I should be pleased if all my fellow Members were prepared to vote for these things, not for the sake of bringing the discussion to an end, but so that these proposals can be turned at long last into concrete policies in your own countries.
For some of those who were sitting here just a short time ago, it would serve as a timely reminder to do that in their countries.
The gradual demise of many villages in your countries and in mine will ultimately lead to the decline of rural areas in general. These areas account for 80 % of our European territory.
And our Europe will only have a future if its rural areas have a future too. That will only be the case if we finally stop producing new paperwork.
Let us create a future for our rural areas, and then we shall preserve Europe.
Madam President, I think that Mr Rehder has produced a splendid and very interesting report on the financial report of the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund.
It is always important - we also talked about this earlier today - to ensure that the EU taxpayers' money is spent prudently.
I also think it is crucial that we in Parliament adopt the position of those who take a critical line on what we see.
That must be our task as democratically elected representatives, and that is the approach adopted in Mr Rehder's report.
The Commission's report on agricultural expenditure for the financial year 1996 is in many respects an excellent report.
It gives an account of factors which have affected the expenditure on agriculture in the year in question: enlargement of the Union to 15 countries, implementation of aid during the 1992 reform and expenditure associated with the BSE crisis.
In addition the Commission also reports on the implementation of a new factor, which I think is very important, namely a plan to avoid fraud against funds for agricultural support.
The plan involves the setting up of a database, registration of control systems, identification and more detailed registration of stocks.
All well and good!
There are of course some who get into difficulties, in my country too, as a result of what is called excessive bureaucracy, but it is good that we have these things.
When we pay out money, we must also be sure that there is proper control.
On the other hand, I do not think that the Commission's report pays enough attention to the way the funds are used in the Member States.
The problem with control is that it varies from one Member State to another.
In other words, one cannot expect that people will be treated uniformly in the various countries of the Union, even though uniform rules are actually applicable.
That is not good enough!
That cannot continue indefinitely.
We need to have proper control over the use of all these resources.
Of course I know exactly what the Commission will say: do you want more bureaucracy? Do you want to make things even more difficult?
And of course that puts us on the spot. We need to create a system that can also function.
It is thus clearly also necessary to ensure that the agricultural reform points in the direction of a more transparent system than we have at present.
I want to say to end with - and Mr Rehder also had something to say about this - that social imbalances are manifest in the way the funds are distributed.
We can see quite clearly - and the Commission's report says nothing about this, but we can see - that 80 % of the funding goes to 20 % of the farmers.
What is the reason for that? No doubt there are many explanations, but I really think the Commission owes us an answer as to what it considers the explanation to be.
Madam President, Commissioner, if I may, after listening to Mr Rehder's lecture in presenting his report, I will repeat the title of the report we are debating.
We are debating the twenty-sixth financial report on the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, Guarantee Section (1996 financial year), submitted by the Commission under Article 10 of Regulation No 729. In addition, I would remind you that, since 1987, the budgetary period no longer coincides with the calendar year but runs from 15 October to 15 October.
Therefore, let us look at the subject under debate.
What, in fact, is it all about? Basically, it involves determining whether what has been spent corresponds to what was budgeted and whether we have resolved any unforeseen situations that have arisen.
I think that, broadly speaking and at a basic level, this has been done.
Therefore, I agree with what is said in the Commission communication regarding final appropriations totalling ECU 40 828 million, which coincides with the agricultural guideline for 1996, which is the year we are discussing.
And with regard to spending, ECU 39 107.8 m was divided among three main areas.
The first was the full payment of CAP subsidies.
The second was the enlargement from 12 to 15 countries.
The third was the unforeseen BSE crisis.
Nonetheless, the share of agricultural spending in the general budget dropped by 1.2 %, from 51.7 % to 50.5 %.
I also agree with the breakdown of spending by economic characteristics: restitutions, intervention, etcetera, together with the review of control systems in some sectors.
In this connection, when we review what is sent to us by the Commission, small, intimate details are revealed.
For example, I would like to ask the Commissioner how it is that Austria, in only three years, has virtually caught up with Germany in terms of Regulation No 2078, that it is drawing dangerously close to Germany in Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development-environmental accompanying measures and is well ahead of France and the other countries.
But that is merely incidental.
However, this and much else besides has already been stated by the rapporteur, but I regret that I cannot agree with him on paragraphs 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 of his report, which will not be supported by myself nor my group. We feel that they have nothing to do with the report we are dealing with and that they also seek to introduce subjective statements, which are positive neither for the common agricultural policy nor for our dairy and arable farmers, together with guidelines for the future CAP, such as the issue of cofinancing, which were not requested in this report.
I would like to thank you, Commissioner, as I always do, for your presence in this Hemicycle, since you never fail to attend and endure long and tedious sittings as today's might be described by those who are following it here.
And I would like to end with a phrase from page 42 of your communication, which states that the Community represents a unified economic area for agricultural products.
Commissioner, today more than ever, given the circumstances we are experiencing, this should be the case and I hope that it will continue to be the case.
Madam President, first of all, let me say that I welcome the fact that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has delivered an opinion on agricultural expenditure in 1996, since this is normally the job of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I think that it is extremely important for the agricultural sector itself to do everything it can to ensure that the agriculture budget is spent correctly, because when we talk about irregularities and fraud in the farming sector it is not primarily the farmers or growers who are responsible, but other areas of agriculture.
If we want to increase support for farmers in Europe, which is what all of us in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development wish to see, we must ensure that money is spent correctly, and I think that Mr Rehder's report makes a significant contribution here.
The previous speaker has already thanked Commissioner Fischler for staying here for such a long time, and I would like to pay him another compliment, even though this is something he is not exactly used to receiving here in the Chamber.
We very much appreciate the fact that the Commission has complied with the Budgetary Control Committee's demands relating to the 1992 discharge, which come up again indirectly in the 1996 report, for 15 extra officials to be appointed to improve monitoring, and for an extra 25 % fine to be imposed if Member States do not implement agricultural expenditure correctly.
I think this is one way in which controls can be improved.
Regarding the rest of the Rehder report, I agree with the previous speaker - and it has nothing to do with the kind words he said about me - that there are a number of points which actually have nothing to do with the financial report for 1996.
Over the next few months, we shall be looking in detail at all the problems associated with Agenda 2000 - and whether the 80/20 ratio is fair or not, I think it is inevitable that some sectors will always receive more than others, because some sectors will always be close to the soil.
If we want to maintain the countryside we must, by definition, give it more money than we give to a greenhouse, or whatever.
You cannot just say that all sectors must receive an equal percentage of the agriculture budget.
I cannot agree with this approach.
One final point about the accompanying measures.
I have just heard that the report is to come out any day now, perhaps as early as next week.
This is excellent news.
I think that one of the main points in future discussions will be how to combine the environment and agriculture.
I would be curious to know exactly why it is that only five of the 15 Member States are making use of the accompanying measures.
Austria is a good example, but that could have something to do with the Commissioner here.
However, I would really like to know why certain environmental measures are successful in some countries but not others.
If we can find out the secret of how they should be applied in countries where they are not successful, I think we will be on the right road in spending the agriculture budget.
Madam President, I do not want to over-egg the situation but I would like to follow on from Mr Mulder and pay tribute to the Commissioner for his patience and fortitude in staying to this late hour to listen to us going on about him.
I congratulate the rapporteur on bringing forward a thought-provoking report on the EAGGF.
Mr Rehder calls into question many important points and we can quite readily take them on board this evening.
One of the things referred to which struck me immediately is the complicated life the farmer now leads because of the number of forms he has to fill in.
Most farmers are prepared to fill in as many forms as necessary to get whatever support or aid they require but there is an argument that the forms could be easier to complete.
I am sure the Commissioner is aware of forms which are highly complicated and technical.
I know these forms assist in controlling fraud but there should be a greater degree of flexibility at local level.
I receive regular complaints from constituents who have made genuine, innocent mistakes in their application or claim form resulting in the refusal of a grant.
They come to me as their MEP because they have been told that at local level there is no discretion to recognise what is a genuine mistake.
That is one area we could look at to make the system more user-friendly to the farmer.
At the moment in Northern Ireland there is no structural support.
The relevant programme was so popular that it was oversubscribed and no more applications could be accepted.
That shows the importance of such support to rural communities and farmers especially at this very difficult time.
We have to try to address some of the points Mr Rehder and Mr Mulder have made with regard to the long-term future of the reform package.
Mr Mulder raised the interesting point of why some national governments are more successful than others in bringing in the environmental measures.
The answer is that some governments just do not want to introduce these measures.
It is as simple as that.
They are not prepared to put up the matching funding that is required to get the measures started.
We heard about this in the earlier debate.
So there is a good opportunity for us to debate and find the best way forward.
Madam President, I wish to thank Mr Rehder for his report.
He emphasises the cost of the common agricultural policy. Yes, it is about 40 % of the Community budget at the moment but that reflects more on the size of the Community budget than on spending on agriculture.
When you consider the size of the European Union, the number of farmers involved, the area and the problems, we are spending 0.4 % of GDP on the common agricultural policy.
This is the price we pay for the policy of seeking to maintain the population of the European Union in the rural areas.
If the policy did not exist, if we left it entirely to market forces, there is no question but that the flight from the land would have been very much accelerated.
It is disappointing, of course, that we have not succeeded in stabilising the number of people living in rural areas.
Similarly, today we are spending about the same amount of money on the policy as we spent 15 years ago, but only half the number of farmers are involved.
I predict that in ten years' time - say, at the end of the next programme - instead of the seven million farmers we have today, we will probably have four million farmers, and yet we will be spending more money.
When you consider that, along with the point that 80 % of the money is going to 20 % of the farmers, then we have to say that perhaps at the moment it is time - I do not want to decouple it from production entirely - to consider a greater variety of schemes - and certainly now the money can be spread more widely.
Too few people may be receiving too much money as the whole industry becomes restructured, and some very big producers get the compensation foreseen in the reorganised policy.
I am a little concerned about it.
I would like to see a variety of policies that are based more on programmes such as the Leader programme - I know it is going to be retained and strengthened.
But to maintain the population in the rural world we need to do a bit more than just relate it directly to volumes of production.
Madam President, Commissioner, I am the last speaker this evening, but I do wish to use my two minutes and to thank you for staying with us.
What are we talking about this evening? We are talking about the support measures, about compensatory measures for our farmers in Europe.
The guarantee section of the EAGGF mainly finances expenditure in connection with the common agricultural market and pricing policies.
A large percentage of the fund is used for interventions to regulate the markets for agricultural produce.
In the 1996 financial year, the agricultural budget ran to ECU 40 828 million, which represents 50.5 % of the general EU budget.
We did have a rise in the agricultural guideline, precisely because the reform of the CAP, with the aforementioned new criteria, resulted in the aid available to the Member States being fully utilised for the first time, and because the European Union increased in size from 12 to 15 Member States on 1 January 1995.
However, if we measure this rise against the increase in the general budget, we find that agricultural expenditure has declined by 1.2 %.
When it comes to dealing with public money, thrift is always a virtue, and expenditure must be seen in the light of the task in hand.
Turning over the complex field of the common European agricultural policy requires adequate finances, and agriculture is the policy sector which is most comprehensively supported, and indeed monopolised, by the European Union.
Besides compensatory support schemes for productive holdings, the European Union also provides accompanying measures which reflect its responsibility for the environment and for the victims of structural change.
These measures are important, and I welcome the proposals in this area, Commissioner, which you have made in the Agenda 2000 framework.
I support the rapporteur's call for greater transparency, and above all for the simplification of the complex application procedure.
We shall no doubt have ample opportunity here in Parliament to discuss the future shape of the EAGGF in the framework of Agenda 2000, and I therefore take the view that points 11 and 12 do not belong in this report on the financial year 1996.
Thank you, Mrs Klaß. I have seen something quite remarkable during my spell in the Chair this evening.
Everyone has shown a respect for their speaking time tonight which could hardly be bettered.
In conclusion, I now give the floor to Mr Fischler.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too have no wish to try your patience at this time.
Let me begin by expressing my sincere thanks to Mr Rehder for the report and to the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for the interest that has been taken in this twenty-sixth financial report on the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF.
I also wish to thank the rapporteur for supporting the reform of the common agricultural policy.
In the present context, however, I believe there is no need for us to engage in a debate on Agenda 2000.
We shall have many more opportunities to do that, and the same applies to the own-resources report.
But when I am asked why the environmental measures and the accompanying measures have been so successful in the country with which I am undoubtedly most familiar, my reply is that there seem to be are two decisive reasons for this.
The first is that we began back in 1987 with comprehensive fact-finding and discussions on the need for multifunctional agriculture, and that we perhaps developed a few things rather earlier than was the case elsewhere.
Let me give one small example from my time in charge of the agricultural portfolio.
When I was appointed Minister of Agriculture in 1989, I inherited a budget of two million Austrian schillings for the promotion of organic farming, and when I left the Ministry a few years later some 270 million schillings had been earmarked for that purpose.
The second significant reason is simply the fact that there is a social consensus in the country on the need to take an appropriate degree of national responsibility for conserving the countryside and safeguarding sustainable forms of agriculture.
Raising the requisite funds to cofinance these measures has never really been a problem in Austria.
But now to the business in hand.
I should like to limit my remarks to a few main points that relate directly to the financial report.
First of all, there is the matter of the unused funds.
Let me place on record that the volume of unused funds was halved from 1995 to 1996, and in the following financial year, 1997, it has been further reduced to about ECU 400 million.
This is equivalent to the Community's financial obligations in the agricultural sector for about two days in the year.
As far as the expenditure estimates in this sector are concerned, because of various imponderables there will always be a certain margin of error, since nobody can forecast the weather or market trends with absolute certainty.
As regards checks on expenditure, I fully subscribe to the view expressed by the rapporteur.
As for the rejection of considerable amounts of expenditure during the clearance of accounts, I will concede that this is partly caused by complex application procedures and by inadequate checking in the Member States.
Many of the rejections, however, are also due to the fact that the Member States' interpretation of the CAP implementing provisions has differed from that of the Commission.
We want to eliminate these problems and have adopted a number of measures to that end.
We are trying to simplify the provisions in question and formulate them more clearly, so that these dubious interpretations can be avoided as far as possible.
Part of this effort is being made in the Agenda 2000 framework, but there are other vehicles too, especially the SEM 2000 project.
Then we are supporting the Member States as they try to solve their verification problems; this support is provided through measures covered by budget chapter B1-3600.
In addition, we are trying to improve the procedure for the clearance of accounts, and we shall continue to apply flat-rate corrections and guidelines to the clearance of accounts.
On the question of imbalances in our financial support, a point raised by several speakers, I should like to emphasise that we have addressed this problem in our reform proposals.
We shall simply no longer tolerate a situation in which a small percentage of farms receive the bulk of the grants.
Let me stress that one of the aims of the common agricultural policy is to ensure that producers receive appropriate incomes.
To achieve this goal, however, farms must not rely solely on grant aid.
We need more market orientation, primarily so that enterprising farmers and processing businesses can take full advantage of the opportunities available to them.
The market situation is good and well balanced for many products I can think of, particularly wine, fruit, vegetables and other - mainly specialised - types of produce, and producers can secure an appropriate level of income by selling in these markets.
As for the more technical issues concerning the budget guideline and the expenditure forecast, I am interested in the proposal for the establishment of a general budgetary reserve covering the estimated funding requirement but within the guideline framework.
When it comes to the matter of repaying unused funds to the Member States, the bottom line is that the EAGGF appropriations are only provisional estimates.
To that extent, the repayment rule contained in the regulations is justified, and it would no doubt be very difficult to have this rule amended.
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Thank you, Mr Eisma.
I have taken note of your request and I will pass it on to the Bureau and, in particular, to the College of Quaestors so that they may examine this matter in the most positive light possible.
Mr President, regarding the Minutes on my speech yesterday, I want to raise a point.
I mentioned at the end of my speech on Pinochet that I feared that the British Government was about to do a deal to let him go.
In this morning's Guardian it is reported that precisely that is going to happen.
I just want to confirm that my prediction was correct.
Mr Kerr, you are aware of the leniency of this Chair, particularly on Friday mornings, which are peaceful days.
But this has nothing to do with the Minutes.
I see that there are no comments on the Minutes.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, on a point of order.
I have, on a number of occasions on a Friday, raised the fact that this sitting, which is often a very good sitting, is not televised. It is not available for television companies to use and it is not available for archives.
I should again like to press the point and ask when this sitting is going to be properly televised and treated like any other.
Mr Hallam, I note your concern, which I share because, being in the Chair, I could appear more often on television but, in all events, Mr Hallam, I will not forget to pass this matter on to the appropriate authorities.
VOTES
Mr President, I merely asked for the floor to make a brief preliminary remark concerning the amendments which have been tabled.
This report was adopted unanimously in the Committee on Agriculture, after which a compromise was reached with certain groups which had tabled amendments on a point of substance.
The report on a strategy for mountain regions is a more thorough examination of one aspect of a general report, submitted during the last parliamentary term, on less-favoured areas in the broader sense.
Mrs Anttila, who is here with us today, is to present a report on Arctic areas within a few days from now.
During the next term of Parliament, someone will be presenting a detailed report on arid and semi-arid zones, a subject already dealt with many years ago.
I now have to put to the House some amendments from a single group, the EDN Group, the same amendments on which we had reached agreement in the text of the report, and which seek to generalise the issue once again, thereby taking us a step backwards.
We have the opportunity today of exploring one specific aspect of this subject, while other aspects are dealt with in other reports. This means that we have a possibility at last of getting right to the heart of various problems, without restricting ourselves on every occasion to grand declarations of principle which everyone can endorse but are neither down-toearth nor practical.
That is why I can accept only some of these amendments: those which do not detract from the concrete, pragmatic nature of this report and, above all, do not conflict with its title.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr Wijsenbeek has a point of order.
Mr President, as this week has been rather heavy with its three voting sessions, I am not asking for a secret ballot pursuant to Rule 121, but for a more discreet vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would refer to the Rules of Procedure and ask your respectful silence to give Mr Wijsenbeek and also this Chair a degree of peace.
Mr President, I feel that I must comment on the result of this vote. It was a fine exercise in parliamentary democracy, without a doubt.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy was right: we were simply voting on the addition of four words, the usual four, in all the amendments.
These are the four words which distort the original intention of this report, intended to cover mountain regions exclusively, given that - I repeat - arid areas have already been discussed and Arctic areas are to be discussed at next month's plenary.
It would be as if I were to resubmit all my amendments on mountain regions next month, on Mrs Anttila's report.
This has been another case of indulging in grandiose declarations, but yet another total failure to get to grips with the real issues.
Nothing changes, the report is perfectly valid - that is why I did not ask the chairman of my group to vote against it - but once again we are talking a lot of hot air.
We are incapable of producing down-to-earth legislation with which our citizens can identify.
Mr Santini, it is not the Chair's practice to cut speakers short, but please bear in mind that your statement is virtually an explanation of vote and re-opens the entire debate.
But I do not intend to reopen this debate.
We have already voted on this matter and the vote is the most democratic expression of our Parliament.
Our group voted in favour of the Iversen report on the promotion of agricultural production methods compatible with the requirements of the protection of the environment and the maintenance of the countryside. At the same time, we are aware of the problems posed in implementing the CAP and international agreements, either within the framework of the WTO or as part of free trade agreements that the European Union establishes.
In fact, Mr President, I would like to remind the House that the Commission's proposals on the reform of the CAP, drawn up as part of Agenda 2000, force farmers to seek to make their land as productive as possible.
The development of intensive and specialised agriculture in certain regions of the European Union is only the result of the strange incentives offered by the CAP.
The proposals for reform as they stand today will only intensify these trends, in spite of the Community legislation on the protection of the environment and the maintenance of the countryside.
Finally, Mr President, I must remind this house that the GATT agreements do not incorporate the social and environmental dimensions.
The increase in the number of free trade agreements promotes agricultural production at low prices and therefore low production costs.
In order to be competitive, European farmers are forced to be as productive as possible, even if this means not being able to meet European environmental requirements.
To conclude, Mr President, our group would like to point out that Community policy, both on an external and agricultural level, is in conflict with European policies on the environment and animal welfare.
European farmers are, in truth, caught in a stranglehold that both hems them in and that hastens their extinction.
They cannot meet both the environmental requirements and the productivity requirements, which are linked to falling agricultural prices due to the disappearance of the Community preference.
Otila report (A4-0346/98)
It is important for farmers and foresters to be able to maintain their livelihoods when soil conditions change.
One option is to switch from farming to forestry, while preserving enough farmland for food production. Soil is a natural resource that needs nurturing.
Changes in land use must be accompanied by environmental and natural resource analyses, and a woodland certification system will be required to ensure forestry sustainability.
It will be necessary to involve organisations representing the farming and forestry sectors in this work. And overhead costs, changes in income, and the effect on the environment will all need evaluating.
I voted in favour of the report.
I vote for this report with a mixture of pride and concern.
Pride that Britain is one of the four best performers in the EU's scheme to promote tree planting as an alternative use for farmland. But concern that this report suggests that in general across the EU the forestry aid programme has not led to major changes, namely planting trees instead of yet more crops to add to Europe's food mountains.
The report's other worries about high costs per hectare of the tree planting programme also lead to doubts about how it is being implemented on the ground.
Given the importance of encouraging forestry, such as the highly successful British community forest movement which I know best from the Red Rose Forest in my own constituency, it is important that this report's concerns about other users of EU forestry aid are addressed.
That is why I back the report and hope that the Commission will respond with an early evaluation of the EU scheme to aid afforestation.
Santini report (A4-0368/98)
Despite their differences, diversity and individual features, the Union's mountain areas have one thing in common: conditions that make development difficult.
The very areas which concentrate the Union's greatest ecological heritage and biodiversity - an incalculable environmental asset - as well as traditional activities are facing increasingly acute problems of isolation, underdevelopment, desertion and decline.
Mountain areas are suffering the consequences of terrible political decisions which are accelerating their decline.
The natural, demographic and economic problems of these areas have been and are being tackled by inflexible, fragmentary and above all 'symptomatic' policies.
For example when, thanks to the CAP and GATT, policies are implemented which lead to the continual decline of farming, which is one of the main sources of employment and population maintenance in the countryside and in mountain regions, which is essential for the conservation of the natural environment and which does much to preserve nature and the countryside, how can it be possible to maintain and encourage the development of the countryside and of mountain areas and regions?
When quota restrictions are constantly being imposed on the production of basic mountain agricultural and livestock products, a problem which is particularly acute for southern products which cannot be replaced by others in the primary sector for reasons related to soil and climate, it is impossible to keep people and especially young people in those areas because of the lack of jobs, adequate incomes and a decent standard of living.
It is not by chance that Epirus in Greece, which is predominantly a mountainous area, is the poorest region in the EU, with Objective 1 status.
And all this at a time when the 'Agenda 2000' proposals are preparing further cutbacks in the agricultural economy and are advocating major changes which restrict the aid provided by the Structural Funds.
At the same time, the large distances which as a rule separate those areas from urban centres, their particularly difficult climatic conditions, the lack of infrastructure and appropriate technical support, and their inadequate and inappropriate road network, lead to isolation and restrict the potential for making the most of local products and for the proper operation of local markets, for the development of new economic activities, for the maintenance of satisfactory health levels, for education and for cultural activity.
Those problems are not only not being addressed, they are becoming worse.
Indeed, they tend to be regarded as permanent, inherent, even natural 'geographical' disadvantages.
Current policies need to be redirected immediately, and new policies must be developed which are capable of addressing and reversing the dangerous rate at which the Union's mountain areas are being abandoned and deserted, and providing real incentives for the development of those areas - incentives for the maintenance of population, jobs and income, for the development of primary and secondary production, the upgrading of infrastructure, improvements to the road networks and transport facilities, and for the organisation and provision of goodquality health and education services.
When our group tabled 31 amendments to this own-initiative report on mountain regions, we hoped to raise the awareness of both the Commission and the Council regarding the general situation of less-favoured and environmentally sensitive areas. Together with mountain regions, these are the most fragile rural areas affected by the CAP and particularly by proposed CAP reforms contained in the Agenda 2000 proposal.
For several decades now, these areas have experienced considerable desertification, as agricultural productivity is lower there and regular price cuts in agricultural produce are more difficult to compensate in such areas.
The way in which farming activity has responded, in development terms, to the different agronomic, pedological, climatic and environmental constraints experienced in these areas has been expressed in a variety of forms. In certain areas, the increase in agricultural productivity has been achieved by an extensification of farming.
In other areas, agriculture has diversified by incorporating additional activities such as agricultural tourism, for example. These developments determine the specific needs of actors in the rural world, such as public service needs and infrastructure needs, to improve communications and prevent communities becoming isolated.
It is, of course, vital that these needs be taken into account in the Structural Funds, but as regards agricultural activity in itself, such activity requires specific aid that is, in fact, a compensatory allowance for natural handicaps.
The difference in production between less-favoured areas and lowland areas must be compensated for as the future of these areas and the future of land-use management are dependent upon it.
As regards ecologically sensitive areas such as wetlands, specific environmental constraints imposed on these areas must be taken into account, as these also penalize the productivity of farms.
We must not forget that, in the wetlands for example, farmers must not only take into account the canals that divide up their areas of land but they must also maintain the overall infrastructure, keeping it as it often has been for several hundred years.
The disappearance of agriculture in these areas would lead to the disappearance of any economic activity linked to maintaining the countryside. But, most importantly, it would lead to the disappearance of an environmental balance that is part of the culture of these regions.
In conclusion, we ask the Commission and the Council to develop a true accompanying policy for the countryside that compensates for the handicaps these less-favoured and ecologically sensitive areas of the Member States of the European Union have to contend with.
The European Union's agricultural policy must take account of the countryside and the diversity of agronomic, pedological, geomorphological, climatic and environmental conditions.
Rehder report (A4-0298/98)
Agricultural support is very unevenly allocated.
Big farms and holdings in well-to-do agricultural regions receive large amounts of aid, while small ones in peripheral and sparsely populated areas receive very little.
The support system is complicated, and trying to understand it uses up farmers' and society's time and resources.
We need to gradually move towards paying more for what is produced and imposing less regulation and control.
It would be a mistake to do as the rapporteur suggests and further extend the system of checks carried out by the Member States.
The whole philosophy of increased surveillance and greater zeal in combating infringements of 'EU law' is misplaced, and will simply bolster the existing suspicion of both EU and national agricultural administrations.
We should strike out in the opposite direction, with less rules and controls, working for more market penetration and rewarding quality.
We were not able to vote for the Rehder report for the following reasons.
Firstly, and most importantly, because of what the report says about the 'outstanding' EAGGF appropriations.
The rapporteur proposes that we should examine the possibility of keeping this available for the CAP, instead of repaying it to the Member States.
If by 'outstanding' appropriations he meant money that had been entered in the budget for a particular year but was then not spent, I would agree.
But this is not the case in this report.
Recital F indicates that, for the rapporteur, 'outstanding' appropriations means the difference between the agriculture guideline and agricultural expenditure, and he wants to use all of this margin for the CAP.
What this really means is that he regards the expenditure ceiling for agriculture as a spending target, which is something we cannot agree with.
Furthermore, this report is not the right place to be making statements of this kind, and it contains even more sweeping statements about the future common agricultural policy and how it should be financed.
Such matters should be dealt with in the context of the Agenda 2000 proposals, not in this report.
Finally, we cannot agree with the description that is given of possible imbalances in the CAP.
According to the rapporteur, the current agricultural system is socially unbalanced because 80 % of the support goes to only 20 % of the farmers.
This gives the impression that the aim of the agricultural policy is to give all farmers equal support, but this is not how it is intended.
One sector may find it perfectly easy to operate profitably in the single market, whereas others desperately need State support.
Role of libraries
The next item is the report (A4-0248/98) by Mrs Ryynänen, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the role of libraries in the modern world.
Ladies and gentlemen, before giving the floor to Mrs Ryynänen, could I suggest that you follow Mr Wijsenbeek's advice?
I would ask you to be quiet, because we should like to hear what Mrs Ryynänen has to say.
I now give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Ryynänen, for five minutes.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the information society knowledge is a vital resource and information the most important raw material.
It is high time libraries were made the cornerstone of the debate, as their significance and their potential as meeting points for many phenomena relating to the information society have not yet been fully grasped.
One of the greatest threats with the information society is the growth of inequality.
It is libraries that can guarantee that all people have the opportunity to make use of the information and cultural input they require, irrespective of the form in which it is packaged, from the traditional printed word to the newest on-line data.
As on-line data becomes more common, the role of libraries is changing, but not declining.
They are becoming especially important as expert organisers of data obtained off the net.
In the deluge of information available we need guidance and signposts, so that anyone can get the answer they require.
Democracy, openness and active citizenship can only come about if everybody is able to access data such as legislation, decisions taken by other countries' governments, including EU data, and, for example, the press with up-to-date accounts of events.
There have been good reports about European information points at libraries.
More generally, we must make sure that data accessibility continues to be funded with the aid of tax revenue, and that the service remains free.
Producing on-line versions of catalogues, maps and statistics can ease the general process of accessing such information considerably, as it can be done very cheaply in terms of distribution costs.
The free-of-charge policy that exists for the basic services that public libraries offer is contained in the Unesco Public Library Manifest, yet reports indicate that lending charges have started to be introduced in many places.
The result has been a drop in the number of readers, that is to say the accumulated educational capital has a poor take-up rate, and the economic problems that libraries face will not be solved with the meagre revenue from charges.
The question of funds for libraries is something that has to be rethought all over Europe.
With current resources they will not be able to rise to the challenges of their task to provide diverse and traditional cultural and information services as well as the challenges of the information society.
However, lifelong learning in the information society puts even greater demands on libraries for the efficient utilisation of all manner of data and professional knowledge.
Further and complementary training in the library and information sector is a major challenge, and it is here that European cooperation can produce results.
Investment in information technology for libraries has to be seen as a major part of the basic infrastructure of the information society.
As information gets to be an ever more essential factor in production, it is worth investing common resources in its dissemination.
Pressure on the economy of libraries is due, for example, to fees they have to pay for housing electronic data, and converting catalogues and original data, in other words all their vast cultural heritage, into digital form.
When they are most effective, libraries function as networks that transcend all borders, including national ones.
Unfortunately, networking has barely got under way in Europe.
It is important that the Telematics for Libraries programme which was launched in 1990 and started a splendid process of cooperation should be extended in the fifth framework programme of research and technical development.
We need an EU library know-how centre to coordinate developments in the European library sector and to promote research and complementary education in the field.
At present we also lack comparisons of services offered by libraries in different parts of the Community.
Cooperation between libraries is rising high on the agenda in the information society strategies of central and eastern European countries, and in their endeavours to strengthen democracy.
In the current debate on copyright, libraries, archives and museums represent the view of the citizen and the user.
Safeguarding the institution of copyright and prevention of the illegal dissemination of information is only right, and is an important objective for libraries too.
The present balance that exists between the copyright-holder and the user of material should be maintained.
It is important, therefore, clearly to define the exceptions to exclusive copyright that safeguard the rights of libraries and users.
The ban on the use of digital information and cultural input should not be allowed to expand.
Unnecessarily tight restrictions on the use of a library, for example, by excluding private study, is at odds with the principles of lifelong learning.
Copyright legislation that is too stringent may, contrary to its aims, impair intellectual productivity in Europe.
I hope the Commission, when preparing its green paper on the role of libraries in the information society, considers the views expressed in this report and takes them on board in order to promote a democratic information society for our citizens.
Mr President, Mrs Ryynänen, thank you for a splendid report.
Our main concern about the information society is that we will become divided into those who can afford to access information and those who cannot; that is to say, the information-rich and the information-poor.
This gap must be narrowed by all the means available to us.
In Finland and other countries we have done this with the aid of the institution of the library, and we have been very successful.
We are the best-read nation in the world.
The essential task of the nation's libraries is to safeguard the framework of the educational and cultural system, and this is especially important with the minority language groups, which are difficult for the majority language groups to understand.
Under the Copyright Directive, electronic data may not be viewed on a computer screen by library users, meaning ordinary people, unless a special agreement is made with the copyright-holders.
This poses a threat to the modern library service, and is a big problem for the issues of equality, education and culture in the information society.
I consider this to be a stupid mistake which threatens to ruin the work of an institution that has proved particularly cost-effective in the culture sector, since libraries would then not be able to fulfil their task as providers of information.
They are free of charge to each citizen, and that helps those who cannot afford to purchase all the products needed.
This is something we have got used to.
The library has become a sort of church of information.
People need it and use it.
If its work is now to be impeded because of digitalisation and reproduction, then we will, depressingly, be taking a step backwards in the field of education, whereas we should all be doing our level best to develop it.
As I believe that this is rooted in ignorance, my position is that we change the Copyright Directive to enable libraries to continue their work and increase their educational role as a promoter of equality, and one that represents wisdom and justice, in today's information society.
Mr President, I would like to express the full support of the Group of the European People's Party to the rapporteur, Mrs Ryynänen, for her excellent report, and I will confine my remarks to a single point. Although we generally transmit only good news on Fridays, and particularly when Commissioner Fischler is present as a representative of the European Commission, today, Mr President, when discussing libraries, we must inform public opinion that our libraries are dying a slow death.
Millions of books in our libraries are being destroyed little by little. Our libraries are seriously ill, particularly the younger ones.
It is no exaggeration to say that we have an obligation to save our libraries.
Let me remind the House, Mr President, of the well-known fact that one third of the books published during the last 150 years are self-destructing.
The problem lies in the type of paper used.
Until 1803, paper was manufactured using linen or cotton fibres, which were stable and long-lasting.
In the middle of the 19th century, the heavy demand for paper led to the introduction of the so-called acid papers, which used a cellulose pulp base obtained from wood.
Experience shows that this type of paper only lasts several decades.
The extent of the deterioration of library collections is alarming.
It is estimated that approximately one third of the volumes in the collections of major libraries are in a bad condition.
We are talking about libraries such as that of the Congress of the United States, or the National Library of Paris, with 11 million volumes.
Therefore, this is a serious problem.
And the problem is by no means new.
Since 1990, we have been asking the Commission for equivalent resolutions and standards relating to the use of permanent paper and information for consumers.
Commissioner, we would like to know what is happening with these requests that we have been making to the Commission for almost eight years.
Mr President, Mrs Ryynänen's report, now under discussion, gives us a very clear picture of the role of the library in modern society. At the same time it maps out, in excellent fashion, the huge potential and the challenges to be faced on the part of the institution of the library over the coming years.
The report was put together with care and skill, in accordance with the best Finnish traditions of culture and education, and I wish to convey my warmest congratulations and thanks to Mrs Ryynänen for her work.
Education and culture are geared to development. They are also small countries' only protection.
When, for example, the EU puts together its development programmes, they might well flounder in recipient countries as a result of poor levels of education.
Libraries have always been powerful aids when it comes to national education, allowing the whole spectrum and all the best of human culture to be enjoyed by the entire nation.
They have supplied comprehensible and varied information, and provided information on skills and new discoveries, as well as applications in different sectors.
The importance of libraries in raising the education and living standards of western countries is enormous.
On the other hand, knowledge is power.
Control of information means power, and a lack of information means a lack of influence.
If national standards of education are not attended to, the result is a critical level of social inequality. The key to library development is the definition of incorporeal rights.
Copyright is a very important part of the western judicial system, safeguarding the rights of inventors, science and scientists. It also safeguards development in many fields.
Mrs Ryynänen's approach in this matter is the right one. While it keeps the institution of the library user-friendly and recognises it as the best cultural institution with such limited funding, it also puts forward an appropriate solution for the future development of copyright.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Ryynänen on this own-initiative report, which I think reveals the European Union's great potential for adopting initiatives in a range of areas relating to knowledge and civilisation, both now and in the future.
We fully support Mrs Ryynänen's views.
I would like to mention two points concerning the situation in Greece.
First, the possibility of providing libraries is not just a matter of economics.
Very often, the educational system too can play a major part, encouraging the young or even older people to make use of libraries. Very often too it can lock them out, imposing prohibitive restrictions on the use of these great repositories of human knowledge.
Greece is a typical example of the latter, and I confess that I felt a certain envy when listening to what happens in Finland.
In Greece, typically, all highschool students, as they approach their examinations for admission to university education, have to memorise one book, just one book in each subject!
If a student quotes from any other books, then he or she is sure to fail.
A student who can put all the commas, full-stops and dashes in the right places gets top marks.
The characteristic picture in Greek families with students finishing high-school is that in the evening, when the father or mother get home from work, the 17- or 18-year-old child sits there reciting the book to them from memory, because self-testing is not good enough.
Consequently, where the use of books is concerned, the educational system can contribute much, either positively as I believe happens in Finland, or negatively as I believe happens in Greece.
The second point I want to mention concerns the special effort we must make to promote libraries in the European Union's major cities which specialise in the culture, civilisation and knowledge of other peoples and languages of the EU.
I say this because, unfortunately, in many university faculties which have their own libraries, such as in Modern Greek studies in large cities such as Berlin, Munich and other cities in Germany, all that fund of knowledge is now declining, vegetating and at risk of disappearing completely.
In that sense, I think a general impetus to promote libraries, one which would attach special importance to those concerned with the languages and cultures of other EU countries, would be a very positive development.
Thank you, Mr Kerr.
You have just mentioned Mr Otto von Habsburg. Most unusually, he is not with us today because he is ill.
I take advantage of the fact that you have mentioned Mr von Habsburg to wish him a prompt recovery, on behalf of the House.
On Fridays, we need him here.
Mr President, I agree with all the recommendations contained in the report, which gives an accurate picture of the current problems.
Listening to the debate here, I can see that the situation varies greatly between the Member States, and I must confess to being a little disappointed with the text of the actual resolution after the recitals.
I am still a fervent supporter of the principle of subsidiarity, and I therefore feel that the European Parliament should not be pointing a critical finger where it has no instruments and no powers to change anything.
Quite the reverse is true, of course, when it comes to the recommendations for the Commission, which I have to say is doing very little in practice.
I would therefore like to ask the Commissioner responsible for culture what progress has been made on harmonising copyright and the concerns expressed in this report.
We all know that libraries have changed: they are no longer just places where books are stored, they have become information centres with Internet connections for the public, and they are becoming the focus of the learning society in which we will all soon be living.
I am therefore very pleased with the report and its recommendations, though I am not so happy with the rather critical tone it adopts, implying as it does that things are not going as they should be anywhere.
I think that what we actually need is some sort of exchange of information to show just how much progress some countries have made.
Mr President, the role of libraries in modern society has changed enormously.
In the past, when you went to a library, there were impressive long rows of books that you could take off the shelf, have stamped and take away with you.
Nowadays modern university libraries do not have books any more, but computers where you can look a book up and request it using keywords.
Fifteen minutes later you can take the book away with you.
In the near future, more libraries will have become virtual libraries providing people with information in every possible form.
All this is described in an accurate and informative way in Mrs Ryynänen's report, and I welcome the fact that we are anticipating these developments.
I agree that libraries need to work with each other at European level, and for me the main question here is which institution should deal with this.
It is not clear from the report why the Commission and Parliament should take this on.
Is it not more obviously a job for the Council of Europe and UNESCO?
Is there not an overlapping of responsibilities here? I think the arguments for dealing with this own-initiative report here in the European Parliament are rather weak.
The motion for a resolution also talks about a modest approach and organisation, so this is obviously an area where Europe does not want to arouse high expectations.
In view of all this, my main problem is with the passage in the resolution which calls on the Commission to speed up the production of the green paper on the role of libraries.
Subjects such as copyright, royalties and a European library network are important, but here again I feel that they are more a job for the Council of Europe or UNESCO.
If these issues were dealt with by the Council of Europe, there would be an even broader basis for cooperation because of the number of countries involved.
On the subject of copyright, the report fails to make any reference to the copyright convention of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the WIPO Convention.
I agree that there is a problem with acid paper, and I would welcome European regulations promoting the use of 'permanent' paper.
I would support a Parliament recommendation on this, but calling on the Commission to produce a directive on the subject before the green paper is even out seems to be going a little too far at the moment.
In my view, the European Parliament does not need to make resources available to promote cooperation.
Cooperation between libraries is an excellent idea, but I think that it is really up to the Member States to encourage it.
There are a lot of very valuable ideas in the resolution, and the report rightly stresses the importance of libraries for society.
As it says, libraries are important cultural centres, repositories of knowledge, information-providers and social forums.
We need to take care of them.
Libraries also have to move with the times.
It is a big step to switch from just books to all possible forms of information such as cassettes, CD-ROMs and networks.
I doubt whether the new media will completely replace the old, as the explanatory statement says, and I myself would stress the importance of the printed book.
This is part of how I envisage the transition from the bibliographical age to the visual or virtual age.
The American cultural philosopher Neil Postman has some very interesting things to say about this in his book 'Amusing to Death', which was published in Dutch as 'Wij amuseren ons kapot '.
What could be nicer than to sit by an open fire with a glass of wine and a good library book? That seems more appealing to me than sitting at a desk looking at all sorts of electronic documents on a screen.
But as I have already said, libraries need to move with the times.
My conclusion is that this is an excellent report with a very informative explanatory statement, but it is really something that the Council of Europe should deal with now, and Parliament could review at another time.
Mr President, this report is an important and extensive piece of work on the role of libraries.
As a member of PEN, I am always glad when Parliament deals with these subjects that are on the periphery of major world politics.
But I must call into question the historical roots behind the library idea, two of which were very important.
The first is to make it possible for the general public to read without having to buy the book, and the second is to enable them to find books which simply could not be found at that time in the many small bookshops.
But both these circumstances have since changed.
Today, books are in the main cheaper and, in what is known as the modern mega-store, every book is in stock anyway.
The challenge is therefore not merely a quantitative one - and this is the weakness of the report - but has more to do with making a qualitative contribution towards solving the problem.
We lack the ideas which would respond to modern consumer needs.
We must ask ourselves why fewer and fewer people are going to libraries.
If consumers no longer need them, then it is the job of libraries, and libraries alone, to win them back.
The report also mentions that libraries are probably never going to be a profit-making undertaking.
They are responsible, though, for arousing interest in consumers, so that they want to come back again and read.
Perhaps not just to read: maybe in future the library could be an intellectual database at the population's disposal.
With the modern techniques of electronic networking, the modern library could be linked up to all the libraries and archives in the world, thereby giving worldwide access to documents, articles and books, as well as all the other publications available.
This for instance would be a service that no bookshop, however large, could provide for consumers, and it would raise libraries' ability to compete.
We come back again and again to the problem of lifelong learning.
It is a right that we are going to have to prepare ourselves for.
Economic differences today are no longer a result of whether individuals can afford a book or not.
That was long ago.
Today, it is more to do with access to electronic information media, and by making learning generally available, modern libraries could help to open up lifelong learning to everyone.
Mr President, I also wish to congratulate Mrs Ryynänen on a most comprehensive report, and especially for focusing on the question of the future, because if the institution of the library does not respond to the new, its importance will wane.
Libraries must keep abreast of the times and, preferably, be ahead of them.
Everybody must be able to use libraries to obtain with ease the information they want.
The basic principles of public libraries must include a service that is free of charge to users.
I disagree with the previous speaker that charging for books would not cause people problems in seeking information.
In Finland, at least, books are so expensive that only a few people can afford to buy everything they need for study purposes, or for cultural reasons, for example.
The word library conjures up images of shelves full of books and lending facilities, but for decades it has served as a place to store records in ever-changing forms, and new electronic services and networks are increasing all the time.
Knowledge is to be found on the Internet these days, rather than on library shelves.
This form of information must also be available to everyone on exactly the same basis of equality as other data.
The Copyright Directive and other systems in place to protect people's rights must not prevent ordinary citizens from accessing the information they seek.
For example, in Finland, which has provided examples for other issues we are discussing here, we have what we call library compensation scheme, under which copyright-holders are paid royalties, on an equal basis, for works of theirs that are available to the public.
The adoption of this practice and its extension to other areas of information might be worth considering.
The institution of the library is based on serving citizens in their varying quests for information.
The library is also an institution used by the majority of citizens, an information bank for every man and woman.
This is vital from the point of view of society's objectives of social equality and for democratic development.
I hope that in the future there will be still more cross-border cooperation in the area of library development; the new technologies already require it.
Cooperation must above all be based on an endeavour to discover ways of working that can be applied in different countries.
Mr President, may I firstly thank you for your kind words regarding my father.
I will telephone him in a few minutes and pass on your greetings and those of the House.
I would also like to thank the rapporteur very warmly for her report, which I believe has been drawn up at a particularly important time, as Parliament is currently giving more comprehensive thought to new technologies and to copyright issues.
I also think that it is very important for this report to be dealt with during this Parliament, before the Barzanti report is discussed in plenary at the end of this year, and before my own report on the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
The amendments that I have tabled to the Barzanti report are concerned specifically with library issues.
I believe that in this regard we simply cannot forget what a remarkable role libraries have played in history.
If we consider the loss that the destruction of libraries, from Alexandria through to Sarajevo, have represented to humanity, then I think it is safe to assume that today's libraries will also play a very large role in future.
I think that Mr Valverde López was right to talk about the very real death of libraries.
I think we have to be aware of one thing. A library which is dying probably cannot be brought back to life by more money.
What is needed is better ideas, and these do exist.
A whole range of studies have been done, for instance by the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), or the ZKM in Karlsruhe. Not least, a conference was also organised by the ARCH Foundation in Salzburg at the end of last year, which gave scientists and contemporary artists the opportunity to express their views on how the works of the past can be passed on to the future, how they can be better preserved, how they can be protected.
I think we have a whole series of ideas here, and Mrs Ryynänen's report of course also makes an important contribution to them.
Mr President, I have learnt from my southern colleagues in this Parliament that half of every speech is dedicated to congratulating the rapporteur, and the speech proper then begins with a 'But'.
So I will do likewise this time, and congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Ryynänen, on the work she has done in the name of education and culture.
Working together in Parliament as we have been doing now for a long time, I have come to know her as someone who conscientiously applies herself to the issue of education.
The tradition of reading in the Nordic countries is founded on being able to read, and deciding what to read.
Libraries help to spread education and culture more evenly among the population.
The fact that they are free of charge is important, but it conflicts with a current, alternative economic policy: the neo-liberalist pay-to-study phenomenon.
Neo-liberalism is barbaric.
According to its doctrine, great wealth is needed to qualify for health and education.
This kind of economic policy is the death knell for libraries.
Libraries, however, are helping in the struggle against this alternative approach and the electronic hullabaloo.
If people are to have a basic right to access information, they must be able to distinguish between order and chaos.
Library staff have the important task of teaching people to distinguish between education and sensation.
This was by way of congratulating the rapporteur.
Now comes the 'but'.
The rapporteur is calling for the adoption of a panEuropean report on libraries.
I do not think that is wise. It is simply a way of officialising Europropaganda.
The European Parliament is an example of indoctrinated communications.
For example, financial assistance is provided for Euro News , which is used to produce electronic Europropaganda.
When I have followed different reports produced in Parliament, the Secretary-General appears to be the head of Parliament's propaganda section.
Libraries must be kept independent from the European Union, the European Parliament, and the other official institutions.
People themselves must have the opportunity to become aware of the options.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with the comments made by the rapporteur and earlier speakers: of course public libraries will continue to occupy a key role in social and information policy in the information society of tomorrow. We should continue to remind people of this, just as we should continue to call for libraries to retain their role of providing greater democracy and political education, for access to them to be free for everyone - this is a very important point - and for quality to remain high in rural areas too.
That is why in the discussion on the Directive on copyright, it was right to insist that libraries should be granted generous copyrights. In contrast to the previous speaker, I would like to emphasise two points in particular.
Libraries also have to assume new roles.
Looking at our own patch for example, public libraries could be much more involved as independent bodies providing information on the European Union. I would point to the very well organised network of Public Information Relays in the UK, which link up public libraries specifically offering EU information.
I hope that as we decentralise the public relations work of the EU, we can also induce libraries to take some of it on.
I also think libraries could already be doing more in terms of acting as transfer points in communicating contemporary European culture. In practical terms, this could be by way of mutual consultation, by acquiring books and videos from other countries and by directly exchanging stocks of books and multi-media publications with libraries in other countries.
This would be an important step, in keeping with the spirit of openness and tolerance.
I think that lending libraries could also quite easily be small Internet centres for schoolchildren and young persons who want to build up small communication networks on European culture, and here of course it is important that access to the networks for educational purposes is free of charge.
Finally, allow me to make one brief point: if libraries are to continue to offer reasonably-priced access to the cultural wealth provided by books, then in some language areas the tried and tested means of price fixing will be essential to protect the diversity of what is on offer.
I ask you: should only paperback American bestsellers be available in European libraries in the future? So, I would really urge the Commission not to sink into its dogma of liberalisation and competition, which is not in the citizen's interest, but to give greater thought to private methods of selfregulation in future decisions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by complimenting Mrs Ryynänen on her excellent work.
Libraries merit special attention within the European Union's cultural strategy, with particular reference to the information society.
They must be put in a position to play an active role in guaranteeing access to information and in communicating knowledge.
One fundamental task of libraries is to provide all citizens with basic knowledge and essential information, through works which contribute to an awareness of different identities and origins, fostering the cultural integration to which we aspire in the unique venture of building Europe.
Furthermore, libraries make a significant contribution to the depositing, organising, compatibility and transmission of information which, in the age of computer networks, should receive generous financial support from every one of the Member States.
Of course, the establishment of the telematics networks is still at an early stage, even though some cooperation does exist between national and parliamentary libraries, and between associations of European libraries, as is clear from the Telematics for Libraries programme.
It is necessary to further develop this cooperation and examine the possibility of different types of library services, so as to find out what opportunities there really are. One means of doing this is to promote smaller libraries, which play a special role and have a strong local identity: they are a public meeting-place for users, where a variety of social activities can take place.
In the fifth framework programme of research and technological development, the Commission should consider establishing a network of European libraries. One of its aims would be to cooperate on a technical level and to conduct targeted research into the manufacturing of permanent paper which does not deteriorate with age, so as to safeguard for the future our present library stocks, so rich in books and archives.
Finally, a European Centre for Libraries should be established, with well-trained staff, and entrusted with coordinating this sector. An additional benefit here would be the creation of new jobs.
Mr President, I welcome the opportunity to discuss this report on the importance of libraries for the European Union.
I agree with the rapporteur when she states that libraries represent one of the most important systems which afford access to knowledge and culture.
The report contains a number of interesting recommendations, some that are complex and, obviously, will cause problems, others that are more straightforward.
I wholeheartedly support the proposal that Member States incorporate public libraries in their general initiatives concerning the information society.
We are doing this in Ireland, and the Information Society Commission clearly recognises the value of public libraries.
The recommendation that the Commission unequivocally takes account of libraries and their role as an information source for members of the public when resolving copyright disputes, may well be opposed by some Member States.
Also the proposal for a multinational approach to legal deposit may also run into linguistic difficulties.
However, the call to the Commission to boost its input to the library sector by establishing a focal point to coordinate library affairs and to oversee developments will be universally welcomed.
I congratulate the rapporteur on her report and, certainly, it is an opportune time to discuss it, particularly in advance of the Commission's green paper on this subject.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by congratulating Mrs Ryynänen on her own-initiative report, without adding any ifs or buts.
The report shows considerable understanding of the technical, economic, cultural and education-related problems with which libraries are faced.
The role of libraries in organising access to knowledge is becoming more and more important and is particularly worthy of our attention.
In the face of the fast-growing supply of all types of information there is indeed a great need to link up public libraries in the whole of Europe into a network which is accessible to citizens and which conveys knowledge and culture just like schools or other institutions.
As the rapporteur has underlined, the Commission has actively encouraged the development of new library services, particularly within the context of the Telematics for Libraries programme.
It is gratifying to see that many Member States are now, partly as a result of pan-European cooperation, beginning to set up modern, networked library services, which are easily accessible to their users.
As the rapporteur's analysis shows, libraries are confronted with a very wide range of problems.
The fifth framework programme of research should place us in a position where we can support research work into many of the technical issues that were indicated, especially in terms of standards for processing, conserving and transferring information and the creation of links through Community projects.
Other aspects, for example issues of copyright or universal access, should be placed within a wider context.
The fact that the Directive on copyright is currently under discussion within several parliamentary committees should for instance contribute to preserving the balance on copyright between the various parties, as called for in the report.
The report asks the Commission to push ahead with its work on a green paper on the role of libraries in the information society.
Since March 1997, when the Morgan report was adopted, we have made good progress in identifying and classifying relevant developments in the Member States and in gathering background material on most of the subjects raised.
The Commission therefore thinks it ought already to draft a communication on the role of libraries, which could serve as a basis for coordinating all the important issues which affect modern library and information services and citizens' access to them.
The communication would therefore address a number of subjects of specific importance for libraries, such as lifelong learning, copyrights, the promotion of reading, regional information services, and extensive cooperation between public libraries in access to knowledge and culture.
Also, this communication could give additional impetus to including libraries in the 'User-friendly information society' chapter in the fifth framework programme of research and pave the way for future actions aiming to help citizens of all age groups and all sections of society to make proper use of digital information and services.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I would congratulate the rapporteur on the fact that her report has been unanimously adopted.
Mr President, it cannot have been approved unanimously.
I registered a symbolic abstention.
Thank you, Mrs Maes.
I see now that there was not complete unanimity.
I intended to abstain during the last roll-call vote.
Perhaps I was late coming in, or maybe my voting machine did not work.
I should like that to be recorded in the Minutes.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is no further need to explain abstentions.
It is sufficient to say that the resolution has been adopted by a broad majority.
I lay your consciences at rest.
Mr President, the vote was not unanimous as I voted against the resolution.
I have corrected my initial euphoria, Mr Striby, and said that the resolution was adopted by a large majority, which takes account of the two abstentions which have been mentioned and your own vote against.
Sign language
The next item is the debate on the oral question (B4-0489/98) tabled by Mr Hughes, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on sign language.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is fully aware of the significance of sign language for hearing-impaired people. It was emphatic in supporting the Birmingham University research project carried out as part of the follow-up to Parliament's Resolution.
This study showed that there are considerable differences between Member States as far as the state of development, the availability and the official status of sign language are concerned.
There is without doubt a lot of room for improvement here, and the Commission will continue to become involved where Community measures can be of additional use.
However, the Commission's view is that the main responsibility lies with the Member States, and that is why it is not planning any specific proposals on this.
In the field of education, however, there was for instance the Lingua-Surda project, which was supported within the context of the former Lingua programme.
Further cooperation projects on general or vocational training for people with special needs may be developed within the framework of the Socrates or Leonardo programmes.
As regards television programmes, the legal framework that currently applies in the Community has its legal basis above all in the 'Television without Frontiers' Directive, and in Article 57(2) and Article 66 of the EC Treaty, which provide for coordination of the legal and administrative provisions of Member States, to ensure that differences between them do not hinder freedom to provide services.
Currently though, we have individual state provisions on television programmes in sign language.
Turning now to the different text telephone systems used in the EU, in fact there are compatibility problems.
The Commission's view is that the easiest way to remedy this deplorable state of affairs is through agreed standards and it therefore supports the work that is being done on this.
The European Union of the Deaf has made clear its view that there has to be a uniform standard for text telephones in the whole of the EU.
Already in 1996 the Commission communication on equality of opportunity for handicapped people had spelled out the advantages of the 'Design for All' idea in connection with multimedia applications.
The Commission services are currently doing a study on 'Design for All' and on the integration of handicapped and elderly people into the information society, and this includes the accessibility of multimedia applications.
I am glad today to be able to tell you that on 22 September of this year, the Commission adopted a code of conduct for its own employment of handicapped people.
The arrangements for the application of this code include, amongst other things, sensitising Commission staff to the problems of the handicapped, and that includes the hearing-impaired.
Sign language interpreters will be provided on the same basis as other interpreters in order to make meetings accessible to the deaf.
But it is clear that, because everyone learns their own language, there are going to be as many sign languages as there are spoken languages.
If we were to request the hearing-impaired to make themselves understood in a single common language, then that would obviously be further discrimination.
At any rate, the Commission will continue to back a wide range of measures to protect the interests of the deaf, in particular by supporting the European Union of the Deaf.
Mr President, you can tell how civilised a society is by the way in which it treats its vulnerable members, not its strong ones.
Like so many others with restricted possibilities, the deaf have a distinct energy, they overcome their limitations and their senses are highly developed.
They often look more closely and that is why they are in a better position than most to see things properly.
But participation in technological developments, like text processing devices or videophone technology, and use of multimedia applications and increased communications, have been made more and more difficult for them over the years.
The European Parliament could lead the way by good example, and for instance have a special monitor up there in the gallery to transmit debates to the deaf or hearing-impaired.
We can see how alive sign language is when what is being said and done in a television programme is interpreted on a split screen or in a window placed on the screen.
Though of course this is mostly restricted to information programmes which are banished to the afternoons, when not many people are watching.
What does the Commission think of a quota system with a significantly higher volume of programmes, and how could this be implemented in Member States, Commissioner Fischler?
People who cannot hear are not speechless as a result of this.
That is why the Group of the European People's Party appeals to the Commission to fully recognise sign language as an EU language and to prepare a proposal for a directive along these lines.
The Commissioner has just pointed to some of the difficulties, for instance the different sign languages that have to be considered.
I am very well aware of this but I think that to start with one language would be the most sensible approach that we can take.
That would definitely also contribute to more equality.
And it would also clear the way for us to train more skilled interpreters in sign language and to provide adequate EU funding.
Then we could prove once again that there is a European added value, and minorities, as we call them, must of course also benefit from it.
Mr President, we are told that sign language - the language of those with hearing difficulties - does not enjoy official recognition in some Member States. The logical conclusion to draw is that people do not see any reason for the deaf to have their own language.
And that does in fact appear to be the case in some places. Yet it is not enough simply to acknowledge the need for sign language.
That language has to be used in everyday life to a much greater extent than is the case today. Those with hearing impairments must be given a chance to take part in public debate.
This means both providing them with information on what is happening and ensuring that they can truly participate in an up-to-date way. The first step is to increase the numbers of trained sign-language teachers and interpreters.
The news is now interpreted into sign language in Sweden, as is live TV coverage of important debates in the Riksdag.
This is excellent, of course, but there is scope for many more programmes with signing.
Television companies should be expected as a matter of course to offer sign-language interpretation of political debates and news broadcasts.
Such a requirement should, I believe, be included in TV companies' licence agreements.
The most valuable contribution the Commission can make is to offer the Member States support and urge them to act. The main responsibility does, after all, lie with them.
We can of course also do a good deal in the European Parliament. With a little help and encouragement from the Commission, let us hope that more Member States will recognise sign language, promote the use of signing during TV programmes and televised debates, and train more teachers and interpreters.
Perhaps we might set them an example here in the European Parliament.
Mr President, on behalf of our group I should like to express our support for the various issues that Mrs Schmidbauer raised at the beginning of this debate.
I listened to the Commissioner very carefully, and I think we can agree that the main responsibility does indeed lie with the Member States.
Nevertheless, as you yourself said, Commissioner, there are a number of measures that could be taken in the field of coordination, harmonisation and in particular the alignment of text telephone systems.
I think it would be extremely useful if you were to implement these practical measures.
I feel, however, that the Commission too should consider giving symbolic recognition to the Union's sign languages so that the deaf do not feel discriminated against here in the House, and so that the necessary measures can be taken to ensure that they can communicate with Parliament in their own language.
For too long now, sign language has not been given proper recognition, and now that the situation is changing we must be quick to ensure that it is officially recognised and applied in practice.
Thank you, Mrs Maes.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday, 18 November.
Late payment by the Commission
The next item is the debate on the oral question (B4-0490/98) tabled by Mr Pex, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on damage caused by the Commission as a result of late payment.
Mr President, the fact that I am asking this question in the Chamber today may be rather surprising, because as committee chairman I am naturally in regular contact with the Commission and often have the flexibility to deal with all sorts of things myself.
But there are now so many organisations that are having problems that I thought it best to bring the matter out into the open.
In my view, the purpose of granting subsidies is to enable work to be carried out that we regard as desirable, not to keep a number of civil servants busy all year until they finally grant the subsidies as an act of generosity.
It is the duty of the authorities to provide and maintain legal certainty.
This means that any subsidies granted must be notified in good time after the application has been received, and payment must be made as quickly as possible after notification.
Let me give you two examples.
The first was a small project in the United Kingdom in 1997.
ECU 15 000 was finally paid out in December 1997 after I myself had intervened.
The people concerned were not able to carry out the project because they had no money to pay for it.
The second example is an organisation with a number of staff which has been receiving subsidies for several years.
The sum in question here was ECU 500 000.
On 30 July this year, they received a letter telling them that they would be receiving a subsidy - on 30 July, when half the year was already over in which they had had to support themselves.
The first instalment was paid at the end of August, again after I had intervened, and the second was paid very soon afterwards.
The interest charges for this second project came to ECU 24 000.
I could give you dozens of other examples, but I will not mention any names, because companies beg me not to do so in case it harms their position in future.
I think it is important that if people are forced to borrow money to fund activities because they trust the Commission to honour its promises, they have to be sure about their situation.
If they have to pay interest, which we hope is not the case, then they have to know that they can recover it.
This year the situation is even more serious than in previous years, because after the Court of Justice ruling, the decision was taken not to make any further payments at all.
Just imagine what happens.
An organisation goes to a bank with a letter signed by the European Commission and is granted a loan on the basis of that letter.
After a few months, the bank starts to become nervous.
It asks the Commission what is going on, and the Commission says it is making no further payments.
Organisations are getting themselves into enormous difficulties, not just in terms of liquidity but also with their banks.
According to what I have been told, a number of organisations have had to stop work because of this.
I think this is absolutely scandalous, and I would therefore, in short, ask the Commission to guarantee Parliament two things in the 1999 budget, in other words for next year: firstly, that the budget promises will be honoured in the first quarter and, secondly, that payments will be made immediately afterwards, so that projects can start on time.
The budget lines are fixed here in Parliament.
The organisations concerned know about them as soon as the second reading is over, they submit their applications by the end of the year and expect to be able to start work very quickly.
We are the ones who commission all these individuals, private organisations and sometimes businesses to do this work, because we want them to implement our policy for us.
It is too ridiculous for words that we do this in a way which makes it impossible to guarantee that our plans can actually be implemented in the budget year for which they were intended.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the payment of subsidies for measures in the cultural field that Mr Pex raised in his oral question did indeed have to be deferred until September.
The Commission had already published a call for proposals in January, with a view to granting these subsidies.
However, because of the judgment on the legal bases from the European Court of Justice in May, the Commission was forced to suspend the procedure.
For the budget line concerned, created by the European Parliament, the requisite legal basis had not been enacted and this was confirmed at the trilogue meeting in the middle of July.
The trilogue decided that the Commission could pay out the appropriations to recipients selected before the judgment was pronounced, on the basis of legitimate expectations.
Because the call for proposals was issued before the beginning of the year, the Commission was therefore able to grant these subsidies.
We fully realise that the organisations concerned were in difficulties as a result of the funds being blocked.
The payments though were made as agreed within 60 days of the contracts being signed.
Compensation was not therefore deemed to be justified, and no money has been set aside for it in any case.
This problem will no longer arise in the coming year, because we hope this type of blockage of funds will not occur again.
At the trilogue, it was clearly established under which conditions budget lines can be implemented without a legal basis, and we are going to respect these.
Mr Rehder, that was not a point of order; it was a statement.
I would be grateful if, in future, you could ensure that you are included on the list of speakers.
The debate is closed.
I have received a motion for a resolution to wind up the debate.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Adjournment of the session
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
The Minutes of today's sitting will be submitted to Parliament for its approval at the beginning of its next sitting.
Ladies and gentlemen, before ending, may I express my thanks as usual to all of Parliament's services.
This week has had some tense and intense moments, which is inevitable when debating and adopting budgets. And, it must be said, everything has run very smoothly thanks to the efficiency of Parliament's services, thanks to the quality of the rapporteurs and, it might also be said, thanks to Mrs Fontaine's enviable ability to conduct the voting.
Ladies and gentlemen, this week began with the sign of peace.
The first words of our President, Mr Gil-Robles, were to honour the fitting award of the Nobel Prize to two of the greatest leaders of the peace process in Northern Ireland.
And we end, likewise, with the sign of peace, because these Friday morning sittings are extraordinarily peaceful, so much so that, when the time comes round again to nominate candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize, I am tempted to nominate the Friday morning sittings as a candidate.
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that I am successful.
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.15 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 23 October 1998.
Statement by the President
Welcome
I now wish to welcome the members of the new Northern Ireland Assembly to our Parliament.
They are present in the Distinguished Visitors' Gallery and with them is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, David Trimble.
In the same way that the other day we were able to congratulate and show our support for our colleague John Hume we take the opportunity today to offer our congratulations to this man.
(The House rose and accorded Mr Trimble a standing ovation) We wish the members of the new assembly a fruitful visit to Brussels and every success in the months and years ahead.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 23 October 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, regarding the matter of televising Friday morning sittings, can you tell me whether they will be televised from now on?
We will deal with this matter in the Bureau but we have had to organize extraordinary meetings of the Bureau to cope with a very long agenda.
I hope it will be dealt with very soon.
Mr President, on page 1 of the Minutes of the Friday of the last part-session, I predicted that the British would let General Pinochet go free.
Perhaps when you are sending your telegrams you can send one to the British saying they should send him to Spain where I believe there are many good prisons which would be happy to accommodate him.
The Parliament has had an opportunity to debate this question and has made its views clear.
Mr President, I want to refer to the change made to the agenda, with the introduction of Mr Skinner's report on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a mechanism for the Commission to intervene and abolish certain obstacles to trade.
My question is: why are we dealing with that subject now, when it was originally scheduled for the second November part-session, and what is the reason for an urgent procedure? We ask that it be postponed, given that the text of the Council's agreement is not available in all the languages - at least, I could not find it in my own - and that because of this urgent procedure there is not even time to table amendments.
Mr Theonas, the Skinner report was added because we have not received from the Council the common positions which we were expecting today. So, to make best use of the short time remaining before the end of the parliamentary term, the Skinner report has been included because it was ready.
I give the floor to Mrs Pailler.
Mr President, in March 1997 you sent a letter to the Governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, about the death sentence passed on Mumia Abu-Jamal and his planned execution.
I would now ask you to write another letter of protest to Mr Ridge who promised during his election campaign that the execution of Abu-Jamal would go ahead. Abu-Jamal has just lost his appeal and may be executed any day now, possibly even as we speak.
Could you also please write to the US Ambassador to the European Union?
I believe that Parliament, which has passed many resolutions on the death penalty and specifically on Abu-Jamal, must continue to show its support and desire for the protection of human rights, in particular to ensure that proceedings are correctly instituted, which has not been the case with Abu-Jamal, and that the death penalty is finally abolished.
Thank you, Mrs Pailler, I will write the letters as you request.
Mr President, I have here today as my guest, and as the guest of many Members, the Dairy Trade Coalition from the United States of America.
Despite the fact that I had passes for them to go into the visitors' gallery, they have been prevented from doing so.
Along with your welcome to the new Northern Ireland Assembly Members, I wanted you to welcome them also.
However, they have been prevented from entering the gallery which is scandalous considering that I made the necessary arrangements.
I do not understand what has happened.
Mr Killilea, our Parliament is so much appreciated that now the Official Gallery is full.
It is simply a matter of lack of space.
But I am sure we welcome them as we do any other visitors.
Mr President, Last week the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy sent you an urgent letter asking if we could have a statement here today from Mr Santer on what grants are to be made under the budget lines for human rights.
It was a unanimous and urgent request from the whole of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Can you tell me what has happened to that request?
Clearly it is not on today's agenda.
Can you explain?
Mrs Aelvoet, that letter did indeed reach me yesterday, and it was immediately forwarded to the European Commission, because in the letter, the Committee on Foreign Affairs asked for the Commission to be invited to make a statement pursuant to Rule 37 of our Rules of Procedure.
You know better than I do that it is for the Commission to decide to invoke Rule 37.
We cannot require it to do so.
The invitation was only extended yesterday and, so far, the Commission has not responded.
If and when the Commission indicates that it is willing to make such a statement, we shall endeavour to add it to the agenda.
In fact, that is not the worst thing.
The worst thing is that it appears that the European Commission has not yet concluded its debate and resolution on enlargement, and we are expecting Commissioner van den Broek to arrive at any minute bearing the latest information.
Clearly, if no decision has been taken he will have nothing to tell us.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I understood, and so did my colleagues from Northern Ireland, that we would have an opportunity to thank you for your welcome to the folks from Northern Ireland and especially the members of the new assembly.
I am sure that people in this House have firm opinions on this matter.
However, I would suggest to this House today that, as the people of Northern Ireland see some 200 convicted terrorists released on the streets, without any effort on the part of the terrorists to hand in their weapons, it as a democratic parliament would want to lend its voice in support of those who want to support the democratic way, and urge them to do it democratically, hand in their weapons and rid us of the plague of terrorism on both sides of the divide.
Mr President, all I would like to say is to express my deep appreciation to you and to the Members of this House for the welcome they have given today to the members of the Northern Ireland Assembly.
It is the first time in history that the entire membership of an assembly from any region in Europe has come here during our part-session and that underlines the strength of the feeling of appreciation in Northern Ireland for the support that our agreement and the peace process has received from the European Union and especially from this Parliament, and in particular the special Programme of Peace and Reconciliation.
The attendance of our assembly here today is a clear expression of that appreciation and their wish to ensure that they are fully informed as to the workings of the European Union so that they can make the best advantage of it when they take up office.
In relation to the matters raised by Mr Paisley: those are dealt with adequately in the agreement and the task of us all is to implement all aspects of that agreement and for all parties to do it together.
(Loud applause)
Mr President, I have a query about the Minutes which I believe we are still discussing, although I did ask to speak some time ago.
I made a speech on Friday 23 October which was incorrectly reported on page 10 of the Minutes.
I did not request a vote en bloc on the remaining amendments, but rather on the amendments whose aim was identical to that of the amendments which had just been adopted.
My remarks are therefore not correctly reported in the Minutes and I would not like there to be any ambiguity.
I am also astonished that this speech does not appear in the so-called 'verbatim' report, given that the verbatim report should be the complete version of events.
The Minutes are clearly not a verbatim record, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, but if you think that your remarks have not been accurately reflected, I would ask you to let us have the precise text of what you said in writing and it will be corrected in the Minutes.
Mr President, I wish to speak on the agenda but before doing so would like to add my voice to those who have welcomed the members of the new Northern Ireland Assembly here today and to tell them that we have always endorsed the new agreement in the North.
None of us want to see any more death or grief in any region of the European Union, in particular there where the situation has been so tragic for so long.
I rose to ask you to inform me further - as you have already done in writing - about an issue I raised some time back.
It concerns the UK Charities Commissioner, in particular the Director of the Neurofibromatosis Association, and her information to this Parliament, for which she was later censured.
I have not received an answer.
We have been in correspondence but I am raising the matter because I do not feel that I or this Parliament have received a proper answer.
It is a matter of the privilege of this House.
Mrs Ahern, I will check that and write to you again
Mr President, first of all, I should like to remind you that, on behalf of my group, I tabled an oral question on the visit by the Veterinary Committee to Portugal because I should like to be told of the findings of that visit.
We already know that an embargo has been introduced but I would like to remind the House of something with reference to the Rules of Procedure.
An extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Agriculture was convened for the sole purpose of voting on Mr Görlach's report on rural development, although it was not on the agenda but was the result of a gentlemen's agreement - if indeed there are still any gentlemen in this Parliament.
Yet the Commission took that opportunity to hear Dr Joachim Heine on the matter of BSE in Portugal, even though no Portuguese Member of Parliament was present.
The underhand, clandestine and cowardly way in which the Commission often acts - even when it is right - is a disgrace.
I am not saying that the Commission was not right to do this.
But it is not enough to be right; you have to know how to be right and the Commission does not know.
That is what I regret so deeply.
I am calling on the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, who is indeed a gentlemen and behaved as one, to do whatever is necessary to recall Dr Heine so that we can hear what our German colleagues have said about Portugal, whether or not they are right.
They should hold their tongues and show a little more common sense!
Thank you, Mr Rosado.
We shall investigate what has happened in the Committee on Agriculture.
Mr President, with the presence of the delegates from the Northern Ireland Assembly Parliament has again welcomed the agreement with a standing ovation of several minutes, and I wish to say that we too share in this celebration, as we did last time.
I asked to speak, however, in order to say that we have drawn a conclusion which I think could be the European Parliament's conclusion too.
What has been happening for decades in Northern Ireland is not exactly the same as what is happening in Kosovo, though there are important similarities.
And, Mr President, in Ireland there was no need either for unilateral military intervention by America or by NATO.
We reached a national...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Ephremidis, this is not a debate on Kosovo, and we are not going to debate Kosovo just because a number of guests from Ireland are present.
Mr President, I would like to return to the agenda and in particular to what Mr Theonas said. This is in connection with Mr Skinner's report.
In Parliament we have the new technologies of e-mail and all the other communication systems available, but nevertheless, we did not get any advance information that Mr Skinner's report would be discussed.
This really is a matter of principle. We should know in advance what matters are to be discussed, so that we can table any necessary amendments.
I do not think it is right that we should find out on the same day that we come to the Chamber.
The groups were already aware of this, Mrs Ojala, but their Secretaries-General initiated the change.
(The Minutes were approved)
The Commission representative is not yet present.
I shall ask the Commission's officials when Commissioner van den Broek is expected.
I am informed that the meeting has finished and that Commissioner van den Broek is on his way to Parliament by car.
I shall therefore suspend the sitting for five minutes. We shall resume in five minutes' time with Mr van den Broek's statement and the debate.
I am sorry that the Commission has acted in this way and put us in such a position.
(The sitting was suspended for five minutes)
Mr President, as the Commissioner was late in arriving does that mean that our hour of questions begins from when he stands up?
We will have three quarters of an hour because it will be followed by a statement by President Santer.
Enlargement
The next item is the Commission communication on progress reports on the countries which have applied for accession.
I give the floor to Mr van den Broek.
I trust that he will provide an explanation for the Commission's attitude and for this totally inexcusable delay.
Out of respect for the House, I think he is duty bound to apologise and give us an explanation.
Mr President, obviously I apologise for this delay and ask for your understanding.
I rushed out of the Commission after we had concluded our discussion of the twelve regular reports we have to send to Parliament and the Council.
This means that the results of this discussion in the Commission this morning are still being elaborated into the final text of the report which I do not have with me for that particular reason.
You will also be aware that President Santer returned from his visit to China only this morning which is why the Commission started its meeting one hour later than normal.
But I hope that after I have made my statement on the regular reports, there will be some understanding of the intensity and the scope we have tried to cover in these regular reports.
It is almost 18 months after the opinions on the candidate countries and 9 months after the formal launch of the EU enlargement process in London that the Commission has today adopted its first regular reports on each of these 12 candidates' progress towards EU membership as well as a composite paper that accompanies these reports and summarises them.
These reports will provide the basis for the discussions on enlargement at the Vienna European Council in mid-December.
I hope they will reach you as soon as possible.
Compiling these reports has been a huge task.
Last year's opinions were recognized as high-quality work and I am convinced that in today's reports we have taken our analysis to an even higher plane.
Commission officials have gained more experience.
We have worked with the candidates more intensely.
We know more and we understand better.
As last year, the Commission would not have been able to produce this work without information and advice from the candidates themselves, Member States and international organizations.
The European Parliament, and in particular its many rapporteurs, have also made a professional and valuable contribution to the EU's work on enlargement.
Our assessment has been conducted on the basis of the same Copenhagen criteria as the opinions last year.
The goalposts have not been shifted.
The work of our officials was expert, objective, impartial and free of political prejudice.
The reports look in detail at actual progress in the candidate countries, namely on the laws passed, on policy decisions implemented and on institutions created, rather than at intentions or promises.
This was the only way to be fair, and to be seen to be fair, to all countries.
We are well aware that all the candidates have much new legislation in the pipeline and once adopted and implemented they will be highlighted in forthcoming regular reports.
The reports show that much has been achieved but that there is also still a huge task for the candidate countries in preparing themselves for EU membership.
In the reports we do not gloss over the challenges they face.
We would be doing nobody - and least of all the candidates themselves - a service if we did.
Yet our assessment reveals that the inclusive enlargement process which involves all candidates remains broadly on track and that the momentum toward enlargement in the candidate countries is being maintained.
Our assessment does not lead us to propose the extension of negotiations to any further candidates this year.
In the case of Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia we conclude that the rate of progress has been sufficient to hold out the possibility of a positive recommendation regarding the opening of negotiations at the end of 1999 for Latvia.
For Lithuania and Slovakia we also hope to be able to recommend the opening of negotiations within a reasonable period.
This approach provides a clear political recognition of the progress that Latvia and to a somewhat lesser extent Lithuania have made to prepare for membership over the past 18 months.
In the case of Slovakia it provides necessary encouragement to the newly-elected government, as it seeks to put in place the policies and laws that will bring it closer to the European Union.
I shall discuss in more detail the reasons for highlighting these three countries in a moment.
In addition to the conclusions concerning Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia, we issue a stern reminder to the negotiating countries and in particular to the Czech Republic and Slovenia that they need to speed up their adoption and implementation of the acquis .
The slowdown we have observed since the opinions is a cause for concern.
It needs to be very clear that delays in transposition or implementation of the acquis cannot simply be resolved by transitional periods.
We also provide for the first time a comprehensive insight into each candidate's administrative capacity to apply the acquis .
This is an area where all the candidates will have to strengthen their reforms.
Another recommendation of a somewhat different nature is that the Council of Ministers should reconfirm its commitment to the aims and format of the European Conference as set out in the Luxembourg European Council conclusions.
This Conference was designed to provide the over-arching structure of the enlargement process, notably for second and third pillar issues.
We feel it should not be weakened by opening it up at present to a wider membership.
I should now like to provide a brief overview of the main findings of the regular reports.
I shall refrain from providing a detailed description of each country's progress and each particular sector.
That can be found in the individual country reports themselves which I hope will be available this afternoon.
In the case of all ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe, I shall briefly set out our assessment on the political criterion, the economic criteria, both of which are conditions for starting negotiations and on the adoption of the acquis , as well as each candidate's administrative capacity.
I will then make a few remarks on Cyprus, Turkey and Malta.
I begin with the Copenhagen political criterion which focuses on the stability of institutions, guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.
In last year's opinions the Commission concluded that all the candidate countries, except Slovakia, broadly met the political criterion for membership.
I will come back to Slovakia in a moment.
In this year's regular reports the Commission has again looked beyond the letter of the law and analysed the way democracy functions in practice.
Our overall conclusion is that the situation is encouraging as the candidates are continuing to consolidate their political stability.
Six of the Central European candidates - Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia - have held free and fair parliamentary or presidential elections in the past 12 months.
In Latvia the situation of non-citizens was given an important boost with the positive result in the referendum on the citizenship law.
It will ease the way for the naturalisation of mostly Russian-speaking non-citizens and stateless children.
In a number of specific instances shortcomings that the Commission highlighted in the opinions last year have not yet been adequately addressed.
In most of the candidate countries, for example, the judiciary still needs to be strengthened significantly and in some cases its independence needs to be reinforced.
Regarding respect for minority rights and other political criteria, the situation of the Roma in the candidate countries continues to be a cause of concern.
Slovakia deserves a special mention.
The Commission's assessment last year was that of all the candidates only Slovakia clearly failed to fulfil the Copenhagen political criterion.
Today's regular report covers developments since mid-1997, a period in which little happened to make us revise that assessment.
However, following last month's general election, a new government has been formed and a new impetus for political and economic reform is tangible.
This new situation also allows for the prospect of opening negotiations on condition that the regular, stable and democratic functioning of institutions is confirmed.
It will also be necessary before opening negotiations to verify that Slovakia has undertaken measures to correct the economic situation and has introduced greater transparency in its operation.
Those elements received less attention last year because the political arguments against the opening of negotiations were so overriding, but the economic elements were also mentioned in the report.
As far as the economic criteria of Copenhagen are concerned, these focus on two particular issues.
Firstly, the existence of a functioning market economy; secondly, the capacity to withstand competitive pressure and market forces within the Union.
For a candidate to pass the economic test, it needs to be a functioning market economy now and to be able to cope with competitive pressures in the medium term.
Overall, the candidate countries continued to make considerable progress in implementing economic reforms.
Elements such as privatisation, restructuring and liberalisation are clearly moving ahead in most cases and although the situation in all the candidate countries varies considerably, we believe that it is largely due to historical reasons.
Our analysis reveals that, as in the opinions last year, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia can be regarded as functioning market economies and they should be able to fulfil the second, the competitiveness criterion, in the medium term.
Hungary and Poland continue to be somewhat ahead of the others in this respect.
Commissioner, you have now spoken for more than one minute over the scheduled time.
Could you please finish immediately.
(Mixed reactions)
Mr President, Commissioner van den Broek just said, with reference to the progress made by Lithuania, that this progress must not, however, take the place of negotiations.
Perhaps the Commissioner can come back to this and explain exactly what he meant.
When we talk about the six that are negotiating, it is rather striking that a number of them have considerably slowed down the process of adoption of the acquis .
The reasons behind this can only be guessed at but we thought that the report should also be used to signal clearly - and I mentioned the Czech Republic and Slovenia in particular - that negotiations cannot replace the work that has to be done to take over legislation etc.
That was the main message here.
One may not draw the conclusion that would be a reason to move other countries which are not yet negotiating, but that do meet the criteria, to the negotiating circle.
We thought it was necessary that where we laud and commend improvement and progress, we also should be critical where some performances are lagging behind.
Mr President, I was pleased to hear the Commissioner's glowing account of Latvia's swift and steady progress, and I assume that full membership within the agreed time can now be negotiated.
I hope that Lithuania and Slovakia will now be subject to the same conditions.
I should like to know why the Commission did not mention in the summary it is preparing that Estonia had abolished capital punishment? Parliament has made it quite plain that countries which retain the death penalty cannot become members of the European Union.
I wonder whether the Commission has been forceful enough in conveying this message to countries that are negotiating membership, but where this grotesque sanction is still in force?
It is obvious that we are not speaking yet about membership.
We are talking about the preparation and process.
We are talking about the distinction between the preparation on negotiations of five countries and the actual negotiating by six countries.
It is obvious that at the present point in time none of the candidate countries entirely fulfil the criteria for membership.
That is why the preparation in general has to continue.
The measurement of that will be done year by year in the regular reports on the basis of the progress made by each and every individual candidate country.
Mr President, on a point of order.
There is something wrong with the procedures in this House when, on this issue, which is the major political issue facing the European Union, the Commissioner was cut off when giving his report.
I understand your need to keep to the agenda and your need to get through the business, but perhaps we could have asked Mr Santer to present his report at a later time and taken this item in full.
We were all irritated that the Commissioner was not here but, by the same token, we all welcome the fact that he has come straight from the Commission meeting.
It would serve this House and the seriousness with which we want to be taken much better if we had a proper debate on this and let the Commissioner finish his report.
I am very sorry that we did not do so.
Mr President, I think that Parliament and this debate would be better served if we had the full text of the Commissioner's report.
So I echo Mrs Green in asking for the Commissioner's full report to be made available to us so that he can have a proper chance to debate his report with us.
It was the Commission which said that it would present its report today.
The Commission knows it has ten minutes.
The Commissioner spoke, in fact, for 14 minutes.
The longer he speaks, the less time he has to answer Members' questions.
I cannot perform miracles but I can make a choice between letting him make a long speech or answering the many questions Members may have.
I have to try to make the best choice.
I understand your point of view very well but if we followed your line we could have 20-minute statements with no time to answer questions.
And answering questions is important.
Mr President, let me do Mrs Green and our President too something of a favour.
Coming up shortly is the Commission programme which Mr Santer will present to us.
I have to tell you that we have no documents about it at all. Would it not be a good idea to continue the debate on enlargement and say to Mr Santer: just give us the paper or the letters we need.
You have to give us the texts. So I am grateful to Mrs Green - give us the texts and we will postpone the debate.
I think that is a far better idea.
I have no programme.
It is not me who makes the agenda.
You have just approved the agenda with these changes.
If you want the House to remove Mr Santer's statement from the agenda to create more time, I will put it to the vote.
(The House accepted the proposal to remove Mr Santer's statement from the agenda)
Mr President, I am glad that we now can have a full debate on this important subject.
I noted very carefully the words of the Commissioner in relation to Slovakia - and I speak as the second vice-president of the joint parliamentary committee.
He used the words 'within a reasonable period we would open negotiations'.
In referring to Latvia, he said 'at the end of 1999'.
Are we to interpret 'within a reasonable period' to be before the end of 1999 or after? Can he not be more precise in the best interests of our relations with Slovakia?
With due respect, we will not make our recommendations for opening of negotiations in order to maintain good political relations because they were not the Copenhagen criteria.
As I said, we will judge on the individual merits of each and every country regarding the political criteria, which was at stake with Slovakia, and the economic criteria - both the market economy requirement and the competitiveness requirement.
Regarding the periods we have put in the conclusions of the composite paper, some elaboration may be required when you have had an opportunity to read the document.
We are saying that with regard to a future extension of negotiations, the Commission wishes to highlight the particular progress made by Latvia.
If the momentum of change is maintained it should be possible next year to confirm that Latvia meets the Copenhagen economic criteria and before the end of 1999 to propose the opening of negotiations.
It must be well understood that this is not a blank cheque.
Verification will take place during the course of next year as to whether the momentum of change in Latvia that we have broadly described in the report is being maintained.
On Lithuania we are saying that considerable progress has also been made.
However, additional measures are needed and some recent decisions by that country need to be tested in practice before it can be considered to have met the Copenhagen economic criteria which would allow the Commission to propose the opening of negotiations.
So we are mentioning the negotiations, putting that into a clear perspective and have described in the individual report what further measures need to be taken to have this prospect realised.
Finally, on Slovakia, the new situation created following the election also allows for the prospect of opening negotiations on condition that the regular stable and democratic functioning of its institutions are confirmed. This will need to be verified.
It will also be necessary before opening negotiations to verify that Slovakia has undertaken measures to correct the economic situation and that it has introduced greater transparency in its operation. Why do we say that?
It is because under the previous government one could say that the legislative part of a market economic system was in place but that there was heavy state intervention and a lack of transparency, notably in the way the privatisation process was being carried out.
This new government has already made known that it wants to change that but the effects must be verified before we are able, on the basis of the objective Copenhagen criteria, to recommend the opening of negotiations.
We clearly put this into perspective and the political signal from this conclusion cannot be misunderstood.
Mr President, I listened very carefully to what Mr van den Broek had to say.
First of all, I am confused about the ranking he applied.
I knew that there was a group of six countries applying for accession, with priority for the countries of central and eastern Europe and for Cyprus.
Mr van den Broek presented us with a different ranking, and that is important: the five central and eastern European countries, certain other central and eastern European countries, and then a grey area which, in one and the same group, included the Republic of Cyprus which is in the first area, Turkey which was not considered eligible in Luxembourg, and Malta, which has declined to embark on the procedure for accession to the European Union.
My question to Mr van den Broek is: how can we put Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus in the same group? Has anything changed in relation to Turkey and its attitude towards Agenda 2000, towards enlargement, since the Luxembourg European Summit when specific conditions were laid down for Turkey?
We do not think in different categories.
All these countries would be eligible for enlargement and all form part of an enlargement process.
We clearly explained last year how the enlargement process was operating, and the accession process. That notably related to countries for which opinions were made last year.
Cyprus which, as Mr Alavanos will remember, received an avis in 1993 and did not receive the same kind of opinion as such, has a different kind of preparation than the others because it was further advanced.
It was already a market economy and it is therefore now in the negotiating process.
As far as Turkey is concerned, we are complying exactly with the wishes of the European Council of Luxembourg and Cardiff.
So we made a regular report based on Article 28 including conclusions from Cardiff, including our comments on progress in the European strategy for Turkey and so forth.
Mr President, if I understood you rightly on Slovakia, you said that following the elections the new government has plans which, if implemented, will offer a chance to introduce democratic processes and the rule of law.
This has not happened so far, and there has indeed been some criticism in this respect.
I should be pleased if you could confirm this again. Is it the case that the President of the Commission will be receiving the Slovakian Prime Minister on Friday partly in order to mark the difference between this government and the previous one?
President Santer and I will be having talks with the new Prime Minister of Slovakia Mr Dzurinda. We will convey the following message: Obviously we welcome the new government in place.
As far as the enlargement process is concerned and Slovakia's place therein, we would be delighted to see a situation develop in which the stability of the political institutions, its democratic nature, the respect for human rights and the rule of law, including respect for the rights of minorities, would be confirmed.
Secondly, that the shortcomings we noted in the economic situation will be corrected by this government.
I expect very much that the Prime Minister of Slovakia will make clear what his plans are in this respect.
He will of course need a certain time for implementation.
We will closely monitor those developments and when we feel the criteria for the opening of negotiations as such have been fulfilled - and here I am thinking especially of the political ones, but also a number of economic ones - we will recommend the opening of negotiations.
That is the clear-cut message for the Prime Minister of Slovakia.
Mr President, the Commission has changed its approach with regard to the arrangements for coordination of the pre-accession instruments.
I should like to ask, firstly, for what reasons it has done so? And secondly, does this not mean that all the efforts will be concentrated on the PHARE programme?
I am not sure I understand what the honourable Member means by 'changing the approach'.
I am not aware of changing any approach.
When we talk about the coordination of pre-accession instruments, that has to do with the changes that will take place from the year 2000 onwards when, subject to approval by the budgetary authority, we will have more financial means at our disposal.
Mr Barón Crespo will be aware of this.
We will have to coordinate all the various instruments that underpin the preparation for accession in the candidate countries.
I know there is some discussion going on in the Council regarding the regulations we have proposed in this respect but I hope that conclusions can be drawn in the very near future.
I do not think it has a political connotation.
Mr President, Mr van den Broek, we welcome the fact that the Commission is showing a certain flexibility and is, after all, following this Parliament's idea of a starting-line.
But in the light of its proposals in the protocol on enlargement annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty, and of the fact that no progress has been made with the institutional reform of the European Union, does the Commission not perhaps see a risk to the negotiations and to early accession? What is the Commission doing, as the motive force of integration, in order to bring about rapid progress on these questions and on institutional reform in the European Union, which is part of its own domestic responsibilities?
It is quite right that while we are talking now about what we wish the candidate countries to do in preparation for membership, that in no way discharges our Member States from making progress in the EU's own reform.
This is embedded in everything that has to do with Agenda 2000, including proposals for policy change, institutional change and the whole of the financial framework.
One thing we want to try to avoid is that where we urge the Member States to make progress with Agenda 2000 - and we have made the proposals for that - we should not threaten the candidate countries and undermine their confidence by saying we are taking into account some delays in the European Union not to move them forward towards negotiations or to make progress with the screening etc.
You are quite right that things have to be balanced, that the EU Member States and the Commission have to take their own responsibilities and try to keep in step.
Finally, you know full well that when Agenda 2000 was presented last year, it was the Commission referring to the Treaty of Amsterdam, which gave clear preference to having the whole of the institutional debate in an intergovernmental conference, completed before the first enlargement, before the first new member entered.
Decisions have not been taken yet but it shows already that the Commission wants to accelerate as much as possible and, insofar as it has influence, the process of institutional reform of the EU itself.
This sitting is proving to be rather chaotic.
I hope that this is not a reflection of the enlargement process on which I have two brief questions.
Firstly, we have been told that Latvia could be included in the first wave, but what about Estonia?
Estonia is already part of the first wave but has it made sufficient progress in the treatment of its Russian-speaking minority and is Latvia not now overtaking Estonia in this respect?
Secondly, the Commissioner was interrupted at this point, but what about Bulgaria and Romania? Am I right in thinking that we are moving from a process of six plus five to a process of six plus possibly three, plus two, and that the two excluded are Bulgaria and Romania?
Are you not concerned that this approach may pose serious internal policy problems within these two countries which will find themselves completely sidelined, even though pre-accession instruments are being proposed? I believe that we are running the risk of destabilising these countries politically.
On the basis of the principles accepted last year in Agenda 2000, it remains possible that one country will overtake another in the preparations.
I am not saying that is the case between Estonia and Latvia.
Latvia is not at the negotiating stage yet although, as I said earlier, very significant progress has been made and there is a perspective.
But where Latvia has made more progress than Estonia is in the matter of the Russian-speaking minority.
I referred to the recent referendum in Latvia where this matter - notably of facilitating the naturalisation process and also improving the situation of stateless children - was approved.
There is still legislation to be adopted in Estonia.
As far as Bulgaria and Romania are concerned, it was not my intention to put them behind any kind of curtain.
It was in my speaking notes that I was not able to complete at an earlier stage to say that Bulgaria has made significant progress but comes from further back than a number of other candidate countries.
So we are very much encouraged by what the Bulgarian Government is doing which is laudable in many respects.
Unfortunately, I cannot be that enthusiastic about Romania, although I hasten to add that the present government, and especially the present Prime Minister, have concluded themselves that there is a delay in the reforms in Romania.
We are working very closely together with the authorities there, including the international financial institutions, to try to get the engine running at full speed again.
Commissioner van den Broek began his statement by saying that he was going to give a report on the 12 candidate countries.
Can one conclude therefore that the Commission views Turkey as a candidate country, not a potential candidate country? Has it interpreted the Cardiff Summit as meaning that Turkey is a candidate country?
Secondly, may I ask if this report has led the Commission to make any recommendations to change the format of pre-accession aid in order to strengthen the work in one area as opposed to another area?
Finally, to say that Latvia can begin negotiations at the end of 1999 is rather strange.
If Latvia is ready, it is ready now; if it is not ready, it needs to wait until the next report next year.
Is it not rather dangerous to say that we will open negotiations in 12 months' time? It leaves a lot of hostages to fortune.
Turkey is considered as eligible.
I do not deny that there is a very interesting ideological debate about the question as to whether it should be called a candidate or not.
As the Commissioner responsible for relations with Turkey I know exactly how to treat the dossier.
That has been enumerated both by the Luxembourg and Cardiff conclusions and the European strategy for Turkey is perfectly clear with all that it implies for preparation of membership.
Obviously with regard to Latvia you could say that it does or does not meet the criteria.
There is of course a certain grey zone if you say: I am very impressed by the significant improvements which have been made but if I look at the interaction between the economic parameters of the market economy requirement on the one hand and competitiveness on the other, I want more track record to be sure that these requirements are really being met.
That is the situation with Latvia, except for a number of concrete points that we have referred to in the report where we would like to see some further improvement.
That has in particular to do with supervision of the financial system, to mention just one example.
Mr President, it is a sign of a real parliament that it is prepared to eat its bread hot from the oven.
This afternoon we have seen an example of some of the indigestion which that can cause.
I suggest you and your colleagues on the Bureau might like to look at ways in which we can improve the flexibility of this plenary in response to both Commission and Council at moments like this.
Commissioner, it is time someone in this debate sounded a note of congratulations.
At least at first hearing what you appear to be proposing on Latvia, Slovakia and Lithuania seems an intelligent and pragmatic formulation and you should be congratulated on that.
But you only mentioned very briefly the largest and most difficult of the dossiers, namely Poland.
Would you now like to take the opportunity to say something about Poland?
Obviously Poland - the largest candidate country in terms of population - belongs to the countries with which we are negotiating.
There is a very positive note to make, namely that since we had a little incident with that country regarding the preparation and notably regarding projects we felt were not being carried out according to the accession partnership, the Prime Minister and his staff have taken the coordination of the preparatory process firmly in hand.
That can clearly be seen.
What cannot be solved so immediately is that it is a country with a still very considerable agricultural sector and with quite significant environmental problems.
But I would not single Poland out as the worst case although it is automatically the case that with a country as large as this, to a certain extent this dictates the dimensions of its problems.
You will find this in the composite paper which I hope will reach you today.
We have tried to summarise as much as possible - without leaving out any country- our general impressions of the whole process.
I should like to take this opportunity to add an important point, namely the debates we were able to have with Parliament last year about the 'ins' and the 'pre-ins'.
Firstly, the past year has clearly shown - and I give credit to Parliament for having urged us to follow those procedures - that the difference between those two groups has been greatly reduced.
We are screening them all and with the pre-ins the screening is moving in the first trimester of next year from the multilateral to the bilateral system.
This means that the bilateral screening of the pre-ins comes much closer to what we are doing with the negotiators.
This further reduces the difference and also means that when the pre-ins become negotiators their disadvantage by comparison with the ins will be less than it was at the start.
Mr President, once again the wind of history is blowing through the House, because it is a historic moment that the Commission has now decided to give the process of enlargement a new credibility and fresh impetus by recognising that Latvia should perhaps have been included in the first wave and could therefore be one of the first of the former dictatorships to become a member of the Union.
I should therefore like to ask the Commissioner to confirm that Latvia - if its current development is maintained - could very well be included in the first group of countries to become fully fledged Member States at the beginning of the next millennium.
So I would ask the Commissioner to confirm that Latvia now has the possibility of joining the very first group, and that Lithuania and Slovakia will of course be able to do so very shortly afterwards.
I should be grateful if you would confirm that, Commissioner.
It is always tempting to speak about very clear-cut dates but, especially with regard to membership, we know that many of negotiating countries at present are taking the working hypothesis that they will become full members in 2002 or, most of them, in 2003.
I am talking about the Group of Six.
My only answer is that I hope this is so.
But it is the candidate countries which have to fulfil the conditions to make it possible.The same goes for the opening of negotiations on which I elaborated earlier.
It is clear that there are the political criteria which are met by Latvia, the economic criteria where we say that we need some more track record but there is a clear perspective that you are approaching the stage where we can recommend this step.
That is the text in the conclusions of the composite paper.
Anything further than that is guesswork.
I was hoping the Commissioner was late because he was putting the final touches to the evaluation of Malta.
So I am doubly disappointed to hear you say, Commissioner, that it will be mid-February before you can come up with your new evaluation.
After all, the Commission gave a favourable opinion in 1995 as did this Parliament, on Malta's accession.
I would like you to give us the real reason for this delay and also to bear in mind that in Madrid in 1995 it was decided that negotiations would start with Malta six months after the end of the IGC.
Given that, is there any real reason not to include Malta in the first wave? I think you will agree with me but if you do not you should say it here that Malta is well qualified economically and otherwise ahead of other applicant countries.
I would like a precise answer here today.
If we want to do Malta justice under the circumstances which present themselves, namely after an interruption of two years of preparations for accession, it means that we should update our avis of 1993.
That is exactly what the Council has asked us to do.
So I have sent a letter to the Maltese authorities and the Foreign Minister will visit us tomorrow.
He was sent a questionnaire to fill in all the relevant data, which we have also collected from others, so that we can do the work of presenting an update of that avis .
I even mentioned a time, namely the beginning or middle of February.
So it is very close.
To Mrs Malone I would say that we welcome the revitalisation of Malta's application but we serve that country best by updating the situation.
I do not expect big suprises but verification should be made and on that basis we will see how Malta can best be incorporated in the further accession preparations.
I would like to clarify the confusion that at least exists for me following the exchange between Mr Alavanos and the Commission on the subject of Cyprus.
Let us assume for the purpose of our discussions here, that the problem of the Turkish minority not participating in the discussions did not exist.
I cannot understand how a minority should impose its rule on a majority, a fact apparently accepted by the European Union but anyway, if this were not an issue, how close is Cyprus to fulfilling the requirements for joining the European Union?
In the report on Cyprus there is an economic analysis.
The honourable Member will be aware that Cyprus has enjoyed quite a protected economy in the past so liberalization has to continue.
We certainly have no reason to warn Cyprus of anything although there are certain things, for example the banking system and some judiciary matters which could be improved and which belong to the package which all candidate countries are working on.
As far as the question of the North is concerned, I share the honourable Member's wish that the participation of the Turkish Cypriots would materialise for the simple reason that it is our common objective to see to it that membership of Cyprus eventually benefits both communities.
This has been stated umpteen times in summit conclusions.
But we cannot force anyone's hand - certainly not Mr Denktash's.
It is his responsibility if he continues to refuse to participate in the negotiating delegation.
In the meantime we shall continue our work with Cyprus.
Mr President, Mr van den Broek mentioned in his speech, when referring to the situation of gypsies or Romanies, that when it comes to political criteria, and especially the status of minorities, there is cause for concern in many applicant countries.
It is important that the Commissioner should have given attention to the status of minorities, which account for many millions of people, in applicant countries.
We know, for example, that many Czech Romanies have sought asylum in the United Kingdom and Canada.
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether the Commission has drawn any conclusions on what is now required of applicant countries to improve the status of the Romany population.
Apart from the encouragement to governments to continue to work on these issues, a number of our financial cooperation programmes - PHARE for example - include programmes to improve the situation of this minority.
As I said quite frankly, so far our conclusion is that it is not enough of a political priority in the policies of the countries concerned.
That means that in our contacts with them - and you will also find the request to do something about it in the accession partnerships - we will continue to advocate an improvement of that situation and make our programmes available to come closer to that end.
Mr President, thank you at any rate to the Commission for announcing this to Parliament first rather than the press, and also for telling us that some countries have made real progress and have thus moved up a step in terms of accession negotiations.
In the case of Bulgaria, I am happy to see that serious progress has been made.
I think one has to acknowledge that loud and clear.
But I have one question concerning one very difficult issue in relations between the European Union and Bulgaria, and that is of course the nuclear question, the question of Kosloduch.
And the Bulgarian Government's latest proposals talk of decommissioning dates which are quite different from what was originally promised and formalised in an agreement back in 1993.
So I would ask the Commission to tell us as precisely as possible how important it thinks this nuclear question is and how it affects Bulgaria's accession prospects.
I am being careful because I regularly tend to mix up the nuclear power plants in Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia.
But one thing is absolutely clear.
Nuclear safety forms an extremely important part of our cooperation with the candidate countries.
We have made it perfectly clear that as far as closing dates are concerned, we count on the closure of these plants on the basis of the nuclear safety agreements entered into earlier.
Moreover, one can sometimes dispute what exactly constitutes the lifetime of a certain element in a nuclear power plant and we are listening to experts.
Those are the experts who are connected to the EBRD nuclear safety account etc.
Lack of concrete data today prevents me from being more specific but rest assured that the question of the close down of nuclear plants, which we are convinced can never reach the levels of safety required by international safety standards, remains a high priority in our cooperation.
Mr President, I asked to be allowed a question as soon as the Commissioner began, and you are now telling me that the debate is nearly over.
But I have not had a chance to speak.
And yet, I observed that some Members have spoken - I am not complaining about that - who came in a long time after the Commissioner began.
What is going on? I repeatedly asked the gentleman who was sitting next to you, and he told me not to worry, because I was on the list.
And now you tell me that the debate is nearly over.
I asked to speak just after the Commissioner began.
I protest!
Mr Ephremidis, I have to distribute speaking time fairly among the nationalities and political groups.
Two people from your group have already spoken, and one of those, Mr Alavanos, is of the same nationality as you.
Many Members have asked to speak and I have been unable to allow them all to do so.
I do apologise.
These decisions are always difficult.
I give the floor to Mr Bonde.
I should like to ask Mr van den Broek whether the Commission has dealt with the institutional issues concerning the weighting of votes, the number of Commissioners and the number of decisions to be taken by qualified majority, whether the institutional consequences have been discussed with the applicant countries, whether there are any applicant countries which have said that they do not wish to have one Commissioner each, and whether any of them have queried the institutional ideas that are now being aired in the corridors?
In other words, what is the position of the applicant countries as regards the institutional questions? Have any of them asked for permanent derogations, for example on protection for second homes, chalets or weekend cottages?
Institutional and financial questions regarding the candidate countries are - looking at earlier negotiations - as a matter of tradition reserved for the end of the negotiations.
So the answer to the honourable Member is: No.
As far as the negotiations with the Six themselves are concerned, we will have the first ministerial negotiations on 10 November.
The common positions of the EU Council will be established on 9 November at the General Affairs Council.
A number of transitional periods have been asked for by candidate countries, notably regarding the telecommunications sector.
What exactly will be the reply? We have advised the Council and the presidency to ask for more clarification because we are not quite certain that the exceptions being requested reflect a correct understanding of the telecommunications and audiovisual directives etc.
That is the best answer I can give at the present time.
Obviously this is an ongoing process.
Thank you very much.
I am grateful to Commissioner van den Broek for making himself available to allow this debate to be extended, and for the clear answers he has provided to all the questions raised.
Partnership for Integration
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on Partnership for Integration.
I give the floor to Mr Bartenstein, President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Parliament's Committee on the Environment for tabling this motion for a resolution on what is one of the most important issues in environment policy, namely the integration of environmental aspects into other Community policies.
As we all know, and as has been discussed on many occasions both here in Parliament and in the Council, the source of many of our environmental problems lies in other policies.
It may be transport, energy or the agricultural sector, as Mr Bartenstein has already mentioned.
We need to make changes in these policies in order to improve the environment.
It is exactly the same when it comes to implementing the Kyoto protocol.
We can only fulfil our obligations if we involve other sectors and make changes in the policies there.
As you know, the Amsterdam Treaty gave impetus to the process of integration.
The requirement of sustainable development now occupies a central place in the Treaty, since it is included in one of the first articles.
The integration of environmental aspects has thus become a key instrument for achieving our objectives, and there is no doubting the priority attached to these aspects.
This is a significant victory and, I hope, a crucial turning-point in the development of Community measures on the environment.
I shall repeat what the Commission stated in its communication to the Cardiff summit: integration has become a commitment.
It is no longer simply a possibility.
I would be among the first to admit that this goal will not be easy to achieve.
We all know how difficult it is to persuade those responsible for the individual sectors - whether in the Commission, the Council or Parliament - to get to grips with environmental questions, in other words to tackle the environmental aspects, and - perhaps even more difficult - to coordinate their efforts.
I have been very pleased with the efforts made by the European Parliament, because I know how difficult it can be to convince colleagues working in other sectors such as agriculture and transport that they should take account of the environment.
The Commission's communication to the Cardiff summit and the clear and positive response it received have set a process in motion.
The request that all sectors within the Council should review their own policies and formulate a future strategy for sustainable development provides an essentially new dimension, in particular because it is linked to a requirement for indicators to be identified which can be used in the monitoring process and in policy development.
The Commission departments concerned are already working with the presidency on reports on the agriculture, energy and transport sectors for the Vienna summit, as Mr Bartenstein also pointed out.
We are talking about the first step in the process and, in the light of this, we shall have to decide on the subsequent activities.
Choosing indicators and reaching agreement on objectives are important factors in assessing the success of the strategies.
During 1999, we need to reach agreement on the indicators for those sectors which have the highest priority.
This task is not without difficulties, since it is with the help of indicators that we can obtain very precise information on the state of the environment, if we know the right indicators to use and use them correctly.
At the same time, the indicators are also what one might call a kind of tell-tale as regards the results of previous policy choices.
The Commission has also committed itself to carrying out environmental assessments of its major proposals, and you will see the first practical demonstration of this in the Commission's programme of work for 1999.
We have been very active in bringing about the integration of the environmental aspect, as can be clearly seen in the Agenda 2000 proposals.
I am quite sure that many of these proposals broke new ground in terms of integrating the environment into other policies, such as agriculture and the Structural Funds.
Now the challenge is to have these confirmed through final decisions at Community level, both here in Parliament and in the Council of Ministers, and here we still need to make every effort to achieve success.
The Commission welcomes Parliament's support in the process, since the motion for a resolution broadly supports the initiatives we have taken hitherto.
As far as I can see, there is just one small difference of opinion with regard to Parliament's wish to have a directive on this subject.
I do not entirely understand how it is thought that this could operate in practice, and in fact I believe that our proposal for a directive on strategic environmental assessment already represents a remarkable step forward towards integrating the environmental dimension into Member States' plans and programmes.
We are indeed therefore working very hard to ensure that this proposal is adopted.
I would remind the House that the Commission's communication on Partnership for Integration was also addressed to Parliament, with a request that it should review its own procedures to see how it could increase its contribution to integration.
I can see from the motion for a resolution that the House is carrying out such a review, and I look forward to working with Parliament on any measures which it decides to introduce in response to this request.
Mr President, I must say the very existence of this debate today is an example of the cooperation between Parliament and the other institutions.
It was very clear to us that we needed to have such a debate in public and this has proved possible with the cooperation of both Mrs Bjerregaard and Mr Bartenstein.
I am very pleased with the comments they have made today.
Articles 2 and 3 of the Amsterdam Treaty state unequivocally that environmental requirements are brought into the definition and implementation of all Community policies and activities.
The Commission communication on partnership for integration which reiterates this obligation is clearly a step in the right direction in our view.
In the light of enlargement, current Agenda 2000 proposals, Community strategy for implementing the Kyoto protocol and the Commission communication on the European Community biodiversity strategy, it is very clear that integration is important if we are going to achieve sustainability.
However, though I do not want to pour cold water on anything, I recall the words of Jacques Delors after the Rio Conference some years ago.
After that experience President Delors said that Rio tended to be about heads of state turning up to Rio making speeches just like the great and the good going to church on Sunday, praying ostentatiously and publicly for the poor and then putting the minimum in the poor box as they left the church.
It is not enough to say these things, welcome though the words are.
We need to do them as well.
It is not enough to say there is a need to do it.
The European Union has a tremendously significant role in this.
None of our individual Member States can tackle the problems of pollution and conservation.
None of the problems of trans-frontier difficulty can be dealt with by individual Member States.
Therefore we ought to deal with employment and industry, transport and agriculture etc. within the single market, the sustainability framework and the integration framework.The holistic approach is essential if we are to create real sustainability as outlined by the Fifth Environmental Action Plan which, after all, was developed in a straight line from Brundtland in 1987 to Rio in 1992 and Agenda 21.
Environment policy clearly has to be integrated into all policy areas.
It needs the maximum participation of the public, of industry and of NGOs.
It needs to be a genuine partnership.
That means we have to have a real look at current growth strategies and the reorganisation of current consumption patterns.
This resolution goes in the right direction.
It will provide further impetus towards the sustainable development goal we are all trying to achieve.
Unfortunately, some Member States are high on rhetoric and low on action.
Therefore, paragraph 10 and its instruction to the Council of Ministers to monitor Member States' action in implementing the communication and partnership for integration is important.
It is good to hear Mr Bartenstein's views.
It is a refreshing attempt to drive integration into the consciousness of Member States.
However, it is necessary to have a structure to ensure that it is not merely good intentions on the part of the Member States with words replacing concrete agreements and concrete actions.
We need these actions and we need timetables and I am very pleased to hear that the work on developing indicators is going ahead.
We need that to go ahead and we need to be quite clear about when we expect it to finish.
In conclusion, it is time to take these words and translate them into action.
There is no question but that the Council and the Commission have the full support of Parliament if they are genuinely supporting integration as a strategy.
Madam President, I think we are all entitled to congratulate ourselves on this joint debate between the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
It is most important for our citizens to be aware of the true nature of the Community's legislative institutions.
By means of a three-way dialogue, these three institutions jointly determine the final outcome.
It is also important for us to consider the implementation of what is already contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam, which it is to be hoped will soon be ratified by all the Member States.
Environmental policy has ceased to be a separate area. We have now adopted a holistic approach, and environmental policy is an integral part of all other policies.
This is the message we have to convey to every sector, and in particular to all the administrations.
Hence the importance of the agreement at the Cardiff European Council.
I am very pleased that the Council has realised that it is responsible not only for making national administrations aware of these requirements, but also for coordinating regional and local policies.
This is essential, otherwise we shall not be able to meet our objective.
It would also be desirable, in my view, for the Council to change its working practices. The Commission has already changed its internal working practices, and the European Parliament is preparing to review its Rules of Procedure for the next parliamentary term.
It is for the Council to decide, but joint meetings of ministers for the environment and other ministers are evidently not enough.
I believe the internal system should be changed.
As regards how best to convey specific instructions to other administrations at local, regional and national level, it seems to me that the system laid down in the directive on environmental auditing of firms could serve as an excellent model, and could also be applied to different levels of the administrations.
With reference to specific policies, Parliament has been waiting for some years now for the objective of replacing wage costs - or part of these - by environmental levies to be achieved.
Despite a number of efforts, we have still not received a satisfactory answer from the Commission and one which is acceptable to the Council, so the challenge still remains.
Specific measures are also needed to promote consumer habits which are compatible with sustainable development.
I do not think we have made a sufficient effort to promote alternative sources of energy, even though the Community institutions have dealt with the matter on several occasions.
Finally, Madam President, I think we should be delighted that the Council is hoping to give some continuity to its work and its policies regardless of the rotation of the presidency every six months.
I am sure too that we are all pleased with the work done by the Environment Commissioner, and glad that she has made a full recovery.
Mr President, firstly may I welcome Mrs Bjerregaard back to the Chamber.
I gather she is once more fully fit and ready to stand with us in doing battle for the environment.
Welcome back, Commissioner!
What we do here at European Union level serves as an example to the Member States.
We in the Union were the first - the Council, the Commission and Parliament - to incorporate the concept of sustainability into other areas of policy.
And we need to do it well, because then the Member States will have a good example to follow.
We have made people realise that including sustainability in other areas is not simply possible, but mandatory.
So we need guidelines and indicators so that we can check that it is being done.
Mrs Bjerregaard says it will be difficult to develop these, but we shall see what the Commission's programme for 1999 has to say on the subject.
More important still is whether or not we can in fact put the idea of including sustainability in other areas into practice, because the Amsterdam Treaty, which my country has today decided to ratify, requires Member States to take account of environmental imperatives in all other forms of Community policy.
So we shall have to see how that pans out.
Agenda 2000, the Kyoto agreement, biodiversity - these are the things which will prove whether we in the European Union can indeed integrate sustainability into all areas of our policy.
We have made a number of demands.
Every six months at least, we want a joint Council meeting between the environment ministers and other ministers for agriculture, transport and so on.
We also want ECOFIN and other Councils to consult the environment ministers when they take decisions on regional policy.
Lastly, a question to the Council representative.
At the Vienna summit shortly, you will be reviewing the progress achieved towards integration over the last six months.
There will be a document coming out of that, and we would very much appreciate being given this Council document and a chance to express our views on it.
Will you ensure that Parliament receives the document you will be debating or have debated in Vienna, so that we can express our views on it?
Madam President, Commissioner, I am glad you are with us again and are feeling better, and I am also very glad that this subject is now being tackled in a practical way under the Austrian Presidency.
Sustainable, environmentally friendly development in the Union has been enshrined as our aim for many years now.
We have not achieved this aim because there is often a wide gap between words and deeds, and because we have not had the necessary strategies and mechanisms for integrating environmental policy properly into the other policy areas and thereby achieving sustainable development.
I therefore welcome the proposed partnership for integration, and I hope - perhaps the President-in-Office and the Commissioner do not quite agree, but I think others may well do so - that Parliament will not just be involved in this partnership as a junior partner, but will have the same rights as the other institutions and work together with them in a very open and visible way on integrating environmental questions more closely into the other areas.
As an example, let me quote the Kyoto follow-up process.
We have committed ourselves to a definite target: an 8 % reduction in emissions in the European Union.
If we want to achieve this target, we must not only decide how to distribute the burden, but must also check whether the Member States really do reduce the emissions to the level to which they have committed themselves.
We should also consider what to do if they do not reduce the emissions to that level.
I do not agree that we do not need laws for this purpose, Commissioner.
I believe that a legislative framework is particularly necessary to meet the Kyoto target, because it is not just a question of indicators and objectives, but also of the measures to achieve those objectives and indeed of the measures to be taken if they cannot be achieved.
Madam President, it is easy to add one's voice to the general call by the Commission, the Council and Parliament for real action to integrate the environment into all policy areas.
I do not believe it is enough to speak of sustainable development in a general way.
We need to adopt an approach that aims to promote the improvement of the environment.
Traffic is of course one of the biggest problems, and the prevention of gas emissions is a central feature of our policy to improve the environment.
The best way of guiding consumer behaviour is by putting money in consumers' pockets, and the Auto-Oil programme is a good example of this.
It contains a system of tax incentives and penalties, the stick and carrot method, to promote the use of better-quality fuels and make the use of poorer quality fuels more expensive.
This scheme could be extended to many other areas.
The forthcoming AGENDA 2000 programme now under discussion in Parliament and the Council is a concrete indication of where we really want to be heading. On regional and structural policy the Commission's proposals are good as far as words go, but not enough has been done in practice.
The environment authorities really must be included in all programmes on an equal footing with the other parties that are actively involved.
In agriculture it is not enough to say that it is the task of the Member States to see to it that the environmental objectives agreed on are met.
There has to be action on a Union-wide basis.
Aid must not be granted if insufficient attention is being paid to environmental matters.
The work that precedes enlargement is important and it requires great efforts, because we cannot allow a situation where new states join before they have completed their environmental preparations and lengthy transitional periods are therefore needed.
We know that if enlargement goes ahead like this it will only harm the state of the environment in the future.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this brief but most important debate, because apart from a few criticisms and a few suggestions it has also brought wide agreement on what has been achieved by way of integration in recent months, starting with the UK Presidency and now under the current Austrian Presidency, and what will no doubt also be achieved under the German and Finnish presidencies.
It is quite clear that Mr Collins is more than justified in quoting Mr Delors: the days of speechifying must come to an end!
We have to take action, and to do so we need the right instruments.
We need indicators, we need aims, and we also need the mechanisms for reviewing them.
But at the same time we need a sense of common purpose.
Here in particular - and people have spoken of a trialogue - the Council, Parliament and the Commission must work together to achieve their goal.
For reasons of competition alone, individual Member States are rarely able to make progress here.
Only Europe can set an example of sustainable development, because we know that since Rio we have had anything but sustainable development, especially outside our continent.
But it is not enough for the Council, the Commission and Parliament, and the national governments too, to join forces; once again I agree with Mr Collins that of course we also need public support, cooperation with industry - in other words the private sector - and in particular with the non-governmental organisations.
We would all consider it impossible to pursue environmental policy without them.
Indeed, we can no longer regard environmental policy as a sectoral policy.
We need partnership with our government colleagues, however difficult that may be on a day-to-day basis.
New initiatives such as the joint Transport and Environment Councils may be important, but they are not the be-all and end-all.
Even outside these joint meetings, we must still feel that the environment and sustainable development are live issues that go beyond Environment Councils.
It is important and all to the good, and sets a good example for the European Union, that the first major measure to transpose the Kyoto protocol in Europe was taken at European, at Community level.
Let me reiterate my thanks to the Commission for its very successful negotiations with the European car industry: 15 % along the road to the Kyoto target, one seventh of the way, is a good start.
It must be followed by further European and also national measures.
Of course, Vienna should be another milestone in this process and it will be important to know how our heads of state and government respond to the reports the three Councils - whose activities I consider positive in principle - have submitted and will be submitting.
And of course I am prepared to inform the European Parliament immediately of the outcome of the Vienna summit in this regard.
There is a wide gulf between words and deeds, Mrs Graenitz said, and she is quite right.
But I believe that we do have some grounds for hoping that, with our integration policy, we now have the right strategy for capping words with deeds.
We not only have the right strategy, I believe we have the only possible strategy.
We know of no other, we know of no better.
I believe the real test will be how far sustainable development is now incorporated into our post-Kyoto strategy, our climate protection activities, and of course into the three important areas of Agenda 2000 - by which I mean the Structural Funds, the future of agriculture and EU enlargement.
We should be equal partners, and here it will be important to act at Community level.
In a few days' time, we shall be meeting in Buenos Aires for the next climate protection conference.
Even if it is not likely to produce the kind of results we saw in Kyoto, in the sense of defining major objectives, it will have to be a milestone towards laying down the rules of play, rules of play on which the European Union will have a real say, rules of play which make it clear that climate protection is one of the most important tasks on the way to achieving sustainable development, which is to say that it is also one of the great challenges.
With that in mind, I thank you warmly for your attention.
Madam President, I must first of all thank the House for its good wishes for my health.
Happily, I think I can say that I am on the road to recovery.
I agree with the many comments which have been made to the effect that we are heading in a direction where we must do something and that people are becoming rather tired of all the speeches and well-meaning words.
I think it was Mr Collins who pointed straight to Rio, and so it is of course important that we have also involved the Council and the heads of state and government directly in this project.
I agree with Parliament that it is a good thing that the presidency and the Commission are having this debate with Parliament today.
I also share Mr Collins' view that the problem cannot be solved by the individual Member States alone.
It is a Community project.
On the other hand - as Mr Collins stressed - it is of course a precondition that the Member States should stand by their commitments if we are to succeed, and at any rate we have Mr Bartenstein's word today that the presidency will do all it can to bring this about.
Likewise, I share Mr Valverde's view that the environment is no longer a sectoral policy, and I agree with the points which most speakers made as regards the results of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Clearly, financial resources play a major role in environment policy, but here in Parliament - and for that matter in the Council - it is known only too well what kind of difficulties we have encountered every single time we have tried to achieve any Community results in this sector.
We may not have been able to demonstrate major successes in this area, but that should not prevent us from continuing to work on it.
I can confirm to Mr Eisma that we are working on indicators and, as I said in my first speech, I am expecting us to be able to produce something much more concrete in this respect in 1999.
I stand by what I said earlier, namely that it is a difficult task, but I entirely agree with Mr Eisma that it is one which must be resolved.
Mrs Graenitz referred to the responsibilities of individual countries, and this ties in very well with the point which Mrs Myller made, namely that the local authorities play a very important role in environment policy.
I would once again stress that I believe that in Agenda 2000 we have a number of measures concerning integration of the environment sector which it is very important to maintain, and this applies to the agricultural sector - which Mrs Myller mentioned in her comments - and indeed also to the process of enlargement, where in my opinion we are facing greater problems than we have ever seen in terms of implementing a sensible policy on the environment.
I naturally hope that Parliament has noted the presidency's positive comments on the agreement with the car industry on CO2 emissions.
This was one of the debates I had with Parliament not so long ago in which we were not entirely in agreement, but we believe that this is a crucial aspect of the climate negotiations and that we have made a contribution to solving the climate problems.
That is why we worked very actively to achieve a result.
Let me end by saying that there is no doubt that practising integration is difficult, but on the other hand it is also necessary if we are to find the solution to our environmental problems now and in the future.
This requires all sectors to simply accept that they represent both part of the problem and part of the solution.
Only if all the parties involved accept and understand the situation can we hope for better decisions to be taken.
I believe that we have taken a step forward in the process, but we have only started, and I welcome the undertakings which Parliament and the presidency have given.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard, and I too would like to wish you a very speedy recovery.
I have received a motion for a resolution (B4-0981/98) to wind up the debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2) by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow.
Homeopathic medicinal products
The next item is the report (A4-0378/98) by Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Commission report to the European Parliament and the Council on the application of Directives 92/73/EEC and 92/74/EEC on homeopathic medicinal products (COM(97)0362 - C4-0484/97).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since September 1992 we have had two further directives in the European Union concerning the approximation of legislative and administrative provisions applicable to medicinal products and laying down additional rules for homeopathic medicinal products for both human and veterinary use.
In these, four considerations are paramount: firstly, the accessibility of homeopathic medicines; secondly, the quality and safety of those medicines; thirdly, information for users of homeopathic medicines; and fourthly, rules governing the manufacture and supervision of these medicines.
On behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I should like to particularly highlight four of the points made in the report.
Firstly, recognition. Article 6(1) says that each Member State must take due account of registrations and authorisations previously granted by another Member State.
To us it is not clear what is meant by 'due account'.
And who decides whether a Member State has taken 'due account' of the other Member State? This is an unclear formulation and we would like it replaced.
Secondly, the special, simplified registration procedure.
This applies only to products taken by mouth or used externally.
Other forms of administration such as injections, plasters, sprays, drops, suppositories and so on are excluded.
On the one hand there are no scientific arguments to justify this exclusion and, on the other hand, some Member States do use this specially simplified registration procedure for certain forms of administration.
Article 7(1) also restricts the special, simplified registration procedure to preparations where the degree of dilution does not exceed one part per 10 000 of the mother tincture or a maximum of 1/100th of the smallest dose used in allopathy for active principles in medicinal products requiring a doctor's prescription.
Again, there are no scientific reasons for imposing those limits and, once again, some Member States allow preparations which do not meet these criteria.
Another point concerning Article 7(1) is veterinary use.
This is restricted to pet animals or exotic animals and not animals used for human consumption.
There is nothing to warrant this, not environmental protection, not public health and not the consumer interest.
We therefore propose that this restriction to exotic species or pet animals should be dropped.
My third point concerns labelling.
Article 7(2) contains a requirement that the label or package insert should mention only the scientific name of the homeopathic stock material and not use fantasy names.
But patients need recognisable product indications and clear product descriptions.
We think that fantasy names should be allowed, especially for combined preparations, provided no therapeutic effect is implied or introduced.
Article 7(2) also requires the express indication that this is 'a homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeutic indication'.
The Commission notes that the Member States vary quite considerably in their compliance with this requirement.
Manufacturers claim that an indication of this kind discriminates against their products in favour of other medicines, and is pointless given that therapeutic indication is not part of the registration procedure.
It is suggested that the European Commission should replace this wording with an alternative text.
Our committee is proposing 'application in accordance with clinical homeopathic pharmacology'.
Personally, I would have preferred to see 'registered homeopathic medicinal product', but I understand we can expect further indications from the Commission on that.
Then there is the mandatory warning about consulting a doctor. I think I speak for the great majority of the committee in saying that we think a doctor should be consulted when any form of medication is taken, and that we are in favour of keeping this mandatory warning.
I think this mandatory warning might be worded better and that our report represents an advance here.
My final point concerns the special provisions.
Article 9(2) says that homeopathic medicinal products not eligible for a special simplified registration procedure are to be evaluated and either approved or not on the basis of four other directives.
Under that article, however, Member States are allowed - but not obliged - to introduce or apply special rules for pharmacological, toxicological and clinical testing in accordance with the principles and special characteristics of homeopathic medicine as practised in the Member State concerned.
Some Member States have done this, but most have not or have not done so yet, with distortions of competition as a result.
So it would seem that Member States need to be compelled to introduce these special provisions so that we can achieve freedom of movement for homeopathic medicines, since we are talking here about half of all the homeopathic medicines used.
That is all I have to say, Madam President.
Those are our committee's suggestions for amending the existing directive.
We shall be very interested to hear the European Commission's response.
Madam President, I would like to explain something about homeopathic medicines which perhaps in other cultures in Europe is not entirely understood.
Homeopathic medicines and the way in which people use them varies very widely in the way in which they are perceived.
In the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, for example, homeopathic medicine is seen to be the preserve of the rather eccentric fringes of medicine rather than being a core area of medicine.
That is one of the reasons why it is quite wrong for us to go for binding agreements and binding regulations on all Member States.
Member States are moving at a different rate.
This is highlighted by the concerns of the Agriculture Committee about some of the ingredients of homeopathic medicine.
Here we have tinctures such as arsenic which we are being asked to put onto animals in the food chain.
There seems to be no scientific evidence that they actually work and little scientific evidence that they are harmless.
One thing we want to stress is that all mother tinctures should be subject to rigorous scientific tests to establish dilution levels consistent with safety in the food chain.
We are also concerned about the use of fantasy names.
They must not make therapeutic claims that cannot be sustained by rigorous testing.
We would also assume that all homeopathic remedies are used only on the basis that they are handled by qualified practitioners.
And finally - and it is important that we get this point over - it is not just that this testing and monitoring should be done by people from the homeopathic community on their own.
It must be capable of withstanding rigorous scientific testing from other parts of the scientific community.
Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Chanterie, for his very broad coverage of this issue and for having taken account of the views of the committees.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has examined the subject from the angle of implementation of the single market.
The Member States have not actually applied the 1992 Directives, which harmonised requirements for homeopathic medical products to be brought onto the market, so a problem has been caused by the fact that these products have not been able to circulate freely.
The committee has also observed that the manufacturers of homeopathic medicinal products are usually small and medium-sized companies, and they are greatly hampered in their work by the diversity that exists in legislation and approval procedures among the different countries.
The committee feels that a system of reciprocal recognition regarding these products should be adopted so that safety criteria for the recognition scheme can be defined at EU level, and the first Member State in which a product is registered should assess and document to what extent these jointly determined criteria are met.
The principles of 'good manufacturing practice' and 'good laboratory practice' could be adopted. In this way we can ensure that there will be no safety risk of any kind.
The Committee also supports the idea that fantasy names for homeopathic medicines could be approved.
Convention certainly differs from country to country.
But those countries where homeopathy is better known have been able to confirm that these medicines do not cause side-effects.
They are cheap, and, although the effect mechanisms cannot always be clearly ascertained using traditional methods, they work.
Madam President, the question of homeopathic medicinal products does, of course, come within the remit of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and many of the aspects that concern us have already been addressed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Firstly, I too wish to express warm thanks to Mr Chanterie, who has endorsed many of our committee's requests, indeed all of them.
Like the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we too have called for a system of mutual recognition; Mrs Hautala has already told you this.
I believe it is also most important, so that we really can support homeopathic medicinal products, to have good manufacturing and laboratory practice and to make it possible to choose fantasy names.
As a research committee, we are of course particularly keen for the Commission also to report on the studies and research which have been carried out to check the effectiveness of homeopathic and other alternative therapies under the Community's biomedical research and development programme.
Under this fifth framework research programme, and on the basis of the requests made in the report, support should be given to research activities in the field of alternative medicine, with special reference to individual and general procedures, and to the preventive roles and special features of alternative medical disciplines.
These, of course, include programmes for basic research into homeopathy, to be carried out by bio-medical institutions, designed in particular to explain the process of homeopathic potentisation and prove the efficacy of homeopathic high-level potencies, together with programmes to promote international pooling of the experience of experts in homeopathy.
This was of quite particular concern to us, since we should also remember that in recent years the demand for homeopathic medicines has risen in most European countries, and that according to the Commission it now accounts for a share of over 1 %, in some countries even over 5 % of the gross sales of the European pharmaceutical industry; I believe we must take that into account in research as well.
Hence the concern of the Committee on Research, which we are grateful to Mr Chanterie for addressing, with stepping up research in this area.
Ladies and gentlemen, many of you - and probably many of the people listening to us in the public gallery - will not be users of homeopathic or anthroposophic medicinal products.
A lot of people are sceptical about their effectiveness and do not believe there is any scientific basis to anthroposophic medicine. But 29 % of European citizens have used homeopathic medicines at least once.
Many Europeans have faith in therapies described as alternative, complementary or nontraditional.
Homeopathic product sales are rising, and now account on average for 1 % of sales of medicinal products, with much higher percentages in some countries.
So it seems only right and proper that we should look at this issue again on the basis of the report the Commission has presented to Parliament on the application of the 1992 Directives.
With the approval of those directives - as Mr Chanterie reminded us - the European Union guaranteed all citizens access to the medicinal products of their choice. It is intended to prevent discrimination between European citizens depending on the country where they live - some very open, some quite tolerant, some completely anti - and to ensure that safe, high quality medicines are available which provide users with clear and helpful information and instructions.
These two objectives - access to free choice of medicines for all European citizens together with the necessary guarantees for product safety and correct use - have guided the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which I represent, in the debate and vote on Mr Chanterie's excellent report for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
There were not many problems, but they were serious ones.
How could registration of a pharmaceutical already registered in another country be made cheaper and less bureaucratic? Should the simplified legislation modify the dilution threshold indicated in the current directive and the recommended methods of taking the medicine?
Should it be left to the instructions for use to remind users to consult a doctor while using the product? Or should it be specified, instead, that a doctor need only be consulted if symptoms persist after several days of treatment?
Or that people should actually see a doctor before starting the treatment?
Should the label state 'homeopathic medicine' without approved therapeutic indications?
Or would 'approved homeopathic medicine' be sufficient?
The resolution passed in committee is a balanced response to these questions.
The matter will be considered further if and when the Commission presents a proposal for a directive specifically responding to the questions raised by analysis of the application of the current directive.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with this report the European Parliament welcomes the Commission's report on the application of Directives 92/73 and 92/74.
On the legal basis of this directive, homeopathic remedies were recognised for the first time as medicinal products, but this legal act has not been implemented effectively.
In this opinion, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights calls on the Commission to make use of its right of initiative and to apply its competence in the field of homeopathy.
There are five points which the Commission should bear in mind if it is to improve the application of the two directives.
Firstly, it would be desirable to achieve general recognition of homeopathic remedies which are already authorised in another state.
To that end, the directive must be reworded in a clear and binding manner.
This alone can prevent countries from exercising arbitrary power as regards the recognition of homeopathic remedies.
Secondly, special rules for tests and trials should be introduced to ensure free circulation on the market, while at the same time taking account of the need to protect the consumer.
Thirdly, simplified registration procedures need to be worked out in order to speed up the procedure for recognising homeopathic medicines.
Here too, account must be taken of consumer protection.
Fourthly, the simplified registration procedure should be extended to veterinary homeopathic remedies for food-producing animals.
In taking account of consumer interests, there is no reason to exclude food-producing animals from the possible therapeutic benefits of homeopathic remedies.
Fifth, we must treat homeopathic and allopathic medicinal products in the same way as regards the use of fantasy names on labels and package inserts.
Provided it accepts these points, the Commission will in our view be submitting a proposal that deserves consideration.
Mr President, it is symbolic that, in the space of one year, two European Parliament reports have tackled the subject of unconventional medicines and that now, with the Chanterie report on homeopathic medicinal products, five parliamentary committees have been called upon to give their opinion on the subject.
This confirms that the European institutions are aware of the importance of their role in improving the quality of public health and intend to do so in response to public practice, given that an increasing number of people are turning to these complementary forms of medicine.
The European Union can no longer bury its head in the sand, thanks to pressure both from the European Parliament and from members of the public and their organisations.
The European Parliament has often been a pioneer in tackling controversial or politically sensitive subjects as well as by introducing culture and education into the European Union's remit or debating issues such as genetic engineering, equality or sexual orientation.
Once again, the European Parliament is leading the way in the process of granting unconventional medicinal products a recognised status.
It is vital that a social practice affecting about one quarter of the European Union's population, as is the case with the use of homeopathic medicinal products, should find a response in the European institutions. In that way the sector can develop without risk for its users, in fair conditions both for professionals and industrialists.
It is important not only that the European Union should be willing to do something but also that the Member States should respond. They should proceed with the swiftness that common sense demands and ensure that a common procedure (with mutual recognition) is introduced for registering these medicines and that studies are carried out into homeopathic practice.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur for his report.
This is a sector which attracts considerable public attention.
Most people have a view on the subject, and many passionate discussions have taken place on it.
It might be said that fortunately this passion has so far only been expressed in words.
These attitudes are also reflected in the ways in which the different countries have tackled the problems and which we must naturally take into account when we are looking at what more we need to do at EU level.
I shall not go into all the points which the rapporteur has made, but simply present the overall view of the Liberal Group as a guideline for the future work of the Commission and the Council, since that is ultimately what is at issue.
Firstly, it would be desirable to have greater mutual recognition in practice, but it would then be necessary - and an absolute precondition for such greater mutual recognition - for us to have a knowledge of the method of registration in the individual countries.
It must be said that we do not have this at the moment.
So there must be well-documented registration, on a basis which is as scientific as possible.
And secondly, as I said, this therefore means that we must have a requirement for individual countries to publish their lists of homeopathic medicines and also to explain how they are approved, for example whether they have been approved under Articles 7 and 8, because in that case we have already come a good deal of the way.
In our opinion, a simplified registration procedure should not be used either for medicines for human use or those for veterinary use, which can enter the food chain.
Instead, I think that we should consider a positive list of harmless substances and diluents.
Lastly, fantasy names are fine as far as we are concerned, and there should not be a requirement to consult a doctor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate concerns the Chanterie report on homeopathic medicinal products.
As a doctor, I would say that, in order for homeopathic medicines to be regarded as useful and effective, they must meet certain conditions regarding their manufacture, approval and use.
Otherwise, homeopathy will simply be regarded as an unorthodox enterprise practised by charlatans. This would be very harmful to a discipline which is supported by some pharmacists and doctors.
These conditions are as follows: firstly, a totally clear distinction must be made between homeopathy and anthroposophy. Some people have the impertinence to call the latter anthroposophic medicine, even adding the adjective 'homeopathic' to this term.
However, whether or not Mr Chanterie likes it, anthroposophy is just an example of unorthodox practices trying to jump on the homeopathic bandwagon. This strange mixture has been insidiously introduced by the rapporteur and must be firmly excluded.
Secondly, the approval of a product must not mean that all the Member States have to accept a medicine which might have been accepted by only one of them, whose laxness could be dangerous and could put patients at risk.
On the contrary, an assessment must be carried out in each Member State, in accordance with criteria providing full guarantees of quality and harmlessness - all of which, I must stress, is for the protection of patients.
Fourthly, it is also dangerous to entrust the approval of these medicines to a Community body of 'experts' whose scientific qualifications are not guaranteed by the proposed text.
Fifthly, the names must be precise.
We do not agree to fantasy names being used and, in our opinion, the approved therapeutic indication is perfectly adequate.
Finally, it is essential that homeopathic medicinal products are not prescribed by any supposedly qualified person - and by whom would they be qualified? - but by a doctor, given that many doctors are also homeopaths.
This is the aim of my amendment which, contrary to the proposed text, advises the user to consult a doctor only if symptoms persist.
I believe that patients must consult a doctor about using such medicines, in order to prevent an illness such as cancer, for example, going undetected by a medically unqualified prescriber, with a doctor being consulted only after this cancer has spread.
Patients' lives must not be put in danger.
Society has spent millions on training professionals: we must therefore be wary of dangerous amateurs.
Would you trust a pilot who had been trained by any old qualification body, or who had taught himself?
To conclude, if these conditions are not clearly expressed in the report, our group will vote against the motion for a resolution.
Mr President, the Commission report points to the need for a decision to amend the directives in question. Some Member States treat existing authorisations or registrations not as they should, but as they see fit.
Treating them as they see fit often means in practice ignoring them. A considerable amount of time and money is wasted as a result.
Each Member State has different procedures for assessing the effects and harmful effects of homoeopathic medicines.
It is thus desirable that the relevant directives should be amended.
I understand the reluctance to treat homeopathic medicinal products in the same way as allopathic ones.
They should not be treated in the same way, because they are based on different understandings of human health, disease and healing.
Homeopathy takes a holistic view of human health, and I think that is inherently a sound approach.
Now that the action of certain substances in homeopathic medicinal products has been scientifically demonstrated, the charge that the effects of homeopathic medicines are all in the mind has lost much of its validity.
I am therefore in favour of a more equal status for homeopathy and allopathy.
A first step we need to take is more widespread use of the simplified registration procedure.
It is important that Member States should be free to decide for themselves when a homeopathic medicine qualifies for this procedure.
We cannot allow the free availability of homeopathic medicines to be curtailed by all manner of unrealistic fears and powerful opposition lobbies.
I also think it would be a good idea to see if we can agree on a system of mutual recognition.
I am most interested here in the money this would save.
We should of course need clear criteria as a basis for that recognition.
It would make it easier to interpret the relevant directives.
I compliment Mr Chanterie on his report.
Mr President, I have to admit that I have found it very difficult to take a firm position in an argument which is still very obscure and difficult to assess.
It is also true that when we are discussing health we ought to avoid Khomeini-like positions, because research has often overturned received wisdom.
Yet we cannot disregard one fundamental concept that has been stated for many years in pharmacology and medical text books in the European Community and throughout the rest of the world, which is that the patient should be treated with the maximum dose for the minimum possible time.
This concept is overturned and denied by homeopathy, which maintains a very low - infinitesimal - dose for a prolonged period.
It is true that these concepts are, like all science, not fixed in stone, but it is equally clear that science needs to find an answer not only for the authorities, but above all for consumers, and that answer must reconcile those two facts.
In particular, science needs to clarify the immunity problem arising from a possible choice between conventional and homeopathic during treatment.
Some maintain that prolonged low doses divert the immune system so that it is unable to deal with anything else, which is a serious threat to health.
Other scientists challenge that assertion, claiming that an infinitesimal dose does not stimulate the immune response.
Obviously we are not scientific researchers in a position to clarify these concepts, so we need, and we should be able to expect, clear answers from research. There are also some questions from Professor Cabrol to be answered if homeopathy is to be dignified as a medical science proper.
I do have some comments on Mr Chanterie's excellent report, in which, like Professor Cabrol, some passages left me very perplexed.
My first point is that standards for the authorisation and registration of pharmaceuticals differ from one Member State to another.
Of course we think harmonisation is essential but it must not mean any reduction in the present levels of safety and protection of health.
Secondly, Chapters IV and V of Directive 92/75 on principles and guidelines for good production and laboratory practices must also be applied in full to all homeopathic medicinal products.
Thirdly, the Member States must draw up the lists of homeopathic medicines or themselves take responsibility for banning them.
Fourthly, until it is scientifically proven that homeopathic medicinal products for veterinary use do not involve risks to human health, we think the simplified registration procedure is inapplicable.
Tinctures in particular must be subject to rigorous scientific tests to establish what degrees of dilution guarantee the safety of the food chain and protection from contaminated preparations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my job as a pharmacist means that I often come in contact with the question of homeopathy.
As you know, patients - in other words the consumers - are reacting more and more positively to these medicinal products in Europe.
It is up to us in this House to accompany and support this trend by preparing adequate legislation.
Mr Chanterie has indicated the most important aspects in his report, for which I am very grateful.
In my view, mutual recognition of registrations and authorisations in the Member States of the European Union is important, as is extending the forms of use to parenteral administration, while adhering to the stringent conditions governing quality and safety tests for the consumer which are already in force now.
We have scientific studies and decades of experience of the harmlessness of these products.
This brings me to the next important point, which also played a central part in the opinion drawn up by our Committee on Research, namely research.
Surely we cannot keep bringing up the argument we have just heard about the lack of a scientific basis while at the same time excluding homeopathy de facto from EU-supported projects.
We already have a considerable number of scientific reports on the subject, and we should further develop and support these initiatives.
We must ensure that homeopathy is given an equal place in future in the fifth framework research programme.
Let me say in conclusion that I have learned from numerous conversations with colleagues in the veterinary field that it is essential to organic farming that we no longer exclude homeopathic medicinal products for food-producing animals from the simplified registration procedure.
Mr President, homeopathic medicine has been officially recognised in certain Member States for many years but has been barely tolerated in others.
Thus, the Commission, by means of Directives 92/73 and 92/74, created a legal framework allowing patients access to the products of their choice while providing precautions to ensure the quality and safety of the products.
However, there have been problems with the implementation of this in certain Member States and thus the Commission's current approach is welcome.
I also welcome this report by Mr Chanterie.
It is really important that we deal with this issue because of the increasing popularity of homeopathic products in particular and of natural and alternative medicine in general.
Citizens throughout Europe have a right to have these products circulating freely in the Member States under single market rules as much as any other product, provided that all considerations of safety and efficacy are properly applied.
In this regard, it would be very useful if we followed up questions of research under the Fifth Framework Programme and the Green Group has introduced amendments to that effect under the Fifth Framework Programme and in the budget.
So I hope the Commission takes note that the instruments are there by which we could carry out testing and make sure that the harmonisation of homeopathic medicinal products with therapeutic indications is properly tested.
In other words, given the particular problems surrounding the proving of homeopathy as against allopathic medicine, the pecular requirements of homeopathy should be taken into consideration in this testing and the expert knowledge of homeopaths applied.
We have the instruments available.
I have tabled certain amendments.
In the UK and Ireland these registered practitioners are not only doctors and it is incumbent on us to make clear in the report that where a physician or a doctor has to be referred to on the labelling requirements, this refers to a homeopathic doctor or a registered medical homeopathic practitioner.
That is the law in my Member State and in the UK and we wish to continue that practice.
That is why I commend my amendment to you.
Mr President, the Commission is grateful for the keen interest shown in our report, and especially for the rapporteur's efforts.
Our intention in choosing this rather unusual procedure, namely drafting a report in order to spark off a broad debate instead of proposing to amend the two directives which are in force, was to clarify the positions of Parliament and the Council.
Parliament has clarified its position today with its report and this debate.
We thank it for doing so, and will no doubt be hearing the corresponding views of the Council in the near future.
Let me begin my reply with a general consideration.
We did not intend to embark on a discussion of principle during this debate, in other words should homeopathic medicinal products be regarded as medicinal products and, if so, under what conditions? Or should we only recognise allopathic medicinal products?
The widespread use of homeopathic medicinal products gives us good reason to concern ourselves with them.
We cannot simply assume that they are a sideline or something rather esoteric only used by certain sects; in fact, patients use them generally as one kind of medicinal product among others.
We cannot ignore that.
It is a fact of life!
But the Commission also believes that the concept of science, which has been used by some speakers in this debate too, is somewhat apodictic, because traditional medical science, which researches, produces and evaluates non-homeopathic medicinal products, sets its own conditions.
The concept of science implies that for anything to be scientifically recognised it must first be clarified by being defined.
On the basis of the methods and procedures that are applied, we can judge whether something is scientific or not.
But that is a very narrow definition.
Mrs Heinisch is quite right to say that the concept of science can of course be defined much more broadly, so that other phenomena which do not fit into this traditional, orthodox definition of science come within its scope.
In our view, the main problem in this discussion of principle is that there happen to be doctors, scientists and chemists who want to apply this narrow definition of science and therefore say that because this is the case and because homeopathic medicinal products do not fall within this definition, we believe that we should not concern ourselves with them.
We think that is wrong, as we have made clear from the outset, because when you take the three characteristics of medicinal products - safety, efficacy and quality - you will find that we have not made efficacy a condition for homeopathic medicinal products.
That, however, does not mean - and it would be wrong to draw this as a logical conclusion - that a homeopathic medicinal product is not effective; it only means that efficacy is not a condition for its recognition as a medicinal product.
We all know that it is effective and that many people can expect and even achieve good results, not so much from any direct and verifiable chemical effects, but more from the psychological - although that is too narrow a definition too - let us say from the overall effects of this product.
That covers many things.
I think listening to agreeable debates with pleasant Members of the European Parliament is an example of the homeopathic doses which Commissioners would sometimes find most welcome.
We also know that the current state of affairs is not satisfactory.
As we heard during the debate, a number of Member States have done nothing at all, so we must do more.
So this exchange of ideas is very helpful.
Overall, the report takes the same line we did.
So we have no problem with it; on the contrary, we feel supported, and in the follow-up I am sure we will move in the direction that Mr Chanterie and other speakers indicated.
That is to say, we should define the conditions for mutual recognition of registered homeopathic products more carefully and then make mutual recognition a binding principle.
It is quite clear that mutual recognition is possible only if we lay down the minimum conditions under which this recognition is binding.
That is why the obligation of mutual recognition must go hand in hand with a more carefully defined simplified registration procedure.
It could be very helpful in this regard to draw up harmonised lists of degrees of dilution, for example, and to clarify the field of application of the simplified authorisation procedure.
I also agree that there is no reason to maintain the ban on registering veterinary homeopathic medicinal products for foodproducing animals.
Some of the provisions on labelling could also be reworded and made more consumer-friendly.
Obviously that includes dosages, but also provisions on names.
This can and must be improved, because totally misleading fantasy names are just as harmful as meaningless descriptions that nobody can understand.
We are also in favour of making the provisions of Article 9(2) binding, i.e. introducing special provisions on tests and trials.
We do not agree with the following points of the report. In their present form, the directives cover all homeopathic products and preparation processes.
We have not listed the various schools of homeopathy that exist in this area separately, and for a good reason.
In my view, to enter into that kind of doctrinal dispute would be more likely to be damaging for homeopathic medicinal products.
That is why we do not understand why only one of these schools, anthroposophic homeopathy, should be mentioned separately in the text of the directives.
This does not mean we are against anthroposophy, it simply means that we do not wish to become involved in this doctrinal dispute. In our view, that would be going a little too far.
As Mr Chanterie can imagine, the Commission is certainly sympathetic to the idea of a Community body which would be responsible for authorisation and assessment, including the question of labelling.
After all, we have had extremely good experiences with the London agency for the authorisation of medicinal products.
We shall consider whether a similar body could be set up.
Of course, that would require the cooperation of the Member States.
So we are saying quite clearly, as your report does, that the directives need to be supplemented and improved and we thank Parliament for its proposals.
We now await the Council's opinion.
As soon as we have it, we shall set to work.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Liability for defective products
The next item is the report (A4-0326/98) by Mrs Roth-Behrendt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 85/374/EEC of 25 July 1985 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products (COM(97)0478 - C4-0503/97-97/0244(COD)).
Mr President, I never seem to quite get away from this unending BSE business.
Although the subject is an entirely different one today, we are still feeling the painful aftermath of the BSE scandal in the European Union.
In the report by its committee of inquiry, the European Parliament called on the Commission to include primary agricultural products in the European Union's product liability directive, which has been in force since 1985.
Parliament did this to ensure that if a case comparable to the BSE scandal came up again, the citizens of Europe would have product liability.
The Commission has complied with this obligation by indeed including primary agricultural products.
But the Commission did not follow this line through to the end.
It usually does so, Mr Monti, I am convinced of that, but this time it did not do so.
Because just including agricultural products in the associated question of product liability is not enough to deal with the BSE crisis; this must be supplemented by a number of follow-up amendments to the product liability directive.
The Commission has not done this.
I have done it as rapporteur.
I have altered the liability ceiling, because the level we had in the past was not high enough to deal with a scandal such as BSE and the harm done to humans.
I have also amended the limitation period, the deadline by which claims can be lodged, because the ten-year period which has hitherto applied does not even take account of the incubation period of the new form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Moreover, I have not reversed the burden of proof, as some perhaps less legally informed people might have imagined; instead, I have linked the burden of proof to the product.
I have introduced the concept of prima-facie evidence, since there is no alternative in the case of a product which might have been consumed a number of years ago and can therefore no longer be produced as solid evidence.
I have also added a few words on the development risk, which had in fact been proposed in the Commission's original directive in 1985, but was not accepted by the Council at the time and is therefore made optional in the directive. The Member States can incorporate it if they wish.
Now there are some people in this Parliament and in European industry who believe that what I am doing is not legally necessary and is not correct.
They are wrong on both counts!
If we want to cope with the BSE scandal and any similar situation, we have to make further amendments, in addition to including primary products.
Anyone who disputes that is in effect unwilling to admit that we must do more if a case like BSE comes up again.
The Commission is doing one thing: it is pursing its lips, but you are not whistling, Mr Monti.
However, I would like to hear you whistle.
Perhaps you could do so here tonight.
May I also say that what I propose is already quite normal in many Member States.
There is no ceiling on liability in any of the Member States apart from three.
Indeed two Member States - Finland and Luxembourg - have even gone so far as to exclude the argument of development risk.
In all the other countries, except for my own and Spain and Portugal, there is no ceiling on liability.
Moreover, in Spain for example, it is not possible to argue on the basis of the development risk in respect of foodstuffs.
Interestingly enough, that is just what we are talking about here.
And in any case, all the Member States have special rules on the development risk of medicinal products.
So I cannot quite see how the European industry lobby - which has my full support, because I too want to see a fully functioning industry - was clearly able to 'persuade' some Members of this Parliament, and others too, firmly enough to make them really believe that the Commission's amendment can accomplish what Parliament has called for.
It cannot.
I am convinced that the question of the ceiling on liability, the question of the deadline for lodging claims and the question of the development risk can perhaps be treated differently.
I and a colleague from another group have tabled some compromise amendments for the plenary in order to offer Members of both Parliament and the Commission an alternative.
But we cannot in my view do any less.
This European Parliament cannot afford that, not after what we have achieved, both vis-à-vis and versus the Commission, in relation to BSE.
Anyone who does less here today or tomorrow will not be living up to what we have achieved in recent years, and will find it difficult to justify this before the European public next year.
I am convinced that at this first reading, we must at least accept in codecision procedure the text that will be put to the vote in Parliament tomorrow.
Mr Monti, I would like to hear you say that you regard this as a good startingpoint and will support these proposals.
Mr President, in view of its positive impact on consumer protection, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights welcomes the proposal for a directive, which, by widening the scope of producers' liability for defective products to cover all movables, extends the 1985 Directive to include agricultural products.
But the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has expressed reservations, and continues to do so, about the admissibility of the amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for the following reasons. First, in the light of Rules 124(2) and 125(1)(a) of the Rules of Procedure taken in conjunction with Article 138(2) of the Treaty, the committee believes the European Parliament cannot covertly deprive the Commission of the exclusive right to initiate legislation through amendments to the legislative proposal.
If Parliament considers that a legislative act should be amended, it is entitled to ask the Commission to submit the requisite proposals. Secondly, the proposal for a directive gives full effect to Parliament's recommendation set out in the report of 7 February 1997 by the Temporary Committee of Inquiry into BSE.
Thirdly, the 1985 Directive has radically altered, if only in terms of producers' liability, certain key points of private law laid down in the Member States, namely civil liability, the burden of proof, compensation for damages, and time-barring of rights.
The approaches proposed in the directive to deal with these points are still valid, since they take proper account of all the interests at stake, striking a rational balance between the different views of the parties concerned.
So the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights believes the amendments from the Committee on the Environment are inadmissible because they exceed Parliament's right to amend a proposal from the Commission.
Besides, in our opinion, these amendments are unacceptable in substance.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights considers that no substantial amendment of Directive 85/374 should be put forward until the Commission has held detailed discussions with the other Community institutions, the Member States and the relevant private individuals.
This proposal could be made after examination of the Commission's forthcoming report on the implementation of Directive 85/374, due to be published in the year 2000.
In conclusion, we are in favour of the directive but, for strictly legal reasons, we cannot agree to the amendments put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this House wanted this legislative proposal and with just cause.
The BSE scandal forced us to ask the European Commission to present a proposal, as quickly as possible, extending the scope of the basic directive to primary products, i.e. products of the soil, stock-farming or fisheries, and game.
We cannot now refuse this extension, particularly in view of the extreme consumer distrust of food products and the increasing industrialisation of agricultural production methods.
In any case, zero risk does not exist and as producers know that, when placing products on the market, they are running a risk and may be making the consumer run a risk, the latter must have a right of redress in the event of injury.
It is true that it would be unfair for agricultural products to escape this general rule.
Consumers must enjoy the same protection, whatever the nature of the defective product.
It should be recalled that, in the case of liability without fault, what counts is the act of placing a product on the market; it is not a question of determining who is guilty but who is liable.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is well aware of this, particularly as society needs to come to terms with its agricultural sector and as, in any case, the very existence of such a system will surely act as an incentive to the placing of safe, healthy and high-quality products on the market.
This proposal is therefore acceptable to the Agriculture Committee. However, the specific nature of agricultural products must not be forgotten and we have therefore proposed certain amendments, some of which, we are pleased to say, have been adopted.
However, we regret that other amendments have not been adopted: firstly, because of the heavy dependence of primary agricultural production on external factors, we proposed including a clause dealing with this specific characteristic and suspending the directive's application to agricultural products in the case of damage resulting from natural disasters or other cases of force majeure .
We also thought that such a system should not be used in any way as an instrument of unfair trade by the customers (and sometimes the exclusive customers) of agricultural producers.
During the assessment that will have to be made of the directive, specifically with regard to the agricultural and rural sectors, I hope that proposals will be made in this respect, as the specific characteristics of agriculture will then be clearly apparent to everyone.
In general, regarding the directive as a whole, our group - I am speaking on behalf of the ARE Group here - cannot support Mrs Roth-Behrendt's proposal which we unfortunately see as a reversal of the burden of proof.
There is no doubt that it is the victim who must provide proof of the harm caused by a clearly identified product.
On the other hand, our group agrees with the rapporteur that the period of liability should be longer than the ten years provided for by the Commission.
Finally, our group also supports Mrs Roth-Behrendt in questioning the exemption from liability on the basis of development risks. This exemption, in our opinion, is not justified in the context of the strict principle of liability without fault, linked to the act of placing a product on the market.
Mr President, I do not want to follow the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights in their discussion of whether this report is in order or not.
My colleague Mrs Roth-Behrendt is probably as good a lawyer as anyone on the Legal Affairs Committee and it is right that she has tried to make substantial amendments to the proposal from the Commission.
That does not mean, however, that all of us on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection follow her entirely down that road.
The reason is quite simple.
There are advantages and disadvantages to the position in which Mrs Roth-Behrendt and those of us, like the last speaker, who were previously on the Temporary Committee investigating BSE, find ourselves.
Because of Mr Medina's report we had the opportunity in a crisis situation to bring forward one simple reform.
That was to add primary products to the products which would be subject to this directive.
Given what we learned in the BSE scandal and given what we now know about the dangers that may linger for many years in primary products, it is surely right that the Commission bring forward this proposal and that we seek to improve it as best we can.
Where I need to express a slightly divergent view is in whether our efforts to improve and extend it have been over-expansive.
I would agree with the rapporteur in her view that the ten-year limit is not enough and also that the initial limits set on the amount of damages were inadequate considering the context in which this report came forward, namely the horrors of the BSE scandal.
So I am in favour of that section of the amendments.
I commend Mrs Roth-Behrendt for the attempt she made at a late hour to bring in compromises.
My difficulties - and she knows this - are with the burden of proof as set out in these amendments and also on the question of development risk.
As far as burden of proof is concerned, looking now at Amendment No 12, if you say that a causal relationship can be proved if it is shown to be sufficiently likely, I am not sure where between the causal and the casual that leaves you.
The problem is that however difficult it may be to prove damages, you have to be able to show that a given product supplied by a given producer brought about this effect.
You may need more time to do it but you cannot just say that it is down to inference.
That is one of the problems with Amendment No 12 as it stands.
My last point is that on development risk we suffer from the fact that this is an emergency measure that we have brought in with great speed.
The problem is that we need to look very carefully at the Member States and at their liability laws is to see where development risk leads us if it is included or excluded.
That is more appropriately done in the review in the year 2000.
Having said all that, representing I suspect a minority view on the Environment Committee, I greatly admire the work that the rapporteur has done.
Mr President, Parliament's proposal to extend the scope of the directive to include primary agricultural products is a welcome move.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, like the ambitious politician that she is, has used the occasion to include some other issues in her report.
I think we can take the liberty of doing the same, since it is a way for us to influence policy.
I should therefore like to make the following comments.
We support the proposal to raise the total amount of liability from ECU 70 million to ECU 140 million, as stated in the final amendment.
We also support, in principle, the extension of the deadline for claiming compensation on account of the length of the incubation period.
The proposal on the burden of proof which, while not actually reversing the present position, provides for a different arrangement, is perfectly acceptable.
We need to support the man in the street against the big companies.
On the other hand, we do not really know how such a change will affect the industry.
The same thing applies in the case of risk-development.
The industry, as well as producers, needs to know how to proceed when it develops new products.
It should be possible to take certain risks, otherwise there would never be any progress.
Neither of these proposals has been adequately explored in the Roth-Behrendt report.
I would therefore like to refer to Amendment No 9, where we specify that every five years the Commission is to present a report to Parliament and the Council.
This should be done no later than the end of the year 2000, with a view to carrying out a general revision of the directive.
I hope that the Commission will take note of this discussion and the proposal - even if it is not approved - and that its implications are looked into.
We shall then be able to discuss it again in the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have before us a European Commission proposal which aims to extend the Community provisions on no-fault liability for defective products to primary agricultural products and game.
Firstly, I must say that the rapporteur has exceeded her brief because she has completely taken over a legislative initiative.
She would actually like to rewrite all the provisions on defective products, and not just agricultural products, which does not seem to me to be very fair, particularly as the European Commission is preparing a review of this directive on defective products for next year and particularly as certain Member States, such as France, have only just transposed the general directive into their own laws.
The rapporteur also wants to take over and alter certain conditions already laid down in the previous directive.
I will highlight just two of these: firstly, the rapporteur wants to remove the concept of objective liability, which would mean that the person injured by the defective product would no longer have to prove the causal relationship between the defect in the product and the damage in order for the producer's liability to be incurred.
Secondly, she wants to challenge the clause excluding the so-called 'development risk', which means that a producer would be regarded as liable even if the state of scientific and technical knowledge, at the moment when the product was put into circulation, did not in any way allow him to detect this defect.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, if you gave a product to your children and you realised later that it was defective, even though you had no proof, would you still change all that?
This exclusion clause has been adopted by some Member States in order to develop their pharmaceutical research potential.
The removal of this exclusion clause by the European Parliament would cause European research and innovation to be relocated to competing countries which have not accepted such a provision or which still offer incentives.
This would lead to a delay in certain medicines becoming available for use by citizens of the European Union and a potential refusal by insurance companies to cover this risk.
Furthermore, this exclusion clause was enshrined in law by the Court of Justice in a decision of 29 May 1998.
Not to include this clause seemed unrealistic and unreasonable to the Court at the time.
The maintenance of the clause is also justified as it does not leave the injured person without any redress, since the latter will be able to rely on rights recognised under the contractual, extracontractual or social liability systems, i.e. Article 13 of the Directive of 25 July 1985.
Because of these two amendments and many others which I will not mention, all of which, we should remember, fall outside the scope of the brief entrusted to Mrs Roth-Behrendt - given that the rapporteur has taken over the European Commission's right of legislative initiative - amendments which would no longer protect consumers but which would seriously threaten producers and could have serious repercussions on some countries' precarious economies and on employment, our group will not vote for Mrs Roth-Behrendt's amendments.
Mr President, our group was pleased with the Commission's proposal but even more so with Mrs RothBehrendt's extremely high-quality and courageous report, because it is likely to be the only one to draw the logical conclusions from the BSE scandal.
This makes it all the more regrettable that the majority of Members of the European Parliament will not endorse the rapporteur's views and that they, and especially the large political groups, are allowing themselves to be misled by the industry.
I simply cannot understand the arguments which have just been put forward about the financial risk to undertakings.
If agriculture says it wants to be regarded as a form of undertaking, it must behave accordingly!
Surely the point here with regard to liability is to create an instrument to ensure that industry and agriculture finally live up to their own responsibilities.
After all, we must not create indirect subsidies here by exempting these undertakings from the obligation.
Surely the principle of a constitutional state is that the potential victims - who are the consumers - are better protected than the potential offenders, who are after all the industry!
When we talk about strict liability, that should have meant no longer allowing any excuses.
It should have meant protection for the consumer.
What is being planned now waters down the report.
However, it is still better than the current practice, which is why we shall endorse it with a heavy heart, but it is not an improvement for the consumer.
On the contrary, it means that in future lawyers will be able to line their pockets nicely, which is why I think it is such a pity that we cannot manage finally to carry forward what we keep calling for, namely consumer protection and the preventive principle, together with the acceptance of responsibility on the part of the industry which is also constantly being called for.
Let me once again warmly congratulate the rapporteur, who has made a truly great effort, but I find the compromise amendments very watered down.
It is a pity that we as the European Parliament will not succeed here in really putting consumer protection first.
I think that would have been the least that we in Parliament could have tried to do.
Mrs Grossetête and Mr Olsson, we cannot just keep representing the interests of the industry.
We should have tried - and I hope you will realise this by tomorrow's vote - really to put consumer protection and the potential victims first.
Mr President, the latest reports tell us of new cases of BSE. Consumers are thus increasingly concerned about the quality of meat.
In view of that, it is a good thing that we are addressing the subject today.
After all, it was the BSE crisis which prompted the proposal to amend Directive 85/374.
The Commission proposal seeks to resolve the problem of the continuing lack of liability for primary products in agriculture, and I welcome it.
Farm producers are liable for the quality of their products, just like their fellow producers in other industries.
Product liability for primary products encourages farmers to act responsibly.
The proposed changes also remove the lack of clarity about when a product has undergone first processing or transformation.
The rapporteur calls for liability to be extended to primary agricultural products, but also for a number of weaknesses in the existing directive to be addressed.
Since we are looking to amend this directive now, I think we should deal with these defects straight away whilst we are about it.
It will avoid duplication. I compliment the rapporteur on her attention to detail here.
The amendments proposed provide better protection for the consumer, and they are less spectacular than many producer reactions would have us believe.
In some Member States, the changes in question were made a long time ago.
I am in favour of those changes, because I think the position of consumers and producers should be the same.
That makes the single market work better.
Finally, I should like to explore one of the changes in greater detail using an illustration.
Under the current directive, it is possible for a consumer to buy a washing machine which floods out his entire kitchen.
The consumer can claim that the machine is defective and that he has sustained a loss, and he can point to a causal link between the loss and the defect.
But he cannot obtain compensation, because the manufacturer has already reached his total liability ceiling for compensation.
The consumer is just unlucky in being not the first, but the umpteenth claimant.
This kind of thing has to be made impossible.
I therefore believe that the total liability ceiling should be abolished.
Mr President, I entirely agree with the rapporteur that the consumer is entitled to total protection which covers the entire food chain and is not effective only after a certain processing stage.
In other words, I welcome the amendment to the product liability directive proposed by the Commission following the BSE crisis, which is designed to extend its scope to primary agricultural products.
On the other hand, I do not agree with the proposals and amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, because they overstep the mark.
I cannot judge how far the committee was aware of the adverse and unpredictable effects which they would have on the economy, especially on small and medium-sized enterprises and on agriculture, or of the fact that this would represent an intervention in national civil law which has no basis in fact and is in some ways contrary to the system.
Here I would have preferred to see a different approach.
I am thinking of the problems of the burden of proof, a question that has been addressed by a number of speakers, of the development risk and also of abolishing the limit on liability.
I also believe that the rapporteur's approach underlines the legitimacy of the proposals made by the Austrian Minister of Justice, Mr Michalik, at the informal Council of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs last week, whereby the Justice and Home Affairs Council should also consider judicial matters discussed in other Councils so that it can tackle this kind of legal problem.
We cannot endorse the rapporteur's proposals.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Roth-Behrendt's brief was extremely difficult.
She had to meet the expectations of Parliament and public opinion with regard to the unhappy events of the BSE crisis. It was clear that simply updating the 1985 directive by including primary agricultural products would not be enough to meet those expectations.
It is to be regretted that the Commission did not take the initiative in listing the points which needed to be updated quickly, in order to take this unhappy experience into account.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt did list these points. At the start of the discussions in committee, some proposals which we did not feel were sufficiently balanced were thrown out.
These related to concerns which affect us all: maintaining consumer protection, which is the main priority, and also ensuring that producers do not fall victim to random events and an unfair and systematic anti-producer attitude. There was also a major concern about the question of the future of research and development.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt has tried to achieve reconciliation and compromise.
She was keen to try and make progress which would not challenge the original balance of the 1985 directive.
In the main, I consider that her proposals are good but I do have two reservations.
We will not vote for Amendment No 12 on the burden of proof as it is ambiguous.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt does stress in her explanation that it does not involve a reversal of the burden of proof, but we feel that the phrases which aim to facilitate the protection of consumers and injured people are too vague in legal terms.
I am particularly thinking of the phrase: 'it shall suffice for the injured person to prove that the damage occurred and for the causal relationship to be sufficiently probable'.
Under French law, the concept of 'probable' does not exist and is difficult to define in my opinion.
I must also just say that the deadline problem cannot be avoided and that, even though the wording of Amendment No 13 on the definition of the hidden defect or the hidden fault needs to be improved, the idea of allowing the deadline to be extended, although only in certain very specific cases, seems to me to be necessary. At first reading, therefore, Parliament must stress its desire for dialogue in order to achieve a situation which is satisfactory to everyone.
Mr President, to begin with I must compliment Mrs Roth-Behrendt for having shown great creativity and inventiveness, as befits a true parliamentarian, in probing every last aspect of the proposal which the European Commission has put to us.
That means of course that unexpected problems may arise.
I do not really agree with those members of the Legal Affairs Committee who say that some amendments are inadmissible.
Why do I disagree? Because I think that the European Parliament, by virtue of having always probed every last aspect of a situation, has also managed to resolve a good many of those situations.
That is one point.
Turning to the substance, as I said just now, some things may be a case of a bridge too far.
I fully endorse the Commission's proposal that primary agricultural products should also be covered by the directive, and I think Mrs Roth-Behrendt can be pleased that the findings of her BSE committee will thus have been implemented accordingly.
What we have here is a product liability directive which in 1985 - and I have taken a look back at the negotiations - left very little room for manoeuvre.
It is these limits which the rapporteur, and Parliament too, I think, is now coming up against.
Naturally there are a few problems.
The points which the rapporteur made about shifting the burden of proof, who bears the full development risk and extending the period of liability, for example, are all problems which need to be resolved.
This does not mean we can do that now, because I think our various group discussions of the proposal have shown that a number of amendments in their current form are not yet quite as they need to be.
It means that we shall need to look at this proposal again. I would ask the rapporteur to incorporate into the proposal of the Legal Affairs Committee a deadline, a point in time for assessing whether further progress can be made through due debate, and whether further changes are necessary and desirable.
Mr President, I have two basic quarrels with the draft report which has been presented and the amendments which have been put down.
The first is a formal objection.
I refer to the opinion of the Legal Affairs Committee which says that the amendments tabled by the rapporteur concerning the substance are inadmissible.
Not because we as the European Parliament must curtail our own powers, but because the institutional balance between the European institutions has to be preserved.
We have to know our limitations in life.
My second objection concerns the substance.
We welcome the extension of product liability to primary agricultural products, but the rest of the proposed changes to the draft directive go very deep, and I wonder if thought has been given to their consequences.
I wonder if proper prior consideration has been given to the concrete repercussions of the proposed amendments, for example as regards the burden of proof, the time limit for proceedings, the absence of any financial threshold or a ceiling on total liability for compensation.
I fear that stricter measures may have quite the opposite effect to what is desired.
Tighter rules on liability will discourage producers from bringing goods on to the market unless there is total certainty that they are entirely safe.
As a result, it will be the consumer who suffers, because business innovation and therefore progress too are likely to be substantially inhibited.
After all, what firm is going to invest in research and development without insurance against the development risk? Our firms will become a little less competitive in world markets as a result, and this again may cost jobs.
For all these reasons, I hesitate to endorse the findings of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
On the substance too, we have to know our limitations.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, while considering the extension of the directive on liability for defective products to primary agricultural products and game, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection thought it advisable to adopt certain amendments, taking over provisions which were fiercely discussed during preparatory work on the original directive, but were ultimately rejected.
I am thinking in particular of the reversal of the burden of proof and the deletion of the clause excluding the development risk.
We have two main objections here, one on legal grounds and the other on the substance and also for economic reasons.
Firstly, there is legitimate doubt about the validity of the manoeuvre to alter the 1985 directive instead of confining ourselves to the proposal for a directive submitted to us by the Commission.
Of the amendments proposed by the rapporteur, those numbered 2 to 9 relate to this original directive, and not to the directive proposed by Parliament and the Council which has been submitted to us.
By adopting these amendments, Parliament would actually be taking the legislative initiative which, until proven to the contrary, is an area over which the Commission has a monopoly.
With regard to the substance, it is clear that the amendments tabled would create an unreasonable imbalance in contractual relations and would burden enterprises with charges, particularly insurance charges for SMEs, which some could not support.
As for the compromise amendments, these are scarcely any more acceptable.
On the one hand they introduce a concept which is legally very dubious, i.e. the probable causal relationship concept which could be a source of many disputes, and, on the other hand, they significantly increase the charges on enterprises by doubling the duration of the period of limitation and the amount of the liability threshold.
Finally, we could ask why there is such a rush. Is there no time even to wait for the Commission's Green Paper on the application of the 1985 directive?
All these reasons mean that we will not be voting for Mrs Roth-Behrendt's amendments.
Mr President, I should first like to express my support for what my colleague Mrs Grossetête has said, and then to indicate that I totally support the European Commission's proposal for the scope of this directive to be extended to include products derived from agriculture and stock breeding, in the hope of providing better consumer protection.
On the other hand, however, we cannot support the proposals contained in the rapporteur's report. As many of my colleagues have already explained, we do not think there is sufficient legal justification for them, nor do we feel they are appropriate from a political point of view.
Nevertheless, we must all learn some lessons from this report.
In the first place, we should not forget that when the directive on product liability was discussed, we allowed ourselves to be swayed and agricultural products were not covered by the directive.
We now have to admit our mistake and remedy the situation.
Secondly, I should like to draw your attention to how the legal advisers of a number of pressure groups have recently been flooding the media with statements which might well generate confusion as regards the nature of the Community institutions and our work. It has been stated, for instance, that Parliament is not entitled to put forward certain amendments.
It must be made very clear to the public that Parliament's power to put forward amendments is limited only by the Treaty itself. And even the Treaty is an open one, since it includes an open-ended article - Article 235 - which allows the Council to extend its powers should that prove necessary, when requested by the Commission and supported by Parliament.
Furthermore, Community legislation - or so it has been said repeatedly of late - should be applied in parallel with national legislation.
This is an outrageous statement, which has been denied day after day by the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
As has already been established, Community legislation takes precedence.
We also have to congratulate the President of Parliament for taking the wise decision not to declare the rapporteur's amendments inadmissible. We do not like them, and he may have had to act against the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs itself, but to do otherwise would have been an error of political and legal judgement.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are totally in favour of this extension of no-fault liability as proposed by the Commission.
But, like my fellow Liberals who have spoken previously, I cannot agree either with the tightening of liability which the rapporteur proposes and which goes too far.
I am against shifting the burden of proof, against liability in respect of 'development risks' and against abolishing the time limit on proceedings.
We have to remember that, unlike the USA, we in Europe have opted for wide-ranging product legislation.
In this way, officialdom gives the consumer a kind of guarantee that products available on the market meet all the right standards and are thus safe and healthy.
If we back the rapporteur's proposals, we shall be opting for a combination of both tough product legislation and tough rules on liability.
In this European context, more stringent liability is not feasible for manufacturers.
Not only would it seriously inhibit the process of innovation for businesses, it would also mean huge insurance premiums for manufacturers which would send the cost of new products rocketing.
For the pharmaceuticals industry, for example, which is constantly looking to develop new drugs, it is just not on.
Consequently, we shall be voting against all those amendments which seek to impose excessively stringent liability.
Mr President, the product liability directive which was a star feature of the first phase of consumer policy was a revolutionary milestone in liability law.
But just because it predates the Single European Act and Maastricht, that does not automatically mean it is outdated.
Anyone suffering loss or damage as a result of a product defect has, since the directive, been entitled to compensation from the manufacturer without having to prove negligence, omission or fault on the manufacturer's part.
Whilst no one has to be proved to be at fault, the fact of risk still remains.
Since the directive, the risk has been borne by the manufacturer of the defective product causing the loss or damage.
This radical change to traditional jurisprudence meant and still means that, out of concern for a degree of balance, there have to be limits on this liability: limits in time, a limited period in which proceedings may be brought, and rules to cover 'development risks'.
There is no reason at all to change these aspects of the directive, certainly not until all parties involved have been consulted in depth.
And this also holds good for the burden of proof.
Not that this House ever wanted changes here.
What we asked for, we have got.
Our contention in the BSE Committee of Inquiry was that it was no longer socially accepted or acceptable for primary agricultural products to be excluded.
Between 1985 and the present day, agriculture itself has radically changed and technology has made great strides in this sector.
But between 1985 and the present day, we also had the crisis over BSE.
That shook people's faith in food safety.
For that reason too, broadening of the product liability directive is justified. It means, let us not forget it, an additional safeguard for the consumer.
It will be an incentive for farmers to win back the consumer's trust in agriculture and farm products.
To that extent, it is a good thing not only for Europe's consumers but also for agriculture itself.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I will readily admit that I am not one of the fans of this report but, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, you are an intelligent woman! I am just trying to imagine what would happen if we included game.
Everyone knows that you can become very ill from eating certain meals. You can become ill from eating game.
That sets off a train of thought: where was the pheasant bought? Who shot it?
In what area did it live, or did it in fact fly through various different areas? Or maybe it flew across border areas?
I live in a hunting family near the Dutch border. I wonder whether this pheasant might have eaten defective seeds, or perhaps even genetically modified maize?
In what field?
On which farmer's land?
Or perhaps the animal feed was defective? I am just posing one or two questions of this kind, Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
The issue is a very serious one, but I believe we must at least try to explain the feasibility of what we are setting in motion here.
I also have a few questions about the period for lodging claims.
This is a very serious matter, but when you say that ten years is not enough, I as a layman simply have to ask the lawyers: will that mean in future that the person who inherits a farm will somehow or other also have to take over the product liability of the person who left it to him, such as his father, or what does it mean? I just think that the Commission has presented us with a proposal which is not completely thought through and still needs a good deal more work.
I have learned by now that we cannot restrict the Commission's right to propose, but what we can do is to call for a revised and better Commission proposal than the one we have before us here today.
I think that when we reach that point, it is most important to us, in terms of agriculture, that we also include more of the earlier stages, the seed distributors, the genetically modified products and so forth.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a representative of agriculture, let me point out how important it is to have sensible rules for farmers on defective products. It is in the interest of both consumers and agriculture to require sound and high-quality products.
As regards the farmers' liability for defective products, however, we must ensure at all costs that the producers of agricultural inputs - for example seeds, plant-protection and fertilising agents, as well as animal feed pursuant to Directive 85/374/EEC - can be held liable.
Farmers, as the producers of primary products, must under no circumstances be held responsible for defects in inputs, since they have no influence on them.
That is why it is most important to establish specifically that the term 'producer' means not only the manufacturer of the finished product, but also the producer of a raw material or component part of a product.
Here it must always be remembered that seeds, including the genetic material used to produce the seed, are the raw materials of agricultural and forestry products.
Furthermore, fertilising and plant-protection agents and animal feed used in the production of agricultural and forestry products must also count as raw materials.
From the point of view of agriculture, these are essential conditions for liability rules which affect farmers, and they are in the interests of both farmers and consumers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights I fully endorse Mr Casini's views and would point out that this position was decided almost unanimously, regardless of group.
Moreover, I would point out that Parliament has often and on the most diverse occasions called for better legislation and stipulated as a basic requirement that in the context of legislation we urgently need to hear the economic circles involved and then also to evaluate the impact on costs.
It is not acceptable for Parliament simply to ignore these requirements.
I do not want to go into the substance of Mrs RothBehrendt's amendments.
It may well be that it is useful to change the ceilings on liability, for some areas at least.
It may well be that it is useful to change the deadlines for lodging claims, or even to alter the burden of proof.
I do not wish to go into any of that today; what I consider both urgent and essential is that we at least observe the requirements which we impose on the Commission, which has the right of initiative, when we put forward our own amendments.
I think we would be disqualifying ourselves as Members if we disregarded those requirements.
The argument that keeps being put forward, namely that the kind of rules Mrs Roth-Behrendt has in mind would offer the consumer more protection, is not good enough.
If we want more protection for the consumer, then to be quite safe, we should immediately say that we must not eat any more meat or produce any more meat.
But that would certainly be a disproportionate reaction.
I think we really must argue rather more pragmatically and less emotionally here, which would serve our purpose better.
We shall have an opportunity to discuss the matter more pragmatically when the Commission has, as announced, revised its proposal for a directive, so that all these arguments can be reviewed.
That will be the right time to do so.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not assuming that I can change people's opinions this evening.
It would be naive of anyone to believe that they could still persuade others during this kind of debate.
But let me address some of the objections which have been raised, starting with those of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - sadly Mr Casini is no longer here, but Mr De Clercq and Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn are.
I find it interesting that these objections come from a committee which is not very often faced with legislation - unlike my committee - but when it is, does exactly what you reproach me with, namely takes it further.
Let me ask you to consider what you did with the patents directive.
You legislated on something that was not in the Commission proposal, and I would ask you to consider what you did on designer protection, for instance, on the question of harmonising Community law on designed or protected products.
You invented entirely new rules on compensation. That was not in the Commission proposal!
So what about the Commission's right of initiative? There seems to be a slight confusion here between dreams and reality.
You bring it up when it is politically opportune.
I have nothing against you arguing that the content of my amendments is wrong.
We can discuss that.
But admissibility is not really a level at which we should be holding a discussion.
Let me say something about their content.
Those of you who say that I am overstepping the mark in my proposals are forgetting one thing. You cannot logically say, both here and outside in front of your voters, yes, we want to draw conclusions from the BSE crisis, and then accept some of what the Commission is doing but for the rest say: that is going too far for me!
Anyone who knows me is aware that the last thing I am afraid of is difficulties.
The speaker who suggested that a moment ago should know me better.
She knows quite well that difficulties are more likely to spur me on.
I have no problem with being outvoted, nor has my group.
We shall vote in favour, and then we can explain why.
Of course I can understand why some Members have said that we are being precipitate.
From their point of view it is of course precipitate, because if a Member State transposes legislation ten years too late, in 1998 instead of 1988, it will not necessarily want it to be amended again just a few months later.
That is not the level at which we should be arguing either.
I can understand you saying that we need a detailed discussion.
We will be having it.
We are still at first reading.
The Commission will now have to sit down with the Council when, as I hope, Parliament has adopted some if not all of the amendments tomorrow.
Then we will be presented with a common position, and you may be sure that the Commission will then involve all the circles concerned, industry and others, which have of course long since begun to use their influence and have also spoken with me.
And I think it is entirely legitimate to try to achieve the widest possible agreement, but agreement for all concerned, not just for the industry but also for the consumers.
I have not turned the burden of proof on its head.
Anyone who says that has not understood.
I have merely changed the burden of proof for products that no longer exist.
A person who has suffered damage still has to prove it.
Tomorrow we shall have a chance to show that we were serious about dealing with the BSE scandal, and tomorrow you will be able to demonstrate through your vote, in a roll-call vote, whether you were being serious or not.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive being debated today is a response to the European Parliament's recommendation following the BSE crisis.
This called for a proposal no later than September 1997 to extend the no-fault civil liability system provided for by Directive 85/374/EEC to primary agricultural products and game.
I emphasise the date of September 1997, which was actually set by the European Parliament to encourage us to act more swiftly.
So the Commission considered it appropriate to put forward a proposal within the suggested deadline, and did so on 1 October 1997.
The 1985 Directive gave consumers the right to compensation for injury resulting from a defective product without having to prove that the producer was at fault.
By extending this right to the agricultural sector, the Commission - and this is a point I want to emphasise - has actually taken up an idea which was already present in its initial proposal from 1976.
All the parliamentary committees which have examined the text, and in particular the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, support this principle.
However, the committee responsible in Parliament wants the proposal approved subject to the inclusion of a number of amendments, which can be broadly divided into two groups.
Here I want to thank Mrs Roth-Behrendt, the rapporteur, along with Mr Lehne and the other Members, for tabling compromise amendments which we have examined very carefully.
The amendments in the first group are broadly intended to revise the basic 1985 Directive well beyond the Commission's objective, which is limited to extending the directive to primary agricultural products: these are Amendments Nos 3 to 9 and 11 to 15, on the burden of proof, risks in new developments, psychological injury, immunity, time-barring of rights, maximum liability and revision of the directive in 2000.
The second group of amendments seek to specify certain points exclusively concerning agricultural inputs: these are Amendments Nos 1 and 2 on liability for intermediate products and means of production, and Amendment No 10 on the obligation to submit a report on the implementation of the directive in 2002.
As regards the first group of amendments, the Commission understands the concerns which led Mrs Roth-Behrendt to propose substantial changes to the basic directive, wider than the current proposal and the European Parliament's initial recommendation.
But the issues raised by Amendments Nos 3 to 9 and 11 to 15 call for more detailed examination than is carried out in the committee's report.
That examination should take place in a wider context than the BSE crisis.
The Commission takes the view that the next report on the implementation of the directive, which the Commission is to present to Parliament and the Council in 2000, may provide the best and most appropriate occasion for it.
The report will be preceded by a Green Paper and full consultation open to all interested sectors.
So I can confirm - for Mr Grossetête in particular - that we will issue the Green Paper before 1 January 2000.
Two horizontal aspects - development risks unknown at the time when the product is marketed, and financial ceilings - will need to be looked at particularly carefully.
Other points to be covered in this general examination will be statutory limitation periods, traceability, burden of proof, types of injury covered, etcetera.
The socio-economic importance of the directive - several speakers made this point - means we cannot make do with hasty solutions.
On behalf of the Commission, I can say that we fully support the aims of Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 10 - the second group.
But in our opinion these amendments are superfluous because a correct interpretation of Articles 2 and 3 of the 1985 Directive, which make all participants in the production process liable, including producers of means of production and intermediate products, and of Article 21, which requires the Commission to present a report on the implementation of the directive every five years, does, we feel, make it possible to meet the stated objectives in full.
So the Commission cannot adopt those amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope what I have said can reassure those defending the legitimate interests of farmers by means of Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 10.
I also hope the European Parliament can support this approach when the time comes to vote tomorrow, and thus allow the Council to examine the proposal in turn, with a view to adopting a common position.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Culture 2000
The next item is the report (A4-0370/98) by Mrs Mouskouri, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a single financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation (Culture 2000 programme) (COM(98)0266 - C4-0335/98-98/0169(COD)).
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour and at the same time a responsibility for me to present the report on the Commission proposal concerning the 'Culture 2000-2004' framework programme here today.
The beginning of that programme coincides with the beginning of the new millennium and signals a new era for the European Community and for Europe's citizens.
Perhaps more than anyone else, the programme concerns young Europeans, those who will build our future on the basis of the diversity of European culture.
With this new programme, culture is for the first time being dealt with as a whole within the framework of a single programme which replaces the three existing ones.
The Commission's proposal was indeed ambitious, but it lacked transparency and detail.
For that reason, the new programme would have been difficult to implement and would not be accessible to Europe's citizens.
The report I am presenting to you today attempts to correct certain flaws.
I think we all agree that culture is not something abstract, but has a specific content.
Today indeed, more than ever, it is a many-sided industry which creates new jobs.
Besides, the field of culture is directly related to the sectors of education and training.
European culture with all its diversity has direct need of our support if it is to survive and develop.
The first important change relates to the programme's title: the term 'cultural cooperation' covers neither the content, nor the structure, nor the aims of the new programme.
We therefore propose the term 'cultural policy', thus laying the foundations for a genuine Community policy in the area of culture.
For the structure of the programme, we propose to approach culture sector by sector, with vertical activities.
This will make the actions more appropriate in each case, taking into account the special needs of each cultural sector, but also allowing horizontal synergies to enhance cooperation with other programmes.
As regards the implementation of the programme, we believe that the Member States and the Commission will have to cooperate closely.
We therefore propose an advisory committee comprising a representative from each Member State.
Alongside it will work a subcommittee comprising experts proposed by the Member States.
In that way, the states will become actively involved in the programme's implementation.
Appraisal of the programme is essential to ensure transparency and projection, and we therefore propose that the Commission should periodically assess its results in collaboration with the Member States.
I would also like to mention the development of European cultural resources.
With those, we want on the one hand to ensure the propagation of the programme at national and regional level so that it will be accessible to local agencies as well.
On the other hand, we want cooperation and coordination between the Commission and the Member States, as is necessary if the programme is to succeed.
Before finishing, I should like to stress two more points.
The first concerns cultural cooperation agreements.
We have repeatedly asked the Commission to show us a sample of those agreements, because we still do not know what exactly they contain.
The second point I want to mention is the budget.
The budget proposed by the Commission is very low.
With ECU 167 million the programme will be condemned to fail, and we therefore propose ECU 250 million, because we believe that is the absolute minimum for the realisation of so important a programme.
Let us not forget that the new programme concerns Europe's cultural future for which we bear full responsibility on behalf of young people in Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the past the European Parliament has often expressed the importance it attaches to culture and to Europe's cultural future.
By adopting the report we are putting before you, we will be giving culture the position it deserves.
In parallel, we will be confirming our political will to support cultural activity in the European Union and to create a single European cultural area within which the cultural individualities and values of our countries can flourish and develop.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri on all her hard work and the report she has produced.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is an ambitious programme based in principle on Article 128 of the Treaty, and which I feel will develop into something much more important than it seems at present.
For exactly that reason the presentation of this action in the form of a multiannual framework programme aims precisely to ensure cohesion and greater effectiveness, on the basis of the principle of subsidiarity.
And of course, that is not a feature of large programmes alone.
Programmes which begin in a more modest way can also develop along those lines.
Of course, a degree of flexibility is needed.
It is a programme which will develop as time goes by.
We do not know what form it will eventually take, because the actions undertaken are new and pioneering and the European Parliament has a very important role to play because many proposals will have to be monitored so that the funds allocated can be properly absorbed.
That is precisely why the amount of funding, which in Mrs Mouskouri's proposal is increased from ECU 167 to 250 million, is - let me remind you - not a spending target and is subject to the rules of proper financial management and budgetary control.
We also ought to remember that the general financial framework has not yet been approved.
That sum, then, if used correctly and with the flexibility we have tried to incorporate in our proposals, can be a factor which develops the programme very substantially.
Later on, if it turns out that more capital is required, the necessary adaptations can be made.
Besides, according to the statement of 6 March 1995, that sum is a preferential reference for the Budget Authority in the context of the annual budget procedure.
Consequently, the amount proposed should not create conflict between the Council and Parliament or polarisation within the Council itself.
Let me explain that in the Committee on Budgets we did not increase the sum proposed by the Commission, but in the spirit of the statement of 6 March 1995 we proposed that it should be possible to review the sum within the annual budget procedure, up to a level of 20 %.
If the possibility of co-finance is also taken into account, the sum becomes even bigger.
Finally, Mr President, it must be said that this programme, which has of course taken some considerable time to be worked out by the Commission, has eventually taken shape and generated proposals, and Mrs Mouskouri's excellent report ratifies and improves them.
But it is a very important programme, especially for Kaleidoscope and Ariane, because it ensures that the continuity of those programmes is not interrupted.
Activities bound up with them will continue while we wait for final approval of the general financial perspectives, on the basis of which matters will develop in what I hope will be the best way.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal to establish the European Union's first framework programme for culture comes in response to wishes expressed by both the Council and the European Parliament.
Although it respects and shares the objectives of the Commission's proposal, the Committee on Culture has nevertheless approved substantial amendments which essentially concern the structure of the programme.
Given the lack of precision in the Commission's text, the Committee on Culture wishes to see a programme in which the specific sectors targeted by the framework programme will be clear from the outset.
It would like it to be established, from the beginning, exactly how much importance will be given to the various cultural sectors - heritage, music, literature and so on - throughout the programme. According to the proposal put forward by the Commission, the Commission itself would establish priorities and make unilateral decisions on the relative importance of each of these sectors during the lifetime of the programme, in other words over the next five years.
Nevertheless, we accept a number of innovations which the Commission has incorporated into its text, for instance the creation of a field for horizontal actions, integrating activities from a range of cultural sectors into a single project.
On the other hand, we differ from the Commission in that we feel that the essential features of the current programmes must be preserved, because the results have been satisfactory, even though the expectations aroused far exceed what the budget for the programmes has allowed. In defending its proposal, however, the Commission is very critical of the results of current programmes.
It is for this reason, therefore, that the Socialist Group joins the Committee on Culture - unanimously - in supporting the amendment aimed at setting a budget of ECU 250 million for five years, against the ECU 167 million proposed by the Commission.
Expenditure on essential programmes in the field of Community cultural action has been curtailed in recent years, as was the case with the Raphael programme, for instance. The European Commission's own expectations of this programme as stated in its 1995 proposal have therefore fallen well short of being realised.
In the financial statement for that proposal, the Commission anticipated expenditure of ECU 15 million for 1999.
Parliament had hoped to increase it by some 40 %.
In the event, opposition from a few Member States resulted, after conciliation, in a much reduced budget amounting to ECU 8.8 million for 1999. This was far less than the 15 million proposed by the Commission and indeed less than the expenditure on cultural heritage in the years prior to 1996, in other words when we were implementing pilot actions.
That was in fact the very programme which the Culture Commissioner had hoped would be the flagship for the European Union's cultural action.
Perhaps we all lacked the determination to push that proposal forward.
We Socialists believe that the time has at last come for culture and European citizens to play a decisive role in the building of Europe.
It is therefore very important for this programme to be supported - it is not a particularly ambitious one - and so the Socialist Group will support the amendments and Mrs Mouskouri's report as a whole. I congratulate her on her work.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri for the excellent work she has done. To make this framework programme on culture for 2000-2004 effective, she has proposed a sectoral approach which takes account of the different needs of each cultural sector.
I agree with that and I think the financing must be raised to at least ECU 250 million to make the activities possible.
It is essential that we regard our cultural heritage as a primary resource for the European Union, which is approaching the threshold of 2000 with great challenges to face, such as enlargement, globalisation, the growth of the information society, employment and social cohesion.
The framework programme for culture will encourage creativity, knowledge and the dissemination of the culture of the peoples of Europe, through a sectoral approach which has the flexibility to promote synergy between various sectors of the arts and new forms of expression.
The programme aims to encourage cooperation at regional level between cultural organisations, operators and institutions in the Member States, promoting the affirmation of cultural creativity by ensuring the vitality of artistic projects, and supporting measures whose European profile will throw European culture into bold relief.
The cultural heritage measures will certainly have the most impact - not least because of the expenditure involved - so I am a little surprised that they are placed fourth.
In the field of cultural heritage it is right to distinguish between movable and fixed heritage.
The latter necessarily requires more funding than the former, as shown in the budgets of the individual national ministries.
Movable heritage involves a wide range of skills, not always specialised, for restoration activities.
In conclusion, through cooperation between the Member States, the Culture 2000 programme must aim to encourage the conservation of movable and fixed heritage, by identifying the common European origins from which the diversity of national cultures has sprung.
Mr President, my first task must be to congratulate Mrs Mouskouri on her excellent work - a Greek singer was surely the ideal person to carry out this work in our committee.
' Culture 2000' represents the European Union's cultural approach for the next few years and into the 21st century.
I completely support the idea of new guidelines for a programme which embodies cooperation between Member States in this area.
What has the Commission proposed? To gather within one programme the Kaleidoscope, Ariane and Raphael programmes which have allowed 1 400 cultural projects to benefit from financial support from the Union.
Various countries of the Union, in partnership, have therefore been able, through cultural and artistic events, to develop the richness of our heritage, the diversity of our culture and the value of its complementarity.
Unfortunately, it must be pointed out that although 1 400 projects were helped, 9 000 were proposed.
I will leave it to you to work out the number of rejections.
How can we improve on this when there is widespread criticism about both the distribution of resources and the problems of access for everyone?
The complementarity between the work proposed by the Commission and that carried out by Mrs Mouskouri, unanimously supported by the entire Committee on Culture, should give the citizens of Europe a balanced programme allowing small, medium and large projects to go ahead each at their own level, and I am very pleased about this.
I believe that this is the best way to ensure greater participation and improved access to culture for everyone in each of the sectors concerned.
In a Europe which seems to be increasingly controlled by bankers and stock markets, we need to recognise the true value of the benefits of cultural expression. Culture is a source of new jobs and I must take this opportunity to say how much I regret that the European Parliament has not had the chance to discuss the Commission's working document on 'Cultural industry and employment' which underlined the immense source of jobs to be exploited without delay.
Specifically, the audiovisual and tourism sectors have also been identified as the most hopeful in this area.
To conclude, I must mention the globalisation of trade and the cultural challenges linked to this, and I should therefore like to express my support for a policy which ensures respect for and the promotion of cultural diversity, both in the countries of central and eastern Europe and in the developing countries whose cultural sectors Europe, through agreements, is supporting as a full component of economic development.
Have not those pleading the case of culture also won another victory against the OECD, which had decided to deal with investment questions without distinction between products, but was forced to give way?
In order not to fail in my parliamentary duty, I must point out that the resources allocated for this policy are too limited.
I hope that the ECU 250 million voted by the Committee on Culture will be adopted by the Council of Ministers.
The scope of this programme clearly deserves this amount.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate the Commission and the DG concerned, because they took the first steps and understood the need to draw together and unify cultural measures which have hitherto been fragmented and were not guided by a common rationale and a single policy in the field of culture.
Of course, I would like to offer particular congratulations to the rapporteur, Mrs Mouskouri, who has I think upgraded, improved, developed and, if you will, broadened the horizons of the Commission's proposals.
I believe that with proper cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission, we can achieve results in the area of culture, which is unfortunately one of the European Union's major failings.
All too often we restrict our attentions to the democratic or social deficit, but unfortunately we also face a cultural deficit because if, indeed, the construction of a united Europe with a multicultural dimension, with peoples and intellectual and artistic potentials that derive from different sources, different histories, different languages and ways of life, if the effort to build that is a historic one, it must be accompanied by a major cultural efflorescence and explosion.
We cannot say that there is a cultural desert in Europe, but unfortunately cultural processes, particularly where young people are concerned, move along parallel lines and for that reason do not converge with the European Union.
From that standpoint substantial initiatives are needed on the part of the European Union if we are to make contact with cultural forces which, just as much as the European Parliament's resolutions and legislation, just as much as the economic rules we establish, and in their own intangible way, will largely influence the building, character and personality of this original enterprise of global importance and historic depth which we are undertaking.
From that perspective I agree with Mrs Mouskouri's basic observations.
I think it is very important that the sum set aside to support this programme should be increased to ECU 250 million.
It is also important to keep records and ensure transparency in relation to the activities that take place and of course, with my experience as a Greek MEP and with the widespread disappointment I note in many who have proposed various projects for programmes which subsequently fail because of inadequate funding, I too would like to say that it is very important to support more of these operators and, especially, to do what we can to relieve them of the burden of strict bureaucratic control by the European Union, though this does not mean that there will be a lack of transparency and financial monitoring.
Mr President, firstly I congratulate Nana Mouskouri on a very good report.
She has a great name in music already and she will now have a great name in cultural policy in Europe.
As President of Friends of Music I have been very supportive and worked with Nana Mouskouri in the committee on this.
In particular, I want to pay tribute to her for the section on music policy.
Music is very important in the European Union.
Some 350, 000 people are employed in the music industry and there is a turnover over ECU 15 billion per year.
This report will help to strengthen that in terms of training, education - which is very important - and supporting musical projects on which this Parliament has taken the lead, such as the European Youth Orchestra.
Recently I went to the European Youth Opera in Baden Baden to see that launched and it is a great success.
For the first time we are going to fund a European jazz orchestra, the European Youth Jazz Swinging Europe which I also welcome.
Clearly there needs to be more money as Nana Mouskouri says in her report.
We need to fund the big projects in Europe and the small ones.
With an expanded budget we can do that.
We should take account of the very good advice from the European Federation for the Arts and Heritage which has just produced a conference report.
I hope Commissioner Oreja has read that and will respond to the very good suggestions that EFAH gives us as well.
Mr President, as a European citizen I am obviously delighted by the establishment of a new financing instrument for cultural cooperation in Europe.
The Commission has finally realised the vital fact that Europe is more than just a vast free trade area.
However, there is a large shadow hanging over this instrument.
The forecast budget of ECU 167 million for five years is derisory.
I fully agree with the rapporteur in her request for more funds - ECU 250 million - to be spent on encouraging the development of our European heritage, greater participation and improved access for citizens to cultural activities. I also agree with Mrs Mouskouri's view that culture is a way of affirming our identity to other people.
Thanks to Mrs Mouskouri, we, the children of Athena, are no longer orphans.
I will therefore be voting unreservedly and enthusiastically for her report. This vote, together with those on the creation of the euro and the enlargement of the European Union to the countries of eastern Europe, is the most important, in my opinion, since I was first elected to this Parliament.
Mr President, like everyone else, I would like to pay tribute to the rapporteur for her hard work.
I should also like to thank the Commission for making real this proposal for a single framework for culture, reflecting the political will expressed in Article 128.
As everyone has said, it is high time for us to have a common approach and coherence and some common goals in European Union cultural policy that add value to the actions that nation states take.
It is time we give a clear voice for our common cultural endeavour and in this sense I would wholeheartedly endorse what Mr Alavanos has said.
We should have had a longer debate.
One conference was not really enough.
We could not just sweep aside Ariane, Raphael and Kaleidoscope and we had to reconcile apparently contradictory aims.
This Parliament, on the one hand, rightly said that we need to support many small projects and operators because we see those on the ground.
On the other hand, we must have far greater visibility and cultural policy should be visible across all Community action.
This is very hard when only 17 % of cultural action will in any sense come from this programme.
As we know, the big cultural money is coming particularly from the structural funds.
So what Nana Mouskouri attempted to achieve, and why she won support in our committee, was to build on Ariane, Raphael and Kaleidoscope and the best of that, but also to reflect the views of the Commission in creating a horizontal perspective which takes into account the same proposal the Commission has made to achieve the creation of networks, inter-disciplinary projects and big symbolic projects.
In my own constituency there is something called the Summer University of East London.
It is one of the most magnificent cultural educational events in the whole of London but has always fallen between two stools and not managed to get funding.
It is that kind of endeavour that should and can be supported under the kind of proposals we are putting forward.
So we are suggesting a compromise of the best from the past but also that you must put a spotlight on European cultural action by large projects.
I am confident we can find agreement between the institutions.
This has to be part of the cornerstone of the People's Europe.
That is absolutely vital and I always say that the European Union cannot live by commercialism alone.
Mr President, a framework programme for culture is a step forward towards asserting the fact that culture should be playing the role of vehicle and lynchpin in the process of European construction.
Europe needs to define itself through a horizontal cultural policy cutting across all policies.
That should be its trademark for the next century.
The Commission's Culture 2000 Programme had many positive aspects: it is a multiannual programme, integrating different sectors. But it also had some serious gaps.
The Mouskouri report has managed to reduce those gaps, thanks to a good deal of work and a constructive approach, which I recognise and salute.
Nonetheless certain aspects that I would have liked to have seen included have been left to one side, and I would like to mention two in particular: the budget and cultural diversity.
The European institutions' recent discovery that culture promotes social development, internal cohesion and citizenship, and makes Europe more outwardly visible, has inexplicably and ludicrously not been reflected in the budget.
It is a mistake to think that shaving a little off the culture budget results in only slightly fewer projects.
The question is: either we spend enough to create the critical mass for culture to bear fruit, by encouraging quality, individually or socially, or we decide to give culture peanuts.
A European Union worthy of its own history and aware of the challenges facing it, such as enlargement and worldwide competition, must radically change the approach it has taken to grow to its present size.
It is now and not later that the European Union must become both an economic and cultural union.
It must assert that political will by indexing the culture budget at a realistic percentage of the Community budget as a whole. To begin with, at least ECU 250 million.
That would be a signal people could understand.
As for cultural diversity, culture cannot be dealt with like some statistic, defined once and for all.
Culture is in perpetual motion and knows no boundaries.
The European programme for culture, if it is to play a useful role, must be broadly based and flexible so that it can ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I should particularly like to thank Nana Mouskouri for all her hard work on this Culture 2000 report, and I support her central demand for more funding.
If - and this appeal is addressed to the Commission - we really mean what this programme says, that culture is to be at the heart of European integration, a touchstone of Europe's values and a driving force in society, then it is really only right and proper that the funding should be increased to ECU 250 million, as our committee recommends.
It is a disgrace that it currently only receives 0.003 % of the budget, and many people involved in cultural projects are disappointed when their applications for funding have to be rejected.
I should particularly like to stress the commitment shown by our chairman, Peter Pex, who will be speaking shortly, by the whole of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and by the President-in-Office of the Council, Dr Peter Wittmann, who tried to convince his colleagues of the need to increase the budget at the informal Culture Ministers Council meeting in Linz.
I only hope that the meeting of the Culture Ministers Council scheduled for 17 November will also approve the increase in funding, so that a first common position can be drawn up.
I also support Mrs Mouskouri's proposed amendments to divide the programme into different cultural fields, as previous programmes have been, and to promote cultural networks, small and innovative projects, long-term promotional measures and the broad involvement of culturally underprivileged groups of the population.
Mr President, if I could begin again, I would start with culture.
This statement by the great European political figure Jean Monnet clearly illustrates the importance of culture in the European integration process.
The European Union is not just an economic community, but a community of values incorporating a wide range of languages and cultures.
Europe must be made into something that people can experience and understand, which is why I welcome the proposals in this excellent report for getting people involved in cultural activities.
Due recognition is also given to the employment aspects of culture at European level.
The requirement is that three Member States must be involved if cultural events or projects to be carried out by partnerships or networks are to receive funding.
However, it must be ensured here that the Commission provides the necessary infrastructure so that finding partners does not become an insuperable barrier.
Applicants would find things a good deal easier if more help was provided on the Internet or through data banks, and if there was greater transparency and more information on the programmes.
The Commission's proposal of ECU 167 million per year will certainly not be enough to put these proposals into practice, but if we look at the amounts being spent on other programmes, the European Parliament's demands for ECU 250 million per year will probably also be too little.
The report rightly calls for consultation with cultural operators about the implementation of the programme, and we should encourage the establishment of European cultural centres in the Member States to ensure constant contact with the various aid institutes.
This would be another important step in the development of a comprehensive European cultural policy.
Mr President, of course I too must compliment Mrs Mouskouri on the outcome of all her hard work and dedication to the future of cultural policy, because that is what we are talking about today.
I congratulate the members of the Committee on Culture too for the fact that their dedication and cooperation have brought us to the point of debating this important proposal in record time.
And lastly, I must pay tribute to Commissioner Oreja and his officials for their creative effort in preparing this proposal for a decision.
But actually the work is only just beginning.
What we need is good interinstitutional cooperation to implement the policy plans we shall be agreeing today.
I have some grave misgivings about these, because in reality we have three proposals here - a Commission proposal, a Parliament proposal and this weekend I saw a Council proposal too which is markedly different from what you have heard here this evening.
I worry too about the Council's intentions with regard to the budget.
What are our good intentions going to come to? I see cultural policy as pivotal to European policies as a whole.
I would venture to say that, without a good cultural policy, the deepening and widening of the European Union is in jeopardy.
So we need to work together with Europe's cultural institutions too, because they have the know-how and the vigour to implement the plans prompted by policy.
I hope the Commissioner will reassure us presently that he will back us in impressing upon the Council shortly that we want to see a good outcome to the conciliation process, not the frustration of having to change our policy and end up choosing between half a loaf and no bread.
I hope we can agree and get a satisfactory result, ideally before Christmas.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.27 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Removing obstacles to trade
The next item is the report (A4-0385/98) by Mr Skinner, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation creating a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene in order to remove certain obstacles to trade (COM(97)0619 - C4-0011/98-9348/98 - C4-0441/98-97/0330(CNS)).
Mr President, this has been quite a controversial report from start to finish, and it is not over yet.
Indeed, you will not find it surprising that I take the view that we should be consistent as a parliament.
We should not be engaged in facile, political posturing but we should be involved very directly and very earnestly in trying to engineer something which benefits the citizens and the companies of the European Union in effectively building up the trade and wealth of the Union so that we can create jobs and on that basis alleviate poverty and all the other worst aspects of our society.
I am sure Members will agree with me in this respect.
However, I have to say that as somebody from the south-east region in the United Kingdom I have had to recognise that there are good things and bad things which come out of the EU.
One of the worst aspects has been the effects of port blockades which cause delays.
(Interruptions from Mr Kerr) I understand, Mr President, that Mr Kerr will have an opportunity to speak in a moment.
In Kent, in the south-east of England, we have had to deal with some pretty severe problems.
In particular, there were lorries parked all along the M20 which for many people in the south-east, the most populous region in the United Kingdom, is not good.
This behaviour on the part of the EU does not lead to a sophisticated debate in terms of the EU and leaves people in the UK, as elsewhere in the EU, second-guessing what can be done to assist the process of free movement of trade.
(Interruption from Mr Kerr: What about the workers, we say!)
The previous document, introduced by the Commission after the Council had asked it to intervene, introduced an specific instrument to allow the Commission to act very quickly in such occurrences.
The single European market implies no barriers to trade and therefore the Treaty has a legal framework whereby we permit the free movement of trade.
In practice, as I have said already, the obligation does not allow that free movement of trade.
At worst it is ignored and at best it is conveniently forgotten.
Whether it be British hill farmers or French lorry drivers does not matter.
It should not happen.
The Commission document dealt with this and attracted much attention at the time.
Of course it did not receive popular consent and support in Parliament, primarily because it erred in two particular directions: in the area of subsidiarity where national governments would be held by their own courts to be responsible on the basis of interpreting Community law and also because of the expression of fundamental human rights, in particular the right to industrial action and strike.
So it was rejected in the European Parliament, referred back to the Council and the Council came back with a reworked document.
This modified text corrected both these particular problems and so we have before us in this plenary a report which Parliament, Commission and Council have jointly agreed is a progressive text.
It is one that allows us to speed up the legislative procedure, allows companies and citizens to have their rights respected within the European Union but does not damage the social fabric on which industrial relations is based across the Community.
These are important considerations when we come to inspect any legislation in the area and movement of trade.
We should remember that this particular instrument comes under Article 7(a).
It does not deal in any respect with the social agenda.
What we should call for is for the social agenda to be equally respected and I call upon the Commission ...
(Interruption from Mr Kerr) I hope you will add on time, Mr President, for the interruptions I am getting from my colleague.
I call in my report upon the Commission and the Council to make special provision for an equal balance to be given within the EU to ensure equal treatment for workers as well as capital.
With regard to the amendments, these from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights which clarify the issues and to put any attempt by governments to change the situation immediately onto the Commission website rather than into the Official Journal would be of benefit.
I note with interest that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs supports my own views about the equal treatment of capital and workers.
However, that is best placed as a political statement rather than changing the text itself.
This would allow us to breathe much more easily and allow this text through.
I think this report will be seen as a quite ground-breaking.
It will really help the companies of the European Union.
(Interruption from Mr Kerr: What about the assembly of workers?) And I believe that most of the European Union will thank us for making this sensible and progressive move forward instead of what we have had to live with over recent decades.
Mr President, let me begin by commenting on the extraordinary qualities of the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, who has displayed common sense and legal responsibility alongside political instinct and the ability to listen throughout the lengthy parliamentary progress of this report.
I should also like to mention Mr Wijsenbeek, whose earlier suggestions reflect a strong determination to achieve European integration and a shared concern to protect the interests of our citizens.
The regulation we are considering should be seen in the context of the Commission's document presented in November 1997, as the speaker rightly said.
That text raised many legal problems. For instance, it threatened to affect the balance between the institutions laid down in the Treaty.
For this reason, Parliament welcomed the new text from the Council, submitted last July, which has led to the report now before us.
The main difference is the elimination of the Commission's decision-making instrument, which was presenting the most difficulties.
The Committee on Legal Affairs gave priority to considering two aspects: the proposal's legal base and its added value.
Article 235 of the Treaty is proposed as a legal base. According to the case-law, it is applicable under the following conditions: when the aim is to fulfil one of the Community's objectives regarding the operation of the market; when the Treaty does not make specific provision for the case at issue; and when the action sought is necessary.
The Committee on Legal Affairs queried whether the second condition pertained in this case.
However, it eventually decided that the revised text did not involve harmonisation procedures, which are covered by Article 100a.
As a result, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights agrees entirely that Article 235 provides an appropriate legal base.
With regard to the added value of the amendments, the Committee on Legal Affairs endorses the relevance of Amendments Nos 11, 13 and 14.
However, it is aware that integrating them successfully into the framework of primary legislation will not be without its problems. It should be remembered that, according to Article 191, it is only compulsory to publish regulations and directives of a general nature.
Nevertheless, following the presentation of the issue by Mr Skinner, the rapporteur, I do feel that a compatible interpretation can be arrived at in the case of Amendment No 11, particularly if we bear in mind that the Treaty of Amsterdam lays great stress on transparency. Furthermore, the use of these new technologies is an excellent way of achieving transparency and of making this most important regulation known to all those affected by procedures opened under it.
Concerning Amendment No 13, it is true that the formalities in Article 169 of the Treaty are essential, and that there is no scope for modifying them in a secondary legislation document such as this.
The Committee on Legal Affairs decided that the form of words proposed is compatible with this requirement if it is not interpreted too strictly, whilst still naturally complying with the principles on which our Community is founded.
The remaining amendments are aimed at broadening the scope of the regulation to include serious obstacles to freedom of movement for workers.
The Committee on Legal Affairs shares this concern, but feels that it is not appropriate to include such measures in this mechanism for three reasons.
Firstly, it should be remembered that this regulation was produced in response to a mandate from the Amsterdam European Council in July 1997. This mandate was restricted to the free movement of goods.
Secondly, the particular nature of the obstacles to free movement of goods which this regulation is designed to eliminate should be borne in mind.
They involve underhand deals, faits accomplis and physical obstacles.
Obstacles to freedom of movement for workers are of a different nature.
In terms of visual images, as the rapporteur remarked, the sight of a lorry held up on a highway is unfortunately all too common. So far as I am aware, however, the problem for workers has never been that they have been physically prevented from crossing a border or reaching their place of work, which would have been the equivalent situation.
An attempt to provide for such disparate situations with a single legal instrument would detract from its internal coherence. It would also be to the detriment of the quality of the legislation, that is of its legal security.
We should be doing our citizens no favours if we presented them with a hotchpotch.
Thirdly, this is neither necessary not appropriate, because we do have another channel available, the appropriate instrument through which to deal with these concerns.
I refer to Regulation No 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers, and Directive 68/360.
I have before me documents COM(98)0229, (98)0230 and (98)0231 which propose the reform of the regulation and this directive, following the plan of action for the freedom of movement for workers presented by the Commission.
That is the channel to be used, Mr President.
That is where the amendments should be included.
Mr President, I have just a few comments on what the previous speaker said.
It is not enough for the Council to instruct the Commission to 'improve the free movement of goods', because we need to bear in mind the whole concept of the single market and look a little further if we want to improve that.
This is why we must also look at the political aspects of these issues.
But let me tell you first what I like in all of this.
I like the fact that the free movement of goods is to be improved in principle by creating regulatory mechanisms which ban illegal action, guarantee the free movement of goods, and are currently presented in a form we can vote for.
Before I go any further, I should like to say that I do not envy Mr Skinner this very complex task that he has taken on, but I think he has done a good job, even if we do not admittedly agree on every point.
My basic idea is that it is important to improve the free movement of goods and to ban the protectionist measures that still exist in certain Member States, and this is why I welcome this report.
There is one difficult area in this complex issue that needs to be looked at, and that is the fact that it is difficult to determine when action is illegal and when it is legal.
This has led to problems, in that various countries have actually approved illegal measures, which is why we need this particular regulation now, because some countries have misunderstood the concept of the single market.
The risk with this was that fundamental rights such as the right or freedom to strike, freedom of assembly or the right to demonstrate might also have been banned, and that is why I particularly welcome the fact that it was made clear in consultations between the Council, Parliament and the Commission that basic rights such as the right or freedom to strike should not be affected.
This is a fundamental condition for agreeing to this regulation, and I think that with our cooperation the matter was handled successfully.
What I do not like is the fact that we are improving only one of the four freedoms and leaving other issues aside.
We are creating an intervention mechanism for the free movement of goods which takes effect very quickly, within five days.
This is as it should be.
It means that we are creating a special system of legal protection for the movement of goods.
But when we compare the free movement of goods with the free movement of workers, we can see that there is a huge imbalance.
There have been proceedings brought on behalf of workers in the European Union that have taken more than six years - six years for workers to win justice on a sound legal basis and with the help of the Court of Justice.
So this five-day intervention mechanism stands in stark contrast to the unfortunate situation of workers, who should of course be able to move freely within the European Union.
Workers face an uphill struggle to win justice for themselves.
All of this may mean that their pensions are affected, it may mean that they have to wait years for additional pensions, and more besides.
This is the point the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is making.
We say that we should not create imbalances between the four freedoms, we should also enforce freedom of movement for workers and thus improve the entire concept of the single market.
The whole thing would then make sense, and our proposed amendments should be seen in this light.
This is really an appeal to the Commissioner to do more in this direction and to avoid one-sided developments designed only to help the economy.
Mr President, I shall endeavour to follow on from what other speakers have said, because it does not make much sense to produce distinctive speeches at this time of night.
The various speakers have stressed that this regulation has had a rough passage.
Nevertheless, all the institutions and all the political groups agreed that something had to be done to guarantee the free movement of goods throughout the Union. There was also a consensus that the increasingly frequent acts of vandalism which were being committed in certain countries against goods originating from other Member States had to be stopped.
The Court of Justice dealt with the issue, but an instrument to turn the freedom of movement enshrined in the Treaty into a reality was lacking.
Although there was general agreement on the need to do something, it was difficult to establish exactly what and to specify appropriate measures.
Some of the contentious issues have been laid before you this evening, ladies and gentlemen.
I agree with Mr Ettl that, as a result of the discussion, the programme now before us falls short of our ambitions.
However, I do welcome it, because despite its shortcomings it is a first step and we can build on it in the future.
Nevertheless, I have been perturbed by some of what has been said here this evening, particularly by some remarks the last few speakers have made, and I should like to elaborate a little.
Mr Ettl is delighted that this regulation takes account of certain fundamental rights - the right to strike and the right of association.
Yet this should never have been in question.
No Union measure may ever infringe those rights.
I cannot conceive of measures which would be compatible with those rights but incompatible with the free movement of goods.
In my view, there are no circumstances in which exercising the right to strike can involve overturning lorries from another Member State.
The right to strike is subject to certain limitations as to its scope and effects.
I cannot conceive either how one could ever envisage a conflict between the right of association or the right of assembly and the free movement of goods.
In no way, surely, can exercising the right of assembly justify acts of vandalism such as overturning lorries from another Member State.
Although I differ from Mr Ettl in this respect, I agree with him on other points. I do indeed believe that the two principles in question must be brought closer together.
The free movement of goods has to become a reality. At the same time, provision must be made for freedom of movement for workers.
I therefore proposed in my committee that my political group, the PPE Group, should vote in favour of the amendments from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. However, I emphasised that in so doing, we were departing from the terms of reference of this regulation.
The rapporteur is not present at the moment, but I have written to him to suggest a way of bringing together the issues of respect for both freedoms - freedom of movement of goods and freedom of movement for workers, whilst observing the terms of reference of the regulation. In my view, an oral amendment should be put forward, calling on the Commission to draw up a regulation securing freedom of movement for workers.
I do not know if such an amendment would be adopted or not.
However, if the Commissioner stated that freedom of movement for workers would be provided for in another text, we would modify the text of our amendments by the Committee on Economic Affairs, returning to the original text and referring solely to the free movement of goods. We would nevertheless be making a clear political statement of our desire to promote freedom of movement for workers.
Mr Ettl, our group shares your group's concern on this issue.
Mr President, a report such as this one, on the proposal for a Council Regulation creating a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene in order to remove certain obstacles to trade, deserves another debate, not the one on the agenda at this time.
To put it another way: this subject and this report really deserve a debate, whereas instead it seems that everything has been done to prevent one. We need to set up a rapid and effective intervention mechanism, but that seems to be regarded as incompatible with stimulating and holding democratic debates.
Before I go on to discuss the issue in question, on which Parliament's opinion has been sought, three or four facts need to be highlighted. They are so significant that very little needs to be said about them.
The Skinner report was approved last weekend by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
After the first stage and given the fact that the Council had reworded some of the text, the rapporteur tabled no amendments but, when it came to the vote, a number of amendments were tabled on the basis of the opinions of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
The report was due to be included in the agenda of the November II or December part-sessions but seemed to have been left off both the draft and final agendas for this part-session.
At possibly the last minute, as a result of a decision taken last night by the Conference of Presidents or a body deputising for it, the report was added to the agenda, with a deadline for tabling amendments at noon today.
This is not a normal procedure: it suggests an urgency that nobody suspected, and it meant that we had no opportunity to raise the question of its doubtful legitimacy in terms of the Rules of Procedure, given that it was not available in certain languages and in view of the deadline set for amendments.
We have to say that we are both surprised and alarmed at the excessive speed with which Parliament is giving its opinion on a subject such as this one.
What it involves is an examination of the means and mechanisms for effectively guaranteeing the free circulation of goods, including the possibility of imposing sanctions on Member States, on the basis of a Commission proposal, in accordance with the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Is this an unimportant issue? Of course not.
Is this a delicate issue? Of course it is, because it is a matter of compatibility between different laws and different levels of regulation, and it also deals - almost brutally I would say - with the relationship between national competences and sovereignties and the setting up of Community mechanisms and relevant regulations.
In his explanatory statement, the rapporteur rightly tackles certain points which reveal the complexity of the intervention mechanisms to be set up.
He rightly says that this regulation was not intended to define what civil or industrial rights or freedoms are, nor to solve the possible contradictions between different and equally legitimate rights, freedoms or interests, since those issues are the responsibility of national legal systems, if necessary in the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights.
Therefore, the definition of obstacles to trade cannot infringe on the Member States' right and obligation not to go beyond 'necessary and proportionate measures' which do not adversely affect 'the exercise of fundamental rights'.
Although Mr Skinner seems satisfied that the second version, in his opinion, has dispelled 'any ambiguity in this matter', he draws attention, albeit only in the explanatory statement, to the fact that industrial conflicts standing in the way of trade, the reason behind this Council and Commission initiative, do not occur at random and may be closely linked to the content or absence of other legislation on occupational issues, an equally urgent matter.
Furthermore, the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs rightly raises the problem of striking a balance between the four freedoms of movement defining the internal market, pointing out that once again emphasis has shifted to the economic sector and that the proposal for a regulation serves solely to boost the free movement of goods, thus reinforcing that trend.
This is a complicated and delicate issue that is now going to be rushed through the plenary without even the minimum of required preparation.
For our part, although we have tried to keep up with this fast pace - which is dubious not to say suspicious - we feel that this has made the debate an undesirable one; more than that, the debate is unjustified and unacceptable and we cannot therefore lend our agreement to the report put forward for our approval.
Mr President, I think there is a fundamental problem here.
I know Mr Skinner and Mr Ettl to be very clever and astute men, but I do not think they have thought this process through.
The right to industrial dispute is an attempt to put such disputes on a legal footing, and it only works where there are guaranteed rights for both sides - not just individual freedoms or rights of ownership, but also rights against arbitrary lockouts and against the criminal prosecution of strikers.
None of this has been taken into account here at all.
Mr Skinner has very subtly drawn the teeth of the original Commission proposal, I have to admit, and Mr Ettl has added a few points which make it clear that this is the wrong direction to take, but nevertheless the original idea is still completely wide of the mark.
A civilised European right to industrial dispute will not be achieved in this indirect manner; instead we need to sit down and talk about what the guarantees and limits of a European right to strike might be.
This is the only way to tackle the problem, and we are therefore still not happy with the result.
It may be that there is no alternative, but it is still the wrong approach, and Mr Skinner can do nothing to change that.
Mr President, in our opinion it is important that the original Commission proposal giving the Member States excessive powers to intervene was not accepted.
The Council regulation before us is a fairly acceptable compromise.
Industrial disputes which result in the sort of obstacles we are discussing do not occur for no reason and sometimes have a good deal to do with shortcomings in the European legal system.
As far as possible, we must leave it to the individual states to ensure the operation of the single market.
The right to strike as such must not be jeopardised, and it is undoubtedly right that in the balance between the four freedoms, greater emphasis should be laid on economic issues.
However, I do not think it is appropriate to mix the movement of goods with socio-political considerations, which is what some of the proposed amendments do.
Mr President, there have been many examples of disruption of the free movement of goods in the EU in recent years, whether for reasons of industrial action, for example the French lorry drivers' blockade which caused so much damage to trans-European trade, or the more recent blockades of Welsh ports by angry farmers protesting about the ban on British beef exports due to BSE or because of falling sheep prices.
In any event, they prevented meat trucks and other trucks from Ireland accessing routes through the UK to the continent.
It is essential that we find a means of ensuring the reality of free movement of goods throughout the EU without prejudice to those who earn their living from inter-Community trade.
I agree with the rapporteur that much of the problem is linked to the gap between free market conditions we now enjoy and the lack of harmonisation of rules on working conditions.
Whatever measures we take to ensure the free movement of goods must not undermine the right to industrial action or peaceful protest by the EU workforce.
It is, however, essential that we have a rapid system of intervention in order to reduce impediments to free movement and, wherever necessary, to provide compensation for losses for those adversely affected by such actions.
Mr President, firstly I should like to pay tribute to Mr Skinner who is a perfect messenger of New Labour.
I can see now why they made him number one in the south-east on the list for re-election next year.
He defends British truck owners - some of the nastiest, most reactionary right-wing people you could meet - and attacks French lorry drivers who are fighting for fewer hours and better social conditions.
You would have thought Labour Party members should support this.
But of course he is a New Labour Member.
Earlier tonight Mr John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister, was speaking in this building to the British Labour members.
Thirty years ago he was leading the seamen's strike.
Under Mr Skinner's laws, Mr Prescott would be thrown in prison.
Of course, Mr Prescott was then a member of the International Socialists.
Today he is Deputy Prime Minister for New Labour.
The truth is that this Council Regulation is all about keeping Mr Blair happy who went to the Amsterdam Summit and complained about the French lorry drivers.
We in this Parliament should protect the right of workers to take action, to take solidarity action and to enjoy freedom of assembly and I would like to see a little more concern from Mr Skinner for the rights of workers and the free movement of workers, rather than the free movement of goods.
Mr President, Mrs Palacio summed up very well in my view the legal necessity for us to accept that this instrument is to deal with the dysfunction of the market and that is what it was set out to do.
Clearly there is no objection to that because the Treaty spelled it out.
Mr Ettl made his view that the political balance was essential and I am pleased to agree.
That is right and overall it should be our long-term goal.
But I do not think this instrument is necessarily going to achieve that overnight.
Nevertheless, politically we should make that statement.
Mr García-Margallo y Marfil also knows that from both sides of the argument it is essential to bring those freedoms together and he, like me would join in asking for an independent instrument to do something about that sometime in the future.
That is something which the Commission and the Council should look at.
I have to disagree with Mr Ribeiro about the length it has taken for us to get here.
It has been quick getting to this plenary but eight months in discussion.
Much of the discussion took place with Mr Ribeiro there I am pleased to say.
I am not in control of Parliament's procedures for putting this on their agenda.
I would say to Mr Wolf that the the legal basis to guarantee strike is not subtle but very fundamental.
This should be a freedom to which everyone in the European Union, as a citizen, trade unionist or not, should aspire to.
I am very pleased that this is accepted for the first time in many Member States.
I am glad Mr Wolf recognised that not too subtly but very obviously. The UK, for example, in this regulation now has the first mention of legally free strikes.
I thank Mr Lukas for his comments though I do not necessarily share them all.
Mr Gillis spoke about the French lorry blockade, UK hill farmers and the problems in Ireland.
I agree with him an in particular his underlining of the social rights.
But, Mr Kerr!
I am so sorry.
I know he is always very good for a laugh and even at this time of the evening he is stretching our humour.
However, I cannot agree with anything he says.
Mr President, I want to thank Parliament sincerely for examining this proposal for a regulation with great skill and thoroughness.
I particularly want to thank Messrs Skinner, Wijsenbeek and Ettl and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi. Like their respective committees, they have worked together with deep commitment.
It is certainly thanks to them that we are so close to the result which I trust we will soon achieve.
As Mr Skinner mentions in his report, the Amsterdam European Council asked the Commission to bring forward proposals designed to strengthen, in terms of speed and effectiveness, the application of the principle of free movement of goods.
In speaking earlier to various parliamentary committees dealing with this issue, I emphasised that the important thing was to identify remedies designed to deal with restrictions on the import of goods involving the destruction and/or boycotting of the goods themselves and calling for rapid counter-measures from the Member State concerned.
As we know, the non-fulfilment procedure set out in Article 169 is liable to be a very slow and ineffective mechanism in this kind of situation.
The proposal for a regulation put forward by the Commission, as defined in the informal understanding reached at the Internal Market Council on 18 May 1998, provides a specific solution based on the requirement for Member States to take action to eliminate the obstacles concerned.
It includes a special immediate alarm system and entitles the Commission to send a formal reminder to the Member States to take action.
Some of the amendments being debated today seek to extend the scope of the regulation to obstacles to the free movement of workers, which is covered by Article 48 of the Treaty.
That is certainly an interesting idea; and the recognition of the rights of individuals, their freedom of movement and their right to operate in the single market - I know Parliament is aware of this - is one of the Commission's major concerns.
But at the moment the Commission has to respond rapidly to a specific mandate from the European Council which is expressly limited to the free movement of goods.
Extending the scope of the regulation, to the free movement of workers in particular, therefore exceeds the remit from the Council.
However, in its report on the proposal for a regulation, the Commission has not excluded the possibility of extending its scope to the other freedoms as well.
On behalf of the Commission, I recognise that a number of Members are thinking along these lines and I do think we should consider a possible extension in the future.
I hope it is of some comfort to those who tabled amendments to that effect that we already have certain mechanisms specifically intended to apply to obstacles to the free movement of workers - Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi in particular mentioned this - under Council Regulation No 1612/68 on the application of Article 48 of the Treaty.
These mechanisms should be operating more effectively today as a result of the undertakings given by the Member States and the Commission in the context of the 1997 action plan for free movement of workers.
So I think the proposal to extend the scope of the regulation to workers at this stage not only does not correspond to the wishes of the Amsterdam Council, but would duplicate remedies already provided by Regulation No 1612/68, thus adding nothing of importance.
The Commission therefore cannot support those amendments at this stage in the evolution of Community law.
The other amendments propose changes to the procedure provided for in Article 5 of the regulation, on the notification the Commission is empowered to send to the Member States.
Amendment No 11 requires the Commission to publish the notification in the Official Journal in order to increase transparency and publicity about the action taken.
Despite its aim, which I can broadly support, I do not find this amendment acceptable because it would undermine the Commission's discretion as regards infringements.
Nor do I think that the changes it makes are essential, if I may say so.
I would like Members to know that I will of course make use of those discretionary powers to ensure that the notification is published as often as possible.
As regards posting the notification on the Commission's Internet website, that is an internal matter for the Commission, so frankly I think it is rather redundant and superfluous to mention it directly in a Council Regulation.
On Amendment No 13, I want to make it clear that, even though it pursues the laudable aim of speeding up the procedure for dealing with internal market infringements under the scope of the regulation, it is not possible to accept the amendment because it threatens to introduce confusion between instruments based on two different legal bases.
This is a regulation based on Article 235, and as such it cannot interfere with the scope of Article 169 and the freedom of action that article confers on the Commission.
I entirely understand the reasoning behind the amendment, and I want you to know I shall be suggesting that the Commission should systematically send the Member State concerned a letter of notice under the terms of Article 169, in addition to the notification provided for in the proposal for a regulation we are now considering.
That will mean an immediate start to the infringement procedure period under Article 169, so that the case can be brought to court expeditiously where necessary.
Amendment No 14, on the other hand, clarifies the wording of Article 5(6) and appears well-founded.
In conclusion, Mr President, the Commission considers that the compromise proposal, which found a unanimous consensus in the Internal Market Council of 18 May 1998, will be capable of adding the value the European Council asked for.
I need not repeat my strong conviction that the progress made so far, thanks to the political will of the Council and Parliament, needs to take concrete form as soon as possible through the adoption of the proposal for a regulation.
I trust that will happen and I am strongly committed to this issue politically, because this is one of the most crucial functions of the single market, though not of course the only one.
Mr President, I notice that the Commissioner did not talk about Amendments Nos 15 and 16, the splendid amendments submitted on behalf of the Green Group in my name, calling for freedom of assembly.
Is this a concern that the Commission does not share any more or is it, like Mr Skinner, more interested in the freedom of goods than the freedom of people?
- Mr President, the rights Mr Kerr refers to are of the greatest importance.
It is, however, our view that the whole of the proposed regulation as well as its specific language do not make it necessary to add the specifications proposed in the amendments you mentioned.
Mr President, the Commissioner referred to Regulation No 1612/68 but failed to mention that Parliament is considering the proposal to amend this regulation - document COM(98)229 - and the proposal for a directive to which I referred - document COM(98)230.
I agree entirely with what the Commissioner said.
The appropriate instrument already exists for dealing with amendments concerning freedom of movement for workers, an issue which is of such concern to us all.
There is therefore no need to ask the Commission to create a new instrument or launch a new initiative.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
SMEs and craft sector
The next item is the report (A4-0359/98) by Mrs Thyssen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the coordination of activities to assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the craft sector (1997) (COM(97)0610 - C4-0019/98).
Mr President, for a long time now, our hopes for a growth in jobs have rested with SMEs.
For both 1998 and 1999, the European Commission has made the encouraging of small businesses one of the pillars of its employment policy, quite properly pointing to the economic factors underpinning its policy on jobs.
The Austrian Presidency has played its part by devoting a high-level round table conference to SMEs for the first time since the Belgian Presidency of a few years back.
In short, SMEs, SMUs and small businesses have in recent times been a prominent feature of all policy statements and declarations of intent.
It would appear that 15 years after the European Year of SMEs, attention returns every year afresh to this area of business life.
But what people care about most is not so much the talking, but the answer to the question of whether SMEs are present as a factor to be considered in all areas of policy, whether they are considered in the best way possible, and whether all efforts on the SME front are coordinated as efficiently as possible.
The report we are discussing this evening deals precisely with this question of coordination.
We initiated it ourselves, and we want it to be useful as an instrument of policy.
As we know, policy on SMEs looks simple.
Putting the little man first is what they say, and it sounds good.
But in fact SMEs are of course a difficult sector, not only because the sector itself is not homogeneous, but also because policy is a horizontal affair which interfaces and intersects with the most diverse of policy areas, where powers rest with the European Commission, with the European Union and with Member States, and where the powers at each of these policymaking levels are spread over a variety of departments.
This of course makes the business of scrutiny and assessment far from simple.
So a report on coordination is useful - useful in order to show whether and how coordination operates between the various levels and sectors of policy and to determine where there is room for improvement and how policy itself can best be directed.
A positive feature of this report is its emphasis on the greater appreciation of small businesses which now exists in society compared with earlier, and on the fact that people now realise that SMEs have specific characteristics which mean that they cannot simply be treated as miniature versions of bigger companies.
The SME is increasingly being seen as the rule rather than the exception.
We can only welcome this; it is the only realistic approach.
One instrument which is extremely useful for assessing and coordinating policy on SMEs is the SME definition of 1996.
Using this definition, we can demarcate the field and systematically check whether the instruments deployed really are benefiting the target group.
The definition is a good one, but it needs to be used more systematically in future.
The forthcoming period of programming for the Structural Funds will provide a first important opportunity for this.
According to the Court of Auditors' report, it was not unusual in the past for big companies to swallow up the funds intended for smaller ones.
The BEST working party too asks for Community programmes to be tailored better to the SME format.
This can only be achieved by greater and more rigorous application of the SME definition.
Despite the signals I seem to have been receiving to the effect that some people would like the ceiling for these definitions to be raised, I can only recommend to the Commission that it does not give in.
That would only mean that the small business we are at last working to help lose out once again when it comes to a share-out of attention and resources.
A few suggestions and questions to end with.
Small businesses represent a world of people engaged on practical activities.
They have no time for fat reports showing how hard we are working for them and at how many levels.
Above all, they understand concrete action, less red tape, more legislative stability, lower labour costs, greater legal certainty, easier access to credit and a single market free of obstacles.
They want to know clearly who to go to for what.
So I would ask the Commission, I would suggest to it, that every time it produces a communication on its policy for SMEs, the Commission not only says who is responsible for what, but also looks at how much working time it spends drafting reports on the policy carried out and how much of its time it spends on actually devising, thinking through and implementing its policy on SMEs.
I would also ask the Commission what it proposes to do in future to supply us with more precise figures, because the meagre figures in this report are not enough to allow us to do our job of scrutinising the Commission's work and putting forward proposals.
My final comment is that a good policy is not only effective and successful, but credible.
Credibility is enhanced by a policy pursued in consultation and dialogue with the parties concerned.
Our finding is that in the small business sector, SMEs can have their say in a context of consultation and opinion, but once the context becomes one of a full voice and shared power, they are shut out.
This, Mr President, brings us to the question of the social dialogue in Europe, and my final question once again is this: when can we expect to see a real change in the Commission's attitude? When is the Commission finally going to do something to get rid of this flagrant example of a democratic deficit?
Mr President, it was disappointing to find that Mrs Thyssen's report did not really take up the important proposals from Members responsible for drafting opinions, like myself.
The report seems timid and is limited to an overview of small and medium-sized companies without putting forward proposals which would introduce a breath of fresh air.
With globalisation the role of SMEs has increasingly taken on international proportions and significance.
It is now widely recognised that SMEs constitute the key sector for economic growth and the consequent creation of jobs.
Furthermore, the present VAT system places an excessive burden on businesses and discourages cross-border trade.
On reducing the indirect labour costs arising from national law, the Commission has pointed out that SMEs are hit hardest by relatively high tax burdens and contributions.
The need to lighten the fiscal load on labour is now clearly recognised by all the main political players.
There are three ways of improving the competitiveness of the industrial fabric of SMEs throughout Europe: reducing tax burdens that penalise employment, simplifying red tape for SMEs, and opportunities for experimental reductions in VAT.
SMEs are increasingly entering the global market by belonging to networks of companies for the purchase and exchange of production factors.
Cooperation between companies creates wealth and sources of innovation and new jobs, making it an instrument in the development of endogenous local potential.
Finally, an optimal partnership is needed between European institutions, Member States, regional and local authorities, professional organisations and the SMEs themselves.
That can help reduce administrative segmentation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report clearly describes the aims which a sensible SME policy must pursue in the new millennium.
The SME dimension must become a much more definite aspect of Community policy than hitherto.
There are still many areas at both national and EU levels where obstacles have yet to be removed and life needs to be made easier for small businesses.
I am therefore also grateful for the detailed report by the BEST task force, which has made a considerable contribution towards creating a better European entrepreneurial environment.
I also support the idea of obtaining appropriate information on small and medium-sized firms and making it available at all political levels.
We are quite happy with the data provided by the European statistical system both on small and medium-sized firms and on the Observatory, but we should not forget that the provision of data creates problems for many businesses.
The administrative burden, particularly for firms with few employees, must not be allowed to grow any heavier, and from now on we must try to ensure that statistical reporting requirements are efficiently deregulated.
The second approach recommended in the report is also a step in the right direction.
Small and medium-sized firms must be more involved in the Community programmes, and I would mention here the third multiannual programme, which will next year be open to some of the applicant countries.
Another important and influential decision is to be taken next week, when the Conciliation Committee meets on Tuesday to discuss the fifth framework programme of research.
I feel sure that everything will be done to ensure that this programme goes ahead next year, because it is of such particular relevance to small and medium-sized firms which Parliament has proposed should be given special assistance.
Mr President, I sense a certain amount of scepticism from our rapporteur about the usefulness of this repetitive and routine exercise which the Commission's biannual report on the coordination of activities in favour of SMEs and the craft sector has become.
We all know, however, what an essential role SMEs play in terms of innovation, job creation and regional development, particularly in rural areas.
In France, for example, 37 % of employees work in enterprises with less than 20 workers, and two-thirds in enterprises with less than 100 workers.
The craft sector represents 13 % of the working population and employment is increasingly shifting towards the SMEs.
Why then does our rapporteur stress that 'there is no point in constantly reiterating the same views and drawing up unreadable reports and resolutions'? This is because, in this area of national competence, there are serious doubts about the usefulness of the role played by the Commission in terms of coordination and structural aid.
On this last point, the Commission states that large amounts of public money are available to SMEs, particularly in the context of regional funds and certain Community initiative programmes.
But to what extent are these funds used? How are they used and by whom?
Is this aid really useful and effective?
Would other systems not be more economical and better suited to the real needs of enterprises? We have no answers to any of these basic questions and no assessment of these issues.
Such uncertainty and absence of monitoring are totally unacceptable.
It is not satisfactory, as the rapporteur stresses, that the Commission is content to assert, 'often on the basis of purely theoretical data, that SMEs are receiving the necessary attention'.
These are just cliches, and we are not likely to be reassured by the remarks of the Court of Auditors, which tell us that the occasional data provided by the Commission are not reliable and that large enterprises have captured aid intended for SMEs.
We are therefore in a real mess and we must ask ourselves about the relevance of such Community aid schemes.
It is curious that the Commission does not question the proliferation of regulations which it is itself responsible for imposing on SMEs, nor the need to provide better protection for SMEs against unfair competition, counterfeiting, moonlighting, social and environmental dumping and the risks of relocation.
Mr President, the basic message in this report is entirely welcome.
The Structural Funds are now going to have to focus on SMEs much more in future.
However, I would point out that both the Commission's coordination report and the present report clearly show once again just how far the obsession with subsidies dominates our economic thinking.
It is now high time that the emphasis was shifted onto entrepreneurial independence, and we MEPs could play a highly constructive role here.
For example, we should keep mentioning the EEIG, the European Economic Interest Grouping, in our talks with SMEs.
This extremely useful opportunity for entirely unbureaucratic and flexible cross-border cooperation has not yet been exploited as it should be.
Yet the form of cooperation involved not only brings business advantages, but is also very much in keeping with the spirit of the single market.
In conclusion, I agree with the rapporteur's request to the Austrian Presidency to organise a seminar for the social partners and SMEs on improving social dialogue in Europe.
Mr President, I see that my honourable friend Professor Secchi is not here.
Would you be good enough to allow me 30 seconds of his time so that I can just address a few words to the draftsmen?
Mr President, for the benefit of the draftsmen of opinions on my report, I should mention the fair comment by Mr Cellai that there is little trace in my report of the specific proposals contained in the opinions.
That is indeed the case, but I would ask them not to see that as a lack of respect for the work done in the other committees.
We shall certainly be taking due account of it in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs when we debate policy on SMEs.
But the difficulty we had was as follows. We are limited in the space we can give to an opinion.
We realised that we just could not write meaningfully and formulate meaningful, detailed proposals about every last aspect of policy on SMEs.
We explicitly put that fact to our colleagues and decided in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs that we would confine ourselves to the methodology of the Commission's policy on SMEs and not comment on every last detail of the policy itself.
That is why you find so little trace of your opinions, but you can take it from me and my fellow members of the committee that they are much appreciated!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 10.15 p.m.)
Education programmes
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0373/98 by Mrs Waddington, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing the second phase of the Community vocational training action programme 'Leonardo da Vinci' (COM(98)0330 - C4-0522/98-98/0196(SYN)); -A4-0371/98 by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the second phase of the Community action programme in the field of education 'Socrates' (COM(98)0329 - C4-0510/98-98/0195(COD)); -A4-0389/98 by Mr De Coene, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the Community action programme for youth (COM(98)0331 - C4-0511/98-98/0197(COD)).
Thank you, Mrs Pack.
The final part of your speech provided the basis for the debate which will take place in the conciliation procedure.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, just before the summer recess, Commissioner, you presented your Youth 2000-2004 programme.
We are glad to now have a comprehensive programme in which measures which target the same group are brought together.
This makes for greater coherence between the various measures, avoids a fragmentation of resources which are, after all, thin on the ground, and enables us to conduct a clearer policy.
We are keen to support you in that policy, as you can see today just a few months after you first presented your document.
As rapporteur, I have been concerned from the start to address the following points.
Firstly, that this programme should reach as many young people as possible and above all those young people who have the greatest need for this kind of programme.
Secondly, the programme should have a political dimension built into it.
This programme must involve young people too in building the European Union by strengthening their notion of European citizenship.
Your proposal, Commissioner, puts the main emphasis on young people's employability.
But the European Parliament wishes to broaden that objective and so make the programme more balanced.
I will just go through the amendments to your programmes which have in the meantime been submitted by the European Parliament's Committee on Youth.
First and foremost an increase in the budget.
You propose ECU 600 million and we are asking for 800 million, because the amount has to show that Europe really is committed to investing in its younger generations and, moreover, we need that much in order to achieve the programme's ambitious objectives.
Increasing the budget is one thing, but no less important to us is a redistribution of the funds.
Because in your proposal, and do not take this the wrong way, Commissioner, the European Voluntary Service is strikingly predominant.
If we look at the figures, we see that two thirds of the monies under the whole programme are going directly or indirectly into the European Voluntary Service.
We are not for or against the European Voluntary Service, that is not the issue, but we can see that other programmes such as exchange projects or initiatives in favour of young people may be squeezed as a result.
That is why we wish to strike a balance, without creating any kind of panic, because the European Voluntary Service will always receive more money than the sums requested for it on Parliament's behalf in the past by Mrs Fontaine, who was rapporteur at the time.
We have a number of arguments in favour of that balance.
In your proposal, and we understand that, the references are almost exclusively to preparation for the world of work, entering the employment process, and social and vocational integration.
Sadly, concepts such as European citizenship for young people, living together and inter-cultural learning have been pushed into the background.
Naturally we are convinced of the special importance of work to young people, but this target group is equally alert to things like the environment, law and order and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, European and international cooperation, and the position, rights and obligations of young people in society.
We also believe that this programme must provide an answer to phenomena such as individualism, nationalism, uncertainty, and lack of faith in others and in the future.
Consequently we think the pillar of youth exchanges must be strengthened, especially since if we increase and redistribute the funds available, we can hopefully involve some one and a half million young people in the various measures and actions.
We have one or two more points to make.
We believe - and we looked at the experiment you tried with the CFO - that voluntary service must not replace paid jobs, and that beneficiary organisations must respect the European Union's rules in every particular.
Fourthly, we think that the money must go primarily to those who need it most, and in our evaluation work we have found, from talking to young people and agencies on the spot, that it is those who know the situation best who are often best able to benefit from the funds available.
So we want to change things here, precisely for the benefit of those young people who invariably miss out.
Lastly, we want more openness in evaluating projects, better publicity for programmes and a measure of flexibility in setting the age limits.
Parliament's Committee on Youth was keen above all to listen to young people themselves and to the organisations which oversee the implementation of the programmes.
We were in touch with some 5 000 young people, and out of those contacts we distilled a report which had a multiple objective.
One, to invest more money to enable more young people to be reached.
Two, to achieve a balance between the various actions, stricter guidelines and better scrutiny to ensure that funds were being properly spent.
Three, to make access to and implementation of the programme more democratic and, lastly, to give young people better hopes for the future and at the same time to ensure more of a future for the project of building Europe by increasing the number of young people involved.
Mr President, with the three proposals we are debating today, just as with the 'Culture 2000' programme we looked at yesterday, the Commission is inaugurating a new overall approach in its efforts to put into practice the strategic guidelines embodied in Agenda 2000 and in its statement of November 1997 on the Europe of Knowledge.
A common characteristic of all three proposals is that by improving knowledge and education, both general and professional, they all aim indirectly and directly, or their result could be, to improve employment and reduce unemployment in the medium and long term.
So it is very important that these programmes should be coherent, in other words be mutually compatible and show synergy with other Community programmes, which would make all of them more effective. This not only provides good reason to extend programmes which have already proved their value, but also justifies the new framework into which they are being brought.
It is not, therefore, just a quantitative increase which is involved, but also an important qualitative improvement.
We took that into account in the Committee on Budgets when considering how to deal with them from the financial standpoint.
These programmes are not isolated activities, and the two proposals we are debating aim to establish genuine Community policies in the areas of education and youth, as required by Articles 126 and 127 of the Treaty.
The sectors in question are ones for which the Member States are mainly responsible, and I will come back to this later, Mr President.
However, bearing in mind the principle of subsidiarity, the Community is there to supplement activities by the Member States, confer upon them a new European dimension, coordinate the respective activities at a multinational level, and promote cooperation between Member States and with third countries and international bodies.
In other words, it is there to do what the Member States could not do for themselves, or even if they did, then without the same efficiency and overall added value at Community level.
Now, purely from the financial standpoint, we must not forget that the level of funding required and the new financial framework have not yet been decided, but are still under discussion.
I therefore think - and this is the opinion of the Committee on Budgets - that an increase from ECU 1 400 to 2 000 million at this time may be excessive.
I know that this is not a particularly popular idea with the relevant committees, but there is always the second part of Amendment No 17 which provides for the possibility of annual adaptation by up to 20 %.
This creates the scope for much more funding to go to programmes which prove successful.
In any case, may I remind you of what I said yesterday about the 'Culture 2000' programme, with reference to the indicative nature of the sums involved when these are recorded in legislative acts, and about the role of the annual budget procedure.
Ladies and gentlemen, there are two things we must remember.
The first is that once sums have been recorded, it is a major responsibility for Parliament and for the Commission too of course, to ensure that the programmes covered by those sums are implemented.
In other words, to ensure that there will be no surpluses that create problems of a financial nature in subsequent financial years.
The second thing we must remember is that framework programmes often come under the responsibility of Parliament and test its ability to be a full member of the two arms of the Budget Authority in dealing with the budget of the European Union every year.
So when we set up major framework programmes without having the possibility of adapting them according to results, we are to a certain extent creating problems regarding Parliament's rights in financial and budgetary matters.
Let the relevant committees bear those two points in mind, and take on board the proposal we are making.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal for the second phase of the Socrates programme connects with the broader situation. In addition to the Socrates programme, it covers the Leonardo da Vinci programme for vocational training and the new Community action for youth programme, which is to be formed by combining the Youth for Europe programme with European voluntary service activities.
Altogether ECU 3 billion has been allocated to finance these three programmes over the period 2000-2004.
Together with one other programme, the Culture 2000 programme, they represent a substantial confirmation of the EU cultural dimension.
Because there are still many different programmes, and because they have been implemented fairly randomly, the Committee on Budgets thought it was important to boost their synergy value.
This idea was brought up during discussions on next year's budget.
Likewise, the committee considered it important to promote job creation through these programmes and also in cooperation with the research and new technology programmes.
The report by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media also discusses these ideas.
The Socrates programme is the largest of the culture programmes. The Commission proposed ECU 1 400 million in funding for the next five year period.
The Committee on Budgets considered this figure to be acceptable as an initial guide, but wished to establish some leeway and therefore tabled Amendment No 1, which proposes a 20 % margin to allow for deviation from the sum allocated, should any new objectives or permanent factors that are clearly and precisely justifiable present themselves.
The Committee on Budgets believes that administration costs, general aid and technical support must be kept separate from normal operational expenses and should be approved separately by the budgetary authority. They represent a large item of expenditure, approximately ECU 85 million, which eats into the normal resources considerably.
In addition to the changes mentioned, the Committee on Budgets examined certain other details which are described in its opinion.
The Socrates programme is one of the most successful EU programmes. For that reason, the Committee on Budgets continues to give this Commission proposal its strong support, just as we did before.
Mr President, I am speaking as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, and on the basis of the dual-approach procedure, the Hughes procedure, which we too applied in committee particularly in relation to the Youth for Europe programme.
First of all, I too would like to say that we think these three programmes, the Youth programme, the Leonardo programme and the Socrates programme, really form a single entity, a general framework to which the European Commission, with its specific proposal, is adding flesh and bones.
We think this framework is exceptionally important, particularly the Youth programme.
Furthermore, and with particular reference to Youth, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs stresses the importance of promoting active and responsible citizenship in the European context, by advocating fundamental values such as solidarity and the encouragement of participation.
Beyond that, the acquisition of general skills and qualifications is particularly important since it is both directly and indirectly related to employment.
On this point let me just say that, by definition, activities related to young people and their employment involve mainly voluntary provision at local level, usually with citizens' associations and non-profit-making groups, in other words in some way related to third-system employment, a subject to which, as we know, the European Parliament attaches particular importance.
Moreover, we believe that the programme must focus on encouraging young people from deprived environments to become active, precisely to enable those groups to express themselves.
In that spirit, then, we have tabled a whole series of amendments - about 20 in all - aiming to emphasise those points.
Here, I must thank the Committee on Youth's rapporteur, Mr De Coene, who accepted most of the amendments so that what is being put to the vote today is in some way a common approach.
Mr President, we have three reports aimed at achieving one objective: a citizens' Europe.
The commitment given in the Treaty of Amsterdam for a policy of lifelong knowledge and learning shares the same objective.
The Commission deserves congratulations when a Community action achieves its objectives.
I sincerely believe that the three programmes - Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci and Youth for Europe - have been a success, and we must congratulate all those who, at one stage or another, have been involved in their implementation.
The Commission plans joint actions for the three programmes with the aim of rationalising them and making them more efficient, at a time when the distinction between initial and continuing training is becoming blurred, just as it is between formal and informal training.
And I fully support this plan for joint action; I believe that it represents a positive and innovative move.
Unfortunately, this is not the only thing these programmes have in common.
Indeed, they all share an element of poverty, despite the funding recently obtained for Socrates, and as we are continuing to extend their scope, it is resources that are most lacking.
However, the UPE Group will support the content of these three reports, and I would like to thank the rapporteurs for the quality of the work carried out and their willingness to listen to all the points of view.
So what is the second generation of these programmes going to involve? As far as Socrates is concerned, it involves strengthening the European dimension of education at all levels, promoting cooperation in the field of education, removing obstacles to such cooperation and fostering innovation in this area.
This programme is now well-known to everyone, and in spite of the many difficulties and obstacles relating to mobility, there are still just as many applicants who hope to benefit from the programme.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Culture on the Leonardo da Vinci programme, I would like to look at it in more depth.
Leonardo da Vinci is aimed at improving and strengthening the social and occupational integration of young people through access to continuing training throughout their lives.
I would like to highlight three fundamental points.
The first involves recognising the benefits of mobility and the will to develop virtual mobility to supplement it. I support this, as I believe that new communication technologies should get rid of the problems relating to distance; however, I would emphasise here the importance of the irreplaceable element of face-to-face meetings.
In particular, new technologies must bring rural areas closer to urban areas, and those in the north closer to those in the south.
This is the main benefit of the programmes: being able to integrate the new technologies and knowing how to use them, without forgetting the importance of face-to-face exchanges.
The second point relates to the role of small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of work-linked training opportunities and vocational training, and their involvement in social dialogue and partnership, which is still not sufficient.
We must review this situation with a political will for genuine dialogue.
The third point relates to the need to promote the programme among people of all ages, since the objective of lifelong training cannot mean that these programmes are restricted to young people alone.
Finally, and this will lead me on to the Youth for Europe and Voluntary Service programme, I have to point out that we must very quickly ensure that recognition is given for the knowledge which the various participants in these programmes have acquired through informal education.
In conclusion, I would like to look at the framework programme for youth, and at its assets and weaknesses.
The Youth for Europe programme encourages the promotion of informal education experiences for young people by facilitating mobility within the Union and to third countries.
It also encourages young people to show initiative.
Among its assets is the fact that the success of the European Voluntary Service experiment guarantees the success of the programme; its objectives are praiseworthy and have indeed been praised, but it receives much more money than the other actions within the Youth programme.
Its weaknesses are naturally of a financial nature.
This action is an opportunity for young people to show initiative and commitment, and it will allow them to take hold of Europe in both hands and to become true European citizens, responsible for their own future and involved in the creation of their own jobs. In this respect, I have to say that I deeply regret the fact that this action is neglected financially, given the enormous challenge it represents.
I have, in fact, made two proposals concerning this report. We need to rebalance the budget for these actions and we should create a structure designed to collect information and documentation on young people as well as specific publications and studies both from Member States and Community institutions, or from young people's organisations themselves, which would allow us to develop the programmes for the benefit of young people.
This structure could be complemented by an Internet site that would be run by the Commission and that would promote interactive communication among young people in a wide range of areas, but that would not necessarily form part of the integrated Community policies.
We must give Europe to the young people and they must take it in their grasp.
That is the work before us, and the structure could be called 'Europe 15-25'.
I was held up by the traffic a little this morning, Mr President, but doubtless other honourable Members had the same problem.
Thank you for your patience.
On behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I can say that this second generation of programmes, and particularly Socrates, represents quite a large step forward in terms of cohesiveness and management.
We note, however, that there is no strategically new concept.
But I think that if we look at the impact which this kind of programme has on jobs, we have to acknowledge that programmes like this are extremely important, since one of the things they do is encourage the mobility of labour within Europe.
After all, the process begins when you are young: if you are accustomed to studying in another country, you are more likely to be willing to work in another country.
Excellent projects are often developed under these programmes to promote that kind of thing.
There are one or two points where I would have wished things to be different.
Separate agreements are to be concluded for Malta and Turkey.
The Commission has still not produced any proposals for these, nor for the separate agreement guaranteeing access for those countries.
At the very time when we want to give an extra chance to democracy in countries such as these, and I have Turkey in mind, we ought to be putting these proposals forward. We have already been waiting for them for a year now, if not three or four years.
As regards the information society, I would also recommend that we think about cooperation with countries like Japan and the USA.
It is most important that young people should have the chance of international exchanges under these programmes too.
This is touched on in the proposals but not yet addressed in any depth.
I would urge the Commissioner to give some further attention to that.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the Commission as a whole for proposing the much-needed extension of the Socrates programme.
I support the aims that have been mentioned of ensuring the concentration and continuity of aid and accessibility, although I would have liked to see more effective concentration in practice on areas where Europe can genuinely add value.
A fundamental point, however, is that although Socrates and the other youth programmes have now become an essential part of Europe's education policy, they have also become an easy excuse for Member States to avoid doing more themselves to europeanise their schools, universities and educational establishments.
It would therefore be extremely welcome if Parliament and the Council could agree on a much bigger financial package for the programme.
The ECU 2 billion called for by the committee is the absolute minimum as far as my group is concerned.
The Commission's proposal for ECU 1.4 billion spread over five years is not really an increase if you take account of the latest situation as regards expenditure, the extra spending on adult education that is now included, and the additional burden created by opening up the programme to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Nor is it enough if we want to correct the social imbalance in the programmes, as we Social Democrats do.
The shortage of funding for Socrates and the other youth programmes stands in stark contrast to all the fine words spoken about the need for more contact between young people in Europe and the creation of a genuine European education area.
It is simply not on, as we keep complaining, that EU youth exchange schemes should be given less money per year than is paid in agricultural aid for growing peas, field beans and sweet fodder lupins.
People also forget that, in addition to promoting integration, Socrates also does a great deal to promote employment.
All young people should be given the opportunity during their education to experience other countries and to improve their knowledge of foreign languages.
This is all about equality of opportunity.
Instead of the 2 % of students currently taking part in Erasmus, we feel the figure should be nearer 10 %.
And the same should apply to young people in vocational training, less than 1 % of whom currently take part in EU exchange schemes.
From the outset, therefore, my group has called for more funding for the programme, because the individual grants are far too small.
The average paid under Erasmus, for example, is only ECU 70, which is certainly no incentive for young people from socially disadvantaged families to spend periods of study abroad, whereas those that can already afford it receive the grant on top.
There is one area where we would like the programme to be expanded, and I would ask for your support here.
We would like to provide funding under Comenius to encourage the use of young unemployed teachers in neighbouring countries for fixed periods.
This would help to europeanise education and would help young unemployed teachers to get their first break in working life.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Leonardo II is designed not just to supplement the Member States' vocational training initiatives at European level, but actually to advance them.
We must continue to develop a Europe of knowledge and a Europe of innovation in research, development and education, which are both absolutely vital if we are to meet the challenges of globalisation.
However, Commissioner, whether the ECU 1 billion allocated for the years 2000 to 2004 will be enough is extremely doubtful in view of our enlargement plans, and this is why we are calling for a budget procedure in which the funding is fixed every year.
We are also calling for the Leonardo programme to be extended until 2006 with a suitably increased level of funding.
To increase effectiveness, the funding should be linked to other European measures.
The new Structural Funds, Community initiatives, the Socrates and Youth for Europe education programmes, the reduction in the number of programme objectives from 19 to 3 and in the number of areas of action from 23 to 6 - these are more than numerical changes, they all mean that greater effectiveness is required.
Sound basic vocational training should develop knowledge, for example of working with the new information and communication technologies.
Practice with teamwork, group learning processes and good problem-solving skills all equip young people for future jobs.
They need better access to working life from their initial training onwards, and all ages need access to good-quality further training in accordance with the concept of lifelong learning.
There is still a tendency to undervalue or even to despise the experience that comes with age, although many young people could benefit from it.
It is up to us to ensure that older workers remain motivated and active.
If we invest enough in vocational training in the long term, the people of Europe will have a better chance of being able to compete at international level and, equally importantly, of strengthening social cohesion.
Mrs Waddington has produced another excellent report which incorporates almost all the amendments put forward by the Group of the European People's Party.
I therefore hope that she will also accept our most recent amendments, in which we underline the importance of Leonardo for further and continuing vocational training.
We agree that the vocational training systems should focus on reintegration into working life and integration into working processes for those with inadequate or outdated skills. Leonardo is based on Article 127, the cooperation procedure, and Socrates on Article 126, the codecision procedure.
There is an imbalance here. Leonardo, which covers vocational education, and Socrates, which covers education in general, must surely have the same status.
Human resources will always be our greatest source of potential, and they must be constantly encouraged, including through vocational training.
Let us hope that Leonardo II will succeed in further developing individual flexibility and personal development into the 21st century.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone acknowledges that education and training affect economic competitiveness and progress.
A further consideration for us as Europeans is that if unification is to happen, we must also try to ensure that young people have the chance to experience what Europe is.
This is the most important task that faces us in our work on Europe's education policy.
I support the demands for more funding, though I do not want to say much on the subject, but I would like to go back to what someone said about 'fine words'.
There has not been a single summit that has not called for more funding for education and research, yet what happens in practice is quite different.
I think we really need to insist that the heads of government get a little more out of their finance ministers, because education is a field where work needs to be both extended and intensified.
At home in Austria, for example, there was for three years a very dramatic increase in the trend towards internationalisation among students, though this has tailed off slightly in the meantime.
We must try to encourage this, and it is vital that more resources should be provided so that the applicant countries can take part in the process. Their students too must be able to experience their future in Europe.
More intensive language training is absolutely essential here, of course, and every ECU is money well spent on the future political and economic stability of the Member States.
However, there are a number of very specific practical problems.
I am told time and time again that the information provided by the national bureaux sometimes leaves much to be desired, and that information is often not getting though in Europe's universities.
Commissioner, we need to examine whether they really are all linked up and whether they really have the most up-to-date information to pass on to their students.
There are also a few other major practical difficulties, such as social security problems, particularly in the field of health care.
Accommodation is another recurring and extremely practical problem.
Perhaps a European initiative to create a common infrastructure dealing specifically with accommodation issues could be of help here.
Education is a task for Europe. It goes without saying that Europe is an education community.
Let us act accordingly and provide the necessary resources for it.
It is money well spent!
Mr President, we know that good vocational training is a factor in preventing unemployment.
It does not create jobs as such, but it is vitally important in the current situation of mass unemployment among young people in particular.
European programmes are no substitute for Member States attending to their domestic responsibilities.
What they do is to exploit the genuine added value of the European dimension in the Luxembourg process which forms part of Europe's employment policy, in progress towards a knowledge-based society that can learn from cooperation precisely because of Europe's diversity, and in opening up a Europe-wide wealth of experience.
We need to make the programmes less bureaucratic. We do not need to renationalise them.
Our aim must be to spend 1 % of the budget of the European Union on vocational training proper, because this is investing in the future rather than spending on consumption.
The Green Group has tabled some amendments to Mrs Waddington's very fine report, on the issues of second courses of training, accompanying research and opening up the programme to the third sector.
There is one further comment that I feel I have to make, however, before I finish.
There is a shadow over these excellent programmes that we are discussing today, Mrs Cresson.
Please, put your house in order so that your successor can really push ahead with implementing the improved Leonardo programme, and I support Mrs Waddington's appeals to Mr Santer to do everything he can to help you in this.
Mr President, I shall not be able to comment on all the excellent reports we have heard today, since time is short and I wish to focus in particular on the programmes concerned with young people.
Our group expressly endorses the suggestions which the rapporteur has made.
It would be good to have more money, but above all the money needs to be spent in a more balanced manner.
I was shocked, Commissioner, to learn how much money had been given to voluntary work in connection with the France '98 World Cup.
I wonder whether that is the right way to be using money of this kind, and whether voluntary work should be looking in the first instance at such public relations activities being pursued by an organisation which is ultimately out to make a profit.
I must stress the importance of youth programmes if the idea of European citizenship is to flourish.
Most of us grew up in an atmosphere of Euro-optimism. For today's young people, that is not necessarily the case.
We have to learn a different way of awakening young people's interest in building Europe.
That way is through enabling young people to have contact with other young Europeans, transcending national borders, transcending language differences, transcending cultural differences.
So it is important that the players in that field who can work with us are encouraged to continue their efforts: local authorities and organisations.
But we must also bear in mind young people who are not part of organised structures and who are thus very hard to reach through local authorities and organisations.
I appreciate the position of the many honourable Members who advocate vocational training here.
I have every sympathy with it.
But practical experience of exchanges shows that youth exchanges entailing vocational training cause far more problems for young people than student exchanges, perhaps because the language is much less of a problem for student exchanges than for young people undergoing vocational training.
Like the rapporteur, I am therefore in favour of a broad youth programme which is sure to take account of the overall cultural dimension, so that a firm foundation can be laid for European citizenship and enthusiasm about Europe.
Mr President, in the new proposals from the Commission, who would not welcome the efforts made to ensure that the programmes do not overlap, to make them more consistent, to define more precise objectives and to improve the assessment on the ground? Similarly, who would not welcome the efforts made to respect the principle of subsidiarity, that is, only proposing Community action where it has a genuine European added value beyond what we are doing in our various countries?
Personally speaking, I also welcome the fact that we are extending the Leonardo and Socrates programmes to include adults as well as young people.
The distinction between young people and adults is arbitrary to begin with and, what is more, we know that lifelong learning is vital.
As far as the Youth programme is concerned, I admit that it is difficult to decide on how to share the funding between the European Voluntary Service and the Youth for Europe programme since there are arguments for both sides, and I am aware that the current distribution is very strongly criticised by some of my colleagues.
Is a short stay in a foreign country beneficial for young people, even if there are a greater number of young people involved and if the contact is more superficial?
We can certainly wonder about this. A much longer stay, and a much longer experience, such as that involved in the voluntary service, is more expensive; however, it does have more of an impact.
It is therefore difficult to come to a decision; I believe that the best idea would be to find a new balance.
Nonetheless, besides these almost minor points - what I was almost going to call 'the small print' - I seriously wonder about the philosophy behind these programmes.
We sometimes have very different ideas, ladies and gentlemen, of what the construction of Europe should involve, this joint European adventure into which our countries have launched themselves, and the group I belong to is more aware of this than any other. We must nevertheless spend more time reflecting together, with a view to reaching common ideas to improve the thinking behind the youth programmes.
You will be not surprised if I criticise the expression 'promoting European citizenship', an expression that is always used but never defined.
However, I am convinced that European culture must pay more attention to liberal education and that is why I have been politically active since I was 18, as the first time I came to Brussels and to Strasbourg was because I was in charge of a newspaper in my school and we had a European meeting on this issue. This liberal education is extremely necessary as a basis for technical training, for vocational training and to ensure that exchanges are successful.
To my mind, this point is essential if we are genuinely to improve our youth programmes.
Mr President, in her opening remarks Mrs Pack said that we should not just try to unite states but to unite human beings. As we enlarge the European Union this is vital.
We now need real action not just fine words.
Others have spoken of the budget for this programme and I would like to say just one thing about it.
If we were to spend as much money looking after students and teachers as we do looking after wealthy farmers it would be a better use of European money.
I hope we will move towards that in the future.
I want to make three clear points.
The first is on the recognition of qualifications.
We have to do a lot more to make sure that European schools, colleges and educational establishments are playing by our rules and abiding by what we are setting out as our objectives.
Too many at the moment are not prepared to accept the talents of their colleagues from other countries on a par with those in their own states. That is a detrimental step.
Secondly, learning languages is absolutely crucial to the peoples of Europe.
It is important that we recognise other people's languages, especially minority ones.
This is even more so as we move towards enlarging the Union.
For example, we must accept the right of applicant states to use their own languages.
We should be encouraging Western European students to learn Polish or Czech as much as we encourage their young people to learn English or German.
Finally, we must ensure that money from Socrates and the other programmes does not go disproportionately into the pockets and budgets of those who already have.
We need to ensure that the money from Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe goes to the poorer students, the ethnic minority students and the disadvantaged.
At the moment, because of the bureaucracy and the procedures for application in some countries, the money is finding its way disproportionately into middle class and wealthy areas.
I welcome these projects very much and hope the Commission will do more to ensure that the education euros really do reach more Europeans.
Mr President, Commissioner, the youth programmes we are discussing here have long been one of the European Union's success stories and will probably continue to be so for some time to come.
Even though people in general seem to have boundless enthusiasm for travelling, more and more young people are preferring to find out about other countries by taking part in practical projects or doing part of their training there.
But on the subject of this approach, I would also like to speak up on behalf of those who perhaps do not belong to the group described by Mr Evans, because we also need to think about having potential leaders in future with a far-sighted view of Europe, who can take responsibility for others.
It is, however, the language requirements that I think should be given top priority.
As I see it, the current proposal does not involve the Member States enough. This subject is dealt with in recital 13a.
We must continue to insist that the Member States must share responsibility here, because this could make it easier for us to attain the level of funding needed.
Although we have a very positive impression of how the programmes are coming along, the funding aspect is still extremely important, because if we work it out, as Mrs Pack mentioned in her speech, it comes to about ECU 3 for each young person involved.
Much more money than this is provided in other areas - it does not have to be agriculture, which my colleague mentioned, the MEDA programme is just another example among many.
As the deputy chairman of the Malta delegation, however, I have to say that I am extremely surprised that there is no suggestion of including Malta more closely in the programmes.
The university there is preparing for involvement, the young people are expecting it, and we really cannot hold them to their two-year government's decision to put the programmes on ice.
Mr President, I want to welcome the Leonardo II programme, in particular the report introduced by Mrs Waddington this morning which, as usual, is excellent.
I must say that Mrs Waddington is one of those rare Members who actually writes most of her own reports and drafts her own amendments, unlike many other Members, including myself.
She is therefore a respected expert in this field.
It is unfortunate that she is being placed in a position where she may not come back to this House next year.
New Labour clearly does not respect her as much as Members in this House.
Incidentally, I was interested to note that the House of Lords may be reversing the system.
The Leonardo II programme is very important, not least because it should be at the centre of a European Union strategy to combat unemployment, education and training.
Vocational training in particular, to make the European labour force more effective and more employable, is the key to the full employment strategy which should be now at the centre of the European Union strategy.
This is particularly so since the great victory of the Red/Greens in Germany has shifted Europe to the left and left Mr Blair as the last reactionary force on the right of Europe.
Oh, heckling!
Mr President, please protect me against these Members who are intervening against me.
The measures in Leonardo are very important.
However, the monitoring and evaluation done on Leonardo I raises serious problems and I hope that Mrs Cresson will respond to the queries made to her. So far she has not done so.
And I hope President Santer will respond to the queries made to him and take seriously the important questions raised over the administration and the budget on Leonardo I and make sure that Leonardo II is a better managed programme.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this joint debate on Socrates and Leonardo gives us an opportunity to assess and above all to compare progress to date in the two programmes.
The Socrates programme, which covers education in general, has done very well: 500 000 students, 30 000 language teachers and the many other young people who have taken advantage of the programme paint a very positive picture, and in view of this excellent result it seems only logical to continue to provide funding.
However, the vocational training measures under the Leonardo programme are very definitely on the minus side, and when I say this I do not mean that I think the programme is fundamentally bad or ill-conceived, but in practice it has presented complex administrative problems.
So if we are wondering why the programmes have been assessed so differently, the answer is quite simple: in the area of practical vocational training, theoretical programmes soon reach their limits, and those who take part will only benefit from the added value if they can actually do something with the practical experience they have gained.
I think that changes will have to be made here in future.
Mr President, many very important and accurate comments have been made today about the importance of the education programmes.
I would stress that it is vital that we facilitate and broaden access to the education programmes in general, particularly for young people from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and those from socially weaker groups which tend not to have access to education.
The education and youth programmes clearly demonstrate European added value and have a multiplier effect, while at the same time preparing young people to be mobile and to be involved in the Europe of knowledge.
The Leonardo programme facilitates the development of specialised knowledge in Europe about vocational training and increases mobility.
The Socrates programme, having gone through a highly successful first phase of promoting European cooperation in university education, school education and language teaching, is now to be extended to cover adult education and those who left school without qualifications.
It is also important that all young people in Europe should attain a basic level of knowledge.
I therefore feel, like previous speakers, particularly Mrs Pack, that the call from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for funding for the Socrates programme to be increased from ECU 1.4 billion to ECU 2 billion is the most important of its demands.
It is also important for the Youth for Europe programme to have its funding increased from ECU 600 million to ECU 800 million if we really want to try to double the number of young people involved, which is the Commission's aim.
It is absolutely essential if structures are to be simplified and communication improved.
I would like to thank our colleagues, particularly Mrs Waddington and Mrs Pack, for producing their opinions so quickly, with the result that we will now probably be able to have a first common position during the Austrian Presidency.
I was particularly pleased that at the informal meeting of ministers in Baden there was already broad agreement on increasing funding and on the fact that the education programmes should be less bureaucratic, more transparent and more decentralised. I therefore hope that there can now be fruitful cooperation between Parliament, Council and Commission for the benefit of education in Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulated Mrs Pack in this Chamber last year and I renew those congratulations.
This second phase of Socrates, the Community action programme for education, seeks to resolve two of the main obstacles encountered in the first phase: insufficient financial resources and coordination and information difficulties between Member States, Commission and citizens.
It is therefore important to increase the financial allocation for the period 2000-2004 to ECU 2 billion, and to simplify management and application procedures at the same time.
It is essential to pursue the programme's aim of promoting quality in education by encouraging cooperation, intensifying mobility and developing the European dimension in all sectors of education.
Socrates is the touchstone of a policy intended to bring the European Union and its citizens together, and it is making a crucial contribution to the progressive construction of a European education area.
Furthermore, exchanges of information and experience on problems of common interest relating to education are vital if we are to guarantee any one of the cooperation activities provided for in the various measures.
In particular, this includes Ortelius, the database on higher education in the fifteen Member States of the European Union which DGXXII and the Council of Ministers has wanted ever since 1993, because it is the only database in the world permitting integrated recovery, through a single question and a cross-referenced search, of information on different educational situations, thus bringing together information dispersed across the net.
Finally, I want to thank Mr De Coene for emphasising the need to establish a better balance between the European Voluntary Service and the other actions, coordinating and integrating them, and counteracting their tendency to fragmentation.
The Youth programme combining Youth for Europe and the European Voluntary Service can play a decisive role in resolving issues linked to individualism, nationalism, insecurity and distrust of one's fellow man.
Mr President, with the new phase of the three Community programmes devoted to education, training and youth, we have a great opportunity to invest, at European level, in the development of human resources, especially amongst the younger generations.
We are very well aware that these programmes are not intended to replace individual national policies - which should be strengthened by them - but to become an important reference point both in developing the transnational dimension in human resources actions, and in the ongoing process of reforming the education systems in all the Member States.
As regards the Youth programme, the Commission's proposal, as amended by Parliament, will represent an important development in the opportunities offered both to young people individually and to groups of young people.
Transnational exchanges, informal education, voluntary work and support for youth creativity are the planks of a programme which could really become a great opportunity for individual and collective growth for the young people of our continent.
In particular, the European Voluntary Service, which has already proved itself in previous years, is destined to become one of the pillars of Community policies to develop European citizenship and affirm the practice of informal education.
But, all in all, we are asking for the three programmes to be adequately funded to ensure that the resources available are enough to meet their needs.
So Parliament is placing major emphasis on the need to simplify the management of the programmes and cut down on bureaucracy so that access to them is guaranteed to all - to young people, to associations and to training and education institutions.
Only by putting our money on the energy and intelligence of young people, and the world of education and training, will we be able to build a fair, democratic and effective Europe which is worth working for.
Mr President, exchange programmes in the EU for young students and researchers are one of the most important Community policies aimed specifically at our citizens and which serve to promote free movement.
The significance of the exchange programmes in relation, for example, to the process of Union enlargement or the aim of equivalence in qualifications cannot be overstated.
I believe it is important to increase funding for Union exchange programmes, and it is a positive step that the Commission communication on a Europe of knowledge and skills recognises the need for additional funding.
The participation of eastern European countries in exchange programmes in particular will put pressure on the funding framework, and there is a danger that the present citizens of the Union will have to settle for a much smaller share of funding than now as compared to the lion's share the EU applicant countries stand to receive.
It is vital to ensure that young people continue to be involved in the preparation of programmes, and the Commission must see to it that the voice of those participating in programmes makes itself heard in the working parties which decide on programme form and content.
In this way we can ensure that the programmes will continue to be popular in the future.
Finally, my thanks to the rapporteurs for their commendable work.
Mr President, this is the first time that these three programmes have been bunched together in this way, creating a Europe of knowledge.
Its importance I hope is that it will provide a degree of flexibility between the Youth for Europe, Socrates and Leonardo programmes.
One of the problems we had in the past was a lack of flexibility.
We have tried to add to the possibility of fluidity between the programmes by creating the Connect line within the budget so we should be able to create better links.
These are three of the most successful programmes within the European Union but it is important for us to analyse who they have been successful for, who have been the participants.
I would like to focus on one programme in particular and one aspect of that programme: The Erasmus programme within the Socrates Programme.
This deals with student exchanges.
The Union has helped thousands of young people to gain experience in studying abroad.
Originally it was forecast that approximately ECU 5 000 per person would be available.
The reality is that there has only been ECU 70. This is a joke; nobody can live on it.
So the parents have had to contribute and inadvertently we have created an elitist programme.
The most important amendment to the Socrates report is that which emphasises the need to select students on the basis of the financial needs of applicants as well as merit.
We do not just want rich students to have access to this programme.
That is not to say that other people cannot participate.
We want up to 10 % of EU students to participate and they can gain the prestige of being a part of this programme.
But, the money should be targeted at those who need it.
We need more money. That is the important point.
ECU 2 billion is what we are going to fight for and the fight will commence now.
Mr President, Commissioner, some young people who came to Parliament this week asked me 'Where is the spirit of Europe?'.
The answer is to be found in the new education and youth programmes, I told them, and Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe combined with the voluntary service activities are all making a very important contribution to developing the synergy of the European spirit.
There need to be strong links with the Structural Funds and Hughes-Start, and the aim is to integrate young people into European society, to combat the unacceptably high levels of youth unemployment, to promote cultural understanding in the Union, education in tolerance and solidarity, equal opportunities for boys and girls and to fight against racism and xenophobia.
Those are our objectives, now it is up to us to prepare the young people of Europe to meet them.
The capital that we invest in them, as tomorrow's achievers, is our best economic investment for the future.
This is why it is a mistake to think that we do not need to spend more money on the culture and education programmes.
As long as we continue to regard olive plantations as more important than young people, we are barking up the wrong tree.
We need to change the way we think.
Mr President, for Europe to respond to the needs of young people it has to be in touch with what those needs are.
A young British student expressed them to me when he said: 'We have all heard of the three 'Es' - education, education, education.
But I think young people want the four 'Es' - education, employment, environment and Europe'. I think he is spot-on.
The first three may well be self-explanatory.
The fourth 'E', Europe, in my country sometimes seems a less obvious choice.
I would argue that the major reason for Europe's importance to young people is precisely because it has a fundamental role to play in the quality of assurance of the first three 'Es' and also for creating the opportunities of the single market.
In Britain alone some 200 000 young people are set to benefit directly from the EU initiatives over the next five years.
But the demand for places still far outweigh the supply.
Other organisations in Member States are needed to pick up where the EU has shown the way.
I would cite a charity, Trident Transnational, of which I am a trustee.
This organises work placements and vocational training for 150 000 students each year. That is only one-third of the half a million or so young people who either go to the UK or leave the UK on work placement schemes.
The EU should certainly not think it must do all this itself but encourage and facilitate others in doing the work we believe in.
If we want the single market to be truly functional and the right to work across Europe to be meaningful, a period of study or work across Europe should not just provide an opportunity to experience the way of life in another country but should be to get a tangible qualification.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the three rapporteurs on the reports we are debating in the House today.
I believe Parliament should determine to make youth one of the priorities for Europe, because young people represent the present and the future of our Union.
We have before us today proposals which amount to a genuine rethink of Community programmes in the fields of education, training and youth for the period 2000-2004. We should rejoice in them.
A great deal of experience has been gained in these areas. Taking all of it into account, I think we should make the most of the opportunity to make the fresh start which this new programme 'Youth' represents.
In the Committee on Culture, we have tried to produce a report which takes into account young people's concerns and which responds to their requests.
We have made every effort to provide young people with opportunities to travel in order to learn each others' languages and broaden their horizons. We have also emphasised the importance of new technology.
Our citizens need to be well informed if they are to play a full part in the building of the new Europe. This is precisely what the new programme, 'Youth', aims to achieve.
Only then can people set to work and take advantage of the opportunities now available.
In my opinion, ladies and gentlemen, this new programme, 'Youth', is even more open to the young people of Europe as a whole.
It enables young Europeans to come together, whatever their origin, and learn to value each other whilst respecting their cultural, linguistic and social differences. In short, it will foster what we in the European Union hold dear: greater tolerance amongst the young people of Europe.
Implementation of this programme will allow young people to learn to live together. It will also develop their initiative.
This will be excellent training for the economic world of the future in which the young will have to play their part. This opportunity for our young people must be supported by the House, together with its specific objectives: the development of solidarity, and guaranteeing and enhancing every aspect of European citizenship.
The programme also allows young people to absorb a range of values which will create a sense of belonging to a common social and cultural area.
Parliament's position has played a large part in setting the proposed budget for these programmes. As a result, twice the number of young people as were involved in previous ventures of this nature will benefit from the actions in this programme.
A total of some 130 000 young people will gain from it.
In the Committee on Culture we tried to share the budget fairly amongst the various actions in the programme. We have taken account of research, management structures and young people's groups who have explained to us what they really need.
We are therefore putting forward what we think is a more realistic budget amendment.
As you will gather from what I have already said, I believe that thanks to all the political groups working so well together, and to the rapporteur's flexibility, we have produced a helpful amendment to the Commission's text. On behalf of the People's Party, I therefore ask you to support this programme.
Mr President, I simply wanted to raise an issue that Madam Cresson referred to but since she missed my opening speech she did not respond to it.
We were very pleased to hear the point she made about the audit of Leonardo but I would make a request to her that she come to the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment to discuss with us the findings of that audit on Leonardo I.
Mr President, I should like to put a comment to the Commissioner.
The best way to enable young people to find employment is to ensure that they are qualified for the right jobs.
We now know that the majority of young people, 80 %, obtain qualifications for only 11 types of work, which drastically reduces their chances of finding a first job.
This is why I would suggest that transnational analyses should be carried out to identify what types of work are in demand in the medium and long terms.
This is an idea worth supporting, because this is what makes young people decide on what skills to learn.
Would you consider pushing this analysis through, so that young people can finally concentrate on obtaining qualifications in types of work where there are actually jobs to be had?
Mr President, I would firstly like to apologise to Mrs Waddington.
I was indeed a few minutes late and did not have the pleasure of hearing her speech.
As regards the Leonardo audit and the question of my coming to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, this is a proposal that I fully agree with and I will be coming to the committee to discuss this problem as soon as possible.
As regards what Mr Pirker said, it is true that we must ensure that our young people are qualified for the jobs on offer today.
Guiding young people is a serious problem since, given the extremely rapid developments in technology, we are not entirely aware of exactly what qualifications are going to be required.
I also believe that nothing can replace solid, basic training and good guidance. And I would like to point out to him that these transnational analyses, which help us to discover what jobs will be most accessible, already exist in the Commission for the social affairs sector.
But we can, of course, focus our efforts more on these problems and I am quite open to any suggestions that might be made in this respect.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Work-linked training
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0374/98), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0418/98-97/0321(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision on the promotion of European pathways in work-linked training, including apprenticeship (Rapporteur: Mr Castagnetti).
Mr President, the initiative on European pathways in work-linked training ties in very well with this morning's speeches on educational programmes.
If I may say so, this is an initiative which goes beyond the exchange of information and experience.
It offers an opportunity for real experience, and diversified, alternative training pursued in different geographic areas.
It is a response to the request for new ideas we are hearing from the young people of Europe, and in a sense it is a metaphor for the training of tomorrow in Europe.
I said European pathways, and I want to emphasise that: these are not just national any more.
They include student mobility, lecturer mobility, mixed systems and training experiences, and then there is integrated skills training, in other words training which is more work-linked and more adapted to helping young people into work.
We emphasise the idea of pathways.
On the subject of the common position, we, the European Parliament, mainly stress the value of the pathway and not just the final certificate, the Europass.
It is true that the Treaty protects the individuality and autonomy of the various national training systems, but it is also true that in a Europe of free movement of persons, with young people independent and eager for training, some national rigidity needs to give way so that a start can be made on at least some common training pathways.
So we appreciate the fact that, in the common position, the Council did not make significant changes to the text which emerged from the first reading and actually accepted that this work-linked training pathways initiative applies not just to countries which provide for training experiences abroad, but to the whole of the territory of the Union, to all the countries which voluntarily agree to adopt this initiative.
Because we appreciate these points in the common position we have lessened the thrust of our amendments, because we really want to get this text approved quickly.
We also appreciate the fact that the common position considers it useful for the Commission to play a part and not be excluded from the monitoring process or from establishing the principles common to this type of training experience.
The Council has partially taken on board the idea of preparation and information measures which young people taking part in this experience need.
In committee we also accepted some amendments tabled by Mrs Waddington, whom I would like to thank, primarily regarding occupational safety requirements.
The Commission's text, as confirmed by the European Parliament at first reading, set out certain objectives: defining the content and common principles of the European pathway and establishing the final document, the Europass.
It is true that the Council rejected the first of these objectives but that does not remove the need to ensure that the certificate complies with common principles.
That is how the amendments we approved in committee should be understood, particularly Amendments Nos 1 to 6 and 9.
We have also revived the issue of the European pathway: without distorting the intention of the common position we have in a sense strengthened it, with a few fairly modest amendments designed to restore and enhance the value of the European pathway, and not just the Europass.
So we trust that these amendments, unanimously approved by our parliamentary committee, will finally be accepted by the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, I should also like to thank Mr Castagnetti for his report and for being prepared to take on board so many of my amendments in the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
We believe that one important means of encouraging people to take part in a period of worked-linked training in another Member State is to ensure that experience is validated and recognised across the European Union.
This is really one of the most significant aspects of the scheme.
We in this Parliament want to ensure the quality of these experiences and the quality of the validation.
To support and encourage such opportunities requires considerable preparation by all the partners involved and the proposals that the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment have resubmitted provide the key elements for such preparation.
For example, the trainees themselves need preparation, including an awareness of the health and safety risks in a new and unfamiliar environment.
Accidents often occur when young people are unfamiliar with their working environment and to move and work in another European country may create more dangers.
So it is important that the health and safety risks are taken on board.
It is also important that the social partners at the European and enterprise level are fully involved and consulted and that all the potential beneficiaries, enterprises and trainers are aware of the possibilities so that they can themselves inform others.
These are important aspects of quality and enabling of mobility. We hope that the Commission and Council will take them on board.
Mr President, I welcome the communication from the Commission on the promotion of apprenticeship schemes, which would have a considerable impact in reducing youth unemployment.
In Sweden there are virtually no apprenticeship schemes, but at the beginning of the 1990s work-linked training was introduced in secondary schools, with 15 % of teaching being carried out in the workplace and the remainder in the classroom.
Of course, it is up to Member States to devise apprenticeship schemes in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, but I still believe that it would be both positive and rewarding to establish common principles and also to have a EUROPASS.
I share Mr Castagnetti's view that too much attention has been focused on EUROPASS Training at the expense of the European pathways.
We therefore support the report as amended by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Mr President, SMEs are the backbone of the European economy, some apprentices are future specialised workers and others are future entrepreneurs, provided that their training is practical and in line with economic requirements.
The basic idea of allowing them to develop skills in other European countries too is to be welcomed, but I fear that it will prove very difficult to put this into practice in vocational training.
There will be occupations for which it is entirely logical to obtain experience from other countries, such as chefs and waiters, for example.
The added value of their experience ultimately benefits the firms to which they return, and this acts as an incentive for their bosses or those training them.
But there will also be vocational fields where this is not so true, such as with business apprentices learning accountancy and wage clerking.
How are they supposed to gain these skills abroad?
If we really want to bring the European project alive, we need to ensure that periods of training are comparable, otherwise only certain dual training sectors will be accepted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Parliament, and particularly the rapporteur, Mr Castagnetti, for the support given to this proposal and for the amendments tabled at this second reading.
Parliament proposes 21 amendments, and the Commission accepts 19 of them.
These amendments improve and clarify the common position adopted by the Council and, at times, even strengthen it.
We therefore accept the amendments aimed at guaranteeing that the duration is consistent with the objectives and the skills to be acquired under the European pathway, and ensuring that this is, in fact, a real training period.
We also accept the amendments that aim to guarantee the provision of adequate information and broader accompanying measures in relation to the conditions under which the European pathway is completed, particularly as regards occupational health and safety, among other things, in cases where those undergoing training complete their European pathway in a company.
I would like to thank Mrs Waddington for drawing my attention to this essential aspect, which is also a key factor in ensuring the success of the European pathway.
In addition, we accept the amendments aimed at highlighting the role of the various partners, work-linked training and apprenticeships, and those that clarify the Commission's powers so that it can implement and assess the European pathways.
These are the amendments we can accept.
However, we cannot accept the amendments of a budgetary nature.
But I can assure you that the proposals you make, particularly as regards how the decision on 'EUROPASS Training' ties in with the programme on vocational training, have been taken into consideration.
In the Commission's proposal for the second stage of the Leonardo da Vinci programme, which is also on today's agenda, we have agreed to provide Community support for transnational placements and exchanges that are European pathways in work-linked training, including apprenticeship.
In conclusion, we can accept Amendments Nos 1 to 5 and 7 to 20.
On this basis, I plan to present, in the very near future, an amended proposal so that the final decision can be taken at the Social Affairs Council on 2 December, and so that in 1999 we might begin the preparatory work to implement this decision on 1 January 2000.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Thank you also for your patience.
I must apologise for the noise in the Chamber.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a few moments.
VOTES
Mr President, I had asked if I could raise a brief point of order before the vote on Rules 5 and 119.
Normally I follow Mrs Fontaine's procedure in saying that, for reasons of principle and on fiscal grounds, I do not take part in roll-call votes.
Today I have my reasons for saying that, so that it can be recorded in the Minutes.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, during this vote, you stated that the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations was responsible for having requested practically all the separate votes, and there seemed to be a somewhat negative connotation in that statement. I would like to congratulate you, on the one hand, on the attention you are paying to our group and the work it does.
But, on the other hand, I must point out that, in fact, it was not our group that requested the votes in question, but the Union for Europe Group, so they should be the ones you pay tribute to.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, thank you for the correction.
It is true that, indeed, it was not you who asked for a separate vote on this report, but the Union for Europe Group.
In previous votes, however, it was you who asked for most of the separate votes.
I said most of them.
Mr President, unquestionably you have delivered an important speech.
We should be grateful if you could repeat it, but I would like to hear it translated into Dutch. I am afraid my Greek is not up to following every last word of what you said.
Mr Blokland, if at some time the Dutch booth was unable to follow me, thank you very much for letting me know.
I would be very glad and willing, especially in view of our friendly relationship, to explain to you in detail what I said and what I meant after the end of the sitting.
Mr President, I would like to explain that the reason why our group will be voting against these amendments, those relating to the free movement of people, is not because we disagree with the concepts they express.
On the contrary, we agree completely.
But to avoid confusion, we do not think that this should be included in a report dealing with the free movement of goods.
Mr President, I am sure that the rapporteur will speak for himself but this group feels that it is important to mention the free movement of workers, but not necessarily in the main text. We will be voting that position.
I should also like to make it known that our group opposes the Green Group amendments because they were not submitted in committee.
If everyone submitted amendments directly to the plenary then plenary sessions would last 24 hours.
Mr President, as I stated earlier, I wish to put forward an oral amendment, adding a further brief point to the draft legislative resolution. It reads as follows: 'Calls on the Commission to draw up as soon as possible a draft regulation effectively securing free movement of workers in the Member States of the European Union'.
This amendment would be inserted after paragraph 3. I believe it would reflect the feeling that free movement of goods should be aligned with freedom of movement for workers, an issue on which the House is determined to make progress.
Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, you did indeed submit that draft to the Bureau and I will bring it up for debate as soon as we get to the draft legislative resolution.
What you have said has already made Parliament aware of the issue, but we will consider it at the appropriate time.
I do not understand this, because we did not complain about this report being put on the agenda again at such short notice, although it is a point worth making again.
There was a special new deadline for amendments, which we met, as far as I am aware, when we retabled some amendments from committee.
I think it is quite unfair to tell us it cannot be done and that we have not acted correctly, and I would like to register a formal protest at the way in which this already difficult matter is being steamrollered through.
Mr President, I should like it to be known that I am against any oral amendments tabled by any other group.
We have had eight months to debate this report.
Mr Skinner, we will consider that at the appropriate time, and you can declare your opposition then.
Mr President, as has already been stated, the European People's Party supports the amendments concerning freedom of movement for workers.
However, the House already has before it the proposal for the revision of Regulation No 1612/68 on freedom of movement for workers, and in legal terms it does seem more logical for such amendments to be included in that proposal.
Mr President, my own oral amendment with the agreement of the author of this amendment which is an attempt to try to assist its passage, is to remove the specific reference to the particular Directorate-General where this would be published so that the words 'DG XV: Free movement of goods' section will be deleted.
I believe that technically this will be helpful for the amendment.
Is there any objection to putting that oral amendment by the rapporteur to the vote?
Mr President, I thought you had announced that no oral amendments would be accepted during the sitting.
I just wanted to remind you of the presidency's proposal.
Mr Lataillade, I asked whether any Members objected to the rapporteur's oral amendment.
There was no objection, so we will put it to the vote.
Mr President, this is not an oral amendment, it is simply a matter of omitting part of the article.
This can quite easily be done by having a separate vote.
Mr Skinner is simply proposing that these five or six words be omitted, and we can vote separately on that.
Mr von Wogau, this can be done in various ways, but the rapporteur preferred to submit an oral amendment, as was his right, and I am obliged to put it to the vote.
You are right, he could have done it otherwise.
However, he did it orally and Parliament accepted that.
I will read out the text of the oral amendment in French:
'Calls on the Commission to draw up as soon as possible a draft regulation effectively securing free movement of workers in the Member States of the European Union'.
Mr President, I am sure the rapporteur will accept this oral amendment, since the Socialist Group and our group have made the possibility of putting forward oral amendments into such a sensitive issue.
I would like to ask the rapporteur, and Parliament too, of course, whether they agree that this oral amendment should be put to the vote.
Mr President, in fact my oral amendment was to help your group.
It was not to help my group.Your amendment was very good.
I tried to help that. But I really cannot accept this amendment.
We have already said enough about the free movement of workers as a political statement.
In that respect I cannot support this oral amendment however good it might be.
Is there any objection on the part of the House to my putting this oral amendment to the vote? To establish that there is an objection, at least 12 Members must rise.
(More than 12 Members rose, thereby expressing their objection) There is an objection.
Consequently, I cannot put it to the vote.
Mr President, I would just like to say that the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, is being very unsporting.
We are voting for his oral amendment.
We are remaining seated and you are not.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, I think that if we start debating about a sporting spirit in this House, we will run into major problems about who is and who is not sporting, and why.
Let us go no further with that discussion.
Mr President, I would like to support what the rapporteur has said, because as committee chairman I have only just received Mr García-Margallo's oral amendment.
There are many directives on the free movement of workers in the European Union - we cannot talk about one directive, there are a great many of them on the subject.
I think we should not take such decisions on the basis of oral amendments, so I tend to agree.
Mr Skinner has already said that he will not accept an oral amendment on this question, which I think is sensible, and so the matter is settled.
Mr von Wogau, ladies and gentlemen, we will not continue this discussion.
I am very sorry.
Everyone has a right to their own opinion and judgement, and of course others are entitled to agree or disagree.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I should like to comment as follows on the UPE Group's Amendment No 1 to this paragraph. Professor Cabrol thinks it is most important that a doctor should be consulted before a medicinal product is taken.
I think we all agree on that.
So I would suggest that we put in a combination of his amendment and my text, and if that is done I can support it.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
The report by our colleague Mr Ford is interesting in many respects and is proof of a high degree of coherence and resolution in the fight against all forms of racism.
Of course, it is entirely right that we should ensure more effective links between the various bodies involved in these problems, and, similarly, we must rely on data and surveys to increase our knowledge and understand the problems and phenomena associated with the increasing lack of tolerance towards foreigners. However, we must not forget the key element: fighting and opposing racists and fascists whose words are full of hatred and exclusion.
This is something worth saying again and again, and it is a point I would emphasis most strongly.
We must not let our guard down.
Instead, we must constantly harass the racists, and allow them no respite in Europe and throughout the world.
These ideas are dangerous for democracy, violent for humanity, and intolerable for citizens and elected representatives like us.
Unfortunately, they are spreading like gangrene at all levels of our society, and although the fight is not lost, it is far from being won.
Faced with fascists of all kinds, at the end of a century where racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism have caused thousands of deaths, we must show no tolerance towards racists, xenophobes and their accomplices, whether they are disguised or not.
Castagnetti recommendation (A4-0374/98)
In our explanation of vote, we would like to stress our interest in the points made in the committee's report concerning the health and safety aspects for those involved in apprenticeship schemes and work-linked training.
We have voted against Mr Castagnetti's report today on the promotion of European pathways in work-linked training, including apprenticeship.
We are in favour of people being able to participate in exchanges as part of their training, whether this is vocational or at university level.
It can be a breath of fresh air compared with the everyday grind.
However, we are strongly opposed to the political overtones and undertones which are expressed in the report, for example when it says that the stay in another European country shall form an integral part of training in the country of provenance, or where it relates to 'EUROPASS Training'.
Roth-Behrendt report (A4-0326/98)
Mr President, during the vote on the Roth-Behrendt report what I actually wanted to do was to protest about the procedure.
Indeed, I am not opposed to the proposal for a directive, which aims to eliminate the derogation for agricultural products and game in Article 2 of the Council Directive of 25 July 1985 on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products.
Moreover, I welcome the fact that Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 7 were rejected by roll-call vote.
Firstly, I disagree with Amendment No 3 because it removed the obligation of the injured party to provide proof of the defect or the causal relationship between defect and damage under certain circumstances, a rule that is not compatible with liability law.
Similarly, I do not agree with Amendment No 4, which was rejected and which eliminated what is known as 'development risk', nor, finally, with Amendment No 7, which aimed to eliminate the limitation period of 10 years from the date on which the product is put on the market.
However, I would like to repeat the concern expressed by the Committee on Legal Affairs.
These amendments, and others that were also rejected - much to my satisfaction - had no direct link with the committee.
By allowing them to be put to the vote, without considering their admissibility, we were undoubtedly challenging the fact that Parliament does not have the right of initiative.
I would point out that there is a discrepancy in the attitude that has been adopted by the Presidency's services in this case and their attitude in a recent report on the creation of the Anti-Fraud Office, for example.
I do not think it was admissible - as Mr Casini points out in the opinion by the Committee on Legal Affairs - for these amendments to be put to the vote today.
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
Because you were so keen to say your piece, I let you speak for half a minute longer, but I should be grateful if you could remain within your speaking time in future.
Consumer protection has been the subject of several texts we have studied in recent months, notably the Kuhn and Roth-Behrendt reports.
The amended directive that was presented to us yesterday also comes into this category although it includes, however, one regrettable exaggeration that I would like to highlight here.
The Temporary Committee of Inquiry into BSE carried out a very productive investigation into a subject that was particularly delicate and likely to arouse highly conflicting passions.
We have been presented with the amendments proposed as if they follow on directly from this approach.
As a member of this Committee of Inquiry, I would like to protest against such excessive claims.
Along with my colleagues, I have spent many months trying to ensure that measures were taken to help known victims and those yet to appear.
No directive on protection could be invoked.
It was therefore unthinkable to continue to ignore the damage suffered by consumers of agricultural products, whatever they may be, while all other manufactured products were covered by a directive.
For this reason, which in itself is positive, we are being presented with an extension of the directive that is totally unenforceable and unrealistic.
How can we restore the confidence of consumers if we propose, by way of protection, judicial procedures that will probably never reach a conclusion? How can we apply in practice the obligation on the producer to prove that he is not responsible for the damage reported by the consumer?
With all due respect to Mrs Roth-Behrendt, it is not a matter of good consumers who are the injured parties on the one hand, and bad farmers who are thus the guilty parties on the other.
The circumstances surrounding the BSE crisis are difficult enough without making these kinds of categorisations.
The same is true when it comes to abolishing any time limit for establishing the liability of producers. This is also totally inadmissible.
Accepting such amendments opens the door to all kinds of excessive proposals and, in particular, to budgetary increases that are impossible to estimate.
I will therefore vote against all the amendments proposed by the Roth-Behrendt report.
Although they are based on a fair view of the situation of consumers of agricultural products, the solutions proposed are out of all proportion and require a great deal more thought and consultation with all the sectors involved.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of Mrs Roth-Behrendt's report on product liability.
The original directive on product liability from 1985 contained a derogation for agricultural products.
Since then, all the Member States have extended the directive to include agricultural products and game as well, with the exception of Portugal, Spain and Germany.
However, the mad cow affair has led the Commission to remove this derogation.
That is the background to the revision of the directive.
The report also contains some quite controversial amendments aimed at extending consumer protection further than the Commission's original proposal.
The only point which the Danish Social Democrats are unable to support is the proposal to remove the scope for Member States to introduce thresholds or limits for liability.
The principle must always be that the rules - whether national or European - which protect consumers best must be applied.
The June Movement has voted in favour of the proposals from the Environment Committee on consumer protection in the area of product liability.
Only in this way can the Member States take a decision on the matter in the Council of Ministers.
However, we do not wish to hide the fact that we have deep concerns about the procedure which has been adopted.
The June Movement does not want the right of initiative to be transferred from the Commission to the EU's Parliament, but instead to see it residing with the national parliaments.
The House today gave its opinion on the amendment of the 1985 directive on liability for defective products.
This is an extremely important text that establishes a Community system of no-fault liability, and simply putting a product onto the market is sufficient to warrant inclusion here.
At Parliament's request, following the crisis concerning mad cow disease, the Commission proposes to include agricultural products in the scope of the directive.
This will allow us, in applying this system of liability, to get round the problems of defining processed products and primary products that, unfortunately, have too often been encountered by judges up until now. It represents a significant step forward for consumer protection.
The rapporteur did not stop there, however, and by playing on the emotional aspect of the BSE crisis, has put forward proposals that are totally excessive and unrealistic.
They are excessive in that we cannot simply change the rules on no-fault liability without having first carried out an impact study on all the sectors involved and on the level of consumer protection.
They are unrealistic in that, with the best will in the world, the rapporteur's proposals would not, in fact, have increased the level of protection. Instead, they would have complicated the work of judges.
For example, how would they interpret the concept of 'possible causal relationship' advocated by the rapporteur? In addition, they would burden producers - particularly SMEs and SMIs - with insurance costs that would be passed on to the final consumer in the purchase price.
Parliament is wise to have rejected the six most extravagant amendments proposed by the rapporteur, who prided herself in having reached an acceptable compromise. But with whom?
There was never any compromise, for our group, the PPE, had a clear position: none of the amendments that were proposed and put to the vote deserved to be adopted. There were two reasons for this.
The first is that it is never a good thing to increase the amount of legislation we have and the amendments adopted today will only serve to hold up the implementation of the Commission's proposal on agricultural products.
Secondly, Commissioner Monti yesterday promised to forward to Parliament, in January 2000, his Green Paper on the application of the directive and, in particular, its application in the agricultural sector. This Green Paper will be the result of broad consultation with all the sectors involved - producers, consumers, insurance companies, and so on - and is an essential stage in the work involved in any proposal to amend such an important directive.
I agree with all the observations made by my colleague Édouard des Places on the substance of this issue and, in particular, on the need to apply the system of liability for defective products further up the chain, that is, to apply it to those supplying agricultural products, such as cattle feed, seed, etcetera. What I would like to talk about, however, are the serious legal problems presented by certain amendments.
Some of the amendments are designed to change the general structure of Directive 85/374/EEC and are in no way connected with the Commission's proposal for a directive.
An examination of these amendments presupposes that the initial question of their admissibility has been resolved.
In fact, it is the Commission that has the power of initiative in terms of legislation.
Although we do agree with the content of some of the amendments proposed, it is not acceptable for the directive to be amended in this slipshod manner, without an initial study and without allowing the Member States to debate this issue in detail with all the necessary information at their disposal. We are once again violating the rules governing the operation of the European institutions.
We therefore vote against Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 7 in the report.
Amendment No 3 aims to abolish the obligation of the injured party to provide proof of the defect or the causal relationship between defect and damage under certain circumstances, and the vague wording of the amendment makes it difficult to determine what they are.
Moreover, it is not compatible with our national law and changes the overall balance of Directive 85/374/EEC.
Amendment No 4 is designed to eliminate what is currently known as the 'development risk', based on the state of scientific and technical knowledge, as one of the reasons for granting a producer exemption from liability.
This significantly changes the balance of Directive 85/374/EEC.
Finally, Amendment No 7 aims to abolish the limitation period of 10 years from the date on which the product is put onto the market.
This also changes the structure of the system of producer liability.
In conclusion, we should only allow such fundamental changes to a proposal to amend a directive if we have the agreement and active involvement of the Member States within the various Community institutions and, more particularly, within the Council.
Under no circumstances can we allow the European Parliament to try to take the place of the Member States by attempting to seize their legislative decision-making powers.
Mouskouri report (A4-0370/98)
This report deals with the restructuring of the European Union's cultural activities and in particular the creation of a single financing instrument.
It does not tackle a crucial issue that is undermining cultural life in Europe, namely the monopolisation of culture by a small oligarchy, a clique that is really quite powerful because it tends to take a significant proportion of public funding for itself.
The great art historian Ernst Gombrich believes that the politicisation of art is not peculiar to totalitarian regimes but is also seen in western regimes.
He notes the way in which access to commercial channels is denied to artists who do not conform to the dictates of fashion, to cosmopolitan, non-classical art that breaks with tradition.
As a result of this, funding goes to the type of art reserved for a small oligarchy that is cut off from what people want.
In addition, the public sector plays a much more important role than sponsors, resulting in the loss of the necessary cultural diversity.
The European Union should not be indifferent to this state of affairs as it means that artists who belong to subsidised groups living in the pockets of the cultural authorities tend to have a monopoly on artistic production and dissemination.
This leads to the creation of an official art, one that is admittedly diverse but unfairly and undemocratically excludes many artists, in particular those involved in classicism.
It is regrettable that this problem is not tackled, particularly in this report on the 'Culture 2000' programme.
I would like to thank Mrs Mouskouri for the excellent report she has presented today.
In fact, while the European Commission's approach to this new generation of programmes in the field of culture is commendable in being both transparent and effective, the way in which it intends to implement them needed to be revised, and it is this that Mrs Mouskouri has undertaken so successfully.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media could not understand how the Commission could forget to include in its objectives the ordinary person's involvement in and access to cultural activities and, when it comes to implementation, forget to provide greater support for the source of richness in European society, namely the 'small' projects that involve people directly.
The Commission placed too much importance on the large, established networks, which would in any case have no difficulty in responding to an invitation to tender, nor would they have any difficulty in finding the necessary partners, even in six other Member States!
It also placed too much importance on large-scale projects and events, which require a high degree of mobilisation that small associations cannot provide.
I will therefore be voting in favour of Mrs Mouskouri's report, because she has managed to redress the balance in favour of ordinary people, the small groups that take on projects, while giving a more complete view of the socio-cultural activities that can be awarded funding and are therefore indicative of the evolution of our society. These include plastic, applied and visual arts (visual arts and multimedia), music and other (existing and future) forms of artistic expression.
I appeal to the Commission to review its position and to accept our rapporteur's view, which I hope will also be that of the European Parliament as a whole.
We all recognise that culture must be a cornerstone of the unification of Europe that we aspire to.
To build an integrated Europe, we must exploit and promote a European cultural area, which will only fully meet the objectives of European cohesion if all Europeans feel that they are fully involved in it.
The great advantage of the 'Culture 2000' framework programme, as amended by the rapporteur, lies in the fact that it accepts this point of view and as a result envisages a new approach to cultural activity.
It opens up cultural activities to initiatives by and the active involvement of the Union's citizens and recognises culture explicitly as a source of jobs and a factor in social integration and citizenship.
Another important advantage of this amended framework programme is that aims to ensure that the budgets allocated are used with optimum efficiency by resisting the tendency to spread funding too thinly and recommending a sectoral approach which encourages synergies between the various artistic fields and new forms of expression, and between these and other Community programmes.
Looking at the prospects in store, I am delighted with the eminently democratic nature of the amended framework programme and also with the excellent work done by the rapporteur, who has taken the broad areas of cultural cooperation previously opened up by the Commission and used them to best advantage.
It goes without saying that I support fully the draft legislative resolution proposed here.
I fully support Nana Mouskouri in her call for more money for 'Cultural Programmes'.
With the welcome move towards greater EU integration and particularly in the context of enlargement, Europe's rich cultural diversity is its greatest resource in protecting the identity and individuality of each Member State.
From an economic perspective its potential has not been fully recognised or exploited.
There can be no doubting the significance of its role in the new and expanding area of cultural and rural tourism.
No other EU programme puts people and their cultural roots and traditions in their proper perspective.
Coming as I do from Ireland, we are particularly proud of our rich and diverse cultural tradition.
It is important for Europe that it is protected and promoted for future generations.
I am reminded of the words of Gandhi: 'We did not inherit this world from our forefathers - rather, we have borrowed it from our children'.
In conclusion, I would ask the Commission to seriously examine the role of Local Authorities in promoting cultural programmes.
In Ireland we have set a good example through the employment of Arts Officers and I believe their role should be strengthened if we are to succeed in bringing the richness of our cultural resource to all the people.
Culture should not be the preserve of the élite .
By voting in favour of Mrs Mouskouri's report on the 'Culture 2000' programme, the ARE Group wished to lend its support to this Commission proposal establishing a single political instrument for cultural activity and cooperation.
In fact, Culture 2000 is a very real step forward which could strengthen the role of culture in the construction of Europe and provide it with an efficient and coherent means of intervention.
We in the ARE Group have not voted in favour of the amendments to the annex to the proposal because we felt that splitting up the funding allocated and restructuring by artistic discipline would be tantamount to spreading the funding too thinly, which was what happened previously.
Nevertheless, as implementation of this ambitious and promising project would require significant funding, the ARE Group supports the rapporteur's proposal to increase the finance to ECU 250 million.
The report by Mrs Mouskouri on the introduction of a single financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation is another attempt to put some flesh on the idea of 'EU culture' - a culture which does not exist and which we do not think is desirable.
The report stresses that the most important aim of this cooperation is to ensure that the cultural dimension assumes centre stage and acts as a driving force for European integration, and that culture is a means of integrating peoples and societies.
Moreover, in prioritising the selection criteria, the greatest weight is given to so-called 'European added value'.
Culture cannot be artificially created through political measures.
Local, national and regional culture is flourishing and has done for many centuries, and we want this to continue by letting it sow its seeds among those groups which feel a sense of common culture.
We think it is utopian to believe that an EU culture or a European cultural heritage can be invented.
It would be quite appropriate to make proper use of the subsidiarity principle, namely by giving local, regional and national cultures the scope to develop, and not by establishing a cultural policy in the EU.
On the basis of these considerations, we have voted against the report.
Mrs Mouskouri's report has the merit of having found an acceptable way to bring together two lines of thinking on culture.
The Council of Ministers and the Commission, in presenting a framework programme establishing a single financing and programming instrument, have made culture and cultural activities into an instrument for structuring European policy and identity.
The appropriations are less thinly spread and concentrated on major European events or in-depth activities involving a greater number of European partners (six or seven) than is currently the case (usually three).
Many Members consider that this cultural cooperation risks giving priority to existing major cultural networks and distancing cultural activity from the citizen.
They therefore prefer a more sectoral approach with the promotion and exploitation of activities that are more directly targeted towards small projects.
The debate has been fascinating.
Mrs Mouskouri's report provides a compromise for the period in question, 2000-2004.
There is no doubt that the debate will continue and that the various points of view will change in accordance with the phases of European construction and with everyone's determination to create what is truly a European Community.
This report deals mainly with supranational measures that aim to strengthen our common European cultural identity through a common cultural policy that will act as the driving force of the process of cultural integration.
The measures proposed, for example to resolve the problems arising from the existence of disparities between Member States in the fiscal and labour market areas, would be appropriate if we wished to have a supranational cultural identity, but in my view this is the wrong approach.
Instead I would prefer to see an international cultural policy.
Furthermore, we should think about how much importance we really attach to safeguarding our European cultural identity.
Historically, it is very difficult to find anything that could be called a 'common European cultural identity'.
Today, cultural groups more often span different countries or continents.
For example, a young person in Stockholm has more in common with young people from the same social group and with a similar lifestyle in New York, Paris or Barcelona, than with a 'pan-European youth' group.
In order to discourage xenophobia and misunderstanding between people from different parts of the world and to foster solidarity and brotherhood, we should be striving to promote an understanding that cuts across today's cultural boundaries instead of constructing an artificial culture.
Mr President, there is something missing from this text that I must point out since it deals with a framework programme for culture.
Culture cannot be dealt with as a statistic, defined once and for all.
It is in perpetual movement and knows no boundaries.
If it is to play a useful role, the European programme for culture must be broadly based and flexible, so that it can take on board new emerging forms of culture and the different people involved in culture, who emerge, alter and disappear like comets.
But there are also minority cultures and languages and trans-territorial, migrant and immigrant cultures, not linked to a given territory. They are overlooked more than any other form of culture, because they have no state or region to represent them.
Let us not forget that the European mosaic is made up of all of these types of culture.
Waddington report (A4-0373/98)
We should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Waddington, for her careful report, which deals with a matter of considerable importance for the European Union.
Mrs Waddington has shown great commitment in an area that we regard as very important for the future development of the 'Leonardo da Vinci' programme.
Above all, we should like to stress the following points: non-discrimination in the realisation of projects under the programme, the importance of the role of non-governmental organisations, and the promotion of quality and innovation in vocational training.
We have voted against Mrs Waddington's report today on the establishment of the second phase of the Community vocational training action programme 'Leonardo da Vinci'.
We are in favour of people being able to participate in exchanges as part of their training, whether this is vocational or at university level.
It can be a breath of fresh air compared with the everyday grind.
However, we are strongly opposed to the political overtones and undertones which are expressed in the report, for example the emphasis it puts on the European dimension in the theory and practice of vocational training.
It is also advocated that the Leonardo da Vinci programme should be seen in connection with a European employment strategy.
We believe that unemployment should be tackled locally, regionally or nationally, since there are many different reasons why people lose their jobs.
The strategies for combating unemployment must therefore also reflect this diversity.
Susan Waddington's report includes several proposals which will improve vocational training and its impact on employment.
Many of our reports dealing with unemployment stress the need for good quality training, which is absolutely essential if workers and people in general are to be made employable.
It is therefore clear that priority must be given in this Community programme to those who are threatened by exclusion.
This effort must be sustained and continuous, and I share the Commission's opinion about extending the programme to six years.
Although this aim is entirely consistent with the European Social Fund, we must bring the schedules into line in order to increase coherence and efficiency.
Similarly, we must ensure that sufficient finance is provided for the proper functioning of the programme.
Another welcome point is the desire to involve the social partners in the implementation of Leonardo.
This concern for transparency is a credit to Parliament and illustrates a strong determination that has already been highlighted by other texts from the House.
In conclusion, I would like to express a reservation about the possibility of using Leonardo to support existing measures, particularly relating to the mobility of students and teachers.
While the intention is good, does this not risk overburdening the system? Rather than trying to do this, I would prefer to increase the funds allocated to the Socrates programme.
First of all, I should like to establish that this programme of activities is of fundamental importance.
In the main, I am able to give the report my unqualified support.
However, I am unhappy about the fact that the internal investigation which is currently being carried out into the 'Leonardo da Vinci' programme, and which will soon be completed, is not available now when Parliament is deciding on the next phase.
Obvious problems have come to light in the management and monitoring of the programme, which is a cause for serious comment.
I believe that Parliament should postpone consideration of this report until the results of the internal investigation of the first phase of the 'Leonardo da Vinci' programme are clear and have been evaluated.
I am happy to vote for this report by my Labour Party colleague Sue Waddington.
The added value of EU training programmes like Leonardo should be safeguarded in the years ahead and not threatened with cuts to its funding.
Training needs to be given time to bear fruits in new jobs being taken by the people who take part in courses - we need to invest time as well as money in our training programmes.
The report rightly calls for the Commission to make available across the EU information about new and innovative types of training.
If there are lessons in training we can learn from each other in Europe about how best to train ourselves for tomorrow's careers, they should be available to all our countries - what counts is what works, not which country first came up with the ideas.
Leonardo should be opened up to all public, private and not-for-profit groups, with a priority for EU training projects to be given to disadvantaged people - for example those who face double discrimination by being not only unemployed but also disabled or belonging to an ethnic minority.
Pack report (A4-0371/98)
We have voted against Mrs Pack's report today on the establishment of the second phase of the Community action programme in the field of education 'Socrates'.
We are in favour of people being able to participate in exchanges as part of their training, whether this is vocational or at university level.
It can be a breath of fresh air compared with the everyday grind.
However, we are strongly opposed to the political overtones and undertones which are expressed in the report, for example inter-school plans, educational projects with a European dimension, European modules and the setting-up of European knowledge centres.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Pack on the clarity of her report and the fairness of the proposals she has made to improve the Socrates programme.
This Community programme for schools and students is one of the great successes of the European Union.
It has allowed thousands of students to perfect their education by including the European citizenship dimension.
There is no doubt, however, that we have to improve the existing system, particularly in terms of the administration of the programme.
Priority must of course be given to increasing the funding allocated for Socrates to allow more people to take part and also, perhaps more importantly, to increase the amount awarded to each student.
As the report explains, the cost of this mobility is significantly higher than the grant awarded.
I am regularly contacted by students involved in the scheme asking whether they could not be given extra funds to allow them a decent standard of living in the country in question.
So I think we have to enhance the mobility grant significantly and take into account the discrepancies that exist in the standards of living in the Union.
This would allow us to make this programme accessible to many more students who are sometimes worried by the extra cost involved in living abroad.
I agree with the proposal to widen the scope of the Socrates programme to include adults who have left the education system without qualifications.
This measure is very much in line with the fight against unemployment and the ideas put forward by the Luxembourg Employment Summit.
I agree with the rapporteur that, despite obstacles such as insufficient financial resources and disjointed structure and functioning, the first phase of the Community action programme in the field of education, Socrates, has been a success that has played a major role in increasing a common sense of belonging within the Union.
In a world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate education from training and initial training from continuing training, the integrated approach of all the programmes in the field of education, vocational training and youth is most certainly the main innovation and merit of the Socrates II programme.
Of course, there is room for improvement. It could be made more effective and more relevant, for example.
A better match between the declared objectives and the methods to be used to achieve them, and a more precise definition of the tasks required of the Commission, would both help to make Socrates II even more successful.
Nevertheless, I strongly believe that the development of a European education that transcends national borders and offers new prospects and new horizons to the European citizens of the future, is one of the key ways in which we can unify the European Union and, further, the European continent into a peaceful and prosperous whole.
Economic and monetary union alone cannot ensure the success of such an ambitious undertaking.
Union will be achieved just as much, and probably with greater certainty, in people's minds and in the discovery by the younger generations that they all belong to a common project that is still open to the world.
This is the fundamental issue underlying the Socrates II programme, and I subscribe to it totally.
For this reason I lend my unequivocal support to Parliament's opinion on the subject today.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for her invaluable report.
Opening access to the 'Socrates' programme has important implications for European educational programmes in the future.
In our explanation of vote, we should like to express our views on opening the programme to include Turkey.
We regard this move as controversial because of the continuing instances of human rights abuse in that country.
However, it should be noted that Amendment No 22 not only deals with Turkey's participation in the programme, but also with that of EEA and EFTA countries.
The European Parliament should, as a matter of urgency, give its opinion on whether Norway and Iceland, for example, are to be included in the programme.
As regards Turkey, the views expressed above also apply to the action programme for youth.
In view of the fact that, despite having signed the European Convention on Human Rights 50 years ago, Turkey is still not complying with the principles it enshrines, I cannot support the proposal to include that country in the programme of actions outlined in this report.
There are two points I would like to make about the new version of the Socrates programme.
The new Grundtvig programme includes parents' associations as equal partners in adult education for the first time. As the initiator of various European parents' projects, I welcome this wholeheartedly.
Our education programmes have a common goal: to develop a generation of young Europeans to whom we can entrust the future of Europe.
Parents have a considerable role to play here, and their cooperation at European level, their cooperation with teachers and their own continuing education are all important issues.
I also welcome the fact that the new Socrates proposal creates a legal basis which also allows Turkey to participate in the programme, and I hope that this can be put into practice in the near future.
I regard Turkey's involvement as an opportunity to develop awareness of human rights and democracy among the Turkish people, and it was on this same basis that I produced my own report calling for Turkey to be included in the current Socrates programme.
The decision taken on the basis of this present report will enable us to start preparing Turkey for participation in the programme, and I feel sure that the European Parliament will now back this report.
This second phase of the Socrates programme, like the other programmes in the field of youth and vocational training, is in line with an overall trend that places the emphasis on lifelong education and training for all.
The aim is to create a common base resulting in the creation of a European education and training area.
This programme is obviously based on the experience gained from its first phase; it consolidates the positive achievements and adds to these innovation, an essential element for the growth of any society, as well as an 'adequate' budget for 29 countries.
The report by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, as presented to us today, seems to me to be acceptable, because the European Parliament is proposing a budget increase, to a total of ECU 2 000 million instead of the ECU 1 400 million proposed by the Commission.
If we want this programme to be accessible to a maximum number of young people and adults wishing to undergo initial or continuing training, it is a minimal figure, given that the programme will be accessible to the citizens of a total of 29 countries.
It is acceptable also because it provides for the possibility of joint action with other programmes in the field of youth and training, because it takes new information technologies into account as an educational tool and as new knowledge.
Finally, it is acceptable because the procedures are simplified and the regional and local levels are taken into account, with a view to decentralisation of course, which implies better information, dissemination of information and improved cooperation with the Member States.
A great deal is at stake: not just the model of European society that we wish to safeguard but also, and in particular, the future of the young and the not so young, and the possibility of offering them a job and a place in this citizens' Europe that we aspire to.
De Coene report (A4-0389/98)
In Denmark there is a good and long tradition of performing voluntary work in all age groups, and not just among young people, even if the level of activity is considerably higher in that section of the population.
Denmark is often referred to as 'the country of organisations', and on average every Danish person belongs to an organisation of one kind or another, whether it be a political party, a youth organisation, a scouting movement or a residents' association.
All these people are working to improve the situation of their members and of others who sympathise with their cause.
However, there are few of them who wish to work to develop the European dimension, to promote awareness of true European citizenship and to promote a European educational area.
We would also query whether there is such a thing as a 'European dimension' at all.
We are strongly opposed to the political overtones and undertones which are expressed in the report.
On the basis of these considerations, we have voted against Mr De Coene's report.
I must congratulate Philippe De Coene on the excellent work he has done, not only because I agree with his analysis, but also because it has probably given certain Commission services and in particular the Member States something to think about.
I have always thought that, in order to improve a situation, it is necessary to take a new look at accepted ideas and not to stop at the first hurdle.
This is what the rapporteur is suggesting today.
In terms of content, it seems to me that the idea of striking a balance between the various actions within the youth programme is a very positive one.
Young people, by their very nature and mentality, are thirsty for mobility, knowledge, experience, involvement; in a word, what they need is citizenship.
So reintroducing exchanges among the young and giving them the necessary funding is a very good thing.
In this respect, the recent demonstrations by French secondary school students support the rapporteur's arguments.
In addition, I also believe that the EVS, which I support wholeheartedly and which is very much a credit to the Commissioner and her services, can be improved upon, for example by adopting Philippe De Coene's idea of providing a more precise definition of what the host organisations (non-profit-making organisations) and host projects (activities which cannot replace jobs) should involve.
It is better to be clear about this from the beginning so as to avoid any misunderstandings.
What we want is to be more accessible to young people and to provide them with better information to get them more involved, which will in turn help them to take part in a Europe which is created by them and for them.
That is why I will be voting in favour of this report.
In many respects, it is a good idea to group the various programmes together.
Most of the objectives are also praiseworthy, for example the learning of languages and the mobility of young people to increase their knowledge about new and unfamiliar cultures.
However, I am unable to support those amendments which contain the objectives of promoting a 'true European citizenship', 'the European Union's principles and rules' and 'the participation of young people in the development of the Union'.
I do not believe that these objectives are compatible with a programme for young people.
In my view, we should be broadening our global and international perspective, which is very different from the narrow concept of an EU identity that is a constantly recurring theme, even though no one supports it.
In view of the fact that, despite having signed the European Convention on Human Rights 50 years ago, Turkey is still not complying with the principles it enshrines, I cannot support the proposal to include that country in the programme of actions outlined in the report.
Waddington (A4-0373/98), Pack (A4-0371/98) and De Coene (A4-0389/98) reports
The Treaty of Amsterdam and indeed Agenda 2000 firmly place the whole of cultural policy, research, innovation, education and training policy, in short, knowledge policy, at the centre of the future evolution of the Union.
What matters today is to provide the widest possible access to education and continuous updating of knowledge.
Presenting its three proposals for decisions on education, training and youth, the Commission sets out guidelines for Community action designed to contribute to the construction of a European area of culture and education.
In our view it is important to have synergy between these three proposals which must inevitably contribute to the development of knowledge, the enrichment of citizenship and the improvement of employment chances, through acquisition of the specific skills that have become necessary today.
In a rapidly evolving world, driven by technological change and the advance of the information society, the artificial division of education and training must steadily be reduced, and this is our priority task: to draw up legislation which upholds the cultural policy of the Union at all levels.
In our opinion the traditional distinction between initial training and continuous training or, indeed, the distinction between formal and informal education, also needs to be broken down by simplifying bureaucratic procedures and creating close and continuous links between the Community and national spheres by means of the Structural Funds, especially the European Social Fund. Cooperation measures in the field of youth constitute a crucial keystone in the active integration of young people and the promotion of citizenship of Europe.
Socrates, which promotes quality in education and expands the European dimension - involving 4 million teachers and 70 million young people - represents a major Community achievement, especially in terms of bringing Europe closer to its citizens, and in the construction of Europe.
The Danish Social Democrats in Parliament have today voted in favour of extending and improving the three programmes based on the guidelines in Agenda 2000.
The programmes are being simplified and the equal treatment aspects strengthened, both in terms of equal treatment for men and women and the inclusion of marginalised groups.
On the whole, we also support the proposed changes to the programmes.
However, there are some wordings which we feel go too far in terms of emphasising the supranational element.
In our view, the Member States should continue to have the main competence in the education sector.
European education policy should only supplement and support the national policy on education.
The Waddington, Pack, De Coene and Castagnetti reports on work-linked training and apprenticeship, life-long learning, transnational education, guest teachers and so on contain a number of fine proposals.
The programmes are strongly geared towards 'European identity', 'European cultural heritage' and 'EUROPASS Training', all of which are designed to carry us inexorably towards European integration.
Most of the programmes involve the allocation of fresh funding.
In this respect, the current investigation into the 'Leonardo da Vinci' programme concerns the misappropriation of EU funds.
The impartial nature of the report is to be commended, but the recurring theme of a 'European' superstructure is not supported by the people themselves.
The questions we should be asking are: what is meant by a European culture, and is there really any such thing?
Mr President, the issue of education/training is so essential to our societies that so many people wanted to speak in this debate that I have been forced to put what I had to say in writing.
I welcome the joint debate on the questions of education, training and youth, reflecting the growing trend towards an integrated policy on these sectors, something I obviously support.
I should like to make two comments, the first on the De Coene report and the second on the Pack report, summing up my own amendments.
First of all, we have to avoid the risk of creating a barrier between young people and the adult world, or between young people who belong to organisations and their peers - the majority - when developing youth policies.
A genuine youth policy is one which, instead of trying to make itself more visible and increasing the number of youth bodies and concerns, plays itself down in order to give young people a bigger say in other policies.
Secondly, there can be no European education policy without a European language policy.
This calls for serious thought and a wide-ranging debate on teaching children from primary school onwards throughout the European Union the same foreign language that can be used as a language of communication.
Along with that decision, we should also develop pro-active policies to promote multilingualism, since it is only by taking both approaches together that we will create a realistic European language policy.
Skinner report (A4-0385/98)
We should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Skinner, for his diligence in carrying out this important task.
The creation of a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene to remove certain obstacles to trade had previously been dealt with in an unsatisfactory manner by the Commission, particularly with respect to the rights of trade unions and the right of Member States to govern their own affairs.
Nevertheless, the problem needs to be resolved promptly and, in our opinion, this report deals satisfactorily with the question of trade union rights and the right of Member States to govern their own affairs.
The proposal for a Council Regulation presented to us today aims to create a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene to require the Member States to remove certain internal obstacles to trade.
The Commission had this idea following the farmers' demonstrations in France in 1993 and 1995, during which imported products - in particular, lorry- loads of Spanish strawberries - were intercepted and destroyed by farmers.
In certain cases the French government considered it better not to send in the forces of law and order so as to avoid more serious disruption, an attitude which outraged Brussels.
Hence the current draft text, which aims to provide the Commission with instruments to ensure greater respect for the free movement of goods, which, as we are told ad nauseam in the explanatory statement and in the recitals, is one of the fundamental principles of the European Community, though it is not pointed out that it is not the only one and that it is in fact less fundamental than others.
The Commission proposal shows the outrageously undemocratic way in which the European institutions often behave in order to promote supranationality.
It also leads us to consider the responsibility of the Member States in the area of public order, which is also topical in the context of the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Firstly, I would like to comment on the undemocratic methods.
The first version of the draft simply provided for the Commission to have the right to take 'decisions' condemning the action (or inaction) of certain Member States with regard to obstacles to trade.
These decisions were to serve as a basis for court judgments, at both national and Community level, imposing fines or penalty payments on the Member States.
The Council was amazed at the enormity of the proposal: Commission officials, without batting an eyelid - although for them it was a natural thing to do - were asking the Council to grant them the power to impose sanctions on the Member States.
Even if it had wished to do so, the Council would not have been able to delegate this power, quite simply because it does not possess it, except in the case of the excessive deficit procedure.
The officials invoked the conclusions of the Amsterdam European Council on the action plan for the single market, in which the Heads of State or Government requested that the Commission 'examine ways and means of guaranteeing in an effective manner the free movement of goods, including the possibility of imposing sanctions on the Member States'.
On this occasion, the Council discovered that at the Amsterdam European Council the Heads of State or Government were made to say all sorts of things in the Final Act without being aware of what was happening.
We actually hope that we were instrumental in revealing this manipulation, since we denounced it vigorously at the time.
So the Council revised the Commission proposal, but only half-heartedly, so that the second version of the text, which is presented to us today, is little better than the first.
In it, the notion of Commission 'decision' is in fact replaced by that of 'notification', which is deliberately ambiguous, with the result that it is difficult to say whether it is optional, like an opinion, or binding, like a decision.
The problem is exacerbated by the total absence of a legal basis, so that the Commission has been obliged to resort to the ever-useful Article 235, which we have condemned a hundred times because it allows the Community to grant itself powers which the Treaties deny it.
For all of these reasons the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations believes it is very much justified in voting against the draft regulation.
However, this case also leads us to consider the wider issue of the principle that the Member States have primary responsibility for internal public order.
Although this basic rule is recognised by the Treaty in several places, for example in Article 36 on the movement of goods, it is constantly flouted, including by the Court of Justice of the European Communities.
In fact, in what is now an old case (Rutili judgment, 28 October 1975), the Court stated that the concept of responsibility of the Member States for internal public order 'must be interpreted strictly. Its scope cannot be determined unilaterally by each Member State without being subject to control by the institutions of the Community', such control being itself the result of the desire to preserve the principles of Community law.
In the case relating to the farmers' demonstrations of 1993-1995, we now have the Court of Justice's judgment of 9 December 1997, which takes the same line and bears out all the Commission's claims.
France's arguments, which were based on national responsibility for public order, were swept aside by the Court.
I will quote one passage of the judgment: 'the Member States, which retain exclusive competence as regards the maintenance of public order and the safeguarding of internal security, unquestionably enjoy a margin of discretion in determining what measures are most appropriate to eliminate barriers to the importation of products in a given situation.
It is therefore not for the Community institutions to act in place of the Member States and to prescribe for them the measures which they must adopt and effectively apply in order to safeguard the free movement of goods on their territories.
However, it falls to the Court, taking due account of the discretion referred to above, to verify, in cases brought before it, whether the Member State concerned has adopted appropriate measures for ensuring the free movement of goods.'
In other words, the state is responsible for its own public order, but this responsibility is restricted by Community principles which it cannot contradict; on the contrary, it must support them.
This ruling by the Court, and the position of the European institutions in general, sheds a very interesting light on the debate on the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Supporters of this Treaty claim that abandoning personal controls at the borders with our neighbours would not cause any particular problem, nor would communitising our whole immigration policy, as Article 64 of the Treaty establishing the European Community provides a safeguard clause by guaranteeing that: 'This Title shall not affect the exercise of the responsibilities incumbent upon Member States with regard to the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security.'
We can see what a 'safeguard' of this kind would be worth in reality.
It is a smokescreen intended to mislead people by making them believe that their Member State retains its powers, while these powers are gradually being whittled away by the undemocratic means of the case-law of the Court of Justice.
In this case, if France, having ratified the Amsterdam Treaty, wished one day to restore personal controls at its borders because of an increasing threat to public order, the Commission would reply that our country must find a way to maintain its internal law and order while preserving the fundamental Community principle of the free movement of persons.
We would be required to obey this injunction under threat of being dragged before the Court of Justice, whose final decision would be known in advance.
What the Council wishes to adopt today in the form of this draft regulation, and what some wish to have adopted in the Amsterdam Treaty, is the most appalling crime that can be committed against a people: preventing it from defending itself when attacked.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of creating an intervention mechanism in order to remove certain obstacles to trade.
The Commission's original proposal was completely unacceptable, since it gave the Commission too great a power to intervene in technical disputes, and also because the proposal could have undermined some basic rights such as the right to strike.
The new proposal for which we have voted is quite different.
The Commission is no longer given the power to require a Member State to intervene in national strikes.
The new proposal only obliges the Member States to keep the Commission informed of any obstacles to trade, and of how they intend to bring these to an end.
A provision has also been included which guarantees the right to strike.
We have therefore decided to back the rapporteur, who has recommended that the Commission's proposal should be supported in its present form.
We, the undersigned, voted against the report for the following reasons:
the decision could lead to violations of the fundamental rights of trade unions; -it is legislatively inadmissible to combine provisions on the free movement of goods and those on the free movement of persons; -the Commission should not be given the kind of authority that is proposed, which should be reserved for the Court of Justice or negotiations on the substance of the Treaties.
The Commission should not be entitled to act in cases that involve distinctions between national and EU rights.
The non-attached Members cannot agree with Amendments Nos 1 to 15.
Although what they say is correct, it does not appear appropriate to link our justified concern about the free movement of workers with a regulation introducing a mechanism for the Commission to intervene in order to remove certain obstacles to trade.
The issue of the free movement of workers should be the subject of its own report.
The report has been produced with undue haste and raises additional issues at too short notice for consideration during this part-session.
It has not been properly thought through, and although it has been toned down and is thus an improvement on the original, it is still unacceptable.
The right to strike has been restricted, labour rights emasculated, and both national legislation and collective life disregarded.
The report should therefore be rejected.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party supports the Skinner report on the proposal for a Council regulation (EC) creating a mechanism whereby the Commission can intervene in order to remove certain obstacles to trade (COM(97)0619).
This is primarily about the free movement of goods around the Single European Market, and not the free movement of people.
However, given its importance, the EPLP has supported a reference to the free movement of people in the recital of the report.
The report deals with the possibility of intervention when the free movement of goods is 'obstructed by actions of private individuals'.
The report does not, in itself, override the right to strike, but it could still have serious consequences for the work of the trade unions.
For example, the proposal imposes far-reaching obligations on the respective countries to remove obstacles to trade, which makes it impossible for countries to remain neutral in labour market conflicts.
Furthermore, according to the Swedish Transport Workers Union, the proposal would result in the governments of individual countries acting in a way that would facilitate strike-breaking in conflict situations.
For this reason, I am unable to vote for the report.
Having established the single internal market and entered the final straight for the introduction of the euro, the EU is now trying to armour-plate its policy with measures which will 'safeguard' it from the reactions of European citizens and their disputes.
In the name of unimpeded implementation of the principle of the free movement of goods, it is trying to use the proposed regulation to undermine the most fundamental social rights.
The argument always used, the celebrated 'obstacles to trade', is again being trotted out as an excuse to stifle European citizens' democratic, social and personal rights.
Under the first proposal, which represented the prevailing view in the Commission - the predominant 'federal' body of the EU with extensive executive powers - private citizens were given the right, following a decision by the Commission, to go to the national courts and to ask for the adoption of temporary measures, the award of compensation and the imposition of fines.
At the same time, and in order to 'prevent the spread of disturbances', the Member State on whose territory disputes are taking place is transformed into a policing executive body with responsibility for adopting the 'necessary' suppressive measures to 'remove obstacles, failing which it risks the Damoclean sword of being taken before the European Court of Justice.
Working people will be attacked on two fronts: by the national authorities and by 'private individuals who would be affected'.
The political agreement achieved by the Council brought some improvement to the initial text since the individual's right of recourse to legal proceedings is eliminated in favour of a decision by the Commission and recourse to insurance.
However, the legal and political pressures on the Member State involved remain in place.
Despite the changes made, the proposed regulation we are considering potentially unleashes a storm and threatens to become a decisive blow against the exercise of collective labour rights.
The right to strike and the right to hold meetings are flagrantly undermined and a new period of restrictive application of those rights is being officially inaugurated.
It is clear that the Europe of monopolies and bankers cannot withstand the claims of Greek, French and Italian farmers who are fighting to mitigate the consequences of the anti-agricultural policies pursued by the EU and the Member States, with demonstrations by lorry-drivers demanding reasonable working hours and the abolition of dumping.
The Europe of 'free movement' cannot withstand action by ships' crews fighting to prevent their labour rights from being reduced to third-world levels.
Yet again, hypocrisy is exceeding all bounds.
On the one hand, lip-service is paid to the celebrated subsidiarity, bombastic declarations are made, the fundamental rights of individuals are invoked, and at the same time the Member States are transformed into brutal suppressors of the struggles of the labour movement.
Clearly, the division of responsibilities that results from subsidiarity assigns the role of strike-breaker to the Member States.
There is also justified concern about the part to be played by the Schengen Information System in this context, since there is a danger that anyone actively involved in industrial action will be entered on lists of those 'suspected' of being responsible for public disorder.
The step to bring back the concept of 'the enemy within' is not far off and is facilitated by the deliberately vague definition of 'the suppression of terrorism', which seems to have been upgraded to one of Europol's main areas of activity.
We will vote against the report in the most categorical way.
It is an issue where there is no room for amendments or corrections.
But on that point, it is not by chance that some amendments by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, which attempt to introduce some kind of safety valve in relation to the right to hold meetings and concern for legitimacy, from a legal point of view and exclusively in the context of national labour legislation, have not been included in the report.
For our part, we call upon working people in Europe to continue their struggle to overthrow such orders and fight to safeguard and extend their rights.
We will stand by them.
I am happy to vote for this Report by my Labour Party colleague Peter Skinner.
After the French lorry driver strikes of recent years which have caused so much damage to other countries' innocent companies and self employed drivers, this report makes sound suggestions for limiting such problems in the future.
I back the call for a rapid restoration of the free movement of goods in cases where they are impeded so as to seriously disrupt the working of the internal market.
There is a difficult balance to reach between the competing demands of union rights to protest peacefully in their own country on the one hand, and the need to allow trade to continue in the internal market all our governments have long been committed to.
Domestic disputes such as the recent blockades of ports in France should be settled by the parties to those disputes in the country concerned.
The rest of us should be able to go about our business.
An early warning system of possible obstacles to free trade between the governments and the Commission should help.
Governments should be required to ensure that foreign citizens and companies are able to carry on their legitimate business where a local dispute has nothing to do with them.
I hope that the balanced approach of this report will allow for both legitimate disputes to be settled in any EU country as well as for the rest of the EU to be allowed to trade freely and fairly.
I am voting against the report for the following reasons.
Firstly, it is expressly stated that the directive shall not establish the meaning of civil rights and freedoms.
Secondly, actions in this area may lead to restrictions on rights in disputes, since any legally and constitutionally admissible actions in the transport sector are an obstacle to the free movement of goods.
Thirdly, the proposal does not differentiate between legal and illegal actions.
Fourthly, the proposal imposes far-reaching obligations on the respective countries to remove obstacles to trade, which makes it impossible for countries to remain neutral in labour market conflicts.
Fifthly, the proposal would result in the governments of individual countries acting in a way that would make it easier for citizens to work in other countries, which would facilitate strike-breaking in conflict situations.
Under Chapter 2(1) of the Swedish Constitution, Swedish citizens are guaranteed fundamental rights and freedoms.
In Chapter 2(17), it is established that 'Any trade union or employer or association of employers shall be entitled to take strike or lockout action or any similar measure unless otherwise provided by law'.
Chanterie report (A4-0378/98)
Mr President, I am speaking in this explanation of vote because I wish my vote on Mr Chanterie's report to be recorded in the Minutes. I voted differently from the rest of my Group and am very proud of having done so, particularly as regards paragraph 7.
I welcome the adoption of this text and I believe that, pending the implementation by the European Union of the complete harmonisation measures which we recommended, Parliament was right to call by such a large majority for Article 6(1) of the existing directive to be modified 'in such a way as to create an unmistakable obligation on the part of Member States actually torecognise registrations carried out, or authorisations granted, by other Member States' in the field of homeopathic medicine.
I believe that my Group was wrong to vote against this recommendation.
For this reason I have voted with the majority of the House, and I wanted to make this statement in order to ensure that it is recorded in the Minutes.
I am extremely pleased with this vote on the Chanterie report, which is very important for the future of homeopathic medicine.
We cannot help but notice that, six years after the adoption of the two 1992 Directives adding additional provisions to the 1965, 1975 and 1981 Directives relating to homeopathic medicinal products, there is still distortion of competition and an imbalance in the market in this sector.
Furthermore, four Member States have been brought before the Court of Justice by the Commission on the grounds of failure to transpose the two directives or to transpose them in full into national law.
Yet more than one in five Europeans now uses homeopathy!
Things have definitely dragged on too long.
It is particularly important to respond quickly to this situation as the manufacturers of homeopathic medicines are generally small and medium-sized enterprises that suffer from the continuing obligation to register their products separately in each of the Member States.
For this reason I support the rapporteur's proposal to modify Community legislation in such a way as to create an obligation on the part of Member States actually to recognise - under specific conditions yet to be determined - registrations carried out, or authorisations granted, by other Member States.
Such changes to the legislation currently in force presuppose of course that all Member States meet the highest health and safety standards with regard to national authorisations and registrations of homeopathic medicinal products.
The effective liberalisation of the market in these products must not result in a lower standard of health protection for the population of any Member State.
Interest in homeopathic medicinal products is increasing.
It is important for consumers that homeopathic remedies are recognised as medicines.
A decision needs to be taken so that they can feel confident in what they are buying.
People should be able to buy and use homeopathic medicinal products in the knowledge that they will not harm their health.
Consumers would like to see clearer and better product descriptions on the products they use, which would be encouraged by greater mutual recognition in the field of homeopathy.
At the same time, there are various reasons why national legislation in this area differs between Member States and, in this respect, a lack of coordination is apparent in the present directive.
For there to be mutual recognition, each Member State should know about the registration requirements in other countries.
Those requirements and the reasons for them should be made known in order to facilitate comparisons.
Each country would then have to decide whether it was going to recognise another country's homeopathic products.
In the meantime, there is no reason why Member States should be compelled to recognise products which have been authorized in another country.
In this report it is stated, amongst other things, that the compulsory mention of 'homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeutic indication' on the label of homeopathic products has pejorative overtones which have a discriminatory effect.
It therefore proposes that this should be changed to: 'application in accordance with clinical homeopathic pharmacology'.
Furthermore, Member States would be obliged to recognise homeopathic remedies which had been authorised in other Member States, and also to agree to the lifting of the ban on fantasy names for homeopathic medicinal products.
I think that these measures will have adverse consequences.
The sale of homeopathic medicinal products is quite strictly regulated as regards names and warnings, for example, so that consumers will not be duped into believing that a particular preparation will cure serious illness.
In countries with high charges for hospital visits, people may be inveigled into taking pills that make them feel better, instead of being examined by a doctor and having the right medicine prescribed.
In this context, the name of the preparation is of considerable psychological importance.
Homeopathic medicinal products are good when taken in conjunction with traditional medical treatment, but we should not allow ourselves to end up in a situation where people use homeopathic remedies instead of going to the doctor.
I am unable to vote for this report, because it contains too many references that are detrimental to conventional medicine and too favourable towards more or less dubious homeopathic preparations and remedies.
For example, point 17 proposes to change the original wording from 'homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeutic indication', to the totally incomprehensible 'homeopathic medicinal product without allopathic claim'.
Furthermore, in recital O it is stated that 'the obligatory use of the scientific name on labels ... does not make for clarity'.
In short, the present report, in my opinion, is not scientific enough and will, in the long run, do nothing to further medical and health care development.
Thyssen report (A4-0359/98)
I was very happy to support Mrs Thyssen's report.
It was quite right to stress the value of a good outside assessment of the Commission's activities.
The Commission's wide-ranging report all too often fails to say clearly exactly what results have been achieved.
In a variety of respects, the added value of Community action remains distinctly nebulous.
The European Commission has a duty to allow the subsidiarity principle to operate freely in practice.
If there is no added value, there is no justification for Community action.
So you have to be sensible and draw a line under it.
In short: the Commission should do less, but do it better.
Paragraph 20 of the resolution makes the point that environmental policy is not sufficiently integrated into policy on SMEs.
On the relationship between policy on SMEs and policy on the environment, the informal Environment Council held in Amsterdam in mid-April 1997 concluded that small businesses created jobs, but that they also created a significant amount of environmental pollution.
My impression is that the Commission does not take its Treaty obligation all that seriously here, and that perhaps the environment is better off as a result.
The environmental technology sector offers a very promising challenge in terms of both more jobs and less pressure on the environment.
I trust the European Commission's next coordination report will be considerably more informative and insightful.
We all recognise the dynamic role played by small and medium-sized enterprises in the vitality of modern economies and in job creation.
The extent of the work carried out in recent years by the various European Union institutions to promote greater development of small and medium-sized enterprises is to be welcomed with good reason.
However, we cannot help but note that a number of these enterprises continue to regard the European Union with intense mistrust.
One of the reasons for this is that, as we have lamented on several occasions in the House, these enterprises are not involved in European social dialogue.
A further reason for small and medium-sized enterprises' mistrust of European institutions lies in the complexity of our legislation, which often gives the impression of being mixed up with national provisions to create an impenetrable web.
I share the rapporteur's belief that greater clarity and precision in the Commission communications on SMEs and their real powers in this area would facilitate understanding for the businessmen concerned.
Another point highlighted by the rapporteur, and which caught my attention, was the absence of precise data on the actual involvement of small and medium-sized enterprises in Structural Fund measures.
The absence of statistics in such an important area seems to be a contradiction given that the Structural Funds account for a third of Community expenditure and that, as I have already mentioned, we all agree on the importance of the role of SMEs in a modern economy and in job creation.
In conclusion, I believe it is essential that we continue to look closely at possible ways of achieving synergies among the SMEs in all areas of their activities where economies of scale are possible: administration, research and development, training, market assessment, etc.
The report contains many fine proposals.
The one which incorporates Mr Robles Piquer's motion for a resolution on a European quality certificate for small and medium-sized enterprises, which as an additional precaution will include 'identical criteria in all Member States', contains too much regulatory detail.
Quality certificates already exist in the different countries, to which small businesses also have access.
I think that any attempt to introduce such a European certificate will only lead to more bureaucracy.
That concludes voting time.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 12.40 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 5 November 1998.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Thursday, 5 November 1998 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
I should like it to be explicitly recorded in the Minutes that I said in Brussels that it is not only for reasons of principle that I am no longer voting in roll-call votes - which I have not done for some time -, but also for taxation reasons.
I repeat: Dutch taxation reasons.
I should like this to be recorded.
Thank you, Mr Janssen van Raay, that will be done.
Mr President, I do not want to speak about the Minutes, but I would like to ask you when the new parliament will be completed.
Is the IPE4, which is still a 'forbidden city', something out of a science fiction novel? We are still here today in this lovely Hemicycle, which we are, of course, attached to, since we cannot sit in the new building.
We hear rumours here and we wait. When will the inaugural sitting be held?
Will it be in December, February or the summer of 1999?
Why are there such delays? We accept the argument that the complex process of moving in must be as well organised as possible, but I sincerely hope that it not a matter once again of politicking against Strasbourg.
Mr President, we expect a clear response explaining all this wavering that damages Parliament's image of rigour, efficiency and credibility.
What I can tell you, Mr Striby, is that the building is not yet ready for occupation.
Clearly, the company which had the task of constructing of the building should have made it available to Parliament last January.
Parliament is not responsible for the fact that it is still not ready, since it has not yet been certified by the relevant authorities or the architects.
For our part, we are doing our utmost to cooperate with the city of Strasbourg and the French Government so that it can be completed as soon as possible, in accordance with the regulations which apply.
Once this has been done, we shall carry out our share of the dataprocessing work for Parliament and inaugurate the building as soon as possible.
However, I cannot give you a date.
That is outside our control.
Mr President, I took the liberty of writing to you last week on the situation in Central America.
As each day passes it becomes clearer that the loss of life and physical damage experienced in that region have indeed been of biblical proportions.
The citizens of the Member States - Spain, for instance - are making an enormous effort to express their solidarity with the people of Central America.
In keeping with this effort, I suggested in my letter to you that the Members of the European Parliament should open a special account. Members could pay their own contributions into such an account, and also any donations made through reputable non-governmental organisations to help rebuild the area.
This symbolic gesture would supplement the effort the European Community is already making to respond to the situation.
I believe that on this occasion Members of the European Parliament should show they are on the same wavelength as the citizens and join with them in expressing solidarity with the victims.
I wonder, Mr President, if you are now in a position to voice your response to this letter I sent you last week.
Thank you, Mr Carnero. The matter was put before Parliament's Bureau, as you requested in your letter.
The Bureau felt it was not appropriate for it - or, indeed, for Parliament - to open such an account, and that problems could well arise in connection with the Financial Regulation. However, if one or several Members were to take up your suggestion, we would publicise their initiative, drawing it to Members' attention so they could contribute if they wished.
I am sure many of us have already made a contribution through these organisations, as have large numbers of our fellow citizens in the Member States. Nevertheless, the sort of initiative you suggest is always welcome and worthy of commendation.
However, it must be undertaken on an individual level.
It is not for a parliamentary body to launch it, though every assistance and support should of course be offered.
Mr President, I would like to speak at this public sitting this evening in my capacity as chairman of Parliament's Delegation for relations with Japan. In the framework of the bilateral exchanges and meetings organised by the European Parliament, particularly by Parliament's sessional services, we are receiving an official visit from an important delegation of seven members of the Japanese Diet and four members of the Japanese Senate, including two former ministers, this week in Strasbourg.
According to the agenda, there are votes being held on Thursday morning.
But on Thursday morning we also have a meeting that is authorised by the sessional services, which was even organised by Parliament's sessional services, during the votes on Agenda 2000.
Therefore, I find myself caught between two stools. This is not a serious problem for me personally, as I have accepted my responsibilities and have decided, as chairman of the delegation, to attend the meeting, but there is a risk that I might be there on my own.
Short of cutting themselves in two, my colleagues are, in fact, either going to have to appear impolite towards our Japanese guests or show a lack of consistency with the decision we had taken not to plan any meetings of Parliament's official bodies during voting time.
I am in a situation where I feel totally schizophrenic and, although I am a doctor, I am having trouble sorting myself out.
I would like to have a response on this matter, Mr President.
Normally there are no votes at that time on Thursday, Mr Pompidou, except in the case of those on the budget.
This is a quite exceptional situation because of the large number of votes to be taken on Agenda 2000.
That could not be foreseen when the time was fixed for the meeting of your delegation.
We shall look into the matter and see what can still be done at such short notice, and I will keep you informed.
Mr Nassauer, I hope you have informed the security services of this incident.
I should reassure you that to date, Parliament's security services have almost always resolved such incidents successfully.
I trust this will not prove to be an exception and that the culprits will be identified.
Should it appear necessary to tighten up on security, the appropriate measures will of course be introduced.
Thank you for informing us of the incident.
It will be noted in the Minutes and the security services informed so that they can take appropriate action immediately.
Mr President, I would like to ask the Commission when they propose to deal with the report which was commissioned by DG XIV - reference PEM/306 - concerning the physical interaction between grey seals, fishing gear and the abnormal predatory conditions of the seals in the North Atlantic, the North-West Atlantic and now penetrating into the South Atlantic.
It is about time that the Commission had the courage to present that report and its scientific findings to Parliament so that we can deal with that particular matter.
Predatory behaviour of seals around the Irish and Scottish coasts amounts to the total allowable catch plus one quarter.
Something has to be done soon and we have to face up to it.
I ask the Commission to act with haste.
Mr Killilea, you know perfectly well that that is not the way to put a question to the Commission.
There are several ways of putting your question.
This is not the right time to ask it.
You can ask it in one of the different ways provided for in the Rules.
Mr President, I would also like to make a point concerning working conditions because for the second time my trunk has not arrived.
Each time I put all the files I need here in the trunk and when I arrive, I find out that it is still in Brussels.
This is very inconvenient because all my documents for work are in that trunk.
What is happening is that my office is on a corner and it must clearly get in the way, because people put it away in the photocopying room.
When the removal men come, they obviously forget the trunk.
I therefore took it out of there and put a label on it to let people know that when my trunk is put away in the photocopying room, it is not taken to Strasbourg.
I presume that the removal men saw the second part of that note saying that it is not taken to Strasbourg.
And I still do not have my trunk!
We shall take that up with the department which is responsbile, Mrs Guinebertière.
Mr President, I must first apologise for my somewhat late arrival. Unfortunately, due to the considerable difficulties involved in reaching Strasbourg by air, many Members have arrived three hours late.
Secondly, I should like to express my group's concern over the arrest in Italy of Mr Abdullah Ocalan, who is in danger of being extradited to Turkey.
We are all aware of the European Parliament's policy on supporting human rights, political rights in Turkey and the rights of the Kurdish people. My group believes it would be appropriate to take the necessary action to ensure that Abdullah Ocalan, who declared a unilateral cease-fire some months ago, is not extradited to Turkey from a European country.
Mr President, as you are aware, recently I presented a report to Parliament on the banana regime.
It was overwhelmingly supported with quite a lot of common consent within this House and was passed on to the Commission.
We now have complaints from the United States in the guise of Chiquita, who are attacking the Commission and the proposals that the Commission finally brought forward after the original complaint from the WTO.
As a matter of concern, would the Commission be willing to come and explain to us how they are dealing with Chiquita's complaint?
Mr Thomas, I just told Mr Killilea that is not the way to put questions to the Commission.
You know the way to put questions to the Commission, so use it.
I did follow the procedure you just outlined and put down two questions - one to the Commission and one to Council - on building costs in Strasbourg and Brussels ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
This is not the time to put questions to the committee, nor to the Council.
You cannot have the floor.
Since there are no further comments, the Minutes are approved.
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
Mr President, I just wanted to make a point of order.
I have heard that Question Time to the Council is to be deleted this week.
I regard this both as an infringement of Rule 41(1) of the Rules of Procedure and as an infringement of the Treaty, which specifically guarantees us the right to put questions.
The right to put questions is one of the most important, individual parliamentary rights and I believe no Conference of Presidents, not even in this House, can simply cancel that right; we have a right to a monthly Question Time to the Council.
I and many other colleagues have tabled important questions to the Council within the deadline.
Let me insist that we have this Question Time.
If the Council wants to make statements, which are often merely upgraded press conferences, that is fine by me, but not in the place of Question Time, which is a key right of every Member of Parliament.
Mr President, I have no objections to the draft agenda for Monday, but I would like to know if it is true that the Conference of Presidents has taken a decision concerning the legal basis of the Fabra Vallés report.
Yes, Mr Dell'Alba, and the Conference of Presidents has established that Article 206 was not the appropriate legal basis for the report.
This report will therefore be put to the vote by simple and not absolute majority, and will not entail either approval or rejection of the Commission's management.
The Conference of Presidents instructed me to convey to the president of the sitting its wish that this should be made very clear when the vote is taken.
However, I am grateful that you have given me the opportunity to do that now.
Tuesday:
The PPE Group has asked for the Ferri report on supplementary pensions to be brought forward from Thursday and placed after the Añoveros Trias de Bes report on promoting innovation through patents.
Is there a speaker from the PPE Group in favour of this request?
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has the floor.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has asked for the Commission statement on the results of the Buenos Aires summit on climate change to be postponed.
It has also requested the inclusion, after the report by Mr Wiebenga on displaced persons, of the report by Mr Lehne on airport transit arrangements which is currently entered on Friday, so that the agenda for Thursday would be as follows: from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m., 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. we would have first voting time, and then the Wiebenga report and the Lehne report.
Between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. there would still be the topical and urgent debate, reduced to two hours and without returning to the normal length of three hours.
Is there a speaker in favour?
Mr President, let me justify my motion to postpone the Commission statement on the Buenos Aires climate conference on the grounds that I and the Members who took part in this conference on behalf of Parliament decided, after talking the matter over, that it would be more sensible to prepare carefully for this discussion in the appropriate committees; that would allow us to conclude with a motion for a resolution which was not drafted in haste, straight after hearing the outcome of the conference, but was based on careful and detailed preparation.
I would ask the House to endorse my group's motion, so that Parliament's views can have some substance, rather than being put forward in a rush.
Mr President, I led the Parliamentary delegation to Buenos Aires.
I absolutely endorse the proposal that we take our time in responding to what was a very complex outcome in Buenos Aires.
It missed failure by a very narrow margin.
It was Mr Linkhorst's suggestion, as one of the other members of the delegation, that rather than going straight to a debate in plenary we should attempt to have a discussion in at least the three committees most clearly responsible, draft a careful resolution and come back either in December and January.
That is certainly the opinion of Commissioner Bjerregaard, so I endorse the idea.
Mr President, we addressed this question last week in a perfectly normal manner.
It was handled positively at the meeting of General Secretaries and at the Conference of Presidents.
Anybody who has looked at the media today and also over last weekend will know that it is now and not in January that the public debate is taking place.
It is inconceivable to me that the European Parliament would not be able to make an initial political assessment of the outcome of Buenos Aires last week.
If we wait until January to come up with a very searching, very balanced and very detailed response, we will find that nobody is listening any more.
On the basis of the information currently available we are perfectly able to adopt a brief, well-founded political position this week while the matter is still in the news and not when it is past history.
It is now that we must react, it is the European Union which has shouldered its responsibilities on this issue and it is this European Parliament which must now make its voice heard.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has requested the removal of the debate on the oral questions on BSE in Portugal.
Mr President, I should like to express my view as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. This issue has already been discussed in committee, first in the presence of Mr Heine when the Veterinary Committee arrived at its decision and more recently, just a few days ago, when the Commissioner himself was present at our committee meeting.
I am not aware of any further developments that would justify this request for inclusion on the agenda.
As far as we are concerned, this would serve no useful purpose.
Mr President, I asked for this oral question to be included in the agenda since, in my opinion, the situation in Portugal is sufficiently serious to justify that.
After all, despite our meetings in the Committee on Agriculture, the decision on the Portuguese meat embargo was taken at an extraordinary meeting for which I did not receive - nor did some of my colleagues - the respective agenda containing the item on the statement by Dr Heine, even though the Chairman of that committee told us here that it was sent to all Members.
Dr Heine made a last-minute appearance to announce the reasons for the embargo.
Everyone knew that many Members of the European Parliament would be unable to attend as it was an extraordinary meeting arranged at the last minute.
That is why I have asked for a debate to be held here.
It should be made clear that this is not only an issue for the Portuguese but also relates to how the Commission acts in this kind of situation, a very serious situation for all Portuguese meat producers.
That is why I tabled an oral question on behalf of my group.
Thank you, Mr Rosado Fernandes.
Do you wish to speak in favour or against, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf?
Mr President, I am in favour of keeping this item on the agenda, and would add that our oral question has not been included in it.
However, we have been told that it will be included in the final version of the agenda.
So we also have an oral question on BSE, and I am very much in favour of debating this item.
Thank you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
I put to the vote the request from the PSE Group.
(Parliament approved the request)
MED Programmes
The next item is the report (A4-0404/98) by Mr Fabra Vallés, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on repercussions in the case of the MED programmes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, nobody, including this Parliament, comes back to the same question twice without reason.
We are not doing this to avoid boredom or because we do not know how to spend the day.
It would have been better if we could have clarified everything that needs clarifying in a report.
But in our view some important points were not clarified, and nor have they been in the meantime, unfortunately.
I am emphasising this again, although Mr Fabra Vallés has already made the point.
If we assume that only a court or the appropriate judicial authority can decide whether the facts of the case constitute grounds for criminal proceedings, then the judicial authorities must be in possession of all the information.
But then 'all' unfortunately really does mean all, because who could make a selection? The Commission's relationship with the Member States' judicial authorities is simply different from the situation that would apply within a Member State.
A special relationship, or perhaps a too poorly defined relationship, exists between the Commission, the Commission officials, the buildings, the documents in the possession of the Commission and the other European institutions on the one hand, and the individual national judicial authorities on the other - and obviously only national judicial authorities can consider the case.
We are aware of this difficulty, as is the rapporteur, who has taken it into account in his report.
Nevertheless, we must urge that decisions are taken in the place where they belong, namely by the national judicial authorities.
So let me ask again, and for the last time in this form, please make all the files available to the judicial authorities and do not say, as also happened again with ECHO: first the Commission decides whether there is a case to answer, and then it also decides what facts are relevant to resolving or clarifying that case.
We would not be so persistent - as shown by my reference to ECHO - if this were a one-off case.
But it is a problem we have been facing for quite some time.
Hence our persistence here, the persistence of the rapporteur but also of the Committee on Budgetary Control and, in the end, of the House itself.
We all regret having to keep doing this.
We hope we will come to a conclusion now and take a decision.
I think perhaps we will, and we must also undertake to review these questions in depth in connection with the discharge.
We must be prepared to do so, the Commission must be prepared to do so, but so must the Court of Auditors.
I think we will also be discussing our relations with the Court of Auditors today and considering how rapidly we can deal with the questions that arise from this.
After all, this report also shows that there is no point spending too long and too much time on formalities.
We have asked enough specific questions in committee and had to wait too long for answers.
That is another reason why we have had to come back to the same question twice in the space of about a year.
We shall have to find other ways; they will be more precise and will certainly not involve any lesser degree of care.
Let me perhaps make a final point on a question arising from this report but which has also come up repeatedly in the past. If someone criticises the implementation of a particular policy, it is always assumed that they are criticising the substance of that policy area.
I believe that is unacceptable.
It is done by public opinion, but it is also done here in this House, and I think the two are often confused during the debates.
Mr Fabra Vallés said it all at the outset. It was in our interest to resume the MED programmes.
We did all we could to enable the Commission to resume the programmes.
That was our priority.
But this could not detract from, or in a sense overshadow the fact that we are also looking at how they were implemented in the past, because our criticism of their implementation is fundamental and concerns the management of programmes in general and personnel management in general; then, in a sense, the affair of the MED programmes is merely an example of something we are criticising on principle. Then ECHO is merely an example of something we are criticising on principle, the tourism case was an example of a matter of principle, and we must all learn that we can criticise general structures on the basis of one example, and that this criticism goes far beyond the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, did we not all believe, or at least hope, that we had finally got to the end of the long saga of the MED programmes and that the Commission had taken action, after adopting a resolution on it more than a year ago and emphatically repeating key points of it when we postponed the discharge in the spring?
We were well wide of the mark!
As Mr Fabra Vallés has explained, instead of improvements, we have seen new information come to light which seems to show that the financial damage is far worse than we had hitherto assumed.
This was discovered by a British auditing company which - and we grant the Commission this - was commissioned by Brussels to investigate completed MED programmes and projects. The auditors are looking into about half the completed projects and believe that some 4 million euros can be reclaimed.
Let me ask the Commission: how much money has it actually recovered so far?
Have the rest of the projects been examined now, and what amount of repayments does that come to? What conclusions does the Commission draw from the serious defects found by the auditing firm, such as over-subsidised projects, evidence which had disappeared and so on?
Why was UCLAF not brought in promptly, as the rapporteur says? As regards the financial management of the Agency for the Trans-Mediterranean Networks - ARTM - the UK auditors make a devastating assessment, as did the Court of Auditors in its special report No 1/96.
This brings us to one of the two main problems that led to the postponement of the discharge for 1996, namely the question of whether criminal fraud may be involved here, in addition to serious irregularities.
For the Commission to entrust ARTM, an international association under Belgian law, with the financial management of the MED projects without any legal basis and without obtaining the opinion of the legal service or of financial control, for the management board members also to be managers of the technical assistance agencies and to be involved in awarding some project funds without tenders and thereby secure themselves a large slice of the cake, that is to say fat contracts, is to say the least an overlapping of interests, as is also the view of the Court of Auditors and UCLAF.
Evidently the Commission has until now disregarded the clear advice of the Court of Auditors to the effect that these kinds of facts are punishable under Belgian law.
But this matter can only be settled by the courts, which is why we call on the Commission for the third and last time to forward the entire file to the judicial authorities, so that they can at least examine the question of their competence and then, where appropriate, bring proceedings!
The second question in relation to the discharge for 1996 is how the Commission handles disciplinary proceedings.
We believe that administrative inquiries and processes are no substitute for disciplinary proceedings and are not the appropriate way to prove the innocence of a possible suspect.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur for his cooperation.
In particular, I have been very pleased with the support there has been for a number of amendments we have tabled, and I am glad that we are agreed on an approach which is aimed at placing the responsibility on the Commission and not singling out particular officials, but insisting that it is the Commission which accepts the political responsibility for the situation.
It must in fact be the case that the Commission must neither cover up for its officials nor hide behind them, but simply accept the responsibility for the fact that things are as they are.
This is a very serious matter that we are dealing with today.
How much time and effort we have spent on this which we would rather have used on other things!
I can only deplore the course of events, because the fact is that we cannot close the matter with this report, but once again have to call on the Commission to take action and once again say what steps we in Parliament will be obliged to take if the Commission does not comply with our requirements.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner if we can have a clear answer here and now as to whether the Commission will respond to paragraph 3 of the report and take the specific action which is being requested.
Let us be clear today if it is willing to do so, or if it is simply going to cock a snook at Parliament's requests.
If there is one thing that can shake our citizens' trust in the EU system, it is the suspicion that certain things are not happening in accordance with the rules, that irregularities are occurring, or that some people are engaging in a cover-up.
For that reason, Commissioner, I cannot urge strongly enough that we should bring this matter to a conclusion and see that the necessary action is taken, so that we can all honestly say that we have rectified the mistakes and the shortcomings, as well as the procedures which are necessary to enable the Commission to live up to its responsibilities.
Mr President, I am speaking here on behalf of Mr Giansily who has been detained at another meeting.
In spite of the serious and expert work carried out by Mr Fabra Vallés, we find the report on the repercussions of the MED programmes affair highly unsatisfactory.
In fact, we believe that, far from clarifying the debate on the 1996 discharge, this report only makes the issue more confusing.
The irregularities discovered in the management of the MED programmes, which meant that these programmes were suspended until the Commission relaunched them in April, involve more than a third of the appropriations used and the financial loss is much greater than was first supposed.
As the rapporteur has clearly shown, the management of the MED programmes shows evidence of serious management problems for which the Commission is entirely responsible and for which it must accept the consequences, as provided for in the Treaties.
This whole matter falls within the framework of the discharge procedure, which will be on the agenda in December.
The instruments the European Parliament has at its disposal to mark its disapproval, or to punish the Commission, are the refusal to grant discharge and even the censure procedure.
Further debate, in my view, is likely to weaken Parliament's position in the vote in December and I regret the fact that consideration of the MED programmes is not an integral part of the general report by Mr Elles on the discharge.
Secondly, the petition to the Commission in the rapporteur's resolution is of little use when the European Parliament should judge the Commission on its financial auditing rather than following it through the maze of its administrative inquiries that are not sufficiently transparent.
It is unfortunate that the rapporteur has not included any mention of the link between the irregularities discovered and the refusal to grant discharge, which is, however, at the heart of the debate.
For our part, we are hoping for an objective debate on the discharge for the 1996 financial year.
We hope, on the one hand, that genuine and frank questions will be asked regarding the irregularities and the fraud committed in the implementation of the MED programmes, for which responsibility lies with the Commission. And we hope, on the other hand, that Parliament shows no sign of weakness in exercising the powers of which it is guardian on behalf of Europe's citizens because, when all is said and done, is it not our citizens who have been deceived in this affair?
Mr President, we agree with the rapporteur as regards both his assessment of this particular case and the criticism that he levels at the Commission. We also go along with some of his proposals.
This is not an issue on which we are giving our opinion for the first time. In the light of its seriousness, in that it refers to a collapse of the Union's financial resources - undoubtedly far greater than was initially thought -, it is politically embarrassing for the Commission.
It is therefore to be hoped, in this case as in others, that there might be signs of rigour and commitment of a different kind for preventing irregularities and fraud.
We might expect far more firmness and swiftness in starting disciplinary or judicial procedures against those responsible for the irregularities and fraud.
Whenever there are suggestions that fraud has taken place, we might expect far more transparency and, in particular, an attitude of cooperation with the European Parliament, and especially with the relevant judicial authorities in the Member States.
At this stage, we think it is very important that the Commission should forward the whole MED case-file to the Belgian, French and Italian courts or the European Parliament should act in its stead, making available all the evidence at its disposal and forwarding it to those national authorities.
The Commission should do this as quickly as possibly, by 1 December, as our colleague Mr Fabra Vallés has asked.
In any case, it should do so as soon as possible and if it does not, in my opinion, I do not see how we would grant the Commission the discharge.
When assessing the discharge, a lot of things have to be taken into consideration, including whether or not the Commission has met our demands concerning this vital issue.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Fabra Vallés for this excellent report.
Many of us, both in the Green Group and in Parliament as a whole, are extremely upset about events surrounding the implementation of the MED programmes.
It is not their content that is in dispute, but the way in which they have been administered.
One of our foremost duties towards our electorate and the citizens of the EU is to act as a supervisory body.
It is up to us to ensure that matters we discuss in this House are taken forward in a proper manner.
The EU Treaties clearly give us the task of exercising this supervisory role.
Since the MED programmes were last examined, new facts have come to light. Yet the Commission has still not produced the information we asked for initially - and which we need in order to fulfil our remit as a supervisory body for the EU.
We must have the data if the Committee on Budgetary Control is to do its job. This is a serious matter.
People could end up thinking that the Commission has something to hide. There is, after all, a possibility that its own officials might be involved in activities which could - at worst - entail criminal prosecution.
The only way for the Commission to allay such suspicions is to come forward with the relevant documentation.
We in the European Parliament need the material, and so do the judicial authorities. This is the last chance for the Commission.
The Green Group naturally supports the tough - but patently necessary - conclusions drawn by the rapporteur.
Mr President, last month the Committee on Budgetary Control had tabled a report by Mr Bösch, on the basis of Article 138b of the Treaty.
The Presidency had to make it change the legal basis.
This month it is retabling a report by Mr Fabra Vallés on the basis of Article 206 and the Presidency has told it that another legal basis must be adopted.
I think that this is a bit of a mess and I feel I must draw attention to it because, in my opinion, if it is acceptable once, we will have to be more careful in the future before presenting reports before the House.
The Court of Auditors has drawn up around 40 special reports over the last four or five years and Parliament has given its opinion on 10 reports in this House.
As far as the MED affair is concerned, we have already had two reports and, in practice, we force the Commission to meet such short deadlines - by asking it, for example, to present documents within 10 days - that there may well be a third MED report.
As a result, alongside Dynasty or Dallas, we will also have the MED soap opera with all the publicity it entails.
I believe that Parliament has important control instruments at its disposal and that it must handle them well.
It must not, in my view, resort to some sort of therapeutic persecution that hardly enhances the institutional balance or, more particularly, our own role.
We have these instruments, and we must keep them. But please let us try to put an end to this saga.
Our resolution of 31 March informing the Commission of the postponement of the 1996 discharge stated, in particular, that the Committee on Budgetary Control was to draw up a new report on the MED programmes on the basis of a report by the Commission on the financial audit of these programmes.
It would appear today - and this has already been said - that the loss to the Community budget is significantly greater than had been originally assumed: a figure of almost ECU 10 million is mentioned.
Indeed, the subsidies that were wrongly allocated are not spread evenly over all the projects; there are certain projects where more than 50 % of the subsidies paid are in serious doubt.
The report by financial control not only confirms the appalling quality of the service provided by the agency the Commission entrusted with financial control of the trans-Mediterranean networks, but it also provides a great deal of information about how this agency was run and the relations it had with the Commission.
We thus learn that when the two board members of the agency who were also managers of two technical assistance agencies were called on to resign from the board in order to put an end to an obvious conflict of interests, they made their resignation conditional on their firms being awarded new technical assistance contracts, and this condition was met by the Commission.
Financial control's inquiry provides clear evidence that the selection procedures could have been rigged to make sure that the contracts did in fact go to the firms of the board members involved.
So a whole network of firms largely managed to bring the implementation of a whole policy under their control, and they were able to do so because this was tolerated, if not encouraged, by Commission officials.
The Commission can no longer claim that these are individual cases of fraud; we are most certainly dealing with an established system that has allowed firms to gain extensive access to Community funds.
As such, we must now look at this in the context of the refusal to grant discharge and I am calling on the general rapporteur for the discharge to propose a decision to this effect.
Mr President, let me first congratulate the rapporteur Mr Fabra Vallés on the energy he showed in drawing up and preparing this report, which was solidly supported by nearly all the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It should be realised that the Committee on Budgetary Control addresses such issues because there are special reports by the Court of Auditors and these are becoming more numerous.
Their number has increased significantly and it is impossible for the European Parliament not to react to those reports and to what they denounce.
So it must be made clear - particularly to the Commission - that whilst we are neither the police nor detectives, we have to face up to our responsibilities in relation to denunciations by an official institutional body of the European Union.
The details of the matter have been examined, in particular the role of the well-known Belgian companies which the Commission uses and seems to have used quite extensively to deal with things like the MED programmes.
The general conclusion from this whole affair, Commissioner, is that there will have to be a structural change in the internal organisation of the Commission, a thing which all these phenomena show to be more necessary than might appear at first sight.
The way the Commission functions must be reformed and restructured, because nobody in this Assembly wants to downgrade or debase the Commission.
What irritates us is what I might call an apathy, a lack of reaction by the Commission to what both the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament are complaining about.
Please react, and please do so in the right way.
The MED cooperation programmes were initiated in 1990.
The Council approved the legal basis for them in June 1992.
The aim of MED programmes was to promote contacts and the transfer of know-how between the actors in the civil societies on both shores of the Mediterranean.
Between 1992 and 1995 the Community financed 496 decentralised projects involving 2 000 participating operators.
A total of approximately ECU 53m was allocated to these projects.
What conclusions should we draw from this? I would draw the conclusion that never have so many small projects been financed with such limited funds and limited administrative resources.
The aims and the administrative requirements of MED programmes were not in line with the human resources that the Commission had at its disposal.
There was significant pressure from Parliament to use the allocated credits quickly.
The Commission signed a management contract with a Belgian organisation, ARTM.
In October 1995, as has been mentioned here, a preliminary report by the Court of Auditors alerted the Commission to the alleged existence of irregularities in the management of the projects by ARTM.
The Commission decided immediately to suspend the execution of MED programmes and the contract with ARTM in order to clarify the facts surrounding the alleged irregularities.
On the basis of the audits carried out by the financial control of the Commission and the final report of the Court of Auditors published in May 1996, the Commission instructed its anti-fraud unit, UCLAF, to carry out an inquiry within and outside the Commission.
UCLAF's final report of May 1997 could identify no cases giving rise to suspicion of fraud involving Commission officials.
The rapporteur asked the Commission to submit the whole MED file to competent national judicial authorities by 1 December.
There are, however, provisions governing the transmission of documents to judicial authorities.
A sufficient presumption of fraud has to be established and this is the task of UCLAF.
In its inquiries no sufficient presumption of fraud could be established.
I will come back to this later.
In order to shed light on the alleged mismanagement in the MED programmes, the Commission launched an administrative inquiry.
I would like to stress that mismanagement is not the same thing as fraud.
The latter would imply that the misappropriation of funds was intentional.
The aim of an administrative inquiry is to establish facts for the appointing authority.
The inquiry is carried out by a higher-ranking official or officials than the official who is the subject of the allegations of mismanagement.
The outcome of the inquiry is a report that is submitted to the appointing authority.
The administrative inquiry does not replace disciplinary procedure.
It only establishes the basic information.
The appointing authority decides on the opening of the disciplinary procedure as laid down in Article 87 of the Staff Regulations.
In the case of the MED programmes an initial inquiry was carried out by one Director-General of the Commission.
His report depicted a situation where Commission officials, highly committed to their aim of running the programmes under considerable political pressure, were always stretched because of the lack of appropriate resources.
This situation had led officials to breach the principles of sound financial management, in particular when using the services of ARTM.
In order to get the most complete picture of the programme management the competent Commissioners decided to complete the inquiry at the initiative of the Director-General for Personnel.
A complementary inquiry was carried out by three DirectorsGeneral. They concluded in their report that there had been a failure to adhere to the principle of sound financial management.
It was also noted that there had been a failure to recognise the risks of delegating administrative and technical tasks.
In view of the difficult circumstances surrounding the management of the programmes, these three Directors-General did not recommend that the disciplinary procedure should be opened.
The Commission endorsed the findings and conclusions of the report.
A letter signed by the Secretary-General on behalf of the Commission was sent to the officials concerned expressing the dissatisfaction of the institution with their management performance.
Both of these above-mentioned reports have been transmitted to Parliament.
The rapporteur asked the Commission to submit to Parliament the minutes of the hearings carried out in its administrative inquiries.
In this we must be careful to strike the right balance between two requirements.
Firstly, the people who are questioned in an administrative inquiry have the right to confidentiality.
Secondly, Parliament has a responsibility to monitor the implementation of the budget and the right to be provided with information as laid down in Article 206 of the Treaty.
In order to reconcile these two imperatives, the Commission has approached Parliament with the aim of the two institutions drafting a code of conduct together on access to documents.
The first meeting between the representatives of the institutions is scheduled for this week.
The purpose is to involve the legal services of both institutions in the process.
The Commission hopes that an agreement can be concluded at the highest possible level.
In addition to the abovementioned measures related to management of the programmes the Commission also ordered, as has already been said, an external audit with the aim of helping to identify all the expenditure that is not strictly in line with contracts or the rules of accounting.
The audited projects equal 70 % of the net expenditure used.
This audit was carried out by a firm of auditors.
A private firm cannot decide whether the expenditure is appropriate.
That is for the authorising services, under the financial control of the Commission.
On the basis of the external audit report submitted at the end of August this year, authorising services have begun to examine, project by project, the information gathered by the external auditor.
The results of this examination will be verified by the financial control of the Commission as a whole.
The Commission will submit an interim report of the results to Parliament by 1 December.
Taking into account the huge amount of work involved in examining the 233 audited projects, the interim report will cover approximately 50 to 70 projects, leading to the first issue of recovery orders.
The work will have to continue and the services of the Commission expect it to be finalised by the end of January 1999.
If expenditure is found to be ineligible, recovery orders will be sent out.
The Commission will do everything in its power to ensure as much money as possible is recovered.
Should there be any suspicion of fraud in relation to any operator, the case would be referred to UCLAF.
If UCLAF then finds sufficient grounds for suspicion likely to lead to criminal charges, the file would be transmitted to the competent national judicial authorities.
In any case, any operator who has not met his contractual obligations will be excluded from receiving financing for new programmes.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Combating fraud - Protection of the euro - Action against organised crime
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0396/98 by Mr Schmid, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, onI.the Commission communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Central Bank and the Economic and Social Committee: A framework for action on combating fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment (COM(98)0395 (Annex 1) - C4-0455/98-98/0911(CNS))II.the Commission communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Central Bank and the Economic and Social Committee: A framework for action on combating fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment (COM(98)0395 (Annex 2) - C4-0455/98)III.the Commission communication to the Council, the European Parliament and the European Central Bank: Protection of the euro - combating counterfeiting (COM(98)0474 - C4-0527/98); -A4-0376/98 by Mrs Cederschiöld, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft Council resolution on guidelines and measures for the prevention of organised crime with reference to the establishment of a comprehensive strategy for combating it (9986/98 - C4-0494/98).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are two mistakes which people make that seriously hamper us in our fight against organised crime.
The first mistake is to say that we are dealing mainly with drugs-related crime.
The second is to say that we are dealing mainly with the most serious crimes, such as murder.
In fact, organised crime is crime that is organised on the basis of a division of labour, on a systematic, daily, hierarchical basis, rather like the way a company is organised, but using illegal means.
The problems arise because of the sum of the damage, not the individual damage, and they arise because ill-gotten gains are channelled back into the normal economic cycle through money-laundering operations.
One example is fraud with non-cash means of payment - in short, plastic money and credit cards.
I can illustrate this with an example.
If a briefcase is stolen in Brussels, this may be an individual act by a criminal who wants money, perhaps to buy drugs.
But it could also be part of a process: specialists, groups of pickpockets, are flown in from Latin America - there are special schools there to train them - work the city and then disappear again in the evening by plane.
The stolen credit cards are flown on by plane to other parts of the world the same night and used there to buy goods, which receivers of stolen goods then convert back into cash, which is then channelled back into the normal economic cycle through money-laundering operations.
As far as we know, credit-card crime is usually organised crime and crime that operates internationally in the way I have described.
The damage worldwide comes to about USD 3 billion a year, of which a quarter falls to the European Community's account.
So there is a need for us to act, and it is therefore a good thing that the Commission has submitted proposals for a joint action.
These proposals are aimed, firstly, at harmonising the law, because we have totally different criminal laws for the crimes I have described.
To give one example: in my country, neither the manufacture nor the possession of forged credit cards was a crime until April this year.
So I could have opened a factory to make them and could have marketed them freely.
Nobody would have said a word.
The Commission wants to close these legal loopholes, and we welcome that.
Secondly, we very much need to make means of payment such as credit cards more secure.
The market does not automatically guarantee maximum security; the sector weighs up the goods and carries out a cost-benefit analysis between security on the one hand and the cost of security on the other.
That is why the result does not provide maximum security, but only precisely the level determined by the cost-benefit calculation.
But it is important to society to have a high standard of security if it is to combat organised crime consistently.
That is why, in my report, Parliament submits a number of proposals.
Let me draw your attention to three of them, which are obviously reasonable. In future, we want a better method to be found for issuing credit cards, because sending them by post, as is usually done now, is too unsafe.
These credit cards have security marks.
Every credit-card issuer uses a different one.
No cashier can remember them all.
So we want to see them standardised.
Thirdly, in the long term there is no alternative to replacing the signature used for paying by plastic card with a numerical code, as in the case of the Eurocheque card, and a chip.
Another problem we will have to tackle is counterfeit coins and notes.
Here again, we must distinguish between two cases.
There are what are known as home-worker counterfeiters, who try to counterfeit notes using a colour photocopier.
We are less concerned with them.
But then there is large-scale money counterfeiting, carried out by organised crime.
Introducing the euro as cash will create special risks.
Firstly, this is because the euro is a new currency whose appearance people are not yet familiar with.
Secondly, it is because organised crime predominantly counterfeits what are known as reserve currencies, which means currencies that can be placed globally.
Thirdly, it is because criminal prosecution authorities and the police in the various Member States of the European Community have different experiences, because, conversely, there are also currencies that have hardly ever been counterfeited in the past.
That is why the national authorities have little experience there.
So we welcome the fact that the Commission is presenting a communication and putting forward proposals.
Much of it we endorse.
But our specialist committee does not approve the special role the Commission has assigned itself in this communication in relation to combating counterfeiting of the euro in future.
Underlying this special role is the assumption that, as in the case of fraud against the Community, the interests of the Member States as such are not really affected.
Fraud against the Community is after all, according to this view, money lost to the Community budget and not the national budgets.
But in the case of counterfeit money, things are different.
Here the Member States certainly have a marked interest.
We have serious reservations about allocating too much responsibility to UCLAF in this respect when we look at the Bösch report, which described the situation of UCLAF clearly enough.
Let me put it in somewhat provocative terms, Mr President: the euro is too important for the matter to be left in the hands of UCLAF.
So we suggest retaining the existing and proven system of cooperation between criminal prosecution authorities, police forces, central banks and cash acceptance points and supplementing this system by organising the rapid exchange of information and by giving Europol new responsibilities.
Mr President, it was a year ago that the European Parliament considered the action plan to combat organised crime.
The focus then was on 'acute' intervention.
This was to be enforcement-oriented, but I pointed out at the time that preventive action was just as necessary.
Anti-crime strategies require a long-term perspective and this was one of the areas where I found the Council's approach wanting.
Civil society has a key role to play in strengthening people's sense of identity, helping them to resist temptation and say no to crime. The family also bears responsibility for passing on decent values to children.
Citing my report as the trigger, the Council has now come back with a proposal for a preventive strategy.
This is a novel occurrence in the third pillar area and I commend the Council's initiative. We now have some scope for constructive debate and a fruitful exchange of ideas.
What a pity Commissioner Gradin cannot be here. Although we all appreciate the need to set priorities, a key person's absence on a particular issue can only reflect the degree of importance which is attached to it.
Perhaps this is primarily a Council matter.
It is certainly good to see the Council represented, but I would have liked Commissioner Gradin to be in attendance too. I note with pleasure, however, that Commissioner Liikanen is here with us.
There was a remarkable show of consensus in committee, and I would thank my colleagues for their positive contributions.
What we need is a strategy to develop a truly European civil society, alert to how early in life criminal behaviour is engendered and how fast it spreads. We can then take appropriate measures at national, local and regional levels to nip in the bud any drift towards a criminal lifestyle.
Voluntary organisations, churches, schools, friends and family - all these make up civil society. And it is to civil society that we should look in order to derive the strength to resist crime.
It is no good leaving everything to politicians and letting people think that the State will right all the wrongs. Social engineering, rather then protecting against crime, tends to weaken resistance.
I have seen this happen in my own country, Sweden.
We must be aware of the danger of 'everyday' crime and be ready to react before the petty offender becomes drawn into serious, international crime.
People should take responsibility for one another, and this means empowering individuals so that they want to care.
To put it figuratively, we need to create the software to be used with the hardware of law enforcement.
It is vital that Member States ratify the existing conventions.
Full use is not being made of the instruments at hand. Nor has the action plan to combat organised crime been sufficiently developed.
There were 30 points in the original text and barely half have been implemented. Progress is still awaited in 18 areas.
We can learn from each other and promote those crime prevention measures that have proved effective. Everyone would like to live in a society where they can feel safe and secure.
This is particularly relevant in the case of the applicant countries, where the crime problem is worse than here.
Worst of all, though, is the transformation in attitudes that takes place in a society where crime becomes generally accepted as part of everyday life. If criminal behaviour becomes the norm in a community, that community is in trouble.
The applicant countries should be encouraged to develop long-term crime prevention strategies; the impact will be felt across the Union.
We need to vaccinate ourselves mentally against crime.
Our societies will become less susceptible once the fundamental values we all share become more firmly enshrined through increased public awareness. Work will need to be done at both practical and 'human' levels.
Some of the EU states border on countries with crime levels that are inconceivable to us here in the West.
The prevalence of protection rackets is an example.
In one country not so very far away from here, up to 70 % of companies pay protection money to crime syndicates.
Once criminal activity is allowed to penetrate so deeply into an economy, both democracy and market principles are under threat.
Fundamental values go overboard and policy-making in other areas loses its meaning.
If we lose our grip on crime, we shall be destined to fail elsewhere too.
Pressure on each and every Member State must be maintained.
Mr President, I should like to compliment both rapporteurs - both our colleagues have done a good job - and to make one preliminary remark.
I think it is appropriate to point out that the House is now discussing for the umpteenth time matters related to the somewhat new institutional exercise of fighting for lawfulness, in other words against crime.
I was very pleased to hear the President-in-Office stressing the value of Parliament's role and contribution.
Now, post-Amsterdam, Parliament is playing a very important leading role in some ways, particularly in respect of an initiative which has perhaps been somewhat underestimated, namely the newly created area of freedom, security and law.
These are new issues, but that is perhaps why Parliament's contribution is so significant, as the Minister clearly acknowledges: we are not restricting ourselves to requests and aspirations, but are attempting to identify tangible means of implementing aims and objectives which are of deep concern to the citizens of Europe.
I emphasise this point because I think that both rapporteurs rightly draw attention in their reports to the very important proactive role being sought by Parliament.
I would dwell in particular on the question of crime prevention, as dealt with in the Cederschiöld report.
I believe that this is the key point picked up by the Council from the first report on organised crime and proposed afresh in its draft resolution, given that any steps taken collectively by a society or community to reduce - if not avert - outbreaks of crime count as prevention.
A range of measures therefore exists; we need only think of corruption.
As far as corruption is concerned, most of what needs to be done is preventive: the culture of political back-scratching and patronage must be combated; the guiding rule in relations between institutions and citizens must be the transparency of operations.
We have raised all these aspects of prevention in an amendment, calling for a code of conduct and attention to new occupational groups which can easily fall prey to corruption or organised crime. We have done so in order to stress the importance of preventive action when faced with change.
I would however point out here - as we state in another amendment - that preventive action is also very much a matter of partnership between institutions and civil society.
I would remind you all of the concept of educating people to remain within the law.
Two years ago, our committee held some remarkable consultations with an Italian organisation - called 'Libera' - which is an umbrella organisation encompassing some 600 civil associations.
Its members described the work they are doing to combat organised crime in Italy, and told us how they were attempting to stamp it out in the worst affected regions. We heard from Rita Borsellino, the sister of Judge Borsellino, whose commitment testifies to the importance - not only for the sake of her brother's memory, but in order to combat the mafia - of a struggle based on a deep commitment by society to conveying the message of lawfulness.
I would just refer finally to preventive action against urban crime and petty crime.
Here I think that there is now greater awareness: it has been understood that repression, where it is necessary, must be combined with prevention.
The work being done on the ground, in a joint effort by institutions and civil society, inspires hope that it will be possible to reduce this huge amount of crime, this enormous sense of danger which is making our cities and citizens feel unsafe - according to a recent survey, 33 % of people felt unsafe in cities in 1996. But what is to be done?
Should we put police on every street corner? No, that would serve no purpose; it would probably be both wrong and impossible.
We must establish a close link between prevention, work on the ground, concrete measures, monitoring and controls.
Mr President, there can no longer be any doubt that the Single Market, the information society, technological inventions, the Internet, financial services and electronic commerce have revolutionised the use of non-cash means of payment.
Turnover for payment cards alone exceeds $US 2 000 billion a year throughout the world.
This huge market has also given rise to new forms of computer piracy and crime specialising in fraud and counterfeiting, or so-called cybercrime. Something therefore needs to be done to protect the interests of those issuing, using, being paid by or acquiring these new means of payment.
That is why we need to harmonise the systems of controls and penalties in the Member States to guarantee the euro's credibility and security, even in the intermediate phase from 1999 to 2002.
The Commission should be congratulated on the initiatives that it is taking and, generally speaking, the rapporteur, Mr Schmid, deserves our support. But now allow me to turn to the report itself.
There are, however, some points for concern.
For example, on the subject of combating the falsification of euro notes and coins, the Commission statement calls for close cooperation and mutual assistance between UCLAF, the ECB and Europol.
But the future role of UCLAF still has to be clearly defined and, in the wake of cases of fraud at ECHO, the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, has just publicly announced the Commission's intention to transform the UCLAF into OLAF, a body completely independent of the Commission, extending its inquiries and investigations to all Community institutions. That would then leave it for the Commission to focus on the legislative proposals and coordination with the Member States in the fight against fraud, in the interest of the European Union, as would be the case of counterfeiting the euro.
But doubts linger and this lack of definition needs to be cleared up.
In the end, who is going to supervise what?
Will it involve UCLAF, OLAF or the Commission? We must in any case continue to compile, assess and update data on money counterfeiting practices, circuits and networks if we are to protect the euro.
It is therefore very worrying that there is no specific idea of the type of information to be included in the database, but we hope for a joint effort on the part of those actually responsible for issuing the coin, the courts, the police and financial bodies.
In other words, we are looking into it.
But time is short.
These legislative instruments need to be adopted at the latest at some time in the year 2000 so that the comprehensive euro protection system can be operational as of 1 January 2002, in order to be tested before the euro notes and coins are brought into circulation.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the two rapporteurs for the work they have both done on this issue.
The fight against fraud and the need to establish a comprehensive system to prevent the counterfeiting of means of payment is of key importance, not only for governments but also for all the citizens of the European Union.
The Commission's communication on the counterfeiting and protection of the euro along with the amendments adopted are a positive and practical contribution to the fight against fraud.
It is a start, but it is not the end.
One of the main objectives is to ensure that these cases of fraud are treated as criminal offences in all the Member States.
We also need an efficient system to protect the euro.
The most important element is to make sure that the euro has a uniform level of protection throughout the entire Union.
Europol's responsibilities in combating counterfeiting should be extended.
The euro has a very high potential circulation, which means that there is the risk of counterfeiting both within and outside the European Union.
We are therefore going to call for an information system for the rapid exchange of data between the authorities responsible for combating counterfeiting.
It is very unfortunate that the implementation of the action plan to combat organised crime is so far behind schedule.
The Council must ensure that all its recommendations enter into force and become effective by the end of next year.
The only aspect of the report by Mrs Cederschiöld that concerns me is the link between the measures to prevent organised crime and electoral procedures.
That has no place in this report, which, apart from this, has my full support.
Mr President, I have three points to make on this report.
Firstly, it is common knowledge that any real semblance of control over movements of goods around the Union has gone, demonstrating that the much trumpeted vision of a Europe without frontiers is a dangerous illusion.
The whole enterprise merely encourages criminal dealings.
Experience has shown that free trade is not undermined by proper and efficient border controls. The free trade system should facilitate lawful activity, not crime.
We therefore need effective controls for goods and persons at the EU's national frontiers.
My second point concerns corruption and mafia-style activities.
Perhaps we could contribute to the fight against this type of crime by introducing a system of open government and public accountability.
This is not something people necessarily think of in such a context, but the Nordic countries are committed to the principle of public access to official records.
Ordinary citizens, as well as journalists, have a right to consult documents and paperwork produced by public authorities. This means that the general public is able to monitor financial management within government departments.
I believe that the low levels of corruption we find in the Nordic countries can partly be attributed to this system of open access to documents.
As well as enabling facts to be uncovered, the system also has a deterrent effect in terms of crime.
Lastly, the EU now boasts three groupings operating in the field of police cooperation: Schengen, Interpol and Europol.
I wonder if we should be splitting up our anti-crime effort in this way.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the two rapporteurs for the work they have done.
Democratic societies do indeed have a duty to make maximum efforts to combat organised crime and corruption in all their guises.
Yet a balance has to be struck between effective anti-crime strategies, on the one hand, and the freedom of the individual and legal certainty on the other.
We cannot allow ourselves to become a Big Brother society.
My group has been highly critical, for example, of the holding of detailed files on individuals under the umbrella of Schengen and Europol.
I also have reservations about the widespread use of global interception systems. These may well yield results in terms of combating crime, but the effects on democracy and civil liberties are not to be countenanced.
I commend the way in which Mrs Cederschiöld has managed to find a balance between ends and means in this report.
I fully support her call for more work on crime prevention, and she is right to point out that the proposals still fall short on specific prevention measures.
I agree on the role of civil society and the importance of setting long-term targets, and transparency and public accountability are essential in this context.
Yet there is another dimension if we want to stop the rifts that already exist in our societies from widening. We need more job opportunities, better education provision and a fairer distribution of resources.
I have one final point. Mrs Cederschiöld talks about combating crime at European level, but we know that organised crime reaches beyond the frontiers of Europe.
I am therefore in favour of working with Interpol and other international bodies too.
Mr President, the report by Mrs Cederschiöld must be congratulated for having highlighted the often subtle distinction between organised crime and less serious crime and between prevention and repression, despite the complexities all these concepts involve.
We will certainly vote in favour of this report, even though it appears to be somewhat reliant on a political magic wand.
We must of course - and I am merely quoting here - encourage citizens to cooperate with the judicial authorities, guarantee the protection of witnesses, and promote policing at a level that is closer to citizens. We need a reduction in factors that encourage and a promotion of factors that discourage crime.
We must promote the integration of marginalised groups. Everyone will be in complete agreement with these issues.
There is one specific area that needs to be defined here, and that is the prevention of repeat offending, which falls somewhere between prevention and repression.
Prevention is an extremely important factor and is linked to the quality of penal institutions and their ability to assist the social reintegration of offenders.
Significant efforts must be made in this area and they must be targeted.
They are going to cost money and will require a great deal of imagination and intelligence.
Whatever else happens, we must at least be prepared to agree to make this effort.
Let us remember that.
Mr President, the European Union only has legitimacy when it acts more efficiently than the Member States acting individually.
Organised crime is the very type of harmful activity that calls for action at European level.
The report by Mrs Cederschiöld rightly stresses the need for the Council to propose concrete measures and to involve the applicant countries that hope to join the European Union in whatever prevention measures might be established by the Council.
Unfortunately, we know that those countries, and particularly the countries of central and eastern Europe, have been left in a dreadful state of moral and economic decline by Marxist-Leninism.
It is therefore highly desirable that from now on they should be involved in the work we ourselves can do within the European Union.
The rapporteur also rightly emphasises the need to involve civil society in the prevention of organised crime.
Prevention from within society is necessary but its effectiveness depends on society's general state of mind and on the promotion of values that are all too often scorned, such as a sense of responsibility, of duty, of honesty and of work.
In short, it is also a matter of how civilised we are.
The prevailing relativism, the loss of reference points, a libertarian idea of freedom, individualism taken to its extreme, and the puerile desire to reject what are known as supposedly middle-class social conventions are all elements that, in fact, fuel everyday crime, which itself undermines the foundations of civil peace and acts as a basis for organised crime.
Mrs Cederschiöld has also rightly highlighted the damaging effects of poor town planning.
We will support her report apart from the elements that relate, strangely, to voting rights and the prevention of crime.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, I share your concern about the problems raised in the Schmid report.
There can be no question that we need a coordinated approach at European level here.
Some time ago I put a question to the Commission on protecting the euro from counterfeiting, but only received a rather evasive answer.
The fact that the rapporteur believes that the euro will act as a magnet for criminal activity and that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs also believes that the euro will be an extremely attractive target for counterfeiting confirms me in my view.
The overall package of proposals to protect the euro from counterfeiting and fraud does, however, seem to be a useful instrument for tackling these problems.
Here I wish to highlight the new regulatory system for harmonising criminal law, which I regard as very useful.
I see the idea of laying down the framework, determining the crucial features, but leaving it to the Member States to formulate them in terms of their own criminal law systems, as a step forward in the right direction.
Past attempts to formulate case materials on a Europe-wide basis, as in the corpus juris , gave rise to a great many problems and conflicts between systems.
I believe that the legislative method which has now been proposed for approximating the Member States' different, historically based legal systems is a better one, and we approve it, as we do all the other points made in the report.
Mr President, I congratulate the two rapporteurs on their two reports and the three accompanying resolutions.
Mr Schmid and Mrs Cederschiöld have done an important job here in dealing with issues that are vital to the future of the European Union.
I am talking about combating fraud in the non-cash sector, combating counterfeiting and action against organised crime.
Most of the points I want to make are in relation to Mr Schmid's report.
There are three main points.
Firstly, it is a wonderful opportunity, with the switch-over to the euro from national currencies, to catch those who have currently got large sums of illgotten gains hidden under the bed or somewhere else and are going to have to switch from deutschmarks or francs, from pesetas or lire into euros.
What I hope we are going to see is some coordinated action at European level to try and take advantage of this opportunity.
We need special reporting requirements on currency exchanges around the time of the switch-over to the euro and we need a European-wide organisation of police and customs officials working together to see how much of the grey or black money we can detect when criminals have to move across from their own national currencies to the euro.
Secondly, with respect to non-cash fraud: I am pleased that in the report we complain about the fact that the banks do not worry very often because they offload the cost onto the customers.
We should be looking at using new technologies for identification to help protect the customer - via new biometric patterns for example.
Retinal patterns are very successful in allowing you to identify unambiguously the owner of a car.
That will be something that can be used at cash points.
But, secondly, we should be allowed to use the highest available means of encryption that cannot be broken to protect these transactions.
At the moment I understand the Commission is apparently negotiating with the US Government to limit our ability to encrypt electronic transactions.
This is very foolish in the light of this particular report.
With respect to cash fraud, the euro will be reasonably well-protected.
We have a problem with the euro coins, where we are allowing national characteristics on coins.
Unless we have a plan to sort out those coins and send them back to their countries of origin, the average shop, after a comparatively short period of time, will have to deal with recognising 120 different coins if we are going to have six coins from the 15 states of the European Union, and added to that coins from Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican City and Gibraltar.
That seems to me to be complete nonsense and we should try to remove it later with legislation to enable shops to have a fairly small number of coins to identify rather than the enormous number that the rather foolish earlier decision will lead to.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we know from a reliable source that about 30 % of all crime is now organised crime.
Given that the business of organised crime now extends from credit-card fraud to traffic in human beings and to money laundering, there is obviously an absolute need for action not just in the Member States but also by the European Community.
We must give absolute priority to combating organised crime, as both the rapporteurs say.
What we need, without any doubt, is a combination of repressive and preventive measures.
Let me just take up three points which I see as especially important in terms of combating crime.
The first is that we, the European Community, must finally transpose the measures and the action plan which the Community has adopted.
We must set aside national animosities in the interests of Europe-wide cooperation in combating crime and make efficient use of the instruments we have at our disposal, such as Europol and UCLAF.
The second point concerns expanding judicial cooperation.
We are still at the beginning here: we have proposed some useful steps forward, but what we need to do is to harmonise criminal provisions relating to new types of offences, such as credit-card fraud, money laundering, environmental crime and gangs.
The third point, which I think needs very special emphasis, is that we must export security to the applicant Central and Eastern European countries that are seeking to join the European Union.
We should help them to implement these programmes in the interest of Europe and in their own interest.
The fight against organised crime must be intensified and expanded.
That is what our citizens expect of the European Union, and it is absolutely vital to the security of the European Union as a whole.
Mr President, I am very pleased that the European Central Bank is set to establish an Analysis centre for counterfeits.
The relevant statistical and technical data will be stored as a database to which national central banks will have full access.
As of now no more precise details have been given by the European Central Bank but I am sure these will come in due course.
I welcome the fact that the Central Bank is taking this initiative at such an early stage of its inception.
This is important because 13 billion euro banknotes will be printed by January 2002 when they will be brought into circulation within the 11 Member States encompassing a population of some 290 million people.
It is very important that this Analysis centre for counterfeits should work closely not only with national central banks but also with Europol and the national police forces within the 11 Member States participating in the new single currency regime.
The Amsterdam Treaty is giving more powers to Europol in the area of judicial and police cooperation and this Treaty is set to be ratified shortly.
Parliament must ensure that any financial resources which will be required by the Central Bank for the working of this new Analysis centre for counterfeits should be supported so that the evil of this prospective counterfeiting of euro notes is defeated.
Mr President, we all - I believe - agree on the need to combat crime effectively. But I must add that we must not be too naive about the real effectiveness of the various preventive measures summarised in the second report we now have before us.
The simple reality is that in many large and medium-sized towns in Europe there are whole streets and neighbourhoods which the police no longer dare enter, where there is virtually no longer any public transport and where the plucky citizens who remain, those who lack the resources to move elsewhere, are exposed to the laws of the jungle.
In other words, we must have the courage to acknowledge that this prevention policy of ours has failed.
Out there, in these neighbourhoods, it is well past the eleventh hour. The time has come to crack down hard and to take repressive action in order, if necessary, to restore law and order by force.
First things first.
Prevention is important but I believe this tough approach must take first priority, contrary to what is stated in this report.
I also regret that Parliament is afraid to speak out clearly when it comes to the subject of crime committed by foreigners.
The second report just beats about the bush.
We all know that, regretfully, 90 % of so-called street crimes in the major towns and cities are committed by uprooted people, uprooted foreigners, often second or third generation immigrants.
We are not going to solve this huge problem by continuing to deny its existence or by trying to falsify the statistics by means of more flexible naturalisation procedures.
We will also certainly not solve it by granting active and passive voting rights such as this report, to everyone's surprise, I would imagine, dares to propose.
The only short-term solution is a courageous policy which presents those involved with a choice. Either integrate yourselves into our society, and thus respect its laws, customs and culture, or opt for supported and accompanied return to your cultural home where you will no longer be uprooted.
Just because this solution has been declared taboo does not mean that it is not a decent and proper solution.
Mr President, I am glad to be able to make a few more comments on the problem of preventing organised crime.
Repression and prevention are two equally valid means of combating crime, including organised crime.
However, we must realise that the traditional concepts of prevention will not work here.
Let me explain this: the common belief that we can do something about organised crime by combating poverty and unemployment overlooks the real problem.
Organised criminals are not usually poor people - on the contrary!
There are some chances of success in the field of technical prevention, that is to say technical precautions to prevent crime.
These include the prevention of car theft by fitting immobilisers, preventing credit-card fraud by making this means of payment more secure, introducing better rules with regard to some areas of what is called hi-tech crime, and introducing better data comparison precautions in fields such as social security fraud, as are widely found in the United States.
Another question concerns the drying-up of markets.
Organised crime often involves the supply of illegal goods and services.
We will not manage to combat that in all cases.
With regard to drugs, for instance, there are good reasons for not legalising them.
On the other hand, there is no reason whatsoever for the state to retain its monopoly on gambling.
Nor is there any reason for driving a system which has obviously been a social need for centuries, namely prostitution -whatever we may think of it as such - into the grey area of the semi-legal, which would only turn it into a seedbed for organised crime.
Mr President, I should like to comment briefly on matters related to the euro.
I am particularly anxious to speak about this issue because I am concerned about the way this debate is developing.
The euro needs to generate confidence.
However, the debate has not been particularly helpful in this regard. Too many speakers have expressed concern about the risks of counterfeiting even coins, which is in fact quite difficult to achieve.
The first thing that should be said is that the European Central Bank guarantees the notes and coins issued. Furthermore, Interpol, Europol, the police forces of the Member States and the Member States themselves now have at their disposal means of controlling fraud and counterfeiting through the legal and penal systems.
This should boost confidence.
Our role is not to be alarmist nor to think of the arrival of the euro as the very opportunity for deceit all the European mafias are eagerly awaiting.
Our role in this House is to support the Commission and the European Central Bank, and to facilitate their task. For instance, we should try to ensure that Europol has arrangements in place to coordinate the attack to be launched by all the national police forces and by Interpol.
We must also support the Commission once it has prepared more detailed proposals and presented them to Parliament.
The citizens need to know that we are aware of the possible risks of counterfeiting, but they must also know that in this instance, 15 police forces will be working alongside Interpol and Europol.
Our task is to enable appropriate legal provision to be made to ensure that detailed particulars on the type of offences are readily available, as stated in the report.
We should do all we can to promote confidence in the euro. It does need it.
Fortunately, control does not depend solely on us, as we shall be assisted by many others.
Mr President, the Commission is very satisfied with Mrs Cederschiöld's report on ways we may best prevent organised crime from taking root in society.
We have to get to the core of the problem and devise a strategy for the prevention of problems, with all parties in the Community taking part at national and local level.
Ridding ourselves of crime can only succeed if we make use of all the means available to the constitutional state.
The rapporteur justifiably stresses the need to support common measures taken by citizens against organised crime in the constitutional state.
In the area of money laundering the Commission has applied legislation under the first pillar to prevent the circulation through laundering of money obtained from selling drugs.
At the start of 1999 the directive will be broadened to cover suspect business activity linked with smuggling, other than drug-smuggling.
In the area of telecommunications the Commission issued a communication in May 1998 on the protection of minors and human dignity in general in audio-visual and Internet contexts.
This is a good example of a case where national legislation is not enough to ensure that we are rid of crime, but where action at Union level is needed.
As Members of Parliament know, the Commission has initiated a number of projects under the Falcone programme in conjunction with the Member States and NGOs.
The rapporteur made special mention of the need to support employment, health, family, and social policy, so that the security of the immediate environment of our citizens might be improved.
The Commission fully supports these objectives.
Similarly, there is support for citizens' local services.
The issue has been raised in a communication on city policy, which is to be presented at the Europaforum Wien Centre for Urban Dialogue in Vienna at the end of November.
Crime in our cities is a real problem, as it is based on organised crime, which threatens cross-border social order.
The unambiguous aim of the Commission is to create a pan-European area where freedom, safety and justice prevail.
With the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam this goal has moved a lot nearer.
The heads of state and government have already agreed to meet in Tampere, Finland, in October 1999, to discuss priority aims and deadlines in this important area.
The report by Charlotte Cederschiöld will form part of the foundations upon which the Commission's work will be built.
Moving on to Mr Schmid's report, I would like, on behalf of the Commission, to congratulate the rapporteur, who, in very clear terms, raises the issue of the connection between the Commission's proposal on fraud and counterfeiting in non-cash transactions with fraud and counterfeiting specifically in respect of the euro.
The amount of fraud in non-cash transactions is growing fast. Payment card fraud accounts for around ECU 2.7 billion in losses a year.
At the same time the legal authorities in the Member States are able to combat these types of crime only semi-effectively simply because there are no laws on the matter.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to correct this situation. It calls for joint action to ensure that all fraud in non-cash transactions is looked on as a punishable offence in all EU Member States.
Mr Schmid's report opposes the inclusion in the proposal of provisions on money laundering and mutual assistance.
He believes that satisfactory results will be achieved in these important areas only through horizontal regulation covering all forms of crime.
The Commission agrees, but as, unfortunately, there is not yet enough of this sort of regulation, legislation needs to be created jointly.
The Commission cautiously supports all the proposals for action put forward by Mr Schmid and the other agencies concerned and will take them into consideration in future planning.
The other subject covered in Mr Schmid's report is protecting the euro from counterfeiting activity.
This is an important matter that needs to be addressed urgently.
We expect the euro to be legal tender internationally.
That being the case, it may well fall prey to internationally organised crime.
The Commission thus believes that before the euro is allowed to circulate we must devise an effective system to prevent the manufacture of counterfeit euros.
The Ecofin Council has itself emphasised that an effective protection mechanism must be in place for the new currency before its introduction.
Ecofin also stressed the role of Europol here and urged the Commission to continue with its initiative.
The main protection targets will be set out in a Commission communication to be issued in July, reflecting the Commission's views.
It will focus on the following: education, information, communications systems and databases, cooperation and mutual assistance in investigations, defining what constitutes criminal counterfeiting activity and the introduction of penalties that will act as a deterrent.
The Commission believes that the institutions concerned each have their own job to do: the European Central Bank, Europol, the Commission, especially in its capacity as the initiator of legislation, the Member States, their central banks, their police forces and their courts.
Finally, I would like to say a few words about Europol.
Much has been spoken about how the workload should be divided between Europol on the one hand, and the European Central Bank and the Commission on the other.
Each will have its own job to do in any future system.
The sole guiding principle in making decisions will be how effectively we can protect the euro.
As we know, difficult compromises had to be reached before the Europol Treaty was introduced, relating to the delicate issue of cooperation in matters of crime and punishment when it comes to combating international crime, as these issues are regarded as too tightly bound up with the notion of national sovereignty.
The protection of the euro will be the responsibility of both the Community and the Member States, however.
For that reason, we need a properly functioning legislative framework, which might go further than the Europol Treaty.
Until then we must give Europol the necessary authority to act to prevent counterfeiting activity in respect of the euro within the limits of its present powers.
I would once more like to thank the rapporteurs for their thorough work.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Safer use of Internet
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0377/98), on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0535/98-97/0337(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council decision adopting a Multiannual Community Action Plan on promoting safer use of the Internet by combating illegal and harmful content on global networks (Rapporteur: Mr Schmid).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a saying that goes: 'knowledge is power'.
If that is true, then we are currently witnessing a shift in power from those who have to some extent enjoyed a monopoly to the many people who have gained access to unheard-of power through the Internet.
The Internet offers an enormous opportunity.
But we also know that it involves risks.
The Internet contains content that can be either unwanted or criminal.
So the Commission was right to propose a programme to deal with this problem.
We approved the core of this programme at first reading, but tabled some amendments.
Most but not all of these amendments were accepted.
Our committee is therefore retabling some of the amendments from the first reading.
Basically they can be divided into two groups.
The first groups is addressed to the Commission, and concerns the implementation of the programme or things that we do not necessarily have to incorporate in a legal text, but which the Commission can ensure are done.
Firstly, these are actions to prevent the Internet from being misused any longer for trafficking in women or children.
Secondly, and in particular, we want preparatory studies to be carried out with a view to making it clear to all concerned what is needed in the way of harmonisation of legislation.
This is important, because any criminal prosecution, for child pornography for instance, is in fact bound to fail so long as we have different age limits for the protection of children, so long as a server can be operated anonymously, or e-mail sent anonymously.
If the Commission makes a satisfactory statement on implementation during this debate, I can withdraw Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 6, with the committee's approval.
That depends on what Mr Liikanen tells us in a moment.
So I would ask the President to allow me to speak again briefly at the end of the debate, in response to the Commissioner.
The other group of amendments is addressed to the Council.
Here we have managed, in cooperation with the Austrian Presidency, to find some compromise formulas which both we and the Council can endorse.
Firstly, they concern the idea of a quality label for Internet service providers who voluntarily adhere to a code of conduct agreed within the sector.
That will make it easier for parents to decide which Internet provider's services to use.
The other concern was to use as little paper as possible for the awareness actions and, wherever possible, to opt for cheaper electronic information.
As I said, we have reached compromises with the Council.
This means that we are withdrawing Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 in favour of Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10, which we have tabled as compromise amendments in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
There are other amendments, which I reject without exception, because if we were to accept them we would have to go into a conciliation procedure.
By handling the matter as we have so far, namely reaching agreement with the Commission and the Council, we avoid the conciliation procedure and save about three months of time.
For that reason alone, I would advise against accepting the other amendments, from No 12 onwards.
Furthermore, the importance and quality of these amendments is not such that not accepting them would significantly harm the programme.
I am pleased that we have made such progress with this action plan, and I would like to compliment the rapporteur on what is an excellent report.
The Internet is first and foremost a wonderful invention, which breaks down boundaries and opens doors on a scale we could not possibly have imagined only ten years ago.
In this sense, the Internet is part of a revolution which enables us to communicate with people throughout the world.
However, if the Internet is organised in an anarchical way, it also means that dishonest and criminal individuals will more or less have a free hand to disseminate illegal images or text, for example child pornography or incitements to racism.
This is very difficult to stamp out, as we all know, and I am glad that we are proceeding with this European action plan, which can try to prevent the spread of illegal material.
Users of the Internet will have full control and be able to filter out this kind of material automatically, and so there should be complete transparency.
However, it is very important for us to distinguish between what is illegal and what is offensive or morally damaging.
Who is to decide what is damaging, and whose morals are the best? The great thing about the Internet is precisely that there is no censor in the middle of it.
In the opinion of the Danish Social Democrats, therefore, we should not have a quality label, awarded by the Commission.
The Commission should not have a monopoly on deciding what is morally correct.
Nor should we be harmonising civil law in the Member States, but rather working and cooperating to combat such things as child pornography.
This is illegal in all the Member States, and we can all agree that it is damaging to children's rights.
So let us begin a joint action to combat child pornography as soon as possible and extend the competence of Europol, so that we can combat international networks which produce, sell and distribute pornographic material of this kind.
Mr President, the Internet was virtually unknown a few years ago.
Now, nearly all of us make use of it every day.
Wherever in the world we happen to be, there is a good chance that we will be able to follow the news and keep ourselves up to date.
In this sense, the Internet is bad for dictatorships and good for democracy.
Many of us connected to 'Sarajevo on-line' at a time when that city was otherwise cut off from the world.
This might sound exaggerated, but I believe that the Internet will one day go down in history books alongside Gutenberg's printing press.
As to the specific proposals in the report, I am in favour of websites which offer information and assistance on unlawful material coming over the Internet.
I particularly support the idea of self-regulation for service providers.
I myself suggested a system of quality labelling to reward those who observe the sector's code of conduct, and I hope that the Commission will go along with this.
There appeared to be some reticence in the beginning, but I sense that both the Commission and the Council have now been won over.
Let us hope that we will reach an accommodation on this issue. Since we are dealing with an international problem, I remain convinced that effective self-regulation is the best way of achieving sustainable results.
It must be possible both to offer the necessary safeguards regarding personal integrity and to halt the spread of unlawful or damaging material.
I should like to congratulate Mr Schmid on his fine report.
It has been a pleasure to work with him, and he deserves praise for the excellent results he has achieved.
Mr President, it is a pity that the Council of Ministers is not present to hear me say how much I deplore the decision not to accept the proposal on judicial cooperation.
I would encourage the Commission to pursue the matter and exploit the possibilities offered by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I also have high expectations of the fifth RTD framework programme, which we have often discussed here.
Many important proposals are likely to be forthcoming as regards safe use of the Internet. This is only right and proper if people are to have faith in the system.
Copyright too will need protecting. And coordination between this action plan and other measures is vital.
We are confronted by a twofold problem. Individuals want to know that it is safe for them to pay their bills via the Internet, to send messages and so on.
Equally, society has a duty to intervene where necessary. The first step is to win people's confidence by ensuring that the Internet is safe.
The Commission could do a great deal to facilitate the use of encryption.
One Member State actually prevents the unfettered sale and use of encryption services. The US is also putting obstacles in the way of trade.
Action by the Commission is particularly necessary if the Internet is to become safe to use.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no surprise here.
We are witnessing how a great invention such as the Internet is growing.
There is an increase in the number of people using it and in the attempts to control and censor this brilliant invention, and Mr Schmid, our rapporteur, is acting as their spokesman.
My group will oppose this report because it is not by claiming to defend groups that are particularly vulnerable - we have mentioned here the victims of paedophiles and victims of drugs - that we are going to tackle these problems.
We know very well that the problem of drugs can be tackled by giving the State the opportunity to regulate and legalise this phenomenon.
We also know very well that paedophile rings - rings that the judicial authorities in many countries, including Belgium, are failing to clamp down on - do not work via the Internet, and we are attacking something that has nothing or very little to do with these crimes.
I therefore believe that we must look at the problems facing us and begin to tackle the real issues.
Mr President, in an earlier life I was chairman of a film censorship committee in Manchester.
In my time on that committee I never voted to censor a single film.
I am in favour of minimal censorship but not of none.
Certain material needs to be kept out of the hands of children; certain material needs labelling so that those who, if you want, investigate it know what they are getting.
Certain material - paedophile material, pornographic material of certain kinds, particularly snuff movies, and certain racist material - should be banned.
If it is illegal in written form, it should be illegal on the Internet.
I know the librarian argument: a librarian does not know what is in every book. But when you point out what is in some of the books, you expect them to take action.
The same should be true of service providers on the Internet.
I also want to say that STOA conducted a study recently on the subject of whether material on the Internet can be controlled technically.
Slightly to our surprise, as a member of the STOA panel, there seemed to be good technical means for controlling what is on the Internet, for example, pornography, so that you can signal areas which you need to investigate and look up.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate Mr Schmid on his report.
It is not the first time that this issue has been debated in the House.
The action plan results from the reply obtained by the Commission when it raised the issue for the first time. It has been developed in conjunction with the Council's recommendation on the protection of minors and human dignity taking the European Parliament's resolutions into account.
I would like to highlight the positive aspects the House has tried to include in all its resolutions on this information network, taking into account the role of the Internet in the daily lives of our citizens.
Nevertheless, like any other source of information, it has to be governed by certain rules on security, particularly where children are concerned and particularly because it is so accessible.
As always, allowing complete freedom of information and expression, in conjunction with the development of new technologies can make it possible to disseminate illegal material that may affect other rights and freedoms.
This issue has been much debated and has awakened great interest in international forums as well as in the Council of Europe and the OECD. The amendments tabled at first reading have allowed it to be discussed again here today.
These amendments enabled us to change its legal basis and adopt this proposal for a decision through the codecision procedure and not through simple consultation. The involvement of this House in an issue that does indeed come under the protection of consumers and Internet users, that is, of the citizens, was therefore enhanced.
As the report emphasises, I should like to stress the need for police and judicial cooperation, and for the approximation of the systems for prosecuting these offences under the legislation of the various Member States. Further studies on this subject are called for too.
This could bring us closer to concrete solutions.
By granting a legal basis to its budgetary line, this action plan will enable us to reach these solutions.
I would therefore like to stress the need for interinstitutional cooperation to smooth the way towards solutions that would be of real benefit to our citizens.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the vast increase in the use of the Internet is prompting outpourings from many opinion-leaders which are comparable to the reactions 500 years ago in response to the advent of printing.
Then too there were claims that this new technology would sow confusion among the more vulnerable souls and undermine established values and practices.
It is to the credit of the Commissioner, the Council and Parliament that the multiannual action plan for safer use of the Internet is based more on information, increasing awareness, self-regulation and voluntary codes of behaviour than on repression and censorship.
The Union has not yet given way to what is said to be a Marxist principle - but I leave that to those who say it - which claims that trust is good, but control is a lot better.
That said, I am not so naive as to believe that this is the reason why the Council has omitted any reference to cooperation in the field of justice and prosecution.
This omission indicates that it is mainly with words that the governments of the Member States are urging a joint approach to combating cross-border crime, while shrinking from even considering such cooperation in practice.
Simply calling with words for more security, while refusing to prepare the necessary action, let alone actually taking it, will only increase the sense of insecurity and threat among our citizens.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is ultimately very damaging to democracy.
Mr President, Parliament has expressed the wish for changes to the common position.
The Commission has no difficulty with the substance of most of these amendments.
In order to be consistent with its position on first reading and its original proposal, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 13.
The Commission can accept the remaining nine amendments.
However, time is now of the essence.
I urge Parliament to consider carefully the proposed amendments so that delays that would occur in the conciliation procedure can be avoided.
There is little doubt that there is overwhelming support for the action plan; there is no substantial disagreement that should prevent the action plan from being adopted without further delay.
In three cases - Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 6 - the Commission proposes dealing with Parliament's concern by making the following declaration: 'Liability of intermediaries for Internet content will be dealt with in the proposal for the directive on certain legal questions relating to electronic commerce which the Commission has undertaken to bring forward.
Counteracting violence and the abuse of women and children is covered by the Daphne programme.
The Commission will ensure that due account is taken of Parliament's concerns in implementing action lines 1 and 3 with respect to violence and the abuse of women and children on the Internet.
As a follow-up to the crime study and in conjunction with the forthcoming Commission communication on computer crime, the Commission will arrange for studies on the issues of substantive provisions of criminal law, referred to in Amendment No 6 by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, subject to the availability of budgetary appropriations and to obtaining the necessary approval under the Financial Regulations.'
I hope that this will enable an agreed text to be voted and so allow the action plan to be implemented as soon as possible.
In the light of the sad evidence this summer, with child pornography on the Internet receiving much attention, everybody agrees that there is an urgent need to act.
Adoption now is vital if the European Union is to maintain its lead in dealing with illegal and harmful content on the Internet.
I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Schmid, for his very constructive approach to the proposals contained in the action plan.
Mr President, following the Commission's statement, I am authorised by the committee to withdraw Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 6. They are redundant.
Let me point out again that we are withdrawing Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5 in favour of the compromise wording of the Council's Amendments Nos 8, 9 and 10.
I should like to make another formal comment. There is an Amendment No 7 which concerns the entry into force of the programme by 1 January next year, since the date of 1 January this year is now obsolete.
That obsolete date is repeated elsewhere in the programme, so the amendment obviously applies there as well.
Thank you, Mr Schmid.
Your explanations will be taken into account tomorrow during the vote.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Clinical trials
The next item is the report (A4-0407/98) by Mr Amadeo, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action relating to the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use (COM(97)0369 - C4-0446/97-97/0197(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a long-awaited directive is coming before the House today; it is a very important one because of its implications for the use of medicinal products, and therefore because of the substantial health benefits to be gained by citizens and patients in Europe.
It may seem surprising that, at a time which I would describe as a significant one in the life of the European Parliament, a nonattached Member is presenting a report.
I consider this to be a most noteworthy sign of the democratic, respectful and impartial nature of this Parliament, and I am grateful to all my fellow members of the Environment Committee, in particular its chairman Mr Collins, and to the coordinators of the political groups: they not only allowed me to draw up this report, but pulled out all the stops to improve its content through a series of well-considered, sincere and truly valuable amendments.
It is now my duty to report to the House on the background to this presentation in the plenary and on the content of the directive.
I shall comment first of all on the working method.
Having noted immediately the importance of and expectations concerning the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use, I considered that my task should mainly be one of meticulously and objectively coordinating a series of proposals from experts in the field. I therefore held a number of meetings with European consumer groups and associations, patients' groups of different nationalities, representatives of ethics committees in various countries, independent voluntary bodies, groups of university and hospital researchers, and European representatives of drugs companies.
At the same time, I took on board the views of all those - individuals or groups - who approached me either in person or in writing with particular comments and considerations. In short, in the explanatory statement and the amendments, I have attempted to summarise all the different opinions I have heard, so as to bring to bear the greatest possible measure of democratic spirit, openness and active participation on a proposal which must not be handed down from above, but rather should be the fruit of concerted action on the part of everyone.
The basic aim was as follows. The adoption of this directive could give a major boost to the long-standing eager expectations of the Union's scientific community, provided that it really does bring about harmonisation.
In other words, all 390 million European citizens, exercising the same rights and duties, should be in a position to benefit from the outcome of clinical trials on human subjects.
It is likewise imperative that research institutes as a whole, whether public or private, in all 15 Member States should enjoy equal opportunities and compete with one another on proper terms.
At present, the guidelines on good clinical practice are intended purely for information and not enforced in the same way in individual Member States, which are responsible for legislative regulation.
Our task is to convert the principles and guidelines into a binding Community legislative act to regulate an activity now largely carried on at trial sites, often operating in different Member States.
My first remark is that the directive contains proposals relating to the conduct of clinical trials of medicinal products on human subjects and the implementation of GCP.
This text acknowledges the need to harmonise within the Community the administrative procedures and documents used, especially in multi-centre trials.
Its stated aim is to rationalise the administrative procedures required for the launch of a clinical trial, thus making Europe more competitive as compared, for example, to the United States, whilst maintaining a high level of protection for trial subjects.
Secondly, it is necessary in our opinion to provide a simple, unambiguous legislative frame of reference for European clinical research.
Europe should improve its ability to supply clinical data needed to develop and register pharmaceutical preparations, for instance by stipulating that replies and documents requested must be produced within standard time limits, thus enabling trials to be conducted in several countries at once.
Rapid access to clinical trials, however regulated, is ethically beneficial to the extent that it allows patients, especially those suffering from serious diseases, to be treated at an early stage.
Moreover, trials are scientifically beneficial, since the researchers involved can publish and discuss the findings of their experiments and in that way further their careers.
Lastly, clinical trials are economically beneficial because they can attract substantial corporate investment which can also be used to fund basic research in the centres concerned.
Thirdly, the technical aspects of the proposed directive must be harmonised with documents already issued or currently being drawn up, and in particular those relating to the ICH, those on GCP and those on pharmacovigilance.
Fourthly, one particular weakness in the current proposal for a directive is its provision for two possible procedures, one based on authorisation and the other on notification.
After lengthy deliberations, we resolved that harmonisation must be based on one procedure only, and the Environment Committee expressed this view when voting on the amendments.
In our opinion, when an application for authorisation is submitted to the ethics committee, the regulatory authority should merely be notified and would then have 30 days in which to raise objections, should it think fit. Under that procedure, patients would be doubly protected - by the ethics committee and because the regulatory authority would have the option of intervening - but clear-cut and brief time limits would be laid down, and time is, at present, the most decisive factor where clinical trials in Europe are concerned.
All countries must make the same undertaking: to harmonise - that is, to determine a single procedure based on the system of notification.
Such a procedure would ensure, firstly, scrupulous protection for patients, in that GCP rules must be complied with, the green light must be obtained from the ethics committee and the Member States may put forward any reasoned objections within the 30-day period; secondly, certainty as to the starting date of the trials; and, thirdly, uniform procedures in all the Member States.
In conclusion, our task as the European Parliament goes beyond single market and competition issues, and encompasses a human dimension that should be a matter of particular concern to us all.
It is to be hoped that Parliament will manage to provide the democratic impetus to persuade the Commission and Council to lay down a single clear-cut rule for all the Member States.
I have one brief final point, Mr President.
Amendments Nos 29 and 30 have been resubmitted so as to ensure that trials can also take place in centres engaged in research other than for the registration of medicinal products.
Amendment No 14 should, in my opinion, be put to the vote after No 31, which is more comprehensive and which, if adopted, will cause No 14 to fall.
Amendment No 35 should be put to the vote before No 16 because, if adopted, it will cause the last paragraph of No 16 and the whole of No 17 to fall.
Thank you, Mr Amadeo.
Since you were so courteous, at the beginning, as to thank all the groups for having permitted you to draw up this report, I allowed you three or four brief points at the end, and not just the one.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the approximation of these provisions, we must pursue two aims.
The first is to ensure the protection of the patient, which is the prime concern of good clinical practice.
To that end, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy has called for it to be made absolutely plain in the wording of the directive that an investigator means a doctor and not, as proposed by the Commission, a person responsible.
Another means of improving patient protection is to ensure that resources allocated to pharmaceutical research are not squandered on obsolete trials or trials also carried out at another site.
If the standards established through good clinical practice are observed, we shall be able to avoid that kind of duplication.
The second point is that we must bear in mind the interests of the pharmaceutical industry which is conducting the clinical trials.
These trials are essential to bringing new medical products on to the market.
The extent to which the pharmaceutical industry can be innovative depends largely on the efficiency of the administrative procedures that have to be gone through before trials can be conducted.
The Commission has taken a major step towards tightening up these administrative procedures by obliging the authorising authorities to decide within 30 days whether or not a clinical trial may be conducted.
In some Member States, such as Germany, it has already been shown that it is quite possible for the authorities to take an informed decision within that period.
The procedures have been tightened further by allowing the decision on the conduct of certain clinical trials to be based purely on a notification procedure.
Another important aspect is that the directive approximates good clinical practice rules with the guidelines laid down by the International Conference on Harmonisation, because clinical trials conducted in Europe must not be subject to stricter requirements than those carried out in the rest of the world.
At the same time, however, they must comply with international requirements in this field.
That is what we proposed, and I warmly thank Mr Amadeo for his report.
Mr President, I want to welcome the Commission proposal this evening and to recognise the work done by Mr Amadeo in producing a very well thought-out report.
He has been very courteous to the other groups tonight and we can all say that we appreciate the time he has taken and the strenuous efforts he has made to find a compromise in certain particularly difficult areas of this report.
I would like to emphasise that European legislation on clinical trials has to be in line with international guidelines as laid down in the International Conference on Harmonisation of Good Clinical Practice Guidelines.
This is something that should be included in the directive in order to ensure harmonisation.
The report is a very important one which aims to reduce the amount of bureaucracy surrounding the conduct and application procedure of clinical trials while, at the same time, ensuring that the health, safety and confidentiality of clinical trials subjects are of utmost priority.
The issue of timescales of the application procedure has proved a problematic factor in the discussions on this issue and it has been of some concern particularly among the pharmaceutical industries.
We have looked at this further in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and it is especially of concern in the case of multicentre trials where administrative procedures can lead to extensive delays and confusion even before the commencement of the trial.
Some rationalisation has therefore been achieved in this report to ensure that multicentre trials, especially those covering a number of EU Member States, are using the same information and products of the same high quality.
In committee we agreed that the procedure for applying to conduct a clinical trial had to be looked into very closely.
At present companies or researchers may commence with a clinical trial without an obligation to notify.
Between the systems of authorisation and notification we favour the system of notification because with this system, when an application is submitted to the Ethics Committee, the regulatory authority will be notified, and the investigator may commence with the trial thereby cutting the bureaucracy to a minimum.
Moreover, the Ethics Committee would have the possibility of raising its concerns and the investigator would have to act on those concerns.
I also welcome the rapporteur's views on the role of ethics committees and agree that the safety and dignity of patients must remain the utmost priority.
The introduction of ethics committees under EU law seeks to ensure the safety of subjects in such trials.
When red tape is reduced and the safety of trial subjects is ensured, particularly through the involvement of ethics committees, EU citizens can benefit from exciting new drugs and discoveries and innovative medicinal products that result from efficiently conducted clinical trials carried out in a more timely manner than hitherto.
Finally, I thank the rapporteur for the commitment he has shown in drafting a highly appropriate report, and I look forward to a positive response from the Commission.
Mr President, we feel that the Commission's proposal is sound and one we can accept and support.
Nevertheless, quite a number of amendments were tabled in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, where all the political groups worked closely together.
I support my colleague Mr Needle's statement, which proves that the work in committee was fruitful and that we come to the House with a widely accepted position.
Nevertheless, too many amendments were adopted in committee, as has tended to be the case of late. Some of these amendments are not entirely appropriate and it does not seem very likely that they could be incorporated into a coherent text.
That is why we need to repeat Amendment No 31, which does not change what was adopted in committee but makes it easier to understand and enhances the legal certainty of the wording.
I also believe it is important to repeat here in the House and for the benefit of the sector and the patients themselves, that the work would be facilitated and the trials harmonised with a fairly efficient system. Its key features are the mere notification of the start of the clinical trial, a time limit of 30 days and a single ethics committee.
Speed and legal certainty will be gained. Finally, there will be adequate safeguards for the fundamental rights of individuals, which has been one of our main concerns since the beginning.
In addition, the proposal will result in a text that is in line with international regulations, which was another of the goals we set ourselves.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for the work which he has done in committee, and I welcome the broad support for this proposal.
The proposal codifies the Helsinki declaration while allowing the Member States to go further in terms of strengthening the protection of patients, which is also a focus of the committee's amendments.
There are three main problems which may be a cause of division.
Firstly, there is the question of whether the Member States should authorise a clinical trial when the ethics committee has said yes, or if authorisation can be withheld in some cases.
Secondly, there is the question of whether authorisation is obtained automatically when an application has been made and no answer has been received, or if notification actually has to be given before proceeding with clinical trials, regardless of the fact that nothing has been heard from the official authorities.
And thirdly, there are the time limits which are to apply to the work of the ethics committee.
I would firstly like to say that the Liberal Group supports the main thrust of the amendments, but I personally have some reservations about the three points I have mentioned.
I think it is extremely important to preserve the Member States' ability to reject an application, even if the ethics committee has said yes.
I do not in fact see this as a major problem in practice, because the ethics committee will not normally be operating in a political vacuum.
As regards the question of whether it is possible to proceed automatically, or if notification has to be given or a positive authorisation obtained, I would emphasise that I think this is also important in terms of patient protection.
I do not agree with the amendments concerning time limits.
Experience with the present ethics committees shows that ethical considerations and decisions take time, and so we should not set too short a time limit for the ethics committee to do its work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rules on conducting clinical trials are to apply from now on to socalled 'multi-centre' trials, that is, trials that apply the same protocol in 50 or 60 different investigational sites, thereby ensuring that between 2 000 and 3 000 patients are used at a total cost of between ECU 300 million and ECU 500 m for one single trial.
That goes to show that when the human, social and economic resources of these trials, which are aimed at developing new medicinal products, are better targeted, they are therefore more effective and better tolerated by patients.
Besides having to notify the relevant local authorities of the trial, or using a centralised procedure through the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, a certain number of rules must be respected, and they were the subject of amendments in committee.
These amendments, which are supported by the UPE Group, have various objectives.
Firstly, they aim to guarantee full and objective information for the patients likely to take part in the trial.
Secondly, they are aimed at ensuring that the participants give their consent voluntarily by means of a written document that must be dated and signed, and, as a result, the necessary arrangements must be made for the mentally handicapped.
Thirdly, they aim to obtain the opinions of multidisciplinary and independent ethics committees, that is, committees consisting of doctors and paramedical staff that are not directly involved in the clinical trial.
Fourthly, they hope to oblige the Member States to take the necessary measures to respect good manufacturing practices with a view to guaranteeing the quality and safety of medicinal products.
And fifthly, they aim to make third countries exporting to the European Union provide proof that quality control and batch approval have been carried out, so that the products can actually be traced if something happens.
Notification must, of course, be given of any undesirable and serious occurrence in a Member State where the trial is taking place.
Finally, the researchers must be qualified doctors, who are responsible for the trial and, therefore, capable of assessing whether it is running smoothly and the effects on the patients voluntarily taking part in the study.
We are in favour of the proposal for a directive as amended, which aims to establish a framework designed to promote efficient clinical research to the benefit of patients.
Mr President, Mr Amadeo's report is extremely interesting, and is indeed improved in certain respects by some of the amendments.
I think, however, that there should have been more criticism of the loopholes and omissions in the Commission's proposal, and that we should be more daring about more specific proposals and more advanced measures for carrying out checks, both preventive and repressive, and imposing sanctions as and when criminal intentions are exposed that stem from profiteering by the all-powerful multinational pharmaceutical groups.
This is because those groups, involved as they are with other interests too - even political interests, as we all know - use and exploit a whole range of people without any accountability at all, for example people suffering from incurable diseases, people committed to psychiatric clinics or similar institutions because of psychiatric disorders, or people whose freedoms are restricted - I am talking about prison inmates who become experimental animals without their consent so that new drugs can be clinically tested.
Such people must of course be protected, but we must not forget that declarations alone do not suffice for their protection. For this, there must be specific measures, which are unfortunately missing from the Commission's proposal.
Unfortunately, despite the amendments, the Amadeo report does not criticise those omissions and does nothing to make them good.
It amazes me that payments and compensation are provided for; payments for those who undergo trials and compensation for those whose physical or mental health is damaged in trials of new drugs.
In other words, the human body and mind have become a commodity.
Here we see the prevalence of the law, the taboo of free competition, the right of industrial ownership, the prevalence of lack of transparency in programmes, research and funding.
With the opportunity this report gives us, we must overcome these things so that clinical trials of new drugs for diseases will be beneficial for the health of mankind...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we all agree on the need to protect patients - and many here have spoken of a high level of protection; but I too feel that the level of patient protection should be defined in far more specific terms.
I too am concerned with defining this high level of protection.
It is not enough for us to say: someone else has to give consent for those who are incapable of giving their informed consent.
No!
That is why we have tabled an amendment which provides quite plainly that no research may be carried out on people who are incapable of giving their informed consent unless it is of direct use.
This is a crucial point, because what would happen in the reverse case?
If we do not endorse this amendment, then that would surely automatically mean that anyone at all can consent on behalf of these people who are incapable of giving their informed consent, and that research can be carried out on them which is of no use at all.
Then we really will be treating people to whom we have promised a high level of protection just like guinea pigs.
In my view, we must not forget either that we are running a risk of opening the door to eugenics, unless we guarantee a direct level of protection.
The past has after all proved that we must not carry out research on the mentally handicapped who are incapable of giving their consent, unless it is of direct use.
So I would very urgently ask you to support this amendment by the Green Group, so that we can ensure precisely that.
Let me also place special emphasis on this aspect against the background of the heated discussions we have already seen here in the European Parliament, and especially also among many social groups, concerning the bioethics convention.
The Federal Republic has not signed this bioethics convention, for precisely the reasons I have just given.
That is why our prime concern should be that we do not approve a directive which does not specifically guarantee protection for people who are incapable of giving their informed consent.
I would therefore ask the House to endorse our amendment, which makes it clear that research may only be conducted if it is of direct use, and that any other research is quite out of the question.
Mr President, everyone knows that since 1990 the rules governing clinical trials in the European Union, and internationally, have been codified in directives on good clinical practice. The globalisation of the pharmaceuticals industry has necessarily led to the harmonisation of international rules set at the International Conference on Harmonisation.
Nonetheless, the Member States can still take different legislative or administrative measures, and that can lead to significant delays in starting clinical trials. This, in turn, is bound to lead to delays in the application of the benefits of those trials to the treatment of patients.
That is why, without prejudice to the principle of subsidiarity, we need to take decisive steps towards rationalising and harmonising clinical trials.
Nonetheless, while scientific research has to be supported and encouraged, we must also ensure that those who take part in the trials are guaranteed protection, so that their human rights and dignity are respected.
That is why it is important to have ethics committees and for them to be transparent and independent.
If there were one national ethics committee, coordinating the regional and local committees, then each Member State could have a single set of rules while safeguarding the independence of local committees and allowing them to agree to or ban trials.
There would also have to be an ethics committee, whose opinions would be binding, at every centre where clinical trials take place.
Those opinions would be issued by doctors not involved in the trials, along with nurses and other health professionals, as well as non-medical staff, to guarantee patients' safety and the wellbeing of those taking part.
Researchers, whether medical or not - and if not then medical supervision should be provided - ought invariably to obtain the informed consent of everyone taking part in trials - or of their guardians - and honour their confidentiality.
We could then promote research, safeguarding the interests of patients and of the pharmaceuticals industry alike.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too am grateful to the rapporteur.
Two thirds of all diseases can still not be treated or treated adequately.
Some of them are quite dreadful diseases, and often fatal.
Hence the need for medical research, and especially research into medical products.
The directive we are discussing can help improve clinical research in Europe.
In particular, the standardisation of procedures offers a chance to avoid duplication.
However, we must guarantee comprehensive protection of the trial subjects under all circumstances.
Special attention must be given to protecting people who are incapable of giving their informed consent, such as children and the mentally handicapped.
The Commission proposal does not take adequate account of this.
Instead, it refers mainly to the Council of Europe Convention for the protection of human rights and biomedicine.
But that convention is a subject of dispute, and some Member States have not yet decided whether or not to ratify it.
The European Commission - and I would ask Commissioner Liikanen to pass this on - should stop writing this convention into EU legislative documents, rather on the assumption that 'we need not concern ourselves with the ethical questions; the Council of Europe has already done so'.
We need very strict provisions to protect individuals who are incapable of giving their informed consent.
Under no circumstances may children or the mentally handicapped be misused as guinea pigs.
However, I do not accept Mr Ephremidis's statement as it stands, since I believe that the overwhelming majority of responsible persons in industry and in the clinics do not carry out research in an abusive manner, but abide by the rules on the protection of trial subjects.
But we must also make that clear under this directive.
I do not endorse the amendment by the Green Group to the effect that people who are incapable of giving their informed consent should be totally excluded from the research, because I believe we would then be bringing research to a standstill, for children's diseases in particular.
Some children's diseases do not occur among adults, which is why it is not possible to conduct the relevant studies in full on adults.
That is why we need strict rules, but not a total ban.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to begin by thanking Mr Amadeo for his excellent work and outstanding readiness to cooperate with all members of the committee, as well as for taking up so many amendments and being so open to suggestions.
This proposal for a directive is of particular importance because it sets out to regulate such a sensitive sector, seeking to harmonise standards for the conduct of clinical trials of medicinal products on human subjects.
The good clinical practice guide has existed since 1990, but as we all know is not binding; that is why national provisions must be harmonised.
It is advisable to lay down a single procedure in a field where the rules currently vary from one Member State to another.
We have opted for notification rather than authorisation, and the reasons why have been explained.
But what is even more vital is to protect the health of subjects who volunteer for trials.
To this end, an amendment submitted by me and adopted unanimously by my colleagues in the Environment Committee provides for an explicit definition of informed consent: before taking part in a clinical trial, the subject of that trial must receive full and easily understandable information about the trial, and must sign a written statement indicating consent.
Ethics committees play a particularly important role in protecting subjects who volunteer for trials: it will be they who evaluate the relevance of the trial, the protocol, the suitability of the investigators and the available facilities.
Ethics committees will assess the adequacy and completeness of the written information.
In the case of injury, the sponsors and the ethics committee should be informed immediately.
In this way, we shall ensure that trials are completely safe.
The Member States will furthermore be cooperating with one another in the interests of research by the European pharmaceutical industry and, ultimately, the health of their citizens, who will receive early treatment with the new products.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, like Mr Liese, I too wish to emphasise once again that despite the undoubted success in curing illnesses by the use of medicines, there are still at present some 20 000 diseases that we cannot treat with much hope of success.
That is why new, effective and safe medicines will still be essential in the future.
Clinical trials, in other words studies of the potential effects of a medicine on human beings, are extremely important to medical research and development.
Various speakers have referred to the need for international networking.
We consider it urgently necessary not just to take joint action on a Europe-wide basis, but to have international agreements. That is why Mr Valverde and I have tabled three amendments, to emphasise that point again.
This is all the more important because - as has already been said - all these safety requirements also concern the protection of human beings, and in particular the protection of people who are incapable or less capable of giving their informed consent.
Our group aims to ensure that human beings are comprehensively protected in the conduct of clinical trials, that all patients have access to therapeutic progress, but also that we have and maintain reliable and innovative framework conditions for research and for the development and production of innovative medicines. Mr Amadeo has done some valuable work towards achieving these aims, and we can basically support his report.
Mr President, the characteristics we demand from pharmaceutical products are quality, safety and efficacy.
The most important information regarding those characteristics comes from clinical trials in man.
I believe it is quite clear to us all that such trials must be carried out in accordance with firm and inviolate rules which go as far as possible towards protecting the physical and mental integrity of those who take part in them, and at the same time provide air-tight guarantees of the inviolability of their private life.
Most of the amendments the European Parliament will be voting on go some way towards strengthening the Commission's text in relation to the safeguarding, if I can use this expression, of the human experimental animals used in clinical trials, with detailed provisions ranging from full information for participants about the clinical trial and their written consent, to restoration and compensation in the event of damage or death.
I would like to believe that the Commission will accept all these amendments.
We must not forget that we owe a lot to the volunteer subjects who undergo clinical trials, because it is thanks to them that the final assessment can be made, particularly of a drug's safety and efficacy, with records of any side effects it may have.
This has benefited mankind in the past, and it is still a benefit and will remain so in the future, thanks to valuable drugs that protect human health and provide means of restoring it when it fails.
Finally, Mr President, it is self-evident that the provisions of this directive must be implemented in a uniform manner in all the Member States if we really want to ensure proper clinical trials and fair competition in the production and marketing of drugs.
Here, I would like to thank the rapporteur Mr Amadeo, who worked so well with the Committee on the Environment.
Mr President, Parliament has recommended some thirty amendments to the proposal for a directive.
The Commission accepts half of them, as they either complement the Commission's original proposal satisfactorily or they simplify it.
The Commission unreservedly accepts seven amendments.
In addition, we can accept two amendments if we alter the wording slightly.
The Commission accepts Amendments Nos 1 and 6, paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 of Amendment No 10, and Amendments Nos 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 27.
The Commission will take the following into consideration in its amended proposal.
The Commission intends to include in its proposal Amendments Nos 1 and 6 and paragraphs 1, 2 and 4 of Amendment No 10.
The amendments serve to improve the degree of protection afforded to participants in clinical trials in particular by imposing the condition of informed consent and the protection of the sponsor in Amendment No 19.
The Commission agrees with Parliament's competent committees that we need to confirm the status of the ethics committee as the recipient of certain types of information especially with regard to medical safety during a clinical trial, as well as the tasks connected with undertaking the clinical trial itself.
The trial could last as long as five to ten years.
This concerns Amendments Nos 21, 22 and 27.
The most major amendment put forward by Parliament's competent committees concerns deleting the reference to alternative commencement procedures.
In the Commission's original proposal the alternatives were either to notify the competent authorities, which is the normal legal procedure, or to obtain an official licence issued by the competent authority, which was suggested in consideration of special or exceptional circumstances.
Parliament's competent committees only support the notification procedure, which is the purpose behind Amendments Nos 13, 14, 15 and 18.
The Commission accepts this position and will amend its original proposal accordingly.
In addition, the purpose behind Amendments Nos 23 and 24 is to clarify or specify more precisely the principles of good manufacturing practices applicable to investigational medical products to be used in clinical trials.
The Commission cannot accept amendments that do not improve on the original as it stands, especially when it comes to the readability of a complicated text.
This applies to Amendments Nos 3, 8, 9, paragraphs 1 and 2 of Amendment No 12, and Amendments Nos 16, 17, 20, 25 and 26.
Neither can the Commission accept amendments which dramatically alter the original text, or stray too far way from its spirit or legal basis.
This is the case with Amendments Nos 4, 7, paragraph 3 of Amendment No 10, and Amendments Nos 11 and 20, and, similarly, Amendments Nos 28 and 36, which reiterate amendments the Commission cannot accept.
I would further like to emphasise that the Commission is very satisfied with the constructive view taken by the rapporteur and is confident that there will be effective cooperation with the European Parliament so that the statute can be adopted reasonably quickly.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.30 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, the Dutch taxation authorities tax not only Parliament's contribution to voluntary pensions but also the actual pensions payable.
I am grateful to Mrs Fontaine for her spontaneous protest at this, and to Mr Rothley for putting down an amendment aimed at ending this anomalous state of affairs in the Netherlands.
Unfortunately a number of our Dutch people have indicated through their representative that they are happy with the system.
That is what I wanted recorded in the Minutes yesterday, and I am glad to see that it has been done.
Mr President, I would just like to say that I was here yesterday but for some inexplicable reason my name does not appear on the list.
I would be glad if that could be put right.
We shall check that and include your name.
Mr President, the same thing happened to me yesterday.
My name is not on the attendance register either. I must have been so focused on the Rothley report and the work of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights that I forgot to sign.
Please could my name be added.
That will be checked and corrected.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, we have been looking forward to getting the diaries for 1999 and am pleased we were able to collect them yesterday.
One of the important dates for 1999 is that of the elections to this House.
As you know, there has been a wide-ranging debate in Parliament about the days on which these elections should be held.
So I am very disappointed to see it stated incorrectly in this diary that just three countries of the European Union will be voting not on Sunday the thirteenth but earlier, and that my own country, the Netherlands, is not listed with these.
It is quite wrong that the elections are to be held on Sunday.
One of the good traditions we have in the Netherlands is that these elections are held during the week, and it is a mistake that the Netherlands is not down as voting on 10 June.
I should like to ask how you propose to correct this misunderstanding and prevent the turnout from being even lower.
I believe you should put this question to the Dutch authorities.
As you are well aware, the date of the elections is not determined by entries in Parliament's agenda but by the authorities in each Member State. The elections must take place within a set time period that may only be altered following a Council decision and Parliament has no power in this respect.
The particular date set for elections in the Netherlands must have been decided by the authorities in that country, on the grounds, presumably, of the principle of subsidiarity.
In no way is Parliament responsible for the dates of the elections nor may it change them.
That is not the point, Mr President.
The elections will indeed be held in the Netherlands on 10 June. That is not the problem.
It is the diary which is wrong. That needs to be corrected.
That is what Mr van Dam is asking.
A check will be carried out to establish if an error has been made on our part in the agenda.
Rest assured, however, that elections in the Netherlands will not be held in accordance with our agenda but in accordance with the arrangements made by the Dutch authorities.
Decision on urgent procedure
President.
I call Mr von Wogau to give the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which is the committee responsible.
I put the request for urgent procedure to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Court of Auditors annual report
The next item is the presentation of the annual report of the Court of Auditors.
I should like to welcome the President of the Court, Mr Friedmann, who once again has been kind enough to come and present this report to the House.
Mr Friedmann, you have the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Members of the European Court of Auditors, may I thank you for allowing me to present the results of our work over the past year at this early hour of the morning.
We will surely agree that money is not everything, but the way in which money is used is an indication of whether a policy is successful or not.
You will probably have noticed that this year's annual report is much slimmer than in previous years.
This is not because we have done any less work, quite the contrary.
In the past year, we have presented 25 special reports.
Our aim is in fact also to make your own work easier by spreading these annual reports over the year, so that you too can spread your work accordingly.
I readily admit that there is still room for improvement, but there is good will for this on our part.
On the revenue side in the past year, the Community has continued to lose billions from both customs duties and value added tax.
In the case of customs duties, this is partly due to the fact there is still insufficient cooperation between national customs authorities.
The possibilities of modern information technology are not being adequately exploited.
Every Member State has its own risk analysis methods, which produce different results.
The Member States' lack of interest in pursuing this more vigorously is all the more surprising when one considers that uncollected customs revenue has to be offset in the budget by higher contributions from the Member States.
I would therefore appeal to the Member States to attach greater importance to collecting customs duties correctly, in their own interest.
In the case of value added tax, as I said, huge amounts are being lost.
Model calculations have shown that in the years 1991 to 1993 - on a basis of nine Member States - the amount underpaid on average every year was ECU 70 billion.
It is true that this is happening in the Member States, but it has a direct impact on the European Union.
We still have the unsatisfactory situation that the country of destination principle applies in the single market, whereby the goods are outside the tax system from the place of origin until they reach their destination, which of course offers tempting opportunities for irregularities.
On the expenditure side, following the structure of the budget, we have once again concentrated our efforts on agricultural and structural policy.
On the agricultural policy, we have presented a number of special reports, for example on the BSE disease in cows, and on the closure of accounts.
In the annual report itself, we tackle the question of durum wheat, amongst other things.
Why? Because this is a cereal which is particularly heavily subsidised.
For durum wheat, not only is the normal aid per hectare paid, but an additional aid which is only justifiable in political terms.
Had the same criteria that apply to other cereals been applied to durum wheat, more than ECU 3 billion in subsidies could have been saved over a four-year period.
We dealt in a special report with the exports of New Zealand dairy products to the United Kingdom.
Certain quotas of New Zealand milk and cheese may, in fact, be exported from New Zealand to the United Kingdom on preferential terms, provided that it meets certain criteria, including in particular a specified fat content.
As we established, the import conditions were not always complied with, leading to a reduction of Community revenue by some ECU 410 million.
Much of this revenue can no longer be claimed, but around ECU 110 million is still recoverable, and we have called on the Commission to pursue the matter.
So much for that area of the agricultural policy.
As you know, the Court is strongly committed to environmental policy. It was recently awarded the 'Europäisches Naturerbe ' prize for its work in this area.
In a special report, we point out that among the 40 000 sewage plants in operation in the EU, some of which have received EU assistance, there are some serious shortcomings.
A third of the plants in Belgium and as many as half of those in Italy are in need of repair.
Above all, we established that a good many sewage plants were not even put into service initially, because the operators did not have the money to cover the operating costs or lacked the technical know-how.
This is something that must be considered, since between now and the year 2005, a further 40 000 plants are to be constructed.
We also took a critical look at the support for renewable energy sources under the JOULE-Thermie programme.
Amongst other things, we established that the Commission had used more than 50 % of the staff posts earmarked for the programme in other areas of expenditure.
At the same time, we discovered cases where Commission staff involved in management decisions were exposed to major conflicts of interest, in particular because these staff had previously worked elsewhere, something which must be looked at in connection with the placing of orders.
We all know that, time and again, the European Union is faced with new challenges.
This is often a difficult task for the Commission, when it is called upon to respond rapidly to heavy demands imposed upon it at short notice. Humanitarian aid is one example of this, to which we devoted a special report which appeared in March last year.
In 1991, it was decided that, for the period 1992 to 1997, some ECU 4 billion would be made available for this purpose.
More than ECU 3 billion has already been spent. The aid has indeed reached the people in need of it.
The problem lies in the Commission's central unit for managing humanitarian aid, known as ECHO.
In our special report last year, we had already pointed out that the staff policy regarding outside personnel in particular in this department was not transparent.
We asked for further information in writing from the Commission. This information was not satisfactory.
You are all only too well aware of the debate which then flared up under the catchword 'U-boats'.
It is not only with ECHO that there are problems with external staff, however, but also with the PHARE, TACIS and MED programmes, where some of the operating appropriations may be used for programme support, i.e. for outside experts.
The figure - known as the 'Liikanen facility' after my neighbour here, Commissioner Liikanen - is 2 % for PHARE, 3.5 % for TACIS and 3 % for MED.
Our initial inquiries have shown that these figures were exceeded by more than twice as much.
I would ask Parliament to give some critical attention to this matter, so that proper order is restored.
As you know, the PHARE and TACIS activities also include nuclear safety.
In the last week, we have adopted a special report on this which has now been published.
In this report, we have established some significant things.
It should first be pointed out that, since 1990, the Community has provided some ECU 850 million for nuclear safety in Central and Eastern Europe.
To this aid provided by the European Union must be added the further aid which the international community has made available, in particular through the G7 and G24. And in addition there are the loans granted by the EBRD in London.
What complaints do we have?
Of the ECU 850 million made available, only ECU 300 million has been spent so far.
This is an indication that this policy is not being pursued with the necessary determination and rigour.
We criticise the fact that the G7 and G24 activities are being inadequately coordinated by the Commission.
The Commission points out that it is not exclusively responsible for this, but it must nevertheless be clear that it has to coordinate these activities.
We are critical of the fact that the Commission has no definite policy on the decommissioning of older nuclear power plants and the disposal of radioactive waste.
I think this is a very important point.
Another criticism is that, of the money provided for technical assistance, about one third, in other words ECU 200 million, was spent directly, i.e. without any open tendering.
With the best will in the world, it was not possible at the end of last year to form a definite judgement on how the Commission's efforts to improve nuclear safety in Central and Eastern Europe should be assessed.
I would appeal urgently to you, as political decision-makers - but also to the Commission and the Council - to devote appropriate attention to this extremely important task, which is ticking away like a time bomb.
We are now constantly being asked what progress we are making in uncovering fraud involving European funds.
On this point, I would like to take the precaution of defining our position for you once again.
We in the Court of Auditors are required to consider whether the principles of legality, regularity and sound financial management are being met.
This means that we are not a criminal investigation department, nor a police force.
However, we do pay particular attention to areas of risk which we select using specific criteria.
In other words, we see our task above all as preventing fraud, helping to ensure that it does not occur, and developing ideas which make fraud unattractive in the first place.
If we do encounter actual cases of fraud or irregularities in carrying out our normal auditing tasks, we naturally work together with the national criminal investigation authorities - as well as UCLAF - so that matters take their proper course.
In the field of tourism, for example, we are working with the criminal investigation departments of several countries, and in the case I have just mentioned, the 'New Zealand Dairy Report', we are cooperating with the British authorities, that goes without saying.
We also audit UCLAF, since UCLAF is also a department of the Commission.
A few weeks ago, we presented a report on it which met with an appropriate response from you, for which I should like to thank the House.
Amongst other things, we criticise the fact that the UCLAF databases are incomplete and therefore not fully usable.
It is not clear who actually has access to these databases, and that is of course a question of security.
Half the UCLAF employees are on short-term contracts, so that when people have settled in they leave again and important knowledge is lost.
Because the databases are not fully usable, it is sometimes not possible to recover sums which the Community should be able to recover.
It is also not clear what powers UCLAF has within the Commission itself, given that it has no powers in other institutions.
This needs to be clarified by the Commission.
We have taken careful note that a debate has started here in the House on the subject of OLAF.
Your aim here is to extend and develop the powers of UCLAF.
You have also looked at the question of whether a separate institution should be created.
We have followed all this very carefully, especially since you base some of your arguments on our own report.
We in the Court of Auditors believe - and here we agree with you - that the Community institutions can of course develop their administration and their organisation further.
That is in accordance with the Treaties and does not infringe the rights of the Member States, and to that extent we in the Court can imagine that the independence of UCLAF could well be increased if it were to be given a position of independence in the form of OLAF roughly similar to that of the Financial Controller at the Commission.
But that is your decision!
We are of course ready to work with any unit that is created by the legislative authority.
As you know, the Court of Auditors is repeatedly asked to provide opinions on proposed measures.
Any institution can ask us to produce a report, especially on measures which affect the budget.
The latest comprehensive opinion of this kind dealt with Agenda 2000.
We were asked for such an opinion by the Council. In this, of course, we also address the agricultural policy as it is envisaged for the future by the Commission.
As you know, the Commission is proposing to reduce the guarantee prices for beef by 30 %, for cereals by 20 % and for milk by 10 %.
My impression is that the Commission drew up these plans at a time when the full extent of the crises in Asia, Russia and Latin America had still not been recognised.
In the meantime, it has become clear that, because of the crises in these regions, purchasing power for European agricultural products has fallen.
To prevent surplus stocks being created and the associated export refunds and storage costs, it would be more sensible to cut the guarantee prices more sharply than the Commission has proposed, but as a counter-move to place greater emphasis on direct aid.
As you know, the Commission is proposing to reduce direct aid above ECU 100 000 by 20 % and above ECU 200 000 by 25 %.
We would ask whether, in view of the fact that 80 % of the direct aid is paid to 20 % of the agricultural holdings, it would not be more sensible to put a cap on direct aid over ECU 100 000, for example, as we have indicated.
The Commission has assumed that no direct aid is to be paid to the new Member States which are to join the Union.
We in the Court of Auditors take the view that this appears unrealistic, and have therefore proposed that, as a precaution, direct aid for the future Member States should be included in the calculations.
This would mean that ECU 3.3 billion would have to be entered in the budget annually in connection with the future Member States.
With regard to structural aid, we are largely in agreement with the Commission.
We think it is right that Community structural assistance should be implemented in more concentrated form.
We think it right that a 10 % reserve should be created for the countries that perform particularly well.
We also think it is right, and this is a very important point, that appropriations should automatically lapse if they do not give rise to payments within a specified time.
We believe this to be very significant; it means that the Commission's approach on structural aid - and, I would add, perhaps also with a view to creating more jobs - to a large extent coincides with our judgement.
I would also like to confirm that the relationship between commitments and payments has become very good and sensible.
However, that is not the real problem with structural aid.
The problem is as follows: it was decided at the Edinburgh summit to spend some ECU 175 billion on structural aid under the various Funds. Of this amount, however, only ECU 85 billion has been spent so far, in other words more than ECU 90 billion is still waiting to be disbursed.
To this can be added another ECU 5 billion from the previous programming period, and it is an illusion to think that this sum of ECU 95 billion might still be spent in the two remaining years of this programming period.
These payments will have to be made in the years that follow.
Let me briefly mention to you the widening and deepening of our cooperation with national audit institutions.
This is more than just a formal process, because it ensures that the arguments of the Member States which are audited are included with more emphasis in our reports.
A few days ago, the heads of the institutions of all 15 EU Member States visited us to coordinate this work, and at the beginning of the year a conference took place in Warsaw with the heads of the East European audit institutions, under the chairmanship of the Polish audit institution and the European Court of Auditors.
As a result, I can tell you that the structures for cooperation between the East European audit institutions are now similar to those we have within the EU.
This is important because they will be our future colleagues in Central and Eastern Europe, and because these East European audit institutions will increasingly have the right to audit European Union resources on the spot.
In conclusion, may I offer our thanks for the excellent cooperation we have had with Parliament.
On behalf of the Court, I would like to thank, in particular, the Committee on Budgetary Control under its active, wise and intelligent chairman Mrs Diemut Theato, together with the rapporteur responsible for us, Mr Brinkhorst.
Finally, I would like to thank all of you who have listened to me here at this early hour of the morning.
(Applause) Let me add one further point. This year too, we are also presenting a statement of assurance for the general budget and the European Development Funds.
Contrary to the practice of previous years, we have not quantified the irregularities which we established; we are thus presenting a qualified statement of assurance rather than a quantified one.
We want to avoid quoting percentages that might lead to misinterpretation.
In general, I can say that this year's statement of assurance for the general budget essentially draws the same conclusions as it has done in previous years.
This means that, apart from the continuing problems with the recording of fixed assets, debts and liquid assets, the Court believes that the accounts for the 1997 financial year reliably reflect the Community's revenue and expenditure for the year and the financial situation at the end of the year.
The transactions underlying the revenue are, taken as a whole, legal and regular.
In the case of customs duties and agricultural levies, however, no assurance can be given as to whether all taxable imports have actually been declared and have generated the corresponding revenue.
In the Court's opinion, the transactions underlying the commitments are also, taken as a whole, legal and regular, although some commitments were effected either without budgetary authorisation or without a legal base.
As regards the transactions underlying the payments, however, the Court is again, as in previous years, unable to given any positive assurance, as they are affected by too many irregularities.
The statement of assurance for the Sixth and Seventh European Development Funds for the year 1997, on the other hand, is, on the whole, essentially positive, and that also includes the transactions underlying the payments.
Thank you very much for that additional comment, Mr Friedmann.
Mrs Wemheuer has the floor.
Mr President, President Friedmann, you know that staffing policy was one of the five points which caused the European Parliament to postpone the discharge for 1996.
I mention this because staffing policy is referred to in almost all of your reports.
One extreme example is the case of ECHO, which involved falsification of contracts.
I say that it is an extreme case, but issues such as mini-budgets, exceeding the limit of the Liikanen facility, which you have just mentioned, and combinations of interests arise again and again, and the same applies to transferring too much authority to external personnel, with all the consequences that follow both in financial and political terms.
In the report on nuclear safety you wrote that such measures even undermine the credibility and authority of the Commission.
It is therefore a very broad area.
However, I believe it is not merely a question of staffing policy, but that it also has financial repercussions.
I therefore have two questions.
Firstly, to allow us to assess the situation, could you summarise for us from all the special reports what your opinion is of the Commission's staffing policy?
Secondly, can we expect a report on this specific issue, or can we call upon you to provide this?
Mr President, as always, it is a great pleasure to listen to President Friedmann's presentation of the accounts - this time for 1997.
Over the coming months we will have an opportunity of discussing in greater depth all the detailed points and, quite clearly, it is important to note that a number of improvements have taken place.
In the few minutes available, I wish to concentrate on a very central point which should be emphasized more in the future.
President Friedmann rightly states that enormous responsibility lies with the Member States both for resources and for expenditure.
One hundred per cent of resources come from the Member States.
He stated just now that 40 years on the Community Member States' customs authorities still do not cooperate.
He states also that on the issue of VAT, 70 billion - nearly the total amount of the budget of the Community - is not collected by the Member States. That means that 80 % of expenditure is also spent by the Member States.
The various cases he mentions - durum wheat, New Zealand butter, environment policy - all relate to lack of action in that area.
I am very happy to hear him say that cooperation with the national courts of auditors has improved.
But I would like to make more specific points.
Could the Court of Auditors enter into specific agreements with the national courts of auditors so that they perform tasks on behalf of the European Community budget, too? I know that there are all kinds of constitutional problems - sensitivity, national pride, and what have you - but if the figures he indicates even approximate reality, it is intolerable that the Community is still a lame duck as far as the Member States are concerned.
The general public's perception is that the Community is squandering money, that the European Union does not do its duty, whether it is on nuclear safety, the environment or agriculture.
But, in fact, a large amount of responsibility lies with the Member States.
I call on the President here and Commissioner Liikanen to make it clearer to the outside world that only if Member States are ready to overcome old-fashioned ideas about national sovereignty can we really have significant improvement in terms of the environment, nuclear safety and fraud.
This is the central point.
I would like the President to elaborate on this specific point because it will be relevant for the whole of next year when we discuss this specific declaration of assurance.
Mr President, I was very interested in the section of the Court's report relating to own resources, because this debate is at the heart of the political problems that are going to be mentioned and that are already being mentioned within the European Council on the future financing of the Union.
The findings are incredible: the Court of Auditors shows that, since the last audit, the amount of revenue lost has doubled to ECU 70 billion.
That is an overall assessment.
However, we would be extremely interested to know, Mr President of the Court, if the Court can tell us whether or not this sum of ECU 70 billion is spread evenly and fairly between the various Member States. In other words, are certain Member States more at fault than others in terms of the collection of the own resources of the European Union?
If this is the case - as I happen to believe it is - I imagine that this fact would certainly be politically very difficult to demonstrate. Nevertheless, it would be very useful for Members when assessing the discussions that are going to take place within the Council, particularly if certain countries put forward the concept of net balance.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my thanks for the presentation of the Court of Auditors report.
I was particularly interested in the chapter on foreign policy.
As you know, in deciding to postpone the discharge for 1996 we paid particular attention to the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes.
I have now read the new Court of Auditors report for 1997, bearing in mind our criticism from 1996, 1995 and also 1994, because I wanted to know whether there is any improvement in how our money is managed in the area of foreign policy.
The new report for 1997 has confirmed my opinion that the Commission obviously still finds it difficult - and I am saying this from a completely neutral point of view - to take action on the problems it discovers in the large PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes, action that would enable us to say that things really will be better next year.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission: why should Parliament believe that the assurances that next year will bring an improvement really will come true?
Mr President, Mr Friedmann should not be surprised if the House is hardly full to bursting, and also if there are spaces in the press gallery: it is because, once again, we have read much more of this report in the newspapers over the past few days than we have heard here from the horse's mouth today.
The first remark I would make, therefore, is that the Court of Auditors - from where leaked information often gives a partial picture of its reports - should pay more attention to this aspect, which is important if it is true that reports should be produced to the public here in this forum.
Mr Friedmann, you quite rightly referred several times to the question of staffing and to ECHO, and you have good cause to do so.
Parliament has discussed and approved your report on ECHO, and indeed we approved a document of yours at the beginning of this year.
If we are correctly informed, although you state in your report that the Commission does not grant sufficient resources, it is the world's leading donor. I believe that your report refers to external staff as one tangible problem.
Well, all I would say - and I hope you will agree, because your neighbour can certainly pass you the latest figures - is that we are not talking here about ECHO submarines; what we, and perhaps the Court too, should be considering is an entire fleet of U-boats.
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, the annual report for the 1997 financial year mentions the existence of an audit concerning a sample of 100 information and communication projects implemented by the Commission.
A special report, Report No 23, is in the pipeline.
We are looking forward to receiving it, but the Court does, however, make several comments regarding the budgetary heading B3-300.
On one page, and one page only, it makes a number of criticisms about the lack of specific objectives and the lack of an appropriate system to monitor and assess the impact of the objectives involved.
It notes that certain projects that have benefited from financial support from the Community budget have no demonstrable link with information policy activities.
Indeed, for many years, our group has constantly condemned the lack of transparency, consistency and democracy in what the European Union calls its 'information policy'.
That is why I would like to ask the following question: what type of precise recommendation does the Court intend to make to the Commission so that it puts an end to the ideological drifts that are characteristic of headings B3-300 and B3-306?
And more precisely, what exactly does the Court mean when it refers to 'equal treatment of final beneficiaries' and 'a policy and financial planning framework in order to define the overall objectives of information policy'? These are the very terms used in the report that suggest that changes are needed to put an end to these problems.
Mr President, the European Court of Auditors points out that in terms of external actions, the European Union has become one of the largest donors in the world with a total of ECU 6 billion, or almost FRF 40 billion.
But your report, Mr Friedman, highlights serious shortcomings, particularly in public procurement procedures, the quality of contractors and, finally, the follow-up procedures for the actions.
This being the case, do you not think that there is a serious risk, particularly in certain countries such as those of the former Soviet Union, that Community aid, rather than helping the people, only in fact serves to increase corruption and the power of the mafias? Would it not therefore be wise to reduce this type of aid, which can do more harm than good, and wait for proper control procedures that guarantee that Community aid is used effectively and honestly?
Mr President, I welcome Mr Friedmann and thank him and the Court of Auditors for their report.
Would he agree with me if I suggested to him that the rather alarmist headlines of £3 billion fraud are not borne out by the annual report and the accompanying special reports?
I am sure he will understand if I concentrate the rest of my remarks on the revenue side of the budget.
The first thing I would say to him - and I hope he accepts it in the spirit in which it is said - is that it is not really the Court of Auditors' responsibility to challenge the Fontainebleau Agreement on the United Kingdom budgetary rebate.
Any change to the own-resources decision will require unanimity in the Council between the parties involved and the Court of Auditors will not be one of those parties.
Concerning the own-resources side of the budget, would he agree with me that it is an extremely serious picture that is painted?
In traditional own-resources we see evidence of the difficulty of collection and the propensity to fraud.
But when we look at the very valuable analysis that has been done on VAT collection in the Member States, we see this alarming figure of a gap between the theoretical VAT yield and the actual collection running at ECU 70 000m a year.
That not only has an effect on Member States but also on the GNP and VAT based receipts.
Finally, it is reasonable to say - and I hope Mr Friedmann agrees with me - that there should be no substantial increase in own resources until all income is collected and until we can be reassured that all revenue is not only legal but is properly, efficiently and effectively spent.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Friedmann and the other members of the Court of Auditors present in the gallery for being here today.
I believe that the procedure for granting discharge for 1996, which has not yet been granted by Parliament, is excellent proof of the importance of the Court of Auditors' reports in this area.
In any case, this discharge will result in important methods and tools becoming available to Parliament in terms of the financial control of other institutions, notably the Commission. In particular, these will involve the ability to request documents and other relevant information.
Mr President of the Court of Auditors, I should like to comment on the section on Structural Funds and put some questions to you in that connection.
The Court has consistently criticised the large number of administrative irregularities in structural expenditure.
You point out that there is very little coordination between the Member States and the Court you so ably preside.
You hope to receive from the Member States in 1998 the first reports on the implementation of the regulation unifying the Member States' provisions for financial control in operations cofinanced by the Structural Funds.
Have you received these reports yet? And if so, what is your assessment of them?
You have also presented very detailed conclusions as to the number and nature of substantive errors in the Structural Funds.
However, this seems to contradict your statements on the lack of coordination on the part of Member States.
I would repeat the argument I have put forward in previous years: in my view, it is impossible to produce a reliable estimate if you do not have a well-established coordination procedure involving the national control institutions.
I would therefore like to ask: has progress been made? Is this coordination currently taking place?
Finally, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, I should like to point out that the majority of Structural Funds are actually allocated during this last part of the programming period.
This does not seem to me to be clear from your remarks, and could perhaps lead to confusion amongst some of the more naive Members of the House.
Mr President of the Court of Auditors, the Edinburgh Council decided upon a multi-annual programming of expenditure until the financial perspective expires at the end of 1999.
According to the Court's audit, ECU 70 billion have not yet been spent.
Why is there this delay?
Is it mismanagement by the Commission?
Or is it that the Member States are implementing, through Structural Fund expenditure, the policy known, in French, as the policy of the juste retour ? Which Member States could be picked out as the bad pupils?
In my view, the Edinburgh Agreement should be honoured since maintaining the structural actions allowed by those Funds is the key to balance in southern Europe. To end with, I have one more question: can those ECU 70 billion still be used or not?
Mr President, we should be happy that only ECU 300 million were spent of the total ECU 850 million of PHARE and TACIS funds made available for nuclear safety, because 80 % of the money was scandalously spent on safety studies of dubious value, simply on paperwork.
On top of that, it stayed in Western hands without any proper methodology, evaluation or consultation, and without the eastern European countries being informed of the results of the studies.
What this amounts to is simply money down the drain, and we have not even achieved the slightest improvement in safety as a result.
That is the true scandal, and here I would like to hear from the Commission how it intends to put a stop to such situations in future.
Secondly, I would like to give an example of how money is wasted. For the purpose of a rather dubious investigation a study costing ECU 170 000 was undertaken to preserve the Siberian tiger.
The study was carried out in Italy, filed away and forgotten about, and it was concluded that the tiger would simply die out.
So that was the end of that.
Something else could have been done with this money.
This is how the Commission wastes money on studies which do not lead to any action bring taken.
I would therefore like to know what will be done in the near future with the ECU 550 million that we have left for nuclear safety, and whether we will continue to have studies of dubious value without any action being taken as a result.
Mr President, it is surely amazing that the president of the Court of Auditors has to report on the loss of millions by the Commission.
The Commission, while allowing this to happen, adopts an entirely different attitude to the pig producers of Northern Ireland.
The devastated pig producers there have had to have a financially-assisted scheme to remove unwanted animals from their farms.
Now the Commission says that the farmers must repay this money which prevented cruelty to animals.
The Commission allows millions to be lost but has no consideration for those in the most desperate circumstances.
I would put on record today the call of those of us in this House who are from Northern Ireland to stop increasing the desperation of our pig producers.
Already some of have become so desperate that they have been driven to suicide.
Mr President, when I received the Court of Auditors' annual report yesterday, I read it with great interest.
As a Dane, I was naturally interested in what it had to say about Denmark.
I have read the report countless times overnight, but I cannot find anything about Denmark in it.
Of course, I am glad that we are doing things properly in our country.
It is always good to be able to take that as a starting-point.
I noted that there have been a number of special reports, and I would like to say that one of them which really made an impression on me is the one which has featured in the press for the last fortnight and deals with safety in nuclear power plants.
I would like to ask Mr Friedmann, and also Mr Liikanen and the Commission, not just to focus on nuclear power plants in the eastern countries.
We should perhaps also be looking at the situation in Murmansk, where there are several hundred submarines which have been scrapped but still have active reactors, and where a number of reactors have been dumped in the Barents Sea.
I really do think that we need to have a special report on this area, and I think that instead of going on talking about these things and employing expensive consultants and a good deal more besides, we should employ people ourselves and send them out there to start the necessary process.
That naturally requires there to be cooperation with the Member States.
I know that is difficult, but we must do something about this.
The greatest time bomb that we have is the nuclear power plants and the submarines which are lying around.
All the other small-scale fraud which is happening round about should also be addressed, but it must not be our top priority.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Friedmann and the Court on their best-seller report again this year.
When he presented it last night to the Budgetary Control Committee the room was full - people were perched on windows and tables and even sitting on the floor.
Of course the media were there looking for the 'f' word but fraud is scrupulously not mentioned in the report.
I was disappointed particularly by the phrase that 'substantive errors affecting transaction underlying payments' was in the same range as in previous years.
I take some encouragement from the postscript to President Friedmann's speech this morning where he said that there was some improvement.
That is what we are looking for - improvement.
In paragraph 1.18 there is a quotation from the transit report where we called for the Community customs services to work together as if they were one.
The gaps between them provide this figure of about 70 billion lost to the Member States in a year, 35 to 40 times the amount which is actually defrauded from the EC budget. I wish finance ministers would take note of this.
I am interested in Chapter 6 on administration.
Thank you for the various reports we have had from the agencies.
You mentioned specifically Turin and the fact that ECU 380m from PHARE and TACIS spent by that agency is not included in their accounts.
One hopes that it is hidden somewhere in the Commission accounts.
As for the schools, I would point out that the fact that four of the schools have more external pupils than Community pupils poses a problem.
I wonder if we should transfer some of the cash to overcrowded schools in other places.
Madam President, President Friedmann, ladies and gentlemen, on the subject of UCLAF, you consider the creation of an additional institution to combat fraud to be problematic, as you said last week at our interparliamentary conference and again yesterday.
However, we have heard that this is precisely what is currently being prepared by the Commission.
A proposal for a regulation on the basis of Article 235 of the EC Treaty on creating an external assessment agency, as it is called, is evidently in the process of being drafted by the Commission.
The Commission is giving the false impression that in doing so it is complying with Parliament's request to create an OLAF, an office for fraud prevention.
I would like to make it clear that this is not the case, Commissioner Liikanen.
What Parliament called for with a large majority at the beginning of October was not an additional institution.
Instead, we want the current UCLAF to be replaced by an office of fraud prevention with full operational independence, but not one that is a satellite organisation somewhere outside the institutions of the EU.
An external solution is not valid as long as we do not have a European public prosecution authority.
No, OLAF should remain within the Commission and all other institutions of the Union should be involved in it.
I would now like to ask you, President Friedmann, whether it could be of interest to the Court of Auditors to be involved in an office of this kind and to contribute its experience.
Has the Court of Auditors formed an opinion on this yet?
Madam President, I would like to discuss the planning and implementation of actions in the field of external aid.
The scale of Community activities in this area has in recent years increased continuously in both political and financial terms. Moreover, neither the extent nor the importance of these activities will decrease in the coming years.
Following the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, in fact, the opposite is to be expected.
The content of the Court of Auditors' annual report is therefore all the more worrying as it has found considerable shortcomings in all phases of preparation, implementation and assessment of the actions by the Commission.
The cost/benefit outcome currently falls far short of its potential, and it is not clear whether restructuring measures within the Commission, for example the creation of a common service for all external aid and ECHO, can solve all these management problems.
Unfortunately, as we have already seen, while the creation of a separate common service results in improvement of management capacities, it also distances political and economic services from the implementation of policies.
The question I would like to ask the Court of Auditors is the following: is the Court of Auditors of the opinion that the creation of the common service RELEX will result in significant improvements or is it necessary, particularly in view of the future tasks of the Union in this area, to think of completely new solutions?
Madam President, thank you very much for the many very interesting questions.
Mrs Wemheuer - and this also fits in with what Mrs Krehl has just said - you expressed criticism about staffing policy.
On the one hand, it is astonishing that the administrative costs of the European Union represent in total approximately 5 % of the budget, including personnel expenditure.
But this does not say much as European Union policy must be implemented by the administrations of the Member States.
As you know, Mrs Wemheuer, we referred some time ago to fact that the mini-budgets used at the time were to be heavily criticised.
Parliament kindly took control and resolved the matter by granting the Commission a generous number of posts for permanent staff.
In the meantime, however, it has emerged that, despite this, more of the operational budget is once again being spent on a decentralised staffing policy and in particular on employing external consultants and experts.
This was why I criticised these Liikanen facilities whose limit is being exceeded.
In this respect I share your concern about the Commission's staffing policy.
I will discuss with the members of the Court whether and to what extent we could examine this in a special report and how it would fit into our schedule.
Mrs Theato, thank you for your comments.
I appreciate that you wish to receive the annual report earlier.
The actual problem is the time needed for the contradictory procedure, though the period agreed does not even take account of the summer recess.
We must enter into intensive talks with the Commission, as we discussed yesterday in the Committee on Budgetary Control, in order to clarify to what extent this period can be reduced and the Financial Regulation amended accordingly.
Mr Brinkhorst, it is clear why you place importance on cooperation with the national courts of auditors.
We have developed a particular procedure whereby we write a sectoral letter when our auditors come back from the Member States; this means that the relevant auditing sector writes to the Member State and to the relevant national court of auditors in order to inform them of the results.
The Member State can then reply to us, usually via the national court of auditors, and if we do not reply to this within two months it means that we are in agreement with the Member State's reply.
Therefore, if each party meets its deadline the arguments of the country being audited are taken into account in our annual report and in the special reports.
Mr Pasty, like several of your colleagues, you referred to the ECU 70 billion that have been lost in VAT revenue.
This figure of 70 billion refers to the model calculations based on nine Member States and is the annual average over four years.
We calculated it by adding up the VAT actually paid and comparing this figure with the sum of the Member States' total gross national product.
This gives an indication of the sum not paid.
We can also account for this in detail, but of course the Member States are the first to be affected by this loss, and obviously the Community is indirectly affected by it to a certain extent.
To give you an idea of the magnitude of this I could say that the sum lost by the Member States in the form of VAT revenue is in the order of the budget of the European Union.
Mrs Müller, on the issue of foreign policy and the question of whether the situation is improving, I have to say quite honestly that we cannot give the all-clear.
We always provide timely information on everything, but we cannot say that currently everything is exactly as it should be.
Mr Dell'Alba, I understand your anger regarding the newspaper reports. However, I must make two points here.
Firstly, many newspaper reports simply rehash the special reports already published officially by us.
Sometimes the impression is given that the annual report has been leaked, but I am not aware of any incident of this kind.
However, I understand your concern, and we in the European Court of Auditors generally agree that Parliament has the right to be the first to be informed.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you addressed the issue of information policy.
We have referred to a few points in that area.
The content of the information policy is outside our jurisdiction.
We do not see it as our job to censor the information the Commission feels it has to provide, but we insist that the delegations, or whoever may be concerned, must be capable of meeting their responsibilities.
Mr Le Gallou, the question is whether we should reduce humanitarian aid if, as we say, so much money does not actually reach the people concerned.
This is a political issue but in my personal opinion I would ask you to bear in mind that it is probably the very poorest who have to suffer as a result of others not being honest.
That should be taken into account in this decision.
Lord Tomlinson, you stated that British press reports of fraud in the order of three billion pounds are not borne out by the content of our annual report.
We deliberately mention irregularities, as you know, and I should make it clear - here we are in agreement - that the report of the European Court of Auditors is not a fraud report; rather, we check for legality, regularity and sound financial management, and the content of the report reflects this.
I understand your reference to the Fontainebleau Agreement as a UK Member of Parliament.
We addressed this issue in our special report on the Community's own resources.
We do not regard it as our job to tell the political powers how possible changes should be made to the contributions paid by the Member States.
However, we did note that it had been arranged in Fontainebleau that should adjustments be decided on for political reasons, then expenditure policy too must be changed.
Mr Garriga Polledo, you mentioned the Structural Funds and asked whether we received reports from the Member States and how coordination with the Member States works.
In fact, we exchange views continuously with the Member States, particularly in the area of structural aid.
The issue of why this delay has arisen in the programming period was touched on later; one of your colleagues also mentioned it.
I must say that at the beginning of the programming period a certain amount of time is always needed for work to get properly underway.
We are seeing this at the moment with the new Member States, with the result that at the end of the programming period a backlog tends to build up.
However, the problem of co-financing in the Member States was doubtless partly responsible for this, as when we request co-financing the Member States are often obliged to incur additional debts.
We must understand that this was not easy in the run-up to monetary union.
So it is a combination of several factors that account for the delay.
In my opinion, the money will have to be paid via the budget outside the programming period.
Mr Rosado Fernandes, you mentioned Edinburgh and asked why there has been a delay over the ECU 90 billion.
I hope I answered this question together with that of Mr Garriga Polledo.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, you addressed the issue of nuclear safety.
The way in which companies have awarded subcontracts is indeed a problem.
Some contractors have taken the price of Western experts as the basis for the terms specified in the contracts, but in fact employed east European experts to do the work.
The fees of Western experts are about fifteen times higher than those of their east European counterparts.
But you are right, and I think this is the opinion of the entire House: a nuclear safety strategy is urgently needed and should be given priority.
Mr Blak, you mentioned that there is a big problem with submarines in Murmansk.
As you know, this is a military issue that is not within the direct jurisdiction of the European Court of Auditors.
We can only audit in connection with the EU budget - we have already discussed this in the Court of Auditors, and I will bring it up once again - but I must first remind you that these submarines in Murmansk are a military matter, with which we are not directly involved.
I understand your concern, and we will discuss this again.
You also mentioned that in Denmark everything is in order.
Mr Blak, I am pleased that you believe you can draw this conclusion, but the fact that we do not criticise something does not mean that everything is in order.
That is obvious.
Mr Kellett-Bowman, you are right to say that the Community loses considerable customs revenue in transit traffic.
You are also right to say that the European Schools have more external pupils than children of EU staff, and in view of the high deficit this is a point that needs to be clarified.
We have also referred to this in the relevant special report.
Mr Bösch, your question concerning whether we would be prepared to accept OLAF being affiliated to the European Court of Auditors in some way was a very difficult one.
It must be clear that the nature of the tasks involved is quite different.
I repeat, and on this we are in agreement, that the European Court of Auditors is not a criminal investigation department or a police force.
There is a good reason for this, as much of our auditing leads to consultation work.
I also appreciate your idea that if an independent unit of this kind is to be responsible for all the institutions without becoming a new institution itself, you need an existing institution to which you can affiliate OLAF.
I can only say in this discussion that the nature of the task is not the same; it is quite different.
You will have to make the political decision, and the Court of Auditors will have to accept what is decided by the legislator.
In conclusion, Mrs Krehl, I believe I have already answered your question on creating a separate common service, on staffing policy and administration.
Finally, I would like to thank you all very much for your keen interest.
(Applause)
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
Employment in the Union
The next item is the report (A4-0417/98) by Mr Wim van Velzen, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission communication: Proposal for guidelines for Member States' employment policies 1999 (COM(98)0574 - C4-0587/98).
Madam President, looking at what has happened a year on from when the first guidelines were drawn up, I think we can rightly speak of a quiet revolution.
Initial opposition to an active labour market policy and the near-total belief in EMU and the jobs it would create have actually disappeared.
There is not one Member State which has failed to take on board the guidelines agreed in Luxembourg. That is an extremely good thing.
But things could be even better.
If we look at the evaluation carried out by the Commission, and it is a first-class evaluation, you will see that the Member States' approach to the guidelines has been one of picking and choosing and that often the choice they have made has been unbalanced, placing too much emphasis on employment and entrepreneurship.
At the same time, however, it might be said that those guidelines which were the most precisely, most exactly formulated have also produced the best results, and that is an argument for continuing with the strategy.
But I do have a problem with the proposals put forward by the European Commission.
I do not think they keep the process in a sharp enough focus. By sharp focus, I mean ensuring that quantified objectives are as far as possible based on benchmarking.
That is the best way of keeping the Member States' minds on the job.
I have no sympathy at all for those Member States which say 'we already have so much to do; let us cut down a bit, let us not have any new objectives'.
The work we are adding is all work which they have to do in the normal course of events.
We are just trying to target it at European level towards common goals which we have previously defined.
The current process, developed in Luxembourg, focuses strongly on people already out of work - quite properly, as things stood at the time.
I think it is now time to look also at how, whilst helping the unemployed, we can stop more and more unemployed people from joining them.
How can we get more attention paid to prevention?
This, in my view, will have enormous implications for education.
Hence my request for an additional objective for those who are now employed but who need further training to make sure they stay abreast of new developments.
Another problem which I myself feel is not taken into account enough in the objectives is participation in the work process.
There are large groups for whom it remains difficult to break into the labour market, even in my own country of the Netherlands, which is reckoned to be successful.
In the Netherlands you find older people over 55, you find migrants and still women too who have trouble finding work.
It is no different in other countries of the Union.
That is just employment policy, not unimportant - far from it - but it is just one side of the coin. The other side is this: what are we doing on the economic front?
What are we doing about economic coordination? What are we doing to deepen the process begun with EMU?
What use are we making of these opportunities?
I think the moment for making a start has long since passed. But given the fact that we are now debating this report, I think we must urge the Council to produce, as quickly as possible, a framework in which economic coordination can really take shape.
Other speakers will cover this in more depth.
At this point, I would mention an aspect touched on earlier by the Commission, namely the fact that there is a large measure of under-investment in Europe.
Where are the Commission's plans, its proposals for tackling that problem? Where are the opportunities for broadening the financial initiatives taken at Member State level?
In my country - as I said just now - we seem to have been successful. A decision has been taken there to cut back the programme for giving school children more computer-oriented education, due to shortage of funds, and now there are one or two pioneering schools which will get computers whilst all the rest will have to wait years before they get them.
A laughable investment failure!
So in an area where we ought to be investing in the future, one of the European countries with the best record is unable to come up with the cash.
I think that should prompt the Council to reflect about what we can do to give Member States more room for manoeuvre.
I am not coming down in favour of one proposal rather than the other.
It is a package of proposals, and I think we have to choose very carefully here.
Lastly, I am very surprised by the PPE Group's amendments I have seen, admittedly very late, because we have very little time.
They have retabled all the amendments they had originally tabled in the Social Affairs Committee.
May I remind you that the PPE coordinator volunteered the information during the part-session that I had done an excellent job by incorporating their proposals into my report, that there was still just one difference of opinion remaining which concerned investment policy, but that otherwise he was very happy.
Now all the amendments are being put down again unseen, even those which are already in my report. I find that incomprehensible.
I hope I can reach a more satisfactory resolution of this with the PPE Group, because I think it is putting our future cooperation in jeopardy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in two minutes it is hard to summarise the opinion I drafted for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and which was unanimously approved.
The basic idea was that the creation of jobs, a higher rate of employment for Europe, will only become a solid, stable and lasting reality if it is based on a truly competitive economy and on what we term a globalised or internationalised economy. Unfortunately, the European Union is not yet in a position to cope with the level of competition demanded by an open economy.
We therefore wish to emphasise the importance of a series of issues raised over recent years.
These include the need to eliminate barriers and systems of protection that still exist in key areas of our economy and the need to increase our level of knowledge. We must also improve our level of education, particularly in the areas of vocational and technical training.
In addition, an effort should be made to remove the current obstacles to the creation of new jobs, particularly those involving taxation.
The possibility of modifying VAT, value added tax, must be considered, with a view to reducing it in the so-called labour-intensive sectors, the sectors with the largest workforce. I should also mention the need to provide new and improved guidance in terms of allowing better access to finance, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, so as to promote a better business environment.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr van Velzen's excellent report, which the PSE Group supports, is rightly based on lasting, sustainable strategies to combat mass unemployment, but also on innovative adjustment of the employment guidelines.
Of particular importance are the structural elements for the promotion of structural reform of the labour market, the need to bring about a better balance among the four pillars of the employment guidelines and the emphasis on gender mainstreaming.
At the same time, however, the totally inadequate employment recovery must be regarded as a challenge for the Union and the Member States to achieve a better and more balanced policy mix and to improve coordination of economic, financial and employment policies.
As we are now only a few weeks away from the beginning of monetary union it is high time to integrate guidelines for economic policy and for employment so that the accent can deliberately be put on effectiveness in creating employment as a condition for policy coordination, in good time for the national budget debates.
The European Parliament must at long last be involved in an interinstitutional agreement on this issue.
The parties to the collective agreement are also called upon, in view of monetary union, to begin to harmonise productivity-based wage agreements in order to avoid the risk of wage dumping that would adversely affect the Community.
Once again, calls are being made for a review of the basic elements of economic policy and for proper coordination of economic policy.
The European Union cannot afford to sit back, despite the Commission's favourable autumn forecast.
Even the lack of currency fluctuation that has been caused by the prospect of the euro should not induce us to sit back.
Today we are already seeing the effects of the crisis in South-East Asia on European jobs.
The chemical, engineering and electronics sectors are already hit by reduced orders and falling prices.
This is affecting European jobs.
Supply-side measures alone are not sufficient.
Demand must also be stimulated by increasing the purchasing power of consumers and fostering greater trust in the future of the European Union.
In this respect, the van Velzen report is right to emphasise changing the system by means of implementing tax reforms and reducing taxation on labour.
But we also need a reform of wage structures that takes productivity into account, as well as stimulation of investment as an important means of stabilising the European economy.
As current investment levels are much too low - public investment is currently barely 2 % of GDP - growth and employment cannot be achieved.
Structural change in the labour market must be supported by a new prospect of growth.
Alliances for work could successfully accompany this process.
We still lack Europe-wide modernisation offensives with investment plans in the areas of communications, transport, the environment, energy conservation, research, development, innovation and training.
Here we must speedily draw up an indicative list that allows a combination of public and private investment.
In the spirit of the Maastricht Treaty the EU Ministers for Finance are called upon to separate this kind of investment from the general government deficit, as long as the EU is still caught between mass unemployment and the Stability Pact.
Madam President, by this stage I think all the main debates concerning the employment situation in Europe have now come through the worst.
We already have European guidelines - the Treaty of Amsterdam includes a chapter specifically on employment - and we also have a European strategy that has inspired national employment action plans.
I feel Mr van Velzen's report bears all the hallmarks of a rushed and interim document, but I must stress that I do not in any way wish to blame him for that.
The Commission's report reached us late, as it almost always does, and it too was wanting, as the Commission itself is not able to conduct rigorous and serious investigations at present.
What is true, however, is that some Member States of the European Union are applying principles that are producing excellent results where job creation is concerned. This has been the case in my country, Spain.
The results, ladies and gentlemen, speak for themselves: unemployment has been reduced by 4 %, over 800 000 jobs have been created and a meaningful social dialogue is in place that is leading to a radical reform of the labour market and greater stability of employment.
Government and unions have recently reached agreement on important issues such as part-time work and the introduction of a new concept: 'supplementary time'. This will allow greater flexibility in the management of working time and will replace overtime.
I believe it would be very interesting to evaluate this new formula.
In addition, I would like to refer briefly to two key issues in any employment policy. The first is the relationship that ought to exist between training and employment.
A first job depends very much on that essential link between the institutions offering education and training and the requirements of the labour market.
There are too many instances of failure at school, inadequate training and graduate unemployment in Europe.
Even worse, there is considerable underemployment which means human resources are not being exploited to the full.
The second issue I would like to raise seems important to me, but is not mentioned in the report. It concerns the strong resistance to geographical mobility within the Union and between regions of the Member States, both on the part of those seeking their first job and the unemployed.
This situation has as much to do with income policies as with language problems and the shortage of affordable housing for these people.
As a result of the lack of mobility and of migratory flows between regions, unemployment becomes structural and prices and costs are destabilised, with the consequent negative impact on the competitiveness of businesses.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my thanks to Mr van Velzen for having incorporated paragraph 9 into his report.
This concerns the evaluation of the venture capital we provide through the Investment Bank.
We have been looking this morning at the report of the Court of Auditors, and it transpires that this provision of venture capital is not exactly satisfactory.
The criteria are too general, there is no cohesive policy and the use of interest margins is unclear.
But above all, and I would stress this, the Commission has no role other than that of information exchange.
I think that where we ourselves are at issue, in a report in which we are primarily asking the Member States to do certain things, we should have our own house in order.
So I seriously urge the Commission to produce an evaluation on this point very soon for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
If it is not forthcoming, I shall ask questions in the committee myself.
Many speakers have already said as much, ladies and gentlemen, and the advent of Economic and Monetary Union requires measures to be taken in a number of policy areas.
This report indicates that the Member States are beginning to take them, through the reform of tax and social security systems and all manner of measures to stimulate the labour market.
There is one point I should like to make here: slowly but surely, power and influence are shifting from national to European level.
This goes unnoticed by the man in the street.
Of course we have to be in favour of most of the measures in the van Velzen report.
We cannot live with an employment rate of 60.5 %, for example.
But it is high time these measures were subjected to democratic debate in the Member States; we must not think, as is sometimes suggested in this House, that all this is a matter for the Member States and that the European Parliament does not need to be involved and that there is no feedback either from the process, from Europe to the European citizen.
With the elections almost upon us, it is an absolute must, and I am thus asking the Commission whether a little more might not be done to keep us informed on this matter.
Madam President, I wish to congratulate Mr Wim van Velzen on his report.
Unfortunately, however, this fine report addresses appeals and wishes both to the Council of Ministers and to the Commission, and the question, Mr van Velzen, is whether the Council and the Commission have ears to hear what you are saying.
I would remind you that in Amsterdam no substantive decision was taken regarding unemployment.
In Luxembourg the ball was tossed into the court of the Member States.
I would also remind you that the Maastricht criteria on economic and monetary union deliberately do not include the criterion of unemployment.
I would remind you that both in the 1998 budget and in the budget for 1999 we will be voting on in a month's time, expenditure to combat unemployment for social Europe, for people with special needs and for the third age is either static or even lower, and all this at a time when, as you say in your report, full-time jobs are continually becoming fewer and only part-time jobs are being created.
Consequently, incomes are down in a Europe in which costs are going up, and that is why the proportion of nouveaux pauvres has climbed above 15 %.
I am sorry to see that this is taking place with the approval of Parliament, which on 2 May 1998 put social Europe into the hands of bankers and EMU.
Madam President, the European left in all its diverse forms now has the chance to show that it is really serious when it comes to increasing employment.
Of the fifteen Member States, the left is in government in one form or another in thirteen.
My impression is that European voters are looking to the left for protection against the forces of money and uncontrolled market trends.
Is it at all possible for the left to respond to the wishes of the voters? The different formulas left-wing governments have come up with are very much at odds with one another.
While Britain continues to rely on the market to create jobs, in France and Italy there is a drive to shorten working hours and raise public spending to increase employment.
Furthermore, the conditions agreed previously by the EU countries on economic and monetary union are slowing down progress.
We now need to create a programme for economic revival and employment based on four vital elements.
The first of these is the lowering of interest rates, to prevent Europe from falling into the abyss.
Unfortunately, the European Central Bank, which is ruled by the economic dogma of the last couple of decades, does not seem ready to lower interest rates so that production and employment might increase.
Secondly, taxation has to be changed to encourage people to work.
The current tax system favours ownership, investments and lazy money too much, and penalises work.
Thirdly, we have to increase investment, especially in the area of transport and communications.
It is also time we stopped regarding public services as a harmful extravagance and admitted they are immensely important in creating jobs and the infrastructure we vitally need.
Fourthly, we must embark on action to shorten working time generally.
The ways and means may vary from country to country and from region to region, but the objective must be a common one.
Mr President, we are all keen for the Member States to cooperate with one another, coordinating their strategies for creating sustainable employment.
It is important that the employment guidelines are actually implemented under national action programmes.
Member States may occasionally need a nudge to remind them to abide by the recommendations - although we have to accept that there are considerable differences in the way countries handle these matters. Discussion is of the essence, and it will take time before everything is adopted and in place.
Mr van Velzen is clearly an impatient man!
He wants action, but his zeal possibly gets the better of him at times. One of his proposals is for economic and financial policy coordination - a very far-reaching enterprise indeed.
Most of his suggestions are very good, nonetheless. I particularly like his ideas on reducing working hours in a flexible way.
And he rightly sets his proposal in the context of the fight against unemployment. My group has, however, tabled an amendment calling for a slightly more radical approach to cutting working hours in Europe, and I would recommend that colleagues vote for this.
Mr President, the level of unemployment in the Union has remained far too high despite the favourable economic trends of recent years, primarily amongst the categories of the poorly educated and the long-term unemployed, and these include a great many women.
Not only in Europe but worldwide, the pressure of world unemployment is increasing. I would point above all to the millions of young people in the third world who are unemployed.
The effects of that are felt throughout Europe, and it is a factor in social dislocation and poverty.
Problems with asylum seekers are just one part of the result.
Stimulating employment must thus be recognised as a prime objective in the Member States, the Union and in international organisations as well.
In view of the slow-down in economic growth we are experiencing, it is doubtless all the more important.
The van Velzen report illustrates this especially clearly, and I am grateful to the rapporteur.
The achievements of the European Union in the field of employment are meagre, so the report tells us.
Differences between and within Member States remain enormous, despite the Structural Funds.
Evaluation of the national action plans shows up positive points, it is true, but many gaps and weaknesses too.
In my country, for example, there is the failure to reduce labour costs.
These shortcomings also apply to the four pillars.
Europe's leaders have concluded too late, regrettably, that a better balance is needed between a Europe of monetary union and a policy of employment.
We echo Mr van Velzen in wanting quantified objectives, training and participation.
We also believe above all that the choice of a European investment programme is a good choice.
We shall vote for the resolution but there is too much in it, Mr President, and we think that ultimately we may not be able to see the wood for the trees.
Unless Europe makes jobs a priority, there will no future for its children and thus no future for Europe itself.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the van Velzen report paints a clear picture of the economic situation in Europe over the past year: on the one hand, cautious optimism due to the welcome prospect of the European single currency and to slight but appreciable economic growth; on the other, a climate of distrust and instability due to all the international financial crises - in Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America - the repercussions of which have had an adverse effect on the European market.
And then there is unemployment, still the most urgent social problem facing our continent, above all for young people and women.
Broadly speaking, therefore, we can endorse the report's approach to relaunching effective employment policies in the Member States.
I would stress in particular the importance of vocational training, which must be improved and adapted to the requirements of the labour market.
There is a major contradiction inherent in vocational training: it is true that the funds available are inadequate, but it is also true that a good deal of money is badly invested in poor-quality courses with a minimal impact on employment.
The Member States should be called on, in more general terms, to overhaul their educational systems thoroughly.
Italy's Audit Office recently bemoaned the fact that a substantial percentage of graduates have difficulty in finding jobs owing to the mediocrity of the education system, in particular the universities, where the practical and applied aspects of the theoretical instruction are all too often overlooked.
My second point relates to women. They are the greatest victims of discrimination in the world of work, partly because of their family responsibilities and, where necessary, their role as carers for the elderly and the disabled.
This House has already drawn the Commission's attention on numerous occasions to the fact that, unless proper social assistance is available for working women, especially single mothers, the right to work is nothing but a figment of the imagination.
Finally, I should like to turn to another proposal made in the report, namely a more flexible distribution of working time.
Where economic conditions permit, it is indeed desirable to reduce weekly working time and above all to introduce part-time work in order to create new jobs.
But let us not forget, in accordance with the fundamental principles of subsidiarity and participation, that any reduction in working time must be agreed between the social partners, in other words not by handing down legislation which would merely be a source of pointless and harmful inflexibility.
Mr President, the van Velzen report is excellent and very balanced.
The rapporteur wanted to reach a consensus catering for various different European social situations in the current economic situation.
Concerns over investment, support for small firms, assistance for companies that employ large numbers of people, working conditions, the gradual reduction in maximum working hours and improving the management thereof, wages, social protection, training leading to genuine qualifications and appropriate education systems all give a social meaning to the terms of adaptability and employability, which, without that guidance, would be cynical objectives, concerned only with economics, as I would like the Commission to remember.
Unemployment is not inevitable but I would not wish on other countries in the European Union the solution applied in large areas of Portugal, where all three generations have to work in order to scrape together the minimum wage paid in Spain, half the minimum wage in Belgium, and a quarter the minimum wage in Germany, albeit with almost full employment.
It is a world where, when people lose their jobs, especially women, they lose 50 % to 100 % of their income and in order to survive, they rely on strong family support, weak national solidarity and your solidarity, thanks to the European Union's cohesion.
I support this report because it takes a significant step towards fleshing out the concept of employability.
But we do not wish on countries experiencing high levels of unemployment a solution that only weakens citizenship and undermines the European social model.
Mr President, the situation four years ago was as follows: at the summit in Essen we agreed a broad strategy to combat unemployment more effectively at European level by strictly observing the principle of subsidiarity.
The situation one year ago was that we agreed guidelines at the Luxembourg Employment Summit to guarantee a high level of employment.
The situation today is that we are publicly assessing what has and has not been achieved in the National Action Plans.
There are gaps in particular in terms of training; not enough training is provided, not enough older workers are involved in training, training courses are not sufficiently adapted to new technologies and education systems often fail to provide practical experience, team work and knowledge of other countries.
Employability, the first pillar of the NAPs, is therefore difficult to achieve.
Much too little importance is placed on the fourth pillar: equal opportunities.
Commissioner, where child care is not provided, in the form of creches, nursery schools and day care centres, it is mainly women who are denied access to a career.
But there are also encouraging developments: more and more Member States, for example Germany, are managing to adapt to changed employment structures. Conditions for entrepreneurship are being improved and passive employment policies are finally being replaced by active policies.
We must now institutionalise dialogue between the Ecofin Council, the ECB, those responsible for social policy, the social partners, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament in order to better coordinate economic and monetary policy, including the indispensable Stability Pact, with employment policy.
The forthcoming summit in Vienna should set the right course instead of arousing false hopes such as the supposedly comprehensive investment programme worth billions that the Member States will not in any case finance.
With a realistic approach there is a good chance that even those affected by unemployment and exclusion will feel that Europe is overcoming obstacles and inaction, is capable of coordination and can provide important impetus and new ideas.
Mr President, current rates of development are not absorbing the high level of unemployment.
In 1997 economic development in the European Union was 2.7 % and it is expected to be about 2.8 % in 1998, while salaries increased by just 1 % in real terms, despite which the unemployment indexes have not improved.
Full-time jobs are becoming fewer and only part-time jobs are increasing.
The spectre of poverty and social exclusion is already affecting or directly threatening millions of the Union's citizens.
To be honest, how much optimism do these facts justify? In our opinion, employment policy has been shown to be unreliable and a factor which exacerbates the crisis.
That is the conclusion which the Union's citizens reach.
But while that is the situation, the Commission's statement gives priority to the competitiveness of trade and industry, to the stability pact, to monetary stability, to the promotion of part-time employment and informal forms of work, and to employability - a concept which transfers the burden of responsibility for finding work from the state and its policy onto working people.
Mr President, working people disapprove of this policy.
They see no future in it, and their only recourse is to intensify their struggle to overthrow it.
We will stand by them in that.
Mr President, since we are talking about a social Europe, I would firstly like to congratulate Mr van Velzen and - just this once - the Commission for the action taken on the consultation of employees.
After Vilvoorde and, more recently, Levi's, there is an urgent need to give employees greater rights when it comes to informing and consulting them about companies' investment strategies and any decision to relocate.
This culture of information - I would even go so far as to say joint management - is a step in the right direction.
However, I must say, more generally, that the Commission's social action programme lacks ambition and grand design.
Obviously, reference is rightly made to reducing VAT for labour-intensive services, lowering costs for SMEs, flexibility, training, etc.
But I would like to know what is being done about the commitments made at the Luxembourg Employment Summit in November 1997. It is politically vital for us to have a major project that is able to channel our efforts.
To be honest, what we need is a new welfare state which promotes employment and lifelong learning for every citizen of the European Union. In other words, we must ensure that every woman and man from Lisbon to Berlin, from London to Rome, has the same hope if they lose their jobs.
I myself dream of banishing the word unemployment from our vocabulary and this is more than just rhetorical.
What this means in practical terms is that from now on during each redundancy or period of inactivity, a compulsory period of paid training should automatically begin, one that more than just fills a gap.
We must translate the wishes of the Luxembourg Employment Summit in November 1997, where the 15 Member States decided that it was a priority to ensure that no young person was out of work or without training for more than six months, and no adult for more than a year.
We must bring this idea to life by going even further and proposing that throughout their lives people should alternate between working and training by moving from one to the other without any unwanted breaks, that is, without any periods of unemployment.
This would be a really major project that would allow Europe to get back in touch with its past, when it used to initiate social progress.
It could be financed through the FRF 2 300 billion devoted every year in Europe to combating unemployment and through the European Structural Funds, which would better serve this objective if less fragmented.
Mr President, the latest statistics show a fall in unemployment.
On closer study, however, we see that unemployment has fallen to a lesser degree than the economy has grown in the same period.
The fact that 23 million European citizens are living at subsistence level also gives cause for thought, as does the fact that the present report warns of low-pay and low-quality jobs and demands that monetary stability be maintained.
The Luxembourg Summit's guidelines for a successful employment policy are ambitious.
No one will seriously oppose alternatives to taxation on labour or measures to improve the climate for investment or education and training.
But these formulas are not new, after all.
Precisely these measures were discussed at the Essen Summit in the context of the White Paper on employment.
However, it is sobering that the NAPs for employment are so unspecific about these measures.
Many National Action Plans do not fix any concrete aims or financial resources, or else they are inadequate.
What is needed are appropriate indicators, specification of budgetary funds and laying down of priorities and the deadlines for achieving them.
And how are we to evaluate honestly the progress and results of employment policy? I have to say that I hear the message but I do not believe it if the Member States fail to realise the objectives.
Mr President, I should like to agree with those honourable Members who have said that the process begun in Luxembourg is a good thing but that Vienna will of course have to move things forward emphatically.
I should like to focus on one aspect, Commissioner, which is extremely important to me.
It is time Member States restored the link between more work and more equal opportunities for women.
In the van Velzen report we firmly advocate a halving of the gender gap.
This requires a particular commitment on the part of Member States for all the guidelines, and it also represents a commitment to positive action.
Let me give you a few examples: it looks at the fact that more women are unemployed and for longer, and it is good, Commissioner, that the Member States have opted for action to prevent long-term unemployment.
But that means too that women must get at least their fair share of any benefit from such measures.
It means too that Member States must not be allowed, as they now do, to ignore long-term unemployment, where women are over-represented.
No, the two things have to go together and complement each other.
Secondly, we also want a clear commitment to more training opportunities for people currently in work.
I think it is disgraceful that women working part-time are quite simply excluded from the opportunities offered under most of the training programmes laid on by employers.
Thirdly, it presupposes extra attention in wage bargaining for the unacceptable differential of 20 to 30 % which still persists between male and female earnings.
The result of this would have to be that any increases agreed in wage negotiations were now applied primarily to women's earnings, which are undervalued.
It also presupposes that Member States will not remain obsessed with part-time work, but will talk about more family-friendly forms of work sharing and shorter working hours such as a four-day week, for example.
We should like to see the Commission coming up with a further proposal to tighten the existing directive on working time.
Lastly, Mr President, the preparation of concrete objectives has already proved its worth.
We must intensify this process for all guidelines, and my group would like to make an important request for the Commission to address with urgency the question of benchmarks for the efficacy of social protection.
We must ensure that more work also means better quality work and thus an adequate level of social protection.
Mr President, I should like to express more than the conventional expressions of gratitude to the rapporteur, and also to put forward four ideas that would, in my view, enrich the report.
Firstly, I regret the lack of any reference to the coordination of economic policies with monetary policy, that is to say, of the Economy and Finance Council with the European Central Bank.
Recent publications, particularly Krugmann's work, are beginning to call into question whether it is logical and coherent to continue giving priority to price stability now that we have reached all-time low levels where job creation is concerned.
Although I agree with Carlos Gasòliba that economic stability is a prerequisite for job creation, I also believe that greater coordination is needed and that the European Central Bank should focus more on this objective.
Secondly, I think it is unfortunate that when comparing - benchmarking - job creation in Europe and in the United States, the experience gained by this Parliament was not drawn upon.
Apart from some ideas reiterated in this House by a number of speakers - flexibility and the liberalisation of certain markets, particularly the service market and the labour market -, the report emphasised that one of the main reasons why the United States takes the lead where job creation is concerned is that it is far more committed to research and development. Also, private initiative plays a much greater part in that joint effort and there is an option of encouraging R&D through tax incentives rather than direct aid, thus linking projects to making a profit.
Thirdly, with regard to the tax burden, there is reference to VAT on labour-intensive services.
It seems to me that the time has come to ask ourselves whether it makes sense to maintain a value added tax such as the one devised in 1967 when there was a shortage of labour in Europe, and jobs remained unfilled. It might well be appropriate to consider whether it is still reasonable to allow immediate deduction of the tax on investment goods thus encouraging the replacement of workers by capital goods.
My concluding remark is that I agree with the references to trans-European networks, but it is time to move on and say how we intend to finance them: from surplus reserves, issuing loans or in some other way.
Mr President, as documented in Mr van Velzen's report, it seems to have been established that there is no direct connection between economic prosperity and job creation.
Jobs have been created, but not enough of them. Social conditions in Europe have also failed to improve: 15 % of workers live below the poverty line.
The much-heralded monetary union, the 'euro-umbrella' meant to protect Europe from the economic and financial ups and downs of the outside world does not seem likely to prevent some of their effects reaching our continent.
We therefore feel that certain aspects of Mr van Velzen's report deserve to be highlighted.
Firstly, there is a reference to the obsession with the concept of stability, the strict stability plan that has to be complied with.
We believe that such an obsession should be done away with. What is of crucial importance now is the creation of employment if we also want the economy to do well.
This stability plan is more concerned with monetary stability than with the stability of employment.
In conclusion, Mr President, I should like to stress the importance of two of the four pillars of the employment strategy: adaptability and equal opportunities.
With regard to adaptability, the social partners must be involved when dealing with the working day and the reduction of overtime, amongst other issues.
As for equal opportunities, we have repeatedly pointed out that women lag far behind men where access to work and salaries are concerned. This fourth pillar has turned out to be very weak in all the Member States' strategies.
We must therefore encourage the creation of services to facilitate access to work for women and also their return to work following a career break.
Mr President, allow me to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen, who has managed to home in on the fundamental issues concerning this key aspect of the economy - employment.
He has done so at a time of uncertainty: there can be no doubt that the situation is now radically different from that described in the conclusions reached by the national governments in November 1997, both within the Community - which has since embarked on stage three of economic and monetary union and created the stability pact, with everything which that implies - and in the rest of the world, where there is no denying the serious changes that have taken place in the recent past. A recession is undoubtedly under way, affecting at least 40 % of the world's population, as the rapporteur himself has stated; so far, the storms have spared Europe and North America, but there are no guarantees as to the future.
All in all, the growth rate in Europe is not keeping pace with the need for employment growth, and there is ground to be made up.
We are convinced that the problem of unemployment cannot be solved through acts and decrees on employment: jobs cannot be created by decree; they are created by promoting economic growth.
So efforts are required all round in order that such growth is stimulated by means of appropriate policies, above all fiscal ones, and through adequate support for economic development.
Investment must therefore be as productive as possible, concentrated in areas where it can be used to best effect.
Investment of a purely social nature would be ineffectual.
I hope that this will be the approach adopted at the forthcoming Vienna summit, which Europe as a whole will be observing with keen interest.
Mr van Velzen has indeed produced an excellent report, Mr President. It contains sound proposals, is in touch with reality, unpretentious and contains several innovative ideas.
If I had to highlight one aspect of it, I would highlight the section devoted to the preventive approach.
I hope and trust that this report will receive all possible support from Parliament.
The European Union's millions of unemployed do not render this debate pointless - quite the contrary.
In any case, thanks to this and other debates, employment is developing, albeit slowly, into a common policy that must be linked to economic policy, as coordination is essential.
Unemployment leads to forms of exclusion, precariousness hampers personal development, and the lack of personal expectations places available labour in a feudal position in relation to whoever can provide a job.
The authorities have the duty of ensuring that the principles of equality and solidarity are maintained where opportunities and income are concerned. However, they must also promote active policies and foster the basic conditions to relieve unemployment, the greatest concern of our societies.
As stated in the report, the authorities must adopt economic policies that will strengthen or promote growth resulting from investment, generate consumer confidence and maintain domestic consumer demand.
A much more determined effort by the authorities is called for to develop active policies on the labour market, and they should be prepared to take risks in dealing with the present situation.
We shall continue to defend proposals providing both flexibility and security against the preservation of the concept of deregulation, which tends to be used as the key argument.
Mr President, my compliments naturally go to the rapporteur, Mr van Velzen.
His report tells us that, according to the data available, unemployment has actually fallen this year; however, we should not raise our hopes unduly, because the situation in Europe is only marginally positive.
What is more, if we analyse the real situation in each individual Member State, we find wide divergences between the 15 countries.
In Italy, for example, unemployment is still running at around 12 %.
What remedies have we come up with? A reduction in labour costs, naturally, and of course increased entrepreneurship, above all among SMEs.
The importance of vocational training and qualifications has already been mentioned, so I shall not dwell on that point.
I would merely stress one idea which is contained in the report and which I consider extremely important, namely that of reducing VAT on labour-intensive services.
This proposal was put forward by the Council on 21 October 1997, and it could usefully be put back on the agenda.
By the same token, an initiative could be taken by the European Investment Bank - which has expressed its readiness to do this - to finance projects at rates below the market rate, provided of course that such projects really are effective in generating employment.
Furthermore, why not propose a review of the Central Bank's key role? This new body, which came into being so as to keep down inflation within the 15 Member States, could and should have another important aim, namely to keep unemployment under control.
Such a role is played in the United States by the Federal Reserve; its European counterpart should also undertake the vital task of keeping down unemployment.
I believe that it is worth underlining the social relevance of the institutions which are being established.
Mr President, the Commission's report is on employment in Europe in 1998.
It is on the question of employment and not on the problem and the statistics of unemployment.
Mr van Velzen, in particular, in the explanatory statement accompanying the motion for a resolution, has got close to and dealt well with this finer point of detail. In other words, we must make sure that we refer to the quality of employment, without calling into question the seriousness of the unemployment figures and the alarm that this causes.
Some of the rapporteur's comments on the climate of economic recovery seem outdated because they no longer reflect the real situation.
That is not his fault but the result of how the situation has developed.
I would like to make one more comment, given the little time I have, about something that is not really that negative in itself, that is, the fact that the Commission has used the terminology of pillars in its report on employment.
We would highlight the ambiguity, in particular, of the first pillar, that of employability, a concept that seems to hold the unemployed responsible for the very existence of unemployment because they are poorly qualified. This seems to take away the blame for unemployment from a social system that not only creates unemployment but also exploits it.
Mr President, I too must thank the rapporteur very warmly for all his hard work and for the report he has put together for us in so short a time.
It is not really possible to work in these conditions.
Perhaps that explains his attack on our amendments.
We were of course not happy with some parts of the report. We also abstained in the committee meeting.
Consequently we felt obliged to retable the amendments on the points in question.
That does not mean of course that all the compromises reached are lost.
But we were in the extremely awkward position of having to make amendments on the basis of a report which did not yet exist.
It just means we shall have to find another solution in future, though I appreciate that the rapporteur himself cannot do anything about it.
As regards the subject itself: happily unemployment is slightly down for the first time, but that does not mean of course that this will continue to be the case in future.
There are a few dark clouds on the horizon.
So we must continue with the strategy we have started.
I should say really that this strategy has been far more successful than anyone could have expected beforehand.
There was a good deal of cynicism about this strategy, but it appears to work. It really seems to be leading to change in the Member States.
Perhaps not enough change, but at least some.
A number of things are now threatening, some of which are actually in Mr van Velzen's report.
Paragraph 7 and the broad investment programme is something which we cannot accept, because it would take us back to the whole discussion on the overall strategy.
We previously rejected this kind of broad investment programme, firstly because there is no money and, secondly, because it does not work at European level.
It is hard for us to agree to it now, even if we do have eleven prime ministers in the European Union with a socialist background.
It does not automatically mean that we are going to cough up.
The second point I wanted to raise is the question of taxes.
I think it quite proper that the rapporteur should ask for that to be addressed.
It is a great shame that the debate on this, specifically variations in the rate of VAT, went totally awry in the Council and that governments which were supposedly in favour and are doing nothing else about it, and the one or two governments which were against, appear to be getting their own way.
I think it is a great pity.
I hope the European Parliament will manage to get the matter raised again.
These are the main points.
We may be able to back this provided we do not radically change it all of a sudden, and provided enough of our amendments are adopted.
Mr President, it may well be that globally in the European Union there is a downturn in unemployment, though I do not know if it can be said that someone whose temperature has fallen from 41º to 40.5º can be said to be getting better.
What I would like to quote as experience from my own country is that the phenomenon of unemployment is increasing, especially among young people and women, and this alongside and in parallel with Greece's desperate effort to meet the criteria for inclusion in economic and monetary union.
From that standpoint I think we are getting to the heart of how to address the problem of unemployment today.
A few years ago we had the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment.
I do not know what its results were, perhaps there were some, but nothing came of all our discussions here and from the mobilisation in the European Parliament and in general.
Today, however, I think that if we want to see some results from the positive ideas expressed by Mr van Velzen and from the efforts of Commissioner Flynn and the Commission to develop an overall unemployment strategy based on certain pillars, the course established by Maastricht will have to be changed.
A change in the sense that social criteria and unemployment are included in progress towards EMU, investments are not counted among public deficits, and the European Central Bank at least follows the path pursued by the Federal Reserve in the United States.
Mr President, first of all I think the strategy launched in Luxembourg is producing good results and will provide an impetus for structural changes in the European labour market.
It is our expectation that the guidelines will be adjusted and tightened in Vienna so that the Member States have to give more specific commitments with quantified sums of expenditure.
We expect the European Commission to improve its proposals accordingly.
Secondly, there is no denying that the number of jobs rose by 750 000 in 1997 thanks to economic growth, economic growth which is now threatened by financial crises elsewhere in the world.
Hence the need to underpin economic growth by a broad European programme of investment.
There has been enough talking about the TENs.
It is time now for clear decisions to be taken.
Thirdly, I agree with those honourable Members who advocated a stronger presence in the jobs market for women, the over-fifties and the handicapped.
Last of all, Mr President, it is a matter of great urgency to bring labour costs down.
Mr President, though Europe's economy has in recent years been developing at relatively satisfactory rates - for example, in 1997 growth amounted to 2.7 % - we are not seeing a corresponding fall in unemployment.
Unemployment has fallen, but by a small, an exceptionally small amount and in some countries it is at the same level or even increasing slightly, as in my own country.
This means that growth on its own does not create as many jobs as we need.
We also need structural measures in the labour market, and it is to this that we should turn our attention.
Given that the problem of unemployment is a pan-European phenomenon, there must certainly be coordination between the policies of Member States to address the issue globally and effectively.
The solution to the unemployment problem and the promotion of employment must become a truly European concern.
It is important, however, that any such coordination should proceed along appropriate lines, because otherwise we could all be coordinated, all have the same policy, and end up by increasing unemployment.
So here I should like to say - though this will provoke an allergic reaction in some colleagues - that we should look at what is happening in America and Japan.
We do not have to ape the American or Japanese models, but let us look to see why they have lower unemployment and try to learn some lessons, just as we can learn something from some countries in the European Union where unemployment is already exceptionally low.
I believe, then, that in this context there should be greater flexibility in the labour market, measures such as modernisation of the taxation and legal systems for employment, tax and other incentives for company investment, especially in the case of SMEs, completion of the internal market and easier movement of working people, flexible working hours, reduction of non-salary costs, the promotion of active employment policies and not just emphasis on the unemployment fund, and finally, utilisation of resources and potentials for education and higher education via the European Social Fund, which I feel could be much more effective than it currently is.
I thank you, Mr van Velzen, for your report.
It is a stimulating document, containing a thorough examination of the key problems of the European Union labour market, and it certainly it has a number of very good and interesting proposals for future action.
A year ago I presented to Parliament the first set of employment guidelines. I am very pleased to inform you that we have achieved very considerable progress and success since then.
All the Member States have lived up to the political commitments they made at Luxembourg last year.
The Commission, in its draft joint report for 1998, has duly reflected this progress by making national employment policies more structured and transparent, for instance by reporting on concrete funding for the NEPs and on monitoring and evaluation structures.
This progress is clearly in line with the proposals in Mr van Velzen's report.
In particular I am pleased to see that the messages of prevention and activation as guiding principles for employment policy have penetrated the thinking of the national authorities and the social partners.
Such principles have begun to be translated into concrete action, which the Member States have already started on this year.
I recognise and welcome this progress.
You all know that early intervention to prevent youth and long-term unemployment and the move from a curative to a preventative approach lie at the very heart of the strategy.
This is the key point Mr van Velzen has been making - that we have to have a preventative approach.
Concrete action has also been taken, for instance in reducing the number of young people leaving training and educational systems without adequate qualifications.
This point is made very forcefully by Mr van Velzen and by Mr Thomas Mann and I agree wholeheartedly.
You will notice, Mr van Velzen, that in our recommendation for the 1999 guidelines, life-long learning is a key issue for consideration at Vienna.
What we are saying in the new guidelines is that we want to increase the number getting access to the labour market, in particular older workers.
Not enough attention has been paid to that point and the report supports us on that.
I should just draw your attention to a remark in the employment rates report, that high employment rates depend on educational attainment.
That must be a key feature in the development of these policies by the Member States.
We are talking about improving the environment for enterprise, encouraging and assisting business start-ups, coordination between the relevant authorities in the Member States, making the social partners more aware of their potential contribution, developing the adaptability pillar, introducing tax reforms to reduce the tax burden on labour, promoting greater awareness of the avoidance of gender segregation and facilitating access to the labour market for all.
Here I would refer Mrs Van Lancker's comments on women in the labour market.
In fact the employment rates report deals with this very point.
I would just like to draw to your attention, Mrs Van Lancker, that equality is now a key element in our strategy.
You will notice that we are not just talking about mainstreaming, we are talking about a horizontal issue and not just relying on the fourth pillar in support of your point.
Your comments and those of the House have been taken fully into consideration.
The draft joint report identifies these encouraging developments, but that is just the beginning and there is a long way to go.
We need to involve the social partners more fully at all levels and to foster and develop a strong partnership approach at local level, promoting employment entrepreneurship and local economic development, especially in the services sector.
I agree entirely with what Mrs Ojala said about the services sector.
You will notice that in the employment rates report, where we draw the comparison between what happens in the United States and what happens in the European Union, the key issue is that we have not developed the services sector as they have done in the United States.
In the European Union 39.2 % are employed in the services sector, in the United States it is 54 %. That is a big difference.
We need to work out new options for lowering taxation on labour compatible with the overall macroeconomic strategy for stable growth and raising employment in the EMU, to devise and implement more concrete action to develop equal opportunities in our labour markets for women, disabled people and immigrants.
Your report, Mr van Velzen, puts forward a wide range of suggestions for further developing the strategy. I think that is going to happen.
The momentum is there.
I am pleased to tell you that many of your proposals and ideas have already been taken on board in our proposal for 1999. You will see that reflected in the outcome of the Vienna Summit.
In its proposal for employment guidelines for 1999 the Commission has sought to consolidate the political momentum that has been gained this year.
You yourself said, Mr van Velzen, that there is a quiet revolution.
I would like to think that it was not so quiet.
But the momentum is there, the Member States have taken on the commitment and I believe that it is going to be very much strengthened after Vienna.
In the interests of consistency and continuity, there are very few adjustments of substance in the 1999 proposal.
It preserves the four pillar structure and the three Europe-wide operational targets. Nevertheless it incorporates the orientations of the European Council at Cardiff and it draws from the assessment of the 1998 joint employment report and the employment rates report for 1998.
Some substantive additions and, in some cases, new guidelines aim at putting particular emphasis in 1999 on active measures: developing life-long learning, making the labour market more open to all, fully exploiting the jobs potential of the services sector and better reconciling work and family life.
The Commission has also identified a number of horizontal issues. They include gender mainstreaming, the information society, undeclared work, the role of the structural funds, especially the social fund, local development and the need for improving common indicators and quantitative targets.
Moving in this direction requires realism and ambition.
Common targets require comparable statistics at European level and concrete action to improve the current state of such statistics will be proposed by the Commission in a specific report to the Vienna Summit.
This year's revision of the guidelines is, however, a good opportunity to further develop this dimension of the strategy.
The Commission has proposed a new target to be set individually by the Member States for increasing the number of workers benefiting from life-long learning.
Furthermore, the Member States are invited to set concrete targets for other guidelines according to their national priorities and possibilities.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak and Mrs Todini referred to the Community financing initiatives for the EIB and the EIF.
I should just like to say that the EIB Edinburgh facility of the ECU 5b in loans to general infrastructure projects is ongoing.
The Copenhagen SME facility is in place and the facility has been fully taken up.
The growth and environment pilot project is in place for loans of perhaps ECU 1.6b.
The EIF is authorised to commit up to 20 % of its own funds.
The EIB's Amsterdam special action programme of ECU 1b to finance special action is also under way.
We would be happy to discuss these at any time in the future.
The 1999 joint employment report will for the first time attempt an evaluation of the impact of the NEPs.
It will be a test for all of us.
It is going to give the people of our Member States a tangible demonstration that we have moved from ideas to action and concrete results.
So the quiet revolution, Mr Van Velzen, is taking on quite a political momentum.
The strategy is there, we have targets, a timescale and a convergence policy.
We need better implementation, but I think we will be successful.
To start with, Commissioner, what a lucky fellow I am that everything I propose is already being planned by the Commission.
But that is not the point I wish to make.
You have heard a lot of speakers complaining here at the way in which we were obliged to prepare and amend this report.
The reason for that is the ridiculously short time which the European Parliament was given.
I would welcome the Commissioner's reaction to the suggestion which I make on this in paragraph 30 of my report.
How does he think we can solve the problem in future?
Mr President, we are stuck in a very tight time frame to deal with all of this.
Obviously, it is going to have to be considered further when the Treaty is ratified.
I cannot really say at this time how we are going to fit all of this in.
When you consider the reports coming next year in June - preparation for the Joint Annual Report, the Joint Employment Report - and meeting all the deadlines including the consultation report under the Treaty with Parliament later on, I cannot see yet how we are going to fit it in.
Some new arrangement is going to have to be entered into between the institutions to enable us to meet the time-scale so that we can be ready for the December summit each year.
We will have to consider how it is going to be done.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 p.m.
Social action programme 1998-2000
The next item is the report (A4-0381/98) by Mr Hughes, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Communication from the Commission: Social action programme 1998-2000 (COM(98)0259 - C4-0343/9)
The debate is suspended and will be resumed at 3 p.m.
VOTES
Mr President, I would like to briefly draw your attention and that of the House to the fact that the date change proposed by Amendment No 7 applies not only to Article 1(3) but also to Article 1(2).
It is the same date in both cases.
This is only logical.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Mr President, I merely wish to make three remarks concerning the votes on the amendments.
With regard to Amendments Nos 29 and 30, these have been resubmitted because the expression 'sperimentazione non interventistica ' in the Italian version is incomprehensible, and the addition of 'observational studies' enables research to be conducted in centres which carry out research for purposes other than the registration of medicinal products.
Secondly, Amendment No 14 makes the wording of Article 7(2) incompatible with Article 7(3).
Amendment No 31 corrects this inconsistency without altering the spirit of Amendment No 14; I would therefore suggest voting on No 31 before No 14.
Finally, should Amendment No 35 be adopted, it will cause No 17 to fall.
However, I believe that it should be considered before Amendment No 16, in that it would also cause the last paragraph of No 16 to fall, where it says 'the sponsor shall notify the competent authorities at the time of taking those measures'.
Mr President, my request is for the different language versions of Amendments Nos 1 and 10 to be brought into line.
In committee we used the German text for the vote, and there I asked that the English version be aligned with it.
Now, however, the original German version of the amendments has also been changed for presentation to the House.
It is very important that we clarify that what we are voting on is what was adopted in committee in the original German version.
The German term in question is 'gesetzlicher Vertreter '.
It must be very clear that for individuals who are incapable of giving their informed consent, approval is given by their legal representative.
If this is not clear in the English translation, the English version can be brought into line by saying 'legally responsible person', but nothing other than 'der gesetzliche Vertreter ' can be written in the German version, as this was used for the vote in committee.
Mr President, as we are currently dealing with general remarks and so as not to interrupt the vote later, I should like to point out, with respect to Amendment No 7, that there is a discrepancy between some of the translations.
When the term ' Doctor' is used in a general sense, colloquially, it ought to be understood to mean a medical doctor.
There are of course also Doctors of Architecture, Chemistry, Engineering and so on.
Mr President, as we decided in principle in Amendment No 28, which we adopted by a large majority, that research may only be carried out on persons incapable of giving informed consent if it is guaranteed that this is for his or her direct benefit, I request that we ask the Commission before the final vote what its opinion is on this amendment.
I believe it will also be decisive for later votes, not only for the Commission and the Council but also for Parliament.
Mrs Breyer, your comment is somewhat unorthodox because such statements are the province of the rapporteur, not of other Members.
I would not like to follow it up, though it will be noted in the Minutes.
After the approval of the Commission proposal
Mr President, I merely wished to say thank you and to appeal to the Commission to show sensitivity.
The overwhelming majority of this House has made certain requests, and I believe that such pressure must be taken into account.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I should like to clarify two points in connection with Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
Both of these relate to the reinsertion of text that was part of my document prior to the vote in committee.
There is a significant difference between the two amendments, however.
Amendment No 1 involves reinserting material that I myself deleted following a compromise reached with Mrs Wemheuer, the Socialist spokesperson.
I would therefore ask the House to support this compromise, and recommend that they vote against the amendment.
Amendment No 2 also involves the reinsertion of text into the report.
In this case, however, the text concerned was deleted following the adoption of an amendment to delete it.
So in this instance, the rapporteur's position is to recommend a free vote.
Mr President, I would like to make a general comment to point out to you, since I am aware of how fond you are of procedural motions, that two groups have requested split votes on this text: the first has asked for 13 split votes, and the second has asked for 23 split votes.
I would like to make it clear that the request does not come from our group.
So you see that all the groups can make use of the rights they are granted by the Rules of Procedure.
As regards what our rapporteur, Mr Fabra Vallés, has just said, I would point out that Amendment No 1 is an addition to the compromise text. It does not therefore contradict the compromise text that has been adopted in committee.
Moreover, as regards Amendment No 2, it seems to me that, in the German version of the text, the verb 'prévient ' is not translated correctly.
It appears that the German version uses the term 'stellt ', from the verb 'stellen ', when it should be 'warnt ', from the verb 'warnen '.
I think that we should correct this version in line with the French text.
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
I would like to say that it was never my intention to suggest that your group is the only one to request split votes.
Other groups ask for them as well.
It sometimes happens that a slip of the tongue can give a false impression.
Mr President, I have two minor comments.
Firstly, you say that the Conference of Presidents has decided that this report cannot refer to Article 206, which means that the reference must be deleted from the motion for a resolution. Otherwise what would happen is that, although we are not voting by absolute majority as required under Article 206, the reference would still be made.
Since Article 188c of the Treaty deals with precisely these matters, it should be included in the report.
Secondly, I wish to highlight a linguistic problem in recital T. The French expression 'ladite enquête administrative ' has been translated into Italian as 'la cosiddetta indagine amministrativa ', whereby 'ladite ' has become 'soi-disant '.
I would ask that the Italian version be corrected.
Mr Dell'Alba, I have noted your comment.
We will continue with the votes, and to avoid upsetting Mr Fabre-Aubrespy I will mention that this time, most of the separate votes were requested by the Socialist Group.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, if I could just ask you, on a point of order, whether it is within the rules or against the rules for Members to conduct lengthy telephone conversations on their mobile phones.
Mr McMillan-Scott is doing so and I would like to draw that to your attention.
Mr Evans, you are quite right.
Other colleagues of mine and I too have repeatedly requested from this platform that when voting is in progress, telephone conversations should not be taking place on mobile phones.
I do not know how urgent that telephone call was for Mr McMillan-Scott, but in cases of urgent need Members can leave the Chamber so that they are not on the phone while voting is in progress.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, our group voted against the report by Mr Fabra Vallés.
Yesterday, I said how well this report illustrated the scandal that we all know about surrounding the affair of the MED programmes and I gave the reasons why we agreed with the content of the report. However, I did say that we needed to make some changes, as we said earlier, to bring it back into line with the text proposed by the rapporteur.
We have known since last spring exactly what this scandal involves.
On two occasions, Parliament called on the Commission to forward the entire file to the national judicial authorities so that they could decide themselves whether or not the matter did indeed come under their jurisdiction.
As yet, the Commission has only forwarded part of the file. In so doing, it leads us to suspect that it wants to cover up certain unlawful practices because some of its officials could be involved in them.
What is more, the Commission is required, in accordance with Article 206 of the Treaty, to do all in its power to follow up on the comments that accompany the discharge procedure, and that is what is at issue now.
Is the majority in Parliament going to take the next logical step after its repeated condemnations of this affair, or is it just going to accept that it has been wasting its efforts?
When we read that plans are now being made to initiate proceedings and that our Amendment No 1 is being rejected, which merely warned the Commission once again that we were going to refuse to grant discharge if it did not respond to our requests, we certainly get the impression that Parliament is going to give in again.
Along with my colleagues, I must welcome the fact that 102 Members voted against this report, probably for the same reasons we did.
In the Committee on Budgetary Control, I was the only one to vote against.
These 102 Members have shown through their vote the role they hope to make Parliament play.
Pirker report (A4-0390/98)
This report proposes that Europol should have direct access to the customs information system.
A federal police force, lacking any democratic accountability, has no attractions for me and I certainly cannot endorse granting it powers of this kind.
For more detailed arguments, please refer to my explanation of vote on report A-0396/98.
This report proposes that Europol should have direct access to the customs information system.
A federal police force, lacking any democratic accountability, has no attractions for us and we certainly cannot endorse granting it powers of this kind.
Schmid recommendation (A4-0377/98)
We thank Mr Schmid for producing such a thorough and pertinent report.
Regulating Internet use is a sensitive matter, and it is necessary to proceed with extreme caution.
The Internet facilitates global contact between individuals. Ideally, the flow of information should be unhindered and free from regulation.
This report calls for a necessary degree of self-regulation, primarily in order to pre-empt exploitation of the Internet for criminal purposes, such as the dissemination of child pornography.
The rapporteur's proposals complement the Commission's initial text. We particularly welcome the calls for European quality labelling and the approximation of substantive provisions in criminal law.
Common definitions should prevent child pornography rings, for example, from exploiting differences in legislation in pursuit of their vile and degrading activities.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of an EU action plan to promote self-regulation, develop filtering and classification systems and encourage information activities and support measures.
We are very much in favour of providing financial support for moves to restrict violence and pornography on the Internet.
However, we have voted against a common European quality label awarded by the Commission.
It is not the Commission's role to decide on the morality of material.
We have also voted against harmonisation of civil and criminal law in the Member States.
Legal practice in the Member States reflects the different national cultures and traditions in terms of what should be censored and how it should be punished.
It is important to distinguish between what is illegal and what is offensive or damaging to morals.
We need to have European cooperation to combat illegal material such as child pornography.
In this area, we should extend the competence of Europol as soon as possible, so that we can combat international networks which produce, sell and distribute pornography of this kind.
My reaction to the common position of the Council was one of ambivalence.
On the one hand, I am glad that efforts are being made to counter 'pollution' of the Internet as effectively as possible.
Cooperation between the Member States is altogether essential here.
On the other hand, I remain very critical of the artificial, not to say spurious distinction generally made between 'illegal' and 'harmful' material.
Child pornography is illegal, whilst adult pornography is merely harmful to children.
But the appalling and abhorrent extent of sexual abuse against women and children ought to make us take a more realistic view of things.
I voted for the amendment to develop a European 'quality-site label'.
If we first have self-regulation on the part of service providers and personal responsibility on the part of Internet users, everything should be done to facilitate this.
I did not support the proposed amendment to have legal questions ruled on at Community level.
After all, the law varies from Member State to Member State in respect of the limits placed on freedom of expression.
I think it would be a waste of energy trying to persuade the Council to change its mind on this.
The development of the Internet has rapidly presented us with a difficult problem: how can we prevent this new means of communication from being used for unlawful purposes such as prostitution, paedophilia and the dissemination of theories or doctrines that do not respect human dignity, without establishing a system of censorship?
The only realistic method was to take action with the Internet providers.
The Community action plan is based around this idea, particularly through codes of conduct developed by self-regulatory bodies.
In this respect, the European Parliament had proposed, at first reading, the creation of a European quality label for suppliers of Internet services complying with these rules.
The Commission did not adopt this idea and that is unfortunate.
We therefore welcomed the fact that this amendment was tabled again.
Finally, since the legal questions raised by the content or use of the Internet are difficult, the Council has reserved the possibility of issuing an invitation to tender in order to assess these difficulties.
Parliament wishes to go further and to make this initiative compulsory so that these studies can begin immediately.
The Council's position seems to be more sensible, and we should only undertake these studies if there truly is a need to do so.
In conclusion, I would like to say that the same applies to the Internet as to all means of communication: it is the reflection of a civilisation, of a general state of mind.
It is in some ways the mirror of our society, its tensions, its contradictions, its hedonism and its amorality, but also its creativity and the need to break the personal solitude and misery that the materialism and individualism of our time so often bring with them.
If the images we receive over the Internet are not always pleasant, we should ask ourselves why.
The Internet is the same as all the tools invented by man: it can be used for both good and bad purposes.
The report by Mr Schmid relates to an action plan to promote safer use of the Internet.
But in what way would it be safer? Let us come out and say it: from a moral viewpoint, since other reports have dealt with the protection of consumers' interests as regards electronic commerce.
It is a matter of protecting particularly young people who use the Internet from pornography, disguised offers of prostitution and the risks of traffic in human beings.
What is more, these risks are very real, with all due respect to our colleagues who protested at the censorship in the action plan.
In any case, it would appear to be essential to promote self-regulation by those involved in the profession through the adoption of charters and codes of good conduct.
We must also encourage research to improve the techniques that allow us to identify the chain of responsibilities in order to place the liability for illegal content on those who create or distribute it, for no-one must be able to say: 'I am only an access provider'.
Moreover, we must remember once again that we should class all pornography as illegal, not only child pornography.
Whether it involves adults or children, it is just as shocking to consider the human body as a sexual object to be exploited.
Amadeo report (A4-0407/98)
Mr President, I abstained from the vote on the Amadeo report although I consider the report itself to be a very good one.
I did this to protest against the fact that in particular the Group of the Party of European Socialists rejected Amendment No 36.
The amendment is worded in such a way as to allow a type of disciplinary committee of the professional representation or a committee of the national professional representation to be convened in the event of a breach by the doctor conducting the trial.
I believe that, where a problem arises, it is the right of doctors, who do so much for all of us, to have a professional representative that can be informed, make a case for and stand by the doctors.
I regret this attitude of hostility towards doctors that is shown by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and I wished to protest against this by abstaining from the vote.
'In Europe there is a diversity of cultural traditions.
Equally, there is diversity in religious beliefs.' That is what the European Commission says in its proposal for a directive on the introduction of good clinical practice.
This pronouncement was an important starting-point for me in deciding where I stood on the clinical trials directive.
Decisions on whether or not clinical trials are ethical are the province of the Member States, precisely because of this cultural and religious diversity.
This is an important issue, and decisions on whether or not to authorise clinical trials cannot be taken just like that.
Ethics committees can never carry as much authority as national governments.
Moreover, each Member State has developed its own system for allowing or not allowing trials. The industry is familiar with them.
They are afraid that a European directive will create a lack of clarity and thus an additional link in the chain of decision- making on clinical testing.
In this way we are making the European market less attractive.
These considerations prompted me, following the adoption of Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 15, to vote against the report.
We have today voted against the Amadeo report on the implementation of good clinical practice in the conduct of clinical trials on medicinal products for human use.
We believe that the Member States themselves should be able to decide how to organise their health systems, and that there should be no harmonisation of health policy at EU level.
We therefore cannot support the undermining of the Member States' competence in this area through an EU directive, or the undermining of national systems which work perfectly well because of a desire to lay down standards by law at EU level.
We cannot vote in favour of a proposal which would mean increased bureaucracy and higher costs for existing national systems which already efficiently handle applications for the authorisation of trials of medicinal products for human use.
However, we have decided to vote in favour of those amendments which deal solely with the protection of trial subjects and their rights.
The report is far too vague about the procedures associated with applying to begin a clinical trial, and we do not think it is justifiable that the new ethics committees are exclusively able to authorise trials, without consulting the national authorities.
The time limits set out in the report for communicating authorisations are unreasonably short, and mean that it is not possible to carry out a thorough assessment of the applications as is required.
We therefore cannot support the proposal that clinical trials of medicinal products can be begun if authorisation has not been given by the expiry of the time limit.
It is unacceptable to us that clinical trials of medicinal products for human use can be started under any circumstances without being directly authorised by the Member States, but simply once the authorities have been notified.
The proposal will cause a reduction in the level of health protection in those cases where the Member States are obliged to give authorisation for trials on the basis of the time limits in the directive, even if the national authorities have still not completed a more thorough assessment of the application.
We shall always oppose EU rules in the health sector which produce a lower level of health protection in the Member States in this way.
As is quite rightly pointed out in the Commission's proposal for a directive, ethical principles reflect the culture, traditions and expectations of our peoples, and we also think that the Commission should respect these.
We will not play a part in enabling the EU to harmonise national ethical judgements.
There is no justification for the Commission's proposal for authorisation to be given before clinical trials may commence.
A straightforward application procedure should suffice.
Schmid report (A4-0396/98)
We are grateful to the rapporteur for producing a good and thorough text.
Given the transfrontier dimension of fraud and counterfeiting, there is a clear need for the countries of the Union to cooperate in combating such crime - especially when it comes to protecting the euro against counterfeiters.
The report offers some imaginative suggestions as to how the Commission's proposal might be rendered more precise.
As regards the role of Europol, we can support the relevant amendments for the specific purpose they are designed to serve: namely to combat fraud and the counterfeiting of means of payment.
Given the emergence of electronic commerce that is developing on the Internet, the report by our colleague Gerhard Schmid has come at just the right time to warn us of the risks of fraud that we can already see growing.
I believe that the text should enable us to limit the amount of fraud, even if it cannot put a stop to all attempted fraud on its own.
Moreover, it is vital for the Member States to coordinate their judicial policies, for this type of crime will undoubtedly tend to develop on the global network.
As it has done already. In this respect, we must speed up the talks we are holding with our partners in the framework of the WTO.
It is not unreasonable to think that countries that are very conciliatory towards certain networks involved in serious crime might kindly welcome these new types of criminals.
To fight them effectively, the international community must not only mobilise itself but must also have the means available to ensure that a minimum standard is applied in every country.
It is indeed necessary to coordinate all those involved in these new means of payment, but we must also encourage the use of encryption in payment transactions.
Equally, the use of credit cards at home can be made secure though the use of an individual terminal.
The first trials in this respect seem encouraging.
But there is a great deal yet to be done and time is moving on.
We are not in favour of economic and monetary union and would rather it never came about. EMU signals a major political step in the direction of a 'Greater Europe'.
Eleven out of the 15 Member States are more or less sure to go ahead, however, and we accept that the consequences will have to be dealt with as best as possible.
This report deals with protecting the euro against counterfeiting, and we appreciate the need to introduce an effective system for pre-empting the forging of bank notes.
Close cooperation between the national police authorities will be essential - and with Interpol, since the euro will also be circulating outside the eleven participating countries.
We therefore see the logic of supporting this report, despite our fundamental disapproval of EMU as a political project.
We are unable to support this report.
We are opposed to harmonisation in the legal sector and see this report as the beginning of cooperation in the area of criminal law.
Amongst other things, we are concerned at the proposal for a common European definition of what constitute criminal offences.
The current differences in definitions are a reflection of differences in culture and legal traditions, and they should be maintained.
We are also deeply concerned at the part of the proposal which relates to the Member States exchanging information on people who have been convicted of breaking the law in this area.
The Commission document on which the report is based contains many sensible elements which respect the Member States' sovereignty in this area of criminal law.
Unfortunately, this does not alter the fact that other parts of it may provide a basis for EU cooperation on criminal law being developed in the longer term, and we are opposed to this form of cooperation.
Mr President, on behalf of the German delegation in the Group of the European People's Party, but also on behalf of the Austrian and some other delegations - for example, the Luxembourgish delegation - I would like to say that some of us voted against the Cederschiöld report and some abstained from the vote because it is our opinion that this report was rendered unacceptable by the adoption of the socialists' amendment on the introduction of voting rights for foreigners.
The text contravenes our own constitution and the Treaties because we are exceeding our authority here, and it contravenes the constitutions of a number of Member States, such as Germany, that expressly prohibit it; it is a pity that this does such a disservice to the serious concerns expressed by Mrs Cederschiöld in her excellent report.
We therefore felt obliged to vote against this report although we fully agree with the report's concerns.
But we must reject the text of the amendment, which certainly does not belong in the report, as totally unacceptable.
It is our opinion that it is basically unlawful because it is inconsistent with the legal system of the European Union and of a number of Member States.
The need for joint action to combat and prevent organised crime cannot be overstated, and we welcome the Council's initiative in this field.
The report from the committee responsible brings some useful improvements to the original text.
The purpose of our explanation of vote is to express some reticence with regard to the rapporteur's paragraph 6.
We find the wording somewhat infelicitous, since it would be inappropriate to seek to infringe the media's inalienable right to make independent judgements as to editorial content.
The report by Mrs Cederschiöld on crime prevention is full of good intentions, and we can but say that it is unfortunate that the European Union is not paying more heed to them.
It says, for example, that we need 'a strengthening of a sense of community' through the promotion of 'families, kindergartens, schools, churches and leisure associations'. We also need to encourage 'the absorption of laws and values in the family socialisation process' and, finally, we need to maintain a feeling of belonging to a neighbourhood so as to form a 'sense of local area', which will encourage citizens to feel responsible for what happens in their common area.
All these intentions are excellent, and we can only regret the fact that the European Union is doing the contrary by trying to destabilise all communities, from the nation, through standardisation and integration, to the family, by fighting against discrimination on grounds of 'sexual orientation'.
Similarly, we do not see how it could be possible to promote a sense of belonging to a local neighbourhood at a time when the European Union is advocating mobility on an international scale as the greatest of virtues and when it is establishing, moreover, all the policies that will mean that this is absolutely necessary in the future.
However, we cannot support the section of the Cederschiöld report relating to immigrants, which has been made even worse by an amendment.
It says that the European Parliament wishes to guarantee them 'the introduction of voting rights at communal level after a certain period of legal residence', according to the same conditions as apply for citizens of the European Union.
We can see here a glimpse of the old idea promoted by certain federalist camps that nationals of third countries should have at least some of the rights of European citizens.
We believe that those who wish to vote in a country, at whatever level, must apply for nationality of that country.
They must share the destiny of a country - that is, hold its nationality - if they want to be involved in its decisions.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of this report on the prevention of organised crime.
We have voted in favour of calling on the Member States to develop national programmes in the areas of job creation, health, education and social policy, and of improving the European cooperation which already exists in this sector.
However, we believe that this report is somewhat superfluous.
It is not particularly ambitious, and it is time that we proceeded instead with a practical and binding form of cooperation which really is capable of preventing organised crime.
In principle I support all measures to combat organised crime, both repressive and preventive measures.
The current scale of organised crime makes all conceivable initiatives necessary.
Nevertheless, in my opinion the report goes beyond the stated aim, which is to draft guidelines and measures for the prevention of organised crime.
In several points in paragraph 7, for example, measures to prevent organised crime are confused with measures to prevent small-scale crime.
Apart from the fact that in my opinion it is not the task of the European Union to make such detailed statements on these issues, I also reject some points because of their content (the introduction of voting rights at local level for foreigners, giving priority to crime prevention projects in the context of the reform of the Structural Funds, attaching increased importance to alternative forms of reaction).
Despite this, I voted in favour of the report in the final vote because in my view the positive aspects outweigh the negative, and I would simply like to make it clear that this approval does not apply to all points.
We cannot support the Cederschiöld report, even thoughwe fully sympathise with its view that combating crime does not just involve tackling the crime which currently exists, but also social prevention, for example.
In this context, we can only deplore the adverse social effects of the EMU policy on large sections of the EU's population, while the convergence demands made on national budgets by EMU will indeed make it difficult for the Member States to carry through many of the sound proposals contained in the Cederschiöld report.
We are voting in favour of all the report's good advice to the Member States, but we are strongly opposed to all those elements which point to EU harmonisation of this sector, whether now or in the future.
This is a good report overall.
Mrs Cederschiöld manages to come to grips with many of the problems connected with organised crime, but two important elements are missing.
My first caveat is that no real account is given of the huge social problems underlying criminal behaviour.
What we need is an analysis of the way in which greater divisions in society and mass unemployment are generating organised crime.
The second shortcoming is a consequence of the first.
Flawed premises lead to faulty conclusions, as we find on occasion in this report.
Special reference is made to the importance of 'civil society' and the role of the individual in reducing organised crime. I have no faith in such an approach.
Welfare and equality are the prerequisites for cutting crime.
There are many good suggestions and interesting ideas in this report.
The rapporteur fails nonetheless to mention the prime causes of both organised and non-organised crime: poverty, destitution, large income discrepancies and, of course, unemployment.
In paragraph 7, she expresses the view that we can combat organised crime by encouraging 'voluntary service for social policy objectives and the communication of values through private socialisation' - by setting up kindergartens and schools, for example.
Such things are always possible, but it would be far preferable to build up a strong public sector, financed by taxation and capable of offering the fundamental facilities of society to everyone.
That concludes Voting Time.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Social action programme 1998-2000 (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report by Mr Hughes on the communication from the Commission on the social action programme 1998-2000.
Mr President, a model for political action in Europe is the market economy, or at least the social market economy.
An element of the work of unification is cohesion, both economic and social.
And the single market, which as a result of the euro will become the home market, will only be complete when this social dimension is in place.
The Commission's Social Action Programme therefore has an important status even in principle, and not only for unemployed, excluded, disabled and disadvantaged persons. It creates the general conditions for new fields of responsibility in social policy, particularly in employment.
For this reason it is particularly regrettable that it is only a medium-term strategy until 2000.
The opportunity to make a longer-term arrangement until 2006 was missed, but this is what we need in view of EU enlargement and the rapidly changing age structure.
Equal opportunities is one of the four pillars of the NAPs. The Commission mentions it only randomly, however, instead of devoting a chapter to it.
Mainstreaming is not given sufficient attention either. It deserves more than lip-service and is too significant to be restricted to employment and social protection.
Gender mainstreaming is relevant to health and safety at work, demography, new work organisation and other areas.
We thank Stephen Hughes, the rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, for his excellent report. He has also accepted some of the demands of the Committee on Women's Rights, such as the directive on equal treatment between women and men in social security schemes, the social protection statute for assisting spouses and the evaluation reports on the health and safety of pregnant women and on equal pay for work of equal value.
We were able to integrate other issues into the report on Leonardo and the report on the European Structural Funds.
We call upon the Commission to take the initiative in the following areas: child care in the Member States, improved access for women to education, and the provision of new information on the situation of women in the applicant countries, both on the labour market and in society.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I would firstly like to thank Stephen Hughes for his report, which is a good and balanced one, as we have come to expect from him.
The Commission communication, however, contains an assortment of good ideas that have been put into practice but only very modest plans for the future.
The large discrepancy between Annex I and Annex II is perhaps symptomatic of this.
The debate about the new Social Action Programme is taking place in the context of the Amsterdam Treaty; this means that the new instruments - the employment chapter, the Protocol on Social Policy, Article 13 on anti-discrimination and the instrument of social dialogue - should in future ensure a new quality for Europe's social policy.
However, when I consider the Commission plans I am very sceptical. They contain too many non-binding measures instead of new proposals to expand European legislation.
The consequences of European monetary union, of the euro and of enlargement to the east, on which our committee has often asked for information, are not mentioned.
Coordination of the guidelines and economic policy is imprecise and non-binding.
Two of the three main areas are also absolutely inadequate. We consider the participation of workers to be relevant to the subject of the world of work in relation to modernisation, but at the moment it seems that the debate on information and consultation of workers has disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle of the Council.
The second area is that of exclusion.
Citizens have lost a great deal of faith in us due to the irresponsible behaviour of the Council of Ministers in this area, and incidentally the poverty reports demanded by Parliament are not mentioned.
The third area is that of jobs and mobility, and here I must in fact praise the Commission.
Many points have already been discussed this morning in the context of the van Velzen report.
However, the courageous decision made by the Commission on the issue of free movement was the right one.
If you continue in this way, including in other legislation, you will be able to count on the support of our committee and my group.
Mr President, I too must thank Mr Hughes very sincerely for all the work he has put into this actually quite slim report.
I think we have a new process here.
He has said as much himself this morning, a new process in our cooperation with the Commission, namely that we look first at what an action programme of this kind might contain and then pass it over to the Commission, which then shapes it into an action programme of its own or at least adopts it as one element of its own programme.
I think it has worked well.
And I do not think there are too many problems.
We have one amendment concerning a relatively minor detail.
So there are no differences of opinion as far as the main substance of the report is concerned.
I agree really with Mrs Weiler that the Commission's proposals are somewhat on the lean side, that there is not all that much to them.
This brings us really to the only major difference we have with the European Commission, namely the time frame we have for this action programme.
The time frame, which is above all limited to what is covered by the current mandate of the Commission, is too short.
We cannot know exactly when the Amsterdam Treaty will come into force.
We know the Amsterdam Treaty creates many new opportunities precisely in the very sensitive and important area of social and employment policy. That has not really been taken into account.
What makes no sense, and what I want to ask the Commissioner, is this: how can it be that the Commission has very far-reaching plans with regard to Agenda 2000, so far-reaching that it is virtually impossible for the Council to agree them, but that in this relatively simple, straightforward area it refuses to go beyond its own mandate?
I think these things are very hard to reconcile, because social policy will be important not only within the European Union of today, but also in our dealings with the new states which will be joining the European Union early in the next millennium.
And unless we have our house in order, unless we have clearly established what constitutes the acquis communautaire , we shall have a lot of problems.
Those problems could be greater than the problems in all the other areas which we cover in such breadth.
So this is a missed opportunity.
I would actually have been far happier if the Commission had gone along with what we suggested, namely working to a longer time scale.
Then we could take the Amsterdam Treaty fully on board, and if we did that we should advance a little further in the social field and show the public some results from our social and employment policy, not just what has been achieved already, but what is likely to be achieved soon.
Mr President, let me begin by stressing how important it is that jobs and employment policy are now to receive the treatment they deserve at EU level. European cooperation has too long been dominated by competition, the market, trade policy and so on.
There is, however, a problem.
Perhaps I will not have my whole group behind me in what I am about to say, but I am not convinced that EMU is the way forward on jobs.
An abiding anti-inflationary strategy - in the current climate of low inflation throughout most of Europe - could in fact cause more problems than it solves on the employment front.
I feel that we should be looking for alternative ways of improving the unemployment situation, focusing on an interplay between economic and employment policy.
The social dialogue, social policy cooperation and the action programme are important instruments for highlighting political issues and analysing problems. We need all this in order to understand the causes of exclusion, poverty, unemployment, discrimination and globalisation.
If we are to preserve socially viable societies, the big questions must be looked at from a long-term perspective.
My position possibly differs somewhat from the general committee view in this respect. I would tend more towards supporting the Commission's approach.
Many of us in my group feel that these are matters to be dealt with primarily by the individual Member States. Decisions on the rights of individuals belong within the realm of domestic policy.
Furthermore, I believe that partnership, mutual support, positive incentives and setting a good example count for just as much as Europe-wide legislation.
Provided all these elements are handled properly, equally good results can be achieved.
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate the chairman of our committee on this important report and echo his support for the Commission communication on this new social action programme that presents significant new areas for intervention.
I would like to say that I agree with and I thank the rapporteur for proposing the inclusion of a bill of rights at the next revision of the Treaties, as requested by many associations as well as our fellow citizens.
I can tell you that the President of France at least is very much in favour of this as part of refocusing the Treaties and the necessary changes to the institutional set-up of the Union for enlargement.
I would also like to emphasise how important we feel it is to promote every aspect of the social dialogue and European civil dialogue.
This is the way to make those taking part in social dialogue more representative, particularly the SMEs which account for more than 66 % of all jobs in France today.
I would like to emphasise another aspect of participation.
I am referring here, Commissioner, to participation in the profits and results of companies, particularly in its most perfect form, that is, employee share ownership. This is not mentioned in the social action programme despite the fact that its development seems to me to be an important element in modernising labour relations.
That is why I am calling on the Commission to encourage the development of this form of participation, which is both beneficial to the competitiveness of companies and fulfilling for employees.
Those are the few comments I wanted to make on behalf of the UPE Group on this important report.
Mr President, I too would like to thank our committee chairman for all the work he has put into this report.
He has my support in his criticism of the fact that the action plan will cover only three years and not run the full five to 2006, as originally envisaged.
Forward planning and a long-term perspective are essential here.
I am also a little disappointed that the civil dialogue, which we well and truly need, was deemed to be dispensable.
The Commission appears content with the European social policy forums held every other year, although these are far from adequate.
It is a great pity that neither home working nor the general issue of equal opportunities are included in the action plan. An amendment from my group seeks to remedy this.
I do not share the rapporteur's disappointment over the Commission's proposal for greater resort to 'soft law'.
This is an acceptable way forward, preferably in combination with commitment to the civil dialogue.
Mr President, when I read the Commission's Social Action Programme 1998-2000 and the Hughes report on it, an expression which is often used in Denmark came to mind: this is the thin end of the wedge.
And why was that? Well, the fact is that when someone says 'A' in the European Union, it is not long before the whole alphabet has been used.
This is also clearly illustrated by this report, as when the rapporteur states that there is a need for an action programme which is 'more explicitly a political document rather than simply a list of intended actions'.
And when a concept like 'the European social model' is used from time to time, then in my view we have taken far too many steps in the wrong direction.
Because what is the European social model? It does not exist in reality, although it certainly does in the imaginations of most of the Members of Parliament.
That does nothing to make it any more real, however. There is a huge gulf between fantasy and reality in this system, and everyone should face that fact before the next step is taken.
Think of the people out there in the Member States who cannot identify with the fantasy world of the EU, and who in many ways have hardly any idea of what is going on down here.
There are great differences between north and south in the EU, and these are both cultural and economic.
For example, there is a major difference in terms of women's participation in the labour market and as regards the provision of care for children and the elderly.
There is a different basis for social policy in the individual countries.
In some, it is largely geared to families and private schemes, whereas in others it is based on the public sector.
In Denmark and the rest of Scandinavia, the dominant principle is that of solidarity - and continues to be, I have to say.
But we are seeing in Denmark too how things are changing towards a more personal system, in which it is up to individuals to save and take out insurance for themselves.
This is a new and not particularly welcome trend, in my opinion. It is also one which has not just taken place because the majority of the population want it, but also because Denmark is a member of the EU and is therefore trying to approximate Danish social policy to the concept referred to as the European social model.
This is a foolish and mistaken development, and one which is dangerous for democracy in our individual countries.
It is stated in the Commission's proposal and in the report that the introduction of the European social model is important in relation to the internal market and EMU.
I refuse to accept a social principle which is based on the principles of the internal market, where it is reasons of competition which determine what kind of social policy is pursued.
That does not imply any particular kind of solidarity.
And in conclusion, I would say that it must continue to be the individual Member States that decide for themselves what kind of social policy they wish to pursue in their countries.
Mr President, I wish to join with the others in congratulating the rapporteur.
I also welcome Commissioner Flynn, who has been unstinting in his efforts to encourage a very close dialogue between the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Commission in this area.
Turning to the Hughes report and to the future of the social action programme, I should like to make a few brief comments.
At a time of unprecedented political change in Europe, we should not only consolidate but also strengthen the social dimension and update it for the next century.
We face three tremendous challenges in the European Union at the moment: the advent of economic and monetary union, enlargement and the policy to combat large-scale unemployment.
When we add this to the demographic trends within the European Union, global economic change and technological innovation, we can see that we are facing considerable challenges.
I agree with Bartho Pronk and Barbara Weiler that it is regrettable the Commission has only really planned for an action programme up to the year 2000, which is just over 18 months away.
We need something longer term, particularly as the Amsterdam Treaty - which has not yet been ratified in all the Member States - will have greater powers in the social area than any previous Treaty.
The social action programme should form the heart of Europe's social policy agenda.
Like everyone else, I welcome the Commission's emphasis on employment creation but this is not only a panacea for the European Union.
We need to strive to develop policies to help people who are unemployed, excluded or less fortunate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Hughes report that we are debating today, welcoming the Commission's new social action programme, makes such major changes that it virtually transforms the subject into a debate on the European social policy in its broadest sense.
Creating a genuine European welfare society, with an improved quality of life and strong social cohesion, calls for the drafting and subsequent implementation, in practical and objective terms, of a political document reflecting the new status of a European Union social and employment policy, something that has already been acknowledged.
Regrettably, instead of covering a longer period, 1998-2006, the timetable has been limited to 1998-2000, hampering the issues of employment and other social matters in Community policy.
The European Union's new economic framework, resulting from the completion of the Single Market and the new monetary policy, which is about to come into effect, makes interaction between economic policy and social policy all the more important and accentuates the need to consolidate relations between EMU, the Single Market, the cohesion policy and effective social and employment policies.
The new social action programme, as a strong component of a European social policy, should be taken on board by all the European institutions, by the Member States and by the social partners, stressing the importance of more objective and decisive ways of bringing about civil dialogue in the future.
The report emphasises the need to strengthen the existing legislative framework, particularly in the areas of labour organisation, workers' individual and collective rights and social measures aimed at regulating a free market economy.
However, we should not neglect legal arrangements for tackling serious problems lingering as a consequence of demographic trends, racism, poverty and social exclusion, for example.
This report has our support since, in our view, it should lead on to new and far-reaching discussions about the future of European social policy.
Mr President, my colleague, Mr Hughes, has produced an excellent report.
We in the Green Group would like to make one or two changes touching on the issue of equality between women and men.
I believe that it would be a good thing if the report were to emphasise that the issue of equality should be incorporated in all social policy, with particular emphasis on mainstreaming.
We would also like Parliament to remind everyone of the importance of childcare, without which equality between women and men will make no progress whatsoever.
We know that Mr Flynn has made enormous efforts here, and we would like Parliament to support him in this.
Finally, we should remember that we are in the middle of the enlargement process and we have to be concerned when we see how badly applicant countries perform in the area of equality between women and men.
We would like this to be emphasised in the enlargement negotiations.
Mr President, when you look at a report, it is important to realise that you have to read what it actually says.
My Danish colleague from the movement of permanent discontent evidently had some difficulty with that.
However, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Hughes on what is a very fine report. It focuses on the challenges that we are facing in labour market policy over the coming years.
The new social action programme is different from the previous action programmes in that it does not contain any specific proposals for directives on such things as the working environment and social protection.
I think it is a pity that the action programme does not include some more specific proposals on the working environment. We do still need to improve matters there.
On the whole, the new programme is an excellent basis for the EU's social and labour market policy in the next few years.
There are some shortcomings, for example the fact that the Commission does not mention home workers.
I am therefore pleased that we are calling on the Commission to take action in this area.
We should ensure that the seven million people in the Community who work at home are not treated in an inferior way to the rest of the labour market.
We should also be calling on the Commission to ensure that the existing directives also cover home workers.
The section dealing with employment could also have been a little more ambitious.
We should not just shift jobs around between the Member States.
That will not bring many people into work.
Some Member States have unfortunately used the trick of enticing businesses to their country with offers of tax exemptions and low corporation tax.
The Commission should therefore act to set a minimum rate for corporation tax.
Work is currently being done on drawing up a code of conduct for business taxation. That is not enough.
We must have binding rules in this sector.
So there is a need for a more ambitious and binding form of cooperation on social and labour market policy for the future.
Mr President, the new social action programme for 1998-2000 proposed by the Commission is securely based on the guidelines for employment as agreed at the European Councils of Amsterdam and Luxembourg.
However, the proposals could certainly have been more daring.
For example, there should be more active participation by working people in the decision-making process in companies, and the rights of their representatives should be amplified.
But a special approach is also needed for small and medium-sized enterprises, which takes account of their special features and needs.
The Commission also ought to clarify the way in which it means to exploit the potential offered by the new legal base in the area of social protection.
In addition, preparatory work should begin straight away on action programmes against social discrimination and to promote social access, and I wish to stress in particular the care we must devote to people with special needs.
We must make sure that in directives concerning public contracts it will be compulsory to conform with current social legislation.
Finally, I cannot but agree with the rapporteur that the Commission should have chosen the period 1998-2006 and not the very brief span of 1998-2000 which it ultimately selected, since the former would have reinforced the basic role of employment and social affairs in the Union's policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, let me begin by saying that I regard this present debate on the excellent report by Mr Hughes as a very important symbolic debate.
The rapporteur and Chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs sets out in his explanatory statement the entire history of this contact and cooperation with the Commission, and the entire history of its development following the progress in Amsterdam and at the special conference in Luxembourg.
We in the European Union are today facing a new reality which finally accepts and recognises that employment and social policy are the first priority in Europe, and I think the social action programme which the Commission has proposed, Commissioner, is an important step forward.
It is indeed a policy document of great weight for the European Union.
I think this must be followed up, and I stress that the emphasis placed on dialogue with the civil society in various forums is extremely important, though more important still is social dialogue with the social partners, which is of course not just a fashion which has had its day.
Last Saturday a very important event took place in Athens at which Mr Delors was present, and he repeated that what Europe needs is precisely to highlight the value of social justice and solidarity.
I believe that for us too, this ought to form the basis which gives the European Union, our Europe, fresh impetus and brings our vision to fruition.
Mr President, I would like to comment further on the van Velzen report in the light of this morning's debate.
Employment continues to be first and foremost a task for the Member States.
Guidelines and coordination are useful and good, and I too hope that they will allow us to promote and develop employment.
But we must be careful not to do as we did this morning and talk as though we alone at EU level are capable of solving the problem of unemployment.
By doing so we are merely giving the relevant national politicians the opportunity to pass the buck to the EU or the European Central Bank if national labour market policy fails.
Incidentally, calling the Stability Pact into question has the effect of threatening employment rather than promoting it.
I call upon the Commission to give greater prominence to updating minimum social standards in the Social Action Programme 1998-2000.
A fundamental aim of European social policy is to develop a European framework of social legislation that guarantees a common basis of binding and enforceable minimum social standards, which does not demand too much of weaker states and does not prevent more developed economies from maintaining or improving their social standards.
At least, this is what I have been told, Commissioner.
However, those countries which are weaker in economic terms have made progress since minimum standards were established, which is why I would repeat that the further development of minimum social standards must be seriously taken in hand.
Existing gaps, such as the inclusion of homeworking, teleworking and contract workers, and the reinforcement of information, consultation and participation procedures, must be dealt with by introducing new directives.
These gaps must be closed.
I would also like to comment on the social dialogue.
I support Mr Peter's demand that the social dialogue must be placed on a broader basis of organisations, and despite your optimism, Commissioner, the results of the social dialogue have so far been disappointing.
In my opinion there is a great deal to be done, and if need be we must put the situation right by means of directives.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Hughes for his report and all those who stayed and contributed to the debate.
I look on the report as being very supportive of the Commission Social Action Programme.
As Mr Hughes says, the programme reflects very valuable prior input from himself and his colleagues. This has been very favourably reported upon by many who contributed.
For the record I should like to say that, from the Commission's perspective, the constructive way we have worked together to develop this programme was quite exemplary and has brought us a long way in the development of the relationship between the Commission and Parliament.
The Social Action Programme 1998-2000 adopted by the Commission on 29 April provides a strategic overview of how we see the key priorities for the future development of European social policy.
Indeed, European citizens want a very strong, dynamic and forward-looking social policy and this programme provides a framework within which all of that can be achieved.
The programme responds to the very significant potential of the new Amsterdam Treaty in the social field.
The programme places employment - as Mr Hughes quite rightly says - at the very centre of social policy, drawing out the complementarity between the new European employment strategy and the broader social policy agenda.
Employment is the principal means by which we can deal with many social problems and sustain the core values of the European social model.
Social protection systems - work regulation, health and safety provisions - are productive factors helping to improve economic performance as well as ensuring a fair sharing of the benefits of that performance.
We have already gone a long way in implementing the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty in the field of employment.
Although much remains to be done to meet the expectations of our citizens, there are signs that our employment strategy is proving to be a success story.
Within a very short time Member States have engaged in a process to make their employment strategy systematic, consistent and quite transparent.
There is the opportunity for the Heads of State to move further at the Vienna Council and thereafter in their internal budget decisions.
While employment is central to our vision the programme goes beyond the labour market. It sets out a balanced, ambitious and forward-looking vision of social policy as an essential element of the next challenging phase of European integration.
I am more than happy to make a commitment here to come back to report regularly on the implementation of the programme and to maintain the collaborative approach we have followed so far which has proved so useful in the development of the whole of European social policy.
The Commission is already preparing for the implementation of the other provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty as soon as it is ratified.
I will be looking for Parliament's support to develop this new and exciting part of the agenda.
I should like to say a few words about the debate held in the Council on 27 October on the social action programme. It was quite encouraging and I took note of several messages which came from the Council at that meeting.
Firstly, there was explicit support for our approach as set out and reconfirmation that employment is Europe's top priority.
Enlargement was very strongly signalled as a key issue.
I believe that Member States would like social policy to have more emphasis in our enlargement discussions and I expect that will be the case.
I can report that the spirit of Amsterdam is very much alive.
I was particularly heartened by the encouragement to table proposals in the area of anti-discrimination under Article 13.
There was a strong message from the Social Affairs Council as to the necessity of strengthening social dialogue.
I will not hide from you that social dialogue has a long way to go.
We have made some progress but it has been rather limited and I am going to have to work on that a little harder with the social partners.
I will now reply to some points which seem to be causing concern.
Some Members asked why, so far as the programme is concerned, the time span is not longer.
Let us be clear. There will certainly be a need for a new social action programme post-2000.
But by then we will be a lot clearer on many of the major issues we are talking about, for example developments in globalisation, in particular the social impact of economic and monetary union.
The potential that exists from the new Treaty will be clearer to us then. We will have advanced a little in the negotiations on enlargement and we will be better able to focus on the key issues there.
There will be the impact of the employment strategy.
We will have progressed further in the whole evaluation of the national action plans and then we will be in a better position to get a longer term view for the next programme.
As honourable Members have said, social policy is changing and there will be a new focus particularly when the Treaty is ratified.
The strategy with regard to employment will be advanced as well.
Mrs Schörling put it very well when she said that we are taking the first steps in order to take further steps. It is a good way of looking at the whole matter.
There is a lot to do and I would suggest that the House is going to be extremely busy between now and the end of this Commission and this Parliament in dealing both with the legislative programmes that are now coming on-stream and also the non-legislative actions.
Social policy is an ongoing process and our evaluation will help us to develop it better as time goes on.
Mr Hughes made it contingent on his support that certain matters would be replied to so I will make a few further remarks.
On the civil dialogue we did not get what we had hoped for from the Treaty.
However, we will be publishing the outcome from the Social Forum quite soon.
We have a budget line to do all this in 1999 so we are going to continue to develop it.
On preparatory actions for Articles 13 and 137, you will be pleased to hear that work is well under way.
In fact, we issued a call for tenders to prepare for Article 137 in September so we are moving ahead nicely there.
On health and safety staffing, we now have the agency in Bilbao and I am trying to divide up the work in a more even-handed way so that we will continue to get the best results possible.
Remarks were made by Mr Hughes on social protection and the framework of investment.
Our plan contains three elements.
In a matter of weeks we will publish a review of the 1992 recommendation on minimum income support schemes within the social welfare systems and next year we will publish a new communication on the future of social protection.
We had two previous texts there in 1995 and 1997 but it is important that we do it again.
As we set out in the Action Programme we want to use Article 137 to develop a framework for national policies, including social protection systems to work against social exclusion.
The issue of sexual harassment was also raised.
I agree that the question of sexual harassment is a real problem.
I will soon be able to give you two studies concerning sexual harassment and its prevalence in organisations in all of the surveyed countries in the European Union.
It is my assessment that the majority of the Member States are, at the moment, not interested in legislation.
As you know, the social partners could not come to an agreement on the matter either, so I am in a bit of a dilemma there.
I would like to ask your indulgence to reflect further upon this. Perhaps after the two studies have been published we can talk about it again.
Insofar as stress, as a health and safety matter to be examined is concerned, there is no problem.
It is already explicitly mentioned on page 9 of the mid-term report on Community programmes concerning safety, hygiene and health at work.
As far as home workers are concerned I should like to tell the House that the Commission will be adopting a communication on modernising the organisation of work. We hope to do that on 25 November.
This is a framework document that will give the social partners and others an opportunity to comment on how we should now proceed with all of the organisation of work issues. I can tell you, Mr Hughes, that home working will be included in that matter.
You also mentioned the question about a directive on equal treatment and social security in 1998.
Our programme has a commitment to do that in 1999 and work is in progress which is well advanced now.
We have not discussed it yet at Commission-level, but it is quite well advanced.
Regarding the question of implementation of the pregnant workers directive, the report is presently being drafted on that particular issue. It may be adopted by the end of the year.
I should like to say to Mrs Hautala that there will be a communication by the end of December, if possible, but certainly sometime before the middle of January, on the question of the external aspects of social policy. That will include enlargement.
We have an awful lot of work to do between now and the end of next year.
Certainly, in my opinion, social policy has moved on quite dramatically.
We will be extremely busy with legislation, where a number of points are pending, and on non-legislative matters, together with the whole employment strategy. I ask for your support for the plan.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Social dialogue
The next item is the report (A4-0392/98) by Mr Peter, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the communication from the Commission: Adapting and promoting the social dialogue at Community level.
Mr President, allow me firstly to raise a technical point.
My attention has been drawn to the fact that in recital D of the Swedish version of this report there is a translation error which distorts the meaning.
I would ask you to have this checked.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the goal of coherence of economic and social development is enshrined in the Treaties.
The Commission's clear remit to promote social dialogue, the European Social Charter, the Agreement on Social Policy which has now been incorporated into the Amsterdam Treaty, the employment chapter in this Treaty and not least the effects of imminent monetary union give the social dialogue greater significance than ever before.
It is consensus rather than conflict that remains at the heart of the social dialogue.
Where the social partners have completely different interests, a major factor in determining their ability to reach agreement will be whether they carry equal weight.
It is essential that the individual organisations prove that they are representative, but clear criteria must be set for establishing this and these must be continuously updated.
The organisations are autonomous, which means that they are free to decide with whom, in the given representative framework, they wish to sit at the table, negotiate, perhaps reach agreement.
They also decide, within the given framework, what they want to regulate.
Out of respect for the autonomy of the organisations the public authorities and political bodies must not directly interfere in the composition of the social partners.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs supports all the basic elements of the proposals drawn up by the Commission to increase the efficiency of structured European social dialogue, as presented in the Communication of 20 May 1998 on adapting and promoting the social dialogue at Community level.
The amendments approved by the committee do not stand in the way of this.
I have a few more points to make on this topic.
The social dialogue is doubtless part of what we call the European social model.
In order to really do justice to this claim, it is crucial - and this is a point I would like to emphasise again - that the Commission should identify with it completely.
This means that there can be no arbitrary restriction of the traditional jurisdiction of the Social Affairs Commissioner, for example, or of certain of the other Commissioners!
Regardless of jurisdiction, the social dialogue must be conducted seriously at the relevant level for all social issues.
In future not only the employment guidelines but also the economic policy guidelines of the EU are to be discussed in the Standing Committee on Employment.
The results of the consultations are to be forwarded to the relevant Councils in time to be included in their consultations and decision-making.
This may seem obvious but from past experience it should not be taken for granted.
In the context of accession measures for the central and eastern European countries we must ensure that these countries have in place appropriate structures for the social dialogue by the time of accession.
I can only recommend to Parliament that it make its approval of accession conditional upon this.
Because legislation comes into effect in the EU by means of a Council decision resulting from the social dialogue process, the fact that the European Parliament is not involved creates the problem of a lack of democratic legitimation for such legislation.
Not least because of the rules which will in future become effective in all Member States and the duty of the Commission to present all social legislative initiatives to the social partners so that they can decide whether they wish to negotiate on the issue, Parliament must now insist on being placed on an equal footing with the Council in this procedure.
As the Commission has now stated that it is prepared to participate in interinstitutional negotiations, whether or not this actually happens will depend on the Council.
If Parliament continues to be excluded completely from this legislative procedure, while the Council has the last word, this will be a cardinal error that cannot be compensated for by extending the codecision procedure elsewhere.
Mr President, the European integration process, particularly after economic and monetary union, must bear the hallmark of greater commitment to sustainable growth and development and to social policy and employment; indeed, this is the thrust of the reports presented this morning and this afternoon.
Europe's social partners have a crucial role to play in this process, a role which is expressly recognised in the Treaty.
The Member States must take account of basic social rights in all their actions, and one of their aims is to promote social dialogue.
The new chapter of the Treaty devoted to employment, which was inserted at Amsterdam, also refers explicitly to consultation of the social partners.
What is more, under the Treaty the social partners may negotiate European-level framework agreements on relevant social policy issues falling within their competence.
Thus, because of the steadily increasing significance of the social dialogue, I should like to touch on three matters which crop up in the Commission's communication and are also referred to in Mr Peter's report.
Firstly, the problem of representation and the representativeness of the organisations concerned.
This is a problem that is beginning to arise in the Member States too, so in my opinion there is all the more cause to raise it at European level.
In this context, the study launched by the Commission - which we hope will soon be completed - will undoubtedly be most helpful in consolidating the European social dialogue, and will go a long way to avoiding the sort of disputes that have occurred in the past, some of which have even ended up in court.
The second matter is sectoral dialogue.
The development of social and sectoral dialogue can be crucial in terms of predicting and managing industrial change in the Community, paving the way for further progress and improving quantitative and qualitative results.
My final point relates to the role of the European Parliament.
Although I appreciate the Commission's willingness to keep Parliament informed, under the legislative procedure laid down in the Protocol, I believe that an interinstitutional agreement should be concluded in the near future with a view to involving Parliament - the only institution directly elected by the citizens - in the legislative procedure provided for in the Agreement on Social Policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the social dialogue procedure is still a relatively new arrival in the European Union.
After two successful test runs involving the guidelines on parental leave and on part-time working, we now have a Commission communication that is considered to be a revision and a new direction.
The Commission has not provided anything new.
The rapporteur, Mr Peter, whom I should like to thank warmly for his collaboration, has put a great deal of effort into his report.
Nevertheless, it cannot be overlooked that the trade unions had the lead role in this extremely important text.
There need not be anything wrong with this if negotiations remain balanced and fair.
It is difficult to understand why the Commission should give increased support to only one side: that of employees' representatives.
The ETUC certainly does not require any coaching or particular support in its work.
The financial support provided by the Commission for the ETUC should also be adequate.
I would now like to address a key issue.
The current round of social dialogue takes the form of tripartite negotiations, and many who cannot take part directly in the negotiations object to this.
The Commission has not been able to come up with any satisfactory proposals.
The Christian trade unions are still waiting in the wings, as are many representatives of small sectors and areas of employment.
Even if 80 % of UNICE's members are from SMEs, UEAPME, as a direct and individual SME representative at EU level, has so far been forced to adopt a completely unacceptable position in the social dialogue.
Our group has protested against this again and again, and has asked that UEAPME be included.
UNICE and UEAPME are now concluding a contractual agreement that should allow SME representatives to participate directly in negotiations within the context of the social dialogue.
I deliberately say 'should', as we will have to wait and see how it works and whether the UEAPME representatives consider themselves to have been accepted.
This would solve one problem to a certain degree, even if it is only a stopgap, but other parties continue to be excluded from the negotiations.
We now urgently need the study of representativeness that the Commission announced in 1996, and then we will have to take another long, hard look at the participants in the social dialogue.
At that point, at the very latest, the position of the European Parliament as the only democratically legitimate body of the European Union will have to re-examined, since our role in the social dialogue is also unsatisfactory.
We therefore continue to have two major problems facing us in the context of the social dialogue that are only too familiar to us.
Our group is determined to continue to work towards a solution to both these problems.
We owe it to the small organisations.
Mr President, what we are mainly dealing with here is how to structure the social dialogue as it operates between the two sides of industry. The end result of such a process is a collective agreement of some kind - an instrument often better suited to resolving issues than legislation.
We have used this model of negotiation in Scandinavia for a long time now and would be happy to see it adopted at European level.
All the same, policy-makers should beware of seeing the passing of laws as an inevitable consequence of entering into a social dialogue and promoting collective agreements.
Legislation may follow, but that should not be the main purpose of the exercise.
The role of national authorities and the EU institutions is to further cooperation between autonomous and independent negotiating partners, as the rapporteur rightly says in paragraph 8.
It will be up to the public bodies to act as mediators and facilitators, fostering contacts between the parties and stimulating discussion.
Many openings exist; there is no need to reach for the legislative option every time.
I have three further points, Mr President. If the necessary connection between the employment guidelines and the economic policy guidelines is to be made, the Standing Committee on Employment would be well advised to discuss them in parallel.
Secondly, the social dialogue will need special consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe, since the parties have not had the same scope for cooperation as has existed in labour relations elsewhere.
Lastly, let us not forget that the local and regional authorities are major employers too. We will have to find a better way of incorporating them - as a matter of course - into the process of dialogue and cooperation.
In that way, they will constitute a strong employment presence at local level.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and also to pay tribute to Commissioner Flynn for his involvement in this whole area.
With any model of social dialogue and social partnership, rights are devolved to the social partners to negotiate, consult and come up with framework agreements which should be implemented on a European basis.
Alongside the rights there are obligations.
A very important aspect, perhaps sometimes overlooked by this Parliament, is the obligation to come to the table with a real negotiating position and not just take a stance for the cameras.
In particular, it is necessary to broaden the partnership to include those sectors that are at present excluded, in particular the SME sector.
We should also look at questions like the disability sector, the education sector and the importance of life-long learning and education and training with regard to employment and other social exclusion problems which we discussed this morning, when we were speaking about the Van Velzen report and the Commission's response.
Maybe we should now examine how we can bring more people into the social dialogue.
One way that we could do this, perhaps on a trial basis, is with a third type of organisation which also incorporates the Economic and Social Committee.
This would be more representative and could be used as a clearing house for some of the minor details and proposals.
I am concerned about the role of Parliament in this whole process.
Sometimes we in Parliament feel that we are presented with a fait accompli agreed by the social partners, and that this is political blackmail - we cannot oppose it because the social partners have agreed it.
Therefore some role must be found for Parliament in the interactions between the social partners.
However, bearing those points in mind, I would commend this report to the House and my group will be supporting the position of the rapporteur.
Mr President, under Article 118b of the Single European Act, the Commission is required to 'develop relations between management and labour at European level'.
Yet the local and regional authorities - who together constitute one of Europe's largest employers - are being sidelined from this process.
Local and regional employers in the EU are extremely annoyed at not being seen as fully- fledged partners in the cross-sectoral social dialogue.
CEMR, the body representing hundreds of thousands of municipalities and regions around Europe, was set up back in 1951. It is somewhat bizarre that an organisation representing the employers of over 14 million people full-time - and up to 30 million, if part-time workers are included - should be left out in this way.
The members of CEMR are very active in labour relations nationally and often enjoy negotiating powers.
They have behind them a long tradition of negotiating practice, after years of successful participation in social dialogue at national level.
It therefore makes sense in my view to envisage taking CEMR on board as a full and equal partner.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur for producing such a fine and eloquent text.
In future, the social dialogue will play an ever-increasing part in shaping EU policy. One of the main reasons for this is that the new treaty includes a specific reference to social and employment issues.
I wish to concentrate on three points.
Mrs Schörling was talking about the important question of fair representation.
Just how are we going to enhance representation? Is it a matter for politicians, or should the parties directly concerned be left to work things out for themselves?
In line with Swedish tradition, my belief is that it is up to management and labour to ensure that they are properly represented.
The workers' side - including public sector employees - has managed to get its act together.
The employers will now have to see to it that they follow suit.
Whilst I can appreciate the desire to reduce the membership of the Standing Committee on Employment, I do feel that something may be lost if that happens.
We must not lose sight of the need for outreach from the Standing Committee to the Member States. A Brussels-only phenomenon is not what we want at all.
I would therefore urge people to take heed of paragraph 13 in Mr Peter's report.
Thirdly, I should like to raise the matter of the Standing Committee's remit.
Employment policy cannot be seen in isolation, as separate from economic policy.
It is essential for the Standing Committee on Employment to encompass macroeconomic issues and take part in drawing up economic policy guidelines.
Lastly, I agree with what has already been said on Parliament's role in this process.
Mr President, a few days ago the presidents of UNICE and UEAPME declared that, respecting each other's autonomy, they would be recognising one another as interlocutors in future European negotiations and would be stepping up their cooperation in that context.
UNICE acknowledges meanwhile that UEAPME is the body most representative of the specific interests of SMEs in Europe, and is thus giving it a place at the negotiating table.
If this agreement is finalised on 4 December by the decision-making bodies of the two organisations, a major step will have been taken towards achieving something which the PPE Group called for at the time of the Maastricht Treaty, namely full participation in European social dialogue by a partner speaking specifically for SMEs.
We are in favour of social dialogue, Mr President, but as a democratically elected body we cannot but approve of growing autonomy for the social partners, provided these are sufficiently representative - that word again.
This presupposes, amongst other things, that these partners together will cover enough of the ground to ensure that different interests are given sufficient consideration in negotiations.
This agreement represents a particularly significant step in that direction.
I would ask the Commission to honour the agreement in setting the long-awaited representativeness criteria.
We could put it this way, Mr President. An engagement has been announced which will increase the representativeness and legitimacy of the social dialogue.
Anyone who now puts a spoke in the wheel and stops the wedding from going ahead or stops the couple from living together will bear an enormously heavy burden of responsibility.
SMEs are important creators of jobs.
They must have the chance - by virtue of having their own social partner at the European negotiating table - to take part in the negotiations and in that way to give expression and shape to their desire to be a responsible player.
Mr President, Ireland's version of the social dialogue, which we call social partnership, is well established and has played a major part in the economic success which our country has achieved over recent years.
Our version of social partnership is in many ways ahead of the social dialogue.
The traditional social partners - the unions and the employers - are certainly central to the process, but they have been joined by others: farmers, women, people with disabilities, the unemployed and other marginalised groups.
I would like to see that broadened to include those representing the development area.
The benefits of the change from an adversarial to a consensual approach are very clear to everybody.
But there have been difficulties for many in Ireland, as the Ryanair dispute earlier this year clearly showed.
While we have managed to reach consensus on issues such as pay and taxation, the question of employee consultation within firms has not yet been adequately explored.
It is for this reason that I really welcome last week's decision by the Commission.
Commissioner Flynn is to be congratulated for coming forward with a draft directive on worker consultation in firms with more than 50 employees.
I see the Commissioner is rightly satisfied. This is another success and I hope to do the report.
I am convinced that the Ryanair dispute in Ireland would have been solved long ago if this directive had been in place.
Ireland fits somewhere between the continental European social model and the Anglo-Saxon model.
Worker consultation and information is a key part of the former but relatively unknown in the latter.
But it is strange that many companies in Ireland which do not negotiate with trade unions representing their own workers at local level do not seem to have great difficulty dealing with unions at the national or European levels.
I therefore call on all employers to be consistent in their approach to social dialogue and to take a positive view of the new directive.
Increased worker participation helps to achieve a happier, more highly motivated and more productive workforce.
Is this not what employers want?
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Peter on his report, which is of a very high quality.
If agreements by the European social partners acquire legal force in the European Union in the area of work by making them generally binding through a Council decision, the SMEs will be among those most affected as they employ the majority of workers in Europe.
The report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is right to call for increased involvement of the SMEs in shaping the European social dialogue, which is an issue of great concern to the Group of the European People's Party, as is clear from our Amendment No 9.
The social dialogue is necessary at both European and national levels.
It is also successful at company level.
This is illustrated by the success story of the European Works Council and the positive development of the discussion on the European Company.
Or so I am told, Commissioner.
In both cases the remedy has been negotiations by the social partners to establish ways in which the workers can participate.
A conference organised by the Austrian Presidency took place in Vienna last week on the European social model and the social dialogue.
Comparisons were made with other models, for example with the market economy pure and simple, as in the emergent industrial nations of South-East Asia.
But as they have neglected the social dimension many of the Asian tigers have in economic terms become tame, lame domestic cats.
The effective answer to globalisation is the European model, the social market economy based on social partnership and social dialogue.
The Group of the European People's Party will therefore be voting in favour of the Peter report.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Peter for his report, which has been very helpful.
I would remind you that in 1996 the Commission initiated a major consultation exercise on the future of the social dialogue through the consultative communication.
At that time Parliament drew up a comprehensive resolution on the document and I was here in Strasbourg to discuss it with you in the summer of 1997.
The Commission has worked very hard to take on board your comments in drafting this second communication.
The new Amsterdam Treaty provides the means for a renewed commitment of the social partners to modernise and strengthen the social dimension of Europe.
To do this the social dialogue must be helped. It has to be helped to play its full role within the framework of supportive and efficient information, consultation and negotiation procedures.
As you said in the 1997 resolution, there are some key issues that we had to tackle and there are three of them. Firstly, the need to reform the Standing Committee on Employment: considering the new focus on employment and the unwieldiness of the current structure, it has not worked well and has to be reformed.
Secondly, the importance of creating a more coherent and efficient framework within which the sectoral dialogue could develop and, finally, the question of representativeness.
The Commission's communication on adapting and promoting the social dialogue at Community level was adopted on 20 May this year. It addresses these three issues and sets out to strengthen the social dialogue at the European level and to make it more adaptable so that we can link the work of the social partners much more closely with the development and the implementation of all our European Union policies.
I begin with the question of representativeness, because it was raised by a number of Members - Mrs Ghilardotti, Mrs Glase, Mrs Schörling and Mrs Thyssen - and I am grateful for their concern.
It is clear that the institutions have to fully respect the autonomy of the social partners during their negotiations.
It is the social partners which, in this context, are responsible for ensuring sufficient representativeness.
However, as regards consultations, the institutions have to take their responsibilities to ensure the best possible representativeness.
It must be remembered that the Court of First Instance recently supported this approach in a landmark judgment.
We take the principle of the autonomy of the partners very seriously indeed.
In view of the European Parliament's call on the Commission to reform the Standing Committee on Employment, as a matter of urgency, the Commission adopted a parallel to the communication: a proposal to the Council to reform the current structure.
What we want to do there is to give each presidency the choice of either calling a troika of Heads of State or Government or a council to meet with the social partners within the framework of the Standing Committee on Employment.
The social partner delegations to these meetings should be restricted in their number but always include the main social partner organisations.
In short, the Commission suggests to the Council creating a single, transparent and representative forum for high-level dialogue on employment.
So the ball is really in the Council's court, to ensure that the real dialogue on employment is not restricted just to a core group of social partners.
With regard to the other consultation procedures, the communication introduced a liaison forum, involving quarterly consultations with all recognised European social partners on policy matters.
The first of these forums has already taken place and has proved to be a very useful exercise indeed.
Furthermore, at the sectoral level, new, flexible, sectoral committees will replace the many existing and cumbersome structures.
This decision caused some initial fears of a reduction in support for the sectoral dialogue.
Many of you have been in contact with me personally to query the practicalities of this new structure.
I will emphasise again here that this is not a reduction but rather a new start for the sectoral dialogue, where all the sectors wanting to make a meaningful joint contribution at European level can take part on equal terms.
There will no longer be a restriction of formalised support to activities where there is exclusive Community competence.
So the need to discuss industrial restructuring in employment matters is present today in all sectors of activity.
Just a few words about the Peter report.
Mr Peter and the Social Affairs Committee have once again managed to strike a fair balance between the different interests that are involved.
This is a very good report.
I would simply like to reiterate the importance of respecting the autonomy of the social partners.
I would therefore question whether it is politically or, indeed legally, feasible to involve any form of consultative committees in the negotiations between the partners or to involve any national organisations directly at European level.
As for the key point of the communication, I find the report is very supportive indeed and this is true of reform of the Standing Committee on Employment, the new sectoral dialogue committees, the representativeness question and the importance of developing a social dialogue with the applicant countries.
This should not come as a surprise because, as I have already stated, the position taken on these issues in the communication takes into account to a large extent the position of the European Parliament.
So the whole exercise serves, in my opinion, as an example of very good cooperation and understanding between our institutions.
Mr Crowley raised the question of the involvement of the European Parliament in the decision-making process leading to the adoption of legislation based on European agreements.
I wish to say to him that the Commission worked for the involvement of Parliament in this very respect during the IGC.
As emphasised in our draft report, this standpoint is clearly reiterated in our communication, and I know there are ongoing contacts between Parliament, the Council and the Commission in order to resolve this particular issue.
You know where I stand and where my support is on that point.
I wish to say to Mrs Thyssen that UNICE is in dialogue with UEAPME about the representativeness issue.
We understand that great progress is being made, and certainly I support that.
I would say to Mr Lindqvist, on the question of enlargement, that on all my visits to the applicant countries I have sought out the social partners to talk with them.
There are real problems there.
Through PHARE, we are trying to help the development of the dialogue there.
We look at the state of the social dialogue in all the screening exercises on each of the applicants. But it is a very keen point and we will return to it certainly.
Finally, I wish to say to Mrs Schörling that local government is part of CEEP, and I understand they are contemplating a sectoral dialogue.
If that is the case, I would greatly support it.
I thank Mr Peter.
It has been a very useful debate, and I look forward to the continuation and the enhancement of the social dialogue.
Mrs Malone, what happened last week on information and consultation was an enormous step forward. We look forward to debating that issue in the House at a later date.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
New Transatlantic Marketplace
The next item is the report (A4-0387/98) by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the Commission communication on the 'New Transatlantic Marketplace' (COM(98)0125 - C4-0271/98).
Mr President, Commissioner Brittan, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to address a few fundamental points before I discuss the report.
Today's debate will be dominated by the Americans' threat to impose sanctions in the form of duties on products from Member States of the European Union, in particular from France and the UK, in order to undermine the present regulation on the banana market before 1 January 1999 and to stir up trouble among the Member States.
It is particularly ironic that the General Affairs Council made its decision on adopting the Action Plan for the Transatlantic Economic Partnership on 9 November 1998, at almost the same time as the Americans decided to impose unilateral sanctions on the European Union.
This step by the Americans threatens the credibility of the whole WTO dispute settlement procedure.
The Americans are within their rights not to agree with the new banana market regulation.
They are within their rights to believe that this regulation is not consistent with WTO rules.
But they are not within their rights to decide this themselves.
However attractive such wild west behaviour may seem at national level, it provokes severe counter-reactions.
Increasing nervousness on the part of the Americans is nevertheless understandable and can be explained largely by their current trade deficit, which is relatively large.
So we should adopt a calmer stance in future.
We are doing well to consolidate and expand the political and economic basis between us.
The banana dispute will not be our last trade dispute; the next ones, on hormones and steel, are already on the horizon.
We must accept these realities.
Since 1989 and 1990 our relations have been undergoing a sea-change.
The conditions which we formerly took for granted have changed and we have become global competitors.
Economic and trade policy determine more than ever the political actions of the two world powers.
However, we should not forget that we compete on a solid basis of friendship.
Nor should we forget that adapting and strengthening economic relations guarantees jobs on both sides of the Atlantic.
The huge merger of Daimler and Chrysler is only a foretaste of what we can expect in the near future.
The present report on the Action Plan 'Transatlantic Economic Partnership' expressly supports the initiative of the Commission and the Council.
You will all remember that during the last summit between the European Union and the United States in London, the Council, particularly France, withheld its approval and presented a new plan that was less ambitious.
The result of the process was then the Transatlantic Economic Partnership rather than the Transatlantic Marketplace.
The Council feared that the Commission's proposal to call for a framework agreement with a general negotiating mandate would result in an uncontrolled transfer of national decision-making powers and scope.
A framework agreement would have had the advantage for the European Parliament of allowing it to be formally consulted.
Now we are merely informed.
The Action Plan for the Transatlantic Economic Partnership proposes firstly the coordination of multilateral activities and secondly the coordination of a bilateral agenda for the following areas: first, removal of technical barriers; second, intensification of the role of labour in services; third, increased market access for EU and US companies in government procurement; fourth, better protection for intellectual property; fifth, strengthened dialogue and the creation of social cooperation structures in the areas of food, plant and animal health and biotechnology, and the creation of an environmental group.
I believe that this is a good report and we should support it.
However, the creation of an organisational framework should also be part of this report.
Many of the issues that are the subject of negotiations relate to what are regarded as new, sensitive areas, such as biotechnology.
This organisational framework should also define the forms of institutional cooperation between the institutions and procedures involved, and in many cases open the door to agreements, along the lines of mutual recognition, on certification and testing procedures.
To allow this to work in areas that are very sensitive for the consumer, it is essential that the process be absolutely transparent, and that the industries, experts, occupational groups and consumers concerned be kept fully informed and consulted.
We must build up an institutional process of trust so that we can ensure the broad approval of the public.
Certainly, I do not share the fear of some Members of the House and of the consumer associations that we are ignoring the general public.
We have become institutional experts, in a manner of speaking, so it is not amateurs that are taking action at European level, either in the Commission, the Council or Parliament.
We are perfectly capable of managing this process very well.
Mr President, the relationship between the European Union and the United States is a very important one.
We share many common values and interests and, while trade and investment links between us represent the world's largest economic partnership, it would be wrong to restrict discussions to simply trade and economic matters.
I regret the fact that the more ambitious plans suggested by Sir Leon Brittan under the heading of the new transatlantic marketplace met with such strong opposition in the Council and were therefore not discussed with the US authorities.
Consequently, the obstructive stance of the Council resulted in the more restricted proposals contained in the transatlantic economic partnership.
When the European Parliament discussed the Souchet report in January of this year we expressed the desire for a more comprehensive level of cooperation.
Paragraph 3 of the Souchet resolution pointed to the need for greater dialogue in relation to justice and home affairs.
Paragraph 5 called for greater cooperation regarding the management of crisis situations and the use of peace-keeping forces.
The opinion that I have produced on behalf of the Foreign Affairs Committee attempts to restore the wishes of Parliament and, I hope, of Sir Leon Brittan himself, to ensure that security and defence relations become an important part of the EU-US dialogue.
An EU-US summit will be held shortly and it is important that we are able to examine the state of our respective relationships and resolve any problems, including those in the field of security and defence which are underlined by the current crisis in the Gulf.
I congratulate the rapporteur on her report and I thank her for including in it the specific proposal contained in the Foreign Affairs Committee opinion on this important issue.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy. (NL) Mr President, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has given broad support to the transatlantic economic partnership and Mrs Mann's excellent report on it.
Without in any way playing down the importance of multilateral talks, I think it is good that the two biggest players in the world market should be talking about eliminating barriers to free trade.
Together, the two trading blocs can provide the combined impetus for launching the debate which is needed if a multilateral agreement is ultimately to be concluded.
Of course, that must not mean that the EU and the USA together form a power bloc so that other countries are faced with a fait accompli within the WTO.
But the ideal of regional trading blocs is consistent with the ideals of the WTO.
Apart from long-standing issues which are obviously harder to resolve, there are two newer issues causing me some concern in the current trade relations between the EU and USA.
Firstly there is the metric-only directive.
In the meantime, Commissioner Bangemann has promised at the Internal Market Council that he will bring forward a proposal quickly, though he does not say how quickly, to defer the requirement that products should be labelled using the metric system only.
That proposal ought really to have been made months ago.
I have pressed the Commissioner for it on several occasions.
Europe is all about helping business and industry to play a more powerful role, not about hampering it.
The Economic Affairs Committee proposed in an amendment that conclusion of the transatlantic economic partnership should be conditional on the USA going over to the metric system.
We gave careful thought to this.
We were sorry that the REX Committee watered down our amendment to the point where it was neither fish nor fowl.
I hope that Mr Bangemann gets the message.
There has to be an end to the burden placed on European business and industry by American recalcitrance.
I think that Mr Bangemann and Sir Leon Brittan must put pressure on the USA.
My second concern is about anti-dumping measures in the EU and the USA.
Mrs Mann devotes just one paragraph to this in her report, and the European steel industry complains that it receives unreasonably harsh treatment.
Even the US Congress says in a major report that the ratio last year was 35 anti-dumping cases on the American side compared with just two on the European side.
Mr President, these relations are also extremely important as far as jobs are concerned.
On behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I would make the point that 59 % of EU investment goes to the USA, and the figure in the other direction is 44 %, so to both parties that is very important in terms of jobs.
In an increasingly global world economy, however, there is more to it than trade relations alone.
We also have a responsibility to work together to tackle important issues of the kind which can lead to a new declaration by the International Labour Organisation on fundamental labour standards such as freedom of association, the right to collective bargaining, non-discrimination, the abolition of forced labour and of child labour.
Both parties can play a part here in the forthcoming WTO negotiations. But there are more things of relevance to the social and employment dimension.
Let me quote a few of them. Take European works councils, for example: numerous companies in Europe with parent companies in the USA come under the directive on European works councils, and there needs to be a proper exchange of information here between US and European firms and governments.
Another issue is that of pension funds.
Europe is a long way behind when it comes to the provision of investment loans.
Here too we need to work together, take notice of each other and talk to one another.
Lastly, Mr President, agriculture is a not insignificant obstacle in transatlantic negotiations.
In my view, things can get better here if not only the EU authorities but the US authorities too take greater account of social and employment issues in rural areas.
Optimum competition does not always have the best outcome for all parties in the world.
A balanced approach is needed here.
As my very last point, I should like to say that our education and training programmes ought also to include provision for exchanges with America..
First of all I should like to congratulate Mrs Mann on her admirable report and also on the way in which she has put the banana contest in its proper perspective.
I will come to that at a later stage, but I entirely agree with her that we must not allow it to completely distort our consideration of relations between the European Union and the United States, which relate to wider issues. Some of those have already been referred to by the previous speakers.
I am grateful to Mr Cushnahan for his kind remarks about the scaling down of the new transatlantic marketplace proposals. They were more ambitious.
I do not apologise for that. Nonetheless they have certainly informed the transatlantic economic partnership.
But important as the transatlantic economic partnership is, Mrs Peijs is quite right to say that the multilateral aspect of that should not allow us to give the impression of ganging up against the rest of the world.
We are cooperating to try and make faster progress in the multilateral talks, not seeking to impose a diktat, still less a fait accompli.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak is right in saying that the discussions that we have with the United States have to include matters relating to social and employment questions, just as Mr Cushnahan is right in saying that there is a very important security and defence component in our relationship, even though that has to be pursued outside the transatlantic economic partnership.
Nonetheless, the transatlantic economic partnership is the most recent feature of the relationship, deriving from the new transatlantic marketplace and now, as Mrs Mann reminded us, endorsed by the Council last week in the form of an action plan.
Negotiating directives have been approved for the Commission to start bilateral negotiations on a series of agreements relating to technical barriers to trade in goods, services, public procurement and intellectual property.
It is a major initiative to consolidate and enhance transatlantic relations, including both multilateral and bilateral elements.
Bilaterally the core element is the tackling of trade issues such as regulatory barriers, which are the main current obstacle to transatlantic business while preserving a high level of protection for health, safety, consumers and the environment.
If we can achieve a degree of progress in dealing with these barriers, that promises great new economic opportunities for European firms and consumers.
If we can stimulate further multilateral liberalisation then I believe we will be able to make great headway in the new millennium and save a great deal of time.
The European Parliament has played a key role in this process, first with its call in January this year for a new impulse in transatlantic relations and afterwards through its involvement in the evolution of the transatlantic economic partnership.
I am very glad that we have been able to work together. This will need to continue, not only in the face of the threat represented by the banana dispute but also in dealing with, for example, the unjust and inaccurate allegations that have recently been made about the European Union not doing its share in taking the strain of additional Asian exports.
So I welcome the very operational report of Mrs Mann and thank her for the support that she and Parliament have given to the development of the relationship.
I can give you some preliminary reactions to the report.
We fully share your desire to see positive results in the areas of MRAs, food safety, government procurement, intellectual property, compliance with international rules in the liberalisation process and many other areas.
I welcome the European Parliament's desire to enhance its involvement in the work to be done on the transatlantic economic partnership.
Unfortunately all this has been overshadowed in recent days not only by the position of the United States on Asian exports but most of all by the recent controversy over bananas.
The position is really quite simple.
The WTO ruled against certain aspects of our regime and gave us until 1 January next year to comply with the ruling.
We have taken action to comply fully with it and a revised regime which we believe to be entirely consistent with WTO rules will take effect on 1 January.
The US is entitled to disagree with us about the compatibility of our new regime with the WTO rules. It has the right to challenge this if it wishes, but only according to the procedures established by the WTO which are readily available to deal with precisely this sort of disagreement.
No WTO member has the right unilaterally to judge the compliance of another, nor to be judge and jury in its own cause.
In resorting to unilateral action the United States is setting itself above the law and resorting to the principle of 'might is right'.
This threatens to damage the system which we both helped to create. It will seriously undermine the confidence of WTO members in that system.
Therefore, we have publicly called on the United States to desist from unilateral action and seek to resolve our differences according to the lawful multilateral channels which are readily available and are the sole means that a law-abiding country should choose.
We are ready to cooperate with the United States to deal with our differences within the WTO rules and procedures but we will not do so under the threat of illegal unilateral action.
Unless the United States desists from that we will have no alternative but to go to the WTO and begin proceedings against the United States for its unlawful action.
I regret that this issue has overshadowed - at least in the headlines - the broader and more important work we have been doing.
It is, indeed, as Mrs Mann has rightly said, ironic that this should be the case.
I look to the European Parliament to be robust in the defence of European interests where they are under attack but also to take the broader view of what we need to do for the future.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that the issue of trade and economic relations between the European Union and the USA is one which usually inspires very heated debates and, I would say, intense passions.
That happens because so far we have been unable to form relations of mutual trust and open, sincere communication, despite the prolonged talks and negotiations, despite the planning of an ambitious programme and despite the honest efforts both by the Commission and by our rapporteur, our esteemed colleague Mrs Erika Mann, whom I congratulate on her report.
From what you have said, Commissioner, it is clear that we are still facing a very difficult interlocutor who is also burdened by activities which have shown that the United States, to promote its own exclusive interests, does not hesitate to violate international rules, and this to the cost of the poorest and weakest countries.
The truth of what I am saying is demonstrated by the fact that problems are still outstanding related to extraterritorial American legislation, while competition against the Union is constantly becoming keener.
So in view of the forthcoming transatlantic summit conference, the European Parliament must today send out some very clear messages, such as these:
First, the bipartite approach is acceptable to the extent that it does not impede multipartite negotiations at WTO level and does not create obstacles to access by third countries to markets in the Union and the USA.
Second, respect must be ensured for the rules of international law, and a definitive solution must be found for the dispute concerning extraterritorial laws.
Third, any commitments undertaken must be compatible with the acquis communautaire , especially with the CAP and the trade agreements we have concluded, particularly those with our traditional partners. They must also be compatible with the commitments undertaken by the Union under the Lomé Convention and in the context of the enlargement procedure with central and eastern European countries.
Fourth, cooperation must include and emphasise social issues, such as securing the rights of working people and safeguarding collective bargaining, the abolition of child labour and forced labour, job creation, and the mutual recognition of qualifications.
Fifth, any agreement must be compatible with the high standards that prevail in Europe concerning health and safety, consumer protection, and the protection of the natural and human environment.
Sixth, cooperation must lead to the establishment of rules on the operation of credit institutions in all countries and control of the international movement of capital. I say this bearing in mind the present economic and money-market crisis.
Finally, the European Parliament must be kept constantly informed about the negotiations, most particularly about matters that relate to co-decision procedures.
As our rapporteur Mrs Mann said, there must be transparency and full information.
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party welcomes Mrs Mann's report and congratulates her on her very useful arguments presented here over 43 pages, though they have been overshadowed by current events.
The USA's relations with the European Union are a high priority for all of us, and in future, despite all the conflicts caused in our bilateral relations both by ourselves and particularly by the USA, we will continue to place great importance on the fact that we are dependent upon one another.
Bananas, hormones, steel, the US trade deficit, all these things make us nervous.
What increasingly concerns me about our relations with the USA is the fact that it is always the parliamentarians who put their governments under pressure and that administrations are often too cowardly to observe WTO rules because they always have to give in to domestic policy.
It is precisely this that should make us, as Members of the European Parliament, intensify our own contacts with Congress, and not rely on the Commission, which always seems to be told: we cannot do anything, it is the members of Congress who do that.
The Helms-Burton and d'Amato Acts, which violate the principles of international law, were also the work of members of Congress.
Thankfully d'Amato cannot be voted in again, so that leaves one less to be considered.
I say this because it must be clear that, as Sir Leon said, it must be the WTO requirements that determine our rules.
The WTO sets the standard for free competition, and in free competition we compete with each other.
Competition will become increasingly fierce, borders will become increasingly fluid, technology and in particular investment will become an area over which we Members of Parliament no longer have an overall view.
We do not always see the source of the conflicts in question.
This is all the more reason for us to support the Commission so that it does not debate for too long or look for compromises, but can often take a tough stance.
The USA often accuses us of being only paper tigers or lightweights because when it is being tough our reaction is not tough enough.
We must move more quickly in future with the new measures.
As Parliament we can perhaps take a tougher stance than the Commission does.
We are also accused of not really being affected by the growth of the Asian markets while the USA suffers as it has to take in all the cheap products.
We face the same the problems, although it has to be said that one or two aspects of our trade policy are also rather doubtful, and this has nothing to do with the USA.
We must monitor this and not simply say for the sake of national interests that one form of protectionism is good and the other bad.
None of the 15 Member States would bear scrutiny here!
In conclusion, I believe that an appreciation of mutual-interest politics is always advantageous if we advocate the interests that are important for our European economy strongly and consistently.
I would encourage us to intervene again in the current discussion about the USA's violation of the principles of international law. This report has given us a good opportunity to do so.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I warmly compliment Mrs Mann on her excellent report.
The transatlantic economic partnership which has now been agreed can put an end to the succession of trade disputes we have seen in recent years.
Remember the biotechnology bananas and all the rest of it.
The agreement may serve as an example to the rest of the world.
The European Union and the United States are the two biggest trading blocs in the world and each others' main trading partners as well.
Bilateral agreement between two leading trading blocs will enable the Union and the USA to develop a transferable trading model consistent with the multilateral framework of trade, and in particular with the rules of the WTO.
My group deplores the fact that the Council has given a negotiating mandate to the Commission and already adopted an action plan without waiting to hear the European Parliament's position.
I agree with Mrs Mann and Mr Kittelmann.
A new transatlantic economic partnership has major implications for private citizens and businesses in terms of jobs and prosperity.
Democratic scrutiny is absolutely vital here, because only that will guarantee the requisite public acceptance.
So my group also welcomes Mrs Mann's suggestion that a joint parliamentary committee should be set up, because we have seen time after time that solutions to disputes reached at civil servant or government level are regularly torpedoed again by the US Congress.
Structural dialogue between parliamentary delegations and Members of Parliament may perhaps put an end to this.
I would thus urge the Commission and the Council once again to stop talking to the Americans on their own and to involve Parliament to a far greater extent; they must not keep adopting plans without first waiting to hear what Parliament thinks.
Mr President, Commissioner, ever since the initiative of the transatlantic agenda, our relations with America have been visible.
But I see that they are not sufficiently tangible, and this action plan may improve things here.
Regrettably the action plan has come into being without the European Parliament being consulted in any way, and so I too support Mrs Mann's suggestion for a joint parliamentary committee linking the US Congress and our Parliament as the final democratic counterbalance in the new relationship.
I must compliment Mrs Mann anyway on the form and content of her report.
The new partnership may prevent bilateral trade disputes from ending in threats of sanctions, as happened over the EU's policy on bananas.
But there are one or two things which are not covered.
To my mind, too little attention is paid to the audiovisual imbalance.
The USA does well out of the European market in this respect, but makes no concessions at all itself.
We as the EU, with so many wonderful cultures, just cannot swallow that.
Certainly not!
Furthermore, I hope that future political and economic dialogue will address the question of anti-dumping measures.
Mrs Peijs has talked about that.
My group is very anxious too to preserve the acquis communautaire and especially the services of general interest which have a considerable influence on our social and economic cohesion.
These aspects must not be neglected.
Lastly, Mr President, the partnership will be good for jobs.
As Mrs Mann says, we shall have Daimler Benz and Chrysler on both sides of the Atlantic.
I hope, though, that this initiative will stimulate not just commerce pure and simple, but above all the values and cultures which exist in the relationship between the USA and Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a transatlantic relationship that is of mutual benefit and positive for everyone else in the world is a fundamental political issue. Three conditions must be met: we must work to make trade more compatible with sustainable development and social welfare; we must respect multilateral solidarity and commitments; and we must guarantee real democratic control.
By rejecting the MAI and transatlantic free trade projects, several European countries have highlighted the importance of these requirements and signalled their disapproval of a certain way of conducting external relations.
We need a more autonomous and unified European Union and we would ask our American partners to show more loyalty towards the commitments they have made.
The United States is renewing commercial tensions and is not respecting the London commitment on extraterritorial laws.
We must remind them that the enormous deficit in the United States' balance of payments is inseparable from the privilege they have of financing their growth through other countries.
The European Parliament is therefore faced with a contradiction: the renewal of aggressive commercial behaviour on the part of the Americans, and concern, on our part, for the development of dialogue.
It is under these conditions that we will undoubtedly be forced to take other political initiatives.
For the time being, we are taking note of the Transatlantic Economic Partnership and the Action Plan.
We welcome the fact that it is not simply a resumption of the NTM project, which project was particularly dangerous because of its aim of guaranteeing free trade in services and because it favoured bilateral settlements, at the risk of stifling multilateral progress.
We are also pleased that some of the provisions included in the Draft Action Plan have been removed by the Council, particularly a bilateral standstill agreement that would have suspended the development of Community rules. We are pleased, too, that the Council is resuming its supervisory role by placing bilateral negotiations under its mandate.
We would finally like to stress the need to develop a new political doctrine for the Union in terms of both the content of the negotiations and democratic control.
We want to discuss the future WTO negotiations with the Americans, but has the impact of the Uruguay Round been felt?
Do we know what we want to say on the new issues of society and regulation? Within the partnership, we must not prepare the basis of an agreement between two giants - the United States and Europe - before the next millennium.
Dialogue must only be exploratory and we have other friends to talk to.
As regards bilateral negotiations, we would like to look at them on a case-by-case basis.
We must defend employment and our industries, and this would mean strengthening their solidarity before the negotiations start.
Finally, I would like to emphasise the fact that our institutional procedures are showing a political and democratic deficit.
We call on the Council and the Commission to inform and consult the European Parliament both before and during the dialogue and negotiation process.
Consultation of the civil society, which today is inexistent, must be organised, and it is up to the European Parliament itself to play a key role here in guiding firms, unions, associations and public opinion.
Mr President, in order to prevent any misunderstandings right from the beginning, I must say that a good relationship with the USA is very important to us.
But not in the way you see it, Sir Leon. Your first priority is the removal of so-called barriers to trade, and this includes political decision-making powers.
Your plans for the NTM were rejected by the Council in the spring, and now a slimmed-down version of the TEP is on the table, practically a disguised MAI.
But why should we applaud something that was rigged in advance? The negotiating mandate for the TEP was given long ago.
Yet we in the committee were only able to see it when the vote had already taken place. That is absurd.
But some of its content is even more absurd. It does not contain anything about setting up joint programmes for sustainable development in the world economy, nor does it say anything about commitment to a better quality of life, about using fewer natural resources, or about strengthening the multilateral system.
On the contrary, Charline Barschifsky stated on 28 July what the important issues are for the USA: the rights of US industry, the enforcement of US patent laws, crushing European protection laws in the field of biotechnology, the business interests of American banana producers, Helms-Burton, hormonized meat and genetically-modified food on European tables.
You, Sir Leon Brittan, wish to sacrifice all European and national standards on the altar of free trade, in accordance with your neoliberal philosophy.
Instead of constantly hatching new projects you should do your homework.
You gave in on the issue of Helms-Burton instead of enforcing WTO rules.
As a result, the Americans have taken legal proceedings against European firms in 5 911 cases.
Now the US does not care about the WTO and is threatening a full-scale attack on European products if the EU does not given in to US interests in the banana dispute.
We have been waiting for a reply from you since September on ECHELON, the unspeakable EU/US secret service dossier.
The Greens certainly do not want to see more and more national and European consumer protection laws, for which we have fought so hard, being violated by dubious trade agreements in the name of free trade.
We can only approve the report if our amendments are adopted.
Mr President, I would naturally like to congratulate Mrs Mann on her report, which I believe to be balanced on the whole.
This new partnership is obviously preferable to any notion of a single market between the European Union and the US, which was rightly rejected by the Council last April.
The Action Plan proposed today by the Commission to establish this dialogue provides a framework for the negotiations in the months ahead.
In my opinion, it is, for example, essential to establish a common strategy between the European Union and the United States with a view to laying down minimum social standards within both the WTO and the ILO.
It may be beneficial to have discussions on services or electronic commerce provided that this does not undermine countries' cultural interests, and I am naturally thinking here of the audiovisual sector.
The creation of a global economic area in the field of electronic commerce is, to my mind, completely premature, particularly when we know that the US is the market leader in terms of the Internet.
This framework must therefore clearly establish the boundaries of the debate in terms of social, environmental and cultural issues.
It is true that similar action plans exist and serve as a basis for discussion between the Union and other countries, such as Canada, New Zealand and Japan. But there is a fundamental difference between those countries and the United States: with them we do not negotiate with a gun at our heads.
In fact, the US is once again threatening to impose 100 % customs duties on us, jeopardising the very existence of some of our companies.
And surprise, surprise, the products concerned come from countries in the Union that produce bananas.
So after the famous Helms-Burton legislation, the United States is again beginning to use gunboat diplomacy, and we cannot accept that.
We do not underestimate the role of the American multinationals behind the Clinton administration.
I am thinking here of Chiquita in the case of bananas, but also of the American oil companies that are encouraging the bombing of Iraq.
That is why I believe that this notion of partnership must be suspended, and I call on the Commission to draw up a list of retaliatory measures aimed at certain American companies.
We must stop being naive!
If the Americans want to complain, then let them, but let them do it before the WTO. And let us hope this time that the body responsible for settling disputes gives a clear ruling on the banana issue.
In the meantime, my group believes that the report by Mrs Mann, good as it may be, should be referred back to committee.
Mr President, recent developments that have taken place have tended to temper somewhat the optimism surrounding the report by Mrs Mann on the future of transatlantic economic relations. The rapporteur herself has just admitted this.
In this respect, the entirely unacceptable threats of trade retaliation illegally made by Congress towards a number of our countries, outside the WTO dispute settlement procedure on the banana issue, show that our partners have an uncontrollable propensity for unilateralism. And this is true even though everyone knows that the economic survival of entire regions of the European Union, particularly in the French overseas territories, depends on a solution to the banana conflict.
Moreover, on 21 October, Congress introduced a new provision that clearly has an extraterritorial effect, by adopting a corresponding amendment to Article 211 of the Finance Act, aimed at banning all transactions involving a well-known confiscated brand.
This provision, which aims to block the commercial development of the Pernod-Ricard company on the American market, is further proof that the United States, far from renouncing unilateralism, is, on the contrary, forging ahead with sanctions that have an extraterritorial effect.
This violation, which is taking place scarcely six months after the signing of the London agreement, makes us seriously question the credibility of the commitments that have been negotiated by the Commission with our American partners. This is all the more worrying since, in addition, Congress does not seem willing to vote for the derogations provided for by the London agreement, which itself still does not completely settle the question of American laws with extraterritorial effect.
If we add to this use of unilateral instruments (which cannot fail to affect the implementation of the TEP), the lack of progress in the negotiations on government procurement and intellectual property (areas that are essential for Europe), the divergent positions on the future multilateral trade negotiations, and the stonewalling attitude that was maintained by the United States at the Buenos Aires Conference, it appears that the current situation is very worrying and requires a great deal of determination on our part.
This determination can be easily seen in the Council, which has ensured, in particular, that the audiovisual sector is excluded and the status quo for services clearly rejected within the framework of the TEP.
We hope that the Commission will also display such determination.
Perhaps the Council has some concerns in this respect, since it thought it necessary to formally state that the Commission could not give a definite decision on the Union's position in the future multilateral trade negotiations, particularly in the audiovisual sector, without the Council's approval.
It is unfortunate that in the recitals the rapporteur limits herself to deploring the institutional imbalance and does not mention these different and important concerns that may weigh heavily on the development of trade relations with the United States and on the implementation of the Transatlantic Economic Partnership if they are not tackled with enough determination by Europe.
Mr President, the debate about the United States and Europe is an old one.
Today, Commissioner, we are returning to it in a context that has three aspects: the United States' trade deficit, which we have all discussed; the negotiations in the World Trade Organisation, which are multilateral and that is why we cannot understand this bilateral move, unless we recall the unpleasant memories of Blair House and your colleague, Franz Andriessen, at the beginning of the 1990s; and finally, of course, the American tradition of the big stick policy, with its attacks on Iraq, imperialism in the audiovisual sector, and selfishness in Rio.
This all means that we may well have doubts about the sincerity of the United States.
Everyone has mentioned - including Mr Sainjon and other speakers - the banana issue, the unilateral 100 % customs duties, the Helms-Burton legislation, Libya, Iran, Pernod-Ricard, etc.
This leads me to put two questions to you, Commissioner. Firstly, I would like you to tell me about the strategy, the principle and the philosophy involved.
Are the world trade negotiations necessary for the wealth of nations?
We signed the GATT in 1994. Has that led to increased wealth in Japan, Brazil, Korea or Thailand?
Has unemployment fallen? Conversely, we rejected the MAI, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
Who suffered because of that?
No-one did. The truth is that world trade, despite the myth, only plays a residual role.
Let us look at the beef and veal market, for example. It does not even represent 10 % of our production.
And if we had another policy besides Article 104c of the Maastricht Treaty, another policy besides austerity and rationing, we would have an internal demand that would do away with all this rubbish about having to find external markets.
Secondly, I would like to know how we can have an independent trade policy when we do not have an independent foreign policy, when we do not have an independent military policy and when we behave as we have done in Iraq, the country of the Code of Hammurabi, the country of Babylonia?
I was with Mr Tariq Aziz three weeks ago and he asked the following question: 'I am offering Europe the best oilfields in southern Iraq.
Why will Europe not accept them?'
Mr Sainjon gave you the answer: when we have a global market, we should not hold bilateral negotiations.
We are a parliament: we are not traders, we are not a chamber of commerce, we are representatives of the people.
Mr President, I take the floor to make clear my support for Mrs Mann's report.
As debate is focusing mainly on the background to this report rather than on its content, I should like to say that it might initially appear that, in principle, we are offering an olive branch whilst our friends in the United States are digging up the battle axe.
I do not in fact believe that this is the case, because we could have applied many of the arguments we now use in connection with United States imperialism to each other in Europe in the past.
Nevertheless, I do believe we must send two clear messages to our friends and allies in the United States: firstly, that the association known as the Transatlantic Economic Partnership essentially implies a shared responsibility on the world stage, at global level, and therefore at multilateral not just at bilateral level; and secondly, that we are not concerned solely with trade at this moment.
We are indeed concerned with trade, but also, and especially at the moment, we wish to emphasise the notion of shared responsibility for the world as a whole. In particular, we are concerned with the financial situation, bearing in mind that our discussion is taking place on the eve of the introduction of the euro.
I feel this is the first message we should send, and I for one have never been in favour of adopting a defensive position as a matter of course.
I am convinced that we Europeans put forward very good reasons and arguments when we state that a market and a relationship have to be civilised and bilateral, and that they cannot be controlled solely by one party, in the kind of atmosphere portrayed - if I may be permitted a reference to the cinema - in 'High Noon', where the Sheriff wields absolute power.
I believe that we are and must continue to be partners on equal terms.
My second concern is that we must make it quite clear to our friends in the United States that we do not share the unilateral vision of managed trade they uphold and that is particularly evident not only in Act 301 and 'Super 301', but also in extraterritorial legislation such as the Helms-Burton Act and the D'Amato Act. In addition, it underlies several other measures that contravene the regulations of the World Trade Organisation.
In my opinion, this report reflects our philosophy.
However, we obviously need to do more.
In the first instance, we need, for example, to coordinate the Commission, the Council and Parliament, given that they are not presently coordinated.
In addition to being absent, the Council takes decisions without consulting Parliament.
I think we need to prove that we can act as one, like the United States.
If we do, I am sure we will be listened to.
Mr President, I should firstly like to thank Mrs Mann for her report, which we support. I should also like to express my appreciation to the Commissioner for his efforts towards developing the best possible transatlantic relations.
Unfortunately, what seemed at first to be a good idea - the Transatlantic Agenda - turned into something of a damp squib after April, when the Council took a number of decisions we perhaps did not all support.
I agree entirely with Mr Enrique Barón who has just said that we ought to get on well, as well as we can.
Commissioner, you said that might is not necessarily right.
It remains to be seen who will have most might, once the euro is in place, the European Union's institutions have developed and the 11 countries - soon to be more - are working together.
In any case, power must be vested in the bodies, and we need to learn to use them to resolve conflicts.
As the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has stated, the existing obstacles must be removed, and here, we are certainly not in a very happy position.
The situation concerning Asian exports and the banana dispute are not exactly encouraging examples. Nevertheless, we have to ensure that, within the framework of the WTO, we can reach multilateral agreements that are compatible with the acquis communautaire , the CAP, the Lomé Convention, and the association and enlargement agreements.
Commissioner, Parliament will support you, in the hope that we can establish a relationship on equal terms with our friends in the United States, insofar as the provisions of the law allow. It is quite clear, though, that Parliament will have to be more involved.
As Parliament can express its support for your claims, you will be in a stronger negotiating position and so will we.
It is not acceptable that our companies should still be experiencing difficulties in the area of government procurement in the United States, and there is a long list of other problems I do not think it appropriate to elaborate on here and now.
We support the report, trust that deadlines for achieving the objectives are set and that we will find the way of enjoying the best possible relationship with our friends in the United States.
Mr President, I want to concentrate on one area only.
I have read few reports - even from the Commission - that have been stuffed so full of three and four-letter acronyms. The one that is missing is GMOs.
If there is one area where US and European public opinion contrasts most it is here.
In the European Union consumers are particularly resistant to genetically modified food and the governments of Luxembourg and Austria are moving against current European policy.
On the other hand, in America crops which have been genetically modified are increasing and the proportion of maize now grown under GM conditions is quite large.
Then there is this brave attempt to remove trade barriers between these two major trading blocs.
My question to the Commissioner is: In such a market place as he proposes, how do we protect European citizens' preferences in public health and environmental areas, as illustrated by the GMO issue?
Mr President, the relations that link the United States and the European Union are very special.
We form the most important trade relationship in the world.
Therefore, the project for a new Transatlantic Economic Partnership carries great hopes for our respective economies and reasserts the objectives of Euro-American multilateral cooperation.
The global economy requires us to participate in this regular dialogue, but recent events lead me to fear that this enhanced partnership, which we have achieved after months of work and negotiations, might be at risk if one of the partners does not apply the principles on which it is founded.
The threats made by the United States of unilateral sanctions against European products, such as bananas and meat, are of some concern for the future, to say the least.
A solution will have to be found to this dispute within the framework of the WTO, that is, through the multilateral legal channel.
In any case, the application of unilateral sanctions against European products on the part of the United States would be unacceptable and would seriously damage the trust and cooperation that characterise our relationship.
I agree with the rapporteur and I would like to pay tribute here to her excellent work and to insist that as far as possible Parliament be involved in and informed of the development of transatlantic relations.
In addition, I fully agree with the proposal to create a US-Europe interparliamentary group.
Mr President, the French left-wing government overturned the MAI agreement in the OECD, which it considered a threat to national sovereignty in social issues and matters relating to working life and the environment.
My thanks to France.
In a new combination of letters of the alphabet, TEP, the Transatlantic Economic Partnership, poses the same problems as the MAI.
The TEP is a slimmed-down version of the MAI, Mr Kreissl-Dörfler said, and he is right.
We are hanging flesh on the same skeleton.
Free trade, which is the freedom of markets rather than people, is often an attack on the structures set up in a nation to protect its people and its environment. They were created with good intentions.
Market forces have no social or ecological responsibility.
For example, the views of consumers in Europe on the one hand, and the USA on the other, on health foods are fundamentally different.
We do not want to eat hormone-treated meat.
We do not want to eat poison-resistant, genetically-modified soya, maize or potatoes, nor any other new American foods.
One problem in particular is the agreement on the reciprocal approval of products: approved one place, approved everywhere.
Mr President, I would like to make a few comments.
I would firstly like to say that I am surprised that the United States is using retaliatory measures towards the European Union. In the case of bananas, it is quite obvious.
I am amazed that we are surprised because, in fact, it is not the first time.
The United States has been playing this type of game for a very long time and, without getting involved here in kneejerk anti-American reactions, we should nevertheless remember the serious case of the Helms-Burton Act in which the European Union adopted an extremely timid attitude.
We even withdrew our complaint to the World Trade Organisation - in accordance with who knows what regulation and what principle - but this demonstrated two things: intransigence on the one hand, and weakness on the other.
It therefore seems to me to be time to put an end to this imbalance, particularly since - and I would like to mention this point - the United States has just showed itself up once again through its intransigence in Buenos Aires where it totally ruined a conference that was absolutely essential for the future of the planet.
My second comment relates to the involvement of the European Parliament in the process we are discussing today.
Are we going to continue to allow ourselves to be treated like this over the months ahead?
As far as I am concerned, I do not think we should run after a moving target.
We firstly had the MAI, and I believe that we managed, along with others, to avert the danger.
There is the New Transatlantic Marketplace, which has been rejected by the Council, and we are now being offered the Transatlantic Economic Partnership.
When I look at what that project contains, I do not have the same positive outlook as some of my colleagues.
I think that it basically involves stepping up and extending bilateral cooperation with the United States, even if we add to it the multilateral dimension.
And it involves making general use of the principle of mutual recognition, particularly in areas such as biotechnology, food quality, the environment and social protection, which seems to me to be extremely dangerous.
If Parliament accepts the idea of not intervening from the outset in this type of debate, I think that it is making a fool of itself and bringing discredit upon itself in the face of public opinion.
Mr President, improved trade relations with the USA are a welcome development.
Given the increasing trend towards globalisation, it is useful to have a good relationship with trading partners whose interests are similar to ours.
The position of the individual Member States is fairly weak within a multilateral trading system, certainly since the advent of the World Trade Organisation.
So this is a job for the European Union, especially when it comes to looking for like-minded trading partners.
But I have a few cautionary comments to make on the new transatlantic marketplace.
Earlier this year, Parliament approved a resolution on the environmental, health and consumer protection aspects of world trade.
Those aspects are extremely important for the transatlantic marketplace.
The Commission's communication does not take sufficient account of them.
I agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Mann, when she insists that there can be no tampering with European legislation in this area.
Another word of caution on the new transatlantic partnership concerns the place of the European Union in multilateral bodies and agreements.
The Union's position in these must remain independent of the USA, especially in debate with and about the developing world.
I am not talking here of the so-called 'banana preferences' referred to in Amendment No 4.
I am concerned to ensure that this new transatlantic marketplace should not hamper the European Union in its worldwide pursuit of sustainable development and a fair distribution of prosperity.
Nor must the new transatlantic marketplace lead to a widening of the gap between north and south.
The same goes for other initiatives for cooperation by developed nations, for example the multilateral agreement on investment.
Lastly, I would like consideration to be given to the cultural issues on the transatlantic agenda.
There are important differences in approach here between the European Union and the USA.
The Member States of the European Union, for example, have a different system for protecting intellectual property.
On the question of whether or not a royalty should be paid for books made available on the Internet, we cannot allow the Americans to dictate to us. Europe's cultural identity must not be left to the mercy of the free market.
Mr President, the report by our colleague remains very quiet about the serious imbalance that characterises the economic and trade relations between the European Union and the United States.
However, the draftsmen of the opinions - whose opinions are annexed to the report - all mentioned this imbalance, in other words, the United States' unilateral domination of Europe.
This domination is not a fabrication. It was the subject of a theory a good few years ago by Professor François Perroux of the Collège de France in Paris.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is, in fact, totally silent on this point, yet it is perhaps in the area of defence and arms that Europe is subject, in the most serious way possible, to American leadership, even going so far as accepting the gunboat diplomacy the United States currently applies towards European countries like Yugoslavia.
For its part, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy pointed out, very appropriately, that the discussions with the United States on the transatlantic marketplace should have respected the acquis communautaire , particularly in the agriculture sector, the association agreements and the Lomé Convention, which is far from being the case.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights pointed out that the problem raised by the unilateral Helms-Burton and d'Amato-Kennedy Acts was still not settled.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs fears the loss of agricultural jobs in Europe with these transatlantic negotiations.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, in paragraph 4 of its opinion, fears discrimination against European industry.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media states in paragraph 7 that European television programmes only account for 2 % of the American market while American productions totally dominate this sector in Europe.
This really is unilateral trade where Europeans are playing the role of the 'submissive colony'.
Finally, the American federal states do not always feel bound by the agreements signed in Washington.
We have seen several examples of this, particularly in the case of the market for electrical engineering a few years ago.
With these few comments, we can see clearly that Europe is scarcely more than a satellite of the United States, and the real objective of this report should have been to discuss that issue.
The transatlantic negotiations should aim to restore equality. But there is no question of that.
The project for a transatlantic marketplace, as it stands, will give a little more encouragement to the colonisation of Europe by the American economic powers.
We must reject this.
Mr President, this is an excellent report but I have to say that I do regret its juxtaposition to the deep concern many of us have expressed here today about the threat to our banana regime.
Commissioner Brittan, I heard you say last Friday on the BBC that the ongoing dispute with the United States is actually not about bananas but about trade rules and the obligation to comply with them.
I have to say - and I know you are aware of this - that the poor farmers in the Caribbean are not going to be impressed by what they might see as a rather technocratic approach.
They are bewildered and frightened by what they see as a relentless onslaught on the banana regime by the United States.
If they are to grow another crop, as has been suggested, then - as you have said yourself - they are likely to resort to growing drugs.
Therefore the principles here are very important indeed.
As you rightly said earlier, sabre-rattling by the United States and the threat of sanctions against the European Union is something that we deeply regret, especially since there is no threat whatsoever to the United States' own economy.
There are a number of questions that we need to ask. Is this dispute likely to be about rules; is it about hormones in beef; is it about the Democrats' pay-off to Chiquita bananas?
The Caribbean bananas which enter the European market account for only 7 % of the EU's market in bananas and also, if this wrangle is about Article 13 of WTO, there are other North-South arrangements that do not sit that happily with Article 13.
I hope the United States recognises that as well.
This is, I hope, the very last act in this banana drama that has been going on for many years.
It needs to be shown up for what it is.
I hope that the European Union will stand firm and say that there is a moral issue here, an issue of obligation and responsibility to our traditional suppliers in the Caribbean in particular.
I hope that you will continue to make the case for real justice for the people of the Caribbean in the face of what is perceived by all of us here as the completely unacceptable attitude of the United States towards the European Union.
Mr President, I have no intention of repeating the general statements made by previous speakers on the quality of the report. It covers all the key issues and I therefore congratulate Mrs Mann.
Nevertheless, we regret the lack of mechanisms to prevent the United States from taking unilateral action in contravention of World Trade Organisation arrangements and to the detriment of bilateral relations.
I do not want to talk about bananas. What had to be said has already been said by the other Members.
No mechanisms are included to provide for concerted action in connection with third countries, such as China or Japan.
Issues as important as the protection of databases, the protection of patents and intellectual property were omitted from the negotiations.
I regret too that the liberalisation of international telecommunications, product responsibility, the harmonisation of customs issues and the standardisation and simplification of information required for business were not dealt with either.
Mr President, we are convinced that transatlantic relations can be seen as an opportunity for Europe, especially in respect of difficulties still outstanding.
Some of these problems are sizeable - we need only think of the barriers to trade and investment. Above all else, rules and regulations are what constitute the greatest difficulty and have given rise to a number of bilateral conflicts over the years.
All things considered, the new transatlantic marketplace could serve to safeguard consumer interests, given the stated aim of eliminating by 2010 all existing tariffs on industrial goods, thanks to new agreements negotiated on the basis of mutual recognition, the so-called MRAs. These, in our opinion, should reproduce the levels of consumer protection, safeguards and environmental safety currently guaranteed by EU rules within the Community.
Mr President, first of all I should like to say that I will always be the first to defend close links with the United States: we are talking about the world's two main blocs and they both have special responsibilities.
We believe that, apart from the bilateral links uniting us, we should endeavour to strengthen multilateral arrangements, provided that we bear in mind the interests of smaller countries as well as the United States and Europe.
Of course, we must refer to the backward step taken over the banana issue. A mountain has been made out of a molehill.
As far as bananas are concerned, what is at stake are bananas from Madeira - as a Portuguese Member I have to speak about them - but also from the Canary Islands and certain ACP countries.
What is at stake are potential social problems for people with no alternative way of earning a living.
Unless we lend a little support to banana production, I do not see what alternatives we might offer.
I would like to add that this is not a typical issue and I hope that no others crop up.
This is also feared, as it happens, by the rapporteur, Mrs Erika Mann, whom I congratulate.
I hope that this problem has been sorted out and that cooperation can be strengthened between the United States and Europe. I think that would benefit not just the two blocs but also the rest of the world.
I would like to support the excellent report of the rapporteur, Mrs Mann, and the courageous proposal put forward by our Commissioner here today, for three reasons.
Firstly, the TEP is going to give us a possibility of finding a framework to discuss multilateral issues with the United States.
All those involved in multilateral negotiations know that, unless the European Union and the United States are prepared effectively, negotiations such as the World Trade groundwork which we expect in the millennium round will not happen.
That is the first reason.
Secondly, in terms of a bilateral relationship, looking into the longer term, we are wanting to see a broader partnership.
It is not US colonialization of European decisions, it is a partnership based on broader economic aspects which will include monetary affairs and some security aspects when the Amsterdam Treaty is signed.
The last point is that this will not operate, as our rapporteur has said, unless we have parliamentary dialogue - a legislative dialogue - because the problems which we have had on Cuba, the problems which we have on bananas, come from the US Congress and therefore you need a parliamentary dialogue based on equality, balance and substance to be able to make this important initiative succeed.
Mr President, I too wish to congratulate Mrs Mann on her full and thorough report. I would also like to thank Commissioner Brittan for the clarity and determination he showed in his statement last week and in what he said to the House this afternoon.
Unfortunately, our friends and partners in the United States only understand firm and aggressive language.
It really is remarkable that last week, as the Council of the European Union was adopting the action plan paving the way for the Transatlantic Economic Partnership, our friends in the United States should spring a whole range of unilateral measures on us, in blatant disregard of the rules of the game and in clear violation of the obligations entered into within the World Trade Organisation.
Unfortunately too, experience has shown that the United States only takes the European Union seriously when we take clear, strong and determined action. This is the case, for instance, when the European Union asks the World Trade Organisation to set up a panel to deal with extraterritorial legislation, as was the case for the Helms-Burton Act.
However, we are not respected if we allow matters to run on.
I believe that, as Mr Brittan put it so well this afternoon, the United States, flaunting its obvious irresponsibility, has placed itself above the law. It has replaced, or rather, hopes to replace, the rule of law with the rule of force.
I feel that the European Union as a whole has displayed abundant prudence, caution and goodwill when handling transatlantic relations. Therefore, Mr President, I believe the time has come for the Commission to respond in kind now that we have the ability to suspend the negotiations until reason and good sense prevail.
Thank you, Mr Salafranca.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0705/98).
In its capacity as guardian of the Treaties, the Commission would point out that Article 107 of the Treaty guarantees the independence of the ECB and of the national central banks when carrying out the tasks and duties conferred upon them by the Treaty and by the Statute of the ESCB.
The Commission would recall here that the primary objective of the ESCB is to maintain price stability.
Article 105 of the Treaty adds that without prejudice to the objective of price stability, the ESCB shall support the general economic policies in the Community with a view to contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Community as laid down in Article 2.
These objectives are concerned, among other things, with promoting sustainable and non-inflationary growth and a high level of employment and social protection.
There is no need for the Commission to present a new proposal.
In accordance with the Treaty it has always paid attention to the specific share of investment expenditure in general government deficits, as witness its recommendation of 25 March 1998 concerning qualification of the Member States for participation in the third stage of economic and monetary union.
The Commission would, however, point out that sustainable growth is not possible without a reduction in public deficits, that the reduction in public deficits is not incompatible with a sustained level of investment and that the golden rule - namely, that the public deficit should be smaller than the volume of public investment - is a principle of sound fiscal conduct.
In this connection, I can inform you that the Commission is preparing a report on the economic, fiscal and investment strategy for the Vienna European Council which will follow the Pörtschach European Council.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would simply like to ask whether you have heard about the statement made by Mr Strauss-Kahn and Mr Lafontaine at the latest German-French summit, which raised the issue of suspending the Stability Pact in a few years.
What is the Commission's opinion on this issue, and what indeed is its view of the independence of the European Central Bank? Are additional security measures necessary here?
I do not have the exact details concerning the matter you referred to.
Perhaps it might be better if my colleague, Commissioner de Silguy, answered the matter in writing.
I would just say that the Commission would be happy with a debate between the ECB and finance ministers. That is quite understandable because independence does not necessarily mean isolation.
I will be quite happy to convey your point of view to Commissioner de Silguy.
Question No 43 by Robert Evans (H-1023/98)
Subject: Reciprocity for pensioners' concessions in the EU
Would the Commission agree that pensioners travelling to other European Union countries should expect to be able to benefit from concessions, with particular regard to travel and cultural activities from which pensioners who are nationals of the state they are visiting are able to benefit from?
One of my constituents recently visited Italy. On seeing that entry to a monument was free for pensioners, he asked for that concession.
He was shocked to hear from the staff that the concession applied only to Italian pensioners.
A recognised card for the over-sixties would help to avoid this problem and ensure that pensioners received the concessions to which they are entitled across the EU.
Could the Commission inform me if there has been any progress following the adoption of the Commission Recommendation of 10 May 1989 (89/350/EEC ) on this subject? I give the floor to Mr Flynn to answer Mr Evans' question.
The Commission agrees with the honourable Member's view that it is desirable that pensioners travelling to other European Union countres should be facilitated in claiming discretionary concessions available to pensioners from the state which they are visiting.
Regrettably, the Commission knows that in practice such discretionary concessions are not always freely accessible to nationals from the state other than the one which is offering the concessions.
The Court of Justice has examined several complaints of discrimination against nationals of other Member States as recipients of services, for example, to reduced or free entry to museums and other public buildings and reductions in transport fares.
The Court, basing itself on Article 6 concerning discrimination on grounds of nationality and Article 59 on freedom to provide services, has consistently condemned discriminatory practices.
The Commission will continue to be vigilant in upholding respect for basic principles of Community law and will, wherever appropriate, have recourse to the Court of Justice.
Furthermore, for almost ten years, the Commission has been negotiating with Member States on the introduction of a European Union-wide over-60s card as called for in the Commission's recommendation of 10 May 1989.
The implementation of this recommendation has been hindered by practical difficulties in a number of Member States.
In order to take the matter forward, the Commission supported a first feasibility study on this issue during the European Year for Older People in 1993. The Commission launched a second feasibility study in 1995 aimed at updating and deepening the first one.
The final report on this study has been received and copies have been given to the members of the European Parliament Intergroup on Ageing.
The report has also been presented to the NGO members of the liaison group for older people.
The conclusions and recommendations of the report still have to be examined and discussed further with the representatives of the Member State governments.
While there is some cause for optimism in the Commissioner's response, there are also some worries.
This is an important question about building a Europe for the people and when people are refused reductions because they are not residents of a particular Member State this is very damaging to the whole image of Europe.
The Commissioner referred to the Commission recommendation of ten years ago but it is taking a long time.
This is something that ought to be supported and which we should all want to come to fruition.
I am also looking at a similar venture, namely a European youth card. As there is nothing to suggest that in ten years' time we will not still be looking at the question of an over-60s card, can the Commissioner give me any cause for optimism on a European students' card?
At the moment we seem to be backtracking as much as moving forward.
Mr Evans, I would not be too optimistic. I certainly would not hold my breath on this issue.
I have been trying for a number of years, without much success.
There are two main obstacles to a card for older people.
The nature, the form and the administration vary so much between Member States.
The whole question of subsidiarity and proportionality raises its head every time I try to move the question forward.
Some Member States operate a card system, others do not.
The conditions vary: in some Member States age alone is sufficient, in others age is combined with income or even residence.
The age of application varies from 58 to 67.
Many Member States have decentralised and localised administration and services for application.
The second problem is that the picture is constantly changing.
There is a lot of commercialisation and privatisation, particularly in transport, and a lot of the responsibility is in the hands of private and semi-public agencies.
So it has not gone well and I am finding it extremely difficult to reach a point where we can coordinate the whole system.
I would like to think it could happen but, as you say, it has proved impossible so far and I do not see any great hope for the immediate future.
I wish to thank the Commissioner for his reply to the question by Mr Evans.
I certainly hope the Commission will consider bringing forward detailed proposals for a card for the over-60s in the foreseeable future, even given the difficulties.
Would the Commissioner like to take this opportunity to condemn the ageism which is widespread throughout the European Union and is still a major problem?
I just wish to say that the Commission has already announced its intention in the 1998 to 2000 social action programme to launch a debate on the use of the future Article 13.
Article 13 provides for appropriate action to combat discrimination based on sex, racial and ethnic origin, religion, belief, disability, age and sexual orientation.
So we are examining the possibility of legislation as soon as the Treaty is ratified.
I have just announced our intention under the programme to present a communication on the issues you have referred to as part of our contribution to next year's United Nations Year.
We will have an opportunity to discuss the matter further at that time.
Mr Flynn, if you hold your breath for too long you will do yourself an injury and then you might need the health card.
I do not know whether you remember that some time ago we, as a Parliament, led an initiative and I presented you with a mock-up of that health card which you assured me you would strive for.
You told me that in the Republic of Ireland the introduction of the health card was being considered.
Since it was mentioned by my colleague, Mr Evans, what progress has been made on the introduction of a health card? I remind you that one of the possibilities I suggested to you was that rather than go for a high-tech version we might just go for something which was a very posh E111.
You know that I support the introduction of this card. I have spent a lot of time trying to get it organised.
It has been extremely difficult because of the difficulties I have outlined to you, but we might be able to make some progress.
Perhaps more action could be taken at European level to help improve the flow of information.
It might also be helpful to have an update on the concession schemes that are available and try and promote the identification and exchange of best practice.
The Commission could consider supporting the development of a website on concession schemes available to older people in the Union.
I do not whether you think that would be helpful but it might be a first step in breaking the log-jam.
Question No 44 by Bernie Malone (H-0925/98)
Subject: Cancellation of 1999 Year Against Violence Against Women
I understand that the 1999 Year Against Violence Against Women has been cancelled at the behest of the Member States.
Given that this House itself called for the declaration of 1999 as the Year Against Violence Against Women in a Resolution in 1997, can the Commissioner explain why the Commission was insufficiently prepared financially and organisationally for it to go ahead? I should like to welcome Mrs Wulf-Mathies and give her the floor to answer Mr Malone's question.
Mr President, Mrs Malone, Parliament was late in expressing its wish to declare a Year Against Violence Against Women, with the result that the Commission no longer had time to present a formal proposal, ensure appropriate finance and plan the activities carefully.
However, in an effort to take Parliament's wishes into account, the Commission proposed a campaign on the subject of violence against women.
Measures for this were begun following a preparatory meeting under the British Presidency in June 1998.
The first conference will take place from 1 to 4 December on the role of the police in fighting violence against women, in particular against immigrants.
This event is partly funded by the DAPHNE programme.
Another important conference, which the Commission is organising with the German Presidency, will take place next spring.
One feature of the conference will be the presentation of an analysis of relevant statistics from the Member States.
This report is currently being drawn up jointly by experts from all Member States and the European Women's Lobby, and will also be financed by the DAPHNE programme.
The campaign's closing conference will be organised in cooperation with the Finnish Presidency.
The Commission is also planning an exhibition and several seminars, and will draw up and publish information literature that is to be used for prevention in particular.
The Member States are being invited to organise events in their own countries that should be aimed at the general public and the non-governmental organisations.
The Commission has also proposed launching a Eurobarometer survey on this subject in the Member States.
In addition, a report is to be drawn up for the closing conference to summarise all the measures that have been taken or introduced in the Member States during the campaign.
We would very much welcome the participation of the applicant countries in this campaign.
Against this I must say, however, that the implementation, type and scale of the measures will depend on the level of financial and staff resources made available by you for 1999.
The Commission will therefore not be able to make a final decision on the campaign until the general budget has been passed in December 1998.
I thank the Commissioner for her reply.
I do not normally put down questions because I do not like to waste time, but I feel very strongly about this issue.
I am disappointed that we have not been able to make further progress.
I wonder if the fact that you did not have enough resources at your disposal has anything to do with the report that was published yesterday by the Court of Auditors, which says that a lot of work is being impeded by people being on short-term contracts.
I hope that is not the case here.
Your plans are very laudable and the campaign and the points you have made are very good.
But we must also take the campaign to the schools. Educational input is very important.
Mr President, firstly, the problem of late application was due solely to the fact that we have certain deadlines to observe if the Council is to make appropriate decisions, and for this we were simply too late.
But this has nothing to do with employment contracts in the Commission.
You are familiar with the Commission communication 'on a medium-term Community action programme on measures providing a Community-wide support to Member States action relating to violence against children, young persons and women'.
This is a programme that is to run from 2000 to 2004, and it makes sense to accept this proposal for schools too.
You know that part of this communication and of the action programme is raising public awareness.
I agree with you that raising this awareness must begin as early as possible so that the public develop information and attitudes that make them reject violence against women and allow joint measures to be organised.
Question No 45 by Gerard Collins (H-1029/98)
Subject: EU support for computer purchases for schools
At Shanagolden Primary School in Limerick, in Ireland, a new computer room with eight computers has just been opened which will enable teachers to work with pupils, including remedial pupils, in furthering their education through the use of new technology.
This only came about as a result of various fund-raising activities and the offer of an interest-free loan.
Can the Commission outline what support, if any, is available at EU level to support the purchase of computers and/or the fitting out of computer rooms in primary and secondary schools. I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mr Collins' question.
Mr President, Mr Collins, the Commission is heavily involved in improving access for European schools to new information technologies.
The actions that have already begun or are currently being introduced include the following: firstly, the Action Plan 'Learning in the information society', the aims of which include the networking of European schools, training for teachers and the development of strategies for developing multimedia content.
Secondly, it includes the Educational Multimedia Task Force, which brings together the educational activities of eight different Community programmes.
In this context, a joint call for proposals on the subject of educational multimedia was published in December 1996, in which in particular Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci, TEN and three research programmes took part.
One example of the 46 projects selected is the 'European Schoolnet' project, which involves the education ministries of the Member States.
The Socrates programme is aimed at European cooperation in education and promotes cooperation in these areas, in particular within the context of open and distance learning.
The proposal for Socrates II provides for a new action that is to promote the critical and responsible use of information technologies in schools and colleges.
Finally, there are numerous research and development actions under various research programmes, which serve to develop an infrastructure and the resources to use it, to create new tools such as simulations or virtual classrooms and to promote open and distance learning.
In the Community, provision of equipment for schools, in particular computers, is financed in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity from the budgets of the Member States or local authorities.
Those areas which are eligible for aid from the Structural Funds receive additional funding from them, some of which has helped to finance suitable computer equipment for vocational training centres and further education institutions, including in Ireland.
Thank you, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
Mr Collins is satisfied with your reply.
Question No 46 by Marie-Paule Kestelijn-Sierens (H-0968/98)
Subject: Authorisation of the Drogenbos incinerator in contravention of European legislation
On 21 November 1997 the Flemish Ministry of the Environment authorised the construction of an incinerator at Drogenbos (Flemish Brabant).
The construction of this incinerator contravenes, inter alia, the proximity principle, the precautionary principle, Directive 80/779/EEC on air quality limit values and guide values for sulphur dioxide and suspended particulates and Directive 85/337/EEC on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment.
Does the Commission consider the complaint lodged by the people living nearby to be justified, and if so, what steps will it take? I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens's question.
Mr President, the Commission is currently investigating several complaints relating to the Drogenbos incinerator which this question refers to.
In view of these complaints, the Commission asked the Belgian Government for information at the end of August, and it is currently examining the reply from the relevant Belgian authorities.
If the current investigation confirms that Community environmental law is being violated, the Commission will decide whether infringement proceedings should be instituted in accordance with Article 169.
I am grateful to the Commissioner for her reply, but I should specifically like to know when we can expect a decision from the Commission.
This is an extremely important problem which needs to be addressed with the utmost urgency, since it concerns an incinerator being built in a densely populated area of one and a half million people where the maximum limits for particulates and cadmium have already been reached.
I would like to press the Commission to investigate this matter with the utmost urgency.
Perhaps Mrs Wulf-Mathies could tell us how long it will take for the Commission to reach a decision?
Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, we are aware that this is a very sensitive issue.
This is why we asked the Belgian Government for information, which we received in October.
Please do not expect me to be able to tell you now how long the investigation will take.
However, we are aware that this issue is a source of concern for the people from that area and they are therefore entitled to receive a reply from us as soon as possible to confirm whether environmental regulations have been violated.
Question No 47 by John McCartin (H-0945/98)
Subject: Local partnership companies in Ireland
Is the Commission aware of the concern of Partnership companies in Ireland (receiving funding under the Operational Programme for Local Urban and Rural Development under the sub-programme for the 'Integrated development of designated disadvantaged and other areas') that the programme will be cut short when it has only just got up and running (operational only in 1996)?
Will the Commission make a commitment, given the importance of countering disadvantage through such local community effort, to include such a programme in the new Structural Funds regulations? I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mr McCartin's question.
Mr President, as we see it, the concern of partnership companies mentioned by Mr McCartin is unfounded.
It is not the Commission's intention either to introduce reprogramming or to reduce funding.
On the contrary, the Commission is convinced, on the strength of the information provided by the monitoring committee for the Operational Programme for Local Urban and Rural Development, that partnership companies will succeed by the end of 1999 in dividing up between the projects all the programme funds available under the TAI Programme II.
This is particularly important given that it will only be possible to fully disburse the funds allocated to the individual projects in the following year.
The Commission would be in favour of the national authorities including, in their regional development plan, proposals on ways of promoting integrated development when making plans for the next programming period.
It acknowledges the progress that was achieved within the current programme in promoting local socio-economic development and in compensating for disadvantages, and is open to proposals on ways of promoting local development and, in particular, combating social exclusion in future as well.
I want to thank the Commissioner for her very full reply.
One of my concerns is not actually about this year or next year but about the new programme which starts in the year 2000. This did not commence with the present structural funds programme because there was a delay in getting it off the ground, particularly in Ireland.
At the moment people are just learning what it is about, getting their programme off the ground, and now they are concerned that it might not continue after the end of 1999.
Will you be making proposals for it to be continued into the next programme so that they have another six years?
Mr President, I understand the concern.
Firstly, it is simply a question of carrying out all appropriations for commitments by the end of 1999, and this means that measures can also still be financed in the year 2000.
Secondly, the Commission is generally interested in promoting local partnerships in the next programming period as well.
The only thing is that, without knowing the Irish Government's programme proposals, it would be going too far at this stage to say that they will also be part of future programmes.
However, since we attach great importance, in the new proposals for structural reform, to local initiatives and, in particular, to local employment initiatives, I am assuming that continuing to promote similar measures in future as part of a programme will be an important concern for all of us.
Question No 48 by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (H-0973/98)
Subject: Defective work in implementation of Greek Community Support Framework
According to information which has come to light in Greece, a great many of the projects jointly funded from the Community budget under the Second Community Support Framework for Greece, particularly road-building, have been carried out in a slipshod manner and, in general, do not meet Community specifications.
This information came to light following the publication of a report by the expert quality control consultant appointed by the Greek Government. The report notes that for all categories of road-building projects subjected to checks, between 26 % and 95 % of the work was defective.
This is a particularly serious matter both in terms of the high percentage of defective work and the fact that such work is largely responsible for the high number of accidents and deaths on the roads in Greece.
Given that these projects are carried out with Community funding, will the Commission say whether it considers such a high percentage of defects to be normal in comparison with the situation in other Member States? Where does responsibility for this situation lie and what does the Commission intend to do to put an end to this unacceptable state of affairs?
I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mr Hatzidakis's question.
Mr President, Mr Hatzidakis, according to existing Community law, responsibility for carrying out projects cofinanced by the Structural Funds lies exclusively with the Member States.
In other words, according to existing law, the Member States must guarantee the required quality.
Monitoring of these projects is therefore subject to national legislation.
When the Community Support Framework for Greece was approved for 1994 to 1999, the Greek Government assured the Commission that it would take measures to put right the serious deficiencies occurring in the past in connection with the execution of public works.
This was particularly important for the Commission given the significant increase in the number of new projects.
One of the measures included the appointment of an independent special adviser for quality control for projects cofinanced by the Community.
In fact, the first quarterly report of this body known as ESPEL establishes that there is still a problem of quality.
However, despite spot checks carried out on the projects, it is still not possible to submit applications for certain projects.
Therefore, the Joint Permanent Committee, whose members also include representatives of the Commission, made the proposal, accepted by the Greek authorities, to have the projects monitored systematically and thoroughly by a quality control officer from 1 July 1998, and no longer simply by spot checks.
The results of this second ESPEL inspection are to be presented in two days, that is, on 19 November, at the next meeting of the Community Support Framework Audit Board.
Only then will it be possible to identify the quality defects for each specific project, to determine who is responsible and, above all, to proceed at the same time according to three groupings.
The first of these involves projects with secondary defects that are to be put right by the companies, and the second involves projects with considerable defects that do not affect the safety of transport, for instance, but result in high maintenance costs; these additional costs are to be settled by means of payments to the companies concerned.
The third category is for projects with serious defects that cannot be repaired, and the companies must put these right at their own expense.
The Commission has no information that would allow it to make a comparative assessment of quality problems in the individual Member States.
However, the Commission is in favour of increasing independent quality control in Greece, and it is in close contact with the Greek authorities.
It shall examine the results of the second ESPEL inspection and shall follow closely further developments to repair project defects with those responsible.
Mr President, I do not know what to begin with because the subject is far too big to be covered in just one minute.
Commissioner, whilst you know that all of us MEPs stand up for our regions and for the correct implementation of the Second Community Support Framework, trying to get more money for the forthcoming Santer package, there is unfair treatment here and we denounce that.
It is a scandal.
I have the published figures for the second quarter from the report by the Special Quality Control Council, which show that projects not conforming to specifications are found in a very high proportion: concrete materials of poor quality 77 %, substrate material of poor quality 91 %, foundation materials of poor quality 95 %, and so on.
It is a scandal, Commissioner, and frankly I would have expected a clearer answer.
To a written question I submitted to you a while ago about the Patras-Athens-Thessaloniki project, you answered that the work had not been put right even though you had asked for that to be done, and that the delay was worrying.
So I want you to tell me what action you intend to take with the Greek Government, and tell me also, since you say you have comparative figures, what is happening elsewhere.
Are there such major problems of the order of 95 % in other countries? Sincerely, I ask you for a more specific answer because this is an issue of the first priority for my country.
Mr President, Mr Hatzidakis, I do not have any figures from other Member States, but of course you know that for years we have been busy hurrying along improvements to the tendering procedures for public procurement. And you also know that the reform of public procurement has necessitated legislative changes that must now also be brought through Parliament by a democratic procedure.
Therefore, all of this has lasted much longer than what was acceptable to us as well.
However, we are now well on the way to obtaining really secure data.
It would be good if, together - you given your responsibility as a Member of Parliament, and we given our responsibility as the Commission -, we now waited for the meeting of the monitoring committee where we could assess the last relevant inspection.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to hear from you which exactly are the projects we are discussing, who are the contractors, and who are those responsible in the various services of the Greek State for monitoring these projects.
It is impossible for us to find out specific details.
Secondly, please tell me what procedures have been set in motion for penal sanctions on the grounds of negligence, because in a written answer you gave me, you said that penalties would be imposed but I have heard of no such procedure taking place. Do you know anything about that?
Thirdly, if those instances of negligence, which are very major, happen to be real, will the return of the funds be demanded? In other words, is it possible that my country will have to return money to the European Union and the Commission?
Mr President, I should gladly like to try that.
I have just pointed out that we have now started a very specific inspection, the results of which are to be discussed on 19 November in the monitoring committee.
Please appreciate that I do not wish to prejudge the meeting of the monitoring committee here today.
However, I have made it clear what the consequences are if defects can definitely be proved.
First and foremost, these are not things which the Commission demands from companies, but which the Member State is obliged to demand, because responsibility for the inspection lies with the Member State.
We cannot govern within the Member State, nor do we wish to.
There is not only the principle of subsidiarity, but also the need to separate the powers.
However, it is clear that the necessary consequences will be discussed in the joint committees, and this is the case for both the monitoring committee, in which the Commission is also represented, and for this Joint Committee, which was set up because we realised that the system of pubic procurement is not working adequately.
Due to our discussion in Parliament today, I will also gladly instruct our representative in the monitoring committee not only to be very careful when finding out which problems have actually occurred, but also to make sure that they result in appropriate financial consequences for companies, and naturally consequences under criminal law, where this proves necessary or is indicated.
But I have to know the facts first before I start quoting criminal law here.
In this respect, I now consider this discussion to be a further impetus for the representatives of the Commission to take appropriate action at the meeting of the monitoring committee on 19 November.
Question No 49 by Glenys Kinnock (H-0980/98)
Subject: Timetable for Structural Fund negotiations
Will the Commission give a breakdown of the timetable for the remaining negotiations concerning the Structural Fund Regulations and the likely period of programme negotiations between the Commission and Member States for Objective 1 and Objective 2? I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mrs Kinnock's question.
I thank the Commissioner for a very comprehensive answer.
Could the Commissioner say what formula the Commission will be using to allocate Structural Fund resources to the Objective 1 areas for the period 2000 to 2006? In the interests of transparency - and far be it from me to suggest that the Commission would not always want to be transparent on these issues - would the Commission do us the favour of publishing the formula it intends to adopt?
I should gladly like to do that, because we do in fact agree on the principle of transparency.
We should like to make it clear that the basis of calculation and the indicators are transparent and can be understood by everyone.
We are therefore currently in the process of preparing a paper which will be made available to the Council and of course to the appropriate committee.
I have two supplementary questions, the first of them on Objective 6 areas.
I am keen to discover how much headway has been made with regard to Sweden and Finland. The matter was raised during the accession negotiations in 1992.
The criteria agreed upon then still hold good, and I wonder whether they will apply unchanged with the transfer to Objective 1.
In the run-up to the elections to the European Parliament, it would also be useful to iron out any uncertainties as to what is going to happen in the various Member States with regard to the Structural Funds.
Both MEPs and the public at large would benefit from clear information from the Commission on this point.
You know that, should there be delays, it is not because of the Commission, and I still hope that we will also manage through a joint effort to bring the discussions on the Structural Funds to a close in May, that is, before you begin the election campaign.
The Commission already submitted its proposals in March this year, and in this respect, more concrete results could have been achieved had they been wanted.
However, it is now up to the Council, and I hope that the Council will ultimately remain loyal to the decisions it made in Cardiff.
As far as Objective 6 is concerned, the principles applying to Finland and Sweden, which were laid down in their treaties of accession, are being retained; the one exception is a region in Finland which is going to be a genuine Objective 1 area, and which will be improved in accordance with this status.
However, as was already said, this is the Commission's proposal, and the Council and Parliament still have to agree to it.
Question No 50 by Reinhard Rack (H-1011/98)
Subject: Future substance of the Community's Interreg initiative
The details of the future framework conditions for the new objectives 1, 2 and 3 are now beginning to emerge very clearly.
The same is not true of the Community initiatives.
In particular I should like to know what priorities the future Interreg initiative will contain, whether one of these will be the promotion of the regions at the EU's external borders - which the European Parliament has called for by a large majority - and what type of measures the Commission considers to be worth supporting in the context of promoting the regions bordering on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe?
I give the floor to Mrs Wulf-Mathies to answer Mr Rack's question.
Mr President, I should like to point out to Mr Rack that the Commission has proposed continuing and reinforcing the Community's Interreg initiative. It believes that in future this should comprise three forms of cooperation.
Firstly, cooperation between neighbouring border regions with a view to developing integrated cross-border economic and social areas, as well as close cross-border cooperation in all other areas.
Secondly, transnational cooperation between regional and national authorities with a view to promoting the economic integration of peripheral regions, and closer European integration, as well as deepening cooperation in regional development.
Thirdly, interregional cooperation with a view to exchanging practical knowledge and proven methods, as well as promoting the transfer of know-how between the regions in question.
As you know, only measures within the Member States can be financed under Interreg.
However, Interreg measures in the regions bordering on the applicant countries are linked to the PHARE cross-border measures, under which cross-border cooperation is financed in the PHARE countries.
This includes a large number of measures in areas such as economic cooperation, environmental protection, infrastructure, policies for small and medium-sized enterprises, tourism, and so on.
The Commission has embarked upon reform of the PHARE-CBC regulation.
The aim of this reform is to make cross-border cooperation more efficient, and to reinforce the cross-border nature of measures by means of common structures and common programmes.
As regards the nature of the measures taken, the PHARE-CBC arrangements are to be brought into line with Interreg procedures in order to facilitate genuine cross-border cooperation and, if you so wish, to make the PHARE-CBC instrument a pre-accession Interreg instrument, so that together we can also learn how to cooperate across borders.
Commissioner, what you have just summarised in your answer shows that we have already come a very long way particularly on this important matter, and above all, that we have gone in the right direction for the regions, but also particularly for you as the Commissioner responsible.
The question which is always asked in this connection, of course, is the question of how much.
Interreg was previously one of 15 Community initiatives, and funds were therefore not abundant, at least in the previous support period.
How does the situation look for the next support period, as far as you can tell?
Mr President, Mr Rack, the funds are being extended in any case because, as you know, Interreg will no longer be one of 13 initiatives in future, but one of three, according to the Commission's proposal. I can only ask Parliament to now also oppose a whittling away of Community initiatives.
In addition, the Commission has always believed that Interreg should be the most important of these three, and this could mean that around 50 % of the funds for Community initiatives - that is, from the Community initiatives' total 5 % slice of the cake - should be given to Interreg.
However, this relies firstly on the Member States accepting the 5 % figure.
This is still being disputed in the Council at present. Secondly, it requires that we resist all attempts to add further initiatives, because it is clear that the funds would then automatically have to be made available for more initiatives, with the result that Interreg would then also suffer financially.
Ladies and gentlemen, with that question by Mr Rack, we have come to the end of the time set aside for questions to Mrs Wulf-Mathies. I should like to thank her for attending.
Since we have no more time for questions to Mrs Wulf-Mathies, Question No 51 by Mr Schröder will receive a written answer.
Question No 52 by José Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra (H-0923/98)
Subject: US-Cuba relations
Is the Commission aware of the letter of 3 August sent by Mrs Albright, United States Secretary of State, to Mr Helms, Chairman of the US Senate's Foreign Affairs Committee, which was published by newspapers and other media?
Does the Commission intend to respond to this letter or take a stance on this matter?
Does the Commission consider that the interpretation placed on the terms of the declarations of 18 May by the US Secretary of State is in keeping with the spirit of the remarks made to the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs in May by the Commissioner responsible?
Does the Commission agree that this agreement represents an extraordinary reaffirmation of the principles underlying the Liberty Act? I should like to welcome Sir Leon and give him the floor to answer Mr Salafranca's question.
The Commission is aware of the letter from Secretary Albright to Senator Helms regarding the understanding on investment disciplines.
We discussed it with Secretary Albright during the ministerial meeting in Vienna in September and the Commission informed her that there were several parts of the letter which the Commission would not have written.
The Commission does not believe that it is desirable or useful to focus on differences in the presentation of the understanding on investment disciplines.
The text of the understanding itself is detailed and explicit.
It is a text which we will respect and implement when a title for waiver of the Helms-Burton Act is granted.
Commissioner, I would be grateful for further clarification on two points.
The day after the General Affairs Council at which the terms of the Transatlantic Summit's declaration on extraterritorial legislation, and more specifically, the Helms-Burton Act, were noted, you appeared before this Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy. On that occasion you stated that if the United States did not fulfill its part of the agreements - I refer in particular to the amendment of Title IV -, the agreements would lapse.
Were this to prove the case, you did not rule out the possibility of again initiating proceedings in some way before the bodies of the World Trade Organisation.
The question I should like to put to you, Commissioner, is as follows: what, in the Commission's opinion, is a reasonable period of time to allow the United States to amend Title IV of the Act? Is President Clinton's term of office a reasonable period?
Or what about the present Commission's term of office? Or perhaps the term of office of the next President of the United States is the appropriate period of time?
What exactly do you have in mind?
Moving on to my second point, Commissioner, I would like you to confirm that you did have the opportunity of meeting with the Chairman of the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee, Senator Gilman, and also with Congressman Bob Menéndez during your latest visit to Washington. Also, I would like you to state whether or not it is true that you - or the European Commission - were asked to put in writing your position with regard to the content of Mrs Albright's letter to Senator Helms.
Finally, Commissioner, I would like to know whether you are in receipt of any communication from the United States' Congress on this matter, requesting the Commission to state its position on the content of the letter in question.
The position is, that we will not carry out our part of the agreement if the United States does not carry out its part.
We have not set a deadline.
I had a number of meetings with Congressional leaders including Mr Gilman during a recent visit to the United States in which I put our position and the United States seemed more prepared to understand it.
Above all, the reasons we have not concerned ourselves to set a deadline is that, for the moment, under the agreement, the United States is taking no action against any European company under either Title 3 or Title 4 and has indicated that not only does Total get a waiver agreement but anybody else who invests in Iran on comparable terms will similarly get a waiver.
They are not implementing their law and we are not subject to it.
Although the Commissioner has told us, the United States, is not at present implementing the Helms-Burton law in certain respects, is he aware of the fact that many European businessmen have been intimidated into refusing to take the risk of incurring liability under Title 3 and Title 4 of the bill and, if they have had relations with the United States, have preferred to limit relations with Cuba or not have any at all.
In these circumstances, will there not come a time when, although no deadline has been set, further action will have to be taken to protect European businessmen from the effects of this situation.
They seem to be pretty well protected by the understanding that we have because they are apparently piling into Cuba.
Question No 53 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0976/98)
Subject: Negotiations on the MAI
The OECD negotiations on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) resumed some time ago.
The draft agreement which was negotiated during the spring has been sharply criticised by the European Parliament and others.
What changes does the Commission wish to see made to the agreement that was negotiated in spring? I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Sjöstedt's question.
This is, of course, a complicated question.
Since it was tabled I made a Commission statement in the plenary session of 20 October.
That remains an accurate statement of the current position, and I would refer to it.
I should like to extend sincere thanks to the Commission for that answer, which was brief and to the point.
My question is no longer entirely relevant in any case. It was in fact put down before the good news reached us that the French Government was withdrawing from the MAI negotiations.
It now looks probable that new negotiations will be started up within the framework of the World Trade Organisation.
I wonder if the Commission believes that the draft agreement produced at OECD level would constitute a sound basis for these WTO negotiations. Or would it be preferable to begin again from scratch, given that the situation has now changed?
As I explained in the debate, the position is that we favoured an agreement in the OECD.
The negotiations have not been terminated but, being frank about it, I indicated that the prospects were not good.
If we had had an agreement in the OECD, or if we have one, that seems to me to be a good prelude to negotiation in the WTO, which has not yet been agreed but which we have argued in favour of.
If there is no agreement in the OECD, I still think that the right thing to do is to commence negotiation in the WTO.
So that is the course we would favour, irrespective of what happens in the OECD.
Question No 54 by Richard Howitt (H-1031/98)
Subject: The World Trade Organisation and the Multilateral Agreement on Investment
Given the recent actions of the French Government, will the European Commission now support the removal of talks on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) from the OECD to the World Trade Organisation (WTO)? Will the Commissioner ensure that equal weight is given to responsibilities of investors under such an agreement as to rights vis-à-vis nation states?
I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Howitt's question.
As I said in the debate I referred to in answer to the previous question, I have always believed that the WTO is the best place in the long term to create a predictable framework of investment rules.
I am glad we have made some progress in starting down that road at the WTO ministerial meeting in Singapore.
It is important that at the meeting next autumn we should continue to press the case for negotiation and ultimate agreement on investment in the WTO.
Meanwhile, there have been the negotiations on the MAI in the framework of the OECD. We have participated in those negotiations but the chances of bringing them to a successful conclusion do not look promising at the moment.
So we need to consider what would be the best way forward now in order to deal with the situation and get negotiations going in the WTO in any event.
Could I ask the President-in-Office to comment on the second part of my question, in particular the need to incorporate binding regulatory standards, especially in the areas of labour, the environment, investment incentives and restrictive business practices in any new multilateral agreement on investment, alongside rights for investors.
I am very pleased that the British Government, as reported on 13 November in the Guardian , has said that Ministers have decided the way forward is to include labour standards and environmental concerns from the outset.
I hope that the Commission will take that view in its relations with the WTO.
I should also like to ask the Commissioner if he will ensure that as far as the WTO is concerned, there is full consultation with civil society and NGOs and that labour issues are taken into account?
There has not been an agreement that there should be a negotiation in the WTO.
I very much hope that we will get that but there is strong resistance from a number of developing countries.
So it would be altogether premature to talk about the nature of our negotiating mandate for a negotiation that does not currently exist.
The short answer is that there is none at the moment but there will have to be one in due course.
As for consultation with civil society, that is enormously important.
The Commission organised a very large meeting with representatives from a very large number of NGOs, as well as others concerned, yesterday in Brussels on the whole range of WTO negotiations.
As Mr Barton is not present, Question No 55 lapses.
Question No 56 by David Bowe (H-1034/98)
Subject: Steel
What action has the Commission taken in response to the recent court case in the Ohio State Court in the USA which was directly aimed at preventing foreign steel from entering that particular state, an action that appears to be in contravention of US and international law? I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Bowe's question.
On 27 October an Ohio- based steel producer filed an action in the Ohio State Court alleging unfair competition from low-priced steel imports into the state.
The action was meant to seek restrictions on imports into the state by a number of trading companies as well as Russian and Japanese steel producers.
This is a highly unusual move by the US steel industry which had already begun to lodge a serious of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy complaints at the federal level in response to the crisis in South-East Asia and Russia.
On 17 November 1998, however, the Ohio State Court where the case was pending dismissed the action brought by the Ohio corporation.
Apparently the judge decided that the plaintiff was not entitled to relief under state law.
The Commission is monitoring the further progress of the case as there may well be an attempt to seek relief before a federal court.
I thank the Commissioner for that reply which I found very interesting.
I would also bring to his attention some more recent events.
In the steel industry journal The Metal Bulletin of 12 November it said that US steel company executives and trade union representatives met a few days ago with President Clinton in order to push their case for exceptional protection against steel imports.
While the report goes on to say that no decision has yet been taken, the companies are pressing for a change to the injury standard of the so-called 201 market safeguard rule which would make it easier for the Americans to shut down their market to imports but stay within WTO rules.
If the American Government gives in to this type of pressure, what is the European Union - and the Commission in particular - going to do to protect its steel companies?
It would be unwise to speculate on what we would do in a certain speculative event but I can tell you one thing. We would certainly wish to ensure that the United States acted in accordance with WTO rules.
As far as Europe is concerned, EUROFER has been to see me and has indicated that it will be putting forward a complaint alleging that there has been dumping and possibly other unlawful trading activities in the steel industry.
If we receive that complaint we will obviously give it very serious attention.
But the proper procedure would have to be gone through and I could not begin to anticipate what the outcome would be.
Question No 57 by Graham Watson (H-1035/98)
Subject: China-Taiwan relations
What discussions has the Commission had recently with the Chinese authorities concerning its relations with Taiwan? I give the floor to Sir Leon to answer Mr Watson's question.
The latest contact that we had with the Chinese on the subject of Taiwan was in July 1998 when the Commission's Deputy Director-General in DG I, Mr Gérard Depayre, explained to an envoy from the Chinese mission to the EU the content and purpose of our bilateral WTO market access agreement which I signed - the record of the negotiations - with the Taiwanese Minister Wang in Brussels on 23 July.
Since then there has been no official contact with the Chinese authorities on the question of Taiwan.
We do not recognise Taiwan as a separate sovereign nation but rather as a separate customs territory with which we have had increasingly intense economic and commercial links.
We attach great importance to our economic and commercial links with both China and Taiwan so we must be available to discuss these relations as and when necessary.
Please allow me to declare an interest.
I went with a group of other Members of this House from different countries and different political groups to Taiwan last week at the invitation of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs to observe their election campaign.
I led a similar group there in 1995. Taiwan is a free and open democracy.
They have made tremendous strides towards democracy. It is the world's 14th largest trading nation.
As a result of being a free and open democracy with a transparent economy they have come well out of the financial turmoil.
Would you not agree, Commissioner, that Taiwan is a beacon for democracy in the region and that the isolation of Taiwan is increasingly anomalous? Will the Commission support Taiwan's early entry into the WTO and greater links between the European Union and the Republic of China?
Mr Watson knows the official position of the Commission and indeed Member States with regard to Taiwan.
Our links with Taiwan are very strong. They are economic and commercial though.
In those circumstances I do not think it would be appropriate for me to comment on political developments in Taiwan.
But I would say, with regard to the other points that have been made, we are negotiating in good faith and rather successfully with Taiwan on its admission to the WTO. We have made very good progress on the market access question.
There are other aspects that still have to be considered. We will negotiate with Taiwan on those other aspects without delay and seek to reach a mutually acceptable agreement.
More generally, as far as the economic and commercial links with Taiwan are concerned, I entirely agree with what has been said.
It is a territory that has been extremely successful economically, even in the context of the current problems in Asia.
There is enormous further potential for the development of economic and commercial links with the European Union.
Question No 58 by Paul Rübig (H-0924/98)
Subject: Directives on the recognition of diplomas and discrimination against consultant engineering firms
The first and second directives on the recognition of diplomas govern entitlement to exercise a profession, or rather the evidence entitling a person to pursue a regulated profession in an EU Member State.
The term 'diploma', however, includes not only school leaving certificates and university degree certificates but also a number of training and examination certificates such as, for example, those required in Austria as proof of qualifications for a licence to exercise a regulated profession.
However, some Member States, Italy for instance, interpret the directive very restrictively, only recognising, for the purposes of granting licences to consultant engineering firms, degrees from universities and higher education establishments.
This practice has even led to the prosecution of Austrian citizens for illegal exercise of the profession of engineer.
How does the Commission intend to react to this possible discrimination against consultant engineering firms with regard to the exercise of their profession within the internal market? I should like to welcome Mr Monti and give him the floor to answer Mr Rübig's question.
As the honourable Member has pointed out, within the meaning of Directives 89/48/EEC and 92/51/EEC the term 'diploma' may include not only school leaving certificates and university degrees, but also a number of training and examination certificates.
The directives relating to the general system of recognition of diplomas make no provision for coordination of training nor for automatic recognition of vocational qualifications.
Each Member State is free to stipulate what qualifications are required to exercise an occupation or profession within its own borders.
Thus Italy is entitled to permit only graduates from universities and higher education establishments to practise as consultant engineers.
Practitioners from other Member States must be treated in the same way as Italian citizens.
Infringement of the rules in force in the individual Member States may lead to the opening of legal proceedings, provided that any sentences are proportionate to the seriousness of the violation.
Austrian citizens wishing to practise as consultant engineers in Italy must submit an application to this effect to the competent authorities.
Should it emerge that there is a significant difference between the qualifications laid down by law in Italy and those required of Austrian citizens to practise that profession, the Italian authorities may invite the Austrian citizen to opt for an equalisation measure such as, for example, a training period or an aptitude test.
If, as appears to be the case, the Austrian practitioners possess only lower-level diplomas such as those provided for in Directive 92/51/EEC, the Italian authorities may require an equalisation measure to be applied in all cases.
It will be clear from what I have said that the general position of the Italian authorities does not conflict with the provisions of Community law.
I might add that, here as in other spheres, should any specific individual cases prove problematic, the Commission is prepared to examine them and check on their compliance with Community law.
Mr President, it appears in practice that an engineer in Austria may provide a service which meets market requirements, and that when he provides the same service in Italy or in another Member State, it is then no longer admissible.
How do you intend to deal in future with these problems which constitute obstacles for the internal market?
Here the relevant distinction is the one introduced at the Fontainebleau summit back in 1984.
Indeed, ever since the Fontainebleau summit the vertical sectoral approach - that is, specific directives - for specific jobs and occupations has been replaced by a horizontal approach, in other words the general system based on semi-automatic recognition of qualifications without prior harmonisation of education and training systems.
Generally speaking, the Commission is not in favour of proposing new specific directives.
In these cases, therefore, the host country is entitled to restrict the exercise of a certain occupation to holders of university and higher education degrees, and then - as I said - a citizen from another Member State may opt either for an aptitude test or a training period.
The alternative to this system would be highly detailed regulatory provisions: these are appropriate for certain jobs and occupations but not for others.
Question No 59 by Antonios Trakatellis (H-0940/98)
Subject: Decision on complaint concerning the Thessaloniki underground railway and implementation of Community legislation on public contracts
Almost four years since the Thessaloniki underground rail project was incorporated in the section of the 2nd CSF for Greece (1994-1999) entitled 'Improvement in living conditions', and almost two years since a complaint was made to the Commission that the project was in breach of Community legislation on public contracts, the only progress has been the transfer of ECU 26 million of the ECU 60.7 m of the Community's total contribution.
According to the Commission's announcement in July, it had taken a decision on the complaint, on the authorization of Commissioner Monti.
Will the Commission, therefore, say whether it has taken a final decision on the complaint, what that decision is and whether it may be overturned in the light of new information? If that is so, how can the Commission ensure a swift review of the case when it took 18 months to make any statement on the complaint?
In view of the fact that the Greek Ministry for Public Works has announced that the contract has been signed, can work commence without further complication due to controversy over the contract? Did examination of the complaint reveal any shortcoming in the implementation of Community directives on public contracts in relation to this project and, if so, how will the Commission ensure that the law is upheld in the future?
I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mr Trakatellis's question.
The Commission wishes to inform the honourable Member that it has dropped the case concerning the Thessaloniki underground railway, by Decision H/98/3262 of 27 August 1998, given that it did not come across any breach of the principle of equal treatment.
The competent authorities in Greece were informed in a letter dated 18 September 1998.
Before arriving at the decision to drop the case, the Commission requested and obtained from the Greek authorities a guarantee that future calls for tender, in particular ones relating to contracts of a similar scale, will be drawn up and implemented with the greatest care, so as to avoid difficulties and delays of the kind which have occurred in the tender procedure for the Thessaloniki underground railway.
The Commission would point out that, as always, should any new facts come into its possession relating to an infringement of Community legislation, it could decide to open a new procedure to verify the legality of the situation.
However, the facts of which we are aware thus far do not justify such action.
If valid reasons for reopening proceedings were to arise in the future, which - I repeat - is not the case at present, the Commission would certainly require considerably less time to assess the new facts, because the substance of the matter has already been investigated in depth.
Finally, as concerns the state of advancement of the project itself, the Commission considers that all further developments must be the sole responsibility of the competent authorities in Greece.
Commissioner, thank you very much for your answer.
Firstly, I would like you to tell me this, please: you have already said that when new figures emerge clearly from the agreement signed between the Greek state and the contractor, we will be able to make an approach to the Commission with those new figures.
I would therefore like to ask you: if an approach is made, can the work begin and can payments be made, or do we first have to wait for the Commission's decision and only then begin the work? Secondly, given that there has been an exchange of correspondence between you, Mr Monti, and the Greek Government, for the sake of more complete parliamentary monitoring and greater transparency I would like a copy at least of your own letter to the Greek Government.
Finally, time marches on inexorably, Commissioner, towards the end of the Second Community Support Framework.
Will it be possible for the work to begin and for payments to be made before then?
I would add in reply to Mr Trakatellis that - as I have said - if new and different facts arise in relation to a case, it is always possible to reopen proceedings.
I would stress that, in this case, none of the information which has so far come to light justifies such action.
Therefore, as far as the Commission is concerned, this case has been dropped in the same way as all others are dropped: the relevant proceedings have been closed.
New and different facts would be required in order for it to be reopened, but that is not the situation at present.
Commissioner, you said that you have shelved the matter until you receive new figures, but that at the same time you have told the Greek authorities that in future they should handle things differently from the way in which they dealt with the Thessaloniki metro contract.
So the conclusion I draw is that the procedures followed had certain deficiencies.
Politically, therefore, the procedures were not transparent.
Legally, however - since I am a lawyer - you may indeed have shelved the matter, but the comment that in future such practices should be avoided means that the practice followed was incorrect, that it lacked transparency, that it infringed Community regulations, in other words that someone could go to court solely on the basis of what you have just told us, and blow the contract to pieces.
The question, therefore, is: will the project go ahead? What do you think of the syllogism I have stated, because you cannot both grant approval and say that in future the Greek Government must avoid such practices.
You must do one or the other.
Our approach in the matter under discussion was to assess whether or not Community legislation on public contracts had been breached.
In examining the complaint, the Commission found that the voluminous contract documentation contained provisions on the specific conditions demanded which were open to differing interpretations by bidders.
Nevertheless, in view of the complexity of the procedure and of the contract documentation, the Commission finally concluded that the awarding authority could not be said to have deliberately operated a tender procedure which was not genuinely competitive.
It was not possible in this context to prove that a clear infringement of the principle of equal treatment had taken place; that would have meant opening the appropriate proceedings.
As far as the future is concerned, I can say that the guarantees sought by the Commission take the form of the experience acquired by the Greek administration and its advisers in designing and completing projects of this type; these guarantees are backed by a firm undertaking regarding their future conduct.
Naturally we shall continue to remain vigilant.
Question No 60 by Sören Wibe (H-0951/98)
Subject: Parallel imports into the EEA
One of the effects of a judgment delivered by the European Court of Justice in summer 1998 is to prevent parallel imports of branded clothing from countries outside the EEA.
Sweden has protested in the Council against this ruling, as it affects Swedish consumers and retailers.
Sales of parallel imports in Sweden are worth SKr 30 bn a year.
Naturally enough, then, parallel imports have a very significant effect on Swedish consumers' personal finances.
The Commission has now resumed a study of the pros and cons of parallel imports (which according to Svenska Dagbladet of 29 September 1998 had been shelved), the findings of which are to be presented to the Council.
When will the study be ready?
What will happen in the meantime?
Does the Commission not think it would be better to defend consumers' interests rather than those of general agents? I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mr Wibe's question.
In its judgment of 16 July 1998 in the Silhouette case, the Court of Justice upheld the principle that the holders of trade marks in the Community have the right, on the basis of those trade marks, to object to parallel imports into the European Union of products originally placed on the market elsewhere.
This bears out the Commission's interpretation of the 1989 directive on trade marks.
Consequently, importers and retailers may not import branded products into the Community without the consent of the holder of the relevant trade mark.
This also means that the Member States must apply the current Community rules on trade marks in accordance with the interpretation given by the Court of Justice in its recent judgment.
I am aware of the reactions provoked by this judgment in a limited number of countries, and particularly in Sweden.
Concern has been expressed that consumers are being deprived of the opportunity, thanks to parallel imports, of buying branded products at cheaper prices.
These concerns are, however, only partially justified.
I would stress that the protection of intellectual property rights is crucially important in developing innovation in Europe.
European producers invest vast quantities of money and know-how to create new high-quality products, build up the prestige of their brands and organise their distribution networks.
It should be noted here that, although parallel imports enable consumers to benefit from lower prices in the short term, in the longer term reduced profits might discourage the holders of trade marks from investing in their brands or from competing actively with other brands, which would be disadvantageous for the entire sector.
Let us be absolutely clear about one thing: parallel imports within the Community and also, more broadly, within the EEA are a key element of the single market, and the current discussions concerning the exhaustion of the right conferred by a trade mark do not revolve around this fundamental element, but relate only to parallel imports from outside the Community.
I would point out, finally, that in order to gain a complete picture of the situation, a study is being undertaken of the economic consequences of the exhaustion of the right conferred by a trade mark in the Community; it is to be completed in the early part of 1999.
This study will consider the various aspects of trade mark protection and the possible consequences of a change in the exhaustion system, in particular as concerns product availability, after-sales service, advice to consumers, investment in new products, price competition and employment.
I have a very brief supplementary question, which I shall preface by saying that I disagree with the Commissioner on parallel imports.
This ruling is tantamount to a ban on retail activity.
I fail to see the economic rationale from anyone's point of view, including that of the manufacturers.
My question is as follows. If parallel imports to various Swedish retailers continue, does the Commission intend to instigate legal proceedings against Sweden?
Given the situation which has been corroborated by the judgment of the European Court of Justice, the holders of trade marks are at liberty to demand the appropriate legal action.
This does not affect the Commission; the Commission must see to it that trade mark holders are in a position to exercise this right.
I am very pleased to see the Commissioner here.
I did not think you would be in Strasbourg today because you did not attend the Duty-Free Intergroup.
We had to cancel it, even though you had earlier said that you would attend.
I took the floor to say that it is a shame that we cannot now deal with the two items on duty-free that are on the agenda and that some of us have come here to deal with.
We get very little opportunity to speak to the Commissioner.
We are trying very hard to change his mind on this issue with a very important report going to the ECOFIN ministers, which has just been completed by the Commission.
I would like to cross-examine the Commissioner on this report, on the implications of duty-free for jobs.
Mrs Malone, Mr Monti, this is not within the scope of the question under consideration. Also, the time allowed has elapsed.
Nevertheless, Commissioner, you may take the floor if you wish.
I believe that this is a very important matter - and I have had occasion to speak on it both here in the plenary and in various parliamentary committees - but it is wholly unrelated to the question asked by Mr Wibe. I would therefore not wish to comment any further, Mr President.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
Mr Gallagher has also asked for the floor to put a supplementary question further to Mr Wibe's question.
I would ask you both to confine yourselves, please, to the context of the question put by Mr Wibe.
I appreciate the time constraints, but I should like to take this opportunity while Commissioner Monti is in the House.
He has on numerous occasions in the past referred to structural funds as an instrument to be used to overcome the consequences of the abolition of duty-free.
I would say to the Commissioner that I have to hand a copy of the Commission's working document on the proposals. There is absolutely nothing new in this.
I believe I am being reasonable and fair in saying this document is window-dressing. There is nothing more in it than has been available in the past.
This is no reflection on the Chair or the Commissioner.
Perhaps the Commissioner would give a number of us who have had questions tabled this evening the opportunity to meet him during the next week or so.
This is nothing more than window-dressing and it will not address the issues.
Thank you, Mr Gallagher.
I did not ask you to stop speaking because that is not my practice, but I did warn you that the issue had been discussed for longer than anticipated and that the time allocated has been exceeded.
Mr Monti may take the floor if he wishes. He is indicating that he does not wish to do so.
Since the time allowed for Question Time to the Commission has now come to an end, Questions Nos 61 to 119 will receive written answers.
That concludes Question Time to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.20 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Budget lines for human rights
The next item is the Commission statement on the implementation in 1998 of budget lines for human rights and democracy under Chapter B7-70 'European initiative for democracy and the protection of human rights'.
I give the floor to Mr van den Broek.
Madam President, thank you for this chance to share our collective concern here with Parliament over some worrying reports which are circulating about the way in which human rights policy is being implemented at the moment.
I think it is a very good idea to clarify one or two things and then to agree on a few points which may be useful to all the parties concerned in safeguarding this policy on human rights which is very dear to Parliament's heart, but certainly no less dear to the Commission's heart - and that also goes of course for all the organisations which work to protect and promote the upholding of human rights.
Perhaps I can begin by trying to outline the current state of affairs and then deal with questions and comments of the kind made, for example, in a letter from the vice-chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Mr Mendiluce, to the President of Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles.
When we talk about human rights policy, at least that part of it for which I have direct responsibility, we are talking about part of an ECU 97.4 million budget, that is to say a part which totals ECU 44 to 45 million and is administered by Directorate-General IA.
It comes under budget chapter B7-7.
We are talking about democracy projects, the fostering of democratic development in Eastern Europe, including the new independent states of the former Soviet Union.
We are talking about more general human rights issues, but also of support for victims of torture.
We are talking of support for a number of international criminal courts - for example the tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
We are talking about the monitoring of elections.
Total spending on these projects is ECU 44.7 million.
Up to the end of May, we had important and valuable outside assistance in managing these funds from the European Human Rights Foundation, with which you are very familiar.
This Foundation was involved in assessing project proposals, had a great deal of contact with applicants in the course of that work, and handled the post-completion evaluation work and the financial settlement for many of these projects.
The fact that this assistance has ceased is undoubtedly one of the main reasons for the concern which has arisen over management of the budget lines for human rights.
Before I go into the situation which has arisen following the loss of this outside assistance and answer the question of how, in these circumstances, adequate management can be assured, I first want to tell you where things stand at present concerning the implementation of this budget line.
To date some 315 applications - project proposals - for aid under the 1998 budget have been received in total.
All these 315 proposals have been assessed.
So far, the Commission has given its approval for ECU 19.1 million out of that ECU 44 million.
This is for some 35 projects, whilst preparations for decisions to be taken in the Commission are largely complete in respect of ECU 18 million, that is to say for about 41 projects.
So we really expect the Commission to have taken a decision within the next three weeks on 76 projects to a total value of some ECU 37 million - I am still talking about 1998.
Out of the total sum of 44.7 million, that leaves about five to six million which have already been earmarked for civil society projects in Kosovo.
The quickest and most effective way of implementing that will be by transferring the sum to the budget line for reconstruction in former Yugoslavia.
Those submitting project proposals which cannot be accepted will be notified as speedily as possible.
I should stress that acceptance of a project proposal is based solely on considerations such as quality, and of course the priority which the project merits.
These are criteria which have been applied in earlier years to project assessment, and in other years too only some, a third to a quarter of all applications, were approved.
In other words, over the years there have always been more applications for aid than the budget could fund. In itself that is hardly surprising.
Of course it only makes sense for the Commission to approve these projects if there is also proper follow-up to them, in the form of awarding contracts, implementing the projects and completing the financial settlements.
There is no denying the fact that the loss of the outside assistance which I referred to before was painful.
I have the following things to say concerning that loss.
At the end of 1997, it was decided for reasons of transparency and to encourage fair competition that outside assistance should be obtained by means of an open procedure, that is to say public tendering. The aim was to charge the costs of this outside assistance to part B of the budget, to operating appropriations.
But before the tendering procedure could be taken further, all new commitments for the budget lines for human rights were frozen as a result of the famous Court judgment which was delivered in May of this year.
Then came our consultation and the interinstitutional agreement of late July which was concluded for the remainder of this budget year, and which thus made it possible for us to enter into new commitments.
So this was how things got moving again following the Court judgment.
When it came to a new contract of assistance based on the call for tenders, a complication then arose over whether or not the Commission could draw on outside assistance and fund it from part B of the budget.
Honourable Members who sit on the Committee on Budgets will recall the discussion on this matter.
In view of the nature of the aid required to implement the budget lines for human rights and then assistance both to beneficiaries - i.e. the NGOs - and to the Commission, that is to say the debate over a joint technical assistance office, it was not possible to draw on the operating appropriations.
The budget remarks for 1998 made no provision for that, and for the same reason it was not possible to draw on part A of the budget line.
So the tendering procedure ground to a halt, and with it the chance of obtaining outside assistance.
So where do we go from here?
Given that the regulation proposed by the Commission as a legal base for expenditure on human rights policy has not yet been approved - it is still under discussion by the Council and Parliament - it looks to begin with as if we shall need another interinstitutional agreement in 1999, and fairly quickly. Otherwise we shall have no legal base for 1999.
But we shall also have to ask the budgetary authorities to add some remarks on the budget lines for human rights which will enable us to draw on outside assistance in carrying out these projects.
Again, it is assistance not only for beneficiaries, but also for the Commission.
The Commission will make that request before the second reading of the budget.
These possibilities, namely the interinstitutional agreement on the one hand, plus the question of budget remarks allowing outside assistance on the other, may provide a solution in the shorter term.
If the appropriate budget remarks are secured for this outside assistance, the Commission can explore all possible ways of obtaining the requisite outside assistance in the short term and perhaps through direct contracts.
By the end of next year, that should give a greater assurance to all those involved that human rights projects will be properly selected and implemented.
1999 could then be used for carefully considered decisions on how our human rights policy should be organised in the year 2000 and beyond, because in the meantime we may gain more of an idea, for example as to the areas of implementation in which the new joint service might take part, and at the same time we can study how human rights policy can best fit in to the reorganisation which the Commission is preparing for the field of external relations and which will take effect from the year 2000.
When we talk about how human rights policy is to be organised in future, there are also possible variants such as the setting-up of a human rights agency.
But I would prefer to discuss the alternatives with you at a later date, because we feel that for the moment our first priority must be to secure the situation for the rest of this year and for 1999 through an interinstitutional agreement and remarks in the budget.
That is what I wanted to say to Parliament in the first instance, adding a heartfelt cry of my own that obviously there will time and again be tensions between, on the one hand, the justified plea of Parliament and the human rights organisations too that we should not only provide an opportunity for large-scale projects, but also give smaller organisations and those truly working to develop civil society from the grass roots up a chance in our programmes and, on the other hand, the constant pressure which is understandably exerted on us by the Committee on Budgets, by virtue of their responsibilities, to keep the Commission's use of outside assistance to a minimum.
Because that is the debate which has been directed at us in recent months.
I will end by saying this: give us the tools if we are to do the job.
We cannot keep helping the smaller organisations, which automatically means a lot of projects and thus a fair degree of fragmentation which is sometimes unavoidable, and at the same time be deprived of outside help in implementing these projects.
I repeat: we are in something of a transitional stage as far as the joint service is concerned, because at present I have no means of knowing exactly how much work the joint service will be taking off our hands. This joint service was set up to achieve a certain economy of scale in the implementation of all manner of aid projects.
I think that what we are putting to you now is the best solution possible and the best guarantee possible for the period from now until the end of next year.
Madam President, the problem is really threefold: the problems over the legal base which have come down to us from the Council, the question of minibudgets where Parliament has always insisted that agreements entered into should be kept, and finally the somewhat unclear policy and management priorities which we see in the Commission itself.
If you look at the reports of the Court of Auditors, DG IA is hardly a model of sound management.
We cannot do much about the legal base for the time being.
I quite agree with Commissioner van den Broek that we must wait until things have been sorted out by regulations, and that means that the legislators must do their job first before we have any long-term solution.
The question of minibudgets will remain controversial, but there is one aspect of these which needs to be pointed out, although the Commissioner did not do so.
We increasingly get into difficulties with the Council over the minibudgets, because they are likely to mean cuts in the operating budget.
Of course the administrative load is quite heavy with small-scale projects of this kind; in other words, cutting the operating budget becomes very attractive.
So I think we have to look for solutions other than simple outside assistance, which has to be paid for at the expense of policy.
And in my view not out of the operating budget, Madam President - I grant the Commissioner that we may not manage to find the right answer here in the short term.
I think the long-term policy which the Commissioner responsible for budgets has launched within the Commission offers better possibilities, but just now I think that is too difficult.
These are the problems which are facing us, but what we need are solutions.
In the longer term, and I agree with the Commissioner here, ad hoc solutions are no longer acceptable.
We must look for a structure within which we can work to longer deadlines.
I am quite sure that we cannot achieve it in 1999, but I think 1999 has to be the basis for further developments.
I am so against ad hoc solutions because they lead to the kind of endless discussions we are seeing now over ECHO or MEDA and that is not good, either for us, for the Commission or the European Union.
So long-term stability is what we need.
Madam President, this means that I think the Commission will this year need to find a few extra staff in DG IA to deal with the remaining problems, because I do not know, in all honesty, whether the civil society project in Kosovo is feasible this year.
I think the situation there is still rather too unstable to allow larger-scale projects to be implemented.
So I think priority should be given to human rights problems on a rather broader base.
I wonder too if it might not be possible within the current machinery to make greater use of delegation.
The Court of Auditors' report repeatedly tells us that we do not really decentralise enough.
This Commissioner knows full well that in the Netherlands, in the area of development cooperation, ambassadors have little stashes of money which they can spend, subject to certain conditions.
I think that kind of mechanism should be created to help small projects of this kind.
That would help us.
And then we have the proposal for a budget remark.
It is something of a nuisance to have to add a new remark at the second reading of the budget, but I think that if we can reach an interinstitutional agreement on it, that will solve our problems for 1999, once again with all my reservations about the minibudgets which will automatically follow on from that.
But again, Madam President, the only solution is a long-term solution, and I look to the Commission for a proposal on that in the very near future.
Madam President, Commissioner, I do not wish to blame you for this evening's empty house, as this is entirely down to ourselves.
But the failure of human rights policies to work is something for which both Commission and Parliament must take the blame.
That is what we wish to discuss this evening, and I cannot really endorse the comments made by Mr Dankert.
In my view this is not just a budgetary problem.
I would also like to broaden the context a little, as I was involved in the discussion on all of this in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
You failed to make it sufficiently clear that the entire discussion over the last few days and weeks has centred on the issue of the 1998 human rights policy. You talked a little about its execution, but you were not able to tell us much about the budget for 1999.
We have proposed a budget in which we have again had to accept some minor defects. It affects, of course, not only the human rights budget lines but also Bosnia, Kosovo, Latin America, MEDA, the Middle East and more.
Our point though is a different one. For two years now, we have been looking to have a dialogue with the Commission on various resolutions in order to find new structures, but we did not manage to achieve this.
This explains why the letter was written, which was actually supposed to have gone to the President of the Commission.
But the dialogue did not take place.
Together with yourself at first, we tried to invite the President, Commissioner Liikanen, and even the Secretary-General.
But these visits never took place, which accounts for part of our annoyance.
Even the instruments created hitherto have not worked as we had actually imagined they would. People have been saying that for a year now.
We are constantly told that the programmes require greater transparency, and Mr Liikanen said this again this morning.
Of course this also applies to the democracy programmes. But when we hear (and you have not entirely denied this) that the macro-projects just go to large organisations - the OSCE, the Council of Europe, and so on - then our view is that there should be interinstitutional agreements to clarify the role played by the European Union and the European Parliament with their resources.
The second point is that we really cannot be glad about your shifting the micro-projects to EU delegations, without central monitoring from Brussels to include the NGOs. We cannot be glad about your shutting out the agency that previously helped you, no matter what the reasons behind it and regardless of your explanations.
They are clients that help us to spread the European Union ideas of human rights and democracy far and wide. Most importantly of course, six months before an election they could really stab us in the back if we were to reclaim one of the most humane features of the European Union in a reorganisation.
I admit that all this is very difficult but perhaps we should discuss it together at some point.
When I consider that the result might be something like the course for the Masters degree in Human Rights, and that at one of its summit meetings the Council might set up a European Human Rights Monitoring Agency, a body which we really do not want as it would make it impossible for us to see where resources are going, then my urgent recommendation is that we meet here once again to have a better dialogue.
Madam President, Commissioner, you have already answered a number of questions which I shall nevertheless put to you again directly.
The Liberal Group is asking for a clear statement on how human rights policy is being implemented, either from you or from the Commission.
It would seem, Commissioner, that fine words are obscuring a far harsher reality - the reality of inability, impotence and perhaps bureaucracy.
How can it be that the Commission supposedly has hardly any officials to implement more than 1 000 projects, and how can we reconcile what you have said with the fact that 200 projects have not been implemented?
Why has the Commission not drawn on the technical assistance which the European Human Rights Foundation could provide? From reports reaching us in recent months, it has become clear that chaos and poor monitoring of projects continue to be the order of the day, with no adequate measures being taken in the wake of what I have to say are administrative irregularities.
We are talking about human rights, about people, and we are talking about people not on the other side of the world, but on the other side of society.
I do not think the Commission has any right at all to gamble with their fate.
Not that it means to, but that is what is happening.
I would also like the Commission to tell us why money is being spent via the 'big' funds, the Council of Europe and the United Nations.
I do not think we have drawn up our budget just to see development funds channelled into small projects through the Council of Europe.
The process of constant reorganisation within the Commission is damaging the Union's human rights policy and has damaged it in the past.
The Commission has not yet altogether thrown away the Union's good name on human rights but it is putting it in jeopardy, and we owe that good name to the work the Commission has done in the past.
The priority for the Liberal Group is microprojects so that as wide a public as possible can be reached, and it is also essential of course that the funds should be soundly managed.
I wish you a great deal of luck and staying power, Commissioner.
Madam President, Mrs van Bladel cannot be here because of a meeting on human rights, and she has asked me at all events to be here before the actual reports on legal matters come up for discussion.
But I have her authority to say just one thing, and that is in response to what Commissioner van den Broek said a moment ago.
I refer to the tension which exists between our inclination to favour small-scale projects, because these have a more direct influence on human rights in countries where this is needed, and the scrutiny exercised by the Commission.
A new case has just arisen in the Netherlands - I will not say which it is, you will be getting a question from me on the matter raised in the NRC on the misuse of funds in South Africa and so on, and I shall not go into it now - but it is most important, and here I totally agree with Mr Bertens, that you really do have the necessary know-how and powers of scrutiny to ensure that small projects are monitored properly.
I wish you every success, and I thank you for your attention.
Madam President, Commissioner, with the coming 50th anniversary of the UN Charter of Human Rights, I think it is quite shameful for this House to be engaged this month in a discussion on what is so bad about the management of DGIA.
As you began your comments with the statement that rumours were circulating, I would like to point out that you are also responsible for giving rise to some of them.
Five or six weeks ago, I wrote to you personally to tell you of my worries on this subject. To this day, unfortunately, I have received no reply.
I am having to answer telephone calls such as the one today from a colleague in the Belgrade organisation 'Women in Black', which reached agreement with the Commission upon a project in 1997, carried it out, wrote the final report, and has been waiting for the final payment to be made since the beginning of 1998.
This is because no one in the Commission has been able to read the final report, declare the work to be in order, and say that the organisation should receive the final payment because it has managed the project according to the rules.
Please tell me, what should I say to these people on the telephone? Should I say that there are some rumours in circulation, but that in general everything is going terrifically well in the Commission?
Or should I say that things are not that great?
We both know exactly what the truth is. It is out of the question for us to take this issue of mini-budgets and legal bases, and fight it out at the expense of the NGOs in this sensitive area.
Mr van den Broek, pressure from the Committee on Budgets would make no difference at all to the mini-budgets.
This has to do with the correct application of the Financial Regulation, which stipulates that money from Part A should not be used for Part B and vice versa.
You cannot say that the Committee on Budgets is applying pressure.
The Commission has known since 1991 that mini-budgets were not authorised and it has used them anyway.
I very much agree with you that a solution should now be found to this particular issue.
I was glad to hear you say therefore that in the 1999 budgetary procedure, together with the Commission and Council, we are going to find a solution for next year, and I hope for this year too, as you indicated.
At any rate, what makes the rumours so offensive is that behind all this lurks an unspoken policy change by the Commission.
That is why you must tell us whether you agree with Mr Burghardt, when he wrote on 22 October this year that in 1998 and 1999 priority will be given to payments to the OSCE and the Council of Europe, and so on.
If that is the new Commission policy on human rights, then we might as well give up, and then a new debate on the true meaning of the construction of civil society and the defence of democracy and human rights both inside and outside the European Union will begin.
Madam President, this is clearly a case of a Commission manoeuvre backfiring.
Chapter 7 was 'invented' by Parliament and we are proud of it.
Every year more money and more resources are requested.
Every year, for example, I table an amendment asking for more officials for the internal management of this item, but this amendment is never adopted by the Committee on Budgets.
The Commission has tried to argue over a system which basically worked until it was unfortunately realised that outside bodies were acting to accelerate the contracts.
The Commission's manoeuvre has backfired and we are the first to have said that such a system cannot work.
The lack of additional officials is clearly the Commission's fault.
However, I believe that we too should examine our consciences to see how many of these additional items, which you have secretly removed without our approval, could have been spared if communications had been better and if our priorities had been better structured by using the essential resources provided by the admirable Part A of the budget.
Madam President, it is clear that everyone is concerned about an apparently badly structured case and an organisation which was satisfactory in practical terms and also in terms of finance and accounting given the thanks it received from the Court of Auditors.
So we now find ourselves in a very delicate situation where appropriations might not be committed.
It is clear that the European Union represents the very essence of democracy in the world. This is because, after the horrors which our continent has experienced and in which many of our countries have unfortunately participated to a certain extent, we want to tell the world that this will never happen again.
Rather, we want to stress that we are the home of human rights and we can therefore give others assistance.
Yet we are deprived of the tools we need and the appropriations that are going to be used by others.
This situation must be resolved as quickly as possible because it is clear that elsewhere in the world, as we chose to assume a global duty in this area, the poor and the disadvantaged, those who are persecuted, exiled or wrongly prosecuted, whether individuals or communities, cannot wait for us to agree on regulations. They cannot accept the excuse that our procedures are unsuitable and that they must therefore wait until the year 2000 for us to sort ourselves out.
Everyone must make an effort and, even though we should respect certain rules and we should have legal bases, we must be able to act quickly.
This has been proven by Hurricane Mitch, which has ravaged Central America and brought the international community to life. Why could we not do this ourselves?
You have made the admirable suggestion of setting up a monitoring centre, or rather an agency, together with other solutions, but the fundamental point is that we must act quickly.
Commissioner, it would be good if you could do this.
Commissioner, it is not clear from your comments whether the money which is to be committed this year is really going to be of benefit to the small human rights projects run by NGOs.
I suspect that due to the shortage of personnel in the Commission, you have decided to simply hand this year's money over in large chunks to the international organisations.
However, in my view this contradicts the budgetary purpose of these resources, which is to build up and strengthen the grass roots organisations of democracy in the beneficiary countries.
I would be very glad if you could dispel my suspicion.
I would also like to ask what problems you had with external support. And how would you assess these problems within the Commission in the light of the Court of Auditors report, which specifically praises this type of cooperation as the only way for smaller organisations to obtain access to this money at all?
I have to be completely honest and say that I think these questions must be answered because otherwise the European Parliament is going to have draw its own conclusions.
Madam President, on the point about the interinstitutional agreement, I should like to ask the Commissioner by whose authority the interinstitutional agreement by which there was an advisory committee, established between Parliament, the Commission, the Council of Europe and the G24, was unilaterally abrogated on 9 January this year.
I used to represent Parliament on that committee, and there were officials from Parliament too. We were told it was now ended.
Since that time none of the programmes under democracy have gone forward.
It is important to know that the Commission decided then to take all these matters in-house.
Further, why, in response to a number of questions here, the contract in the tender brochure, properly entered into, which was won by the Human Rights Foundation, was never enacted.
The result of that is that the democracy programmes, which we all support here, and the human rights programmes, are now dying.
To take the last question first, Mr McMillan-Scott is aware that there are no longer two deadlines per year for submitting applications for aid, as was formerly the case, but that applications may now be submitted all through the year. Consequently there was no point in continuing the procedure whereby a review of them was conducted twice a year.
Let me begin, Madam President, by clearing up another seemingly persistent misconception, namely that although policy in that direction has changed compared with last year, we are now focusing all our attention on the big organisations, OSCE or the Council of Europe.
I can tell you that if we look at last year, the proportion of our spending which went to those organisations was about ten per cent.
I should add, and I have not heard anyone make the point here tonight, that these projects are also human rights projects and civil society projects organised with the Council of Europe for the Baltic states, and in Albania too, and we all know what is going on there, and in Ukraine.
In other words, it will not do to regard those projects as less worthy and put all our energy into small projects.
The emphasis is still on small projects, but with all the difficulties inherent in them.
I would ask you to understand here that it was less difficult for us to deal with these small projects while we were indeed able to count on outside help - help not only for the beneficiaries, the NGOs, but also for the Commission itself, which cannot manage and implement hundreds, sometimes thousands of contracts using its permanent staff alone.
So for the benefit of Mrs Müller I would say yes, I do indeed recall your letter, which I believe recommended that we should conclude direct contracts with the European Human Rights Foundation.
Mrs Müller also knows that last year we got bogged down over this tendering procedure as regards the Foundation due to the restricted interpretation given to our freedom to use outside assistance, the whole discussion about disputes, and so on.
In other words, it is one thing or the other, Madam President, either we agree that the Commission cannot handle these kinds of projects, and smaller projects, without outside assistance, or we say no, you cannot have that outside assistance.
It is up to you to decide what Parliament wants, but I have no option but to put the emphasis on larger-scale projects, which I am not doing at the moment.
So above all let us agree on where we stand.
Madam President, I think what we are in fact proposing now is that we make sure for the immediate future that we have an interinstitutional agreement, so that in any event a legal base is created pending adoption, formal acceptance of the new regulation.
That, as we know, is currently being debated by the Council and Parliament, and with all the amendments which have been put down it looks as if it may take some time before this regulation is adopted.
So we need an interinstitutional agreement in order to be able to continue the legal base.
Secondly, and no doubt in this case equally importantly, we must at all events have a budget remark which, as I said in the first instance, will allow us to secure the outside assistance we need for 1999, possibly by the conclusion of direct contracts.
I see no other way of restoring the good reputation we had previously established.
And it certainly is not true that we have too few staff working on this, Mr Bertens, I too read those newspaper reports, about two hundred projects still floating around somewhere and still not yet assessed.
That is not correct either.
We have reached the stage where we can say for 1998 that within a few weeks' time we shall not only have assessed all the projects but also, as far as the Commission is concerned, we shall have accepted and approved them.
But of course that still leaves us with the whole business of contracts, implementation, payment and evaluation.
The Commission cannot do all that itself without outside assistance.
If I am raising my voice here, it is because we feel very strongly about this.
Human rights policy is something of huge importance to the European Commission, as it is important to the Union as a whole.
We have very specific contacts on that with a large number of organisations which are active in this field.
We are very much concerned, for example, with a region like Eastern Europe where the whole process of developing a civil society is naturally part of the efforts to foster an effective process of integration.
But it is not fair to hold us solely responsible for one or two hiccups last year: the first time when the Court judgment meant that we could not create a legal base; the second time when a very restrictive interpretation was given of the freedom to use outside assistance, because of all the debate concerning disputes and the like.
It distresses me greatly, Madam President, to be told by the Court of Auditors year after year that our aid projects, PHARE and TACIS to name but two, can never be implemented with our existing staffing levels and then to be accused in a Court of Auditors' report this year of making too much use of outside assistance, with as a result the whole debate which has now taken place in Parliament.
It prompts me to ask, what am I supposed to do?
How can I in fact implement these projects if I cannot increase my staff, and I ask the question again.
Because once these projects are completed, the question is whether or not those people are still needed.
So some degree of flexibility has to be maintained.
We have to try to find a solution to this, and I shall certainly play a part in assessing the ideas put forward for the longer term concerning agencies and suchlike.
That concludes what I have to say, Madam President, and I must thank the House for its altogether constructive comments.
I hope that in the short term, budget remarks will in any event provide a solution for next year.
That will mean that the NGOs and those who benefit from their work do not suffer, and it will give us a little more time to consider together how best to proceed in the longer term.
I would just say to Mrs Lenz that I suggested earlier in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, where I am a very faithful visitor, that I might come once or twice a year to exchange views with you on human rights strategy as such.
Not management and operational matters, the place for that is a debate such as the one we have had this evening, but to trace the broad lines and hear what Parliament thinks.
I have no problem at all with that, but first we must see to it that we get the ship under way again.
I think that is the main priority.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Patents
The next item is the report (A4-0384/98) by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission Green Paper on promoting innovation through patents (COM(97)0314 - C4-0342/97).
Madam President, Commissioner, the Green Paper we have before us has three main aims: to provide an overview of the protection afforded by patents, to examine the need for further Community action and to consider the form and substance of any such action.
Commissioner, of all the methods available to protect innovation, a patent is one of the most important.
From your point of view, however, the present system has three serious shortcomings. It is complex - national patents exist alongside Community patents -, it is costly, and it does not offer uniform protection in all the Member States.
Taking all this into account, the Green Paper queries the extent to which the parties concerned would be prepared to make use of a system of a Community patent based on a regulation, on the basis of Article 235 of the Treaty. This arrangement would replace intergovernmental agreements such as the 1975 Luxembourg Convention or the agreement signed in 1989, which have not come into force.
A regulation of this type would enable users to benefit from an accessible and legally secure system, at a reasonable cost.
Further technical issues with a bearing on the future of a Community patent are raised: harmonisation, the impact of the information society and electronic commerce, to name but a few.
Some of the other issues referred to in the Green Paper are employees' inventions, the use of patent agents and the recognition of professional qualifications.
Finally, the Green Paper raises the issue of the best way of modifying the system of fees within the patent system, to ensure it is appropriate for the service provided but does not deter the protection of innovation.
The proposal for a resolution adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs proposes harmonising this legislation within the European Union in order to consolidate the internal market, which is particularly important in advance of enlargement.
The Luxembourg Convention and the 1989 Agreement do not provide unitary protection for patents within the European Union.
Such a Community patent will have no option but to coexist with national patent systems.
Further, we need to ensure that a Community patent can be converted into a European patent and devise a system whereby, conversely, a European patent can become a Community patent.
The European Patent Office should be the technical operator of the patent, in cooperation with national authorities.
In the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs, a Member State must not abandon its national language since a patent is a means of providing information concerning the state of the technology and legal certainty.
We therefore support the principle of linguistic equality, Commissioner, and would draw your attention to our recommendation for a procedure providing for such equality and a range of languages, on condition that this does not result in undue cost.
As regards jurisdiction, national courts must be competent both in cases of infringement action and patent revocation, as is the case in the system used in trademark law.
In our view, there should be two national courts to ensure more flexibility, greater ease and lower costs, especially for SMEs.
The body of appeal should be the European Communities' Court of First Instance.
We feel that the issue of employees' inventions should be settled by the Member States themselves.
In our view, the mutual recognition of industrial property agents should also be considered.
In conclusion, Madam President, Commissioner, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights calls on the Commissioner to establish a working group with the task of preparing one or more models for insurance to cover legal expenses in the field of patents.
The working party should, for instance, study the way in which the scheme is funded, insurance cover, the level of premiums and a control authority.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I must first congratulate the Commission and particularly Commissioner Monti, who was responsible for this Green Paper on the Community patent, together with Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs, on the excellent work carried out on such an important issue. Clearly, this issue is significant not only as regards legal protection, but also from an economic point of view.
The Green Paper is subtitled: 'promoting innovation through patents'.
The number of patents granted is often one of the measures used when analysing the importance of innovation and attempting to quantify it in the various areas.
We have evidently been found wanting at European Community level: there is not sufficient harmonisation, as no genuine European patent exists.
Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes has already remarked that we are still operating within the framework of the 1973 Munich Convention on the European Patent, and that neither the 1975 Luxembourg Convention on the Community Patent or the 1989 Agreement have been implemented.
The Committee on Economic Affairs has considered this matter and unanimously approved a series of recommendations. I have proposed these as amendments.
Essentially, they have three main aims.
Firstly, they aim to facilitate the introduction of the Community patent through fees at Community level.
Secondly, they aim to facilitate the transition from the present patents at Member State level to the proposed Community patent.
Thirdly, they aim to explore the possibility of patenting computer or software programmes as is already the case in Japan and in the United States.
We have raised this issue repeatedly in many contexts, in connection with utility models or other aspects of protection and inventions.
Madam President, spending Tuesday evening discussing patents is not everyone's idea of fun.
Yet my group colleague, Mr Gasòliba I Böhm, was right to point out how important the subject is both for individual countries and for the Union as a whole.
If we are to foster innovation and remain competitive, we need a system that works.
There is also a regional policy dimension, in that citizens around the Union are entitled to a level playing field.
I trust that a system will be devised that enables the European Patent Office to fulfil its mission, which is ultimately to spread knowledge.
As Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes says, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has come out in favour of equal treatment of languages and advocates decent and fair service for all companies.
I hope that the Commission will take up these proposals, and that the European patent will promote the spreading of information, benefit technology and guarantee legal certainty.
If the committee's ideas are taken up, I am confident that this will be the case.
It would be good if the Commission could accept the creative suggestions we put forward in recital E and paragraph 2, where we call for effective cooperation between the European Patent Office and the national authorities.
I did mention to the Commissioner on another occasion that new technology would make a decentralised approach possible, and I hope that this option will be pursued.
May I also express my gratitude to the rapporteur for the excellent degree of cooperation.
I do not make a habit of saying thank you, but Mr Añoveros has done such a good job that I cannot resist.
What is more, my Nordic soul glows at the mention of the EEA in the text of the resolution.
All too often we forget that the directives which we adopt will, in many instances, apply in Norway and Iceland too.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the Commission for taking the initiative to produce this Green Paper.
If we want to ensure that Europe is competitive, we have to work on innovation.
Sponsoring research is one element of a policy supportive of innovation.
At the same time, however, it is of crucial importance to guarantee effective legal protection of industrial property throughout the EU.
In this context, it is also particularly important for all the options for reshaping European patent law to be explored, a process which the Commission has initiated with its Green Paper.
A key point, to which I - speaking on behalf of the Committee on Research - attach particular importance is improving patent protection for computer software.
Pursuant to Article 52(2) of the European Patent Convention and the corresponding national patent laws in the European Union, computer programs are excluded from patent protection.
If we do not want to lose our competitive edge in the field of computer software technology, we need to change this legal situation.
We should, therefore, delete computer programs from the provisions of Article 52(2) of the European Patent Convention.
In addition, the respective national provisions should be harmonised by means of a European directive.
By introducing these new arrangements, we could avoid falling behind the United States and Japan, where there is already extensive patent protection for computer software.
New rules also need to be introduced on the language regime.
The rapporteur's preferred solution here is also the one I have supported in my opinion for the Research Committee. A translation of the full patent specification would only be required if there were a dispute over the rights created by the patent.
This would mean that the average translation costs could be reduced from their previous DEM 22 500 to DEM 4 000.
Once again, my thanks go to the rapporteur.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, patent policy is a very important instrument in economic policy, and licensing policy is directly derived from patent policy.
Research and development can thus lead to new products being created, and there was once a very good quotation on the subject: 'today's research and development policy is tomorrow's social policy'.
A good patent policy is a particularly effective way of supporting research policy.
We need to be aware that, on the one hand, there are the small-scale inventors who, once they have invented something, face the problem of developing the idea into a marketable commodity.
Without a patent, it would be easy for a large company to appropriate this idea and exploit it.
We know of many researchers, inventors working on their own, who have spent years, if not decades, working on particular ideas.
On the other hand, many multinational companies have large research establishments which have billions pumped into them, and ultimately, of course, this investment has to pay off.
That is why I am in favour of harmonising national provisions, because it is important, for both small and large companies, to identify the basic conditions which will make a single procedure possible.
We know that inventiveness is important.
If the Japanese display a very low level of invention, and we in Europe a very high one, then there will be many patents in Japan, and not in Europe, and this will affect the balance of licences accordingly.
That is why I very much welcome the Commission proposal, precisely because international policy on patents and licences is an extremely important instrument for Europe.
Madam President, you can deduct my time from the three minutes I had on the Ferri report.
I am not Mrs Schaffner who was down to speak, and nor am I Mrs van Bladel.
But on behalf of my group, I have to say that we are particularly grateful both to Mr Añoveros and to the Commissioner for this project, which is so important to Europe because in terms of the simplicity and safeguards we are seeking here, it is far more accessible than large-scale projects which encounter far more problems, and Commissioner Monti knows that.
So I hope that the small project, which is far more important than large projects for strengthening the competitiveness of Europe's small businesses, will come into effect and be implemented quickly, and once again my warmest thanks to both gentlemen for their contribution here.
Mr President, the patent system plays a crucial role in promoting innovation, growth and employment in the Community.
In order to play this role to the full, the European patent system needs to be thoroughly overhauled and updated. It has two very obvious weaknesses, especially if compared with the systems in North America and Japan: it is costly and it is incomplete.
As is clear from the report by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes - whom I congratulate on the quality of his work - there is a direct link between the competitiveness of companies and the free movement of goods and services within the single market.
A coherent and effective Community system of patent protection is a vital element in this context.
The Commission's Green Paper has been successful in generating a very broad-based debate on this issue, in which those concerned have participated enthusiastically.
The overall message emerging from these discussions is that the effectiveness of the patent system should be boosted by fully incorporating the practical needs of users.
Moreover, as is rightly highlighted in the motion for a resolution under discussion today, the system must be restructured prior to the enlargement of the European Union.
In particular, a clear and unanimous consensus has emerged that the right approach to reforming the system is the introduction of a unitary Community patent, preferably through a Community regulation, as was done in 1994 for the Community trade mark.
I would recall here that, in late January 1998, the Commission held a meeting of experts from the Member States, an overwhelming majority of whom expressed a willingness to engage in legal and technical discussions linked to the design of the Community patent.
The Economic and Social Committee, for its part, was virtually unanimous in adopting a highly positive opinion on the whole range of proposals aired in the Green Paper, including the introduction of the Community patent.
I am pleased to note that the proposals put forward by Mr Añoveros go along similar lines: these proposals are extremely cogent and well-balanced, and I can assure you that they will be studied in detail by the Commission as it makes the legal preparations for introducing the Community patent.
I would also say, with regard to the system of insurance to cover the costs of legal proceedings connected with patents, that the Commission will investigate the best ways of promoting this system across the Community and will involve the European Parliament in this task.
To conclude, the Commission is now thoroughly convinced that the patent system must be modified as soon as possible.
This modification must be based, on the one hand, on legislation to establish a Community right to patent protection and, on the other, on the updating and harmonisation of national rules on certain specific points, including the patentability of inventions relating to computer programmes, as mentioned by various speakers.
In addition, this new framework could perhaps include Community action to support efforts made by national patent offices to promote innovation.
I believe that the system must be developed within a Community context and not, as originally intended, through an international convention.
Such an approach will inevitably strengthen the Union's hand when it comes to negotiating international agreements, and the role of the European Patent Office as technical operator of the Community patent will be guaranteed.
The Commission will shortly be preparing a communication on the follow-up to be given to the Green Paper; this communication will conduct a thorough review of the consultations and announce the specific measures which the Commission intends to present in this important sector in the near future.
The European Parliament will obviously be involved in this new stage of our work, but I already wish to thank Members for the constructive way in which they have participated so far.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Supplementary pensions
The next item is the report (A4-0400/98) by Mr Ferri, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Green Paper on supplementary pensions in the single market (COM(97)0283 - C4-0392/97-00/0595(COS)).
Madam President, what is to become of Europe's pensioners?
The Commission's very well-structured Green Paper addresses this question - and it does so in a responsible fashion, as do we in the European Parliament, in these times of widespread crisis when the two most crucial and worrying issues of all are the economic future of pensioners and jobs for young people.
Hence the need for this initiative taken by the Commission, which I should like to thank, and in particular Mr Monti himself.
The Commission took the initiative, with active support from Parliament, of holding public hearings with the leading experts from various European countries; these, I believe, have shed light on a whole range of aspects.
The first point to make is that we are all convinced that the first pillar - state social security - must remain the cornerstone, the foundation of the system.
But it is not sufficient: cracks are appearing, and it cannot guarantee our economic future.
That is why, together with life assurance which is well established and well regulated, pension funds are coming under the spotlight.
A Community framework is however lacking: the Commission attempted to create one in 1991, but the proposal was subsequently withdrawn; there was an interpretative note from the Commission, if I remember rightly, which was then overturned by the Court of Justice; and now here we are again making a fresh attempt.
We are calling on the Commission, given that it made such a good start, to draw up a directive taking due account of the various aspects which we have sought to highlight.
One key point in the background is of course the sustainability of the euro, which in fact changes the frame of reference for pension funds and for supplementary pension schemes in general; in many senses, it certainly facilitates investment and cross-border mobility of workers. I must say here that another directive, a very recent one, has tackled at a most opportune moment the problem of acquired rights, also an important aspect of this afternoon's report.
In addition, the report sets out to cover various general aspects: taxation, in other words fiscal harmonisation to eliminate the undoubted risk of double taxation, which at present jeopardises the future of anyone working for a multinational who is transferred or even temporarily seconded and runs the risk of being taxed twice over, including from a pension point of view. Another aspect is fund management, with administrative managers and investment managers: this is another very sensitive point which we have investigated jointly with workers and under their supervision, ensuring equal representation of men and women; this aspect has been stressed repeatedly here, in opinions from the Committees on Social Affairs and Women's Rights which we have taken on board.
Then of course there are organisational aspects: a Pension Forum has been proposed, and could I believe be useful for the purposes of wider comparisons; the so-called European passport; and a stock exchange for SMEs, which will have the task of making investments that are vital and very sensitive, but at the same time very advantageous and very stimulating.
All of this has still to be achieved, through capitalisation and the 'prudent man' principle.
This point is an important and interesting one.
I attended a congress on pension funds in Munich, where this concept of the 'prudent man' was discussed at length.
I took the liberty of putting forward a framework, a sort of chart with various pointers.
Naturally, the 'prudent man' is difficult to define, but in this most sensitive of sectors his hands must not be tied, because he must obviously manage his affairs in the light of the particular historical and economic context in which he is operating.
We were nevertheless able to agree in the Legal Affairs Committee on a few little rules, which I believe are of some interest and comply with freedom of establishment, freedom to make cross-border investment, and so on and so forth.
So, all in all, I would once again thank Mr Monti - for his sensitivity and attentiveness - and all who have participated in this work. This package - explained in more detail in the text - should constitute a significant turning-point in our economic system and also in the fundamental rights of our citizens.
Madam President, Commissioner, first I must congratulate the Commission on the fact that thanks to the Green Paper a full picture has been provided of supplementary pensions and the whole question of pensions, and it is important that pensions should be considered at European level.
If the demographic trend continues as it is at present, there will in future be just two employed people funding every pensioner, rather than the four we have at present.
The reason for that is partly that most pension schemes in the European Union are funded by the pay-as-you-go system.
So we urgently need to seek other solutions, because otherwise it may be disastrous when the euro comes in. I have said this on previous occasions here, and I think we must give it very serious thought.
Apart from that, I think it is very difficult to tell Member States which system they should choose.
But we can use benchmark studies, of the kind which the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs recommends, at least to identify the best practices in the Member States and put these before the various Member States.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs also thinks it important that pension systems should be gender-neutral, and that the investment returns on pension funds should be improved.
That after all may lead to lower indirect wage costs, enabling more jobs to be created in Europe.
The same goes for the pension providers' prudential rules.
If these can be put in place quickly, I think it will mean a better investment yield on pension funds.
These are things which will also be good for jobs in Europe.
Madam President, Commissioner, I think we need to look at pensions again here as a broader-based issue.
I would urge the Commissioner to address the whole question of pensions again, including basic pensions.
Madam President, in my opinion the essential merit of this Green Paper is that the Commission clearly specifies that, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, it is for the Member States to decide on the role of the first, second and third pillars which form the basis of pension schemes for employees and the self-employed in the Member States.
I believe that the Community framework needed to ensure the development of a genuine single market for pension funds must be limited to removing the obstacles to the free choice of pension funds, to the free movement of persons and to the freedom to provide services.
I must stress that the prudential supervision rules currently in force in some Member States are too disproportionate to guarantee the security of funds and they prevent fund managers from determining the best capital investment strategy.
With regard to pension fund investment policy, the rules should prescribe the diversification of investment portfolios.
Taxation is clearly a potential brake on the free movement of persons and on the freedom to provide services.
I believe that tax treatment in the European Union must be harmonised, providing for tax exemption or deductibility when rights are constituted, and that beneficiaries should be taxed in accordance with Member States' income tax rules.
Having said this, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights, I must insist on equal treatment for men and women in supplementary pension schemes.
I know that the life expectancy of women is generally longer than that of men, but gender-based actuarial calculations cannot cause the principle of equal contributions and equal benefits for beneficiaries of both sexes to be questioned.
I must also take this opportunity to stress the urgent need for the revision of the directives on equal treatment for men and women in statutory and occupational social security schemes so that we can lay the foundations for the individualisation of pension rights, fix flexible retirement ages for men and women, regulate the rights of survivors and those of divorced spouses during the splitting of pension rights acquired during marriage and, finally, ensure independent social security for spouses assisting self-employed partners in the craft sector, trade, agriculture and the professions.
Mr Monti, I hope that you will inform your colleague, Commissioner Flynn, of these requests.
Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for producing this report because it is a very important one.
I would also like to thank the Commission for bringing forward the documentation, although I may have a few critical comments to make as I go on.
One of the most enriching experiences I have had in the European Parliament is a look at the structures which have governed Europe economically since 1945.
That has led to huge economic benefits for the people of mainland Europe.
The codecision and the codetermination policy which meant that communities, workers and people involved in the businesses worked together to build up Europe after 1945 was not repeated in the United Kingdom.
In the United Kingdom we adopted the Anglo-American type structure. In the 1950s we saw the growth of pension and insurance funds in the UK.
The figure now stands at something like £1.3 trillion, which converts into something like ECU 1.6 trillion, a huge amount of money by any standards.
And yet we have watched since 1979, when Mrs Thatcher removed exchange controls in the United Kingdom, an investment drain and a portfolio investment drain from the United Kingdom to other parts of the world: from 6 % to 31 % out of the EEC, which the Commission now admits is the actual figure.
There is no effective control on these funds by the contributors. They are set to one side as fund managers make use of the huge financial weapon afforded to them in takeovers, mergers and increases in the wages of the fat cats in the City of London.
In any casual glance at the National Association of Pension Funds in my country you would have to search long and hard to find a workers' representative, and yet there are many representatives from the City of London.
Compare this with Holland, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the other countries where cooperation, codecision and consultation are the order of the day.
Yet the Commission, in its White Paper, made no reference whatsoever to the possible involvement of the contributors.
I hope and trust that when the Commission brings forward the directive which I understand it is considering, there will be a clear assurance that the contributors towards these huge funds will be involved.
The Socialist Group will support the European market model of codecision and codetermination.
We reject short-termism and we expect financial and economic returns for our citizens.
For a number of years now I have studied the advancement of political democracy.
One of the people that I looked to for inspiration was Tom Paine, who took part in two revolutions, one in America and one in France, and strove for political democracy.
I believe it is time now for us to move forward in order to give the citizens of Europe an economic democracy.
I believe, with the Socialists, that democracy is best served by the European social market model.
Madam President, the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has incorporated the principal amendments proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in its report, and has thus made appropriate comments on the Green Paper.
Five points need to be emphasised, which the Commission should respect when drafting further Community legislation on the basis of the Green Paper.
Firstly: reforms to the scope and structure of the first pillar - that is, statutory pension schemes on the pay-as-you-go model - can only take place at national level, and must thus remain the responsibility of national bodies.
In my opinion, the Community is not competent to deal with contracts between the generations formed at national level.
Secondly: supplementary pension schemes in the internal market are also characterised by a multitude of schemes and pension funds.
Community legislation should not discriminate against pension funds, either in terms of prudential supervision provisions or in terms of tax conditions.
Thirdly: restrictions on investment can only be eased if standard prudential supervision rules guarantee the possibility of controls, the joint involvement - on an equal footing - of those entitled to pensions, and insolvency insurance.
Fourthly: basic tax conditions for supplementary pension schemes need to be harmonised and improved across the internal market, so as to better exploit the potential of the internal market in pension schemes and to make it more competitive.
The principle of downstream taxation of pension entitlements should apply throughout the Community.
Fifthly: a high degree of convergence needs to be achieved within the Community on transferring and preserving pension entitlements and on vesting periods.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, but also the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, for endorsing the proposals made by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to modify the Green Paper.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about the future, and the future is very important for everyone.
Babies born today will probably live to be 100 years old!
We know that one of our most important objectives for the future is to remain in good health until we reach old age.
That means that, even today, we need to consider how we can maintain the level of social security for the elderly.
Today we have the principle of the contract between generations, with the result that young people provide what the elderly consume, and we need to complement this, in an appropriate way, with the principle of saving.
It is a question of finding a sensible way to bring public pension schemes into line with private and company ones.
If we can produce basic conditions for an internal pensions market in Europe, then we too will be able to look towards the future with hope.
Madam President, I had not realised I would be getting one minute more, but I shall use it primarily to raise the question of freedom of movement for workers.
At present fewer than two per cent of all workers in Europe are employed in another Member State.
The main reason for that is social security, and pensions too play a major part.
I think we might find the answer to this by exploring further the possibility of a European pension passport, for example.
The directive we have at present is a step in the right direction, but if we are looking at greater flexibility in the labour market, we could have a far more work-friendly system of pensions simply by legislating to allow people to take their pension or their pension provider with them when they change jobs or move to a different country.
I think it is possible to enact legislation at European level to safeguard the value of pensions and beneficiaries' entitlements.
Pension funds of the kind operating in my country, for example, are rather too reluctant in this respect.
I would ask the Commissioner to take this a little further.
Madam President, pension schemes are based on three pillars.
Firstly basic schemes, government ones - in our country the AOW or Working Incapacity Act, then supplementary pension schemes, social partners with full worker codetermination, and the third pillar, voluntary supplementary pension schemes.
I wish Commissioner Monti luck in this mission, which is a 'mission practically impossible'.
I must stress that there has been great alarm in the Netherlands at some things which the Italian Prime Minister has said.
Other speakers and Mr Ferri too have already made the point that if there is any meddling with the fixed value of the euro - and rightly or wrongly we in the Netherlands have understood what Commissioner Monti and Mr Ferri have said to mean that the fixed value of the euro might be tinkered with for political reasons - that would meet with fierce opposition from those on fixed pensions.
I would urge Commissioner Monti to allay the fears which have arisen in the Netherlands and to reassure those concerned about his inherently excellent Green Paper.
My thanks to the rapporteur for the first-class job he has done.
Madam President, the Commission's Green Paper uses the pretexts of the ageing population and the fall in the number of workers to open the door to pensions funds for supplementary pensions.
This is wrong as this approach totally eliminates any dynamic for a process of job creation and reduction in retirement ages.
Even before the consultations on the Green Paper had finished, Commissioner Monti approved a Community directive aimed at defining a liberal system for pension funds in the European Union. This directive guarantees, for pension funds, the freedom of investment and the freedom to provide management services.
This approach runs the risk of creating a system based on private insurance which would gradually replace social security.
Health and retirement would no longer be rights but would become goods subject to the laws of the market.
The basic aim of the pension fund strategy is to channel savings towards the financial markets.
The French MEPs in my group are totally against pension funds.
This system of capitalisation is particularly dangerous and deeply unfair as it benefits the rich, who have the ability to save, and leaves the poorest with a starvation pension.
This is why we cannot accept the Ferri report prepared by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, given that this report conforms to the approach taken in the Commission's proposals.
Rather, we must defend the pay-as-you-go system which is alone in guaranteeing the rights of employees and which allows the latter to claim a pension in a context of national solidarity between workers and pensioners, between generations and between the nation and its workers.
In order to find new resources and to increase the purchasing power of pensions which often lag behind the cost of living, as evidenced by the recent demonstrations by pensioners in France, we propose to apply a levy on financial products at the same rate as that applied to wages.
Mr President, the Green Paper on supplementary pensions in the single market had two main aims: firstly, to launch the widest possible debate on ways of ensuring the financial sustainability of pension schemes in the Member States.
Lengthening life expectancy and falling birth rates are likely to pose a threat to schemes based solely on the pay-as-you-go model.
Most of these schemes were established at a time when there were four or five workers for every pensioner.
In 2015 this ratio will be in the order of two to one, or even more unfavourable in certain Member States.
The Member States must face up to these changes and organise their pension schemes in such a way as to safeguard the income levels of elderly persons, whilst keeping public spending under control.
As regards the second aim of the Green Paper, we must strive at EU level to ensure that supplementary pension schemes, based on capitalisation, can benefit fully from the advantages of the single market.
The current situation is quite different: it has to be said that in many cases, pension funds face severe restrictions in respect of investments.
As the Green Paper points out, some of these restrictions - some, not all - are not justified by prudential considerations and limit the return on funds, causing pension costs to rise.
These restrictions are hampering the integration of capital markets in the Union, to the detriment of growth and employment.
Pension funds are not free to use any authorised manager established in the Union, and this limits the advantages deriving from healthy and effective competition at EU level.
Occupational mobility is hampered by the frequent absence of mutual recognition of taxation systems and of transferability of supplementary pension rights.
Finally, and in particular, because of the lack of coordination of taxation systems, life insurance companies and pension funds are not free to offer their services throughout the Union.
This situation is all the more unsatisfactory, considering the way that supplementary pension schemes are flourishing in the EU.
Pension fund assets in the Member States already constitute 25 % of EU GDP, and a growing number of countries are relying on these bodies to tackle demographic and budgetary changes.
In addition, more and more people now wish to work in different EU Member States, and they must enjoy the freedom to do so without running the risk of losing their supplementary pension rights.
The Commission has received almost a hundred responses to the Green Paper, from the Member States, the Economic and Social Committee, and financial and social circles.
A large majority of them stress how urgent it is to create a Community legal framework for supplementary pension schemes, which will allow them to develop throughout the single market.
In this way they will contribute fully to consolidating social protection and safeguarding pensioners' incomes, taking account of the need for equal treatment of women and men - I am addressing Mrs Lulling in particular here; it is indeed vital that women should not be penalised.
I am very pleased to note that Mr Ferri's excellent report likewise concludes that it is necessary as a matter of urgency to create a Community legal framework governing supplementary pension schemes, and asks the Commission to propose a directive on pension fund management and better coordination of taxation systems.
This same conclusion was reached in the context of the action plan on financial services, proposed by the Commission on 28 October.
The Commission is quite determined to act along these lines, and will need active support from Parliament.
Broadly speaking, the Commission very much welcomes Mr Ferri's report and the ideas contained in the opinions from the other parliamentary committees.
Their work has added considerably to the consultations launched by the Green Paper, and will be extremely useful in our future work.
At the beginning of next year the Commission is to publish a communication drawing political conclusions from these consultations.
Thereafter we intend to propose a directive to ensure that pension funds can benefit, under conditions of optimal security, from the freedom of investment and to provide services, which are laid down in the Treaty.
Finally, the Commission will cooperate closely with the Member States in an attempt to abolish the main fiscal barriers to the creation of an internal market in supplementary pensions.
Allow me to conclude with a comment on the remark made by Mr Janssen van Raay.
There is no doubt that supplementary pension funds are a vital instrument in looking after future generations in Europe, not least to guarantee a sustainable financial equilibrium in the long term.
Turning now to Mrs Elmalan, I would say that the Member States will clearly retain every right to determine what role the different pillars of pension schemes ought to have.
It is true that the Commission's proposed approach to the role of supplementary pension systems is a substantial liberalisation of their assets and management, subject to specific prudential rules. If we are keen to boost employment in Europe, as Mrs Elmalan undoubtedly is, we are duty-bound to acknowledge that a single market for pension funds will - for the same level of risk - make it possible to obtain a higher yield on pension fund assets, and hence to reduce both social contributions - for the same pension entitlement - and non-wage labour costs.
All of this naturally plays an important role in employment policy.
I therefore believe that few issues are as central to Europe's economic and social system as this one is in several respects, and I thank Parliament once again for its most valuable contribution.
Mr President, just briefly, when Mr Monti spoke about his Green Paper there was no mention of how the contributors to these funds, i.e. people who put their money in, are to be involved in the decision-making process.
Could he give us some assurance that any of these communications or directives will include that which is enshrined, i.e. the European market conditions of co-determination and co-decision?
Mr President, I wish to respond briefly to Mr Falconer by indicating that the possible involvement of contributors in the management of supplementary pension schemes and pension funds is, of course, important and falls within the competence of the Member States rather than within the competence of the Community.
I also wish to point out the distinction between a firm producing goods and services in which, at least in some Member States, there are forms of involvement of workers employed in it and a financial intermediary in a broad sense, like a supplementary pension scheme.
It is not the norm in financial intermediaries to have involvement of the counterparts in the management.
To me the best guarantee for contributors is that an appropriate prudential regulation is set out and implemented in practice.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Vehicles with more than 8 seats
The next item is the second report (A4-0424/98) by Mr Murphy, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to special provisions for vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat and amending Council Directive 70/156/EEC (COM(97)0276 - C4-0545/97-97/0176(COD)).
Mr President, given the reputation, at least in Britain, of buses being late and given the fact that this particular report is coming back to us a second time, having been delayed since April of this year, it is probably apt that we are starting a little bit late on the debate this evening.
That said, I would like to place on record my thanks to the staff of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of this House, in particular the interpreters and translators who have quite a task in dealing with this particular report.
They have done an admirable job.
I would also like to thank my fellow members of the Economic Committee, in particular Mr Rübig who is here with us this evening, for their assistance in getting us to this stage.
A friend of mine told me about somebody she met at a bus-stop in my home town of Wolverhampton, a young mother with a child in a buggy.
A bus pulled up for her but she did not get on, she let it go.
My friend asked her why she did she not get on the bus. She said she could not get on to that particular bus but there would be a low-floor bus along in a little while.
At one level that describes what we are trying to do this evening: to make sure people can get on and off buses.
But at another level we are quite clearly trying to put in place a further important piece of the completion of the single market.
Buses and coaches are important products of the automotive industry and we need to have certain acceptable standards so that they can freely move around the single market place.
I hope that the Commission will accept that although the proposal we have come forward with is a radical one it is nevertheless workable.
I recall being here having a short exchange with Commissioner Bangemann in April, about the derogations in the Commission's original proposal about taking certain vehicles outside the scope of the directive.
He challenged me as to why that should be the case.
I told him that my proposals would have removed those derogations because to all intents and purposes Members of this House accept that most vehicles are safe and ought to be granted type-approval, not just in their national markets, but also in the European market.
We have come back to that proposal in this report.
A key area, certainly for this side of the House, is accessibility and the provisions for accessibility.
To achieve that the Economic Committee has put in certain definitions of what a passenger is.
We have also put in certain technical standards which we would expect a technical working party to look at as mandatory, for example: the height of the first step, particular specifications for boarding aids, wheelchair accessibility on vehicles and the safety of passengers inside the vehicles.
Allied to that, the committee has also protected the ability of national preferences and regional variations to continue, whilst at the same time accepting that certain standards of accessibility are required.
A further area that the committee has taken on board is the whole issue of driver safety.
If we are to have safe vehicles for the citizens of the European Union to use then we need to make sure that the drivers are comfortable and free from any risk.
Therefore we are calling on the Commission to come forward with a proposal six months after the introduction of the directive looking specifically at driver safety.
I accept that the report which the Economic Committee is putting before you this evening is something of a challenge to the Commission and something of a new approach.
Nevertheless I believe it merits serious consideration by the Commission.
I would challenge the Commission to accept what the Economic Committee is trying to do: to balance out the needs of the citizen; to balance out our obligation to complete the single market, but at the same time to bring forward a report which is useable and sensible and deals with what is needed and not perhaps what civil servants might want to see.
I accept it as a radical challenge, something which the Commission may not have dealt with before, but I believe that if the Commission is willing to take this new approach on board then we will get closer to completing that single market, we will respect national and regional variations where buses and coaches are concerned, and the sort of story I started off with this evening, of a young mother not being able to get on a vehicle in my home town may never happen again.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Murphy's very good report is much more far-reaching that the title of the dossier suggests.
This is no longer just about vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats.
In presenting these amendments by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, we are signalling the beginning of a new era in technical legislation.
Until now, proposals have been settled down to the last detail.
I should simply like to show you the proposals here, so that you can see what huge proportions the technical legislation - just for buses with more than eight seats - has assumed.
The legislator then has to decide whether the height of the step for boarding a bus should be 240, 260 or 280 mm.
This, however, can and should no longer be the task of this House and its Members.
We are more responsible for laying down the political guidelines and basic principles.
A bus has to be safe, stable and accessible to people with reduced mobility.
Any more detailed provisions must be agreed - on the basis of these principles - by those whom they actually affect: manufacturers, operators and users, especially elderly and disabled people.
In this regard, I should particularly like to thank Mr Murphy for placing special emphasis on this aspect.
That is why we are proposing that a permanent working party be set up to perform these tasks.
It should firstly, for practical reasons, rely heavily on the regulations which already exist in the context of the UN Economic Commission for Europe. Secondly, European standardisation bodies will be involved, and they have accumulated a wealth of experience with this type of legislation.
Until agreement is reached on the individual issues, however, an alternative way of guaranteeing the free movement of goods and the proper functioning of the internal market will have to be found.
That is why the subsidiary principle of mutual recognition applies.
Once a bus is authorised for use in one Member State, it can be authorised for use throughout Europe.
That also ensures that the arrangements are sufficiently flexible and geared towards customers.
The demands placed on a bus in Sicily are completely different from those placed on a bus in the north of Finland, or in a large city such as London, or in a small town such as Oberplattling in Bavaria.
I believe that we need to give the market this freedom, so that customers can say what they want, and so that manufacturers - once they have learnt this - can offer what their customers wish to have.
Mr President, the Murphy report is not simply another piece of legislative work.
In my opinion, it signals a breakthrough in terms of the kind of legislation we should be adopting and how we should see the EU's regulatory remit. Evidence has now been produced of Parliament's faith in the market and those who operate within it.
And, as elected representatives, we have broken new ground.
I refused to take part in the first round of voting in committee last spring.
The all-embracing proposal for a directive contained mathematical formulae and levels of detail that I could not understand myself, let alone explain to my electorate.
The committee was confronted, in addition, with 135 amendments.
The PPE Group abstained at the first vote in plenary and managed to get the report referred back to committee.
We owe special thanks to Mr von Wogau, who is a political stalwart, always ready to take on ambitious reports and opinions.
He, with our support, rightly questioned the wisdom of such extensive and detailed proposals. It was high time that this happened.
I should also like to thank Mr Murphy for his insight and understanding. As the person responsible within Parliament for the SLIM project, he presumably realises that we need to do more than simply talk.
Through our actions, we have to demonstrate our wish to simplify regulatory activity and produce better, and less all-embracing solutions. My thanks also go to Mr Rübig, who not only asked questions, but played a constructive role in this whole discussion.
Let us hope that industry - which frequently calls for less, but better regulation - does not feel put out by the radical nature of the changes we have made.
There are those who would probably have benefited from a very detailed proposal - the sort of people who take one view in general discussions and another when it comes to action which affects them in particular.
I look forward to seeing the Commission overcome its annoyance at Parliament's pruning of its painstakingly drafted proposal. There is much to be learnt from the Murphy report.
The European Parliament has now thrown down the gauntlet to the Council and Commission. It is now up to them to demonstrate who can best meet the challenge of simplifying and improving EU procedures - fighting for a common framework, whilst trusting in the subsidiarity principle and letting the market have its say in working out standards and resolving details.
Parliament has put down a marker this week, making it clear that we want a less detailed, but better functioning EU.
We are acting on a mandate from the citizens of Europe, at a time when they are rightly questioning an institutional set-up which has in many ways become unwieldy, obsessed with regulations and bureaucracy.
Mr President, I wish first and foremost to thank Mr Murphy for his thorough examination of the proposal for a directive on buses and coaches.
As you know, this proposal fits into the Community system of type-approval for motor vehicles, governed by framework Directive 70/156/EEC.
It completes the technical harmonisation of this category of vehicles, thereby creating a single market for all types of vehicle.
The proposal follows the detailed approach traditionally used in the motor vehicle sector, both within the Community and internationally.
The revision of the 1958 agreement of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, to which the European Union only acceded in March 1998, has led to a number of international regulations on the fitting-out of urban and interurban buses.
The Commission's proposal is based on these regulations, introducing certain improvements adopted after consultation of all the experts in the field and taking account of all the economic and social implications of public transport.
In this context, we appreciate the rigour demonstrated by Mr Murphy in his first draft opinion, which contained over a hundred amendments, only some of which were found acceptable.
The drastic reduction to twelve amendments, carried out in Mr Murphy's second report, might appear to be an excellent achievement, in that the report now stays on a more political level and is less oriented towards technical detail.
However, the remaining twelve amendments are a long way from the Commission's proposal and strike us as unacceptable for the following reasons.
First of all, the proposed test does not fully fit either into the traditional, detailed approach taken in regulations in the automotive sector or into the new approach centring on essential requirements.
In actual fact the rapporteur's amendments appear to be guided by the new approach, in that the technical specifications set out in the Annexes are removed. And yet they provide for recourse to working groups and a regulatory committee, the type of committee which embodies the traditional approach.
Secondly, the report provides for the establishment of a new group, the technical working party, to comprise representatives of operators, manufacturers, standardisation bodies and consumer groups, among them representatives of the disabled.
This technical working party is modelled on the traditional-style regulatory committee.
Entrusting it with the task of assisting the Commission services, by drawing up the detailed technical specifications, would add to confusion over responsibilities and further delay the adoption of the harmonised technical specifications.
Thirdly, I would point out in addition that the Commission's proposal strikes a balance - which was not easy to achieve - between the interests of industry, Community transport policy, bus user safety requirements and 'Community social policy' considerations, especially in respect of mobility-handicapped persons.
Fourthly and lastly, let us not forget that this directive completes the overall system of type-approval for this category of vehicle.
It would therefore be inappropriate, above all during the final phase of completing the single market in vehicles, to alter the method of harmonising national provisions.
For these reasons, the Commission is obliged to reject the twelve amendments proposed.
We do of course wish to complete the Community regulatory system in conjunction with the European Parliament, with the legislator in the context of codecision.
It is our intention to carry forward this task with the assistance of the rapporteur and of Parliament in a constructive manner, in such a way as to satisfy everyone concerned.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Aerospace industry
The next item is the report (A4-0362/98) by Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on the European aerospace industry: meeting the global challenge (COM(97)0466 - C4-0547/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for a few years now the Union has been devoting considerable attention to European aerospace policy, as can easily be seen from numerous communications issued by the Commission.
The present report, however, does not merely deal with one of the many aspects of this strategic domain, but also analyses the current situation in its entirety, and on that basis devises a coherent European policy for the future.
The importance of the European aerospace industry as one of the paramount factors in our economic future is now generally accepted in Europe.
But this economic potential can only be used to the full if the present fragmented European aerospace industry is restructured to strengthen its competitiveness in the world market, a necessity arising from the increasingly complex nature of the aerospace products that are now in demand.
This becomes all the more important if we consider the significance of the aerospace industry as a source of employment which provided more than 377 000 direct jobs in 1997.
The fact that the European aerospace industry has been affected in recent years by stiffer competition, cuts in public funding and the meteoric pace of technological development does not make the restructuring process any easier.
Alarm bells started ringing in earnest within the European industry last July with the merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.
This American example of restructuring clearly shows the direction in which the European aerospace industry should also be heading.
Within only five years, three gigantic groups have emerged in the United States through mergers and takeovers.
In an almost faultless blend of technological and economic potential, these groups have brought all areas of military and civilian aerospace activity as well as defence technology under one roof.
This enables them to spread their risks as widely as possible, to strengthen their immunity to cyclical fluctuations and to ensure that, in both technological and business terms, the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
But even though, with a patchwork of policies based on national interests, the European aerospace industry has undoubtedly had a very different starting position to that of the United States, for example, a great number of encouraging developments have taken place on a European scale, especially over the past year.
One example is the project for a European Aerospace and Defence Company, which is surely incontrovertible evidence of a desire for restructuring within both the industry and national governments.
Following a number of meetings, Daimler Benz Aerospace, Aérospatiale, Casa and British Aerospace have devised a clear plan of approach, setting out the aims, scope and operational structure of a common aerospace policy covering both the civilian and military branches of aerospace activity.
The first step in this direction will be the creation next year of the Airbus single corporate entity.
Although this is a great advance, it is not the only one.
For instance, 1998 promises to be a record-breaking year for the Airbus in the large-capacity aircraft market.
In the first half of 1998, the Airbus consortium, with a market share approaching 50 %, secured more contracts than its direct competitor, Boeing - McDonnell Douglas, for the first time.
Civil aviation is certainly the most important branch of the aerospace industry in financial terms, but a long-term European strategy must also be established in the other branches.
For that reason, we must welcome and develop communications-satellite projects such as Sky Bridge, the European answer to Teledesic, and the success of the Ariane programme in the domain of carrier services; the programmes for the construction of navigation satellites and the creation of satellite navigation systems are taking us in the right direction.
In this context, it is also gratifying to note that provision has been made for this type of venture in the fifth EU framework programme of research under the broad line of action 'promoting competitive and sustainable growth' and particularly the specific programmes under the heading of 'prospects for aviation'.
The framework programme also ensures the provision of a specific coordinating mechanism for activities within the various thematic programmes in the field of aerospace technology.
The appraisal contained in the report spells out that Europe can only benefit in future from an unswerving commitment to progress.
The developments and examples that have been described illustrate the fact that Europe possesses great inherent potential.
But if that potential is to be fulfilled, the aerospace industry, with the support of the national governments and European institutions, must take up the gauntlet.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations I should like to say how much I welcome the Hoppenstedt report. I would just refer to two salient points: cooperation and dialogue between Europe and newly industrialised countries such as China; and the Commission's involvement in international negotiations on safety and on the allocation of the resources of space and the electro-magnetic spectrum.
From a somewhat broader point of view, I would say that the aerospace industry has emerged from the morass of a year or so ago, thanks to a number of agreements, but that so far it has only been partially restructured.
In institutional terms and in respect of ownership arrangements, the guidelines for privatisation in France have recently been drawn up, but much still remains to be done.
Mr Hoppenstedt has referred to the need for Airbus to have the status of European company, the fact that there is still no European Armaments Agency, and that the national space agencies are seeking a new role, whereas the ESA does not yet have a clear relationship with or clear mandate from the European Union and the Commission.
Two things do give me cause for satisfaction: the allocation to the aerospace sector in the fifth framework programme, which is almost double that of the fourth, and the growing consensus apparent in both political and industrial circles in Europe concerning the satellite navigation programme.
These, in my opinion, are the two positive signs within the Union; otherwise, I fear that the European aerospace industry is not moving at a sufficiently fast pace for it to meet successfully a worldwide challenge which could be crucial in our progress towards the information society.
Mr President, Commissioner de Silguy, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hoppenstedt, everyone knows that the European aerospace industry is a prestigious jewel in the crown of our European economy, of our economic power and therefore of our political power.
Like the rapporteur, I must firstly welcome the Franco-German-UK declaration of 9 December 1997 on this subject.
I firmly approve, as does Mr Hoppenstedt, of the European-level restructuring of our military and civil aerospace industry.
This is a necessity which cannot now be denied.
Europe needs powerful integrated industrial groupings in this area, as in many other industrial sectors.
I must at this point question the lack of desire to carry out this restructuring and to create these groupings at the right time in other European industrial sectors.
This applies, for example, to the shipbuilding industry and even the textile industry to a certain extent.
As someone who has observed these industrial matters for some years, I must be allowed to say this and to express my regret concerning this on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of employees in these sectors, many of whom are now unemployed.
The reason I am saying this is because there are many other sectors which are or will be affected.
This is now clear and we cannot pretend or say otherwise.
I must also take this opportunity to restate that Europe must stop imposing rules, constraints and limitations, in the name of triumphant liberalism, with which our international competitors do not have to contend, which means that they are at an advantage in terms of international competition.
Returning to aeronautics, like Mr Hoppenstedt, and all credit to him, I also approve the transformation of Airbus Industrie to give it more muscle.
I, too, regret our weaknesses and I hope that we will find solutions in the area of communications and navigation satellites.
The two final points which I must stress are the need to jointly develop the next generation of military equipment and airframes and never to forget in Europe the importance in social terms, and in terms of direct and indirect jobs, of the civil and military aeronautical industry and therefore obviously the need to introduce Euroworks councils as quickly as possible.
This is a good report whose subject gives just cause for European pride and is also, in my opinion, a lesson and an example for other European industrial sectors.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by thanking my honourable friend Mr Hoppenstedt for his excellent report.
He is an acknowledged expert in this area, and I believe we must recognise that.
We have an enormous diversity of issues to deal with, and to have someone who can deal with a subject in such depth is of extra special importance.
Let us now turn to the substance of Mr Hoppenstedt's report.
I believe that, while we must create the conditions for the development of a European aerospace industry, it is even more important that companies within the aerospace industry in Europe should get together properly, and there is still much to be done in this respect.
Above all, I believe that a European aerospace company comprising several enterprises which have hitherto operated in a national framework will not tolerate government involvement in the longer term.
I believe we shall have to organise this industry entirely within the private sector, and that remark is especially addressed to one particular country.
Secondly, as far as defence technology is concerned, or Wehrtechnik , as we would say in German, there is an urgent need for us to cooperate so that we do not fall behind our competitors.
In this domain, of course, some very delicate questions remain unanswered, and we have to recognise that whatever is developed must be distributed in accordance with the Member States' respective market shares, irrespective of where the product has been developed.
But allow me to say at the same time that, whatever we do as a joint European aerospace enterprise, although we must make our own products in order to hold our own against American competition, there is no reason why we should not cooperate with the United States too in certain segments of the market, since some of the companies that will combine to form a European aerospace and defence group will naturally have their own links with the United States and with businesses there.
So the message is: establish a strong position, but cooperate with American corporations too.
Let me end with a word on the satellite navigation systems.
And please listen especially carefully, Commissioner, to what I have to say on this point.
I am not sure whether we in this House, you in the Commission and the governments in the Member States are fully aware of the problems associated with the global satellite navigation system.
Do we really want to become dependent on the United States by jointly developing with the Americans a system that they can switch off at their own discretion? We shall have to think harder about ways in which we can assert our own European identity, for this question of global satellite navigation is not only important in terms of aerospace; it is an important factor in transport policy in general, and I believe that this is a point on which we Europeans must close ranks.
Mr President, the aerospace industry involves 350 000 people, one million jobs and a turnover of EUR 50 billion.
It is threatened, however, by the United States, which benefits from considerable aid for technological development and has been able to anticipate the consequences of international competition.
In this context, the Hoppenstedt report has come at an opportune moment.
As Europe must act quickly and appropriately in order to maintain its place in the aerospace industry, our four main objectives must be: to consolidate the initial success of the launch of Ariane V; to develop a subsonic long-haul Airbus A3XX; to achieve the space and terrestrial components of the European satellite navigation systems GNS 1 and 2, and finally, in terms of research and development, to develop cheaper, lighter and more powerful satellites to meet the needs of telecommunications and Earth observation and also prevention, particularly of natural disasters.
The competition from the US must be met by a resurgence in Europe.
Manufacturers must now increasingly come together.
Only in this way will the European Union score new successes in the aerospace industry and reap the benefit of its skills through the development of new activities.
Technological developments in the aerospace industry represent aid for employment.
We must therefore pay particular attention to developing this sector.
Mr President, this report conforms to the Commission's approach by supporting the current restructuring in the European aeronautical industry. I will confine myself to this subject.
Although Airbus has achieved enormous worldwide success, the current upheavals appear to be fraught with danger.
The stated desire to confront Boeing and its might forms the basic argument justifying the aim of and the need for a major European aerospace grouping.
I agree that Airbus should be given more muscle but we must realise that a ferocious battle has begun between the former associates of Airbus, who are now partners, concerning the leadership of the future grouping. This is despite an interim report having been sent a short while ago to the government.
Although we need to enter a new stage in the European aerospace industry, we should pay attention to the aim and objectives of the current restructuring.
The realisation that the purpose of this restructuring is competition and improved profitability raises concern about the future of an industry which needs long-term investment without any immediate return and whose effectiveness is particularly dependent on the skills and training of its employees, and on the recognition of their qualifications.
This is also an industry which has always benefited in France from government subsidy, to the dislike of some people.
I must stress that the explosion in worldwide requirements in the civil aerospace sector poses challenges of a new magnitude in terms of reducing environmental pollution and in terms of financing costs and democracy. My opinion is that the reasons behind the economic war in which we are engaging cannot meet these challenges.
Mr President, it seems grotesque that we should have a report before us which purports to be about competitiveness but is actually about an increasingly highly subsidised industry.
Fifty per cent of the aerospace industry is about military production, which is kept alive by public money and public money alone.
The report speaks of efficiency.
Let me tell you that the best way of achieving efficiency and competitiveness would be to combine the restructuring of the aerospace industry with disarmament strategy and not, as is suggested here, to pursue a process of building up and renewing our military arsenals.
The Greens are particularly concerned that, in the absence of safeguards, mergers in the aerospace industry will trigger an irreversible arms spiral in Europe and that this will all happen without transparency and democratic control.
Research and development funds are being misused here.
In view of the changing climate, they would be far better spent on areas such as renewable sources of energy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in thanking Mr Hoppenstedt for his report, I must repeat what previous speakers have pointed out, that the restructuring of the European aerospace industry is essential.
The Member States and manufacturers are clearly aware of this and they are currently making progress towards a joint solution which will soon be satisfactory to all the partners.
Parliament must assist this approach by ensuring that social progress is achieved, particularly in terms of Euroworks councils, as has just been mentioned.
The aerospace industry is clearly a sector of considerable strategic importance both because of the guarantees which it can give for the defence of Europe and because of the developments it allows in the use of inner and outer space at world level over the next 50 years.
This is why the current restructuring must not be assessed using purely liberal or capitalist criteria.
The importance of the trade agreements resulting from this type of industry will clearly have an effect on the standard of living of people in Europe.
The Community's financial support for research in this sector must therefore not be reduced but should actually continue in parallel with the considerable effort being made by the government of the United States in respect of the restructuring of the American aerospace sector.
As suggested by Mr Hoppenstedt, this support must act as an incentive but under no circumstances must the aid from national and European public funds be decreased as this would dramatically reduce the scope of the restructuring undertaken.
One point of particular concern is the development of the A3XX.
Despite the enormous costs, large long-haul passenger aircraft are clear proof of the know-how of the aerospace industry and constitute a powerful promotional tool for a whole family of products, as the 747 has proven for Boeing over the last 20 years.
It is therefore impossible to abstain from this project.
I must stress the confidence which we have in the capacity of all the manufacturers and particularly the workers, managers and design offices of Aérospatiale in Toulouse to successfully complete this magnificent project.
However, we must also take advantage of this ambitious financial programme to improve the organisation and distribution of subcontracting, so that this vital industrial effort can best serve the interests of industrial development in all the European regions concerned.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, no-one can be more delighted by the success of our aerospace industry, and in particular the exemplary cooperation represented by Airbus and Ariane, than the National Front.
It must be emphasised once again that these initiatives owe nothing to the European institutions and everything to the willingness of the manufacturers, technical engineers and workers.
We can only be delighted at the determination not to let our countries be subject to the domination and even in certain market segments to the monopoly of the American giant Boeing-McDonnell-Douglas.
However, we have some concerns about the ulterior motives of the Hoppenstedt report.
Under the guise of economic efficiency and the confused concept of integration, we are moving towards the simultaneous privatisation and Europeanisation of our defence industries.
Under the guise of privatisation, progress is being made both towards our national defence being controlled by the Commission in Brussels by the development of Community regulations and standardisation, and towards the weakening of our military industries by every takeover bid imaginable.
It is particularly worrying that at no time have these industrial problems been linked to the higher interest and security of the Member States, nor even of a hypothetical European superstate.
The aim behind the integration of the civil and military sectors is not to bring into play any synergies, dual technologies or possibilities of public subsidy for research, but is merely to let the armament industry join the common fate of the European economy in terms of competition at any price and seizure of control by Brussels.
With regard to the civil aerospace industry, the French Members must be warned against the immediate consequences of transforming the Airbus GIE into a single corporate entity.
In the current context, this will be lead to the relocation of the headquarters in the Netherlands, followed by the relocation of the production units.
Economies of scale and defragmentation of markets can be achieved using means other than by abandoning our companies to private capital and by Community law.
The search for these means certainly should not involve the Commission.
Problems of national security or strategic industries are too important to be left to the Commission.
In France, we are not ready to forget the Commission's incredible actions concerning the shipyards.
Mr President, the rapporteur has very clearly emphasised the significance of the European aerospace industry as a genuinely important factor in our economic future.
I recall the parliamentary debates on other Commission communications which have repeatedly made the point that the future prospects and competitiveness of the European Union in the industrial sphere, but elsewhere too, are dependent on developments in aerospace.
That, of course, does not absolve us from highlighting and re-examining the specific political issue that arises in connection with the civil and military components of this industry.
The question we really ought to be asking concerns the extent to which the aerospace market is actually organised or whether such organisation is even possible - to what extent, in other words, the subsidisation of the military sector actually leads to the emergence of good competitive products for the civilian market, as is the case in other parts of the world.
If we recall that the European Union still has but a tiny share of the world market, and if we consider that in 1996 the value of aerospace exports just edged over the ECU 15 billion mark, which is equivalent to about 3 % of all EU exports, we cannot fail to realise that aerospace is so important that the European Union, for all its successes, still needs to achieve more in this sector.
Great challenges await the European aerospace industry.
The merit of the Commission's communication and the Hoppenstedt report is that they really do emphasise this point, as well as indicating how fiercely the battle for supremacy is being fought in a global market, especially the market in products designed for civilian use.
The United States is still far and away the major player in the global aerospace market - and I am telling you nothing new here - with a 58 % share.
Moreover, the plain fact is that company structures are different in the USA.
That is nothing new either, and for this reason the demands for an end to the fragmentation of the European aerospace industry that have been reiterated in today's debate can only be supported.
The large number of aerospace companies in a relatively small internal market means that research, production and marketing potential is dissipated, which is not without an influence on the competitiveness of the European Union.
Unlike the American corporations, European producers are scarcely able to cover the increasingly high development and financing risks.
This is one of the reasons why it is important to develop new forms of business cooperation which will ensure, among other things, that economies of scale can be made and that technological and organisational synergy can be produced between the various disciplines within the aerospace industry.
It is therefore essential to make up lost ground rather than falling further behind.
What makes the situation especially critical is that the European aerospace industry possesses great fundamental employment potential and a highly skilled workforce.
Aerospace is one of the top 15 industries, employing more than 370 000 people as well as sustaining thousands of jobs in component manufacturing and in other high-tech areas.
That is why I should like to put it to the Commission that it is high time their industrial working parties and task force began to highlight the employment dimension far more clearly in the papers they produce on industrial policy, including the present one, to emphasise that employees' rights are part and parcel of the ongoing development of any industry and in particular to prescribe the principle of codetermination for key industries such as aerospace.
Mr President, pardon my smiling, but it is pleasing to be able to conduct a political debate, even at this late hour.
I should like to express my special thanks to Mr Hoppenstedt, who through patient determination is able to achieve progress in important areas such as the development of a global satellite navigation system, not only on this side of the Atlantic but on the other side as well.
It is important to carry this sort of technology in our own product range, so that the market does not depend on a single supplier, because the thought that we shall be able to combine this satellite navigation system with the universal mobile telecommunications system at some time in the future opens up completely new avenues.
That is why I, as a member of the Committee on Budgets, should like to suggest to the Commission that a precise financial framework for the development of this system is long overdue, because when the time comes we shall need the proper hardware, software and mainframes.
That will create many new jobs in Europe.
Mr President, allow me to deal with an aspect that was not expressly mentioned in this excellent report, namely the question of component supplies.
The aerospace industry awards contracts to hundreds of small and medium-sized businesses in most Member States of the European Union.
If Airbus sells a large number of aircraft, that means good business for many upstream companies, which safeguards numerous jobs.
For that reason alone, there is never too much we can do for European civil aviation or for the European space industry.
In order to obtain a proper grasp of the economic significance of the aerospace industry, the Commission should produce a study on the volume of component supplies. That would be an important step.
Above all, the study should include the percentage of total supplies drawn from small and medium-sized businesses and the number of staff employed by the component manufacturers. It would also be interesting to catalogue the countries of origin of the supplied components, since that would enable us to determine, for example, whether the Airbus really is a pan-European aircraft.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Hoppenstedt's report contains an in-depth analysis of the situation in the European aerospace industry.
It is an excellent report and on behalf of the Commission I must congratulate the rapporteur because he has also taken into account the main events that have occurred since September, that is since the approval by the Commission of its communication.
I would remind you that the aim of this communication is to draw attention to the urgent need to accelerate restructuring and regrouping in the European aerospace industry.
As you know, only a few aerospace companies can survive at world level in the long term given what this sector represents and given the degree of competition in the world aerospace market.
The American industry has actually already begun restructuring.
In 1980 there were about 20 companies whereas there are now only four.
I can reassure Mr Malerba that we are agreeable to proper cooperation between America and Europe, of which there are some good examples, such as the Snecma/General Electric deal.
However, we must be partners and not subcontractors.
We must therefore be as strong in the world market as the Americans in order to be able to cooperate.
The situation of the European industry is clearly different, as underlined by the rapporteur, given that it remains partitioned at national level and even in terms of its products.
I believe Mrs Randzio-Plath mentioned that the European aerospace industry now has to face three main challenges, the first of which is due to the complexity of the products.
The exponential growth in development costs and the financial risks exceed the resources of the European aerospace companies, even the most powerful.
The second factor relates to the market.
No Member State has an armaments market equivalent to the American market.
The same applies to the aid for research and technological development that American companies receive from the American Government.
Finally, the third element involves the fact that the European aerospace companies cannot take advantage of the same economies of scale as the American giants.
The Member States must therefore understand that the future of the European aerospace industry is linked to the interdependence of the structures existing within the European Union.
Although the manufacturers must be the main protagonists in this restructuring, it is clear that the governments have a decisive role to play in this process.
They must promote the creation of companies at European level by guaranteeing genuine commercial flexibility based on suitable support and training structures.
In the Commission's opinion, the success of the restructuring will depend on the level of integration of the various branches of the aerospace sector and of civil and military activities at European level.
As several MEPs have rightly stressed, the first stage in this restructuring should be the transformation, which has actually already been agreed, of Airbus Industrie into a single corporate entity involving the companies participating in the GIE.
Furthermore, the European aerospace companies would profit from a Common Foreign and Security Policy and Community rules on the public armaments market.
However, Mrs Ainardi, I must tell you that, in relation to 1980, the European aerospace industry is now much more oriented towards the civil side. In 1980 nearly 30 % of this industry's turnover was civil-related whereas this figure is now 60 %.
Military activities therefore represent a small part of aerospace activities in Europe and are destined to shrink even more due to the growth in civil demand.
Despite the difficulties caused by the problem of restructuring in the defence sector, the immediate progress to be made in the civil sector must not be delayed.
I must also mention the employment problem at this point, in answer to Mrs Randzio-Plath and Mr Caudron.
The question of the level of employment in the aerospace sector is implicit in the Commission's approach which aims to increase the competitiveness of this European industry.
It is clearly by encouraging competitiveness that employment will be assisted, not only in the aerospace sector but also in other sectors.
It is these efforts to increase competitiveness which have allowed the loss of jobs, which started in 1990, to be halted. The number of jobs has now stabilised at about 380 000.
To conclude, I must stress to Mr Malerba and Mr de Lassus that the Commission is making new efforts in research and technological development to support this restructuring.
However, the Commission is also initiating developments in air traffic and satellite navigation.
You will remember that we prepared a communication on this subject in January 1998.
The Commission will propose the approach to be taken with regard to satellite navigation in a new communication in the first half of 1999, together with financing proposals.
Similarly, the Commission has drawn up proposals in terms of standardising and creating a single authority for aviation safety.
Finally, only integrated action by the companies involved and the Member States can provide the framework needed for the survival and development of the European aerospace industry.
Mr Hoppenstedt, your report is a useful contribution to this, and for this the Commission would like to thank you.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Euro coins
The next item is the report (A4-0401/98) by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 975/98 on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins intended for circulation (COM(98)0492 - C4-0597/98-98/0270(SYN)).
Mr President, Commissioner de Silguy, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing today with the amendment of a regulation laying down the denominations and physical features of the euro coins to be put into circulation.
Afterwards, I should like to add a few words on the subject of monetary union to my party colleague Mr Fischer in Rome.
But I shall save that until the end.
The problems that had to be resolved in this report related to the number of coins to be introduced, the denominations in which they would be produced, and lastly the choice of material and the physical characteristics of the coinage.
At the time of the first reading, Parliament advocated a reduction in the proposed number of denominations of coin from eight to six, and a direct correlation between the diameter of the coins and their value to make them more distinguishable for visually impaired and blind people.
When the Council, unfortunately, rejected this and other proposals, including moves to prevent the use of nickel on the surface of the coins, Parliament called on the Council once again in second reading to heed the opinion of the European Blind Union and reduce the number of coins.
Once more, however, our pleas fell on deaf ears; as a result, in this draft regulation to correct a regulation that is barely six months old, we now read that slot-machine manufacturers are demanding a clear distinction between the 50 cent and 20 cent coins to avert the danger of fraudulent use of doctored 20 cent coins as 50 cent coins.
The European Blind Union is not satisfied that the 50 cent and 10 cent coins are properly distinguishable, because their excessively similar physical characteristics could lead to confusion between the two.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy voted by a narrow majority against my proposing the scrapping of a denomination again in my report.
Nevertheless, we shall have to produce a clear majority tomorrow on an amendment to that effect.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy did, however, favour the introduction of a gold 100 euro coin, and of course the material value and production cost of this coin must not significantly exceed its monetary value, which would mean that the 100 euro coin could perhaps be equal in size to a French 20 centime coin.
I do not wish to go into any further detail, but I should certainly like to ask Mr de Silguy to think less in terms of losing face than of the fact that this gold euro coin is an inevitability.
It is only a matter of time.
With a view to enhancing the symbolic value of the 100 euro coin as the sign of a united Europe and a strong common currency, it should not have a national side as the other coins have, but should uniformly bear a powerful symbol of the European Union.
Famous people, for instance, might feature on the coin.
I think it is possible to reach agreement on that point as well.
I indicated at the outset that I should also like to deal today with the results of the Rome meeting.
May I therefore comment on the position adopted by my party colleague, Joschka Fischer, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, who today linked monetary union with the Western European Union, or so-called defence union.
Now that monetary union has succeeded, as it were, and the first step has been taken, the way is considered to be clear to push for a common foreign and security policy and a stronger Western European Union.
Mr Fischer is forging ahead too quickly.
European monetary union is the first step.
The second step is social and environmental union.
That is the only way to develop a European economy.
That is crucial.
Unfortunately, my colleague from the Green Party is putting the cart before the horse.
He is creating a stumbling-block for us and for himself.
If monetary union is overloaded, which is what is happening here, there is a danger that it will collapse.
Not all the European nations that have signed up for monetary union are also members of the Western European defence union.
I earnestly urge him to think about that - to think, for example, about Austria, Finland and Ireland.
The question here is whether the euro should be embraced at the expense of neutrality, which is an extremely delicate and sensitive issue.
Is this the new German foreign policy?
Let me stress that Ireland, Finland and Austria will never submit to such ideas. Nor do I, incidentally, as a representative of the German Greens.
Anyone who plays fast and loose with the neutrality of European nations is undermining confidence in the European ideal and in monetary union.
I have emphasised that point because it has taken a long time to build up this confidence, and more time is needed to consolidate it.
Nobody, whether it be the Green Foreign Minister or anyone else, should jeopardise this progress by overburdening monetary union with other objectives.
Mr President, Commissioner de Silguy, ladies and gentlemen, I must say, like the rapporteur, that I too am aware that we currently have little room for improving the euro coins.
My aim, like the report, is to highlight the case of the visually impaired, and also of many other categories of citizens.
This is why I support the proposal to simply delete the 20 cent coin, which would solve some of the problems raised.
I also support the proposal to change the definition of the edges of the 50 and 10 cent coins, which would solve some of the other problems.
However, these problems once again demonstrate that time and money would have been saved if the citizens and Parliament had been consulted and heard more effectively.
In this respect I must again express my regret at the decisions taken which mean that too many coins and notes are having to be produced.
In addition, as a result of the ridiculous decision to have national faces on euro coins, we have a situation of longer production times, higher costs and greater risks of mistakes and fraud.
Simpler and more reasonable decisions would have reduced the three-year production period expected from 1 January 1999 to 1 January 2002. This period will prove to be too long and will therefore lead to mistakes, fraud and even swindles affecting the weakest members of society.
The visually impaired and all other citizens could have been better served.
The rapporteur's proposals are therefore a step in the right direction and I support them.
Finally, I also support the request for a gold 100 euro coin.
I believe this is a good idea symbolically, economically and also emotionally.
For all these reasons, I can confirm my support for the report and for the amendments which have already been approved in the main in committee.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a year ago in Parliament we set out our principles: the introduction of a gold euro and the reduction of the coinage to six denominations, possibly eliminating the 2 and 20 cent pieces.
Just as we did by advocating national designs on the reverse of the coins, we can use these measures to enhance people's emotional identification with their new currency while simplifying things at a practical level.
For the period following the definitive introduction of the euro, we must also step up our efforts to study its practical implications in day-to-day transactions, or perhaps compile a study on the matter.
For example, the lowest banknote, the five euro note, which is worth about 70 Austrian schillings, replaces not one but two of the most frequently used Austrian banknotes, namely the 50 schilling note and the 20 schilling note.
These amounts will soon have to be paid in coins, which means that in future we shall have to carry large money bags around with us instead of wallets.
Or will the development of electronic money be so far advanced by then that these problems might be avoided, or is it necessary to make a one or two euro note instead of printing 200 euro notes? Perhaps these are not the things to be discussing when the euro is just about to be introduced, but I believe there is every reason to include such matters in our future considerations.
Finally, I welcome the fact that the most recent statements do not question the independence of the European Central Bank.
The Bank's independence must remain one of the cornerstones of economic union in order to ensure a prudent and above all a stable monetary policy, because that is still the only strategy capable of winning the trust of the European people.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, clearly some of the proposed coins are vulnerable to fraud and hard to identify for blind people.
Yet Parliament pressed in December 1997 for the number of coin denominations to be kept as small as possible and for their value to be linked to their diameter, precisely in an effort to prevent fraud and make life easier for blind people.
A majority of the House, and the rapporteur has already stressed the point, thus failed to see why it should in fact be necessary to bring eight different coins into circulation, especially since electronic cash will shortly be replacing coins.
As far as I know, there is not a single currency set which has so many different coins.
The Council and Commission impressed upon us at the time that we needed to hurry, because production of the coins would be starting shortly.
Perhaps it was thought that the design and manufacture of coins was a technical matter and that Parliament knew nothing at all about that kind of thing.
Neither the Commission nor the finance ministers agreed at the time with our proposal that the 25 cent piece should be dropped.
And what do we find now? Even the experts could not manage to design coins which are easily recognisable to the blind and proof against fraud.
We have wasted time, not because Parliament wanted to make amendments, but because we now have to go through the whole exercise again.
It does not look as if the bodies responsible are going to take any notice of our opinion this time either - I hope I am wrong, Commissioner.
It does, admittedly, make sense that the Commission should take account of the views of the European association for the blind and the vending machine manufacturers.
I wholeheartedly endorse Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer's proposal, and I thank her for the way in which she has approached this matter.
Mr President, I fully endorse the substance of the rapporteur's comments in so far as they referred to the social aspect of the coins.
The Council has shown no signs of a social conscience in this matter.
The introduction of the euro would be a unique opportunity to prove that the European Union is prepared to make a gesture for the benefit of those citizens whom fate has placed at a disadvantage.
Many Member States are still in the Middle Ages anyway in terms of facilities for the disabled, at least by comparison with the United States.
The opportunity to design these coins in such a way that those who are blind or visually impaired can easily identify their value by feeling them has sadly been squandered.
This would have been a means of giving the euro a human dimension, so to speak.
I am in favour of the introduction of a gold 100-euro coin, one reason being, as the rapporteur so eloquently put it in her report, that it would enrich the new currency by lending it an emotional aspect.
Mr President, the amendments proposed by the European Commission are to be welcomed, since they are designed to help the visually impaired, to protect consumers and to thwart counterfeiters, as the rapporteur has indicated.
To be perfectly honest, however, I must say that Parliament was aware of this a year ago and came up with some very sound proposals.
The Commission considered the proposals to be good, but not practicable because of the timetable and the early deadline.
I therefore find it regrettable that lobbying in the course of this year has resulted in changes being made to the draft regulation after all.
I thought we in the European Parliament were still supposed to be the legitimate representatives of the consumers and citizens of Europe.
I consider it right and proper that the 50 cent coin should be 0.8 grams heavier so that coin-operated machinery can distinguish more reliably between 50 cent and 20 cent coins.
I consider it right and proper that the edge of the 50 cent coin should differ from that of the 10 cent coin, since it has proved difficult for people with visual impairments to distinguish between the two.
For these reasons the proposal merits approval, but there seems to be no logical reason why Parliament's proposals in particular could not be implemented, given that our findings should have carried at least as much weight as those of the specialised associations.
Every effort must now be made to ensure that these coins gain acceptance, not only in the financial markets and among financiers but also among the general public.
Since monetary stability is so especially important to our citizens, the mints must be able to guarantee at this juncture that the currency will still be counterfeit-proof after these alterations, for I believe that was one of the arguments used against the European Parliament proposals.
I also endorse the rapporteur's view that we need a sort of stability symbol in this economic and monetary union which will grow into a community rooted in stability.
What is the reason for minting a 100 euro coin in gold? I believe there is every reason.
For one thing, the proposal is consistent with the decision of the European System of Central Banks to hold only 15 % of currency reserves in the form of gold.
In view of the high gold reserves held by the national central banks, this proposal makes sense from both a monetary and an economic point of view, because it precludes the adverse effects on the price of gold that would result from any dissolution of gold reserves.
A gold euro coin can also help to build confidence in the stable foundations of monetary union. That is certainly an important reason.
In the past, many European governments have used metal and its value to prove their commitment to stability.
A euro coin made of gold can therefore continue this laudable tradition.
That is why it is high time that the European finance ministers and the central banks decided in favour of the gold euro coin, because unless the resistance of the central banks is overcome, another initiative will come to naught.
If there is a surprisingly heavy demand for these coins which creates an imbalance between their market value and their nominal value - and I say this partly to calm one or two fears - production of the gold coins could be halted.
That has happened with other coins, such as the French silver coin.
But in that case too, the effect of the initial commitment was to stabilise the franc.
The finance ministers' argument that there cannot be a 100 euro coin because there is already a 100 euro note seems a fallacious one to me.
Such duplication occurs in certain monetary denominations in many countries.
It is possible, after all, to ensure that banknotes and coins of the same denomination are not competing for public favour.
The 100 euro coin is also an overdue successor to the 200 franc Napoleon coin which circulated throughout Europe; it will be a collector's piece, a coin of value, a symbol which may well help the euro to win over the hearts and minds of the European people.
Mr President, everything has been said, but not by everyone and certainly not by me.
For that reason, I should like to add a few words on the subject in general.
I find it marvellous that Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer has been grappling so valiantly with this report and is still doing so, even though the striking presses have long been working to produce the coins we have discussed here today.
I am also gratified that all the things we had proposed in the past have now been put on the table here by the Commission, especially the proposals that affect the 11 million Europeans with impaired vision.
I believe this emphasises the fact that we are canvassing for confidence in the new currency within this section of the population too.
With the introduction of the euro only a few weeks away, confidence-building measures are precisely what is needed, and they are precisely what these proposals will help to achieve.
I find it really rather comforting to note that - as Mr Rübig has also spelled out here - the German Minister of Finance has come right back into the race at the final bend by endorsing the call for confidence-building measures, instead of standing on the sidelines casting doubt on the sovereignty and independence of the Central Bank with ill-considered statements.
I can only re-emphasise a point that is beyond doubt here in Parliament as elsewhere, namely that the European Central Bank must retain its independence - and it will, because there has been no indication that it will not - if it is to achieve its foremost objective of guaranteeing price stability.
Price stability, as we all know, happens to be one of the basic economic conditions that encourage investments, thereby promoting growth and employment.
Let me quote Wim Duisenberg again, who told us here that stable money is the best contribution that monetary policy can make to sustained economic growth and to the long-term reduction of unemployment.
I wish you all good-night!
Mr President, I have one or two minor points to make.
I understand why the rapporteur wishes to see one of the coins abandoned, but I would warn against minting a coin as big as the 100 euro in gold.
There are two reasons why I am so reticent.
Firstly, such a coin would never actually function as a coin. Secondly, it would encourage counterfeiting and fraud.
A 100 euro gold coin is never going to stabilise the price of gold, which is dictated by supply and demand.
If the price of gold were to rise above the face value of the coins, these would find their way out of circulation.
Were the price were to drop below face value, people would be encouraged to buy gold and make their own coins.
It is worth remembering how much easier it is to counterfeit coins than banknotes.
Mr President, even if - contrary to all expectations - the price of gold were to match the face value, it would still be easy to counterfeit such a coin.
Lead weighs much the same as gold.
There is no wizardry involved in making a lead coin and then covering it with a thin layer of gold. This fraudulent exercise could be very profitable.
My message to you today is that I really do not think that putting a 100 euro gold coin into circulation would be a very good idea!
Mr President, I will try to be as quick as possible so that I do not try everyone's patience at this late hour.
Firstly I must congratulate Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer and thank her for supporting the Commission's proposal.
I will very quickly answer the two questions posed, one on the content of the regulation and the second on the issue of the gold 100 euro coin in which interest was shown during the first debate on the Commission's proposal last November.
The reasons for and content of this proposal are as follows: we have proposed amending the basic regulation for purely technical reasons.
We do not want to re-open last year's debate on the national face or on the number of coins.
This proposal is in response to purely technical problems involving two coins, the 50 cent coin and the 10 cent coin. These problems have arisen since the adoption of the regulation.
Why? The answer is that the use of these coins must be made easier for the visually impaired and the blind.
They have asked us to do this and there is no reason not to meet their request.
They must be able to easily distinguish between the coins.
Furthermore, we must ensure that identification of the coins by vending machines will be as accurate as possible.
These problems arose after the mint-masters, on the basis of the regulation of 3 May, produced the much more detailed specifications needed for the production of the coins and when the first coin samples resulting from an industrial production process could be tested.
Two sets of necessary but very limited modifications are therefore proposed to solve these two technical problems.
Firstly, the weight of the 50 cent coin must be increased slightly to allow easier differentiation between it and the 20 cent coin, and secondly, the definition of the edges of the 10 and 50 cent coins must be changed by replacing the coarse milling with a shaped edge with fine scallops.
This will allow the coins to be more easily identified by touch.
I would point out to Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens that agreement has been reached with the European Blind Union on this point.
It was at their explicit request that we accepted these modifications which are purely technical and very limited and which do not bring into question the coinage system already specified and adopted.
I would add that the production of coins has already started, or at least of those coins which are not affected by these modifications.
With regard to the second problem of the gold 100 euro coin, in the Commission's opinion this request cannot be considered in the context of the Regulation on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins as this requires in-depth consideration.
The Commission, as the Guardian of the Treaties, must remind you that, under Article 105a (2), the regulation relates solely to the harmonisation of coins intended for circulation.
A gold 100 euro coin would pose risks of confusion and fraud and there is also a risk that these coins would be collected rather than used.
Mr Wibe clearly explained these risks just now, specifically with regard to the existence of a 100 euro note.
The intrinsic value of a 100 euro coin could exceed its spatial value following fluctuations in the price of gold.
It is considered that for easier use and to be aesthetically pleasing, a 100 euro coin would have to have a face value of EUR 300 to 400.
However, I have taken on board the concerns about the attachment of the population to the euro and the symbolic nature of the issue of this coin and we must examine this, together with all the competent authorities, regardless of the amendment of the regulation in line with Article 105a (2).
Not including this coin in the regulation does not prevent the possibility of the Member States, if they so desire, issuing a gold coin whose characteristics could be harmonised by mutual agreement, on a voluntary basis.
However, under the legislation in force on commemorative and collectors' coins, the legal status of such a coin would come under national law.
This coin could therefore be legal tender throughout the euro zone but it might only be legal tender in the country of issue.
At my request, the Commission services have contacted the mint-masters, the European Central Bank and the Monetary Committee no later than yesterday evening, and I can confirm that there is real interest in this proposal among the mint-masters. However, there is a certain amount of reticence among the Ministries of Finance and the European Central Bank.
The technical aspects involved in the issue of such a gold coin require an exhaustive study to be carried out and these aspects cannot be defined at this stage.
Similarly, the time of issue would also have to be carefully chosen in order to prevent any risk of confusion during the introduction of the coins and notes intended for circulation.
To conclude, I must stress the importance attached by the Commission to your proposal and I must say that the Commission is prepared, even though this proposal does not come directly under its competence, to report to the Council and to assist as far as possible with a feasibility study by all the parties concerned, whether mint-masters, issuing authorities, Ministries of Finance, national central banks or the European Central Bank.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, yesterday I raised a point regarding a camera stationed outside the Chamber with its light peering in through one of the doors.
In addition to this, I was proceeding along the corridor yesterday afternoon when a cameraman was walking backwards filming a Member of this House.
Not only was this a hazard to the cameraman's life and limb but it was also a hazard to any Member's life and limb.
I would ask the House and you, Mr President, as I know you treat this place with some dignity - much more than I do on occasions - to investigate these matters and perhaps advise us how these practices can be stopped.
Mr Posselt, this issue always raises problems because the Rules of Procedure also state that Question Time shall be held at such times as may be decided by Parliament on a proposal from the Conference of Presidents.
If the proposal from the Conference of Presidents is that it should not take place - and this is not the first time that this has happened, since it has unfortunately happened on a number of occasions -, then I cannot go against their wishes or force them to make a proposal to that effect.
It has always been parliamentary practice to ensure that Question Time takes place but there are exceptions to the rule - as in this case - and if matters on the agenda prevent it from taking place, then it may be that it does not indeed take place.
However, I note your comments and will forward them to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure so that it might inform us as to whether our interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, which has been used until now, is acceptable or not.
I would also like to point out that we have very limited scope for action in this respect because the Council is usually only present one day of the week in Strasbourg.
I have already requested that in one of the next tripartite discussions the Council be given the opportunity to extend its presence an extra day, so that Question Time can take place, although not necessarily on Wednesday afternoons.
Mr President, I want to add to what my colleague, Mr Falconer has said.
I also saw a film crew yesterday along the corridor filming some of our employees moving a trunk.
I am not sure why that should be of such importance.
I suspect the programme was not one showing the wonderful work that we do within this Parliament.
I will ask DG 3 to look into what happened and I will give you and Mr Falconer the information as soon as we get it.
Since there are no further comments, the Minutes are approved.
Thank you very much, Mr Imbeni.
This really is good news, given the particular difficulties involved in these negotiations.
And, in addition to thanking all Members, I think we also must give you special thanks for the effort you have made to secure the success of the conciliation.
Thank you, Mr De Clercq.
Agenda 2000
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the guidelines for Agenda 2000.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, today's sitting marks an important step in the process which must, before the end of this parliamentary term, result in the adoption of all the measures proposed under Agenda 2000.
The Cardiff European Council and the recent informal meeting of the Heads of State and Government at Pörtschach expressed the political will to conclude the negotiations on Agenda 2000 at a special summit next March.
I am delighted that the new German Chancellor gave a very clear indication at Pörtschach of his determination to successfully conclude this work.
My Commission colleagues will discuss in detail our reactions to your reports.
I should like to remind you of the political importance of the Agenda 2000 package. As you know, it involves the following three strands: substantial reform of EU policies, preparation for the most ambitious enlargement of the EU to date and, finally, the development of adequate and reasonable financing within the ceiling agreed at Edinburgh.
The Commission believes that it has always been clear that a reform of our policies and an agreement on financing in the context of the financial perspective were essential to prepare Europe for the 21st century.
The prospect of future enlargement adds to the importance of the global reforms contained in Agenda 2000.
Why must we reach agreement by March? There are several reasons for this: firstly, the approaching European Parliament elections which will have an impact on the activities of this House from March or April; secondly, the damage which a delay would cause to the credibility of the EU and to confidence; and finally, practical considerations linked to the programming of the Structural Funds and the establishment of policies, and also the negative effect on the accession process itself of any delay in implementing the pre-accession instruments.
Can agreement be reached by March?
I believe so, because all the relevant information is available, including the Commission's 19 detailed proposals, considered in your reports, and also the Commission's report on own resources.
Aware of the problem of financing the EU budget, the Commission chose to bring forward by a year its report on the operation of the own resources system.
This report was adopted by the Members of the Commission at the beginning of October.
I must say that this is an innovative document from the Commission as it agrees to an in-depth study of the EU budgetary situation, including the delicate question of the 'net balances'.
What was the reason for this? It was not because we enjoy tackling this difficult and over-simplistic concept but because of a desire for objectivity and Community spirit, to allow the discussions to take place in an open manner and on sound bases.
Parliament's role in this is clearly legislative, first and foremost.
While maintaining a global approach, Parliament has chosen to use every possible option to assert its point of view and, where the Treaty provides for this, to fully exercise its prerogatives.
Thanks to your cooperative attitude and substantive contributions, today's sitting will allow considerable progress to be made.
The Commission will listen attentively to Parliament and try to respond substantively to your observations.
We all know that the concurrence of the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the end of your parliamentary term may pose certain problems.
There are some aspects of Agenda 2000 which will be subject to the codecision procedure following ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
I would therefore highlight the responsibility of all the institutions to rapidly conclude an interinstitutional agreement that will allow a seamless transition to the codecision procedure.
Such an agreement is generally required in all cases where there is a changeover from the cooperation procedure to the codecision procedure.
However, Parliament does not just have a legislative role.
As one of the two branches of the budgetary authority, it will be a signatory to a new interinstitutional budget agreement.
The current agreement has proven to be very useful in maintaining budgetary peace and in guaranteeing a moderate increase in expenditure.
In the Commission's opinion, the conclusion of a new agreement that satisfies both branches of the budgetary authority is an integral part of Agenda 2000.
I am delighted that the initial technical discussions on a new agreement have finally begun.
Yet we must not rest on our laurels.
There is not much time between now and next March and we must intensify the in-depth discussions.
The adoption of the Agenda 2000 package is in the general interest of the Community.
We should all consider the consequences that a lack of agreement, before the European elections, would have on the new impetus in the EU created by the introduction of the euro.
I would therefore ask everyone to intensify their efforts before the Vienna European Council in order to ensure a good starting point for the discussions that must be concluded under the German Presidency.
Clearly, until there is agreement on every aspect, there will be no agreement.
However, mindful of this reservation, I hope that we will achieve three objectives in Vienna.
We must firstly obtain agreement on the 'technical' aspects of the legislative texts.
In this respect, I am delighted at the progress achieved recently in the Structural and Cohesion Funds, the pre-accession strategy and the trans-European networks.
Secondly, we must try to make progress in more political areas, for example in certain aspects of the agricultural and rural development reforms, of the structural measures and in the 'format' of the financial perspectives.
Finally, we must outline a final package that should concentrate in particular on the financial implications of the reforms and of connected budgetary questions.
I have tried to briefly outline the challenges facing us in the coming months.
The Commission is fully aware of the important role to be played by Parliament in this respect before your parliamentary term comes to an end.
On many occasions in the past you have proven your intention to play this role seriously and with the necessary responsibility.
Today's work must be treated similarly and the Commission will willingly contribute to this.
Mr President, I must say that I cannot see in Agenda 2000 the historic values on which the idea of the European Community was founded.
Instead of real values, we see monetary values - a currency.
Furthermore, it does not seem to me that the ideals have been maintained, especially in respect of the subject that I know best. This is going to be the subject of my speech as it is one of interest to my group, namely the common agricultural policy.
It does not, in fact, contain any concrete proposals but makes an underhand attempt to undermine one of the basic principles of the CAP, perhaps the most important, that of financial solidarity - which is also a form of moral solidarity -, through poorly concealed proposals to renationalise the CAP by creating national envelopes for the beef and milk sectors.
There is also a desire - one that is not concealed - to maintain the negative discriminations against less productive and less developed forms of agriculture by indexing the calculations of compensatory amounts on historical productivity rates. That will maintain a schizophrenic Europe, one divided between extremely poor countries and countries that are not poor for natural reasons or for reasons linked to their own national history.
As if Agenda 2000 and its legislative proposals were not enough, the Commission has now attacked agriculture and European farmers, especially the most fragile, in its report on the system of own resources by proposing the partial reimbursement of expenditure as direct aid from the CAP.
We are all equally aware that the CAP, the only genuinely common policy so far, is the cement of the construction of Europe. That is without referring to enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, or the millennium round of the World Trade Organisation.
Nor does it include even yesterday's statements here by the President of the Court of Auditors, who overstepped his functions as a judge to give his opinion on the aid given to durum wheat in the poorest countries. This smacks of a confusion of powers and goes against what old Montesquieu and old Locke preached about the defence of democracy.
Finally, in Agenda 2000, the least-favoured regions will continue to be least-favoured and the most-favoured will become richer and richer.
The gap can only widen; of that I do not have the slightest doubt.
Mr President, the challenge of the enlargement of the European Union can and must be approached in such a way so as to ensure that we achieve the major objectives in the process of the construction of Europe and particularly those concerning economic and social cohesion.
This is why we feel justified in our severe criticism of Agenda 2000, because it was drawn up in haste as an irreversible decision and without being thoroughly assessed.
It is a great paradox that Agenda 2000 was drawn up to facilitate enlargement and that, since then, it has scarcely been referred to in the proposals and arguments put forward.
Public opinion in the Member States sees the debate as one that centres on own resources and the insufficient ceiling of 1.27 % of Community GDP, as well as on the much disputed allocation of solidarity through the Structural Funds.
That is the major difference in terms of this debate with the Delors stage, when successive increases in both resources and the size of the Structural Funds were proposed.
The debate does not adequately address the issue and does not bear in mind the fact that we must not only build an internal market but that, above all, we must achieve economic and social cohesion.
Instead of simply talking about net contributors and beneficiaries, we should explain who benefits and by how much in an overall economic assessment, since the most significant economic policies are not reflected in the budget.
We cannot ignore the enormous profits that some economies in the large internal market are making, whilst others are paying the economic and commercial price.
Our main criticism in relation to the common agricultural policy is that there is no overall view and it only refers to certain sectors of production.
The reforms of the COMs will lead to substantial price reductions that will be compensated to a very small extent by income support and premiums for private storage.
Time will show this to be the case.
We are concerned about the effects involved both in social terms and in terms of employment that will affect the weakest farmers.
We are also concerned about the introduction of cofinancing since it does not solve the problems.
The solution should be found in genuine proposals to regulate direct aid aimed at correcting the present unfair imbalances.
In our opinion - and with all due respect -, the Commission's proposal is no more than a vague attempt at regulation that will merely serve to exacerbate the present imbalances.
Therefore, we are convinced that further efforts will still be needed to achieve a successful enlargement and also to solve the serious contradictions and insufficiencies that exist in our socio-economic and institutional lives before enlargement takes place.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after all the solemn declarations in Brussels, Luxembourg and London about the historic significance of enlargement, it now appears that the Council is moving down a gear.
There appears to be a climate emerging in which instead of the old Iron Curtain we now have a smokescreen of fine words concealing the Council's true intentions, which are to postpone the accession of new members.
We are perfectly well aware that we are dealing with an unprecedented enlargement operation here that places extremely heavy demands on all countries, both our own and the applicant countries.
The excellent progress reports which the Commission presented to us at the beginning of November show the efforts the applicant countries have made to meet the Copenhagen criteria, but they are paying a heavy price for the changes they are having to make.
Sizeable groups of the population are now poverty-stricken, as anyone who goes there regularly will have noticed.
This is why we want to draw attention to the fact that the establishment of a smoothly running market economy often degenerates into nothing more than an insistence on rapid privatisation.
The situation in Russia, for example, shows that privatisation which enables a small number of people to monopolise a country's wealth is definitely not a sound basis for a socially adjusted free market.
So the Commission and the Council should be insisting not just on rapid privatisation, but on responsible privatisation with the necessary mechanisms for political and social adjustment.
Compared with the enormous efforts that the applicant countries have made, the Council's approach has been far too laid back, in our view.
What progress have we actually made?
Institutional reform has been put on the back burner, and there is no sign yet of agricultural reform. In fact, all the indications are that we are going to continue with the old system of producer price reductions and exporting structural surpluses, rather than moving over to integrated rural development.
On finance, we are still calling for an open approach that would allow us to adjust the volume of funding if necessary.
For us, the key words here are participation and decentralisation.
Decentralisation of funding is now a reality, fortunately, but we have still not settled the question of the participation of representatives of the applicant countries in the advisory committees deciding on projects.
The recent report on nuclear safety by the Court of Auditors notes the Commission's embarrassing failure to improve the safety of nuclear power stations in the applicant countries.
The issue was actually taken up by the western European nuclear lobby, which was intending to use its own extremely expensive experts and export its own equipment, with disastrous results on the ground.
We can understand that the Commission should play a coordinating role in all this, but none of the programmes like TACIS, PHARE, BIRD and so on were put to best use at all.
We wholeheartedly support the proposals to start negotiations very soon with Latvia and later with Lithuania and Slovakia, and we were very pleased to see in the Joint Committee that our openness towards Turkey is producing immediate results, in that the Turkish representatives are now reacting differently to the European Union.
Above all, we must prevent the Union from being held to ransom by Greece and Turkey, both of which are behaving like interfering mothers-in-law rather than caring mothers, and are only making things more difficult.
Everyone knows that the resolution of the political problem in Cyprus is an absolute prerequisite and that without it, Turkey's accession is going to run into severe problems.
We therefore urge that the Union should appoint a European mediator to promote a more dynamic policy and bring this issue to a successful conclusion.
Mr President, there is a real temptation today to compare what our debate on Agenda 2000 could have been with what it has become due to a lack of sufficient political will.
The enlargement of the EU gave us a unique opportunity to examine together the principles on which our Community is based, to consider a new institutional structure which would be viable with 25 or 30 Member States, and to envisage the budgetary reforms which would have given meaning to continental integration.
After, and only after, this attempt to overhaul the EU, we might have studied the technical consequences of enlargement, on our agricultural and regional policies for example.
Instead of this wide-ranging debate, throughout the day you will hear the Members bemoaning the fact that they rightly consider that the measures proposed today are not equal to this historic challenge.
We should surely have started among the 15 Member States and with the applicant countries by reaffirming, and not just in rhetorical introductions, the special values of humanism, solidarity, justice and peace which form the European model, and the objectives of the proposed enlargement.
Given the lack of general agreement on the founding principles and on the new frontier, we are left with the impression that some are distributing the remnants of their prosperity, with much condescension and political imperialism, whilst others believe that they have been invited to enter a supermarket.
We must not fail to also mention the missed opportunity of Amsterdam when we should at least have outlined an institutional architecture suited to the continent and resolutely moved towards a federal model, instead of adopting a unique structure whose limitations are constantly being revealed. We must not fail to highlight the emptiness of our financial undertakings, which make our political undertakings meaningless.
In our own interest we should instead have been generous and imaginative, for example by considering direct Community taxation, which would give a concrete dimension to the People's Europe and genuine responsibility to Parliament.
We have not even used all the financial resources that existing treaties allow us to use for enlargement.
I am aware of all the arguments of the economists, accountants and statisticians.
They actually put forward these arguments against the German unification project.
Whatever the figures might suggest, common sense allows us to realise that increasing the size of the EU from 15 Member States to 20, 25 and then 30, with the same resources and unchanged rules, will inevitably result in a weaker Europe.
This will not be an enlargement but a dilution and a loss of solidity of the European Union, which will leave open Europe to extremely dogmatic economic liberalism and political powerlessness, thus paving the way for other interests.
This is why the Group of the European Radical Alliance, while generally being in favour of these reforms and some of the so-called reforms proposed, is still waiting for the major political debate on continental Europe which cannot be postponed for ever.
It is clear that this enlargement is an important moment in history but it is also clear that, at this great moment, our European project is singularly failing to make its mark.
The debate is closed.
Welcome
I should like to welcome to Parliament two distinguished members of the recently elected Slovak National Council: Mr Peter Weiss, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee and now co-chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, and Mr Frantisek Sebej.
We wish you every success in your work of taking Slovakia forward along the road to membership of the Union.
Pre-accession strategy
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0397/98 by Mr Barón Crespo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on coordinating aid to the applicant countries in the framework of the pre-accession strategy (COM(98)0551 - C4-0606/98-98/0094(CNS)); -A4-0382/98 by Mr Walter, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing an instrument for structural policies for pre-accession (COM(98)0138 - C4-0301/98-98/0091(CNS)); -A4-0388/98 by Lord Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) amending Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 2728/94 establishing a Guarantee Fund for external actions (COM(98)0168 - C4-0302/98-98/0117(CNS)); -A4-0383/98 by Mr Sonneveld, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on Community support for pre-accession measures for agriculture and rural development in the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the pre-accession period (COM(98)0153 - C4-0244/98-98/0100(CNS)).
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, the Council has left the Hemicycle and I would like this to be recorded in the Minutes.
I am going to present the report on the proposal for a Council regulation on coordinating aid to the applicant countries in the framework of the pre-accession strategy.
Let me begin, Madam President, by reminding you of a very basic but extremely important fact: enlargement is an essential political project not only within the context of Agenda 2000, but also for the European Union. This project does not simply involve the Union giving the applicant countries a check-up, as though it were a medical examination, less still letting them come in through the back door.
Rather, it is a protracted process that requires joint and shared effort to help these countries meet the requirements set out in the treaties, which were also reflected in theso-called Copenhagen criteria. Basically, they involve consolidating the applicant countries' democratic systems; restructuring their economies, not only to bring them into line with our acquis but also to ensure they operate as market economies; and encouraging good neighbourliness and solidarity between those countries, between each other and with us.
This requires political will and clear objectives.
I sincerely hope that the Vienna European Council will reach a political consensus in this regard and, in particular, that it will take account of the inclusive and global nature of this process, without creating new differences and divisions between these countries.
I also take note of some of the things that the Austrian Presidency has said and that I have interpreted as meaning that Parliament's proposals are being taken on board.
Firstly, category 7, which distinguishes pre-accession from the reforms, has been accepted. This is something that is positive more from the point of view of clarity rather than transparency, since transparency is not discernible whereas clarity is, and I think that we need to start talking more in terms of clarity in this respect.
The need to review the financial perspective is also accepted - since the figure of 1.27 % is not set in stone - as is the need for a certain degree of flexibility.
I believe that this may help the process.
As regards Parliament's basic contributions to the pre-accession strategy, we think that any pre-accession strategy has to bear in mind the overall political dimension of the process and not simply those individual assessments.
It also has to take account of dimensions such as those related to aspects of political cooperation and security, which are fundamental.
We think that it is important for the strategy to reflect and comply with what is set out in our treaties.
In this respect, we would like to emphasise that the strategy must be developed through the instruments we have, that is, our joint actions and common positions.
It is important that we ourselves respect the rules we have laid down, without needing to be reminded of them from time to time by the Court of Justice.
What is more, we have carried out significant work in terms of coordinating the various committees involved with the three basic instruments that are currently in force.
I must say that the Commission, which put forward the three proposals for a regulation somewhat hastily, has changed its position and amended these giving far greater weight to the PHARE programme.
In that respect, the Commission should also take Parliament's comments and amendments into account because they better clarify those objectives, particularly as to how the PHARE programme operates. This programme runs the risk of becoming two or three PHARE programmes: one for those countries that have already begun negotiations; one for those that are about to begin them and hope to do so; and one for those countries that are still not involved in the PHARE programme and that are not in the accession process either.
To conclude, Madam President, I wanted to point out that as a result of the coordination between the various committees in relation to the Hughes procedure, we were able to table amendments aimed at defining the political and economic conditions of the process while stressing the need for cofinancing. The amendments also referred to the need to assess and readjust the aid given within the limits established by the budgetary authority, to decentralisation and the monitoring of the process, to an annual report and to the European Parliament's involvement in the entire development and monitoring process.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament has on numerous occasions expressed its clear support for the enlargement process.
The enormous challenge now facing us is as follows: how can we on the one hand ensure that the applicant states are ready for accession, but on the other hand make the European Union and its structures ready for enlargement? In this context, the pre-accession instrument for structural policies for the applicant states, in short ISPA, represents an important link between countries within and outside the Union by giving support to the applicant countries for urgently needed investment and gradually bringing them into line with the methods of operation and mechanisms of European structural policy.
The success of the pre-accession strategy will depend decisively on whether all the available instruments, that is to say ISPA, PHARE, pre-accession aid in agriculture and also Interreg are coordinated as far as possible in the context of cross-border cooperation.
We cannot afford any duplication. That would put an unnecessary added burden on the applicant countries, because they have enough on their hands already.
It must be clearly established, under the coordination regulation and any partnership agreements with the applicant countries, which instrument is to be used, where and how.
Apart from that, the pre-accession instrument for structural policies must also resolve a fundamental dilemma.
On the one hand, the applicant countries have an enormous investment need in all possible areas.
In the field of the environment alone, it is currently estimated that the cost of the necessary investment efforts in the ten countries will come to more than 100 billion euros.
In that context, the EU financial contributions now being negotiated are little more than a drop in the ocean.
So the funds must be targeted carefully.
I think, and the clear vote in the committee endorses that view, that focusing the investment on environmental infrastructure and transport infrastructure should make it considerably easier to fulfil the requirements of the acquis communautaire .
We must not fritter away our money.
Given the slender funds, it is also right, as the Commission has proposed, to provide project-based aid, as in the case of PHARE.
But that does not mean that the relevant players on the ground in the countries and regions should not be fully involved in these activities.
Apart from the infrastructure investment, technical assistance will also be given under ISPA.
It would be wrong to use ISPA to support the general improvement of administrative capacity in the applicant countries, since PHARE does that.
Given that administrative problems still exist, and given the need to catch up here, it is however necessary for the efficient implementation of the projects to ensure project-related support for the appropriate administrative bodies.
Focusing also means concentration on a few projects or project packages of relevant size.
The Commission is right to propose a minimum investment of 5 million euros, provided this is supplemented by the provision that smaller investment sums up to a certain percentage of the resources can be allocated to smaller applicant countries and also in other justified exceptional cases. Here we need room for manoeuvre.
We can also achieve our target by applying the principle of cofinancing. This ensures that European funds are used rationally and improves their knock-on effect if they are used in coordination with international financing institutions, such as the European Investment Bank.
The structural pre-accession instrument keeps being compared with the Cohesion Fund.
That is correct if we look at the concentration on transport and environmental projects.
As in the case of the Cohesion Fund, we shall have to ensure a good balance between the two areas.
The environment must not draw the short straw when we support investment for enlargement.
But ISPA is more than merely a cloning of the Cohesion Fund.
It must also help the applicant states become accustomed to the Structural Fund mechanisms.
That is why we say that as regards implementation and management and any other area where this proves possible, the same provisions must apply as in relation to the Structural Funds and the further development of the Structural Funds currently under discussion.
The partnership principle must be applied from the outset and as widely as possible.
With ISPA, the Union is giving a good sign that we are serious about the accession of the Central and Eastern European states.
Much has already been said in relation to enlargement about time scales, dates and annual figures.
I think we must define realistic yardsticks here.
There is no point arousing great expectations that cannot be met, but at the same time we must make it clear that we will use our instruments and that we will indeed provide financial support.
ISPA represents the financial resources we can make available.
It helps the applicant states towards self-help, no more and no less.
In that respect, we welcome the Commission's proposal, subject to the amendments we have tabled, which we hope will be taken into account in the further discussions.
Madam President, the applicant countries are all busy adapting their farming sectors in order to be ready to join the EU on time.
Those wishing and intending to join early must demonstrably achieve substantial results in this sector if they are to be able to bring their markets, administrations and institutional infrastructure into line with those of the Union of the 15 without too much difficulty.
If the EU is to introduce a new instrument at this point to help the applicant countries in this pre-accession adaptation process, therefore, the help we provide must be strongly geared towards obtaining short-term results.
We must not make it excessively restrictive, because the field is extremely complex and the situation varies so much from country to country.
The Commission proposal to allow the applicant countries to choose priority programmes from a list of qualifying policy areas is a fair approach.
However, the proposal to demand that they draw up a rural development plan by 1 January 2000 incorporating all the programmes they have chosen seems far from fair, in my view.
Not that such plans are not useful and necessary in themselves, but they cannot be produced at such short notice in a democratic manner and with a sufficiently integrated approach.
All this does is to introduce unnecessary and even risky complications into this aid programme.
This is why I have put forward a proposal to the plenary on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture not to make these rural development plans a precondition, but instead to adopt a more pragmatic approach for the time being by funding a number of measures which are universally agreed to be useful.
We therefore call for a consultative committee to be set up made up of experts from the 15 Member States and the applicant countries.
Its remit would be twofold.
First, it would help to identify these useful measures, and at the same time it would ensure that the process of submitting them to the Commission for assessment was kept moving.
Its recommendations and support would be based on a thorough knowledge of the acquis communautaire and the process of change which the applicant countries are undergoing.
The services of the committee must be accessible to the administrations of the applicant countries and to the Commission's departments, in close cooperation with the EU representations in the applicant countries.
This should improve quality and speed up procedures, and thus provide more quantifiable results in the short term.
To the list of measures proposed by the Commission from which the applicant countries should preferably choose their priorities, the Committee on Agriculture has added the establishment of an agricultural credit system and the accelerated and widespread introduction of book-keeping in farming.
The committee's text also introduced conditions for a number of the measures, relating to distortion of competition and compatibility with Community legislation.
I think it is more logical for all these conditions to be listed in Article 6, which deals with the question of compatibility and the conditions to be applied to the aid measures.
As regards coordination, we must try to ensure that the EU rules for the various aid programmes are as uniform as possible, such as the rules on budgeting and accounting.
The best possible use must also be made of existing coordination and monitoring structures, and I therefore agree with the amended Commission proposal to make the PHARE committee responsible for this agricultural aid programme too.
The system of twinning between institutions in certain Member States and those in some of the applicant countries, in the field of veterinary and plant health inspections for example, should also be supported.
The monitoring committee set up for this system should naturally continue its work under the new arrangement with our support.
In this way, we can continue to build on the current activities under the PHARE programme.
Madam President, it is appropriate that we are launching this latest enlargement of the European Union this year, which is also the year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Berlin airlift.
That was a remarkable international effort in the interests of European peace, stability and democracy.
It is already very clear that this enlargement of the European Union is going to require the same kind of international effort if we are to see it through successfully.
It will require unselfishness on the part of the Member States of the European Union and the applicant countries.
It is clearly a complex and extremely demanding process.
We have to commit ourselves to the ultimate goal, which is a stable and prosperous Europe.
Having said that, any solutions to these problems have to be accepted by the people of Europe, both our own voters and the voters in the applicant countries.
So our solutions have to be practical and acceptable.
Opinion polls in the European Union at the moment show that people are either indifferent or hostile towards enlargement, so we must actually sell this project, both within the European Union and in the applicant states.
As well as putting money into infrastructure and the environment we have to think about the people.
After all, as Galbraith said: 'Money is not superior to democracy'.
I would like to see more work done on the social dialogue and on developing programmes in these countries to help people affected by economic change.
In terms of the particular instrument that we are looking at today, as Mr Barón Crespo says, there has to be greater clarity about how this money is spent and how the committees administering this money are set up.
In view of the latest Commission scandals we must make sure that this project is not tainted by any doubts about how the money is managed.
Madam President, the regulation on coordinating aid to the applicant countries in the framework of the pre-accession strategy is an extremely important step along the road towards the enlargement of the European Union.
We are currently engaged in a process that considerably changes the Union's image of itself.
Up to now, we have always regarded ourselves as members of a European economic community, but we are increasingly coming to the conclusion, particularly in our contacts with the applicant countries, that we are primarily a confederation of democratic constitutional states.
This has also, of course, had an effect on our relations with some of the applicant countries, particularly Slovakia, and we can be grateful that the trouble we took with Slovakia in this respect may well have helped to influence its people to change the way they voted.
We welcome the fact that the new government there is pursuing a completely different policy from that of its predecessors, and we hope that Slovakia will very rapidly feel the benefits of its prospective membership.
The Council has taken account of Parliament's desire to monitor the entire process, and we welcome this.
The way in which the aid is organised is a very instructive example of the Union's political and administrative practices, and there is an important element here of familiarising countries with what future membership of the Union will entail.
They have to deal with three financing instruments with clearly defined aims.
They are shown how the Union manages operations, and they also get to know how things are coordinated.
The emphasis on the responsibility of the Commission is extremely important.
Article 9, in the Commission's version, is very clear and detailed on this point, and certainly must not be watered down.
If the Member States are involved in the coordination, it seems logical that they should coordinate their own aid within the same framework.
I think this is a point worth emphasising.
In our accession discussions with the UK Presidency, we demanded and secured a procedure which guaranteed that Parliament would be able to examine any changes or additions to the accession strategy.
We must be very careful here, which is why I do not think it is a good idea specifically to bring this dossier under the second pillar, where we have little say at the moment.
It is also a good thing that our budgetary powers put us in a strong position, and this is partly why I think that we should not adopt the Swoboda-Titley amendment, Amendment No 15.
The PPE Group will therefore be voting against the amendments which give the applicant countries a stronger say in the aid process, since we think that the management should ultimately remain in the hands of the European Union.
After all, it is our taxpayers' money, and we have a responsibility to them.
The amounts of aid are not particularly high - in fact, you could say that they are surprisingly low.
It is amazing that we can achieve such a high ideal at such a low cost.
Madam President, the Liberal Group supports the amendments by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to the Commission's commendable proposal to streamline aid to the applicant countries.
It is very much in the Union's interests to use the aid funds efficiently, but the budgetary scope is limited and sound management is called for, making alignment with the Member States and the international financial organisations essential.
We also support the Commission's proposals to decentralise the decision-making powers on micro-projects, and staff and funding must be made available for this.
We oppose the proposal to make the entire enlargement dossier a foreign policy joint action.
This sounds like a good idea, given that enlargement is or is claimed to be the main element of the Union's foreign policy, but joint action under the CFSP requires unanimity in the Council and puts the European Parliament in a weaker position.
More dynamism is required in the preparations for enlargement, as is clear from the Commission's progress report.
There are considerable differences in the efforts which the Member States have made and the results they have achieved in preparing for enlargement.
It is primarily up to the applicant countries to do their work properly, but it is clear that the quality and quantity of the aid provided is also a factor.
It is not the financial target of 1.27 % of GNP but the quality of the preparation for enlargement that must determine the level of aid.
The Liberal Group is delighted with the objective assessment of all the applicant countries.
The Commission has rightly said that the two groups are not set in stone, and the efforts they make must be rewarded.
Lithuania, Latvia and Slovakia are all making progress in their own way, but the Czech Republic and Slovenia are proving surprisingly lacklustre.
We do not have to decide yet on moving certain countries from group II to group I. That will come next year and not just in six months' time either, because we cannot expect the Commission to report every six months.
Madam President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank Mr Barón Crespo and the other rapporteurs for their work. Obviously some of Mr Barón Crespo's report is the product of the work done in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, and we are very grateful to him for taking on board a whole series of points and suggestions.
It is clear that the Agenda 2000 enlargement is the great challenge facing this Parliament and the European institutions. It is an extraordinary political challenge for countries which only a few years ago could only cherish the dream of Europe, the myth of Europe, a democratic Europe, a Europe of rights and freedom.
Well, the thought of reducing all this to an accountants' logic of how much money needs to be transferred from one place to another to help those who want to join in this great dream of liberty and democracy, strikes me as pretty simplistic.
If this is the political challenge our credibility will be riding on in the years ahead, our institutions are certainly not ready to face up to it.
It is like a car designed for six passengers which already has fifteen people in it, and now we are trying to squeeze twenty-five in.
The car is in danger of collapsing!
That is why, in my opinion, we need to deepen our institutions in this pre-accession strategy.
Above all, our dealings with countries which are getting closer to Europe must not revolve around the quantitative problem of economic support, but must substantially involve exporting democratic models and citizens' rights.
Madam President, those countries are building a constitutional state.
If there is one thing of value Europe can transmit to them, it is that very concept of the constitutional state, democracy, citizens' rights and the ability to exercise them in every way.
Madam President, today's debates take us into a crucial phase for defining the next Community financial framework and the guidelines and rules due to govern some of the most important policies and instruments.
I feel that these debates are taking place in conditions that are completely different from those surrounding the debates that we held on the first and second Delors packages.
But, in practical terms and to sum up, far off are the times when economic and social cohesion was presented as a point of honour and when we held heated debates about the resources to be earmarked to match our ambitions.
Undoubtedly, there is an ambition: that of enlargement.
And there are instruments - yes, there are - to carry out the various proposals made.
Nonetheless, what is lacking is the money available for the aims and instruments.
We have no reservations, in principle, about enlargement but we cannot say the same about the approaches chosen by the Commission to carry it out.
Enlargement will obviously lead to increased expenditure, undoubtedly far greater than the contributions that the candidate countries would be able to make to Community funds.
This means that the European Union is going to have to make a choice between two alternatives and only two: either we must make additional financial resources available for enlargement or we will have to reduce expenditure, in other words, cut back our current aims and policies.
For our part, we are clearly in favour of the former option.
But this is not the option of the Commission.
As it has made strict compliance with the Stability Pact a priority, it has opted for the approach of reducing expenditure.
This is the objective result of its proposals to maintain a ceiling on financial perspectives at current levels of 1.27 % of Community GNP and the subsequent reduction in that ceiling for the current 15 Member States to 1.13 %, or freezing the structural actions for an enlarged Union at the current 0.46 % of GNP.
This is now also the result of its proposal to renationalise CAP costs.
We reject the Commission's option and think that this vital question cannot be put to one side at this moment in time.
That option would inevitably result in the sacrifice of economic and social cohesion.
We cannot understand how, for the sake of a new form of solidarity, we can sacrifice the solidarity that happens to be enshrined in the Treaty.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we say that enlargement of the European Union is the greatest challenge since the cold war.
We say that the accession of our eastern neighbours can bring new stability to Europe.
The Council representative says that our neighbours await European Union support for tackling their reforms and adopting the acquis communautaire .
But let us look at the scale of the financing: it is pocket money and it is shameful.
The reality is that the applicant countries are virtually paying all the costs of the pre-accession strategies themselves.
That is why I regard the patronising attitude towards these candidates reflected in the regulation as unacceptable.
Surely they cannot be treated merely as objects of decision-making.
They must finally be recognised as partners.
The least we should do is to give them a say in the coordinating committee.
The Greens reject the concept of enlargement as a one-way street and call for an enlargement strategy based on partnership.
Let me add something on the amendments, because in my view the order of the voting list is wrong.
Mr Barón Crespo will surely accept that our Amendment No 17 to his Amendment No 7 and our Amendment No 19 to his Amendment No 9 represent, in both cases, additions rather than alternatives.
Madam President, I have some comments to make on this pre-accession strategy, resulting from my experience as rapporteur on the subject of the association of certain CCEE with the education, youth and culture programme.
Apart from the media sector, these are areas in which the acquis communautaire is modest.
However, these areas demonstrate certain imbalances from which our strategy suffers.
To start with, I fully support the rapporteur's point of view.
Firstly, this pre-accession phase cannot be considered without taking into account the link that exists with certain Community policies and their necessary development.
Secondly, the goal of coherence and efficiency involves the reaffirmation of the political objectives in the enlargement process.
This is why it is unfortunate that, in this second phase, the PHARE programme concentrates more on technical operations to the detriment of more political reforms, for example in the social or cultural area.
Furthermore, in this obstacle course which the applicant countries must tackle, and which is modestly referred to as the adoption of the acquis communautaire , I fear there is a tendency to be content with appearances and to sometimes fail to assess the adherence of these countries to Community policies in terms of values and beliefs.
This is particularly true in the areas of the environment and transport, which are covered by this new ISPA instrument.
In this case too, I am not fully convinced that this instrument meets the intended objectives.
Madam President, we were very pleased to hear from the Commission that good progress has been made in the run-up to the negotiations with the applicant countries on accession to the European Union.
A number of sections of the acquis have been screened and the results are encouraging, although some countries are slower in moving down the right path.
However, we are also hearing some less positive noises, and it is becoming clear that adaptation to EU legislation is a much bigger task than was originally thought.
I endorse the reports before us today, but there are a few points I would like to emphasise.
A great many demands are being made of the applicant countries, such as respect for fundamental freedoms, which have to be met if they are to join.
The demand for quality in the adaptations they make must on no account be used as an excuse for delaying their accession.
The reports show how the Council has been unable to convert the implications of the decision on enlargement into a political strategy.
Is the political will really there?
The negotiators must realise that the former eastern bloc countries have little experience of respecting democracy, human rights and the rights of minorities.
I am not saying that they should not be blamed for this, but we in the European Parliament have to acknowledge that many of them have made surprisingly rapid progress here.
We must not set the bar too high for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to join.
They belong to western Europe, and after a period of Communist domination they are now looking to the countries of western Europe to help them achieve their legitimate aspirations to security and prosperity.
Joining the stable security structures of the European Union and NATO may help to prevent new conflicts, and the fledgeling democracies of Eastern Europe can be encouraged to develop along particular lines.
We should seize this opportunity and make every effort to ensure that these countries join as soon as possible.
If we expect the applicant countries to adapt, the European institutions should set them a good example.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union is preparing for the fifth time to welcome new Member States, namely Cyprus and the ten countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
This enlargement will be much more important than the previous ones.
Europe of the 15 will become Europe of the 26 and will consist of an additional one million kilometres and a further one hundred million inhabitants.
In particular, this enlargement towards the East can be taken as a sign of the final destruction of the Iron Curtain, which has divided our continent for nearly half a century.
Since its creation in 1972, the National Front has constantly fought against this Iron Curtain, which was built by the Communists to enclose the people of Eastern Europe in an enormous concentration camp.
In his first speech to this Parliament, Jean Marie Le Pen denounced this oppression.
For many years, although lacking resources, we tried to help our brothers in Eastern Europe but we were then a lone voice.
In France, all the other parties accepted the situation, including the Communists, of course, whose leader Marchais acclaimed the positive consequences of the people's democracies, their socialist allies, and also the RPR and the UDF, led by Giscard d'Estaing and Jacques Chirac who even went so far as to place flowers on the tomb of Lenin, the worst mass murderer of all time.
Similarly, in 1991, our group was alone in supporting the struggle of the Lithuanians against the Soviet Union and that of the Croats against Yugoslavia.
At the time, Jacques Delors, the US Government and all the European leaders condemned these people for daring to rise up against communist and federalist regimes.
These same people now want to see Eastern Europe come under the control of Brussels.
We are opposed to an enlargement of this kind, as it would cost our countries dearly.
The Commission has assessed the financial cost at over 500 billion francs between 1999 and 2006.
This is hardly surprising.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have been ruined by over forty years of Communism.
This cost will be borne in particular by France for it currently receives little from Brussels, to which it pays over 90 billion francs, and it will receive even less in the future.
The agricultural policy, which has already been drastically reduced, will be cut back even more.
France's regional aid will be reduced by 20 %.
Corsica and French Hainaut will no longer be included among the regions assisted under Objective 1.
However, money is not everything.
Lech Walesa, when he visited Brussels some years ago, said to me that we in Europe were creating a new Soviet Union.
He was right.
Madam President, although Mr Samland has not spoken yet, I would like to concentrate on Lord Tomlinson's report.
I have to say that it is clear from this whole debate that the idealists are not practical enough and the practical people are not idealistic enough when to comes to dealing with the enlargement problem.
We have just heard a number of ideas that are extremely idealistic, such as my colleague Mr Oostlander's suggestion that the whole enlargement dossier should be brought under the CFSP and thus handed over to a bunch of quarrelling diplomats.
I think the CFSP is far too important for this.
The fund mentioned in the Tomlinson report is a good example of something that is both practical and idealistic.
It provides aid for countries which is guaranteed by loans and guarantees issued by the Union, and it seems to have been very successful.
Of course, there are times when it becomes clear that some countries cannot pay, which is when the European Union's guarantees come into play.
This is an important element.
The only thing is that it costs money, and this is something the Council in its wisdom failed to consider.
It thought that the guarantee in itself was enough of an advantage, but there comes a point when you have to pay up.
Thanks to pressure from the European Parliament, a fund has been created which more or less provides those guarantees itself.
The fund needs to be supplemented, but it now fortunately appears that we need less than we originally thought and that we can reduce the figure from 10 % to 8 %, which is good news.
This means that the Union has created an extremely practical instrument which is effective, which can be directly applied in the countries concerned in one way or another through the institutions which they themselves have set up with their central banks, and which is making progress.
I would even add that we have used this same model in the employment programmes in Europe, where we have also used the combination of guarantees plus loans.
It really is a very, very good model, much better than all the other things that have been proposed.
It is also a model that I can prove was purely the result of pressure by the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets. If it had been set up as some Member States wanted, in a happy-go-lucky fashion, nothing good would have come out of it, and people would have blamed Parliament for wasting taxpayers' money again.
But this is not the case.
I think that we in Parliament need to bear in mind that if the diplomats get it wrong, we shall be the ones who are blamed, not them, and so we need to be both idealistic and practical.
Madam President, it is vital to focus and coordinate the aid for the applicant countries effectively by means of the three instruments available if we are to achieve maximum possible benefit.
Fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria is the basis for further development action.
Efforts must also to be made to coordinate aid to the applicant countries based on cross-border and intergovernmental cooperation in the EU with the Interreg and TACIS programmes, so that the aid itself forms a coordinated whole.
Aid to improve nuclear safety must also be concentrated in accordance with the PHARE programme.
In the allocation of agricultural aid to applicant countries we need flexibility and a clear system of prioritization on the basis of partnership agreements.
Integration with the EU's single market and standards requires a massive amount of development work, which must focus on a policy of quality in foodstuffs production, monitoring, plant and animal health and the environment as a whole, all within the framework of sustainable production.
We have to prepare for the consequences of structural change in agriculture with an effective, wide-ranging rural policy to create new and varied enterprise action and new jobs, and that is why a high level of education and training is vital when it comes to exploiting the use of the aid given to the applicant countries.
The partial decentralisation of administration to the applicant countries under the supervision of the Commission is also a step in the right direction. We should support the participation of the beneficiary countries, and we must also emphasise the importance of their own involvement in financing investment and discovering sources of funding.
Madam President, since we are debating a report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs about enlargement, I would like us to turn our attention to a superlatively political issue which has affected people in my country and is very worrying for them.
It concerns the accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union.
We were extremely disconcerted to see a statement by France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands, in which they link the eventual accession of the Republic of Cyprus to the European Union with a solution to the Cyprus problem, a thing which bears no relationship to the initial positions adopted by the European Union at a succession of European Councils.
It is certainly sad to see governments such as those of Mr Dalema, Mr Schröder or Mr Jospin pursuing policies which are worse and which deviate from the commitments made by governments such as those of Mr Berlusconi, Mr Juppé or Mr Kohl.
In that sense, I would stress that the worst way to solve the Cyprus problem is to say that its solution is a political prerequisite for the accession of Cyprus to the European Union, because that would constitute a motive for Turkey, which does not want Cyprus to join, to do nothing about the Cyprus problem even supposing it would otherwise have liked to find a solution to it.
In that sense, I think it is very important to stand by what Mr van den Broek once said here, and our principle should be that the accession of the Republic of Cyprus must not be held hostage by any other country.
Madam President, enlargement of the EU to the Central and Eastern European countries brings with it both opportunities and risks, not just for the applicant countries but also for the EU.
It is particularly important to the agricultural sector that we do not export the destructive system of agricultural policy we have pursued in recent decades to these countries, but that instead we support their existing regional structures, develop them and give them a chance to modernise and become more effective.
At the same time, we must resist the temptation to set in motion a form of development which, under the heading of 'structural improvement', would give rise to the same kind of negative trends.
That is why I do not agree with the line taken in the Sonneveld report. It says that we must not call for plans for the integrated development of the rural areas.
This means that he is not in favour of this positive development, which we must promote, but would like to continue pursuing the old system of rationalising structures and thereby destroying jobs and encouraging forms of production that are neither species-friendly nor environment-friendly.
So we cannot endorse Mr Sonneveld's amendments, not least out of a sense of responsibility for the development of agricultural policy in the EU.
Madam President, the accession of the countries of Eastern Europe, in particular the great Christian country of Poland and the Hungary of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, is clearly an important and wonderful project.
I should like to examine the consequences from the agricultural perspective of the Seapared programme.
The agricultural population of the West will increase by 50 % and our land will be increased by 30 %. Of course it is good to add to one's assets.
In the Eastern European countries, 25 % of the working population are farmers but this percentage should fall to 6 % as in Western Europe. Agricultural prices are lower with 30 % less for meat, 20 % less for cereals and 15 % less for wheat.
These countries also have problems of overproduction and plant health and they must adapt to our standards, particularly in terms of food safety. The cost is ECU 500 million per year but I am not going to talk about this as it could be resolved if necessary.
The problem, however, is that these countries must start on the difficult journey which we in the West have already completed.
Common market organisations must be established, the right to property must be revised, veterinary and plant health changes must be made and in particular farmers must be eliminated.
This means eliminating Hungarian farmers and producers of Hungarian Tokay, the king of wines and the wine of kings.
Polish farmers must be eliminated, leading to unemployment.
Structural Funds would then be needed.
The West's regrettably hyperproductive agricultural model must be applied with, if you will pardon the expression, concentration camp-like livestock farming, the consequences of which we have seen in the West.
My greatest fear is that the accession of the countries of Eastern Europe - to which we might agree given the strategic nature of the project - is just a pretext for certain things.
The first is for the fall in prices in the West, due to the revision of the CAP and to prepare for the negotiations within the World Trade Organisation.
The second is for the revision - currently underway - of the financing of not only the common agricultural policy but also the whole European Community, with the ensuing problems of France losing too much, Germany losing even more and part of the common agricultural policy being nationalised under the pretext of the cost of the accession of the Eastern European countries.
Thirdly, the accession of these countries must not be used as an excuse for challenging our CAP.
It must not be used as a weapon to defeat western farmers by highlighting the fact that their costs are higher and must be reduced.
Furthermore, it is impossible to do two things at once.
Can we handle Mercosur, the transatlantic market and all the costs it may incur, and open up to the East at the same time?
In conclusion, this is clearly a major strategic project which is soul-stirring but gives the impression of being premature, badly prepared and with many negative elements for the countries of Eastern Europe, which I know want to accede, and many negative elements for us.
Perhaps discussions should be continued and intermediate stages provided? Everyone knows that the road to hell is paved with good intentions and that perfectionism can be counter-productive.
Madam President, first let me thank you and the House very warmly for your forbearance in allowing me to deputise for the rapporteur.
Unfortunately I could not be here at the set time because I had to talk to one of our partners about the conciliation procedure this afternoon.
That was the problem.
I must also apologise on behalf of Lord Tomlinson, who is attending an important meeting in the House of Lords today in a different capacity.
As you know, an important decision is pending there for our British colleagues.
Let me now turn to Lord Tomlinson's report on amending Regulation 2728/94 establishing a Guarantee Fund for external actions.
As Mr Pronk just pointed out, establishing this Guarantee Fund was a long-standing aim of the European Parliament, because we could not agree to the Member States of the European Union giving guarantees unless these guarantees were safeguarded through a fund, especially in the event of defaults.
The entire budget stood guarantee in full for any potential defaults.
So we found it very welcome when this Fund was proposed in 1994 and accepted by the Council, because it created the basis for covering the guarantees in Central and Eastern Europe.
In the report it has now submitted on the use of these funds and the risks they are designed to cover, the Commission concludes that the target amount of the Fund should be brought down from the existing 10 % to 8 % of outstanding capital liabilities.
The Commission justifies this on the basis that potentially risky guarantees are situated at a level for which a lower percentage rate of payments into the Fund would suffice. By how many per cent are we reducing the rate?
In this case, the proposed percentage rate would require an annual maximum amount of EUR 150 million to match up to the present level of lending to non-member countries, which comes to a maximum of about EUR 2.5 billion.
That would allow the Fund to cover these risks.
The rapporteur, as also the Committee on Budgets, reached the conclusion that the Commission is right in saying in its report that, according to its estimates and analysis, the total of outstanding loans carrying a more than normal risk was about ECU 1.075 billion as of 1 July 1998.
You can read that up in the report too, broken down by the various CIS member countries and the countries of Asia and Latin America.
On that reference date, the Fund had at its disposal ECU 1.186 billion.
Therefore, in the event that the total amount of loans which could be considered to be carrying a heavy risk were not repaid, the Fund would be able to cope with that loss.
It would not even be necessary to draw on the amount allocated in the budget for loan endowments during that financial year, which is to say ECU 338 million in 1998.
In that respect, it was right and sensible to reduce the target amount.
The rapporteur and the committee endorse the Commission's proposal in that respect.
We have, however, tabled two amendments on which we would like to hear the Commission's position before the vote on this report.
One calls on the Commission to submit a regular report to us so that we can re-evaluate the trend in the utilisation of the credits and the funds.
I think this is the point on which we differ least.
Here the Commission will endorse our view.
It is Amendment No 2.
But I would like the Commission to confirm this.
Far more important, however, is Amendment No 1.
Who is to manage the Fund?
Here we take an entirely different view.
I tend to agree more with Mr Pronk than with the Commission.
The Commission would like to transfer the management of the Fund from the European Investment Bank to its own administrative staff.
We believe such a step would be quite wrong.
In his explanatory statement, the rapporteur has once again pointed out that he considers it unlikely that European Union officials would be better able to evaluate the risks in granting loans than a bank, which has to prove itself at bank level and has to evaluate the quality of the risks as part of its usual banking business before deciding to grant loans.
So we want to maintain the existing article.
That would mean adopting Amendment No 1.
The Commission is asked to delete the point in its proposal relating to the financial management of the Fund.
We would like the Commission to make a statement on this.
As proposed by the rapporteur, I would like to say the following: if the Commission does not accept these two amendments, we will call for the report to be referred back to committee, because we cannot in fact support it if the Commission does not accommodate us on this point.
Madam President, enlargement of the EU with the accession of the Central and Eastern European states and Cyprus is not just a project starting with the new century, it is also a task for that century.
And a project of this scale calls for an exceptional effort on the part of all concerned.
Indeed, everyone has now realised that this primarily means the applicant states.
But in the light of the real differences between us and the applicant states, for instance in the economic and social field, I continue to believe that in general the European Union is still not making enough efforts to meet this challenge, not least in financial terms.
But be that as it may.
In the given circumstances, I believe the Commission has nonetheless submitted proposals that are for the most part viable and at least still give us a chance to master this important process of accession to the European Union and give it a positive shape.
I would like to address one detail.
I believe it is more necessary now than in past enlargements to familiarise the public administrations in the applicant states with the aims and procedures of the acquis communautaire at all levels- not just at the highest level, where this is certainly already the case, but also at lower levels.
In my view, we are still underestimating the background situation of the majority of these states, namely a dictatorship system with the corresponding type of administration.
Moreover, we all too often forget that the same people are still working in the lower echelons of this administration, who are of course now endeavouring to work under the new system.
But we should gear parts of our pre-accession aid much more specifically than in the past towards retraining the administration.
On the other hand, it is probably less necessary now for western Europe to finance new studies.
I believe it is enough to analyse what we already have in that respect.
Let me come back to our task for the new century.
We should approach the interests not only of the applicant states but of course our own interests too in the most fair and balanced manner.
But above all, as European democrats we should also be thankful that we can take part in this historic process.
Madam President, the reports on 'Agenda 2000' that the various committees are presenting hang together like spider's web.
But acceptance of the proposed reforms must be wholly subject to maintenance of the Community policies contributing to cohesion between the Fifteen and to measures to facilitate the accession of the applicant countries.
As regards relations ahead of the pre-accession strategy, we agree with the rapporteur and with those who assert that the criteria defined at Copenhagen must be respected: the constitutional state, democracy, existence of a market economy, respect for the acquis communautaire .
We take the view that the new accessions represent a historic opportunity to reconcile our continent with its past and that they are needed to define the Europe of the future.
But the Commission's proposals are prudent and pragmatic as they have to take account of the strong divergencies between the states, divergencies which underline what the Alleanza Nazionale has long maintained: that a great Europe is one where political union is the precursor of economic union. Political union should be and should have been refined before initiating the pre-accession negotiations, so that the new states could actually be presented with a precise and well-defined framework for the whole.
So the proposal lacks a political introduction, which we think is necessary and which would have buttressed the central problem that the new accessions raise - the future financing of Europe.
Plus we deplore the fact that the opening presented to the six states does not respond to precise political choices, and we suspect that it may be just an accounting device to make it possible to achieve the enlargement while maintaining the Community budget on the current base of 1.27 % of gross domestic product until 2006.
To be complete, the construction of Europe must unite all its peoples.
But we must point out, with some regret, that the institutional reforms, the future financing of the budget and other problems are still waiting in the wings, while there is a need for unambiguous political will on the part of all the governments to handle European affairs politically and not as a purely economic and financial negotiation.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I detect in our joint debate a discrepancy between a pre-accession strategy that is admirable and full of ambition and an Agenda 2000 that should prepare the Union for welcoming the applicant countries and in fact involves the necessary alignment of our common policies.
With regard to the pre-accession strategy that I wish to discuss this morning, I feel that we desperately need to take an overview of this. This overview would show that the enlargement for which we are preparing is not just a simple case of adding together two units.
The EU must remind the applicant countries of this.
We cannot engage in a bilateral process with each Member State.
We must assess the overall impact of this strategy.
Less than a year after the adoption of a list of applicant countries that the EU could initially integrate, we now see that the map has already changed.
Malta has resubmitted its application, the Commission is envisaging the accession of Turkey under new conditions and there is a renewed possibility of two Baltic applicants being accepted.
More than ever it seems that the European Conference is essential, in its role as a forum for producing this overview, and I feel we must return to this.
I cannot stand to see this gap between the global and inclusive process that we have always wanted and the absence of an overview.
We need to debate and consider the frontiers of the Union, the political objectives of the Union, the methods for decision-making and governing with more than 15 countries, and the methods for defending this body and for making its voice heard in world affairs.
The amendments proposed by Mr Barón Crespo are in line with this and I fully support them.
However, we must all be careful: if the devil is in the details, we are in danger of becoming blind to these details sometimes.
As you know, ladies and gentlemen, our agenda this morning has been organised to take account of the formal sitting.
That is why the votes are taking place now, and also why we unfortunately cannot complete our debate this morning, as we could have done if we had held the votes at midday.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome a delegation from the National Assembly of Mauritania who have taken their seats in the official gallery.
This delegation is led by the Speaker, Mr Sid'ahmed Ould Baba, and I would point out that this is the second interparliamentary meeting with the relevant delegation of the European Parliament.
Our relations are based on friendship, cooperation and partnership, and I very much hope that this second meeting will enable us to strengthen these relations further.
Thank you, and a warm welcome to Strasbourg.
(Applause)
VOTES
Mr President, I do not know whether it is our machines that cannot keep up with Scottish technology or whether you are going too fast for the machines but there is a whole row here that is not working properly.
Mr President, I think we need to get away from the destructive tribalism of your last comment.
We voted on 12 amendments with one vote.
I should like to have your ruling as to whether that counts as 12 roll call votes or not.
(Laughter)
It is a productivity deal and I am afraid it is one move of the finger, one count.
Welcome
Mr President, as chairman of the Delegation for Relations with Japan, I would like to point out that an important delegation from the Japanese Diet is present.
They have travelled a long way and I hope that we can give them a warm welcome.
(Sustained applause)
VOTES (continuation)
Mr President, it is an unmitigated disaster that Members have only received this amendment at 10 a.m.
I wonder what the Liberals are up to? The wording in the Swedish text says 'shorter working hours', but the Liberals would prefer it to be 'flexible working hours'.
Low inflation is mentioned, but not in the translation, which is absolutely terrible!
I was, of course, opposed to this proposal, which was fine in the original, so please can we have the original version back!
Something also has to be done about the translation!
You are quite right.
The one safeguard we have is that the language services always ensure that the amendments correspond to the original version.
But there is a problem in getting amendments to people on time.
Amendment No 2
Mr President, after consultation with the various groups, I should like to make two small, but to some people important, changes to Amendment No 2.
In the first section, 'European investment programme' should be changed to 'European investment strategy' and 'develop' to 'extend'.
This last change is mainly a point of accuracy.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Welcome
Before we move on to the next vote, I have great pleasure in welcoming to the official gallery a delegation from the South African National Assembly led by Mrs Frene Ginwala, Speaker of the National Assembly and leader of the South African delegation, who are with us for their fourth interparliamentary meeting with the relevant European Parliament delegation.
This is an historic moment in the relations between South Africa and the European Union: negotiations are currently under way to conclude a trade, development and cooperation agreement, and we hope that they will be concluded successfully shortly.
Our respective assemblies will then be consulted on this agreement, which will help to bring the countries and the peoples which we represent closer together.
I wish the South African delegation every success and a pleasant stay during their visit to Strasbourg.
(Applause)
VOTES (continuation)
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Group and pursuant to Rule 129 I must ask for this report to be referred back to committee.
During yesterday's debate, Mr Sainjon put forward arguments justifying this request.
Unfortunately he cannot be present today but as I fully agree with him I am repeating his proposal.
Both arguments relate to current events.
Firstly, we are actually voting on a Commission communication that we know is no longer applicable.
We are in fact going to adopt a report which Mrs Mann has had the goodness to adapt in accordance with the new political situation.
The current context involves a Transatlantic Economic Partnership dealt with in a Commission/Council agreement and, more recently, in fact just a week last Monday, in a Council agreement on an action plan which we have never seen.
We received a copy of this in English in the Committee on External Economic Relations but Parliament has never been able to debate this text.
This is the first current event which means that we risk voting on a text which is out of date in terms of the policy and the issues and which, more seriously perhaps, risks causing confusion and even contradiction in Parliament.
This would not be good for this House.
In conclusion, the second current event is the American position on bananas.
Everyone is aware of this situation so I will not go into it.
I believe that the context in which we debated this in committee, and even yesterday, has changed.
We cannot be conciliatory towards a discussion partner who is being arrogant.
Mr President, I found it difficult to understand the translation of the amendment from the Liberal Group in the earlier work and it is even harder to understand Amendment No 1 from the UPE Group.
In the Swedish version it has been left out altogether.
I apologise to Mr Pasty for my incomprehension.
Mr President, I believe you made a remark which I consider to be rather personal.
In reply to Mrs Thors, you indicated that the stupidity of Amendment No 1 might not just be a result of the translation but that it was perhaps intrinsically idiotic or stupid.
My conscience has led me to reread this amendment which simply says that, in the negotiations with the United States, we must respect the acquis communautaire .
I will let you and this House judge whether there is anything stupid in this amendment.
I am sorry, Mr Pasty, if my remarks caused offence.
It was meant to be a flippant remark in the spirit in which the point of order was made.
No offence was meant to your group.
It was a joke.
Some people find jokes harder to take than others.
(Mixed reactions)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, our group wholeheartedly supports the resolution on sign language, and we call for our policy on the deaf to pursue two objectives.
First and foremost of these is greater accessibility, by which we mean equal access to education and public services and equal opportunities to take part in public meetings and hearings.
There are about half a million deaf people in the European Union.
By improving accessibility for the deaf, we are strengthening democracy.
Secondly, we call for better integration for deaf people, and there are five things that will help us to achieve this.
First and most important is better training for sign language interpreters.
Integration for the deaf is perfectly possible through the use of interpreters, so we need to provide adequate training opportunities for those who wish to learn sign language.
It will be difficult to achieve general recognition for sign language.
In Sweden, Denmark and Finland, sign language is already recognised in education, and the other Member States should follow suit here.
We also need recognition for sign language in contacts with the public authorities and in the fields of employment and culture, perhaps following the United States' example.
We must also ensure that the deaf have equal access to information.
They have the same rights as those who can hear, but while this is obviously the case in the United States, it is often not so here in the Union.
Another glaring problem is the incompatibility of text telephone systems.
In my country, Flanders, alone we have at least three different systems that are not compatible, which gives you a good idea of the scale of the problem throughout Europe.
This is completely unacceptable in the single market.
There are no absolute standards for these communication systems, which is why deaf people currently tend to use faxes, though this is not two-way communication.
They are now investigating possibilities using the Internet, which offers them huge opportunities to improve communication with those who can hear.
Here again, the question is whether all chat systems are compatible and whether everyone can afford to buy the necessary equipment.
In conclusion, I should like to stress the importance of multimedia applications and of ensuring that the deaf are fully involved in their development.
One final point: the Community has few powers in these areas, but I think that we in Parliament, as representatives of the people of Europe, have a duty to speak up on behalf of half a million deaf people.
The incompatibility of the text telephone systems is clearly an internal market problem, so I hope we can rely on the Commission to come up with some proposals here.
In any case, I hope that this resolution has more of an impact on the Member States than was the case with our resolution of ten years ago.
I am pleased to endorse the European Parliament's support for this resolution, which marks the tenth anniversary of our original resolution, first calling for the official recognition of sign language for Europe's 500, 000 profoundly deaf citizens.
Today in Portugal and in Finland, use of sign language is a constitutional right.
Yet in four member states there remains no recognition of sign language, and in others, the gap between legal rights to sign language use and actual practice remains huge.
I would like to congratulate the European Union for the Deaf for their research into sign language use for which this Parliament was pleased to provide funding and the results provide a platform for further action in every country across Europe.
More awareness of sign language, increasing technical opportunities for deaf people to use sign language through electronic communication, and significant funds for training of sign language interpreters are absolutely essential demands from our Parliamentary resolution.
The sign in British Sign Language for 'okay' is a simple thumbs up.
Let us give that 'thumbs up' to our deaf citizens in honouring their right to communicate in the way they themselves choose.
Murphy report (Doc.
A4-0424/98)
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work on an urgently needed report.
The proposed directive relating to special provisions for vehicles used for the carriage of passengers comprising more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat is of great importance in enabling people with reduced mobility to lead fuller lives, as well as making it easier for them to use public transport.
We are pleased to note that to a large extent the report takes account of the needs of people with reduced mobility, so as to make it possible for them to travel in the types of vehicle covered by the directive.
The rights of people with reduced mobility must come before the private interests of bus manufacturers.
There should be a Union-wide coordinated approach to dealing with the issue, since to allow Member States to decide matters for themselves, or to leave it to the market, would only worsen the chances of people with reduced mobility having their needs met.
Although we voted for the report, we are still critical - for the reasons expressed in our previous explanation of vote - of the form of legislation it represents.
In the different areas, legislation should be the principal and guiding mechanism, while technical specifications at profession level should be left to professional bodies and be applied through special regulations.
Mr Murphy's report is topical in dealing with what constitutes one of the most difficult problems for the European Union and the internal market. The free movement of goods presupposes either the establishment of a minimum requirement, which applies to all Member States, or that Member States mutually agree to approve each other's goods.
In both cases, Member States with high minimum requirements can be forced to lower them.
In our view, the minimum requirement recommended by Mr Murphy in his report is so wide that there would be no serious risk of Member States having to lower their own minimum requirements.
Neither does the report make any mention of compelling Member States to change their current regulations to make buses that are now in service undergo alterations.
Instead, the report recommends that vehicles which comply with the requirements contained in the report would automatically be acceptable in all Member States.
We have decided to vote for the report for the above reasons.
It should be a foregone conclusion that all Member States, manufacturers and operators have a duty to ensure passenger and traffic safety and that the special needs of disabled people are met.
Any loophole in the laws of Member States should be rectified at national level.
There is no need for an EU directive to legislate on total harmonisation or detailed specifications relating to the construction of buses, for example the width of seats, height of boarding platforms, provision of palm-operated buttons, or size and location of exit signs.
Furthermore, it is absurd for MEPs to have to adopt a position on 143 pages of technical data, drawings, and so on.
It is evident in both the Commission communication and the report that it is the existence of protectionist measures with regard to trade in buses within the internal market which is the prime concern and is the reason for both the report and the Commission's proposal.
I voted against the report for the above reasons.
I would have preferred the Commission to have viewed the issue from the standpoint of passenger and traffic safety and with the problems of disabled people in mind, and to have put forward a recommendation that would have improved safety and accessibility.
Although the report certainly deals with an important issue, it is nevertheless totally inappropriate for the European Parliament to be considering such technical matters.
This should be looked at by the bodies which organise Parliament's work, so that a decision can be taken in Parliament endorsing the principles, objectives and guidelines, with a decision then being taken by qualified experts on specifications relating to seating, steps, doors and so on.
Soltwedel-Schäfer report (Doc.
A4-0401/98)
In our explanation of vote, we should like to stress that we still think that the design of the euro coins should take into consideration the needs of blind and elderly people.
As regards the proposal to introduce a 100 euro coin, we have decided to bow to the opinion of the PSE Group, although for our part we view the issue in a more neutral light.
This report gives me an opportunity to draw attention to a problem about which the public is becoming increasingly concerned: the proliferation of euro coins.
In addition to the euro coins minted by each of the 11 Member States in the euro zone, it seems that states that have a monetary agreement with one of the Member States in the euro zone are requesting that they be allowed to mint euros with national faces.
This request is being made by San Marino and the Vatican City in Italy and by Monaco in France.
I must say that this request is absurd.
Not only would it mean that countries which are not part of the euro zone and which do not therefore have to fulfil the very strict obligations for this would have the right to issue euros, but it would also contribute, if accepted, to the proliferation of euro coins. This would add to the public's confusion, which will be widespread anyway given the numerous commemorative coins that will undoubtedly be issued around 2002 to celebrate the advent of the euro.
In addition, as the Prime Minister of France, Lionel Jospin, has already indicated, authorising the Vatican to mint euros with an image of the Pope on the national face would risk causing constitutional problems in countries where there is a clear separation of Church and State.
For all these reasons, the issue of euro coins must be strictly limited and the three states indicated must consequently be refused the right to mint euro coins.
The Council's proposal amending the Regulation on denominations and technical specifications of euro coins intended for circulation has two aims. The first is to alter the weight of the 50 cent coin in order to meet the requirements of vending machines, and the second is to change the definition of the edge of the 50 and 10 cent coins, at the request of the European Blind Union, to facilitate their use.
We agree to these substantive changes as we believe they are practical. On the one hand, they are intended to facilitate the daily life of the visually impaired and, on the other, they should prevent fraud.
However, we must consider the consequences in terms of cost of these last-minute changes, given that production has already started.
It is rather curious, not to say unacceptable, that these changes have been made at the last moment when the minting of the coins has already begun, at the end of a full-scale campaign to promote the euro throughout Europe and after many technical studies and numerous hearings of experts!
Once again the cart has been put before the horse.
It is saddening that disabled people were not taken into account earlier, while the practical aspects are still not fully settled!
The Council, Commission and Parliament should all share responsibility for this.
A little more precision in the first place would obviously have helped the introduction of the euro.
As regards the rapporteur's proposal that a gold 100 euro coin should be introduced with EMU, I would definitely advise against this - even though Sweden is not part of EMU - because such a measure would almost certainly not stabilise the price of gold at a nominal level of 100 euros per coin.
Rather, the price of gold would continue to fluctuate.
If the price of gold fell below 100 euros per coin by weight, new coins would be produced, that is counterfeited, and if the price of gold exceeded the nominal value, the coins would be melted down and disappear from circulation.
Furthermore, with the value of the coin being so high and it being so easy to counterfeit, a 100 euro coin would only encourage fraud.
The proposal should therefore be rejected.
Hughes report (Doc. A4-0381/98)
High rates of unemployment and the falling demand for labour are fixed variables preventing our Union's social policies from coming into line.
If we introduce factors like the future economic and monetary union, the ageing of the population or the future enlargement to the CEECs into the analysis, the paradigm gets even more complicated.
The Union's philosophy on policies for employment and mobility and on differentiating work typologies must be based on three types of approach: the first is optimising action; the second relates to financial support; and the third to the legislation which should underpin the new social action programme.
Like the rapporteur, we must first deplore the way the Commission keeps insisting on resorting to the use of instruments that are not legally enforceable, when, in our view, in areas such as the organisation of work, workers' individual and collective rights and social measures regulating the free-market economy, rules should continue to take the form of directives.
In our view the Commission would be able to act more vigorously if it included a series of provisions in the new social programme. The most important of these would be reducing the fiscal pressure on small companies and raising employees' wages through profit-sharing schemes, practical measures which should certainly be accompanied by initiatives to define the future of social dialogue precisely, and promote the adoption of a charter of fundamental social rights, also extending it to those partner countries which have not yet ratified it.
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work, both as regards the presentation and contents of the proposals contained in the report.
The new Social Action Programme is very important in the Union's development of its social and labour market policies.
The Commission's proposals are basically sound, but they would have been noticeably improved by the inclusion of the committee's amendments.
We agree with the proposals put forward in the report, in particular as regards the following: a clearer focus on the social dialogue, a move to incorporate provisions relating to individual rights in the social sector in the Treaty, an action programme against discrimination, legislation on sexual harassment, the need for stress to be included in legislation on the protection of employees, and their right to information and representation in the workplace.
The report warrants a number of amendments which constitute urgent matters in themselves. However, it would be better to deal with them in another report that is more relevant to the areas they touch on.
We are not voting in favour of the Hughes report on the Social Action Programme 1998-2000, since it contains proposals for directives on workers' individual and collective rights and the social regime which will disregard the Danish system of agreements.
We are going to vote against the report, because we do not think that it is appropriate to legislate at EU level on matters relating to the organisation of work and workers' individual and collective rights.
Labour rights and related issues should, in the main, fall to the competence of individual countries.
We agree with many of the rapporteur's proposals to improve the new Social Action Programme, for example on promoting worker involvement in company decision-making and strengthening the rights of employees' representatives, as well as the proposal to promote civil dialogue - we think that biannual forums are inadequate.
However, we do not agree that directives are an appropriate form of legislation in areas such as the organisation of work and workers' individual and collective rights. Instead, we think that negotiated agreements between the partners in the labour market are a workmanlike and appropriate way to achieve success in this area.
We also have reservations as regards legally binding legislation on sexual harassment.
We have therefore decided to abstain in the final vote.
The Social Action Programme, commonly known in Brussels jargon as the 'SAP', was submitted for our approval today. The French abbreviation is 'PAS' and this reminds us of unfortunate recent events in France when the French National Assembly considered the now notorious PACS - ' Pacte Civil de Solidarité', which is a legal framework for two cohabiting people.
We have voted against this SAP.
There are several simple reasons for this, and they basically relate to our very conception of social Europe and what this must be.
Social Europe is not the Europe of the devotees of Maastricht and Amsterdam.
It is not the Europe of the general minimum income or of voting rights for immigrants.
It is not the Europe of no borders and company relocations.
It is not the Europe of ultra-liberals, free traders and internationalists.
Social Europe is first and foremost the Europe of homelands, national preference and social welfare.
As a tool for social peace, social welfare must have the nation as a development framework and must come under the responsibility of each state.
Unlike the rapporteur, we believe that, in the context of the internal market, social matters must require unanimous approval by the Member States.
Decisions taken on social matters have such extensive effects on all labour relations and on the lives of our citizens that all decisions taken by a qualified majority, where these are compulsory and therefore imposed on all the Member States, are dangerous for all citizens, whether working or unemployed.
We have therefore voted against this report which is dangerous in addition to being demagogic.
Prioritising employment is a positive move.
EMU, the single currency and a permanent anti-inflation policy make it more difficult to increase employment.
The Social Action Programme should preferably be a non-binding instrument for analysing problems that lead to social exclusion, poverty, unemployment and discrimination.
Legislation on social issues, individual rights and so on should preferably be carried out by Member States and not through EU Treaty provisions.
In paragraph 2 of the report, Parliament expresses its disappointment that the Commission is increasingly resorting to the use of regulatory instruments in the field of labour legislation.
Instead, the report establishes that 'in areas such as the organisation of work, workers' individual and collective rights... rules should take the form of directives...'
I am wholly in agreement with the report as regards the importance of basic labour rights legislation.
However, I should like to point out that this is mainly a matter of national concern, and EU competence only extends to areas involving the organisation of labour and the working environment.
In other areas, it is important to recognise Member States' cultural differences.
For example, Sweden does not have a legal minimum wage; the issue is decided through collective bargaining and agreement.
I am in favour of an EU directive on minimum standards in the areas of organisation of labour and the working environment.
In many Member States, it will enable workers and their representatives to enhance their working environment.
However, I have serious reservations about an EU directive in the field of labour legislation.
It is also very important to encourage the European social partners to commit themselves to a binding agreement.
Agreement has shown itself to be the most effective way of achieving a functioning labour market.
Getting the social partners to take greater responsibility for reaching agreement considerably strengthens the labour market.
There should be no recourse to legislation by Parliament until the social partners have articulated the causes of their disagreement.
With its new social action programme, the Commission is trying on the one hand to justify recent developments in the area of social policy, and on the other hand to set the general framework and philosophy of its future action, while at the same time offering a limited number of specific proposals.
As regards its justification, it is compelled to recognise the fact that unemployment 'persists' at high levels and that in many Member States the proportion of those employed is very low, but it still insists on the recipes it has been following in recent years, in other words the need to promote 'a new balance between the needs of companies for flexibility and the needs of working people for security', as elegantly expressed in the attempt to sweep away the acquisitions and rights of working people.
For the Commission, three important factors will have a drastic effect on Community legislation and serve as a pretext for the anti-labour attack in progress: EMU and the single currency, the ageing of the population, and the enlargement of the EU, all of which are being used to back the philosophy of 'flexibility' and 'adaptability'.
The Commission says that the policy pursued by the EU and its Member States on employment has brought 'noteworthy results'.
Naturally, it regards as a 'noteworthy' result the extension of 'employability', in other words the transfer of responsibility for employment to working people and their various qualifications and not to the state and the employment policy it implements.
It even regards as positive the imposition of part-time work, the continual spread of the phenomena of poverty and social exclusion, and the decline in the standard of living of working people, who are bearing the brunt of the 'new employment policy' and its recipes.
The Commission makes special reference to the celebrated Local Employment Agreements as a means to create new jobs.
Here, of course, it omits any reference to the fact that LEAs are becoming a wooden horse for the overthrow of labour relations.
In Greece, participation in them goes hand in hand with medieval working conditions and specifically with the non-application of collective agreements (an aim which the Greek Government recently legitimised by means of the recently enacted law on labour relations), with very low pay, with circumvention of the provisions of safety legislation, and with flexible timetabling and informal kinds of work.
We will not deny that certain proposals worry us a great deal.
When the Commission announces that it will be submitting a new statement on the reinforcement of 'adaptability', that it will encourage 'adaptable contractual provisions' or that it aims for 'better harmonisation between occupational and family life', experience shows that this means new measures, further cuts and intensification of the attack against the hard core of labour legislation.
From that standpoint, it also worries us when the report by the Committee on Social Affairs calls for an extension of binding Community legislation to the areas of labour organisation and the individual and collective rights of working people.
Indeed, which way will that binding Community legislation move?
We are not overlooking the fact that some of the proposals are positive, such as those relating to stronger insurance protection for itinerant workers.
However, for the other centrally important issues which concern labour relations, the health and safety of working people and social legislation in general, the Commission's choices lead to a headlong decline in the level of protection.
The report by the Committee on Social Affairs, though it contains some positive statements and proposals on some of the issues, accepts the policy framework consisting of the triptych of employability, adaptability and 'self-employment' for working people who lose their jobs.
For that reason, we view it with serious reservations.
van Velzen report (Doc. A4-0417/98)
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work on an urgently needed report.
The report should be praised for the way in which it undertakes the adjustments to the employment guidelines that are needed in order to make them more effective.
In particular, we should like to stress the importance of ensuring that employment is placed within the context of European macroeconomic policy.
The scope of the report in this respect is to be commended, and goes in the right direction for achieving a dynamic employment policy within the framework of the European labour market, as the predominantly social democrat Council acknowledges.
Amendment No 1 on the need to prevent unfair tax competition is particularly interesting from Sweden's point of view, on account of the recent high-profile transfer of profits by Pharmacia and Upjohn to Luxembourg.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the report on the employment guidelines for 1999.
We firmly support the new form of European cooperation on employment.
Exchanges of experience and annual assessments for the Member States will hopefully bring results in the form of more people moving into work.
We are also pleased that the emphasis has been placed on continuity in relation to the employment guidelines for 1998.
The initiatives which are under way need time to operate in practice.
Equal treatment is the area in which the Member States have lagged most behind in 1998.
It is therefore right that it should be given greater prominence in the guidelines for 1999.
We need to have some quantitative objectives in terms of equal treatment.
We do not support the call made in paragraph 2 for VAT to be reduced.
The van Velzen report contains a long series of parameters designed to guide the Member States' employment policy in 1999 which we are unable to support.
It is clear from the report that an important part of the European Union's drive towards integration is to ensure social convergence.
At the same time, it stresses the importance of the Member States acting in accordance with the Stability Pact.
In principle, we do not believe that social and labour market policy should be a matter for the Union.
It should be left to the individual Member States to determine the guidelines for these policy sectors on a sovereign basis.
The power to regulate should therefore remain at national level, and as close to individual citizens as possible.
The report stresses the need to raise the level of qualifications in the workforce and to mainstream equal treatment policy and promote policy initiatives in favour of the disabled.
It is important to give priority to these sectors, not least because there is still a large group of women who, despite the fact that they do the same work as their male colleagues, are paid less for it.
However, it is problematic for the EU to combine these initiatives with its attempt to establish common European guidelines for Member States' employment policies and to encourage social convergence in the EU.
We believe it is crucial for the EU system to respect the different social and labour market policy traditions in the Member States.
Establishing social convergence is therefore a step in the wrong direction, because for a number of countries, many of the Commission's proposals will in the longer term result in a gradual dismantling of their social security systems, thereby actually worsening the situation of the disabled and other vulnerable groups in society.
Thus in the Commission's communication dated 14 October 1998 - COM(98)574 - it is emphasised that, in order to promote employment, the Member States should set a target for 'reducing the overall tax burden and, where appropriate, a target for gradually reducing the fiscal pressure on labour and non-wage labour costs'.
Combined with the monetary policy contained in the Pact on Growth and Stability and the requirements for Member States' monetary and financial policy, we believe that this economic strategy will ultimately result in the Danish social policy model being put under pressure.
I welcome the fact that our rapporteur has raised the question of coordinating economic policies and, in particular, of using tax harmonisation as one of the main weapons in the fight against unemployment.
I am also delighted that he has emphasised the need to develop entrepreneurial spirit, and that he has stressed the need for better targeted use of the Structural Funds in order to promote employment.
On the other hand, it would have been better if a number of unrealistic and economically questionable solutions had not been put forward.
As a result, I am concerned by our rapporteur's persistence in asking, on several occasions, that working time be reduced by means of a centralised procedure.
There is nothing to stop a company appealing for greater flexibility in working time whenever the opportunity presents itself.
But to want this decision to be taken, at all costs, at the highest level of our European institutions would be pure nonsense.
There is another proposal that strikes me as particularly worrying: some sort of European 'New Deal' that involves using the currency reserves of the National Central Banks to stimulate investment!
Without going as far as debating the validity of a Keynesian upturn, such a measure would only accelerate the fall in the dollar and, in doing so, would work against recovery in Europe.
I do not believe that this is what we wish to achieve.
This report on the proposed guidelines for Member States' employment policies for 1999 contains a series of recommendations relating to Member States' action plans.
We are all keen that Member States should cooperate and coordinate their strategies in order to create lasting employment.
Sometimes it is justifiable to 'urge on' Member States, but there are also times when Parliament wants to go too far.
Amongst other things, the proposal in paragraph 6 of Mr van Velzen's report, concerning a European Pact that should include the coordination of economic and financial policy, goes too far in our view.
Despite the fact that we are voting against this paragraph and have abstained on another, we are still going to vote in favour of the report as a whole, because it encourages job creation.
The van Velzen report contains some very sensible proposals on employment policy.
However, I think it would be useful to look more towards tax reliefs and less towards aid measures.
But I have no sympathy at all for giving unilateral support to women in paid employment, while at the same time discriminating against women who bring up their children themselves.
It is high time we recognised that bringing up children in the family is a real and highly-qualified job and remunerate it accordingly.
The relevant studies show that a clear majority of mothers want to bring up their children themselves but are forced by material pressures to take a paid job, which means they then have to put their children into child care establishments.
The job of bringing up children within the family deserves to be fully recognised as such.
After all - to put it in business management terms - it produces valuable human capital.
I will vote in favour of the van Velzen report.
Nevertheless, the European Parliament should have been clearer about how much macroeconomic manoeuvre was allowed to stimulate growth, particularly as Parliament maintains, with the French and German Governments, that there is a need for a fresh cut in interest rates in countries in the euro zone.
Parliament also supports the requests from the Head of the Italian Government that the vice-like grip of the Dublin Stability Pact be loosened, particularly to promote investment.
The report should have placed greater emphasis on the urgent need for major developments in infrastructure by setting time limits and suggesting ways of financing them, for example by means of a major European loan.
We fear that this idea, which has been raised many times, might remain only on paper and might not become a reality. There is also cause for concern that it has not fulfilled the desired objectives - namely job creation - as it has been diluted over time and has not reached significant critical financial mass.
Lastly, the plea for a reduction in working time is rather feeble as the objectives do not provide figures or dates and the 35 hour week is never clearly stated.
More serious still is the wording of paragraph 19, which links flexibility to a reduction in working hours.
As everyone knows, flexibility does not create jobs but, on the contrary, destroys them. Flexibility is a characteristic of jobs that do not have normal status and leads to an increase in part-time work and to job insecurity.
I will therefore vote against this paragraph.
Whilst the European Union does not have a true founding treaty for a social Europe, whilst employment, according to the Amsterdam Treaty, still falls under national jurisdiction and whilst European initiatives are restricted by the Stability Pact, there is a real danger that Europe will not be capable of taking decisive action that may help reduce mass unemployment.
So, if current growth is a bonus, it must be consolidated, and if we assume that it will continue at the rate recorded, it would take decades to substantially reduce the mass unemployment we are currently experiencing.
Finally, what can we say about full employment, other than that it is still the only valid objective for supporters of a European social model!
I welcome the report's aim of increasing employment.
However, with regard to reducing taxes on employment, I would like to point out that there is no correlation between that and increased employment.
Technical and empirical studies have failed to show that an overall reduction in employment taxation would increase employment.
The extensive and independent studies that have been carried out reveal considerable uncertainty as to whether lower taxes affect employment.
In the Scandinavian countries, in particular, such studies have failed to identify any such correlation.
I am happy to vote for this report, noting as it does that an extra 750 000 jobs were created across the EU in the last year.
But as we all know, other jobs are threatened by traditional problems such as skills shortages and by new problems such as the knock-on effects of financial market crises in East Asia and other parts of the world.
The stark fact that more than half of all unemployed people aged 25 or more are classed as unskilled underlines the depth of the challenge we all face in the EU to raise our skills and raise our competitiveness in the global economy.
I am glad that the New Deal for young people introduced by my own country's Government is to extend to older unemployed people in response to this challenge.
We are in a long war against unemployment and we have to bridge the skills gap if we are to win the struggle.
The report rightly calls for more quality childcare places to allow parents who do want to work to find and keep a job and thus support their family by their own efforts.
Again, I would commend the British Government's radical national childcare strategy for further study in the rest of the EU.
Of course, each country has to adopt policies to suit its own particular unemployment challenges, but I believe that the great changes in British policy embodies by the New Deal and the national childcare strategy are British answers to the common European problems of skill shortages and parents trapped on benefit with no childcare available.
Paragraphs 2 and 3 of the report put forward the usual standpoint expressed in Parliament that lower taxation on labour is a foolproof way to achieve increased employment.
According to the rapporteur, this applies particularly if taxes on environmentally damaging factors and, for example, primary products are raised simultaneously.
There is nothing in economic theory, or in empirical reality, to support such an assertion.
I am particularly opposed to the claim that reducing taxes on labour-intensive posts would create more jobs.
The whole idea is based on a very partial economic analysis and does not take account of the fact that tax revenue translates into increased demand.
I should also like to express my reservations regarding the assertion - for example, in paragraph 21 - that having shorter working hours leads to more jobs.
The introduction of shorter working hours is a good idea for several reasons, but it is not an effective weapon in combating unemployment.
Peter report (Doc. A4-0392/98)
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work on this important report.
Promoting social dialogue will be of the greatest benefit in strengthening the Community's policy on employment, labour markets and the enhancement of working life, as well as on social issues.
The committee's proposal clarifies the role of the social dialogue in the provision of information and the intensification of negotiations. At the same time, a wider view of the importance of the social dialogue in partnerships for employment is put forward.
As regards Amendment No 3 on the CEMR's participation in the combined sectors of information, consultation and negotiation, we do not support the proposal as a matter of principle.
With regard to negotiations involving the different sectors within the framework of the social dialogue, which this amendment touches on, we do not think that the EU institutions should interfere in the selection of representatives to participate in the negotiations between the different partners.
This is a matter for the social partners to decide for themselves, without any of them being deprived of their role by the Council, Parliament or Commission.
We should also like to see the partners, when they so wish, involve the CEMR in the negotiations on the social dialogue, but only on their own initiative.
We should like to point out the significance of paragraph 13 on the number of representatives in the new composition of the Standing Committee on Employment.
A reduction in the number of representatives to no less than 12 would appear to be unavoidable. However, additional arrangements are required if the partners are to carry national authority.
Paragraph 13 highlights this point, but the Commission should devote more attention to the practicalities of achieving this.
Finally, we should also like to stress the importance of the Standing Committee on Employment being given the chance to discuss the EU guidelines on economic policy as well as the guidelines on employment policy.
A strong employment policy in Europe clearly has an economic perspective which goes beyond the employment guidelines.
So it would be quite natural for the Standing Committee on Employment to discuss the economic guidelines as well.
We are unable to support the report on adapting and promoting the social dialogue at Community level, because we believe that the basis for the dialogue between the partners in the labour market is ultimately the establishment of what will in fact be EU agreements.
At the same time, we think that it is problematic for the partners in the labour market, as it says in the report, to be involved 'in economic policy in the context of EMU'.
Denmark has an exemption from the third stage of EMU.
In our view this is an important exemption, because we do not agree with the Union's economic policy, which gives priority to combating inflation at the cost of measures to create jobs.
Particularly in recent years, the labour market has been a focal point of EU regulation.
This regulation is having ever greater consequences for the Danish system of agreements, and this is putting the Danish tradition under pressure.
We feel it is important to retain the Danish model, which ensures that trade unions have substantial influence through the collective agreements that are negotiated, unlike the EU system, which is based on centrally dictated individual rights laid down by law.
Transferring to the EU the responsibilities in this sector which previously lay with Denmark represents a fundamental break with the traditional system of collective agreements which has been very important in shaping the Danish model of society.
This trend may therefore ultimately have implications for the system governing the labour market and society in Denmark.
The labour market is undergoing rapid change, whereas the social dialogue is based on the corporatist viewpoint and is likely to preserve the old structure and create unnecessary regulations at EU level.
I and my group are sceptical about giving any encouragement to the social dialogue which confers on the partners in the labour market a unique position under European legislation and an absurdly large degree of direct influence on policy-making - at a time when fewer people are choosing to join trade unions and many are remaining outside the labour market, with the result that the number of entrepreneurs and proprietors of small businesses, consultancy work and new types of employment conditions are all on the increase.
Popularly elected politicians have a responsibility to reform labour market legislation, not to give the partners the right to introduce yet more rules.
I have therefore decided to change my position in the final vote.
European integration is a whole in which all Europe's citizens should be involved.
If we wish to have greater cohesion, the social dialogue must fit in with the construction of economic union.
Therefore, I must once again welcome the fact that the Protocol on Social Policy has been included in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Nevertheless, it must be emphasised that, evidently, the European Parliament's role within this framework is still unsatisfactory as, in effect, the Protocol abides by the general principle of Community law, according to which Parliament must give its assent on this matter.
I therefore welcome the Commission's statement that it wishes to inform Parliament, comprehensively and in good time, to give it the opportunity to deliver its opinion before Council makes its decision.
I agree with our rapporteur that the Commission's positive attitude should be interpreted as the first step on the road towards Parliament's full and complete participation in this procedure.
Having said this, we must specify that true dialogue can clearly only take place between independent partners who have freely chosen to negotiate at the same table, and when all parties actually sit at that table.
None of the actors in economic and social life can be kept out of the social dialogue against their will.
SMEs should also be involved in the social dialogue, in the same way as other parties involved.
In addition, there is a need to develop the social dialogue if we wish to resolve the major social and economic issues that are as yet unresolved, in a peaceful manner and in everyone's interests. Obviously, and most importantly, these issues include problems relating to employment.
Although the latest figures published by Eurostat on the subject of unemployment within the Union are encouraging, they do not mask the widespread and lasting nature of this problem.
What has just been said is particularly valid when it relates to data on the enlargement of the European Union to include the applicant countries.
Therefore, we must welcome the Commission's wish to develop the social dialogue in these countries.
We agree with the Peter report on the need to adapt and promote the social dialogue between both sides of the world of work.
In this text, there are also some grand and noble declarations of principle on the role and missions which should be allotted to the two sides of industry, and we must welcome them.
However, we voted against this report due both to some irrelevant aspects and to its shortcomings and omissions.
In fact, the Peter report does not talk about the persecution of the national trade unions in France.
It is because of this persecution that it is not possible for workers in France to create new trade unions or to stand freely as candidates in union or workplace elections, unless, of course, they belong to the trade unions that are recognised and restricted by law.
Such violations of union and electoral rights are serious and unacceptable.
The truth is that the official trade unions, which represent workers less and less, are only good for banning any form of competition.
So, if Mr Peter wants to adapt and promote social dialogue, then let him start by taking an interest in the repeated attacks on trade union rights and in what is really happening in the countries of the EU.
Then, and only then, will it be possible for dialogue and negotiation between workers and employers to take place without pretence or hypocrisy and without being dictated to by political correctness.
The social dialogue should, above all, be based on consultation and agreement between the partners in the labour market.
Legislation is not an end in itself, neither at national nor European level.
National authorities and EU institutions should stress the importance of encouraging negotiations between self-governing and independent partners, rather than legislation.
Power is unevenly divided in the labour market.
It is still the case that employers' representatives have an advantage over those representing employees.
The report is well-intentioned and is favourable towards the setting up of a real dialogue between the labour market partners, but it does not contain any meaningful analysis of the division of power in the labour market.
Without this analysis and a recognition of how power is allocated, there can never be a real dialogue on social conditions in the overall labour market.
In quite a short time the issue of the social dialogue has again come up for debate in the European Parliament.
In view of that, we wish yet again to stress that the development of broad and productive thinking about the aims, content, results and future of the social dialogue at the Community level is a positive thing, to the extent that it leads to specific measures to strengthen that dialogue and to reverse the trend that the EU and its Member States are promoting, which involves degrading it or using it as an excuse to promote anti-labour measures and as a damper to suppress the social unrest and reactions brought about by the economic and social policies currently being implemented.
For us, the central question is on the one hand the representativeness of the spokesmen for social agencies who take part in the negotiation procedures, and on the other hand the degree to which their views are taken into account when formulating the attitudes of the Community's bodies and those of the Member States.
It is a characteristic fact that SMEs are still excluded from all forms of dialogue at Community level.
It worries us in particular that the social dialogue in progress today in most cases has little connection with the central issues which concern working people in the EU, as a whole and in the various branches, sectors and regions.
It is also not focused on the search for specific solutions to their very acute problems, on the effort to safeguard and extend their individual and collective rights, on the development of initiatives aiming to address the profound crisis that is affecting the EU and on the promotion of a progressive alternative solution to the liberalisation and globalisation dictated by the multinationals.
The touchstone for all these things can only be to address the problem of unemployment and work, which cannot of course be dealt with on the basis of the Thatcherite model of shared unemployment or by creating 'jobs' governed by a regime of labour and security dumping.
A real social dialogue cannot ignore the tragic results of the policy of liberalising the markets, the policy signalled by the criteria of EMU and the stability pact.
A real social dialogue cannot ignore the fact that the overthrow of even the most elementary acquisitions of the trade union movement is being promoted, with collective labour agreements first in line.
In our opinion, the most basic form of expression of the social dialogue if it is to play its part correctly, is collective bargaining aimed at the signing of collective labour agreements.
Only in that way and in view of the increased legal force of such agreements, can working people be protected from the individualisation of labour relations, from the attempt to cut back their rights in the name of 'increased competitiveness' and more intense competition.
Experience shows that whatever substitutes are put forward from time to time only aim to reduce the negotiating power and force of the trade union movement, to disorientate, fragment and undermine its champions, and ultimately to promote misrepresented views about class cooperation and cause it to abandon the role which it has historically been called on to play in the class struggle.
What working people and their unions need today is the reinforcement of collective bargaining at EU and Member State level, solidarity from all who are fighting to oppose the overthrow of any notion of collectiveness, and decisive action against those who are undermining collective, structured and targeted dialogue and the central means for stating worker demands, namely collective labour agreements.
I do not share the view expressed in recital G that the European Parliament's role in the legislative procedure - under the Treaty of Amsterdam - will turn out to be unsatisfactory.
Considering that Parliament has a right-wing majority, I think it is good news for employees - at any rate in Sweden - if Parliament has as little influence as possible.
I note that paragraph 7 mentions the proposal to set up a number of 'advisory committees'.
In my opinion, the endless setting-up of new offices and committees only leads to more bureaucracy, and is of very little benefit to European citizens and employees.
Erika Mann report (Doc. A4-0387/98)
Mr President, the trade negotiations that are about to begin with the United States on the Transatlantic Economic Partnership will follow a procedure that is far from clear.
As this procedure will relate both to sectors which fall under Community jurisdiction - goods and public markets - and to sectors which fall under national jurisdiction - services and intellectual property - one would be forgiven for thinking that representatives of the Member States would be engaging in negotiations alongside the Commission.
Yet this is not the method that has been chosen.
The Commission will negotiate with the United States, both on behalf of the Community and on behalf of the Member States, by means of a global mandate.
For sectors under national jurisdiction, we are told that the Member States will 'be involved in negotiations' but we are concerned that they will not be in charge of them, not even for their own sectors.
It seems rather improper that this procedure has been chosen, particularly as we know full well that the Commission wishes to promote a free-trade area with the United States and that France experienced considerable difficulty in ruining the previous attempt, known as the NTM or New Transatlantic Marketplace.
This procedure casts an interesting light on Paragraph 5 of the new Article 133 of the Amsterdam Treaty, currently being ratified in France.
This text provides for the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, to extend Community competences to include international negotiations on services and intellectual property.
I also note in passing that this procedure - which would deprive the French Parliament of its right to approve the ratification of Treaties as laid out in Article 53 of our constitution - seems as reprehensible as a very similar procedure on the movement of persons provided for in Article 67 and which has already been censured by the Constitutional Court in its decision of 31 December 1997.
It may seem improper to allow the Commission engage in negotiations on services and intellectual property in view of the way it dealt with the Uruguay Round negotiations on goods.
However, the form of negotiation used for the Transatlantic Economic Partnership clearly shows that, short of abandoning the Amsterdam Treaty now, the Member States are in danger of falling back into the same trap as before.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the content of the report by our colleague Mrs Erika Mann raises several questions, both in the field of economics and in the field of security and defence relations.
Following Mrs Mann's lead, I believe that the parliamentary bodies should be involved as much as possible in the negotiations.
I hope that we will not find ourselves in a situation similar to that of the MAI, where legitimately elected political leaders are consulted in the last resort, and whose importance, dare I say it, was deemed negligible.
Therefore, we must keep a watchful eye on the content of this future agreement, particularly as regards the level of public aid.
It is unthinkable that some of our partners impose draconian conditions whilst they themselves are exempt from such orders.
In these negotiations, the European Union must be seen as a power in its own right and must be capable of making its voice heard without having unilateral decisions imposed upon it.
This is probably one of its most glaring weaknesses.
For the record, I would like remind the House of the directive on shipbuilding, where we hurried to apply measures which now work against our interests as we are the only ones who follow them.
In this respect, I find it rather damaging that the Commission did not protest over the funds made available by the IMF to safeguard Korean shipyards that are already heavily subsidised by public authorities.
Although I do share the concerns outlined in the text as regards health, consumer protection and the environment, I am more cautious and worried about promoting core labour standards together with the United States.
I admit that I do not share the enthusiasm for a country which, for years now, has been the champion of exaggerated ultra-liberalism, which displays its inhumanity day after day.
For many, the European Union is a relatively well-balanced pole of development that attempts to preserve economic dynamism and social justice.
Let us ensure that we do preserve them!
The American diktat on European banana imports shows to what extent establishing an economic partnership between the European Union and the United States is still premature. This partnership would not only involve solving current disputes, but also asserting our ability to develop global and balanced relationships.
Recent experience has proven the need to widen the scope of this type of negotiations to include the whole international community, particularly within the WTO. The outcome of the MAI and of the draft NTM should be reason enough for the European Commission to exercise greater caution.
Therefore, whatever the common values and interests which unite the European Union and the United States, the very different attitudes to development, social policy and protection of the environment, as well as the need to preserve cultural sovereignty with all its diverse components, make the principle of privileged transatlantic relations in itself rather a deceptive one.
It is for these reasons that the ARE Group has asked that this report be referred back to committee and this is also why we abstained from voting on this report.
I will not vote in favour of Mrs Mann's report despite the quality of the work done by our rapporteur on developing a suitable framework for bilateral relations between Europe and the United States.
Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is completely different and the European Parliament should voice loudly and clearly its disagreement with the attitude of the United States of America, particularly in the light of recent decisions - unilateral ones - made by that country.
The United States' attitude towards the banana market, the fact that it announced unjustified protectionist rules and used pseudo dumping as an excuse to tax steel, all highlight the fact that opening the market is a good thing for the United States when it is to its own advantage and a bad thing when its interests are challenged.
We are being deceived as there is no sincere commitment from this country towards balanced bilateral agreements.
In fact, the Americans hope to benefit not only from their position of world domination, but also from Europe's weakness and from Europe's inability to react efficiently or to announce protective rules in retaliation, rules which convey an idea of shared progress.
Europe could, for example, create socio-taxes and refuse products made using child labour or carried out without the least respect for ILO standards.
The issue of environmental standards is equally important.
The unacceptable attitude of the USA at the last summit on climate change in Buenos Aires is proof of their lack of respect for the general interests of the planet. It also highlights the threats that the transatlantic partnership agreements pose to European legislation on health and the environment.
In effect, there will be an increase in the arrival of large quantities of products containing GMOs or made using procedures that do not respect our environmental regulations. Europe could find itself being penalised if it does not impose an environmental framework on its imports that is as rigorous as measures within the European Union.
Lastly, the ambiguous attitudes of the Commission and of Leon Brittan have weakened the EU's links with the United States.
Fortunately, the Council has rejected the MAI and the NTM but, in a bid to protect itself from fresh manoeuvring, it has drawn up a restrictive framework for monitoring the Commission which, in fact, puts Parliament on the sidelines, and this has extremely serious implications for the future.
So the European Parliament should now say that this cannot go on.
American domination and the Americans' lack of respect for the rules cannot continue.
Europe must retaliate.
The lack of social and environmental standards in world trade cannot be tolerated for much longer.
Multilateral agreements or bilateral agreements cannot be signed without such standards.
The European Parliament can no longer be kept out of these negotiations.
If it wishes to make itself heard, the European Parliament cannot be kept out of these negotiations.
And in order to make itself heard, Parliament should have formally voted for this report to be referred back.
It did not do so.
Therefore, by voting against this report, I would like to express my severe discontent with the way Europe has backtracked and capitulated to the United States.
The FPÖ rejects the report on 'The New Transatlantic Marketplace' because first we need a comprehensive and public discussion of the objectives and impact of this kind of partnership.
The rejection of the Brittan plan was intended to throw dust in the eyes of all those who reacted strenuously to the creation of a new transatlantic market which would put working people in Europe in an even more difficult position.
The substance of that plan remains unchanged even after today's developments, the only difference being that the rate at which the specific plans are promoted will be different and greater flexibility will be shown in their implementation.
But the principles of the new agreement are still to protect major capital and its unimpeded movement, to safeguard the unaccountability of the monopolies and of market liberalisation, and to restrict the ways in which the Member States and even the European institutions themselves can intervene and exercise control.
These measures are regarded as essential for the preparation of the new round of multipartite negotiations in the context of the WTO and the talks on the Multipartite Agreement on Investment in the context of the OECD.
They are an attempt to create new faits accomplis .
The political agreement achieved during the recent summit between the two sides and the Commission's action plan for transatlantic economic cooperation give cause for serious concern and raise some pointed questions, since important issues concerning public health, labour relations and the rights of working people, consumer protection, matters related to the free provision of services and the liberalisation of public contracts and to the promotion of regulatory cooperation and the abolition of technical trade barriers, are to be determined without any democratic or political control.
Characteristically, in order to prevent possible reactions, the Commission has chosen the method of sectoral agreements on which the European Parliament delivers non-binding opinions, instead of a framework agreement requiring Parliament's approval, thus avoiding any possibility of greater control and intervention.
Besides, it is not by chance that the provisions establishing the procedures for the EU's trade policy were not amended and enable the Council and the Commission to employ suitable devices to achieve the signing of very important agreements without much 'interference'.
Indeed, the fact that such a method was chosen after the reactions provoked at national and Community level by the publication of the draft OECD multipartite agreement on investments and the Brittan plan leads us to the natural conclusion that working people and the popular movement must remain vigilant and intensify their struggles. The danger is not only not past but, on the contrary, is greater than ever, because the various substitutes for those agreements being promoted are presented as 'more prudent' and less ambitious in their formulation and timing, though they follow exactly the same anti-populist direction.
The Mutual Recognition Agreements constitute an ingredient of the new agreement.
Their aim is to facilitate the flow of trade, with a decisive role for technocratic committees subject to no democratic control at all. This lends strength to the view that the existence of legal provisions to protect public health and the environment constitutes an artificial barrier to trade, and seeks essentially to abolish safety requirements.
There is also serious concern about the provisions for further liberalisation of public procurement and about the services and the coordination envisaged in the context of the new round of multipartite negotiations on investments, agriculture and intellectual property.
No concern at all is shown about social rights, about reinforcing provisions that protect working people, or about any commitment to incorporate the basic ILO conventions in the WTO system.
On the contrary, the increasingly frequent statements that labour legislation must not constitute a means of 'protectionism' convince us that once trade in goods and services has been liberalised, the next item on the agenda will be to dislocate labour relations and restrict state authority in the matter via the WTO, in other words to promote the related provisions of the Multipartite Agreement on Investments within the framework of the multipartite trade system.
We believe the plan for transatlantic economic cooperation fails to represent the interests of working people on either side of the Atlantic.
On the contrary, it supports the choices of the major multinationals, which have been working since 1995 in the context of the 'Transatlantic Business Dialogue' towards the abolition of provisions that restrict their activities.
It is an agreement which again signals the EU's compromising attitude towards the USA and its frequent attitude in favour of promoting the schemes of major capital in its frontal assault against working people.
Besides, this is clear from the settlement agreement on the extraterritorial Helms-Burton and D'Amato laws, and also emerges from the provisions for agriculture and for the opto-acoustic industry.
This agreement discloses the true nature of international trade negotiations on so-called equal terms.
The report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs we are debating, despite the few welcome comments it contains, accepts that framework overall and we will therefore vote against it.
We share the rapporteur's desire to improve trade relations between the EU and the USA.
This is a comprehensive report covering a wide range of issues relating to the new transatlantic marketplace.
However, we do not agree with the assertion in recitals B and C, as well as in paragraph 1, that the EU and the USA share the same security and defence policy, as well as economic, political, cultural and environmental values.
As regards security and defence polity, this is even more relevant in Sweden's case since it is a non-aligned country and not a member of NATO.
We welcome the clear indication in paragraph 25 that the Helms-Burton and D'Amato Acts are unacceptable, and we wholeheartedly support the recommendation to speedily eliminate them.
I am happy to support this report by my colleague, Erika Mann.
It is often the case that close links with other countries are most important when we have disagreements with them.
This could not be more true than this week with the US Congress apparently set to start a trade war with the EU over objections to our support for banana growers in former British and European colonies in the Caribbean.
Like many people, I believe that we should have as free an international trade system as possible, free from distortions to fair and open competition.
However, free trade needs to be fair trade as well, as in the case of the Caribbean banana growers.
A little assistance to their exports to the EU does not threaten the already massive market share of US-owned banana producers in the EU and the rest of the world.
The kind of close dialogue called for by the London EU-US summit earlier this year should be established as soon as possible, to help both parties in the new transatlantic community to defuse and hopefully avoid such disagreements in future.
That is why I urge fellow MEPS to vote for Erika Mann's sensible report today, and not egg on the Republican zealots in the US Congress who would love us to react in kind to their trade war bluster.
Regular EU-US dialogue would allow us to point out the errors of Congress' approach to the EU's support for Caribbean banana exports to Europe, which keeps their economies going in a legal trade, and stops the temptation which would otherwise exist for farmers there to grow even more hard drugs - and both American and EU politicians know the damage they do to our young people when the drugs reach our streets.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Pre-accession strategy (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the pre-accession strategy.
Mr President, the very title of the Barón Crespo report on the proposal for a Council regulation on coordinating aid to the applicant countries in the framework of the pre-accession strategy summarises the faults and handicaps that afflict European integration, which, at the dawn of the 21st century, is still trudging along very slowly.
Once again, priority has been given to economics and not to politics, and the plan for European integration appears to be nothing more than a regional version of globalisation of the economy.
Economics is what divides Europeans.
Politics and culture are what unite them.
Yet, the closer we get to political union, the further away it drifts from us.
It is, as I have already said, the modern version of the torment of Tantalus.
Economically speaking, I also believe that we are taking the wrong path by refusing to fight in the world economic war, by not accepting the principle of Community preference championed by Maurice Allais and which I have so often pleaded in favour of in this House.
I should like to conclude, Mr President, by returning to the main issue, to the primacy of politics over economics.
Eventually, Europe must learn to eat to live and stop living to eat.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen - and let me give a warm welcome to our visitors from the Central and Eastern European countries in the gallery - what we are trying to achieve here in the European Union is basically not enlargement but the integration of the Central and Eastern European states, the integration of people who are of course Europeans and who have not so far been given the chance to join this Community.
So they are partners, with whom we are working together, and when we look at current developments in, for example, the field of trade, we find that here there is unfortunately a dramatic imbalance against the applicant countries and that we must ensure that this imbalance is corrected, since we can only be partners if we work together on an equal footing in this economic area as well.
The Polish President said something remarkable this morning, which is true for both sides: 'One does not refurbish the house merely because there are guests coming'.
That means that the European Union, the 15 Member States, must also do their own work first, especially in a sector that always tends to be pushed to one side, the agricultural sector.
Basically, the Central and Eastern European states find themselves in an absurd situation here.
On the one hand they are to adopt an acquis communautaire , the European Union rules, while on the other hand the European Union has not taken any major step forward in even formulating the agricultural reform, the new agricultural policy.
If we now take a critical look at ourselves, and if the pace at which the hard-baked representatives of the interests of the agricultural lobby are pursuing these vital reforms is to serve as a model for the Central and Eastern European states, it will take several decades before these states can become integrated.
That is another self-criticism we shall have to accept.
We must also take these representatives critically to task and say: if they do not want the reform of the common agricultural policy, then logically they do not want enlargement of the European Union either, or only enlargement on the medieval model, whereby these areas would merely be colonies, markets for selling our goods; that is not democratic enlargement.
Social policy plays an important role in this enlargement!
Here we must tell our partners clearly, and emphasise during the discussions, that at present every single Member State of the European Union is responsible for its social policy and that naturally those countries that want to join us will have to be responsible for their social policy, for instance their labour market policy.
That is not a disadvantage; basically it is also part of adopting the acquis communautaire .
Mr President, 60 seconds of speaking time is not enough for a comprehensive analysis.
So I would like to concentrate on one aspect of the Barón Crespo report.
The rapporteur would also like to finance agricultural development measures out of PHARE funds.
Only recently, Parliament took some ECU 200 million from the PHARE programme for the 1999 financial year and allocated it to other areas of external relations. Its reasoning was that the absorption capacity of the Central and Eastern European states was exhausted.
Is it not absurd to decide a few weeks later to give further PHARE support to the tune of ECU 1 560 million?
In the light of the irregularities that have occurred in connection with PHARE, I am against supporting agriculture in the Central and Eastern European countries with funds from that programme while EU farmers have to accept massive losses as a result of Agenda 2000.
Mr President, Commissioner, people can only say the kind of things the previous speaker has just said if they believe they can turn back the clock.
The European integration process is marching on, if not perhaps at the pace President Kwasniewski suggested here today.
He beautifully described the dynamic of the Polish development process, and also said that Poland would probably no longer need any transitional periods.
I do not share his view.
I believe that Poland will certainly need transitional provisions with regard to economic and environmental matters, and not just concerning the free movement of workers.
But I do not want to go into that any further at this point.
The fact is - and I am assuming that we all want this integration process - that the quality of the EU enlargement process very much depends of course on the quality of the preparations for it.
That is why it is extremely important to coordinate the aid and the structural policy instruments.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs was particularly concerned with social and employment policy questions.
We must firmly support social policy mainstreaming.
That is why it is so important not just to strengthen the administrative structures of the institutions, but also to promote the social dialogue.
Here the aim is to develop, structure and support employer/worker relations in European policy.
That is the only way to make European policy at all meaningful and transposable.
The social partners are best able to do this.
The PHARE instruments, which are primarily designed to support institutional development, provide the framework conditions for promoting social dialogue in the appropriate manner.
Mrs Wulf-Mathies addressed this matter yesterday, when we were discussing the social dialogue in Europe, and Mr Flynn also underlined its importance.
If that applies in Europe, it also applies in the integration process.
That is why we must support the concept, and of course the further development of the social dialogue in the framework of enlargement.
Mr President, as a member of the European Parliament representing Portuguese voters, I should like to make three points very clear:
we are in favour of the enlargement of the European Union and the negotiation procedure under way; -we are in favour of the institutional review that is needed to strengthen Europe internally and for its external representation and presence; -we are committed to the debate on Agenda 2000, the reform of the common agricultural policy, the new framework for the policy of cohesion and regional development, own resources, and so on.What we cannot accept is the attempt by some people, behind the scenes, to break off the contract of internal solidarity enabling the various European regions and countries - especially those with delays and development problems - to participate fully in the European project and to offer their peoples legitimate hopes of progress within a political and economic area without first-class citizens and second-class Europeans.
I should also like to make it quite clear here and now that the amendments tabled by Mr Berend, calling into question the Cohesion Fund, will lead us down a slippery slope with very serious consequences.
There are many other points that we are hoping to clarify in the negotiations and they are negotiable; but this point is not negotiable.
My country and other Member States have made an enormous effort and, against all the odds, they have succeeded in meeting the conditions for participating fully in the euro.
They cannot and must not be penalised and, in any case, that would violate the provisions in the treaties.
We shall definitely be making our contribution towards financing enlargement.
What we cannot accept is that the poor countries will end up paying.
Mr President, this debate is about what we in Europe can do to facilitate the enlargement process, which must be a burning issue for us all.
In a world once split by dissent, we now have a chance to demonstrate our capacity to overcome the difficulties as we contemplate a major political step.
The Sonneveld report clearly shows that substantial funding - ECU 3 billion per year in all - has been made available to help the applicant countries to make the necessary changes for future membership of the EU.
In my view, this is not a matter of 'pocket money', and I share the rapporteur's opinion that resources should continue to be concentrated on strategic actions.
The resolution which will be discussed later today calls for an in-depth analysis of Europe's financial situation following the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, so that we would then have a sound basis for a decision.
Nevertheless, I would like to highlight the dynamic effect that enlargement of the Union would have, and also my belief that the positive results would very quickly outweigh any budgetary effects.
The Commission's proposal on agricultural reform, as set out in Agenda 2000, goes mainly in the right direction.
It should help to place the global market on a firmer footing and enable the EU's agricultural industry to play a more active role in the market.
As a result, enlargement would be made considerably easier and any negative budgetary consequences for the EU would not be overpowering.
The transitional arrangements will also facilitate the process.
Regardless of the problems we will encounter, it is vital that we never lose sight of the overriding goal of making Europe a better and more harmonious place by means of enlargement.
Mr President, Europe's progress towards genuine integration, the enlargement with the accession of Cyprus and the eastern European countries, the one plus ten countries, is a historic decision which has been taken and is not questioned by anyone, always in accordance with the clear Copenhagen criteria in force.
This is no longer just a political aim to be achieved eventually, but a colossal enterprise which has already started and has a clear timetable.
I believe that the precise effect of today's debate on the Commission's proposals is:
to prove that a decision of such historic scope can be achieved by a specific strategy, as complex and detailed as necessary but at the same time one which is cohesive, harmonious, and has clear mechanisms, procedures and legal bases; -to demonstrate that the European Parliament has powers and responsibilities in this great matter and aspires to exercise them.So: pre-accession aid for the applicant countries, enhanced where necessary, and in parallel internal reforms in the European Union.
That must be the European Parliament's message to the citizens of Europe 2000, the citizens of the 15 Member States and those of the one plus ten applicant countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, we find it unacceptable for the EU Commission, so far at least, to take it upon itself alone to define the eligible areas for regional and national funding too.
I was pleased to read in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung last week that you are prepared to meet us halfway here.
I would sincerely ask you actually to do so.
Countries like Germany and regions like Bavaria really must continue to be able to determine their own priority support areas in future too.
Amendment No 47 by Mr Schiedermeier calls for just that possibility, which is in our view quite self-evident, namely that we can determine our own priority support areas with our own money.
We cannot have our hands tied and not be able to allocate aid where we consider it necessary to do so, on the basis of our analysis, for the purposes of structural policy.
The Commission must not be able to tie our hands here completely.
We are happy to show solidarity with the structurally weaker areas.
But in return we expect a minimum of solidarity with our problems, given that we are dealing here not with EU funds but with our own support funds.
I know the final decision on this has not yet been taken, but we want to make it clear here and now that we see a link between the reports being considered today and the ones that are still to come.
My CSU colleagues and I regard this aspect as so important that our vote on the Hatzidakis report will depend on whether Amendment No 47 is accepted.
Thank you for your attention, and let me point out that I have used ten seconds less than my speaking time.
Mr President, in creating the pre-accession aid programme for applicant countries the Council was aiming for a flexible system.
The varying backgrounds and needs of the applicant countries have to be taken into consideration when planning such aid programmes.
Already at this stage of the initial screening and negotiation process it has become clear that there is a need for investment under the PHARE programme in all countries concerned, particularly for 'institution building' in order to implement Community law and modernise the legal systems.
This will also have a multiplier effect on matters such as the rooting out of corruption and the fight against organised crime.
While we are discussing whether the aid given by the European Union will prove to be adequate, it is worth remembering that the main force for change in the enlargement process is not and cannot be the Union's present bottomless purse but a natural desire on the part of the applicant countries to achieve the standards required for EU membership as quickly as possible.
The applicant countries must themselves finance most of the changes required.
This is the only way we can both ensure we have the approval of the citizens of the present Union and guarantee the success of policy decisions taken with regard to the enlargement process as a whole.
The aim of flexibility in pre-accession partnership also means that the Union needs new policy-making tools to increase cooperation with applicant countries, and one of the most significant elements here must be considered to be the Union's northern dimension, as presented at the Vienna Summit on the initiative of Finland.
Via this northern dimension cooperation networks could be established, for example, in the areas of environmental protection and nuclear safety with the Baltic States, and we would get Russia involved in large-scale regional security projects.
Mr President, the substance of our policy and the grandeur of the historic political enterprise which we call the European Union is expressed through the policy of economic and social cohesion, in other words through the practical expression of solidarity towards the less favoured countries.
The Union's political and economic interests make it necessary to outline a strategy which will create a climate of security and hope for all parts of the European continent, which will abolish the divisive lines of the past, and which will guarantee a decent life for all social groups and will in practice confirm the principles of European humanism and the values of peace, equality, democracy and solidarity.
Enlargement must come about with generosity and dignity, with planning and rapidity, with imagination and vision, with participation by the citizens and with care for the preservation and use of Europe's multicultural wealth.
I wish to stress that any attempt to change course on the conditions for the accession of the Republic of Cyprus would call into question the Union's authority and credibility as a whole.
And when talking about enlargement, let us also not forget that the European continent includes all the countries between the Atlantic and the Urals without exception, if we really want to do away with the divisive lines of the past and build a united and strong Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few days ago, official negotiations opened on the accession of six - or, as we keep saying, 5 + 1 - countries to the European Union.
We have completed seven chapters of the acquis screening.
We now know that considerable progress can be made in this area too if we work consistently.
Let us perhaps look back a few years, or even longer. We see that in those days, Europe was facing problems with dictatorial regimes, that we were at war, and that in founding the European Union we were endeavouring to establish a system of democracy, market economy and security in Europe.
I believe we must always regard these as the central aims.
The Pope did so during the visit to Vienna.
He said that we do not want enlargement of the Union - we are in fact Europe, and we should try constantly to move closer towards the same principles in a common Europe.
I believe a comprehensive concept for the accession strategies is quite simply necessary in order to prepare the applicant countries for the single market and political union.
I myself am vice-chairman of the Slovakia/European Parliament delegation.
It has become particularly evident in the case of Slovakia that our policy has done much to change the system, that its positions are now clear, and that the country is also perfectly adapted to accession.
I believe we should make it quite clear, again and again, that we are not urging accession, but that the door to Europe stands open.
However, it is up to these countries themselves how quickly they can meet the conditions which are plainly set out before them.
Mr President, everyone accepts that enlargement is a historic challenge and a historic step.
However, this means that the European Union has many responsibilities to live up to, and I am sorry to have to stress that although all the reports by our colleagues on the eligibility of the various countries, one by one, speak of the conditions to be fulfilled by those countries, there is no mention of the fact that the European Union itself has obligations in the same parallel process, in other words the present 15 Member States must also fulfil their own obligations.
The structure we wish to extend must have firm foundations and it must be functional.
But how can it be functional when at present, between Maastricht and the present day, the European Unions's most vital policy, the Common Foreign and Security Policy, has not only failed to be promoted but is being dangerously afflicted? For example, in conflict with the European Union's commitments on the Cyprus question, a few days ago four Member States of the Union expressed views which are provocative towards another Member State.
What sort of example are we setting for the countries which we are inviting in and which we are even trying to help before their accession, when the European Union does not abide by its own basic policies and statutory obligations?
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Structural Funds
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
interim report (A4-0391/98) by Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds (COM(98)0131 - C4-0285/98-98/0090(AVC)); -interim report (A4-0395/98) by Mr G. Collins, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1164/94 establishing a Cohesion Fund (COM(98)0130 - C4-0289/98-98/0104(AVC)) and the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 1164/94 establishing a Cohesion Fund (COM(98)0130 - C4-0312/98-98/0118(CNS)); -report (A4-0393/98) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the European Regional Development Fund (COM(98)0131 - C4-0286/98-98/0114(SYN)); -report (A4-0380/98) by Mr Kellett-Bowman, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 laying down general rules for the granting of Community financial aid in the field of trans-European networks (COM(98)0172 - C4-0283/98-98/0101(SYN)); -report (A4-0398/98) by Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation relating to the European Social Fund (COM(98)0131 - C4-0287/98-98/0115(SYN)); -report (A4-0406/98) by Mr Arias Cañete, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector (COM(98)0131 - C4-0288/98-98/0116(CNS)).
Mr President, I want to begin by saying that although this concept has been much discussed already, we must return to it in today's debate and consider its importance.
I refer to the concept of economic and social cohesion, which is directly related to the present debate.
Economic and social cohesion is one of the European Union's basic pillars and is directly related to the single market, and in my view, to the establishment of the single currency as well.
The single market could make rich areas richer and poor ones poorer under certain conditions, and that was why, as early as the 1980s, the then European Community correctly conceived the mechanisms of the Structural Funds so that weaker areas would be supported.
The same applies to the single currency.
Coincidence of name is not enough to achieve the European Union's objectives and to establish a really strong euro.
There must also be real convergence and the economic and social cohesion policies contribute towards that.
In that context, the Structural Funds play a very important part.
It would be unjust if I were now to try and decry the contribution they have made so far.
They have contributed substantially in all areas, regions and countries where they have provided help.
They have assisted convergence, vocational training and the education of the workforce, but of course there is always scope for them to help still more substantially.
I now come to the heart of today's debate.
This review is taking place at a turning point which we identify with enlargement and with the next millennium.
Great care must therefore be taken to learn lessons from the past and to lay emphasis on certain sectors.
Clearly, the areas covered by the Structural Funds must be limited.
They cannot cover 52 % of the Union's population.
Emphasis should be placed on the poorer regions, on the problems of unemployment and equal opportunities, and of course, we will have to consider alternative methods of managing the Funds.
We will have to simplify the procedures and encourage greater participation by the private sector in the activities of the Structural Funds, because then, from the European Union's point of view, we could achieve much more with the same money.
Beyond that, I wish to refer to some points in the report that Mrs McCarthy and I prepared, which I regard as particularly important.
I think that Objective 1 must be the point on which the strongest emphasis is placed.
For that reason, we believe Objective 1 should receive exactly two-thirds of the resources.
Not approximately.
Just as we say that structural activities should take up 0.46 % of the resources, we should talk about the amount to be earmarked for Objective 1 with equal clarity.
I also consider that the European Union's poorer areas, in other words those regions in which the per-capita GDP is below 70 % of the Community average, should be co-financed more extensively up to as much as 85 %, as happens now for example with the remotest peripheral regions.
In the context of the Interreg initiative, I think it is important to have a special sub-programme for cooperation between islands and for cooperation between mainland regions and islands, to flesh out what we voted for in Amsterdam, in other words the amendment of the Treaty which provides special treatment for island regions.
I also wish to stress that we oppose the Commission's proposal that there should be an effectiveness reserve amounting to something like 10 % of the resources.
That 10 % corresponds to ECU 20 billion, or an entire Cohesion Fund.
Consequently, we oppose that proposal.
It creates uncertainty in planning and enables the Commission to deal with a very large sum without accountability, and we therefore do not think that proposal by the Commission should go through. We also should not approve the Commission's proposal that unspent amounts should be given to other Member States two-plus-one years after they were first committed.
We consider that at least in the first phase they should be held for the same Member State.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, it is a great pleasure for me to present the report on the cohesion fund on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy.
Last March the Commission presented its proposals to Parliament for the next programming period running from 2000-2006.
These proposals are set out in a series of draft regulations and as far as the cohesion fund is concerned the Commission has tabled two sets of amendments.
The first set concerns the articles of the regulation itself and the second set concerns Annex II to the regulation which sets out in detail the provisions for implementing the basic principles.
My report on the cohesion fund respects the main guidelines set out in the Commission's proposals and also welcomes the fact that the Commission fund will remain largely the same.
Eligibility for the cohesion fund as stated in the report will apply to Member States with a per capita GNP of less than 90 % of the Community average.
This is explicitly stated in Protocol 15 on economic and social cohesion of the Treaty.
It is my belief that despite the significant benefits that the cohesion countries receive from this fund and despite the strong economic growth of recent years there is still a significant infrastructural deficit in the cohesion countries.
These countries - Spain, Greece, Ireland and Portugal - simply do not have the same level of basic infrastructural facilities which typify the rest of Europe.
A gap still exists between them and the more developed regions of Europe.
The Commission's funding proposal is therefore consistent with generating long-term growth and promoting economic and social cohesion.
Continued EU funding is necessary to help consolidate the progress made so far.
The recognition of this by Agenda 2000 proposals is very welcome.
Despite comments made in some quarters I categorically reject any link being made between economic and monetary union and the cohesion fund.
In fact, as Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs I participated in the negotiation and the signature of the Maastricht Treaty, which included the agreement on economic and monetary union.
At that time it had also been decided that Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece needed an increase in structural funding in order to help them catch up with the EU average economic performance.
No link whatsoever was made between monetary union and cohesion fund eligibility at that time and I do not see any reason to establish one now.
Certain innovative measures contained in the Commission's proposals are in principle correct.
I welcome the Commission's efforts to improve the functioning of the fund.
However, the practical implementation of the new measure needs further clarification.
For example, the 'polluter pays' principle can be supported with a view to ensuring high environmental standards for projects.
However, guidelines need to be set out for the application of this principle which should logically take into account the particular circumstances which exist in the four Member States to which the fund will apply.
As far as project financing is concerned, a single advance of 10 % as a first payment is too limited.
The initial phase of a project is crucial from a qualitative point of view and a significant percentage of the total available money is generally necessary to guarantee the commencement of a project.
Moreover a small advance could lead to discrimination against regions which are unable to generate sufficient start-up financing from their own resources.
Even though I am extremely sensitive to the Commission's concern to keep the total cost of the plan and the annual breakdown in line with implementation on the one side and the progress of work in line with the advances paid on the other, I still consider that a 10 % advance is too limited and it would be too heavy a burden on less-favoured regions to support the initial phase of a project.
In view of the difficulties encountered in the previous programming period with regard to financial corrections and, more precisely, reducing, suspending or cancelling aid in the event of an irregularity, it seems to me that the appropriate response is to reduce or cancel the advance only in respect of the irregularity and not the entire project.
Irregularities can easily be detected and corrected without interrupting the continuation of the project.
By the same token the principle of automatic cancellation of assistance, in other words the cancellation of any commitment for which a payment application has not been made by the end of the second year, should certainly encourage Member States to implement their projects within time limits.
However, the amount decommitted should be reassigned to the same Member State in order to penalise the region or, better still, just the project, but not the whole country.
Finally, I wish to express my concern over the consequences of a strict application of the mid-term review as it stands in the proposal.
My report points out that if, at the time when the mid-term review is carried out, any Member State ceases to be eligible, it would be advisable to foresee some kind of an arrangement for phasing out, as is being actively considered with regard to the structural funds.
The end of eligibility for the cohesion fund is obviously a matter which will be decided on the basis of the relevant statistics.
However, sudden cessation of funding to a country which has made good use of the funds could have too severe an impact on the country's economic wellbeing.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that today we are holding a joint debate of great importance.
As the democratic representatives of the citizens and peoples of Europe we are debating what should be the guidelines for the Commission's policy in Europe for the next seven years.
I think that the European Parliament, and particularly its Committee on Regional Policy, has risen to the occasion.
Our contributions, which tomorrow will be taken on board by the entire Parliament, define and improve the Commission's proposals.
In this set of proposals, the ultimate regional financial instrument is the ERDF, which, under Article 130c of the Treaty, is assigned the role of redressing the main imbalances in the Community.
The specific quality of the ERDF is the fact that it identifies with the central core of the cohesion policy, which, in the words of Article 130a of the Treaty, is aimed at reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least favoured regions, which is why more than 50 % of funding for the cohesion policy between 1998 and 1999 has been made available through the ERDF.
The Commission's proposal does not offer a great deal that is new to a Fund that is as broad and versatile as the ERDF and that, in addition, has generally worked very well.
Your rapporteur believes that the European Parliament has enriched the proposal, defining the priorities and adding different political connotations to the technical proposals, connotations that have come from the amendments of the different parliamentary groups and committees. Moreover, it gives the proposal as a whole a coherent structure that also, undoubtedly, identifies better with the problems that concern citizens and the less developed regions of Europe.
The European Parliament report combines economic and social cohesion with European territorial cohesion by developing regional planning.
Regional planning means better communications, greater attractions for industry and greater opportunities for growth.
In short, it means more development, employment and welfare.
Territorial cohesion means fighting to overcome the permanent geographical disadvantages of peripheral or island regions, and to promote the building of links among those regions and between them and the central regions of the Community.
The ERDF has an essential challenge in this field and, in order to promote the development of these backward and peripheral regions, the majority of which are maritime regions, the European Parliament is calling for the development of maritime transport, an issue that is unresolved in the Community. This would reduce congestion in land transport, help the environment, and thus contribute to the development of the backward regions.
Our report also advocates the explicit inclusion of cultural investments that create employment, that tend to protect natural and cultural heritage, and those aimed at developing sustainable tourism, eco-tourism and cultural tourism.
It develops the Commission's proposal to explicitly include those investments that are aimed at preserving or recovering a region's industrial basis, or those specifically aimed at local development.
Our report is in favour of maintaining the Community initiative URBAN, which, along with INTERREG, has clearly brought added value to the Community.
Support for Interreg has been unanimous and there are great hopes for Interreg III, both in its traditional field of cross-border cooperation, in which the European Parliament is now asking for the explicit inclusion of inter-island and maritime cooperation, and in its new section C on transnational cooperation between large regions of Europe - a field that is also very closely linked to regional planning.
Finally, the report includes a broad development of specific business activities aimed at promoting small and medium-sized enterprises and cooperation between enterprises, services for enterprises, renewable energy sources and respect for the environment.
The Commission can say or will say that its proposal already enabled the Member States to include these and other aspects, but the European Parliament, through its various political tendencies, wanted these issues to be clearly specified. They could thus identify with the views of the citizens and peoples that we represent, guiding and also giving priority to the activities that in due course will have to be included in the programmes to be funded by the European Fund for Regional Development.
Therefore, as well as having a good technical document, we now also have a good political document.
I think we have done a good job at first reading and I would like to conclude by thanking the Members in the various parliamentary groups and committees who, with their amendments, have contributed to enriching this report for which I had the honour of being rapporteur.
I would like to end by mentioning the structural aspects of fisheries.
Today, I would particularly like to make my voice heard in this House - in order to represent the regions that are dependent on fisheries, whatever their aims - in strong support of the position widely held by the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries on the future FIFG regulation.
I would like to highlight point 13 of the report on the general regulation and to ask why the fisheries sector does not receive the same treatment as agriculture.
Commissioner, the fisheries sector needs a serious, rigorous, single and horizontal structural regulation that covers all its measures and gives legal certainty to its potential beneficiaries.
I hope that you can do so in time and that you will rectify this and accept Parliament's position.
Mr President, this is really a first-reading type debate under the Hughes procedure and I must say that I shall welcome the new rules for the Hughes procedure when they come about and hope that the second reading will be subject to them.
I am presenting, on behalf of the Budgets Committee, one report and five opinions.
The report is about new rules for financing the trans-European networks.
It is a rather technical report about the Commission finding more money to be available to fund the already agreed policies.
As I say, it is a technical report and it will be my intention to resist amendments which are about policy and not about the subject of the report.
We shall be voting on that tomorrow.
It would take too long to list the five resolutions on which the Budgets Committee is offering an opinion in my name.
The objective in the Budgets Committee is not, in any way, to intervene in the policy arrangements of the spending committees.
But as the Budgets Committee we are concerned by two things in particular.
One thing was referred to by the President of the Court of Auditors here yesterday.
He said that for two years running the number of irregularities in the structural funds were growing at the same time as those in agriculture, which has long been a problem, were falling.
The other is the regular annual underspend of the regional funds.
So, we as a committee welcome the new rules being put forward in this way by the Commission.
The amendments are to all five reports and are technical amendments.
They are in no way seeking to alter the policy-making processes of the spending committees.
The one exception might appear to be the Budgets Committee's support for the performance reserve.
Another name for the performance reserve is efficiency reserve.
Can you imagine the Budgets Committee being able to resist the idea of something called efficiency? I know - because I am a member of that committee too - that the Regional Committee is seeking to promote the idea of the performance reserve.
However, if the Commission's proposals hold true, the Budgets Committee believes that we should be having proper financial rules to cover it.
In no way should the decision-making view of Parliament be by-passed by use of the performance review, although it is tempting for a budgets committee to find support for this.
The amendments have not been welcomed in large sections of the House.
I think that is a great pity and I would invite Members to read them.
Any suggestion that we might be using the Financial Regulation should not raise hostility.
Any suggestion that we should follow the financial rules should not cause people to be greatly concerned but I do understand that there are several Members of the House who are worried about those and I would invite them to read those amendments before they come to vote tomorrow.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, although the European Social Fund reform is much less controversial than the reform of the other funds, there are still problems associated with it.
The first thing to emphasise is that the Social Fund is the only labour market instrument we have at European level.
It also accounts for an impressive 10 % of the budget.
Precisely because it is our only instrument for supporting the European employment strategy, we absolutely have to whip it into shape for the big new challenges in labour market policy.
We must use it to open up new employment opportunities above all in the third sector, the non-profit-making sector.
By this I mean the environment, culture and social services.
It is also necessary to use local employment initiatives to create more employment.
Over and above that, we should be using Social Fund support not only to develop new forms of work, but also to do more to test them. This applies to two particular cases.
Firstly, as regards women, we need to enhance the compatibility of family and working life. Secondly, for older employees, we need to facilitate the transition from working life to retirement.
In future we also need to take greater care of a new problem group, workers in their mid-forties, who are generally the first in line to lose their jobs.
Experience shows that regardless of age, doing a training course under the Social Fund increases a person's chances of finding a job by a third compared to someone in the same age group without this training.
Another novelty is that whereas up to now, education measures were only possible in Objective 1 areas, in future they are to be promoted throughout the EU.
On this subject, I am very happy that yesterday the European People's Party was also able to agree to a compromise on this, which allows us to offer hundreds of thousands of young people in Europe the opportunity to improve their employment prospects through better education.
This point is particularly important to me because taking Portugal as an example, in that country alone 600 000 young people are profiting from education under the Social Fund. In Spain the figure is 152 000.
In Ireland, in the current promotion period alone, ECU 380 million has been deployed for education under the Social Fund.
But it is not only poor Member States that need this assistance.
The United Kingdom, France and Italy have all implemented appropriate measures as well.
Dear colleagues from the PPE, that is why it is a good thing that you agreed at the last minute.
These are new priorities for assistance that have the support of all groups.
But there are also two PPE amendments which the committee has already rejected, and which my group certainly cannot support.
Opinions diverge fundamentally on a preventive labour market policy and, unsurprisingly, on assistance for women.
Now to begin with the first contentious issue, which is the expenditure of 15 % of Social Fund resources on a preventive labour market policy in Member States.
This policy approach was introduced so successfully to Europe in 1994 by the Social Fund, that it quite naturally found its way into the Luxembourg Employment Guidelines, which is why I cannot for the life of me understand why you are against it now.
The present division of funds between Objectives 3 and 4 is already quite similar.
The present ratio between the resources for fighting long-term unemployment and for measures to facilitate the adaptation to industrial change is 80: 20.
Turning now to the second controversial issue, everyone here knows that mainstreaming for women is not enough to reduce the discrimination against them in the labour market.
If we really want to make progress in realising equal opportunities, then here too Europe must adopt a pacesetting role and make 50 % of the Social Fund resources available for very specific additional measures to assist women.
Anyway, I hope that by tomorrow, my dear colleagues in the PPE, you will have come to your senses on this.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, in 1994 fisheries became a part of the Structural Funds for the first time and the financial instrument for fisheries guidance (FIFG) was set up. The main objective of this instrument was to reorganise the chaotic situation that existed up until then in terms of the system of funding for the fisheries structural policy, which involved, on the one hand, the Structural Funds, and on the other hand, an instrument called the European Fisheries Guidance Fund.
This situation involved serious management problems, administrative inflexibility, a lack of coherence and a lack of transparency.
The idea was to find a new and different way of dealing with the issue of funding measures related to the fisheries structural policy by simplifying instruments in order to overcome the flaws evident in the previous system.
The 1994 reform covered all the areas of the European Union dependent on fishing as it was in the form of a common policy.
In addition, as part of this reform, Community initiatives appeared for the first time. Among them was the Fisheries Initiative, which was set up to complement the Structural Funds.
It seems, however, that the Commission has now forgotten the reasons that led it to make that reform. With the model it is currently proposing we are in danger of going back to absolute chaos in the fisheries structural policy, as well as the lack of coherence that the Commission is presenting us with in its proposal for a new regulation.
The Commission's proposal does not move further along the path taken with the 1994 reform.
It is incomprehensible that we should be presented with a document in which details are not even given of the measures to be taken and in which structural action in the fisheries sector is not clearly expressed.
The result of this shortcoming is that instead of the fisheries sector, it is the Commission that is benefiting from extending its discretion in an unthinkable manner in other sectors, such as agriculture or rural development.
Perhaps the fisheries policy is not such a common policy as the agricultural policy?
What Parliament is proposing in view of the lack of coherence, the contradictions and the discriminations that we find in the Commission's proposal, is something as simple as a single legal framework, a horizontal regulation within the framework of national programmes with the aim of maintaining the coherence necessary to fulfil the objectives of the common fisheries policy.
We are proposing a document that is the result of reorganizing and simplifying all the instruments available for structural measures in the fisheries sector, and that covers all the regions that are dependent on fisheries.
This more pragmatic approach would enable us, on one hand, to cover all the structural measures and, on the other hand, to cover all the regions that really need those measures to be implemented, disposing of ideas such as that introduced by the Commission of selecting areas for the new Objective 2 on the basis of employment criteria and not of fishing activity.
This would inevitably cause a significant distortion as it is forgetting the ultimate reason for the fisheries structural policy, that it should be aimed at regions that are dependent on fisheries, and not exclusively at regions with employment problems in the fisheries sector.
These are completely different concepts that should not be confused.
To this I should add that, in general, regions that are dependent on fisheries do not have a particularly high level of unemployment.
Usually, the problems in those areas are of a different order.
The regulation would enable the fisheries sector to have its own structural policy so that it might maintain its competitiveness, and would enable the Member States to resolve internal issues, taking into account the particular characteristics of various sectors.
In addition, this system would mean that there could be considerable simplification in terms of programming, as many existing regulations that are complicated, and at times inconsistent with each other, would disappear.
In short, we need to establish a single legal framework that brings together all the Community regulations on fisheries and that includes all the measures on modernising and renewing fleets, joint ventures, processing and marketing, socio-economic measures, aquaculture, etcetera.
In short, we need measures that enable the fleet to maintain its competitiveness in an open global market.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have to prevent the achievements made so far from being lost through an incoherent reform that would lead us into a chaotic and obsolete situation.
We must not forget the achievement that meant that the Edinburgh European Council adopted the decision to consider structural action in the fisheries sector within the framework of the Structural Funds.
With the proposal that the Commission is presenting we have an alternative that goes against this decision by trying to take part of the structural action out of the Structural Funds to the detriment of the European fisheries sector.
I would like to conclude by briefly referring to the Cohesion Fund, stressing - like Mr Collins - that the only reason for the Cohesion Fund is to contribute to strengthening economic and social cohesion, not to constitute a nominal convergence instrument in order to fulfil the requirements for joining the single currency.
It is always a final instrument, linked solely to the objective of cohesion and regulated in the final cohesion policy title and not by the Economic and Monetary Union title.
For this reason, I fully support Mr Collins' suggestions and the Commission's proposals, which we believe are the only ones that fully comply with the spirit of the Treaty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, firstly on behalf of my group, I should like to thank all the rapporteurs for their reports on the Structural Funds, and if I single out Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis by name, then it is only because they have done the lion's share of the work.
If European regional policy is to remain effective we must confine ourselves to the main tasks.
The objective is to help the regions that have economic problems, which is why we would approve the idea proposed by the Commission of concentrating assistance on the regions which lag behind in development, namely the Objective 1 regions. From a geographical point of view also, Objective 1 regions should receive assistance amounting to exactly two thirds of Structural Fund resources.
We urge strongly that the choice of the Objective 1 regions should in future be based on the strict application of the criterion of a regional GDP per capita which is less than 75 % of the Community average.
For us this is a very important yardstick that is significant for the overall evaluation of the report.
I would draw your attention to the fact that those who advocate flexibility on this issue are jeopardising the common consensus and preventing a reform of the Structural Funds as a whole.
At the same time, however, I would urge the Commission to see to it that Objective 1 regions are treated equally when resources are distributed.
In view of the regional slant of Objective 1, I do not think that we can guarantee equal treatment by considering the national criterion of prosperity in determining the amount of resources to be allocated.
We therefore explicitly reject this on the grounds that it would create a new type of unfairness.
As far as the Cohesion Fund is concerned, the opinion of my group is divided.
Some of the group, mostly Members from southern European countries, are in favour of what the rapporteur and the Commission propose, which is a continuation of the Cohesion Fund in its present form.
Others, including myself, consider that the Cohesion Fund has already achieved its most important goal as far as the countries participating in Economic and Monetary Union are concerned, by significantly helping to bring about nominal convergence.
In our opinion there is therefore no reason for it to continue to exist in its present form.
This kind of European assistance consists of temporary measures and should not be considered a permanent acquisition after its aim has been achieved.
This issue is fundamental for a society based on solidarity. Solidarity is not just a one-way street; it is not just about taking, but must be based on the understanding that there is both give and take.
Otherwise, this solidarity that we all emphatically support will be a very one-sided burden.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party would like to express its support for the principle of strengthening economic and social cohesion in all the territories, all the states and all the regions of the European Union.
We would like to affirm the need to maintain the level of 0.46 % of gross domestic product for the Structural Funds.
We are in a period when the European Union is enlarging and we will have to bear the costs of this.
In order to do so, we are relying on the economic growth of the Union.
The main objective of the Structural Funds, along with economic and social cohesion, must be to encourage job creation through the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises.
In the Commission's document we support the concentration of the Structural Funds with the aim of making them more efficient, and we also agree with the simplification of procedures in order to bring more transparency to the management of the Funds.
We support the principle of subsidiarity and the recognition of the important role played by regional and local authorities, especially the authorities in those Member States where the regions also have legislative powers.
We are in favour of consulting civil society and non-governmental organisations in drawing up the programmes.
We are also in favour of decentralising the management of the Funds and making it more flexible, but we know that this means strengthening the control mechanisms in order to guarantee that the Funds are used appropriately.
We support, too, the reduction in the number of objectives from seven to three and we believe it is necessary to make State aid, as established by Article 92(3)(c) of the Treaty, compatible with the Structural Funds, especially in Objective 2 regions where the two types of aid need to be compatible.
We must also highlight - and I said this a few times in committee, Commissioner - the problem of rural areas, and in those areas unemployment and population decline must be looked on as important factors.
We support the Commission's approach with regard to the phasing-out system.
We also support the reduction in Community initiatives and would like to highlight the important role of Interreg in cross-border cooperation, which brings a truly European dimension to the initiative. In addition, its action involving the candidate countries must be strengthened.
Our group unreservedly supports the establishment of a percentage for performance, and a reserve percentage for each objective and in each Member State in order to encourage greater efficiency in its application.
We believe, Commissioner, that the reserve fund is a good idea that should be supported.
We can discuss the percentage, but we think that it is important that it be implemented.
Finally, we also support the Cohesion Fund for Member States whose gross domestic product is less than 90 % of the Community average.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the McCarthy-Hatzidakis report quite rightly welcomes the Commission's extremely valid objective of simplifying standards in terms of structural policy.
Parliament has a duty to draw the attention of the Commission and the Council to the need to closely link the aim of economic and social cohesion to that of cohesion in the European area, which is clearly expressed in the Varela report.
As well as the terrestrial aspects of the Union, we must also take the maritime aspects into account and then provide an adequate response to the specific needs of the island, peripheral or landlocked regions.
We should not allow Europe to let its peripheral regions crumble.
This is unfortunately the risk which these regions run, given the socio-economic data which is typical of these areas and the economic trends of the European market, mainly based around the London-Paris-Bonn axes.
As strict as it may be, the definition of the new Objective 1 in the report on general provisions, by tolerating limited exceptions, gives Member States the opportunity to improve the coherence of national zoning as the procedure is transparent and the list of eligible regions is annexed to the regulation.
Therefore, the obstacles which impede the economic and social development of regions suffering permanent structural handicaps would be taken into consideration as a priority objective of the Structural Funds.
I am also pleased to note that the report on general provisions provides for a special Interreg strand, dedicated to regional cooperation with and between the island regions. This fulfils the Commission's commitment which, until now, has been without any follow-up.
Finally, I believe it is important to compensate for the absence of Commission proposals on the relations between the Structural Funds and the draft development plan for the Community area.
To this end, I would like to ask that we support the two amendments which we tabled to the McCarthy-Hatzidakis report, so that the framework regulation does not disregard the efforts made to develop a coherent strategy for planning the European area.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the central question in the report on the Structural Funds is whether or not the European Parliament approves of reducing the financial resources earmarked from 0.6 % of Community GNP to 0.34 % in the next Community support framework.
Whoever agrees with that reduction, tantamount to a reduction in the Structural Funds - which would lose my country hundreds of billions of escudos - will be voting for the report.
Whoever thinks that it should not be for the current cohesion countries alone to finance EU enlargement will be voting against it.
That is what we shall be doing unless the European Parliament approves amendments aimed at rejecting that move.
The essence of the report will not be hidden by its somewhat positive aspects. These positive elements include the vehement objections to the creation of a reserve, supposedly for reasons of effectiveness, the point that the Commission's guidelines for structural actions should only be indicative of the allocation of two thirds of the appropriations to Objective 1, or the restoration of the URBAN initiative.
The report on the Cohesion Fund, on the other hand, is in keeping with what the Treaty on European Union already provides for legally and what Agenda 2000 only confirms. In other words, all countries with a GNP lower than 90 % of the Community average should benefit from the Cohesion Fund, whether or not they belong to the group of countries participating in the single currency.
On the other hand, in line with what we have always contended, the report opposes the idea that the Cohesion Fund should be conditional, as the Commission proposes, on meeting the requirements of the Stability Pact.
We hope that the content of this report will not be radically altered by the amendments tabled by Mr Walter and Mr Berend, from the Socialist Group and the Group of the European People's Party. They reveal a total lack of solidarity with the current cohesion countries and are aimed at preventing countries that form part of EMU, such as Portugal, to mention just one, from continuing to benefit from the Cohesion Fund.
Finally, the continuity of the Cohesion Fund for these countries cannot be used to exert extra pressure, as Mr Berend is now doing, nor should it be used to conceal possible or real losses in the Structural Fund, since that Fund is, in principle, laid down in the Treaty and is even one of the rare positive elements included in Agenda 2000.
Having said this, we shall go along with the remaining reports as a whole in that they involve essentially operational regulations.
As for the FIFG, we support the strategy of the report aimed at unifying regulations on activities in this sector, but we do not feel it necessary or even appropriate to present such a complete document at this stage as, for that very reason, we have not been able to sufficiently discuss all its implications.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, you will be amazed that I of all people am the first and only one here to observe that the Commission proposal is quite balanced, considering the tight financial framework.
It makes sense to concentrate resources on the weakest regions.
The Greens support the Commission proposals, even though we must of course observe that the Commission did not show any internal flexibility concerning the limits on resources in its own sectors, nor was it able to develop coherent structures.
I must simply say that there is no uniform structure for assisting the rural area, and no attempt is made to find a solution to the problems of European regions which share borders with the applicant countries. In other words, there is no attempt to establish the possibility of cross-border assistance in these regions.
The common fund is the only useful solution and the Commission has still done nothing in that regard.
It is of course undeniable that progress has been made.
Most importantly, in the Structural Fund Regulation, we have finally been able to introduce sustainable development as the central objective.
The economy, ecology and social security need to be re-balanced once again if regions are not to stay connected to the drip forever but instead to undergo stable development.
Of course, for this type of stability, the participation of the local and regional players and social groups is crucial.
The Structural Funds have this democratic approach.
Parliament has put forward some crucial improvements in the Committee on Regional Policy, which could allow the social players a decisive say in drafting the plans.
Unfortunately 'could' is about as far as we will get, because everyone knows that the new legal basis comes much too late as the plans were ready long ago.
That is why today, Commissioner, I expect you to give us some idea as to how, in view of this dilemma, enough time can be found for the democratic participation stipulated in the Structural Fund Regulation.
In conclusion, it makes no sense for us to push through old claims of entitlement here, as though this were some kind of fair.
The Structural Funds are not akin to a shop that is there to serve Member States.
We are called upon to support the German Government's plan to conclude the Agenda 2000 package in March.
It really is the last possible opportunity for us to grant regions assistance in January.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating all the rapporteurs on the reports presented to us today.
There is little doubt that Structural Funds have delivered very worthwhile support to peripheral and poor regions in many parts of the European Union for many years.
We are now at a stage where they need to be reformed.
They have been extremely successful and many projects have gone forward which would otherwise never have got off the ground.
European Union support for my own area through difficult and dangerous times gave us hope for a better tomorrow and helped us to maintain our position for almost 30 years.
I understand why there has to be a 75 % benchmark.
I must say to the Commission that we need a degree of flexibility to ensure that special areas will continue to receive support.
For me, coming from Northern Ireland, to remove Objective 1 would send the wrong message at an extremely important and crucial time.
Parliament's report is balanced, responsible and realistic.
It offers a possibility of a better proposal than exists at present.
I agree with the performance reserve in principle but it is too high: it should be no more than 4 or 5 %.
There are not enough European lead projects.
I would like to see the Urban programme and other European-led initiatives - five, six at the most - remain so that the people can see that this comes from the European Union.
Mr President, I will begin with recital C of the report, which specifies that the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund are the principal instruments of economic and social cohesion in Europe.
Of course, it would have been useful to distinguish more clearly between cohesion between the various Member States and cohesion within the states themselves, especially cohesion between rural and urban areas.
On this first point, namely cohesion between Member States, it is difficult not to think along the same lines as the rapporteurs, given that the high number of appropriations allocated to some Member States is necessary for the sake of efficiency.
Nonetheless, we should not forget the need for cross-border cohesion, as there is still a great deal to be done in this field.
Appropriations for such cross-border cohesion should not be used to bear the costs of adjusting to new objectives.
Indeed, in relation to this, there is a most welcome mention of the Interreg programmes on page 14.
As regards the internal cohesion of Member States, which is perhaps discussed less, I believe this to be extremely important as cohesion between rural and urban areas is vital in the stages of development that we are currently experiencing, and which are generally detrimental to rural areas.
Objective 5b will disappear, which is indeed regrettable and there is a danger that this may lead to disinvestment in rural areas. Examples of this are north-western Alsace, a region I know well, the Vosges massif and the Sundgau region.
We are also unwittingly promoting the urbanisation of less-favoured regions.
It would be worth knowing what percentage of funds were awarded to urban and rural areas, taking all funds into account.
The Social Fund, for example, or industrial conversion funds, are mainly paid to towns.
I approve wholeheartedly of the rapporteurs' paragraph 3 which quite rightly suggests that separate treatment is needed for the coherent development of the rural area under Objective 2.
I hope that this request will later be acknowledged and that rural areas will not bear the costs of restructuring funds, as is currently the case.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a Parliament we want single programming for the fisheries sector.
The Commission's proposal closely resembles the fragmentation theory: in substance it seeks to divide the sector along existing territorial lines and abandons the option of unitary management for the European Regional Development Fund, the European Investment Fund, the European Guarantee Fund and the European Social Fund.
We want single programming because we do not think there should be territorial discrimination in fisheries, and we are convinced this can come about through a regulation capable of achieving single programming of actions in the fisheries sector, covering Objective 1, Objective 2 and areas outside Objectives 1 and 2.
Unless there is unitary action, there will be the risk of discrimination.
That is why we are committed to putting forward a serious and rigorous regulation, anticipating the Commission proposal.
That is why we have looked at fisheries not just from an exclusively production and market angle, but taking account of environmental issues, social issues and the revival of sector-linked economic and social activity as well as thinking about the market.
We have also considered the possibility of establishing mixed companies involving third countries, taking maximum advantage of NGOs and small-scale fishing.
In short, ours is a serious, precise and timely proposal, and we would have hoped the Commission would naturally incorporate it.
In fact the Commission is taking its time, but we are pleased that in some respects the Fisheries Council is fairly consistent with Parliament's position, and we are also aware that the Commission is going to propose a regulation which does take account of Parliament's own proposals, opportunely backed by the Fisheries Council.
For this reason the possibility of two readings, approving this proposal for a regulation today and then approving the legislative resolution in April, when we assess the Commission's new proposal, will allow us to give the fisheries sector a single answer and single treatment, avoiding discrimination which would certainly be negative.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mrs Jöns, the rapporteur, has already explained, her report is about the organisation of ESF content.
Important things are to be settled in the framework regulation as it is still unclear whether or not certain points are going to be included in the text of the ESF Regulation.
These delimitation problems should not arise in future.
With regard to organisation, there were at first considerable differences of opinion between my group and the Socialists.
As a result of many constructive discussions and rounds of negotiation continuing through into yesterday afternoon, we managed to reach some compromises.
I should like to express my respect for the rapporteur and thank her for being prepared to enter into discussion with me.
I should particularly like to thank her for the commitment she has shown.
We agree on the basic direction to be taken.
The ESF is the structural policy instrument for fighting unemployment, and this in turn is the best social policy.
Unemployment is the biggest economic problem we have, and the biggest problem for social policy.
ESF resources are in short supply, and we must bear this in mind when considering the compromises that have materialised.
This is the message for the Commission regarding the implementation of the text.
It is also because of this that education is not itself one of the fields of ESF intervention, although of course it is a prerequisite for employability and for a culture of lifelong learning.
Of course Europe should also play its part.
But on the basis of experience garnered from the last few programming periods, we have agreed not to just use the word concentration because it sounds good, but also to implement it rigorously.
This is also true when it comes to the application of the ESF resources, where we want concentration on actively combatting unemployment.
In this process, we should be guided by the employment guidelines at all levels.
(The President cut the speaker off)
I have to be strict, in view of the number of speakers.
So just a few words to finish, please, in 30 seconds.
In conclusion, allow me to cite the rapporteur in this regard: 'In future the ESF is to support the European employment strategy and the multiannual national action plans for employment set up within the framework of this strategy.'
I support this completely.
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the Commissioner on putting together a proposal which is generally uncontentious among the 15 Member States and on all sides of this Parliament.
That is no mean feat.
I want to focus on three specific areas: timetables, the criteria for Objective 2 and access to funds.
Firstly, on timetables, we have just had an informal summit on bringing Europe closer to the citizen.
One of the key issues with structural funding is making sure that we deliver regional and structural funding on time.
This is one of the key areas where the European Union has credibility.
Of course we have to complete the rest of Agenda 2000 as well but we have to be there for the March Summit.
The other thing I would say is that there will be a huge bottleneck at the beginning of year 2000, making it difficult to get these programmes approved.
I should like to ask the Commissioner how she intends to deal with the almost impossible task for her staff of approving SPDs and CSFs in time to get those programmes rolling.
Secondly, on criteria; in Objective 1 we have a very good and tight definition of who should qualify for Objective 1, based primarily on GDP.
Yet in Objective 2 GDP is not one of the criteria for qualifying.
Will the Commission accept GDP as one of the extra qualifying criteria for Objective 2? It is the best poverty index so let us use it.
Thirdly, on access.
One of the things I hear most often from my constituents is how difficult it is to get hold of structural funding, in particular for small voluntary organisations or firms.
I know it is primarily a national problem, but how do we make sure that organisations can easily access European funding without being put off by the bureaucracy?
Mr President, at the outset I want to compliment Mr Arias Cañete on the presentation of his very fine report.
I pay tribute to all my colleagues on the Committee on Fisheries for presenting a set of very realistic proposals.
The 1994 reform ensured a common approach to all Union areas dependent on fisheries.
There are many such areas throughout the Union where there is no alternative source of employment.
These measures were complemented by the socio-economic measures of 1995, as I outlined in my report on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries.
The Edinburgh Summit did not endorse Parliament's proposal for a separate objective to deal with fishing.
However, it accepted the strong case made by Parliament by directing that appropriate funds be allocated to coastal regions dependent on fisheries.
This Commission proposal is a retrograde step and does nothing to improve the lot of the fishing communities.
The proposal is too general.
It leaves a vacuum to be filled not by this Parliament but by the Commission.
The Commission is hoping to obtain our imprimatur.
I suggest that we should not do this until we know the details.
Under the new proposals most of the fishing policy measures are to be finalised under the agricultural guarantees section.
I question the legitimacy of this section being used to fund structural measures.
The agricultural funds are apportioned on an annual basis while the fisheries funds are provided on a multiannual basis.
Even if we accept the principle of the Commission proposal, it must agree to ring-fence funds specifically for the fishing sector...
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to say that the provisional report on the Structural Funds regulation makes important advances - that we support - in strengthening the principal of cooperation by increasing the number of people who will be involved in preparing, implementing and monitoring the programmes.
The report also makes progress in enhancing transparency and in supporting peripheral, ultra-peripheral and island regions.
However, there are important aspects with which I am bound to disagree, such as the approval of the Commission's proposal that the resources destined for the Structural Funds should be fixed at 0.46 % of the European Union's annual gross national product.
There are plenty of reasons to fear that, whatever happens, this allocation will be insufficient to secure economic and social cohesion.
As a result, if this proposal is approved, inter-regional solidarity would be seriously damaged.
In addition, the report even contradicts itself.
It expresses an opinion against the establishment of the performance reserve proposed by the Commission, but it does not prevent those reserves from being set up: it only stipulates that the provision must be less than 10 %.
What is our decision? Are we for or against the performance reserve?
Mr President, I broadly welcome the Commission's proposals and would like to make some concrete points.
As Mr Collins has pointed out, cohesion funding should not be linked to monetary union.
The cohesion funds could usefully be transformed into a structural instrument not directly linked to the trans-European networks.
Here we have made a global amendment keeping the structural and cohesion funds in line with the agreed budgetary proposals of this House, as Mr Kellett-Bowman has indicated.
We are giving priority to rail infrastructure.
In my own country, Ireland, for instance, the railways are in a state of dangerous decay whilst most of the funding has gone to roads.
Our amendments also stress the importance of cross-border links.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to emphasise in her response the importance of the democratic involvement of local regions, particularly those local regions who are asking for Objective I status.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, my aim is to try and wring the heartstrings of the Commissioners and Members who are here and, hopefully their groups also, to support Amendment No 49, tabled in the name of my colleague Mr Escolá Hernando and 60 others, with the pledges of nearly 200 Members already, and Amendment No 85 in the name of Mr Miller with the signatures of nearly all the British Labour Members.
They bring in the concept of remoteness and low population density.
The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are certainly remote and have a low population density of 8.9, as probably everybody knows by now.
The GDP is 76 % of the average according to my information at the moment.
There are two points I would like to refer to: one was made by one of the government Ministers to me recently, Gus MacDonald, who admits that but for the wages of all the oil rig workers - of whom very few come from my area - we would be well under 75 %, and I think it is a very unfair situation.
We are the land of whisky, but although the British treasury gets billions from that, we do not get very much in the way of financial benefit.
My constituency is often described as the last wilderness of Europe.
It is a man-made wilderness.
It was created by genocide.
We peopled the lands of Canada because we were cleared out in favour of sheep, which were more profitable.
The Commission has done a marvellous job of supporting the Highlands and Islands.
We have taken full advantage of it.
We have spent the money wisely, as the Commission must admit.
But you cannot expect 150 years of neglect and oppression to be cured in five.
It would be ironic if, just when the work of the Commission has enabled us to halt, for the first time, the drain of our brightest and best young people away from the Highlands and Islands, it suddenly came to a stop because of the infrastructure.
There are still single track roads in much of my area, with 50 miles to a petrol pump.
When you get there you find the petrol is the most expensive in the whole of the EU.
A hundred miles to a hospital - one could go on indefinitely.
And the weather - I am sure you all sympathise with that.
We even had a visit from hurricane Mitch - the only bit of Europe to get it - at 240 kilometres an hour over my area.
We have sub-Arctic temperatures in the winter.
For two-thirds of the year all surfaces are damp, houses have to be strong, the cost of distance is enormous.
There are 90 inhabited islands - longer than England, bigger than Belgium or Denmark - and the costs of that peripherality are enormous.
I am trying to wring the heartstrings of everyone.
Make a note now for your coordinators: Amendments Nos 49 and 85, please.
Mr President, the Arias Cañete report is an excellent step.
Along with Mrs Fraga's and my own opinions on regional policy and rural development, it displays a great deal of determination and widespread agreement in the views of the three committees on Regional Policy, Agriculture and Rural Development, and Fisheries. There is widespread agreement on the need to maintain a substantial CFP, based on significant structural measures which apply to Community territory as a whole and which affect fisheries, marine cultivations, aquaculture - including inland aquaculture - and activities further on in the chain such as processing and marketing.
The unanimous position of the Committee on Fisheries, adopted after consultation with fisheries representatives in the Member States, should have attracted the attention of the Commission, and especially that of Commissioner Bonino.
In the opinion I drafted on the 'Agenda 2000' communication, also adopted unanimously by the Committee on Fisheries, we had already warned the European Commission that the whole fisheries sector was in danger of experiencing intra-Community relocation. Such relocation would take place if the Commission's original intentions - which would have created distortions - were not modified by implementing a regulation which accepts that the whole of the Union's territory is eligible for structural measures.
In the field of agriculture, a specific regulation on rural development has been drawn up.
We have scrupulously monitored it to ensure that it applies to all of the Union's territory in order to preserve equity when applying the CAP.
Why has the same thing not happened in the fisheries sector since it, like agriculture, has its own common policy?
So what will remain of the CFP, as there is no overall horizontal regulation bringing together all structural measures which apply to the fisheries sector throughout Union's territory and there is no regulation which is financed by an single instrument adapted to the needs of this sector? All that will be left is a bundle of different restrictions, fleet reduction measures and some stopgap measures, remnants that are certainly not worthy of being called a common policy.
We do not expect the policy to be abandoned, but we expect a far-reaching and forward-thinking policy to be developed which will take into account the maritime dimension of the Union, one of its most essential characteristics.
Mr President, the amendments tabled by our group reflect this aim.
Mr President, the Alleanza Nazionale delegation does not believe the objective of strengthening economic and social cohesion can ignore special situations involving structural handicaps, as in the case of island regions.
Islands suffer from structural disadvantages which have long-term negative effects on their economic and social development, and there are many islands among the territories to be excluded from Objective 1 programmes.
This means island territories will be dealt with on a par with regions which do not need special structural aid.
That is a contradiction in terms.
The new regulation cannot ignore the precepts of the new Treaty of Amsterdam which recognises and emphasises special features in Article 130a and the statement on the islands.
So there ought to be a category for islands in Objective 1, applying greater flexibility to the GDP parameters.
This is because careful and conscientious examination of the situation should make it clear that macro-economic issues are not the only ones; above all there are geo-economic issues involved.
On Objective 2, we note that the Commission's proposal to apply a certain population ceiling to the various Member States may penalise some regions in comparison with others.
In Italy the Commission's proposal to include regions leaving Objective 1 in Objective 2 would penalise the centre-north regions.
Instead the concentration of the Structural Funds by reducing the population assisted ought to be balanced and equitably distributed between all the Member States.
As regards transitional support, we think the period should be seven years for regions leaving Objectives 1, 2 and 5b.
We are not asking for greater allocation of resources to regions in this group, only Structural Fund intervention for the whole of the programming period.
I should specify that one Italian region, Abruzzo, ought to be able to benefit from transitional support despite the fact that it came out of Objective 1 in 1996, otherwise its inclusion in Objective 2 must be regarded as further penalisation of the centre-north.
Finally, we agree on the reduction in the number of Community initiatives from thirteen to three, but we think it is essential to maintain the URBAN initiative in order to implement a homogeneous policy throughout the territory.
Mr President, the Interreg, URBAN and Leader initiatives are breeding grounds for social and economic innovation which we must preserve at all costs.
Interreg will encourage cross-border development of European territory.
This affects not only the peripheral regions but also the very heart of Europe.
Whilst we are on the subject of the heart of Europe, have you ever travelled by train between Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg? The trains are slow, uncomfortable, often late, and so on.
However, the train is the ideal way to travel such distances and also the most ecological way to do so.
What should be a symbolic journey - travelling on the train of the future to the heart of Europe - happens on a rickety and wheezing machine from a bygone era.
And that brings me to Interreg.
Something that should feed and open up regions - such as the Walloon, Lorraine and Luxembourg regions - across borders is a train that has not progressed in the past hundred years.
Something that should contribute to developing cross-border regions is out of date.
Mr President, we must make a serious effort to look after cross-border regions such as those I have mentioned, regions which ask nothing more than to be integrated and to develop.
Mr President, I hope that you will not need to watch the clock while I am speaking.
This morning we have already heard a great deal on the subject of enlargement.
We have also talked about how this has to do with more than just making use of a historical opportunity, as we have to do a great deal before we can actually use this chance.
We have discussed pre-accession strategies in the applicant countries, which involve driving forward as intensively as possible the process of economic and political accession to a common Europe.
But although we have a great deal to do in the candidate countries, there is also homework to be done here.
We often talk for instance about the need for institutional reforms.
This is an important issue but it is not the only one.
For example, there is much potential here for economic restructuring in order to safeguard our own chances for the future.
In this regard, I think that there is one important key idea. Austria, the country which probably shares one of the longest external borders with the candidate countries, is justifiably interested in ensuring that the crossing and opening of the common border is organised in such a way as to bring advantage to both sides and harm to neither.
The long discussions in the Committee on Regional Policy have achieved a great deal.
I would particularly like to thank the Regional Affairs Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies.
Yesterday evening during Question Time, we touched on this subject briefly, and today all sides of the House have rightly emphasised this willingness to cooperate.
It has led to some fine results, but a little bit more could still be achieved.
More could and should be achieved, given that the money is guaranteed and there are many good ideas from the regions.
We should not always be waiting for Europe to lead the way; we must take things in hand ourselves.
On this subject, although in essence we fully approve and support the content of the Commission proposals, we would perhaps have liked to have seen one or two things treated differently.
Perhaps also a separate Objective for rural areas would have been good, although we are satisfied knowing that the rural area can be suitably safeguarded by specifying percentages of the population.
For the next few years and for the transition period the phasing-out rules are particularly important, as is a long phasing-out period for areas which will no longer be eligible for assistance under the future criteria because they no longer need it.
Mr President, I wholeheartedly agree with the key aims of the Structural Fund reforms on improving the focussing and effectiveness of aid, pruning bureaucracy and simplifying administration.
I also believe it is now essential to ensure that this more transparent policy is put into practice.
In applying the principle of partnership a clear division of responsibility must be established and the decision-making process must not be allowed to be hampered, but we have to approach the question of listening and commitment on the part of the various parties flexibly.
I support the Commission's proposal on eligibility criteria and funding contributions for Objective 1.
The poorest regions must be included in the group receiving the highest amounts of aid, that is to say the under-75 %-GNP regions, as well as the current northern and sparsely populated Objective 6 regions, as already agreed in the accession negotiations.
Regarding the Objective 2 criteria and the issue of population density I would hope for some flexibility according to circumstances.
For example, in Finland, Europe's most rural country, the hardships of farming in a northern climate and the long distances that people have to travel underline the need for an effective agricultural policy.
Unemployment and mass migration from the countryside demonstrate the need for development aid measures.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the first report on cohesion reveals to what extent the structural policies have had a strong levelling off effect.
In particular, the Cohesion Fund has played a fundamental role in achieving convergence among the Member States, although some of them still have not reached the level of 90 % of the average GNP in the EU.
It is a fact that, in some cohesion countries, there is still a considerable deficit in terms of infrastructure.
The conflict between the need to invest in these infrastructures and the need to make budgetary cuts, for countries taking part and not taking part in the euro, justifies the maintenance of the Fund.
On the other hand, the Cohesion Fund is fundamental for sustainable development in environmental terms, as was stipulated in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Therefore, we welcome the Commission's decision to maintain the fund, despite the fact that these countries are joining the euro.
It would be unfair for the poorest countries, which have made the greatest efforts to meet the convergence criteria, sacrificing expenditure in fundamental sectors, to be now deprived of this instrument for cohesion.
We should not confuse nominal and real convergence.
But the Cohesion Fund is not just an act of generosity.
We must not forget that it also enables money to be returned to the more developed states in the form of the acquisition of know-how and capital - in some cases, such as Portugal, as much as 50 %.
Therefore, not only is the Commission's decision in keeping with the treaties, but it is also in keeping with the spirit of Edinburgh: that of a cohesive Europe embracing solidarity.
Mr President, in spite of their growing share of the Community budget, the Structural Funds have not allowed us to get to the root of regional imbalances.
They have barely compensated for the negative consequences of implementing the single market and preparing for the single currency.
The efficiency of the Structural Funds must be strengthened.
To achieve this, we must concentrate the funds on least-favoured regions and channel them towards job-creating objectives.
The participation of elected representatives, of organisations and of citizens - democracy, in other words - is vital for the effectiveness of the Structural Funds.
And moving beyond the Structural Funds, the question of future financing of the European Union is also being raised.
I am more than slightly hesitant about the guidelines from the recent Commission document which aims at redistributing national contributions, under pressure from Germany who wants to pay less whilst still benefitting from the markets that will open up in Eastern Europe.
On this issue, I should like to say that I believe the theory of fair returns is the very antithesis of European integration as it goes against solidarity, and without this solidarity Europe cannot exist.
There is solidarity with the poorer regions, with sectors in difficulty, solidarity amongst the peoples of Europe, with applicant countries, with the Mediterranean countries of the south as part of the move towards development cooperation.
Rather than bickering over national contributions, would it not be a better idea to think of a more fitting use of Community appropriations, to seek new resources - from the financial markets, for example - by introducing a tax on financial transactions which, in this case, would be a fair return based on justice and not on...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, firstly I would like to thank Mrs Jöns for constructively including our group's ideas in her report as well.
A point she made very clear in her statement, which I would endorse, was that we cannot lose ground.
The 15 % figure reflects the level of European experience.
Targeted assistance for women simply reflects our stage in the process of civilisation.
Do our colleagues from the People's Party really want us to drop behind that? I think that the Christian Socialists in the House are in future going to have to decide whether they really want to risk a red-green majority in Parliament by opposing proposals which make sense.
(Heckling from Mr Schiedermeier) That is certainly something we shall see.
Mrs Glase, concentration is not about cutting back on the given aims.
It has to do with labour market policy, the process agreed upon in Luxembourg and above all employment policy in the third sector.
But it is also about social reintegration, complemented of course by a fight against poverty that is worthy of the name.
I shall have to stop there.
But let me just add that we based the synergies with other Funds on...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, perhaps you will remember that at the time of the Oostlander report, Mr Hänsch commented that many people would change their tune when it actually came to giving things up.
We have reached that point now.
Those who are familiar with the situation of the Structural and Cohesion Funds will know that Mr Hänsch hit the nail on the head.
As is so often the case, everyone is basically of the same opinion, but when it comes to the crunch - the details of the sacrifices that need to be made - many change their tune.
Let me turn now to the individual points, and firstly to the Cohesion Fund.
I also think that the countries participating in Economic and Monetary Union should lose their right to these resources.
Secondly, the Commission suggests that we maintain the present criterion for Objective 2.
I am in favour of strict compliance with this, and not ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, with the inclusion of an Employment Chapter in the new Treaty, a process began which led to the adoption of the employment guidelines in Luxembourg last November.
One of the pillars of these guidelines is employability, based on a preventive and proactive labour supply policy in which training plays a fundamental role.
The proposal for a Social Fund regulation we are debating today is part of this new approach.
The Commission has undoubtedly put a major effort into making the Fund as flexible an instrument as possible, without losing sight of the need for it to serve the achievement of European objectives.
Those objectives can be summarised as the development of proactive labour market policies, the promotion of social inclusion, the development of educational and vocational training systems to promote lifelong learning, the development of systems and models for the organisation of labour geared to producing a qualified labour force capable of facing up to the challenges of change, support for entrepreneurship and for the world of scientific and technological research, and the development of actions geared to promoting equal opportunities in the labour market.
Now I would like to comment on certain points contained in the Commission's proposal and strengthened by the excellent report from Mrs Jöns.
The range of measures that can be financed allows the training stage to be encapsulated in a package of integrated actions, geared to facilitating entry into or return to work.
It is important to emphasise that a whole series of pre-training measures is included, intended to reach the categories of people who would otherwise be irredeemably lost.
This means there can be a response to problems which go well beyond the work dimension and, instead, involve the whole person, which is something worth highlighting.
An important part of this is the proposal to devote 1 % of the Social Fund's resources to funding small projects run by non-governmental organisations, entrusting them to intermediate bodies on the basis of simplified procedures.
The Commission has already begun an important experiment in this area.
Equally important is the promotion of new sources of employment by exploiting the third sector and the social economy, in particular by promoting and supporting local development.
Fundamental here is the proposal to extend partnership, which should become an obligatory procedure at national level, for both governments and regions.
Finally, women must be guaranteed equal rights to participate in the measures promoted by the Social Fund not only by including mainstreaming in the regulation but also through specific measures.
For this reason, the Jöns report proposes setting a minimum of 15 % of the Social Fund resources to guarantee that equal opportunities for women and men also remain a priority when the regulation is applied by the national and regional services.
Mr President, Commissioner, I come from Brittany, a region where fishing is a vital and dynamic economic activity, a keystone in development and employment and a balancing factor in land management.
Where I come from, the fishing tradition has been handed down from father to son for hundreds of years.
Fishing permeates every aspect of our way of life and our traditions and, in spite of the difficult nature of the job, it plays such a large part in our lives that it is a fundamental element of our identity.
This is why, Commissioner, we cannot accept the proposals for regulations on structural measures in the fisheries sector. As our rapporteur pointed out, these proposals in their current state would threaten the unity of the fisheries sector by scattering the structural measures in the different regulations, they would destroy the current coherency in the maritime sector and, to the detriment of the final beneficiary, they would make it more difficult to gain access to aid.
Above all, they would inevitably cause activity to be transferred from certain regions to others that will have greater advantages in the future. In Brittany, as in all regions dependent on fishing, we must preserve the means for building newer and safer boats, we must continue to modernise our ports and the fisheries industry, to upgrade our production and to train young people for a noble profession which, despite what is sometimes said, is a profession of the future.
Mr President, I intend to speak on Mr Arias Cañete's report on the fisheries sector.
The Greens agree with many of the rapporteur's criticisms of the Commission's proposal, which is decidedly inadequate.
Mrs McKenna has already been able to express our point of view during discussion in the Committee on Fisheries, and the various amendments proposed by the Greens have been accepted by the committee.
But we do not agree with all the proposals made by Mr Arias Cañete: I refer in particular to the new annex 3, which lays down measures for the construction of new fishing vessels.
The Greens believe Community financing under the CFP should be limited to vessels no longer than 24 metres.
Our proposal takes account of the environmental aspects - sustainable fishing is incompatible with a fleet of large fishing vessels - and the employment aspects, because large vessels certainly employ fewer fishermen.
We hope the House can accept our amendment.
Mr President, this proposal for the reform of the Structural Funds is broadly positive in intention.
The present seven objectives will be cut to three, which will certainly make it easier for both the Commission and the regions to manage the funds.
Better practical implementation also demands greater decision-making powers and greater autonomy on the part of the provincial authorities, which cover bodies with more detailed knowledge of the situation locally.
As regards Objective 2, I think a great deal of attention needs to be paid to the admissibility criteria.
This objective groups together four separate and distinct actions, namely one for urban areas, one for industrial areas, one for rural and mountain areas and one for fisheries.
If the admissibility criteria are neglected this grouping threatens to be detrimental to regions where there are great disparities between the various sectors in terms of development.
Take Lombardy, for instance.
It has a highly productive industrial fabric, which often means the poor and backward rural and mountain areas are forgotten.
The depopulation and abandonment of pastures in progress are grave symptoms of an irreversible decline caused by our insensitivity to the mountains.
The elimination of the Leader Community initiative in favour of the rural areas is a clear example of the lack of interest in mountain areas and people.
I wonder how the Commission intends to manage this situation equitably.
Still on the Leader programme, we are told that, with the reformed financing, the actions under it will be funded through Objective 2.
I am curious to see how the funds will actually be managed.
I am convinced - and I am not too far off the truth - that some of the local action groups always financed and provided by the Leader programme will be refinanced by the new Objective 2, but I rather fear that many of them will be destined to disappear together with much of the aid, support and incentives to rural development.
We are once again faced with a good reform of the ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, representatives of the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament have all appealed to one another to keep to the timetable agreed at Cardiff, and we have been assured that at least the institution that this speaker represents is keeping to this timetable.
We have thus shown ourselves to be unanimous in our wishes here.
Now we should also be able to agree unanimously that once the Council has finalised its decisions by the Brussels summit in March, Parliament will then be able to take part fully in the decision-making process.
We know that there are deadlines to meet here, so we need to agree on how this is to happen.
The Commission communication on the Agenda 2000 document has provided a very good and solid basis for regional and structural policy reform.
It is particularly important to simplify the administration of the Structural Funds, to place more reliance on regional and local authorities, and to concentrate resources in regions that have the greatest development problems.
It is vital to keep to the priority of tackling the employment problem.
The Commission's proposal is founded on the principles of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which took account of the fact that important environmental matters have gained greater prominence in the eyes of our citizens.
The question of integrating environmental issues with regional, structural and cohesive funding does not, however, go far enough in the Commission's proposal.
This aspect of the issue has been dealt with more effectively by Parliament.
What is of most importance is that the environmental authorities play a full role in the selection and implementation of regional projects.
Furthermore, the role of NGOs has to be acknowledged as part of a real effort to bring about greater transparency and better publicity.
By making the role of partnership between the environmental authorities and NGOs more visible and genuine we can make it much easier for citizens to become involved in regional and structural policy projects.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to look briefly at the main points. The ceilings of 1.27 % of the gross national product on the revenue side and 0.46 % on the expenditure side for the Structural Funds should not in future be exceeded.
For Objective 1 the threshold should be a strict 75 %!
Objective 6 regions - peripheral and island areas - are in the Treaty, but that is all.
Phasing out should just be six years, not seven under any circumstances, otherwise you will be dealing with them forever.
With regard to Objective 2, I do not agree with you.
I do not like this catch-all category of yours, as the rural area will probably get a raw deal.
I am afraid that unemployment as a sole criterion may be too harsh and I think that the soft criteria are important so that national authorities can have a say in the arrangements.
For reasons of fairness, I want the 'phasing out' to be not four years but six, as you know is the case with Objective 1.
I would say yes to the safety net.
With Objective 3, I would say yes to the horizontal assistance.
I fully agree with you on the three Community initiatives.
If you permit others, then you will quickly find that you end up with 13 again, and that is also something that I do not want.
No reserves, Commissioner, I cannot grant you that playground.
National assistance is better and I would support it.
Above all else, within the context of subsidiarity it should still be possible for us at least to use own resources without the Commission constantly stepping in.
So please increase the 'de minimis' rule as you have already promised to do.
My preference would be ECU 1 million, as we could easily accept that and arrange everything quite successfully.
Commissioner, although you are already hearing about the red-green majority, I do hope that you accept sensible proposals from the other side. As I am a trade unionist, I hope that this is at least one level on which we can agree.
Mr President, I should like to welcome both Commissioners to the House and thank them for their time and assistance.
I should like to speak in particular about the social fund regulations and thank Mrs Jöns for her very visionary and forward-looking report.
We must remember that when the Treaty of Amsterdam is ratified and comes into force it will have an employment chapter.
Because of the problems of unemployment, in particular long-term unemployment across Europe, we must have preventative as well as curative measures for the long-term unemployed.
Therefore I would hope that we maintain our emphasis on life-long learning.
It is essential that in an ever-changing world, in technological and financial terms, we upgrade people's skills.
We must also ensure that in our schools and colleges more emphasis is given to looking forward to seeing where the new skills are going to be required in 10 years' time so that we can put in place the training programmes for that as well.
Most important of all is local development, where we can provide more and more assistance and more and more long-term employment, but for far smaller amounts of money than the present state aids and interventions.
I am delighted to see that under the local social capital programme 1 % of the proposed new regulations under the ESF would be given towards that.
Finally, we must never forget that there is nothing rigid; it must be flexible; we must adapt.
Mr President, it is quite right that we should recognize here the efficient actions of the Member States that have received Structural Funds during their short but already ample history.
Therefore, the obligation for all the European institutions should be to try to improve and strengthen them, without forgetting the fact that there is also inevitably a flow of capital into the more industrialised Member States.
Will the regulations be improved? We have our doubts.
Making the conditions for being declared Objective 1 more flexible would lead to a distortion of its essence, which is fundamentally social and involves solidarity and redressing imbalances.
We should also recall that the ruling from the Council's Legal Service was very convincing.
The Maastricht Treaty states that it is legitimate to continue to include in the Cohesion Fund countries, such as Spain, that passed - indeed, with flying colours - the test to join the third stage of monetary union.
If it is established, the performance reserve - at least as it is in the Commission's current proposal, with a figure of 10 % - will in practice be a political instrument that is unnecessary and even counterproductive.
Other complementary indicators should have been taken into account, such as inequalities in health resources, the decline in working population or environmental problems.
However, we welcome the fact that the criterion of unemployment will play an essential part.
Finally, Mr President, I must point out the scarce amount of attention that has been paid to sustainable development in terms of the availability of energy resources and regional investment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, no-one challenges the principle of or the need for the reform which has been proposed, but it is practical details of the reform which give us cause for concern and raise questions.
I am thinking of my region in particular - the Nord/Pas-de-Calais region - which currently comes under Objectives 1, 2 and 5b and which stands to lose much of the aid it has received until now.
This region suffers from high unemployment, as high as 25 % in certain areas.
The recession here is serious and the conversion of coal fields, amongst other things, is far from complete.
Thanks to European aid, we were able to initiate a significant development process but this would be jeopardised by any sudden cut-off in aid.
Of course, a transitional support mechanism has been set up but, as in other cases, people are still worried and need to be reassured.
Therefore, I would like to stress the absolute necessity of this transitional support.
We welcome the fact that it is provided for but we would like it to be extended to all regions no longer eligible for Objective 1, 2 and 5b status. We would also like it to cover the whole programming period, in other words from 2000 to 2006.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is Parliament's first opportunity to comment on the Commission proposals for the reform of the Structural Funds, and give some clear indications on them.
As we do this, we German Social Democrats will be anxious to discover whether or not Parliament has the strength to display some truly common, clear principles.
The consultations have shown that, in principle, all of us want greater accuracy and a concentration of resources on what is important. This means priority should still be given to assisting regions whose development is lagging furthest behind, but it also means continuing to give an appropriate level of assistance to regions in the richer Member States which are experiencing problems with restructuring.
We agree that we should concentrate the Structural Funds on creating employment and on simplifying structural policy, as well as helping the regions that are no longer eligible with transitional rules so that they are not just excluded all of a sudden.
But the discussions of the last few weeks have shown that there is reason for us to fear that the representation of national interests and the horse-trading that accompanies it - something which we have so far only seen in Council - have spread to Parliament too.
Parliament is running the risk of needlessly ruining its reputation.
There are amendments which we will table and present tomorrow so that a decision can be taken on them, but two points should allow me to clarify the exact direction that we are heading in.
If at first reading we are already opening the door to exceptions to the 75 % rule for Objective 1, then we are giving the Council the unequivocal signal to start horse-trading.
The price we will pay is a long list of exceptions, and less money for the regions that really need it.
We cannot suspend basic arithmetic, after all!
If we do not make the cake we are distributing any bigger but more people want a slice, then there is less for those who urgently need it.
The cake that we are distributing is not going to become any bigger because there are more hungry people.
On the other hand, we should not, via the back door, turn the Cohesion Fund into an unlimited instrument for redistributing income to all those Member States which are beneath a certain level of prosperity.
European integration has not quite reached that stage yet.
The Structural Funds are an expression of European solidarity.
The Cohesion Fund must be concentrated on the Member States that are having difficulty in complying with the hard criteria.
I would ask that flexibility ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I shall confine myself to commenting on the Community initiatives, on which Parliament is now to deliver its opinion.
I myself am in favour of reducing the number of initiatives, but I would urge that they be reduced from thirteen to five, which still simplifies matters very considerably.
These would be Interreg, which has a very clear European added value, Leader, which guarantees rural development, and the Community initiatives on combating discrimination in access to the labour market, all of which are excellent.
However, I also regard URBAN as extremely important.
Focusing attention on Objective 2 cities is a good idea, but it is not enough.
Medium-sized cities outside the objective areas should also be given a chance, and this is what URBAN, which has already proved its effectiveness, does.
We all know that urban development and the accumulation of problems in cities has now almost become a global problem.
It is a good idea to focus equal attention on their problems in tandem with the development of rural areas.
Together with Mrs McCarthy, the PPE Group has tabled a compromise amendment on behalf of the Socialist and PPE Groups, which I would urge Parliament to support.
In the amendment, we call for the possibility of creating an instrument at EU level that can be applied flexibly in regions feeling the effects of the rapid changes that industrial processes are currently undergoing.
There are at least three reasons for these changes: firstly, increasing globalisation; secondly, the dramatic upheaval caused by the information and communication technologies; and thirdly, enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe.
We felt we had to table this amendment in order to ensure that we ourselves have the possibility of reacting flexibly.
Moreover, we will shortly be living in euroland, and if there were to be a real crisis, there is currently nothing in the Structural Funds that could help the EU countries to deal with it.
As a consequence of the amendment, I would also, as is only logical, urge that the contribution be raised to 7 % to ensure that funding is not taken away from the other initiatives.
Mr President, I should like to begin by making the point that I believe that in the current phase of the European Union's development regional policy is perhaps more important than ever before.
One of the encouraging things we have seen over the last few years is the reduction of the gap in wealth between the rich and the poor Member States.
On the other hand we have seen the prosperity gap between Europe's regions increasing.
That demonstrates very clearly that more than ever before we need a proactive regional policy which ensures that all regions of the European Union benefit from firstly, the single market and, secondly, the establishment of the euro zone.
There are two things I should like to emphasise with regard to the report.
Firstly, there is a consensus between the Commission and Parliament and, I believe, the Council of Ministers, that we need a simplification of the regulations governing the structural funds.
But also there is a crying need for more partnership between everyone who is involved in the process of economic development: the social partners, local authorities or regional government as well as the Commission and central governments.
We need to work much more closely together on identifiable objectives.
The second point concerns the principle of concentration.
There is a strong case to be made for concentration.
We want to make sure that the structural funds have the greatest possible economic impact and therefore we must target the areas of greatest need very carefully.
I would like to refer to one area of identifiable need, my own country, Wales.
There is a reasonable chance now that much of Wales would qualify for Objective I funding.
Certainly the resources would be put to very good use there, based on the principle of concentration and partnership.
Mr President, there have been few times when the various rapporteurs and draftsmen in a committee have worked so much in unison as we have done in the Committee on Fisheries on the reform of the Structural Funds. We were trying to prevent structural actions in the fisheries sector from being left practically to the Commission's discretion and to neutralise the contradictions and the enormous programming problems that the current proposal presents.
Therefore, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries on the framework regulation, I have proposed the creation of a single legal instrument that would enable us to draw up a regulation on fisheries Structural Funds - the FIFG - which, being horizontal in nature, might bring together all the structural actions involving the fisheries sector, as the Commission itself has already done for the agricultural sector.
This need for a single sectorial legal instrument was easily understood by the various parliamentary committees and the change proposed will - I hope - be incorporated at this first reading.
The fisheries sector does, in fact, need to have access to a series of structural measures that must be the same for the entire sector, regardless of the region in which a particular fisheries enterprise is established.
That is why the legal instrument that embraces them needs to be of a horizontal nature.
This essential horizontal nature is destroyed by the regional planning that the Commission's proposal establishes for Objective 2 regions.
The result of this will be enormous programming difficulties in the fisheries sector and serious risks of relocation of enterprises, as they will establish themselves in those regions where there are regional programmes or where the regional programmes are more favourable to them.
It was therefore necessary to correct this tendency so that the Member States might have the flexibility needed to establish the most appropriate level of programming for the fisheries sector, regardless of the region concerned.
Commissioner, you have seen that many Members have spoken on the subject of fisheries.
The structural side of the fisheries sector is greatly affected ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, I think it is now quite clear to both Parliament and the Commission that the Structural Funds must be focused much more than before on the priorities of Community policy, and one of the main priorities for us is equal opportunities between men and women in employment, social policy and regional policy.
The Structural Funds could be quite a trump card in improving equal opportunities, if only this were spelled out in the regulations governing them.
Previously, these regulations referred to equal opportunities, but in such a half-hearted way that often nothing much was actually done in practice.
Women were given attention in training and employment initiatives, but the Member States were far less enthusiastic when it came to infrastructure and regional policy.
I would love to know, in figures, just how much has been spent on female entrepreneurship, social infrastructure, reconciling job and family, and support for women in rural areas.
The Commission has done its best.
It has organised two conferences and supplied information on good practice.
The Council even passed a resolution on the subject in December 1996, but none of this was enough.
We are therefore particularly pleased that the Commission is making an effort to strengthen the principle of equal opportunities in legislation, and we welcome the twin-track approach it proposes of incorporating equal opportunities right across all the Structural Funds while also devoting special attention to equal opportunities between men and women.
Yet we still think, Commissioners, that greater attention can and must seriously be given to this subject.
I am particularly grateful to the rapporteurs and especially to Karin Jöns for looking very carefully at the questions raised by the Committee on Women's Rights here.
We want to see improvements in two areas.
Firstly, mainstreaming must have a much higher profile and must be much more quantifiable, in other words equal opportunities must be translated into clear objectives, clear statistics broken down by gender, accurate indicators and detailed evaluations.
Organisations must be able to prove whether and how they have spent money on equal opportunities for women.
Making structural policy work also means involving women more.
This means that women must be included in the monitoring committees, and those responsible for equal opportunities must be involved in all stages of the implementation of the Structural Funds.
Secondly, alongside mainstreaming we also want to see accompanying measures specifically designed to eliminate inequality.
We therefore think that the excellent measures that have only just been launched under the Community initiative should be retained in the new Community initiatives in the future.
Finally, as Karin Jöns said, we insist that 15 % of the Social Fund should be used for equal opportunities.
I have to say that I cannot understand why the PPE Members are opposed to this.
The Commission itself has proposed it, and we all know that special measures are needed.
Mr President, the structural funds have been a great success for Europe in Ireland.
On the whole, the bulk of the funds have been used very well though there have been some instances when European funds were used for projects which threaten to undermine our environment.
However, what a difference a few short months make.
Our government has put together a package which must fail the Eurostat test for structural funds which requires eligible regions to have less than 75 % of average European GDP.
The structural funds for Ireland are in danger of becoming a victim of this particular plan.
We should have put aside party political divisions and established priorities based on need in targeted rural and urban unemployment blackspots.
The plan could have faced the need to integrate immigrants and refugees also.
Instead, its only contribution to future regional planning has been to produce a plan so bizarre that it can only be designed to fail.
We should have put aside party political wrangling.
The Irish Government's strategy is, at best, a party political deal based on expediency.
At worst it is a cruel attempt to deceive the Irish people.
Proposing at the last moment a plan that must be rejected by Brussels has only one aim: to blame Brussels for its rejection.
I would like to thank both Commissioners present for their own contributions to the success in Ireland.
We have, however, substantial and real underprivileged and underdevelopment, in particular in the west and in parts of Dublin and other urban blackspots.
We have a serious literacy problem.
We need a revised structural fund to tackle these and other problems and a greater political consensus to solve them effectively.
I can only hope that there is sufficient goodwill in the Commission and in this House to ignore the dithering and mismanagement of our government.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Ladies and gentlemen, I have to interrupt the debate at this point.
You must forgive me for being strict, but we had an hour ahead of us and 50 speakers on the list.
The debate is therefore adjourned.
It will be resumed this evening at 9 p.m.
Situation in Central America and EU action
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Central America and European Union action.
I give the floor first to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, President-in-Office of the Council.
As you heard from the President-in-Office, Mrs Bonino is currently visiting the disaster area in order to see for herself, and on behalf of the Commission, what the situation is like there.
Clearly, alongside the measures that the presidency has already taken, the Commission felt that priority had to be given to providing emergency aid for the most vulnerable people in the region.
A preliminary detailed assessment indicates that things like food, blankets, medicines and chlorine are urgently needed, as well as cooking utensils and the like.
Pending a more complete analysis, the Commission approved an aid programme of almost ECU 7 million under the emergency procedure provided for in Article 13 of the regulation on humanitarian aid.
We were thus able to make a very timely and substantial contribution to the international aid effort as early as 4 November.
The first aid programme is being carried out by the German and Spanish Red Cross, in cooperation with their sister organisations in the countries affected and 11 European NGOs already working on ECHO projects in the region.
The first phase, in more detail, is as follows: first of all, direct support is being provided via the various national disaster programmes, and major efforts are being made on the ground to coordinate the work of national and international organisations, United Nations bodies, the International Development Bank, the World Bank, USAid and the European Commission, because coordination is the key to ensuring that all the human and financial resources deployed in the region are used as effectively as possible.
There are a number of measures which form part of this and which focus on a regional or sectoral approach, such as the Red Cross's work to save victims and organise evacuations, help in providing a water supply, measures to protect public health, water purification tablets to prevent epidemics, and so on.
Médecins sans Frontières has been extremely active and is receiving our support.
The international Red Cross federation is being supported in its attempts to restore the very fragile and damaged communication network, which is vital for the distribution of the first emergency aid supplies.
Existing humanitarian aid projects being run by NGOs in the region have been reorganised to provide the most urgently needed aid.
The NGOs were already on the spot and have been able to provide help straight away, and they have reorganised or adapted ECU 3 million worth of projects to deal with the current situation.
The emergency aid under ECHO has come to ECU 10 million up to now, and the total including food aid is some ECU 30 million. The ECHO workers are now asking for extra funding in order to organise another aid programme, which is likely to be finalised in the next few weeks and which will probably be on the same scale as the previous one.
However, this second phase of emergency aid will also need to include a recovery element in order to prepare for the transition to more structured recovery work and aid for economic reconstruction.
There is just one point I would like to make about the prospects for recovery and reconstruction programmes in the short and medium terms. Of course, we are still waiting for a detailed analysis of the effects of this terrible natural disaster on the economies of Central America, but there is no doubt that each of the countries involved has suffered enormous structural damage.
The first assessments mainly talk about damage to key sectors like agriculture, roads and supply systems.
The Commission is examining what potential funding could be provided to make an early and substantial contribution to the international reconstruction effort. Our approach from this point onwards will be as follows.
In the short term, in other words in December this year, the Commission will put a funding proposal to the Member States using an urgent procedure, setting out a framework for future action.
The proposal will be based on whatever funding for reconstruction and technical financial cooperation is still left in the 1998 budget. As soon as access is possible to the areas affected, a multidisciplinary technical evaluation team will be sent there in close coordination with the Member States and with the national authorities and other donors.
The development programmes planned for 1999 will be reviewed and adapted case by case, in close consultation with the beneficiary countries.
Current projects may be strengthened or restructured to help with recovery or reconstruction.
In addition, a strategic approach may require the setting-up of a regional reconstruction fund in the medium term, say, and the Commission could put forward proposals on this subject to the Council after consultations with all the parties involved, including other donors and the governments of the countries affected.
The main problem with this strategy is the rather low level of funding currently provided under the budget line for recovery and reconstruction in Latin America, B7-313, which at present amounts to only ECU 4.25 million.
Of course, the budgetary authority could take a decision to allocate extra funding to this budget line.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I wish to thank the Council and the Commission for the emergency aid.
It is perhaps not always a matter of course in this House for us to thank one another, but I do want to express my open praise for them here.
I am also glad that Mrs Bonino has made the European Union visible in Central America through her presence there.
I have little time and will therefore be brief. Unfortunately, this will not be the last natural disaster to occur, so I would advise that we consider building up a kind of disaster aid system.
A number of countries in the world actually have a special ministry for disasters, with its own transport capacity, aircraft and perhaps even satellites for predicting natural disasters.
My second point is that longer-term reconstruction aid should be given not only to the states of this region, but also towards the integration of the region.
Now that so much has been destroyed, infrastructure measures, roads, telecommunications, energy networks and so forth can in fact also help to turn this region, inhabited by something over 30 million people, into a common region.
The European Parliament, with the support of the Council and the Commission, has always expressed strong political support for the integration of this region.
My third comment is that we keep saying the aid must be unbureaucratic.
On the other hand, it must be carefully thought through, planned for the long term and as transparent as possible.
That is squaring the circle, I know.
Perhaps we could discuss one day how we really can square the circle, since otherwise we shall be in trouble with the Court of Auditors again.
Mr President, there are of course misfortunes that do not need describing at length and I think that this is true of the tragic case of hurricane Mitch.
It is time to act.
Until now, the Commission has acted promptly and efficiently and such action needs to be acknowledged and considered in a positive light.
Efforts are now needed to set up an ambitious and strategic reconstruction plan.
It is not simply a matter of hoping these things will happen, but of making sure they become a reality.
Mr President, in my opinion, such a plan has to contain several components.
The first component relates to the budgetary dimension, and the response given by the European Union to this situation has to be in line with that of the Member States.
I have to say that I feel particularly proud of how my country, Spain, the Spanish Government and the whole of Spanish society have responded to this situation.
I think that, as an arm of the budgetary authority, the European Parliament must set an example of generosity and flexibility in this budgetary dimension and mobilise as many resources as possible.
The Commission's representative, Mr van den Broek referred to this a moment ago.
Such a plan also needs to contain a substantial trade component.
For two years, this House has been calling for Central American countries to be included in the Generalised System of Preferences, like the Andean countries, including for industrial products.
This, Madam President-in-Office, needs to be done unconditionally and without delay, because I have to say that the double condition contained in the Commission's proposal is inadmissable - given the circumstances - as well as being discriminating. What is more, it completely contradicts the philosophy that has inspired such measures.
This plan also needs a credit component and, in my opinion, as part of the plan's strategy, the Commission should endeavour to propose a whole series of measures that, taking advantage of the scale of this tragedy, are aimed at increasing the European Investment Bank's credits to this region.
In addition, there obviously needs to be a debt component. It must not be said here that the European Union does not have any competence in this area because, Mr President, it is clear that there is nothing to prevent either the Commission or Parliament from asking the Member States to make clear concessions on the issue of debt.
I would ask, Commissioner, that in addition to the components I have just outlined, the Commission make use of its imagination.
In the fight against misfortune and tragedy, and very often against reality - however hard it may be -, the best weapons, although they may not seem like it, are not the resources that have to be used in an efficient and coordinated manner, as Mrs Ferrero-Waldner pointed out.
Often, the imagination also has an important part to play in such situations.
And, Mr President, I would call on the Presidency of the Council to act by setting in motion the wheels of political dialogue as well as calling an extraordinary meeting of the San José Conference at ministerial level.
I think that this ministerial conference could, to a certain extent, give incentive to the possible conference of donors to which the representative of the Commission, Mr van den Broek, referred in his speech.
I think that it is time to look to the future and view this tragedy as an opportunity to further unite the inhabitants of Central America and encourage them to double their efforts in pursuit of regional integration and greater solidarity.
To sum up, Mr President, I call on the Commission to spare no resources and to mobilise all its efforts.
And you can rest assured, Commissioner, that the Commission - and I would ask you to pass this on to the Commissioner responsible for this policy, Mr Marín - will have the support of this House, because we shall never say of those who are doing all they can, that they are not doing what they should.
Mr President, I just wanted to add a few words to what my colleagues in the Socialist Group and the Group of the European People's Party have been saying in relation to the urgent action - and subsequent action - that needs to be carried out by the European Union, at both Council and Commission level, in the areas affected by the disaster.
In July, I had the opportunity to visit the countries involved and saw that they had begun a very positive recovery process following the internal wrangles and serious conflicts they had experienced, and I could see that they were genuinely on the road to recovery with a real desire to cooperate.
In a matter of hours, nature, in a most brutal and unfortunate way, destroyed the work of recent years.
I think that from our privileged position in Europe, we must show as much solidarity as possible with the societies and people affected. We must also bear in mind those urgent aspects where, logically, public authorities at all levels - starting with the administration of the European Union, the governments of the Member States, and the other levels of administration within Europe - should be directly involved, together with non-governmental organisations.
I would like to stress that it is essential to review these countries' debt so that it does not impede their possible recovery. Moreover, as we propose in our joint motion for a resolution, it is also vital to build the foundations for a medium and long-term recovery that will consolidate and restore the process that, as I said, I had the opportunity to see at first hand in July.
Mr President, Hurricane Mitch has devastated Central America, destroying everything in its path.
This would be just another news story if there were not such an immeasurable human drama behind it all which, sadly, will remain a gaping wound for a long time to come.
Throughout history, nature has made its presence felt through extremes, creating natural disasters which unfortunately take place all too often in areas that are already poor. These disasters add inhumane conditions, grief, desolation, separation, illness and the anguish of the aftermath to economic instability.
As a member of the interparliamentary Delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and Mexico, last May I had the opportunity to visit Honduras with a few colleagues and we were able to see how, even in the capital, Tegucigalpa, the hand held out by the Union was already a lifeline for these populations before the hurricane struck.
Now, we not only have a duty towards them, but a real moral debt, which must take the form of a long-term commitment.
The international community as a whole has immediately lent a hand, and its spontaneity is not all as it has also provided supplies, clothing, means of transport, water filters, medicines and mobile hospitals. Like my colleague, I am proud to be French.
And although, of course, I fully support the value of the emergency aid provided to these countries and pay tribute to the men and women in the field who are making every effort to reconstruct basic infrastructures to support a population which has absolutely nothing, I believe that the worst we could do would be to forget them after this emergency aid.
After this united effort, the world's rich nations, together with the governments of these countries, must draw up a plan for rebuilding this area and go beyond cancelling debts.
However, we must not make the mistake of making decisions for them, as I believe that the chance to support the development of democracy in these countries has been presented to us on a plate.
Alongside these plans we should introduce close dialogue with these governments, but also with the populations and organisations of these countries, to whom we must give the means to play a role in their own reconstruction.
Mr President, I completely agree with the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, when she said that the hurricane had been very strong and devastating because it was classed as a level 5 hurricane.
However, we must also bear in mind - and I think that many non-governmental organisations are highlighting this fact - that if there had been housing in this area that was not substandard, a civic network that could have predicted what could happen and, in short, if there had been greater consolidation of human rights in that area, the hurricane would not have been as devastating.
And I agree with many of the issues raised here by Mr Salafranca and Mr Linkhor in relation to generalised preferences for these countries.
However, in the short time I have left, I shall inform you of what was said to us by some Members and certain Central American organisations at a seminar held last week in Brussels.
Their main concerns are the following.
First, they believe that in this case we need to review the cooperation agreements and, as other Members have said, adapt them to the medium and long term to help recovery in the area.
Second, there needs to be a way to ensure that aid reaches those affected.
Unfortunately, this has not always been the case in the past.
Third, the distribution of aid has to take the town councils into consideration.
There are small councils that are facing many difficulties but lack resources to deal effectively with these problems.
Fourth, a call must be made to have these countries' debt written off. We are all aware that it amounts to 300 % of gross domestic product in Nicaragua, but it is equally high in other countries.
Fifth, it is essential that a debt write-off does not serve to alleviate the governments' concerns, but those of the people.
This is why the total amount of debt should be earmarked for specific recovery projects in the area.
I also feel proud, as Mr Salafranca said, not only of the response of the Spanish Government but, more particularly, that of the Spanish nation. It has shown a great sense of solidarity.
But that is for now.
We shall see what happens in January and February.
We all need to continue acting beyond this emotional period surrounding the events in Central America.
Mr President, a disaster on this scale calls for reactions going far beyond those of the past.
Thousands of people have died or lost everything, in part also because no precautions were taken as the hurricane roared towards them, because the poorest people have to live in the unsafest areas, because whole swathes of land were deforested for industrial agriculture.
Central America has been devastated; it will take decades to reconstruct.
But if this reconstruction is to work, these countries do not just need effective handouts of aid packages.
They need a far-sighted reconstruction plan to be drawn up, not a patchwork of gift packages which, as we have seen in the past, seep away into dubious or government-chosen channels.
Well-coordinated reconstruction must be aimed primarily at improving the condition of the population.
Top priority must be given to health, education and housing, as well as far-reaching agricultural reform.
The people concerned must have a say and a right of control here.
Central America needs total, bilateral debt cancellation.
France is setting a good example here.
The other EU countries should follow suit as quickly as possible.
But it is not just a question of writing off debts that can in any case no longer be recovered.
The multilateral debts must also be cancelled.
The IMF and the World Bank will help out with loans, but these must not be tied to structural adjustment measures.
The European governments should therefore make real use of their influence at the IMF and the World Bank to make sure the loans are not conditional.
According to today's 'Guardian', the prospects for Chiquita are rosy.
The banana multinationals will make the insurance companies pay for the reconstruction of their plant, while their workers are left on the streets.
The multinationals, for instance those in Honduras that have not paid taxes for years, are trying to evade their responsibility.
The devastation caused by a hurricane is not just the result of a force of nature descending on mankind.
The destruction of the ozone layer, the thoughtless wastage of natural resources and the reckless poisoning of the environment play their part in the disaster. And this will not be the last one, unless the industrialised countries engage in a process of radical rethinking.
Mr President, with each day that passes and as people begin to assess the human toll and material damage caused by hurricane Mitch, the true scale of the disaster is gradually emerging.
On this occasion, nature has not been kind to the countries of Central America, but we should remember - as Parliament has - that it was the hand of man and his negligence that has caused climate change to unleash natural disasters such as this.
We must all be aware - particularly industrialised countries - that if we do not radically change our behaviour, other hurricanes will follow hurricane Mitch with similar and devastating effects.
In Central America, ladies and gentlemen, as is almost always the case, the weakest have lost the most.
It is therefore our unavoidable duty to ensure that aid is distributed in the most efficient, effective and coordinated way possible so that it reaches, above all, those who need it most and so that it does not become a source of corruption as has unfortunately been the case in other similar situations.
Lastly, we would like to publicly welcome the excellent displays of solidarity that have been made by the citizens of Europe individually and by the institutions that represent them, particularly the European institutions.
We must welcome the rapid response that has been given to a situation that required immediate solutions.
On many occasions, we have complained about the bureaucratic red tape that has delayed Europe's response to such situations, but today we can thank it for responding so promptly.
Now all that is needed is for this action to be supplemented by totally writing off the debts of the countries concerned.
Mr President, we have been shocked to see the devastation in Central America.
When the forces of nature wreak havoc in this way, leaving behind a trail of destruction, death and injury, we cannot help but feel completely powerless.
Even in today's modern society with all its technical expertise, nature can still take us by surprise, though in this case it was not a total surprise in that we knew Hurricane Mitch was on its way shortly before it arrived.
The impact of the hurricane was bound to be hard, but the scale of the disaster was increased by the type of region affected.
Poor farmers had been driven out by large landowners to farm on higher mountain slopes, with disastrous consequences.
The hurricane was unleashed on the deforested slopes and washed everything away in a destructive river of mud.
However, the most important thing at the moment is to ensure that adequate help is provided.
A great deal has already been done by countries all over the world, including in Europe.
The example set by France and the Netherlands in writing off debts should be followed by the other EU countries, and the same applies to the rescheduling of debt repayments by the financial institutions and the international financial organisations.
In the longer term, a socially and ecologically responsible programme needs to be set up to help farmers and to restore the environment.
The major landowners must cooperate in genuinely sustainable development, including appropriate measures to combat erosion, and it would be advisable to involve the NGOs here.
Mr President, I want to speak on debt rescheduling to revive the economies of the countries struck by the catastrophe.
The countries cannot all be measured by the same yardstick: Guatemala and El Salvador seem to be richer countries than Nicaragua and Honduras, or at least less poor.
When the criterion for debt remission is established, the actual difference between national incomes might favour differential treatment depending on the economic and financial situation of the country involved.
In this way, the clauses agreed at Naples on the fringe of the 1993 G7 meeting, which provided for 66 % debt remission, could be applied to the less disadvantaged countries, while the G7 Lyons Agreement of 1996 could be applied to the most disadvantaged: remission of up to 80 % of debt.
In Nicaragua, as in Honduras, the already difficult economic situation is now expected to get worse, with damaging repercussions on a poverty threshold calculated today at 60 % of the population, and increases in rates of unemployment which currently stand at 53 % in Nicaragua and 30 % in Honduras.
Mr President, the rapid reaction from the Community institutions and civil society is a sign that we have got off on the right foot.
But it is only a start; everything else is still to be done and Parliament eagerly awaits Commissioner Bonino's report and the proposals she is going to suggest to us.
In fact, the catastrophe in Central America is not just a natural and a human catastrophe, it is also, and above all, a political catastrophe.
All these years we have been thinking in terms of political unity for Central America in the hope of bringing peace to the region in the face of the wars which have torn it apart, and now there is the possibility of a new social breakdown.
We have supported Parlacen, the parliament of Central America.
We have always thought in terms of regional interdependence.
Well, now we must try to reproduce that interdependence in the proposed second stage of our intervention.
We must think in terms of interdependence in relation to the plan to combat the mass unemployment which has immediately resulted, the infrastructure plan, the financial plan - where the problem of bilateral and multilateral debt remission arises both for the countries affected and for the international organisations - and above all in relation to multilateral cooperation between the donor countries. This must of course operate, as Mr Salafranca just said, in association with the San José Conference, but must definitely involve the continuous presence of the Union and not just at this emergency stage.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to convey my sincere sympathy and dismay to those who live in the countries of Central America.
I shall continue in German.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard it many times. The scale of the disaster is enormous and there has been nothing like it ever before, at least not in this region.
So we really must all try to make our support as good and comprehensive as possible.
There must be no taboos here.
I have already said this at a meeting of our delegation.
Parliament and the Council must jointly and rapidly consider how to release the necessary budget funds.
The funds allocated so far can only be a first step, since we shall be needing a great deal of money for reconstruction for many years to come.
Nicaragua and Honduras were in any case two of the poorest countries in the world, and now they are even poorer.
So we need a great deal of money and we will have to take a very unconventional approach here.
That is why I would like to repeat the proposal I made during the delegation meeting: we must seriously consider whether European Development Fund money could not be made available for this disaster because of their particularly difficult situation.
Of course Honduras and Nicaragua are not ACP states, but we have to take an unconventional approach here.
If some of the ACP states do not utilise the funds earmarked for them, perhaps these funds should be made available for disaster and reconstruction aid.
In the long term, I believe these countries will have to become members of the Lomé Convention, because how can we in fact justify withholding the Lomé preferences and financial resources from these countries, which are the poorest in the world and now becoming even poorer? We cannot justify it at all.
If we want to be really honest, we really will have to do everything in our power.
That is part of it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the situation in Central America is devastating: 12 000 people are dead, 18 000 missing.
In Honduras, 90 % of the banana harvest has been ruined and 70 % of the roads are destroyed.
A majority of Central American states have seen their development set back by years.
The European Union aid is vital, not least as a means of preventing the threat of an escalation of the political situation in Nicaragua.
The call for resources to be used to maximum effect in the motion for a resolution is of course welcome.
Besides the humanitarian aspects, which we all support in this House and where we strongly encourage the Commission to continue its activities, let me address a further aspect, following on from what Mr Kreissl-Dörfler said.
Many experts believe that the high level of greenhouse gas emissions is one of the main causes of this environmental disaster.
In these circumstances, I cannot understand why the adoption of rules on reducing greenhouse gases was postponed for another two years at the climate conference in Buenos Aires.
I believe that it is essential, precisely in view of this kind of natural disaster, for the Union to give firm support to a rapid, worldwide reduction of CO2 emissions.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commission and the Council for their presence.
In Central America, more than one generation will go by before the consequences of hurricane Mitch are fully overcome. This infernal hurricane has left a fateful mark that is far greater than was originally imagined.
The area affected has been set back several decades and its efforts to heal the deep wounds of its most recent past have been undone.
The countries affected are aware of the reality of their situation: they have only a minimum response capability and State structures that are too weak to cope with the damage.
We are seeing societies that, resigned to their fate, refuse, in spite of everything that has happened, to lose even hope in the face of these tragedies that affect them from time to time, as though they were some sort of collective Sisyphus watching his work being undone, just as he was about to complete it.
My sincere congratulations go to the Commission for responding immediately - mainly in the form of humanitarian aid - and also to the Member States for acting with equal speed.
Our societies - and I know this has been the case in Spain - have shown solidarity and generosity, and in some cases have even surpassed government responses. However, the measures taken until now, though quite substantial, will not be enough.
Governments need to solve the problem of these countries' debt through an act of strict justice, as a useful tool to cooperate in kick-starting their economies.
I would like my government, the Spanish Government, to write off the debt of these countries and for all the Member States to follow suit so that it can be used for physical, medical, educational or environmental infrastructures.
As has been said, a regional aid and reconstruction plan will be necessary and should be launched in January or February. The institutions of the European Union will undoubtedly have to make their financial and budgetary mechanisms more flexible in order to support this plan.
The tragedy of pain and death was caused by the hurricane and it is up to all of us to alleviate its consequences and help build a future for the people.
Mr President, as a vice-chairman of the PPE Group, with responsibility for relations with Latin America, I would briefly like to express the feelings of solidarity our group shares with the victims of the tragedy, as well as our delight at seeing that this popular and official sentiment of solidarity has been so strong.
I would also like to say how pleased we are at the speed with which Parliament's Delegation for relations with Central America and Mexico met, at the request of Mr Salafranca, and with the large number of Members that attended this extraordinary meeting along with the Vice-President of the Commission, Mr Marín, and Commissioner Bonino.
Finally, we must welcome the huge amount of aid generated in Europe, not by each state on its own, but by all of them together.
Perhaps this aid may be symbolised by the visits to the area by the Prince of Spain, Don Felipe de Borbón, President Chirac and Commissioner Bonino.
These three names perhaps best reflect the European aid given, aid that will certainly not be lacking in the future.
Mr President, the countries of Central America which were devastated by hurricane Mitch were already seriously afflicted by the aftermath of years of civil war.
In all of them high rates of illiteracy, grinding poverty and the crushing burden of international debt were endemic, as those of us who have visited the area have seen.
Now hit by the most deadly storm of the century, innumerable villages, shanty towns, bridges and roads have been swept away, crops destroyed, farm stock decimated, supplies of water eliminated, and many thousands are dead.
The European Union and all who have sent emergency aid are worthy of the highest praise.
The steps taken to relieve the burden of debt are also of vital importance.
It will, however, take years to rebuild the economies of these countries which were, in any case, desperately poor.
We need to face the fact that there is a pressing need not merely for a moratorium on debt servicing but also for debt cancellation.
Honduras and Nicaragua will never be able to repay the interest on what they owe and postponing their liabilities is not enough.
Furthermore, medium- and long-term development aid must not be allowed to be cut back, particularly for social needs.
In land ownership there are all sorts of problems over tenure.
The need for land reform is more pressing than ever.
The European Union has long been deeply concerned with Central America, for instance through the San José process.
We must redouble our efforts to help.
The Council, the Commission and Parliament should facilitate the use of unspent funds in our budget for relief.
The disaster also reminds us of the need for far-reaching international action to limit environmental damage from climatic change, which will otherwise cause ever more frequent catastrophes, some even worse than the one we are talking about this evening.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I briefly respond?
Firstly, I am very grateful for the support expressed in the various statements made, and also for the many suggestions and ideas put forward by Parliament, which will certainly prompt me to review these matters again at the Development Cooperation Council on 30 November.
In summary, let me say the following: the main issue is the coordination of the humanitarian aid - and also of the reconstruction and development aid - and here we will first have to achieve coordination between the partners, a task which the presidency intends to tackle mainly on the ground.
Secondly, it is of course very important to consider the debt clearance question.
This too has already been discussed in the General Affairs Council.
We shall be devoting great attention to this issue at the Development Cooperation Council, but of course preparations are also under way for a donor conference. A donor conference is to be held in Washington on 10 and 11 December.
There it will also be determined, under the aegis of the Inter-American Development Bank, what amounts can still be demanded.
Another conference has now been scheduled for March, in Stockholm, which will focus on long-term reconstruction.
As regards the debts, we must of course distinguish very clearly between bilateral debts - development loans on the one hand and export credits on the other - and multilateral debts, in particular the HIPC initiative which is indeed seeking either the creation of a new fund, which the presidency will of course support and encourage, or drawing on existing World Bank funds, which we will also support.
For the rest, everything I said earlier has been discussed during the debate.
Perhaps just a word on the climate convention: we all know that the European Union is, of course, making headway here, but that it is not easy to bring all the other major players on board too.
Speaking for myself and also on behalf of the Commission and Emma Bonino and Manolo Marín, who could not be here but who would certainly have been delighted to take part in this debate, I would like to thank you for the tremendous unanimity of feeling and solidarity that you have all shown towards this terrible natural disaster that has befallen so many people and countries in Central America.
I would just like to look briefly at a few of the points that were made, including the speech by Mr Salafranca.
It is true that the Commission has no powers when it comes to the debt problem, but listening to what the presidency had to say, I think that it must be clear to everyone that our efforts cannot stop at humanitarian aid, and that the international community must also do something in the present circumstances to ease the terrible debt burden or even, if possible, to write it off.
Secondly, Mr Salafranca referred earlier to the San José dialogue, which I still remember from much further back with the Contadora process and so on.
I imagine, and I am sure that this goes for Mr Marín and probably also the presidency too, that once the situation in Central America has become a little clearer and financial decisions have been taken and a reconstruction programme has started, we will certainly begin talks between the European Union and the countries of Central America within the San José framework.
This would seem to me to be an extremely constructive approach.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
I have received a motion for a resolution to wind up the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow.
Developments in Middle East peace process
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on developments in the Middle East peace process.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, thank you for your report.
There are indeed few promising signs. Those that do exist should however be recognised, such as the ratification by the Knesset yesterday.
We must admit that steps were taken in this case, despite the bomb attack, whereas in the past the Israeli Government and Parliament always used such events as a reason not to take any steps towards peace.
On the other hand, however, Israel has tied that decision to certain conditions, and then there is the government action regarding Jerusalem, in particular Har Homa.
Let me state here even more clearly and plainly than the President-in-Office can perhaps put it: for us in Europe, for my group at least, it is quite unacceptable for the Israeli Government to keep trying to incorporate the whole of Jerusalem into Israeli national territory.
Israel must show more respect here, towards the Palestinians and of course also towards the religions practised on an international basis there.
My second point is that I believe it is most important - and I have some information to the effect that the Arabs and Palestinians take the same view - for the European Union also to carry out some form of monitoring of the implementation of the Wye Plantation agreement.
We must strive towards that, and we need exact information about what is happening.
In the same way as settlement is being monitored, we now need to monitor effective withdrawal; that is what my group is calling for.
I fully endorse what the President-in-Office said about investment, which we wish to support and indeed have to support.
Parliament is also prepared to do so.
Even if we are only talking about small sums, I would now call on the Commissioner to carry this forward, so that we can also give adequate and prompt support to the Israeli and Palestinian NGOs which are doing good work, across the borders and in particular through people-to-people initiatives.
I would ask the Commissioner and the Commission representatives to please consider how long the various organisations have to wait between the authorising of funds and the actual financing!
That is quite unacceptable!
My final and very important point is this. As we can see from the calendar, it is not long till 4 May 1999.
However much my group fully recognises the right of the Palestinians to unilaterally declare independence if the appropriate agreements cannot be reached with Israel, we should nevertheless strive all the more to ensure that agreements are reached, either agreements on independence or agreements on postponing that deadline, if Israel accepts the principle that there will be a Palestinian state.
The European Union must endeavour in the immediate future to ensure that this date, 4 May 1999, does not signal the beginning of a new crisis, but that we have a joint declaration on independence by that date or, in the event that the deadline is postponed, that interim agreements are reached and the Israeli Government fully recognises the principle of a Palestinian state.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner and the President- in-Office of the Council for their statements.
I rise today with a certain diffidence because I was hoping, as I am sure many colleagues were hoping, that we would be much further down the track of reaching peace in the Middle East.
Whilst one welcomes the statements of Yassir Arafat that he has no intention of using violence to achieve his ends, one does see a continuation of violence.
We must also recognise that there has been a certain courage shown by Yassir Arafat in arresting some of the leaders of Hamas.
That is to be greatly welcomed by this House and a great step forward.
I am also glad that the Knesset has approved the Wye Accord and that we can move forward hopefully to see some greater security within that agreement.
But the final status talks are really the most important we have to face.
It is of the utmost importance - and I agree with Mr Swoboda - that the beginning of May is going to be a turning point.
If UDI were the result of the lack of a peace process and a peace agreement in the final status talks, that would be a disaster for everybody involved.
We have to strive very hard to ensure that does not happen.
Unfortunately we are still seeing a certain amount of confrontation on both sides.
I hope we can involve Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon to make sure that we begin to see a stop to this horrible confrontation.
That is where we must try to achieve our results.
Implementation of the existing agreements is vital.
The resolution which Parliament is going to adopt tomorrow emphasises this.
We must go back to the Oslo Agreements and hopefully, as we can now see movement as a result of Wye, we can get back to these agreements without delay.
Fresh impetus should therefore come as a result of the Wye Accord and that is what we must all try and achieve.
I believe Israel always intends to discuss more with the United States than with the European Union.
That is a tragedy.
We get the reputation of only looking after the interests of the Palestinians.
We must try to overcome that perception with the Israeli Government and point out that we are dealing evenly with both sides of this argument and not taking sides at all.
Mr President, the Liberal Group is delighted with the Wye Accord, and the Clinton administration deserves great praise for its efforts.
At long last we once again have some good news about the Middle East, though if we are honest it is still a rare event.
Since Mr Netanyahu became prime minister the peace process has, honestly speaking, been in terminal decline, and it was only thanks to considerable American pressure that an agreement was reached.
I agree with Mr Provan that America tends to play a pro-Israeli role and we a pro-Palestinian, yet it was America that talked the Israelis round, or so it appears.
We also welcome the fact that the Israeli Government has finally reluctantly agreed to hand back an extra 13 % and that the Palestinians have agreed to cooperate with the Americans on security guarantees.
The terrible attacks that took place afterwards show that Israel's security demands are perfectly legitimate.
If we fail to accommodate them, there will never be peace.
Human rights organisations have rightly pointed out that maintaining law and order must not be allowed to lead to large-scale human rights violations which would have negative consequences for both sides.
Since the developments on 23 October, it is clear that constant external pressure is needed to keep the peace process on track.
The statements made by President Arafat and Mr Sharon have merely poured oil on the flames, and the extra conditions demanded out of the blue by Mr Netanyahu were, even for us Liberals, unacceptable and unpalatable.
The decision to give the go-ahead for the construction of more houses in Har Homa and Hebron was another wrong signal, and undermines the mutual trust that is essential for lasting peace.
I would like to ask the Commission what is happening about the Palestinian airport and seaport? Can he also tell us what the situation is with the hospital in Gaza that was built with European funding?
And is there any truth in the rumours that Brussels bureaucracy is delaying the opening of the hospital? I must apologise for asking these two questions so abruptly, but we want to see peace and we want to see justice.
Mr President, there has been a war of words in the Middle East over the last few days, a war of words between the Israelis and the Palestinians that was supposed to lead to peace.
In my opinion, this is one area of the world where deeds are what count, and looking beyond all the words and rules, I think that we really are coming closer to compliance with the Wye Accord.
I welcome the fact that the European Parliament is making another critical but supportive contribution here today in a special debate on the subject.
I congratulate the Members of the Israeli Knesset for voting by a majority to support the Wye Accord.
The Palestinians too have shown great commitment, as we have all seen, and this must eventually be rewarded.
I hope that in December, when the Palestinian national assembly meets in Gaza, they will finally remove the paragraph on the destruction of Israel from their charter once and for all.
Plans for a port and an airport in Gaza are back on the cards, but I gather that the airport has come up against certain technical problems.
I was there recently and I saw that the buildings were finished, but there were no technical installations.
Can the President-in-Office or the Commissioner tell us what the problems are? The EU plays a vital economic and financial role in the Middle East which is likely to grow in importance.
The resolutions mention specific areas where we can provide support, and I entirely agree with these.
As vice-chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, I would draw your particular attention to peace education and to the citizens' programmes which are designed to foster mutual understanding between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
Our enormous financial and psychological commitment to the Middle East is certain to increase our influence in the region.
My group has no problem with the proposal put forward in paragraph 12 of the resolution that the EU should take on the role of monitor and, if necessary, arbitrator, but the resolution then goes further and starts to concern itself with the final status of the peace agreements, which I think is particularly confusing, because this is something that the United States partly dealt with in the Wye Accord.
The President-in-Office indicated that Israel would prefer us not to interfere here, but would be glad to see us play a stronger economic role.
This is perfectly understandable, since a country whose existence has always been under threat would obviously prefer not to let it depend on a partner that does not have a uniform foreign policy.
It cannot afford to do so, particularly while it still does not have peace agreements with Lebanon and Syria.
Mr President, the peace process may be moving slowly, but progress is being made.
Mr President, it is to the credit of the Wye Plantation accords that they have reignited a peace process which we may have feared dead and buried.
Of course, the accords are limited as the majority of Palestinian territories are still occupied.
They also contain negative aspects, such as the role bestowed upon the CIA.
Yet in spite of this, the agreements constitute a step forward.
Of course, provided that they are implemented, they will be able to bring positive changes to the lives of thousands of Palestinians and allow hundreds of prisoners to be freed.
The Knesset's agreement is a positive sign.
Unfortunately, many extremists are fast constructing obstacles.
The Israeli Government itself is relaunching a provocative strategy for fresh colonisation.
This is not in the interests of peace, nor is it in the interests of the Israeli people.
Once again, this peace process is in danger of being compromised.
The European Union must show proof of a firm stance and use the means available to take effective action to implement these agreements and to work on stopping anything that may go against them.
The Wye Plantation agreement cannot be seen as a finishing line but rather as a starting block leading to a peaceful and lasting settlement which respects the right of the Palestinians to their own land, in the spirit of the Oslo accords.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, it gives me great personal pleasure to congratulate the members of the Knesset, on behalf of my group, on their successful adoption of the Wye Mills Memorandum between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Arafat of the Palestinian Autonomous Authority.
That agreement makes it clear that the Oslo accord, which has constantly been violated, and the process it initiated are irreversible.
At the same time, I must of course express to the people of Israel, its parliament and its government our deep concern and sympathy following the recent terrorist attacks.
I do so in the awareness that the peace process in the Middle East is not just a question of foreign policy and the European Union's association agreements, however important both aspects are, especially in the context of the Barcelona programme.
The peace process in the Middle East is a key question of our political and religious culture.
We must decide how long we are to allow terrorists and fundamentalists on both sides to succeed in imposing their agenda on the civilised world, by reversing a fundamental tenet of Jewish, Christian and Islamic tradition, namely the commandment: thou shalt not kill!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is another fresh start for a new stage in the race for peace in the Middle East.
Hope, like the phoenix, has risen from the ashes, and yet the truth is that the main characters involved are hardly enthusiastic.
We cannot say that they are welcoming each other with open arms.
Urged by the President of the United States and already rejected by more than half its parliamentary majority, the Israeli Government is moving forward but dragging its feet.
For its part, the Palestinian delegation, tired of having been deceived too many times and of being taken for a ride, no longer believes in the merits of dialogue.
Nevertheless, the commitments made will actually have to be respected.
The attacks and murders on all sides must stop, extremist settlers must no longer be urged to take provocative actions, deaths must cease and people must be prepared to look at, listen to and respect one another.
We in Parliament must launch an appeal to our counterparts in the Knesset and the Legislative Council, above and beyond the Israeli Government and the authorities.
Through our counterparts we must launch an appeal to the Israeli people, heirs of those who brought unprecedented and unequalled messages of knowledge and spirituality to the whole world. We must launch an appeal to the Palestinian people, where Christians and Muslims come together in the melting pot of a nation that is being born and whose birth is particularly painful.
We must tell them not to be afraid, not to fear their neighbours or the world that is following their progress. Europe, although unfortunately still not involved in the diplomatic progress, is nonetheless very active and very much part of the construction of this country; this Europe is their brother and wants them as its new-born partners.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, in the Book of Psalms, King David says in the 122nd psalm 'Pray for the peace of Jerusalem'.
Even though he wrote that thousands of years ago, his appeal is still extremely topical.
Time and time again, peace accords seem to break down because of mutual suspicion and the breaking of agreements by both sides.
Even after the Wye Accord recently concluded between Mr Netanyahu and Mr Arafat, peace in Israel seems further away than ever.
This week violent conflict broke out again, with both parties perhaps rightly accusing each other of breaking agreements.
Fortunately the Knesset approved the accord yesterday evening, but sadly this does not yet bring peace within reach.
On the contrary, once it has been approved by the Israeli Parliament, the accord still has to be implemented in practice, and this is only part of the problem, because first and foremost confidence needs to be restored between the two peoples, and no agreement can achieve that.
The basic conditions for lasting peace in the Middle East are, in my view, the establishment of secure and recognised borders for Israel and recognition for the Palestinian nation's right to self-determination.
Only when the Arab countries enter into full diplomatic relations with Israel can a lasting peace settlement be reached.
The European Union must show political restraint here and coordinate any action it takes with the United States.
There is always a risk of terrorist attack with any peace negotiations, as we saw last week at a market in Jerusalem.
Terrorism is the greatest threat to a lasting peace settlement and must be countered by international agreements, strict border controls and measures to combat poverty.
European Union aid should be targeted on this, and it should also be an important consideration in any trade agreements that are concluded.
Support from the European Union must foster strong economic cooperation in areas such as water supply, infrastructure, tourism and security.
Finally, the countries of the Middle East must take the agreements seriously, as this is the only way that progress will be made.
Outsiders must show restraint, including the European Council and the European Parliament.
If the peace talks are to go smoothly, the European Parliament should not interfere.
It can no longer act as a neutral mediator, since it has openly sided with the Palestinians in the past.
It is counter-productive to blame one of the two parties when both have clearly made mistakes.
At the start of my speech, I quoted the Bible's call to pray for the peace of Jerusalem.
The original text says 'shalom', which has many connotations including the good or well-being of the city.
Let us make this well-being our objective in our policy on the Middle East.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Wye Plantation agreement can be seen as a glass that is either half full or half empty.
It could be seen as progress or one may feel rather uneasy, as I myself do, and think that the actors involved are only hoping to prolong a situation which has already been going on too long.
The Wye Plantation agreement represents an enclave policy and will turn the situation into another Bosnia; it is a pathetic agreement not worth the paper it is written on.
I am well aware that this is not an easy situation.
It is not easy because the situation in Israel must be confronted head-on.
Yesterday, I criticised a report which appeared in an important left-wing newspaper from my region, La Dépêche du Midi , taken from the Sunday Times , which I hope was wrong and which stated that Israeli laboratories are working, and I quote, 'on the production of ethnic biological weapons, containing genetically modified micro-organisms that would harm Arabs but not Jews.
The Hebrew State scientists are apparently attempting to identify the distinctive genes carried by some Arabs, then create a virus or bacterium which would affect that specific population'.
I hope that this will be denied and that the Sunday Times , given the information by the Israeli Embassy, will tell us that this is not true.
But, in addition, the domestic situation in Israel is tragic and I acknowledge that Benjamin Netanyahu's role is not, of course, an easy one.
This is why, in Tel Aviv's main daily paper, Yediot Ahronot , the great writer Seffei Rachlevsky criticises the cabbala-Messianic revolution which seems to be making progress towards 'relentlessly taking absolute control of the Holy Land', to use the words of Yediot Ahronot .
Furthermore, in Tribune Juive , Jean Kahn, president of many organisations and rapporteur for the Committee of Inquiry on Racism and Xenophobia, describes the meetings held in Israel by the Sephardim where speakers claim that Hitler, alas, did not complete his work with the Ashkenazim.
Finally, again in the Israeli press I read that the Falashim are demonstrating in the streets shouting 'death to the whites'.
So, the reality in Israel is not simple: it is one of real hatred and the climate of a civil war.
It is not any simpler in Palestine, where Yasser Arafat is struggling to control the situation and where, at times, his days appear to be numbered.
I think that the only way out of such a situation is by working objectively and with very clear ideas.
We could believe in the greatness of Israel, which would lead to a situation similar to that of the Milosevic regime and to civil war. Or we could promote - and why not? - a secular republic of Israel and Palestine, based on the South Africa of today, as there are both Muslims and Christians in Israel.
Or we can even advocate a sovereign and viable free Palestine, with the right to self determination as recommended by the UN. This is the position of our group and we believe that, in the long term and if people behave wisely, it could lead to an Israeli-Palestinian confederation.
But I do not think that squabbling yet again over tiny portions of territory will lead to a definitive peace agreement.
Madam President-in-Office, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, without any hesitation or beating about the bush, I should like to say that, as far as I am concerned as chairman of the Delegation for relations with Israel, I am extremely pleased about the signing of the Wye Plantation agreement.
After months and months of wrangling and of difficulties, this agreement, ratified today by the Israeli Government and by a large majority in the Knesset in spite of the two attacks that have taken place, is a major step forward.
Of course, all has not been resolved but a new step has been taken on the road to peace.
We must not forget that this agreement was signed by a right-wing Israeli Government, elected on a political platform hostile to the Oslo accords. Therefore, this peace process has today been given an electoral basis which has never been reached before in Israel.
I would therefore like to congratulate Mr Netanyahu and his government on their courage.
I would also like to congratulate Mr Arafat and his secular team of Palestinian leaders, who have shown proof of their maturity, their composure and their ability to carry out the duties which weigh heavily upon them.
We must now implement this agreement completely and swiftly, and on both sides.
The next phase must now begin as soon as possible in order to discuss the final frontiers of the future Palestinian State as well as all the different links with the State of Israel, with Jordan and with Egypt, and we must not forget about the Syrian issue. Between now and then, we must avoid further obstacles being thrown in the path of this process.
We must avoid threats of unilateral declarations, on the one hand, and of continuing to establish settlements, on the other. Such settlements are true time bombs, for Israelis as well as Palestinians.
Last week, in Brussels, the Group of the Party of European Socialists organised Israeli-Palestinian meetings.
We were able to gauge the good-will on both sides and almost completed discussions for the basis of an agreement on the long-term objectives to be achieved.
We were also able to gauge the ground that remains to be covered and the many obstacles to be overcome.
But who would have imagined, in May 1943 - a bloody year if ever there was one in Europe -, that five years later The Hague would launch an appeal for a united Europe and that then, eight years later, the Treaty of Rome creating the EEC and the Common Market would be signed.
So, ladies and gentlemen, in the name of our still-recent history, let us be tolerant and attentive, in particular when a new problem arises in the Middle East. Rather than always asking whose fault it is, let us ask ourselves what we can and should do to help the Israelis and the Palestinians overcome this obstacle, and then go one step further down the road to peace and cooperation.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, it is to be regretted that just a few weeks after the Wye Plantation Agreement we have seen a series of damaging remarks and threats made on both sides that, although they have been withdrawn very recently, can only be described as very dangerous and unproductive. We do, however, welcome the fact that the Israeli Parliament has ratified this Agreement.
It is evident that the main opponents of the peace process at the present time are the most radical factions on each side that continually attempt to thwart the small advances that are so difficult to achieve for both the Palestinians and the Israelis.
This can be seen in the fact that Netanyahu needed the support of the Labour opposition to guarantee the ratification of the Wye Plantation agreements, as well as in the increasing difficulties experienced by Arafat in his attempt to win over the more fundamental and radical sectors.
In spite of this, we must bear in mind that the majority of the people - both Palestinian and Israeli - openly support the peace process. This amounts to the best guarantee the process has of reaching a satisfactory conclusion and I hope that that conclusion will include the issue of Gaza.
In this respect, and as stated in the resolution we are discussing here today, the European Parliament fully supports the agreements of 23 October. It reiterates the need for the European Union to exert a political influence in line with its current role in the area of providing economic and financial assistance, particularly in relation to the implementation of these agreements and the proposals for new formulas that might help the peace process move forward.
Having said all this, I do not want to overlook how important it is for both parties to avoid an increase in verbal attacks, such as those we have seen recently. Such attacks incite violence and do nothing to reconcile their positions and search for compromises, merely serving to add confusion and desperation in the area and in the rest of the world.
The Israeli Government should review its policy on the resettlement of colonists, as has been mentioned, as well as making the necessary efforts to implement the Oslo and Wye Plantation Agreements. In so doing, it must not give in to the pressure exerted by the ultra-orthodox sectors whose only aim is to destroy the peace process.
On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority must focus its attention on monitoring the extremist factions that are also opposed to the peace process, especially in relation to the control and prevention of terrorism, which, sadly, has been so prominent in recent years. It should also offer Israel the guarantees of security it has been calling for.
The European Union must play a more prominent role in this process and, in this respect, I was very pleased to hear the comments and proposals put forward by Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
However, it must not limit itself to merely donating funds. The 15 Member States are currently involved in an in-depth debate on how to reach the desired objective of acting with one voice on the international scene and ensuring that this voice is strong and listened to by the rest of the world.
Madam President-in-Office, Mr President, I think that we now have a unique opportunity to make the voice of the European Union heard in the peace process.
Mr President, I agree with my fellow group member Mr Ullmann when he calls for an end to violence. I therefore feel very strongly about the total lack of balance in the reactions of the world community to last week's violation of the Middle East peace agreement.
In the case of Iraq, we had to prepare ourselves for a major military offensive, which according to the 'Washington Post' could have cost the lives of 10 000 Iraqi citizens.
But when, only a few days after the Wye Plantation meeting, the Foreign Minister, Ariel Sharon, in breach of the recent agreement, openly encouraged Israeli settlers to occupy Palestinian territory, what happened then? Not very much - at most a resolution here in Parliament.
I am not asking for Israel to be treated in the same way as Iraq.
I do not want tens of thousands of Israeli children to pay with their lives for their leaders' transgressions. But some form of economic and political pressure should be exerted - and very soon - if our resolutions on the right of Palestinians to their own state are to be taken seriously.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to add my voice to those who have agreed to support the Knesset's ratification of the Wye Plantation Agreement, with one exception, however: they have added a number of conditions that, to a certain extent, almost amount to a denunciation of the Agreement.
But the fact that there has been such widespread support is a sign of hope for the future, and the same applies even for the reactions to the Agreement reached.
In other words, everyone has had to confront their extremists, and that is usually what happens when agreements that are equally unsatisfactory for both parties are able to work.
In this respect, there is an issue that needs to be highlighted that forms part of my personal experience: terrorists - whatever their colour - cannot be given the chance to hold the key to a process.
I wanted to focus on one point that was highlighted by the President-in-Office of the Council, that is, the role of Europe.
We are faced with an immediate challenge.
I think we must try and explain to our Israeli friends, with all the patience of a saint, that it is not normal for us to simply donate money and do nothing else. We have been reminded of this on several occasions, although there now appears to be more discretion.
I believe that Europe's wish, as shown in the process that has gone from Venice via Madrid to Oslo and continued until now, is to participate, because we feel politically and morally responsible and because we have a great deal to offer, not only in the financial sense but also in terms of our own experience.
This is why I think that we should not only support the action of our mediator, Mr Moratinos, but that it is also vital for us to strengthen the role the European Union plays.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the signing of the Wye Plantation accords have given rise to a fresh wave of optimism that the current deadlock will be broken and substantial progress made towards peace in this part of the world.
By pulling out all the diplomatic stops, the European Union should put all its strength behind these beginnings of a peace process, no matter how fragile they may be.
We must once again remember that the civilian populations of Israel and of the Palestinian territories are the victims of blind violence, whose aim is to obliterate any progress towards a negotiated solution.
The Near and Middle East encompasses different conflicts and the specific interests that fuel them.
Each conflict in this region has its own origins, its own particular aspects, and needs its own specific solutions. Yet these will only see the light of day after a widespread dialogue, based on a detailed analysis of the situation and leading to a balanced agreement for the whole region.
To attempt to solve each conflict separately would be to erase all historical, ethnic, religious and cultural characteristics which fuel nationalist or fundamentalist attitudes, and would be to forget the international strategies that aim to control raw materials and maintain spheres of influence by means of military alliances.
The real problems to be solved in this region involve abolition of the occupied territories, freeing prisoners and allowing refugees to return freely, recognising the rights of national minorities, lifting embargoes, ceasing military operations, organising cooperation between the countries in this region, normalising trade and exports, and strict control of the production and trading of arms.
I dreamed that this was an ambition which the EU was capable of achieving and that we were willing to see through such a process which would establish mutually beneficial security and cooperation amongst all countries in the Near and Middle East. I dreamed that we would be willing to support any joint efforts to find regional solutions, which are at the heart of the Euro-Mediterranean partnerships.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I think the new Wye Plantation agreement is important, as also are the results of yesterday's vote in the Knesset on the implementation of that agreement.
Also important and serious, and I congratulate you on that, are the Austrian Presidency's activities to assist the peace process.
At the same time, however, it is sad that the agreement was reached in the United States, under the aegis of the United States and not in Salzburg or Vienna under the aegis of the European Union.
There is no doubt that the peace process will progress more correctly and completely if the European Union becomes politically involved.
In parallel with the huge economic and technical aid it provides, the European Union should also maintain a permanent political presence in the area which, - and I am sorry to have to disagree with you, Madam President-in-Office - does not now exist.
It does not exist because the European Union cannot express its position through just a single ambassador, Mr Moradinos, who in any event is not doing much.
I would propose two measures here. First, upgrade the presence of the European Union by selecting a prominent figure, as happened for example with the choice of Felipe González for Bosnia, supported by a team of experts.
And secondly, establish the presence of the European Union in all procedures involved in the implementation of and compliance with the content of the Wye Plantation agreement.
Mr President, the Commission has an important role to play in this matter.
I find it inconceivable that a man of the legendary eloquence of Commissioner Flynn does not feel moved to contribute at the end of this debate.
Would you please repeat your invitation to him to take the microphone.
Mr President, I support Mr Spencer's proposal.
I listened to the President-in-Office of the Council and I am afraid there has been some misunderstanding.
I did not criticise the Austrian Presidency for the fact that the Wye Plantation agreement was not concluded in Vienna or Salzburg, I simply said that I would have felt much better if it had been reached in Vienna or Salzburg, and I repeat as much.
With this opportunity, I wish to say again that the Austrian Presidency's contribution towards helping the Middle East peace process has been and is important.
I wanted to make that clear.
I will speak very briefly, as I would hate to disappoint Mr Spencer.
I appreciate his kind words about my eloquence.
I have been listening very carefully to this debate.
It seems to me that the Wye River Israeli-Palestinian interim Accord really gives the peace process a much needed chance.
We have to appreciate that it was at a very delicate point of near collapse, so I see this as a very major improvement.
In fact it is the only tool available to support peace in the Middle East that the international community has available to it at this time.
For that reason, since it is the best chance that the ailing Middle East process has, it has to have our great support.
We greatly applaud the fact the Knesset has taken the necessary steps in the recent past.
There may be many hurdles to cross insofar as the Accord is concerned but both political and economic support should be provided to all of the parties to maintain the momentum.
That is a key point that has come out of this debate.
But when all is said and done, implementation is the key.
I quite clearly support what Mr Spencer so eloquently said.
He said it is going to require a delicate touch from those who are on the ground to recognise all the vagaries of the situation that exists in that very sensitive part of the world.
Having visited myself I have a full appreciation of how a wrong word, used at the wrong time, can jeopardise the whole thing.
That must certainly be taken on board.
We have a contribution to make.
We should focus our action on a limited number of high-impact areas.
There were a few mentioned.
It is quite interesting to mention the one about the hospital.
The hospital is there; it is empty.
The Palestinians would appear not to have the capacity to run it just now.
But the Commission has sent a management team to get it up and running.
So that is a positive development that we can support.
As far as the airport is concerned, Israel said that it should be up and running this particular week.
We have to wait now to see what is going to happen over the next couple of weeks, if that commitment can be honoured.
Insofar as the port is concerned there are the continuing problems of access.
They have yet to be resolved.
One has to understand that there will be a three or four year delay in the actual construction anyway.
So there are impediments there.
But what we have heard here is a consensus view that we want to give this a chance and we want to give our total support to the Austrian presidency and Mrs Ferrero-Waldner for all that has been done to enable it to happen.
Certainly the Commission will be pursuing that objective too.
The debate is closed.
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.40 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Structural Funds (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the Structural Funds.
Madam President, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs made a significant contribution to the report by Mr Hatzidakis and Mrs McCarthy.
We have an important opportunity to plan the future of the European Social Fund since the new Objective 3 that is proposed in the regulation will be exclusively applied in respect of the European Social Fund and its activities are closely linked to the development of the national employment plans.
We see as positive the simplification and concentration that has resulted in combining the current Objectives 3 and 4 into Objective 3 for the next seven years.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Regional Policy support the horizontal nature of the regulation because it is in keeping with the aims of the new Objective 3 to promote the policy of developing human resources in the management of the rest of the objectives. In addition, it is linked to the national employment plans and this guarantees that active policies will be applied in the entire Union, and not only in the regions that are not included in Objectives 1 and 2, as proposed by the Commission, since that would discriminate against the richest areas of the least developed regions, which would not come under the umbrella of Objective 3.
In committee we also expressed the need to guarantee the planning and implementation of the Structural Funds in all its objectives and to promote the principle of equal opportunities, but in a balanced way.
It is true that there are serious distortions in the labour market that are detrimental to women and to the disabled.
I would also like to emphasize that we agree that resources should be used efficiently, but in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs - and the Committee on Regional Policy feels the same - we feel that the formula proposed by the Commission to free funds automatically is too rigid and that the exceptional nature of the Structural Funds appropriations should be retained. That is, these appropriations should be spending objectives and not ceilings for spending.
In addition, if there are funds that are not used, they should be distributed among other regions of the Member State, and the Committee on Regional Policy has also approved this.
Finally, with regard to Community initiatives, it is important that the interventions and objectives of Community initiatives should be clearly separate. In addition, the Commission should announce the criteria it will propose for the new generation of initiatives, as is stated in the report.
Madam President, I think today's debate has demonstrated substantial agreement between the approach of the Commission and the position of Parliament, agreement on concentration, simplification, efficiency and partnership.
But I think the Commission will need to take account of some of Parliament's views if there is to be a meeting of minds in the spirit Mr Hänsch spoke of this morning, rather than a dialogue between someone maintaining one position and someone pursuing another route.
I think we have reached some important agreements on principles; now there are a few points to be finalised.
The Commission is already willing - it seems to me - to review the reserve proposal.
One approach to the Community initiative programmes is that Interreg should immediately become the main programme, but we are insisting both on the maintenance of the URBAN programme and on a greater role for the city within the regulations, both in Objective 1 and in the other Community initiatives, like the Interreg programme.
For Objective 2, coherence with state aid can be achieved in two ways: either through greater flexibility, or by asking the state aid to bear in mind that a problem has to be identified for there to be Structural Fund intervention, and that, possibly, the two maps should coincide.
However it is the Structural Fund intervention which signals that there are certain problems to be dealt with here.
Madam President, I would like to have talked in general terms but, given recent developments in my own country, I will confine my remarks to our future strategy.
I am sure the Commissioner is well aware of the Irish Government's decision to divide Ireland into two regions: a grouping of 15 counties from the west, the border and the midlands, including two counties in my own constituency, Kerry and Clare, to be designated as a new Objective 1 region.
It is intended that the remaining 11 counties will be designated as Objective 1 in transition.
I understand, Commissioner, that you have already made it clear to the Irish Government, that this strategy will not result in any extra funding for Ireland. In any case you are leaving it to Eurostat to decide on the admissibility or otherwise of the new regions, based on the statistics available.
Could you confirm whether it is true that Eurostat will be producing new figures in the next couple of days providing the economic indicators for 1996-1997?
If, as I fear, they show a dramatic improvement in Ireland's economic performance, is there not a real danger that a major part of the newly designated Objective 1 region will no longer qualify? It will be above the threshold and that would leave our current strategy in tatters.
The use of the GDP criterion overestimates Ireland's true position.
It includes multinational profits which do not stay within our economy and I ask the Commission to bear this in mind when considering the Irish case.
GNP would be a much fairer criterion.
Finally, I seek clarification from the Commission in relation to the proposed Objective 1 in transition status. Will the change in co-financing from 75 % to 50 % apply equally to EAGGF projects and those under ESF and ERDF?
What will be the situation in relation to headage payments. Will the level of headage payments under Objective 1 be continued under Objective 1 in transition areas?
Madam President, I commend the Commissioners on their attendance at this marathon debate and the attention they are paying to it, but I am afraid I have to use my limited time to talk about where I believe the Commission has got it wrong: first in the proper pursuit of concentration and simplification.
The cuts in the Community initiative go just too far.
The Commission must not tell us that the amounts are too small to justify the administration.
Tell that to the people in my region, which has used ECU 30m - £25m - in the last five years.
Smaller programmes which are targeted, can actually work better.
In supporting the Urban initiative, let us not hear about duplication.
What about the 60 % of people who live in small and medium-sized towns, innovation, transnational links? A new Community initiative can be tailored to these needs.
In Objective II, let us be clear that giving help to the poorest regions is not the same as giving help to the poorest people.
Let us help the pockets of poverty; one programme, one region, yes, but targeted help from Objective II within the region at below NUTS III level.
On the question of services, a redundant bank teller or hotel receptionist is just as unemployed as a redundant factory worker.
I welcome the fact that the Commission has supported our representations on this, but the regulation still needs clarification.
It was wrong of the Commission to exclude environmental authorities from participating in decision-making.
And regional funding, just as much as social funding, should respect principles of non-discrimination.
Finally, on the issue for which I have been rapporteur, the guidelines: let us have an unequivocal assurance from the Commissioner that they will be published by the end of the year and they will not be used to impose late changes on local projects.
This is a test of the Commission's real commitment to simplification.
Let us accept a duty to negotiate this package on time.
Anything less will mean funding delays, short deadlines, rushed projects for the next seven years.
The opportunity to prevent that exists once and once only.
We must act now.
Madam President, the cohesion policy is an element of solidarity for the most disadvantaged regions.
The regions that are a priority for aid, as defined by the Commission, are the Objective 1 regions, which are those with an income that is less than 75 % of the European average.
For this definition the autonomous community or region is used as a point of reference.
This procedure may seem fair, but one change needs to be made.
There are areas that, although they are not as large as a region, have objective needs, and their income is unfortunately below the level required.
For this reason there must be exceptions, which are, of course, limited, so that those areas can be Objective 1 and can take priority in receiving aid.
There are various areas of this type in the European Union.
One example is the area made up of the left bank of the Nervión and Ayala in the Basque Country.
It has 350 000 inhabitants, with an income that is below 75 % of the European average, a level of unemployment above 20 %, a socio-economic fabric that urgently needs revitalising and, what is more, is an area adjoining two autonomous communities that are currently Objective 1: Castilla-León and Cantabria.
Therefore, including the left bank of the Nervión and Ayala in Objective 1 would leave no island in the European aid map.
It would be an act of solidarity towards its inhabitants and a essential element in revitalising investment and economic activity in the area and in creating jobs.
It is therefore necessary to consider the possibility of taking account of exceptions in the Objective 1 map, so that specific and objective needs for support will have their share of the Structural Funds, above and beyond political and administrative limits.
There is another aspect of the Commission's proposal that we must modify.
Aid for training and employment for the new Objective 3 could be lost for Objective 2 areas: industrial areas.
This would be a complete contradiction in terms.
Where are training and human resources more needed than in areas that are undergoing industrial change? It is only through this concept and through this modification that the Basque Country, as well as other industrial areas of Europe, will be able to continue to receive around 8 billion pesetas every year.
I hope that Parliament will tomorrow be in favour of using that Fund for training in Objective 2 areas that are undergoing industrial change, because if training is needed for employment anywhere in Europe, it is undoubtedly needed in areas like these that have a high level of unemployment and where a considerable amount of effort is being made in industrial and technological change.
Madam President, I would like to speak about the proposal for a regulation on structural actions in the fisheries sector.
It is impossible to take, in principle, anything but a critical position with regard to this regulation.
This critical position is justified by the current situation of the fisheries sector, and by the proposals that are being made to us in this regulation, even though they are not very specific.
It is important to emphasise - and you are all perfectly aware of this - that the common fisheries policy currently relies almost exclusively on the Structural Funds.
On this issue, both from a quantitative as well as a qualitative point of view, it is impossible to take anything other than a critical position.
The Community fisheries sector is currently undergoing a profound change in order to survive and be competitive in a globalised economy.
The action that is taking place requires the provision of sufficient funds to finance the various aspects that make up the common fisheries policy in its various facets: conservation and protection of resources, international agreements, markets, structural measures, social aspects, etcetera.
The lack of sufficient funding would lead to the collapse of a sector that is vital in coastal areas and that is labour-intensive, both in the actual fishing sector and in the processing industry, and the loss of this would result in a considerable outlay of public resources.
From a quantitative point of view, there are a series of uncertainties that are making its future difficult.
And from a qualitative point of view - and I am coming to an end here - there is an observation that has been made many times in the Committee on Fisheries: it involves the plan for the new structural policy, in which the horizontal nature of the fisheries objective is lost.
The fisheries sector needs a regulation, or at least a specific objective, that is of a horizontal nature, as well as a single legal instrument, a basis like the current FIFG, which should be strengthened on the basis of the criteria put forward by the Commission in the proposal to create a rural development fund.
This is what we are calling for, Madam President, in our amendments.
Madam President, Commissioners, we are debating a section of Agenda 2000 that has a special bearing on the nature of Europe, as it is directly concerned with cohesion.
I have listened to many speakers in this debate and, possibly because they have been rushed due to the short amount of time we have, they seem to have given an impression with which I do not agree, because they have tried to say to the Commission that its proposals are not sound.
I wish to say the opposite - using the short amount of time that I have - by stating that the documents we have received from the Commission are truly positive, genuinely encompass the meaning of cohesion, have enabled us to work, and we are amending them.
However, I am not so pretentious as to assume that our amendments improve the Commission's texts.
I think that society is complex and that our amendments possibly complicate the Commission's text.
And this is necessary because we are Members of this Parliament and representatives of the people, but are acting at the cost of lowering the technical level and the appropriate tactical level of the Commission's document.
However, I know that in the Commission you have been positive and courageous.
You have been courageous in designing the structure of cohesion, courageous in proposing the Cohesion Fund and succeeding in the legal ruling, and courageous in proposing a balanced and sound amount to be set aside for this Cohesion Fund.
Madam Commissioner, I ask you in particular to try to send us a new document on this framework regulation that precisely encompasses this very rich debate that you have had with Parliament and that I know you are having with the Council.
It would be good if this regulation, which has already been discussed at great length in a certain way, could be replaced by another that would then be the final draft in this very fruitful debate we have had.
Madam President, the funding for trans-European networks proposed by the Commission from 2000 to 2006 is almost double that from 1995 to 1999.
I welcome this increase in funding, but it should be noted that the period from 2000 to 2006 is longer than the previous period, that figures must be compared in real terms and not in current terms, and that investments in the Union's infrastructures have fallen from 1.5 % to 0.9 % of the GDP in recent years.
I therefore think that the figure is as relatively poor as that put forward in the Council regulation that we are now amending and for which I was rapporteur.
At that time, I said in this House that the funding anticipated for trans-European networks only represented 0.6 % of the funds needed in order to build the infrastructures planned for the 1994-1999 period.
We are in a similar situation despite the fact that the funds have been doubled in current terms, and there is therefore still a clear contradiction between the needs in terms of a real Community policy on infrastructures and the funds that are available from the Union.
In addition, as I was also draftsman of the opinion on the Cohesion Fund, I must make the following observation.
According to what has been determined, if a Member State that is receiving money from the Cohesion Fund does not fulfill the convergence criteria, such as public debt and public deficit, it will stop receiving funds.
That is what has been determined.
However, some people say - and today we have heard speeches to this effect - that if a Member State that is receiving money from the Cohesion Fund has fulfilled the convergence criteria, it should stop receiving that money.
That means that every Member State, whether it fulfills the convergence criteria or whether it does not, will be punished by not receiving its share of the Cohesion Fund.
When faced with such a contradiction, there is nothing more that can be said.
I will only add that this was not the spirit of the temporary committee that was set up in order to implement the Cohesion Fund.
I know what I am talking about, as I had the honour of being one of the members of that temporary committee.
Madam President, the document presented to us today is the result of many hours of discussion and compromise. It was drawn up by our two co-rapporteurs, Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis, whom I should like to thank for their efforts.
Although we can approve the general content of the report, which adopts the Commission's suggested principles of concentration, simplification and decentralisation, we cannot vote in favour of the final version.
In effect, we will still vote against the report, in spite of its positive points, such as the horizontal application of Objective 3, maintaining the 'URBAN' initiative and taking small and medium-sized towns into account for the first time, the need for a new initiative to deal with the economic and social crises that lead to job losses, and the restructuring of the performance reserve provided for by the Commission.
As regards Objective 1, we too believe that, first and foremost, aid should be given to the regions that need it most.
We believe that the 75 % criterion should be adhered to strictly.
We cannot, under any circumstances, accept that appropriations from the Guarantee section of the EAGGF, used within Objective 2, be considered as non-compulsory expenditure.
Also, we consider that our democracy will be tarnished if the House does not vote in favour of our Amendment No 46 which, in the interests of greater transparency, stresses that the non-discriminatory use of Structural Funds appropriations must be ensured in the different regions concerned.
It is for this reason, Madam President, that the French Socialists in the European Parliament will not vote in favour of this at first reading.
Madam President, Commissioners, quite an important objective in the Council Regulation is that the ERDF resources should mainly be used for measures which are favourable to employment.
I would consider that point, which was also the subject of our discussion in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, to be particularly significant.
I should like to pick out a few essential points which we in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs unanimously thought should be implemented.
Firstly, we know that, in general, flexible models and new forms of organising work also lead to more jobs.
However, we also know that these flexible models are very often not applied, and this is often because small and medium-sized companies are not in a position to transpose them.
That is why we would request that you promote examples which can show how these new flexible models are to be implemented in smaller companies.
Secondly, many small and medium-sized companies cannot afford to transfer to their companies all the technology that has been developed.
I would propose that we set up innovation centres where innovative young entrepreneurs can obtain the appropriate knowledge and guidance to create new jobs in young companies.
Thirdly, we think that from the very beginning of each project attention should be given to ways of best developing human resources in this context.
Fourthly, we were all very concerned that the needs of the disabled should receive special attention during the planning stage of the infrastructure measures being supported.
There are a great many other points, but I think that these are the main ones that can help to create a higher level of employment.
We have reached unanimous agreement on these points and I call for them to be implemented.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, just a week ago I organised a conference in my hometown of Cuxhaven, an important fishing location in Germany, to look at the reform of the structural measures in the fisheries sector.
The criticisms made by the regional fisheries sector reflected the great anxiety that prevails in that sector at present.
In December 1992, the European Council in Edinburgh agreed upon the principle that areas dependent upon fisheries should receive privileged assistance within the context of the structural policy.
However, in the new Regulation on the Structural Funds, the Commission no longer respects this principle.
The partial restructuring in the agriculture fund threatens to bring the fisheries sector once again into direct competition with agriculture, an aspect which caused the greatest disquiet during the conference.
According to the Commission plans, the very same measures in the different Objective regions are to be financed from different sources in future, with Objective 1 areas clearly coming off better.
Does the Commission realise that companies in Objective 2 areas are going to consider relocating to an Objective 1 area purely and simply because the conditions there are better?
We must drop our original request for a separate Objective 4 for rural areas and separate consideration of the areas dependent on fisheries. However, we do need a horizontal, harmonised structural policy to safeguard the objectives of the common fisheries policy.
That is the only correct approach.
We cannot simply proceed as normal, because making the wrong decision in such a sensitive area as this would further undermine confidence in the European Union.
That should not be the outcome of this new European Structural Funds policy.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today Parliament is dealing with the first step in the reform of the Structural Funds which will govern the cohesion policy of the Fifteen up to 2006.
From this date onwards I think everything will change substantially, both the CAP and the conception and management of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
To manage the period up to the enlargement of the Union, the financial perspectives propose the maintenance on paper of 0.46 % of GDP for Category 2 of the budget, while the Commission is in fact promising a concentration and a simplification which, in real terms, will significantly reduce the map of the regions and the percentages of the European population which will be covered by Objectives 1 and 2.
Now, if the level really were 0.46 %, this concentration could be understandable.
But it is not so, since the cohesion policy funds will also be used to finance the pre-accession, thus reducing by half a point the percentage of expenditure laid down at Edinburgh and confirmed in Agenda 2000 for the cohesion policy of the Fifteen.
On the subject of the Community initiatives, the reduction from thirteen to three is acceptable if the surviving Community initiatives really have the added value compared with the existing funds and the trans-European regional character that must be at the basis of this type of initiative.
I welcome the reference in the general regulation on the Structural Funds to the fact that it is not appropriate to link this regulation with competition policy.
Of particular importance, in the reports on the general regulation and on the European Regional Development Fund, is the reference to the requirement to incorporate the island criterion both for Objective 1 and for the Community initiatives, providing a new area clearly dedicated to inter-island cooperation under the new Interreg especially.
By adopting these proposals at first reading, the European Parliament shows consistency with its own position - in view of the vote in May on my report - and with the Treaty signed in Amsterdam, which provides, in the basic article on cohesion policy, for the inclusion of all the European island regions amongst the less favoured regions.
In conclusion, I hope that the Commission can adopt the same consistent line that the Council and Parliament have been following since Amsterdam.
Madam President, I would like to begin by thanking Mrs Jöns for her splendid work.
I intend to speak here about the social funds.
I would like to raise three points in particular relating to the proposal by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Firstly, it is inevitable that the social funds should form part of the process of implementing common guidelines for employment.
On this we are in full agreement with the Commission.
Secondly, we need action to promote the status of women, and thirdly, we need to address the possible role of the social funds in implementing Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam on non-discrimination.
The committee proposes that Article 13 should be amended and that a statement should be added to the effect that the funds should promote action to prevent discrimination based on gender, race, ethnic origin, religion or beliefs, disability, and age.
I do hope the Commission will take the committee's proposal seriously.
It is vitally important, as without resources the article on non-discrimination might not have any real impact.
I hope the Commission will take the views of the committee on board.
Madam President, Commissioners, one of the most important aims of this reform is concentration.
If we are to achieve this objective, the funds available must be concentrated on - that is, allocated to - the really needy areas.
The more regions are classified in the highest category of assistance - Objective 1 - either because people do not wish to accept the 75 % threshold or because they find ways to avoid complying with it, the harder it becomes for us to achieve this important Community objective satisfactorily.
That is acceptable neither in the present Community of 15 Member States, nor in the light of the coming enlargement.
In my view the 'phasing out' suggested by the Commission is in itself a fair way of dealing with the regions that have reached the 75 % mark.
But let me give you an example by way of clarification: a region that has reached 74 % in 1999 would evidently remain at the top level of assistance for another six years and then ultimately enter the 'phasing out' stage by 2011.
If I may express it thus: those who have benefited cannot with a clear conscience claim that there is a lack of solidarity in the EU; quite the contrary.
I should like to remind you that we had a very distinguished guest here today, the President of one of the countries on our doorstep. I hope that if we ever reach the situation where the Republic of Poland fulfils the 75 % criterion during membership - and of course neither I nor any one of us knows when that might be - then our Polish friends will not insist upon staying in the top level of European assistance for more than 12 years from that date.
To summarise, we in Parliament should really think once more about establishing a clear, exact definition of the criterion for membership of Objective 1.
I hope that tomorrow's decision will reflect this.
Thank you, Commissioner. That was certainly required, even if it means that we have gone well beyond the speaking times.
Nevertheless, only 20 minutes were set aside for both speakers.
I did not interrupt you because I felt that your detailed statement was entirely appropriate.
Mrs McCarthy would like to put another question.
Madam President, it is very simple.
The Commission indicated that it will be modifying its proposal on the performance reserve.
Does that mean that we are to expect a modified regulation or simply a modified proposal on the performance reserve? I should like to remind the Commission that while we are very willing to have discussions with you on the perfomance reserve, we do not have the right of initiative.
We would like to have codecision, we would like to propose our own performance reserve, but that is not our job.
It is up to the Commission to come forward with a proposal that is water-tight and workable.
Madam President, Mrs McCarthy, we are not going to draw up an actual legislative proposal yet, but a paper which we would like to discuss with the Council and Parliament.
I think that before we work on a new legislative proposal, it would make sense for us to discuss it together and see if we can reach agreement as far as possible.
We also want to include many of the valuable ideas from Parliament, as I see that you are prepared to support the basic idea of the performance reserve.
Madam President, first let me thank Mrs Jöns for her extremely thorough report on our proposal for a Council regulation on the European Social Fund.
We agree on nearly all the major points of substance in the Commission's proposal for the future operation of the Social Fund, the importance of preventing and combating unemployment and the vital link between the Social Fund and the European Employment Strategy.
In this spirit I am happy to take on board your Amendments Nos. 4, 8, 11 and part of 14 which reinforce these points.
I also know that Parliament has concerns about the Commission's proposal, that Objective 3 - the main focus of the Social Fund activity - should apply only outside Objective 1 and Objective 2 areas.
This is a concern which is shared by many of the Member States.
We accept therefore, on reflection, that Objective 3 will have to intervene within Objective 2 areas in the future.
We will still have to establish how we will operate that.
Our original proposal in this area was framed with the objectives of simplification and flexibility.
We must ensure that any alternative arrangements do not depart from this.
We also agree on the need for a strong partnership in the Structural Funds. It is all the more important for the European Social Fund with its focus on inclusiveness, developing human resources and on involving local organisations.
I welcome the recognition that the report gives to the importance of local development and the involvement of non-governmental organisations.
I am happy to accept the first part of Amendment No 12, the first part of Amendment 38 and Amendment 63, which clarify the importance of partnerships particularly involving NGOs in the distribution of small grants by intermediary bodies.
I want to take the opportunity to thank you all for your continued support for our proposal in Article 4(3) of the draft regulation, that at least one per cent of the Social Fund appropriations should be available for such an approach.
We are running into some resistance in the Member States in the Council who want to water it down to a point where it would be just meaningless.
Parliament clearly has a better grasp of the job creation potential of local development and local social capital.
We will all do our utmost to keep these provisions in the Social Fund regulation and I hope that you will continue to support us on this essential point.
An interesting fact here is that we have had more than 600 applications for a pilot project action that we have undertaken.
It gives you some idea and I hope that the sceptics will take note.
In keeping with our emphasis on equal opportunity I accept Amendment No 6 clarifying the aims of the fund in relation to equality between women and men.
I also accept the principles behind Amendments Nos 19 and 60 for specific additional measures to encourage women's participation but we need a clear wording here.
The general regulation sets out very clearly that the principle of mainstream equality of opportunity should apply at all stages of programming in all of the Fund's interventions.
Accordingly, Amendment No 47 dealing with equal opportunities at the evaluation stage is therefore already covered in the general regulation and is not therefore necessary.
I am pleased that you broadly support the five Social Fund policies that we have proposed in Article 2 of the regulation.
Amendment No 15 - the first part - Amendments Nos 17, 18 and 19 are in line with the Commission's intentions and I am happy to support them.
Similarly, the clarifications that you bring to Article No 3 - the eligible activities - to Amendments Nos 21 and 24 and in principle Amendments 23, 27 and 31, these are very welcome too.
However, there are three main groups of amendments which the Commission could not accept.
I will explain why very quickly.
The first is the return to the target group approach of the current Objective 3, which for us of course would be a retrograde step.
The key principles behind our proposals for the new Social Fund are simplification and flexibility.
Specifying certain target groups at the start of a seven-year period would act to the exclusion of other groups and would deny the Social Fund the flexibility to intervene in support of any further vulnerable groups which might emerge during the programming period.
It is in fact the exact opposite of the mainstreaming approach that we have been trying to promote.
For this reason I am unable to accept the new Article 1(2) proposed in Amendments Nos 14 and 58, the second part of Amendment No 15 or Amendment No 39.
However, let me be clear.
Support will still be available for these groups.
The Social Fund must support a more all-embracing approach to combating inequalities in access to the labour market.
I accept Amendment No 3 (first part) which makes this very clear, and Amendment No 7, subject to some rewording.
The second major amendment which the Commission has difficulty with is Amendment No 20.
This seeks that a minimum of 15 % of interventions be devoted to adaptability and equal opportunities.
This does not mean that we are not committed to these two issues.
Indeed, we suggest this 15 % in the explanatory memorandum as an indicative figure and stipulate in the regulation that particular emphasis must be given to these two fields.
However, specifying a figure in Article 4 would not allow Member States the necessary flexibility to respond to the needs identified by their ex ante evaluations and in their national action plans for employment within the annual employment guidelines.
Finally, the third group of amendments concerns technical assistance.
It is a simple fact that the availability of technical assistance is a matter defined within the regulation and not by the budgetary authority.
So, in conclusion, I have no difficulty in accepting 19 of the proposed amendments.
These are Nos 1, 2, 3 (first part) 4, 6, 8, 11 and 12 (first part) 14 (second part) 15 (first part) 17, 18, 21, 24 and 34 (first part) 38 (first part) 45, 52 and 63.
Further to this, I can accept in principle a further six amendments, subject to some clarification of the wording.
These are Amendments Nos 7, 19, 23, 27, 31 and 60.
I hope that I have adequately explained why the Commission cannot accept the remaining amendments.
The Social Fund is above all concerned with people - their jobs, their skills, their prospects in the labour market.
I therefore believe that it is absolutely right for the European Parliament to have a strong input into this regulation.
I have greatly appreciated Mrs Jöns' partnership and that of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and I look forward to continuing close cooperation in the future.
Thank you, Mr Flynn.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
CAP, EAGGF
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0702/98 by Mr Colino Salamanca, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Council, on Agenda 2000 - reform of the CAP; -B4-0703/98 by Mr Colino Salamanca, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on Agenda 2000 - reform of the CAP; and the report (A4-0405/98) by Mr Görlach, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) (COM(98)0158 - C4-0297/98-98/0102(CNS)).
Madam President, I would first like to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council.
Thank you for attending this evening.
I think that this sets a good example for future Councils.
With regard to the Council, I would like to express our concern about the way in which Agenda 2000 is being handled.
The Presidency's programme stated that you intended to actively continue the negotiation process.
The truth is that, if we believe the most recent Council report from the 19th and 20th, we may have some doubts as to whether the Council is really continuing this active negotiation.
I am saying this mainly because I have had the opportunity to read the report of the last Council of Ministers in which you listed the key issues in each of the sectors being reformed. That list does not give us much optimism that we are soon going to reach a solution.
For example, I read the Council's thoughts on the horizontal regulation where you specify that the main issues are the need to include 'environmental conditionality', the need to regulate aid, the need to fix a ceiling for direct aid and the need to determine how budgetary resources are redistributed.
In order to produce that, all that you really needed to do was to read the regulation involved.
This gives the impression that, so far, four or five months have gone by and all the Council has really done is to read the regulations.
In truth, we had thought that something more would have been done during the last four or five months.
We are even surprised to find that the Council of Ministers is still discussing whether the wine regulation is included in the Agenda 2000 reform or not.
I thought that this had already been resolved, that we had come to an agreement on this issue and that we were now working on Agenda 2000 with wine included.
In any case, you concluded at your last Council meeting that you can now start to look at the solutions.
This is all well and good.
Above all, I would like to know when you intend to conclude your discussions, because I think that after five months things should have progressed a little more, especially if we want to meet our deadline of the Vienna European Council in December and, in particular, so that by March, which is the date we have fixed, we will be in a position to give our opinion on the issues involved in Agenda 2000.
With regard to the Commission - and I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Fischler for attending - I would like to say that there is an issue that is somewhat disrupting the debate: the famous issue of co-financing.
It did not come up initially, but halfway through the debate, and it has complicated the matter somewhat. I think that more information is needed.
For example, when reference is made to 25 % of the aid, what aid is being referred to? There are many types of aid.
Does it refer to aid for tobacco or hops, to the premiums for sheep or those that are in the 1992 reform? It would be good if these issues were clarified so that the debate could move on.
We should also have clarification on whether or not this co-financing has to be the same for everyone when there are - as you know very well from the study carried out by the Commission - countries affected that are undergoing what we call 'cohesion' and that, according to your presentation, it does not seem that they are the ones who end up paying when this situation arises elsewhere, as occurs with budget balances.
The other issue that I feel needs to be highlighted with regard to the Commission is that it recently endorsed the studies carried out in Bonn and Amsterdam on the possible consequences of the 1999 reform.
I think they are a good thing - I am not going to start judging them as I do not have a detailed knowledge of them - but there is one piece of information that catches my attention: the possible job losses that could occur while farmers' incomes are being maintained.
I feel that this is serious, because there were already significant job losses in 1992.
In this respect, it would be appropriate to consider what measures we are prepared to take in order to prevent this.
Moreover, according to my information, the calculations and forecasts are pure futurology.
Sometimes the results show that they are right, and sometimes not.
However, what does seem to be correct is the information that unemployment may rise - according to the studies - by between 2.2 % and 3.7 %.
If this were the case, it would be important to know whether or not you plan to strengthen the area of rural development.
I think that if this forecast might be right, we should be able to implement the second pillar of agricultural policy - that is, rural development - with even more vigour.
We should have a set of measures planned that will enable us to deal with a situation that will otherwise overwhelm us. In this respect, I think that it would be appropriate for us to consider the possibility of promoting rural development - not only that linked to agricultural issues, but also to non-agricultural issues - so that we can approve the reforms that are currently on the table.
Madam President, now that Commissioner Wulf-Mathies' comprehensive discourse has given us the opportunity to discuss one or two points outside the Chamber, perhaps we can now catch up with some lost time to ensure that everyone on the list has the chance to speak this evening.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have all entertained high hopes for the Commission's proposed reforms.
There is no doubt that the overall package, including the merging of several directives into a single directive for rural areas and their development, contains genuinely far-reaching proposals and new ideas.
Having said that, I must add that, if the headings are compared with the descriptions, it emerges that not every heading matches the small print underneath.
We must be careful not to raise hopes that cannot be fulfilled when the ideas are implemented.
Let me now focus on the new proposals on rural development.
For several years, of course, we have all been under the influence of the proposition, which the Commission has reiterated, that the development of rural areas is effectively a second pillar of the agricultural production system that has to be erected alongside the traditional, albeit reformed, agricultural policy.
I recall the excellent conference that the Commission organised in Cork, but we are all well aware that, although we may sit together in a relaxed atmosphere and speak a little about our dreams for the future, those dreams cannot always be fulfilled in the way we would wish.
Our hopes were higher, but they could not all be converted into concrete proposals.
I also know this is difficult, but I believe that many of the Commission's proposals were too strongly influenced by the thought of the editing scissors that the Council would inevitably wield, given the wide diversity of the Member States' interests.
Of course it is essential to seek a majority but, as every trade union knows, to secure a 3 % pay rise you must start by asking for 6 %.
Anyone who opens negotiations by offering a compromise solution need hardly be surprised when that offer is beaten down, particularly in the agricultural debate, where so many different interests are involved.
Allow me to highlight Article 31, for therein lies the key to the question of the extent to which we can take account of the potential of rural areas in the support we give them.
As far as the agricultural economy is concerned - and I refer expressly to the agricultural economy, and not just to farming - the wording is unclear. We are not quite sure where it is supposed to be leading.
We have heard many explanations from you, Commissioner, and from others.
That puts our minds at rest.
But I believe this has to be more clearly worded.
It must say more clearly what we intend to do, and it must also give a clearer indication of the resources that will be available to us in the future.
Parliament cannot accept being fobbed off with the promise of more specific provisions in the implementing regulations.
I am well aware that it is not possible to formulate everything in detail in a legislative text.
I have even criticised a considerable number of my parliamentary colleagues' amendments for trying to do just that.
A piece of legislation cannot be crammed with helpful details, but there should certainly be a little more clarity.
If the implementing provisions subsequently spell out everything that can be done, we should then find a way, if possible, in which Parliament can participate in a Commission measure as a goodwill gesture, even beyond the scope of written agreements.
The two pillars are not yet pillars.
Or at least the second pillar, namely rural development, is not so much a pillar as a spindly little tree.
We shall have to tend and fertilise it very well until its trunk attains the same girth as the first pillar.
That will be exceptionally hard work.
Parliament knows that the Commission is on the right road, but that road is not yet very clearly signposted.
Let us try to work with you to mark out this route and perhaps also to find a means of bringing home to the Member States, in all their diversity, that rural development is not simply a matter of financing non-agricultural activities but that, by bringing stability to rural areas, it ultimately benefits agriculture and the agricultural economy.
Madam President, I am pleased that this oral question on the agricultural part of Agenda 2000 affords me the opportunity to continue our dialogue with the European Parliament which has started very promisingly, in my opinion, in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
In view of the situation with regard to speaking time, I should like to give a very condensed report on the progress made by the Agriculture Council in examining the Commission proposals with a view to transposing them into statutory instruments.
I should like to concentrate on the main political issues that will be at the heart of future discussions.
I need hardly tell you that some of my comments will be made without prejudice to next week's Agriculture Council discussions, the aim of which will be to formulate a clear political position as a contribution to the Vienna meeting of the European Council.
As you are also aware, it is the intention of the presidency to engage in further talks with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as soon as we have the results of the forthcoming Council meeting.
We are all conscious of the challenge posed by Agenda 2000 in general and particularly by the special status attaching to the common agricultural policy in that context.
It is now generally recognised by the body of Agriculture Ministers that the reform process initiated in 1992 must be continued, intensified, adapted and supplemented.
This necessity derives from both the inherent constraints within the farming world and the new extraneous challenges, such as the forthcoming round of WTO negotiations and enlargement of the EU.
It is therefore our duty in the context of our political responsibility for agriculture to take swift and concerted action to structure the CAP in a way that will determine the course to be followed in the global negotiations.
In my opinion, at any rate, this approach is preferable to a wait-and-see strategy, which would result in our having to take decisions that were forced on us by a deteriorating market situation on the one hand or by our non-EU partners on the other.
In this respect, we are proceeding from a number of basic principles which most Members of the House have approved and are able to endorse and which ought to enable us to complete the ambitious project of CAP reform on satisfactory terms, in the true interests of the farming community and to the advantage of consumers.
I am thinking here particularly of the European agricultural model, which ought to be further developed.
This model agricultural system must be multifunctional on the one hand and sustainable and competitive on the other; in other words, it must cover the entire territory of the EU, including regions with specific problems.
This European model should not be unfamiliar to us, since the initial inspiration came from this House.
The model was endorsed in the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council.
We also largely agree that the reform of the common agricultural policy has to result in arrangements that are economically prudent and reliable as well as socially acceptable, in appropriate earnings and in a balanced relationship between production sectors, producers and regions, and that it must prevent distortions of competition.
After all, we are firmly resolved to preserve budgetary discipline and are virtually unanimous in the view that the agricultural guideline should, as a matter of principle, be maintained as a ceiling and be calculated in accordance with the present formula, irrespective of what the guideline covers. With regard to this point, however, I must point out that there has been a change in the position of some delegations on the agricultural guideline, as well as on the question of shifting some fiscal burdens from the CAP purse back to the Member States.
The European Council itself, moreover, has expressed the view that the Commission proposals offer a basis for further reform of the common agricultural policy.
This means that the completion of the reform process will depend on adjustments being made to these proposals.
In this context, it is imperative that the Vienna European Council should make considerable progress, in accordance with the Cardiff timetable, on the main components of Agenda 2000, so that political agreement can be reached on the whole Agenda 2000 package by March 1999 at the latest.
The Austrian Presidency expects to engage in highly constructive cooperation with the European Parliament in this matter.
As far as the Agriculture Council is concerned, may I tell the honourable Member that tangible progress has been made since the meeting of the European Council in Cardiff.
For one thing, the Council has completed the process of identifying and clarifying the issues that will form the core of future negotiations.
This means that it can now move on to the next and more substantive stage of seeking ways and means of resolving these issues, possibly in the form of a range of options.
To this end, as I explained at the start of my remarks, the Agriculture Council is to adopt a report at its meeting this week for the Vienna European Council.
The aim of the report is to identify the general guidelines that have emerged from the papers produced to date, to outline the main progress made since the Cardiff meeting and to shed light on the issues on which the Member States still hold sharply differing views.
From my point of view, there is also a need to emphasise that the negotiations have to proceed at a very brisk pace after the Vienna European Council.
Since I assume that the timetable for dealing with Agenda 2000 which was set by the European Council in Cardiff will be adhered to, I believe it is desirable that agreement be reached as quickly as possible on the unresolved issues, so that the Agriculture Council is left with a limited number of key political issues to discuss at its March meeting. As you can imagine, the solution of these problems may depend to some extent on developments in the negotiations on other aspects of Agenda 2000, particularly on the financial conditions.
For that reason, it would be very useful if the European Parliament's preliminary reports were available on time.
I am gratified to note that the report on rural development, one of the most important areas where reforms are needed, will shortly be completed.
As far as the reform of the common organisation of the cereals, beef and milk markets is concerned, may I remind you that the Agriculture Council, at its November meeting, expressed the view that the approach adopted back in 1992, the main element of which was a reduction of the price-support measures, combined with direct compensatory aid and accompanying measures, remains valid.
The Council also took the view that the suitability of this approach in specific situations and the weighting of the various measures should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, with all available internal and external factual information being taken into account.
The work that has been done on this subject, however, indicates that the Member States have different concepts of suitability.
There is actually quite wide-ranging agreement that this approach should be pursued in the domain of crop farming, irrespective of the size of the reduction in the intervention price and the amount of compensatory aid.
With regard to beef too, the great majority of the delegations consider this approach useful, again notwithstanding the amount of the reduction in the intervention price or of the compensatory aid.
Some delegations, however, doubt that this approach alone can control the supply situation and recommend provision for measures specifically designed to control supply, which would mean a smaller reduction in the intervention price.
As far as dairy products are concerned, the positions of the delegations differ widely.
Some Member States believe that this approach, and especially the lowering of prices, is unnecessary in the present market situation.
Others, however, believe that radical changes to the system are indispensable.
These differences derive partly from the opposing positions adopted by the delegations on the future of milk quotas.
While most of the delegations wish this quota to be retained, some Member States are calling for it to be abolished by 2006.
There are numerous questions concerning details of the individual market regulations which we can certainly include in the discussion if so desired.
With regard to the proposed reform of the common organisation of the wine market, which was submitted in July, a technical examination is now being undertaken so that the key questions can then be identified quickly at the political level.
For that reason, I cannot provide you with a résumé of the Member States' positions at the present time.
However, I should like to make two comments, because I believe they are important. First of all, the discussions to date and the exploratory talks held by the Council in September have shown that the Member States generally regard the present Commission proposal as a decidedly better discussion basis than the proposal of 1993/94.
The more flexible approach and the general objectives are considered on the whole to represent substantial progress.
In addition, let me say to the honourable Member, since it was he who asked the question, that this proposal should be regarded as part of the general package of CAP reforms under Agenda 2000.
So in order to achieve this goal, it is essential that we progress as quickly as possible.
It would be very, very helpful - and I address this appeal to all of you in this House - if the opinion on this proposal could be delivered as soon as possible, so that we in the Council can make the progress that needs to be made.
Some very definite progress has been achieved in the realm of rural development.
This is an issue with extremely important implications for the future of our farmers and the entire countryside.
That is precisely why the presidency devoted its informal meeting in St Wolfgang to this topic.
There is unanimous agreement in the Council that vital importance attaches to rural development policy as the second pillar of the common agricultural policy.
The delegations also largely accept the recommended integrated policy framework.
There is also very wide-ranging agreement on the objectives that should underlie the granting of assistance for the development of rural areas.
Moreover, the idea of developing forestry and giving it a more prominent role in the package of rural development measures has also been welcomed, although I cannot deny that the Member States still differ on the scope of individual measures in the package, because most of this domain, of course, falls within the jurisdiction of the Member States.
Various important questions will have to be dealt with in greater detail so that they can be definitively resolved.
In my view, the main questions are these: firstly, the type of specific measures that can be implemented - in other words, whether these measures should only relate to activities connected with agriculture in all its multifunctional aspects, or whether multisectoral contributions to rural development of a non-agricultural nature can be considered.
Secondly, the link proposed by the Commission between the compensatory allowance for less-favoured areas, subject to compliance with certain environmental requirements, has elicited comments from many delegations to the effect that the compensatory allowance is primarily a socioeconomic instrument designed to compensate for natural disadvantages.
The third and last question relates to sources of funding and especially to the Commission proposal that rural development be switched from the Guidance to the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF.
As far as the financial regulations are concerned, it is logically obvious that the discussions on those can only be concluded at a later stage, particularly in the light of the negotiations on other elements of the Commission proposals, the results of which will have to be reflected in the provisions of the financial regulations.
My own point of view on the question of horizontal regulations is that these proposals include innovations which must be examined extremely thoroughly before they can actually become common political guidelines.
As for compliance with environmental requirements, there is general agreement on the need to promote the attainment of environmental targets; this, incidentally, is wholly in line with the European agricultural model that all the relevant bodies want to see developed.
But there is still a need to examine how these targets are to be achieved, and particularly whether they should be incorporated into the common organisation of the markets or whether they should be prescribed elsewhere, for example in specific regulatory frameworks.
Moving on to the criteria governing the employment of workers, there are divisions among the Member States on basic principles as well as on procedural details.
This is evidently a highly sensitive subject which requires more study.
Lastly, with regard to the sliding scale of total grants paid to farms on the basis of farm size, the delegations evidently differ on this point too.
Several delegations agree with the principle or are keeping an open mind on the maximum amount, whereas some delegations still disagree with the Commission's approach.
I hope that I have managed to provide you in this brief summary with all the most important information on the work that has been taking place in the Agriculture Council and on the prospects for future progress in connection with the agricultural element of Agenda 2000.
I am confident that this dialogue will help to foster the deliberations that are taking place in Parliament and in the other institutions.
You may rest assured that the Austrian Presidency is willing to do whatever is necessary to ensure that the targets laid down in the Cardiff timetable are met and that the process is therefore duly completed in March 1999 in the interests of the agricultural sector, which needs a clear vision of the future.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr Molterer.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been doing some calculations. The sitting is due to continue until midnight.
The speaking time for the individual speakers is so tight that we shall only manage if you all keep very strictly to your time, and indeed save a little if possible.
In this context, I should like to ask Mr Fischler something.
You ought to have the floor now, and then again after the debate.
Could you make your statement at the end, or do you wish to speak at this point?
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, first the good news: I shall deal with everything together, then there will be no need for me to speak again at the end.
But before beginning, I should like to thank you for the opportunity to engage in this debate here today.
I thought I would divide my contribution into two parts, starting with my response to Mr Colino Salamanca's oral question and then dealing with Mr Görlach's report.
Before I do that, however, let me convey to all the rapporteurs and to all those who have spoken here or produced working papers my sincere thanks for their efforts.
What stage have are reached in the reform debate? The President-in-Office has just reported in detail on the present position with regard to the discussions in the Council, and I need not repeat that.
There is only one thing I should like to re-emphasise: we need reform, and we need it now.
Moreover, we need real reform.
With half measures, window-dressing or 'semi-skimmed' reforms, we shall never attain the goals which we have set ourselves and which Parliament has postulated.
The problems in Asia and the Russian crisis have made many people question the need for reform and our approach to the task of reforming the common agricultural policy.
Our assumptions regarding the development of the global market are over-optimistic, they say. What is more, these are often the selfsame people who, until recently, were criticising us for allegedly producing excessively pessimistic estimates.
Let me therefore state quite plainly that nothing significant has changed in the assumptions on the medium- and longer-term development of supply and demand that underlie our proposals.
Our approach to these reforms has been entirely vindicated by the latest studies we have conducted.
An increase in consumption in the newly industrialised countries of Asia in particular, combined with limited scope for increased production in those countries, will stimulate trade in agricultural produce and boost price levels in the world market.
Even though the problems in Asia and Russia have put a temporary damper on economic growth, that will not significantly affect developments in the longer term.
So there will certainly be opportunities for our agricultural producers if we are prepared to pursue the path of reform. And what if we do not?
Well, as far as the cereals market is concerned, our analysis shows that unless our policy is changed, this year's intervention stocks of 14 million tonnes will have risen to 51 million tonnes by about the end of 2005.
The beef estimates also confirm the urgent need for reform.
In the absence of reforms, we can expect a beef surplus of one and a half million tonnes in the middle of the next decade.
Although the milk situation is less critical, the EU dairy industry will be unable to benefit from the anticipated upturn, particularly with regard to cheese exports, without a change of policy.
It is therefore essential, in my opinion, that the Community should adhere to a long-term strategy and not let itself be irritated by short-term problems.
Be that as it may, reforms designed to put our own markets in order are absolutely indispensable.
Our three principles for the reform process remain unaltered.
First of all, we must develop the European agricultural model further by distinctly improving the competitiveness of our agricultural sector.
Secondly, in order to strengthen the European agricultural model, we must integrate a multifunctional approach into our agricultural system.
Market reforms must therefore be supported by a more active rural development policy throughout the entire Community.
For the sake of coherence and to avoid conflicts, rural development and market policy ought to be more closely linked, which should be done by using the Guarantee Section of the EAGGF to fund rural development outside Objective 1 areas.
Thirdly, even if policy is better attuned to the market, agricultural policy will still require a safety margin so that it can respond to unexpected developments.
The latest economic crises in particular have shown that the world market not only offers interesting export opportunities but also entails a certain degree of risk, which our farmers have to take into account.
But in particularly difficult years, when natural disasters occur or when major markets collapse, for example, farmers must be able to rely on Community solidarity.
Mr Colino Salamanca referred to the fact that the own resources report is playing a more prominent part these days in the discussion on the funding of Community policy.
In this context, may I point out to the honourable Member that there is a list in which the payments included in the calculations are enumerated in precise detail; this list was compiled by Directorate-General XIX.
I have already given copies to one or two Members of Parliament.
I shall gladly send you a copy.
Our sole intention in this report was to create an objective basis for discussion and to highlight the basic options available to us in our bid to cope more effectively with budgetary imbalances.
First of all, this means that cofinancing is not the only conceivable solution, but it also means that we shall not table a proposal until there is a clear political will on the part of the Member States for us to do so.
However, I should not like to rule out the possibility that other entirely different factors might crystallise in the course of the discussion.
For instance, some Members of this Parliament have already indicated that it might become necessary to establish a new equilibrium between market policy and rural development policy.
However, let me warn you against one thing, namely the fallacy that we can solve the budgetary problems by abandoning the reform process or by confining ourselves to cosmetic surgery.
The fact is that mini-reforms would ruin farmers' prospects of a prosperous future.
Such a strategy would be dangerous self-delusion and would be pursued at the expense of the future viability of our farms.
If we do not reach agreement as quickly as possible, there is a danger that the current financial latitude will be restricted, primarily from without, to the extent that, if the reforms were postponed until a later date, they would have to be implemented without the safety net that is now available.
Do we want that? Do you want that?
The Agenda 2000 proposals in their present form provide for income support measures, and the concerns voiced by the farmers' associations regarding the effects of the proposals on incomes have once more been proved groundless.
The fact is that we now have comprehensive studies from two universities which have analysed the economic impact of the proposals.
These studies represent the most comprehensive and broad-based analyses that have been undertaken in this field, as well as being the most independent.
Unlike many of the farmers' associations, the universities did not use static models but opted for dynamic models which took account of the interdependence of the various production sectors, cost savings and the structural development that may be expected to occur.
On the basis of the assumptions made in these models, it transpires that nominal incomes within the agricultural sector will rise slightly between now and 2005.
However, if the probable structural development is also taken into account, per capita agricultural incomes are shown to rise perceptibly in real terms as well.
Mr Colino Salamanca asked which structural developments were postulated in these studies. Let me tell you that the average annual reduction in the number of farms was higher before the 1992 reforms than afterwards, and let me say that in the period for which we are now planning, the average annual reduction in the number of farms is expected to be lower than it has been during the present period.
Lastly, I should like to emphasise that it may well prove necessary to amend the proposals so that a decision can be taken.
Even if amendments have to be made, we must fully uphold the principles on which we have chosen to base the reform process.
And that brings me to the Görlach report. By consolidating policies that have hitherto consisted of many scattered elements in various different portfolios and by undertaking an urgently necessary extension of activities relating to rural areas to form a coherent whole, we wish to make rural development into the second pillar of the common agricultural policy while considerably simplifying the relevant provisions, procedures and aid criteria.
Mr Görlach is right to say that the second pillar is not yet as strong as the first, but we - at least we in the Commission - are certainly prepared to do our bit to make it as strong as possible.
Your amendments, ladies and gentlemen, highlight the various reservations that exist in Parliament.
I hope that I shall be able, with due brevity, to dispel most of your misgivings or at least make it clear where the Commission's view differs and why.
The main goal of rural development policy is to provide a framework within which coherent programmes can be created throughout the Community.
First of all, that framework has to be flexible enough to take account of the diverse needs and the rich potential of Europe's rural areas. Secondly, it must be able to accommodate an integrated planning approach and, thirdly, it must guarantee the development of sustainable agriculture and forestry.
I welcome the rapporteur's endorsement of these primary aims.
Roughly speaking, we can divide the amendments into three groups.
Some of the proposed amendments seek to change the core of our proposals and are thus at odds with our basic thinking.
For example, a number of amendments seek to restrict rural development programmes outside Objective 1 and Objective 2 areas to farmers only.
While we recognise the key role of agriculture, farmers alone cannot ensure the viability of rural areas. What would the prospects be for the brothers and sisters of anyone taking over a farm?
Would migration be their only option? For these reasons, we have proposed in Article 31 that the measures for the promotion of rural development be broadened.
The choice of priorities, however, should be left to the Member States or their regional authorities.
I am sure that the rapporteur, Mr Görlach, shares my view on this point.
Another question that touches on the foundations of the proposed regulation is addressed in some amendments which deal with agri-environmental measures.
We in the Commission regard this as a key element of our proposal.
That is why it is the only part of the proposal that is intended to be compulsory for the entire territory of the Community.
For the sake of the credibility of these measures, it is imperative that they actually help to improve the environment.
Two of today's amendments in particular, namely Nos 55 and 56, would considerably prejudice the proposed agri-environmental measures.
One of the amendments would mean that all farmers using extensive farming methods would automatically receive environmental premiums, without any assessment at all of the environmental benefit of their methods.
The result of this could be that the agri-environmental measures would conflict with the compensatory payments and extensification premiums under the common organisation of the markets.
May I remind you of those very reservations that were expressed here last month in the debate on the Iversen report.
The second amendment which would be incompatible with our draft regulation provides for the introduction of aid for the marketing of regional products. This is a good idea, and we have nothing against it in principle.
Indeed, we are pursuing it, but in another context.
I trust you will appreciate that such aid could not come out of the agri-environmental budget.
The vast majority of the amendments are consistent with the spirit of the Commission draft, which, incidentally, was endorsed by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Most of the amendments are proposals for improvements in the wording.
I am well aware that, as with any legal text, there are a few points in this draft that can and should be improved.
In most cases, however, the wording was carefully chosen by the Commission to reflect quite specific political objectives.
For that reason, I am not in a position to accept amendments today without detailed examination.
It should not be forgotten that even nuances can be important.
Many amendments merely emphasise or reiterate matters that have already been covered.
As far as the aid ceiling is concerned, we must examine the amount of aid it will take to achieve the desired effect in each case and ensure at the same time that an appropriate reciprocal contribution is made.
Wherever possible, we have proposed an increase in the amounts of aid for specific measures, such as the establishment grant for young farmers.
However, we do not believe there is any justification for further wholesale increases.
Finally, there are a number of amendments - Nos 22 and 27, 31, 35, 38 and 65 - which relate to the jurisdiction of the Member States and the Commission.
If we are serious about subsidiarity, we should not include in the text of EU laws any matters that could equally well be resolved at the national and regional levels.
In particular, it is certainly not for the European Union to decide which authorities or institutions should be consulted on matters of programme adaptation.
The Commission will, however, examine whether it can incorporate some of these ideas into the detailed implementing rules.
As far as the Commission's responsibilities are concerned, I shall certainly take up the challenge to have the implementing rules on the table within six months.
However, I cannot accept the amendment in its present form, because our intention is to produce the implementing rules as soon as possible after the Council has adopted the regulation.
As far as the division of powers among the institutions is concerned, I cannot alter the obligations and powers of the Commission.
That transcends the scope of the draft regulation.
You may rest assured, however, that I shall keep Parliament fully informed of our progress in preparing the implementing rules and developing the programmes.
Finally, I am gratified to note that the report endorses the main objectives of the Commission proposal, and I therefore hope that Parliament will support the principles of our rural development policy as set out in our draft regulation.
Madam President, first I would like to compliment Mr Görlach on his report.
His argument is very convincing, and reflects our group's constant attention to agricultural and rural policy.
We are disappointed that, in fact, despite all the declarations and grand statements at Cork, this second pillar of the CAP still looks like a shaky crutch.
Yes, simpler procedures for rural development programmes are an excellent step forward, and the new role of the regions and strengthened partnership are important, but the paramount problem is still funding, which is pretty limited at 10 % of all CAP expenditure.
This suggests that planning for the countryside, that vast physical and human European resource, will be largely driven by traditional market policy with its powerful funding and instruments, which makes our poor little rural policy look like a lady-in-waiting
In this context, I fear that the entirely legitimate attempt to extend rural policies to cover more than just agriculture - mentioned by the Commissioner - runs the risk of generating eagerness and expectations everywhere which are bound to be disappointed.
We will not be able to satisfy all the rural communities wanting to take advantage of them.
I think that is a sign of the difficulty and uncertainty surrounding this endlessly awaited reform of the CAP.
And our motion for a resolution on the Agenda 2000 agricultural reform is geared to that very point.
We are driven by two concerns: the first is that the crisis situation on the international markets may hold up reform while waiting for better times.
Instead, we think it is necessary to press on rapidly and stick to the planned timetable for decisions next spring.
And there is no need to water this reform down excessively and have a kind of artificial reform - as the Commissioner said - especially on those innovative aspects of the horizontal regulation which are supposed to be an opportunity to reconcile people to the CAP and justify the aid it covers, and which, in my opinion, threaten to disappear altogether.
Mr Görlach is right - if the Commission's proposal, here too, had been a bit more courageous and a bit less wedded to a rather too convenient subsidiarity, we might not have reached this point.
But now we must move forward, and there is absolutely no need to curl up like a hedgehog to defend the status quo.
I believe a fortress Europe would be the worst signal to send to the CEECs who even now see their accession date fading sadly into the distance.
The second concern is the one this debate on the cofinancing of income support raises in me.
Commissioner, I appreciated your extreme prudence at the last meeting with the Committee on Agriculture because, in fact, this logic of net budget balances, which has got absolutely nothing to do with the real issues of reforming the CAP, threatens to introduce a dangerous virus into the whole construction of Europe, and I do not want all of this to lead to another reform deadlock.
Our message - at least the one we have tried to get across in this resolution - is that it is right to have the cards on the table and let the farming world have its say too, because it cannot be made just a passive witness of decisions taken over its head.
If we want to grasp the opportunity of the debate on budgetary resources to talk about expenditure, and hence about the CAP, fine, but what drives us are the real problems of the CAP - the unfair distribution of its benefits - which the President of the Court of Auditors also described to us in this House yesterday.
I think it would be wrong to erect an ideological wall against the renationalisation which the cofinancing would provoke, and see it as a demon.
But it would be equally wrong to allow purely accounting logic to prevail over aspects of balance, cohesion and solidarity which are even more necessary in the new CAP than they were in the old one.
So debate and negotiation should come together in this context.
I think it will be best for everyone.
Madam President, I wish to greet the President-in-Office and the Commissioner. I should also like to congratulate Mr Görlach on his excellent report.
What are the main issues of concern for the European Parliament that led to the tabling of this oral question? You only have to consider the report on the general aspects of the reform approved by the European Parliament in July, a report that I myself drafted, the declarations made at the 1997 Agriculture Council or the Cardiff European Council, or the statement made recently by the Austrian Presidency to find the answer.
But I should like to reiterate the main concerns.
First of all, we must show caution and moderation in the reduction of prices, especially in the milk and beef sectors.
Secondly, we need to maintain the intervention regimes, albeit in a more flexible and operational form.
Thirdly, we must ensure greater equality between different crops, farmers and types of farm so that the CAP can finally contribute to the economic and social cohesion of the European countryside.
Fourthly, we should strike more of an internal balance within the CAP by strengthening the so-called second pillar of rural development.
It is incomprehensible that there should be virtually no change in the appropriations earmarked for this extremely important pillar when around 10 % of the guideline resources have not been used.
Fifthly, we need to preserve an adequate number of farmers working the land. This is a major concern in the less-favoured, peripheral and ultra-peripheral areas, which are already running a great risk of abandonment and desertification.
If, as is proposed, the reform of the CAP is limited to a reduction in prices and their compensation by means of aids indexed to productivity rates, then we shall be carrying out a reform only for the more efficient farmers.
That would be a shocking contradiction with the political aims of defending the European farming model and keeping the countryside alive. Those aims have always been pursued and reiterated by the Commission and the Council.
Let us leave aside such political hypocrisy.
It is now 13 months since Agenda 2000 was first presented and 7 months since the proposals became more practical. But we have yet to see any signs of progress despite the efforts made by the Commissioner and Jacques Santer.
As if that were not enough, there is now the proposal on cofinancing, which has poisoned the whole debate over the CAP.
We do not want to avoid this debate and we cannot escape it but it goes far beyond the question of the agricultural policy and is a debate that we have to hold at the right time, not now.
The European Parliament has reached a broad consensus on the CAP but the question of financing at this stage cannot be allowed to poison our debate, nor should it be allowed to divide us.
Madam President, I should particularly like to welcome the President-in-Office, the Austrian Minister for Agriculture, along with his many assistants who are here this evening.
This is a very positive signal from the Austrian Presidency.
I should also like to congratulate Mr Görlach on his report, which I think lays a very solid foundation for the rural policy in Europe which my group feels is so badly needed.
It will have to be defended in future, particularly in international circles in my view, as part of the 'blue box'.
While we on this side of the Atlantic are busy drastically reforming the agriculture policy that we feel we need, those on the other side are sending out completely different signals, however understandable this may be, by suddenly increasing their subsidies enormously.
It would be interesting if the Commission could analyse, and let Parliament know, whether this extra aid is classified as being in the blue box or the green box.
It will inevitably be part of Europe's future agricultural policy, to be paid for from Category 1.
The main problem with income support in future will be that once the Central and Eastern European countries have joined, they are sure to apply for it.
This will be very difficult: it will become unaffordable, and then the common agricultural policy itself will come under threat.
I favour cofinancing under strict conditions: only if there is no renationalisation, and if the Member States are obliged to pay or face strict sanctions if they fail to do so.
You will not be surprised to hear that I also advocate a policy of promoting good-quality agricultural products.
In my report a few months ago, I gave a detailed account of how this should be approached, and I hope that the Austrian Presidency will bring this matter up again in its discussions in future.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, as the Commissioner explained to us a few moments ago, in answer to the protest from certain Member States who make net contributions to the Community budget, the Commission has just drawn up a report on the own resources of the European Union, with a view to readjusting Member States' contributions.
The Commission puts forward three options, one of which is the national cofinancing of direct aid to agriculture at a level of 25 %.
This proposal may be tempting at first sight as it would have a considerable effect in terms of readjustment for certain Member States whose agricultural sectors are smaller than the Community average.
However, in the short and medium term, there is a danger that national cofinancing could weigh heavily on the national annual budgets of certain Member States, such as France, who would be forced to significantly increase their agricultural budget. Yet this goes against the policy of controlled expenditure needed for the success of the euro.
Also, national cofinancing represents a real threat to financial solidarity among Member States.
There is a danger of intolerable imbalances among the fifteen Member States, which would lead to the formation of a two-speed Europe: a Europe of rich states and a Europe of poor states.
I am opposed to national cofinancing.
The Commission's proposal poses a serious threat to the common agricultural policy and could mark the beginning of its renationalisation and, over time, its disappearance.
The progressive and underhand dismantling of the CAP would irreparably challenge European unity as the CAP is the first Community policy which, for 50 years and despite battles fought over agricultural matters, was able to give strength to the cohesive force and spirit of solidarity that are characteristic of the European Community.
CAP reform is necessary but it should not trigger the collapse of Europe.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I think firstly that the Cunha report - which is an excellent report - brought to light the contradictions, imbalances and effects of the 1992 reform.
I do not think it is right that the Commission should propose Agenda 2000 to us without having completed the task of presenting a report evaluating the effects of the 1992 reform.
Commissioner, reports from universities are not enough: the Commission's political responsibility obliged it to set out the effects of the previous reform before this Parliament in order to have an adequate debate.
This was one of the Commission's major responsibilities.
With regard to the proposals, the Commission has restricted itself to drawing up proposals for sectorial reforms, without having an overall plan. What is more, the reforms it is proposing are, in general, price reductions that are not partially compensated for by direct aid to incomes, and a widespread system of replacing purchasing intervention with aid for private storage.
With the development of the international financial crisis, it would also have been desirable to use more specific tools for analysing these measures and the effects that the international crisis might have on this sector.
Finally, on behalf of my group, I would like to congratulate Mr Görlach, and draw attention to rural development, Commissioner, as neither the tools nor the financial resources considered in the Commission's proposals are satisfactory with regard to this issue, and they will in no way be able to compensate for the negative effects of the remaining proposals on the rural society and economy.
I would like to add a few thoughts on the subject of co-financing.
What is proposed is not a policy of solidarity, because the real economic policies - the internal market policies and the common commercial policy - are not reflected in the budget.
Therefore, presenting matters in terms of net balances is inappropriate and very inaccurate.
Perhaps we are seeing there the hand of a Member State, and the Commission should be more generous and not give in to certain pressures.
Allow me a final thought: what is happening with Agenda 2000 is an example of institutional game play within the context of Europe.
It is very important to keep to timetables, but it is just as important to take the right decisions, with the appropriate methods and pace of debate and with sufficient transparency.
Madam President, Commissioner, a great deal of money is spent in the agricultural domain; just imagine that all the money that has been poured into agriculture in the past had gone towards this second pillar we are discussing here today.
Commissioner, it is impossible to assess the extent to which rural areas could have flourished, how many jobs would have been created and preserved, how much agricultural spin-off development we could have initiated too.
If we consider how much innovation has taken place as a result of the frugal programmes we have had and through the funds that have trickled into the Leader programme and the accompanying measures, we can obtain a rough idea of the sort of impact these programmes would have had if they had been furnished with the necessary capital.
Nevertheless, what is planned for the second pillar is very sound in terms of quality, but in quantitative terms its resources are meagre.
We should be bolder here, and above all in the other areas, in the traditional agricultural domains, in the support premiums for price reductions; we should surely look long and hard at the social and environmental quality of our measures and adjust them accordingly, with a view to bringing them into line with our social and environmental policies and to charting a new course, so that these funds will eventually flow into what we now call the second pillar, which within five or ten years - perhaps we should not set ourselves too tight a schedule - could become the first pillar.
If we make wise use of the funds at our disposal, if we do not let them disappear into the national treasuries, we stand a great chance of succeeding.
I would ask you, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, to be rather more daring and to adopt a somewhat more positive approach in explaining to the public the great opportunities that lie along this route.
Your native country has some valuable tips and good examples to offer us in this respect.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, I would simply like to make two points.
Firstly, we are used to hearing that the CAP has achieved its objectives of self sufficiency, as set by the Treaty.
Then we immediately think of overproduction, set-aside, fallow land, the drop in agricultural prices and yet, it has to be said, this does not really reflect the reality of the situation.
The Union is in deficit in certain products that it could easily produce itself.
We import 70 % of proteins for livestock farming, but also 50 % of honey and a considerable amount of citrus fruits, fish, wood and even sheep whilst, at the same time, troubled rural areas remain unused.
Also, on a budgetary level, we should not be decreasing aid but rather improving it, without diluting it with hypothetical cofinancing. Such cofinancing promotes selfishness in national accounting and harms the founding principles of solidarity within the Union.
This reform should redistribute production among the various regions, climate zones and countries.
This reform should stop making intensification a priority.
The main aim of reform cannot be to satisfy the multinationals of the food and farming sector.
We understand that European citizens do not wish to continue financing such a convoluted system. A European agricultural model does exist.
It is not uniquely based on the Union's exports, nor on a widespread drop in prices.
It is based on the multi-functional nature of our agricultural sector and on the patchwork of our land. We should ensure that they complement one another with a view to sustainable rural development in the human interest, and the creation of jobs.
And what of the world market?
We must, of course, take our place in it, but not at the expense of our fellow citizens and their health, nor at the expense of their environment.
This is also the price we pay for European integration.
It is also the price we pay for having a European Union, a worthy partner that is respected and well-known in the globalised world.
Madam President, the proposal for a regulation on support for rural development from the EAGGF incorporates all of the existing measures relating to Objective 5a of structural policy.
I find that the Commission proposal lacks realism and does not take into account the negative impact that the 1992 reform of the common agricultural policy had on the economic fabric of rural areas.
A perfect example is the frantic race for output, productivity and enlargement in order to maintain an income that no longer allows profitable investment.
Our group, both in committee and in the House, has tabled a series of amendments which include all economic sectors in rural areas in the support mechanism for extensive agricultural production. This support is provided by compensating for the supplementary production costs for farms in less-favoured areas.
A large number of these amendments have already been adopted by different majorities in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, thereby showing both the Commission and the Council how much importance we place on rural development for a healthy balance in European society.
As regards financing the CAP, we are opposed to any system where Member States cofinance a common policy due solely to the fact that Article 2 of the Treaty of Rome lays down the principle of financial solidarity.
Moreover, although the national cofinancing of aid would at first be compulsory, the methods for implementing it would soon become optional or discretionary.
As a result of this cofinancing proposal, Mr President, I question the Commission's objectives.
Do you really want to maintain a Community agricultural policy, the only existing common policy along with the Common Fisheries Policy? If this is not the case, then it must be stated clearly and without pretence in order to allow Member States to renationalise agricultural policy to defend their own interests themselves.
Madam President, CAP reform is dictated by outside considerations, particularly in the eyes of the Commission, and it should now be clear that developments in the international arena, with the crisis in Asia and Russia, mean we must be more realistic about export possibilities for our agricultural products.
We must be wary of being too confident in this area.
Similarly, enlargement to include the CEECs should be subject to careful consideration.
In this respect, it must be clear that such enlargement should not lead to our common policies, particularly the CAP, being watered down.
In addition, it is also in our interests as Europeans to note that, currently, the United States is once again being forced to strengthen public support for its farmers.
These are new arguments to justify our CAP and the European agricultural model within the WTO.
But I would also like to draw attention to more internal aspects of our forthcoming reform. The legitimacy of our agricultural policy needs to be renewed.
For the consumer, the quality of products needs reinforcing, and the taxpayer needs to be reassured that public money is being wisely spent. And our fellow citizens need to be reassured that we are safeguarding regional balances and promoting sustainable development.
More importantly, we must make our CAP more coherent, as the Cunha report suggested.
From this point of view, I would like to warn against the initiatives and decisions in favour of Member States cofinancing the CAP as this measure, if it were taken, would challenge the whole principle of financial solidarity, one of the basic tenets of the CAP.
It may also lead to the renationalisation of the CAP as, when national partners have to vote on appropriations for their country's farmers, it will not be long before they use national criteria to decide which way they vote.
For these reasons I cannot sanction the idea of cofinancing, and I call on my colleagues to be most careful on this matter.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for his cooperation and his willingness to compromise.
A report on the funding of measures for rural areas is very difficult to deal with, not only because of the host of amendments but also because of the diverse needs of the Member States.
The development and promotion of rural areas is a particular concern of mine, since I am convinced that Europe, in all its diversity, will only have a future if its less-developed regions, including its rural areas, receive targeted and effective support.
I therefore crave your indulgence, ladies and gentlemen, for my repeated interventions in the House on behalf of rural areas, but I consider rural development to be a very important subject which warrants these constant reminders and which needs to be explained clearly to all our citizens.
Alongside regional policy, agricultural policy plays an important role in the development of rural areas.
While regional policy focuses its array of instruments and resources on supporting the rural population and the economic base of small and medium-sized businesses, agricultural policy supports the farming community through the EAGGF.
This fund and the regional support measures are now to be made available as a combined package, primarily to meet agricultural needs and requirements.
In my opinion, this idea of an integrated policy for rural areas is extremely important, but let me emphasise that care must be taken from the outset to ensure that these resources are used efficiently.
In other words, measures which primarily affect agriculture must be financed from this fund, whereas measures that affect rural areas without having any link at all with agriculture and the multifunctionality of rural areas should actually be supported within the framework of regional policy.
I also support the constructive approach based on the principle of good professional practice.
Good farming practice is really the basis of the way in which farmers run their businesses.
They must be specially recompensed for any contributions they make, over and above that basic farming practice, to improve the environment, promote animal welfare, care for the countryside and help society in general.
Let me just remind you of the Commission's policy, the aim of which is a relentless process of price liberalisation; that makes it all the more important that our farmers should have the opportunity to top up their incomes by providing additional services.
I am naturally a staunch advocate of transparency in the production chain, of environmentally acceptable production methods and of high standards of animal welfare.
Farmers, however, cannot be expected to make these contributions without the guarantee of a commensurate income. It is on that guarantee that the future of our European model of agriculture depends.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, Agenda 2000 aims to facilitate the eastward enlargement of the EU and to prepare for the next WTO talks.
The Agenda 2000 timetable was decided at the Edinburgh summit, and the ELDR Group is pressing ahead with the agreement of reforms laid down in the timetable.
The costs of enlargement have been assessed too conservatively.
The global economic situation has got worse and so the plan for the funding of enlargement has altered.
The new situation prompted the Commission to draft a report on own resources, proposing as one solution the partial assumption of the burden of funding agricultural expenditure by the individual states.
This national funding of Common Agricultural Policy expenditure is already routine in Finland, for example, which acquired the right to finance aid itself during the transition period, in order to ease the integration of Finnish agriculture into the EU single market.
The co-funding of environmental aid is also something already happening.
The national funding of agricultural expenditure must be very strictly regulated, so that farmers in the Member States receive equal treatment.
When operating in a single market under very different circumstances the worst-off producer regions must be supported by means of a common agricultural policy.
The Agenda 2000 reform, therefore, should have given more weight to the needs of the worse-off regions, as was called for in the Luxembourg resolution.
I hope more consideration will be given to these needs in future.
The Agenda 2000 reforms further reduce the share producers get from the market place, which is a particularly serious problem for the worse-off regions. The share of direct aid in the income structure for the Finnish farmer has now grown too large.
Agenda 2000 is only exacerbating the situation.
How, I would like to know, is the spirit of enterprise in farming to be kept up?
The provisions on forestry aid in the Agenda 2000 reforms are worded very unclearly, and it is thus difficult to discover what they mean, for example, in terms of funding.
The ELDR Group opposes extending the aid policy to cover the forestry sector, which falls into the category of free trade.
Madam President, in the available time it is not possible to deal with the many challenges facing European agriculture or the role of farming as a central pillar in rural infrastructure.
Neither is it possible to evaluate that role in economic terms.
In spite of generous EU support, which I acknowledge, family farms are disappearing from the rural landscape. The age profile of farmers is deteriorating and young people no longer see farming as a sustainable career.
How then is the European family farm model to survive? What are the consequences for long-term food security and quality, not to mention the role of farmers as managers of the environment?
To those politicians who see farmers as a legitimate target to boost their own political careers with urban voters, I say that they are displaying an appalling lack of understanding of the unique role of agriculture in the context of broader national and EU policy.
They are ignoring the fact that in the present circumstances food is now being produced at profit levels that are marginal and, in many cases, below the cost of production.
In Ireland there is certainly a short-term crisis for beef and sheep producers which could not have been foreseen at the time of the 1992 reform.
The collapse of the Russian economy and the fall-out from BSE are just some of the problems that are impacting on our beef sector.
Taking the long-term view in the context of Agenda 2000, we must ensure that family farms and their individual enterprises are supported within the available budget resources.
Large-scale commercial enterprises should not be allowed to usurp funding which should go, in my view, go to family farming.
In conclusion, I fully support those who say that there should be no co-financing of the common agricultural policy.
I would certainly oppose any move towards renationalisation.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate Mr Görlach on his excellent report, in which he emphasises the fact that rural development is in danger of falling between two stools, in other words being virtually gambled away, since according to the Commission's proposal, it is no longer to be a separate objective.
I wonder whether a proper analysis of the consequences has been carried out.
It is important to support and encourage interaction between rural areas and towns, since each provides the other's resources.
The development of agriculture - in which the EU plays an important part - has brought about a situation in which it is often impossible to depend on the family farm as the principle means of employment and sole source of income.
Running a farm often has to be combined with other work to make it feasible for family members to remain in the countryside.
The situation is particularly acute in sparsely populated areas.
Therefore, the support criteria need to be changed, otherwise only the large agricultural units will continue to thrive, while the small, environmentally friendly farms see their future disappear.
Rural depopulation would continue, leading to the painful demise of small towns and villages, since it is the small and medium-sized undertakings that keep the countryside alive.
The EU's agricultural policy therefore needs to be flexible to allow the countryside to go on flourishing.
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur.
He is a man we all respect within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and Parliament.
Rural development is being put forward at the moment as a second pillar for agriculture.
The question I ask myself is: will the second pillar be any use? You can only give it the strength it requires by providing sufficient finance to give maximum support to the rural community.
I am extremely concerned that the second pillar will create an even more uneven playing field within the European Union than presently exists.
To only make the agri-environmental measure mandatory is an extreme weakness.
It gives Member States the licence to pick and choose to their own advantage, which may not be in the best longer-term interests of people living in the country, especially those dependent on the land for their support.
Rural development, as proposed, can never hope to address the serious problems facing the rural and agricultural communities throughout the European Union at present.
This will not protect the family farm structure that we have within the European Union.
Farmers throughout Europe are asking where do we go from here; what do we do and what have we done wrong? We should ask ourselves what we have done wrong.
We are the people with the responsibility within the Commission and Parliament.
We are the people who have to point the way forward.
We are the people who have to find and ensure that there is a way forward.
Unfortunately, to date, I do not see within this proposal enough support for the family farm structure within the European Community.
Madam President, we need to be serious in this Parliament about achieving genuine reform of the common agricultural policy for the 21st century.
Mr Görlach produced an excellent report on the Commission proposals for rural development and put forward a small number of very practical amendments to bring them more closely in line with the Cork Declaration which the Commission had watered down somewhat.
Those amendments recognised the reality that in the conditions of the 21st century European agriculture will be much less labour-intensive and more mechanised in almost all sectors.
It is therefore essential to see rural development as support for the creation of a range of additional occupations in rural areas, not just those relating directly to agriculture and food processing, important elements though they will certainly continue to be in such areas.
It was therefore disappointing that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development introduced many additional over-detailed amendments to link support primarily to farmers and weaken the commitment to wider rural development.
We are not the farmers' committee and we have a duty to look beyond personal vested interests and towards the interests of all those citizens living in rural areas who will not find jobs in agriculture.
I hope this House will reject the majority of amendments so that we will have an opinion from the European Parliament which is realistic and constructive in adapting the European model of agriculture to new economic and social conditions as set out in the joint resolution from our colleagues, Mr Fantuzzi and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
They identify as key factors sustainable development, quality food production, consumer safety, protection of the environment and biodiversity, animal welfare and rural development.
To achieve the latter we need LEADER type programmes to assist small-scale enterprises to develop new jobs in high technology as well as in tourism, traditional crafts and skills and environment-enhancing projects.
They should not only be in Objective 1 and 2 areas but everywhere the rural environment is suffering high unemployment and social deprivation.
Madam President, I have listened very carefully and have participated actively in many debates on the major elements of Agenda 2000.
I fully agree that the Union must plan its course for the future.
But the proposals for CAP reform are based too heavily on measures to ease the cost of enlargement to the East and to satisfy US pressure in WTO.
It is very clear that there is a strong move to reduce farm prices to world price levels and the levels of Eastern Europe to save money.
This approach requires EU farmers to sell their products below the cost of production and depend for their income solely on partial compensation.
This is not sustainable and should be changed.
The system is already generating angry criticism of farmers as the amounts of these payments are identified separately from the costs of products that farmers produce and are seem by some as handouts.
In fact, you yourself, Commissioner, used the word subsidy.
The Court of Auditors report this week is a good example.
It certainly generated widespread headlines almost implying that farmers are criminals.
The system is also acting as a deterrent to young people making a career in farming.
The environmental benefit of their management, their energy and their skills is also being lost.
I can find no basis for the Commission's optimism that farming incomes will increase except at the expense of a sharp decline in numbers.
The proposals will cost an extra six billion euros and make farmers a lot poorer.
I would appeal to the Commission to soften the severity of these proposals and find a better way.
Farmers in my country are already suffering a huge decline in income.
Beef prices to farmers are 40 % lower than two years ago.
Pig prices and sheep prices have collapsed.
Lastly, can I ask the Commission again to investigate why food prices to consumers are not reducing in line with the huge fall in farm prices?
Madam President, Commissioner, Minister, I think that it is extremely important that we should follow up the report by Mr Görlach and the proposals from the Commission by developing a broad rural policy.
Why do we need this policy? The point has been made several times this evening: because we need new economic platforms in rural areas.
I would like to draw attention to two aspects that have scarcely been mentioned this evening.
Eighty per cent of the population live in towns or cities.
I think that people in rural areas must realise that, when we develop a rural policy, it has to be geared to the people in the towns.
This is what I mean by a broad rural policy.
I would also ask for attention to be given to women in rural areas, who are often a powerful voice for change, often much more so than men.
I would like to see them given extra help as part of this rural policy.
Madam President, we agree that the CAP needs to be reformed, partly because of the new economic circumstances but also because of the malfunctions that have been noted in it so far.
We say yes to reform, reform that will reduce the inequalities between countries, regions and farmers, reform which will contribute towards ecological development of the countryside, reform which will support the farming populations in our countries.
So we back the measures proposed by Agenda 2000, which move along those lines and are compatible with the fundamental principles of cohesion and financial solidarity.
We must point out, however, that like some other objectives, the objective of developing the countryside will be nothing more than wishful thinking unless it is accompanied by sufficient funding.
However, the need to reform the CAP must not serve as an excuse for its virtual abolition.
Consequently, we cannot support proposals such as the co-financing of direct aid for farming, which, though it responds to the demand by some Member States that their net contributions to the Community's budget should be reduced, leads the CAP along the way to renationalisation and in essence calls into question the level of the agricultural guideline.
At the same time, the adoption of co-funding will have an adverse effect on the flow of funding from the Structural Funds to the Union's poorer countries, so increasing the inequalities that exist already.
I think the need for reform is more or less agreed.
That should allow us to proceed more steadily, taking careful steps towards a well thought out reform which the farming world really needs.
Madam President, Minister, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this important debate must end with approval of a document on the reform of the CAP.
I do not want the difficulties that have emerged in relations between the political groups to lead to the defeat of the resolutions tabled.
In my opinion, this would be serious for the European Parliament, which ought to express itself clearly and not just leave the decisions to others.
There has to be a realistic assessment.
Cofinancing can make it possible to resolve the conflict which has developed on the net contributions of Member States to the agricultural budget.
What must be avoided is renationalisation of the CAP and reduction and weakening of the spirit of internal solidarity.
That is why I am in favour of the proposals which clearly uphold all these principles and I urge all my colleagues, starting with the Italians, to vote consistently tomorrow.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we do not decide on an approach here and if the Council does not find a solution to the problems soon, the risk is that the decision will pass to others, to the Ecofin Council of course, and it certainly is not likely to increase the relevant resources, which would be needed to sustain the reform of the CAP.
So the cofinancing can be there if the demand for a new equilibrium and internal cohesion remains firm.
Madam President, Commissioner, 80 to 90 % of Europe is countryside.
A vast area of Sweden consists of countryside, but only a small fraction - 10 to 20 % - of the population lives there.
If no one lived in the countryside, half of Sweden would be uninhabited. It is therefore very important for us that support should be given to rural development and agriculture.
Support for Objective 6 should be included in Objective 1, and support for Objective 5 should be included in Objective 2.
The criteria for support should remain the same.
The countryside, the people, nature, the soil and water are all resources that Europe should be using sensibly.
It is also important to strengthen local communities, coordinate support, address education, protect the environment, encourage organic farming and invest in bio-energy and new types of fuel such as ethanol and methanol, as well as in tourism and transport.
However, these activities must take place in accordance with the wishes of the people concerned, if rural development is to be successful.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, Agenda 2000 is most certainly one of the issues that has caused the greatest activity in the European Parliament over the past ten years.
The length of the debates and the number of meetings that all Parliament's committees have devoted to it lead us to expect a far-reaching project.
We were finally about to give birth to Europe, so to speak, to an ideal Europe where our children were be able to live in peace as free citizens, from the Atlantic to the Urals.
We were going to open our doors to new countries, countries that may be poor in financial terms but are rich in hope.
At last we had stopped being afraid and were marching towards the creation of a European state.
This state was to be a area of intellectual freedom where the concerns of political and economic leaders would be centred around human concerns.
We were going to leave hormone-laden meat and the quest for profit at all costs to the Americans and to their World Trade Organisation.
We were ready for true solidarity, where the rich - as indeed we are - offer a helping hand to give and to support rather than to take and to trample.
Yet this was just another dream.
I woke up this morning and my blood ran cold when I realised how we have behaved.
Once again, we are ready to pretend to help our poor, each of us entrenched in our own little states, made more callous by our narrow-mindedness.
Sadly, cofinancing will for example legally allow our richer states to help their own farmers.
If there is no longer any solidarity in Europe, if Agenda 2000 consists simply of allowing rich Member States to obtain rebates of their own money, then who will pay for the poor in the poorer countries, be they in southern Europe today or in eastern Europe tomorrow?
Once again, we are doing the opposite of what should be done, and this is unfortunate for our children.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, nobody doubts that a reform is necessary and nobody doubts that the common agricultural policy is not entirely fulfilling the role assigned to it in the Treaty.
When this policy is judged from the point of view of its contribution to economic and social cohesion, the level of criticism is sometimes outrageous.
However, in my opinion, the most worrying thing is that with a reform process that is so highly complicated, particularly given the small amount of resources set aside for rural development policies, the debate on the Community's own resources has become involved.
In this context, it is true that the Commission has restricted itself to presenting a report with various options, but our experience in the Community means that we are accustomed to fearing reports, White Papers and Green Papers drawn up by the Commission.
In the end, there is a considerable possibility that the option that has the most support and the most justification will become a definitive part of Community legislation.
Co-financing direct aid to incomes represents not only a breakdown in the principle of financial solidarity, but also a violation of the principle of 'means necessary', as laid down in Article F.3 of the Treaty on European Union.
It is not a means of improving the efficiency of the CAP, but simply a mechanism for redistributing the burden of spending.
The proposals involved are clearly regressive, are largely detrimental to the 'economic and social cohesion countries' and benefit the more prosperous countries, with the exception of France and, to a lesser extent, Denmark.
This would lead to the paradox whereby enlargement would take place at the expense of the 'cohesion countries', whose relative share in category 2 has been considerably reduced and that, in addition to this, the reform of CAP funding would also affect those countries again.
Moreover, Commissioner, that does not take account of the fact that, according to the information provided by the Commission in June, the list of direct aid that Directorate-General XIX has used for its calculations includes a much smaller amount of aid than that which is considered direct and subject to regulation in the reform that we are currently dealing with.
This means that the proposals are even more regressive.
Madam President, the common agricultural policy was established in the 1950s, when there were only six Member States.
As nearly everyone recognises, this policy is not ready to cope with an enlargement which will mean the Union consisting of some 20 countries.
The Commission has submitted its proposals for specific changes to the agriculture policy, and we are currently studying our attitude to the reform of the CAP in several parliamentary committees.
The main ideas are well known: the across-the-board support schemes will be abandoned, and European farmers will have to compete on the world market, where liberalisation is now in full swing.
This will mean that prices have to fall into line with those on the world market, and that will put an end to milk quotas and stocks of surpluses.
This should not take place at the expense of our farmers, who will find it difficult to hold their own in free competition.
On the contrary, future agricultural support needs to be much more targeted.
Price support should be replaced by increased direct aid for those farmers who really need help.
Support will also continue to be provided for areas and sectors which have special problems.
The present form of agricultural support is based on quantity rather than quality.
It takes no account of animal welfare and environmental considerations, and in my view is in fact totally out of step with the growing importance which most consumers attach to these values.
The agricultural policy cannot continue without change if European farming is to participate in competition on the world market.
And the CAP currently swallows up more than half the EU's total budget, and with enlargement things will become even worse.
Our consumers are increasingly demanding to be told what their food contains and how it has been produced.
They want to have natural systems of production which protect the welfare of animals and do not harm the environment.
It is important to realise that we have to organise our common agricultural policy so that it meets the current demands both for the present Member States and - not least - for those which join in future.
Madam President, Commissioner, the farmers in the new federal states, like farmers everywhere, are following the decision-making processes in the realm of agricultural reform very closely.
Even though it has not yet filtered through to everyone - I know that it filtered through to you long ago - most of these farms of ours correspond to the European model of agriculture.
They are multifunctional, they are sustainable and they are at least potentially competitive.
We all know that some of those in favoured locations are very competitive.
Let me say a few words on multifunctionality with special reference to communal farms, which of course account for most of our farmland, especially in less-favoured locations. Not only are these farms multifunctional, but - and this is our main concern, and I believe you are aware of it - in truly rural areas where unemployment is in the 30 to 40 % range, such as Mecklenburg/West Pomerania and other regions, they are the only guarantors of the relatively few jobs that still exist.
With regard to this second pillar, to which we all look forward eagerly and which ought to become strong as quickly as possible, under no circumstances must we permit the rules governing the first pillar to break down the last bastion of employment in these regions.
I believe this point has been taken on board.
As far as long-term prospects are concerned, I should like to make explicit reference to the re-established family farms, which are reasonably sized from our point of view, because their size is based on the sole objective of passing on the farm as a viable business to the next generation.
Here too, the degressive intentions of the Commission meet with very little comprehension.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I shall begin with the point I feel is closest to the statement made by the Commissioner, that is, we cannot carry out a 'reformlet' but it must be a real reform - I would even say a great reform.
The problem facing us at the end of this century is not one of production.
Production is doing fine and Europe has nothing to worry about.
Since 1950 the rural population has dropped from 35 % to 5 %, yet production has increased almost eightfold.
As you have just said, Commissioner, this reform is going to lead more people away from the countryside.
That means that the Commissioner is going to spend half of the Community budget on far less than half of the population and, since there is profound injustice in the entire common agricultural policy, the Commissioner is going to spend 40 % of the Community budget to benefit 1 % of the richest people in the Community.
While 20 % of all farmers get 80 %, the Commissioner can work it out for himself that 1 % of the richest are going to be receiving 40 % of the Community budget.
After all, the problem is not one of production.
The problem is one of justice, a just policy to defend people living in the countryside.
That policy of justice is not understood or even being discussed by the Commission.
That is the fundamental issue at stake because today's problem is whether the Commissioner or the Council are going to put a complete end to aid to production.
As they stand, they are the enemy of quality, the enemy of the environment, and the enemy of jobs, because the crops that the Commissioner gives most of the finances to are those with the highest levels of unemployment: cereals currently receive 43 % but producing cereals is the least labour-intensive of all the types of farming that exist.
In other words, unemployment is being subsidised.
The Commissioner is doing nothing to regulate, set ceilings or ensure that justice prevails.
It is the vital issue of justice that we ought to be discussing because productivity is doing very well, thank you.
Madam President, although I am speaking last, I do not think I am speaking about anything trivial if I take up the points made on this issue by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
The aims of agricultural reform in the Agenda 2000 document are in principle very much a step in the right direction, taking account of the decisions taken, for example, at the meetings in Amsterdam and Cardiff.
The aim is to make agricultural policy more environmentally-friendly, and to serve the needs of the consumer to a greater extent.
In practice this is not actually being implemented very successfully.
The problem is that the Commission is leaving these issues to be decided at national level.
The decision on whether or not to link environmental matters with income support is being left to the national authorities.
There is no desire to make joint decisions, but this is vital if we are to be able to change tack.
Agriculture, as is well known, is one of the worst polluters of soil and water.
We will only see genuine improvement when we devise common rules for good agricultural practice which apply the principle of sustainable development, and only when these practises are introduced can we share the benefits of a common agricultural policy.
As for future agricultural policy in the European Union, the issues have been gone over at many summit meetings.
Along with the approach to the environment that emerged from the Cardiff conference, emphasis must be given to the policies agreed at Luxembourg, which stated that in the future we must be able to practise farming everywhere in the European Union area, including the north.
Thank you, Mrs Myller.
The Council and the Commission have indicated that they will forego their statements if there are no further questions, as seems to be the case.
I am grateful to everyone for staying with us for so long.
I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Finally, I must not forget to thank the interpreters, who have worked for much longer than was originally planned.
I wish you a safe journey home.
(The sitting was closed at 0.17 a.m.)
Mr Donnelly, that is an opinion on another parliament's decision.
This House is not the place to condemn or approve actions of other Houses.
We have to respect other parliaments.
Statement by the President
Mr President, Article F of the Treaty of European Union requires the Member States of the European Union to be democracies, a provision which has, if anything, been strengthened by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
In the circumstances I am sure that the majority of this House would agree that the vote last night, in an unelected chamber ...
Mr Corbett, I say clearly that it is not up to this House to pass judgement on what the parliaments of our Member States do.
They have their established powers. It is not for us to judge the use they make of them.
I will not allow any further debate on this question.
VOTES
Madam President, I am sorry to have to intervene so soon, but it says on my voting list that if we adopt Amendment No 9, then No 21 falls.
Amendment No 21 addresses an issue which affects not only Mr Barón Crespo's report, but also Mr Sonneveld's and my own, that is whether the applicant countries are to be represented on the appropriate monitoring committee or not.
The Committee on Regional Policy has advocated this.
We believe that these countries should be involved in the committee, at least in an advisory capacity.
We should be consistent across these three areas.
If we reject No 21, then we should make a general statement to the effect that we do not want these countries represented on the committees.
If we vote in favour here, that would support the view of the Committee on Regional Policy, and then we would have to say for all three: they are in.
I believe that we should give them the opportunity to take part.
But this needs to be settled now, because it is here that it appears on the agenda for the first time.
Mr Walter, I shall give the floor to Mr Barón Crespo.
It may be that the request from the Green Group has created some confusion.
That is why I should like things to be clear.
I wanted to put to the vote first Amendment No 9 by the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
It seems to have been rejected, but we shall check that.
If it had been adopted, we should have voted on Amendment No 19 by the Green Group as an addition.
After that, I will of course put to the vote Amendment No 21 by the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Is that how you see the matter, Mr Barón Crespo?
No, that is not accurate, Madam President, because I had submitted this question in a letter to the so-called 'Steering Committee', which has not replied, and I was hoping that the Presidency would resolve the matter.
All of these regulations are being examined in Parliament in accordance with the Hughes procedure, bearing in mind that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is responsible for this matter.
What my colleague Mr Walter has just done is to call for a vote, taking into account the fact that the criterion of both committees is different to ours.
In the Committee on Foreign Affairs we understand that our criterion is used because it is an issue that relates to the Community's external relations.
So, in the absence of a response from the Presidency, we believe that our criterion should be used.
After the vote on Amendment No 9
Madam President, you said before the vote that you would also be putting Amendment No 21 to the vote.
The first phrase of this amendment ...
If Amendment No 9 had been rejected, Mr Walter, that is what I said.
But it was adopted - the result was quite clear.
Madam President, formally speaking, your conclusion might well be correct, but from a practical point of view, Amendment No 21 constitutes an addition, and I also think that it should be put to the vote, particularly as you said so yourself.
Many Members want participation in another form, within the meaning of our amendment, and I think they are now expecting that amendment.
That is why you have to put it to the vote.
Mrs Schroedter, I did not say that I would put Amendment No 21 to the vote in any event.
I said that I would put Amendment No 21 to the vote if Amendment No 9 was rejected.
But it was adopted - that was the decision of the House.
My personal view is that Amendment No 21 now falls.
I shall consult the rapporteur and, if he shares my view, we shall move on to the following amendments.
Madam President, it is obvious that this amendment lapses because it deals with an issue that Parliament has already given its opinion on. And I would also like to point out, in relation to the issue raised by Mr Walter, that as I understand it, under the Hughes procedure - unless a better criterion is suggested by the Presidency - this vote also sets out the criterion to be applied in relation to the text of the other two reports, that of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and that of the Committee on Regional Policy.
After the vote on the Commission proposal as amended
Madam President, I would like to ask the Commissioner, Mr van den Broek, if he still opposes Parliament's amendments, as he announced yesterday in the House.
Madam President, I thought that after what I said in Parliament yesterday it was clear that there is one category where we have said: yes, we agree.
There is also another category where we clearly respect the reasoning. But we do not yet want to formally support these amendments, because we have the feeling that the Council will perhaps make changes here and there to the way they are formulated with which we would be able to agree.
I therefore believe that I must stand by what I said yesterday.
Madam President, in view of the Commissioner's response, I would ask that, pursuant to Rule 60(2) of the Rules of Procedure, this report be referred back to the committee responsible.
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
Madam President, the purpose of the oral amendment - introduced at the beginning by Mr Barón Crespo and on which we had agreed - was to reflect the result of the Hughes procedure between the three committees involved.
This concerned whether Cyprus should be included in the list of beneficiary countries.
Cyprus has its own pre-accession strategy.
By introducing this oral amendment, we wanted to make it clear that all the pre-accession countries were taken into account, which would mean that Cyprus would no longer have to appear in the list at this point in the text.
That is why there should be a split vote here, on the addition of Cyprus at this point.
After the vote on Amendment No 21
Madam President, I would draw your attention to the fact that the Presidency has been somewhat inconsistent because by voting for Amendment No 16, Parliament has just contradicted what my report says, despite the fact that I had previously warned of this.
Parliament has given its opinion as regards the committee's composition in terms of my report and has now just adopted a resolution that contradicts this.
I would like the first vote to count.
Madam President, given that Mr van den Broek did say yesterday that, while many figures could be accepted or incorporated, some important parts could not actually be adopted, I would request referral back to committee pursuant to Rule 60(2).
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
Madam President, following the Commission's unsatisfactory response - that it is not prepared to accept Amendment No 1, on which we have just voted - I should just like to announce that, if the Commission has not changed its mind on Amendment No 1 by January, when we have the proper reading of this document, then we will propose that the report be referred back to the committee.
I should like to make that clear here.
In so doing, we are giving the Commission time to consider whether it might not rethink its position on Amendment No 1 by January.
Before the final vote
(Parliament approved a request from the rapporteur for the matter to be referred back to committee)
Madam President, I would like to remind you once again that we are about to encounter a problem that I outlined in writing to the 'Steering Committee' and to the Presidency and that I repeated today.
Madam President, I do not want to be held responsible for this.
I understand that Amendment No 30 by the Committee on Agriculture, which is along the same lines as the one to which I previously referred, namely Amendment No 16 by the Committee on Regional Policy, has lapsed.
If this is not the case, then the Hughes procedure and coordination we are involved in serve no purpose whatsoever.
As I have already stated, I would ask the Presidency and its services to take this matter seriously and not to leave all the responsibility to the Member.
I think that we should act in line with our rules.
Mr Barón Crespo, it is not a question of shifting the responsibility on to someone.
As you know, the House is sovereign, which is a principle of democracy.
Madam President, I believe that Amendment No 30 deals with something different from what Mr Barón Crespo was just talking about.
This is a consultative committee on which the EU Member States and the applicant countries have a representative, but it is a committee concerned with the preparation of projects and that is central to my report.
This is most definitely different from what Mr Walter was just talking about.
I would not therefore bring it under the same regulation as Mr Barón Crespo just mentioned.
Madam President, I assume that this is not good news to the Commissioner, and that he has changed the position he announced yesterday.
In that case I should like to request that the report be referred back to the committee responsible.
I see that Mr van den Broek agrees.
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
Mr President, if we are going to try and get this vote through quickly, I suggest that the PPE, if they are going to continue to vote against their own amendments, actually have the courage to withdraw them before we go right the way through this session.
It is ridiculous.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I would also like to invoke Rule 60(2) of the Rules of Procedure and ask that this report be referred back to committee for two reasons: to be able to proceed to a second reading and to be able to initiate talks with the Council.
I hope that the House will unanimously support this request.
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
Mr President, since Mr Fischler informed us last night, or rather very early this morning, after the debate, of the amendments which the Commission can on no account accept - and I assume that the position has not changed since then - I request that the report be referred back to the committee, pursuant to Rule 60(2).
(Parliament decided to refer the matter back to committee)
Mr President, in order to further lighten the work of fellow Members, our group has submitted a proposal to you to vote at the next part-session on Mr Ferri's report, which is now finished, rather than this week.
I understand that most Members agree with this.
It is a very complex report.
(Parliament agreed to the proposal)
I propose that we vote on the remaining reports this evening, since we have already done a good deal of work.
Mr President, in relation to the vote on the McCarthy report, I wish to say that my explanation concerns the Irish situation.
We have been main beneficiaries of EU Structural Funds and Cohesion Funds and have used them very well over that period. As a result, we now have a very prosperous economy.
However, we still lag a considerable way behind our European partners in terms of our infrastructure, in particular transport, telecommunications and environmental protection facilities.
We still have enormous problems of social exclusion, especially in deprived urban and rural communities, and, indeed, underdevelopment.
All these problems have to be tackled and for this reason I welcome the Commission's proposal that there should be no sudden end to funding from Brussels. This should be reduced gradually.
However, I deplore the cynical manner in which the Irish Government has chosen to divide the country into regions for party-political purposes, with scant regard for the aim of structural funds which was to assist with economic and social cohesion.
They are thereby depriving both the urban and rural poor of the full benefit of funds and, indeed, state aid.
Mr President, on the McCarthy report.
We voted against this report for the following reasons.
Firstly, on Objective 2, we think it is inappropriate for unemployment to be the dominant criterion.
It is essential to broaden these criteria, in particular with a view to protecting rural areas.
Secondly, on Objective 1, the criterion put forward by the Commission must not be watered down or extended by the introduction of exceptions.
Thirdly, we particularly emphasise our support for all those measures which will help to ease the pressure of making adjustments on regions bordering the CEECs.
We therefore support the provisions seeking to adapt the Community initiative Interreg, but at the same time point out that this will only be able to make a limited contribution to providing the desired assistance.
I voted in favour of this report in the final vote because I feel that, in the end, it does not compromise Portugal's specific interests in the negotiations on Agenda 2000, despite relevant factors with regard to economic and social cohesion.
On the other hand, I voted against Amendment No 2, which calls into question the future decision-making capacity on the financial perspective.
I also voted against Amendment No 5, which, following approval of Amendment No 7 - which I again voted against -, could lead to a restrictive reading of the Council's decision-making capacity concerning the regions in Objective 1.
I would like to begin my comments by saying that I welcome the decision of the Irish Government this week to sub-divide the country for the purposes of drawing down EU Structural Funds during the year 2000-2006.
It is only correct and sensible that poorer regions in Ireland should receive a higher proportion of European Regional and Social Funds to redress economic performance in all these areas.
The benefits of Objective 1 status are very clear:
A higher proportion of European Regional Development Funds so as to redress the infrastructural deficit in the less well-off parts of Ireland.-A higher amount of state aid to be given to industry setting up in the Objective 1 regions in Ireland.-The fact that Objective 1 status in transition may be accorded to the poorer areas in Ireland post-2006.The fact that this decision has been taken will mean that the correct infrastructures will be put into place so as to win over a higher proportion of industry setting up in the Objective 1 areas in Ireland
Ever since the Single European Act was implemented in 1987, it has been clear that one of the core policies of the European Union is to ensure that all regions in Europe can effectively participate within the Single European Currency regime and within the internal market.
I would like to commend the efforts of all the people involved in the process of lobbying for Objective 1 status for the poorest regions in Ireland for the next round of EU Structural Funds for the period 2000-2006.
This will go a long way towards redressing the problems of rural depopulation in Ireland, which has reached very high proportions in recent years.
I would like to thank the Members of the House for supporting my report today.
I know that voters in my constituency in the East Midlands will be pleased to know that Parliament is supporting continued European funds to the rural, urban and industrial heartlands of our region where lower levels of unemployment mask underlying structural and social weaknesses.
Indeed in accepting an additional two years of funding beyond the Commission proposal for areas going through restructuring, this will sustain the process, particularly in the coalfields and rural areas.
I am particularly pleased that the release of the latest Eurostat figures indicates that four UK regions are on track to gain Objective 1 status.
Although negotiations still have to be held and decisions taken next year the figures will form the basis of those negotiations.
Merseyside, in the north west region, with a GDP of 72.54 % which falls within the 75 % threshold, has ongoing structural problems which mean the area will continue to need priority EU status.
On Objective 1 status, Parliament has made it clear that any exception to the 75 % GDP application must be annexed to the regulation before we deliver our final assent on the Commission proposal.
The House also voted in favour of a new 'Urban' Community initiative and a separate initiative for future crisis sectors or regions; a kind of 'Restruct' initiative.
Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham which have benefited from the Urban fund will be delighted to hear that Parliament has backed its continuation.
As rapporteur I will now take forward this first reading position in our discussions with the Council and the Commission, and hope to achieve Parliament's priorities as outlined in the report.
While we must recognise that standards of living have increased in Ireland due in part to the contribution of the European Union Regional, Social and Cohesion funds, I still believe that much work remains to be done if there is to be a quality of access and opportunity for Irish businesses, exporters and manufacturers to compete on an equal footing within the frontier-free trading block of the European Union.
I welcome the acceptance of the European Commission of the need to introduce changes in European funding for Ireland on a gradual basis which is known as the 'soft landing' approach.
The continuation of European funding after the present programme concludes next year is vital if we are to consolidate the strong economic growth rates of recent years.
A sudden cut-off of European funding would risk provoking a major shock in our economy and in the process undermine recent gains.
It is a priority for the government and for the Fianna Fail group of the European Parliament that the European Regional Development Fund and the European Cohesion Fund continue to apply in Ireland in as an extensive role as possible under the next round of funding 2000-2006.
The reasons for this are as follows: our road infrastructure is still well short of the standards enjoyed by most regions of the Community; our peripheral location creates a greater need for relatively high levels of investments in ports and regional airport infrastructure; investment is required to meet compliance with the EU Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive which is going to cost £1.6 billion to implement in its totality between the year 1994-2005.
Thirty-five per cent of all structural fund programmes in Ireland is presently spent in the areas of education and training under the European Social Fund.
While this is likely to be reduced in part post-1999 priority must remain for the provision of better education and training facilities for those who lack the necessary skills or have difficulties in securing employment.
The transition period proposed by the European Commission post 2000-2006 will ensure many important roads, environmental protection schemes, industrial, tourism and rural development projects will now be able to proceed as planned.
This decision will means that more communities both urban and rural will be able to avail of European funding for projects to generate new jobs, improve the environment and guarantee continued economic growth.
In the light of the European Union's enlargement process, the Commission's proposal for reform of the Structural Funds acquires a particular importance for the future of European citizens.
We must confirm that the Union cannot be merely a large market that is given over to the excesses of liberalism, but that mechanisms are to be established for catching up and for keeping up; in short, for practising solidarity.
We should not forget that regional policy is still an essential component in moving towards the Europe of citizens.
We should therefore continue to work in that direction so that we may better understand the challenge of enlargement.
The report before us today is the product of many hours of discussion and compromise solutions reached by our two rapporteurs, and I thank them for their work.
We can support the general substance of the report, which incorporates the principles of concentration, simplification and decentralisation proposed by the European Commission. At the same time, it specifies certain eligibility criteria - youth unemployment, long-term unemployment, the level of GDP, and so on - particularly as regards Objective 2, and emphasises the need for transparency.
However, we could not vote in favour of the final resolution.
Indeed, our opinion remains negative despite the positive aspects of the report.
These include the horizontal implementation of Objective 3, which is essential in achieving social cohesion, the provision of training and the fight against exclusion. Other important aspects are the maintenance of the URBAN initiative, which for the first time caters for small and medium-sized towns, the recognition of the need to draw up a new initiative to deal with the economic and social crises that lead to job losses, and the revision of the inappropriate and ill-defined 'performance reserve' envisaged by the Commission.
Our opinion remains negative because, with regard to Objective 1, we have no wish to reopen Pandora's box.
While we are aware that nobody can escape budgetary cutbacks, we maintain that aid should go to the weakest first.
That is why in our countries we will no longer have regions with a development lag that receive European aid in this respect.
We would like the criterion of 75 % to be stringently respected, and no exception should be made to this principle.
Our opinion remains negative because we cannot, under any circumstances, allow appropriations from the guarantee section of the EAGGF that are used in connection with Objective 2 to be considered as non-compulsory spending, since that infringes the Treaty.
And finally, our opinion remains negative because we would consider it to be harmful to our democracy if our Amendment No 46 to paragraph 53 of the resolution were not adopted by the House.
In the interests of transparency, this amendment calls for an assurance that appropriations from the Structural Funds will be used in a non-discriminatory manner in the various regions involved.
This is why, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the French Socialist delegation to the European Parliament will not vote in favour at first reading.
The Agenda 2000 action programme cannot be dissociated from the Commission report on the system of own resources.
It even seems more logical to first consider the reform of own resources, because that will condition the three programme areas: the budget, the agricultural policy and the Structural Funds.
In the long term, the system of own resources should be given a new focus to make it fairer and more effective.
That means giving up the VAT resource, which distorts the fair division of contributions among the Member States, and adopting one of the measures proposed by the Commission: the integration of a tax on earnings from securities into the own resources system.
It does not appear that the other Commission proposals would actually increase own resources: the tax on CO2 would not generate a great deal, while harmonising corporation tax would involve substantial technical difficulties.
Community measures concerning speculative capital movements, for which legislation will eventually have to be provided, might be added at a later date.
The ultimate aim must be to ensure that all Member States pay a fair contribution based on the criterion of GDP per inhabitant.
In the short term, it is time for certain European countries to stop advocating the theory of a fair return.
Such a theory corresponds to a mercenary conception of the construction of Europe that would make the enlargement negotiations considerably more complicated.
The fair return is, in effect, the antithesis of enlargement.
It makes no sense to support the accession of countries that are far less developed in economic terms than the 15 Member States and to simultaneously reduce net flows within the Union.
And what about the different areas of Agenda 2000?
As far as the budget is concerned, the ceiling of 1.27 % of the Union's GNP is a realistic figure under present conditions. It would not be possible to agree on an increase and this figure has the advantage of obliging the Union to undertake a more effective reform of current expenditure.
Nonetheless, we might still wonder whether this position is realistic in the medium term, when the accession of the Baltic countries and Poland becomes imminent.
The figure of 1.27 % cannot, however, be a definitive standard.
In the meantime, this solution requires that ceilings be established for the agricultural and structural policies.
Without such ceilings, there is a risk that no funds will remain for the policies that, in our view, deserve priority: research, employment, networks and foreign relations.
As regards the agricultural policy, it is essential to avoid the major pitfall of revising the CAP in a manner that would carry the European Union towards a de facto renationalisation.
Consequently, Member States should not be given excessive leeway in the use of funds.
The success of the CAP reform will be measured by the extent to which it enables European agriculture to become competitive once more, without sacrificing the development prospects of rural areas.
In other words, the economic dimension of agricultural activity must be enhanced, while simultaneously reconciling agriculture and society on the basis of a sustainable development model that respects the environment and that focuses mainly on the development of rural areas, product quality, consumer safety, respect for biodiversity and animal welfare.
In the light of the enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the new European model will have to further decentralise its day-to-day management and substantially simplify its legal framework.
Simplification and subsidiarity will be the key to the successful development of a new process of integration.
In terms of the Structural Funds, the first two objectives are very different from the third.
Their activities are focused on restricted geographical areas whose economic and social development is clearly below the average of the other areas of Europe, either because they are disadvantaged, or because they need to be converted.
These regions are either subject to a development lag or industrial decline, or they are made up of rural or urban areas that are experiencing serious problems.
Massive financial investment with a clear focus will seek to help these regions counteract the negative effects of an open market that is increasingly deregulated.
The regions involved should be small enough to ensure that the impact is visible.
Objective 3, meanwhile, is of a very different nature.
Here, it is not a question of seeking a localised cure, but rather of triggering an overall movement in society through the development of human resources. It is a question of investing in people rather than in infrastructures.
The development of human resources should play a central role in the European and national employment strategies. And the juxtaposition of a general, horizontal objective alongside vertical objectives that are focused on specific areas is to be welcomed.
Thought should be given to the resources that are available for achieving such an ambitious objective.
Although the motion for a resolution tabled by Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis on the Structural Funds speaks of the 'horizontal nature' of this Objective 3, and considers that it should cover all areas of the Member States, there is reason to fear that lack of funds will cause the Objective to be confined, as suggested by the Commission, to only those areas that are not covered by Objectives 1 and 2.
In my view, its most innovative aspect would thus be lost.
We know that the disparities between Member States have increased in terms of both training and unemployment levels: one young European in five is unemployed and increasing numbers of families live below the poverty line.
This is a decisive element as far as the competitiveness of regional economies is concerned.
Such disparities, which are equally apparent in the fields of scientific research and technological development, cannot be tolerated in political and social terms and they undermine the position of the European Union in the light of global competition.
I would therefore ask that Europe ensures that it has the resources needed to allow Objective 3, which must cover the entire territory of the Union, to be fully implemented.
It is only when Europe has proved that it is able to resolve the major problems faced by our society, namely unemployment, poverty and exclusion, that public opinion will support, with total confidence, the strengthening and enlargement of the Union.
People in the EU's less developed areas regard the review of the regulations governing the Structural Funds and in particular their funding from the Community budget with particular disquiet.
Though the report by the Committee on Regional Policy confirms the proposed 0.46 % of Community GDP for structural activities between 2000 and 2006, since the matter remains outstanding nobody yet knows what the total funding for the Community budget will amount to during those years, and what contribution will be made by the Member States.
The inadequacy of the amounts provided so far to close the gap between the less and more developed regions is evident, given that the desired result of real convergence is not only failing to be achieved, but even greater discrepancies are appearing, as confirmed for example by figures relating to my own country, Greece.
While the sums provided are inadequate, and while the funding of the Community budget has still not been settled, to the Objective 1 countries are being added the most remote areas of the Community (from which, quite unreasonably, the Aegean islands are excluded) as well as the areas covered by the old Objective 6.
At the same time, there is a looming risk that some areas in countries covered by the Cohesion Fund, where per capita income is lower than 75 % of the Community average, may be excluded from Objective 1.
In other words, as we say in my country, 'a mouse carrying a pumpkin will not fit into its hole'.
It is known that the required co-financing of projects covered by the Community programmes absorbs almost all the national resources available for development.
From that standpoint, then, the proposal to increase Community participation from 75 % to 85 % is well founded.
The fact remains, however, that because of the total absorption of national resources, the potential for applying any national developmental policy is decisively limited and necessarily moves within the framework of Community imperatives.
To impose still greater control and obedience to the Community's choices, the Commission proposes to create a reserve amounting to 10 % of the appropriations and maintains that appropriations not used after 2 years should automatically be cancelled.
Quite rightly, the Committee on Regional Policy rejects the proposal to create a reserve and also insists that appropriations unused after 2 years should remain available for the same country to which they were originally allocated.
While Community funding could play a helpful part in bridging the gap between the less and the more developed parts of the Community, in essence they are a drop in the ocean, designed to throw dust in the eyes of the people of Europe, to buy off consciences and to create mechanisms for promoting the major monopolistic interests which are essentially the main beneficiaries of Community programmes, since they possess the necessary equipment and technical knowledge.
It is known that a large part, if not the lion's share, of the amounts available for structural aid go back to the better developed Member States.
We have decided to abstain in the final vote.
We are among those who are critical of the EU's Structural Funds because they have not attained their objective of smoothing out regional differences.
The bulk of the Structural Funds should be transferred to national level, where control and monitoring of standards is considerably tighter than appears to have been the case at EU level.
There is a willingness on the Commission's part to simplify and refine structural support which we regard as a step in the right direction.
The same remarks apply to a restriction on the number of Community initiatives.
The European structural policy may have proved itself, but it is in need of reform.
It is necessary to establish an appropriate structural policy for the next seven years, which will promote economic and social cohesion, while meeting the general requirement of greater efficiency and transparency.
This is no place for thinking in terms of vested interests.
The purpose of the European structural policy is to make it possible to close the gap between the Union's poorer and wealthier regions.
By way of an example, I will simply mention the Cohesion Fund, which was created to help Member States experiencing particular difficulties to prepare for participation in economic and monetary union.
If this aim has been achieved, then the Cohesion Fund has fulfilled its task.
Any further funding for Spain, Portugal and Ireland from the Cohesion Fund is, therefore, neither justified nor - in view of the enlargement of the Union - feasible.
' Innovative actions' are also encouraged through the aid granted by the Structural Funds.
However, the number of projects submitted to the Commission often bears no relation to the number finally considered eligible for funding. This is due first and foremost to the low funding capacity.
Between 1994 and 1999, 1 % of the Structural Funds' resources are set aside for innovative actions.
I very much hope that Parliament will declare itself in favour of increasing these appropriations.
These projects are of particular importance for individuals, clubs, associations and organisations in all the European Union's regions, because they are thus spared the often complicated and tedious alternative of going through the regional authorities.
In addition, simply because Structural Fund appropriations are concentrated in the worst-affected areas of the Community, this should not mean that national support measures are permitted only in these regions.
The European structural policy has brought us considerably closer to realising our aim of reducing the disparities between the levels of development and per capita incomes in the Member States and their regions.
I am sure that the reform of the Structural Funds will further strengthen the social and economic cohesion between the regions of Europe.
In the long term, Europe can only grow closer together if the existing economic and social disparities are permanently eliminated.
An absolute condition for reducing the number of objectives and other changes to the Structural Funds is the transferral of the unaltered criteria for sparsely populated areas in Objective 6 to Objective 1.
In addition, the criteria for Objective 5 should also be included, unaltered, within the framework of Objective 2.
Furthermore, the conditions relating to sparsely populated and rural areas, which Sweden negotiated as part of its membership package, should not be undermined.
Enhancement of the Structural Funds is of considerable significance as regards the process of widening and deepening within the European Union.
In our view, reforming the Structural Funds contributes towards strengthening social and economic solidarity in Europe. It also has an important role to play in meeting the need for increased employment, emphasising the importance of sustainable growth, pursuing a tough environmental policy and enabling us to achieve solidarity between the rich and poor European regions.
The Structural Funds are a financial instrument that serve to underline the EU's powerful coordinating role in areas where the wishes of European citizens can only be met through greater cooperation across national frontiers.
In this respect, there is a need for reform of the Structural Funds.
In particular, we think they should be concentrated on the areas needing most attention, that there should be three main objectives, and that their composition should be simplified.
Furthermore, we think it is important that any expansion of the Structural Funds - and the same applies in the case of the common agricultural policy - should be adapted to meet the challenges that will be posed by the enlargement process.
Reform of the Structural Funds should be regarded as an instrument for facilitating enlargement.
Above all, we would like to stress the need for a financial ceiling of 0.46 % of GNP.
In addition, structural support should be allocated in a flexible, horizontal and decentralised way in which there is plenty of scope for partnership as well as national, regional and local initiatives.
Under Objective 1, the 75 % criterion should be strictly applied, and the previous Objective 6 criteria included under the new Objective 1.
Objective 2 should apply to large conurbations, and Member States should not be given unlimited freedom to decide on the distribution of support measures.
In our opinion, Objective 3 should be broadly based and allow for support for normal education.
The Structural Funds should be subject to stringent financial rules.
Our standpoint on these issues has served as a guide on how we should vote on the different proposals, while we still greatly respect the position of the PSE Group.
We have decided to allow ourselves to be influenced as little as possible by strictly national considerations, since our remit as MEPs extends beyond Sweden's immediate interests.
The following are some comments on our position as regards the organisation of the Funds, their size and distribution.
These three aspects should be coordinated to coincide with the different obligations of the Structural Funds, but the proposals in the report and the amendments do not meet these requirements in every case.
We have already mentioned that the financial ceiling must not exceed 0.46 %, so we have decided to support the amendment that corresponds to this objective.
As for the rest of paragraph 2, which deals with financial calculations, we take this to mean that the proposal should not be interpreted as indicating a willingness to raise the financial ceiling.
With regard to Objective 6 and its incorporation in Objective 1, we approve the amendment that is closest to our position on the inclusion of a population density criterion.
Paragraph 6, as well as several other amendments, all refer to distribution in relation to population density.
While we find this manner of distribution worthy of consideration, we do not think that the percentage allocations as specified, are appropriate in the present situation.
On paragraph 31 and additionality, we think that the proposal to also take account of macroeconomic conditions is formulated in a way that makes it difficult to assess the work involved in carrying out the proposal.
As regards continuing to consider the structural measures under Heading 2 as an expenditure target, we think that this should be discussed in more detail than in paragraph 46 and the related amendment.
Amendment No 94 on evaluation is well-intentioned, but it should be noted that the proposed method of evaluation could lead to increased bureaucracy.
We should also like to indicate that we do not support the proposal on signs as set out in paragraph 55.
There should be signs, but their design should not be as strictly prescribed as in the report.
We agree with the proposal on equal gender representation in monitoring and advisory committees.
Finally, we especially approve of the proposal contained in the report regarding a strong role for the European Parliament.
Ireland has been one of the main beneficiaries of the EU's Structural and Cohesion Funds over the last decade.
EU support has helped turn the Irish economy around and create thousands of new jobs.
As a result of our economic progress, Ireland has now reached average EU wealth levels.
But we still lag a considerable way behind our European partners in terms of our infrastructure, particularly as regards transport and telecommunications, and environmental protection facilities.
And we still have enormous problems of social exclusion, especially in deprived urban and rural communities, and underdevelopment.
All of these problems have to be tackled.
For this reason, I welcome the Commission's proposal that there can be no sudden end to funding from Brussels. This will have to be reduced gradually.
This is likely to be the last occasion Ireland receives substantial financial support from the EU. This is not a sign of failure on Ireland's behalf but of success.
It is a sign that we have made good use of the assistance we have received.
But mistakes have been made.
Too much has gone on golf clubs and marinas. We must not repeat this error.
We must ensure that the next round goes to those who most need it, the deprived urban and rural communities across the country.
These must be the absolute priority during the next round.
The report forms part of the collective strategy for reforming the Union's structural support system.
I have decided, in the main, to support the Social Democratic Group.
I am pleased to note that the Structural Funds are more focused and directed towards the areas where support is needed, rather than being 'spread around' and ending up like a rebate from the Union.
I am also glad to see that we are at last beginning to appreciate the potential problems that might arise in relation to structural and agricultural policies as a result of enlargement - a welcome development, in my opinion.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wished to express its misgivings during the vote on the various reports on the reform of the Structural Funds.
These misgivings do not relate so much to the reports as such or to the authors, whom we congratulate on their work, but to the Agenda 2000 proposals themselves.
They are frequently incoherent, they are sometimes dangerous for the territorial balance of the Member States and they neglect the difficulties experienced by many European workers, particularly fishermen.
During the debates, everyone concentrated on defending the interests of their region or their country, which is, of course, perfectly legitimate.
Our German friends certainly appear to be the most skilled at this game: they claim, for the benefit of anyone who wants to listen, that they are net contributors to the budget of the European Community.
Before demanding a reduction in their financial contribution, our German friends might do well to remember that the Community largesse bestowed on the former East Germany makes them the main beneficiaries of the regional policy.
In addition, it would appear that the reform of the Structural Funds unfortunately neglects a number of issues.
For instance, the regions that depend on fishing have been forgotten.
Likewise, we might wonder about the implications of Agenda 2000 for the rural regions, which are among the most fragile regions in the European Union.
In this respect, 9 % of the population of the Member States of the Union benefited from Objectives 5a and 5b; in the future, no more than around 5 % of the population will be eligible for such aid.
A number of rural regions will cease to be eligible, at the very time when the reform of the CAP and the fall in agricultural prices are eroding the situation of our farmers.
In France, 9.7 million people lived in areas covered by Structural Fund activities; in the future, that figure will be reduced to 7.1 million.
Some 3 million French citizens who live and work for the most part in rural regions will suffer as a result of the new reform: 20 % of French territory will no longer be eligible for aid from the Structural Funds.
We should remember in this connection that, following the GATT negotiations and the reform of the CAP, which had been highly detrimental, rural regions had obtained more ambitious structural aid measures by way of compensation.
Today, the reform of the Structural Funds calls into question the geographical scope of these measures, even though the effects of the Uruguay Round and the fall in agricultural prices, exacerbated by the new reform of the CAP, are still being felt and increasingly so.
This is blatantly inconsistent.
What is more, the Structural Funds seem, in fact, to be a tool of federalist redistribution, whose objective is to make the recipient regions more and more dependent on the Commission, rather than allowing them to overcome their difficulties.
We would like to take advantage of these debates to point out once more that, instead of indulging in the sterile scattering of public funds, the Union should concentrate its efforts on the existing common policies: the CAP and the CFP.
Unfortunately, however, that is not the course that has been chosen, since some people are using this opportunity to try to garner a little more power, to the detriment of the nations and their local authorities, in contempt of the principle of subsidiarity and to the sole benefit of Brussels.
We hear calls for 'the establishment of a European regional planning strategy' or even for the introduction of an 'integrated urban policy'.
In this respect, it would be better in a general sense if, rather than constantly seeking to gain more powers, the European Union concentrated instead on assessing the repercussions of the existing Community policies, the decisions it makes or the negotiations in which it participates, both at WTO level and in the context of international agreements, on the balance of European territory with a view to doing away with their negative aspects.
Indeed, it must be acknowledged that Community action has sometimes had highly damaging effects on economic and social cohesion, a matter people are all too ready to revel in, but one that should be resolved.
Unfortunately, in the final vote I had to vote against, because
1.my Amendment No 47 on improving national support was rejected, and2.many additions were made to the proposals, which will ultimately overstretch the funding.
Out of loyalty to our political group, we have decided that in the main we will keep to the PSE Group's voting list.
We firmly believe that the Structural Funds are ineffective and should, to a large extent, be returned to the Member States in the form of reduced Union charges.
A sizeable share, say 20 to 30 %, could be retained and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Eastern European countries, where there is a considerably greater need than in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
I am voting for this interim report as in my view it represents a sound response from this Parliament to the immensely complex and potentially controversial changes needed to the Regional and Structural Funds suggested in the Commission's Agenda 2000 plans.
Given the concerns of people in areas which currently receive EU funding about their future status as we need to move towards funding the costs of enlarging to the East and South of Europe, the rapporteurs are quite right to call for the Regional Policy Committee to scrutinise the eventual list of eligible regions and any possible exceptions.
Equally important is the report's argument for any regions which do in fact lose funding to be given a transitional period in which to adjust.
In particular I applaud the rapporteurs' call for low GDP, wealth disparities within regions and any decline in the number of people of working age in a region to be included as factors taken into account alongside unemployment when judging which areas in future will be funded under the new Objective 2.
If the Commission and Member States follow the fair and sensible approach advocated in this report, with transitional rather than overnight reductions in funding, calculated by a balanced set of criteria to decide which EU funding goes to which areas, I believe this would strengthen public understanding of the changes needed to secure the enlarged and more prosperous EU of tomorrow.
To create economic and social cohesion, the reform of the Structural Funds must take account of the real economic situation in the recipient regions.
In Italy, especially in the Mezzogiorno, the coexistence of different circumstances calls for strict selection of eligible areas to prevent the intervention from becoming purely welfare.
The Alleanza Nazionale - and I personally - therefore believe that the following guidelines should be followed:
geographic concentration of intervention geared to simplification of Structural Funds access and management procedures; -programming of intervention in a broader partnership including, in addition to the Member States, regional and local authorities, economic and social partners and other relevant organisations, especially as regards environmental issues and promotion of equal opportunities; -flexible application of the 75 % per capita criterion in the Objective 1 definition through the inclusion of the insularity principle to guarantee intervention in islands structurally disadvantaged by their geography; -flexible application of the population cap under Objective 2, with the introduction of additional indicators, such as geographical handicaps and/or environmental circumstances, in order to protect Member States heavily penalised by rigid application of the 'safety net', like Italy.-general agreement on reducing the number of Community initiatives to three, keeping the URBAN initiative, the only instrument capable of ensuring uniform urban policy in all the local authorities concerned; -disagreement with the creation of a performance reserve either along the lines of the Commission's model or in the form of reallocation to the ERDF or the other Structural Funds within the same Member State; -phasing out over seven years for the regions leaving Objectives 2 and 5b ensuring progressive elimination of the provisional aid, including the new leaver, Abruzzo.- G. Collins report (A4-0395/98)
We have voted against the report on the Cohesion Fund.
The fund is intended to assist Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece to meet the convergence criteria in order to become integrated into EMU.
It does not come under the EU's regional and structural funding, but is direct aid to those countries.
As soon as they fulfil the EMU convergence criteria, the aid should be phased out.
The countries that would then be entitled to subsidies should seek assistance from the EU Structural Funds.
There must be an end to the everlasting aid which has already fulfilled its purpose.
In the past, the EU's regional policy has unfortunately included many negotiating arrangements where secondary agreements have been set up to create forms of compensation other than those intended to smooth out regional imbalances.
For example, the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) was established in 1975 to resolve the United Kingdom's budgetary problems, and not to iron out regional imbalances.
Enlargement to include the new member countries of Central and Eastern Europe on the basis of the current support criteria implies either greatly increased contributions for countries like Sweden and Germany, or a smaller total amount of financial support for agriculture and rural development.
A complete reform of agriculture is required that would increase labour and product costs and reduce subsidies.
It is unacceptable and shows a lack of solidarity if the Central and Eastern European countries receive less aid than the rest of Europe.
A reduction in EU subsidies with the possibility of more support at national level should be the way forward in the future.
Agricultural subsidies in Sweden must be shared equitably between north and south.
The Cohesion Fund is very important with respect to economic and social solidarity in Europe.
The question of its future in relation to the countries that have qualified for EMU definitely needs to be discussed.
Once the common currency has begun to play its part in strengthening European economic and social solidarity, then the future of the Cohesion Fund and its importance should also be reappraised.
Therefore, we do not think that a direct connection can be made between meeting the convergence criteria and the possibility of receiving aid from the Cohesion Fund.
Countries that have complied with the convergence criteria have undoubtedly performed well according to the macroeconomic indicators, but at the same time, this does not necessarily mean that complete social and economic cohesion has been achieved in and between those countries.
We would also like to emphasise the need for effective financial management and control.
I voted for this report because the specific vote rejecting the proposal to limit the Cohesion Fund to countries outside EMU, to discriminate against Portugal, was so overwhelming, with more than 300 votes against, that the minimum conditions have been created to prevent Portugal's exclusion from the Cohesion Fund and its benefits.
The European Parliament is explicitly confirming the Commission's position to guarantee a more favourable position for Portugal's interests.
The proposal for the Cohesion Fund included in Agenda 2000 - a document presented by the Commission in the middle of 1997 - states that the beneficiaries of this Fund should be countries that continue to have a GNP less than 90 % of the Community average, regardless of whether or not they participate in Economic Monetary Union.
The Council's legal services later issued an opinion confirming, in the light of the Treaty on European Union, the eligibility for the Cohesion Fund not only of Greece - which is outside the single currency - but also of Spain, Ireland and Portugal - whose governments decided to join the euro.
For us, there was never any doubt as to this question and we think that no Community institution has the legitimacy on this score to undermine the Treaty and the principle of economic and social cohesion on which the very creation of the Fund was based, and prevent Portugal from having access to the Cohesion Fund.
The Collins report corroborates this view and we can, of course, vote in favour of it.
In addition, and in keeping with what we have always contended, the report also questions the condition of meeting the convergence criteria to receive Fund money and also opposes the Commission's proposal that benefiting from the Fund means meeting the conditions of the Stability Pact.
Obviously, we should emphasise the fact that maintenance of the Cohesion Fund for Portugal should not be seen as something of enormous importance but instead as a simple confirmation that this was conceded a long time ago in the negotiation process on the next Community support framework.
We have therefore rejected the idea that maintenance of the Fund could be used as a smokescreen to conceal the real losses that Portugal might suffer in terms of the Structural Funds.
The vital issue is now that of the changes in the government's negotiating stance, to solve the vital issue of increasing funds overall in order to tackle the new problems and burdens resulting from enlargement and prevent the financing of that enlargement from being carried out exclusively at the cost of the current cohesion countries, by jeopardising the very appropriations allocated from the Structural Funds.
The report forms part of the collective strategy to reform the EU structural support funds.
Out of loyalty, we have decided to support the bulk of the PSE Group's proposals.
However, we firmly believe that the Cohesion Fund should be phased out and the money returned to the Member States.
A sizeable share - 20 to 30 % - could be retained by the Union and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Central and Eastern European countries, where there is greater need for financial support than in the Mediterranean countries, which already have a perfectly acceptable standard of living.
Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report (A4-0393/98)
The European Commission's proposal did not aim to make any great operational changes to the EAGGF.
The objective was to clarify and extend the scope of the Fund.
As such, I indeed support the report as presented to us today.
In fact, the additions contributed by the European Parliament reflect the evolution of the European Union's socio-economic development, of new technologies and of local services. These are a series of new areas that we believe should be covered by the EAGGF.
Equally, the rapporteur considers that tourism and culture must both remain within the scope of the EAGGF.
Indeed, these two sectors are of key importance for job creation: culture accounts for 3.1 million jobs in the EU, that is, 1.8 % of the working population.
Tourism frequently offers an alternative solution for regions that are suffering a structural lag or that are highly dependent on other sectors that are in decline.
Also, in connection with the report by Mrs McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis, I strongly support the maintenance of the URBAN initiative for the development of a European urban policy.
Finally, it is essential that Parliament plays an active role in following up and monitoring the implementation of structural policies.
For all these reasons, I will vote for the report as amended.
We have decided to abstain in the final vote.
We are among those who are critical of the European Regional Development Fund because it has not attained its objective of smoothing out regional differences.
This type of funding should, in the main, be transferred to national level, where control and monitoring of standards is considerably tighter than appears to have been the case at EU level.
There is a willingness on the Commission's part to simplify and refine structural support which we regard as a step in the right direction.
We are also in favour of the proposal to highlight environmental issues and working for equality between men and women.
The report forms part of the collective strategy to reform the EU structural support funds.
Out of loyalty, we have decided to support the bulk of the PSE Group's proposals.
However, we firmly believe that the European Regional Development Fund should be phased out and the money returned to the Member States.
A sizeable share - 20 to 30 % - could be retained by the Union and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Central and Eastern European countries, where there is greater need for financial support than in the Mediterranean countries, which already have a perfectly acceptable standard of living.
We are therefore firmly of the opinion that structural support funding has been an inherently inefficient way of using Member States' budget contributions.
We believe that regional development at national level is both more effective and less costly.
Kellett-Bowman report (A4-0380/98)
We are unable to support the overall text of the proposal for a Council regulation laying down general rules for the granting of Community financial aid in the field of trans-European networks.
The TENs programme is often portrayed as one which has been introduced to promote environmentally friendly forms of transport.
Judged against this aim, one is bound to say that the programme has been a fiasco.
The figures from Eurostat show that the transport sector has now overtaken industry as the largest single source of pollution in the EU.
Another important part of the argument in favour of the TENs programme is that improving the infrastructure in the underdeveloped peripheral regions - in particular by connecting them to the key regions which are more developed - will help to bring them up to the economic level of the affluent regions in the centre.
Here too, Eurostat's figures show that the difference between the richest and poorest regions in the EU is still as great as ever - in terms of prosperity, unemployment and so on - despite the fact that this programme has now been in existence for a number of years.
The TENs programme is now being extended to cover the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and the arguments being used to justify the TENs are exactly the same as those that were used inside the EU's borders.
In reality, the TENs programme is first and foremost about ensuring that the EU's industry has the best possible access to its markets, including the new ones in Eastern Europe.
We are voting against the proposal by the Commission and the rapporteur to amend today's provisions regarding EU economic aid for the trans-European networks.
The Commission would like to allocate ECU 5.5 million to the trans-European networks during the period 2000-2006, which is more than double the amount allocated in 1993-1999.
At the same time, national investment within the Union has fallen from 1.5 % of GNP in the 1970s to 0.9 % in the 1990s.
The tight budgetary constraints that the majority of Member States have imposed on themselves during the past year have been necessary in order for them to be able to comply with the economic and monetary criteria for participating in EMU.
Consequently, individual Member States have been unable to afford to provide good transport facilities in and between each other's countries.
Jöns report (A4-0398/98)
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a reform of the Social Fund.
With the new chapter on employment in the Treaty, there is a need for coordination between the Social Fund measures and the annual guidelines on employment.
We have voted in favour of a number of changes to the Commission's proposal: provisions have been added concerning the need for sustainable development to be taken into account, emphasising the aspect of equal opportunities for men and women, and on interventions to benefit disadvantaged groups such as the long-term unemployed and handicapped persons.
Not less than 15 % of the resources should be reserved for women, for example.
We believe that all the Member States should be obliged to take action in the field of equal treatment.
Even a country like Denmark, which has come a long way in integrating women into the labour market, must still be obliged to make a special effort in the area of equal treatment under the Social Fund.
I have abstained from voting on the report on the European Social Fund, because the overall aim of the Fund is to help bring about social convergence in the Union.
The ESF is therefore an instrument for creating what is in fact a European social policy and for promoting economic and social solidarity.
The EU should not attempt to regulate the national systems of social and labour market policy, with a view to standardising the social security systems in the Member States.
Social and labour market policy must continue to be a national matter.
A series of judgements and assessments are presented in the report regarding Social Fund measures designed to promote equal opportunities for people to be integrated into the labour market, strengthen systems of education and increase the participation of women in the labour market.
The Fund is also to encourage local and regional initiatives on employment.
In the longer term, these measures are intended to help reduce the differences between the levels of development of various regions in the EU.
These initiatives all have some positive features, but the problem is that these efforts are linked to the establishment of a European social policy and the promotion of the social dialogue, which are ultimately meant to contribute to the establishment of a common European labour market policy.
At the same time, the report also contains moves towards the coordination of Community instruments in education policy.
I agree that underdeveloped regions throughout Europe should be supported.
It is also important to promote equal opportunities for people, so that they can be integrated into the labour market, but this should take place without any political undertones, and not as part of a strategy designed to bring about social convergence in the EU.
We welcome the current revision of the European Social Fund, not least in respect of the new chapter on employment in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The European Social Fund plays a very important role in employment strategies, since it supports and complements the strategies carried out at national level.
Previous experience of lower contribution payments to non-governmental organisations, as well as within the Peace initiative, has proved successful.
We therefore support the proposal, which aims to prioritise local projects in Social Fund programme planning activities.
The report forms part of the collective strategy to reform the EU structural support funds.
Out of loyalty, we have decided to support the bulk of the PSE Group's proposals.
However, we firmly believe that the European Social Fund should be phased out and the money returned to the Member States.
A sizeable share - 20 to 30 % - could be retained by the Union and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Central and Eastern European countries, where there is greater need for financial support than in the Mediterranean countries, which already have a perfectly acceptable standard of living.
The report points out that we need the European Social Fund in order to combat unemployment.
However, taking money from Member States' budgets and redistributing it through the EU's Structural Funds does not create new jobs, except possibly for those involved in the redistribution itself.
The people who lose out are public sector employees in the respective countries.
Resolution on the CAP
My vote on this issue took into account the position on the proposal to cofinance income support out of national budgets, as suggested, in particular, in point 8 of the joint motion for resolution by the PSE and Green Groups.
I voted against that option - whose impact on the CAP has yet to be determined - because, in my view, it boils down to anticipating the decision on the financial perspective in accordance with one of the Commission's proposals for solving the alleged problem of the excessive contribution by certain Member States.
In other words, the proposal sets out to correct the situation in Germany's favour and, in particular, to the detriment of France's current Community budget situation, but without safeguarding the situation of other Member States such as Portugal. They could be penalised in terms of agricultural expenditure or even their overall receipts from the Community budget.
Fundamentally, this option would unacceptably make negotiations rely on the issue of own resources and confine Portugal's negotiating position both on Agenda 2000 and on the financial perspective.
I supported the excellent proposals to reform the CAP contained in the resolution by the PSE and Green Groups and I hope that they will be endorsed.
A further integration of environmental initiatives must be included in any new revised common agricultural policy for the post-1999 period.
I believe that the EU's goals of sustainable development, integration of environmental protection with agricultural initiatives and the recognition of farmers as guardians of the countryside must be made central concerns of the common agricultural policy.
Most parties are in favour of a further integration of environmental policy objectives into the CAP.
However, positive environmental results must be measured and rewarded.
In order to do justice to the role of the farmer in caring for the countryside, a further principle should be added, namely the principle that the steward is remunerated.
Farmers must be supported by the European Union in bringing about more environmentally friendly farming practices in the form of direct payment supports.
We already know of the success to date of the Rural Environment Protection scheme started in 1994, whose aims include the establishment of farming practices and controlled production methods which reflect the increasing public concern for conservation, landscape protection and wider environmental problems.
The Rural Environment Protection scheme is also designed to assist in the production of quality food in the extensive and environmentally friendly manner.
This scheme must go from strength to strength and it was worth over £101.4m alone in 1997.
Under the Operational Programme for Agriculture, Rural Development and Forestry for the period 1997, £67.176m was allocated for direct on-farm investment.
This sub-programme was broken down as follows: improvement of dairy hygiene standards, £11.252m; improvement of animal welfare standards, £149 000; farm improvement programme, £8.769m; control of farm pollution scheme, £47.006m.
This programme has contributed substantially to reducing pollution on our farms as well as promoting environmentally friendly farming.
I support an expansion of EU assistance for on-farm investment in any new arrangement under the common agricultural policy for the period post-1999.
Environmental concerns are becoming increasingly important in EU policies in general.
However, incentives and support arrangements must be in place through the European Union so that any changes in this sphere are brought about in a cost effective manner.
Rural areas are increasingly used by many people for leisure and recreational purposes.
Farmers receive no financial reward for maintaining and shaping the countryside.
Discussion should take place on these issues with farming organisations and with the Irish Government and the European Commission so that any changes which are brought about command the goodwill and the support of Irish farmers and national and European authorities.
I voted against the Fantuzzi resolution on Agenda 2000 and the reform of the CAP because in paragraph 8, the rapporteur actually claims that cofinancing is not meant to solve the problems and meet the needs of agriculture but to deal with the issue of the Member States' budget contributions.
I regret having had to vote against an otherwise excellent document on agricultural policy because the matter of financing the Community budget should be discussed at the right place and at the right time, with complete openness and transparency.
The review of the CAP in 1992 led to a large reduction of the Community budget amounts available for agriculture and to the annihilation of small and medium-sized family holdings, mainly in southern parts of the Community. As a result, the numbers of holdings and people employed have been greatly reduced, the proportion of unemployment in rural areas has rocketed, and the rate at which the countryside is being deserted has increased to dangerous levels.
The new proposals put forward on European farming by the Commission in Agenda 2000 are perhaps the most representative indication of the EU's overall intentions as regards its model of development.
The agricultural sector bears the brunt of the changes dictated by the medium-term strategic plans of monopolistic capital, since it is one of the most critical sectors for the shaping of the new economic landscape and the distribution of world markets.
The questionable argument in favour of continual cuts in the section of the Community budget devoted to agriculture, which the Agenda 2000 proposals and those for the review of the CAP put forward, is actually - and now quite openly - calling into question and undermining the decisive developmental role which agriculture has played up to now in most parts of Europe.
The EU is continually eroding its existing agricultural potential since its declared aim, besides saving resources, is both to prepare for the predatory enterprise of enlargement towards the central and eastern European countries and to secure further possibilities for responding - with customary subservience to the USA's demands - to the new established order of the World Trade Organisation from 2000 onwards.
We have in our hands proposals which are contradictory, dangerous, without any balance between the human factor, production and land, proposals which aim to reduce the agricultural population still further, cut prices and production costs for the sake of competition, and in general replace intervention by help to accumulate private stores.
Those proposals will not only cause imbalances in production but will also constitute a direct threat to product quality, environmental equilibrium, farm employment and social balance and cohesion.
Furthermore, this proposal heralds flagrant and impermissible intervention in the budgets of Member States by introducing conditions of subservience with the compulsory co-financing of direct aid by the Member States.
This not only goes against the provisions of the Treaty, but indirectly paves the way for a substantive transfer of commitment expenditures to the budgets of the Member States - without the consent of the national parliaments - for policies and decisions laid down by the EU.
In the name of an unreasonable rationalisation which runs contrary to any concept of solidarity, renationalisation is being advocated with excessive hypocrisy and demagogy, though it will only relate to expenditure, while the Community will continue to have the exclusive right to determine every detail of the CAP - quotas, price and export subsidies, duties etc. without leaving any scope for flexibility or for the Member State itself to define its own agricultural policy.
In other words, 'heads we win, tails you lose'!
We categorically oppose this Commission proposal and there is no margin whatsoever for its 'better management', as some people are saying in order to make it look better and more 'digestible'.
It is our duty, both to the farmers and for the sake of social equilibrium, to prevent the evils prescribed by the proposal.
We must resist and avert a policy which is opposed not only by farmers in the EU but by all working people who will bear the brunt of this anti-agricultural EU policy which aims to use the budget resources of the Member States, and this in the context of a policy of financial discipline and strict austerity.
Parliament's view is that it is extremely important for the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy to be harmonised with the interests and wishes of the large majority of the population, who are now certain to escalate their efforts to frustrate and avert this policy.
The way I voted on the whole of this resolution was conditioned by the introduction of the idea of cofinancing. This does not seem to be a problem concerning the CAP but one that has been created to deal with certain countries' financial contributions to the budget.
Had the principle of cofinancing not been defeated by the European Parliament, considerable limits would have been put on Portugal's freedom to negotiate on Agenda 2000, and the aim of maintaining the same volume of Community financial support for the next framework, as a result of Agenda 2000, would have been diluted.
Therefore, I consider the overall result of these votes highly satisfactory.
The voting behaviour of the Liberal Group has been strongly influenced by its conviction that in the future it would be desirable to have cofinancing with Member States of those items of agricultural expenditure that concern income support.
The reasons for this have been explained in various speeches by members of the group in debates on agricultural policy.
The Liberal Group therefore voted against all those amendments that concerned this cofinancing of agricultural expenditure.
It voted in favour of the PSE-V Group resolutions because of its conditional approval of income support despite the fact that the resolution contained various phrases (conditionality of the various support measures) that did not all reflect the position of the Group.
For the same reason it also voted for the PSE resolution and when both of the above resolutions were rejected it of course voted against the UPE and EDN resolutions.
As was to be expected, the ELDR Group voted in favour of all the articles of its joint resolution with the PPE.
When the final vote came it had to decide if it would vote in favour of the resolution despite the fact that paragraph 14 with its clause on cofinancing was defeated.
A majority of the Group take the view that it could still vote in favour, as with the adoption of paragraph 13 the discussion on the financing of the common agricultural policy can continue, especially in the light of the various votes on the oral questions which indicated that those amendments that rejected cofinancing were defeated outright by a very large majority.
I will be using my vote to condemn a Community agricultural policy that basically adheres to a rationale of reducing prices and lowering the value accorded to labour, a policy that is so destructive that it calls into question the CAP itself by proposing the cofinancing of agricultural spending.
If the desire exists today to meet the aspirations of the people who have condemned the ultra-liberal policies, then existing policies must not be eliminated.
Not only should the CAP be maintained and reformed, but it should also be given a new direction.
The broad outlines of this new direction have already been outlined by the House.
It supports the concept of 'a high level of employment', including in agriculture.
It intends to provide safeguards against the race for productivity.
It wishes to meet the new challenges facing mankind in the areas of food, energy, the environment, water supply and sustainable development.
We already have the principles in the form of the single market, financial solidarity and the Community preference, which may be renewed.
The principle financial resource is the CAP budget.
This involves substantial public funds that must not be used to produce surpluses that are sold cheaply on the international market. Instead, they are to be used, above all, to meet the Union's internal needs, to provide each production sector with the means to manage the market, to correct the injustices between farmers, types of products, regions and countries, and to develop international trade that is of mutual benefit.
Other funding could be created with cheap credits allocated selectively for employment, productive investment and sustainable development, with taxation on financial movements and with the tools to ensure the fair distribution, by sector, of the wealth generated between agricultural production and consumption.
That might be a genuine alternative policy.
Our group has opposed any form of cofinancing of the CAP by the Member States.
And it is true that this issue raises fundamental problems.
First, this Commission proposal diverges from the fundamental principle of financial solidarity that is embodied in Article 2 of the Treaty establishing the European Community and that applies to all common policies.
Today, only two common policies exist: the common agricultural policy and the common fisheries policy.
However, we are witnessing contradictory behaviour on the part of the Commission that calls into question some of the elements that form these two policies.
On the one hand, the Commission proposes the cofinancing of the CAP by the Member States and, on the other, it proposes the elimination of structural aid for the common fisheries policy for those areas in the Member States that are not eligible for the new Objectives 1 and 2, as defined in Agenda 2000. This may well cause major distortions of competition between European operators in the fisheries sector.
We are extremely concerned by this shift on the part of the Commission, which seems to no longer want to respect the basic Treaty that established the European Community, and particularly Article 2.
For over a year, Édouard des Places and myself have been responsible for drawing up various opinions on the Agenda 2000 communication for the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Fisheries. In these opinions, we have repeatedly drawn attention to the major budgetary problems the European Union would inevitably experience if its budgetary resources were not concentrated in their entirety on the only two existing common policies: the CAP and the CFP.
In the debate on the Commission's Agenda 2000 proposal, we had stated that if the aim was to maintain, in the context of the reform of the CAP and of the principal COMs, the founding principles of the Community preference and to maintain farmers' earnings by compensating fully for price reductions, both the budget and the level of the agricultural guideline envisaged would be insufficient.
After the initial analyses carried out at Council level, the ministers all accepted the objectives of the CAP reform, as presented by the Commission. However, they all expressed serious reservations as to the means proposed for its implementation.
This budgetary problem cannot be resolved unless sufficiently strong political will exists to take the decision to concentrate all our resources on the Union's common policies, instead of scattering them among countless areas in the hope of winning more votes.
In opposing any form of cofinancing, our group rejects the very principle of artificially increasing the European Union's budget, which is contrary to the commitment entered into in Edinburgh. It also opposes the emergence of a particularly harmful operational and financial division, because the Commission would decide alone on a European policy and the Member States would find themselves obliged, as such, to enter into cofinancing, even though they already finance the entire European Union budget.
Responsibilities would therefore become totally blurred.
Rather than seeing such an extremely unhealthy separation between the decision-makers and those who are paying, our group would prefer us to move towards a total renationalisation of the CAP that would enable the Member States to draw up their own agricultural policy to the benefit of their farmers, rural land-use planning and consumer protection.
I am happy to note that, with this morning's vote in the House, the European Parliament has clearly rejected those elements of the resolution that provided for the introduction of cofinancing.
Görlach report (A4-0405/98)
Five million farming jobs have been lost in the EU between 1980 and today.
The proportion of unemployment in rural areas is higher than in urban areas, and the countryside is being deserted ever more rapidly, with young people as the first to go.
That is the dramatic situation to which the catastrophic policies implemented have led the countryside and the farming economies of the EU's Member States.
And now we are talking about even worse measures, whose exclusive aim is to accelerate the rate at which agricultural activity is being abandoned by small and medium-scale farmers, so that land and production will be concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people.
This policy is laying the ground for a new feudalism and we are sorry that although the rapporteur himself recognises the dramatic situation, his report and amendments only oppose it symptomatically and he attempts to correct the letter of the regulation but does not touch, oppose or try to alter its spirit. On the other hand he unleashes a potential storm by giving his blessing to the opening of the countryside to alternative activities, not only by farmers but by anyone else who wants to 'make something' of the scorched earth left behind by catastrophic and anti-agrarian policies.
The rapporteur forgets, and is also trying to persuade farmers to forget, that the countryside, the farming areas in which 25 % of the EU's population live, are closely interwoven with farming and livestock breeding, and that farmers are indissolubly bound to the land and to their work.
What matters is not to reorientate, or rather, disorientate farmers by covering up and whitewashing hostile policies.
Within the framework of a now unashamedly anti-agrarian policy whose chief aim is to accelerate the reduction of the farming population, is it not Pharisaic to talk about being interested in employment in the countryside? Is it not pure hypocrisy to make proposals for dealing with the problems of poverty zones when everyone agrees with the overall policy which creates the poverty zones in the first place?
Is it not contradictory to make proposals about incentives to regenerate the agricultural population while continual quota reductions virtually debar young people from taking up farming?
Is it not hypocrisy to proclaim interest in environmental protection while traditional crops are being extirpated and genetically modified crops are accepted even before serious and detailed research has been carried out and completed on their environmental impact and their consequences for the consumer, solely because that is what the multinationals which produce genetically modified reproducing species dictate?
How is the wishful thinking about the countryside's prosperity to be realised when the financial resources available are continually being cut?
What European farmers expect and demand is that we should do all we can to defend their right to continue their activities without interruption and under the best possible conditions, and their right to make a decent living from those activities.
That aim will not be achieved by hypocritical half-measures and placebos.
It will be achieved by their own struggle, the struggle they are developing for example in my own country even as we speak, and which we support unreservedly.
For that reason, we will vote against the proposed Council Regulation and the report, which despite the few positive points it contains, does not dare to reverse the overall anti-agrarian content of the proposal as it ought to.
We are voting against the report relating to support for rural development through the EAGGF.
The Commission has not gone far enough in its proposed agricultural reform within the framework of Agenda 2000.
We have generally abstained from voting on forestry policy, because we do not think it is appropriate to deal with forestry at Community level.
It makes sense to have an instrument, independent of the arrangements for supporting production or those for overhauling infrastructures directly linked to farming activity, to support other activities very closely related to agriculture and used mainly by farmers.
These would include forestry activities, fire-fighting, and environmental and landscape protection, which, if developed integrally, could help in the fight against rural desertification and bring about economic diversification in the countryside.
This instrument could also help to reduce some serious, well-known imbalances.
All of these aims are set out in the justification for the Commission's proposal.
There is also an appropriate proposal to introduce some uniformity into the patchy and rather unknown regulation on this question.
However, these good intentions are contradicted by the proposals that have actually been made.
This instrument does not have at its disposal the financial resources needed to tackle the problems that it sets out to solve. In particular, it seems that it will not even have at its disposal resources to be withdrawn from other areas of the agricultural policy, which in themselves are already underfunded.
For agro-environmental measures, it establishes a regulation that really seems to be a measure to help the farms and finances of certain Member States, small in number, in the centre and north of the European Union.
The report does nothing to change the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development-environmental guidelines nor does it eliminate the apparent aim for people or bodies not directly related so far with farming to benefit from this instrument.
They should be given support in a different way and not through this instrument, which should exclusively be at the service of farmers.
There are positive aspects in the report as a result of the amendment that we tabled, for example, the doubling of compensatory amounts per hectare or possible assistance with investment in State or common (fallow) land.
The recognition of specific regional needs and the call for improving the balance between Mediterranean and continental crops are also positive.
However, the overall resources remain insufficient and the basic guidelines have not been changed.
That is why we abstained in this vote.
The report forms part of the collective strategy to reform the EU structural support funds.
Out of loyalty, we have decided to support the bulk of the PSE Group's proposals.
However, we firmly believe that the Agricultural Fund should be phased out and the money returned to the Member States.
A sizeable share - 20 to 30 % - could be retained by the Union and the entire sum used to provide aid for the Central and Eastern European countries, where there is greater need for financial support than in the Mediterranean countries, which already have a perfectly acceptable standard of living.
I welcome the fact that the European Commission is proposing to include agricultural structural measures in a framework regulation.
This will make it possible to better coordinate the various instruments.
In the Commission's proposals this is largely a matter of continuing and improving the existing measures, and we broadly agree with this.
In particular, I believe the support measures designed to encourage agriculture to adopt more environmental and natural farming practices are very important.
In his draft report the rapporteur sought to extend the present measures, which are mainly aimed at developing agricultural structures, to other rural activities.
His amendments were rejected by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
As far as we are concerned this took the sting out of the report and at the final vote we were able to vote in favour.
Rural policy must remain primarily the responsibility of national and regional government. They are better equipped for this than the European Commission which has a limited capacity to implement and is not close to the problems in the regions.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.05 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Displaced persons
The next item is the report (A4-0399/98) by Mr Wiebenga, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on
I.Amended proposal for a Joint Action on the temporary protection of displaced persons (COM(98)0372 - C4-0505/98-97/0081(CNS))II.Proposal for a Joint Action concerning solidarity in the admission and residence of beneficiaries of the temporary protection of displaced persons (COM(98)0372 - C4-0506/98-98/0222(CNS)).
Mr President, the proposal for joint action on the temporary protection of displaced persons is a good one.
It would apply to cases where a large number of people must all be offered sanctuary at the same time with the result that, in such an emergency situation, normal asylum procedures cannot be applied.
An amendment brought by the European Parliament establishes that these arrangements simply supplement the treaty on refugees rather than replacing it.
An interesting procedure is involved here.
This is the first time the European Commission has used its right to initiate legislation under the third pillar.
On this second reading the Commission - Commissioner Gradin who is here today - has accepted many of the European Parliament's amendments.
I would say the most important of these is the introduction of a five-year limit to the temporary protection and above all the burden-sharing between the various Member States.
These changes, and I say this in the framework of the third pillar, are a feather in the cap for the European Parliament.
So much for the positive comments.
Now the day-to-day reality.
It is incomprehensible and irresponsible that the European Union, that is the Council of Ministers where the third pillar is involved, has still not established any fair system for sharing the burden of displaced persons or for receiving them.
We all know that this is too late for the displaced persons of Bosnia.
They were and still are dependent on the benevolence of a few Member States, namely Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, while others have done much less.
Things are quiet in Kosovo at present, fortunately, although the situation there is of course very tragic in humanitarian terms.
But if, God forbid, things get out of hand there again and large numbers of Kosovans come to the European Union, then we will find once again that nothing has been arranged at European level.
The same is true if major problems arise anywhere else which lead to a massive influx of people, such as in Algeria for example.
The question is which Member States in the Council of Ministers are not prepared to cooperate in drawing up such a system.
I hear rumours that they include Spain, France and the United Kingdom, but we cannot be certain as the Council meets behind closed doors.
I should like greater clarity from the Commissioner on this.
Much remains to be done in the field of asylum and immigration policy.
The Eurodac data exchange takes much too long.
There are no agreements on external border controls.
There is no common return policy.
The Council of Ministers has found itself in an impasse over recent years.
This is why the Liberal Group also believes it is a good thing that the Austrian Presidency has now taken the initiative to move towards a more systematic approach to asylum and immigration policy, in particular in the light of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But under that Treaty the European Commission itself is going to have to do more and my view is that the present department, with the number of officials available to Commissioner Gradin, is much too small for the European Commission to be able to take the necessary action after the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force.
I would be interested to know if there any plans to improve matters in this respect.
The proposals for joint action for the protection of displaced persons look reasonable now that a number of Parliament's amendments have been adopted.
The second field of joint action, namely in relation to burden-sharing, represents major progress, because last year there was no such proposal for a regulation on the table.
Our parliamentary committee also believes that the method of this burden-sharing must be very different from that proposed by the European Commission.
First must come the balanced distribution of displaced persons between the Member States and only then the matter of financial compensation.
The Council of Ministers is already much too late.
If we once again fail to achieve a speedy decision because a couple of Member States refuse to cooperate then an alternative solution must be sought and those Member States who are indeed prepared to assume their responsibilities must work together in a coalition of the willing.
Mr President, in some national parliaments the asylum and refugee debate is plagued by a populist game appealing to xenophobic sentiments in the hope of scoring electoral points.
There is none of this in Mr Wiebenga's report.
He clearly sticks to traditional liberal principles, adopts the right tone and shows concern for the fate of displaced persons.
The improvements he brings to the two Commission proposals make these even clearer and more humane.
The rapporteur rightly favours a strengthening of Parliament's role.
In addition, he seeks a stronger legal basis for refugee policy and, like most of us, he is trying to avoid dependence on a unanimous vote in the Council.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy finds it interesting that he partly attributes the phenomenon of mass displacement to the Council's deficient foreign policy.
He thus supplements the rules for sharing responsibilities which the Commission wants to introduce by considering the efforts which Member States could make to prevent the massive displacement of persons, such as military intervention and other conflictprevention measures, as part of this shared responsibility.
These are very laudable additions to the Commission's already praiseworthy attempts.
Yet the rapporteur still has to wrestle with the same dilemma which confronted the Commission.
Over recent years the Council has certainly repeatedly given the impression that it is aware of the need for a real sharing of the burden or responsibility for the protection of displaced persons. But when it comes to the crunch the Council remains powerless.
The Commission is seeking to find a way out of this by splitting its proposal into a part which can win the support of the Council and a part which cannot.
Each time the need for unanimity serves as an alibi for Member States to whom European solidarity means nothing, yet which these same Member States are so prone to invoke when it is purely their own interests which are at stake.
I wonder whether or not it could be possible to compensate for the refusal to share responsibility out of some European Union fund or other.
You cannot dine à la carte at the EU table.
The call for the abolition of solidarity from Member States who have no desire to share the burden of this European issue falls on very receptive ears in the many countries which contribute to the Union.
I regret this.
The unwilling Member States are in fact sawing off the branch they themselves are sitting on.
It seems from his explanation that the rapporteur has serious doubts about the way in which the Commission is resolving its dilemma.
The question is whether much progress can be made before the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force.
Is the Commission's solution not a self-deception by which we give the Council a loincloth to hide its shame? Mr Nassauer will be making the necessary comments on this on behalf of the European People's Party.
I believe that because each action first has to overcome the barrier of unanimity, the Commission is not giving us much at all.
I would like to warn against allowing ourselves to be caught up in a game which simply allows the Council to offload its problems onto us.
Mr Wiebenga's idea to try to make the most of it nevertheless is very laudable.
The way in which he has formulated this in his report is also excellent.
But I also believe that many people share his doubts as explicitly expressed in his explanation.
Although we appreciate the work he has done on his report, this doubt remains with us all and we have no choice but to draw the consequences.
Mr President, I hope you have been informed that I have an additional four minutes from Mr Schulz.
I am pleased that Mrs Gradin - the Commissioner dealing with this issue - is with us here today.
I always think it is very important for Commissioners to attend debates.
I should, however, like to express my own frustration and that of my group at the report being constantly rescheduled this week.
We do not agree that we should be discussing this report at a time when all Members believe that we should actually be discussing topical and urgent matters, and not such an important political issue as this.
This is about refugees entering the Union, refugees who are treated disgracefully and shabbily; we always feel that they are too much for us, that we do not have room for them, and that we would actually rather ensure that we rid ourselves of these people as quickly as possible.
This is reflected somewhat in the way in which we are dealing with this debate here.
This debate is taking place when many colleagues are prevented from being here by other appointments.
It is a fact that the topical and urgent debate does not concern everyone and, as a result, other appointments are arranged, at a much earlier stage than our debates are.
That explains why too few Members are here.
I must also apologise on behalf of several colleagues from my own group - who actually wanted to contribute to this debate - for their not being able to be here either, because they made alternative appointments some time ago.
This is true of the chairman of our committee, who is usually always present when debates involving our committee are being held in the plenary, and takes part in the debate.
Unfortunately, she cannot participate today because she too has another long-standing appointment, which could not be further postponed.
I should like to warmly congratulate Mr Wiebenga on his report.
Admittedly, there are a few points on which we disagree straight away, but he is aware of that.
Above all, however, I believe that it is important to make sure that the report is ready before the Council meets in December, so that Parliament is able to make its views known on the Commission's amended proposal and to vote on it.
Since the war in former Yugoslavia, the European Union has been faced several times with admitting large numbers of refugees from various regions, and in particular recently - as Mr Wiebenga also mentioned - from Iraq and Algeria.
The European Union has never had an instrument which firstly includes solidarity measures to make it easier for Member States to admit refugees and, secondly, offers bureaucratic protection.
The tragedy of the refugees from Kosovo has once again revealed the inability of our governments to respond to events of this kind in a way which is commensurate with their own professed standards of morality and human rights.
Now refugees from Kosovo are being detained at the Union's external borders as illegal immigrants, and are also very often treated as criminals.
This cannot and must not continue.
We want to be able to continue to offer sanctuary in the European Union to those fleeing from armed conflict, sustained violence, or systematic or widespread violations of human rights.
We believe it is right for all present and future Member States to contribute to fulfilling this humanitarian commitment.
Ethnic or religious persecution can, however, also constitute grounds for refugee status.
In my group, in any event, we agree that these grounds should also be accepted.
This is also shown in the draft own-initiative report produced by my colleague, Mrs Lindeperg, which we will soon be debating.
We are not disputing the fact that a restrictive interpretation of the Geneva Convention on Refugees has led to a gap in the protection offered to refugees of civil war in Europe.
This must be closed, but not exclusively by means of the measures now on the table.
I would therefore ask you to vote in favour of certain parts of the text originally proposed by the Commission, because we believe that some of the points it contains are better than some of the amendments.
It makes absolutely no sense, in the event of a mass influx, actually to have a joint action offering refugees protection in the Union, and yet alongside this not to make any arrangements for how these people are actually going to reach the Union.
Once the Member States have resolved to apply the joint actions, it is only logical that they should then disregard visa restrictions and dispense with the principle of safe third countries.
On burden-sharing, the Commission's proposal gives priority to balancing out the financial burden over balancing out the distribution of people.
I could also go along with this approach, precisely because of what we saw with the refugees in Germany: many came to Germany because they had personal contacts there, because they knew the language, because they had already been there as migrant workers, and had thus found sanctuary with families.
They had become integrated to a certain extent through their knowledge of German, which meant that they were able to support themselves and earn their own living.
I doubt whether this would have been possible in the same way if we had, from the outset, forcefully transported these people to an area where they did not have contacts of this kind, for example.
Refugee quotas seem, therefore, on the basis of previous experience, to be rather counter-productive, and balancing out the financial burden is the right way forward.
I do, however, endorse my group's opinion that it is possible, either before or when the refugees arrive, to allocate them to individual Member States.
However, this requires very thorough planning, so as not to cause great personal and financial damage to the refugees, on the one hand, and to the citizens of the European Union on the other.
Finally, I should like to say that I hope that the Council will soon be adopting practical proposals on how this is to be done.
Mr President, having heard Mrs Zimmermann's speech, I cannot help wondering whether she was giving the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs, as announced, or whether she was speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group.
I should like to ask Mrs Zimmermann to clarify that point.
Mr President, I did say at the beginning that I would take the four minutes allocated to Mr Schulz, and I therefore spoke both for the Committee on Legal Affairs and for my group.
Mrs Zimmermann, I think Mr Nassauer will have been satisfied by your answer.
Mrs Van Lancker, you asked whether you had four minutes, so please stick to them if that is your allowance and do not just carry on as long as you like.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will begin by thanking Mr Wiebenga, our rapporteur, who as expected has produced an excellent, careful and very balanced report for Parliament.
I should like to point out that - contrary to the impression which Mrs Zimmermann and Mrs Van Lancker sought to give - this is not a question of whether refugees are admitted into the EU or not.
Of course refugees from civil wars are admitted into Europe, in their hundreds of thousands.
The problem is burden-sharing.
The question hiding under the title 'temporary protection of refugees' is essentially whether, as in the case of former Yugoslavia, two countries - namely Austria and Germany - should take in more than twice as many refugees as all the others put together, or whether a just way of sharing the burden should be found; that is the political problem.
In any case, no one in this House who is to be taken seriously disputes the fact that people should be admitted under humane conditions.
The problem has been an urgent one ever since the civil war in Yugoslavia put hundreds of thousands of people to flight.
Since then there have been calls for burden-sharing.
To briefly recap the course of events: some time ago, after prolonged hesitation and prolonged pressure on the part of the countries concerned, the Commission drafted an initial proposal on this subject.
I do not wish to examine now why we deemed this to be inadequate, whether it was because the Commission did not dare to do more, or - and I have to grant you this, Mrs Gradin - because it saw clearly that this was all that could be achieved.
The gist of this first draft on the actual important issue of burden-sharing was, however, as follows: in the event of a mass influx of refugees, the Council considers the appropriate measures, so not with the objective of approving assistance.
No, it considers the appropriate measures and in doing so meets its commitments.
This was an absurd way to settle the burden-sharing issue and thus also failed to be supported by a majority of the Council.
The Commission has redrafted its paper and has now come up with a very peculiar idea. It has now proposed two legislative acts, the first on admitting refugees and the second on solidarity in the admission of refugees.
If you take a closer look - something I strongly recommend - you will see that the decision to admit refugees is taken by a qualified majority; if necessary, therefore, this can even be decided if the particularly burdened country admitting the refugees votes against. You will also see, however, that the solidarity measures - the assistance - require unanimity to be approved and are not a binding stipulation; in the Commission proposal this is only a 'may' provision.
That is decidedly too weak.
This is not the solidarity of which the title speaks, but is clearly only the solidarity of those who wish to reject a fair system of burden-sharing.
That is why we cannot accept these two proposals in this form.
What we are calling for and what should be proposed is the following: the burden-sharing must take place at the same time as the refugees are admitted.
When the refugees are admitted, it must be clear straight away which countries are to admit them and in what proportions, which should take into account the countries' capacity and economic performance.
If that does not happen, there will not be any burden-sharing at any later stage.
Certain details also ought to be mentioned.
We place the emphasis on admitting the refugees into different countries, not on financial assistance.
We would also ask you to consider, Mrs Gradin, whether five years is the right duration for the temporary admission regime.
Five years is more of an indicator of immigration than temporary protection.
From my own experience, I know that once someone has been there for five years, they will find it very difficult to leave their host country again.
We will certainly have to discuss all the other details.
I might mention the problem of family reunification.
It would be better to give someone outside the Union the opportunity to come in, rather than giving someone who has already come in the possibility of bringing his whole family to join him straight away.
That increases the number of those admitted and the corresponding burden.
The question for us was a political one: is the progress being made here such that, despite all the criticism, we can approve it; or is it so little that, if we agreed to it, we would meet with the reproach in the future that it has already been settled?
We say that the progress being made here is so minimal that we cannot pronounce ourselves satisfied with it.
That is why, Commissioner, we must unfortunately reject these two proposals.
Mr President, I would like to begin by paying tribute to the work of Mr Wiebenga on temporary protection for displaced persons.
The report he is presenting and the motion for a legislative resolution, if adopted by the Council, would provide an effective instrument for dealing with a migratory wave on the scale of that experienced in Bosnia and Herzegovina or, closer to home perhaps, a large-scale movement of displaced persons from Kosovo towards the Member States of the European Union.
I use the conditional tense for the simple reason that we cannot be careful enough in what we say since, having been asked to reach a decision in December on the matter currently under discussion, the Council is far from unanimous with regard to the proposals that have just been put forward by Mr Wiebenga.
The Commission's proposals for joint action on the temporary protection of displaced persons and solidarity in the reception and stay of those benefiting from such protection make up a whole.
The rapporteur has clearly highlighted the manner in which the first section of his report complements the Geneva Convention on refugees.
We are in complete agreement and we intend to keep up the pressure on all international bodies and all the authorities involved, with a view to influencing international law on this issue.
Moreover, experience shows that an unequal distribution of burdens gives rise to many problems linked to the implementation of the right of asylum or the treatment of persons who, for one reason or another, see no other solution to their sad fate than to cross the borders of the European Union.
We might remember the panic, which I would call ridiculous if the situation had not been so serious, that was caused by the arrival of a few Kurds in Italy last year, as though the presence of a few thousand Kurds in the territory of the European Union was likely to destabilise 350 million Europeans.
It is obviously absurd.
If the proposals contained in this report had been in force at that time, particularly those regarding burden-sharing in relation to the problem of displaced persons, the drama I have just mentioned would probably not have occurred.
Burdens must be fairly distributed for reasons of morals, ethics or simply a fundamental need for solidarity.
The example of the arrival of a few thousand Kurds in Bari effectively highlighted the weaknesses and gaps involving this issue and in terms of the application of existing rules. It also shows that if a larger number of refugees were to arrive on our territory, Europe would be ill-prepared to handle the situation.
I would not, however, want this debate to lead to a dialogue of the deaf on this matter because, as it is, considerable progress has, in fact, been made. That is why I call on the House to adopt the measures proposed by our friend, Mr Wiebenga, whom I would again like to thank most sincerely.
Mr President, it is always welcome when a rapporteur tries to make an already good report by the Commission even better.
As in the past, when he proved successful, the rapporteur has tried to do this here too, and we can support the main thrust of his proposals.
But we cannot support him on a very important point, namely Amendment No 5 to Article 3 concerning the maximum period during which this regulation would apply. Already set at five years in the proposal, he advocates further extending it, potentially by another five years.
I have two major objections to this.
First of all, I find the first period of five years already exceptionally long for temporary status.
This is a measure providing protection for temporarily displaced persons. In the light of all such cases which have arisen in the past, five years is very long.
If we are talking about a stable integration, a stable laying down of roots in a society, then people should not live for five years with the idea that the next day or perhaps at the end of this period they will have another status which may be much better, let alone that at the end of this five years they may find themselves facing another five years in this intolerable state of uncertainty.
We would therefore most strongly oppose the rapporteur's proposal for temporary status to be extended to a maximum of 10 years.
Another question, addressed not so much to the rapporteur as to the Commissioner, is that the precise role of the UNHCR remains unclear.
Various comments are made, but for example the second proposal on financial solidarity in Article 2(2) says: can ask the UNHCR for advice.
We believe this should be 'must' and in a number of explanations it has given it also seems as if that is what the Commission wants.
I should therefore like some clarification from the Commissioner on this point.
A good point in the proposal is that temporarily displaced persons are not going to be moved around.
We are now seeing where this can lead, because with the Dublin agreements that can indeed happen with asylum-seekers. Following claims made on that basis very large groups of asylum-seekers are ending up on the street, even in the Netherlands, because the Netherlands refuses to admit them because they were previously in another European country.
Fortunately, no such proposal is made in this case.
Finally, the rapporteur would like to see the word 'solidarity' deleted from the report.
He has good formal grounds for this.
I would be very pleased not to see the concept of 'solidarity' or the sense of the concept of 'solidarity' disappear, but simply the word.
I cannot help saying that it seems easier to pursue a liberal asylum policy in Europe than in the Netherlands.
I refer to Mr Wiebenga who is a front-runner for the VVD in the coming European elections and I must say that I have every sympathy for his traditional liberal approach, as it has already been described.
But that does not apply to his party in the Dutch Parliament.
Mr President, it goes without saying that the Group of the European Radical Alliance will fully support the text presented by Mr Wiebenga, and we would like to congratulate him very sincerely on his tenacity in this matter.
The problem today is that, on the one hand, refugees must enjoy a common system of protection and, on the other hand, the states and governments that take them in must themselves make similar efforts or at least employ comparable budgetary resources.
However, this all goes without saying.
The real problem lies in Europe's absence.
Earlier, Mr Zimmermann, who is regrettably absent, referred to the desert-like appearance of this Hemicycle, which precisely reflects Europe's total absence from each of the current crises.
Europe does not exist or, to be entirely accurate, Europe has failed to provide itself with the wherewithal to be present and active. It carries no weight in any of these crises.
We see this clearly in the eastern Mediterranean, we saw it in Bosnia, and we see it in Kosovo.
Europe's absence is a disaster, particularly since the United Nations itself has not been able to establish a form of intervention that allows it to preserve peace, to at least prevent armed conflicts from erupting, to prevent them from spreading when they do occur, and to protect civilian populations.
This does not mean that we wish to become the policemen of the world following the example of another great power. However, it is our duty to promote the structures for action by an international police force, which would not necessarily be European.
That is what we should work towards. Meanwhile, we will grant temporary shelter, we will provide protection for refugees, we will ease our consciences before sending them back home as soon as the situation in their country has changed, when it has become less heated or when our guilty consciences have become less acute.
We support the Wiebenga report, but it is only a beginning.
The bulk of the work remains to be done.
Thank you, Mr Pradier.
I would like to ask our friends in the galleries not to call out during the debates.
I am afraid that is not allowed, and I would not wish to have to ask for the galleries to be cleared.
If the speakers' words fire you with enthusiasm, please keep this to yourself and express it in a different place.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Wiebenga for his work.
Even if I do not always agree with him, and there are indeed a number of points in his report that I do not agree with, I would be the first to acknowledge that he is a person who is extremely serious and most courteous in his work.
Nonetheless, I find it surprising, and excessive, to consider temporary protection for five years, which may be doubled, thus totalling 10 years.
This, in fact, is no longer a question of temporary protection but involves immigration, which is not the topic under debate today.
Moreover, I am astonished at the proposal to replace unanimity, which has until now been used for decisions on solidarity mechanisms, with a qualified majority.
If the system is to work, the countries involved must give their consent.
However, I agree with Mr Pradier that this issue goes to the centre of the question of Europe's international influence.
We are told that 'Europe means peace', but Europe does not mean peace, because we have unfortunately seen that there is war in Europe and that the European Union allows the United States to settle European conflicts.
I wonder whether the unshakeable desire to have a common policy in diplomatic affairs is the right course and whether it would not have been preferable, particularly in settling the Yugoslavian conflict, to make use of the competences, traditions and historical relations of certain European nations, for instance between Germany and Croatia or between France and Serbia. This would have been better than trying in vain to achieve a unanimous position, which, at the end of the day, condemned Europe to a form of impotence that was deeply regrettable, both for the countries involved and for the European Union itself.
Clearly, we have a duty to take in refugees.
We have a duty in particular towards Central Europe.
I will never be able to repeat enough that the countries of the European Union have enjoyed freedom and prosperity at the cost of 40 years of slavery and abject poverty suffered by the countries of Central Europe.
Mr President, with a total of 90 seconds' speaking time I will confine myself to two interesting quotations. I would also briefly make the point that I continue to believe that Parliament leaves itself open to ridicule by limiting speaking time on such an important subject as asylum policy to such an extent that speakers are obliged to deal in superficialities.
The first comes from the Dutch liberals, from Frits Bolkestein, and dates from before the last European elections.
I quote: 'Refugees from outside Europe must find sanctuary in safe countries in their own part of the world.
As soon as a country becomes safe again, all refugees from that country should return.'
Surprisingly enough I do not find this spirit present either in the report or in the words of our liberal colleague Mr Wiebenga, who was nevertheless elected on this programme.
I therefore ask the question: Are there perhaps two VVD programmes, one for the electorate and one for the elected, one for the election campaign and one for afterwards?
The second quotation comes from the Flemish socialist Louis Tobback who in an election leaflet describes the majority of refugees in general as: 'Gulls who come to settle here on a rubbish tip, as that is easier than fishing or farming the land back home.'
These are not my words. It is not even my conviction.
These are the words and the conviction of the leader of the socialists in Flanders.
But the elected representatives for this party also sing another tune here in Parliament than their party leadership back home sing for their own voters.
This is deceiving the voters and I will continue to denounce it.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Wiebenga on a positive report which I think makes some extremely good proposals.
Quite clearly we had to do more to help with the kind of crisis situation we have had with Kosovo and Bosnia in recent years - the temporary influx of large numbers of people.
However, although I strongly support the need to retain the individual right of people who are suffering persecution to seek asylum, as enshrined in the Geneva Convention, a right which has existed for over 50 years, I do believe that we need to examine critically how we deal with the situation of people who are not necessarily fleeing from persecution by their governments, as was the concept behind the Geneva Convention, but are fleeing from civil war, from the total breakdown of law and order in the societies in which they live or from persecution by groups in society from whom their governments are either unwilling or unable to protect them.
This is a very important measure and I hope it is successful.
I do, nevertheless, have some reservations, not so much with the first part of Mr Wiebenga's report which I think I can endorse totally but with the second part.
First of all, on the question of burden-sharing: Mr Wiebenga referred to the fact that certain governments of the European Union, including that of Britain, have reservations about this. Burden-sharing sounds a good principle but on what basis is the burden to be shared?
Is it that the bigger countries take the larger number?
Is it that those countries which are the wealthiest should have the most? Is it that those countries which in the past have taken the largest numbers should be spared a little bit in the future?
There are all sorts of details and complications to be sorted out in respect of the issue of burden-sharing.
Then we come to the aspect dealt with in Article 2(1) of the proposals where the amendment before us - Amendment No 10 - proposes that we should move to majority voting in Council rather than unanimity. This is not something which I myself or the British Labour Members could go along with so we will have to dissent on that particular aspect, although, there is a great deal in the report with which we can agree.
It is critically important that we get these issues sorted out and overcome the difficulties and problems so that we can do our duty to offer sanctuary to those people who are genuinely fleeing persecution and of whom there are a great number.
We know that there are some who are not genuine but let us make sure that in trying to exclude those we do not fail in our duty to help those who are in genuine need because of the persecution they are suffering.
Mr President, Commissioner, what I have just heard makes me very unhappy.
This is because I feel that an unholy alliance is being formed - one that we also see in other circumstances - in which one side claims it wished the best to be the enemy of the good.
It is quite unacceptable that Parliament should run the risk of making a complete fool of itself by throwing out the proposal and achieving nothing.
Then the Council would also be able to accuse us of not wanting to do anything.
If that is what Parliament really wants, then we have to give some careful thought to our role!
In fact, I cannot help thinking that this is similar to the discussion we had regarding the Members' Statute.
In that discussion, the same people employing the same argument tried to delay the work.
Now - when there is comparative calm on our external borders - is the time to get on with it.
I really hope we can reach an understanding and approve Mr Wiebenga's excellent initiative.
I think that one of the most important aspects is that we should move to majority voting, since it would mean that Europe was really working.
Clearly, we shall be able to take a decision in conjunction with the Member States affected by it, at least that cannot be prevented.
I would also prefer to see my own country join the cooperation initiative.
I am among those who think that Finland has taken very little responsibility in the refugee issue and that it has been very short-sighted in its policy.
I should like to commend Mr Wiebenga on his report, and I hope we can all support it in order to avoid any unpleasant scenes when it comes to the vote.
I have one small comment, namely that we should pay more attention to last year's Council resolution 13/48, in which the EU and the Commission are requested to cooperate with the Council on this type of issue.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate Mr Wiebenga.
A generous policy towards refugees should be pursued as a matter of course in all democratic countries, and hence in all EU Member States.
Unfortunately, there is still considerable room for improvement.
There should be constructive cooperation to help people in need and those who are displaced.
Such cooperation should involve a voluntary agreement on burden-sharing, but it should not be a matter for legislation.
It should be painfully clear that this is a question of common humanity.
To ensure that such a policy becomes firmly established in the Member States, a unanimous decision is vital.
We in the Green Group would naturally like to see our amendment approved, and we believe that Commissioner Gradin's proposal on joint action to provide temporary protection is worth considering.
The report reinforces the human dimension, but such an instrument must nevertheless be seen as complementing the Geneva Convention on Refugees and definitely not as an alternative.
It is important for refugees to continue to have protection under the terms of the Convention - any other arrangement would be wholly unacceptable.
Mr President, you cannot open a newspaper anywhere in Europe without being confronted with the dramatic issue of asylum-seekers and the major differences of opinion of governments on this.
This is a huge problem and I must say that if what I learned at school was true, that to govern is to anticipate, then people have governed very badly in the various Member States and in Europe in recent times.
The conflict in the former Yugoslavia was clearly going to create flows of refugees.
The conflict presently raging in Kosovo could have been predicted two years ago.
As early as 1997 there was talk of the need for a displaced person status.
I am convinced of the need for this.
I am interested to hear the different views, the differences of opinion and objections of all concerned, but I have to say that by trying to do what is best we can fail to do what is good.
If at present we have no European solution then this means that there is no solution anywhere.
Because when a solution is found in Germany which is different to the one found in the Netherlands, then the flows of refugees simply shift.
We therefore need a European status and we must also ensure that solidarity is given an acceptable form.
For this reason we will say 'yes' to the proposal, even if we are tempted to debate a number of aspects which are important but on which we will never reach unanimity and which must not prevent us from doing what must be done.
But despite all this I still think it is scandalous that we have no common foreign policy worthy of the name.
It is scandalous that the European countries are still failing to confront the real causes of these flows of people seeking security and a better life, because our development cooperation is no good and because we close our eyes to the need for a mobility policy which is also concerned with people and not just capital and goods.
Mr President, the situation of the refugees from Kosovo does urgently require a solution, and this above all means having a fair system for distributing the people.
Austria's response to the crises of recent years, as also acknowledged here, has been exemplary; it has admitted displaced persons, in particular from the stricken area of Bosnia, and has integrated most of them into society.
In the meantime, however, - as Mr Pirker rightly said - the capacity of the Austrian population to bear this burden has reached its limit.
If the word solidarity is not to be meaningless in the European Union, it is time for us to take action in pursuit of our common objectives.
No Member State should be able to buy its way out of this responsibility.
Each one should admit displaced persons in numbers corresponding to its size and population, and in so doing reveal the much flaunted European conscience.
We believe - for the reasons already mentioned by Mr Nassauer - that dividing the proposal into two parts, and thus deferring the issue of burden-sharing, is unjustifiable.
Only if a decision is taken as rapidly as possible on the whole package will we really do justice to the concerns of European citizens.
Mr President, I did not wish to interrupt Mr Hager, but simply to say the following.
At three minutes past four, I asked to make a point of order for the following reason. There are two possibilities: either you begin the topical and urgent debate at 4 p.m. precisely, or you take all the remaining speakers on the Wiebenga report after 4 p.m.
What is unacceptable, however, is for you to give some colleagues the floor after 4 p.m. and postpone others' interventions to this evening.
It has to be one thing or the other!
Mr Posselt, we had to complete the first round of speakers from all the political groups.
That is why there has been a delay of three minutes.
The debate on the Wiebenga report is suspended, and will continue after the voting on topical and urgent subjects.
Mr President, I assume that the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin, can speak again in the course of this debate in order to reply to the points and questions we have raised.
Mr Wiebenga, you must understand that the order of business has been established in advance and we are sticking to it exactly.
The debate on your report will continue when voting has been completed.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following seven motions for resolutions on food aid to Russia:
B4-1002/98 by Mr Väyrynen and Mrs Kjer Hansen, on behalf of the ELDR Group; -B4-1008/98 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-1018/98 by Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, on behalf of the UPE Group; -B4-1019/98 by Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès, on behalf of the ARE Group; -B4-1030/98 by Mrs Schroedter, Mr Lagendijk and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the V Group; -B4-1034/98 by Mr Provan and others, on behalf of the PPE Group; -B4-1043/98 by Mr Seppänen and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group.
Mr President, Commissioner, on the subject of the granting of aid to Russia, the Liberal Group wants the European Union to grant emergency aid to the Russian Federation.
That is clear.
The people of that country are facing an extremely difficult, precarious and cold situation.
We must not close our eyes to the fate of the population and stubbornness on our part due to reasons of accounting is out of place in the face of such problems.
But this does not alter the fact that the Russian Government must clearly understand that this positive signal from our side must meet with a positive signal from their side.
A responsible financial policy and firm undertakings to the IMF are essential in order to find lasting solutions to the problems of the Russian economy.
I know, these are just a lot of words, simple words, for a gigantic task.
A serious approach to fraud is also very important.
In this respect, in granting emergency aid the Union must also respect the Russian market as much as possible, which is why I call on the Council to approve the Commission proposal to make ECU 400 million available to the Russians.
Finally, the Commission must consult Parliament when drawing up the memorandum of understanding.
Thank you very much for the generous extra time.
Ladies and gentlemen, the time available for topical and urgent debate is very short, as you know.
So please stick to the time each speaker has been allocated for his or her speech.
Mr President, it is 2- here in Strasbourg and it has snowed, but we are nice and warm with good food to eat.
That is why it is evident to me that we must help the Russians who are suffering extreme cold with nothing to eat.
My motto is: Help the Russians through the winter.
Of course we have not forgotten that billions granted in loans to Russia failed to achieve their objective and profited a rich elite.
The recent visit by German Chancellor Schröder to President Yeltsin shows that German flexibility in granting loans is over.
720 banks are on the verge of closure and the rest are unable to honour their undertakings.
Russia must pursue a different policy if it wants to escape these distressing financial and economic circumstances.
But this does not yet seem to be the case, because in his latest plans Prime Minister Primakov speaks of more State intervention.
Which means he has totally rejected Mr Schröder's advice to follow the IMF rules.
Despite this we cannot disregard an appeal by the International Red Cross for food aid for the poorest people living in the most remote areas.
It is therefore an excellent thing for the Commission to have taken this initiative.
But I believe the Russians should agree to tax-free imports, fraud controls and unrestricted distribution.
Time is short.
We want to help the Russians through the winter, but they must give us the scope to explain to Europe's taxpayers that their money is being used altruistically.
We are helping the Russians through the winter, but with checks.
Mr President, I think that what Mr Bertens has said diplomatically may be stated in a more direct manner.
The truth of the matter is that we are today prisoners of our credits to Russia.
It goes without saying that the Group of the European Radical Alliance will vote for this resolution in favour of humanitarian aid to Russia, given the current disastrous humanitarian situation in the country.
But, in point of fact, we have no policy regarding Russia and it is not possible to have one because our credits and the power they indirectly give the Russians over our banks mean that the Russians may do as they like. They turn a deaf ear to the demands of the European Union.
They do not undertake privatisations, particularly of land, which would place Russia in a position to produce what it needs for its own consumption.
Thus, our hands are firmly tied and it is quite impossible to promote or strengthen a reform policy in Russia. Here again, the problem involves the lack of a European policy.
Mr President, in the discussion on emergency aid the question is often raised as to whether or not it is really necessary.
Is there really a food shortage in Russia? To be honest, generally speaking this is a difficult question to answer.
But what I am sure about is that there are most certainly major regions and major groups facing a real food shortage.
Consider the regions in northern Russia.
I read a newspaper report this very morning that the Eskimos in northern Russia are facing a severe food shortage and are moving south in large numbers.
Then there are groups such as old people living alone, the homeless and prisoners who certainly do not have enough food.
In addition to food, there is clearly also a shortage of medicines almost everywhere, which is why I believe it is a good idea to grant this emergency aid.
I understand that the Commission's intention is not to give the food free of charge but to sell it and set up a social fund with the proceeds.
It seems to me that one of the conditions for this must be not to set the prices too high as otherwise you will not help the people you want to help, who are mainly the people with the least money, while people with a lot of money will be able to buy the aid.
What must be carefully avoided, and I say this on the basis of fairly close contact with the people in Russia over recent weeks, is that people in Russia, and also Europe, get the idea that this food aid is being used to dump Europe's surpluses. They must not think that the motivation is to serve Europe's interests by disposing of its surpluses rather than to help certain Russian regions and certain Russians to obtain sufficient food.
This impression must be avoided at all costs.
Finally, Mr President, a point which has been much repeated: distribution is a major problem.
I can well imagine that the Commission also does not know for sure whether everything that is imported goes to precisely the right area.
My suggestion would be to work principally with the regions rather than to try to reach everybody through a national distribution channel, because I am convinced that it is at regional level that there is the greatest certainty, the best chance of getting the food and the medicine through to where it is needed.
Mr President, it is not often that somebody from this side of the House can get up and agree totally with what has just been said before by the Greens.
I welcome very much what Mr Lagendijk has just said because I agree with him practically entirely.
We are facing a very difficult position as I am sure you are aware yourself.
Some of the difficulties that we are facing are because we are not sure of the actual facts and the information we are getting.
When a number of us paid a visit to Moscow recently we were surprised to find a number of the NGOs and, since my return, the World Health Organisation saying that they are not really sure that food aid is what is required in Russia at the present time: maybe in one or two of the regions but not necessarily general food aid.
The first essential to try to resolve the situation is to have proper political and economic stability within the country.
As a result of 17 August all sorts of financial consequences are really impinging very greatly on people.
Until 17 August we had also seen huge fraud and a huge incidence of crime.
That is very much to be regretted and something that has to be stamped out if we are going to get proper aid programmes developed for the people in Russia here and now.
The real problem is non-payment of pensions, of soldiers, doctors and teachers.
We could go through a number of categories of people who are just not getting the income to be able to buy the food that may be available within the country itself.
This is causing huge hardship to great sectors of the population and the lack of purchasing power therefore has a consequence on the food supply.
The lack of cash for medicines has also to be tackled because the health problems that the people are beginning to face in Russia are severe.
The government can no longer afford to import food from outside their own country.
They have been depending on 40 % of their food supply coming from outside and that is the void that we are going to have to try and fill.
It is really an economic problem.
The banks are bankrupt.
The issue is not necessarily food shortage and if we are to get the food distributed properly we have got to find ways at European level of making sure it is actually going to go to the regions that require it.
The second essential is that we have to work closely with the United States on any programme we develop.
It would be wrong for a 'divide and rule' policy to be undertaken by the Russian Government at the present time, which is what could happen.
We must address all the questions of food, health, the economy and political stability in one programme, if that is possible.
Mr President, Russia has made an abrupt switch from communism to capitalism. It has been a bit like making a U-turn at top speed.
The nation has gone flying off the stage and into the mud, but the oligarchs sit safely strapped in by their state-issue seatbelts and wave their hats.
The first condition of financial aid must be that it no longer goes to those engaged in shady dealings. Corruption at government level must be stopped.
And so to the question of food aid: when you have problems in common, you have opportunities in common.
I do not believe that aid should be given via a commercial chain and all at once, but gradually and through social organisations.
We lost money the last time through using commercial networks of distribution.
There are plenty of community organisations and they target a great number of different areas.
There is even a TV programme called VID, which specialises in helping people.
Let us use care links such as nursery schools and old people's homes, and then we will be able to exert effective control on three levels: the EU, the state and the ministry that deals with emergency aid, which has the means and resources.
Mr President, as we have heard, there is a serious state of affairs in Russia, and the financial situation means that the scope for importing food has been greatly reduced.
This should be seen in connection with the fact that Russia depends on imports for 40 % of its food supplies.
It is therefore very welcome that the Commission is now ready to propose, after months of pressure from the European Parliament and elsewhere, that food aid should be provided with a value of more than DKR 3 billion.
However, it is absolutely vital - not least in the light of the discussions currently taking place on the discharge - that this measure is implemented properly.
This also means that we are insisting that the food aid must not distort the domestic market, and that it is targeted and given to those most in need.
Finally, I should like to ask the Commissioner to appreciate that the implementation of this food aid measure will be closely followed by Parliament and also by the European public, and it is crucial that these things are carried out properly.
I thank the honourable Members for their contribution, from which I clearly conclude that there is broad support for a food programme for Russia.
I welcome the content of the motion for a resolution now before us and we also regard this as important support for our work in this field.
It was not until 12 November that the Commission received a formal request from the Russian Government for a special food programme, although it had long been clear that such a request could be granted.
As has been pointed out this afternoon, it is just that it is difficult to determine exactly how large and important the need for food aid really is.
It also varies very much from one region to another.
We are at present thinking in terms of a programme of between ECU 400 and 500 million for the supply of various products worth around ECU 400 to 500 million.
As has also been correctly pointed out this afternoon, implementing the programme is a complicated business.
This is why we very recently distributed for Parliament's information a Commission document which clearly sets out the background and bases for this action.
It is indeed exceptionally important for the Russian Government to submit a detailed implementation plan as soon as possible for the regions needing aid and also concerning the distribution channels and the various checks and controls.
The Commission also intends to attach a number of other stringent conditions, such as the immediate halting of distribution if there is any question of the goods being re-exported to other markets outside Russia.
The goods must also be sold at local market prices and the proceeds must be transferred to a special provision in the Russian budget set aside to finance special programmes.
The Commission will soon be having discussions with the Russian Government to draw up a memorandum of understanding.
There have of course already been talks on this and a delegation visited Moscow.
This memorandum of understanding must also set out the basic principles for the action to which I have just referred.
It is also important to ensure the closest possible cooperation with our American partners who have also drawn up a food programme.
Precisely because of the political as well as humanitarian importance of this whole operation, a specific draft regulation will be drawn up as soon as possible setting out all these basic principles for the information of the European Parliament.
I should like to stress very clearly that this is not a zero risk operation.
The whole programme is surrounded by far too many uncertainties which cannot be removed.
All we can do is to provide the maximum protection against these risks by setting conditions, drawing up a memorandum of understanding with the Russian Government and exchanging experiences with other donors such as the Americans.
We believe it to be a far greater risk to do nothing at all because of these uncertainties.
That too we could not allow.
When the regulation is submitted to you for consideration under the urgent procedure, I would also ask Parliament to give the necessary priority to delivering its approval or opinion so that we can act quickly.
Winter has begun, stocks are shrinking and this is a case where we must be ready as quickly as possible.
Finally a few words about the more specific humanitarian aid.
This week the ECHO mission travelled to Russia and ECU 7 million will soon be made available to fund a number of projects already prepared by non-governmental organisations.
In talks with the Russian Minister Bulkak, who will soon be visiting Brussels, I will once again be stressing the need for a solution to a number of barriers which currently stand in the way of providing effective aid, especially for these NGOs.
The intention is for this aid to go mainly to hospitals, hospital supplies and similar.
Mr President, we hope that we have at least made a gesture of solidarity towards Russia, but you can be sure that we will impress upon the authorities inside the country the need to closely monitor the programme's implementation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following six motions for resolutions on nuclear disarmament:
B4-0998/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group; -B4-1009/98 by Mrs Theorin, on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-1031/98 by Mrs Schroedter and others, on behalf of the V Group; -B4-1035/98 by Mr Cushnahan, Mr Oostlander and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group; -B4-1040/98 by Mrs Ewing and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the ARE Group; -B4-1044/98 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group.
Mr President, the liberals are very pleased at the initiative by the New Agenda Coalition.
Eight countries from five different continents, very varied in terms of size and political relationships, are seeking to intervene in nuclear disarmament.
My group wants initiatives to be taken which will break the deadlock on nuclear disarmament, certainly now that the world is no longer bipolar and locked in conflict.
We are therefore very pleased that 12 of the 16 NATO countries have had the courage to depart from the stance of the nuclear superpowers and to opt for an unorthodox approach. They rightly raise a number of questions.
When will START II be ratified? When will negotiations on START III begin?
When will the nuclear nations begin real negotiations on nuclear disarmament? That is why I am pleased that the UN First Committee voted by an overwhelming majority for a resolution calling for ratification of the CTBT and the de-alerting of nuclear weapons, cooperation with the IAEA and a moratorium on the production of nuclear material.
There is nothing controversial in this and it does not contradict NATO doctrine.
Finally, the UN resolution calls on the nuclear nations to consider additional measures, such as the promise not to be the first to use nuclear weapons.
Finally, we support the original text which supports the UN resolution, but not the amendments tabled by the Greens.
The Greens go further than the New Agenda Coalition, but that is not achievable and breaks the broad coalition.
This resolution is designed to win a broad majority at the UN General Assembly.
I believe the amendments tabled by the Greens will make this unlikely, and I therefore hope that the Greens will withdraw them.
Mr President, on behalf of Mrs Theorin, who initiated this resolution, and my Group I would ask all Members to support it.
Through their resolution in the UN Ireland and Sweden have taken the initiative in accordance with the Canberra Commission proposal for a nuclear weapon-free world.
We support their demand that all nuclear weapons should be taken off alert.
To have nuclear weapons on alert nine years after the end of the Cold War is unbelievable and creates great risks for us all.
As Mr Bertens said, Parliament supports the initiatives taken by the eight countries in the New Agenda Coalition.
The European Parliament has always made clear that it wants the European Union to be serious about the issue of nuclear disarmament and this particular initiative is one further step on the path to global nuclear disarmament.
Looking at the detail of the resolution, we would call on the Member States which have not done so - which are abstaining - to vote 'yes' in the General Assembly.
We call on those countries which possess nuclear weapons to fulfil their commitment to disarm by virtue of Article VI of the NPT.
We also call on the non-nuclear weapons members of the NPT to fulfil their treaty commitments, i.e. not to receive, manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.
I hope this will have the wholehearted support of the House.
Mr President, nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction which put the whole of humanity at risk.
In an earlier resolution, Parliament has already clearly confirmed the judgment of the International Court of Justice which stated this, and that is why we should also remain consistent in our decisions here.
All of us know the threat that nuclear weapons represent.
It is absurd to want to continue to retain nuclear weapons or even the first-strike option.
The significance of the New Agenda Coalition's success in the United Nations' First Committee must once again be strongly emphasised here.
Out of 16 NATO countries, 12 voted in favour or abstained.
That also sends out an important signal to the European Union's Member States to rethink their defence strategies.
In this respect, we regret the fact that Slovenia has now left the group of eight.
This country has the potential to play an important role in establishing a new security strategy in Europe.
It is important to abolish the right of first use of nuclear weapons, a vestige of the Cold War, and here I refer once again to the new German Government's coalition agreement, bearing in mind that the German Government could perhaps take the lead on an initiative to further develop the common foreign and security policy.
The new federal government wants to keep to its objective of the complete abolition of weapons of mass destruction, and will participate in initiatives to this end in cooperation with its partners and allies.
It wishes to commit itself to achieving the aim of bringing nuclear disarmament to the fore and thus reducing the state of alert of nuclear weapons and abandoning the idea of first use.
I think that this creates significant impetus.
Mr President, I welcome the initiative taken by the New Agenda Coalition.
It is particularly opportune and appropriate that such a development should occur in the post Cold War period.
I would especially like to pay tribute to the current Irish Government for the pivotal and skilful role it has played in bringing this initiative to fruition.
It was encouraging that the United Nations First Committee passed the New Agenda Coalition resolution last Friday.
It was significant that members of the European Union either supported it or abstained.
I hope those Member States that abstained and displayed such openness will be persuaded to vote for the resolution when it comes before the General Assembly for a final vote next month.
Undoubtedly there are some Members who have some reservations about this resolution, particularly if they support the establishment of an EU defence policy.
I would like to reassure them.
Personally I support the establishment of an EU defence policy.
I see it as a core component of European integration and I do not consider it inconsistent to support such a view whilst at the same time working for nuclear disarmament.
It is also significant that the resolution before the United Nations in no way contradicts either existing EU or NATO policies.
I welcome the broad support for this urgency but, on behalf of my group, I would like to indicate that we strongly oppose the two amendments tabled by the Green Group.
I hope that at the end of this discussion we will have a resolution that will be overwhelmingly supported by this Parliament and, in its own way, will create an impetus for support for the overall resolution in the UN General Assembly.
Mr President, we view this resolution as part of the general push towards disarmament, and nuclear disarmament in particular.
We do not believe threats of suicide constitute effective defence - not even for those who still seek to defend the nuclear ideal of a deterrent.
This is no longer responsible, because in the meantime the proliferation of nuclear weapons continues unabated.
There must also be a stop to all nuclear tests and all research in this field.
But none of this should make us blind to the terrible effects of other weapons, of chemical weapons which we also want to see banished from the world.
Last week I was very struck by what I saw in the media concerning the development of biological weapons.
What I mean to say is that a general push towards disarmament, including what are traditionally known as 'light weapons', must not make us forget that most countries seeking a new world want to banish nuclear weapons first and foremost, but that is only the beginning.
We also need to take a good look at whether we in Europe should not put a stop to the smuggling of certain arms which still goes on in the Member States present here today.
Mr President, the end of the Cold War led us to believe that nuclear arms had disappeared.
They had perhaps disappeared from government priorities and also, regrettably, from the priorities of some sectors of public opinion, but in reality they continued to exist as the main threat to the survival of the planet.
Almost 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, nuclear weapon stocks remain undiminished.
We have even seen France carrying out tests as recently as 1995, while other countries, such as India and Pakistan, were testing only a short while ago.
It is therefore absolutely vital that we continue to call for nuclear disarmament.
And in this respect, we welcome the actions of those countries involved in the campaign urging the United Nations General Assembly to clearly indicate its position on this matter.
I therefore believe that with this resolution, Parliament will support their efforts, in line with public opinion throughout Europe.
Mr President, I would point out that this motion for a resolution is not directed at the Commission as we have no competence on this point.
So I would limit my comments to supporting the call for the nuclear countries to determine to make systematic and progressive efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world with the ultimate aim of banishing them entirely.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, the joint resolution on the freedom of expression in Algeria is intended to demonstrate our solidarity with the Algerian press.
The country's press, which plays a decisive role in combating the terrorist fundamentalism that rages in that country, has often paid a heavy price and too many journalists have died in the defence of freedom.
We certainly have no intention of interfering in domestic affairs, but we do consider that it is our duty to defend, here and elsewhere, fundamental freedoms, which obviously include the freedom of the press.
We must point out that the Algerian State has suspended the publication of a number of newspapers for several weeks, on the pretext of commercial disputes.
These newspapers had made disturbing revelations that directly involved individuals close to the President, in particular General Betchine, who is accused of financial embezzlement in the Benboualia affair, and the Minister for Justice, Mr Adami, who had apparently brought pressure to bear on the courts.
The fact that the authorities are able to take such action means that they have a de facto monopoly over the press, newsprint, the printing houses and advertising.
In a state that claims to be democratic, the press must be free and cannot be subject to State control, even indirectly.
We therefore call on Algeria to guarantee the freedom of the press, without any more pressure either from monopolies or the information code, and to carry out these reforms promptly.
We are only a few months away from the presidential elections of April 1999, and we call urgently for fundamental freedoms to prevail and for the establishment of a transparent and pluralist democratic debate prior to the election.
Mr President, of course I come from a country where the freedom of the press was not something we experienced, and we suffered greatly as a result.
I therefore feel a deep sense of solidarity with the journalists in Serbia and, in particular, Algeria.
It is typical of governments who are no longer trusted one hundred per cent by the population to employ a means of retaining power, and this is called restricting the freedom of the press.
It is also very typical, and just as reprehensible, that methods such as a paper and printing monopoly are used to restrict press freedom.
In this respect, I should like, on behalf of the Greens, to express my solidarity with the journalists in Algeria, who have the courage to fight against this and often pay for this courage with their lives.
As the European Union, which puts democracy first - before economic relations - we need to insist on the freedom of the press being fully restored, both in Algeria and in Serbia, as the central pillar of democracy.
We cannot turn a blind eye and say: fine, then of course we can bring the agreement into force, then of course we can continue to send economic aid to this country, unless the freedom of the press is established first.
At this stage, I would ask Mr van den Broek how he sees the future of the Mediterranean Agreement with Algeria and what other measures Algeria will be required to take.
My second question to you, Mr van den Broek, is this: against the background of the Dayton Agreement, how do you intend to respond to the obvious restrictions placed on the press in the Republic of Serbia?
Mr President, Commissioner, I have been to Algeria twice this year, and the Algerians were always very proud to point out that the press was free in their country, that there was even a very diverse press, and that is as it should be.
In the light of this, the restrictions placed on the publication of several newspapers were all the more incomprehensible and serious.
Although I know that behind all this there is also a power struggle - because the Algerians are again showing a certain pride here, that despite these restrictions two ministers have had to go - I still think that this internal power struggle should not and cannot be played out at the expense of journalists and newspapers.
Democracy is indivisible, and the freedom of the press is part of it.
I hope that the latest development, that these newspapers have all been published again, is a permanent one.
I would call on the Algerian Government to ensure that there is complete freedom here.
Personally, I see the situation in Yugoslavia as more serious.
Whenever Milosevic has had to give way outside the country, he has increased the pressure at home.
That is what he has now done with the universities and newspapers.
That is completely unacceptable, and we need to do all we can to help those who are displaying any final remnant of freedom and of plurality in this country.
In this context, I should like to ask you, Commissioner, to make a statement, here and now, that you will do everything in your power to ensure that the money and the support promised to the media there is actually delivered, and delivered in good time.
Unfortunately, we have had to hear from editors in Serbia, in Yugoslavia, that they are waiting a very, very long time.
I believe that until recently they were still waiting for money from the European Commission from 1997.
It must not be the case that these newspapers are no longer able to be published not only because of Mr Milosevic, but possibly also because of the Commission's inefficiency.
I would ask you to exercise your authority clearly here, Commissioner, to ensure that this help is given.
Mr President, very briefly, on the subject of Serbia, I think that I will abstain.
This is, yet again, a 'lukewarm' resolution and I am beginning to fear that my friends in the PPE have developed the Socialist group's syndrome, which is, as we all know, to never make waves and not to upset the governments.
Of course, the PPE is no longer a part of many governments, which leaves me some hope.
Nonetheless, I am beginning to fear that we will soon see an initiative supporting the award of the Nobel Prize to Mr Holbrooke and Mr Milosevic.
That is just how desperate I think the situation has become.
For our part, we will continue our campaign to ensure that charges are brought against Mr Milosevic.
There can be no aid, there can be no possible reform in Serbia while that crook remains in power, and people must begin to accept that.
There are already 120 of us who believe that in this Parliament.
As far as Algeria is concerned, the situation there is completely outrageous.
It is unfortunate that we must speak about this in the absence of one of our great contemporaries, Mr Cohn-Bendit, who initiated this resolution, together with others, such as Mrs André-Léonard. He is also our rapporteur on the Algerian question.
It is madness!
The motives underpinning this resolution are disappearing.
All the issues have been removed from the original text because they have meanwhile been settled by the Algerian editors, its government and its parliament.
It is not just the Algerian Embassy that says so; there are documents that bear this out.
The substance of this resolution is being removed, but it remains on Parliament's agenda.
I believe that this manner of proceeding comes very close to the limits of our Rules of Procedure and, with all due respect to my very good friend Mrs André-Léonard, the situation of the press in Algeria is considerably better than in other countries, such as Tunisia, which is in the papers this morning, and perhaps also her own country.
I believe that a particular form of indirect censorship is indeed carried out in Belgium, and we have been among those who have identified it in a number of matters that are corrupting the country.
And it is not the only case in the Union, although I think that certain harmful developments there set it apart from other countries of the European Union.
So, we are doing all we can to undermine the credibility of a country, in this case Algeria, that has a huge problem, that must tackle the transition from a communist regime to a multi-party regime and that has adopted a number of reforms.
We are doing all we possibly can to prevent European investors from believing even for a moment in the possibility of a different future for that country.
We systematically send absurd signals that are not understood either by public opinion in Algeria or by public opinion in Europe. In the same way, they are obviously not understood by investors and those who could contribute something positive to Algeria.
It is outrageous!
Mr President, Mr Soulier was to address the House today.
Unfortunately, he has been detained by unavoidable circumstances and so I will speak in his place.
You will all remember that the European Parliament delegation, which visited Algeria in February and which was, in fact, led by Mr Soulier, had concluded that Algeria had embarked upon a democratic process following the election of President Amin Zeroual.
Elections by universal suffrage made it possible to elect the National People's Assembly, marked by a multi-party system and freedom of debate.
Elections were held a few months later, also by universal suffrage, throughout Algeria that allowed local authorities to be established.
The members of the delegation had concluded that encouragement should be given to these efforts aimed at establishing democracy in Algeria.
That opinion has been corroborated by the various subsequent missions to that country, including parliamentary delegations from Spain, France and Canada. These also included the panel appointed by the UN, which was led last summer by the former President of Portugal, Mr Mario Soares.
However, while any obstacles to this progression towards democracy must be removed, we must not keep our concerns to ourselves or fail to offer the friendly advice that governments who wish to strengthen their relations should offer each other.
And that is the nature of the motion for a resolution before the House today.
In a few months time, Algeria will elect a new president.
It is to be hoped, for the sake of Algeria and the European Union, that the verdict at the ballot box is unequivocal.
The successful outcome of the negotiations culminating in the signature of the association agreement between Europe and Algeria depends on it.
Freedom of the press is one of the conditions of democratic debate.
All those who visited Algeria noticed the exceptional freedom in the tenor of the newspapers published in Algeria, both French and Arabic.
It is essential for this freedom to be maintained and guaranteed.
That naturally depends on constitutional guarantees, but also on the economic and financial conditions that must prevail in this sector that is part and parcel of democracy.
Mr President, my group is very unhappy, to say the least, at the actions of Milosevic and the Parliament of the former Yugoslavia to suppress freedom of expression.
By suppressing alternative information sources, Milosevic is trying to impose his will on the population.
Everybody knows that his is the voice of the old communism and narrow-minded nationalism which was also the cause of the tragedy in Bosnia.
If he gets the chance to pursue his dictatorial policy unpunished, the Kosovo question will also assume the same proportions.
I know, I am pleased to say, that the European Commission is pursuing an active policy to promote the freedom of the press in the former Yugoslavia.
I also understand that the Union does not have much influence over Milosevic's policy.
Yet I hope that the Commission and the Member States will make an extra effort to promote free education and free media.
The Council of Ministers must remain very vigilant when it comes to political and military developments in Kosovo and we must keep the military stick to hand if we want to lend force to our policy regarding Milosevic.
Mr President, the closure of newspapers, the imposition of fines and the persecution of journalists once more show President Milosevic for what he is before the international community.
However, experience shows that measures directed against freedom of the press will sooner or later, but with mathematical certainty, backfire precisely against those who adopt such measures.
The government in Belgrade must understand that the tactics it is pursuing will not help to solve the enormous problems that prevail in the area.
On the other hand, we must welcome the decision by the government of Montenegro, a decision which ensures complete freedom of expression for the mass media, both local and international.
The European Parliament calls on Belgrade to change its attitude.
We express our solidarity with the journalists and mass media facing persecution, and I would like to ask Mr van den Broek to cooperate with us in helping those who are fighting for freedom of thought.
Mr President, the suppression of the universities and media in Serbia is, I believe, an encouraging sign, to the extent that it shows that there are forces for freedom there of which, unfortunately, too little is seen at international level.
The Serbian people and Milosevic are still lumped together in accordance with a thesis of collective guilt, something from which other nations have also had to suffer.
I should like to take up what Mrs Pack said.
Precisely because I am German, I should like to emphasise that a distinction has to be drawn between dictators and the people.
We need to support the liberal movements amongst the Serbian people with all our strength and we need to give more thorough consideration to the question: what will become of Serbia?
Of course, that is also closely connected with finding answers to the Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo questions, countries which have a right to develop independently.
There will never be peace and freedom in the region unless Milosevic finally disappears and ends up before the International Court!
International Criminal Court
Mr President, the events of the last few days, from Pinochet to Priebke to Öcalan, confirm - if it were necessary - the need, in fact the urgent need, for an international criminal court capable of dealing with crimes against humanity.
The increasingly tangible decline of the UN's traditional role as a world organisation able to guarantee order and peace calls for the creation, still under the aegis of the United Nations, of new, more flexible international bodies, designed to deal with monstrous crimes like genocide, xenophobia, torture and violations of human rights.
So the decision taken on 17 July in Rome to establish the world's first international criminal court is of historic significance.
No longer will justice be reserved only for the victors or the strongest - this is the beginning of real justice for the citizens of the world, all equal at last before an independent court.
The European Parliament, and more generally the European Union, must therefore do their utmost to prevent the civilising efforts of the Rome Conference from being wasted, getting Member States which have not yet signed the Statute to do so, urging all the Member States of the Union to ratify the treaty and taking practical steps to increase the number of states supporting the initiative, as well as making European Union relations with third countries subject to signature.
Finally, all the Community institutions must make it a priority to adopt the measures necessary for establishing the preparatory committee as soon as possible ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner van den Broek, I am particularly pleased that this debate is being held.
The House is not very crowded, it is true - and I say that in view of the vote - but I hope Parliament will demonstrate once again, as it has done before, its attachment to this cause, and highlight the need for the Statute to be ratified so that it can come into force as soon as possible. We call for ratification by our governments, first and foremost, and by the other countries which decided to set up the court in the historic vote on 17 July in Rome.
60 countries are needed: we ask, through Parliament, for 31 December 2000 to be the date this court comes into existence and ends the impunity now protecting so many tyrants and dictators - not just in retirement, like Pinochet, but active, like Slobodan Milosevic and others - through the arrival of international criminal justice handed down by a permanent criminal court.
The European Union has been in the front line in this battle.
A great victory was won in Rome, thanks not least to the commitment of the European Commission, a commitment shared by many non-governmental organisations, which are here together today, moreover, as a result of an initiative which we took with Mr Dupuis, the Radical Alliance and the 'No peace without justice' movement.
So let us launch a great ratification campaign to get the court established on 1 January 2001!
Mr President, I would almost say that it seems like the devil's work, but in the light of recent events there have never been so many good reasons to set up a permanent international criminal court quickly.
Mention has already been made of the Pinochet affair.
It is clear to me that in this case, when a request has been made for extradition for crimes against humanity, a permanent international criminal court could certainly be very useful.
The latest focus of attention, the extradition or request for extradition of Mr Ocalan, the former leader of the PKK, is somewhat more complicated.
But there too I am convinced that an international court could do a good job, if only to determine what is political and what is criminal in this case.
As far as we are concerned, recent events provide reason enough to set up this international court quickly.
Mr President, the creation of the International Criminal Court has been a triumph of what could be called citizens' diplomacy. This huge movement of public opinion led in many countries to a large number of governments participating in the conference held in Rome, and, therefore, resulted in the creation of this Court.
With its creation, the Court has been granted insufficient powers and competences, and there is a danger that it might become what I would term 'the dreamworld of the just' if enough governments do not quickly set up ratification instruments as well as, naturally, the mechanisms needed to enable the committee involved to set this Court in motion.
What is more, this citizens' diplomacy, or public opinion, which led to the achievements in Rome, must be positively encouraged.
This is especially important when there are cases pending that evidently show that an International Criminal Court is highly appropriate for judging, for example, criminals such as the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet who, over the past few weeks, has sought refuge in the loopholes of national laws. I would like to take this opportunity to say that I sincerely hope that next Wednesday will be a day to commemorate as the day on which the decision was taken to extradite Pinochet to Spain, where he will be judged on the crimes he has been accused of, crimes that include genocide, torture and terrorism.
This International Criminal Court is, in fact, needed to do away with this protective shield of impunity.
It is quite incredible to think that such protection actually exists, given that the perpetrators of such crimes are known, yet the hand of justice cannot touch them.
I therefore think that the Council and the Commission must once again to do all they can to ensure that the treaty drawn up in Rome is signed, so that the ratification instrument can be set up and so that the International Criminal Court can soon become a reality.
Mr President, we have now debated three motions for resolutions, firstly on Algeria, then on Serbia and now on the International Criminal Court.
For me, it was actually very telling that the word Milosevic occurred in nearly every intervention, regardless of which topic was being addressed.
That should in fact show that we really do lack international criminal law and an institution such as an International Criminal Court.
We have two 'mini criminal courts' dealing with Yugoslavia and Rwanda, but they undoubtedly do not have the scope which a well-funded International Criminal Court would have.
They are not empowered - and would need to be - to intervene in national matters, if they see that these are to do with protecting human rights in a particular context.
Nor are they able to become really involved in a case through a completely independent prosecutor.
I believe that it is necessary for us, as Europeans, to bring our influence to bear on the countries which have not yet signed the Rome agreement. The United Kingdom and Germany, for example, are among them.
We need their signatures.
We want the Criminal Court to start on time!
Akin Birdal
Mr President, in its progress report on Turkey the Commission has already stated that human rights activist Akin Birdal most certainly did not receive a fair trial.
If this case stands as an example of the behaviour of the Turkish government and justice, then I believe Turkey can forget about EU membership for the time being.
Accession is linked to stringent, clear, strict and fair criteria.
If Turkey wants to join, it must do some work in the field of democracy and human rights.
I hope that President Demirel will see fit to grant a pardon to Mr Birdal, in the interests of democracy and good relations between the Union and Turkey.
I also hope that the Turkish Parliament will shortly make the necessary and long promised legislative changes in order to guarantee democracy, respect for human rights and an independent constitutional state.
My group trusts that the Commission and the Council will take steps to this end.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are dealing with a specific case here.
Considered in the light of the Kurdish issue in Turkey, Akin Birdal's sentence actually amounts to a ban from politics. That effectively blocks the situation.
Secondly, we should not forget that the Turkish Parliament is in the process of amending the Criminal Code and deleting Articles 312 and 159, under the terms of which Akin Birdal was sentenced, and also Article 8 of the anti-terror law.
In this situation, it is necessary firstly from a political point of view for Turkey to take the opportunity for dialogue, to which Akin Birdal has always referred; secondly, from a humanitarian point of view, it is necessary for Akin Birdal - the victim of a shady assassination attempt, as a result of which he is still suffering - to be given access to medical care in Europe too.
It is with this in mind, as friends of Turkey, that we need to call on the Turkish Government to change its position.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when six groups in this House introduce a joint motion with the intention of adopting it, that must be a sign to the Turkish Government and the Turkish President that this issue, namely the sentencing of the President of the Human Rights Association of Turkey - whom many of us, for example Mr Swoboda, know from numerous discussions in recent years - is not simply a question which we are debating as a matter of course.
For us, this issue is much more a touchstone of Turkey's ability to be democratic, and a touchstone of its compliance with human rights.
Mr van den Broek did in fact recently present a report on the state of relations.
We all still remember - from when we supported the customs union - the promises made by the then government on bringing their constitution and human rights practices into line, but these have not been fulfilled in the meantime.
That is why I am convinced that we cannot hold out any specific prospects for Turkey's accession, while it is not possible for us to make real progress on these fundamental issues of freedom of expression and human rights.
I am being very clear about this, although I am aware that we have noted a definite improvement in relations over the last few weeks.
That is not enough. More progress is needed.
The Turkish President, Mr Demirel, who after all appeared in Vienna just a few days ago, bearing demands relating to Turkey's inclusion in the group of applicant countries, must take the opportunity to pardon Akin Birdal.
I think that this would be a practical test of Turkey's ability to have closer relations with Europe.
Nothing else will take us any further.
That is why we in the PPE Group support the joint motion.
We hope that it will send out a positive signal, and that it will not introduce any further tensions into Europe-Turkey relations, as happened in the Ocalan case, for example.
Mr President, firstly, the Birdal case concerns a sentence handed down by a Security Court in Turkey.
Those courts, Commissioner, were described in a report by the Commission - evidently influenced by yourself on the grounds of experience, because you are well informed on Turkish issues - as inherently incapable of giving accused persons a fair trial.
It was that kind of court which condemned him.
Secondly, there is no possibility of appeal to a higher body.
Consequently, the decision is irrevocable and all the consequences against Birdal will persist for the rest of his life, even the fact that he is not allowed to seek medical help, until he is even eliminated biologically, which they failed to do with the attempt against his life.
The only way out is for Demirel to grant a pardon, and the only way that will happen is if the Commission brings pressure to bear for the pardon to be granted.
This is not an issue which concerns Birdal alone.
It concerns the freedoms of the Turkish people and even our own freedoms.
The Ocalan problem is a similar one.
We must resist Turkish and American pressure to have him extradited to Turkey, where he would be murdered either by execution or by being locked up in the Turkish prison camps, as often happens.
Both men are symbols of the struggle for peace, freedom and democracy.
Regarding Birdal in particular, I would point out that Turkey's Supreme Court stated as the reason why the Security Court condemned him, that his main preoccupation and orientation were freedom and peace.
He is imprisoned because of that condemnation, and as Commissioners, you are morally responsible unless you intervene to secure him a pardon.
Chalki seminary
Mr President, I am no longer surprised by acts of the Turkish state such as those we are talking about today, and I fear this will not be the last time we will have occasion to talk about such acts.
Terrorism, flagrant violations of human rights and religious freedom, high-handed and unjustified decisions and even bomb attacks are just some of the elements which make up the picture of the Turkish state's tactics towards the Ecumenical Patriarchate, in other words the world-wide spiritual reference point for 300 million Orthodox Christians.
The historical and traditional leader of the Orthodox Christians, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who usually prefers to keep a low profile, had this to say: 'we are not intercalated, transplanted or intrusive; we are the indigenous people of this land; the political equality, justice and religious freedom about which Turkish law speaks exist only on paper'.
Turkey's motive in doing this is clear.
It wishes to dispense with the Theological College of Halki once and for all.
It wishes to get rid of the Christians in Turkey once and for all.
It aims to terrorise those citizens, Turkish citizens, who happen to be Christians.
The issue of the Theological College of Halki yet again highlights the more general problem of respect for human rights in Turkey.
The European Union cannot play deaf when from the first day there has been an international outcry and condemnation of these unacceptable acts by Turkey.
The European Union and specifically Mr van den Broek must demand protection for the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Orthodox community, as required by the Treaty of Lausanne.
Finally, he must also call for the protection of the Turkish people themselves, who are now daily being made victims of the Turkish state's tactics.
Mr President, I believe that we need to draw a distinction here.
We should not say that Turkey has a particular character, and then put all manner of things down to that.
The demands are actually addressed to Turkey.
The official act, by which the school was closed down, must be withdrawn.
The Turkish Government has to make it clear here that freedom of religion - a fundamental human right - is guaranteed in Turkey.
The Oecumenical Patriarchate demands that this official act be repealed, and here the European Union should make it perfectly clear that this is a basic condition for any further dialogue with Turkey.
It is, after all, the highest seat of learning - if I may put it thus - of the branch of Orthodoxy centred on Constantinople, which does in fact exist throughout the world; given that respect for the rights of minorities has been enshrined in treaties, the way in which it has been treated is unacceptable.
We should bear in mind, however, that behaviour of this kind also violates the laws of Islam, because freedom of religion is also one of the Prophet Mohammed's explicit commands; we should remember this ourselves and remind our counterparts of it.
Mr President, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the few remaining Greeks in Istanbul have been there for many centuries, long before first the Ottoman and then the Turkish State.
As the Patriarch said, and Mr Roubatis too mentioned earlier, they are the indigenous people of the area, they belong to it; they did not come from elsewhere, they are neither foreigners nor intruders, no matter how much Turkey may have managed over the years to eliminate the Greek element with systematic machinations and every kind of violence.
The most recent machination in the series is the illegal and unjustified dismissal of the members of the Supervisory Committee of the Theological College of Halki.
The purpose of that is obvious: to confiscate the College's property and, mainly, to prevent it from working again.
In substance, this is another act of terrorism by a country with no respect for human rights, and which has no hesitation in eliminating any kind of threat no matter what direction it comes from.
We said the same thing this morning in a major debate on the events in Italy.
I do not think it is necessary to say very much in order to stress the seriousness of the matter.
Our joint resolution does that.
I would simply like to say, in conclusion, that if Turkey continually defies and distances itself from European ideals, that is also happening because Europe, by constantly putting only economic interests and criteria first, has not made Turkey understand properly that human rights must have priority.
Mr President, I am one of those who believe in a modern and progressive Turkey, which will at some time find its way into Europe.
I have the impression, however, that Turkey itself does not believe that.
One of the many indications we have is how Turkey is behaving towards the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and how it has behaved in this specific case towards the Theological College of Halki.
Turkey is blackening its own image, whereas it ought to understand that the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople brings prestige not only to Constantinople itself, but to Turkey as a state as well.
Having essentially closed down the Halki College, Turkey is now taking action against the College's Supervisory Committee, which was the last sign that the College was still just about surviving, though not much more than that.
You know that Congress in America has repeatedly shown concern about this specific issue.
Today, at least, the European Parliament has woken up to it.
Commissioner, I think the European Commission should do likewise.
I understand Turkey's economic importance, I understand the importance of trade and economic agreements - in any event, there are businessmen all over who have relations with Turkey, even in my own country, and rightly so - but beyond that point, beyond trade, there are also human rights, there is also our civilisation, there is respect for diversity.
Those things should not merely exist on paper, we must take action to demand them from the Turks, since it seems that they themselves have them in their constitution for the sake of appearances only, so that they can claim to respect human rights formally, whereas in substance they are violating them.
Let us therefore respond to the call of Patriarch Bartholomew, who is a moderate religious leader, let us do something about this issue.
I think it is important for our civilisation and for the values professed by the European Union.
Mr President, I would say, first, that if we vote unanimously for this joint resolution, the Commission and the other institutions will be compelled to act at last, because now I hear that Uncle Sam has also said yes, and Congress is taking action.
Do not be slow to imitate them when for once they are doing something positive.
The second thing I want to say is that this act by the Turkish Government - I do not say Turkey, I distinguish Turkey, in other words the Turkish people, from the state, the reactionary and fascist regime in power - is undermining the operation of the Patriarchate by depriving it of its functional organ, the College of Halki.
A college that was a beacon of ethics, culture, religion and peace for all peoples living in Asia Minor - as it happens I was born in the area, so I know this.
So take action and put aside half-measures, put aside evasiveness, forget about investments, pipelines, oil and gas, and remember for once that you wish to be known as a democratic institution, a democratic organisation, the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, the closing of the Halki School in Turkey is just one more stage in a process that has been continuing for years.
Turkey takes liberties in a way that no other European country would, so we must demonstrate our opposition to what is a direct and totally unacceptable violation of religious freedom.
What is happening in Turkey nowadays is exactly the same as in the past: persecution of the Kurds and the continuation of the war against them since 1984.
The reaction of the Turkish Government against Italy today is in the same vein.
The EU Member States must oppose such actions.
We now have the opportunity to do so by requiring Turkey to comply with the undertaking it gave as part of the customs union agreement that we already have with it.
We, as Member States of the European Union, must do our utmost to ensure that this agreement is adhered to, that the war against the Kurds is brought to an end, and that Mr Ocalan is given asylum in Italy.
Anti-Semitism in Russia
Mr President, the primitive, irresponsible and even villainous nature of Makashov's statements revolt and worry us for more than one reason.
The incitement given by former General Makashov to hate Jews responds to a system that is well tested.
Although the economic, social and political situation is alarming, some people cannot resist the temptation to bolster political and national unity by issuing messages of hate and accusation against a particular community, in this case the Jewish community.
It is worrying, first and foremost, to see that instead of unreservedly condemning the anti-Semitic utterances of one of its members, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation prefers to make solidarity its main concern and refuses to assume the responsibilities that ensue in such circumstances. In this instance, they would involve bringing a motion of censure against Makashov.
This is all the more regrettable because there is no shortage of international mechanisms to show the Russian Federation what to do.
The more the Duma fails to distance itself from such behaviour, the further it moves away from compliance with the principles to which the Russian Federation had committed itself when it became a member of the Council of Europe.
We therefore call on the Duma to reverse its decision and to reconsider bringing a motion of censure.
Mr President, I must present Mr Barros Moura's apologies.
I should nevertheless like to say a few words on behalf of my group.
I believe that the unfortunate events repeated here are unacceptable.
Anti-Semitism is a form of racism which has done so much damage in Europe and further afield that we need to refute all such statements in the strongest possible terms.
In particular, I am disturbed at the failure of the Duma, or the other party members, to respond in an appropriate way.
When a major catastrophe has befallen the Jewish population on this continent, and when there have been various anti-Semitic actions and statements in Eastern Europe and Russia of all places, it is unacceptable for us to tolerate an anti-Semitic statement now.
We must therefore refute this in the strongest possible terms, and call on the representatives in the Russian Parliament to tell their colleagues quite clearly that an anti-Semitic statement must not and never can be tolerated.
Mr President, if you look at what is happening in Russia at the present time and listen to General Makashov's statements, a cold shiver really does run down your spine, because here it is obvious that the most evil, communist reactionaries of Stalinism are re-emerging, and that anti-Semitic statements are being made in such a way as to cause those in Russia towards whom they are directed to be genuinely afraid.
I should like to remind you of one point: Russia is a country in which there is still a so-called autonomous Jewish area today.
It is the region to which Stalin once sent many Jews.
It is in eastern Siberia, and a small group of these Jews still lives there today, which really feels threatened and fears for its survival.
These Jews are only one representative example of many others in Russia.
We cannot simply remain silent!
In this century, we have already seen terrible acts of the utmost cruelty.
We cannot accept this kind of thing, we cannot witness this kind of thing again!
Commissioner, earlier we also debated the issue of food aid.
Perhaps this matter could be raised in that context!
Mr President, we started our look at topical events with the dramatic food situation in Russia and we are ending with a tragic aspect of spiritual life: anti-Semitism.
It distresses me very much to find that after centuries of pogroms and impossible living conditions in the stettels , our colleagues in the Duma are not prepared to denounce violent expressions of anti-Semitism.
It is difficult for Russian politicians of Jewish origin to make a career while retaining authentic Jewish names.
This is why it was only recently revealed that it was for this reason that the Russian Prime Minister took the name Primakov.
Since May rabbis and jeshiwa students have been beaten up and fire bombs thrown into synagogues.
As a Parliament we must continue to urge the Duma to take steps to combat racism and xenophobia and to adopt the necessary laws to this end.
At the same time the legislation within the European Union against political parties with such views is inadequate.
Financial penalties and imprisonment do not work and banning a racist party only leads to another party being set up under a different name.
I believe a good legal remedy is to take away rights to stand for election.
Such a measure does not exist in my country but the French courts have clearly understood the need for this.
The removal of the right of xenophobic parties to stand for election must be encouraged.
At the Duma we must continue to stress the importance of point 9 against anti-Semitism in Russia.
Mr President, everyone owes it to everyone else to respect their dignity.
That applies equally in economic crises and when times are good.
Anti-Semitism reminds us of our continent's darkest days, and of times when countless people treated these values with contempt.
That is why it is our generation's common task to nip anti-Semitism in the bud.
That is true both of our own countries and our partners.
That is why we are calling on the Duma to be more sensitive and firmly to refute statements which are an affront to the dignity of Jews in Russia.
The fact is that extreme nationalist groups in Russia are being courted by this kind of despicable populism on the part of a few politicians, and that presents a danger to democracy in the country.
Mr van den Broek, we know that the grass-roots organisations in Moscow are the ones which are trying to take action on this.
I ask you now: is it not possible to give the money on the TACIS democracy line which you have not yet spent to these groups, so that you really do spend the money where it is needed, as we discussed on Tuesday?
Mr President, I condemn anti-Semitism from whatever source.
But I was genuinely shocked to read the proposals for a resolution directed against the Duma.
Must we give lessons in morality to the entire world at any price, and particularly when the draft texts contain traces of anti-Russian and anti-Slav racism that I find totally unacceptable?
Do I need to remind you that the Slavs were the first victims of the Second World War and the Russians suffered more deaths than any other ethnic group in the struggle against the Nazi army? Must I remind you that the Patriarch of Moscow and all Russia has recently condemned anti-Semitism on two occasions.
It is incredible that some of our fellow Members should consider giving orders to the Duma of the Russian State, as in paragraph 4 of the joint resolution, as though foreigners should command the elected representatives of the people.
The Duma holds sovereign control in terms of its votes and that is how it should be.
What would you say if the members of the Russian Parliament sought to instruct Members of the European Parliament on how they should vote? Moreover, it is scandalous to constantly and systematically associate Russian patriotism with anti-Semitism.
The truth is that every possible pretext is sought to weaken Russia or any other nation that resists the new imperialist world order.
Lastly, it is apparent that the meaning of the term anti-Semitism has unfortunately changed.
In the past, it was clear that an antiSemite was someone who hated Jews. And we all agree that this is something that must be condemned.
But today, someone may be called an anti-Semite simply because they are disliked by the Israeli lobby.
It is a way of eliminating a person politically.
Such an arrogant change benefits neither friendship between peoples, the cause of democracy nor the legitimate fight against racial hatred.
Friendship between peoples and between Europe and Russia will not be built by behaving like aggressive pharisees driven by contempt for the Duma and all the people of Russia.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Do you have another question, Mr Swoboda?
Madam President, I asked the Commissioner quite specifically whether he was prepared to do everything in his power to ensure that the money set aside for the Serbian press or other media is also actually paid out quickly.
Otherwise some media would not only have to stop operating because of Milosevic, but also because of the money arriving too late.
Could you please give a brief reply, Commissioner?
Mr President, I can reassure Mr Swoboda because I am aware of the complaint and I have asked the relevant department to look into it. The matter is now being pushed through as quickly as procedures permit.
I can understand your objection, Mr Posselt, but you must bear in mind that there are a huge number of translations which might then have to be carried out.
I shall bring this up again, but there is already a decision on the matter.
Mr Roubatis, do you have another question for Mr van den Broek?
Madam President, in the last debate all the speakers asked Mr van den Broek to do something specific about the closure of the Theological College of Halki.
Mr van den Broek did not tell us specifically what he intends to do, what specific action he will be taking, to ensure that the Turkish authorities allow the college to function as it ought to.
Mr President, I promise you that the next time I am in contact with Turkey I will ask for this matter to be given attention and I will also convey the feelings of the Commission, which are the same as those of Parliament.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a few moments.
We shall now proceed to the votes.
VOTES
In our explanation of vote, we should like to focus attention on the importance of patent applications and other patent-processing procedures being carried out in all Member States' languages.
Any other system would be detrimental to enterprise and initiative in business development within the European Union.
We are delighted at the way in which the report highlights patent processing and language.
The European patent system is based on the Munich Convention of 1973, which is an intergovernmental agreement.
Patents issued under this Convention can be applied in all the countries which have ratified it, which include all the EU countries and many others.
The Convention makes it possible to obtain patent protection in more than one state through a centralised procedure which is administered by the European Patent Office.
Patents issued under this procedure are subject to the national law of the individual countries.
There have subsequently been attempts to introduce two other patent conventions or agreements: the Luxembourg Convention of 1975 on the Community patent, supplemented by the 1989 Agreement relating to Community patents.
These two instruments have still not entered into force.
Now it is planned to create yet another Community patent, which will be valid throughout the EU.
The Member States' courts will only have jurisdiction on questions of infringement of Community patents, and it is envisaged that the authority dealing with appeals will be the European Court of First Instance.
We believe that the introduction of a Community patent is a completely superfluous arrangement.
Since attempts have been made at agreements on Community patents which have still not entered into force after 23 years, why should we make the same mistake again now? Moreover, a Community patent would be valid in fewer countries than a patent issued under the Munich Convention.
We can fully endorse the recital in the report which states: 'the current combination of the European Patent Convention and the national patent systems presents a well-functioning and flexible patents system in the EEA'.
The proposal to set up a Community patent system is an example of unnecessary regulation and duplication of bureaucracy at EU level.
As is clearly stated in recital E, the present European system of national and international patents is working well.
We have therefore voted against the report.
A well-established international system for patents has existed in Europe for a long time.
It functions very well and is linked to a major standardisation initiative.
There is no reason to set up a new system for the sole purpose of introducing an EU symbol.
Any reform should therefore be carried out to the present system in order to bring it up to date with modern industrial developments.
In recital J it is stated that 'Member States must not abandon their national languages' in respect of patents and patent rights.
This should be changed to 'shall' not abandon their national languages for the reasons given in the same paragraph.
We also have to confess that we find it difficult to see the point of setting up yet another level of patent procedures, particularly since it says in paragraph 6 that the Community patent system would coexist with the national systems.
We would simply like to ask whether the national, European and global levels that already exist are not enough without a Community level as well?
Hoppenstedt report (A4-0362/98)
The European Union has forged a reputation for itself in the aeronautical and space industry.
Today, it is an economically competitive and promising sector that includes a number of successful companies.
Airbus Industrie , which was established by France and Germany in 1970, now accounts for 50 % of the world market in its sector following the Asian crisis.
Such results must not, however, blind us to the economic realities: as we approach the new century, we are losing ground.
Our many national enterprises are no longer able to keep up with global competition on their own.
The large American enterprises, in particular, are pursuing a relentless strategy of attack.
Moreover, we are currently experiencing a situation whereby the national demands for military aircraft are falling and national defence spending is being restricted.
Therefore, it is urgent for the sector to be restructured, as the Hoppenstedt report points out.
This is the only possible solution if we wish to achieve a genuine concentration of production and a real synergy of financial investments, and to optimise the results of research and technology transfers from the military to the civilian sector.
The European Union can provide this rapid and decisive momentum, which is all the more necessary since we have little time in which to implement this economic rationale.
In this connection, we must today take the same steps that were taken over a decade ago by the United States: opening up the military and civilian industrial structures, globalising defence and space activities, etcetera. The fact that Europe has a potential viable base gives it all the more reason to commit itself more decisively.
Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has worked hard on this matter, showing due regard to the 'employment' dimension.
It should never be forgotten that over 700 companies provide a livelihood for some 370 000 families throughout the European Union.
We cannot therefore allow this sector of jobs to gradually disappear.
Nor can we leave ourselves without this industry if we still wish to comply with our responsibilities in the area of foreign policy and international diplomacy.
Consequently, I support Mr Hoppenstedt's report and the free choice he gives both to the enterprises involved and to Member States in regard to the action that should be taken.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted overall in favour of the report by Mr Hoppenstedt on the European aerospace industry, because this sector will be an important source of employment for Europe in the future.
No fewer than 377 510 people were directly employed in the sector in 1997, not counting the downstream employment in the form of jobs with subcontractors and so on.
The proposal is aimed at securing increased cooperation in research and development in the European aerospace industry, cooperation which we regard as essential if this sector is to survive in competition with its American counterpart.
The American aerospace industry benefits from the large orders placed by the US armed forces, and from the know-how which the military provides to private firms free of charge.
However, the Hoppenstedt report also includes proposals for the joint development of military aircraft and for a restructuring of both the military and civil aerospace industry, with a view to encouraging the consolidation of the defence industries.
This position conflicts with Denmark's stance on defence and security policy, and we have therefore abstained on paragraphs 6 and 7, since we do not wish to stand in the way of other Member States moving in this direction.
I think that a distinction should be made between the research and industrial activities carried out in the civil branch of the aerospace sector and those carried out in the military branch.
The EU should confine its activities to civilian matters, bearing in mind that, to date, the Treaty contains no provision for combining the two branches.
Consequently, I do not support the Commission communication on the aerospace industry.
I would prefer to see restrictions imposed on the industry's activities and clear rules established on how those activities should be carried out.
This does not mean that I am totally opposed to research and industrial activities in this area, but I think that the situation with regard to military activities should be clarified.
Nor am I in favour of the report's underlying view, which took shape following a meeting between six EU Defence Ministers earlier in the year to discuss integration and restructuring of the defence industry.
It is particularly regrettable that representatives of the Swedish defence industry took part in the meeting, since Sweden is a non-aligned and neutral country.
I shall support the amendment tabled by the Green Group, and I shall vote against the report in its entirety in the final vote.
Of course it is a good idea to strengthen the aerospace industry.
However it is difficult, if not downright impossible, for neutral and non-aligned countries to participate in any activity which links together the aerospace industry, Member States' defence industries and the CFSP.
Nowadays, there is no longer any direct threat to the security of the European Union and its Member States.
Against this background, they should be striving to reduce arms production, which not only deploys large amounts of resources that could be allocated to other important activities in the Member States, but also generates exports which deprive underdeveloped countries of vital resources that are needed above all to build up their social infrastructures.
Thus the continuing manufacture of armaments in itself constitutes a potential threat, since the existence of more weapons only increases the likelihood of their being used.
If, despite all this, the situation in the world develops in such a way in the future that the Member States democratically decide to increase their arms production, then I can see nothing to prevent the military aircraft industry from becoming a monopoly market, as is pointed out in the report.
Nevertheless, it is of the utmost importance for the Union and its Member States to strive to reduce the aircraft industry's heavy dependence on military orders, otherwise manufacturing will not be able to develop on its own, regardless of the security situation.
As the rapporteur on a related Commission communication on defence related industries, I warmly welcome Mr Hoppenstedt's Report on the aerospace sector.
These two sectors of EU industry are so vital to the future economic success of us all that national and party political differences should be put aside as far as is possible when we discuss them.
I share the report's desire to see strong EU wide industrial groups in aerospace manufacturing, not only to secure the many jobs and high skill levels they employ but also to maintain the EU's ability to choose when to compete with and when to cooperate with the USA in this field.
If we do not give the companies concerned a clear green light to get on with the job of restructuring their operations to this end, we will have only ourselves to blame for the Hobson's Choice which would be ours - to buy American aircraft or to buy nothing.
I am glad that British companies are belying the now inaccurate stereotype of my country as a nation of Eurosceptics by playing a leading role in cooperation - the managers and staff of Westland and British Aerospace are cooperating with EU partners for sound business reasons, rather than following the isolationist dogma of the Tory Party which once claimed to speak for British business.
As this report points out, in the one sector of satellites alone, the world can expect 1500 launches in the next decade - as politicians we need to give our companies every chance to compete for those contracts, not tie them in red tape on the launchpad.
I would like to begin by congratulating our rapporteur, Mr Hoppenstedt, on his excellent work.
The communication from the European Commission analyses the current situation of the aerospace industry.
It provides an overview without highlighting the specific problems of any given sector within this European industry.
This is an interesting approach.
However, the European aerospace market has evolved since this communication was published and Parliament's report has emphasised that change.
Europe has genuine potential for the future.
To take full advantage of this potential, the European industry must benefit from favourable conditions to enable it, in particular, to establish joint enterprise strategies.
Such strategies will enable this high-tech sector to compete under equal conditions with the American industry. For its part, the US industry has the advantage of not having to contend with national divisions of the market and benefits from substantial national aid to research and development.
I fully agree with our rapporteur's opinion on the statement by Germany, France and the United Kingdom of 9 December 1997, and on the letter of intent from the German, Spanish, French, Italian, Swedish and British Ministers for Defence.
Indeed, their commitment to promoting the consolidation of defence industries is an essential political factor and a positive sign for European manufacturers.
The proposed coordination of activities in the aerospace industry is commendable, but there should be no linkage with military activities as proposed in paragraph 6, which mentions the need to develop the next generation of military aircraft.
Instead, we should be focusing on the importance of developing the aerospace industry entirely independently of the military sector.
The FPÖ supports the political statements and the declarations of intent in this motion for a resolution, but is abstaining from the vote on the text as a whole, because the additional increase in financial and economic aid to this region, as called for in the motion, does not appear to be adequately structured or guaranteed to be efficient.
Displaced persons (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report by Mr Wiebenga.
Madam President, to add to what other speakers have been saying, I would like to begin by congratulating Mr Wiebenga on the work he has carried out over several months that has been both efficient and courteous. Having said that, Madam President, my first comment relates to certain speeches that have been made that amount to nothing short of dangerous popularity seeking.
Their only effect is to endanger and, of course, threaten the cause of those whom we are dealing with. And, indeed, all of us, when faced with the problem of offering adequate protection to those who need it at a given moment due to the unrest in their countries, must give a response that is appropriate, effective and balanced.
In short, we must give a response that is in line with the area of freedom, security and justice we are in the process of building with the third pillar.
Madam President, those who say that the Structural Funds or the Cohesion Fund should be restricted for those Member States that are allegedly hindering these measures are not helping matters either.
This is true, firstly, because it amounts to a statement of intent and secondly, because although those countries advocate unanimity in decision-making, establishing this type of statement of intent would make no sense from either a political or legal point of view, because, as I said, in the final analysis, it would greatly hinder this report's progress.
In relation to the two proposals put forward by the Commission, Madam President, I would like to congratulate the Commissioner.
They are both very interesting and balanced proposals. I believe that they will make progress and I hope that we will see evidence of their results in the near future.
And now, Madam President, allow me to fly the flag of those of us who maintain that decisions in this respect should be taken unanimously and explain why we are of this opinion.
It is certainly not out of any desire to boost our popularity, less still because we do not wish these measures to be taken.
It is simply that Mrs Gradin based the proposal on Article K.3(2)(b) and did so correctly , because that is the law currently in force.
But we must obviously bear in mind that the Amsterdam Treaty - which has still not entered into force, but which represents a political decision of great importance - establishes that unanimity is required for this issue.
It therefore cannot be ignored.
I fully understand the stance taken by the Commissioner, but it should not be presumed that those who advocate unanimity do so because they are not prepared to go further.
Those in favour of unanimity are merely showing that they are aware of the fact that, through hard work, 15 Member States reached a pact in Amsterdam that states that, for five years, decisions in this area must be taken unanimously.
It is because we are keen to see this idea progress that we have put forward this proposal. This is something that needs to be achieved.
My second remark is of a political nature.
Clearly, the 15 Member States have to agree and this proposal will only progress if that happens.
In this respect, Mr Nassauer is right.
If one section of the proposal is agreed on by a qualified majority - as permitted by Article K.3 - yet the other section is agreed on unanimously, we will be left with a situation that is totally unbalanced and disproportionate from both a political and legal point of view.
Therefore, Madam President, I repeat: we have tabled amendments in favour of unanimity and, realistically speaking, we want this proposal to move forward.
We will politically support this proposal through our governments, but we believe that it will only move forward if we respect what was agreed at Amsterdam, and this requires the 15 Member States to reach an agreement rather than a qualified majority.
Madam President, the Socialist side of the House is currently undergoing a very interesting process of change.
This began with the governments, firstly with New Labour's new realistic attitude towards the issue of asylum, which admittedly does not yet go far enough, but the first signs of which are visible.
It was followed by the discussion paper presented by the Austrian Home Affairs Minister, Mr Schlögl - also a Socialist - and now we have the German Home Affairs Minister, Mr Schily, all of a sudden saying that immigration into Germany and the influx of asylum seekers and refugees of civil war have exceeded both reasonable and manageable levels.
He does not even say 'have reached'; he says 'have exceeded'.
It is certainly interesting to see this, standing as it does in stark contrast to the point of view consistently represented by the left side of this House.
This shows precisely the difference between ideology and practice.
The practice is, of course, due to two points.
Firstly, the figures, which Mr Pirker has already explained so impressively here.
I really should like to say that Germany, for example, has, over a period of ten years, admitted an average of 50 % of all asylum seekers, and at times up to two thirds of all refugees of civil war.
That really is an extreme situation.
Secondly, this new attitude on the part of some ministers is of course also due to public opinion, and in politics we have to be realistic and take public opinion into account.
We want to give shelter to the persecuted.
We want to give them protection and security, but it is precisely when I want to do this that I need acceptance, and I can only win this acceptance if the burden of admitting the people is shared, so that quite rightly the burden falls equally on each of the Member States.
We cannot content ourselves with a few set phrases on this, as this proposal - or pseudo-proposal - does; we need real burden-sharing based on definite quotas of people.
The Bavarian Minister of the Interior, Günther Beckstein, has proposed to you, Commissioner, that a central European office should be established to set these definite quotas and allocate them.
We are still a very long way from this; we would be happy if at least a first step were taken here towards more Europe, but this pseudo-proposal is a step towards less Europe.
You see, it tries to avoid solidarity and at the same time to patch up this gap with words.
That is why we must also reject both these proposals, because we believe that they would be more suitably entitled: missing the point.
I really do believe that it is possible for any Member State to be faced with a disproportionate share of the burden, and I should like to say this to our Spanish Members, amongst others: it is actually not the case that this issue only concerns Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and one or two other countries.
Something might blow up tomorrow in the Mediterranean area which then affects Spain, for example, in just the same way, and here too there will be calls for solidarity.
Solidarity is reciprocal, though, and this problem can affect all Member States to different degrees and at different times.
That is why, before the catastrophe overtakes us, before problems arise, a set of burdensharing instruments need to be created, and here I must add - and I am grateful to Mr Pradier for what he said on this subject today - that this would of course include prevention.
We must not stand by and watch until the influxes of refugees descend upon us; instead, we must intervene in good time - as for example in Kosovo - to ensure that the conditions are created on the ground to enable people to live in safety in their homes.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has taken note of the two reports by Mr Wiebenga on the Commission's amended proposal concerning temporary protection for displaced persons and the proposal concerning burden-sharing.
The background to the initiative is that a year ago, the negotiations on our original proposal reached stalemate within the Council of Ministers.
A number of valuable points of view were put forward, but it was obvious that no further progress could be made.
The negotiations were in danger of running out of steam completely, and it looked as though the British Presidency at the time would have to lay the matter aside.
Accordingly, we were obliged to do something, since in my opinion a few minor alterations to the original proposal was not an adequate solution.
What was needed was both a revised proposal on temporary protection and a more clearly defined idea of how the negotiations on burden-sharing within the Union should proceed.
At the same time, we also noted the many excellent proposed improvements that emerged during the discussions.
Consequently, it was quite easy for us to amend the proposal in accordance with some of the points of view put forward by Parliament.
As the rapporteur has noted, the proposal relating to temporary protection is still broadly the same as before.
A matter of prime concern remains the way in which the beneficiaries of temporary protection should be treated.
Should they be allowed to work, how should they be cared for, and what type of education should they have access to? In my opinion, we should be aiming high, and this is reflected in the new proposal.
The other part of the proposal concerns an instrument for reaching a decision on the introduction and phasing-out of a temporary protection regime.
The aim is to establish better provisions for the sharing of burdens in the event of future asylum crises in Europe.
As regards this part of the proposal, I am open to negotiation.
In the amended proposal, we have tried to take account of the various points of view put forward up to now.
It goes without saying that there is no single model when it comes to achieving the required state of preparedness.
Madam President, much of the proposal on burden-sharing is innovative.
In the past, when the issue has come up for debate in the Union, the discussions have foundered because of disagreement over sharing the burden of refugees, or the criteria to be employed in allocating economic aid.
In our proposal, we have tried to combine our ideas concerning financial aid with those on the distribution of people. In my opinion, both aspects are very important.
It is unfortunate that it is so often a question of one or the other.
I think the two strategies can be combined together very well.
During two weeks of informal talks held in Vienna by the Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs, one of the points discussed was the policy document on migration and asylum drawn up by the Austrian Presidency.
The document contains much material for discussion, and work is currently in progress to ensure that it reflects Mr Wiebenga's points of view, which were put forward during the Vienna talks.
The initiative has thus enabled us to have a coherent discussion on the principles involved in this issue for the first time since I became Commissioner, and I appreciate this.
The discussions which took place in Vienna also revealed that all the Member States understood what the new proposal entailed, and that their expectations of practical results in the areas of migration and asylum had increased.
It was gratifying to see that a number of ministers stressed the need to achieve results with regard to both temporary protection and burden-sharing.
The Austrian Presidency estimates that it should be possible to produce at least a progress report for the Council meeting on 3 and 4 December.
All of this goes to show that achieving cooperation in this area is a slow process - a disappointing state of affairs considering the dynamic nature of the asylum problem.
The conflict in Kosovo recently provided proof of just how great the need for cooperation is.
It is also worth recalling that the Commission has agreed to convert this proposal into a directive when the new Treaty enters into force.
Unfortunately, it looks as though the Amsterdam Treaty will not enter into force for a long time - if my understanding is correct, not before next summer.
I therefore noted with much satisfaction that more delegations at the informal talks in Vienna openly recognised that agreement had to be reached.
Furthermore, a great deal of emphasis was placed on the fact that a Community solution would have to include a reasonable level of social rights for the beneficiaries of temporary protection.
The Commission has done its best to loosen all the knots and find a way through.
Now it is up to the presidency and the Member States to ensure that the negotiations are completed and an agreement reached.
I had hoped for Parliament's wholehearted approval, but it is clear that I shall have to go away disappointed.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Visas/Airport transit
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is certainly not the most important report of the week.
It is, therefore, all the more intriguing that seven minutes' speaking time should have been allocated for such a relatively insignificant report, when at other times there is not enough speaking time.
Quite honestly, I do not know what I can tell you about this report that would fill seven minutes.
Allow me, therefore, to be somewhat more brief.
You can already tell from the title, which the President read out, that this is essentially to do with technical problems, although these technical problems are not quite without their difficulties either, if you take a look at what the Council has asked us to decide on.
The problems start with the part of the report concerning this uniform form for a visa, where the Council is obviously trying - in a departure from the provisions of the Treaty - to make its legal position more favourable for the individual Member States. It deals with the issues relating to the format of the form and the format of this visa under Article K.3 of the Treaty, despite there actually being a special provision in the Treaty, in Article 100c.
The latter legal base also means that this is no longer a joint action and would in principle need to be implemented in the form of a directive.
That is precisely what we have stated in the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
The further problem with the Council's ideas is the fact that in a whole series of articles in the joint action, it defines itself as the executive authority.
Here we have ensured that either the Commission or the Member States are named as the executive authority instead, at least in our report.
This is simply because we believe this to be more correct than for the Council - which is in fact after all the co-legislator, or in this case the Community legislator - to assume that role itself, thus also, as it were, calling into question certain principles of the separation of powers.
In the second part of the report, the airport transit visas, the same problem occurs, amongst others.
At least the right legal base has, in our opinion, been selected here.
It is, however, mainly about harmonising technical rules to combat illegal immigration and about better checks at airports.
I should like to ask you to vote in favour, here in the plenary, of the corrections decided on by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, and on that note I would conclude my statement on this not especially important, but perhaps also not wholly insignificant report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as far as the uniform format for the form is concerned, I agree with the rapporteur that this can actually be adopted as it stands following our vote in the committee.
Since this is a form which is produced solely for the purpose of having a visa issued on it, Article 100c of the EC Treaty is the right legal base, even though the jurists were again unable to agree on whether this assessment was correct.
We did actually have two reports on the subject.
I think it is necessary, from a political point of view, for the uniform format for the form to be implemented on the basis of Article 100c.
Parliament has always given priority to procedures which allow decisions to be taken by a qualified majority.
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, unanimity will, unfortunately, be the rule in the case of visa arrangements for a further five years, before decisions are taken by a qualified majority.
However, it is clear which direction we are going in.
In the field of, 'visas, asylum, immigration and other policies related to free movement of persons', the Council will act by a qualified majority in the foreseeable future.
I do not believe, however, that after another five years of unanimity, the Council will find it any easier to act by a qualified majority than it does now.
I also support the rapporteur's view that we are in the business of adopting uniform arrangements in Europe in the fields covered by Title IV of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In that sense, the European Commission's role will in any case need to be increased accordingly.
That means that it is incumbent upon it, and not the Council, to present technical specifications for this form, and it is for the Member States to be available to discuss production centres.
On the airport transit visa, the European Court of Justice has in fact delivered a very clear ruling to Parliament.
The legal base of Article K.3 only provides for cooperation with the Member States in this field.
That was already clear to us in the committee.
We do, however, want to make the Council stronger than the Member States and thus help it to take common action, including on visas and illegal immigration.
In the committee, we have already made both the arrangements applicable to statutory stateless persons and refugees and the exceptions to the requirement for a visa dependent on a joint decision in the Council.
We wish to achieve the same thing for amendments to the joint list.
I therefore also urge you to support the corresponding amendment to delete Article 4.
Article 9 gives each individual Member State the possibility of suspending the positive lists.
I believe, however, that given that we have common external borders, we need to have common rules on visas and visa stamps.
That includes these transit visas.
I think that if the main purpose of these visas is to combat illegal immigration, then it would be appropriate to have a uniform procedure.
That is what is provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I would therefore urge you to continue on the path which Parliament has already chosen, and also to delete Article 9.
Madam President, I would firstly like to say that I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, and I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and say that the PPE will follow his advice and broadly support his report.
Secondly, I would like to comment on these two proposals for joint action. Although they are not at the very heart of third pillar policies or generally part of the policy to build an area of freedom, security and justice, they are extremely interesting because they represent a very small step forward, a point of departure and, as such, a situation that will be repeated with other texts.
Why am I referring to this? I do so because it is basically an issue involving how we interpret our texts, general rules and exceptions to limited interpretations.
We have the example of the ruling of 12 May, which has already been quoted, in which the Court of Justice of the European Communities strictly but - I believe - correctly interpreted Article 100c of the EC Treaty. It pointed out that this Treaty refers to entry visas and not transit visas.
Given that this Article is an exception to Article K.1(3), it has to be interpreted separately.
Why do we therefore want the other proposal - that on the visa format for exceptional cases when the person travelling has no documents - to be based on Article 100c? We support this because it is Parliament's responsibility to do so.
In the same way as I said before that we need to adapt to what was agreed in the Amsterdam Treaty in order to determine the rules relating to the issue we discussed a few moments ago, here Parliament's role is to go as far as the texts will allow.
And it is evident that this visa, given to those who do not possess the correct, legal and legitimate documents, goes further than a visa itself. But there is no doubt that it is an incidental part of an identification document and one that therefore acts as a visa in terms of Regulation No 1683/95.
Parliament must therefore vote in favour of interpreting Article 100c to include something that is not expressly stated in the text. But we are referring here to the particular case of entry visas and, in general terms, it is correct to take Article 100c as the legal basis for this.
Therefore, Madam President, in my opinion - and here I am speaking from a purely personal point of view -, Parliament must act consistently. It must take legal texts to the limits of their interpretation, without of course resorting to sterile intransigence that simply means that proposals do not meet with success.
Madam President, today we are examining two draft joint actions put forward by the Council aimed at harmonising some specific aspects of visa policy and airport transit policy.
Although we are dealing with very formal issues, for example the uniform format of the forms for affixing visas, we should not forget that behind such formal issues lie some of the characteristics that are rapidly setting the tone of the immigration and asylum policy implemented recently by the Community authorities and Member States in the European Union.
As regards the joint action concerning the uniform format of visas and, in particular, the analysis of the legal basis, we agree with the view of the rapporteur and the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs, which has studied the relevant legal basis for this action, that the proposal should come from the European Commission and not the Council.
It should be a proposal for a directive rather than for joint action and thus come under the Community's immigration and asylum policy, as recommended in the Amsterdam Treaty, instead of within the context of a cooperation policy of the Member States.
What is more - and here we are focusing on the content of the proposal -, it is no use giving a general description of a uniform format for visas at European level so that, ultimately, Member States can decide on the technical procedures they wish to use.
In the same way, the form must be valid for all the countries of the European Union without the possibility of any exceptions.
Would this not be an appropriate way of formulating a genuine Community policy on visas?
Apart from these legal and political issues, I should like to stress the fact that harmonising these aspects of Community visa policy must not lead to greater restrictions and limitations for the immigration and asylum policy, which are hidden behind the demands for increased bureaucracy and complex visa requests.
We cannot allow this to make it more difficult for refugees and asylumseekers to reach a safe country.
To sum up, the provisions being adopted in relation to a uniform visa format and airport transit must form part of a genuine Community policy on immigration and asylum. Within this policy, we must ensure that the various actions are subject to legal and democratic control and that the main principles involved are solidarity and respect for human rights, against the constant backdrop of the provisions of the Geneva Convention and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Madam President, the visa issue is a constant topic of debate in Parliament, a state of affairs which is attributable, amongst other things, to an inability to reach agreement on a way out of the problem.
The question of visas for citizens of third countries, as well as the report on the same topic, are the product of the legal problems arising in committee.
The Court of Justice has set aside the Council's decision on such matters as the grey list, naming the countries that are required to have visas.
Despite this, the list is still in use and has been for nearly five years.
In practical terms, this means that Romania, for example, has to arrange a visa for its negotiators to participate in top-level meetings in Brussels, since Romania is still on a list which, despite having been annulled, is still in operation.
Such a situation is absurd!
Consequently, the overriding and all-important issue with regard to visas is still unresolved. At the same time, we now have to decide on the wording and appearance of the documents themselves, so that their format can be agreed and harmonised.
I think this is the wrong approach.
However, the main purpose of the report is to change the legal basis from the third pillar and intergovernmental cooperation to the first pillar and supranational control.
The Swedish members of the Green Group do not agree with such a proposal, and support intergovernmental cooperation. However, the rest of the group view matters differently.
I should like to recall yet again that Scandinavia has 40 years of expertise and experience in operating the Nordic Passport Union. Without centralisation, directives and harmonisation we have achieved a functioning passport union and a successful international visa policy.
It is a pity that more outside attention has not been paid to this, since our experience could have been of value in developing the approach in this area.
Finally, I should like to remind the House that the Amsterdam Treaty has still not come into force and therefore cannot be used as a reference in this context.
Madam President, Mr Lehne was quite right when he told us earlier that his report was very technical, but other problems can be seen behind the technical considerations.
Allow me to begin with the technical aspects of the document.
I do not share his views on the legal basis.
I believe that article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union was perfectly sound.
Nor do I share his view that the Commission should play the role that was initially assigned to the Council with regard to a joint action.
However, this purely technical matter does, in fact, raise another that is of an institutional nature and that must one day be tackled, that is, deciding what the respective powers of the Council and the Commission are and what they should be.
I have the greatest respect for the Commission, for the Commissioners and for the 15 000 officials who work under them.
But the fact remains that the Commissioners are appointed, and their democratic legitimacy is, shall I say, far from evident.
In contrast, the Council, which is made up of the representatives of the governments, does have a certain democratic legitimacy.
And this is the real problem in terms of the institutional evolution of the European Union.
There is a desire to attach the traditional parliamentary relationships that exist in our nations to the European institutions and make the Commission a pseudo-government.
However, the Commission is not a government.
The Commission is not the choice of a majority.
The Commission is not supported by a majority in the European Parliament.
The Commission is an institution that is half political and half technocratic.
And, therefore, I cannot agree with Mr Lehne, nor indeed the majority of this House, when they insist in, may I say, contesting the Council's powers, which are perfectly legitimate in democratic terms, for the benefit of a Commission that would be the future government of the future European State, on the basis of a hypothetical European people.
In fact, Europe has not one but several peoples; it has several traditions, several histories and several languages.
Therefore, where the institutional evolution of the European Union is concerned, it is essential that we should, on the one hand, restore greater political authority to the Council and, on the other, involve national parliaments in the European Parliament's work by extending its powers.
That is how we will achieve a truly democratic Europe.
Madam President, I wish to thank Mr Lehne for his valuable report on the two proposals for joint action relating to air transit and to a uniform format for documents for affixing visas.
These two proposals form part of an ongoing process.
The aim is to harmonise the rules governing the visa policy of the Member States.
Not all aspects of visa policy are covered by Article 100c of the present Treaty.
Some are adopted on the basis of Title VI.
However, when the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force it will regroup all aspects of visa policy in the first pillar under Title IV.
Let me outline to you the Commission's view on these two draft actions.
Firstly, we have the new proposal from the Council for a joint action relating to air transit arrangements based on Article K.3.
This proposal is an extension and an evolution of the existing one from 1996.
The Court of Justice has confirmed in 1998 that this action falls under Article K.3.
This new proposal for a joint action aims at incorporating two additional elements.
Firstly, the common short list of countries is extended to include Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Secondly, the proposal provides for an exception from the obligation of an air visa for nationals of countries who are holders of residence documents from certain other third countries, for example the United States and Switzerland.
The Commission has no specific comment to make at the present stage.
We will, however, look into the possibility of formulating a further proposal once the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
We have to take into account the integration of Schengen arrangements into the Union acquis.
The second proposal from the Council concerns a joint action for a uniform format for forms for affixing visas.
The aim is to reach a certain level of harmonisation in order to upgrade security standards in two exceptional cases.
One is when the visa sticker cannot be affixed in passports which are not recognised as a valid travel document; the other is when persons are not in possession of a valid travel document at all.
The Commission has some concerns about the legal basis, which has been chosen for this proposal.
There is no clear competence within the EC Treaty concerning when this form has to be delivered to persons holding no travel documents at all.
However, it might also be argued that such a form constitutes an integral part of the uniform visa format itself.
In that case Article 100c of the EC Treaty might apply.
The discussion within the Council will be decisive for the final position of the Commission.
It may be that the Commission will be called upon to make a declaration in the Council and, of course, then the Commission will convey the views expressed by the European Parliament to the Council.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 6.55 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, a point of order was raised on Tuesday.
In it Mr Janssen van Raay commented on the voluntary pension system.
He said: 'very briefly, unfortunately a number of Dutch people have indicated through their representative that they are happy with the system. That is what I wanted recorded in the Minutes yesterday.'
Madam President, I asked Mr Dankert if that was correct.
He is the most senior of the 31 Dutch Members and he tells me that it is definitely not true.
So I wanted to refute what Mr Janssen van Raay said here on Tuesday at the start of the day's proceedings.
We take note of that, Mrs Maij-Weggen.
Madam President, I should like to ask you to make sure that a copy of the complaint made by the Dutch authorities against the directive on patents is made available to Members of Parliament.
We have discussed transparency at great length this week. However, it is not acceptable that proceedings are taken against the European Parliament and yet the individual Members are not allowed to obtain a copy of the complaint.
I therefore cordially request you to ensure that Members who want a copy - and I think many Members are interested in this - are sent one as soon as possible, especially as the Parliament's Legal Service is already preparing an answer.
I think we must also prove our own credibility in matters of transparency.
I note that too, Mrs Breyer.
We shall see what can be done.
Madam President, I refer to Amendment No 49 on the McCarthy report.
I am registered as voting against that amendment when, in fact, I wanted to vote in favour.
Can that be put into the record.
That will be corrected, Mr Hallam.
Madam President, I just wanted to point out the fact that I voted in favour of Amendment No 7 of the McCarthy report by mistake.
I wanted to vote against it.
I informed the Bureau of this but I note that it has not been changed in the Minutes and I would like this to be rectified.
That too will be corrected.
(The Minutes were approved)
VOTES
Madam President, I must point out that there is a textual error which distorts the meaning in various documents and in various language versions.
In the report itself, Amendment No 5 relating to Article 3(2) reads accurately as follows: 'shall not exceed three years on aggregate and may be extended for no more than three years following a further decision.'
These three years appear as five years in some versions and other documents.
Extending five years to five years naturally distorts the meaning, as everyone recognises.
We ask for this to be duly corrected.
This error also appears, for instance, in the collection of proposed amendments to Amendment No 5; there it is incorrect.
It is correct under Amendment No 5 in Mr Wiebenga's original.
I should be grateful if this could be taken into account by the appropriate services.
Thank you for pointing that out, Mr Nassauer.
We shall take it into account.
(In successive votes, Parliament adopted the two legislative resolutions)
The organisation of the external borders of the Union is an absolute necessity.
They cannot be like open doors.
The provisions adopted must, however, be in line with the spirit and the letter of the Geneva Convention and European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
A third pillar is to be added to these two existing ones in the form of the additional measure provided for by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which will be implemented within five years of its entry into force and which authorises temporary stays within the Union for humanitarian reasons. This applies not only to individuals, but also to groups, who, strictly speaking, do not meet the terms of the aforementioned conventions, but whose physical or mental wellbeing can only be preserved through temporary protection in the Union.
This measure is urgently needed, particularly because of the Union's inability to implement a genuine common foreign and security policy, even at its own borders!
That being the case, we must be clear on the need to share the burden of each influx of refugees.
We must put an end to the complicated disputes that divide the Member States, which assure us that they have done all in their power to take in as many refugees as possible and more often than not lead us to believe that the other countries are still doing too little in this respect.
Precise evaluation criteria must be defined.
It should be pointed out once again that the temporary protection regime must, by its very nature, go hand in hand with an early examination of the conditions and resources needed to prepare for the decent return and successful reintegration of the refugees when they go back to their country of origin.
We must ensure this when implementing this statute.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of common rules for granting temporary refugee status, minimum rights for such refugees and more solidarity in distributing them among the Member States.
The problem is that many displaced persons, such as the refugees from the war in former Yugoslavia, do not meet the conditions for refugee status laid down in the Geneva Convention, and that such refugees are being very unevenly distributed among the Member States.
We need common rules on who should have refugee status, how long they will be allowed to stay in the Union and what conditions they are to live in while they are here.
We have voted in favour of a temporary protection regime that will be invoked only in emergencies involving a sudden mass flight of refugees.
The Geneva Convention should continue to be the starting-point, and human rights must be respected.
This proposal is an excellent and much-needed one.
There should be more sharing of responsibility when it comes to dealing with refugee crises in Europe.
The proposal should be seen as complementing the Geneva Convention, which should always be respected.
Solidarity with regard to refugees is not something that can be achieved through legislation or compulsion. Neither rules nor an enforced decision by a qualified majority are therefore to be recommended.
Sharing the refugee burden has to be based on voluntarily agreed mutual responsibility.
It is important to stress that burden-sharing will only apply in emergencies involving a mass influx of refugees.
The rules on temporary protection should at all times be based on the principle that international protection is an obligation in accordance with international rights of asylum and the rules on human rights.
It is also important to stress that the rules governing temporary protection must not deprive anyone of access to asylum procedures.
Lehne report (A4-0408/98)
It is important to settle, in the most rational way possible, the question of procedures relating to access to countries for those holding no travel documents or those holding travel documents that are not recognised by the Member State asked for access authorisation.
From this point of view, the use of a standard model form on which to affix visas might prove beneficial.
But I can still only see this being of any real use if the introduction of such documents actually contributes to the emergence of a uniform European policy on visas.
The introduction of a standard form is only one stage in this.
Along with the members of our Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I am prepared to believe that the introduction of a standard form for visas is in line with Community law, on the basis of Article 100c of the Treaty establishing the European Community rather than Article K.3(2) of the Treaty on European Union.
In the case of airport transit, the Court of Justice settled the legal debate that set the Commission, supported by Parliament, against the Council in favour of the latter, since it judged that this issue was well and truly a matter for the third pillar.
We can only hope that it does not do the same in the case of the standard form.
Parliament's credibility in this area depends on it.
I would like to state clearly that the organisation of our external borders is an absolute necessity and that it is out of the question to allow just anyone to enter the Union in whatever way they please.
I also want to say that I agree with the rapporteur's belief that the necessary standardisation of the system cannot de facto override the provisions contained in the Geneva Convention and the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
Having made these observations, I support the two proposals as amended.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a joint action concerning a uniform format for forms for affixing visas and on airport transit arrangements.
However, we have voted against the committee's recommendation that these joint actions should be replaced by a directive and a regulation under the first pillar.
We believe that proposals such as these should form part of intergovernmental cooperation under the third pillar.
The northern countries have nearly half a century's experience of operating the Nordic Passport Union, which functions at international level.
It ought to serve as an example for the EU, since the Amsterdam Treaty has still not entered into force and therefore cannot be used as a reference.
The legal base should not be changed to allow a qualified majority decision in the Council.
I cannot support the Commission's ambition to become a kind of EU 'government'.
It would be better to give more authority to Member States and to the Council.
Madam President, yesterday I made a point regarding the camera crew in the Chamber.
I asked whether that camera crew was here by permission and could it be investigated.
Your secretariat said it would investigate it.
Could you advise me if they had authority to film in the manner in which they did?
According to my information, a Member of the House had obtained permission to be filmed from the public gallery.
It used to be that filming was not allowed in the Chamber area and in the gallery.
I am at a loss to understand how this individual got permission.
I should like to ask you, as a member of the Bureau, to raise it in the Bureau, because it is very important to treat this House with some kind of dignity.
Cameramen are running all over the place outside the Chamber and if we start to allow them to come into the Chamber this place will soon be flooded with television cameras.
I should like to ask you to refer this matter to the Bureau for investigation.
I do not think your concern is really justified, Mr Falconer, but I will have the matter looked into once again.
Madam President, on a not dissimilar point, when I left this Chamber, together with other Members, yesterday lunchtime at the time of the vote, people wearing T-shirts advertising the cause they were supporting were standing at the door thrusting pieces of paper into our hands.
Some Members nearly tripped over as they left the Chamber.
They were being invited to sign what I regard as a perfectly acceptable declaration, but that sort of demonstration has no place within Parliament's precincts.
I would certainly ask you and the President to investigate what rules and regulations we have to stop manifestations of that nature operating within the precincts and indeed at the very doors of Parliament's Chamber.
Those people yesterday caused me no particular offence in terms of the cause they were pursuing but the next time it might very well be people to whom I and other elected Members of this House would have very great objections.
I have noted that, and we shall consider how to proceed in such cases.
Illicit manufacture of drugs
The next item is the report (A4-0367/98) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 92/109/EEC relating to the manufacturing and placing on the market of certain substances used in the illicit manufacture of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances (COM(98)0022 - C4-0081/98-98/0017(COD)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this is an instrument for combatting drugs which is intended to help us make the illicit diversion of precursors as difficult as possible and if possible to prevent it.
These precursors are required for the manufacture of drugs, such as heroin and cocaine, but in particular for the manufacture of synthetic drugs, such as Ecstasy, ICE, LSD and amphetamines, because these drugs are manufactured exclusively from precursors.
The reason why we need such an instrument is that consumption of drugs, particularly synthetic drugs, is increasing not only across Europe, but throughout the world.
I have obtained a copy of the most recent figures, which indicate that around 2.5 million Ecstasy tablets were seized in 1997 in Europe alone, half of which were seized in the Netherlands.
In the same year, 267 000 doses of LSD were seized, half of which again were seized in the Netherlands.
The amounts seized show that drug use is currently on the increase.
However, they also show that anti-drug strategies are taking effect, and that police measures are effective, namely because more synthetic drugs are being seized.
These synthetic drugs are now being consumed by more than 5 million young people in Europe according to conservative estimates.
The situation is therefore a dramatic one, particularly because these young people never know what substances the synthetic drugs they are consuming actually contain.
That is to say, the mixture of substances varies constantly, in terms both of precursors and the strength of the dose.
This means young people are exposed to extreme danger, and are therefore guinea-pigs for unscrupulous businessmen.
We must do everything possible to find the best instruments for combatting drugs precisely for this reason, that is, to protect young people.
A Council proposal is now available on amending a directive which dates from 1992. It contains a very practical proposal which may also be promising, particularly if we incorporate the amendments from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs which is what I am requesting.
The proposal was drawn up on the basis of expert hearings.
We had representatives from the chemicals industry here, as well as representatives from the authorities, in order to sound out the most practical model and to draw conclusions from this.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs also shares the Council's view on nearly all issues, because its proposal is simply very consistent and very comprehensive, as well as very practical.
What are the important points then? I should like to single out the five most important points made in this proposal.
Firstly, we had to decide between two possibilities: one was to draw up a fixed list, in which all precursors that are used to produce drugs are broken down into categories and monitored.
At present, there are 22 of these. However, we would have to make the list much longer in order to introduce realistic checks because the substances used have changed, and there is a large number of them.
If we had a fixed list, carrying out a check would be more or less impossible, with the result that we decided to take the other option.
In reality, we have key substances which are fixed, and we can make the list longer and change it according to the substances that are currently being used to produce drugs.
This means that we have a list of key substances which can be made longer and updated.
We can use this to react to the present situation in the most effective way.
The second point is that this list must not be made public. Otherwise, it would be quite possible for the producers to simply avoid the checks, because what is monitored is in any case well-known.
The third point concerns the opportunity given to the Member States to prohibit trade in precursors where there is reason to assume that these precursors are being diverted for the production of drugs.
The fourth point is quite an important one, because the system would probably not work otherwise; this system involves cooperation between the economic players - that is, the chemicals industry - and the authorities on a voluntary basis, but the Member States must prepare for this possible voluntary cooperation.
That is to say, the economic players, or the chemicals industry, should provide information voluntarily when unusual transactions or orders are received, whilst the authorities are naturally given powers to obtain information, as well as to carry out spot checks on business premises.
This system of voluntary cooperation is already in operation in some Member States, such as Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it is extremely successful.
In Germany alone there were 6 000 notifications in the last year alone, and these were successfully investigated, in order to prevent the illicit diversion of precursors, and therefore the production of drugs as well.
The fifth and very important point is that we must build up monitoring systems and integrate the countries of Central and Eastern Europe through the Phare programme when controlling precursors in the fight against drugs.
The proposal provides that workers from the chemicals industry and the employees of the authorities be invited to Europe for training.
This firstly guarantees that the money is not misused, as quite often happens, and also that we train people in the way we want and, at the same time, have contacts in these Member States as well.
This constitutes a monitoring system that makes it practically impossible to shift procurement elsewhere, and enables cooperation to prevent the illicit diversion of precursors.
With this package, we hope to successfully control the illicit diversion of precursors not only across Europe but, because this has been possible for two years, throughout the world as well, and to get our hands on an instrument that is essential in allowing us to successfully combat drugs, thereby protecting young people.
I urge you to fully endorse and implement this proposal.
Madam President, if you can brave the unrelenting noise of rave parties and the hordes of young people with apparently endless supplies of energy who attend them, you can detect a sign of the new era of synthetic drugs.
It is now fashionable to go crazy, enter a frenzy, explode, drift into a trance, to show that you are in the blossom of youth.
There are techno and house-music tribes looking for new rituals led by strangely charismatic nocturnal animals known as DJs.
Their religion is based on the myth that the new electronic forms of music can only be appreciated under the effect of drugs.
Sudden alterations of behaviour in apparently normal people - some of them familiarly normal, professional people - demonstrate the effects of these miraculous capsules of instantaneous performance, the key to voluptuous physical states and mental capacities.
Although we have yet to say a final goodbye to the traditional heroin, cocaine or marijuana, we are facing a new reality that is about to erupt like a volcano.
It has in its hold a planetary audience in the quest for new sensations, new radical experiences and new ways of coming to terms with a paradoxical world of opulence and poverty, culture and illiteracy, masters and slaves, privileged and marginal lifestyles.
It is on this new danger and the widespread production of synthetic drugs that we are holding a debate today.
It is not enough to control the old trade routes from South America, North Africa or the Far East.
The factories producing Ecstasy and their substitutes are right next to consumers, cropping up like new arts and crafts shops.
Even the Internet offers recipes for producing these super-drugs with potentially lethal effects.
That is why we must control trade in the so-called precursors, or chemical substances used in the illicit manufacture of these types of narcotics.
That is why we must step up voluntary cooperation between the authorities and the chemical and pharmaceutical companies to detect any suspicious acquisitions of substances on the list of products that are possible ingredients for these psychotropic substances.
These lists should not be made public and they should be flexible, since the compounds used are changing so often and it is impossible to list all the latest precursors.
Ecstasy has now existed for 10 years.
Everyone is aware of the irreversible brain damage it can cause.
In the meantime, the market novelties are called DOB, Golden Eagle, 4MTA, and flatliners, which are 33 times stronger than Ecstasy.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe should be included in the scope of this joint action so that they do not turn into alternative markets beyond our control. The European Parliament should take part in assessing voluntary cooperation.
This is a matter endangering the future wellbeing of our society and we should be neither distracted nor tranquillised, and nor should we have hallucinations.
Madam President, it is of course very important to monitor drug precursors and trafficking in them where new synthetic drugs are concerned; but only, of course, where necessary, because there are also synthetic drugs which are not dangerous.
However, if they contain adulterating substances these must be identified.
So we must not give too much weight to the problem, only where it is dangerous.
Naturally, young people also need to be properly informed so that they know what they are getting.
I think it would be a good idea to extend the voluntary cooperation we already have in our country and a number of other countries between the authorities and those in the market to other countries in Europe.
We shall be voting for the amendments.
But I do not think it is all that realistic to insist that the list of substances cannot be made public.
I think that is too much to hope for.
Lastly, Madam President, I think it is most important to achieve close cooperation with Central and Eastern Europe here.
Otherwise we shall just be shifting the problem from Western to Eastern Europe.
Mr President, I should like to offer my congratulations to Mr Pirker on his excellent report.
The battle against drugs and drug abuse must be constant and far-reaching.
To no less a degree, the problem of synthetic drugs is constantly increasing, since their chemical components, the so-called precursors, are quicker and simpler to change and thus evade legislation.
The Commission's proposal to amend the present directive is not a solution, but it is an important step in combating the manufacture, and hence reducing the availability, of narcotic substances.
The proposal is also in line with the decision taken by the UN General Assembly in New York last summer.
Because of the nature of the problem, a flexible drugs list cannot be made official if it is to work.
Constructive and voluntary cooperation between Member States and the chemical industry is especially welcome. The experience of countries where such a procedure exists has shown that it works very well.
Mr President, I must firstly congratulate Mr Pirker on his excellent report.
It has become a habit of his to present us with serious texts that are the fruit of meticulous work.
The issue involved is of key importance for the future of the young people of Europe.
As the rapporteur pointed out, synthetic drugs are used by five million young people and this gives us an idea of the extent of the danger.
The risks are even greater because the chemical composition of these drugs constantly varies and because young people risk becoming guinea pigs and being used for experiments by particularly unscrupulous drug traffickers.
A recent survey on the use of hashish among students in French schools shows that only 16 % of users are still at school at the age of 18, compared with 75 % of the rest of students, and that 60 % of them do not progress beyond secondary education.
This is what calls into question the dubious distinction between supposedly soft drugs and other drugs, which also applies, of course, to synthetic drugs.
The dangers of these drugs are recognised but they are played down, and even denied, by certain showbiz personalities or politicians in an extremely irresponsible manner.
I also call on those who support the cause of individual freedom in order to justify the free consumption of drugs to consider that true freedom is responsible and that it begins with freeing us from the influence of alienating substances.
The principles set out by the Commission and in the report by Mr Pirker do seem to be realistic.
The principle of promoting voluntary cooperation between operators, producers and distributors seems to be a step in the right direction, based as it is on the desire to give a sense of responsibility to all those involved, and all policies aimed at giving us a sense of responsibility are good policies.
I would like to say, in conclusion, that in this debate we must put the welfare of young people first. They are the main victims of these synthetic drugs and suffer because of a corrupt idea of supposedly recreational or communal pleasures.
This is all due to reasons that I would call - without beating around the bush - base mercenary reasons, which treat the real welfare of young people with disdain. We must therefore appeal to the sense of responsibility of young people, but also to the sense of responsibility of those who, in the name of a false idea of freedom, lead them to play down the fact that the consumption of drugs is alienating and degrading.
This is all about defending the dignity of our young people. For us, as responsible politicians, this fight is an urgent obligation.
Mr President, we have followed the work here in Parliament of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and we have noted that its attitude as expressed in Hedy d'Ancona's report is very liberal.
This is a more serious issue than soft drugs; it is a matter of synthetic drugs and their precursors, which are chemical substances.
Voluntary monitoring is a very soft option.
I would like to turn your attention, however, to the fact that the rapporteur has recommended cooperation with non-member countries, but only with regard to central and eastern European countries.
Finland's neighbour is Russia. Russia belongs to the Confederation of Independent States, and cooperation with that country is at least as important as with the central and eastern European states.
A great deal of traffic, some of it in transit, enters the European Union area from Russia.
I would hope that the rapporteur takes this into account next time.
Mr President, today we are once again discussing suggestions for improvements in the fight against synthetic drugs.
I have repeatedly pointed out why these drugs are particularly dangerous.
The report's proposals, particularly to make the lists more flexible, constitute one step further along a difficult path.
Probably as a result of the very clear opinions formulated in the expert hearing, the debate in committee revealed a rare consensus of opinion, with which I would also identify.
However, this consensus must not be allowed to give a false sense of security or draw attention away from actual developments.
I have followed with great concern the new German Government's intention to start experiments to control the sale of hard drugs in Hamburg and Frankfurt, and to decide on a legal framework for the sale of heroin at national level.
We should really have learnt more from pilot projects that came to nothing.
Drugs constitute a dangerous threat to the health of our children, and liberalisation of these drugs increases this further.
Mr President, Mr Pirker's report now under discussion touches on a very timely subject, that of drugs.
There has been an explosive growth in their trade, due among other things to the relaxation of border controls.
It is easier than before to smuggle illicit substances across borders.
Presumably only a small proportion of drugs is ever seized.
The European Union has always championed the free movement of people internationally.
For that reason it has an immense responsibility to prevent any adverse effects which might ensue.
The second pillar of the EU, cooperation in internal and legal affairs, owes its greatest justification perhaps to the fight against drugs.
The traffic and sale of narcotic and psychotropic precursors is also an indication of how important it is to develop a common ID system in the EU.
Apart from reducing the avoidance of customs tariffs and taxes, it would promote better monitoring and control of drug precursors.
For this reason the system should be introduced as soon as possible.
Mr President, the use of synthetic drugs such as ecstasy has spread rapidly, especially among young people.
This is confirmed by the fact that apart from marijuana they are the most consumed drugs in the European Union.
I welcome the intention of the Commission to extend the scope of the 1992 directive on the control of illicit narcotics to include precursors used in the manufacture of these new drugs.
I recognise that it is not an easy task because chemical precursors have a legal use as well as being a key part of illicit drug production.
Cooperation to tackle this problem is imperative.
The action plan agreed at the General Assembly of the United Nations in June of this year is a step in the right direction.
We in the European Union must build upon this.
The rapporteur correctly underlines the importance of international cooperation, especially in relation to Central and Eastern Europe where we can exert significant influence.
The manufacture of synthetic drugs is a growth business in Central and Eastern Europe.
We can use the PHARE programme, as he suggests, to build up an appropriate monitoring system.
However, we can take it one step further by making it clear to those countries which hope to become members of the European Union that we expect their full cooperation and commitment to take firm and decisive action.
A failure to do so would effect our attitude to their eventual accession.
I support this report and the proposals contained therein.
I hope that it makes an important contribution to addressing the drugs problem which shatters so many of the lives of our young citizens.
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission, allow me to firstly thank Mr Pirker very sincerely for his excellent report and for what seems to me to be his very convincing support for our proposal for a directive.
It is thanks to his efforts, and others, that this proposal has rapidly been brought before the European Parliament for a first reading.
The development of synthetic drugs is an extremely serious problem, not only for the European Community but also for the rest of the world.
Current Community legislation on precursors for synthetic drugs only allows us to monitor 22 chemical substances that are classified by UN conventions.
Moreover, the illegal manufacture of these drugs makes increasing use of other products that can be easily substituted and that are not scheduled.
However, it would be counterproductive to extend the strict measures that are currently applied to the 22 scheduled precursors to other possible precursors because of the widespread commercial use of these chemical products.
Only an appropriate system is feasible.
The aim of the amendment proposed by the Commission is therefore to make the Member States establish a system of cooperation. This system would mean that economic operators would voluntarily notify the competent authorities of transactions that they suspect involve substances that are not currently covered by the directive but that are, nonetheless, used on a large scale in the illegal manufacture of synthetic drugs.
Although the number of substances involved is very high, only a targeted approach is conceivable.
A 'precursors' committee that already assists the Commission with existing legislation will be given the task of establishing and updating lists of the products to be monitored.
The work of this committee is, of course, confidential.
Let us now look at the amendments tabled by the European Parliament.
The Commission welcomes, and therefore accepts, Amendments Nos 1 and 3 because it shares Parliament's wish to strive for greater security in terms of monitoring precursors and drugs.
As regards Amendment No 4, the Commission understands Parliament's desire to have a tool for assessing the monitoring measures for drugs precursors.
At the moment, the Commission is already preparing an annual report for the International Narcotics Control Board - which is, as you know, a UN body - on the basis of the information it receives from the Member States.
The Commission therefore has doubts as to the validity of the request for an additional report and as to how this special European Parliament report would differ from that drawn up or to be drawn up for the INCB.
We must also be aware that the information currently provided by the Member States is unfortunately patchy and does not allow us to assess the effectiveness of the system currently in place within the framework of the existing directive.
The assessment of a system that is not as yet operational will only be even more risky.
Therefore, the Commission cannot undertake to produce such a special report, but it is naturally happy to provide the European Parliament with the annual report for the INCB.
The rapporteur has already been sent this information this year.
Parliament's desire in Amendment No 5 to ensure that the lists of products to be monitored are not made public is already implicitly included in the Commission's proposal.
In fact, given that these lists are to be drawn up by the precursors committee, whose work is not published, this addition seems unnecessary.
The second part of the amendment relating to the continuous adaptation of Community and national legislation does seem, however, to be very useful.
For the Commission, accepting the amendment authorising the optional introduction of the monitoring measures would be tantamount to negating the substance of the Commission's proposal.
In addition, a system where certain Member States applied the directive and others did not would inevitably lead to a distortion of competition within the single market.
Therefore, the Commission cannot accept this final amendment.
As for the rest, I must once again congratulate the rapporteur wholeheartedly, along with those who helped him, on the report that he presented to us today in such an extremely convincing manner.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Before we proceed to the vote on the report by Mr Pirker, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to inform you of something I am sure you will be pleased to hear.
On Monday, 16 November, the Bureau adopted a decision to take the technical and budgetary measures to also allow the Friday morning sittings to be filmed.
This is something that many of you had repeatedly called for and I think that the Bureau was right to give a positive response to your request.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
WTO: financial services
The next item is the report (A4-0420/98) by Mr Kittelmann, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion on behalf of the European Community, as regards matters within its competence, of the results of the World Trade Organisation negotiations on financial services (COM(98)0440 - C4-0489/98-98/0239(CNS)).
I give the floor first to Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, who is deputising for Mr Kittelmann.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am deputising for the rapporteur, Mr Kittelmann, who has put a great deal of work into this report in the Committee on External Economic Relations, finally securing unanimous support for it, a point which is very important.
When we examine the report and look at how the WTO negotiations on this have been delayed, we should really assume that a happy outcome is also worth waiting for, at least in this case, thank goodness!
Once again it was the United States that was strongly opposed to this area of competence at the start, but then adopted a more flexible position following the 1995 interim agreement.
We have seen that, as soon as Parliament and the Commission exerted enough pressure on the USA, it gave way, and did not play the international policeman, as is otherwise usually the case in many areas of the WTO, but recognised this to be the sensible solution.
What is this report about? It is mainly a question of dismantling barriers to trade and also allowing financial services to be offered worldwide without being subject to discrimination.
We have referred to this area of competence in various reports several times in Parliament, and not least this week in Mrs Mann's report on transatlantic relations.
This also concluded that a situation which is better for the economy on the whole, and therefore for jobs too, of course, can only be created by dismantling barriers to trade.
In the last month, for instance, we have also closely examined Mrs Mosiek-Urbahn's report on the insurance directive, and it came to similar conclusions against discrimination on another Community problem.
I believe that it is very important for us to not only apply this to countries in the European Union, but also to particularly endeavour to raise this at the WTO negotiations.
The report deals exclusively with how the WTO Agreement is to be implemented from a purely technical point of view.
Perhaps then I could say a few words on the procedure: alongside the general negotiations, specific market access was negotiated for individual services which are recognised in addition to the GATS Agreement.
These are, in particular, the areas of basic telecommunications and financial services.
Even before expiry of this deadline, it emerged that the USA viewed as inadequate the offers submitted by the approximately 30 WTO members - with the 15 Member States of the European Union counting as one -, stating that it was not prepared to extend its offer in accordance with the most-favoured nation status to all WTO members.
The USA practically baulked and jibbed at it.
The negotiations on the agreement were then successfully concluded on 12 December 1997.
70 member countries submitted improved lists of offers concerning market access and national treatment.
The whole agreement in its present form is a considerable improvement on the 1995 interim agreement.
In addition to the inclusion of the USA, many WTO members are involved in the agreement, and its scope is considerable.
It guarantees substantially free market access and national treatment for foreign financial institutions in more than 95 % of all worldwide trade in financial services.
Equity trading covered by liberalisation alone represents an enormous market.
The basis of the agreement is the 1996 data, which show that equity trading alone covers USD 14.8 trillion, and total banking assets amount to USD 41.2 trillion.
At the same time, the agreement also ensures that EU financial institutions can operate on similarly favourable conditions in third country markets, as is possible for third countries on the territory of the European Union.
The procedure proposed by the Commission, involving consultation of the European Parliament under Article 228(3), first subparagraph, of the EC Treaty, is certainly something Parliament can accept.
I do not want to add much more here, because the reasoning behind these decisions is contained in the explanatory statements.
I would like to explain one more point.
I consider it to be particularly important that Parliament is successfully tackling this today so that we simply keep to our timetable.
It must be concluded promptly so that the date of 1 March 1999 set for its entry into force can be adhered to.
Mr President, the world economy has changed fundamentally over the last decade.
Market forces have become increasingly liberated from the political decision-making process.
The agreement on financial services that we are discussing today is, in our view, basically a sound agreement.
It is important that the other agreements concluded between the EU and the WTO do not work to the detriment of European consumers.
That would jeopardise the public's understanding of these agreements.
And I think it is important to emphasise precisely that point - public understanding.
Moreover, this agreement comes at a good time.
The financial crises which have recently been affecting the Asian countries have made it even more important to send out a signal that economic stability is crucial to our ability to create fresh growth throughout the world.
It is therefore particularly welcome that a large number of countries have subscribed to this agreement.
It cannot be stressed often enough that international cooperation is essential.
There are many examples of challenges which are best resolved by the international community: green taxes and duties, eco-labelling, trade instruments with an environmental aim, facilitating market access for the developing countries, protecting intellectual property rights and the fight against technical barriers to trade.
Our responsibility as politicians is to ensure that there is no giving way on the rights of individual consumers.
We must therefore work together to see that the democratic control over the WTO is as strict as that applied to the EU.
That is our task for the future.
Mr President, I think that today we have seen how without the EU we should have not reached this binding agreement. We should also remember the work of the cross-border 'financial leaders group' in bringing it about.
It is a tactic that we need to consider for future WTO negotiations. It could be the case that economic interests facilitated cooperation, while political prestige did not play so large a part.
Like Mr Iversen, I think this is important for achieving stability.
The market is in a strange mood at present, partly on account of closed domestic markets and partly because of the large flows of capital that move around the world and lead to speculation.
Achieving stability and transparency is an important means of putting an end to speculation, for example by creating a climate that stimulates domestic saving in South-East Asia.
The agreement also comes at an important moment for Europe, for instance enabling us to invest in Japan's pensions market, and in view of all the infrastructure investment that is being made in many different fields.
It is also clear that this agreement has significant implications for developing countries that have achieved a certain level of development, enabling them to increase their savings.
Nevertheless, there are some problems.
I think it would also be extremely worthwhile to tie in the money-laundering issue and ensure that the BIS international rules are rigorously enforced. The problem with Japan was that we did not know what the rules were and how they were being applied.
That is also one of the aims of increased competition.
Now we will have a way of knowing which rules are applicable.
I also hope that we make real progress on a new negotiating mandate when Finland takes over the presidency next autumn.
Mr President, politicians would appear to have an easy job today.
It seems as if we are only needed to liberalise the trade in goods and services. We have to disentangle as much as possible as rapidly as possible from the protective structures that different countries set up for the protection of people and the environment.
Thus it would seem that today policy controls only people, but not goods or capital, and as a result, policy has lost its credibility.
Free citizens cannot trust in a policy that casts everyone in the same mould and turns the electorate into mere consumers.
The liberalisation of goods and services is being discussed in the WTO, and that is the right place for international agreements.
For that reason, we naturally have no other option than to approve the agreement now being discussed just as Mr Kittelmann suggests in his report.
However, I would like to address another aspect of the issue.
It is not at all self-evident that market forces operating blindly in a free financial market will comply with the generally accepted rules of the game.
In the present true capitalist system, which is global and electronic, the methods of monitoring financial institutions have not kept pace with the freeing-up of markets.
For that reason, the markets are not free.
The money market is a dictator of market forces, as it is not really monitored openly.
This is a problem that has not been mentioned in any of the international conferences and there is not one UN organisation which deals with it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, imagine you are asked for your opinion as Members of Parliament, and it is an important matter.
To put it more precisely, it involves nothing less than the GATS, the General Agreement on Trade in Services under the umbrella of the WTO, the World Trade Organisation, and therefore once again, the financial services.
Imagine then that your role is purely to applaud.
I am certain you would not be satisfied with this.
However, this is precisely the case today.
This is a turnkey agreement which guarantees free market access and national treatment in more than 95 % of worldwide trade in financial services.
Significant progress has therefore been made once again through the unhindered and uncontrolled activity of banks and other financial institutions, and indeed, in exactly 102 countries throughout the world.
Not only that, but shares can also be rotated even more quickly.
As Mr Kittelmann so beautifully puts it in his report, and I quote: 'The volume of equity trading covered by liberalisation commitments alone represented USD 14.8 trillion in 1996.
Total banking assets in the countries that are parties to the agreement amounted to USD 41.2 trillion in 1995.'
Entire countries are therefore being driven into ruin because uncontrolled financial flows cause the national budget to collapse.
We are therefore calling for urgent reforms in the international financial system.
And we are talking about wanting to incorporate safety nets, set up early-warning systems, take accompanying measures, or even promote development policy.
At the same time, we are supposed to applaud because the Commission has once again made a successful attempt at liberalisation, without asking our opinion.
There is an urgent need for reform here.
In the European Union we need Parliament to exert an influence in issuing mandates and following approval procedures in all agreements of global economic importance.
The WTO must also be reformed.
Its sole commitment to liberalisation at all costs is a mistake.
The financial crises of recent months speak volumes about this.
For this reason we do not endorse the report that was submitted.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Kittelmann for his excellent report and also for the very convincing presentation by Mr Habsburg-Lothringen.
The successful conclusion of GATT negotiations on financial services on 12 December last year was indeed a major achievement which reinforced the World Trade Organisation as a framework for multilateral service negotiations.
Today we can see the benefits of having this sort of environment where things can be settled and be discussed instead of having to cope with unilateral action.
By including financial services on a permanent, most favoured nation and non-discriminatory basis between WTO countries, which is the basis here, and by securing effective market access to some 96 % of the WTO financial markets, the EC's main negotiating objective has been achieved.
Ratification and subsequent entry into force of the agreement is now the EU's main priority.
We are taking all the steps necessary to ensure that the agreement is ratified promptly both by the EEC and by its Member States so that it can enter into force by the agreed date of 1 March next year.
We also expect other countries who participated in the negotiations to complete their internal procedures before the deadline of 29 January next year.
Financial service liberalisation will remain an essential element in the development of efficient financial services world-wide which is the prerequisite for sound economic development.
We are therefore confident that the economic crisis affecting certain countries will not result either now or in the future, impede future negotiations starting in the year 2000, nor will it lead to moves towards more protectionism.
I was listening very carefully to what some of the Members of Parliament said.
We should make a distinction between having free markets designed to function well and efficiently and rules which need to be there and need to be enforced.
Part of the problem in Asia and elsewhere lies in the fact that there are no adequate rules. If there are rules they are not properly enforced.
There is a lack of rules even in states like Japan and hitherto the international institutions have not been given sufficient powers to ensure that rules, if they exist, are enforced efficiently.
That is a major challenge but that should not lead to the conclusion that we should not continue to liberalise financial services.
That is a different story.
I would readily accept the need, as some of you said, for more efficient rules world-wide or on a national basis and authorities - sufficiently independent authorities - to impose the rules of the game.
That is the price that has to be paid for having a stable system and taking full advantage of liberalisation which has been discussed and has been agreed to.
Thanks to all Members of Parliament for their contributions and I would like to wind up by saying that I take it for granted that all Member States and the European Union will ratify the text in due course.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to have your attention again briefly.
I would like to ask Mr HabsburgLothringen to convey our congratulations to Mr Kittelmann on the quality of his report.
And, as I am mentioning the name Habsburg, I would like to remind you all that this Friday, Mr Otto von Habsburg, quite unusually, is not here with us.
We know that he is unable to attend due to illness but we also know that he is now on the road to recovery.
However, today is a very special day for Mr Otto von Habsburg because it is his birthday.
Today, he celebrates 86 wonderful and fruitful years.
Therefore, on behalf of everyone, allow me to send him our congratulations and our best wishes for a speedy recovery because we do indeed need him here with us on Fridays.
Mr Van Miert, you have the floor.
Mr President, I would like to say on behalf of the Commission that I agree with what you said.
I am sure that my colleagues fully appreciate the true value of your words and, on their behalf, I would also like to echo them.
Book pricing in Germany and Austria
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B4-0704/98 by Mrs Hawlicek, Mrs Junker and Mr Tannert, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the complaint procedure against the cross-border net price system for books between Germany and Austria; -B4-0706/98 by Mr Ebner, Mrs Günther, Mrs Pack and Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on the complaint by the Commission against the cross-border fixed price agreement for books between Austria and Germany; -B4-0707/98 by Mr Frischenschlager, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the complaint concerning the cross-border fixing of the prices of books between Austria and Germany; -B4-0708/98 by Mrs Pailler, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on retail price controls on books; -B4-0709/98 by Mr Kerr, Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, Mr Voggenhuber, Mr Cohn-Bendit, Mr Lagendijk and Mr Wolf, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on the infringement procedure involving the cross-border net price system for books between Germany and Austria.I have received three motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
I give the floor first to Mr Elchlepp, who has four minutes to move his question.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at a first glance, the system of fixed book prices in the Germanspeaking area of Europe may appear antiquated. However, if you consider the far-reaching consequences it would have if it were discontinued, then you should be far more sensitive towards this pressing matter of cultural policy.
I would on principle have expected the Commission, as an advocate of cultural diversity and also a promoter of jobs in Europe, to take into account all the objectives of the European Treaties in its examination of the book pricing system from the point of view of competition law.
Freedom of competition is neither an absolute asset nor an objective in itself.
In my opinion the preservation of cultural diversity, laid down in Article 128(4), is in this case a more valuable asset.
Did the Commission think when carrying out its competition law analysis that in labour-intensive small businesses in the book trade possibly up to 200 000 jobs and also thousands of training places could be lost by abolishing fixed prices? Finally, many scientific studies fear that the number of bookshops would drop from 4 000 to just 800 in the event of this regulation being abolished.
Commissioner, in the village where I live in the Black Forest, it would certainly no longer be possible to run a bookshop.
The number of publishing houses could also decrease sharply because greater proceeds from best-sellers sold at fixed prices reduce the commercial risk of promoting cultural goods.
The example of the USA should serve as a warning to us; prices for reference books and for fiction and poetry are higher there than in Germany, and the book trade there is limited to a small number of traders who belong to chains of shops, which themselves depend on the big publishing houses.
Books should therefore not be subject to the laws of uncontrolled competition!
Surely the main aim cannot be to sell culture more cheaply but to protect its diversity.
The consumers want good advice and a wide range of titles, and this is guaranteed by fixed book prices.
In my country alone, 75 000 new books are published every year compared with only 55 000 in the much larger US market.
The readers also want rapid availability of books, and our system guarantees this.
I should just like to say, Commissioner, in order to make myself quite clear, that I am not against EU competition law or the completion of the internal market in Europe.
However, it is precisely because of this that we need to maintain the price-fixing system for books.
Fixed prices allow a wide range of suppliers and titles and protect against competition.
They guarantee cultural and literary diversity on a market economy basis, and without subsidies.
I repeat: the issues are also the cultural identity of linguistic areas and cultural diversity in Europe.
Furthermore, there remains considerable doubt as to whether the Commission should refer to a report when how it came about raises more questions than it has given answers.
The Commission must also state why it did not want to be monitored by a Permanent Advisory Committee on Books, as it actually wanted to ten years ago.
Mr President, Commissioner, if a few chains of shops and unfortunately also the European Commission have their way, the book pricing system is to be abolished.
At present, publishing houses in Austria and in some other countries of the Union have the possibility of selling their products at a fixed minimum price.
This is said to contradict the spirit of the European Treaties because it can lead to cartel-like structures.
This argument is probably right from a purely economic point of view.
In spite of lower prices, so-called best-sellers make a significant turnover for the publishing houses because of the large number of copies published.
Even at a lower price hardly any specialist books would be sold.
Certainly, a book is not a commodity like other household goods and appliances.
Books are part of a country's culture.
Workers' educational associations, municipal libraries, school libraries, book clubs, and so on, have been trying since the last century to motivate people to educate themselves more by reading quality literature.
Many books would not be published if publishing houses could not make a profit with best-sellers, which subsidise the publishers' other products.
The diversity in literature is a sign of intellectual independence.
Just as every residential area needs its local supply of everyday things, the bookshop is part of the local supply of intellectual commodities.
It is the intellectual 'grocer's shop', as we would say in Austria, or in Germany, the 'corner shop' for the mind.
I apologise to the translators for using these peculiar expressions.
Unlike the big stationer's shops, the bookshop also provides services, such as specialist advice or ordering books that are not really among the top sellers.
However, it could not survive without fixed prices, since it cannot buy at such good prices as the big chains of shops, and can therefore only sell at higher prices.
Apart from this, the book pricing system does not involve any obligations.
There are books that come onto the market with no fixed price.
In many cases, a considerably cheaper paperback edition is already available after one year; there are the special-offer book weeks and the second-hand trade in modern books. There are therefore many opportunities for making fixed prices drop very quickly in reality.
If I hold up a book, such as this book here, then what I have in my hand is, of course, first and foremost a commodity.
However, as soon as I leaf through the book and start reading its contents, then I am no longer using just any household good or appliance, but I am using reading as a means to find out about culture.
This particular one is a book about telecommunications which belongs to my colleague, Mr Rübig, and it is quite heavy going.
I am reading it due to circumstances, but also for enjoyment, to broaden my mind, sometimes it makes me angry as well, of course, but I am reading it to acquire knowledge at any rate.
As long as we regard a book only as a commodity, it is completely justified to curb or abolish fixed prices, no matter whether nationally or internationally.
This would certainly be a very restricted way of looking at things and would not do justice to the true value of books.
The packaging, which represents the true character of a book, is not particularly crucial, but the contents are, and these clearly belong in the field of culture and science.
We do not necessarily, or rather we do not always, buy books because of a pretty picture on the cover, but first and foremost because we would like to read the print.
The diversity of the book market shows that the culture of a country, and of a linguistic area, has developed.
However, in order to have this diversity we also need to have a variety of publishing houses and bookshops.
Not every book becomes a best-seller.
There are books that are aimed only at a specialist audience or a special interest group. Money cannot be made from a small number of copies.
It must be made from those works which also sell well.
These best-sellers subsidise from within the system the diversity necessary in cultural policy.
If an entrepreneur today manages to sell a square soup dish by means of a very good marketing strategy, and then all manufacturers of round soup dishes have to close down, this will have no effect on culinary diversity.
However, every publishing house that has to close down means a loss of books, books that are then no longer printed because other publishing houses follow different agendas.
Every bookshop that has to close down because it cannot keep up with the cheap goods supplied by a big stationer's shop, is a loss for the region's local supply of intellectual commodities.
Commissioner, you will understand that we are asking you - and I know we are certain of the support of virtually the whole of Parliament - to really take Parliament's observations on this into consideration so that this cultural dimension of our continent is really taken into account.
Mr President, it sometimes seems that only one thing counts in Europe - our economy.
If the euro is a success, integration will soon follow.
Yet there are so many other things in Europe which make Europe unique to our citizens.
The article on culture in the Treaty, Article 128, also stresses that Europe is about more than just the economy.
The debate on book pricing drags on.
So far the European Commission has very one-sidedly applied the economic criterion in determining its position.
The Commission is currently very much attacking book pricing between Germany and Austria and pricing within the Netherlands itself.
It is alleged to contravene the Treaty rules on competition.
For years now, I and many other honourable Members too have been arguing in written questions, articles, letters and resolutions that a review of book pricing should be based in a balanced way on a range of both economic and cultural arguments.
The advantages of this have been broadly summarised by the two speakers before me.
But think too of the minority language regions, where the range of titles available in bookshops is also very important and has to be large, in order to guarantee cultural diversity through specialist books being available, and not just the best-sellers which sell easily.
Think of the lip-service paid, as well as the actual practice of stimulating small and medium-sized enterprises.
Once we scrap book pricing, as another Member has already said, the small booksellers will disappear.
Just look at the United Kingdom.
In short, book pricing promotes cultural development in Europe without the need for subsidies.
That is an argument which the Commissioner will have to address.
We do not want mergers and concentration, which damages cultural diversity.
As for disadvantages, studies have shown that the existence or otherwise of book pricing has no economic impact on the book market.
So if it has these cultural advantages, why scrap it? Happily, and we are pleased about this, the Commission decided to wait before pronouncing definitively on the Austro-German and Dutch cases until the results of this study were forthcoming.
I have made a point of asking the Commission in written questions to do that.
Perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, we have now reached a turning point.
I say perhaps, because no final decisions have been taken yet.
Commissioners Van Miert and Oreja have indicated in a letter to the culture ministers, following a study, that for demonstrable cultural reasons it might be possible to retain book pricing, including for cross-border agreements in the same linguistic region.
The Commission will not interfere with national arrangements of the kind we have in the Netherlands if it can be shown that there is no discernible effect on trade between the Member States.
We wholeheartedly welcome this development.
I hope Commissioner Van Miert will continue with this line in the decisions he takes at the beginning of next year.
My group too favours an advisory committee on the book trade.
A standing consultative body made up of interested parties from all sectors to advise the Commission will be a useful thing.
I very much hope that the Commission will listen to the tenor of the joint resolution tabled by five of our groups including, of course, the European Liberals.
It is not the first time.
We are clear on this and always have been.
Book pricing, including pricing across borders within the same linguistic region, must be possible under a derogation to Article 85(3) of the Treaty, in the interests of our citizens.
The interpreters will not need to translate my closing sentence. Why do we only support agriculture and don't want to do anything for culture?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner van Miert, I know, of course, that the market's invisible hand which controls and resolves everything finds no more faithful a group of followers than the Commission.
In a manner of speaking, it is the Vatican of free competition, and I know, of course, that you are the Grand Inquisitor of this free market economy.
I also know, of course, that this inquisitor scrutinises the European market every day in order to find heretics of all kinds, trends towards the formation of cartels, and distortions of sacred competition, and as soon as his scrutinising eyes fall on anything confusing, or on anyone wishing to obstruct this invisible market force, the process of the Holy Inquisition is initiated.
Commissioner, I would sometimes like matters pertaining to environmental protection, social affairs or civil rights to be scrutinised in this way.
Unfortunately, the Commission does not regard itself as the Grand Inquisitor of this Union for these matters.
Its eyes have therefore now fallen on a small matter under the heading of books.
The Commission has now discovered for certain that underhand dealings are going on in this area.
You have this in common with the Vatican's history.
You are now placing this book on the index of free competition because people do not know how to handle it properly.
They do not sell it like drawing pins or computers but have a complex, inscrutable, and even precariously erotic relationship with it.
Commissioner, when Beckett received the Nobel prize for 'Waiting for Godot', all 300 copies of this book were sold in the German-speaking area of Europe.
I understand that you believe that it is not worth the expense and that it would probably have been better not to publish these 300 copies, since there is obviously no demand for them.
You are right to say that a book has something in common with a good, and that is supply, but it is not subject to demand.
A book's search for its readers is involved and mysterious.
Sometimes it lasts decades, and I think that it lacks culture to reduce this complex search simply to the way the market works, and what lacks culture quickly becomes barbaric.
Forgive me if I speak in the language of my own culture.
It is indeed an advantage to be able to speak several languages.
It sits well with the European ideal too, there is a cultural dimension to knowing more than just one language.
It is indeed a matter of culture.
I say that for the benefit of those who think one only needs to speak one language to be cultured.
I am of course flattered that you compare me with the pope.
Unfortunately, there is another candidate.
I gather that Oskar Lafontaine wants to be pope too.
I would not wish to measure myself against him, to fight him for the job.
Let us leave it at that.
I just wanted to say exactly what the issues are here.
Firstly, the attitude which the Commission and I have adopted is absolutely the same as the one the Commission adopted previously and which was also confirmed by a judgment of the Court.
The primary function of the Commission is indeed to ensure that the judgment of the Court is respected in such cases.
It is somewhat facile to ask us under the cloak of culture not to respect the law.
The first point, then, is that it is our duty to ensure that the pronouncements of the Court, as made on several occasions, are respected.
The second point is that I would remind you that my benevolent eye did not just happen to light upon the subject of books one day; we took action because we were receiving complaints, more specifically from Austria: complaints from Libero, complaints from a number of universities which were having real problems over the rapidly rising cost of the books they had to buy.
So the complaints were coming from academic circles too, as well as from other bookshops.
If complaints are made, the Commission has to investigate them.
That too is part of our job and our remit.
What kind of system of justice would that be if I were able to say: I'll push that to one side, we won't deal with that.
So what do you want? Let us be honest, we live in a legally constituted state, in a community based on the rule of law.
Secondly, there is not one case - and I have been responsible for competition policy for six years now - where we have taken so much time and shown so much willingness to talk to the parties concerned.
I have even done something which was perhaps not right in legal terms.
I once wrote a letter of comfort to allow us a period of time - enough time, a few years - to discuss the matter and find solutions which were legally watertight. And what thanks did the Commission get for this goodwill gesture?
Firstly, a number of conditions attached to it were not respected by publishers and, secondly, over a period of two or three years, I think it was three years, instead of seeking a solution all people did was exert political pressure and lobby people left, right and centre.
They lobbied people, because the Commission was supposedly ignoring the situation and ignoring the judgments of the Court of Justice.
Well, I will not accept that.
Let us be quite clear about it.
What we do want, and we have always said so, is to see account taken of the cultural dimension but also the true facts, not as they are constantly projected but as they are, the reality.
Well, what the Court of Justice said at the time was this, and I am quoting Advocate-General Lenz:
'The same is true as regards the references made to the fact that, when the decision was being adopted, the Commission should have taken account of the cultural aspects of this issue.
The obligation to take these aspects into consideration was already provided for by the case-law of the Court in accordance with the Treaty on European Union.
This obligation is henceforth expressly included in the EC Treaty.
However, given that this comes under paragraph 75 of its decision, the Commission has in no way disregarded these cultural aspects.'
(NL) That is what the Court says.
Let us just look at the facts.
To start with: we are told that if the system is not preserved, the publishing of quality books and literature will suffer greatly as a result.
That surprises me, because there are plenty of countries in the world which do not have book price fixing - the United States, the United Kingdom too now and a number of European countries as well.
In others, the system is in the process of being dismantled.
Is there no great literary production in those countries, may I ask?
I would remind you that 40 to 45 % of the literary works published in Germany are translations, mostly from the English-speaking world.
Those are facts.
And then I would ask why, if the system is so good, there is no obligation on publishers to do that?
There is no obligation of any kind.
There is one publisher who never ever publishes books to do with literature or quality subjects, and he too benefits from book price fixing..
There is no obligation of any kind.
We should start by placing an obligation on publishers who benefit from price fixing to publish quality works. There is no such obligation at the moment.
We are also told that only book price fixing allows there to be enough variety in titles.
I am sorry, but the facts do not bear that out.
With or without price fixing, happily, more and more titles are being published.
The reason is technology.
Nowadays it is easier to produce books and in smaller editions than before.
Whether you have book price fixing everywhere or not, that is the trend.
You do not need book price fixing for that.
That too is a general trend.
Once again, I have to live with the facts, because before we can grant a derogation, we must have arguments and facts which warrant a challenge to the judgments of the Court, if there are new facts which enable us to prove that.
Otherwise it cannot be done.
Then too we are told that, without book price fixing, a lot of smaller bookshops will go under.
Ladies and gentlemen, look at the facts in all countries.
Even where there is book price fixing, the small bookshops are in decline, everywhere, in the Netherlands too, in France too, everywhere.
That is the trend.
To my surprise, I even found - rather to my surprise I have to say - that a recent report by Francis Fishwick on the situation in the United Kingdom reaches the following conclusion. For what it is worth I will read it out, rather than have you take it on trust, just so we understand one another.
What this very recent report says is this: 'The main gain from abandonment of retail price maintenance in the UK has been an improvement in distribution, particularly through smaller booksellers who are now able to replenish stocks and fulfil special orders in a very short time through an expanded and revitalised wholesale system.'
Ladies and gentlemen, the small booksellers have been tied hand and foot. Why, if a book really is selling badly, can they not offer it at a cut price?
Why not?
Why do they have to stockpile it?
Why not give them that freedom?
In the case of small booksellers, why not allow them bigger discounts rather than the bigger shop? It is all very well starting to introduce a policy which favours the small bookseller.
But it is not happening.
May I point out that in countries which have book price fixing, such as France, 25 % of books sold are currently sold in department stores.
In Spain, which also has price fixing, cheaper books - and the market share of these is increasing - are sold at newsagents' kiosks.
Because the longer it goes on, the more this strict system leads to practices which in any case look for a way round the problem.
You spoke of company mergers.
Well, in the Netherlands the Commission blocked a large-scale merger.
True or not? The big merger which was in the balance between the big companies, you all know them - Elsevier, Wolters, Kluwer - well, it was the Commission's ruling which stopped it from going through.
We shall probably have to turn our attention shortly to the new move by Bertelsmann and Springer.
This process of mergers, in book price fixing too, is happening anyway. Only the Commission is in a position to stop it.
Pope or Vatican, that is the reality.
Ladies and gentlemen, have you thought about what will happen soon with the Internet? I hear Bertelsmann, a firm which benefits from book price fixing in Germany, saying that it wants to be number one in the world in selling books on the Internet.
I have no objection to that.
But can we at least have the honesty to give some thought to the consequences of what is developing?
You regularly approve resolutions aimed at promoting that.
Here we are trying to do something against it, but companies in the countries themselves are hard at work trying to penetrate and conquer that market.
Can we for once face up to the reality of what is happening?
I am keen to have that debate.
I have advocated it for years and it has not come about.
People have fixed ideas.
They defend sacred cows.
They shy away from a debate based on facts.
I remain willing, not least in the light of the Treaty article on culture - and I have repeatedly said so - to look for solutions which can also work across borders, because there is no question of interfering with national systems.
The Commission accepted that long ago.
That is not what it is about.
It is about cross-border effects or practices which, as in the Dutch case, were totally unacceptable.
That is an altogether protectionist system favouring Dutch companies.
How do you expect the Commission to sympathise with that, as if it were not a question of economic interest. That is the reality.
If you want to have that debate, I am at your disposal, just as I have been available to the publishers to discuss it for five years already.
But all we get is political pressure because the Commission is supposedly ignoring both the judgments of the Court and the facts.
I am sorry, but I will not accept that!
Mr President, Commissioner van Miert, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Voggenhuber has just called Commissioner van Miert the Grand Inquisitor of competition.
This is naturally a very nice image for Karel van Miert.
I believe that it does not quite do justice to the reality, because I believe what Karel van Miert does is a service for the people in the European Union.
What purpose does competition actually serve? Competition serves to break the power of monopolies, to ensure a variety of suppliers of goods and services, and thus to provide people with these goods and services under favourable conditions, and books are also amongst these.
In this respect, I agree with Karel van Miert.
I therefore would not call him the Grand Inquisitor, but a type of arbitrator who has our approval particularly when he fights against monopolies in the service of the people, against there only being one supplier for certain goods and services because this renders us powerless against that supplier as citizens and consumers.
As chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I should therefore also like particularly to express my appreciation to Karel van Miert for his work.
We discuss these issues a great deal in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Occasionally, we agree, and occasionally we disagree.
That is part of democracy.
I should like to take this opportunity to say that my opinion differs to that of Karel van Miert with regard to fixed book prices.
Personally, I am in favour of fixed book prices.
It has involved a great deal of discussion.
We have repeatedly asked ourselves whether we should treat cultural objects in the same way as goods and services.
This was a very difficult question to answer in the case of television, for example.
Television is regarded as a cultural object.
This is the prevailing opinion, although when I switch on the television I occasionally have my doubts about whether it can be called a cultural object.
However, there is no doubt that books are cultural objects, and that they are an inherent part of our European culture.
I would say that this applies not only to books but also to small bookshops.
I must also declare a personal interest in this.
The only shops in which I like to spend considerable time are small bookshops.
I also consider them to be a completely essential part of our culture.
I believe these small bookshops depend very strongly on this issue of fixed book prices.
I believe that fixed prices do indeed offer these small bookshops a certain degree of protection.
I therefore believe that we should maintain the book pricing system.
As chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I would be very pleased if Karel van Miert would consider this issue carefully once again.
I hope that you and the Commissioner, after yesterday evening with all the political excitement of amendments and voting, ended the day with a nice glass of French, German, Spanish, Portuguese or Italian wine, a little bit of agriculture.
I do not suppose that afterwards, legs outstretched, you seriously thought of sitting at your computer and surfing the Internet.
Maybe you picked up a book, a piece of literary beauty which you only find in quality publications.
If you did not, I will bring that beauty to mind in the form of a quotation, and I would ask the interpreters to follow me faithfully.
Mr President, tears of nostalgia for my grandfather clouded my eyes.
I rose from the big empty chair and began to wander through the rooms of my house.
It was the big villa I had bought after I had grown up, had buried grandfather and his comrades in the orchard, become rich and left the village.
The one sentence 'but you and Baruch still have each other' kept surfacing in my mind and refused to sink down to the floor of my memory.
I heard the murmur of the waves, ran outside and lay down on the freshly mown meadow, my face turned to the sea.
That is a translation from the Russian novel by Meir Shalev.
There has been much talk in the transatlantic partnership this week about the need to safeguard our culture.
In other debates, on employment for example, lip-service is paid to protecting small businesses because of their importance for jobs.
Well, it seems to me, and following everything you have said, that abandoning book price fixing sounds the death knell for the small bookseller, for quality books and for jobs.
Large retail chains are taking over the sector by means of price wars.
In the Netherlands, there is no question of book price fixing of the kind we are discussing here.
But people are worried.
We already have a liberalised market.
Chains such as Bertelsmann and Smith are already in Amsterdam and Alkmaar.
Mr President, Commissioner, we cannot let our children grow up with nothing but cartoon strips, television series, e-mail, Internet, ready-cooked rice and potatoes, without knowing the enriching pleasure of a good book.
I worry about this.
I do not regard you as the grand inquisitor, Commissioner.
I see you more as a judge, as Mr von Wogau said.
You say we must make use of liberalisation, but let us not allow it to go too far.
As the honourable Member on the other side of the House puts it: liberalisation is not an end in itself.
You have said a great deal about the situation in the Netherlands.
Since an investigation is still continuing into book price fixing in the Netherlands, I should like to know what more the Commission intends? Are you going to raise the issue of book price fixing in the Netherlands again?
What is the position?
You are someone from my own linguistic region, and I hope you will give me a prompt answer.
Mr President, the argument of multilingualism was the only good argument I heard the Commissioner offer.
For the rest, he did not succeed in convincing me.
I am in favour of book price fixing, because I believe that books are primarily a cultural commodity, a cultural product and, in most cases, a vehicle for culture.
There are also some less serious things in the book trade.
Belgium has never had book price fixing, even though it would have been very much in Flanders' interest, given that it is part of a small linguistic region.
The whole Flemish government which has responsibility for culture was in favour of it. Just come and see what the results are.
A catastrophic under-provision of services in Flanders as regards specialist booksellers - not just small ones - specialist bookshops and publishers, is the outcome.
Because you will not find the poems of Nolens at a news-stand.
We are moving towards a situation where books are bought at department stores and specialist bookshops are disappearing.
With them goes the chance to bring specialist publications to the man in the street.
The production of less commercial and specialist publications is therefore coming under pressure.
In French-speaking Belgium, the main interest was after all quite different, and the finance minister is French-speaking.
This is part of a large linguistic region where there was a market for cheap books exported from Belgium to France, because France does have book price fixing.
The same thing happened from Flanders, by the way.
Books were imported into the Netherlands, but these were actually phoney imports because Dutch publishers came to Belgium to do their printing and distorted the market.
Culturally speaking, it is in our interest to have book price fixing.
The fact that Belgium does not have it has simply facilitated distortions of competition on the part of the Dutch and French book market.
We hope the Commission will abandon its efforts to attack book price fixing schemes, but rather see them as a way of integrating homogeneous linguistic regions and creating a European cultural area in which the wealth of European culture can find expression in all its diversity and quality.
We hope too that the Council will address the subject, encouraged by a presidency which is now making culture a priority.
The market needs to be put right not only in its social aspects, Mr Van Miert, but in its cultural aspects too.
Book price fixing is an absolute must for linguistic regions like the Dutch-speaking region which are homogeneous, span borders and constitute a market for the sale of books in the language in question.
We shall thus be voting for this resolution, even though it merely repeats what is so often called for by the culture ministers and is also a little bit detached from what is going on in the real decision-making bodies because, Mr President, we are talking here about a resolution whilst the Council meeting of 17 November specifically had book price fixing on its agenda.
But I hope that Parliament will not remain a voice crying in the wilderness.
Mr President, the arguments have been on the debating table for a long time.
The issue of whether a report on the issue of fixed book prices has been drawn up yet has almost become a bon mot in legal circles in Vienna.
Many renowned legal firms have given their expert opinions on this issue, approximately half of which were in favour of it and half against, depending on the client's point of view.
This alone probably allows us to draw conclusions as to the complexity of the subject matter.
If we therefore assume that the arguments are more or less equally good on both sides, the problem is reduced to judging the book either as a commercial good or a cultural object.
I do not consider myself in any way to be a champion of the book trade, but a champion of books.
In the battle of competition versus culture I have simply decided in favour of culture on the basis of Article 128(4).
This is because I would like to continue to be given informed advice in the bookshop and not to pick from stacks of books like a fast-food service.
I should like to continue to find quality books in the bookshops and not only paperback best-sellers.
Commissioner, you did not manage to convince me that fixed book prices or their abolition would not change anything.
However, perhaps I read the wrong half of the reports.
If we accept that the development of the Union into an integrated economic power requires cultural diversity and cultural differences, we can only oppose the abolition of fixed book prices, which I would consider to be a declaration of the cultural failure of the Union.
Mr President, over the last five years I have sadly found on many occasions that it seems hard to have a sensible discussion.
Whether or not I read a book before I go to bed, Mrs van Bladel, is not your business.
It is my own affair.
I have my library, and in fact I enjoy reading.
But I also find, when I go to a bookshop, any bookshop, that the range of quality books on offer is usually limited, even in Europe.
You are making it sound here as if all books are quality books. What kind of misrepresentation is that?
Let us just take a closer look at what exactly the issues are. Am I to understand from the many speeches which have been made here that where there is no book price fixing there is no culture, no quality range of books on offer?
Just travel the world a little, and you will see that the reality is quite different.
You will see that with or without book price fixing, mergers are occurring everywhere, that the small booksellers have their backs to the wall, and I wanted to say something more on that.
I am sorry, Mr von Wogau, but it is indeed one of life's pleasures to have time to walk around, browse through a few books, buy something and then read them, either on the way to Strasbourg in the car - I am lucky enough to have a chauffeur so I can read in the car and do not have to leave it until bedtime.
It is a pleasure, it is an indulgence, it enriches you culturally.
But you can do that just as well in a country which has no book price fixing.
Are you saying it cannot be done in Sweden or Finland, in the United Kingdom or the United States? Let us talk seriously now.
So yes, what about these proposals in favour of the small bookseller?
Apart from the fact that it is high time, Mrs Maes, to desist from these practices which so distort competition and are spilling over from the Netherlands to other countries too.
Because the Netherlands had a powerful machinery of protectionism.
It was not just book price fixing, it was a kind of inbreeding.
Because you had to belong to the club or you did not get a look in.
However good your books were, if you did not accept the club rules, so to speak, you were nowhere and you could not sell your quality books.
That was how it worked.
Happily, this has now been recognised and it is beginning to change. Why?
Because the Commission is indeed studying the matter.
That is why, that is the reality.
A start has been made on changing things, on clearing out a few things, that is the reality.
I am more than happy to explain to anyone why that was necessary and why the Dutch, the organisations concerned, also shifted ground in the end. They were not concerned with books, they were not concerned with culture, they were concerned with their economic interest.
That is a fact.
That is how the system was. And now, as far as the small bookseller is concerned, I have been urging the book fairs for years to do something for the small bookseller, to give him more flexibility, to let him tailor his services more to his clients and, if it suits him, to sell his books at slightly lower prices.
Have you ever checked with public opinion how hard it is for a lot of people to pay those high prices?
Can we just think a bit about the circumstances of those buying?
Or whether they would like to buy books? Can we bear that in mind?
Is that perhaps what was meant by the references to the Vatican? Can we at least think of the people who have to buy the books?
That too is a dimension which has to be borne in mind and which, Mrs Maes, is all too often overlooked when you talk to culture ministers.
Thought is given to publishers, thought is given to authors, but too little thought is given to those who have to read the books.
That is my experience.
Once again, I would invite you to draft a resolution which seeks to strengthen the position of the small bookseller in a meaningful way.
Give him more flexibility instead of placing obligations on him.
Give him greater discounts than you give to the bigger bookseller.
May I ask you to do that? If you are serious about helping small booksellers, do something instead of coming here complaining and attacking the Commission.
I suggest you do that, Mr von Wogau, and I shall be happy to accept your invitation to discuss it further but meanwhile, Mrs Maes, we have lawsuits pending, the Commission is threatened with being taken before the Court for not taking action, for not fulfilling our responsibilities.
That threat is hanging over us.
I do not care, as long as I have the feeling that we can reach a solution.
But for five years now, I have been asking for proposals so that things can perhaps be resolved to the benefit of small booksellers, and I am still waiting.
The only thing I feel is constant political pressure to close my eyes to the law and ignore obvious realities.
As I have already said, I will not do that!
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to ask one further question.
Are you prepared to think about this again and also to talk with those affected about whether abolishing fixed book prices could, as is claimed, negatively affect small bookshops' costings, the result being not more competition but the emergence of monopoly-type situations brought about by distribution chains, as has already happened in other areas of the retail trade? Could you please also take into account once again that if this occurred a large number of local bookshops would disappear, the advice offered could deteriorate, and a large number of training places, which are urgently needed, and part-time jobs - particularly in my country - would also disappear.
Thank you, Mr Elchlepp.
Ladies and gentlemen, others have expressed a wish to speak but we are not going to reopen the debate.
The debate is already closed. In any event, Mr Elchlepp was given the floor as an exception as author of the question, but we are not going to open the debate again.
With that speech by Mr Elchlepp, the debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
I would inform the House that motions for resolutions B4-0984/98 and B4-0986/98 have been withdrawn.
I would also point out that Mrs Maes has added her signature, on behalf of the Green Group, to motion for a resolution B4-0991/98, which I now put to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, since I had no other opportunity, I must use the explanation of vote to express my opinion.
I did not participate in this debate because I am personally affected, and a low profile should then be kept as a rule.
I owned a retail bookshop in Germany for 12 years before I was elected to Parliament, so the topic which you have been discussing with such commitment affects me personally.
I must say that you have a different perception of reality than I do.
For future reference, the main mistake you are making is as follows: small bookshops are of course protected by fixed prices because it is quite clear that this competition arises the moment the current principle of exclusion of price competition - whereby a small shop's prices may not be undercut by a large shop - ceases to apply, when fixed prices decrease.
No small business has then a chance of competing against Bertelsmann.
That is the case!
Now you ask - and in principle you are right - why we should not give the small bookshop the chance of higher discounts so that it has flexibility in costing. Do you not know who has to guarantee the discounts for the small bookshop?
Bertelsmann! It is also the big publishing houses which guarantee these discounts.
Do you believe they are suddenly giving bookshops greater discounts only because you are abolishing fixed prices? The result will be that fixed prices will decrease, and the lack of discounts will continue, and in the end, 5 0-6 000 bookshops in Germany will cross the great divide.
Why? So that in the end - and I am firmly convinced of this - the niche culture will also be preserved.
There will continue to be expensive folios and books, but do you know what form they will take? They will be exclusive and more expensive than they are today!
When all is said and done, you are not thinking of the consumers, whom you have in mind; rather, you are running the business of the big companies, even though you do not really want to.
Perhaps you think about this once again.
Thank you, Mr Schulz.
Adjournment of the session
Ladies and gentlemen, before closing the parliamentary part-session, as is customary and, what is more, a pleasure, allow me to say a few words of thanks to all of Parliament's services. And, as on previous occasions, I would particularly like to thank those who do not have a direct relationship with us, including the interpreters.
We can actually see them, despite the fact that they are inside 'goldfish bowls', and beyond the coldness of those warm goldfish bowls, we do have a direct relationship with them. I would also like to thank the ushers who kindly meet our every need and the Presidency's services who improve our work and always ensure that we make fewer mistakes than we would otherwise make.
There are, however, others with whom we do not have such direct contact. I am referring here to the translation services, who translate 4 000 pages a day, and also the anonymous collaborators who, on a daily basis, struggle to make sense of our speeches in the Rainbow .
To all of these people, especially the latter, we offer our sincere thanks.
And, ladies and gentlemen, as Spanish folklore says: 'A white year is a good year'.
It has snowed this week and I am a great believer in folklore.
I am sure that this snowfall will bring us good fortune, perhaps not all year - since it has only snowed a little - but maybe at least for this weekend, which I hope will be a pleasant one for you all.
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.42 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 20 November 1998.
Welcome
I should like to welcome a group of members of the United States Congress, led by Mr Jim Kolbe, who are now with us in the official gallery.
We are very glad to receive these visitors to Parliament.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué has the floor.
Mr President, I should like to mention something we are forever requesting at Plenary sessions: that Members should refrain from using mobile phones, as this disrupts proceedings in the House.
I urge the President to take appropriate action to ensure that proceedings in the House and in committees are not disrupted in this way. We are here to deal with the issues entrusted to us by our constituents, and we need the right environment in which to do so.
Indeed, we are fortunate in receiving certain allowances enabling us to engage assistants. Should something really urgent arise, an assistant can pass us a note and we can then deal with the matter.
I am most anxious for a permanent solution to be found to prevent further disruption.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr Valdivielso.
We shall ask the College of Quaestors to take the necessary steps to overcome this problem.
Agenda
Mr President, I should like to make a suggestion on behalf of my group concerning the first item on the agenda for today's sitting.
Mr Santer is to make a concrete proposal here as part of Question Time regarding a new anti-fraud instrument for the European Union.
The problem is that the Committee on Budgetary Control asked the European Commission some time ago to produce concrete proposals and put them to the Committee on Budgetary Control on 1 December.
That has not happened.
Meanwhile, the Commission is indeed doing so here today, but during Question Time when we cannot have a proper substantive debate.
Consequently our group is proposing that, after Mr Santer's statement, each group should first be given three minutes in which it can at least express an opinion on the substance.
I can tell you, Mr President, that the Committee on Budgetary Control was unanimously of the view that it was particularly unfortunate not to be able to address so fundamental a subject in a proper debate.
I would therefore ask you to put my proposal to the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome this proposal.
We have just received the document which forms the basis for the new Fraud Office, and I have to say that we are extremely surprised to receive it now, having had very intensive meetings yesterday and the day before.
I do not want to be difficult about the timing, but given that it has already been printed up in all the languages, I would have thought that it should have been submitted to the Committee on Budgetary Control as the committee responsible the day before yesterday, or at the latest yesterday, so that we could have discussed it.
This is important for the 1996 discharge, and I have to say that I am very disappointed that this procedure has been adopted, given that the documents are all ready and complete.
We should have had a proper debate!
(Applause)
- According to my information, Mrs Theato, the document in question was only adopted by the Commission this morning.
When we receive it through the official channels, we shall follow the normal procedure. The document will be passed to the Committee on Budgetary Control, and at the appropriate time, the House will take a decision on that committee's report.
What we cannot do is depart from normal procedure and replace the committee's report, any amendments and the ensuing debate with an improvised debate held here and now, in which each of the political groups would be allowed three minutes.
I cannot do that, it is against the Rules of Procedure.
In any case, the President of the Commission is asking for the floor and I must give it to him as he has been referred to.
Mr President, I am rather surprised at what I am hearing.
Since my appointment in 1995, the Commission has repeatedly been asked to inform Parliament first about the decisions we take on Wednesday mornings.
This is exactly what we are doing today, with Parliament therefore being the first to be informed of the discussion.
Would you rather I had sent it for printing this morning, so that Parliament would not have received it until tomorrow or the day after? In this case, the Commission really is informing Parliament first and I believe that we must also abide by the institutional and parliamentary rules which exist in our Member States.
Thursday:
I would remind the House that the entire morning will be given over to voting, with the following items being added:
pursuant to Rule 66(7), a recommendation in the form of a letter concerning the marketing of fertilisers containing cadmium in Austria, Finland and Sweden (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy); -pursuant to Rule 99, the report (A4-0434/98) by Mrs Schierhuber on inland waterway transport (Committee on Transport and Tourism); -pursuant to Rule 99, the report (A4-0440/98) by Mr Langen on extending the temporary derogation applicable to Germany and Austria (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy); -the report (A4-0400/98) by Mr Ferri on supplementary pensions, the vote on which was postponed during the November partsession (Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights); -the motions for resolutions on various budget headings concerning human rights and democracy in Chapter B7-70, the debate on which took place on 17 November.If there are no comments, these changes are approved.
Pursuant to Rule 97, the Council has requested the application of urgent procedure for the draft Council Regulation laying down the requirements for the implementation of development cooperation operations which contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms (9581/98 - C4-0507/98-97/0191(SYN)).
The Committee on Development and Cooperation has adopted a report on this subject by Mr Torres Couto which is due to be included on the agenda for the next part-session.
I give the floor to Mr Rocard to express the opinion of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, as the committee responsible.
Mr President, the Committee on Development and Cooperation is rather embarrassed about this request.
I must stress to you and to all our colleagues that the Torres Couto report is important. Having discussed this in detail and amended many points, we are proud to propose this report to Parliament.
We also believe that its adoption is urgent in terms of the policy guidelines of the European Union.
When we learnt that the Austrian Presidency particularly wanted to have done with this issue and to adopt the decision before the end of its presidency, we applauded this desire and indicated our support. We hoped that the parliamentary deadlines would allow this to happen, thus leading me to support this request now.
Furthermore, in its extraordinary sitting yesterday - and I must thank you for prompting this, Mr President - the Commission voted on this unanimously.
However, it appears that there is very little time available in today's sitting and that the rapporteur is not completely ready, which would prevent an urgent debate from proceeding under the optimum conditions. Therefore, in my role as committee chairman, I am forced to say to the members of our committee who yesterday voted for the urgent procedure that they should feel free to follow their consciences in terms of the contradiction between the problem of ensuring a proper and comprehensive debate, which we cannot have, and the concern for parliamentary effectiveness which might prompt us to vote almost without discussion.
I can only say that the members of the committee should have a free vote, and as for the rest of Parliament, I shall trust in your wisdom.
We understand the Austrian Presidency's desire to use the urgent procedure in order to conclude this issue, but this would involve a discussion this evening and a vote tomorrow.
As the conditions are not entirely suitable, I am trusting in Parliament's wisdom.
Does anyone wish to speak against?
I give the floor to Mr Galeote Quecedo.
Mr President, I feel Mr Rocard has put forward the main argument against the request for urgent procedure very clearly: Mr Torres Couto, the rapporteur, is not present at this sitting because there were no plans to vote on his report during this sitting.
If only out of deference to the rapporteur, therefore, I feel we cannot accelerate the procedure to that stage.
As a supporting argument, I should like to mention a fundamental issue.
Through Commissioner van den Broek, and at the eleventh hour, the European Commission has raised a problem concerning the financing of the Bureaux d'Assistance Technique , such as the European Foundation for Human Rights. This cannot be resolved through an addition to the existing remarks in the 1999 budget.
On the contrary, a specific amendment is required.
A satisfactory solution must be found to such a serious issue, and we need adequate time to debate it. I therefore feel it would be inappropriate to vote in haste tomorrow on such an important resolution.
Thank you, Mr Galeote.
I put the request for urgent procedure to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Pursuant to Rule 99(2), I have received an objection from 31 Members to the Porto report being dealt with under the procedure without debate.
In accordance with Rule 99, this report will therefore be placed on the draft agenda of a subsequent part-session with debate.
The Commission of Tomorrow
The next item is the communication by the Commission on 'Tomorrow's Commission'.
I give the floor to Mr Santer, President of the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have come here today to talk about two issues which have been the subject of much discussion recently and which are of the greatest concern to this House, as we have heard from the preliminary discussions.
These are the future of UCLAF and the discharge procedure for 1996.
As there are direct links between these two issues and the way in which the Commission operates, I must take this opportunity to mention the extensive internal reforms which I started and which I will conclude in 1999.
The starting point for our discussion must be to acknowledge that Europe is doing well, that good progress is being made on the major issues and that an extremely high level of integration has been achieved.
Europe's very successes present a challenge and require changes to be made in our operating methods and working practices.
The unification of Europe must involve a constant process of construction and consolidation.
The institutions are both the heart of this process and the means of achieving it.
All the more reason then for us to ensure an atmosphere of confidence between the institutions and to manage our relations with each other in a responsible manner.
The atmosphere surrounding the discussion of certain issues worries me.
I myself want to help re-establish an atmosphere of calm which is conducive to achieving our common goal of a Europe looking resolutely to the future.
The debate on the Bösch report last October was an opportunity to ask certain questions about the future of fraud prevention in the Union.
Major progress has been made in this area since 1995.
UCLAF's powers have been increased and in 1997 it was given the status of a task force.
In July this year we adopted a comprehensive framework for its activities which will shortly be followed by detailed rules of application.
Thanks to UCLAF's efficient work a number of cases involving Commission officials have come to light.
Despite this, Parliament has repeatedly questioned the autonomy and independence of our investigators.
I must reaffirm, with some force, that they have always had complete freedom.
Nevertheless, a clear separation between inspectors and those they inspect is healthy.
To remove any doubts, we must not stop half-way, and the discussion about externalising the service must be taken to its logical end.
We have therefore come to the conclusion that creating a completely independent Anti-Fraud Office which is not in any way subordinate to the Commission or to any other institution is the most effective and most defensible way of achieving the goal set out in the Bösch report. We are in total agreement on this.
However, two important points must be clarified.
Firstly, the future Office will have the sole task of carrying out investigations both in the Member States and within all the Community institutions and bodies.
It will not be involved in proposing legislation or in coordinating with the Member States the fight against fraud affecting the financial interests of the Union.
These tasks, as stipulated in the Treaty, will continue to be performed by the Commission.
Next, I must stress that, until the new structure comes into operation, the current UCLAF will continue its work to track down those guilty of fraud, within the framework laid down by the Commission last July.
Our proposal, which was approved yesterday evening, is now before Parliament and the Council.
In addition to detailing the aims and administrative structure of the Office, it sets out the basic principles for the conduct of investigations, the rules governing relations with the institutions and the controls for ensuring that the Office's activities are legal.
Everyone must now assume their responsibilities as I have done.
It is now the turn of Parliament and the Council to play their part.
If the political will exists, the decision could be adopted within six months.
I was encouraged by the very positive reception given to my statement on this issue by the Heads of State and Government at Pörtschach.
I am also sure that this House, which has made the fight against fraud affecting the EU's interests one of its main objectives, will make every effort to ensure that this crucial issue moves forward.
Fraud prevention is one of the aspects raised in the debate on the discharge, and we will have an opportunity to discuss it during the December part-session.
However, I must say a few words about it now as it has already become a matter of public debate.
In its resolution adopted on 31 March this year, Parliament made the discharge for the 1996 budget conditional on a whole range of conditions, some connected with that particular year and others of a more general nature.
The Commission gave clear and constructive answers to all your questions and a detailed note is available.
I see no reason why this should not be circulated to all the MEPs, in fact I would welcome this.
There are still two or three controversial points on which I cannot accept Parliament's requests.
You know that we have prosecuted whenever UCLAF has suspected fraud.
I have never compromised on this principle and I never will.
As far as the MED programme is concerned, I simply cannot agree to hand over the whole file to the judicial authorities, because UCLAF has not established a presumption of fraud.
To do so would be an abdication of our responsibilities and would hardly be compatible with the rule of law as I understand it.
As for Parliament's right of access to the information needed to exercise its power of scrutiny, clearly this is an inviolable democratic principle which I fully support.
I am in favour of as much openness as possible but this must be compatible with the law and the proper handling of cases.
I have made considerable efforts to maintain this principle, including having had documents sent to Parliament which would not, in my long experience, have been sent to national parliaments.
However, we must distinguish between the situation in which Parliament's general right to information must prevail in the interest of effective scrutiny and the situation in which individual cases need to be handled confidentially.
With regard to Parliament's general right to information, I can confirm the Commission's desire to cooperate fully with Parliament to ensure that the latter can exercise its powers of political and budgetary scrutiny.
However, in relation to cases subject to legal or disciplinary proceedings, I would remind you of a universally recognised legal principle: the confidentiality of preparatory inquiries.
Nothing must be done to jeopardise these inquiries.
The same applies to cases subject to confidentiality rules involving trade secrets and respect for privacy. In such cases the Commission has a particular responsibility which it cannot ignore.
This is why the names were blanked out in the UCLAF report on ECHO which you were sent.
I admit that the form of this document invited criticism, which is why I had it redrafted to make it easier to read.
The Commission has most certainly not tried to hide anything.
I would also remind you that the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the rapporteurs were able to consult the full document in situ .
Over the years, relations between Parliament and the Commission regarding access to information have always been based on mutual trust.
The problems of recent months must not make us lose sight of the fundamentals.
The time has come to put these events into perspective and to find ways of rebuilding that trust.
It was in this spirit that I suggested to Mr Gil Robles that a code of conduct should be drawn up in order to clarify the situation and to meet the respective needs of the two institutions.
The discussions on the 1996 discharge have been going on for months.
ECOFIN set out its position on 9 March, in the context of the provisions of Article 206 of the Treaty, which provide for a recommendation from the Council.
The Council gave a favourable recommendation and the time has now come to settle the matter.
I personally feel that all the objective criteria for giving discharge have been met.
There is a direct link between the issues which I have just raised and the initiative entitled 'The Commission of Tomorrow' which will be one of my main priorities for 1999.
The component parts of this initiative actually date back to 1995 and the beginning of my term of office.
I am thinking in particular here of improvements in financial management and the checks on the use of public funding in the context of SEM 2000 - the System of Sound and Efficient Financial Management.
In this respect we have, for example, established a clear distinction between decision-makers and financial managers.
This is something of a first in our organisation.
We have also created a joint structure for external assistance.
I must also mention the MAP 2000 programme - the Modernisation of Administration and Personnel - which was launched in 1997 and which is increasing the autonomy which the Directors-General have over the structure of their departments, appointments and management.
This represents real progress towards giving Commission staff more responsibility.
However, it is only really since the beginning of this year that we have developed a more comprehensive, more coherent and higher profile approach, involving all staff more directly.
'The Commission of Tomorrow' initiative has a simple aim which is to eliminate the weaknesses and develop the strengths of our institution in order to leave everything in order for our successors.
We are looking at three areas: firstly, the future role and tasks of the Commission; secondly, the structures and operating methods of the Commission, and thirdly, internal management.
On the first point, I believe that we must try to answer some basic questions which, albeit with some differences here and there, apply to all the institutions and Member States. How can we cope with the high degree of integration which the Union has achieved?
How can we manage the new fields of action such as employment, health and justice and home affairs?
How do we establish our priorities in an enlarged Union? How can the concepts of subsidiarity and proportionality be developed in an intelligent manner?
It is in this context that the Commission's structures are being examined.
In order to prepare the ground, I have launched a major screening exercise which will provide a clear and comprehensive view of the current situation.
In the first half of 1999 I will draw up an overall plan for the structure of the portfolios and the organisation of the departments.
I have actually come to the conclusion that this type of reform should have been undertaken a long time ago.
The structures must be adapted to cope with the dramatic growth in the number of tasks.
This leads me to the third point on the future of the Commission: internal management, in the broad sense of the term.
In the last few years a great deal has been accomplished.
Thanks to the current reforms in financial management, the Commission will gradually be able to eliminate practices from the past linked to the massive increase in the tasks to be performed and the appropriations to be managed.
In this context, I must draw your attention to an important point.
The Commission cannot be constantly asked to take on new tasks without considering the human resources which it has to carry out these tasks.
In truth, the Commission itself has too often overlooked this aspect in the past.
We are therefore all responsible to some extent.
I would hope that we can consider together how best to resolve the problems resulting from the gap between the objectives and the means to achieve them.
I consider that the approach adopted recently in terms of legal bases and mini-budgets is positive.
There is a golden rule which we must use to guide us: absolute openness and clear rules.
Management reform clearly involves more than just financial matters.
Together with our staff and their representatives we are currently discussing ways of improving recruitment, training, assessment, internal communication, disciplinary measures and many other questions.
A joint working party composed of representatives of staff and administration has produced a very interesting report which has just been circulated within the Commission and which has been the subject of extensive consultation.
The other institutions are also currently being contacted about this.
I expect to be able to draw the necessary conclusions from this process in the first half of 1999, which will include amending the Staff Regulations where necessary.
This is a brief outline of the reforms which I am preparing with my colleagues, several of whom were keen to accompany me here today.
After the reform of the Treaty, the introduction of the euro, the employment strategy and Agenda 2000, I hope to tackle this other major challenge successfully.
I am doing this because action needs to be taken, because I believe in the central role of the Commission and because I am confident in the future of the European civil service.
I have accepted my responsibilities as President.
I have initiated reforms.
I believe that we are on course and I intend to stay there.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, you began by saying you hoped for a Europe which looked to the future. Now, I would like to ask you: when do you want it by?
When will we be allowed to study the information you provide for us with the help of an interpreter and in the presence of a member of Parliament's administration? When will it cease to be necessary for Parliament to apply pressure to obtain a response from the Commission?
When will UCLAF be able to work free from pressure by the Commission?
Mr President of the Commission, you were complaining of too much pressure from Parliament.
I can but point out to you that institutions without checks and balances are condemned to self-destruction.
In political terms, the easy answer to Mr Fabra Vallés' question is that we are already looking to the future.
In less than thirty days the euro will be introduced. This will allow Europe to assert itself with regard to the outside world and to take its place on the world stage.
We also decided yesterday in ECOFIN on the external representation of the euro.
This is our Europe of the future, one which can establish its predominance at international level.
You asked about information.
I refuse to believe that UCLAF has been put under any pressure by the Commission and this is confirmed by my discussions with the director of UCLAF.
This is why I am now saying that if this is the case, then we should set up what the Commission is proposing: an anti-fraud office which is not only truly independent of all the institutions but which also has the power to act in respect of all the institutions.
This will ensure a truly neutral authority in the eyes of Parliament, the Commission and the other institutions.
This is why, after long and careful consideration and with the assistance of Parliament, I can say - given that I took part in the debate on the Bösch report at the beginning of October - that we have truly started on the road to the future in terms of information.
This is precisely the aim of our proposal for a new UCLAF.
Its name is not at issue here; what is important is the body itself, its independence and neutrality and also the reciprocal neutrality of the bodies consulted.
This is the way in which we are looking forward, so please do not say that Europe is not looking to the future.
I know what I am talking about and I can say that Europe is now in a much better position than when I was appointed as President of the Commission in January 1995.
Mr President of the Commission, if information policy is so important, then why does your proposal - which we will naturally be examining very carefully - not say anything about how the European Parliament is to be kept informed by the new office that is to be set up?
This is something that struck me immediately. How can we hope to bring about improvements with the new office if Parliament is to be even less well informed?
My second point is this: the central provisions of your proposal are contained in Article 3 on the office's right of inspection.
But there is a very strange contradiction here.
Article 3(1) on external controls says that the office can itself apply to the Commission to carry out an inspection anywhere in a Member State.
But Article 3(2) is much more interesting ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I am well aware that the honourable Member has not been able to examine the substance of the proposal, which is why she has questions.
And we are here to answer them, since they raise a number of fair points which we have also considered.
You must not think that we have overlooked them.
This is why I am happy to answer your questions.
Firstly, the European Parliament, like all the other institutions, is a full member of the Administrative Board and if you read the other provisions in the proposal - which you must have done because you are quoting them - the final paragraph of Article 9 states that the Administrative Board, including Parliament, draws up an annual report and sends this to the institutions.
Clearly, this new office, its director and its various departments will be available to Parliament and all the other institutions which are also required to carry out checks and investigations.
In answer to your second question, the new office will be responsible solely for carrying out investigations.
The Commission remains politically responsible for referring cases to the Anti-Fraud Office and for monitoring investigations.
This is indicated in the provisions.
I would therefore agree that you will have to examine the various carefully constructed proposals in detail in cooperation with our legal services in order to get an idea of the general organisation of this body.
You can be sure that we wanted to respond to the objective set out in the Bösch report of a fraud prevention body with real independence and autonomy.
This was your objective and we have looked for the ways and means to achieve it.
I cannot therefore see any difference in attitude between Parliament and the Commission.
On the contrary, I believe that by improving fraud prevention this office can guide us in the future in order to ensure greater openness and to eliminate criticisms like those which have been made recently. I continue to refute that the Commission has exerted or is exerting any pressure on UCLAF.
Mr President, we must say to Mr Santer that it is encouraging to see that he is proposing certain reforms.
Of course, that is important but it is also very important to have the will of the majority.
In view of yesterday's decision in Ecofin where now a majority of nine Member States are in favour of, or abstaining on, the question of an extension of duty-free, will the Commission now bow to the pressure of that majority and agree to carry out its long-awaited study into the effects on employment of abolition.
This is especially relevant in view of the remarks of the French Finance Minister with regard to the impact of abolition on employment and the stated intention of the incoming German presidency who said that they will push for a lengthy delay.
Maybe the Commission will tell us how they will get out of the dilemma now that they are clearly out of touch with people.
I could talk at length about this problem.
It is just as well that duty free is not yet under investigation by UCLAF and so I will answer the question.
It is a bit like the Loch Ness monster which keeps coming up.
You should remember that duty free was abolished by a unanimous decision of the finance ministers in 1991,
which must be implemented in 1999.
An eight-year period was provided precisely for the purpose of carrying out various studies and adopting legislation.
This was the reason for the arrangements made and length of the deadlines set at the time by the twelve finance ministers.
I have a clear memory of this discussion which I followed closely because this decision was taken during our presidency of the Council.
I must stress that the decision was unanimous.
Now that I am on the other side of the fence, as President of the Commission I must stress that the Commission is the guardian of the Treaty and it must implement the decisions unanimously adopted by the Council of Ministers.
If there were now unanimous agreement on another avenue I would be the last person to stand in the way, but the Council is not unanimous on any other proposal.
It was a unanimous decision which transposed the directive in 1991 and you approved it.
So we must be consistent ourselves, and with regard to the provisions governing our institutions, so that we can remain credible.
We must implement the decisions which have been taken.
Where would we be if, every time a decision was taken or a directive adopted, the Commission started wondering how to sidestep it or how to scrutinise its application? I believe that we have a constitutional and institutional role to play which we must fulfil.
The Commission cannot do anything else in this respect.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, you had two thousand permanent posts still unfilled at the beginning of 1998, so it was not because of the lack of posts that you were not able to keep checks.
Secondly, a Member of the Commission has told me that the UCLAF used Stasi methods, on the lines of East Germany's former security service.
I think that firstly he is not in a position to judge and, secondly, he should not make such statements.
In my view, this proposed OLAF regulation is simply designed to punish UCLAF for the work it has done up to now, which your services have failed to follow up.
This is why I believe you must think we are stupid, because suggesting that OLAF should carry out checks only when instructed to do so by the Commission is tantamount to shelving any controls, at least in your own institution, which you would have us believe is so transparent.
Just how do you intend to ensure that the Commission really is transparent?
I can tell you quite honestly that I have never in my life - and I have been in politics a long time, I became a member of my government in 1972 - thought that any Member of Parliament was stupid.
That is something I would like to make very clear.
I very much respect Parliament, and as the President of the Commission I very much respect this House, and that is why I absolutely refuse to let anyone say or imply such things about me.
Mr President, I spoke in German so that there was no need to translate.
I must say that I myself have never criticised the operation of UCLAF.
On the contrary, it was when I became President of the Commission in January 1995 that UCLAF was launched, and thanks to the cooperation with Parliament we have constantly improved its operation.
In 1997 we decided to establish a task force to assist UCLAF in its duties.
I have never accused UCLAF of using Stasi-like methods.
Anyone making such claims must show me the proof.
I have great respect for the difficult work carried out by the Commission officials and I must say that, if certain investigations have been discussed within Parliament and also in the press, then this is because, thanks to UCLAF, certain incidents of fraud have been detected, dating back to before the present Commission.
It is therefore due to the activities of our own departments that we are now in this situation which certain MEPs are criticising.
There is a saying in my local dialect which I will say in German because you speak German and will therefore understand it better: 'Gutheit ist ein Stück von Dummheit'. In other words, we are sometimes too efficient for our own good.
This is perhaps what has happened with us.
We have to some extent become victims of our own initiatives.
This is why you must read our proposals, whose broad outlines the Council has approved and whose direction the Heads of State and Government have deemed reasonable, with a clear and independent mind and without accusing us of crimes based on assumptions rather than facts.
So please reserve making a judgment, which must be calm and unprejudiced, until you have studied the Commission's communication in detail.
Mr President, there is not a great deal of agreement between the proposal which the Commission is now presenting and the call made by Parliament with a very large majority for UCLAF to be strengthened. What surprises me so much, Mr Santer, is how you can talk about an independent office.
How can the new UCLAF be independent when it will still be the Commission that decides what investigations are to be carried out?
How can there be any talk of an independent office when it will still be the Commission that decides how the investigations are followed up? The fact is that we are not talking about independence at all, but about the Commission still completely controlling what happens in terms of inquiries.
Is it not more a question of people wanting to shed responsibility and trying to run away from the responsibilities which they have in connection with precisely the kind of things we have been dealing with here recently? So, Mr Santer, it is extremely disappointing that you have not been willing to engage in a debate with us on the proposal which has now been put forward.
Mr President, Parliament will clearly have plenty of time to discuss this point in depth, and when you do, you will see that UCLAF really is an autonomous body with its own legal status.
It will be entrusted with the task of carrying out investigations as part of the fight against fraud against the Community budget, both in the Member States and within the Community institutions or independent bodies.
This is how it is defined.
The Commission is not alone in being able to ask UCLAF to carry out an investigation, although it is the main institution involved in the investigations.
Furthermore, the bulk of UCLAF's current investigations are being carried out in the Member States as this is its main job.
This is why we thought it necessary also to include the Council in UCLAF.
All the institutions have the right to ask UCLAF to carry out an investigation and the future UCLAF may initiate investigations on its own initiative.
I believe that you must read the document and you will then understand that what you have just said is simply not true, and I am not saying this lightly.
You must look at the document, which was written by lawyers and which covers all the points which you are calling into question.
The Commission did not want to be the only institution with the right to order investigations by UCLAF, so all the institutions are entitled to do this, just as all the institutions are in general represented on the Administrative Board.
This is the best possible proof of the neutrality and autonomy of this body in which Parliament has a say like all the other institutions.
I believe that this is the best way of guaranteeing the effectiveness of the new office.
Mr Santer, the Bösch report to which you have referred is not the one I wrote, because what you have made of it has nothing to do with the Bösch report adopted by Parliament.
I would like to tell you something about what has happened and why this suggestion has been made.
Commissioner Gradin promised us in July that Parliament would be involved in a comprehensive reform of UCLAF.
Parliament's President reminded you of this in writing at the end of November, I think.
But nothing has happened.
Now you have presented us with a proposal and told us to read what you have put in it.
Is this how you intend to restore confidence between our institutions, Mr Santer?
There is another point I would like to make about the substance of the proposal.
The Bösch report to which you referred called for UCLAF to be strengthened.
You are now destroying all the work the Commission has done up to now to combat fraud.
Is this how you mean to restore the public's confidence in the Commission's anti-fraud policy? Those were the two questions I wanted to put to you.
I can answer these questions very easily.
The clear objective of your report - ensuring the independence of UCLAF - is one to which I subscribe, as I have said on many occasions, even back in October during the debate.
However, the independence of UCLAF will never be guaranteed if it remains a department of the Commission, managed by Parliament.
This is not viable and cannot be considered either legally or institutionally.
This is why we went beyond your proposals while maintaining the same objective.
Consider this: our proposal undoubtedly goes beyond your own report, but it remains in an interinstitutional framework, which I believe is important.
The purpose of UCLAF is not to conduct internal investigations just within the Commission.
It is currently involved in over 900 investigations in the Member States where the majority of the investigations are needed.
Within the Commission there are only 27 ongoing investigations.
So you can see that the majority of the investigations involve the Member States.
The Council and all the other institutions must therefore be integrated into the new body and I cannot see any connection between your question and our proposal which encompasses and exceeds your objective by placing it in an interinstitutional framework, thus increasing the confidence of citizens in the supervisory bodies.
This will be the future for UCLAF as a European anti-fraud office and an independent body with its own legal status, assisted by top experts who will be independent and who will offer all the guarantees of independence.
I really believe that in this way UCLAF and its independence will be strengthened.
Mr President, Mr Santer, a year ago Parliament approved an amendment to the budget on a minor matter of the appointment of a deputy director for an agency answerable to the Commission.
Neither Commissioner Papoutsis, who was responsible for the body in question, nor Commissioner Liikanen, as head of personnel, have been able to persuade the director, who has refused to apply the vote of this House.
Such a case does not require an UCLAF investigation but simply proves that some of your commissioners are not able to make their officials obey them, and that these officials do not give two hoots about votes in this House.
This is why our group does not currently feel able to give discharge as we feel that the fraud detected simply points to an all-powerful technocracy, cut off from reality and which, to some extent, does exactly as it pleases.
My question is: if we refuse to give discharge, are you ready to ask the commissioner for the portfolio where real embezzlement has been discovered - namely ECHO - to resign? In other words, are you ready to sanction incompetence, because, in this specific case, I trust in the personal honesty of the commissioner in question.
I regret that I cannot answer the question about the appointment of a deputy director.
There must be reasons for what happened.
I will check on this and let you know the reasons for our appointments.
However, you must realise that directors are not appointed by votes in this House, given that the separation of powers exists.
It is the Commission which decides on appointments made within its departments, and we do not ask the European Parliament whom it has appointed as its directors.
There are some interinstitutional rules which must be respected.
With regard to the refusal to give discharge to the Commission, I would say that the discharge procedure is taking place as stipulated in the provisions of Article 206 of the Treaty.
This article says that Parliament gives discharge to the Commission on the Council's recommendation.
I said just now that the Council has recommended that Parliament should give discharge.
Therefore, ECOFIN, which knows what it is talking about, has already made a recommendation to Parliament.
It must not be forgotten that the Council is a branch of the budget authority
As for the resignation of certain commissioners, the constitutional and institutional provisions of the Treaty are clear and I am satisfied with these.
The Commission is the guardian of the Treaty and I will abide by its provisions, nothing more and nothing less.
This is my duty and my right and I will not move on this point.
Mr President, I have a feeling that you are trying to shut the stable door when the horse has already bolted.
You have said to the House this afternoon that you have transmitted documents to the Parliament which nobody would have transmitted to national parliaments.
Well, no national parliament would have ever accepted a report with asterisks or censorship from a bureaucracy to a directly elected parliament.
Secondly, in the framework of the discharge for 1996, for which I am rapporteur, there is a feeling that the flaws in management organisation at the top of the Commission have led to a whole ream of irregularities and misdemeanours at lower levels in implementing policies.
You have come forward with some ideas on screening.
We asked for that in 1995 and yet it is now nearly 1999.
We have not even seen the report on the statute that was asked for by the last parliament.
We have never seen anything in that respect.
Lastly, you say you are nominating high-level officials.
We all know that is unbridled cronyism to get level of access to top jobs.
There is a feeling that many have in this House, that you are in office but you are not in control of the overall system.
So how can we today have confidence that you can deliver next year on all the reforms that you have come to this House with today.
Mr President, I still believe that we have provided Parliament with reports which would not have been given to national parliaments.
This is absolutely clear.
So, Mr Elles, I maintain my position, and I have been in politics long enough to know what it should be.
We are also required to respect the confidentiality of preparatory inquiries and the right to privacy of individuals and officials under investigation.
This applies in all countries.
I would be amazed if in the United Kingdom, which is also a guardian of human rights, these rights were not respected.
(Mixed reactions) Yes!
I continue to believe this and I insist on saying it.
You can file a motion of censure against me if you like, but I will say it.
Secondly, with regard to the Staff Regulations for officials, we cannot take decisions on these unilaterally.
Decisions must be taken in consultation with staff representatives and trade unions.
We set up a joint committee chaired by the former Secretary-General, Mr Williamson, who submitted his proposal some weeks ago.
I regret that this is rather late but we only took up our posts in 1995 and the screening could not be carried out overnight.
We must all be reasonable, sometimes even this House too.
Mr President, I must return to the document submitted to us on the Anti-Fraud Office - OLAF - as there is some uncertainty and confusion about this.
Perhaps you can clarify the way in which the Office might initiate investigations.
As things stand, the present UCLAF can and does launch investigations on its own initiative.
Apparently, according to this document - I do not see this myself but my colleagues do and I should therefore like you to clarify this point - it would seem that the Office can act only on the instructions of the institution which it is supposed to inspect.
Could you clarify this point?
Also, with regard to confidentiality, I am concerned that the present UCLAF, in my opinion, has failed to respect this confidentiality in many cases and that some case files have been disclosed.
Could you tell us what exactly are the measures used to guarantee that UCLAF itself ensures the confidentiality of investigations?
Mr President, this is a precise question to which I will give a precise answer.
I would refer to Article 3 of the proposal which states that, on its own initiative and also at the request of a Member State or of the Office, the Commission can ask the Office to carry out an investigation. It is also clear from paragraphs 6 and 12 of the explanatory statement that the Office is to be closely involved in the launching - to use your word - of investigations (this is contained in paragraph 6) by allowing the Office to initiate an investigation on its own initiative.
Therefore, the Office can initiate an investigation on its own initiative.
Clearly, all the institutions can also ask the Office to carry out investigations and you will see that other provisions of the Office's statute contain certain precautions to ensure that confidentiality is maintained.
Based on experience gained during the operation of UCLAF, we have sought to rectify certain failings which exist in the current UCLAF statute and we have achieved this in the document submitted to you.
You now have time to examine and scrutinise this and to make comments and amendments so that our work together can produce a joint result.
Mr President, you told us that you take your responsibility seriously as the President of the Commission and we want to take our responsibility seriously as a parliament.
That responsibility includes holding the Commission to account. That is very difficult when documents are not passed on to us.
Can you make a commitment to us today that you will give us a list of all the investigations of alleged fraud and corruption on a regular basis, not on the piecemeal grudging basis as we receive them now and answer when, at the latest, we will see the new Fraud Office operational? How can we be assured that you are not just kicking the ball into touch here?
Will it be running during this Commission's ten years and, if so, by when?
Mr President, I believe I can say that there is no problem about providing a list of investigations launched by UCLAF.
I cannot see any reason why this should not happen.
However, these investigations will not necessarily lead to the discovery of irregularities or fraud, and the list cannot be published without due regard.
The initiation of an investigation by UCLAF does not necessarily mean that an irregularity, incident of fraud or anything else has actually occurred.
Generalisations are sometimes made public, which is a great disservice to the operation of UCLAF.
We have tried to take all this into account in our proposal.
Secondly, you wanted to know when this new Anti-Fraud Office might start work.
I have asked for the goodwill of all the institutions in bringing this into operation and we consider that, if the political will is there, it could be operational within six to seven months.
Mr Santer, I read with great interest the discussion paper distributed under your authority and entitled 'The Commission of Tomorrow'.
I noted on page 4 the Commission's intention, in future years, to concentrate more on the main policy areas of external relations, the single currency, internal security, the single market, economic and social cohesion and common policies, in other words the powers of a government of a sovereign state.
My questions in this respect are: what powers will the national governments still have and does the next paragraph, which says that consideration should be given to greater delegation of simple management tasks, actually apply to these national governments?
Mr President, this document sets out the future of the European Union as a whole.
I will gladly make a statement on this and in fact I have already done so in the debates on the Union.
In my opinion, the European Union of the future will always remain bound to the Member States which, while retaining their national identity, will be integrated into the political union.
We do not want to build a United States of Europe along the lines of the United States of America.
This is not our intention.
Economic rules can be harmonised to create a single internal market but the individual nations can never be harmonised.
Therefore, national identity must always remain a part of the future Union.
However, thanks to this Union, the Member States have an opportunity to transfer part of their sovereignty to supranational bodies, such as the Commission and the European Central Bank, in order to exercise this sovereignty jointly and equally and in order to become stronger and more powerful on the international stage.
The Member States will not just be left with management powers.
On the contrary, the Member States must realise that they will have a role to play in the future within the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality. These are the essential principles on which the European Union is built.
Mr President, I have two questions. Earlier, when Mr Fabra asked about the future of Europe, you said it was the euro.
Do you really think that the euro represents Europe's future? Secondly, you said in your speech that we are now going the right way about handling the legal bases issue - which we are not talking about here - and the mini-budgets.
Do you realise that the budgetary authority, in other words the Council and Parliament on the one hand and the Commission on the other, agreed as early as the 1993 budget to abolish the mini-budgets, and that we are therefore not going about things in the right way, but have actually defaulted on this agreement in a totally unacceptable manner?
Europe is clearly not just about the euro; it is not just a single market but much more besides.
However, the euro will be a powerful factor in the economic integration of Europe, firstly by allowing the internal market to be perfected, because I do not know of any internal market in the world which can operate with fourteen different currencies without any distortion of competition.
The euro will also be a powerful factor in political integration as it will give Europe and the internal market a European identity.
Thirdly, it will contribute to establishing a zone of monetary stability and will therefore be a stabilising factor in our international monetary relations.
For all these reasons, the euro is a powerful factor in our integration.
We are delighted that the euro will soon be introduced in eleven of our Member States and we obviously hope that it will be accepted in the other four countries which are not yet members of the euro zone.
With regard to the mini-budgets, certain decisions were indeed taken in 1993.
It was then that cases of fraud were discovered.
The existence of the mini-budgets allowed UCLAF to discover cases of fraud in four ECHO contracts.
The procedure which was initiated at the time and which is intended to gradually eliminate these mini-budgets under very difficult conditions was made possible due to agreement between Parliament and the Commission, and this is how we should continue.
Furthermore, if you read the reports of the Court of Auditors of the Member States, you will find many irregularities revealed in this way.
I had the idea of looking at the report of the Court of Auditors of the German Federal Republic and I could not see much difference between its report and that of the European Court of Auditors.
Mr Santer, do not rely on the Council when it comes to recommending the discharge.
You are the board of directors for project Europe and we are the general meeting, and I would therefore repeat that Article 3 of the proposal has nothing to do with Parliament's original proposal and is completely unacceptable.
In the context of the transparency you have talked about, can you confirm or deny that, following inquiries by the Belgian authorities, the Commission's Legal Service recommended that if Commission officials were asked whether social contributions had been paid as part of Commission contracts with firms, they should claim immunity and carry on the contracts as before? Do these documents exist?
If so, would you be prepared to let the Committee on Budgetary Control have them, in confidence of course?
With regard to the first question, I shall simply say to the honourable Member that the Council is an institution of the European Union and should not be underestimated, and that a Council representative is here today.
As you have probably noticed, we have several European institutions.
I am perfectly happy with the current operation of the institutions within our European Union, which is my right and my obligation.
In reply to your second question, all I can say is that I do not know nothing about it and therefore cannot give you an answer.
If you have any other details, you have the opportunity to tell the House about them.
However, as President of the Commission, I cannot answer your question.
Thank you, Mr Santer.
That concludes this first item on the agenda.
European Council
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the Vienna European Council will conclude the six-month term of the Austrian Presidency.
It is the first six-month presidency of the Federal Republic of Austria, and I pay tribute to the work that presidency has accomplished.
The presidency was marked in particular by the informal Pörtschach meeting, where the Heads of State and Government succeeded in coordinating their views on the future of the European Union more closely.
On 21 October this year, I concluded my statement to the House on the Pörtschach summit with the following words, and I quote: 'As always in the history of the Community, the main challenge is to translate ideas on Europe's future into action'.
So I propose to begin by examining the main dossiers on which progress has been made during these six months, which the European Council will ratify or close.
Obviously, I will start with enlargement.
The Council will examine the Commission's first report on the progress made by the applicant states, as requested by the Cardiff European Council.
This report shows that the process as a whole is now under way.
The Commission's analysis also shows how the situations differ in the various countries.
It points to the dynamic nature of this enlargement process.
We judge the progress of the applicant states by the Copenhagen and Madrid criteria.
The Council will point out that all the applicant states must make sustained efforts towards achieving the goal of accession.
Alongside this, as you know, the negotiations on Agenda 2000, have begun to progress, thanks also to Parliament's cooperation.
We are about to embark on an important stage along the road which will lead us, before the end of the current legislative term, to the adoption of all the measures proposed in the context of Agenda 2000.
The Cardiff European Council and the Heads of State and Government at their informal Pörtschach meeting have stated their political resolve to conclude the Agenda 2000 negotiations at the special summit next March.
I think there are several reasons why we should conclude them in March.
First of all, the coming European Parliament elections will have an impact on your activities as from March or April, and I note that even now they are having certain effects on parliamentary activity.
Secondly, a delay would damage the credibility of and confidence in the Union; and lastly, there are the practical considerations associated with planning the Structural Funds and establishing the appropriate policies, together with the adverse effect which any delay in implementing the pre-accession instruments would have on the pre-accession process as such.
Naturally, the question which then arises is whether we can conclude them in March.
I believe we can, because all the data is on the table: the 19 detailed Commission proposals, as well as the Commission's report on own resources.
As one of the two arms of the budgetary authority, you will also be signatories to a new interinstitutional budgetary agreement.
Of course, the conclusion of a new agreement that satisfies both arms of the budgetary authority will form an integral part of Agenda 2000.
Mr President, I hope this European Council will provide a good point of departure for the discussions that are due to be concluded under the German Presidency.
Obviously, until there is agreement on the total package, there will be no individual agreements.
Subject to that reservation, I hope we will manage to achieve three things.
Firstly, we must reach agreement on the many 'technical' aspects, as I would call them, of the legislative texts.
In that context, I welcome the recent successes in relation to the Structural Funds, the Cohesion Fund, the pre-accession strategy and the trans-European networks.
Next, we must try to make headway in the political field.
Here I am thinking, for example, of some aspects of the agricultural reforms and rural development, of the structural actions and the format of the financial perspectives. Lastly, we must sketch out the broad lines of a final package which must, above all, concentrate on the financial implications of the reforms and the related budgetary issues.
Two items on the Council's agenda are regarded as priorities by the people: employment and an area of freedom, security and justice.
Let me begin with employment.
In Vienna, the European Council will for the first time evaluate the progress made by the Member States in implementing their national employment plans under the Luxembourg strategy. Who would have thought, two years ago, that we would receive such support from the Member States and the social partners, that we would have European guidelines and national action plans?
Who would have believed that the Member States would accept having their employment measures examined, evaluated and even judged by their peers, and who would have believed that an exemplary dynamic process would be created, which can now be driven along by the new wind blowing through Europe? First we discussed that strategy with the Member State governments, and it was together with them that we established the follow-up mechanisms, the exchanges of information and the benchmarking mechanisms.
On the basis of the Member States' analysis in Vienna, the Commission will draft proposals on adjusting the guidelines for 1999.
I must admit that they were minimal.
I believe that what is most important is to consolidate the process.
The national action plans form part of a medium-term strategy, but it is important to give the process new impetus.
We are pursuing our strategy for a more entrepreneurial Europe, with a pan-European risk capital market, which will give our undertakings the same advantages as American firms and make up for our delay in harnessing information technology.
We have also asked the Member States to amend their unemployment benefit and tax systems and, in particular, to review their early retirement policies.
As regards the area of freedom, security and justice, as you know we decided at Pörtschach to hold a first special European Council on the subject on 15 October 1999, under the Finnish Presidency.
That decision reflects my determination, ever since I was appointed, to give priority to this question.
With the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the entry into operation of Europol, we shall be able to register real progress in cooperation on judicial, police, asylum and immigration questions, all areas where the people of our countries have high expectations.
We can only frame such policies, which remain national, in a European context.
The practical problems relating to asylum, immigration, police cooperation and extradition cooperation that have faced us in recent months make it clear that we must approach these problems at Community level; and I hope the action plan the Council and the Commission will be submitting in Vienna will represent a milestone in the preparations for the Tampere summit.
We will also be having an exchange of views on the development of the European and international economic situation in Vienna.
The advent of new governments in some Member States and the acceleration of the international financial crisis after the events of August in Russia have sparked off an intense debate on economic, financial and monetary policies, at both European and international level.
The international crisis has abated a little, but that does not mean it has been resolved, so we must remain vigilant and bear in mind the results of our debates.
These results, which will no doubt be discussed in Vienna, are as follows.
Firstly, I note that following the debates on interest rates, we have agreed that all the conditions have now been fulfilled for having low interest rates as soon as the euro is born.
The dialogue that has already been conducted with the European Central Bank has shown that budgetary rigour would facilitate a monetary policy which, apart from the priority objective of price stability, could take account more generally of the economic situation.
It seems to me that since the most recent discussions among the Eleven, there is now broad agreement on this policy mix, and I am sure this dialogue will move forward in a satisfactory way once the euro has been established.
Secondly, I have noted a general desire for closer coordination of economic, financial and social policies, and I feel that real progress is being made in this regard within the group of Eleven, as well as at Council level.
At the same time, there are clear signs of a wish to coordinate our fiscal policies.
We reported on that yesterday, at the ECOFIN Council, and here too marked progress has been made, although we must always remain realistic when we discuss fiscal matters.
The discussions this autumn also drew attention to the importance of infrastructures to the economic fabric, and to the role of public investment in that context.
I am happy to note that while emphasising the importance of these investments, no one called into question the principles of the stability and growth pact.
However, some ideas emerged from the discussions on the instruments that could influence investment and I am pleased to be able to tell you that, this morning in fact, the Commission has adopted a document on the subject, which we will of course be forwarding to the European Council in Vienna.
I have only three remarks to make on the subject.
The first concerns the European Investment Bank.
After the success of the Amsterdam special action programme, I believe the Bank could enhance its role by broadening its range of instruments to promote infrastructure projects and, in particular, the trans-European networks.
This could take the form of a special system by which the Bank could, in various ways, encourage risk sharing between the private and the public sector and thereby encourage them to take more part in financing infrastructure projects.
In the same context, it would be advisable to broaden the European Investment Fund's eligibility criteria, which would increase the Fund's impact on the development of infrastructure in the broad sense of the term.
Secondly, we must recognise that some trans-European infrastructure projects can be accomplished only with the aid of subsidies if they are not sufficiently profitable in financial terms.
Within the general Agenda 2000 framework, our proposed new draft financial regulation for the trans-European networks is currently under discussion.
Apart from the proposal for substantial funding, this draft contains a number of innovative ideas.
I am thinking in particular of the idea of introducing multiannual budgetary allocations, the idea of using risk capital funds, and the possibility of cofinancing up to 20 % of the total cost of projects instead of the current 10 %.
Lastly, there is the matter of the obstacles that are preventing the emergence of a genuine - and I mean genuine - pan-European capital investment market, which Cardiff called for and which could be a real source of job creation because of the capital it could generate for innovative undertakings.
Turning to the international situation, there is now broad agreement that with the advent of the euro, the Union will bear a greater responsibility with regard to the international financial situation and will have to speak with a single voice.
We agreed at Vienna that all the outstanding questions on the external representation of the euro must be resolved, including the question of the Commission's participation in international forums.
In that context, I am glad that the ECOFIN Council managed to reach general agreement on this matter yesterday, in other words well before the Vienna European Council, and I am also glad that the European Parliament has supported us here.
Lastly, I am thinking of the functioning of the international financial institutions as such, and of our responsibility as the largest donor of development aid.
But we must not confine ourselves to financial aspects, and I hope we shall also discuss wider issues in Vienna, such as Europe's role in relation to globalisation, which affects every dimension of our societies.
With the new impetus provided by the euro and the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Union cannot remain silent in the face of a world that is waiting for a response, the response of a Europe that speaks with a single voice.
Mr President, these are the main points that we will certainly be discussing in Vienna.
However, I would not wish to end my statement to the House without pointing out that we shall be celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Vienna.
That too will be an opportunity to call on the Union to take resolute action to defend the values of that declaration.
The European summit in Vienna will, therefore, be a summit that sets out the practical and fundamental approaches to follow so that we can meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the Austrian Presidency on its excellent work in recent months.
In particular, I would like to say that the special summit at Pörtschach proved a pleasant surprise for Members of the European Parliament. By contrast with previous European Councils, at Pörtschach there was talk of more Europe rather than of less Europe.
The name Vienna has a fascinating ring and this European Council might be the moment for Europe to make some sort of declaration of a very general nature. According to the statement by the Austrian Presidency, however, specific achievements are being sought.
The Austrian Presidency has stressed that at present, it is the public who are of prime importance: our citizens who voted for us and who trust that their problems will be resolved.
As the Austrian Presidency has also highlighted, the main problem is unemployment, which is currently the European Union's top priority.
Any other problem pales into insignificance against 10 % unemployment, that is, almost 20 million people out of work.
The special summit at Luxembourg, instigated by President Santer, did of course make significant progress in this area. However, it failed to provide the funding required.
In my view, the arrangements made at Luxembourg, namely ECU 10 000 from the European Investment Bank and ECU 450 million from the Community budget over three years, are inadequate.
It is certainly clear is that if we wish to fight unemployment, we must resort to other methods.
My question to the Council is as follows: would it not now be possible to consider other proposals for the release of funds? I refer in particular to the Jospin proposals, which restate the earlier Delors proposals and which concern the use of a European loan for the major trans-European networks.
The Austrian Presidency has also referred to these.
Alternatively, why not consider the Prodi proposals for mobilisation of the resources or reserves of the central banks once the euro has come into being?
Clearly, investment is needed at present.
This situation also calls into question what seemed to be one of the key principles underpinning the building of Europe: linking the euro to a stability pact in which inflation was the most important issue.
At present deflation, not inflation, seems to be the issue, and the world seems to be threatened by an economic crisis. Consequently, the question we are asking ourselves here, in the European Parliament, in the Council and in the Commission is whether it would not be appropriate to take steps to encourage investment.
Does it really make sense to reduce expenditure - including investment - and, for instance, to cut investment, through the stability pact? My view is that the stability pact should be complemented by an employment pact which would allow resources to be made available to combat unemployment.
Finally, the President-in-Office of the Council has also referred to the financial outlook.
As we in the Parliament see it, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, there is a danger of aiming for less Europe rather that more Europe because of the financial outlook.
I trust that the Vienna European Council, inspired by the helpful conclusions of the Pörtschach European Council, will move towards more Europe. Without more Europe, it will not be possible to build the Europe we, the citizens of the Community, are hoping for.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in our opinion the recent informal summit in Pörtschach demonstrated, regrettably, that Europe is still in search of an identity.
Whereas Europe is now a recognised world power in economic terms - and will soon have a single currency - our governments are being too cautious and tentative about giving it a more dynamic, more political role, both internally and internationally.
On this point, I should like on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party to recall the problem - already referred to by the Austrian Presidency - of ensuring that the eleven member countries of the euro zone are properly represented in international forums.
So far, convergence has been achieved in only one of the areas under discussion: the balance between stability and growth.
Several countries have referred to the need for a dialogue with the European Central Bank.
We would now ask the Council whether this is a euphemistic way of covering up difficulties in the relations between the governments and the Central Bank or, as we would hope, confirmation of the resolve to protect the role and independence of that institution.
Furthermore, the painful sacrifices which all our countries have had to make to create a strong and viable single currency cannot and must not be thwarted by second thoughts or, worse still, by dangerous interference which could result in a weak currency without sound prospects.
The governments are well aware that a healthy monetary policy is a precondition for the creation of sound growth and development, but clearly there is also a need for appropriate economic policies - albeit coordinated ones - to promote a recovery of the economy and above all of employment, the most urgent issue facing Europe.
This is a task which the governments must on no account shirk.
Unfortunately, concerning the other items on the agenda of the informal summit, our expectations were not met.
Apart from vows and promises, nothing new emerged in respect of foreign policy, for example on the common foreign and security policy, even though we do welcome Mr Blair's openness on the question of integrating the WEU into the European Union; nothing whatsoever on justice and home affairs, nor on crime and illegal immigration; and finally, nothing whatsoever on the launching of institutional reforms.
I would conclude by adding that the scale of the challenges lying ahead of us over the next few years calls for political vision and a fresh input of ideas.
We therefore hope that the forthcoming European Council in Vienna will live up to our expectations and those of all our citizens, thereby fulfilling the hopes expressed by the Austrian Presidency.
I nevertheless believe that the European Parliament - the democratic, representative voice of our peoples - also has a crucial, leading role to play in this context, naturally alongside the other institutions.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, you have given us a long list of subjects.
No subject of any importance was omitted, in point of fact.
Of course, that makes it difficult to identify the main issues.
I believe it is vitally important that we see a political breakthrough at this Vienna summit on one central issue, namely Agenda 2000.
We must wrap up this matter - which is important to enlargement, but also to the internal cohesion of the Europe of 15 - during these six months leading up to the campaign for the European elections.
I regard this as the decisive issue and hope it will be tackled successfully.
Another matter you did not mention and which really does affect us Members very strongly is the Statute for Members.
It is vital that the Vienna summit should resolve this issue too.
That is partly Parliament's responsibility, but in the end it is also the responsibility of the Council.
It is not just a question of creating a sound working foundation for Members.
However, we are going through a difficult phase.
There have been scandals and accusations.
It is vital that Members can enter the campaign for these democratic elections with a clear conscience, and can discuss European issues rather than having to counter accusations.
I would ask you to take this matter seriously and to ensure on 12 December that the subject is dealt with in a sensible way and can be removed from the agenda before the elections, for our sake, as Parliament will, I hope, propose tomorrow.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, according to the Treaties the Council is not a decision-making body, but is the Union institution which can most legitimately carry out the vital task of providing a political impetus, since all the Heads of State and Government are directly accountable to their respective parliaments.
Prior to a European Council meeting, all we can do is to formulate wishes.
However, we must be careful not to draw up an exhaustive list of all our wishes, like the poet Prévert, since that would inevitably lead to disappointment and disenchantment, but try to confine ourselves to a few priorities.
I for my part will name three of them.
The first priority is the reforms in Agenda 2000 and the future financing of the Union.
We are in fact hearing at the highest level in a growing number of Union countries, including the more powerful ones, that a country's contribution to the Union budget should match the financial benefits it gains from it; this means the general application of the 'fair returns' principle for which Mrs Thatcher became famous in her day.
That is at the very least a curious conception of European solidarity on the part of governments which claim to be champions of the utmost social justice.
The Union has never before seen so many governments of a socialist persuasion or with socialist participation; and yet never before has the principle of solidarity been so much denied, at least in statements of intent, despite the fact that it acts as the binding force of joint action and is the key to the prosperity of all the Union countries.
Here I would solemnly warn that cofinancing the common agricultural policy would risk dismantling it.
I would also warn that any reduction in the appropriations allocated to the Structural Funds, the Social Fund and the Cohesion Fund would put the economic and social stability of our regions at risk.
The second priority is enlargement of the Union. As we have said before, as a political symbol and by virtue of its social, economic and commercial implications, this enlargement goes immeasurably further than the preceding ones.
Let us beware of excluding certain states on the basis of questionable pretexts and thereby recreating artificial divisions between the applicant countries.
Let us also beware of underestimating the major difficulties awaiting the economic players both of the Fifteen and of the applicant countries.
The last priority I would highlight on the eve of the European Council is reform of the institutions.
It is a reform linked to the enlargements that are to come, and it is vital that it is carried out before any further enlargement, but without being used as a pretext for delaying that enlargement.
The ball is indeed in the court of the Heads of State and Government.
So let us be exacting, ladies and gentlemen, and solemnly call on the Heads of State and Government of the Fifteen to discuss, without taboos or ulterior motives, the real reforms on which Europe must embark if it wants to go on living and developing.
Mr President, I agree entirely with Mrs Ferrero-Waldner that the Vienna European Council will represent a turning point in our struggle to resolve the fundamental problems involved in the building of Europe.
Chief amongst these is employment.
It is for this reason that our group places such great importance on support for employment policies which go beyond the coordination of national policies and Community guidelines.
Dare we hope that we shall have a European employment policy after the Vienna Summit?
We should make as great an effort to achieve such a policy as we did when setting up the single currency. Indeed, in our judgment, the stability pact and the severity with which it is implemented hinders the creation of employment and does not promote the best interests of our citizens.
We cannot agree with the statement made recently by Tony Blair and José María Aznar, the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and Spain, concerning greater flexibility on the labour market and cutting unemployment cover. The aim, apparently, is to dissuade the unemployed from relying on benefits.
However, such a philosophy and such measures will not promote employment policies or justify the European social model.
We find the French Government's philosophy more positive, with its proposal for a 35-hour week. Oskar Lafontaine's proposals are also encouraging, and could result in substantial investment, particularly in the European transport, communications and energy networks.
We are prone to criticise the Commission, but it too has put forward interesting proposals which have, to date, been blocked by the Council. I shall mention just two: the reduction of value-added tax on labour-intensive services, and the introduction of an environmental levy to finance policies for employment creation.
With regard to Agenda 2000, Madam President-in-Office, we are concerned about the failure of the ECOFIN Council.
Agenda 2000 as a whole has been postponed, along with the report on own resources, the allocation of funds and external representation of the euro.
In addition, the Austrian Presidency's proposal to freeze expenditure in percentage terms and set it at ECU 85 000 million for next year seems to us to be a step backwards where internal solidarity is concerned. The suggestions made by certain Member States are even more alarming.
A reduction of the Community budget in real terms has been proposed, which would bring it down to 1.10 % of Community GDP. This would create major uncertainties for enlargement.
Indeed the enlargement process lacks the clear plan and timetable essential to its success.
As I conclude, Mr President, I should like to mention the need for clear guidelines where relations with Turkey are concerned. We must also show our solidarity with Central America, and come up with a strategic response to the enormous problems facing the region.
Lastly, I feel I should mention the problem of the European Parliament.
We urgently need to reach agreement, once and for all, on a statute for Members of the European Parliament, to facilitate seriousness and transparency within the House and before European public opinion.
Welcome
European Council (continuation)
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, more and more people in Europe are alarmed at finding themselves greeted on the eve of the twenty-first century by the face of the nineteenth century.
An increasingly aggressive neoclassical economic ideology is evidently trying to force us into this withdrawal into the past.
This neo-liberalism regards unemployment almost as an indicator of modernisation, seeing workers' falling incomes as progress.
Deregulation has become a kind of pseudo-religious commandment.
Meanwhile, the financial markets are reacting quite euphorically to announcements of staff cuts and redundancies.
The havoc which this ideology has wrought in recent years in South-East Asia, in the newly industrialised countries and in Russia has obviously made little impression.
Anyone who does not want to return to the nineteenth century is branded a reactionary.
Politics has been concerned for years with mass unemployment and growing poverty.
But this has produced little, apart from the literature of political commitment and social poetry.
One cannot avoid the impression that some sectors of European policymaking seem to regard themselves almost as the acolytes of this aggressive ideology.
So we call emphatically on the Vienna summit to decide on practical actions at last and to stop creating taboos around the central issues of reform.
We are calling for quantified and quantifiable objectives with well-defined time-scales and evaluation procedures.
We are calling for an end to ruinous European fiscal dumping, for the harmonisation of tax systems, for moves towards ecological tax reform, and for the European Central Bank to carry out its duty of supporting European economic policy objectives within the framework of price stability.
We are calling for the regulation of the financial markets and for job-creating investment not to be taken into account within the context of the stability pact.
Finally, we wish there to be a debate on the fair distribution of work through reductions in working hours.
Let us move on at last from political poetry to responsible actions!
Mr President, the citizens of Europe, and in particular the unemployed and the young, are indeed expecting a great deal of the European social model and hoping to benefit from the historic opportunity offered by the coming to power of left-wing governments in most of the European countries.
Ultimately, these governments do not have the right to fail to implement a policy that lives up to the hopes of our citizens.
Faced with the reality of today, we can no longer confine ourselves to generous statements or expressions of sympathy.
The moment has indeed come, with the Vienna summit, to make social Europe our ideal by ensuring that the people feel they are involved in a grand social plan, in one which - I am tempted to say - is worthy of our democratic and progressive traditions.
What concerns them most is unemployment, as the minister said.
That is where we need to take strong action, and even though we welcome the trend towards falling unemployment in Europe, it is essential that we now implement the proposals made in Luxembourg in November 1997, at the summit on employment, which set as a major priority that no young person must remain out of work for more than six months and no adult for more than a year.
Let us follow that road, and let us go further by creating a new welfare state that promotes employment and lifelong training for every citizen of the Union.
Let us indeed ensure that any dismissal or period out of work automatically gives rise to a statutory paid training scheme, which must not represent a kind of 'marking time' period.
In my view, this is a way of banishing the term 'unemployment' from our vocabulary.
Paying benefits is sometimes a necessity, but there is no point in this unless it is linked to a programme of training and reintegration into work.
Throughout his or her life, the individual must alternate between work and training, moving from one to the other without any unwanted break.
That is a great innovative project.
It is a project that the governments of the Union countries have a duty to support, not just at the Vienna summit but also at the forthcoming European elections in June 1999.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the subject of foreign policy, a sector relevant to this discussion, I would take the liberty of flagging up the Ocalan affair to highlight the Community's shortcomings.
The Europe of the left is making the worst possible start: the amateurism and demagogy of some members of the Italian Government have contrasted sharply with the hypocrisy and cowardice - to quote a headline in the 'Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ' - of the German Government, which preferred to leave the hot potato, as it were, in the hands of their Italian progressive comrades, even though the judiciary had issued an international arrest warrant for the leader of the PKK.
Added to this, the Greek Prime Minister, Kostas Simitis - whose government had previously, albeit unofficially, refused to take in Ocalan - came out in favour of granting political asylum to the PKK leader but leaving this 'honour' to Italy, a country which, in his words, was 'handling the matter very well'.
I am tempted to say that, if this is how parties belonging to the Socialist International demonstrate solidarity on matters of foreign policy, it is to be hoped that such unedifying conduct is not transferred to the handling of Community affairs.
Linked to the Ocalan case is the problem of pressure, threats and acts of terrorism perpetrated or merely threatened by well-organised ethnic and religious groups which have a huge following in Europe, as reported by no less a figure than a leading German left-wing intellectual, Peter Schneider, who states: 'It is clear that Turkey is striving to manoeuvre the Turkish minority in Germany, like a sort of fifth column.
The Kurds appear to be behaving in the same way.'
What is more, these immigrants could be incited not only to violence but also to unscrupulous behaviour at election time, casting their votes for citizens or coalitions who promise to protect their interests.
In the view of the Alleanza Nazionale delegation, therefore, the Ocalan case has revealed the current limitations of the Community edifice, namely its immaturity as regards the common foreign and security policy and its non-existence in the field of international justice and jurisdiction.
This has been a timely crisis, demonstrating the individual Member States' inadequacies and unwillingness to seek solutions to particular problems which could have serious repercussions in terms of law and order, diplomatic and trading relations.
This, then, is yet another reason to adopt at long last a real common foreign policy and to establish a proper European Court, which could be entrusted with finding legal solutions to cases such as that of Ocalan.
Mr President, I should like to return to the real subject, the Vienna summit, and address two points which in my view will decide whether or not that summit is a success, namely employment and foreign policy.
On employment, several speakers have already expressed their views.
That is not because we cannot think of anything better to talk about; it is because this is an issue of such immense importance to Europe, with its unacceptably high level of unemployment, that we must keep formulating new employment initiatives.
We have achieved much with the Amsterdam Treaty.
It was confirmed in Cardiff and in particular in Pörtschach that we need to focus more strongly on employment policy.
The Commission has examined the individual Member States' national employment plans.
I must say that they have been treated very gently, and I also know that the Commission would have liked to deal with some Member States a little more roughly.
I hope this was only the gentleness of the first wave, because I am absolutely convinced that the Commission, and probably also the Council, must take a firmer approach to those Member States which are in fact not matching up to their plans, ideas and objectives.
We must carry out the measures that have already been referred to, notably by Mr Medina Ortega.
What about investment in Europe?
Are the measures announced in Pörtschach, and which were already contained in the Delors White Paper, actually being implemented now? What about cooperation between Member States on fiscal matters?
Do we really have a coordinated tax policy for the whole economy? I sometimes get the impression that members of the Council and some countries are afraid to have the courage of their convictions.
They say they want to do something, but as soon as a practical proposal is put before them, they find good excuses for wriggling out of it again. So I wish to state quite clearly and plainly once again that I consider employment policy, more clearly defined guidelines on employment and stricter examination of the various countries by the Commission as of the utmost importance.
I turn now to foreign policy. A good deal has been said on this, and I am glad that Commissioner van den Broek at least is here, who may perhaps be glad in the short term that none of his colleagues from the Council is here to talk to him about foreign policy.
But let me remind you that it was stated clearly in Cardiff that Vienna is to decide on a Mr or Mrs CFSP.
That was confirmed in Pörtschach.
But now I hear rumours that the Council is in favour in principle but cannot agree on names, and that once again it is shying away from the decision actually to appoint a high representative.
Either the Council realises that it is important to appoint a representative, and then it must do so - and do so soon, after all the negative experiences we have had; or the Council does not consider it important, in which case it should delete these provisions from the Amsterdam Treaty.
The second option is wholly unacceptable, not least to this Parliament.
We are told: yes, Mr or Mrs CFSP is an important figure. We must tie that up in a package with the Commission president and other individuals.
My question is this: does the Council, do the Member States not know that in future this Parliament will also be appointing the president of the Commission, but that this will only happen at a later date? Has the Council not realised that the balance of decision-making has changed, and that it has to take the important decision on whom to appoint as the foreign policy representative, in other words on the person who will be the contact and discussion partner for Mr van den Broek and the other Commissioners?
This decision must now to be taken. The Council would be giving a clear sign of weakness, a sign that it remains as indecisive as ever in foreign policy matters, if it did not take these decisions in Vienna.
I believe this Parliament should say loud and clear that if the European Union's foreign policy is to be changed and rendered more efficient, then we need a high representative of the Council, and that decision must be taken in Vienna!
Mr President, again it is a pity that the President of the Council is no longer here.
We sort of have a custom nowadays to play to the gallery.
I would like to speak on two subjects.
One is the question of financial aspects of the Agenda 2000.
If the report of the Ecofin of yesterday and the day before is at all correct, then the European Community unfortunately seems to be in quite a disarray.
It says in the Agence Europe that the draft inclusions for submission to the Vienna European Council were challenged vehemently by Spain.
That shows that, indeed, on this point not much progress is in sight.
If the President of the Council were here I would ask her what the strategy of the presidency is in this respect.
Secondly, the issue of the third pillar: In Cardiff there was a lot of talk about progress in justice and home affairs.
But frankly speaking, very little progress has occurred since that time.
This is quite a major point.
We were present at the Civil Liberties Committee yesterday where the President of the Council, the Minister for Interior Affairs, spoke.
The integration of the Schengen Accord into the EU treaty framework about 16 months after the signing in Amsterdam should now be in place.
It is not.
We still do not know at this particular moment what part will go to the first pillar and the third pillar.
The danger is, if we are ratifying Amsterdam and nothing has happened, the result will be that everything will remain in the third pillar.
To add insult to injury, it seems now that in the Justice and Home Affairs Council there is talk of setting up a special committee to monitor justice affairs which is not foreseen by the first pillar. In the first pillar it is COREPER, it is the Commission, but not the K4 Committee, the Special Committee on Justice and Home Affairs.
We would like to ask what is the position of the presidency on this? Will it resist?
What is the attitude of the Commission? I see Commissioner van den Broek here.
I hope that he could reply that the Commission would not accept any non-legal situations concerning justice and home affairs.
In particular, on this committee it is quite important that it will be this traditional structure and it will not be the third pillar and in the governmental structure.
Mr President, employment is indeed a key concern of the Union's citizens and everything possible must be done to combat unemployment effectively and create jobs, especially for young people and the long-term unemployed.
The Pörtschach summit was marked by a change of tone, new ideas and greater emphasis on growth and employment.
It has to be said that the elections which have recently taken place in some Union countries have all reflected a rejection of liberalism and an aspiration towards a more humane society.
The statements of intent must now be turned into practical action.
That is what our citizens expect from the forthcoming Vienna summit.
I heard everything that Mr Santer said a moment ago, but when I look at some of the employment policy guidelines for 1999 which the Commission is submitting to the Heads of State and Government, I feel a little disturbed.
The Commission is still giving precedence to measures to encourage labour flexibility and social moderation in the name of competitiveness.
The recent European day of action by railway workers in protest at the Commission's deregulation proposals clearly reflected the demand for public services which can respond to current needs and requirements in the Union.
The recent Franco-German summit reaffirmed the will to create a stronger European social model.
It even advocated stringent and verifiable objectives.
Very well then, the Vienna summit must now move from words to deeds.
I think there are three essential conditions if actions are to measure up to intentions.
Firstly, we must redefine the powers and tasks of the European Central Bank, which must come under the democratic control of the European Parliament and the national parliaments.
Secondly, interest rates must of course be lowered, but on a selective basis to encourage job-creation projects.
Thirdly, the current stability pact must be replaced by a genuine pact on growth and employment.
In the end, there will be no progress unless the people are involved.
There is certainly a need for a genuine social dialogue, for a great public debate on the major European issue of employment.
An annual conference on economic and employment policy could make a contribution here by checking what results have been achieved and proposing adjustments to employment policies, if necessary with binding quantitative criteria.
Mr President, given the abundance of important and weighty subjects on the agenda of the Vienna summit - and the President-in-Office has presented us with very much a mixed bag - we can only wish the Austrian Presidency good heart in the discussions and much success.
It will be essential to determine the right steps to take in a few key areas, for example enlargement and Agenda 2000.
In view of the many crucial but unresolved questions in the agricultural and structural fields, I wonder how it will be possible to keep to the timetable.
I am asking this partly because this is after all - and that is what makes it so difficult - a question of interests rather than visions.
So the Austrian Presidency must make sure it engages the right gear and steers in the right direction.
That is a difficult task.
It is pursuing the right course in focusing on employment policy, but this needs to be implemented more efficiently.
There is no shortage of analyses and dossiers.
Here too time is pressing, because there is a long and difficult way to go from taking decisions to achieving practical results, namely more jobs and fewer people without them.
Mr President, although there are no leading figures from the presidency here present, I would still like to pay tribute to the work which the Austrian Presidency has carried out to date.
It has made headway on many outstanding issues and helped to ensure that results and decisions can be achieved rapidly when it now hands over to the German Presidency.
That would seem almost impossible, given the multitude of tasks, as many here have said, but let me point out quite firmly that no doubts must be voiced - and especially not in Vienna, prior to the handover of the presidency - about whether it will be possible to keep to the Agenda 2000 timetable in the first six months.
Parliament will organise its work in such a way as to give the Council no excuses.
It will be difficult, we will have to pull together, but that is only to be expected.
With Agenda 2000, with the many problems to be resolved - and it would be a good idea for this to be perfectly clear in Vienna - the forthcoming presidency must not forget to do its homework, including preparations for the necessary institutional reforms.
We know it cannot complete and carry out this work until there is a further intergovernmental conference, but it must not wait until that new intergovernmental conference to embark on it.
It must tackle the work now.
Proposals and options must be put on the table in order to push forward the internal reforms, especially the institutional reforms.
For what is the use of making progress on the agricultural and Structural Fund aspects of Agenda 2000 - even if only on a basis of compromise - and of the negotiations reaching a stage where the accession of new members at some point can be discussed, if the institutional reforms have not yet been carried out?
Parliament will find that difficult to accept, and we know that all our groups argue that the institutional reforms in particular must also be completed before the first wave of new applicants are accepted.
I would like to add a further point.
Of course employment will be on the agenda in Vienna.
But it would be a good idea if the somewhat unspeakable way in which these matters are discussed in the UK, whipped up by sections of the press, were to come to an end, with the help of all the institutions and also of all the Members.
It is not a question here of harmonising taxes in the sense of levelling them down.
It is quite simply a question, with regard to employment too, of the Member States finding a way of agreeing on how they can promote investment, naturally also by means of their fiscal policy.
We must determine how the labour factor can be relieved a little more of what is in some Member States a quite substantial tax burden, through a rational, agreed and joint approach to taxation, so that it would be worthwhile to create jobs, not just through investment but also through investment plus the numbers of people in employment.
We should try together to make this clear.
If we are honest, we would surely agree that the way we operate in the European Union is not that different from the way things sometimes go in neighbouring communities. Each side tries to drive away the other sides's investors by means of lower charges and cheaper land.
We do not need to do that in the European Union, but what we do desperately need is an arrangement, so that everyone can have a piece of the employment cake!
I fully agree with Mr Swoboda.
The Council should appoint the Council's representative for the common foreign and security policy as soon as possible.
It should do so as soon as possible, but it should not try to tie up everything that needs to be resolved in the coming months in terms of appointments into one huge package.
I would ask it to think again, and to remember that - thanks to Amsterdam - Parliament really does have a say on some appointments.
It should bear that in mind, in view of the European elections in June next year.
Mr President, I would like to start with the point that Mr Görlach finished on and that is the fact that we have elections in the European Union to the European Parliament next year.
The Vienna summit meeting will play a crucial role in setting the agenda for the first six months of next year. It will not only be the agenda of the German presidency.
We also need to demonstrate that in Vienna there is a commitment to reconnecting the people of Europe with the project of the European Union.
As we know from our own Member States we have failed in recent years to do that.
That is why the issue of employment, which was discussed at the informal summit meeting, must be a critical point in the discussions in Vienna.
The Socialist Group insists that we get concrete measures aimed at lifelong learning, at education initiatives, trying to give our people a better basic education but also giving them the skills to do value-added types of jobs.
Employment must be the core of that agenda.
If we want to engage young people in the European Union project then we have to make sure that we are offering something to them.
Most young people today across the European Union, whether they live in Germany, in Finland, in the United Kingdom, in the South of Europe are concerned about their future and they are concerned about their future job, or their future role in society.
So we hope that when the Vienna summit meeting is concluded there are concrete measures linked to the employment action plans of each Member State that will help to bring down the overall unemployment level, but particularly long-term unemployment and unemployment amongst young people.
It is also important in reconnecting Europe with its people that we look at our global role.
We have suffered in recent months and over the last year from the global economic crisis.
We have seen major problems in many markets around the world and of course our own economy has suffered as a consequence.
It is extremely important that the Vienna summit meeting send a strong signal that Europe intends to play its part in helping to bring stability to the global economy.
That means we need to press the point again in Vienna for an increase in the transparency and resilience of the international financial system.
We have to improve the surveillance processes of national policies.
We have to define how emerging market countries can protect themselves from excessive financial instability.
Europe cannot only look inward during these meetings, we have to look externally.
With the coming Euro the European Union will be a centre of stability in the global economy.
I also want to say something about the labour market and the need for labour market flexibility.
There is a big debate in the European Union about whether or not we need labour market flexibility.
One of my colleagues mentioned it a moment ago.
In a dynamic global economy we have to have labour market flexibility.
We have to have employability.
The idea that we operate our labour market the way that we operated it ten years ago, or even five years ago, will lead to higher unemployment.
Can I also touch on the question of taxation since Mr Görlach mentioned it in his speech.
We know that the Austrian presidency has tried to pursue some measures on tax coordination and I also know that the German presidency will be looking at strengthening tax coordination.
But the word is 'coordination'. It is not 'harmonisation'.
I am very grateful that Commissioner Mario Monti has changed the agenda in Europe on this matter.
We do not look for a single currency and a single market with tax harmonisation.
We look to coordinate where it can benefit employment and where it can benefit investment.
I think it would be very helpful if the British media, in particular, could learn the difference, particularly since the words exist in English, between the description and definition of coordination and harmonisation.
Mr President, I have just three minutes and so just two comments to make and a question to put as chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
My first comment concerns the reluctance of the ministers concerned to liaise with us.
Ministers Michalek and Schlögl have always been at pains to consult with us.
They do so both at and away from our committee meetings, and only the day before yesterday both ministers travelled to Brussels to discuss things with the committee.
But our satisfaction with this informal arrangement does not, regrettably, extend to the more formal side of things.
Article 6 of the Maastricht Treaty requires us to be consulted on a number of important matters, something which has happened under previous presidencies, but it is not happening at present.
We are not being consulted on the very important and topical issue of asylum and refugee policy.
The so-called 'Austrian strategy document' came to us quite by chance.
How can Parliament's voice possibly be ignored over this socially sensitive dossier?
The other example is more disgraceful still.
It concerns an action plan to set up an area of freedom, security and justice, that is to say a plan for the future.
But again Parliament is not being asked for its opinion.
In short, of the four topics which we have just heard will be raised at the Vienna summit - and in addition to the two I mentioned there are also drugs and organised crime - on not one of these four topics has Parliament been asked to give its opinion.
That is a breach of Article 6 of the Maastricht Treaty.
Hence my question to the Council President, though sadly she has vanished from the Chamber: when will Parliament's opinion be sought on the action plan and also on that other important strategy document?
Mr President, I have three things to say.
Firstly, I think the Vienna summit should take serious note of all the issues brought up by the German, French, Italian or other governments, issues related to correcting the course set by Maastricht, issues concerning the relationship between politics and bankers, interest rates, and whether all that matters is monetary stability or whether we should also look to development and employment, the taxation of capital movements, and other such issues.
A debate has commenced.
The governments of the Member States have an obligation to get together in Vienna and begin outlining new directions for the European Union.
My second point concerns Agenda 2000, which is certainly an issue which is not going to go away.
What I wish to say is that if there are some who - perhaps rightly - would like the European Union to enlarge towards Central and Eastern Europe, they must also be prepared to meet a substantial part of the costs involved, not just pass them on to the south of the European Union and so do away with acquired rights.
My last point is that we should turn our attention to the issues of foreign policy, especially in relation to Turkey.
Cardiff was an unpleasant episode and we must return to the Luxembourg criteria concerning the Kurdish problem - a topical issued indeed - the Cyprus problem, relations with our neighbours and human rights.
I think the Vienna summit has a duty to do that.
Thank you, Mr Alavanos.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Applications for membership
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0430/98 by Mr Caccavale, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Latvia's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2005 - C4-0377/97); -A4-0428/98 by Mr Bernard-Reymond, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Romania's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2003 - C4-0375/97); -A4-0427/98 by Mr Wiersma, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Slovakia's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2004 - C4-0376/97); -A4-0431/98 by Mr Kristoffersen, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Lithuania's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2007 - C4-0379/97); -A4-0429/98 by Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on Bulgaria's application for membership of the European Union, with a view to the Vienna European Council (11-12 December 1998) (COM(97)2008 - C4-0380/97).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must begin with one general comment.
The Commission - and I am pleased to see Mr van den Broek here in the House - made a mistake concerning the accession procedure.
As the European Parliament stated plainly at the time, it was wrong to divide the applicant countries into two groups, albeit with the linguistic distinction between 'ins' and 'pre-ins'.
I think this is clear to everyone, and we are of course glad that the Commission itself has recognised this.
As far as Latvia is concerned, the matter is a straightforward one.
This country has taken giant economic strides in the past few years: its inflation has plummeted and is now running at around 7 %; its GDP growth is between 8 and 9 %; its budget has been balanced for the past two years - something I would like to see in several EU Member States; and finally, the privatisation process was launched very rapidly and is almost complete.
It therefore seems to me that Latvia complies in full with all the requirements for an immediate start to the negotiations for accession.
Concerning the political criteria, in my opinion democracy in Latvia is a fait accompli , not only because a series of elections has been held in entirely peaceful circumstances and with total respect for democratic principles, but also given the outcome of the much-publicised referendum a few weeks ago.
The referendum asked the citizens to decide whether to endorse the new law on citizenship - allowing so-called non-citizens, stateless persons, to acquire Latvian citizenship - or whether to abrogate it.
It was an act of great courage and democratic strength, an important sign of democracy.
I wonder how many EU countries would have seen fit to entrust their citizens with such a sensitive decision, on a matter directly affecting all the inhabitants of Latvia, citizens and non-citizens alike.
There do of course remain some outstanding problems: not all the non-citizens have been integrated yet, meaning that roughly 25 % of the resident population still has no passport and remains in an ambiguous position harking back to the former Soviet situation; the administration is still outdated and unable to meet the citizens' needs; the judicial apparatus is still shaky, with statutes that are about to be rewritten and senior judges and lawyers who are not yet equal to their task.
In short, the legal order is still in the process of being established.
Mr President, we must not forget the fact that only seven years ago - I repeat, seven years ago, not seventy - the highest flagpole in the land was flying the red flag bearing the hammer and sickle of the Soviet Union.
Latvia was an integral part of the Soviet Union, a regime which had abolished all the people's rights, stifled any possible development, and which of course has left behind a terrible legacy.
Unless we take this into account - as well as the deportations and the military occupation of the country - we certainly cannot understand why the inherited state administration and legal system has been so ruinous and so damaging.
That is why, arguably, the winds of Europe are blowing more strongly, intensely and vigorously in Riga than in Rome, Paris or London.
I believe that we are facing an extraordinary challenge: that of allowing these countries to embark immediately on the negotiations leading to accession.
Opening negotiations by no means implies that they will be completed overnight; it does however mean bringing these countries to the negotiating table on a par with the other states, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary and so on.
On this point my report, as adopted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, clearly indicates to the Council and Commission that they should reassess their verdict on Latvia and initiate negotiations with this country without further delay.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Romania is currently going through a fairly difficult period, in terms of its economy, for example.
The country's GNP fell by more than 6 % in 1997 and has unfortunately continued to drop in 1998.
Despite major progress, inflation remains very high and the currency has lost 25 % of its value since the beginning of the year. The budget deficit is growing, foreign debt is increasing and the social climate is deteriorating.
None of these macro-economic indices is very encouraging, and this will make it even more difficult for Romania to carry out the vital and urgent structural reforms that are needed.
This situation is due to a very large extent to its extremely burdensome inheritance, undoubtedly the most burdensome of all the former people's democracies of eastern Europe.
But it is also due to the difficulties faced by the government in ensuring the coherence and continuity of its actions, the heterogeneous nature of the ruling coalition and the extremely fickle parliamentary majority.
It is against this background that we must examine the situation in Romania with regard to the Copenhagen criteria and in the light of the Commission report of 4 November.
Politically speaking, there is no doubt that Romania has made considerable efforts. If that were the only criterion that counted Romania would now be on the verge of joining the European Union.
There is still progress to be made in the areas of protecting street children, the control of judicial power by the police, the independence of journalists, detention conditions in prisons, fighting corruption, and the situation of the Rom community.
But there is no doubt that the government is determined to do something about these issues and we are quite certain that each year we will see more progress made in these various fields.
In terms of the economy, while the government has lowered customs duties, liberalised most prices and the exchange market and speeded up privatisation, the legislative framework necessary for developing the market economy is far from complete. As for the transposition of the 'acquis communautaire' there is no doubt that Romania has made very laudable efforts, but substantial reforms are still required.
This being the case, it seems that Romania ought to work on a comprehensive policy in four areas.
First of all it must restore a balance in all the main economic aggregates, a sine qua non for any development.
At the same time, Romania must determinedly continue with the structural reform of its economy, in particular privatisation, the reform of the banking system, the restructuring of large conglomerates and the modernisation of farming.
The third area relates to the human aspect of these structural reforms and involves reforming the administration, fighting corruption and making government action more coherent.
These three areas are vital tools if Romania is to make progress towards accession.
Finally, as I was saying earlier, Romania must pursue its modernisation efforts to meet the first Copenhagen criterion, since in this field nothing is ever completely finished.
We can therefore see in these circumstances that it is premature to envisage opening up accession negotiations with Romania.
It is with considerable regret that we say this since Romania is close to us - it is European culturally, historically and geographically - and it has returned to democracy.
There is no doubt that, in the end, it will be able to join, but the road to accession involves major reforms that the Romanian government must pursue or has even yet to start. The European Union should lend it its full support.
Mr President, a year ago Parliament concluded that Slovakia was not sufficiently democratic to join the group of applicants for EU membership with which negotiations could begin.
The country satisfied all other criteria bar this one, the most important one, and I think that was a sad day for the people of Slovakia.
I believe the decision by Parliament and by the Commission and the Council was the right one.
The government of the time was making a pig's ear of things as far as democracy was concerned, and that was why we agreed with the decision that Slovakia, although it met the economic criteria at the time, should not be included in the group of countries with which negotiations would be started in due course.
But yesterday, a year down the line, I was in Bratislava attending a parliamentary debate on Slovakia's ambitions in a newly elected parliament, with a new government which is doing everything possible to make us forget the previous one.
Slovakia once more features on the map of Europe, following the September elections in which the coalition government which caused us so many difficulties was kicked out.
Slovakia's voters voted for Europe and against isolation.
Today we are talking about Slovakia again, and what a difference!
Last year we were distancing ourselves from her critically, but now we can engage with her in a positive way.
Our criticism helped to bring about the change.
So now we have a duty to send out a positive signal.
Today's debate on Slovakia is therefore political in nature and must have a political emphasis, partly because of the history of Parliament's relations with this country in recent years.
The new government is now in place and its first actions are promising.
Its plans, as stated in the coalition agreement, sound very hopeful.
Slovakia has changed course, towards a normal democratic system in which there is respect for the constitution, acceptance of opposition, a directly elected president, a transparent society with a place for every citizen, including the Hungarian minority which is represented in the new government and, most importantly, where there is an attitude of openness towards the European Union.
The new government is getting on with things fast.
It has a constitutional majority.
We must support it where we can.
But not only does democracy need revitalising, the economy too needs attention.
The last government was irresponsible in allowing deficits to accumulate. It left behind a poisonous economic legacy.
With help from the EU and others and with macro-economic indicators which remain relatively favourable, Slovakia should be able to solve its economic problems.
We hope to see the government taking prompt measures towards that end, as recommended by the Commission.
These include tackling financial problems, tackling the inefficient banking sector, transparency in the economy and faster adoption of the acquis communautaire .
I have an observation to make here about my own report, concerning the economic situation.
We are asking the Slovak Government to pursue a critical policy on energy, an energy policy aimed at shutting down unsafe nuclear reactors.
I think that is an important point.
But I see that this is only mentioned in the report on Bulgaria.
It is important to me that if I agree to that point being in my report, then it should also feature in other reports as well, so as to avoid the impression that we are only concerned about this in the case of Slovakia and Bulgaria.
I think it should apply to other countries too.
But that is just a comment in passing.
Slovakia would have liked to see us now recommending to the European Council that accession negotiations should begin.
I should like nothing more, but enlargement is a serious matter, and intentions have to be tested against policy.
That is not possible at the moment, and it is not a reproach to anyone.
The Slovak Government is making a start today on translating words into deeds.
As I understand it, a vote of confidence in the new government is being held now or this evening in the Slovak Parliament.
The Commission is thus right to recommend that we wait a while.
But the Brussels waiting rooms are large, and waiting times uncertain.
I think Slovakia is entitled to a second chance, a chance to sit the exam again.
That second chance should carry a clear time frame and not a 'we shall see in the year 2000'.
The new Slovak Government is ready to go the extra mile.
The European Union must respond by reassessing it in the spring of 1999.
That is the message which I put before Parliament in my report.
The Slovaks appreciate the risks, but are eager for this further chance.
Negative pressure now needs to be followed by positive encouragement.
Let us not tie the destiny of Slovakia to that of Lithuania or Latvia, but to the energy and resolve of the Slovak people, which deserves individual treatment.
We should look at the results for each applicant country, and where we can speed things up we must do so.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is in fact the reunification of Europe which is now at issue with the enlargement of the European Union, and this reunification also includes the countries bordering on the Baltic Sea.
These are the three Baltic states which were brought into the Soviet sphere of interest when Hitler and Stalin divided up Europe at the end of the 1930s through the notorious pact signed by Molotov and Ribbentrop, the foreign ministers from Moscow and Berlin.
Now things are opening up between East and West, it will soon be ten years since the Berlin Wall came down, and we have a platform which can help us to bring Europe together again, that is if we have the courage to do so and the real political will to use this platform provided by the enlargement of the European Union.
That is the clear direction that we should be indicating here in the European Parliament with a view to the forthcoming summit in Vienna.
As a Dane, it is natural for me to look across the Baltic, a sea which has once again become a source of connections and cooperation.
The Baltic area is developing rapidly, and this applies to the three countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - all three of them.
They have regained and rediscovered their identity as independent countries after half a century of Soviet occupation.
As rapporteur on Lithuania's application for membership of the EU, I see no reason for placing Lithuania in a different position from the two other Baltic states, even though these are of course individual negotiations and it is not necessarily the case that they will all join at the same time.
It is of the utmost importance for Lithuania - both politically and psychologically - that the positive attitude and atmosphere are maintained, and it is also right to send a clear signal to Lithuania that the EU fully recognises the considerable progress made in terms of economic reforms, the quality and achievements of democracy and the administrative sector, even if there is still some work to be done in that field.
Overall, these developments are enabling Lithuania to meet the requirements known as the Copenhagen criteria, and thus also to help ensure the regional stability of the area.
In the resolution on Lithuania which is contained in the report I have drawn up, there is also a reference to the need for progress with regard to Lithuania's long-term energy strategy.
This concerns above all the Ignalina nuclear power plant and what is to happen to it.
The Lithuanian Government - I am pleased to tell you - is fully aware of the seriousness of the matter, and wishes to cooperate with the EU in setting up a group of experts to assess the options.
According to the latest information that I have from Vilnius, the government is to submit a proposal to the Lithuanian Parliament that an expert group should be set up, and the discussions also point to the possibility of shutting down the plant or reducing its activity, but at the same time an assessment will also be carried out of the scope for improving safety.
In any event, the debate on Ignalina has now reached a very practical stage.
In the dialogue with the government in Vilnius, the question has also been raised of how far the EU is willing and able to participate in the financial costs.
However, clarifying the situation and taking a final decision on Ignalina are not expected to be a precondition for the opening of intensive negotiations on Lithuania's membership.
I therefore also call in my report for the accession process to be speeded up, so that intensive negotiations can begin shortly.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the demands of the various applicant countries undoubtedly have to be analysed against a new background.
Following the informal summit in Pörtschach, a good many observers commented - rightly, in my view - that they had the feeling that the Council had been stepping on the brake pedal rather than the accelerator as regards enlargement.
So we must watch with some concern to see what happens at the Council meeting in Vienna.
We also see that the enlargement process is taking place against the background of an international financial crisis, and an economic crisis too which affects not only South-East Asia or Russia or Japan, but is gradually spreading to the whole of the world.
It is indeed a long time since so many voices were heard calling at IMF and World Bank level for clear international rules to define and demarcate the framework within which market forces operate.
Clearer still is the demand of ordinary people, in the European Union too, for action on the part of government or the state, not to take responsibility for everything but certainly to lay down rules.
This international background also prompts us to look carefully at the difficult and demanding processes of transition which the applicant countries are having to go through.
The Copenhagen criteria set out not only political criteria - a state based on the rule of law, human rights, democracy - but also a smoothly functioning free market economy.
So in most of these countries the share of the private sector really needs to grow, otherwise you cannot talk about a free market.
But it is of paramount importance that the privatisation process taking place there should be transparent and more socially responsible.
Otherwise the call for rapid privatisation may easily lead to a 'gold rush' situation where some people grab the national wealth whilst the majority are left far behind.
One need only look at Russia for an example of that.
We believe the Council and Commission must monitor the progress of privatisation very carefully.
We were very happy with the Commission's announcement at the beginning of November concerning the reports on the applicant countries and the related proposals for accession.
We in the European Parliament were especially pleased to see the Commission really keen to sustain the tempo by holding out the prospect of negotiations in the relatively near future to Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia.
I hope the Council will move at the same speed.
As regards the Commission report on Bulgaria, as rapporteur for Bulgaria I am very glad that credit is being given to the efforts which this country has made. Macro-economic stability has largely been achieved, inflation has been drastically lowered, the banking sector has been brought under control, and a higher priority is to be given to agricultural reform and the promotion of SMEs.
The parliament has already approved all the new legislation needed for administrative reform.
The challenge now is to implement this reform on the ground without giving the impression that the restructuring is being done on the basis of party affiliation.
Major legislative initiatives have also been taken to promote decentralisation.
There are two points of particular difficulty between the European Union and Bulgaria.
Firstly there is the visa requirement, the fact that they are on the negative list.
Parliament and the Commission are pulling together on this, but the Council will not easily be persuaded to relax its policy.
So we in Parliament are continuing to send very clear political signals for a political solution, but we know that some adjustments may be needed to simplify administrative procedures as far as possible, so that things can be made easier for Bulgaria's citizens pending a general relaxation of policy.
The second stumbling-block is of course Bulgaria's energy policy.
Parliament is aware of the efforts made here at least to secure an energy strategy for the medium term, but we are absolutely not in agreement with the government's suggestion that the decommissioning dates for the four first-generation units at Kozloduy should be put off, possibly to the year 2012, which is altogether unacceptable.
We believe it is in the interest of the safety of the Bulgarian people in the first instance, but also of course of all other Europeans too, that efforts should be made towards specific and proper implementation of the 1993 Nuclear Safety Account.
We hope that the process of accession for the Bulgarian Government and people will be dynamic and rapid, and we very much hope that in Vienna the Council will match the pace set by the Commission, so that enlargement is not delayed but moves forward swiftly.
- Mr President, on 4 November I had the honour to announce here the publication of the first set of regular reports on the 12 candidate countries that are progressing towards EU membership.
Since 4 November the Commission's reports have been the subject of intense scrutiny, notably by the candidates themselves but also by the Member States and the European Parliament.
I am pleased to say that with the exception of one or two mild and somewhat understandable expressions of disappointment on the part of some candidates, their reaction to the Commission's work has been positive.
Indeed, the candidates have for the most part shown their readiness to respond constructively to the Commission's analysis.
I welcome this opportunity for a more in-depth debate on enlargement in Parliament.
We have heard, and I have welcomed very much, the reports by the rapporteurs which we have heard this afternoon.
They have presented their draft resolutions on each of the five pre-ins from Central Europe.
I would like to say something more now about the Commission's standpoint on these five candidates and I will also be pleased to respond at the end of this debate to any points or questions raised by honourable Members.
I would begin by recalling that enlargement is a process that concerns not five countries but thirteen.
In that respect I would say to Mr Caccavale that for us the difference between ins and pre-ins does not lead us to think in terms of various waves of candidates.
I will come back to that point at the end of my intervention.
The Commission published as a result 12 regular reports covering the 10 candidates from Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey and Cyprus.
The thirteenth country, Malta, reactivated its application for membership in September.
Of course we can only welcome this.
As you know, it has been announced that we will finalise the update of the 1993 opinion on Malta, I hope by mid-February of next year.
Turning now to the regular reports on the Central European countries, I should like to emphasise right at the outset that the Commission's analysis was conducted in an objective and impartial manner and free of all political prejudice.
Our assessment was based on exactly the same Copenhagen and Madrid criteria as last year's opinions.
In order to treat all candidates fairly, the reports cover only decisions or measures that have actually been taken or implemented since last year's opinions.
Legislation in the pipeline will, when adopted, be highlighted in forthcoming reports.
Our analysis shows that the all-inclusive enlargement process remains broadly on track and that the momentum of the candidates towards enlargement is grosso modo being maintained.
I shall now give a short resume of our findings per country.
In broad terms the Commission is very much encouraged by the achievements of the countries in question.
I shall take Slovakia first.
Last year the Commission considered that Slovakia was the only candidate that did not fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria.
However, following last month's general election a new government has taken office and a new impetus for political and economic reform is palpable.
That was also our experience when representatives of the new government visited Brussels not long ago under the leadership of the new Prime Minister Mr Dzurinda.
The new political situation in Slovakia following the recent parliamentary elections brings that country an important step closer to EU membership.
I must underline, however, that Slovakia will continue to be treated in exactly the same way as the other candidates, namely on the basis of the Copenhagen criteria.
In consequence, the Commission will recommend the opening of negotiations on condition that its political institutions demonstrate their ability to function in a stable and democratic manner.
It will also be necessary before opening negotiations to verify that Slovakia has undertaken measures to remedy its economic situation and that it also has introduced greater transparency into its operation.
You know that was one of the main features regarding the economic criteria criticised in our report - or at least we said that the new government would have to address the situation it had inherited.
It is also against that background that, although I very much welcome and understand the plea of Mr Wiersma to have an interim report from the Commission, it would be very difficult for us to produce an interim report on activities which would have to start in the coming months and to reach precise conclusions on the economic points which currently do not allow us to recommend the opening of negotiations.
I fully agree with the rapporteur that the political change that seems to be developing after the parliamentary elections gives us hope, as we have concluded in our report, that in the foreseeable future the recommendations for negotiations can be made.
I refer you to the conclusions of the report on that point.
On Latvia, the Commission's opinion last year concluded that this country met the political criteria for membership, although we said then that a number of shortcomings had been identified, notably concerning the integration of non-citizens.
The rapporteur also referred to that.
This year we have highlighted in the report the positive result in the referendum on the citizenship law which gave an important boost to this process of integration.
It will certainly ease the way for the naturalisation of non-citizens and stateless children.
After this referendum we issued a statement to that effect.
As far as its economy is concerned, Latvia has made some impressive progress in the past twelve months.
GDP growth is high and inflation continues to fall.
Latvia now comes close to fulfilling the criterion of being a functioning market economy.
But it still falls short because its track record of reform is not quite substantial enough.
It still has to plug gaps in its regulatory framework, especially in the financial sector, and it will also need to simplify the legal environment for enterprises and consolidate macro-economic stability.
But if the momentum of reform in Latvia is maintained, it should be possible to confirm next year that Latvia would be regarded as meeting the economic criteria and hence to also propose at the end of next year that negotiations be opened.
I also agree with the rapporteur that Lithuania has recently made significant progress.
The Commission confirmed its view in the opinion that Lithuania fulfils the political criteria though it should intensify the fight against corruption and pursue reforms of the judiciary.
There were advances in economic reform, although it is fair to say that after their analysis our experts came to the conclusion that Lithuania cannot yet be regarded as fully satisfying the economic criteria, especially as many policy decisions have only recently been taken and because it lacks a sufficiently sustained track record in reform.
So, additional measures are needed and some recent developments still need to be tested in practice.
Privatisation needs to be completed and to mention one example, its bankruptcy law has not been functioning long enough to assess the impact of that very important new law.
As far as the nuclear power plant in Ignalina is concerned, the Commission's general conclusion on Lithuania was not predicated on the situation regarding that power plant.
I have set out in brief the reasons why Lithuania still does not yet meet the economic criteria for the opening of negotiations.
On the other hand, we would hope that Lithuania will present a satisfactory comprehensive energy strategy and will re-state a firm commitment that there will be no re-channelling of Unit 1 of Ignalina.
However, I say again that it was not the state of this power plant that led us to the conclusion that negotiations should not yet be opened.
When you look at the conclusions for Lithuania in our report, you will discover that there is a clear incentive that opens the prospect in the foreseeable future for negotiations.
Bulgaria meets the political criteria and is making progress in filling the other criteria for membership.
It has made advances, most notably in the fight against corruption and judicial reform but needs to broaden its efforts further.
It has also stepped up the pace of its preparations on the acquis and made clear progress in the enforcement of intellectual property rights and on financial services, critical points of last year.
But, in general, Bulgaria has to ensure the implementation of legislation after its adoption.
The rapporteur Mrs Aelvoet mentioned the energy sector and we hope that Bulgaria will step up its efforts to adapt this sector in preparation of EU integration and in particular the closure commitments for the Kozloduy nuclear plant have not been appropriately addressed yet.
We are in close contact with the authorities in Bulgaria to reach the right conclusions on this.
Bulgaria does not yet fulfill the economic conditions and still has considerable work ahead.
At the same time the significant progress that has been made is a cause for satisfaction, in particular the overall stabilisation of the economy.
The government continues to show determination in its commitment to reforms.
Priorities in the coming period should include transparent privatisation and also industrial restructuring.
Last but not least, Romania meets the political criteria, but needs to make a concerted effort to root out corruption and strengthen its public administration.
Particular attention should also be paid to improving the work of the courts and protecting individual liberties and the rights of the Roma.
I hasten to say that as far as the rights of the Roma are concerned, many of the candidate countries still have to do quite a lot of work to ensure that social exclusion and discrimination is abolished.
The Romanian economy, unfortunately, has weakened since the opinion.
This was also the conclusion reached by the rapporteur, Mr Bernard-Raymond, and the regular report sets out in some detail what needs to be done.
We know that the Romanian authorities are aware of the urgency and importance of the problem and we are working very closely with them to help them put in place the required measures.
Obviously I could go into more detail but honourable Members have in their possession the very detailed reports so I will conclude by saying that on the basis of our various assessments, the Commission did not deem it necessary to make new recommendations for the opening of negotiations.
However, it has tried to give clear perspectives to that effect and these were incorporated in our conclusions.
We can say that the candidates have made efforts to maintain the momentum and the Commission has also played its part and will continue to do so.
I would like to repeat that the only way to preserve the credibility of the process, not to mention the credibility of the Commission, is to continue to work on the agreed basis that each candidate country is judged on its own merits.
In that sense, I repeat that we do not speak about pre-ins and ins as belonging to two different groups which will always remain separate.
The opening of negotiations has to be recommended when the applicant country has made sufficient preparations to warrant this.
Obviously the same goes for membership which should happen when each candidate is ready.
Finally, like the rapporteurs, I hope very much that the Vienna Summit next week will give further encouragement and express its wish to maintain the momentum of the enlargement process and reconfirm its firm commitment to this process.
I hope that in the coming months under the next presidency the Member States will realise the preparations they have to make towards enlargement.
That would be the most encouraging signal to the candidate countries because from reading their newspapers they could have the impression that the European Union is so focused on its internal problems that it is failing to maintain the momentum on its part to respond positively to the efforts of the candidates to keep the whole enlargement process on track.
Mr President, I should like to begin by reiterating that the Socialist Group welcomes enlargement and believes that it should be an all-inclusive process with no reserve positions, no closed groups, and with every country being judged entirely on its own merits regardless of what is happening elsewhere.
However, we must recognise that it is not a 100 metres sprint but a marathon we are engaged in.
A country sprinting ahead at the moment may not last the pace.
Equally, a country lagging behind at the moment may eventually outpace the others.
Therefore, we cannot be unduly influenced by sudden short-term initiatives but rather should make our judgments entirely on the long-term measures that governments are taking and the sustainability of their reform programmes.
To do anything else would be to raise unreasonable expectations both in the candidate countries and among the peoples of the European Union.
We must realise and remember that whatever solutions we come up with must be acceptable to the peoples of the European Union and the applicant countries and will often have to be approved by referendum.
Slovakia has made huge political progress which we must recognise.
But we need to see whether its new government is able to fulfil its commitments.
Similarly, Latvia has made huge progress, in particular in relation to the referendum on citizenship.
But, again, we must see if this new government is able to sustain that progress.
Latvia and Lithuania have made enormous progress economically but, as Commissioner van den Broek has indicated, we must see if they can sustain that.
Similarly, Bulgaria has made great progress after a poor start but we noticed a Commission opinion that it is beginning to fall back.
We must ensure that there is proper implementation and enforcement of the European Union acquis .
It is not enough to take on the legislation, you have to be able to enforce it.
That is why I do not agree with those who claim that we should start now to negotiate with Latvia and Lithuania.
We should be flexible; we should seek the opportunity to open negotiations as soon as possible but let us not rush this process for fear of undermining it.
There are two issues which must be of concern.
Firstly, nuclear safety.
We know the Soviet-designed reactors in Central and Eastern Europe cannot be upgraded safely at reasonable cost.
All countries must have a comprehensive energy strategy which is fully in line with nuclear safety account agreements before they can join the European Union.
Mr Kristoffersen has mentioned Ignalina.
Lithuania has agreed to close Ignalina for good when the pressure tubes need replacing.
Talk of expert groups must not be allowed to distract us from that.
There can be no re-channelling.
Finally, I should like to emphasise what Mr van den Broek said about corruption.
Citizens will not accept an enlarged Europe if it is only going to give opportunities to corrupt officials, drug barons, gangsters and paedophiles.
We must take action there.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, I should like to thank Commissioner van den Broek for his efficient work in the Commission.
I should also like to congratulate the new government of Slovakia and especially the Slovakian people, who elected their government democratically.
The prospects for Slovakia's accession have begun to change since October, and in its first statement to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, the new government under Prime Minister Dzurinda declared that it wanted to speed up the accession process.
We must now respond to its efforts.
The democratic forces in Slovakia need a clear signal from the European Community confirming that it is on the right path, and the forthcoming summit in Vienna is the right occasion to give this.
It must make it clear that if Slovakia achieves sustained political stability it can join the group of countries which have already started negotiations as soon as possible.
Instead of the Commission producing a final report on Slovakia, the Council should deliver its opinion on Slovakia's application to join as part of an extra Commission report during the first six months of 1999.
The Copenhagen criteria, which have hitherto been a deciding factor in assessing applications to join, should be met as soon as possible.
I think that Slovakia marks a genuine breakthrough in European history!
Mr President, the Liberal Group is full of praise for the work the Commission has done, and its progress reports on the applicant countries rightly make it clear that all the applicants still have a good deal of work to do.
The fact that negotiations begin is of course no guarantee that accession will be granted.
It is merely an acknowledgement of the progress that has been made, and the Czech and Slovenian governments have to take on board the fact that they have not yet made sufficient progress.
The Commission warns against complacency, and rightly so.
The approach which has been chosen is leading to greater dynamism and can resolve difficult stalemates, of the kind seen over citizenship in Latvia, for example.
There is some confusion in Parliament as regards the progress of negotiations.
We must be careful not to send out the wrong signal to the applicant countries.
Our response must be encouraging, but based on real expectations.
In accordance with our own resolution of exactly a year ago, we receive annual progress reports.
The desire of some groups in this House for reports every six months is, to my mind, the result of woolly thinking.
My group is against unnecessary work, and in my view the Commission would be hard pressed to produce a report of this kind every six months.
Nor must we give the impression that being part of group 2 means that applicants are being put on ice.
That is clear from progress in Lithuania and Latvia.
All things considered, my group is in favour of starting negotiations with Latvia and Lithuania now.
They have, after all, reached the point Estonia was at in July 1997.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the legislative elections which took place in Slovakia at the end of September confirmed what I personally never doubted - that Slovakia's politicians, like the Slovak people, were profoundly attached to the rules of democracy and respect for basic freedoms.
It is true that, in the recent past, the ruling party and the opposition had sometimes clashed over differences of opinion, but is that not welcome proof of democratic vitality?
Now that this has been demonstrated, I, like the rapporteur, Mr Wiersma, hope that by the middle of 1999 Slovakia will be able to join the group of Central and Eastern European countries with which the European Union is officially due to start accession negotiations.
We all know that the Slovak people, or at least the overwhelming majority of them, want to join the European Union because their country's history and culture belong to the Greater Europe that we are trying to build together.
If their accession were to be slower than that of their close neighbours it would have disastrous psychological and political consequences which are to be avoided at all costs.
I have no doubt of the Slovak people's desire to comply with the accession criteria defined at the Copenhagen summit.
On the question of the protection of minorities and, in particular, of the Hungarian minority, I would point out that it has always been represented in the Slovak Parliament in ratio to its numerical size, which is not always the case with minorities in other Central and Eastern European countries.
Of course, the rights - in particular language rights - of that minority should be guaranteed.
But that minority should also show more determination to be integrated into the Slovak nation and give up any separatist inclinations; I welcome the fact that elected representatives of the Hungarian minority are part of the new government.
Furthermore, like the other applicant countries, Slovakia needs to continue to make huge efforts to reform its economy if it is to succeed in making the difficult transition from a state-run economy to a market economy; we Europeans have a responsibility to help our Slovak friends overcome these difficulties.
To conclude, we welcome the fact, along with the rapporteur, that the road is now open for Slovakia to join the vanguard of countries applying to join the European Union. We need to help our Slovak friends to overcome the remaining hurdles lying ahead, provided that they - and I do not doubt this - make the necessary effort to join us.
Mr President, I intend to speak in particular about the situation of the Romanies, or gypsies, in the applicant countries currently under discussion.
Some of these reports have mentioned the status of Romanies and other ethnic minorities and have also raised the issue of sexual minorities with respect to the situation in Romania.
However, I fear we shall have problems if we are merely to examine the status of gypsies on a country-by-country basis in the enlargement negotiations.
The gypsies, or Romanies, are a very large minority in Europe.
There is a Romany minority in all applicant countries, including Latvia, which is represented here today, although it is quite a small one in that particular country.
The problems of the Romanies are nevertheless cause for much concern.
For example, in the Czech Republic, which is in first place among the applicant countries, there are immense problems.
I hope the European Union will be able to increase cooperation with the Council to improve the status of Romanies.
Mr President, Commissioner, it was with pleasure that I read the reports on the five applicant countries which the Commission has placed in the second group for accession, even if, Commissioner, you reject that expression.
These reports emphasise the progress made in at least four of them; the fifth, Romania, is unfortunately still encountering major difficulties.
The progress made means that the differences between the countries in the first group and those in the second seem to be diminishing.
I am glad because I have frequently regretted the way this has been presented, as decided by the Commission and confirmed by the European Council in Luxembourg in 1997, since it risked opening up dangerous rivalries and conflicts and discouraging countries in the sensitive area of Central Europe.
But current trends seem to be reducing that gap, which I very much welcome.
I hope that we can begin negotiations with these new countries as soon as possible even if there has to be a new report in the meantime, as you have requested, Commissioner.
Against this satisfactory overall background the rapporteurs have naturally emphasised particular features in each country - the spectacular economic performance in Bulgaria, where the economy was lagging far behind, the political developments in Slovakia, giving it a much more encouraging outlook, intensive efforts in Latvia to improve the treatment of the Russian minority, etc.
In a word, there is progress everywhere.
But we should not think that these developments mean that there is still not a lot of ground to be covered, and we would be doing all of the applicant countries a disservice - whether they are in the first or second group - if we confused the progress they have achieved with ultimate success.
It is one thing to adopt reforms and another thing to put them into practice.
This is true, for example, of the reforms in the public administration and the civil service.
It takes time to eliminate the political pressures and political selection criteria that were normal under the former regimes.
The delays in the administration and civil service reforms, along with various other problems, are tending to hinder the proper preparation of negotiations and documents submitted to the Commission.
We could be equally pessimistic about the independence of the judiciary, a notion that is taking time to sink in in some countries.
I should like to make one more point.
The efforts demanded of the people living in the applicant countries are considerable, and the risk is that the European Union might seem to be the main cause of the sometimes dramatic difficulties encountered by many people in these countries.
We are well aware of the danger that Europe might become the scapegoat.
Commissioner, could not the Commission channel more aid into social programmes targeting the most disadvantaged groups of the population? Joining the European family will not be a success if the man in the street ends up associating Europe with suffering and pain.
Mr President, following the launch of the accession process on 30 March 1998 in Brussels under the British presidency, EU enlargement is gathering ever greater pace.
The initial fear of a separation between the ins and pre-ins is being overtaken by the logic of the screening process and the EU's pre-accession strategy.
There should be no discrimination between any of the applicant countries as they endeavour to meet the Copenhagen criteria, tackle absorbing the acquis communautaire and prepare for the single market and the euro.
However, as the reports before us today show, and as the Commission has indicated in its composite paper and regular reports, not all applicant countries are proceeding at the same speed towards meeting the criteria for membership.
In looking at the Baltic states, for example, I do not accept the argument that we are looking at three peas in a pod.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have different cultures, traditions, economies and experiences although they have also much shared history and cooperation.
We should recognise progress where this has been made, as the Commissioner said earlier in this debate.
With this in mind, I believe it is right to highlight the progress made by Latvia so that a decision can be made to start negotiations with Riga before the end of the German presidency.
Latvia has made real progress in its citizenship laws, with the economy, in administration and in preparing for the implementation of the acquis .
Lithuanian progress has also been remarkable, but less impressive, in the field of nuclear energy, privatisation, institution-building, the judiciary and the establishment of a system of standards and certification.
Estonia has continued to make steady improvements in most fields but has made disappointing progress on its legal treatment of the Russian-speaking minority.
For its part, the EU must press on with its reforms to lay the groundwork for enlargement.
Mr President, I would like to draw the House's attention to the issue of nuclear safety, which is one of Agenda 2000's priorities.
With the accident at Chernobyl, the nightmare which almost the whole of Europe lived through has revealed the true scale of the dangers associated with the operation of nuclear plants and has brought to the fore matters such as safe operation and the storage and treatment of radioactive waste.
This has made it necessary to work out a more specific policy for the safety of nuclear installations, a need made more urgent still in light of the accession procedure and the beginning of agreements with the countries of the former Soviet Union.
The Commission's position, as expressed in its related statement about the applicant countries, is that reactors which do not conform with safety requirements and which cannot be upgraded to an acceptable level should cease to operate.
Bulgaria was the first country to receive financial aid, while at the same time undertaking a clear and legally binding commitment to carry out short-term improvements, and then, by 2000, to shut down four reactors.
Bulgaria has already requested a review of the agreement and an extension, while the Commission is very rightly opposed to that request.
We cannot afford the luxury of sitting here just twiddling our thumbs.
The European Parliament asks that the agreement on shutting down the dangerous reactors at Koslodui should be adhered to, an issue which must certainly also be raised at the European Council in Vienna.
It must be made clear to the Bulgarian Government that any request to extend or depart from that course would be an extremely dangerous position which would sabotage its efforts to accede to the Union.
There is nothing more important to Europe's citizens than avoiding another Chernobyl.
A second point concerns Romania.
Today, we are asking the Romanian government and parliament to reach a final and fair solution in the matter of property restitution.
Mr President, the new Social Democrat Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and his 'green' Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, have intimated that the enlargement process should not take place too quickly.
I find such a remark disturbing.
Together with the other Liberals, I firmly believe that enlargement is taking place too slowly rather than too quickly.
The Commission is trying very hard to support the efforts of the applicant countries to improve their legal and administrative systems and their economies.
We welcome what is being done.
As soon as the applicant countries fulfil the basic requirements, the EU should open wide its doors to them.
The EU must therefore speed up its own reform process.
Those politicians who regard it as their duty to throw stones into the EU machinery should take careful note of that.
Flaws in the EU institutions should not keep others out.
We, as Members of the European Parliament, also have to try to overcome the reluctance, sometimes even opposition, of the citizens of most Member States as regards enlargement.
We have to show them that enlargement will bring much greater benefits for everyone.
The Liberals hope that Mr Schröder, Mr Fischer and the others will adopt a more constructive tone, and that the Commission will not tire in its efforts to create a Europe that is both complete and sound in body.
Mr President, I wish to speak as a member of the joint delegation with Romania in giving my opinion on the excellent report drafted by our colleague, Pierre Bernard-Reymond.
I agree with his entire analysis, which is extremely objective, and I particularly share his regret that the structural economic reforms have slowed down, leading to an increase in macro-economic imbalances.
In a country where, for nearly half a century, economic power was confused with political power, people are psychologically illprepared for assimilating the acquis communautaire and for turning Romania into a market economy.
I have to say that President Emil Constantinescu is to be praised for his fierce and constant determination to link his country with the European Union.
Two successive prime ministers, Victor Ciorbea and Radu Vasile, have kept the same man, Mr Alexandru Herlea, in the extremely sensitive post of minister responsible for European integration for two years, and he has managed to forge a relationship of mutual respect and considerable confidence with the Commission's advisor and with this House. He has displayed an excellent knowledge of the issues as well as a extremely laudable intellectual honesty.
In the light of his analysis, the rapporteur concludes that Parliament cannot recommend the opening of accession negotiations with Romania.
For my part I would ask for special efforts to be made in 1999 to find PHARE programme funding for this country.
It is the only applicant country, a former member of the Warsaw Pact, which does not border on any of the 15 Member States of the European Union, and it has suffered from a kind of insularity handicap in that from the early 1950s until 1990, whichever way it turned, it had no neighbours to negotiate with apart from those subservient to Moscow.
Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary and Ukraine were hardly models of democracy. We have a special responsibility towards Romania, once a member of the Latin Union, and we should bear take that in mind.
Mr President, I think it is very important, as Commissioner van den Broek has stressed once again, that we should regard the accession process as a dynamic process. The groups must not be seen as closed, and above all the countries must not be divided into different categories.
I would make this point particularly with regard to Romania and Bulgaria.
On the other hand, we agree with the Commission's criticism that there has been a marked decline in Romania's political efforts.
We are concerned at the restrictions on press freedom, and the European Parliament is particularly critical of the criminalisation of and discrimination against homosexuality in Romania.
We call on Romania to take decisive steps to restore the dignity and human rights of these people.
We also call on the Commission to come up with more than just fine words, and to give a clear signal that it wishes to negotiate in partnership.
One such signal would be to review our visa policy towards Romania and to restore partnership and equal treatment.
The colossal enterprise of enlarging the European Union, an enterprise on an historic scale and which has gone past the point of no return, ought really to be a foregone conclusion being implemented already, not a vision to be implemented sometime in the future.
I believe that today's procedure to a certain extent confirms just that choice and I would like to believe that the Vienna summit will make it official.
Moreover, this procedure today is a paradoxical vindication of the European Parliament's insistence that the accession procedure should take place for all eleven candidate countries from a common starting point, Mr van den Broek.
The countries we are talking about as a group today, taken together, prove the correctness of our choice.
As regards Bulgaria, I am glad to hear confirmation of the European Parliament's support for Bulgaria's accession, as expressed in the Commission's positive progress report.
Congratulations are due to Bulgaria, to the Bulgarian government and all the political parties, the Bulgarian state, Bulgarian society and the Bulgarian people.
However, we must not overlook the large amount of work that still needs to be done.
Here are three indicative points: firstly, the completion and practical implementation of the legislation on public administration and judicial authority, to ensure that it will be real, effective, independent, transparent and fair; secondly, social protection and social policy, and the establishment of real social dialogue; and thirdly, of course, Koslodui, on which Bulgaria undertook a political commitment to the European Union's authorities for the progressive shutdown of the four units which cannot be upgraded or restored.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as chairman of the European Parliament delegation to the EU-Latvia Joint Parliamentary Committee, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr Caccavale, who has given a very detailed account of the most recent developments in Latvia's progress towards joining the European Union.
He has drawn some very necessary conclusions and given clear reasons for them, which is why his report and the motion for a resolution deserve our full support.
The report quite rightly draws attention to the progress which Latvia has made over the last few months and years.
3 October this year was a particularly important, perhaps even historic date, when there were not only parliamentary elections, but the public were also asked to take part in a referendum on proposed changes to the citizenship laws.
The fact that they voted in favour can be seen as proof of Latvia's political maturity, and it should enable the relatively large Russian population to be integrated more successfully than has previously been possible.
Any efforts to increase the number of true citizens and to combat disintegration deserve our support.
The decision to make it easier and simpler to gain Latvian citizenship has clearly been taken with an eye to the future, and is all the more important when one thinks of the country's dark and tragic history, since the ethnic mix of its population is partly the result of decades of occupation.
So the clear majority in favour of relaxing the citizenship laws is not just an expression of political maturity, it is also evidence of human greatness.
It is precisely because the decision taken by the people of Latvia was such a complex one that it deserves recognition.
Latvia deserves our support, and this would also be in our own interest.
Mr President, Commissioner van den Broek, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to offer my warmest thanks to Mr Wiersma and the Committee on Foreign Affairs for their report on Slovakia and our relations with that country.
It gives a very clear account of the new situation in Slovakia since the parliamentary elections at the end of September.
Commissioner, if the process of enlargement really is to be seen as a dynamic and open one, as the Commission has always insisted, then events in Slovakia must surely put this theory to the test.
Why should we not be dynamic and open when a country like Slovakia shows, with an election turn-out of 85 %, that it wants to come in from the cold and join its neighbours in the first group for accession?
We quite understand that the assessment you have presented to us, Commissioner, has not been able to take account of the most recent developments in Slovakian politics and society, which is why the rapporteur's demand - which I am sure will have the support of the overwhelming majority in this House - is all the more important that we should agree to re-evaluate Slovakia's position in the spring of next year, in order to do justice to its new situation.
I would strongly urge you to do so.
I think this would be in the interests of the Union as a whole, and would encourage further positive developments in the Slovak Republic.
Mr President, the European Union has given the applicant countries a very thorough examination.
Our preliminary findings were recorded in the avis , and the acquis screening is now a further stage in the evaluation of these countries.
I would be glad to see the Central and Eastern European countries turning the tables and delivering an avis to the Union on how well we are doing in making the necessary reforms and preparing the conditions for accession.
I think their report on our efforts would be fairly damning.
It would note our many failings, how we are dragging our feet on institutional reform - which, to tell the truth, we have not even started yet - the never-ending negotiations on agricultural reform, and our inability to react appropriately to new developments such as those in Slovakia.
Mr President, the preamble to the Treaty of Rome establishes that the foundations should be laid for an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe and that the barriers which divide our continent should be removed.
It is a triumph for the EU that it has now reached the point where ten countries that were once cut off by an iron curtain are now endeavouring to establish democratic regimes, freedom and reforms within the European Union.
We have given rights and made promises to those countries and we cannot let them down.
We welcome the Commission's reports.
The country which has made most progress during the last 18 months, namely Latvia, will be invited to take part in membership negotiations next year, provided nothing unforeseen occurs.
Lithuania has also made noticeable progress.
This gives further encouragement to the reform process in the other Central and Eastern European countries which have not achieved quite so much.
The effect of all these countries striving to qualify for EU membership has already been very advantageous for the Member States.
Their efforts to step up democracy and improve human rights has fostered peace in Europe.
We should be aware that it is not just in the former Yugoslavia that a complex pattern of ethnic rivalry has sparked off serious conflict.
Timely reforms have led to more stable economies and improved markets.
The budgetary cost arising from expansion towards Eastern Europe is negligible in comparison with the economic and political gains for those countries, as well as for us.
I hope that the Council of Ministers, with its present socialist bias, will not decide to apply the brakes to the enlargement process.
It is a matter of some concern that the political leaders who opposed German unification are now adopting a tone which could be interpreted, rightly or wrongly, as favouring a slowing-down of the enlargement process.
The Socialists probably find it more difficult than the Conservatives and Christian Democrats to see the outstanding advantages for peace and prosperity of replacing communism with a market economy.
Pressing on with enlargement is thus a major obligation for the European Parliament.
Mr President, as a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with Romania, I would like to share a few of my thoughts.
As the rapporteur, Mr Bernard-Reymond, says in his very fair report, Romania has experienced a range of difficulties and has probably not moved as far along the road to accession as we or they would have hoped.
I have visited Romania several times over the last ten years and in that context it is impossible not to recognise and acknowledge the huge progress and massive changes that have taken place in Romanian society, business and education, much of this in conjunction with EU partners and the TEMPUS programme for example.
The rapporteur has already referred to the economic situation but, with reference to Parliament, Romania has many difficult decisions to make.
Its legislators are not yet sufficiently progressive to meet the challenges ahead.
For example, they must be prepared to rescind Article 200.
They must improve their judiciary processes and, contrary to what Mrs Schroedter said, I feel they could pre-empt the EU by abolishing the necessity for EU citizens to have visas to visit Romania.
That being said, Romania is unquestionably European by its history, culture and language.
It has had a turbulent past but has now turned the corner and I look forward to still being a Member of the European Parliament when we welcome our Romanian colleagues here.
Mr President, the action and the ambitions of the new Slovakian Government, led by the Christian Democrats, are designed to ensure that Slovakia is included as soon as possible in the group of applicants currently negotiating accession.
Its programme of reforms is designed to strengthen its constitutional institutions and to give fresh impetus to a pluralist society and the economy.
It is now vital to use funding from the PHARE programme to give whatever support is needed for the democratic development of the organs of state and government.
Rapid progress is being made in the creation of democratic structures and there is a clear desire for reform.
What is now needed is to provide rapid and appropriate support for putting these reforms into practice, including the establishment of a statute for minorities.
Our economic support should focus on the setting-up of businesses and providing better opportunities for starting up small and medium-sized firms.
The Slovakian administration is more than prepared to adopt the acquis communautaire as soon as possible, so we should ensure that intensive training and information is provided by our management and administration colleges.
It is now important for the Commission to give the political signal at the Vienna summit that Slovakia is making rapid progress with its political reforms.
It should also confirm Slovakia's positive economic developments in an interim report some time over the next few months, so that Slovakia can be included in the first group of applicant countries next summer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is a very important debate.
It is important because we are making it clear that the EU is considering not six, but eleven applicant countries with great interest.
One of these is Romania, which is a country I think we need to look at very carefully.
It is true that the pace of reform has slowed, particularly the economic reforms.
It is true that there is more corruption, that the shadow economy has grown once again, that there are delays in the structural economic reforms and that the IMF has blocked loans.
But it is also true that Romania and its people want to join the European Union, and I think that we in the Union should do everything we can to support this process.
We must be determined to provide constructive support for Romania's development, and this involves more than just money.
I think we must make it quite clear that when the applicant countries encounter difficulties, which are only to be expected, these difficulties must not be exploited by those who have never wanted enlargement to be a success and who have always tried to delay it.
I am very confident that Romania will one day become a member of the European Union - there is every likelihood of this happening - and that we in the European Union are only doing what we have always wanted, which is to make the western European Union into a pan-European Union.
Mr President, I am very pleased that this report supports Slovakia's accession.
Slovakia is a particularly dear neighbour of Austria's and therefore of the European Union, and I hope that it will be allowed to join as soon as possible.
There are two problems, however: Mochovce and Bohunice.
Mochovce is certain to attract our attention, and Bohunice is a permanent source of concern and worry for the public.
I would be against making the closure of Bohunice a condition for accession negotiations to start, but I certainly cannot imagine this House agreeing to the accession of Slovakia while Bohunice is still in operation.
Mr President, I will respond very briefly.
First of all, I am grateful for Parliament's very constructive comments, from which I conclude that it is fair to say that Parliament broadly endorses the conclusions of our reports as well as the content, the analysis.
I think it is most important, as far as the applicant countries are concerned, that this should be combined with a message of further encouragement, and then I think the speed and momentum of the process can be sustained and consolidated.
I have taken due note of the concern which persists here and there about forms of differentiation - different groups and so on.
Let me say this. Apart from the fact that - like you, I would imagine - we stand by the principle that each applicant must be assessed on its merits, rewarded for the progress it has made and not kept back with those who have advanced more slowly, we are all in favour of the fact that those very countries which, through no fault of their own, have more work to do, for example before they can open negotiations, deserve extra attention and extra assistance from us.
I would remind you that I told you last year that it was precisely for this reason that we created the catch-up facility within the PHARE programme.
I can also tell you that applicants which have not yet opened negotiations will, in the first quarter of the year, in terms of the screening process too, move from multilateral to bilateral screening and thus into a process which is more akin to that in the first group, if I can put it like that.
Lastly, I would reiterate that what counts is what the countries themselves achieve. You may well find - and I am picking up the thread here of what Mr Titley said this evening - that a difference will soon become apparent amongst the countries which are already negotiating between those which are moving forward faster and those which are slower.
Whilst tactically we do exactly the same as regards the number of chapters dealt with, the number of chapters completed and so on, differences may of course develop in the course of the year, and some negotiations may make more progress than others.
Credit has to be given accordingly, and we feel that the Commission - and the Council too, which leads the negotiations - must adapt and allow for any such differences.
So we agree on that.
My final comment is this: several speakers this evening have again referred to the importance of closing down unsafe nuclear reactors.
I can assure you that the three applicant countries which face this phenomenon and its troublesome political, economic and social implications are well aware of the pressure there is from Parliament, the Council and the Commission to address the problem and devise programmes for decommissioning these plants.
We shall liaise closely with these applicants towards that end.
Thank you for those clear answers, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
EU/Turkey relations
The next item is the report (A4-0432/98) by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the further development of relations with Turkey (COM(97)0394 - C4-0490/97) and on the communication from the Commission to the Council: European Strategy for Turkey - The Commission's initial operational proposals (COM(98)0124 - C4-0634/98).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this was really not a very easy report to write, and it is also not a very easy time for me to be presenting it.
I would like to mention ten points which I feel are seminal to this report, and which I hope you think are too.
First of all, I think that relations between the European Union and Turkey should become less tense despite the current difficulties, and I agree with the Commission that our relations should be developed on the basis of the Customs Union and the Commission's strategy paper, which has been very positively received in Turkey.
This is the way forward.
Secondly, Turkey should also clearly recognise, as I say in my report, that the door is open.
There is absolutely no doubt about this, and Turkey should acknowledge the fact.
Thirdly, we also want to have Turkey as a member because we think that it can play an important part in establishing security in Europe and in Europe's economic and social development.
Fourthly, financial relations between Turkey and Europe must therefore be well regulated.
I welcome the fact that the Commission has put forward proposals on this which Parliament is to examine separately, and I would suggest that we should also consider which EU programmes, particularly those for the East European applicant countries, could also be applied to Turkey.
Fifth, I would stress that the Copenhagen criteria also clearly apply to Turkey, of course.
Sixth, we - that is to say, the Council, the Commission and Parliament - feel that Turkey has a long way to go - some people would say that it is getting even longer - to meet the Copenhagen criteria, particularly the requirements of democracy, the rule of law and respect for the rights of minorities, whether these be sizeable minorities like the Kurds or smaller ones like the Armenians and the Greeks.
Turkey must respect the rights of all its citizens.
Seventh, my report works on the assumption that Turkey itself should propose how and when it intends to meet the conditions set by the European Union, particularly the political criteria.
I would like to get away from the situation where we make demands and then have to examine whether they are good for Turkey and whether Turkey has done anything about them.
No, if Turkey accepts - and this is the condition it must meet if its application to join the European Union is to be considered - that it has to meet the Copenhagen criteria, then it must itself come up with some proposals very soon on how it intends to try to fulfil the individual requirements relating to democracy, the rule of law and recognising the rights of minorities.
Eighth, it is very important for us that Turkey should have good neighbourly relations with all its neighbours, including Greece, of course.
As I have repeatedly said, Turkey, which itself understands the importance of family relationships, should not be surprised if we support one of the members of our family here in the European Union, namely Greece, in its efforts to establish good and fair relations with its neighbour.
I also support Greece's proposals on how to solve the present disputes, proposals which are entirely acceptable and fair towards Turkey.
Ninth, the Cyprus problem is something we want to get to grips with, and for this we need Turkey's cooperation.
We want to find a fair solution, and we do not want the matter to be resolved unilaterally.
The Turkish inhabitants of Cyprus should be given every opportunity to cooperate and to have their say, but this must be within the context of a joint solution for both the Greek and Turkish populations, and it must also be clear that Parliament wholeheartedly supports Cyprus's efforts to become a member of the European Union.
Tenth is the Kurdish question, which has sadly become a particularly topical issue over the last few days.
Let me make this quite clear: we want to see a peaceful solution to the Kurdish problem.
We reject any form of terrorism or violence, and we also reject any solution that would compromise or destroy Turkey's unity and integrity.
We fully recognise Turkey's right to have and its interest in having a unified state, but within this unified state the Kurdish people must be able to uphold their cultural rights and in particular their language and its use in the media, books and so on.
I think that in spite of the Ocalan crisis, Turkey can still find a way to resolve its Kurdish problem once and for all, and the European Union should help it to find a peaceful solution to this problem and to combat terrorism.
We in the European Union and in this House will certainly not support terrorism, particularly if Turkey is prepared to find a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question.
It was on this basis that I wrote my report, and it is on this basis that I think that we can make a new start, resolve a number of thorny issues and achieve open relations with Turkey.
But we must make it perfectly clear to Turkey that the political and economic criteria have to be met if Turkey wishes to become a member of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Turkish Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz is obviously making it difficult for us to discuss the development of relations with Turkey dispassionately and to come up with coherent proposals for the European Union sine ira et studio .
Threats against the government of one of the Member States, Italy, a boycott on Italian goods and political attacks on the European Union are, I think we would all agree, hardly the best way for the largest of our associated countries, Turkey, to achieve closer relations with us.
However, we should not allow the excellent report by Mr Swoboda, which could provide guidelines for our partnership strategy, to be swamped by the reactions to the issue of the handing-over of the Kurdish leader Mr Ocalan.
I also welcome the Commission's decision to issue its usual annual report on the state of relations between the European Union and Turkey in the same form as the progress report produced for the other applicant countries.
This means that we will have a clear list of the progress, or lack of it, that Turkey has made on the political, economic and social requirements.
We in the Committee on External Economic Relations feel that it is important in the medium term progressively to consolidate and intensify economic and political cooperation with Turkey in a spirit of partnership.
For the European Union this means - as its side of the partnership - fulfilling its financial commitments in the context of the Customs Union, including Turkey in European programmes such as Leonardo, Socrates and Youth, and coordinating policies on energy, transport, the environment and combating drugs.
I would agree with Mr Swoboda that we should not issue Turkey with a list of demands; it simply needs to have a kind of action plan on Europe to improve the coordination of all its efforts in the fields of democracy, the rule of law and human rights, including also the accompanying economic conditions and the adoption of the acquis communautaire , and it should raise the profile of these efforts, which are its guideline for intensifying cooperation.
If the Swoboda report can be used, as before, in a positive spirit to tackle the problems which exist between Turkey and the European Union, assuming that it is adopted by Parliament tomorrow, then we feel able to vote for it as a set of guidelines.
However, we feel that if it becomes excessively bogged down in certain issues, it will simply be counterproductive.
Mr President, a very important event in EU-Turkey relations is occurring at this very moment.
It may come as a surprise to parliamentarians that it is not taking place in this Chamber but in Turkey because at this very moment Galatasaray are playing Juventus.
If that becomes the occasion for mob violence against Italian citizens, I would submit that it would set back EU-Turkey relations a long way.
Having seen what happened to Manchester United when they visited Turkey a few years ago, I fear the worst this evening.
The Socialist Group condemns absolutely the hysteria which is being whipped up against Italy by sections of Turkish society over the Ocalan affair.
We condemn any interference in the decisions of the judiciary in a Member State governed by the rule of law.
I want it to be said loud and clear that those of us who want to see a more positive policy towards Turkey will have our voice silenced if the Turkish Government or Turkish society encourages mob rule against citizens of the European Union.
An attack on one country of the EU is an attack on us all.
Having said that, we welcome the Swoboda report and in particular the way the rapporteur has drawn on the expertise of various organisations in Turkey such as unions and human rights groups to make a positive and constructive contribution to the development of EU-Turkey relationships.
The Socialist Group has been consistent in its line on Turkey's application for membership of the EU.
We believe that Turkey would make a valuable contribution to the peace and security of our region.
We do not accept religious or cultural reasons as an obstacle to Turkey's accession to the European Union.
However Turkey must be judged on the same basis as any other country.
It must adhere to the Copenhagen criteria and the Commission's report makes it very clear that it does not.
I support the rapporteur's suggestion that it is now up to Turkey to give us a timetable for concrete reforms to demonstrate just how serious they are with their application.
Turkey also has to accept the EU's right to negotiate admission with any country it feels fit to negotiate with.
However, it is important that we are not passive in relations with Turkey.
We must try and help find a political solution to the Kurdish problem which in many ways is the cause of much of Turkey's paranoia and insecurity.
We know that Turkey's problem is that the government is weak and the state is strong.
Therefore we should be looking to strengthen the government by support for reform of the public administration, by improved interpretation facilities and by ensuring the democratic organisation work at grassroots.
Mr President, first of all may I compliment Mr Swoboda on his balanced, tactful and thorough report.
It sets the scene for the European Union's relations with Turkey.
Firstly, it confirms that Turkey can in principle accede to the Treaty of Rome, as can any democratic and constitutional state, on the basis of the political values which we in the Union hold in common.
That in no way means, of course, that a state with a large Islamic population cannot join.
Nor, for example, would we be opposed to a Bosnia with a large Islamic population group if at some stage it applied for membership of the European Union.
I would like to make that point emphatically, so that no one can pretend there is any difficulty on the European Union side.
But we must insist that a country wishing to join does indeed meet the criteria, just like any other country.
Because we are not joining another country; other countries are joining the Union.
The Union expects countries expressing the wish to join the Union to take real steps in the right direction, not only economic measures for their own economic structure, but primarily steps to secure the political values which obtain in a constitutional state and a democracy.
Union members have to be constructive in resolving their own minority problems.
They have to be constructive in helping to promote international peace and the rule of law.
In that respect, Turkey currently leaves much to be desired, because she is oppressing her own minorities, has problems along her eastern borders and has nothing constructive to offer towards a settlement of the Cyprus question.
Turkey's government must not act as if it can demand membership of the European Union on its own terms.
It cannot ignore the measures which remain to be taken.
I think we would do well to ask Turkey to draw up a time-scale, as the report also suggests, with a plan for taking the political measures required by the European Union.
If they do not do that, there will be no further progress, but if they do, those measures will be warmly welcomed.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Swoboda's report importantly confirms Turkey's eligibility for membership of the EU, provided she satisfies the economic and political criteria.
In that respect, the analysis of the situation in Turkey has not materially changed since we concluded the Customs Union with her.
Once again, we have here a list of wishes which we know from experience and having dealt with three Turkish governments will not be satisfied in a hurry, however desirable that may be. I therefore warmly welcome the Commission's initiative of a European strategy for Turkey.
The Commission, and I have to say the Commissioner in particular, has to my mind always played a constructively critical role in this difficult relationship with Turkey.
As a result, the Union and Turkey have never been totally cut off from one another.
I hope that role will bear fruit within the foreseeable future.
An hour ago, Mr Swoboda presented his contribution to preparations for the Vienna summit, but I did not hear him say anything as rapporteur about the priority which should be given at that summit to discussing the European strategy for Turkey.
I think that certainly is a priority, because otherwise there is a danger that all these well-prepared operational proposals, the deepening of the Customs Union, will be lost sight of.
The arrival in Rome of the PKK leader Mr Ocalan and the question of whether or not this terrorist leader should be tried may perhaps be at the forefront of people's minds at the summit.
So this obstacle must be removed prior to the summit, by action of the kind that befits a constitutional state of the EU; this means that Germany, as the next holder of the Union presidency, must uphold the detention order so that Mr Ocalan can be put on trial.
Packing him off to Moscow would be to funk the issue, and would merely further complicate and frustrate our relations with Turkey unnecessarily.
Mr President, the rapporteur has obviously made an effort to add gloss to this report, but I do not think he has succeeded.
His report is biased, it is full of suspicious omissions and is governed throughout by a syndrome of unprincipled and unjustified goodwill towards Turkey.
You want examples of omissions? Not a word about the negative consequences of the deluge of millions of Turks if the negotiations on enlargement and accession go ahead and Turkey gains access to the Community's labour market.
Does he say anything about a constitution or about penal law? Not a word about the torture, the disappearances, the murder of detainees under the penal code in force.
True, he says something about the Cyprus and Kurdish problems, but he deliberately ignores Turkey's expansionist declarations about the Aegean, which are accompanied by threats of violence.
It is also characteristic that he tries to legitimise the de facto dominant position of the Turkish military government in Turkey's public life when, in paragraph 18, he calls for talks on accession, negotiations etc., to be held with the armed forces. Where before has such a thing ever been proposed?
In what country? Why does he propose this for the Turkish military government in paragraph 18?
For those reasons and many others, for which one minute is not enough ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, we do not wish to see any torture or executions in Turkey, and we are therefore grateful for the balanced tone and clear goals set out in Mr Swoboda's report.
He opens the door for Turkey to become a member of the European Union and urges that a timetable should be drawn up for democratic reforms there.
He thus spells out in very practical terms the basic requirements for membership of the European Union.
I very much regret that such clear thinking was not possible a year ago in Luxembourg.
This has strengthened forces in Turkey which detect a spirit of the crusades within the Union and want Turkey to change, whereas the forces of democracy have been weakened.
The Member States now have another chance to give a sign in Vienna that will strengthen democracy in Turkey, and I hope they will be guided by Mr Swoboda's report.
I think the ball is now in Turkey's court.
After a report like this it really has to put its cards on the table, and this is why I am very glad that we too have another chance to do so now.
Thank you, Mr Ceyhun, and congratulations on your maiden speech here in Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Swoboda report is certainly heading in the right direction.
However, I am slightly uneasy about its general criticisms concerning the rule of law in Turkey.
More than one Member State - and Mr Ephremidis should not feel that I am getting at him because I am not thinking of his country in particular - should be doing some very deep soul-searching about the rule of law at the moment, and I am thinking here particularly of the host country of the European Parliament.
That said, what is undoubtedly missing from the Swoboda report is the whole issue of the Council's clumsy treatment of Turkey over enlargement, excluding Turkey for no reason from the list of countries that will one day become members of the European Union.
And one thing that is really not playing the game is the unilateral cancellation of our side of the Customs Union. When there is an agreement you cannot unilaterally delete part of it and only keep the parts that, as we have seen, are beneficial to the European Union.
However, I think that there are a certain number of good things in this report and I must congratulate Mr Swoboda on setting a timetable.
What is vital is making sure that relations between the European Union and Turkey are based on a calendar of reforms leading to accession.
I would urge - and I think the Commission would agree with this - that the timetable should be fixed as soon as possible so that we can start working towards a particular target instead of remaining in this state of flux, which has unfortunately already been going on far too long.
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate Mr Swoboda on the very meticulous report he has presented and on his thorough work.
He has prepared a report which is on the right lines, because our aim here is not to make things difficult for Turkey, but rather, to make them easier, and to help Turkey along in the procedure which it has requested, so that its application to join the European Union can one day be taken seriously.
But what is the European Union?
I think this is something that Turkey will have to understand.
It is not just an economic community, but above all an association of free countries and their citizens, who share certain values in common.
What are those values? Democracy, respect for the individual and his rights, freedom of thought, the protection of minorities and respect for diversity.
I am afraid that in Turkey there are many who do not understand what those values mean, and I think this report will help them do so.
In Europe we suffered the trials of the war.
Turkey, which was neutral during the last war, perhaps does not understand what peace means to us.
Perhaps that is why Turkey so easily and so often threatens peace, threatens to take up arms even against members of the European Union itself.
Of course, in the EU we are not perfect when it comes to protecting the rights of our citizens, but we recognise what Turkey does not recognise: that democracy's greatest imperative is respect for our citizens, who must not be exposed to high-handedness, torture and disappearances.
Genocide must never be used as a weapon for the subjugation of a minority group.
As I said, Turkey itself requested membership of the European Union and certainly has the right to reconsider.
But if it does not wish to reconsider its application, it must respect the principles I mentioned.
And another thing: Turkey must take immediate steps to renounce war, to accept the process of the International Court at The Hague and to accept that it must stop the war against its own citizens.
That is when it will find that it has friends here in the European Union, friends who are interested in helping it forward, friends who want the Turkish people to progress to a point where one day they will be much closer to Europe.
Yet again, I wish to congratulate Mr Swoboda.
This report is a very important one and I hope it will not be misunderstood in Turkey, because it was prepared by people who want to help that country finally move into the twenty-first century.
Mr President, taking up the last point made by the previous speaker, I would say that our intention is to help Turkey move closer to the European Union.
I believe, moreover, that Parliament, the Council and the Commission have always pursued this goal.
We are conscious of Turkey's central geopolitical position and the role which it can play in creating the conditions for peace in a particularly sensitive region.
However, Turkey must also understand the reasons for certain objections, opposition and criticisms raised in the course of the negotiations.
One outstanding issue which obviously cannot be overlooked is the Kurdish question: although we respect Turkey's territorial integrity, this cannot be considered a purely domestic problem, not least because it is crucial in terms of protecting minority rights.
On the other hand, harsh and violent attitudes will not resolve the matter either, and the terms in which Turkey has referred to Italy are not always palatable.
In our opinion, this is not the way to solve such problems.
Only through dialogue and conflict settlement can these goals be achieved, goals which the European Union must pursue with determination and by common accord.
Sometimes, I must say, we have felt isolated, even though at the end of the day the European Council - through the Austrian Presidency - and the Commission did speak out in solidarity. These are problems which can only be tackled by all of us together.
Mr President, in my opinion Mr Swoboda has produced a good report: it is well-balanced, clear and also firm where it needs to be.
All of us - I do not believe that we differ on this point - are keen to keep the door of the European Union open to Turkey, and consider that - as Mr Bianco has just said - Turkey could in theory make a major political contribution to the EU.
But the problem is that certain obstacles still exist at the present time, and it is on these that we must focus.
The principal obstacles are above all political ones, concerning democratic guarantees, law and order, and minorities.
It has to be said that, on balance, the domestic situation within Turkey is unacceptable: unacceptable both to us and in the light of the Copenhagen criteria.
This is Turkey's problem, and it is Turkey which must adapt its structures and its conduct.
Mr Swoboda is right to say that we must ask Turkey and its government what it intends to do, when and how.
We must now enter a new phase: we can no longer merely utter declarations of principle, repeating that Turkey is important and that we are keeping the door open; it is now up to Turkey, if it wishes to join the European Union, to say precisely what it intends to change, when and by what means, and how it intends to adapt its structures which conflict with the Copenhagen criteria.
That is the point!
Turkey's recent attitude to Italy has, to my mind, been a serious error of judgement on the part of the government and society at large, because its aggressive, even violent attitude has created a very poor impression not only in Italy but throughout the EU at an awkward moment for Turkey. It has thus made a serious mistake.
The Italian Government did what was necessary, as everyone has acknowledged.
It arrested Ocalan, because an international arrest warrant had been issued by Germany, and acted in accordance with its constitution: neither in the past, present or future can anyone be extradited to a country which carries out the death penalty and does not furnish adequate human rights guarantees.
This is Italy's position and that of all the Member States of the European Union.
Turkey has a further problem, over and above those already mentioned: it cannot say that there is solely a problem of terrorism and not a Kurdish problem.
This is a key point: until Turkey admits that there is a Kurdish problem, and not just a terrorist problem, it will not be able to comply with the Copenhagen criteria or to give us satisfactory answers.
There are other issues apart from the Kurdish question, but this is typical of Turkey's attitude.
Now is the time to put our detailed criticisms to Turkey and to demand answers.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Western European Union in Paris yesterday, I had the opportunity to listen to Turkey's Foreign Minister, Mr Cem.
Turkey is obviously glad of any opportunity to appear at any forum on the European stage.
It was significant that Mr Cem thought that he detected a change of position in Turkey's favour in the last Commission report, which described Turkey as a candidate and not - as it suddenly was in Luxembourg - a 'non-candidate' pushed out in the cold.
This was the impression he had had, and it is a positive sign that relations are improving between the European Union and Turkey.
At the same time, it was striking that Mr Cem refused to be deflected from the terrorism problem as Turkey defines it, and he said not a word about the Kurdish problem.
This is why I very much welcome the fact that the European Parliament report clearly addresses this issue and demands that Turkey should explain its position very clearly, because Turkey must be judged by the same standards as all the other applicant countries.
I am convinced that we now have a major opportunity to find a political solution to the Kurdish problem, because with the agreement between Turkey and Syria, the forthcoming agreement between Turkey and Israel and the shelving of the Ocalan issue, there is a real chance of ending the 15-year guerrilla war that has claimed so many Turkish and Kurdish victims, and there is now a window of opportunity to find a political solution to the problem.
I think that we too must do everything we can to urge Turkey to get to grips with the problem and find a political solution to it.
Mr President, I think that any steps which are likely to improve relations with Turkey are both right and proper, and I therefore unreservedly support the main elements of the Swoboda report, together with the Commission's proposals and the progress report.
There are just three points on which I have reservations.
The first is the lack of openness in our dealings with Turkey, which is why I hesitate about the wording of paragraphs 1 and 29 of Mr Swoboda's report holding out the prospect of membership once again, whereas all the facts and every practical consideration indicate that this is misleading.
Everyone would surely agree with me that Turkey belongs to the family of western democracies and must be part of that family.
For this reason, it should not have to see its application to join put off indefinitely once again.
The 1963 Ankara agreement, signed 35 years ago, does admittedly say that the possibility of Turkey's accession to the Community would be examined, not as an obligation on the Community, only as an expression of its willingness to do so.
But if we now give Turkey the impression once again that accession is imminent, we are being misleading, we are not being honest or open and, as so often happens here in Parliament, we are simply leading it up the garden path.
I would be in favour of developing a special relationship with Turkey.
I fought tooth and nail for the Customs Union here in Parliament and I am a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, but raising the bar again now and offering the prospect of accession under far more stringent conditions than applied to any of the others who have joined is simply unrealistic and unfair.
There is one further point which this report does not mention.
Parliament would be well advised to deliver a clear opinion on the failure to implement the financial protocol of the Customs Union.
How can we make demands of Turkey if we cannot eliminate the obstacles that we ourselves have created through Greece's permanent veto?
Mr President, from this platform I have repeatedly stressed that if there is one country among the European Union's 15 Member States which would be delighted if Turkey joined the Union, that country is Greece.
This is because geography dictates that Greece is Turkey's neighbour.
If those two countries were to work closely together, given that they occupy sensitive positions at the crossroads between Europe and Asia and between the Balkans and the Mediterranean, that cooperation would be valuable, productive and constructive for the whole of Europe and, I would say, for the security of the world as a whole.
But an essential prerequisite for that, obviously, is that relations between those two countries should be friendly and based upon the principles of international law.
Unfortunately, while Greece, along with the other 14 countries, was prompt to subscribe to the Customs Union, Turkey, as if emboldened by that fact, has increased its provocativeness, aggressiveness and rashness towards Greece, to the point that its territorial claims are constantly on the increase.
Consequently, it is no mere quibbling that makes Greece decline to sign the financial protocol.
It is because the conditions of the Luxembourg Council's decision requiring Turkey to demonstrate a truly European orientation have not been satisfied.
Mr President, may I begin by thanking Mr Swoboda most warmly for his thorough and in my view balanced report.
I think I can say that the Commission to a large extent agrees with the rapporteur's analysis, and his conclusions too.
I too was in fact anticipating this debate with mixed feelings just now, given recent developments in our relations with Turkey and specifically following the detention of the PKK leader Mr Ocalan.
Nevertheless, I think we need to take a rather longer view and bear in mind that in recent times - beginning in 1995 with the conclusion of a Customs Union, but also more recently with the devising of a separate European strategy for Turkey - the European Union has chosen to measure the situation in Turkey against the Copenhagen criteria - easily identifiable in terms of Turkey's desire to be recognised as an applicant for membership.
A progress report has been drawn up, in other words the European Union has I think clearly manifested its good intentions and also its political belief that it is important to further develop a lasting institutional tie with Turkey.
We can certainly try, through assistance and cooperation - and there are proposals for that - to improve the economic position, to broaden and deepen the Customs Union, and to further align Turkey's laws with those of the European Union, but one thing we cannot do is dictate to Turkey how it should manage the political criteria laid down in Copenhagen.
In that respect, the Union has set the standard at exactly the same level for all applicants.
Noblesse oblige.
That holds good in this case for Turkey too.
In view of the time, I shall come to an end.
I do in fact hope that on one of the major issues, the Kurdish question, which has caused us no end of trouble in our whole assessment of human rights in Turkey, the beginnings of a political solution may now be in sight, a solution which certainly can only be possible once the problem as such is acknowledged to be a problem.
We have not really got to that stage yet with Turkey.
But can we not say here that the European Union is willing to look, together with Turkey, at ways of resolving this very important problem?
The prospect of a solution would give a huge boost to Turkey's whole relationship with the European Union, it would improve the relationship enormously and also considerably improve the chances of solving other similarly important problems such as Cyprus, relations with Greece and the Aegean.
I will leave it there.
The recent developments and complications over the detention of the PKK leader have in any case made two things abundantly clear: how important it is that we should actually get an international criminal court which can deal with this kind of thing and, secondly, how important it is that we should now start to look seriously for a political solution to the Kurdish question.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I think that Mr Swoboda can be pleased with this debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Members' Statute
The next item is the report (A4-0426/98) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has the floor for a point of order.
Mr President, pursuant to Rule 128 of the Rules of Procedure, I should like to table a motion for the debate on the this item to be declared inadmissible for three reasons.
The first reason is that the report draws upon the Amsterdam Treaty, which is mentioned in the preamble in recitals B, D and E. This Treaty has not yet been ratified, it has not yet entered into force.
It is an affront to French Members and Senators to apply this text before it has even been ratified, particularly as, only yesterday, they debated the constitutional reform preceding the ratification of this Treaty.
The second reason is that the draft Statute included in this report adds provisions to the Treaty establishing the European Community, to the 1976 Act and to the Protocol on the privileges and immunities of the European Communities - something it does not have the power to do.
For this reason, the provisions which aim to penalise MEPs holding other parliamentary mandates are inadmissible.
The third reason, Mr President, is that this report is an own-initiative report. It must therefore respect Rule 148, intended as a legal basis, and Rule 50, which applies in accordance with paragraph 6 of that Rule.
Therefore, the proposal that it contains must, and I quote, 'respect the principle of subsidiarity and the fundamental rights of citizens', which is not the case in this instance.
It must also respect paragraph 4 of the same Rule: 'Where a proposal has financial implications, Parliament shall indicate how sufficient financial resources can be provided'.
This requirement has clearly not been met; this proposal does have financial implications for the Community budget and there has been no suggestion of how to finance it.
These are the three reasons why I am calling for this text to be declared inadmissible and this is why I am questioning it now.
Thank you very much, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
The Chair believes that the report we are about to debate is admissible as the Council has expressly asked for our opinion on this matter and, according to the Rules, this is a valid way to give our opinion.
Therefore, the Chair believes that it is not inadmissible and, as it is not inadmissible, we will begin debating it and, at the appropriate point, we will vote on it.
Mr President, your point of view is most interesting, but it is not up to you to give it on the motion I have tabled.
It is, however, up to you to ask whether there is a speaker for and against this motion before putting it to the vote, as stated in Rule 128 of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I know that you are very familiar with the Rules but at this moment in time the Presidency is applying these rules and believes that there is no need for a debate and vote on your proposal as the report is admissible.
If, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you do not agree, you can appeal to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, of which you are not only a member, but a very well-known member.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Chair has decided on its position.
This position, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, may be wrong, and you all know how to appeal against it.
But, in any case, the Chair will begin the debate as it believes that the report is admissible.
I have explained my reasons for this: although the changes to the Amsterdam Treaty have not been adopted in all the Member States, Parliament's comments on future-related matters are valid, and all the more so as the Council has asked for our opinion on this matter.
I shall now give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Rothley.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Members' Statute represents an opportunity for Parliament.
It can take on a new profile: more independent, more self-reliant; it can come of age as a Parliament whose members are accountable to the electorate and to the European Union.
One aspect of this new profile is that Members would be paid by the European Parliament itself.
Equal pay for equal work.
Which brings us to the first problem.
There will always be governments and members of national parliaments who maintain that the Members of the European Parliament must on no account earn more than the members of their own national parliament.
And there will always be Members of the European Parliament who consider it unacceptable that they should earn less than national MPs.
That is just how things are, and they will be no different two years, five years or 20 years from now.
For that reason we must address the problem now.
I do not believe we can achieve this aim in one fell swoop.
That is why we in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights are proposing a transitional system.
The Members who are elected for the first time next June will receive the average salary, which will be compulsory for all new Members. Why?
Because the average is a token of our respect for the democratic decisions of national parliaments.
It makes no sense for the Italian Government to attack the Spanish Parliament for paying its members too little.
Nor does it make any sense for the Spanish Government to attack the Italian Parliament for paying its members too much.
That would be utter nonsense.
Europe cannot function if any one country forces its own system on all the others. In short, the use of the EU average is a mark of democratic respect.
For the Members who are re-elected, there will be problems in terms of pensions and fiscal legislation, and that is why they should have the right to choose between the new system and the present system, but only for a five-year period.
During the next Parliament, we shall take a decision that will apply uniformly to all Members for the sixth legislative term, beginning in the year 2004.
If you share my earnest wish that we should have a statute before the elections in June of next year, the proposal tabled by Parliament must be moderate, it must be immediately convincing, it must be obviously sensible, and it must be entirely selfexplanatory.
So what are the other proposals? There is the idea of linking MEPs' salaries to those of judges or Commissioners.
Almost all our governments grumble about civil servants' and judges' salaries.
If we say we want a percentage of a civil servant's, judge's or Commissioner's salary, the Council will immediately lower the portcullis.
So anyone who wishes to kill off the Statute need only propose this sort of linkage.
There is another reason.
A Member of Parliament is an independent political player who is accountable to his or her electorate and to the European Union.
No part of me is a judge at the European Court of Justice, nor should I ever wish that upon myself!
Hiding behind the pay packet of a civil servant or a judge, rubbing our hands with glee whenever civil servants or judges are awarded a rise and shrugging off any responsibility, may be cunning but it is not prudent.
The European Parliament should decide freely, independently and confidently about the remuneration of its Members.
This alone befits the dignity of Parliament.
The other disadvantage of the linkage proposal is that it does not name any figure.
That is no way to solve the problem facing the European Parliament, and there is indeed a problem facing us.
This issue has set people talking about Parliament; it must not bring us into disrepute.
As for travel expenses, it is high time we solved that problem.
We must not create the impression that we only take action if the big stick is wielded.
But we can only solve the problem if we talk about pay.
No one can expect a Member of Parliament to work here for ECU 2 827.
That is not realistic.
This is why rates of pay and the system of reimbursement for travel expenses are inextricably linked.
This is why we must name a figure and include the following sentence in our resolution: 'The Bureau shall decide in the light of the Statute'.
The fact is that having a statute will enable us to put our House in order.
In other words, the political logic behind our proposal is that we are prepared to solve our problem, and now it is up to you in the Council to play your part.
That is the political rationale of this proposal.
Some say there are too many details.
The Dutch fiscal authorities are taxing our colleagues to the hilt, and some say these are mere details that do not interest us.
No, these are not trivial details.
We have heard enough fine words.
We have heard enough political rhetoric.
We have a problem to solve.
Politics is all about solving problems.
That is why we are here.
I have often been thinking lately of one of Churchill's delightful witticisms: democracy, he said, is the worst form of government except for all the others.
That is also what I should like to say of this proposal.
It is the worst proposal except for all the others, and that is why I would ask you to approve it.
(Laughter and applause)
on Institutional Affairs. (ES) Mr President, I trust that after the 109 amendments we are to vote on tomorrow, this statute, currently only in draft form, will prove a great step forward from what we have in place at present.
I most earnestly hope so. Indeed I am sure this will be the case, for one simple reason: this statute is of crucial importance to Parliament.
It represents a success for Parliament, which listed it amongst its priorities when negotiating the Treaty of Amsterdam.
No one thought the requirement for a statute would be included in the Treaty, but we managed to ensure that it was.
That was the first success.
Secondly: this statute is very important for Parliament because it serves as its charter.
The Statute is about much more than just our salary.
It lays down the rules by which we must regulate our conduct, as representatives directly elected by the citizens.
Therefore, the proposal we must take to the Council, which has to approve it unanimously, ought to be a reasonable proposal, as Mr Rothley has said. If it is not, it will fail because of the requirement for unanimity.
In that case, the success achieved so far would turn into failure.
In its opinion, the Committee on Institutional Affairs, which I have the honour to represent, has made three requests. First, that the rules adopted be transparent, so that the citizens can be aware of the rules governing the conduct of Members of the European Parliament.
Secondly, that all existing rules be brought together in a single document. Thirdly, that equal treatment be given to all Members.
In my view, the present state of affairs, which results from a previous situation, no longer makes much sense. After all, we are all elected representatives and we are all doing the same job.
This is why I believe that if we vote for a reasonable text tomorrow, we shall prove the strength of our conviction, the political strength we acquired at Amsterdam.
I trust, Mr President, that we shall indeed be able to do so.
Mr President, this report is, in my group's view, of the utmost importance in the development of the democratic legitimacy and the credibility of this House.
Of course, it should not be so.
We should be judged here on the way we carry out our functions, to legislate, to monitor the work of the Commission and the Council and to set the budget of the Union.
Sadly, that function, which I believe has been developed and carried out in a constructive and progressive manner during this parliamentary term, has been obscured by a barrage of criticism in all our countries in recent years.
That criticism which reaches a crescendo in our press with monotonous regularity centres on the system of allowances and expenses accruing to Members of this House.
I want to pay tribute to the two Presidents of our Parliament during this parliamentary term.
Firstly, Klaus Hänsch and now José Maria Gil-Robles have worked to introduce the reforms necessary to restore to this House and its Members a degree of dignity and public acceptability.
This is the first time I have taken the floor for my group on this issue in this chamber.
In the last four and a half years I have been engaged in a continuous round of discussions within my own group and with my counterparts in the other groups of this House to ensure that we can now take the fundamental decisions necessary to solve this problem.
This, in my view, represents the last opportunity in this parliamentary term to end, once and for all, this most damaging public vilification.
I for one hope passionately that tomorrow this House will adopt an appropriate package of reforms.
We all know that there will be some out there who will argue that whatever we do it will not be enough.
Sadly, there are some in this House who, over recent years, have deliberately and dishonestly added to the debate by misrepresenting and misreporting detail and motivation.
Let us therefore do what we believe is right, what we believe is defensible and what we believe our citizens will see as reasonable.
Let us also be entirely open.
It is clear that the issue of the expenses regime could not be solved until we also dealt with the inequality of Members' salaries.
The gross disparity between the salaries of Members doing identical jobs in equally trying circumstances in terms of travel, hours, inconvenience, the disruption of family life and so on, is simply not acceptable.
It was of critical importance, therefore, that the intergovernmental conference in Amsterdam in June of last year included a request that the European Parliament bring forward a proposal for a Members' Statute.
The Rothley report is our response to that request.
In my group's view it is not acceptable to propose a Members' Statute which simply pulls together the varying conditions, immunities and privileges of the 15 national parliaments of the European Union, collates them and then calls the result a statute for Members of the European Parliament.
If this statute is to have some integrity and credibility it must look at the role of a Member of the European Parliament.
We must define a statute which is appropriate for the work we do, the environment in which we work, the travel which is an integral part of our job and the incompatibilities which result.
I want to congratulate Mr Rothley for the extremely effective job he has done in this respect.
I must say that there is probably no single Member in this House who will be satisfied with every aspect of Mr Rothley's proposals and I conclude therefore that he has got it about right.
We cannot dodge the important issue of a Member's salary so I propose to deal with it now.
It is simply a fact that Members of this House should be paid the same salary.
In any similar environment with working colleagues coming together it would not be acceptable that salaries with such diversities are commonplace.
It runs counter to all logic and common sense and lies at the base of all our problems.
The big question has been just what is an appropriate salary for MEPs? Mr Rothley's average of the salary of all our national parliamentarians is an ingenious solution.
It is not by any means the highest salary to be found amongst national parliaments nor the highest salary we could have proposed.
Yet it represents an appropriate salary.
It has the virtue of being transparent and understandable and my group rejects other formulations as being opaque and opening up the criticism that we are manoeuvring for some super, inflated wage.
In order to facilitate the clear problems for those colleagues who would suffer a substantial loss of salary under this system Mr Rothley proposes a transitional period, whereby in the next parliamentary term colleagues who are reelected can choose either the new salary or an existing one.
While some colleagues are unhappy with that transitional phase, and I put myself in that category, it has to be recognised that we are talking in terms of a considerable downward movement of some Members' personal income.
Such a transitional period would at least give them the ability to plan their future.
New Members will of course enter this parliament under the new system immediately.
The report proposes that salary should be subject to Community rates of taxation.
This is a controversial proposal which I believe divides most groups in this House, and mine is no exception.
Many Members feel that they wish to continue to pay the same tax rates as those fellow-citizens whom they represent.
Others feel that they will be receiving a European salary and are entitled like others employed directly by the European Union to pay European Union tax rates.
I think this one will come out in the wash, ie it is difficult to predict what the result of the vote in this House will be on this issue.
The other side of the coin of a single salary is a system of reimbursement of travel costs based on actual expenditure.
For me this is fundamental.
I cannot accept that we adopt a common salary and in the same breath continue to allow an expenses regime which is based on anything other than actual cost.
I have no doubt that such a proposal would be entirely unacceptable to our citizens, our voters and indeed to our governments.
Mr Rothley's proposals in this respect are excellent and I hope they will be supported.
The compromise amendment tabled by my group and the Liberal Group with the rapporteur's active support, I believe, adds even greater transparency and clarity to this issue and I hope that it will command support.
The other and major section of this draft Statute is that of the incompatibilities and other elements which define our rights and responsibilities, our mandate and independence as Members of Parliament.
A series of amendments in the names of many groups, mine amongst them, have been tabled which add balance to the report and I hope they too will be adopted.
If tomorrow we succeed in producing a draft statute we will have taken a first and major step to solve this long running and open sore.
It will then be up to the Council to acknowledge the commitment of the Parliament and its Members, to take the very tough decisions which I hope we will do tomorrow.
It will then be up to the Council to indicate that they are prepared to give the green light to the next stage, ie detailed interinstitutional negotiations so that a statute can become a reality before the European elections in June of next year.
Time is short.
Consensus on an issue of this sort is extraordinarily difficult to secure.
We will tomorrow, I hope, secure the majority we need.
Let us hope that in Vienna the Council can do likewise.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, over the past few weeks, the report by our colleague Mr Willi Rothley has caused much ink and many words to flow.
But what should surprise us most yet has been passed over almost in complete silence, is the fact that for almost twenty years now MEPs - who are elected by universal suffrage as everyone knows - have been waiting in vain for a common statute.
Commissioners have a statute, the judges at the Court of Justice, the advisers to the Court of Auditors, the Ombudsman - thanks to our efforts - our officials and, of course, the members of our national parliaments all have a statute but the Council does not deem it necessary for an MEP to have one.
Nonetheless, if ever there was a situation which was so complex that it needed appropriate measures to be taken from the outset, it is that of the MEP.
The reality for MEPs is indeed complex in many respects.
Their parliamentary allowances are aligned with those of their national colleagues but, as everyone knows, the differences according to nationality range from the same amount to triple the amount - not to mention the substantial differences in tax systems. This unfairness is compounded by the fact that members of national parliaments in some Member States - on paper the lowest paid in the Union - receive direct compensation in their country which their European counterparts are not entitled to.
The second element of this diverse and complex reality is that of distance.
Some colleagues live close to our places of work - Brussels and Strasbourg - and some are even on site. Others, in contrast, live on the periphery and spend a day or even longer travelling to these places, sometimes having to use several forms of transport.
Also, the lack of a common electoral system - and we are awaiting the results of the report from our colleague Mr Anastassopoulos on this - leads to further injustices.
Some of our colleagues are elected representatives in Member States whose size allows them to travel around relatively easily to visit their constituents. Other colleagues are elected representatives in vast constituencies where they have to be particularly thorough on the election trail because they also face a preferential system.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should simply like to say to those who have avidly studied this matter for some time now that they would gain more respect if they were sufficiently objective to take the realities of the life of an MEP into account.
But perhaps this is too much to ask from those who clearly still aim to discredit MEPs systematically.
Every person in this House would sincerely like to see transparency in all expenses payments. Every person is also aware - as Mrs Green said a few moments ago - that the disparities I have highlighted cannot be tolerated amongst colleagues who sit on the same benches and who do a job that is often exhausting but which, unfortunately, is only appreciated by those in the know because of the lack of media coverage of their work.
Every one of us has reached the conclusion that only a common statute for Members would let us respond to the demand for both transparency and equality, which go hand in hand.
This is the reason why - I have almost finished, Mr President - I am delighted that the Council has finally agreed to incorporate the principle of a statute in the Amsterdam Treaty. I should like to congratulate our President, Mr José-María Gil-Robles, for having achieved this.
I am very pleased that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and its rapporteur worked towards this, along with the PPE Group. And I should like to thank those colleagues who actively cooperated in the deliberations of the working party we set up.
I hope that, tomorrow, we will vote through a text on which there is the greatest possible consensus and that in adopting it later the Council will at last both accept its responsibilities and strengthen the dignity of our institution.
Mr President, my group attaches the highest priority to this report and to the work done by our colleague Mr Rothley.
We do so for political and institutional and not for personal reasons because some will gain and some will lose under this system.
Frankly, if we were to be paid nothing there are some begrudgers and commentators who would still raise questions.
We are also acknowledging that this Parliament has been dogged constantly by debilitating, negative publicity especially on the issue of allowances and Members' expenses.
It is damaging our credibility.
It is reducing our legitimacy in the eyes of citizens and we have to fight back.
Too often many of us scramble to defend the system that we really do not believe in and for some of us is really indefensible.
Our current system is complex and reflects the fact that the issue was fudged 20 years ago with direct elections.
We now have the power of Amsterdam and I am pleased to see that with an accelerated pace we have responded to the challenge of the Cardiff conclusions.
I hope tomorrow that we will, in a final vote, deliver a very strong message from this House into the hands of our President to respond to the challenge of Cardiff to say we have listened, we have paid attention and the ball is now firmly in the Council's court.
In particular I congratulate the rapporteur.
Many thought this could not be done and certainly could not be done in the timescale. He has done it.
He has done it with the colleagues and the Committee of Legal Affairs. I would also congratulate my own colleague, Willy De Clercq for his role in chairing that.
On the detail, briefly, my group wishes to add dimensions other than the economic and that now is clearly a matter of consensus.
My group wishes to support the final vote of the Statute, even if there are things in it we would have preferred to see otherwise, because we want to get the message over.
My group will support the explicit salary that is referred to by the rapporteur and the majority of my group will support the European tax conclusion.
Overall we believe in equal work for pay of equal value.
There are other details but I will skip them.
Ultimately we support this draft because it gives us the capacity as politicians before our electorate, before the next election, I hope, to shift the focus from the politics of envy, from the politics of allowances and expenses, to the politics of the Union itself, which is our vocation and which is our mission.
To advance that, I have already initiated a round of meetings through my group with senior Members of the Council because they are now the ones, I hope from tomorrow, who must bear their responsibility to help us to rid ourselves of a yoke that for too long we have been stuck with.
Mr President, I speak today on behalf of my group with regard to the proposal put before this House.
At the outset I want to pay a very particular and special tribute to our rapporteur, Mr Rothley, who had a very difficult task and who has come forward with his own, honest opinion with regard to what would be achievable in the overall context.
Unfortunately, I do not agree fully with what he has written in his report.
However, I can state at the outset that my group fully supports the idea of having a common statute for Members and for putting forward a motion for a resolution containing a proposal for a common statute.
Where we diverge somewhat, is with regard to what should actually be in that final resolution and draft Statute.
On the question of principle, no Member of this House surely has so little respect for him or herself that they feel they should not be paid a proper salary at a level common to each and every one of us.
Unfortunately, due to errors in the past, and due to a lack of political will in the past, not by Members of this House, but by the Council, we have failed to get agreement with regard to that common salary and common situation.
There has been much negative publicity foisted on this House, some of it generated from Members within this House for their own political gain and political beliefs and some from former Members who have attacked the parliament to gain themselves a higher national profile for cabinet positions and so on.
So we must show respect for ourselves by being willing first and foremost to lay down guiding principles and secure the agreement of the Council and then decide on what the exact remuneration should be.
By stating explicitly now what we feel the common average should be we allow the Council to say: that is too high.
With a transitional period we would ensure that the inequalities will be continued and that Members who are reelected to this House, who presently earn two times or two and a half times what I earn at the moment will continue that inequality.
If we truly believe and truly want a common statute there should be no transitional system.
There are other actuarial methods and accounting methods for dealing with pension contributions, health questions and so on.
Finally, I want to draw Members' attention to one other point.
The voting list which will be put before us tomorrow has been drawn up in a very unusual way.
We have on the voting list questions related to the draft Statute and questions related to the annex.
But the amendments relating to the draft Statute and the points of principle of the draft Statute are put onto the annex side and the questions relating to the annex side are put on the draft Statute side.
So we are not being given the right to determine first whether we agree with the principle or not and vote on all the amendments related to that.
I would ask the services to please ensure that we are given a proper voting list tomorrow morning.
Mr President, when commenting on the report on the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament, one must first recognise that the rapporteur must have been working against a deadline.
Nevertheless, he contrived to incorporate into his work - quite rightly, in my opinion - absolutely essential provisions to safeguard independence and transparency.
However, in just the same way as I am bound to recognise the merits of his work and the areas where we agree, I am also bound to state where I differ.
In particular, my differences centre on three main issues, namely the proposal for determining Members' salaries, recourse to external assessment to determine the latter and setting up optional transitional arrangements during the fifth legislative period.
Why do I differ?
As regards the proposal for Members' salaries, I accept the rapporteur's view on the need to achieve equal treatment. However, it must be borne in mind that in some Member States, implementation of his methods will result in the return of inequalities between Members of the European Parliament and Members of national parliaments.
Concerning external assessment, it does not seem appropriate to assess Parliament's operation by applying business standards, because Parliament is not a business.
Resorting to external assessment in this way may be interpreted as an attempt to avoid responsibility for the salary determined.
Finally, in connection with the transitional arrangements, I differ because, as I see it, the same status, in this case that of a directly elected parliamentarian, can bring with it different rights.
In conclusion, I should like to make it clear that although I recognise the obvious merits of this report, I could not vote in its favour unless the amendments concerning the issues I mentioned are adopted
Mr President, the worst thing which can happen to us, ladies and gentlemen, is to muddle on with the existing arrangement, which is untenable because it leads to a different income for the same work and is also tied to laughable travel expenses which provide some Members with a second and third income on which they pay not a cent in tax.
That is indefensible.
Let us now push for a good and decent system.
So I hope Mr Rothley's proposal is adopted and that average earnings will be the model, because it would not make sense to hide behind a percentage of something else, it would make no sense and it would be cowardly, and I hope too that immunity and incompatibility will be part of the Statute.
There are of course a few points in it which we shall find hard to bear, but we are prepared to accept those in the circumstances in order to escape from the bad system we have at present, for example the transitional period, the fact that we are still making the reimbursement of travel expenses conditional on approval of the Statute, and the voluntary supplementary pension.
I hope in any event that we shall get this settled tomorrow, and then perhaps we shall be able to use the shower cubicles and wash off the mud.
Mr President, the great virtue of Mr Rothley's report is that it exists at all.
There will doubtless be quite a debate on it, and we too have one or two comments.
On behalf of our group, we wish to put ourselves firmly alongside those who favour a common European statute for Members of the European Parliament, simply out of respect for the parliamentary office we hold and which our successors will hold after us.
We are convinced that the European Parliament has an image problem, but we believe the Council must at last understand the necessity of applying once and for all this principle of equal pay for equal work, not least in the case of the European Parliament.
Our group also feels that the enacting of a statute of this kind is a clear manifestation of the desire for European integration and of the great symbolic significance which a European Parliament can have, a real parliament acting as the cornerstone of European unity and as a symbol.
We therefore think that a transparent arrangement is needed which is based on reimbursement of the actual costs incurred and which precludes the possibility of abuse.
One wonders - and a number of members of our group have asked the question, Mr Rothley - whether everything needed to be set out in so much detail in the report, or whether a few things might not have been covered in an annex. On the other hand, we fully appreciate that there must be no doubt concerning the basic salary, and an average of the kind you propose is acceptable to many of our group's members, although it must be linked to a system of European tax rules, because otherwise you will have equal pay but inequality again due to different national rules on tax.
Lastly, we cannot agree to a transitional arrangement.
I appreciate that you put that in for reasons of pragmatism, but we think in principle that anyone running for European office next time should do so in full awareness of the situation and acceptance of the new Statute.
On supplementary pensions, you have made three proposals.
Some of us, myself included, really want these provisions on supplementary pensions to be left out.
We would prefer to see nothing regulated and paid by the European Parliament, but instead a proper social statute, of the kind you suggest, forming part of the Statute as a matter of course.
Mr President, to us and to every Member of the European Parliament, it is not the money which matters most.
European parliamentary office is an important office.
It will need to be more important still in future.
The power of this Parliament needs to grow, and its lack of a statute has certainly held it back in the past.
We hope the choice we make tomorrow will be a common choice for a common statute, and that notwithstanding our differing opinions we shall prove that this choice, which is made out of principle, is the right one.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, here we are meeting to discuss our future statute at a Brussels mini-session on a Wednesday evening at 9 p.m. with no public present.
What a wonderful example of transparency and democratic legitimacy we are setting at the end of what has been an exceptional procedure - and I am not even talking about the astonishing casualness which you have demonstrated, Mr President, with regard to the Rules. On three occasions during this procedure it has been necessary for the Conference of Presidents to intervene.
It first intervened to authorise what is and what can be nothing but an own-initiative report, on the basis of Rule 148. It then intervened to impose a rushed timetable, marked in particular by an extraordinary meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights - a six hour meeting held in Strasbourg on 17 November.
Lastly, it intervened to correct - literally - the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights in an exceptional meeting held here last Wednesday at 8 p.m.
I might add that several meetings of the secretaries-general have been given over to this report.
Why such urgency?
Why such attention?
Why such concern amongst the group chairmen?
Because, ladies and gentlemen, it was absolutely essential that a text be drawn up at all costs, no matter what its contents, before the Vienna summit. Because the ball had to be thrown back into the Council's court to hide our own inability to change the current system for reimbursing travel expenses - a system quite rightly criticised because it is shocking - and to make the Council take responsibility for the status quo .
This is what we are being asked to do, and we are doing it by flouting rules, by applying a Treaty which has not been ratified and by adding to texts of the highest legal level.
We are doing it by failing to exercise our future powers.
A proper statute should cover the different requirements which apply to Members.
A proper statute should not only address financial matters, of course, but also incompatibilities, privileges and allowances, and rules of conduct. A proper statute should provide a legal basis - which currently does not exist - for the system for reimbursing expenses and paying allowances for the exercise of office, and should also give this system the transparency it is sorely lacking.
Such was the aim of the draft Statute that we tabled in Amendment No 106.
In place of this, the draft from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is a collection of incoherent, outrageous and ridiculous measures.
The incoherency arises from stating, in recital A, that any difference in the Statute for Members on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited, yet it also refers to national systems when these are more beneficial.
The outrage lies in mentioning the need to avoid difficult personal situations and to preserve already acquired rights, or those being acquired, by implementing a transitional system and a dual scale for salaries.
No one is forcing Members to stand again and, ladies and gentlemen of the Socialist or Social-Democrat Groups, as you claim to be, you are simply trying to obtain something which is denied to employees in companies in your respective countries.
Lastly, the ridiculous nature of this statute lies in stating that the parliamentary allowance will be paid in advance, to prepare for any eventuality.
As a general rule, all work merits pay but, in this case, all pay merits work.
This statute will not protect Parliament's image.
I have never seen such a pathetic display of national sentiment, such a display of willingness to take one's personal situation into account. The European Parliament has never seemed to me so far removed from the concerns of public opinion.
Mr President, this House is about to perform an act of great courage and far-sightedness.
It has been our ambition for some time - and it might now come about at last - to have a statute laying down the rights and obligations of Members of the European Parliament, the nature and prerogatives of their mandate, and the precise means of exercising it.
This has been made possible by the Amsterdam Treaty which, although not yet in force, is the frame of reference for our discussion and for the expeditious, enthusiastic work of the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, who is a past master with difficult dossiers.
We owe it to ourselves to perform this act.
The resolution on a uniform electoral system and the blueprint contained in it - the rapporteur was Mr Anastassopoulos - was likewise a significant step forward in highlighting the urgent need to endow Parliament with its own autonomy and hence with a form of democratic legitimacy, ensuring that it is no longer a gathering of national representatives but a forum which allows the peoples of Europe to have their say in a process inspired by solidarity and federalism.
A uniform electoral system is a precondition if the work of all MEPs is to be comparable.
What will the Council do about it? That is by no means a peripheral question.
We also owe it to public opinion, to the peoples of Europe, to take this decision.
All too often our Parliament, or certain of its Members, have been the focus of malicious rumours, of disparaging and insidious campaigns by the press.
Full transparency is therefore required about everything, not merely out of defensiveness but because there should be nothing to hide.
Finally, this act of ours is a challenge to the Council and the Union's other institutions: they too must clarify the conditions under which not only political appointees but also officials of all grades perform their duties.
Given that I agree with the overall structure of the texts being put forward here, I shall merely touch on certain points where I and other members of the Socialist Group would like to see additions or express doubts or dissent. The first of these is the temporary nature of the provisions outlined, but I shall not dwell on this point.
Next, it would be useful to investigate the incompatibilities more thoroughly, including not only that of exercising the office of member of a national parliament but also, for example, that of mayor of a city or community having more than 100 000 inhabitants.
I know that this is a matter to be settled under electoral legislation, but it would nevertheless be helpful to offer some guidance in this respect, for example along the lines set out in Amendment No 89.
Clearly the content of the annexes will have to become operational once the Statute itself has come into effect, in the light of the provisions contained in it, and will have to be implemented on more than just a mechanical basis.
As far as Members' allowances are concerned, I do not think it right, even provisionally, to apply the criterion of a mathematical average of the allowances in force today - or whenever the sum is fixed - in the national parliaments.
Why should the average of such dissimilar amounts, for duties so different from ours, miraculously produce a fair and acceptable result? It would be preferable to link this calculation to allowances granted for the exercise of offices or duties in another European institution and to a deliberate, straightforward and carefully weighted assessment, equal for every one of us and subject to Community taxation: Amendment No 13 is very pertinent in this regard.
A figure can be put on the amount - it is not true that this will not be specified - once the House has voted.
My purpose in speaking frankly and openly here today is to attain a goal which none of us can underestimate.
When casting our votes, let none of us lose sight of the sense of pride and dignity which must guide us in voicing the ideas and feelings of the European peoples.
It is vital to cut through the demagogy, adverse propaganda and opportunistic moralising: we must be in a position to perform our difficult and complex work on a salary which is reasonable and equal for us all - for all MEPs, whose circumstances vary and who accept different degrees of inconvenience in performing the same duties. We must ensure that our Parliament really does serve everyone: it must be more efficient, more transparent and ultimately more democratic, a Parliament which strives to be truly European.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate my colleague Mr Rothley most sincerely.
I really do mean what I say! I may not agree with Mr Rothley, but I admire him nonetheless, because he has shown himself capable of coping with the most difficult circumstances, tight deadlines and pressures from all and sundry.
Our President does indeed have to take to the Vienna Council a document on which to negotiate.
Yet in this case, as I stated this morning in our group, we have let ourselves down.
We have been slow to deal with such an important issue which affects us directly, and we are in grave danger of mishandling it altogether.
Of course we support the Statute.
It has our full support.
I very much fear, however, that what we are to vote on tomorrow is not in fact the Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
What we are really voting on is the Members' payslip.
What seems to be of prime importance is how much a Member will earn and what for.
It is the only statute in existence to contain such an inordinate number of figures and details.
That is not what transparency is all about.
It is a travesty of transparency.
There is no reason for the Statute to contain an annex which is an integral part of it. Rather, that annex, whilst referred to in the Statute in the appropriate way, should be regulated by Parliament itself at a later date, with the benefit of all necessary transparency.
That is the legally correct procedure, and you, Mr Rothley, know that as well as I do.
We do, however, have a good opportunity to improve the draft by means of amendments.
Mr Rothley has been extraordinarily receptive with regard to these.
Some issues are not really economic, but they are essential to the Statute, such as the transitional periods, taxation, pensions and incompatibilities.
In addition, Mr President, we must make every effort to avoid an obvious risk: that the Statute may prove to be to the detriment of many of our colleagues.
Having heralded the Statute, stressing its transparency, impartiality and solidarity, it would be absurd and contradictory to allow unfair and detrimental differences to arise.
Once again, I stress the importance of taking advantage of the many amendments which do make sense and help to make the text more reasonable.
We should not forget that we are regulating our future and that of our successors.
God forbid that due to a misunderstanding of the nature of transparency, we produce legislation to be ashamed of, and which is not only unfavourable but also seriously detrimental to us.
Mr President, tomorrow we shall be able to show that we are willing to play our part in achieving clarity and precision.
Despite considerable resistance, the Liberal Group has managed to move the process forward so we can submit our proposal.
I am delighted to note that this is the general view tonight, which was not the case when we began in July.
We can therefore ask the Council to resolve the issue so that it can be removed from the agenda, which is no more than Europe deserves.
I am glad that it looks as if there will be a broad majority tomorrow, and that everyone appears to be democratically minded enough to approve it.
Our objective is a system with independent representatives, and one where we do not have an auction in which the lowest bidder wins.
The transitional regime is reasonable in view of the fact that a considerable number of candidates have already decided whether or not they wish to participate.
As we have mentioned, our group is split over taxation.
I share the minority view that national tax regimes can continue to apply in the future.
I think it is important for us to broadly accept this principle.
Consequently, it is not up to us to decide this matter, but a valid decision is required by the next parliamentary term.
I hope we will be able to support other reforms which we can decide for ourselves.
Finally, I should like to say that there have been times when we have come up against the obduracy of the rapporteur, but on the other hand his tenacity has made it possible for us to discuss the proposal and put it to the vote tomorrow, and for this I should like to thank him.
Mr President, since we are members elected by 15 nations to a supranational structure of states, should we not have a single statute? Undoubtedly we should.
However, perhaps over-concerned with the media, we are currently showing our inability to give the signal that the Council needs so that it can reach the unanimity that the European Parliament itself seems regrettably so far from achieving.
The basic question is this: does a single statute necessarily mean a single salary? Obviously not.
Our position, which we reached after much consideration and with due respect for the opposite point of view, and which we announced quite clearly almost two years ago, is that our emoluments should refer to the country and the people we belong to and where we live.
If the proposal is approved, the report would be taking the idea of allowing, albeit provisionally, different salaries for members of the same national origins to absurd lengths, particularly as we approach a single currency.
Finally, on a subject that was a burning issue some time ago, perhaps we should take care not to moralise and stir up trouble about the cost of members' travel expenses, especially in the case of people who come to meetings from a very long way away.
Smoke might get in people's eyes but there is no smoke without fire.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are many things in the European Union that are still far from European.
This even applies to the European Parliament.
The work of its Members is still governed by rules that were devised at a time when this House was merely a parliamentary assembly of MPs from the Member States.
What we are planning now is nothing more or less than the Europeanisation of the pre-European conditions in which our parliamentary work is conducted.
Our debates have shown to all and sundry that this proposal touches on some very raw nerves - on issues of social standards and individual circumstances and indeed on the broadest possible diversity of unique personal dilemmas.
From where can we draw the strength we need for this step on the road to Europe?
The Treaty on European Union tells us.
The European Parliament, it says, shall consist of representatives of the peoples of the States brought together in the Community.
We are not simply representatives of the people, but representatives of the peoples.
Anyone who does not know what that means would be well advised to come along to the Committee on Petitions, where he would see that our mandate is not to represent one people but rather all the peoples of the European Union.
At the same time, however, we do represent a single people in that we represent the people of the Union, which now expects its Members of Parliament to take this step whereby they can establish their credentials as representatives of the peoples.
Mr President, more than 20 years ago now, the Council undertook to draw up a statute for all Members of this Parliament.
We never got one.
That is not in itself so bad, because having a Community statute may nurture the idea that Parliament represents one people.
But the European Union is made up of a rich diversity of different peoples.
We are elected by the people of our own nation and must also bear in mind our national interest.
However, the interim solution of being paid a salary by the Member State and expenses by Europe has resulted in disparity, an uneven picture marked by excessive reimbursement of expenses, the improper use and even abuse of expenses.
While it is worrying that the media are far less interested in our debates than in our expenses, it is essentially right that they should attack these anomalies.
If we are to clean up our act, there has to be an end to the situation in which the amount refunded for travel expenses is far greater than the actual costs incurred.
Competition in air travel has meant that in many cases it is considerably cheaper to fly than to buy a full-fare rail ticket.
Over shorter distances, certainly those served by fast rail links, Members of the European Parliament should set an example by using the train, not the plane.
Clearly, the expenses paid must reflect that.
Expenses for the use of one's own vehicle must be based on the objectively calculated total cost of a good and safe car, such as an official car.
Mr President, we have been suggesting for years on our side that the expenses paid should on no account be greater than the actual cost incurred.
The rapporteur's proposals now offer a cohesive framework for achieving all this.
We shall support his proposals, together with those amendments which seek to reimburse costs in a thrifty and realistic way.
We shall not support amendments which seek to add new bells and whistles to the system.
The monthly salary is an altogether different matter.
The rule is that each Member of the European Parliament gets the same as members of his own national parliament.
As a Dutchman, I find it rather suspect that my national parliament has broken the link between the salaries paid to Dutch MEPs and those paid to its own members.
The Netherlands short-changes us to the tune of some ECU 1 000 a month.
This probably means that it is breaking the terms of the Treaty.
A standardised salary is not our top priority in view of the national office we hold, even though the salary differentials between Member States which the rapporteur has highlighted are enormous and hard to justify.
I imagine that in countries paying very low salaries, membership of the national parliament is not seen as a full-time job.
But a Member of the European Parliament who takes his responsibilities seriously has a more than full-time job.
I would guess that there is not one country which comes close to 45 weeks of meetings a year.
So I do not think that combining membership of the European Parliament with another political office is compatible with the scale and scope of our work here.
To sum up, I would commend to the House the set of amendments tabled by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
Should these not be approved, we shall vote as a next best solution for amendments which aim for thrift and follow the line taken by the rapporteur, who has made an honourable attempt to get us out of this hornet's nest.
Mr President, after so many years we have come as far as this evening's debate on the Rothley report, in the sincere hope that we are approaching the beginning of the end.
A common statute for Members of the European Parliament must finally be established.
Some of us have not ceased fighting hard for that over the years.
The reasons are very simple: the common Statute would put an end to the provocative inequalities that discriminate between Members.
The basic principle of equal pay for equal work has been and is still being violated in the European Parliament's own house, and our efforts to restore a certain balance have created other problems and exposed us to perfidious and sometimes malicious attacks.
The need for solutions free from serious drawbacks has constantly become more urgent.
With that rationale, the Bureau of the European Parliament, at the time of Egon Klepsch and with as rapporteurs the then President of the College of Quaestors, the Belgian socialist Ernst Glynn and your present speaker, asked the Council to establish a common statute and proposed to equate MEPs with European judges, as happens in several Member States of the European Union.
The Council, however, rejected our proposal and since then the problem has remained outstanding.
Last year it was necessary, on the initiative of the current President Mr Gil-Robles, to add a new provision to the Treaty of Amsterdam currently being ratified, to restate and encourage reconsideration of the problem.
Following the arguments of the David Martin working group, the report by Mr Willi Rothley attempts to propose solutions.
Our esteemed German colleague has taken a lot of trouble to come up with some entirely new proposals, and it is also true that he has worked under tremendous time pressure so that we would be able to table a first draft at the Vienna summit.
But I believe that despite this pressure, he should show still greater flexibility in the search for solutions that will be more widely acceptable.
Where such serious issues are concerned, I am not alone in thinking that we should not submit proposals based on opportunistic majorities of just a few votes, and I hope that in the voting tomorrow that phenomenon will be rejected.
With the Council's agreement, the common Statute ought to be established soon, but even at this late stage there are some things which must be made clear once and for all.
Some of us have fought for years for this common statute, but it was never our aim to sacrifice everything in order to achieve a common statute at any price.
There is a limit beyond which there can be no obligation on our part, no discount and no compromise.
It is a matter of protecting our dignity, which is not open to debate or negotiation, and the Council must understand that.
No malicious attack by the media, which some people are trying to orchestrate, must divert us from that principle.
We must not claim equality with category B2 Community officials, agreeable though they may be in other respects.
And I hope Mr Rothley will forgive us for disagreeing with his way of thinking and preferring the rationale of the amendment by the European People's Party.
The Council too should not be misled about this for any reasons, on any pretexts or by any excuses.
We have fought for reforms a great deal in the European Parliament and have promoted important ones in recent years, not because we give way to the pressure of often perfidious attacks by the media, but because we believe in the need for radical reforms.
I believe that as a democratic body, it is our duty to show particular sensitivity towards any criticism offered in good faith.
Likewise, however, we must disregard attacks motivated by anti-European sentiments which aspire to discredit the European Parliament and the European Union's other institutional bodies.
No attempt to terrorise us must be allowed to divert us from our course, and we cannot conceal the fact that we particularly regret that a few of our colleagues have contributed to those attacks, courting popularity by denouncing their fellow parliamentarians and putting themselves forward as the only incorruptible ones, to ensure their re-election.
Mr President, we want the common Statute, but not a demeaning one which will offend our dignity.
And we are prepared to continue our fight unwaveringly on that basis.
Mr President, we are elected as Members of Parliament for constituencies in our respective countries whose voters we represent.
I therefore do not see any need to replace national rules relating to our terms of employment with a common statute.
The usual argument for this proposal is that we should have the same conditions, for example as regards salary.
Under the terms of the proposal, our conditions would continue to be different.
However, many of us would receive a large pay rise, which would be totally unjustified.
There is no good reason why we should be paid more than members of our national parliaments.
The proposal that we should have a special, very low EU tax is even more unwarranted.
Like other high income earners, we should pay tax where we live.
I trust that anyone who votes for the proposal on an EU tax will not oppose tax dumping on other occasions.
After all, what is this proposal if not an excuse for us, a highly privileged group, to give ourselves still more perks?
Mr President, according to the Treaty, the EU is an association of 15 independent states.
Members of the European Parliament represent voters in their own Member State, and no other.
It therefore goes without saying that salaries should be determined by individual Member States in accordance with national rules, and that tax should be paid where one lives, even if one is a Member of Parliament.
However, the significance of this report lies in the institutional changes that would take place as a result of the Statute, and which would mean that the ties between Members of the European Parliament and their electorates and national parliaments would be weakened and that we would end up rather like satellites.
Surely the dissatisfaction among Members over salaries is just a simple matter of envy? None of us is on the breadline yet!
This dissatisfaction has now become a pretext for introducing a statute that will mean a high salary, taxation and pension, all of them regulated by the EU.
As for travel allowances and the criticism levelled against them, this problem would have been resolved long ago had Parliament's Bureau so desired.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur set about his task with the intention of solving a problem, not with the intention of getting rid of a problem.
In September, he submitted a working paper to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights containing a list of the subjects that should be discussed in an external study he was proposing which would evaluate the tasks undertaken by the Members of the European Parliament.
Moreover, the results of the study were to be on the table in three months, after the conclusion and ratification of the Treaty.
Three months have not yet passed since the working paper was presented.
Although there is no study on the table, we are planning to adopt a complete Members' statute already, with no means of knowing whether the Amsterdam Treaty - without which, of course, the Statute would have no legal basis - will have entered into force before the end of the present parliamentary term in May.
Several times in the course of this debate, I have protested against this type of summary procedure, but to no avail.
I shall go along with this, but I cannot escape the feeling, or indeed the conviction, that we are shelving the problem instead of solving it.
Maximum transparency for all arrangements relating to the Statute - that is our foremost principle, as Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has already said.
The time of day, or rather night, that has been chosen for the discussion of this report in the European Parliament, a time when the public are automatically excluded, as it were, speaks volumes.
Is this our idea of transparency, or is this birth supposed to take place in secret? In this respect too, I have to conclude that we do not really want to solve the problem but only to rid ourselves of it.
For all that, I recognise unreservedly that a common European statute will be of immense value in lending weight to the European Parliament.
It is a very clear step towards closer integration.
Above all, it strengthens the democratic legitimacy of the European Parliament.
Nevertheless, it is important that such a statute should be adopted by an emphatic majority.
We should be seeking an absolute majority, because it would be illogical for us to make do with a smaller majority while requiring an absolute majority for any amendment, however insignificant, to the Rules of Procedure.
I do not entirely understand why the rapporteur responded so vehemently to the proposal by some Members that our remuneration should be based on a judge's salary.
In my view there is more cunning in the proposal to use the average salary.
It is certainly the line of least resistance, but above all it is a cunning ploy.
To me, however, the most important thing at the end of the day is that we should have an appropriate solution that we can explain to everyone - to ourselves and to the general public.
Let me offer my sincere thanks to the rapporteur for his endeavour in pursuit of this goal.
His efforts deserve our gratitude.
Mr President, as we consider any report or legal act, we must bear in mind that this House represents the citizens of Europe, and also that we are a legislative body.
As representatives of the citizens of Europe, we have a duty to our constituents.
As legislators, we are called upon to create an appropriate legal act, one that is legally sound and wellconceived.
The first of these considerations is particularly pertinent in this case.
It is abundantly clear that public opinion wishes the European Parliament to adopt a common statute for its Members. Such a statute must be based on the principle of equality of all Members, and must put an end to all arrangements which are the legacy of institutionalised inequalities.
Mr President, the courage and single-mindedness displayed by the rapporteur as he dealt with this issue deserves special mention. He did not hide behind the legal framework, the huge raft of rights and duties enshrined in a statute.
Instead, he came right out into the open, and tackled the central issue fearlessly and resolutely.
I am bound to say that I have engaged in a good deal of debate with the rapporteur, but he has consistently displayed a constructive attitude, even though we have not reached agreement on certain issues.
I should like my admiration for him and for the courage he has shown to go on record.
Turning first to the legal aspects, it has been mentioned that the Treaty of Amsterdam has not come into effect.
True, but that need not prevent us from undertaking the necessary preparatory work to enable the procedure to be concluded according to plan and in cooperation with the Council, once the Treaty of Amsterdam does come into effect.
I have every confidence that it will. If I were not so sure, I would be querying this report and many others as a matter of priority.
Secondly, it has been claimed that the transitional arrangements create transitional inequality - to quote Mr Rothley. It is envisaged that Members will be able to choose different arrangements during the coming legislature.
As legislators, however, we should be well aware that any significant legislative change entails transitional arrangements which may be quite different from what will finally be put in place. This is true of any of our legal systems and also, of course, of the Community system.
There are therefore no grounds for criticising Mr Rothley's approach on this point. One might or might not agree with him, but such arrangements are common practice in any major legislative reform like this one.
As regards the average salary, I supported this idea from the start, for the very good reason that, as I stated at the time and reiterate today, I can think of no better approach.
On this point I disagree with some colleagues who believe it would be better to establish a comparison with high-ranking civil servants.
I do not agree.
As for the legal aspects, I differ considerably from the rapporteur on technical details.
I wish him luck as he negotiates with the Council on these matters.
I feel that there is scope for improvement on the legal aspects of certain issues, and I hope this will be achieved through the amendments.
Mr President, I should like to conclude as I began, by expressing my admiration for the rapporteur and my gratitude for the work he has undertaken.
Mr President, after all the fuss over the expenses and salaries of Members of the European Parliament, tomorrow looks like being a good day.
What has been impossible for years - the same salary for all MEPs irrespective of nationality, plus a rigorous system for refunding expenses which is proof against abuse - looks like happening at last after 20 years.
That is a good thing, because this disparity in earnings and the abuse of expenses has well and truly poisoned the atmosphere in and around Parliament.
I must pay tribute here to Mr Rothley, who has done a fine job in bringing the complex task of producing a uniform statute to completion.
I must also echo Mrs Green in her compliments to Mr Gil-Robles and former President Hänsch.
It is they who got this thing moving, no one else, and though some may think it was other MEPs who did so, they were the ones, and they too deserve our congratulations.
Nevertheless, I have to highlight a few points on behalf of the Dutch CDA delegation, because we wish to mark out one or two lines of thought in our group in what will be a free vote.
We are in favour of the proposal for a uniform salary, based on an average of current national salaries.
We find that principle more important than the old suggestion of a certain percentage of the salary of a judge at the European Court.
So we support Mr Rothley there.
We agree with the option of allowing the old system to continue for five years in the case of Members who have been in it for years.
We think that is a reasonable way of dealing with the old system.
And we think it is a good thing that the voluntary supplementary pension is being phased out.
Whether that happens in 1999 or 2004 is a personal choice.
But it is good that it should not continue for longer than it needs to.
As regards taxation, we are in favour of levying European taxes on a European system and national taxes on national systems.
Lastly, on the subject of travel expenses we have always favoured a rigorous system for repayment of travel and subsistence costs.
We are glad that this is at last being sorted out.
Tomorrow is an important day, and I sincerely hope that the Rothley report will be approved by a large majority, so that we can at last draw a line under these sordid discussions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as many colleagues have said, the lack of a Members' statute has been noticeable for at least 20 years, so a proposal for one is most welcome.
Yet in my opinion, although I acknowledge Mr Rothley's deep commitment, the draft is unsatisfactory because it confuses the question of an MEP's status - a vast and complex topic, involving rights and obligations - with that of his emoluments.
This is a very narrow approach, which I believe is unprecedented in the statutes of parliamentarians around the world.
What is more, despite focusing solely on economic problems in the main, the draft sets out to solve these by taking an average of the allowances currently fixed by the individual national governments.
Personally, I believe that it would be fairer to link MEPs' allowances to those of another Community regime, and at the same time for us in this House, together with the other institutions, to advocate an across-the-board reduction in all Community salaries, which are too high in objective terms.
But on this issue, raised by myself and other colleagues back in 1995, nothing has been done and nothing is likely to be done.
Let me finally make one other point: the proposed reform leaves intact the existing - and controversial - voluntary fund for Members' supplementary pensions, financed mainly from the public purse but managed privately in a haphazard way, to put it mildly.
I criticised this disgraceful state of affairs in 1995 when I realised how the fund operated, and withdrew from it along with other colleagues.
I now regret that this opportunity has not been grasped to abolish the fund or to stipulate that Members wishing to belong to it must finance it entirely from their own pockets.
Thank you, Mr Florio.
Before I close the debate, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has asked to raise a point of order.
Mr President, I will speak for just one minute, pursuant to Rules 19 and 22 of the Rules of Procedure, which also define your duties as President of the sitting and the duties of the Bureau.
During this debate, I have heard officials being called into question and Mr Anastassopoulos, the Vice-President, with whom I have discussed this issue - which is why I am saying it in public - mentioned the possibility of bringing the system for reimbursing Members into line with that for officials, and said that this was detrimental to Parliament's dignity.
I must say that I was shocked by this statement and I must ask you, in my capacity as a Member of the Bureau which is responsible for the administrative organisation of Parliament's work, to reassure our officials of the esteem in which their Members hold them.
There are countries where ministers and heads of state have salaries defined in relation to their civil servants' salaries.
I am not in favour of this system, but I find that to say that bringing Members' salaries into line with officials' salaries would harm Parliament's dignity is an insult to these officials, who help us and who serve everyone's interests.
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
What you have said will be recorded in the Verbatim Report of Proceedings and also in the Minutes.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
External representation of Euro
The next item is the report (A4-0439/98) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the representation and position taking of the Community at international level in the context of economic and monetary union (COM(98)0637 - C4-0638/98).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Herman.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, who should represent the euro externally? It would seem that this controversial question that Parliament has already raised on several occasions has just been answered with a compromise reached yesterday, without waiting for Parliament's opinion.
Who should speak for the euro? It should, of course, be the President of the European Central Bank, as there will only be one monetary policy and, this being the case, we may ask what role the governors of national banks can still play in any sort of international body as they no longer have any say in this matter.
But the union we have is an economic and monetary one. Who, therefore, will represent the economic side of monetary union?
Who is in the best position to do so? According to the Council, the President of the Council is in the best position as it is the Council that must ensure that economic policies are coordinated.
Let us challenge this statement.
If we were entirely dependent on the Council for ensuring economic coordination, there would never be any economic coordination.
The ministers who sit in the Council of Ministers defend their national policy first and foremost.
That is their role, they are elected to do so, they are paid to do so and none of them has any reason to defend the common interest.
It is not their job.
What is more, the Council is an intermittent institution.
The President of the Council is appointed every six months, and there are major differences between successive presidencies.
A President barely has the time to get to know the matters in hand before having to give way to his successor, who must also begin the learning process from scratch.
When the Union is represented by the Council in difficult negotiations, the result is disastrous, as we can see by looking back at past experiences. When the Commission is not leading the talks - as we saw in Geneva and have seen elsewhere - the outcome is deplorable because, in the Council, an agreement is often reached according to the lowest common denominator.
Also, the President of the Council often finds it difficult to split his duties as President and as a national leader.
I will only give one example.
Mr Oskar Lafontaine will be the next President of the ECOFIN Council.
Mr Lafontaine is now well-known the world over for the relatively inopportune and untimely statements he has made on a range of issues, which do not reflect the common position in any way.
I do not wish to accuse Mr Lafontaine of being schizophrenic, but when he goes to Washington to speak for the Community, the language he uses will inevitably be different from that which he uses as Minister of Finance in Germany. This will not increase the credit, or in any case the credibility, of monetary union in the eyes of the world's major financiers and finance ministers.
This is why I believe that the Council's position is not the best on this occasion, based as it is on restricted formal arguments.
I believe that it would have been of more use to make the Commission the representative of the common interest, as that is its permanent and institutional role.
What is more, this would provide continuity in the issues being dealt with.
Therefore, I am most disappointed that these common sense arguments - which also conform with the spirit of the Treaty - have not been acknowledged and that we are heading towards a compromise where the Commission will play a minor technical assistance role as an observer.
It will be there to provide information for ministers who speak for the Community and nothing more.
I regret this decision.
I hope that reality will win through and that continuity and the severity of international life will show that we will only obtain the best results by increasing the Commission's powers in this field.
Mr President, since the Maastricht Treaty was so vague, this definition is all the more important since it has enabled the European Union to be properly represented internationally.
Fernand Herman's report is a worthwhile contribution on this issue.
Of course, our strategy in relation to the IMF needs to be considered at a later stage.
Under the terms of its statutes there can clearly only be national representations, but that makes it vital for the EU to have a monitoring role at least.
However, in the future thought should be given to whether certain changes need to be made to these statutes. When it comes to IMF intervention in budget policy, which would continue to be decided by the Member States, we must not overlook the fact that the scale of our involvement is much larger.
Apart from institutional doubts, we should nonetheless welcome the fact that we are sure about the policy to be pursued, ensuring the euro's credibility and stability by means of flexible policies and avoiding shocks with the very negative consequences that they would have.
Let us hope, therefore, that recent changes of government, in particular in Germany - mentioned a little while ago by Mr Herman himself - do not lead to any change on this score. They might be tempted in all innocence and in the hope that it would be popular - but that popularity would be short-lived.
Mr President, the introduction of the euro will have a major impact not only for EU citizens but also on the international monetary and financial system.
The introduction of the euro will give the European Community a monetary presence that corresponds to its economic and commercial influence in the world economy.
I regret that certain members of the new German Government are pursuing political headlines on tax issues and have given Eurosceptics a field day when sure-footedness and consensus are required at this vital time.
It is essential that the Community speak with one voice internationally where issues relating to EMU are discussed and decided.
It is too serious an issue for distracting and divisive solo runs on taxation issues which are clearly in the domain of unanimity and national governments.
There must be one voice and one position.
The proposal for a Council decision provides that for issues relating to EMU the Community shall be represented at international level by the Council and the European Central Bank with the participation of the Commission.
Each of these institutions has its own specific competitiveness.
The changes brought about by the introduction of the euro will affect position-taking and representation at international level.
We can support the proposal for a Council decision but my group does not believe that it is sensible.
We support a role for the Commission in line with Mr Herman's proposals.
The dawn of the euro is almost upon us and it is vital that we speak with one voice and that there should be continuity at international level as recommended by Mr Herman.
Mr President, I wish to endorse the rapporteur's position most emphatically, because our group also feels strongly about this matter and not least because the report reflects the spirit and the substance of our endeavours to ensure that this European Union is properly represented.
From that point of view, it is absolutely right that the European Union should be represented on international financial bodies not only by the European Central Bank and not only by the Council in the form of the eleven participating states, but also by the European Commission.
The task of the European Commission is to serve as the engine of integration and the guardian of the Treaties.
For that reason, the same arrangement must apply within the global financial system as in the global trading system.
The Commission must play its special prominent role.
That is what makes yesterday's decision by the Council of Finance Ministers so extremely regrettable.
It does not pave the way for future decisions, because there is no guarantee that the European Union - even when it only comprises the participants in monetary union - will speak with one voice.
That, however, must be our objective.
We in the European Union have paid dearly for our failure to speak with one voice during the rounds of world trade negotiations.
When it comes to the international financial system, a united front is absolutely imperative.
The cause of democracy and integration would certainly be best served if we were to adopt the proposal made by the rapporteur, Mr Herman, and accord the European Commission its due place as a representative, and not as a subsidiary representative, of the European Union as well as of the euro area.
Mr President, last night I sat in the House of Commons and I listened to the Chief Secretary of the Government of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland.
He said very plainly that his government would resist any attempt to take away the veto on taxation.
We have heard the spokesmen of France and Germany this week make it clear that they want the veto to go and we are now on a collision course.
This cannot help our economy, especially as it comes under more and more pressure.
What has happened in the Far East could happen elsewhere tomorrow, even in the United States of America and in Europe.
Today we are on a collision course.
Let me make it clear that I have always believed that the future for this Union is in the cooperation of sovereign nation states and not in the incorporation of nation states into a single international superstate.
Mr President, twelve months ago the euro-11 was set up as an informal grouping which was answerable to no one, it is true, but was not required to take any formal decisions either.
We now find that the presidency of the euro-11 is to speak for Euroland in bodies like the G7 and IMF, and on visits to individual countries.
Not only does this give a casual but powerful boost to the two-speed concept which the integration of Schengen into the Amsterdam Treaty is supposed to eliminate, but more importantly we see an intergovernmental model being introduced into what is the most far-reaching Community measure to date under the first pillar.
In the second pillar, we are desperately seeking to give the Union's foreign policy a single face and a single voice at last with Mr or Mrs CFSP.
At the same time, we are entrusting the external representation of economic and monetary union not to the Commission, the guardian of the Treaties and the executive arm, but to a Council presidency - changing every six months - of the euro-11, a body which does not officially exist and is accountable to no one.
Something is fundamentally wrong here, ladies and gentlemen.
EMU is coming off the rails here before it has even started.
This is the price we are paying for the fact that too many decisions in Europe today are left to the narrow scrutiny of the finance ministers, under the prompting of the even narrower circles of the Monetary Committee.
A single Euroland needs a single representation.
But Henry Kissinger's call for just one European telephone number will not be met with a presidency which changes every six months.
In practice, the Americans will telephone either the chairman of the Economic and Financial Committee, who does not change every six months, or one of the permanent members of the G7, although they will not know who that member is speaking for.
If Euroland takes itself seriously in its commitment to acting responsibly, the number to ring should be that of European Commission.
European coordination should happen as soon as possible, so that Europe really can speak with one voice.
The Commission should refuse to go along with the current proposals of ECOFIN, whereby the Commission might give a helping hand to the presidency of the euro-11.
It should withdraw its proposal too.
No one can represent the European Union in the present-day G7.
It would be better to disband it and start again from scratch with a G3.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank the House for having included this item on the agenda.
It comes at just the right time, that is to say just after the Council's decision and - this may well come as a surprise - I would personally like to thank the European Parliament for making such a valuable contribution and supporting the Commission's proposal. This was an important factor in the success of yesterday's meeting of the Council of Ministers for Economic and Financial Affairs.
I will come back to that in a moment but the fact still remains that the Commission is grateful to you.
The agreement reached yesterday is a satisfactory one.
It is a political agreement, and it incorporates the basic principles of the Commission proposal on the Community's external representation of the euro, which will be tripartite in nature.
Before going into detail on the content and form of this agreement, let me remind you of the objective.
The objective and what is at stake is important as the euro must be given a voice so the Community can be present in the international monetary arena to defend its interests, to participate in managing and preventing crises and, on a more general level, to adapt the international monetary system.
The euro will provide Europe with true monetary existence.
Europe will also have a presence in the international arena which will better reflect its weight in economic matters.
Let us discuss the form of the agreement.
Firstly, it is a good agreement and to those who have expressed reservations I would say that, in this case, it is better to leave well alone.
This is a transitional agreement, a realistic agreement, and it has been reached before 31 December, in other words before the birth of the euro, something which seemed far from likely even just a few days ago.
I believe there are two aspects which must be emphasised.
The first aspect is defining a common position for the Union.
Before each international meeting, a common position for the Union will be defined by means of coordination between the Member States, under the guidance of the President of the Euro 11, as is the usual practice. This coordination can take place very rapidly as the Commission has been asked to install a videoconference system linking the Commission, the Central Bank and the finance ministers.
I would add that these decisions, the positions adopted by the Council, will be prepared by the Economic and Financial Affairs Committee. In other words, they will be based on input, or possibly a proposal, from the Commission and this will happen before every major international meeting.
Therefore, we will be guaranteed a common position of the European Union, of the euro zone, for any meeting and any deadline.
The second issue is that of representation of the Community.
The form of representation that has been defined will allow Europe to speak with a single voice, whilst respecting the competences of the institutions concerned.
There is an economic side and a monetary side.
It is only natural that this voice, in order to be heard, should use several vocal cords, in accordance with the will of the Heads of State and Government as expressed at the Luxembourg European Council last December.
Yesterday's agreement lays down a role for the Council, a role for the Central Bank and a role for the Commission.
This is a tripartite representation, as your rapporteur stressed.
The three parts cannot be separated and they are vital if economic and monetary union and the euro are to operate smoothly.
To be a little more specific and to dispel certain misunderstandings - which were probably caused by press comments made yesterday - allow me, as someone who participated in the negotiations from start to finish, tell you exactly what specific decisions were taken in three cases, by way of example.
Firstly, in formal institutions such as the G7 or G10, it was decided, in accordance with the Commission's proposal, that the Council will be represented by the President of the Euro 11, the President of the European Central Bank and the relevant Member of the Commission.
These three form the Community delegation.
As for the Commission, it is not simply playing a minor role.
Nowhere in the agreement will you find terms outlining the technical assistance role which it is claimed the Commission has been given.
The Commission is there to provide help, as is perfectly normal, to provide support and to play a useful and efficient role.
And I should like to reassure the rapporteur that you can count on the Commission to be ready and willing to fulfil this role.
In order to ensure continuity in the representation of the euro and in view of the rotating presidencies, a minister from a G7 Member State will support the President of the Euro 11.
As regards formal international institutions, I will take the case of the IMF and look beyond the current provisions, which already give the Commission observer status in the Interim Committee. This agreement provides for the ECB to have observer status in the Interim Committee and in the Executive Board.
It also provides for the relevant member of the Executive Director's Office holding the Presidency of the Euro 11, assisted by a Commission representative, to express common positions in the Executive Board. This means, in a very real sense, that the Commission will have access to all the necessary information to allow it to fulfil its role, particularly as regards multilateral supervision.
Lastly, as regards bilateral missions, the arrangements for missions in third countries will be defined by the Presidency of the Euro 11 or by the ECOFIN Council on a case-by-case basis, which I think is simply common sense.
On the basis of the Commission proposal, these arrangements will be translated into a decision under Article 109(4), once approved by the Heads of State and Government, and will be discussed with the third countries involved.
I would like to inform you here that the President of the Commission, Jacques Santer, has already announced that because there is to be a Euro-American summit on 18 December, it will fall to him and the President of the Council, Chancellor Klima, to discuss this with the Americans.
In conclusion, I believe we must stress the importance of this agreement and its transitional nature.
To my great regret there are only eleven of us in the euro, not fifteen.
To my great regret, it is not possible to change the statutes of the International Monetary Fund in a few weeks.
Yet this agreement is still a positive one, even if it is only transitional, and it is nonetheless an agreement which will allow us to launch EMU in full on 1 January under the best possible conditions.
And I can assure you that as far as the Commission is concerned, it will keep you closely informed of developments in discussions, as always, and of the development of the international aspects of the euro.
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Monetary and financial crisis
The next item is the report (A4-0441/98) by Mrs Randzio-Plath, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the world monetary and financial crises and their effects on the economy of the European Union.
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Randzio-Plath.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the economic and financial crises have highlighted the need, especially for our ancient continent of Europe and for the European Union, to redesign the international economic and financial structures.
The Bretton Woods institutions are more than 54 years old; they are not designed to meet the challenges of globalisation.
That is why a new international financial system is needed, and the restructuring must begin with the International Monetary Fund.
As an advisory and administrative body, the interim committee is an anachronism and must be replaced by a political council.
This institutional reform is vitally important, because we need a political council which will take decisions, which will assume responsibility for financial decisions and which will not pass the buck to the administrative staff when things go wrong.
We want to ensure that financial decisions have political backing too.
Moreover, I believe that the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements, the World Bank and even the World Trade Organisation must cooperate more closely and coordinate their operations.
What we need, in other words, is reform of these institutions, and the G7 will certainly not be untouched by these reforms either.
After all, not every region of the world is represented at the G7 meetings.
We have become painfully aware of the pitfalls of solving crises without the proper involvement of the affected regions in the decision-making process.
For that reason, it is important to consider whether a UN Security Council for Economic Affairs would not solve the problem of worldwide representation and whether such a body could not serve to underline the fact that security today primarily means economic and social security.
At the same time, of course, there must be no underestimating the reforms required by the existing institutions.
These should include changes to the way in which the International Monetary Fund operates.
The existing system of imposing conditions and the stereotyped manner in which they are adapted for individual countries have done more to exacerbate crises than to contain or resolve them.
Admittedly, reforming operational methods is but one side of the coin; what is especially crucial is that the International Monetary Fund should have adequate financial resources.
The last set of G7 decisions points in the right direction, but I believe we have still to find the right solution in terms of the working methods and finances of the International Monetary Fund.
The rules of the International Monetary Fund must also be restructured, amended and applied more effectively to ensure that assistance can be quickly obtained and organised to deal with liquidity shortages such as those that have given rise to crises in recent months and years.
There must be greater openness, so that moratoria, safeguard clauses and suspension agreements can be put in place as the foundation stones of rescheduling plans, which have invariably been devised too late in crisis situations and have essentially been inappropriate into the bargain.
Alongside the monitoring of short-term capital influxes, consideration must also be given in this context to organising some sort of temporary system to control the movement of capital out of the country or countries in question.
Another important element, as far as we in the European Union are concerned, is the creation of new legal instruments so that the finance markets become more transparent and financial information becomes more freely available and more reliable.
What is needed here is the globalisation of regulatory and supervisory systems in this age of increasingly deregulated and liberalised capital transactions.
After all, the market economy has shown throughout the world that economic and financial relations have been unable to function smoothly in practice without a regulatory framework.
That is why particular attention must be paid to short-term international movements of capital, which have plunged many countries into crisis.
Comprehensive monitoring of these capital flows is essential.
But it is also high time that governments themselves began to provide incentives which would help to encourage a greater volume of long-term credit commitments.
Since the Mexican crisis, there has been a 'moral hazard' problem.
Private and institutional investors are running ever greater risks in the quest for maximised returns.
In so doing, they rely on the fact that, if a liquidity crisis occurs, the International Monetary Fund will overcome the problem, because the adverse effects of financial crises on national economies, on business, growth, investment and employment, are so great and incalculable that they warrant the use of tax revenue to minimise the risks for private investors.
It is time a framework was found within which the private sector could be made to foot its share of the crisismanagement bill.
Another point: an efficient system for the supervision and monitoring of financial activities must also be established and enforced for the flood of new financial products that are contributing to the fragility and volatility of the finance markets.
We cannot prohibit derivatives, but we must see to it that they are subject to supervision and control.
Besides the supervision of banks, we also need supervision of non-banking institutions.
Close cooperation is required here between the International Monetary Fund, national governments and the Bank for International Settlements.
What we also need are definitive, globally applicable quality standards for financial information as well as for other information systems.
There will always be financial crises.
The potential for crises, however, must be reduced, because crises in today's financial markets affect the real economy.
That is why we must ensure that the effects of these crises on growth, investment and employment are contained, not only in the crisis-torn countries themselves but also in the newly industrialised countries, in the developing countries and in the industrialised countries too.
For that reason, political cooperation is needed in order to ensure that the European and US trade cycles remain stable and in step with each other, and there is also a need for cooperation between the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve.
We must also ensure that stable exchange rates are maintained between the main currencies of the world.
In the age of the euro, we must help to make sure that those regions with the power to create stability in the international currency markets actually exercise that power to contribute to the development of a fairer international financial system in response to the challenges of globalisation.
Another important objective is a fairer global distribution of wealth.
That will only become achievable when we in the European Union know that we too can contribute to this crisismanagement strategy through our European plans of action, not by intervening to sort out crises, but by helping to prevent the development of critical situations.
Mr President, I will confine myself here to what we as the European Union can do about the financial crisis.
Firstly, we must remain open to exports from the countries hit by the crisis.
And we can do so, because the European Union has so far actually profited from the crisis; the flight into sound capital from non-Union countries to Europe has caused interest rates on our capital markets to plummet.
Because of a falling-off in demand and low raw materials prices, our inflation has sunk to an all-time low.
As a result, growth in Europe is even higher than was expected in the spring.
If exports from the crisis countries with their devalued currencies now increase, we cannot suddenly hit the brakes with anti-dumping levies.
If these countries cannot dispose of their products in Europe, with its trade balance surplus, where can they do so?
Secondly, Europe must help to provide for scrutiny of flight capital flowing into developing countries.
Enforcement of the internationally agreed prudential rules, which will probably need further tightening, is a crucial first step towards this.
Thirdly, the IMF must focus less on buying out western private banks at the expense of governments and ultimately the population in debtor countries and more on the preservation of purchasing power, production and self-help in debtor countries.
If private banking is itself made to share the responsibility for preventing and combating crises, this kind of financial policy is feasible without any need to increase the IMF's resources.
The shift in the IMF's thinking needed to achieve this is hardly something which the IMF's interim committee can be expected to bring about, made up as it is of conservative bankers and finance ministers.
Nor do I see how upgrading the interim committee or merging the committees of the IMF and World Bank could be instrumental in bringing about this necessary change.
Fourthly, the EU must help to ensure that standard clauses are introduced into contracts whereby debt renewal incurs a penalty.
If clauses like this had been in place, much of the misery we are now seeing in the debtor countries could have been avoided.
Lastly, of course a great deal has to change in a number of the debtor countries themselves.
But to say all of a sudden, after the event, that this is where the fault lay is unworthy.
Many of the countries affected were given excellent marks by all the international bodies and their associated experts.
Conveniently forgetting that is unhealthy, and stops us from reflecting on our own mistakes, something I have found sadly lacking in our debate on the crisis so far.
Mr President, the world economy is undoubtedly caught up in a significant crisis.
Nevertheless, the data for the European Union are extremely encouraging.
This year's average inflation rate for the countries participating in monetary union is expected to work out at 1.5 %, their national budget deficits at 2 % and their economic growth at 3 %. It is a long time since such favourable economic statistics were last recorded.
For all our discussion of the global crises, it is worth emphasising that the European Union is the bastion of stability in the world, not least because of the decision to introduce the euro, Commissioner de Silguy.
These are the facts we have to discuss. We must not forget that.
Mrs Randzio-Plath's report contains many useful ideas, but there are some points to which we certainly cannot subscribe.
I intend to enumerate these points in the short time at my disposal, since I do not expect to be given so much additional time as the honourable Members on the other side of the House.
First of all, we do not believe that there is any benefit at all to be derived from short-term capital controls.
Secondly, the establishment of a Security Council for Economic Affairs under the auspices of the United Nations is nothing but a pipe dream.
Thirdly, Mrs Randzio-Plath, Amendment No 5, which you foisted on us by way of a compromise, seeks to omit investments from the calculation of the budget deficit under the stability and growth pact.
There was absolutely no need for you to defer to Mr Lafontaine in that way!
Nevertheless, we do need transparency in the realm of finance. Let me briefly list the three things we need.
Firstly, we need transparency at the national and international levels, because the markets could not function otherwise.
Secondly, we need a multilateral monitoring system, especially in the domain of fiscal policy.
Thirdly, we need reforms in the context of the national finance markets. The fluctuation margins for the yen, euro and dollar proposed by Mr Lafontaine are unhelpful, because we can only earn the right to make such demands by pursuing sound economic, fiscal and monetary policies.
That is precisely the path which the European Union is following.
We therefore welcome the approach proposed by the Commission.
Mr President, the international financial crisis shocked the world, and many people claim to have been taken by surprise.
We have identified a number of the causes of it, and Mrs Randzio-Plath has highlighted them in her report.
Mr Metten says that we must not complain after the event, but we were forced to realise at the hearing of financial experts that there are gaps in our information system.
The IMF has no early knowledge of a number of figures, because the figures are unreliable and because it is clear that different countries apply different standards of measurement.
Countries in Asia which have seen very fast growth and which were very important to Europe and America succumbed all of a sudden to Asian flu.
Asia has been sick, but Europe will start sniffling if we are not careful and Europe has done relatively well with the euro.
Those countries which sadly are not yet joining the euro still have a problem.
Transparency, good controls and standardised rules will be essential.
So we Liberals think it is important to apply the same standards, but that it is no use having a sort of security council for the economy or a decision-making power within the IMF.
That would just mean more talking shops, and I would have thought we had enough talk shows on television already. We need action.
We need unambiguity. We need clarity.
The market too can have a share in this.
The market too can take risks here.
If we follow a sound economic policy, review the situation properly and take account of cultural differences - because there are plenty of those in Asia - then the right thing for Europe to do, and Europe must see that it does this, may be to play a role and help ensure that stability is restored as fast as possible. Stability will open the way for more jobs to be created and for more growth in these countries, and in Europe as well.
Mr President, may I say to Mr Langen that I do not believe the old way of thinking will take us very far.
There is now a real need for a new way of thinking.
It is dangerous when Europe and the Europeans like you, Mr Langen, believe we are on one of the Islands of the Blessed here and take a Pharisaic delight in having been spared the effects of the crises.
What is really important is that Europe should use its favourable position to play an active part in ensuring that others can once more set their feet on dry land.
To that end, we need stabilised exchange rates, supervision, transparency, control and ultimately a social and ecological reconstruction of the key international economic institutions.
Mrs Randzio-Plath is absolutely right: we also need a basic political consensus on this matter.
It must be developed within the United Nations, difficult though that may be to achieve and hard as it may be to imagine after 20 years of neo-liberal policies.
But in the world of finance in particular, Mr Langen, the dialectics of power will always apply.
The mighty, through their arrogance, invariably sow the seeds of their own downfall.
Thank you, Mr Langen.
I am always grateful for helpful comments from the House, and I am glad you drew my attention to this point.
I had not realised this was Mr Goedbloed's maiden speech, as it was so accomplished.
I might be excused, perhaps, because he spoke as if he were an old hand in the House.
Judging by your speech, Mr Goedbloed, I am quite sure that you have much to contribute to this Parliament in the future.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, do you wish to raise a point of order?
Please do not open a further debate at this point.
Mr President, since my colleague from the Group of the European People's Party made a comment about a German politician, I should like to put on record the fact that my Amendment No 5 is in line with the position of this House on the principles of economic policy, a position which, I might add, was adopted last year by the European Parliament in plenary sitting.
Thank you, Mrs Randzio-Plath.
At this hour of the night, one can be generous with points of order.
However, we are not going to embark on a new debate, and Mr Lukas now has the floor for one minute.
Mr President, what a pity that the honourable Member had to make his maiden speech at midnight before an empty Chamber.
But it is an even greater pity that such an important and excellent report could not have been discussed before now.
I consider it excellent, even though I cannot endorse everything it says.
It would naturally be ludicrous to try to deal in the space of one minute with all the points on which we differ.
I should merely like to say how deeply I regret the fact - and this is not a digression from the subject - that the report does not devote a single word to the problems of child labour and child abuse.
The way in which these two problems have become so serious and so widespread in our time is also a result of the globalisation process.
The Asian crisis has had an enormous impact on these abuses.
Child-sex tourism in particular is thriving as a result of the falling exchange rates.
I believe we can speak of a globalisation of perversion.
The European Union ought to speak out on that aspect of the crisis too.
Mr President, I shall dispense with diagnoses, already conducted in great detail, and move straight on to three points concerning the prognosis of what is to be done.
Firstly, it seems perfectly clear to me that there are two somewhat conflicting views: some stress the need for more controls and dirigisme ; others think it more important to make the market function better.
This latter argument strikes me as the more convincing one, not least because the recent financial events have revealed the need to step up prudential supervision, to improve transparency and the flow of information, and thus to lay down rules which are more in keeping with the new operating environment.
On the other hand, the idea of managing to control capital flows, both directly and indirectly, could not only turn out to be pure wishful thinking but also lead to a highly inefficient allocation of resources.
Secondly, on the subject of volatility, I would stress that this problem is bound to persist and creates a need above all for the appropriate instruments to eliminate the risks resulting from it, rather than for inefficient control measures which cannot possibly function, given the volumes and operating methods that are typical of financial markets nowadays.
We shall soon see this within the next few weeks, in respect of the euro/dollar exchange rate.
Nor, I am sure, does anyone think the conditions still exist today to return to something resembling the old Bretton Woods system, which we all remember so well.
I would just say a word on my third point: let us show more concern - as the rapporteur quite rightly does in her text - for the weakest links in the chain, namely for economies such as those of Latin America, and Brazil in particular, which - only partly through their own fault - are experiencing hard times, although not totally desperate ones. They require full support from us, for their sakes and likewise for our own.
Mr President, at the end of 1996 the Wall Street Dow Jones index hit the 6400 barrier.
It then went from record to record and last June peaked at 9337 points.
Then everything collapsed: there was a domino effect around all of the world's exchanges without exception and widespread panic in the financial markets, with a number of different countries on the verge of economic collapse. That led the IMF, the OECD and the European Union hastily to revise downwards their forecasts of miraculous economic growth announced for 1998 and 1999.
Apparently, the world financial crisis took everyone by surprise.
Doctors of economics, financial analysts, business journalists, political decision-makers who were all, until four months ago, singing the praises of the global financial market were all caught up in a monumental fiasco because of their lack of foresight.
But Japan had been sliding for some time.
The Russian economy had long been as sick as its president and European banks had poured 48 billion dollars into a country no longer in control of its own currency.
For a long time the so-called emerging economies had been burying themselves up to their necks in debt.
Years of certainty suddenly all seemed to be called into question.
Already yesterday's apostles of ultra-liberalism are casting doubt on the ability of markets to self-regulate or claiming that there can be no growth without full freedom of capital movement.
This backto-business or return to greater state interventionism as well as intervention by international financial organisations is quite evident in this report and in this resolution.
Suddenly the dictionary used in financial circles has been taken over by terms such as control, transparency, reform, public investment, guarantees, risk, coordination, codes, conduct, ethics, safeguard, supervision, balance, plans and action.
In other words, the ruling classes have finally realised that the globalisation of markets without political and legal frameworks and concern for the social dimension of its consequences poses a threat to international stability.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mrs RandzioPlath on her report, which asks us to give serious consideration to a grave problem, that of the effect of financial crises.
This is a problem worthy of our attention.
Therefore, we congratulate your on your initiative, and we are taking due note of your recommendations.
I must point out that the Commission is not inactive in this area and is well aware that the Union has a specific role to play, particularly as regards the arrival of the euro and its development.
I should like to consider three important questions raised by your rapporteur.
Firstly, what are the solutions to the current crisis? We must not go back on the free movement of capital, as Mr Langen underlined.
I believe this is a wise judgement.
Experience has shown that all attempts to control the movement of capital do not work and are counterproductive.
In fact, capital flows out but does not flow back in.
Developing countries need capital in order to develop.
But freedom comes with its own demands including, as you highlighted, for the private sector.
There are three demands: transparency, monitoring and vigilance.
On the subject of transparency, we are a long way from achieving full transparency.
Some investment funds are currently in a position to invest several hundred billion euros, without being under any obligation to declare their operations to the supervisory authorities, nor even to their shareholders.
I believe that such a lack of transparency is dangerous, and recent events have demonstrated this.
It is also shocking, as monetary authorities are under constant pressure to determine public authorities' levels of exchange reserves much more accurately and rapidly.
We therefore need to examine ways of putting an end to such imbalances in transparency.
As for monitoring, we must also develop our supervision instruments.
The famous Cook ratio was a considerable step forward in financial history and probably averted many crises, but I believe that it has now reached its limits, particularly as it only applies to banks.
We must therefore develop a way to monitor off balance-sheet business more efficiently, and we must develop stricter accounting practices. I am thinking of the scale of bad debt brought to light by the fact- finding operation currently underway in Asia.
Lastly, the third element is vigilance.
We need to increase our capacity for collective prevention.
We know that today, for example, we need to develop the multilateral supervision of macroeconomic policies, particularly as regards exchange rates and short term capital flows.
On this point let me say that - unusually perhaps - I do not agree with the rapporteur's idea of creating an Economic Security Council under the aegis of the United Nations.
Why? Because we actually already have a body within the United Nations called the IMF, and the issue now seems to me to be how to develop the structure of the International Monetary Fund to make it better prepared to prevent and even to contain crises.
In view of this and in view of what you call 'political accountability' - if I have understood correctly - I think that the possible transformation of the IMF Interim Committee into a true decision-making global body, with its role extended to include supervision, as President Chirac recently suggested, is an idea worth further consideration.
The second question is what Europe's role should be.
It is twofold. Europe must firstly set an example and contribute to discussions.
But if the real challenges are on a worldwide rather than a continental scale, Europe can play an important part in adapting the international monetary and financial system.
Europe has already made a number of contributions here, and I will quickly give you a few examples.
There is the recent communication on financial services presented by Mario Monti, 'Building a Framework for Action', which, as of June 1999, should lead to measures and timetables for limiting financial instability in several fields.
There is also the creation of the Forum of European Securities Commissions (FESCO), under the auspices of the Commission, and the banking supervision committee within the European System of Central Banks.
All these measures constitute a real step forward.
There is a particular need to establish a rapid and safe exchange of information between supervisory authorities and the competent monetary authorities. As regards accounting practices, the Commission supports the work of the International Accounting Standard and will review with the Member States the rules which apply to the capital of financial establishments, taking account of the work of the Basle Committee.
On a commercial level, I would remind you that the Commission was the first to call for the launch of a new series of multilateral negotiations - the 'Millennium Round' - and to ensure that these negotiations would be applied to financial services.
That will do for a brief list of examples.
As for contributing to discussions, the Commission played an active part in the debates and, in particular, in the recent initiatives of the G7.
It is the source of the communication which was adopted yesterday by the ECOFIN Council for the European Council on strengthening the international financial system.
This communication stresses the central role which the Union should now play in the new architecture of the international financial system, and the strengthening of economic and financial cooperation with emerging and developing countries.
This brings me on to prevention.
The private sector should be involved in resolving crises and should take its share of responsibility.
However, Europe's real contribution to the international debate is directly linked to the quality of its external representation, but as we discussed this earlier I will not go back over it now.
In view of the time, I will not go into the third and last matter now. I thought it would be raised in the debate, but I do hope we will have a chance to address it at a later date, since you have included it in your report.
It concerns whether we need to draw up a European plan for stimulating investment. I will simply say that, this morning, acting on my proposal, the Commission adopted an interesting communication on this matter which, whilst of course pointing out the budget policy line, raises a number of possibilities that Europe could implement.
I hope that we will have an opportunity to discuss this in more detail in the coming weeks.
As you can see, the Commission generally shares your views and I can assure you that it will closely follow developments in these areas in its recommendations on the convergence and stability programmes.
But I would like to end by reassuring the House that the Commission is carrying out its full responsibilities in the current debate on the new architecture of the international monetary system.
The introduction of the euro also gives us an incentive to play a more active role in this field.
I believe that the decisions which were taken yesterday on external representation will give us the instrument we need to put our ideas into practice.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I wish to raise a matter which is not covered by yesterday's minutes.
However, it is a serious matter.
Many of us today will be travelling home by plane.
Many of us will be using the services of the company LSG Lufthansa Skychef.
I wish to report to this House that last week four hundred workers who took part in a legally called strike were summarily dismissed by that company.
I hope that all Members of the European Parliament will complain about this outrageous breach of human rights.
Mrs McNally, that is a matter for individual Members.
Mr President, I should like to return to page 17 of the Minutes.
Yesterday evening, at the start of the discussion on the Rothley report on the Members' Statute, I tabled a preliminary question pursuant to Rule 128.
Under this Rule, the President should have asked if there was a speaker in favour and a speaker against the motion, before putting it to the vote.
No doubt mistakenly advised, the President of the sitting decided of his own accord - as is stated in the Minutes - that the report I contested was perfectly admissible.
I should like you to use this incident, which I consider to be very serious simply because it calls into question the rights of Members and the application of the Rules of Procedure, as an opportunity to give instructions, both to those who substitute for you as President of the sitting and to all the advisers, that the Rules of Procedure are to be applied and that the rights of the majority should not take precedence over the legal position of minorities.
The interpretation given was clearly mistaken and I should like you to formally confirm this today.
I appreciate the views of Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, and I agree with him as regards the decision that he took.
As I understood it, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy was not seeking to attack the officials who advise the President.
In any event, I shall refer Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's comments to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, since he has raised an important procedural question.
The committee will either confirm the interpretation given by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz or correct it, and that will clarify the situation.
Thank you for telling us that, Mr Rübig. I think it will encourage the security service to continue its activities for the benefit of us all.
(The Minutes were approved)
VOTES
Mr President, I am sorry to speak now before the vote has begun but my comment relates to the first amendment on which we will be voting.
I would like to suggest that Amendment No 106 tabled by the Europe of Nations Group is inadmissible under Rule 125(1)(b) because it seeks to replace the whole of the text.
Equally, Rule 125(1)(d) is relevant because it talks about amending more than one of the individual articles or paragraphs of a text.
It seems to me that Amendment No 106 should not be voted on. It should be ruled inadmissible.
Mr Donnelly, we will decide when we come to Amendment No 106, and then I will give the floor to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
On Amendment No 106
Mr President, I should like to speak not only on the subject of this amendment, but also on other points of procedure, as Mr Donnelly has done.
On the subject of Amendment No 106, I ask you not to put it to the vote.
We will withdraw it.
The intention was not for it to be put to the vote.
As regards the admissibility of amendments, on the same basis that you have just declared Amendment No 106 inadmissible, I ask you to also declare inadmissible Amendments Nos 83, 81 and 80.
These amendments are not admissible.
They seek to delete parts of amendments and the same result could be achieved by a split vote pursuant to Rule 125(3).
They are therefore inadmissible.
I also ask you to declare inadmissible Amendment No 109, presented as a compromise amendment.
There can be no compromise amendment on a text such as the one we have before us.
Furthermore, this amendment is designed to replace more than one article in the text and therefore, like Amendment No 106, cannot be admissible.
In any event, if you apply Rule 115 you must first ask for the Chamber's approval and I do not believe you can obtain this on this amendment, which was submitted after the deadline and as a compromise amendment between two political groups, and which furthermore seeks to replace all the amendments relating to the same article.
Finally, Mr President, I would point out that the voting order which you give in the voting list does not correspond at all to Rule 115, that we are dealing with an own-initiative report to which Rule 50 applies, that this own-initiative report includes a resolution and that, in a resolution, it is customary to vote first on the recitals, then on the articles, and then on the annexes.
In practical terms, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, when we come to the vote on these amendments, we shall decide whether they are admissible case by case.
I would ask you to draw my attention to them then.
I can tell you now that, as regards the compromise amendment, the House will be asked to decide whether it is possible to vote or not, pursuant to Rule 50.
But we shall look at admissibility as and when we come to the articles in question, and I would ask you to bring them to my attention then.
As for the voting order, this has been studied at some length between the groups themselves and the sessional services.
The precedents are that when we have dealt with similar texts, based on a treaty which is in the process of being ratified but aimed at opening negotiations with a view to the position subsequently being formalised in the treaty, Parliament has previously used the legislative procedure.
This is not the first case, so I am standing by the precedents which have been established in other cases and we shall follow this voting order, the main purpose of which is to enable the House to take a clear decision and everyone to understand the proceedings.
For that reason, I shall take this vote very slowly, explaining point by point what is involved, so that everyone can decide with a full knowledge of the facts.
On Amendment No 27
Mr President, one of the phrases used in this text we are voting on is not clear to me.
I believe the confusion stems from an error in translation.
Once we have adopted this, MEPs will be described as 'Abgeordnete im Europäischen Parlament ', that is to say Members in the European Parliament.
The normal German designation is 'Abgeordnete des Europäischen Parlaments ', which means Members of the European Parliament.
I believe it is a mistake in the translation.
I should like to think that we can continue to call ourselves Members of the European Parliament.
We have taken note of your comment, Mr Friedrich, and the language services will check the original text against the German version to ensure that there are no mistakes.
Mr Rothley, you have an opportunity here to tell us your position on Amendment No 41 which is about to be put to the vote.
There are also other amendments which correspond to No 41, but it is essentially No 41 that is at issue.
What is your position?
Before the vote on the third part of Article 4
Mr President, I should like to draw something to the attention of the House. We have proposed the deletion of the sentence you have just mentioned for purely technical reasons.
It is not a decision on the transitional regime itself, but simply a piece of editing.
Mr President, according to our voting list, there should be a separate vote on the principle of a transitional regime.
I propose that we keep to the voting list that has been distributed. I also propose that we listen to the rapporteur, who stated that the vote on the transitional regime which we have just carried out was a purely technical one regarding the second subparagraph of Article 4(2).
I would also like to emphasise that in the request for a split vote it only states that we should vote in three sections.
We have taken the vote, Mrs Thors.
We do not vote on principles, but on texts.
I put to the vote the text which provided for the transitional arrangement.
I explained the significance of the vote quite clearly, and the rapporteur stated his position.
The vote was taken, the result was announced, and that is what is valid.
We do not put principles to the vote, especially if we have decided on a text.
This point is therefore closed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to an absolutely decisive point.
May I prevail for a moment upon your patience, Mr President.
At the request of other groups, my group requested a separate vote on the sentence 'Transitional provisions shall be adopted for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term'.
There is a 'no' against this on our voting list, but for the sole reason that the sentence is inappropriate at that point in the text.
That is the one and only reason!
I pointed that out before the vote. It is a purely technical point.
When we vote, it must surely be possible for us to indicate that the wording we favour does not belong at this particular point but should be elsewhere in the text.
That has to be possible!
This is a motion.
The point is that my group supports a transitional system, as do the other groups.
Just because we have now said that this sentence does not belong at this place in the text but at a different point, you cannot simply rule that the matter has been decided.
(Applause) Since you ought to respect the will of Parliament, I strongly urge you to proceed in strict accordance with the voting list and take a vote now on the principle of a transitional arrangement.
In no circumstances can I go against the will of the House, Mr Rothley.
The Rules of Procedure say that we normally vote on texts, and the significance of the vote was very clear.
I stated and restated it very clearly.
When the House votes, I cannot go back on its decision, whatever voting list there may have been.
The voting list provides an indication for the groups. That indication, under the Rules of Procedure, has no bearing on the will of Parliament.
The House votes on texts and, according to the Rules, I have no alternative but to proceed in this way. I explained things quite clearly.
I took great care to explain them immediately after you had spoken.
I cannot now go back on the vote.
The House has decided that there are to be no transitional provisions, because it has rejected the text in which those transitional provisions were established.
(Mixed reactions)
Mr President, at the beginning you said this was a very complex, difficult and sensitive vote.
You said that the groups had worked very closely with your services to determine the voting order and the way in which we would approach this vote.
The interpretation you have just made runs counter to the way in which this vote has been ordered by your services.
It is inappropriate and insensitive to change the interpretation during the vote.
We were all led to believe, according to the voting list drawn up by your services with ours, that there would be a vote on the principle of the transitional regime. To change that immediately before is not appropriate.
It led to confusion on that first vote and had we been absolutely clear what was going on then, there would have been a different outcome to that vote.
I am very unhappy with this.
We are putting the whole issue at risk.
I know how determined you are to get this draft statute through today so I would ask you please to reconsider your interpretation.
Mr President, may I try to help out here? In Article 4, which contains three numbered paragraphs, you will find in paragraph 2 the sentence 'Transitional provisions shall be adopted for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term'.
We voted on that, and the sentence was deleted from Article 4.
However, in the annex to the draft Statute, under heading A - 'Parliamentary allowance for exercise of office' - the text begins with the words 'For the duration of the fifth parliamentary term, the following Articles 1-5 shall apply by way of a transitional arrangement'.
We have not voted on that yet.
This is the proper point at which the principle of the transitional arrangement must be incorporated, as the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, quite rightly indicated.
So all we have done so far is some technical editing of Article 4, and we are only now about to vote on the principle set forth under heading A of the annex, a principle that is therefore still part of the draft Statute.
Mr President, clearly, as far as the Rules of Procedure are concerned, the Chair is, strictly speaking, quite right.
A vote already taken cannot be repeated.
I believe this serious incident could be resolved if Amendment No 26, put forward by the European People's Party, were put to the vote.
According to the voting list, Amendment No 26 still stands, and it does refer to these transitional arrangements. We would not be repeating a vote already taken.
The House would, officially, continue to comply with its Rules of Procedure.
However, a vote in favour of Amendment No 26 would enable us to raise the issue of the possibility of putting transitional arrangements in place once again, without referring to the fifth legislative period. Rather, there would be a reference to the legislative period following approval of the Statute.
In my view, this would be a way of overcoming the difficulty whilst complying with the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, just now, before the vote on Article 4(2), Mr Rothley spoke and you yourself gave a very clear interpretation of the vote which was going to be held.
You confirmed this interpretation on three occasions and you were right because the House did indeed pronounce on the transitional system for the fifth parliamentary term.
What is proposed now is contrary to the Rules of Procedure because it involves returning to a text by means of an annex.
You said yourself just now, when I contested the voting order, that you were adopting the principle of the legislative procedure.
How is it possible, on an annex, to go against a vote on the main text?
If there is a contradiction with regard to the first subparagraph of paragraph 2, this simply relates to the terms 'transitional allowance', which will not apply.
But you cannot now put to a roll-call vote the principle of a transitional system for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term, following a very clear vote which you yourself ordered, which took place and in which a majority in this House voted in favour.
Mr President, I should like to say that I greatly appreciate the way you are conducting these debates as, for the first time in this Parliament, we know what we are voting on.
You are taking the trouble to read, paragraph by paragraph, the questions on which we must vote.
You were extremely clear just now and our colleagues must know that, in the House, reference must be made not to a paper prepared by the groups, but to what the President says, who conducts the vote.
I entirely support Mrs Palacio's and Mr FabreAubrespy's legal argument, and you should not repeat the vote which has just been held.
Mr President, what you have just done is very serious.
You have changed the voting order, but before doing so you should have asked whether or not there are 29 Members or a political group which oppose this.
You have called into question a roll-call vote by means of a vote which was not itself a roll-call vote.
You have put to the vote an amendment which concerned another part of the text when we were busy with the vote on the main text.
You have thus violated the Rules of Procedure three times and what is more on a text which contradicted a desire clearly expressed by the House.
I explained the significance of the vote quite clearly, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
What is involved is a question of principle, namely whether or not a transitional regime is to be established.
One phrase in the text which made provision for this arrangement was deleted.
However, Amendment No 26 has been adopted by the House, which thus establishes the transitional regime.
We now have to take the following decision: whether or not this transitional regime is to be the arrangement in Annex 1, in other words what Mr Nassauer was asking for.
I can put that to the vote.
Before, I could not go against the text of the Statute, but now the text of the Statute says that there is to be a transitional regime.
We now have to decide whether this transitional regime will be adopted later by Parliament, or if it will be the one contained in point A of Annex 1 to Mr Rothley's text.
I hope that everyone has now understood the significance of the vote I am about to take on this point A, which will now read: 'For the duration of the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute, the following Articles 1-5 shall apply by way of a transitional arrangement'.
That is the text which I am going to put to the vote.
Mr President, after the last vote, I would now ask that you put immediately to the vote the other amendments tabled by the other groups to the effect that we should not have a transitional period.
We have overruled and mixed up what we have voted for in the draft Statute by the previous vote.
You have allowed us now to move something from the annex into the draft Statute. This is totally contrary to what we are supposed to be doing.
I spoke yesterday about the need for respect and dignity and about all of us agreeing on the principles of what is contained in this draft Statute.
We are shooting ourselves in the foot by what we are doing now.
I would ask you to cancel that last vote because it was illegal.
Mr Crowley, can you indicate which amendments you are talking about.
Mr President, this House has voted on the matter of the transitional period.
It voted that it did not want transitional provisions.
That was as part of the draft Statute.
You have taken amendments to the annex which is to be attached to the draft Statute and voted those before anything else.
I want to know whether a proposal in the annex overrules the earlier vote on the draft Statute, namely not to have a transitional period.
There is a clear conflict between the two texts.
They cannot both be right.
May I draw your attention to one point. When we vote against part of an article we have not approved any other phrase saying we will not have a transitional period.
We vote against part of the text.
Then I put to the vote another amendment to the text of the Statute, not the annex.
That is what we have voted: that we will have the transitional period.
What we still have to decide is whether this is the one established in Annex 1(a) 1-5, as a transitional regime or not.
This is the only way to know exactly what the House wants.
My task is to allow the House to vote for what it wants and not use words to make Members say what they do not want to say.
That is my duty and I will keep to it.
This discussion is finished.
Before the vote on point A of the annex
'For the duration of the fifth parliamentary term, the following Articles 1-5 shall apply by way of a transitional arrangement'. Those who vote against this paragraph simply want to have Article 11a.
That means that the transitional regime will be established afterwards by Parliament.
Those who vote in favour of this text want the transitional regime to be the one in the annex, as adopted by the Legal Affairs Committee.
Afterwards, we shall vote point by point.
This is what you are calling the question of principle.
I am very sorry, but the Legal Affairs Committee has produced an extremely complicated text, and it is my responsibility to ensure that the House is able to vote on what it wants.
The document consists of a principal text, a resolution and an annex, and I am obliged to follow that order.
You have read out what you want us to vote on but can you tell us which page it is on or which article it is, and whether it is in the annex or the original text? I am confused about what we are going to vote on.
I will try to explain it again.
We have adopted Amendment No 26 which says that this House will establish a transitional regime.
Now I need to know the decision of the House on one point, namely if this transitional regime is the one established in the introductory paragraph of Annex 1 which I have read out. It says:
'The following Articles 1-5 shall apply by way of a transitional arrangement'.
The first part - 'for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term' - has to fall, because the text states: 'during the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute'.
This is what was proposed in the text drawn up by the secretaries-general and what you have in the voting list.
I have divided the principle into two parts: first the transitional regime itself, then what that regime will be.
I cannot do any more to make things clear and establish what the House's decision is to be.
Mr President, could we just make it clear, when you ask whether there is to be some other provision or whether we will go ahead with Annex 1, Articles 1 to 4, that if the latter is approved, this does not mean that no vote will be taken on the amendments relating to Articles 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Please do not take the line that because we have already said we are in favour of Annex 1, it is accepted as it stands and we will not be able to vote on the amendments.
No, Mr Tsatsos, we are voting on the text which, in the voting list, is referred to as the principle.
Since we cannot vote on principles - as you well know, since you are an expert on the Rules of Procedure - we have to vote on a text.
And what is this text? Firstly, we have decided that there is to be a transitional regime.
The second thing we have to decide is whether this transitional regime is to be the one in the annex.
Afterwards, we shall vote on the contents of the annex.
For the moment, we are only voting to establish whether the transitional regime will be the one in the annex. Then we can vote on the amendments to the annex.
That is quite simply where we are.
On Amendment No 25
Mr President, concerning Amendment No 25, I think the text needs to be looked at because in the original it is the other way round to how it appears in the English text.
The English text seems to have been transposed and now indicates that the Members have to pay more than the Parliament would contribute.
I think that is the wrong way round.
Mr Provan, we are now voting on the original text, paragraph 1.
When we arrive at your point it will be noted but in any case it is the original text of the amendment which is voted on.
We will check the specific linguistic point.
Before the vote on Amendment No 35
Mr President, I believe that this amendment should be withdrawn.
To vote on this would be contrary to a decision which has just been taken.
I quite agree with you.
After the vote on recital E
Mr President, it is a pity that you did not let me speak earlier.
This recital clearly contradicts the decision taken just now as it introduces a transitional system for the monthly allowance for the first parliamentary term.
Mr President, there is no contradiction here, because the entire system is a transitional regime.
The words 'transitional arrangement' are therefore appropriate in this context.
It is not contradictory, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
Quite simply, we have decided that there will be a transitional regime for the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute.
If there is any contradiction between this text and other points as regards the time of entry into force, it will have to be corrected, since it is the text of the Statute which prevails.
The time of entry into force is determined by Amendment No 26, which has been adopted.
If there is a contradiction with this recital, it will be corrected to that effect, but there is certainly a transitional regime.
Before the vote on the draft Statute as a whole
I could speak in a moment, but as you said earlier that we are dealing with a legislative resolution, it is indeed Rule 50 which must be applied.
Under this rule we should have had a financial statement, which we have not had.
But paragraph 1 of this rule states that a majority of Members of Parliament must vote in favour, and this paragraph is applicable.
Rule 6 says so.
The draft Statute as a whole must therefore be put to the majority of Members of Parliament.
The Statute must therefore be adopted by an absolute majority of the Members of Parliament.
We shall take a roll-call vote for this, at the request of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
Mr President, in this context I think we should bear in mind that Article 190(5) of the Treaty of Amsterdam does not specify a majority for this kind of question.
Therefore, only a simple majority is needed for this document to be adopted.
I refer of course to its final adoption.
I do nevertheless feel that as the Treaty of Amsterdam takes precedence over our Rules of Procedure, it would be illogical for us to require an absolute majority for the draft and then adopt the final version by a simple majority.
I have no objection to requiring an absolute majority, so long as the Rules of Procedure are complied with.
This is, however, a very unusual own-initiative report, closely linked to the Treaty of Amsterdam, but I must stress that I certainly do not have any objection, and I am sure the House will vote in favour by an absolute majority.
Mr President, this question was discussed in detail by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights together with Parliament's Legal Service.
There is not the slightest doubt that in this case no absolute majority is required.
The Treaty explicitly lays down that Parliament need only act by a majority of its component members in cases where a specific provision to that effect is contained in the Treaty.
This is not the case, however, in the article to which we are referring.
That sort of majority is not required.
A simple majority, in other words, is sufficient.
That is utterly incontestable, and we did not doubt that for a single moment.
Mr Rothley, as you rightly say, this would apply if the Treaty of Amsterdam were in force.
That is not yet the case, however. As the Treaty is not in force, we are dealing with a legal initiative by Parliament with a view to engaging in a debate with the Council.
Further, according to Rule 50(6) of our Rules of Procedure:
'The provisions of this Rule shall apply mutatis mutandis in cases where the Treaties attribute the right of initiative to Parliament'.
That means all cases of legislative initiative. We cannot claim that we are voting on a legislative initiative, according to the proposal from your committee, and then say that the Rules concerning legislative initiatives do not apply, because the Treaty is not in force.
So an absolute majority is required, otherwise the draft Statute will not be adopted.
On Article 5 of the draft Statute
Mr President, it has been pointed out to me that we voted on an amendment to Article 5 of the Statute, namely Amendment No 8, but that we did not vote on Article 5 itself.
I should be grateful if you could check that.
If necessary, we should have to vote again on Article 5.
Have no fears, Mr Rothley, we have adopted an amendment to this article which incorporated the full text.
Moreover, it was an amendment tabled by your own political group, and you were in favour.
Once the whole text had been adopted, we could not vote again on a text which had been adopted in its entirety.
That point is therefore settled.
Before the vote on Article 3 of the annex
Mr President, excuse me for causing another interruption, but I should like to raise a point of order.
Are parliamentary staff allowed to sit in Members' seats at voting time? I wanted to ask this question because some staff are sitting in Members' seats among the ranks of the non-attached over here.
Yes, Mrs Schierhuber, you are right, neither assistants nor group officials are allowed to sit in Members' seats.
I would therefore ask them once again not to sit there.
Before the vote on Article 4 of the annex
I shall ask the rapporteur for his opinion on this article, since I am in doubt here.
We have adopted Amendment No 26, which states that the transitional regime is to be established during the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute, and we have modified the opening phrase of the annex to this effect by removing 'for the duration of the fifth parliamentary term'.
Article 4 refers twice to the fifth parliamentary term, and I have the impression that this contradicts Amendment No 26 which we have adopted.
I should therefore like to hear the views of the rapporteur.
Mr President, I suggest that we adopt the text as it stands and adjust it in line with the amendments that have already been adopted.
That will therefore be changed. It will not be 'the fifth parliamentary term', but 'the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute'.
I wanted that to be made clear so as to avoid any doubt.
After the vote on paragraph 2
Mr President, on several occasions you mentioned the oral amendment to the text, saying - and I fully agree with you on this - that what we had voted for meant that we could not keep the concept of a fifth parliamentary term.
However, I think that the implications of the amendment you announced are not very clear.
The wording you used just now left me uncertain.
Do you mean that you are replacing the words 'fifth parliamentary term' with 'the end of the parliamentary term during which the Statute is adopted' or, as you said, the parliamentary term 'following the parliamentary term during which the Statute is adopted'? That is the wording you used and it does not at all have the same meaning, since in the latter case, the transitional regime lasts for five years.
Mr Bourlanges, the text which has been adopted - Amendment No 26 by the PPE Group - specifically says: 'during the parliamentary term following the adoption of the Statute'.
Those are precisely the words to which all the other wordings must be adapted, since those are the words in the text.
If I used a different expression, that was due to my poor French or a mistake, and not to any other intention.
It is this amendment which governs all the rest.
Before the vote on Compromise Amendment No 109
Mr President, I talked about this amendment a short while ago.
I repeat: it is a compromise amendment which was clearly submitted after the deadline, it is presented by two political groups and it seeks to render null and void all the other amendments.
I do not understand on what basis you consider it admissible, since the Rules of Procedure, and Rule 115 in particular, do not allow a compromise amendment of this kind.
Mr President, I want to ask you if you consider paragraph 7 to be compatible with our Rules of Procedure and if it is not inadmissible in view of how responsibilities are distributed among the various parliamentary bodies?
Mr President, in reply to Mr Cot, the competence of the Bureau is not being disputed in any way.
To answer Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the compromise amendment is admissible under Rule 105(4) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is right to some extent, in other words this amendment is acceptable if a majority agrees that it can be put to the vote.
We need to take two votes.
I shall read out the interpretation given under Rule 115(4), which states: 'In the case of compromise amendments tabled after the conclusion of a debate... the President shall decide on their admissibility case by case'.
The general criteria to be applied are: 'as a general rule, compromise amendments may not relate to parts of the text which have not been the subject of amendments prior to the conclusion of the debate'.
Clearly, there are amendments in this instance.
'As a general rule, compromise amendments shall be tabled by political groups, the chairmen, rapporteurs or draftsmen of the committees concerned or the authors of other amendments... as a general rule, compromise amendments shall entail the withdrawal of other amendments to the same passage', which is the case here.
I can therefore propose that this amendment should be considered, but I must obtain the agreement of Parliament by asking whether there are any objections to the compromise amendment being put to the vote.
Since that is the case, Parliament must decide by a simple majority of the Members present.
We shall therefore first vote on whether to put this compromise amendment to the vote.
(Parliament agreed to vote on the compromise amendment) I would inform the House that the groups which tabled the compromise amendment - the PSE Group and the Liberal Group - have withdrawn the phrase 'the Council position vis-à-vis'.
The text therefore reads as follows: 'The Bureau shall take this decision in the light of the Statute'.
That is the text which will appear in the second subparagraph.
Only if the motorcycles are Members' own vehicles, Mr Dell'Alba.
If they were not - although I think they are - they would not be included.
The Quaestors will be able to determine, when the time comes, whether or not the motorcycles are Members' own vehicles.
Mr President, you have not answered my question on admissibility in relation to the distribution of responsibilities.
If I understood the rapporteur correctly, this amendment is a simple request, nothing more, since otherwise it would clearly infringe the distribution of responsibilities.
That is how I understood the rapporteur and therefore your position.
Mr Cot, the opening words of paragraph 7 are: 'Calls on the Bureau to take a decision'.
This is therefore a call addressed to the Bureau.
The Bureau will assume its responsibilities when the time comes, obviously after the Statute has been adopted.
On the vote on Amendment No 18
Take a look at Amendment No 18, Mr President, which must be seen as an addition to the compromise amendment.
Look at what it says: it is an addition to the compromise amendment which wants a specific arrangement for Members living close to Parliament.
So it simply must not fall.
Please check on what it says.
No, we cannot go back on a compromise amendment by means of an addition, or in any other way.
I am sorry, but this amendment cannot be put to the vote.
Before the vote on the motion for a resolution as a whole
Mr President, I agree with the position you expressed at the time of the vote on the draft Statute as a whole, namely that an absolute majority of Members of Parliament is required. It is what I asked you to make clear.
But this request concerns the resolution as a whole.
When you read Rule 50, you find the words 'the resolution shall be adopted by a majority of the component Members of Parliament', thus not just the annexes and not just the draft which is annexed.
I believe that just now we had articles of the draft Statute which were adopted without an absolute majority - I would ask you to check this - and, in addition, what you have just said about paragraph 2 does not seem to me as if it should apply.
This requirement for an absolute majority of Members of Parliament applies to the resolution and to all its parts.
I am sorry, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
When we approve a change to the Rules of Procedure which requires an absolute majority, we vote on the text as a whole by absolute majority, but not on the motion for a resolution, which is always adopted by a simple majority.
And you know that with the budget, for which an absolute majority is required, it is the text of the budget to which the absolute majority applies, but not the comments in the motion for a resolution, which only need a simple majority.
What we are applying here is precisely that theory.
So when I take a roll-call vote on the motion for a resolution, as your group has requested, a simple majority will be sufficient.
On the vote on Amendment No 18
Mr President, first of all, before we take the final vote, I should like to pay tribute to your services and indeed those of the Parliamentary Groups who have made sure that this vote has gone through as easily as it has.
It is a difficult and sensitive one and I think tribute ought to be paid to those who have actually facilitated it because it has not been easy.
I would like to ask you to look once again at Amendment No 18.
You have ruled that, the compromise amendment on Paragraph No 7 having passed, Amendment No 18 cannot be looked at.
Can I say, as the leader of one of the groups that proposed comprise Amendment No 109, that we do not believe that Amendment No 18 is in any way contradictory but could be taken as an addition.
If Mr Cox, on behalf of the Liberals, were willing to accept that, I would have thought that we could put it to the House.
It is not in contradiction with anything that was in the compromise amendment.
Mr President, I agree with Mr De Coene and Mrs Green that Amendment No 18 is actually an addition, and I would like the House to have a chance to vote on it.
Let us be quite clear.
This is a compromise which covers all Members' entitlements with regard to travel.
There is even a paragraph referring to Annex 2, which has been adopted, stating all this and calling on the Bureau to take a decision on this basis.
We cannot add something to it which did not form part of the compromise.
I am not going to put the text to the vote, because I believe it conflicts with the compromise.
When a compromise is put forward, it has to be respected, and the amendment would add a new element to the calculation of journeys.
I do not know whether or not it conflicts with Article 1 of Annex 2, which governs the reimbursement of duly substantiated expenses, but in any event it deals with the same subject.
I am very sorry, but that is my interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, Mrs Green, and I cannot allow this amendment.
Mr President, when my group presented that compromise text to you, on behalf of ourselves and the Liberals, we sent your services a letter which I am sure is there on your table. It listed all the amendments that the compromise was intended to replace.
There is a sentence at the end which says it does not replace Amendment No 18 from the PSE, which should be voted separately.
It has always been clear that was to be a separate vote, and I would ask you, please, to put it to the vote.
Mrs Green, the compromise amendment covers all the aspects raised.
I stand by my interpretation.
If you table a compromise amendment we cannot take an amendment which overlaps with this compromise.
I am sorry, but that is my opinion.
If you want, I can submit that to the Rules Committee but I am not going to put it to the vote
That is not a point of order.
Mr President, I think the credibility of the vote on the Statute has been fatally threatened by that last incident.
I would therefore strongly urge the Bureau to check the content of Amendment No 18.
The question has been dealt with, Mr Willockx, please read the Rules of Procedure.
It is my responsibility.
The Rules Committee will decide whether I have acted properly or not.
It will have the final say.
But this has been adopted.
Parliament's credibility does not depend on that, I am glad to say.
Madam President, I tabled Amendment No 12, and it has come to my notice that the English translation says exactly the opposite of what I sought to convey in the Dutch text.
So I think it would be a good thing for me to read out the Dutch text as I intend it, and then the translation in English.
My Dutch text reads as follows: 'Verzoekt de lidstaten ernstig in overweging te nemen om in dat geval de structuur van hun economieën waar mogelijk te flexibiliseren en diversificeren, alsmede aan te dringen op een gematigde loonontwikkeling teneinde de werkgelegenheid te stimuleren '.
This translates into English as follows:
With this eventuality in mind calls on the Member States to consider seriously making the structure of their economies more flexible and diversified where this is possible and also pressing for wage rises to be moderate in order to stimulate employment.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I have a question I should like to ask.
Once when I handed in an explanation of vote it was declared invalid because one is supposed to be present during this procedure.
A number of colleagues whose names are now being read out are no longer here.
Therefore, are their explanations of vote valid or not?
Yes indeed, Mrs Carlsson, you are quite right, I should have announced immediately after the votes the names of all those Members who are giving their explanations of vote in writing.
But there was so much noise that I would have lost my voice.
We have had a rather trying morning.
I think that all the Members who have asked to give their explanations of vote in writing will be able to do so, even if they are no longer here at the moment.
First of all, I should like to say that I naturally very much appreciate your excellent chairing of the sitting, as well as your accommodating stance.
However, my remarks are intended to draw attention to the fact that a number of my colleagues left the Chamber a good deal earlier than during the general hubbub that took place a few minutes ago.
Yes, they left when we finished the votes, Mrs Carlsson, and you are right, I should have done it.
I shall do it next time, but I can assure you that shouting out Members' names in all the noise of everyone leaving is no easy matter.
So we shall do as I suggest for today.
Madam President, the vote which has just taken place on the Statute of Members of Parliament does no credit to the European Parliament. This is due to reasons of procedure and of content.
On the subject of procedure, we have seen irregularity after irregularity.
First at the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, where the rapporteur proposed the so-called compromise amendment when he should of course have proposed a new draft statute and opened a new deadline for amendments.
At the start of the debate, the preliminary question we tabled was not put to the vote.
In plenary session we voted in an order which was not the usual order for legislative resolutions.
We even changed this order during the vote, to contradict a very clear vote which had just been given.
Several amendments were inadmissible, but were nevertheless put to the vote; an absolute majority was required for the resolution as a whole, pursuant to Rule 50, which was not what was adopted.
It is time - as our German colleague Mr Konrad said just now - that the European Parliament realised that it can only exercise its powers in the legislative field if it respects the Rules of Procedure, leaving aside the fact that the majority can blithely disregard those rules in order to impose its legal point of view on the minority.
When a parliament considers that those in the political minority are legally wrong, we are no longer in a democracy but close to dictatorship.
In terms of content, the text has one fundamental flaw, which is why the majority of members of our group are opposed to it.
Members of the European Parliament must clearly continue to have a national statute, because it is their respective nations that they represent.
Instead of that, the text adopted does no credit to this House because it seeks to solve a problem by throwing the ball into the Council's court, as I said yesterday.
The majority rejected the rules of conduct concerning Members' financial interests and refused to ban gifts and fees paid to Members.
The majority also rejected the general social security and pension regime applicable to Community employees.
It adopted a so-called Community system, while at the same time increasing the references to national systems.
It has approved a text which is not really a legislative text at all and which includes a great many details, as my colleague Mr Pasty said, and it has thus failed to respect the powers which it is to be given.
I hope the Council takes this into account.
Madam President, the European Parliament cannot be particularly proud of the Members' Statute we have launched today.
It suffers from a lack of that transparency which we always like to invoke as one of the noblest aims of European legislation.
That is why I voted for it reluctantly.
Mr Rothley's original crystal-clear draft became increasingly muddied on the way into the plenary.
Let me illustrate that with just one example.
The proposed additional allowances for the President and other senior parliamentary officials, which the rapporteur had set out clearly in black and white for all to see, are now invisible beneath the silt.
They are probably hidden somewhere in their trappings of office, which will be difficult, if not impossible, to penetrate.
A similar situation obtains in other areas of the Statute.
If we conduct our politics so secretively, we shall be doing Europe and its people a disservice.
This is a black day for the European Parliament, and I find it regrettable that no vote was taken on Amendment No 18 and that the Group of the European People's Party managed to get its way with Amendment No 27, which sadly perpetuates a 'fortress Europe' mentality, stifling much of the potential inherent in the Treaty.
Madam President, I voted in favour of this report but extremely reluctantly.
I was torn between whether to vote for or against.
I have a number of problems with the report.
There is the fact that as MEPs we are voting, in the case of my country, to more than double our salaries.
That is not going to go down very well with the Irish citizens.
The fact that we are looking at an EU tax system for MEPs will also go against the grain with my constituents.
When I had to decide whether to vote in favour or against one problem was the fact that the whole thing was tied into one package.There have been major problems with the travel allowance system and I do not know why we cannot tackle things individually.
Instead, we say that we are only going to change the travel allowance system if we can increase MEPs' salaries.
This is not acceptable and I do not think it will be acceptable to the Irish voter.
A positive thing which has come out of this concerns the dual mandate.
It was unacceptable that Members could sit in this Parliament and in their own national parliaments.
With regard to salaries, it is not right that MEPs are paid different salaries for doing the same job but we have gone about it the wrong way.
We are ruling out the involvement of national parliaments, national governments and the citizens who vote us in.
Madam President, it seems we have adopted a confused and untimely text but, given the point we have reached, a bad text is better than no text at all, which is why I voted for it.
There is, however, one idea which I definitely reject, and that is the right of outgoing Members to maintain their level of allowances, which means they have the choice, for the first parliamentary term, of opting for either the national or European regime, whichever may be the most favourable.
This introduces a real privilege for Members of Parliament which is politically, morally and socially repugnant at a time of economic crisis and contrary to the very principle of parliamentary allowance which has never been a pecuniary right, let alone a privilege.
I would remind you, Madam President, that this allowance is, as you well know, a working instrument won in the last century in order to combat privileges.
I regret that Parliament has perverted one of the bases of our democratic constitutional regimes by voting itself an unacceptable privilege.
Madam President, I had to vote against Mr Rothley's report as the whole issue of pay and the switch to a European Union system of taxation, or what in practice is exemption from paying taxes, and the travel expenses scheme, cannot be satisfactory from the point of view of the ordinary citizen.
The travel expenses scheme still leaves us with the problem that MEPs can claim expenses for a business class ticket, even though they might have travelled economy class.
This is one of the more blatant problems our citizens simply will not condone.
I sincerely hope that in future talks, if the issue makes any further progress with the Council and the Commission, on the basis of a proposal approved by Parliament, this flaw in the system is eliminated and that travel expenses will be paid for the genuine costs incurred only.
It is therefore up to the MEPs as to which class they choose to travel.
But there should be no kind of chicanery or flat-rate payments made when the travel expenses are claimed later.
We should like to thank the rapporteur for so bravely trying to elicit a reasonable level of agreement from the European Parliament on issues that involve risk as well as opportunity.
Our standpoint on the report is based on the following.
Article 190(5) of the Amsterdam Treaty states that: 'The European Parliament shall, after seeking an opinion from the Commission and with the approval of the Council acting unanimously, lay down the regulations and general conditions governing the performance of the duties of its Members'.
We would like to see a system of allowances and expenses that is equitable, open to inspection and transparent as regards taxation and what the allowances cover. In particular, travel allowances should be related to the actual costs incurred in carrying out our mission.
Consequently, we think that significant changes should be made to the present system.
As a matter of principle, we think that all Members should receive the same salary, since we all carry out the same functions as Members of the European Parliament.
Nevertheless, we do not think that the right way of devising such an allowance is by taking the average of current emoluments.
It would be more appropriate to fix an allowance on the basis of a proposal put forward by an independent committee, which is how the matter is handled in the Swedish Parliament.
We do not agree that there should be a generous transitional arrangement which would allow Members to opt either for the new allowance or to retain the current one.
Such transitional arrangements run counter to the philosophy behind a common salary.
We are flatly opposed to a common EU tax.
Taxation should also be a matter for individual countries.
Members of the European Parliament, unlike diplomats and Commissioners, live and work in their own countries and avail themselves of the public services which are financed by national taxes.
We see this as a good reason for overhauling the pension scheme for Members.
We think that Members should not belong both to national pension schemes for MPs and to the common pension scheme for MEPs.
An important issue from our point of view relates to a common system for dealing with our present ridiculous system of travel allowances, which allows Members to make a large tax-free profit on travel.
Under the present system, Swedish Members can make up to SKR 40 000 per month tax free on travel, whereas under the present proposal, reimbursement would be on the basis of actual travel costs incurred.
Say the present proposal were to mean a salary of approximately SKR 56 000 - an increase for Swedish Members of some SKR 26 000 - the new system for reimbursement of travel expenses would lead to some Swedish Members losing out if a common system of allowances and expenses were introduced, since their tax-free profit on travel would disappear.
A common statute is the only way to approach the present ridiculous system of travel expenses.
We believe that it is inappropriate for us to claim travel expenses which do not correspond to actual expenditure, and we are also opposed to the proposal to fix the common salary on the basis of the weighted average of the existing Members' salaries.
We would state most emphatically that we do not want our own allowances and expenses to be increased.
We are aware that the present proposal has run up against a whole raft of national interests that not infrequently cut across party lines.
In our explanation of vote, we would like to clarify our position, which is based on clear principles: respect for the European Parliament as one of the European institutions and the fact that the issue is covered by the Amsterdam Treaty.
My votes - individually and overall - for each of the documents making up this report - leaving aside the detail - are votes for transparency, against hypocrisy, against anti-parliamentary demagoguery and against populism, in order to bury once and for all a process that has lingered throughout almost the entire lifetime of this parliament and placed the European Parliament and its Members on the pillory of tabloid-style reports which are both ignorant and likely to trigger off the public's most primitive instincts.
The damage done to the European Parliament's image is incalculable.
I would hold responsible for that damage the two Presidents of the European Parliament during this legislature and those Members who have given in to populism and did not have the political courage to defend the institution as a whole, punishing at the same time a (small) minority of prevaricators.
Again, I would condemn the lack of solidarity demonstrated towards those Members of this Parliament who are less well paid by some very well paid Members, who took it upon themselves in their countries to moralise at the expense of other people.
In the statute on remuneration and expenses that we have voted on I particularly approve the principle of non-discrimination on the basis of nationality; the idea of an objective assessment by independent persons of the activity of Members of Parliament for the purpose of determining salaries; the principle that, in the future, the European Parliament will not define its own remuneration rules, so that each Parliament will function with pre-defined rules when it takes up its functions; and the provisional solution of an average remuneration.
However, I consider that the transitional option of voting for national salaries is a way of favouring the current statutes.
I hope that my Portuguese colleagues who oppose the principle of equal remuneration will opt, under the transitional regime, for the national rate.
This morning, the European Parliament sought to kill two birds with one stone by settling the continuing problem of Members' travel expenses and at the same time advancing the cause of federalism.
When it would have been very easy to have simply stated that in future - as the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has consistently demanded - MEPs will be reimbursed on the basis of actual expenses incurred, it has drawn up a vast draft Statute which seeks to harmonise virtually all aspects of the financial situation of Members of different nationalities.
At present, MEPs receive their main salary from their respective countries and the reimbursement of expenses from the European Parliament.
The European Parliament has sought to centralise and unify everything in Brussels, taking as its basis a principle of equality between Members which exists only in its imagination.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wants all salaries and reimbursements to be paid solely by the Member States, in accordance with the general principle of Articles 137 and 138 of the Treaty, under the terms of which Members of the European Parliament represent their respective states.
We regard this concept of a single statute as a genuine heresy which is likely to isolate MEPs still further from their respective countries.
It is the negation of the Europe of Nations.
In this respect, our group much regrets the position of President Jacques Chirac who, in his interview of 25 February 1998 with the President of the European Parliament, gave his agreement in principle to a single statute for Members of the European Parliament.
This idea is now included under Article 190(5) of the Amsterdam Treaty, which has not yet been ratified, and which cannot provide a legal basis for the vote just taken by the European Parliament.
We therefore contest this vote from every point of view. In our opinion, it is contrary to France's national interests.
At the European Council meeting in Amsterdam, the Heads of Government agreed that Members of the European Parliament would have common, uniform conditions and that Parliament would put forward a proposal on a common statute.
Thereafter, the form of the proposal was discussed in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, by Parliament's authorities and by the various parliamentary groups.
Mr Rothley, a German Social Democrat, drew up a proposal which, together with most of the amendments, has been adopted by a broad majority.
We support the principle that Members should receive the same allowance irrespective of which country they come from, and that travel expenses should be reimbursed against the actual costs incurred.
However, we differ as a matter of principle on the issue of how Members' allowances are taxed.
We think that Members should pay the same tax and other charges as the people who voted for them.
We have therefore decided to abstain in the vote.
With this statement I wish to explain why I previously refrained from saying anything about this subject.
I believe that the climate created, and the way in which this report is being promoted, do little to enhance the image of the European Parliament, especially as the forthcoming elections for the European Parliament draw closer.
I also think there are much more serious issues that should be occupying our attention.
For those reasons, I consider it my duty to abstain from voting.
With Poujadism in the air in many circles which cannot find words strong enough to condemn what they call 'the political class, its advantages and its emoluments', I believe the time has come to point out once again that the remuneration of parliamentary office is an eminently democratic guarantee and that its introduction in the last century was welcomed as a great victory in the most progressive circles.
It guarantees that every person who stands for election will be able to effectively exercise the office to which he or she aspires if elected - irrespective of that individual's financial position.
A parliamentary salary also guarantees independence.
Furthermore, there is no reason why the motto 'equal pay for equal work', which is so often and correctly applied, should not also apply to Members of the European Parliament.
The present considerable salary differences depending on the nationality of Members of the European Parliament are therefore totally unjustified.
It is consequently only fair that Members exercising the same political office should receive the same salary, be fiscally assessed on the basis of a uniform Community tax system (which cancels out the differing effects of national tax regimes) and receive additional allowances covering travel and secretarial expenses.
More generally, the report on the Statute of the Members of the European Parliament has come at just the right time.
I share the rapporteur's belief that this Statute must be as clear and transparent as possible in order to avoid any questioning of motives or accusations of possible hidden benefits.
In this respect, I would have personally preferred no transitional regime to have been included and for all Members to receive the same salary from July 1999.
That is why I abstained in the final vote on the annex.
I believe that the introduction of a statute for Members of the European Parliament is a big step in the right direction, and I therefore nevertheless support the text before us today.
On Thursday, 3 December we voted in the part-session against Article 1(2) of Annex 1 as we cannot accept that a Member of the European Parliament should pay tax only to the European Community.
The work of MEPs is to some extent bound up with work carried out also in their home countries, where they have their regular place of abode, so that there is no justification for any differences in levels of taxation between them and the rest of the citizens they represent.
MEPs should pay tax on the same basis as their fellow countrymen.
Nevertheless, we voted in favour of the report as a whole because rejecting it would have led to a great deal of confusion, since we would have been leaving in place a system in which Members' travel expenses are not being claimed on the basis of the genuine costs incurred, which in our opinion they should be.
We believe that allowing these rules, which we have been calling for and drafting for such a long time now, to come to nothing would harm the European Parliament's standing and reputation.
We are elected as Members of Parliament for constituencies in our respective countries whose voters we represent.
We therefore do not see any need to replace national rules relating to our terms of employment with a common statute.
On the contrary, it is important for our conditions and electoral system to be determined in the countries we represent, so as to avoid the danger of MEPs representing EU interests instead.
The usual argument in favour of this proposal is that we should have the same conditions, as regards salary, for example.
But this is not what will happen.
On the contrary, we shall go on having different conditions in the future.
However, many of us would receive a large pay rise, which would be totally unjustified.
Why should we receive higher salaries than Members of our 'regular' national Parliaments?
The proposal that we should have a special, very low EU tax is even more unwarranted.
Why should we, as high income earners, not have to pay the same taxes as everyone else in the countries where we live? Similarly, there is no reason why we should have advantageous pensions and other perks which exceed those provided for our national MPs.
The Rothley report will do very little in terms of improving the functioning of Parliament.
The effect of the proposal would be that we, as a small privileged group, would award ourselves even more benefits.
My approach to Rothley is that we need a Common Statute to end discrimination between members from Member State and those from another.
This requires a common salary. I believe in pegging this as a proportion of a judge's salary.
Having a uniform salary means the need for a uniform tax.
There is a clear precedent in that EU officials have a uniform tax system.
The transition period is illogical.
When a citizens stands as an MEP he should accept the salary on offer.
The general proposition only, without the details, should be put to the Council.
For the following reasons, we are opposed to the motion for a resolution on the common Statute for Members which Parliament has adopted today:
it is impossible to understand how the European Parliament can claim as a legal basis an article - Article 190(5) - of a treaty which has not entered into force, namely the Amsterdam Treaty; -Article 190(5) governs how Members of Parliament are to perform their duties.
There is no basis for a common statute, EU salaries, EU tax and so on.The intention, as also specified in the report, is to weaken Members' ties with their home countries.
We see this as unacceptable, since we regard it as an important democratic principle that Members should represent the electorate in their respective Member States.
People should also, as a matter of course, pay tax where they live - even Members of the European Parliament.
Unless the Council takes action to prevent this happening, as we hope it will, the outcome will be that MEPs construct a new EU salary and tax haven, which will do nothing to increase the respect and confidence of EU citizens.
With regard to travel expenses, we have constantly asked for the system to be changed so that only actual travel costs are reimbursed.
Parliament's Bureau could have approved this decision long ago, since it had the authority to do so.
It has now been combined with the proposal for a Members' statute in order to provide an alibi for the latter.
We voted against the report for these and other reasons.
We are voting in favour, even though we support national taxation:
because adopting the proposal is the only way of securing the necessary dialogue with the Council on a common statute, and-because the proposal means that the rules on travel will be changed so that only the travelling expenses actually incurred will be refunded.
Today Parliament will adopt a position on the Members' Statute.
I should like to give the following brief explanation of my reasons for not supporting the proposal.
In the report, it is proposed that all Members, irrespective of nationality, should receive the same salary.
But if, as recommended in the report, the salary is calculated on the basis of the average of national MPs' salaries, Members from countries like my own would see their salaries raised by a substantial amount.
I am unable to support such an increase in MEPs' pay. Nor can I support the proposal relating to a common EU tax, since I believe that all MEPs should pay tax in the country where they live.
It is important that a system of salaries and expenses for MEPs should be as transparent as possible.
How the money is paid and how it is used should be open to inspection.
In this respect, I am delighted to see that the report tackles the issue of Members' travel expenses and that it is proposed to reimburse only the actual travel costs incurred.
For the rest, I do not think the proposals meet the need for clarity and openness, in particular the proposal in the report that there should be a mixed system whereby some Members would be able to choose between the common salary and their present one, and the similar arrangement relating to Members' pensions.
Furthermore, there are a number of other economic issues that are not satisfactorily dealt with in the report.
For example, Members who hold posts outside the European Parliament would have different types of earnings and entitlements.
I think that in such cases their European Parliament salary should be reduced proportionally.
The Danish Social Democrats believe that Members of the European Parliament should be paid and taxed in the country where they are elected.
Members are not based abroad, and should belong to the social security schemes which apply in their home countries.
There can certainly be a common framework for salaries, negotiated by Parliament's authorities and the Council, but payment should take place on a national basis.
We have voted in favour of a proposal that travel expenses should be settled on the basis of supporting documents, without any ambiguity, so that it is no longer possible for the price of a business class ticket to be reimbursed, even though someone has travelled in a different fare category.
The aim is transparency, so that salaries and the reimbursement of expenses are both treated as such.
It is quite extraordinary that the opponents of the EU in the I-EDN Group have used the opportunity to put forward a proposal that would in fact make it impossible to bring legal proceedings against Mr Le Pen.
Of course those who are elected by the people should be held responsible for what they say and how they vote.
The opponents of the EU evidently do not share this view, however.
The European Parliament waived Mr Le Pen's immunity in October because of his statements that the gas chambers at the concentration camps were a detail in the history of the Second World War.
Through today's vote on the report on a statute for Members, the Danish Conservative Members of the European Parliament wish to express their support for a clear and transparent statute, whereby in financial terms MEPs continue to be treated on a par with members of the national parliaments in their respective Member States.
Likewise, the situation of Members in a number of other fields must be regulated individually by the Member States, including the question of the extent to which the work of a Member of the European Parliament is compatible with membership of a national parliament and/or other posts.
The EU is an association of 15 independent states.
Members of the European Parliament represent voters in their own Member State.
Members' allowances and taxes should therefore be fixed in the countries where they live, thereby removing the need for a statute to establish a common EU salary and tax.
The whole idea of an EU tax for Members of the European Parliament is mistaken.
There is no reason why MEPs should reward themselves in a way that is not available to ordinary citizens.
The setting-up of an EU haven only increases distrust towards the whole Community and has an adverse effect on cooperation within the EU.
With regard to both this report and the previous one on the budget, I voted in favour of reimbursement of travel expenses against the actual costs incurred.
The European Parliament should have taken a decision on this long ago.
The issue ought to have been dealt with separately and not included in the proposal relating to a common statute.
I therefore voted in favour of reimbursing travel expenses against the actual costs incurred - no easy matter, since the proposal was included in the amendment on the Statute.
In the final vote, I therefore voted against the proposal on a common statute in its entirety.
The common Statute is based on the Amsterdam Treaty which has still not entered into force, so this proposal anticipates the ratification of the Treaty by the Member States.
Since this only serves to increase the democratic deficit within the EU, the proposal should have been rejected in the first place on these democratic grounds.
I voted for the incompatibility of certain posts and against the accumulation of parliamentary offices.
I agree that the reimbursement of expenses should be brought more into line with actual costs, while favouring a lump-sum limit in order not to have to increase control procedures.
I also believe that parliamentary salaries must continue to be commensurate with the standard of living in the country of origin and with the salaries paid to those who sit in the national parliaments.
Might not the communitisation of the parliamentary salary foreshadow the imposition of voting methods by the European Union and European parties? These are all questions which merit a clear debate, both here and in all the Member States.
We should not give in to the populist temptations which I reject, even if they do come from the left!
This is hypocrisy and populism made worse by the anti-parliamentarian attitudes often displayed by the media, which are actually often largely unaware of the work we do.
Finally, I regret that the question of the end of a term of office and the return to professional activity is not dealt with in this draft Statute.
Such a measure would promote greater democracy in the recruitment of Members!
These then are the reservations which led me to abstain in the final vote, although I approve of the adoption of a statute for Members of the European Parliament for reasons of democracy and transparency.
My work and commitment as a politician are underpinned by values that encompass equality and the achievement of an equal society.
Some of the worst injustices that our European citizens are enduring today are economic, and include a widening wages gap.
The report contains a proposal to fix a common salary which, for Swedish MEPs, would mean a hefty pay rise.
I therefore oppose a salary increase for Members of the European Parliament, partly because a narrowing of the wages gap is an important factor in achieving equality, and partly because Members already receive adequate salaries.
I see no good reason why tax should be deducted at EU level.
There should be a link between where one pays tax and what that tax is used for.
As a Swede, and living as I do in Sweden, I benefit from the Swedish welfare system and should therefore contribute towards it.
Consequently, I am a charge on public finances even though I am a Member of the European Parliament.
I am therefore voting against the proposed 'EU tax'.
The report contains a proposal for improving the system of Members' travel allowances.
I am delighted that it is a more straightforward and honest system, so that Members will no longer be able to profit from the unfair travel expenses system currently in operation.
The pension scheme for Members as set out in the report is not self-financing, but requires an injection of extra tax revenues so as to be able to provide adequate cover.
All other pension schemes are required to be self-financing, and the same should apply in this case.
I am therefore voting against the pension scheme.
There is good reason for all Members of the European Parliament to receive the same salary when they perform the same duties.
It is important that we have the same political responsibility and field of operations, as well as the opportunity to implement policies.
There is much in the report that I am unable to support and which I am going to vote against. But in principle, I am in favour of a common Members' statute with regard to salary.
I therefore feel that more time should be allowed for carrying this through, and under no circumstances should it lead to an increase in salary.
In the vote on the Rothley report I felt obliged to keep abstaining in the unbelievably (and 'apolitically') numerous roll-call votes, only because of the decision by the Bureau, which I find unacceptable, to 'define' the presence and parliamentary function of Members, in its familiar insulting way.
My real wish is to take no part in this process, because I think the whole way in which the issue of allowances has been addressed shows contempt for the European Parliament!
I have kept out of the whole voting procedure on the Rothley report concerning the Members' Statute.
I did not wish to participate in the debate or in the adoption of a resolution, for the following reasons:
1.It is not the place of the outgoing Parliament to take far-reaching decisions affecting the Members who will be elected in June 1999.
Such political activities ought not to have been initiated until after the European elections.2.At the start of a European election campaign, it is imprudent of the European Parliament to convey to the public the 'false' impression that its Members are chiefly concerned with their own interests.3.At a time when momentous decisions are due to be taken in Europe - the introduction of the single currency, the reform of the common agricultural policy and the Structural Funds, enlargement of the Union, reform of the EU's finances - I believe it is politically wrong to divert attention from these key questions by discussing Members' pay, a topic which invariably arouses enormous public interest.
An initiative to change the current unacceptable system of allowances is most welcome.
Travel expenses should be reimbursed on the basis of the actual costs incurred.
We are voting against the Rothley report for a number of reasons, including the following.
We do not think we can justify paying ourselves and our parliamentary colleagues what virtually amounts to a 70 % salary increase which, in our case, would be accompanied by a substantial tax reduction if salaries were to be taxed at EU level.
We think we should receive the same salary as Members of the Swedish Parliament.
Consequently, it is unacceptable for tax to be collected at EU level.
Salaries should be in line with those of national MPs and tax should be paid in the countries in which MEPs live.
This report does not just deal with a bureaucratic issue, as its title might suggest.
It is to decide vital questions for the future such as what internal democracy in this Parliament really means and the balance of power between 'hard core' and 'peripheral' countries.
If we had agreed - as almost happened - to separate two inseparable decisions, namely the approval of a single statute for Members of the European Parliament - in other words equal conditions for all, regardless of country of origin - and the approval of a new scheme for the payment of travel expenses on the basis of real cost, then we would have established a twospeed European Parliament.
Members from peripheral countries on low salaries - such as the Spanish, Finns and Portuguese - would no longer be able to maintain an active presence in the Parliament nor would they be able to go on contact missions.
However, the other Members - those living near the 'centre' and on higher salaries, in addition to various official positions in their own countries - would occupy that space and end up taking decisions by themselves.
The fact that this was even a possibility is a serious matter.
And approving a transitional period enshrining inequality between different Members is a worrying signal.
Fortunately, common sense, strengthened by the combativeness of the 'weak' Members, defeated the arrogance and blindness of 'the strong'.
But we escaped a black day for democracy by the skin of our teeth.
I voted for the report in view of the difficulty experienced in achieving even this half-victory.
But I am neither satisfied nor relieved.
I wish to express my support for the text of the Rothley report as it has been adopted, in all its articles, parts and annexes.
To me what matters most is that the discrimination between the nationalities, which is illegal under Article 6 of the Treaty, will be eliminated as a result.
This was an infringement of the Treaty perpetrated for 20 years by Parliament as an institution under the Treaty.
I am proud that this reference to the ban on discrimination has been incorporated into the Rothley report as a result of an amendment which I tabled.
It also means that this principle will have to be accepted in respect of Community tax as well.
I should also like in this explanation to thank the rapporteur, the President of Parliament and the chairman of the Legal Affairs Committee for all they have done to achieve a proposal which virtually everyone can accept.
It is now up to the European Council and the ministers responsible to make the next move.
Tomlinson recommendation (A4-0436/98)
The regulation currently in force contains provisions relating to technical and economic cooperation between the EU and the occupied West Bank territories and Gaza that are intended to strengthen the peace process.
The aim of this proposal is to improve on the poor results achieved so far, and it therefore has my support.
However, it is vitally important that such aid is subject to close economic scrutiny and in compliance with the rules, and that any irregularities are reported immediately in order to avoid a repetition of previous misunderstandings.
Ferri report (A4-0400/98)
In our view, there should be more cooperation over the setting-up of supplementary pension schemes in the respective Member States.
What is required is a coordinated approach in terms of similar procedures and precautions against discrimination, in order to facilitate the free movement of workers.
The situation is unsatisfactory if different national regimes play a part in preventing workers from taking up employment in other countries, or expose them to the possibility of either forfeiting their occupational pensions or seeing their value decrease when they move to another country.
We would therefore like to stress that the result of a coordinated approach should not be a pension scheme that is so far-reaching and detailed that it restricts the negotiating rights of those with contractual or occupational pensions.
We would also stress that, in our view, pensions could be more widely used to provide investment capital, provided that due care and attention is given to effectively protecting the value of the pensions.
A state pension scheme that guarantees economic security to all citizens in their old age in the form of a relatively high and income-related remuneration has been shown to be the best form of scheme.
Nowadays, weak points are beginning to appear in pension schemes, due amongst other things to the inverted age pyramid in most Member States, which the report deals with. The result is that state systems have inadequate funds to guarantee financial security.
In order to guarantee financial security in old age for those of us who are still young, Member States will have to deal with the weaknesses in their state pension schemes.
We should be moving towards a general and universal social insurance scheme for the elderly.
Supplementary pensions are just that: supplementary.
Undoubtedly there are weak points in state pensions schemes, but if they functioned to everyone's satisfaction, which is the goal that I am working towards, then there would be no need for supplementary pensions.
The preamble to the report is to be commended.
Recital A states that, 'The State social security system... must remain the cornerstone of the Union's welfare system'.
I am totally in agreement with this, but the report subsequently becomes contradictory and makes numerous points which I am unable to support.
In paragraph 6 it is indicated that some private pensions have problems finding markets.
Apparently, the situation would be improved by certain policy decisions, some of which are listed.
I think that one of the biggest problems is the existence of weaknesses in state schemes but, above all, I cannot agree with the measures described in the report for facilitating investment, such as the privatisation of some industrial and financial sectors.
This might be appropriate in some cases, but there are also sectors which should be collectivised in order to provide social security for our citizens.
I am unable to support a text which so categorically advocates the privatisation of sectors which are of public interest.
Consequently, the conditions of ownership in certain sectors should be a matter for individual Member States to decide.
Nor am I able to support so-called 'equal competition between all operators' which, in my view, would lead to inequality between citizens.
As I said at the beginning, a state pension scheme has been shown to be the best system as regards redistribution and equity.
I therefore believe that it is the task of politicians to set limits on the development of supplementary insurance schemes. I also believe that their first concern should be to improve the state system.
The effect of placing private and public operators on an equal footing in the pensions market could be to undermine state schemes.
Paragraph 20 and subsequent paragraphs deal with harmonisation of tax systems, in particular the tax arrangements that would be required to accommodate supplementary pensions.
The EU has no authority over taxation, and it is important that Member States should be able to devise their own tax systems in accordance with their social security policies.
I therefore cannot support paragraphs 20 to 23, nor paragraph 26.
The Commission is trying to extend the 'single passport' system applied in connection with insurance companies, banks and pension funds, and to liberalise investments by the latter in the context of the more general effort to develop the capital markets still further, and indeed it has given notice of a proposed directive to achieve those aims.
We wish to stress that the issue of supplementary pensions is of capital importance for the millions of working people in the EU, regardless of the diversity of the respective national systems.
The basic dividing line between the pensions provided by those systems and private pension schemes is that the national ones are provided by legal persons in public or private law, which are non-profit-making, while the others are clearly private and profit-making, and are provided in the context of life assurance agreements.
We categorically oppose any attempt to equalise the legal status of those two forms of pensions.
That would further undermine the public-sector insurance system to the benefit of insurance companies.
The system of public social security as developed in the postwar years, of which the supplementary pension funds form part, is essentially distinct from the private insurance system, since participation in it is governed by statutory provisions and collective agreements, making it in essence compulsory.
Besides, it is not by chance that these arguments for private insurance are being put forward at a time when, on the one hand, the suffocating financial restrictions imposed by EMU, the single currency and the stability pact, and on the other hand, the new employment policy and much-vaunted competitiveness are squeezing the life out of the public insurance system and are being used to bring about its gradual disintegration.
Within that framework, it is characteristic that the attempt is being made to transfer responsibility for the organisation of insurance from the state to working people, either individually or at corporate level by means of group private insurance schemes, and of course at the cost of any notion of collectiveness and social solidarity and to the benefit of the profits made by insurance companies.
Investment by pension funds is a critical issue which demands prudence, responsibility and effective control.
The reserves in those funds belong to their worker-members and must not be gambled away in games on the stock markets.
The continuing market crisis demonstrates the consequences that can come from the pursuit of 'high returns'.
Those worries are intensified by the proposals to amend the provisions on preventive supervision and reduce the related requirements, and by the proposals to liberalise the regulatory framework which governs investment portfolios with the aim of increasing share investment.
Indeed, what has changed since the time when the EU itself established such rules for life assurance companies, arguing that the diversification of assets among many categories of property elements and the imposition of quantitative restrictions reduce risk?
For us, this is an issue beyond debate.
The amendments we have tabled emphasise our opposition and the basis of principle which leads us to reject any attempt to create a situation in which the management of pension fund reserves is liberalised and uncontrolled, leaving their assets to be gambled away on the stock markets.
Though the report has some good points, it accepts the Commission's orientation and in some cases goes still further by calling for the application of competition rules to pension funds, on the basis of equal treatment with insurance companies.
For those reasons, we will vote against the report.
I abstained in some of the votes on this report because I could not find a Swedish version.
There were no English or Danish versions available either, so I was forced to familiarise myself with the text in German.
Unfortunately, my German is not of a sufficiently high standard for me to be confident that I had understood the various points.
I therefore abstained in some of the votes.
Caccavale report (A4-0430/98)
We welcome the strenuous efforts made by Latvia, not least in terms of adapting its legislation to meet the EU's criteria in order to facilitate membership of the European Union in the future.
The process of enlargement towards Central and Eastern Europe gives us an historic opportunity to establish lasting peace based on the principles of freedom and democracy.
It is vital that the EU should not betray the strong desire of the people of Latvia to see their country become a fully-fledged member of the European Union.
The Commission should take this opportunity to send a clear signal to the people of Latvia that there will be no delay in opening negotiations.
It is gratifying that the European Parliament is in favour of opening membership negotiations with Latvia without further delay.
Nevertheless, I do not strictly agree with the rapporteur's reasons, when he 'notes the successes achieved by Latvia as regards the transition to a market economy, privatisation, containing inflation and balancing the budget'.
It is a pity that the economic criteria imposed on the applicant countries are so strongly geared towards privatisation and the market economy.
Capitalism and a market economy are not the most effective or rational ways to produce and distribute resources.
In a world where 40 000 children die every day from starvation and related diseases, where 80 % of its people consume 20 % of the resources while others are rolling in luxury, where 90 % of the financial capital is used up in unproductive speculation instead of investment, one only has to look around to see that what is required is democratic control of the economy.
Together we need to create a society where people have control over their daily lives.
The objective should be to achieve a method of production which includes compensation for the pursuit of profit, solidarity to compensate for competition, and democracy to compensate for 'economism'.
The reports submitted to us today, on applicant countries which the Commission has relegated to second class, bring few new elements. They simply call for a review of the distinction between 'in' and 'pre-in' which would allow the countries placed in the second category to move up to the first category at any time on the basis of the extent to which they have adopted the 'acquis communautaire'.
While at the beginning of the decade the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the communist regimes raised hopes of a rapid political reunification of Europe which could have taken the form of a continental confederation, we now find that this has been prevented by the way in which we have pursued European unification and by the way in which we have fixed on the method of integration.
Applicants for membership have been subjected to the humiliating procedure of 'sifting' and have been judged solely on the basis of their ability to adapt to the Community machinery, rather than being immediately recognised as full European Member States.
The confused approach to two totally different questions, namely economic and social reforms in these countries and political recognition as part of Europe, has resulted in a situation where it seems that we are haggling over their full status as Europeans, thereby fostering disappointment and resentment.
It is also striking that the European Union as it is currently developing has no desire to benefit from the wealth of experience, culture and talent of the countries it is hoping to integrate, since it is so busy subjecting them to its merciless accounting and teaching them how to cannibalise their institutions.
That is why, while ardently seeking European reunification, we can only regret the absence of a genuine debate on the nature of the European Union.
The silence which we are now trying to impose may well not be able to stifle the people of eastern Europe, who are only too familiar with the lies of a superstate, as easily as some people think.
Bernard-Reymond report (A4-0428/98)
The rapporteur would like the European Parliament to 'encourage Romania... to press on with the vital reforms, in particular the privatisation process...'
It should also be noted that it has unfortunately not been possible to recommend the opening of accession negotiations under the present circumstances, partly because democratic rights, such as freedom of the press, have still not been fully implemented in Romania, but mainly because the Romanian economy does not comply with the so-called Copenhagen criteria.
I am delighted that the discussions are proceeding, since I am a strong supporter of EU enlargement.
However, the European Union is a political project, not an economic one.
I therefore think it is unfortunate that greater emphasis is placed on economic criteria than on democratic rights.
As a Social Democrat, I am opposed to the EU being a 'rich man's club'.
With regard to privatisation, I think that it this an issue which should be dealt with at national level.
A certain amount of public ownership is nevertheless necessary in order to provide people with a satisfactory level of welfare.
Wiersma report (A4-0427/98)
The rapporteur says that it is too early to make a definite decision on Slovakia's application for membership before the end of 1998, but that Parliament should be given another opportunity to express its opinion before May at the latest.
I welcome this proposal, since I firmly support rapid enlargement of the European Union.
According to the rapporteur, Slovakia should wait because even though the choice made by Parliament in September ought to make it possible for the political requirements of the Copenhagen criteria to be met, the economic situation has deteriorated.
The proposed solution is that Slovakia should begin to implement the necessary measures for achieving a fully functioning market economy in a transparent way, especially with regard to privatisation.
However, I think one should be cautious in attempting to resolve the country's economic problems through the speedy introduction of a market economy.
This method has been tried in Russia, for example, where average life expectancy at the beginning of the 1990s fell by six years.
The alternative would be to construct a sturdy and efficient public welfare sector and to strengthen democracy.
Kristoffersen report (A4-0431/98)
The enlargement of the European Union towards Central and Eastern Europe offers an historic opportunity to establish lasting peace, democracy and well-being.
With regard to Lithuania, we are gratified by the extraordinary effort that has been made to adapt its legal system to comply with the EU's criteria.
The EU should therefore give the people of Lithuania a clear signal regarding future membership of the European Union.
In the reports which the Commission has just presented, it has failed to indicate any substantial differences that exist between the three Baltic states as regards the extent to which they have complied with the Copenhagen criteria.
The Commission's reports do not furnish us with the information we need to decide why Latvia should have 'made particular progress', whereas Lithuania has only 'improved significantly'.
Although we naturally welcome the fact that Latvia may be eligible to take part in concrete membership negotiations next year, we find it very hard to understand why the Commission should differentiate between the two countries as regards their fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria.
We do not think that Latvia and Lithuania should be treated differently in terms of opening negotiations, and both countries should be included in an accelerated process of enlargement.
The rapporteur would like to see Lithuania's accession process speeded up to enable intensive negotiations to begin shortly.
I welcome such a development, since I believe that EU membership should be open to as many countries as possible.
I assume, in relation to these negotiations, that Lithuania is fully aware of the importance of decommissioning the Ignalina nuclear power plant.
I should therefore like to comment on the rapporteur's statement that he 'is pleased that the Commission finds that Lithuania has made substantial progress in becoming a market economy...'
However, we have to remember that market economies do not have any intrinsic value in themselves.
The aim should be to enable the people of Lithuania to live in a society in which they can fulfil their ambitions.
That should be the objective in setting out to reform society, together with the strengthening of human rights and democracy.
Aelvoet report (A4-0429/98)
I am delighted that the European Parliament believes that Bulgaria has made sufficient political and economic progress to begin accession negotiations.
In order for the social democratic vision of Europe to become a reality, it is vital for as many countries as possible to join the European Union.
According to the rapporteur, Bulgaria has made substantial efforts to 'speed up the privatisation process and to further develop the conditions for a functioning market economy'.
I should like to take this opportunity to point out that placing too much emphasis on economic criteria is to be condemned.
The European Union is a political project and, in my view, our primary concern therefore ought to be to ensure that countries comply with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and give their inhabitants access to effective welfare provision.
Experience has shown that economic regulation is needed in order to achieve this goal.
Swoboda report (A4-0432/98)
The report provides an insight into the long way that Turkey still has to go to meet the political, democratic and economic requirements for membership of the European Union.
The report calls on the Turkish Government to fulfil its promises with regard to human rights, carry out judicial reform, recognise minorities like the Kurds, put an end to torture, abolish the death penalty and introduce freedom of opinion and freedom of the press.
The report invites Turkey to put forward concrete proposals for complying with these requirements, resolving the Kurdish problem and setting free all political prisoners, including Leyla Zana.
I support this proposal and have voted in favour of the report.
However, I would say that now, as a result of Abdullah Ocalan's flight to Italy, the EU, OSCE and UN have a real opportunity to begin a peace process and bring to an end the 14-year war between the Turkish army and the Kurds and PKK.
The global community has to put pressure on the Turkish Government to persuade Turkey to sit down at the negotiating table.
Since Sweden is now a member of the UN Security Council, its government should take the initiative, as the Norwegian Government did some years ago to try to resolve the Palestinian conflict, and convene a conference in Stockholm for the interested parties, including the UN, OSCE, USA and EU, the Turkish Government, the PKK and other Kurdish representatives, in order to initiate a similar peace process.
By and large, I am happy with the recommendations made in this report.
Their intention is after all to improve relations with Turkey.
In our amendments, however, we have sought to place the emphasis on the importance of finding a political solution to the Kurdish question in Turkey.
I still think it is a pity that we concluded a customs union with Turkey before a number of essential guarantees on human rights and a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish question had been secured.
Nor am I convinced that full membership of the European Union is the best format for future relations between Turkey and the European Union.
Thousands of people are today languishing in Turkish prisons for having taken part in peaceful political activities.
In the Turkish part of Kurdistan, 3 185 villages have been cleared out during the past 14 years.
In 1997, 20 people died in circumstances which indicated that they had been illegally put to death by the Turkish State, and at least six people were tortured to death during the same year; approximately 20 million people have been prohibited from speaking their native language; one half of Cyprus is under Turkish occupation; and, according to Amnesty International, at least 6 000 people have died as a result of the war against opposition forces in the Turkish part of Kurdistan.
The list of Turkish violations of such things as the UN Declaration of Human Rights is lengthening as Turkey goes on deliberately and systematically abusing its own citizens.
The European Union, its individual Member States, other democratic countries and the international organisations have for a long time allowed Turkey to participate in a number of cooperation initiatives.
The reason has very often been marketdriven, but it has also been to promote human rights and democracy in Turkey.
As a result, some cooperation initiatives have been conditional on Turkey's guaranteeing to respect human rights - a promise it has failed to keep.
In my view, such behaviour on Turkey's part shows how the land lies.
It is time for democratic organisations and countries to try out new means for bringing democracy and human rights to the oppressed people of Turkey.
For the above reasons, I am opposed to any further cooperation with Turkey on the part of the European Union.
We abstained on the Swoboda report.
The rapporteur regrets the fact that relations between the European Union and Turkey have reached a total impasse, due to Ankara's decision to freeze political relations.
Mr Swoboda is all the more surprised and disappointed as he believes considerable progress has been made in considering Turkey's application since the Customs Union entered into force on 1 January 1996.
The rapporteur lists the various positions adopted by the Council and the Commission since that time, confirming Turkey's 'European vocation' and its 'eligibility' for membership of the European Union.
But Mr Swoboda fails to mention that relations with Turkey are at an impasse precisely because of this language of ambiguity and confusion. You cannot have it both ways.
Either the Union believes what it says and Turkey is a European country, in which case it must start a pre-accession procedure and if it fails to do so Turkey is perfectly entitled to accuse it of being inconsistent. Alternatively, the European Union does not in fact believe that Turkey is part of Europe, in which case it should say so outright and stop pretending otherwise.
Our group believes that identities need to be clearly defined and recognised before normal and constructive relations can be established with Turkey.
Continuing ambiguity can only jeopardise these relations, which are essential for balance in the Mediterranean and western Asia, given the important role which Turkey plays and will continue to play in the Middle East and central Asia.
It is because we support a concept of Europe clearly based on respect for the nation states of which it consists and which constitute its basis, substance and strength, that we want to see respect for Turkey's true identity and a calm acknowledgement that this great country does not belong to the European geographical and cultural whole.
If we continue to deceive ourselves on this point we threaten to cause a deep and lasting crisis in our relations with Ankara.
The Union's present inability to engage in clear speaking with Turkey says much about its own inability to define itself geographically and makes it look as if it is destined to become a vague, ill-defined mass, which will be doing it a great disservice.
By contrast, a variable-geometry Europe will provide a solid basis for extensive cooperation with Turkey in areas of mutual interest.
We were unable to support Mr Swoboda's report as it offers no way out of these dangerous ambiguities.
We would further stress how much we deplore the fact that Turkey is still a long way from fulfilling the so-called Copenhagen criteria in relation to human rights, democracy, the rule of law and respect for and protection of minorities, despite the fact that the Customs Union agreement concluded between Turkey and the European Union was conditional on Turkey implementing democratic reforms, strengthening human rights, resolving the Kurdish issue by non-military means and abolishing anti-terrorist legislation.
It is most regrettable that Turkey has not only not kept its promises - which were a prerequisite for the Customs Union agreement - but on the contrary has to some extent aggravated the situation.
We are constantly receiving reports from human rights organisations of human rights abuses.
Hence the release of political prisoners has still not begun.
It is extremely alarming that the army has tightened its control over civil society.
It should give up its current role in the political system immediately.
The fermenting of nationalist feeling and the boycott of Italian goods constitutes a violation of the provisions of the Association Agreement and the Customs Union.
Herman report (A4-0439/98)
Madam President, it is going to prove very difficult in the future to impose a single monetary policy on a structurally diverse zone.
We have a small foretaste of this today with this motion for a Council resolution on the Economic and Monetary Union's external representation.
Before having made any start at all on harmonising the substance of their external positions - despite the fact that we are just one month away from the euro - European and Member States' institutions have been tearing themselves apart over the question of how the Union is going to speak with a single voice.
The final agreement satisfies everyone as it accepts that the Community's external representation will be jointly formed by three institutions: the Council, the Commission and the European Central Bank.
The Commission, which drew up the original text, has seized upon the least important article in the Treaty to grab the limelight in joint representation when its initial claims to such a role were very weak.
Now, as in the past, the European Parliament, its accomplice, has helped it in this escapade by serving as a stepping stone, on condition that the favour is returned.
This situation leads us to make two points regarding the anti-democratic and incoherent nature of the method.
Firstly, the Maastricht Treaty - in order not to frighten the voters on the political consequences of the single currency and to present the reform as a purely technical matter - did not clearly state that EMU's external representation must be supranational.
Yet this is the solution which we can now see as ultimately emerging.
The Commission will clearly seek every available means to increase its own importance by claiming to represent the general interest against the Council, which it will try to sideline.
The outcome will not be one clearly chosen by the public.
But manoeuvrings like this - and there are many of them in EMU - could also cause the euro to fail, as in order to conceal the final objective we are preparing to implement, during the intermediate period, a totally incoherent institutional system in which three European institutions will be competing on the international stage, plus the representations of the individual Member States which will remain, certainly for countries not joining the euro and perhaps also for certain others.
This incoherence, when coupled with the others, could make the system unworkable. The federalists will then finally be punished for their sins and their lack of respect for democracy.
In political terms, the European Union is a close cooperative association of independent nation states.
As such, it cannot be classed as a state or an international organisation.
Because of this hybrid nature, the external representation of the economic and monetary union in international forums like the International Monetary Fund or the G7 presents us with a problem.
In statutory terms, it is simple.
Only states can be members of most international groupings.
And where individual EU Member States are members of such bodies, full membership of the EU or EMU means being represented twice over.
In practice, however, it is desirable for the Member States taking part in EMU to express a common opinion or position.
This can be done through the person of the observer.
My initial feeling is that the presidency of the ECOFIN Council or perhaps the chair of the ECB Council would be the best spokesman for EMU - certainly not the President or a Member of the European Commission, because they do not provide the 'day-to-day administration' of the Union or EMU.
It would be a violation of the allocation of responsibilities laid down in the Treaties to allow the European Commission to act as a pseudogovernment for the EU.
For the above reasons, I was unable to support the Herman report.
We are four weeks away from the launch of the euro and, according to the latest news, it was not easy to find a solution for representing the euro area at international financial institutions.
Above all, certain Member States persist in having the Commission excluded from that representation.
This reductionist vision of Europe, contrary to Article 109(4) of the Treaty and the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council in December 1997, is also contrary to the spirit of 'more Europe' as characterised by economic and monetary union.
Speaking with a single voice is not exactly the same as speaking with one voice only, which is what the Council apparently seems to want.
On the other hand, it would be unacceptable if there was any new discrimination between small and large countries in the euro area over taking part in G-7 meetings.
If small countries such as Portugal, Austria or Luxembourg have already shown their ability to preside over the fate of the Union, there is no reason why they should be considered as being of less political importance when it comes to taking part in G-7 meetings.
The economic and commercial weight of the European Union strengthened by the constitution of the euro as a reserve currency and international reference currency, gives it special responsibilities in the reform of the world financial system and its institutions, in particular the IMF.
The European Union is now a pivot in the field of the prevention and management of financial crises.
Pointless discussions about the number of votes would only weaken its credibility.
There are not going to be three voices. There will be two vocal cords in the same voice.
That of the Presidents-in-Office of the 'Euro-11' will have an economic timbre and will rotate.
The other, with a monetary trill, will be permanent and will be emitted by the President of the ECB.
It is not the ideal solution because it humiliates the Commission, which is given only a secondary role, lending technical support within the Union's delegation.
But, given the lack of time, it is preferable to take a slightly less than ideal decision than no decision at all.
And it seems that that is what will happen.
British Labour Members of the European Parliament abstained in the final vote on the Herman Report on the 'Representation and Position Taking of the Community at International Level in the context of Economic and Monetary Union'.
This does not indicate opposition to the principle of the need for a mechanism to deal with the external representation of the current Euro 11.
Rather, it reflects dissatisfaction with an over Communitization of this sensitive issue on the part of the European Commission.
It is also an acknowledgement of the pre-in status of the United Kingdom.
Bearing in mind, in my view at any rate, that the European Union should be based on international cooperation, I cannot support the assertion that 'exchange rate policy can be effective when it is supported by a coordinated economic and monetary policy' (Amendment No 1, recital 8).
Nor can I accept that, 'after coordination on the broad guidelines of economic policies has taken place, the Community should really speak with one voice' (Amendment No 2, recital 8b).
I think the ECB is deeply undemocratic in its structure, because of the way in which it appoints its governors, to name one reason.
I am opposed to having a supranational European Central Bank which is free from all democratic control, and I am therefore not going to vote in favour of a text which says that governors will no longer represent their countries but the Monetary Union (Amendment No 4, recital 11a).
I abstained in the vote on this report, since Sweden is not participating in the economic and monetary union.
Randzio-Plath report (A4-0441/98)
It is to the credit of Mrs Randzio-Plath's report on the global monetary and financial crisis that, for the first time, we find the beginnings of doubts expressed about the benefits of the euro.
In particular, it calls on the European Union and the United States 'to maintain a balanced relationship between the rates of the dollar and of the euro', thus reflecting real and justified concern at the risk of increased volatility with a bipolar system in a context of general crisis.
The report also stresses that 'the effects of crises on the European economy may not be evenly distributed, as individual Member States have different trade exposures to different parts of the world economy', which again expresses the fear that Europe will be the victim of an asymmetrical shock which a single monetary zone such as the euro zone will not be able to absorb without demanding important sacrifices of its population.
However, it was for another reason that we did not vote in favour of the Randzio-Plath report, namely because it ends with a very dubious call for an increase in European investment expenditure in order to halt the slowdown in growth.
Unfortunately, such a programme would simply increase the European Union's powers while at the same time inflating an already unbearable public debt, with future generations of taxpayers having to pay for our mistakes.
Above all, proposals of this kind simply temporarily conceal the real problems and postpone effective solutions.
France and Germany in particular are caught in the stranglehold of the burden of obligatory taxes on the one hand and the systematic opening up of trade on the other.
To loosen this stranglehold we must introduce a genuine system to defend European trade while at the same time lightening the burden of the public sector, especially social systems.
On this latter point, we must find a way of reconciling our principles of solidarity with more flexible social protection management. This is possible, as the Netherlands has already done it!
Under these conditions, the proposal for European investment expenditure, supported by all the Members of the left, simply serves to protect privileges and to artificially sustain already doomed systems.
Mrs Randzio-Plath's report is based on the a priori assumption that 'cohabitation' can work.
A few decades ago, this belief was fiercely upheld by 'progressive' political groups who sought to give it shape at national level.
In this report, we see similar ideas being projected at international level.
Just as government cannot totally control the financial sector at national level, and should not be able to do so, such control cannot and should not be entrusted to international organisations either.
Of course there has to be better supervision.
A greater degree of transparency is also desirable.
This can be achieved through codes of conduct and harmonised accounting rules for financial institutions and companies, drawn up under the aegis of the International Monetary Fund or the Bank for International Settlements.
In my Amendments Nos 12 and 13, I made the point that instruments of monetary policy cannot simply be used to stimulate investment in jobs.
The call for the euro to be pegged to the US dollar is already an unnatural development and may prove a source of tension.
Since these amendments were not adopted, this was ample reason to vote against the report as a whole.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the Randzio-Plath report on the international financial crises and their effects on the economy of the European Union, but against all the amendments.
We voted in favour because the report contains many sound proposals on how to prevent crises on the lines of that in South-East Asia.
The countries hit first and hardest by the crisis are characterised by not having carried out structural economic reforms.
International accountancy standards are not being applied in the affected countries, nor is there any independent financial supervision.
The international institutions should also be reviewed, including the Bretton Woods institutions such as the IMF, which has now been in existence for 54 years.
The financing of the IMF must be increased and the transparency of the institutions improved, the Fund should have a greater degree of political accountability, and surveillance of the exchange markets should be tightened.
To avoid the crisis spreading to the EU, it is proposed that a boost should be given to demand, for example by stepping up public investment and not regarding such expenditure as contributing to the public deficit.
Demand should be increased, but it is difficult to bypass the requirements of the third stage of EMU, and the subsequent demands of the growth and stability pact may not be in the interests of the present and future Euroland.
This means that we are voting in favour of the report as it stands, but against all the amendments.
I will be voting in favour of this report, which highlights the serious consequences of the prevailing economic and financial system.
The increased power of a transnational financial capitalism in which capital movements and speculations are more important than real trade in goods is causing serious imbalances, chaos and crisis, while inequalities between and within countries are increasing.
The time has come to regulate economies and financial movements properly in order to encourage harmonious development for the benefit of the public.
This is why the European Parliament must energetically support Mr Tobin's idea to introduce global taxes on capital movements.
Simply referring to a code of good conduct and to the need for transparency is not a sufficient guarantee for the future.
A system of taxation of capital movements will have a threefold effect, limiting speculation, providing better knowledge of capital movements, and recognising the principle of taxing capital.
The argument for capital mobility is a pretext for reducing taxes and the growing imbalance between taxes and charges on labour and consumption and those levied on assets and capital.
Finally, Mrs Randzio-Plath's report rightly alludes to the serious risks of reduced growth in Europe as a result of the world financial crisis and calls for a recovery of internal demand.
Although the report stresses the need for major European investment, it does not mention the vital need for lower interest rates to help the recovery.
Central banks, such as the ECB, seem to be deaf to the requests of many European finance ministers.
The European Parliament is also missing an important opportunity to play its role in the 'democratic dialogue' with the ECB which it regularly calls for, because by being too slow to cut interest rates Europe risks being caught up in a spiral of reduced growth and then having to take urgent action.
We all know, more's the pity, that the price of this impotence and reduced growth will be higher unemployment.
This is why every effort must be made to correct it.
The continuing financial crisis which began in Thailand has spread to the whole of south-east Asia and then to Russia and Latin America, and is characterised by sudden and lasting falls in the value of stock market assets and currency exchange rates, and the bankruptcy of giant financial institutions and other investment groups and major industrial enterprises.
The governments of the large countries and the multinational capital directly involved in companies in those countries fear that the situation may get out of control.
The framework of efforts to deal with the problem include the recent decisions by the G-7 Group, which the rapporteur approves but which do not address the essence of the crisis.
On the one hand they are compelled to admit that the celebrated globalisation, under the conditions in which it is taking place led by major multinational interests, may prove catastrophic for the system they have created, and on the other hand they insist on their basic choice which, as the report characteristically puts it, consists in the existence of a 'world-wide financial credit market supported by technology and investors to pursue the greatest profitability'.
There is no mention at all of control over profiteering capital movements, which are a fundamentally destabilising factor especially for less developed countries, and which are an integral element of the rationale of easy, quick and maximum profit.
No concern at all is shown for the promotion of productive investments which would contribute to economic recovery and job creation.
Before the crisis gets any worse and becomes more widespread, the Member States must adopt initiatives to increase public investment, support the public sector and divert the vast reserves of private capital away from stock market speculation and towards productive investment.
In parallel, the EU must adopt the necessary initiatives to abolish tax havens for capital.
It surprises us that the EU's official bodies have so far declined to perceive the risk that the crisis may spread further and begin to have an impact within the EU, pleading the supposed stability of the euro zone.
They disregard the reality that extensive exposure of the European financial credit giants to countries such as Russia and south-east Asian countries is a potential timebomb for Europe's already vulnerable economy.
They ignore the forecasts of the IMF and the OECD concerning slower development, clearly so as not to dampen the ill-justified euphoria about the imminent introduction of the euro.
We categorically oppose any attempt to strengthen the intervention powers of the IMF and the other international economic organisations.
This of course does not mean that we accept the system created by the Bretton Woods agreement.
But the plans to create an Economic Security Council, to invest the IMF's Interim Committee with decision-making powers, or even to call upon private capital for emergency loans - together with the IMF - for countries affected by crises, will not only fail to solve the problem but also result in further restriction of the sovereign rights of the borrowing countries, the imposition of stricter austerity programmes on their peoples, and the creation of overcentralised structures with no accountability over the heads of national and regional authorities.
We have no doubt that the crises will continue unless the policies and conditions which nourish them undergo substantive changes.
The first victims of those crises are the millions of working people who are then called upon to bear the cost of the new austerity and restructuring programmes.
Only they, with their coordinated struggle at national, Community and international level, can impose a redistribution of power at international level and promote measures which will mitigate and in the long run eliminate the causes of these phenomena.
I abstained in the final vote on this report because Parliament did not comply with the rules governing a quorum laid down in Rule 112.
I believe that the decision taken was in breach of Parliament's own Rules of Procedure.
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 1.15 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 3 December 1998.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I want to speak on pages 6 and 7 of the Minutes.
As you have acknowledged yourself, a qualified majority was needed to adopt the Statute, an absolute majority of Members of Parliament.
So I imagine it was a mistake that Recital g), which received 270 votes, was declared adopted, and likewise Amendment No 84 to the Annex, with 264 votes, Article 1(1) of the Annex, with 251 votes for the first part and 212 for the second, Article 2 of the Annex, with 279 votes for the first part and 288 for the second, Article 8(1) of the Annex, with 311 votes, and, finally, Article 5 of the Annex, with 297 votes.
These provisions appear in the Draft Statute which was adopted.
I believe they should not have been declared adopted and I do not think we can approve Minutes containing such a manifest error, especially as important provisions are contained in the text in question.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you will remember that you raised this question when the text came to be approved in the form in which its various parts had been adopted.
It is when the vote is taken that the majority has to be established, and the majority was established at that point and easily obtained.
I also told you that I would refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
You wrote me a letter which I shall forward to the Rules Committee in order to have a definitive interpretation.
For the moment, these parts of the text are deemed to have been adopted in accordance with my interpretation of the vote at the time, right or wrong.
They therefore stand adopted.
The text has been forwarded to the Council, which moreover has just taken note of it at the European Council meeting in Vienna.
However, your written protest will be forwarded to the Rules Committee without delay, so that it can consider this interpretation.
Mr President, I asked you last time to consider improving the bicycle facilities in this building, such as by allocating one car-parking space in the covered car park for bicycles.
I have not had any reply from you, although the President at the time assured me she would look into the matter.
I would therefore ask you again, as I did last time, to ensure that improvements are made so that cyclists do not always have to take second place to car-drivers.
Set one car-parking space aside so that cyclists have more room to store their bicycles out of the rain.
Thank you, Mr Eisma.
I shall investigate what exactly happened and why no reply has been forthcoming. Rest assured that you will receive a reply in due course.
Mr President, I have just found out that Mr Zaldivar, the President of the Chilean Senate, who supported General Pinochet's coup d'état, is coming to the European Parliament tomorrow in support of Pinochet.
May I ask in what context and on what grounds this visit is taking place?
You are misinformed, Mr Duhamel.
The President of the Senate, Mr Zaldívar, was exiled for many years precisely because he did not support the coup d'état by General Pinochet.
He is coming here to visit me, like any other Speaker of a parliament.
I do not know the reason for his visit.
That is not something that I ask other Speakers.
I have Parliament's resolution.
It was easy to reply to him, because Parliament has already adopted resolutions on the subject.
Mr President, I have a point of order based on Rules 2, 5 and 119 of the Rules of Procedure.
Messrs Falconer, Balfe and other like-minded Members will be pleased to hear that I have taken legal advice and that I intend to apply to the Court of First Instance to have the Bureau's decision of 15 and 16 December 1997 annulled, in accordance with the Beate Weber procedure.
Once the Quaestors have taken a formal decision, a two-month period begins in which this application must be made.
I shall spare you the arguments - one legal and one fiscal - but if I give this document to your Secretary-General, Mr President, I should be grateful if, as the experienced and authoritative lawyer that I know you are, you would consider whether the decision taken at the time to impose penalties for a refusal to participate in roll-call votes should not be reviewed in the light of the new Members' Statute.
I would be most grateful if you could forward me a copy of the legal advice, Mr Janssen van Raay. I shall then, of course, pass it to the Bureau.
This is not a matter of my personal preference, even though it might seem so at times.
It is a Bureau decision, and in due course, the Bureau will decide whether the issue should or should not be reviewed.
Mr President, I am very concerned about Members' safety and there is something I would like to warn you about.
One Friday in Brussels, I had a group of visitors on the fifth floor of the LEO building, and at a certain point several people said that they could smell burning.
It took 20 minutes of telephoning around the various services before any alarm was sounded.
If there really was a fire in the building, this would be far too long.
Would you ask the security services in Brussels to carry out tests to see whether Members would be in danger in that sort of situation? There was not a fire on that particular occasion, but we were not to know that.
Thank you very much, Mrs van Putten.
Your comments have been noted and will be pursued with the security services.
To date, what seems to happen is that nobody can do anything for 20 minutes because the lifts stop working during an alarm.
However, the occasion you have referred to is different and we shall investigate exactly what happened. You will be informed of the result of the investigation.
(The Minutes were approved)
Agenda
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed, to which the following amendments have been proposed:
Monday: no change
Tuesday:
Mr President, I would like to ask for a small change to Tuesday's agenda.
The reports from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy are on the agenda, including my own report.
However, a report on fisheries is slotted in between one of the Economic Committee reports and my own, which is then followed by another report on fisheries.
In terms of time management for both Members and Commissioners, this does not make much sense.
As this concerns the second reading, I would like my report to be taken before the Souchet report.
It will take five minutes.
That is a better solution, because our fisheries colleagues will not have to wait.
So I would ask you to make this small change, which would also be appreciated by Commissioner de Silguy.
I would gladly do that, Mrs Lulling, but you know that amendments to the agenda must be proposed by a political group or 29 Members one hour before the opening of the sitting.
Unless I am mistaken, I have not received such a request.
But I see that Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is asking for the floor.
Mr President, this is something we overlooked, for which I sincerely apologise.
I think Mrs Lulling's request is entirely reasonable.
Her report would take perhaps ten minutes to discuss, and I think it is important to bring it forward.
I gather from the expressions of colleagues on the other side of the Chamber, particularly Mrs Green, that they would not object to this.
Things as they stand are organised very illogically.
If there are no objections, I shall put the request by Mrs Lulling to the vote.
(Parliament approved the request)
Mr President, I am not asking for a change to Tuesday's agenda but, on behalf of our group and pursuant to Rule 129, I call for the Elles report on discharge for 1996 to be referred back to committee.
The Committee on Budgetary Control considered the report the other day and the essential paragraph, which grants discharge, was passed by 14 votes to 13, when there had already been a vote on this issue.
The report as it stands contains glaring contradictions.
Recitals g), I) and j) would normally imply refusal of discharge.
The same applies to Article 5, for example, and to several others in the decision.
The final article, granting discharge, contradicts the rest of the resolution, and it will not be possible to remove this contradiction because we have just learned that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities is going to propose that Parliament reject the amendments to the discharge decision.
If the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control, especially the rapporteur, had known that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure was taking this position, I doubt if the proposal put to the Committee on Budgetary Control would have been worded in the same way.
The proposal actually left the Committee on Budgetary Control free to decide whether to grant or refuse discharge.
So in view both of the internal contradiction in the report and the Rules Committee's new position, I am asking, under Rule 129, for the Elles report to be referred back to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Is there a speaker in favour of the request?
Mr President, I must admit that events in the last few days have been totally unpredictable so far as the 1996 discharge report is concerned.
I would have thought that the 1996 budget would have been rather more important than the 1996 discharge but history has told us otherwise.
What we have heard this afternoon from Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is correct.
We now have a report which is extremely tough on the whole question of management of the 1996 discharge and yet a very narrow majority, achieved by our Socialist Labour colleagues when one of us happened to leave, means that we are now facing acceptance rather than rejection or refusal to grant.
In the light of the fact that we also have an unprecedented ruling that we now have to apply the Rules of Procedure in our vote rather than the Treaty, I suggest that we refer this report back to committee and bring it to our next part-session.
Does anyone wish to speak against?
Mr President, I should like to oppose Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion. Once again he has demonstrated that he is a bad loser.
I have never known a 14/13 vote to be an unacceptable majority.
When he says we had new information, we have had no new information at all from the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
All we have had is a reaffirmation of the existing Rules.
In committee we had a very thorough debate.
As Mr Elles rightly says, we make some very tough criticisms.
But we have often made tough criticisms of the Commission without refusing them discharge.
At one stage we asked for a deferment of discharge but since then we have had an improvement in the Commission's position.
I have to say that it still has some way to go, but there are sufficient grounds for progress, in the view of the majority of the committee, for us still to go ahead and grant discharge.
I hope that now we will reject Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion, having had this fully debated in the committee.
I see that the chairman has asked for the floor but the chairman is a very partial person in this question, having herself tabled an amendment to reject.
The chairman is entitled to express an opinion under Rule 126.
I put the request for the Elles report to be referred back to committee to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Mr President, I should like to tell Mr Colom i Naval that I do indeed know how to lose. But that is not by any means my problem at the moment, because we will certainly know one way or the other on Thursday.
My question to the President is about when the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control will have the opportunity to reflect upon the findings of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
A certain insecurity did of course prevail when we pronounced our opinion.
That is why I would ask you to make some suggestion as to procedure, because in my view we simply cannot accept the opinion of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure on the subject without an exchange of views.
That is why I would ask you when there is going to be a discussion on procedure.
Mrs Müller, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure will put forward an interpretation, which is what the Committee on Budgetary Control requested.
This interpretation will be put to the vote in the House without a debate.
I hope that it will be possible to vote tomorrow, at the end of the morning sitting.
The interpretation will naturally be read out to the House.
This is the system laid down in the Rules of Procedure: the interpretation is to be read out and it will then either be adopted or rejected.
Mr President, I do not think it is right that we should have to vote on the basis of information provided by certain Members about a decision apparently taken by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
None of us has any documentation and we are being asked to take a decision.
I would ask that in future we should be provided with the documents or reports we need before we are asked to decide on anything.
Mr Martens, we did not vote on the decision by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, but on a request for referral back to committee, which is something quite different.
The Rules Committee will give its interpretation, which will be announced to the House.
Rule 162(4) reads as follows: 'Should a political group or at least twenty-nine Members contest the committee's interpretation, the matter shall be put to the vote in Parliament. Adoption of the text shall be by simple majority provided that at least one third of Parliament's Members are present.
In the event of rejection, the matter shall be referred back to the committee.'
This means that as soon as we have the interpretation by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure - which I do not yet know myself - it will be read out to the House.
Everyone will have the text sufficiently far in advance to be able to exercise the right provided for in Rule 162(4).
By contesting the interpretation, therefore, a group can ask for it to be rejected.
Parliament will vote and take its decision after everyone has had time to read the interpretation and decided whether or not to contest it.
Mr President, last Thursday afternoon the Conference of Presidents was told that it would be informed of the results of the discussion in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure on Wednesday afternoon, to prevent us from having to have an endless procedural debate here.
I would like to ask you how these two things can now be reconciled.
First of all, I would not like us to arrive here at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning to find a document that the groups have not had a chance to read, study and compare with statements by other groups, because the problem at issue here is an extremely serious one.
Secondly, I think we must be logical in the order in which agreements are reached here in the House.
If the matter is to be examined in the Conference of Presidents, then we cannot have a vote on it here in the plenary before that.
Mrs Aelvoet, the Conference of Presidents is not competent to interpret the Rules of Procedure.
There is a system, laid down by the Rules themselves, which I have just read out.
As soon as I have the interpretation, it will be announced to the House and I will ensure that the text is sent immediately to all the groups.
Whether the announcement is made this evening or at 9 a.m. tomorrow, you will have at least three hours before the vote in which to decide whether to contest this interpretation.
Those are the terms of Rule 162(4)
Your group, or 29 Members, can contest the interpretation and Parliament will take its decision at the end of the morning.
The Conference of Presidents is not competent in this area.
I am sorry, but no agreement can override the Rules of Procedure.
The Rules must be respected, and that is how we shall proceed.
Mr President, before you close the item I initiated by asking for referral back to committee, I would like you to clarify something you said.
I think the conclusion you have drawn from the rejection of my request for referral went too far.
Rule 129(2) does indeed state that a request for referral back to committee may be made only once, but that is during each of the three procedural stages. These are: agenda-setting, which we are now doing; the opening of the debate, which will be tomorrow morning; and the final vote, which I think will be on Wednesday morning.
So the rejection of my motion by no means rules out other requests for referral back to committee.
We simply cannot do so again now, while we are setting the agenda, and we will only be able to do so once during each of the other two stages.
That is correct.
You are quite right.
Mr President, I would simply like to ask you to move to the next item on the agenda.
I think we have spent enough time on this point and everything has been decided.
Thank you.
I think that everything is settled, but it is no bad thing for Members to be able to express their views on such an important issue.
I agree entirely with you, Mrs Pack.
For that to be the case, however, the relevant committee should consider the matter earlier.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure met as soon as it could.
I apologise for this.
Wednesday: no change
Thursday:
The Group of the Party of European Socialists is proposing that Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's report on the quality of the drafting of legislative texts and Mr Cot's report on 'Better lawmaking 1997' should be taken as a joint debate.
Mr Cot has the floor to explain the purpose of this request.
Mr President, I will be brief because this is a very simple matter.
The two reports are very closely linked because one deals with the procedure and the other with the substance, so it would be absurd to have two separate debates on two reports given that the connection between them is so obvious.
Mr President, I support what Mr Cot has said.
It makes sense for both reports to be debated jointly, as they deal with the quality of text and the quality of ideas. Form and content are always closely connected.
Supplementary and Amending Budget 1/98
The next item is the report (A4-0497/98) by Mr Tillich and Lord Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft supplementary and amending budget of the European Communities 1/98 for the 1998 financial year - Sections I and III (C4-0677/98).
I give the floor to Mr Tillich as rapporteur.
Mr President, at the end of April 1998, the Commission submitted the draft supplementary and amending budget for 1998. The Council and the European Parliament agreed during the 1998 budgetary procedure that if the Commission discovered that the payment appropriations were not sufficient for the 1998 financial year, then we - both Council and Parliament - would give favourable consideration to a supplementary budget for 1998.
The Commission fulfilled its duty and submitted the supplementary budget.
This draft plans to increase payment appropriations in the third and fourth categories by ECU 200 million, including ECU 100 m for PHARE.
There is a further ECU 100 m for the European Social Fund, ECU 150 m for Section I, the European Parliament, and the ECU 400 m that you mentioned a moment ago for emergency food aid to Russia.
In various trilogues and in both conciliations with the Council, Parliament and Council agreed that this report on the supplementary and amending budget would be taken as a package together with the Notenboom Procedure and the budget for 1999.
I would like to assure colleagues that in its proposals the Council was most accommodating towards the European Parliament.
Parliament is supporting the allocation of ECU 400 m for emergency food aid to Russia as the Council wanted, but on condition that distribution is guaranteed, action is taken to prevent fraud and the food reaches the needy.
On 8 December, during the conciliation, there was a common vote on this between the three institutions in order to reach agreement on the remarks for the budget line, and today the Commission delivered the latest proposal as an annex to the supplementary and amending budget.
I should like to point out to the House that it is important for us to vote today because the deadline is tomorrow.
If today at first reading we do not agree this supplementary and amending budget that the Council has already adopted, it will be dropped. Then we would not have a supplementary and amending budget for 1998 and consequently it would not be possible for us to ensure the financing of our buildings in time.
As regards the amendments that have been introduced by colleagues, I would like to add firstly that these are covered by the remarks on the budget line, and secondly that we shall have a debate on the regulation tomorrow which should, I am sure, cover what colleagues have asked for.
Mr President, part of the supplementary and amending budget is ECU 150m for Section I of the budget.
That relates to Parliament and this money is allocated for Parliament's buildings.
If we debate that in two and a half minutes, it means that Parliament is gaining ECU 60m a minute during this debate for capital purchases towards our buildings.
The resolution adopted by the Committee on Budgets is explicit that the Council has included this sum of ECU 150m for the buildings of Parliament so that we will be able to continue the policy of purchasing its buildings where the conditions are appropriate.
The purchase of buildings for Parliament will lead to significant savings for European taxpayers.
All Members of Parliament will realise that in Brussels in particular, but subsequently for the IPE IV building in Strasbourg, we have been using the annual ramassage to make capital injections for our buildings.
This policy has been so successful that perhaps Members of Parliament do not know that we already own what was known as the D1 and the D2 parts of our Brussels building and a substantial part of D3.
With this supplementary and amending budget, we will be closer towards becoming the owners of the D3 building and therefore the whole of the Leopold complex.
If we continue with the process of ramassage , we will be able to do the same not only here in Strasbourg with the IPE IV building but also for some of Parliament's buildings in Luxembourg.
That is all part of the ambition, as well as making sure that the Belliard I and II buildings are purchased and made available for the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee.
This supplementary and amending budget takes us another large step along the road to being able to own our buildings, to save money for the future.
I commend it to the House.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution and the President declared supplementary and amending budget 1/98 adopted)
Interpretation of the Rules of Procedure
Fifth RTD framework programme (1998-2002)
The next item is the report (A4-0493/98) by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision concerning the fifth framework programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (1998-2002) (C4-0646/98-97/0119(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it took four conciliation meetings for us to obtain this conclusion and this conciliation result, which I think is a record.
Now the question that naturally arises is whether the result actually justifies all the effort.
As rapporteur, I believe I can say that yes, this is a good result from the point of view of Parliament.
From the beginning, we could see that the Council had adopted the main points of the structure and content of the framework programme, some of which had been adopted by us with an overwhelming majority, leaving only details to be modified.
That was not the difficult part of the procedure as a whole.
In its great wisdom, or for fear of the potential developments, the Council introduced some changes and some articles which were not at all acceptable to us.
We are in the run-up to Agenda 2000, in the run-up to perhaps a new financing of the European Union, which may also have effects on research policy and mean that changes may have to be made.
However, as a legislative authority it was not acceptable to Parliament that the Council alone was to vote and decide on possible changes.
We have succeeded in again making full codecision necessary for all future changes to the framework research programme, as stipulated in the Treaties.
A further point which was very important for us, although it may not have met with much of a response in the public discussion, is that we are living in a time of rapid change and great flexibility. In the period 1997/98 we cannot know what problems may arise in the period 2000/2001 and what issues may need to be resolved with the help of research, innovation and innovative products.
We have therefore insisted on a review of the content of the programme halfway through its term.
We are not keen on starting a cumbersome procedure in two or three years time.
But if new trends are being introduced at that time, possibly by a new Commission, then we would like to have a say in them, and this is also something that we have succeeded in making sure of.
A third point that we were very concerned about was that small and medium-sized enterprises are taken into consideration in the framework research programme.
We have seen that recently a great amount of progress has been made in this area, not least due to the efforts of the Commission.
However, if small and medium-sized enterprises are regarded as the backbone of our economy as far as job creation is concerned, then we must remove all potential difficulties from their path so that they can have as large a share as possible of the research funding that should eventually lead to jobs.
We have increased the share of small and medium-sized enterprises accordingly.
We have also introduced rules to facilitate access.
The Council has approved these demands, albeit after lengthy discussions.
That brings me to what I have to say is one of the bitter aspects of the result of the conciliation, which is the overall budget.
I cannot deny that we would have preferred to see a different figure precede the billion.
In view of the small difference in the amount, I would say to the Council that it was really quite small-minded of the Ministers not to have given way.
It was only a difference of 0.26 % after all.
I am fully confident that the Commission and the Commissioner can save this amount through good, streamlined and efficient management in their area, and will not insist upon taking it away from research.
As Article 1 states, at a later stage Parliament will also follow the management of the programme.
I have to say that a conciliation is actually fought with very unequal weapons.
In Council unanimity is needed.
Ministers say that they have fully agreed on something and then hide behind the person who just happens to be opposed.
In Parliament majorities are needed.
For approval of the result of a conciliation, we need a different type of majority than that required for rejecting the common position of the Council.
This is simply no longer progressive or in keeping with the times.
I am firmly of the opinion that the Amsterdam Treaty, which has extended our rights and facilitated many procedures, will serve well here.
I now come to a very pleasant part of my statement, which is to thank the Commission for its constant cooperation and our very fruitful discussions.
We were not always of the same opinion, Commissioner!
I would also like to thank Members on the other side of the House. Dear colleagues, I am aware that some of you went to the limits of the possible.
You did not necessarily allow yourselves to be budged, and neither did we.
But I know that it was as difficult for you as it was for us to reach this result of the conciliation sometimes, particularly where institutional matters were concerned.
I would like to emphasise that the rights of this House are at stake in the run-up to the election, and this result of the conciliation came about in the end because all of you showed solidarity.
I can only say that this solidarity should form a precedent in this House where all of us - the elected representatives of the citizens - are involved.
For that I thank you very much indeed!
I now have a final comment on the specific programmes which are going to be discussed in a moment.
Once again, we were aware of the fact that the Council had already reached broad agreement on these specific programmes.
It gave out a few, very unfortunate, press releases in this regard.
I would say to the Council that we are going to take a very close look at whether the amendments which will be discussed today and voted on tomorrow shall find their way into the final version of the text, and here we shall also insist upon our rights.
In conclusion, I can say quite honestly that everything has been resolved, but it took one and a half years of work to do so.
I should very much like once again to thank all those who have helped.
As rapporteur I am happy, and I shall be looking forward to a unanimous vote tomorrow in favour of the result of the conciliation.
(Applause)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by heartily congratulating the rapporteur on the result achieved in the conciliation procedure.
The fifth framework programme for research is the first small step in the right direction.
Sustainable agriculture, fisheries and forestry, and the integrated development of the rural area and mountainous areas should also be funded and find expression within the context of research and science.
Nevertheless, I think it is highly regrettable that no serious approach to this forward-looking policy can be discerned in the proposal for Agenda 2000. I personally am very angry about that.
The Austrian Presidency of the Council made this subject a high priority, and held a conference of international experts on the subject.
I hope that ultimately those findings will also be taken into account in future European policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we had already introduced a multitude of amendments for the Committee on Transport and Tourism at first reading.
We were after a separate emphasis on transport policy, which was unfortunately not possible. However, we were very glad that it was possible to preserve the results and content of the first reading until the third reading now in the conciliation procedure.
I recall in particular intermodal transport, a subject which we were very concerned about.
One of the great successes of this conciliation procedure is that we have also managed to preserve the significance of aeronautics and space travel.
I would like very much to thank all of those involved, particularly the rapporteur.
We regret that it was not possible to make available enough money for transport, which is an important field and a motor for European integration. The Council was unable to take up the big challenges that this field offers and would rather go on backing its national policies.
I think that transport is an area in which more Europe would be better than less.
Mr President, although I am speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group, I am in fact doing so more as chairman of the delegation which conducted the conciliation negotiations. These, as Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl has said, proved extremely difficult: in fact it took four meetings, two exploratory ones and two at which we really tackled the substance of the matter.
I should like to draw some general conclusions.
First of all, the incompatibility of unanimous decision-making in the Council with the conciliation procedure emerged clearly.
There can be no equality of legislative competence if the Council is bound by the unanimity rule, which automatically leads to vetoes; the Parliament is unable, under such circumstances, to exercise its powers of codecision to the full.
Secondly, I have the impression from this and other experiences that the concept of codecision has not been fully taken on board within the Council.
We noted once again during this latest conciliation on the fifth framework programme that the various delegations, speaking on behalf of their respective countries, stressed how arduous it had been to arrive at the common position, regarding that in itself as an extremely difficult compromise to achieve, almost as if Parliament should then simply decide whether to take it or leave it, rather than embarking on fresh negotiations to reach a further compromise.
Thirdly, I should like to take this opportunity to highlight the shrewdness of our delegation's attitude and conduct, as well as the ability and experience of the various colleagues who are so familiar with the subject in question. They enabled our delegation to present a united front at every important juncture, demonstrating a unanimity which is often very difficult to achieve in this House.
I must say that we were assisted partly by an Austrian Presidency which was keen to move in the direction advocated by Parliament, and partly by the Commissioner, Mrs Cresson, who was of course on our side, given that Parliament's proposal dovetailed with that of the Commission.
Nevertheless, the obstacles were truly enormous.
I wish to draw attention here, as did the rapporteur, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, to the two main issues.
First of all, there is the Council and the way in which it has taken up the concept of codecision: a Council which inserts into its common position what it itself describes as a 'guillotine clause' demonstrates a lack of skill, not least from the tactical point of view.
Presenting Parliament with such a position means failing to understand the substance and even form of the reaction likely to be triggered by such a clause.
The clause in fact stated that not a single euro would be available for research after 31 December 1999 and that, in the absence of any decisions on the new financial perspective, it would be the Council which decides. In other words, codecision had come in through the door and was being thrown out of the window.
The real point was this: paradoxically, on every other occasion when we have gone to conciliation we have argued over figures, but this time we had to talk more about institutional procedure, even before we could complete our discussion of the figures.
In our opinion, as we have said several times, this represented an infringement of the Treaty, or at least of the interinstitutional agreement on the financial perspective.
And here, after the Council's statement of its common position, it might have been useful if the Commission as such - and not so much Mrs Cresson - had pointed out that a principle of the Treaty was being undermined, given that the Commission is guardian of the Treaties.
Nevertheless, I am reasonably satisfied in this regard, since we did achieve a fairly positive outcome.
With respect to the funds available, as Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl said, there could have been more, but we might equally have obtained less.
On balance, I believe that the outcome is a good one, as long as we abide by the terms of the negotiations.
However, I would raise one 'but', one contradiction: the governments say that the priority is employment and that we must invest in research and innovation in order to boost job creation, and then in the final analysis the Council - that is, all the governments together - will not even countenance the idea of increasing by ECU 2 billion the funds available for the fifth framework programme.
Therefore, what was said at this conciliation conflicts with what was discussed and decided at Vienna: grand statements and the new proposed pact for jobs, but no specific initiative just at the very moment when conciliation was coming to a close.
Other speakers will address themselves to other aspects; I would merely thank the rapporteur, the chairman of the committee, Mr Scapagnini, and all the colleagues who participated with such commitment. I invite the House to demonstrate its wholehearted support for the outcome of this conciliation.
Mr President, Commissioner, Francis Bacon said that whoever fails to find new solutions should expect new evils as time is the best inventor of all.
Those are the words of a great European 400 years ago.
But it seems that Europe is still learning that lesson.
Innovation is a condition for survival: it is the antidote to inertia, it creates new, hitherto unthought-of markets and it promotes a more effective and more human society.
In order to have social innovation you must have research, research in high-tech areas such as biotechnology, research applied to industry and also research in the social and economic areas.
The fifth RTD framework programme has acquired coherence throughout the debate with its three readings and long conciliation process and is now presented to us as a balanced programme deserving of broad support.
It could even be seen as a model of interinstitutional co-operation.
The prospects offered by this fifth framework programme for researchers, enterprises and the well-being of citizens should not be jeopardised by a lack of agreement over the European Union's financial perspectives.
The conflict between the defenders of so-called 'stabilisation' and the defenders of 'cohesion' should give way in the Council to an overall perspective that takes into account all of the interests at stake.
In the text that we are going to vote on, the winners are transparency, information, small and medium-sized enterprises, and the fragile sectors of society, such as the disabled and the elderly, and a fillip has been given to the outlook for peace, with the specific references to biological and chemical disarmament and the exclusion of nuclear armament.
Nonetheless, I hope that the Council, on 22 December next, will strengthen the socio-economic research component, as Portugal has been asking, which in itself will make it possible to predict trends and factors of change in a rapidly changing society such as ours.
Fundamental questions such as citizenship, participation, exclusion, violence, governability and the role of the media call for a close and continuous study that should meet with appropriate responses from society.
We must also strengthen the interdisciplinary perspective, the international perspective of European research.
That is why I hope that the Marie Curie bursaries are going to be opened up to nationals of countries that are not members, as symbolic recognition that science, like music, is a universal language.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Liberal Group I should like to congratulate Mrs Quisthoudt on her success in concluding the decision-making on the framework programme.
I should also like to express my appreciation for the solidarity shown by all the groups during the conciliation procedure.
Parliament spoke to the Council with one voice and was solid, yes, solid in defence of its own powers.
We refused point blank to accept the guillotine clause, and through close cooperation which was entirely consistent with the aims of the programme we achieved excellent results on both the budget and the contents.
I would like to thank all my colleagues for their cooperation, and my group wholeheartedly supports the results we have achieved.
There are a few comments I should like to make.
Starting with the substance of the programme, my group is delighted that the Council even at first reading agreed with Parliament's proposal that we should choose four research areas for the next four years.
The Council and Parliament also agreed to give priority to the first two areas, namely biotechnology and information and communications technology, in acknowledgement of the fact that employment in Europe in the future will largely depend on the successful development of those sectors.
Technology, as I cannot emphasise too often, is the key to economic growth, competitiveness and employment - in short, Europe's prosperity.
If we in Europe can apply new technological developments and develop new services, it will not just mean more jobs, it will also give a powerful boost to the economy and put us in a much stronger competitive position.
This is what Europe needs to maintain its position on the world market.
All of us - Council, Parliament and Commission - share this view, but despite all the fine words from the Member States and the Council, the European Union's research expenditure lags far behind that of its main competitors, the United States and Japan.
As I said, unfortunately, the Member States are happy to support research with fine words, but not with money.
The ECU 14 billion that the Council originally proposed was not even as much as the budget for the fourth framework programme.
The policy pursued by a number of Member States is designed to reduce their contribution to the European Union.
If we look at the position of, say, the Netherlands, which is a net contributor, then this is quite right. Yes, quite right.
We are not idiots.
But sitting up until all hours of the morning on three occasions haggling over ECU 40 million spread over four years is really going a little too far.
Research and technological development is exactly the sort of area where European cooperation is needed.
The framework programme plays an essential role, and this is where, in my view, European investment in research really comes into its own and brings major added value.
The decision-making process for this framework programme has not exactly been a thing of beauty, but there is hope.
It is a sign that after the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty the Council might decide on framework programmes by a qualified majority.
The Council is still not used to the codecision procedure, as Mr Imbeni just pointed out.
Codecision means joint decision-making, and this means that the Council and Parliament have to reach a viable compromise.
For the Council arrogantly to insist on its own hard-won compromise is not good for decisions on European legislation.
Good decision-making, I would point out to the Council, demands greater flexibility from the Member States.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to the rapporteur's determination and the efforts of the chairman of the Conciliation Committee, Mr Imbeni, the European Parliament and the Council have reached agreement on an amount which is certainly not enough but does make it possible to continue the European Union's research effort.
The principle of a mid-term review ensures that developments in the financial perspective are taken into account, along with progress made in science and technology.
Parliament also won the day on five important points: maintaining a 10 % rate for financing research by small and medium-sized enterprises, research concerning biological and chemical disarmament, no funding of cloning for purposes of human reproduction, taking account of research into ageing and disability and, finally, the establishment of a René Descartes Prize for talented and promising researchers.
I want to highlight two areas in the fifth framework programme which will have direct consequences on daily life in Europe. One is information and communication technologies, accessible to all, respecting the rules of info-ethics, which aim to allow everyone to express their own personality and to facilitate the exchange of information.
The other is technologies of living resources, supporting not just the cell factory but also the fight against infectious diseases and ageing. The bio-ethics arrangements are now in place to prevent deviance, and specific socio-cultural characteristics of the Member States must be taken into account, particularly as regards embryo research.
The Joint Research Centre must become a reference centre serving the concerns of the European Parliament and hence of the citizen.
Finally, in the field of research into nuclear energy, we certainly must not abandon permanently research into controlled thermonuclear fusion. We need to maintain scientific and technical vigilance in this domain, which retains its potential for the future.
Similarly, I think it is essential to pursue and extend research into the safety of nuclear fission, with a view to perfecting ever safer reactors, such as the EPR, in collaboration with several European countries, but also with a view to better management of the end of the nuclear fuel cycle.
We must continue research into high-temperature reactors in industrial enterprises and research must be done on experimental modules for hybrid reactors; the necessary technologies need to be validated.
They can then be assembled with a view to making an experimental prototype.
Through research that is conducted transparently, nuclear energy is actually the most reliable way of responding to the growth in demand for energy, without increasing CO2 emissions.
In conclusion, under these conditions the fifth framework programme for research and development will make it possible to identify the skills of European researchers and laboratories as well as to look for complementarity between them right across the European Union.
It will demonstrate the effectiveness of European added value.
It will take us from a Europe of researchers to a Europe of research.
That is one of the major challenges of the fifth framework programme, serving knowledge, but also serving the citizens, in an ethical context.
With the fifth framework programme Europe will be able to take its place in the western world, earning world recognition through the skills of European researchers.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on her diligence and her persistence during the many meetings of the conciliation committee, and likewise all the members of that delegation and in particular the chairman.
As he has pointed out, we wanted real co-decision and this was being blocked.
We finally obtained an acceptable result and for that Parliament has to be grateful.
I have to say that the devil is in the detail and I want to make some comments on the secrecy and lack of transparency of the Euratom research programme in particular.
It is now apparent that nuclear fusion has no future. It is therefore madness to continue the budget for the framework programme.
I believe that the Commission has accepted the logic of this and we will see what transpires.
In particular, I want to refer to the radiation protection programme run under the Euratom Treaty.
Within the programme there is a self-perpetuating oligarchy.
The programme is decided at closed meetings to which only existing research coordinators are invited and by government advisory committees.
These people represent mainly the radiological protection boards of the member governments and, as such, represent those in the member countries who get Euratom grants.
A case in point is Ireland where three of the four members of the national advisory committee, namely Jim Malone, physicist, Nuclear Medicine Department, St James's Hospital and RPII board member, Peter Mitchell, Department of Physics, UCD and RPII consultant, John Cunningham, radiation chemist, RPII Assistant Chief Executive, are employed by or otherwise affiliated to Ireland's Radiological Protection Institute and are funded by Euratom.
The remaining member is a civil servant in the Department of Energy.
Every other Irish national advisory committee involved in the EC programme has a broad representation from all interested parties and has 12 to 16 members.
So the way the Euratom programme is managed is unacceptable.
There is a similar lack of openness in the so-called independent review of submitted projects to this programme in Euratom.
Somehow the reviewers seem to get funded.
Application to see the complete list of reviewers is refused. Why is the list of reviewers not published?
It is for all the other programmes. It is absolutely essential that radiation protection research should be conducted by those without vested interests and should therefore come under the environment and health section of DG XII.
I want to press that point most firmly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to express my thanks to the rapporteur for the clever and committed way in which she has dealt with the situation.
We have worked well together.
Yes, we have also argued, but we have achieved success.
The increase of EUR 1.7 billion in the fifth framework research programme compared to its predecessor, which was obtained by Parliament, seems at first sight to be a considerable amount.
However, what must be understood is that it is only about 4 % more than the increase to allow for inflation in relation to the previous programme.
This is not exactly the clear and self-assured signal of a resolute departure into the information society that we had intended.
I should remind you that the USA launched an offensive this very year to bring its annual aid for research up to 3 % of its GDP in the very near future.
European aid, however, will remain at roughly 2 %, because unfortunately, aside from a few exceptions, national research is also diminishing.
Unfortunately, as a result of obstruction by some Member States, the Council could not be persuaded to cross the apparently magical boundary of EUR 15 bn.
We will thus be far from reaching the strategic ceilings on research in the overall EU budget that were wisely instituted by previous Councils.
That is regrettable and in this regard the fifth framework research programme will be a compromise, many sections of which can only be accepted by Parliament because otherwise the continuity which we have now achieved in European research funding would be jeopardised, and this would be painful for all involved.
Ultimately there was nothing else for it, because this programme in principle suffers from a congenital defect, as has been said repeatedly, namely that Parliament decides in accordance with democratic rules by a majority vote while Council decides unanimously.
That will only change when the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force.
Then it will be possible to approach the budget strategically, and rival minority interests will cease to be a significant obstacle.
Restructured management of the fifth framework research programme will allow the Commission at least partly to deal with the dilemma of a range of subjects that is still too broad by establishing links.
It also wants to bring together its different strategic advisory bodies into a European research forum. We welcome this and shall support the Commission in the process.
Tomorrow's decision will not mean that Parliament will relinquish its demand to be involved. Rather, it will accompany the implementation of the programme.
A realisation of the concentration and flexibility that everyone wants will be part of the critical accompaniment.
Adjustments to the programme which may become necessary will be made only according to the codecision procedure.
In view of the EU's considerable negative trade balance with the USA and Japan in the field of high technology, the general under-funding of European research is worrying.
A certain balance could only come about by consistently making maximum use of results.
In this respect, we have improved considerably the opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises, some of which are highly innovative and labour-intensive, to participate in this programme, and this is one of Parliament's big successes. It has been achieved, as has already been said, by Members being united.
Optimising the possibilities and, as said so often, achieving a European added value will also lead to the general integration of socio-economic research into projects and increased funding for it in the fourth action line. Innovation in fact not only has a technological aspect but also a social one.
Converting research into profitable application on a massive scale will also depend to a considerable degree on how far it is possible to organise the new global information society in a way that is socially fair, and therefore involves comprehensive participation.
I think that is where our greatest potential lies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I should also like to thank the rapporteur.
I was searching for an image before, and then it struck me that this is like being faced with a bunch of individualists with their own pet ideas, and reconciling them is akin to the task of organising a large number of wild horses to make a good impression in a Spanish riding school.
That is what you have achieved.
Once again, thank you very much.
It was not easy, but you have succeeded!
On the framework research programme as a whole, I would like to say in all objectivity that it was the European Parliament once again that pushed through an increase, something we have seen in each decade.
My advice to the Commission would therefore be to work closely with Parliament, as this will be worthwhile in future too!
However, as the Council is being so tight-fisted with its money it has to be told that the only thing more expensive than research in the long run is no research.
If we want to secure our future, as many people have said, then broadening the knowledge base is the only way, and at the beginning that is simply going to cost money.
Secondly, I would like to say that once again I have had the bad impression that research does not really have a lobby.
Where are the large research organisations in Europe that supported us? Everyone wants a small piece of the large cake, but they do not want to see the cake as a whole made larger.
If that does not change, and if science in Brussels does not acquire a stronger lobby equivalent to that of other sectors, then it will continue to find things difficult in future as well.
Let us now turn to the tasks for the future.
My first point is one that the rapporteur rightly raised a short while ago, namely that the lifespan of products is becoming shorter and shorter, and knowledge evolving faster and faster. Because European research policy concerns itself with applied technology and its goal is therefore to bring products onto the market, it is important that as the lifespan of a product becomes shorter, the application procedure does the same.
I know there are limits to this, and of course there are also the budgetary and financial checks, but we must find ways to make sure that the end result is not that the system of financial supervision is in order while research is in ruins. That should not be the outcome.
We should not have financial controls which last for three or four years, during which time nothing is achieved in the field of research.
We must make the procedures shorter.
This becomes even more important as more countries participate in the fifth framework research programme.
Central and Eastern European countries will be part of the research programme as well via the PHARE programme, and Switzerland will join them in a few years once it has signed the agreement.
That means that if management is not streamlined - of course after taking on board the rules arising from the financial and budgetary checks - then we will be dealing with a more complicated system than in the past.
The second comment that occurs to me here is that we also need some form of monitoring, not merely budgetary monitoring but better monitoring of research. There has to be a strategic and operational goal.
Ultimately there has to be some result. The issue is not just that money should be used sensibly but that there also has to be something to show for it.
We do not just want to search, we also want to find. That is forgotten again and again.
In order to do this, instruments must be developed which go beyond what we presently have.
Over the next few months we will surely have time to think about this.
I am sorry that an application for research on disarmament did not get through.
The Council proved to be quite stubborn.
However, I would like to mention a report that I read a short while ago in Le Monde , in which the Americans referred to the existence of new problems in the field of atomic, biological and chemical weapons, or weapons of mass destruction. We cannot deny this, and will have to deal with it because it is also a part of security.
Research has to be used not only to develop new weapons but also to protect ourselves from their misuse. Above all it must be used to dismantle the weapons upon whose reduction we have actually agreed.
Once again, I thank the Commission very much indeed.
I think we have done a good job.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, later this week we will be dealing with the results and conclusions of the Vienna Summit.
However, one thing has been clear from the outset, namely that the most important matters discussed by the Heads of State or Government were employment issues.
I think that the conclusion of the conciliation procedure for the fifth framework research programme lays a very important foundation stone for tackling employment issues in Europe in a different and more forward-looking manner than has perhaps been the case for a long time.
In Europe, many people live together in a very small area.
Our territory is appreciably smaller than that of other continents, it is populated by many people, and we do not have the natural resources of other continents.
The resources that we in Europe have are knowledge, ability, our aptitude and skills. This explains the importance of research programmes, which aim to create European added value and to achieve more than can be achieved by teams of researchers in individual countries.
They are also concerned with what can be accomplished when researchers work together and combine their ideas and results and when, as the previous speaker said so clearly, these results can also actually be implemented.
Research is not an end in itself, rather it is the basis for the social and economic development of our continent. For that reason, when organising the research programmes we should not merely be thinking about covering many important subjects in the projects and programmes.
I am extremely happy with many of the subjects, because we are venturing into areas of research that are important and necessary for the future of Europe.
We have also taken on areas of research that people thought had been dealt with long ago and which in my opinion will be of greater significance in future, such as foodstuffs.
However if we do not actually transpose the research results in terms of employment, the development of new products, the inevitable social restructuring and transition to a new type of society that moves away from the industrial society in which we still live, or whose upheaval we are experiencing, then even the best research will be of no value.
In our discussion on the fifth framework research programme in particular, we should be considering the mid-term evaluation and orientation of the programme to be at least as important as a final point which I should like to turn to now.
We in Parliament have worked together very well and in the right way, and in this regard I would like to express my great thanks to the rapporteur, the chairman of the delegation to the Conciliation Committee and other colleagues.
The Council should have understood that a larger sum than this - 14.9 something, a figure reminiscent of a special offer in a cheap shop - was required.
It is not acceptable to preach repeatedly about the importance of research and then, when it actually comes to making money available for research, to become so stingy with small amounts all of a sudden.
I hope that the different procedure in the Treaty of Amsterdam will improve things.
Finally I would like to say that, as an Austrian, I am happy that the Austrian Presidency has concluded - and indeed was able to conclude - such a difficult procedure. I very much hope that with this programme we will be able to achieve the objective of European added value in research.
Mr President, if we look at the developments of the past few weeks and compare them to a piece of theatre, we can see that there are three acts.
In the first act the European Parliament pushed through considerable improvements. In the second the Council accepted them, but incorporated some catches.
In the third there was the lengthy conciliation procedure. Thus it is a piece of theatre in three acts.
I do not know for certain if it is a play, a drama or a tragedy, but I am aware that it is not a comedy, essentially due to the conduct of the Council. There are three areas in which it behaved like a bulldozer.
Firstly it attempted to take research hostage for interests that were altogether different and had absolutely no connection with it. That kind of behaviour is by no means acceptable.
Secondly, as Mrs Graenitz has just pointed out, we have heard about the importance of research for innovation, employment and so on, in sermons from various sources, but when it came to committing money, the tap was turned off purely due to a rigid adherence to principles, and nothing was invested in research.
It did not even have to do with making savings, as the money withheld from research now flows into other areas of internal policy.
My third point concerns the specific programmes, and here, as the rapporteur pointed out, press releases are being published as though everything had already been decided without Parliament.
I very much hope that this bulldozing behaviour will not be typical of the Council in future.
All of this would lead us to believe that we are dealing with a drama here, not a comedy.
But on the other hand, we have accomplished something.
There has been a strategic change of direction in European research, away from the sectoral thinking and rare technologies, and towards a strategic approach to the European development model and qualitative competitiveness in Europe.
In this respect, what Mr Linkohr referred to is implicitly and explicitly contained in the research programme.
We are concerned with the integration of research into European policy to create more employment and thus of course with the matter of how research fits into the social context.
In this regard I am very glad that Parliament has managed to have socio-economic aspects of the information society taken into account, that the ageing of our society is to be a focal point of research, and that the city of tomorrow is to be a subject for research as a central problem of urban areas. The direction that we are aiming in is thus clear.
So, be it drama, tragedy or play, I will be voting in favour!
Mr President, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, ladies and gentlemen, with this third reading in the European Parliament, we have reached the second-last leg of a long and sometimes difficult journey.
As this journey comes to an end, I want to express my sincere thanks to everyone in Parliament whose dynamism, intelligence and negotiating ability have made success possible.
First Mr Imbeni, who was authoritative and effective in his difficult role as joint chair of the Conciliation Committee, and next Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, rapporteur for the fifth framework programme, who produced work of the highest quality at each procedural stage and demonstrated realism and a great sense of the public interest when it came to conciliation.
My thanks also go to all the members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and its chairman, Mr Scapagnini, who has devoted himself to this new framework programme for many months.
Thanks too to all the Members of Parliament who contributed to its progress through the other committees and the House.
In her report on the joint text that emerged from conciliation, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl gives a very clear and detailed account of the development of the procedure and of these last two stages in particular.
The final agreement which is to be ratified by you tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, and by the Council on 22 December, is a compromise like all agreements, and I would like to make four points concerning it.
First, a solution was found to the difficult question of the amount of financing.
Of course, the amount is not as high as Parliament and the Commission had proposed.
So to have real impact we will have to apply the principle of concentration of resources more strictly, which means mobilising a critical mass of funding for specific targets.
However, I would stress that the budget for the fifth framework programme will be 4.6 % higher in real terms than that for the fourth framework programme.
In a difficult budgetary context, this increase is a positive sign and an encouragement both to the scientific and industrial community and to Member States, where the research effort is tending to contract at a time when public and private research expenditure is continuing or picking up in the United States and Japan, as some of you have quite rightly pointed out.
Secondly, throughout the procedure there has been a strong convergence of views between Parliament and the Commission, and their mutual support and highly effective collaboration certainly played an important role in securing the agreement.
Thirdly, thanks to the Austrian Presidency's spirit of openness, Parliament has broadly succeeded in having its views on the fifth framework programme taken into account in the final decision.
For the last time, we had to overcome the obstacle to codecision represented by unanimous voting by the members of the Council.
In spite of that constraint, the scientific and technological choices will express significantly the vision of your institution, ladies and gentlemen, you who represent the people.
Finally, the fifth framework programme will be broadly consistent with what our two institutions wanted.
The research programmes will be clearly geared to economic and social needs, with priority given to business competitiveness and employment.
The key actions will introduce a new approach to research. This will focus on actual problems rather than being broken down into fields and disciplines.
Through the external advisory group just established by the Commission, the programmes will be implemented in close association with the scientific community, industry and users of the research.
They will be managed in a more flexible and effective way.
There will be real emphasis on transparency, especially as regards the European Parliament.
So the combined efforts of the three institutions have succeeded in endowing the Union with a powerful instrument to exploit its scientific potential and industrial resources in the service of Europeans.
It would have been extremely regrettable to interrupt the European research effort, and the adoption of the new framework programme within the required time-frame means continuity can be assured.
Now comes the real challenge.
We must implement the fifth framework programme as soon as possible.
The Commission has already taken all the necessary steps and will ensure that the first calls for proposals are launched, as planned, at the beginning of 1999.
It will make sure this is done even more effectively, as Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl rightly insists.
This new framework programme can be implemented in the spirit which presided over its conception.
I am sure that the debate that is about to begin on the specific programmes will demonstrate that here the Commission can count on the support and collaboration of the European Parliament, its suggestions and its constructive vigilance.
So I will conclude by thanking Parliament in advance for its contribution to this great enterprise.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Specific RTD programmes (1998-2002)
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0451/98 by Mr Tannert, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Quality of life and management of living resources' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0433/98-98/0177(CNS)); -A4-0452/98 by Mr Malerba, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on a 'User-friendly information society' (1998-2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0434/98-98/0178(CNS)); -A4-0453/98 by Mr Argyros, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Competitive and sustainable growth' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0435/98-98/0179(CNS)); -A4-0454/98 by Mrs Estevan Bolea, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Preserving the ecosystem' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0436/98-98/0180(CNS)); -A4-0455/98 by Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Confirming the international role of Community research' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0437/98-98/0181(CNS)); -A4-0456/98 by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Promotion of innovation and encouragement of participation of SMEs' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0438/98-98/0182(CNS)); -A4-0457/98 by Mr Lange, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research, technological development and demonstration on 'Improving the human research potential and the socio-economic knowledge base' (1998-2002) (COM(98)0305 - C4-0439/98-98/0183(CNS)); -A4-0458/98 by Mrs McNally, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, onI. the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research and technological development, including demonstration, to be carried out by means of direct actions for the European Community (1998-2002) by the Joint Research Centre (COM(98)0305 - C4-0440/98-98/0184(CNS))II. the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme for research and training to be implemented by the Joint Research Centre by means of direct actions for the European Atomic Energy Community (1998-2002) (COM(98)0306 - C4-0431/98-98/0188(CNS)); -A4-0459/98 by Mrs Matikainen-Kallström, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting a specific programme (Euratom) for research and training on 'Preserving the ecosystem' (1998 to 2002) (COM(98)0306 - C4-0430/98-98/0187(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the life sciences have hitherto been divided among three different programmes but they are now combined in a single, problem-oriented programme.
The Commission has found a poetic title for it, 'Quality of life and management of living resources', but if I have understood the contents correctly, then it actually has to do with life sciences.
There is going to be an increase in funding compared to the fourth framework programme, in fact a considerable increase of 42 %.
In relative terms, this is the biggest increase for a sector in the fifth framework programme and reflects the importance that has to be attached to the development of life sciences in the European Community.
European life sciences and technologies have already had successes over the last few years.
Most significantly, the number of employees and firms in the EU has risen considerably in 1996 and 1997, by over 40 %.
But here, too, there is a negative side because this figure is less than half as high as the American equivalent.
This path can still lead to success, but only if progress is made in the scientific foundations and infrastructure in this field and in the social consensus on it, particularly of course with regard to the hotly and widely disputed gene technology.
Enlightened social discourse is therefore a prerequisite, not only for legitimising the aims of funding research, but also for making the best use of the results, and Parliament is reinforcing its demands to make it a part of the programme.
In addition, some colleagues are demanding that new bans on research funding and moratoriums are written into the programme.
Let me tell you, I do not think much of that!
For example, it will not provide us with a way to solve problems resulting from the possible eugenic misuse of gene technology.
The most effective solution here is still the ostracism of those who behave in this way, thereby contravening the ethical consensus.
The funding programme should consist of projects and not bans.
Projects that are ethically controversial simply do not belong in the body of the Community programme.
Of course, the consumer's decision is extremely effective.
Products which contain undesirable substances, or which have been manufactured in an undesirable manner, and which are accurately and clearly labelled, are not going to stand a chance on the market.
That is and always will be the bottom line.
I would therefore explicitly support the extension of accompanying socio-economic research which looks at the relevant issues, and the obligation of the Commission and those running the project to be part of the public discussion. Parliament has insisted on writing this into the programme.
The programme describes very many interesting individual projects, illustrating the importance that is being attached to the life sciences, as I mentioned at the beginning.
But it also seems to me that it highlights the dilemma of Community funding of research, which is that 125 priority themes are still supposed to be funded, more than in this case. If there are 125 priorities, that means that there must be other, non-priority, projects.
The sum total is colossal. It will then be allocated by the Commission down to the thousandth part among the key actions, as the budget allows.
That therefore leaves no room for manoeuvre at all in response to the quality and number of project proposals submitted under the various key actions.
It will not facilitate compliance with the principles of concentration and flexibility.
In this regard, Parliament calls for practical steps, such as the establishment of financial margins.
The days of breaking down the claims for funds in such a precise manner ought to be a thing of the past.
In spite of the multitude of amendments, the way in which the programme has been worked out is basically such that Parliament would not call into question the Commission's fundamental idea.
So I would recommend then that having regard to the amendments proposed by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, the programme should be approved.
Mr President, I wish to speak on the second thematic programme, the one concerning a user-friendly information society or IST, information society technologies.
This programme is in fact a priority which is directly linked to the potential for boosting economic growth, wealth and employment, as was underscored by the ministers meeting at the recent Vienna European Council, and as emerges from a Commission document on the prospects for the information society.
Following the conciliation procedure, this programme has been allocated a budget of ECU 3 600 million, which is lower than the allocation accorded to the ACTS, Esprit, RACE and Telecommunications programmes combined.
This is a cause for some concern, even though the reduced investment in research could be offset by the growing presence of information technology in the other thematic programmes.
One case in point is the networking of all the European research establishments, which accounts for 3 % of the thematic programme; here I have put forward amendments stressing the need for involvement in the coordination of every thematic programme, so that this ambitious networking scheme can be taken forward in a coherent way.
As far as the Commission's proposal is concerned, we would ask Parliament to endorse certain important rectifications suggested by myself and largely endorsed by the Research Committee. I should now like to run through these rapidly.
I have suggested curtailing slightly the funding for the action on electronic commerce, transferring this to services for the citizen.
Indeed, if we expect administrations to act as trail-blazers in the implementation of new services for citizens, we must somehow encourage this approach.
I have also highlighted the importance of basic technologies, emphasising the move towards platforms, technical and industrial standards, patents and ultimately whatever can promote the creation of products and services which are widely used on the international market - not only on the European one - and can thereby generate economic and commercial success.
I have included a reference to information technology in the machine tools and production sector, a sector which is absolutely crucial to the competitiveness of our industrial system and to complement the thematic programme on sustainable development.
I responded to concerns regarding the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises in this programme by accepting the cross-party amendment in favour of a minimum guaranteed SME participation of 10 %.
I would however point out with satisfaction here that, according to the Commission's data, the participation of SMEs in IT programmes has traditionally been around 26 %; I therefore believe that this amendment should be understood more as an encouragement to boost the qualitative and quantitative participation of SMEs.
I recommend for their sakes that the exploratory awards scheme, modelled on the CRAFT programme, should be maintained to provide assistance during the phase of drawing up proposals.
Since information society applications have a satellite dimension, we are constantly in a situation of competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis the Americans; I am therefore pleased to note that the programme takes this aspect into consideration.
Whereas I can certainly agree with the ideas behind the amendments from the Committee on Women's Rights, some of these, in particular Amendment No 8, strike me as impracticable.
In conclusion, I believe that it is vital to make clear to the Commission that not only a high degree of flexibility and focus, but also care and attention are required to avoid duplication between the various programmes.
I believe above all that Parliament must keep an eye on the Commission in this respect.
I nevertheless thank the Commission for its cooperation, and am relying on the Council to adopt the proposed amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since we have reached agreement on the fifth framework research programme in the Conciliation Committee, we can also discuss the specific programmes today.
This evening I am presenting a report on behalf of Mr Argyros.
The specific programme 'Competitive and sustainable growth', provided unfortunately with only EUR 2.7 billion, is made up of the most significant priorities for the European Union. It is therefore of fundamental importance for a successful implementation of the fifth framework research programme as a whole.
Allow me to make four general comments on this programme which should be taken into account when it comes to selecting the research partners.
Firstly, and I think quite self-evidently, the activities undertaken should be in tune with the proposed requirements as they are presently stated in the programme.
Secondly, and this is an important point which we have discussed again and again in this House, I think that the Commission's publications should also be made available in accessible forms, for example electronically.
Thirdly, in committee we laid down some conditions for selecting the companies to be funded, and I would ask the Commission to accept these.
The contribution made by a company should improve the overall competitiveness of the sector, and therefore due attention ought to be paid to applying the sectoral approach to individual research projects.
There should ultimately be an improvement in the position of the European economy as a whole on the world market.
The knowledge that has been acquired through the research programmes should be analysed and made available, and should also lead to new processes and products.
Fourthly, we must also of course remember that our competitors in the USA and Japan are carrying out similar programmes, and we have to be able to react to these accordingly.
A wide range of themes for research is available in the four key actions and the two horizontal measures in this specific programme, which I would also like to comment on.
In the first key action, our concern is that alongside what has been proposed, additional new methods of management and human resources are also developed and entrepreneurial activity further encouraged.
That is very important. However, it is also necessary for us to think about methods for the recovery and restoration of the damaged environment to its original state.
In addition, the committee suggests that this should also cover production and the textile and construction sectors.
In the second key action, we are faced with the huge task of continuing the development of different transport systems and intermodality in order to be able to react in a suitable manner to the great challenges in this particular field. I mentioned this when I presented my report on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism a few minutes ago.
I think it is extremely positive that we in the European Union are for the first time making a separate priority of the field of aeronautics and space flight, because the business news of the past few weeks has shown in quite a dramatic way that this is the way to do justice to the European dimension of the sector.
Finally, when it comes to funding the research infrastructure, some thought ought to be given to using existing structures, particularly so that the small and medium-sized enterprises can be appropriately integrated.
On behalf of Mr Argyros, and also on my own behalf, I would like to thank all of you for your friendly cooperation with the rapporteur.
Madam Commissioner, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it has fallen to me to give you the details of the fourth specific programme, which is part of the first action and concerns energy and the protection of the environment.
Although the Commission had originally proposed separating these two issues, the Council felt it was best to deal with them both together.
This was therefore what Parliament did, in a programme entitled 'Preserving the ecosystem'. A special feature of this programme, and one which is not very helpful, in my opinion, Madam Commissioner, is that it includes demonstration projects.
We are all calling for more resources to be devoted to research. I agree with previous speakers that ours are not old or antiquated industries.
Rather, they are obsolete, and what they must do is modernise their facilities. Subsidies and other aid are not what is called for.
It is true that, for example, Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy is strongly in favour of subsidies for renewable energy.
Of course we all support renewable energy, Madam Commissioner.
Nevertheless, for it to succeed, become more efficient and play the part it should on the market, what is required is more research, more innovation and fewer subsidies.
I shall now refer to the six key actions that make up this specific programme: four relate to the environment, and two to energy.
Firstly, I should like to congratulate the Commission and thank it for including, as a key action, everything concerned with research into technology relating to the management of water resources.
We know that what mankind will lack in the twenty-first century is water.
No particular difficulties are anticipated in connection with energy; if there are any, they will be speedily resolved.
There will, however, be serious problems regarding water supply. The European Union must develop technology, equipment and much more efficient management techniques so as to be in a position to export significant amounts of equipment and services.
I therefore feel that both aspects of the programme on water resources are very important: the management of water resources and water quality.
The second key action covers climate change and biodiversity. These are truly crucial issues.
What more is there to say about climate change?
It is of great concern to us all and so closely connected to the dreadful disasters that are affecting people with such meagre resources to draw upon. Being so poor means that for them the consequences are far worse.
Furthermore, it is on climate change that the future of mankind surely hinges. Everything else depends on it.
Biodiversity is also closely connected with it
The third key action concerns the integrated management of marine ecosystems.
We have used the sea and its resources in so many ways, yet the sea, which covers the majority of the surface of our planet, tends to be forgotten. It hardly figures in research and investigation.
I very much hope, therefore, that the integrated management of marine ecosystems will receive a significant boost. The citizens of the future will also be heavily dependent on them.
Finally, the fourth action under 'environment' relates to the city of tomorrow and cultural heritage.
Madam Commissioner, as has often been stated in this House, cathedrals, tapestries and great palaces are all part of Europe. They represent a great cultural heritage that we must not lose.
Substantial investment in resources and technology is needed if we are to conserve it well, not just patch it up. If we take inadequate measures to restore our cultural and historical heritage, we shall gain nothing.
This programme is also of great consequence, therefore.
The objectives have been well chosen, but unfortunately there are too many of them.
As Mr Tannert said referring to his programme, the Commission has used the word priority in a sense I simply cannot grasp. There are no less than 130 priorities in this specific programme.
I do therefore feel justified in saying that the objectives are all very well, but there are just too many priorities, assuming we all take priority to mean the same thing: something worth highlighting, something that deserves to come first.
I am confident that the Commission in its wisdom will be selective concerning the programmes and will make more efficient use of resources.
There are two subsections or two key actions relating to energy. One concerns the development of cleaner energy and includes renewable energy.
The other aims to achieve a more effective and efficient use of energy. It must be recognised that in the European Union we use too much energy in the home, in transport, in particular, in our factories and in production.
It is with regard to this area that I have serious doubts as to whether the programme as it stands will prove useful.
Mr Linkohr said that the results would have to be quantified, and that Parliament would have to exercise an important supervisory role.
I agree with him. Such parliamentary control will be of great help to the Commission, and I am not referring merely to budgetary control, though that should also be undertaken.
I have in mind the monitoring of results, of innovation, of the efficiency of the groups of researchers working in the various countries, and of the efficient use to be made of the scarce resources available. It should be stressed that the resources available for these two programmes are somewhat limited.
I am opposed to Amendment No 9, because it means that 42 % of the budget would be devoted to demonstration projects, in particular to those involving renewable energy.
Madam Commissioner, that amounts to subsidising them.
Renewable energy will never make headway if you allocate 42 % of this budget to subsidising small projects concerned with solar panels, biomass, renewable energy and so on. They certainly deserve to be supported, but not in this way.
The trouble is that renewable energy is not competitive, and only new technology can reverse this situation.
I should also like to mention Amendments Nos 25 and 27, and I hope the Commission will include them, because they refer to gas.
Europe is to promote a major gas programme, and we have rather fragile and rigid gas systems. Something will also have to be done therefore regarding the storage of non-liquefied gas.
More needs to be done too concerning further prospecting for hydrocarbons in offshore areas. Once again, the need to support SMEs must be stressed.
We all genuinely want to improve employment prospects. Research can achieve this.
I doubt if it can be achieved through subsidies, but it may be possible through the Commission's skilful handling. All the Commission's flexibility will be called for in order to succeed in this.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the quality of European research is improving year on year, it is becoming more cohesive and a distinctive European identity is being forged, which is the sum and product of the activities carried out in each country.
All four framework programmes have made a significant contribution to this progress, highlighting common concerns, shared objectives and compatible methodologies.
Nonetheless, the international dimension of our research effort still appears fragmented, and it is failing to make sufficient impact.
A determined effort is therefore needed in this area. Indeed, we are still feeling the effect of the negative consequences of the Second World War, which resulted in thousands of European scientists emigrating to the United States, which then became a focus for many of our young scientists.
An additional effort is therefore needed to ensure that European science, with its own particular nature and personality, becomes a point of reference and meeting place for thousands of scientists from the rest of the world. This would be in line with the special role the European Union plays in other areas.
With regard to social issues, it is renowned for its vision of social solidarity and for its relations with third countries.
On the ethical plane, it is a strong defender of human rights and democracy.
In the political sphere, it promotes tolerance and peaceful coexistence.
These contributions would be further enhanced through the development of an equally important role for European science, encompassing all these values.
We view the Commission's proposal in a positive light.
However, following on from what I have just said, we are putting forward a number of amendments with a view to strengthening the international role of Community research. These relate to five paragraphs.
Our first aim is to include our ongoing concerns to combat sex discrimination, and to enable women to achieve the equal status they demand.
Secondly, we want to present a unitary image of European science as a whole.
Thirdly, we hope to begin creating the necessary infrastructure for the useful application of our science, which would result in it becoming a point of reference.
Fourthly, we aim to be sensitive to the social needs of many third countries, and to what they lack.
Our fifth aim is to ensure a greater role for the European Parliament in this area, in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The first paragraph concerns providing equal opportunities for both sexes with regard both to objectives and also to methodology and specific measures.
The second paragraph - the unitary image of European science - suggests a simple initiative: publishing a European scientific journal along the lines of Science or Nature , so as to reflect the depth and importance of our scientific research at world level.
The third paragraph relates to the creation of a Europe-wide scientific information infrastructure, in other words, a European centre for scientific information. This would make available to scientists in Europe and in the rest of the world all existing scientific output in the form of articles, books, reports and so on.
Information would be properly indexed, analysed and updated.
It would therefore no longer be necessary to depend entirely on American early warning systems and databases, which currently dominate the field.
The fourth paragraph, concerning sensitivity to the needs of third countries, covers a range of approaches.
The first concerns special treatment for third countries.
What has been done in the Mediterranean area should be extended to the rest of the world, so that these countries benefit from proper treatment, as is proposed for Latin America and certain other regions.
The second approach relates to maintaining, and if appropriate, increasing, the number of such links and the exchange of information involved.
A third approach refers - as we often do, although it is high time we got to grips with these issues - to sensitivity concerning the economic, health, democratic, agricultural and industrial problems in those countries. Suggestions here range from environmental measures to the study of the risks involved in the registration of genetic patents.
The fourth approach is of mutual interest and relates to shared property rights over discoveries and patents obtained through joint economic input.
As for the fifth approach, it concerns the elimination of unnecessary bureaucratic and technical obstacles, to allow a better exchange of information and stronger links with the countries working alongside us.
Finally, the fifth paragraph refers to the role of the European Parliament, as the representative of the will of the European people. Parliament needs to be informed in good time so that it can intervene as appropriate.
We believe that, together, these measures will ensure that European interests are adequately protected.
Mr President, the question of what holds together the innermost part of the world is not a very original one as it is very old. It is however more relevant than ever, because of course our social development is moulded by many different factors, together making up what we call the European development model.
To that extent, it is crucially important with respect to our future development for us to ask at this point what really holds our society together in the innermost part, and then to tie that in to research activities in all sectors.
That is why I very much welcome the fact that we have here a specific programme that supports the mobility of researchers and focuses on socio-economic research, particularly with regard to the innermost part of our society.
This delicate plant was produced by Parliament and began to bloom in the fourth framework research programme.
There were many problems and excesses, the strategic direction could have been better, but in the last few years it has improved considerably and the last call, the third one, was excellent.
At this point I would also like to praise Director Mitsos from the Commission, who really handled it well. Praising the Commission is something we ought to do once in a while these days!
Nonetheless, I have taken the liberty of proposing improvements on seven points.
Firstly, in the provisional allocation of funds, it is foreseen that only 10 % is to be made available for socio-economic research.
I think that in our provisional allocation we could easily fix the figure a little higher, as the areas of responsibility have increased somewhat within the framework of the conciliation procedure under the fifth framework research programme.
I would therefore suggest a provisional figure of 15 %.
Secondly, I think it is important for us to know about the mobility and research content of the programme.
Transparency must be ensured, in particular by using the Internet, with regard to the participating institutions and the themes.
Thirdly, I think it important that socio-economic research is not just carried out as a sideline, but is connected horizontally to the other research areas.
That is why there are some proposals - Amendment No 37 in particular - for greater coordination of this research with other research areas.
Fourthly, I would like to mention some small improvements with relation to content. These involve structural changes, particularly as regards the ageing of our society, the effects of structural changes on employment and people's mentalities in our society, and the forms of participation.
In many areas it turns out that participation is no longer taking place in traditional policy areas, but more in non-governmental organisations, citizens' initiatives and so on.
These aspects should also be reflected in the content.
Fifthly, of course, the networking of researchers is also important.
I do not want to take up the cudgels for social science research, but I sometimes have the feeling that European cooperation has not yet developed very far in the area and a little help could still be given to establishing a European research network. This is also important of course when it comes to making applications.
The creation of a network ought therefore to be supported.
My sixth point concerns support for equality of opportunity, also where participation in this research programme is concerned.
It cannot be acceptable for instance that time spent bringing up children is not taken into account when the Marie Curie fellowships are awarded.
That point has to be clarified, as indeed does overall support for equality of opportunity.
Last week I attended a symposium where there were 150 participants, and only two of them were women.
There is obviously room for improvement here.
My seventh and final point is that we also have to promote the results.
It is of no help at all to have good studies if they are lying in a drawer.
In the area of the social sciences especially, this often happens.
The results should be promoted on the Internet, for example, but should also be transferred directly to the users, the politicians, in this Parliament, in the national Parliaments, and presented on the ground, in order to make them useful in the social process.
Mr President, I am presenting two reports, both under my name and both about the JRC.
The first is the fifth framework report and the other is the Euratom nuclear report on the work of the JRC.
The JRC is the living embodiment of what European added value means.
It is something that should be very much better known by the Members of this House and by the general public.
That is true of all the research programmes but in particular of the Joint Research Centre where scientists from all over the European Union come together to work on problems which are relevant to its citizens.
Like the European Union itself, the JRC's role has changed and its emphasis has changed.
It started off with a very largely nuclear emphasis and did valuable research in the nuclear field.
That emphasis is now lessening and the new mission of the JRC as it takes us into the 21st century is being highlighted more and more.
Mr Allgeier, the Director of the JRC, and Mrs Cresson, the Commissioner, have between them shown very great clarity of thinking in defining the role of the JRC so that everyone is clear about its task.
Its task principally is to be a tool for policy makers in the European Union and for those carrying out implementing programmes in a variety of areas.
For example we need the 'technology foresite' work which is done in Seville where they look at forthcoming technologies.
We need the testing and standards work that is done in Ispra and elsewhere.
Recently, for example, they tested the methods used in every Member State to monitor air pollution and they found great discrepancies in these tests.
That was a very valuable piece of work.
Alongside the clarity of purpose we need some reform and some restructuring and that is being done very efficiently.
The JRC possesses facilities which no one Member State could possibly afford to build and there ought to be better use of some of those facilities.
As the European Parliament has a duty to monitor what is going on in the research establishments, we would like observer status.
We would like two observers on the board of the JRC.
If for technical or legal reasons that is not possible we would like an exploration of other ways in which we could carry out that task.
Given the size of the Ispra site and the complications of maintaining such a site, some renegotiation has to go on with the Italian authorities and I hope that is in progress.
In this, as in every other programme, we need to emphasize that the equal opportunities policy of the European Union is not just a pretty phrase.
It means that this must be implemented.
Here I would pay tribute to Mrs Cresson, a woman Commissioner for science who has grasped that if we are to have an equal opportunities programme, there must be research, in her words, 'by women, for women and about women.
She has set up a special unit at DG XII, and should be congratulated and supported.
I move on to the Euratom part of the JRC.
In view of the reduced budget, a sensible decision has been made to cut the fusion research in the JRC and a higher emphasis will be put on nuclear materials and safeguards control.
The FARO facility is very important: this is a way of studying real accidents.
My Amendment No 20 highlights the fact that it is not the job of a research programme to pay for the decommissioning of nuclear facilities.
There must be urgent discussions with the budget authorities and the Committee on Budgets about how the ECU 100m needed for the full decommissioning at Ispra and elsewhere can be paid for without impinging upon the research programme; this would be wholly inappropriate.
I would like us to look at the suggestions of Professor Rubbia, amongst others, on on-site separation and transmutation of nuclear waste.
If we do not find a solution to the problem of nuclear waste, the public will lose heart at any suggestion of the use of nuclear power.
This may be a promising way forward.
I should like to say now - pre-empting a little but my time is in one block - why I have tabled an amendment to Mrs Matikainen-Kallström's report, on which I congratulate her, and I certainly agree with her suggestion that the title be changed to one which is more straightforward.
My Amendment No 19 suggests that, in view of the amount which has to be cut in the fusion programme, the Commission should come up with a new plan and should bear the following points in mind when it looks at the international thermonuclear experimental reactor:
There is a sharp decrease in interest and ability to participate by the planned partners and, as far as I can see, a site is not available.
The timescale is inappropriate for the fifth framework programme.
We are not going to be doing that work within this timescale.
There is certainly scope for a cost reduction.
The JET facility in Culham in the United Kingdom has very many achievements and is an important part of the fusion programme.
My suggestion for a cut in the budget does not include the JET facility.
Indeed, so long as Parliament is consulted, there is probably a case for its continuation after 1999. It has fixed costs.
However, I cannot believe - even though we want to study the socioeconomic aspects of nuclear fusion, and I am all in favour of them - that they cost ECU 920m, or anywhere near that amount.
We need to continue our on-going research into the fusion programme and I do not suggest in any way that we should not.
But I ask the Commission, if this amendment is adopted, to look again at the programme as it is drawn up and get something that is slightly more appropriate for the available budget.
Mr President, the need for energy will approximately double over the next fifty years. Most of the increase in demand will occur in the present developing countries, which will obtain their increased quantities of energy mainly through the use of fossil fuels that accelerate the greenhouse effect.
To some extent we can influence the consumption of primary energy sources by means of energy saving measures, but these are only possible in industrialised countries, and even there their effect on total energy consumption is minor.
The increased use of renewables will be considerable, but will have insufficient effect as far as contamination of the environment is concerned.
Knowing that the earth's resources of uranium and natural gas are finite, we could say there is no environmentally acceptable energy solution that exists at the present time, especially with regard to carbon dioxide emissions, which would meet the growing demand for energy and prevent the worsening of the greenhouse effect.
For several decades now we have been researching the theory of nuclear fusion, and fusion has actually been achieved in trial reactors.
In trialing the commercial exploitation of fusion we have reached the point where it is necessary to create the next demonstration project.
We now have the ITER research project which should get under way soon and which is jointly organised by the EU, Japan, the USA and Russia; its purpose is to produce the technology for the future commercial exploitation of a nuclear fusion power station.
The barriers to the exploitation of nuclear fusion are at present technical, so mere theoretical research is no longer enough to ensure development.
For the time being the developing world will not be able to develop an energy source that commercially exploits fusion, so the programme will have to be undertaken by the industrialised countries.
When we consider the timescale for exploiting fusion, which is estimated at approximately fifty years, it is clear that investment in the continuation of this work will be needed if the research currently being carried out is not to be discontinued, the Commission's proposed funding cut and the ITER project postponed.
Current research being undertaken into nuclear fusion costs ECU 500 million per year, which is just 1 % of the total cost of the oil imported by the EU.
The production of energy from fusion does not produce fuel-derived radioactive waste.
Research into fusion and its possible commercial exploitation will not involve elements that would encourage or facilitate the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
We also have to remember that research into nuclear fusion has led to an abundance of innovations, such as in the field of materials technology, and we have thus been able to exploit the results of the research well before any production of commercial energy has commenced.
To stop the greenhouse effect from ultimately causing irreparable damage before the introduction of fusion energy, we must invest in the production of energy from sources other than fossil fuels.
Making present nuclear power stations safe and more efficient will be vital if we wish to work to produce energy without harming the environment.
The Commission's original proposal was to fund research for the modernisation of current nuclear power plants and the treatment of nuclear waste.
I believe these will be areas of nuclear fission research which will be well suited to this programme.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are taking decisions on energy alternatives that will affect future generations.
Now, by taking the right decisions, we can solve the problems of the production of energy for Europeans in the future. By voting in favour of research into fusion energy we can guarantee those future generations a life that does not rely on respirators.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall now comment on the three horizontal programmes from the perspective of the Committee on External Economic Relations, in other words as regards the international role of research, innovation, SMEs and human potential.
On the first topic - the international role of Community research - it is essential, in my opinion, that technological research in the European Union should be a match for research worldwide and should remain competitive; I would even say that the benchmark should be the international relevance of our research and discoveries.
The fifth framework programme would be impoverished if this openness were not ensured.
Nevertheless, we might ask ourselves under what conditions non-EU partner companies should be allowed to participate, and to what extent the money of Europe's citizens should be spent on partners not belonging to the Union.
Special conventions will need to be drawn up, but our committee would see fit to lay down two vital criteria: firstly, research conducted in conjunction with external partners should be of benefit to the European Union, thereby improving its competence and its qualities; secondly, there should be a reciprocity criterion, meaning that if, for example, the partners - the American researchers - have access to a European research programme, the opposite must also be possible.
This, in my view, is a key point which the Commission as a whole, not just Mrs Cresson, must press in its international relations.
I am thinking here of technologically advanced countries such as the United States, Japan and Canada. Whereas we have by now found ways of solving conflicts and competitive difficulties, for example in the commercial sector through the World Trade Organisation, the world of research is still a fairly closed, impermeable one in most countries.
As regards the emerging and developing countries, on the other hand, and above all nearby countries such as those applying for accession and the third countries of the Mediterranean, I should very much like to see research becoming a tool of cooperation. In these cases, however, additional financial instruments are needed to complement the RTD framework programme: I am of course thinking of the Agenda 2000 programmes and the MEDA programmes.
In this context, technology transfer and the involvement of third countries will add to the merits of the framework programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, it has been a long road to the final decision on the European Community's fifth framework programme for research, technological development and demonstration.
Today I can tell you that although there was an initial protest about this programme, the Committee on Fisheries can accept the result of the conciliation procedure despite a general disagreement on funding and possible deficiencies with regard to content.
But I would like to explain to you why we shall be following its implementation very carefully.
In its opinion on the proposed fifth framework research programme, the Committee on Fisheries described the research needs of the fisheries and aquaculture sector.
It noted that, in contrast to the fourth framework research programme, the proposal does not contain a programme solely devoted to fisheries.
The design of the new framework programme means that fisheries interests will have to compete with other research interests in several programmes and key actions. That does not make things any easier for fisheries.
Moreover, a solution also needs to be found for the future funding of activities relating to fisheries, which have so far been defined as studies and kept outside the research programmes.
These activities include the collection of basic data for stock assessments, which have so far been funded through the Structural Funds.
The Committee on Fisheries stresses the need to avoid any risk of interruption in the funding of the very important activities concerned, and the need to extend support for such activities to the aquaculture sector.
We have heard that in accordance with Article 130i, the framework programme will be implemented through individual specific programmes, in turn consisting of key actions as they are known, or work programmes.
The first specific programme, called 'Quality of life and management of living resources' thus covers many key actions of relevance for the fisheries and aquaculture sector.
The most important of these is 'Sustainable agriculture, fisheries and forestry, including the integrated development of rural areas'.
The priorities for research, technological development and demonstration in fisheries and aquaculture have been defined in such a way that most of the relevant research needs should be covered.
The key action 'Health, food and environmental factors' is absolutely relevant here, and the key action 'Control of infectious diseases' provides a natural framework for research on prevention and control of fish diseases within aquaculture, since it has now emerged that this key action will not be limited to human diseases.
The key action 'The cell factory' could possibly also be of some interest to the aquaculture sector because of the genetical problems that may arise there.
That is all I have to say on the first specific programme.
The second and third programmes are not very relevant for fisheries and aquaculture, so let me move directly on to the fourth thematic programme, 'Preserving the ecosystem'.
This programme is of the greatest importance to fisheries and aquaculture, especially in the attempts at what is known as the conceptualizing an ecosystem approach to fisheries management, because understanding how environmental changes may affect the marine ecosystems upon which fisheries and aquaculture depend is extremely important.
Up to now we have always complained that the current state of knowledge rarely permits forecasting of concrete effects on fish stocks or predictions of the consequences of a troubled ecosystem for the fishing industry.
The other specific programmes predominantly concern amongst other things the need for international cooperation with third countries in the Mediterranean region, as well as Russia, the USA and Canada.
It is a subject that we will be increasingly preoccupied with in the fisheries sector as we search for new resources.
The Committee on Fisheries has clearly defined the contents and affirmed their importance.
We look forward to their realisation.
We have heard about the growing demands that are being placed on the framework programme, and in view of these each penny of the amount had to be fought for.
Of course this was tiring at times, but it was worth it.
My thanks to all those who were involved.
We are also very relieved that with the framework programme, an important part of employment policy that we have all been waiting for is to be implemented. In a modern Europe we ought never to neglect the field of research.
It is often the true beginning of all things. Of course this also has to be reflected in our budget.
Mr President, I wish to focus on the section in the framework programme covered by Mr Argyros, which deals with competitive and sustainable growth. It is very gratifying to see that so many suggestions in the opinion from the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have been incorporated into the report.
Greater emphasis is now being placed on sustainable growth as a means of creating jobs and improving quality of life: in other words, a horizontal approach is being advocated. Equally, there is recognition that the programme will need to be monitored and, where necessary, adjusted.
This will be necessary to keep pace not only with scientific and technological progress, but with economic and social developments too.
I am convinced that societal considerations will increasingly dictate the future course of research.
What is more, politicians and decision-takers will be requiring advice on socio-economic and environmental issues.
Research can contribute towards smoothing the way for social change and safeguarding ecological balance.
I am disappointed that we failed to obtain budgetary resources for such work and I therefore call upon colleagues to support the Green Group's Amendment No 30.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will start with the report by Mr Tannert.
In the fifth framework research programme, European research is supposed to be more in tune with the needs of society than ever, and more concerned with searching for solutions to its pressing problems.
The biotechnology field potentially contains many answers, which we are seeing already in the medical, pharmaceutical and agricultural sectors, where work is being done worldwide.
The European Union must intensify its efforts here considerably if it wishes to remain competitive.
But just as biotechnology answers questions, it also throws them up, especially in the field of gene technology. There is for example the safety of manufactured products that are genetically engineered, and there are also the highly sensitive ethical aspects.
I would fully agree with the rapporteur that research on gene technology depends mainly on whether we can arrive at a social consensus on the issues associated with it.
That is why objective information and a widely-conducted discussion in the field of ethics also have to be among the aims of this programme.
The Green Group in the European Parliament is calling once again for a moratorium on research involving foetal tissue and research on embryos in vitro before implantation until a full ethical evaluation has been undertaken.
But for my group the moratorium on research is not a feasible option.
It is an unrealistic demand because we can never have a conclusive ethical evaluation.
It is always going to have to take place in parallel with the research.
It is crucial in embryo research that the provisions in national legislation are complied with, and that the common, basic ethical principles are taken into account.
European research projects should be evaluated carefully from an ethical point of view before they are begun.
But a complete moratorium would lead to a standstill, which is something we especially want to avoid with this programme.
Now let me turn briefly to the report by Mr Lange.
By and large, the amendments can be supported and also have the approval of my group.
I very much welcome the fact that this specific programme continues the efforts to promote the training of European researchers.
It is hugely important for Europe's competitiveness that the quality of our researchers and scientists is continually reinforced.
It is important to achieve a lively and effective cooperation between European researchers.
As for socio-economic research, the Commission's aim that socio-economic aspects be identified as a key action in this horizontal programme is an idea that is very much to be welcomed.
But in any case it has to be said that not everything that is scientifically interesting and feasible requires comprehensive European research funding.
I think therefore that the chosen figure of 10 % of the funds from the specific programme for socio-economic research is sufficient.
Thank you very much indeed to both of the rapporteurs.
Mr President, I should just like to make one point on the Estevan Bolea report and that is about renewable energies, specifically geothermal energy, better known in my part of the world as 'hot rocks technology'.
Many of our Member States have a very good record in this area.
Europe has a good track record in that it has been successful with its research in the past.
And yet this is not specifically mentioned in the Commission proposal.
Perhaps it is included under the title 'Any Other Energies'.
In my own mind that is not at all sufficient.
Hence Amendment No 19 which specifically mentions geothermal energy.
I would remind the Commission that the United States is currently putting something like USD 100m into research into this particular area. They are looking for export markets.
They are areas where we, as the European Union, will miss out if we do not make sure that we keep abreast of this technology.
Will the Commission support geothermal technology?
Will it please support Amendment No 19.
Mr President, I congratulate all the rapporteurs on the excellent reports they have produced.
I can agree with almost all of them.
I am pleased to see that the Tannert report clearly spells out that research into human cloning will not be permitted in the present framework programme.
My personal belief is that human cloning in any form should not be tolerated under any circumstances.
The user-friendly information society programme presented by our colleague, Mr Malerba, is of great importance.
Every single element of the four key action areas will have a major role for future progress and development, not least for the creation of jobs.
In recent weeks the Taoiseach of Ireland, Mr Bertie Ahern, announced the decision to create a major digital park. In so doing he said: 'Linking cities and villages into this busy network will not only give new jobs to Ireland but will provide the one-stop media shop for local services in health, education, tourism, business development and all public services'.
Speaking on behalf of the Irish delegation in my group, it will come as no surprise to many that I have some difficulties with those reports dealing with research of one kind or another in the nuclear sector.
The Sellafield lies, leaks and cover-ups saga has been consistently denounced by my Fianna Fáil delegation in this Parliament, right back to the early days of Windscale.
We are totally opposed to the proposed new expansion of Sellafield.
There is no justification - economic or otherwise - for the reprocessing of nuclear waste.
We will not support any programmes which would in effect contribute to a continuation of the lethal contamination from Sellafield.
That money would be far better used for research into projects in non-nuclear renewable energies as set out in the programme, preserving the ecosystem, the subject of the Estevan Bolea report.
In conclusion, I have one comment on the overall fifth framework programme.
I am convinced that the time has come for Europe to stop being perceived as a follower of American and Japanese research fashion and become, in a coherent and united approach, a world leader in the field.
We can do it if we wish.
Mr President, I would like to emphasise three points in connection with the fifth framework programme for research and the special programmes attached to it.
The first concerns the users of research.
According to the Commission's proposal, the intention behind the fifth framework programme is greater interaction with users.
It is very important that by the word 'users' the Commission does not just mean those engaged in business, but the real end-users of research, the people. Organisations that represent the people and democratically elected decision-makers must also be able to participate in the planning and monitoring of research.
Secondly, I would like to focus on the special attention paid to women in the research programmes.
Mr Lange's report, now under discussion, pays commendable attention to the issue.
We have to make sure that both sufficient resources are available for research into the status of women and the promotion of equality, and that women are represented in groups involved in the selection and appraisal of projects.
The third important issue concerns the opportunities for applicant countries to be included in the fifth framework programme.
Negotiations with those countries, which are desirable for their participation in the programme, must be swiftly concluded, so that they may be included right from the start.
In this connection I would also like to stress the importance of research into health and safety at work, which is also well worth investing in.
Finally I would like to state that I am in full agreement with what Mr Fitzsimmons said just now about nuclear research, which is that we should invest in renewable energy resources.
Mr President, the programme 'Preserving the ecosystem' would more correctly have been called 'Repairing the ecosystem', because with many of these programmes - and I need remind you only of the Structural Funds - we are continuing to destroy and rob the planet before we are even aware of all that it has to offer.
This can be said about the forests and seas, and everything else too.
Of course what makes me particularly angry is the funding which has been provided - ECU 2.125 billion for 130 priorities - which will not do justice to any of the priorities.
This path will not lead us to renewable energy.
We need anything but fusion, on which we have spent billions without seeing any results so far.
What about energy efficiency?
Obviously, with so little money we cannot make progress on that either.
For the future of course it is important for us to find out what resources and valuable medical substances can be obtained from the sea before they are plundered.
None of these things can be achieved with what we have here, and I deeply regret that.
I also think it inappropriate for so much money to be going into computer science.
As for the nuclear industry as a whole, I do not think it is at all right to continue to invest money in it, because it must itself take responsibility for the consequences in accordance with the principle that 'the polluter must pay', instead of always making the general public pay in its place.
Mr Hudghton, I did not interrupt you because I wanted to thank you and congratulate you on your first appearance in Parliament.
I wish you all the best as an MEP, but would point out that here in Parliament we all keep to our allotted speaking time.
Mr President, in the context of this joint debate on research and technological development, I will be speaking on the report on the programme for innovation and participation of small and medium-sized enterprises.
The decisive role of SMEs in employment and in our countries' territorial balance can never be over-emphasised.
It is very much better to promote the maintenance and development of a coherent and close-knit fabric of businesses in the countryside rather than to invest vast sums in urban policy with very uncertain results.
That fabric has now been seriously damaged by recession and it is essential to rebuild it, in particular by encouraging the development of the industries of the future, which are currently creating most wealth, growth and employment.
It is essential to be in a position to protect the intellectual property involved here, both at Community level and at third country level, because this is absolutely necessary if the costs inherent in research and development are to be amortised.
And instead of salving our consciences by incorporating into this fifth framework programme for research an SME section which is poorly-funded and will therefore have little impact, it would surely have been better to start by carrying out an audit of the legal obstacles currently facing people starting up in business and of the brakes on the development of SMEs created by certain Community regulations themselves.
Our legal systems simply must be geared towards facilitating the development of SMEs, instead of hindering it, as is seen in particular in the case of some regulations which tend to strangle businesses at birth, the very time when they most need capital.
It would have been useful to give some thought to the essential improvements that need to be made to company law with a view to adapting it to the rules of technological industry and risk capital, a vital instrument in facilitating access for SMEs to private finance for innovation.
A policy geared to making extensive free trade agreements without prior impact assessment and adopting artificially high standards for our small and medium-sized enterprises has undeniable negative effects. Mr President, I call for a pragmatic policy, not an ideological one, a policy that will really facilitate the development of these small and medium-sized firms.
They are now the principal source of job creation in the European Union.
Mr President, research is the future, it is the breath of the human spirit.
However, responsibility is called for!
I am very glad that thermonuclear fusion is not under discussion in Mrs McNally's report. However nuclear fission safety, control of nuclear materials, the decommissioning of nuclear power stations and waste management are.
We are going to have to decommission a great many nuclear power stations in the future, something that we should perhaps have done much earlier.
Waste management is going to keep us busy for a very long time.
Although we do not have a solution for nuclear waste yet and it will continue to be radioactive for centuries, indeed for millennia, we go on producing more every day!
It is a grotesque, tragic and dramatic form of human irresponsibility.
It is I think perhaps too late for us to carry out research in this area.
I am grateful to Mrs Matikainen-Kallström for pointing out in her report that the routine generation of substantial quantities of radioactive materials may also constitute the biggest obstacle in the development of fusion.
She refers to extremely important areas such as nuclear fission, operational safety, nuclear facilities, radiation protection and once again, waste management, which has been mentioned several times today.
I know that Mrs Matikainen-Kallström has taken a great deal of trouble over her report, but like many of the others who spoke before me, I regret the fact that there is no talk of any key action for renewable energies here.
The waste must certainly be brought under control.
You are responsible on behalf of the people in this respect.
When one tries, as I do, to conduct politics in a Christian-Democrat spirit of responsibility then it is simply impossible - for me at least - to support a programme which admittedly offers us a great many advantages, but also leaves behind for those who will come after us problems that are presently regarded as insoluble.
I would ask my colleagues to have some understanding for the way I am going to vote.
Mr President, referring to the report by Mr Argyros on the special programme for competitive and viable economic development, I would first of all like to note with satisfaction the rapporteur's effort to address issues concerned with ensuring transparency in the management of appropriations connected with the programme's activities, promoting the social dimension in the objectives served by the funds made available each year, extending the special actions to branches such as the textile industry, which is a very important industry in Europe and indeed a labour-intensive one, reserving a larger proportion of the budget for improvements in land and sea transport technologies and making research results available to small and medium-sized enterprises so that they can derive benefit from them.
However, I should like to point out that the worldwide economic crisis has highlighted the need for economic development which benefits society while fully respecting the environment. That, indeed, is what is meant by viable and sustainable development.
But now, the word 'competitive' is being added.
Is that coincidence? Surely not.
That word establishes a framework wherein the main effort will be directed in an extremely one-sided manner towards intellectual, scientific and technological development in order to promote the interests and aspirations of large-scale multinational capital.
Competitiveness is ranked above all else, and the rights and acquisitions of working people, the environment and a balanced ecology are all placed in thrall to it.
Development of any kind and environmental protection are conditional upon company profits.
Experience, particularly recently, shows that any reference to competitive development is very worrying for working people and the general public.
It is essential to grasp the point that technology is the product of scientific development and the human intellect, and that it must not be used in ways that pose a threat to nature, mankind and its needs.
Mr President, I shall begin with the Malerba report, on which I have tabled some amendments.
Whilst I am very much in favour of a user-friendly information society, I still have some misgivings. There is a danger that the resources of the information society and the Internet will be exploited for purposes of electronic surveillance.
It is incumbent upon us in this Parliament to distance ourselves from any attempt to use this programme to facilitate the development of such communication or surveillance technologies.
I also have a point on the Argyros report on competitive and sustainable growth.
I have tabled an amendment on reducing the environmental impact of air traffic.
Parliament is very vocal about developing better fuels for motor cars and cutting petrol use, yet we seem to overlook the fact that aeroplanes are also major guzzlers.
Competitive ways must be found of producing fuels which will spare the environment and reduce consumption.
This should be seen by industry as a positive challenge, rather than a negative threat.
Mr President, the fifth framework programme is primarily designed to promote the interests of a common research policy.
Over time, the structure has become clearer and the subject areas more specific.
Fragmentation into lots of small projects and the overlapping of different projects is to be avoided, and from this point of view the question has to be asked whether earmarking 10 % of the budget for SMEs will really promote scientific development.
The rapid assessment of applications is extremely important for research institutions and especially for businesses, and establishing clear criteria is also important in order to provide a degree of certainty.
It also prevents lengthy discussions on contracts and bureaucratic procedures, both of which are seen as obstacles.
Because of the rapid developments in science, it has to be possible to alter specific programmes half-way through.
The extremely rapid progress made in genetic technology, which could generate new resistances and harmful trends in nutrition, means that further biomedical research and ethical consideration is required.
Scientific research is not seen as something free from value judgements, as is clear from the fact that human cloning has been excluded from the framework programme.
We are delighted about this; a pause for thought about other genetic technologies is also needed, and full, unbiased information would be extremely welcome.
Sustainable development is an important basis for research, and energy and environmental protection must form an integral part of this.
Cooperation between government, the private sector, industry and the services sector can set a good, encouraging example here, particularly for applied research.
However, there must also be scope for fundamental research, which should be as independent and objective as possible.
As for the future of the nuclear fusion programme, we would point out that the knowledge we have acquired here must be kept for future generations, but in view of the fact that other sources of energy are now in full development, we no longer need to attach high priority to it.
We support the idea of setting a maximum for nuclear research, which will certainly be advisable once we have a clearer and fuller picture of everything that is going on in the nuclear sector.
It is extremely important to think about waste management and safety here.
Mr President, I wish to refer to Mr Malerba's report on the user-friendly information society, part of the broad fifth framework programme.
I should like to put forward four observations on this report.
First, the total European Union investment - not just that allocated within the fifth framework programme, but overall investment in the field - together with the investment made by each of the 15 Member States individually falls far short of the investment in this sector by our main competitors, the United States and Japan.
We have to realise that information science is at the cutting edge of technology and should therefore welcome this initiative and carry it through.
Furthermore, as the resources available are limited, they must be distributed wisely.
In this respect, I welcome the rapporteur's suggestion to concentrate resources on objectives 1 and 3, namely, systems and services for the citizen and new technologies, rather than on objective 2, which relates to electronic commerce. This requires improved regulations, and thus calls for legislative action rather than investment.
I should also like to point out that the final chapter is ill-defined and therefore somewhat vague.
Our resources must be concentrated at the cutting edge, in those key sectors where investment will bear most fruit.
Finally, I should like to refer to two types of amendments, following on from what our colleague from the Green Group said.
At this stage, it would be extremely dangerous to start a witch hunt concerning the promotion of investment in this important sector.
Many problems are indeed emerging, relating to safeguarding the rights of the individual, the right to privacy, for instance. However, we should bear in mind that the Internet arose as a result of research undertaken by the military, and later developed into what it is today.
Caution is therefore advisable.
In addition, I should like to endorse the rapporteur's opinion on some of the amendments put forward by the Committee on Women's Rights, relating, for example, to the introduction of gender quotas. These do seem to go rather too far.
Mr President, I am already very disappointed with the manner in which the European Parliament's report deals with gene technology.
On top of that, I find the talk of social ostracism that I hear, as opposed to the imposition of bans, very naïve.
We were promised years ago that there were at last going to be standards, and after years of research programmes in this field it could be expected that the Commission would finally establish ethical standards instead of routinely insisting that this is what the research projects are supposed to be contributing to. It is becoming increasingly clear that they are merely waxing lyrical, and their real concern is with making unrestricted progress in this risky and ethically questionable research.
Returning to the subject of research involving foetal tissue for instance, even the federal chamber of doctors in Germany has spoken out in favour of a moratorium.
But the Commission is obviously unable to admit that this type of research is dubious, both scientifically and from an ethical point of view, and that some limits must finally be laid down in the field.
This applies to the softening agent in babies' toys.
The Commission says that bans cannot be imposed because research is needed, and yet its research programme contains absolutely no attempts at research that could finally put this issue on the agenda, namely environmental medicine and all these other questions concerning for example chemical substances.
Mr President, the adoption of the fifth framework programme was a key moment for research in Europe, as we have all seen.
Parliament managed to make its own voice and that of Europe's citizens heard, by introducing various themes which are crucial to the development and improvement of life and research in this Europe of ours.
As I have stated on several occasions in all the institutional forums, only through research and technological innovation can we get the better of the unemployment which is afflicting Europe.
Conducting research means creating jobs for the future and improving the lifestyle of our children; efforts must therefore be made in Europe to improve the attainment and dissemination of research findings, and to facilitate access to them.
Today's adoption of the specific programmes must be seized as a further opportunity for companies, researchers and all the citizens of Europe.
We naturally welcome a whole range of themes within the various programmes. Among these I would single out an extremely important one: the quality of life and management of biological resources.
Europe has ample experience of research and applications in this field, and I would stress that - over and above all the ethical considerations - biotechnology and genetic engineering are having and will continue to have a crucial impact on the future of medicine and on our future well-being.
I would also stress, on behalf of the committee which I chair, that a good deal of important work has been done in recent years, both on the framework programme, on which agreement has been reached - albeit painstakingly - with the Council, and on the specific programmes where, as you know, several amendments have been put forward.
In conclusion, I hope that the Council will take due note of Parliament's suggestions, not least when adopting these programmes to which codecision does not apply: it would be a serious mistake not to take account of the opinions of those, like ourselves, who represent the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate my colleague Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, the rapporteur, for all her very hard work in bringing the fifth framework programme to this point, including, I am pleased to say, paying a visit to Devon, my constituency, to hear about many research projects engaged in at Exeter University and Plymouth University.
I welcome her interest.
I welcome the outcome of the conciliation procedure.
There were many researchers out there who were anxious about future funding and the prospect of funding being cut off.
We should emphasise very strongly the importance of the fifth framework programme for networking across national borders.
The importance of this work cannot be overstated even though it represents a very small proportion of overall spending in Europe on research.
I urge the Commission to pay more attention in future to providing consistent assessments of bids, to telling unsuccessful applicants why they did not succeed, and to make payments on time because delays cause great difficulties, particularly for small businesses.
I welcome the emphasis on SMEs participation.
We should remember that they face particular difficulties in participating in these transnational large projects.
I welcome Mrs McNally's support for the work of JET at Culham.
That should reassure the staff who work there and who were anxious about their future employment prospects.
Above all, I wish to emphasise the benefit of the fifth framework programme as a catalyst for progress, innovation, competitiveness, quality of life and employment in Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the nine rapporteurs very much and congratulate them on the quality of their work.
I want to extend those thanks to all the members of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and to its chairman, Mr Scapagnini, as well as to the chairs of the different committees involved in the debate on the various specific programmes within the fifth framework programme for research.
Examining all the proposals from the Commission was a vast and complex task. It was all the more difficult because it had to be completed within tight deadlines, in parallel with the discussion of the fifth framework programme within the Conciliation Committee.
The European Parliament has fulfilled its mission flawlessly, producing reports containing a range of pertinent and constructive suggestions.
Rather than go into detail on the very large number of amendments tabled, I will summarise the Commission's position on some important points.
However, a detailed position paper is available from the sessional services.
Broadly, the Commission accepts many of the proposed amendments in terms of content and spirit, if not in their precise formulation.
The Commission agrees with several of the 'horizontal' amendments, which apply to all the programmes or express Parliament's position on general points in the words of different rapporteurs.
These amendments reflect the agreement reached on the fifth framework programme within the Conciliation Committee, and relate, firstly, to equal opportunities and the participation of women in the implementation of the research programmes.
I personally attach great importance to this point.
On my initiative, the Commission will soon be presenting a communication on this subject, which will describe specific measures to be taken to promote equal opportunities and the participation of women, following up the symposium I organised last year on 'Women and Science'.
They also cover the participation of small and medium-sized companies.
As agreed in the Conciliation Committee, 10 % of the resources for the four thematic programmes will be earmarked for SMEs to resolve the technological problems they have to confront.
I would add, to respond to what has just been said, that a 'one-stop shop' will be established to facilitate access of SMEs to the programme.
Incidentally, the number of SMEs which benefit from the research programmes has increased by 30 % over the last four years.
Finally, they refer to information for the European Parliament, which will be given greater powers to monitor in detail the implementation of the programmes, including, of course, the Joint Research Centre.
The Commission would like to fix a date with Parliament, within the next three months, to report on how the first stages of implementing the programmes have gone.
I would now like to comment on the nine reports.
I cannot cover everything, but I want to highlight the following points.
In his report on the 'Quality of life and management of living resources' programme, Mr Tannert rightly stresses the importance of attention to ethical issues.
In the particular case of research involving human embryos, the Commission shares Parliament's reservations.
These problems are complex.
Knowledge and technology are advancing rapidly and account must be taken of the interests of couples and the infirm, but of course there are boundaries which cannot be crossed.
The Commission is pleased to note the support given to the 'User-friendly information society' programme in Mr Malerba's very detailed report.
In line with Parliament's wishes, it will propose a new distribution of the budget for this programme benefiting key actions, services to the citizens and essential technologies and infrastructures.
A little later Mr Malerba also spoke on the problem of international relations as regards research.
It goes without saying that cooperation will be reciprocal.
As regards interconnection of high-speed research networks, the Commission thinks this could perhaps benefit from a financial contribution from programmes other than the information society programme.
However, this contribution would only relate to uses specifically linked to the fields covered by these programmes.
The Commission will evaluate and analyse these needs to determine the best means of meeting them.
Among the amendments tabled by Mr Argyros to the proposal for the 'Competitive and sustainable growth' programme, the Commission is particularly interested in those which accentuate the sustainability dimension in all planned research.
This greater stress is particularly apt.
The actual principle of the programme is to develop technologies that are competitive and also respect the environment. In fact I would say the environmental aspects make them that much more competitive.
Mrs Estevan Bolea's report on the programme on 'Preserving the ecosystem' is a very precise analysis of energy and environment needs and the actions planned in that field.
While continuing to emphasise the close links between issues arising in these two fields, the Commission takes note of the fact that Parliament and the Council support the idea of implementing two separate sub-programmes.
The Commission also recognises the importance to be attached to renewable energy.
I would remind you that it was at its initiative that the European Union set itself a target for raising the share of renewable energy from 6 % to 12 % by the year 2000.
However, we do not think it is either possible or necessary to fix a quantitative resource threshold for research in this field.
Some of the technologies involved combine the exploitation of classic energies and renewable energies, and account must be taken of the absorption capacities of the fabric of European research and industry.
We are delighted with Mr Marset Campos's support for the programme on 'Confirming the international role of Community research'.
Like him, we think the actions in this programme should be structured according to the individual economic and social needs of the various regions of the world.
But we do not think explicit links need to be established at legislative level between the various actions and excessively precise country categories.
The amendments tabled by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel to the programme on 'Promotion of innovation and encouragement of participation of SMEs' contribute a number of useful details, notably in the definition of new approaches to be implemented. So the Commission will adopt them.
Special attention to SMEs is also covered by one of the general amendments, which the Commission accepts, on extending the agreement reached in the Conciliation Committee.
I can assure Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel that the specific measures for SMEs will be included and applied in all the thematic proposals in a harmonised and effective way.
The same applies to the equal opportunities issue raised by Mr Lange in his report on the programme on 'Improving the human research potential and the socio-economic knowledge base'.
Like the rapporteur, the Commission attaches great importance to the socio-economic aspects of research, especially to the contribution made by such work to the definition and implementation of public policy.
It therefore accepts the amendments aimed at strengthening this dimension, as well as the coordination of activities pursued in this field right across the framework programme.
Mrs McNally has carefully analysed the two proposals on the programme of activities for the Joint Research Centre in the non-nuclear and nuclear fields.
The limited number of amendments bears witness to the level of agreement between Parliament and the Commission on the nature and content of the Joint Research Centre's mission to serve Union policies and Union citizens.
These two specific programmes authorise a redeployment of the scope of the JCR into fields such as environment or consumer protection and a refocusing of its nuclear activities in the domains of security and safety.
This reorientation has also meant that the issue of the nuclear legacy of past JCR activities has been clearly stated, and has underlined how essential it is to dismantle obsolete installations and process nuclear waste.
As Mrs Matikainen-Kallström illustrates clearly in her in-depth report on the programme on 'Preserving the ecosystem' (Euratom), the position as regards research on thermonuclear fusion has evolved over the last few years.
This is also mentioned by Mrs McNally.
The medium and long term prospects have changed.
We can now exercise a certain flexibility in the management of the key action on nuclear fusion, without undermining in any way the scientific work carried out in this field.
So, with a view to optimum use of Community funds, and taking fully into account the degree of urgency involved, the Commission proposes revising the distribution of Euratom programme resources, allocating ECU 955 million to indirect actions, including ECU 768 million for fusion, and ECU 305 million to the JCR, including ECU 24 million for the vital tasks of dismantling obsolete nuclear plant and waste management.
On the latter point, the Commission is working on a medium and long term action plan to resolve these hangovers from the past.
This approach requires everyone in the Community institutions to shoulder shared responsibilities, and I hope I can count on the support of the European Parliament.
I would like to conclude with a few comments on the procedure followed.
As I have said, we are facing very tight deadlines.
Anxious to avoid the risk of delaying the launch of the fifth framework programme, the Commission decided to present to the Council authorities the parliamentary amendments it envisaged adopting in whole or in part, and to negotiate in advance their incorporation into the final text once these amendments have been voted through by Parliament.
It was able to do so thanks to the spirit of collaboration and openness demonstrated by Parliament, and I want to thank you sincerely.
With the fifth framework programme, which will be launched at the same time as the euro, I was determined to make European research serve the Union's great aims, beginning with competitiveness and employment, as well as the expectations and needs of our fellow citizens.
And to answer a question asked earlier, as well as researchers and industrialists there will also be users in the advisory groups, who will be able to give us their assessment of the programmes.
From the start the European Parliament has been fully associated with this enterprise and it has been able to make its mark.
In their structure, content and conditions of implementation, the specific programmes will bear the stamp of this Parliament. Parliament can take full credit for the impact these programmes will have on the European economy and European society.
I am delighted with this and I thank you most sincerely for your invaluable contribution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
(The sitting was closed at 8.50 p.m.)
Interpretation of the Rules of Procedure
I have been informed by the Green Group, pursuant to Rule 162(4), that it contests the interpretation of the provisions governing the discharge procedure that was announced to Parliament yesterday.
I would therefore remind the House that, as announced yesterday, the vote on this interpretation will take place at voting time today, in other words at 12 noon.
There is of course no question of us holding a debate on this matter now.
Rule 162 is perfectly clear.
We shall vote at 12 noon.
However, I will give the floor to Mrs Theato, who has asked to speak as chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Madam President, I should like to request that the opinion drawn up by the Legal Service - which contains statements on this point -should also be made available to groups and Members.
I do not know whether all Members have now received this opinion.
Yesterday, it was also submitted to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
That is difficult, Mrs Theato, since the interpretation has been given by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
It is that interpretation which has been contested, and the House knows its mind well enough to decide freely for itself. It will do that at 12 noon today.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, on 12 January 1999, Mr Wijsenbeek and I are required to attend the Court of Justice in Luxembourg at 9.30 a.m. in proceedings on a question referred for a preliminary ruling on the basis of Article 177 by the District Court in Rotterdam.
We are therefore faced with a choice.
We would have to leave Strasbourg very early in the morning to travel to Luxembourg and would therefore probably miss the voting, so we must choose whether to go to Luxembourg or stay here to vote.
Who should decide? This is a question that I raised yesterday as a point of order.
My lawyers tell me that, according to Rule 2 of the Rules of Procedure, it is Mr Wijsenbeek and myself who should decide.
If it is of overriding importance that we should be here, then we will inform the Court that we regret that we are unable to attend.
If we say that it makes no difference and that we would be fulfilling our parliamentary duties better in the interests of the citizens of Europe and the free movement of persons by going to Luxembourg, then we will unfortunately probably not be here for the voting.
It is up to us to decide, according to our lawyers.
But the Bureau says that on the basis of Rule 5 it must decide for us, and that its decision is that, unfortunately for the Court of Justice, we must be here throughout the voting, otherwise we will be fined half a day's allowance for failure to attend. It has thus implicitly ruled that the half-day's allowance is income - think back to ground 21 in the Lord Bruce judgment - and is therefore subject to national taxation laws.
I promised Mr Gil-Robles yesterday in the corridor here in Parliament that I would let the Secretary-General have a short statement in French and English sometime this week, and I shall be happy to hand it over to you this week, Madam President.
Madam President, I would just like to say that the Court of Justice has indeed summoned me to attend on Tuesday, 12 January 1999 in the Wijsenbeek case.
I would also point out that we have already discussed this issue in the Committee on Legal Affairs of which you yourself are a member, Madam President, and that the case concerns the free movement of persons and the interpretation of Articles 7 and 8, on which Parliament itself brought proceedings, though its case was rejected as inadmissible.
I and my lawyer, Mr J.L. Janssen van Raay, who also happens to be my colleague here in the House, have ourselves brought proceedings on this issue, because as Members of the European Parliament and as ordinary citizens we are victims of the failure to implement Articles 7 and 8.
I would therefore ask you, Madam President, both as President and as the party which brought the earlier proceedings - even if they were declared inadmissible - to lend us all possible support and cooperation and not to insist that all Members must be here all the time, because that is a misinterpretation of the Rules as construed by myself and Mr Janssen van Raay.
Madam President, I have a comment on the Minutes, because the presidency yesterday committed an omission which could have serious consequences for relations between Parliament and the Council.
It was on the Council's common position on the European capital of culture for the years 2005 to 2019.
The deadline for any reactions expires today, but the presidency requested and was granted a postponement by the Council.
It is not clear why and when this postponement is to begin, because no announcement was made yesterday that the common position had been received.
You can put this right by announcing it now, which would mean that the deadline for reactions is postponed until 15 January.
The Committee on Culture decided unanimously yesterday evening to put before the plenary a declaration of intent to reject the common position.
If we do not react we shall achieve the exact opposite, which is that the common position will go through on the nod.
I would therefore urgently request that you make this announcement today, and I would also point out that this is the consequence of the procedure followed with documents received, which is that the President says that documents have been received and refers to the Annex that is later attached to the Minutes.
We all say yes, and have no way of checking whether what was agreed has actually been done.
It is only now, a day later, that I can officially see what has happened.
Because of this we had the unusual situation yesterday that, after the plenary and before the committee meeting, the services informed me that the announcement had been made, then after the committee meeting they said that it had not been after all.
These sorts of misunderstandings are, of course, extremely slipshod.
Yes indeed, Mr Pex.
We are well aware of the situation, and I can assure you that the announcement will be made today.
Madam President, I refer to last night's Minutes and the speech made by the newly elected colleague in this House from Scotland. In his speech he referred solely and continually to Scotland.
Madam President, could you point out to the new colleague that this is a European Parliament and if he wants to continue with his narrow nationalist views maybe he should have been elected to the Scottish Parliament?
Madam President, I would like to make a further point concerning page 22 of the Minutes.
You will recall that after the rejection of my request that the report be referred back to committee, in accordance with Rule 129, I felt I had to point out the consequences of a vote of rejection by Parliament, and the President agreed with me that there could be other requests for referral back to committee.
This is not mentioned.
I wish to have it recorded not because I was right but because the question might be repeated, and for future reference I think it would be good to record that this was stated.
If it was not mentioned, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, it is because that is what the Rules say and so it was not considered necessary.
Madam President, I would like to make a point relating to Question Time.
When we know which Commissioners are going to attend Question Time, we ask questions intended for those specific Commissioners.
But in this instance, the European Commission has decided that questions that were intended for Mr Van Miert, since they concerned competition policy, are to be answered by Mr Papoutsis, who is not going to attend Question Time during this part-session.
Madam President, I would like to protest to Parliament's Bureau because when we Members ask questions intended for specific Commissioners, it is because we know that they are the ones responsible for certain issues.
I know - or at least, I imagine - that we cannot now change the questions, but the Bureau should use its authority to monitor such matters.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, you know that we all have to come here to Strasbourg for one week a month and that we are often deprived of news from our home countries.
The situation has been somewhat improved by the fact that we now have a television in our room broadcasting in all sorts of languages.
There is even a Dutch-language channel, but every time I come here I find that it has been switched off, and I have to make a number of telephone calls to have it restored.
Could the services perhaps ensure that when we arrive on a Monday the Dutch channel is also available?
I am told that in the new building this will not be a problem, and it is certainly unfortunate for you not to be able to receive Dutch television.
Decision on urgent procedure
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture, I would like to call on the House to approve the request for urgent procedure for the programme to supply agricultural produce to the Russian Federation, in accordance with the resolution adopted by the House on 19 November.
It appears that there is an urgent need to supply certain regions of the Russian Federation and certain groups - particularly the unemployed, sick and elderly - with agricultural produce.
Therefore, the Committee on Agriculture is asking Parliament to approve this request for urgent procedure.
Does anyone wish to speak against this request?
If not, I shall put it to the vote.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
Discharge for 1996
The next item is the report (A4-0502/98) by Mr Elles, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the discharge to the Commission in respect of implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1996 financial year.
Madam President, I should like to request that Mr Elles's report be referred back to committee pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure.
I would therefore ask you to call Members back so that they can take part in the vote.
I think the reasons are sufficiently well known.
I do not wish to prolong the procedure.
Thank you.
Yes indeed, we shall vote without delay, but after hearing one speaker for and one against, as provided for by the Rules.
Madam President, I can only agree with Mrs Müller's request.
Her explanation of the reasons for this request was brief.
I too will be extremely brief as I explained yesterday why I considered a referral to be necessary.
I am therefore in favour of it.
Madam President, in March we set out the conditions for the Commission to be given discharge.
The Commission has largely met those conditions, which means that there is now nothing to prevent us from doing what we said in March, namely giving discharge.
(Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee)
We shall now proceed with the debate on the report by Mr Elles.
Madam President, I rise to present my final report on the 1996 discharge.
Last week in the Committee on Budgetary Control, a narrow margin came down in favour of giving discharge while voting across party lines.
Even so, this report itself is highly critical of the Commission's management.
We must now decide whether these criticisms merit refusal to grant discharge of this budget by the whole House.
There are three specific concerns that remain despite the valiant efforts of the budget Commissioner, Erkki Liikanen, to fill the gap left by the invisible Commissioner for financial control, Mrs Gradin.
First, the perceived lack of democratic control in the fight against fraud.
In all good faith, last October this House adopted the Bösch report, setting out a clear structure for an anti-fraud office - OLAF.
Despite the fanfare of the President of the Commission earlier this month in Brussels, announcing an independent institution to combat fraud, this proposal does not meet the request of Parliament.
Many fear it will make combating fraud more rather than less difficult, negating as it does the independent right of investigation in the case of internal checks.
Second, the perceived lack of coherence and sound financial management in external policies.
Information recently made available to Parliament by a courageous Commission official has confirmed many of our worst fears in several programmes.
The handling of these issues by the Commission has compounded the problem.
Not only have examples found during the discharge procedure revealed a real concern that irregularities are committed without individual Commissioners perceiving the need to take personal responsibility for their actions; but furthermore, the Commission has refused to make certain documents available to Parliament, the most flagrant disrespect of Parliament being shown in the ECHO case, where the text handed over was so heavily censored as to make it totally illegible.
Last and by no means least is the perceived lack of effective measures for improved administrative and budgetary management.
Not only have recent high-profile cases involving certain members of the Commission with regard to staff appointments caused severe damage to the credibility of the Commission, but also evidence given a few days ago to our committee revealed the scope for abuse in the appointment of high officials in the Commission where, I am afraid to say, it still seems that who you know is more important than what you know.
As testified, the inordinate power over appointments and resource allocations exposes the administrative structure to potential political interference in all matters of management unparalleled in Member States' public administrations.
These factors can be summarised by the notion that flaws in management organisation have inevitably led to operational distortions in implementing policies.
It is small wonder that staff morale in the Commission is at a low ebb.
In essence, not enough thought has been given since 1995 to how the Commission should be run.
Well qualified and hard-working officials have in many cases been asked to do too much with too little.
The secretive way in which high-level appointments are made has not helped.
These issues must be resolved as soon as possible.
The conclusions of the committee are drawn up with the purpose of establishing a work programme for the Commission over the next 12 months to ensure significant change to modernise the Commission by 1 January 2000.
Proposals include a revision of the Statute; a screening report of the Commission services so that Parliament can judge what staff the Commission needs to carry out its responsibilities effectively; and, not least, a code of conduct for the nomination of high-level officials. Is it acceptable that certain posts are kept empty, sometimes for years, waiting for the appropriate cabinet member?
Is it appropriate that certain cabinets set aside a number of flags for themselves at the beginning of the Commission? I would say it is not and this needs to be acted on as soon as possible.
This work programme was adopted in the committee by a vast majority.
It is deeply disquieting to have the feeling outside the Commission that any behaviour is accepted without fear of reprimand.
Where we have disagreed is on two essential aspects.
First, some maintain that this discharge report contains many criticisms which go beyond the 1996 year and therefore wish to just treat the discharge as a technical matter with no political overtones.
But specific evidence found relating to the 1996 budget year in many policy areas continues to be revealed by colleagues in their reports to the committee, as well as by journalistic investigation in several newspapers.
Yet still some turn a blind eye, seemingly not wanting to take account of the evidence presented.
The second point is the fallacious allegation presented that the discharge amounts to sacking the Commission - a vote of censure.
But this is illustrative of the manipulation to which many in this Parliament have been subjected, perhaps taking too much advice from those outside rather than looking at the specific provisions of the Treaty.
This discharge procedure is an entirely separate matter from that of censure, being a regular annual process which must be judged on its own merits.
A vote to censure the Commission has been suggested by a few parliamentarians - who are not with us at this time - but it is not a course I would support.
Why, then, did I vote in committee not to grant discharge to the Commission?
Not only are the substantive issues serious enough to justify not doing so, but the real truth is that the Commission is incapable of undertaking these reforms by itself.
Many of these issues have been on the table for years.
The reformers in the Commission have been unable to make headway against a wide range of vested interests.
They cannot succeed without the active support of our Parliament.
I therefore conclude by making an appeal on behalf of all those, whether inside or outside the Commission, who wish to see modernised institutions based on integrity, ready to implement the euro and welcome new members from the East.
To give discharge for 1996 at this juncture could only be interpreted as a whitewash, a message to continue as before, ignoring Parliament's requests.
We must now act not only for the long-term viability of our institutions but also for the credibility of our Parliament.
We must have the courage to shoulder our responsibilities, based on facts available to us.
Remember that when you all vote tomorrow you should be thinking of those who elected you and who would be in favour of a people's Europe.
I urge the House not to grant discharge on the 1996 budget.
(Applause)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, one of the main criticisms of the implementation of the 1996 budget is that in that year - and with the substantial budgetary appropriations at its disposal - the Commission failed to implement the European Union's external policies effectively.
Neither the appropriations for PHARE and TACIS - the programmes for Central and Eastern Europe - nor those for the Mediterranean countries showed satisfactory levels of execution.
Only 15 % of the aid for reconstruction for Bosnia - and I am taking this as my example - was actually used.
The main reasons were the Commission's incapacity to take the required managerial measures in good time, and its inability either to deploy its staff effectively or request the additional resources necessary.
Compared with the United States, the reconstruction aid programme for Bosnia, for example, was grossly understaffed.
The European Union's inefficiency became legendary in Sarajevo.
Whether we still wish to grant discharge in the light of these facts - which belong in 1996 and can no longer be altered for that financial year - is something which the following criteria must decide: firstly, there must be a real improvement in the way in which the European Union operates in the region; secondly, comprehensive information about the measures taken should also be provided, so that Parliament has a clear understanding of where improvements have been made and where the weaknesses remain.
It is true that, following my report of April 1998, the number of staff working on the reconstruction of Bosnia was increased considerably.
The Commission is endeavouring to improve matters locally.
But it is still not clear whether the decentralisation of the management of the programme to the area, which we requested, is allowing targeted monitoring of the project.
As the Court of Auditors recently noted, the results are hard to see.
A large number of European non-governmental organisations - such as Caritas and Evangelisches Hilfswerk - do not qualify for the Commission's reconstruction aid.
The Commission passes on a large proportion of the money released by Parliament to the United Nations relief organisation, which makes it impossible for us to fulfil our monitoring obligations.
The cooperation of the directorate-general brought in to work on the reconstruction of Bosnia could be improved.
Despite repeated requests, Commissioner Liikanen is refusing to give information about the increase in staff appropriations which has been demanded.
He is either withholding the necessary information from Parliament or giving evasive answers.
Madam President, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has discussed the budget in detail and has tried to come up with some improvements for payments under the Social Fund and in the other social items.
We note that there has been a gradual improvement in the situation over the last financial year, particularly as regards the Social Fund.
However, a number of problems arose at the end of the year because there was not enough money to pay for the projects that had been completed, and this is something we are likely to encounter again with this budget.
That was the first point I wished to make.
I also wanted to thank the rapporteur for the way in which he has examined this whole issue in such depth.
In the past the discharge was perhaps just a formality, and I sometimes have the impression that this is still more or less how it is viewed by the other side of the House, but nevertheless the fact is that we are now having a very detailed and important debate on one of the most fundamental elements of the European Union.
There is one point in the social section on which I am not yet in a position to comment, but which I would still like to say something about.
A letter was written to Mrs Aelvoet and sent via the Internet and was thus accessible to anyone in the House who wanted to read it.
A small section of the letter referred to Leonardo da Vinci, a vocational training programme that comes under the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
We have of course not been able to investigate this matter, and even when it was discussed in the committee this aspect of Leonardo was not on the agenda.
I would therefore request that it should certainly be looked at more closely, which is what we intend to do in the committee.
First of all, we need to examine whether 1996 was the only year concerned, or whether there were others.
We are going to have to go into this very carefully.
I cannot comment on the substance of the claims, but I believe they are serious enough for us to look into them very thoroughly.
This is another good reason for agreeing with the rapporteur's cautious approach to the discharge.
Madam President, I was rather surprised that a rapporteur who talked in such detail about the integrity of the Commission should place so little emphasis on the fact that he was speaking on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, because as far as I know the committee voted in favour of giving discharge, albeit by an extremely narrow majority.
I find the reactions in the House to be quite remarkable, because we now seem to be accepting that rapporteurs should no longer speak as rapporteurs but should suddenly be freed from their responsibilities, which is very strange.
To give discharge or not to give discharge, that is the question, and it is a very interesting one at that.
In March of this year, we postponed the discharge and we laid down five demands for the Commission.
The only question now is whether the Commission has done enough to meet those five demands.
The Committee on Budgetary Control itself has dropped three of the five because they have already been met over the last few months, and Commissioner Liikanen in particular has made exceptional efforts here.
There are two areas left where progress still needs to be made; Mr Elles has described one of them in detail, but the other goes way beyond the scope of the five demands we laid down last time, and we really cannot expect the Commission to solve its entire staffing policy problem in just a few months.
That would be quite ridiculous, and no one can expect it of the present Commission or its successor.
There is so much to do, and it has already largely resolved one of the most serious scandals, that of taking on staff outside the Commission without proper provision in the budget.
Agreement on this at least has been reached with the Committee on Budgetary Control, but there is still plenty to be done.
There is still the problem of the provision of information.
The flow of information from the Commission to the Committee on Budgets during the discharge procedure must be considerably improved if the discharge is to be meaningful, and I think we need to work towards an interinstitutional agreement to be able to deal with the discharge properly.
But again, these are two problems that could not have been solved in the short time since the discharge was postponed and on which further work will have to be done over the next few months or, when it comes to the staffing problem, even years.
A lot of issues have blown up since the discharge was postponed in March.
Newspapers such as Libération , Focus and Stern have revealed the various scandals and stories of mismanagement, the Court of Auditors' report on PHARE and TACIS and nuclear safety.
So there was some justification for including all sorts of other issues in the discharge debate, but I think that these are generally things that need to be examined in more detail and should be included in the 1997 discharge procedure which is just beginning.
So we must not be influenced by the tabloid press into changing our conditions for giving discharge.
If we think that the Commission has not done enough to meet our demands, then we can draw the necessary political conclusions from this and dismiss the Commission, rather than postponing the discharge again or refusing to give it or tabling a motion of no confidence.
Simply refusing to grant discharge is far too easy.
Article 206 is very clear on this point and says that discharge must in the end be given.
It may be postponed, but it cannot be refused.
This is why the no-confidence motion is the only instrument left.
This does not alter the fact that the resolution before us is extremely critical of the Commission.
The Socialist Group has tabled a large number of amendments to try to establish a better balance between the decision to give discharge and the text of the resolution.
We hope that these amendments will be approved and that the necessary balance will be created.
Madam President, this Parliament has the task of monitoring how the Commission handles European taxpayers' money.
The responsibility is ours alone.
The Council merely gives us a recommendation, but we have to decide whether we can give the Commission discharge in respect of its implementation of the budget or not.
However, to make this decision, we need to have the necessary information.
Since this was not the case, we had to postpone the discharge in March; nor were we in a position to decide in September, as announced.
It is now December, and we still do not have all the information we have requested, despite the Commission's recently sending us a document - which it considered to be exhaustive - with a view to obtaining the discharge.
On the other hand, Parliament can only have felt cheated, for example, when it received the UCLAF documents on ECHO which had been tampered with.
I ask you: can it be right for the institution under audit to determine on what and to what extent it wishes to be audited?
It is also about informing the competent judicial authorities.
In two resolutions in February and March, we called on the Commission to inform the competent judicial authorities swiftly whenever there was the suspicion - and I emphasise, suspicion - of fraud.
Until it was ensured that this was the case, discharge could not be given, according to the resolutions.
The Elles report unambiguously states, in paragraph 7, that this very condition has not been fully complied with.
The ECHO case illustrates this, but so does the MED affair.
We still do not know whether the Commission has handed over all the documents to the judicial authorities.
This puts its credibility at risk and damages the confidence that steps are being taken against cases of suspected fraud in its own ranks.
It is the same story with the Commission's response to the Bösch report on establishing an Anti-Fraud Office.
The Commission's proposal of 2 December will have exactly the opposite effect of what it alleges it will achieve.
The resources and powers are poor enough as it is, and they are being eroded instead of consolidated.
When we vote on giving discharge to the Commission on Thursday, you will know the facts, as they are listed point by point in the Elles report.
Each of us then has to be answerable for being able to give discharge under these circumstances.
Based on what I know and after repeatedly scrutinising my assessment, I cannot accept the responsibility for doing so.
Madam President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Elles.
I think that Parliament has seldom been so focused on the importance of the discharge as it has been in his report, and I welcome this.
My first question is this: what happens if the discharge is not given? Would the Commission regard this as a motion of no confidence, or would it simply disregard it?
It is important for Parliament to know this.
I and my group also think that what the Commission has done since April this year, when conditions were first laid down for granting discharge, is important.
I feel that the Commission has shown good will in trying to solve the problems, but is this enough?
No, clearly not.
The resolution before us makes a number of very critical points which I think the Commission will take very seriously, because it is Parliament's right ultimately to decide on whether or not to give discharge, and the deadlines it mentions are going to have to be taken very seriously indeed.
I think that the interpretation given to Article 206 of the Treaty is also of crucial importance.
How far can the Commission go in providing Parliament with information without harming the personal interests of officials? I think that we need to have a sort of covenant or, as Mr Dankert said, an interinstitutional agreement so that everyone knows what the position is in future.
Of the points made in the report, I think that the most important are the ones relating to the personal interests of officials and, secondly, the organisation of the Commission itself. How do officials gain promotion?
What can prevent them from doing so? There is a great deal of unease about this issue, and I think it needs to be sorted out as soon as possible.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, if today's debate on giving discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the general budget of the European Communities for the 1996 financial year is one of dramatic intensity and not without passion, it is because, unquestionably, we have gone beyond the bounds what is acceptable.
This debate has gone beyond technical issues to become political in the true sense of the word.
Successive audits by the Court of Auditors, which since 1994 has declined to provide positive overall assurance as to the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the payments for the financial year, have condemned the way in which the Commission manages the operating appropriations allocated to it, whether for humanitarian interventions or the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes or indeed the reconstruction programmes in the former Yugoslavia.
Not only are these appropriations used inefficiently or diverted from their target, but the lack of transparency in management has allowed real misappropriations of funds to the detriment of both the beneficiaries of the programmes and European taxpayers.
The compromises shown on a daily basis in the selection of operators call into question the highest authorities of the Commission, and there are serious flaws in the appointment of officials which cast doubt on the credibility of the institution.
The almost total absence of communication and coordination between the different Directorates-General and services of the Commission increases the lack of transparency in management and prevents monitoring procedures from functioning normally, encouraging the widespread lack of accountability among administrators.
All these shortcomings were thrust into the spotlight by the committees of inquiry set up by the European Parliament, for example on the tragic BSE affair and on fraud in Community transit.
Yet the Commission, instead of dealing with the problem head-on by undertaking a drastic reform of its structures and procedures and opting for transparency, still maintains its haughty or even contemptuous attitude towards the monitoring bodies and towards Parliament.
All the current operational problems were exposed by the European Parliament.
Need we point out that the serious fraud in the management of appropriations for tourism was exposed because one of our colleagues brought an action before the Belgian criminal courts, thus forcing the Commission to provide documents which it had hitherto refused to make available to the European Court of Auditors or to Parliament? Officials who contributed to the inquiry are today being punished unjustly.
In the light of the gravity of the facts exposed and the obvious reluctance of the Commission to cooperate with the European Parliament, we must refuse to grant a discharge. In March we gave the Commission respite by postponing the discharge to allow it to mend its ways.
It only half-listened. Some of our colleagues today wish to grant the Commission a conditional discharge.
This is pointless and shows great hypocrisy.
Why would the Commission, whose mandate comes to an end in less than a year, achieve in the space of the next three months what it has so delayed doing hitherto?
And what means would we have to sanction the Commission if it appeared that, once again, it had not followed our recommendations?
Would we have the political courage to vote for a motion of censure during our last part-session in May? Those who propose such prevarication actually want to allow the Commission to escape all political sanction.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, to which the matter was referred at the request of the chairman of the Socialist Group, has given the opinion that any amendment in plenary that goes against the recommendation of the Committee on Budgetary Control, which proposes that the discharge should be granted, should be declared inadmissible. This vote was obtained under dubious circumstances,
whereas a previous vote had not approved this discharge, the votes being shared equally.
As for Mr Dankert, a former president of Parliament, he has the impertinence to tell us that we do not have the right to vote against granting discharge, although there is a precedent: in 1984 we refused discharge, and we refused it again following a report by Mr Wynn concerning the discharge by the EDF.
When procedural devices are used to prevent a parliament from expressing itself, democracy is in danger.
I am sure that you will not fall into this crude trap, that you will assume your full political responsibilities towards your electorate and that as a result you will refuse to grant a discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget for the 1996 financial year.
Imagine, in a private sector company, an executive being granted discharge for its administration when the auditors refuse to testify, as did the Court of Auditors, to the regularity of the accounts. By granting a discharge under these conditions we would be failing to fulfil our obligations under the Treaties to protect the interests of the taxpayers.
(Applause)
Madam President, we see the discharge process as an eminently political rather than an administrative process.
Nor can this process be analysed in the light of immediate interests, whether or not there are elections in the offing, or the stage which the Commission's term of office has reached - or, even, whether there might be a motion of censure.
We think that the European Parliament should regard the present discharge process purely in terms of the powers conferred upon it by the Treaty and it should exercise those rigorously and responsibly.
In these terms, the question before us is only what position to take in the light of the irregularities and instances of fraud that have been brought to light - and since we know that the Commission is undeniably responsible and that the Commission has failed to act, in particular to inform the European Parliament and the judicial authorities of the Member States.
We should also ask ourselves whether the answers given by the Commission are enough and whether they are in keeping with the seriousness of what has taken place and whether our minds can be at rest for the future.
For us, the response is a definite 'no' to all of these questions - for if we did grant the discharge in this present situation not only would the European Parliament be failing outright to assume its responsibilities but, inevitably, it would be seen as jointly responsible for the acts that it has itself been denouncing.
Furthermore, that would be in complete contradiction with the assessments which - despite everything - the Committee on Budgetary Control adopted last week.
Therefore, we believe that the European Parliament, at this moment and given that it does not have the slightest guarantees, should not grant the Commission its discharge.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament - demonstrating a sense of responsibility and awareness of its powers - voted by a large majority last March for a postponement of discharge. It did so pursuant to Annex V of the Rules of Procedure, which was perfectly acceptable then; I fail to understand why it has suddenly become so bad now.
The rapporteur, Mr Elles, had drawn attention to a number of grave problems, and Parliament performed its supervisory role to the full.
It seems to me that since then the Commissioner, Mr Liikanen, and the officials and Commissioners responsible have spared no efforts in attempting to respond to the serious and thoughtful stance adopted by Parliament in accordance with the Treaty.
Over the past few weeks, however, some have been seeking to transform this important and serious exercise into a purely political affair.
We have seen senior officials - people who may well be gone from the Commission a month from now - passing through the Committee on Budgetary Control, denouncing this and that, and the dossiers are mounting up.
Now, if this matter is to be played up into a political issue, where both institutions have everything to lose, well, the time is ripe and that is clearly the preferred option, not of a majority but of a rather odd cross-party minority extending from the far right to the far left of this House, taking in a number of groups on the way.
I doubt that Europe will emerge strengthened.
Madam President, I take an extremely dim view of the fact that the handling of discharge has been transformed into a political issue. Had the other side won 14 to 13 in committee, discharge would undoubtedly have been granted, but since that side was defeated it now becomes an irregular vote.
I believe that it was irresponsible to place us in this situation: either this exercise is not conducted at all, or it is conducted on the basis of a broad consensus in this House, so that the message reaches not only the Commission but also, if I may say so, the governments and public opinion.
We are a fortnight away from the introduction of the single currency and, as it happens, six months away from elections, and I am entirely convinced that Mr Pasty is initiating his election campaign.
His group has always opposed the building of Europe; fair enough - whether or not this is an anti-Commission election campaign does not change the background.
I do not believe that this is an effective way of conducting our debates.
Our resolution, which will be put to the vote on Thursday, remains critical - as we have always been - and demanding of the Commission; it calls on the Commission to improve its internal operations, and I am convinced - or rather, I hope - that in his reply Mr Liikanen will tell us his thoughts on some important parts of the document being put to the vote.
But please let us not transform this vote into an exclusively political one, as some have attempted to do.
I would say to certain members of one of the most active groups in this House what the Gospel says: 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone', if I remember rightly.
I think we must be just a little more consistent with what has gone before, and not seek to transform this exercise into a settling of scores, which has no raison d'être.
Political and national elections are one thing, ladies and gentlemen; our debate is another!
As permitted by the Rules, Mr Pasty has asked for the floor to make a personal statement.
Madam President, I cannot simply ignore the remarks just made by Mr Dell'Alba to the effect that my group has always been against European construction. This is completely incorrect.
To denounce, as I have done, the failures of a European institution in fulfilling its duties towards European citizens and taxpayers, is not, in my opinion, acting against European construction but, on the contrary, in favour of it.
After all, the construction of Europe will not be able to progress without sufficient confidence in the European institutions, the Commission of course and also Parliament, and Parliament must exercise its responsibilities.
It has responsibilities under the Treaty and it must exercise them.
Madam President, the majority of the Committee on Budgetary Control propose that we grant a discharge to the Commission for the 1996 financial year. It does so, as it did in 1994 and 1995, even though the Court of Auditors has declined to provide positive assurance as to the regularity of the accounts.
Therefore, we are effectively in a situation in which, although the accounts are claimed to be incorrect, we would grant a discharge and we would do so by using procedural devices, by saying that amendments are not allowed, by saying that the Rules of Procedure take precedence over the Treaty, by using devices.
I am in favour of refusing to grant a discharge, for the reasons given in particular by Mr Elles and Mr Pasty.
Refusing to grant a discharge is not to target one Commissioner or another. It is not to target the Commissioners personally, it is to give a verdict on a system, a system guided by the philosophy that we need to spend more and that not spending more means curbing European construction, a system in which questioning the operation of an institution such as the Commission would be considered as holding Europe back, whereas of course it in fact allows it to advance.
Never before have there been so many irregularities, so many scandals within the Commission.
Never before have we seen so many officials denounce anonymously to Members of Parliament what they see, what they hear.
This is why Parliament must exercise its responsibilities.
It is because some people want to grant it powers that it is not capable of exercising when it has them that I will vote against granting a discharge, and I am grateful in advance to all those who are going to hand a convincing argument to people like me who believe that it is the Member States who can best monitor things, that is, all those who are preparing to vote in favour of the discharge.
Madam President, the Elles report, which provides us with a list - very probably incomplete - of the numerous tricks the Commission was guilty of in 1996, is of exceptional importance because of the gravity of the facts it contains.
We are aghast at the Commission's inability to manage huge sums of money, paid, we must remember, by the taxpayers, and at the great skill it has displayed in concealing this.
We are appalled by the contempt in which the Commission holds Parliament.
We are outraged to learn, from the media, that European officials who might have been tempted to reveal to Parliament the criminal acts they have witnessed, are being threatened by their superiors.
Numerous questions addressed by the European Parliament to the Commission, such as those concerning Mrs Cresson directly, or the Périlux affair relating to humanitarian aid, or indeed the dubious management of funds intended for statistical studies, have still not been answered.
But of course the Commission does not have a monopoly on embezzlement.
What can we say about the skulduggery surrounding the construction of the International Congress Centre in Brussels and, even more so - in fact much more so - the construction of the large 'object' just a short distance away from here, which may one day end up being our headquarters? If the Eurosceptics were short of arguments we have certainly given them some.
Mr President, the issues which led to us deferring the approval of the accounts in the spring have for the most part been resolved to our satisfaction.
The questions which the Commission has still not dealt with are all ones which only affect the accounts indirectly, or not at all.
It has therefore now come as a bolt from the blue that an unholy alliance of Conservatives, Liberals and extremists is threatening to reject the accounts for 1996.
Everyone in the Committee on Budgetary Control agrees that the Commission has acted in a way that is very much open to criticism, but the point now is to join together in finding constructive solutions to the problems that have been revealed.
At worst, rejecting the accounts now may mean that good Commissioners like Mr Liikanen, who is the first Commissioner ever to have shown some interest in clearing things up, will be forced to resign.
In such a case, however, I would like to see one or two others go as well.
At best, it may result in the EU having a lame-duck Commission for six months, a period in which there are more important things on the agenda.
I would just mention the introduction of the euro, the work on enlarging the EU to include the new applicant countries and the forthcoming elections to our own institution, and perhaps that is why this joker is being played here - there are some people who want to make a name for themselves in an election campaign at home, and this issue is being used for that purpose.
The voting yesterday and today shows that there is a clear majority in Parliament in favour of closing the accounts for 1996.
However, this does not mean that the Commission is now being given a permanent carte blanche for all the years to come.
It means that the European Social Democrats will monitor the Commission night and day in order to uncover the truth for the benefit of the ordinary citizens of Europe.
I would advise the Commission to be on its mettle in the future.
We shall be constantly snapping at its heels, and while we were a watchdog before, now we shall be one with teeth, so that we can clear up all these matters.
The Commission has shown the will to do this, for which I think it should be rewarded, and so everyone else should stop using this for their own personal election campaigns.
Mr President, the European Parliament must remain a place of negotiation and compromise.
Within the interinstitutional balance, this is the place for negotiation and compromise.
We are not a House of confrontation, as a national parliament would be, because we do not have a government here to support or oppose.
The Commission has not been elected by us, but it is our duty to help it work better.
The greatest achievements of this Parliament have come about as a result of cooperation with the Commission.
Parliament and the Commission are the only two truly European bodies and, where possible, we must work in the same direction.
This is not the ideal time to go our separate ways.
We cannot close the door to negotiations with the Commission by refusing to grant discharge.
The Elles report includes a proposal for a work programme in paragraph 26.
This work programme is the key to the future relations between Parliament and the Commission, but it cannot be implemented in a context of interinstitutional confrontation in which the Commission is condemned or censured - as certain political groups have already said they want to see happen - or, simply, in which the Commission is in a weaker position for what remains of its mandate than it is in today.
Ladies and gentlemen, if we want the Commission successfully to complete its reorganisation - which is obviously essential - if we want it to respond to the many accusations of poor management, and if we want the European Parliament to have greater democratic control over the Community institutions, then we must not close the only door we have left to negotiation.
Therefore, to keep this door open, I would urge you to grant discharge under the same terms as the Elles report was approved in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Mr President, the question of whether or not to grant discharge is one that turns on Parliament's role as an authority which exercises budgetary control.
It is in fact our credibility which is at stake, because if we give a discharge to the Commission, we shall be assuming joint responsibility for all the outstanding problems.
Our work has not been particularly encouraging in the last nine months, when I think of how we have had to drag information out of the Commission and how we have had to fight for the slightest changes.
The worst thing, to my mind, has been the attempts to disclaim responsibility for various mistakes and scandals.
It has also been disappointing that, although we have repeatedly given new deadlines, there are a great many things which have not been followed up by the Commission.
In my view, this is not a question of wanting to send the Commission packing.
My aim is to ensure that the problems are resolved, that the EU is adapted to new tasks, to the major challenges that are facing us, and that the EU is prepared for and copes with its enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
It is above all the European Parliament which, as the institution that represents our electors, will be held responsible by our taxpayers for how we use money in the EU.
The point is therefore for us to live up to our responsibility and do what we can to bring about a sound and effective administration.
There are some things which have been resolved after a long campaign of pressure.
However, there are still some serious outstanding problems and an ineffective administration.
It is completely unacceptable that two, three or four years should go by before political decisions are put into practice.
There are the problems with staff policy, and there is a lack of internal procedures where irregularities and corruption are suspected.
The proposal which the Commission has put forward regarding changes in UCLAF is an insult to all those who wish to have a clear approach, because what we have here is the Commission wanting to keep full control over what is to be investigated and how it is followed up.
Some people have talked about the consequences of refusing to grant discharge.
I believe that granting a discharge would have the most consequences, because that will not solve the outstanding problems and we would be playing our hand poorly on behalf of Parliament.
If we can now accept what it takes for us to refuse discharge for a second time, and ultimately we will find it hard to explain to our voters how it fits in with our responsibility to...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I do not consider that we are talking about a political issue or about an institutional dispute between the bodies.
Anyone who claims that the subject we are debating is a difference of opinion between socialists and populists, or claims that it just concerns a shift of balance between the bodies, is in a way trying to force the hand of the Members.
Indeed, the Commission is the supranational body best suited to our purposes and is Parliament's best ally.
Indeed, I could add that the Commission is one of the best bureaucracies I know.
However, it suffers the weakness and, if you will, the isolation of unaccountability. This is brought out very clearly in the Court of Auditors report, which refuses to confirm that all is going well.
And this is where Parliament can play a very simple part, by striving to secure the trust of Europe's citizens in our institutions and in the building of Europe.
Anything else, I repeat, is rhetoric and blackmail.
Consequently, we cannot approve discharge.
Mr President, of course it is not Parliament's business to investigate fraud; that is not what we are doing.
According to the Treaties, however, the European Parliament does have a horizontal remit to check that taxpayers' money is being correctly spent within the EU. Political conclusions must then be drawn.
The question we have to ask ourselves is this: has the Commission managed to administer the European taxpayer's money in the best possible way?
I think not.
As the days go by, more and more reports of alleged fraud and suspected irregularities are coming in.
Yet the Commission is not coming forward with all the documents - and that is precisely the problem.
Lack of transparency within the Commission, its failure to produce all the information, simply encourage corrupt practices and nepotism. It is the institution itself and ordinary taxpayers who are the losers.
What is needed is access to documents and an open system of administration.
Those who vote to grant discharge are effectively acquitting the Commission of the many allegations made against it. They are flatly dismissing criticism of the way the Commission spends our money.
I am very disillusioned at the way in which the PSE Group seems to be shielding the Commission, tolerating both its cavalier attitude towards taxpayers' money and its secretive style of operation.
The Green Group and I will naturally be voting against discharge.
Mr President, as democratic nationalists and regionalists, we are unable to give discharge today.
In granting discharge, the European Parliament would be guaranteeing its citizens that their money was being spent as economically and efficiently as possible and that the institutions were doing everything in their power to provide the best possible protection against fraud, corruption and organised crime, and we feel that we cannot, in all conscience, say that today.
The people of Europe have little confidence in the European institutions, accusing them of being overly interfering and wasteful, and of delaying and failing to act effectively when action is required.
Giving the Commission discharge now when everyone knows that there are major abuses and inefficiencies in handling European funding would rightly be seen by the public as a failure to take things seriously.
Our responsibility as representatives of the European Parliament is at stake here.
Giving discharge would be circumventing a number of reasons which Parliament gave earlier for not granting discharge.
The Commission has clearly argued that improvements have been made, which we acknowledge, but there is still a lack of democratic responsibility in the areas of combating fraud, tourism, MED, ECHO and so on.
Need we go on?
We also feel that the new proposals are not adequate and do not provide appropriate measures for improving administrative and budgetary policy.
Commissioners, you must realise that cronyism and nepotism are clearly endemic, and the public are no longer prepared to tolerate the combining of interests that this involves.
As far as Parliament is concerned, there is still not sufficient access to the information we need if we are to carry out parliamentary controls properly.
The Commission has threatened that if discharge is not given the Commission will resign.
What sort of a threat is that? Clearly everyone must take his or her own responsibility here and now.
We are currently being asked whether we can give discharge with a good conscience.
If not, and if there are consequences to be drawn from this, everyone will have to decide for themselves.
There may be a motion of no confidence, or maybe not.
That is not the issue at present.
The Commission can draw its own conclusions, either collectively or individually.
We certainly regret that motions of no confidence cannot be tabled against individual Commissioners.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would say to Mrs Müller that it is always Parliament's finest hour when we hold debates here, not only when we are discussing Article 206.
Article 206 stipulates that for the purposes of giving the discharge, Parliament shall examine the accounts - the financial statement and the annual report by the Court of Auditors - for 1996, so not for subsequent years.
Now you have claimed today, Mrs Müller - and this is something I cannot overlook - that granting discharge is an organised display of irresponsible behaviour.
Those are the very words you used.
I categorically refute this, because granting discharge is not an irresponsible act; it provides an answer to the following question: is the discharge procedure an act of revenge on the existing Commission, or is it an invitation to establish new systems within the Community to ensure that the mistakes of the past are not repeated?
I am surprised to see all these colleagues taking the floor today, when I have never before heard them speak during the political debate of the last nine years on developing new procedures.
Mrs Müller, I can tell you that it was the Committee on Budgets which was responsible for making sure that the director-general responsible for tourism at that time was driven from his post, because we entered the appropriations for Commission salaries in the reserve.
Five days later he was gone.
So do not come to me with the same old story where this issue of the discharge is concerned.
We listed six points on 31 March.
Replies were given to four of those six points; questions do actually remain on the other two, and we need to find answers to them.
The first point is the BATs.
Nobody in this House needs to tell me anything about what the Commission has done in recent years.
It has spent around DEM 460 million - ECU 230 million - on staffing outside the structure of the budget.
Contrary to the opinion being propagated far and wide by the PPE Group, this does not constitute fraud.
The fact is that money was illegally taken from the budget for equipment and spent on staffing.
In the 1999 budget procedure, we have an arrangement stating this: transparency is now restored with regard to the ECU 230 million.
If there is a further arrangement on BATs - which is not envisaged at the present time - this will automatically entail disciplinary action being taken within the Commission.
That is the result of politics and not of revenge!
That is why I conclude - on the basis of the list of criteria which we drew up in this House on 31 March - that we can actually grant discharge.
I also believe that from a political point of view - because we are not just bean-counters, we are politicians - it is right to say that we do need a Commission in the Agenda process.
Mr President, this debate has shown that the procedure on the 1996 discharge has been the most difficult ever.
I wonder whether it would have been a good idea to relay it to all the Commission officials.
Last March Parliament was quite correct to defer discharge and gave five reasons for doing so.
Now we have to decide whether the Commission has performed sufficiently well on these five points to merit discharge.
This calls for all of us to make some highly subjective decisions.
We have before us a report which had 106 amendments in committee - a record for the discharge.
Lord Tomlinson and I, the joint rapporteurs on transit fraud, are happy that the Commission has progressed sufficiently on the matter of computerisation.
We do not blame the Commission for the fact that their consultants failed.
Mr Pasty questioned whether there could be a conditional discharge.
Every discharge decision is conditional in that it is accompanied by a report with paragraphs of resolution which the Commission undertakes to deal with on receipt of discharge.
So that is a condition; and there are many strong paragraphs in the resolution.
I am glad the Committee on Budgetary Control approved discharge last week, albeit by a small margin.
I believe that the House should confirm that vote on Thursday, by granting discharge to the Commission for the year 1996.
Mr President, if citizens are to have faith in European cooperation, then freedom of information and good governance must prevail.
We are now debating whether to grant discharge in respect of financial management in 1996. No one would dispute that there are grounds for the tough criticism which Parliament has addressed to the Commission on a number of points.
And there is broad agreement in the House on the additional measures necessary to reassure us, as the elected representatives of Europe's citizens, that fraud and mismanagement will not occur in future. There is equal consensus on the need for transparent administration.
The issue today, though, is how we can best achieve the changes we are advocating.
I am convinced that most people, on reflection, would rather see a parliament working positively for change than one which allowed anger and irritation to gain the upper hand.
Parliament's attitude to date has, I feel, been particularly constructive.
Unflinching examination of the workings of the Commission has initiated a whole range of action and, in our report, we are now laying down a series of clear conditions for granting discharge.
And I doubt that this House will rest until its demands have been met.
We would not however be behaving with any degree of responsibility if we refused discharge or submitted a motion of censure - which would be a logical consequence of such a decision.
Two elements need to be borne in mind. Firstly, forcing the Commission to resign while Europe has weighty matters on its agenda would be very serious indeed.
We cannot afford to deprive the EU of leadership at such a juncture.
Secondly, a vote of no confidence is an indiscriminate instrument.
The entire Commission would be tarred with the same brush - including, for example, Commissioner Liikanen, who has demonstrated both the will and the capacity to come to grips with the problems.
There would be no sense in such a move.
The European Parliament should set aside this meaningless and potentially damaging posturing and rely henceforth on its own ability to engineer true change.
Mr President, I regret that the 1996 discharge procedure is not focused on the matter in hand, but has become a political football in the debate here in the plenary.
The only explanation I can find for the Socialist Group's coordinator in the Committee on Budgetary Control stepping down is that she cannot reconcile the way this issue is being dealt with in her own group with her conscience.
The facts are clear and sufficient.
This is not about individual cases, but about the organisation of the Commission's work as a whole, which makes the cases we are talking about here - which have occurred in connection with MED, ECHO, Leonardo and so on - a possibility, which creates favourable conditions for them, and which in principle does not prevent them from happening.
I emphasise quite specifically that this is not about the Commission per se as a whole, but about the criticisms levelled at several Commissioners.
We are thus expecting the Commission to state its position on this.
Mr Samland, it is clear that we are discussing the 1996 discharge. You emphasised that.
We know that some things have changed in the meantime - and for the better.
But the fact is that there has not been an improvement on every point.
That is why we are not assessing the situation in 1998; that will come later.
I ask all Members still in doubt about which way they should vote whether they believe that anyone will take us seriously in the future, when we have debated these serious accusations against the Commission today, if we grant discharge in respect of the 1996 budget? To do so would actually be to give the Commission a clean bill of health, a confirmation that everything was in order in 1996.
The agitation of recent weeks would then actually have been nothing but play-acting.
In accordance with the Treaty, we, the European Parliament - as Mr Pasty said - have a responsibility to the taxpayer to confirm that the Commission is using the appropriations in a proper manner.
I cannot accept responsibility for this and will therefore also be voting against granting discharge to the Commission.
Mr Dankert, the fact that we are having a legal dispute is something which should, in principle, go down as a black mark against us, because it actually shows the spirit of the European institutions and those who created these treaties. We in Europe are always right and we in Europe always act as we should.
That is the only way I can understand the interpretation, at least the one now preferred by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
What I mean to say is that we must also be able to contemplate doing the opposite of what we are discussing today, namely refusing discharge.
I must ask those Members on the other side of the House in the Socialist Group, whether it is in accordance with democratic principles - at least this is what I have heard - for dissenters within your group, such as Mrs Wemheuer and Mr Bösch, not to have been allocated any speaking time by their group.
In our group anyone can speak, whether they support or oppose granting discharge on the budget.
(Applause) Mr Samland, if you are accusing us of seeking revenge ...
(Heckling) ... then of course you really are wide of the mark.
You yourself pointed out in your speech that we only settled the BATs issue in the 1999 budget procedure, so that will only apply in the 1999 budget year.
Today we are discussing the discharge for the 1996 budget!
That is why I see it as populism on your part to accuse us of seeking revenge.
I do not believe that this has anything to do with revenge; you have to face the facts - we are talking about 1996.
(Applause)
Mr Blak has the floor for a point of order, which I hope is indeed a point of order. If it is to make a personal statement, you will have to wait until the end of the debate.
Which Rule are you raising this under?
Mr President, I am sorry to ask for the floor on a point of order, but the Socialist Group has now been attacked several times ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Since this is not a point of order, you will have the floor at the end of the debate.
Mr President, I think the Socialist Group position is extremely clear and that is why it has been given very forthrightly this morning.
One of the main roles of the European Parliament is to check the Commission to ensure that taxpayers' money is being spent properly and with accountability.
This is no easy task when we are presented with obstacles of the kind evident during the 1996 budget procedure.
Perhaps the most serious charge of all against the Commission is the lack of democratic accountability in that Parliament has been hampered in its attempts to gain access to information which would point to or dispel allegations of fraud.
The reluctance with which the Commission has forwarded documents gives cause for concern and the attempts to conceal, sometimes admittedly with reason, the names of officials being investigated has descended into farce.
The problems encountered in the execution of the MED and ECHO programmes need major structural answers to ensure systems are in place to avoid a similar situation arising.
There can be no question that the implementation of the external policies has had a negative effect on the EU's reputation.
Nevertheless, since the postponement of the discharge in March, improvements are evident in some fields including the transit system and the SME sector.
For the European public, fraud is a serious issue.
We need to tackle it seriously or the whole boat will go down because of a few wreckers who are out to destroy the European voyage.
The pressure will in future increase, not decrease, to keep the accounts clean and transparent.
With the firm note of warning in the Amsterdam Treaty, we must heed the Court of Auditors' view on the global assurance of accounts.
This will be a new formal departure in future.
Lessons must be learned, in particular, as Mr Elles has highlighted, in the field of staff appointments.
But I will be voting along with my political group in accordance with the committee's position to grant discharge.
I believe that not granting discharge should be linked to rejection of the Commission as whole. That is what would happen in the business community - the company would be closed.
The Commission has moved a long way since March.
Mr Liikanen, in particular, has been tireless in his efforts to clean up the act and, with the introduction of the single currency on the horizon and the need for an agreement on Agenda 2000, this is not the time to create turmoil and havoc in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the 1996 budget year was certainly not a glorious chapter in the history of the European Union.
The BSE crisis was at its height.
It was also a year of scandals.
What can, what must the European Parliament do to force the necessary changes?
In spring of this year, Parliament postponed the discharge and drew up a list of demands.
Some - though not yet all - of these demands have been met.
This may not be enough.
So should we refuse discharge? Yes, possibly.
But - as today's debate and the debates of recent days have so clearly shown - for many this is obviously not only about a technical process.
Today's rhetoric has shown that Parliament wishes to make its mark by saying that we have to send the Commission packing.
At the time of the BSE crisis, we chose the constructive method of work programmes.
After two years, this has - thank goodness - proved to be the right decision.
Today we have come so far that we are now already in a position to discuss reopening beef markets in the Union.
That is why constructive cooperation is also the option we should choose in the discharge procedure.
In my opinion, paragraph 26 in the Elles motion is actually the decisive one. It contains the Commission work programme.
As several others have already requested, I would also very much like the Commission to tell us its views on paragraph 26, and when and how it believes it will be able to perform these tasks.
Mr President, I must first say that this year's discharge procedure has been unlike any other.
For the first time, we have been inundated by special reports from the Court of Auditors denouncing malpractices and irregularities in the Commission's administration, and giving the figures.
It must be said that we on the Committee on Budgetary Control are neither policemen nor detectives, but faced with the pile of special reports produced by the Court of Auditors, we have a duty to take action.
And I say all this despite the fact that, like other speakers, I too wish to stress the very positive part played by Commissioner Liikanen, who has really tried and is trying, for the first time in history, at least from what I have seen over the past nine years, to give us facts and figures and to see something done about it.
But the problem is that Mr Liikanen cannot achieve much because there is a system in the Commission which ensures that even the best efforts are frustrated.
Commissioner, I doubt whether you will be able to achieve what you will promise us here, in good faith, to do.
That also explains the reactions from within the Commission.
For the first time on the Committee on Budgetary Control, we have accusation made by specific individuals which cannot be disregarded and which must be taken very seriously.
Even the press in Europe is saying that a vote for discharge would be 'suicide du Parlement européen ' - suicide for the European Parliament - and it explains why it regards it as 'suicide': some will vote because there is a majority of socialist Commissioners, while others will vote according to supposedly national interests.
I think such a development is quite unacceptable, and that is why at present I believe that refusal to grant discharge would strengthen the hand of those who desire it - the majority of the Commission - so that they can set about internal restructuring.
It would help people like Mr Liikanen and others to achieve what must be done internally, so that we who are Europeans can see ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking James Elles for the efforts he has made to reflect in his document all the reports that have been presented on this issue, which were guided throughout by the invaluable work of the Court of Auditors, the specific assistance provided by UCLAF, the help given by Financial Control - which was not always fully made use of - and the participation of all the members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I firmly believe that, irrespective of the result of the final vote, Parliament's view is and will be unanimous. The European Commission's management can and must improve.
Parliament's reaction to the lesson learned must be unanimous: we cannot continue to approve budgets that meet the Commission's material demands, yet deny it the human resources needed to ensure that they are properly managed.
Together, we need to be able to find the correct relationship between cost and efficiency.
A reorganisation such as that required of the European Commission can only be tackled with the conviction, the will and the strength of the Council, the Commission and, of course, Parliament.
And that will not be possible while the Treaty and our Rules of Procedure are not aligned, while the responsibility is shared and everyone must be treated in the same way, and while the Commission's weakness is such that it prevents it from taking any decisions.
I therefore think that, for the credibility of the institutions and the Union itself, it would be better for those in charge, who are 'out on bail', to solve the problems created. If it turns out that they do not fulfill the commitments they have made to Parliament, the guarded trust we have put in them in this part-session should be withdrawn.
Mr President, it does not seem to me that the question is being asked in the most usual terms.
Despite the 1984 precedent, despite the wording of our Rules of Procedure, both of which take quite serious liberties with the Treaty, it seems to me that the problem does not lie in giving our opinion on whether to refuse to grant discharge.
Rather, we are in a situation where in fact we either grant the discharge or we do not grant it, and I believe Mr Dankert is right to say this, even if the conclusions I draw from this are politically the opposite of his.
Granting the discharge means closing the dossier.
Not granting the discharge means leaving the dossier open.
Where this issue is concerned there can be no definitive refusal, no refusal that applies for the entire administrative future.
After all, if this were the case, we would have to accept that the discharge procedure, which in fact consists of approving the results of the financial year and accepting the balances that must be carried over to the following financial year, could mean that the accounts presented to us were found to be definitively irregular, which is obviously out of the question.
The question we are faced with for the moment is: should we grant a discharge today? The answer is obviously that we should not.
Parliament is not sufficiently well informed of what happened in the course of the 1996 financial year.
We have control over the clocks and the calendar.
We have no reason to stop the clock, to stop taking evidence, when each day brings us more information, true or false, on the financial year under consideration.
I will vote not to grant discharge but that does not mean that I refuse it definitively.
Mr President, the Elles report includes numerous points concerning which the Commission has already stated its position in meetings of the Committee on Budgetary Control and also in written form.
I hope that all Members have had a chance to read our written replies to all the questions about the draft report which we received earlier.
I do not wish to reiterate here what was said in that context, except to correct one point.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, and also Mr Pasty to some extent, gave a wrong interpretation of the Court of Auditors' report on DAS.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy said that the Court of Auditors did not give a positive declaration on the accounts of the Communities.
That is wrong.
When we talk about the Court of Auditors' report we must be extremely exact. Otherwise we abuse the powers of an important external control institution.
What did the Court of Auditors say? As far as the accounts are concerned, it gave a positive declaration.
As far as commitments are concerned, it gave a positive declaration.
As far as own resources are concerned it gave a positive declaration.
But where it has not been able to give a positive declaration, is in underlying transactions.
There I would ask you to read the Court of Auditors' report for this year, which states that in the field of agriculture, these normally take place at the level of final beneficiary in Member States.
They have no impact on the budget because the recovery of the clearance of accounts is on the same level as the level of the errors found.
Secondly, on the structural funds, it says that there the level of error is higher.
They do not always have an impact on the budget but it is still too high.
We must draw the right conclusion.
Together with you, we have tried to change the system for management of structural funds.
For the year 1998 the Commission has accepted the eligibility sheets and will apply the system of corrections to put things right.
But, even more important, now that the whole reform of the structural funds is in the hands of the Council, your opinion is also needed.
We need a clear system where if Member States detect an irregularity, they can transfer the money to a good project.
If they do not, the Court of Auditors or the Commission will recover the money for ever.
We need systems which control well and we must find these systems.
I also want to say that I am ready to receive criticism of the Commission, but that the Court of Auditors has criticised the Member States little more than today's debate in this area, and also as regards 1996.
I come now to paragraphs 26 and 27 and also the amendments which were mentioned.
Firstly, a point on the fraud investigation office.
I have very little to add to what President Santer said when he presented the proposal on 2 December.
The Vienna European Council last weekend welcomed the Commission proposal and advised the institutions to examine the proposal with a view to taking a decision without delay - I stress, without delay.
I would like to make it clear that, according to the proposal, the office will enjoy full freedom to conduct internal investigations on its own initiative inside the Commission and other institutions.
This legislative procedure which has started offers Parliament and the Council a good opportunity to express their views, which of course will be fully taken into account.
We shall see what will be the final outcome of the legislative procedure.
Point B on the Staff Regulations: the Commission has had some internal social conflicts in that very sensitive and difficult area.
In order to resolve a conflict we set up a reflection group on personnel policy chaired by Sir David Williamson, former Secretary-General of the Commission, and the group submitted its final report on 9 November.
The group was composed of representatives of the trade unions and staff associations and of the administration.
The report is the starting point for modifications of the Staff Regulations.
Before proceeding to legislative proposals to the Council and Parliament, the report must go through an extensive consultation process with the other institutions and with representatives of the staff.
The European Parliament has reiterated its will to be thoroughly consulted in this area.
Consultations with the staff are already under way and interinstitutional consultation has started in parallel.
The College of the Heads of Administration has already discussed the report and the first meeting at the level of the Directors of Personnel for all institutions will be held the day after tomorrow, Thursday 17 December.
Conceptually, the Williamson report can be split into two parts.
The first part is about modernising the European public service.
It covers the re-examination of the structure of the Commission's human resources, recruitment, training, review of career development and the policies of equal opportunities and non-discrimination.
In addition, a review of the balance of incentives and sanctions will be carried out. These include both disciplinary procedures and professional incompetence.
The second part concerns the allowances of the officials of the European institutions.
As far as the salaries of officials are concerned, they are guided by the rules which were adopted by the Council in 1991 for ten years and annexed to the Staff Regulations.
On the basis of the interinstitutional consultation and the social dialogue, the Commission intends, by the end of January 1999, to present an indicative timetable for presenting communications on the reforms to Parliament and to the Council.
The idea is first to present communications on the contents and then, on the basis of the discussion, to make the final proposals for modifications.
Point (c) on the evaluation of the Commission's services - at the end of 1997 the Commission launched a vast evaluation or, as is often said, screening of its services.
As a result we will have a clear picture of present missions, resources and working methods of each directorate and unit of the Commission.
The report from each DG will be ready at the beginning of next year, which is obviously the timetable you wish, and the conclusions from this exercise will be drawn during the first half of 1999.
The President of the Commission has given a commitment to present to the next designated President, on the basis of the evaluation, a global concept of how to organise the portfolios of the Commissioners and how to structure the directorates-general in accordance with political priorities.
That is a major task.
Much depends on the will of the President designated.
But what is important is that the President of the Commission is committed to doing this.
I agree with you that the borderlines of the tasks of the European public administration need to be clearly defined.
In any case the Commission must retain the power of decision and control of its activities.
Regarding point (d) of paragraphs 26 and 27 on nominations, two principles should guide the nomination of officials within the Commission, the European Parliament, the Council and the other institutions, namely, autonomy of the institutions and transparency.
The principle of institutional autonomy is established by the Treaty and the case law of the Court of Justice.
The Commission considers that this principle is of fundamental importance in ensuring its independence in the spirit of the Treaty.
The rules for nominations are laid down in the Staff Regulations which are common to all the institutions.
In the spirit of transparency a report on nominations of members of the Commissioners' cabinets has already been forwarded to Parliament as a follow-up to Parliament's resolution on the first reading of the budget.
The Commission is willing to act in all transparency in the field of nominations while respecting the provisions of the Staff Regulations.
On the difficult issue of relations between Commissioners and the services, the Commission is currently preparing a code of conduct which will further clarify relations between the Commissioners, their cabinets and directorates-general.
The proposal for the code of conduct will also be transmitted to the next designated President of the Commission.
A more general code of conduct on the ethical principles of officials is also under preparation.
The Ombudsman has given us important guidance in that area.
The qualifications for each post within the Commission are laid down in advertisements for vacant posts.
I agree that experience in management should be made a central criterion for any appointments of senior officials.
This should include experience in both financial and human resources management.
Here I agree with the criticism that we must do better.
Too often in the past expertise has been learned in the rather narrow field of important dossiers, however, management of a large service requires knowledge of the dossiers and the capacity to manage resources and budgets.
In this context I should like to mention that if the budget is adopted on Thursday, as the Committee on Budgets proposes, we will introduce a major management training programme next year which will be obligatory for every official working in a management position.
Regarding the Financial Regulation, last July the Commission adopted a working document on global revision of the Financial Regulation.
On the basis of interinstitutional consultation, where we are still waiting for comments, the Commission will formulate a legislative proposal for global reform in 1999.
As to the Financial Regulation and the personal responsibility of the Commissioners, the Legal Service of the Commission has taken the view that Members of the Commission have personal financial liability when they act as authorising officers deciding on entering into commitment of expenditure.
In point (f), Parliament calls for Commissioners' declarations of their financial interests to be transparent and publicly available.
The Commission accepts Parliament's request.
Another point which has been taken up by two or three speakers is the agreement on the exchange of information between institutions.
The Commission views this proposal positively.
During this debate we have heard a lot of references to letters, press articles, rumours and even parliamentary questions.
Some of them may be true but many of them could also be totally false.
In the spirit of transparency, it is very important that Commission officials are invited to appear before the Committee on Budgetary Control whenever a reply is needed.
If you are not happy, say so.
It is very difficult to fight against false information if you do not have the opportunity to respond.
You know what I mean.
For us, not all the work has been done.
This report is on the year 1996.
Many issues come from the past.
Much remains to be done.
We must improve financial management; we must get good value for money for European taxpayers.
We have a huge task in front of us. We need a strong Commission for these tasks in negotiations for Agenda 2000.
Thank you, Mr President, for also giving me the opportunity to thank Mr Liikanen for his comments.
I should just like to make one point clear: whether we grant the discharge or not, I still hope that the Commission will make these efforts, irrespective of how we vote.
I should also like to point out a discrepancy in the translation of Mr Elles's report.
It is in the English version.
Paragraph 23 has not been changed to reflect the result of the vote and the words 'give/refuse' still appear there.
The 'refuse' and the stroke ought to be deleted.
That is how we voted.
I would ask you to check this in the other language versions too.
That will be done, Mrs Theato.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 9.30 a.m.
Thank you, Mr President, for giving me the chance to correct one or two misunderstandings.
Mr Tillich made a number of comments about our practice with coordinators.
I would like to say that the situation in the Socialist Group is that if someone is chosen as a coordinator, they look after the interests of the group and their colleagues, not their own personal interests.
If a coordinator steps down because he wants to operate in a different way, another coordinator is chosen, and in this case I was selected.
I would like to say that I am very disappointed that another group is attacking us in such a personal way.
If a Member does not wish to be a coordinator, they are released and can step down, and the other person takes over.
That is democracy, and anything else is not!
Mr President, with regard to this debate, it was announced that the vote on the interpretation given by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure on voting rules would take place at midday.
We were also told that the document would be available from 9.00 a.m. or 9.15 a.m. today.
I went to the Distribution Service barely 5 minutes ago with some of my colleagues, and they have no idea whatsoever where this document is!
No one has it.
It would be desirable, Mr President, for us to have copies of documents before voting on them, otherwise our task will be made extremely difficult.
Mr Monfils, I can tell you that the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure is included in the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, on page 24, so I would ask you to look at the Minutes.
Mr President, during this debate, the rapporteur spoke for seven and a half minutes.
Since rapporteurs normally speak for five minutes, I presume that the last two and a half minutes correspond to the speaking time for his group.
I think that it would have been much wiser to separate the two speeches by Mr Elles, because his final remark was to call on the House to refuse to grant discharge.
This is something that Mr Elles can obviously do in a personal capacity but as rapporteur, it contradicts the vote by the Committee on Budgetary Control, and I would like this to be recorded in the Minutes.
As you know, Mr Colom i Naval, it is up to the groups to distribute speaking time and it is common practice, where appropriate, to extend the speaking time which a rapporteur has in that capacity by part of the speaking time allocated to his group.
Clearly, a rapporteur is free to organise his speaking time and set out his comments as he sees fit.
Mr President, I took the precaution of submitting my question in advance and would have liked it to be recorded.
But first I would like to make a personal statement.
Commissioner Liikanen said that I gave a wrong interpretation of the Court of Auditors' report.
The only thing I said was that the Court of Auditors had not given a positive declaration on the regularity of the accounts for the 1996 financial year.
I am not the only person who said this, Commissioner!
Paragraph 1 of the resolution of the Elles report points out that, for the third year in succession, the European Court of Auditors has declined to provide positive global assurance as to the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the payments for the financial year.
I am only repeating what was stated in the report.
I would like to raise a point of order at the end of this item, Mr President.
I should simply like to clarify something once more for Mr Colom I Naval's sake. It was clearly stated on my list of speakers that Mr Elles would have five minutes as rapporteur plus two minutes for the group.
This is just for the record.
I do not think that he in any way intended to be misleading.
Mr President, I would like to say to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy that the phrase in the Elles report is correct.
It talks about underlying transactions but you are talking about the accounts.
There is a difference. The Court of Auditors gives four different opinions on the accounts, which are positive, and on payments and underlying transactions, which are not positive.
I hope that they will be in the near future.
Mr President, I would like to make a request pursuant to Article 3(2) of Annex V of the Rules of Procedure.
A number of amendments to the Elles report were declared admissible, exactly 22 according to the information I have been given.
Others were declared inadmissible.
It is your responsibility to apply the annex to the Rules of Procedure, which provides that amendments must be forwarded to the Committee on Budgetary Control so that it can deliver its opinion.
I would ask you to confirm that the amendments will be given to the committee at this afternoon's meeting so that it can give its opinion on the 22 amendments which, moreover, were tabled by all the political groups.
There are 11 from the Socialist Group, the very people who wanted to prevent us from tabling amendments on the operation, and from practically all the other groups in Parliament.
The matter will in any event be considered before the vote on Thursday, you may be assured of that.
1999 General Budget
The next item is the report (A4-0500/98) by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 1999, as modified by the Council (C4-0600/98), and on draft Letter of Amendment No 1/99 to the preliminary draft budget for 1999 - Section III Commission (C4-0666/98).
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I would like to begin by thanking all those who have helped me in this House for their work throughout the 1999 budgetary procedure.
I would particularly like to thank those in the secretariat of the Committee on Budgets whose untiring work has allowed us to reach this second reading as anticipated.
I thank you all.
The 1999 budgetary procedure is coming to an end with the European Parliament's second reading.
I would like to give a brief assessment of it but, more particularly, I would like to look once again at an essential question.
We began this procedure calling the 1999 budget a 'bridging budget' to the year 2000 and the new financial perspective.
The 2000 budget should represent the basis for the new financial perspective, but the 1999 budget also needs to be rigorous while meeting the priorities of the European Parliament.
These guidelines involved certain essential conditions, one of which was the mandate given to Mr Colom by Parliament to negotiate the new financial perspective and to introduce an instrument of flexibility in it.
Therefore, at its first reading, Parliament introduced a strategic amendment that increased non-compulsory expenditure and payment appropriations in accordance with paragraph 17 of the current Interinstitutional Agreement to act as a safeguard. This aimed to guarantee, on the one hand, that the Council negotiated an instrument of flexibility and, on the other, if this new agreement was not reached, that the level of non-compulsory expenditure would not be reduced, because this would put at risk Parliament's ability to fund its own priorities.
The bridge that was thus built by the European Parliament was not accepted by the Council as we had hoped, but I would point out that we have actually achieved something.
We have succeeded in building a new culture and a new confidence, because it appears that the Council, through its desire to negotiate, is accepting the idea of Parliament as a genuine political interlocutor.
The Council held its second reading on 24 November, after the traditional conciliation, with a common approach with Parliament to the global aspects of the budget, but without making any progress on the strategic amendments.
I would like to review the various categories of the Council's reading and contrast them with Parliament's position before its second reading.
I said in my first speech, before the first reading, that I was somewhat disappointed with what had happened with the ad hoc procedure for agriculture since we had not managed to hold a serious debate in July, as Parliament would have liked.
Nevertheless, I must point out that the ad hoc procedure before the Council's second reading has shown itself to be a very valid instrument since the Council has agreed with Parliament's views about not increasing agricultural expenditure.
The Council has also allowed Parliament an agricultural reserve, of which EUR 20 million are destined solely for agri-environmental measures, which are a priority for the European Parliament.
So - to give my shortest speech in this respect - as far as Category 1, agriculture, is concerned, Parliament's position is more or less in line with the Council at its second reading.
I believe that we have reached an agreement that both parties can accept.
Moving on to Category 2 - which in the financial perspective is usually called 'the Edinburgh package' - I must nevertheless say that Parliament is introducing a 'package amendment' comprising a reserve of EUR 1 500 million in commitment appropriations and EUR 250 million in payment appropriations, as well as a reduction in payment appropriations of EUR 500 million.
This is based entirely on the information provided by the Commission in September on the situation regarding the non-implementation of the Structural Funds.
In all the dialogue and conciliation discussions we have held with the Council, this was never mentioned.
It was never brought up for discussion as it did not pose any problems.
Surprisingly, the Council accepts the reduction but rejects the reserve for the Structural Funds. This means a change to Category 2 that leaves Parliament free at second reading to take a majority vote in the House.
Yesterday, the Committee on Budgets voted against reintroducing the reserve but in favour of reintroducing the payment appropriations because, as I have said, the amendment was an overall package and a reduction in payments does not make any sense given the delicate situation that exists as far as payments are concerned. It loses all justification if there is no reserve.
As regards Category 3, I told the Council at first reading that this was the 'Cinderella' of all the categories.
It involves the Union's internal policies, the policies with a European dimension, and I must say that it seems as though the prince, with his glass slipper, has found Cinderella and turned her into a princess. Under the agreement we negotiated with the Council on this category the Council has accepted practically all of Parliament's priorities.
Some lines have even been increased by 49 %.
It is worth pointing out that we reached an agreement on the fifth framework programme on research, and included sections of the policies under the third pillar in Category 3, as Parliament had wished, thus anticipating the Treaty of Amsterdam. The Council has also agreed with Parliament about maintaining the funding of the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
I believe that this is an extremely satisfactory result for Parliament and I would like to thank the Council for its willingness to negotiate. We will thus be happy to vote in favour of this category on Thursday.
I would now like to look at what is, in my opinion, a serious political issue.
It is a serious matter that in Category 4, Parliament has been forced to reduce the PHARE programme.
It is serious because the political message that this sends out is not pleasant either for Parliament or the Council, but it was necessary in the interests of budgetary efficiency and in the light of the overall operation of the programme.
In this case, we are providing for EUR 150 million less than the level of funding fixed in Cannes, but the Council has agreed to Parliament's proposal to fund its priorities in terms of external actions from this reduction in the PHARE programme.
In Category 5, Parliament is maintaining its position on the creation of a specific line for pension funds.
I believe that it is a shame that during the entire budgetary year we have not been able to make even the slightest progress on this issue, which is necessary so that the Union's officials can have guaranteed pensions.
After the conciliation of 24 November we still had not reached any agreement with the Council on the strategic amendment, and a new conciliation procedure began on 8 December.
It was a historic occasion because this was the first time in 10 years that a conciliation meeting took place after the Council had held its second reading.
I would like to thank the Presidency for its desire to keep the doors open and to agree to have Parliament as a political interlocutor, as I said at the beginning.
After the outcome of the conciliation procedure I, as rapporteur, am withdrawing the strategic amendments for second reading.
However, as in all negotiations, we know that both parties are leaving something behind.
I would have liked - as I believe the whole of Parliament would have liked - to achieve something more concrete.
I recognise that the planned timetable has not been adhered to.
We had thought that in Vienna we would have something more specific on the table, which would in turn have made a more specific conciliation procedure possible.
However, I believe and I hope that Mr Colom will go into more detail in the text of the agreement we have reached, and I think that there will be instruments to provide flexibility.
We have obtained a historic unilateral declaration from the Council, which is finally going to do what it has promised, and I believe that that may be enough to allow us to reach an agreement in the course of the negotiations.
Mr President, on Thursday Parliament is going to vote at second reading on a budget that complies perfectly with the current Interinstitutional Agreement. It is a budget that will demonstrate that budgetary rigour is entirely compatible with the European Parliament's political priorities, but, in particular, it is a budget that is compatible with the interests of the people of Europe.
Mr President, I should like to begin by expressing my satisfaction that we have managed once again this year to approve the budget for the other institutions with just one reading, given that all of our amendments have been accepted by the Council.
This is a sign of harmony and successful cooperation, which I hope will be repeated in future years as well.
The motion for a resolution, on which we shall vote on Thursday - which shows that there are no particularly significant or outstanding problems - touches on certain matters which have already been addressed before, the aim being to establish some general rules enabling solutions to be found for certain unresolved problems during the course of next year's budgetary procedure.
Here, taking up what Mrs Dührkop Dührkop said, I do regret that the Council has rejected the possibility of setting up a pension fund for staff of the European institutions.
Parliament views this as a missed opportunity to solve a problem which should be dealt with as a matter of urgency.
We are now waiting for the Commission to present, by 31 March, a proposed reform of the pension system, because this remains a priority not only for Parliament but also for all the other bodies of the European Union.
Another outstanding problem, to which the resolution refers, is the translation work of the Court of Justice.
The Court needs to provide us with concrete proposals as a basis for thorough discussions leading to the adoption of measures to facilitate its translation work.
We therefore call on the Court to devise a computer-assisted translation system with a view to overcoming the backlog of bureaucratic and administrative texts, and thereafter to seek other ways of relieving the clearly onerous workload of the lawyer-linguists.
It must be said from the outset that the budgetary authority is not in a position to solve the Court's wide-ranging problems through an intensive recruitment policy, which would be virtually impossible over a single budget year; it would however be possible if it were staggered according to a multiannual plan.
The European Parliament - and this is another noteworthy aspect of the resolution - also wishes to make a point to the Committee of the Regions, given that the problem of the forthcoming expiry of the Secretary-General's term of office has arisen; the possibility of falling back on Article 50 has been mooted, with considerable financial implications, as it is estimated that the operation has already cost ECU 320 000.
Our resolution obviously stresses the need to find alternative solutions which are financially acceptable, technically feasible and will avoid a vacuum in the leadership of this body, whose workload is set to increase as a result of the new Amsterdam Treaty.
Furthermore, the resolution underlines the need to carry forward the existing policy on buildings, which amounts to taking on rapidly the ownership of the buildings used by the various Community institutions, as well as the relevant payments.
Yesterday we noted with satisfaction the adoption of the supplementary and amending budget and the availability of the sizeable sum of EUR 150 million, which will serve - for example - to bring forward the purchase of D3. This operation will generate an estimated saving of EUR 40 million over the next ten years.
This policy has already borne fruit and, if it is pursued further, will bring additional, appreciable savings for the Union's budget.
We are therefore pleased that our amendment allowing the construction of the new building for the Court of Auditors was accepted.
Now that the debate on this first EU budget in euros is coming to an end, Mr President, we can say that we are satisfied to have drawn up a rigorous and well-balanced budget for the other institutions, one which does justice to the budgetary efforts made by the Member States.
I should like to end by thanking my colleagues in the Committee on Budgets for all their help and, above all, the staff of the Commission for their much-needed assistance with our work.
Mr President, this year's debates on the budget are certainly taking place against a rather tempestuous background.
Sometimes the sea does become calm, and happily it does so before it is too late.
That is true to a certain extent, in any case, of the part of the budget for which the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy is responsible, which has been in considerable turmoil, in particular where the implementation of human rights programmes is concerned.
Fortunately, Parliament and the Council agreed a compromise formula for technical assistance which meant that the legal bases issue could be settled.
This allayed our main concerns with the 1998 supplementary budget and the 1999 budget.
Of course we would have liked to have seen more, but what is important is for these issues to be resolved this year.
For it would have inflicted great damage on the European Union if in this year of all years, the 50th anniversary of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in this particular week, when we are awarding the Sakharov prize for the tenth time, there had been difficulties here.
No one will deny that improvements can be made, but any support is welcome where human rights and work on forging links with the other countries of the world are concerned.
I have just returned from Latin America, where I was once again able to see the value of this work for myself, whether it is election supervision, human rights or the work of our institutes.
We will be monitoring the implementation of the 1999 budget very carefully with these points in mind.
I should, however, also like to express my particular thanks to Mrs Dührkop Dührkop for her excellent cooperation in this matter, which has shown once again that Parliament is aware of the significant role it can play on these difficult issues, and is supporting a cause across all national boundaries, which all of us, as good democrats, need to fight for throughout the world.
Mr President, the agriculture heading has not given rise to any particularly heated debates during the various phases of our examination of the 1999 budget - is this the calm before the storm, or have procedures improved?
The latter, I think.
By continually analysing expenditure in the current year and allowing special scope in the budgetary procedure for drawing the appropriate conclusions at the right moment for the new budget, we manage to prevent too much from being earmarked for agriculture, while also having the certainty that if things develop badly, sensible provisions will be made.
As the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture, I have helped to make sure that the procedure introduced last year whereby the Commission sends notification of amendments between the first and second readings has been followed to the letter this year too, and we have received specific proposed amendments to a considerable number of budget items.
A total of EUR 513 million have had to be added to the original total for Category 1.
The Council and the European Parliament delegation agreed, however, not to include this relatively small adjustment from the draft budget in the total budget amount for Category 1, but to revise the various items in the earlier total on the basis of the most recent estimates.
The Commission then put forward the required proposals. This is in line with Parliament's desire not to solve the problem by making a linear reduction, cutting a small percentage from all agricultural expenditure in the budget, but by making specific reductions to a number of items.
Furthermore, the fact that a surplus of ECU 1.4 billion has now been identified in Category 1 of the 1998 budget is an important factor for revising the rather poorer outlook for 1999, and on the basis of our close observation of market developments up to now, we can already tell that we are going to have to live with a little uncertainty about agricultural expenditure in the future.
But this margin can be considerably reduced, compared with the excessive margins of agricultural spending in the past, when very considerable amounts would be held over and repaid to the Member States every year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have not entered the appropriations for security within and around the buildings of the European institutions in the reserve.
Nevertheless, I should like to point out that action urgently needs to be taken here.
As the rapporteur on the budget for the Economic Affairs Committee, I think that we can be very pleased with the benchmark data for the next budget.
In its proposal, the Commission had already allocated sufficient appropriations to the principal economic lines.
Parliament has successfully defended these appropriations.
Title B5-3 on the internal market was increased by EUR 13.8 million, and title B5-5 on the labour market and technological innovation by EUR 12.2 million.
I am particularly pleased with the agreement reached on stimulating small and medium-sized enterprises.
The line designated for this purpose, B5-512, was increased by a full 60 %.
However, we are also looking at the interrelationships and indicators for a healthy overall economy in a wider context.
Therefore, education and the youth exchange programmes are important for providing human resources, which our internal market so urgently needs to remain competitive.
Title B3-1 - Education, vocational training and youth - was allotted additional appropriations of EUR 136.4 million, and even though I have great sympathy for the demand expressed by European youth organisations for a further increase, in this budget we have in fact paved the way for these education and vocational training initiatives actually to be continued and extended.
For the economy, the principle of austere budget management is, after all, of particular importance.
Let us not forget that in just over two weeks, 11 countries will join together in a currency union.
I believe that this is a basis for a successful Europe!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen.
I should first like to thank our colleagues in the Budgets Committee and the rapporteur for making it possible for this complicated budget procedure and the conciliation procedure on research to at last be brought to such a successful conclusion, with the result that we shall be voting on the research programme today at midday, and then on Thursday we will be able to enter the appropriate figures in the budget, which means that our research policy will continue to run, uninterrupted, next year.
I should, however, like to draw your attention to a problem: in its explanatory statement on the draft budget for the second reading, the Council pointed out that, in its opinion - and as far as I know the Commission has endorsed this view - the remarks on the budget lines were only intended as an indication, meaning that they are not binding for the purposes of implementation.
In practice, this would mean that all the specific tasks and objectives which Parliament has included in the remarks, and the appropriations and percentages accordingly placed in the reserve, would, at best, be pipedreams.
I am thinking in particular of research.
We have few budget lines, but each has a large amount of money, and our remarks here are to be treated only as an indication.
I do not think that this is the end result of the budgetary procedure which we in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy had in mind.
Mr Liikanen, I have just listened carefully to your speech on the Elles report.
Here too, you could send out a clear signal for Parliament.
Our remarks are not pipedreams; they are entirely genuine demands made by Parliament in the budgetary procedure.
I make the same claim on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, that is, that our remarks on managing the appropriations of the fifth framework programme of research should not be taken merely as an indication, but should be binding.
I have prepared an amendment to the motion to this effect on behalf of my group, and hope that it will also meet with the agreement of the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the rapporteur of the Committee on External Economic Relations, I should like to make just two points today, which we were not able to deal with in October at the first reading.
We had submitted several amendments concerning the remarks for trade cooperation with Latin America, Asia and South Africa, also including investment.
Our proposal was to involve economic and social groups, chambers of commerce and industry, employers' organisations, unions, consumer organisations and environmentalists in these programmes.
We made these proposals, which are in fact modelled on the ACP States, amongst others, - so they are on the same lines as the provisions which apply to the ACP States and Turkey - in order to secure greater participation of economic and social groups in the work of reconstruction.
Unfortunately, the Budgets Committee did not accept our proposals, although they would not cost a penny and do in fact reflect a broad consensus within the Committee on External Economic Relations, having been drafted by the various groups within the committee.
My main request to the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, and also to the rapporteur, would be to incorporate this idea, possibly in the motion.
These are sensible proposals and they correspond largely to what is already common practice in the ACP States.
I should also like to make a second comment.
It will only be possible for us to open up the Japanese market if young managers - above all those from small and medium-sized enterprises - are educated about the specific features of the market and also have the opportunity to adapt to them.
Until now, such initiatives have been promoted to great acclaim by the European Union, making it possible for training and instruction to be given to between 30 and 40 managers every year.
This proposal was not taken into account because there is no legal base at the present time.
I hope that the Commission will table the necessary proposals and that we will have a legal base as soon as possible, so that we can reinstate this budget line.
Mr President, I am delighted that the Council has agreed to our proposal to increase the environment budget, making more money available for the fifth action programme on the environment, LIFE and other programmes.
This is all very well, but the fact remains that the environment receives only 0.2 % of the overall budget, which is why we are having to think about integrating the environment into other sectors.
For this reason, I am most surprised that the Council has not approved the very proposals that were designed to 'green' the budget, and the Committee on Budgets is therefore retabling five amendments relating to the environment aspects of the Structural Funds, environmental protection and the allocation of Structural Fund money to environmental protection under the habitats and birds directives.
We would also like to see at least 10 % of the MEDA funding going to environmental projects.
A better environment begins with each of us, and this is why I have tabled an amendment to the resolution - also accepted by the Committee on Budgets - on the 'greening' of the institutions themselves.
The Council, the Commission, the Committee of the Regions and Parliament itself can still do a great deal about saving energy, recycling waste and mobility.
If we can do this in a credible way, we shall be setting an example for the Member States and we can promote a genuine environment policy.
Finally, I am pleased that the Council has also agreed to increase the budget for consumer and health policy.
I regret the fact that it has put both amounts in the reserve, but fortunately, thanks to our intervention, the Committee on Budgets is to take the amount for consumer policy out of the reserve again, and the legal basis for this is expected shortly.
It is a pity that we were not able to achieve the same thing with the health-care policy.
I shall finish there, Mr President. Thanks to our excellent cooperation with the rapporteurs, Mr Viola and Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, I am satisfied with the overall result.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I would like to begin by thanking Barbara Dührkop Dührkop, the general rapporteur, for her tremendous help and support.
I would also like to thank my own group coordinator, Terence Wynn, and my committee secretariat for their help and encouragement.
As a committee we have not achieved everything that we wanted to achieve but, at the end of the day, we have achieved a budget that we can certainly live with.
I do, however, have a number of concerns.
First of all in relation to the budget heading on tropical forests, I note that the Commission proposals to increase payment appropriations, i.e. by 5 million euros, were not accepted by the Commission.
Therefore, I would expect that the Commission, by one means or another, to be able to transfer and agree to the topping-up appropriations which might be necessary as far as our external policy is concerned.
Secondly, on gender, I hope that next year we will see an increase in the budget heading.
We have seen a decrease this time which was gravely disappointing as far as my committee is concerned.
Finally, on the issue of land mines, there were numerous arguments about the number of budget headings we should have.
I am informed that there are currently something like 12 or 13 budget headings that mention land mines.
I am told by the Commission that they have plans to bring all of these under one heading and that they are proposing a sum of something like 35 million euros to be spent on mine clearance and rehabilitation programmes.
I very much welcome this, it has been something that the Development Committee have pushed forward for some time.
The sum of 35 million euros, if we can keep this for a number of years, will go a long way to clearing the world of what has been an horrendous scourge for millions of people in the developing world.
I would like to express my thanks once again to the general rapporteur.
It has been an extremely successful budget procedure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I can confirm, on the occasion of the second reading of the budget, that I am as satisfied as I was at first reading.
In this respect, I would like once again to thank our rapporteur Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and the members of the Committee on Budgets and their chairman Mr Samland, who were much more sensitive to our committee's demands this year than they were last.
I would like to highlight three particular reasons for my satisfaction, all of which are priorities for the Committee on Civil Liberties.
Firstly, we asked for measures to be continued and for an increase in resources to combat violence towards women and children, sex tourism and criminal use of the Internet.
The solution that was arrived at for these items is satisfactory.
Secondly, we wanted measures to be continued and resources to be maintained for the integration of migrants and the fight against racism and xenophobia.
As you know, ladies and gentlemen, these budget headings were in a very delicate position because of the absence of a legal basis.
The solution that has been arrived at here is also satisfactory.
However, our main reason for satisfaction is that for the first time, at Mr Brinkhorst's insistence, the Committee on Budgets yesterday approved the creation of a European fund for refugees. I must thank Mr Brinkhorst for this.
Everyone knows the importance of the refugee problem for the European Union, and everyone also knows that the Council has committed itself to taking measures with a view to equal burden sharing, and this European fund for refugees is the best way of achieving this.
Consequently, I do not understand why the Council persists in rejecting this instrument, which is both necessary and sound.
Mr President, I should like to pay the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, a compliment. She has worked very hard on her report during this budget year.
I should like to thank her for her ready cooperation, and I also extend thanks to the Commission and the Austrian Presidency.
From the point of view of the Committee on Budgetary Control, it is apparent that we still have much to do.
The very fact that in the 1998 budget we have still overestimated agricultural expenditure by ECU 1.4 billion shows that there is scope for further measures here.
Despite our actually brokering an agreement with the Council in the 1998 budgetary procedure to reduce the allocation which the Commission had entered in the budget, we still have a surplus.
That is why I also welcome the fact that the Commission has used a new kind of justification for utilised, non-utilised and partially utilised budget lines in the Notenboom procedure. I should like to call on the Commission and request that it continue to do this in the monthly reports during the implementation of the 1999 budget.
This would mean that the European Parliament would be better able to monitor expenditure on a month-by-month basis.
The individual committees would be more involved in monitoring appropriations and the process of implementing the budget. Communication between Parliament and the Commission would improve.
Allow me to make just two further comments on the strategic reserve.
Overall, we are certainly not exactly ecstatic about the result.
We can, however, credit the European Parliament with success on one count. The Council has realised that it has to respect the European Parliament as a partner and as one arm of the budgetary authority.
In the future, it will no longer be enough simply to take account of the interests of individual Member States within the Council; the will of the European Parliament will also have to be respected.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, I would like to add our appreciation to that already expressed for the rapporteur, Bárbara Dührkop.
The Committee on Fisheries has collaborated with the general working party for the 1999 budget during the various stages of the budgetary procedure, mainly through the original draftsman for the Committee on Fisheries, Mr Apolinario, who is no longer a Member of this Parliament.
Although the only amendment tabled by the Committee on Fisheries is an amendment proposing a slight increase in appropriations for monitoring actions, we would like to take this opportunity to repeat a series of priorities that form the core of the committee's actions.
I will list them in no special order: firstly, actions that monitor actual compliance with Community rules; secondly, specific actions in the areas of non-industrial and inshore fishing; thirdly, research, which is closely linked to the development of the fifth framework programme; fourthly, the Structural Funds, an issue we have already discussed on many occasions; and finally, the question of international agreements, which I would like to consider for a moment.
As far as international agreements are concerned, the appropriations proposed for the 1999 financial year are lower than those for 1998, both in commitment appropriations and in payment appropriations.
Undoubtedly, there is justification for this reduction, but we would like to make an important point here. The Committee on Fisheries would draw the attention of the authorities to the difficulty that will arise, when preparing the budget for 2000, in relation to the agreement with Morocco.
This runs out on 30 November 1999 and costs EUR 120 million every year, practically half of the total for this heading.
The budgetary authority will have to show its capacity for sound management in order to ensure that the necessary budgetary appropriations are available to implement a new agreement, while remaining discrete about this amount so as not to endanger the negotiations with Morocco.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, who was very receptive to the proposals from the Committee on Women's Rights, which sought, above all, to enshrine the concept of mainstreaming in the budgetary procedure, in other words to incorporate equal opportunities for men and women into all European policies.
We had some degree of success, as can be seen from extensive correspondence with 12 Members of the Commission. We have recorded this in two working documents.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights, my second priority - alongside mainstreaming - was to maintain special support measures for women in the fourth action programme and in the Structural Funds.
I emphasise once again that women are not a marginal group; we represent 50 % of European citizens.
This is also reflected in the new Daphne programme.
I might remind you that we - 350 Members of this House - called for a European campaign and a European Year against violence to women in a written declaration.
The Council ignored it. In the second reading, it also deleted the remark on this, despite the Austrian Presidency itself working very hard in support of this cause.
We in the European Parliament are keeping to our demands; we are expecting EUR 5 million to be allocated for a campaign to combat violence against women, and we are looking forward to the concepts of equal opportunities and mainstreaming being very much more in evidence in the new policy areas of employment and enlargement towards the east than they have been up until now.
As the Commissioner has already said, the Treaty of Amsterdam gives us a new basis on which to work for equal opportunities and non-discrimination, and if female citizens do not find themselves represented in the policy of the European Parliament - and, by the way, this also applies to the committees - then we shall pay the penalty in the fifth directly elected Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can, I think, be brief, because I explained the main arguments of the Petitions Committee in our debate at the first reading.
I should, however, like to use this opportunity to emphasise, on behalf of the committee, that we feel like the hinge between Parliament and the citizens of Europe.
We are, as it were, the hinge on the door, allowing it to open to the citizens.
According to the Treaty on European Union, any citizen of the Union has the right to address petitions and lodge complaints, individually or in association with other citizens or persons, and for us in Parliament to be able to deal with these petitions in an appropriate manner and in as short a time as possible, it is necessary for the committee to be provided with sufficient resources and staff.
That is why it is also imperative for the Petitions Committee to be able to continue to work as an independent committee in the new parliamentary term.
I wish to thank the Budgets Committee and Mr Viola for judging the Ombudsman's requests to be objectively justified, and for the fact that the creation of a new body for the Ombudsman will make it possible for sufficient resources to be placed at his disposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure I do not need to tell you that the 1999 budgetary procedure has been a complicated undertaking; this was, in particular, for two reasons.
Firstly, the 1999 budget is the last to be covered by the Edinburgh agreements and the last to be adopted before the conclusion of the Agenda 2000 negotiations, which are being held between our institutions to establish a financial framework for budgets after the year 2000.
Secondly, a decision on the 1998 supplementary and amending budget and a decision on the 1998 global transfer have also become part of the 1999 budget.
Despite the complexity resulting from combining these different matters, we have finally succeeded in reaching an overall compromise on the 1999 budget, the 1998 supplementary and amending budget and the 1998 global transfer.
I should like to recall that the success of this overall compromise was to a large extent dependent on the results of intensive discussions on flexibility, which we held with Parliament's delegation at the two Council meetings of 24 November and 8 December.
In accordance with Parliament's wishes, it is intended that budgets will display flexibility of this kind, and this will be introduced in the new financial perspective.
The conciliation we held last week with a number of your colleagues paved the way for the overall compromise on the 1999 budget procedure to be confirmed.
This conciliation in fact resulted in an agreement between our two institutions that there will be no strategic reserve in the 1999 budget, something which we have seen repeatedly threaten the 1999 budgetary procedure from beginning to end.
The Council thus saw itself in a position to declare itself willing to accept an element of flexibility in the negotiations on a new interinstitutional agreement.
The nature and extent of this flexibility will depend on the overall result of the negotiations, and on the level of the agreed financial framework.
During the budgetary procedure, but at the latest before Parliament's first reading, both arms of the budgetary authority can decide - in accordance with the rules on majority voting pursuant to Article 203(9)(5) of the Treaty and by means of a Commission proposal - to activate this flexibility component.
When applying this statement - and this is something to which I should particularly like to draw your attention - the Council will not make any internal agreements which would nullify these majority rules.
I should particularly like to emphasise this. The positive outcome of our conciliation on the flexibility of future budgets has made it possible for the negotiations on the entire 1999 budget procedure to be brought to a successful conclusion.
Allow me now to turn to the results of the Council's second reading of the 1999 draft budget and in so doing to highlight a number of points.
When examining the draft budget, as amended and with the proposed modifications, the Council's general concern was to try to achieve as low a rate of increase as possible for the 1999 budget.
When assessing the results of Parliament's first reading of the 1999 draft budget, the Council was also guided by the following principles: complying with the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 October 1998 on legal bases and the implementation of the budget; assessing needs with a view to entering realistic appropriations in the budget which it will be possible to implement; and dividing the savings equally between all the headings in the financial perspective, which means that reducing appropriations for one of the headings also has to entail a reduction in the appropriations for other headings.
Taking all these principles into consideration, the Council approved the content of the overall compromise drafted in conjunction with a Parliament delegation. As you have noted, it has accommodated Parliament on many points.
I would ask you to take that into account when you yourselves vote!
As I said at the beginning, the overall compromise on the 1999 budget procedure also includes an agreement on the 1998 supplementary and amending budget and on the global transfer.
Both the supplementary and amending budget and the global transfer allow non-utilised appropriations to be redeployed, with the result that, in particular, payment appropriations for the European Social Fund and PHARE can be increased by ECU 795 million and ECU 150 million respectively.
In addition, Parliament will receive ECU 150 million for its building projects.
I should also like to draw your attention to the ECU 400 million for food aid to Russia, which we decided on as part of the supplementary and amending budget.
The 1999 budgetary procedure is drawing to a close.
When you vote on the budget on Thursday at the end of your second reading, some of you will be taking part in this procedure for the last time, and for those Members in particular, I am glad that during this budgetary procedure they have been able to experience some degree of cooperation between the two arms of the budgetary authority, something which has not always been the case in the past, a fact which the chairman of your Budgets Committee, Mr Samland, referred to himself last week at the end of our conciliation.
I should particularly like to thank Mr Samland for his tireless efforts to improve the quality of our cooperation.
I also thank the two rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola, and of course the Commission, for their valuable contribution to bringing the 1999 budgetary procedure to a successful conclusion.
I was very pleased to see them adopt such a constructive approach, putting us in a position to achieve the result we all wanted, the adoption of a budget for the coming year.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
The debate will continue at 3 p.m. with the speech by Commissioner Liikanen.
It is now voting time.
Mr President, I wish to raise a point of order under Rules 24(7) and 31, with respect to seating in the Chamber.
In view of the on-going civil war between Mr Le Pen's faction of the National Front and Mr Mégret's, I should like to ask the Conference of Presidents whether they will consider moving the two factions apart to avoid the possibility of disturbance in the Chamber.
In the meantime, we should be very grateful if they would wear the appropriate labels so we would know whether they support Mr Le Pen or Mr Mégret.
Mr President, I would like to make what is, I suppose, a personal statement, as Mr Ford is criticising me as a member of the National Front.
I would like to assure him immediately that I believe everyone is to be polite in this House, as is traditional, including on the National Front benches.
Thank you, Mr Blot.
VOTES
We shall now take the vote on the interpretation of the provisions applicable to the discharge procedure - Annex V of the Rules of Procedure.
Since questions have been raised, I am taking a vote on the interpretation given by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure of the provisions applicable to the discharge procedure.
The interpretation by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure - which was also included in the Minutes - was that it considered that the provisions of Annex V were not at variance with the general provisions of the Rules concerning the tabling of amendments, which could be accepted under Rule 125.
On the other hand, amendments proposing the opposite to the proposal of the committee responsible were inadmissible.
(Parliament adopted the interpretation by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure)
Mr President, as the rapporteur for Parliament, I just wish to confirm that the common position is acceptable to us, as is the financial settlement at ECU 112.5m.
I should like to thank the Austrian presidency and DG XXIV for their work on this.
(The President declared the common position approved)
Before we go on to the explanations of vote, I should like to congratulate the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the rapporteurs on the way they organised the votes, which has made it possible for Parliament, thanks to the systematic way in which they were proposed and accepted by the Bureau, to vote on so many reports and 320 amendments in just 40 minutes!
This is a record rarely achieved, for which the Committee on Research must be thanked.
We appreciate the need to consider the status of those countries which are not, for the time being, signing up to the single currency.
It is a matter that certainly needs a thorough airing as part of the general political debate in the Member States concerned.
We must not forget, however, that one of the aims of this report - which has a united committee behind it - is to influence public opinion. Yet some of the assertions made here are based on pure speculation as to developments in the non-participating countries.
We do believe that the advent of the single currency will be of great significance in terms of competitiveness, employment and growth. And we think that Sweden should join EMU at some point in the future.
But it is not for the European Parliament to tell Swedish citizens - as happens in this report - that their country should adopt the single currency.
Any such decision will depend on a prior proposal having been put to the Swedish people, either in a referendum or in conjunction with elections to the Riksdag.
In the Stevens report, the European Parliament shows kind concern for the misfortunes likely to descend upon the Member States which did not wish to join the euro zone (United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark) and on the country that did not qualify (Greece).
Their national currencies will, it seems, become more volatile, and as all their economic actors will favour the euro, it will become a genuine 'parallel currency' in these countries.
The conclusion of the report is obvious: 'As the only way the risks inherent in parallel use of the Euro can be removed for the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark and Greece, is by joining EMU, they should do exactly that, as soon as possible'.
We are astounded at the arrogance shown in this report and the contempt displayed for the democratic choices made in three of these countries.
If tribute is to be paid to the United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark, then it is because their governments were able to organise a genuine debate on the single currency and then to respect the choice of their citizens.
Not everyone can say the same.
Moreover, we may wonder whether the aim of the Stevens report is not to allay the feelings of guilt on the part of those in the euro zone who trampled on democracy, by showing them that they were not wrong because, when all was said and done, even those who respected democracy subsequently reached the same conclusions.
But there is an enormous gap in this report: it is by no means certain that the countries that did not choose to adopt the euro will regret it.
For example, if we assume that the euro is strong against the dollar, the European countries not participating in the euro zone will perhaps find that they are at an advantage by retaining more reasonable exchange rate parities.
Similarly, unification of monetary conditions within the euro zone will not be beneficial, or even painless, for all its members.
Some will doubtless regret not having been able to retain flexible exchange rates to be able to bring their economies smoothly into line with those of their neighbours.
They will envy the countries that have remained unrestricted outside the euro zone. But perhaps the Stevens report has another, hidden, objective: to try to eliminate these recalcitrant countries that could in future become embarrassing witnesses to the error of the single currency by absorbing them into the euro zone.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the Stevens report on the euro as a parallel currency.
The report calls on the governments of the non-participating countries to join in the third stage of EMU as soon as possible and predicts all kinds of mishaps and calamities if they fail to do so without delay.
Furthermore, it is claimed that the general public in the countries in question is expressing a wish to join the monetary union in the near future.
Only a referendum will show whether the Danish population wants this to happen.
Lindqvist (ELDR), Eriksson and Svensson (GUE/NGL), Gahrton, Holm and Schörling (V), Bonde, Lis Jensen, Krarup and Sandbæk (I-EDN), in writing.
(SV) It is somewhat rich for the European Parliament to start telling Member States what sort of economic policy it thinks they should implement.
This report states that 'it is to be earnestly hoped that the United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark and Greece, in their own interests, in the interests of the other Member States participating in the start of EMU and, above all, in the interests of the peoples of the European Union as a whole, will be able to join the single currency as soon as possible'.
Worse still, we hear that 'substantial majorities' of the citizens of these four Member States expect to be joining EMU in the foreseeable future.
And, to top it all, parallel use of the euro is seen as a way of hurrying them willy-nilly into EMU.
It is quite unacceptable that the ECB should set up a special committee to monitor parallel use of the euro in the four Member States in order to 'help' them to join the single currency.
We cannot countenance instructions from the European Parliament on how the central banks in these four countries should manage parallel use of the euro. Nor can we tolerate talk of the 'risks' if the Member States concerned are not 'clear' about their policy with regard to the euro.
Telling them that the best thing for them to do is to join EMU is pushing at the boundaries of decency.
We voted against this report.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party abstained in the final vote on the Stevens report on 'The euro as a parallel currency' for the following reasons.
The rapporteur is unnecessarily alarmist regarding the consequences of the euro as a parallel currency for the pre-in countries.
The nature of his call on the pre-ins to join the euro ignores national policies and is not grounded in the real world.
Those states which elected not to take part in the third stage of monetary union reached their decision democratically in the wake of a process of mature consideration.
There are no grounds for the European Parliament to voice disapproval of the outcome; to do so would be to overstep its powers.
It is for national parliaments, governments and citizens to decide on participation in EMU.
Fundamental policy decisions on parallel use of the euro also lie with the countries concerned.
Parliament has no right to comment on the sort of restrictions which states should, or should not, be maintaining as a matter of national monetary policy.
Castagnetti report (A4-0471/98)
We would underline the importance of Union action to strengthen the rights of disabled people. The Helios II programme is a case in point.
The Treaty of Amsterdam contains express provisions to assist the disabled, and we urge the Commission to come forward with new Union-wide measures to promote the rights of the disabled, whilst at the same time building on the achievements of Helios II.
Quisthoudt-Rowohl report (A4-0493/98)
The framework programmes for research, technological development and demonstration activities always lead to lengthy and stormy debates with the European Commission, particularly where they are linked to budgetary issues.
This provides the European Parliament with an opportunity each time to fight for the financial share we believe to be fair.
Until now, we have always been the decisive factor in allowing the European Union to create a real policy of research and technological development.
The fourth framework programme has now proved itself.
Scientific cooperation and technology transfer are organised around this unique programme that covers all areas.
Thanks to its vast range of activities, the opportunities offered to researchers, teachers and companies have been increased, and the result has been the development of a real sense of European identity.
We have achieved positive results that have been acknowledged unanimously.
This great popularity within the European scientific community must not be compromised at a time when a new framework programme is being drawn up and eleven new countries are knocking at the door of the European Union and are likely to bring mutual scientific and technical enrichment.
We therefore need appropriate financing to take account of the most recent technological developments.
Consequently, I approve the Quisthoudt-Rowohl report and the compromise it presents for 1998-2002.
I am one of those who would have liked to go a step further.
As this is not possible, let us accept a good compromise that includes the majority of the amendments tabled by the European Parliament.
Scientific research and technological development have become the focal point of the economic future of Europe.
Promoting these among small and medium-sized enterprises would therefore be promoting the progress of the European Union.
We voted in favour of the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee concerning the fifth framework programme for research.
We would however draw attention to several unresolved problems with regard to the EU's research policy.
The administrative procedures governing EU intervention need simplifying, for example.
The fact that the EU contribution does not cover all the costs of activities equally gives cause for concern.
We need a uniform attitude to national cofinancing across the Union.
A research-led approach would also be desirable, building more upon researchers' own initiatives. Decisions on project funding could then be taken on the basis of scientific criteria by competent research bodies.
The Swedish Left Party's priorities in this field are: researcher training, basic research and the establishing of creative research environments in the universities.
Research needs to be more rooted in society as a whole.
Collaboration between academic institutions and industry is beneficial to both sides, but those doing the commissioning do not have an equal interest in all types of research.
The balance between basic and applied research is shifting disturbingly to the detriment of the former; disinterested enquiry is losing out to more utilitarian-style work.
It behoves the EU to be mindful of such developments. A strong commitment to basic research and researcher training is the best way of supporting industry's own R & D.
The Left Party sees research and its results as a matter for the whole community.
It is ultimately the general public who commission and fund the research effort.
We therefore support in particular those provisions within the fifth framework programme which stress the need to disseminate research results (Chapter III, Articles 13-20).
The report on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee laments, however, the need for unanimity in Council. We wish to distance ourselves from such a view.
Lastly, we feel that more attention could have been paid in the fifth RTD programme to increasing the presence and enhancing the position of women within the research community and its hierarchies.
Tannert report (A4-0451/98)
We thank the rapporteur for her thorough work on this subject, which is of particular importance for the future of EU research.
Parliament's involvement with the fifth framework programme has been crowned with considerable success.
We are pleased to see that this report further underlines the need for action in the following areas: equal opportunities; a gender-specific approach to research; work on ecological sustainability; research into issues affecting the elderly and the disabled. We also welcome the commitment to an ethical stance on genetic research and note the emphasis on not allowing any resources to go to cloning or genetic manipulation of human hereditary material.
It is certainly time for the EU and national governments, as a matter of urgency, to review all regulations which govern the operating of genetic research.
The following points must be borne in mind in the context of this debate:
The recent decision by the British Government to permit experiments on 'human embryos' is in conflict with the ethos and spirit of the vast majority of Members of the European Parliament.
Those who seek to cross this threshold of ethical unacceptability must be stopped in their tracks through the implementation of Community and national law.-Scientists who abuse welcome advances in genetic research are doing a serious disservice to humanity by discrediting work which has the potential to find treatment for diseases, world hunger and food quality.-'Therapeutic Cloning' is the thin end of the wedge on the road to human cloning which is an affront to the ethical and moral values of society.-Complacency at times by those in authority may well leave mankind exposed to the whims of those who seek to ignore the origin and sacredness of human life and the existence of God as the creator of all mankind.- Estevan Bolea report (A4-0454/98)
We voted against Amendment No 9 because the amounts are too low and there should be at least 30 % for SMEs.
Marset Campos report (A4-0455/98)
In Amendment No 33, the committee considers it 'necessary that a European scientific journal be published along the lines of Science or Nature as a way of adequately disseminating European scientific achievements at world level'.
We do not intend to vote against this report, but nonetheless wish to make clear our belief that science is international. Accordingly, there is no reason to distinguish between 'European' scientific research and the investigative work carried out by everyone else.
Nor is it up to the EU to decide what sort of journals should be published.
McNally report (A4-0458/98)
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the report by Mrs McNally. We did so despite the fact that the Joint Research Centre of the European Atomic Energy Community has previously worked on both fusion and fission energy, which we in Denmark have judged too dangerous and damaging to the environment for us to want to build nuclear power stations on Danish soil.
It is therefore gratifying to see that the priorities of the JRC have now been changed, so that research into fusion energy is to be scaled down and research stepped up into the treatment and storage of radioactive waste.
This shift in attitude is welcome, since it brings with it the hope that in future it will be possible to phase out Europe's nuclear power plants and to concentrate instead on sustainable solutions such as water, wind and solar energy.
Matikainen-Kallström report (A4-0459/98)
We would like to thank the rapporteur for this very interesting investigation into the Union's research effort in the field of thermonuclear fusion and fission.
On the question of fission energy, our position is that we wish to see a phasing-out of nuclear power, although any decisions must be taken at national level.
We cannot therefore support any fission research which would lead to the development of more nuclear energy. We commend the way in which the Commission is now emphasising investment in operating safety and targeting the whole fuel cycle - which includes waste management.
And we support the proposals on decommissioning reactors, phasing out nuclear power and storing radioactive material.
Whilst I approve of investing in research and development to improve nuclear safety and devise new waste management techniques, there is no reason for the EU to put research money into new thermonuclear fusion or fission reactors.
We are told in the report that the aim is 'the possible construction of safe, clean and economically competitive prototype reactors'.
It is very hard to draw the line between nuclear safety research and new reactor research.
In order to avoid a fresh proliferation of nuclear power, however, the distinction must be made before any further projects are commenced.
That concludes voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.50 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
1999 General Budget (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the general budget for 1999.
Madam President, the 1999 general budget for the European Union is the last budget which will be adopted by this Parliament.
It may be permitted, therefore, to put it into a more historical perspective.
The 1999 budget concludes a remarkable process of qualitative and quantitative consolidation.
In the future, the Union will be in better shape to justify its financial requirements.
Qualitatively, this budget procedure has solved three major problems which have been discussed for many years.
Firstly, the 1999 budget is established on the basis of the new interinstitutional agreement on legal bases.
The new budget procedure has shown that the agreement works.
New and experimental activities can still find their starting-point in the Community budget.
The Commission and the organisations concerned will benefit from the clarity for the execution of the budget.
This is a major achievement.
Secondly, significant progress has also been made with regard to Community subsidies.
The recent Commission communication imposes mandatory minimum rules for publicity and collective decision-making on all Community subsidies.
This is something that Parliament has asked for on many occasions.
The new rules come into effect for the execution of the 1999 budget. A vademecum has been distributed.
We have had a successful seminar exchanging information and holding discussions with the actual and potential beneficiaries; further seminars are in preparation.
Thirdly, there are the technical assistance offices.
The intense work of the Committee on Budgets and of experts on both sides has established an unprecedented degree of transparency and control in the 1999 budget.
In this area, lack of clarity can no longer be an excuse. The Committee on Budgets has made that very clear to the Commission.
Work has to continue to strengthen links between decisions on financial and human resources for each Community action.
For that reason the Commission is currently developing the first elements of activity-based budgeting.
Legal bases, subsidies and technical assistance offices are qualitative improvements that may look small to some but they solve problems which have long overshadowed the Community budget.
They will remain after this budget for the future.
What will also remain is a string of rigorous Community budgets.
Since 1996 the Community budget has regularly grown less than public spending in the Member States.
Thus the Union has contributed to the consolidation effort for the successful launch of Economic and Monetary Union.
At the same time, within the rigorous framework, clearer priorities have been set.
On the one hand, financial support for cohesion, as agreed in Edinburgh; on the other hand, employment-creating expenditure, for example trans-European networks research and education.
External expenditure has grown fast, pushed by the Member States and events.
It took some time to establish the regulations and the administrative structures to permit satisfactory execution and, as has been said today in the earlier debate, further efforts are still required.
Qualitatively and quantitatively, the European Parliament has built up a reputation of being, if not always an easy, at least a credible partner in the budget procedure.
Let us reinforce this partnership with the Council.
In this respect it has also been fortunate with regard to the most recent presidencies. I hope for the best for the future.
The hope is that this partnership will also permit the successful conclusion of a new interinstitutional agreement next year.
Important progress has already been made: agreement on a legal basis, the flexibility element, concertation throughout the budget procedure.
It is no exaggeration to say that more progress has been made in the budgetary field than in any other part of Agenda 2000.
This makes me fairly optimistic that new interinstitutional agreements can be reached with this Parliament.
In conclusion, let me congratulate the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola.
As this is the last budget to be adopted under his chairmanship, I should like in particular to thank Detlev Samland.
I think you will agree that his years at the helm of the Committee on Budgets will not be forgotten.
However, we still have a lot of work to do during spring so that the agreement on Agenda 2000 will be ready before the end of this Parliament.
Mr President, this budget has been different in many respects from any other budget I have been involved with.
The Commissioner has just highlighted the three major topics which have come from the discussions between the three institutions.
The thing that will always stick in my mind is that we had a conciliation before the Council's second reading, something which has never happened before.
One of the reasons for this, and part of the process, is that we are trying to get Parliament and the Council to work much more closely together on the budget so that we do not again have the game of ping-pong we have had over the past few years when trying to make sure that the budget we get reflects what the Council wants and what Parliament wants.
During the conciliation process before the second reading, the big decision was to drop the strategic amendment.
Those of us who were part of the delegation did that on the assumption that, come the negotiations for the next interinstitutional agreement, flexibility will be part of it.
The Council made that statement and the President-in-Office stated that clearly this morning.
Getting that agreement also paved the way for the supplementary and amending budget.
That position was taken by those of us who were involved for a number of reasons, not least of which was a threat by the Council unilaterally to break the existing interinstitutional agreement and state that the 1999 budget would have been illegal.
There are those of my colleagues who say that we should have gone along with that line of action, that we should have called the Council's bluff and should have carried on with the strategic amendment.
Had that happened we would have been confronted with all the consequences of 1999 having no budget, provisional twelfths, etc.
Quite frankly, many of us did not want that.
We are trying to be sensible, cooperative and prudent, and that should be kept in mind by those in the Council who think a great victory has been achieved over Parliament.
From our side it was a spirit of responsibility and good sense that helped us to make that decision.
The Socialist Group went along with this in what we hope will be a new spirit of cooperation between those two institutions.
Having said all that, we have a problem which was not mentioned during this conciliation process.
It concerns Category 2, where Parliament set out its position at first reading.
Nothing was said in our discussions but at the end of the day when the Council had its first reading, we find that it has made a cut.
It has agreed with the ECU 500m cut in payments but, at the same time, it has also got rid of the reserve.
We are left with the problem of what to do.
Those who were at the Committee on Budgets' meeting last night will say that problem is now exacerbated, because we were going to go back to first reading and the Committee on Budgets did not agree with that.
The Committee on Budgets has not agreed the reserve but has agreed the ECU 500m extra spending.
Our group will be discussing that this evening and we will be taking a position on it then.
Therefore, I cannot give a conclusive statement as to what our position will be until it has been decided and until we vote on Thursday.
I have to say that the cut in the reserve does not help our position for the maximum rate of increase if things go wrong with the interinstitutional agreement.
Finally, we need to congratulate Mrs Dührkop Dührkop. She has been congratulated throughout the speeches but we must recognise the hard work she and Mr Viola have done.
Mr Viola's report is a formality at this second reading: but in Mrs Dührkop we have a single working mother from the Basque region, with all that implies.
Half way through the process she found herself at the top of an assassin's death list!
We should appreciate the work she has done this year - it has certainly not been easy for her.
Madam President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for all her hard work on this report.
The debates on the second reading of the budget were extremely hectic, but they are actually relatively calm this time.
The discussion on the strategic amendments in particular took a great deal of time, and we agreed with the rapporteur's approach.
We in the PPE Group have always maintained that strategic amendments should not involve any extra costs, and that was how they were formulated.
They were intended, as we saw it, to get negotiations going, and as such they succeeded.
There has never been such a broad agreement between Parliament's first reading and the Council's second as there is now, and this is all thanks to the strategic amendments.
We must thank both the rapporteur and the Austrian Presidency for this.
I must admit that I, as a Dutchman, still feel rather bitter that this perfectly normal negotiating strategy was so badly misinterpreted by the Dutch Minister of Finance, who made Dutch Members out to be some sort of traitors to their country. That was what he said at the time, though he has certainly now been shown to be wrong, as the Dutch Government has also acknowledged.
The social items too have been settled, though there is one problem remaining, which is the expenditure under the Social Fund and other funds.
Mr Wynn referred to this a moment ago.
There are a lot of countries - of which the Netherlands is one - that are having to spend more than 33 % of the commitment appropriations.
According to the most recent figures, the Netherlands is having to spend 45 % of Objective 2 commitments, 37 % of Objective 3, 42 % of the agricultural section of Objective 5a, 67 % of the fisheries section of Objective 5a, and 57 % of Objective 5b.
These are very worrying figures, and a number of other northern European countries are in the same position.
Last year, it was clear that there was not enough money left in the Social Fund at the end of the year, and the same thing is going to happen this year.
This means that projects will be paid late, particularly, I have to say, in the Netherlands.
This situation can only be prevented by making sufficient payment appropriations available.
I am therefore pleased that the Committee on Budgets has approved the amendment to make those payment appropriations available, otherwise a good many projects would find themselves in difficulties, which is the last thing we want to see.
Madam President, the debate this afternoon on the budget is perhaps less emotional than the one on budget discharge, but I think it is no less fundamental.
The substantive amendments are not really the issue today.
Gradually over the last five years the Council has become accustomed to the idea that a dialogue with civil society - where the Council's presence has always been negligible - should be promoted.
Parliament, far from being a spending Parliament, has proved to be responsible.
The issue therefore is not so much finance as institutional issues.
Some people, including our own rapporteur, said that a new culture is developing.
You, Commissioner, said that there is progress in the budgetary field more than anywhere else.
I tend to question that.
Surely all groups, including the Liberal Group, will adopt the departure from the strategic amendment.
But if one looks at what has really been achieved, one can put some questions.
There is a very thin compromise.
At the end of the day the Council has agreed to vote in future by a qualified majority - something that already existed.
So my main point is that on the question of the interinstitutional agreement - the new interinstitutional agreement in particular - the next Parliament must be much more careful to see what will happen.
From the perspective of the strategic amendment there was always a compatibility with the interinstitutional agreement. Article 17 made it very clear.
We have stayed within the financial perspectives.
But then the question of whether we agreed under the Treaty was a different matter.
I have always understood that during the time of an interinstitutional agreement it would not be possible for either the Council or Parliament to denounce it.
This particular threat to which Mr Wynn referred quite clearly indicates that was the main argument for the Conciliation Committee to change.
We should not go back over old history.
The story for the future is that for the time being the European Parliament margin for future expenditure remains pretty much close to zero.
Therefore I think we have reached an armistice, rather than that the battle is won.
The battle for the new structure will come up again in the next three or four months when Agenda 2000 is to be agreed.
No definitional flexibility is being agreed.
In short, the question of the future budgetary rights of this Parliament still remains in abeyance although the culture has certainly changed.
Madam President, the fact that the Council has accepted a good many of the proposals made by the Parliament at first reading and the proposal to include certain others by our committee means that I do not need to make any further comments on this matter.
I shall, therefore, concentrate on certain questions that I think are of particular importance in this final phase of the procedure.
I shall begin with something that was spoken about a lot at first reading: the fact that this budget, being the last in the lifetime of this Parliament, may be seen as a bridge leading to the following budget.
I cannot forget that this statement was made in relation to the so-called 'strategic reserve' and the possible failure to conclude an interinstitutional agreement.
In any case, now that this process is almost over I must draw attention to the extremely low level at which the budget has been set and how far it is from the financial perspective set out in Edinburgh, and, fundamentally, to the negative impact which this has in terms of sacrificing the Community policies that we all see as fundamental, particularly if it is taken as a reference for the definition of future financial perspectives.
With or without an institutional agreement.
In other words, in our view this is the most negative aspect of the whole process.
Let us now look at the question of strategic reserves: now that we have reached the end of the process I must say that we have many doubts and a great deal of concern today about the strategy that has been adopted and, above all, the results obtained by it.
For the sake of a point of departure that was meant to be higher in the future and in order to prevent any need to resort to Article 203 of the Treaty, we have ended up by adopting a rigorous budget.
That was achieved by the Council once it had rejected the reserve.
Apart from this, there has just been a vague agreement with the Council on the basis of an imprecise declaration of principle about flexibility, the significance and extent of which also seem to us to be extremely unclear.
The only conclusion is that there is to be very little flexibility indeed, and only the future will tell just how little.
I would like to make one final comment to say that there seems to be reasonably good sense in the proposal approved by the Commission to reinstate as payment appropriations the ECU 500 million from the Structural Funds that had been cancelled at the first reading by the Council.
It is a fact that these are payment appropriations and the question might therefore seem quite technical.
But it is not technical for the public.
It is no less true that, even in the technical field, given that the strategic reserve was also rejected here the failure to include this amount inevitably resulted in a huge and incomprehensible discrepancy between authorisations and payment appropriations.
We hope therefore that common sense will prevail here in the plenary and that this proposal will be confirmed.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I regret the fact that such an important debate as the budget is being held in circumstances where I am almost obliged to speak because so many other people are absent.
In my opinion, this is partly a result of having tried to place too much political emphasis on another debate held this morning.
With the 1999 budget we had a lot of challenges and demands to present to the Council.
Unfortunately, we were unable to do so because we had to accept a certain political realism and abandon the amendment which we had nevertheless voted for at first reading in an attempt to strengthen our influence in the negotiation process and thus achieve a credible interinstitutional agreement, in other words an interinstitutional agreement that also involves the Council.
We have achieved this.
Personally, I regret that, obsessed by a dispute that is admittedly relatively important for the proper functioning of the institution but is in my opinion quite fruitless from the political point of view, we have to some extent neglected the real institutional debate with the Council.
The result is that we are in the process of adopting a budget at second reading that, all in all, gives greater consideration to the Council's current concerns than to those of Parliament, and I mean that quite sincerely.
We have sacrificed our concerns on the altar of a different debate.
We shall see whether this tactic, chosen by those of our colleagues who - I repeat - wished to place a different debate at the centre of Parliament's concerns, was the right one.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, those few ladies and gentlemen who are still with us, for the first time in four years, in the Committee on Budgets, I was in agreement with Mr Samland, the chairman, in rejecting the draft submitted to us.
To be honest, I am not sure it was for the same reasons: the chairman of the Committee on Budgets rejected the draft because he was not satisfied with the conditions under which the strategic amendment was withdrawn, and I rejected it even though the strategic amendment was withdrawn.
At first reading I criticised the fact that in artificially raising the budget to 1.17 % of GNP we were holding our countries' taxpayers to ransom, and I mentioned the Committee on Budgets' gamble.
Well, the gamble failed.
The Legal Service rightly declared that the strategic amendment did not comply with budgetary rules or with the principle of entering funds for a specific and genuine purpose.
So the Council is bringing us back to reality, and it is doing so, I must admit, without making any major concessions.
It has not agreed, for example, that Parliament should discuss compulsory expenditure with the Council.
It has simply accepted the possibility of a certain flexibility and also the idea of possibly using majority voting, which in fact means that it would be applying the Treaty.
For our group to vote for it, the budget proposed by the Council at second reading will have to be adopted in accordance with the terms and the amounts already set out.
Otherwise we will vote against the draft proposed at second reading.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are facing this final vote on the 1999 budget with trepidation.
At first reading, in October, the European Parliament did some positive work by reinstating the necessary appropriations for some of the main programmes for regional and social development, fighting unemployment, preserving the environment and humanitarian aid.
Thanks to the action of the rapporteur, Mrs Barbara Dührkop Dührkop, we then voted for a strategic reserve which raised the overall value of the 1999 budget to a value closer to that originally planned, to provide a possible starting point for the budget for the year 2000, with amounts which are more realistic given the challenges of the euro, enlargement and the problems of inequality between the rich and poor regions of Europe.
Unfortunately the Council did not accept the strategic reserve, which meant that our framework for the future was uncertain.
Regarding Category 2 of the Structural Fund, the Council seems to ignore the fact that there are very large delays in payments, and funds are not being paid to projects already completed, which we feel is completely unacceptable and a discredit to the European Union.
In January of this year we had to use up PTE 230 billion (ECU 1.17 billion) of the 1998 budget in order to pay what should have been paid in 1997.
Since the blanket was short we covered our heads and left our feet outside.
Throughout the year the Commission has been doing all it can to clear these back-payments, but it has not solved the problem.
How can some people now want to cut or place in reserve appropriations that are already lacking?
As for the rest, I would briefly like to express our concern at the mismanagement of the programme of assistance to Russia - namely TACIS - and our doubts as to the objectives and results of the food aid that has now been proposed.
Finally, I should like to declare the support of our delegation for the creation of stricter machinery for fighting fraud and the misuse of public money.
Madam President, first I would like to thank the rapporteurs Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Viola for their excellent work.
Similarly I wish to express my sincere thanks to the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, whose leadership of the committee has been almost legendary.
I also wish to thank Budget Commissioner Erkki Liikanen for the cooperation he has demonstrated in his dealings with Parliament.
The budget for next year is being created on the whole with consensus, and with little dissension, among Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
It is a tight one. It represents only 1.1 % of gross national product, whereas the ceiling is 1.27 %.
Personally, I am pleased that the planned EUR 130 million of appropriations for the TACIS programme have not been placed in reserve, as it would have paralysed this important programme and jeopardised, among other things, measures to improve nuclear safety.
This EU budget is the last in the lifetime of this parliament.
For the next budget both opinions on funding and an interinstitutional agreement will have to be discussed and negotiated.
Closely connected with this will be resolving the EU's finances, which includes the issue of net contributions.
The Agenda 2000 resolutions will be vital for the budgets over the coming years.
We could say that Agenda 2000 is Europe's most all-embracing international economic agreement ever made in peacetime.
For that reason, we must focus on its entry into force.
The worst thing we in Parliament could do now would be to render the Commission powerless, for example by refusing discharge for the 1996 accounts.
This would mean that our house would virtually be without a master just at a time when the crucial Agenda 2000 talks are going on, and Parliament would not have a negotiating team.
For this reason I hope that we can debate this issue just as we did the previous one, in a spirit of cooperation, for the sake of the EU and, above all, its Member States and citizens.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, let me remind you that the Council's commitment two years ago, when we were debating the 1997 budget, was that the 1997 budget would be the last austerity budget.
And I remember the charismatic chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Samland, wagging his finger during his speech and saying to them 'be sure not to let us down'.
Unfortunately, Mr Samland, it seems that they have let us down.
Just as they did last year, the same has happened this year and so we are now debating a budget shaped by the demands of the stability pact, a budget tied to the commitment to prop up a phoney Economic and Monetary Union, subject to the dictates of bankers, banks and economic lobbies, and one which has absolutely nothing to do with what we all once dreamed of, namely a Europe of solidarity and employment, the social Europe.
I know what is going to happen now.
Everyone who spoke, even the rapporteur Mrs Dührkop, whom I do not see here to congratulate - it seems that she too became bored and has left the House - was disappointed with the budget. At the end of his speech Mr Samland said the same thing, and all of you who have spoken said the same, but you will then vote for the budget, you will vote for it as you did last year and the year before.
I, however, wish to be consistent with my beliefs and vote accordingly. Therefore I will not vote in favour of this budget.
And those who elected you should ask you how you can maintain and say one thing and in the end vote for something else, and how you can issue ideological manifestos with a view to the coming elections containing false promises that you know you cannot fulfil so long as the budget remains at 1.10.
Madam President, we in Parliament are good at eloquent speeches, but the words we utter have no influence on how things turn out.
In Parliament's Committee on Budgets we roundly condemned the decisions taken by the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions to pay officials their salaries during the strike in May, but as the view of Parliament is not reflected in the budget, it counts for nothing.
Paying salaries during a strike is a small matter.
However, the so-called strategic reserve is a big issue, and showed Parliament's desire to increase its powers.
But it lost the wrestling match with the Council.
In the end Parliament always humbly does what the EU political elite wants. Parliament never opposes anyone.
Parliament spent a whole morning criticising the Commission for the ineffectual way it monitors finances.
Today, when in many speeches there have been suggestions of not granting the Commission discharge, Parliament is clearly in favour by a large majority of delivering ECU 400 million worth of agricultural produce into the hands of the Russian mafia.
The European Parliament will not impose any conditions on the granting of aid that have to do with the proper monitoring of the sale of food aid.
Thus Parliament itself will be powerless when it comes to looking for those guilty of fraudulent activity regarding EU surplus agricultural produce on the market.
When food aid is being sold on the Russian market, without any proper market mechanisms, we are squandering taxpayers' money.
Selling off ECU 400 million worth of EU food is equivalent to just giving the Russians ECU 150 million directly in cash.
With the European Parliament approach it is easier to squander money all in one go than to squander it in a few small amounts.
The Committee for Budgets only monitors these small amounts.
Madam President, at first reading I opposed the ECU 3.75 billion strategic reserve, which I described as a completely wrong signal that will lead to the maximisation of expenditure in 1999 and thereafter, whereas the financial perspectives are precisely designed to control expenditure.
The Committee on Budgets is now proposing not to have this enormous reserve, which is sensible because Parliament would risk being condemned by the Court if it persisted in this dangerous course.
The extra buffer would mean that the maximum rate of increase under the Treaty would be considerably exceeded.
The Council's promise to include 'elements of flexibility' in the new interinstitutional agreement gives Parliament an excuse to change its mind.
But has Parliament actually achieved anything? The Council has given no promises about the nature and scale of the flexibility.
Will there be possibilities for transferring between the budget categories? Will there really be more flexibility than we already have with the current financial perspectives?
None of this is clear, yet Parliament is content with this vague promise.
I doubt very much whether we really needed to put our credibility on the line just for this, and we must not repeat these sorts of antics in the future.
I also think that the Council was right not to make any specific promises.
The division of the financial framework into maximum expenditure figures for the various categories has helped the budget to achieve controlled and balanced development.
Budget discipline requires these maximum figures to be strictly adhered to.
Some flexibility is needed in fleshing out each year's budgetary priorities, but this can be done without transferring funds between the various headings, which so many people have been calling for.
The headings are broad enough to accommodate varying requirements.
One final point on the Structural Funds.
It was stated in Edinburgh that these should be spending targets, and now we are paying for that statement.
At the end of the programming period, we can expect to see a considerable pool of unallocated appropriations, and we need to find a solution to this problem.
If we carry appropriations over until 2000 as the rapporteur suggests, they will have to be deducted from the financial package for 2000-2006.
Madam President, as has already been stated, there is no doubt that this budget is a historic one. However, in my view, it is not historic because Mrs Dührkop is the first female Iberian Member to be appointed general rapporteur - although I congratulate her on her work - nor is it historic because it is the last budget of the current 1993-1999 financial perspective and because it is certainly going to influence the next financial perspective, if there is one, which is not yet certain.
Nor is it historic, in my view, merely because it is the first budget in euros.
We knew all this when the budgetary procedure began.
In my opinion, it is historic because, in the course of this budgetary procedure, the Council has promised in writing, and this morning it repeated that promise verbally, that it would respect what it has signed.
We have managed to get the Council to make a momentous declaration here.
Some people may be surprised to know that it is the first time in 40 years that the Council has made a unilateral declaration stating that it will respect its commitments.
This might seem evident and redundant to some people, but it has not been the case in the history of the Community.
This Council declaration relates to the question of flexibility in the future financial perspective, which we would like to sign and to have, but not - and I would stress this point - at any price.
Ladies and gentlemen, the basis for my current negotiating mandate is the resolution of 4 December 1997 in which Parliament gave its support to a new financial perspective that would be adequate to meet the challenges that the European Union will face in the coming years.
Parliament accepts as a practical necessity the own resources ceiling of 1.27 % and calls for mechanisms to provide flexibility: on the one hand, review clauses for the financial perspective; and on the other hand, mechanisms that speed up the process of transferring funds between categories and mobilising new resources when necessary.
In a working document several months ago, I pointed out that the problem stemmed from paragraph 12 of the current Interinstitutional Agreement, which provides for the financial perspective to be reviewed in accordance with the majorities provided for in Article 203(9) of the Treaty. However, the Council had voted unanimously for an internal decision that prevented any degree of flexibility.
To put an end to this inflexibility, we tabled the so-called strategic amendments.
In my opinion, these can now be withdrawn following last week's agreement.
I must point out that Amendment No 708 on the Structural Funds from the first reading followed a certain logic that the Council has now broken.
It has removed the commitment appropriations from the reserve and added them to the heading, while maintaining the reduction in payment appropriations.
Frankly, in this situation I would prefer to go back to the preliminary draft budget.
What do the Member States hope to save through this? At best, they will gain the interest on EUR 500 million at 3 %.
At the most, Germany would save between EUR 2 million and EUR 3 million over the year.
That is the maximum that can be saved.
Is this a symbolic gesture? Clearly, what counts are the commitment appropriations, but we are going to have to explain that we have only cut the payment appropriations, which do not really have much of an effect.
The analysis has already been made in the press and simply indicates that there has been a reduction in the Structural Funds.
And as far as symbols go, Madam President, I prefer that of solidarity.
Madam President, it is a great advantage to be the last to speak because that allows me to address the general rapporteur who has returned and whom I wished to congratulate.
Firstly, you understand, because I believe that the general rapporteur ex officio deserves support, consideration and respect from the House. That is a matter of principle.
But also, I must admit, because Mrs Dührkop Dührkop has shown us in a very striking way something that is fundamental: that in a budgetary procedure interinstitutional war was not inevitable, that the dealings between the Council, Parliament and the Commission were sometimes farcical, but not necessarily doomed.
And we should be delighted about this.
You have shown that it was possible to come to a sound agreement with the other arm of the budgetary authority.
The agreement holds in two ways: by means of rigour and flexibility.
Rigour, because that has been the law of Europe's public authorities for years, and will continue to be for years to come, and flexibility, because it is a pre-condition for the intelligent use of rigour.
Intelligent rigour is impossible without optimum allocation of resources.
Optimum allocation of resources is impossible unless the budgetary authority is freely able to allocate what are scarce resources across all potential expenditure.
There is an important difference between the Council and Parliament here.
We have shown rigour.
Over the past years we have proved that we were capable of bearing our share of the burden because we knew that behind each beneficiary of Community appropriations there was also a taxpayer, and that behind both of these there was a voter.
But we have shown this.
At the end of the parliamentary term we have achieved a level of expenditure that is very much lower than the 'own resources' ceiling decided at Edinburgh.
On the other hand, in terms of flexibility, it is up to the Council to prove its goodwill, to prove its willingness to change.
Yes, there is a link between rigour and flexibility.
We have done our part of the work. Ladies and gentlemen of the Council, it is up to you to do yours.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 9.30 a.m.
1998 assessment and 1999 annual programme
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the assessment of 1998 and the annual programme for 1999.
I should like to welcome Mr Santer, who now has the floor.
Mr President, Madam President, at the height of the Lewinsky affair, a commentator on American television said that it was 'a grim time for the President'.
I would paraphrase that today by saying that it is 'a grim time for the Commission'.
I am not just talking here about the debate on the discharge, because every day the press and media provide us with further information and make revelations, confirmed or unconfirmed, about the increasing problems affecting the running of the Commission.
Such revelations obviously affect the credibility and therefore the effectiveness of the Commission.
The Socialist Group is strongly urging you to act in a rapid and determined manner on the intentions you have expressed regarding the reform of the Commission, its working methods, its organisation, the flexibility of its procedures and, above all, its systems of transparency and control.
Although it is true that our two institutions are coming to the end of their respective mandates, it is also true that they still have their work cut out for them. To be able to accomplish the tasks before us, we all need a strong and determined Commission, as that institution is still the motor behind the construction of Europe that it has served so well since 1957.
If we turn now to the assessment of 1998, we could use the old image of a bottle being half full or half empty.
We must be fair and admit that the legislative assessment of 1998 is relatively positive, though with two obvious regrets.
The first is that when the Commission drew up the legislative assessment, it did not put a great deal of emphasis - very little, in fact - on the role Parliament played in this legislative work through its additions and contributions.
I believe that the assessment would have appeared more objective if you had mentioned Parliament's increasingly decisive legislative action, particularly since the Maastricht Treaty.
The second regret is that compared with the anticipated work programme, a certain number of legislative proposals - and this is normal - did not see the light of day. They remained out of sight.
The reason for this should have been explained to the European Parliament; you should have justified why no work was done on these specific proposals. Moreover, why are the proposals that did not see the light of day in 1998 not then included in the 1999 programme?
There is certainly inconsistency here which concerns us somewhat, and we would like to hear what you have to say about this.
Last year, Mr President, when presenting your 1998 programme, you announced that the Commission intended to carry out a periodic assessment of the rate at which the legislative work was progressing.
We have been disappointed in this respect.
Very little has been done. In any case, the Commission has done much less than it promised.
Finally, to round off my comments on 1998, I would like to stress the fact that as guardian of the Treaties, it is your duty to keep an eye on this trend for the Council - which is mainly to blame - to hold on to a number of legislative proposals to which the Commission and Parliament are committed in its in-tray, as it were.
There is a problem there that you must be aware of.
In addition to this the Council is increasingly tending to claim the right to annotate legislative acts, as it were, including those that involve codecision. It does so through a number of unilateral declarations, as if it were up to the Council, and the Council alone, to create some kind of third court in the European legal order.
I therefore call on you, Mr President, as the representative of the Commission, to ensure that this practice stops.
I would now like to move on to your 1999 programme.
You have stated, Mr President, and we agree with you, that the main priority is to ensure that Agenda 2000 is a success.
Without the essential mechanism of Agenda 2000, there could be no prospect of enlarging the European Union in the foreseeable future.
Naturally, the discussion on the financial perspective and the future interinstitutional agreement that began during today's debate on the budget is very closely linked to Agenda 2000.
It is therefore essential for the Commission and Parliament to work together in a determined fashion so that we complete this work, work that is difficult but that we must pass on to those who are going to succeed us.
The second priority is the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is true that a certain number of Member States have yet to ratify the Treaty of Amsterdam. It is true that some of them are caught up in the slow pace or difficulties of their institutional procedures.
However, nothing should prevent the Commission, and nothing is preventing it, from pressing ahead with the preparations for the Treaty to come into force and for the instruments that will allow it to be applied as quickly as possible, as soon as the last country ratifies it.
Clearly, I am thinking here of the new legal bases that will have to be provided for certain legislative proposals that are pending, the problem of publishing or advertising the documents and acts, and the difficulty that my colleague, Mr Medina, will speak about shortly relating to the ultra-peripheral regions.
That is a point that we should also like to stress.
My final point concerns what, for us, is the most important priority of all, that is, the fight Europe must wage against unemployment and social exclusion through a dynamic employment policy.
The tide of social democracy that has swept across the governments of Europe in recent years is bringing a stronger wind with it that is blowing in the right direction.
It is important now for the Commission to unfurl as many sails as possible to ensure that the winds carry the European Community as far as they can towards this, to our minds, essential objective: social Europe, the fight for employment and the fight against exclusion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the President of the Commission for the very diplomatic way in which he attempted today to examine the concerns that both our institutions have about the way we deal with each other.
The work programme that we are discussing today is supposed to be the product of our institutional consultations.
An agreement was once reached between our two institutions that the European Commission should consult the European Parliament before fixing its political priorities.
I have noticed over the last few years that this arrangement does not work entirely satisfactorily.
We tried last year to improve matters, as Mr Desama has already said.
We suggested that the Commission should produce quarterly or six-monthly reports in order to try to anticipate at an earlier stage any changes that should or might be made with Parliament's knowledge. But I do not think that this was the problem.
I think the problem was that the Commission did not do what it had promised.
I spoke to the Commission President about this, and I think that some of the blame also lies with us, Mr Desama, because we should have kept a closer eye on whether or not the Commission was keeping its promises.
There is blame on both sides. We failed to remind the Commission about what had been agreed.
Mr Santer, you made a very severe speech today and implied that something is wrong between our two institutions.
We have always been natural allies in defending Europe, but now, just when the euro is about to be introduced, which is a major political event, relations between us have deteriorated and we no longer trust each other as we did.
That is what I think. And if there is something wrong between us as we approach this major political event, then we must ask each other why this has happened and how we can rebuild our trust.
The European Parliament is finding itself the target of criticism, and we have tried to resolve a number of issues by introducing the Statute.
I have noticed that when ministers go back to their Member States, they claim all the credit for Europe's successes themselves and blame the Commission and the European Parliament for everything that goes wrong.
This means that neither institution can do anything right.
When we vote on the discharge for 1996 the day after tomorrow, I personally hope and expect that discharge will be given, but I do not know what the newspapers will say the following day about everything else that is now going wrong.
So we must both try to find solutions together.
You have made a number of proposals that I agree with.
You said that you want to modernise the Commission.
If we have new responsibilities, we must have the staff to carry them out.
We must ensure that officials - not just at the Commission, but also at the Council and the European Parliament - undergo proper recruitment procedures, and that we have proper rules to be able to dismiss them where necessary.
You did not say anything about this in your speech.
The codes of conduct for both institutions are extremely important, but I have to ask, with the proposals you have made, how we can really monitor whether we are each complying with them, so that we can hold faith over the coming years and not have to go into the elections feeling that promises were made but not kept.
So I think we have a lot to do here.
I should just like to make three more brief points.
I am concerned about a number of political elements such as Agenda 2000 and the short time available.
I wonder whether our two institutions should not have clearer agreements here.
Secondly, I am concerned about growth, employment and all our efforts in the social field.
You talked about modernisation, but I have the impression that particularly those workers who cross frontiers every day are not seeing the advantages that we hoped they would.
I am concerned about food safety and everything to do with it.
One of the conclusions reached after the BSE crisis was that we in Europe definitely need something like a Food and Drug Administration.
We have hardly got anywhere with this, and that worries me.
It is not all your fault, the Council is also to blame.
What progress are we making there?
Finally, I hope - and in many parliaments there is a group of elder statesmen or party chairmen or whatever they may be called - that after the vote on Thursday, we can find a better way of managing crises and that you will reach agreement with Parliament's President and the Conference of Presidents on how we can ensure that we have a good run-up to the elections, and that you yourself can enter your last six months with your head held high, because that is what I and my group would very much like to see.
Madam President, it might seem a little frustrating to be discussing the likes of programmes in the afterglow of the Vienna summit, but the Commission and Council's work does involve producing such things.
I certainly agree that implementation of Agenda 2000 deserves top priority - along with all the other programmes with '2000' appended.
The President of the Commission himself mentioned MAP 2000 and SEM 2000.
No evaluation of the last six months will be complete until we see that the goals set are being achieved.
The Commission President mentioned two codes of conduct, but said nothing about his institution's existing commitment to good administrative practice. We have in the past seen the fruits of this - and surely sound internal governance is now more relevant than ever.
Rules on transparency and conflict of interest are vital if a dividing line is to be drawn between political and administrative activities.
The credibility of each and every one of us is at stake here. I very much hope that Commissioner Oreja and his team will soon be tabling proposals on transparency and access to information, because an open style of management is essential if the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam are to be honoured.
And I would repeat today what I have already stated twice before in this House: it is transparency that will lead to greater effectiveness and efficiency.
Let me now switch to another subject under debate, namely the viability of the euro.
I sadly cannot endorse the compromise reached on how the euro zone should be represented on the international stage.
Mr President, there has been talk of new employment goals for Europe.
However, I fear that we could easily fall back into old moulds when it comes to ways of achieving them.
It was good though to hear from the Commission President that a new programme of health-promoting measures is on the way.
And the decision this week by the agriculture ministers to ban the use of certain antibiotics was excellent news.
I hope that steps will be undertaken as part of this programme to combat resistant forms of the tuberculosis and salmonella viruses. These are currently causing severe problems both in the EU and beyond.
May I conclude by saying how pleased I was that Mr Santer mentioned the extraordinary European Council to be held in Tampere on internal policy and security.
Let us hope that the Commission and its President will make the most of the right of initiative they do actually enjoy under the third pillar. And I would appeal for a pro-active approach to the Northern Dimension.
Madam President, those of us who have the responsibility of representing the agricultural sector of our individual countries must be concerned, if not alarmed, at the extent of the economic crisis experienced particularly by livestock farmers.
We are failing seriously in our duties if we cannot respond to what is an emergency situation resulting from an unprecedented set of circumstances which could not have been anticipated in the context of the 1992 CAP reform.
While acknowledging Commissioner Fischler's concern and efforts in modifying regulations to ease the burden for farmers, the reality is that beef, sheep and pigs are being sold at a loss or at best at marginal profits.
The situation in Ireland is extremely serious and unless there is some recovery in prices, many farmers will not survive.
It is not in anybody's interest, particularly in Ireland, with our greater dependence on agricultural exports, that the basic infrastructure of the food sector - the family farm - is in such dire straits.
With regard to the sheepmeat sector, the Commission should, as an emergency measure, suspend the stabiliser at least on a temporary basis to enable the system to reflect the reality of the market-place for Irish sheep farmers who are leaving sheep farming at an alarming rate.
Such instability is certainly not in the long term interests of the European farm model which we purport to represent in the context of Agenda 2000.
If the Irish family farm is to survive within a framework of the European model, as envisaged in Agenda 2000, greater efficiencies must be achieved through cooperation and well-planned partnerships.
The agricultural proposals, as represented in Agenda 2000, are not satisfactory, particularly from an Irish perspective.
It is impossible to envisage further price cuts without a corresponding increase in direct income support from the EU and the agricultural budget.
Madam President, I, too, would like to speak solely on the issue of agriculture, the Union's most important financial policy and the decisive issue in Agenda 2000.
Mr President of the Commission, when will you admit that the reform of the CAP that you are proposing is leading to deadlock? First, because it reinforces a production-based approach that does not respond to the needs of farmers, those who live in the country and European society in terms of jobs, the quality and diversity of agricultural products, the balanced use of the land, and international cooperation.
Moreover, it preempts the result of the negotiations on the WTO and on enlargement by already penalising the Union's interests, particularly by accepting additional concessions in the face of American demands.
Finally, what future does this reform have, when it is based on financial forecasts and international markets that have been turned upside down by the financial crisis and the constraints of budgetary stability linked to the euro?
This all explains why this reform has been rejected on a massive scale, not only by the vast majority of national and European agricultural organisations, but also by the majority of this House.
On two occasions, the European Parliament has stated that it would prefer a different form of CAP, one that is based on employment, the adjustment of income support and the balanced use of land, and that respects Community preference.
The Committee on Agriculture has just rejected the proposals to reform the common organisation of the markets in beef and veal, milk and cereals, but until now, the Commission has refused to listen to the signals we have sent in its direction.
Not only has it failed to make any significant change to its initial drafts, but it is still persisting in negotiating free trade agreements with third countries, under conditions that are bringing about a further weakening of the Community preference and the European model.
When will the Commission decide to pull the reform out of the rut it is in and take account of the House's proposals to make the CAP fairer and more just, to the benefit of farmers and all of society?
In conclusion, how can the Commission justify its proposal to lift the embargo on British meat, while most scientists still have strong reservations and while not all the health guarantees have been met?
I should like to hear what the Commission has to say about these comments and questions.
Madam President, our debate on 1998 is taking place in a unique context for two reasons.
It is unique, firstly, since, as our colleague Mr Desama has already pointed out, there is a serious crisis in our confidence in the Commission, entangled as it is in a muddle of accusations and allegations of poor management, which is obviously preventing the Commission from working effectively.
The second point concerns the political context.
In fact, 1999 is an important electoral year, when the public expects clear messages from the various political actors involved and from the Commission, so that they are able to make up their minds.
Finally, it is also a year when preparations will be made for the new World Trade Organisation negotiations, the review of the Lomé Convention and the adoption of Agenda 2000.
So there are many issues and a difficult background. And, in my view, there are three questions that need to be answered here that many people ask.
Firstly, where is Europe going?
Secondly, what are the responses of the Commission and the various institutions to the current challenges we face?
And thirdly, given the political crisis, do original and credible responses exist?
On the first question of where Europe is going, I believe that there are two possibilities. On the one hand, Europe can content itself with being a form of free trade area without much of a political dimension.
This is unfortunately a possibility that risks becoming a reality if, as I fear, the reform of the institutions does not measure up to what has been planned. On the other hand, we can have democratic, political integration with a common project for all Europeans, including those who are to join us in the years ahead.
Today, unfortunately, all the talk seems to be about enlargement and the Commission makes nothing but technical statements on the planned institutional reforms.
It talks about changing the composition of the Commission, extending the use of qualified majority voting, and giving new weighting to the votes within the Council, but it says very little about what we are all waiting for, that is, a far-reaching reform of the running of the European Union.
A new treaty which is much more ambitious than the Treaty of Amsterdam is essential and, as far as I am concerned, the Commission is the institution that is in the best position to propose one today, a few months before the election.
It is to be noted that there is no response to this either in your speech or in your documents.
The second question relates to the main challenges facing us. You mentioned them yourself: globalisation, sustainable development, technological changes and international instability.
I am surprised to see that these challenges are presented as if they were independent of one another, and as if the European Union were faced with a sort of inevitability that had come from somewhere else, to which we must adapt as best we can by sustaining as little damage as possible at an ecological and social level.
This idea is, to my mind, mistaken and dangerous, and I think that it is a fundamental, and probably the principal, challenge.
Is globalisation, as it appears today, compatible with a democratic European Union that is the bearer of an original development plan, in other words, a model for development that is sustainable on both ecological and social levels?
In the present context, this is not possible because many mechanisms regulating investment, global trade and technological choices still need to be introduced, and it is on this point that the Commission should provide at least an initial response. I see no such response in your text, nor did I hear it in your speech.
Finally, the third point relates to transparency and confidence.
You say yourself that we cannot achieve any results without the participation and confidence of the general public in the democratic model.
Several of my colleagues have condemned the problems concerning the relations between Parliament and the Commission. And it is true that even the commitments made by your predecessor, Mr Delors, and by yourself, regarding relations between Parliament and the Commission have not always been honoured, and I would even go so far as to say that this has often been the case.
Given this situation, Mr President, you will surely admit that it is difficult to ask us to have confidence.
I therefore call on you to respond and to make a special effort as, to paraphrase one of our well-known predecessors, the Belgian Paul Henri Spaak, it is not too late, but it is high time to do something. I would like to repeat to you what he said: it is not too late, but it is certainly high time to do something!
Mr President, in the past, Mr President of the Commission, you have promised fewer rules but better prepared ones in return, and I am very pleased with that.
I simply do not have the chance to see if you meant to keep your promises.
Amendments to existing directives, plans for green papers, action programmes and important communications are not in fact included in the Commission's statement.
The long version - the one which corresponds to a prime minister's inaugural address - is drawn up by the Commission's directorate-general, but it is not official.
When a government is presenting its list of legislation, one might perhaps accept this state of affairs: after all, the voters can decide to replace the government at the next elections, if they are dissatisfied with what it delivers.
We have no opportunity to do that, since it is the officials at the Commission who have the right of initiative in the EU.
We therefore believe that the right of initiative should lie instead with the national parliaments, but at the very least the long and uncut version should also be presented in writing to those who are elected by the people.
In the light of the discussions on redundancy pay which are currently taking place in Denmark, for example, I would like to know more about the substance of the Commission's item regarding a proposal for a directive on the fiscal treatment of the supplementary pension rights of employees and self-employed persons moving within the EU.
Mr President, as has previously been pointed out, the Commission's programme for 1999 has the particular characteristic of applying not only to the development of the Treaties currently in force, but also to the development of the 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam.
There has already been a considerable delay, which is normal in the process of ratifying Community Treaties, but it is expected that the Treaty of Amsterdam will enter into force at the beginning of next year.
As a result, the Commission will obviously have to devote a substantial part of its work to the preparation and development of this Treaty.
In one particular area some progress has already been made, as at the Luxembourg Summit of November 1997 on unemployment, the Commission managed to obtain a commitment from the Member States to provisionally apply the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam relating to employment, which means that certain aspects of the Treaty are already in force.
However, there are other aspects for which there is no such provision. In his speech Mr Desama already mentioned one example, namely the special system for the ultra-peripheral regions.
Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam provides for the immediate application of all Community legislation in these regions.
I am referring here to the Canary Islands, Madeira, the Azores and the French overseas departments.
If the Commission does not draw up special application rules, then those regions could be deprived of their current special status. They might all be subject to ordinary Community legislation from the very first day of the Treaty's application, which would have negative effects on the development of these ultra-peripheral regions of the European Union.
I therefore believe that it is important for the Commission to include in its 1999 work programme - as the Socialist Group's motion for a resolution does - specific provisions on the application of Article 299(2) to the ultra-peripheral regions of the Community.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, allow me to address a number of issues.
I believe that it is important to record that the Commission - in contrast to the golden age of legislation on the internal market - is only tabling 31 new legislative proposals, and some of those consist of amending existing directives.
This shows a pleasing tendency, in line with the principle of subsidiarity, and I think that we should also make the public and our governments fully aware of this.
Secondly, I should like to ask the Commission - as we have also stated in our motion - to tell us more clearly why 181 dossiers are pending in the Council awaiting a final decision, and why the Council has still not adopted a common position in 85 cases.
I believe that we would perhaps be able to kick-start this process if the Commission were to inform Parliament in more detail of the reasons for the blockage in the Council.
That illuminates my next point, a call for more transparency.
One of the objectives which the Commission has included in its work programme is implementing the provision on transparency in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I believe that this issue is vital to the future acceptance of the European Union, and I should like to ask the Commission, when defining transparency and specifying and applying rules, to involve Parliament at a very early stage - if possible before its directives are published - so that we can use this as a basis for reaching a consensus on our ideas, because essentially this is also about how we can force the Council to be more transparent, to the point of establishing a legislative Council.
I believe that we should work together closely here.
That brings me to a further point, applying the provisions of Amsterdam.
The debate with Parliament hitherto has, I feel, suffered from a marked lack of proposals from the Commission on implementing the common foreign and security policy in connection with Amsterdam, and a lack of information about, for example, the composition of the Planning Unit.
Information or a dialogue might perhaps raise public awareness, so that this is not settled by the governments of the Member States amongst themselves.
In the same way, we should also like to discuss working together on the procedure for the forthcoming selection of the Commission, and in other similar areas.
We should also like to ask the Commission, as far as possible, to apply the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty even now, before it is ratified, and also to take initiatives, so that the fields of justice and home affairs can - following the five-year transition phase - move over to codecision.
Preparations should be made even now, so that this changeover can still take place before the enlargement treaties are concluded.
Finally, I believe that it is extremely important for the Commission to table proposals for the new stage of institutional reform, as Parliament has proposed.
I completely understand that the date of December 1998 cannot be adhered to because of the delay in ratifying the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But I do think it is necessary for proposals to be made by March of next year, so that they can form part of the debate during the European election campaign, which in turn will bring the topic to the forefront of the discussion.
Mr President, the legislative programme for this year should respond to the public's demands for employment, social justice and economic and social cohesion.
It should ensure that the construction of European is more transparent and closer to the people, and that it concentrates more on the political realisation of their immediate aspirations concerning their daily lives and wellbeing.
The programme does not make significant progress in this respect, although it does make a commitment to that end.
To make any progress, the programme should give priority to strengthening social justice at all levels and to solidarity between regions. This is particularly necessary at this delicate time when the preparations for enlargement have allowed the risks of increasing imbalances to come to the surface.
Questions have been left aside that would illustrate the desire for cohesion, and this is what has happened with the status of the ultra-peripheral regions.
I would finally like to point out that this programme - a programme for the last year of this legislature - will not increase public support for the European project or the construction of Europe, and this is something we need to win.
The President of the Commission said that the construction of Europe is not an end, but a means.
The end is naturally the wellbeing of the people, and in order to fulfill that objective, this programme needs to have a greater degree of democracy and justice.
Mr President, I think it is particularly important to mention an action implemented this year by the Commission - actually Directorate-General XXIII - which may be very small when seen in an overall context, but which I believe to be very significant and very positive.
Working in cooperation with non-governmental organisations and the travel industry and with a budget of ECU 500 000, targeted and efficient preventive measures against child sex tourism were taken.
These consist of information videos being shown on long-haul flights, information pamphlets being distributed to travellers, and so on.
This is a laudable and tangible first step in the fight against a dreadful development, which is being further exacerbated by the economic and financial crisis in Asia.
European tourists bear a considerable part of the responsibility for this situation.
That is why I call on the Commission to please continue this positive work and further intensify its efforts.
Mr President, I cannot overemphasise the importance of the issue that has been raised by some speakers already, that is to say, the basic question of how the Agenda 2000 dossier is to be moved forward.
The Commission has its job to do here, and so have Parliament and the Council, but the Commission must not forget that its particular job is immensely important.
Unless this matter is moved forward according to the agreed timetable, everything else is thrown into question.
In the field of environmental policy, it has to be said that Commission's work programme is not the most ambitious.
The Treaty of Amsterdam makes it compulsory, on the basis of the principle of transparency, for environmental matters to form part of all European Union policy.
However, the Union is not committed to framework legislation on this issue.
I would urge the Commission to attend to this, so that next year Parliament can start debating framework legislation that should in particular include proposals for integrating environmental issues into transport, agricultural and energy policy.
Enlargement is one of those challenges that has to be met using our full weight, and environmental issues also form a very large part of the whole process.
Right from the start of any enlargement negotiations, when bilateral talks commence between Member States and the applicant country, it has to be made clear that the environment must not take second place to other issues, and that it will feature more substantially than before.
Before any new enlargement the European Union must, however, see to it that the policies of the separate northern dimension are realised and that next year the means are found to make progress on those issues designed to make policies in the European Union's Nordic regions more effective.
Mr President, the objectives for 1999, which is a transition year for both Parliament and the Commission, should not be radically different from those considered at the Vienna Summit. These include the fight against unemployment, the birth of the euro, the consolidation of the internal market and, above all, the Commission's proposals in Agenda 2000.
The Commission must make efforts to ensure that these proposals are accepted within the Council and, in this respect, I would also ask the Commission to give very special priority to the presentation of specific measures to help the ultra-peripheral regions and a rehabilitation and reconstruction plan for the countries of Central America.
Many of us here - I would say the majority of this Parliament - do not believe that the Commission is a high authority of stateless bureaucrats but rather a key institution with significant merits that are important for the development of the process of European integration.
However, this does not mean that the Commission does not have to change some of its rules of behaviour.
In his investiture speech, Mr Santer committed himself to leading a merciless fight against fraud.
Fraud must be combated because, apart from anything else, it undermines the credibility and image of the European Union.
The Commission must cooperate with Parliament and keep it rapidly and effectively informed.
In certain Commission departments there is almost administrative paralysis, which we urgently need to resolve.
It is also urgent to establish a healthy personnel policy that prevents frustration and takes account of the legitimate aspirations of the Commission's officials.
I am very pleased with the remarks made by the President of the Commission in this respect.
It is now time for the Commission or, should I say, certain Commissioners - for there are others who set a fine example that nobody remembers, as Mr Santer said - to take a decisive step in the right direction. And the right direction, Mr President, can only be to set a course towards the process of European integration.
This course must be maintained, as has always been the tradition, and form a harmonious partnership with Parliament so that the present discord can be resolved into harmony for the future.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, this programme gives us the opportunity to consider some fascinating issues.
Up to now, Europe's problems, with the single market in 1993, have been of a technical and legislative nature, trying to determine, for example, if 80 % or 90 % of our legislation was European or national.
But we Members are looking at real questions, strategic questions that are all extremely fascinating.
As regards the euro, the die is cast, if I may say so; the ball is in play.
With all the asymmetric shocks that it might cause, we do not know what the consequences will be or where they will stem from.
We may pray for miracles; I hope we get them.
Soon it will be Easter and, perhaps, the time for resurrections.
There is also Amsterdam to consider.
You were not sensible, or at least this Treaty is not sensible, with tides of immigrants flowing in unchecked.
Fancy leaving this to a simple majority decision!
All this over the last five years with our Finnish and Swedish friends who, protected by their climate, naturally do not have as many immigration problems.
Then there are the WTO negotiations for the year 2000.
I hope that you will hold out better than during the GATT negotiations, when all Mr Brittan left us were memories.
But we are a little worried given that all the free trade areas are coming together.
What is more, we have this great and wonderful plan to enlarge towards the East, even though we fear that our Polish or Hungarian friends might not be on the same level as us.
In addition, there are, of course, more technical problems due to all the rationing you have introduced, as well as serious health concerns.
I will not go into detail on the 1998 assessment, Mr Santer.
At the end of the day, you are only the latest in a long line.
However, those 18 million unemployed do exist, as do the children I read about in the press, the 500 000 children under the age of 12 in the United Kingdom who have to work.
It is like Victor Hugo's ' Les Misérables' .
What is more, the 50 million people excluded from society also exist. And you do, in fact, devote a large section of your work programme, paragraph 3, to the eternal issue of employment.
Mr Santer, I believe that if we wanted to look at the philosophical errors since the beginning, since the Commission of the 1950s, it would be easy to see where they came from.
The philosophical mistake comes from Malthusianism.
In fact, your prevailing ideology is that of the Club of Rome of the 1960s.
Every time there is a problem, you resolve it in a negative manner.
When there was a coal problem, you closed the mines.
When there was a steel problem, you closed the steelworks.
After that came Vietnam and Thailand.
As for the shipyards, they were also closed down.
Calves were turned into bonemeal.
Each time, you succumb to the heady lure of the void.
Each time, Europe's policy is a Malthusian policy, even as far as the most technical points are concerned, such as the budgetary stability pact, which is actually a budgetary rationing pact.
Your ideology is that we cannot invite many people to the great banquet of European humanity and, therefore, we must cut down, we must ration payments, ration social protection, ration care and ration health.
That ha produced consequences that are plain to see.
If only you had a different policy, based on a different philosophy, based on the philosophy of life, on the belief that life is beautiful, that tomorrow brings with it our future, and that there are more things to life than just this! Instead, because we make cuts and add restrictions, we have ended up with the current situation.
If only you wanted to treat the causes of unemployment!
It is not the good Lord or the devil that bring unemployment. It has been caused by the senseless opening of borders, overly high taxation and the pointless race for extreme levels of production.
And what if Europe wanted to be European?
For example, with Europe's common security policy, what would it be like if we no longer followed the United States' line on human rights, Iraq and the Iraqi children, for instance?
Europe is simply humiliating itself and going back on everything it has stood for when it turns Iraq into a concentration camp with 18 million dying inhabitants, without even raising its voice against Mr Clinton and against the United States.
As regards financing - since everything boils down to money - Mr Monti is making some very ordinary proposals about fiscal measures and savings.
If only you had greater ambition when it comes to taxation!
We should reduce Europe's taxes and provide for a form of European fiscal contribution with a ceiling for compulsory levies in order to free up resources. Then you would have your European funding programme with a GNP resource that would replace everything, both levelling out and cofinancing.
(By the way, by mistake my group, having been against cofinancing, very nearly voted in favour of it because of a practical error.) If only you had a great ambition, Mr Santer, a great ambition and a European Europe!
For we are not the stupid anti-Europeans you believe us to be. If you had a great ambition for a European Europe, a Europe that was no longer Malthusian and that wanted to forge bridges towards the future, a Europe that was itself, then we could agree with you, Mr Santer.
That is the Christmas miracle. Thank you very much.
Mr President, I should like to look at the work programme for the coming year in conjunction with the results of the summit held last weekend.
The initial reaction of anyone who, like me, has been mainly occupied with the issue of employment over the last few years must be to be happy with the results, because I have never seen so many pages devoted to employment in a final report.
However, I have also seldom read so many pages where so little that is practical is said about employment either.
I therefore think that one of the most important tasks for the Commission is to keep the Union on track in the process developed last year in Luxembourg, and to keep to the idea of benchmarking and specific targets.
These are things that it seems to have more or less abandoned in its proposals, which I regret, but I hope that improvements can be made in the year to come.
An important aim for the coming year, and one which could become extremely important for future generations, is the development of effective coordination between economic policy and social employment policy, involving all the various players here.
I can well imagine that this will entail a whole new process, but I hope that it is already being prepared for the summit under the German Presidency.
There is just one problem.
Now that we have finally succeeded in making employment a top priority, I have the impression that it has become the only issue in the social field.
But employment is not and cannot be the only issue.
Social policy is more than just labour market policy.
Social integration and combating poverty, now included in the national action programmes, are also linked to wages policy.
It is all well and good to talk about work and poverty, but talking about combating poverty without having a minimum wage, for example, means that your policy has no solid foundations, and I hope that the Commission succeeds in coming up with some proposals on this subject too.
Social policy is also about legislation, and here I think the Commission has not been bold enough in recent years.
I would urge that the convergence of social protection in Europe should be put higher on the agenda this year, and that we should consider whether the system we have developed as part of our employment strategy, using benchmarking and specific targets as a way forward, would not also be a good approach for social convergence.
With social protection, we have concentrated far too long on often demoralising minimum levels of protection and minimum directives, which were often extremely difficult to justify in countries which already had quite well-developed systems.
I hope that we can continue the process we have started with our employment policy, moving forward on the basis of benchmarking and targets.
I wish you every success with this.
Mr President, you said, Mr Santer, that you had set the Commission a full programme for the coming year.
That is good, because not only is this the last year of this term of office, it is probably also the most important, if you look at the challenges facing the European Union, and thus the Commission.
The key word is Agenda 2000. You said quite rightly that the development of Europe is at stake here, and we will need to make every effort if this process of development is actually to lead anywhere.
The Commission can be assured of the European Parliament's cooperation, precisely on this important issue, if it actively seeks this cooperation from Parliament, and if it grants the European Parliament the legal powers which we must otherwise wait for the Treaty of Amsterdam finally to bestow on us, in particular when decisions are made about the important reforms covered by Agenda 2000 - the common agricultural policy and structural policy - but also where financial decisions are concerned.
A further important point is implementing the transatlantic economic partnership.
This crops up time and again, but in the future, next year and in the years thereafter, it will have to amount to something more than repeated displays - all too common in reality - of our obstructing one another's trade in petty quarrels about relatively unimportant matters; I am thinking here of bananas.
My third, final and, in my view, most important point is as follows: you said that the Commission had to ensure that its house was in order.
This morning in the debate on the discharge, we heard that Parliament wishes to set the Commission a particularly important task in this respect, with a view to cleaning up the Commission.
A set of Staff Regulations which does not just meet with the approval of staff representatives should make a significant contribution to our being able to clean up the Commission.
This starts with the recruitment of officials.
Both selection procedures and in particular the procedures by which senior officials are appointed need to be run quite differently from the way in which they have been run all too often in the past.
The key word of transparency should not remain simply a word; we also need actually to put this transparency into practice.
I have one final point, which cannot be overlooked. In my view, it is important for the Commission also to resolve to pursue the individual responsibility of Commissioners in particular cases, where that proves to be necessary.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to confine my contribution to transport policy and, within that, to the Commission's work programme for 1999.
I should like to say at the very outset that I still clearly remember the time in 1994 and 1995, before this Commission was appointed, when this Commission swore that it would always listen to Parliament.
I should now like to remind you of this by making two points.
I should in fact like to ask you not to proceed with two proposals in the 1999 work programme.
In transport policy, Mr Kinnock, on behalf of the Commission, has proposed tabling a directive on market access for port services. When I drew up my report on the Green Paper on sea ports, the Committee on Transport and Tourism decided unanimously that there was no need for a legislative initiative of this kind at the present time.
Should there be any difficulties, the Commission is kindly requested to use its powers in the field of aid and competition rules to improve market access.
But we certainly do not want you to initiate legislation.
Secondly, the Commission is proposing to produce a white paper on trans-European transport networks.
Mr Santer, we do not need one!
We do not need a new general basis for our discussion; instead, we need a specific proposal to amend the 1996 guidelines adopted by Parliament and the Council, as it says in Article 21.
This states that there shall be a revised proposal in 1999, not a white paper.
Given the forthcoming parliamentary elections and the reappointment of the Commission, I can understand the desire not to table a new proposal on trans-European networks.
But nor do we need to have Parliament working on a superfluous white paper.
Instead, you should say that you will propose specific legislation in the year 2000.
Perhaps you could have a word with Mr Kinnock, because if both houses - the Council and Parliament - do not even want a bill, then why should the Commission draft one? You can save yourself a lot of time if you listen to Parliament first!
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the private economic law of the Union's Member States is increasingly influenced by European legislation.
Recent examples of this are to be found in the fields of product liability, guarantees for consumer goods and payment arrears.
The Union's work in the field of private law thus far has been characterised by a host of individual initiatives.
The Commission should consider whether this method of taking many small independent steps forward really will continue to be the best one in the future.
Of course, the Union's usual procedure is to legislate on individual, limited areas at a time when those rules are necessary, and when they are likely to receive majority support.
An approach of this kind will not necessarily increase our citizens' confidence, however; it must seem to them as if their national private law were being eroded bit by bit, by the back door as it were.
What is lacking is a confidence-building, recognisable system, an approach clearly based on a system.
That is also the reason for the - quite justified - repeated complaints about the lack of consistency when private law is approximated in Europe.
Before taking further isolated initiatives, the Commission should, therefore, develop a plan of action which openly - but also with due moderation - expresses support for some basic principles of a body of Community private law, on which there is likely to be a consensus.
The discussion initiated by the so-called Lando Committee needs to be reopened and included in the work in progress in the Commission; otherwise we cannot expect people to accept European legislation.
Mr Santer, your programme undoubtedly goes in the right direction: it is an ambitious one and addresses the problems which will confront us over the next few years.
But, in order to be fulfilled, ambitions - like good intentions - require a certain political climate and general conditions which, in my opinion, do not exist at present and which the Commission should set about creating. How can the problem of greater cohesion be tackled with fewer resources?
How can the agricultural policy be improved through a proposal which in actual fact destroys the good parts of what exists at present? How, for instance, could we possibly think of replacing the good wines produced in Europe's hilly areas with sugaring carried out in chemical processing plants?
And I could continue.
Nor do I believe that the outcome of the Vienna summit goes in the right direction.
There is a certain resurgence of nationalism which does not augur well and which the Commission, as Europe's government, should somehow combat with courage and determination.
The problem of unemployment is of crucial importance, and I do not believe that it can be tackled solely through financial or administrative measures, however flexible these may be.
One key theme must be scientific research, innovation and the updating of cultural and educational systems, which represent the greatest challenge for the future.
Achieving these aims is a matter not only of transferring technology to SMEs but also of mounting large-scale projects, because they alone can transform, innovate and carry forward scientific research and innovation within Europe.
Thank you, Mr Santer.
I have received six motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Mr President, I did ask for the floor earlier, but no one was looking in this direction.
I should like to know why we are so far behind with our schedule.
I was told that the Metten report would be taken at about 4 p.m.
I should like to know when I can now expect it to be dealt with.
Why are we two reports behind schedule?
If you look at the agenda, you will see that, five minutes later than planned, we are beginning Question Time to the Commission.
As you are well aware, the debates on the reports are sometimes subject to a certain delay, but we cannot afford to delay the questions to the Commission.
At the moment, I cannot give you an answer.
The only thing I can say is that it is now time for questions to the Commission to begin.
What I can also tell you is that the debate on the report by Mr Metten will be held after 9 p.m.
So, Mrs Sandberg-Fries, you now know that the debate on Mr Metten's report will take place during the night sitting, after 9 p.m.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0713/98).
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 46 and 47 lapse.
Question No 48 by Brian Crowley (H-1146/98)
Subject: Computer systems and the year 2000
With just over a year to go, preparations for the year 2000 in the computer system field are far from complete.
OECD (September 1998) suggests that 'while awareness is increasing, the amount of remediation is still daunting, the problem continues to be underestimated...
Preparedness among the health-care industries, small business and some parts of government appears to be particularly worrisome'.
Other information suggests that rogue software specialists are introducing as many errors as they are correcting when overhauling systems for the millennium (FT, 26 November 1998).
Will the Commission state what, in its view, is the state of preparedness in the EU for the millennium switch-over in the areas cited above, as well as in the transport, nuclear, banking and telecommunications industries, and how does it respond to the view that 'early IT system failures will occur more often as 2000 approaches, simply because IT systems generally look ahead in terms of forecasting sales, orders and other business functions' (FT supplement, 2 December 1998)?
Mr President, the Commission drew attention to this problem some years ago.
Not only have we set up working groups with the Member States, but our services have also employed a variety of methods to make private companies and administrations aware that they need to be prepared for this technical problem.
We really have, therefore, taken every possible measure.
Solutions for the various information systems are also now available which allow the problem to be completely eliminated.
Sufficient attention is still not being paid to the problem, however, and that is why the Commission has sent a further communication to the Council. In this communication, we have once again indicated what can be done in government, and what additional work still needs to be done to make those concerned in the private sector deal with this problem.
In the private sector, the level of awareness is still too low.
I cannot imagine why this should be the case, because actually everyone should realise that they will be the ones to suffer the most if they do not make the necessary preparations.
The honourable Member will understand that we ourselves can only deal with this to the extent that it affects us.
The Member States can only deal with it to the extent that it affects their public administration.
We cannot go into every business and solve the problem by installing the necessary software.
On the other hand, we should not exaggerate either.
I read or heard somewhere that someone was considering laying in emergency food stocks to overcome the year 2000 problem.
Even though the Commission ought to find this an attractive idea, because of its agricultural policy, it is certainly an exaggeration.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for his answer - I realise how difficult it is for him to speak on this issue when so much depends on action being taken by other people and other institutions.
However, over the week-end the British Government advised people to hoard food because of the year 2000.
As well as that, with the introduction of the single currency next year and the changeover in financial markets and other similar situations, there is a great fear, and a danger, amongst Member States, private individuals and institutions, that not enough work has been undertaken.
I should like to ask the Commissioner whether, within his own area of competence, he has brought forward any codes of best practice which should be copied by the Member States or by small and medium-sized enterprises, in particular when we consider that in its final resolution the Vienna Council placed particular emphasis on helping small and medium-sized enterprises for the changeover in the year 2000.
I fear, Mr Crowley, that a code of conduct - even if there were not more general reasons against having one - would not be of much help, because the systems differ so greatly.
The hardware is very varied.
Different companies work with completely different computer systems.
It is understandable that more modern computer systems are easier to switch over.
Let me repeat: we did not start working on this just today; we have been working on these issues for the last four years.
As early as four years ago, we also established that it was impossible - or in any case very expensive - to replace all the hardware.
So we put our money into software being developed for the hardware we already had - and we also supported work of this kind in our research programmes - software which could be installed on the existing hardware and would thus take us through the year 2000.
That means, firstly, that there are solutions; secondly, that these solutions are expensive, and that is probably the main problem, because anyone who is familiar with the problem can install this software and will have no difficulty in the year 2000, but they will pay good money for it.
There are many small and medium-sized companies which are probably living under the illusion that they will somehow overcome the problem without having to pay the money.
More recently, I have read advertisements from insurance companies wishing, under certain circumstances, to insure for any damage resulting from a failure, which shows that even in this field offers have become available.
We cannot do any more.
You are facing a situation where, as a public administration, you can do so much, but then the people themselves have to react.
If they do not, then you cannot make up for it.
Everyone knows or ought to know that this is a problem and that there are solutions to it.
People can ask the firms they work with how they are dealing with it.
Obviously, we and the Member States have made the necessary preparations.
We really cannot do any more than that.
Even if the British Government's advice were correct - and I very much doubt it - laying in food supplies will really only benefit the European agricultural policy, though that may indeed be reason enough.
Question No 49 by Graham Watson (H-1158/98)
Subject: Protection of children on foreign exchange schemes from abuse
Children under 18 account for 20 % of the world market for tourism. It is estimated that, in 1998, four million European tourists will be visitors under 18 years of age, of whom at least one million will be independent stay visitors attending foreign-language and activity schools.
Is the Commission aware that, throughout Europe, this sector is almost entirely unregulated?
Will the Commission therefore reflect on how best to combat abuse of children in this sector and give careful consideration to the promotion of a Europe-wide code of conduct? I should like to welcome Mr Monti and ask him to reply to Mr Watson's question.
The Commission is aware of the importance of youth tourism, of its benefits for the development of the young people concerned, and also of the economic activity of the tourist sector in general.
It is equally aware of the concerns, expressed in one Member State at least, regarding the inadequate regulation of the activities of those who organise annual trips abroad for large numbers of youngsters wishing to pursue foreign-language courses and other activities, especially in respect of the participants' personal safety Looking ahead to the adoption of a new Community programme in the field of tourism, it might be possible to examine this matter in the context of the work undertaken to identify and disseminate best practice, particularly since many responsible organisations, individuals and authorities have probably already taken serious steps to provide protection in this field.
Under the Daphne programme, which supports non-governmental organisations in combating violence against children and young people, the Commission encourages the establishment of telephone helplines in all the Member States; these offer useful advice and information to troubled youngsters, and can assist them when they travel abroad.
As far as regulatory aspects are concerned, however, the Commission would point out that these fall under the auspices of the competent authorities in the Member States.
I should like to ask the Commissioner where we are with this matter.
The vast majority of young people who travel across our borders for language courses enjoy a very good experience and their first visit abroad is a very happy one.
For the unlucky few it can be a nightmare.
This is not the kind of problem that one wishes to sensationalise: we certainly do not want to put young people or their parents off taking advantage of the benefits of a united Europe.
However, there is evidence of infiltration of this sector by organised crime and organised paedophile gangs and, as a parent myself, I am worried about the dangers of this.
I am very pleased that you are going to tackle it under the new programme on tourism but would the Commission not consider a study of what the extent of this problem might be and how it could be effectively tackled?
The Commission is taking this issue very seriously.
Questions relating to the security of individuals and standards and procedures to be observed by educational establishments are a matter for Member States.
It would be wrong for the Commission to seek to become involved in this aspect.
The same holds true in the matter of judicial cooperation if there is any question of organised criminal activity covering more than one jurisdiction.
On a more optimistic note, if it happens that we can reach agreement on a Community tourism programme, we may be able to make some contribution in the context of youth tourism if this is seen as a priority area for Community action.
Otherwise, given also the absence of any budgetary support, there is no possibility of our contributing in this area.
However, there is a specific budget heading with associated remarks which allows us to support the efforts of organisations involved in the campaign against child sex tourism.
That, of course, goes some way towards addressing the important problem to which you so rightly call our attention.
Question No 50 by Angela Billingham (H-1062/98)
Subject: British ski instructors in the French Alps
It appears that no consensus has been reached between the French and UK Governments in the two series of bilateral meetings concerning the recognition of British ski instructors' qualifications in France and that the French have been unable to prove that there is a substantial difference between the BASI Grade 1 Diploma held by British instructors and the French Brevet d'Etat held by French instructors.
In the light of this, is the European Commission intending to intervene in order to end the discrimination against British ski instructors and allow them to teach in the French Alps? I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mrs Billingham's question.
The Commission has already taken action to promote bilateral dialogue between the parties concerned, namely the BASI - British Association of Skiing Instructors - and the UK authorities, on the one hand, and their French counterparts on the other, with a view to encouraging them to agree on a basis for the recognition of the BASI Grade 1 Diploma in France.
An initial meeting between the BASI and the competent French authorities took place in Brussels at the end of 1997.
It was decided at the Commission's initiative to establish a Franco-British working group to examine issues relating to the two countries' training systems.
The Commission was recently informed that this group has drawn up a report.
However, the French and UK authorities have decided by joint agreement to discuss the report first and only then, if possible, to forward joint conclusions to the Commission.
As the honourable Member will appreciate, the Commission would be ill advised to pre-empt the outcome of this process, before the working group has made public its conclusions.
At this point in time, therefore, I can merely assure the honourable Member that the Commission is committed to solving the outstanding problems.
In order to do so, if and insofar as possible, cooperation should be stepped up between instructors, their professional associations and the appropriate competent authorities.
At the same time, the Commission is fully aware of its own responsibility for checking carefully that Community law is properly complied with, in respect of sporting and recreational activities in the Alpine regions.
I would add that the contacts established between those most directly concerned have already led to agreement on a considerable number of practical measures.
These measures have already been taken and have substantially improved matters, and those concerned deserve to be congratulated on their work so far.
The Commission hopes that further progress will be made in the near future, building on the success already achieved thanks to the clear commitment on the part of both the French and UK authorities.
Commissioner, I welcome your reply and thank you for the work I know you have done.
But it must be said that, as yet, not one single British ski instructor has been allowed to work in the French Alps.
It is two and a half years since we first spoke about this in the Chamber and you assured me that French ski instructors would allow the British to work that year.
Two years on, still no action.
This is an absolutely disastrous situation!
There is a new twist: a French ski school has sought to employ 15 British ski instructors and has been prevented from doing so.
They themselves are now taking the French Ski Association to the courts.
Clearly there is a terrible situation here, which throws into question our ability within the European Union of translating the Treaty into appropriate action.
I am sad to say that we have an example here of French protectionism which has to be stopped.
This is slightly off-piste if you are going to talk about being on the ground or on the snow.
This is very familiar ground for those that have worked in the area of free movement of workers and mutual recognition of qualifications across the European Community.
It strikes me that some authorities are continuing to prevaricate, in one country at least.
Is there not a case for returning to the status quo at least of two and a half years ago? If there is a problem in agreeing on benchmarks and this is an indication of disaccord in bilateral discussions, the Commission should be very much involved in helping to reach an agreement on these benchmarks in a way that will lead us out of this impasse.
The problem is a complex one because in principle the French authorities are allowed to impose aptitude tests on foreign ski instructors.
Under Community law - Directive 92/51 EEC - the national authorities are allowed to impose compensatory measures but only where there are significant differences in the levels of qualifications.
In the case of ski instructors, where the issue of safety is at stake, they are allowed to impose aptitude tests.
This is why it is not particularly easy for the Commission to enter into such a debate - a debate, you will appreciate, involving comparison of very technical courses.
If the BASI considers it appropriate, the problem could be resolved by a national court which is responsible for the correct implementation of Community law.
Of course one way to solve the problem is also bilateral dialogue.
This is the way forward that - as I explained in some detail in my initial response - the Commission has been pursuing and will continue to pursue.
Question No 51 by Reinhard Rack (H-1057/98)
Subject: Simplified selection procedure for temporary staff at the Commission
In connection with the recent Commission selection procedure, in which irregularities occurred, the question arises of other forms of appointment procedure at the Commission, particularly the simplified selection procedure for temporary staff.
How many staff on fixed-term contracts are there normally at the Commission? How many of them are taken on as officials under the simplified procedure?
I should like to welcome Mr Liikanen and now give him the floor to answer Mr Rack's question.
Mr President, there are at present 2 993 temporary staff employed in the Commission.
750 of them are paid out of administrative appropriations and 2 243 are paid out of funds set aside for research.
The procedure for selecting and employing temporary staff was reviewed on 1 December 1996.
The review applies only to those temporary staff who are paid out of administrative appropriations.
A total of 135 staff have been employed since the new procedure came into effect.
On the basis of a decision taken in December 1996 regarding temporary staff, the Commission will no longer organise competitions for making posts permanent after 1999.
This is because those taking part in internal competitions and those participating in general competitions were usually regarded as having unequal status.
However, the Commission has begun to look for ways of dispensing with mass competitions, which are so difficult to organise.
In February we are reorganising the aborted competition of early autumn, and I hope that after that the mass competition system will no longer apply.
At present we are considering how preselection might be approached in future, for example on the basis of languages or by country, thus simplifying the very ponderous competition process involving tens of thousands of applicants.
We shall inform Parliament of this as soon as some progress has been made.
The working party responsible for reviewing personnel administration under Mr Williamson, the then Secretary-General, has made a considerable number of proposals for reform.
Mr President, I should like to thank you, Commissioner, for that detailed reply. Not only did you give the figures I asked for, you also anticipated a possible supplementary question, namely what the situation is with the current selection procedures and how they will proceed.
Nevertheless, may I put a further supplementary question? It is as follows.
Admittedly, I cannot expect you to give specific figures, but I would like to have a general idea.
Are there any particular Member States with an especially high number of nationals who have been recruited as officials through this device for particular nationals?
Mr President, in accordance with EU regulations and legislation on the employment of staff there can be no favouritism or discrimination based on nationality.
This principle is obviously in force.
But of course statistics on staffing and nationality indicate that, depending on official rank, a few nationalities are over-represented and a few under-represented at some levels.
I will be glad to submit the figures for the honourable Member to look at.
What I can say is that when we have organised competitions aimed at specific nationalities amongst the new Member States, it has been the Finns who have shown the most interest in EU posts, and for this reason selections have been made faster.
The Swedes have not shown quite so much interest, and the Austrians have shown the least interest. We have tried to correct the problem and we are now organising new competitions both for Swedish and Austrian applicants, and we hope that by the end of 1999 the Commission will have met all the targets fixed for these three countries when they joined the EU in January 1995.
Question No 52 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-1054/98)
Subject: Trafficking in women in Europe
Five hundred thousand women are victims of the present-day slave trade which is called trafficking in women.
This phenomenon is becoming increasingly widespread, encouraged by the fact that the penalties are limited; as Anita Gradin, the Commissioner responsible, told a recent East-West conference on trafficking in women held in Vienna, 'this form of trafficking is lucrative and the risks are minimal'.
Since the relevant programmes 'STOP', 'DAFNEE' and 'OISIN' have proved unable to curb the steadily increasing phenomenon of trafficking in women and under-age girls, will the Commission say what substantive additional measures it intends to take forthwith to protect victims of this practice originating from non-EU Member States and to bring the traffickers to justice? I should like to welcome Mrs Gradin and ask her to reply to Mr Alavanos's question.
I fully share the concern of the honourable Member, Mr Alavanos, at the continuing and growing trafficking of women into the European Union for sexual exploitation.
Combating this shameful form of organised crime and violation of women's human rights is a question on which I have spent much time and energy since I became a Commissioner in 1995.
Before then no one had thought that the European Union could deal with this question.
In June 1996 I organised the European Conference in Vienna on trafficking in women.
This was the first time the main European players from both East and West had met to discuss this serious problem.
On the basis of their recommendation, in November 1996 I presented an action plan against trafficking in women for sexual exploitation.
Since then a number of important actions have been taken. I shall recall some of them briefly.
Firstly, in November 1996 the Justice and Home Affairs Council decided to extend the mandate of Europol's drug unit, now Europol, to include trafficking in human beings.
By 1999 Europol will support joint investigations in order to dismantle criminal organisations involved in this trafficking.
Europol also intends to establish a report on the general situation in the European Union concerning trafficking in women.
The second important decision was the creation in December 1996 of the multiannual STOP programme.
This programme has a budget of ECU 6.5m over five years.
It aims to promote research, information campaigns, training and exchange of projects. All professionals involved in combating trade in human beings are targeted.
Since 1996 we have been able to support 30 projects.
Thirdly, and finally, in February 1997 the Council adopted a joint action in order to criminalise trafficking in human beings.
It also agreed on concrete measures for judicial cooperation and protection of witnesses.
Another crucial factor in the fight against trafficking and in providing support to victims is the work and role of non-governmental organisations.
In order to support their work we set up the DAPHNE initiative in May 1997 to combat violence against children, adolescents and women.
The main objective is to support the setting up of NGO networks across Europe and to support pilot projects.
Ten of these projects concern the fight against trafficking in women.
The Commission has also been able to give direct support to the development and work of NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe.
This has been possible through the PHARE and TACIS democracy programmes.
To fight trafficking in women is to fight a moving target.
New criminal networks and new strategies are created almost daily and their methods become increasingly ruthless.
So we constantly need to strengthen and revise our own strategies and create new tools.
This is why I am very happy to inform you that on 9 December the Commission adopted a new communication for further action against trafficking in women.
This communication is a follow-up to the one in 1996.
It reinforces the multidisciplinary approach and aims to cover all the various stages of the trafficking chain - recruiters, traffickers and exploiters.
It reviews progress made so far in this field and on the basis of experience so far suggests deepening ongoing activities as well as initiating new ones.
This communication also responds to the request made by the European Parliament in the report by Mrs Waddington, to present it before the end of 1998.
The main objective is to ensure that the fight against trafficking in women is kept high on the political agenda of the Union and to reinforce cooperation between countries of origin, transit and destination, including both governments and NGOs.
The aim is also to encourage the Member States to implement fully, by the end of 1999 at the latest, their legal obligations under the joint action of February 1997.
The main new initiatives in the communication are to produce in 1999 a communication on assistance to victims of crime including victims of trafficking; to make a proposal for legislative actions as regards temporary residence permits for victims who are ready to act as witnesses; to refocus the existing guidelines of the STOP programme to include information to victims on ways of seeking assistance, and research on the various intermediaries of the trafficking chain; to launch training projects to prevent and combat trafficking in women in the areas of migration and detection of false and fraudulent documents; to advertise among the concerned target groups the possibility of support under several other Community programmes such as INTEGRA and the Leonardo da Vinci programmes; and to promote further cooperation and exchange of information on the issue of trafficking in women within the pre-accession strategy as well as in cooperation with the newly independent states.
I hope we now have a new platform for our common fight against trafficking in women and I am looking forward to continuing to work closely with the European Parliament in combating this shameful violation of women's human rights.
Mr President, let me thank the Commissioner for her very long and detailed answer.
Yet, Madam Commissioner, as you too are aware, the phenomenon persists and is constantly on the increase.
In my country, indeed, we find that public authorities or some public authorities at least - particularly members of the police force - are accomplices in the spread of this 'trade', if we can call it that.
I think that what the Commissioner said is encouraging.
There are, however, two more detailed questions I should like to ask: firstly, is the Commission empowered to arraign before the European Court of Justice for the violation of human rights, countries which are not taking adequate steps to combat trade in human beings effectively? I think there may be accusations and that, as the custodian of the Treaties, the Commission can do that.
And secondly, can the Commission require countries which are candidates for accession to implement, as a condition for joining during the forthcoming enlargement, effective measures to suppress trade in human beings?
Thank you very much for your question.
Of course we need to work together much harder to convince some of these officials and people in government who are not that engaged in these questions.
With the Eastern and Central European countries we do this best through projects.
The projects we conduct with them are quite successful and the networks that are being built up between non-governmental organisations in the 15 Member States and in the accession countries are becoming quite good.
This is the best way of making progress with these questions.
Question No 53 by Clive Needle (H-1086/98)
Subject: Increase of cigarette imports in Andorra
Figures published by the customs authorities in Andorra show that 3.1 billion cigarettes were imported into that country from the EU in 1997.
On the basis of those figures, every man, woman and child in Andorra smokes 140 cigarettes per day.
What action does the Commission propose to take to ensure that the smuggling of tobacco products into the EU is prevented, with particular reference to action against tobacco companies such as Gallaher, who must have been aware that their sudden increase in sales to Andorra could not be explained by any legal supply to a normal commercial market? I give the floor to Mrs Gradin to answer Mr Needle's question on this surprising increase in imports of cigarettes.
Mr President, Mr Needle is concerned about the smuggling of cigarettes out of Andorra and wonders what measures the Commission intends to take to combat this trade.
At the end of 1997, we were informed that significant quantities of British-manufactured cigarettes were being exported to Andorra.
Simultaneously, several Member States reported seizures of cigarettes smuggled into the Union from Andorra.
A clear picture began to emerge of Andorra as a centre for illegal trafficking in the direction of the EU.
The Director of the Commission's anti-fraud unit, UCLAF, went to Andorra in December 1997 for talks with the country's government. The purpose of his visit was to reach an accord on how to stop cigarette smuggling.
It was agreed that the Community would operate a number of checks in Andorra during the first half of 1998.
These would be carried out by UCLAF officials, together with investigators from the relevant authorities in the countries affected: France, Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The results demonstrated that Andorra had manufactured as well as imported large quantities of American-brand cigarettes - mainly from the United States.
There was strong evidence that a large element was earmarked for smuggling into the EU, in particular Spain.
Moreover, criminal networks operating both in Andorra and in a number of Member States were found to be behind this activity.
The Andorran authorities stressed, however, that they could neither produce statistics on cigarette sales, nor could they ascertain the final destination of the goods in question.
Since these investigations were carried out, the Commission has been in constant touch with the Andorran Government and, as a result, measures are now in place which should enable us to come to grips with this illegal trade.
We have already noticed that considerably fewer cigarettes are being seized by Member States on suspicion that they have been smuggled from Andorra.
There has also been a huge reduction in UK exports to Andorra compared with 1996 and 1997.
What is particularly distressing is that manufacturers in Britain must have been aware of the situation, since exports to Andorra rose so sharply over such a short time-span.
The whole affair is now being looked into both by UCLAF and the authorities in the countries which took part in the original investigations in Andorra.
I would like to express my gratitude to Commissioner Gradin for what was a very informative and positive answer.
I very much hope that we can get some further information on the successful measures and the extent to which the problem is being reduced.
I am grateful to the Independent newspaper in the United Kingdom for raising this, and it is extremely important that people are made aware of this issue, because of the work that UCLAF is doing.
In the current climate it is important to talk about potential successes as well as problems.
For the wider issue, in terms of the health debate in the European Parliament and measures the Commission is taking to combat tobacco consumption, on which I hope there will be further progress in the Commission tomorrow, there is progress in Member States such as Great Britain, where proposals have been produced by the government to tackle smuggling as a priority.
I am delighted to hear that the Commission will be working in partnership on that and I hope that sufficient priority will be given to tackling this, to ensure that directives such as the tobacco advertising directive will be effective and will not be undercut by these criminals, particularly in the tobacco companies, who must take responsibility for what they are doing: increasing smoking.
I am very pleased that we have been able to have good cooperation between UCLAF and the different Member States.
This is the only way we can combat trafficking in cigarettes.
As you may be aware, we have also been quite successful in working on this in the Mediterranean and we have now a specialised unit in UCLAF that looks into trafficking in cigarettes.
We will always willing to give information to Parliament about our work in this area.
Question No 54 by Maj Theorin (H-1099/98)
Subject: Illegal immigration
Illegal immigration is a big problem for the European Union and its Member States.
The Council has therefore taken steps to harmonise control methods and to increase consultation and cooperation between Member States on matters relating to refusal of entry and action to combat the smuggling of human beings.
Many refugees currently live illegally inside the EU's borders, some 3 million of them having entered Europe between 1991 and 1993.
They often live, children and the elderly alike, in inhumane and unhealthy conditions, as described by Chris de Stoop in his book 'Utan papper'.
How, in the Commission's view, can these people's living conditions be improved? I give the floor to Mrs Gradin to answer Mrs Theorin's question.
Mr President, I share Mrs Theorin's concern over the situation of third-country citizens residing unlawfully in the Member States of the Union.
Some fell prey to traffickers in human beings, others arrived here independently.
Most of them came in pursuit of a decent life and a better future.
Reality does not always match their dreams, however, and many find themselves struggling to survive under very difficult conditions.
As things stand, immigration rules vary from one Member State to another.
There are a number of EU-wide recommendations and agreements on immigration policy and these cover most - but not all - categories of migrant. Nor are all the various provisions fully coordinated.
In 1997, I duly tabled a proposal for the introduction of common rules to govern immigration into the EU.
My hope is that clearer and more uniform immigration criteria will help to reduce the scope for illegal entry.
The proposal is now before the European Parliament for consideration and I look forward to discussing the resulting report - which will be produced, I imagine, some time next year.
The nineties saw the advent of increasingly worrying forms of human smuggling.
There is a real slave trade in women operating around Europe; migrants are loaded onto buses and containers for shipment over the EU borders.
They run the risk of dying an unusually painful death, brought on by either thirst or lack of oxygen.
People are dispatched to sea aboard unseaworthy craft in the middle of winter.
No one knows how many drown each year in this manner.
Trafficking in human beings is organised by well-run criminal networks. These mercilessly exploit the vulnerability of the weak for their own greater gain.
Large amounts of money are earned at relatively low risk.
Only a many-pronged strategy can enable us to fight such rings. Action is needed at both national and EU levels.
If we are to put a stop to this growing trend, it will be necessary to combine immigration measures with intervention in other key policy areas.
Little effect can be hoped for from isolated measures on visa policy or border controls, or from one-off decisions to deport or expel individuals.
A joint and coordinated strategy across the policy spectrum is what is required. I am thinking in particular of CFSP, together with trade, development and humanitarian aid policy.
A general commitment to the progress of society and social justice is of course an important component when we are seeking to reduce illegal immigration into the EU.
Let us never forget that we are talking about individual human beings who find themselves in difficulty.
Even if they have no legal entitlement to enter the Union, they can expect to have their human rights and fundamental freedoms respected.
This principle should underpin any European strategy to combat illegal immigration.
The situation of asylum seekers and those coming from war zones is somewhat different.
These people did not leave their homes voluntarily.
Maybe they are fleeing civil war, or their government cannot offer them adequate protection.
Usually they will be part of a mass migration process.
The Commission has, as you know, submitted two proposals to the Council of Ministers in the hope of easing the situation: one on temporary protection, the other on burden-sharing when the Member States are faced with mass movements of people fleeing their country of origin.
Both proposals are currently before Council and the European Parliament has already considered them on two occasions.
You will have heard that one of the aims of my proposal is to establish a minimum level of social protection for such migrants once they have entered the territory of one of the Member States.
If the Council of Minsters can agree to the proposal, everyone needing protection within the Union will be able to be guaranteed decent living conditions.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for her comprehensive and very positive answer.
Our views seem to tally pretty much on many of the issues, which is gratifying.
I particularly appreciate her reference to the need for social measures in order to drive progress in terms of society.
The magnitude of the problem is none the less catastrophic for the Union and Europe as a whole.
Whereas we used to deport 30 000 people a year, now we are approaching a figure of 200 000.
As the Commissioner herself pointed out, this is partly due to the fact that various mafia-style rings have discovered that trafficking in human life is a highly profitable enterprise - a situation which we did not have to face in the past.
The central issue from my point of view, however, is that there are people actually in hiding in the EU and elsewhere in Europe.
Their children often receive no schooling and do not have access to the health and social care they need.
This is extremely worrying and the psychological pressure on them is enormous.
Surely the least we can do is to reach agreement on guaranteeing illegal immigrants in the EU their full human rights.
How to deal with those individuals who are residing illegally in our 15 Member States is a very difficult question, particularly given that we have 18 million unemployed already and no longer have a need for imported labour.
It is the refugees, however, who require our particular attention. Their predicament further complicates the situation.
I agree that dignified solutions must be found to the problems of these people. And let us hope that most of them will subsequently be able to return to their countries with their difficulties resolved.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
With that question by Mrs Theorin, we have reached the end of the time set aside for this group of questions.
Questions Nos 55, 56 and 57 will therefore receive written answers.
Before we move on to Question No 58, Mrs García Arias has a point of order.
Commissioner, I would like to raise a point of procedure that, in my view, is important not only for the questions that some Members wanted to put to the Commissioner responsible for competition policy, but, in general, for the European Commission's control procedure for Question Time.
So, Commissioner Van Miert, are your services analysing the development of Article 24 of the Directive on common standards for the internal market in electricity, which talks about a transition to a competitive environment?
If the Commissioner could answer this question, then I would know if I can protest to the European Commission regarding the issue of which Commissioner is responsible for answering the questions that certain Members have asked.
Mrs García Arias, you have just asked a question that is not on the agenda for the type of answers the Commission has proposed.
You have also protested today before the House that your question was not among the questions answered by Mr Van Miert.
You are now asking a question that is not included on the agenda.
To introduce this question would mean upsetting the established agenda.
If the Commissioner wants to give you an explanation, I will allow him a short time to do so but, in any event, he must take into account that it is not actually on the agenda and that there are other questions which are that require his time.
Mr Van Miert, we are breaking with custom here, but I am relying here on the good will of the other Members of the House and on your own good will, and I would like to ask you if you wish to respond to this question.
I can answer this question at the same time as that of Mr Pérez Royo.
I will do this in a personal capacity, of course.
That seems fine to me, Mr Van Miert.
Then we shall not break the order.
Mr Van Miert has agreed to reply to Mrs García Arias in the context of the question by Mr Pérez Royo and, if we make good time, we shall be able to reach Mr Pérez Royo's question.
I can give you a very brief answer to this question.
The Commission did indeed approve the merger between Iveco and Renault, but only for the three main categories of buses: tourist coaches, buses for use in towns and urban environments and buses used for public transport in general.
We examined the merger in question and decided that it did not present any problems as regards competition.
As you know, we looked at the issue on the basis of the regulation on mergers of undertakings, and it was clear that, firstly, both companies held a declining share of the market in their respective Member States and, secondly, that there was sufficient other competition left.
I have to say that as far as tourist coaches are concerned, the competition is extremely strong, while for the other categories of buses the market is currently opening up, because it was traditionally nationally based, as you know.
But even this market is now opening up to the extent that we can start to talk about a European market, and we had no problem with the merger from the competition point of view because there was still plenty of competition left.
I should add that once we can resolve any concerns we might have about competition aspects, then we will always be happy to include other elements such as employment in our analysis.
But our first responsibility under the regulation on concentrations or mergers of undertakings is to analyse the competition problems and to base our response - in this case a positive one - on that.
Commissioner, I would like to ask a question concerning the Commission's authorisation of the merger of the bus manufacturing activities of Renault and the subsidiary Iveco, a concentration that naturally puts the second manufacturer in a much more important position on the European market. Have you taken account here of the willingness or desire of companies to make access to buses easier for the disabled through the addition of retractable platforms?
And in what respect has this been considered?
Similarly, in relation to the employment creation measures mentioned by the Commissioner, has consideration been given in this concentration to transferring activities to the United Kingdom, Germany or Spain?
In this particular case, neither of the notifying parties raised any employment-related aspects, though they did tell us where they intended to concentrate their activities.
The mergers regulation allows trade unions to put their case to the Commission's services or to myself, but as far as I know, no requests were made in this case.
We would be quite happy to listen to their concerns and, as I said, to accommodate them as far as possible.
In another very typical case, that of Kässbohrer/Mercedes-Benz, we received a great deal of interest from the trade unions and this was taken into account in the procedure.
It also led to a decision that we took at the time in another case.
But as I said, in this particular case neither the notifying parties nor, as far as I know, the trade unions made any request to speak to us.
Question No 59 by Paul Rübig (H-1068/98)
Subject: Discriminatory fares
The British ferry company which operates the Dover to Calais route has a discriminatory fares policy.
Subject to certain conditions, special offers are available which mean that a crossing can cost as little as £16; but these are available only to inhabitants of the United Kingdom.
Other citizens of the Union have to pay the normal fare of £79.
Does the Commission have any reservations about these practices, either from the point of view of the rules of competition (Article 85 et seq. of the EC Treaty) or as regards the elimination of quantitative restrictions between Member States or bodies on which they have an appreciable influence (Article 30 et seq. of the EC Treaty)? I give the floor to Mr Van Miert to answer Mr Rübig's question.
It seems that this is a question of the commercial strategy of an operator of the cross-Channel ferries.
If that is the case - and it might well be that this is just part of a commercial strategy - and if we receive complaints then eventually we will look at the matter further.
So far as I am aware this is not the case but it might indicate that ferry operators have made certain agreements.
As I said, there is no indication that is the case here.
Another question which could eventually be raised concerns Article 86: if there has been an abuse of a dominant position.
Since the company in question is not in a dominant position, this does not apply.
Therefore, for the time being, according to our information, there is no problem in relation to the enforcement of competition rules.
Commissioner, the problem is that those travelling from Europe to the United Kingdom find that there are two separate fares; a much reduced one for UK citizens and a normal fare.
I have also come across this problem in Austrian ski resorts, where the same thing happens with ski passes, and that is why I believe it is important for us to consider the principles behind this issue of discrimination against certain countries.
On the other hand, of course, we all know that discounts also exist, and there can be discounts for particular professions, educational groups, companies, authorities and so on.
I do believe, however, that it would definitely be appropriate for the Commission to express a clear opinion on this matter.
Mr President, of course most people are glad when there are discounts, and that is what we have here.
We then also have to take a careful look to see whether there is anything more to it than that, for example whether certain shipping companies have come to an arrangement.
Occasionally there might be a cartel.
We have already had cases of this kind, whether related to the tunnel or these sea crossings.
You will certainly also know that, just last week, we decided to fine the ferry companies operating between Bari in Italy and Greece.
We will of course investigate if we receive complaints.
But in this case, there is no sign as yet - as far as I and my services can see - that this is anything more than what would normally be called a policy of offering discounts.
If you have any more information, please let us know, and we will see what we can do.
I welcome the Commissioner's reply.
I wonder whether he saw the Money Programme on BBC 2 on Sunday night - I know he is an avid television watcher in his spare time - which indicated that this practice is not confined to ferry companies alone.
The practice of charging different fares for different flights, depending on which country you start your journey in, is a widespread practice within the European Union airline industry.
When the euro comes into force on 1 January and prices have to be quoted in euros, will he please undertake to make sure that this practice is not rife throughout the whole transport sector?
If it is, and cases are reported to him or if his own department's research indicates that this is a widespread practice, will he please use the powers available to him under the Treaty?
You mention a broader question which is a very real one; probably an even more real one in the civil aviation business than in the ferry business.
Again, if it is just about promotional fares, that is all right. People like it.
But if there is something more behind it and if we get some evidence and coherent information about it, we insist that we will look into it.
There is another question about Sabena.
My answer is that indeed, there are reasons to launch a broader investigation about certain practices, particularly in the civil aviation sector.
As MEP for East Kent, I represent Dover.
I am very keen to help reassure Mr Rübig that good deals across the Channel are, in fact, available to all citizens of the European Union.
Special offer fares of around GBP 16 are available to all citizens of the European Union for day trips.
In practice, many EU citizens benefit from that particular offer, not least, of course, our friends, the French, across the water, who regularly take up those good deals and many last-minute bargains.
Of course when duty-free goes, many of these bargains will go with it.
I hope that duty-free stays and Mr Rübig and his fellow countrymen and women come to Nord/Pas de Calais, take a trip across the Channel on these ferries that represent excellent value for money.
He and others would be very welcome to visit my constituency.
I can reassure him on that point.
We do not discriminate on fares.
I have the impression that this was not really a question but a one-minute advertisement.
I congratulate a Member of Parliament for being so outspoken on behalf of his region.
Having said this, there is no discrimination between Community citizens.
If there were, obviously we would have problems and would act. That is not the case.
Let there be no misunderstanding about that.
If there appeared to be an abuse somehow or a kind of hidden cartel, or whatever, then we would act.
As far as I and my services can see today, that is not the case.
Question No 60 by Fernando Pérez Royo (H-1069/98)
Subject: Oligopoly in the Spanish electricity industry
In Spain, an oligopoly appears to be taking root, whereby four undertakings have cornered 90 % of the electricity market, with two of them alone, ENDESA and Iberdrola, controlling 80 %.
Recently formed partnerships such as the one between ENDESA and Gas Natural amount to fresh horizontal integration, which is exacerbating this trend.
Does the Commission regard these shifts and agreements amongst undertakings as running counter to the spirit and the letter of the Treaties and as detrimental to free competition and to the consumer? As the Commissioner has indicated, this is the question we are dealing with, and I now give him the floor.
Unfortunately, I cannot be of much help to the honourable Member, as we too only learned of the two companies' intentions from the press.
Therefore, my services are currently making every effort to gather all the information we need because, for now, I am not even in a position to tell you whether this is a concentration or an operation involving Article 85, that is to say a type of joint venture or cooperation.
For the time being, therefore, I am unfortunately unable to tell you any more.
But I have agreed with my services that we will insist on obtaining information very quickly from the companies concerned because I can assure you that we are following developments in the energy sector very closely, not just in Spain but also in the other Member States.
I would now like to answer the other question raised that appears later in the list of questions.
Firstly, this matter actually concerns DG IV, but it also concerns my colleague Mr Papoutsis because it comes under the directive and the Member States are therefore required to inform the Commission, and in particular Mr Papoutsis, of their intentions with regard to stranded costs.
Secondly, as it is mostly a question of state aid, my services must also be notified of this type of matter.
I can also tell you that, during my last visit to Madrid at the beginning of the month, I discussed this issue at length with Mr Piqué, the minister responsible, who promised me that my services would definitely be notified of the issue so that we can examine it in parallel with other cases, because the problem exists almost throughout the Member States.
In the course of the coming months, we hope to examine all of the cases of stranded costs in a spirit of coherence and transparency.
I cannot therefore tell you any more, except that we have insisted that the Spanish Government should notify us of the issue so as to allow my services too to examine all relevant cases, obviously in full cooperation with Mr Papoutsis's services in DG XVII.
Commissioner, I would ask you to remain with this issue as, firstly, I have a supplementary question from Mr Pérez Royo and I then have two further supplementary questions, one from Mrs Estevan Bolea and a second from Mrs García Arias.
Therefore, I will first give the floor to Mr Pérez Royo for one minute.
Commissioner, my written question refers to the oligopoly that exists in the Spanish electricity industry.
Given the measures that the Spanish government has been promoting recently, we should instead be talking about a form of capitalism between friends or a sharing out of the loot.
In fact, on the eve of the liberalisation of the electricity industry, the companies have managed to get the government to propose compensation of ESP 1.3 billion, that is, EUR 6 200 million, to cover the costs of the transition to a competitive environment.
The government, in collusion with the companies, hopes to move this issue of compensation forward before quantifying the costs involved and before even knowing whether or not there are any costs at all. Indeed, this compensation is going to mean a significant rise in charges for consumers.
The regulatory body for the industry, the Comisión Nacional del Sistema Eléctrico, has stated that it opposes this measure and believes it to be unjustified.
The only response from the government to the views of the regulatory body was the assertion that the chairman of the Comisión Nacional del Sistema Eléctrico is a socialist.
Apart from the embarrassment I feel at the attitude adopted by the Vice-President of the Government, I would like to specifically ask the Commissioner if the government has informed the Commission of its intention to approve these measures by urgent procedure, in less than a few weeks. Secondly, I would like to know if the Commission's services believe that such practices are compatible with the rules on competition.
It is clear that the two questions are linked.
Firstly, as far as the trend towards concentration is concerned, once again, I cannot for the time being tell what is involved here as I do not have sufficient information.
But we are, of course, insisting that the companies provide us with full information so that we can check whether this is an example of a concentration and see whether we must examine the case, or whether it should be dealt with by the national authorities.
Then, if it is a cooperation agreement we may also have to examine it, this time in the light of Article 85 rather than the regulation on concentrations.
That is all I have to say on the first aspect of the question, which in fact is similar to the question asked initially.
As for the other aspect, I have just said that a few weeks ago, when I was in Madrid, I managed to secure Mr Piqué's agreement to ensure that Mr Papoutsis is notified of how the transitional measures are funded not only under the directive but also in the form of state aid.
Perhaps this has been checked in the meantime, but we are going to examine this whole issue in terms of state aid and stranded costs.
I cannot tell you any more at the moment, except to confirm that we refused to accept that we should not be informed of this so that we can examine it properly.
As you know, Spain is the country where there has been the greatest and most widespread liberalisation of the electricity market.
At the moment, 18 % of supply comes from private generators, that is, autoproducers, so Mr Pérez Royo's figures are somewhat out of date.
There are also new projects involving a number of American companies.
I would like to ask you about the situation in France, which has the company Electricité de France .
I would like to know whether or not you believe that the French are complying with the directive in terms of the transition to a competitive environment.
I am very grateful for this question because it allows me to give you certain details.
Firstly, there must be no mistake. We very much welcome the government's current plans to liberalise the energy market.
There is no doubt on that point.
But in doing this we must also respect the rules of the game, particularly by checking that the amount devoted to stranded costs is real and does not exceed the actual stranded costs involved.
This is yet to be checked, both in Spain and in other countries such as France and Belgium.
Secondly, you are correct. The situation is in a way even more complicated in certain other countries.
In France, everyone knows the situation concerning EDF.
But there too the market will have to be opened up, particularly as EDF has just bought an electricity company in the United Kingdom.
Therefore, if we want to have access to other markets, we must of course accept that others can also come onto our market.
It works both ways.
There must not be any misunderstanding on that point.
Once again, we welcome the government's policy, on the whole.
Nonetheless, we must check that the way in which it is being implemented does not cause problems.
However, I will not comment on this now but will wait until I have been fully informed about the system in question.
In the days ahead, before the end of this year, the Spanish Chamber of Deputies is going to vote on an amendment to the accompanying government bill on budgets that will allow electricity companies immediately to obtain around one billion pesetas from the financial market that the banks will recover through an additional charge to be added to the rates paid by consumers over the coming years.
The electricity companies are going to be able to use the money they pocket against other competitors, not only in the electricity industry, but also, for example, in the telecommunications sector, where these electricity monopolies are already evident.
I would like to ask the following question. Do you not believe that it is urgent, before that vote, to warn Spain's legislators - on the basis of the Community law you represent - that this substantial aid or subsidy needs to be authorised in advance by the European Commission and that the vote should therefore be postponed?
Of course. I can tell you that we have informed the government that this practice is at the companies' own risk.
You are right in saying that the Commission must be able to check whether aid given by the authorities as compensation for stranded costs is correct and, consequently, until the Commission is able to complete its work, authorisation cannot be given and, as a result, if they go ahead it is at the risk of the authorities and of the companies concerned.
This must be clear.
Therefore, I will not conceal the fact that I have asked the government to postpone this operation.
That is the stage we are at now.
As for putting it on the market, for which you have quoted the amount - so that there is no misunderstanding, the remainder is the overall system, which will be examined - not only would this be at the companies' own risk but, moreover, those concerned would be well advised not to proceed with it before the Commission has been able to complete its work.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Knowing how generous you are, I would propose that you deal with one last question in the two minutes that we have left.
Question No 61 by Jyrki Otila (H-1101/98)
Subject: Sabena flights to Strasbourg during part-session weeks
The Belgian national airline Sabena discriminates against economy class travellers on the route between Brussels and Strasbourg during the European Parliament's part-session weeks.
The airline prohibits the purchase of other than business class tickets for certain departures. This causes problems to other passengers, not least with regard to the compatibility of timetables and the limited alternative travel possibilities.
Does the Commission consider that in acting in this way Sabena is abusing its dominant position on the Brussels-Strasbourg route? What measures does the Commission propose to take to put pressure on Sabena to halt the discrimination against economy class travellers on this route?
I give the floor to Mr Van Miert to answer this last question in the two minutes which remain.
I would ask the honourable Member, who was quite right to raise this question, to give us a little more information, because it is not clear whether this was a case where all the economy seats had been sold and it was claimed that there were only business-class seats left.
That may have been the case - it does happen. Or else there were still some economy seats left, but the person concerned was forced, as it were, to pay the business class price.
That happened to me once, not on this flight but on a flight from Brussels to Milan.
I have to say that there are obviously still certain practices going on here and there - hence the answer I gave to Mrs McIntosh a moment ago - which are enough to make us look at the whole situation a little more closely, not just that one flight.
I have the impression that certain things are happening that are a little suspicious.
I do not want to comment on this particular case because we have of course asked Sabena to provide further information, but if the honourable Member could give us any more detailed information himself, it would be helpful.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his reply.
It is true that Sabena only offer a business class service on this route.
But as our time is drawing to a close I do not wish to prolong this sitting.
I shall return to the subject later.
Thank you, Mr Otila.
Since we have now come to the end of the time set aside for questions to the Commission, Questions Nos 62 to 113 will receive written answers.
That concludes questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Information strategy on euro
The next item is the report (A4-0485/98) by Mr Arroni, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on an information strategy on the euro (COM(98)0039 - C4-0125/98).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Arroni.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, money is present in numerous acts of daily life.
It is not only a vital cog in the economic wheel but also a store of values and ideals; and if the currency under discussion is the euro, these considerations take on a far deeper meaning.
Hence the importance of informing Europe's citizens about the euro and ensuring that they appreciate its significance.
Much is at stake: the euro is now a fait accompli and must succeed.
But its success depends to a large extent on its acceptance by all the citizens of Europe.
Their acceptance will in turn depend on our capacity - until now and from now on - to communicate with them and inform them about the euro.
Acceptance by all Europeans, therefore, is the first aspect on which I wish to dwell.
A mere glance at the budget of the Prince programme reveals straight away that the investments scheduled increase in stages and culminate at the key date of 1 January 1999, only to decline inexplicably thereafter. What does this mean?
Does it mean that our task will be complete once we have satisfied the information needs of that part of the population which will have the possibility, the desire and indeed be privileged to use the virtual euro as from 1999? What do we intend to do for the other part of the population, the less fortunate groups, the ordinary citizens who will only encounter the euro once it is in their pockets in 2002?
We must remember that for many European citizens the euro will not arrive in 1999, but in 2002.
We have been quite right to focus our efforts so far on those who will be using the euro as from 1 January 1999, but we must not make the mistake of believing that this is enough.
If we were to do that, the euro could be perceived even more than now as a currency for the rich or for just one section of the population, and this would not only be a social injustice but really could jeopardise the much-desired success of the entire operation.
That is why one paragraph of my report proposes that the budgetary effort - ECU 38 million - should be maintained in the years following 1999.
Let us now move on to another problem: when the target population changes, can we maintain the same type of information? In the Economic Affairs Committee I proposed that, after 1999, we should offer information that is less technical and more emotive, so as to arouse people's feelings.
The committee did not think it advisable to take this course, and I respect its view.
What I would say, however, is that not only must the nature of the information be different, but so must the type of language and the practical methods used.
Until now, we have been attempting to communicate on the basis of rather technical information - economic and financial considerations - stressing the economic and financial potential of the new single currency.
This was without doubt a winning approach, because it was aimed at a section of European society capable of understanding and benefiting from it.
However, as I have said, the success of the euro will depend on its acceptance by the average citizen.
We must therefore use a different sort of language, try to speak to the ordinary citizen in his own language and find out what kind of information he needs.
As for the methods, we must bear in mind that 25 % of Europeans - I repeat, 25 % - are a target population which cannot be reached at all by means of the methods used to date.
An OECD report states that between 30 and 45 % of Europe's citizens are illiterate or recurrent illiterate: this does not mean that they cannot read or write, but that they have difficulty in grasping the meaning of a written text.
So we could send out kilos upon kilos of brochures, or put together the most sophisticated websites; all to no effect.
It is not a matter of repudiating the magnificent work done so far, and which has served our purpose so well, but this should be complemented by other, more suitable methods.
As regards the most disadvantaged groups, one undoubtedly effective method could be to use so-called 'euro mediators': people whose social role brings them into close contact with these disadvantaged groups, such as the family doctor, pharmacists, postal workers and social workers.
I would just conclude with a thought for the young people who, by their very nature, will be the bearers of the positive messages which we entrust to them.
Mr President, Commissioner, we have often discussed the question of the euro and the European Parliament's information campaign, known as Prince.
Those Members of Parliament present today, who are almost all experts, know that the Prince programme is an initiative of the European Parliament and that in 1998 we have had a heated debate with the Commission concerning the implementation of its information activities.
For this reason we in the Committee on Budgets, in our opinion on the present report, which dates from as far back as 15 June, first considered calling for an independent Prince campaign in order to ensure that we would have a continued role in decision-making in the Prince programme, as the President at that time did not accept the amendments or the Pex report.
On the other hand, of course, we did not create the Prince initiative solely for the purpose of a euro campaign but also in order to take in two other areas of activity.
It is ultimately the wish of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy no longer to do so to such an extent, but I am pleased that the rapporteur has included the main paragraphs from my opinion - paragraphs 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 - which deal with the main points agreed on by the joint working party of the European Parliament and the Commission.
I would ask the Commission and the Commissioner responsible, Mr de Silguy, to use their authority where the budgetary framework is concerned.
You are familiar with the problem.
We have constant problems between Parliament and the Commission, although in the past Parliament strongly supported the Commission in making available the necessary resources.
Yesterday, in the supplementary budget, we once again made additional resources available for the euro campaign so that its implementation is guaranteed.
I hope that in future the Commission's proposals will be sound at the outset, so that Parliament does not need to put them right.
Mr President, the rapporteur is right to highlight in his report the importance of information and communication in the context of introducing the euro.
It was the European Parliament that, very early on, pointed out the lack of information on the euro and fortunately found in the European Commission a partner to organise cooperation between the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States of the Union.
As always, I regret that information in the Member States and also in the regions and local communities is not as highly developed as it should be.
We have discovered that many people in the European Union do not feel involved. They feel that they are not properly informed and that the information they have is not broad enough.
They do not feel that they are sufficiently well informed about the pros and cons of monetary union.
Yet monetary union begins in only 17 days. We in the European Parliament must therefore ensure that this work on information continues, as the rapporteur rightly emphasised.
It must continue in particular in the next year when we will be living in the European monetary union but only cashless payments will be handled in euros.
Do you know that many people believe that euro coins and notes will be available to them from 4 January? Do you know how frustrating this will be?
Do you know how difficult it is to adjust to a different currency? All these issues concern us particularly as Members of this European Parliament.
We must therefore continue to insist on conferences on the subject of the euro, on discussions and on reliable information booklets.
But we must also ensure that we include the NGOs, consumer protection associations, youth organisations and women's associations, so that they can help to persuade people in these areas.
I believe that with the help of such efforts over and above the report, a great deal more can be done and that the genuinely positive approaches of the information and communication work on the euro can and must therefore be extended.
It is true that we must also consider the problem groups in our society, the disadvantaged sections of the information society, and it would therefore be helpful if the Commission could tell Parliament today that it intends to make 10 % of the resources available for these disadvantaged groups and that in addition to the initial projects it has a new strategy to genuinely include everyone.
We have also shown that we are concerned not only about handicapped persons but also about people who live in remoter regions, who do not have much opportunity to travel, and also about illiterate people, for example.
We therefore need a more substantial contribution and also a greater commitment from the Member States.
So I call on the Ministers of Finance and in particular the Ministers of Education in the European Union to ensure that the euro is taught about in schools and in adult education, and to provide the necessary resources for this.
We must involve young people and older people, so that they know that European monetary union is in their interest.
We cannot leave it to the private sector to take full responsibility for information on the euro.
The public sector must take on the leading role which we wanted it to have in the regions and in the Member States too.
Mr President, publicity for the euro is bearing fruit.
Support for the euro in the 15 Member States has risen to 60 %, and as high as 75 % in the Netherlands, although it is uncertain whether this support will continue to grow.
In my country, for example, things are going adrift in cooperation between the departments organising the government campaign and private parties represented in the national forum for the introduction of the euro.
The banks have known for years that they would need to clarify their policy vis-à-vis the consumer.
I was pressing for this in the media before the summer holiday period.
For years, the banks have hidden the cost to the consumer in an exchange rate margin which is difficult to quantify.
And now, with the launch of the euro just four weeks away, they are confusing their clients with new money rates at a time when those clients understandably thought that they would face no further costs in the future.
The reaction of people in the Netherlands is quite understandably one of extreme irritation.
In the view of the consumers, the proposed rate is too high and in some instances not transparent.
Equally questionable are the settlement rates which the banks will be charging each other.
There seems to be no element of competition there at all.
Another threat is looming over the introduction of the euro.
The retail trade in the Netherlands is united in wanting a 'legal big bang'.
The same is true in other countries too.
So it will be guilders up to 1 January 2002 and euros thereafter, with the possibility, if necessary, of exchanging guilders for six months afterwards.
The retail trade has put forward some good arguments and given the government a helping hand in the form of practical suggestions.
From the government side, we have not heard one single convincing argument, just vague talk about safety and security and the need to call in the army.
I do not think that is relevant, since the army is a positive force in society in Europe and will be more than ready to lend its assistance.
My question to the Commissioner is this: can the Commissioner say whether he thinks competition between the banks on their reciprocally agreed rates is guaranteed?
Does he think the 'legal big bang' is possible, and is the so-called 'frontloading' which this requires legally possible? Is there any truth in the rumour that there are plans for a law which will make frontloading impossible?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Arroni report has made it very clear that information about the euro is of great importance.
But I should like to raise here the question of policy with regard to target groups.
Member States will need to broadly coordinate the information they provide on the practical procedures for the introduction of the euro as a currency between 1 January and 1 July 2002.
To my mind, the choice between a transitional period of a few weeks and one big change-over day all at once largely determines the way in which information on the euro should be given to our citizens.
Information must be targeted at the moment of the actual physical change-over.
The problem is, however, that most countries have not yet taken a decision on that.
If Member States decide to introduce the euro all at once in a 'big bang' of the kind Mrs Peijs referred to, then information should be aimed primarily at older people encouraging them to start using the euro right away.
Because a 'big bang' needs frontloading.
Euros will need to be distributed a few days ahead of 1 January 2002.
We have to avoid older people being taken by surprise by a change-over all in one day.
Research shows that older people are more reluctant than others to start using euros early.
A fairly long transitional period will enable people to pay with the old currency and the euro.
This method will mean that the retail trade in particular bears a large proportion of the cost of the actual change.
If a fairly long transitional period is chosen, information must focus primarily on encouraging the public at large to pay by transfer methods using PINs, chips and credit cards.
This will as far as possible ease the burden on the retail trade and small businesses.
Mr President, this report by Mr Arroni has been drawn up at a defining moment in history as we move towards the introduction of the euro.
The arrival of the single currency needs a revolutionary approach not only on behalf of the institutions but on behalf of all the citizens of this Union.
Our habits and our traditions will have to change.
To be effective this change must be accompanied by a real and effective information policy.
The transfer to the euro is going to change a whole scale of values.
The symbols for the currencies we have grown up with will disappear.
I am certain that with a properly organised information campaign we will quickly adapt to the new euro symbol.
Europe will be moving forward together on the euro.
The point of no return has been reached.
It is legitimate to devote half the information budget to a public awareness campaign on the euro to ensure that the transition happens as smoothly as possible.
The transfer to the euro is not only an economic question for bankers and financial institutions.
Public opinion also counts.
Without delay, without exception and if necessary through large-scale trial runs, we must ensure that the less-favoured, the blind, those with disabilities and those who are isolated must be the target of a practical and major information campaign.
Governments and local authorities - as they are close to the people - have a role to play in this information campaign.
The main focus must be on schools, universities, small shopkeepers and the media.
From the year 2001 a major campaign of public awareness must be launched throughout the Union aimed at promoting the identity of the euro. It must take into account questions raised between now and then.
My group fully supports a rise in the funding levels for the Prince programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have very little time but I would like to use it to emphasise the fact that even the Commission itself claims that SMEs are not as well informed about the consequences of the euro as larger firms are.
That is natural given the origins of the euro and the interests that its creation primarily serves!
Again, the Commission itself says that the preparation of local authorities and elected representatives is at times lagging behind.
That too is natural!
And it is being too kind in watering down the expression by adding the phrase 'at times'.
It is small and medium-sized firms, small and medium-sized elected representatives, small and medium-sized consumers, small and medium-sized people who are being given too little information about the euro.
That is natural, because the euro was not created for anything small or medium-sized, even though they are going to have to use it in their small and medium-sized daily lives!
Recital J of the Arroni report points out the psychological, social, political and national dimensions and rightly considers that a currency is not only a technical instrument to make trade easier.
I would like to add, in the case of the euro, the phrase 'between large groups in international economic and financial relations'.
I would like to draw attention to recital L, although perhaps it exaggerates when it says that switching to the euro is going to destroy all scales of values in existence, and people's memory of prices and habits.
I emphasise all of this but I could also underline the fact that in France there are still people who work out prices in old francs; in Portugal people still refer to a thousand 'reis' or 'tostões'.
Probably every country has examples of people who run the risk of being discriminated against or even excluded.
For our part, when it comes to the euro, we would like to make them special targets for information about the euro.
Mr President, it may initially seem rather strange and also late in the day for this House to be discussing the information strategy for the euro when we are just 17 days away from its introduction.
However, we should remember that, since 1996, many costly efforts have been made to inform the inhabitants of the European Union about the introduction of the single European currency as this will affect them more than any other EU measure.
The introduction of the euro must therefore be fully understood by all EU citizens, whether employees, businesspeople or consumers, with regard to both its political, economic and social objectives and its methods of use during the transitional period and after 2002.
Approximately ECU 150 million have already been spent in the campaigns organised between 1996 and today.
From next year until 2001, another ECU 100 million will be available.
I must congratulate our rapporteur, Mr Arroni, on his report and thank him in particular for having accepted the majority of my amendments. However, he has had to report that, despite this expenditure, a large part of the EU population feels ill informed about the euro and that, according to the OECD, around 30-40 % of the European population experiences difficulty comprehending written information.
This is rather astonishing, particularly when you consider that we are all normally interested in money, whether we have it, whether we do not or whether we have enough.
Our rapporteur has recommended that the general public be among the main target groups of the euro information campaign, with special attention being given to particular sections of society and with certain specific groups in society being used to distribute this information.
I have secured the addition of women's organisations as a multiplier for communicating and targeting the information.
There is a regrettable tendency to ignore the major national and European women's organisations which have millions of members in the Member States and very specific and direct means of reaching and informing women.
Perhaps the Commission could encourage these organisations to participate in the information campaigns by offering them a partnership?
This would be money well spent and more cost-effective than glossy brochures which no-one reads or understands.
Mr President, the physical introduction of the euro really affects all the citizens of the countries that are participating in monetary union.
The replacement of the coins and notes we have been accustomed to with something completely new and different will be an important event in all our lives.
This changeover will require a new way of thinking and a positive attitude to the event.
Mr Arroni's excellent report, which is also technically outstanding, is therefore a highly important document in view of the need to provide economic actors and citizens with information as efficiently as possible.
Large sums of money are being spent on this information campaign, so it is important for the European Parliament to state clearly how the agencies responsible should use it.
As all sections of the population, all social classes, all age groups, including partially sighted people and the mentally handicapped, need to be able to deal with and handle the money, information cannot just take the form of general statements.
Instead, it is important to try to initiate dialogue with the people and to provide information geared towards specific target groups.
We will be able to avoid a lengthy and costly two-track situation in the first half of the year 2002 if people are fully informed before that point.
Institutions and firms that are particularly suited to the role of multipliers must play a key role in information.
These include in particular schools, local authorities, banks or even tourism organisations with an international clientele.
In terms of the acceptance of the new currency, it is important that we should no longer give the impression at this stage that we are advertising the euro, but that we are simply providing information about it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission I must first of all congratulate Mr Arroni on his report on the information strategy for the euro.
I believe that we have very similar views on this subject and I share the concerns expressed in this House about the fears, expectations and even hopes of the general public in the changeover to the euro.
I also believe that the action which we have carried out together since 1996, following the Madrid European Council at the end of 1995, has largely achieved its objective of mobilisation.
I would be inclined to answer Mr Tillich by saying that cooperation between the Commission, the European Parliament and the Member States is useful.
I believe that this has been proven and, in the future, cooperation will be the decisive factor in the success of the transitional period.
I will very briefly comment on two aspects arising from the speeches and from having read this report. The first relates to the method of operation of the campaign and the second concerns the priority targets.
With regard to the method of operation, I would remind you that our campaigns are based on two principles: partnership and decentralisation.
I believe that partnership is a vital concept because the Member States must be brought as close as possible to the citizens.
This is why conventions have been signed - in the end with all 11 members of the euro zone - which have worked well.
They will be renewed next year and I can inform you, as requested by Mr Arroni, that the Commission is not limiting itself just to the euro zone. On the contrary, we are ready to discuss with the various 'pre-in' countries the issue of cofinancing euro information actions from 1999, if they wish to do this.
However, Mr Arroni is suggesting that we limit the Community cofinancing to 50 % of the total budget.
I find this rather strange because it was specifically on the basis of the recommendation of the joint Commission-Parliament working group that approximately two-thirds of the available annual funds were reserved for partnerships.
Also, our evaluations confirm the success of these partnerships which, in the context of the conventions, act as a lever for the actions carried out by each Member State not only at national level but also among local communities, SMEs, the distribution sector and the vulnerable sections of the population, about whom you are rightly concerned.
Partnerships are therefore the best way of ensuring that the information reaches the grassroots level. Also, the way in which these partnerships are implemented is essential, in this case through tripartite structures in which your representatives are participating.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, these tripartite structures allow these partnerships and actions to be guided, thus ensuring the necessary monitoring and follow-up.
With regard to the second principle - decentralisation - I must remind you that the Commission proposed the creation of local observatories. These are being set up and will provide structures in each Member State to improve the monitoring of the information actions' impact.
They will therefore meet this need for information and the need to reassure public opinion, namely the general public.
The ECU 100 million budget specified for the Prince line for the transitional period - that is, ECU 38 million (or EUR 38 million as it is now) for 1999, 32 million for 2000 and 30 million for 2001 - seems sufficient to us to assist the efforts of the Member States.
Having said this, I have noted the rapporteur's wish to see this line increased.
It will be up to the budgetary authority to decide on this on an annual basis.
Turning now to the second aspect - priority targets - I believe that, as mentioned by several of you, including the rapporteur, the priority targets must be the SMEs, particularly in the distribution and tourism sectors, and also, Mr Arroni, the general public and the more vulnerable sections of society.
I must thank you for highlighting the important role of the Commission's recommendations in the spring on the dual display of prices, banking charges and the monitoring of the euro's introduction.
These recommendations were the result of real cooperation and have allowed codes of good conduct and good practice to be established between the various sectors concerned.
I can give as an example the agreement between distributors and consumers, particularly regarding the dual display of prices. This will be embodied by a euro logo with a broad smile which you will soon see throughout Europe and which appears to have been accepted by the population.
A code of good conduct and good practice on conversion charges, which is currently being developed, will also be introduced in the banking sector.
However, in addition to these agreements, the Commission shares the rapporteur's view concerning the need to adapt the information strategy to the requirements of the most vulnerable target groups.
I can say to Mrs Peijs that, with regard to the so-called big bang, the idea currently being studied in Europe involves arranging for shopkeepers to give the euro as change from 1 January 2002.
Therefore, just before 1 January 2002, they will be provided with enough euro notes and coins so that they can give change only in the euro from 1 January 2002, with the public being able to continue paying in the national currency for a few more weeks.
This is the formula which is currently being studied.
With regard to the public, and specifically those in vulnerable and disadvantaged groups, I believe that our information strategy must develop, in the short and long term, into partnerships with the Member States, with these groups being a priority.
We have therefore planned for specific actions to be carried out among young people and in the world of education.
Mrs Lulling, based on ongoing qualitative studies we have also planned a specific action targeted at women, particularly those not in paid employment.
As for the so-called sensitive groups, several pilot projects are currently being developed.
However, I do not believe that it is appropriate to fix a predefined limit of 10 % for the funds.
Some countries will need more while in certain cases more is already being done. In any case, I believe that a certain amount of flexibility must be kept in order to adapt the effort to current and future requirements.
Clearly, political pressure in favour of these disadvantaged groups must be maintained, which is what the Commission intends to do.
To conclude, I must applaud the exemplary collaboration between our two institutions. Since 1996, this has allowed a coherent information strategy for the euro to be developed.
We must continue in this manner and affirm that our ultimate aim is to ensure that, unlike the situation which occurred in France in the 1960s, on 1 January 2002 when the euro notes and coins are put into circulation, this will be for everyone the final stage in a process for which they will have been well prepared and which will have been properly explained. Our aim is also to ensure that this changeover occurs smoothly.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Adjustment mechanism in cases of asymmetric shocks
Mr President, how are countries to cope with an economic crisis once we have the euro? That is really what my report is about.
From 1 January, eleven countries of the European Union will have a single currency.
At the same time, they will have a single monetary policy and the various exchange rates between them will be irrevocably fixed.
What this means is that whilst they gain a common currency, they lose the ability to absorb the consequences of an economic crisis affecting only themselves and not other countries of Euroland by applying a monetary policy which is tailored to their own national circumstances or by revaluing their national currency.
From 1 January, monetary policy will be geared to the average situation in Euroland as a whole, and only the euro itself will fluctuate in value against currencies outside the euro zone.
In economic terms, the Member States in Euroland are simply regions within a greater whole.
A crisis affecting one region cannot be resolved through national policy.
Whilst the euro countries are losing two major instruments for dealing with regional crises, they still have the most important instrument, namely their budget.
In the event of a regional crisis, they can use their budget to resolve it.
However, the stability pact has restricted the ways in which the budget can be used.
If the budget deficit is 3 %, those possibilities are exhausted.
Other possibilities for resolving country- and region-specific crises and the unemployment to which they lead could well be labour mobility and wage flexibility.
But in Europe, with its different language regions, the mobility of labour will always be limited, and there are clear limits to what is acceptable in Europe as regards wage flexibility.
All this means that Euroland is quite vulnerable to economic crises which affect just one or more countries.
I offer two solutions to this in my report.
Firstly, Member States can take their own precautionary measures, as the social partners have done in Finland.
In Finland, the social partners use the pension funds as a shock absorber.
In times of sound economic growth, they increase contributions into the pension funds so that in times of crisis they can reduce them.
Since national economic crises may, in the strongly integrated Euroland, spill over on to other Member States unless they are dealt with effectively, I propose a safety net at European level in the form of a stabilisation instrument to be funded by loans raised on the capital market.
A mechanism of this kind is already allowed for under Article 103a(2) of the Treaty.
It is in fact quite simply an insurance instrument against the consequences of a serious national crisis.
It cannot resolve the crisis, but will buy governments the extra time they need to take structural measures to restore the balance. It will in fact replace the exchange rate instrument which in practice served the same purpose prior to the advent of the euro.
Since the monies involved are funds raised on the capital market and repayable loans rather than transfers, I would expect Member States to be happy with this idea.
A major fear in the past, that a stabilisation mechanism of this kind might conflict with the stability pact, has now been allayed.
The conditionality attaching to loans will undoubtedly run in tandem with the requirements of the stability pact.
I shall be glad to hear from the Commission how it intends to keep its promise of 8 April last year that it will, before the end of this year, consider jointly with the Council and Parliament how the terms of Article 103a(2) can be implemented.
Precisely because this Treaty article envisages a stability mechanism and unanimity is needed in the Council to implement it, we in Parliament think it is important to draw up the framework for implementation well in advance, because if a country is faced with a shock which it cannot absorb effectively itself by using existing resources, Community assistance is needed promptly and we cannot spend half a year talking about what to do and how to do it.
This same need for a speedy response means that an early warning system might usefully be devised. We are urging the Commission to do this too.
Mr President, country-specific shocks within Euroland are not problems over which politicians are losing any sleep, let alone the general public.
This House is convinced, however, in view of the broad support which my report has received, that this is not right.
So the Commission and the Council have to get their act together.
Mr President, in Portuguese we have the equivalent of the expression 'shutting the stable doors after the horse has bolted' - in other words people tend to find ways of avoiding problems only once they have taken place.
Before any unexpected shocks hit national economies following the introduction of the euro, we should decide on arrangements to tackle that situation.
We should not try to find solutions after a crisis has struck.
That is the aim and the merit of this report, an own-initiative report drafted by our colleague Alman Metten, whom I congratulate and who proposes a number of different solutions on the basis of Article 103a of the Treaty of European Union, which provides for a Stabilisation Fund to tackle national shocks.
First of all we must bear in mind that this support can only be granted in exceptional circumstances beyond countries' control and by a unanimous decision of the Council.
The instrument which we are now proposing to create will be particularly useful when crises occur in Member States which have not yet sufficiently reduced their budget deficits and do not have their own reserves to face such situations.
It also seems to us that the proposal for the European Union to have a stronger budget to allow it to take effective action against asymmetrical economic slumps is the most appropriate one.
The European Union now needs instruments to defend the economies of its future Member States.
The Commission should, therefore, put forward draft directives setting out all of the possible solutions for tackling this potential risk.
However, the appropriations should certainly not be deducted from the Community Funds, since they have another aim and are applied to those regions that are still the least developed in the whole of the European Union.
Mr President, now that European monetary union is in place, we must examine in detail some of its consequences. How will EMU function?
What problems may arise and how will these be solved? In this respect, the question of asymmetric shocks is clearly vital.
It is well known that, with the introduction of the euro, the Member States will lose two courses of action in their economic policy: the manipulation of exchange rates and monetary policy.
We should therefore ask whether the euro zone has sufficient instruments to deal with any asymmetric shocks.
We firstly need to clarify one point which Mr Metten has briefly mentioned: that the chance of asymmetric shocks will fall under monetary union.
Why? Quite simply because the Member States can no longer set themselves apart by pursuing economic policies which go against those of the other countries in the euro zone, and God knows that some not too far away have done this in the past.
Having said this, even if the chance of asymmetric shocks will fall, we must not delude ourselves into thinking that these will be completely eliminated.
So what can we do? We can put into practice the old saying 'prevention is better than cure' - this must be a day for sayings.
To do this we firstly need to reinforce the coordination of economic policies in order to at least minimise, if not prevent, the infamous asymmetric shocks.
Secondly, we must implement major structural reforms in a number of Member States, particularly relating to the operation of the labour market and the weight of the social and tax burden.
However, we must also provide a cure using remedies that involve in particular good coordination of budgetary and tax policies and possibly, eventually, a greater transfer of certain budgetary expenditure and revenue from the Member States to the Community budget - eventually.
I am not so naive that I do not realise that although this would currently be the best solution economically speaking, this is not the case politically.
Our rapporteur is proposing the creation of a stabilisation fund based on Article 103a of the Treaty.
I would say to Mr Metten that this article does not go that far as it only authorises Community financial assistance to the Member State concerned.
This is why we in the PPE believe that we should stick to an insurance instrument and we are therefore proposing an amendment to this end.
Mr President, the Liberal Group read with interest Mr Metten's proposal for an initiative on the absorption of asymmetric shocks.
The aim, as he indicated just now in his brief introduction, is to find an alternative to devaluations and local monetary policy.
That prompted the Liberal Group too to wonder, when we compare the old situation with the new one, how much has really changed, who bore the responsibility previously and who is to bear the responsibility now?
The underlying cause of this kind of shock frequently lies in the policy of the country concerned.
Have the countries made sure, and a number of speakers have asked the same thing, that their own policies are sufficiently balanced as regards taxation, the budget and the national debt?
The Treaty also allows for measures to be taken in special situations, and deficits of more than 3 % are permissible, but in very exceptional circumstances.
From a Liberal point of view, I think that these should be very exceptional circumstances and then intervention, perhaps short-lived, should be possible in the case of a bigger budget deficit.
But that is a very special situation and it requires unanimity.
The other side is that responsibility lies primarily with the policy pursued by the national Member States, and those national states must continue to pay for it.
We do not agree with the idea that this should be done primarily through a stabilisation fund at European level.
In that respect, we do not support the proposal.
Mr President, this report asserts that asymmetry within the EU economy will decrease with the introduction of the euro. However, the facts tell a different story.
Divisions between the various regions of the Union are increasing, and have been doing so for a long time.
There is a clear trend towards concentration of business and other activities.
Countries differ in terms of their dependence on raw materials from abroad; and the single market itself is creating growing inequalities.
The very notion of a common market is underpinned by the need for specialisation and concentration - in other words, increasing asymmetry is built into the system.
I view the report as one more example of how little real analysis has been done on the actual foundation for this hazardous monetary venture.
Mr President, the Metten report highlights that the euro zone may ultimately be relatively unstable due to the impact of various asymmetric shocks.
These shocks could come from outside the zone or may also, in particular, come from inside. We should not forget, Mr Fourçans, the shocks resulting from the system itself given that this will impose uniform policies on national economies in differing situations.
In this respect, it will be very interesting for economists to see if, in the coming months, the first of these destabilising shocks will result from the alignment of short-term interest rates which took place on 3 December among the various countries in the zone.
The explanatory statement of the Metten report considers this situation, and is particularly concerned about the situation in Ireland. What will happen if the sharp fall in interest rates leads to the economy of this country overheating?
The rapporteur proposes offsetting the effect of the fall in rates by increasing taxes in Ireland. This is a solution which will undoubtedly not please the Irish, who will be sacrificed on the altar of the single currency.
In more general terms, Mr Metten proposes using Article 103a of the Treaty to set up a European stabilisation fund intended to assist countries falling victim to asymmetric shocks.
Of course he promises us, as is always the case in this type of exercise, that this will be a lightweight structure that will provide guarantees but will not redistribute finance among countries. We do not believe this.
The logic of the single currency system is to gradually progress towards a Community redistribution budget in order to offset the internal instability of the zone.
The contributing countries which are already complaining about the extent of their payments would do well to consider this.
Mr President, the question of whether the risk of asymmetric shocks will increase or decrease with the introduction of monetary union is one that can hardly be answered at this point.
However, it is clear that this possibility exists.
But it is also clear that the instrument of devaluation will no longer apply.
Mr Metten's report makes a series of useful recommendations for both the Member States and the Community.
However, the coordination of national policies is certainly the most appropriate way of reducing risks.
I agree with the reference to Article 103A as an insurance instrument.
The idea of providing the Union with a bigger budget in future in order to take effective action to combat economic slumps seems to me to be completely pointless, at least for now.
The only effective means of successful intervention will continue to be the political will of the Member States.
Mr President, the problem raised by Mr Metten is clearly a central one which economists have been studying for some time.
These economists must now find solutions because the advent of a single monetary policy prevents the use of the weapon of devaluation and is in fact the cause of the problem raised by our colleague's report.
In simple terms, it is clear that when exchange rates were involved, shocks were possible within the Member States which had consequences for the whole Union.
You can therefore appreciate the importance of anticipating the possibility of such asymmetric shocks within a country or, as rightly pointed out by Mr Metten, within regions or sectors and not just within a state structure.
Such shocks exist in our Member States.
It is currently possible for one region in a Member State to be in an asymmetric position with regard to the rest of the country, and the solution used is one of cohesion and solidarity.
This same solution must be used accordingly at European level. This will require much more work yet.
Firstly, we must strive for closer coordination of economic policies.
By implementing coordinated policies of stimulation, growth and solidarity we will help to reduce the chances of asymmetric shocks.
At the same time, we must also strengthen the means at the Commission's disposal because I believe that, in order to prevent asymmetric shocks, we must harmonise the Commission's evaluation and procedural means so that the Commission is not solely dependent on those of the Member States.
The Commission must have its own means of expert evaluation.
Turning to the broader picture, Mr Metten raises the question of freedom of movement.
I feel that, in addition to freedom of movement for workers, freedom of movement for citizens would help to make our economies more fluid.
I would go further by saying that, in terms of the universities, we must create courses with common-core syllabuses.
Finally, the solutions proposed by the rapporteur relate primarily to the budgetary issue.
I believe he has quite rightly raised the question of the current budgetary ceiling in the European Union.
If we do not consider this question today, we will eventually be forced to consider it because, if we want to effectively combat asymmetric shocks, we will need further means in addition to the insurance instrument or stabilisation fund.
I believe the course proposed by the rapporteur on the basis of Article 103a should be explored in order to find solutions to these asymmetric shocks.
Mr President, Mr Metten's report is clearly not the report that I would have liked to have seen produced.
It does not go far enough but, having said that, it is the only report possible at the present time.
I should like to thank Mr Metten for his efforts and for having accepted many of the amendments I tabled.
I should like to add, by way of warning to some Members, that I am not defending Spanish interests here, nor am I entering into the debate concerning rich and poor countries, which featured so prominently at the Vienna Summit.
I am only defending a European interest.
So why am I not defending Spanish interests here?
I am not defending them because, as highlighted in the Metten report, asymmetric crises in the past affected, above all, the United Kingdom in 1980, Germany following reunification, and the Netherlands. And, in the future, although the report makes no reference to the fact, experts have predicted that those most likely to suffer such crises are Portugal, in the event of a crisis in the textile industry, and Ireland, in the event of a recession in the United Kingdom which would have a devastating effect on Irish exports and emigration.
Why have I therefore chosen to defend a European interest? I have done so because we need to prevent a risk that might affect anyone.
Those who think that Europe can grow with increasingly less money, when confronted with the problem of the asymmetric crisis and the question of what can be done - as Lenin said -, simply say nothing.
Those of us who believe that Europe should progress at an even faster rate, emphasise the importance of and applaud the amendments tabled. A number of these were somewhat cautiously highlighted by Mr Metten, while others were strongly defended and supported in his report.
Mr Metten states that there is a need for greater mobility of production factors.
In this connection, I should like to highlight what Mrs Berès said: language learning and the coordination of academic studies will make Europe an area that is increasingly open to people.
One of the fundamental elements of this is the principle of coherence together with the budget, the early warning system and safety net facility that Mr Metten included in his report, on which I congratulate him sincerely.
Mr President, fortunately we are the only ones here this evening and we can speak quite freely. I even hear the name Lenin mentioned in this hallowed Chamber.
I would like to take up the subject at the point where it was left by Mr Fourçans, who told us quite rightly that two of the three instruments of economic policy available to the Member States are no longer at their disposal, and indeed they do not have control over economic policy and exchange rate policy.
It should be added that financial policy, which is the third instrument, is very heavily mortgaged to - if not eliminated by - the notorious stability pact, and I would say that the rapporteur's analysis of the stability pact should be considered with particular care.
According to the rapporteur, the 3 % deficit limit permitted by that celebrated pact is enough to cover the operation of the economy's automatic stabilisers, provided we start from a zero-deficit basis.
As the rapporteur rightly observes, it is most unlikely that zero deficits will be achieved in the next few years.
The aid from the stabilising fund proposed by the rapporteur may therefore prove particularly useful during the first, critical period of the euro's operation.
As you will certainly be aware, Mr President, the prevailing interpretation of the stability pact is that public investments not covered by taxes are also subject to the stability pact's 3 % limit.
Public investment in Europe today averages 2 % of national income, having fallen to that level from 3 % at the beginning of the decade.
If public investments are to be governed by the stability pact, then either there will be no room for the automatic stabilisers to operate, or there will be no room for public investment, or public investment will have to be financed by higher taxation, which would be a recipe for madness - as indeed the entire stability pact is a recipe for madness - at a time when economic activity in Europe is on the decline.
In any case, Mr President, if the stability pact is actually applied - which I doubt, because it seems to me quite unworkable - it will be a source of pain for Europe's economy.
In that sense, measures like those proposed by Mr Metten may mitigate the harm and we should support him, even though his proposals are purely symbolic and without much practical value since they depend on the principle of unanimity in the Council.
And since this evening is an evening of slogans, as Mr Fourçans himself said, what we need to extract Europe from its present impasse is 'de l'audace, de l'audace et encore de l'audace ' - as your celebrated compatriot once said, Mr Fourçans.
But where are we to find that 'audace' when we have all subjugated our reasoning to irrational monetarism which is leading us straight towards disaster unless we react against it? Let us at least give a sign that we reject that mentality.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the text before us today is the result of careful and thorough work by the rapporteur, Mr Metten, and our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Once again, Commissioner, this parliamentary initiative demonstrates our capacity to consider the major problems with which Europe is or risks being faced and also our capacity to propose serious and realistic solutions.
I therefore support this report and congratulate Mr Metten because, like him, although convinced of the security that the euro will provide, I believe that we must now guard against the risks, which may be small but are ever present, in the period after its introduction.
In this respect, the creation of a Community fund and an insurance instrument to help countries in the euro zone in the event of a crisis in one of these countries can only strengthen our single currency and, in particular, help the countries which have decided to join.
I would add that this fund would also be a stabilising element for the euro in respect of other world currencies, whether these are strong or unstable, dominant or speculative.
Furthermore, while we may feel that any asymmetric shocks will be minor - as confirmed by the stability of the currencies in the euro zone - we cannot ignore the differences in laws and policies.
To conclude, I must wholeheartedly join with those calling for improved coordination of our economic policies, harmonisation of taxes and, in particular, cooperation in our fight against unemployment and our drive for employment, in which the Commission will also be needed.
All in all - and I will finish on this - in order to maximise our assets and limit the risks, we need a positive Europe.
Mr President, to assume that all European countries will avoid asymmetric shocks is naïve.
Within the EU we have to be prepared in good time in order to ward off such shocks.
They may well most obviously affect countries with a narrow industrial structure.
As Mr Metten takes Finland as an example of these, I would like to emphasise that the substantially increased role that Nokia and high tech exports have come to play in the economy has diversified the industrial structure and exports.
I cannot really support Mr Metten's recommendation for preventing crisis within the framework of the EU budget.
The decision-making process is too slow.
Nor do I see a harmonised monetary policy as appropriate.
That is why sufficiently independent national action is vital.
Mr Metten refers quite rightly to the Finnish plans to change pension contributions so that they would be lower than average during a recession and correspondingly higher during periods of relative prosperity.
For my own part I would like to stress the importance of Keynesian budget policy as a tool to ward off recession.
Automatic stabilisers must be developed in the budget.
I would like to remind you all that over a year ago Parliament approved the proposal I made to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that a deficit of 3 % should be viewed within the context of the whole economic cycle, not from one moment to the next.
In this way, when the danger of an asymmetric recession looms the country in question could, by means of a budget deficit, stimulate the economy and, with the surplus of the boom phase, bring the situation back to an overall framework of 3 %.
Now it is time for the Commission and the Council to follow the same line and amend the Stability Pact so that different Member States may prepare to avoid shocks by means of anticipatory measures.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Metten for a splendid and professional report, which contains some excellent proposals.
The greatest and most influential shocks have been wars.
We have succeeded in preventing some of them in this Chamber.
Economic shocks are nonetheless serious and they always affect the worst-off most seriously.
The 1973 and 1981 oil crises were explosive events that spread fear around the world.
Furthermore, the steep decline in the value of the dollar was a shock, not only for the Americans but for us also.
Although these shocks were felt throughout the whole EU area, the effect on some states was greater than on others.
This is what breeds asymmetry, rather like what happens in the blood circulation system.
When shock hits a country which is a member of an economic and monetary union, it is a serious matter.
Medical supplies are urgently needed.
On this subject I agree with the previous speaker, but we no longer have the right devaluation medicine at our disposal.
I was one of the member of my large group who had the honour of interviewing candidates for the post of Director of the European Central Bank.
I was astonished that one of them did not regard the issue of asymmetric shocks as important.
If such unrealistic views were to spread within the ECB, its work would certainly produce a shock here in Parliament.
ECB monetary policy is not neutral, so it must acknowledge its responsibility for employment and asymmetric shocks.
The rapporteur gives as examples of shocks affecting single countries the effect of North Sea oil production on the United Kingdom, German unification, the floods in Europe, mad cow disease, and swine fever in the Netherlands.
From Finland's point of view the crisis in Russia can be compared to any of these.
The situation in Russia may erupt into an asymmetric shock at any time.
For that reason it is time that EU aid to Russia was targeted at relieving the violent social upheaval that has been going on, and not at supporting an oligarchy led by people who moreover, send their money, which is actually our money, abroad.
A Finnish shock could be caused by the timber processing industry getting out of step.
Fortunately the importance of wood in our country has declined dramatically, and it is the metal and electronics industry that has become the largest export sector.
Nevertheless, the situation in the timber processing industry is important, and when the Russian crisis came along, it did not affect Finland, which shows how much our situation has changed.
We need a guarantee fund and instruments of stability.
We also need an early warning mechanism in respect of shocks that affect single countries.
Mr President, the creation of an adjustment mechanism to tackle asymmetric shocks may be seductive on the surface, but we have reservations and worries.
Of course we do not wish to question the merit of the rapporteur's initiative, and I wish to congratulate him.
Nobody could question the fact that it is preferable to attack evil at the root, eradicating or at least attenuating the circumstances that might give rise to these shocks by means of sectoral diversification, structural reinforcement and more flexible economies - in particular, through the markets, on the one hand, and tight budget policies, on the other.
Let us hope that this will be successful because, who knows, the size of these asymmetric shocks - or even symmetrical shocks, affecting the whole of the economy - might be so great that dealing with them might be far beyond the capacity of the European Union's budget, a budget that falls short of even 1.2 % of the entire area's GDP.
Unfortunately, Mr Metten's hope that the European Union will have a stronger budget than it does at present is not realistic and the fight against short-term slumps would undoubtedly be fought with the resources that should really be earmarked for structural solutions.
This fear is not lessened by the rapporteur's own reservations, since he says that it would not be a transfer mechanism but only a credit guarantee to be repaid with interest, and that it would be conditional on policies aimed at bringing about a balanced budget (while in the explanatory statement he talks about special low interest rates).
The question that arises is: what about the need for a fund or for budget increases if the necessary resources are not available?
This might end up by being an open door to extremely unfair transfers of resources, especially if those resources are transferred to the richer countries - it is even said that the small countries might not even need this mechanism - or if countries with less correct policies are actually rewarded to the detriment of countries deprived of any structural support and which, having pursued the correct policies, manage to avoid asymmetric shocks.
Since the question of priorities is at stake we should make it a priority to promote structural policies that are absolutely the right ones but that are incomprehensibly being questioned by politicians with blinkered visions of the European project.
With this stronger safeguard, we should be able to make progress towards the creation of the fund proposed in Mr Metten's report.
Mr President, our thanks to the Commissioner for his extensive reply, but he has not answered my very specific question, namely how does the Commission intend to keep the promise it gave on 8 April last year in connection with a report of mine on the same subject that it will, before the end of this year, consider jointly with the Council and Parliament how the terms of Article 103a(2) can be implemented.
He has said nothing on that.
Nor has he confirmed that he still plans to keep that promise.
That was really the thrust of my report.
Mr President, Mr Metten could perhaps read my original speech in detail as I believe this would provide the answer to his question.
Firstly, with regard to Community financial support in the event of difficulties in the balance of payments - in other words the extension of the system in Article 109h to countries not in the euro zone - we are committed to preparing an assessment and proposals. As I have said, this will occur in the next few weeks or months.
Secondly, with regard to the accelerated procedure allowing the implementation of this article in the event of a natural disaster with micro-economic consequences, I must say that we are currently examining the possibility of a procedure which would accelerate the Council's decision. This would be taken by qualified majority in order to initially provide the bare essentials of assistance through a special budgetary line followed by reconstruction in the areas affected by means of loans, particularly involving the EIB.
Thirdly, with regard to the most contentious point about asymmetric shocks - which I believe is a problem of substance and doctrine - namely the first part of paragraph 2 of Article 103a, analysis and discussion work has been carried out on different empirical cases of asymmetric shocks, including the development of various economic and legal arguments.
I was able in my presentation to give you some answers.
I remain at your disposal to continue the discussion in private or in public.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Trading of goods between Member States
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0486/98), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council (8776/98 - C4-0492/98-97/0155(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States with a view to reducing the data to be provided (Rapporteur: Mrs Lulling).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling.
Mr President, Commissioner, on 31 March I submitted to this House my report on the two proposals for regulations presented by the Commission. These proposals are intended to simplify the Intrastat regulation, reduce the statistical burden of undertakings, particularly SMEs, and reduce the costs of those information providers who must provide Eurostat with the data which allows the preparation of the essential and invaluable statistics on the trading of goods between Member States in the single market.
I regretted at the time that these proposals did not contain all the positive suggestions of the SLIM initiative.
I also said that they were simply a step in the right direction in anticipation of a more radical simplification, all the more so given that the reliability of the Intrastat statistics is inversely proportional to the costs incurred by the 450 000 undertakings which must provide the data. These costs are in the order of 500 million, plus another 100 million for the operation of the system by the national statistics collectors.
We therefore tabled amendments at first reading. These were adopted unanimously and, apart from a few details, received the blessing of the Commission.
Commissioner de Silguy actually said in the House that he could include all our amendments.
Unfortunately, this was not the case in the Council, which sent us a common position which actually watered down the Commission's original proposal, whereas we and the Commission wanted to strengthen it.
If we followed the Council, in other words the governments, in their negative attitude - which is all the more incomprehensible given that their statistics officers collaborated in the SLIM initiative - this would lead to an increase in the statistical burden on undertakings.
The Council even went as far as to simply refuse to adopt a common position on the proposal for a regulation concerning the nomenclature.
We could have resigned ourselves to such a negative attitude from the Council and capitulated due to the impossibility of moving the mountain of Member States' bureaucratic requirements, thereby discrediting the SLIM initiative and ignoring the interests of undertakings which continue to ask for a reduction in their statistical burdens.
Instead, we have chosen to keep our amendments to the two proposals for amending the Intrastat regulation.
I realise that, in the absence of a common position from the Council, the Commission might say that, for formal reasons, it cannot accept certain amendments even though it basically supports these and its opinion has not changed since 31 March.
To us, keeping these amendments is a political signal to the Council, which must realise the confidence and solidarity which exist between the Commission and Parliament on this matter.
As the rapporteur, I have again been subject to pressure from users of these statistics who are legitimately interested in receiving detailed and quality information on intra-Community trading of goods and who are keen to maintain the finest subdivisions, with eight-digit codes, in order to have cheap and reliable economic information.
As there is some misunderstanding among these users about the extent of our amendments, I must reassure them by saying that, in our Amendment No 8, the Combined Nomenclature is recognised as being the basic nomenclature for the classification of goods.
A single nomenclature, the Combined Nomenclature, will be used for external and intra-European statistics.
Our amendment is the result of abandoning the idea of a specific Intrastat nomenclature.
In addition, as regards the recommended simplification of using a six-digit code instead of the eight-digit code for identifying certain goods, as in the Harmonised System, the conditions needed in order to benefit from this simplification are being adopted by the Commission in comitology by taking into account a partnership between national administrations and users and by noting the vital importance of close cooperation with all the indicated parties being confirmed from the outset by a legislative text.
This partnership could guarantee that certain special needs, particularly in the agri-foodstuffs sector, will be covered.
My friends in the wine sector can relax as they will continue to receive statistics which show them how much red and white wine, and of what regional origin, has been the subject of intra-Community trade.
Keeping our amendments will stop us from shooting ourselves in the foot by limiting our own competitiveness due to a lack of strategic intelligence.
In addition, work is in progress in the context of SLIM II in order to simplify and modernise the Combined Nomenclature.
The preparations for a code of conduct for the management of the Combined Nomenclature are currently being finalised and the European professional federations know that close sectoral collaboration in this has already resulted in a reduction in the nomenclature.
However, Mr President, because we must go further and adopt measures exempting information providers in certain cases from providing data for the detailed version of the nomenclature, we have decided to continue down the road taken at the first reading.
I hope that the Commission will follow us.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe's firms need our help.
The entrepreneurial environment, characterised by a variety of tightly regulated legal frameworks, has undoubtedly become more and more complex and complicated in recent years.
From the experience of my own country and my own forging business, I know only too well that the administrative burden arising from national and European legislation causes a lot of problems, especially for small and medium-sized companies.
In this respect, the present common position, together with the amendments proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and those introduced by Mrs Lulling, forms a positive basis for simplifying administration.
It is a small step but a good one, and above all it is a step in the right direction.
The distinction between Intrastat and Extrastat means that there is still a lot of work to be done.
Simplifying the nomenclature within the internal market is an interim measure.
The ultimate goal must be deregulation, as with other statistics.
Mr President, Mrs Lulling, ladies and gentlemen, you have referred to the Commission proposals of 30 May 1997 which are intended to simplify the basic regulation on the Intrastat system, this being the statistical system on the trading of goods between Member States.
As you have indicated, Mr Rübig, the aim is to reduce the statistical burden on undertakings, firstly by reducing the list of data to be provided in the declarations and secondly by simplifying the nomenclature of goods used to classify traded commodities.
This House welcomed these two proposals in a very positive manner and even tried to widen their scope by tabling 8 amendments.
As I promised, the Commission accepted these amendments in the main during the first reading on 1 April and incorporated them into its amended proposals.
The common position adopted by the Council on 20 July was limited to the first proposal on the reduction in the range of data to be provided.
In this common position, the Council unanimously rejected the Commission's amended proposal.
The Council did not mention the second proposal but merely expressed a hope that the Commission would continue its work on classification.
I would remind you that at the time the Commission officially published a statement stressing that the Council's position was a real step backwards in terms of the aims of the SLIM initiative to simplify the legislation of the internal market.
I will start by commenting on the Commission's first proposal and the Council's common position.
The rapporteur proposes introducing further simplifications in the context of the SLIM initiative.
I am able to say that the Commission can accept the majority of these amendments, with the exception of three points.
Firstly, you ask for the immediate deletion of the 'mode of transport' data.
The Commission would prefer to retain this data until 1 January 2000 when the directives on transport should come into force in all the Member States.
Secondly, you also propose the immediate deletion of the 'delivery terms' data.
The Commission does not agree with this and recommends a transitional period of one year to allow the Member States sufficient time to adapt their statistical systems.
Thirdly, and finally, you have not kept the option of granting derogations to Member States for the application of new regulations.
The Commission feels that it is necessary, in view of the constraints involved in adapting the national systems, to provide for a transitional period of one year. This does not seem unreasonable to me.
I will now turn to the second proposal, on which the Council has not made a decision.
In the absence of a common position from the Council, the Commission is not permitted to consider the four amendments, Nos 1, 2, 3 and 8, which this House is proposing to adopt.
However, I understand the rapporteur's concern about maintaining pressure on the Council in order to force it to adopt a position on the simplified use of the nomenclature for traded commodities.
The Commission would like to draw the attention of this House to the development of the Council's position following the fairly recent adoption, in fact on 1 December, by another authority - the Ecofin Council - of a Monetary Committee report underlining the importance of the simplifications to be made to the Intrastat system.
I believe that this position is closer to the Commission's proposals and the position of this House and I believe that it should help to define a common position on the whole subject.
To conclude, I must applaud the support which the rapporteur has given the Commission on the simplification of the Intrastat system, in line with the objectives of the SLIM initiative.
I can assure you that the Commission will not fail to keep you regularly informed of the development of the procedure in the Council where it is sparing no effort to achieve a favourable result.
Mr President, I must thank Commissioner de Silguy and say that, with regard to the minor details, we can certainly reach agreement on the deadlines.
Mrs Lulling, we cannot have a debate.
You may ask a question, but not reopen the debate.
Mr President, I must reply to the Commissioner ...
No, the debate is closed and there are no replies to be given.
It is late, and you are well aware of the Rules.
You may only ask a question.
Mr President, I must tell the Commissioner that we can reach agreement.
We are after all at the second reading and I do not see why I cannot answer him as he is saying that he cannot agree to the deadlines, whereas I hope that by discussing this we will be able to reach agreement ...
I am sorry, Mrs Lulling, but the debate is closed.
(The President cut off Mrs Lulling, who continued to protest without a microphone)
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
External transit
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0442/98), on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0536/98-97/0242(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 with regard to the external transit procedure (Rapporteur: Mrs Peijs).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs.
Mr President, during the May part-session, Parliament adopted seven amendments at first reading.
Several of these have been adopted by the Council, in whole or in part.
Two important points remain which I think need to be raised again.
Firstly, an administrative note.
I am told by the Swedish representation in the Council that an error has crept into the Swedish translation of the first amendment.
The English text should be taken as the original.
I do not speak Swedish, so I cannot comment further.
As regards the two amendments, and firstly the transparency of the decisions taken by the committee, this has been a matter of concern for a number of years now, not least to Parliament itself.
Important decisions are taken in the committee on how firms operating in the area of Community transit should conduct themselves vis-à-vis the customs authorities.
In particular, the conditions which firms must fulfil if they are to use the simplified procedures on safety are crucial.
These can greatly affect the way in which individual companies operate.
Parliament has laid down the broad lines of these conditions in the legal text, but the committee will still have to finalise them.
There must be complete clarity to ensure that the legislation is applied uniformly to firms in comparable situations.
Secondly, I have retabled an amendment concerning the time-frame within which customs authorities must complete their work.
The transit system is still a paper-based operation, sometimes even a manual operation, scarcely credible on the eve of the year 2000.
In future, this will have to be computerised and the year 2000 has featured in the planning, even now in 1998.
But it will be a few more years before this computer system is in place.
As a result, the completion - the discharge, as the jargon has it - of an individual procedure for an individual shipment can sometimes take months, or even years.
Parliament is forced to accept this, but is launching its own inquiry into the reasons for this almost intolerable delay.
The lack of a computer system is one of the considerations relevant to the discharge for 1996.
It has to be agreed that the internal market cannot be enlarged to include new applicant countries if we do not have a fully computerised customs system up and running.
I would urge a number of Member States to abandon their regrettable opposition to linking their national systems to the European system.
Complaining about fraud at borders in transit traffic cuts no ice if there is not close cooperation between national and European customs services.
The Commission has intimated that it intends to set a time limit of 30 days in the implementing provisions for customs authorities.
Purely on condition that this is actually done, I have agreed to incorporate an amendment into the recitals at this second reading.
Personally, I think it is unacceptable to impose all manner of obligations and restrictions on the industry without yourself being willing, as an authority, to be bound by administrative deadlines.
There has to be a balance in the obligations undertaken by all the parties.
Last week the Council working party responsible discussed the amendments and I gather, Mr President, that it may be possible to avoid a conciliation procedure.
That will save a great deal of time and money.
I hope the House will support the amendments we have tabled.
I have a little time left to say something which is close to my heart.
It is a remarkable dossier we are discussing here, a highly technical one.
It is crazy that all the fundamental questions and all the fundamental issues of our European Union should be raised in a technical dossier of this kind.
This is a question of transparency and democracy, and this transparency and democracy, which I have reflected in the amendments, are constantly being ignored by the Commission.
I had a letter this evening from the platform for freight transit or whatever name they have adopted, and this platform backs my request.
You cannot negotiate with an industry which speaks with different voices and does not speak with a single voice to the Commission.
They have now changed that.
They are now speaking with a single voice to the Commission.
But whenever there needs to be real transparency in the committee procedures, there is none.
Then the Commission says, yes, but we are talking to you.
Of course they are talking.
That is the most normal thing in the world.
If we had wanted to live under a dictatorship, we would not have needed the European Union, we could have made our own dictatorship.
We do not want to live under a dictatorship, even one headed by technocrats.
We want the European Commission to maintain the utmost transparency vis-à-vis the platform on transit, not least as regards the committee procedures.
I should like to be sure that the Commissioner will pass this message on to his officials. We shall keep a watchful eye on things.
We are asking the European Commission to cooperate seriously here. It should not confuse a normal consultation procedure with the industry with transparency in the committee procedures.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like firstly to congratulate Karla Peijs on her commitment to the fight for simplification in this area.
We should actually apply SLIM rather than simply talking about it, and we should regard the impact statement as a fact.
We must involve those concerned and deal objectively with justified objections.
I myself was a member of the committee of inquiry that dealt with fraud in Community transit, and I know that there are problems in this area, but we must not throw the baby out with the bath-water.
Quite simply, what we need is a simplified procedure.
We need proper regulations concerning guarantees, and we also need the 60-day time limit so that the system is efficient and so that in future customs procedures are handled in such a way that the European Union can see where its money is going.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Peijs on this report. It is an excellent piece of work indeed.
This action plan for customs transit is hugely important.
As the euro comes in we expect a growth in trade across our frontiers and the procedures for dealing effectively with this trade must be in place.
Objectives such as creating more efficient recovery procedures in transit operations and shortening the time taken for discharge are of considerable importance to our industry for cutting down their costs and burdens, especially considering that the procedure can take up to five years to be completed at present.
Central to these proposals is the need to curb fraudulent practices in the transport procedure.
We have heard a lot about fraud recently and the problems about fraud against the Community budget.
It is not helped by a lack of transparency in decision-making, which is why my group supports Amendment No 1 in particular.
It is, as Mr Peijs has pointed out, quite amazing that in this day and age we still have so much done on paper.
I have heard it said that to err is human, but for a real cock-up you need a computer.
I think that we have probably moved to the stage where computerisation is essential and that procedures that are introduced by Member States must be compatible with the rules governing Community transit procedures.
These rules must be clearly defined.
Calculations must be based on the operators' liability and the risks attached to the goods.
I welcome this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate the rapporteur.
The changes in the external transit procedure are based on the work of Parliament's Committee of Inquiry, which approved the changes in 1997.
I was involved myself, as was my colleague, Mr Rübig.
The transit system was reformed in three respects.
Legislation was reviewed and amended, cooperation was increased among Member States through Customs 2000, and automation was introduced.
The system of automation that we are dealing with here, with the computerisation of customs and networking, is absolutely essential.
An efficient customs system in the European Union is not possible today without effective networking.
Ladies and gentlemen, we and the Commission are currently making life very easy for crooks and criminals.
If the Member States and the Commission do not realise this, it is very strange.
We talk about the information society, but it is not working in the area of customs.
I agree with the rapporteur that all committee-based decisions should be as open as possible.
But it is important that essential matters are not just left to the committee, but that Parliament should be able to debate them, as otherwise it is not just a question of avoiding transparency, but also bypassing democracy.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, for this vital contribution to reaching a fair compromise on the amendment of the Community customs code in connection with the reform of the transit procedure.
The Commission and Parliament have already demonstrated their joint interest in making the transit procedure more secure, so that reliable economic operators are able to benefit from a more flexible system.
That is why, as announced in its communication of 30 April 1997 to Parliament and the Council, when unveiling its action plan for transit in Europe - 'a new customs policy' - the Commission embarked on an ambitious reform of the transit procedure, designed in particular to implement the recommendations of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the Community transit procedure.
The reform consists of legislative measures, operational provisions and - an essential element - the computerisation of the service.
The proposed amendment of Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92, which introduced the Community customs code, was presented in September 1997.
The Commission accepted most of the amendments tabled by Parliament at first reading, modifying its proposal accordingly on 3 July 1998.
The Commission can approve all the amendments to the Council's common position which are now being put forward by Parliament at second reading, because it considers them to be fully consistent with the aims of the action plan on transit.
The first amendment, on the transparency of decisions taken under the committee procedure, is in keeping with the principles followed by the Commission in terms of both consulting economic operators and the design and implementation of the transit reform.
This amendment, already tabled by Parliament at first reading, has therefore been incorporated into the Commission's amended proposal of 3 July 1998.
The second amendment ties in with one of the most important aims of the transit reform, in that it refers to the operational measures which ensure a more secure and efficient procedure.
The quickest possible discharge of the transit procedure is essential to the monitoring of transactions and necessary in order to ensure that the holder is released from his financial obligations within a reasonable period of time.
Therefore, the Commission can likewise approve this amendment.
The Commission is satisfied with the progress made by the proposal in the codecision procedure, since it reveals that Parliament, the Council and the Commission are all keen to see the reform of the transit procedure - which is so important and, as we all know, so difficult - implemented at last.
I wish to conclude with a further warm word of thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Diversification out of certain fishing activities
The next item is the report (A4-0463/98) by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council Decision on a specific measure to encourage diversification out of certain fishing activities and amending Council Decision 97/292/EC of 28 April 1997 (COM(98)0515 - C4-0543/98-98/0274(CNS)).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Souchet.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on 8 June 1998, after a long debate, the Council adopted a regulation banning fishing with drift nets in the Atlantic and Mediterranean with effect from 1 January 2002.
To provide compensation for some of the economic loss suffered by fishermen (requirement to adapt vessels for deep-sea tuna fishing using new techniques, cessation of activities and so on), the Council drew up this proposal on the basis of Article 43 of the Treaty.
This proposal follows the broad outlines of the Spadare plan created for Italy in 1997, which provided measures for seafarers and shipowners.
The measures proposed involve compensating fishermen following either the cessation of all economic activities before 1 January 2002 or diversification into other fishing activities.
Shipowners can be compensated following either the cessation of all fishing activities or diversification into other fishing activities.
This compensation is for shipowners and fishermen who have been involved in drift net fishing in 1995, 1996 or 1997.
This year could also have been included so that it is mainly those fishermen who are fully active who benefit from this measure, as is usual.
Five Member States are affected by this ban: Spain (only in the Mediterranean), Ireland, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
In order to limit budget costs and prevent possible abuse of the investments, this proposal sets only the maximum amounts of the premiums.
The Member States must themselves adjust these payments in line with the actual economic and social loss resulting from the ban on fishing with drift nets.
I must emphasise that the ban on the use of drift nets could cause the premature cessation of activity for certain fishermen, as the proposed measures provide for the establishment of an additional compensatory payment in the event of cessation of all fishing activity before 1 January 2002.
Local authorities and fishermen have recently made significant investments in infrastructures such as markets, particularly to meet Community standards.
These investments will show reduced profitability following the cessation of activity by certain fishermen, in particular in those ports where the vessels affected by this measure concentrate the landing of their catches.
The Committee on Fisheries has adopted 8 amendments which I proposed as rapporteur.
Amendments Nos 1 and 8 aim to reestablish an equitable situation between Italian fishermen affected by the Spadare plan and fishermen from the other Member States affected by the decision to ban drift nets.
These diversification measures must not in any case produce a distortion of competition.
Amendments Nos 2 and 7 aim to allow the aggregation of the funding to enable the financing of diversification by fishermen for the period between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2001.
These amendments are particularly important as certain Member States have initiated studies and are experimenting with possibilities for adapting other fishing equipment for use as a substitute for drift nets.
A large number of the fishermen affected are waiting for the results of these studies so that they can provide for the necessary investments for the technical modification of their vessels.
Amendment No 3 specifies that only fishermen over 50 years of age can benefit from the compensatory payment of ECU 50 000 if they cease all economic activity before 1 January 2002.
This amendment will prevent the possibility of windfalls, the risk of fraud and the abuse of a measure which is not meant to turn young fishermen away from their chosen profession.
Amendment No 4 specifies that it is necessary to ensure that the measures provided under this decision apply only to the fishermen and owners of vessels who suffer a real loss because of the ban on fishing using drift nets.
Amendment No 5 specifies that the age of the vessels should be taken into account only in the specific case of a payment for cessation of activity.
If the owner has to make investments to convert his vessel in order to be able to use other fishing equipment, it is essential to take account of all the investment needed for this conversion, without having to apply an abatement coefficient linked to the age of the fishing vessel.
Finally, Amendment No 6 asks the Commission to make provision for the necessary financial resources so that all fishermen who are eligible can benefit from the diversification measure.
Certain Member States, particularly Ireland, have used or will use all the funding allocated under the FIFG.
In my opinion, all these amendments which have been adopted by the Committee on Fisheries are in line with the spirit of the measure which the Council felt obliged to adopt in order to assist the diversification of those fishermen severely affected by a measure which they feel is particularly unfair.
This measure aims not to dissuade but rather to encourage young fishermen from our Member States who fish for albacore using newer vessels.
It is essential that we encourage the continuation of deep-sea fishing as this involves a particularly healthy resource and helps to conserve species which are struggling.
Mr President, my group supports this report with the amendments.
It is a very necessary report.
Now the governments of the European Union have decided this, and the European Union and this Parliament have supported the measure to abolish driftnets, then they have to do something about the livelihood of the fishermen concerned. It is absolutely necessary that we do this.
Driftnet fishing was considered bad by this Parliament.
It was considered that the by-catch of dolphins and other sea creatures was too important, so we abandoned driftnet fishing.
But now we must do something about the fishermen.
Firstly, we have to provide compensation, retirement, or whatever you call it, for those fishermen who go out of business and fish no longer.
That is one aspect of it.
The second aspect is to change the methods so that fishermen are still going out, catching their tuna, but using different methods of doing so, which do not have the by-catch consequences that driftnets have.
We have to remember that, although fishing is a very small part of the European Union total gross domestic product, or however we should like to measure it, to those communities such as western France, Italy and Ireland, a few areas in the United Kingdom and some in Spain, fishing is about the only thing they have.
There are very few alternatives.
I totally agree with the rapporteur that the European Union should offer compensation for those that go out of the industry, and for retraining and re-equipping vessels for different methods of fishing for those that want to carry on.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Souchet for his report and to say that if his proposals are accepted it will be a more generous and more acceptable package which the fishermen deprived of their livelihood are being offered.
The Parliament agreed the ban in the first place along with the Committee on Fisheries.
I was one of the people who had serious doubts about it, in that I considered it was political considerations rather than scientific knowledge that led us to believe that this method of fishing was seriously damaging to marine life.
Having said that, I think that many fishermen believed that this ban was not necessary.
Therefore, if the Commission is to propose and the Union agrees to prevent them from earning a living and not to propose any compensation, this measure without Mr Souchet's proposals will not provide any new money or any new assistance to fishermen.
The money that had already been allocated to Member States for the improvement of their fleets and of marketing and processing and port facilities is what they are expected to use to provide compensation for the people who have lost their livelihood.
This was a make- believe measure and it is still that for most of the fishermen involved.
If extra money is not provided in the case of the countries that had provided their plans for the development of their fishing industry and had spent their structural funds, then we are offering them nothing.
We are coming to the time of year when we will have new quotas and new arrangements for allowable catches. Fishermen are feeling extremely frustrated.
There is sometimes an unjustified feeling in the fishing areas that the European Union is being rather oppressive and is busy thinking up restrictions and regulations.
To do that without scientific knowledge and to fail to provide compensation would have been a mistake.
There is only one provision we do not accept in the Souchet report, and that is where he makes reference to the fact that they should not be put into effect until the Court of Justice has made its decision.
Of course this cannot be put into effect until the ban itself comes into effect and we believe we should let the position stand.
If the ban comes into effect when it is supposed to, then their compensation should automatically come into effect and the reference to decisions that may or may not be taken by the Court should be left out of it.
Mr President, as long ago as 1994, Parliament tried to get drift nets banned.
On 8 June this year, that is to say four years after our efforts, the Council finally approved an amendment to the regulation which will outlaw fishing with drift nets in the Atlantic and Mediterranean after 1 January 2002.
In doing this, the Council is at last partly heeding the wishes of Parliament.
I say partly, because the job is far from over.
It is still possible to fish with drift nets in the North Sea and the Baltic.
Even though these seas do not have dolphins swimming in them which can get caught in drift nets - that is not a problem in these waters - the problem of by-catches still remains.
Hence my question to the Commission. When shall we be getting proposals to have the ban on drift nets declared applicable to the North Sea and the Baltic too?
This is a first step in the right direction.
We need now to have this ban properly implemented and complied with.
I would also ask the Commission what additional control measures it will be taking?
I should like to know how it intends to prevent this fishing activity from switching to non-Union countries.
It is right that fishermen should be compensated for some of the financial loss, but I should also like to know what conditions the Commission proposes to attach to this, namely the fact that nets should indeed be destroyed so that they do not simply disappear to non-Union countries.
Naturally, Mr President, my group stands fully behind the rapporteur Mr Souchet and the amendments tabled by the Committee on Fisheries.
Mr President, we all know that the decision taken to ban drift nets was a political decision without any scientific basis.
Proof of this aberration has been given today by those who previously saw in an alleged shortage of tuna a reason to ban drift nets, and who now seem to be discovering that it is essential for the tuna fishermen in the Bay of Biscay to convert ... to tuna.
In line with this view, which we obviously support, the amendments tabled by the rapporteur provide essential improvements to the Commission's proposal.
With regard to fishermen, it is clearly desirable to ensure a payment for cessation of activity only for those for whom this is appropriate, namely those of an age to retire.
With regard to vessels, while it is reasonable to take the age of a vessel into account when calculating the payments for cessation of activity, surely it would be unfair to reduce the assistance available for converting some old vessels, provided that this involved adapting these vessels to other techniques allowing them to continue fishing for tuna, in order to prevent the transfer of their activities to sensitive species.
Finally, we feel that it is absolutely appropriate to aggregate the funding so that the conversion period can last until the end of 2001 in order to profit fully from the studies and experiments being carried out to try to adapt other equipment to tuna fishing.
To neglect this point would encourage some fishermen to diversify prematurely and disastrously by turning to other species of fish, specifically threatened coastal species.
Mr President, the Green Group welcomes the decision that was taken in June to get rid of driftnets for albacore, tuna and certain other species.
We also welcome the Commission's proposal to provide funding for fishermen affected by this decision.
It is important that proper and sufficient funding for compensation is made available for fishermen to convert to more selective and appropriate fishing gear.
We hope that the EU draws a lesson from this whole experience.
Driftnets were encouraged for use in several countries by national governments and by the EU, despite the fact that experience elsewhere had shown that these nets had high levels of by-catch.
Proper evaluation should have been conducted before their use in the EU but this was not done.
The nets were introduced on a commercial scale and then expanded.
More selective gear was available which should have been promoted instead.
My other points concerns the motion for a resolution. As other speakers have mentioned, it has a very unusual clause to the effect that the Council should delay the implementation of this decision until the EU Court of Justice has issued its decision on the case brought by certain French fishermen.
It should be pointed out that the French Government had intended to bring a similar case but decided against doing so as it was clear that such a case had no chance of success.
The French Government is being extremely cynical in this case by having their own lawyers advise the fishermen on a case which the French Government itself knows will fail.
We feel that if this clause is not taken out of the resolution we will have no option but to vote against the whole resolution.
It is very important that this clause is removed so that the resolution can be passed by a vast majority of Parliament.
As has been said by another speaker, it is not correct to have a clause like this regarding the Court of Justice and a decision that must be taken there. We have to keep that separate.
Mr President, Commissioner Monti, if I did not have another exciting topic to deal with this evening, I would like to ask you about the new duty-free development.
But this is not the time to do so, so I will turn now to the Souchet report.
Having fought for it for so long, as we have heard, fishing with drift nets in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean was finally banned in June of this year.
This was long overdue in order to protect our scarce fish resources in an ecological and sustainable manner.
Yet we must not forget that the ban results in further economic loss for the fishermen in the countries concerned, fishermen who were already experiencing serious problems. We must provide at least some compensation for this loss.
According to the Commission proposal, both the fishermen serving on board and the owners of vessels should receive compensation.
But the authorities and other investors will also suffer financial loss, as in recent years a great deal of money has been invested in improving infrastructure such as port facilities and markets.
As fishing activities decline, however, these investments will become economically less viable.
And this is in a situation where fishermen are to receive compensatory payments for giving up fishing, which may lead them to stop early.
But we want the profession to remain intact, so incentives must be created to help in particular the younger generation of fishermen to change to alternative fishing methods.
We would remind the Council that it wanted to promote diversification into other techniques.
It now has an opportunity to do so.
Furthermore, the Committee on Fisheries is of the opinion that the aggregation of funding to allow diversification by fishermen should be guaranteed beyond the end of the FIFG in 1999.
The Group of the European People's Party approves Mr Souchet's amendments here.
However, in the opinion of my group, diversification must take place immediately and should not wait for a decision by the European Court of Justice.
Mr President, though I acknowledge the considerable amount of work that the rapporteur has had to do, I would, however, like a number of my colleagues, like to express my disagreement on one very important aspect of his report.
Paragraph 4 of the motion for a legislative resolution calls on the Council to delay implementation of the financial measures contained in its proposal for a decision until the Court of Justice of the European Communities has given its verdict on the appeal lodged by several drift gillnet users against the regulation prohibiting them from using this piece of fishing equipment from the year 2002.
Contrary to what the rapporteur said and wrote in his report, I think that such a request is absurd and, what is more, is extremely detrimental to the fishermen concerned.
The Council's proposal is aimed at reducing the economic effects this ban on drift gillnets entails for fishermen and encouraging them to diversify into other activities.
Therefore, the fishermen will be entitled to receive compensation as they gradually cease this type of fishing activity until 2002, when the ban will be fully implemented.
No-one - and least of all the fishermen - would deny that fishing with drift gillnets does not have any future in the European Union.
We must therefore bear in mind that when the Court has given its verdict on the appeal lodged, the majority of fishermen will have already ceased this type of activity and many will want to do so as soon as possible so as to promptly establish their new activities.
As a consequence, it makes no sense to deprive those who wish to receive payments from having access to them.
Not all the fishermen concerned have appealed to the Court of Justice and nor should their entitlement to the fixed compensation be subject to conditions because of the attitude of others who, on their own account and at their own risk, have decided to take the matter to the courts.
So, as I believe that this is detrimental to all and beneficial to none, I call on you to vote against paragraph 4 of the motion for a resolution.
Mr President, the Commission has taken note of the report by Mr Souchet, to whom it is grateful.
There is a broad consensus among the three institutions with regard to compensatory payments and diversification in the case of fishermen affected by the ban on the use of drift nets, for which the Council gave a mandate to the Commission at the meeting of 8 June 1998.
As regards the amendments proposed in Mr Souchet's report, the Commission regrets that it cannot adopt the following: Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 7, which are formal amendments having no practical effect; Nos 5 and 8, which restrict the scope of the decision; and No 6, which oversteps the mandate given by the Council to the Commission.
On the other hand, the Commission can fully endorse Amendment No 4.
One which deserves particular attention is Amendment No 3, introducing a minimum age for beneficiaries of these measures.
The different rules existing in the Member States on the pensionable age, however, make it impossible to set a single minimum age across the board.
The Commission will therefore ensure that the spirit of Amendment No 3 is taken into account at the bilateral negotiations with Member States concerning the diversification plans and their implementation.
I should also like to touch briefly on two or three points which were raised during the debate.
As far as the introduction of the accompanying measures is concerned, the Commission will take care to ensure that the banned nets cannot be reused elsewhere.
There will be a mandatory clause to this effect in the Member States' diversification plans.
As for the possibility of banning these nets in the North Sea or the Baltic, that is not of course the subject of this debate; today we are discussing the measures accompanying the ban imposed on 8 June.
At present, the Commission has no intention of extending the ban to other marine areas, where the impact of this type of fishery on marine mammals has not been proved.
Finally, several Members raised the question of the timing.
I would point out here that every Member State is at liberty to designate an intermediary body responsible for implementing the accompanying measures.
Under the general provisions governing the Structural Funds, such a body may be regarded as the final beneficiary of structural aid, and all that is required is for the total allocations to be awarded to that body by 31 December 1999.
In this way the monies are committed, and payments to the final beneficiaries - the fishermen and shipowners - may continue until the end of 2001.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Emergency food aid to Russia
The next item is the report (A4-0506/98) by Mr Colino Salamanca, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on a programme to supply agricultural produce to the Russian Federation (COM(98)0725 - C4-0678/98-98/0343(CNS)).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Colino Salamanca.
Mr President, the Committee on Agriculture's decision to fully endorse the Commission's proposal on the food aid programme to the Russian Federation will, I believe, also be supported in the House tomorrow.
Moreover, I believe that the Commission, the Council and Parliament share the same concerns in relation to this proposal. The first of these is whether the proposal can achieve its aims.
In other words, we need to ensure that the raw materials or processed food products that are essential for the survival of the Russian Federation's population reach the disadvantaged regions they are destined for. And as we saw in the memorandum, the aid is being distributed amongst the regions most in need.
In addition, as far as possible, this aid needs to reach the most disadvantaged through free distribution.
The second concern - which again is one I think we all share - is to ensure that the operation is transparent and is sufficiently monitored so as to achieve its aims. Given all the rumours about possible mafia groups operating within the Russian Federation, it is good to know that such food aid will be able to meet its objective.
And in this respect, the European Union is donating aid to a value of EUR 400 million. It thus follows that Parliament, and particularly the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on Budgets, have emphasised the importance of ensuring that adequate monitoring takes place to guarantee that the aid will meet the objective of this initiative.
In this connection, we must obviously ensure that the food aid does not distort the Russian Federation's domestic markets, as it represents quite a substantial amount, including 1 million tonnes of wheat, 500 000 tonnes of rye, 50 000 tonnes of rice, 1 million tonnes of pork, 150 000 tonnes of beef and significant amounts of skimmed milk powder.
I would stress that these conditions have been established by the Committee on Budgets and accepted by the Committee on Agriculture, and are, in my opinion, of great interest.
It means that the operation will be monitored by both the European Union and from within the Russian Federation itself.
The aim of this is to enable us, through the Commission and the Court of Auditors, to monitor the operation even from within the Russian Federation itself to ensure that these objectives are met.
That is why the amendments tabled relate directly to these objectives. They hope to ensure that the aims behind the launch of this programme are met and also to ensure that the significant financial contribution that the European Union is going to make is clearly reflected through these objectives being met.
In addition, I think that this has fulfilled the very resolution Parliament adopted recently, on 19 November, a resolution that took account of both the circumstances that have been relayed to us essentially by the Russian authorities and the commitment made by the European Union, together with the United States, to assist and support regions suffering from acute food shortages.
Mr President, the Committee on External Economic Relations was asked for an opinion on supplying food aid to Russia but, in view of the urgency of the matter, we have not had a chance to meet in Strasbourg to discuss it and adopt an opinion.
This is why, as chairman of the committee, I will make a few points with which the majority of the members of our committee will very probably agree and which are totally in line with what Mr Colino Salamanca has just said.
Firstly, we are obviously totally in favour of supplying emergency food aid to Russia, particularly given that this is based on Russian requests made during the visit of the President of the European Commission to Moscow in October.
The supply situation is appalling in certain regions of the Russian Federation and we clearly have a humanitarian duty to a population threatened by famine.
I would add that it is also in our own interest to see the political and social situation stabilised. Obviously I am not interested in the resulting positive effect of a reduction in stocks of agricultural products in the European Union.
Secondly, we can only agree to the method of supplying and distributing the food aid, while hoping that the Russian public authorities will be able to distribute the products free to the neediest people.
Thirdly, it is clear that we must follow closely the implementation of this measure.
I would remind you that, in view of the political and financial situation in Russia, this House, during the first reading of the budget for 1999, put into reserve a significant amount intended to help Russia. This was based on an amendment proposed by our committee.
We are not actually sure if our assistance is reaching the intended beneficiaries or if it is being used for the objectives specified.
The same concerns apply to the food aid and we invite the Commission to apply the Memorandum of Understanding to the letter and to inform Parliament immediately of any possible cases of fraud or speculation.
Finally, it goes without saying that the funding of this food aid action through the Community budget, which involves a large amount - EUR 400 million - must not be regarded as a subsidised export.
I would remind you of the European Union's undertaking, signed in the context of the WTO agreement, to reduce the quantity and volume of subsidised agricultural exports in the budget.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.51 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I have a comment relating to page 12 of the Minutes.
Yesterday, I asked the President of the sitting about the application of Annex V of the Rules, as it involves all of us when considering the 1996 discharge.
I asked that, pursuant to Article 3 of this Annex, the amendments that had been tabled be forwarded to the Committee on Budgetary Control so that it could give its opinion as required by this Article.
The Committee on Budgetary Control met yesterday but did not have these amendments as they had not been translated at the time of its meeting, even though I was assured that this would be done so that the Committee on Budgetary Control could give its opinion.
What measures do you intend to take to ensure that we can give an appropriate opinion on the various points of this Annex and so that the Rules are applied in full for this important vote on whether or not to grant discharge for 1996?
Which Rules did you refer to, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy?
I mentioned Annex V, Article 3 of the Rules, which applies in the case in point as a proposal for granting the discharge has been submitted to us. I believe I also mentioned paragraph 2 or 3, which states that the Committee on Budgetary Control must give its opinion on the amendments before they are put to the vote in the House.
I shall look into what is happening in this case.
As soon as we have the full details, they will be passed on to you.
Mr President, we discussed this matter at yesterday's meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Since, as Mr Fabre-Aubrespy rightly says, the amendments were not available, the committee decided that the rapporteur would deliver its opinion here in plenary during the vote.
There were no objections.
But if you want to check all this again, I would ask you to inform me of the fact as soon as possible, in case there are any other procedures to be followed.
Mrs Theato, you yourself explained that the Committee on Budgetary Control is not in breach of the Rules of Procedure by choosing to present its report in this way.
This therefore conveniently responds to the objection raised by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
The rapporteur will deliver his opinion on each amendment in the House, as was decided by his committee.
Thank you very much for your remarks.
Thank you, Mr Puerta.
I should like to inform you of the latest developments concerning this matter.
Mrs Hebé de Bonafini will be with us today.
She is coming in to Frankfurt airport.
Negotiations with the Argentine authorities yesterday meant that the mistaken action of one of the officials was overruled, thus enabling her to catch a plane yesterday. She is due to land in Frankfurt at 10.30 a.m. where a car will collect her and bring her to Parliament so she may attend.
I should particularly like to thank publicly the European Union representative in Buenos Aires for such swift and effective action, which enabled this lady to obtain a ticket and travel here, and I should also like to thank the Argentine authorities for acting so promptly on my request.
Mrs Eriksson, we shall forward your request to the College of Quaestors, but please bear in mind that when Parliament allocates rooms at the request of Members, it naturally does not take their political allegiances into account. Instead, the College of Quaestors allocates them as it sees fit at the time and without becoming embroiled in complex political issues.
Mr President, I would ask Members to sign the written declaration by our Vice-President Mr David Martin on the effect of the WTO on animal protection.
We have always given strong support to animal protection and consumer protection in this House.
I believe that this declaration could obtain enough signatures...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mrs Graenitz, that is not a point of order, and the House cannot become a forum for announcements by each and every Member.
Let us follow our Rules correctly.
Mr President, I wish to draw to your attention something extremely offensive and insensitive that I received in my mailbox this morning.
I received an invitation to sample foie gras .
Considering that we are coming up to Christmas, this cruel and inhumane way of producing so-called food is unacceptable.
We should not be presented with invitations to sample something produced ...
I would repeat what I have just said, Mrs McKenna: this is not the time to begin a debate on your favourite political subjects.
Mr President, I should like to say to Ms McKenna that all she has to do is not turn up if she does not wish to.
Foie gras is a national product of many countries.
If she does not wish to try it, then she does not have to turn up!
(Loud applause) Mr President, I do however wish to comment on the Minutes as yesterday evening during the night sitting, as rapporteur for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I presented its recommendation for second reading of the regulation on the statistics on trade in goods between Member States.
After Commissioner de Silguy commented on our amendments, I wished to state my position.
However, the President of the sitting cut me off, saying that I was only allowed to put questions to Mr de Silguy, even though I should have been able to give my opinion regarding the Commission's position on our amendments.
Mr President, I protested then and I would like to protest again.
Perhaps there is a need to organise training courses for certain Vice-Presidents so that they understand how parliamentary customs operate.
I was a member of a normal parliament for 25 years and I cannot understand why we cannot have normal discussions here, particularly when it involves a second reading where we have experienced problems with the Council over the common position.
Therefore, Mr President, may I suggest that that particular President be sent on a training course?
I shall take note of that and check with the President of the sitting in question what the problem was, and you will receive an explanation in due course.
One moment, Mr Casini.
We are not going to open a debate on the 'Pro Vida ' movement, and I will stop you if that is the subject of what you have to say.
We are not going to have a debate on that topic.
Mr President, I asked for the floor merely to say that it is incorrect to assert that the 'Movimento per la vita ' is in favour of the death penalty.
We in the 'Movimento per la vita ' in Italy oppose the death penalty, and we prove it by belonging to every association campaigning against the death penalty.
We were the first, in Italy, to petition for the release - subsequently obtained - of Paula Cooper.
So it is we who launched the fight against the death penalty in Italy.
Mr President, as we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration on Human Rights and the tenth anniversary of the Sakharov prize, I should like to ask whether any invitation was sent to Leila Zana, a previous winner of the Sakharov prize, and whether any approach was made to the Turkish government concerning her presence here, and what was the response?
The invitation was sent but I shall check again.
It seems I was informed yesterday of an initial difficulty - which was resolved - owing to the fact that she had to look after a family member, which prevented her from travelling.
But I shall check this information and will let you know immediately if it is correct.
Should it be incorrect, I shall let you know exactly what is happening, Mr Alavanos.
Mr President, though I wish all the members of her family good health, I wish that were indeed the reason.
From what we know, however, Leila Zana is still in prison in Ankara, and a new sentence was passed upon her - two years if I am not mistaken.
Does your answer mean that the Turkish authorities gave permission for her to be present but for some family reason she is not here, or that the problem of her imprisonment persists?
I do not know.
I told you that I cannot give you exact details for the time being, but I will do so as soon as I receive them.
That is all I can say.
I do not wish to make assertions that later turn out to be wrong.
I will give you the exact information when we receive it.
(The Minutes were approved)
Welcome
European Council in Vienna - Austrian Presidency
Thank you, Mr Santer.
Mr Haarder has a point of order.
Mr President, we all know from the media that one of the main issues was the tax-free sales, on which a lot of time was spent. Why have we heard nothing about it?
I hope it is because you are embarrassed that you wasted so much time on it, but Parliament should be made aware of what you spent your time on in Vienna.
That is not exactly a point of order, but in any case the President-in- Office of the Council is still here and he can respond to the questions that Chancellor Klima has not dealt with.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am stating my position as President of the General Affairs Council.
Let me begin, like Viktor Klima, by giving warm thanks for the excellent cooperation with the European Commission and Parliament.
Anyone who is familiar with the Treaty and the complex nature of our relations will be aware how difficult it is to coordinate these various institutions even to some extent.
Perhaps some people may have smiled at the fact that we managed to achieve well-organised and perfectly amicable meetings.
I think that is a precondition for also achieving first-class results, and I warmly thank both Parliament and the Commission.
We have, I believe, made quite some headway.
The 1999 budget and the research and development programme have been mentioned already.
We have resolved the conflicts about the common legal acts, which had been under dispute for decades.
Yesterday we reached agreement in COREPER on Socrates and Leonardo and on the youth exchange programme, on which Parliament will be delivering its opinion.
All in all, I believe we can boast some positive results.
We always knew the Austrian Presidency would be a hard graft.
We have few historic moments to celebrate, but we had a great many practical and difficult tasks to accomplish.
Nobody knew that the financial crisis would cast dark shadows not just over Asia, but also over Russia and Latin America and indeed over Europe as well.
Nobody could predict the tragic political crisis in the Balkans.
We have made every effort to tackle these issues.
Perhaps a few words now on the euro, because in retrospect I am sure the history of the European Union will be divided into the period before 1 January 1999 and the period after 1 January 1999.
It is an historic turning-point.
I am not sure whether we entirely realise how much the introduction of this common currency will change our lives.
I very much hope the change will be a positive one.
In our time, the euro has genuinely become a credible international currency, alongside the dollar.
The coordinated interest-rate reduction two weeks ago proved that there is confidence in this currency, and that there is no contradiction between a hard currency, a stable price situation in the individual countries, and commitment to employment.
During this year of the UK and Austrian Presidencies, the European social market economy model has created more jobs than the Americans.
Thanks to our efforts, today we have just over 1.5 million more jobs than a year ago, at the end of 1997.
But because of the euro, Europe must make its voice heard in the world in a more concrete and effective manner. That is why the common external representation of the euro was so important.
That is why we must also embark on substantive cooperation in fiscal policy, for which provision was also made in Vienna. It also obliges us to secure our foreign and security policy more effectively.
So I turn now to foreign policy considerations.
It was our intention to make the Union more visible and effective in today's world.
I believe that to some extent we have succeeded. As President-in-Office of the Council, I have travelled some 90 000 air-kilometres - I hope you cannot tell this by looking at me.
I have personally visited something like 35 or 40 countries. We headed a troika mission to Russia during a time of great difficulty and tension, and I will be coming back to that.
We have adopted a better and stronger position on the Balkans.
For the first time the EU has a special envoy, Wolfgang Petritsch, who represents the voice and face of Europe in the region and has done a very great deal together with the Commission and the Member States to help provide humanitarian aid for the refugees.
We have allocated some EUR 50 million for this winter alone, to provide at least some shelter for the refugees.
That is certainly not a perfect achievement - some of them are still living in wretched conditions, because the winters are hard in Kosovo - but we really have done what we could.
I myself invited all the Albanian negotiating groups to Brussels in an effort to persuade them to adopt a negotiating position - at the moment we have not got as far as we would like. I myself invited the Serbian opposition to Vienna, all the political opposition groups, with a view to them establishing a platform that could perhaps form a national alternative to Milosevic.
But I must confess that time is running out and the situation is threatening to escalate.
So it is important that the European Union accounts for two thirds of all observers in the Kosovo Verification Mission and provides virtually all the troops for the NATO Extraction Mission in Macedonia.
Europe has shown a high profile here.
Secondly, the Middle East: by inviting President Arafat to Pörtschach - this was planned in advance, but the timing turned out to be very good and he was able to speak to all the Heads of State and Government - by my visit to the Middle East and by the presence of the European Union at the Washington donor conference, we have shown that we are by far the most important and biggest donor in the world.
We called on the Union to play a stronger role, also vis-à-vis the Americans and the Israelis.
As a result, the follow-up conference will be held in Europe, and in future there will also be political ministerial meetings with the Americans, Palestinians, Europeans and Israelis.
On Russia, as I mentioned, I led the troika mission to Moscow.
We have formulated a very sound overall strategy for Russia, more or less recommending that they copy the European social market economy model.
In coordination with the Commission, we wish to adapt the TACIS programmes to the crisis in Russia, and the day before yesterday we conclusively adopted the food aid programme for Russia in the Agriculture Council. It is an enormous programme: EUR 400 million, which represents billions of Austrian schillings; and the aid is also enormous and will of course also help to make the European Union's stocks available to the needy Russian people.
But, and I want to say this very clearly here, we also need controls. That is an absolute necessity!
So we have a new Memorandum of Understanding, which provides that the European Court of Auditors can carry out checks at any time and that, if any irregularities emerge, the Commission can at any moment call a halt to the aid.
With regard to contacts with third countries, we held an extremely successful conference with SADC, the South African Development Community.
We opened the post-Lomé negotiations and included new topics, such as human rights and a political dialogue, with a view to reaching an agreement between the European Union and the ACP States. We have taken care to ensure that this year, the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we do not just think of the past but also frame European Union approaches to the future.
We proposed - and here I would very much plead for the support of the European Parliament; the Council will examine the matter but I would urge Parliament to give its approval and exert pressure - the publication of an annual European Union report on human rights, the creation of an agency for human rights policy within the European Union, to ensure that continuous and professional efforts are made in favour of human rights in the world.
Together with third countries, including Algeria, the Gulf States and China, we have very specifically drawn attention to this need for a dialogue on human rights.
Here too we can record some encouraging successes.
I very much hope we will pursue this course, and that in the end it will help make the European Union the firm upholder of human rights in the world it has always seen itself to be.
Mr Santer has already raised the question of Switzerland. After four years of negotiations, a real breakthrough has now occurred.
We have managed to close all seven dossiers, from the free movement of workers to research and overland transport, on the basis of an extremely accelerated procedure.
I very much hope that the people of Switzerland see this most important agreement for what it is. It is a strategically important document for both sides.
For us, Switzerland is the second most important trading and economic partner after America, ahead even of Japan.
As regards enlargement, the Austrian Presidency began real negotiations. It was not a very easy task.
You may remember that when I announced that we intended to do so, some Member States still voiced serious opposition and criticism. We initiated these negotiations.
In practical terms, we have now negotiated a quarter of the acquis communautaire and, most importantly, in Vienna we have also unequivocally defined the content of the next stage.
When you look at the Vienna conclusions, you will find that they support the Commission proposal to open negotiations with countries such as Lithuania and Latvia next year, and also with Slovakia, provided they continue with their reform efforts.
The Vienna document supports Malta's application for accession. It also makes clear and encouraging statements about the accession of Romania and Bulgaria.
But above all the Commission has agreed, and we support it here, that we should begin with the acquis screening of these five pre-ins at the beginning of the second quarter or the end of the first quarter of 1999, which is to say we will lose no time.
That is why this question of enlargement is one of the most important strategic questions for our presidency.
We have shown that the 11 applicants, 12 if we include Malta, belong to the European family.
I have always preferred the image of a European family to that of a European house, because the idea of building a house always suggests a building site, draughty, full of rubble and not very comfortable.
But the image of a family makes you think of people.
I think that is quite essential.
As Viktor Klima said, we have covered some new ground in relation to the security and defence dimension. For the first time, we have opened the discussion on this important and indispensable subject at the level of the Heads of Government.
We held the first meeting of defence ministers outside the Council framework, but the 15 EU defence ministers actually came together in Vienna, an historic first meeting.
This presidency conducted the first ever political dialogue between the EU and the Western European Union.
For the first time the President-in-Office of the Council met the Secretary-General of NATO, with the approval of the 15. There has been quite a distance between the two in the past, but that distance has been bridged.
We discussed important issues together.
We held the first policy debate on security and defence in the General Affairs Council and established certain aspects in the Vienna conclusions. I am sure this discussion will continue in Cologne.
On efficiency, I believe that we must improve our internal efficiency, slim things down and address issues more directly. Of course, that also includes institutional reform.
We know that.
As soon as Agenda 2000 has been completed, we will have to discuss this matter. But we have already begun to streamline and prepare the General Affairs Council better for these new challenges.
There are now decisions in this area, not just discussions.
We want to cut down the number of special Councils, which is why we have now agreed joint proposals to that end.
Next year the Commission will be submitting its proposals to the institutions.
In that respect, I believe we have also helped strengthen the Union from within.
My last point is the question of duty-free shops.
It was discussed on the sidelines of the European Council, as also on the sidelines of the General Affairs Council a week earlier.
You know that any change to the 1999 decision requires unanimity.
ECOFIN has now been asked to look into this question.
But I can also tell you that the course of the discussion both in the General Affairs Council and among the Heads of Government does not for the moment suggest any unanimity on changing that decision. We have raised the question whether an amended phasing-out process, an extension perhaps of the transitional periods, might lead to wider acceptance.
But this too remains an open question.
In any case, ECOFIN will continue to discuss it.
Mr President, I would like to thank both the President of the European Council and the President-in-Office for their reports here this morning.
I would like to congratulate Mr Klima.
He brought a refreshingly realistic assessment to this Parliament, recognising both the successes of the Austrian presidency but also, where there are disagreements within the Union and where I am sure he has experienced the frustrations which we in this Parliament feel as a result of those disagreements.
We do not often hear that sort of honest assessment given in this House and I hope it is a sign of things to come.
So I want to thank both Mr Klima and Mr Schüssel very much for that and also for the efficiency, the diligence and hard work of the Austrian Government during their first presidency.
Mr President, in your speech to the European Council on Friday, and again this morning, you expressed your thanks on behalf of Parliament for the way in which the presidency has cooperated with Parliament.
On behalf of my group, I should like to add my thanks to the many ministers who have attended here and helped and supported the work of this Parliament.
Particular thanks are due to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner who has been our regular partner here for the past six months.
We offer our thanks.
The Austrian presidency came at a particularly awkward time, sandwiched as it was between the British and the German presidencies.
In the former presidency negotiations were started to enlarge the Union - a momentous event - together with a decision on which countries should join the euro, the establishment of a central bank, arguably an even more momentous event.
The forthcoming presidency is destined to conclude the Agenda 2000 package which is of immense significance for existing Member States of the Union and for enlargement.
So the presidency had to steer a path between one set of mighty events and another without having any of that timetable fall into its own lap.
The Austrian Government is to be congratulated for making sure that the way ahead is clearly timetabled to Cologne and to Helsinki, that the decisions needed are identified and that the broad outlines of many initiatives are set.
It was never the intention that major decisions which have absorbed the European press in recent days would be concluded at Vienna.
In particular, it was never the intention that decisions would be made on future financing of the Union.
Let us be frank and clear about that.
But it has been possible to continue the debate on some of the key issues facing the Union: the next stage in our employment strategy and a European employment pact.
My group very much hopes that the initiative which the Council outlined in Vienna will allow us to establish a counterweight to the growth and stability pact which will secure future monetary security in the euro zone.
Whilst the single currency will have a great impact on the lives of our citizens, employment is even more immediately crucial for every family in the European Union.
In this respect, my group particularly welcomes the express invitation of the Council to allow those Member States who so desire to initiate reduced VAT rates on labour-intensive services which are not exposed to cross-border competition.
This was a proposal which was put to the Luxembourg special summit in a report from this Parliament by my colleague Wim van Velzen and which the Council at that stage felt needed more analysis and assessment.
Your agreement that such an idea could be an important employment generator gives us great satisfaction and we will certainly do what we can to facilitate progress on that in this House.
Chancellor, I note that in the conclusions the Council pays special attention to the fact that this moment coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Indeed, Mr Schüssel mentioned it himself just now.
The Council is asking the Commission to draw up proposals to counter racism in the applicant countries and invites the Member States to consider similar measures inside the Union.
I want to commend the Council for calling for action in this very sensitive and important area.
Perhaps we could ask you to take back to the Council an appeal from us, that it should issue a firm declaration that it will ensure that the European elections will be fought throughout the European Union free of manifestos or platforms which promulgate racist or xenophobic hatred or fear.
Such a declaration coming from the special summit in March on the eve of the European election campaign would be an important signal of the Council's serious intent to fight the politics of hate wherever they are to be found in Europe of the next millennium.
An issue of particular significance already mentioned in this House and one which has absorbed an inordinate amount of our time is the question of the Members' Statute.
I want to thank Mr Klima in particular for his willingness to receive the draft statute so carefully developed by our colleague Mr Rothley.
I recognise, as we all do, that the statute contains elements which will require detailed negotiation but I cannot stress how important it is that rapid progress is made if we are to have it in place for the June elections.
We welcome the fact that the Council considers the draft an appropriate one on which to begin discussion.
We have our negotiating team ready.
Could we ask you to press the secretariat of the Council to get on with it? It is political will that matters.
Please urge your successors to get on with it.
There are some in this House and many outside who have always argued the cynical case, that we would never get the agreement of the Council to put the need for a statute in the Treaty.
Amsterdam did that.
Then they argued that we would never find agreement amongst ourselves on a draft statute.
Mr Rothley did that.
They argued that the Council would never deal with it in Vienna.
And you did that.
Now they argue that we are deluding ourselves if we think we can reach a final result by the time of the European elections.
Together we can do that.
I urge the Council to help us demonstrate that we can now conclude this issue fast and fairly.
I would like to mention just a few issues concerning third countries.
The agreement with Switzerland is a particular success.
It is especially noteworthy that it should have been the Austrian presidency which resolved this problem and demonstrated the value of using the expertise and shared experiences of particular Member States with third countries.
However, my group is increasingly irritated and disturbed by the length of time it is taking to find a solution to the negotiations with South Africa on the trade and cooperation agreement.
I know you agree with me but we note that the Council expects that this will come to a conclusion in the next six months.
Frankly, we must succeed.
On the day on which the European Parliament awards the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought to Ibrahim Rugova who struggled so valiantly for peace in Kosovo, it would be wrong not to pay tribute to the work of the European Union in working for political dialogue, peaceful solutions and humanitarian support in that troubled part of our continent during the last six months.
This debate should not just be about the Vienna Council.
We all know that not every Council can provide dramatic, earth-shattering changes.
We here are always too ready to demand such results, in my view rather naively.
So I want to pay tribute to the ongoing work of the Council in which the Austrian presidency can take particular pride.
I have already mentioned the much delayed agreement with Switzerland.
Another very big success was the fifth action programme on research.
For a year this has lain unresolved on the table: a programme which contains the fourth largest spending area in the Community budget.
It is to the credit of your ministers that agreement was finally reached on this programme as well as many others in the past six months - a six months in which Austria can take pride.
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR Group I would like to begin by congratulating Chancellor Klima and Mr Schüssel on completing the first ever Austrian presidency.
Organisationally, this presidency has been a great success.
It is one of which you and your colleagues, and indeed your public service, can be justly proud.
Politically, however, I regret the failure of the Vienna Council to adopt specific decisions of substance.
The Council has continued and I believe intensified a growing tendency, exhibited also at Cardiff, to carry forward innumerable key issues for future presidencies.
Inevitably each Prime Minister puts his own spin on what summits achieve.
This time, in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, many of the headline writers point to the fight to save duty-free sales.
In Holland, potentially lower VAT rates and labour-intensive services produced headlines about cheaper haircuts.
In the context of the challenging issues facing the Union, such diverse headlines, downbeat as they are, capture more vividly than I can the absence of strategic progress.
The Commission proposed Agenda 2000 one and a half years ago.
It is alarming to note how little real political progress has been made so far in advancing this agenda; a decision is not due now but it has not shown much advance.
This is especially true in the context of the nothing-is-agreed-until-everything-is-agreed formula with a deadline set for next March.
The Union runs the risk of a prolonged period of uncertainty and crisis, and stands on the threshold of sending deeply negative and dispiriting signals to applicant states.
This drift in policy terms has to stop.
The ELDR recognises that the primary responsibility for employment creation rests with Member States.
While welcoming bench-marking and sharing best practice at Union level, we see such measures as complementary to, but no substitute for, structural adjustment in labour, product and service markets and employment-friendly tax policy at Member State level.
Recycling the Luxembourg guidelines grandiosely as an employment pact will make no difference to Europe's unemployed.
Something more profound is needed than relabelling old wine in new bottles.
It is important that the emphasis on European added value in employment policy should not become an escape clause designed to mask the unwillingness of a number of social-democrat-led governments to embrace necessary domestic economic reform.
My group regrets that, 15 months after the signature of Amsterdam, the Council has not integrated Schengen into the acquis.
Like others, I urge the Council to fast-track the statute so that we, as MEPs, can fight our next election under the politics of Europe and not the politics of expenses.
- Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Vienna Summit marks a transition between a period that is drawing to a close and a new period that, in a few days' time, will celebrate the birth of the single currency and undoubtedly bring profound changes to the European order.
This new period will be dominated by questions on the enlargement of Europe towards the East and the South, and will lead to the long-awaited birth of the 'greater Europe'.
This summit has led to satisfaction on some points and, in particular, to the renewed confirmation of employment as a top priority. This is a response to the repeated demands the European Parliament has received from public opinion in our various Member States.
All that remains is to give operational content to this determined approach, and this will be a job for the coming German and Finnish Presidencies.
On the other hand, in terms of the immediate future, we can only express our disappointment that no progress was made on Agenda 2000, on future financing and on the institutional reform, which must undoubtedly take place before the first enlargement.
If the truth be told, negotiations on these various issues have not really gotten underway and the Austrian Presidency could not give us more than an appraisal of them.
But this is not a criticism, as we knew that the political context prevented further progress from being made.
As far as future financing is concerned, it is like attempting to square the circle.
Some countries wish to reduce their contribution to the Union's budget, yet no-one wishes to pay more or receive less.
Nonetheless, we must find a dynamic balance soon, a balance between the demands for budgetary rigour being imposed on the Union and the wish to preserve the work on solidarity and cohesion that has been evident over the past decade. And all this must be done whilst meeting the demands of enlargement.
It is difficult, it is even extremely difficult, but we must use our imagination.
It would certainly be easier to solve these problems if, at the same time, the Union were to better define the common policies it intends to develop, whilst respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
To conclude, I should like to congratulate the Austrian Presidency for working so hard on furthering European integration, on such vital matters for the future as employment or research policy, as well as in other areas.
As a result, the Austrian Presidency is passing on the baton to the coming Presidency in good condition and we should thank them for this.
Chancellor, please forgive me for not joining in with all the praise but I believe that the conclusions of the Vienna summit are extremely limited.
These conclusions lead to an alarming feeling of being stuck, of putting off until later all the issues where we disagree, although this, of course, is not part of the Presidency's responsibilities.
This is particularly true for the future financing of the European Union.
In this connection, I would like to express my group's opposition to the fair return theory and to the cofinancing of agricultural expenditure, as well as the importance it places on solidarity amongst Member States, without which there would be no Europe.
A large part of the Council's work concentrated on employment and launched the idea of a European employment pact.
This is a good idea.
But, one year on from Luxembourg, decisions should have been made on concrete objectives, yet this is unfortunately not the case.
Of course, the fact that we have stopped proclaiming the virtues of monetarist dogmas as the only true basis is a positive step.
But the 10 % of the working population and the 20 % of young people hoping for employment need to see more obvious results in the fight against unemployment.
I do not feel that the Council has fully grasped the risks of slower growth from 1999, and from the launch of the euro.
According to the Council, the employment pact must complement the Stability Pact, but both pacts will not sit easily with one another.
We must turn the approach around and the reasoning behind it.
The stability pact, which is a real yoke around the necks of national economies, should be lifted to allow internal demand to recover and to give Member States the option of using their resources to stimulate growth.
In view of this, the European Central Bank's mission and powers must be redefined.
We need to introduce a political counterweight and democratic control.
The drop in interest rates - which I welcome - should be selectively applied in order to promote employment and not speculation, which should be taxed.
Lastly, we should call on the services of the EIB and this, with the launch of a European loan, could form useful contributions to promoting investment that generates employment.
The content of the future European employment pact must learn from previous experience.
The drop in labour costs, alongside flexibility and insecurity, are all among the principal causes of poverty.
At the dawn of the year 2000, the reduction of working hours, a steady job, fair salaries and good training cannot be viewed as unachievable utopian ideas, but rather as rights for every man and woman.
To conclude, I will highlight an important sentence from the Vienna conclusions: 'Employment is the top priority of the European Union ... serving as the basis of the European social model'.
I believe that the European social movement must gather strength so that this sentence becomes a reality.
Mr President, this presidency of the Council could be commemorated with the words with which the German literary critic Reich-Ranicki tends to conclude a famous TV programme: 'the game is over, the curtain is closed and there are no answers'.
The Vienna summit was in fact rather like a play, staged with great pomp and circumstance, which has left us rubbing our eyes and wondering: is that all that has come of those great histrionic promises?
Chancellor Klima, you said: 'we discussed the future in Vienna'.
That is true, but that was not your job.
Your job was to resolve the problems of the present, because that is all a policy for the future can do.
The problems you have to resolve are sufficiently known, and they have become bigger rather than smaller since the Vienna summit.
European employment policy is slowly turning into a farce.
Let us think back: the Luxembourg summit instructed the Vienna summit to adopt an employment pact.
The Cardiff summit instructed the Vienna summit to adopt an employment pact.
The Pörtschach summit instructed the Vienna summit to adopt an employment pact.
And what did the Vienna summit do? It instructed the Cologne summit to adopt an employment pact.
That is an insult to the millions of unemployed in Europe!
And the reform of the institutions: the greatest obstacle to the development of the EU! Six months have passed, and it has not even proved possible to agree on practical objectives and practical timetables.
Evidently, it has not yet penetrated the Council's mind that there is an urgent need for a comprehensive democratic reform of the European Union, for the establishment of European basic rights and citizens' rights.
The enlargement of the EU, the historic task of overcoming the division of Europe, of repairing the devastating damage of the communist regime and creating a common area of freedom and stability, has gone under in the petty dispute about net contribution interests.
In recent years the Council has assumed more and more power and turned the Union more and more into a bazaar of national interests.
Let me conclude by offering a piece of counsel to the Council: hand over the task of European ...
(The President interrupted the speaker) ... to the parliaments.
Believe me, they can do it better!
Mr President, Chancellor, Mr President of the Commission, as the end of this year and this presidency approaches, we cannot hide a certain feeling of disappointment.
Of course, 1 January will mark a major event, the launch of the euro, but this very positive progress cannot really compensate for the feeble conclusions of the Vienna European Council, which are due to the differences of opinion between the fifteen Member States and to their lack of common political will.
Almost all the issues were put on hold and are to be dealt with later.
This is the case with the reform of the institutions.
There are many of us who firmly believe that the Amsterdam Treaty must soon be supplemented by reforms of the Council of Ministers, particularly its composition and qualified majority voting procedure, and of the Commission.
In Vienna, absolutely no progress was made on such reforms.
Secondly, no progress has been made on enlargement either, with the European Council merely reiterating what it had already said.
Even an issue such as Turkey, which is currently badly handled, was not clarified in any real way.
As regards the very important issue of Agenda 2000, we will have to await the next European Council to see exactly where the governments wish to strike a balance between what the presidency conclusions call the spirit of solidarity and budgetary rigour.
In the meantime, we can only speculate on and fear the resurgence of national selfishness.
As the President of the Commission said, the Vienna conclusions on Agenda 2000 are indeed modest.
I should like to end on two more optimistic notes.
Firstly, the Vienna Council wanted to concentrate on employment.
Of course, not everything is perfect, but as you have just said, Chancellor, the governments are now aware of the European dimension of employment, which does not just depend on national policies.
Like you, I welcome the 1999 employment guidelines, which, in a European context, aim to have a positive influence on national policies.
I also welcome the determination to strengthen the Luxembourg process and to highlight the roles of the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament so that we can work towards a global strategy for employment, growth and stability.
In this respect, I was pleased earlier to hear the President of the Commission stress the need for a policy, or at least a coordination of policies, on investment, particularly as regards risk capital investments.
The second positive point that I would like to emphasise concerns human rights.
Mr President-in-Office, Minister, you are asking for our support for your proposals on human rights.
Well, you have my unreserved and wholehearted support.
Mr President, to the strains of the mantra of closeness to the people, we are now planning even more Union. A new theme, a common tax policy, is on its way, and the Cologne summit will put a proposal for a fourth pillar, common armed forces, on the agenda.
The summit in Helsinki will expand common policies and set in motion an intergovernmental conference on more majority decision-making and more votes for the large Member States.
Externally, we shall have a strong statesman to represent the Union.
Common strategies are being developed, the caterpillar tracks are being brought out and put on.
We are in the middle of the construction of a new superpower, a USA in Europe, but without American democracy.
A military superpower without democracy is a dangerous quantity and, in any case, that is not what a large number of European voters are demonstrating for.
It is now time to sound the alarm over these plans and to prevent nationless Eurocrats, civil servants and ministers from creating an EU state without democracy.
We should instead set a course for a Europe of nations and democracies which can also accommodate and find room in its heart for the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe.
I would rather see a much more specific timetable for enlargement than the timetables now established for the currency, the armed forces and the police - a timetable for more power to the Union.
What we are advocating is a Europe of nations and democracies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this Vienna summit has brought few concrete results.
Whether this was a summit that set a new course, only the future can tell.
I would not wish to reproach the presidency of the Council for not being able to achieve everything it set out to achieve.
It is understandable that the difficult and controversial package of Agenda 2000 could not be brought to a conclusion. After all, Agenda 2000 concerns interests rather than visions.
That is what makes things so difficult, and it means that a political decision will probably be taken in what some commentators have called the 'night when heads start to roll'.
The disappointment of Vienna is reflected in other areas too, especially employment.
The Vienna strategy may well designate employment as the top priority, but it is marked by a paucity of concrete proposals.
No qualitative or quantitative objectives were fixed.
So there has been nothing concrete since Luxembourg.
Freely following the motto 'what we cannot do now we shall put off till later', the Vienna meeting did in the end produce one result: it fixed the agenda for the next meeting.
That is a rather miserable result for 17 million unemployed.
The guarded comments of the social democratic family of Europe are unlikely to offer much consolation to the unemployed.
Mr President, I think that at this stage in the debate neither the President-in-Office nor the President of the Commission are in a position to listen to too much.
I would firstly like to take time to reflect a little on the Austrian Presidency that we are about to say goodbye to, a friendly presidency, and one that should be, or is, of enormous symbolic value.
It is also a presidency that represents one of the oldest political concepts in Europe and at the same time is hailed as one of the most modern.
Austria is unique in joining the old with the new and on some occasions, we are not sure whether we are referring to the Austria at the turn of the century or the young republic that emerged during this century.
Whichever it is, over the past few months, the presidency has consistently demonstrated the Austrian spirit of cordiality and goodwill.
And, what is more, it has been a timely presidency because we have now in fact reached a period of transition.
Austrian people appear to possess dual vision: the ability to look forwards and backwards, to see that times are changing and that we are currently living through a period of transition.
The fact that we are moving from one century to the next is perhaps in itself not of great significance, but it is certainly of symbolic significance to those of us experiencing it. And added to that, we are moving from one Europe to another.
We are moving from the Europe of the internal market, which is more market-oriented and service-based, to the Europe of Economic and Monetary Union and a Europe that concentrates more on the issues in society that affect individuals, namely, environmental and social issues.
The Austrian Presidency has, in my opinion, acted very intelligently given this climate of change.
I always read the minutes of the presidency's declarations in some detail and in doing so I can tell that they have been written intelligently, first and foremost, because they include an agenda and a timetable, which is something we urgently need at the moment.
In other words, the period of change Europe is currently undergoing needs an agenda and timetable setting out exactly what we hope to achieve. This is something that was neatly brought together in the so-called 'Vienna Strategy for Europe'.
The Austrians have presented us with a very demanding and full agenda but one that we can still complete.
In my view, experience has shown that here in Europe everything is resolved at the eleventh hour and that we usually do not achieve anything if we try to get ahead of ourselves. I think that the presidency has gone to great lengths to lay the groundwork that the German and Finnish Presidencies will be able to complete next year.
The Vienna Strategy for Europe has been very clearly explained and I would advise many of my colleagues who have criticised the presidency as being inefficient to closely follow future meetings, first in Brussels, then Cologne, Tampere and Helsinki, to see how each and every one of these results will be achieved.
The German Presidency undoubtedly has a very difficult task ahead.
We are all aware of the complex economic issues that currently need to be addressed - and I do not think that it is my place to take that particular debate further here -, but at each of these sittings there is evidently an agenda that the presidencies will be able to prepare, and to do so from now on, so as to ensure continuity between the successive German and Finnish Presidencies.
The chairman of my group, Mrs Green, spoke before me, and has therefore left me with very little to say on socialist issues.
But in reply to an earlier remark, I would like to say to the Austrian Presidency that, as far as the Socialist Group is concerned, the Union has one priority at the moment and that priority is employment. More specifically, my group believes that the governments that currently make up the majority in the Union, some of which are socialist, while others are a coalition between socialists and Christian Democrats, are highly concerned about employment because it is the issue that also concerns us as citizens.
We cannot say to the Council that it has no representative value. Governments receive citizens' complaints just as we do, and at the moment, the questions on everyone's lips relate to employment: What is happening with employment?
What are we going to do with our children?
Where shall we put them?
How can we guarantee their integration into society?
This is clearly an area in which little progress has been made, but at least we are beginning to advance a little.
There is, in my opinion, one decisive issue, that of the Delors White Paper, which we should have supported more than we did.
In my view - and you should read the conclusions of the Essen Summit in this respect -, the White Paper by Delors was too easily dismissed at Essen and I think that it is time to look at it once again.
There is a whole series of proposals on the table - and I do not wish to bore the presidency and the remaining Members -, but we need to reconsider the ideas in the Delors White Paper, because without investment there are no jobs, and for there to be investment, the financial means need to be provided. This is, if you like, perhaps stating the obvious, but that is the way it is.
Lastly, Mr President, I believe that the statements made concerning the third pillar were very important, as were those on the creation of an area of freedom and justice, which, as the presidency pointed out to mark the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights, is becoming extremely important.
Europe may be an area of asylum and freedom, but what it will never be, of course, is an asylum for criminals, terrorists, drug-traffickers, dictators and torturers.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, my verdict on the Vienna summit is of course rather less euphoric than that of the Chancellor, because basically it was a reiteration of objectives, statements of intent and tasks to be tackled that had already been defined; in parliamentary language, that means it was a summit which assigned responsibility for the items pending on the agenda, no more and no less.
But I too lay the blame less on the Austrian Presidency than on the general weakening of the will to reform within the European Union.
Chancellor, if you cannot see any trend towards renationalisation, I must firmly contradict you and cite the example of the debate on financing.
That showed quite clearly that the social democratic leadership in particular, which has taken such a centre-stage position at the moment, is giving precedence to interests that tend entirely in the opposite direction and are in the main purely national.
Just take a look: Schröder wants to cut the funding, as for that matter you do too with the idea of lower spending; then there is Blair who says he can still get something out of Europe in the agricultural sector, and Jospin who contradicts him on precisely that point.
That is the real reason why no progress was made with Agenda 2000, except for another postponement of the debate!
I would like to address a second point, employment policy.
Chancellor, I believe that what is decisive in this important area is that we do not confine ourselves to a purse full of ideas.
That is why I cannot understand why it was not made quite plain that the employment pact must be binding.
Referring to the stability pact and the employment pact in one breath only makes sense and is only justified if they are both equally binding!
So this is my verdict, Chancellor: this summit has not broken down the blockade on reform in the European Union in relation to enlargement and the decision-making ability of the European Union and its ability to master problems.
These questions were passed on, which I regret and which is a pity given the need for further European integration.
Mr President, the Heads of State and Government have set an ambitious target in trying to find agreement on the Agenda 2000 package at the March summit.
This package of proposals amounts to the most wide-ranging and fundamental examination of all the major political issues dealt with at European Union level: budget and financing, common policies, the process of enlargement, as well as the prospect of economic and social cohesion.
At the Vienna Summit it was clear that some Member States at least preferred to view this package in the narrowest possible manner as an accounting exercise.
I believe that we should include in the discussion not only purely budgetary matters but also the many additional factors which are also relevant to Agenda 2000 and the process of enlargement.
The suggestion put forward by some Member States that EU spending should be frozen at current levels until 2006 means, in effect, that the richer Member States are seeking to have the cost of enlargement met by the less-developed countries.
I support the position that EU spending should remain as a percentage of gross domestic product and should not be stabilised at current spending levels.
This would mean a reduction in the EU budget over time.
Freezing the budget level in practice means diverting money from the CAP and the Structural and Cohesion Funds into Eastern Europe.
Any suggestion of renationalising spending within the common agricultural policy would also work to undermine the fabric of the CAP, which would fly in the face of the interests of European farmers and rural regions.
I believe that those countries which are currently net beneficiaries from the funds will have great difficulty in accepting such a proposal in March.
It is worth noting that those countries which are currently net beneficiaries are situated to the south and the west of the Union and, as a result, they are likely to benefit far less from enlargement than the already better-off countries in central and northern Europe, which will be better able to take advantage of their proximity to the markets in these new Member States.
It is also important to factor into these calculations the huge benefits of issues such as improved security for countries such as Germany and Austria, as the Union's external border takes a decisive step to the east.
In conclusion, the whole question of financing the enlargement of the Union must not be confined to a narrow accounting exercise but must also take account of less tangible but no less important factors, such as security issues and likely shifts in trade patterns.
Mr President, before I begin, I should like the Minister and the President of the Commission to put on their headphones, unless they speak Greek.
Mr President, your Presidency commenced with optimism and hope, but it is ending amid serious concerns.
This is because during the current Presidency we have seen social-democratic governments establish a neo-Thatcherite presence - the President of Parliament stressed that too -, we have witnessed selfishness in relation to resources, and we have seen an attempt to build a larger Europe with less money.
We had expected and, if you will, we still expect in future to see more resistance from the government of Austria, a country rich in history, culture and traditions but one that does not suffer from the complex that affects major powers and does not feel that it is the subsidiary of some major power in the European Union.
It was with sorrow that we saw the Austrian Presidency's document on the funding of the European Union.
I should like to address Mr Schüssel, President-in-Office of the Council and ask him, during his reply here in Parliament and not in secret meetings between governments, to address Greek farmers directly - I am raising this particular subject - and give them an assurance ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the President-in-Office of the Council gave us an impressive list of all the issues discussed at the Vienna summit.
I am happy to acknowledge that, but unfortunately none of it has penetrated through to the outside world.
What has come through is that there were negotiations about money.
Perhaps that is partly to do with the new German approach.
I would certainly not dispute that.
Obviously, things were done differently in the past.
More information about the substance of policies used to penetrate through to the outside world and people would haggle about money at midday around the fireplace.
Perhaps that was a better system.
At any rate, at this summit not much got through of the visions which Chancellor Klima said should be opened up for the citizens.
Admittedly, the Austrian Government has achieved a great deal in terms of agricultural policy in its discussions with Parliament - or at least when Mr Molterer was present in the committee - and defined directions and outlined courses to be followed.
I do not dispute that.
But what was not addressed at this summit was the fact that employment is also linked to the stabilisation of agricultural structures and structural development.
That did not come through, even though it opens up new prospects, and I am very sorry that at this high level no account is evidently taken of the need to connect with the people.
Mr President, single currency or no, the Heads of State and Government were not of a single mind at the summit on financial matters.
The questions of the Community's finances and how to share the burden were too difficult and were therefore shelved.
Thus the Council has saddled itself with a very crowded agenda for 1999.
I hope we shall get a decision on the Agenda 2000 agreement in March 1999.
We cannot have the applicant countries made to suffer because we freeze our spending.
The European Parliament has worked hard to get a draft statute for Members ready in good time.
I hope the Heads of Government who stressed the importance of that system will keep up the pressure.
I welcome the draft agreement which the presidency has concluded with Switzerland on the Eurovignette and transit tariffs.
I am taken with the idea of experimenting with labour-intensive services.
I am disappointed that the abolition of tax-free shops has been postponed, because that question was settled back in 1991.
The President of the European Parliament said in his speech in Vienna that the EU had created a further 1.7 million jobs.
I ask myself how far that was due to the EU and how far it was due to the economic climate.
If jobs are lost again in the period of recession which is to come, will the EU have destroyed those jobs?
Lastly I must voice doubts about the plans for a European defence force.
We have NATO for that, and it is perfectly well able to do the job.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, if we look at the beginning of the Austrian Presidency we see that rather a lot was expected of it.
For instance, this presidency was to ensure that the Commission became less omnipotent and that Europe became more renationalised again, in the sense of becoming more decentralised.
And indeed if you look at the situation today, as the Chancellor pointed out, not only has any de-Europeanisation been prevented but in fact Europe is stronger today than it was at the beginning of the Austrian Presidency.
Let me give a few examples, starting with employment policy.
There have been signs of movement in employment policy.
Of course starts were made earlier - in Luxembourg and so on - but there have been instances of movement, although sadly the Austrian Liberal Member, Mr Frischenschlager, has not set any example here.
When he joined this Parliament, he vehemently rejected the idea of any kind of employment policy at European level.
Today he complains that the employment pact is not binding.
That clearly shows that there has been a shift in the mind-set of some Members, thanks not least to Austrian initiatives taken even before its presidency.
But employment policy also implies social partnership.
We know that we need these social forces; that too was confirmed in Vienna and I hope the social partners too will increasingly find the appropriate solutions at European level.
Secondly, it keeps being pointed out that Europe is an economic giant but a political dwarf, and that is indeed how we have often behaved.
Not that all this is now behind us, but in particular through the external representation of the euro - and however critically one might regard some aspects and I would also like to see the Commission have more scope here - it has now been made clear that we must not forget that we are or can be a global power, perhaps one should say a global factor.
So we must have a strong say in the reform of the international financial institutions, in the WTO measures, because we also have a substantive input to make there.
It is not as though we were simply trying to flex our muscles in some kind of power struggle.
After all, we established, formulated and framed a social market economy in post-1945 Europe, with a few inadequacies here and there which we must put right; but we do have a model to offer, which is after all not just a European model.
We do not want to impose it on anybody, but we can regard it as a model worth presenting, and these social market economy components should also be apparent in the international financial and trade regulations.
Had that happened earlier, we would not have seen the events that occurred in Asia and also in Russia, namely liberalisation on the surface without the appropriate institutions for backing it up.
In that respect, I think it is most important that we should increasingly speak with one voice in external economic and foreign policy matters.
The Foreign Minister referred to a range of common strategies, especially for Russia, which is a particular cause for concern and where we are making particular efforts to do something.
Let me take this opportunity to say - since Foreign Minister Schüssel also referred to this - that we must take more rapid decisions.
We are very much in favour of that, and Parliament must do the same, but so must the Council.
We had preliminary talks yesterday with Commissioner van den Broek on the TACIS regulation.
We would like to be able to discuss and adopt the new TACIS regulation in this Parliament before the summer, if we get it on time from the Council, if it is not left in the drawer for months again, because of course the individual countries would like to exert their influence in certain areas.
So I really would beg you to tell your colleagues in Germany too: please forward the appropriate measures that we want to implement to Parliament, so that we can take an early decision on the foreign policy aspects in particular.
The European security policy has also strengthened Europe.
We must take up the proposals that have been put forward, especially since the meeting between France and the UK - where the UK surprised us all by calling so clearly and unequivocally for a European security policy in partnership with the Americans.
That will give all the Member States of the European Union a chance to turn this European security policy into a genuine common security policy.
I need not say anything more at this point about Switzerland's special concerns and the related question of transport measures.
Some people seem to believe, wrongly in my view, arrogantly and I might almost say superciliously, that this was 'only' an interim presidency.
Perhaps it was not a very newsworthy presidency and did not have any great high points, perhaps it was an anticlimactic presidency; but it was a presidency which has brought progress in many areas that had often been neglected for years - I need only think of transport, or of the framework research programme.
We should also show the people that beyond the great media events there is a Europe that is alive, a Europe that is becoming stronger, and that is what the Austrian Presidency showed!
Mr Schüssel, your intelligence and dynamism are impressive; and nonetheless we have to ask ourselves why it is that this outcome has disappointed and embittered almost everyone.
The European Council in Vienna was an important one, in my opinion, because it made plain that there are certain new and unavoidable problems - jobs, enlargement, tax harmonisation - but ones which are not easy to tackle.
Yes, we were expecting more.
But the fault does not lie with the Austrian Presidency; the problem is a political one, and this should be emphasised.
The European Council in Vienna was the first one since the expansion of the borders of the so-called 'social democratic Europe'.
This new social democratic Europe is of course showing obvious sensitivity towards certain issues such as employment, which we share, but is faltering and revealing that it is not yet strong enough to tackle them.
This is the new political dimension.
What is more, the new social democratic Europe is changing the internal geography of Europe, so that this geography is no longer homogeneous.
In Vienna, the Paris-Bonn axis lined up against the Madrid-London axis: politically these axes are not homogeneous, meaning that there is no social democratic Europe after all.
They are axes which indicate the likelihood of a future north-south divide in Europe and a probable split between those wishing to tackle problems in advance and those preferring to address them after the event.
The question of funding, raised in no uncertain terms by Chancellor Schröder, is a very real one which had already been raised by Chancellor Kohl.
As to the time-frame laid down by Chancellor Schröder, it could disrupt the balance within Europe and is thus very worrying.
All of which confirms, as I have already said, that this social democratic Europe may well be capable of winning elections, but is not yet proving capable of leading the continent.
It is a pity, Mr President, that instead of celebrations at the Vienna summit, we had squabbles over money.
With the introduction of the euro just three weeks away, the Union is beset by indecision.
That is not a reproach to the Austrian Presidency.
On the contrary, the presidency has been a good intermediary and has operated intelligently in many areas.
My special compliments here to Mrs Ferrero and Mr Schüssel.
The ambitious programme of reform for the twenty-first century is meeting with resistance from certain sectors and a number of Member States.
There is no question of blank cheques from the Members States to the Union any longer.
The struggle for a balanced sharing of the financial burden will be painful, and to my mind deserves to be called a crisis.
It will make our citizens more involved with Europe, but I do not think that the farmers, who do a great deal for our quality of life, should be made to suffer as a result.
The big question is how the incoming German Presidency will address this task.
The previous speaker, Mr Castagnetti, said something about that.
My question is this: is Mr Schröder, who has not yet gained a firm hold on the reins of political power in his own country, going to be willing and able to play the leading role in Europe which we have come to expect from this important Member State?
Reading this morning's Süddeutsche Zeitung , I am not sure that he is.
To quote this German newspaper: 'According to Schröder, Bonn will not be pressing to get reform of the EU institutions completed during the German Presidency.'
When, then, Mr President? I find this alarming.
Mr President, I think that the information that the Austrian Presidency has given us comes as no surprise to anyone and Europe is going to follow the same course that it has followed in previous years.
As a result, the situation is going to become extremely worrying.
Given the developments in the financial world, we can see clearly that the world economic system is becoming extremely unstable.
It is in this context that we are going to introduce the euro next year and in subsequent years.
The birth of the euro means that Member States will no longer have a monetary instrument allowing them to regulate the economic situation.
They will have to withstand asymmetric shocks using fiscal policy and wages and incomes policies, shocks that might hit any economy, given the disparities between the economic structures in the various Member States.
This means that when we need to combat inflationary tendencies in one Member State, we will either have to raise taxes or freeze salaries. In other words, we will, to some extent, have to apply a particularly harsh policy of social austerity that will undoubtedly destabilise the social situation in the country concerned.
Consequently, we are heading towards a situation that is only getting worse and that is compounded, in some way, by the quasi-colonial position of the European Union today in relation to the United States.
No-one really wants to face up to this problem.
Of course, there was some vague resistance to the negotiations on international trade relations and the d'Amato law, as well as other similar matters, but that has not stopped this situation of dependence from deteriorating every day.
There is absolutely no doubt that the American economy is in good health and we look a rather sorry sight next to it.
Therefore, we need to think seriously in order to change the course of the development of European policy, both in terms of its relationships with the United States and in terms of its internal economic policy.
We are not on the right track.
In this respect, I fear that next year will be a year where, at least on an economic level, things will only get worse for the majority of Europeans.
Mr President, I join the endorsement of the Austrian presidency.
Everything which enthusiasm, energy and charm could do has been done.
In those areas that I follow - foreign affairs and defence - it is my view that real progress has been made.
But none of that could stop the Vienna Summit from being inevitably a summit-in-waiting, a pastoral interlude before the storm in the spring.
All I hope is that underneath all the posturing there is a sense amongst the leaders of Europe of how that deal is to be done in the spring.
It is going to require courage and concentration, not posturing for national audiences and not philosophical ramblings about the unattainable such as tax harmonisation - I am sorry, that should be tax coordination .
What we are facing in the spring is a Grade 1 crisis, an internal crisis in the Union set against a very difficult international background: the reform of the common agricultural policy, a new budget deal, the key argument over the timing of enlargement; set against a background of a Russia in crisis, a Middle East dragging itself towards 4 May, an unresolved tragedy in Kosovo, a Washington summit of NATO.
I appeal not just to you, Chancellor, but to all the members of the European Council to concentrate on the essentials: on enlargement, defence and foreign policy.
I am not going to add to the chorus of criticism over duty-free.
There is enough of the politics of sound-bites.
I remember my own Prime Minister, on the eve of a breakthrough in Northern Ireland, condemning the idea of sound-bites and then saying that he felt the hand of history on his shoulder.
I have to say that when the Council meets in March it will not be the hand of history on our shoulders; the hand of history is at our throats.
We really have to solve that major crisis before the elections so that Europe can restart its progress towards the end of this century.
Good luck and thank you.
(Applause)
The debate will be continued this afternoon at 3 p.m.
VOTES
Thank you for that statement, Mr Trakatellis.
I should have liked the Commission to hear it, but it will no doubt be read with great attention.
(The President declared the common position approved)
Ladies and gentlemen, I would propose that we adjourn the votes now so that the Chamber and the galleries can be prepared.
As you know, we have guests, and the formal sitting deserves to be prepared with all the necessary care.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.50 a.m. for the formal sitting and resumed at 12.35 p.m.) Report (A4-0506/98) by Mr Colino Salamanca, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on a programme to supply agricultural produce to the Russian Federation (COM(98)0725 - C4-0678/98-98/0343(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
When it joined the EU, Sweden was granted a derogation authorising it to retain its superior standards of labelling for certain dangerous substances, including carcinogenic agents.
The expiry date of this exemption is now being postponed from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2000 and must be extended further still if the EU has not brought its rules into line with Sweden's in the meantime.
Once environmental and safety requirements have been agreed nationally, no country can be expected to lower them.
Eisma report (A4-0449/98)
We would stress the paramount need for further regulation to prevent illegal fisheries in Antarctica.
Fishing is vital for securing world food supplies. All fisheries must be subject to stringent rules so as to pre-empt the exhaustion of stocks and halt the continued threat to biological diversity.
The proposed new system is therefore to be welcomed.
Obviously, the EU's Member States have to be able to gather and process statistics for all relevant economic sectors in society, but at the same time it is important that the statistical systems place as small an administrative burden as possible on those who have to provide information.
In this respect, it is very important that due consideration is given to small and medium-sized enterprises.
Unfortunately, the Council has rejected this in its common position.
The committee is therefore quite right in its report to place great importance on reintroducing the essential demands from the first reading.
Souchet report (A4-0463/98)
We wish to stress the importance of the Commission's proposal to change in the way certain fishing activities are carried out. The purpose is to promote sustainable development for fisheries in the Atlantic and Mediterranean.
We believe that a comprehensive overhaul of fishing practice is required so as to ensure that this goal is achieved. The European Union's efforts at regulation carry great weight here.
We should not underestimate the role to be played by the common fisheries policy in safeguarding world food supplies and encouraging ecologically sustainable development.
Both the Council of Ministers of the European Union and the European Commission are suffering from a guilty conscience as a result of this poor course of action of banning the use of drift gillnets in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean for European fishermen only.
In order to forget this as soon as possible, we are willing to show our generosity by tossing a few bags of ecus to the main victims, that is, the unfortunate fishermen and owners of vessels.
But these fishermen do not want to receive compensation.
They want to be able to carry on with their job as netters, harnessing one of the world's healthiest resources. They want to carry on using one of the most selective tools there is, which spares more endangered fish stocks and thereby helps ensure better sustainable management of this resource.
What these fishermen do not accept - and nor does a large majority of public opinion supporting them - is the injustice that has been done to them.
Neither majority votes nor fleeting compensation can prevent an injustice from being an injustice.
Even when voted through by a majority, an injustice is still an injustice.
Our fishermen will not allow the Commission and the Council to go back on the founding principles of the common fisheries policy by basing their decisions purely on political opportunity, in order to please lobbies and fulfill selfish interests, and by abandoning the scientific bases on which their decisions had been based until now.
The netters in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean do not accept the discrimination they are being subjected to.
At the end of last night's debate, Commissioner Monti, in as clear a manner as possible, confirmed that this discrimination does exist and is continuing.
When pushed by a few Members who wanted to see an end to such discrimination, Mr Monti said, and I quote, 'the Commission has no intention of extending this decision to other waters'.
In other words, for the Commission and the Council, although fishing in the Atlantic with a 2.5 kilometre net is terrible practice - even though scientific studies have shown the low level of significant catches of marine mammals in such nets - fishing with 21 kilometre nets in the Baltic Sea is still highly recommended practice, even though marine mammal populations - porpoises, etcetera - are very close to extinction.
I am delighted that an overwhelming majority of this House has voted to adopt my report and the amendments I tabled.
I should also like to thank the 52 Members who supported my proposal, which was adopted by the Committee on Fisheries, to wait for a legal decision before allocating any compensation, so that fishermen and shipowners do not then have to refund aid that may no longer have a legal basis.
But I am disappointed that the majority of the European Parliament has sided with the Council of Ministers and the European Commission, with those who would have us believe that the fishermen affected are only a handful of old men awaiting retirement. I am disappointed that the majority is siding with those who promote a policy of fait accompli in order to try in advance to make a legal decision unworkable as they fear it may go against their wishes.
I think that, on the contrary, it is essential that we do not anticipate this and that we wait for justice to be done on the four appeals filed against the Council Decision of 8 June.
Over the last four years, the intensity with which we have fought to eradicate the use of so-called 'death nets' has also been mirrored in our defense of the generosity that, within legal and financial limits, needs to be forthcoming to finance the inevitable restructuring of the sector that uses these nets.
I should like to congratulate Mr Souchet on his efforts to find solutions that preserve equity between all the fishermen affected in the Member States. At the same time, however, I clearly oppose the fact that a measure that Parliament has sought for so long and that has been supported by such a broad majority, which took such a long time to achieve, might now be suspended due to a legal appeal.
This would violate the general principle in Article 185 of the Treaty, which states that actions brought before the Court of Justice shall not have a suspensory effect, as requested in paragraph 4 of the motion for a legislative resolution, which I shall vote against. If this paragraph is finally accepted, I shall have no alternative but to vote against the legislative resolution.
Colino Salamanca report (A4-0506/98)
I share the concern of this Parliament at the plight of the Russian people following the collapse of the Russian economy.
As normally is the case, it is the women and children, and particularly the latter, who are the victims of political mismanagement.
I hope that the decision of Parliament to provide food aid to Russia will go some way towards relieving the misery of its people at this time.
Food Aid is, of course, a short-term emergency measure and is not a substitute for much needed political and economic reform of the banking, social security and tax collection systems in Russia.
The economic problems in Russia have serious consequences for the EU and, in particular, for Ireland, because of our agricultural and meat exports to that country.
It is wholly ironic that food aid for Russia coincides with food surpluses in some Member States, and again it raises the question of how to manage agricultural production in the early years of the new millennium.
In the context of the debate on the Agenda 2000 programme, I must express some reservations about the projected potential of world markets.
While their full potential must be explored and developed, it would be extremely foolhardy to base our dependance on this market as a means of safeguarding farm income in the short term.
In my view, the proposals in Agenda 2000 must be radically amended if the future of Europe's farm families is to be secure.
Resolution on the annual programme for 1999
Madam President, on behalf of my group, and Georges Berthu in particular, I should like to say that the Commission's work programme for 1999 seemed to us to be very full, and we wonder how it will be able to take it on, given the state it is in at the end of 1998.
In effect, an effective instrument would be needed to undertake a programme of such a scale.
Currently, the Commission seems to be severely affected by its management problems, not to mention fraud, and the reforms envisaged by the work programme do not measure up to the size of the problem.
It is, of course, praiseworthy to want to modernise structures and rethink internal management methods.
This is what the SEM 2000 and MAP 2000 initiatives are for.
It would also be useful to establish an independent financial control body, as the President of the Commission promised, and we voted in favour of this.
But all this does not resolve the Commission's major problem.
This administration is driven by a thirst for power.
It cannot accept being controlled by the nations that do, however, pay for it.
It would like to be the first successful example of an 'omnipotent' institution, regulated only by its members' virtues.
Recent events have shown that this does not work.
When we look at the programme itself, the diagnosis does not improve.
The main priority, which overshadows all others, is to obtain an agreement on financing the Agenda 2000 programme for the 2000-2006 period.
But this may take rather a long time as the European institutions' compulsive drive for power will eventually meet with financial resistance.
Nonetheless, the Commission hopes to close this case before the European elections by expecting to present the citizens of the Member States with a fait accompli , in accordance with good old federalist methods.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations hopes for the contrary. We hope that it will be possible to discuss this during the election campaign, that citizens will have their say, and that this will give us a clear idea of the institutional reforms that will one day have to be carried out, in order to let the Member States regain their vital control over Europe.
We wish to use this explanation of vote to say that we cannot support paragraph 15, since it implies that the EU should become involved in wage policy.
This would interfere with the negotiating privilege enjoyed by the social partners.
We do, however, endorse the underlying aim of improving coordination between economic policy and other relevant policy areas, whilst at the same time increasing incomes so as to fight poverty.
But statements suggesting that the Union should restrict the right of management and labour to negotiate wages are not acceptable.
Nor can we countenance the proposals on defence policy in paragraph 42.
And we note that paragraph 24 re-addresses the question of an 'operationally independent anti-fraud office (OLAF)'.
Given that there are grounds for strong criticism of the Commission's management of Community resources, we have decided to go along with our political group's stance on this matter.
I cannot support all of this resolution.
The text contains demands that are unacceptable from a Swedish Social Democrat point of view.
In paragraph 35, Parliament 'encourages the Commission to speed up its programme concerning the new common system of VAT'.
I see VAT as a national issue, along with taxation in general.
Individual Member States should be free to impose higher levels of value added tax on alcohol, or to introduce their own provisions with regard to VAT on food.
In paragraph 42, Parliament 'calls for the rapid implementation of the Franco-British proposals on defence policy with a view to promoting a common European Union policy in this field'.
I see no justification whatsoever for the EU to have a common defence policy.
This too is a national policy area.
Paragraph 15 'calls ... on the Commission to ensure a better coordination between economic and social policies and to consult it properly on proposals put forward by the social partners'.
I do not believe that the EU should become involved with wages and wage formation. That is a matter for management and labour alone.
Poverty is a problem in the Union, but the best way of dealing with it is to create more jobs. This requires a more demand-oriented style of economic policy, both nationally and at EU level.
The Member States should be cooperating with one another. Competition between countries simply leads to a zero-sum game, with one party's gains turning into another's losses.
We risk triggering a downward spiral, which will produce a progressive decline in wages and social welfare.
The Commission should nonetheless endeavour to put together comparable statistics on wages and salaries, as well as non-wage labour costs. Instead of rigid anti-inflationary policies, we need a commitment to fight social dumping.
We cannot support some parts of this resolution. We do not believe that the EU should become involved with wages and wage formation.
That is a matter for management and labour alone. Poverty is a problem in the Union, but the best way of dealing with it is to create more jobs.
This requires a more demand-oriented style of economic policy, both nationally and at EU level. The Member States should cooperate with one another.
Competition between countries simply leads to a zero-sum game, with one party's gains turning into another's losses. We risk triggering a downward spiral, which will produce a progressive decline in wages and social welfare.
The Commission should nonetheless endeavour to put together comparable statistics on wages and salaries, as well as non-wage labour costs. Instead of rigid anti-inflationary policies, we need a commitment to fight social dumping.
Nor do we agree with paragraph 35, which calls for a speeding up of the programme on a common VAT system.
VAT is a national issue, along with taxation in general.
And it goes without saying that we cannot support moves towards a common defence policy, as proposed in paragraph 42.
Sweden's policy is based on non-alignment in times of peace and neutrality in the event of war; as a country, we could never become a member of a joint military alliance.
Arroni report (A4-0485/98)
We believe in maximum information for the public to ease the euro's introduction.
Vulnerable members of society in particular will need practical advice on using the new currency in their everyday lives. This is the spirit that should underpin the launch of the euro.
We cannot endorse a political campaign designed to persuade the citizens of certain Member States that their countries ought to join the single currency.
The changeover to the euro on 1 January next year affects all of us, whether we have a job or are retired, whether we are adults or children.
However, with only a few days to go to this unprecedented event, many Europeans are ill-informed, indifferent or overtly hostile.
The European Parliament cannot be content with this state of affairs as there is a danger of it causing the single currency to fail, but also because a 'successful' euro is a powerful factor in forging a common European identity.
Until now, the assets we have available to inform people about the changeover to the euro have, in my opinion, not been used effectively.
Information is too patchy and too vague for professionals, traders, SMEs and SMIs.
It is poorly targeted at the man in the street.
The 370 million Europeans, whether or not they will participate in the euro, are not asking for information on the main general points, interspersed with overviews of monetary history since the Middle Ages.
Depending on their country of origin, they want specific information that will increase their confidence.
Information campaigns are useful, particularly when they are not general and when they meet the specific needs of the elderly, the disabled and the economically and socially disadvantaged.
We will all need to rebuild our scales of values in terms of our salaries and our daily expenditure.
For some people, this will be relatively easy.
For others, it will be more disconcerting.
We must focus our efforts on these people in order to be successful in our campaign.
Local and regional authorities are not sufficiently involved in this approach.
The European Union must make better use of their abilities, which, in this respect, are almost limitless.
These authorities are also the best link to associations that have not been sufficiently spurred into action, in spite of their best efforts.
In view of this, I am certainly in favour of the Arroni report.
We are only at the beginning of the euro's introduction.
This strategy must be permanently maintained and assessed, for a large number of participating countries and for a long period of time.
The vote on this report gives me an opportunity to stress that the introduction of the euro must take the citizen into account.
We must naturally inform citizens, but we must also involve them.
This is why, on my initiative, we have created 'Citizens for the euro' clubs in northern France.
These clubs, which bring together interested citizens from all political persuasions and backgrounds, monitor the information campaigns and suggest slight changes and modifications. They will suggest new forms of action.
The citizens will become involved in these campaigns in a pro-active manner.
Another main aim of such clubs is to unmask and flush out all the little 'swindles' that the arrival of the euro will certainly entail.
There will undoubtedly be a great deal of work to do with those who will try to bill for 'euro-related' services and those who will try to exploit more vulnerable groups of people.
Incidentally, and to conclude, I would particularly like to highlight the importance of the period that will begin for Europe in 16 days' time and that, to this day, is without precedent.
The UK is participating in the Euro information strategy, which will cause confusion as the UK does not intend to enter the EMU nor will it even set a date for UK entry.
The information strategy for the euro affects both the 'in' countries and those that have elected to remain 'free' outside EMU.
We agree that the euro's introduction will have a bigger impact on our citizens than any other single EU measure.
All the more reason to ensure that the exercise remains what it claims to be - an effort to provide information - and does not spill over into propaganda.
Advising people on the use of the euro does not involve forging a 'European identity'.
We would question the appropriateness of the reference to 'the role of information multipliers that young people and specifically the youngest may play'. Nor are we too sure about 'targeting women not in paid employment, whose household budgetary powers and influence on opinion within the family should not be underestimated'.
Information is to inform and should be kept general. It must not become confused with drumming up support for consolidating the EU and its institutions.
EMU is a political project with a broad-ranging impact on ordinary EU citizens' daily lives. The whole enterprise therefore needs to be debated and discussed.
This report does not seek to stimulate reflection, however.
Instead, it focuses on a currency: the euro. It deals with money, in other words - and people know how to use money.
Consequently, I cannot see the need for an information strategy.
I am not happy either with assertions that the euro should 'constitute an important factor for building a common European identity'.
Nor can I endorse the condescending tone adopted here towards EU citizens. We are told at one point that 'an important part of the population ... may not be reached by the usual communication tools' because - amongst other things - of their 'political or philosophical position'!
I repeat: we do not need an information campaign for the euro.
This report sometimes seems to be no more than a front for pure political propaganda.
Paragraph 19 offers a prime example of what I find disturbing.
Civilised and democratic societies should not be engaging in the kind of hard sell advocated here.
Europe must henceforth consign such methods of persuading people of the supreme merits of its policies to the scrap-heap.
The changeover to the EU's common currency entails the largest currency conversion in the history of the world.
Such a changeover means that large demands will have to be made in terms of information strategy.
In addition, a good, targeted information policy is a crucial element in the efforts to introduce the euro in Denmark as well, where the scepticism of the population is partly due to a lack of information about the advantages of the common currency.
It is therefore pleasing that the Commission and the European Parliament are making such extensive financial and political efforts in the area of information.
I endorse the report by Mr Arroni on the need to provide adequate assistance and information for the citizens and for public and private operators, in order to prevent the changeover to the euro from causing any disruption for these groups.
I wish furthermore to stress the importance of action in the individual Member States which, together with the European Commission, must mount information campaigns directed at certain socially disadvantaged groups - the handicapped, the elderly and so on - and I would emphasise that all scheduled activities must be subject to regular monitoring and their results verified.
Metten report (A4-0422/98)
We thank the rapporteur for this important report.
We believe that the introduction of a single currency will, in time, contribute towards creating more jobs, ensuring sustainable development and enhancing the EU's competitive position.
We are, however, aware of the dangers involved and would have liked to see more attention paid to the risk of asymmetric shocks. Clearer analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of regulatory mechanisms is required.
The whole of the European Union - and not just the Euro-11 - would suffer from the after-effects of asymmetric shocks.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of the Metten report concerning adjustment mechanisms in cases of asymmetric shocks, because the proposed adjustment mechanisms will help to ensure the stability of the European economy when the third stage of EMU begins, which is in the interests of all the EU Member States.
When the 11 countries participating in the common currency lock their internal exchange rates on 1 January 1999 and replace their national currencies with the euro in 2002, they will no longer be able to make use of exchange rate policy, in other words they will no longer be able to devalue or revalue their currencies.
Theoretically, this puts them in a worse position in the event of their economies being hit by an asymmetric shock.
Saying that the shock is asymmetric means that it only affects one particular country or one particular branch of industry.
In the past, currency devaluation could be used to restore lost competitiveness in connection with the economic shock.
Because this instrument is no longer available, the range of economic cards left to play is largely reduced to public spending policy, but the freedom of action of the euro countries is restricted in this area too, because they must fulfil the requirements laid down in the growth and stability pact. This means, amongst other things, that the budget deficit must not exceed 3 % of the gross national product and that public sector borrowing must be no more than 60 % of GNP.
The report therefore recommends that a stabilisation fund should be set up which, if a country or industry is hit by such an asymmetric shock, can lend money to the country or industry concerned and thus alleviate the shock.
These loans are only to be granted with the unanimous approval of the Council, which is also to determine the terms for use of the assistance.
The text that has been submitted to us is the fruit of detailed work by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and by its rapporteur, Alman Metten.
Once again, this parliamentary initiative is proof of the creative spirit of our House, no matter what the nature of the problem may be.
Whilst I firmly believe in the 'security' aspect of the euro, I support this report as I believe that, from now on, we should prevent these risks, which will certainly be diminished but which will always be present.
In this respect, the creation of a Community fund to help the countries in the euro area in cases of asymmetric shocks should help us build a solid foundation for our single currency for the future, particularly for those countries that have decided to adopt it.
It is also a guarantee of stability for the euro in relation to strong currencies such as the yen and the dollar.
On the other hand, although we believe that asymmetric shocks will decrease as of 1 January 1999, a prediction confirmed in recent months of great stability in Euroland currencies, we must take the diversity of legislation and policies into account.
Strong disparities might indeed weaken the structure of the Community.
Also, I would like to join with those calling for a better coordination of our economic policies and for our social security contributions, particularly the indirect ones, to be brought into line.
As we know, Denmark is not going to participate in the third stage of EMU which begins on 1 January 1999.
The Danish Finance Minister otherwise argues enthusiastically in favour of it, and is also conducting a 'stability-oriented' policy as if we were going to participate.
Something which the Finance Minister does not say in the debate in Denmark is made clear by the Metten report, namely that the implementation of EMU may make it necessary for the participating countries to have an instrument which makes it possible to overcome economic crises within the euro system.
A stabilisation fund should therefore be established to ward off the greatest damage.
At the same time, preparations are being made to conduct a more active budgetary and wages policy, and direct pay restraint is recommended, particularly for the small countries, which of course includes Denmark.
The situation in Denmark is that we leave it to the social partners to negotiate pay conditions, and that is how I think it should stay - no interference from the EU in this area.
The report points out that individual Member States are losing influence over monetary policy and also over financial policy.
This can already be seen with the cut-backs in the public sector.
In Denmark, where practically all social benefits are publicly financed, this has noticeable consequences for those people who depend on public benefits.
We have seen recently in connection with the budget debate that the redundancy pay scheme is gradually being privatised.
I am thinking in particular here about the special redundancy contribution which individual members of unemployment insurance funds will have to make if they subsequently wish to benefit from redundancy pay.
This is a first step, and surely not the last we are going to see if this development continues.
It can be no surprise that the timing of this coincides almost exactly with a critical letter from the Commission about the existing scheme.
Nor can it be a surprise that the change in the redundancy pay scheme makes it more like a personal insurance policy.
The only remarkable thing about this is that the change is barely radical enough to satisfy the European Commission.
The report by Mr Metten on the adjustment mechanism in cases of asymmetric shocks contains a number of references to the need for increased coordination of the economic strategies of the 11 euro countries in relation to their budgetary and pay policy which we are against.
The report points out that the risk of country-specific economic shocks will not disappear after the introduction of the euro, and that it is therefore necessary to establish a stabilisation fund which the euro countries will be able to borrow from in cases of asymmetric shocks.
We agree that the risk of country-specific economic shocks will not disappear within the euro zone.
In spite of considerable vertical integration in terms of the coordination of the economies of the Member States in recent years, there have been many examples of purely country-specific shocks.
The introduction of the euro will entail a definitive locking together of the monetary and currency policies of the 11 euro countries.
The 11 Member States will thereby lose a vital economic instrument in the event of a financial crisis.
The option of devaluing the krone or allowing it to float freely - which for example is what happened in Finland with the markka at the beginning of the 1990s, with great economic success as a result, an increase in exports and low inflation - will be irrevocably abandoned.
Instead, the Member States can try to improve their competitiveness by allowing the economic crisis to filter down through the pay structure, with lower minimum wages and poorer working conditions as a result.
This situation will be reinforced by the fact that the EU is not an optimal currency area because, amongst other things, there is little cross-border mobility of the labour force.
At the same time, a stabilisation fund will not significantly modify country-specific shocks because there is a ceiling on the EU's budget of 1.27 % of total GNP.
Therefore it will not be possible to channel sufficient funds to regions or countries with economic crises.
Together with the UK, Denmark and Sweden have chosen to remain outside the third stage of EMU.
We will stick to this policy, because we consider it vitally important that it should be up to the citizens of the individual Member States to decide on economic objectives and instruments.
This regulatory power should not be left to the European political élite and the ECB.
Therefore Mr Metten's report, which stresses that the EU's economic powers should be strengthened in connection with EMU, that it will be necessary to 'coordinate the Member States' economic policies' and that we should promote 'closer coordination of academic studies and vocational training and removing the obstacles to the transfer of social benefits', is a step in the wrong direction.
This report deals with the issues confronting a single currency.
The first paragraph indirectly sheds light on the real problem with a heavily regulated common monetary policy.
In fact, some sound ideas are put forward here. However, I am highly critical of large sections of the report and consequently cannot vote in favour.
Economic and monetary union is a political project, entailing the introduction of a single currency.
Paragraph 2 of the report states that 'it will be necessary to coordinate the Member States' economic policies more closely'.
Economic policy is our ultimate means of securing jobs and guaranteeing welfare.
Once countries are tied by the Treaty's criteria for EMU, employment and welfare are not exactly set to benefit.
Some Member States have actually chosen not to participate in the third phase of monetary union.
And I would of course challenge the rapporteur on the need for wage adaptation.
The issue of asymmetric shocks has become a priority given the fact that the introduction of the euro has coincided with an economic crisis facing every country in the world.
Let it not be said - as is both implicit and explicit in the report - that, despite the euro, the Member States might still be confronted with asymmetric shocks even though the single currency should lessen the likelihood of them occurring.
Asymmetric shocks have their origin in asymmetric national economies, a reality which the euro does not eliminate, and in the way that they can react to any situations and shocks that might affect them asymmetrically.
With the introduction of the euro what some countries have lost is the possibility of using an instrument, namely the currency of those economies and its exchange rate relationship with other currencies.
Shocks can actually be made worse by having an instrument that actually exaggerates what triggered them in the first place, and because the defences of their victims are being watered down into a group which is not just disregarding but actually ignoring the asymmetries of the various national situations.
However, our basic reservations about this motion for a resolution will not stop us from supporting the creation of a Stabilisation Fund, but we do so grudgingly as this has to be seen as inevitable; it would be compatible with the Stability Pact, the main plank of the strategy, and it would provide a guarantee mechanism with loans to be repaid with interest - something that we object to.
The positive aspect of the creation of a Stabilisation Fund to deal with certain asymmetric shocks, the whole philosophy behind the motion for a resolution and the unacceptable characteristics of this vital fund explain why we voted as we did.
This own-initiative report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is a reflection of a strong desire to take into account all the problems which could occur in the financial markets after the introduction of the euro.
It is also an expression of great clear-sightedness and very thorough economic analysis which deserves praise.
The common currency can only be the stabilising economic factor which everyone expects if the necessary attention is paid in good time to all the danger signs which arise inside and outside the EU.
This report is a step in the continuing assessment of all the relevant factors in any effects the euro may have.
Just 15 days before the beginning of the third phase of EMU and the creation of the euro, the European Parliament is turning its attention, albeit only partially, to the consequences that these will have in different Member States and regions of the Community and their impact on various branches of industry and economic sectors.
As usual, despite repeated urgings, even by Parliament itself which adopted a number of related amendments of ours in previous reports, the Commission still remains silent and is not disclosing studies, which we are sure are in its possession, concerning the consequences of EMU for the economies of the Member States, the various branches and sectors of the economy, employment, labour relations, social security and peoples' incomes.
On the contrary, it is wasting billions on propaganda for the euro in an effort to make it acceptable to working people, who are strongly opposed to it and voicing their disapproval in mass events in all the Community's Member States in defence of their rights.
The Metten report, perhaps for the first time, mentions certain consequences of EMU and the euro which will affect the Member States, especially those with the weaker economies.
This amounts to public acceptance of the law of unequal development which is inherent in the nature of the capitalist system and can be seen even within our countries.
However, they have to hand an important means for dealing with it, namely the national budgets which amount to nearly 50 % of their GDP, even if they use those means ineffectually.
Apart from a timid reference to the Community budget, the Metten report proposes as a means for dealing with the forthcoming crises that a loan fund should be created, to which Member States that fall victim to the crisis can have recourse for loans subject to interest, in order to cope with the crisis.
The report itself recognises that national monetary policies will cease within the euro area, and that this will essentially happen also with Member States outside its area, and the absolute arbiter of monetary policy will now be the European Central Bank, which will set a uniform interest rate that will inevitably be quite inappropriate for some Member States thereby sparking off crises.
The same will happen in the event that Member States cannot observe the deficit index when, in accordance with the stability pact, they will be required to pay fines while simultaneously applying for a loan from the proposed fund.
To deal with crises at national and Community level and to harmonise the economies, harmonisation of tax policy is advanced as an essential element. This will mean new burdens for working people who in one way or another and in any event will be called upon to bear the cost of economic and monetary union, the euro, economic recession and the crises.
The great truth brought out by this report is its emphasis that 'after the end of national monetary sovereignty, more drastic financial and pay policies will be necessary'.
After the scrutiny of national budget expenditure in the light of financial discipline and the stability pact, after the reduction of public expenditure on education, health, social security and regional development, the Member States are now being asked to exercise control over their budget resources, increasing those contributed by the public, working people, farmers and the self-employed, and to increase their pressures for the continuation of low pay settlements or even reduced wages by changing labour relations.
Such plans cannot be and are not acceptable to working people throughout Europe, who are struggling to oppose this policy which goes completely against their interests and stresses monopoly preferences.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.05 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
European Council in Vienna - Austrian Presidency (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the European Council report and the Commission statement on the European Council meeting of 11 and 12 December in Vienna, and the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the activities of the Austrian Presidency.
Mr President, the Austrian Presidency's task was certainly hampered by outside circumstances.
Nevertheless, I note today that agreement has been reached on the 1999 employment policy guidelines.
The European Investment Bank's interim report on the implementation of the special action programme on employment is also positive.
The Council is, so I hope, about to agree the European company directive.
On the other hand, there is little sign of progress on Agenda 2000.
Here I do not share the optimism of the presidency of the Council.
The proposal by the Austrian Commissioner responsible for agriculture policy, who is now present, is not acceptable as it stands.
For my farmers, who are mainly dairy and meat producers, it means certain doom.
A sensible approach would be national - or in Germany regional - cofinancing for correspondingly high compensatory payments.
The forthcoming German Presidency of the Council can now prove whether it supports the farmers, given that Austria has not resolved this issue.
At the same time, it could defuse the issue of net contributors.
The proposals on Objective 2 structural policy flagrantly disadvantage our rural areas.
That applies in particular to border regions and third countries.
Here too I see no sign of progress, although Austria should be particularly interested in this question.
Under the principle of subsidiarity, we should give regional and local authorities considerably more freedom to allocate national aid money.
Closeness to the people is a crucial European added value.
The more the Union distances itself from the people, the more it endangers itself.
In future, all decisions must take account of this important factor.
The same applies to enlargement. It is to be welcomed.
But first the applicant countries must make their own contribution.
Transitional periods are necessary for agriculture and the free movement of workers, in the interest of both existing and future Member States.
Unfortunately, the President-in-Office said nothing about that.
But ignoring the problem is no help either.
The European CSU group will therefore be carefully monitoring future developments on these questions under the German Presidency of the Council.
Mr President, Commissioner, in order to assess the work of a presidency, due consideration must be given to both the objective progress made in terms of the process of European integration and the dedication and willingness with which the presidency has fulfilled its role as a driving force and as an arbitrator.
On this occasion, the Austrian Presidency was faced with, among other challenges, an extremely difficult task: that of giving impetus to the process of completing, within a reasonable timescale, the various pillars that make up Agenda 2000, and of doing so at a time when the Union was fraught with budgetary tensions.
No-one who was aware of the objective difficulties the pending issues posed would have expected the Austrian Presidency to have concluded the most important elements of Agenda 2000.
Internal Council deliberations on the matter, on a package that needs to be looked at as a whole, had not reached a conclusion.
However, positive progress has been made in relation to many technical aspects of Agenda 2000 and these will contribute effectively in helping to make it possible to reach an overall agreement during the present legislature.
Nonetheless, Mr President, we might wonder about the support the presidency gave at a stage to unbalanced initiatives in the financial and budgetary fields, which, far from facilitating a consensus between the various Member State positions, were clearly aligned with one of the conflicting national positions.
We do, however, welcome the fact that the Vienna European Council managed to restore balance to the situation and that the Commission's initial proposal is again being used as a sound basis for negotiation, which will have to be a core element of the final agreement, as President Santer pointed out this morning.
Lastly, I would like to congratulate the Austrian Presidency for placing considerable emphasis on active employment policies and for encouraging the Member States to define policies in their national action plans and establish additional objectives and more precise timetables.
This might mean the beginning of a genuine Community social policy that could act as a counterweight to the single currency and single market.
It may be true that the progress made has not been spectacular, but no-one in this Parliament can deny the effort, dedication and professionalism that the Austrian Presidency has shown over the past six months.
Failure to tackle the real strategic issues in Vienna - contrary to the original plan - meant that the summit did not quite fulfil its promise.
Time was devoted to undoing a long-sealed package on duty-free sales.
But it is an ill wind that blows no good, so let us hope that those governments with a penchant for high taxation might come to the realisation that lower taxes across the board - and not just in this trivial area of duty-free sales - make economic sense and create jobs.
I deplore the slowdown in the process of enlargement to the east that was consecrated by Vienna.
The most flagrant evidence of this is the Commission's shelving of its position paper on Latvia and Lithuania.
Enlargement is not purely about pleasing the ten applicant countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
We are not offering alms to our poor neighbours.
No round of accession has so far taken place, yet the EU is already drawing great benefit from its eastward links.
The applicant countries have reformed their economies in such a way as to furnish us with new markets and jobs.
They know what is expected of them.
Political reform has consolidated democracy; and this commitment to human rights and democratic principles has delivered a more peaceful Europe.
If enlargement is put on the back burner, such gains could be lost.
Those concerned need a clear target in their sights; only then will they be able to reconcile conflicting wishes and continue along the road to reform.
The security situation in the Baltic area is a sensitive one, and I find it particularly distressing that the Swedish Government should have gone along with this pruning of the agenda, to the detriment of Latvia and Lithuania.
Mr President, I think that we should all welcome the fact that the Council, in its various forms - and on this occasion, the European Council itself -, increasingly participates in our debates.
Such participation reveals the true nature of the Community institutions.
However, so as not to confuse public opinion, each institution needs to fulfil the role assigned to it, and the Council, when giving press conferences and making statements, would do well to remember that the role of the Council of the European Union is to define main policy areas. It is then incumbent upon the Union's institutions to adopt and implement these policies.
In this way, we would avoid the confusion that has built up over the past few weeks, especially in relation to funding.
What is more, each institution should fulfil its own responsibilities.
And in relation to funding, it is indeed true that the European Council stated quite a few months ago now that it was not prepared to increase the European Union's own resources.
This is a political decision.
But it was then up to the Commission to have either accepted or debated it, or to have put forward a sufficiently ambitious proposal itself.
But in this instance, the Commission did not rise to the occasion and it did not have enough ambition. It is a surprise to public opinion and, of course, Parliament that the Commission is talking about financial perspectives for the next seven-year period without having even met the targets set for the end of next year.
This lies at the heart of all the troubles and tensions we are likely to experience in the coming months. What is more, we are, of course, completely overlooking the fact that, in light of the principles evoked by Member States regarding European integration, there is also the principle of precise budgetary control to be taken into account.
In other words, each institution needs to have sufficient financial means to fulfil the tasks assigned to it.
If the budget is insufficient, we cannot achieve our aims.
Mr President, no spectacular decisions have been taken in the Council over the past six months, but Austria's diligent diplomacy has taken the Community forward.
I wish to concentrate on one particular area: promoting the social dialogue.
At business level, let me refer you to the Austrian compromise proposal on a European limited company, which follows years of discussion.
In 1997, the European Parliament made it clear that it is important to prevent certain national codetermination systems from simply being exported, but also to prevent any weakening of codetermination in countries which already have far-reaching rights.
The Austrian compromise largely satisfies these demands.
But we have had enough discussions now.
We expect the forthcoming German Presidency finally to bring about a political agreement on the sound basis of the Austrian proposal.
Mr President, the Vienna European Council was a huge failure despite the efforts of the Austrian Presidency.
The fact that everything has been postponed until the German Presidency has been compounded by a negative overall result marked by the controversy about how to finance the Union, which could lead to a reduction of 10 % in agricultural spending and 25 % in the Structural Funds.
We should not be afraid to seize the bull by the horns, even if it is financing enlargement or correcting the unfair contributions by some of the richer of the Member States to the European Union budget.
But it would politically inexplicable if these two problems were to be resolved at the cost of funds aimed at the poorest countries and regions among the current 15 Member States of the European Union, turning Article 2 of the Maastricht Treaty on economic and social cohesion into a dead letter.
On this score, the memorandum on financing presented by the presidency is a disgrace to whoever drafted it and is politically irresponsible.
I say this because, when presenting it, the presidency knew full well that it could not possibly be used as a basis for credible work, it is so unfair and short-sighted.
Therefore I can only conclude that it did so for tactical reasons with the aim of obliging the cohesion states to lower their expectations in relation to Agenda 2000.
In other words between a disgrace and a cataclysm obviously the former option would be the lesser of two evils.
I have a nagging doubt about whether or not this position was taken in cahoots with the next Council presidency!
If it was then we are facing a serious crisis in the history of the European Union - curiously at a time when 11 out of the 15 prime ministers are socialists.
They are all aware of the complex negotiations behind Agenda 2000 and the difficulties faced by the Council in finding fair and reasonable solutions.
But that is why the various governments that make up the Council were elected.
We respect the work done by the Austrian Presidency, although we disagree with some of the options taken and we wish the German Presidency - due to take up its functions in a fortnight's time - more success.
Mr President, sadly we cannot say that the Vienna summit was a success.
Worse still, it was actually a failure.
It was a flop, although I do not think that was the fault of the Austrian Presidency.
I honestly believe that Mrs Ferrero, Mr Schüssel and Mr Klima too did their best.
But one way and another, things were managed away from the summit in a way which offered no chance of a better outcome.
To my mind, it beggars belief that the European summit of Heads of Government should concern itself with tax-free shops and VAT on the services of hairdressers and shoemakers.
Not that these are not useful matters, but they can be dealt with in the specialist Councils by the specialist ministers concerned.
And all this at a time when fighting is breaking out across our borders in Kosovo, when the situation in the Middle East is extremely tense, when the financial and economic crisis in Asia and South America is spilling over into Russia, when unemployment remains high.
And here are Europe's Heads of Government worrying about tax-free shops and VAT on haircuts.
More seriously still, the Vienna summit was a trial run for the debate on the future financing of the Union.
There was a dreadful row over this, as regards the contributions.
It means in fact that the whole question of contributions will increasingly block one of the most important projects of the European Union, the accession of new countries.
I find that somewhat amazing.
I think it would be helpful, for example, if the Commission would designate some people of high standing to try to solve the whole problem of the Union's finances and come up with an objective and honest proposal on it.
That would stop this issue from dominating the agenda for months to come.
Mr President, for the first time we had a summit of eleven Social Democrat Heads of Government, but looking at the outcome I have to say in all honesty that it did not distinguish itself by sound management and wise decisions.
We really must hope that things are better in the future, and that the spirit of Jacques Delors and Helmut Kohl will light upon these Heads of Government again, otherwise we shall be heading for a fine catastrophe in future.
Mr President, although the Vienna summit produced meagre results, the question of the Nordic dimension is one of the most prominent.
The Commission's document on the Nordic dimension, which was officially presented at Vienna, is excellent.
It covers many areas of policy, from future nuclear and environmental policy to cooperation with our EU neighbours.
The document sets forth clear operational proposals for the development of different forms of collaboration.
The stabilising effect of the Nordic dimension cannot be underestimated.
The economic and political crisis in Russia has underlined the need for the Union to take action to dampen down its effects.
The culmination of the Russian crisis will have repercussions for issues such as nuclear safety and Union enlargement, especially regarding the Baltic countries.
It is vital that the operational proposals put forward by the Commission are realised.
Cooperation among the countries that share the Baltic coastline must be improved.
Urgent measures have to be taken to prevent marine pollution.
Better exploitation of the vast energy resources in north-western Russia, and, on a wider basis, in the Barents Sea, has to be made one of the main objectives of the Nordic dimension.
I have been particularly concerned about nuclear safety in Russia amid the social turmoil there.
Let us hope the Commission will implement its proposed research projects concerning nuclear safety and the treatment of spent nuclear fuel as quickly as possible, so that we can gain a clear picture of the real state of affairs and problems can be solved as soon as possible.
The debate is closed.
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Human rights in the world
Mr President, with this report I wish to pay tribute to my many friends who have been lost, victims of the bestiality that has characterised a large part of recent history.
To Felipe the painter, his wife Elpis and his son Ernesto, two years old, all three of whom disappeared in Pinochet's Chile.
To Mustafa and Akim from Van and Diyarbakir, who were murdered by the Grey Wolves in Adana.
To my schoolmate Theodoros, who was murdered during Turkey's invasion of Cyprus.
To Sasha, the judge from Nis, who died somewhere near Split after dreadful torture, as we heard later.
To Maté, the doctor from Zagreb, who was found with a bullet in the back of his head outside Tuzla where he had been working as a volunteer because, as he said, blood is red whoever you are, and doctors should not let it flow.
And to the others from East Timor, Nigeria, Tibet, whom I did not have a chance to get to know because they were murdered.
You know, it is only when we personify barbarity that we can comprehend what the loss of a human life means.
Only when we can see the effect on specific people of any policy we decide upon will we grasp the consequences of our statements.
Only then will we understand that we cannot use empty and slick expressions to assuage our guilt when our words are not translated into deeds and we are to blame.
There is unfortunately still a large gap between words and deeds.
The European Union's reactions to the issue of human rights vary greatly.
Likewise, the human resources and Community funding allocated to human rights activities are fragmented.
There is therefore a need for the Commission to organise the administrative and decision-making structures into a single body; to reconsider the idea of creating a fully developed service for human rights and democracy; to entrust a Vice-President of the Commission with the coordination of foreign relations and a Commissioner with responsibility for matters related to human rights.
To overcome one of the most important deficits in the present institutional structure, in my view an integrated appraisal and monitoring system for human rights must be created before any decision or agreement involving third countries is implemented.
Such an appraisal, which is consistent and cohesive, will form the basis for subsequent monitoring of the human rights situation.
That integrated system for the appraisal and monitoring of human rights will be governed by the fundamental principles accepted by the European Union.
Principles which must not be abandoned for reasons connected with the economic, strategic or political interests of the Union or any of its Member States.
You know, it is much easier for us to be strict with countries whose resources are limited, but if we really believe in the principles we proclaim, then multilayered interests which take into account various motives that conflict with the demands of consistency, and the deployment of tenuous strategic and other arguments, should have no place in discussions about human rights, because then our words are not translated into deeds and the words themselves become prejudicial.
I do not think we can continue behaving as we have until now, in other words with empty references to principles and values but no action.
And we cannot do that in order to assuage any guilt we may feel for our lack of action.
A consistent attitude demands that we must make it clear that there is no refuge anywhere for any tyrant, no refuge anywhere for any despot, none for any of the leaders we pretend have been democratically elected in utterly undemocratic situations.
These are harsh truths, but we would do well to face up to them.
We must add flesh and bones to what we say.
Human rights are an essential aspect and element of the European Union's foreign policy.
It is not enough to declare good intentions.
Human rights should be at the heart of the EU's foreign policy, and I appeal to the Council and the Commission not to see human rights in relation to other policies and to regard human rights as something quite separate and act accordingly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are discussing the future rules for implementing European Union operations which, as part of its policy on development cooperation, contribute to the general objective of development and the consolidation of democracy and the rule of law along with human rights, fundamental freedoms and the proper management of public affairs.
By approving this regulation, the Commission will be setting the conditions for granting, mobilising and implementing aid as well as those for sustaining the actions needed to give more visibility to the effects of this aid on democracy and human rights.
In the future, full satisfaction will be given to the European Parliament's concern - which it has successfully defended - that, in the cooperation relations that it maintains with all developing countries, the European Union will have to attach greater importance to the promotion of human rights and democratic values in those countries.
I would even go so far as to say that the promotion of human rights, democratic values, the rule of law, good governance and the fight against corruption should become essential elements of any future agreement.
When we look at the African continent and see that there are open conflicts still taking place in sixteen countries, costing thousands of victims every day and wasting on military equipment the resources that should be spent on health, education and water supplies for its people, and when we know that 1.3 billion people in the developing countries have a purchasing power of one dollar per day, we cannot continue to dither in a way that has prevented cooperation aid from pursuing noble objectives and causes that would have easily identifiable results in relieving extreme poverty among those populations.
In countries subject for decades to brutal dictatorships, so often supported and even nourished by European states, and in others subjected to long and bloody armed conflicts, the European Union cannot be satisfied with free elections as a sufficient and lasting means of transition towards democracy.
Elections must be followed up by the necessary constitutional and legislative reforms to promote the strengthening of the rule of law and, in particular, to provide support for the independence and strengthening of the judiciary and for a penitentiary system that respects human beings, and to foster pluralism both in terms of politics and the civil society, by strengthening the institutions needed for ensuring pluralism in society, including non-governmental organisations; this should also be accompanied by the promotion of independent, pluralist and responsible media and support for the freedom of the press, as well as respect for the rights of freedom of association and the promotion of equal opportunities and non-discriminatory practices, including measures to fight racism, xenophobia and sexism, and supporting initiatives for abolishing the death penalty.
Unless all of these transformations are carried out the dictators and those in power in countries with single party regimes will be limited to a democratic baptism without any real change in the basic political practices, and without ensuring rules of democratic alternation, which requires support for consolidating democratic political parties.
Without the existence of parliaments with effective powers of taxation, without the existence of courts and an independent judicial system, without free press and media, it will be always impossible to consolidate democracy, the rule of law, respect for fundamental rights, public freedoms and proper management of public affairs, all preconditions for economic growth and combating poverty.
But in addition to all of these problems, I would draw particular attention to the fight against corruption and good governance as essential elements that all cooperation and development agreements with third countries should contain.
The latest report by the World Bank, 'Assessing Aid', is clear on this score: aid can be extremely positive and effective in the promotion of growth and the reduction of poverty as long as it is applied in a healthy economic environment.
Rigorous economic management is more important for developing countries than international financial aid, which can only have positive impacts in countries which have already carried out the necessary political and institutional reforms.
I think a case in point is that of Mozambique, an example which should be borne in mind, promoted and rewarded.
Aid is useful when it goes into the hands of those who know how to use it.
If on the other hand it goes into the hands of all of the Mobutus and Mugabes of this world then only the tax-havens where so much money laundering takes place will benefit, along with certain western politicians and financiers who support them, because - let us not forget - there is only passive corruption in the developing countries and the actively corrupt all live in the rich countries.
If genocide took place in Rwanda or war is still raging in Angola it is only thanks to certain European countries and their leaders.
At this moment in time, defenceless children and adults are dying in the central Angolan highlands because, in Antwerp, there are people still buying diamonds with complete impunity, scorning the sanctions imposed by the European Union and the rest of the international community.
Unfortunately, cases where interests take precedence over duties are innumerable, and they all contribute to the worsening of the misery in which millions of human beings live.
We are forever hearing news of dictators with personal fortunes equal to or greater than the foreign debts of their countries.
There are plenty of examples of countries such as Tanzania into which two billion dollars were channelled to build roads, and yet the communication networks do not function because of the lack of maintenance.
Donors should, in the future, sell good ideas and not bad projects.
We cannot continue to let these wrongdoers benefit.
On the other hand, there are countries that make huge sacrifices and have managed to implement stable macroeconomic policies, opening up trade, strengthening laws and rights and fighting corruption, and they should be rewarded by strengthening cooperation and totally writing off their foreign debt.
To paraphrase Martin Wolf, I would like to say that we should first of all help those who help themselves.
Mr President, events have proved that Parliament was fully justified in its desire to create a solid legal basis for cooperation in the field of democracy and human rights in the European Union.
For our part, we have sought, throughout the parliamentary debate, to improve the European Commission's text.
Firstly, the foundations have been laid for determining the correct procedures and for establishing an overall plan for European cooperation. This will enable actions to be coherently programmed, strategies and priorities to be determined, and an agreement to be reached on how best to detect and select the specific actions needed to optimise the impact, sustainability and visibility of the resources earmarked to this end.
Another fundamental objective is to ensure that coordinating instruments exist at all levels, in particular as regards cooperation with the Member States of the Union.
In my opinion, special mention must be made of the proposals on the Commission's responsibilities, the procedures to be followed for adopting and monitoring projects, the intervention of the planned consultative committee and, above all, the European Parliament's role in the development of these programmes.
Monitoring, evaluation, control and post information systems have been substantially modified both from a political and an administrative point of view. This will undoubtedly heighten the impact of the actions, enable any problems to be remedied and improve their future implementation.
In this particular respect, the role of the European Parliament has been modified as it was evidently insufficient in the initial draft of the proposal.
I would just like to mention the annual report, which will contain details of the implementation of the programmes in the previous financial year and the planning and selection of the programmes for the current financial year, and the Commission will have to submit this to the European Parliament. It must be submitted in good time to enable Parliament to hold an annual debate in the House during the first half of the year and before it considers the corresponding budgetary section as part of the general debate on the annual budgets.
I shall end by saying that I think it is vital for this regulation's approval to be accompanied by actions that will give its content real meaning. I shall just mention the two that I consider most important.
The first is the need to review the structure of the Commission in order to better coordinate the units involved in cooperation, in line with the proposal for a horizontal coordinated structure, which has been referred to in previous parliamentary resolutions. The second is the urgent need to increase human resources, which are currently unable to cope with the ambitious programme that, with the implementation of the regulation, has to be developed in terms of cooperation in democracy and human rights.
Mr President, respect for human rights and basic rights and the consolidation of the rule of law are key principles of the EU.
Mr Torres Couto's report concerns a regulation that confirms the position for a legal basis for these principles in developing countries.
I wish to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report.
The Committee on Budgets drafted an opinion on this matter, which mainly concentrated on funding procedures.
Firstly, with regard to how long the programme should last, the committee suggested there should be no time limit.
This has been approved in the report.
So has the committee's view that appropriations should be decided on an annual basis in association with Parliament's budget debate.
The Committee on Budgets was also concerned about what is clearly differentiation in technical support.
For that reason the Committee wanted an addendum to Article 3 which called for differentiation in the relevant funding in the budget.
Similarly the committee has asked the Commission to put forward a proposal as to whether we should use part A or B of the budget.
Perhaps one of the most important organisational changes to have taken place in the Committee on Budgets is the importance given to the interinstitutional working party.
In connection with this year's budget an advisory working party is to be set up to focus on human rights, and the Council and Parliament have sanctioned it for next year.
Its purpose is to coordinate activities each year, and regulations on this are included in the report.
Such working parties enjoy a good reputation, for example in the MEDA Programme, and this working party would be handled in the same way as committees made up of Member States.
It is vital that this report should be approved so that a legal basis may be established for the appropriations concerned.
That is why strong representations must be made to the Council for this regulation to come into force as soon as is possible, and no later than March, so that appropriations can start to be used.
Mr President, I fully endorse the reports by Mr Roubatis, Mr Barros Moura and Mr Torres Couto.
I shall not go into them in detail, since the Commissioner knows very well what he has to do.
These are good opinions.
I also wished to express my appreciation of the work which Mrs Lenz has done in recent years in this House.
Perhaps we shall have an opportunity to do that before the end of this parliamentary term, but her contribution should not go unacknowledged.
Our thanks too to the officials who give you such good support.
I have just one or two points to make.
Who could have thought, 50 years ago, that a recommendation to the UN General Assembly would be so important? It is a recommendation which contains some Utopian ideas and some paradoxes.
It is still a delicate flower, but some notice is being taken of it.
However, the 'never again' of genocide is not yet a reality.
Think of Bosnia, Rwanda, Kosovo and what Mr Torres Couto said just now, the things going on in Angola which are not in the media spotlight.
The whole business of enforcing human rights is based on two approaches, legal and political.
I have some comments concerning the legal aspect.
The Union has given a great deal of support towards achieving this outside the Union.
But I think that progress in this respect is somewhat under threat, because there are too many human rights.
For every ill, there is now a human right.
The right to holidays, the right to sleep - I think it has all gone rather too far.
With any luck, there will be the right to immortality too, and we know for a fact that we cannot have that.
So I would advocate setting limits, so that the traditional human rights, those concerning the individual, are not devalued.
There is a risk that this may happen, and it is dangerous. I want to guard against that.
Then there is the political aspect.
There is a High Commissioner, a Security Council which dithers and, in the case of Rwanda, decides too late.
It was known that genocide was going on, but no one wanted to call it by its name, with tragic consequences.
The EU vacillated in its foreign policy.
Ocalan is not brought to justice, Pinochet may be, Castro was not, and nor was Kabila.
Really, I give up.
Chinese dissidents have said: keep up the pressure from the bottom up, then the rule of law and the political aspect will be all right.
I totally agree with that, Mr President.
We must keep it up.
But the man in the street wants to see some concrete results.
On 10 December, I saw this little map in the paper showing the countries in the world which still have capital punishment.
You may not be able to see it too well, Commissioner, but there are not many parts which are coloured.
Can you see it? The light blue bits?
People want to see an end to it, they want no more children going to war.
But there are good things to report about the multinationals.
The Netherlands has published a book about human rights, and that is important.
I agree with what Mr Gil-Robles said in Vienna on 10 December: an amnesty for conscientious objectors.
That would be a good thing and something concrete.
Mr President, in no area is the European Union as visible and influential internationally as in external economic relations.
So there is hardly any other policy area through which it is so necessary to promote human rights and where there is so much chance of success.
We influence the human rights situation in third countries not just by supporting free elections, consolidating the rule of law and taking crisis-prevention measures.
We do it just as much and often to a far greater degree through our trade relations, imports and exports, investment, export credit guarantees and, last but not least, our agricultural policy.
Here we can and must intervene on a regulatory basis, by addressing our partners in third countries and also the operators in the European Union, such as the European multinational companies.
However, it is not enough to invoke the two human rights packages and the ILO conventions in the preambles to bi- and multilateral agreements, as in the most recent agreement with Mexico.
We are calling, for example, for annual Commission reports on the human rights situation and, where necessary, concrete sanctions.
At the same time, however, we also wish to give active support to positive trends.
The new GSP with its positive incentives clause, which rewards respect for human rights with tariff cuts, is an important step forward here.
Countries such as Colombia, which already enjoy free trade, will lose this preferential treatment if the human rights of the various generations are persistently infringed.
If freedom to join trade unions is denied, the health of workers put at risk or the habitat of the indigenous populations reduced, European companies are often enough partly to blame.
That is why we urgently need, as a first step, a binding code of conduct for the multinational companies based in the European Union.
But all these proposed measures must be applied in a coherent and transparent way.
This also means that the European Parliament must acquire a greater say, because the road does not just go from Rome via Maastricht to Amsterdam; it leads far beyond.
Let me conclude with one further point: in many cases, non-intervention actually means brutal intervention.
Mr President, I should like to praise the good cooperation from members of all the groups on these reports, and in all the various committees.
What I do not praise, however, is the Bureau's organisation, with us sitting up here while the Sakharov prize is being discussed downstairs.
That really was another master stroke!
Mr President, I have two minutes' speaking time - we know a little more about human rights, which is why we cannot hold an exhaustive discussion here.
The UN declaration we are celebrating today was the outcome of a terrible war.
The Sakharov prize was an award for fighting terrible systems of bondage.
Originally human rights were only a matter for national policy, and there was no right of intervention.
Today, they are bound up indivisibly with the rule of law and democracy, with the activities of the NGOs, with civil society in its diversity and with the EU's foreign policy.
Human rights can only enter the decisive phase of implementation if they mean more than simply very concrete measures to combat the violation of the dignity of individual human beings and become a policy instrument of free states which are guided by more than merely self-interest.
That is why we must recognise and experience them as a practical element of every domestic and foreign policy in the EU.
The debate today concerns not only the situation of human rights in recent years, but something which goes beyond that, and in particular what we expect after Amsterdam.
They must and will remain an important aspect of the European Union's foreign policy and, precisely because they can still be used as an instrument of national policy today, our Parliament must devote attention to them.
It is not just a question of money, it is a question of the guidelines to be observed by our committees.
Let me say on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs that we approve the broad lines of the Roubatis report and firmly support its calls for strengthening and concentrating the logistic personnel potential that exists in the Commission, in the form of a single Vice-President and a single Commissioner responsible for human rights issues, and for a comprehensive analysis and annual reports to the European Parliament and, where appropriate, sanctions.
However, I have some reservations about setting up a human rights unit because - and I wish to make this clear - it could externalise these questions again, so that we in the European Parliament no longer have the powers of control we need.
We are sometimes inconsistent, but there must be no moratorium on human rights policy - as well as an end to such things as inadequate speaking time; instead, we must create new prospects for the future.
Mrs Lenz, the Bureau implements but does not determine procedure.
Procedure is determined by the Conference of Presidents.
I would therefore ask you to address your protest to them.
Mr President, human rights are a subject very close to the European Parliament's heart.
In the 1993 Maastricht Treaty, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms is for the first time mentioned in an article, Article 2, and not just in a preamble.
Respect for human rights is an important precondition for the achievement of democracy, development and peace.
It is easy enough just to write it down in words, and everyone endorses them. But what is the real situation?
It is only logical to regard women's rights as an indivisible part of human rights; but it will take great efforts for this to penetrate people's minds too.
Now we must make efforts to ensure that it does so.
In some countries, fundamentalist tendencies are increasingly targeting women.
Poverty is still feminised, and not only in what is called the third world.
Women find it doubly difficult to gain access to training and to establish a livelihood, and they are seldom appointed to decision-making posts.
We are shocked to hear reports of trafficking in women, abuse of women or violence against women in general.
But all of that is happening today.
It is not a story from the last century.
The Committee on Women's Rights demands in its opinion that respect for women's rights, as a part of human rights, should be included in trade and cooperation agreements as a criterion for external relations with non-Member countries.
We have enshrined the need to respect human rights. But the European Union must take further steps to promote and protect the dignity and human rights of women both here and throughout the world.
Mr President, let me begin by warmly congratulating the rapporteurs on their excellent reports, though I must admit that I am more personally familiar with the Roubatis and Barros Moura reports and therefore find it easier to evaluate them.
Mr Roubatis began rather poetically, by thanking the many women and men who have fought for human rights in their countries, and he has indeed dedicated his report to them.
We have heard Portuguese speakers and a Greek speaker; in my case, as an Austrian I know that in the dark hours of our history, when we were oppressed, it was very comforting to receive signs of solidarity from other countries in the world.
In the case of Austria, this solidarity even came from Mexico, from far away.
It is an important task for the European Parliament and the European Union as a whole to give these signs of solidarity.
It is also important to mention at least some of the women and men who are fighting for human rights, as has been done during today's solemn anniversary, because there is one thing we should make clear: it is not a question of Europe taking action against Algeria, against Turkey, against Indonesia or some other country.
In fact, we are often looking at these countries' long-term interests.
We may be against governments, against armed forces or against those in power, but we are for the people themselves who are fighting for freedom, for human rights, in these countries.
We should constantly make it clear that we want to help them, but not out of any feeling of hostility, not out of any negative sense of superiority as improvers of the world.
However necessary it is for us sometimes to resort to sanctions, we should after all be realistic.
What we can and should do - and the reports contain some good ideas here - is to help those who are fighting a difficult fight on the ground, at the risk of imprisonment, of sanctions and perhaps even of death.
As the Commissioner knows and as we also know, that is why it is most important that we also make adequate budgetary funds available, so that we can help those who are fighting on the ground, so that we can publicise their needs and their distress, and so that we can give them political and moral support in their fight.
We cannot conduct this fight with resolutions or with speeches.
We can only point to where the fight is actually being fought by the people themselves. We can give them moral and political support, as well as financial support on the ground, to ensure that in the end this fight is successful.
Because a successful fight for human rights is a contribution to peace - and we all have a right to peace.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say a few words at the end of a century that has witnessed so many massacres and attempts to exterminate different peoples on the European continent.
Without preaching to anyone, and as our colleague Mr Swoboda said a few moments ago, we undoubtedly have a few things to say to the rest of the world.
Yet what point is there in us boasting, we who are the world's largest trading power, if, as we speak, a man is suffering in the depths of a prison or perhaps a women is being killed? We could say a few words here on the body of doctrines that we have built for ourselves over the past 50 years, and in particular over the past 10 years.
Yet what purpose would it serve if, as an industrial power and irrespective of our country of origin, we are not in fact capable of saying: 'we will no longer work with you if you do not put a stop to these massacres, if you do not stop torturing people and, as a result, you will not be able to work with even the smallest business in Europe'?
If we cannot say this - and it is neither interventionism nor a moral dictatorship -, then we are not what the eyes of the world perceive us to be: the hard core of democracy. How many democracies exist in the world today?
There are not, at any rate, many more than double the number of countries in the Union, that is, fifteen countries. This demonstrates precisely what our duties are.
I believe that we should take heart in the fact that we have today welcomed a number of men and women who have fought for freedom, who are currently speaking in another room.
As I finish speaking, let us simply remember that such freedom is fragile and can disappear in a puff of smoke.
Mr President, Commissioner, the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is an important moment.
Of course we are talking about long-term matters here.
We have all worked for human rights, every group, every Member of Parliament, we know that.
But statements about the longer term must not, of course, close our eyes to shorter-term issues.
We should remember here the resolution adopted ten days ago and the Commissioner knows, of course, that we remain vigilant.
The Union will also need to place its human rights policy on an operational footing.
I should like to know that whenever human rights are violated this will trigger the suspension of a cooperation agreement or any normal agreement. Efforts will be made presently to have this incorporated in a new Lomé Convention.
Something of the kind must be done for non-Lomé countries too.
Universal human rights also means universal standards and potential criticism.
During the transatlantic summit with the USA, the Union must make it clear that it expects the United States, the great champion of the universality of human rights, not to undermine that universality.
It is reasonable to expect, for example, that the USA will take part in the International Criminal Court and that the Union will voice that expectation to the American authorities.
Mr President, in the space of one minute I should like to highlight certain concepts that are, to my mind, fundamental: the universal nature and interdependency of human rights, as well as two other complementary concepts, namely, the defence and promotion of these rights.
An instrument to put an end to impunity is urgently needed to defend human rights.
By placing the Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, in the hands of the law, we have severely dented the protective shield behind which those guilty of genocide, dictators and autocrats have hidden for a long time.
What is more, and with regard to the interdependency and promotion of human rights, we must not forget that development and political freedom are as important as economic freedom, and the most important of all is the right to live with dignity.
The European Union must act in accordance with this concept and implement what we logically provided ourselves with: the democratic clause and constructive measures to promote all forms of human rights.
Citizens' requests for diplomacy must receive an adequate response from the European Union.
This citizens' diplomacy has managed to ensure, for example, that treaties banning the use of landmines were signed and that an International Criminal Court was established, which, although it is a valid response, is by no means sufficient.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, every individual owes it to others to recognise their worth.
This phrase was inscribed by young democratic parties in Brandenburg in their first democratic constitution.
Why? These words clearly mean that human rights policy is not just to do with moral appeals, but is a matter of practical politics.
Dictatorial regimes also applaud human rights policy, but a credible human rights policy means an active policy that affects people's real lives.
Accordingly, the European Union too is judged across the world by its everyday political actions, by the way it protects human rights on an everyday basis.
Here trade and economic policy must yield to the primacy of human rights policy.
Here, the dictators of the world must never again be able to be confident that they will not be called to account.
The European Union will also be judged by whether it turns the 'International Court of Justice' project into an effective organisation by ratifying it and providing financial support.
Here, the Member States of the European Union must have the courage to stop exporting arms to governments that trample human rights under foot, such as the exports to Indonesia and to Turkey.
It is our international duty to speak out on every case of human rights infringements.
Here, the Commission must breathe life into the human rights clause in the treaties and not keep telling us why economic interests come first.
Human rights are universal and inviolable!
Mr President, human rights have to be secured not on the moon, but on this somewhat dark earth.
This can best be done within a triangle of peace, development and democracy - three pillars which are indissolubly bound together and which determine the extent to which human rights can be guaranteed.
It is clear from the committees' reports that the Members of this House are aware of this, but evidence of it is often hard to find in Union policy.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation also quite rightly accuses the Union of being ambivalent.
When the chips are down, commercial and strategic interests are often deemed more important than human rights.
It would be an enormous step forward if trade policy were tied in more closely with the Union's strategy on human rights.
That policy must be enforceable, and its success will depend on how effectively agreements reached on human rights are monitored.
Naturally, we agree with the priorities set for human rights.
But we should not always be pointing an accusing finger at others.
In Europe too, there are plenty of infringements and we ourselves are responsible for those.
Human rights for refugees are coming under pressure.
The pressure to toughen our policy is assuming such proportions that the way in which we treat some asylum seekers and 'illegals' or people with no papers sometimes goes beyond the bounds of what is humane and acceptable.
The rights of minorities continue to be violated in Europe too.
Not only in Turkey, for example, but in the Macedonian part of Greece as well.
We still cannot guarantee children's rights properly, and trafficking in human beings continues under our very noses even as we talk about combating violence against women.
There is a code of conduct about arms dealing, but it is being flouted, as you well know.
I could go on, but in concluding, I hope that when we talk about Agenda 2000 tomorrow we shall also, when it comes down to it, think about human rights as well.
Mr President, as a result of the international economic and financial crisis, child labour and child sex tourism are increasing dramatically.
I would refer to paragraph 26 of Mr Roubatis's resolution and regard the call made there for the introduction of standard human rights clauses extremely necessary and important.
In particular, the European Union must not silently and indirectly tolerate the social and sexual abuse of children.
Compliance with human rights and in particular the protection of children against any maltreatment must be made a condition for allowing any undertaking to be eligible for receiving state aid and to take part in public tenders.
We must not allow our European markets to be flooded with products from third countries that are produced by children who are treated like slaves, and nor must we allow European tourists to abuse children with impunity in states that receive EU assistance.
Mr President, I think it is significant that the European Parliament chose to celebrate informally the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both by awarding the Sacharov prize to Ibrahim Rugova this morning and by keeping this joint discussion sharply focused on the search for a strong political line concerning human rights issues.
I believe that the three reports under discussion are equal to the task and are, above all, a sign of increasing political will and powers within the European Union to take tangible, active steps towards promoting human rights.
I am referring in particular to the excellent report by Mr Torres Couto - whom I thank - on the draft regulation laying down the requirements for the implementation of development cooperation operations which contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
This report stresses a concept which I regard as fundamental, namely the existence of an intrinsic link between the development of human rights and democracy and development per se .
If, as we have always maintained, development must be humane, participatory and sustainable, it cannot be achieved by infringing human rights or denying democratic rights.
Consequently, it must be realised that the promotion of human rights does of course mean asserting the inalienable rights of every individual and group - social, ethnic and so on - but it is not just that: it is also a precondition for the development of every people, every community and humanity as a whole.
Therefore, the promotion of human rights is inevitably intimately connected with the furtherance of democracy, the rule of law and good governance, and the affirmation of these principles is not tantamount to interference or Eurocentrism.
The European Union and its Member States must now make coherent moves on various fronts, basically the development of international law, above all its practical implementation; full inclusion of human rights as an aim in all instruments of international cooperation; and the promotion of specific direct operations, as referred to in the draft regulation.
Clearly, a broad view of human rights must be taken, encompassing economic, social and cultural rights in addition to civil and political ones, and practical work must be done to foster the human and institutional conditions under which these principles may be achieved.
Allow me to conclude by saying that investment in human rights is probably the most profitable form of investment nowadays, both because so many blatant violations are occurring and because some still aspire to a world which revolves around human beings.
It is also the best possible form of life assurance.
Mr President, I should like to emphasise something that Mr Torres Couto stated in the explanatory statement to his report, namely, that Parliament and its Committee on Development and Cooperation have consistently attached the utmost importance to promoting human rights and democratic values as they are elements that form the basis of its relations with developing countries.
There is a huge number of precedents that I shall not repeat here.
However, I must mention the recent reports by Mr Rocard and Mr Martens on the new framework for our relations with ACP countries and also the report on democratisation, human rights and good governance, for which I myself am rapporteur and which will be debated in the House next month.
As is, unfortunately, all too often the case, the institutions and legislators sometimes lag behind events.
Civil society has a dynamic all of its own; it generates expectations, hopes and problems to which we must respond.
This is a case in point.
After more than two decades of our cooperation policy being in force, we are now obliged to shift the emphasis onto different areas, to take a different approach and to give new impetus to our relations with developing countries.
We need to strengthen a more mature civil society and democratic institutions that act as a counterpoint, as well as strengthening the surveillance and control mechanisms over public activities and the fight against corruption in all of its guises. These are goals that are not only worth fighting for but which, within our committee, inspire our daily work.
Mr Torres Couto included a number of interesting proposals in his report that may help create a legal body on standards. That might enable us to move away from grand statements of principles into the field of action and tangible facts.
On the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, something which is so often abused from day to day throughout the world, I believe that this is the best way in which we can promote the defence of these rights.
Mr President, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which has become the basis for democratic values, has celebrated its 50th anniversary.
This was an opportunity for many celebrations around the world, and an opportunity for fine words and pious hopes for the respect of human rights and the construction of a more just world.
The assessment of human rights is nonetheless a mixed bag.
This is because, 50 years later, when all is said and done, the Declaration is only truly respected in approximately 30 democratic countries, with less than 1 billion inhabitants.
In contrast, it is scorned by authoritarian regimes in 30 other countries, where close to 2 billion people live.
The Amnesty International report is confirmation of this damning picture of torture, unlawful executions and prisoners of conscience being detained in a large number of countries.
Of course, progress has been made, and fortunately so, but persecution is still commonplace. The number of legal instruments has increased, but why has the United States, the most important world power, still not ratified the 1966 Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights?
Why does it still have the death penalty?
Why does the Treaty establishing the International Criminal Court, signed in Rome in July, still only have about 60 signatures? Why do 1.3 billion people live off less than one dollar per day?
Why do 35 000 children die every day of illnesses that could have been prevented?
Why do 250 million children have to work to survive?
Why is there such violence against women?
The list of 'whys' could go on and on.
Are the past 50 years long enough to make us hard-hearted and to make us sink into indifference and selfishness and accept the cruelty and lack of equal opportunities in this world? I strongly fear that all these political and legal instruments are worthless if such injustice still lives on amongst the human beings in this world.
Mr President, fifty years after the Declaration of Human Rights, the debate we are involved in now should normally be quite unnecessary.
Mrs André-Leonard stressed that just a couple of minutes ago.
Unfortunately, however, the problem still exists and in an extreme for in most parts of the world, and that is why the two very important reports we are considering today remain topical.
At least in its debates, the European Parliament has always shown sensitivity about human rights.
Before anything else I should like to stress that our group supports both reports and shares the view that respect for human rights depends on many factors, which are not just political, social, economic or cultural.
One can therefore only applaud the view expressed by Mr Roubatis on the need to create a global system of annual programmes for human rights, which will form part of foreign policy.
That integrated system will be able to provide better protection for human rights and in that way help to prevent interests from taking precedence over moral considerations - an issue which Parliament has debated at length - and to ensure that good intentions in the realm of foreign policy do not become a substitute for positive action.
As Mr Roubatis indeed stresses, human rights are an inseparable part of the Union's foreign policy and that must be grasped by all its bodies and at all levels.
In his turn, Mr Barros Moura very rightly lays stress on globalisation which, as he says, restricts the substantive exercise of democracy and human rights.
We must pay particular attention to that, because quite often, unfortunately even here in Parliament, the appraisal of human rights violations seems to depend on the scale of certain international political and economic interests and motives.
I would like to end by congratulating the two rapporteurs for their very appropriate remarks and for the proposals they have made, which contribute towards a substantive and positive approach to such a serious issue.
Mr President there is no doubt that the reports we are debating contain very important and interesting ideas on human rights.
It could be said that the statements made by the Commission and the European Union's other bodies contain the same thing.
The question arises, however, of how credible those declarations are.
In my opinion, an example suffices to demonstrate the extent of the hypocrisy that exists.
On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the Turkish Press is bemoaning the situation in that country.
It states that there are no rights, only violations, and torture is used extensively by the authorities.
This year 150 people were victims of murder by persons unknown, 86 were executed without trial while in custody, 118 social organisations were banned, 275 publications were confiscated, and 3 000 members of the legitimate HADEP party were arrested after the Ocalan affair! Well!
While all this is going on, the European Council, the Commission, the Council and some of the Union's more powerful countries are looking for ways to include Turkey in the pre-accession dialogue procedure as the twelfth candidate for accession.
Clearly, when economic and geopolitical interests are involved, human rights can wait.
Mr President, when we talk about human rights abuses around the world we have to look to ourselves and see what we are responsible for.
We have to look at how the European Union Member States fuel conflicts around the world and human rights abuses.
For example, we need a code of conduct on arms exports.
I want to mention the following: French training of security forces and death squads in Rwanda; the sale of arms by Belgians to Rwanda; the training of Indonesian troops by the British; German submachine-guns used in a prison massacre in Brazil; Hawk jets sent to the Indonesians so they can persecute the people of East Timor; UK arms sales to places such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia; torture weapons being sold to countries so that they can inflict human rights abuses on people around the world.
We have to look at this and ask ourselves if it is morally correct.
Can we take the moral high ground, when the European Union, in the interests of profit - and profit alone - is selling weapons and instruments around the world with which to inflict punishment and death on people We have to look to ourselves first and see what we are doing to fuel human rights abuses in the world.
Mr President, we are currently celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as highlighted by this debate.
We are doing so because even today human rights represent the dream of every one of us, and because entire peoples on our tired earth are ignorant of the principles that are at one and the same time a political commitment and a spiritual aspiration.
Many of us will sit through these commemorations without feeling any emotion, firstly because human rights are part and parcel of the principles taught in our schools and families, principles which have become not only political morality but even a school subject; secondly because, as this century draws to a close, people have little faith in words and promises. Why not recall that 1789 was followed, regrettably, by the terror of 1793?
Can we still give any credence to the meaning of words? And thirdly, because every evening our televisions bring us pictures of terror, of men who sow terror in Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Algeria and throughout the Communist world.
Who was concerned about human rights in Stalinist Russia, Maoist China or even today in Pol Pot's Cambodia, in South America, Haiti or East Germany in the days of Honecker? At the dawn of the twenty-first century, human rights are still experiencing a sad autumn.
Unfortunately there is still a need to establish international tribunals to try war criminals.
We must still hope for a world where democracy can spread its wings ever wider, and trust that - sooner or later, slowly but inexorably - justice will triumph, bringing about real respect for human rights.
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteurs of these reports because they contain information and proposals that will be of great use to us. What is more, I believe that they contain practically everything we should say and do, and I say practically here and not absolutely everything as that would be going too far.
However, I would like to comment on a couple of issues.
We have to be much stricter in everything we do within and beyond the European Union, and this is something that I would like to stress in particular.
I do not wish to enter into the debate that will take place later, but there are issues where we need to be extremely vigilant, for example, women's rights and sex tourism, which, as one speaker reminded us, are closely linked to the attitude of Europeans as well as the way in which we treat citizens from third countries. This is because, as regards this last issue in particular, they have a huge impact on our external credibility.
For example, in my country, the spectacle of immigrants flooding into Ceuta or Melilla does not help us defend human rights as vigorously and as emphatically as we have been doing.
We need to endorse the support programmes for democracy and human rights abroad.
Such programmes need our political support, which Parliament duly gives, but the Commission also needs support to enable it to act effectively and take into account exactly how much these programmes cost from both an economic and administrative point of view. This is important because we are sometimes unaware of these points, or if we are aware, we do not act accordingly.
And thirdly, I should like to insist - as has often been done here, yet I believe it to be important - on the creation of an International Criminal Court and international legitimacy. It is only through such instruments that we will be able to carry out effective operations that do not lead to new problems or to a new ideological or patrimonial feeling in relation to human rights, operations that might spread all over the world.
The Pinochet case, in my opinion, shows that it is only through this international legitimacy, which must be achieved by consensus, that we will be able to progress.
Mr President, in the suffocatingly short time allotted to me for so broad and critical a subject, I can only stress one point in the detailed and pragmatic report by Mr Roubatis.
Article 31 draws attention to the fact that universal principles concerning fundamental rights should not be sacrificed on the altar of the economic, strategic or political interests of the Union or any of its Member States.
It is precisely such priority which is given to all sorts of interests, and that is why, whilst we celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the historic international declaration and agreement, we close our eyes to the flagrant and continual violations of that declaration even in our own back yard.
But our continued tolerance not only does nothing to teach respect for human rights to countries that are historically distanced from democratic models, but allows those countries to accuse us of hypocrisy and discriminatory political treatment.
The European Union can and must become a protagonist in the worldwide imposition of respect for these existentialist values.
A prerequisite for this, however, is that it must cease adulterating them with other short-sighted and selfish criteria.
Mr Lambrias, I will take this opportunity to repeat a recommendation which I am always making to the political groups, namely not to allocate less than two minutes to very worthy speakers who wish to put their views to the House.
It is impossible, and I consider it an affront to the dignity of MEPs, to give them less than two minutes.
And personally, I have stated that I am not disposed to cut off speakers after one minute, because I consider that both harsh and offensive to their dignity.
Mr President, when a state puts one of its citizens to death, most of us in this House view that act as a serious violation of human rights.
We therefore welcome Bulgaria's recent decision to abolish capital punishment.
Looking at the countries seeking membership of the EU, only Latvia, Lithuania and Turkey now retain this deeply unjust penalty in their legislation.
As President Gil-Robles said earlier today, it is of particular importance that countries wishing to join the European Union demonstrate a commitment to human rights.
Let us launch a joint appeal to those applicant countries genuinely wishing to accede to the Union, rallying them behind our shared effort to consign the death penalty to the annals of history - as an ugly, but ever paler and more distant memory.
Mr President, we are talking about human rights today, and it behoves us to consider the following facts.
The three richest people in the world have fortunes which surpass the combined GNP of the 48 poorest countries.
The past two decades of neo-liberalism have led to a spectacular increase in unfairness and inequality around the planet.
The average income in more than 70 countries is lower than it was 20 years ago.
One third of the 4.5 billion people living in developing countries have no access to drinking water.
Is this a matter of fate? Of course not.
UN calculations show that the basic food, water and health needs of everyone on this earth could be satisfied if a wealth tax of just 4 % were to be levied on the 225 biggest fortunes.
It would cost 13 billion dollars - the amount spent every year on perfume in the USA - to provide food and health care for the world's most needy.
Thirty million individuals die of starvation and 800 million struggle on in a permanent state of malnutrition - not as a result of natural disasters, but because hunger is wielded as a headline-catching political weapon.
In Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, North Korea, Burma and Afghanistan, we have seen governments and local warlords use the innocent as hostages.
Climatic conditions and natural disasters play but a marginal part in mass starvation.
The truth is that human beings starve out their fellows.
Today's human rights violations contain the seeds of tomorrow's conflicts.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that this vicious circle of violation and conflict can and must be broken.
Fifty years on from the Universal Declaration, human rights are now firmly enshrined.
It is high time we took the next step; so let us make the next ten decades the century of prevention.
We can no longer claim that a shortage of resources keeps us from acting.
This vicious circle of violation and conflict can and must be broken.
Human rights thrive on peace and security, on economic development and social justice. The EU is ideally placed to provide leadership in the phase of consolidation that must follow.
Mr President, today we are celebrating 50 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We are also celebrating ten years of the Sakharov prize.
I should add that celebrating is a misnomer, because since 1948 human rights have been seriously violated on innumerable occasions.
And it is a good thing that the Sakharov prize today has gone to Mr Rugova, because this focuses attention on the unjust situation obtaining in Kosovo and on the people brave enough to denounce it.
The Sakharov prize does not always mean that things actually get better, as is apparent from the position of Aung San Suu Kyi, still held under house arrest in Burma. It is also apparent from the position of Taslima Nasreen who is still under threat in Bangladesh, Leyla Zana who is still in prison in Turkey, and Salima Ghezali who still cannot return to Algeria because of the killings there.
The situation worldwide is still extremely serious.
One of the reasons why we in the European Union can do so little about it is really that decisions on human rights in the European Union still require unanimity - action on human rights, at any rate.
In this context, I have once again tabled an amendment to these reports urging the Council of Ministers to abolish that unanimity rule.
I think that might be one of the best anniversary presents we could give to the United Nations and the Sakharov prize.
Mr President, I think that after 50 years we can take stock with a critical eye.
Looking back into the past, we can say that progress has in fact been made in the world: communism has disappeared from Eastern Europe, apartheid from South Africa and dictatorships from South America.
However, if we look around us our disappointment is considerable, because we realise that human rights are still being infringed on a daily basis in a large number of countries.
Much still remains to be done, therefore, as is stated very clearly in our reports and documents.
Yet I do believe that we can take some comfort from the recent extraordinary arrest of General Pinochet, for which the initiative came from a Spanish judge and which was carried out by the UK authorities, in our European area of freedom.
This could mean that, in future, tyrants and dictators can no longer consider themselves safe as long as they remain at home.
Perhaps, from now on, justice will be able to cross borders without hindrance, unlike in the past.
This does not of course mean that the task is almost complete; much still remains to be done.
I believe that the key to overcoming the enormous gulf between words and deeds must be for human rights, originally a solemn universal declaration, to become a political programme.
National governments, our European Union and governments around the world should incorporate respect for human rights into their political programmes.
In this way, perhaps, optimism really might develop into well-founded confidence in our future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, every human life is unique and irreplaceable.
All human beings are born free, with equal dignity and equal rights.
There can be no doubt that respect for human rights and the duty to perform humanitarian deeds constitute the fundamental values of a society which naturally considers itself free, civil, democratic and just.
Every individual enjoys so-called basic rights, which guarantee the fundamental elements of life and personal development.
Apart from being fundamental, these rights are described as inviolable, in that nothing and no one may infringe or jeopardise them, in other words harm, restrict or remove them.
The European Union strives to place the protection of human rights at the heart of its policies, but still has a good deal of ground to cover.
Coordination of prevention and monitoring activities is still vital and should be implemented through an effective common foreign and security policy. This - partly through preventive diplomacy - should make it possible to avert conflicts caused by serious political crises, which lead to instability, xenophobia, genocide, ethnic cleansing, reprisals, torture, abuse of power, social tension and the infringement of fundamental human rights.
Appropriate institutional structures must be established and endowed with sufficient powers and financial resources to guarantee respect for the rights of men, women and children. I would refer in particular to the human rights of children, the protection of minors and human dignity in audiovisual and information services including the Internet, the fight against child sex tourism, the creation of a permanent international criminal tribunal and the implementation of the social clause.
Respect for human rights must, however, begin here at home.
Mr President, I wish to express my congratulations to the three rapporteurs whose reports are before us today and to say that we should not be too pessimistic that so much remains to be done fifty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Despite the fact that huge violations of human rights have continued to occur, there are now accepted world standards of human rights, infringement of which is internationally condemned.
While it is tragic that discrimination, imprisonment, ill-treatment, torture, injury and death in flagrant contempt of fundamental human rights still occur, such acts are now widely regarded as criminal and many tyrannical regimes have in fact fallen.
The proceedings against individuals for their actions in the former Yugoslavia and against General Pinochet of Chile demonstrate that accountability for human rights violations is now seen as transcending national frontiers.
The Universal Declaration states that the rights to an adequate standard of life, housing, medical care, social security, education and employment are also human rights.
A recent development report of the United Nations detailed the prevalence of world poverty and stated that 358 billionaires owned capital equivalent to the annual income of nearly half the world's population.
This illustrates how great the challenge still is to us if we are to achieve basic human rights for the world's poor and deprived.
Despite all the shortcomings, the European Union and Parliament have made a most valuable contribution to the promotion of human rights.
The consideration of these, engendered by human rights clauses in agreements, reports, urgency motions and other means in countries across the world is of great importance and, as I well know, is welcomed by democrats in those countries.
In supporting the reports before us now, I hope that we shall all pledge ourselves to continue and further enhance our work on human rights, which is in the interests of all humanity.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by echoing the many words of appreciation which have been addressed to the three rapporteurs for their very thorough reports.
I think we all agree that the drafting of a report of this kind is an extremely complicated affair, because we are talking about a subject which is virtually limitless.
That is the very nature of the human rights issue. It has very many facets, and discussion of it has to be very broadly based when we are trying to find and shape a policy which we can constantly adjust to take account of results.
The Commission too thinks that this dialogue, which is in effect a continuation of the discussion we had with Parliament at the last part-session in Strasbourg, is a very timely one, certainly coming as it does immediately after the commemoration of 50 years of the Universal Declaration and on the same day that the Sakharov prize was awarded in a ceremony this morning to Ibrahim Rugova, a man who must try to lead his people towards apeaceful political solution and a better future.
That is no mean task, and the Commission is very pleased that Parliament has awarded the prize to this man.
Last week in Austria, in Vienna, your President Mr Gil-Robles delivered an impressive speech and you are familiar with what he said.
May I in any event take this opportunity of endorsing, on behalf of the Commission too, his call on that occasion for prisoners of conscience, political prisoners, to be set free before the millennium.
I think that was a particularly appropriate call, certainly a fitting one at present as we move towards the new millennium and thus round off a period in which the efforts made by Parliament to secure the release of these people certainly entitle the House to make a call of this kind.
And it is against this rather broader backdrop that I wish to consider the proposals in the European Parliament's four reports.
We are now going to look at those of Mr Roubatis, Mr Barros Moura and Mr Torres Couto and afterwards the report by Mrs Schaffner, but we regard these reports as a single whole, each one highlighting different facets of human rights policy.
A few comments first, if I may, on the two reports on the strategic aspects of human rights, then on Mr Torres Couto's report on instruments for that strategy and after that, as I said, we shall look at Mrs Schaffner's report.
The Commission is very happy with most of the recommendations and shared ideas expressed in the first two reports.
To start with, I agree with Mr Barros Moura that the European Union has made the greatest progress on human rights when there was consensus between Parliament and the other institutions.
Thanks to Parliament, the Council, the Commission and the Court of Justice all pulling together, it was possible to formulate and implement a pro-active policy on human rights and fundamental freedoms.
And I willingly stress and acknowledge that Parliament has played a pioneering role here by constantly denouncing gross violations of human rights.
Hardly one part-session of Parliament goes by at which the subject of human rights is not raised on one agenda or other, either in the plenary or in one of the committees.
Thanks to initiatives taken by the institutions, the Union's human rights policy has taken on a more profound dimension over the years.
Human rights are now a priority objective in our external relations and our development cooperation.
And most importantly, without doubt, they are also a prime precondition for Union membership, so human rights play their part in the enlargement process too.
I have, moreover, heard one or two honourable Members say that ideally our agreements with third countries ought to include a human rights clause.
You will doubtless be aware that for a number of years now, every new agreement concluded with a third country has indeed included a clause of this kind.
The Union's partners in carrying out all these initiatives are of course above all the Member States themselves, which bear prime responsibility for the upholding of human rights.
Other partners include the international organisations. I am thinking of the Council of Europe, with which we are working more and more closely in this field.
I am also thinking of the OSCE and the United Nations.
The Union supports the International Criminal Court and the special tribunals on the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
The Union has helped to ensure the active participation of developing countries and non-governmental organisations in the diplomatic conference which led to the establishment of the International Criminal Court.
A very important and parallel area of the Union's human rights activities is the giving of aid to non-governmental organisations which seek to uphold human rights in third countries and also provide practical assistance to the victims of human rights violations.
These victims naturally include minorities, children, and women.
Violation of their rights in many instances leads to violent conflict, as witness the tragic events we are now seeing in Kosovo.
Concerning the proposals made in the Barros Moura and Roubatis reports, which are specifically addressed to the Commission, I would comment as follows. In line with the rapporteur's suggestion, the Commission has promised in its 1999 programme to provide the Council and Parliament with a communication on a general strategy for human rights and democratisation.
That strategy will obviously have to dovetail with the proposed approach in the draft regulations for our human rights programmes which, as you know, are currently under discussion.
The Commission will also be giving the Council and Parliament a review of the use made of Chapter B7, Article 70 of the budget, better known as the European initiative for democracy and the protection of human rights, together with a review of activities in the period 1996-1998.
This review will be compiled in accordance with the guidelines adopted in the report by your Vice-President Mr Imbeni.
The Commission is also being asked to prepare a general Union report on human rights worldwide.
The possibility of a report of this kind is allowed for in the Vienna declaration and will be studied by the Commission.
I should like to take this opportunity, Mr President, of saying that care must be taken to ensure that the facts of human rights situations are of course constantly updated.
So constant follow-up work is needed. On this too we are ready to debate with Parliament at any time, on any country.
We already do this in fact in the plenary and the urgent debates, and in our replies to your written and oral questions.
And we must also bear in mind that there are other sources of information which already include data of this kind.
So we will also endeavour, given our limited human and financial resources, to avoid any duplication of work here.
I am thinking of the wealth of material available here in reports of Amnesty International, for example, or Human Rights Watch.
And we know that the US Administration publishes an annual human rights report covering virtually the whole world, but of course they have the huge resources to do that.
We are also asked to prepare a review of measures in support of democracy.
We shall do that as well.
In addition to providing a general report on actions taken to promote human rights in the period 1996-1998, the document will include details of Union activities concerned with the monitoring of elections, and of course other aspects of human rights policy as well.
Then there are the suggestions which the reports make concerning logistics and management.
I refer here to Mr Roubatis's report, and I already made a number of comments about this at last month's part-session.
I said then which measures had been taken to ensure sound management or secure better management.
I thought I also said that Mr Santer, the President of the Commission, intended to draw up an account next year of how the Commission would be organised from the year 2000 onwards with regard to external relations.
Then, as now, it was suggested that a proposal should be made to appoint a vice-president with responsibility for external policy.
I can well imagine, and Mr Roubatis's report suggests this too, that there might also be a separate Commissioner horizontally responsible for human rights.
As Mr Roubatis will be aware, this is already the case, since the Commission President is the Commissioner with responsibility for human rights, and your humble servant here is responsible for day-to-day implementation, although I admit that, with our present internal structure, horizontal coordination is not always easy.
The next Commission will certainly need to try to improve matters there.
Last month, I also pointed to the need for the relevant 1999 budget lines to have a budgetary remark which would enable the Commission to draw on outside assistance in carrying out its programmes.
It looks as if that will be done for 1999, but I think provision should be made for this too in the legal base, that is to say in the draft regulations currently being processed.
That brings me to Mr Torres Couto's report and the proposed amendments to the proposal for a regulation based on Article 130b, perhaps starting with the question of this outside assistance which is dealt with in Amendment No 16 to Article 3.
The Commission believes that the proposed ceiling on expenditure to be set annually should refer solely to the activities listed in Article 3 (4), with the understanding that this includes an explicit reference to assistance to the Commission in administering its programmes, as well as to the Commission and beneficiaries together.
The Commission is happy to accept many of the other proposals, but cannot of course agree to amendments which challenge the powers of the various institutions, and here of course I am talking of existing powers.
The Commission is happy with the amendments which are consistent with the original proposal, for example concerning the creation of an advisory committee, the removal of the time limit on the regulation's applicability and the deletion of the financial reference amount.
The Commission notes Parliament's wish to be briefed on the committee's work but as far as following up on this amendment is concerned, we would refer to the institutional practice adopted in other cases.
That consists of oral briefings to Parliament, since the Commission is cautious about making that committee's discussions public because this would jeopardise the confidentiality of project selection.
The Commission is not opposed to the amendments relating to the programming or annual assessment of measures and relaxing the criterion of experience for potential beneficiaries, but would like to have a number of points clarified.
The reference to an interinstitutional working party, something we have previously discussed, is problematic.
If these proposals were acted upon, it would mean an infringement of the powers of management and implementation and could lead to a breach of the regulation or to it being impossible to apply.
This working party, which is also mentioned in the Barros Moura report, cannot be a new interinstitutional structure charged with investigating the Commission's activities in identifying projects either before or after the event.
What I am more than willing to do, and we have made this offer before, is to hold a debate with Parliament or its committees twice a year on human rights policy, the topics, the approach and the situations in different countries in a more general way.
I also talked at an earlier stage with the chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs about an informal structure.
I think it was Mrs Lenz to whom I spoke, and the offer I made just now was made on that occasion too.
Lastly, I should say as regards the three reports that interinstitutional cooperation and dialogue has enabled the Commission over the past year to develop its policy for promoting and protecting human rights further.
It is a long-term undertaking which demands a solid legal, administrative and budgetary foundation.
I think the Vienna declaration gave us a number of guidelines here, but your suggestions too are a valuable contribution.
And we must take account of the expectations of Europe's citizens.
Dialogue and institutional cooperation are necessary if we really want results.
The Commission is hopeful of the European Parliament's support in framing a Union policy on human rights.
We maintain, and we shall work to ensure, that human rights are central both to the internal policy and the foreign policy of the Union.
To that end, we look forward with pleasure to an ongoing and close dialogue with the European Parliament on policy for the protection of human rights.
Mr van den Broek has tried really hard to answer the points raised by many speakers and in three reports, and we must recognise that.
I cannot in all honesty complain because he spoke for some considerable time.
The joint debate is closed.
The votes will be taken tomorrow, at 9.30 a.m.
Human rights in the Union
The next item is the report (A4-0468/98) by Mrs Schaffner, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on respect for human rights in the European Union (1997).
Mr President, at the end of 1998, the free world is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in splendour.
Although in almost all countries around the world the concept of human rights has been written into constitutions, international treaties or political discourse, the day-to-day reality proves that such virtuous proclamations are far from the facts.
Parliament never fails to point out such shortfalls, sometimes displaying certain heavy and recurrent leanings, but also some worrying short-sightedness.
Could this be seen as a lack of objectivity for the sake of political correctness? Our credibility is at stake here.
In the same way, if Parliament does not want to fall into the trap of appearing to be a mere preacher, then the Member States of the Union have a duty to be beyond reproach and we cannot turn a blind eye to the failings we see there.
But in this report, it is our duty to highlight the progress that has been made in certain countries.
We were keen to criticise so we must also acknowledge their efforts.
Did we have anything to do with it?
I do not know whether we did or not.
I simply welcome the result.
We cannot fail to be pleased that the draft Treaty of Amsterdam has now added greater weight to respect for human rights as the ethical and political basis of all action taken by the Union, both at home and abroad.
This European approach to human rights should lead to progress in a number of areas.
The first of these rights is the right to life.
All Member States of the Union have abolished the death penalty and we must welcome this.
But this right also involves the right not to be subjected to inhumane treatment, the right to have access to care and the right to a dignified death.
The problem of euthanasia is more than a social debate.
We cannot contemplate authorising active euthanasia without considering all the possible problems. However, we must allow people to end their days with dignity and peace, through the establishment of palliative care units, through the latest methods for relieving suffering and without medical treatment.
The right to life also leads to the right to security and therefore to the condemnation of terrorism.
The Member States must collaborate closely in this field, but this unending struggle must go hand-in-hand with respect for the rule of law.
Whether it be for terrorism or crime in general, respect for the rule of law involves the presumption of innocence, the right to a fair and just trial, respect for the rights of the defendant and, if a prison sentence is handed down, respect for the rights of the prisoner.
In this area, a number of Member States are far from having a spotless record, be it in the field of pre-trial detention, the length of trials or the accusatory procedure, or the detention conditions in overcrowded prisons.
This last point will also be discussed later by my colleague, Mr Pradier.
Privacy, and freedom of expression, of religion and of conscience must be scrupulously respected and protected, as these are fragile values and the balance of power among them is often very delicate.
Although there may still be a few problems, we must applaud the fact that Greece has adopted a law recognising the right to conscientious objection.
As regards economic and social rights, there is one success and one regret to note.
The success comes from the United Kingdom signing the 1989 Charter on Fundamental Social Rights.
The regret is that the Council has not adopted the programme of measures to combat poverty.
Despite the fact that the Member States agreed to include provisions for combating all forms of discrimination in the draft Treaty of Amsterdam, the reality of the situation is that we still see a number of distortions occurring between the principles and the facts, for example, in terms of women's rights, the rights of the child, protecting the family, as well as in the fight against racism and xenophobia.
Such violations of essential rights are even more intolerable when carried out by state or local authority personnel: administrative agents, teachers, police force representatives, legal or prison staff and sometimes even social workers. That is why there is a call for training programmes.
In this report and in some amendments that have been tabled, there are a few sticking points on asylum and immigration problems.
For my part, I would like everyone to avoid extreme, not to mention provocative, views.
I think, in particular, that the proposal to give immigrants the right to vote in local elections is premature, even for those with legal status or who have lived in a Member State for more than five years.
Although it is true that this decision could help integration, we must also be aware of the danger of provoking clearer demonstrations of racism and xenophobia against these foreigners.
I am now convinced that this subject must be addressed by each Member State, at its own pace and depending on the political situation and on the influence of extremist parties.
If Parliament approves our annual report by a wide majority, if it avoids both the hazards of some past reports and a rather cautious vision of the universal nature of human rights, then it will be able to hold its head high.
Mr President, the report we are discussing today is of extreme symbolic importance.
The specific context of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will refresh the memories of our fellow citizens and political leaders on the content of this Declaration, which our Member States are committed to respecting.
In the light of its 30 articles, we can assess the list drawn up today by Mrs Schaffner, with the balance between civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic, social and cultural rights on the other.
Like the Universal Declaration, a large part of the Schaffner report is given over to the latter: it states that poverty and exclusion have no place in wealthy and democratic societies and calls on the European institutions to rectify such anomalies.
Nonetheless, the report does not give us reason to believe that all is well as regards so-called fundamental rights.
This phrasing is unsatisfactory as there is no hierarchy in terms of human rights.
Due to a lack of time, I will only give one example, but a highly significant one, which is also taken from the Amnesty International report. It involves police brutality, serious cruelty and degrading treatment inflicted by members of the public police forces, during arrests or detention in custody, which, more often than not, are inflicted upon foreigners or people of a different skin colour.
However, I should first like to point out that there should be no generalisations.
The mistakes of a small minority must not cast suspicion on law and order forces as a whole, who do an increasingly difficult job.
In France, some police trade union members are also alarmed by the growing number of incidences of brutal and undemocratic conduct, conduct that tramples both laws and the Declaration of Human Rights underfoot, even though it is displayed in all French police stations.
It is therefore vital for every country to show its unequivocal rejection of all cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Those who have not yet ratified the UN Convention against Torture must do so and must recognise the powers of the Committee against Torture while ensuring that all abuse is punished effectively, which is rarely the case at present.
It must also be said that such actions, which bring shame upon the police forces of democratic countries, are encouraged, supported and pardoned by the totalitarian and racist ideologies held by movements of the extreme right.
It is not by chance that certain French police stations display Le Pen's photo rather than the Declaration of Human Rights.
In a recent interview, Mr Le Pen stubbornly refused to acknowledge any form of obligation to the Declaration of Human Rights of 1789, even though it is included in the preamble to the French constitution. This gives us an insight into the regime he dreams of imposing.
The discourse of the extreme right, which is widely disseminated by the press, promotes discrimination, exclusion, intolerance and a fundamentalist moral order that encourages racism and anti-Semitism.
This can naturally only lead to violence and the reintroduction of the brutal use of force.
However, due to the right to freedom of expression, democratic societies experience problems in opposing it, and in this respect it is interesting to follow Belgium's current attempts along these lines.
Such is the freedom of expression.
But this is at least one human right fiercely claimed by extreme right-wing parties.
Using our principles, they demand the same advantages that, on the basis of their principles, they would refuse us, preferring to ignore the limits included in the various declarations, limits that represent legal measures, the rights of others and the general interest.
To conclude, I should like to explain the position of the Socialist Group on the amendments tabled in the House.
I believe it is essential that this report be voted through.
It would be a disgrace if, only a few days after 10 December, we could not agree on this.
Mrs Schaffner's report, in its current state, seems to me to be entirely positive and balanced.
It is probably not what we would have done, but what does that matter?
This type of text should not come from one group, from one political persuasion, but should be a strong message, addressed to the Member States so that they become aware of an unsatisfactory situation and pay more attention to making the major principles they have adopted a reality.
This message will be even more effective if the report is voted through with a wide majority, which is possible if each group is willing to take the other groups' reservations into account.
For our part, we will reject many amendments that we do basically agree with but that would make it difficult to adopt the final text.
I hope I can count on a similar effort from the other groups so that, tomorrow, we can send a very clear message to the Council, to the Commission and to the Member States, a message that reflects the symbolic anniversary we celebrated last week.
Mr President, I am going to speak on behalf of my friend and colleague Laura de Esteban who has had to leave.
I should firstly like to congratulate Mrs Schaffner as rapporteur for this report.
Once again, we are dealing with an annual report on respect for human rights in the European Union, which, in its original version, contains an excellent and well structured explanatory statement with reliable data from the European institutions, and which focuses on the legal and real aspects of the respect for human rights in the Union.
The motion for a resolution is also consistent with the explanatory statement and contains 62 paragraphs whose legal basis is the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights, a fundamental guide for the respect of human rights in the Union, as established in our Treaty.
However, the final report, following the vote in committee, has distorted part of its structure and coherence. This is because, as in previous years, it responds to the introduction of amendments that include other aspects that are not related to the traditional concept of fundamental rights, and these amendments are probably a response to political motivations that are different from those that should govern the objectives of this document.
Our duty as Members of this House is to ensure that European Parliament resolutions rigorously respect ideological impartiality and the law in its broadest sense.
And this is all the more important this year since the adoption of this report coincides with the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.
Those of us in the Group of the European People's Party would like to reaffirm our tradition of being at the forefront in defending human rights.
We should like to reiterate our absolute respect for the dignity and value of human beings and equal rights for men and women, as well as reasserting that all human rights are universal, indivisible and independent.
That is why we shall be voting in favour of those paragraphs in the report that truly reflect the problems relating to human rights.
These include issues such as individual freedoms, the rights of defendants, the right to life and the dignity of individuals, and the right to have our private and family lives respected along with our home and correspondence. We also support respect for the protection of personal data, the freedom of expression or limitations in respect of the law and the freedom of thought and association - with the exception in this last case of sects or dangerous movements - in the strict defence of victims.
We share concern for the promotion and protection of the rights of children and wish to guarantee protection for the rights of those who are particularly vulnerable to ill treatment or abandonment, including the young, the disabled and the elderly.
We are in favour of absolute respect for the rights of prisoners and should like to stress the importance of rehabilitation and reintegration measures.
We should also like to reaffirm our condemnation of racism, xenophobia and all forms of discrimination.
Moreover, we are in favour of restoring the rights of citizens unfairly dealt with by the judicial system, especially in cases - which are all too frequent in Member States - where legal proceedings are slow. We also uphold the general principles of law that underpin the Member States' legal systems, such as the principle of non bis in idem or the presumption of innocence.
However, we are obliged to vote against those paragraphs in the report that do not respect the concept of human rights, those that go beyond our competences or those that contravene Community law.
I am referring here to paragraphs that advocate the introduction of civil rights into Member States' national legislation - this is not part of the Union's competence - and those relating to nationality.
In this connection, my group is tabling an amendment that reminds us of a fundamental principle, namely, the principle stating that Member States are competent to recognise and regulate nationality and that exercising civil rights is linked to having that nationality.
I hope that with sufficient support from Parliament we can finally adopt a resolution that is worthy of this institution on the important occasion of the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to congratulate Mrs Schaffner on her report, in which she has worked hard on a very sensitive subject.
This report is one of the annual exercises that remind us of the best possible way of ensuring respect for human rights within the European Union.
The rapporteur presents us with a detailed study.
In my brief speech, I will only be able to mention the general points and would firstly point out that human rights are an end, not a means.
Therefore, if we share this opinion, it is important to do all we can to prevent not only the most flagrant and direct violations, but also the more underhand threats that risk undermining human rights.
It would be deceptive to believe that democracy alone could guarantee respect for human rights.
Democracy is a means, which can lead to the best practices, but which can also trigger the worst practices.
By way of example, I should like to point out that Hitler came to power by means of an electoral, and therefore democratic, process.
So, as human rights are an end, their application should be as far removed from realpolitik as possible, which, here, represents the area of compromise, pragmatism, concessions, the balance of power, give and take, cunning, constraints and even complicity.
Our political action must mean that we question what measures need to be implemented to ensure that human rights are respected. And, in addition to the many tools already available, we should question how well our societies, which are anxious to protect human rights, can withstand economic shocks, social disturbances or ideological poison that promotes exclusion, racial hatred or anti-Semitism.
This is the fundamental question that politicians must be concerned with and their actions cannot afford to be seen as indifferent or passive by millions of European citizens who feel abandoned or betrayed by their company, their social environment, their party or their trade union.
In short, they cannot be seen in this way by those who feel excluded and who, as a result, are extremely receptive to false prophets, who are always willing to ask a society teetering on the brink to take a decisive step forward.
Of course, we have not yet reached that point, but history and the past are there to highlight the fact that turbulent stock exchanges and millions of people whose lives no longer have any meaning are not necessarily the best way of ensuring that human rights prevail and making them the priority above all others.
Mr President, I must begin by complimenting Mrs Schaffner on her major efforts and excellent work, for which we thank her.
But we must also acknowledge that, regrettably, we have been obliged yet again this year to confront the usual high-profile issue of human rights and their role in all the serious problems which bedevil these European countries of ours. We have likewise been obliged this year, as in the past, to witness the usual politicisation of human rights, based on ideological divisions and on the fact that responses to infringements of these rights can change according to political positions.
This is most regrettable.
I am not very enthusiastic about this debate, but I am of the opinion that the indivisibility of human rights - the Universal Declaration - should apply within as well as outside of the European Union, and should also cover social, economic and cultural rights.
Clearly, however, we need to agree what all of this means.
It is unthinkable that the fight against poverty or even unemployment could trigger sanctions, in that a right exists if a sanction exists.
So I wonder what can be done with those Member States which currently have 12, 13 or 14 % unemployment? What should we do?
Haul them before the Court of Human Rights? I see no point in discussing this matter any further.
In my opinion, human rights really are being infringed within our own countries; this raises the question of justice - we claim to teach non-European countries about the rule of law - and of the withholding of the right to proper defence, individual guarantees and prison conditions. Nothing is being done to rehabilitate prisoners, which obviously increases the social burden on all the EU countries.
This is what we should be focusing on, and we should apply sanctions to infringements occurring in our countries - and there are many of them.
Mr President, my sincere thanks to Mrs Schaffner for her very thorough report.
I am sure that the annual reports presented to Parliament on human rights in the European Union since 1992 make for greater consistency in what the Community does.
We all know that the Amsterdam Treaty once again emphasised the fact that the Union is based on the principles of freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
Noblesse oblige , and of course the instruments at our disposal can certainly be improved upon.
On the other hand, we are also parties to the European Convention on Human Rights, by which we are all bound, the European Social Charter and the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment.
I should like to mention once again the recent setting-up of a new permanent court.
It was inaugurated a few days ago and will undoubtedly, in the context of the Council of Europe, help to ensure that the rules on human rights are more effectively enforced in Europe.
Regarding topical issues such as intolerance, racism and xenophobia, it was good to see that our Heads of Government in Vienna again underlined the importance of combating these and once again asked the Commission to draw up more detailed proposals on how to take action against crimes of this kind.
A lively debate is currently under way on policy concerning refugees and asylum seekers.
Very recently, the Council of Ministers decided to set up a task force on asylum and migration matters which will try to devise an integrated policy based on the Union's policy and on foreign and security policy and the third pillar, which will concentrate on these issues of asylum policy but also primarily address itself to asylum seekers' countries of origin.
I turn next to the rights of national minorities.
We are reminded daily of violations of the human rights of these groups.
We must of course set a good example within the Union and provide the best possible protection for these rights.
Touching next on other problems such as the sexual exploitation of women and children, a number of initiatives have been developed, and I will simply refer here to the Commission's communication on the subject to the Council last May.
Mr President, in our earlier debate on the three reports, I had the chance to state our position on the requests made in the reports by Mr Barros Moura, Mr Roubatis and Mr Torres Couto.
Many of those themes recur in Mrs Schaffner's report too.
As regards the suggestions and proposals she makes on these matters, perhaps I could refer you to the answers I gave in the previous debate.
The only point I will repeat, and I shall end on this note, is that the European Union and its Member States owe it to themselves to set an example if they wish to go on being a credible commentator on the human rights situation across the world.
The debate on the report (A4-0468/98) by Mrs Schaffner is now suspended so that we can move on to Question Time.
It will be resumed at 9.00 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0713/98).
I would like to apologise to you all, and particularly Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, because we are beginning Question Time seven minutes later than planned.
Ladies and gentlemen, in today's questions to the Council there are several groups of questions.
I am giving you prior warning of this so that when we come to those particular questions, in order to make our job slightly easier and prevent them from becoming the sole topic of debate, I shall first give the floor accordingly to the President-in-Office and then - only if there are supplementary questions - to the authors of the questions. If a substitute has been appointed in line with the Rules of Procedure, the floor will be given to the substitute.
I am giving you advance notice of this, ladies and gentlemen, because if we were not aware of it we might spend the whole period set aside for Question Time on one question.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the first question, the Council attaches great importance to air safety and, as regards the air transport sector, I would refer you in particular to the very recent Community proposal on safety checks of third-country aircraft, to the proposal to create a new European authority responsible for passenger flight safety, and to the current activities in relation to reducing aircraft emissions and noise.
But let me point out that air safety in the Community depends on cooperation between the national authorities, international organisations and the industry.
It is also self-evident that both the aviation industry and the national authorities must very carefully investigate all accidents and incidents in order further to improve air safety by means of their own controls and binding official measures.
On the subject of insulating materials in passenger planes raised by the questioner, I can add the following comments. As far as is known at present, metallised insulating materials such as Mylar have recently been investigated as one of several possible causes of aircraft accidents.
Amongst others, Canadian and US aviation officials, and also the aircraft manufacturers themselves, have been examining the question.
Should it turn out that this material can represent a risk, it is primarily up to the responsible national aviation authorities to issue the necessary directives and instructions in order to deal with this situation.
But at present, although the investigations are at a very advanced stage, no evidence has actually emerged to indicate that the insulating material used was the cause or catalyst of an accident.
We are not expecting further findings until the near future. Only then can and should we take the appropriate measures.
The Council will be aware that there are some 12 000 commercial aircraft operating worldwide, the majority of which have been fitted out with 'mylar' or 'tedlar' insulation which, as recent events have shown, burns far more easily than had been predicted.
This appears to have been corroborated by the recent Swissair accident in Canada, which brought to light a problem that had already been suspected.
As the Council knows, this issue has given rise to calls from throughout the world for urgent modifications to be made to this system of insulation that tends to ignite at high temperatures.
I notice that the Council is aware of the issue, but the FAA, the United States Federal Aviation Administration, is leading the way in this matter, and my particular question relates to whether or not research is continuing in this respect in Europe as it is in the United States.
Mr President, Mr Camisón Asensio, things are not quite as simple as you suggest.
Let me explain again.
In view of the importance the Council attaches to passenger safety in civil aviation, it is of course self-evident that it will give priority to considering any proposals on the matter that the Commission might submit to it.
As I am sure you know, under the provisions of the Treaty, which are the basis for any European Union action, it is in general up to the Commission to draw up the proposals which it considers necessary in fulfilment of its tasks.
At present, there is no Commission proposal or communication on the matter before the Council.
But let me add this: as you said, and as I of course agree, the actual background to this question is the Swissair plane crash in Canada.
But as I said, the cause of this disaster has not yet been established.
The investigations are concentrating not just on materials such as Mylar and Tedlar, but far more on three other aspects.
The first is the insulation of cables in the cockpit area with Kapton, the insulating material made from Mylar and Tedlar, and the aircraft's interactive audio-video system.
The parts of these insulating materials which have so far been recovered do not suggest that thermal action could have caused the accident.
The US Federal Aviation Authority investigated and certified the heat-resistance of these materials before authorising their use in civil aviation.
These tests are now being tightened up, and of course the insulating material must certainly be looked at closely so that it can be excluded as a risk factor.
But let me repeat: at this stage, it is too early to exclude any particular material as the cause of the accident, and nor should one do so, because every possible cause must continue to be investigated so that we do not come to any over-hasty conclusions and thereby disregard other potential sources of risk.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, you have just given us some very interesting information.
So let me return to one of my ancient hobby-horses, which is the danger of too much hand luggage in the aircraft.
I know you are preparing certain measures to finally make flying really safe throughout Europe.
We kept hearing that this required national or airline company decisions.
But these do not address the fact that too much hand luggage represents the greatest danger to passengers in the event of a crisis.
So it would be important finally to implement the provisions that were once discussed in IATA, and to restrict hand luggage to one piece.
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg, let me reply as follows.
Of course all of us frequent fliers know that you are quite right here, because excess luggage can naturally be a great risk.
But I can in fact tell you that both the airlines themselves and the various international organisations concerned with flight safety are devoting constant attention to this particular issue, which means that it is still being examined and in future things will no doubt go in the direction you are advocating, although of course for all us frequent fliers that could make life more difficult.
Question No 2 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-1053/98)
Subject: Further violation of human rights in occupied Cyprus
The Turkish Cypriot 'authorities' plan to privatise one of the two Greek Cypriot schools - attended by 30 Greek pupils - which have continued to operate throughout occupied Cyprus.
Having regard to: -the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the Loizidou case, -Parliament's resolution No B4-0286/97 which 'condemns once again, and in the strongest terms, the serious and persistent violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms suffered by the persons in the enclave which have been committed by the illegal occupying regime, and the intransigence on the part of the latter', -the Council's answer to question E-0233/97 (4.7.1997) to the effect that 'The Council has taken due note of the European Parliament's resolution No B4-0286/97 and follows with the utmost intention the efforts made by the UN to ameliorate the living conditions of the enclaved persons and to restore their fundamental rights'.
What measures will the Council take to prevent further violation of human rights in occupied Cyprus?I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mr Alavanos's question.
Mr President, let me answer this question as follows.
The Council is concerned about the case referred to by the honourable Member.
However, as pointed out in the earlier reply to the honourable Member's written question, the Council is not competent to monitor the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights.
The Council is of the opinion that the best option, with a view also to preventing further human rights violations, would be to seek a solution under the auspices of the United Nations.
For here the Council's objective remains a federation consisting of two ethnic groups and two zones, based on a comprehensive political settlement in compliance with the UN Security Council resolutions.
The Union also takes the view that progress towards EU accession and progress towards a just and lasting solution to the Cyprus issue will by their nature be mutually reinforcing.
It deeply regrets that it did not prove possible to bring about a political solution in good time, before the start of the negotiations, but believes that the accession of Cyprus to the EU would benefit all ethnic groups and contribute towards internal peace and reconciliation on the island.
Furthermore, the European Union continues to call on both sides to take confidence-building measures in the framework of a comprehensive overall solution and to begin a process of progressive disarmament.
The Council also points out that the fourth financial protocol basically also pursues the aim of supporting the efforts to find a political solution to the Cyprus question.
So far, however, the practical financing has not always proved possible, because the attempt at a resumption of talks between the two ethnic groups failed.
As regards the role of Turkey, in the light of the conclusions of the Luxembourg European Council, there is general agreement in the Council that closer relations between Turkey and the European Union also require a positive approach on the part of Turkey and its active cooperation on the Cyprus question.
Mr President, I thank the Minister. Her answer was very extensive and covered all the necessary points, and perhaps that is why it is difficult for me to put a second question.
Nevertheless, I will insist on the political issue.
Can the Council tell us whether it agrees with what Mr van den Broek and the Commission as a whole have said, namely that the government of Cyprus has made all the constructive proposals that it could concerning the participation of the Turkish Cypriot community in the accession negotiations, that responsibility unfortunately rests with the Turkish Cypriot community and Turkey, and that the procedures and talks on the accession of the Republic of Cyprus cannot ultimately become hostage to an intransigent attitude by Turkey.
Mr President, let me say to Mr Alavanos that in principle we are glad that the Greek-Cypriot Government made constructive proposals regarding participation by the Northern Cypriot delegation in the accession negotiations.
It is of course regrettable that this failed.
Our aim, let me repeat, is membership of an undivided island.
To be an EU Member State, we want a Cyprus that has achieved a lasting political solution.
Any other option would be less good.
Question No 3 by Anne McIntosh (H-1060/98)
Subject: Accession of Cyprus
Can the President-in-Office of the Council please indicate the proposed timetable for the accession of Cyprus to the European Union? I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mrs McIntosh's question.
Mr President, as the honourable Member knows, the European Council decided at its meeting of December 1997 in Luxembourg to open accession negotiations with Cyprus.
That is a component of the accession process, based on a global, inclusive and developing approach embracing all the countries that are seeking accession and which includes Cyprus and the ten Central and Eastern European countries.
The applicant countries are judged by the same criteria.
The speed at which this process advances is of course determined in each case by the level of preparation of the applicant state.
The accession negotiations with Cyprus and the other applicant states began on 31 March 1998.
At the second ministerial meeting of the Accession Conference, on 10 November 1998, substantive negotiations began, with Cyprus as with the other five applicants, on the first seven chapters of the European Union's acquis on which the screening was completed.
They were science and research, telecommunications and information technology, education and training, culture and audiovisual policy, industrial policy, small and medium-sized enterprises and the common foreign and security policy.
It was found at the conference that no further negotiations are needed with Cyprus on five of these chapters, although they will certainly have to be looked at afresh at a later stage.
But two chapters, telecommunications and the CFSP, remain on the table and will still have to be discussed in due course by the conference.
Since acquis screening is still going on with regard to all 31 negotiating chapters, and the European Union cannot therefore formulate any common positions regarding the negotiations at this stage, it is not possible to set a timetable for the conclusion of the negotiations, and certainly not for accession.
That applies to Cyprus as it does to all the other applicant countries.
I welcome the President-in-Office's reply.
However, in answer to the previous Member's reply she herself said that the Council hoped to bring about membership of an undivided island. Clearly it is in the Union's interests that the accession should be of an undivided island.
If that is not possible, is the President-in-Office of the Council admitting today that, for this reason, there may be a delay to the accession of Cyprus?
Would that prevent Cyprus from being one of the first wave of new members? This has important implications for the citizens of Cyprus and also for those of our citizens who wish to do business or possibly to live in Cyprus.
I wonder whether she can confirm that lack of an internal settlement will not be a barrier to Cyprus's membership in the next wave and that they will keep to the original timetable?
Mr President, Mrs McIntosh, my positive words still stand.
Our objective is indeed the accession of an undivided island.
At the same time, it must of course be clear that no third country can have a veto in the EU enlargement process.
If no political settlement can be reached, we will probably have to ask ourselves who is mainly responsible for that.
At present that is all I can say in reply to your question whether there may be a delay.
At the same time, at present there is still some hope of working towards a solution based on a political settlement - and we encourage both sides to do so - under the United Nations process.
Mr President, in essence I wish to return to the supplementary by Mrs McIntosh.
The Minister answered - the fact she mentioned is interesting and I would like her perhaps to repeat it - that account will be taken of who is responsible in the event that the island as a whole, or more specifically the Turkish Cypriot community, does not take part in the accession procedures.
I think this is important, and I should like to ask the Minister: if a political solution is set as a condition for accession, then would that not constitute an incentive for Turkey - which does not want accession - to do nothing towards finding a political solution for the Cyprus problem, which it might have done under other conditions?
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, I can only repeat what I have just emphasised, that of course no third country - which means not Turkey either - can have a veto in this EU enlargement process.
We have always regretted that it did not prove possible to find a positive political solution to the division of Cyprus in time for the beginning of the accession negotiations.
The General Affairs Council of 5 October 1998 pointed out again that the European Union's objective must remain the establishment of a federation of two communities and two zones based on a comprehensive political solution in compliance with the United Nations resolutions.
That political solution would then make it possible to implement the provisions of the accession agreement throughout the island.
As I said in my initial reply, progress towards accession and a just and sustainable solution to the Cyprus problem would, of course, be mutually reinforcing.
At the same time, we have always confirmed that the European Union unreservedly supports the efforts to find a solution under the auspices of the United Nations.
The European Council also confirmed its support for the UN Secretary-General's efforts to bring about a comprehensive settlement in Cyprus, and particularly the endeavours of his special emissary to ease the tensions and bring about progress towards a just and lasting settlement.
Mr President, Mrs McKenna, on this most interesting question let me point out that of course the Council is aware of the need for extreme vigilance and constant checks to ensure a very high level of security for the personnel, property and buildings of the European institutions.
The Council is also aware of the existence of a considerable number of electromagnetic and other hi-tech devices that can, either by design or as a side-effect, cause people physical or psychological damage.
But nobody should think that the use on a large scale of systems of this kind could go unnoticed.
They are technically complex and very expensive, and many of the results that could be achieved by using them could also be achieved more simply and cheaply.
There is no evidence of such systems being used comprehensively against administrative structures.
And to my knowledge, systems of this kind, although of course they must certainly not be underestimated, have not led to any incidents hitherto.
Naturally, the Council attaches the utmost importance to increasing the security and safety of its communications networks and of all its staff.
It will consider all proposals to that end.
But I would also ask you to understand that this is a field in which the first effective counter-measures also call for a certain amount of discretion.
I should like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for her answer.
It is quite interesting that you recognise such potential actually exists.
When you talk about such things it is difficult to believe that they can happen but without monitoring or checks you cannot be quite sure that they do.
It happened as far back as 1976.
This is confirmed by Henry Kissinger himself in correspondence to the US embassy in Moscow, where he confirmed the permanent ill effects of these weapons on staff at the embassy.
I believe it is possible.
I believe it is difficult to say that there is no danger or threat there, without some sort of monitoring and assessment of the situation.
Mr President, Mrs McKenna, as I indicated earlier, these are of course very technically complex and expensive systems.
However, I think there is a great difference between what happened when Mr Kissinger was tackling this problem and the present situation.
That case was concerned with what was happening in a building inside the Soviet Union, surrounded by many other buildings, where it was certainly easier to install devices of this kind.
Now we are concerned mainly with European buildings in European countries, and the situation is quite different.
That is why we must take account of this different situation, which I would certainly describe as less dangerous.
I want to clarify what you just said in terms of the way you were going to deal with this.
You said you would accept supplementaries from questioners who are present.
I take it, however, that the Rule enables those of us who are not actually the questioners to ask supplementaries anyway.
Otherwise we would not have come here today.
The point of coming here is to ask supplementaries on the questions that have been tabled.
I assume, therefore, that you will allow us to do that.
I have already explained - and you were not present at the start of Question Time - that purely because of the time constraints, I am only going to give the floor to the questioners themselves should they wish to ask supplementary questions.
If for every ten questions we allow 20 supplementaries to be asked, we will not be able to make any progress.
The Chair has taken this decision owing to the special circumstances that have arisen in this debate.
I am therefore telling you that, under my responsibility, with the authority the present situation gives me to interpret the Rules of Procedure, I am only going to give the floor to the questioners if they are present and if they specifically request it.
Mr Smith wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, you have said that you have made a decision using your own discretion rather than applying the Rules to the letter.
Whilst I appreciate that grouping these questions together is sensible in terms of efficiency and quite a number of the questioners themselves are not here, I see no reason to rule out supplementary questions by Members who have an interest.
Think about the precedent you are setting.
Instead of 14 questions being tabled tonight, you would have 24 because we know we will not get a supplementary unless we put a question.
If that really an efficient precedent to be setting?
I ask you to reconsider, at your discretion, the right to give supplementary questions to those of us who have not tabled questions but have an interest in this subject and want to raise supplementary questions based on the answers we will receive from the Council.
Mr Smith, I am no longer going to give people the floor for points of order.
All those who disagree with the decision taken by the Chair are perfectly within their rights to refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure for consideration.
But I do not wish to continue the debate here and now, precisely so that I can hear the questions put by the eight Members present who have the right to ask a supplementary question.
If you cared to do a simple calculation, you would realise that we could not progress any further in this Question Time, which is the last one in which we shall have the opportunity to hear Mrs Ferrero-Waldner's opinion on other issues.
I therefore give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, and while I fully understand the reasons you are giving - reasons that the Committee on the Rules of Procedure may possibly agree with - at the present moment in time I accept my full responsibility in this matter and I would ask Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to respond jointly to the eight questions put by the Members present.
The large number of questions on Western Sahara reveals the importance Members of the European Parliament attach to this subject, while at the same time showing that it is an enormously complex subject, involving a great number of historical, political and humanitarian aspects.
I am happy to respond to these questions with all due brevity.
Of course the Council is carefully monitoring developments in the region and is endeavouring to contribute towards finding a peaceful, comprehensive solution to this long-standing issue.
The Council fully endorses the peace plan accepted by both parties and approved by the Security Council, which involves the holding of a free, just and impartial referendum on self-determination for the people of Western Sahara.
At the recent 53rd meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on 13 October 1998, the European Union reaffirmed its full support for the United Nations plan.
It noted the progress made, for example the identification of more than 147 000 people in the identification process for participation in the referendum, while at the same time expressing its concern that the question of the three tribal groups has not yet been resolved.
The Council also shares the concern expressed by the United Nations General Assembly about the delay in implementing the plan, which is largely due to poor cooperation by the parties concerned with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees - the UNHCR - but also to the delay in signing the agreement on the legal status of the troops, known as SOFA.
The European Union has also advised the parties concerned to work closely together with the High Commissioner for Refugees, and in particular to enable him to carry out all the necessary preliminary work for the return of the Sahrawi refugees.
Furthermore, the Union has paid tribute to the work of the United Nations mission for the referendum in Western Sahara, MINURSO, which will continue to play a decisive role in the peace process.
It should be noted that the EU Member States have made their contribution by visiting the region several times during the identification process, as an expression of international support for the peace plan.
Meanwhile, the Council presidency is in close contact with the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, with a view in particular to considering possible EU support measures, which, so far at least, have not been determined in any detail.
I thank the presidency for its reply, but I think that it has focused too much on the time when the referendum takes place.
The question that my colleague, Mrs Sauquillo, is asking relates to a different issue, namely, that once the referendum has taken place, whatever the outcome, a substantial development and cooperation plan with the Sahara will be needed.
In my opinion, the presidency has been too vague and I would like to know whether it really does intend to introduce such cooperation and, as a consequence, complete the overall plan being developed by the Humanitarian Aid Office.
Therefore, what future additional plans exist for after the referendum?
Mr Izquierdo Collado, let me answer as follows.
It does seem a little early at this stage to discuss future measures when we all know how difficult it will be even to hold the referendum and when we are all, at this moment, struggling to ensure that a referendum is held at all.
It is quite clear that of course there will be a range of aid projects and measures following the referendum, and indeed a range of such projects already exists. I myself am Minister for Development Cooperation, and all I can say is that apart from the European Union's official programmes there are of course also the ECHO bilateral programmes.
But it really is too soon to speculate on what will happen later.
Let us wait for the results of the referendum, and here we must support the United Nations by doing all we can to ensure that the referendum takes place at all.
We all know that there are still some obstacles in its way; once they have been overcome, we will gladly consider and also be in a position to propose a practical programme.
Very briefly and without wishing to take sides apart from expressing my support for the United Nations resolutions, I should like to ask the Council if it is aware that there are omissions, negligent actions and absences in international policy which, on occasions, hide undisclosed political positions and give the impression that the absence of the European Union as such in terms of breaking deadlocks and in the process of negotiating conflict resolution forms a part of such negligence.
Is the Council aware that maintaining the status quo is tantamount to favouring one side, that, due to the lack of sufficient pressure to resolve the impasse, it is condemning a population to continue living in exile, deprived of its rights, and that, out of all the potential voters, this situation only affects those who are in favour of independence?
Mr President, Mr Mendiluce Pereiro, let me respond as follows.
It is certainly not the case that the European Union is absent here.
I am intentionally highlighting this point, because it allows me to say something in the debate.
During the last General Assembly, I myself addressed this question in talks with the UN Secretary-General, whom I in fact know very well from my earlier post at the United Nations, and I also urged that the United Nations, the Secretary-General and, where appropriate, the special envoy James Baker should take joint action.
Unfortunately, I have to say that the time was not yet ripe.
But you know that the Secretary-General himself has recently visited the region - at the time he considered that more useful, and we were happy to endorse his view, since after all we want to see some positive developments in the situation - and held detailed talks with the conflicting parties.
His report on that visit is now available and yesterday, on 15 December, it was debated in the Security Council.
This procedure was entirely expected, given that of course the United Nations has overall responsibility for the proposed referendum; now the European Union will contact Kofi Annan again in order to discuss this question in depth with him.
On that occasion, questions such as the usefulness of an EU declaration on the Western Sahara issue and the best possible time for making it will also be discussed.
Let me also say that after the identification process had come to a standstill some time ago because of the Moroccan-Sahrawi disagreement on the identification of tribes H41, H61 and J51 and J52 - who make up about 65 000 individuals - the UN Secretary-General put forward a compromise proposal, a kind of package.
The Polisario, Algeria and Mauritania accepted the package, while Morocco initially questioned it.
In a letter and a memorandum addressed to the UN Secretary-General on 20 November this year, Morocco raised a number of questions on which it asked for clarification.
In a further letter of 15 December this year, Morocco expressed its opposition to regarding these 65 000 candidates as candidates in a second list.
But Morocco has not yet formally replied to the UN Secretary-General's compromise proposal.
The extension of the MINURSO mandate to the end of January 1999 which the Secretary-General has now proposed is to be used for UN consultations with Morocco.
However, the prospects of success seem fairly slight, and let me quote verbatim from a United Nations report we have just received: '...unless Morocco gets what it wants'. There is no sensible reason to wait until end of January for the personal envoy, James Baker, and the Secretary-General to intervene again.
And I believe that James Baker must clearly intervene on this issue again.
That is my answer, Mr President.
The Austrian Presidency's answer naturally fails to make reference to the recommendation adopted by this very Parliament.
Bearing in mind that this recommendation is so old, it is all the more 'striking' that neither the conclusions of the recent Vienna European Council nor the strategy on external action it adopted made any reference whatsoever to the situation in Western Sahara.
I should like the President-in-Office to answer three questions.
First, will the Austrian Presidency pass on to the next Presidency of the Council of the Union, namely, the German Presidency, the concerns being voiced by the European Parliament in relation to the conflict in Western Sahara?
Second, does the presidency not think that the European Union should hold talks and meetings with both sides, that is, with Morocco and the Polisario Front?
And third, could the presidency confirm whether or not the country responsible as the former colonial power, in other words, Spain, has ever raised the issue of the Sahara within the Council?
Mr President, Mr Carnero González, on the first question, it is quite clear that of course the Austrian Presidency is not the only one to discuss this important issue and, as I said, things do not always have to be done in public.
So here we have determined on a confidential basis and in continuous contacts with the United Nations where we can take supportive action.
I am sure I can say the same for the German Presidency, because this is indeed a question that concerns us all very much and where we must finally see some progress.
In reply to the other questions, all I can really do is repeat the following: the reason why this issue did not feature in the Vienna conclusions is that it was quite deliberately decided not to list every political issue where there is a conflict, a problem, in the conclusions.
In Vienna we were concerned with efficiency, and please note that this was also true of the Spanish member of the Council.
Mr President, I hope that answers the question.
Thank you!
Madam President-in-Office, you have given a very detailed answer, which is proof of your personal interest and that of your country in this particular matter.
We only wish that such interest could be passed on to the German Presidency. But as this is the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, and in the face of the last pending decolonisation in the African continent, it is difficult to forget about the generation lost in terms of development, that is to say, the Sahrawis currently in exile and living in the territories occupied by the Moroccan authorities.
I also want to voice my concern, Madam President-in-Office, because there have already been too many occasions when we have come across American mediators: in Bosnia, the Middle East, Kosovo, and now in the Sahara.
We are talking about 15 countries here and you must all endeavour to further your commitment and participate more seriously in this process.
Mr President, Mrs García Arias, may I say that we certainly are concerning ourselves with this conflict.
I would like to read out the figures on the humanitarian aid that has already been provided for the Sahrawi refugees, because that needs saying too: on 1 March 1998, ECHO released another ECU 7.2 million, and on 2 October of the same year ECU 10 million.
These two sums are earmarked primarily for food aid, medical and health care and for improving the water supply in the refugee camps in the Tindof region of Algeria.
There, a total of 150 000 refugees are entirely dependent on international aid.
Because the planned referendum was postponed, ECHO has not taken any decisions yet on support for the efforts to secure the return of the refugees, although of course plans to that effect have long since been prepared and ECHO has also contacted the UNHCR on the subject, through its representative on the ground, with a view to coordinating further measures.
As I have said, we ourselves have a number of bilateral projects that we have been carrying out there for many years.
The second point I wished to make is that my country, the country holding the presidency, now has a force of 260 soldiers standing by for deployment in the Tindof region in the run-up to the referendum, in order to prepare for the referendum there and then, of course, ensure a smooth transition.
So we have these troops waiting - which of course costs a fortune - and we will have to keep them on stand-by.
However, and I come now to the third point you addressed, we already have an American mediator, appointed by the United Nations, and I must say that James Baker has achieved something positive in managing to create the preconditions for Morocco's agreement to this referendum.
So however much I am in favour of us Europeans playing a global political role, something we always advocate, I do not believe it is useful for us to intervene in questions where good mediators already exist, because any duplication here would mean different personalities being involved.
I do not think that is very useful in terms of resolving the issue in question.
That is what I wanted to say.
One final comment: I am of course responsible for development cooperation, and at the most recent Development Cooperation Council I myself raised for the first time the question of conflict-prevention in general as also being a development issue, and at that Council we were able to adopt conclusions to that effect for the first time. I believe that the initial development aid which we give, the many years of work, can be brought to nothing the moment a conflict breaks out.
So in principle I quite agree with you, but in cases where good mediators already exist - and I believe that James Baker was a good choice of personality and has achieved a great deal, which is also appreciated by the conflicting parties - we should primarily play a supportive role, which is what we are doing.
I am sorry you have had to get up so many times, but I just wanted to ask very briefly for greater clarification as to which specific political and humanitarian measures the Council is taking to ensure that the referendum on self-determination in the Sahara is free, transparent and democratic and to ensure that it is not postponed indefinitely, which would only be detrimental for one of the sides in the conflict.
Mr President, Mrs Sierra González, I have in fact just discussed the humanitarian aid that is being allocated through ECHO and also by many countries on a bilateral basis.
But let me point out once again that the overall process for creating peace in the Sahara is taking place under the auspices of the United Nations and that at present it is within that framework that the Member States make their material as well as their political contribution to overcoming these difficult problems.
In any case, I can assure you that the European Union continues to be present in this part of the African continent, which has of course had special relations with Europe for centuries and which is of the greatest strategic importance to this continent.
That is what I have to say in reply.
Mrs González Álvarez, let me say that I too consider this question at least as important before the referendum as after the referendum.
I said that a moment ago, for the difficulties will remain so long as we have not had a referendum at all.
As I have just tried to explain, we are of course fully aware of Morocco's attempts to delay matters here by constantly raising new questions.
But I believe that nevertheless at this point we must continue along that road.
On the basis of the identification lists that already exist, it is most likely that the outcome of the referendum will favour the Polisario.
There is, of course, the risk that Morocco will not accept that.
That means that if this whole process does not move forward by the end of January then, as the UN Secretary-General proposes in his latest report: 'Should the prospects for completing the identification process remain uncertain by that time, it would be my intention to revert to the Security Council and to ask my personal envoy - James Baker - to reassess the situation and the viability of the mandate of MINURSO'.
So if there is no success by the end of January, the question will also arise of whether the international community is interested in extending MINURSO's mandate.
Members of the American Congress will also ask whether this venture is of any use.
So other political considerations will perhaps also have to be taken into account at that point, although it is too soon to do so today.
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council for the numerous detailed replies and appreciate both the close contact maintained with the United Nations and the crucial role of James Baker.
However, while recognising the need to avoid duplication of effort, is the Council maintaining close and continuous contact with both the Moroccan authorities and the Polisario in order to press for the resolution of any difficulties which arise? As we have a particular interest it may be that, by maintaining that contact, we can support the process in a very constructive way.
Would the President-in-Office comment on our contacts with both parties?
Mr President, Mr Newens, of course the presidency is in full contact with the conflicting parties, but, as I said, on an extremely confidential basis.
I myself, as I said at the outset, told the UN Secretary-General that we were prepared at any time to conduct a joint mission either with him or with James Baker.
At the beginning of our presidency I thought perhaps the moment had come for that, but in view of these identification difficulties it was not feasible at that stage.
But let me say that the UN Security Council deliberately only extends the mandate of the MINURSO operation on a very short-term basis, normally by only six to eight weeks, so that it can monitor the progress made in the peace process at regular intervals and thus exert a certain amount of pressure on Morocco and put it on the spot.
That forces the conflicting parties to continue their efforts to resolve the peace process and keeps them on their toes.
So I really do still believe that we must continue along this road and, as the UN Secretary-General says himself, if it turns out not to be viable by the end of January, then we will probably have to seek other political solutions, which will have to be put up for discussion again and would of course also have to be discussed in the Council.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, I am disappointed at your answer to my question.
You said the presidency will support the measures and initiatives taken by Kofi Annan of the UN.
I had asked whether the troika is prepared to give active support to the UN's proposal that a referendum should be held.
You said that no measures had been taken and nor were any in prospect for the future.
I think we must plan for the referendum now - one year is not a very long time - and I hoped you would say that you had made provision for peace observers in the form of an EU contingent of 2 000 or 3 000 troops or of an infrastructure.
I think the people deserve that.
They have been living in refugee camps for years. This area has been occupied!
After the Spaniards left, the EU - Mr President, do not look at the clock yet, because this concerns my question, which was not answered.
My supplementary question is as follows: next year a new fisheries agreement is to be signed with Morocco.
Is the presidency prepared to lay down conditions here, for example that if Morocco does not allow the referendum to be held, there will not be a new fisheries agreement either?
Where is the frontier, at which degree of latitude does the coastal region belong to Morocco and at which to Western Sahara? That is my supplementary question.
Mr President, Mr Telkämper, I fear you were not here earlier, when I explained that in fact Austria, which currently holds the presidency, has had a contingent of 260 troops on stand-by for the past year, with the approval indeed of Parliament, so that they could be deployed as quickly as possible - in fact six months before the referendum - and make optimum preparations for that referendum.
Unfortunately, that did not prove possible because of the poor progress made with the identification process.
But I have already said all that.
Why was there no troika mission? As I said in my first statement, I myself have had extremely close contacts with the UN Secretary-General on this question since the last General Assembly.
After all, the UN is an institution that is recognised worldwide and which, moreover, really has done good work on this particular issue - I am thinking here of the special envoy, James Baker, whom I also referred to earlier.
We considered whether we should conduct a joint mission with the United Nations and with James Baker. At the time, the UN considered the time was not ripe.
I said we do not want to duplicate our activity, because that would achieve nothing, but wish to make a real contribution to resolving the question.
As regards the fisheries agreement, I must say that the next presidency will probably have to decide that.
It is too early to answer that question.
Thank you, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
I shall now close the discussion of this group of ten questions which have occupied 40 minutes of our Question Time.
As the author is not present, Question No 15 lapses.
Question No 16 by José Valverde López (H-1090/98)
Subject: Action by the Council to promote the use of permanent paper and protect consumer rights
The Council resolution of May 1989 on the promotion of books and reading stressed the importance of using permanent paper to prevent the continued publication of millions of books carrying within them the seeds of their self-destruction.
In November 1991 the Council and the culture ministers examined a report on the conservation of books using acid paper and the use of permanent paper.
What action has the Council taken to initiate the use of permanent paper in its sphere of competence and to promote it among the Member States and in the interests of consumer protection? I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mr Valverde Lopez's question.
Mr President, Mr Valverde López, let me reply as follows. Community measures in the cultural field come under Article 128 of the Treaty establishing the European Community.
That means the cultural sphere is no exception to the rule that the Council can only act on a proposal from the Commission. To date, the Council has received no proposals on the matter raised by the honourable Member in his question.
I thank the Council for its answer, but the issue of paper, the use of permanent paper and the creation of a European standard for the manufacture of permanent paper, its use in books and consumer protection are not cultural issues.
Rather, they relate to internal trade, raw materials and book marketing, which, then have a direct influence on cultural programmes.
For 12 years I have been trying to make the Council and the Commission aware of this issue.
I managed to have it placed on the agenda of the 1989 Culture Council and again in 1991, but it relates to the internal market.
The Council could also take measures on its own initiative regarding the use of this paper, for example, for its records.
For history to preserve them, these measures must be taken and we here at Parliament should do likewise.
Can you do anything to ensure that our concern for these issues is passed on to your successors, so that maybe we can do something about it within 10 years?
Thank you very much, Mr Valverde.
I hope that future election results will enable you to follow this matter as closely as before for a further five years, or at least allow you to see that it is successfully achieved.
Mrs Ferrero-Waldner, you have the floor.
Mr President, Mr Valverde López, of course the Council is aware of the importance of the conservation of books, which have until now been the primary medium for the transmission and dissemination of cultural matter.
That is all the more true in that today's books will of course become the collective memory of the next generation.
In the light of that, I am sure you will allow me to refer you to one of the basic principles of European Union action.
On the basis of the distribution of responsibilities among the various Community institutions laid down in the Treaty, it is for the Commission to make proposals which it believes could usefully be implemented.
We, that is the Council, take the view that it should be left to each institution to fulfil its obligations in the way it considers best, with a view to achieving the objectives it has set itself in the framework of a particular task.
Nonetheless, Mr Valverde López, I am happy to take up your suggestion and at least to pass it on to the Commission, since after hearing that you first raised the matter in 1989, I do of course appreciate your concern.
Question No 17 by Karl Habsburg-Lothringen (H-1094/98)
Subject: Implementation of the Dayton Agreement
How does the Council assess the implementation of the Dayton Agreement hitherto? I give the floor to Mrs Ferrero-Waldner to answer Mr Habsburg-Lothringen's question.
Mr President, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, in the past year Bosnia-Herzegovina has taken great strides forward.
The essential political and economic institutions are now assuming concrete form.
Important laws have also been adopted on foreign investment and on privatisation.
There have been substantial improvements in freedom of movement within the country.
The basic reform of the media is now under way, and that is helping to build up a democratic society.
At the most recent elections in September, a trend towards increasing pluralism and tolerance emerged.
The international community as a whole and the European Union in particular must, however, continue their efforts to bring about a genuinely lasting peace.
Much remains to be done.
Peace in Bosnia-Herzegovina still has feet of clay and would, unfortunately, not hold fast without the current international support.
There are three main risk factors that need to be addressed: the lack of integration between the ethnic groups, the need for a full and exact demarcation of the responsibilities of the state and of the regional entities, and the existence of party monopolies on the means of production.
When the phase of consolidation comes to an end, the next few years will be crucial for the strengthening of democracy.
At present, Bosnia-Herzegovina is one of the most heavily supported countries in the world.
The international aid, of which the EU continues to provide the lion's share, has reached its peak and will inevitably have to be reduced very soon.
Bosnia-Herzegovina must therefore use the remaining time to prepare itself to survive without foreign aid and to meet the challenge of transforming the economy in such a way as to create jobs and raise the standard of living.
At the same time, the local authorities will have to assume ever more responsibility.
The Peace Implementation Conference is being held in Madrid on 15 and 16 of this month and will examine the progress made in implementing the peace agreement.
It will have determined what still needs to be done to ensure that peace is maintained without outside assistance.
The Peace Implementation Conference, the PIC, will no doubt use the next, decisive phase to encourage the return of refugees and exiles, to strengthen Bosnia-Herzegovina from within and without, and to establish solid relations between the institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina and of Europe.
For the rest, the High Representative helped ensure that substantial progress was made in the Dayton peace process.
We must also highlight the positive role he plays as the final authority for interpreting the civil aspects of the agreement and as coordinator of the civil implementing measures.
Without his efforts and his authority over the past 12 months, we would have achieved much less progress.
Madam President-in-Office, thank you for your account of the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
I would like to put two brief questions.
The first concerns the refugee problem to which you referred briefly at the end.
Of course the refugee problem is also closely bound up with the corresponding legislation, not just in Bosnia-Herzegovina but also in the neighbouring countries.
For instance, I know that Croatia has already revoked certain laws relating to housing that was allocated to refugees for the long term but to which other refugees now want to return, and I do hope that there will soon be legislation in place in Bosnia-Herzegovina that allows them to do so.
Do you know whether there are any indications that the legal situation will be adjusted accordingly?
With reference to the countries that are co-signatories to the Dayton Accord - which also include Croatia - my second question is this: what do you think the situation in Croatia is at present, and what must Croatia do so that the PHARE programme can be fully implemented there again and so that Croatia is able to follow an orderly European course?
Mr President, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, on your question about the legal situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, I have to say that unfortunately not everything was done that should have been done.
That is why, in particular at the Peace Implementation Conference, the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Schüssel, criticised the poor cooperation by the Bosnian authorities on this question as well as on the question of the return of refugees.
He said that the return home of Bosnian citizens, especially of course those from minority groups, is still being hampered by a lack of willingness to cooperate at all administrative levels and in particular by the generally poor security situation.
He also expressed disappointment at the lack of progress in this area and hoped to see substantial improvements in 1999.
We must manage to ensure that a critical mass of minority-group refugees return, so that this becomes an irreversible process.
That is the heart of the matter.
On the question of Croatia and the PHARE programme, let me tell you that Croatia must fulfil the conditions laid down under the regional concept if it is to be fully eligible for the PHARE programme and if it is to be included in the negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement as a preliminary step towards a Europe agreement.
As I am sure you are aware, as early as April 1997 the Council adopted an overall strategy, what is known as the regional concept, for relations with the western Balkans, namely Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania.
In an endeavour to consolidate peace and stability in the region, to contribute to its reconstruction and in particular to support its European aspirations, it was decided that the EU would progressively build up its relations with these countries too.
To that end, as you will know, the European Union laid down political and economic conditions that must be fulfilled with a view to the attainment firstly of autonomous trade preferences, then of membership of PHARE, and finally of treaty relations.
The Council is monitoring the progress on fulfilment of these conditions on a regular basis, and adopted its most recent conclusions on the subject on 9 November.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, many thanks for the expertise with which you have answered not just this question but all our questions over the past six months.
Nevertheless, let me make one critical observation, addressed not to you personally but to the Council.
I regard the term 'western Balkans' as a most unfortunate one.
It is a quite artificial concept and refers to something that has never really existed.
Croatia was never Balkan, Macedonia is Balkan. There never really was a 'western Balkans', and it is a totally artificial concept.
I tend to believe that we should develop a kind of democratic, positive domino theory and stabilise one country after another.
If we want to stabilise Bosnia-Herzegovina, we must first stabilise Croatia, and as far as the PHARE programme and the trade and cooperation agreement are concerned we cannot rank it lower than, say, Albania.
There is no objective reason whatsoever for doing so.
I believe that the Council should rethink these criteria and try to break through Croatia's isolation, since no progress can be achieved through isolation.
Mr President, Mr Posselt, let me answer as follows.
I believe the name western Balkans derives from the idea that we need a regional concept.
Perhaps one can follow your interpretation and say that it never existed historically.
But one can certainly also interpret it positively by saying that we need to create prospects for the entire region, and in that respect this is a positive approach.
At any rate, I can tell you that the European Union is firmly resolved to achieve full implementation of the Dayton Accord, and also to get all the forces concerned to declare their support for its implementation.
Of course, that is also closely bound up with the question of what more can be done in Croatia.
May I also say that the Peace Implementation Conference in particular has continually committed Croatia to creating certain conditions, with a view in particular to promoting the safe return of the refugees.
You will know that since the expiry of the UN transitional administration's mandate in eastern Slavonia - i.e. Danube and Theiss - violent attacks and bureaucratic harassment against Serbs have unfortunately led to a continuous wave of emigration, mainly to Bosnia and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, but also to Western Europe.
Sadly, we have to say that it was only as a result of sustained international pressure that Croatia finally adopted an acceptable and comprehensive plan for the return of the refugees.
Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how that plan is implemented.
A while ago I quoted Foreign Minister Schüssel, who took part in yesterday's PIC conference in Madrid, and unfortunately I have to say that even a country that has always been very well-disposed towards Croatia, namely my own country Austria, has had to voice criticism, because there was simply not enough headway being made on this issue.
Regrettably, the international community also greeted President Tudjman's speech at the HDZ Congress of 21 February with strong criticism, deploring both its tone and content as clearly inconsistent with the undertakings under the Dayton Accord.
That is why I do not take the view that certain EU circles are systematically pursuing a policy hostile to Croatia, but believe that Croatia itself has very far to go before it fulfils all the objective criteria which have been laid down, knowing of course that some government members are more open here than a number of others.
Thank you, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
Since we have now come to the end of the time set aside for questions to the Council, Questions Nos 18 to 45 will receive written answers.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the last time Mrs Ferrero-Waldner will be here to answer questions to the Council.
Let me thank her for the attention, rigour and care she has shown during the five part-sessions we have held - we did not manage a sixth - during this half of the year. And on behalf of the presidency, I would like to thank her for her attention, rigour, willingness to communicate and spirit of debate, and for the complementary nature of the institutions that Question Time represents in terms of the relations between the Council and Parliament.
Thank you very much, Mrs Ferrero-Waldner.
Given the time of year, allow me to wish you a Merry Christmas with your family and a happy New Year on the Mediterranean, as I know how much you love the Mediterranean, that being just one of many things we have in common.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Human rights in the Union (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on human rights in the European Union.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Schaffner on a very fine report to which the Green Group can lend their support.
I should also like to draw my colleagues' attention to Amendment No 58 relating to public access to official records.
Such a principle, when it functions properly and protects the source, is an effective weapon with which to combat fraud, giving the public, as well as politicians and the media, the right to scrutinise, to access information and to exercise democratic control.
Had such an arrangement existed, the Commission's shortcomings, for instance, would have been discovered much sooner, or might never have arisen.
It is gratifying that the recognition of homosexual partnerships found support in committee.
I hope that this will contribute towards finally putting an end to discrimination against homosexual couples in some Member States and EU institutions.
In the free market era in which we live, the protection of trade union rights, including the right to strike, is very important for people as well as for democracy, and this is also highlighted in the report.
We are also concerned about the large number of databanks which is constantly growing. A source of particular concern is the Echelon system, which we regard as totally unacceptable.
The Swedish members of the Green Group are definitely voting against the amendment relating to the liberalisation of drugs, as well as the one that is critical of the right to free abortions.
Mr President, Commissioner, every year, like a time-honoured ritual, the report on the respect for human rights in the European Union is brought before the House.
As 1998 was the year of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it was important that the report should be responsible and credible.
Indeed, this is precisely what our colleague Anne-Marie Schaffner aimed to do. And, as occurs every year, a large number of amendments have been tabled, some of which we feel are irrelevant and highly ideological, with no real connection to the issue of human rights.
Our position on this report will therefore depend on whether they are adopted or rejected by the House.
However, I must draw attention to the importance of Amendments Nos 35, 36 and 37, tabled by our colleagues Mrs Colombo Svevo and Mrs de Esteban Martin, on behalf of the PPE group.
In general, we support the amendments tabled by that group, as well as those tabled by the rapporteur.
In truth, it is clear that the issue of human rights, which should be a matter that unites us, is seen in different lights depending on the various political persuasions.
Moreover, I find it quite strange, even amusing, that the same people who are hurling abuse at General Pinochet are praising Fidel Castro, who has ten times as many deaths on his conscience.
Those who claim to be driving out alleged right-wing extremism never show any interest in left-wing extremism.
Carlos, who we know was paid by Ceaucescu, was by no means innocent, no more than Bader and his gang.
Yet it is true that some people in this House have been guilty of sympathy towards these terrorists.
They admired Mao during the cultural revolution, which cost the Chinese people the small matter of 10 million lives.
And the readers of a major French evening newspaper found it hysterical to read the front page headline 'Phnom Penh freed', when the Communist Pol Pot seized the Khmer capital.
Some defenders of human rights should bring their behaviour into line with their professed passion for human rights.
Mr President, Mrs Schaffner's report paints a clear picture of the human rights situation in the European Union.
Such rights cannot just remain declarations of principle but must be part of daily reality because, as the report shows, human rights should of course be invoked in extreme circumstances but should also belong to everyday life and become integrated into our consciousness.
Let me give a few examples: women's rights must be protected by combating sexual abuse and violence, but also by finally ensuring equal access to the world of work and the right to fair pay; children's rights should be directed against sexual exploitation, but also against child labour and towards the right to education; the same applies to the disabled, who need not only proper social and health-care assistance, in order to feel equal and fully integrated into society, but also the right to work.
There is one thing missing, however, when we speak of the right to life.
Reference is rightly made in this context to combating the death penalty, terrorism and euthanasia, but the problem of abortion has been overlooked.
I do not of course want to conduct an anti-abortion crusade here and now, but quite frankly I find it rather too much that the European Parliament goes so far as to deplore the fact that certain Member States forbid or merely limit information concerning voluntary termination of pregnancy, as stated in paragraph 56 of the report.
The right to life and the right to abortion cannot be put on the same footing.
In a report which quite correctly attaches so much importance to protecting the rights of all human beings, especially the most defenceless and disadvantaged, a few words should be devoted to protecting the most defenceless of all human beings: embryos.
I would conclude by saying that many pregnancies would not be terminated if the Member States and the EU as such were to offer women alternatives to abortion, in other words adequate economic and social support and a proper policy of information and prevention.
Mr President, congratulating the rapporteur is a matter of course.
However, I feel that the balancing act undertaken by Mrs Schaffner deserves not only our respect, but also our support.
Moreover, I think that this report will be enthusiastically adopted, because it aims to draw attention to the rights of those who are not generally very well defended, notably foreigners.
It is true that the obligation to respect the Geneva conventions and their additional protocols is extremely important.
The report highlights the need for the right of asylum and the right to temporary protection due to the tragedies that have occurred in our own continent in the last few years, and these issues fully deserve our support.
Drawing up a report on human rights, which enables us to put our own house in order before giving lectures to the other nations of the world, is a valuable exercise.
The problem is that to a certain extent it makes us slaves to reaching a degree of consensus.
I have tabled an amendment; the Radical group has tabled an amendment, and it is unlikely that they will be adopted.
Prostitutes, both female and male - at the moment, the number of male prostitutes is increasing almost as fast as that of female prostitutes -, deserve to have legislation and regulations put in place to protect their freedom and their dignity.
This does not exist in all countries, but should be seriously considered.
Another issue is that of secularism and respect for religion.
With regard to new religions, it seems that there is a disturbing confusion between the criminal code and obvious infringements of the law, and the witch-hunt that is currently being organised against them.
In my view, homosexuals and drug users, who are currently still considered to be criminals, are also people whose rights should be defended.
Unfortunately, I do not have time to discuss this.
Mr President, I shall try to set out a few thoughts for the benefit of the many Members still in the Chamber.
Traditionally, we publish a report each year on human rights in which we look at the situation elsewhere in the world and a report in which we look at ourselves, in which we ask how human rights are shaping up within the Union. Traditionally too, Mr President, we always find it easier to agree on the report which looks at the rest of the world than on our view of ourselves.
I hope it will be different tomorrow, and that we can be unanimous tomorrow in supporting Mrs Schaffner's report, because I think we shall only be taken seriously if we are brave enough to take a critical look at the situation within the Union.
That would be progress compared with other experiences we have had.
But thinking about it, I find there is often something artificial about this division into human rights elsewhere and human rights within the Union.
It is not really good enough any more.
I have the feeling that, very often, the crux of the matter is the confrontation between the prosperous part of the world in which we live and the rest, and that human rights violations are increasingly concentrated around that confrontation.
Mr Pradier has already spoken of these things, of asylum and migration.
It is of course logical that when you live in a part of the world which is so outstandingly prosperous compared to the rest that people will come to you.
That may cause problems, but it is hardly surprising.
When we cannot grant their requests, these people do not all go back but acquire the status of illegals, people who do not actually exist.
Well, if we are looking at human rights violations, then once again we should take a look at this group.
These people are exploited as a result of their illegal situation, and that is wrong.
It also happens, and we have discussed such cases, that people do indeed have to go back and are forcibly returned to their country of origin.
Then too, unfortunate things often happen.
But this difference between rich and poor has other consequences as well.
One need only think of trafficking in human beings, and in women, a specific form of this.
We are fortunate this evening in having with us the Commissioner who has put in a great deal of effort on this subject - and has just done so again, and I congratulate her - which is a very important one to be considered, especially this evening when we are discussing human rights.
Lastly, Mr President, a word of appreciation for all those NGOs which work so hard on these issues - not just Amnesty, the UNHCR as well, and ECRE, and I am no doubt forgetting quite a few more.
It is good that we increasingly pay serious attention to the reports and accounts that emanate from the area of these NGOs.
I think that is a good thing, and once again I must thank all the people who keep these NGOs going, often at no personal benefit to themselves.
I think our policy, our greater effectiveness, is thanks to them.
Mr President, once again we are dealing with the annual European Parliament report on the respect for human rights in the Union, and I first of all welcome the fact that the report continues to consolidate social and economic rights, as well as cultural rights, as an integral part of fundamental rights.
With this in mind, I would like to draw attention to a contribution that our group made to the report in requesting that regional languages be recognised and promoted, and that the Member States ratify the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
We cannot forget that we are debating this annual report on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is the indisputable framework of reference within which all national and international institutions and bodies should conduct their public action.
Nor do I want to forget the commendable work undertaken by the various non-governmental organisations - to which my colleague referred in the previous speech - in fighting for human rights to be established and respected in our societies.
The constant work of these organisations in criticising and making demands has contributed greatly to ensuring that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is better applied.
Finally, I would like to discuss a point that was included in the report on the initiative of our group, that is, the need to set up a high authority, which is independent from public authorities and which citizens can approach directly, that is responsible for ensuring that all of the security forces respect codes of ethics.
The existence of this high authority would mean that, in cases such as those that took place a few weeks ago in Melilla, where two local policemen were arrested, accused of raping a Moroccan woman, or in Toulouse, where a Maghrebi citizen was killed by the local police, the responsibility of the security forces could be better determined.
Mr President, when we talk about human rights we have to talk about the right for everybody to be treated equally, both before the law and in society itself.
This is an extremely important report because the European Union has to look at its own faults and problems before it can actually point the finger at other parts of the world.
Each year we have reports in Parliament on this issue but the rights of certain sections of society continue to be ignored.
For example, gays and lesbians are still discriminated against in many European countries because of their sexual orientation.
Women, despite the fact that they make up over 50 % of the population, are still discriminated against.
When we look at the legal systems in many countries, we find the actual application of law is unacceptable.
In my own country, Ireland, we have special criminal courts which have been condemned by the UN Human Rights Committee. They are still being used, not only for what was justified as terrorist offences but also for ordinary offences.
We have the situation in some European Union Member States where people can be detained for very long periods of time without being charged.
This goes against the European Convention on Human Rights.
We have to look at these issues and decide that these countries should not be allowed to operate in this way.
Everyone should respect international covenants on human rights and each Member State in the European Union has serious questions to answer as regards the application of law.
Mr President, human rights are without doubt the pride of our century, as emerges clearly if we revisit certain questions which punctuate human history, from the one over which Socrates pondered during the night preceding his execution: 'What is just? To respect the law?', to that of St Augustine: 'What distinguishes the State from a well-organised criminal association?', to the one arising from the Nuremberg Trials in the middle of this century, when the Nazi criminals defended themselves by saying 'We were applying the law'.
'That is precisely why we are sentencing you, ' replied the judges.
So what is just? Half-way through our century, the Declaration of 1948 gave an answer, not so much in its articles as in the preamble: 'recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world'.
The European Union has a link with human rights; its true source of pride is neither the euro nor the market, but human dignity.
But it is precisely when re-reading the preamble to the 1948 Declaration that we realise that a turning-point with tragic consequences has been reached: the entire theory of human rights is liable to collapse like a sandcastle if we do not know who is the holder of these rights.
In other words, here at the very heart of the Union, the ultimate question needs to be asked, one which is more worrying than those of Socrates, St Augustine and Nuremberg. The ultimate question is this: who is man, who is a member of the human family, and in what does dignity consist?
Surely humanity's most desperate moments - marginalisation, handicap, birth, death, moments when we have been embryos or on our deathbeds - are those when the fundamental question arises: who is man, who is the holder of human rights? It is therefore regrettable that the report, admirable in other respects, refers to the death penalty but not to the death sentence imposed on those who can only be presumed innocent; it refers to children but not to the youngest of them all.
We shall therefore attempt to improve the text, so that it may offer protection to all and receive the vote of as many Members as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Gradin, this year the European Parliament's annual report on respect for human rights in the European Union is of particular significance.
After all, this year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I am particularly pleased that on the occasion of this anniversary we have today been able to deal directly with human rights inside and outside the Union.
This also makes it clear to the public that the Members of the European Parliament demand respect for human rights throughout the world.
The effect of this signal must not be underestimated.
Too often, Member States are themselves accused of violating human rights within their own borders, while at the same time trying to compel their trading partners to observe them by including human rights clauses in their trade agreements.
In this report we also make it clear that the personal rights of vulnerable and socially excluded persons are being violated.
It is in accordance with the intellectual tradition of Europe that the European Parliament, despite all hostility even from its own ranks, will not allow itself to be deterred from pointing out the flaws in our democracy.
I therefore consider it to be particularly important that the report on human rights deals with the situation of refugees and foreigners, children and minority groups.
In general they have no voting rights, and cannot therefore be involved in electing government.
If they are subjected to human rights violations these often go unpunished.
We then say it is their own fault, they themselves are to blame, they do not fit in.
These are the excuses that are given all too often for extreme incidents.
But whether people are foreign, whether they are normal or not, they are still human beings, they still have rights and they therefore deserve respect.
It is precisely this that our report aims to bring home to the governments of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, can the right to life be compared with the right to holidays?
Is there not a difference in terms of dignity between fundamental political rights and economic and cultural ones? Nowadays, human rights are part of the diplomatic dialogue, but in the form of fundamental rights, such as the right to a fair trial, to protection of life and limb, the right to vote and to equality before the law.
Economic rights are based on finite resources, and should be regarded as a worthwhile goal rather than an indispensable requirement for the majority of the world's population.
In some EU countries, it is hypocritical to claim that everyone has a right to work.
When the UN Declaration was drawn up, the Soviet Union tried to confuse the various rights in order to conceal from people the fact that they were being deceived as to their basic rights.
Such tactics threaten to undermine the very foundations of the rule of law.
When economic rights are used to conceal shortcomings and vagueness in promoting political rights, then we have reached a sorry state of affairs.
Political rights such as democracy, freedom of expression, property rights and freedom of trade are preconditions for the development of enterprise, employment and well-being - goals we are all striving to achieve.
Human rights have nothing whatsoever to do with paid holidays.
Let us go back to the basics: it began with John Locke and his concept of human rights based on life, freedom and property. This was translated by the Americans into life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and taken up by the United Nations in its call for life, liberty and security of the person.
Abortion, cohabitation laws for homosexuals and the requirements they have to comply with in order to adopt children - all these are matters for national family legislation.
We therefore intend to vote against discrimination, but we shall abstain on family issues which are the concern of individual Member States.
Even though we are only able to offer very limited support for this report, we should like to praise Mrs Schaffner warmly for undertaking so competently what is a virtually impossible task.
Mr President, human rights belong to all of us.
That is what we think, anyway.
Unfortunately, very often this is just talk.
We have already heard that, as far as homosexuals are concerned for example, not everyone would necessarily agree with us.
In the same way I would ask us to look in our own backyards regarding the fate of the Romanies in Europe.
There is room for improvement in every country in this respect.
Their human rights are not being fully respected.
Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam will allow us to take action to produce a framework directive prohibiting discrimination, and a directive to combat racism.
This would be the sort of concrete action our citizens will expect of the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
At the Vienna summit, which debated Article 13, great hopes were also laid on Parliament in this connection.
Mr President, if today we are discussing the annual reports on human rights in the context of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then it is not without good reason that the issue of improved institutional and legal protection of human rights within the European Union also features more prominently than ever on the agenda.
This question was made topical both by the High-Level Group and by the Austrian Presidency, and now also in this House at the initiative of my group.
The Treaty of Amsterdam has admittedly brought about some progress in the legal protection of human rights within the European Union, as several people have mentioned today.
Article 13 in particular could represent a certain amount of progress despite all the procedural obstacles that it incorporates.
At a conference in Vienna this article was described as a sleeping child.
I believe it is our task to wake it.
However, even the traditional human rights are not yet firmly enshrined in the law of the European Union.
This is particularly upsetting and alarming as the Union is taking on more and more tasks that are particularly likely to affect fundamental rights, especially in the area of the third pillar, for example the development of a joint asylum and immigration policy, joint measures to combat organised crime, new monitoring procedures and EU-wide police and judicial cooperation.
These policies must be accompanied and restricted by fundamental and human rights that are based directly on EU law.
As we know from our own difficult experiences, a policy area can only be established for the long term if corresponding institutional guarantees are provided.
We are therefore proposing in an amendment that each Member of the European Commission with responsibility for freedom, security and justice should also in future be very much responsible for ensuring respect for human rights within the European Union, and that the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia that was set up in Vienna should be extended to become a general monitoring centre for human rights.
Mr President, Commissioner, we fully agree on the need for the Member States to strengthen their provisions and practices in terms of the respect of human rights in the European Union.
Similarly we do not accept the idea that we should throw stones at others when we ourselves live in glass houses.
When it comes to human rights we should not forget or underestimate the importance of social rights.
The rapporteur does admittedly refer to them, but the references seem to us to be inadequate.
In Europe we need to abandon the defensive position we have adopted towards social rights, as if they were excessive and as if globalisation and competitiveness meant that they need to be 'realistically reviewed'.
Two positive points on two proposals: the proposal that 1999 should be the European Year for fighting violence against women, and the proposal to step up the fight against international networks and traffickers in clandestine immigration.
Finally, talking about particular cases of glasshouses, we hope that Portugal will stop contributing to the incidents of torture and inhuman treatment of people in prison or in police custody carried out by members of the police or armed forces.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Prison conditions
The next item is the report (A4-0369/98) by Mr Pradier, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on prison conditions in the European Union: improvements and alternative penalties.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am very honoured to be speaking to you today, as I think that the Council, the Commission and Parliament will all have to take important decisions on the subject that we are discussing.
Indeed, this subject is not incredibly popular.
It is no good for winning votes.
Nevertheless, let me tell you that today, at this very moment, at 9 p.m., 400 000 of our fellow European citizens are in prison.
If only some of them have the misfortune, or perhaps the fortune, to have a partner, one or two children, or elderly parents, that means that between one and a half and two million Europeans are directly affected, at this very moment, by prison conditions.
Today, prison is a necessary evil.
Its role involves depriving a certain number of criminals of their freedom, that is, its punitive role, and this must obviously be accompanied by preparation for release, rehabilitation and re-education.
Is it worth saying to you, ladies and gentlemen, that European prisons are not fulfilling that role or are doing so very badly, apart from in a few countries, which we will have the opportunity of praising?
Who is in prison? I will tell you who is in prison.
There is no room for fairy stories here.
Those who are in prison are guilty and have been convicted, and therefore maybe it is a good thing.
But who are they?
They are poor people, and most of them are below the poverty line.
They are illiterate, or obviously poorly educated.
They are people with no ethical, personal or family points of reference, they are also unemployed, and were victims of crime before becoming the perpetrators.
Finally, they are people whose physical and psychological health is seriously compromised.
Of those currently in prison, 95 % fulfill at least three of these criteria.
It is true that the prisons are overcrowded.
They are overcrowded because we are giving out increasingly heavy sentences.
We have discussed the need to build prisons.
Maybe we should build prisons, and that may even be a necessity, not in order to increase the numbers, but in order to provide better living conditions for those who inhabit them.
There are two or three aspects that I see as important.
The first is that we should give more importance to alternative penalties to prison.
Spending two years in prison makes no sense.
There, a petty, small-time criminal will meet big-time criminals who know how to turn him into one of them.
In order to prevent this, some countries have been able to use alternative sentences, community service and day fines to provide a punishment that is more efficient than imprisonment.
A second aspect, which I consider to be at least as important as the first, is compensation.
When a criminal has caused injury to someone, compensation should not involve the State. No-one cares about the State, in the same way as no-one cares about prisoners.
On the contrary, direct compensation involves establishing a specific link between the criminal and his victim, and this is probably one of the issues on which we should make progress.
I would like to draw your attention to two aspects that are going to be subject to amendments.
The first is that today there are still some Member States where consuming an illegal substance is enough to send you to prison.
This is wrong, and we need to rectify that situation.
On this issue, I think that the meeting in the Commission, which was extremely interesting and lively, enabled us to reach a relative consensus.
The second aspect is the privatisation of institutions.
The institutional violence that comes with the deprivation of freedom is and must remain within the domain of the State.
It is the State's authority that must ensure discipline, order and security within institutions.
Some countries have felt that it is a good idea to dissociate themselves from this responsibility and to delegate it to private companies.
There is no doubt that I am in favour of private enterprise, but this is a matter for the State, and it should not let go of it.
In any case, keeping it for the State is the noble thing to do.
Mr President, time is so short and Mr Pradier's report so well drafted, so rational and so far-sighted that I shall make just two points.
First of all, it is true that this is not an electoral debate, but there is one mistaken idea here which must be rebutted, namely the idea that throwing people into prison can somehow solve their problems and ours as well.
Nothing could be more incorrect because, my dear Pierre, you take for granted what cannot be taken for granted: a large number of prison inmates are not guilty but innocent, and are placed in preventive detention for unacceptably long periods.
What happens is that those who suffer this misfortune - as well as those who really are guilty - simply learn in prison how to be bigger and better criminals, because many of our prisons have now become colleges of crime, where people learn how to be stronger, cleverer, sharper criminals who are more of a danger to society.
My second point, Pierre, is that we do not have two societies here, comprising those in prison and those on the outside.
You have rightly given figures for all the European citizens who are in some way affected by the problem because they are related to prison inmates.
The European people should be told once and for all that rehabilitating prisoners who are currently incarcerated, in order to reintegrate them into civilian life, benefits all of us, benefits society and helps to make society more fair and just.
Mr President, in its descriptive aspect this report has two sides.
It looks for clues, explanations and causes, and it denounces the problem.
However, when it moves on to concrete proposals it goes off the rails slightly because it goes into fields which are not part of its remit.
Any social, political or economic argument could be invoked for defending the decriminalisation of the use of illegal drugs.
Now the argument is that decriminalisation would help to relieve the overloaded prison population - and that is not acceptable because that is another debate that belongs elsewhere.
The media only react sporadically to the weaknesses and flaws in the system when there is some spectacular event such as a violent riot or when a famous person is imprisoned.
But rarely do they dig deeper to comment on the alarming rates of HIV contamination, or outbreaks of hepatitis or TB.
Rarely do they see prison overpopulation as dramatic, and its effects on bad sanitation, the prevalence of violence, the few attempts at social rehabilitation or the monitoring of young people, mothers, the mentally ill, alcoholics or drug abusers in prison.
Nor are we told the number of suicides that are covered up, of people lost in the despair of the very pits of human dignity.
As a Portuguese, I am embarrassed by the fact that Portugal tops the table for abysmal prison conditions.
On 15 August this year Portugal had a prison population of 14 592 including those sentenced, on remand or those who could not be classified.
The capacity of the 52 prisons in Portugal is only 10 763.
When we think that 4 111 of those prisoners are being held on remand, many of them for periods longer than is desirable or stipulated by the law, then we must agree with the rapporteur when he talks about abuse of remand by the judicial system as one of the main causes of prison overpopulation, a measure that ought to be an exception but has actually turned into the rule.
Mr President, our colleague Mr Pradier has presented a report which naturally deserves very serious attention, since the subject in question is an important one.
As we debate it, I should like to focus on one specific point, which is paragraph 35 of his report.
The original text states one reason for not putting someone behind bars, namely overcrowding.
I have to say that in my country at least, and I think probably in most countries, you have to have chalked up quite a few offences and been fairly wild before you end up in prison.
You have to have committed a good many human rights violations.
I do not think you can say that overcrowding is a reason not to put someone in prison.
If you say that drug addicts should not be in prison just for using drugs, I would agree that that makes sense, although not because of overcrowding, but for other reasons.
It would seem very strange to me to use inappropriate methods for rehabilitating people.
The original text gave overcrowding as the reason, as do some amendments, which I find very odd.
The only amendment which does not mention this is that by Mrs Colombo Svevo and her associates.
This simply says that a drugs user should not be in prison simply because he is a user.
That is consistent with a position which we in the Netherlands have long maintained: a drugs user is primarily a patient, and the dealer is a major criminal who must be severely punished.
So I think it is logical to find dealers in prison, but not someone who has committed no criminal offence and has simply smoked or used drugs.
Even so, the prisons are of course full of people who have used drugs or still do so.
That is because they subsequently committed other criminal acts.
But that is quite another matter. I should like to have seen this distinction clearly made in the report.
I should also like to have seen an answer to the question of how you can keep a prison or a prison wing free of drugs.
These are important issues.
Regrettably absent is any penetrating description of what in fact is and must remain a national responsibility and of what we can do as the European Union.
What we can do is primarily, I think, to pool our experience and so on, but I do not think we should be drawing up European legislation on prisons.
I do not think, culturally, that that is the right thing to do.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes Mr Pradier's report and his proposals for improvements in prison conditions in the Union.
We agree with the rapporteur that more attention should be paid to the approximately 400 000 persons who are in prison in the different Member States.
A strong effort is needed to achieve the rehabilitation of prisoners and particular attention should be paid to respect for human rights.
Compliance with the standard rules for treatment of prisoners adopted by the Council of Europe must be ensured.
This is also outlined in the 1997 report on respect for human rights in the European Union.
With the Amsterdam Treaty the European Union will have the possibility to approximate rules relating to prison conditions.
This includes a possibility to strengthen cooperation concerning the enforcement of decisions. It could also include early or conditional releases and integration of prisoners.
This is important to ensure equal treatment of prisoners within the Union.
These possibilities for stronger cooperation between the Member States in the field of prison conditions are one important component for the achievement of a high level of safety within the area of freedom, security and justice that we all - Parliament, the Commission and the Council - now have to implement.
The Commission will consider this report very carefully in the context of its post-Amsterdam powers in this field.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0469/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0533/98-96/0161(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees (Rapporteur: Mrs Kuhn).
Mr President, I would like to congratulate my colleague, Annemarie Kuhn, whose last major report in Parliament this may well be.
She has followed it through from the beginning and we have now reached a point where we can truly say that we have been mindful of the old principle 'caveat emptor'.
We have given the buyer/consumer appropriate access to the means of redress, of complaint and of information in this matter.
There has been a very sustained lobby of this Parliament by people saying that the common position is fine as it stands, that there should be no change and that it would be very tiresome at this stage if we had any sort of codecision phase.
Of course, if there was a codecision phase, it is perfectly logical that it would take longer.
However, it might also make some marginal improvements to what is now a fundamentally good piece of legislation, which has set a new balance in the relationship between producers and consumers.
The bulk of the amendments moved by the rapporteur do, within that margin, improve this directive.
I particularly commend those deleting sections relating to the consumer's obligation to notify any fault within two months, because there is a clear problem of practicability here; the renewal of guarantees for any goods supplied to replace faulty goods, because obviously the same conditions should apply; and the removal of Article 3(5) of the common position, which prevents the consumer having the contract of sale rescinded if a fault is minor, because a minor fault might be repeated time after time throughout the guarantee period.
I have rather more doubts with regard to the situation in the United Kingdom, about one or two of the other amendments, particularly those which allow a consumer to suspend instalment payments unilaterally in any circumstances, which may result in difficulties in some cases.
There is also the Liberal Group's amendment which would establish joint liability between the producer and the seller who has ceased trading or does not know of the claimed lack of conformity.
If this is passed, it will provide us with an opportunity for further thought and reflection at the codecision stage.
Finally, I would like to mention the amendment that I have moved with Mrs Jackson and a number of other Members right across the spectrum of Parliament.
This concerns the exemption of auction houses which are selling by auction where a price is fixed only by that auction, and usually acting as agents for antiques and works of fine art.
Our Amendment 34 on this matter, which I hope will be allowed, relates specifically to some provisions which are already in the common position.
I commend that to the House.
Mr President, may I begin by thanking Mrs Kuhn most warmly for the truly loyal cooperation which she has always given.
I mean that most sincerely, and we shall miss her as a colleague when she is no longer part of this House and no longer fighting the good fight on consumer affairs.
Secondly, there is the question of lobbies.
I think I have had less trouble over this than Mr Whitehead.
Looking at lobby activities, I simply note that today, for example, an amendment is being discussed on the subject of guarantees for consumer goods and that the amendment was put down by Sotheby's, no less.
On the question of lobbies, I do not think we can claim to be whiter than white here.
Our group will be supporting this amendment, but I still do not think it is necessary.
What we are seeking with this directive is a stronger position for the consumer, who in the internal market is increasingly shopping across borders for luxury consumer goods.
It means that when you buy something you can count on having guarantees and that you are no longer dependent on the manufacturer's warranty alone, but have guarantees for a period of two years in the case of new products and one year in the case of second-hand products.
There is a restriction on this, and that restriction is set out in Article 3(3), which determines the form of recompense if something is wrong with a consumer product.
It means that if a cheap second-hand car with a one-year guarantee is a car in the 500-guilder price range, then in all fairness and reasonableness the form of recompense is deemed disproportionate if you ask for a further year's guarantee on it.
Anyone concerned about this will, I think, have found a number of things in this directive which certainly regulate the consumer's rights effectively but also avoid problems for the retailer, the seller.
Something new in this directive is the reversal of the burden of proof.
I am happy at the way in which this has been formulated.
I should like to raise another point, namely small and medium-sized enterprises.
We have regulated quite a few things for small businesses through the right of redress against the hard-pressed retailer. This is an amendment tabled by our group.
What we do not want for the small business is that the sometimes hard-pressed retailer is forced to hand out lists of service points in the various countries every time a customer buys something.
We do not think that is necessary.
If you buy a nice Philips or Siemens appliance or whatever, the manufacturer himself does that and the purchaser then has that list.
But you must not expect to get it everywhere.
I think rather too much has been demanded here.
I have some reservations about Article 3, the nub of the legislation, and Article 5.
I am concerned because I was told that I would be undermining the rights of the consumer.
What I have done is to table an amendment to Article 3(3) on behalf of the PPE Group.
I have also tabled an amendment to delete Article 3(5).
The point at issue is the difference between 'a reasonable time' and 'without any significant inconvenience' and 'an appropriate period having regard to...'
I still feel that my 'appropriate' is stronger than 'a reasonable time' as required in this very poor wording of the legislation.
I would ask the Socialist Group, if they are willing to support us on deleting Article 3(5), to take on board the other point as well.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our group does not think that we succeeded at the first reading in reaching a proper balance between the interests of the consumer on the one hand and that of sellers and manufacturers on the other.
We are therefore asking for thought to be given to the consequences which the positions of the Commission, the Council and Parliament may bring.
We have thus redrafted a number of amendments, most importantly concerning second-hand goods.
We had favoured excluding them altogether, but since this is no longer possible at this stage in the procedure, we are proposing a mandatory limitation for a period of one year, with the option of further exemptions based on the individual contract.
Secondly, the Council text on ways of redress is unclear.
No one benefits from a woolly legal text, except the lawyers.
We think our text indicates a clear hierarchy and is expressed in clearer language.
Lastly, in a limited number of cases we are advocating that the manufacturer rather than the seller should be liable.
The proposed legislation gives enormous protection to the consumer, but no one seems to be concerned about the same consumer who buys something abroad and cannot then go back to the seller or shopkeeper.
If a better balance cannot be found, then the Liberal Group will be voting against.
After all, what good does it do the consumer to have an excessive level of protection, if in the end he probably has to pay for it himself through higher prices?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we in the Green Group would have liked to establish even broader consumer protection at first reading.
We had requested a five-year guarantee period in order to increase the incentive to produce durable products, as it should be clear that we need to embody the principle of durability in consumer protection also.
We therefore regret that there was not a majority for this at the time.
But I think that a two-year guarantee period is at least better than six months, as is the current situation in Germany, which unfortunately ranks lowest in this area.
I think that it is fundamentally important that we should give consumers greater protection here, and this includes providing the consumer with this guarantee.
However, it should not lead to a situation a minor defect is viewed as a further violation of the principle of durability.
For example, if there is a small stain on a carpet it should not mean that the whole carpet must be disposed of, which would also not guarantee that the environmental aspect would be taken into account.
We also consider joint liability of the manufacturer and the seller to be fundamental, and this really must be included in this directive. Of course it is also essential that the period of obligation to notify a fault is not reduced, so that the rights of the buyer and the consumer in this area are not restricted.
We would actually have liked these rights to be extended, but on the whole, I think, we are reasonably pleased with the report.
I would like to mention one final point.
I would have preferred to have an obligation to label a product with the length of its total useful life so that the consumer really can determine policy with his shopping trolley, so that he can exert pressure in this area to ensure that genuinely durable products are made.
That is our concern, and it is clear that we must make sure that these aims are realised by linking environmental and consumer protection.
Mr President, I have to say, unfortunately, that my views on this proposal have not changed much since Parliament discussed it in March this year.
I am still very sceptical as to whether harmonisation is necessary, and I strongly object to the fact that the present directive represents a deterioration of consumer rights in several countries, including Denmark, where it directly undermines the provisions of the Danish Sale of Goods Act.
We should focus on the rights of European consumers, instead of concentrating on how the EU can stimulate people's willingness to make purchases when they visit other Member States.
A number of the directive's provisions should be removed in order to protect consumers.
These include Article 1(2)(b), the last part of Article 2(2)(b), the first part of Article 2(4) and Article 3(5).
The basic shortcoming of this directive is that it only concerns the relationship between the consumer and the seller, and does not include the liability of earlier links in the chain of sales of faulty products.
The fact that there is no equitable duty to provide information on the part of the seller is also a problem, and it is unreasonable that consideration for consumers is only included as one of many other considerations.
Consumer considerations should always have top priority.
In addition, there are many ambiguities in the proposal which time does not allow me to list in more detail.
I do, of course, support the amendments in the report which attempt to rectify the shortcomings and ambiguities, but they are not enough, and unfortunately I cannot support the proposal as a whole.
Mr President, I believe that the idea behind this directive is a good one.
We know that in the European Union an increasing number of consumers buy goods in each other's countries and this is likely to increase with the use of the single currency.
We also know that when they do so, consumers are often under-informed and confused about the nature of the guarantees that go with the goods that they buy.
I have great sympathy with the point of view put forward by Mrs Sandbæk.
The easiest way of dealing with this problem would have been to introduce a simple measure saying that consumers must be informed as to their rights regarding guarantees in the country where they are purchasing goods at the time of that purchase.
If they are buying something in Denmark they know they are in Denmark.
They can look out of the window and see Danish people walking up and down speaking Danish.
They are not going to get a French guarantee, they are going to get the Danish guarantee.
I believe that simple move would have been a great improvement on the situation as it is at the moment in many Member States.
The difficulty of that would have been that it would put the Consumer Directorate out of a job in the European Commission.
The lure of a harmonising directive has proved too much for them.
So in this draft directive the Commission has sought to harmonise the nature of the guarantee offered in all Member States and consumer rights under that guarantee.
The Commission's association with the directive has not been happy.
The original text was very badly drafted and the impact statement said simply: 'Compliance costs are negligible'. This was roundly contradicted by the economic impact statement produced for the Commission by the Wilhelm Consulting Group, which found substantial increased costs likely to arise in some retailing sectors.
The Council has now improved the texts.
We have to say that the common position is preferable to the original and to what I describe as the rapporteur's 'tinkering' with the text.
The Commission has also extended the scope of the directive to cover all second-hand goods. How realistic is this?
Would it apply to goods sold, for example, in charity shops and car boot sales? If the sellers here had to offer a minimum one-year guarantee, as the directive states, surely this directive would threaten their future operation?
Neither the Commission nor the Council of Ministers has thought through the implications of extending a minimum one-year guarantee to second-hand goods. Article 7 makes it quite clear that this guarantee would cover all second-hand goods for at least one year.
Do they know about that at Oxfam? Are they happy about that at your neighbouring car boot sale?
In opting to cover second-hand goods the Commission has inadvertently included within the scope of the directive sales of art, antiques and collectibles.
Three of the four remedies provided in the draft directive could not possibly apply to them.
How does one replace or repair a Canaletto? Reduction in price would be very difficult to agree.
Amendment No 34, which I am moving with Mr Whitehead, offers the possibility of excluding the seller's liability for any lack of conformity in such cases.
I hope this commonsense amendment will find favour.
Finally, the directive and the rapporteur show a touching faith in human nature.
The directive tries and fails to clarify the rights of the ignorant consumer but, in fact, it offers aid and comfort to the unscrupulous consumer who will be only too happy to use all legal loopholes created in order to demand replacement of goods or reimbursement of the purchase price.
Mrs Kuhn has made things much worse.
To sum up, there is one and only one group of people who will benefit from this directive: Europe's lawyers.
If it is adopted, this directive, I can confidently predict, will encourage legal uncertainty and increasing litigation.
Europe's consumers have very little to gain from it and Europe's small businesses will pay for it.
Mr Santer promises less law but better law.
This is more law and worse law.
Mr President, one aspect of our work is to mediate between the requirements of the market and the laws needed to regulate it.
This is true more than ever now that a large-scale market of 370 million consumers is being launched.
We are working on behalf of consumers who are demanding new or recycled products and services, but who are also looking for assurances concerning products which have always satisfied them in the past, consumers who at the same time are calling for more information on what they are consuming, simpler and less dangerous packaging, clearer labels and less pollutant, more eco-friendly materials.
In the final analysis, consumers are calling for greater certainty and more guarantees, and these are precisely the issues addressed in the document under discussion today.
I am convinced that the Commission's draft has been improved, thanks to Parliament's contribution, even though it still contains some questionable provisions, such as the one concerning second-hand goods.
We do not perhaps need to back all of the amendments because they would probably disrupt the market, causing more confusion for consumers and traders, and would generate additional costs for commerce and industry without being of any practical benefit to the final consumer.
Lastly, voting for further difficult amendments, or just changes, would delay the conclusion of the legislative process.
Rather, it is time to put an end to the uncertainties of the end-user, avoiding a conciliation procedure which would undoubtedly be long and arduous.
I believe that the common position has taken on board the main wishes of the House at first reading.
Perhaps it would be better to adopt the common position straight away and ensure that the directive is adopted before the end of this parliamentary term.
That would be our rightful contribution to consumer protection.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive now being presented for second reading is particularly important for the operation of the single market and the protection of consumers.
I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Kuhn, who as in the first reading has done a very thorough, intelligent and extensive piece of work.
In this context, I would like briefly to clarify the position which the Commission took at the Council meeting on consumer affairs in April this year with regard to the Council's common position.
In the end, the Commission accepted the political agreement which reflected a general compromise among a qualified majority of the Member States.
Before the Commission established its position, it took stock of the positive and negative points in the proposal in question.
The most significant positive points include a harmonisation of the concept of 'a lack of conformity of the goods with the contract', a workable system of consumer rights adapted to the current market situation, a single guarantee period of two years, a change in the burden of proof, and the first provisions on commercial guarantees which ensure consumers some degree of protection in connection with matters of openness.
One negative point is that Member States will have the option of imposing an obligation to notify on consumers as a condition for being able to exercise the rights in question.
It is difficult to square this provision with the idea of a common minimum level of consumer protection.
It is clear from the above that there were more positive points than negative ones in the common position, which was the reason why the Commission accepted it.
As a result of this position, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9, 19, 20, 24 and 25, as well as Amendment No 26, subject to a change of wording.
The Commission is also able to accept Amendment No 15 with a minor alteration to take account of the problem raised by the Council.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 1 in its present form, and proposes to turn it into a recital reflecting the substance of the new Article 153, which replaces the previous Article 129a of the Treaty.
Among the changes which are acceptable to the Commission, I would like to emphasise the importance of Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 20, which was also underlined in the debate here this evening.
They remove the option for Member States to impose an obligation to notify on consumers as a condition for being able to exercise their rights.
This amendment will thus help to make the contents of the directive compatible with the concept of the single market and the objective of establishing a common minimum level of consumer protection through the directive.
As regards the future progress of this proposal for a directive during the second reading and a possible conciliation procedure, I am very glad to say that, in the light of the amendments the rapporteur has presented and the reasons for them, the fundamental positions of the Council and the European Parliament on the issues involved are not so different.
I therefore think there is a good chance that this proposal will be adopted in the very near future, so that European consumers can be guaranteed a number of appropriate and necessary rights.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
CO2 emissions from new passenger cars
The next item is the report (A4-0492/98) by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing a scheme to monitor the average specific emissions of carbon dioxide from new passenger cars (COM(98)0348 - C4-0425/98-98/0202(SYN)).
Mr President, perhaps one of the greatest challenges of the next few years for the world and for the European Union is to reduce emissions of gases that affect the climate.
This proposal, which is partial and modest, is concerned with measuring CO2 emissions from new cars.
The report therefore recalls the commitment made - so long ago now - at the Rio de Janeiro Conference, to stabilise CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000.
It also recalls the commitment made in Kyoto: an 8 % reduction in emissions of 6 greenhouse gases between 2008 and 2012.
We felt that, although it was a timid proposal, it was the best one.
Taking into account that CO2 emissions from passenger cars account for 50 % of CO2 emissions from the transport sector and 12 % of all CO2 emissions in the European Union, we should remember that the 1996 Council position already proposed the reduction of CO2 emissions by 2005 or by 2010 at the latest, to 120 g/km.
The document presented by the Commission states that, at present, CO2 emissions are at a level of 170 g/km, while Eurostat figures show a level of at least 186 g/km.
The report points out the need for fiscal incentives, fuel economy and labelling and consumer information, which we feel is essential, and which is also covered by another report that was being debated at the same time, for which Mr Fitzsimons was the rapporteur.
The report welcomes the proposal for a monitoring scheme, although I do not entirely understand the insistence that the schemes in various countries should not be harmonised, as it would seem that a certain amount of harmonisation is necessary.
The report also highlights Parliament's reservations concerning voluntary agreements, although I know very well that the Commissioner defends them, in my view, as a lesser evil. It also welcomes this scheme because, whether it is on the basis of agreements or with regulations, this scheme for monitoring CO2 emissions from new cars will be necessary.
We believe, as we have stated in the explanatory statement, that the diversity of proposals and directives makes them more complex for citizens to understand and also means that their transposition into the legislation of the various countries is more complicated: there are a large number of directives that refer to subjects that are inter-related.
The report states that if measures are not taken and monitoring is not carried out, emissions will increase by 40 % in the next few years.
It emphasises the need to have legislation in place, in case no agreement is reached with the car industry.
It expresses concern that an evaluation is not guaranteed before 2003 and therefore proposes bringing it forward a little.
The report considers the problems that could be presented in the future by cars that use electricity and other fuels such as gas, and we see that in the proposal, the Commission considers the possibility of including those cars in the future.
We disagree with the exclusion of cars registered outside the European Union, which is a growing sector that would be outside our control.
We therefore accepted an amendment to this effect that was tabled by Mr Lange.
I will now conclude, Commissioner, by saying that some of the amendments tabled by Mr Lange that we accepted relate to the inclusion of light industrial vehicles in the monitoring scheme, and bring the deadlines forward somewhat.
The representative from the Commission stated clearly in the meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection that it was not going to be possible to bring forward the deadlines, but as there are always delays in meeting them, we insisted that they should be brought forward a little.
We would stress the fact that it would be necessary - and we tabled two amendments at the last minute - to evaluate the quality of data, and if the data is not good enough to carry out rigorous monitoring, the Member States would have to be told to change their method of collecting data. In addition, more powerful cars with more cylinders should also be included in this monitoring scheme.
All in all, Commissioner, we realise the difficulties that the Council and the Commission may have in accepting some of our amendments, but you are well aware, Commissioner, that Parliament always insists on its political proposals and its proposals to bring forward deadlines, as it knows very well that it is possible that there will be delays if it does not do so.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is nice that we can discuss this legislation in such an intimate context.
Perhaps it would be even nicer if we could do it elsewhere over a drink, but unfortunately that is not possible.
Recently I have found the attitude of the European automobile industry to be much more proactive than in the past.
This has been seen in the Auto-oil legislation but also in the question of CO2 reduction in cars.
I was surprised by the offer of a voluntary reduction to 140g by 2008, even if it was not quite what we had in mind.
I do not want to sound like Lenin by saying that trust is good but control is better, but in this respect we must of course take action to ensure that this voluntary reduction is also observed.
We need an objective, logical data system in order to be able to carry out this monitoring.
For this reason I fully support the report by Mrs González, which considerably improves upon some of the points in the Commission proposal.
We need data relating to average consumption for individual manufacturers and individual models so that if the voluntary reduction is revised we could still say, if necessary, that it is not acceptable.
We need to introduce statutory regulations, and I would like to invite the Commission to indicate what form such regulations could take.
Traffic is an example here.
We are not supposed to drive at a speed of over 50 km/h, but some of us drive faster. A policeman comes along and tells us this is not allowed, and then we pay attention to what we are doing.
I believe that it must be clear from the outset that there is a fine or a driving ban or similar for driving at a speed of over 50 km/h.
If we are to monitor the situation we also need to know what happens if we have to say that our data indicate that something is not allowed.
We should also include light commercial vehicles, because of course they also emit CO2 and they are fairly heavy polluters particularly in urban areas.
There is also a small loophole, however.
In a large Member State that I know quite well there is a voluntary standard, but at a certain point it was noticed that this did not work as it stood and certain vehicles were excluded, vehicles that are also authorised for use as light commercial vehicles.
We should at least bear this little loophole in mind.
It is for these reasons that we ask in our amendment that light commercial vehicles be included for monitoring purposes and request that Directive 70/156 be amended.
Mr President, our group's spokesman, Mr Eisma, is unable to be present here today, so I shall speak on his behalf.
With regard to Mr Lange's comment, I hope that he - and I know he is here with his daughter, among others - is able to have the drink that the rest of us may be missing at the moment here in the plenary.
But I shall also begin on his behalf by commending the rapporteur, who has proposed some important amendments on behalf of the committee.
The Liberal Group has always been uneasy, not to say unhappy, about the fact that we have a voluntary agreement between the European Commission and the vehicle industry, but now that we have it, the least we can do is ensure that it is properly monitored.
The voluntary agreement entails a reduction in emissions to 140 g of CO2 per km in 2008.
Parliament has always believed that it should be 90 g per km in order to be able to meet the Kyoto targets.
At most this is a reduction of 25 %, but much more is needed when, at the same time, we know the greatest challenge for the environment in the coming years will be the development of transport.
We therefore agree with the rapporteur that it would be desirable to have some fallback legislation in case the agreements are not adhered to, and we would like to support the rapporteur in this way of thinking.
I shall conclude, Mr President, by saying that voluntary agreements can be excellent, and that we would also like to commend the vehicle industry, but we also know that for these agreements to be successful, it is very important to have measurements and sanctions, if they are to succeed in the long run.
Mr President, it is quite right that the rapporteur should be calling for light commercial vehicles to be included in this agreement.
It is just as my colleague Mr Lange said a moment ago: there is a loophole here.
Light commercial vehicles have been left out, even though they are responsible for substantially high levels of carbon dioxide emissions.
We firmly support the rapporteur's amendments.
I would also like to stress that the objectives of this voluntary agreement are very modest.
Can it really be possible that, because the average car in 1986 consumed seven litres of petrol for every one hundred kilometres, the Commission accepts the notion that the car industry is heading for a target of six litres per hundred kilometres over a period of twenty-two years, in other words by the year 2008? We can see from the statistics that we in Europe are manufacturing cars that are just too big.
We must be able to do something about this.
Mr President, let me first thank the Committee on the Environment and in particular its rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, for the excellent piece of work carried out in connection with this proposal.
It is correct, as both the rapporteur and Mr Lange have said, that this is a part of our climate strategy, while at the same time it is a continuation of the Auto/Oil programmes and thus an improvement of air quality in Europe as a whole.
The Commission agrees with several of the constructive amendments which the committee has tabled.
The Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 1 and 2, No 6 as regards the part which stresses the need for monitoring, Nos 7, 8 and 27 in principle, No 29 with a change of wording, Nos 33 and 35, Nos 42 to 45 as regards the parts which increase the number of data categories for large vehicles, and lastly No 46 in principle.
Then there is a group of amendments which, unfortunately, the Commission cannot accept.
This is not for political reasons, but because of technical limitations.
These are the parts of Amendments Nos 9 to 26 and 36 to 45 aimed at including commercial vehicles in the monitoring scheme.
In principle, we have nothing as such against including such vehicles in the monitoring scheme, and environmentally too, of course, it is a sensible idea.
But the fact is that measuring the CO2 emissions of these vehicles is not part of the EU's type approval procedure, and so we simply cannot include them at the current time.
We appreciate that Amendments Nos 47 and 48 seek to strengthen the Commission's role by ensuring that Member States provide us with reliable data.
However, we cannot accept the amendments. This is because, in our opinion, the existing wording provides the right balance between an effective role for the Commission and the continued right of the Member States to use their own systems.
Nor can we accept the parts of Amendments Nos 28 to 30 which are aimed at bringing the implementation forward.
The dates the Commission has proposed already give the Member States very little time to implement the decision.
There is also Amendment No 31, which brings forward the date for the report on the implementation of the scheme.
We cannot accept this amendment either, because we would like to have enough data available to draw up a report of sufficient quality.
Nor can we accept Amendment No 34.
Then there are Amendments Nos 12, 14 and 38 which are also unacceptable to us.
We do not think it is appropriate to include vehicles which are registered for a second time, even if this takes place within six months of the first registration.
It would only make the data more difficult to use.
As regards the future indication of the exact format for the transmission of data, the Commission is unable to accept these parts of Amendments Nos 28 and 38.
This is because we actually have the exact format in Appendix 4 of the proposal.
Amendment No 32 concerns the selection of the year 2002 as the reference year for monitoring the environmental agreement with the vehicle manufacturers.
However, the agreement is based on a fixed numerical target, so it is not necessary to have a reference year.
If the agreement had been based on a percentage reduction, a reference year would have been of crucial importance.
That is the reason why we cannot accept this amendment.
On the other hand, I would like to reassure Parliament that the progress of the agreement will be closely followed every year.
It can hardly be a great surprise to Parliament that the Commission is unable to accept Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5, which criticise the agreement.
I had the opportunity to discuss this not so very long ago, in a very lively fashion, I might add, with the Committee on the Environment.
For similar reasons, the Commission is also unable to accept the part of Amendment No 6 which would entail the Commission beginning the technical work with a view to presenting a legislative proposal.
We also had the opportunity to discuss that part in depth at the same meeting.
But to sum up, it may be said, Mr President, that the Commission is able to support a number of the proposed amendments, and that we are of course very pleased that in general our proposal has been positively received by the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment.
Commissioner, I would like to ask a question concerning light commercial vehicles.
Of course we know that, in the context of type-approval under Directive 70/156, no standards exist as yet for recording CO2 emissions for light commercial vehicles.
But naturally such standards can be created.
So if we say we need them, Directive 70/156 must be amended.
Incidentally, in the Auto-oil legislation, a recital in the new Directive 98/69 calls for just this.
So what is to prevent the Commission from submitting a proposal for an amendment to this effect?
Mr President, I am sure that Mr Lange noted that I said we could not include these vehicles at the current time, and that is of course because I share his view that it would be extremely useful to include them.
We shall therefore start on the technical work which this requires.
I shall not pretend that I know how long this technical work will take, but it will take some time.
However, we shall do what we can, and we agree that it would be good if we could get these changes implemented.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Consumer information on fuel economy of new passenger cars
The next item is the report (A4-0489/98) by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive relating to the availability of consumer information on fuel economy in respect of the marketing of new passenger cars (COM(98)0489 - C4-0569/98-98/0272(SYN)).
Mr President, Commissioner, the directive we discussed earlier refers once again to the voluntary undertaking by the automobile industry to reduce CO2 emissions by technical measures.
What we are now discussing has more to do with a change in consumer behaviour, in other words additional measures.
I also consider it to be only right that we should aim to achieve this by means of information rather than legislation, because after all we do not want to dictate people's needs; we want to provide information so that people can decide for themselves.
I find it very exciting to think that in car manufacturers' showrooms we will see large signs on the cars that no longer say how much horsepower a car has or what speed it does or other attractions, but that say that one car's fuel consumption is 3 litres and that of another the same size is 15 litres, perhaps signs on a strong background, yellow, black, red or green - I do not wish to determine that, as colours are not the concern of politics - but on a striking background, and then the buyer will surely react differently.
I believe that, as the rapporteur has already mentioned, more information should of course be provided in order to ensure honesty, because the test cycle, which unfortunately does not exist yet for light commercial vehicles, does not take into account any extra equipment such as air conditioning or pre-heating systems, which may increase fuel consumption by as much as 20 %.
I believe that the consumer should be told about this honestly, not in detail but in the form of a note to the effect that, if something like this is included, consumption will increase accordingly.
I also think that, in order to make things a little more transparent, we should authorise and demand that more information should be available on this issue via the Internet, so that a consumer who wants to buy a new car can find out simply by sitting at his PC at home that a certain car with extra equipment has a certain level of fuel consumption, and from this he will know the level of CO2 emissions.
It should also be possible to see the fuel consumption of a specific model in the showroom.
This is also quite important, as the third pillar of the strategy is still tax measures to promote cars with low fuel consumption.
To this extent, the consumer should also know exactly how much fuel a car consumes and what tax advantages he might gain from it.
In this respect, I welcome the rapporteur's amendment, and I fully support it in order to achieve a little more transparency for the consumer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the present proposal for a system of consumer information on the fuel economy of new passenger cars includes some important aspects.
It is above all an important component of the Community strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from passenger cars.
This idea is not a new one.
In my country there have already been voluntary agreements for several years to state fuel consumption explicitly in promotional literature.
This idea is also willingly taken up by manufacturers, particularly by those who can supply economical cars, of course.
I firmly believe that a label that is not only displayed for sale purposes but that is also to be displayed on vehicles on the road will in future have a much greater effect on consumer choice.
I would therefore hope that we can increase the use of incentive systems rather than penalties in such strategies.
The market could regulate itself very well in precisely these areas.
It would regulate itself more quickly if the state were to offer encouragement in the form of bonus schemes or tax incentives that would favour consumer information and prompt industry to provide it.
In addition, this consumer label will help to support the vehicle manufacturers' efforts.
The main aim in this is to reduce harmful emissions in order to fulfil the commitments of the Kyoto Convention.
But I also welcome in particular the voluntary undertaking of the umbrella organisation of car manufacturers to meet the guidelines for CO2 reduction in a phased plan over the next few years.
This declaration helps manufacturers as well as consumers and in particular the environment.
However, a secondary aspect is that it also contributes significantly to simplifying the law.
After all, it was experts who fixed binding rules, and incidentally the aim is similar to what we are planning under the bus construction directive in the Murphy report.
It is crucial that those who protect the consumer, for example the testing organisation Stiftung Warentest , the ADAC, draw up this benchmark so that the consumer receives reliable information not only from the vehicle manufacturer but also from associations that specialise specifically in this area.
We have seen this before in the case of the Green Paper on efficient pricing in transport.
Most problems are caused by traffic jams in towns.
Here consumption is particularly high, and the effects of traffic jams must of course be given appropriate consideration especially in conurbations.
We must therefore work very hard in this area to eliminate these problems, and I also believe that there should be no cross-subsidies, as mentioned in the Green Paper 'Towards fair and efficient pricing in transport' , because we have enough problems with cars, so the priority should be to work towards making cars tolerable for the environment and for towns.
To begin with, I should like to thank the Committee on the Environment and especially its rapporteur, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, not only for having produced a report of high quality but also for dealing with the proposal so quickly.
The Commission agrees with several of the constructive amendments proposed by the committee, and we are able to accept the following amendments in full: Nos 1, 2, 5, 7, the first part of 15, 18, 20, 22 and the second part of 23.
Amendments Nos 9, 12, 14, the first part of 19 and the first part of 23 are acceptable in principle and, lastly, Amendment No 17 is acceptable as far as the effect of extra equipment is concerned.
I shall now give the reasons why we cannot accept some of the other amendments.
Since the purpose of the proposal is consumer information - I agree with Mr Lange who said something on the lines of the proposal being a piece of transparency to the benefit of the consumer - we cannot accept Amendments Nos 10, 11, 16 and 21, or those parts of Amendments Nos 19, 23 and 24 which are aimed at deleting all mention of figures for fuel costs associated with driving 10 000 km.
In the Commission's opinion, such figures are a clear signal which could persuade consumers to modify their behaviour.
The Commission is aware that in many Member States diesel is taxed less heavily than petrol, but Member States are free to include different taxes in the cost figure, and we are currently holding talks with the Council about a breakdown of this in the directive itself.
Since the Commission intends to keep information about fuel costs in the proposal, we are also unable to accept Amendment No 3.
In addition, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 8.
We do agree that Internet advertisements should be covered by the term 'promotional literature', but it must be up to the Member States to decide whether an Internet advertisement is considered to be an advertisement on their territory.
Then there are Amendments Nos 4 and 6 which extend the scope of the directive to cover nearly-new vehicles.
We cannot accept this.
Initially, the directive should cover only new passenger cars, but it is conceivable that used cars could also be included at a later date.
These amendments are also aimed at including cars which have only been registered for a single day.
However, the directive's current definition of new passenger cars already covers this eventuality.
Then there are the parts of Amendments Nos 15, 18, 24 and 28 which deal with a simplification of the format in which fuel consumption should be shown, in other words that it should always be given in litres per 100 km and not in either litres per 100 km or km per litre.
This is not acceptable because each Member State has its own traditional way of showing fuel consumption, so it is important to be flexible if we are to achieve acceptance by consumers in the various Member States.
The changes of wording in Amendments Nos 17 and 25 are not acceptable.
We think the current wording regarding cars and climate change is a suitable compromise between drawing attention to the problem and at the same time explaining to drivers what their role is.
To sum up, the Commission is able to support a large number of the amendments.
We are pleased with the quick handling and positive reception which the Committee on the Environment and its rapporteur have given to the proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
Depletion of the ozone layer
The next item is the report (A4-0465/98) by Mrs Graenitz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on substances that deplete the ozone layer (COM(98)0398 - C4-0580/98-98/0228(SYN)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the ozone layer, which protects people, animals and plants on earth from harmful ultraviolet rays from the atmosphere, has been depleted by 10 % since measurements began in the early 1980s, although in the northern hemisphere over Scandinavia and Siberia depletion is up to 45 %.
Over ten years ago, with the Montreal Protocol, we found a way to control the phasing-out of ozone-depleting substances.
A few weeks ago, the 12th Conference of the Parties to the Protocol marked the start of the section of the Protocol in which the developing countries also committed themselves to reducing production of HCFCs.
In the European Union, production of fully halogenated chlorofluorocarbons was halted as early as 1995.
We are now beginning to reduce production of HCFCs.
I believe that the Commission proposal is a very good and very sensible one, and will help us to begin this reduction more quickly than provided for the EU in the Montreal Protocol.
In my report I have made some amendments to the Commission's proposals because I think that in certain areas production can be halted even more quickly, alternative substances are available, and it is necessary to have a certain degree of standardisation in halting production so that there are not several different deadlines for individual product ranges.
In addition, we need a phasing-out of HCFCs so that industry can prepare itself to slow down production gradually.
I believe this is also what the industry wants.
In my report I have also tried to address other problems by means of amendments.
One is the question of illegal trade, which is becoming more and more urgent.
In old installations there are supposedly closed systems from which substances are still disappearing.
Even small amounts, such as 20 or 50 litres of CFCs, are enough to keep these old installations in operation for a number of years, and this is why illegal trade in CFCs takes place.
I hope that these amendments on stricter controls and help for factories to halt production sooner, will also be useful.
I also believe that we need regulations for the export of substances that are already banned in the Union.
I have proposed a certain transitional period so that in particular the developing countries, which under the Montreal Protocol can continue to use HCFCs for a longer time than the European Union, do not have to develop their own industries or halt production at the same time as us, but are allowed to use new substances and build up significantly better new industries by using new substitutes from the outset.
I would like to mention two further points that seem to me to be very difficult and for which I have not really found a solution.
The first is the use of HCFCs in fire extinguishers.
Unfortunately, I only today received the information from the Commission to the effect that, in accordance with a European Court of Justice ruling of this summer, the use of HCFCs in fire extinguishers is banned.
It is highly regrettable that this information was not available for the vote in committee.
I also believe that the proposers of the motion that was approved in committee, who were advised on this by their Green Minister of the Environment, were not aware of it.
I am sorry that I only learned of this this evening and could not speak to the committee chairman about it.
I will inform Parliament of this fact tomorrow before the vote on this issue so that the vote can then be cancelled.
My final point concerns methyl bromide.
Following discussions and votes in committee, a compromise was found in this area to allow the southern Member States to use methyl bromide for longer in soil fumigation.
I know that such a compromise is difficult and should really be rejected for reasons of environmental policy, but I ask the Commission to find a way to allow a decent transition in view of what is currently being discussed in the Council.
Mr President, in October the largest hole in the ozone layer over the Antarctic was recorded.
So much damage has already been done to the ozone layer that the hole is now three times the size of Australia.
The survival of the human race is being seriously threatened and we must find a common solution to the problem.
Depletion of the ozone layer is occurring so rapidly that it is impossible to predict what will happen in the future.
We know that depletion of the ozone layer has already had some very serious consequences, particularly in the area where we know that the ozone layer is thin and where the incidence of skin cancer is increasing.
There can scarcely ever have been clearer evidence of the need for cross-border cooperation - and we must act quickly.
We know that the ozone layer is expected to get thinner in the next few years unless we reach agreement on a radical reduction of ozone- depleting substances.
I therefore welcome the Commission's initiative in putting forward a proposal to improve and tighten up the regulation on substances that deplete the ozone layer.
I should also like to congratulate Mrs Graenitz on the admirable and skilful way in which she has dealt with this difficult and highly technical subject and on the amendments she has proposed, which include a further tightening-up of the Commission's proposal.
There is one particular issue which I should like to raise in this context.
New ozone-depleting substances which are not covered by the Montreal Protocol or by the EU regulation on ozone-depleting substances are being discovered all the time.
We know that some of these substances have a far more damaging effect than those that are already covered by agreements and legislation.
If we are to achieve the agreed objectives laid down in the Montreal Protocol, we must solve the problem created by these ozone-depleting substances.
To do so, we have to devise a simple and efficient system for controlling the whole area of ozone-depleting substances, so that arrangements are in place for when new substances are discovered.
I would therefore urge Parliament to support the committee's proposals relating to the arrangements for controlling new ozone-depleting substances.
As I have already said, we know that the hole in the ozone layer is now bigger than at any time in the past.
I should therefore like to say that some things in life should not be matters for compromise, and the hole in the ozone layer is one of them.
The situation is not helped by the existence of companies which produce such substances and are threatened with closure if they are banned.
In the end, however, it is probably better to outlaw certain industries, since we know the effects that they have.
The compromises which have been reached are therefore very disappointing both from an environmental point of view and in terms of competition.
Mr President, although as many speakers have mentioned, a great deal has been done at international level over recent decades, there is still a long way to go. The increased possibilities of access to alternative substances therefore naturally mean that we must try to do more.
This proposal is a step in the right direction.
It is a question of restrictions or outright bans, and of controlling the licensing of exports.
One of the things we unfortunately cannot get to grips with in the European Union is the possibilities of taxation - and I think the Commission agrees with me when I say unfortunately, because that is a very effective way of modifying behaviour.
I can tell you that we used this instrument in Denmark and we did think that it would at first generate some revenue for the Treasury, but I have to say that there was no revenue because people switched to alternative substances immediately.
This shows what it is all about.
It is also very much about economics, but as I have said, we cannot go down that road.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for the work she has put into the report and say that our group is voting in favour of the amendments which tighten up the legislation.
I can understand very well the rapporteur's compromise proposal with the PPE Group.
Like the rapporteur, I would also have thought it was a good idea, but like my group, I am now in favour of having tougher regulations.
We think methyl bromide can already be replaced now.
This has already happened, for example, in greenhouses in the northern countries, and there are no problems with using the alternatives.
So it should be possible in the southern countries too.
Mr President, the report contains a number of good points, including tougher legislation, which we naturally support.
However, in some respects it is disappointing, not least as regards methyl bromide.
In particular, I have some questions relating to two compromise amendments tabled by the PSE and PPE Groups, namely Nos 32 and 33, which allow some noteworthy exceptions that would seriously damage the ozone layer.
Exemptions are being granted here in respect of certain substances that are damaging to health when usable alternatives exist.
It is a pity that a compromise was not sought with other groups, which would presumably have been possible.
In my view, the proposal put forward by the Green and GUE/NGL Groups represents a better option.
I also find it interesting that the proposal is based on Article 130, since it deals with chemicals.
No doubt it would be possible to apply this to numerous directives that deal with different chemicals, not with a view to harmonisation, but to facilitate more progressive legislation in various countries.
Such a possibility should be exploited.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too am disappointed in this report.
I think it is disgraceful that we are talking about the protection of the ozone layer and yet we allow the worst ozone killer - methyl bromide - to remain on the market!
The European Parliament has allowed itself to be controlled by short-sighted, national lobbies, and this is highly regrettable.
We all know that methyl bromide is one of the worst ozone-depleting substances.
But there is no point in bemoaning the fact that the ozone hole has increased if we do not take appropriate measures to prevent it.
I find it highly regrettable that the European Commission has not proposed introducing this ban from 2001 onwards.
The large groups only want it from 2004, in any case.
I think this is inconsistent with what is being done in the individual Member States, and I think it is particularly regrettable given the fact that there are alternatives, as several Member States have demonstrated.
I find it quite disgraceful that we are allowing irreversible damage to the ecosystem - and also damage to health in the form of skin cancer, for example - in order to give in to lobby pressure.
Mr President, the Commission proposal on substances that deplete the ozone layer contains a serious loophole which some of us have discovered.
A multinational company which runs a factory in my home country, Luxembourg, is allowed to continue to use CFC-11 as a solvent in an industrial process, although a substitute which does not deplete the ozone layer exists and has been used since 1995 in a second production line of the same company.
For almost 15 years Du Pont de Nemours has used CFC-11 as a solvent to produce a polyurethane fleece.
The annual emissions have been, on average, 15 tonnes of CFC-11, which is quite substantial.
An extension of the authorisation was granted recently.
Du Pont de Nemours now calls its solvent a processing agent but that is just a trick to allow them to continue to use CFC-11.
We should not allow another extension of these authorisations, especially as a substitute, pentane, exists and has been used successfully in a parallel production line.
My Group has asked for a split vote on the last paragraph of Annex VI of the proposal, which defines a list of processes where the use of CFC-11 may still be permitted as a processing agent.
I propose we just delete this paragraph by voting 'no' tomorrow.
Finally, HCFCs still have a very high ODP and a high global-warming potential.
I urge you not to permit the use of HCFCs as a processing agent.
Mr President, thanks in part to the Montreal Protocol, we shall be able to quickly phase out substances which deplete the ozone layer.
The desired effect, closing the hole in the ozone layer, will not be felt for a hundred years.
We also hope that by then the number of skin cancer cases will have fallen.
It is a good thing that the European Union wants to take measures to hasten this phasing-out process.
And it can be done, given the rapidly growing number of alternatives available.
The manufacture, use and marketing of methyl bromide is to cease by the year 2001.
And there can be no exemptions on grounds of climatological conditions.
Climatological conditions in Dutch and German greenhouses are the same as in the southern Member States, but methyl bromide has not been used in the Netherlands since 1992 and is now banned in Germany as well.
If the right technology is used, there is no loss in productivity and it is healthier for the workers too.
As regards the use of HCFCs in fire extinguishers as an alternative to halon, I can say that this is already banned, and therefore in Italy as well, despite the fact that Italy is ignoring a judgment by the European Court.
Alternatives to HCFCs are now available too, and these, moreover, are not carcinogenic.
The only exemption which we regard as justified is for 'critical uses', for example CFCs in inhalers or chemical precursors for pharmaceuticals.
Since these substances cannot be obtained outside the EU in sufficiently pure form, all trade in ozone-depleting substances with countries outside the EU must be prohibited.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the Committee on the Environment, and especially its rapporteur, Mrs Graenitz, for the report we are discussing here this evening.
The amendments are almost all aimed at accelerating the phasing-out of substances which deplete the ozone layer - an objective which I can of course fully support.
However, we are involved in some rather intricate negotiations where attention must also be paid to the opinions in the Council.
So the Commission cannot go as far as the European Parliament might like at the present moment in some areas.
Nonetheless, I hope to be able to return to at least some of the proposals at a later point in the procedure.
Against this background, I can reveal that the Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 14, 21, 22, 23 and 28 in full and Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 19, 25, 25, 26, 27 and 30 in principle.
And now I will give some of the reasons why we cannot accept the other amendments.
Some of the amendments are aimed at tightening up the procedures for monitoring, reporting and inspections.
We can accept most of them, but in our opinion Amendment No 20 would lead to an overlapping with existing procedures and is therefore superfluous.
As far as the phasing-out of methyl bromide is concerned, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 5 because the ban on critical use exemptions in agriculture after the year 2006 would be contrary to the Montreal Protocol.
If the criteria for granting critical use exemptions are applied correctly, the possibility of exemptions should continue after the year 2006.
And finally, there are Amendments Nos 32 and 33 which are aimed at postponing the phasing-out of methyl bromide until 2005 in Member States with special climatic conditions.
This has already been discussed here this evening, and I can say that I entirely agree with what was said by Mrs Dybkjær, Mr Sjöstedt, Mrs Breyer and Mr Blokland, and not with the comments made by Mrs Flemming this evening.
A collective exemption for all the southern Member States could mean that up to 80 % of the EU's use of methyl bromide was exempt, and then we would no longer be able to fulfil our obligations under the Montreal Protocol.
The protocol demands a complete phasing-out of methyl bromide and does not allow the possibility of continued use after the phasing-out, not even if special types of plastic film are used.
Controlling the production of HCFCs is part of the Community's ozone policy.
The Commission has proposed that the situation should be reviewed by the year 2002 to see whether developments in global patterns of consumption allow further restrictions to be introduced.
Amendments Nos 6, 7, 8 and 9 will limit this flexibility because they introduce additional reductions now, before we know whether they are appropriate.
The Commission therefore cannot accept these amendments now.
Then there are some amendments which aim to encourage the control of the use of HCFCs.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 11, 12, 13 and 31, because they would increase the problems and costs for small and medium-sized enterprises by bringing forward the date for phasing out the use of HCFCs in solvents for refrigeration equipment and polyurethane foam.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 16 on prohibiting the sale of second-hand equipment containing HCFCs, because that would increase the probability of illegal disposal and the release into the atmosphere of HCFCs.
Amendments Nos 17 and 29 are aimed at prohibiting the production of products containing HCFCs for export to countries where their use is still permitted.
Here we are aware that excessively restrictive legislation in the Community could easily lead to production facilities being located elsewhere.
The Commission understands the aim of Amendment No 18, but it would conflict with the exemption for special cases in Article 5(6).
Then there are Amendments Nos 10 and 15, which are concerned with halons and HCFCs in fire protection systems.
The phasing-out of halons is high on the agenda, but it is important to ensure that unnecessary releases into the atmosphere are avoided.
Unfortunately, many Member States do not yet have facilities for recovering, storing, re-using or, for that matter, destroying halons in a safe way.
It will be some time before this is the case.
Therefore the Commission is unable to accept Amendment No 10.
Amendment No 15 is aimed at introducing a new exemption, whereby HCFCs would be allowed to replace halons for fire protection purposes.
I believe this was the amendment which Mrs Graenitz referred to in her remarks.
Finally, I would once again like to thank Mrs Graenitz and the Committee on the Environment for their report and their thorough examination of the Commission's proposal which we have been discussing here.
I look forward to further constructive cooperation which can ensure that the Community continues to play a leading role in the protection of the ozone layer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.30 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.45 p.m.)
Agenda
Before we come to the approval of the Minutes, I have received a request from four political groups - the Group of the Party of European Socialists, the Group of the European People's Party, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left and the Green Group in the European Parliament - for the Council and the Commission to make statements this afternoon on the situation in Iraq.
They propose that this item should be included between 3 p.m. and 3.45 p.m., and that the debate on topical and urgent subjects should be correspondingly shortened.
I shall put this proposal to the vote, and then we shall establish how to proceed.
(Parliament approved the proposal) I also have a proposal from the PPE Group to delete the subjects 'Relocation by Rank Xerox' and 'Philippines' in order to accommodate this debate.
Are there any comments from any other groups? If not, I shall put to the vote the deletion of subjects IV and V from the topical and urgent debate.
Mr President, you know as well as I do that this is a very urgent and very recent issue.
Could you meet with the secretaries-general of the groups to decide how the afternoon's topical and urgent debates will take place? None of us has had time to consider in detail how a debate should be structured, whether the Council and the Commission can come and which urgencies need to be removed.
It would be fair to give us a little more time and you can make the announcement later on.
I have no problem with that.
The meeting of secretaries-general will take place after the vote.
How to arrange the debates and which urgencies to remove can be proposed at the beginning of the afternoon.
The House must decide the changes to the agenda.
Mr President, may I endorse that proposal as it is a foreign affairs matter? It is my understanding that there is an Austrian Minister able to comment on behalf of the presidency and that seems to me the correct way forward in this kind of situation.
We should listen to the presidency and to the Commission and then have a debate.
I am entirely happy with what you propose procedurally.
Mr President, obviously these are unusual circumstances and I support your proposal.
However, I would like to suggest that if we decide to remove two urgencies, we should follow the precedent we have set in the past and still vote on them even though we do not debate them.
There was an agreement at the beginning of the week to put those two items on the agenda.
That will be discussed in the meetings of the secretaries-general and the House will decide at the beginning of the afternoon's proceedings.
I am sure there will be no problem but the House must decide.
Mr President, could I just ask for clarification on whether there is going to be a resolution on Iraq?
As far as my Group is concerned, we are happy to have a resolution; we have a text which we are prepared to discuss with other groups.
I think the PPE Group may have asked for a resolution, but I do not know whether I have been correctly informed.
Mr President, I too believe that Parliament - as the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has just said - should have the opportunity to hold a debate.
We do not at this point need a resolution.
If one should prove necessary, Mr President, then it is something for January when we will certainly be returning to this, but it is not something for now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group has come to believe that however complex the issues, there are a number of points which are very clear to do with the United Nations, our objectives and the need for legal measures to be taken against Saddam.
Like the Socialist Group, we therefore want to see a resolution to wind up this debate.
Otherwise we are just talking a lot of hot air.
Mr President, my Group believes that the political responsibilities for what is happening in Iraq today are extremely clear.
We had a brief discussion this morning, and I am pleased that you have responded positively to the request for a debate on the matter.
In the circumstances, it would be appropriate to have a debate without resolution.
Mr President, I should like to make known the indignation felt by the GUE/NGL Group with regard to last night's air attacks ...
Mrs Moreau, this is not the time to embark on the debate.
For the moment, we are trying to establish whether a resolution should be drawn up.
The debate will take place this afternoon.
Would you be good enough to tell us, Mrs Moreau, whether or not your group wants to have a resolution, without going into the substance of the debate?
Mr President, Parliament must make known the indignation felt by its Members with regard to the air attacks ...
(Mixed reactions)
You do not have the floor, Mrs Moreau.
I shall put to the vote the question concerning the motion for a resolution.
I am sorry, Mrs Berès, but when people do not respect the Rules and begin a debate at the wrong time, I cannot allow that.
I shall open the vote to establish precisely whether or not a motion for a resolution would be appropriate.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, this House agreed yesterday to include 50 000 tonnes of mackerel as part of the food-aid package to Russia.
I would call upon you to use your good offices to inform the Council of Fisheries Ministers, who are meeting in Brussels this morning, that it should respect the opinion of this House and should not ignore this recommendation, which was made as a result of a very clear vote.
Thank you, Mr Gallagher.
We shall inform the Council of that without delay.
Mr President, I have pleasure in being the bearer of good news this morning.
The international situation is not as happy as we would like, but yesterday, an agreement was signed between Chile and Argentina establishing a permanent peace between these two countries. I believe it is welcome news, coming as it does after a century of dispute: there have been 23 conflicts between Chile and Argentina over border issues.
If the House agrees, I should like to ask the President to convey our congratulations on the newly signed peace agreement to both Chile and Argentina
Thank you, Mrs Miranda.
At times like the present, it is indeed a pleasure to hear that there is at least one place in the world where peace is being made.
On behalf of the House, I shall convey our congratulations immediately.
Mr President, in connection with the urgencies in the Minutes, under Item 4 of yesterday's topical and urgent debate there is a request to introduce a new item: the relocation of the Rank Xerox company.
This is incorrectly recorded.
The company is named simply Xerox.
I should therefore like yesterday's Minutes to be corrected and also, in this afternoon's discussion, we should talk about Xerox, not Rank Xerox.
It makes Parliament look a little silly if we cannot even give the company's correct name.
Thank you, Mr Metten.
We shall check on that.
(The Minutes were approved)
VOTES
Mr President, I have heard that the President-in-Office is still airborne and cannot land.
Nevertheless, it is important that we should at least hear what the President-in-Office has to say.
With this decision you have now adopted the budget for 1999, which is the last budget under the current financial perspective.
May I ask the President in the Chair to declare what the President-in-Office now has to declare, namely that he concurs with the decision of Parliament at the second reading, that we have not exceeded the maximum rate of increase and that the budget is therefore approved by the Council.
Mr President, I would call on you to deliver that declaration on behalf of the President-in-Office.
Yes indeed, Mr Samland.
Mr President, on checking through the document before us, I discovered that a paragraph had been omitted. It refers to an amendment concerning the Structural Funds, which we adopted in the Committee on Budgets but which does not appear in this document, probably because of the pressure of time.
As I recall, it was paragraph 7, which, following today's vote, should be properly included in this document.
I should like to check with the services that this is the case.
I am informed by the services that it is included, but this will be verified in due course. Each of the versions in the different languages will also be checked.
Mr President, this is the last budget for certain distinguished members of the committee: the chairman, Mr Samland; Lord Tomlinson; Mr Dankert from our side, Mr Brinkhorst from the Liberals, probably Mr Kellett-Bowman; and, I think, Mr Bardong from the PPE as well.
May I, on behalf of everyone on the Committee on Budgets, give them our wholehearted thanks for the work they have done and wish them well for the future.
(Sustained applause)
I think the House can congratulate the rapporteurs, Mrs Dührkop and Mr Viola, and all those who have negotiated on behalf of Parliament, on the excellent job which they have done.
Mr President, before we begin voting on this report, I should like to draw attention to the Rules of Procedure with regard to Annex V. I am in fact a little surprised to see that the voting list begins with the vote on the preamble and the recitals when Article 3(3) states, with respect to a report whose draft decision concludes that discharge should be granted, that the proposal for a decision is put to the vote first, and is to be followed by the vote on the motion for a resolution.
The mistake no doubt results from the fact that there is confusion between the decision and the resolution in the draft prepared by the Committee on Budgetary Control, but the Annex is very clear, and it is easy to see why.
The important thing is to decide on what we are saying, and what appears in paragraph 23 of the resolution, in other words whether or not we agree to grant the discharge; the vote on the recitals and the explanatory statement, which normally constitute the resolution, is to be held afterwards.
I would ask you to observe the Rules of Procedure on this matter, because this has not always been done, as we have seen in connection with the opinions of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Experience has also proved that it is always easy for Parliament to let off steam in the first part of the resolution before nodding off in the second part.
You are clearly right, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
In formal terms, the motion for a resolution which the committee has adopted does not exactly follow Annex V of the Rules of Procedure.
I think that the best course is to put the question to the House, so that it can decide in what order it wishes to vote, since there is a proposal from the committee responsible which follows a different order.
Mr President, I believe the rule has indeed been observed here, because it is quite clearly shown that the text up to paragraph 25 deals with the decision and that the subsequent paragraphs relate to the resolution.
That is where the reasons are listed which, with the passages being clearly headed, we normally have in the remarks, in the conditions which the Commission has to fulfil in connection with the decision on discharge.
Although there is no heading here in the paper, the division is clearly marked by asterisks.
The way the services formulated the heading, which only says 'Part A', is therefore confusing.
That is not how we handed it in, and we ought to have been told clearly that a heading had to be inserted.
But I think that can be rectified.
Thank you, Mrs Theato. It is now clear that the motion for a resolution extends as far as paragraph 24 and the proposal for a decision begins with paragraph 25.
Is that not correct? The rapporteur will be able to confirm this.
The motion for a resolution extends up to and including paragraph 24 and the proposal for a decision includes paragraphs 25 and 26.
Is that so?
Mr President, I have to say that Annex V of the Rules of Procedure on giving a discharge is a total nightmare for us to follow.
We have been given contradictory analyses as we have gone through this.
I would urge you to ask the House to bring the Rules of Procedure into line with the Treaty as soon as possible.
As for the point of detail raised by Mrs Theato, she, in my view, is correct and we should vote on it in the House to clarify the procedure.
Mr President, I find it very damaging to decide on the basis of a chance majority whether or not a Rule is to be respected.
I find the Rules of Procedure to be perfectly clear.
I therefore fail to understand how it is possible to make an exception to them on the basis of a chance majority.
I request that we respect our Rules of Procedure and vote in accordance with its provisions and not à la carte .
In the Rules of Procedure, Article 3(3) of Annex V reads as follows:
'The proposal for a decision shall be put to the vote before the motion for a resolution.
The procedure for giving a discharge shall end with a vote on the motion for a resolution as a whole'.
This means that we must vote on paragraphs 25 and 26 before the rest, then vote on the rest, and finally on the text as a whole.
Mr President, if you make such a division, the section should begin with paragraph 26 and end with 29.
If you look at the document, you will see that a break occurs in the text at that point.
Mrs Theato, please allow me to seek further clarification.
We are attempting to establish what constitutes the proposal for a decision and what constitutes the motion for a resolution.
I see paragraph 23 reads as follows:
'In the light of these considerations, decides to give a discharge to the Commission'.
This appears to be a decision rather than a resolution.
So, the proposal for a decision extends from paragraph 23 onwards.
Mr President, that is precisely what I said.
We have a decision and a resolution.
That is what the Rules of Procedure require.
The decision lays down what is to be done, what Parliament has decided, as you just said.
The resolution contains the remarks relating to the decision, the action to be taken.
This is what the section beginning with paragraph 26 is about.
Mr President, this confusion just goes to show how odd these Rules of Procedure actually are.
I would reiterate Mrs Theato's statement that the proposal for the decision goes from paragraph 1 through to paragraph 25.
It is all part of the decision and then you have the motion for resolution from paragraph 26 onwards.
Before the vote on paragraph 23
Mr Martens has the floor.
Mr President, I should like to speak and I must apologise to the House that we are voting on paragraph 23 in exceptional circumstances as the President of Parliament yesterday presented us with a declaration from the European Commission.
We discussed this and do not agree with the conclusion, in which it is stated that if paragraph 23 is not adopted along with the discharge for 1996, if it is rejected, then a motion of censure must be tabled.
We do not agree with this.
A large majority in our group wants to reject paragraph 23.
On the basis of our Rules of Procedure, this means that the matter must be referred back to the Committee on Budgetary Control and the debate must continue between Parliament and the Commission.
That is the effect of a refusal to grant discharge.
I would also add that we as a group have every confidence in the President of the European Commission.
We are counting on him to implement the reforms he has proposed.
That is the meaning of our vote.
I should like to end by making the following point. A motion of censure is not the right way to express the approval and confidence of Parliament.
The Commission President should be able to intervene and we would then be able to approve a motion of confidence.
That would be the right thing to do.
(Applause from the right)
Mr President, it had not been my intention to take the floor before this vote, I must say that I have never heard such hypocritical rubbish as was just spouted by Mr Martens!
(Loud applause from the left) After what has happened on this issue over the last few weeks in this House, everybody here knows that this is now a major political issue of confidence in the financial competence of the European Commission.
I wish it to be known, as Mr Martens has raised it now, that in the event this vote goes against granting discharge, I have here, and will table immediately, a motion of censure on the European Commission on behalf of more than the required number of Members under the Rules of our House.
(Interruption from the floor) Mr President, those people who believe that it is possible to say to the public, to the European Commission and to this House that they have no confidence in the financial competence of the European Commission, but who are not then prepared to do what politically follows and sack them, simply are not fit to be in this House.
We challenge them to do that!
(Loud and sustained applause from the left)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I must say that it is very clear that we cannot grant discharge to the Commission.
We formally protest against the fact that around 6 p.m. yesterday we were given a statement, translated into three languages to make things easy for the groups, which actually threatened Parliament and was tantamount to blackmail.
We find such action unacceptable.
(Applause from the centre and right) A Parliament with a little self-respect will not tolerate this.
We are also convinced that this declaration came after the socialists had collected their signatures.
Otherwise it would not have been so clearly stated.
We do not believe it is correct to equate a refusal to grant discharge with a motion of no confidence.
We do not believe these are the same thing at all. We are not therefore going to fall into this trap.
(Applause from the centre and right) Finally, it is of course clear that refusal to grant discharge indicates that there are indeed serious problems and that we want to see a serious response to these serious problems.
It is for this reason that we are today refusing to grant discharge.
(Applause from the centre and right)
Mr President, with regard to the vote that we are about to take, and in particular with regard to the Commission's reaction, I would like to say that my group too has reflected very deeply and very calmly on this matter, and has come to the conclusion that a majority of the Commission does not deserve to be granted this discharge.
Let me explain why. The act of granting discharge is not an administrative act.
It is an intrinsically political act, and a politically important one.
We are not verifying whether or not the Commission has correctly exercised its mandate in accounting terms.
The political act that we are now engaged in is significant in its own right.
Thus in our opinion, and regardless of the views that each of us may have as to whether the Commission deserves to be censured or not, which is a totally different issue, there is clearly no legal connection between censure and discharge.
That is why we believe these two acts or situations are totally separate.
The only way we can interpret the Commission presenting this issue in such a manner is as an act of political pressure, as a form of blackmail.
I repeat, this reaction can only be seen as political blackmail, as unacceptable pressure on this Parliament.
I would like to state quite unequivocally that the Commission must not and cannot be allowed to dictate what Parliament can and cannot do.
The Commission cannot be allowed to dictate the procedures that we should follow in this instance.
Parliament is independent and must now exercise its independence in this case by voting against the Commission.
Mr President, the text which was distributed last night by the Commission is without doubt highly inappropriate.
The two instruments, discharge and motion of censure, or motion of confidence, are quite separate in legal terms, but in political terms they are inextricably linked.
As far as discharge is concerned, there are also divisions within our group.
We are not all in agreement.
Dreading the prospect of a weak Commission, I personally shall vote for the discharge.
However, I deeply regret the fact that, as shown by the events of the last few hours, it is the Commission itself that last night weakened its position.
All we can do is observe and be sorry about this.
Mr President, I have two comments.
Some people in this Parliament today seem to think that we are voting on a definitive refusal to grant discharge.
I would remind colleagues that we have not been allowed to have an amendment under our Rules of Procedure to refuse to grant a definitive discharge.
What we will be voting on, I hope as soon as possible, is whether we wish not to grant discharge at this stage, or whether as I have understood the Rules of Procedure, it has to go back to committee.
Therefore, the arguments, particularly those advanced by the Socialist Group Leader, are inappropriate.
It is a procedure which is continuing and I as rapporteur will continue to follow this in the Budgetary Control Committee, should the vote go that way now.
Secondly, under Article 122 of the Rules of Procedure, could I urge us to go to the vote immediately.
Mr President, I wish to make it absolutely clear that it had not been my intention, had Mr Martens not stood before the vote, to speak before that vote.
He anticipated that and it was necessary to speak at that moment.
What this Parliament has just voted is an enormously important vote.
I have here a motion of censure which I will now table, signed by more than the number of members required by our Rules.
My Group will be voting to give confidence to the European Commission to continue their work over the next year and, in particular, we cannot afford in our view ...
(Mixed reactions)
Mrs Green, this is not the time to continue with this subject.
You can table your motion of censure and explain your Group's position in the debate.
Mr President, I notice that you allowed Mr Martens to take the floor when he wished but you are refusing that right to me.
(Mixed reactions) I tabled a motion of censure.
I give notice that my Group intends to vote against the motion of censure, to give confidence to the European Commission.
Let us see you vote for it then - those of you who have voted for this.
We believe it is ...
(Mixed reactions)
Mrs Green, I have allowed you to announce your motion of censure and state your Group's position twice.
But I stopped you when you began a debate on the matter.
This is not the time for a debate on a matter which is not on the agenda.
You can have that debate at the proper time.
After an important vote Members will draw their own conclusions and will adopt their political position.
I say the same to the rapporteur.
It has been referred back to committee.
In the committee you will continue as the rapporteur.
Mr Elles, the matter is finished unless you wish to raise a point under the Rules.
Mr President, we need to finish voting on that report before any personal declarations are made.
We still have four paragraphs to vote on.
We need to do that before we can refer this back to committee.
An incomplete report cannot be referred back to committee.
Mr Elles, our Rules are so strange that they say that if the discharge is not given, it must go back to committee and it is up to the committee to take its decision.
I did not make the Rules, but that is what they say.
We cannot vote again.
It will go back to the committee now.
That is the only course of action available.
Mr President, I am absolutely astonished by this inability to understand the true meaning of democracy.
I have been calling for the floor for half an hour; various representatives of political groups have spoken, some even twice, and I have not been given the right to speak.
I note above all else that, as this parliamentary term draws to a close, we in this House are giving a very sad demonstration of our capacity to interpret the needs of our citizens: the Commission blackmails Parliament, and Parliament - or one of its largest groups - blackmails the Commission and the other Members, by tabling motions for which it does not vote itself.
We are becoming a laughing-stock: the peoples of Europe expect us to do our work, and all we can produce is foolish nonsense!
Mr President, could you give us a ruling on what Mrs Green is saying? I understand her to say that she intends to table a motion of censure.
Is it in order for a Member to announce that she intends to table a motion to do something and to announce at the same time that she does not intend to vote for it?
That is a problem of political consistency.
Anyone can judge their own political consistency and anyone else can make their own interpretation.
Mr President, with regard to the Rules, Annex V is very clear with regard to referral back to committee.
I am not going to get into the question of Mrs Green's intervention earlier on.
However, the report and the criticisms have been very clear.
It is open to the individual Commissioners to resign if they feel they do not have the support of this House.
I just told you that I will only allow points of order.
I will not allow more debate on that question.
Mr President, in connection with Rule 163 of our Rules of Procedure, I very much regret that both the rapporteur and you yourself say that the rules are strange.
Anyone in this House is free to submit a proposal to amend the Rules of Procedure, and the Committee on Budgetary Control has been working on this for years.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has not, however, done so.
They could have done this some time ago already and now the Rules stand as they are and must be applied as such.
Mr President, as I understand the procedural point we have reached now, after the vote you will refer the Elles report back to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I should like to ask you, as you refer the report back, to invite the Commission now to put on record a statement of the response to the vote, as distinct from the premature statement that it issued yesterday evening.
Mr President, I merely wish to enquire whether we shall have the opportunity to explain our vote on the important decision we have just taken.
All the explanations of vote will be given after the votes.
Everyone will be able to give a corresponding explanation of vote.
The Commission discussed yesterday whether it should make a statement only after the vote.
There were two opinions.
But in the end, in the interests of transparency, it decided to state its position beforehand.
The position is the same.
You can read the written statement which you were given yesterday.
Now the Commission has made its position clear, and everyone else has done likewise, we shall proceed with the vote as planned.
Mr President, it is not necessary to request a separate vote for the amendments.
According to the Rules of Procedure, the amendments must be put to the vote separately.
There are some people here who rejected the amendments in the collective vote.
You are not aware of this, but it is the case.
Therefore, we must have separate votes.
I am sorry to have to contradict you, Mr Pimenta, but the Rules of Procedure specify a deadline for requests for separate votes on amendments.
That deadline has passed without any requests for separate votes having been submitted.
Mr President, I must point out to Mr Pimenta that our group did not ask for 20 and 23 to be split because according to the group's official voting list we intended to vote for both amendments.
But the simple fact that a number of people did not keep to this produced this result.
Mr President, this is certainly not a matter of a pound of fish or a pound of peas.
It is about guarantees for all the people of the European Union.
Under these circumstances, if we are asked to vote separately on the two amendments because there is a chance that one of them might be adopted and the other rejected, I would surely go along with that for the sake of the people.
Mr President, following what the rapporteur has said, I should like to say that I fully agree with her that as one amendment in fact concerns Article 5, whilst the other concerns Article 6, this is in line with the request for separation which we had for amendments relating to separate articles.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot go back on a vote which has been taken, all the more so because the vote was in accordance with our Rules of Procedure.
I would remind you that changes to collective votes can only be requested within a certain deadline.
I therefore have to rule that the vote has been duly taken.
(The President declared the common position adopted as amended)
Mr President, there is a point of order that I have been wanting to raise all day.
If I am not mistaken, there are new members in the ranks of the Socialist Group who have not been announced - strange figures in white.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, we should perhaps be properly notified of their presence.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Thank you for congratulating me so warmly, Mr President, but I must inform you that I voted against my report.
We negotiated on this report, and we made some very interesting mutual concessions.
However, it is always easier to achieve less than one would have wanted than to go beyond it.
I was unable to accept my report due to an amendment which was adopted.
Therefore, as is becoming customary for me, I am returning my report to the chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
The Chair does not usually comment on the substance of reports which have been adopted or rejected, Mrs Schaffner, but I felt I should pay tribute to the considerable amount of work you have done on this matter.
Mr President, I am anxious to know whether the sitting is closed or whether the next report will be put to the vote.
I am afraid that the vote on the next report, in other words your own, will have to be held over until this evening.
It is already 1.10 and we have been voting without a break since 9.30 this morning, which does us some credit.
Mr Pradier, your report will be put to the vote this evening, with numbers present and in an atmosphere of calm and concentration that are not possible at the moment, since everyone is exhausted except those Members who are now going to give their explanations of vote.
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted against the second reading of the 1999 budget.
We have done this while at the same time being delighted that the strategic amendment, which the majority of Members of Parliament voted in favour of at first reading, was not adopted at second reading.
In fact, this amendment sought to place large sums in the reserve for categories 3, 4 and 5, so that Parliament would be in a better position to discuss the future institutional agreement on a new financial perspective.
This amendment, as the Legal Service pointed out in an opinion it recently delivered, did not comply with the budgetary rules.
It was contrary to the principles of entering funds for a specific and genuine purpose.
However, I should particularly like to protest, on behalf of my group, against what this strategy inferred or rather what it implied.
This strategy was in fact taking the taxpayers in the various Member States hostage.
Placing appropriations in reserve naturally increases the sums provided in the budget.
This in turn results in an increase in Member State contributions, and therefore in the taxation of citizens, of the taxpayers in the Member States.
In the case of France, for example, the amendment in question was resulting in an increase of about 4 billion in French contributions.
Realising that its strategy was getting it nowhere, the Committee on Budgetary Control rejected this amendment.
We are very pleased about this.
We are also very pleased that the Structural Fund reserves have not been withheld, but we note that the European Parliament has once again increased its expenditure, even though expenditure is being reduced during the current period.
This is why we did not vote for this second reading by Parliament, it being a step towards additional expenditure.
We welcome the compromise over the so-called strategic reserves which the European Parliament has reached with the Council.
It is important that the two arms of the budgetary authority should continue to work together smoothly, not least with a view to future negotiations on a new financial perspective, Agenda 2000, agricultural reform and the new initiatives that need to be taken to facilitate the enlargement process.
We therefore regard the understanding with the Council as a constructive development, since it means that the principle of establishing strategic reserves in the budget has been abandoned.
We also welcome the fact that the budgetary authority has agreed to increase the commitment appropriations for the PHARE programme by EUR 48 million in comparison with Parliament's first reading.
It is important to give clear political signals and fulfil expectations during the period leading up to accession.
We are also pleased to see that the Council has introduced a budgetary framework to enable Parliament to transfer EUR 400 million from the 1998 budget to provide food aid for Russia.
The Commission should act quickly to introduce concrete measures to combat fraud and ensure that the supplies reach those who are in need.
Although the attempts that have been made to reform the common agricultural policy are a move in the right direction, we would like to see more energy devoted to ensuring that agriculture becomes more geared towards the environment and consumers, as well as better adapted to the needs of the market.
We are also firmly opposed to the support which the European Community provides for tobacco growing.
We cannot agree in principle to the discharge - which is dealt with in a separate report - being discussed in relation to the 1999 budget.
Not only are there grounds for questioning the legality of attempting to insert conditions relating to the discharge in the remarks under budget line A-1100, but it is also impossible, either politically or objectively, to justify focusing attention on those conditions in this way.
As regards MEPs' travel allowances, we still maintain that expenses should only be reimbursed on the basis of the actual costs incurred.
The budget which we have just voted on is both sensible and moderate.
Sensible because it should allow us to carry out our projects, and moderate because it is increased by less than the public expenditure of the Member States.
However, I should like to emphasise three points which are particularly close to my heart: the European Parliament must continue its efforts to provide the European Union with substantial room for manoeuvre on the budget in anticipation of future actions; sufficient funds must be made available for those actions which we consider to have priority; and humanitarian aid must not be neglected.
The 1999 financial year is probably the most difficult so far, in view of the balance that we have found between reducing the increase in the budget, implementing real requirements and evaluating the perspectives for the future.
The European Parliament would therefore like to include reserves in its 1999 budget.
I am sorry that the Commission has not pursued this option.
The programmes are coming to the end of their journey.
We know what we want in future.
We have the resources for this; they just need to be evaluated properly.
The European Union has set itself the goal of completing Economic and Monetary Union and achieving unprecedented enlargement by the start of the 21st century. None of this is feasible without sufficient funds.
A very restrictive implementation of the expenditure will enable many projects and actions to be undertaken and carried through to a successful conclusion.
The same applies for humanitarian actions, whether they constitute aid to future partners or not.
Let us therefore be vigilant.
We have voted in favour of a good budget which constitutes an appropriate link between our recent past and our immediate future.
Let us now follow its implementation very closely in order to keep to the principles which we have successfully negotiated.
Agenda 2000 is based on a number of key principles which are important to recite.
Firstly, a tight fiscal regime is to operate at European level over the period to the year 2006.
Reflecting this, the ceiling on Member State contributions is proposed to remain at 1.27 % of the Community's GNP.
All costs including those arising from enlargement are to be met from within this perimeter.
Whilst the Irish Government has accepted retention of the 1.27 % ceiling as a working hypothesis for the negotiations, we have queried if it will be sufficient to meet expenditure demands especially after the enlargement process.
Realistically it is most unlikely that further spending will be facilitated by a relaxation on the receipts side.
Apart from the concerns of net contributors it would be inconsistent for the European Union, which in the context of economic and employment policy is urging fiscal restraint on Member States who embark on a course at a European level contrary to this prescription without clear cause.
The European Union is dealing with what is a most intractable issue of the current negotiations, that is the so-called net imbalances of some current Member States.
Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden claim that currently they are saddled with excessive net contributions to the EU budget and want remedial action to be taken in the context of the overall Agenda 2000 negotiations.
The UK already has a rebate system which effectively means that they pay only one third of their share of the cost of additional new expenditure.
The European Commission recently produced a report on the issue of net imbalances which put forward some options for dealing with the situation if there was a political consensus that action was necessary.
From an Irish view point the most unfavourable of these options was one which would provide for a 25 % national co-financing of parts of CAP expenditure.
This could cost Ireland some £160 million by the year 2006 and the Irish Government is correct in voicing strong opposition in principle to this idea.
It is clear that we have to explore options put forward by the net contributors especially in regard to the basis for calculating contributions to the EU budget.
The final deal which will be given to Ireland under the National Development Plan 2000-2006 in regard to Structural Funds and indeed CAP will be influenced by what if anything transpired in relation to the issue of alleged excessive net imbalances.
There is a clear linkage between these issues and we must face up to this fact at this time.
Pex report (A4-0505/98)
I welcome the extension of the Ariane and Kaleidoscope programmes until 31 December 1999. It would have been irresponsible to leave 1999 bereft of any cultural programmes.
Together with the framework programme Culture 2000, which will be launched on 1 January 1999, they will ensure the continuity of the European cultural programmes.
I am also delighted that this outcome has been endorsed by the Standing Conference of European Ministers of Education and that the ministers also adopted the draft budget, which meant that a common position could be drawn up approving a budget totalling ECU 14.3 million (10.2 million for Kaleidoscope and 4.1 million for Ariane).
I very much welcome today's legislative proposal on the extension of the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes.
Even before this summer the Committee on Culture criticised the fact that the year 1999, with no cultural programmes, only pilot projects, would see a 40 % cut in the cultural budget.
One thing that gives me particular pleasure is that this result has been achieved during the Austrian Presidency under President-in-Office Dr Peter Wittmann.
The efforts of State Secretary Wittmann were crucial in securing the decision to extend the two programmes by a year, which was taken by the Conference of Education Ministers on 17 November 1998.
Let me also mention the chairman of the Committee on Culture, Mr Peter Pex, under whose diligent guidance we adopted the amended budget in committee back on 14 September. This was followed by the political agreement of 21 September by the Council, Parliament and the Commission to extend the Kaleidoscope and Ariane programmes by one year.
The result of this agreement is that budgetary resources will remain at the 1998 level, in other words ECU 14.3 million, instead of being cut to 10.9 million as envisaged in the Commission proposal.
Kuhn report (A4-0469/98)
There is good reason to be very pleased about the significant progress that has been achieved due to this proposal for a directive, which the European Parliament has been calling for since 1994.
It was high time provision was made for bringing into line national laws dealing with legal guarantee systems (as opposed to commercial guarantees) in connection with contracts of sale concluded with consumers.
The differences between the national systems pose serious problems for consumers, who are purchasing more and more goods abroad.
I deeply regret that the common position of the Council cannot be adopted without an amendment.
In fact, this is delaying the entry into force of a text that is essential for the effective completion of the single market.
Nevertheless, fundamental improvements had to be made to the text.
I am therefore happy that my amendment, which seeks to include in the body of the articles of the directive recital 14 dealing with second-hand goods, has been adopted.
For reasons of consistency in legal terms, I hope that it can be accepted by the Council.
In fact, it was inconceivable that this measure that is based on common sense, and which indicates that the consumer cannot automatically demand replacement of the good when it is second-hand, should only be referred to in a recital, and not in the articles themselves.
However, I have voted against several amendments proposed by the rapporteur, Mrs Kuhn.
Some of them, such as Amendment No 17 which concerns payment by instalments, have absolutely no link with the guarantee system.
As in the first reading, these amendments are unrealistic and unnecessary.
They upset the essential balance between the interests of consumers and the obligations and constraints which are a burden on producers.
I am thinking particularly of the SMEs and SMIs, for which some amendments will have serious consequences.
I voted against this report at the first reading, because then as now, I could not make much of the substance of particular points.
I still oppose a quadrupling of the warranty period for example, because that seems to place an intolerable burden on small and medium-sized enterprises in particular.
Many of the points I rejected before have been removed from the voting list for the second reading, and I can attest to the consumer-friendliness of the amendments that are on the table this time.
I also feel that they will not unduly burden the business community.
So despite my continued reservations about the draft directive, I have voted for most of the proposed amendments and for the report as a whole.
Torres Couto report (A4-0466/98)
Following the Kyoto Summit held in December 1997 under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, a proposal was put forward for a European Union strategy aimed at reducing CO emissions for passenger cars and improving fuel economy.
The strategy is based on three instruments: an environmental agreement with industry, fiscal measures and a fuel economy information scheme for the consumer.
The aim of the proposal is to provide potential buyers of new private vehicles with information on fuel consumption with a view to persuading them to choose the most economical models.
The information is intended to support present and future measures taken by the industry to improve the fuel economy of vehicles and fiscal measures introduced by Member States to encourage people to buy the most fuel-efficient cars.
The consumer information scheme is based on four main components:
fuel economy label attached to new passenger cars; -a summary guide containing fuel economy data on all new cars on the market; -a poster at the point of sale giving information on the fuel economy of the cars on display; -the requirement that fuel consumption data be included in all printed promotional material used by manufacturers.I support this European proposal but it is important that the labelling requirements be displayed in clear and simple language.
For example, when referring to the indication of consumption, it should state clearly how many litres are required to be used of a particular fuel for travelling 100km or how many gallons of petrol have to be used to travel a particular number of miles.
I also welcome the fact that a fuel economy guide will be published outlining the ten most fuel-efficient new cars that will be available in the marketplace.
This is a sensible and practical proposal and one which is good news for upholding the interests and rights of consumers in the EU.
The Amsterdam Treaty has given the European Union a greater role in the area of consumer policies under the new Article 152 of the Amsterdam Treaty in the whole field of consumer rights.
This proposal serves a dual purpose, namely: implementing our obligations under the Kyoto Agreement as well as enhancing and protecting the rights of the 340 million consumers in the EU.
Graenitz report (A4-0465/98)
On behalf of the members of the EPLP I would like to explain that they were unable to support Amendments Nos 32, 33, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11 and 10 of Mrs Graenitz's report.
We feel that Amendments Nos 32 and 33 would introduce an overlong and unnecessary extension of the widespread use of methyl bromide in many parts of the European Union whereas in other parts of the Union, its use has been eliminated and adequate alternatives found.
Equally we are unable to support Amendment No 15 as this reintroduces a use for ozone depleting substances where there are now well established and better alternatives.
With regard to Amendments Nos 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 we feel that the deadlines for phaseout of O.D.P. substances proposed by the Commission are practical and realistic and that advancing the schedules has little environmental benefit and creates problems in particular for SMEs.
Therefore we cannot support them.
The Greens believe it is essential that ozone depleting substances are removed from the market immediately and an effective ban should have been put in place a long time ago.
The Social and Christian Democrats in Europe seem determined to delay the ban of the dangerous ozone destroyer, methyl bromide, and we believe that any proposal to prolong the use of this toxic substance is a menace to human health and the environment.
The hole in the ozone layer has increased in size by 20-25 % during the past two years alone.
It is incredible that any MEP would allow or support practices which will allow this depletion to continue.
Scientists agree that rapid phasing out of the production and consumption of methyl bromide is the single most effective additional step to the Montreal Protocol to stop the depletion of the ozone layer.
Methyl bromide is a highly toxic pesticide gas used in agriculture.
It kills all kinds of soil organisms, good and bad alike.
Europe is the second biggest user of methyl bromide in the world, 90 % of which is used in agriculture, mainly in Italy and Spain.
These countries are exerting strong pressure to permit the continued use of this poison for a longer transition period.
It is irresponsible that, for the sake of the vested interests of a few shortsighted farmers in Italy and Spain, the whole world should suffer from increasing UV-radiation with its devastating consequences such as an increased incidence of skin cancer and other irreversible damages to the environment.
The fact that Ms Graenitz and Mr Poggioloni propose to phase out this substance by 2005 is just not good enough.
This is four years later than even the EU Commission itself proposes.
Germany and the Netherlands have already successfully phased out the use of methyl bromide and Denmark, Sweden and Finland will do so by 2001.
The Greens want the deadline as proposed by the Commission to be reinstated.
The other disturbing factor is that there appears to be a policy of double standards.
The ozone-depleting hydrochlorofluorocarbons will be outlawed for use in the EU, but companies in the EU will be allowed to continue to export exactly the same chemicals for use outside the EU.
This is not acceptable and runs counter to protection of the global environment.
The Elles report has been referred back to committee.
There are therefore no explanations of vote on this report.
(Protests from Mrs Lulling) No, I am sorry.
I would point out that explanations of vote - and please consult the Rules of Procedure, which you know very well - are given on the final vote.
There was no final vote, since the report was referred back to committee.
Mr President, I protest against your decision not to allow explanations of vote on the Elles report.
Mr President, the Vienna summit will go down in the history of the European Union as the Great Procrastination.
That is certainly not the fault of the Austrian Presidency.
I find it all the more regrettable in view of the fact that the presidency is about to pass to the new German Government, which has already proved on several occasions to be so inexperienced that the contradictory statements of its spokespersons - whom certain major French newspapers regard as absolute dilettantes - have already broken a fair quantity of china even before the guests have arrived.
In the present difficult situation, the EU deserves better than to be put at the mercy of raw debutants on the European stage.
But the Council, of course, still has politicians with experience, realism and a sense of responsibility.
And, thank heaven, in matters where vital interests of the Member States are at stake, such as fiscal policy, unanimity is still required, so there is hope that damage limitation can be successfully pursued during the next six months.
I am not one of those who deplore the fact that the Vienna summit dealt with the duty-free problem.
Indeed, I believe that one of the most tangible successes or results of the summit was the mandate given to the Commission, which has refused to yield to our pressure on this matter.
In the present employment situation, we urgently need a stay of execution for duty-free shops, at least until 2002, when we shall have euro notes and coins in our purses and wallets.
Tax-free sales will not turn the single market upside-down.
The costs involved in running an airport, which are currently defrayed by revenue from duty-free sales, will have to be met from other taxes once the curtain falls on duty-free.
It is naïve to claim that duty-free sales result in revenue shortfalls that the Member States can ill afford.
The abolition of duty-free is liable to cost more than it would allegedly yield in excise duties.
Mr President, before beginning my explanation of vote, I should like to draw attention to the Rules of Procedure.
I believe you were obliged to accept explanations of vote following the refusal of discharge.
There was a vote to refuse discharge, following which the matter was automatically referred back to committee, thereby preventing a final vote, but discharge was definitely refused.
Similar matters, such as the vote on the calendar of part-sessions, have already been referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, and it concluded that explanations of vote were admissible where there was no final vote, because other votes had been taken beforehand.
Therefore, Mr President, there is absolutely no doubt that you have to accept explanations of vote, not on referral back to committee, but on the refusal of discharge.
I am in no doubt on this point, Mr Berthu.
I cannot accept explanations of vote, because there has not been a refusal to grant discharge.
There was a vote against the proposal to give discharge, which is not the same thing, and now the matter has been referred back to committee.
We are not going to embark on a long debate on this now, but I would stress that it is quite clear that there has not been a refusal to grant discharge.
(Interruption by Mrs Lulling) There has not been a refusal to grant discharge, Mrs Lulling.
Look at what you voted on.
You voted not to accept the proposal from the Committee on Budgetary Control, which was proposing to give discharge.
So you did not give discharge and you referred the report back to committee.
Mr President, I would ask for the matter to be referred to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, and if it decides in our favour I would ask for retroactive authorisation to be given for our explanations of vote.
With regard to the Vienna European Council, we congratulate the Austrian Presidency which during the past six months has made a very genuine effort to provide more innovative solutions than usual to the Union's problems, for instance in its document on an immigration strategy.
Unfortunately, these days the obstacles are so considerable and so closely linked to policies that we have pursued for a long time that no presidency will be able to remove them by itself, however great its goodwill.
We have said on many occasions that the Vienna Council resolved neither the problem of how the Union will be financed in future, nor the problems of our agricultural policy, the institutions that are intended to take charge of enlargement, or the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty in the area of the movement of persons, but that it did at least set some deadlines for resolving them in the future.
We do not know if these deadlines will be respected.
Many people doubt that they will.
In any case, however, we have not said enough, and the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations would like to point out that these dates really amount to evading the issue during the time between the elections in an attempt to avoid presenting the electorate with the real questions.
The debates were suspended for a good part of 1998 due to the German legislative elections. We would now have to work at full speed in order to bring the discussions on Agenda 2000 to a close in March, before the European elections next June.
By the same token, the Commission did not put forward in Vienna its comprehensive proposal for amending the treaties following Amsterdam, that is, Amsterdam II or Maastricht III, or whatever you wish to call it, so as not to frighten the French electorate in the middle of the parliamentary debate on the revision of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
For years the European institutions have been trying to increase their powers whilst evading the verdict given by the electorate. They believe they are avoiding the problems in this way.
In reality, they are only increasing them.
This is illustrated particularly well by the issue of democratic control of EMU, which was concealed in Maastricht, so as not to put off the electorate due to too much federalism, and then again in Amsterdam, so as not to reopen Pandora's box. This entire issue is now being raised again, under the worst conditions, as indeed the president Mr Gil-Robles pointed out in Vienna.
We cannot continue to go about things in this way.
Mr President, I believe that the Vienna summit was a success in many respects.
I do have to say, however, that the Austrian Presidency, which has essentially been very proficient, made an unforgivable blunder in its declaration on behalf of the Council, when it used the term 'western Balkans' in its description of the situation in Croatia.
I believe we must differentiate very precisely when considering the region that was once artificially united as Yugoslavia.
There is Croatia, which ought to be integrated into the European structures at long last.
On the other hand we have Bosnia-Herzegovina, where it is a matter of establishing the elementary essentials of statehood and where we see in particular that one entity within the state, namely the Republika Srpska, is denying refugees the right to return and set up home in its territory.
Then there is Serbia, where a despotic regime continues to besmirch the good name of the Serbian nation and is trying to assert itself by pursuing the Milosevic style of politics, based on warfare and oppression.
I believe that each of these various elements must be considered separately and that the synthetic term 'western Balkans' should be consigned to the archives of the European Council.
I have to admit feeling somewhat disappointed by what was achieved at the Vienna European Council.
Certainly, the clear, reaffirmed priority given to the fight against unemployment is very positive.
However, concrete measures are being postponed until later.
This attitude is all the more regrettable since the meeting of finance ministers had raised hopes and hinted at a new lease of life for the future of the European Union.
We must say that we are somewhat dissatisfied.
The unresolved issues have all been postponed until later, as if time could reconcile the different approaches.
Such procrastination illustrates once again the institutional shortcomings of the European Union, while the economic pillar is given considerable decision-making powers.
If we can be satisfied with declarations of good intent, we have a right to question whether the political organisation of the Union is pertinent in view of the challenges which all of us are confronted with.
Certainly, enlargement could prove to be an opportunity for Europe, but the condition for this is that we have to adapt the decision-making process to this new order.
In order to implement our plans and ideas, there must be an effective and legitimate executive power, and a legislative power with sufficient means to guarantee its democratic nature.
In this sense, the rotating presidency has reached a turning point at which the decision-making process is becoming more and more uncertain, whichever country holds the presidency, and whatever the Council's political majority.
Even before it takes effect, the limitations of the Amsterdam Treaty are becoming evident, even though it represents an important step forward for European citizenship and for the European Parliament.
In order to prevent the European Union from degenerating into a purely economic entity where the social dimension would be sidelined, the shambles that is the institutional side must be relaunched to rejuvenate the political Europe, or even just to create it.
The fact that very little of substance appears in the conclusions of the Vienna Summit is not necessarily a bad thing.
At least the Austrian presidency resisted the temptation to overstate its ambitions at the start of its term, thereby avoiding the inevitable underachievement which comes with only six months in the chair.
The Austrian Government, it seems, understands the principle of stable management and has concentrated on matters such as the agreement with Switzerland.
The Leader of the Socialist Group was right to point out in yesterday's debate that this was achieved because of Austria's understanding of the particular difficulties of the country in question.
Perhaps there is a lesson in this for those who are pushing the ridiculous idea of an EU High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs to give a face to the ever more absurd common security and defence policy.
The different responses from EU countries to events in the Persian Gulf underline the point that we must be allowed to determine our own foreign policies.
International co-operation is much better achieved by individual countries operating through their own channels of diplomacy that have existed in many cases for centuries.
To turn to one specific matter, I welcome the conclusion on Northern Ireland.
I am pleased to see the reaffirmation of the conclusion of the Cardiff Summit in June which called on the Commission to produce proposals to lend practical support to the Belfast Agreement.
I am pleased that the Commission has taken some notice of what the Council has told it to do by providing further commitment to the PEACE programme.
It has also indicated that it is looking at a substantial increase to INTEREG funding, which I would certainly welcome.
I do, however, trust that the Commission will come up with a broader package for Northern Ireland.
Cross-border cooperation is an element of the Belfast Agreement.
It is not the whole Agreement.
Roubatis report (A4-0409/98)
Upholding human rights is a prerequisite for security and peace.
Until we can guarantee the right of all people to good health and well-being, peace and security cannot be assured.
The human rights violations that occur today are the cause of tomorrow's conflicts.
The vicious circle of violation and conflict can and must be stopped.
This should be accomplished by combating starvation and poverty.
Global inequality has increased dramatically during two centuries which have been dominated by neo-liberalism.
Together we must strive to overcome inequality both inside and outside the Union.
We do not share the view expressed in paragraph 23 that it is regrettable that the CFSP continues to form a separate pillar of the Union.
We do not think there is anything contradictory between working for a common EU policy on human rights and the EU's second pillar.
On the contrary, human rights and foreign policy are closely interconnected in other policy areas, for example trade and aid.
However, defence issues should, in our view, continue to be decided at national level.
The Danish Social Democrats have abstained on those parts of the report which refer to harmonised cooperation in the human rights sector.
The fact that foreign and security policy falls under the third pillar does not in principle prevent there being a coherent and consistent human rights policy in the Union; that depends to a far greater degree on political will.
I should firstly like to warmly congratulate Mr Barros Moura and Mr Roubatis on the high standard and reliability of both their reports.
With their work, the European Parliament is fully involved in the commemorations marking the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In addition, they suggest some interesting lines of approach for the future.
I would also like to pay tribute to the British Government for its decision to accept the extradition of General Pinochet, so that he can be held responsible for the crimes which were ordered by him or carried out in his name.
It is merely to do justice to the thousands of Chileans who have died, disappeared or been hunted down over many years by this bloodthirsty and dictatorial regime.
With regard to Mr Barros Moura's report, I should like to support it unequivocally, and I am delighted that it seeks quite simply to return to the values proclaimed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Therefore, I too wish to see a reform of the international financial institutions, in particular taking into account the social consequences of monetary programmes imposed on developing countries.
With this in mind, it seems important to me that a voluntary code of conduct for businesses should result from the WTO negotiations.
The idea developed by some to create a 'Social Label' should be seized upon.
On this subject, I think that it should be possible in connection with the award of public contracts to introduce clauses known as 'best social offer' clauses, no matter what the Liberals say.
I am among those who believe that human rights and social rights are closely linked.
I do not wish to elaborate any further on the report by my friend Mr Barros Moura, since I would also like to give my support to Mr Roubatis's text; this seeks to give the European Union an instrument which would enable it to respond to matters of urgency.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is because responding to matters of urgency is at the centre of the campaign for human rights which is being led by tens of thousands of citizens.
What we need, therefore, at our level is an instrument to replace this militant force.
It seems to me that the existence of such a body, working in collaboration with the organisations protecting human rights all over the world, is justified.
I would add that it is not necessary to quote examples here.
Each day and each hour bring their share of obvious violations of the most fundamental rights of men, women and children.
One year away from the third millennium, the situation should be reviewed... and new concrete measures should be taken.
We have taken part in the final vote on the Roubatis report.
The report contains many good human rights initiatives, but we object to the uncritical attitude reflected in its call for greatly increased funding and legal uniformity in the European Union.
One of the most important tasks of the EU and other European countries is to safeguard human rights and promote democracy and freedom of expression.
The report contains a commendable proposal to insert human rights clauses in the EU's agreements with third countries.
An 'early warning' unit to monitor conflicts that could lead to human rights violations is also a good idea.
The weak point in the EU's human rights policy is a lack of adequate procedures for follow-up, regulation and monitoring.
The customs union agreement with Turkey is a case in point.
This agreement contains specific requirements in terms of democracy, freedom of expression and putting a stop to arbitrary imprisonment and torture.
However, Turkey has not complied with any of these requirements, despite the fact that the agreement has been in existence for four years.
An agreement which is not adhered to by one or other of the parties should be cancelled.
In the meantime, we must introduce a system which enables pressure to be brought to bear and sanctions to be applied.
Such a system for monitoring and regulating agreements needs to be devised.
Barros Moura report (A4-0410/98)
I do not share the rapporteur's view that political integration within the EU needs further strengthening.
The EU should, first and foremost, be based on international cooperation.
According to the rapporteur, the USA's position as a moral guide is no longer tenable on account of its continued use of capital punishment.
It should also be pointed out that the USA's credibility has been further undermined by other factors, for example other forms of human rights abuses perpetrated in the country, its massive exports of arms and instruments of torture, as well as its role in international relations and conflicts.
Moreover, it is a tragedy that 50 years after the signing of the Convention on Human Rights, we have to recognise that intervention by MEPs in individual cases is still widely used by Parliament as a means of promoting human rights - a clear indication of the arbitrary way in which human rights are being applied.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Barros Moura, for the work he has done.
His report is the tenth of its kind since 1983.
It takes up a number of principles and values which form the basis of the work carried out by Parliament in the area of human rights.
The rapporteur has outlined many of the required institutional improvements, notably with regard to the flow of information between Parliament and the Commission.
Moreover, whilst the Amsterdam Treaty has brought about some progress in terms of the common foreign and security policy, it should be noted that the Council still does not fulfil its obligation to make all the information available to Parliament within a reasonable period of time.
I personally wish to emphasise a point which seems to me to be particularly important.
It concerns the Treaty of Rome, which seeks to set up an International Criminal Court.
Naturally, I welcome the adoption this year of the statute of this court.
However, this Treaty of Rome will now have to be ratified by at least 60 countries so that it can enter into force.
I can merely campaign on behalf of this, including in my own country, France.
I have supported unreservedly the excellent work carried out in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Parliament has sent out a strong message by means of this resolution.
I hope that the demands and wishes that have been expressed and adopted today can be followed by results as soon as possible.
Schaffner report (A4-0468/98)
Mr President, our group has voted against Mrs Schaffner's report on respect for human rights in the European Union.
Moreover, I am very pleased that the rapporteur has said that she voted against the report herself.
Human rights are in fact violated very often in the European Union, and the European Parliament makes declarations rather too often which are not always concerned with human rights and do not really achieve results.
The Members, that is us, are also European citizens, and they too are often deprived of their rights.
Of their right, for example, to explain their vote on a report leading to a vote, as stated very clearly in Article 6(1) of Annex V, which I would ask you to refer to.
It says there in black and white: '... taking into account Parliament's vote', and this is before referral back to committee.
Our vote on the refusal to grant discharge was based on the grounds that extremely serious criticisms had been levelled at the Commission for its management of budget appropriations.
We are very pleased that Parliament has refused to grant this discharge, by 270 votes to 225 with 23 abstentions.
In doing so - the Commission was aware of this even before the vote -, the majority of Parliament deemed that the refusal of discharge seriously undermined the credibility and authority of the Commission.
This is why we hope that the European Parliament clarifies the situation, and that it votes for a motion of censure, taking into account the seriousness of the criticisms made, and the political link that therefore clearly exists between a refusal of discharge and a motion of censure, and that it adopts the motion of censure, which is being circulated within Parliament at this very moment on our group's initiative.
Moreover, this text has already been signed by about 15 Members.
It will certainly obtain the required number of signatures.
Mr President, I wish to begin by stating quite categorically that the Group of the European People's Party is also fiercely dedicated to the defence of human rights in the European Union, wherever they may be threatened.
It has been said that nobody could vote against a human rights report on the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but we have had to do that, since this report, though presented as a human rights report, was actually the very opposite in substance.
It was an attack on two of the foundations of our democratic constitutional order, namely marriage and the family on the one hand and the concept of citizenship on the other.
These two elements are the basis of every modern constitutional state, and that is why we have to say 'no' to this report, because it seeks to undermine these foundations and therefore does not merit the name 'human rights report'.
Thankfully, Mrs Schaffner has preserved her good name by dissociating herself from the report. How I wish that the same could be done with the title, to preserve the good name of human rights!
We think it is important for the European Parliament to demonstrate its respect for human rights within the European Union.
We welcome the report's broad view of human rights and the purposeful stance it adopts on, amongst other things, combating racism and xenophobia, social rights and rights for ethnic minorities and refugees, as well as homosexuals.
We should like to highlight the importance of the European Parliament adopting a progressive attitude with regard to human rights within the Union.
The debate on human rights, to which this report contributes, clearly demonstrates the ideological dividing-line that exists where such issues are concerned between the progressive left and the reactionary forces on the right.
We are vehemently opposed to the more or less pronounced tendencies in some amendments towards hostility to women, opposition to abortion, prejudice against homosexuals and laxness with regard to racism and xenophobia.
We are also strongly opposed to the attempt to put forward a proposal on the liberalisation of drugs, on the pretext that this is associated with human rights.
Drug abuse and its tragic social consequences can never be seen as a human right.
We deeply regret that this kind of proposal should have been put forward during the session.
It only serves to undermine people's confidence in the European Parliament's stance on human rights within the European Union.
I would like at the outset to commend this extensive report which has been compiled by the rapporteur on this important subject of the state of human rights within the European Union in the year 1997.
It is both proper and reflective that we are discussing this topic on the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
I agree with the rapporteur when she says that we only have to read the Amnesty International Annual Report to see just how extensively human rights are ignored in today's world.
The Community institutions are alert to the importance of respect for human rights both at home and abroad.
However, I feel that I have to clarify an amendment tabled by Ms McKenna on this report.
Ms McKenna regrets the fact that the Special Criminal Court is being used in Ireland for non-terrorist related offences and the underlying tenor of the amendment would seem to suggest that she questions why the Special Criminal Court is being used at all.
The following points must be borne in mind in this regard:
Neither the constitution nor the Offences against the State Act 1939 provide that the Special Criminal court should be established only to hear paramilitary-related cases.-There are only two respects in which the Special Criminal court differs from the ordinary courts.
Firstly, there is no jury.
Secondly, instead of one judge, there are three judges.
In every other respect, there is no difference.
The same rules of evidence, legal representation and so on apply and of course the decisions of the Court are reviewable by the court of Criminal Appeal.-In the Joseph Kavanagh v Irish Government case, it was made clear that the DPP is free to give direction, in accordance with the Offences Against the State Act 1939, that a person may be tried in the Special Criminal Court where the DPP is satisfied that the ordinary courts are inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice.
Examples of this could include murder cases, organised crime and drug trafficking and/or related hideous crimes.-The use of the Special Criminal Court recently for some drugs and organised crime cases has arisen as a result of the clarification of the powers of the Director of Public Prosecutions under the existing legalisation.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted against Mrs Schaffner's report. Under the pretext of protecting human rights in the European Union, the report puts forward a variety of measures, from voting rights for immigrants to marriage for homosexuals, which are entirely questionable.
Since I am unable to deal with all of them in my explanation of vote, I will mention just one of them, which in paragraph 46 of the resolution, 'calls on the Member States to recognise and promote their regional languages, especially... by signing and ratifying the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages', as adopted by the Council of Europe in 1992.
I am afraid we cannot accept this call for the ratification of the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Firstly, this text provides that for the languages concerned in each country, the authorities should be capable of using them in their dealings with citizens, which would not only be very costly, but also contrary to Article 2 of the French constitution which stipulates that the language of the French Republic is French.
The present situation, where regional languages are freely used, but where the Member States may use a preferred language to preserve their unity, seems quite satisfactory to us.
Furthermore, even if it was generally admitted that when the Charter was ratified, it would only cover a limited number of traditional regional languages, it was clear that pressure would soon mount for additional languages to be included in the Charter, especially those spoken by immigrants.
Certainly, from its very first article the Charter seems to exclude the 'languages of migrants'.
However, there is no mention of the languages spoken by the children or grandchildren of migrants, who will not themselves be classed as migrants, but who are likely to continue to speak the language of their country of origin, in view of the problems of integration.
This fear is increased by Article 7, which provides that the principles laid down for regional languages would also apply to 'non-territorial' minority languages.
Moreover, the Charter is designed to promote destructuring in the Member States, which is completely in accordance with the wishes of some European federalists to leave no firm links between Brussels and the regions.
The promotion of transnational exchanges between regional languages used in identical or similar form in two or more states is provided for in Article 7, for example; Article 14 provides for encouragement of direct cooperation across borders between local authorities in whose territory similar regional languages are used.
From this point of view, the ratification of the Charter for Regional or Minority Languages would merely give a new impetus to a Europe of the Regions, which the euro will also speed up at the same time by depriving the Member States of one of the instruments with which they exert their national identity.
We are not surprised to discover once again that the European Parliament is helping to undermine the nation states.
Human rights should unite us.
Yet, as is the case every year, a number of my colleagues have used the annual report as an excuse for asserting political and ideological alternatives that have nothing to do with human rights.
Irresponsible neo-Marxist, neo-Leninist and libertarian dinosaurs, they have put forward proposals seeking to undermine the family unit and the principles of citizenship, which are the foundations of any society or nation.
This is why it was impossible for us to vote for Mrs Schaffner's report as amended, and why we were pleased to see that she has refused to take responsibility for its creation.
Generally speaking, we are forced to recognise that some of the people who make the most fuss about protecting human rights were the first to support for decades Marxist-Leninist regimes that treated them with disdain, cynicism and brutality.
Moreover, we should point out that they have never seen fit to repent, although they were accomplices, and even agents of totalitarian Communist regimes which are responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million innocent human beings.
I would also point out, as the files on the KGB have proved, that all the Communist parties in Europe were paid for by the USSR until 1989.
And they, or their fellow travellers, are the ones who come and give us lessons in 'human rights'!
It is high time we denounced this terrible farce.
Just as it is time we condemned the unethical alliances the Socialists make with Communist parties.
In this respect too, their particular idea of what is right and wrong seems to me to come and go.
As the late lamented François Furet rightly pointed out, the obsession with fascism and, therefore, with antifascism, has been used as an instrument by the Communist movement to hide from the general public what it really stands for.
It is lamentable that the Socialists have always gone along with this ludicrous situation.
When looking at this bloody century which ends with the ravages left by those twin scourges, the Red Army and the Black Death, I take my lead from Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle who were the ones who really fought for human dignity.
It is with some hesitation that I am voting in favour of the Schaffner report in the final vote, since it contains a great deal of material that has little or nothing to do with human rights in the EU.
As is the case every year, Parliament examines the state of human rights within the European Union.
However, the vote held today is of particular importance, since we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 10th anniversary of the Sakharov prize, which was founded by the European Parliament.
This being the case, I must congratulate the rapporteur who has presented an outstanding piece of work on this subject and who, above all, has fully participated in the game of consultation and compromise.
It was not easy, since it is so difficult to sort out the problems on one's own doorstep.
I have therefore voted in favour of this report, because respect for human rights is an essential aspect of any democratic society and should be one of the fundamental pillars of the Union's domestic and foreign policy.
Moreover, I agree with the proposal that 1999 be designated 'European Year to Stop Violence Against Women'.
I also believe that we must combat the attacks on personal rights perpetrated by certain 'sects'.
I also agree with the idea of the right of access to the labour market, health care, social security, housing, education and the courts.
The ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty will reinforce the prevention of all forms of discrimination (Article 13), a notion which is particularly close to my heart, and which cannot be separated from the notion of freedom.
I should like to conclude by saying that I must support the entire report which, voted for by the House, does Parliament great credit.
The protection of human rights is a matter of great importance and concern to me and to my colleagues, and I fully understand the significance of this annual report.
But equally difficult issues, to my mind, are the lack of a uniform definition of the concept of human rights and, to a lesser extent, the substance of this report.
I should have appreciated it, at least on this one occasion when we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, if the report had not been allowed to degenerate into a party-political manifesto for the majority group in the relevant committee but had addressed the real problems in the Union.
I for one cannot make any sense of the piecemeal list and the repeated interspersing of violations inside the Union with cases from outside the Union.
For that reason alone I rejected some items, even though I believe that the cases described constitute violations of human rights; the fact is that the violations in question occurred outside the Union and should not therefore be part of the report on which we have been asked to vote today.
Once again, utter confusion prevailed during the discussions and the vote on the report on the situation in the European Union concerning respect for human rights.
Nevertheless, the tragedies of modern history have emphasised the danger which results from ignoring the truth about human dignity.
It will still be more important than ever during the year of the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to point out a few basic truths.
The 1948 Declaration makes itself clear: it identifies the rights which it proclaims, and does not confer them; they are in fact essential to human dignity.
And yet, what are we seeing? The development of all sorts of so-called rights in the name of the principle of 'non-discrimination' (Article 13 of the draft Treaty of Amsterdam), which can justify any form of behaviour, for instance, in relation to sexual practices.
This positivist shift of the law in Europe is very serious: it marks a break with the most basic form of European humanism, which would urgently need to be rediscovered as far as adults are concerned and introduced to the younger generation.
When confirming the revelation in the Bible of the unity of mankind (cf.
Genesis) two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ came to teach us the best way to promote respect for human rights.
'In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.'
Mr President, I must tell you that I am somewhat amazed.
You allow Mr Fabre-Aubrespy to give an explanation of vote on the Elles report concerning the 1996 discharge during his explanation of vote on the Schaffner report.
You have broken the rules twice: firstly, you did not allow us to take the floor when a very important vote was being taken, and then you allow one Member to give his opinion and not other Members.
Finally, Mr President, I am obliged to tell you that you are wrong in thinking that there has not been a vote on discharge.
Now, please clarify what you said: there was no discharge, there was no refusal of discharge, or discharge was not granted.
Could you give me your interpretation?
With pleasure, Mrs Lulling.
First of all, it is true that I may have been rather inattentive in allowing Mr Fabre-Aubrespy to hold forth on various amendments which did not have a great deal to do with the Schaffner report, but as you will have noticed, I have a very liberal way of chairing the proceedings.
Having said that, as regards the question you are raising, I would refer you firstly to Rule 122, 'Explanations of vote': 'Once the general debate has been concluded, any Member may give an oral explanation on the final vote' - on the final vote.
And secondly, in Annex V, under the terms of which we voted, in the context of Article 3, 'Giving of discharge', you will remember that, for the final decision, we decided by a comfortable majority in the House that no amendments were possible and that we only voted for or against the conclusion of the committee.
That conclusion was in favour of giving discharge, but it was not adopted.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy was therefore pointing out to me under Article 6, 'Referral back to committee', that Parliament's vote must be taken into account.
That is quite clear, but this vote was not a final vote, which means that the Chair maintains its interpretation that no explanations of vote can be accepted on the Elles report, and if for once I have shown too much indulgence, I would ask you to forgive me.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.29 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr Elliott has the floor.
Mr President, I seek clarification on the proceedings for the rest of today.
It was intended that the joint debate on racism and xenophobia should take place following the vote.
I should like to know when that will now take place.
The services tell me that the debate will probably take place at 6.20 p.m.
Mr President, I understand the difficulties today but that presents a problem as I have to leave at 6 p.m.
I have a funeral to attend in Britain tomorrow so I cannot be here.
Therefore, I shall have to make other arrangements for the presentation of my part of that joint debate.
I had hoped that it would be later this morning or immediately after we resumed.
Thank you for clarifying the position.
Agenda
Ladies and gentlemen, following the decision taken this morning to include a debate on Iraq in this afternoon's agenda, I would like to suggest that once the Secretaries-General of the political groups have discussed the matter, the last two subjects of this debate should be deleted. I am referring to the relocation of Rank Xerox and the Philippines.
The speaking time for Members could then be set at 45 minutes.
Mr Hallam has asked for the floor.
Mr President, this morning Mr Martin made the excellent suggestion that we should still be able to vote on these urgencies.
I understand the importance of the situation in Iraq but I feel that these urgencies are also important and we should at least be allowed to express our views.
During the discussion one group was not prepared to allow the vote without debate.
As you know, all groups must agree on such a procedure.
Mr President, I understand that the group concerned was the UPE.
It has used this squalid manoeuvre to remove from the agenda an item that only yesterday we voted to put on the agenda by 290 votes to 55.
The concerns of the thousands of workers and their families affected will not go away.
We will be attempting to bring this issue back next month.
Hopefully then the UPE will face its responsibilities rather than use these squalid manoeuvres as a way of preventing the House from having a view on these matters.
Mr President, we have no objection to the Xerox motion being discussed before the House.
But what we do not want is a vote on something that has not been discussed.
We have every sympathy for the workers involved, but the reasoning in this motion for a resolution is entirely out of order, and the facts set out therein are totally inaccurate.
If we are to have a vote then we must have a debate.
We could waste time discussing that but we have limited time and we have to discuss important matters.
Before there was only one group taking that position.
Now there is another group which does not want to vote without previous debate.
Mr President, very briefly, it could at least be resolved in terms of consensus here if it was agreed that we are going to deal with both those issues next month.
People would then feel that they had the opportunity to deal with it.
Mr McCartin says 'yes' and so does Mr Pasty, so you have the commitment there.
Do you think it is necessary to vote on the proposal? I do not think so.
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the situation in Iraq.
I give the floor to Mr Pinheiro, on behalf of the Commission.
You all know that the European Union - and, of course, the Commission - has always maintained that the solution to the Iraqi crisis must be founded in the framework of the United Nations through full compliance by Iraq with all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Over the last 14 months, in which this has been discussed time and again in the different instances, the European Union, through its Member States, has reiterated its position in this regard.
On 9 November the European Union explicitly condemned as totally unacceptable Iraq's decision on 31 October to cease all cooperation with UNSCOM, and supported the United Nations Security Council's response to that decision - United Nations Security Council Resolution 1205.
As you know, we still insist that compliance with the requirements of United Nations Security Council resolutions is absolutely necessary for the crisis to be resolved.
It is unfortunate that apparently the military option has become inevitable: we hope these actions will be limited to military targets.
We reaffirm, as we always have, that we have nothing against the Iraqi people, but rather, against the regime and its leader.
Consultations are now taking place within our Member States.
The presidency issued a declaration not long ago, the thrust of which roughly coincides with what I am able to say at this juncture.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are facing a serious crisis, indeed we are in the midst of a serious crisis, and of course the first thing to ask is: who is responsible for it?
On behalf of my group, I should like to say plainly and unequivocally that responsibility lies with Saddam Hussein and his regime, and from your words, Commissioner, I infer that this is the view of the European Union, of the European Commission.
Who is this Saddam Hussein? Is he a politician who breaks the odd rule here and there, who engages in a spot of beggar-my-neighbour policy?
No, Saddam Hussein is a ruthless dictator; he is a danger to those around him as well as a brutal oppressor of his own people, be they Kurds or Shiites, or simply ordinary Iraqi citizens. He even diverts foreign aid for the use of his own family and entourage instead of giving it to the people who really need it.
For years now, the international community has been trying to put him in his place by means of military actions, not to mention numerous diplomatic overtures.
We surely all know how often the United Nations and Russia have tried to mediate through diplomatic channels.
And in fact every time, after every mediation effort, it has taken a few weeks, sometimes a few months but sometimes only a few days for us to see that the attempts to mediate have not delivered what they promised. Above all, we have seen Saddam Hussein failing to honour his promises and his agreements.
Time and again, United Nations observers and inspectors are more or less expelled or forced to leave the country.
Saddam Hussein has been playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse, not only by occasionally vilifying the Americans or European countries or obstructing their work.
No, he has even turned the United Nations, that very institution which we here in the European Parliament are pledged to defend, into a laughing-stock.
He has robbed the United Nations of its authority, and every one of us, every country and every single Member of Parliament with our respect for the principles of humanity, human rights and peace and our desire to ensure that these principles are upheld in that part of the world, has effectively been turned into a laughing-stock by Saddam Hussein and his regime and its political methods.
And yet I am not very happy about the action that has now been launched, and while my group is completely at one in its perception of the problem, I am sure that different conclusions have been drawn as to whether the action that has been taken was really the best available option.
There are doubts, there are reservations, there are criticisms about the timing, the moment chosen by a greatly weakened President and the motives behind the timing of these air strikes.
There are also doubts and criticism about the fact that the United Nations was not consulted before the actual decision was taken.
I have enough legal training to appreciate that there are various possible legal arguments, all of them well founded, on the question of whether there ought to have been a new UN or Security Council resolution.
There are certainly good grounds for claiming that a new resolution would have been superfluous, since a basic resolution, which covered the sanctions too, had already been adopted.
Nevertheless, I should have deemed it more prudent and more reasonable if the United States, and Britain too, had involved the United Nations in some way in the decision and in the conduct of their military action, at least through a consultation process.
After all, there is at least the danger that the very thing we seek to avoid by tackling Saddam Hussein in various ways, namely the erosion of the authority of the United Nations, is the very thing that will happen if there is even a suggestion that it might have been wiser to involve the United Nations in the decision-making process.
That, at any rate, is the view of many people, and that is the personal view I would express in my own group.
The problem now is to find a solution to this difficult situation we are in, and I fear that if we do not deal more thoroughly with the roots of this crisis, we shall be forever having to stand up in Parliament and voice criticism, and there will be a succession of mere pinpoint actions; air strikes will be carried out, but nothing fundamental will change in Iraq.
The fact that we in this House have often been critical of what may be a rather unbalanced approach on the part of the United States of America is clearly indicative of one thing: Europe needs to develop a common foreign and security policy.
As long as Europe conducts its foreign, security and defence policies in such a weak, pussyfooting and inconsistent manner, it will not be possible to hold the United States any more firmly to particular principles and standards that we profess.
The second point is this: it is absolutely crucial that we persuade the United States to conduct its policy in that region with a greater degree of regional coordination.
We know how sensitive the region is.
We are aware that any hiccup in the peace process creates difficulties for the entire region and even puts a strain on Europe's relations with the Arab world in general.
A solution to the Iraq problem, a campaign against this appalling regime, can only be achieved in concert with the other Arab states.
It is foolish to believe that such a policy can be pursued from without, whether by Europe or by the United States, in the face of public opinion in the Arab nations.
If we cannot win over the hearts and minds of the Arab population inside and outside Iraq, we shall never be able to solve the problem.
The third point concerns humanitarian aid.
Time and again, especially here in the House, we have stated categorically that the people must not suffer for the sins and errors of Saddam Hussein, and that must continue to be our guiding principle; it is quite plain that we must provide financial aid in the coming months to help those who will really be made to suffer once again.
And so to my final point. A great deal of criticism has been directed at the world's policeman, the United States.
It is a dangerous situation, whether it results from the American desire to take action or because nobody else is prepared to perform that function.
Let me return to the point I made at the beginning.
There is only one answer to the problem posed by the United States' role as a one-man police force, and that is to strengthen European defence and security policy.
The Anglo-French decision is a first step, but let us try to curb the tendency, the desire of the United States to act as the world's policeman, and let us seriously pursue a common foreign and security policy in Europe in order to establish a counterweight on this side of the Atlantic.
Mr President, if we want to determine where the blame lies for what has happened in the past 24 hours - whether it lies with Washington, London or Baghdad - then we must search out the first cause in this whole process.
If we do that, it is clear that the blame for the current crisis lies firmly with Saddam Hussein and his regime in Iraq.
Iraq has provoked one crisis after another over many years since the Gulf War in 1991; notably, and in particular, in January of this year when first it expelled all United States personnel from the UNSCOM team in that country.
In August of this year it barred the entire UNSCOM team of inspectors from entering new sites and in October it ended all cooperation entirely with UNSCOM.
These provocations add up to a consistent pattern of non-cooperation and concealment that has prevailed for fully eight years, during which time inspections have repeatedly been totally or partially obstructed by the Iraqi authorities.
All attempts to find diplomatic solutions to the crisis have failed. Why?
Because of the bad will on the part of Saddam Hussein.
He has continuously blocked, obstructed and frustrated inspections by the UN Special Commission, in clear violation of UN resolutions.
He has shown total disregard for the memorandum of understanding signed between Iraq and the UN Secretary-General in February of this year, after a personal intervention by Mr Kofi Annan.
This week, Mr Richard Butler, Chief Weapons Inspector, reported that Iraq is continuing to refuse to comply with the terms of Resolution 687.
It is believed still to possess biological weapons, illicit ballistic missiles and chemical weapons.
The military intervention of the past 24 hours is unfortunate but it is the necessary consequence of the Iraqi regime's own intransigence.
My Group remains very sympathetic to the suffering of the Iraqi people under the sanctions.
But the first cause for the sanctions lies also with their own dictator.
We unequivocally support the United States and the United Kingdom in their attempt to eliminate this threat to regional and world peace, and I hope Member States will do likewise in the Council.
Mr President, a short while ago we were both relieved and proud when Kofi Annan returned from Baghdad after having managed to reach an agreement, although we all knew in the back of our minds that this agreement could prove short-lived.
It soon became clear that this was the case when the UNSCOM personnel were sent into the country and then out again.
I do not need to go into the details, as Mr Swoboda and Mr Spencer have already done so comprehensively.
For me the question remains as to why Saddam Hussein is making things so difficult if he has nothing to hide.
Perhaps that is too simplistic.
In short, Mr President, the actions now being taken were in fact inevitable, but the timing is causing doubts among many people.
I can understand this, but I do not believe that it will affect the vote in Congress, and meanwhile the facts on the ground in the Middle East remain just as serious.
Does this action bring a solution any nearer? I suspect not.
UNSCOM will not be returning.
Saddam Hussein will not be affected.
So what can we do to help achieve some progress in the region? Support the opposition?
We know from experience that this is very fragmented. But the EU could nevertheless make an effort in this direction.
Initiatives must also be taken with a view to providing humanitarian aid, because it is extremely sad that just before Christmas Iraqi citizens are lying in hospital and may be suffering from a shortage of medicines.
Like Mr Spencer, who has given an excellent analysis of the situation, I also see a bigger role for the German Presidency.
This presidency certainly has a lot on its plate, as we have Agenda 2000 to consider, which is already the subject of considerable controversy.
Alongside the US position on this, I believe it is important for the EU to take serious and firm measures in relation to the Middle East, of which Iraq is of course a part.
We must do something substantial for the Iraqi people, something to make them feel that they have not been abandoned to this dictator.
The only form I can see this taking at present is humanitarian aid.
Mr President, the Green Group condemns the unilateral action taken by the United States and the United Kingdom.
Nevertheless, we also condemn Saddam Hussein's criminal regime and policies.
He is a criminal and should be treated as such.
He should be charged and tried, and if he is found guilty, he should be arrested and punished using strictly lawful methods.
We cannot condone this 'rough justice' and lynch law!
Such tactics have no place in an international legal system.
In recent years, we have seen the gradual emergence of an international judicial system.
We are not going to lynch the murderers in Rwanda - we are bringing them to trial!
We are not going to lynch the murderers in Bosnia - we are bringing them to trial!
We are not going to lynch Pinochet - we are bringing him to trial!
If we wish to avoid a state of chaos in which 'private police forces' compete against each other, we must act according to international law.
Mr Swoboda bemoans the fact that the USA is the world's policeman, and would like the EU to provide some competition in that respect - as if that were a viable solution to the problem!
If the Russians and Chinese were also to set up their own rival world police forces, then by the year 2000 there would be four or five different 'world superpower police forces' all competing to establish their own world order in accordance with their own best interests - how I pity our grandchildren!
The European Union stands or falls on legality and the rule of law.
At the present time when we are working even harder to promote human rights and the rule of law through our numerous reports, how can representatives of the European Union possibly countenance 'rough justice' as an alternative to the courts?
We must abide by the rule of law, even when the going gets tough!
Mr President, the Security Council has clearly stated the conditions that Iraq has to meet.
But it is also clear that Saddam Hussein constantly flouts the undertakings he gives.
The international community can no longer stand by while Saddam Hussein keeps playing these games.
Last month the United States and the United Kingdom made it perfectly clear that enough was enough and that they would be prepared to intervene if Saddam Hussein failed to honour his undertakings, and without any advance warning.
That is why this use of force is justified.
For some time now there has been no alternative to serious punitive action.
The attack by the United States and the allies was therefore justified, although I agree with the Dutch Prime Minister Mr Kok that this is a terrible thing from a humanitarian point of view.
Iraq has tried to use the weakened position of the US President for its own benefit.
Not to intervene now would not only jeopardise the credibility of the United Nations, but also security in the region.
Saddam Hussein does not only attack neighbouring countries when he sees his chance, as in the case of Iran and Kuwait. He is also ready to murder members of his own people, including members of his own family.
This barbaric dictator must go.
He is a tyrant.
With him all banned weapons must also be banished from Iraq.
Mr President, we are nine days away from Christmas.
Iraq is the only Arab country where there are Christians, churches and Christmas trees, and where the presents being given to children are bombs, an embargo, thousands of dying children, genocide, and a concentration camp for 18 million Arabs which is guarded by the West.
What crime has Iraq committed? Iraq wants the right to dignity, territorial integrity, sovereignty over its natural resources, and non-interference in its internal affairs.
What is Saddam Hussein asking for? To stand up and be counted?
Who is a tyrant in the Middle East?
Saddam Hussein? Or Bill Clinton cavorting with tarts in hotels and hallways, wiping his secretions on dresses?
The law is being invoked, but where is the United Nations Security Council? Where is the Security Council's resolution?
Where is the peacekeeping operation? Has the matter been referred to the Austrian Presidency of the Council?
To whom has the matter been referred?
We talk about policemen, but who are the criminals?
Aramco, Exxon, or British colonial power in Kuwait?
We talk about regimes, but which is the model regime? Emir Jaber of Kuwait or the Wahhabite family of Saudi Arabia?
Europe is staking its credibility.
The Arab nation is watching Europe.
The Arabs are not people from the suburbs!
They are from Nineveh, Babylon and Mesopotamia.
I say the following to the Iraqi students I have given lectures to as dean in Baghdad and Babylon: 'One day, France will become France again, we will hold out our hands to the people of Iraq, and we will make up for the crime that Europe has committed, the Europe of so-called human rights'.
Long live Iraq.
(Mixed reactions)
Mr President, all peoples hoped that 1945 would draw a line under the tragic succession of wars; instead, history shows that in 1945 warfare did not end, but peace broke out.
Never before as in the past 50 years has there been so much war, genocide, injustice, migration of populations and suffering by innocent people.
With regard to the momentous events currently unfolding, we roundly condemn not the Iraqi people, whose ancient civilisation - perhaps the most ancient human civilisation of all - we admire, but Saddam, who has sacrificed his population on the cruellest of altars in a bid to achieve his own dreams of glory and omnipotence.
We likewise condemn the fact that the international organisations - including the European Union - are utterly powerless, miserably impotent in the face of this tragedy and those which preceded it.
This impotence feeds the conviction in the United States that they are the avenging angel.
Mr President, we hope that this cruel chapter will soon end, thanks partly to the Union ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I have to stop you there, Mr Parigi.
You have gone beyond your speaking time.
The debate is closed.
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance
The next item is the joint debate on the following five motions for resolutions:
B4-1087/98 by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-1100/98 by Mr La Malfa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; - B4-1138/98 by Mr von Habsburg and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-1144/98 by Mrs Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-1151/98 by Mr Alavanos, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; on a political settlement of the Trans-Dniestrian problem.
Mr President, we have been waiting for a fair and lasting settlement in Trans-Dniestria since 1992.
For six years a conflict has been brewing there that could explode and cause an escalation in the political situation.
The people of Moldova must remember the 1992 war and make every effort to prevent renewed bloodshed.
Why are the fine words and the Moscow Memorandum not acted upon?
My group is pleased that, partly thanks to the initiative of Mrs Mann, we have also been able to signal our support for peace to Moldova and Trans-Dniestria.
The forces for peace deserve every support, as do the international efforts of the OSCE, the Russian Federation and Ukraine.
I hope that they will continue to do what they can to give peace the best possible chance.
I call upon the Council and Commission to make a contribution to the peace process - perhaps this would be a deserving cause for TACIS funding.
Priority must also be given to the destruction of the major arms supplies which the Russians left behind.
As we know, the presence of large quantities of weapons can in itself trigger a spiral of violence.
Madam President, Moldova, I am sorry to say, is something of a forgotten country in our part of the world.
That is why I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mrs Mann for the energy with which she has dedicated herself to bringing about a real and radical change in this widespread disregard.
We tend to forget Moldova, even though it is enormously important to our security.
It is worth observing how the governments of the applicant countries react when the subject of Moldova is raised.
Mr Gabriel, the former Romanian Foreign Minister, once pointed out in a very interesting speech that there were two absolutely critical points for security in Europe.
One of them was the Trans-Dniestria issue and the other was the question of Kaliningrad.
These are two places which, simply because of their geographical positions and because of the huge quantities of arms deployed in them - an inexplicable phenomenon in actual fact, because even Russia cannot explain today, and is unwilling to try and explain to the outside world, why so many weapons are kept there - represent a real threat to the security of the entire continent.
We are not just talking about a small remote place; we simply must look at the wider picture rather than walking around with blinkers on.
I believe it is very important that we in the European Parliament should also pledge our support to the relevant missions, especially the OSCE, so that they know they have the backing of the political representatives of the European Union, who are willing to provide assistance and support if and when it is needed.
A solution to the conflict is possible if there is enough strength behind the peace efforts.
In the developing conflict, Russia is on one side and the European Union is effectively on the other.
We shall be doing Europe no favours if we allow a one-sided show of strength by Russia.
It is essential that we demonstrate by our presence there that we are really supporting the young Moldovan democracy, that we are doing our best for Moldova.
If we do that, I believe we shall have done what is best for ourselves too.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament supports the OSCE Ministerial Council in its appeal to the parties involved in the Trans-Dniestrian conflict and agrees that it is high time the latter took decisive action to find a solution to the conflict.
We are well aware of the efforts of the OSCE mission, which is seeking peace in the region on a shoestring budget, with a great deal of commitment and often with restrictions on the exercise of its mandate.
We know that any solution must respect the internationally recognised borders of Moldova.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the agreed withdrawal of the Russian forces is being delayed by Moscow and is further complicated by the storage in Trans-Dniestria of huge quantities of arms and ammunition, as has already been mentioned.
Moldova - and this is repeatedly forgotten here - was subject to the same fate as the former German Democratic Republic, spending 40 years under Soviet rule.
Moldova has applied for membership of the European Union.
That is repeatedly ignored here.
We should offer this particular neighbour a solution in the framework of the European Conference, in the context of the enlarged Union, and I ask the Commissioner to suggest which strategies the Commission might have for Moldova over and above the partnership and cooperation agreement.
Madam President, the Commission obviously shares the European Parliament's concerns about the situation in Trans-Dniestria.
Although there has been no incidence of violence since 1992, there can certainly be no guarantee of peace until there is an agreement between the leaders of the two parties and neighbouring countries, notable Russia.
In order to facilitate the dialogue and to assist the mediators, notably those from the OSCE, the Commission proposes to finance a project under the TACIS programme to rebuild one of the bridges over the River Dniester destroyed in 1992 in Gura and Kolui.
This proposal has been coordinated with the OSCE mission in Chisinau, and we consider that it is in accordance with the proposal contained in this resolution.
We are continuing to monitor the situation in the region and sharing the information we have with the Council and the Member States, and we are prepared to take any other possible measures which might help to resolve the conflict.
Lastly, on behalf of the Commission, I would like to emphasise the very laudable efforts of the Moldovan authorities to consolidate democracy and develop the market economy, even in circumstances which everyone recognises are extremely difficult.
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following seven motions for resolutions:
B4-1086/98 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-1088/98 by Mr Happart and Mrs Berès, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-1102/98 by Mr Monfils, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-1119/98 by Mrs Maes and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-1139/98 by Mrs Pack and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-1152/98 by Mrs Ainardi and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -B4-1159/98 by Mr Kerr, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; on the urgent need to take measures against doping in sport.
Madam President, Commissioner, at the beginning of August I initiated the urgency procedure for a European Parliament resolution on doping in sport.
I am grateful to the Members of the House who added their support to my initiative along the way, because they have improved my original basic text.
Ten heads are better than one!
This joint motion for a resolution is further proof of that.
I do not consider myself to have a moralising role, but there are at least two good reasons to take a firm stand against doping.
Firstly, the whole procedure is immoral.
It is immoral that young people are being set the example of taking risks with health, ostensibly for reasons of sporting performance, but mainly for financial advantage.
We simply cannot accept the principle of cheating in this context.
Doping is used in disregard of morality and to deceive society, and of course it reminds me of the use of hormones in food.
It also reminds me of every kind of fraud, including the financial kind.
This sort of attitude, this kind of thinking, seems to be insinuating itself into sport and if the European Parliament fails to react to it, we will actually be failing in our fundamental duty to create a better and fairer society.
We must insist that the principle and ideal of sport must continue to be upheld first and foremost as an example of morality to young people.
Madam President, doping undermines the body, the mind and sportsmanship.
As Mr Happart rightly says, it is cheating, and I welcome his initiatives on this issue.
The IOC, International Olympic Committee, has decided to do nothing for the moment, so preparations for the World Conference in Lausanne must be thorough and honest.
An international agency must be set up and a clear list of banned products provisionally updated.
But the ICO cannot do this alone.
International organisations such as the Union also have an important role to play.
The recent Vienna summit provided a start, and it is now up to the individual Member States to coordinate their efforts, harmonise their policy and use the European framework in connection with health policy and sport.
EU sports ministers must quickly meet in order to draw up a possible European action plan.
Madam President, I am not always able to agree with Mr Happart, but I am pleased that I can on this occasion.
This is a problem of serious concern to us all as we believe that sport is so poisoned by doping that we scarcely have any confidence left in the sports organisations to eliminate this scourge.
That is why we are placing our trust in the Union.
We hope that the Member States will coordinate their policies, but we also hope that the Commission will produce a directive so that this coordination can become a reality, including effective monitoring.
This is why we proposed the creation of an independent administrative body.
Madam President, doping in sport has already reached serious proportions.
We are seeing how the purveyors of these banned products prove ever more creative in developing new products and new trickery.
It has become a veritable mafia with its own laboratories and its own circuits.
This is why it will be necessary not only for the Commission to adopt a good preventive policy and for there to be a list of banned products, but also for effective controls to be carried out to ensure that these products are indeed eliminated.
By a preventive policy we mean a policy which also thinks pro-actively, that is also aware of likely developments.
What today may be permitted because nobody knows about it, may tomorrow be revealed as a dangerous product.
We want to put an end to the poisoning of sportsmen and -women.
Sport is healthy provided it is not subject to the laws of unadulterated commerce in which the health of people is sacrificed.
Madam President, I will state my point briefly and simply.
Taking drugs and doping other than for medical reasons is wrong.
Drug-taking is psychologically, mentally and physically damaging to the user.
Then there are the moral implications, and the cheating that it leads to.
Sportsmen and women set examples to Europe's young people. They pay far more attention to what sportsmen and women are doing than to what politicians are doing.
That is why it is so important that we stop this practice.
Sports organisations need the help of politicians to stamp this out and that is where the Commission has a responsibility.
Thirdly, this is an issue that crosses national frontiers.
It cannot be dealt with by nation states acting alone.
It requires cooperation at international level.
The Commission has a responsibility.
Europe has a responsibility.
We should take the lead and not be sitting back waiting for others to give the lead.
Madam President, for some months now doping scandals have been revealing a chain of responsibility that is not limited to sportsmen and women themselves, far from it.
And our debate reflects growing concern about the spread of the scourge of doping in a great many sporting disciplines.
Member States' resources for prevention and for the fight against doping are currently very inadequate.
I am pleased that the French Government, spurred on by Marie-George Buffet, has taken the initiative on a bill to fight doping and to protect the health of sportsmen and women.
Full details of this initiative were relayed at the Vienna European Council.
Our group's motion for a resolution is concerned with combating not just doping but the deep-rooted causes of doping, to make sport human again.
Individual legislation must be adapted or strengthened, and measures must be taken at European level in close association with the sports movement, especially in the fields of research, definition of norms for analysis of doping substances, drawing up a list of banned products and combating trafficking in these products.
Too often it is only sportsmen and women who currently face sanctions, and nobody bothers the people who administer the doping substances.
This situation must be corrected, and all the traffickers and doctors who prescribe these products must be severely punished.
I hope the adoption of the resolution supported by our group will be a signal to those attending the World IOC Conference in Lausanne next February.
Finally, this debate demonstrates the need for a major effort to harmonise legislation and to take European initiatives in line with the gravity of the problem.
This is a very important resolution.
I am in charge of sport for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and we are still waiting for the Commission to produce a directive on sport.
I should like to pass the message back to the Commission that we have been waiting for this for some years.
I understand there was a discussion on this subject at the recent Council of Sports Ministers in Austria.
It would nice if Parliament got sight of it before we all disappear next June.
Some of us, of course, hope to be back and to take up the initiative then, when we have competence under the Amsterdam Treaty.
It is a very good resolution.
It is very comprehensive.
It deals with an important issue which is not about doping but about money in sport.
This is the key.
Look at the recent Tour de France and the fact that half the teams seemed to be doped.
Other major sports are often subject to doping and money is at the heart of the question.
The huge financial rewards motivate people to do unnatural things to their bodies in order to win.
We need to take some of the money out of sport, take the dope out of sport and put the sport back into sport.
It is a problem that is fairly widespread.
Sometimes when I look at my ex-colleagues in the British Labour Group I have a feeling that maybe they are on a little Prozac too because they seem to be rather quiet when it comes to major issues like the bombing of Baghdad.
Perhaps we could suggest that they have a little Viagra as well as a little Prozac. That might give them some backbone to stand up to Mr Blair.
This comprehensive resolution should receive the unanimous support of Parliament.
My message to the Commission is to get its act together and bring forward a directive that includes the issue of doping in sport.
Then we can implement it across the Union.
Mrs van Bladel, the words do indeed sound very much alike and besides, I am not sure that there is much difference between them in substance.
But I do not think this is the time to go further into such matters.
Mr President, I shall ignore Mr Kerr's provocative remarks and go straight to the point.
Today everyone recognises the need to combat doping in sport, just as much on ethical and social grounds as for public health reasons.
This evil is afflicting all countries and every government must act.
Where national laws exist today they are disparate.
With these products circulating in a single market and with sporting events being held at European level, it is essential that legislation is harmonised.
The conclusions of the last European Council in Vienna are along those lines.
They emphasise the need for mobilisation at European Union level and invite, and I quote, 'the Member States to examine jointly with the Commission and international sports bodies possible measures to intensify the fight against this danger, in particular through better coordination of existing national measures.'
The French Government's attitude towards this issue has been firm and proactive, thanks to a bill being piloted through parliament by Marie-George Buffet, Minister for Youth and Sport, and the action of our former colleague, Bernard Kouchner, Minister for Health.
If the conclusions are the same, the remedies perhaps go further.
With her Italian opposite number, Giovanna Melandri, Marie-George Buffet has just approached the German sports minister to ask him to arrange a meeting of the sports ministers of the Fifteen before the opening of the conference being held by the International Olympic Committee on 2 and 3 February in Lausanne, to examine proposals they might formulate or support.
This resolution today is the least we could do.
The situation is worsening because of the lack of harmonised legislation in the single market of the Union.
It will only be possible to combat doping effectively if there are international rules.
Those Member States which already have laws in this field must harmonise them, and those which do not must adopt them.
To this effect, and on the basis of Articles 100a and 129(1) of the Treaty, which will be strengthened by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Commission must take initiatives on both the single market and public health.
To the extent that a recommendation is possible, we believe the Union must soon provide itself with a strong legal instrument and adopt a directive.
Beyond the question of regulations, we all have a duty to contribute to restoring the spirit of sport and the values it represents, ensuring that it continues to be capable of inspiring dreams.
Mr President, the use of doping substances to improve athletes' performance goes far beyond the explosion of media interest in stars like Ben Johnson, at the Seoul Olympics, and Richard Virenque and his team at the last Tour de France.
Doping can be found in both amateur sport and youth sport.
The first victims are sportsmen and women who are encouraged to artificially exceed their own limits by using doping substances that are always one step ahead of latest testing methods.
This is a real attack on human health.
The second victims are tomorrow's sportsmen and women: our children. They are forced to preempt their physical growth and to sculpt their muscle mass prematurely from a tender age as part of the forced development of the bionic champions of the future.
The message should be loud and clear: we should let our children enjoy the pleasures of play and prevent unscrupulous entrepreneurs and even parents from exploiting them.
How, faced with a situation like this, could the Commission have produced a communication on Community action in sports matters ignoring this almost uncontrollable single market in illicit doping substances?
Mr President, sometimes the intake of a muscle-building substance is dictated by ignorance, and those who encourage the use of anabolic substances, erythropoietin, growth hormone or other such substances are unaware of the precise advantages and drawbacks of such usage, but do not hesitate to suggest their use in order to make a profit, however substantial that may or may not be.
Very often, however, even people who are familiar with the effects of the substances administered suggest their use regardless.
It is these unscrupulous individuals, who pursue success through deceit and bad faith, who ruin sport by riding roughshod over all ethical principles.
The most recent spread of doping has been fuelled not only by the excessive growth of spectator sport but also by a pseudo-medical culture, which has led to a downright obsession with the use of drugs.
My own opinion is that a sick athlete should be able to take whatever drugs the doctor prescribes to help him recover, whereas a healthy athlete should take nothing other than what is contained in a balanced diet.
Unfortunately, however, the controversy of the past few days has placed the most disparate things in the same basket: just as the same effects have been attributed to bread, steak, coffee and mineral water, it is equally inappropriate to use the catch-all term 'doping' with reference to anabolic steroids, erythropoietin, growth hormone, somatostatin and - perhaps just because they rhyme well - creatine, carnitine, integrators and amino-acids in general.
Prohibition could, then, be applied to substances which actually cause structural changes in the biological composition of an organism.
Taking anabolic steroids to increase one's body mass is one thing; supplementing one's diet with substances which are easier to digest and absorb, for the same calorific and energy value, is another.
Disrupting the hormone balance by administering growth hormone or some other hormonal substance is one thing; enriching one's nutrition with a vitamin compound is another.
I am convinced that doping in sport is absurd in cultural terms, in that the spread of such behaviour could deprive man of the pleasure of relying on his own strength to move about.
Let us not forget that physical and sporting activity is still the only form of motor activity which ensures that human beings maintain the morpho-functional characteristics which make them human.
Do you remember the scientific forecasts of the recent past, predicting a man who is all head, with tiny limbs and no muscles, assisted in his every movement by technology, the so-called bionic man? Fortunately this has not come about.
Today's scientists could attempt to create a bio-chemical man, where everything could be done thanks to a pill, drink or injection, but I still believe - or rather, I have every confidence - that this will not happen.
Our task as administrators is to establish strict, clear-cut rules, the same for all the Community countries, to prevent this phenomenon from becoming a truly dangerous one.
Mr President, the Commission shares the opinions expressed in all the motions for resolutions on the importance of doping in sport.
Furthermore, it also believes that it is important, as a matter of urgency, to attack some of the underlying causes, such as the excessive commercialisation of sport, which are often at the root of this scourge.
The Commission also welcomes the conclusions of the Vienna European Council on doping, and welcomes the fact that Parliament is also taking an interest in this issue.
Today's debate gives us an opportunity to present the various initiatives launched by the Commission, which are in keeping with the majority of the motions tabled by honourable Members.
Last spring there was an exchange of letters between Commissioner Oreja and the Italian Minister for Sport on the need for a coordinated initiative on doping at European level.
Following the events of last summer, in particular during the Tour de France and in Italian football, the Commission immediately entered into contact with the President of the International Olympic Committee and with Member States.
On 21 September 1997, Mr Samaranch made it known that the sporting organisations wanted government action to focus chiefly on trafficking, harmonisation of legislation and awareness-raising campaigns, leaving the sports organisations to deal with offenders.
At that meeting, Commissioner Oreja announced that he would be participating in the World Conference on doping to be held in Lausanne.
The Commission has examined the issue of doping in sport on three occasions in its contacts with the Member States and with the sporting world.
This question was first discussed at the meeting with directors of sports organisations in the Member States held in Vienna on 7 and 8 October; it was again discussed at a meeting with the Austrian, British and German sports ministers, and it was also considered at the European Sports Forum, which brings together governmental and non-governmental organisations and sports federations; the director of the International Olympic Committee and the head of the French Minister for Sport's private office also took part in this meeting.
As some Members have emphasised, the Commission considers doping to be one of the key problems in sport.
This issue has not been dealt with in depth, given that the two working documents currently available are merely reference documents, while we look forward to a dialogue with the Member States and sporting organisations on the most appropriate form of Community intervention.
The services of the Commission have met to examine various options for action, with a view to presenting a common position at the Lausanne Conference.
Two projects are already being financed under the framework programme on research to the tune of ECU 2 million: one is a study involving research into growth hormones, which is a key issue today in the battle against doping, and the other is a research study in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee's Medical Commission on methods of standardisation to enhance the validity of tests, particularly in court.
The Commission also intends to contact the European Ethics Committee with a view to its issuing an opinion on certain scientific and ethical problems connected with doping.
Other avenues for Community action currently open to us are as follows: to make doping one of the priority objectives and themes under the new framework programme on research, to finance information campaigns in conjunction with sporting organisations, to cofinance a clean sports guide with the Olympic Committee and the Council of Europe, to adopt Community directives on health and safety at the workplace and on the protection of young people at the workplace; and, lastly, to look for solutions in the field of the free movement of persons.
Commissioner Oreja has convened a meeting with ministers' personal representatives, scheduled for 19 January, in order to coordinate a common EU position for the conference.
And he has already made contact with the forthcoming German presidency in order to consider how to approach the problem of doping at the meeting of sports ministers.
However, all this work should yield more tangible results after the Lausanne Conference, leading to genuinely useful and effective Community action.
The Commission considers that for the time being there is no need for legislative action.
Ladies and gentlemen, the fifteen Member States of the European Union are the world's top sporting force, so it is incumbent upon us to set an example.
I think that the Vienna declaration underpins the actions already set in train by the Commission, which will be completed after the Lausanne Conference.
The Treaties offer many possibilities, but as always we need to clearly define the objective and means, bearing in mind the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
The Commission considers that the majority of the proposals included in your motions for resolutions either have been or are in the process of being implemented.
Your support and interest will reinforce the action the Commission has already initiated, which should complement the actions drawn up by the Member States, by sporting organisations and by bodies such as the Council of Europe.
I believe that we are on the right path and that this action will be translated into concrete and positive results, as we will not relent in combating doping in sport and sport will always prevail over those who try to breach its rules.
Lastly, I am delighted that all the Community institutions - Parliament, Council and Commission - are of one mind on this and are proposing identical strategies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a matter of urgency that we respond to the extent of the doping problem.
Of course, the problem is not new, but recent events in cycling and football, in France and Italy, have brought it home to the people in all its gravity.
Because we are concerned about our young people, because we consider sport to have a role in education and to be a means of preventing exclusion and marginal behaviour, we want the European Union and international sporting circles to condemn unequivocally the use of doping substances.
Sport is a school of courage and perseverance where we learn the spirit of endeavour, the taste for competition, and respect for each other.
What is left of these principles if cheating becomes a rule of the game? We combat drugs widely in our institutions.
Our leaders and our police join forces to protect our citizens, especially our young people.
My group hopes this degree of effort will be made to combat doping in sport at all levels.
Cooperation between the judiciary, the police and the customs services must be strengthened in order to reduce the movement of banned doping substances and their use in sporting circles.
The health of sportsmen and women is at stake, both professional and amateur.
The ethics of sport are at stake and must be recovered at all costs.
We have reacted by means of this resolution because the European Union can no longer keep silent.
Doping in sport cannot be controlled at national level as it is a worldwide phenomenon.
While ultimately I welcome the working document the Commission has just published on developments in and prospects for Community action in sport, I very much regret that it has played down the doping problem.
In February a World IOC Conference will be held on this problem in Lausanne.
It will consider the creation of an Olympic anti-doping agency.
We support this initiative on condition that the agency is independent, international, transparent and non-profit-making.
I think it is in everyone's interests for the European Sports Ministers to meet before this IOC Conference, so that the European Union plays its part in that drive to establish common rules for the protection of the rights of sportsmen and women, the application of sanctions in cases of infringement, and medical checks on sportsmen and women.
Finally, the Commission has a role to play alongside Member States in prevention and information in schools, amongst young people and in amateur and professional sports clubs.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Welcome
Before giving the floor to the representatives of the political groups, I should like the House to allow me to extend a particularly warm welcome to the delegation from the Chamber of Representatives of the Republic of Cyprus to the Joint Parliamentary Committee, led by Mr Tassos Papadopoulos, which is now in the gallery observing our proceedings.
Yesterday and today the EU-Cyprus Joint Parliamentary Committee is holding its fourteenth meeting in Strasbourg, and on behalf of Parliament I would like to express the hope that its meeting will be productive, and also to wish the delegation a safe return to Cyprus, an enjoyable festive season and a happy New Year.
Topical and urgent debate (continuation)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the umpteenth time the European Parliament is expressing its revulsion at the fact that anachronistic and mediaeval methods of questionable efficacy are still being used for the punishment of convicts, and this indeed, in countries that wish to be regarded as modern and democratic, such as the United States of America.
Yet, incontrovertible facts such as today's bombing raids on Iraq prove that the use of violence is at the core of American policy in every sector.
At a time when we are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, in the USA the five-hundredth convict since 1977, when the death penalty came back into force, is being executed while 3 000 more are on death row.
As we were told yesterday by the American delegation in Strasbourg, headed by the campaigner Angela Davis whom I see in the gallery, even underage children are executed in the USA while the penal justice system operates selectively to the disadvantage of the weaker socio-economic groups and in particular anyone whose skin is dark.
In Pennsylvania, 87 % of those convicted during 1998 were black.
This week we adopted a series of reports on human rights issues.
So on the basis of our decisions and in the name of respect for human rights, we call upon the United States of America to abolish the death penalty and allow retrials for the journalist Abu Jamal in Pennsylvania, Martinez in Florida and others, to give them a chance to defend themselves.
We also appeal to the governments of other countries, Saudi Arabia in particular and Turkmenistan, to abolish the death penalty and immediately commute their decisions on executions.
Finally, the European Commission and the Council must insist on the abolition of the death penalty by inserting a special clause in the economic and political agreements they conclude with third countries, to promote an immediate worldwide moratorium on executions until the death penalty is eventually abolished in every country in the world.
Mr President, the Liberal Group has always been opposed in principle to the death penalty.
We are therefore pleased that attention is being brought to this issue by an international campaign which starts this week in Strasbourg.
European opposition to the death penalty must be standard policy, and it must also form an element of our foreign policy.
Member States and applicant countries must be expected to ban the death penalty.
This is a measure of civilisation which we in the Union are entitled to expect.
But the European Union must also support global agreements.
I and others continue to be horrified that China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States have maintained the death penalty.
As the previous speaker said, we must call for a worldwide moratorium on the capital punishment and promote a resolution to this effect at the UN General Assembly.
This must be part of our contribution to the celebrations of the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Mr President, perhaps I could point out to Mrs Karamanou that she did not mention the death penalty in Iraq.
I say that because our proliferation of resolutions on the death penalty is threatening to turn into cheap self-indulgence.
And I think what we need to do is to make sure, as soon as possible, that we no longer have to table resolutions on the death penalty.
There is one positive aspect.
At least this time we are not just launching a bitter attack on the United States, we are also talking about Saudi Arabia.
I am rather pleased about that, because we do not often mention it. That fact needs emphasising, because the situation in Saudi Arabia is well known.
In my view, the fundamental point is the moratorium, no longer as some vague hope but as an initiative which must be taken this year by the Council within the United Nations.
We do not want a repeat of the game of ping-pong we had in 1998, when Italy and the Austrian Presidency kept batting the ball back and forth saying: 'you want it, neither do I, ' and so on, with the result that no resolution was tabled in the United Nations.
1999 must be the year a universal moratorium on executions is established. We cannot keep putting this initiative off indefinitely.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, human rights are indivisible.
That has been the motto of this Human Rights Week.
Human rights also apply to those who have committed offences and are in prison.
They too must be given the opportunity to acknowledge their guilt and to start a new life.
That is why recognition of the universality of human rights goes hand in hand with rejection of the death penalty.
Three women and two men are sitting in death cells in Turkmenistan.
They may be executed within the next few days.
Their last hope is that they will be granted a reprieve from the President of Turkmenistan.
That would not diminish their guilt, but it would be an act of respect for human rights.
We therefore call on the President of Turkmenistan to summon up the courage to carry out this act of mercy, thereby according precedence to international human rights over national law.
That would also enhance the credibility of his celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Mr President, I can only endorse the words of the previous speakers.
However, I should like to repeat their message in slightly different terms.
Yesterday a group of visitors asked me why we oppose the death penalty.
I believe our resolution illustrates very clearly why we do.
Every case is different, and the yardsticks by which cases are judged often differ too, but once every legal appeal and every petition for a reprieve has been rejected, all that remains is a final and irrevocable sentence.
That is why, in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the EU recommends that its Member States abolish the death penalty for all time to come, and we are certainly pleased about that.
We note with great concern, however, that in this respect the United States and its constituent states - death-penalty statutes being the responsibility of individual state legislatures - are regrettably putting themselves on the same level as countries with which they would not wish to be compared.
For that reason, our appeal for the abolition of capital punishment is especially directed at them, but it is also addressed to the other nations of the world.
The death penalty is final; it is irrevocable, and when the sentence is carried out, clemency and humanity become irrelevant.
Mr President, this badge I am wearing represents all the emotion of the meeting yesterday when I welcomed a delegation from the various strands of the American abolitionist movement, led by Angela Davis.
Angela made an impact on people of my generation and quite a few began to campaign for her freedom.
She too was condemned to death.
Released from prison thanks to the mobilisation of international support and a suspension of the death penalty in the United States for several years, she has remained true to her commitment and continues to fight in defence of the oppressed and against the death penalty.
The accounts we heard yesterday from the members of the delegation, Abu-Jamal's lawyer, and the Amnesty International representative, make one shudder.
And they are sure to be here now.
In the United States the death penalty is also racist and discriminatory.
The risk of being condemned to death and executed correlates with black skin and poverty.
As the international community celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United States is approaching its 500th execution since 1977, continuing to use a barbarous and inefficient method, once described by Albert Camus as genuine administrative murder.
Over 3 500 people are currently on death row.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black journalist sentenced to death in 1982 as a result of a plot by police and judiciary and a travesty of justice, has become a symbol of the fight against the death penalty.
Since his application for a re-trial was rejected by the Supreme Court in Philadelphia, he could be executed at any moment.
All the demonstrations, all the stands that have been taken, all the resolutions we have so often passed in this very House, are helping to prevent his execution.
Let the President of the United States and the Governor of Pennsylvania be advised that we will not resign ourselves to the inevitable.
In adopting the joint resolution supported by our group, we are strongly expressing our determination to save Mumia Abu-Jamal by preventing his execution and to abolish the death penalty.
Mumia must not die; he must be granted a re-trial.
But we need to go further and demand that our governments and the European authorities take a stand and intervene more resolutely with the United States, in the context of transatlantic economic relations.
Forgive me, Mr President, but I cannot end without mentioning the fate of Leonard Peltier who was brilliantly defended by Bobby Castillo, his spokesman, during our meeting yesterday.
Leader of the American Indian Movement, he was given two life sentences.
He is currently very ill and is not receiving attention.
We must keep up the pressure.
Mr President, I am opposed to capital punishment as I believe it to be immoral, unjustified and counter-productive.
It should be noted that in many, although not all, cases the countries that employ it most are those whose record on democracy, human rights and the rule of law leaves a lot to be desired.
In those countries it is often used to suppress political dissent.
A further argument against capital punishment is the number of instances even in the most democratic of countries where miscarriages of justice have occurred.
If one is wrongly convicted and executed, it is regrettably then too late for an appeal.
Finally, terrorists in many countries have seen the value of martyrdom and exploited the death penalty to advance their particular causes.
We should not give them the opportunity to do so.
I would urge Members to support this resolution, particularly the call on the United Nations to support a universal moratorium on executions as a prelude to abolition itself.
Mr President, debates on the death penalty all too often turn into an opportunity to denounce this or that country whose legal order makes provision for such a penalty; discussion of the death penalty frequently turns into a condemnation of and lament about the legal order in the United States.
One of the most worthwhile aspects of the resolution on which we are to vote this afternoon is, I believe, the fact that it emphasises with sufficient clarity that the death penalty is unjustly provided for and carried out under the most disparate systems.
The death penalty is almost always imposed on disadvantaged individuals, belonging in some countries to economic or ethnic minorities, in others to political minorities.
For this reason we are duty bound to emphasise forcefully that human rights have no colour, and that by the same token this penalty has no political colour.
Mr President, I have little to add to what my colleague Aline Pailler has said. Many of us had the opportunity of hearing the lawyers acting for Abu-Jamal and Peltier speak yesterday.
We were also able to hear Angela Davis' personal testimony, and were delighted to make her acquaintance after working for her freedom some time ago. All the speakers stated clearly that the death penalty was not only immoral - as several colleagues stated here - but unacceptable to the European Union, because the European Union must be totally opposed to the death penalty.
It was also pointed out that in the United States the death penalty is used to punish the poorest citizens and coloured people.
It is quite true that we do condemn the death penalty wherever it is used, in China, Iraq, Iran, and everywhere else.
The United States, however, prides itself on being the leading democracy in the world.
That is why it is all the more remarkable that there should be three thousand people on death row in that country. One of the three thousand is a Spaniard, a European, named Joaquín José Martínez.
There is considerable doubt as to his guilt, and someone else has claimed responsibility for the murder. If he is not helped soon, he may be executed like Abu-Jamal.
I believe that we must put forward a common position - and that on this issue we can - and that we should do so next year in the United Nations. We must join forces to call for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the death penalty.
Sudan
Mr President, the situation in Sudan remains hopeless.
The government is continuing to violate human rights on a massive scale and millions are dying of starvation.
The combined efforts of the IGAD continue to prove fruitless.
They deserve every praise, but they are being frustrated by the constant stream of weapons which is further fuelling the conflict.
They are the oil on the fire which will further escalate the spiral of violence.
Rather than earning dirty money from all the conflict, destruction and human suffering, there must now be an end to these arms sales.
This is why I am pleased with the Union's existing arms embargo.
But it is not enough.
The Union must also invite the associated countries to observe it, as well as calling for a United Nations embargo.
The mechanisms for ensuring observance of these embargoes must also be tightened up.
The Union must give a good example of leadership in stopping the flow of arms, thus providing one of the first conditions for resolving the conflict.
This is what the people of Sudan deserve as they have been busy trying to extricate themselves from their civil war since 1956.
Mr President, Mr Bertens knows Sudan.
I do not know the country.
Sudan has topped the list of urgent debates over the past 18 months, but to no effect in the field.
The resolution we have before us today seeks to adopt a more serious approach by urging the Council to agree to an arms embargo and even to propose this to the Security Council.
I have nothing whatsoever against this proposal, but it seems to me that it is going to be difficult to monitor its implementation.
I am therefore very curious to learn how the Commissioner sees the practicalities of this arms embargo and control procedures.
Above all, I find it rather selective.
Since the departure of Mobutu from central Africa the flow of arms into the sub-Saharan region has increased.
Take Angola, where war is now being waged.
We pumped millions into this area for mine clearance, and the mines are now being laid again.
Then there are the recent arms sales in Bulgaria and also Zimbabwe, where a million a day is being spent keeping aircraft in the air to keep Kabila in power.
I agree with the measures for Sudan, but they should apply to other African countries too.
Mr President, as various previous speakers have indicated, during the past week the world has been recalling the adoption 50 years ago of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, rights which apply to everyone throughout the world, without distinction of any kind.
They also apply to the Sudan.
In Sudan, as the previous speaker said, human rights are violated daily by both the government and the rebels.
For 15 years civil war, displacement and destruction have reigned in that country.
With the physical destruction comes destruction of the country's economic and social fabric, so that the people are left virtually without hope.
In southern Sudan in particular, religious freedom is being suppressed.
We continually receive information about the persecution of Christians. We learn that priests, such as Father Sebit and Father Boma, are being tortured or mistreated, and we know that almost the entire southern population is stricken by famine.
This is a form of human rights violation that is mainly encouraged by the government there.
It amounts to the institutionalisation of human rights abuses by the government.
But we in the Union and our associated states are also accomplices, in that we are responsible for weapons reaching the Sudan so that the crisis can continue.
I believe this has to be changed.
The Sudanese Government must also sign the international conventions prohibiting biological weapons, chemical weapons and anti-personnel mines.
Mr President, we have marked with great solemnity the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
However, we do this with regret every Thursday afternoon in this House - which is perhaps rather less crowded than it should be - when we must unfortunately acknowledge that so many persons are still deprived of their rights.
This is the case in Sudan, where the civil war is compounded by famine and the suppression of all types of freedom, in particular religious freedom.
I do not believe that our resolution on Sudan - to bring an end to this state of affairs and initiate a process of change - should be restricted to words alone. It should go further, to support a strict embargo and curbs by all possible means on the activities of those who - not least in Europe - by trading in arms and through other forms of trafficking allow human beings in a vast area of the world to remain deprived of all their rights.
Pakistan
Mr President, I should first like to say that I attach great value to human rights and to the life that God gives us.
This is why I was so saddened by Mrs Eriksson, who yesterday morning had the brutality to accuse pro-lifers of violating human rights.
After the systematic human rights violations of communist regimes, including barbarous abortion practices, she should be ashamed of such an ignominious slur.
In this week following the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights were on the agenda yesterday and now again today, in the monthly topical and urgent debate, where we are having to talk about Pakistan for the second time in six months.
In this Islamic country non-Muslims have long been able to live in relative freedom.
The present Prime Minister Mr Sharif is seriously restricting this freedom.
He wants to make Pakistan a Muslim state with the associated administration of justice and reintroduction of the death penalty.
In 1991 he received a parliamentary majority to change the Pakistani Constitution to make the sharia (Islamic law) the basis for all legislation.
The consequences of this are enormous.
Anyone who insults the Koran receives life imprisonment.
Anyone who defames Mohammed in word, writing or illustration can expect the death penalty.
For proof, the courts can accept the eyewitness testimony of four Muslim men or two Muslim men and four Muslim women.
The eyewitness testimony of women or non-Muslims has no legal force.
Sharif is continuing to pursue this policy.
The National Assembly recently adopted Constitutional Amendment 15, granting just 10 of the 210 seats in the National Assembly to religious minorities.
The amendment imposes strict observance of the sharia within the judicial system.
Among other things, this means that anyone employed by the judicial authorities must be a Muslim.
Next month the Pakistani Senate will be voting on this amendment.
Former Prime Minister and present opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has warned that it could lead to a totalitarian Islamic regime comparable to that in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The threat of these laws should also be seen in relation to Pakistan's social problems.
There is great poverty with a huge gulf between rich and poor.
Child labour is widespread.
It is because of this poverty that the blasphemy laws are so 'life threatening' to religious minorities, being exceptionally well suited to ensnare them.
In practice these religious laws are used for the purposes of personal feuds, with Christians being accused of defaming Mohammed as a result of quarrels between neighbours.
The joint motion for a resolution calls on Pakistan to take human rights seriously.
The government must guarantee every citizen in Pakistan, whether Muslim or otherwise, the right to fair legal recourse.
The Commission and the Council can help ensure that Pakistan takes this call seriously.
Mr President, it gives me no great pleasure to be supporting a motion which is deeply critical of the human rights situation in Pakistan.
Having said that, I would like to disassociate myself from the rather provocative opening comments of Mr van Dam, whose remarks I felt were irrelevant and inappropriate to this debate.
There are a large number of Pakistani people in Pakistan, London and around the world, citizens who are deeply disturbed about the events to which our motion refers.
The Pakistani authorities should be aware that their country's image is being gravely damaged.
This motion is not restricted to the sufferings of a single minority group.
It refers to the ill-treatment of Christians, Ahmadis, members of the MQM, in particular in Karachi, and the rights of people, especially women.
These rights will be further threatened by the proposed Constitutional Amendment 15 if the Senate supports it, and we appeal to it and to others to refuse to give it their approval.
Under the blasphemy laws, one of the sanctions prescribed is death and the framing of these laws allows vindictive actions, often heard in courts packed with mullahs and with hostile crowds outside.
Reports of mass violence or primitive legal practices dismay the friends of Pakistan - and I count myself, along with colleagues here, as a friend of Pakistan.
We do not wish to question the rights of the people to determine their own affairs, but we do ask that they respect the terms of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 50th anniversary of which we are marking this week.
We appeal to the Pakistani Government to place more emphasis on human rights, consultation and dialogue in the interests of all their citizens - their citizens in their own country, their former citizens around the world and others who share these concerns.
Mr President, we are negotiating a cooperation agreement between the European Union and Pakistan, and one point which is often emphasised in such agreements is the capacity to implement regional cooperation.
Pakistan has been implementing a singular form of regional cooperation for some time, by vigorously supporting the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Now, as in every case of self-respecting regional cooperation, it is receiving something in exchange: an invitation to apply Islamic law in that country.
I believe that the ancient maxim of one of the fathers of modern legal and political thought, Alberico Gentile - 'silete teologi in munere alieno ' - should echo loudly around this House, which is undoubtedly one of the most legitimate heirs of that tradition.
Mr President, we are deeply concerned about recent developments in Pakistan.
Many people have been murdered for their religious beliefs and the terrible acts of cruelty look set to continue.
Hence we note with alarm the proposal that has now been put forward in Pakistan, namely Proposed Constitutional Amendment 15.
Naturally, we should recognise that Muslims must be able to live their lives in accordance with Islam and practise their religion.
However, the proposed tightening of control will lead to hostility towards those who practise other religions and Pakistan's non-Muslim minority.
We must therefore urge the Senate, in no uncertain terms, to vote against the amendment, so that human rights, which are so important for us, for the people of Pakistan and for the future of the world, are not jeopardised in any way.
We should not forget that, out of the 49 states in the world where Islam is the principal religion, in only three of them - Saudi Arabia, Iran and Taliban-controlled Afghanistan - do fundamentalist laws take precedence over case-law.
I very much hope that Pakistan will not go down that road, but will instead continue to respect human rights and openly encourage the different religious groups to go on living together.
I truly hope that the Pakistani Government does not spark off any new disturbances as a result of this amendment.
Mr President, my group has been seriously concerned about the situation in Pakistan for a number of years now, as religious minorities have increasingly been the victims of violence - and not just threats of violence.
On 18 November nine Christians were murdered in Noshehra.
We then received the disturbing reports about two MPs from the Muattahida Quami movement who are still being held prisoner and ill treated.
I received a letter this week from the Pakistani Embassy stating that the nine murdered Christians were not Christians at all but members of sects and that the head of the murdered families practised fatah magic.
It was apparently a family vendetta.
This is a typical example of what has just been alluded to, of how Christians are presented in a bad light and then persecuted in this way.
This letter from the Pakistani Embassy also states that the two MPs held under arrest are not being ill treated at all, but are bearing up well.
Our information is again very different.
The conflicting information from the NGOs and the Pakistani Government is yet another reason for supporting this resolution and for asking the Commission to take action to try to ban these kinds of practices.
Finally, I should like to lend my support to the call for Constitutional Amendment 15 not to be adopted, because in my opinion this would make the situation in Pakistan even worse.
We call for action by the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, shortly before the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, these rights were once more trampled underfoot in Pakistan.
A month ago, a Christian family of nine, who were manifestly not separatists, were murdered by Islamic terrorists in the town of Noshehra.
Little has changed since June, when we voiced our protest here in the European Parliament against the discriminatory treatment of Ahmadi, Christian and Swanti groups and against the blasphemy laws that have been used since 1986 to persecute religious and other unpopular minorities.
Violence in Karachi has increased.
Parliamentarians from the Muttahida Quami Movement have again been arrested and their supporters brought before military courts.
A new article for insertion into the constitution has been approved by the National Assembly and now awaits adoption by the Senate.
Its purpose is to proclaim the Koran and Sunna as the supreme law of the land.
The executive branch of government is to be empowered to decide on its own authority what is lawful and unlawful.
And not only that: Article 15 is to apply irrespective of any contrary provision of the constitution, of any law or of any court judgment. That is nothing but a licence for all fanatics and will most probably provoke a new wave of terrorism against minorities.
What scope does the Commission have to prevent an outbreak of uncontrolled violence? Could suitable clauses be inserted in the agreement?
Could there be international legal conferences to discuss good and bad judicial practice? Could joint decisions with Pakistan be suspended until democracy and human rights are finally accorded high priority in that country, which is, after all, a member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, a community for which we in the European Parliament bear some share of responsibility?
Iran
Mr President, you have probably never heard of Darioush Forouhar and his wife, or of Pirouz Davani, editor-in-chief of an Iranian newspaper, or of Majid Charif, or Mohamad Mokhtari or Jafar Pouyandeh.
Well, do not worry.
You will not hear of them in the future either, because they have either been shot, assassinated or put to death, or they have disappeared.
That is what happens to intellectuals and dissidents in Iran today.
And this offensive against these intellectuals and dissidents is currently taking a particularly worrying turn.
That is why I think we must try to support President Khatami's efforts in his statements and initiatives on freedom of expression and freedom of the media.
That is also why we must ask for NGOs to be allowed into the country to help those, inside Iran, who are trying to lead this country down the path of democracy.
Mr President, I am in complete agreement with Mr Pradier.
At the very least, I should like to put the name of Reza Hadjzadeh on the list in the resolution. I have just obtained his name from the Iranian intellectual opposition which suffered persecution during the appalling terror.
No doubt we should be pleased that the Iranian President has pronounced himself in favour of cultural freedom and freedom of speech and of the press, which we acknowledge in the resolution, but the question is whether we should not have gone further.
We sent a fact-finding team from the European Parliament to Algeria, and even though terrible atrocities continue to be committed there, I still think it was a useful exercise.
The Iranian intellectuals, as well as the entire civilian and pro-democracy community, are very anxious that we should establish a presence in Iran.
I should like to float the idea of trying to set up some kind of commission of inquiry which, if possible, would go to Iran to study the situation and demonstrate solidarity by simply being there.
Mr President, once again Iran is on our agenda in a debate on human rights violations.
Whereas last time it was principally members of religious minorities and women who were threatened and imprisoned, and sometimes even murdered, this time it is intellectuals, opposition members and again women whom we must defend.
In August there was the disappearance of Pirouz Davani, editor-in-chief of the newspaper 'Pirouz'.
On 25 November Marij Charif, founder of the 'Iran Farda' monthly, was found dead after being abducted.
Recently Mohamad Mokhtari and Mohamed Jafar Pouyandeh, both writers and journalists, were also kidnapped and murdered.
This is in addition to the murder on 22 November of Darioush Forouhat and his wife Parvaneh, both opposition members.
On top of all this, there is the constant repression of women: for some time now women have been prohibited from being treated by male doctors and specialists, when just 7 % of doctors in Iran are women.
We are forced to conclude that the spring which seemed to be on its way with the new President, Mr Khatami, has returned to the harshness of winter and Iran is again becoming a dangerous country with a ruthless and violent regime, despite the moderate stance of its President.
We call on the Commission and the Council to put Iran on the Council's agenda as a matter of urgency, to demand that Iran protect its citizens and to consider whether it is possible for the 15 Member States of the European Union to adopt a single line on refugees from Iran.
Our conclusion is that Iran is at present a dangerous country for intellectuals, women and journalists.
Mr President, for several weeks there has been a wave of repression of Iranian writers.
Majid Charif, Mohamad Mokhtari and Jafar Pouyandeh were abducted and assassinated.
This was hardly a coincidence. They were members of the committee responsible for arranging the general meeting of the association of Iranian writers, which, I would remind you, had been banned by the government.
These assassinations, part of a climate of confrontation between various factions that are struggling for power, are intended to silence the intellectuals.
We can express our solidarity with them by adopting the joint resolution supported by our group, and we demand that the Iranian authorities take the necessary steps to find and punish those responsible for these crimes and to guarantee the protection and security of their citizens.
We can also express solidarity by supporting the proposal from the Iranian writers in exile to send to Iran an international commission consisting of intellectuals and members of parliament from all over the world, to investigate these massacres and save the lives under threat.
Mr President, the events of the last few hours have demonstrated especially clearly the importance of Iran to us.
No objective observer of the situation there can be in any doubt of the enormous progress that has been made in Iran under President Khatami.
Accidents will happen - that is only to be expected - but most of the trouble is orchestrated in other countries.
That must not be forgotten.
Time and again it is the same Iranian freedom fighters who import terrorism into the country.
We should therefore make every effort to encourage the Iranian Government, and especially the President, to continue along the path of liberalisation and democratisation.
There is, however, one point that we must make as forcefully as possible.
It concerns the intolerable persecution of the Bahai, for the Bahai are one of the most civilised groups, and we must support them in the exercise of their freedom.
Mr President, dark conservative forces have a stranglehold on Iran.
Journalists are being killed, dissidents and intellectuals silenced and women pushed back into their traditional role.
Mr Habsburg is right when he says that we should also be concerned about the fate of the Bahai.
The forces of democracy and reform have not yet had a chance in Iran.
The election of President Khatami was a positive development, but one swallow does not make a summer.
The Union must do all in its power to support the forces of democracy in Iran and express its clear condemnation of the situation.
Finally, I hope that national governments, including the Dutch government for example, will see the so-called official reports for what they are worth - reports from embassies, and from other Union countries, which are sent to Europe stating, and I quote, that Iran is now a safe country so that asylum-seekers can be sent back and no new asylum-seekers need be accepted.
I am amazed when I read reports of this kind in the Dutch and foreign press.
Mr President, we live and learn!
I am genuinely surprised to hear how favourably Mr von Habsburg assesses the Iranian situation.
I am very much on the side of the Bahai and agree that they must not be persecuted.
But to act as if everything that has been said about women, about intellectuals and about critics of the regime was irrelevant - I am simply stunned!
It is certainly true, and this is how I had actually planned to begin, that Iran has a new President, for whom, on the basis of his statements and attitudes, I certainly have a high regard, even if I do not agree with him on every detail.
But perhaps it is precisely because a relatively liberal President has been elected by the people against the wishes of the ayatollahs, or at least of the fundamentalist ayatollahs, that there is a definite current within the country which seeks to exorcise the spectre of liberalism and which is mounting a massive campaign against foreign influence and liberalisation in the country.
But these things have to be kept in perspective, and it is certainly possible to envisage a continuation of dialogue with Iran.
However, any dialogue, whether we call it critical or open, must be conducted on the clear understanding that Parliament cannot refrain from putting human rights in Iran, as in many other countries, at the heart of its deliberations and that it is duty bound to wage this campaign.
We certainly must also call on the Commission and the Council to keep a very watchful eye on the development of human rights.
Yes, we support dialogue with the President of Iran.
We hope that he will speak increasingly for the whole of the Iranian nation.
But he will only be able to do so if he is strong enough to wage a successful struggle against the fundamentalists and the groups who engage in or condone terrorism.
I therefore hope that the Commission and the Council will see the situation in the same light as this Parliament.
Mr President, after a period of quiet, Iran is once again attracting international attention.
As on this occasion, this is often not for positive reasons.
Over recent weeks a number of critical intellectual writers have disappeared under suspicious circumstances and later been found dead.
In the light of this alarming situation, it is good that Iran has been added to the agenda for this topical and urgent debate.
It is a good thing that Ayatollah Khamenei has condemned this series of murders.
Understandably, a number of others who are possible targets have gone into hiding.
But this is no solution to the present problem.
These attacks bring a great deal of fear for all those threatened and their families.
Unfortunately, these attacks show that the 'moderate' Iranian President Khatami is not totally capable of protecting his supporters.
Iran's judicial authorities, secret service and forces of law and order are all under the command of Iran's highest spiritual leader, Ali Khamenei.
Following last year's huge election victory, Khatami promised to develop society further.
These murders are taking place against a background of serious political confrontation in Iran between President Khatami and the powerful conservative government.
Nobody has yet been arrested for them.
This resolution calls on the Iranian judicial authorities to investigate the allegations of murder seriously and to protect possible further victims.
It is very important for Iran to take this call seriously.
A democratic country should also value its critical minorities and allow them the freedom to live and to work.
The reality in Iran stands in stark contrast to this.
It is up to the Iranian government to improve the situation.
Child soldiers
Mr President, the international campaign to stop the use of child soldiers deserves the support of this House.
At present 300 000 children from 33 countries are fighting their parents' wars.
In these countries the children are of course denied any chance of normal development.
We all know the examples of Congo, Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan and elsewhere, but even in the Union the situation is not as it should be, as 11 of the 15 Member States recruit soldiers aged under 18.
This is contrary to the general rules of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which sets 18 as the minimum age for adulthood.
How can we morally defend a situation where in parts of Europe children cannot vote until they are 18 but can be sent to war when they are just 15, 16 or 17?
It is incomprehensible that this Convention created such an exception in 1989.
The UN negotiations on an optional protocol establishing 18 as the minimum age have been dragging on for years.
This is why the Union's commitment and leadership is so vital in order to get these negotiations moving again.
The Commission must give budgetary priority to the demobilisation and reintegration of child soldiers.
That is the only way we can break the spiral of violence.
Parliament must also play its part, just as it played a leading role in the campaign against anti-personnel mines.
The first amazed reaction was to ask what we thought we were doing by interfering.
Now we have the Ottawa Convention.
We must encourage a group of like-minded countries to establish a moral code and get the blocked discussion at the United Nations moving again. We learned this lesson from Ottawa.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child it is time we put an end to the press-ganging of children to be used in fighting wars.
Mr President, my honourable colleague Mr Bertens has already given us the horrifying statistic: 300 000 children are fighting in armed conflicts throughout the world.
Some of them are only eight years old.
In the past ten years, two million such children have been killed and six million permanently maimed.
Countless psychological traumas are another legacy of these exposures to violence.
There are even many countries in the European Union which have not signed the protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which prohibits the recruitment of service personnel under the age of 18.
Young people under the age of 18 can join the armed forces in France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The implementation of this protocol is a political imperative if the European Union wants to preserve its credibility and if the world is to believe the current President-in-Office of the Council when he says that human rights have become a key element in the policies of the European Union.
It would therefore be logical for the European Union to engage in a joint action for the implementation of the protocol in order to ensure that children are properly protected.
There is a particular need for such an example in our own countries, especially since the Cardiff summit adopted a guideline in the code of conduct for arms exports which clearly emphasised that the key role for ...
(The President interrupted the speaker) ... increasing international observance of the protocol on light firearms is particularly essential in those countries where children are used as soldiers.
To these words ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, instead of sharing our children's joyful anticipation of the festive season, we are dealing today in our resolution with one of the saddest chapters in the history of human exploitation, not to say crime.
I know from my own childhood what it means to send 14- and 15-year-old children into battle as a last resort, and I shall never forget that.
I am sickened whenever I recall the fate of the child soldiers who were sent to war in the Iran-Iraq conflict and in conflicts in other countries in the name of fanaticism.
I therefore believe that we in the European Union should support all the efforts of the United Nations to conclude an additional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The EU must act accordingly.
Of course, it is not the practice in our countries for young people under the age of 18 to be sent to war - we should be aware of that - but I am still in favour of setting an absolute limit at 18.
We in the European Union have dared to abolish war. War is horrific, even for adults, as we can still see today at our borders, but we should also ensure that, in other countries where wars are being waged, children are never made to experience the horrors of war at first hand, to suffer the trauma that will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
So let us commit ourselves in the European Parliament to children's happiness, to ensuring that they are free from hunger, that they are educated and that they are never used as child soldiers.
Mr President, I am sure all those who have taken the floor today would agree that although any infringement of human rights is a terrible thing, infringements of the rights of children are particularly horrifying. Certain figures have been quoted.
For example, 300 000 children are involved in warfare. Not long ago a documentary was shown on Spanish television featuring children who were knee-high to a grasshopper but who bore arms and who, from infancy, had become more accustomed to scenes of death and murder than to life, school or peace.
The European Union must therefore make every effort to ensure that no child under the age of 18 goes to war or is employed in the war machine. The European Union should also ensure that its Member States and other countries sign the International Criminal Court's protocol since, according to one of its articles, the use of children in war is a crime, as is the arming of children.
In my view, Mr President, there is not much future for a world in which 250 million children are involved in heavy labour, 300 000 children are at war and countless millions of children are allowed to die each year.
That is why I believe that we in the European Union must do all in our power to put a stop to this.
Mr President, with all due respect to you, we are going to talk about Macedonia.
You know, and I think it needs to be strongly emphasised, that there is a new situation in Macedonia.
A new government has been established and at last there is change in Macedonia.
I take this opportunity to thank Mr von Habsburg, who worked towards this and was one of the first of us to understand the situation.
This new majority is not a moderate majority, but the moderates have done nothing for five or six years to solve Macedonia's problems.
Today we have a majority which calls itself extremist, but a majority, is at last prepared to confront Macedonia's fundamental problems, including those relating to the fact that the Macedonian majority coexists with an Albanian minority.
The new government is made up of three parties, including the party of the Albanian minority.
Four people were sentenced under rather dubious circumstances, at least from the legal viewpoint, as the matter is on the agenda of the European Court of Human Rights.
We know the new majority wants to resolve this issue that it inherited from the former government, and I think our Parliament can use this resolution to give the Macedonian authorities an excuse, in the best sense of the word, to settle this matter and free the four Albanian leaders, who are still in prison today, having been sentenced to two or seven years.
So I urge all Members to vote for this resolution.
Next January the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy will be receiving Mr Georgievski, the new President of the Council, and I invite you to come to the meeting.
I think he is someone worth listening to.
Thanks to him and to the new majority, I think Europe, the European Union, will be able to make a new start with Macedonia.
Mr President, Macedonia is a young democracy which has set out on the road to the European Union under its new and promising government.
Our resolution is intended to help it along that road, and the Macedonian Government should take it in that spirit, as assistance and support, since the release of the imprisoned local politicians of Albanian ethnic origin would not only be an act of humanity, and indeed a necessary and overdue act of humanity, but would also be an act of prudence - I might even say strength, for I believe that a certain amount of self-assurance and strength are necessary assets in the pursuit of a sound policy on ethnic minorities.
In this respect, I see some very encouraging signals from the new Macedonian Government.
The greatest sources of misfortune for our states are centralism and the denial of minority and ethnic rights.
It is these, rather than federalism or laws based on ethnic rights, that have led to the break-up of various entities.
It is a matter of integrating federalism and the rights of ethnic groups, because if I feel that my dignity and my special identity are respected in the wider community, I shall want to stay in that community because of the benefits I derive from it.
If I feel that my dignity and identity are being suppressed, then I turn to separatism.
That is why I believe that a judicious, foresighted and integrationist policy is essential to weave the Albanians into the fabric of Macedonian society.
Both sides, I am sure, will make conciliatory moves, and an important first step could be taken if the university in Tetovo, which has been rather a bone of contention over the past few years under the old government, could be integrated by the new government into the University of Skopje as an autonomous institute for the ethnic Albanian community by way of a compromise.
That would be a particularly significant move, since the University of Pristina across the border in Kosovo is currently subject to brutal repression.
For that reason, I believe that this particular measure would be a step towards integration, and I would urge the new Macedonian Government to take that step.
Mr President, this new Macedonian Government is led by a party which for many years, and in some respects for several decades, has been striking a stridently nationalist tone and has been pursuing a highly nationalistic policy.
I should be delighted if the hints of moderation that have been discernible over the last few weeks and months actually turn out to reflect the true nature of this new government.
It should be given the benefit of the doubt as well as opportunities to prove itself.
I am in complete agreement with the thrust of this resolution, which is designed to re-establish the freedom of the Albanians, who have been receiving unduly harsh treatment.
Some of us in the delegation have already discussed this on several occasions with the Macedonians.
I myself, along with my colleague Mrs Pack, met with one of the prisoners before he began to serve his sentence in Skopje.
I believe it would be a true sign of strength and vision if these Albanians were now given their freedom.
Mr President, the Commission not only shares the general concern about the various human rights violations referred to during the debate, it also supports - generically as it were - the texts of all the resolutions.
As you know, whenever we have these debates the Commission always insists that the guarantees laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights should be respected without exception.
I would add that this also applies to other international instruments, and in particular the Vienna Treaty, which governs consular protection.
It is not unusual, and I include the United States in this, for some persons under arrest not to be fully aware of their rights and for the provisions of the Vienna Treaty not to be applied, which is a serious matter and could lead to a judgment being annulled.
The Commission's powers in this area are, as you know, limited, since this subject is normally dealt with at Council level and by other institutions such as the Council of Europe and the United Nations.
Nevertheless, I would like to add just a couple of points: first, the EU's position on the death penalty was clearly reiterated in June in a directive approved by the Council, to the effect that the European Union as a whole should strive towards the universal abolition of the death penalty.
I would also like to add that, as you are aware, all agreements with third countries now include a human rights clause, which is considered an essential clause in our cooperation with these countries.
As a consequence, the negotiation of a free-trade agreement with the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council or with Pakistan could result in the European Parliament's opinions on human rights abuses being brought to bear with far more weight.
In the case of Sudan, a ceasefire has fortunately been possible, allowing Operation Life Line Sudan to start work. The European Union has contributed ECU 73 million this year alone to this operation.
But the situation in Sudan is serious, as it is in other countries, and I would like to emphasise that we are actively seeking to resolve the problem of the Catholic priests mentioned by Mr Robles Piquer.
Turning now to Iran, although the election of President Katami gives us some cause for hope, we feel that his powerlessness to fight certain extremist forces is all the more justification for the international community to give its determined support.
Concerning child soldiers, we have vigorously supported the action of the UN Secretary General's Special Representative on the impact of armed conflict on children, and in conjunction with him we are now preparing a joint programme, to be cofinanced by the Commission, in order to put into practice some of the recommendations that he intends to make shortly to the General Assembly.
Finally, Mr President, concerning the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, we also believe that there is some cause for optimism that the interethnic dialogue to which this government at least seems to be committed could help to resolve some of the problems witnessed in relation to the Albanian minority, and in particular the plight of the former mayors Mr Osmani and Mr Demiri.
The joint debate is closed.
We now come to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
VOTES
Mr President, before we come to the Pradier report, there is something else I have to point out. Today's voting and the topical and urgent matters were slightly in breach of the Rules of Procedure, because we again had only the joint texts translated and not the original texts.
In theory, we have the right - and we have often exercised it - to reject joint texts and then vote on the originals.
This right, however, is denied us if the original texts are not available in the original languages, as is customary with all other votes. I know that a decision of some sort was probably taken by the Bureau.
I am merely protesting about that decision. It is entirely contrary to the Rules of Procedure, and I ask you to submit the matter to the Rules Committee.
I take note of your protest but thank you for your cooperation on this occasion any way.
Mr President, I would like to make a proposal to replace, in the French version, 'centres d'hébergement pour les réfugiées by 'centres de rétention '. We as a group believe that reception centres for refugees have nothing whatsoever to do with prison policy.
But closed centres for refugees do. We want to propose that rather than 'centres d'hébergement ' the wording should be 'centres de rétention '.
I hope that the interpreters in all the booths can translate this accurately in all the language versions.
That seems to be a translation problem rather than an oral amendment.
No, Mr President.
I believe that the mistake was made in all the language versions and that in all languages there is something equivalent to reception centre.
When refugees apply for refugee status they are often placed in reception centres.
Once their application has been processed they are transferred to closed centres.
The intention is to refer to these closed centres in this text.
Mr President, I entirely support what Mrs Van Lancker has just said.
In fact, detention centres, which operate more often than not under a system where rights are ignored, merit the attention of Members of Parliament and the population as a whole.
Okay.
Thank you.
Are there any objections?
Mr President, I do not believe it is a good thing to introduce a Belgicism in Dutch here.
It is not 'onthaalcentrum ' but 'opvangcentrum ' in good Dutch.
Let's not have a debate.
The amendment is clear.
Mr President, if we have a clarification of the word, in Dutch it should be 'opvangtenten' - ' reception tents' - since that is the current policy.
(Parliament accepted the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
As they say in the House of Commons, I will write to the honourable Member about that matter.
Mr President, I want to call attention to the situation in Irish prisons where the system is absolutely chaotic and out of line with the detailed Council of Europe provisions on prisons which have been accepted by our state.
The system is in crisis.
Prisons are over-used for non-violent property crime and fine defaulters.
Many are prone to terrible problems of drug abuse.
Those Members who are listening will be interested to know the very sad fact that although Ireland is the Celtic tiger the suicide rate in Irish prisons is one of the highest in Europe.
Mr Pradier's report makes a number of very welcome proposals such as taking into account the specific needs of women prisoners, the maintenance of the social and family environment, the provision of proper medical services, including special services for addicts, and constructive, humane laws on penalties for young offenders, all of which I welcome.
Some reform is taking place in Ireland's prisons.
I welcome last week's decision by the Irish Government to take up the proposal to establish a prison authority.
However, much more remains to be done.
This report outlines a number of possible reforms.
I do, however, reject the suggestion that illicit drugs should be decriminalised in prison.
Decriminalisation is not the way forward and would only worsen our drug problem.
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have voted in favour of this own-initiative report on prison conditions in the Union.
There is good reason to turn the spotlight on prison conditions in the Member States.
The prisons are generally overcrowded, and it can be useful to exchange experience as regards preventing criminal activity, alternatives to prison sentences, prisoners on remand and so on.
It is also topical to highlight the fundamental civil rights of inmates in this 50th anniversary year of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
The report points out that overcrowding in prisons can be relieved by decriminalising the use of illegal substances which harm no one other than the individual in question.
However, the provisions of criminal law relating to narcotics are not a matter for the EU, and it must therefore be for individual Member States to decide whether they will take steps to decriminalise cannabis, for example.
Many of the proposals of a social nature in the report are good ones, for example more 'humane' treatment of people in prison.
However, it is questionable whether it is really the business of the EU to propose guidelines for Member States' policies on crime.
Civil and criminal law are national responsibilities.
To suggest that Member States might reduce overcrowding in their prisons by no longer imprisoning people for drug abuse represents an interference in their internal affairs.
On behalf of the Green Group, I welcome this own- initiative report on prison conditions in the EU and the proposed improvements and alternative penalties.
Concern has been growing throughout the EU about the unsatisfactory conditions in many EU prisons, where offenders are serving sentences for offences which are judged differently in different countries.
I welcome the fact that Member States are being called on to fully apply the Council of Europe's rules in relation to prisons.
The deprivation of freedom of movement should not mean deprivation of all fundamental freedoms - freedom of thought and opinion and freedom of political and religious beliefs, as well as civil rights must be respected.
I also welcome the series of measures designed to improve prison conditions and facilitate subsequent reintegration into society.
The special account given to the specific needs of women prisoners is very important.
So too are the recommendations to protect the social and family environment, medical services, including special services for addicts, and more humane laws on penalties for young offenders.
Exploring the concept of amnesties, alternative penalties and highlighting the importance of training of prison staff and social workers is the direction we should be aiming for in regard to future policy.
It is also very important that we look at the problem of criminalising drug addicts.
This is not going to solve the problem, in fact it ignores the problems of drug addicts who are only harming themselves and contributes to the overcrowding in prisons.
Adopting a policy of rehabilitation for addicts and help to reintegrate into society would be the more logical approach.
As regards Irish prisons, the Irish Penal Reform Trust has made many useful and constructive proposals to the Irish Government and has highlighted some of the serious problems with the Irish prison system.
The Trust has a number of concerns about the treatment of Irish prisoners.
For example:
40 % of prisoners have no access to in-cell sanitation.
They must use a chamber pot, sometimes in a shared cell, and 'slop out' each morning.- Some prisons are greatly overcrowded.
On 15 July 1998 Cork held 177 % of its design capacity (266 inmates in a prison built for 150).- In closed institutions the facilities for recreation are extremely limited.- Medical treatment for prisoners has been strongly criticised by individual inmates, visiting committees and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture.- Psychiatric and psychological services are limited and widely spread. This leads to excessive use of padded cells (resorted to 500 times in Mountjoy prison in 1997).- There is little independent monitoring of prison conditions.
No inspector of prisons and visiting committees are uncritical and lack credibility.- It is difficult for prisoners to maintain family ties.
Contact visits are rarely allowed and correspondence is censored.- Prison officers' initial training is brief and does not devote sufficient time to human rights issues.- Prison Governors have no control over their budgets or staff rosters.
They are not allowed to govern.In combination the above limitations can create an environment where human rights are not taken seriously.
This means that poor treatment is unchallenged and even becomes acceptable.
In this way low standards become the norm.
Potential ill treatment rarely comes to light because of the culture of secrecy which characterises the Department of Justice.
There is a perception in Ireland that the poor are treated differently by the courts.
Studies of the prison population show a clear preponderance of uneducated, unemployed, drug-addicted, young men.
There is clear evidence to show that the poorest defendants are more likely to be imprisoned than fined, and even if fined they may end up in prison in default.
Also some courts allow a contribution to the 'poor box' as an alternative sentence.
This clearly favours the wealthy.
Sentencing practice in Ireland is unclear.
If justice is to be done then patterns of sentencing must be analysed and areas of discrimination eliminated.
There is no tradition of criminal justice research in Ireland which means that policies are often based on intuition and expediency and not on facts and principles.
Another problem is that remand prisoners are not held apart from those who have been convicted and sentenced.
As they must be available for the courts, they are held in committal prisons where conditions are cramped and unsanitary.
These people experience the worst elements of the Irish penal system and this is unacceptable in view of their legal status as innocent citizens.
In 1999 a new purpose-built remand prison will open at Cloverhill.
This should be an opportunity to create an environment for remand prisoners which recognises their special needs.
However, the design quality of this institution leaves a lot to be desired.
Despite the fact that international guidelines suggest single cell occupancy as the norm, overcrowding will be a feature of this new prison as soon as it opens.
Inmates will be held in triple cells. These are small and cramped, measuring only 10.7 m.
The Irish situation is not unique and it is clear that similar problems exist in many other EU Member States.
The report reflects humane values with which I strongly sympathise.
However, I do not think that the issues dealt with, namely criminal law and conditions in the Member States' prisons, fall within the competence of either the European Union or the European Parliament.
I have therefore not voted in favour of the report in the final vote.
I also object to the fact that the report attempts to interfere in the Member States' policies on drugs.
That concludes the vote.
Racism and xenophobia
Mr President, may I begin by saying that I am slightly sad to be speaking on behalf of Mr Elliott who, because of the delay caused by the debate on the situation in Iraq, is unable to be here to present his own resolution.
I regret that shift in the agenda meant that I had to replace him.
I also have to confess I was sorry to miss the press conference given by Mr Mégret, Mr Blot and Mr Le Gallou earlier today explaining their current situation in the Front national .
I am normally against war - civil or otherwise - but I make an exception in that particular case.
With respect to the resolution, I wish to draw Members' attention to a number of points.
Firstly, paragraph 1 states the need for the urgent ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Members will be aware that we have a new Article 13 which will allow the Commission, for the first time, to introduce legislation to organise the fight against racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism.
However, that can only be done once the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified.
I hope that the French, who are the latest in ratifying this Treaty, can do so as soon as possible.
I urge them to take the opportunity to introduce legislation prior to 10 June so that the Commission proposals can be part of the debate around the European elections.
I hope that, as stated in paragraph 3, legislation will incorporate many of the ideas brought forward by the Starting Line Group which has been working on proposed legislation for a number of years.
What we require in the field of fighting racism is detailed and hard-hitting legislation.
I do not want the Commission to be frightened by the view, expressed by some, that certain Member States will not accept such legislation and such legislative proposals.
We should not forget that it is only fairly recently that the 15 Member States signed up to Amsterdam and I am convinced that, in signing up to Article 13, they are agreeing to introduce legislation.
I must also draw the attention of Members to paragraph 10, which argues that in the next Treaty revision, we should seek to introduce qualified majority voting in this particular area.
Paragraph 4 mentions the idea of a code of conduct for political parties; a code of conduct which makes political parties commit themselves, firstly, not to engage in racism, not to use racist language and not to use racism as part of their political campaigns; and, secondly and equally importantly, not to associate themselves with parties that breach the code of conduct.
It would be very fitting, in the light of Parliament's campaign over the best part of fifteen years for legislation at a European level, for such a code of conduct first to be used by political parties in the run-up to the European elections in 1999.
Paragraph 6 mentions the new European Observatory - the Monitoring Centre set up in Vienna.
Beata Winckler, the Director of that Centre, is actually in the gallery listening to this debate.
I should like to thank her for the work she has already done as the new Director, and the Board of the Observatory, in particular Jean Kahn, who is still recovering from a stroke, for the work they have done in its establishment.
However, I have to say to them that we have high expectations of the Observatory.
We do not expect a dull, desiccated statistical report every year: what we want are reports on what action should be taken at local, regional, national and European levels to fight racism when it arises and to prevent its rise.
We want to use the observatory as a think-tank, to try to make sure that we bring forward the appropriate proposals.
Paragraph 7 mentions a European Network to monitor Racism and Xenophobia.
It is very important that the Observatory uses this.
We do not want them to reinvent the wheel: we want them to draw on the expertise already available in Community groups and other organisations in the 15 Member States of the Union.
Despite introducing Mr Elliott's resolution, I have to say that personally I have some doubts about paragraph 12, which calls for small local groups to be supported by the Commission.
It is important for small local groups to receive assistance, but maybe on the basis of subsidiarity this should come from regional and national organisations.
The bureaucratic problems of getting the Commission to reach down to small local groups are too difficult to overcome.
Paragraph 15 rightly mentions our demand that the applicant countries are required to guarantee the rights of minorities.
I have to say to the applicant countries that perhaps some of the justice and home affairs issues may be more of a barrier to membership than some of the discussions taking place on agriculture and the Structural Funds.
I think Parliament will be very resistant to allowing in Member States which do not respect the rights of minorities - whether they are ethnic, linguistic or religious - or, for that matter, people who have a different sexual orientation.
Finally, I plead for cross-European action at the policing level.
This is important.
I should like to give one example: currently there is a growth of racist music around Europe.
There is a band - if it can be called that - with the name 'No Remorse', which is short for 'No remorse for the Holocaust', whose latest CD is called 'Barbecue in Rostock', celebrating the petrol-bombing of immigrant hostels in Germany.
To my shame, it is a British group.
The CDs are produced in Denmark and Sweden and are sold on the streets of Germany and Spain.
If we are to tackle those problems, it is very important to tackle them at European level, because it is clearly a cross-country problem.
I commend Mr Elliott's resolution to the House.
I hope it will be supported when we vote tomorrow, because it is important that this House maintains the eternal vigilance necessary to ensure that the tragic events of 50 years ago are not repeated in the future.
Mr President, it is good that the Commission is continuing to work on the subject of 'Racism and xenophobia', especially now that this is no longer such a popular subject. Politicians must continue to exert a positive influence on society's development, even if it is sometimes easier for them to win votes by appealing to feelings of fear and rejection in regard to certain electoral groups.
Another advantage of dealing with a subject of this nature is that it also allows us to take a good look at ourselves and not to avoid self-criticism.
This is why it is such an interesting subject.
The Commission's action plan is, however, somewhat disappointing as it is not an operational plan, but a strategic one.
We must nevertheless give it our blessing, which leads me to make the following points.
The European Commission rightly sees the fight against racism as a matter for society itself.
Action from above, at the political level, must be rooted in a variety of social initiatives.
The Commission names many organisations which could play a very significant role in this field and I share this view.
Unfortunately the text fails to mention one of the most important of these organisations, namely the churches and religious communities.
At the very time when membership of another faith, or even an exotic religious group, constitutes an extra challenge for integration, we should be talking about mosques, for example, their administration and the Muslim communities.
These too have a role to play in working with us to combat discrimination in our society.
Action taken by those discriminated against is also important.
They are all adults who can and must defend themselves and must try to deal with any problems within their own group, in particular when it concerns integration problems arising from poor knowledge of the language of the country they live in and of the local culture, and which can also in some cases be reflected in increased crime due to the lack of roots in this other society.
Above all we must hope that others too - including the groups directly concerned - contribute to the European Union's culture.
This is an important point. They are part of a long tradition, as Europe has always had a culture of openness and this is how it must remain.
The emphasis on society is also expressed in support for networks of anti-racist organisations, which are worth cofinancing.
Unfortunately, there is still an element in the text which could suggest 100 % financing, whereas this can actually be quite dangerous for networks of this kind as you are then unilaterally setting yourself up as the official source of the funding.
This can prove an obstacle to rooting these networks and their organisations in society itself.
The basis in society must always be the priority element, which is why it is important for them to be accountable to that society.
100 % state financing can be an obstacle to this.
These networks must therefore be primarily directed at society.
This is what is difficult.
I do not believe it is a good thing for us to subsidise lobby activities directed at the legislator, because as we are that legislator we must surely be best able to do the job ourselves, and also more democratically.
I have therefore made a further attempt to amend a corporatist element which has crept into the resolution and I believe there will be broad support for this.
The action plan rightly calls for the European Union to pursue a coherent policy in all sectors.
This applies, for example, to its own personnel policy, which must reflect our anti-racist convictions, and also in foreign policy where we must prevent or stop in their tracks racial hatred, political manipulation, ethnic disputes and genocide.
I do not believe we should shy away from criticism of our own foreign policy.
It is another sector of policy just like socio-economic policy and cultural policy and here too we must voice our criticism.
Yet in connection with this foreign policy the point must be made that the number of deaths which have resulted from a lack of vigilance in combating ethnic cleansing is of course unbelievable.
This is one of the most serious phenomena which the European Union has had to confront.
When enlarging the European Union the necessary attention must also be paid to this aspect of anti-racism and xenophobia, and in particular also anti-Semitism, as in some countries this evidently continues to thrive.
As long as discriminatory actions of this kind continue to exist in countries seeking Union membership, they can be seen as a measure of the extent to which a constitutional state has been established.
Discrimination, racial hatred and xenophobia are measures of the quality of such a constitutional state.
We must therefore pay careful attention to these phenomena, in present Member States and in applicant countries.
At the same time we must recognise that in some countries it is not at all easy to integrate certain minority groups.
Gypsies are of course a serious issue in various countries, including in regard to their willingness to integrate.
It would be a good idea to view this as a European issue too.
I would point out that we called for the European Union to conduct a study on this subject, specifically in Romania where there are so many minority groups and where many measures have been developed to study how wider integration can be achieved.
This deserves our greatest respect, particularly when we live in countries where these problems are not so troublesome.
Obviously there are various preventive actions worthy of mention in the socio-economic field, including housing, education and cultural policy.
Many initiatives were launched during the Year against Racism. One of the most important practical measures was to set up the Monitoring Centre for Racism and Xenophobia in Vienna, whose director Beate Winckler is following our debate from the public gallery.
We greatly appreciate this as contact with the European Parliament is of course very important for her and for us.
Mr President, I hope that this subject will not get bogged down in considerations of political correctness and image-building.
These are serious matters with extremely practical consequences for the people who are the victims and for the European Union which is founded on anti-racism and cross-border solidarity.
Following ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, if we are to avoid confusion we must adopt specific legislation for each type of group discriminated against and for each policy field.
I helped to develop anti-discrimination legislation in the Netherlands and have experience of these issues.
We must recognise that we are dealing here with a genuine European problem, but at the same time that our work can only be complementary as the crux of the matter lies with the Member States and their societies.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment I should like to focus on four concrete themes which are of particular importance in giving rather more practical content to this action plan.
Firstly, the opportunities for ethnic minorities to find employment.
Despite the deplorable lack of statistics on this aspect of the labour market it is clear that ethnic minorities face an exceptionally high level of discrimination.
Their high level of unemployment, poor prospects for promotion and precarious work situation cannot all be attributed to their lower level of education.
The European Union recently introduced instruments to take concrete steps to improve the situation by means of employment guidelines.
We are very pleased that the jumbo Council at the beginning of December followed the advice of Parliament and the Commission to pay special attention to discrimination against minorities in the national action plans.
We hope that the formulation can be further refined, with the addition of benchmarks and firm undertakings.
Secondly, the Union can further strengthen the strategy for equal opportunities by means of the Structural Funds and Community initiatives.
We in Parliament have always called for the European Social Fund to pay very clear attention to ethnic minorities.
We hope that the Council will support us in this and also that in future Community initiatives the Commission will also pay greater attention to non-discrimination.
Thirdly, anti-discrimination legislation on the basis of Article 13.
We hope that the Commission will now quickly come up with a proposal for a directive so that we can really act, if necessary by bringing a case before the European Court of Justice.
I know that this requires unanimity in the Council, but it would be scandalous and incomprehensible for the Member States to oppose legislation of this kind.
We expect the Commission to base its initiative very strongly on the experience already acquired with equal opportunities legislation for men and women, including everything relating to positive action, indirect discrimination and reversal of the burden of proof.
Only then can a directive be a good directive.
Finally, there is the role of the social partners.
European social dialogue would greatly boost its credibility if it agreed a code of conduct on non-discrimination at the work place.
I hope that the European Commission will quickly adapt its action plan to this effect.
I am curious to hear its proposals.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the establishment of the European Observatory for Racism and Xenophobia takes its place alongside the adoption of the anti-discrimination clause in the Amsterdam Treaty as another success in the fight against racism.
The observatory will be of great assistance to us, since the data it collects will give us a clearer picture of the nature and extent of racism and xenophobia.
Comparisons between Member States will also become possible.
Better information makes for greater effectiveness in the fight against racism.
The Commission's plan of action contains sound measures, such as the promotion of cooperation and partnership at all levels and the development of a mainstreaming approach.
I believe that the promotion of pilot projects and networks is particularly important as a means of encouraging active experience-sharing.
There is a need for innovative anti-racism projects.
Nevertheless, I agree with Mr Oostlander that the plan of action still suffers from a shortage of specific detailed proposals.
The development of hostile attitudes must be counteracted from an early stage in the education process.
Parents and teachers bear a great responsibility here.
During the years I spent working with parents, I always tried to encourage better mutual understanding of different cultures in kindergartens and schools.
Intercultural lessons, projects undertaken by schoolchildren and the active involvement of parents help to nurture the growth of a tolerant intercultural society.
I shall continue to dedicate myself to that aim.
At the European Conference on Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which I attended in Vienna at the beginning of December, we were explicitly warned against overlooking the threat to Europe from racism and xenophobia.
Both phenomena, it was said, had become increasingly widespread, but the priority given to the efforts to suppress them did not reflect the seriousness of the threat they posed.
The persistence and pervasiveness of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism in Europe are alarming and make it increasingly clear that action on a European scale is urgently needed.
This means that early ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty is essential, since the Treaty must enter into force before draft legislation for the suppression of racial discrimination can be introduced.
Finally, we can but hope that we succeed in the course of the coming century in creating a continent in which racism can no longer take root.
This remains a vital issue for the future of Europe.
Mr President, the rapporteur is right in saying that the Commission's action plan is not specific enough.
However, I wonder if we should not be taking a closer look at our own positions when we discuss racism.
We are very quick to condemn it, but I should like to point out that, in some cases, our actions have been quite different.
Let us take for example the Schaffner report, on which we voted today: no doubt there are many Members of Parliament who, for fear of provoking xenophobia, have been unwilling to give voting rights to immigrants.
Furthermore, there have been many instances when we have not given the necessary authorisation to enable citizens of third countries who are legally present in the EU to move around freely.
We have not been very successful in this respect, nor in giving a hearing to the proposal drawn up by Simone Veil's group, which also relates to citizens of third countries.
This represents a serious failure on the part of Parliament.
With regard to the reference made by the rapporteur in paragraph 8 of the Oostlander report, the Charter of European political parties for a non-racist society is not receiving the support it deserves either at European level or in Member States.
At European level, only the European Parliament through its President and the ELDR Group have signed the Charter, despite the fact that it has been open for signature since February 1998.
Why are all the other European parties taking so long?
I am delighted that Mr Oostlander focuses so much attention on the situation of gypsies, not just in the Member States, but also in Central and Eastern Europe.
It should be regarded as a matter of serious concern, both in our dealings with the applicant countries and in relation to our own policies on asylum and refugees.
There are many situations where they are greatly in need of protection.
Finally, I was very glad to note that, by a sizeable majority, Parliament today endorsed a call for all countries to sign the Council of Europe's charter on regional and minority languages.
I believe this is the first time that anything has been done about a matter which urgently needs our attention.
Madam President, I shall not need all the time at my disposal because much of what I had to say has already been mentioned, and indeed made fairly clear.
We have before us today a Commission communication on the action plan against racism.
Unfortunately, we must admit that action such as this is essential. Racism and xenophobia are experienced every day, in both our public and our private lives.
I therefore feel we must keep up a constant fight against such attitudes. We must tackle them at their root, wherever they are born, nurtured and developed.
As I have said on previous occasions, we must combat racism in the field of social relationships. The authorities must constantly encourage cross-cultural relations, factual knowledge of other minority cultures and links with them.
This will certainly result in social and cultural enrichment, and will never represent a threat to the integrity of the state. What is at issue is learning to truly live together, rather than merely coexisting.
In addition, we must maintain our criticism of the foreign policy of the European Union and its Member States, not that it is always easy to detect such a policy. All too often, it is governed by ethnic prejudices, as in the case of Bosnia and Albania for example, and not by a true spirit of cooperation and development that is independent from the purely economic aspect.
In addition to these general provisions, which should form the basis of any policy implemented within the European Union, we should not overlook the importance of specific measures that help to eliminate racial discrimination.
Positive discrimination must be encouraged in order to facilitate the integration of ethnic and cultural minorities.
The experience gained from positive discrimination in favour of women must be applied to other groups affected by structural discrimination.
Turning to another issue, I would like to take this opportunity to condemn here, in the strongest possible terms, the constant infringement of human rights that is still taking place in police stations when additional information on a crime is being determined. An example of this is where a crime is linked to a cultural or religious affiliation.
It is not unusual for tendentious and openly racist and discriminatory remarks such as 'Arab appearance', 'Muslim appearance', 'North African appearance' to feature in press releases or police reports.
This represents a clear violation of fundamental rights and an attack on the dignity of individuals. No means should therefore be spared in combating this.
Consequently, it is absolutely essential to make the legal services that exist under the rule of law available to all citizens as they strive to combat racism and xenophobia. European, national and public institutions should take positive action to spread information on the mechanisms available to bring legal action against practices of this sort.
The necessary economic support should also be guaranteed and promoted for this purpose.
Madam President, as a new Member of Parliament, I had a compilation put together of the debates that have taken place in the House on xenophobia and racism.
Since the French Front National first entered Parliament, the House has had to discuss this issue many times.
The report of the first committee of inquiry on the subject dates from 1985.
A second committee of inquiry was convened in 1989 because of the arrival of the German Republicans in the European Parliament.
We must continue to examine this problem, even though it has already been the subject of two quite thorough analyses.
Parties headed by gentlemen such as Le Pen, Haider and Frey are scoring considerable electoral successes in France, Austria and Germany today.
Sadly, in recent years xenophobic and racist crimes have claimed several victims in Europe.
Not until Amsterdam did the Member States respond to the repeated demands and reports they had been receiving from Parliament.
Unfortunately, we have wasted a great deal of time since Maastricht.
Be that as it may, we should now draw the necessary conclusions and flesh out the new legal basis for the fight against all forms of discrimination and racism in the European Union.
A policy of equal rights is essential if we are to overcome xenophobia and racism.
For that reason, plans of action to combat racism are not enough.
Harmonisation of the various laws in the Member States against xenophobia and racism should be our next objective.
That is the only way in which we can create the conditions for all Europeans to live together in peace and equality.
Madam President, like the previous speaker I am a new Member in this House but I had the privilege of representing the Committee of the Regions and speaking at an anti-racism seminar earlier this year in Brussels.
I welcome the Oostlander report and this latest debate and demonstration of support by the European Parliament to combat racism.
As MEPs we have a responsibility to promote respect for cultural diversity and human dignity but xenophobia and racism is present, regrettably, to varying degrees in all our Member States.
In June 1997 the Committee of the Regions adopted an opinion on this subject, concluding that 'The only way serious progress can be made in addressing the problems of racism, xenophobia and anti-semitism is initially through the common acceptance that they exist'.
We and our fellow politicians at all levels must therefore not be afraid to admit that problems exist in our localities if we are to devise and implement meaningful measures to combat racism.
Article F(1) of the Amsterdam Treaty has introduced the possibility of denying the vote of a Member State guilty of human rights violations.
This is a clear signal that Europe is no longer willing to put up with the human rights abuses which can result in discriminatory practices and racism.
All governments at Member State, regional and local levels have a responsibility to promote and develop strategies for achieving social inclusion in its widest sense through local initiatives and partnerships.
My experience in Scottish local government has taught me how important this work is at all levels.
One positive example of local government initiatives is in my own constituency through participation in the Tayside Racial Equality Council.
Such councils can operate alongside and complement voluntary and statutory bodies and I believe it is essential that we advance the independent work of voluntary organisations and encourage cooperation between national and local government actions, together with the work of civil society.
This afternoon the debate has been positive and the speeches before mine have demonstrated that this House is clearly committed to confronting the problem of racism.
But recognition needs action and we need to do more than to talk.
An aspect which is all too often overlooked is the need to tackle many of the social and cultural problems which are the root causes of racism in our societies.
These are major stumbling blocks and it will take a lot of substantive action if these underlying problems are to be successfully tackled.
One of the most important ways in which we can work towards the elimination of racism is through education which must be regarded as one of the most important avenues to be utilised in reducing and, in the long term, eliminating racism.
This has to be carried out at all levels but in particular at grassroots level.
Moreover, it is imperative if education is effectively to fight discrimination and racism that there be a proper flow of information.
As part of this the Vienna Observatory should be given stronger powers and we as elected politicians should be regularly informed of developments and studies in order that we can properly guide our efforts across Europe.
My party is against the parochial approaches demonstrated by some Member States during last week's Council Summit.
Cooperation and mutual understanding between all states are prerequisites if we are to have any hope of effectively combating racism.
This will not be done if we forsake these goals to promote inward-looking aims.
Europe needs an inclusive, outward-looking approach if racism is to be combated.
I welcome the thrust of the Action Plan and this report and the proposed resolution.
I hope sincerely that at all levels we can create tangible proposals which can realistically result in some meaningful progress in this battle.
Madam President, I am concerned and horrified by the increased signs of nationalism, and I am convinced that every effort must be made to combat it.
An action plan against racism could be useful here.
But it is my belief that the best way of combating racism is at local and national level.
The different situations encountered at local, regional and national level require a response which is firmly focused on the specific situation.
Of course I accept that the phenomena of racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism are not confined to national borders.
Europe's Member States must therefore cooperate and increase their citizens' awareness by exchanging information and experiences.
The Council of Europe can play an effective role as an umbrella organisation in this, as indeed it has done over recent years.
In 1995 Mr Oostlander, the rapporteur, had completely different ideas about the level at which racism must be combated.
At a round table conference on the subject at the time, he said that each country could combat racism in its own way, citing the principle of subsidiarity.
At the time he saw a guide to combating racism as coming at a national rather than European level.
Little remains of this view in this resolution.
What I find hardest to accept are the proposals leading to new European legislation.
Invoking Article 13 of the EC Treaty as amended in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the rapporteur urges the Commission to draw up a directive against racial discrimination.
But the article in question speaks of appropriate measures.
Appropriate measures do not automatically imply a directive.
Furthermore, in my view Article 13 is seen as a kind of constitutional article at European level as it is always used as a point of departure.
Given the way the article is formulated I do not believe this can be the case.
I do not believe we need a European constitution.
All the Member States have already signed the European Treaty on human rights and have their own constitution.
Madam President, it is very necessary to combat racism.
I sincerely support every effort made in this connection at national and international level.
But I believe it is going too far to enact European legislation in this area.
When the vote is taken on the paragraphs relating to legislation in the resolution I shall unfortunately be obliged to abstain.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too must emphasise that the proposals put forward by the Commission in its action plan are correct but inadequate.
In actual fact this phenomenon must be tackled above all by eradicating it at source.
Probably racism is not so virulent today, but xenophobia certainly is.
This is partly because our populations will not put up with migratory flows which have a disastrous effect on their standard of living.
The European Community must therefore become far more proactive in this area.
In my opinion, for example, whereas the Member States should keep a watchful eye on immigration as it occurs, the Community should take initiatives such as organising entry into our territory for those who deserve it and have a genuine claim, whereas those not meeting these requirements should be challenged.
I say so because, otherwise, a form of resistance will develop among the general public and could erupt into outbursts of intolerance against individuals.
So an extremely resolute approach is required: it is no longer enough to let ourselves be overtaken by events; we must attempt to govern such events.
It is highly likely that the popular consciousness of today has been inoculated against the phenomena of the past.
To be inoculated, however, is probably not enough.
Action is required too, and some action on the Community's part would certainly be commendable in this context.
Madam President, what is the cause of everyday racism, of the widespread xenophobia that is sometimes concealed and sometimes openly flaunted? Is it the cut-throat competition for jobs, is it particular hotbeds of crime, is it dangerous residential environments?
Why do so many people turn a blind eye when attacks take place?
Why do so many tolerate acts of racial violence by gangs?
My speaking time does not allow me to give precise answers, but I do think the Member States would do well to analyse the symptoms, and so would we in Europe.
Under Article K.1 of the Treaty on European Union, as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam, the prevention and suppression of racism and xenophobia fall within the competence of the EU.
In the Commission's plan of action, which the PPE Group endorses, as Arie Oostlander's excellent report made clear, discrimination based on race, origin and creed is to be combated more effectively by means of practicable measures.
Pilot projects are to be supported, new networks created and better links established between existing networks, with the proviso that the affected groups must be actively involved.
The Commission should draw up a proposal for a directive against racial discrimination.
One of the articles in the directive should be entirely devoted to the area of social policy and employment, because the effects of racist thinking are felt at the workplace too, as Sue Waddington explains in her persuasive opinion, which the PPE members in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs were able to endorse.
Attempts to integrate ethnic minorities into the labour market have met with varying degrees of success.
In their national plans of action, some Member States propose support measures, while in others even freedom of movement is restricted.
To my mind, there are three important requirements.
Firstly, young people in schools, but young workers too, should be encouraged to assume responsibilities in the fight against xenophobia.
Secondly, an anti-discriminatory code of conduct for workplaces should be drawn up together with management and labour.
We can contribute a great many of our own experiences from the Member States.
Thirdly, we should make every effort to ensure that the initiatives implemented in the framework of the European Social Fund, including ADAPT and NOW, YOUTH, START and URBAN, as well as parts of our EU programmes Leonardo da Vinci, Youth for Europe and Socrates, can be pooled in such a way that they can contribute effectively to the necessary fight against racism.
Madam President, I agree with Mr Ford's remarks, and in doing so wish in particular to pay homage to the work of the various parliamentary committees of our Parliament and the consultative committee chaired by Jean Kahn.
To such work do we owe a decade of progress in the fight against racism and xenophobia in the day-to-day business of the European Union, as well as the inclusion of that fight in the constitutional principles of the Union.
On that score the Treaty of Amsterdam represents progress worthy of acclaim.
The fight against racism is founded on equality of individual rights, on separation of the public and private spheres, on the fact that no barrier arising from individuals' origins should stand in the way of their advancement.
Secularism, as practised by some states, is definitely the philosophical bedrock most likely to guarantee equality and the fight against discrimination.
That ought to make us take great care when it comes to positive discrimination, because within it lurks the risk of tribalism and confinement of individuals inside their groups of origin.
It can lead to absurdities such as paragraph 13 of Mr Oostlander's report, which calls on the Commission to 'submit to the Council and to Parliament a communication on the policy it is pursuing to ensure reasonable representation of racial and ethnic minority groups in its own staff'.
Madam President, imagine the problems if, one day, an able and qualified person were to be prevented from entering the process of recruitment to the Commission staff because there were already too many Jews or too many blacks or not enough blacks.
Positive discrimination is absurd.
Individual rights must be recognised and the fight against racism and xenophobia must not be used to confine individuals to ghettos of origin.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I shall not try to analyse those issues on which there is general agreement and which others have already touched upon, such as the general nature of the action plan or the limited innovations it contains, the need to launch projects based on genuine and diverse partnerships, the urgent need for an overarching vision of the fight against racism, the need for education starting at school, the urgent need for awareness-raising and information campaigns, or, lastly, the need to evaluate legislative progress made at Member State level or the urgency of guaranteeing proper legal support for victims.
The specific measures advocated in terms of employment, better utilisation of the European Social Fund and a change in housing policy so as to prevent ghettos are all clearly very important. However, they may be of limited effectiveness given that recent studies have confirmed an alarming and highly significant xenophobic attitude, even amongst the people of Europe.
This situation could deteriorate further if we do not recognise that underlying these attitudes are neo-liberal economic policies which give rise to instability, unemployment, marginalisation and poverty.
These are objective phenomena which lead to the proliferation of racism and xenophobia.
To my mind, this question was not covered in the report and this represents a wasted opportunity to identify the real scale of the problem and to attack or defend changes in policies which actually give rise to the underlying causes of xenophobia and racism.
Madam President, I believe Thomas Mann asked the very question that needs to be asked here: what causes racism?
To that I would add a second question, which has also just been raised.
It was asserted that we had made great progress in combating racism.
I believe a great deal more caution is called for, because racism itself has developed. It undoubtedly remains extremely dangerous.
There is still racial violence on our streets.
Has it somehow been reduced? Well, it may be that statistics from an individual country have gone down, but crime statistics depend to an extent on how the number of unreported cases is estimated.
In other words, we really do have to ask ourselves why this problem has reached such epidemic proportions in our European Union.
I believe this actually leads us to ask two more questions.
Is there a connection with mass unemployment, with the policy of diminishing solidarity and fiercer competition that we have been pursuing for the past 15 to 20 years? Is there a connection with European history - European history as the history of the colonies, as the history of Europe's imperialist pretensions, and European history as the history of this century?
The history of the German wars, of German racism in Europe? I believe that unless we remember and carefully examine that history, we shall keep falling into the same trap of adopting a host of minor piecemeal measures which do nothing to solve the problem.
We must not do that!
It is our duty to remember, and it is our duty to get to grips with our problems.
Madam President, your predecessor in the chair wished the Members a happy Christmas.
Christmas is a time when the young people and children should have peace.
This House is under the great delusion that we have peace in Northern Ireland.
But we do not have peace in Northern Ireland.
There is a body in Northern Ireland which is government -sponsored and -financed.
It is called FAIT Families Against Intimidation and Terror.
They issued their report recently, which is a staggering one.
From the day that the Belfast Agreement was signed until now - I am sorry I have not time to read out this report, but it tells us that last month alone 95 children were intimidated, aged from 3 months to 18 years.
They tell us that they have had families exiled from their homes and driven out of the Province altogether.
There have been serious beatings - people beaten with hatchets and hammers; altogether they report 150 such incidents in the month of November.
These are across the board.
The Loyalist Paramilitaries, the UVF, the UDA and the Republican Paramilitaries, the IRA are all at this. Why?
Because we have had accelerated prisoner releases; and this body has identified that, on the streets of Belfast, orchestrating these beatings, are those that have been released under this scheme that was supposed to bring us peace.
The time has come when the Government and this House have to face up to the reality.
I wish I could say that the boys and girls of my country would have a happy Christmas; but I know that some of them will be the target of these terrorists.
Madam President, a great deal has already been said about these reports, especially about Mr Oostlander's report.
He too regretted that insufficient progress was probably being made in the fight against racism and xenophobia.
We should not forget, however, that measures can actually be taken in every domain of our activity in the European Parliament to curb these appalling tendencies.
I believe there is one section in particular in Mr Oostlander's report - the section in which he deals with foreign policy measures - which is extremely important.
As you know, in our immediate neighbourhood we have a country to which we have been devoting much of our attention recently; we have talked a lot about helping that country. It is a country in which racism is so rampant at the moment as to be scarcely imaginable.
That country is Russia.
Unfortunately, we do far too little reporting on it here. Yet there are innumerable cases that could be discussed.
At the last part-session here in Parliament, one of the topical and urgent subjects we dealt with related to General Makashov, who is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, who based part of his election campaign on the slogan 'Kill all Jews!', who is a member of the Duma and who has never been properly taken to task - as he should have been - for his statements in the Duma.
I find this immensely disquieting when I think that there are minorities in Russia of which many of us have probably never even heard.
Please allow me to highlight one or two of them, because I simply believe it is important to speak about these things here.
One of the examples is the Jewish minority - and I have mentioned them specifically because of General Makashov's remarks - who still live today in the so-called autonomous Jewish province.
They were resettled there, forcibly in some cases, in 1927 and in the early thirties.
The area where these people live today is known as Birobidzhan or Yevreyskaya - Hebrew - Autonomous Province, on the north bank of the River Amur.
Writers of that time said of the province that it was so bleak and its climate so inhospitable that before the many thousands of Jews were settled there, the entire area of 36 000 square kilometres had only had 1 192 inhabitants - Koreans, Kazakhs and a few Evenki, whose numbers were constantly dwindling because they could barely eke out a living in the harsh climate.
Even today some of the original Jewish deportees still live there, and the main local magazine is one that is still published in Yiddish.
I believe that, especially at a time like this when someone such as General Makashov is making remarks of that sort, we must not forget people like the Birobidzhan Jews, who live in such a remote place and whose existence is truly threatened.
I should like to add a second brief point. This same Russia that allows such things to happen has uprooted other peoples too, not least the Chechens, who have been completely uprooted twice in the last 150 years.
Russia drove them right out of their land, but they kept coming back, and the legacy of that can be seen today.
So our foreign policy is certainly one channel through which we really can take action against this entrenched racism.
Madam President, although in the European Union and especially here in Parliament resolutions have been repeatedly formulated and reports repeatedly approved on preventing racism and xenophobia, there has unfortunately been very little real progress, if any, as previous speakers have pointed out.
So it is high time we acted more decisively and effectively at both national and EU levels to prevent discrimination and increase tolerance.
For that reason Mr Oostlander's report and the Commission's plan of action are very welcome as are the plans for legislation following ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The prevention of racism has to be an integral part of the Union's other policies including external relations and preparation for membership for applicant countries.
I agree with the rapporteur that one single commissioner must be responsible for coordinating anti-racism measures, however.
Similarly I would emphasise, as the rapporteur does, that information and communications are a priority in the strategic fight against racism.
Information must get to the various agencies in specific form.
Anti-racist action must involve all players, in a spirit of very broad partnership.
Many voluntary organisations and their networks are dynamic and creative, and they are really worth supporting in their efforts to promote tolerance.
I believe too little attention has been paid to the immense importance of the European Union educational and youth programmes, when they are at their best, in increasing mutual knowledge and understanding and thus dispelling xenophobia.
As we are now revising these programmes it is important to give emphasis to the importance of interaction and tolerance when the programmes are being implemented.
In my opinion, the Council should support Parliament in its greater efforts to give more young people the opportunity to participate in these programmes, because personal experience, through exchange programmes, for example, is the most effective way to overcome prejudice and promotes the view that differences enrich our lives.
Madam President, I too would like to applaud the Commission's intention to legislate against racism, and mainly to echo what I heard from Mr Ford and Mr Oostlander.
Let me simply stress two points among those I have referred to, the first of which relates to enlargement.
I think that as part of this effort by the Commission - and by ourselves - particular care should be taken, as we prepare for enlargement, to ensure that during the pre-accession period a serious effort will be made to reduce the problems of racism, xenophobia and other such phenomena in the countries that are applicants for accession, so that we will not later be importing into the Union problems with which we are already familiar, either from refugees coming from those countries or in our own countries.
For example, in Greece we have problems with gypsies and we do not need to import more problems concerning gypsies coming from the Czech Republic and other applicant countries.
I would like to put particular emphasis on that.
A second problem is the Commissioner: I also wish to stress that so far responsibilities between Commissioners have been shared out on the basis of economic considerations or, if you will, in accordance with the Union's original nature.
The Union is necessarily becoming an increasingly political and social entity.
I think that if we want a serious policy against racism, there must be what our English friends call 'follow-up', in other words continual monitoring, with a Commissioner acting as the 'minister' for monitoring the implementation of anti-racism legislation.
I think that would prove very effective indeed, more so than anything I have heard from the speakers so far.
Madam President, this discussion follows hard on the heels of the debate on human rights and coincides with the celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the solemn Universal Declaration of these rights, which came into being with the French Revolution and evolved in step with our civilisation.
Amidst the momentous changes affecting contemporary society, there is one spectre hovering over Europe which could have undesirable consequences if not properly handled: globalisation.
This development, which both attracts and appals Europe, despite the wealth and diversity of its traditions, movements and languages, could give rise - and in many cases already has done - to a fear of what is different and unknown, increasing the incidence of racism and xenophobia. If these are to be overcome once and for all, there is a need on the one hand for a general awareness-raising campaign to make our citizens better informed and, on the other, a major effort to consolidate our culture and underline the value of our European identity.
Therefore, rather than rehearsing here the content of the action plan against racism, of which we are critical, a plan which says very little of substance even concerning its proposed aims or the intended funding, it would be preferable for the Member States to support the battle - now well under way - against racial discrimination, fostering the acceptance of minority groups through a series of political and educational initiatives in respect of employment, education, health, social security, the right to housing and public and private services.
At a time when European society is opening up to new needs and requirements, we can fight and conquer racial discrimination, racism and the fear of what is different, as long as we teach our children that it is not enough to be European merely through our citizenship of this or that European country, but that one becomes European by learning to respect diversity, a value which does the greatest credit to this old continent of ours.
Madam President, I wish to begin by responding to the remarks of Mr Paisley.
As a former politician in Northern Ireland, let me say that I fundamentally disagree with his conclusions about the peace process.
It is the best chance that Northern Ireland has for resolving its major differences and establishing a permanent peace.
However, having disagreed with him in his fundamental approach, I support his remarks about the statements made by FAIT - a cross-community organisation and one in which my own brother is involved - that reports on the terrible activities that continue to be carried out by paramilitary organisations.
I regret that there is a deafening silence from officialdom in Northern Ireland on the activities of paramilitaries, especially in relation to intimidation, punishment beatings and so on.
We should not ignore them
I turn to the report.
In the wake of the Amsterdam Treaty, it is important to strengthen our fight against racism and xenophobia.
I, therefore, welcome both these reports and, in particular, I support Mr Oostlander's conclusions that the Commission's plan is heavy on rhetoric but light on concrete action.
I support his proposal for political and educational initiatives to assist the acceptance of minority groups in the societies of Member States.
Every Member State needs this, including my own, where I regret the growth of racism and xenophobia, especially against refugees.
I should like, first of all, to underline the work that has been done by the European Parliament in 1998 and many of the preceding years in combating racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism inside and outside the European Union.
We have made good progress in 1998 in our joint efforts to continue to raise the profile of the European fight against racism.
Allow me to underline some of the main highlights of the year.
In March the Commission presented its action plan against racism; in October the European Network against Racism.
In 1998 the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia also began work.
Also, the Commission has been working intensively this year to prepare the ground for the entry into force of Article 13 of the new Treaty.
Just two weeks ago an important conference was held in Vienna.
At this conference Commissioner Flynn confirmed his intention to present immediately after ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, a package of anti-discrimination proposals including a framework directive dealing in a general way with all kinds of discrimination in employment, a directive dealing specifically with racial discrimination and an anti-discrimination action plan, which will have the objective of strengthening cooperation with Member States and civil society with a particular accent on building partnerships and networking and on deepening knowledge and spreading best practice to every part of the Union.
Finally, in the context of mainstreaming advocated by the Commission in its action plan, I emphasise that the 1999 guidelines for Member States' employment policies, which were proposed in October and endorsed last weekend at the Vienna Summit, call for a labour market open to all and contain an explicit reference to the need to address the particular labour market difficulties faced by ethnic minorities.
Linked to this will be our proposals to be presented next year for a new Community initiative as part of the structural fund reform.
What is planned is a new initiative for human resources focusing on transnational cooperation and combating discrimination and inequality in the labour market.
1998 has been an important year of preparation and consultation in the fight against racism.
Building on this work, the Commission is greatly looking forward to presenting legislative proposals to combat racial discrimination in 1999.
We hope to continue to benefit from your support.
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Transport of dangerous goods on inland waterways
The next item is the report (A4-0435/98) by Mr McMahon, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by vessels on inland waterways (COM(97)0367 - C4-0449/97-97/0193(SYN)).
Madam President, this report concerns the transport of dangerous goods on the Rhine and the Danube.
At the moment the Commission is involved in discussions with the Rhine Commission and with the other Member States in Geneva as part of an international agreement.
The purpose of the legislation which we have before us this evening is to align the national and international rules on the transport of dangerous goods by inland waterways with the similar legislation for road and rail.
My report goes into some detail on the use and operation of inland waterways but I should like to focus on several of the main aspects concerning the regimes governing the operation of this mode of transport.
Currently only the River Rhine enforces binding international rules for inland waterways.
It is apposite that we should be having this debate in Strasbourg as the Rhine, one of the main arteries of Europe, flows through the city of Strasbourg.
The Central Commission for the navigation of the Rhine was founded way back in 1818 - indeed, it was the first trans-national body within the European Union - and it is a model for intergovernmental cooperation.
I visited the Rhine Commission in their palatial building, the former palace of the Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm shortly after the unification of Germany in 1871.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn of the rules and regulations by which the Rhine Commission operates.
Last part-session I took the opportunity to take a trip on one of the barges carrying petroleum and natural gas.
On this subject, the Committee on Transport and Tourism had a very successful hearing when it involved not just the Rhine Commission but its counterpart on the Danube.
The success of the Rhine in this mode of transport was a recurring theme of the hearing in Brussels.
The clear message given is that the Rhine Commission has good legislation.
Therefore, we should build on the Rhine Commission rules and what it calls the ADNR for the future.
Currently the Commission is negotiating a revision of the rules governing inland waterway transport.
In my opinion the recommendations at Geneva are insufficient and should be similar to the rules which currently apply for the Rhine.
The Commission proposal for a final agreement is still under negotiation and it is true that it will take some time.
It believes this should apply to all inland waterways, not just the Rhine and the Danube but others in Eastern Europe.
This is practical and worthwhile but because the Rhine Commission is the world leader in this field, I believe it should be its legislation which should prevail.
It is my view that when the new ADN Agreement is finally agreed and aligned with the current Rhine proposals, only then will it be possible to provide a coherent, practical and operational set of rules.
We must maintain the success of the Rhine in our attempts to harmonise standards throughout the Community and beyond.
Several amendments were tabled to the report which reinforce this idea.
I was pleased to support the ideas that Mrs Langenhagen put forward.
I understand that the Commission is not entirely happy with the reference to a transitional period.
It is important that we have a transitional period until we get the final legislation agreed.
I would welcome any comments that the Commission might have when it replies to my report.
I do not think there are insurmountable difficulties in this opinion.
Indeed, the Transport Committee was unanimous in fully supporting it.
I do not think any amendments have been tabled by Members.
The committee held several interesting exchanges and I have endeavoured to incorporate all these points of view in the formulation of this report.
These are the main points I wanted to make.
I shall listen to the debate with interest and welcome the comments of the few Members who are enthusiasts for the transport of goods by inland waterways.
It is a growing market.
Indeed, the town of Strasbourg and in particular its harbour has undergone considerable expansion.
Inland waterways are a good method of transporting goods cheaply and environmentally safely, in particular for dangerous cargoes.
Madam President, the purpose of the Commission proposal before us is to create uniform EU provisions for the transport of dangerous goods on inland waterways by means of a framework directive, as we have just heard, and I should like to endorse everything that Mr McMahon has said. The creation of new uniform EU provisions is necessary, and it would be gratifying if a set of rules could finally be adopted.
Two instruments with limited legal effect have hitherto been used to regulate the transport of dangerous goods by inland waterway.
The first is the Recommendation on the International Transport of Dangerous Goods on Inland Waterways. This was issued by the UN Economic Commission for Europe and relates only to the transport of dangerous goods between Member States and not to transport within the confines of one country.
As we heard, negotiations are taking place in Geneva at the present time with a view to converting this international recommendation into a formal agreement.
The second instrument, which applies to the most important waterway in Europe, the river on Strasbourg's doorstep, is the Order concerning the Transport of Dangerous Goods on the Rhine, enacted by the Central Commission for the Navigation of the Rhine.
Progress towards greater uniformity involves selecting one of three options.
The first option would be for us to adopt the Commission proposal as it stands, with all its shortcomings.
This is not a satisfactory option.
The second option would be to hold the Commission proposal in abeyance until the end of the negotiations on an international agreement to replace the present recommendation.
The third option, which I have put forward, entails the creation of a transitional arrangement. This is how it would work: during the period until the entry into force of the international agreement, progress must be made in the EU on the harmonisation of national legislation, because the international agreement cannot be expected to enter into force for the next three years - and that is a very conservative estimate.
The harmonisation basis used in the EU framework directive would be the annexes to the Rhine Order with its high technical quality.
These are already the reference basis for the currently applicable legislation in several EU Member States.
Once the new international agreement has entered into force, the Commission will submit a new draft directive to us.
The transitional period would have a number of advantages, one of them being that it overcomes the situation in which two sets of rules apply concurrently, namely the international recommendation and the Rhine Order, thereby eliminating the need for skippers to carry two certificates - a Rhine certificate and a Community certificate.
The transitional arrangement is a means of fully coordinating the two existing sets of regulatory instruments, which is why I ask for your support for the report and the amendments, which were adopted unanimously by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Madam President, first of all let me thank the rapporteur, Mr McMahon, for the sterling work he has put in on this report.
During the past year, the EU has worked hard to make the transport of dangerous goods safer.
It is a vitally important task, partly because the dangerous nature of the goods means that they require very careful handling, and partly because of the major implications in terms of achieving an internal market that works efficiently.
This presupposes that different countries apply the same rules in various areas to ensure that border crossings are accomplished smoothly, otherwise there will be serious border-related problems for many years to come.
In the case of inland waterways, this is to be done in the short term by applying the Rhine Convention, sometimes called the ADNR Agreement, which was introduced in 1972 and revised in 1985. At the moment, traffic on the Rhine is subject to its rules, but now its scope is to be significantly extended.
Future negotiations will lead to it being superseded by the AND Agreement.
In the course of many discussions here in the House and in the Committee on Transport, we have raised the issue of introducing rules that could also be applied in the case of applicant countries, in other words those which are not yet members, but which we hope will become EU Member States in the future.
We have also made it a requirement that these rules should apply only to traffic to or from a third country.
I have received assurances on this point from Commissioner Kinnock and others.
The same requirements that apply to road, rail and sea traffic are now being extended to inland waterways.
One of the requirements laid down in the pre-accession negotiations is that applicant countries should make the adjustments that are necessary to achieve the same level of safety as that obtaining in the Member States.
I think this is a very constructive move, since as a result, transport in a far larger area of Europe will be much safer than in the past.
Madam President, I support the intention behind the directive.
It is important to harmonise national and international rules relating to the transport of goods by inland waterways, as we have done in the area of transporting by road and rail.
It is important to do this both in terms of guaranteeing safety and of ensuring fair competition.
However, I would like to strongly support the rapporteur.
Mr McMahon is absolutely right in expressing his concern about the multiplicity of certificates that will be required.
This will lead to unnecessary triplication rather than duplication, an increase in bureaucracy and, more worryingly, confusion.
I would therefore like to support his amendments, which are intended to reconcile the different approaches.
I should like to thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism and, in particular, the rapporteur, Mr McMahon, for his very useful contribution to the improvement of the Commission's proposal on the transport of dangerous goods by inland waterways.
The Commission can accept the main conclusion of Mr McMahon's report which is that the Community legislation has to be based on the future ADN Agreement.
How we get there, however, is where we do not agree.
Whereas in his report Mr McMahon considers that a transitional solution based on the Rhine Agreement is necessary, the Commission believes that this is impractical and indeed unhelpful.
The ADN Agreement could be ready in 2000 which in all likelihood would be well before any implementation by Member States of a transitional solution as suggested.
Of course - and it was raised - the Commission can guarantee that the future ADN Agreement will achieve the same level of safety as the Rhine Agreement because Annex I of the future ADN Agreement will be in line with the Rhine requirements.
In order to guarantee in the future that the adaptation to the technical progress of Annex I of the ADN Agreement - and also of the directive - is in line with the Rhine requirements, the Commission could accept an explicit reference in Article 8.
Consequently Amendments Nos 2, 3, 7, and 8 should be rejected since they introduce a transitional solution and require a new directive for implementing the future ADN Agreement.
However, I am pleased to say that the Commission is able to accept the other amendments, namely Amendments Nos 1 and 6 and, in spirit, Amendments Nos 4 and 5 since these have as their objective the Community-wide application of the ADN Agreement.
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Better law-making (1997 report)
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0498/98 by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on a draft interinstitutional agreement on the quality of the drafting of legislative texts; -A4-0460/98 by Mr Cot, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the Commission's report to the European Council - 'Better lawmaking 1997' (COM(97)0626 - C4-0656/97).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on behalf of Ana Palacio, my fellow delegation and group member. She is the rapporteur for the report on the Interinstitutional Agreement on the drafting quality of legal texts.
In addition to presenting her report, I shall speak on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party on Mr Cot's report, ' Better lawmaking 1997', which will also be dealt with in this debate.
Both reports are certainly timely because the European Union and the European Commission are constantly being urged to improve the quality of legislation and to produce less of it.
The need for better law-making is stressed in particular.
It is worth pointing out in the first place that, notwithstanding its apparently technical nature, today's debate is of great political importance and is very relevant for citizens. This is because, generally speaking, the complex nature of advanced societies like ours is reflected in legislation as a means of social organisation.
Modern societies are not homogeneous, but riven with conflict and continuously affected by factors of economic, technological and environmental change.
There is an ongoing search for new balances through the democratic operation of these societies. At the same time, the traditional regulatory forces are becoming weaker.
Legislation therefore becomes the dominant social regulator, given the dearth of spontaneous solutions to conflicts.
Legislation can take many different forms and be used in an infinite range of applications. For instance, legislation may be used to lay down a standard, but it may also determine the creation of a public institution, or provide for government expenditure, etcetera.
Other features of the Community's legal system, in addition to these general characteristics, are its relative novelty - it is genuinely innovative at world level - and the nature of its operation. The predominantly intergovernmental structure of decision-making within the Council is particularly distinctive.
Herein lies a crucial issue, Commissioner.
The Community's new system of law is characterised by the different elements borrowed from national systems: the so-called pick and choose method.
The rule of law at Community level can appear as a composite and therefore less comprehensible and less accessible, even for specialists in national law.
The Community legislator sometimes deliberately uses vague judicial ideas or vague definitions so that they can be more readily inserted into national legal systems. The need to produce 11 different language versions of all legislation represents a further constraint.
I should like to emphasise that I find it quite amazing that it is possible to work successfully with 15 countries in 11 languages and legislate for all of them.
The European Union, Parliament, the Commission and the Council perform this little miracle daily. It remains true, however, as was stated earlier, that one of the principal features of Community legislation is, to a large extent, the intergovernmental nature of the negotiations within the Council.
Speeches in the course of the legislative procedure, amendments and so on, can be in 11 different languages.
Even in ideal conditions, and despite the high-quality work produced by the institutions' translators - who do an admirable job -, that constraint can mean that sentences tend to be longer and less clear, and that there are discrepancies between the various texts and even inconsistencies. Corrigenda to the various language versions are constantly required.
It is therefore evident that both reports were inspired by political concerns, and that both aim to bring legislation closer to the citizen.
I should like to recall briefly, if I may, the main political turning points in the history of Community awareness of the political dimension of the quality of law-making.
Initially, the Edinburgh European Council of December 1992 established a global perspective for the implementation of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality.
The need for further clarification and simplification of the new Community legislation was also stressed. To this end, guidelines on the quality of drafting Community legislation were to be adopted.
The European Council has also requested that existing legislation be made more accessible, notably through the official consolidation of Community acts. This is extremely urgent, Commissioner.
I must underline the extreme urgency of consolidating Community acts. The excellent report Mr Cot is presenting today is in line with the tradition that began at the Edinburgh European Council.
Further to the conclusions of the latter, the Council adopted on 8 June 1993 a resolution on the quality of drafting Community legislation. This laid down guidelines for drafting Council acts.
Later, in October 1993, the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission reached an interinstitutional agreement on subsidiarity. Then, in December 1994, a further institutional agreement was reached on the official consolidation of legislative texts.
It should also be mentioned that in May 1996, the Commission launched a pilot project on simplifying legislation relating to the internal market: the SLIM project, now in its fourth phase.
Finally, the Treaty of Amsterdam contains a whole panoply of instruments aimed at improving the quality of legislation. This goes hand in hand with transparency in a Union 'in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen' (Article A.2 of the amended TEU).
The protocol on the implementation of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality is also relevant. This aims to meet the requirements of the substantive quality of legislation and the simplification of the codecision procedure.
There is also the protocol on the role of national parliaments. It will now be possible for them to play a greater part in the drafting of a Community act.
The review of the 1987 Decision on measures for implementing Community law (comitology procedure) is now under way.
To conclude, I would refer to Declaration No 39 annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam through which Parliament, the Council and the Commission are urged to reach an interinstitutional agreement on the quality of drafting Community legislation.
Mrs Palacio is certain that both reports respond to a growing concern amongst legislators, and that the House will approve them tomorrow.
An amendment has been tabled aimed at strengthening the position reiterated by Parliament, which remains opposed to unilateral interpretative declarations, whilst allowing the President a certain latitude as to the political expediency of incorporating these.
This is somewhat of a secondary issue to that of the quality of drafting.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in Germany in recent weeks the idea has been floated once again that new laws should have an expiry date.
The Minister of Justice rejected the suggestion, saying that the government and parliament were not supermarkets which are required to mark all egg packaging with sell-by dates.
Mrs Däubler-Gmelin is right; the quality and future palatability of the contents of legislative packages are not subject to the same criteria as foodstuffs.
That also applies unreservedly to the legislative provisions enacted by the European Parliament, in cooperation with the Council and the Commission.
The rapporteur, Mr Jean-Pierre Cot, whom I am privileged to represent today, has clearly defined the standards that European legislation has to meet. The form and content of the text must be of a high quality.
We need clearer and simpler legal provisions so that they can be accepted by the general public and properly applied.
Formal and substantive quality would do much to promote the transparency that we have demanded here time and time again.
This is something that we as a Parliament must do ourselves, so that the peoples of Europe will recognise us as their legitimate elected representatives.
It is not enough to demand transparency from other bodies of the European Union.
Allow me to begin by making a few remarks on our directives and regulations.
Please forgive me if I avoid the word 'subsidiarity', which is so often abused and which some politicians exploit as a smokescreen to hide their anti-European sentiments.
Our legislation is only credible in the eyes of the public if we deal with matters that really concern us, whether responsibility for them has been delegated to us by the Treaties, whether the solidarity of the Member States requires us to legislate on them, or whether such legislation is merely a matter of expediency.
The principle of proportionality requires the Community to limit its action strictly to measures that are essential to the achievement of the aims laid down in the Treaty.
The people of our countries are particularly sensitive to any disproportionality in European legislation.
If we go too far, our motives will be misinterpreted, and the public will be inclined to see us as purveyors of the so-called Brussels red tape on which a large section of the media loves to hold forth.
It is actually rather trite to point out that the substance of a legal act must include a statement of what it seeks to regulate and what the purpose of such regulation is.
I presume that the European Parliament has a clear conscience in this respect.
I occasionally have my doubts about the Council, though.
I can, however, confirm that the Commission seeks to apply this principle.
For that reason, we must call on the Council not to erode or water down the content of legislation in its quest for compromises.
That too is a dictate of legislative quality.
What is especially important to me is that the Council should refrain from the practice of appending additional provisions in the form of declarations.
It is contrary to all the rules of transparency if a legislative instrument cannot speak for itself.
An explanatory declaration arouses suspicion that something has been concealed in the body of the text.
That is why the Court of Justice rigidly refuses to consider annexed declarations when interpreting legal provisions, unless such declarations are explicitly referred to in the body of the act.
When it comes to the substance of legislative acts, we simply must not blunder into any dangerous traps.
It is up to the Commission and the Council to be vigilant, lest the pretext of simplification should be used to diminish the level of legal protection in the areas of the environment, product quality, public health and the economic and social security of employees.
Parliament is already vigilant in this respect, but the Council and the Commission must pull in the same direction as us.
The subject of the technical quality of Community legislation, which the Palacio report addresses, gives me a headache.
Not that I am in any way indifferent to the technical quality of our legal texts; it cannot be high enough, as far as I am concerned. But who lays down the criteria?
Do we measure technical quality by the cognitive faculties of the general public, or should the technical skills of legal experts be the yardstick? I believe we should make laws for the general public.
This view is quite clearly incompatible with the following sentence from the draft of an interinstitutional agreement on the technical quality of Community legislation: 'The role played by the judicial services of the EU bodies, including their legal and linguistic experts, in improving the technical quality of Community legal acts should be strengthened'.
If we invest services which are supposed to be assisting us in our work with the power to formulate our political will, we are neglecting our duty as Members of Parliament.
When it is a matter of linguistic nuances, we would do better to seek advice from journalists than from the Legal Service, and that does not reflect in any way unfavourably on the quality of our Legal Services.
Please do not misunderstand me!
I should like to finish on a lighter note.
Law-making is like angling. The worm is supposed to attract the fish, not the angler!
Madam President, I wish to confine my remarks to the report by Mr Jean-Pierre Cot on better law-making.
Firstly, I support his view that it was an error for the Commission to deal with all aspects of legislative simplification of both a substantive and formal nature in one communication.
Their inclusion in a single document does not facilitate a comprehensive discussion on how to achieve better law-making.
Indeed, while I appreciate the importance of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality in relation to this subject, I have no wish to become involved in a debate about the detail of either.
The point I want to make is rather a simple one: as a Member of the European Parliament - which unlike other institutions constantly faces the public in a very direct way - I am often the recipient of strong criticism of EU legislation.
Many of the people who criticise it tell me that it is unbelievably lengthy and that the language used is gobbledegook.
Others claim that we legislate too much and that much of the legislation we adopt is often unnecessary.
Others, especially those from the small-business sector, criticise it on the grounds that it creates major problems for them.
They feel that interference in their sector often places employment at risk.
I recognise that, while some of these criticisms are misplaced, others are often justified.
We in this House and in other institutions often talk about bringing the European Union closer to its citizens.
If we want to do that, it is imperative that we produce legislation which is necessary, which is expressed in simple language and which can be understood by those to whom it is addressed.
Bearing in mind that the Commission is the only institution which has the right to initiate legislation, I hope that it bears these points in mind when it addresses the question of producing better laws for the Union.
Madam President, I should like to focus briefly on Amendment No 2 in the Cot report, which calls on the Commission to allocate resources to the 'Fight the fog' campaign, in other words the campaign for clear language.
The Commission's English translators have put this across very well.
The entire Commission should support it.
It is particularly important that the Commissioners and the Directorates-General should understand its significance, namely the unnecessary costs that citizens and Member States would be spared if people could understand the brochures and application forms and so on.
A number of Member States, for example the United Kingdom, Belgian Wallonia and the Nordic countries, have been successful in this respect.
We should speak in a way that truly represents our languages, and not in 'Euroslang'.
It requires a joint effort to provide the means for achieving such an end.
I hope the Commission's authorities understand that this is in the best interests of clarity and openness, and that they will give their backing to this effort.
Madam President, on behalf of the Commission I would like to thank the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for the attention it has devoted to the Commission's work on better lawmaking and to the draft interinstitutional agreement establishing guidelines for improving the quality of the drafting of Community legislation.
I am delighted to say that on most of the points dealt with, the rapporteurs' position is very close to that of the Commission.
This subject is of great interest to us all, as it forms a central plank in relations between the institutions and the citizens of the European Union, as expressed in the legislative acts which determine the rights and obligations of everyone living in the Member States.
In recent years the quality of these acts has been the subject of justified criticism, and the present attempt to re-establish the necessary balance is the direct result of the recognition at the Amsterdam Conference of the need for action in this area.
Concerning Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's report, I would like to remind you that the text of the draft interinstitutional agreement is the result of close cooperation between the three institutions and of various discussions which have lasted for over a year.
I would accordingly like to stress the importance of this agreement if we are to achieve the objective of transparency in the legislative process.
I regret that at present I cannot comment on any of the amendments as this falls outside my sphere of competence and the Commission has not yet adopted a position on this subject.
Since the 1997 'Better lawmaking' report that we are discussing today, the Commission has already put forward a number of other reports, including the 1998 'Better lawmaking' report submitted to Parliament last week, and these have highlighted the Commission's commitment to better lawmaking.
As part of the drive in this direction referred to in Mr Cot's report, the Commission has stepped up its monitoring of the grounds for legislative proposals in terms of subsidiarity and proportionality, and even before the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam it has been applying the protocol annexed to that treaty.
In addition, the Commission is continuing to put forward proposals for simplification and consolidation, as well as promoting the consolidation of information and improved access to information on Community law.
We also agree that the principle of subsidiarity should not be applied to areas falling within the exclusive competence of the Community and should not be applied to the detriment of the acquis communautaire .
We also believe that the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality should be applied objectively, but not in such a way as to rule out dynamism and flexibility, the need for which is reiterated in the Amsterdam protocol.
Madam President, I would like to take this opportunity to make three small points: first, the fact that the Commission has dealt in a single report with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality in relation to technical instruments for making Community legislation simpler, clearer and more accessible was a purely pragmatic choice, in that we were trying to give an overall view of everything that has a bearing on better lawmaking.
Second, I think you will agree with me that the Commission's response has been far more focused this year than in the previous consultation.
And lastly, on the subject of framework directives, I would like to say that the Commission has only resorted to such instruments in specific cases, and has always been conscious that they should not lead to disparities in the texts of national legislation.
Thank you, Mr Pinheiro.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 7.50 p.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome you to the last sitting of 1998.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I would like to make a comment on the Minutes concerning the Oostlander report.
I congratulate the newly elected Member from Scotland on his contribution to the debate on racism and xenophobia.
However, may I ask whether he would be prepared, along with myself, to condemn those narrow-minded nationalists who continue to utter and perpetrate racist comments within his own party against English people?
It may be the last sitting before Christmas, but that is nevertheless not on the Minutes, Mr Miller.
Mr Wijsenbeek has the floor.
You need have no worries about saying 'Wijsenbeek', Madam President.
Your pronunciation is just fine!
And even if Mrs Fontaine does not always manage it, I have long since forgiven her!
(Laughter)
(NL) That is Mr Goedbloed, to make matters even worse.
Madam President, I am referring to the Minutes, pages 11, 12 and 13.
I referred to this yesterday.
Mr Elles, the rapporteur from the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the President both pointed out that they found our Rules of Procedure strange.
May I assume, Madam President, that as a result of this, the presidency of the House, if not the Bureau, will provide us with a proposal to amend Annex V of the Rules of Procedure? Should not the Bureau have spoken of this much sooner and therefore have raised it much earlier in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, rather than convening us on a Monday afternoon in a kind of emergency procedure, when we could no longer of course do anything about it.
We take note of that.
Madam President, I should like to endorse what Mr Wijsenbeek has just said.
In the Committee on Budgetary Control, I pointed out at a very early stage that there were incompatibilities here.
But let me say the following about the Minutes: I see that the votes on discharge and the Elles report are minuted, but I cannot find the text of the motions on which we voted and which, in my view, ought to be recorded in the Minutes, because in the event of a referral back to committee, Article 6 of Annex V of the Rules of Procedure requires us to comment at the next part-session on the result of the parliamentary vote.
If the motions on which the House voted are not available to us, we can hardly perform that task in a satisfactory manner.
Great care should therefore be taken to ensure - and I do insist on this - that the motions which were put to the vote are also recorded in the 'texts adopted' part of the Minutes.
Otherwise I cannot see how we are supposed to comment on them in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
All we have are the results of the vote in Part 1 of the Minutes.
The problem is that there was no final vote.
The texts are always only printed when the final vote has taken place.
So we know the outcome, and the texts in question can be forwarded to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
They stand adopted, and that is what it says in the Minutes.
I suggest that we look again at how we can reorganise the procedures for your work.
Madam President, may I ask that this be done very quickly, because we do have to report back to the House in January; that is what the current Rules of Procedure prescribe.
I do not consider that possible if the texts which have to be recorded in the Minutes are not there.
This way, I only have the result which is printed in the first part of the Minutes.
This naturally means that certain inconsistencies might occur in the wording.
We shall look into that and ensure that the Committee on Budgetary Control can do its work properly.
Madam President, since I could not raise a point of order yesterday, may I repeat today that this is the last opportunity for Members to sign Mr Martin's written declaration on the adverse impact of the World Trade Organisation on animal welfare.
I urge all Members to sign it.
That has already been done, and that will be the last time for this year.
Madam President, I refer to the presentation we had earlier this week in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Sakharov prize.
I took the opportunity of speaking to our President in the corridor yesterday.
I made him aware of the fact that it was Lord Bethell who instituted the Sakharov prize.
I felt it was rather inappropriate of Parliament not to have recognised that fact when we had rapporteurs and one or two other distinguished guests here with us.
So, for the record, I think it is worth restating that it was thanks to a great deal of hard work by Lord Bethell, a personal friend of Sakharov himself, that the prize was instituted, and the rapporteur duly took it through Parliament.
Thank you, Mr Provan.
Madam President, I would like to speak regarding page 12 of the Minutes, where there is a record of the various speeches made on behalf of the groups before the vote on Article 23, that is, on the mechanism for discharge.
It is said that, on behalf of my group, I indicated that we would also table a motion of censure if the discharge were granted.
This is evidently the opposite to what I said.
I said before the final vote that, for us, there was a very clear link between the refusal to grant discharge and the tabling of a motion of censure, and that we would table a motion of censure - and we will, as we already have the signatures for it - if the discharge were not granted.
I would therefore ask you to rectify this.
That will be corrected.
Madam President, I would like to make a remark with regard to page 33 of the Minutes concerning the dispute that I had with Mr Jean-Pierre Cot, who presided over the sitting, over his systematic refusal to allow any explanations of vote on the Elles report.
His interpretation of the Rules of Procedure was totally despotic, and we contest it.
Moreover, I went to the Sittings Service after the closure of the sitting, and a considerable number of explanations of vote from Members had piled up or had arrived by e-mail.
The most obvious interpretation of the Rules of Procedure is that, when it comes to a vote that is so important politically, Members must be able to explain their positions.
As I said to Mr Cot, yesterday we wrote to the President of the European Parliament to ask him to refer this problem to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Of course, this was not a referral back to committee in the usual sense of Rule 129, but a referral back in accordance with Annex V, which was in fact a side-effect of the negative vote on the Elles report.
It was therefore a case of referral back to committee that was entirely different from those we are used to.
Mr Berthu, the legal position does not seem to be entirely clear.
That will have to be examined and then dealt with accordingly.
Madam President, I was intrigued by what Mr Berthu said about explanations of vote coming in by e-mail.
I am all in favour of modern technology, but I thought Members had actually to be present to give an explanation of vote.
I wonder whether I could have an e-mail facility as well.
Written explanations of vote do naturally have to be given in writing, Mr Ford.
Since we have some very modern Members, they are also bound to use modern means of communication.
I would say that this is actually quite an advantage.
Madam President, the Socialist Group tabled a motion of censure against the Commission with a view to giving it a vote of confidence.
May I ask you to instruct the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities to examine the admissibility of that motion.
In my opinion, while the motion may not breach the letter of the EC Treaty, it is certainly contrary to the spirit of the Treaty.
That is why I would ask you to have the Rules Committee examine the motion, thereby preventing the dilemma that might otherwise face us in January.
(Applause)
We take note of that, Mrs Müller.
However, you have just said that you would like this to happen before January.
Today is our last sitting before Christmas.
I cannot imagine that the House would agree if we were to say that Members had to meet over the Christmas period.
Madam President, I meant before the part-session in January, so that we do not find ourselves in a dilemma then.
Thank you, Mrs Müller, that makes things clearer.
Madam President, I am really surprised at the last speaker, because this institution is on the horns of a dilemma, so I do not really know what her problem is.
As you will know, the motion of censure was correctly tabled according to the Rules of this House.
However, I wanted to refer to yesterday's Minutes.
You will note that in Item 7 on the discharge, in the second paragraph after The following spoke during the vote: , the Minutes are quite explicit in describing various people's accusations of blackmail and, in one instance, in accusing my Group of blackmail.
However, they do not correctly report that I accused those who were so accusing me of hypocrisy.
If the word 'blackmail' is going to be used in the Minutes, my word 'hypocrisy' must also be used against those who accuse me.
We shall check that, Mrs Green.
Madam President, on page 12 of the Minutes, a small change should be made to my statement.
After highlighting the unfortunate way in which the Commission declaration was phrased, I did not indicate that my group would vote in favour of granting discharge, but that my group was divided and that, personally, I would vote in favour of granting discharge.
I did, however, indicate that my group was divided.
That should therefore be made clear.
That too will be corrected.
Madam President, at the risk of ruining everyone's Christmas, I heard this morning in the hairdresser's ...
... that there is talk of industrial action in the airports.
I wonder whether you could confirm that flights are leaving from Strasbourg airport, or if there is any problem?
That may not have anything to do with the approval of the Minutes, but I am glad that, like the rest of us, Mrs Banotti likes to pay a visit to the hairdresser in order to look her best.
Madam President, I should like it to be recorded just how good Mrs Banotti's hair is looking.
Thank you, Mr Martin.
I think we are all already in something of a holiday mood, but we must now proceed with our work.
(The Minutes were approved)
VOTES
Despite some concerns expressed in the discussions and in some amendments presented in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, the Green Group voted today in favour of the report by Mr McMahon including all amendments by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
We did so, as I believe that the proposal for the directive presented by the European Commission is a good step forward in harmonising national and international regulations regarding the transport of dangerous goods on Community inland waterways.
This will increase safety and promote fair competition among transport providers.
The amendments introduced by the Transport Committee only improve the directive asking for the introduction of an interim regime where the most up-to-date Rhine-rules apply to all inland waterways covered by the directive as long as there is no valid international agreement.
The Greens had, however, and still have some concerns regarding the scope of application of the directive.
Article 1(2) and (3) allow Member States to exempt national inland waterways, which are not connected to other Member States waterways (§2) and military vessels transporting dangerous goods (§3) from the scope of the directive.
Given the general aim of protecting waterways from damage by dangerous substances, I strongly believe that the same safety rules should apply to all transport of dangerous goods, i.e. to transport on Community and national inland waterways.
The same logic should also apply to military ships, as there is no reason, from a moral or environmental point of view, to exclude those ships from the obligation to respect certain safety requirements.
I therefore hope that most Member States will automatically apply the directive to all their inland waterways, and that military vessels follow as far as possible the rules applying to all other ships.
Cot report (A4-0460/98)
We object to the conclusions reached in this report regarding EU legislation and, in particular, the subsidiarity principle.
The subsidiarity principle, as laid down in the Maastricht Treaty, should be a mechanism for delegating decision-making to the right 'level' and ensuring that the EU does not embark on legislation which it would be more appropriate to adopt at another level.
It ought not to be a way of maintaining that EU legislation is right and should not be called into question.
In particular, we object to recital B, which states that the principle of subsidiarity should not be applied to areas falling within the exclusive competence of the Community, and the highly contradictory recital C, which states that the principle of subsidiarity should be applied in such a way as to preserve the acquis communautaire in its entirety.
This runs completely counter to the subsidiarity principle as laid down in the preamble to the Maastricht Treaty.
We have voted against the report as a whole, since in our view, the intention behind the subsidiarity principle is to prevent the EU having a hand in legislation that is best carried out at a lower level of decision making, for example national, regional or local government, or in some cases even at international level, for example through the OSCE, UN or Council of Europe.
In our opinion, we would have better legislation if that which is adopted by the EU were kept to a minimum, if it were intelligible and if the system of annexes and explanations were abolished on the grounds that it leaves everything open to interpretation and, in principle, makes EU legislation generally incomprehensible.
Tempus III
The next item is the report (A4-0464/98) by Mr Evans, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Decision adopting the third phase of the trans-European cooperation scheme for higher education - Tempus III (2000-2006) (COM(98)0454 - C4-0554/98-98/0246(CNS)).
Madam President, on behalf of my Group I welcome this Commission report and hope that it is accepted today with my proposed amendments.
Firstly, I wish to apologise to my colleagues on the committee and to the Commission for being unable to be present in the committee when the amendments were taken but at the prescribed time I was sitting on the tarmac in an aeroplane at Heathrow waiting to take off and there I sat for two hours.
I am, to say the least, surprised that the Council seems either to be ignoring the role of Parliament or not to have been anticipating this debate.
It seems that they drew up their common position on 4 December.
Their new text, in French, came to me only yesterday.
This is not a satisfactory way to proceed.
It is arguable that the report should be sent back to committee so that we can reconsider the new text, although on reflection I will not propose this course.
I will, however, in the light of the paper that I got yesterday, withdraw Amendments 10, 11 and 12 as they are now covered.
Tempus is more than just a worthy programme.
It plays, and will continue to do so, an essential part in the development of the countries of Eastern Europe: countries that were for too long closed off to the West.
When these new democracies were emerging, it was assumed that a university was a university, be it in Prague or Paris, Budapest or Birmingham.
The reality proved to be rather different.
Education, like so many aspects of life in the eastern bloc countries had suffered.
The Tempus project sought to bridge that gap and to build an educational bridge to the 1990s: a bridge built on the foundations of EU finances, grants to help academics to travel and share experiences, and grants for joint projects and initiatives of mutual benefit.
The Tempus project was also the provider of new and up-to-date equipment, enabling students and their teachers to be connected to the very best of educational opportunities.
Indeed, I have seen some very dilapidated buildings in Romania, for example, housing excellent modern computers provided by EU Tempus money.
The individual institutions that are recipients of Tempus grants, acknowledge freely the debt they pay to this programme and to the Union in general.
In a wider frame, education plays a crucial role in developing economies and regenerating industry and whole regions.
To build a successful country you need a thriving economy and to get that you have to invest in education at every level.
Tempus helps and encourages those countries that need help to improve.
Without it there would be serious deficiencies in their education system and we, the people of Western Europe and the more prosperous nations, would undoubtedly suffer the knock-on effect.
The new Tempus proposals build on the experiences of the last few years.
Many of the previous recipient countries are no longer eligible as they are now involved in Socrates or Leonardo.
My amendments to the Commission document ask for the new programmes to be linked in with Socrates and Leonardo, amongst other measures, in the hope that all the valuable work and the links that have been built up have not been lost.
But the new recipient countries, the former Soviet States, Mongolia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania and former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will now be recipients of Tempus money.
I know and have seen how Tempus has helped other countries develop their educational systems and we must now ensure and do everything we can to make certain that Tempus helps these new and continuing recipients.
I also propose in my amendments that a special effort is made to involve more students from ethnic minority backgrounds, linking people from minority cultural, linguistic and ethnic backgrounds with similar people in other countries.
This would be an excellent way of building a people's Europe.
It is also essential, as I have said in another amendment, that no group of people is disadvantaged.
We must make sure with Tempus and with all European projects that they are as inclusive as possible and do not exclude any group of people.
Especially those projects that are based on education and young people must bring people together and include as many sections of society as possible.
The recent Auditors' report was critical of the way some Tempus money was spent.
It is true that some academics are perhaps more concerned, understandably so, with the educational aspects and are not quite so concerned about the minutiae required under the grants and accounting procedures.
I hope very much that, in the light of the Auditors' report, we will ensure that recipients of Tempus money give accurate answers, to make certain that we are seen to be transparent and that we can account for the money that is spent.
But it is money that is being spent wisely and well, and although I have regrets about the way the Council have presented their new paper, I very much hope that Parliament this morning will support this report.
Madam President, as the rapporteur Mr Evans has just explained very clearly, this programme essentially helps education to become an economic benefit in countries with a great need for it.
From a purely financial standpoint, like the previous phases, Tempus III does not have a separate financial framework, nor any separate financial package.
The funding of its activities depends on the two programmes PHARE and TACIS, and consequently its implementation relies on a combination of the resources available for those two programmes, always providing they continue to exist and develop.
And that is something we must bear in mind when we assess the way in which this programme is implemented.
A second point concerns estimating the level of funding.
That, of course, cannot be based on the funding of the earlier phases because, as has already been said, the states involved are different.
Other states were involved before and others are involved now.
But the objectives too are different.
Of course, this assumes that some resources will be available, and it is essential for the Commission to ensure that the financial information which is unfortunately missing in the statements it has made, will be provided.
From now on that information will have to be available so that we know exactly where we stand.
That will ensure the necessary transparency, all the more so because there is as a rule a double source of funding and this creates a problem: operating expenditure comes from PHARE or TACIS, while administrative expenditure comes from the Foundation for Vocational Training.
On that point, I should like to say that the Committee on Culture and Youth carries a heavy responsibility to monitor the implementation of those programmes so as to avoid any repetition of what happened in certain cases during previous periods.
There must also be greater flexibility and adaptability, always of course taking care to select activities that can be carried out.
That too was very rightly explained by Mr Evans, and it is important from the financial standpoint.
Cohesion and additionality with other actions must also be ensured in order to maximize the effectiveness of combining different activities towards a specific objective.
Madam President, on behalf of my group I should like to express my warm congratulations to Robert Evans on his reporting and to re-emphasise the importance of the Tempus programme.
For the new democracies in the East in particular, it is very important that cooperation should take place in the areas of education and culture. These are certainly two fields in which we can truly cooperate as equal partners with the new democracies and the future members of the European Union.
That is why I particularly emphasise the importance of this programme.
Madam President, it being the last day of the pre-Christmas season, Mr Evans will be happy to hear that we are totally in agreement with him.
This is the first I have heard about the common position arrived at yesterday and I absolutely agree with his point that it simply is not good enough.
In supporting totally Mr Evans' report, I would like to make a couple of comments.
He rightly states that education is an essential part of the development of these countries.
Some years ago I saw how parlous the state of the equipment was, particularly scientific equipment, in many of the countries that have been helped.
We are spreading our net a lot wider this time, hopefully not too thinly.
If nobody knows what we are doing, except one or two in a very vast area and a number of countries, the value of the programme will be lost.
One area remains to be addressed and that is our knowledge of what is happening in the educational systems of these countries.
We have seen the dramatic affect the Socrates programme has had in our own countries.
That is why we are deeply upset - particularly in my group - about the very small budget we are being given to try to implement what is, in fact, one of the great success stories of the Community.
I hope, in the context of Mr Evans' report, there will be some way in which we can hear - preferably directly from the people who have been helped by this - precisely what the effect of the Tempus programme has been on their countries.
There is a saying of the Chinese that if you love your child send him on a journey.
We have not had too much experience of journeys to us as oppposed to our students going to Eastern European countries and that is an area where our education could be considerably improved.
We are pleased to support all Mr Evans' amendments and we wish him and all those who benefited from the Tempus programme a very happy Christmas.
Madam President, I too wish to congratulate Mr Evans for his excellent work, which I support fully.
Throughout the 1990s the Tempus programme has been a very important and effective tool for the growth and improvement of university education in the central and eastern European countries, and later the newly independent countries.
From the point of view of the central and eastern European countries this programme has significantly improved the conditions for universities and colleges to participate in the Community education programmes which later became available to them.
From the year 2000 the Tempus III programme now proposed by the Commission will aim to provide support under the PHARE and TACIS programmes for those partnership countries that cannot participate in the other Community programmes.
The focus of this activity will be the administrative reorganisation of the universities and educational developments that will involve opening doors to the world of business and enterprise.
The importance of universities in economic and social reform in recipient countries can hardly be stressed too much.
As funding under the PHARE and TACIS programmes is, however, limited, as has been said here, it is absolutely vital to ensure effective coordination with other Community action, so that the greatest possible benefit may be derived from the programmes.
In this I agree with the rapporteur's main arguments, including the need to pay special attention to opportunities for students from different minority groups to participate in exchange programmes.
Complementary action includes language courses and courses in cultural background, which must be given priority support.
With the new Tempus programme a clearer policy will emerge with regard to attempts to stabilise the recipient countries zone.
Tempus will also be a tool for regional cross-border cooperation between the present applicant countries and the non-associated countries.
It is important that the areas this programme focuses on are suited to the priorities of the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
Through education the programme will thus be helping to promote reforms in the economy, democracy and government.
The programme's recipient countries cover a vast and very diverse area.
Consequently, we need separate tailor-made strategies for the various countries and country groups involved.
By giving more weight to European research we will be able to bring these countries closer to the Community and, furthermore, learn from the effects of integration.
Madam President, I liked the remark by Mrs Ryynänen about many political hues, and here is a political Hugh giving his speech this morning.
I welcome this report by Mr Evans for a number of reasons.
Firstly, as an old academic of 25 years' standing, I like to see lots of money going to my old friends to keep them in employment, just in case I have to rejoin them next year.
Of course that will not happen, as Mr Evans well knows.
Secondly, I would like to welcome it because Tempus I was run - Mr McMahon tells me - by a good woman from Ayrshire, Leslie Wilson.
Clearly the success of the programme is attributable to the fact that it was originated and administered by a Scot.
As the number one for the Scottish Socialist Party for the forthcoming European elections which will ensure my return next year I welcome that in particular.
Thirdly, I welcome it because it is from my friend, Mr Evans, who is a tribute to higher education himself.
He tells me he has two degrees from London University and an honorary doctorate from Brunel University.
That raises a question mark about the quality of that particular university, but I am sure it is a good participant in the Tempus programme.
I welcome it because it spreads education throughout the European Union and connects it to the incoming states.
But I have question marks over the amount and scale of the resources required, as Mr Evans does.
We need more money for this programme and all education programmes to make them a reality, for the new Member States in particular.
I welcome it because my friend, Mrs Müller, who is the scourge of the Commission, tells me that this is a fairly well run programme and that Mrs Cresson's dentist does not have any part in it.
Therefore we should be confident about its administration.
For all these reasons we should support this programme.
But like Mr Evans I have to say that the Council is rather insulting when it adopts the common position without even taking account of Parliament's position. I suspect this is a breach of the rules of the interinstitutional agreement.
It would be nice if we took back our opinion, Mr Evans, and held it for a further six months.
We do not want to penalise the universities just because the Council has behaved badly but we should certainly communicate our displeasure to them.
Madam President, the type of cooperation envisaged in Tempus will open up entirely new regions to the European Union.
As far as the current Tempus III programme is concerned, I believe it is especially important that the greatest of care should be taken to match the various priorities very closely with the national needs of the target countries.
The Commission must ensure, in the light of the criticism expressed in the evaluation report, that the new programme is implemented far more efficiently.
Precisely because the measures in the realm of tertiary education have a really vital role to play in the integration process, a huge responsibility falls on the Commission and all other players in this field.
I am right behind the rapporteur when he says that the mobility grants should also be available to students.
Not only are they by no means a 'quantité négligeable ', as he says; they are in fact the software around which the whole system revolves.
Madam President, the Tempus programme has been successful; it has made a unique contribution to the third-level system of education in the countries of central and eastern Europe.
Given the major changes in the political context in which it operates, especially as the enlargement process gains momentum, it is time to evaluate and update elements of it as we prepare for its third phase.
It is particularly important, as these countries make the transition to free-market economies, that we assist the development of the curriculum to respond to the new economic situation and especially to provide the necessary skills for entrepreneurial activity.
In addition, curriculum initiatives should provide the opportunity for academics and students in third-level institutions to learn more about the ethos of the Union, its role in the world, our policy priorities and the responsibilities of European citizenship and membership.
The Jean Monnet programme has been successful in achieving some of these objectives within the European Union itself.
We could learn from it and we could apply the best elements of it to Tempus III.
I congratulate the rapporteur and look forward to the response of Parliament and the Council to the way they have badly treated this in relation to the decision they took yesterday.
Madam President, the Evans report under discussion is about redesigning the European Union's youth and culture policy.
Up to now Parliament has had its first debates on the new legal basis for the Socrates and Leonardo programmes as well as the youth programme and the framework programme for culture.
Now the issue is the continuation of the Tempus programme.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media has done an enormous job in the organisation of these programmes in preparation for the challenges of the next millennium.
For that reason we must recognise its hard work, and I would like to thank Mr Evans for this report.
University and college education and research are the basis for a new society.
Over the centuries they have been international as, with human progress, they have helped us to accumulate knowledge which served the common good.
It is therefore only natural that the European Union should lay such great store by developing cooperation among universities.
The Tempus programme, which concerns the central and eastern European countries, began in 1990 and has since continued uninterrupted.
The geographical area involved in the programme now under way is much larger than before, because many of the countries that have applied for EU membership are already involved in the Socrates and Leonardo programmes.
It is especially important to make youth, and university students in particular, aware of the importance of international involvement.
Today's university students are the founders of tomorrow's society.
Although the time spent studying abroad might be short, it opens up a totally new outlook on the international community and international relations.
Though the priorities might be the furtherance of knowledge and skills, student exchanges open up a whole new approach to international issues and problems.
Obviously, student and teacher exchange programmes and improved administration and educational methods will also bring with them new direct benefits.
Levels of knowledge and skills will be broadened and strengthened.
But we in the European Union in particular have to realise that we will by no means always be just the provider, we will also be the recipient.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, Tempus is a product of the political will expressed by the Heads of State and Government during their meeting in Paris in November 1989, and later here in Strasbourg in December of the same year.
The backing and cooperation of all the institutional bodies, Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee, led very quickly - on 7 May 1990 - to the decision to establish the Tempus programme, in other words the legal framework for adapting the results of the experiences gained from the Community educational programmes Erasmus and COMET to the special conditions that prevail in the eastern countries.
As has been demonstrated by the numerous appraisals and annual reports you have received, from the time of its implementation - in 1990 in the PHARE countries and 1994 in the TACIS countries - and in the various phases of its development, Tempus has been successful in contributing towards the restructuring and modernisation of tertiary education systems in the beneficiary countries.
We can therefore say with certainty that it lived up to our expectations.
Tempus was directed at initiatives by universities, within a defined framework of priorities and always in agreement with the national authorities.
In that way, we responded effectively to the specific needs of our partners.
Thus, most of the associated countries in central and eastern Europe who are taking part in Tempus have progressed, since it started, to a new phase in their relations with the European Union countries, to full and integral participation in the Community programmes Socrates and Leonardo.
However, the non-associated countries of central and eastern Europe and the newly independent countries of the former Soviet Union and Mongolia have been slower to benefit from the programme.
In those countries there is still broad scope for Tempus, the only instrument with the potential at present in those areas to support the university sector in adapting effectively to the new social and economic circumstances.
And the Tempus III proposal is directed precisely at those countries.
In reply to the question asked by Mrs Banotti, I should like to say that the Commission is preparing a report on the impact we have had on the educational systems in beneficiary countries, and of course that report will deal with each country separately.
Madam President, I would like to give particular thanks to the rapporteur Mr Evans for the quality of his report, a quality that has been evident at every stage and which highlights the important objectives of the programme we are debating today.
As regards the amendments tabled by Parliament, the Commission considers that many of them enhance and clarify the original proposal still further, and it can therefore accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 and 17 which were tabled by the rapporteur Mr Evans on behalf of the Committee on Culture, as well as Amendment No 14.
In contrast, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 6 on the financial circumstances, which the Commission cannot foresee.
The sums earmarked for Tempus will be decided each year when the budget allocations to beneficiary countries for the PHARE and TACIS programmes are being determined.
In its explanatory report the Commission indicated the sums made available for Tempus in previous years, but it cannot prejudge what will be provided for Tempus from the aid programmes after 2000, since no financial planning has yet taken place for the new rules that are to be applied in those specific countries from 2000 onwards.
The Commission also cannot accept Amendment No 16, which concerns the nature and role of the committee that will assist the Commission in implementing the programme.
From that standpoint, we are waiting for the new decisions to be taken in relation to comitology.
Yet, the Commission would like to abide by the text of its proposal, which it formulated in accordance with the proposal on comitology it approved on 24 June 1998.
Furthermore, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 13 on the definition of a degree of flexibility in the management of projects, nor can it accept Amendment No 15 on the addition of conditions whose indirect result would be to restrict both the flexibility called for and the exchange of information about all the initiatives.
The Commission understands the spirit of those amendments - which is quite evident - but we consider that the initial proposal of Amendment No 15 amplifies and clarifies the scope of the text.
Finally, as for Amendment No 18 on the introduction of a series of activities and structural measures, the Commission considers that it is inappropriate to include these additions.
Indeed, the definitions of the structural and supplementary measures, how exactly they are to be worded, is a matter for the Tempus committee which will be set up pursuant to the decision.
These measures are closely related to the priorities agreed each year with the relevant authorities in the countries concerned.
The Commission will shortly submit to the Council an amended proposal on Tempus III, which besides incorporating Parliament's ten amendments that have been accepted, will take serious account of Parliament's other wishes, to an extent of course that enables us to submit our own proposal to the Council.
Thank you, Mr Papoutsis.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
I should like to thank the rapporteur for his work in preparing this report.
The Tempus programme is a trans-European cooperation scheme for higher education. It makes a significant contribution not only to higher education, but also to strengthening democracy in non-member countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.
With reference to countries that are participating in the Tempus programme and where democracy and civil liberties and rights are still disregarded by the regimes in power - for example Belarus - I should like to point out the importance of the programme's objectives of reinforcing the independence of higher education, improving its administration and demonstrating its crucial role in economic, social and political reform.
Participation of Hungary in Community audiovisual policy
The next item is the report (A4-0467/98) by Mrs Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the participation of Hungary in a Community Programme within the framework of Community audiovisual policy (COM(97)0562 - C4-0637/97-97/0311(CNS)).
Madam President, the question here is whether or not to include Hungary in our Community MEDIA II programme.
Coming after the decisions in the education, youth and culture sectors, which have enabled some CEEC countries, including Hungary, to participate in our programmes, this decision relates to another area that is of paramount importance for pre-accession strategies, namely, the audiovisual sector.
This is a sector that is undergoing enormous change and is particularly interesting owing to the very significant technological advances it is making, and it remains a powerful medium of expression, inter alia of identity and citizenship.
That is, at least, the aim behind establishing this European audiovisual area.
It should also be noted that the MEDIA II programme is but one part of this European audiovisual policy, the main thrust being provided by the 'Television without Frontiers' directive, although the two of them share many aims.
It is therefore clear that participation by the applicant countries in MEDIA II is dependent on them making advances in harmonising legislation or aligning it with European directives.
It is worth asking whether the procedures for implementing the decision, with its fairly significant political implications, are capable of meeting the challenges in question, and whether they are likely to ensure that the specified aim is achieved.
We should remember the principle of association.
Hungary will participate in all actions forming part of MEDIA II in accordance with the conditions laid down by the programme and applicable in all Member States.
Nevertheless, Hungary is required to set up appropriate structures at national level.
To that end, Hungary will have to establish a 'Media Desk' in cooperation with the Commission.
On the financial front, it will pay an annual contribution to cover the cost of its participation in the programme.
Its contribution will be around ECU 650 000 for the 1998-2000 period, but it has been authorised, as provided for in the additional protocol, to use PHARE funds for 50 % of its budget.
Nevertheless, we must be aware that the harmonisation of Hungarian legislation with European audiovisual texts and, in particular, the famous 'Television without Frontiers' directive, still poses a problem and will therefore have to be subject to strict coordination between the European Union and Hungary.
In fact, the development of Hungary's audiovisual sector is still fragile and somewhat paradoxical.
The ending of the State monopoly in the media came out of the political upheavals of 1989, as one of the main aims of reform, but it took no less than seven years, with the promulgation of the Law on the Media in 1996, for a start to be made on achieving that aim.
It was not only a question of endorsing a principle, as the monopoly on information, production and distribution had to be ended and the audiovisual sector reorganised.
This new mechanism, which places Hungary among the Eastern European countries best equipped to guarantee the freedom of information, has so far mainly benefited the public service sector as, being outside the scope of public service, satellite broadcasting and cable services are not subject to any regulation.
Nevertheless, if there is too much freedom, it could divert Hungary away from expressing its national identity and benefit only non-European productions.
Within the framework of current legislation, timid efforts are naturally being made to encourage the local film industry and a new, more specific law on films is being considered.
Moreover, the 1996 law needs to be amended to conform to European requirements.
This is what caused the difficulties that at first led to the vote on this association plan being delayed in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
In fact, in the spring, when Hungary was already engaged in the pre-accession process and had already expressed its desire to take part in the MEDIA II programme as a full partner, it took the decision to authorise the installation of the HBO broadcasting company, a subsidiary of the American company Time Warner, broadcasting to Poland by satellite.
This was against all European regulations and represented unfair competition for European companies, which themselves were respecting their obligations.
I will not go back over the various levels of negotiations that followed.
I went to Hungary myself in October, at the invitation of the Secretary of State for culture.
Those few days in Budapest, where I met Hungarian leaders, convinced me that the Hungarian authorities were full of good intentions and aware that they had to adapt their legislation.
However, perhaps they were not aware, or did not have a sense of urgency, and in solving the HBO problem, they were also serving their own interests. It was not just to please the European Union and ensure that it became a member.
Unfortunately, I think that there are still some misunderstandings.
I was therefore pleased to note that Hungary has promulgated the Council of Europe Convention on Transfrontier Television, which will give their regulatory body, the ORTT, the opportunity to investigate and take the necessary measures.
With regard to legislative harmonisation, the plans for development are still somewhat vague and contradictory in places, and a certain level of rigour would be welcomed here.
In the light of these events, I must say that I wonder a little about the method involved in associating applicant countries with the MEDIA programme from the outset.
We have already seen this in the past.
For certain Central and Eastern European Countries, the Tempus programme was, in some way, the precursor to joining the Socrates programme.
For the audiovisual sector, one could maybe have considered some sort of half-way house to help the countries to progress in that field.
Once again, I regret that the PHARE programme no longer has the task of funding cultural activities.
To conclude, I would like to say that I believe Hungary has achieved a great amount of progress in the audiovisual sector, and while it is a country with a great culture, notably in terms of cinematography, it needs to show more clearly its will to adhere to our common cultural values and to provide itself with the resources to keep the promises being made to us concerning legislative reforms.
In particular, it should respect the timetable that it set for itself, to which it unfortunately does not seem to be fully adhering.
This is why, while supporting the association of Hungary to the MEDIA II programme, I have tabled amendments - I am thinking here, in particular, of Amendments Nos 1 and 3 - that place some conditions on that association.
I hope that the Council and the Commission will support me in this approach and, Commissioner, I would also like you to give me the Commission's opinion.
We do need to give out a strong political signal. Let us not forget that Hungary will thus become the first country to join the MEDIA programme.
Let us not forget that other applicant countries are also engaged in this delicate process of legislative harmonisation.
They are watching us, they are watching what is happening in Hungary and Poland.
Let us not allow them to become the Trojan Horses of American audiovisual interests in Europe.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking the rapporteur for her work and the excellent report she has presented to us this morning.
It is important that it flows on from the previous Tempus report.
It is very important that everything in Hungary and the other countries is brought into line as soon as possible.
Participation of Hungary in a Community programme on media is very important because, as we all know, free media are crucial to a democracy.
Of all the emerging states in Eastern Europe, Hungary is the most advanced and most ready to participate in the MEDIA II programme, because its administrative and technical structures are at a more advanced level.
I was in Budapest recently and, by comparison with the other Eastern European countries, Hungary is certainly doing very well.
It is also in a position to contribute towards it financially.
Of course we welcome that.
Further, it is equipped to guarantee the freedom of information.
We are always interested and concerned to make certain that freedom of information is guaranteed.
The report points out that such freedoms could divert Hungary away from expressing its national identity.
This is a serious point about which we ought to be concerned.
To my mind, too often in Hungary, and in some of the other countries as well, we hear Western European songs and we see that the films are mainly American or from other countries.
It is not in interests of building a stronger, more united Europe to suppress the culture, language or identity of applicant or Member States.
This is why I welcome very much, in particular, Amendment No 7 by the rapporteur, which states that Hungarian can be used as a language of communication.
I personally would prefer it went further, because I do not believe the way to welcome new countries into the European Union - whether it is in the MEDIA II programme or any other programme - is to say that: 'you can come in as long as you speak one of the languages we are using'.
I know that it creates problem to say that about Hungarian.
Any new language creates problems.
But a successful Europe cannot be built if the language or cultural identity of any country is suppressed.
I realise that is a challenge but it is one we must work towards.
Of course Hungary's involvement in the MEDIA II programme is important but it will also help the implementation of the Television without Frontiers directive.
We have to look at why the audiovisual industry is so important and the rapporteur has brought this to the fore.
In today's society we are all aware that the audiovisual industry plays a huge role and it is important for economic reasons and job creation because it is a communication tool.
A point which our committee has made several times in this and other reports is that the audiovisual industry also plays a huge role in the cultural aspects of life and cultural development.
It also helps the national identity to be preserved.
If it is used properly, it makes room for and respects minority languages and cultures and people from ethnic minorities within those particular countries.
I am pleased to stress, because it is important, that we must make absolutely certain that we do everything to welcome new countries into the European Union through the MEDIA II programme, which is just one example, to make certain that they not only respect their minority cultures, languages and religions but that they do everything to encourage them, because a Europe that is built on a background of successful cultures and respect for other people's cultures and minority languages will be a more prosperous and successful one in the future.
With those remarks, I welcome this report very much and I congratulate the rapporteur on her presentation.
Mr President, my interest in this subject stems not just from my membership of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media but also from my membership of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with Hungary.
I think that there is a role for the joint parliamentary committees in monitoring programmes such as MEDIA II and other Community programmes where the pre-accession countries are already participating.
That is a role for the JPCs.
We all know that Hungary has been seeking membership of the European Union since 1989.
But the point is very strongly made by Hungarian Governments, Hungarian politicians and Hungarian people that Hungary has been part of Europe for ever and what it is seeking now is simply accession to the European Union.
During the last ten years we have witnessed a remarkable transformation in that country and through change of political systems and socio-economic reforms it has already achieved the political and economic basis for accession.
The European Union must do all it can to encourage and promote Hungary's accession to the Union and participation in these programmes in advance of membership is a very important step forward.
We are, however, at a crucial stage in preparations for accession and the importance of opening doors for candidate countries to participate in the Community programmes, as well as encouraging them to adopt Community regulations, is paramount.
The inclusion of Hungary in the MEDIA II programme is something that I certainly support.
I am in favour of the proposal and join in the congratulations to the rapporteur for her report.
The role of the audiovisual sector as a whole in fostering the development of civil society, in particular in the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, is crucial.
We know that audiovisual programming is not easy inside the European Union.
So it is certainly not going to be easy in the new countries seeking membership.
The main thrust of European audiovisual policies is being provided by the Television with Frontiers directive.
I share the concerns that countries are helped and encouraged to maintain their cultures.
I just happen to believe that this is done not by rationing, quotas or controls but by encouraging and helping the promotion and production of local programming.
I hope the MEDIA II programme will be able to assist in that.
Having said that, I wish to join my colleagues in calling for enhanced efforts from the Community and from the candidates to make sure that they acquire the full audiovisual acquis .
When that is achieved, we can all look forward to Hungary joining the Union and having a good audiovisual sector as well.
Thank you very much, Mr Perry.
Ladies and gentlemen, could you please wait another moment as the Green Group has still not spoken.
Due to an administrative problem, it was not included.
Therefore, before I give the floor to Mr von Habsburg, allow me to give the floor to Mr Kerr for two minutes.
Mr President, clearly new Labour are trying to write me out of the pages of history in the cultural debate.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate Mrs Leperre-Verrier on another excellent report.
Actually I suggested she should do this report in the coordinators' meeting when she was not present because I knew she would do an excellent job.
I note in particular her concerns about monitoring and it is very important that we keep an eye on all the issues she mentions.
I note the point she makes about a pre-accession programme which could have been a useful idea.
I also wish to take this opportunity to note that the question of resources is very important.
I have just been informed that the Dutch have agreed to only ECU 90 million for the cultural framework programme, which is a gross insult to Parliament which requested ECU 250 million for what is a very important programme.
Indeed the Commission agreed ECU 167 million and the amount agreed by the Dutch is a disgrace.
This shows the importance of underlining resources in meeting these programme needs.
The MEDIA II programme has got rather more resources than this.
This is an important issue.
The question of the strength of the media within Hungary is very important.
When I was growing up, film societies in Britain recognised that Hungarian cinema was a very important part of European cinema.
As Mrs Leperre-Verrier has pointed out, that was funded by the old state machine which of course has been dismantled as indeed have many other aspects of the old state machine in Hungary.
We have to try to assist, replace and revitalise Hungarian cinema, which would be a great contribution to European cinema within the EU.
I welcome the report and I will, like Mr Evans, finish within my time to show the spirit of Christmas.
A Happy Christmas to everybody.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by adding my own thanks to Mrs Leperre-Verrier for her report.
It is an excellent report, and we do not have too many excellent reports.
You can be proud of it.
I should like to dwell on one or two points from this report, because I believe they are crucially important.
The development process in Hungary - certainly in this particular domain - has been rather encouraging, especially since 1996, when the new legislation on the media was gradually set in motion.
There were great difficulties, because, as you know, the media are very important politically and therefore tend to set the political parties at loggerheads - and thank goodness we have these political arguments in Hungary now instead of orders from above.
The arguments held things up, but then the process began to move again, and all is well now.
I should just like to point out that the progress achieved has a distinctly liberal vein, which gives us good reason to speak of genuine progress in Hungary.
And then I have a special word of thanks for the rapporteur for pointing out in the context of this development how dangerous it is when a particular smaller national culture dies out.
In Hungary, as the previous speaker rightly said, the film and media culture has been developed for a long time.
My memory stretches slightly further back than his - he was probably still a small child when this culture was developing.
During the Second World War, for example, when I attended gatherings of the Hungarians in Hollywood, virtually all the great film stars were there, but we did not speak English. We spoke Hungarian, because they generally spoke English in such a way that I preferred to speak Hungarian, so that I could understand them.
There is still a great deal of talent in that country which could play a magnificent part in fostering the general development of European culture.
For that reason, I should like to thank the rapporteur for referring, in very friendly and diplomatic terms, to the international competition in that part of the world.
That competition is inconceivably ruthless.
Literally millions of dollars are being invested in bids to seize control of the entire media structure in all these new democracies.
There are some countries where these elements have actually achieved their goal.
I need only cite the example of the Czech Republic, where practically all aspects of the media are controlled from overseas, although they are private companies.
In Hungary, thankfully, that has not happened, for the majority of the largest television network and largest private television network is in Hungarian and European hands today.
That is a healthy situation if we want to preserve European culture.
This is an area in which we must make strenuous efforts, for there are other countries where the threat is enormous.
For instance, when I look at present developments in Croatia, I see that every possible means is being used to concentrate the press, television and the various other media in the hands of US corporations.
I am not blaming the government for that; these are private corporations which are trying to establish such a monopoly and use it for their own ends.
We cannot deny that there is a certain danger involved here. I believe this is one of the most important issues.
We surely do not want quotas, as has rightly been said here, but we certainly do want to strengthen our people in such a way that they can develop their talents and compete in the marketplace.
Finally, I should like to add one more observation.
We have various amendments here with this report, and I must say that they are generally good, but I should like to express distinct reservations about Amendments Nos 1 and 6, because of the unrealistic nature of Amendment No 6 in particular but also, to a certain extent, of Amendment No 1.
People cannot be expected to produce full reports every six months.
Anyone who has anything to do with television and the other mass media will know it is impossible.
We should therefore go back at these points to the wording that was originally proposed by the rapporteur.
The original text is good, because it takes us along a more realistic path.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
Mr Robles Piquer has a point of order.
Mr President, I would like to ask a question, because some of my colleagues tell me that these Friday votes are subject to the same rules as those on the other days with regard to participation in roll-call votes for the purposes of the payment of our salaries.
I would like to know whether this is the case. If this were the case, today there has only been one roll-call vote.
Some of us were unable to take part in it due to other commitments, and it would seem reasonable to hold another roll-call vote which would at least give us the opportunity to show that we are here.
Mr Robles Piquer, the votes on Fridays have exactly the same status as those on any other day.
With regard to the status of roll-call votes, Mondays and Fridays are exceptions.
Therefore, in this respect, it is not necessary to hold another roll-call vote.
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall now proceed to the vote on the legislative resolution.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
My congratulations to Mrs Leperre-Verrier.
Mr Hallam has a point of order.
Mr President, I would just like to remind the House that we must be better behaved on Fridays from now on as we are being televised for the first time for a long time.
Mr Hallam, I do not know about you, but from my point of view as President, I must say that I am very satisfied with this and every Friday.
I do not in any way think that there has been any behaviour today that does not correspond to the normal running of the House and, above all, to the sense of friendship and familiarity with which I am glad to say Friday mornings are conducted, these being exceptional days.
Single market scoreboard
The next item is the report (A4-0402/98) by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Single Market Scoreboard (SEC(98)0889 - C4-0444/98).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil.
Mr President, I am going to present the ideas of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on the Commission document, the second single market scoreboard, which relates to the progress made in building the single market and - more importantly -the obstacles and challenges that we have to face from now on.
As you will recall, the 1985 White Paper, the famous White Paper on the single market, was almost complete on New Year's Eve, 31 December 1992.
However, there were still some measures to be adopted and, above all, new requirements had arisen that it had not been possible to fulfil.
What was the Commission's response to these inadequacies and these new matters to be dealt with? In 1993, it created two committees to inform Parliament and the European Council on the progress made.
But the Commission soon realised that this information was insufficient, and in 1996 a further step was taken. It published a communication entitled 'The impact and effectiveness of the single market', which was the basis and impetus for the Action Plan for the Single Market approved by the Amsterdam European Council of June 1997, which covers a very crucial period in the construction of Europe, that which ends on 31 December 1998, the date of the introduction of the euro.
What did this plan involve?
What were its aims? It aimed to achieve a single market similar to a national market with the following elements: a single currency, a harmonised tax system, integrated infrastructures, free movement of persons and, last but by no means least, instruments to enable businesses to survive in that context, and I am referring here to the European Company Statute.
How were such ambitious objectives to be achieved?
How is the plan laid out? Firstly, a clear definition of the strategic objectives was established, because - as a Spanish poet says - no favourable wind will blow for he who does not know where he is going.
Secondly, specific action was planned according to a precise timetable and, thirdly and finally, a procedure was set up to allow the monitoring of progress made and of any shortcomings that might become apparent.
That is the origin of the scoreboards, the third of which we are discussing today, and which I believe to be especially important as we are only a few days, in fact less than 10 days, from the completion of the Action Plan.
What does the Commission document reveal? In my opinion, from the Commission document and from the progress that has been made, we can make four important observations.
The first is that a significant number of the objectives set out have been achieved, and I would like to highlight two of them here today: the liberalisation of gas supply and the protection of technological inventions.
The second observation is that the Commission believes that other objectives will soon be achieved, and here it draws attention firstly to the Directive on collective investment funds, which is of capital importance for the new capital market - excuse the repetition - which will enter into force on 1 January and, secondly, to the Directive on authors' rights in the information society.
The third observation is that other matters have not made as much progress.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy - and I hope Parliament also - therefore expresses its sadness and regret at the fact that not enough progress, or at least not the necessary progress, has been made with regard to the free movement of persons and tax harmonisation.
The fourth and final observation is that Parliament notes with concern that almost 15 % of the legislation on the single market has not been transposed or incorporated into the internal regulations of the Member States.
What conclusions can we draw from this?
What is to be done, as Lenin would say? Firstly, Parliament calls for a new action plan to cover the period from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2002, which is a period that, as the President will confirm, coincides with the introduction of the euro.
Secondly, it establishes two phases.
In the first phase, in 1999, the outstanding, delayed objectives will have to be completed, and in the second stage, in 2000, the free movement of persons must be established.
It proposes that, when there is a legal basis, the methods chosen should be regulations and not directives - in order to prevent delays in transposition -, and qualified majority voting rather than unanimous voting.
I will conclude, Mr President, by wishing a Happy Christmas to all those who believe and a happy winter solstice to those who do not.
Mr President, only very peripheral sectors and very specific interest groups can now question the enormous advantages that the opening of borders has brought for the majority of European citizens and companies.
Output and trade have grown continuously, prices have fallen and there has been an extraordinary increase in the variety of goods and services on offer.
We now have the largest integrated market in the world, with 370 million consumers, and they alone account for 1.1 % to 1.5 % of GDP growth within the European Union, and thus play a key part in economic convergence and in reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various Member States.
70 % of these fifteen countries' trade is carried out within the area of the Community, which will have a common currency in two weeks' time.
The signatories of the Single European Act have good reason to be satisfied when we come to take stock of European integration.
However, Parliament should sound the alarm whenever there is dissatisfaction.
We need to shine a light into the murky waters of carelessness and inactivity, and that is just what Mr García-Margallo is doing here.
We need to attack the delay in applying important measures envisaged in the White Paper back in 1985 and others that have become vital since then.
We also need to attack the delay - and even obstruction - on the part of Member States in transposing Community legislation into national law, ignoring Commission views, and even disregarding decisions of the Court of Justice, so that 220 legislative texts, or 15 % of the total, remain to be transposed.
Fines could be levied on recalcitrant Member States in such cases, but we believe that the most effective sanction would be to publish a list of delays and the offenders, so as to shame them for their feeble European performance in the full public gaze.
Parliament should denounce the delay in the evaluation panels which the Commission should have been holding biannually since June 1997, which is in turn due to the delay in putting its own action plan for the single market into practice: of 62 undertakings, 39 have overrun the deadline envisaged.
There is still a long way to go to eliminate market distortions and to make all four freedoms of movement accessible to the entire population of the Community of Fifteen.
We believe that fiscal policy is a key issue at this point if immediate progress is to be made in completing the single market.
And the latest direction taken by the Council, the third way, is not very reassuring.
Only yesterday we were talking about fiscal harmonisation, but now there is talk about some vague coordination of fiscal policies.
We are even taking steps backwards, as has just happened at the Vienna European Council in the case of the scheduled expiry of the fiscal derogation applying to duty-free sales to intra-Community travellers.
Deferring the implementation of a decision taken in 1991 is a real attack on the single market.
It sets an extremely dangerous precedent, and amounts to scandalous protectionism in favour of a privileged sector with an active, powerful and apparently effective lobby.
Even if there is no will to go any further with fiscal policy, at the very least a new harmonised fiscal system for VAT and greater fiscal consistency with regard to capital are absolutely essential.
Mr President, this report deals with the implementation of EU directives in the Member States.
It is commendable that such an evaluation has been carried out.
However, it reveals that only 23 out of 65 undertakings have been fulfilled, which is naturally disappointing.
I should like to know why the directives have not been transposed.
It could be due to the fact that Member States do not or cannot support the resolution, or that the decision-making process has taken place so quickly that public opinion in individual countries has been unable to keep pace - in which case it is doubtful whether extending the qualified majority is the right solution.
I think we should look more carefully into the reasons why the resolution is not being implemented.
I have misgivings about imposing fines on Member States that do not incorporate EU legislation.
We could look at the issue in another way: there have been occasions when the opposite course of action has been taken and the EU has granted exemptions to Member States during their membership negotiations.
For example, Sweden was granted a four-year exemption period during which it was allowed to retain its ban on antibiotics in animal feedingstuffs.
The EU then stipulated that other Member States should raise their standards to meet those of the Swedes, which has been happening, although on a very limited scale and extremely slowly.
Alternatively, would the problem be solved by the imposition of fines? Everyone knows that that would not really be the answer.
This excellent report concludes by saying that the resolution should, of course, be implemented since it was adopted jointly.
However, more light needs to be shed on the reasons why this has failed to happen.
Cooperation and confidence building are better ways of achieving results than fines and coercion.
Rules are far more satisfactory if they are well supported in the Member States, since this makes their application more effective.
Mr President, I am standing in for Mr Wolf this morning but, with my infinite knowledge and flexibility, I will attempt to comment on the single market.
In fact, I am very glad to be speaking on this because it is something very dear to the heart of my Prime Minister Mr Blair.
When he takes a moment off from bombing Baghdad, he might care to look at this resolution and report.
Despite being so enthusiastic about the single market, he will find many things which he cannot agree with.
For example, there is the question of the single currency which, quite rightly, the report says is important for the completion of the single market.
Britain of course is not yet allowed to join by Mr Rupert Murdoch.
The matter of harmonisation of taxation is currently horrifying the whole of the British media because of the notion that somehow we should share a little sovereignty on the harmonisation of VAT.
Clearly that is necessary for a single market.
I want to stress politically the importance of the free movement of workers and the protection of workers within the single market.
This is not stressed enough in this report.
The market has two sides and we must protect both.
Finally, I wish everybody a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
Mr President, the single market scoreboard is a useful instrument.
Every six months stock is taken of the progress achieved in implementing legislation on the single market.
The transposition of European directives into national legislation commands particular attention.
The scoreboard makes it possible to quickly check which Member States are doing their job and which are lagging behind.
Member States must of course honour their undertakings.
The peculiar thing about it is that these are tasks which the Member States have charged themselves with because it is the Council of Ministers which determines European legislation, in cooperation with the European Parliament or otherwise.
The motion for a resolution fails to take sufficient account of the particular nature of decision-making at Union level.
If all Member States have to agree, it may take rather longer before a decision comes.
That is a disadvantage.
However, lifting the unanimity requirement implies even more obstructions at Member State level and even more infringement procedures.
It seems a clever move to resort to a regulation.
But what then remains of the principle of subsidiarity? This is not the way to bring decisions closer to the public.
Paragraphs 9 and 10 make a completely erroneous suggestion.
I can be very brief about the call to introduce a common VAT system based on place of origin around the year 2000.
The costs of introducing such a system and the administrative charges for conversion are so high that this plan must remain on the back burner for now, unless the Commission has a vast secret reserve.
If that is case, I should like to hear it from the Commissioner.
Finally, it is unrealistic to expect the single market to show all the characteristics of a national market within three years.
Priority must go to reinforcing existing measures.
The single market will work better if we appreciate our cultural diversity at the same time.
Mr President, I wish you and all your colleagues a merry Christmas and all the best for 1999.
This also goes for the Commission and the Council, despite paragraph 5 of the resolution which calls for as many objectives as possible to be met by 31 December 1998.
Commissioner, feel free to take a couple of days off.
Mr President, when economic and monetary union is introduced in a few days' time in the 11 participating states, a fully functioning single market will no longer be a desirable goal but a real necessity.
The indiscipline of Member States which do not fulfil their single market obligations must be tackled even more systematically after the introduction of the single currency.
After all, total transparency and comparability mean that distortions of competition will now have a greater impact than ever before.
Although successes have been achieved, national efforts are still plainly inadequate.
If you start something, you have to see it through.
The same governments which implemented tough austerity programmes so that their budgets could meet the convergence criteria must submit to an intervention mechanism designed to eliminate barriers to trade and must be prepared to harmonise their taxation systems so as to banish the fear of unhealthy concentrations of capital and businesses.
Mr President, since we have been talking about indiscipline, allow me to indulge in that vice myself by exceeding my one minute of speaking time to wish everyone a happy Christmas!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for many years the goal of our European integration efforts was a common economic area without frontiers.
The idea of creating the single market was even, in a sense, the master plan to realise the ideal of peace for the European Communities.
Today we are going a stage further.
To a great extent, the single market has become a reality.
The great goal that awaits us now is the path leading to a European domestic market.
At this stage, the second single market scoreboard affords us a welcome opportunity to assess the progress that has been made in the quest for economic integration within the European Union.
When we embark on the third stage of monetary union in less than two weeks' time, we shall have attained a new level of integration.
We have also implemented or launched a number of projects which are essential to the creation of a European domestic market.
First the electricity market was opened up, then the gas market also became a European market.
Legislation was adopted to guarantee the protection of biotechnological inventions.
We can all remember the detailed discussion here in the House.
Yesterday, we voted to create a system of European warranty law by adopting the directive on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees after the second reading. In addition, the directive on late payments is currently being discussed by the Council, having been adopted by Parliament at first reading.
I personally hope for a comprehensively satisfactory outcome to these negotiations as soon as possible.
That is particularly important to small and medium-sized businesses, since late payments, especially by public authorities, pose a huge problem and result in the loss of numerous jobs every year.
Other projects are still in the pipeline.
Early next year, we shall consider the harmonisation of copyright law as well as dealing with certain aspects of environmental legislation, such as the directive on old vehicles.
We still await an agreement on the European Company Statute.
That is an important basis for the efficient operation of larger companies in Europe.
In the future, we shall also have to give more serious thought to how many legal instruments we intend to apply and the levels at which they should operate.
Deregulation on the one hand and subsidiarity on the other have been concrete demands for some time, and are coming to fruition at this very moment in specific projects such as the SLIM initiative.
Just this week, when we had the vote on the statistical system, several speakers said that it was absolutely essential to implement the SLIM initiative in that area, and we also wish to have a green paper on the subject.
And now it is my turn to express my sincere thanks to the Bureau and the parliamentary staff, and to wish you all every success in the coming year and, as this year draws to its close, a Merry Christmas!
Mr President, Parliament's report on the Commission's establishment of a single market scoreboard reveals a very disciplinary concept of European cooperation.
On one hand, in order to prevent delays in transposing directives into national legislation, it advocates that more use should be made of regulations, which are directly applied, uniform and decided by majority. This seems to me to contradict the calls for flexibility and subsidiarity that are regularly heard from various quarters.
On the other hand, it once again calls on the Commission to consider the possibility of imposing fines on states that have not fulfilled their transposition obligations.
In our opinion, it would be entirely illegitimate and undemocratic for an administrative body to be capable of imposing such penalties on sovereign states.
Moreover, there is no legal basis in the Treaty to allow the Commission to act in this way, and the Council could not even delegate such rights to the Commission, because it does not have them either.
Only the Court of Justice, under Article 171 of the Treaty, has certain powers to apply penalties, and even those are, in our opinion, excessive, as they are not subject to appeal and cannot be suspended by a democratically and formally expressed national will.
These considerations did not prevent the Commission from recently asking the Council to give it authorisation to implement a compulsory intervention mechanism in order to eliminate certain obstacles to trade.
The Council sternly rejected this, and rightly so.
However, the Council itself has accepted the establishment of multilateral surveillance systems, first of public deficits, and now of employment, which are also disciplinary in nature.
This shift is the result of a double error, which is repeated in the report we are discussing today. Firstly, Brussels would have more power than the nations, and secondly, the single market would become a domestic market, that is, a completely integrated internal market that is like a national market.
This double error evidently contains the seeds of the denial of any scope for manoeuvre for the nations, and therefore, the denial of all national sovereignty, on any issue.
The Council would save itself and preserve its honour by putting an end to this once and for all at the next opportunity.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you a Merry Christmas in a Europe that is not yet entirely disciplinary in nature.
Mr President, I welcome this report.
Some of the rapporteur's conclusions are very disturbing.
He highlights the fact that 15 % of the legislation adopted on the single market has not, as yet, been transposed in all the Member States.
Additionally, he is strongly critical of the fact that proposals on the free movement of people and tax harmonisation have not been adopted.
Like the rapporteur, I welcome the Commission scoreboard to measure the state of implementation of the action plan for the single market.
I hope that the Commission examines it very carefully.
The political zealots in the Commission and in the Council, who support the abolition of duty-free, tell us that the continuation of duty-free is inconsistent with the single market.
I would urge them to read this report; to analyse in detail the Commission scoreboard, and when they clearly see that the single market is still a very long way from being completed, especially in the field of tax harmonisation, they might change their minds, especially in the wake of the decision at the Vienna Summit to carry out an impact study into the effects of abolition.
I believe that when this study is completed, it will confirm the worst fears of many in this House that 140 000 jobs will be lost throughout the EU, that air and ferry fares will increase and that EU tourism and regional policy will be undermined.
Presented with this information, I hope that ECOFIN and the Commission will be sufficiently persuaded, at the very least, to extend duty-free beyond the 30 June next year.
That would be the best Christmas box that both the Commission and Council could give the citizens of Europe.
In conclusion, let me, along with other Members of this House, wish you, all members of Parliament staff, the Commissioner, all members of Commission staff, and all who serve this Parliament a very happy and peaceful Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I thank you for your positive assessment of the scoreboard whose third edition was published last October.
Let me also thank the rapporteur, Mr García-Margallo y Marfil, for his excellent work.
The six-monthly scoreboard has two purposes: first of all, to give a picture of the current state of the single market, and secondly, to assess the extent to which the Member States, the Council, Parliament and the Commission are fulfilling the stated objectives about which we are all in agreement, namely the action programme for the single market.
The scoreboard is therefore an administrative tool with a clearly defined political aim, namely to improve the operation of the single market.
By publishing objective information about the performance of the single market, we can help to address the obstacles that still remain before the market is fully completed.
The most striking finding to emerge from the scoreboard concerns the incorporation deficit, in other words the proportion of directives that have not yet been implemented in one or more Member States.
According to the latest figures presented at the Internal Market Council on 7 December, today only 13 % of the directives are not in force throughout the Union, and that must be compared with the much higher proportion of 35 % we had only a year and a half ago, in June 1997.
In addition, the incorporation of laws in the Member States has greatly improved.
The deficit now ranges around low levels, from 0.7 % in Finland, closely followed by Denmark, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands, the highest proportion being in Portugal at 5.5 %.
Despite the progress achieved by most Member States, it is clear that not all the remaining directives will have been implemented by the end of 1998.
There is some urgent catching up to be done.
The Member States must keep up the pace of the last few weeks in relation to the notification of directives implemented at national level.
If this happens, then by the middle of next year, by next June, the single market will at last be able to overcome this major obstacle and will then clearly be able to operate completely and correctly.
The Commission will continue monitoring the situation closely with the single market scoreboard, notwithstanding the imminent lapse of the action programme at the end of the year.
Another positive factor is that there are further new developments in the implementation of the action programme on the single market, in both the legislative and the non-legislative fields.
I should like to stress the Council's recent publication of the regulation on the operation of the single market in relation to the free movement of goods in the Member States, and the regulation codifying the procedures for state aid.
The European Parliament also rendered its opinion on the Green Paper on patents, making it possible for the Commission to publish a statement before the end of the year.
The action programme also called for an effort to address the weaknesses that exist in some areas: public contracts, mutual recognition, European models, compliance labelling, patents, building materials, the modernisation and more consistent application of value-added tax, and the implementation of the Customs 2000 programme and the measures to reform transit transport.
As you know, a lot of work is being done in those areas.
In some cases, indeed, statements have already been published presenting further programmes for work during the coming years.
In other areas, however, such as digital signatures, copyright in the information society, the residential rules applicable to workers and credit service telesales, discussions are still in progress both in the Council and in Parliament.
In contrast, the failure of the Social Affairs Council to reach agreement about the issue of worker participation means that very little progress has been achieved in relation to the proposed directive on the articles of association of European companies and the related proposals in the area of company law.
There has also been significant progress in improving the administrative and feedback instruments that aim to increase the effectiveness of the single market's rules.
This includes, for example, speeding up the procedures for intervention by the Commission, the creation of coordination centres in the Member States to speed up problem-solving, the creation of points of contact between companies and citizens in the Member States, and commencement of the dialogue with companies and citizens.
On that point I wish to assure you that we attach great importance to the dialogue with companies.
It is an activity which my colleague Mr Monti and I, working together, will begin in the next few days.
Our aim is to improve the information of companies about the single market, especially small and medium-sized enterprises which do not always have all that is needed to obtain the necessary information.
It is an absolutely user-friendly system, one based on direct contact via the Internet and by telephone.
In fact, the first phase of developing the system will begin in just a few days, next Monday, 21 December.
As a two-way system, it will also provide the possibility of feedback from the companies about the problems they encounter, and I believe that will make a valuable contribution to our efforts to improve the operation of the single market.
Granted that in most but not all cases a great deal of progress has been achieved, which is what the action programme was intended to do, in the Commission's view the action programme can now be regarded as a complete success.
The single market scoreboard will continue being used to monitor progress towards all the objectives not yet achieved.
Ladies and gentlemen, the action programme for the single market is now in the last few days of its implementation.
We can justifiably claim that in a few weeks the single market will move into the era of the single currency in a much better condition than it was 18 months ago.
However, there is no room for complacency.
The European Commission will draw up a discussion paper in February 1999 to review the situation and present its thoughts about overall strategy for the single market.
The opinion we debated today includes specific proposals about how to address the disadvantages of the single market, which the Commission will be considering in detail over the next few months.
However, other discussions must take place in the coming months, so that a definitive proposal can be submitted in good time for approval by the European Council in Cologne at the conclusion of the German Presidency.
Mr President, let me now express my best wishes to you personally, to the honourable Members, to the interpreters, to the staff of the European Commission, the Council and of course Parliament, for a most enjoyable and happy Christmas and a healthy and prosperous New Year.
Thank you very much, Mr Papoutsis.
Allow me also, on behalf of this Parliament, to offer our best wishes, not only for the festive period but also for the coming year, and to say that we hope that we will continue to work together.
Therefore, best wishes to you and to your family.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, there is one more wish I should like to express on the single market, namely that we continue in future to fight fraud and crime with the same efficiency as we have done to date, and that we set a good example of security in our own European house.
Thank you, Mr President!
Mr President, I voted in favour of the report on the single market scoreboard, but I would nevertheless like to make a few clarifications.
We are still a long way from a perfect single market, without distortions of competition.
In my opinion, it is unacceptable for Member States not to apply the directives that have been adopted, and I do not agree with Mr Berthu when he says that penalties are not necessary.
Penalties are needed for Member States - including my own - who do not apply the directives, as that leads to distortions of competition.
With regard to distortions of competition, I would like to say something about an aspect of the single market that is really not working: I would like to talk about the exclusive contracts for the delivery of certain goods, contracts of which retailers in my country are the victims.
I had addressed a written question...
(The President asked the speaker to conclude) One moment, Mr President, be a little flexible, this is very important!
I had addressed a written question to the Commission.
Mr Van Miert, who is Belgian, answered that exclusive contracts, which force retailers from Luxembourg to go through a Belgian general representative who charges commission, are compatible with the single market.
I cannot believe this, as the retailers in Luxembourg are supplied at a higher price than that offered to consumers in nearby areas.
If this is not a distortion of competition, I do not know what is, and I demand that this situation be rectified.
Mr President, if you will allow me to say one more thing, I would like to mention tax harmonisation. I am of the opinion that we do not need across-the-board harmonisation, because in a single market, healthy fiscal competition is also needed.
Look at what happens in the United States or in Switzerland, where the taxes are not the same.
We do not want harmonisation that means standardisation, and we want healthy fiscal competition in the single market.
We do not want VAT to be harmonised along with the euro.
It is antisocial.
I insisted on saying all that because I voted in favour of the report, but as the report contains passages that may imply that I am in favour of harmonisation, which I do not want, I had to make these clarifications.
Thank you, Mr President, for being so considerate.
Of course, I wish you, and all my colleagues, a very happy 1999, which will definitely not bring the tax harmonisation advocated by Mr Deprez.
This report highlights a problem without really addressing it. The completion of the single European market has turned out to be a far more complex political regulatory task than was envisaged in the original strategy, which essentially relied on the automatic apolitical functioning of the deregulated market forces.
We certainly know now that it will not be possible to find a sustainable solution to this problem without a new beginning in political terms, to provide a basis for an adequate fundamental consensus among the Member States of the EU on social policy and an efficient Community regulatory framework.
The change of government in Germany has made this possible within the EU.
All that has to be done is to seize this opportunity resolutely and not squander it by engaging in disputes over short-term interests.
Mr García-Margallo y Marfil's report, unfortunately, is still too heavily based on a technocratic damage-limitation mentality to serve as a means of grasping this key political opportunity; parts of the report even reveal vestiges of the illusions of free-market radicalism regarding the 'self-generation' of the single market.
That is regrettable.
But nothing in the report is absolutely mistaken either.
For that reason, our group will abstain from voting.
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
Adjournment of the session
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 18 December 1998.
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed. The following amendments have been proposed.
Strasbourg
Monday:
I would inform the House that I have received a second motion of censure on the Commission pursuant to Rule 34, tabled by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy and 68 other Members.
With the agreement of the authors of the motion and the Commission, I propose that this motion should be added to the joint debate on the other motion of censure and the oral questions on today's agenda.
Mr Striby has the floor.
Mr President, once again I must raise the troublesome question I asked two months ago about when we are going to be moving into the IPE IV building.
Rumour and hearsay are not good enough when it comes to Parliament's seat.
We know that the matter has been settled in the Treaties, but in its physical dimension - bricks and mortar - it remains unresolved.
We are dealing with the order of business, Mr Striby.
The question of IPE IV and its completion has nothing to do with the agenda.
You can table questions under Rule 28, and you no longer have the floor.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, do you agree that we should take your motion of censure together with the one which is already on the agenda?
Mr President, I think it is a good idea to have a joint debate because I would not want to force a new debate tomorrow morning, to be followed by a vote on Thursday, 48 hours later.
I think it would be appropriate, given the formal nature of the procedure and the fact that the introduction of a motion of censure is exceptional, for the first signatories of the two motions, namely Mrs Green and myself, to speak first in this debate.
The motion you quote comes from all the political groups in Parliament without exception, namely a total of 69 Members.
Thank you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
The Commission also has to agree to these two motions of censure being taken in joint debate.
Could I ask the President of the Commission if he is in agreement with this procedure?
The President of the Commission agreed to this proposal
Mr President, Rule 34 of Parliament's Rules of Procedure states that the debate on a motion of censure shall not take place until at least 24 hours after its receipt is announced to Members.
I was very curious to know why, given that one censure motion has already been tabled, certain Members saw fit to table another motion of censure which, at least under our Rules, should not and could not take place at the same time.
But now I understand the reason: it is because Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is seeking it as a device to be able to speak earlier in the debate than he otherwise would.
I put to the vote the proposal that the two motions of censure should be taken in joint debate.
Parliament approved the proposal
Tuesday and Wednesday: no changes
Thursday:
The Green Group has asked for the vote on the five reports on Agenda 2000 from the Committee on Agriculture, in other words those by Mr Mulder, Mr Garot, Mr Goepel, Mr Fantuzzi and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, to be taken this Thursday instead of on 28 January, as currently scheduled.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has the floor to explain this request.
Mr President, our group requests that the debate on Agenda 2000, in other words the reform of agriculture policy, and the vote on the reports discussed should not be held at different times.
We asked for the vote to be held this week, but if this is not possible for reasons of time, we believe it would be better to postpone the entire debate plus the vote until the Brussels part-session.
Voting is not a technical act, but one of great political importance.
We must not uncouple the debate, which is concerned primarily with amendments and examination of the various issues, from the vote.
I trust the House will be amenable to our proposal.
Thank you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
Mr Goepel has the floor to speak against the request.
Mr President, whilst I believe a vote of confidence to be extremely important, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf is quite right in saying that Agenda 2000 is a matter of great political importance too.
We should not put aside everything to do with this, but should debate the market sectors on Wednesday as planned, irrespective of other events.
It would be a clear belittling of the most important issue which this House will be debating between now and the year 2006 simply to postpone it and say we will deal with this at the two-day mini-session in Brussels.
I appreciate that there is simply not time to vote on over 400 amendments.
We could certainly hold the vote in Brussels, but we should debate Agenda 2000 on Wednesday.
I put the request from the Green Group to the vote.
Parliament rejected the request
Mr President, I quite understand that the vote on Agenda 2000 and the 400 amendments to it has been postponed.
What I do not understand is that we are dealing with the Hermange report on Thursday evening but not voting on it on Friday morning, as would normally be the case.
I should like to know the reason, and I think this is a procedure which should not be repeated in future.
The groups will decide in future, Mr Posselt.
This time, the Conference of Presidents decided that it was preferable to vote separately on a different day, namely 28 January, and to hold the debate this week.
Given that no alternative proposal has been made, we cannot change anything at the moment, since no amendment to the agenda was proposed at the appropriate time.
Friday: no changes
Brussels
Wednesday, 27 January and Thursday, 28 January 1999: no changes
The order of business was adopted thus amended
Motion of censure - refusal to grant a discharge for 1996
The next item is the joint debate on:
two motions of censure on the Commission pursuant to Rule 34, tabled by Mrs Green and others and Mr Fabre-Aubrespy and others; -the following oral questions to the Commission on the discharge for 1996: -B4-0012/99 by Mrs Green, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on improving European Union financial management; -B4-0011/99 by Mr Martens and Mr Elles, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on 1996 discharge; -B4-0009/99 by Mr Cox, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, on the reaction to Parliament's refusal to grant discharge concerning the 1996 budget of the European Union; -B4-0013/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, on the consequences for the Commission of the refusal to give discharge for the 1996 budget; -B4-0014/99 by Mr Puerta, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, on the consequences for the Commission of the refusal to give discharge for the 1996 budget; -B4-0016/99 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Holm and Mrs Müller, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, on discharge for 1996; -B4-0015/99 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, on referral by Parliament back to the Committee on Budgetary Control of the report on discharge for the 1996 budget of the European Union.I shall give the floor initially to the two first signatories of the motions of censure, and then to the groups which have tabled questions concerning the refusal to give discharge.
The President of the Commission will speak after that, and then we shall continue with the debate.
We shall now begin with Mrs Green as the first signatory of the first motion of censure to be tabled.
Mrs Berès has a point of order.
Mr President, the honourable Members who withdrew their signatures, on behalf of my delegation, are Gérard Caudron, Danielle Darras and Marie Noëlle Lienemann plus myself, that is to say all the French Socialists.
There is still one more than the minimum.
So in any event, the number of signatures is above the minimum required for the vote on the motion of censure.
Mr President, on 17 December immediately after the vote on the Elles report I tabled a motion of censure on the European Commission on behalf of the Parliamentary Group of the Party of European Socialists.
It had been my public position in this House and in the media for some weeks prior to that vote that the decision on discharge of the 1996 budget was a clear statement about the financial competence or otherwise of the European Commission.
Those in this House who are prepared to declare the Commission financially incompetent must take the only possible institutional step in their power and seek to sack it.
The motion of censure was tabled by me to demand that those who felt the Commission was culpable with respect to the 1996 budget should face up to their responsibility.
The next three months are critical for the development of the European Union and for the enlargement process.
As we move towards the special summit at the end of March, which is charged with bringing forward a common position on reforming agricultural policy, on new rules for the distribution of funds to the regions, and with making sure that the future financing of the Union is fair to all Member States, it is vital that the European Commission is working at its most effective in close partnership, a partnership of trust and confidence, with both Parliament and the Council.
This House cannot extend this crisis into those coming weeks.
One of the fundamental reasons for the tabling of the motion of censure was to decide now, immediately, whether or not the European Commission is to be able to do its work.
If it is not, then we should decide so now.
I would say to the drafters of some resolutions which are tabled for joint debate with this motion of censure that their approach is sure to lead to an ongoing crisis for weeks if not months.
That is in nobody's best interest and certainly not of those who are depending on the outcome of European Union policies - the people of the European Union.
During the vote on discharge of the 1996 budget in December, the great majority of my group voted in favour because we believed that the Commission had satisfied Parliament in three of the six areas in which we had expressed our concerns and had gone some way in three other areas.
We were of the view that in some respects the European Commission was simply not able to comply with all our demands, as for instance where there are shared or joint responsibilities with the Council or national governments.
We had supported the demands of the Committee on Budgetary Control when it postponed discharge in March and asked for further clarification and action.
We believed that when the discharge vote came before us in December we had already exercised considerable influence for change and with the prospect of an equally difficult discharge for the 1997 budget immediately before us we could continue to make even more changes inevitable.
This was Parliament acting responsibly and driving the agenda for change.
With some success to our name, thanks to the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control, and the opportunity to achieve even more in the coming months in the context of the 1997 discharge, the great majority of my Group want the Commission to get on with its work for Agenda 2000.
That was the basis for our position in December.
It must be said that there are colleagues in this House in all groups - mine included - who believe that such is the severity of the problems which was displayed by the European Commission over the 1996 discharge, that they could not grant discharge and they will vote for the motion of censure.
I believe those colleagues are sincere and I respect them, even if I am of a different view.
There are others, however, whose motives are more about the smell of an election in their nostrils or a particular domestic agenda to which they are playing.
Murmurs of dissent
So be it!
The fascinating thing about politics is that it is not static: it is a dynamic process and moves on quickly.
A major weakness in our constitutional arrangements which has been revealed by this current crisis is that, unlike executives in almost any other setting, the European Commission has no ability to come to this House and ask for a vote of confidence.
I listened with amusement to the reaction of parliamentarians on the eve of the Elles vote when the Commission made clear in its statement that it considered the vote a matter of confidence.
The view that this was in some way bringing undue pressure to bear is surely overly sensitive.
In any democratic parliamentary process which I know, this sort of thing is part and parcel of normal, robust interaction between the executive and the parliament to which it is democratically accountable.
But in a company boardroom, a voluntary organisation or national governments, if the parliament, shareholders or members declared that the executive was financially incompetent, then that executive would surely be entitled to know whether it had the confidence of that parliament, those shareholders or members, and there would be a procedure by which they could ask for a vote of confidence or otherwise.
My first demand, on behalf of my Group, is that the Treaty and/or Rules of Procedure should be changed to put in place such a procedure.
In the three weeks since the motion of censure was tabled, things have changed.
In that time there has been a large number of new allegations which require rigorous investigation and rapid action, as well as continuing press speculation about existing accusations.
As I have already explained, the motion of censure was posited on the failure to grant discharge in December.
However, the recent accusations demonstrate the problems which lie at the heart of the current crisis.
It is not a matter of whether we have political differences with the European Commission.
Of course we have such differences as between one institution and another, and as political families with a clear view of where we want Europe to go in the future.
But political differences of that sort are what democracy is all about and we accept that it is part of the battle of ideas.
It is not a matter entirely of competence either.
Let us be honest and say that any Commission which has been responsible for seeing through so smoothly the introduction of the single currency, performing the intensely complex and huge task of opening negotiations with six applicant States and keeping another five applications under active consideration - just to mention two unique events of recent days and months - cannot be declared totally incompetent.
It is much more about the ambience, the ethos of secrecy, patronage, nepotism and obstructionism which appears to surround the Commission and its Members.
It is this wider sense of petty corruption which is doing such devastating damage to the Commission and its officials and it is this which simply must be dealt with.
I should like to say to President Santer that it has been my view for some time - and I have argued this with him before - that the European Commission is at present the accumulation of 15 national administrative cultures.
Increasingly these 15 national cultures are creating tensions in working practices in terms of the cultural expectations, norms and values which accompany them.
Too often they simply do not gel into a coherent whole.
There is a real opportunity now to grasp the nettle and lay down the parameters of a European administrative culture.
Such a change would give confidence to the Commission officials, from the highest to the lowest, that they have common rules of engagement in their work, well defined, understood and, most importantly, endorsed, enacted and enforced from the top.
In that respect this Parliament too has much to gain and learn from such an approach.
We would have to respect such parameters and bring a maturity to our work of monitoring and controlling Commission spending and policy implementation.
I accept that in some areas we can be accused of duplicity: moving goalposts once demands have been fulfilled; using different national norms and values as the gauge and, in some instances, acting inappropriately as judge and jury.
All of us here agree completely that fraud and corruption is totally unacceptable, even were it to be minuscule.
All of us here across this House are committed to weeding out abuses, using our powers to expose fraud and bring those responsible to justice in the proper way through the appropriate judicial authorities.
My group has done more than its fair share in this respect and we will support every effort to continue.
All of us in this House understand just what it means to be the subject of press campaigns and sometimes vilification on the basis of unproven allegations.
If we are to demand the heads of certain individuals on the basis of public campaigns before proper investigation is completed, or sometimes even started, then perhaps we should have resigned en masse when the media was at its most vitriolic in claiming that MEPs were abusing their allowances and expenses regime.
Of course we all recognise that to act on media speculation would be inappropriate.
But we must also recognise that the lack of a transparent set of rules governing relations between Commissioners, their cabinets and their directorates-general has fuelled claims of nepotism, patronage and financial gain.
This must be dealt with now.
I hope that when the President of the Commission responds to this debate he acknowledges the need for immediate action in this area and tells us what he intends to do.
My group's second demand is for a set of transparent rules governing relations between Commissioners, their cabinets and their directorates-general before the end of March 1999.
My group will not allow individuals, whether they be Commissioners or junior officials, to be tried by the press.
But I want to make it perfectly clear that if accusations against any individual are proven - no matter how powerful or how lowly, no matter what gender, no matter what political affiliation - we will demand that they be brought to account.
We do not have the institutional right to cherry-pick amongst the College of Commissioners.
We may wish we had.
We have argued for it in the IGC in the past and will no doubt argue with renewed vigour for it in the future.
But at present we do not have such a right.
It is for this reason that we will not support those resolutions from other political groups which are seeking to apportion blame for all the ills of the Commission on the heads of selected individuals against whom no case has yet been proven.
Applause
Anyway, were we to pick individuals or areas of suspected fraud or corruption, why is there no mention of the common agricultural policy where fraud is well-documented and ongoing?
Applause
Why no mention of the programmes for PHARE and TACIS where the rumours are as serious and as widespread?
Applause
If we are to sustain and increase our integrity as a monitoring and controlling body to which the Commission is accountable, we must not be partial in our criticisms.
There is another important issue concerning the treatment of whistleblowers.
My group supports the concept of whistleblowing.
Indeed, we were instrumental in this House in helping to introduce it.
Any person dealing with a whistleblower has two major responsibilities.
Firstly, he must protect the whistleblower, and his or her identity, and secondly protect those against whom accusations are being made until they are investigated properly.
This surely is natural justice.
In the cause of Paul Van Buitenen both those responsibilities were breached.
I regret that his personal integrity is now damaged.
Having spoken to him I have no doubt that he believes he has honest cause.
I have no doubt either that he has been used by some politicians and by some in the media and, in consequence, he has been abused.
I note that the dossier which Mr Van Buitenen gave to a Member of this Parliament included information which was already the subject of investigation in Parliament, in the Commission and in some cases before the courts.
I understand that he has provided other information which contains new allegations which are now to be investigated.
But had the Commission had procedures and structures which allowed abuses to be identified and followed up speedily and efficiently, then the Van Buitenen case would not have been necessary.
It is in this area where I believe the Commission is vulnerable and must show great determination.
The time is right to acknowledge that such is the depth of concern that only an independent review can restore confidence and trust in the way in which the Commission deals with abuses in its own programmes.
President Santer, in early December, after two discussions between ourselves, you wrote to me offering the opportunity for Parliament to be involved in your management reforms.
We think that is important and I will come back to it.
But I would ask you to go one step further and agree to an independent review under the joint auspices of our two institutions.
Nothing less will give confidence to Europe's public that everything possible is being done to root out abuses as and when they are identified and brought to attention.
So our third demand is for an independent review to assess and make recommendations on the detection and follow-up of abuses before the end of this year.
President Santer, given your offer to this Parliament to be involved in your plans for management reform, it is important that Commission and Parliament produce a timetable for detailed discussions on those plans before the end of this week and schedule a full debate in the final May plenary session here in Strasbourg.
The aim would be that prior to your promised report to the Council at the Cologne summit in June, you have the advice, participation and I hope the support of this Parliament in creating a Commission which reflects a modern, transparent and efficient management structure and system.
My group's fourth demand therefore is that a timetable for negotiations between Parliament and the Commission be drawn up by the end of this week to structure the final shape of the Commission management structure of the future.
Tabling a motion of censure is not a measure I take lightly.
It is the most powerful weapon which Parliament possesses.
But refusing to discharge the 1996 budget is not just the simple technical issue which some in this House are now trying to portray it as.
In the weeks leading up to the discharge vote, this issue became a major issue of confidence - rightly so, in my view.
There is very little as important as the way in which the Commission spends public money at a time when public funds are under desperately tight control for reasons which we all know.
It is simply unacceptable to say we do not trust the Commission with the spending of public money but we are not prepared to do anything further about it.
The only institutional power which this House has is to remove the entire Commission if we believe the situation is so grave and beyond redemption.
Simply to do nothing, to fail to respond is not acceptable.
This debate - and in particular the Commission's response - is our opportunity to make that judgment.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Santer, Members of the Commission, I shall be talking for three minutes on behalf of 69 Members, after hearing Mrs Green talk for seventeen and a half minutes on behalf of 64 or 65 Members!
I must begin, however, by expressing my warmest thanks to the 60 Members who have had the courage to put their names to another motion of censure, a genuine motion of censure.
These 69 Members represent all the political groups in this House: nine from the GUE Group, one from the Socialist Group, 13 from the Green Group, two from the ARE Group, two from the ELDR Group, four from the UPE Group, 11 from the PPE Group - to be followed, I gather, by many more - plus 16 from the I-EDN Group and 11 from the NI Group.
These Members represent all the European Union countries with the sole exception of Luxembourg.
In putting down this motion of censure which, unlike the Socialist motion, is an unambiguous motion of censure and not a motion of confidence in disguise, those Members who have signed it are, given the seriousness of the accusations levelled at the Commission, carrying through the logical consequence of the vote held on 17 December.
Because that is what this is all about.
Over the last four years, the Court of Auditors has not once given a clear endorsement of the legality and regularity of payments made by the Commission.
In its reports, the Court of Auditors has exposed the scandal of loans to tourism and the scandal of the Mediterranean programmes; more recently, the scandal over ECHO and those concerning goods in transit and the Commission's buildings; and, more recently still, the cancellation of a recruitment competition due to cheating.
And we have just now received, for the first time, a document dated 8 January which I would invite you to read because it details all the facts of which the Commission stands accused, together with the legal procedures which have been instituted, albeit sometimes late in the day.
And I would invite you to ask some very simple questions: how, for example, can it be that Mr Perry had a privileged relationship with the Commission of the European Union for a period of 28 years, to the point where his name featured in the directory of Commission departments? How can it be that he negotiated contracts to a total value of several hundred million ECU with 17 directorates-general?
The issue here is not the position of this or that Commissioner, not even the position of the President of the Commission; what is at issue is the credibility of the European Parliament and the confidence of Member State citizens in the European institutions.
This is what we, who have put down the real motion of censure, are seeking to restore: we want to restore our people's confidence in the institutions of the European Union and, contrary to what I have heard said, that will strengthen rather than weaken the building of Europe.
For this reason I would urge you, ladies and gentlemen, whatever happens in the next few days, to vote for the motion of censure, the only genuine motion of censure, which I and 68 of my fellow Members have put down.
Applause from certain quarters
Mr President, Mr Santer, Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I do not plan to use up the full 20 minutes. I shall speak again presently after the Commission President has addressed the House.
We are undoubtedly - I think no one should have any illusions about it - experiencing a crisis of severe proportions in the European Union between Parliament and the Commission.
The first thing I must say is that the indirect or moral support given by the European Commission to the idea of a motion of censure was a major political blunder.
More specifically, we tried, under the direction of the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, on the basis of Mr Elles's report and on the basis of Mr Bösch's report, to get a dialogue going between the European Parliament and the Commission.
We asked for compliance with the rules of this House which say that if a discharge is not granted for a given year, the debate must be continued between the Commission and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
This, Mr Santer, is the first point made in our oral question: we want you to explain this to us.
We think you engaged in a political manoeuvre which has benefited neither the Commission nor Parliament and has now brought us to the brink of a deep political crisis.
I think in all honesty that this has to be said.
The whole matter has been heavily politicised and I think that was very wrong.
I said here on 17 December, on behalf of our group, that we retained our faith in the Commission President that he would carry out the reforms which were manifestly an absolute necessity, and in that way restore real confidence between Parliament and the Commission.
I also said at the time - and Mrs Green accused me of hypocrisy, but it was not hypocrisy, anything but - that we wanted to base ourselves on paragraphs 26 and 27 of the motion for a resolution in Mr Elles's report.
As I say, we are now on the brink of a political crisis.
We risk a major political crisis.
So this is, in the true sense of the word, a debate on Parliament's confidence in the Commission.
I agree with those who say - and I shall say it in my conclusion - that confidence between Parliament and the Commission is vitally important to the European Union.
Our two institutions act as a motor, a driving force, in the process of EU integration.
There is still, Mr Santer, a very large majority of more than two thirds in this House in favour of bringing this job of integration, this European Union, to completion under your inspiring guidance and on the basis of your proposal.
We cannot, you cannot, raise the question of confidence today.
The Treaty does not make provision for that.
We cannot put down a motion of confidence.
The Treaty does not make provision for it.
We have the feeling that the motion of censure is being used, and the term 'disguise' has been mentioned, as a way of protecting certain Commissioners.
Applause
Well, I have to make the point most clearly that it would be disastrous for the Commission if a majority of Parliament were to vote against the Commission.
The formal rules of Article 144 of the Treaty will not help you.
Nevertheless - and I shall speak as objectively as possible - it is not the Commission's political activities which are at issue here today.
This Commission can pride itself on having achieved very considerable and important political results.
Take the euro. What would the outcome have been there but for the inspiring work done by the Commission?
Take enlargement, the strengthening of the internal market, which now includes new areas such as energy and telecommunications, the European Employment Pact, announced back in January 1996 and now at last confirmed in Vienna by the European Council, and also the work you have done and prepared with a view to enlargement of the European Union, Agenda 2000 and so many other things.
These are not the issue today, but objectivity requires us to say that this European Commission has done important work here.
This Commission is confronted with a harsh legacy of bad management. It is something it has inherited from the past.
You, Mr Santer, have repeatedly said that one of your priorities was to strengthen or introduce a new budgetary and administrative culture.
You said that you wanted to combat fraud, and you said too that your departments faced difficulties because of this inherited burden of bad management.
So it is not your political actions which are in question here.
What is in question - and the whole confidence issue relates to this - is management.
This may be unfair, since a good deal of it stems from the past, but you and every member of your College of Commissioners bear the political responsibility for reaching a solution.
You must show commitment if you are to win back the confidence of Parliament.
In the last few weeks, you have already spoken about the Commission of tomorrow.
You will shortly be telling us that you want to make this Commission of tomorrow a reality and see it forged in cooperation with Parliament, with the combating of fraud, transparency and the bringing of legal proceedings where necessary being a matter of course in order to bring about this process of rationalisation and reform.
We believe it is vital to have codes of conduct: codes of conduct for Commissioners, codes of conduct for relations between Commissioners, their private offices and departments, codes of conduct for officials; we want close cooperation with Parliament in considering and debating the reform of the Staff Regulations; we want transparency and good faith in the appointing of officials, more specifically those of grades A1 and A2; we want clear rules and restrictions on outside appointments; we want clear rules for management of the budget, more specifically concerning technical assistance offices; we want reform of the Financial Regulation - here too, we want clear rules for outside personnel.
But above all, fighting fraud is an absolute must.
We are talking now in this House about zero tolerance.
Zero tolerance must be applied.
We want an undertaking from you that you will in the very near future hold an open discussion with Parliament on an independent OLAF and your promise to stand by this vis-à-vis the other institutions.
We want you finally to take the initiative towards reaching an interinstitutional agreement jointly with ourselves.
Mr Santer, Members of the Commission, you face a twofold challenge.
As the saying goes 'desperate situations call for desperate remedies'.
The softly-softly approach to these problems is no longer an option.
Secondly, and possibly the biggest problem, is that you have very little time left - very little time, and we insist that you set a clear timetable for all the proposals you announce.
I shall bring my comments to an end with the following. Watching all these events unfold, those of us who have pursued the goal of European integration with conviction and dedication, who have been allies in that endeavour - and we have been together so often, with various of your predecessors too - feel let down.
I feel let down, to find ourselves facing all this at the end of this parliamentary term, after we have introduced the euro, after the historic challenge of enlargement and the discussions we have had about our own remuneration.
The deadline allowed to you is very short, Mr Santer, and your pledges have to be very clear.
For me, it is not personal, electoral or party interests that count.
They do not count. What matters to me is the future of the European Union, and I frequently feel let down.
The future of the European Union is something in which the European Commission must play an essential role, a European Commission which stands united and has the courage to take the measures we now expect of you.
Applause
Mr President, this debate is important, is necessary, and is inevitably for many here a painful debate.
It is about public accountability and how and where to draw the line.
It occurs at a critical stage in EU affairs.
For my group I want to say that we all share a consciousness about achieving the strategic agenda: the standing of the euro, the exploitation of the new powers foreseen in the Amsterdam Treaty, Agenda 2000 and enlargement, to name but a few.
In this regard, as institutions with a European vocation, the Commission and Parliament are natural allies.
But in addition to its legislative and strategic agenda the Commission is also responsible for the day-to-day management of EU affairs.
It is the job of this Parliament to ensure that these affairs are subject to democratic control and public accountability.
This House is the bar of public accountability before which the Commission is held accountable for its conduct in office.
In this domain it is natural to expect a certain degree of creative tension between the Commission, as executive, and Parliament.
This is healthy in any democracy.
We are holding this debate now because twice in the past 12 months the Commission has failed to win discharge for the 1996 budget, and because in advance of our vote on 17 December 1998 the Commission insisted that in the event of a negative outcome Parliament must clarify the situation by proceeding to a vote on a censure motion.
Many colleagues, across all political groups, while respecting the right of the Commission to adopt whatever political strategy it saw fit, deplored something they saw as tantamount to an interference in advance with parliamentary procedure and sovereignty.
Applause
While none can ever be certain, it is my strong personal conviction that the Commission turned a possible triumph into a certain defeat by that ill-timed intervention.
It is the European Commission which drew this debate upon itself.
In the opinion of the ELDR Group, a confidence debate opens a wider field of political vision and perspective.
This is not simply a reheating or recycling of the 1996 budget debate.
Procedures through the Committee on Budgetary Control provide the prospect of dealing with this affair in due course and by due process.
In this debate we have crossed a line from the politics of accounting to the politics of accountability.
The Treaty confers on Parliament the right to censure only the entire college of Commissioners.
This is a crude and indiscriminate instrument.
In popular terms it is often correctly described as the nuclear option, where on hitting the censure button the entire Commission is meant to disappear.
Like nuclear weapons themselves, it is so drastic a measure that it commends caution in its deployment.
My group believes that the European Commission is a political body.
Some argue that the Commission is merely a body of appointed bureaucrats.
There are certain key characteristics which distinguish bureaucratic from political systems.
The public perception of bureaucracy is one of red tape and endless buck-passing.
Passing the buck, shifting problems from one source to another, and not accepting ultimate personal responsibility, are among the negative features often associated in the public mind with bureaucrats.
In politics the buck must stop somewhere.
That is what the politics of democratic control and public accountability are all about.
The Treaty confers on the Commission the status of college.
The collegiality of the Commission is founded on the concept of collective responsibility.
In every Member State cabinet government operates on the basis of collective responsibility.
From time to time national cabinets and their credibility are threatened by individual ministerial or policy failure for one reason or another.
In all our democratic systems the undertaking of personal responsibility by ministers for various shortcomings or conflicts of interest, and occasionally their resignation, is seen as a strength, not as a weakness, of the system.
Applause
This recognises that, sometimes, making everyone responsible effectively means that no-one is responsible.
Why should that be the case for the European Commission? Some will answer: 'But that is the law'.
Yet Article 159 of the Treaty anticipates the possibility of Commissioners resigning without reference to specific circumstance.
Article 160 provides for a tougher remedy in respect of individual Commissioners.
While I accept that the Treaty makes no reference to the right of Parliament to censure individual Commissioners, it is silent on the right of Parliament to demand an individual, clear political preference in respect of the conduct of Commissioners' affairs.
Last month the Commission empowered itself to demand of this House a vote of confidence through the censure route.
The Commission has no legal right, as has been said, to do that.
But politically it made the choice.
This month we can borrow from the Commission's precedent.
Let Parliament empower itself to call on individual Commissioners to consider their positions even if no formal legal base exists.
For some years now Parliament has demanded the right of individual censure.
This aspiration has not yet been accommodated in law.
It has been expressed today by us only in an abstract form.
Today's debate, in a concrete way, challenges each individual MEP to consider whether politically the circumstances exist to warrant a clear political statement demanding individual responsibility.
My group was appalled, politically speaking, at the blandness of the terms of the Socialist pseudo-censure motion of December.
It offered political carte blanche to the entire Commission and in the light of the information available to us, it would have been incomprehensible for us to support it simpliciter .
Equally, to sack the entire Commission would appear disproportionate.
Consequently our strategy was to add to the censure debate an oral question.
In our motion for a resolution we have called on two named Commissioners to consider their positions.
I want it to be understood in the clearest terms that we are not acting in place of a court of law, nor as a public prosecutor; we are making no presumption about guilt or innocence since these belong to the judicial domain.
We are charging no-one with personal fraud or rank corruption.
We are simply calling a political judgment that the rot in terms of mismanagement, irregularity, fraud and petty corruption will never stop if every Commissioner can constantly rely on the legal shield of collegiality and avoid personal responsibility.
Loud applause
This is the political issue at stake.
This is the choice that the House must make.
We must cross the bridge; we must move from aspiration and the abstract in a concrete form to demand that individuals be accountable for the mismanagement in their own areas of responsibility.
Loud applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the motion of censure tabled by Mrs Green and 70 or so Socialist Members, whose number has now dwindled to 65, which in reality is meant to be a motion of confidence in the Commission, represents a real abuse of procedure.
Whilst Parliament's Rules of Procedure appear to have been respected formally, since the text put down bears the words 'motion of censure', the content of the bottle is not as stated on the label, the goods being sold are misrepresented, and this should, in my view, have made this text inadmissible on the grounds of the fundamental contradiction as regards the operative legal part and its explanatory statement.
This prompted some of our fellow Members, at the instigation of Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, to put down a real motion of censure.
The political objectives behind the Socialist text, to my mind, are still more reprehensible.
The aim is purely and simply to neutralise the political impact of the vote we took in December by a very large majority - 270 for and 225 against - to deny the Commission a discharge in respect of the management of budget appropriations in 1996.
The Socialists are bad losers.
What is more, they appear to have been orchestrated by the Commission which, prior to the December vote, had challenged the European Parliament to table a motion of censure.
This House would make itself a public laughing-stock if, after so unambiguously refusing to give the Commission a discharge for its management in December, it then gave it a vote of confidence without further ado in January.
All that is hypocrisy on a massive scale, and our group will have no part of it.
Applause from certain quarters
For this reason we, like the Liberal Group and the PPE Group, want the Commission to give an account of what it intends to do as a consequence of our December vote, and we want it to shoulder its responsibilities in full, something it has not done convincingly so far.
Only from the answers it gives can we decide whether or not we should censure it; that is the purpose of our oral question.
The multiple shortcomings in the Commission's financial management which have come to light are so serious that they demand a firm and swift response from the Commission. Its credibility is at stake.
These shortcomings are nothing new, it is true.
Their roots predate the time when the present Commission took office, but that fact does not exonerate the Commission as a whole from its own responsibilities, nor does it exonerate any one Commissioner individually, whether he held office before 1994 or since then.
But I prefer not to name names until the facts have established incontrovertibly who was responsible for what.
The main accusation currently levelled at the Commission is the veil of secrecy behind which it retreats in the face of the revelations made in various leaks originating from within its own departments.
By adopting ostrich tactics, by improperly pleading the excuse of confidentiality to the official audit and supervisory bodies, it has fostered the gravest suspicions.
If the Commission had voluntarily, and right from the outset, opted for full transparency vis-à-vis the outside audit and supervisory bodies, the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament, it would not be in the pitiful position it finds itself in today.
It would find it easier to refute, with proper supporting evidence, certain allegations which are unfounded or are motivated purely by partisan political considerations of the kind that pop up here and there in the press, rather than merely dismissing them indignantly, as it does at present.
But if, as a result of ongoing judicial or internal inquiries, serious clusters of presumptions suggest that present or past Commissioners or officials have failed in their duties, the Commission must have the courage to take the full consequences.
If members of the College of Commissioners are involved, it must ask them to resign, on pain of being compulsorily retired under the terms of Article 160 of the Treaty.
In the case of an official, of any grade, it must impose the requisite penalties and not simply punish a few scapegoats in lieu of more senior officials.
Applause from certain quarters
Only if it changes its behaviour in this radical way can the Commission recreate a climate of trust between itself and the European Parliament and all the Union's institutions.
It must stop projecting the image of a closed shop of nepotism and favouritism.
It must also conduct a meticulous inquiry into the conditions surrounding its conclusion of service contracts, including those in the information technology sector.
Only by lopping off its diseased branches, by cleaning up its act, can it regain the moral authority it needs to tackle the major challenges which the European Union faces today.
By doing this it will restore confidence in the very big majority - I am tempted to say the overwhelming majority - of the members and officials of the Commission whose moral integrity is not in doubt.
Mr Santer, it is your duty to spearhead this change in behaviour.
As for the UPE Group, we shall decide, not only on the basis of what you say but of what you do in the next few weeks, whether or not a return to confidence is justified, but there is no question of our giving you on Thursday a 'blanket' vote of confidence of the kind our Socialist Members would like.
Applause from the UPE Group
Mr President, Mr Santer, in the last part-session in December the European Parliament considered that the conditions for granting discharge to the Commission for the 1996 budget had not been met. It therefore voted to refuse discharge by a significant majority.
We believe that this was a decision of great significance and indisputable political importance, particularly as it was based on extremely serious accusations involving a combination of a lack of transparency and information, various irregularities, abuses of power and nepotism, as well as several cases of fraud involving enormous sums of money.
Now that we must again vote on this issue, we should firstly repeat what we said then: last December's decision is valid in itself.
Therefore, regardless of the results of the motions of censure now being discussed, Parliament must continue and extend the questioning which prompted its decision, as the Commission must now, for several reasons, give an adequate, reasoned and appropriate response to the accusations directed against it.
We are emphasising these seemingly obvious aspects simply because the reasons and objectives that led the Socialist Group to table the motion of censure behind this debate seem to us to have dubious grounds and credibility.
I will not spend long on these procedural questions as I consider the substantive questions to be of greater interest.
However, because these questions have an important political aspect, despite their procedural nature, I must point out that the reasons and terms of this motion of censure have an unmistakeable underlying intention of responding positively and quickly to the inadequate statement by the Commission which preceded the discharge vote. In fact, it seems as if the European Parliament is answerable to the Commission, rather than the other way round as stipulated by the Treaties.
Similarly, these reasons and terms also have a clear underlying intention of finally and fully settling the issues that led to the refusal of discharge. They also perhaps have a hidden intention of preventing the tabling of a proper motion of censure in due course, once the full inquiry into the Commission's responsibilities has been completed.
Clearly, we do not agree with the Socialist Group's reasons as they may mean, and in fact do mean, joint responsibility for this whole problem.
Besides, it must be pointed out in this respect that this initiative by the Socialist Group has had the effect of raising public awareness in all our countries about something that was previously restricted to the institutions and to a few people in a few countries. This is something that was certainly not expected of them and that is definitely not welcome.
But it has obviously given increased relevance to this debate and particularly to the substantive questions.
However, the need for stability has been mentioned, particularly given the major decisions to be made shortly.
This is a reason, according to some, for giving the Commission a vote of confidence.
We totally and immediately refute this argument because, if the current climate of suspicion continues together with a weakened and discredited Commission, any danger lies in the negative aspects of the current debate being transmitted to and infecting the other debate.
Besides, in our opinion there are no good or bad moments for rigorously and extensively tackling questions as serious as these on fraud.
In addition to which, and as we stated in the discharge motion, this is not a process that can be analysed based on immediate interests, the proximity of elections or the stage of the Commission's mandate, but rather on the basis of what is fundamentally at issue.
Having reached this point and faced as we are with what purports to be a vote of confidence in the Commission, we feel that the gravity of the accusations threatening the latter makes these unavoidable. These accusations originate from Parliament itself, in a series of reports adopted by large majorities in many cases, as well as from the Court of Auditors and even senior Commission officials.
They relate to various irregularities, particularly in the Tourism, ECHO, PHARE, TACIS, MED and Leonardo programmes, and are connected with vote-catching - and particularly with the so-called 'whistle-blowers' - and cases of fraud involving extremely large amounts.
These are accusations in which at least one inadequate collaboration with the legal authorities of certain countries is highlighted and in which undeniable problems and omissions in the transmission of information to the European Parliament are apparent. To these can also now be added the unfortunate proceedings against a Commission official, as mentioned previously.
How is it possible, under these terms and in such a biased manner, to give a vote of confidence to the Commission?
This will obviously not be given by a large majority of my group, just as with the vote in December.
We would state very clearly that, in our opinion, the Commission, regardless of its individual responsibilities, has a collective political responsibility for these problems which it must now accept.
We are therefore hoping, Mr Santer, for total clarity, a lack of equivocation and, in particular, a wide-ranging sense of responsibility.
We particularly hope that this affair will result in greater efficiency in the future in the implementation of policies. We want to see this take place basically through extensive analysis and substantial alteration in terms of the causes of such a wide range of offences, which are usually associated with a policy of service privatisation, but which are fundamentally linked to the imbalance between the extensive powers granted to the Commission and the limited democratic control of these powers.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today sees a hard-nosed confrontation between Parliament and the Commission over our refusal to grant a discharge.
The Commission itself brought things to a head and secured the support of Parliament's largest group in equating the refusal of the discharge with a motion of censure.
But it is the Commission which is primarily responsible for this blunder.
Meanwhile, many other items have been added to the list of things which are weakening the Commission's position further.
This is not the only confrontation we have had.
There have been others during this parliamentary term.
The reason is that Parliament has been given greater powers and knows that it is prepared to use them.
We are the ones who have to be accountable to the peoples of Europe if taxpayers' money is not spent wisely and honestly.
What makes us keen to confront the Commission is our belief that we need a strong Commission if we are truly to shape Europe, to develop the Union.
But the problem at the moment is not whether we need a Commission to take the Union forward, but whether a discredited and weak Commission is still capable of helping that European Union to survive.
That is the problem.
The way in which the Commission has proceeded against its official Mr Van Buitenen is quite simply disgusting.
His only crime is to have gone to Parliament after months of waiting in vain for his superiors to act.
This man has been suspended with immediate effect, and it is not the fact that this case came to light, but the fact that this suspension came to light which called forth a storm of protest.
Here too the Commission bears a heavy responsibility, not only for financial mismanagement but also for a number of specific dossiers.
For example the BSE crisis, for example the way in which the Commission approves the sale of genetically modified foods against the wishes of a majority of the population of Europe, the way in which economic issues are negotiated: for all these reasons, my group says yes to the censure motion.
But however that censure motion goes, the Greens want in any event to back a resolution which is as tough as it can be, because this Union must operate with a Commission which is able to keep things in order and take up the challenges which face it, and the ability of the Commission to do that with its current membership is very much open to question.
Applause from the Green Group
Mr President, it is not easy to be fair in a pernicious climate where anything goes.
Being fair, in our group's view, means first asking the Commission to provide all the explanations we need to understand what has happened and to admit its mistakes, notably its errors of management.
We also need to know exactly whether there has been fraud or malpractice and, if so, who the perpetrators were.
And then we need to see firm undertakings from the Commission that it will reform its management and working methods.
This need for transparency and clarity is a democratic sine qua non .
It is not just Parliament's right, but also its duty, to know the truth and to take the political action which its powers entitle it to take, namely the passing of a motion of censure.
But in all fairness, we must not launch off into wild accusations.
Yes, we must combat bad management and fraud.
But we can only do that by respecting the rule of law.
And what we are seeing today is a brawl which shows scant regard for anybody.
Unproven accusations are being fired off on the basis of rumour and hearsay.
That is already a serious matter when the responsibility of the Commission as a body is under attack, but it is more serious still when individuals are being named and accused left, right and centre.
If you accuse someone, you have to have proof.
You have to follow legal procedure too, allow people the right to defend themselves, and so on.
Thus there is no way we can approve a motion for a resolution of the kind which is doing the rounds in this House and which targets two Commissioners in particular, unless the judicial rules I mentioned have been respected.
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We must not fall between the Scylla of immunity from punishment, which would be intolerable, and the Charybdis of unproven condemnation, which would be even more intolerable if the attackers are targeting individuals, rather than daring to attack the Commission as a whole.
The current climate within the European institutions is unhealthy and is damaging to the further building of Europe.
Exploiting these matters for political ends does nothing to improve the situation.
I hope, Mr Santer, that in your reply you will give Parliament the assurances it has been wanting to see for too long, so that the calm which we need and which you need can be restored.
Our group, or at least the majority of our group, will decide how to vote in a desire to do what can be done to preserve the credibility of the European institutions.
But that credibility is sorely undermined at present.
We have always wanted and always wished for a strong Commission.
As far as that goes, we have precisely the opposite.
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Mr President, in February 1997 when the European Parliament was launching its inquiry into mad cow disease, our colleague Jean-Claude Martinez criticised the Commission for its 'deafening silence'.
He criticised the gross errors, the lies, the maladministration and this silence, the purpose of which was not to imperil the 1993 single market and the single currency envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty.
If the French electorate had known the truth about BSE on 20 September 1992, what chance would there have been of securing the few thousand 'yes' votes needed for victory?
The ideology behind building a federal Europe justified political passivity, according to Mr Martinez.
Mr MacSharry, the European Agriculture Commissioner, justified himself by saying that he wanted to protect the beef and veal market in the face of this terrible disease.
Trade before health, was the European Commission's watchword.
Looking at the Elles report, it would seem that this harsh lesson has taught the Commission nothing.
Fraud and misappropriation of funds are now widespread throughout the Commission: the Directorate-General for Tourism, the MED programme, the ECHO programme, the security services, Edith Cresson's private office.
Through ECHO, the EEC's humanitarian office, for example, the European Union provides a quarter of world humanitarian aid.
Part of the aid to former Yugoslavia and the Great Lakes region of Africa has been misappropriated, to a total thought to be between ECU 500 000 and 1 500 000.
As for the MED programme of aid to the Mediterranean countries, here too there have been grave irregularities, mainly involving the company ARTM, which did not take part in tendering procedures but was awarded most of the contracts for the MED programme.
And there are many more such examples.
In his defence, Mr Santer may claim that the frauds did not start with him but under his Socialist predecessor, Jacques Delors, for whom stewardship was of no importance.
It is true that embezzlement and misappropriation of public funds are a Socialist speciality, from the time of Mitterrand and Dumas to the present day, when the two Commissioners implicated in the recent affairs are both Socialists, Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín.
It goes some way towards explaining why Mrs Green, on behalf of the Socialist Group, should be protecting this Commission, which is guilty of serious dereliction of duty and ought to resign en bloc .
There is a danger of a rebound effect, that the European Parliament might be subjected to close scrutiny next, and then who knows ...
In point of fact, the European Commission, in its 'corporate' reflex action to cover up gross misdemeanours of a criminal nature and manifest irregularities, its failure to launch internal disciplinary procedures or its late launching of them and its obstruction of the course of justice, can claim no extenuating circumstances whatsoever.
It is unacceptable and unjustifiable that an institution of this kind, which is irresponsible in the true sense of the word, should be demanding new powers as envisaged in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties and, at the same time, should be wasting European taxpayers' money without punishing the black sheep.
What it does do is suspend a Dutch Eurocrat for the crime of blowing the whistle on its Mafia-style practices.
It is the well-known technique of finding a scapegoat.
Messrs Chirac, Seguin, Pasqua, Madelin, Bayrou, Jospin, Cohn-Bendit, Hue, all of you upholders of a federalist Europe and the shameful Treaties of Amsterdam and Maastricht, you are responsible both for the exorbitant powers of the European Commission, a truly totalitarian bureaucracy, and for the culpable weakness you show towards this institution which has so sadly lost its way.
I mentioned the Socialists just now.
But the Christian Democrats are even more hypocritical.
They will not grant the discharge, but then they say that this rejection does not mean a referral back to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It is the conditional censure on mad cow disease all over again, a kind of cardboard sword of Damocles, which only fools those who want to be fooled.
Ladies and gentlemen, voting to withhold the discharge from the European Commission and voting to censure it are two acts which are legally separate but which politically go together.
One cannot punish an authority and then fail to draw the political consequences without discrediting the institution to which one belongs.
The French National Front, with Jean-Marie Le Pen for whom I speak today, will vote to censure the European Commission and denounce this institution which is dedicated to building a supranationalist and federalist Europe and which, believing itself to be above the law, thinks that it can flout it with impunity.
With the European elections just a few months away, the Europe of nations and peoples which we represent rejects this wicked Europe, this Europe of privilege, of chicanery and abuse, whose absolutist rulers and lackeys will be punished next June by the peoples of Europe who care deeply about their national sovereignty and their identity.
I am also surprised, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, that my name is not amongst the signatories of your motion, since I did sign it and gave you my signature last week.
I am surprised too that your motion was not sent to some of our fellow Members.
Is this a desire to sideline some Members, including those from the National Front, for fear of playing into the hands of our opponents here? I prefer to assume it is an oversight, a piece of carelessness which is unlike you, however, and I hope that you will remedy this oversight with Parliament's administrative services.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last December the European Parliament held an in-depth debate on the discharge for implementation of the 1996 budget.
Today we are embarking on another debate.
On the table there are censure motions and a number of oral questions.
The real issue is that of confidence between our two institutions. That confidence has been shaken of late, and I am prepared to accept my share of responsibility here.
Manifestly, clarification has become necessary.
I say that because I have a deep respect for the constitutional role of the European Parliament.
For more than four years now, I have seen how vital it is to the European Union that a relationship of trust should exist between our two institutions.
The successes we have achieved recently would not have been possible without close cooperation between the European Parliament and the Commission.
I am sure that the Members of this House will judge the Commission on its overall activities and its actual record as a college.
I shall try to show that the confidence of the European Parliament is well founded, and essential to the completion of the Union's ambitious programme in the months to come.
Mr President, I have always said that I wanted to be judged on what I have done, on my track record.
I invite you to re-read my inaugural address to you in January 1995 and judge for yourselves whether I have kept my word.
Four years ago, I said that if we wanted a strong economy we would have to have a strong currency, and I added that I was optimistic, that economic and monetary union would come and it would change our peoples' lives.
Eleven days ago we saw the birth of the euro.
It reflects a Europe which is getting there.
One thing is certain: right from the start, the Commission has played a leading part - prior to 1995, of course, thanks to my predecessor Jacques Delors, but since 1995 as well. Where would we be today if we had not presented our Green Paper on progress towards a single currency in May 1995?
If, together with my colleagues, I had not pushed forward week after week with the technical preparation, contradicted the detractors, called for budgetary discipline, reassured the many people who still expressed doubts? In this battle, I have always had the confidence of Parliament, and it was vital.
In my inaugural address, I stressed that the internal market was crucial to our efforts for growth.
As I announced at the time, we have opened up the energy and telecommunications markets.
We have spectacularly improved the speed at which directives are transposed into national law, imposing where necessary the sanctions provided for in Article 171 of the Treaty.
And as promised, we have pursued a rigorous competition policy.
Four years ago, I named employment as our principal priority.
I am gratified to see that the European Council has now come to share that view.
In January 1996, I put to you the idea of a European Employment Pact.
You received it enthusiastically.
In Florence, however, the response of the European Council was polite but cool.
There was great scepticism.
It was only as a result of our joint action, plus action by some Member States, that a chapter was finally included in the Treaty.
A new and valuable step was secured at the special summit in Luxembourg with the adoption of the guidelines put forward by the Commission.
In Vienna, the Heads of State and Government took yet another step by endorsing the concept of a pact.
And thanks to the resumption of growth, thanks to the strategy put in place, unemployment is falling and in Europe it has now dropped below the 10 % level.
The battle is far from over, but the Union now has the weapons to win it.
In 1995, the process of institutional deliberation following Maastricht was still in its infancy.
In June 1997, the Treaty of Amsterdam was born.
This was a significant new step along the road towards European integration.
Cooperation between our two institutions was exemplary during the negotiations.
And that is reflected in the end result which, though it does not meet all our aspirations, is a good one.
A chapter on employment, a significant advance towards an area of freedom, security and justice - these are concrete responses to our citizens' concerns, with greater powers for the European Parliament and the President of the Commission.
The Union, following the strategy devised by the Commission, has launched the most ambitious accession process in its history.
That process, thanks to the pre-accession strategy which has been put in place, already makes the applicant countries part of our common family.
Who would have thought it just a few years ago? Of course much remains to be done, on the applicants' side, certainly, but on our side too.
Hence the importance of Agenda 2000, the expression of a global approach encompassing enlargement, policy reform and the financial framework.
This is the biggest package of measures which the Commission has ever put forward.
Mr President, in January 1995 I said that one area of work requiring particular effort was internal management.
I promised to improve the budgetary and administrative culture within the Commission.
I also promised to make the combating of fraud a priority.
Events surrounding the discharge prove that I was right to give such importance to this aspect of things, one which had been neglected too much in the past.
They prove too that the reforms already carried through are far from adequate and that much remains to be done.
Together with my colleagues, I have undertaken ambitious modernisation programmes whose objective is clear: to restore good management, to improve efficiency and supervision, to decentralise the work of our departments, to make our officials accountable.
We have made more reforms in four years than in the 40 years before that.
We have battled against irregularities, we have stepped up our efforts against fraud.
Protests
In 1994, ladies and gentlemen - bear with me - UCLAF had a staff of 50 compared with 140 now.
In 1994, UCLAF handled 220 inquiries.
Today the figure is 950 and the results are there to see, in UCLAF's annual reports.
In improving the work of UCLAF we have uncovered cases in which Commission officials are implicated, and each of these cases causes me pain.
Every time it is Europe which is the great loser.
We have been criticised for our handling of these cases.
I assure you that there is no malign intent on our part, there is no intention to cover up anything at all.
I have been a public servant for 30 years.
I have always regarded it as a privilege and one which demands absolute integrity.
I respect taxpayers' money.
Fraudsters have to be punished, with Parliament's help.
On that I am more determined than ever.
Let me return to the idea of confidence, Mr President,
Mixed reactions
you have nothing to lose by listening to me - the Commission needs that confidence in order to work and to succeed.
There is much to be done.
There are important things for us to complete successfully under a true contract of trust between our two institutions.The Union is gearing up for new challenges.
The birth of the euro is a success.
The whole world admires us for having made a reality of something which, a short time ago, seemed a distant dream.
Let us continue along this road together.
I think too that we should reflect together in the months to come on the institutional future of the Union.
We must draw the necessary conclusions from the high degree of integration we have reached and prepare for future enlargement.
I shall be putting our ideas and proposals on this matter to you before the elections to the new European Parliament.
In a few weeks' time, at the end of March, we have an important date with each other!
I refer to the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
Agreement will mean a new and decisive step forward for the Union.
This too is a question of confidence.
Nothing would be gained by a re-run of the experience of the early 1980s, when squabbles over the budget paralysed the life of the Union.
That was a serious matter then.
It would be a catastrophe now.
So we have to reach agreement.
Another major dossier awaits us in 1999, justice and home affairs.
Over the years, this field has come into sharper focus.
Amsterdam was a valuable advance, on paper at least.
Action has to follow.
That is why I suggested to the Heads of State and Government that we hold a special summit on the area of freedom, security and justice, of the kind we held in Luxembourg on employment.
It will take place in Tampere, Finland.
It will need meticulous preparation, and we shall do that.
Mr President, the initiative of the 'Commission of tomorrow', which I have launched, is the last great ambition of my term of office.
It may be helpful to remind you of its broad lines.
Thorough reflection is needed on the Commission's future role within a fast-changing Union.
That is our first line of thought.
The second concerns the future structures of the Commission, its internal organisation.
These have to be adapted to changes in the Union and society, the progress of the new treaty and the defining of the Union's priorities for action.
Lastly, in the third line, I plan to continue and deepen the reform of our financial and personnel management.
The criticisms voiced by the European Parliament in connection with the debate on the discharge will serve as a further spur to us.
They challenge us, they prompt us to look critically at how we operate and how we manage things.
It is the Commission's job to put its house in order.
Of course, the European Parliament as the body responsible for exercising political scrutiny has a legitimate interest to uphold.
And I am suggesting that we hold an in-depth dialogue on these matters over the next few months.
Today all the groups have asked oral questions on this matter.
I shall refer to paragraphs 26 and 27 of Mr Elles's motion for a resolution on the 1996 discharge.
I am responding to this specifically by presenting an eight-point programme.
Firstly, I shall present the next president-designate with a full and reasoned proposal on the structure of portfolios and the organisation of departments.
At the end of 1997, we began a comprehensive screening of the Commission's activities and departments.
The results of this, currently nearing completion, will form the basis of my proposal.
I shall make it public and will forward it to the European Parliament.
The structures of the Commission do in fact have implications for the other institutions.
I shall implement this new overall concept before the end of my term, in agreement with the new president-designate.
This will be very helpful for the hearings of future members of the Commission which Parliament will hold towards the end of the year.
My second point concerns priorities and the resources available to implement them.
For the last four years the Commission, with the support of the budgetary authority, has operated a policy of zero growth in personnel, apart from the requirements of enlargement.
This approach is part of the Member States' efforts at stringency.
It has forced us to use our human resources more rationally and to concentrate more on priority tasks.
This effort has its limits unless it is shared by Parliament and the Council, whose demands largely shape the Commission's programme of work.
I have to say, with the human resources which we have at present, we have reached the limits of what can be achieved.
If we have had management difficulties, it is partly because the Commission has too often taken on jobs for which it did not have enough staff.
From now on, the question of staff resources will have to be systematically reviewed.
Thirdly, I plan to introduce an overall set of rules governing the work of Commissioners and their private offices and departments.
It will comprise three codes of conduct.
Preparation of these is well in hand.
They will form the base for a true culture of European administration.
I will start at the political level with the Commissioners.
This Commission was the first, on 22 November 1995, to lay down rules of conduct in interpretation of Article 157 of the Treaty.
For example, and I quote, 'members of the Commission may not ... engage in any other occupation, whether gainful or not.' They may not accept any payment for speeches, lectures and other services of this kind; they must declare all travel and accommodation expenses paid by the organisers of an event.
The members of this Commission were the first to make a declaration of their financial interests.
These declarations are available to the public.
I shall combine these various measures in an ambitious code of conduct, modelled on best practice, and this code of conduct will be given to the next president-designate.
The second code of conduct concerns relations between Commissioners and their private offices and departments.
It will clearly define the respective roles of all of them; it will set transparent rules for the membership of private offices and for appointments made from within these.
I can tell you now that I shall be recommending a reduction in the number of staff in private offices, a greater mix of nationalities in them and a limitation of the number of temporary staff.
I shall pass this code to the new president-designate.
As regards officials, I gave instructions some months ago for work to begin on a code of conduct setting out clear rules of behaviour.
This code, which will be completed by the end of February, will have three parts: ethical and professional principles applicable to staff of the Commission; rights and obligations of officials and penalties for non-compliance; and rules of conduct in relations with the public.
Fourthly, regarding the ongoing process of reforming the management of personnel, I shall between now and the end of January 1999 be putting forward a timetable for modernising the administration.
Many measures have been taken or are currently under way.
I am planning radical reforms of recruitment, mobility, training, career management, incentives and penalties.
Some measures will require amendment of the Staff Regulations, others will not.
For this we have had, since 9 November last, an excellent report compiled by a think-tank headed by former Secretary-General David Williamson.
This report, which touches too on issues relevant to the other institutions, is the subject of close consultation with these other institutions, and Parliament in particular.
A timetable for reforming the Staff Regulations, with due regard for the social dialogue, will be drawn up by common agreement.
My fifth point deals more specifically with the question of appointments.
Concerning the delicate matter of appointments in grades A1 and A2, I have always ensured that priority was given to internal promotions.
To clarify matters, however, I shall draw up clear rules of conduct for outside appointments.
In the meantime I shall not authorise any outside appointment made from within private offices.
I also intend, in a general manner, to introduce a probation period for appointments to supervisory posts.
I shall take care to ensure that every applicant for one of these posts possesses professional management experience.
Point six is budgetary management, which is the central theme of the Elles report.
I shall not go back here over the reforms already carried out in the context of SEM 2000.
I have three additional things to announce: firstly, a formal proposal, before the end of the first half of 1999, on recasting the Financial Regulation; secondly, the swift preparation of clear and transparent rules on the use of outside staff; and thirdly, on the subject of technical assistance offices, the famous TAOs, I welcome Parliament's decision to clarify the situation concerning administrative appropriations chargeable to part B of the budget.
In the spring, we shall be presenting a general vade-mecum on these offices.
As regards the specific case of the technical assistance office for Leonardo, mentioned in a number of oral questions, a report by our financial controller was sent to the Committee on Budgetary Control before Christmas.
That report reveals a number of problems over the financial management and internal audit of this office, but does not deal with the management of Directorate-General XXII, which in any case refused to sanction some of the spending declared by this TAO.
Whether or not we continue cooperating with the technical assistance office in question will depend on a clear improvement in its management.
My seventh point: the combating of fraud has been one of the most controversial points in our relationship in recent times.
As I said earlier, we have significantly intensified our efforts against fraud.
Ten times in six years, we have referred cases of alleged fraud involving Commission employees to the judicial authorities.
We have increased the staff of UCLAF threefold.
Having said that, I agree with you: we have to practise zero tolerance here.
Good is not enough, we need to be above reproach.
We have to learn all the lessons which the experience of recent months has taught us, also as regards transparency vis-à-vis the European Parliament.
If there is one area where we have to work hand in hand, this is it.
On the subject of our proposal to create an independent interinstitutional office, I know that you are wondering about that.
Let us discuss it.
It is important to reach agreement as soon as possible, and I raised the question just this morning with the President of the European Council, Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
I welcome the Chancellor's suggestion of a high-level group comprising representatives of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission, to examine the Commission's proposal and reach an agreement before the end of March.
I should add that I am willing to consider all possible variants, provided that efficiency is guaranteed and the mechanisms adopted eliminate any suspicion of interference in the independence of inquiries.
Still on the subject of anti-fraud measures, I should like to reply briefly to the questions on the suspension of a Commission official.
I will start by stressing that it is the right and even the duty of any official, whoever he may be, to inform his superiors or UCLAF of facts of malpractice or fraud which come to his notice.
The disciplinary proceedings against Mr Van Buitenen were not begun because he reported cases of fraud, but because the official in question disclosed documents which were confidential, on his own initiative and contrary to the terms of the Staff Regulations and administrative provisions.
I should add that some of these documents are the subject of criminal proceedings.
In acting as he did, he set himself up as judge, in place of his superiors, the supervisory authorities and the judicial authorities.
One final remark on this matter: I myself wrote to the President of the European Parliament on 9 December 1998, confirming that the director of UCLAF and the financial controller were more than willing to provide Parliament with any clarification needed on these affairs. The dossiers were also passed for immediate checking to our internal control bodies, and I will formally reiterate here that we are happy to answer any questions which the Committee on Budgetary Control might wish to ask.
My eighth and last point concerns the provision of information to Parliament by the Commission.
I am aware of your feeling that there are gaps, that you are not able to exercise your political and budgetary scrutiny to best effect.
Things must be clarified.
I repeat my offer to draw up an interinstitutional agreement on the practicalities of how we can provide information to Parliament.
We might very well include in this the suggestion I have heard made here that programmes of expenditure should be monitored regularly by the appropriate committees of Parliament.
Special attention should also be paid to sensitive dossiers concerning fraud and disciplinary matters.
That, Mr President, is my eight-point programme.
It is ambitious and seeks to accommodate your suggestions and criticisms.
For each of the points raised, I have set myself the timetable which the Elles report calls for, and which you have just called for in your speeches to the House.
I have also noted your demand for a role in monitoring these reforms.
It seems to me a legitimate one and I would make two very concrete proposals forthwith: one, I will come in person, at regular intervals, to give the Conference of Presidents a progress report on the programme; two, as some of you have suggested, we will set up a committee of wise men to consider the whole issue of managing, monitoring and evaluating Community expenditure.
The independent experts on this select committee should be appointed by common agreement by our respective institutions, including the Council and Court of Auditors.
Lastly, I am altogether in favour of a plenary debate on the reforms, to be held in May.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have sought today to sketch a rapid picture of what we have achieved in the last four years, and to outline the broad objectives which I have set myself for the remainder of my term of office.
It is for you to decide, in all conscience, if you will give us the political confidence we need to complete our work.
The confidence to make Europe triumph, that is what we are asking of you today.
Applause
Mr President, Mr Santer, the second part of your speech puts me in mind of a German classical writer, Friedrich Schiller, who wrote in one of his plays 'you are late, but you have come at last'!
But in contrast to Schiller's sentiment, I have to say 'however far you have had to come, there is no excuse for being late'.
I know it is hard to make anything much of that, but I had to get it off my chest.
Above all, one has to ask the very specific question: why are the things you propose in the second half of your statement not featured in the Commission's programme for 1999?
Applause
Will you at least concede, Mr Santer - and I am putting it very politely - that it might have something to do with the pressure which Parliament has brought to bear in recent months?
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And I have to wonder if you would have said all this if we had not had this falling-out between Parliament and the Commission?
But I want to show good will, because we all need a strong Commission.
No one in this House - including those who voted against the discharge in December - wants a weak Commission.
We want and we need a strong Commission!
Applause
Mr Santer, you said at a press conference this morning - in Bonn, presumably - that the Commission had become the victim of its own transparency.
I am sure you see it that way, but can we not think back to a few real scenarios, you too, please, and all your Commissioners?
We had heated debates on mini-budgets, on BSE, and we have had heated arguments over individual shortcomings in the overall machinery of the Commission - which I think is the least of our problems, however harsh that may sound.
All of this came to light bit by bit in confrontations between the Commission and Parliament and the media.
Now I am not suggesting that the Commission has not investigated many things of its own accord, but it has always taken a lot of debate and pressure from us too to establish transparency vis-à-vis Parliament.
I just do not want you saying again self-righteously: of course Parliament is entitled to censure us, but unless there is a two-thirds majority to do that we do not need to worry about it.
In terms of the Treaty you are of course right, but is it wise to say something like that when feelings are running so high?
Applause
That is an invitation, Mr Santer, to stop you from getting it wrong again.
I see it as an invitation to those who mean nothing good for Europe and the Commission if we say 'if they are not going to worry about it anyway, we can at least get a relative majority'.
Did it not occur to you as you weighed the political implications that your doubtless well-intentioned letter of last December might have a counter-productive effect on a good many Members?
I was pleased to hear you say you will accept your share of the responsibility.
I would like to hear rather more of that.
Might the Commission as a collegiate body not say yes, a lot of things have gone wrong, but Parliament too - and I would agree - has not always scrutinised things as well as it might have?
Heckling
It must be said once and for all that, yes, we admit our responsibility for the things that have gone wrong.
Applause
And we need clear proposals for change.
You have put forward proposals now, but why did you not do it a little sooner? Every crisis brings the chance of a new beginning, that is true.
But the crisis is not always used to make a new beginning.
We have a chance now, but I think we can and must have quite a bit more before Thursday.
Applause
Mr President, Mr Santer, first I must thank you for the good words you have come up with, good words for which we have waited a very long time, perhaps - and here I agree with Mr Görlach - rather too long.
Because the confidence of which you spoke so much and on which we all count, that confidence has been put to a very severe test, and a number of questions remain unanswered.
Many people will find it very difficult to give a vote of confidence at this juncture.
But the Committee on Budgetary Control and certainly my own group have never wanted to resort to destructive means, but to use constructive means of reforming things which have been acknowledged as wrong and have to some degree shaken confidence.
I still believe that together we can achieve this.
Thus a vote of censure is not the right way; we must rebuild that confidence together.
It is unfortunate that things reached the point where we postponed the discharge, setting you a deadline for giving us an explanation of how things stand in the Commission rather than just serving up half-truths to us.
We could not help but feel that way, and we did.
The problems which still remain must be cleared up, because it is equally unpleasant for us to hear and read every day that something else is not right somewhere else.
We are the supervisory body.
Our duties as Parliament have increased.
We have become more self-confident and rightly so, because we were directly elected by the citizens of this European Union to that end.
We accept that responsibility, but we need a strong Commission, because important challenges face us. You listed them just now.
Mr Santer, you promised us a number of things from the programme which the Committee on Budgetary Control put together and our rapporteur Mr Elles presented, although regrettably it was not voted upon.
To lend emphasis to this programme, I should like to ask you four test questions, which in my view you should be perfectly able to answer. Can you give us a list of the 27 cases which UCLAF is investigating?
We know of only five, and only a few details of those. What is the position regarding the others?
Can you tell us if we shall be getting a reply from Mrs Cresson to the letter which the Committee on Budgetary Control sent her in November following a very inconclusive joint meeting? In any case, there were questions which remained open.
Unfortunately, that letter has not yet been answered.
Applause
Other information has also reached us, albeit very late in the day.
Can you tell me if you are going to withdraw the OLAF proposal, as being incompatible with what we prepared and approved? You said we are to work together.
We understand this as an offer, since we do not think your proposal is feasible as it is, because it weakens our powers to combat fraud rather than strengthening them.
And finally, what is the position with the dossiers being forwarded to the justice authorities? Can you say if they have now been referred to the courts in line with the decision taken by Parliament on three occasions?
I regard all this as a set of test questions.
I think it is fair to put them to you, Mr Santer. Our response will depend on yours.
Applause
Mr President, on a point of order, I follow up a point made by Mrs Lalumière earlier this evening.
She said that one of the problems with this debate was that people were being accused without the opportunity to defend themselves.
Could you rule whether it would be possible, even within the framework of collegiality, for the two Commissioners who have been named in Mr Cox's resolution, who have been pinpointed as to a great extent to blame for a lot of the problems that we are dealing with, to explain themselves to Parliament tonight?
Applause
The eyes of the world are on us.
Now surely, if ever, is the time for Mrs Cresson and Mr Marin to say what went wrong, whether they knew about it, and why they did not do anything about it.
Applause
Mrs Jackson, as you must surely be aware, Commissioners may take the floor whenever they feel it is appropriate, and, of course, whenever they themselves request it.
Parliament cannot force them to speak.
I should also like to stress that we are not engaged in criminal proceedings of any sort. Rather, we are considering an issue of political responsibility, and it is up to the Commissioners to decide whether or not it is appropriate for them to speak.
I give the floor to Mr Cox for three minutes.
Mr President, I want to say firstly to the President of the Commission that my group will study the detail of what he has proposed to us here this evening.
I note that with some conviction and with much right on his side, he has recited for us many of the accomplishments of the College which, as President, he has the privilege of leading.
However, I am bound to say in respect of the issues under review to do with fraud, corruption and mismanagement that tonight's contribution fell short of being a tour de force .
Ironically, Mr President of the Commission, you report - but with no sense of irony - the extra volume of work happening in respect of fraud under UCLAF.
You boast - and this is a positive thing - that we are looking at a matter of 950 cases.
I welcome that we are not leaving things aside as was done before.
But with no trace of embarrassment expressed, this represents an appalling level of suspected systemic fraud, mismanagement and corruption.
You tell us today how much the European Parliament encourages you and offers your Commission incentive to further your reform programme. Why did you not tell it last March?
Why did you not tell it between March and December?
Why did you not tell it before the vote in December? Why do you always have to be dragged here as a College, as a President, before the bar of public accountability?
Applause
In the context of this debate, Mr President of the Commission, as I said earlier my group believes this is a wider debate than merely the questions of the 1996 budget.
You chose the ground.
You insisted on the wider focus.
You insisted, as Commission, that we should proceed to a motion of censure.
I am staggered at the absence of a single, solitary word of reference to the ECHO programme.
You cannot be unaware of its significance to some people here tonight.
In the fight against fraud you proposed a new high-level group to do its work by the end of March.
Again, I ask why do we have to wait for a crisis to provoke action? You refer to the fact that gaps exist and you wish to address to them but the greatest gap is that in the willingness of your collegiate body to come before this House constantly in an open, transparent and clear way.
There is one point of detail I would like to finish on.
I should like to quote what you said about the technical assistance office for Leonardo: 'whether or not we continue cooperating with the technical assistance office in question will depend on a clear improvement in its management'.
I should like to compare that with the audit report on the same TAO.
Given the overall results of this audit: 'The audit team proposes that DG XXII seriously reconsider the continuation of the TAO.'
How can President Santer be so bland!
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, these last three years the Court of Auditors has withheld its statement of assurance, considering that it could not be given because the Court had been unable to ascertain where part of the funds had finally ended up.
The refusal to grant a discharge was thus inevitable, and this happened three weeks ago.
Mr Santer, you have come here accompanied by all your Commissioners, whom I welcome, to demonstrate, it seems to me, that there is cohesion and solidarity within your team. At our group's next meeting, we shall be looking carefully at the proposals you have just outlined and which have been distributed to us.
Mr Santer, I fear you did not understand the message this House sent you on 17 December.
The truth is that public opinion is no longer willing to accept what is diplomatically referred to as 'arrangements', as the Perilux affair has shown, and that the Commission, like Caesar's wife, must be above reproach.
From the moment it transpired that senior officials had been guilty of malpractice, you should have immediately put in train a strong and powerful inquiry to quash the rumour before it reached credible proportions.
At the informal meeting between the coordinators of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Commissioners accused in the press last September, I already said that the Commission had to take prompt and incisive action, and I must add that I find the method of feeding anonymous titbits to the press deplorable.
The presumption of innocence still exists in Europe, and the European Commissioners are entitled to have their professional integrity respected, just like any other citizen of Europe.
After the mission to Sarajevo on 21 February last headed by Tom Spencer, of which Edith Müller and myself were part, we sent you a severe reprimand in the critical report we drew up, and Commissioner van den Broek, who is present here, made some concessions, even though to our mind they are not enough.
A new system was proposed to us, an attempt was made to reduce the degree of concentration and a middle way was found between the status quo and what Parliament wanted.
Why did you not follow his example when the storm clouds began to gather, and at once suggest some concrete and forceful measures?
Mr President, having listened to you, I have to say that we are disappointed.
Personally, I think that the censure motion is a premature weapon and out of proportion to the charges which may be levelled at you once everything becomes known, and that Mrs Green has done you no service at all in rushing to your defence.
Most of us want the Committee on Budgetary Control to continue its work; we want Diemut Theato and James Elles to be truly in a position to exercise their authority in liaison with the Commission.
But given that the situation is exceptional, we expected exceptional measures from you and we have not heard them.
Our group will decide on Wednesday if it is satisfied with your explanations.
Madam President, I will be very brief.
Firstly, with regard to the proposals made by Mr Santer, I must say that these seem to virtually represent a new programme, which we regard as being extremely ill-timed and rather unprepared. Why is this?
We believe this firstly because, as already mentioned, this set of eight measures presented to us by Mr Santer is not part of his programme and therefore, as we know, it will not be this Commission and possibly not even this President who will present the next programme to this House.
This attitude therefore seems to me to be rather offhand.
Secondly, I would like to record the following. It is true that eight measures, or rather eight areas of intervention, have been presented.
However, if each of these areas or each of the measures proposed for each of these areas were analysed, we would find very little of substance in them - very little.
There are very broad intentions in eight fields but these consist of measures with very little substance to each one.
There is also another aspect that I must stress and that is cause for some disillusion on our part. We would have hoped that, in addition to the basic measures presented by Mr Santer, concrete and objective answers could have been given to the concrete and objective problems facing us at the moment.
These involve very topical situations that have led to the refusal of discharge and that require a response.
So we would like to know whether or not the Commission intends to provide answers to these problems other than those it gave previously, which this House considered insufficient, and based on which we decided to refuse discharge.
This is our question, and we naturally want an answer.
Mr President, I have to say that listening to what Mr Santer has had to say in the midst of this crisis, things seemed almost unreal at times.
Because here we are, in fact, not so much conducting a superficial debate in which understandings have to be reached, agreements reached on how things can be done better - we are actually looking at how the Commission itself analyses the situation in which it finds itself.
Who is in fact responsible for everything that has gone wrong? How is this to be clarified?
I have not had any conclusive answer to that. Mrs Theato is right in saying that only pressure, very powerful pressure, persuades the Commission to divulge information.
So we must indeed examine the texts closely.
But the fact remains that you never have the feeling that Parliament is really taken seriously as a partner with a share of the responsibility.
Secondly, as regards Mr Van Buitenen, I think it beggars belief to say that he is a whistle-blower by going to Parliament after all the avenues he tried.
I think Parliament expects a sign of goodwill towards someone who wants nothing more than a Commission which functions properly.
Lastly, I think that a committee of wise men, which will not produce its proposals until May, will work for the next Commission but not for this one.
So we are really going away empty-handed.
Mr Santer, you put us in a dilemma.
Having listened to you, I recognise your good intentions and that we share the same objective of restoring confidence, confidence in the Commission.
I see too that your statement - the successes in white and the inadequacies in grey, if not black - contains undertakings and promises too.
We shall study them with great care.
But the record of what has already been achieved in the last four years is not precise, and I can see that the members of my group are hesitant.
We shall in fact be choosing the least of a number of evils.
And I repeat what I said just now, we shall choose what we think is the best or the least bad way of restoring confidence and consolidating the position of your Commission, if it can be done.
It is very tempting to adopt a motion of censure, but that is doubtless not the best course today, given all the circumstances outlined earlier.
But what a pity, Mr Santer, that you waited so long.
We should not be in this position if the Commission had acted quickly, honestly and decisively.
Mr President, on Thursday we have an historic opportunity to take democracy within EU cooperation seriously.
Parliament has constantly struggled to gain more power, while at the same time it has failed in its supervisory function, which is the only function it should attend to.
It has not stinted on empty threats and sabre rattling.
Parliament has 'cried wolf' so many times that it shares some of the blame for the fact that the Commission believed it could do whatever it liked.
I am not particularly impressed by Mr Santer's concessions; we have heard promises to turn over a new leaf every time there have been problems with the budget. And in what Mr Santer has said there is still no question of accepting responsibility for what has happened in the past.
So, unless there is a much stronger signal from the Commission by Thursday, I still think that we should vote for a motion of censure.
Our electorate must be able to demand that of us.
Mr President, after the discharge was refused, I did not think there was any real prospect of a motion of censure.
Many honourable Members simply wanted to send the Commission a warning.
In the meantime, however, the Commission's insensitive attitude plus other cases which have come to light have altered the picture, so that this censure vote has become more likely.
It is significant that the Commission President, in anticipation of the outcome of the vote, has deemed a vote of censure without a qualified majority to be a vote of confidence.
Significant too is the attitude of the Socialist Group, which by turning the machinery on its head is seeking to transform the vote of censure into a vote of confidence.
The European Parliament has to exercise its supervisory function conscientiously and be guided only by facts and realities, with no heed for party political considerations.
But in our view the facts are there for all to see.
They speak for themselves - even after today's statement by the Commission President - and they require action accordingly.
If in this situation we do not give priority to the interests of our citizens, then their trust in the institutions of the Union will dwindle further still, and the European Parliament will lose its credibility and become even more remote from the electorate.
This situation reminds me somewhat of my former profession.
If circumstances allow, a criminal court judge shows conditional leniency.
But he very soon learns that he must be consistent in revoking that leniency if he is to retain his credibility.
The relationship between the European Parliament and the Commission can be compared to this.
Parliament, in a manner of speaking, sent a shot across the Commission's bows, but the Commission did not take it seriously enough.
Parliament must therefore call its bluff!
The much-used argument that this cannot be done because we need a Commission capable of functioning is just so much nonsense.
In the first place, this problem is covered by Article 144(2) of the Treaty, which says that the members of the Commission must continue to deal with current business until such time as their successors are appointed.
Moreover, if that argument were allowed, it would mean carte blanche for the Commission; it would remove all democratic accountability and would thus upset the institutional balance as well.
For these reasons, we independents will not only support the motion of censure: we shall also inform our citizens - whose money we are talking about, after all - of the way in which those Members to whom the interests of the party and their party cronies are more important than the interests of the electorate cast their votes.
Parliament must not tolerate the growing number of cases of fraud, nepotism, greed and incompetence.
Anyone who is not seriously concerned to clear up each and every one of these irregularities has betrayed the trust put in him.
Mr President, Mr Santer, ladies and gentlemen, our group will of course consider the wide-ranging proposals and pledges you have made and decide on our position tomorrow.
You spoke about matters of substance, and I think that everyone of good faith must agree that these are important proposals.
So we shall determine in our group where we stand on them.
I have a question, however.
You said, Mr Santer, that you accepted your share of the responsibility. I would like to ask whether other members of the Commission are also prepared to accept a share of the responsibility?
And if they have reasons and arguments for not doing so, whether they are prepared to stand up here and defend themselves? That is the very specific question I am asking.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with you, Mr Santer, that the issue here is confidence, trust between our institutions, but in my view, trust presupposes the clear acceptance of responsibilities.
What is the story here? Two Commissioners are accused of serious dereliction of duty and find themselves in the firing line.
So what does the Commission do, what does the Commission President do? All of you sitting down there can find nothing better to do than close ranks!
But you forget how easily the mud thrown at a few of you may stick to all of you.
You, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, are unnecessarily being forced into collective responsibility by one or two of your number who, in one case at least, have now come to symbolise nepotism in the EU.
Applause
Instead of closing ranks, you would have done better to pluck up courage and at last accept your political responsibility in this dispute.
Whilst it is right that the Commission should act as a collegiate body, it is wrong to cover up the misdeeds of individual Commissioners and deny their political responsibility.
That destroys the credibility of you all!
Yours too, Mr Santer!
Do what has to be done.
Persuade Mr Marín to accept the political consequences, whatever they may be.
Mr Marín, there are many ways of saying sorry - I feel guilty, I made a mistake or I accept responsibility.
Come clean about the irregularities in Commissioner Cresson's area of responsibility.
Things which may be normal in an economy of preference and favouritism cannot go uninvestigated at European level.
Give a sign of good will in Paul Van Buitenen's case.
His loyalty was to fair play and not to the hierarchy.
You have until Thursday.
Prove that you are willing to accept political responsibility at this eleventh hour!
Applause
Mr President, I speak on my own account and in some disappointment.
In the few months that I have been a Member of this House and of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I have seen how hard Parliament works to investigate when things go wrong.
As a result of that work, I and any other citizen of Europe can see that there are patterns.
These patterns are always the same.
Twilight zones are created in which practices are possible which would not be possible in any one of your countries.
But you always perform a cover-up.
When it comes out, it is because of an article in the press somewhere.
There is only one direct course of action which you take. That is when you think you know the source of that article and that information.
You punish the person concerned as harshly as you can.
Let us talk about responsibility. Today we are talking about yours, your collective responsibility as the Commission, because you have jointly accepted responsibility for everything which has gone wrong and for everything that Parliament has criticised and denounced.
I have the feeling, Mr Santer, that your fresh promises today will not satisfy any of our citizens. We want more Europe.
We want a strong Europe, but it has to be a democratic Europe with a Commission which is democratically informed and accountable and with a Parliament which has the courage to ensure that it is so.
Mr President, I too am deeply disappointed by the Commission President's reply.
His speech in the Commission's defence totally ignores the point of our accusations.
We want measures against the Commissioners and senior officials who are primarily responsible for the financial mismanagement which has occurred within the Commission in a number of areas.
The ELDR resolution is quite clear on that.
I certainly do not deny that the European Commission has worked hard and has achieved results.
But we are not concerned with a political assessment here.
We are concerned to know whether the European Commission is prepared to eliminate the stench of corruption.
The suspicion of criminal acts, nepotism and mismanagement cannot be dismissed with references to political achievements.
The European Court of Auditors and the Committee on Budgetary Control have uncovered enough things now to insist on clean-up measures.
If none are forthcoming, we shall have no option but to support the censure motion.
Mr President, the decision not to grant discharge was taken on very good grounds back in December.
I had expected that the Commission would come up with an ambitious and plausible programme.
It is a pity that it took action as drastic as a motion of censure to persuade the Commission to act.
Nevertheless, its proposals are somewhat lacking in substance - there is no mention of the main targets of our criticism, such as ECHO and nuclear safety.
I really would appreciate a reply regarding what action is to be taken.
Furthermore, I think Mr Santer's explanation of the sacking of the civil servant is rather weak, namely that the Commission document was classified.
Does this mean that there are actually Commission documents which are public? No, everything is classified!
The root of the problem is that there is not enough openness.
I would have liked to see more concrete measures for achieving greater openness and providing Parliament with more information.
This is also a precondition for me to be able to support the Commission in Thursday's vote of confidence.
I also hope that the Commissioners who have been singled out will give some explanation this evening of their role in what took place.
Mr President, I should like to reply to Mrs Theato, who asked me a question just now.
Some time ago, indeed, I appeared before the Committee on Budgetary Control to answer a series of questions about the Joint Research Centre and the letter to me from the committee arrived some time afterwards.
It contained numerous questions to which my departments prepared replies, and I signed the reply to Mrs Theato's letter a short while ago. She will be receiving it very soon.
Another question was put which I should like to answer, concerning the TAO for Leonardo.
What is a TAO? It is a technical assistance office, selected on the basis of a call for tenders.
The call for tenders for Leonardo was issued before I took office.
The TAO for Leonardo has worked so well that the Leonardo programme is generally regarded as a success, and the Council of Education Ministers has just substantially increased its budget.
The TAO for Leonardo has on several occasions been the subject of observations and checks by DG XXII on a number of proposals or payment requests from that office.
Those requests were refused by DG XXII, and we have looked at the very long list of comments made by officials of DG XXII.
I attended the Committee on Social Affairs recently, on 5 January.
I clarified a number of things for it and shall be appearing before it again tomorrow.
Heckling
Look, if you are not interested in hearing this, don't ask me questions!
So I am attending the Committee on Social Affairs again tomorrow to examine in depth the substance of the Van Buitenen report on the TAO for Leonardo.
Hitherto, I should say that I have always had the support of Parliament, of the committees concerned, which are those on education and research, and that thanks to that support and that confidence, we have achieved good results compared with the Council, which is currently extremely reticent when it comes to expenditure.
We have moved things forward which are new in education, as it is only since Maastricht that the Commission has had responsibility for education.
We have set up second-chance schools and skills accreditation schemes.
We have launched the European Voluntary Service, with Parliament's help, because I would never have got this from the Council without Parliament's assistance, and I think that in all these instances we can take satisfaction from the cooperation which has existed, for me and for my colleagues too, between the Commission and Parliament.
I hope I have answered some of your questions.
For the rest, I am happy to attend any committee you like.
I attended the Committee on Budgetary Control just the other day.
I am happy to attend wherever you want, whenever you want, so that we can give a very thorough explanation of these dossiers.
On a point of order, Mr President.
Can we all remain seated in future, when you call us to speak?
On this occasion, due to the lack of space, Mrs Cresson had to speak whilst seated.
As you must of course be aware, this is not our usual practice.
I give the floor to Mr Marín, also at his own request.
Thank you for giving me the floor, Mr President.
I shall make just a brief statement because it is of course up to Mr Santer, who speaks for the Commission, to reply to the various speakers and comment on the points which have been raised.
Nevertheless, I wish to respond to your invitation and I know that your invitation is honestly meant.
How, as the longest-serving Commissioner, could I fail to be aware of what is going on at the Commission? I do, of course, accept my share of responsibility, I say that quite openly.
But there is one thing I would like to point out.
Ladies and gentlemen, if I have, in my 14 years of management activity, done some good things, I have doubtless made some mistakes as well.
That is the way in politics, but I cannot accept Mrs Müller's charge of covering up a case of fraud.
I have not covered up any case of fraud.
I may perhaps have made some wrong decisions, indeed that is quite probable.
As regards the first point - and Mrs Theato and Mr Fabra Vallés know this very well - when I was told that there was a conflict of interests I, Commissioner Marín, suspended all programme planning.
That is what I did.
And at the time, you said you were convinced that in not renewing the existing contract and freezing the programme until a detailed examination had been completed, the Commission had taken the right decision.
I have made things absolutely clear about the two technical assistants, Mr Martens; this is the real problem we have at the Commission.
Mr Santer has said that because of our staff shortages and the need to improvise over the last four years, a large part of our programmes has been implemented by outside consultants.
Does that mean that all outside consultants are crooks? No.
There are outside consultants who are very valuable, very sound and very professional, but within this system there are of course people who have cheated us.
I am sorry, Mrs Müller, obviously, but that is how things are.
One difference alone separates us, just one. This was the question of whether or not we should refer the matter to the judicial authorities.
This is what separated us, Mrs Theato, because what I did at the time was considered by the European Parliament to be exactly the right thing.
I punished the outside consultants, I took them to court.
Tell your fellow Members that, Mrs Theato.
It is a fact.
The problem was deciding whether or not we should take our officials to court.
That is a tricky matter.
Personally, I do not want things to continue like this.
The President has suggested a formula.
Let us discuss it. Let us study it.
But part of the work has been done.
Part of it still needs to be done.
But of course, Mr Martens, I assure you that I greatly regret the present situation.
I may be wrong, but I do not regard myself as a dishonest man.
You have known me for a long time.
I may have made a lot of mistakes.
I may have done things which in policy terms were wrong.
But be that as it may, as the longest-serving member and in all my work at the Commission I have to my knowledge never, never, condoned fraud of any kind.
Applause
Thank you, Mr Santer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 8 p.m.
German Presidency and the situation in Kosovo
The next item is the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council on the programme of the German Presidency and the situation in Kosovo.
I give the floor to the President-in-Office, Mr Fischer, whom I should like to welcome to the House this morning.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 1 January 1999 with the introduction of the euro, the common currency, by eleven Member States, Europe took a historic, perhaps even a revolutionary step which will lend a new dimension to the process of European integration.
For the first time in the history of the European integration process, that all but miraculous response by the people of Europe to centuries of a precarious balance of power on this continent, of violent attempts to establish hegemony and of terrible wars, an essential component of national sovereignty, monetary sovereignty, has been transferred to a European institution.
This act does indeed create a new political dimension.
Currency, security and constitution, those are the three essential components of the sovereignty of modern nation states, and the introduction of the euro constituted the first move towards their communitarisation in the EU.
The real significance of this step for Europe and international politics will probably only be understood with the passage of time.
The introduction of a common currency is not primarily an economic act, but above all a sovereign and thus eminently political act.
With the communitarisation of its money, Europe has also opted for an autonomous path into the future and, in close association with our transatlantic partners, for an autonomous role in tomorrow's world.
To date, however, the EU has only partly been a political entity and therefore the introduction of a common currency at a time when there is still a political and democratic deficit in the Community will create a field of tension, the dynamic of which will radically change the current status quo in the not too distant future
Observers who pointed out at the time of the euro launch that the common currency offered great opportunities but harboured equally great risks for the EU, depending on the Member States' attitude to the process of further political communitarisation, will, I believe, be proved right.
They expected the opportunities to be predominant if the introduction of the euro prompted further, substantial moves towards communitarisation, culminating in full political union.
Its introduction would, however, turn out to be a huge risk if this bold step on the part of the EU was not logically followed by other equally bold steps toward full integration, which must include enlargement of the EU to Central and Eastern Europe as quickly as possible.
Applause
Political wisdom, as also the national interests of all Member States, demand that we do not even let this alternative arise but that instead we jointly and vigorously grasp the opportunities afforded by the successful introduction of the euro.
We must therefore strengthen the EU's ability to take political action and gear its internal structures to the new tasks.
Political union, with enlargement to include new Member States, must be our lodestar from now on; it is the logical follow-up to economic and monetary union.
The main task of the German Presidency is to prepare the Union's structures and procedures so as to turn it from a Union for western Europe into a Union for the whole of Europe and one that is also capable of global action.
We have set ourselves four central aims for the next six months.
Firstly, we want to bring the Agenda 2000 negotiations to a successful conclusion by 24/25 March, the date of the special summit in Brussels.
That is not a random date.
If we do not reach agreement by then, it will seriously call in question the Union's ability to reform, which is crucial to the enlargement process.
There are no two ways about it: the negotiations will be very, very difficult.
A solution will only be found through a comprehensive balance of interests.
The German Presidency will ensure that a balanced solution is found at the European Council at the end of March, not one that is at the expense of the weakest EU partners.
Applause
Even if positions still diverge on key questions, since my presidential trip I have become optimistic that we can agree.
During that exploratory trip before Christmas, I felt all partner countries were ready to play a constructive role in the negotiations and strive for agreement by March.
Everyone knows that we will only be successful if we treat Agenda 2000 as a single package and if everyone makes compromises. There must be no winners or losers.
That means the German Presidency will have to perform a difficult balancing act.
Here we also count on the support and understanding of the European Parliament, with whom we want to work together closely.
Now we must set about tackling the questions of substance as quickly as possible.
In the field of structural policy, I think we must begin by concentrating on the regions with the weakest structures which are most in need of support.
Aid must become simpler, less centralised, more environmentally friendly and create more jobs.
The future viability and legitimacy of the EU depend on fair burden-sharing.
Let me say quite clearly at this point: as the strongest EU Member State economically speaking, Germany will continue to bear its European responsibility and remain the greatest net contributor.
But injustices have crept into the burden-sharing process, which must be rectified.
This concern, which Germany shares with other Member States, has been recognised as legitimate by the Commission and in the meantime also by many partners.
Enlargement, as well as the next round of WTO talks, require a root and branch reform of the common agricultural policy and a reduction in agricultural spending.
If we want to admit countries in Central and Eastern Europe which are still mainly agriculture-based, we cannot carry on with European agricultural policy as it stands.
European agriculture must become more competitive and environmentally sustainable.
At the same time our farmers' interests must be protected.
Secondly, we want to make definite progress towards an effective employment policy.
The fight against unemployment is the most urgent concern of the people of Europe.
They expect, quite rightly, not just national governments to tackle unemployment but efforts to be made at European level too.
Therefore we want to conclude a European employment pact at the Cologne European Council. The pact is to be the expression of an active labour market policy, which will now focus more than before on prevention, on reducing youth and long-term unemployment and discrimination against women on the job market.
Thirdly, we want to and have to make progress on the enlargement of the EU as quickly as possible.
Now that the cold war is over, Europe cannot remain restricted to western Europe, for by its very nature the idea of European integration concerns the whole of Europe.
Applause
In any case, the geo-political situation leaves no real alternative.
If this is true, then the events of 1989/90 have already decided the 'if' question of enlargement to the east; only the 'how' and 'when' need to be identified and decided.
The southern enlargement of the EU was a great economic as well as political and democratic success.
Economic prosperity and democratic stability were the fruits of southern enlargement for the countries that joined at the time and for Europe as a whole, and the EU must repeat this success with its eastern enlargement.
Prosperity, peace and stability can only be guaranteed for the whole of Europe in the long term through the accession of the Central and Eastern European partners.
And only by opening up towards the east can the EU claim to speak as a cultural area and community of values for the whole of Europe.
In Germany we have not forgotten the invaluable contribution of the people of Central and Eastern Europe to ending the division of Germany and Europe.
It would be irresponsible politically to allow a zone of instability to emerge beyond the current EU borders, given our experience in the Balkans.
In addition, it would be a breach of promise to the new democracies, with fatal consequences for Europe.
Thus any deliberate attempt to delay let alone prevent EU enlargement would amount to a politically and economically dangerous and expensive detour, and at the end of the road enlargement would eventually still prove inevitable in view of these realities and risks.
For all these reasons, ladies and gentlemen, there is in my view no alternative to the enlargement of the EU with the accession of the next applicant states.
Applause
We need a strategic vision for the enlargement process, but also a great deal of pragmatism.
We must now bring the enlargement negotiations to a successful and workable conclusion as quickly as possible.
At this moment - and I emphasise at this moment - we ought to spare ourselves purely academic debates about deadlines.
If we concentrate now on making the EU structures ready for enlargement - and the successful conclusion of Agenda 2000 is essential for this - that does not mean postponing enlargement.
Quite the reverse in fact.
Our ability to enlarge must go hand in hand with other countries' ability to accede.
The sooner the EU tackles the necessary reforms and the more intensively the applicant states pursue their internal reforms, the quicker and smoother the progress of the enlargement process will be.
For all these reasons Germany remains a strong advocate of early eastern enlargement of the European Union.
We want to push ahead with the accession negotiations during our presidency.
The applicant countries which still have to enter negotiations must be given a fair chance to catch up with the others; the fast lane must stay open.
It is still too early to fix a date for accession.
But if we can see light at the end of the negotiating tunnel, probably towards the end of 1999 or in 2000, following the likely progress of negotiations and the successful conclusion of Agenda 2000 in March, it will certainly become reasonable or even urgent to set a definite date to bring the negotiations to a speedy conclusion.
Fourthly, we want to enhance the EU's ability to act in the foreign policy domain.
Only a Union with an effective foreign policy can safeguard peace in Europe and bring its increasing weight to bear on the world stage.
Even the large Member States of the EU will be less and less able to assert their interests and protect peace in an ever more globalised world.
In the multipolar world of the 21st century, the EU must therefore become an independent entity capable of political action.
We must prepare ourselves for this task by creating a Common Foreign and Security Policy worthy of that name in good time.
When the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force, by 1 June at the latest according to the current progress of the ratification process, we want to ensure that it will be applied in all areas immediately.
In regard to the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Treaty contains a package of new instruments which will enhance the Union's ability to act in foreign policy matters.
The appointment of the CFSP High Representative will, we hope, bring significant progress.
But this will only be the case if it is a man or woman with political weight who can get things done ...
Heckling
... officials do exist who satisfy both those requirements - I deny that categorically.
During our presidency, the policy planning and early warning unit are to be set up and the new 'common strategy' instrument introduced, and with it majority decisions in the CFSP.
We want to apply this new instrument first to the EU's neighbouring regions and adopt the first common strategy for Russia - and if possible also for Ukraine - at the Cologne European Council.
The creation of a prosperous civil society in Russia in the long term is most important to the stability of the whole of Europe.
At the present time what we need is as much joint action as possible and the most intensive use of the new instruments in the CFSP.
It is important that we identify fields of common European interest more clearly.
This is also necessary in order to heighten public awareness of the common European approach to foreign and security policy issues.
In the next six months we have to turn political vision into tangible progress.
But we must not narrow our view to operational day-to-day affairs.
Europe has always drawn its strength from a constructive mixture of visions and their practical implementation.
Particularly in the next six months, it will be important to keep an eye on the wider horizon, in view of the tasks that need to be resolved in practical terms.
The next target area after the conclusion of Agenda 2000 - and another reason why it is so important now to bring Agenda 2000 to a positive conclusion - will be the EU's institutional reform.
This reform is urgent with a view to enlargement to avoid institutional collapse.
If the European Union is to maintain its ability to act with 21 or more members, the appropriate reforms must be carried out.
The key to an enlarged Union's ability to act is the willingness to accept majority decisions in as many areas as possible.
Applause
The new Federal Government advocates limiting the unanimity requirement in the EU in the longer term to questions of fundamental importance such as treaty amendments.
At the Vienna European Council, it was agreed that the Cologne European Council should decide on how to deal with the institutional questions not resolved in Amsterdam.
I would imagine that in Cologne we will give the green light to a new intergovernmental conference, which could meet around the year 2001.
Applause
In the long term we have to face the question of the aims and methods of further integration.
We have followed the inspired 'Monnet method' in the European Union for more than 40 years: a step-by-step approach towards further integration with no blueprint of the ultimate goal.
This method proved extremely successful.
We have achieved the goals of no more wars, economic reconstruction and prosperity that were formulated in the 1950s.
War within the European Union has now become impossible from both political and military standpoints.
This is the greatest achievement of the European integration process on our warring continent and we should never forget this.
Applause
Economic and monetary integration is largely completed with the introduction of the euro.
Only a few areas are still lacking, such as closer harmonisation of tax policies, which Germany advocates.
So why do we want to carry on with integration? I see two central reasons for doing so: firstly, because in the age of globalisation no European nation state, not even the larger ones, will be able to act on their own.
We Europeans can only meet the challenges of globalisation if we are united; and, secondly, because exporting stability to neighbouring regions is not just a historic and moral responsibility for Europe but also lies in our own best interests.
Crisis prevention is always better, cheaper and above all more humane than acute crisis management.
Applause
The greatest deficits within the EU are to be found today in the fields of political integration and European democracy.
How can we make headway in these areas? After Maastricht and Amsterdam, the call for a European constitution will be much louder than before.
This public debate in the Member States will give new impetus to political integration.
For me this is initially more a question of substance and aims than of reappraising legal bases. The idea of a common European future, the 'finality' of Europe, is hazy at present.
A debate on what constitutes Europe could provide both direction and clarity in this area. Important questions about the future remain unanswered.
What idea can rally people in favour of Europe? This is in my view a central issue because in the final analysis it concerns the soul of the future Europe.
What should the balance of powers be in the triangle of Europe, nations and regions? Where do we need more or perhaps less Europe?
Where are Europe's external borders? How can we further the development of a European public and strengthen the democratic legitimacy of the EU and its institutions?
People are right to look for answers to these questions. We will all have to consider them.
If we want to turn the European Union into a strong and assertive entity, then we need to strengthen it in four key policy areas.
Firstly, Europe needs more democracy.
The decision-making processes in the Union need to become more transparent and more comprehensible to the people.
The citizens need to understand at long last who is deciding what in Brussels and with what legitimacy.
The Amsterdam Treaty has bestowed new and important rights and powers on the European Parliament.
This can only be an interim step, however.
The greater the Union's ability to act, the greater the democratic legitimacy of its actions must be.
Applause
The rights of the European Parliament must therefore be further extended - and I am saying that as a convinced European rather than fishing for compliments - and that should also be a focus of the next intergovernmental conference.
Broader legitimacy means that the European Parliament enjoys equal co-decision rights and an equal say in all areas where the Council can adopt legislation by majority voting.
Applause
The European Parliament could also play a greater role in the election of the Commission than is provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty. Closer involvement of the national parliaments, as already provided in the Amsterdam Treaty, should also be considered.
In order to strengthen citizens' rights, Germany is proposing the drafting of a European charter of fundamental rights in the long term.
Applause
We want to take the initiative here during our presidency.
For us it is a question of consolidating the legitimacy and identity of the EU.
The European Parliament, which has already done the groundwork with its 1994 draft, should be involved in drawing up the charter of fundamental rights, as should the national parliaments and as many social groups as possible.
Secondly, the Common Foreign and Security Policy must be geared to the European values of peace and human rights and be capable of efficient crisis management.
In the age of globalisation, human rights have a political and economic importance that goes over and above the humanitarian aspect, as demonstrated by the recent Asian crisis.
Security of investment in the emerging markets is possible only if ecological sustainability and human rights are also assured, not if they are suppressed.
Applause
The development of free markets is only possible on a lasting basis if it is embedded in a wide culture of freedom based on human rights, the separation of powers, the rule of law, democratic parties, independent unions, a free press and a critical public.
During our presidency we will work towards strengthening the EU's human rights profile.
The new EU human rights report aims to create transparency and at the same time to provide impetus for action in the European Union and the Member States.
The key to efficient preventive and operational conflict resolution lies in greater use of majority decisions and presenting a united front to the outside world - in the G8, the international financial institutions and the United Nations.
Amsterdam can only be one step along the way towards an enlarged Union that is capable of taking action in the foreign policy domain.
Thirdly, we need a European security and defence identity to complete the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
In recent times, a problematic trend towards unilateralism and away from multilateralism has been noticeable in international affairs.
This tendency has already had very adverse effects at United Nations level, which must give cause for concern.
Global peace-keeping also needs to be legitimised by the multilateral organisations.
But this also necessitates political entities that are willing and able to use their influence to shape the international political system as an order of peace through multilateral action based on international law and in conjunction with other partners.
This is another important, central challenge for the Europe of the future.
Collective defence will remain NATO's remit.
But the EU must also develop its own capabilities for military crisis management in cases where the EU sees a need for action in which its North American partners do not wish to become involved.
This issue has received fresh impetus following Tony Blair's initiative in Pörtschach and the Franco-British meeting in St Malo.
After the single market and economic and monetary union, the creation of a European security and defence identity, ESDI, could be of great importance to the further deepening of the EU.
During our dual presidency of the EU and WEU, we will make every effort to harness the new momentum of Pörtschach.
By the time of the Cologne European Council, we intend to draw up a report on the possible further development of the European security and defence identity.
Fourthly, in the field of justice and home affairs, the Amsterdam Treaty aims to create an area of freedom, security and justice.
We want to attain this goal step by step.
The special meeting of the European Council in Tampere in October is to take stock of the situation and establish further guidelines.
During our presidency we also want to discuss asylum policy burden-sharing as well as the humane handling of large refugee flows.
Fighting international organised crime effectively is crucial to Europe's ability to act and its acceptance by the people.
To that end, we need to step up cross-border cooperation between police forces and increase Europol's operational capabilities.
The issues just mentioned point to the urgent need for the entry into force of a European charter of fundamental rights.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, during my presidential trip before Christmas, I met my Spanish colleague at the conference centre in Madrid where the Peace Implementation Conference for Bosnia was also being held.
While we, the Spanish and German foreign ministers and delegations, prepared important EU decisions about the Europe of the 21st century, the Europe of integration, the conference also had to seek solutions to the Europe of the past, the Europe of nationalism and war.
The history of European disunity was described graphically in Madrid on that day, while at the same time the historical challenge which lies before us was made clear.
Both alternatives make up the current reality of Europe, but we, the Europe of integration, must not afford the Europe of the past any chance for the future because that would spell disaster for our continent.
Only the Europe of integration is viable and only this Europe can peacefully put to rest the discord on our continent and make the EU into a political entity able to help shape the future of a dramatically changing world.
Several generations have now worked on making the European house, the EU, a political success.
Our generation has the challenge of completing this Europe of integration.
Loud and sustained applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in-Office, I shall be very brief today because I already had an opportunity to highlight the main points of the German Presidency when I spoke yesterday.
Moreover, I agree entirely with the programme the President-in-Office has just set out for you.
Yesterday morning I was in Bonn with my whole team for the traditional meeting at the beginning of the presidency.
The work was carried out in a most constructive climate.
I was struck by the German Government's determination to harness all its energy to the service of Europe.
Determination is certainly needed, because the Vienna strategy provides for a very heavy programme for the German Presidency.
In fact, the first six months of this year will represent a pivotal stage in the development of the Union.
At the same time, of course, Germany will also be presiding over the fortunes of the G7-G8, the Western European Union and Schengen.
This is a very heavy burden, but it is also a unique opportunity to move forward on major issues such as the introduction of the euro, the incorporation of Schengen into the Treaty, and the definition of a genuine defence policy.
Mr President, Agenda 2000 will, of course, be the major challenge of the next six months.
Everything, or almost everything, has already been said on this subject.
Now we must negotiate, negotiate, negotiate!
Agenda 2000 will undoubtedly be decisive for the future of the Union, because without a serious reform of the common agricultural policy, we would be facing unmanageable surpluses again in a few years' time.
Without a reform of the Structural Funds, the vital efforts made to achieve economic and social cohesion would gradually run out of steam, and without an agreement on the future financial framework, the Union would end up making all the old mistakes with endless quarrels about the budget, and acrimonious disputes that harm the development of the Union.
Of course, failure would seriously endanger the prospects of enlargement, which is undoubtedly the major goal of the beginning of the 21st century.
I am convinced that, together, the presidency, Parliament and the Commission will succeed in taking up the challenge.
The political will to do so exists in every country, as Mr Fischer has just mentioned.
Everyone knows there will have to be compromises.
That was clearly demonstrated in Vienna and was also confirmed by my own bilateral contacts.
The second major theme of the presidency, as I see it, is the whole issue of growth and employment.
The euro is here, of course, and now we must make it thrive.
Internally, that means strengthening economic coordination from all angles, including - and I would stress this - taxation.
Externally, be it in the context of the G7-G8 or that of the international financial organisations, the Union must speak with one voice, one single voice, and make its presence felt.
You know how much importance I have attached to the fight for jobs ever since the start of my mandate.
We have come a long way recently and I am delighted with the Vienna decision to move towards a proper pact, which is what I have been calling for since 1996.
The Cologne meeting will be important in that respect.
During the German Presidency, the Amsterdam Treaty will come into force.
Its success will depend on very close contacts with the European Parliament to ensure that decisions are taken smoothly, especially on issues where procedures will change with the new Treaty.
Agenda 2000 is one of these.
A major innovation in the Treaty involves the creation of a real area of freedom, security and justice.
I know how important this is to the German Presidency, and it is becoming urgent to coordinate our responses on immigration and asylum, for example.
The fight against organised crime is a priority in all the Member States and we must tackle it together; that is what our citizens expect.
Under the German Presidency, we must make in-depth preparations for the special summit in Tampere, which will be held under the Finnish Presidency.
And as Mr Fischer has just said, the next institutional reform is already taking shape, with the Amsterdam Treaty only just coming into force.
Life is like that in the European Union.
Foreign affairs will occupy a special place during the German Presidency.
I have often said that if there is one area where progress still needs to be made and where Europe must become stronger, then it is certainly in the field of foreign affairs.
The political will to do so has sometimes been lacking in the past.
That is no longer tolerable given the high degree of integration we have achieved, with the launch of the euro and the arrival of a multipolar world.
Obviously I cannot go through the long list of our relations with all the world's regions now, but I will just mention two or three examples.
Our relations with the United States have assumed unparalleled importance and intensity.
It is not unusual for differences to arise in such a relationship and the banana affair is one example.
In fact, that issue has implications going well beyond the delicious fruit itself.
This problem must be resolved by following our rules, which in this case are also those of the World Trade Organisation.
Issues like these must not poison relations that do, after all, have another dimension.
I am thinking, amongst other things, of the area of defence, where we have worked hand-in-hand with our American partners for decades. It is up to Europeans to strengthen those relations in the mutual interest of bringing them closer together.
My second example is that of our relations with Russia, that great country which, despite its present difficulties, will always remain a great country.
Recently, we have moved to a new level in terms of relations between the Union and Russia, and I am sure the German Presidency will continue along that path.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will stop there because I fully agree with the picture Mr Fischer has painted.
Mr President, I think this very brief statement from me is enough to highlight the importance of the German Presidency for the Union.
I would like to strongly emphasise that over the next six months the Commission will be standing by the Presidency to fulfill its role under the Treaties and in time-honoured tradition.
Personally, I am sure that when we assess the outcome in June, the Union will have progressed to another stage, which will be a decisive stage in the unification of our Europe.
Applause
Mr President, the first speaker from my group today was supposed to have been Mr Görlach.
I understand that he has had an accident on the ice outside this building and has been taken to hospital with a head injury, which I hope is minor.
I ask for the indulgence of the House for the rearrangement of my group's speaking list.
Mr President, although I very much regret the accident that has taken place, I am delighted to be the first to speak on behalf of the Socialist Group, and to extend a warm welcome to the new President-in-Office of the Council of the European Union.
At this juncture, Germany is taking on not just one but five presidencies. It is to preside over the European Council, the Council of the European Union, the Group of Eight, the Schengen Group and the Western European Union.
I wish the German Foreign Secretary health and strength as he discharges these many responsibilities over the next six months. He can, of course, rely on the backing of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament.
We shall offer him every support.
The President-in-Office referred to resources.
As he himself pointed out, Europe is being built in line with the vision of Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman, on the basis of concrete achievements and economic achievements.
In this Community, we certainly do emphasise the importance of economic matters.
Only yesterday, for instance, we spent a whole day discussing issues of this nature.
However, I must confess to feeling somewhat concerned: if we concentrate on analysing the resources, we may run the risk of becoming an accounting community. In other words, accounting may come to take precedence over economic realities.
Having studied the relationship between the resources available and the objectives, I am of the opinion that this Community represents a good investment.
We contribute a little over 1 % of GDP to the Community budget.
This contribution of a little over 1 % of GDP has enabled us, over the last 50 years, to put an end to the wars that had been ravaging Europe.
A single day of war between two European countries would absorb the whole Community budget.
We have also succeeded in turning Europe into an oasis of stability, progress, peace and democracy that is now the envy of the rest of the world.
In discussions on the resources, therefore, it will probably be necessary to study the relationship between the resources and the objectives, whilst not neglecting the importance of good accounting. An investigation should be carried out to establish the extent to which each of the Member States is receiving more from the Community than it apparently should.
It could be the case that, having invested a small amount, a particular Member State is in receipt of benefits out of all proportion to its initial investment.
As I see it, the key issue for the European Union at present is our cohesion. The Union is part of a dangerous and unstable world, yet we have important tasks to carry out.
As the President-in-Office himself pointed out, priority must be given to combating unemployment.
The fact that 10 % of our citizens are not currently in normal paid employment is a matter of concern. It has serious social and economic implications.
In my view, the kind of Europe we are trying to build must be united.
It needs to be both socially and territorially united.
Varying speeds of economic development should not be tolerated within it, nor should it be possible to accept different speeds of social development. I do not believe that the Europe we are trying to build should be a Europe that works for the rich and not for the poor.
It must not become a Europe in which a privileged few enjoy a high standard of living, as is the case in other major modern industrial societies. It must become a Europe which is well balanced socially and in all other respects.
The other speakers from my group will explore some of the issues I have raised in greater depth, but I believe these are the ideas that form socialist expectations of the German Presidency.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the German Presidency began on a historic day, 1 January 1999, the day when European monetary union became a reality.
At first people derided this project as merely a vision, but thanks to resolute action it has become a reality.
Monetary union is the achievement of many people.
But at the beginning of this German Presidency I would like to give thanks on behalf of the PPE Group to a figure who took Germany through three presidencies, in 1983, 1988 and 1994.
I want to thank Helmut Kohl, former Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and freeman of Europe.
Applause
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we wish this German Presidency the same resolve, the same dynamism, the same courage that Helmut Kohl displayed for Germany and in Europe.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we hope that in your words and your actions you will manage not just to maintain but to further strengthen our European partners' trust in Germany's European policy.
We regret the fact - and this is not a question of party politics - that the use of the term realism has given the impression that the accession process is to be delayed.
Happily you expressed yourself in such a way today that we can endorse what you said; nevertheless this impression has been created.
President Kwasniewski of Poland sounded the alarm when he spoke here in Parliament on 18 November of sending out a wrong signal that could discourage the people of Central Europe from pursuing their reform process.
Let us encourage the people of Central Europe!
We call on them to speed up the accession process!
We have a political and moral duty to do our utmost to ensure that the people of Central Europe can join the European Union's community of values as quickly as possible.
That is also a question of trust.
What German policy accomplished over a period of 16 years, and of course before that too, must not come to nought!
But that also means that we must not engage in any foolhardy debate about a changed North Atlantic Alliance strategy.
That too is a question of the trust the people of Central Europe place in us.
Of course we know it is difficult for our own people to accept the need for rapid accession.
But politics is not about taking one's cue from daily opinion surveys; it is about doing the right thing and winning the people of Europe over to it.
Applause
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you said you want to submit proposals for institutional reform.
We welcome that and call on you to give the European Parliament an equal say with the Commission in these deliberations.
You want to adopt Agenda 2000 at the March summit.
We welcome that and wish you success in that endeavour!
You spoke of the German contribution.
Certainly everyone will have to make their contribution so that a fair solution can be reached.
Germany's net contribution is certainly high.
This needs rectifying.
But we hope that during the internal German discussion the presidency of the Council and its highest representatives will also point out that in 1997, for instance, Germany had a balance of trade surplus of DEM 81 billion with its other European Union partners.
That too is part of the truth and people must be told it!
Mixed reactions, heckling
High unemployment is a pressing problem for us too.
Here the European partners must learn from each other how to create more jobs.
But we would warn anyone against giving the impression that simply by elevating employment policy to European Union level this problem can be overcome, and then holding Europe responsible if unemployment cannot be dealt with at national level.
Europe must not be turned into a scapegoat!
We will not allow any political alibis in this regard.
Let me make a final remark.
The agreement reached by the Bonn coalition government - which is of European significance - provides that in the next European Commission both posts will be occupied by the government parties.
We want to make it quite clear: we hope that is not the federal government's last word, but if this German example sets a precedent and if the next European Commission is appointed on a one-sided political basis, then the European People's Party will not be able to give that Commission its vote of confidence.
We would ask you to take that into account!
Heckling
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we wish you success during your presidency, for your success is Europe's success.
It is our common success in achieving a strong, democratic European Union which is capable of action, that will make it possible to secure peace and freedom in our old, constantly changing European continent in the 21st century.
Applause
Mr President, Mr Fischer, I fully agree with your basic programme statements and they largely address long-standing concerns of Parliament's Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reformist Party.
Yet I must draw your attention to a discrepancy between what you have said today and the impression your Chancellor - who is after all a person of some importance to the European Union - is giving in all the debates in Germany and Europe, namely that the net contributor debate is the only real debate and that this is the crucial factor on which everything else depends!
I regret that because I believe that Europe is more than the sum of national interests and I felt a little nervous yesterday when on top of that your Chancellor emphasised that he would like to see a very open representation of German interests.
We all represent national interests too.
But I do not think that is a very suitable motto to choose for a presidency!
That is why I believe that we must take a very cautious approach to the net contributor debate.
It is quite clear that this debate is important.
But I would ask you not to put it at the beginning of our reform debates but to take it last.
First we must clarify the situation in regard to our aid systems.
Then we have to establish our financial requirements and then, at the end, we must determine how to achieve a fair burden-sharing.
During that concluding debate, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you will find that the liberals will speak very objectively and with all the necessary fairness.
Regarding the other points you made, I would highlight your statements on the Common Foreign and Security Policy, and especially what you said about human rights and the constitution of the European Union.
I wish you every success there.
But take care that your net contributor debate does not land you in the same boat as those who try to persuade us that the future lies in what would appear to be a Europe of Fatherlands!
Take care that you do not find yourselves landing back there!
Applause
Mr President, the German Government has assumed the presidency of the European Union at a challenging time.
Many key European policies are being re-evaluated in the context of the Agenda 2000 programme which is to be put into place to take account of the impending enlargement of the European Union itself.
The successful launch of the euro in recent days must clearly be an indication to the German Government that stability is the key to the success of European Union policies.
The success of the single European currency was brought about by careful, consistent planning which is now going to bring economic benefits to the 290 million people in the eleven participating countries.
I wish to emphasise that the German Government should approach the issues of the reform of the common agricultural policy and the reform of the Structural Funds as well as the future financing arrangements of the Union in a balanced and even-handed manner.
The partnership approach involving all European governments and all EU institutions in the formulation of key European Union policies must always be preserved.
Firstly, I would like to draw attention to the debate taking place in relation to the future financing of the European Union's annual budget.
One option which must not be implemented is a possible renationalising of the financing of the common agricultural policy.
This policy is a uniform European-wide programme, and forcing national governments to contribute up to 25 % of the agricultural budget would clearly fragment and distort the workings of the CAP.
The recent BSE crisis, as well as the collapse of the Russian market for EU agricultural produce, has severely affected the workings of many individual agricultural operations, most notably the beef sector, and renationalising part of the CAP would introduce even more uncertainty into an already difficult situation.
Secondly, there cannot be a reform of the EU Structural Fund programmes unless there is a continued commitment to financially supporting the four Cohesion Fund countries.
The European Structural Funds have played a considerable role in helping less-developed and peripheral nations to prepare the completion of the Single Market, and in the introduction of the European single currency.
From an Irish perspective, while we are satisfied that economic progress has been made in recent years, there is need to underpin this progress.
More work needs to be done in order to improve the Irish transport and environmental protection infrastructure and bring them up to European standards.
It is in this way that the Irish economy can make a positive contribution towards generating growth in the euro zone.
Finally, the same situation applies in all of the peripheral countries and regions of the Union and it is vitally important for the success of both the euro and the single market that the good work of recent years should be consolidated through the continued availability of structural cohesion resources until these regions have reached European average levels.
Mr President, you raised many issues that our group is committed to, including democracy, fundamental human rights, peace, and a multipolar world.
But progress with the euro and integration cannot in themselves constitute the means, the only means, of achieving those aims. At the very least, they call for new guidelines that are different from those adopted up to now, which have led to an obvious social and democratic deficit.
There can be no prosperous and peaceful Europe if unemployment and poverty continue to spread.
By giving priority to employment and growth, the Pörtschach Summit had marked a change in tone that we welcomed.
Unfortunately, this was not reflected in the Vienna documents.
The next summit in Cologne, which the German Presidency must prepare, must not end in further disappointment.
The fight against unemployment is our citizens' primary concern, a concern sharpened by the predicted slowing down of growth, and it calls for substantial measures.
We say are in favour of the European employment pact, but a formula is not enough on its own.
It is firstly essential to loosen the stranglehold of the stability pact so that internal demand, the foundation of a healthy economy, can be consolidated. The remit and powers of the European Central Bank must be reviewed because price stability cannot constitute the European Union's main ideal, and because bankers must not have so much power whereby all that the democratically elected governments have left to do is heal the wounds of society.
Our group submitted 13 proposals to the Vienna Summit, on the basis of proposals from unions and associations, and I hope the German Presidency will take them into account.
Regarding the future financing of the Union, I think it is absolutely necessary to get away from narrow accounting assessments.
Europe can only be built on solidarity and generosity, not on selfishness and meanness.
Instead of planning a reduction in agricultural expenditure, which would be a blow to France and the southern countries, and which our group has opposed, why not look for new sources of financing, for example by taxing capital transactions?
Finally, I want to raise two foreign policy issues.
The first is the Council's role in supporting the Middle East peace process, which is running into so many difficulties. And the second is the Council's commitment, at last, to the success of the peace plan for Western Sahara, where it is now putting pressure on the Moroccan Government to accept the proposals from the United Nations until a fair and free referendum on self-determination can be organised.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure you will believe me when I say that for my group this is a big day which will go down in the History with a capital H of the Green movement and will even have a place in the continuing story of Europe.
Not 'from a jack to a king', but from a street protester to a minister is in itself a development which inspires the imagination.
If this same imagination is now brought to the exercising of your present position, we can consider ourselves fortunate indeed: Welcome, Joschka Fischer!
Your presence here today as a representative of the Council is of great symbolic value.
It is the highest point so far in the history of a generation which in 1968 embarked upon producing a radical upheaval in society, in Europe and in the world.
This generated a number of movements, giving rise, among others, to the existence of Europe's Green parties.
Now here we are in the European institutions, a very different place, of course, exercising our powers to protest, to take decisions and to control.
From your long experience you will naturally know not to expect us to behave as dutiful choristers concerned solely with celebrating the advent of the German Presidency.
There will be water and fire, sun and storm, and they will make for an exciting debate.
Combating unemployment is a central concern of the presidency.
If we succeed in getting European governments to pursue joint and coordinated action, then mass unemployment can be successfully tackled.
After the Luxembourg summit it is absolutely vital to ensure a convincing follow-up, with no postponing by Vienna until Cologne or Helsinki.
We welcome the German initiative in an EU manifesto on basic rights as well as the commitment to an international strategy to combat human rights violations and their causes.
As regards asylum policy and Schengen we are much less enthusiastic, but the model of dual nationality included in the German coalition agreement is innovative and could have a certain impact as a new model in and for Europe.
It is significant that colleagues from the CDU find it necessary to lodge a petition in order to undermine this innovative initiative which grants political rights to fellow citizens.
This certainly plays into the hands of the far right.
Of course we hope that under your presidency steps can be taken towards introducing a European energy tax.
This is desirable in order to eliminate labour taxes which are having such a lethal effect on jobs.
But our greatest concern is for the future of Agenda 2000.
Naturally the outmoded expenditure structure must be looked at and agricultural policy throughly reformed.
There can be no doubt about that.
It is fair to say that the European Parliament is also finding it difficult to arrive at a coherent solution for these agricultural reforms.
We have seen that this week.
But the main point is: How is the debate on net contributors to be conducted? You are quite right when you say that we must review the way the burden is shared.
But it would be nothing short of catastrophic if the Council allowed the debate on net contributors to overshadow the financing plans for enlargement.
Europe cannot have everything at once: stability, no migration problems, and enlargement put on the back burner and costing as little as possible.
But despite these critical comments, we wish you a very successful presidency and you can count on our critical but constructive cooperation.
Applause
Mr President-in-Office, I want to welcome you and your presidency on behalf of my group.
Your presidency, which is the last of our legislature, raises high hopes for many reasons and your excellent and constructive speech strengthens those hopes.
You raise these hopes firstly because Germany is a big country, with the largest population in Europe, and it is also the most powerful country economically.
This does not mean you should burden yourselves with excessive responsibilities, but this is a fact that is obvious to all.
You also inspire hope and curiosity because your government has come to power after the long reign of Chancellor Kohl.
Our group is obviously delighted with this new left-wing majority and we hope that social problems, employment, social justice and citizens' rights - I am thinking, in particular, of the rules for acquiring German nationality - will receive more attention than before.
But we also know that the previous Chancellor's record on Europe was quite remarkable and it will not be easy to take up the torch.
We have confidence in you, Mr President-in-Office.
We know you have a very strong personal commitment to Europe.
We have just heard you speak.
But everyone knows that policies are judged by deeds and not words, and we are anxious to see, particularly at the coming European Councils, if you will be able to break the deadlock on issues that are pending.
I am thinking in particular of the whole financial and budgetary side of Agenda 2000.
I am thinking of the future of the great policies of the Union, for instance, the common agricultural policy.
I am also thinking of the reform of the Union's institutions, which is essential, as you said, if we want to make a success of the coming enlargement. We are all committed to this and it must be achieved, whatever the difficulties that need to be overcome.
Let me return to the financial aspect of Agenda 2000.
We know what problems this raises in Germany.
German public opinion is increasingly expressing its discontent with a burden it considers excessive.
This even led the German press recently to fuel all the criticism of the Commission about wastefulness, poor management, and even fraud and embezzlement.
Little by little, concoctions are created, muddling up valid criticism with false accusations.
What worries me is that all this might result in Germany disengaging and withdrawing from the spirit of solidarity, from solidarity with the less favoured regions of the Union, solidarity with the developing countries, and solidarity with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Mr President-in-Office, your remarks just now are reassuring, but I want to stress that Germany needs to maintain the image it has had since the Second World War, the image of an efficient, powerful, rich country and, above all, a country that shows solidarity.
Applause from various quarters
Mr President, Mr Fischer has just outlined the aim of a fully integrated Europe, where the nation states would be reduced to the status of large regions and all essential decisions taken by majority.
We would regard that integrated Europe as a fundamental mistake, because by giving less importance to the nation states, the soul of Europe would be destroyed.
My group will propose a more democratic alternative.
For the time being, the German Presidency's top priority is to establish a new financial framework for the Union by 25 March, which will set the conditions for enlargement, but also encapsulate our vision of Europe for the years ahead.
As far as revenue is concerned, we think the idea of contributions from the states in proportion to GNP is the only simple, transparent and rational solution.
Above all, it is the only solution that clearly demonstrates the nature of the Union - an association of states receiving annual contributions from its members - and it is also the only one that will allow the states to control expenditure properly.
If we were to accept other forms of contributions that are less well controlled, for example, European taxes, we would be ignoring the possibility of future financial shifts.
As far as expenditure is concerned, we agree with the idea of a global ceiling on expenditure at current levels, which would lead to a reduction in real terms over time.
Today, some European funds are useless, some are wasted and some are embezzled.
To save what is left, we need more rigorous and honest management, and that can never be obtained unless we start by putting a ceiling on expenditure.
In particular, our group has always expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the Structural Funds at their current levels and severe reductions should start there.
Finally, in the coming years, Europe's finances will be characterised by a major inconsistency.
The single currency will eliminate the automatic market-based adjustments between the national economies and they will eventually have to be replaced by financial redistributions centralised in Brussels.
So an adjustment mechanism that costs little in terms of taxes is going to be replaced by another that will cost a great deal in terms of taxes.
It is time for the governments to be honest and tell their citizens that this decision is going to lead to a snowballing of the Community budget.
Mr President, Mr Santer, Mr President-in-Office, under your presidency everything is now clear: we have a single currency, which Germany wanted, a central bank in Frankfurt, with senior executives straight from the Bundesbank, a foreign policy in the Balkans inspired by Germany, and an opening-up towards the East, which will benefit Germany in terms of geopolitics.
So it was quite natural for law to converge with fact and for Germany to preside over Europe!
Your presidency will therefore deal with employment, the CAP, and of course what interests Germany, namely, the financing of the European Union.
This financing is, in fact, causing a problem.
It is well-known that there are winners in Europe, the cohesion countries, which receive up to EUR 300, even EUR 600, per head of population per year. Then there are the losers: the Netherlands and your country, Germany.
And as a Frenchman, I understand exactly how you feel, because we have been losing up to EUR 4 billion a year, the equivalent of investing in a high-speed train link, like the Paris-Bordeaux train, in a single year.
Of course, I know Europe must be based on solidarity.
In fact, Mr Cohn-Bendit even shows solidarity with terrorists, being one himself.
However, the current inequalities are going to get worse and become very obvious. How do you explain to the 6 million unemployed French people that they must make sacrifices for the Irish whose unemployment rate is proportionately lower?
How do you explain that to the women and men who are victims of the budgetary rationing pact? How do you explain to the poor that they must become even poorer in the name of solidarity, especially when this poverty and solidarity are going to increase with the cost of enlargement towards the East?
I know that a compromise has to be found.
You are going to apply yourselves to that, by renationalising the CAP, by restricting expenditure, etcetera.
Perhaps your presidency could shed more light on this, given that Goethe's last words were 'more light, more light'. Telling the truth would shed more light.
We will not keep the ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP.
And Mr Santer told the truth with great sincerity: you are thinking about a Community corporation tax, a Community income tax, and - in the context of your fiscal folly - why not a green tax?
That is the truth. Europe has a cost and that cost will mean higher taxes.
Mr President, on the eve of the 21st century, a new German Presidency is trying to address the problems inherited from the past, the concerns felt today and the challenges of the future.
Unfortunately, however, in a world that is changing at the speed of light and in which interdependence is paramount, one factor remains constant.
Europe's citizens are worried about peace, employment, about their security, and about a European Union which they still feel is somewhat remote.
The success of the euro is not enough to allay those concerns.
Political union must really become our lodestar, but perhaps what we need is a federal political euro if we are ever to get there.
How does the German Presidency's programme propose to deal with these problems?
Today, we heard a really fine speech, fine slogans and a lot said about the four key points and about the initiatives to be undertaken.
But how much substance?
We are not motivated by prejudice, Mr President-in-Office, but we do feel the need to point out that major problems call for major policies and for the wherewithal to put them into effect.
They cannot be solved by words alone.
It seems a good idea in theory to make a pact on employment, but will that be enough to produce any significant reduction in unemployment, particularly among young people and women, which - though unemployment figures have recently fallen slightly - is still a scourge in Europe?
We have serious doubts about that.
Would that we were proved wrong. But we should not want the European Union also to become the scapegoat for that massive problem.
The European Union could really get closer to its citizens if, instead of announcing initiatives and manifestos - I am not referring her to its idea for a Charter of Rights which deserves applause - the German Presidency were to establish an honest and sincere dialogue with everyone, without contradictions and without hypocrisy.
But we cannot in the same breath speak about opening up Europe and on the other hand adopt as our prime aim the restriction of already meagre resources, expenditure and contributions.
Is that the great problem about whose solution the German and other governments are agonising? But, we are told, Germany provides 60 % of the contributions.
We do not question that.
It is just that neither Germany nor the Commission has ever explained to us what the benefits are in exchange for those payments.
They could be calculated in macro-economic terms so that we could all see the complete picture, and then we would be able in good faith to examine the problem of distributing the burden fairly.
Of course, renationalising the Common Agricultural Policy is no solution.
That would not be a reform but a step backwards.
The same applies to enlargement towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Cyprus, which was recently called upon to provide painful proof of its intention to facilitate that course.
How is it possible on the one hand to declare a lively interest in making very rapid progress towards enlargement and on the other hand to restrict the resources that would facilitate it?
The programme we heard today contains many other contradictions too, and there are elements in it which have created much confusion.
Yet, despite our political disagreements, we are ready to cooperate with the German Presidency to further the common cause of Europe, to prepare the institutional reforms demanded by the times, and to begin to develop a common foreign and defence policy.
As we draw closer to the European elections in June, does the German Presidency not think it ought to accept Parliament's proposals for a common electoral system? We heard nothing about that in Mr Fischer's speech.
Mr President-in-Office, we sincerely wish you success in your task.
But we must also give due warning: after your initial vagueness, conflicting statements and contradictions, many people in Europe started to miss Chancellor Kohl.
Take care with your policies, so that by the end of your presidency there will not be far more people who miss Helmut Kohl.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I was asked to speak again, although not at this point to respond directly - which, as a member of parliament myself, I am itching to do - to many of the statements I have heard here.
I will do that at the end of the debate.
I was asked as the representative of the presidency to say something about Kosovo, because it is a topical issue.
Let me to start with the current situation.
We are watching developments with very, very great concern.
In fact, the interim political settlement in Kosovo should not only have been found long ago, it should have already been implemented, as had been agreed between Richard Holbrooke and the Belgrade government.
That agreement is of central, overwhelming significance to the future development of Kosovo, for without that interim agreement it will prove extremely difficult to move away from a process of non-peace and eventually achieve a lasting process of peaceful agreement and peace itself.
Regrettably the military confrontation is becoming more acute, with abductions, attacks and killings.
I hope that after yesterday's serious degeneration of the situation, a solution will be found today, a solution that can be reached only through negotiation.
Working together with our partners, Germany is fully committed to that.
We are taking part both in the civil monitoring of the conflict under the OSCE and in the military unarmed airspace surveillance, which is a component not only of the general monitoring mission but also of the agreement between Mr Holbrooke and the Belgrade government and of the extraction force.
The role of the extraction force is not to conduct the process of conflict monitoring in the framework of the OSCE; it is a genuine emergency force which will act in the event that the unarmed civilian OSCE personnel face a real emergency.
It is crucial to achieve an agreement that allows for peaceful development.
The purpose of the NATO threat was to avert a humanitarian disaster among the Albanian civilian population in Kosovo.
That proved successful, but now we have to make political headway, which is an infinitely difficult task.
For instance, the Albanian side finds it is difficult to form a joint negotiating delegation, which is one important aspect.
That is infinitely difficult, given also all the strategic differences between all the parties involved.
The Albanian side wants independence, the alliance of western states does not want it, for carefully considered reasons.
Nor does Belgrade want this independence, but the kind of approach it is taking, the serious violations of the human rights and minority rights of the majority in Kosovo, are unacceptable.
There are also conflicting approaches within the western community of states, which further complicates the situation.
And yet, the only alternatives I can see to a strategy of stabilisation - a strategy that must be based on the fulfilment of the agreement Mr Holbrooke reached with Belgrade - are quite terrible.
That is why we shall now take a firmer approach within the Contact Group, after William Hill unfortunately failed in his shuttle diplomacy to bring about the three-year interim political settlement before Christmas, as had in fact been provided in the agreement.
Let me add in parenthesis what the important aspect of this interim political settlement is: we need a civil, legitimate authority in Kosovo.
Without a civil, legitimate authority, that is to say a regional parliament, with an executive and a legislature, a police force, a judiciary, without this substantial, political, democratically legitimated authority in the province of Kosovo, there is simply no chance of establishing a sustainable peace process.
That is why it is so paramount to achieve and implement the political agreement.
I want to take this debate as an opportunity to appeal to all parties concerned, including the Albanians, not to shut themselves off from this process and above all to adhere strictly to the rules of non-violence.
Violence will not resolve the problems in Kosovo but would instead cause terrible harm.
We are now endeavouring to make progress through the Contact Group.
That is anything but easy.
Following the kidnapping of the Serbian soldiers we must prevent a military confrontation and I very much hope we will be able to prevent it by reaching an agreement.
By and large however, and I will conclude on that note, political agreement plays a central, a crucial role.
We must not forget one thing, and I want to say this quite plainly here in the European Parliament: Kosovo is part of Europe.
The problems there are our problems and the political solution of this conflict - which has considerably wider implications than the conflict in Kosovo alone - will do more to decide the development of a European foreign policy, a security and foreign policy identity, than any number of resolutions, of programmatic declarations and speeches.
That is why we as the presidency, but also as a member of the Contact Group, will do all in our power to ensure that this process advances.
But let me emphasise again: it will be anything but easy!
Applause
Mr President, in the past there have been many differences and even quarrels between the Council and Parliament on the subject of Kosovo.
The same will be true in future!
But you know and can rely on the fact that the European Parliament is on your side on the Kosovo question and in seeking ways to resolve the conflict, as it must be resolved!
Applause
To come back to Agenda 2000.
First of all I am glad that rather than telling us about the book-keeping for the next six months you have put the decisions facing the German Presidency of the Council in the longer-term perspective of the development of the European Union.
Agenda 2000 is an overall concept and you called for the timetable to be met.
My group, as also, I am convinced, the majority in the European Parliament, wants the timetable for adopting Agenda 2000 to be met.
We have prepared for this and are in a position to take the necessary decisions in April-May.
But that also means that the Council must be prepared to discuss them, for a large part of the proposals you put forward at the March summit will also have to be endorsed by the European Parliament.
So it is advisable for the Council to discuss them with the European Parliament beforehand rather than afterwards, since that could lead to confrontations.
My second point is this. We regard the Agenda as a global package and I believe that the Commission's proposals represent a good compromise that could be amended and perhaps even improved in some areas.
But the global package as such must stand.
That will have to be the basis on which Parliament and the Member States must reach agreement.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me say a few words in regard to the discussions in our Member States and to the internal political debate in our own country.
Here I am also addressing those Members who keep calling on Germany to show solidarity.
You cannot call for a reform of agricultural policy while at the same time declaring that in internal political terms everything will remain as it is.
That is simply not on!
Applause
You cannot propose to reform the Structural Funds, to concentrate on combating unemployment and at the same time demand that all those who used to profit from the Structural Funds, i.e. 51 % of the population, should continue to profit!
You cannot say we must keep to the financial framework while at the same time calling for more EU expenditure on eastern enlargement.
You cannot try to rally the Union partners to eastern enlargement and at the same time call not just for fair contributions but for a massive cut in net contributions to the European Union.
Much can be achieved, and much will still have to be achieved in the coming negotiations up to March.
But there is one thing that Brussels cannot do, and that is to suspend the Community's basic accounting methods.
Not even someone familiar with dealing with fundamentalists could manage that.
We are prepared to adopt the global package in April-May.
And, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that means we are the only parliament that is taking the risk of adopting all the cruel decisions associated with Agenda 2000 before an election.
We would like to be given some credit for showing such courage!
So do give us a little help here.
We need the Agenda 2000 reforms, with a view also to the financial perspectives, if the European Union is to be able to enlarge to the east.
That is not the only reason for the reform, let us be clear about that!
The European Union would need to be reformed in any case; but we also need this reform so as to make the Union capable of enlargement, which will be the great historical task following the introduction of the euro.
Agenda 2000 is only a part of the reform package.
I am very glad that you also referred to the institutional reforms that will be needed in addition to Agenda 2000 in order to make the Union capable of enlargement and that you sketched out the broad lines of a general concept.
Let me also say a few words on this institutional reform.
It is a mistake to believe that less Europe means a Europe closer to the people.
On the contrary!
A Union that is in a position to do the things the citizens expect of it is closer to the people than all the declarations by conferences of foreign ministers and all the declarations on subsidiarity in our Member States.
The more consolidated the Union is, the more flexible its decisions and its institutions can be.
The stronger the Union institutions are, the more firmly they must be anchored in democracy.
I am saying that also against the backdrop of the debate we will be holding this week.
The more credible the institutions are, the greater their ability also to act at European level.
What does the European idea mean? Yes, it is true that over the past 40 years we have built up Europe to prevent a return to the past.
That was right, it was a good thing and it also remains a constant task.
Against the background of a history spanning a thousand years of European wars, 50 years of peace in most of Europe is a very short time and there is no guarantee that it will continue if we do not make fresh efforts every day to seek agreement, to seek common institutions and common decisions in the European Union.
That is a difficult process.
I would like to see not only members of parliament and the European Parliament but also the Member State governments uphold the European policy they decide in Brussels during the working week - not just on Sundays, but on weekdays too.
In our Member States, the same ministers - I am not referring to you personally, Mr Fischer, but this does need to be said in this kind of debate - who adopt a whole range of regulations and directives in Brussels from Monday to Friday, announce the following Saturday or Sunday that once again Brussels has decided some sort of nonsense.
This has to stop!
Applause
You cannot go on like that!
You are leading the people, the citizens of Europe astray.
Do not misunderstand me: this applies to the governments of all the Member States and, incidentally, of every party-political persuasion.
So what do we mean by saying that we know that we must unite Europe not so much against a return to the past but far more to master the tasks of the future?
It is not just a question of the success of the euro but also of mastering the consequences, the burdens, the risks facing the entire European Union as a result of the fact that we now have a common currency.
That involves a fundamental idea; specifically it involves a charter of fundamental rights.
I would like to see the European Parliament play a very decisive role in future in formulating these fundamental rights.
That would be a real task for the newly elected Parliament!
Secondly the European idea - it exists, all we have to do is formulate and clarify it - means that Europe represents a balance, one that is constantly under threat and must constantly be renewed, between economic performance, which we need, and social justice, which is the foundation of economic performance and not just a social addendum.
Europe represents a balance that is constantly under threat and needs constant renewal between freedom for the individual, his search for truth and justice and his responsibility towards the whole, towards the community.
That is the meaning of the term European, those are the foundations on which we build and on which we can construct a European Union that is capable of external action, that makes it clear that Europe plays a role in the world, not just for the sake of playing a role but in order to disseminate our principles, our great tradition of human rights and social rights in the world and to help establish them.
It is a Europe that is able to win not just the minds but also the hearts of the people.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, play your part in ensuring that we do so and achieve our aim!
Applause
Mr President-in-Office, it most certainly has fallen to the German Presidency to steer us through a particularly demanding period.
I do earnestly hope that we shall be able to respond appropriately to the issue raised by the motion of censure.
I speak in all sincerity, as it is in no-one's interest to complicate matters further, and certainly not, I imagine, in the interests of the current presidency.
I should begin by saying that I have no difficulty in agreeing with the priorities Mr Fischer set out this morning, namely, creating more jobs in a Europe which is a major competitor on the world market.
The process of coordinating employment policies that began in Luxembourg must be carried through. A proactive policy for employment creation at European level should be launched, and you yourself referred to a European employment pact.
With regard to strengthening the Union's external relations, we unreservedly support the call for political union that you made this morning. We also support the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and of Cyprus.
Beyond Europe, I should like to stress the importance of developing cooperation with Mediterranean countries and with Latin America. Important meetings on this issue are scheduled for the next few months.
As regards Agenda 2000, we share your determination to conclude negotiations during the first half of this year, and trust this will prove possible. Nevertheless, certain guidelines must be borne in mind to ensure success.
First, all Member States must make a financial contribution to enlargement and to the costs involved. Second, the Union must pursue its efforts to provide itself with the necessary resources to develop its common policies.
This means meeting the financial demands agreed in connection with cohesion. Third, a determined effort must be made to put in place a system of contributions that is more in line with the ability of Member States to pay.
Fourth, arbitrary cuts in expenditure cannot be tolerated.
Fifth, it should be borne in mind that there are limits to the negotiations on Agenda 2000, namely the provisions of the Treaty.
Aim at genuine convergence, Mr Fischer, as it represents a good investment for Europe.
I appreciate the spirit of your well-balanced speech and wish you wise judgement and every success.
Mr President, Europe is in the grip of winter, but nowhere is the cold as unbearable as in the mountains where tens of thousands, possibly even hundreds of thousands, of Kosovans have been forced to flee to escape from the supporters of Slobodan Milosevic.
The refugees who have sought shelter in the mountains have in many cases had their homes burned down and their wells poisoned.
There is also reason to believe that the fighting in Kosovo will intensify with the approach of spring.
Let us not forget the causes of the present situation: 90 % of the inhabitants of Kosovo have had to endure 20 years of Serb domination.
Europe remained silent while the Kosovans protested peacefully.
Now we are asking them to agree to a peace settlement based on continued Serb rule.
The Liberal Group is of the opinion that future peace talks should be unconditional.
We should like to see an agreement reached on a truce with all possible speed, but we would not wish to dictate what a final settlement of the conflict should entail for the future of Kosovo and its people.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, my warm congratulations on your election and on the general lines of your programme, which I agree with to a large extent.
I hope it gets off the ground and progresses well.
The Europe of yesteryear, of nationalism, division and anachronism has no geographical basis, it is not located just in certain countries, it is in the mind and in political acts all over Europe and the European Union, and that is where we must fight it by political means.
The Europe of the future, of integration, as you very rightly said, must be open and must offer prospects for all its citizens and for all Europe's states and nations.
And when we speak of Kosovo and the Balkans more generally, let me say that this Europe of the future we are talking about offers no prospect, no proposal, no position to the states and nations of that area for the future.
The enlargement policy excludes that part of Europe, even in the long term.
It is precisely that omission which belongs to the Europe of the past, and I ask you to give it further consideration.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Other than yourself there appears to be scarcely a single member of the European People's Party in the Chamber.
Are the Christian Democrats boycotting this debate?
Mr Corbett, quite a few members of the European People's Party have already participated in the debate.
So how can you draw such a conclusion?
Mr President, the Christian-Democratic Group is currently engaged in discussions, because it has not yet sorted out its views on the behaviour patterns of two socialist Commissioners.
Laughter
Mr President, do I assume from the fact that Mr Brok is here that he approves the behaviour pattern of the two Socialist Commissioners?
Laughter
Colleagues, I always welcome this kind of debate, but it should not go on for too long.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me turn first to our institution. Whether the Group of the European People's Party is currently represented by two or three people or whether there are ten of us present here when the public sees pictures of this important debate - whatever excuses we make - there will be criticism of the European Parliament.
We are always good at criticising the Commission and others, but we should also question our own behaviour in plenary.
Let me just say that at the outset.
For the rest Mr Poettering, who says such clever things, could take the names Schmidhuber and Bangemann as examples of other Commission appointments.
I find it incredible that at a time like this, when there is so much discussion about the future of Europe, the Group of the European People's Party and other groups are hardly present.
But that is their problem, not mine!
I would just like to offer the President-in-Office of the Council three small suggestions to help make the German Presidency as successful as he would wish.
First, the debate on finalities is an important one and should also give rise to a social debate.
But the European Union exists today and cannot just wait for the debate on finalities.
That is why we need a decision in Cologne, a resolution, so that when we have another intergovernmental conference, in 2001, an EU charter of fundamental rights is adopted.
There cannot be a new intergovernmental conference without a new charter of fundamental rights, otherwise Europe cannot and will not be seen to be more open.
Secondly, it is dangerous for the German Presidency - for whatever reasons - to say not one word about Mediterranean policy.
For there are fears in Europe, however unjustified they may be, that Europe and Germany are only looking to the east now and forgetting the issue of relations with the south.
So I think it is important that in our relations with the south, with the Mediterranean, we also focus discussion on the human rights question with partners such as Algeria.
It is not just a question of combating terrorism but also of human rights, of how a state combats terrorism.
That is the future of democracy and it should also be discussed with our Mediterranean partners and particularly with Algeria.
Thirdly, there is the famous sixty-four thousand dollar question of net contributors and net contributions.
One cannot simply assign more tasks to a political institution, of whatever kind, while at the same time constantly reducing its scope for action by financial cutbacks. After all, we have seen what that leads to over the last few days in regard to the Commission.
The Commission said it did not have enough personnel to carry out its tasks. Then we find the kind of problems arise that we have seen.
So we must give careful thought to this. What reforms are needed in agriculture?
What problems from the past need dealing with?
How much more should the United Kingdom pay?
More equality, more equal rights. Yes, but we also have to ask how much more the Union as a whole has to pay in order to carry out its tasks.
Applause
Mr President, I would first like to thank the President-in-Office very sincerely for his speech and his introduction of the German Presidency's programme.
It had been a long time since we had heard a speech inspired by such federalist ambition in the European Parliament.
My group will certainly be making concrete proposals to him in the weeks ahead.
I do not have time to mention them all so I will restrict myself to just one.
In the international community today, there are over 100 countries which have de facto abolished the death penalty.
That is a majority.
So the conditions are there for the General Assembly of the United Nations to approve a universal moratorium on capital punishment this year.
If possible, I would like the German Presidency to tell us if it intends to take any measures in this respect in the course of the next few weeks to prevent a flop like last year and to ensure that we do not miss this opportunity to create conditions that favour the adoption of a universal moratorium on capital punishment by the United Nations General Assembly in the year 2000.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you are the first President-in-Office of the Council whose political legitimacy is based on the eco-movement.
I would like to point out to you that any form of politics and any political action will fail and be meaningless from the outset if the question of principle, namely how to resolve the environmental issue, is not addressed.
We are nearing the end of the 20th century and standing on the threshold of the 21st century.
Consider for a moment: we cannot afford to repeat the 20th century in terms either of wasting resources or of destroying the environment.
I wonder whether you are still using your influence in order to create an environmental vision of the future.
I hope you have not thrown out these environmental visions that have taken you where you are today, together with your legendary trainers, and let them rot away together in some cellar room.
If that is the case, please at least bring your environmental visions up into the daylight again!
Mr President, the Luxembourg summit put an end to the virtually endless series of non-binding statements about employment.
Or at least seemed to put an end to them, because when we look at the results of the Vienna summit we see that, although page after page is devoted to employment - a field of great concern to us all - no concrete decisions were taken and a great many tasks were in fact assigned to the current presidency.
I naturally wish them every success in implementing them, and I hope that they are able to recapture the spirit of what was decided in Luxembourg.
This means setting specific targets, with the aid of benchmarking, and not just at national level but at European level too.
Luxembourg was a start, an important start, but a great deal remains to be done in order to broaden and deepen the process.
At present I detect a kind of weariness in which a bureaucratic process is being set in train to implement what was decided in Luxembourg, but with little regard for the innovation which was what Luxembourg was principally all about.
Of the many tasks which fall to this presidency I can of course touch on no more than a couple.
I think it is very important for the German Presidency to achieve effective coordination between economic and social policy.
When they took office in their own country they expressed what I consider to be many very refreshing views on this subject.
These were somewhat tempered as the presidency grew closer, but I hope that their policy is not solely for domestic consumption but also for European consumption.
I am convinced that coordination of economic and social policy solely at national level has no meaning if you do not now also succeed in getting this underway at European level.
In other words, I hope that your attempts at Bündnis für Arbeit - work or employment pacts - can also be pursued very energetically, and hopefully successfully, throughout Europe.
Although employment policy is a subject of deep concern to me, I am gradually getting the feeling that people believe social policy as a whole is covered by employment and by labour market policy.
But there is more to social policy than this.
Our call has always been not for a pact for employment, but a pact for employment, sustainability and solidarity.
This seems a little like searching for the third way, as if solidarity is taboo, but I would be very pleased if the German Government succeeded in putting solidarity firmly on the agenda.
Europe's internal cohesion is one of the most important tasks with which we are faced.
In all the prattle about financial obligations, too little attention has also been paid, to my mind at least, to the subject of cohesion as a Union objective.
I believe this presidency has made an excellent contribution in this respect.
I am pleased that I am to be followed by Mr Brok and I hope that he points out in his speech that the limited presence of his group is not a problem in the way Mr Cohn-Bendit sees it, but a problem for Parliament as a whole.
It is a pity that a presidency is not viewed as representing Parliament as a whole rather than only one group.
Dear Daniel Cohn-Bendit, I am glad to have the pleasure of your company in the Chamber today.
Heckling
We find ourselves at present in a special situation.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I hope you will appreciate that the situation looks a little confused.
The opposition in Germany, the CDU/CSU, will urge Germany to show continuity in its European policy here in Parliament too.
I believe the statement you made today reflected that spirit of German continuity in its European policy and forms a basis for constructive cooperation on a number of issues in the coming months.
Of course we would also like to know whether you are the President of the Council for foreign affairs and the Chancellor is the Wilhelminian President of the Council for home affairs.
The differences that sometimes arise must, of course, be resolved.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you will find it more difficult to achieve the necessary compromises at European level if the mood within Germany is different.
I hope you will manage to sort all this out!
Let me thank you most particularly for your words on institutional reform.
The Cologne summit must act as a mandate for more majority decisions and more co-decisions, as also for the charter of fundamental rights.
I believe that these matters must be carefully defined, with the participation of the European Parliament, so that in the next two years we can take the necessary steps to make the European Union capable of enlargement.
During your presidency of the Council you will have to implement a range of policies, such as the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
I would ask you, when you appoint the High Representatives and set up the planning and analysis unit, to perhaps listen more closely to national parliaments and to the European Parliament than to your diplomats, so that this becomes an added value for Europe rather than a board of political directors.
Let me make a final remark. Everyone agrees that employment policy is an important issue.
That is why the former German Government approved and participated in the coordination of European employment policy in Amsterdam and in Luxembourg.
But we cannot go any further than coordination, than setting out objectives and benchmarking, because we do not have the instruments to do so.
This employment pact should not be used to give the impression that we can pursue a common wage scale policy from Finland to Portugal or embark on financing a labour market policy.
You spoke of labour market policy in your address.
We sometimes get the impression that a huge employment-policy show is to be put on shortly before the European elections in preparation for then producing an alibi for national elections, because Europe is held responsible for the failure of national employment policies.
Europe is too important to be wrongly blamed.
Mr President, the Social Democrats may well clap when Mr Kohl's achievements are being lauded, but nevertheless we are happy to welcome the foreign minister of this government here today.
Applause
Mr Fischer, I have listened to you carefully and given the quality and scale of the debate we are holding here today it would be wrong of me to start off by advising you what limit values you should change and which individual environmental legislative acts urgently need renewing, even if I would like to do so and indeed could do so in detail.
Let me nevertheless make a few comments that are very relevant to the dimension of which you spoke.
When you talk about an enlarging Europe, an enlarging European Union and a more integrated Europe, which is something we all want, then a few things must be quite clear.
It must be clear that there have to be and there are cross-sectional policy areas, which must also be regarded as such and treated differently.
Mr Wim van Velzen spoke of social policy. That is certainly one example.
In this Parliament I speak for my group for environmental policy, consumer protection and health policy.
If we are serious about European integration we must also be serious about integrating these cross-sectional policies in other policy areas.
That means that environmental policy must become an integral part of transport policy, of energy policy and of economic policy - indeed it is also a motive force of employment policy.
We keep paying lip service to this - this German Government does the same.
However, I hope that it will become apparent after these six months that the earlier Cardiff summit and the forthcoming Cologne summit have produced more in this respect, that we actually see integral legislation that commits the Commission to integrating environmental policy in other areas too, including structural policy.
You spoke of transparency, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, and I cheekily interrupted, for which I apologise.
I know that the general public often do not know how legislation is made in the European Union.
In fact they are not quite sure how it is made in their own Member States either.
I do not approve of that, which is why I welcome your call for transparency.
But transparency also means that it must be clear what the Member States do with the EU legislation once they have approved it.
If it is the case, as was quite usual in Germany - and as can easily be proven - that Germany may well approve legislation, especially in the environmental area, but does not then transpose it into national law or does not check observance of the provisions, then that too is an offence against transparency and I would ask you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to do something about that too.
If we want to do something for people all over Europe - and that includes people in the applicant countries - then we must take make sure they can live in an environment worth living in.
We have talked a lot about foreign policy today and about very major issues.
That always makes me feel very small and humble and I try not to say much; but at the end of the day the issue is always the people who live in this world, this Europe.
These people breathe, these people have to eat and drink and exist in the environment.
If we do not manage to maintain an environment worth living in then we can no longer talk about foreign policy either.
That is why I urge you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, when you go home and when you go to Bonn, to remember that environmental policy must be a key component of German policy and also a key component of European integration.
Applause
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the German Presidency has opened under the best auspices.
In Europe and indeed around the world, opinion is virtually unanimous that the launch of the euro has been a success that will mark a truly historic stage in the long course of the construction of Europe.
Germany had spared no efforts and made every sacrifice to achieve this, and you will understand, Mr President, if I extend this tribute to Chancellor Kohl who held this course with such courage and determination.
Today, I want to express my warmest wishes for the success of the German Presidency.
It is a heavy responsibility because this presidency will be marked by strategic decisions that will determine the future shape of Europe.
It is a Europe that we naturally want to extend to those countries of Central and Eastern Europe seeking to join us, but it is a Europe that must now affirm its political dimension and therefore overhaul its institutions so that it can respond better to the expectations of our fellow citizens.
Mr President, after listening to you, my feeling is that the priorities of your presidency broadly meet these objectives.
But I would like to put some ideas to you on two areas of the work.
First, as regards Agenda 2000, we applaud your determination to try to complete this, if possible, at the summit on 24 and 25 March.
That is a very pressing timetable if we want the European Parliament to be able to fully play its part. The timing will be very tight anyway, bearing in mind that we have elections in June.
I also agree with the idea that the future financial framework of the European Union, the reform of the structural policy and the reform of the common agricultural policy are inseparable parts of an overall package. To reach the lasting solutions you want, there must be respect for everyone's sensitivities.
You know and we know that some of the Member States are more concerned, and rightly so, about the problem of the financial contribution.
Others, in fact, who provided assurances for all these years, are more concerned about the cohesion of our Community. And finally, others are more concerned about the common policies that formed the initial basis of our Union.
I am sure you know what I mean, Mr President. I personally want to talk about the agricultural policy and tell you simply how I feel.
The introduction of measures that would effectively lead to a renationalisation, even a partial one, of the common agricultural policy would be a political mistake that would ruin the European Union in the minds of many of our fellow citizens.
My dear Klaus Hänsch, of course no-one has ever said that nothing should change.
But it seems to me that the stakes are higher than anyone's national interest because rural development is truly essential to the very balance of our European area.
Mr President, please be kind enough to give this some thought.
My second point relates to the institutions.
If we want a Europe that is naturally open but that is also strong and united, we need institutions that allow it to act; otherwise, we risk an institutional collapse, as you have said.
You were very clear about the sensitive points we need to stress.
You stated that the Cologne Summit will launch a new intergovernmental conference, but I have a question.
Do you not feel that the limits of the intergovernmental conference system have been demonstrated?
Mr President, I would be pleased if you could tell us if you think that there might be a more creative means of achieving the desired result.
Once again, I send my most sincere wishes for your presidency.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, let me just call out after Mr Brok, who is already fleeing to the group meeting room, that the SPD also differs from the PPE and its German members in that our party does not have a short memory.
That is why I am surprised that after 16 years in government in Germany they now seem to be prophesying that the current German Government will have to answer for the failure of employment policy.
That really is absurd, and basically everyone in Europe understands that.
What a number of people in Europe do not understand is rural development policy, agricultural policy.
Anyone who speaks of a reform of agricultural policy in connection with the need to change the shape of the European Union must realise two things: firstly, this reform is overdue and necessary in any case.
It has not been put on the agenda because of the imminent advent of the enlargement eastward that we hope to see.
Secondly, they must realise that this is not just a question of agricultural prices, export refunds and compensatory payments, important as they are.
Basically it is a question of the future of our rural areas, which account for 80 % of the European Union, and above all of how we will manage to protect jobs, to create new jobs and to maintain the environment in Europe both within the agricultural sector as such but also, independently of that, in the rural areas.
European public opinion does not dispute these aims.
What has been increasingly and rightly disputed are the ways and means by which the European Union's financial resources are used for the rural areas.
A short while ago the President of the European Court of Auditors pointed out that the situation is still not tolerable, with 80 % of the European tax-payers' contributions intended for the rural areas, for agriculture, going to only 20 %, i.e. to the most prosperous people.
No man or woman in Europe can understand that, and rightly so.
So it must be one of the priority aims of Agenda 2000 to make it clear that aid policy must largely be social policy in the agricultural sector too.
It is unacceptable to see a farmer in a rural area who earns millions, who has turned his well-situated farm into virtually a one-man business thanks to massive rationalisation, who has the best contacts with the world market and obtains the best prices on it, still being just as eligible for aid as a farmer in a disadvantaged area, who can often only survive by overworking.
We Social Democrats are not jealous of the European global player's economic success.
But we do demand that the farmer in a disadvantaged region who can never become a global player, but who protects the rural area through his invaluable environmental services, that this farmer should also be given decent support - a more decent level of support than we have seen in the past - for the services he has performed.
That would close the circle.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you rightly said at the start that we must not show solidarity only with the weakest Member States but must also and always show solidarity with the weakest members of society, and naturally that includes those working in rural areas.
Applause
Mr President-in-Office, you have made some important points and have certainly set out some ambitious aims: a new intergovernmental conference, a new European constitution, an autonomous and independent common foreign defence policy, strengthening of the WEU, majority decisions in the Council and increased powers for Parliament.
These are without doubt significant statements, Mr President, but they are intentions and, as the old saying has it: 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'.
The problem lies elsewhere, namely in grasping how the coherent aims which you have announced tie in with the specific policies which the German Government seems determined to introduce.
Our former President, Mr Hänsch, raised this same question in an interview with Die Zeit .
The first signs are not promising: some of Chancellor Schröder's pronouncements, the coolness of one of your ministers towards the euro, the call for a cut in your country's contributions, and the threat to reduce resources for the southern Mediterranean countries.
You yourself have certainly allayed some of these doubts - you deserve credit for that - but our doubts are still justified!
I would remind you that this Europe of ours was largely built by leaders who came from a certain background, a Christian Democrat one.
Will the Socialist-led governments manage to complete the edifice?
We hope so. That is your goal: we only hope that you will carry others along with you.
The problem of unemployment, among others, can only be tackled in a European context.
But how should it be tackled? Just now I heard a Socialist colleague speak of putting pressure on the Central Bank and slackening the rigour of our healthy finances, calling for what smacks of modern-day dirigisme.
Is this the right approach? I think not.
I must confess, Mr President-in-Office, that - as Mr Cohn-Bendit said - I am astonished by your silence on the Mediterranean.
I thank you, incidentally, for what you said concerning Kosovo.
And now, if I may, I would make one final recommendation.
Given that our President speaks Greek, I shall take the liberty of saying this in Latin and translating it with a German proverb: 'laus nova nisi oritur etiam virtus amittitur '.
The German proverb states: 'Wer nicht vorwärts geht, der kommt zurück '.
I believe that Europe too could fall backwards unless it moves forwards.
I would just point out in passing that I myself and many other colleagues were obliged to learn Latin in order to study law.
We therefore had no difficulty in following you.
Mr President-in-Office, your speech was undoubtedly political, and in it you placed great emphasis on budgetary matters.
Allow me, therefore, to begin with a reminder. The Union's major financial agreements have been achieved by the smaller countries.
The current financial perspective was not approved in Edinburgh, as some believe, but a year later in Brussels, under the Belgian Presidency.
The German Government - the new German Government - faces the challenge of bucking this trend and breaking with tradition.
As rapporteur for Agenda 2000, I wish you good fortune and plenty of luck.
Let us hope for success.
I listened most carefully to the speech, because in your document on priorities you devote 12 lines to the Union's financial and budgetary policy while the remainder deals with countless more policies, although there is a conspicuous absence of funds.
At the Vienna European Council it was agreed that Agenda 2000 should be approached in a spirit of solidarity and budgetary rigour should be guaranteed.
I made a careful note of your reference to an equitable solution that is not to the detriment of the weaker partners, and you also asked for Parliament's cooperation.
In my opinion, the wrong question is being asked.
You can certainly rely on Parliament's cooperation.
The question should instead be whether or not we can rely on the Council's cooperation.
On 8 December, the Council had to issue a statement confirming that it intended to abide by the agreements it had reached with the Commission and the European Parliament that same morning, and not render them meaningless.
It is the Council that creates difficulties.
Rigour is not synonymous with saving.
What is does mean is strict and efficient management.
The meaning of the terms must be quite clear.
Moreover, without Parliament, no financial perspectives are in fact possible.
I should therefore like to draw your attention briefly to a number of issues Parliament considers to be particularly important, but which the Council does not seem to appreciate at times.
Parliament took a stand against national contributions and the principle of fair return in its resolution of 4 December 1997.
You have quite rightly stated that the euro represents a step forward in the development of a new kind of sovereignty in Europe.
The Council should have the courage to take a further step forward in the spirit of this new European sovereignty and put forward a proposal for truly European own resources.
It should be recognised that the concept of national contributions is not really European. Rather, it amounts to a backward step in the construction of a political Europe.
The European Parliament has already come out in favour of the Cohesion Fund, as did the European Commission when it considered the matter.
However, Parliament is against cofinancing of the CAP.
A greater degree of flexibility is called for. Parliament has voiced its doubts concerning the financial consequences of the reforms proposed in Agenda 2000.
The Court of Auditors' opinion on Agenda 2000 from December, No 10/98, is now available and is even more sceptical.
Clauses and instruments to ensure flexibility will be required.
The financial perspectives are at stake here.
Finally, enlargement is a major issue.
Those of us who were previously excluded from the construction of Europe because our country was under a dictatorship are ardent supporters of enlargement towards the East.
You referred to the consequences of failing to carry out enlargement, and I agree with you on that point.
However, do you really believe that we can prepare for enlargement with the meagre appropriations available in the financial framework, trimming Europe and the current budgets? An expansion of Europe's territory cannot be achieved through a reduction in its budget.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to start by pointing out once again that nearly the entire PPE Group was present at the time when the President-in-Office of the Council spoke and that he received our full applause, as also the applause of the German Christian Democrats, because we too will support him in what he said - provided he also acts on it.
That is why the comment made from up there was not fair and when I look at the Socialist benches all I can say is there are four more of them here than of us, which is not such a great feat.
To return to our debate, I just want to go into one point, the question of Kosovo.
After the inglorious outcome of the negotiations between Holbrooke and Milosevic I said that the day is drawing near when the west will reproach the Kosovo Albanians for not finally giving in.
What are the facts of the situation in Kosovo now? The Serbian troops who were initially withdrawn have long since returned.
The Serbian police in Kosovo are armed to the hilt.
Attacks targeted at Albanian villages and civilians are commonplace.
The reactions to these Serbian acts of terrorism are the desperate and not always acceptable actions of the KLA, but they are above all a sign of the growing impotence of the Albanians and their cries for help.
Where is that step in a political direction you referred to a moment ago? Even in October 1998 it became clear that Milosevic did not want a political settlement.
He wants to ethnically cleanse Kosovo and change the balance of forces between Albanians and Serbs in favour of the Serbs.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, my dear Daniel Cohn-Bendit, he is pursuing that line with great success.
There are refugees wherever we look, not just in the forests, not just in Albania, not just in Macedonia.
There are refugees from Kosovo in Bosnia too, and they come to Germany and Italy in any case!
The OSCE observer mission is a joke and cannot be successful.
We should withdraw these observers, otherwise news about the mortal danger these gentlemen are facing will dominate the media, instead of the misery and distress of the Albanians, whose lives have been in danger for nine whole years.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, when you said that the extraction force in Macedonia is there to protect these OSCE observers, I noted that you are not entirely indifferent to the whole business.
For surely it must sound like a mockery to the people down there who have been suffering under the Serbian apartheid system for nine years.
These troops are not there to protect the Albanian civilians but to protect the few OSCE observers who would basically be better advised to go back where they came from, back home. For there is nothing they can do where they are.
We know that a few Serbian soldiers have now been taken prisoner by the Albanians.
But what has world public opinion been doing for the past nine years? Did it cry out when Albanians were taken prisoner every day, when Albanians were tortured every day?
I question the relative manner in which these matters are currently being discussed.
In the last few months the Contact Group has made no contact whatsoever. So I do urge you to withdraw the OSCE observers and let an international force that includes Russian troops see to establishing peace in Kosovo, so as finally to give a chance to an interim political solution that can lead to a real solution in the region.
Otherwise we will have to go on and on hearing these same daily media reports.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I too want to speak on the subject of Kosovo.
Let me say first of all that I and my group can also congratulate you warmly on your statement.
I believe that the subjects you addressed, and especially the foreign policy aspects, were precisely those points and aspects we rightly expect and hope a German Presidency to address.
You said little in concrete terms about Kosovo.
I would like to prompt you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to perhaps make a few more comments to clarify your position, especially after what Mrs Pack, whom I hold in very high esteem, has just said, because in this case I do not agree with the substance of it.
I believe that we must adhere to the position that we can only have a settlement in Kosovo that is a peaceful settlement and that is in the end reached through consensus - however difficult that may be.
We will have to be prepared for it to take years - it was a serious mistake to believe it could be achieved in Bosnia in just a few months. We will have to tell the Serbs that their aggression cannot be tolerated but also tell the KLA that their actions, which are indeed also directed against the Albanians and against Mr Rugova, cannot be accepted.
We have applauded Mr Rugova here in this Chamber but on the other hand - and this is a contradiction - we verbally support the actions of the KLA.
That can neither be tolerated nor accepted and the presidency must make its position clear.
Secondly, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you have stated quite unequivocally in many interviews that you do not regard organisations such as the OSCE as merely incidental, as something that can be pushed aside.
We are all aware of the weaknesses of the OSCE, but after all what we must do is strengthen this organisation rather than abandon it.
So I do not believe the OSCE mission should be withdrawn.
I do believe, however, that it needs protecting and that we must do our utmost to strengthen the troops who are in the region, especially in Macedonia, in FYROM, which will be a means of protecting the OSCE.
It would be a disaster if the OSCE mission out there fails partly because it is not being given adequate military protection.
Kosovo can serve as an example of cooperation between the EU, NATO and the OSCE with a view to finding a peaceful solution.
There is a third point where I also definitely support you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
You spoke of the dangerous trend away from multilateralism towards unilateralism. I admit, as I once said about Kosovo too, that there can be exceptional situations where a different decision needs to be taken.
But I regard the trend in some quarters in America of turning the exception into the rule and the rule into the exception as very dangerous indeed.
A final word in connection with what you said about Russia.
One great task for the German Presidency would be to bring Russia back into partnership with the EU, as a partner willing and able to cooperate, and also to involve it more closely in NATO again, even after the current crisis.
We need Russia as a partner, I agree with you there.
But we cannot rely on that and expose ourselves to the vicissitudes of Russian decisions in individual cases.
However, one important aim of the presidency of the Council must be to have Russia as a partner for a new peaceful order in Europe and beyond.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the determining event at the beginning of the German Presidency was certainly the introduction of the European currency.
That opened a new era for Europe.
Let me begin by saying, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that I personally would have been pleased if the German finance minister had also been present for that important event on 31 December last year, like the other finance ministers.
What is the most important task now facing us? It is to formulate a common economic policy for Europe, a common policy to combat unemployment.
The fight against unemployment involves many things that have to be done at national level.
But fighting unemployment also means securing future growth.
Here we find some concern being voiced.
The German Institute for Economics has forecast that growth could possibly fall to 1.4 % this year.
I do not think that is inconceivable.
But we do have to discuss the reasons why this is happening.
On the one hand, the world economic crisis is held responsible, the events in Asia, in America and elsewhere.
But I am convinced that these slowdowns in growth are partly homemade; one of the great tasks for the new German Government is to make the real situation clear to our enterprises.
For I have found from talks with many business people that when they are asked: 'why do you not invest, when interest rates are so low and the framework conditions so favourable?' they increasingly often reply: 'so long as the framework conditions are not clear, so long as we keep reading different things in the papers every week, we will not invest.'
That is one of the main tasks for your government to tackle.
In conclusion, let me address another important point, where we need some kind of legislation in the next six months. The introduction of the euro is more or less a fait accompli .
But there remains a question that has not really been resolved, in relation to the year 2002.
Will that be the appointed date for the changeover or will the two currencies continue to exist side by side? After many talks with retailers, with workers, with local authorities, I increasingly tend to think that to have a period during which the national currency is used side by side with the European currency would involve unnecessary costs, which those concerned cannot be expected to bear.
That is why we should jointly - meaning the Commission, the presidency of the Council and the European Parliament - take steps during these six months to ensure that 1 January 2002 is the appointed day for the introduction of euro notes and coins.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I was probably not the only one to greet your statement about the German Presidency's objectives with mixed feelings.
You had many good and strong things to say about your visions - an integrated Europe versus the Europe of the past, human rights, institutional reforms, the need for majority decisions to become the rule in the Council, a strong Parliament.
But why - and there are two whys given the present situation - why did you say nothing about reforming the Commission, why did you say absolutely nothing on the most important question of comitology? Nor, for that matter, did you say very much about the operational aspects.
You spoke of a package deal in March on Agenda 2000, of lower contributions, especially by net contributors, of reducing agricultural expenditure.
In my view your statement today gave the same increasingly ambivalent impression as your statements and those of other members of your government in recent months.
I can only hope that the same does not apply to another subject you addressed again today, namely enlargement.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you said there can be no alternative to enlargement.
In the past few months Mr Schröder has sent out very different signals I hope that what you have announced on behalf of the presidency as a whole will be the official programme and will be followed consistently.
The preceding presidency, the Austrian Presidency, sent out and followed very specific signals in regard to enlargement.
I hope that your presidency will also take very concrete political steps in this regard, for that is the only way we can achieve the objective we are all pursuing, namely to make the 21st century the age of integration and not the age of the past!
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you and the German Government rightly declared that fighting unemployment was the central aim of the German Presidency.
Obviously this cannot mean paying out billions on aid programmes.
That is not the way to combat structural unemployment.
The German Chancellor chose his words well when he wrote recently in a trade journal that the most important thing was to coordinate employment policies in the European Union.
I would say to coordinate them better, for we do not have to recreate the world all over again.
Under the last German Presidency in 1994 it was agreed to coordinate national measures.
At the Luxembourg special summit led by Jean-Claude Juncker the Essen procedure was improved by the establishment of guidelines and national action plans, which, my dear Wim van Velzen, must indeed become more verifiable!
In 1994 we achieved another success with the directive on European works councils.
This concerned the information and consultation of workers in European companies, which the then presidency declared a priority, and the much disputed question of economic co-determination.
Parliament recommended adopting the recipe for success of the European works councils as the procedural principle for European companies: flexibility, negotiations between the social partners on co-determination rights and, if that failed, European minimum standards.
By following this procedure, the Austrian compromise proposal took us very close to achieving that objective.
Now we finally need political agreement within the Council.
I wish Mr Riester, the Minister for Employment, the same success that his predecessor Mr Blum achieved with the European works councils in 1994.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin with the two statements on Kosovo.
I certainly do not agree with Mrs Pack's position, much as I sympathise with her emotional involvement, because we have to think things through to the end and consider the consequences of that position.
And the consequences, which involve withdrawing the OSCE mission, would in my view be nothing other than war.
That is the crucial point; it would be war, once again at the cost of a great many human lives.
Let me give you the historical background again.
Since 1989/1990 we have been seeing how unresolved conflicts, some of which date back to earlier times - I am thinking of the outcome of the Balkan conflict before the first world war - and borders drawn in earlier times, together with authoritarian regimes or even dictatorships that are responsible for extremely serious human rights violations, now lead to a situation in which, were we still living in the Europe of the past, we would virtually be in a state of war, in which new borders were drawn as a consequence of people being driven out, of the unspeakable sacrifice of innocent lives, of the destruction of intrinsic values.
Sadly we saw all that again in Bosnia.
But the battle would be fought to the bitter end.
That was the European logic of the past, which had fatal consequences.
For as a rule these wars are internationalised by the side that is in danger of losing.
As a rule civil wars logically tend to spread, with the result that the regional powers very quickly become involved and with the result that in the end quite different conflicts enter into play in the region and large and powerful states, which also have their own particular history and conflicts of interest that have not yet been resolved, border conflicts, become directly involved.
What that means is the threat of a major Balkan war.
Europe cannot allow that to happen.
It would be a reversion to the past and it is not just a question of the destruction of intrinsic values, not just of unspeakable misery, it is also a question of the destruction of the European security system and of integration.
We must not forget that.
That is why there is no alternative to a process of stabilisation.
I do however ask myself whether Europe is in fact strong enough even to settle its own internal affairs.
Quite obviously it is not strong enough yet.
These include conflict prevention, a most important aspect.
To put it in non-technical terms, what will the consequence of these Balkan wars actually be? In practice it will be that the European Union has to take on responsibility in some form for the entire region.
After all, that is what we are now seeing in Bosnia.
Without the detailed work done by the High Representative, without the presence of the allied troops, without the civilian activities, without the EU High Representative's assumption of responsibility, we would be back in a situation of confrontation again there or even of bloody conflict.
But for us Europeans that means we must find answers - and that is something we must think through properly, not today but at some point.
A first very full, very open and, in my view, important discussion of precisely these questions was held at the foreign ministers' dinner at the Vienna European Council. What kind of long-term political strategy can be found to resolve these conflicts that will not lead to war, to expulsions, to mass violence and the trampling of human rights?
We will have to find an answer to this quickly.
I am firmly in favour of our making greater efforts in relation to Russia in this connection.
I do not find Russia's current attitude in the UN Security Council very constructive because basically it is still founded on the old fixed idea of a confrontation between one superpower and another superpower, America.
Russia would have a great opportunity before it today if it decided to play a constructive role; but unfortunately it is not grasping it.
We are trying to make progress here through a constructive dialogue with Russia and an open discussion of all the issues.
But we consider it extremely important, and the foreign ministers agreed on this, to formulate a central strategy, which cannot, however, be regarded as the conventional kind of assistance, as Russia is too big to allow us to talk in terms of assistance; it is a far too important, central partner in terms of European security, European stability.
But we do give absolute priority to developing a common strategy here.
That is not inconsistent - and I thank all those who pointed this out - with considering the problems arising in the Mediterranean.
I was recently visited by Foreign Minister Scharon; President Arafat will come next.
The Commission will be visiting the Middle East in February.
That is the second visit and it will encompass not just the question of North Africa but indeed also the Middle East peace process.
This is after all the second neighbouring region, even if the European Union neither can nor wants to take over the role of the United States there.
But the more progress is made with the peace process - and I really cannot see any better alternative to this peace process - the more all the parties concerned in the Middle East will realise that as regions we are neighbours.
What role the European Union will then actually play, in regard to underpinning this process, is another aspect to which we will direct our attention when we continue the Barcelona process in Stuttgart.
Here too it would be damaging to posit any conflict between eastern enlargement and the issues of the south.
We want Europe!
And by its nature Europe will be looking at different interests than, for instance, Germany or Spain, to give examples of geographically different positions.
We have common interests.
The interests of Europe are common interests and as such they must be brought to bear.
Let me now give a very brief, summary reply to a number of points I find most interesting.
There is no doubt at all that Germany's political approach is a European one.
The same is true of the new German Government's political approach.
We are following a line of continuity with the preceding German governments and in the light of its national interests Germany would lose out a great deal if we changed that approach in any way.
If we still regard the concept of national interests as at all in keeping with the times, all I can say for the German Government is that the European integration process takes first place in our national interests.
So it was in the past, and so it is now, for the change in the political balance in the German Bundestag has not brought any change in our interests.
Under the new government, Germany will continue its commitment to Europe.
Applause
Let me make it quite clear: what I have presented here is the approach of the German Government and the German Chancellor.
Anyone who was present at the discussion between the German Chancellor and the Commission will emphatically confirm that.
There are no changes here.
The German Government is united in maintaining the same position.
This whole reform project we are about to embark on is not a question of bookkeeping.
So let me explain the German position to you once again in unequivocal terms.
We must make the Union capable of enlargement.
The next historic step after the introduction of the euro will be enlargement of the European Union.
Just consider the implications if the European Union remained a Union just for western Europe after the end of the cold war.
That would be a historical failure without parallel and the soul of Europe, the idea of integration, would atrophy.
Quite apart from that, it would be a historical injustice of the first order vis-à-vis the Central and Eastern European applicant states.
So we must now do our utmost to make progress with that step.
The second great historical challenge facing us is to make the European Union into a political entity.
Personally I do not believe that we can act as an economic and financial 'global player', as it is called in modern parlance, on the world stage if at the same time our political structures operate in a dimension that, compared to what we have now achieved in monetary policy, is - to put it rather bluntly - more reminiscent of a local stage.
Applause
That will not do Europe any good, nor for that matter will it do the stability of our currency any good.
That is why I am firmly convinced that our second important historical challenge is to strengthen the European institutions.
In my view democracy always also implies a strengthening of democracy.
That is a key point.
Consider this: much of what is now presented so to speak as German strategy - I will be coming back to that in a moment - is to do with the fact that our national public opinion feels there is a lack of legitimacy; here I am only speaking for our national public opinion. We need to look at that very carefully if we want to develop the European institutions further, which means also to make them more democratic as institutions.
So we must now meet these two central challenges. How can we do so?
We can do so through the vision of Europe as a political entity. It can become a larger and stronger political entity if we get on with the homework that now awaits us.
After all, the Cardiff Council set March as the date for the special summit above all because of three added factors. The Amsterdam Treaty is to enter into force and will intensify the pressure for reform, not just the pressure to enhance the EU's ability to act.
The European elections will be taking place in June.
But the European Parliament must also be able to play its part in implementing the Agenda 2000 reforms.
That also requires budgetary decisions before the end of the year, with the new approach to areas eligible for aid and suchlike.
In that respect, therefore, this date was set deliberately.
But within the context of this historical challenge, which is enlargement and at the same time the development of a political entity, we must also ensure that subsequent presidencies can tackle the institutional reforms, in order to use the window of time that we have.
Under what are for us very difficult conditions - we only recently came into office, which has some implications for the business of Europe - the German Government declared itself prepared to make Agenda 2000 the focus of our presidency and to reach agreement at the special summit in March.
I sometimes try to imagine what would happen if this failed.
Early in the morning on 26/27 March the Heads of State or Government would appear before the people and declare failure.
This time that would have immediate repercussions on stock market prices.
It would not simply be a decision, as it would have in the past when a summit happened to fail.
The date of 1 January 1999 has created a new dimension and thereby also a new responsibility.
I think we are all aware of that responsibility.
It can only succeed - and now I am coming to the age-old question of money - if everyone is prepared to look beyond their national interests, which are quite legitimate - in Germany too - and to set aside the conflicts between national interests in Europe for the sake of the compromise represented by integration.
So it can only succeed if everyone, on an even-handed basis, takes a substantial step away from their national interests.
We want an even-handed solution and, as I said in my earlier statement, we cannot allow the south, for instance, to have to pay for eastern enlargement.
That would be absurd.
Southern enlargement - as also the accession of Ireland - was and is a success story, economically, socially, but also in terms of democracy and security policy; it is one that we will and must now repeat with enlargement to the east.
I am old enough to remember the military coup in Greece.
I remember the military dictatorships in Spain and Portugal.
I remember very well the discussions about whether or not there was a military coup in Italy in the 1970s.
That is all past history.
European integration is a success story, and we must repeat it, we must commit ourselves to that!
Applause
The role that Germany plays also reflects our economic strength, and that should be a cause to rejoice rather than complain.
We know what we owe to Europe, from many points of view, not just in material terms but also in political and cultural terms against the background of our history.
The new German Government knows that too and will therefore adhere to its commitment to Europe.
I have nothing to lose at all by saying that when I was in opposition I supported the major part of the policy pursued in these areas, especially Chancellor Kohl's European policy, even if I criticised one or other aspect of it.
I consider that nothing unusual; in my view, having convictions about something is part of the parliamentary process, especially when historic issues are at stake.
My group in the German Bundestag was the first in the last legislative term to call for the Europe of 11, for the accession of Italy, at a time when others, like Chancellor Kohl, were far from prepared to do so.
The 3.0 debate and all that lay behind it were things we criticised too.
So I will say quite openly that I have nothing to make up for here nor am I afraid to thank Helmut Kohl; he was rightly appointed a freeman of Europe at the European Council in Vienna.
It is only that since Amsterdam Germany has no longer played the right role.
In Amsterdam the Federal Republic of Germany put on the brakes for the first time.
Heckling
We must not forget that.
And the coalition - here I am not talking about internal politics but about European politics - went into the elections with a position that was no longer entirely consistent, as you know better than I do.
That position was: eastern enlargement as quickly as possible, Germany wants to pay less, and the German farmers should get more.
That does not tally with the laws of logic in this world.
That is why we must now define a clear and consistent German position, and that is what I have done today on behalf of the German Government.
We certainly do not want to stop being a net contributor.
We have no quarrel with the fact that there are some countries that are ahead and then there are the poorer countries.
But it is obvious that imbalances have crept into the system and that they need correcting.
In terms of domestic politics, it is difficult for a German politician to explain why countries that obtain a higher per capita income thanks to their GNP than we do should pay little or even pay no net contribution at all.
These are of course all things that play a part in domestic politics.
I need not tell that to my German colleagues, but let me point out the following to other Members: because of the special situation in West Germany after the second world war, Germany's European policy was basically unquestioned and was determined solely by the politicians - until Maastricht.
Maastricht changed all that.
In future, every German government will have to rally the people behind it, as in all your countries, in all your own democracies.
That used to be a matter of course and was not considered particularly noteworthy, as my German colleagues know only too well, but all that has changed since Maastricht.
That is why the net contributor debate does of course also have a domestic dimension, which must not be forgotten and which I regard as entirely legitimate.
But for us the crucial problem is how we can prepare the EU structures for enlargement.
I am less concerned about the actual situation, which clearly needs rectifying, than about the fact that if we leave the existing structures as they stand, we will of course come up against imbalances in the burden-sharing in regard to enlargement, which will quite simply no longer be acceptable or defensible.
Since I am in favour of enlargement, I believe we need this situation to be rectified too.
I think that is politically justified and certainly not a sign of anti-Europeanism or selfish nationalism; quite the reverse.
This is a central aspect of the necessary structural reforms.
If we are to get through with Agenda 2000, we will have to present it in all its aspects; it encompasses five separate packages.
We will have to reach a compromise on the question of real constancy, budgetary constancy.
There are five different interpretations, but I believe we will find a compromise there.
Yesterday, the German finance minister said the EU budget must not grow faster than the national budgets.
That is a point that will certainly be taken seriously in the discussions.
Naturally we are also very concerned about the question of the budgetary structure.
As was pointed out earlier, although 80 % of the territory of the European Union is rural, we must not forget that it is not 80 % of our population that lives in these rural areas.
The second point that will arise in this connection is the common agricultural policy. The Commission has submitted its CAP proposals.
Let me just add another word on the question of the renationalisation of agricultural policy.
Cofinancing does not imply the renationalisation of agricultural policy.
If it did, the German Government would regard that as a mistake.
We do not want to see agricultural policy renationalised or even partly renationalised.
So, cofinancing is a question of the national contribution.
The political decision is taken at Brussels.
It is important to remember that.
That precludes any renationalisation.
In any case we only want it in relation to direct income supports.
That is the second important point.
And here we consider it urgently necessary to have national financial contributions, in view also of the future European Union, the enlarged European Union, and the future of the agricultural market.
Over and above that, let us please have no illusions.
The WTO negotiations in the year 2002 will create an enormous pressure for adjustment, as every agricultural politician knows.
Without this reform, the current disputes about bananas or hormones in meat will seem nothing compared to what we will be faced with, for many of the agricultural subsidies we have now simply do not come within the scope of the WTO.
So there, too, we will face an enormous pressure for reform.
All three models that the Commission has proposed for the common agricultural policy must remain open to discussion.
We have to discuss them.
National preferences differ.
And then there are the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
I know how important and how productive these resources are, but I think that here too a contribution is needed and that special problems, such as those facing Portugal in relation to the Structural Funds, will need to be considered.
I also believe we will have to carefully assess and consider the Spanish situation.
We are looking towards an even-handed solution.
But there is no doubt that an even-handed solution also covers the rebate, the UK rebate, and, in the final analysis - and this is the fifth aspect involved, and one to which not only Germany but, as the presidency's trip showed, the Netherlands and other net contributors also attach very great importance - this issue will also have to be resolved.
We want to produce a global package, which will be anything but easy.
At the European Council in Vienna, which took place at the historical site of the Vienna Congress in the Hofburg, the Portuguese prime minister pointed out that when Talleyrand was asked how long the Vienna Congress had lasted he replied 'the last fifteen minutes'.
That will be equally true of the European Council, the special Council.
Unfortunately, the Member who quoted Goethe is no longer in the House. He quoted Goethe's last words, on his death bed.
I am not sure this is a suitable Goethe quote and whether he knew that.
The words 'Mehr Licht, mehr Licht ' (more light, more light!) can be interpreted in two ways.
Either this greatest of German poets felt that darkness was descending around him, or he was reverting to the dialect of Frankfurt in his final moments.
Some people seriously interpreted what he wanted to say as: 'mer licht so schlecht ', 'I feel so bad'.
But if we want to quote Goethe, we really could do better, for Goethe was a European through and through and he was pro-Europe.
He would have no truck at all with nationalism. I think that is the real Goethe whom we should quote.
Mr Hänsch, I warmly thank you for your support in regard to the settlement of the Kosovo conflict and would say to the European Parliament: it is important that we cooperate very closely.
The trilogue debate with Mr Verheugen will be continuing tomorrow.
During that debate a number of questions that you have raised will be considered in more depth.
We want a very close dialogue, in order to strengthen the European Parliament but also to ensure that it plays an active role in tackling the great tasks that face us.
The European Parliament must play a central role here.
Mr Brok, allow me to point out one thing, which is something I also want to say to certain colleagues.
I know how difficult it is to be in opposition; I myself was in that position long enough.
But to be in opposition also means to attack very intelligently and make it difficult for the government to find a reply.
To the accusation that all we have managed to do after 12 days of presidency is to make announcements, I would reply: yes, if I could do more than that after 12 days I would not be in politics, I would be a miracle worker and then I would be in the wrong job, I should be founding a church or something.
Laughter
But who indeed can perform miracles?
So with the best will in the world, all one can do in 12 days is to state what one is prepared to do and then to be judged by it later.
And I can see that the opposition has a very high opinion of us and is expecting a great deal of us.
But for Mr Brok - who openly thanked Mr Kohl, as I too have done several times - to accuse us of trying to divert attention at the Cologne summit from our own national failures in employment market policy a few days before the European elections, means he is obviously unintentionally revealing a strategy of the preceding government, for we were not the ones to set all these deadlines.
It was not the new German Government that did this; we were not able to do so and nor did the opposition hypnotise the previous government into doing so.
With the best will in the world, we were not able to do so.
It was the Luxembourg summit that decided this, it was Vienna, which followed, that was responsible for no progress being made. These are not accusations that can seriously be levelled at the new German Government, because we have not been in office nearly long enough.
In the interests of close cooperation we should refrain from transparent polemics of this kind, which, for the rest, do little to help solve the problems facing us.
The areas of general consensus are more important.
In conclusion let me emphasise once again what one Member said about Germany's role.
I repeat that we know we will remain a net contributor.
There will be no German disengagement here.
That would be absurd and wrong given our interests.
It is in our interest to ensure that Europe develops into a stronger political entity.
The fact that the Deutschmark became integrated in the euro is not a matter of course, given its significance as a national currency, a significance that goes far beyond what a national currency normally signifies, and not just for the West Germans but also and in particular for our East German compatriots since unification in 1989/1990.
It is a step that was taken with the broad assent of the German Bundestag , and it is also binding upon the new German Government.
We believe that during the German Presidency we have an obligation to make the European Union more capable of enlargement, to combat unemployment, to take a first step towards making progress with institutional reforms, to help strengthen democracy in Europe and, in general, to turn the European Union into a real political entity, with the ultimate aim of full integration.
Applause
I should like to thank you from the Chair and wish you every success.
Mr President-in-Office, you have of course spoken for 30 minutes, but I think that the Members, who have heard you speak for two hours, have been listening very carefully.
Mr President-in-Office, I assume that you missed some of what was said because Mr Cohn-Bendit was talking to you.
I forgive you!
But I would like to say that for you simply to dismiss what I said as emotional is male arrogance, and I am happy to return the insult.
I have been concerning myself with Kosovo for ten years - a little longer, perhaps, than you - and I do not reproach you for that, just as you should not reproach me for being emotional.
I simply believe that after I have been pleading for years for prevention in Kosovo and that has not been achieved, one cannot say after ten years: we must take preventive measures.
Secondly, I also believe that I did not say the OSCE must get out and nobody else must come in; perhaps you did not hear me properly.
I said that as it stands it is not much use because there is nothing it can do.
Indeed it can achieve even less than the UN troops did in Bosnia.
In my view we need an international force there which incorporates the Russians, so as to prepare the ground for peaceful solutions.
Allow me to correct a few other words you said. Mr Westendorp is not the representative of the European Union, he is the representative of the international community including the European Union.
Please do not misunderstand me next time!
Applause
Mr President, Mrs Pack, or rather my dear Doris, I think we are both being emotional, which is nothing specifically feminine but a quite legitimate position to take on this issue.
The point is quite simply that during the nine years when there was no preventive policy it was not this German government but another that kept denying the need for a policy of prevention.
You must admit that too!
Mrs Pack, I really think we do not need to quarrel so bitterly.
Let me stress again that in connection with Kosovo, as also with Bosnia, I was not using the term emotional in any gender-specific or even discriminatory fashion, for I too feel very emotionally affected whenever I look at this issue.
I believe nobody who is concerned with it can feel otherwise.
In that regard I can also understand people taking an emotional approach - and in the case of Bosnia emotion was not the worst counsellor, if I may point that out again - but nevertheless, we must think things through to the end.
After all there is no point, Mrs Pack, in saying that an international force has to be deployed against the will of the sovereign government of that state, unlike the sovereign government of Bosnia which created a definite international legal basis for these international troops.
That is an enormous problem.
So it would create a great problem for an international force to intervene for the first time on the territory of a state recognised by all EU Member States and by the international community against the will of that state's government.
My second point concerns the participation of Russia.
At this moment in time the Russians in fact take the opposite view.
You will not get them to participate now.
Thirdly, what is the aim?
Secession?
But what does secession mean? What does it mean, when one third of the population of Macedonia is of Albanian origin?
These are all just questions, in order to make it clear that it will do nothing for our common interests if we seem to be exchanging blows on this issue.
For these are questions which all the responsible parties ask themselves a hundred times a day.
In fact my group and also the German Government's new human rights representative and former deputy, Mr Popper, really have spent years trying to persuade the EU to become more closely involved in Kosovo and to make progress with seeking solutions there.
At a time when the KLA did not yet exist we were calling for more support to be given to Rugova, among many other things.
Unfortunately things did not go as we wished.
Today the situation is different.
But we have tried.
We invited the Albanian interlocutors to Bonn and we are remaining in close contact.
But it is also apparent that the Albanian side is of course thinking it can use the West for its own strategic ends, for goals the West does not endorse.
You must realise that too.
The Western community of states is in favour of an autonomous status, which we consider urgently necessary.
Whether and to what extent there is any historical prospect of achieving that is a legitimate question, raised by freely elected Members of the European Parliament.
In view of the experiences we have had, I consider it only natural that it should be discussed, that these issues should also be aired publicly.
But when I think of the practical end results, Mrs Pack - and I beg you not to misunderstand my words as any unseemly criticism of your position, for which I have great sympathy - I believe there is no option other than a strategy of stabilisation, however imperfect it may be at present.
And in that context, the achievement followed by the implementation of an interim political settlement for Kosovo, endorsed by the Kosovar and the Yugoslav side, is of central importance.
In my view there are only worse alternatives to this strategy of stabilisation.
That is why I have explained to you that we must do our utmost to bring about a peaceful solution, working together with our partners in the Contact Group, but also in the European Union and in other institutions.
I am of course thinking just as much of Norway, which holds the presidency of the OSCE, as of all the others who are endeavouring to bring this about.
Thank you very much, Mr President-in-Office.
The debate is closed.
At this point I would like to wish a speedy recovery to our friend Willy Görlach, whom I saw after his accident coming in at least for the end of the debate.
Transparency in the European Union
The next item is the report (A4-0476/98) by Mrs Lööw, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on transparency in the European Union.
Mr President, the background to this report stems from the fact that the Amsterdam Treaty represents a clear move towards establishing greater openness and transparency.
This has also been an important goal for the European Parliament both before and during its work on the new Treaty.
Since it is an issue which greatly affects the interests of our citizens and involves the democratic legitimacy of the EU, the Committee on Institutional Affairs felt that Parliament should produce an own-initiative report in which it would establish certain principles for promoting openness in the EU institutions before the Commission puts forward its initial proposal for, amongst other things, a code on general principles, as it is expected to do upon ratification of the Treaty.
This will also provide Parliament with another opportunity for raising the issue.
The committee has held a public hearing and a round table discussion, and the Directorate-General for Research carried out a comparative study on legislation in the Member States relating to public access to information.
It transpired that legislation varied considerably between individual countries.
It would perhaps be in order to point out here that neither my report nor the Amsterdam Treaty attempts to impose changes on individual Member States. The remit is to establish a new code on public access to EU documents, as well as a new culture of openness and transparency in the Commission, Council and Parliament.
However, the report points out that Members of the European Parliament would like such a principle to be applied to all EU institutions, regardless of the fact that it will be easier to achieve in some than in others.
For instance, it is a foregone conclusion that Europol is less likely than a number of other institutions to allow public access to its documents.
The Treaty of Amsterdam makes explicit reference to the public right of access to EU documents, and my report deals mainly with this principle.
I share the view that our citizens regard access to documents as the linchpin on which the principle of public access to information hinges.
Our citizens have a right to know what underlies decisions, so that they can form their own judgement as to whether they are appropriate.
In this way, openness prevents corruption, abuse of power and fraud.
Broadly speaking, the proposal means that all incoming and outgoing documents of importance in the EU institutions should be public.
Obviously, there are reasons for certain documents being classified, but these must be precisely defined in law.
They should not be vague and general; and nor should the list of grounds for confidentiality be unduly long and detailed.
So that the public knows what documents are available, a public register should be set up and, of course, ways of tracing documents in the various institutions introduced.
New technology such as the Internet should make it possible for all European citizens to access the register.
Distance from Brussels need no longer be an obstacle to our citizens fully exercising their right to view documents.
The committee was overwhelmingly agreed, even though in the course of our work I detected a degree of scepticism about securing broad support for such radical changes, which after all go much further than current practice in many Member States.
I would also dare to hope that there will be broad support in the final vote, which would naturally put strong pressure on the Commission to come up with a proposal that meets Parliament's requirements.
There was also some scepticism as to whether the Commission would really introduce a principle that allowed the public access to EU documents, since this would require a whole new culture.
I think I should warn you that a considerable effort will be required; it will not be handed over on a plate.
It is not as simple as drawing up a new code.
It will require new working practices and probably new equipment, but above all resources for staff training.
I must say that in fact it all fits in very well with the much-needed reforms which the President of the Commission promised yesterday.
Having directed most of my remarks at the Commission, I should also point out that the same applies to all the EU institutions.
The Council in particular should concentrate on living up to it own proposal in the Treaty. Parliament also has a considerable way to go.
The report also deals with many other issues related to openness and transparency, such as more open meetings and greater use of the Internet for disseminating information and informing people about the issues under discussion.
However, we need not go any further into this, since it is all in the report.
I shall therefore devote the rest of my speaking time to some comments on the amendments.
The amendments were studied in committee and rejected by a large majority.
It is the duty of a rapporteur to be sensitive to the views of the committee as a whole, so I am not going to endorse them, even though I am sympathetic towards one or two, especially the two relating to the 'guaranteed freedom of speech for officials', which is a central and very special feature in the principle of public access to information in Sweden.
Under this, civil servants who pass on information to the media are afforded protection.
Such a law does not even exist in the other Scandinavian countries and, in my opinion, it would be futile to try to introduce similar legislation into the EU at the present time.
One amendment also says that EU legislation should not supersede national legislation.
It would be appropriate for me to end with a comment on this.
My aim with this report is to see that EU legislation on openness and transparency is shaped in a way that is acceptable to all Member States and does not conflict with national legislation, no matter how far reaching the latter may be.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we keep being accused of being remote from the citizens and aloof.
We can only defend ourselves against this accusation by ensuring greater transparency and democratic control.
The citizens of Europe have a right to that.
Transparency and democratic control will bring us closer to the people, something we should not just think about every five years just before the elections.
Much remains to be done.
That is apparent not just from Mrs Lööw's report. It is apparent also from the 20 conclusions set out in my opinion, which the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights approved unanimously.
What I consider most important of all is to make improved access of the citizens to information the focal point of transparency.
In this regard, Finland and Sweden have developed an enviable culture of transparency. We should take a leaf out of their book throughout the European Union.
In fact, why should we deny the people the widest possible access to our files and documents?
What actually prevents us from widening this right and also giving it to Parliament's rapporteurs and others? Why can the Council not work just as openly as the European Parliament to a large extent does?
Why do Council and Commission representatives have their own fixed seat in our committees, while Parliament does not in theirs, nor even its rapporteurs? But more transparency is not enough in itself if we want to come closer to the citizens.
In addition to making political procedures and decision-making processes transparent, we must give the citizens a say.
The European Union institutions must develop mechanisms to enable the citizens to bring their own ideas and thoughts into the decision-making process.
That is a basic requirement of democracy.
If we are to build the Europe of the future, we need the participation of all concerned, not least for the sake of our credibility.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it was with great pleasure that I listened to the statements by the new President-in-Office during the previous debate about the need for a European constitutional process and the announcement that a charter of fundamental rights would be drawn up.
Perhaps the members and colleagues in the Committee on Institutional Affairs will be able to judge for themselves just how pleased I am, given that I have been badgering them with this demand for four years, to which the reply tended to be that the time is not yet ripe.
Mr Herman, Mr Bourlanges, the time can become ripe very quickly, although perhaps it needed a green President-in-Office of the Council!
The subject of this report today also relates to this deep process of democratisation that we need.
This is a particularly backward area of democratisation that we are considering today, but perhaps that is partly due to a misunderstanding.
We usually refer to transparency, to public relations, to the information services here in Parliament and in the appropriate committees.
But in that way we tend to reveal rather than resolve the democratic crisis in the EU.
Transparency means clarity. The corresponding democratic concept here is openness to the public.
It is this openness to the public to which the citizens of Europe have a right: open legislation (not transparent legislation but legislation in public), the public justification by the administration of all its acts, rights of control and information for Parliament, in the second and third pillar too, public decisions and decision-making bases, in the area also of internal security and foreign policy, and the rights of the citizen to information (not the information services), the press services, the public relations work of the European institutions.
It is not a question of transparency or of concepts that have no part in the democratic tradition but tend rather to be public relations exercises.
It is a question of the people's right to openness as the foundation of democracy.
Mr President, it may be a coincidence that we are discussing a report about openness in the Union this week, but it really does make Mrs Lööw's text a very topical one.
Had there been more transparency or more openness, then perhaps the Commission and the European Parliament would not have been in the situation of having to hold the debates we are holding this week.
But here too we need rules of play, for then openness really can provide the citizen with reliable information, which, God knows, we need.
After all, electoral campaigns always reveal the deficits in this area very clearly.
However, what we need is not market criers but precise information.
The Lööw report on openness within the European Union is a serious attempt to give just that precision to the relevant provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty.
An interinstitutionally agreed code of conduct is to be formulated to that end. That is a difficult but a truly necessary task.
In any case the proposed provisions are likely to create considerably more openness.
I am sure further discussion will still be needed of some of the proposals, if they are also to apply to institutions such as the Court of Justice, the European Central Bank, the European Court of Auditors and the European Investment Bank.
It is certainly desirable - and here too we welcome the Lööw report - for Council and Coreper decisions to become more transparent by improved access to their documents, for the EU administration to provide the citizen with information more rapidly and courteously - which should really be a matter of course - and for multilingualism to be maintained precisely for the sake of transparency.
Today it is clear that modern electronic techniques have to be used.
Yet we should not go quite as far as most of the amendments, especially Amendment No 4.
However, my group will endorse the broad lines of the report.
The report demands a great deal and of course the European Parliament must also realise that this would mean creating the appropriate financial and staffing conditions, to avoid being told afterwards by the Commission and all the other institutions that any lack of efficiency was simply due to a lack of the necessary resources.
That, after all, is the reason for the dilemma we now find ourselves in.
I really would wish to avoid that and I hope this report on openness within the Union will create the necessary bases for doing so.
Mr President, as we said, it is a rather interesting coincidence that the subject of yesterday's debate was the administration, and here we are today discussing openness and how to improve the credibility of the Union.
A fundamental truth has emerged today: we need uniform practices in public administrations. We cannot go on living with 15 different cultures and 15 different concepts.
It only leads to rumours about a lack of transparency.
However, what I found disturbing in yesterday's discussions was that the President of the Commission made absolutely no mention of a timetable for establishing a code on public access to EU documents, as described by the rapporteur.
When are we to see some action, and what principles will be included?
It would seem to be Parliament's responsibility.
I am afraid the President of the Commission is firmly of the opinion that 'il faut faire une profonde réflexion '.
We should therefore all support the principles laid down by Mrs Lööw in her excellent report.
Mr Gebhardt's intervention also contained some very good points.
We should have a code that includes clear rights for our citizens and obligations for the institutions.
It is vital that we dispel the current distrust in the EU institutions and restore their credibility.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Lööw has presented an excellent report, teaming prudence with boldness in an area where balance and moderation need to be maintained.
Yesterday's debates demonstrated that very clearly.
The rapporteur points out that greater transparency is vital for the future of the European Union.
The citizens of the Union often perceive it as distant and bureaucratic.
Mrs Lööw also tells us that transparency can help prevent corruption and abuses of power.
There are thus two main aspects to this report: form and substance.
Form is not just about wording, it also has to do with attitude.
And I think that our rapporteur has defined it very well.
The second aspect is the substance.
Europe will never make progress until the European institutions, ourselves, but also the Commission - and this was debated at length yesterday - provide the necessary elements to facilitate understanding of their work, and this is true for all the information given to the citizens of the Union.
If we want the judgements made about European action and development to meet our hopes, then our duty as Members of the European Parliament is to improve the information the citizens receive.
Mr President, we think that this report is particularly well-balanced and the Union for Europe Group will be pleased to vote for it.
Mr President, more openness in law-making and administration is crucial for the democratisation of the EU.
Openness is the best remedy for corruption and poor administration, because it enables the public to identify the law-makers and hold them to account.
For that reason, I welcome the Lööw report.
I share most of the rapporteur's views, even though I believe that the report could have gone further and been somewhat clearer on a number of crucial points.
It is obvious that the President of the Commission has not understood the meaning of real openness, as demonstrated by two actual examples.
First of all, the suspension of its official, Mr Van Buitenen, who revealed the truth about fraud to Parliament, shows the Commission's authoritarian attitude.
There is consequently a need for guaranteed freedom of speech to protect the right of officials to make public statements without fear of retribution, and I have tabled an amendment to this effect.
Secondly, Mr Santer's letter to the Swedish Prime Minster, Göran Persson, was a noteworthy incident.
It is totally unacceptable for the Commission to act like a thought police when an EU head of government criticises its actions.
The weak point in the Lööw report is the proposal relating to open meetings of the Council.
It is a fact of democratic life that all law-making should be public.
However, this is not what Mrs Lööw is demanding.
But why should European citizens be content with anything less than complete transparency in the decision-making and legislative processes? After all, that is what normal democracy is all about.
There are two other areas where the report would be improved by the inclusion of the amendments tabled by the GUE/NGL Group.
It is important that the EU should not intrude on national rules relating to openness.
This can and does occur as a result of the excessive secrecy that exists within the EU, as for example when the Council appealed to the Court of Justice over the so-called Journalist Case.
The Council's action directly called into question the rules on openness and constitutional law at national level.
That case, like many others, demonstrates the need for a quick and inexpensive way of appealing against decisions by the EU to withhold certain documents.
Greater openness is vital for the process of democratisation in the EU.
It is therefore regrettable that concern over this issue, both in committee and in the tabling of amendments, was shown above all by Members from the Nordic countries.
The Lööw report is an important and constructive piece of work, and is worthy of greater attention.
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty explicitly introduces the notion that Europe's administrations must become more transparent; indeed, it makes specific reference to public access to documents of the three institutions.
In our opinion this transparency should be extended to all European bodies and fostered by other means too, such as public access to meetings, open administration, the drafting of clearer and simpler texts, a solution to the problem of multilingualism, and so on.
We are convinced that such transparency must be a real aspiration, not just a verbal one, an expression of political intent, not just a bureaucratic act ultimately leading to confusion and away from the truth, in a deliberate bid to avoid clarity.
We ask ourselves this: how much can our citizens, today, feel part of an institutional Europe which is increasingly complex and muddled?
How much can we encourage them to understand the workings of our institutions, now that these are more relevant than ever and now that decisions taken by the Community bodies affect our daily lives, if there are no means of involving the citizens themselves in the procedures and enabling them to understand the reasons for the decisions made? How much can we stress the remoteness of the institutions from the citizens, without running the risk of generating that disgust, that rejection of Europe which is unfortunately all too evident?
How much strain can we place on public disaffection, without running the risk of alienating our citizens once and for all from the centres of decision-making?
Although it is true that the sad affair of fraud and misappropriation of European taxpayers' money, underlined by the refusal of this House to grant discharge for 1996, is currently casting dark shadows over the Community's whole executive, it must nevertheless be brought to public attention.
We are duty-bound to do so, having been elected by our citizens to represent them in this House.
The risk is, however, that those citizens will become increasingly disaffected.
Indeed, the numbers not voting at recent elections in various parts of Europe serve to trigger alarm bells, showing that people have lost confidence: instead of going to vote, they opt for a Sunday outing.
This attitude is becoming dangerous in that while on the one hand it leaves them at the mercy of decisions taken by others - generally active members of traditional political parties - on the other, it means that in the longer term they fall prey to the latest demagogues and populists.
A key feature of our contemporary society, based on the supremacy of law, is to involve the citizens in political decision-making, shaped until recently by national governments and now the prerogative of our Community institutions.
Thus the citizens are entitled not only to feel the effects of political decisions, but also to participate in taking them.
If transparency is to encompass all forms of public access to information and decision-making, democratic control implies that our citizens should not only participate but should also be allowed a supervisory role.
Mr President, the reports by Mrs Lööw and Mr Brok on the transparency of the European institutions and the way the Commission President is elected could not have been presented at a better time.
As far as transparency is concerned, Monday made it all the more clear that the closed bastion of European bureaucracy must be thrown open.
Parliament has tried to do this through the Amsterdam Treaty by calling for all documents used in preparing European legislation to have to be made open and open meetings of the Council when it is dealing with legislation.
These wishes have only been granted in part.
Yesterday's tough debate once again makes it clear that further steps must be taken.
I should like to go further on this point.
I believe we need a law, a European directive, on transparency of government at European level so that the public and Parliament do not have to depend on random promises, but on clear European law.
As regards the Commission President, I should like to make one small comment.
I also support the Brok report, but I believe that the code which the Commission is now proposing should make it clearer that European Commissioners hold office on behalf of the European administration and on behalf of Europe, and not on behalf of their national Member States.
That is one of the points which has led to the degeneration we have seen, and it is something that needs to be laid down as soon as possible in an internal code for the Commission.
This is what I wanted to stress in connection with the Brok report.
This concludes my comments.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank Mrs Lööw for her fine report.
It is a good start, although it does not go far enough.
The proposals relating to guaranteed freedom of speech for officials, public access to Council meetings of a legislative nature and the right of appeal to the Court of Justice against decisions to withhold documents, without incurring costs, do give the report some muscle.
We now have evidence of what a lack of openness and public access to information can lead to.
It is very likely that this debate on a vote of confidence would never have taken place if we had had a comprehensive code on openness, guaranteed freedom of speech and so on, which are the subject of today's discussion.
The best and probably the only way of pre-empting similar debates in future is to open up the administration by establishing a register of incoming documents, with clear rules about what should be public and what should be classified, and with freedom of speech and open Council meetings.
Three cheers for the report and the five amendments!
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur for two reasons: firstly, because she has raised an issue which reflects no credit on the European Union, and secondly, because she approaches it with very specific proposals.
I would like to give two examples.
The first is that the world over, all over the earth, only two bodies meet behind closed doors: one is the Council of Ministers of the European Union and the other is the People's National Assembly in China.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder why we pass resolutions about China and accuse it of a lack of democracy and transparency, when the Council of Ministers of the European Union is doing exactly the same thing.
The second example is the dismissal of a certain Commission staff member.
Do you know what message emerges from that dismissal? The message that the Commission pays its staff, and indeed pays them well, to work, see and hear, but not speak out.
They must not even say anything to the European Parliament, because it is not in our interests to hear what goes on in the Commission.
I therefore congratulate the rapporteurs.
My group will vote for their report.
Mr President, a democratic society is one where an ordinary citizen can ascertain the identity of administrators and the nature of their actions, and when, as a result of this knowledge, that citizen can attribute responsibility when appropriate and monitor the ends pursued through political action.
This is the only way of preventing the abuse of power.
However, the citizens of today's European Union are still denied information on fundamental issues relating to justice and home affairs.
Regulatory documents are drafted in secret.
Decisions are taken without the reasons for them being made public, alleging that public order and internal security are at stake. In the past, therefore, institutions have been able to treat the principle of confidentiality in a cavalier fashion, and they continue to do so today.
There is much talk of working towards greater transparency and openness to bring the institutions of the European Union closer to the citizen. What is really at issue, however, is making the new Europe and its institutions democratically legitimate.
That is the real aim.
The Treaty of Amsterdam represented a step in this direction, but more is needed.
Administrators can still restrict information at their discretion, and that power must be done away with.
This report represents an effort to restrict the powers of discretion available to European administrators, and that is why we support it. We believe this is the way forward.
Applause
Mr President, I should first like to thank Mrs Lööw and the Committee on Institutional Affairs for drawing up this report. It will be very much at the forefront of our minds in the European Commission.
By virtue of the Treaty we have been entrusted with the task of presenting to Parliament and to the Council a legislative proposal aimed at increasing the transparency of our institutional system, particularly as regards access to documents.
The services within the various institutions are currently debating the matter. As for ourselves, we shall put forward our proposal as from the entry into force of the Treaty.
This issue is crucial to the future relationship between the European institutions and the citizens, who ought to be the key players in the system of integration.
The Amsterdam process resulted in a Treaty that is very explicit in this regard, referring as it does to a range of issues that directly affect the citizens and the population as a whole. These issues relate to our citizens' rights, interests and legitimate aspirations.
Clearly, secrecy, the lack of clarity surrounding proceedings and decision-making in the institutions, and the suspicion - only the suspicion - that information is suppressed are not conducive to a positive relationship between the Union and its citizens. This is why the Treaty of Amsterdam refers to transparency.
The Commission will study this report very carefully.
It will help us to prepare our own proposal. We shall also bear in mind the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I should like to refer to several key aspects of the resolution.
First, it has to be said that the text and, in particular, the context of the debates, has clearly demonstrated the extent to which the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam modify the present situation.
As far as access to documents is concerned, certain interinstitutional arrangements are currently in place, and each institution also has its own procedures.
However, these procedures depend heavily on the good will of each institution, with scant backing from Court decisions.
The Treaty lays down an absolute right to transparency, which must be enshrined in a legislative act and in internal provisions made by each of the institutions.
Secondly, we must remember that greater freedom of access to documents is not an aim in itself. Rather, it should lead to increased transparency of procedures and a clearer appreciation of political and institutional responsibilities.
Transparency should enable us to put across to the citizen a better picture of how each institution operates. We need to dispel the myth that decisions are taken by Brussels bureaucrats who are out of touch with reality.
In this regard, the interinstitutional agreement on the quality of legislation should be welcomed. It represents a significant step towards legislation the citizen will find easier to understand.
Thirdly, and in conclusion, I should like to refer to the issue of information, which was raised by a number of speakers.
Adequate information is obviously the most important aspect of transparency.
A transparent system cannot really come about without information, nor can progress be made along the course plotted by this Parliament.
Action has been taken in this regard.
A large number of documents are now available on the Internet and this means that all these documents, which are by definition public documents, are now actually accessible. Previously, access to them was fraught with complications.
Work along these lines must continue, bearing in mind of course that written information, oral information and direct contact with the citizens are nevertheless essential.
For all these reasons, I should once again like to congratulate the rapporteur on her significant report. We shall give it serious consideration when drafting our legislative proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will follow immediately.
VOTES
The Commission recommendation for a Council decision concerning exchange rate matters relating to agreements signed between France and certain African countries, for the management of the CFA franc and the Comorian franc, is a technical document that is highly revealing of the Brussels methods.
It shows how the CFA franc has been drawn in under Community authority in spite of the Treaty, how national prerogatives are violated, and how French interests are gradually going to be compromised.
First of all, these exchange rate agreements do not involve the Bank of France, because they relate to a fixed rate convertibility guarantee granted to the CFA franc by the French Treasury, that is, by our country's national budget.
Under the circumstances, even when the franc is replaced by the euro, one might assume on reading the Treaty that these agreements would continue to be an entirely French responsibility, given that it is our financial guarantee that is involved, and that, a priori , the European Central Bank will have nothing to do with it.
That was certainly the interpretation of the French, at the time of Maastricht, of Article 109(5) of the Treaty, which states that 'without prejudice to Community competence and Community agreements as regards economic and monetary union, Member States may negotiate in international bodies and conclude international agreements'.
But that was reckoning without the appetite for power of the European institutions, notably the Commission.
Even though the management of the CFA franc will present no risk whatsoever to the stability of the euro, given the tiny sums involved, the Commission decided, against all likelihood and against any legal logic, not to apply Article 109(5), but to apply Article 109(3), which sets out the arrangements for approval of monetary agreements signed by the Community.
Thus, the first paragraph of the recommendation generously grants us the right to maintain the agreements relating to the CFA franc, despite the fact that this is our right anyway.
Added to this, we should inform the Commission and the Economic and Financial Committee of any plan to amend these agreements, and even in certain cases submit them to the Council for approval.
This all constitutes a flagrant violation of French national sovereignty.
This legal violation comes on top of the violation of French interests that will result from the euro replacing the franc in relations with the CFA franc.
In fact, the financial guarantee that France granted to the CFA franc involved an important commercial advantage for our country, since economic agents could organise their transactions more easily on the basis of fixed exchange rates.
In future, France will still grant its financial guarantee, but this will be of commercial benefit to every country in the euro zone.
Finally, the exchange rate agreements for the CFA franc used to be reasonably coherent, because the French Treasury's guarantee could be activated by variations in the franc, which was itself managed by the Bank of France.
But in future, the French guarantee could be activated by variations in the euro, over which the French authorities will have virtually no control, except on the margin.
Part of the internal logic of the system has been broken.
This abandonment of French sovereignty, added to the loss of our commercial advantage, is bound to mean a gradual reduction of French influence in the African countries involved.
The pegging of the African currencies to the euro will increase the prominence of the euro, thereby justifying an additional promotional effort.
This is of particular interest to me as it will be a way of bringing the Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa closer to the EU.
Lööw Report (A4-0476/98)
Mr President, we have now voted on the Lööw report, and I should like to offer my congratulations to the rapporteur.
It is a notable report which has come out at just the right moment, in view of the discussions that have been taking place both here and in the other EU institutions during recent months, weeks and days.
We began our work on openness and transparency in the Committee on Institutional Affairs long before the Treaty of Amsterdam. At the time, Mr Bonde was responsible for the working document that was produced.
The report sets out the measures that are needed to increase the openness and transparency which form the basis of the democratic control that Parliament in particular should be exercising.
It covers public access to documents, the registering of documents, open meetings of the Council and, in particular, greater use of the Internet and a new and truly accountable administrative structure.
However, the need for openness and transparency is not confined to allowing the public access to documents; it also applies to the entire decision-making process and to public-sector activities, as well as to how public money is spent.
Without openness and transparency in these areas, we shall never have democratic institutions that function effectively.
The report states that the Amsterdam Treaty can be regarded as a first step towards establishing a genuine principle of public access in the EU.
However, there is still a tremendously long way to go.
I only mention this so that we do not think that we have produced a report that is all-embracing.
In my view, it contains no definite proposal on guaranteed freedom of speech, and I believe that Mrs Lööw agrees with me on this.
Unfortunately, the House did not adopt the amendment tabled by Mr Sjöstedt and myself.
Guaranteed freedom of speech for officials, which is a freedom accorded in the Nordic countries, in other words the right to make information public without the risk of sanctions and the right to remain anonymous, must become the legally accepted practice.
I believe this is a basic element in any genuine principle of public access.
Parliament must see to it that the Amsterdam Treaty, or any future treaty, is amended to this effect.
Mrs Lööw's report on transparency in the European Union is on the right lines, but it is still based overly on individual issues and suffers from a lack of overall perspective.
First of all, while it is true that the Amsterdam Treaty recognises the citizen's right of access to the documents of the European institutions - this right should, of course, have been granted long ago - there are grounds for concern about the lack of symmetry in the treatment of the Council and the Commission.
A specific article - the newArticle 207 - defines the principal obligations of the Council in terms of transparency, but curiously the equivalent does not exist for the Commission.
The Commission should not take advantage of this omission to try to perpetuate the obscurity that surrounds the management of its dossiers. We now see the appalling consequences of that in the endless frauds and scandals that have come to light.
What is even more serious is that the Lööw report is careful not to broaden its perspective and does not raise the fundamental question, namely, is it not true that the entire policy on European integration that has been implemented in recent years is by its very nature based on non-transparency?
There are two sides to the Monnet method, which was given so much praise by the German Presidency just this morning. There is a policy of integration based on small successive technical steps, but there is also, and we often forget to mention this, a policy whose final objective is never clearly expressed to the citizens, even if the strategic players are themselves completely in the know.
By its very nature, this method is undemocratic.
Perhaps it was of very little importance when the Community was in its early days, but now it has dramatic consequences in the shape of essential quasi-clandestine transfers of sovereignty and a complete sense of isolation from public opinion.
Democracy must be restored in Europe, and that means going against the Monnet method.
Of course, that may put the brakes on European federalism.
But today we have to prioritise between integration or democracy.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted for the report on openness.
We are in favour of the public right of access to documents in the EU.
We also agree with the amendments which emphasise that national rules on openness should be respected and that it should be possible to appeal to the European Court of Justice if public right of access is denied.
However, we do not agree that all Council meetings should be public.
But that is not the same as saying that afterwards the Council can keep its decisions and minutes secret.
Similarly, we believe that civil servants should follow certain rules when speaking about internal matters, such as sensitive personal information, as in the Danish civil service.
A few weeks ago, when crossing Rue Wiertz, I was stopped by a person who asked me point-blank what she had to do to get access to the European Parliament library.
She was a German student researching a dissertation, and she had been able to consult Commission documents without difficulty.
However, she found the door of our institution barred. I naturally signed an authorisation pass and she was able to make contact with our librarians who did everything to help her with her research on Europe.
But I wondered then about the transparency of the European institutions in general and our own in particular.
Public access to documents is essential for transparency and has been provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty in Article 191(a)(2).
So the rapporteur is quite right to question our own system.
Who makes the rules? The Conference of Presidents takes these decisions without involving any committee.
I admit that the decision of 10 July 1997 on public access to European Parliament documents is certainly a step in the right direction.
More recently, on 17 April 1998, the Bureau took a decision on the costs involved in forwarding documents.
That is all very well.
But the question of access is so important that it actually concerns all Members, because it is closely linked to the citizens' trust in the European Union and the image they have of it.
Are we trying hard enough to make our work public? I am struck by the contrast that exists between the mass of documents from the often excellent work of our committees and their impact on the media and on public opinion.
How can we improve that?
The Dury/Maij-Weggen report ahead of the IGC wanted access to EU documents enshrined in the Treaty.
On that point our two colleagues won the day.
They also wanted the documents to be easy to read, they wanted the Treaties to be summarised, restructured and simplified, and they wanted the special comments and reservations of the Member States in relation to Union legislation to also be made public.
We need to make progress on all these points.
Finally, we must remember, too, that other reports must also follow on transparency.
It is not limited to access to documents, important though that may be.
When Maastricht was ratified, some states distributed the Treaty to each household.
They forgot that European jargon needs to be simplified and translated so that the citizens can understand what is at stake.
This simplification is just as necessary at the level of decision-making.
The closer Europe is to the democratic model of the states that form it, the more the citizen will relate to it.
The Amsterdam Treaty represents progress in that direction, but there is still a long road ahead of us to achieve transparency and democracy.
This is a problem linked to the construction of Europe, in transition between nation states and a federation.
But there is no doubt that the principle of transnational lists is likely to develop the sense of European awareness.
The construction of Europe is at a disadvantage due to a lack of public confidence, which is currently aggravated by the dreadful climate that has been poisoning the European atmosphere over the last few months.
The report we are considering today therefore comes at the right time.
Transparency is more necessary than ever if the construction of Europe is to make good progress.
I am delighted that our rapporteur does not restrict the idea of greater transparency merely to public access to Community documents, and extends this concept to include ensuring more open meetings of the Council when meeting in its legislative capacity, making fuller use of modern methods of rapid or real-time communication, drafting simpler texts, retaining the use of all languages within the institutions, and improving the quality of information campaigns about the European Union.
For my part, I would lay particular stress on the fact that current exceptions to transparency need to be better defined with more restrictions laid down. This must be the case although it is obvious to everyone that a certain level of confidentiality - and even absolute confidentiality - is sometimes not only desirable, but also highly essential in the management of difficult or critical issues.
More generally, I share the view that the drawing up of a new code of conduct and its extension to all the Community institutions will certainly provide necessary clarification and help them regain much-needed credibility.
Finally, I am glad that our rapporteur calls for agreement on 'improving the quality of the drafting of Community legislation, leading to clearer and simpler ... texts'.
Unfortunately, incomprehensible legal documents and regulations are not the prerogative of the European institutions.
Indeed, many Member States would gain by consolidating and codifying their legislation.
This is another reason for the Union to set an example!
In the light of the recent accusations of fraud and deception in the Commission, I hope that the Lööw report on transparency in the EU will be approved by a large majority.
I am convinced that a genuine principle of public access to EU documents would be an effective instrument in combating deception and fraud in the EU institutions, and would help to overcome the justified suspicion and lack of confidence currently felt by EU citizens.
What is still lacking is the so-called guaranteed freedom of speech for officials, without which, in reality, openness and the principle of public access cannot function properly.
The recent suspension of the official who informed Parliament of certain notable occurrences in the Commission demonstrates with admirable clarity the need for guaranteed freedom of speech.
I therefore hope that this freedom of speech will be introduced in the EU with all possible speed.
That concludes the vote.
The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Approval by Parliament of Commission President
The next item is the report (A4-0488/98) by Mr Brok, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on institutional implications of European Parliament approval of the President of the Commission and the independence of Members of the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, with the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty, the European Parliament has new powers of determining relations between the institutions.
If we summarise the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty in the usual terms, it must be said that the European Council only has the right to propose the President of the Commission and that the European Parliament has the real right to elect him.
This adds a new dimension to their relations and so we will also have to agree the procedures that need to be introduced in the course of this summer and autumn.
The political groups must grasp this new opportunity from the outset, which is why both the Committee on Institutional Affairs and I myself consider it right that in the long term we should adopt Jacques Delors's proposal that the major political movements should nominate their candidates for the office of President of the Commission during the European election campaign.
I believe that is extremely important because it personalises European policy and can thus also stimulate greater interest among the people in the European idea.
But I believe it is also important for the European Council and the governments to accept the results of the European elections as a determining factor in the nominations.
That is why we think it is wrong for the presidency to propose nominating the Council's candidate nine days before the European elections, for the European Council cannot know the outcome of those elections at that point.
So it could make a proposal that was not compatible with the outcome of those elections.
A special summit must therefore be held after the European elections, so that, in line with the parliamentary majorities that emerge from them, a candidate can be proposed who is likely to win Parliament's confidence.
Here we will probably have to follow a new direction if we are to make the necessary headway.
So we will attach great importance to negotiations with the European Council's nominee, so that we can vote on the basis of the nominated president's undertakings with regard to his political guidelines, the quality of interinstitutional relations, but also of the criteria which he and the governments will follow in the nomination of the other members of the Commission.
Here, too, the nominated President of the Commission elected by the European Parliament has new opportunities, for the Member State governments can only submit a proposal in common accord with him.
That means this President of the Commission is also responsible for meeting another demand made by the European Parliament, namely to ensure a reasonable balance between the sexes and between the main political tendencies in the European Union within that Commission, so that it can act impartially.
In our view that is also a real criterion for the conduct of the hearings of nominees.
In that respect a number of improvements are still needed after the experiences of 1995.
It is also extremely important to make it clear that the Commission will become more independent because any conflicts of interest will be prevented by the declaration of external interests, by the obligation to refrain from taking part in certain discussions and other aspects addressed in the report.
I believe that will help us avoid some of those situations that are currently the subject of criticism.
This also offers new opportunities to hold Commissioners more politically accountable - as we tend to do in the case of national ministers - so as to make provision for their compulsory retirement and enable the President of the Commission to withdraw the portfolios of Commissioners who have failed politically, as laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Much of what we are discussing at present would not even have arisen if such instruments existed, because there would be more means of resolving the situation.
If possible, the President of the Commission should submit his proposals even before the summer break, after the European elections, and they should be voted on as early as possible so that the procedures for appointing the individual Commissioners can be initiated.
I believe that on the basis of the timetable submitted to us we could find a solution that the Council and the future Commission could also come to support, so that in this way we can create the basis for new relations between the institutions, which would bring a new dimension to Europe.
Mr President, the report that our esteemed German colleague Mr Brok is finally presenting to Parliament today is in essence the follow-up to and completion of a draft report presented earlier by another esteemed colleague, Mr Giampaolo d'Andrea, who has since become a deputy minister in the Italian Government and has therefore left us rather earlier than expected.
It is a report which I think Parliament could comfortably adopt without any real reservations about its basic principles, because Mr Brok, encouraged of course by the favourable opinion of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, has drafted it in a way that takes into account most of the points about which we in this House feel strongly.
And this is another demonstration that Parliament, at least in some cases - and fortunately there are quite a lot of them - can make timely headway and make even more rapid progress than the Treaties and anything that is likely to be drawn up in the future.
We are debating the approval of the nomination of the President of the European Commission by the European Parliament, which is a most important change instituted by the Treaty of Amsterdam and which legitimises at least one of the two authorities that make up the European Union, if we accept the definition that the European Union is an association of peoples and states.
In that case, through the MEPs, the Members of the European Parliament, it confers popular legitimacy upon the proposal by the states, the Heads of State and Government, for the nomination of the President of the Commission.
This is a very important institutional step and if, as we hope, the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam has been completed by the French Presidency by the end of March, it will come into effect in May and immediately after the election of the Members of the European Parliament this very important new provision will be implemented for the first time.
I am in complete agreement with Mr Brok's observation that the scheduling of the European Council in Cologne one week before the Euro-elections is unfortunate.
I cannot believe that the result of the Euro-elections will not influence the proposals by the Member States for the President of the Commission.
We must insist and fight for this to change.
After all, it is already January and we must do that.
I do not have much to add. My view, and that of the Legal Affairs Committee which I represent, is that Parliament must always interpret the Treaties imaginatively while not departing too far from the letter, because that might create more problems than it solves.
The Treaties have loopholes, and these must be made good, but for the moment what is important is to implement the Treaty of Amsterdam correctly in July.
Mr President, I too congratulate the rapporteur on his report. This report is about the future - which makes a change from the debates we were having earlier - and, in particular, about relations between the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament with a view to greater democratisation of our institutions.
Who is this report aimed at? I think it is aimed first and foremost at us, at the European Parliament.
It is an internal discussion document, and I would also congratulate the Committee on Institutional Affairs on having initiated this process. It is then also aimed at the other institutions with which we need to find a balance.
The report deals with three groups of issues: the new features of the Amsterdam Treaty; the elements to revitalise the election campaign, namely, the Delors proposals; and finally, a clearer, fairer, and more transparent model of democracy.
As regards the Amsterdam Treaty, three new features have taken advantage, without admitting it, of universal suffrage, and, among these features - as Mr Brok has already mentioned - is the issue of assent, which is binding on all parties.
The first matter of assent relates to the nomination for the President of the Commission, who will then chose the Commissioners jointly with the governments. A second assent relates to the whole of the College consisting of President and Commissioners, and the fact that this Commission will work to the political guidelines defined by the President.
This shows the importance of the role to be played by the European Parliament and the need to secure a majority.
The outline is emerging of a European Union where an executive - the Commission - will be appointed by two legislative institutions, that is, the European Parliament, representing the citizens, and the Council, representing the Member States.
This is a fragile tripolar structure and many concessions will be needed to achieve this balance.
But it is clear that the aim of the Amsterdam Treaty is that neither the Council nor the European Parliament should be in a position to alone appoint the executive without taking account of the position of the other institution.
They are thus condemned, or at least invited, to work together and negotiate the composition, political guidelines and working methods of the Commission.
Parliament is now in a position, therefore, to play a distinctly stronger role in the appointment of the College of Commissioners.
That is new and I think we need to get used to it, which may not be so simple.
The second issue involves adding vitality to the election campaign.
As everyone knows, for a campaign to be successful, it needs to be about people and that was the appeal of the Delors plan.
The problem is that our structures, especially the political parties, are not entirely ready for that yet.
So it is unlikely to come into operation for these elections, but it probably will for the next ones and we must adapt to it.
In any case, I do not think that the process of nominating someone for the presidency can begin until the voters have had their say, if only out of respect for the citizen in his role as a voter and for the European Parliament.
After all, Parliament represents a breeding ground that Member States can draw from when forming their own governments, be it for ministers or for secretaries of state, and it may be surprising that the European structures cannot do more, particularly in terms of the composition of the Commission.
And finally, I would like to say that I was very pleasantly surprised when the Council representative said in his statement this morning that the Amsterdam Treaty had given the European Parliament important new rights and powers, and when he added that he could see the next IGC granting the European Parliament an even more important role in the appointment of the Commission than is provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We have therefore probably been too modest up until now.
Mr President, this report concerns a most important aspect of the European Union's constitution; if its proposals become reality, the European Union will become far more parliamentary and therefore also democratic in nature.
We must remember that for a very long time EU policy was purely a matter for governments.
Now the European Union is gradually moving closer towards fulfilling certain of the criteria of a parliamentary democracy, a most important and positive move.
I believe it is very important that this also gives considerably more political weight to the elections to the European Parliament.
If the people's representation within the European Union now acquires the right to have a determining say in the appointments to the highest offices of the executive of the European Union, it will also acquire considerably greater influence on Commission policy.
I believe it is most important to follow on with the next step now and to enshrine in the political order of the EU the accountability of the Commission and its individual members to Parliament.
After all, we have discovered the need for that very clearly in the current debates.
The basic idea is surely as follows: we want a strong European Union, a Union that can also assert itself vis-à-vis national interests.
But a European Union that has this kind of power and influence needs a twin brother or sister.
Its name is democracy. This report shows us that we can progress along this road to a democratic European Union in a crucial area, if the proposals it makes are implemented.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is still present in the House and is today taking part in our debate, which I feel is right.
Politics, in its most noble sense, is action, and I, in my own modest way, can contribute to this debate.
In this respect, I must say that I have no desire to repeat here the statements I made in the competent committee regarding my disagreement with some of the solutions contained in Mr Brok's report.
The emphasis on the Commission's vocation of government is one of these aspects, together with the indication during the European elections of the name of the candidate for Commission President and the obligation to nominate a substantial number of Members of the European Parliament as Members of the Commission.
However, I must say that I applaud and welcome the rule giving greater political responsibility to the Commission President.
This rule, which results from the Amsterdam Treaty, means that the governments of the Member States must, by common consensus, nominate someone for Commission President.
This therefore implies that the Member States must give more thought to the name of the person to nominate.
The European Parliament has a vital role in considering and voting for both the President and the Members of the Commission.
The greater political responsibility and authority of the Commission President is a principle to be applauded and is today, more than ever, a factor we should all welcome.
If only one of my proposals had been adopted in the competent committee, this would have allowed some time between the nomination of the President and the latter's programme and the respective vote for negotiating, settling interests and deciding on a strong personality with political credibility and authority over the Commission.
Europe needs this rule.
Mr President, I broadly agree with this report, apart from one central point with which I do not agree, namely the attempt to link the nomination of the Commission President to the elections to the European Parliament, as Mr Delors had also once proposed.
I do not agree with it because the institutional consequences of this proposal have not been thought through and because it makes the dilemma of our method of integration quite glaringly obvious.
The President-in-Office of the Council praised the Jean Monnet method today, the pragmatism of integration policy.
That was the method of discreet projects that cleared the way and created momentum.
I believe the situation today is quite different, which is why I am extremely pleased that the President-in-Office has now for the first time announced the need for a constitutional process.
For the pragmatic method will certainly not take us forward any more.
What is the point of this kind of election of a President of the Commission if it is not a real election?
How can a parliament downgrade its own election into the quasi-election of an executive? Where does this quasi-election of the Commission President take us?
Towards a presidential democracy?
Towards a federal system?
Or does the President of the Commission have to be a Member of Parliament, and, if so, why?
On the basis of what kind of constitutional vision?
I think the time has passed for trying to turn the accumulation of power that is the EU into a democracy by means of those kinds of pragmatic, individual advances. The only way to turn this Union into a democracy now is through a constitutional process.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this morning the President-in-Office made a splendid, very important speech, which was certainly extremely well received.
However, on Tuesday afternoon, the slot devoted to relations with the Council, while we are discussing a text concerning relations between the European Council and Parliament in such a sensitive area - one where, post-Amsterdam, Parliament now possesses the powers which led to Mr Brok's excellent report - well, the Council is absent.
I do not see a Council representative, and quite frankly, if I may say so, given that Mr Brok, the rapporteur, was the European Parliament's spokesman in the working group which negotiated Amsterdam, this strikes me as conduct unworthy of a new presidency. Surely it could have paid a little more attention to such an important report.
So, Mr Oreja, we shall say to the Commission what is meant for the ears of the Council, and then we shall send the minutes to the German Presidency.
I wholeheartedly endorse Mr Brok's report which, if adopted as it stands, without the amendments aiming to make it more lightweight, will I believe be an excellent starting-point for the next five years, with a Commission that is equal to the challenges lying ahead of the European Union.
I hope that the House will adopt my amendment on the European Council, drawing the Council's attention to the fact that holding the European Council on 3 and 4 June will jeopardise the whole scenario established at Amsterdam. I call on the German Presidency to acknowledge the need to move either the Council or the date on which the president-designate is selected.
I hope that my request will be noted in the Minutes.
Mr President, there are awful coincidences in parliamentary life.
That is what has happened with the Brok report.
Just as everyone is realising that the European Commission is rotten to the core with corruption, Parliament's Committee on Institutional Affairs comes up with a proposal for us to act like a government of Europe by exploiting in advance the Amsterdam Treaty.
Once again, the old theory of the independence of the Commission is trotted out. The federalists seem to regard it as a central pillar of their doctrine, but personally I see it as a clear cause of the evil that is eating away at the European institutions.
The resolution you are to vote on actually proposes strengthening the idea of the independence of the Commission, so as, and I quote 'to safeguard the Commission as the motor that promotes the Community interest, the guardian of the Treaties and the exclusive holder of the right of legislative initiative'.
That amounts to virtual deification of the Commission: it is pure and virtuous, it defends the general interest and it is worthy of being granted essential powers.
Of course, the honourable Member who drafted those lines was no doubt thinking of strengthening the Commission's independence with regard to the Council and the Member States, but not with regard to the European Parliament.
Unfortunately, things are very different in practice and it is revealing that the most serious punishment recently meted out by the Commission against one of its officials was taken against Mr Van Buitenen, who made the mistake of passing compromising documents specifically to this Parliament.
In fact, the doctrine of independence has led to a sense of superiority and impunity on the part of the Commission and this has encouraged lax behaviour to a much worse degree than we can probably even imagine today.
So we are combating this doctrine in order to get to the root of the evil. We want the Commission to be subject to thorough control on the part of Parliament and the Member States meeting in the Council.
And in this respect, I would remind you, ladies and gentlemen, of how vital it is to vote on Thursday in favour of the motion of censure tabled on the initiative of my group, but now signed by Members from each of Parliament's groups.
Mr President, the rapporteur has taken on a difficult legacy with this report.
But he has successfully got it through committee with very skilful compromise amendments. He is to be congratulated on that, even if he is not present.
In connection with this report, and besides the qualifications and criticisms Mr Voggenhuber has already made, I would like to raise another subject that is not considered in the report itself and cannot indeed be considered given the Treaties as they stand.
I have repeatedly pointed out that I regard the nomination of Commissioners by the Member States as an inherent mistake in the EU's institutional system.
It inevitably gives rise to conflicts between what the citizens of the nominating Member State expect of their Commissioner and the latter's obligation to give priority to EU interests.
I think this is at least partly responsible for the current difficulties and believe that this aspect also needs to be considered during the discussions on reforming the institutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, during this unusual week the European Parliament is taking a twofold position on its executive.
Firstly, we are deciding on the destructive vote of censure - as it is called - against the Commission, and secondly we are establishing how our rights of assent can be used constructively in relation to future Commissions.
It is a question of becoming stronger as a parliament.
That is the main message of the Amsterdam Treaty.
But a stronger parliament also implies equal legislative rights, full budgetary rights and the right both to elect and to control the executive.
We have concrete demands to make in that respect.
The new President of the Commission must be voted in by the European Parliament, so the candidate must not be nominated before the elections.
Furthermore, for the future I hope that the main political parties will fight the campaign for the election of the European Parliament with a supranational top candidate who also aspires to the office of President of the Commission.
A substantial number of MEPs should form part of the college of Commissioners.
Today, as we know, there are seven already.
The proportion of women, currently 25 %, needs to be increased.
Moreover, the composition of the Commission should reflect the spectrum of political tendencies that make up the European constitutional consensus.
Last but not least, the individual members should also be held politically accountable in person for their sphere of responsibility.
During the 1994 appointment of the Commission, the European Parliament demonstrated that it was exercising its rights in regard both to hearings of individuals and to the vote to approve the college as a whole.
Much has happened since then.
The new relations between the European Parliament and the Commission must also be based on a code of conduct and on interinstitutional agreements.
The Brok report reflects our growing self-confidence and our common responsibility for the European Union.
Mr President, the Treaty of Amsterdam contains among its innovations the fact that Parliament would henceforth elect the President of the Commission on a proposal from the national governments, just as Maastricht already provided that the college of Commissioners would be subject to a vote of confidence by the European Parliament.
This is very important for the democratisation of the European Union.
It emphasises the fact that the Commissioners are not civil servants; they are a political executive accountable to the directly elected Parliament.
In my country in particular, where the press often misportrays that reality, this step forward is important in underlining that democratic accountability.
The question that now begins to arise in the debate is whether we should go one stage further.
Instead of Parliament electing at least the President of the Commission on a proposal of the national governments, should it not simply elect whoever it likes as President of the Commission? What would follow from that would inevitably be that the different party groups, and then the different political party structures in Europe generally, would then have to come up with candidates before the European elections.
Different party federations would say: 'So-and-so is our candidate' or 'Somebody else is our candidate'.
That would add something to the European elections.
If you think about it, the big difference at the moment between European and national elections is that, when we vote in national elections, we go out to vote for or against a government, not for a parliament in isolation.
Suddenly, every five years, the European electorate has to go out and vote not for a government, not to change or keep a government, but for a parliament in isolation.
There is no visible consequence of the vote on the executive.
To go that one stage further would add a new dimension to the European elections, make them more understandable to the public and have a visible effect, at least on the chief executive.
The proposal would also have disadvantages which I do not have time to go into.
It needs to be examined carefully.
The danger is that a majority in Parliament feels bound to support everything that the Commission it has elected wants to do - just as many of our national parliaments feel bound to support their executive, come what may.
We must find the balance.
But the Brok report is a step in the right direction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for the reasons already indicated, I consider that the Amsterdam Treaty implies the need to strengthen the democratic legitimacy and political responsibility of the Commission and also therefore of its President.
I must say that I support Jacques Delors' proposal, which is backed by some very important figures on the political scene, to organise the European election campaign around not just a political programme but also the choice of Commission President, with the European political parties having to publicly present their candidate for this post to the electorate.
The main positive effect of this would be the personalisation of the campaign, which would lead to increased visibility of the institutions, better understanding of the rationale and greater emotional identification of the citizens with the European Union itself and its objectives and policies.
I believe that the European Union would surely gain in terms of greater prestige, proximity to the people and democratic responsibility.
I also feel that the Brok report is heading in the right direction towards these objectives. However, the requirements of realpolitik , which aims to preserve the power of the prime ministers to negotiate and choose the person to be proposed to the European Parliament, have dulled the clarity of the report in favour of forms of compromise that allow room for both sides of the argument.
In any case, it was the motion for a resolution that contained the proposal - and I am pleased to have contributed to this - for the European Council to choose the person to be nominated as Commission President bearing in mind the election results.
It is therefore not right for the German Government to claim that it will start the process of nominating the Commission President at the Cologne European Council set for 3 June, before the European elections.
I believe that this would negate the debate we are having and it would negate the innovation introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty.
What is happening with the Santer Commission - due to the way in which it was nominated - and with the motion of censure - due to the way in which this was conducted - demonstrates that it is essential to clearly move in the direction recommended by the Delors proposal, which, despite everything, has been accepted by the Brok report, and it is to be congratulated in this respect.
Mr President, one of the main objectives of this report is to establish links between the will of the people, as expressed in the European elections, and the President of the European Commission.
In my opinion, when this is achieved, it will result in a much better situation both for the institution and for the President of the Commission himself. The President will be given a mandate by the citizens of Europe, which will strengthen democracy in Europe, and we shall move closer to political union.
I feel all this represents a definite improvement and, therefore, the quicker it is put in place, the better.
It must come about as soon as possible.
This excellent report also offers further significant recommendations.
It suggests, for instance, a greater role for ideological political options, sidelining that vision of a merely bureaucratic Europe, which we hope to confine to history.
The report is important for this reason, and also for the way in which it envisages European elections as transcending narrow nationalism and promoting a common idea of Europe.
Joint and balanced action by the three European institutions - the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament - is also to be commended, Mr Brok.
So too, in my view, is the target of fair representation of the sexes on the Commission. Those photos of European Councils showing 99.99 % males are a serious affront to the democratic representation of the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, Mr Brok's report tackles an issue of extreme importance, namely, the relationship of trust between the European Parliament and the Commission. This fundamental concept was only introduced into the Treaties in 1992, through the Maastricht Treaty.
Nevertheless, prior to that date, the European Parliament had regularly been confirming the investiture of the Commission for some time.
For its part, the Commission took great account of Parliament's view on the matter.
The experience of 1995, that is, the approval of the College of Commissioners by Parliament, made it possible for a full debate to take place between the Commission - the President and each of its members - and Parliament.
I have the experience of having served as a member of the previous Commission, and therefore of being appointed under the old arrangements. I certainly believe that Parliament's amendment of the Rules of Procedure to allow for the approval of the Commission was a step in the right direction.
I recall those appearances in January 1995 very clearly. They provided an opportunity to exchange ideas, and enabled the members of parliamentary committees to find out about the views and programme of each of the Commissioners who were to be invested in the near future.
Since then, the Treaty of Amsterdam has led to improvements in the procedure.
There is no question about that.
I believe that one of the major steps forward, though one that has not been given sufficient emphasis, concerns what one might refer to as the legitimacy of the Commission. Mr Brok's report does highlight it, however.
The Treaty of Amsterdam allows Parliament to approve the President of the Commission personally and specifically, rather than Parliament merely being consulted prior to the appointment.
My own view on this - as the Commission has not set out its position on the matter - is that the arrangements outlined, particularly those referred to by Mr Brok and other speakers, are steps in the right direction. I am referring to the arrangements that allow the political groups to put candidates forward, though the European Council would remain free to make its own decision.
I do not think that this is a matter of modifying the Treaty, but is instead a matter of implementing the Treaty. The Treaty allows for various possible arrangements.
One of these would be for the political groups to put candidates forward to the European Council. The Council would then make the necessary decision quite independently.
In any case, adhering strictly to the terms of the Treaty, I feel it is a positive move for Parliament to be empowered to put such a proposal to the Council. Indeed, many speakers have drawn attention to Mr Fischer's words this morning, when he said that more powers could be granted to Parliament.
Any further means of enabling Parliament to legitimise the Commission must be helpful. Such an arrangement will allow the President of the Commission to go on to discuss the composition of the College of Commissioners with the various governments.
I believe that this step taken in the Treaty of Amsterdam is of the greatest significance.
All this results in something that is made quite clear in the Treaty of Amsterdam: the function of political guidance ascribed to the President of the Commission. This too represents an improvement on the present situation.
It is imperative to guarantee at least the political coherence of the College of Commissioners in an institutional system in which the notion of governmental structure is becoming less and less clear and in which the resulting responsibilities are widely distributed.
We find ourselves at a crucial stage in the construction of Europe. In my view, it is essential to ensure that the basic pillars of the system of integration enable us to promote European interests more effectively, through the development of the Community method.
I am referring to the pillars representing the Union's interest, common interests rather than national interests. This will also contribute to the development of an effective relationship.
As might be expected, the Community method will need to be strengthened in view of the forthcoming reforms.
History has shown how this method is much more efficient when compared with the poor results of the intergovernmental method.
A good understanding between the Commission and the European Parliament will help to ensure the smooth running of the institutions.
I hope I have made it clear that I believe Mr Brok's report is very significant, and must be given serious consideration. All these ideas and initiatives are paving the way for the future modification of the Treaty, but I feel that, prior to any modification of the Treaty, we can now implement a range of measures designed to strengthen the relationship of trust between the Commission and Parliament.
It would be nice to conclude at this point, but I feel obliged to make one last remark.
I have to say to Mr Berthu that I utterly and absolutely reject his attack on the Commission.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
European Capital of Culture (2005 to 2019)
The next item is the proposal (A4-0509/98), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, for a declaration of intended rejection of the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0493/98-97/0290(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a Community action for the 'European Capital of Culture' event for the years 2005 to 2019 (Rapporteur: Mr Monfils).
Why are we tabling this proposal for a declaration of intended rejection? We are tabling it because we are concerned about safeguarding our parliamentary prerogatives and the interinstitutional balance laid down in the Treaty.
I would remind you that the Commission's original text provided for a procedure to designate cities of culture based essentially on the quality of the projects put forward.
Parliament had amended that text to strengthen the quality requirement even further, particularly by giving the jury greater independence and laying down more precise criteria.
It thereby demonstrated its interest in the designation of European cities of culture.
Instead of working on this basis at second reading, the Council radically changed the original text, providing for the nomination of the European city, for the period from 2005 to 2019, by each country in turn when it assumes the presidency of the Union.
The entire procedure set out in the original text is replaced by a rigid system, where the choice of towns is no longer based on project quality but on a mere political decision taken by each state in turn.
This system is all the more ridiculous because who knows what Europe will be like in 2015, when Belgium will be able to nominate its European city, or in 2019, when it will be Italy's turn?
The Council has even forgotten that the enlargement of Europe should presumably take place before 2019 and that, under the system it has decided on, the new members would have no chance of nominating their city unless, pursuing this brilliant line of thought, the Council meets again to organise a rota of the future 11 countries of the European Union from 2020 to 2031.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is becoming totally surreal.
However, by declaring that a text fundamentally different from the original draft is the common position, the Council is hijacking parliamentary procedure. It is preventing Parliament from holding two readings of the text and it is also forcing Parliament to obtain a majority not of the Members present, but of all the Members of Parliament, in other words, a minimum of 314 votes, to adopt any amendments tabled.
The Council justifies its attitude on the grounds that, in its view, this was the only way it could obtain unanimity.
If that is the case, ladies and gentlemen, it might have realised this much earlier and, if necessary, discussed the problem with the Commission.
But the main point is that the Council's difficulties in reaching agreement on a text cannot be used as an excuse for hijacking an institutional procedure.
Otherwise, the Council could act in the same way on other issues in the future, allowing a text from first reading that does not correspond to its views to be submitted and then coming up with a totally different common position. In this way, it could bypass Parliament's second reading and make it impossible for Parliament to properly do its job as co-legislator.
That temptation is obvious. Clearly, we believe it to be unacceptable.
We are therefore tabling this declaration of intended rejection to make the Council negotiate in the Conciliation Committee, as provided for by Article 189b(2)(c) of the Treaty.
I would like to end, Mr President, with two important comments.
The first is that the declaration of intended rejection is not aimed at the designation of European cities of culture for the period 2001 to 2004, as those cities were selected through a simple intergovernmental decision.
Anyone who makes out that the declaration would affect those cities has not even read the Council's text.
Under the proposed system we have no power as Parliament to discuss the intergovernmental decision.
The declaration is only aimed at the common position setting the procedure for choosing from 2005 to 2019, which is the only text we are looking at.
The second comment is that we believe that the European cities are an essential element in the Union's cultural policy.
That is why we believe the cities chosen should receive a sizeable European subsidy.
We would like to see an allocation of EUR 2 million per city.
Finally, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope Parliament will vote for this declaration of intended rejection, thereby demonstrating that it puts the accent on the cultural quality of the projects and that it intends to safeguard the institutional powers it is granted by the Treaty.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of 1997 the European Commission submitted a proposal to designate European cultural capitals on the basis of an assessment by an independent selection panel, with the Council taking the final decision by qualified majority, after consulting Parliament.
Within the space of six months Parliament had an opinion ready on the Commission's proposal, an opinion that can be summarised as follows: more quality for the cultural programme, greater transparency in the selection of candidate cities and, finally, more money for those cities which are finally designated, with Parliament doing more in its role as co-decision-maker at every stage.
Then, shortly afterwards, the ministers came up with what is described as a proposal for a common position, a proposal, Commissioner, which took no account either of your initial proposal or of the European Parliament amendments, and under which cities were designated for the period 2001 to 2004. After that, as is well described by the rapporteur, Mr Monfils, we have a kind of rota situation in which cities are designated from 2005 to 2019 each in turn.
It is only to be expected that we should distance ourselves from this today, if only because this common position totally excludes both the Commission and Parliament from what nevertheless remains a co-decision procedure.
But at the same time we also have problems with a proposal which contains absolutely no guarantee of quality, assumes that all countries in Europe are culturally comparable when, let us be honest about this, some countries probably have more candidates for city of culture than others.
As has been said, it also takes no account of Union enlargement or of possible Treaty amendments over the next 20 years, as a result of which Council decisions on cultural matters will no longer have to be unanimous.
We intend to reject the common position, but on the understanding that we approve the towns selected for the period 2001 to 2004.
Bruges, Salamanca, Oporto, Rotterdam, Graz, Genoa and Lille must not suffer as a result of a protracted debate between the institutions because the Ministers of Culture have acted so unilaterally.
We also want to increase the reference amount to EUR 2 million per designated town, but from 2005 we want to see another system, decided through conciliation.
What we want to see - and that is the objective - is a greater guarantee of quality.
We want a genuine European dimension, we want large sections of the population to be involved in projects and we want more money for the most appealing cultural project.
Let us now work together to reach a genuine compromise which is to everyone's benefit.
Mr President, as has already been said, the subject of 'Cultural capital' is an important one for cultural policy and is also very important to our citizens.
This is why we must be very careful in the way we deal with it.
The rapporteur, Mr Monfils, has submitted an excellent report as a basis for the discussion of the Commission's proposal and I am also pleased that it has been accepted by Parliament.
But I find it a great pity to see how the Council has dealt with the subject.
Just now when discussing the previous report by Mr Brok, the Commissioner addressed us on the benefits of the Community approach and the disadvantages of the intergovernmental approach.
We can add to this the benefits of decision by qualified majority, as the Commission proposed for this subject, as opposed to the unanimity procedure currently being applied by the Council.
I should like to state emphatically that this is a matter of law and of principle, and - as Mr Monfils has just said - a very important one at that.
That is why I wholeheartedly agree with the proposal he just presented.
But I stress that I should also like to limit my remarks on the common position to the period 2005-2019 and, like previous speakers, that I agree with the candidates for cultural capital for the years 2001-2004, although the intergovernmental method applied is of course regrettable.
I am also pleased that the Committee on Culture unanimously decided to call for a doubling of the budget, which is also a logical consequence of designating two towns in the stated years.
It is important that we enter conciliation with the Council as soon as possible, so that we can use this period in order to try and repair the damage to some extent.
Following on from what Mr De Coene said, it must be possible to persuade the Council to accept the key points in Mr Monfils's proposal and then arrive at an acceptable common position.
I hope that this can be done quickly in order to avoid confusion among all those, and there are many of them, who are involved in the 'Cultural capital' project.
Mr President, Mr Monfils, the rapporteur, has given very clear and strong justifications for rejecting the notion of a common position, so that I will not touch on that issue any further.
Instead, I wish to raise a few points concerning the programme itself, a programme I wish every success in the future with the proper level of funding it truly deserves.
The development of the Capital of Culture programme as part of the European Union's new culture framework programme is a very important and prominent area of common cultural activity, as it inspires and underlines the diverse nature of European cultures.
The experience of previous years can teach us a great deal and we also derive enormous benefit from the many successful projects that have taken place.
I believe it is most important to achieve a lasting, positive social effect even after the year of the Capital of Culture has ended, and that is why as many of the public as possible should be actively participating in the event, and be given the inspiration to do so.
The success of the Year of Culture will be mainly based on cities' own resources as well as their own particular features, history, and the challenges of change.
I believe that this will be the best way of providing a basis for an enriching, international, reciprocal programme.
Creating permanent cultural cooperation projects in this way is one of our central aims.
Although partnership projects among different cities may add to what is on offer during the year of the Capital of Culture, it is very important that clear responsibility for a project is only that of one city at a time.
In years gone by the choice of Capital of Culture has been the task - and an agonisingly difficult one - of the Council.
Unfortunately, the solution adopted from the year 2000 onwards has been to appoint all nine applicant cities as Capitals of Culture, and thus none will really stand out as 'the' Capital of Culture.
Of all the Member States in the group, only Finland will not have its own Capital of Culture year.
Under the new proposal each country will have its turn in future, according to a given order.
Finland's turn will come in 2011. The Council will therefore no longer have to do this difficult job.
Obviously, the cities themselves must act as proper applicants and take responsibility for their programmes, to ensure a high cultural level.
Mr President, my group of course supports the report by Mr Monfils, so it also supports the intention to reject the common position on the European Capital of Culture.
It has already been said that the Council, ostentatiously ignoring the procedure under way for the adoption of the relevant decision, reached its common position not only without taking Parliament's views into account but also producing a text which differs markedly from the Commission's amended proposal.
Furthermore - and this is the height of arrogance and hypocrisy; perhaps that is a harsh thing to say, but that is the way it is - the Council has laid down a list of countries which will be hosting the cultural capital as far ahead as 2019.
This grossly undermines the interinstitutional process and shows gross contempt for the European Parliament.
That needs no explanation, it is self-evident, and I think everyone who has spoken so far has said as much in one way or another.
With today's proposal the European Parliament's aim is to compel the Council to convene the Conciliation Committee and re-establish interinstitutional balance.
We do not wish to quarrel with the list as decided up to 2004, despite the fact that here too the procedures were rather problematic.
But to decide in the same way right up to 2019? That is a period of time as long as the arrogance that led to it is great!
The European Parliament insists on playing its proper role.
Our group welcomes the fact that these procedures will restore the dialogue rejected unilaterally by the Council on 28 May, so that we can adopt a position either by amending the common position that exists at the moment to redefine the desired criteria of quality and transparency, or indeed by rejecting the common position.
Mr President, a great deal has already been said, and I will not go over everything again.
I just want to say this: when European culture is so badly in need of support, how can we possibly allow the Council to sell off, as it were, the institution of the European city of culture? And this is especially of concern when it is doing so as much out of blindness as out of a desire for hegemony.
I therefore entirely agree with our rapporteur's view and I want to congratulate him both on the quality of his work and on his determination in defending the method of designating this European city, which is a symbol of our cultural vitality.
I know his position is not entirely understood by all the cities that have already been designated and that are afraid that their project may be forgotten.
But I would like them to understand - and I am thinking particularly of the cities of Bruges and Avignon - that they are not involved and, above all, that by defending a genuine interinstitutional balance in the codecision procedure, we are fighting for them as well in order to encourage appreciation of a rich and creative culture.
That is also the aim that we are pursuing in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and we do not intend to abandon it.
Mr President, in the discussion about the European capital of culture all the participants seem to have forgotten that in the final analysis it is a question of culture.
It is surely a question of whether the city that is awarded the honorary title of European capital of culture can indeed live up to that title.
The Council is hiding behind formal arguments and provisions that seem to allow for no other options.
The report submitted here is based on substantive arguments that we do not find in the Council's statements.
In procedural terms the Council may be right, but that does not produce the best solutions.
Since in the final analysis it is a question of culture and therefore of Europe's reputation, all those involved should agree a procedure that guarantees the right choice of capital of culture.
Mr President, Parliament's rejection is not directed against the cities that have already between designated for 2001-2004 but against the way the Council is proceeding, in taking account neither of Parliament's amendments nor of the sensible proposal made by the Commission to introduce a Community procedure to designate one European capital of culture a year from 2002, selected by a high-level independent selection panel and after consulting Parliament.
We cannot accept the fact that on the one hand applicants for accession are often forgotten and on the other hand Parliament's codecision right is disregarded.
That would create a dangerous precedent.
Unfortunately the Council of Ministers for Culture could not reach agreement on the funding of the new cultural programmes, although it agreed in a flash on the designation of capitals of culture, in disregard of the European Parliament's rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I shall briefly outline the Commission's position on Parliament's intended rejection of the Council's common position on the European City of Culture.
The Commission's views on this common position are well known. The common position represents a departure from our original proposal and it has introduced a system of rotation throughout the Member States.
Nevertheless, given the importance of this event, what we are now seeking is the application of the codecision procedure, leading, we hope, to agreement between the institutions, so that this action will be viable as soon as possible and have the backing of the whole Community.
The Commission did not consider it appropriate to withdraw its initial proposal, even though the basis of the common position certainly does nothing to strengthen the European character of the event. According to our relevant services, the Council's proposal did not meet the criteria for withdrawal from a legal point of view.
Our initiative aims to establish a major European cultural event and to ensure it becomes well known. We hope to make the people of Europe better aware of the richness and diversity of each other's cultural heritage.
The introduction of a system of rotation by presidency represents a significant modification to the Commission's proposal, as the jury of senior independent personalities called to adjudicate on the cultural content of the candidate cities is done away with. Nor is recognition given to Parliament's role as outlined in the Commission's proposal.
With all due respect for the positions put forward, the Commission has now come to believe that in view of the restrictions imposed by the unanimity rule which we are bound by, the common position adopted by the Council seems the best way forward. It represents the only chance of reaching an agreement and going ahead, on the basis of Community consensus, with an event whose cultural value and importance are readily appreciated by all the citizens of Europe.
The important thing at this juncture is for Parliament and the Council to engage in open and constructive dialogue, making a final effort to come closer together and reach an agreement guaranteeing the future of this event.
This is exactly how I put it to the presidency of the Council yesterday.
In the course of yesterday's meeting between the Commission as a whole and the German Government, I met with Mr Naumann, the Culture Minister, and put this view to him.
I believe it is a matter of extreme urgency for the various parties to find a solution as soon as possible, by means of a three-way dialogue between the Council, Parliament, and, if it would be helpful, the Commission. A way out of the present impasse must be found.
These are the thoughts I wished to put to you today, though I quite understand your motives for wishing to reject the Council's common position on the European City of Culture. I strongly encourage you to seek a formula for conciliation, leading to a solution acceptable to all.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Europe Agreements
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0437/98 by Mr Elchlepp, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and the Republic of Lithuania, of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the rules for the implementation of Article 64(1)(i) & (ii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement (4216/98 - COM(98)0119 - C4-0592/98-98/0075(CNS)); -A4-0443/98 by Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and the Republic of Latvia, of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the rules for the implementation of Article 64(1)(i) & (ii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement (4215/98 - COM(98)0068 - C4-0593/98-98/0076(CNS)); -A4-0472/98 by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and the Republic of Estonia, of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the rules for the implementation of Article 63(1)(i) & (ii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement (4214/98 - COM(98)0118 - C4-0594/98-98/0077(CNS)); -A4-0419/98 by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and Romania of the other part, with regard to the adoption of the rules for the implementation of Article 64(1)(i), (1)(ii) and (2) of the Europe Agreement and for the implementation of Article 9(1)(1), (1)(2) and (2) of Protocol 2 on ECSC products to the Europe Agreement (COM(98)0236 - C4-0275/98-98/0139(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the subject of my report is the transposition of EU competition law by the Republic of Lithuania under Article 64 of the 1995 Europe Agreement between the EU and Lithuania.
I would recommend that the European Parliament approve the Community's position on this in the EU-Lithuania Association Council.
The subject we are concerned with here may appear rather technical, but in the context of pre-accession relations with Lithuania it is of extreme political importance.
After all, competition policy is an important instrument for ensuring free trade and for turning the Lithuanian economy into a viable social market economy that can hold its own in the single market.
Of course the introduction of the complex EU competition rules represents an enormous challenge for all applicant countries.
After all, in the transition to a market economy, they must first develop their own national competition law.
I would urge the Commission to take greater account of that when it evaluates the extent to which these countries have adjusted.
So we will still need to show some flexibility in the coming years in regard to the implementation of EU competition rules.
Setting conditions that are too rigid is more likely to prove counter-productive.
In particular, we must always look at the social implications of adjustment if we want to ensure that the citizens of the applicant state give their broad support to democracy and the social market economy.
That is very important to the stability of Europe as a whole.
Many Lithuanian economic sectors will not be able to do without state aid for some time at least, in the course of adjusting to the EU acquis in competition law.
In view of the aggressive market strategies of western competitors, we should not judge individual defence mechanisms and supports in certain sectors too harshly.
But, all in all, Lithuania has made substantial progress in approximating its laws to EU legislation and is endeavouring to establish the requisite implementing structures.
The Lithuanian Government submitted new draft competition legislation in 1998. The Lithuanian Parliament passed much of it last December.
The competition rules for undertakings are generally consistent with Community law and in 1997 the Lithuanian Government also submitted a decision on monitoring state aid.
Meanwhile Lithuania has endeavoured to facilitate free trade with the EU, for instance by ambitious tariff reductions.
That is to be welcomed.
My conclusions are as follows: we should not pursue too rigorous a policy of approximation to Western competition rules, for it could be damaging to the long-term process of transformation to ask too much.
Secondly, Lithuania evidently needs greater support for the training and further training of the officials of its State Competition and Consumer Protection Office.
Furthermore, a targeted information policy must be pursued to promote acceptance in the private economic sector of the new competition rules and economic liberalisation and restructuring measures.
Account must also be taken of social and environmental aspects during the adjustment process.
Let me conclude with two points. Since the Lithuanian economy, like for that matter all the Central and Eastern European economies, is undercapitalised, the EU should consider providing direct capital aid for setting up and modernising undertakings, over and above the existing structural aid measures, where appropriate through the European Investment Bank or the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Secondly, it is certainly regrettable that Lithuania is not at present among the first wave of applicants.
While appreciating all the obstacles that still remain, I believe that the accession negotiations between the EU and Lithuania should begin before the scheduled date, which is not until the end of 1999, if possible even during the German Presidency of the Council, for that is the only way to sustain the optimism and willingness to adjust that have developed in that country.
Mr President, in July 1997 the Commission was in favour of accession negotiations with Latvia beginning as soon as that country had made sufficient headway in fulfilling the pre-conditions laid down by the European Council at Copenhagen.
It was the Commission's opinion that not one applicant country at that time had entirely fulfilled all these pre-conditions.
Despite this, the countries involved were put in a certain order to have their applications dealt with, so that, for example, Latvia had to wait longer than Estonia.
There is no justification for that, at least as far as the enforcement of the regulations governing competition are concerned.
The EU strives to ensure that there is a high level internal market that renounces the notion of restrictions on competition.
We cannot take for granted that countries that have attained membership will thrive in such a market.
According to an assessment by the Commission, Latvia at present would have difficulty in coping with the pressures of competition in the single market, and EU integration will mean immense economic structural change for it.
Latvia has a new law on competition which is largely in line with EU regulations.
Some amendments to it are still needed, as certain subsidies are tied to exports and it sanctions certain special and sole rights which do not comply with Community regulations.
The EU is shaping the harmonisation of legislation by making demands on Latvian society to its own satisfaction, and Latvia has no alternative but to comply.
Because of quality problems Latvia's manufactured products find it difficult to enter the EU's western markets.
The country's economic competitiveness is based solely on low wages, and this is where the problem lies.
In order for Latvia to be competitive, its levels of pay have to remain low.
If Latvia has low rates of pay it would, as an EU member, be a country of cheap production, and a sort of flag-of-convenience state in the EU.
When the restrictions on goods between the EU countries and Latvia are lifted, a free labour market will come into existence.
Because of differences in pay and living standards, it will be worth Latvians leaving the country to work in the older EU countries, where rates of pay are higher.
For Latvia that would mean a trained workforce leaving the country, and for the EU it would mean a problem of cheap labour.
This will be a widespread problem with a rapid enlargement programme, and it will affect not just Latvia but all the applicant countries.
The countries in front of Latvia in the queue will cause exactly the same problem for the EU.
The economic structure in all the applicant countries is entirely different from that in the EU single market.
I would still remind everyone of the Commission's assessment that Latvia fulfils the democracy pre-conditions relating to stable institutions, the rule of law, human rights and the protection of minority groups, but measures need to be introduced to speed up the granting of citizenship to people other than those who already have Latvian citizenship.
These are serious problems, and they are serious in Estonia too.
I can see no justification for Latvia having inferior status in comparison with some other applicant countries when it comes to EU membership.
The country is ready to pay a high price for EU membership by preparing its economy for EU market forces and competition.
Mr President, Estonia occupies a rather special place amongst the three Baltic States.
There is already a direct EU-Estonia free-trade area, which is not the case for Latvia and Lithuania where we are seeing an asymmetric and phased establishment of a free-trade area.
In another respect too, Estonia occupies a rather special place.
It is the only Baltic country to have been included in the first round of accession negotiations.
This certainly does not mean to say that Latvia and Lithuania are performing any worse in economic and political terms.
Indeed recently these countries seem to have embarked on a race to catch up.
But the starting position of Latvia and Lithuania was different to that of Estonia.
The free-trade area is only of any economic benefit if the legal framework is based on uniform principles.
This also applies to competition policy.
The Europe Agreement with Estonia states that competition legislation must be completed no later than the end of 1997.
This date is now long past.
The Committee on External Economic Relations is therefore hurrying to approve the Commission's proposal.
It is important in the context of Estonia's future accession, on which negotiations began last year, that applicant countries should be able to cope with the market mechanisms as they apply in the Union.
This is why Estonian companies must become more competitive.
The present proposal is to adjust the rules for the implementation of the Community's competition policy for Estonia.
This relates to Articles 85, 86 and 96 of the EC Treaty which concern, respectively, the prohibition of restrictive practices, the prohibition of the abuse of dominant positions and discipline as regards state aid.
The principal purpose in drawing up the implementing regulations for those articles is to improve trade between the European Union and Estonia.
Yet both parties reserve the right to apply anti-dumping and protection measures on the basis of the association agreement.
The reason these measures still apply is that there are still great differences in the provisions regarding state aid on the two sides.
These measures must also be brought into line by the end of 1999.
In the meantime it is not of course the Commission's intention to refuse entry to the European market for Estonian products under the guise of anti-dumping legislation.
This would not help the competitiveness of Estonian companies and could therefore be an obstacle to the European Union's rapid enlargement.
In a recent report on Estonian state aid we read that the Estonian competition act, applicable from October 1998, provides better conditions for monitoring state aid and collecting related data.
State aid is essential during the transition to a modern market economy, but it must be organised in a way which makes it possible to assess to what extent Estonian companies have sufficient competitive strength.
Mr President, as rapporteur I thank the Committee on External Economic Relations for its effective cooperation and I would like to present my conclusions. I have made it clear that competition legislation in Estonia needs to be implemented properly, especially as Estonia can expect to be among the first to enter negotiations.
This does not mean that I want to create an extra accession criterion.
The direct criteria for accession are clearly stated in the Europe Agreements.
Estonia has made huge efforts over recent years to prepare for accession to the European Union.
I am not just referring here to the economic growth it has achieved and its undertaking, in signing the IMF's economic memorandum, to strive for economic growth without overheating.
In political terms too Estonia has made the necessary effort to satisfy the entry criteria.
Although major steps must still be taken, such as in reforming the judiciary, before we can really talk about a truly democratic political culture, there have been a great many positive political developments.
One such example is the cooperation between the government and opposition and the efforts to promote the integration of Estonia's Russian minority.
These efforts by the Estonian Government must encourage us to speed up the process leading to Estonia's accession to the European Union.
When we call for reforms, we must also be prepared to provide the correct response to these reforms.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a brief opportunity to discuss what is happening here in more detail.
We could say - and that would be half the story and would also be quite true - that internally the European Union's competition policy is a success story.
It is the motive force of European integration and the completion of the single market.
That is indisputable and it is well and good.
But in relations with the applicant countries we also have the problem of unequal economic structures.
Under these circumstances we must consider whether we can simply take the same approach to all of them.
We now have the further risk - and I believe there is some indication of this in all three countries - that simply because in a sense these countries are each resolved for political reasons to achieve a perfect market economy they will apply a synthetic system of competition rules that are purer than those the Union itself could apply.
That would create an inequality which, in my view, would not be acceptable.
Let me also point out that we are already faced with the problem that the introduction of competition rules on market domination and the introduction of those on state aid were driven forward under different timetables.
But that is not the only problem; another is that other aspects that in fact play a part in strengthening or creating markets have not advanced at the same pace.
These include the question of public infrastructures, the question, which was raised earlier, of strengthening the capital resources of enterprises, and the question - which I believe we all consider most important - of strengthening the articulation and assertion of interests other than the enterprises' immediate profits in the economic process. For to engage in economic activity does not just mean making profits, it also means reproducing the natural basic principles of society.
Under these circumstances we must keep asking ourselves in all seriousness whether we really are promoting this process in such a way as to ensure that equal rights are not just enshrined in abstract words but really are guaranteed, that for the first time in their history these countries bordering the Baltic Sea are no longer in a colonial position in relation to western Europe; I am speaking here as a citizen of Kiel, which has its own particular historical background.
I believe that is the task we have to undertake. I know it is anything but easy.
I believe, firstly, that we must formulate a broader and more political pre-accession strategy, meaning that we must also promote aspects other than competition policy.
So I welcome the fact that some Members have addressed not only the political progress but also the differing problems of individual Baltic states.
They too need to be discussed.
We also have to consider giving specific signs of solidarity to these countries and consider whether these should not go beyond what has quite rightly been proposed here, namely the flexible application of the rules of competition.
That is the minimum.
What I mean is that it would be quite absurd to apply the rules more rigorously in these cases than we can apply them in Bavaria or Saxony, in other words at home.
But we also have to ask what more we can do.
I think here we must consider - as has been said by others - what instruments we can use for structural development and how we can ensure that they are used as effectively as possible.
We must also make sure we do not create any new hierarchies between the countries.
Once the decision, which I criticise, had been taken to create a starting line and begin negotiations with all the countries at the same time, under the procedure that was then applied I think it was quite justified for Estonia to be taken first.
Estonia is indeed ahead of the other countries in some respects.
But this situation could become consolidated if only because that is how it was in the past.
We must not allow that to happen.
The other countries must be given a fair chance to catch up. And they must be helped to do so.
Nor must those countries that need least support be given most just because the immediate effect may be greatest there.
That is why I urge you to take a very careful look at our policy.
I have deliberately not discussed the individual countries, although it would be easy to comment on this or that aspect.
But as a Member of the European Parliament it is not my job to tell the Estonians, Latvians or Lithuanians what they must do first; instead I have concentrated on what we should do.
I believe there is an urgent need for us to address this question in detail, with careful consideration and in that context.
Mr President, after having listened to Mr Wolf, I should like to begin by recounting a practical experience which I had at a wood products plant at Tartu in Estonia. At the time I was chairman of the delegation for relations with Estonia, which was visiting this plant.
The head of the plant said to me: 'Why do I have to label all my furniture for Ikea in Germany with some strange 'E's? Why does my paint have to be inspected?
Why do my standards have to be inspected? You can just sell any goods you like to us here in Estonia, but I have to be inspected because I am selling to you.'
You see, that is how it appears in practice.
That is the dialogue we have when we visit our new Member States.
These agreements which we are going to adopt are a signal to the populations of the countries concerned that we have not forgotten them and that we are continuing to work on precisely the problems which I encountered in Tartu.
But sometimes there is a big difference between politics and everyday life.
The trade which is also sought by Mr Wolf does not just come of itself.
The question is whether we need a common set of rules in the area of competition to make some countries suitable to participate in cooperation in the future.
I am thinking in particular of the country for which I am currently responsible, Lithuania, which plays a key role as a transit country for trade with Russia and Belarus.
If the country has its competition policy in order and has harmonised its standards and rules in this area, then it is qualified to increase its trade and take on whatever competitors there may be.
But we should not look at competition policy in isolation.
We should also look at environmental and social policy and, when we talk of progress for these countries, it is important that we do not simply measure, as the Commission often does, growth in foreign investment and the economy, but that we also look at how far the countries are able to incorporate aspects of the working environment and social policy into their competition policy.
Mr President, Parliament is being urged in four separate reports to approve the Europe agreements with the relevant countries, and this is clearly happening, thus creating a firm basis for the future enlargement of the Union.
The road ahead, however, is still a long one.
Much work and time is required of these countries for economic and political harmonisation.
According to the Commission's assessments both Lithuania and Latvia have recently caught up with Estonia, which had had a head start.
Latvia's strong economic growth and both Latvia's and Lithuania's active commitment to modernise their laws on citizenship, on which Mr Seppänen's report certainly contains conflicting information, are important steps on the way to realising conditions for EU membership.
For this reason it seems very likely that in the medium term all the Baltic countries will be able to join the European Union simultaneously.
Although all applicant countries must be assessed according to their own merits, it is important to emphasise that for the Baltic countries to accede simultaneously would have positive repercussions for security policy, for example.
While the applicant countries are preparing themselves for membership, it is vital to stress the importance of cooperation, for example, between police forces and customs in combating international crime.
It is not enough to enact laws and sanction cooperation agreements.
The most important, and perhaps the most difficult, issue for the applicant countries is putting these agreements into practice.
We in Finland had a regrettable example of this last year, when a criminal gang which had entered the country from Estonia emptied bank cash dispensers in Helsinki, and the Estonian police refused to cooperate with the police in Finland.
These small but important issues have yet to be put right.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to congratulate the various rapporteurs on their reports.
At the start of his mandate in 1995, Mr Santer described Union enlargement as one of the two principal objectives of the newly appointed European Commission.
He described enlargement as a historic opportunity.
I should like to support this view. My group also believes enlargement to be a historic opportunity.
But may I just make one point.
It is a historic opportunity, but it could also prove to be a historic blunder if accession is not properly prepared.
In this respect it is crucially important for the present Union to put its own house in order, as the enlargement the Union is now facing - and today's reports are another small step in this direction - is totally unlike any previous enlargement.
On this occasion the applicant countries are countries with a fairly limited market economy. Moreover, their competition and legal systems are not yet ready to incorporate the acquis communautaire fully.
It is not only the applicant countries which need an efficient government apparatus.
Above all the Union itself needs a balanced and effective apparatus in order to cope with the problems of accession.
It is therefore distressing to have to conclude that with such important decisions before us we are still a long way from having achieved this goal.
I hope that the Council, as Mr Fischer announced this morning, will indeed use a new IGC in around the year 2000 in order to put our own house in order.
Mr President, all three Baltic countries have striven and at this very moment are striving hard to fulfil the criteria laid down for them for membership of the European Union.
This will require big sacrifices and changes in their societies.
Over the last few days I have been following, with some concern, the news that among the three Baltic countries, to quote the headlines, a 'pigmeat war' is starting.
This has even led to an exchange of notes among these countries.
This year Latvia intends to restrict pigmeat imports from Estonia and Lithuania for a year.
Certainly no good will come of these reciprocal reproaches and exchanges of notes for any one of the Baltic countries.
We must just hope that this problem is resolved swiftly so that developments towards EU membership for the Baltic countries do not deteriorate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the competition rules certainly are an important component of the acquis communautaire , but to date the competition provisions of the Europe Agreements have not prevented the EU from applying anti-dumping and trade protection measures to the applicant states, with the result that the Central and Eastern European countries face a growing trade deficit.
This is exactly the opposite of what the real task of a European Union should be, namely to promote their successful accession and economic stabilisation.
Then there are also the high export subsidies for EU agricultural products, which severely disturb the domestic markets of the applicant countries.
The real question here is: who has what homework to do? It is not just the applicant countries; what we need is a qualitative change of direction of EU competition and trade policy towards these countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I have been allocated so little time, I am not going to comment on the technical aspects, however interesting, of the reports before us.
Perhaps it is the effect of the snow that has fallen, but I just want to recall a situation I found myself in a few years ago.
Actually, I was in a dreadful situation, at Vilnius headquarters with President Landsbergis, guarded, if I can call it that, by the Lithuanian National Guard, and the Red Army had just crushed the Lithuanian resistance under its tank tracks.
What I mean is that I regard the Baltic countries as an integral part of our European civilisation and they have paid a very high price for their freedom.
Lithuania alone saw a quarter of its sons and daughters perish in the gulags.
What I also mean is that we would be in favour of the enlargement of our European Community to include the Baltic countries, but for the fact that Lithuania is, alas, increasingly a blend of the Soviet Union and the United States, and has nothing to offer beyond an increasingly bureaucratic yoke.
That is why we advise our friends in the Baltic countries, and indeed Poland, to be very careful. Their joining a confederal Europe would certainly be a good thing, but they would do well to hesitate before joining this increasingly bureaucratic Europe, which keeps piling on the weight of its decrees and regulations.
I do not think that this would be good for them.
We do not want to shut the door of the Community to them but we, for our part, want a different Europe: the one we are fighting for.
I would like to take this opportunity to send that message today to our friends in the Baltic countries.
Mr President, others have spoken about the Baltic so I will restrict my remarks to Romania, to Mr Schwaiger's report.
This agreement which we are debating between the EU and Romania is now four years old.
In this period of time Romania has made tremendous progress, great strides have been taken to move the country towards a position that more equates with the west.
It can be no coincidence, however, that countries with EU borders have moved faster towards EU membership than others further away.
By comparison with its neighbour Hungary, for example, Romania, which does not have a border with one of the 15 current Member States, is way behind.
In the past under Ceaucescu Romania was a country ill-at-ease with itself, a nation distorted by unrealistic ideals and legislation.
Any visitor to the country today will notice the progress which has been made towards a market economy.
Further progress is needed, but at a speed that is realistic and allows time for people to adjust and for realignments where necessary.
Mr Schwaiger has referred to competition development, reforms to state companies, the banks and so on.
In addition, the Romanian Government must recognise the reforms that it needs to make itself: reforms to the police, to the Constitution, for example Article 200.
It must address the reluctance of some of its politicians to accept that tomorrow's politics will be very different from those in Romania prior to the revolution.
Having said all that, Romania is a very different country today, a very difference place from the Romania of ten years ago.
Some things however remain constant: its geographical position is important, as Mr Schwaiger emphasised, and a major plus for its own future development.
Romania is of course and will remain European by its culture, by its language, by its history and by its people.
I very much welcome this report and I for one look forward to being here when we welcome to the European Parliament Romanian Members as colleagues.
Mr President, I too wish to stress that those four reports can have a positive effect.
It is important for there to be commonly accepted rules for cooperation and relations in the business sector between the European Union and these four countries, and for there to be some security in relation to the ability of businesses to move into and cooperate with these countries.
On the other hand, of course, we must bear in mind that they are in a difficult stage of transition which, besides the necessity for certain principles and legal provisions, will certainly require the European Union to show solidarity, support and an understanding of their individual characteristics.
I wish to stress the importance of cooperation and the development of relations with Romania, which is one of the largest Balkan countries, in an important geographical position, which is perhaps a long way behind other eastern European countries, but which offers great potential for participation in the major networks of the European Union and Europe in general, as Mr Schwaiger in any event described very well in his explanatory statement.
Mr President, the Baltic countries have accomplished a mammoth feat in a short time.
In ten years, they have moved from dictatorship and a Soviet-style planned economy to democracy and a market economy.
On top of that, there are now the EU adjustments - changes which have imposed heavy demands on people and politicians alike which it has been difficult to meet.
There is consequently a need for great flexibility and economic support on the part of the EU to facilitate their continued development.
The EU should also be making reciprocal adjustments.
The political and economic pressures on these countries are enormous.
It is disturbing that last week one of the Baltic countries introduced a protective duty on pigmeat, thereby opening up a rift between the emerging free-market countries. However, such a move was not totally unexpected.
From the start, the Green Group has maintained that accession negotiations should be held with all three Baltic countries simultaneously in order to promote harmonious political and economic development in the area and to avoid endangering the fragile cooperation process.
We very much regret that this was not done.
Mr President, may I put another small question to Mr Van Miert?
I pointed out earlier that the Romanian refineries in Ploesti are due to be modernised and that Romania plays a key role as a link between the Trans-Caucasian oil-producing countries such as Kazakhstan, but also and in particular Azerbaijan.
Is the Commission prepared, firstly, to step up this cooperation and, secondly, to point out to Romania that modernisation should take account of environmental requirements? For if exceptional provisions were allowed in the framework of state aid, then far more emphasis should be placed on environmental aspects in regard to state aid and private investment, which, incidentally, would also be very necessary in the case of the Czech Republic.
Could you perhaps give me a brief answer?
Mr President, this is a most important matter and, as you know, in this sort of context problems are of course resolved bilaterally.
We have to proceed through the normal diplomatic channels in regard to environmental questions too.
We do not have any direct responsibility here.
We have to talk to each other, even when it is a question of aid.
If there are any grounds for complaint, the matter is usually settled confidentially, but settled it is.
If you want any further details, we can discuss this either bilaterally or with other colleagues.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
EC Trade and Cooperation Agreement with Korea
The next item is the report (A4-0445/98) by Mr Porto, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Framework Agreement for Trade and Cooperation between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Korea, of the other part (COM(96)0141 - C4-0073/97-96/0098(CNS)).
The vote in this House on the Framework Agreement for Trade and Cooperation between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Korea, of the other part, is to be congratulated.
Having been devastated by a fratricidal war just over 40 years ago, Korea is now experiencing impressive growth and is one of the main economic powers in the world, having earned the right to be the first Asian country to join the OECD.
As far as the European Union is concerned, Korea is an important partner which accounts for nearly 2 % of our total trade, thus forming our fourth main partner outside the European continent, after the United States, Japan and China, while we are Korea's third main trading partner after the United States and Japan, but before China. This trade has doubled in 15 years, reaching ECU 27.5 billion in 1997.
The EU was in a position of surplus until 1997. The deficit which has occurred since then was caused by the Asian crisis: Korea's imports fell from ECU 11.7 bn in November 1997 to ECU 7.7 bn in April 1998.
This situation is in contrast to that of Japan and China which have deficits that are not likely to disappear in the near future.
With regard to direct foreign investment, the European Union is the leader, having overtaken the United States and Japan in 1998, and with the accumulated investments of South Korea in the EU being greater than our investment there: ECU 2.3 bn and ECU 1.5 bn respectively.
Despite the importance of Korea and our economic relations with the country, this House, through the competent committees, started to indicate reservations at the time of the vote on the agreement signed on 29 October 1996.
These reservations were in the areas of protectionism - specifically relating to national preferences under the guise of the 'frugality plan' or to problems in channels of commerce - intellectual property, respect for human rights and, above all, the failure to comply with minimum labour rules.
Following the suggestion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, the rapporteur and the committee responsible for the basic issue, the Committee on External Economic Relations, accepted the postponement of the agreement's assessment.
The changes observed in the last two years have been very marked.
They have involved internal and external liberalisation and the restructuring of the economy, with all sectors being forced to accept a rationale which will prevent, for example, overinvestment in shipbuilding. This is now leading to assumptions on our part of having to compete with Korea in a process that started before the Asian crisis became more pressing.
In addition to this, we must welcome the openness in the political and labour fields that have been evident to a large extent since the election of the current Korean President, Kim Dae Jung.
The support which may be provided by this agreement has become particularly relevant in view of the crisis South Korea is experiencing, the results of which include significant falls in production and large increases in unemployment, from 2.6 % in November 1997 to 6.7 % in April 1998.
However, these consequences are also contributing, in a transitional phase, to the liberalisation and restructuring measures which, with our backing, are being implemented.
Even in the area of trade unions, the main target of our concerns, we must undoubtedly welcome the agreement of the Tripartite Commission, which was reached on 6 February 1998, and the specific liberalisation measures that were implemented, such as the recognition of the KCTU (the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions), the authorisation of multiple trade unions at company level or even the right of sacked workers to belong to a trade union.
It is particularly symbolic that, just a few days ago, on 6 January, trade union freedom for teachers was approved.
But we should realise that some of the measures, while undoubtedly desirable, are likely to cause transitional problems for company managers and politicians.
We therefore have a special responsibility to support an agreement which, in a very delicate external and internal context, may help to strengthen and revive the South Korean economy and alleviate the problems of its inhabitants.
I must stress that there are clearly points open to criticism in all these areas, for example, the failure of Korea to sign up to international agreements on respect for intellectual property, as underlined in the opinion by Mr Pompidou.
However, the conclusion of an agreement promoting improved trade and economic cooperation will give us greater moral and political legitimacy in terms of the demands to be made of a country which, at a time of crisis, could not fail to have major problems with regard to social and political transparency and the restructuring of its economy.
We will all benefit from the commitment of a strong Korea to the support announced at the Millennium Round of the World Trade Organisation.
Mr President, the Framework Agreementfor Trade and Cooperation with the Republic of Korea was initialled on 29 October 1996, in other words prior to the serious financial crisis which afflicted certain countries in eastern Asia and curbed the extraordinary economic growth of Korea, a country which - before the crisis - was increasingly becoming an economic and commercial heavyweight on the international scene; one need only think that its shipbuilding industry had a 25 % share of the world market and that its automobile industry produced 5 % of world output.
Article 7 of the agreement on maritime transport establishes the goal of securing unrestricted access to the maritime market and to international maritime traffic on a commercial basis and in accordance with the principles of fair competition.
Article 8 establishes cooperation in the shipbuilding sector in order to create a fair, competitive market, in view of the current structural imbalance between supply and demand within the international shipbuilding industry. The parties also undertake to observe the principles of the OECD Agreement on Shipbuilding.
While we welcome the conclusion of this agreement, we should not overlook the problems created by Korea's trade practices and the obstacles it has hitherto put in the way of EU products in the shipbuilding and automobile sectors, which are deemed sensitive under the agreement.
Although Europe's shipbuilding industry is currently experiencing a revival, it is affected by considerable overcapacity, due in particular to the Koreans' irresponsible doubling of their plant capacity over the past four or five years, to such an extent that Korea alone can now produce more vessels than all Europe's shipyards put together.
The fact that supply greatly exceeds demand is beyond question, given that prices for new vessels of all types have fallen or at least stagnated.
This alarming structural imbalance has been compounded by the devaluation of the Korean won, leading to a situation which could have particularly grave consequences for Community shipyards and for employment in Europe.
Indeed, estimates show that the Koreans could reduce the cost of their vessels by as much as 30 % without altering their margins.
Therefore the Korean authorities must not use international financial assistance in support of their shipbuilding industry, and the European Union must take care to ensure that the commitments made by the Korean authorities in this regard are in fact met.
Mr President, I wish to thank the trade union organisations, the Commission and, indeed, the ambassador for their help with my research.
I found that South Korea had not complied with the undertaking it had given on becoming a member of the OECD in 1996 to bring its labour laws into line with internationally binding labour standards.
I also found that there were certain human rights problems.
The operation of the national security law was certainly a problem and there was a serious problem concerning long-term political prisoners.
There has been some progress to the extent that, as previous speakers have said, even as late as last week there were moves to legalise the teachers' trade union.
There have been other very welcome moves because there were restrictions on trade union pluralism, a total ban on freedom of association and collective bargaining for government employees and teachers and the illegality of one of the two major Korean union confederations - the KCTU.
Furthermore, the leadership of the KCTU's union was made illegal through removing the status of union membership from dismissed workers.
There have been all sorts of problems.
They are being worked through but I would like to see the conclusions in my opinion which, I am glad to say, have been carried forward by Mr Porto in his very excellent report, being looked at very carefully and taken up by the Korean Government.
I wish to draw your attention to some of these conclusions. One is that the Korean Government should immediately implement the OECD undertaking to amend its labour legislation to incorporate internationally binding standards.
I also wish you to note a clause in relation to the abolition of the death penalty.
I should like Commissioner Leon Brittan, when he sums up, to tell us whether he will undertake, on our behalf and on behalf of the Commission, to follow up the three points made to the Commission in the conclusions in my opinion and also in Mr Porto's report.
Mr President, it is worth emphasising the extent to which the framework agreement between the European Union and the Republic of Korea serves to promote freedom. It protects the legal right to political pluralism and recognises the right to form trade unions, together with the right to engage in union activity.
Previously, such activity carried a prison sentence in the Republic of Korea.
Other aspects of the agreement such as those relating to intellectual property, patents and trademarks also deserve a mention.
I should like to refer too to the recent meeting between European Union and Korean ministers, chaired by Sir Leon Brittan, who is with us here today. At that meeting, a cautious welcome was given to the initial measures on economic reform adopted by the Korean Government.
These measures alone will not be sufficient, but could set the country on the right course for the future.
It is also worth noting the commitment made by the Korean authorities on the subject of unfair competition with the European Union in sensitive sectors such as shipbuilding and the automobile industry.
This commitment was made after high-level consultations between the European Union and Korea, and we must carefully monitor the situation to ensure that it is adhered to.
Nonetheless, the present social situation in Korea regrettably leaves much to be desired. Not only is this quite unacceptable as we approach the twenty-first century, but it also results in global dumping affecting countries like ours which do observe the regulations on labour and social standards.
This must be made quite clear in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
In conclusion, we recognise the progress mentioned earlier, and encourage the Korean Government to redouble its efforts to attain the social standards the citizens of today require. Finally, it is our most earnest hope that human rights will be recognised in Korea.
Mr President, the rapporteur and Mrs Malone quite rightly drew attention to the issue of labour and human rights.
While I believe we should give every encouragement to progress in these areas, I would, nevertheless, submit that we have to be vigilant and have an effective and reliable monitoring system.
Perhaps the Commissioner could tell us how the Commission would assess improvements in these areas.
For example, will it draw on reports from organisations such as Amnesty International and, in particular, I would suggest, the ILO?
The Commission should be aware that parliamentary support for this framework agreement is contingent on continuing progress on the issue of labour and human rights and that the support of this House could not be sustained if that position was to worsen.
We will not stand silent if our brothers and sisters in Korea continue to be mistreated.
I hope the Commission will pass that message on to the Korean authorities very firmly.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I want to come back to shipbuilding again.
Surely it is quite absurd that shipyards that are totally bankrupt by any normal business standards are continuing to operate and still winning shipbuilding contracts at the lowest dumping prices on the world market.
And this is happening not just in the normal container sector; South Korean shipyards are also moving into the area of ferries, of passenger ships, the last sector where we Europeans still have a hope of saving jobs.
Commissioner, how can you assure us that Korea will undertake to observe the provisions of Article 8, namely, in accordance with the OECD agreement which has not yet entered into force, not to take any action to support its shipbuilding industry which would distort competition? How can we ensure that our taxpayers' money that our Member States send to Korea as aid via the European Funds, via the International Monetary Fund, does not in the end rebound on our own jobs in the European shipyards?
Nobody would be able to understand that. I hope you can tell us how you intend to ensure that there are no unfair shipbuilding subsidies that harm our own industry.
Mr President, I am pleased to have the opportunity to commend this important agreement to the European Parliament.
I very much agree with the remarks of Mr Porto the rapporteur and compliment him on a balanced, well-reasoned report.
He is right to point out the importance of our relationship with the Republic of Korea and has given the House the key economic facts.
I would also like to thank Mr Valdivielso de Cué for his kind remarks about my own efforts.
If the European Union is to raise its profile on the world stage it is vital to strengthen ties not only with world-rank powers but also with key emerging countries.
That is why the Commission adopted a communication on 9 December reviewing the Union's relations with the Republic of Korea and making comprehensive recommendations for the future.
The Republic of Korea is already a key partner for us, and is becoming more important politically both in its own right and also because of the difficult security situation on the peninsula which has potentially global implications.
For all these reasons it is essential for us to upgrade bilaterally our relationship with the Republic of Korea.
The Framework Agreement does this by comprehensively covering economic issues and political dialogue.
It contains detailed provisions which directly address issues of key importance to the European Union; economic issues such as intellectual property rights, ship-building, maritime transport and so on, but also issues in other fields such as human rights including labour rights, cooperation against drugs and money laundering.
The Framework Agreement sets up the institutional machinery through which the European Union can pursue its interests vis-à-vis Korea, and the Commission is fully committed to using the agreement to advance European interests.
I would point out that the Framework Agreement is not an act of charity which opens our markets to Korea.
It contains no trade concessions.
It is a wide-ranging non-preferential agreement which creates new bilateral channels for dialogue and cooperation and, I would point out, for the resolution of disputes with this important trading partner.
So it means that, where we have a problem or where we think they have come some distance but not far enough, we have the new opportunity of handling it in a structured way.
The vote today is timely not only because it is just before the European Parliament sends a delegation to Korea, but also because it is one year after the beginning of a financial crisis and the change of government in Korea.
Under President Kim Dae Jung, Korea has started an economic reform beginning to address some of our long-standing concerns.
More needs to be done and the Commission will remain extremely vigilant but Korea deserves our support and encouragement for the course it has chosen.
Labour rights is clearly an area where improvement is needed as has rightly been pointed out by Mr Porto.
Mr Smith has asked us how we will monitor the agreement and ensure that there are further improvements in labour rights.The answer is that we will consider all the material he has mentioned and all the material that is at our disposal, and we have a delegation on the spot in Seoul which will be active in assembling information for us.
But I think it is right to point out that a number of positive steps have already been taken under President Kim, who has involved the unions in a national tripartite dialogue on restructuring.
Last week, as was pointed out by Mrs Malone, a landmark law was passed by the National Assembly establishing trade union rights for teachers.
The fact that things are moving in the right direction is all the more remarkable and all the more a positive achievement when you consider that it has taken place at a time of severe economic contraction with growth of minus 6.8 % and unemployment tripling in just over one year.
The substance of the agreement and the need to upgrade Europe's political and economic position in Asia are themselves sufficient reasons to commend the agreement for Parliament's support.
However, I would add that by supporting it we have the opportunity to give a political signal of support to President Kim and his allies who are deeply committed to economic reform, who are faced with strong entrenched interests opposed to such reform, and who are committed also to the removal of corruption and increased democracy in Korea.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué is right to point out that difficulties still exist, especially in the area of shipbuilding, and Mr Jarzembowski has referred to that.
It is impossible to give guarantees as far as the future is concerned.
I believe that the implementation of the OECD Agreement would give us the best protection.
That is being held up at the moment because the United States is not prepared to ratify the agreement.
There is a strong case for going ahead without the United States because the USA represents a very small proportion of the world's shipbuilding.
Unfortunately, European industry does not take that view.
I think European industry is wrong, because it has the hope that if this agreement is not ratified it will get more state aid from national governments.
The sooner it is disabused of that and reconciles itself to the fact that there will not be more state aid, the sooner it will support going ahead on a quadripartite basis, even without the United States, to give us the protection against Korea that this OECD Agreement would give.
For all these reasons, I hope Parliament will support the Framework Agreement on trade and cooperation with Korea.
Mr President, may I take it from what the Commissioner said that he is undertaking to give Parliament an annual report and will take into account the other two points in my conclusions?
We will certainly take into account all the points in the conclusions and as far as the report is concerned, I am - as perhaps you know - not enthusiastic about formal reports but very enthusiastic about reporting to Parliament.
As far as I am concerned, I am happy to come to Parliament, as many here know, and to give a full report on the situation of Korea or any aspects of it that Parliament is at any time interested in.
But I am less enthusiastic about formalising it ...
Interruption by Mrs Malone
Well, all I can say is that, unless the Member States of the European Union go off their rockers, they will not appoint anybody who will take a different view.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0004/99).
Ladies and gentlemen, if you have no objections, I suggest that Questions Nos 29 and 32 be taken before Questions Nos 30 and 31. This would enable Mr Monti to reply to those two questions and then leave.
I assume there are no objections, as this only entails a very slight delay for the other two questions.
I therefore invite Commissioner Monti to take the floor first to respond to Question No 29. I should also like to take this opportunity to welcome him and wish him well for this year.
Question No 29 by Jaime Valdivielso de Cué (H-1188/98) Subject: Electronic commerce
The Commission is completing a draft directive on promoting the development of electronic commerce.
This type of commerce requires the exchange of confidential data, including personal information relating to the parties, such as credit card numbers; credit cards are habitually used as a means of payment in Internet transactions.
Can the Commission state what measures are to be taken to ensure the confidentiality of such data and prevent their improper use?
Mr Monti has the floor.
I return your good wishes, Mr President, and I thank you for your kindness in grouping together these two questions.
Beginning with the first, the honourable Member raises the sensitive question of personal data protection in commercial transactions conducted electronically; he refers in particular to credit card numbers, in that credit cards are habitually used as a means of payment over the Internet.
The main instrument used to protect privacy and avoid the risks associated with various forms of IT piracy is encryption, as indicated by the Commission in its communication on digital signatures and encryption.
In addition to supporting research and development on instruments to guarantee the secure transmission of credit card data, the Commission is promoting the improvement of technologies serving to minimise the use of personal data in electronic transactions.
For example, from a technical point of view, I would recall that the common action programme on research and technological development has funded various instruments designed to guarantee the secure transmission of credit card data, such as the SET standard, an open standard for secure electronic transmission, developed by Visa and MasterCard, which has now become C-SET and allows for the use of smart-cards.
The Commission has also undertaken research into general aspects of telematic security, for example under the Infosec programme; as regards electronic commerce in particular, the Esprit programme has funded various specific projects in this field.
The Commission is moreover supporting the development of technical instruments for electronic commerce and security under the fifth RTD framework programme, which will focus in particular on the development of technologies to ensure greater protection of privacy.
Finally, I would stress that the protection of personal data in Internet communications falls within the ad hoc legal framework governing the processing of personal data established by Directives 95/46/EC and 97/66/EC, which entered into force on 25 October 1998.
In the context of the previous question, I should like to raise a further two questions which seem to me to be relevant.
Does the Commission intend to enhance the existing legal instruments, making them speedier and more flexible, in order to afford consumers adequate protection in the courts?
Does the Commission intend to set up a mechanism to provide effective legal defence in cases where consumers suffer in spite of these measures?
I can assure you that these aspects, which have been drawn to our attention, are covered by the two directives on the processing of personal data to which I have referred, namely 95/46 and 97/66.
Question No 32 by Karin Riis-Jørgensen, which has been taken over by Mr Kofoed (H-1182/98) Subject: Weapons directive
Article 17 of the weapons directive (91/477/EEC) requires the Commission to submit a report to Parliament and the Council on the situation resulting from application of the directive.
Is that report already available and, if not, when does the Commission expect to have completed it?
In drawing up its report, is the Commission aware of the consequences this directive has for about 10 million Europeans who hunt or shoot as a sporting pursuit, i.e. the additional taxes they have to pay and the extra work they are faced with when transporting firearms within the European Union?
I give the floor to Mr Monti to answer Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's question.
During the second half of 1999, the Commission intends to present to the Council and the European Parliament a report on the application of Directive 91/477 on control of the acquisition and possession of weapons.
The report will examine the operation and impact of the directive in various respects.
To this end, the Commission will draw up a questionnaire and issue it to the groups concerned; it will investigate the aspects raised by the honourable Member in her question, relating to the cost-effectiveness of applying the directive.
The problems connected with the use of the European firearms pass for hunting and recreational shooting will likewise be discussed.
Mr President, I am grateful for the friendly reply and for what you said about this report, but I would like to ask whether you know how many countries have implemented the directive.
As far as I am aware, it is the case that if a Dane wishes to go hunting in the UK he has to submit his application a month in advance.
This means the UK has not implemented the directive.
My question is therefore: how many countries have still not implemented the directive?
I can inform you that all the Member States have transposed the directive.
Question No 30 by Gary Titley (H-1177/98) Subject: EEA and enlargement
Article 128 of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Area states that any European state becoming a member of the Community shall apply to become a member of the EEA.
What are the institutional implications of this?
Specifically, if EU membership automatically requires new members to join the EEA how are EFTA EEA states to be involved in decisions leading to enlargement of the EU?
Would there need to be two rounds of ratification, one for enlargement of the EU and one for enlargement of the EEA?
I should like to welcome Mr van den Broek and ask him to reply to Mr Titley's question.
The question by the honourable Member concerns the relationship between membership of the European Economic Area and the states which will shortly be joining the Union and which at the time of their accession must of course adopt the acquis communautaire, pursuant to the provisions of the accession agreements when negotiated.
A part of the negotiated acquis will be the agreement concerning the European Economic Area and to what extent Union membership automatically implies membership of the European Economic Area.
Article 128 of the EEA Agreement provides for a procedural mechanism for the accession of new states to the EEA.
There are three parts to this article.
Firstly, it stipulates that a new member must submit its application to the EEA Council.
Secondly, it stipulates that the conditions for participation are the subject of an agreement between the contracting parties to the EEA Agreement and the applicant country.
Thirdly, it stipulates that the agreement must be ratified by all contracting parties.
It is up to the applicant countries to decide when to apply for EEA membership, but it must be before accession to the Union.
The Commission regularly informs the EFTA/EEA countries of progress on enlargement, by way of a joint committee to which it submits briefings.
The Council will have to consider to what extent the comments of the EFTA/EEA countries can be taken into account, since the enlargement negotiations take place in the framework of an intergovernmental conference.
As the EEA agreement is also part of the acquis communautaire, in ratifying the accession treaty the Member States will also be ratifying EEA extension.
The EFTA/EEA partners must also ratify the participation of applicant countries in the EEA.
These decisions must be made in parallel so that the applicant countries also become full partners in the EEA on the date they join the Union.
My apologies for the fact that this is a rather complicated explanation, but I hope that it is now clear to the honourable Member.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for a thorough answer although he has not actually answered the last part of my question, namely, do there need to be two ratifications - one for EU membership and one for EEA membership?
Every country that is part of the EEA had to ratify the EEA agreement, so does the United Kingdom, for example, have to ratify both EU membership for Poland and EEA membership for Poland?
Secondly, can he confirm that applicant countries have to apply to join the EEA - i.e. that this is compulsory, that they are required to apply.
Also, what happens if a derogation is negotiated within the accession negotiations which the EFTA/EEA countries are not happy with? Do they have any say if, for example, Poland were to join with specific derogations which, as far as the EFTA countries were concerned, undermined the EEA agreement?
Do they have to simply accept a fait accompli?
I should like to start with the last question.
Do I summarise it well if I formulate the question as follows: Could there be different conditions which apply to entry to the EU and to participation in the EEA? As the EEA acquis will be for the candidate countries identical to the EC acquis it would be unthinkable for the candidates to have transitional periods as members of the EEA which were different from those agreed in the accession negotiations as.
There should be clear parallelism.
As far as ratification is concerned, I tried to make clear in my first reply that since the EEA agreement is part of the Community acquis, ratification by the Member States of the Accession Treaty implies equally the ratification of the EEA extension.
I hope that clarifies my position.
As regards Article 128, if you read the text literally they have to apply, but in fact the Council will remind them that this official act has to be carried out anyhow before accession, which also in fact includes participating in the EEA.
This formality has to be completed.
Question No 31 by Brian Crowley (H-1216/98) Subject: The Community school-milk programme
The Commission undertook a thorough revision of the Community school-milk programme in 1993 and, as it is no doubt aware, the Treaty of Amsterdam now commits the Community to pursue action in the field of public health aimed at improving public health, preventing human illness and diseases and obviating sources of danger to human health.
Has the Commission any plans to promote the school-milk programme in new ways as part of the expanded scope of Article 152 of the consolidated version of the EC Treaty and, if so, in what ways?
I should like to welcome Mr Fischler and ask him to reply to Mr Crowley's question.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in principle the current school-milk programme has two aims.
Firstly, we want to achieve the objectives of the organisation of the dairy market and boost sales; secondly, of course, we want this school-milk programme to encourage in particular the younger generation in the European Union to drink milk and make a healthy source of nourishment available to children.
We see no reason why we should in any way change these objectives at this time.
So there are at present no plans for any revision.
But of course we must also wait and see what the Agenda 2000 negotiations produce.
In the light of that it may of course prove necessary to make certain changes and adjustments.
Furthermore, an external audit has been commissioned, which is nearly complete, and we will see what these independent external experts recommend and also adjust our future policy to that.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for his response.
You already have some idea what the external audit is going to say with regard to the future operation of the programme.
Could you give us an indication tonight as to what you feel would be the best way forward to ensure the continuance of the school milk programme and how it might be altered at some stage in the future?
Mr President, I am happy to reply to Mr Crowley's supplementary.
From my point of view I can say that I have no information on what the results of this external audit will be, but I am of course prepared to make the findings public as soon as they are available.
My personal - and I stress personal - view with regard to school milk is that in the light of reform it is worth considering even at this stage how to make this system, which is at present rather entangled in red tape, a little less bureaucratic.
Quite apart from that, on principle it must surely be in the interest of the dairy industry itself to do all it can to draw its products to the attention of the future consumers rather than just leaving it to the public administration to encourage children to consume more dairy products by subsidising them.
Here I could well imagine a combination of private-sector and Community measures, in order to achieve the best results.
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
Having thanked Mr Fischler for his answer, we should now be moving on to Question No 33 by Mrs Hautala.
That question lapses, however, as the author is not present.
Question No 34 by Joan Vallvé (H-1191/98) Subject: Catalan national sports teams
Article 129 of the EC Treaty states that the Community shall contribute to the flowering of cultures while respecting their diversity.
Today, competitive sports events are among the most widely disseminated of cultural manifestations. In the interests of affirming the plurality of the Union's peoples, does the Commission consider the draft law now under discussion by the Catalan Parliament which would, inter alia, create a framework that would allow Catalan national teams to compete on a similar basis to that already applying to Scottish and Welsh national teams to be in line with the existing criteria for cultural events?
I should like to welcome Mr Oreja and wish him a happy New Year, and ask him to reply to Mr Vallvé's question.
In the Commission's view, the objectives concerning culture outlined in Article 128 of the Treaty cannot be applied to sporting competitions between national teams.
Therefore, it is not for the Commission to rule on this matter.
Initially, it falls to each Member State and to the appropriate sporting authorities to set up and run national teams.
In the case of Spain, relevant Spanish legislation on the issue should be borne in mind, in particular, the Sports Act of 15 October 1990, and Royal Decree No 2075 of 20 July 1982 concerning representation at international events and other sporting activities.
Thank you very much for your reply, Commissioner.
It appears there is no conflict with the principles espoused by the European Union. Indeed, the Union promotes the enrichment of the cultures of the Member States through respect for regional and national diversity, as laid down in the Treaties.
I merely wished to put forward the views of a significant proportion of the citizens of Catalonia who would like to see the creation of sports teams along the lines of those that currently exist in Scotland and Wales, and which could in future be set up in other areas, such as Flanders. Such teams would allow the citizens to make their identity felt in these competitions.
I rise because I am so sympathetic to the questioner, coming as I do from Scotland and knowing how much the Scottish football team means to the people, and also as one who has a great admiration for Catalonia, because as a little girl I remember seeing off from Glasgow the International Brigade to Catalonia, which included my cousin.
It was a Scotsman who wrote the book Homage to Catalonia, so we have a very strong feeling of solidarity.
Sport was a fairly late-comer to the scope of the Treaty.
Would the Commissioner agree that perhaps the Commission should look at further enlarging that scope because, of all games, there is no doubt that football seems to arouse the strongest passions?
We have indeed considered this matter, especially in view of certain recent developments, notably a declaration in the Treaty.
Some Member States were of the opinion that the issue of sport should be included in the Treaty.
However, it did not figure amongst the articles or the protocols, but it was included in a declaration.
As the honourable Member is well aware, it is often the case that what is initially a declaration later becomes incorporated into the Treaty.
It could well be that this is a first stage and that sport will be included following future reviews of the Treaty.
I should also like to say that last December the Vienna European Council dealt with sport from two points of view.
On the one hand, the social function of sport was recognised, and on the other, the need to adopt appropriate measures on doping was emphasised.
As regards doping, we should not be seeking an individual response from each of the Member States, but some sort of coordination amongst them.
In this connection, I should like to say that I encouraged the Austrian Presidency to hold a three-way ministerial meeting involving the German, British and Austrian Sports Ministers, with Austria in the chair and Commission representation.
I myself was present in Salzburg where we exchanged ideas on the possible way forward for sport within the Community.
The President of the International Olympic Committee has called a meeting in Lausanne on 3 and 4 February to discuss doping. In my view, the European Union should be adequately briefed for the meeting.
I have therefore approached all the sports ministers suggesting we meet before the meeting arranged by the International Olympic Committee in order to establish the European Union's position.
It would not seem to make much sense for us to attend and then for each minister to speak for himself without us having reached any prior agreement.
Consequently, we shall be meeting on 19 January to prepare for the meeting on 3 and 4 February in Lausanne.
It must now be clear to the honourable Member that sport is starting to make its presence felt.
There is a suggestion that sport should be included in Article 128 of the Treaty.
This would mean that sport would feature in the cultural area envisaged in the Treaty.
Although the College of Commissioners has not yet given its opinion on the matter, I should make it clear that I myself am in favour of such an approach. Whilst subsidiarity must, of course, be respected, I do believe it is right to start working towards the inclusion of sport in the Treaty.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Please remain with this question. Two Members have asked for the floor and, pursuant to the Rules, only one of them may speak.
I therefore give the floor to Mr Titley to put a supplementary question for a maximum of one minute.
I welcome the Commissioner's remarks and I endorse what he has just said.
The British Sports Minister, in particular, is very keen that we should see higher profile for sport within the European Union.
Will the Commissioner confirm that if Catalan national teams competed on the same basis as Scottish and Welsh national teams, that would mean that anybody who represented a Catalan national team would be permanently ineligible to represent the Spanish national team?
I should like to reiterate what I said earlier, in reply to Mr Vallvé's question. It falls to each Member State to set up and run national teams.
You may well ask what happens in Wales and in Scotland, but their teams already existed before the Treaty.
After the Treaty, the only criterion is that it is for the legislature in each Member State to make the necessary decisions.
I cannot therefore go beyond the scope of the Treaty, because one of the Commission's many responsibilities is that of guardian of the Treaty.
What I can talk about is what could be envisaged for the future in terms of including the issue of sport, but that is another matter.
I cannot give you any other answer at the moment.
It is for each Member State's legislature, working with the relevant sporting bodies, to rule on the setting up and running of national teams.
Question No 35 by Esko Seppänen (H-1204/98) Subject: Euronews
A special relationship exists between the European Union institutions, especially the European Parliament, and Euronews: the work of the satellite channel is funded using revenue from tax-payers in the EU Member States.
How important does the Commission regard Euronews as being for its information policy, and what kind of financial support is planned for it?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Seppänen's question.
As is widely known, Euronews is an independent television broadcasting company.
It began as a collaborative venture between several public channels. Some of these still have capital invested in it, but Euronews is now controlled by ITN, an independent channel.
Given the European nature of its programmes, its ability to broadcast in five Community languages and its transnational broadcasting network, the European Commission, with Parliament's support, has been cooperating with this company for a number of years. In particular, it makes an annual contribution towards the financing of the company.
At Parliament's suggestion, a different arrangement was arrived at last year.
The aim was to ensure greater transparency in the relationship between the European Union and the station, and to link the Community's financial contribution to the production and broadcasting of specific programmes.
In 1998, therefore, the Commission, with the approval of the budgetary authority, negotiated a three-year memorandum of understanding with this company.
The agreement provides for the joint production and broadcasting of programmes for the general public on a range of contemporary European issues.
A list of activities and the terms of their funding is agreed annually.
Progress is monitored through a monthly meeting between the broadcasting company and the Commission, at which a representative of Parliament's services is also present.
As joint producer of the programmes, the Union benefits from production and broadcasting rights concerning the programmes.
And this means that the Union can broadcast them for free on its own networks, notably through its EBS satellite system, which means the arrangement is particularly favourable.
Beyond these joint productions, the European Commission has no special involvement with the company regarding, for instance, editorial policy or management.
In this way, the arrangement provides a more transparent basis for cooperation restricted to products the public can easily identify and it also respects the channel's independence.
The agreement signed in 1998 involved a sum of ECU 3 250 million and the production and broadcasting of 42 five-minute news programmes with on-the-spot reports, 168 two-minute educational cartoons and 222 three and a half-minute news items.
The 1999 agreement is currently under negotiation.
A decision on the future of our cooperation will be taken in the light of the assessment due prior to the expiry of the three-year period laid down in the memorandum of understanding.
To date, the Commission has been pleased with the arrangement. It has resulted in the production of many programmes and has provided good coverage of events.
I think it is worth mentioning that Parliament's services recently informed my own services that the presentation of information in programmes produced jointly with Euronews had changed, resulting in more balanced coverage of the work of the various institutions.
This is all I can say to the honourable Member on the subject of Euronews at the moment.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank you for your detailed reply, but I wish to add a remark and a question.
I understand from your reply that Euronews is no longer a channel owned by national broadcasting corporations, and, although you did not say so, I deduced that it is privately owned.
I would therefore like to ask whether the Commission has arranged for other satellite channel companies to compete for the production of the television programme, and if not, why not?
Then I would respectfully ask the Commissioner to provide me, if possible, with the memorandum that spells out the rules that relate to Euronews.
I should like to tell Mr Seppänen that I personally am a great fan of Euronews and have done all in my power to bolster it.
Initially, I was confronted with a situation in which the Community was directly involved in Euronews.
It was involved in the management of the company and was therefore also affected by the implications of everything put out by Euronews. I visited Euronews in 1997, and the situation seemed to be far from ideal.
It seemed preferable for the Community and Euronews to reach an agreement whereby the Community would not be involved in the management of the company. The agreement would refer instead to specific programmes.
The Community would specify the programmes it was interested in, aiming at very short programmes to be produced over a long period of time, rather than at television spots. This would ensure maximum coverage of issues related to the work of the institutions for as long as possible and with as much repetition as possible.
This was therefore the type of arrangement reached. As the honourable Member is probably aware, I have maintained my involvement within the framework of the coordination that exists between Parliament and the Commission.
A meeting is held every six weeks or two months.
Mr Anatassopoulos leads Parliament's delegation, and I lead the Commission's. Four or five Members of Parliament attend together with four or five Commissioners, and we review all issues related to news output, giving particular attention to those concerning Euronews.
This enables us to keep a close check on the way the arrangement with Euronews is developing.
Regarding the specific issue raised, one of the reasons why I proposed pulling out of the previous direct involvement in Euronews was that Euronews had ceased to be part of the national television networks and was essentially an independent channel.
This does not mean that it no longer has links with national channels, as the latter retain their investment in Euronews. At present, however, ITN - an independent channel - is the main owner.
You will be aware that Euronews has undergone many changes of ownership throughout its history, but it is a matter of regret for me that public channels do not have a greater involvement in it.
I did approach several public channels.
In fact, I approached the Spanish and Italian public channels, and others who were already involved in some way. I suggested they become more involved and really make their presence felt in Euronews.
Unfortunately, they were very reluctant to do so.
It is common knowledge that Member States are often only concerned about their national television channels, and they consider Euronews to be somewhat alien.
It appears close to us, but is rather more distant from the Member States.
We therefore came to the agreement I outlined and I believe that, for now, it is satisfactory.
The Commissioner said in his closing remarks that people are only concerned about their national television channels.
Well, I was concerned about Euronews.
At great personal inconvenience and considerable expense I paid the cable television company which has a monopoly on the service in my area to instal cable television so I could sit and spend happy hours in the evening listening and watching Euronews.
You will be interested to know, Commissioner, with your interest and support for Euronews, that after a period of six months, the cable company wrote to me and told me that Euronews was being withdrawn and that I have no further access to it by any means at all.
It is a sad little story but I knew you would be interested to hear it.
Mr President, I can but make a note of the honourable Member's experience and state that I share his interest in Euronews.
In my case, whenever I am late home, I always switch on Euronews to receive the latest news.
I can well understand therefore that the honourable Member would wish to find out about the latest news from Euronews.
Question No 36 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-1225/98) Subject: European City of Culture candidates
On 30 October 1997, on the request of Parliament and the Council, the Commission submitted a proposal for a decision on the European City of Culture .
Parliament adopted this at first reading on 30 April 1998 , and the Council adopted a common position on 24 July 1998 .
As the Commission is aware, the Council's common position diverges sharply from the Commission proposal; in addition, by proposing a distribution by country for the period 2005-2019, it represents a major departure not only from the spirit of the proposal but from the primary objective of the initiative, namely the 'communitarisation' of the European City of Culture phenomenon. Can the Community explain why it did not withdraw its proposal following the Council's adoption of its common position?
What line does the Commission intend to take on the common position? Does the Commission not consider that it is somewhat premature as of now to begin the process of adoption of a Community initiative which will not come into operation until 2005?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
I am grateful to Mrs Izquierdo Rojo for the question she has raised.
This issue was debated in Parliament this very afternoon. Mrs Izquierdo Rojo is aware that it is a matter of great concern to me, and I trust a satisfactory solution can be reached.
The Commission has made its view on the common position abundantly clear.
At the appropriate time, the Commission put forward a proposal, which we believed to be reasonable.
And we believed it was a reasonable proposal because it provided for the choice of the European City of Culture to be devolved to the Community as a whole.
I am not sure whether, of all the cultural events that take place and that have a Community-wide impact, the European City of Culture is the most significant, but it certainly receives the most publicity.
I do think, however, that we can do better than we are doing at present.
This very promising scheme was launched by Mrs Mercouri in 1985. It has run from then until now.
As you will be aware, Weimar is the European City of Culture for 1999. It seemed to us however, and particularly to me, that there was scope for improving the procedure.
How could the procedure be improved? It could be improved by firstly ensuring that this was not just an event for the city, the region or the country concerned, and investing it with a truly European nature.
That is why the Commission suggested in its proposal that the Member States should nominate the city or cities they wanted to see as European City of Culture, outlining at the same time the genuinely European action they proposed to undertake during the year in question. The Commission would then consult with Parliament and with a contact group that could define the criteria involved.
In the light of the criteria and Parliament's report, the Commission would come to a decision and put its proposal to the Council.
The Council would then take a majority decision.
The main problem that tended to arise, particularly in 1997 and 1998, was that the Council found it difficult to reach agreement when a unanimous decision was required. A single country, under pressure from a single city, could make it impossible for agreement to be reached.
So, we believed that this consultative approach was a good one. All interested parties would be involved, the Commission would put a proposal to Council and the Council would then take a majority decision.
In the event, this approach did not meet with Council approval.
The Council therefore unanimously adopted a common position. I was unsure as to whether the latter did or did not modify the Commission's proposal.
As a result, I referred the matter to the Legal Service.
The Legal Service stated that strictly speaking no such modification was involved, and that the procedure could therefore go ahead.
This is the situation in which we now find ourselves.
So what else has happened? Parliament today gave its declaration of intended rejection of the common position, which was debated along with Mr Monfils' proposal.
I was in Bonn yesterday, at the meeting between the Commission and the German Government, and met with the President-in-Office responsible for culture, the German Minister for Culture. The honourable Member must be aware that this is an event in itself, because never before has there been a minister for culture in Germany.
The Länder had them, but there were none in the government of the Federal Republic. My exchanges with Mr Naumann focused almost entirely on this issue, and I urged him to promote a three-way dialogue between Parliament, the Council and the Commission in an attempt to resolve this situation.
I well understand Parliament's anger, indeed I share it, particularly as I had proposed a totally different method.
However, I would be sorry to see Community-wide involvement disappear completely, and not just be reduced, if no agreement were reached.
There is a great temptation for governments to say: 'Why do we not just carry on as we have been with a purely intergovernmental method?' This is how things stand at the moment.
I have urged the Council and now urge Parliament to arrive at a compromise solution that would allow Parliament to table amendments at second reading. I will try to take over as many of those amendments as I can.
Perhaps we will then be able to find a way forward.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo can rest assured that I would never have accepted the proposal if it had not been a case of unanimity.
Given that it was, there was no other option, as she must certainly be aware.
In such cases, the Council's position takes precedence over the Commission's.
The Commissioner has not in fact told us anything we did not already know in his four and a half, almost five-minute lecture.
I now have only one minute in which to ask him something we do not yet know: does the Commissioner intend, in the days and weeks to come, to carry on washing his hands, taking notes and expressing his regret? Or will he perhaps find it in himself to finally adopt a more responsible attitude?
So far, all we know is that the minister could not have done a worse job with Granada, and that through this lunatic method of theirs of giving everyone a turn, the ministers for culture have turned something that used to be important into a farce.
We already knew all of this, Commissioner, but we expect you to adopt a position more in keeping with your post and with the Commission's responsibilities regarding such an important manifestation of European culture for which it is responsible.
I am sorry to hear you are so unhappy, Mrs Izquierdo, but I thought it appropriate to use those four and a half minutes to fill in the background to the situation. Though you were well aware of it, other Members of the House may not have been.
I therefore explained the sequence of events.
I cannot invent the Treaty.
The Treaty exists and I am bound by it.
I cannot do more than has already been done.
If the Council takes a unanimous decision, I can only act as I have.
What I can do - and this is certainly something new, as it only happened yesterday - is to talk to the President-in-Office, tell him that this is a matter of the greatest importance and ask him to call an urgent meeting to try to reach some sort of compromise whereby we will perhaps be able to move forward and come to an agreement.
You may ask what other course of action is open to me.
But my powers are limited.
Bear in mind that there is a serious danger here, though you can be quite sure that I shall guard against it.
I shall not take any action that might lead to the demise of the European Cities of Culture. Further, I shall do all in my power to provide the scheme with more of a Community spirit.
There is of course the risk that, at a particular juncture, the Council may not agree, and that it would then take a backward step and act simply through intergovernmental agreement.
This is what it did between 1985 and 1999, and it can continue to do so between 2000 and 2019, or for as long as it wishes.
Consequently, the only course of action open to me at the moment is to try and persuade Parliament and the Council to reach an agreement.
Question No 37 by Bernd Posselt (H-1230/98) Subject: Celebrating the millennium
What progress has been reached in the preparations for the celebrations for the year 2000? Does the Commission intend to assign a high priority to Christian-Islamic-Jewish dialogue within these activities?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Posselt's question.
) For some years now, the Commission has been planning events linked to the millennium.
I have in mind the Hanover International Exhibition, the European Cities of Culture for the year 2000, and the 50th anniversary of the Robert Schuman Declaration.
As regards millennium initiatives we are informed of by operators in the Member States, I have instructed my services to make provision for awarding specific European sponsorship to projects conveying the spirit of the construction of Europe.
I also intend to propose to Parliament, the Commission, and the Council that the European institutions should send out a joint political message to the citizens on the theme of peace.
Further, the essential process of collaboration with the Member States was launched on 30 June, when DG X called a meeting in Brussels of those responsible for national millennium celebrations.
It was gratifying to hear that all 15 Member States were represented and to realise that they were eager to collaborate amongst themselves and with the European institutions.
I should however stress that the principle of subsidiarity will be strictly observed in any actions undertaken by the Commission.
The Commission will not merely hand out subsidies to all and sundry. On the contrary, it will concentrate on the type of projects I mentioned earlier, namely long-term projects that respond to the citizens' wishes.
With regard to dialogue between Muslims, Jews and Christians, the Commission has no plans for a specific project of this nature.
Mr President, I would like to ask two brief supplementaries.
What part will music play in these celebrations? There are organisations, such as 'Europa musicale', that are making very intensive preparations which also involve the applicant countries.
I wanted to ask you whether there are plans only for general festivities or also for genuine cultural events.
Secondly, I asked specifically about the Christian-Islamic-Jewish dialogue.
After all, the year 2000 refers back specifically to the birth of Christ, which is when our calendar begins, and I therefore think we should include a dialogue with our neighbours, the Muslims and Jews, as this is increasingly becoming a domestic policy issue in our countries.
That is why I ask whether there are any plans to that effect.
Neither of these two matters figures in the Commission's millennium planning for a simple reason: as far as the millennium celebrations are concerned, the Community's involvement in terms of Community policy will be minor.
We do have certain programmes we will endeavour to carry out.
A cultural framework programme is scheduled for 2000 to 2005. We are experiencing a very serious problem with this at the moment as one Member State has reduced its contribution to such an extent that it can hardly be termed a cultural programme any longer.
Fourteen Member States have accepted the Commission's proposal, but a single Member State is opposed to it. In the light of that opposition, and given the need for unanimity, it will not be possible to implement that particular framework programme for the time being.
This apart, many other programmes are planned to celebrate the millennium.
Large-scale projects are to be undertaken by all the Member States.
Nevertheless, from a Community standpoint, we shall concentrate on the three major events.
The other ideas put forward were all very interesting, but there are no plans to include in the Commission's programme any activities other than the three I mentioned. However, the Commission would, of course, consider any further proposals that might be made in connection with these activities.
Mr President, Commissioner, World Expo 2000 will also be taking place that year.
At that world exhibition the first attempt will be made to introduce the electronic payment system across the board on a large scale.
Visitors will be coming from all over the world, some 40 million of them.
Have you any ideas on how we can also take account, during the celebrations, of this unique event, this huge experiment?
The Commission is currently considering what action it might take in connection with the Hanover International Exhibition. As things stand at the moment, we believe that a figure in the region of EUR 7 million - perhaps EUR 6 m, EUR 7 m or EUR 7.5 m - might be allocated to it.
Please do not write this down in black and white, but just take a rough note in pencil, as it is only an estimate.
Within the first three months of this year, that is, before the end of March, I shall be in a position to issue a communication concerning the action planned in connection with Hanover.
A working party has been set up, and I am anxious for the matter to be brought to a conclusion by 30 March.
I shall naturally then report back to Parliament. In particular, it will be my pleasure to let the honourable Member know the details of the action planned for the occasion.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I should remind you that the Minutes are written in ink, so it will be rather difficult to include a pencilled note, as you suggest.
Perhaps you should have a word with the services producing the Minutes.
In any case, thank you for your contributions and for your presence amongst us today.
Question No 38 by Robert Evans (H-1178/98) Subject: Behaviour of Passengers on Aeroplanes
Would the Commission inform me if they have any plans to introduce tougher restrictions on the availability of alcohol and the behaviour of passengers on European flights in the light of recent violence inflicted upon flight staff?
I should like to welcome Mr Kinnock and ask him to reply to Mr Evans's question.
I thank the Commissioner for his very comprehensive and most encouraging answer.
He will know well that, with Heathrow Airport in my constituency, this is one of the reasons why I am concerned about this area.
I am encouraged by his remarks and by the action the Commission is taking.
However, I have concerns as to how his action can be squared with the pressure to drink that is exerted on passengers by cabin crew - the ones who are very often the victims.
They, in turn, are pressured by their employers - the companies - to sell alcohol to make money.
We know that 99 % of bad behaviour is linked to alcohol.
If the suggested changes to the rules on duty-free mean that people will be encouraged to consume the duty free alcohol they have bought on the planes during the flight, this could further exacerbate the problem.
I am concerned to know how the Commission will actually enforce the legislation that I am delighted it is bringing forward.
Thank you very much.
Don't forget that this is not the House of Commons.
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer the supplementary by Mr Evans, and I have two further supplementaries on this same question.
The honourable Member is right to say that alcoholic drink is involved in a large number of these incidents, but one of the purposes of the investigation being undertaken by the International Civil Aviation Organisation is to get reliable statistics on the causes and nature and, therefore, of course, on the origins and effects of the kind of incidents that concern him, as they concern me.
There is one very preliminary conclusion that can be drawn from the studies that have already partly taken place, and that is the extraordinary fact that, apparently, smoking bans on aircraft have partly the effect of creating an extra appetite for drink.
How reliable that evidence is we are not yet in a position to say.
I do not think that any one would suggest as an answer to it that smoking is reintroduced on airlines.
I will report to the honourable gentleman when we have more substantial information, and it may be that we will make legislative proposals on the basis of that information.
I welcome the Commissioner's remarks and I would be very interested to know what legal basis there would be under the Treaty for action.
Action should be taken.
The volume of traffic and number of passengers travelling through Stansted Airport, which for the most part is very welcome within my constituency of North Essex and South Suffolk, is increasing and obviously passengers want to know that their safety is a paramount consideration.
Would the Commission consider encouraging Member States to liaise to prevent passengers, who are in the severely intoxicated state to which Mr Evans referred, from travelling. They put other passengers' lives at risk and also the crew.
May I first give you a short piece of advice.
The airline which I use to go to Brussels has already found a solution to your problem.
It offers such bad wines bought outside the Union that nobody wants to consume them.
I have a practical question which is of paramount importance for me.
Can you not obtain from the Commission or some other body a ruling that passengers should not take two pieces of luggage on board.
This endangers everyone in the event of a critical situation developing.
This should be enforced by the airlines.
I will readily concede that the honourable Member has superior knowledge of wines.
I do, however, have people within my acquaintance who have been known to drink a great deal of bad wine simply because after the fifth or sixth glass they cannot taste it in any case.
So serving bad wines is not really a safeguard against unruly conduct.
The question of luggage is a slightly different one and I am sure that from time to time all of us have contravened the general rules in order to add to our convenience.
I would say that as long as the second piece of luggage does not consist of several bottles of booze, then it may be possible for the crew of an aircraft to manage to accommodate it.
In general it is not sensible either for personal security or the security of aircraft for people to try to take too many pieces of luggage.
Many airlines effectively enforce that rule.
Question No 39 by Richard Howitt (H-1203/98) Subject: Trans-European transport networks and access for the disabled
Can the Commission indicate what measures are being proposed in the current revision of the guidelines on the trans-European transport networks to ensure that access for the disabled will be properly recognised in the guidelines and then implemented by the Member States?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Howitt's question.
As the Honourable Member will know, the aim of the existing Trans-European Networks guidelines is to try to ensure sustainable mobility of persons and goods within the area without internal frontiers under the best possible social and safety conditions.
The objective also applies to people with mobility handicaps.
All decisions to build transport infrastructure projects, including the selection of technical standards, are of course primarily the responsibility of Member States.
The Commission is currently preparing a White Paper, which will be published this summer, setting out the approach to the future development of TENs policy and preparing for a revision of the guidelines.
In that context one possibility under discussion is the development of criteria relating to service levels, which could also include reference to access to the network for people with disabilities.
In preparing the White Paper the Commission has launched a broad consultation process and naturally we welcome the views of this House and of all interested parties, including disability organisations with which we enjoy very good and frequent contacts.
I certainly congratulate the Commissioner and endorse what he says about relationships with disability organisations as, for example, the work that his officials are involved with on the Bus and Coach Directive.
The progress that is being made there is very good evidence of that.
I support and encourage him to further consider the proposals about service levels and access for disabled people.
However, I would ask him to go further.
Can he look, when he talks about inter-operability, at linkages. For example, it is no good having an accessible train if people cannot get into the station.
It is no good having a road network if the parking spaces are not there for disabled people.
Could he look at that issue and at information for disabled people so that blind people through use of braille, deaf people through use of textphone and other visual displays have full access to the information on the trans-European networks?
And although he said in his answer that it is the responsibility of the Member States to implement, is there anything in the White Paper that can push the Member States a bit further to make sure they do just that?
I am very grateful to the honourable Member for his question and the way in which he phrases it.
In the case of connections between modes and within modes, on the issue of the design of vehicles - for instance, low-floor in which, as he says, the Commission research services and other services have played a very significant part - and in respect of the provision of clear and accessible information to travellers with disability handicaps, we can demonstrate that we are active in all those areas.
In the case of many Member States we are pushing at an open door.
The standard of responsiveness was far from perfect but has increased very significantly in recent years.
He may be interested to know about the work that we are doing in connection with the European high-speed rail system where we have given a mandate to the European Association for the Inter-operability of Railways to assess criteria for inter-operability of rail-related infrastructure, for instance, platforms.
This highlights the very point that he made in his supplementary question.
In particular, the association has been asked by us to use as an example of law relating to the access of disabled people the public transport legislation, civil rights legislation relating to disabled people, that has recently become law in the United Kingdom.
We hope that it will be possible, more broadly, to build on that model.
To keep my record clean I should say that my question has already been asked by Mr Howitt.
We have quite considerable concern recently expressed in Ireland at the very small number of accessible buses.
Are you aware of this, Commissioner, and can you do anything about it?
I have never assumed anything other than that the honourable Member had an absolutely spotless, unblemished record in all respects.
I am not in a position to draw attention to any power that the Commission has to try to ensure greater use of more accessible buses.
There is an irony: that the company which has an absolutely brilliant record of production of kneeling buses and low-floor buses is situated in Northern Ireland.
I hope that cross-border trade will intensify as Irish bus authorities in the Republic of Ireland take advantage of these excellent products.
I am happy to say that their purchase and use are becoming more widespread in several authorities and amongst several bus operators in the United Kingdom.
I hope that becomes a more general habit.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
That was the last question to Commissioner Kinnock, as we have now reached the end of the time set aside for questions to him.
I should like to thank him for coming and wish him all the best for the coming year. I have every confidence that if we both make an effort, our timekeeping will improve in the future.
Questions Nos 40 to 42 will receive written answers.
Question No 43 by Mary Banotti (H-1180/98) Subject: Single supplements-travel costs
Can the Commission inform me whether the supplements applied to single people's travelling costs are contrary to Community Law?
I should like to welcome Mrs Bonino and ask her to reply to Mrs Banotti's question.
The question being asked by Mrs Banotti was raised last year by Mrs McNally and answered by the Commission.
The Commission is aware that one of Mrs McNally's constituents, for example, has created a pressure group in the UK to campaign against supplements for single travellers.
The Commission would however point out that the only Community provision relating to the question raised by the honourable Member is the directive on package travel, package holidays and package tours. Article 2(4) of this directive, which has been adopted by the Council, defines the consumer as 'the person who takes or agrees to take the package'.
As the honourable Member no doubt knows, the directive also defines as a 'transferee' any person on whose behalf the principal contractor agrees to purchase the package - such persons being defined as 'other beneficiaries' - or any person to whom the principal contractor or any of the other beneficiaries transfers the package.
That is the position, Madam, as I am sure you know.
The Commission considers that single-person supplements derive from a commercial principle - higher prices for single travellers - a principle generally accepted by the market, in that these travellers generate higher accommodation costs which must obviously be reflected in prices.
Therefore the Commission does not deem single-person supplements to be contrary to Community law.
Without entering into the realms of subsidiarity or other such matters, the fact remains, in the Commission's opinion, that market forces are operating here: there can be no doubt that a single traveller creates higher costs, be it only in terms of room occupancy.
Moreover, travellers are normally made aware of the increased price, in that all advertising literature generally indicates the basic price and the supplement; so nor can the directive on unfair contract terms be applied.
Finally, as far as the Commission knows, these single-person supplements are fairly reasonable on the whole.
Above all they are made known, and therefore the directive on unfair contract terms cannot be invoked.
I should like to thank the Commissioner.
She gives the bad news in the nicest possible way.
I would like to know if there is any indication that markets themselves are responding to what is an increasing number of single people perhaps just looking for 'the blessed peace of the single bed', to quote George Bernard Shaw.
I am surprised that they continue to charge supplements to single people who sometimes simply find it difficult to afford this.
I have also come across and been approached by constituents about a situation where special offers are offered, for example in the UK, which are not available to somebody coming, for example, from Ireland to pick up the tour in the UK.
Is this also a situation which is governed by market forces or is there, in fact, a problem with its legality?
The honourable Member is quite right: nothing is as sensitive to market trends as the industries which profit from them.
We have certainly noted an upsurge in special offers for which there is no single-person supplement, precisely because agencies have grasped the fact that the number of single travellers is growing constantly.
The market is therefore responding very rapidly with special offers.
On the second question, relating to special offers intended for a particular target group or nationality, I would prefer to ask the Legal Service whether these might be discriminatory.
Before saying anything which could disrupt the market, I believe that it is only right to seek a legal opinion: the Commission will certainly do so, Madam, and will reply to you in writing.
Question No 44 by Daniel Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (H-1189/98) Subject: Outcome of EU-Canada talks on Canadian Fisheries Bill C-27
At the last EU-Canada summit held in Vienna, following an initiative from Commissioner Brittan, the Canadian Foreign Minister agreed that a joint EU-Canada committee of experts would undertake a detailed study of Canadian Fisheries Bill C-27, in order to determine whether it is compatible with international law.
A first meeting took place in Ottawa on 7 and 8 December 1998.
Can the Commission provide information on the outcome of this meeting?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Varela's question.
I believe that here Mr Varela, who questions me on Canada once every two months on average, is just as determined as the Commission, which for its part misses no opportunity - and I shall mention three very recent dates - of pointing out to its Canadian counterpart that Bill C-27 is unacceptable.
The matter has been raised on three recent occasions: on 22 October, when Sir Leon Brittan met the Canadian Foreign Minister; on 7 December, at a meeting of senior fisheries officials in Ottawa; and finally on 17 December, at the EU-Canada summit.
What I think emerged very clearly on the last occasion was that the Canadians have no intention of amending Bill C-27.
They have said so repeatedly.
The new element, however - and the Commission is pursuing this possible solution - is Canada's apparent readiness to contemplate an interpretative statement making clear that Bill C-27 relates only to the application of the United Nations agreement.
This interpretative statement, if it did materialise, would be a worthwhile move on Canada's part.
In any event, I would add two further considerations.
Firstly, due to unfortunate timing, the discussion between the fisheries officials took place immediately after the International Court of Justice ruling in the proceedings brought by Spain against Canada for its detention in 1995 of the fishing vessel 'Styke'.
Even though the Court merely declared that it had no legal competence over that case, its declaration was taken in Canada as a decision on the substance of the dispute; this therefore made the Canadian authorities somewhat more unforthcoming.
Secondly, I am utterly convinced that - quite apart from unilateral Canadian statements along the lines of 'yes' or 'no', and we shall have to examine their content - the only way of averting disputes lies in accelerating the ratification of the UN Convention on straddling stocks.
As you know, an entire section of this Convention provides for binding dispute settlement, which would obviously prevent Canada from refusing to recognise the Court's jurisdiction, as it did in 1994/95.
In any event, above and beyond the negotiations, and as well as keeping events under daily - or monthly - review, the Commission is absolutely convinced that early ratification of the UN Convention is the most effective strategy available to us.
Thank you for your explanation, Madam Commissioner.
As you must be aware, I have as much interest in this issue as the Commission. It is of key importance to fishing operations in international waters and, therefore, for international legislation.
A state that does not accept the jurisdiction of an international court of justice, that passes internal laws contrary to international legislation, that enforces these laws by seizing vessels, and that cannot then be tried by anyone represents a serious threat to fishing on an international level, and is a poor example to others.
However, I do not agree with you, Madam Commissioner, on what I believe to be a very important issue. I have to emphasise this, as things are not going well for us.
They are not going well for me and they are not going well for the Commission either. We are likely to go on discussing this matter here every two months, probably every month, as Canada is putting forward all the arguments it can think of against our case.
I differ inasmuch as I believe, as does the European Parliament, that ratifying the convention could give rise to long-term disputes if it is interpreted differently from the New York Convention.
The approach currently espoused by NAFO could lead to a solution. The best course of action would therefore be to decide not to ratify the convention, especially as it is in Canada's interest that we do ratify it.
This, therefore, is where we differ.
I urge you to give careful consideration to the matter. We may be called upon to show Canada the extent to which it has become a thorn in the flesh of its relationship with the European Union.
In conclusion, we must persevere, and perhaps not ratify the convention Canada is so anxious to see in place so that it can then apply it to suit itself.
I am aware of Parliament's position, but I would ask you to consider that that is the very purpose of institutional dialogue.
It is because we find that differing interpretations of the UN Convention are an undoubted source of contention, and could increasingly become so, that - and I would stress this point - ratification is desirable, above all in respect of the pillar of the Convention relating to a binding dispute settlement mechanism.
Please bear in mind that we have no other means of solving potential disputes, and not only in Canadian waters or NAFO waters.
If the Convention were not ratified we would have no instruments at all; what if, for example, some other coastal state were to have a different interpretation?
As you said, others might follow the precedent, and we would then find ourselves without any binding instruments for the settlement of disputes.
This, it seems to me, is the part of the Convention which we should surely exploit.
Indeed, as you will remember, Mr Varela, what happened in the last episode, in 1995, is that Canada refused to recognise the competence of the Court of Justice, which has now in fact ruled that it is not competent.
So I fear that, unless a binding dispute settlement mechanism is established, Canada's example will be followed by others.
It is also up to the Member States to address themselves to this matter.
I am however keen to stress that the absence of a binding dispute settlement mechanism is certainly not to our advantage.
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
As the author is not present, Question No 45 lapses.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 46 by Ian White (H-1222/98) Subject: Puerto Morazan-Hurricane Mitch
Would the Commission please indicate how much money the EU has made available for emergency aid for Nicaragua and Honduras and how much EU aid is channelled through the NGO Community and international relief agencies?
Question No 47 by Christine Oddy (H-1232/98) Subject: Puerto Morazan - Hurricane Mitch
Would the Commission advise how much construction help, in the form of road and bridge repair teams and equipment, it has sent to Nicaragua and Honduras?
Question No 48 by Glenys Kinnock (H-1239/98) Subject: Response to natural disasters
ECHO has had to respond, during this financial year, to a number of tragic and costly emergencies and natural disasters.
Does ECHO have sufficient funding to deal with any new crisis which may occur?
I would therefore ask you, Commissioner, to reply jointly to these questions by Mr White, Mrs Oddy and Mrs Kinnock in the two minutes which we have left before 7 p.m.
I shall also say a word in response to Mrs Kinnock's question, since it relates to the same subject.
First of all, the Commission can make available to the honourable Members, should they so desire, the recently approved overall plan for Central America; the plan contains all the detailed figures, and I can leave it with you now.
Very briefly, however, I can say that the first allocation - ECU 6.8 million - was approved on 4 November, in other words while the hurricane was still raging; a further package of ECU 9.5 m was approved in November, as soon as I returned from my visit; thereafter the Commission diverted or redirected for this disaster ECU 3 m which had previously been earmarked for other projects.
All these projects are implemented through NGOs, a list of which I have here and can leave with you.
The two plans have been approved by the Humanitarian Committee, to which all the Member States belong.
Directorate General 1B, headed by Mr Marín, recently released ECU 8.2 m in preparation for the overall reconstruction plan which, as the honourable Member knows, is to be presented to the Donors' Conference in Stockholm.
Concerning the other question, I would point out that one of the problems confronting us is that ECHO's ordinary budget is exhausted by half way through the year, and a whole series of unforeseen disasters compels us to engage in very lengthy and cumbersome procedures to mobilise the reserve.
That is precisely why, from this year onwards, we are seeing some improvement since now, at the start of the year, we have a more substantial allocation; this enables us to plan in a more orderly fashion, especially for crises which persist from one year to the next, drawing on the reserve only in truly unexpected crises which defy planning.
This is a budgetary matter which we are attempting to clarify with Mr Liikanen - some progress has already been made - so as to avoid the considerable difficulties which usually occur each July.
I would like to know how much of the emergency aid has got through to Central America, what the difficulties have been getting that aid through and what the most pressing needs are now for the people of Central America and what can we do now to help them?
The first projects which were decided on 4 November were immediately operational because we decided to use the NGOs which were already working in the field so that there were no gaps.
With the recent plan of ECU 10m, we have slightly enlarged the list of the NGOs.
One of the problems at the beginning was transport and how to reach a population where the bridges had all collapsed and there were no roads.
Finally, we had some success with helicopters but helicopters cannot carry large quantities of food.
The second point is that some of the governments were not exactly happy about working through NGOs but during my visit I made it very clear to the governments that, like it or not, the rules are that I cannot give money directly to a government but that we have to work through the Red Cross or the NGOs.
Finally they accepted this, even if some political tensions remain.
What we are doing now is concentrating mostly on Honduras and the north of Nicaragua.
We want to focus on drinking water in order to prevent epidemics.
There is no major need for food except for vulnerable groups.
The real major need is for drinking water in order to prevent epidemics.
The new plan is mostly concentrated on basic health care, the rehabilitation of pumps, and drinking water.
If you are interested, I can give you details of what every NGO is doing in the field.
At a time when the effectiveness of the Commission is being called into question I should like to commend the very fast and efficient response which ECHO made to the crisis in Central America.
In the light of the information you have given us, Commissioner Bonino, I should like to know what finances you have been able to direct to the recurring crisis in Bangladesh, a country with which my own country, the United Kingdom, is very concerned and involved.
Do you consider that ECHO has been able and will continue to be able to prioritise these needs as they occur on an annual basis in Bangladesh?
I do not have the final exact figure on Bangladesh but I will obtain it for you.
What we have discovered over the past year is the major impact of recurring natural catastrophes.
Overall, in the action plan for 1999, we want to strengthen our natural disaster preparedness.
We even thought of having a disaster preparedness or natural catastrophe fund.
We are still considering whether it is wise, possible or viable to have a fund which can be more easily used to react to, prevent, or prepare for natural catastrophes.
This thinking requires a change in the Financial Regulation.
I do not know whether the political mood is to have more flexibility in spending.
We are still discussing what is the best way.
As far as Bangladesh is concerned, I will provide you with the exact figure.
I do not want to give you an inaccurate figure. I will check it out.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Since we have now reached the end of the time set aside for questions to the Commission, Questions Nos 49 to 79 will receive written answers.
That concludes Question Time.
The sitting was suspended at 7.05 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
Trading system and internationally recognised standards
The next item is the report (A4-0423/98) by Mr Sainjon, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the communication from the Commission to the Council on the trading system and internationally recognised labour standards (COM(96)0402 - C4-0488/98).
Mr President, at a time when we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Europe, the world's most important trading power, owes it to itself to continue to further the idea of what I call 'social globalisation'.
I firmly believe that if the European Union wishes to have a high degree of credibility on this issue its own record must be irreproachable.
How can we be taken seriously by the developing countries when in the United Kingdom, for example, two million children have jobs, and 500 000 of these are under the age of fifteen? Why do the authorities there refuse to ratify ILO Convention 138 on child labour?
I do not believe it is sufficient to have ratified the European directive on the protection of young people at work or the Social Charter; we must also apply the principles contained in them and take into consideration the fate of these thousands of children who work under extremely difficult conditions in the handling and construction sectors.
I could also mention Austria, which has not yet ratified Convention 138, and Ireland, which has not ratified Convention 111 on non-discrimination.
But even with regard to countries that are likely to join the Union, I believe that we need to take steps that are just as strict.
Given these circumstances, we must not hesitate to rely on the Declaration of fundamental principles, which was adopted by the ILO last June.
This includes the conventions on forced labour, child labour, non-discrimination and freedom to join a trade union.
Bringing these conventions together within a single unit constitutes a very important step as it means that the countries that have not ratified one or other of these conventions will still get to see reports on the subject.
The Union must therefore take action with the ultimate objective of requiring WTO members to have ratified this ILO Declaration on fundamental principles.
But attempts made so far with regard to the developing countries have all failed due to the negative approach that has been taken most of the time.
A change occurred in March 1998 when an incentive clause was inserted into the Community GSP for the first time, proposing to introduce a customs bonus for countries that respected these minimum social standards.
This helped to create a more positive approach to the social clause.
This step could serve as a model for or indeed a precursor to the European Union's strategy in the World Trade Organisation.
Another strategy to promote labour rights at international level is represented by the hundreds of codes of good conduct introduced by multinational companies.
However, the right to join a trade union and the right to engage in collective bargaining are often forgotten.
It is for this reason that we must now go further.
As I see it, a code which is based on the Declaration on fundamental principles must be a minimum core.
In concrete terms, Parliament is calling on the European Commission to organise discussions on drafting a European code within a forum bringing together the European Trade Union Confederation, European employers and certain NGOs.
The European multinationals will be able to ratify it and their names will be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities and on the Commission's Internet sites.
The code will not contain sanctions but, thanks to the creation of a database, a special unit in the Commission would be able to monitor effectively the companies choosing this path.
However, in the long term, it is the WTO that can do most to promote a code of conduct.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to take the opportunity here in Parliament today to make a solemn appeal to all the international institutions, to the world's most noteworthy figures in the political, philosophical, religious and cultural spheres, to take a joint decision to finally launch a merciless fight to eliminate forced child labour from the world once and for all in the first decade of the 21st century.
What seems to be a new phenomenon is in fact age-old.
It is not acceptable to allow millions of children to languish in squalor, atrocity and suffering.
All children should be able to experience a childhood of play, a childhood of joy, hope and happiness.
We who are in a position of political responsibility have a moral duty to show determination in taking the exceptional measures needed to achieve the objective I am proposing; it is an objective inspired by the legacy handed down to us by those who fought, often at the cost of their own lives, to defend human rights throughout the world.
We must take a practical approach and consider what measures have proved to be successful.
Promoting education is a good thing but it is not enough.
The governments of the countries concerned must grant a substitute allowance of a few dollars a month to the families of children who stop working.
This is the only solution.
It must of course be accompanied by a very strict monitoring policy.
UNICEF has denounced the consequences of, for example, the closure or sudden departure of a multinational company.
The children do not then turn to school as an alternative but instead find themselves on the street once again, looking for a job to continue to provide for their family, and if they do not find work they often end up in the awful situation of becoming involved in prostitution.
Even though the fight for the social clause will be long and difficult, we really have tremendous scope for taking action today.
It is up to public opinion to take this on board and to politicians to show that they are not simply sitting back and watching the globalisation of the economy.
Mr President, I am a member of a party that bears the word 'Social' in its name, and so the social market economy is a particular concern of mine.
That is why I very firmly support minimum social standards at the European level.
On the other hand, the globalisation of international trade, which is leading to a liberalisation of trade, investments and capital transfers, compels us to consider social development on a global scale.
In its 1995 World Development Report, the World Bank emphasised the importance of good industrial relations to the creation and maintenance of an efficient labour market.
This, however, presupposes a democratic system in which employees enjoy rights that enable them to thwart any attempts by governments to gain a competitive edge by means of discrimination, exploitation and repression.
A second conclusion suggests itself. If international trade is to be potentially beneficial to a country, there must be scope to take decisions and express preferences.
In other words, we must grant people at least the same rights as workers that we accord them as consumers.
In my opinion on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, therefore, I emphatically endorse the demands for social clauses in international trade agreements.
This means that the Member States of the EU would insist on and promote the fundamental standards of social protection, principally in the framework of the International Labour Organisation.
It is absolutely essential that the work of the non-governmental organisations in pursuit of these goals should be supported by the EU and its Member States.
Moreover, incentives must be created and enhanced so that the developing countries can be induced to observe the basic social standards - in other words, no sanctions and no concealed protectionism.
We should also support trademark campaigns, such as the Rugmark and many others born of consumer initiatives, as well as voluntary undertakings by companies to respect fundamental human rights.
The committee also supports the inclusion of social clauses in the trade and cooperation agreements concluded by the EU Member States.
My opinion contains a proposal for the wording of such a clause.
I thank Mr Sainjon for repeating and amplifying in his report the call I made in the opinion, although I do feel that he has overstretched his demands. Excesses are sometimes unhealthy.
What I do not understand, however, is why, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, Mr Howitt is seeking to delete the good example of the United States from Amendment No 10.
I do not really wish to support that deletion.
Mr President, let me say that I feel particularly honoured today because first of all I am here to speak as the representative of the large Socialist Group after the two rapporteurs, Mr Sainjon and Mr Schiedermeier, and also as a member of both committees, the Committee on External Economic Relations and the Committee on Social Affairs, in both of which I had the opportunity to take part in person throughout the lengthy process of preparing these reports.
I can therefore express sincere congratulations to the rapporteurs and the committees which, by virtue of a thorough and open procedure, were able to enhance the original reports.
I will not attempt to reiterate or add anything to what the rapporteurs said.
I will declare my support by referring to two points.
Firstly, I wish to dwell particularly on and to underscore how important it is, today, just a few days after the introduction of the euro, for us in the European Parliament, us in the European Union, to spell out the true dimension of global society.
This is none other than the fact that alongside the global market there is also - I repeat, there is also - another dimension, a global social policy of solidarity.
To this I wish to add that it has been shown by authoritative bodies such as the World Trade Organisation that there is no contradiction, no conflict between this and economic development which is at the same time a prerequisite for social prosperity.
Secondly, I wish to stress that today, in this phase we are passing through towards enlargement, we in the European Union must insist, by clarifying and refining the Copenhagen criteria, that human rights should be included in this process.
Mr President, this is not the only time this week that we shall be discussing a code of conduct for international transactions, since tomorrow's agenda, as you know, includes a report on the same subject which was compiled on the initiative of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
I believe there are a few points about these reports on which we have to come to a basic understanding.
The first is that we do not have the right on the one hand to include extraterritorial provisions in such reports, and then to criticise the United States in connection with the Helms-Burton Act.
Secondly, the developing countries must also be brought into this discussion if it concerns them, for they do not wish to have standards imposed on them over their heads either, standards they have played no part in formulating.
Thirdly, child labour is a vital point in this whole issue.
If this is a report about recognised standards, it should surely take more account of social standards and of other forms of work, instead of being confined to one point that virtually swamps the entire report.
International agreements naturally require clarity and precise alignment, so that they can be recognised and observed, especially if we have to insist that this should be a voluntary code of practice.
- (NL) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, agreements on internationally recognised labour standards most certainly fall within the remit of the International Labour Organisation.
However, the implementation of agreements entered into is another matter, especially when we are talking about banning child labour.
The rapporteur sees a clear role for the European Commission in this field, but unfortunately this role must be limited as the European Union is not a member as such of the International Labour Organisation.
Nevertheless, the rapporteur still feels that the Union has certain responsibilities here.
This brings me immediately to my second point.
In Article 19 of the resolution the rapporteur requests a European initiative in the fight against child labour.
I should very much like to support this, but he proposes, first of all, introducing compensation for families whose children are forced to work and, secondly, education for children in the countries concerned as well as supporting measures.
This would be an excellent proposal if the Union had any powers in this field.
I also wonder whether the rapporteur realises what the financial consequences would be for the Union if we granted a guaranteed income to families in developing countries.
I estimate the EU's budget would double.
The Liberal Group is of course solidly behind the banning of child labour.
But income support is not the way to go about it.
What is vital is education, as the rapporteur has indeed recognised, not only for boys but first and foremost for girls.
I therefore call on honourable Members to support the Liberal Group's amendment to Article 19 which calls for the combating of child labour by means of European measures to support children's education.
The European Union must assume its responsibilities in this field, preferably by cooperating with international organisations such as UNICEF and UNESCO.
Mr President, I would like firstly to congratulate Mr Sainjon on his excellent report.
Observance of social rights in international trade is a fundamental issue and one that has been under consideration for more than a century without any significant results.
One of the major causes of this failure is doubtless the protectionist and unilateral approach of the economically dominant countries.
It must therefore be clear that the affirmation of respect for human rights is not just a matter for the poor and emerging countries but also for the developing countries and in particular for the countries of the European Union. It also requires real solidarity.
It is with this in mind that a strategy has been undertaken by the European Parliament in recent years - and of course André Sainjon has played a very important part in this - to give the European Union a kind of two-pronged role: as a regional power that can introduce the principles of a social clause into its external relations and, to complement this, that can also act multilaterally, its main concern being, of course, to promotion the multilateral approach.
With regard to internal strategy, beyond what was undertaken within the system of generalised preferences, the committee and its rapporteur want the European Union to develop other dimensions to its own action, in particular in the case of its trade and cooperation agreements and agreements on aid to investment.
On the issue of codes of conduct, we have a subtle approach; this will later be coupled with a study of how to incentivise countries to apply sanctions, but it is obviously a step in the right direction.
Similarly, it is right that, on the issue of child labour, we should give examples of incentive schemes that go in the direction we wish to take.
Of course, we must at the same time take multilateral action - this second role reinforces the first, and the first is not possible without the second - and this is done by means of two major ideas. The first involves not only recognising fundamental social rights but also beginning to put in place instruments for enforcing observance, in cooperation with the ILO and the WTO.
The second involves pursuing policies that allow affirmation of the joint imperatives of competitiveness and social progress at multilateral level.
This presupposes very strong objectives such as the abolition of child labour or education of children, objectives that must be developed at the same time perhaps as pursuing other possibilities such as setting up or improving upon systems of social protection.
But this is undeniably a very good report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am certainly very pleased that we in Parliament are now recognising the right of employees throughout the world to decent working conditions.
The ILO Conventions are undoubtedly very helpful in that respect.
It is high time we implemented them, but how?
In the debate on the World Trade Organisation and the GATT agreements, there were absolutely no problems involved in deciding on everything, even enforceable sanctions, that would further the cause of deregulation and liberalisation.
But when it is a matter of creating acceptable conditions for people at work, out come conventions that are not binding, and suddenly we are being warned not to rush into things and not to create excessive burdens.
There is only one thing I can say to you: if we do not finally make up our minds to introduce binding standards, we shall gradually create the same conditions that exist elsewhere.
It is surely unacceptable that people all over the world are now being pitted against each other in a race to achieve the grimmest working conditions, the lowest pay levels and the worst social standards.
And yet that is precisely where this development will lead, which is why I am so delighted that Mr Sainjon has presented such a clear report.
Mr President, in light of what the German Presidency has said today and the emphasis placed on respect for human rights, I think that adoption of the excellent report by Mr Sainjon would constitute direct confirmation both of Europe's predominant value system and of the broader strategic role that the Union is called upon to play at world level.
The need for balance between the liberalisation of international trade and commerce, on the one hand, and viable economic development with respect for human and social rights on the other hand, is today a sine qua non for the very survival of our planet.
That is why we must achieve agreement about commonly accepted rules and the way they should be implemented, and why a code of basic social obligations should be drawn up.
To this end, the Union should forthwith take priority measures as follows:
Firstly, it should give active support to the initiatives of the International Labour Organisation and facilitate its cooperation with the WTO, with the aim that all WTO members should ratify at least the ILO's declaration of fundamental principles.-Secondly, it should take action to combat forced child labour and to finance programmes that assist the school education and vocational training of children, with parallel compensation - I agree with that - for loss of family income.
Besides, we have the very good example of the Union's programme for Pakistan.As mentioned in a recent report by the International Labour Office, approximately 250 million children all over the world, aged between 5 and 14 years, are working under harsh conditions for humiliatingly low wages, while 120 million children have to give up their schooling to take up work.
Just recently there have been revelations about child labour in Turkey and about the behaviour of some multinational companies.
Finally, I should like to say that with its continually increasing profile, authority and political power, the European Union can intervene effectively to establish labour norms which will respect human rights all over the world.
Mr President, Commissioner Marín, ladies and gentlemen, the debate on the excellent report by Mr Sainjon allows us to measure once again the distance between the progressives and certain conservatives on social issues and on the importance to be given to employees throughout the world and in all companies.
The size of this divide may be interesting.
But does it really come as a surprise? The report by André Sainjon may enable considerable progress to be made in terms of social standards.
It introduces into economic relations values and standards promoting collective bargaining.
It takes up the fight against the exploitation of children, which includes employing them to make toys for our own children.
It is therefore without the slightest hesitation that I support his appeal and his proposals, which demonstrate both pragmatism and a real political will.
In this regard, I am particularly pleased with the introduction of social clauses for undertakings benefiting from Community measures for investment in third countries.
In line with this proposal, I would like to see this mechanism extended in future to undertakings which respond to invitations to tender in the area of public procurement.
Authorities should be able to set out basic principles and minimum social conditions in their tender specifications.
As you know, in public procurement accepting the lowest bid all too often means accepting the lowest bid in social terms both within and on the part of the undertaking chosen, and this is not good for anyone, especially not the employees.
Finally, to conclude, although I support the proposal to list in the Official Journal and on the Commission's Internet sites the companies that do not observe the minimum social rules that have been fixed, I admit that, personally, I would have preferred more tangible or heavier sanctions. However, for all that, I must say once again that I fully support the report and proposals by André Sainjon.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes this excellent report by Mr Sainjon, which demonstrates once again his sensitivity in these matters. We believe that this is the right time to take stock of the European Union's policy on such a sensitive and ever-changing issue, and I think that Parliament and the Commission have always cooperated actively and successfully in this area.
From a general point of view, the Commission agrees with the analyses, questions and concerns set out by Mr Sainjon and, in general, by the European Parliament. And it is true to say that as far as this issue is concerned, we are at a crossroads.
Since the first major debate on this matter in Parliament, in 1994, we have taken various measures. One of these - and this was a very important point when we first discussed the matter - was to reject an approach relying on constraints, sanctions or protectionism, an approach that was also clearly rejected at the World Trade Organisation's Ministerial Conference in Singapore in 1996.
Instead, the European Union decided to follow the line recommended by the European Parliament by defining a policy based on the promotion of internationally recognised social standards through incentive schemes, such as those that come under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).
We joined our partners throughout the world in a dialogue based on cooperation and encouragement. This is illustrated in what we believe to be the most significant advance made, that is, the negotiations with the Pakistani Government on the IPEC programme, which is a very ambitious programme where we have done all we can to increase our level of cooperation with Pakistan.
To reply to what other speakers have said, such as Mr Kreissl-Dörfler, this agreement has at least been signed.
We must now look at how we are going to implement it. In any event, this is an example of how the Commission does sometimes get things right.
The negotiations with Pakistan were far from easy, but we now have a very important and clear project that is going to be implemented there on the highly sensitive issue of child labour.
Therefore, Mr Sainjon, I believe that the approach taken by the European Commission is entirely in line with the report adopted by Parliament in 1994.
We have also acted on negative aspects such as in the specific case of Burma, where we had to adapt the entire procedural system at the request of the European Trade Union Confederation and NGOs, as there were no precedents on how the Commission might exclude Burma from the benefits of the GSP.
As a result, the assessment of the Union's policy is, in principle, a positive one, taking into account that we need time to develop the programmes.
We have a policy based on incentive schemes and to apply it we have the special mechanism of the GSP at our disposal.
However, this is clearly not enough and we believe that the European Parliament, and particularly Mr Sainjon, are right to emphasis that point.
There are still many obstacles to overcome to ensure that this policy is suitably implemented on the ground.
The first of these lies in the mechanism itself, the Generalised System of Preferences.
This mechanism is limited by its very definition.
It involves an additional preferential margin of between 15 % and 25 % according to the products involved, yet this is currently very limited since, as the WTO negotiations progress, the preferential nature of the GSP is naturally going to diminish and it will become less attractive as time goes on. This is a reality that we have to face.
As a result of this, the tariff margins will gradually become less and less appealing over the long term.
Following on from the invitation made to the Commission in the report, it would be extremely interesting to look at how social and environmental aspects could be given full consideration in the trade agreements the European Union negotiates or plans to negotiate, particularly in cases involving free trade or the progressive liberalisation of exchanges.
I am referring here, first and foremost, to the region that affects me personally, that is, the Mediterranean countries, the ACP countries - if this idea is accepted in the review of the new agreement - and Latin America, with Mercosur and countries such as Chile and Mexico.
Obviously, this strategy must not put the objectives of the common commercial policy at risk.
There is also a series of interesting precedents, including the fact that such clauses are already included in the Free Trade Agreement for the Latin American region and, as you know, they also exist in the bilateral agreements with Chile and Canada.
As a result, I would say that, although progress is slow, little by little this philosophy is starting to spread.
The Howitt report, which we are going to debate tomorrow, covers the issue of the code of conduct for European undertakings, and we do indeed need to make progress in this area.
Another interesting idea is the European initiative on the creation of the financial conditions required for a genuine accompanying policy to help families and provide education for children. The Commission will obviously have to consider this matter.
Nonetheless, leaving aside these additional provisions, we cannot ignore the reality of the matter.
The real obstacle is not a technical one but is, above all, a political one.
The mechanism - the Generalised System of Preferences - exists and could still be used. However, it is not being used, or at least it is not being used sufficiently.
Since 25 May 1998, when it was adopted, only one country has requested the benefits involved in the so-called social clause.
That country is Moldova.
That is the only request we have received.
Moldova's request only represents a small step, but it is at least of some significance.
The other countries are reluctant to take the initiative, so we must therefore establish political dialogue to overcome this reluctance on the part of many third countries to look at social standards and trade on the same level.
There is still no international debate that would allow us to convince third countries asking for the GSP benefits to move in the direction we all want. We must admit that many of them still believe that this constitutes interference in their internal affairs.
They look at it from a political point of view and say that that is what the ILO is for and that it is enough to sign the ILO's conventions. In their view, there is therefore no reason why the European Union should seek bilateral agreements in this area, as it means interfering in their internal affairs.
Moreover, the GSP's social clause does not cover a sufficiently broad geographical area.
As you know, we had proposed to the Council that the social clause be extended.
However, the Council rejected this Commission proposal and, for once, allow us to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto the Council the things which are the Council's. The Council is not normally present during this type of debate and, as a result, the Commission always has to take responsibility for explaining such things.
I myself do not fully understand why the Council rejected this proposal from the Commission, but that is exactly what happened.
We believe that we should support the ILO, which, as you know, is currently trying to apply a series of mechanisms.
The problem with the ILO mechanisms is that their scope is limited precisely because all three parties have to agree.
I was talking to Mr Hansen and I proposed to him that, if the ILO agreed, we could hold a large conference involving the member countries, trade unions and third countries with a view to determining which exact elements would provide clear motivation to enable us to implement this policy. This proposal is currently being considered.
In my view, it is fitting, as you point out in your report, that the WTO has decided to amend Article 29 and to make social standards a criterion for entry to the WTO.
This is an issue that should be discussed within the European Union.
It will be an extremely delicate matter as you will be aware that the Member States are very divided on this issue.
It was suggested that we make the accession of the applicant countries conditional on a specific criterion relating to the ILO conventions. We already took the main aspects of this into consideration when screening the applicant countries.
In fact, it is only natural that an ILO convention that has been signed by the European Union or by its Member States forms part of the acquis communautaire , and I do not believe that there are any particular problems for the applicant countries or those who eventually want to join in terms of accepting the European Union's general system.
Finally, I must point out that this debate is far from over.
As I said, the Commission agrees with the criteria set out in the Sainjon report.
I recognise that we are making only slow progress, but we are following the right philosophy.
There can be no alternative.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Transport - infrastructure - satellite navigation
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0372/98 by Mr Danesin, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on public-private partnerships in trans-European transport network projects (COM(97)0453 - C4-0020/98); -A4-0375/98 by Mr Jarzembowski, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission Green Paper on sea ports and maritime infrastructure (COM(97)0678 - C4-0022/98); -A4-0413/98 by Mrs Langenhagen, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission: Towards a Trans-European Positioning and Navigation Network: A European Strategy for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) (COM(98)0029 - C4-0188/98).
Mr President, as the rapporteur, Mr Danesin, cannot be with us for this debate, I have the honour of replacing him to present the contents of his report, and I would like to begin by thanking him for the excellent work he has done.
Due to a lack of time, I will merely highlight certain aspects of the motion for a resolution on the Commission's communication on public-private partnerships in trans-European transport network projects. The Committee on Transport and Tourism was almost unanimous in approving this motion for a resolution, as there was only one abstention and no votes against.
If we read the Commission's communication on public-private partnerships in trans-European transport network projects carefully and assess the actual problems that were ultimately what prompted this communication, we can determine the key issues involved. These include the inadequacies of the long-term European capital markets - which are crucial for the risk management of investments with extended maturities - the lack of advanced projects, particularly for Central and Eastern Europe, and the private sector's lack of trust and uncertainty with respect to the public sector's current and future actions.
Therefore, the public-private partnerships have many complicated problems to solve, and, indeed, they may not be capable of solving them. According to the motion for a resolution, these partnerships have to meet certain conditions.
They must respect the necessary equilibrium between commercial and socio-economic criteria in project planning.
They must divide the risks so that the private sector ensures that it is able to meet the commitments entered into in such a partnership, thus preventing the public sector from having to provide additional funding to ensure the completion of the project. In addition, each partnership must be analysed individually, with the analysis always including a cost/benefit comparison with a purely publicly financed alternative in terms of profitability and social consequences.
Finally, there should be no impact on public deficits in cases where no actual payments take place between the government and private investors.
The motion for a resolution also points out that the allocation of public resources has a vital role to play and it therefore calls on the Member States to devote at least 1.5 % of their budget resources to transport networks.
For its part, the European Parliament undertakes, within its sphere of competence, to make all possible efforts to ensure a higher level of funding for the Community budget headings relating to the networks.
It also calls on the Member States and on the Commission to make every effort to ensure that the legislation on public contracts applicable to infrastructure projects is both clear and flexible in order to guarantee the involvement of the private sector.
In addition, it calls on the Member States and the Commission to ensure adequate transparency and public participation in the planning process relating to publicly/privately supported projects.
These are the main aspects I would highlight in this motion for a resolution.
I would end by calling on the House to vote in favour of this report, since the public-private partnerships in trans-European transport network projects can make a very positive contribution to adapting or mobilising the participation of private capital, which, in my view, is essential. If this does not happen, it will be very difficult to adhere to current construction plans for transport infrastructures.
This, in turn, would lead to a significant reversal in the growth forecasts for our economies, our economic and social development and the competitiveness of the European economy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as the rapporteur, let me begin by thanking my colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism for their constructive cooperation.
The report was adopted unanimously by the committee after detailed discussions among the individual Members and the groups.
So you see that, for all the issues that may be discussed today and tomorrow in this Chamber, there is still a constructive and cooperative working atmosphere in the specialised committees.
My sincere thanks go to my colleagues for that.
In our report, we have delivered an opinion on the Green Paper of December 1997.
We have been relatively quick and have tried to incorporate all the information we obtained from the port operators and the trade unions.
So we did not attempt to confine our deliberations and our labours on the Green Paper within an ivory tower.
Together with the Commission, we reached the conclusion - and this was not always the view in port circles - that there ought to be an effective European policy on sea ports, albeit limited in scope in deference to the solidarity principle.
That had been disputed for many years.
As we see it, this European sea ports policy has two primary objectives. The first is to establish fair competition at long last among the European sea ports.
There is still no escaping the conclusion that competition among sea ports is distorted by regional and national aid, and that is simply in total contradiction to the principles underlying the single European market.
As for the second objective, we are entirely convinced that the interests of sustainable mobility would be best served if the Community's supply lines did not converge on a small number of major ports but if a thoroughly decentralised system were used with numerous peripheral ports, thereby avoiding a great many overland transport operations and making the transport system easier on the environment.
This would naturally imply the need to promote the development of some of the smaller ports or the creation of new ports, but that too must be governed by the precept of non-interference with fair competition among the sea ports.
So what are the concrete implications of these two objectives in terms of what we are asking the Commission to do? First of all, the Commission should at long last present a transparency study on the conditions of competition between and within sea ports.
I have already said that national and regional aid distorts competition.
But it also handicaps those ports and companies which have become more efficient through their own efforts and want to remain effective.
Steps must be taken to ensure that efficiency cannot be undermined by illegal subsidies, but the relevant facts must be on the table.
You have a host of facts, but you have not collated these facts and presented them to us.
That is our first priority.
Secondly, irrespective of the transparency study, the Commission is already required to impose penalties for the violation of competition law and to investigate suspected infringements.
You should do that more often.
You know a great deal, but it is our view that we need guidelines on aid to sea ports and on verifying compliance with competition law if all ports and port companies are to be treated fairly, and we need those guidelines before 2001, which is the date suggested in a paper from your institution, Commissioner.
In actual fact, we should have had them five years ago.
We need clear guidelines so that, when it comes to certain practices which have become established in one or other of the Member States, it can be made clear that the practice in question has to stop.
The system must be changed.
We need fair competition.
The ports and companies will have to learn to live with that.
Another essential aspect of these guidelines is that the funding of infrastructure facilities in the realm of port operations and maritime transport must be subdivided into three categories: public ports, where infrastructural measures need not be notified or checked because they do not constitute state aid; company-related measures in the domain of port infrastructure, which constitute state aid unless they are refinanced and therefore do not possess the characteristics of aid, otherwise they are subject to aid legislation; company-related measures in the domain of port superstructure, on the other hand, are always subject to aid legislation in our view, in other words they are essentially inadmissible.
I shall not go into the question of exceptions here.
In conclusion, let me make this appeal to the Commission: create transparency, take action against offenders, but do not create new legislation, Commissioner.
Our committee takes the view that, at least for the time being, there is no need for either a directive on port-related infrastructure, fees or terminals, or a directive on market access for providers of port services.
I can assure you that Dutch tugs have penetrated the Hamburg market, and tugs from Hamburg are achieving the breakthrough in Antwerp.
It will work without new legislation if the Commission supports the market forces.
That is why we ask the Commission to carry on working with the current legislation.
Spare yourselves the trouble of making new laws, and operate instead with the existing legislation on state aid and competition; protect the ports that are progressing by their own efforts, and let us cooperate in supporting the others, but the paramount aim must be to preserve a level playing field.
Mr President, Europe's competitiveness in the maritime sector is increasingly dependent on the transport and port system: 90 % of the EU's traffic with third countries and 30 % of intra-Community traffic passes through the ports.
Hence the obvious need to adopt the appropriate policies, designed in particular to preserve the competitiveness of the EU maritime sector, which accounts for 2.5 million jobs, and to safeguard the prospects for cooperation with the applicant countries and the Union's Mediterranean neighbours, which also represent a major challenge for the immediate future.
An essential precondition is to apply policies to remove the existing imbalance between southern and northern ports; there is no sign of this, however, in the Green Paper's strategy.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, which I have the privilege of chairing, considers that the aim should be to recover the costs incurred in providing port services, while the infrastructures should be financed from the revenue generated by port activities.
Self-financing is essential if ports' accounts are to be transparent; this is a precondition for free competition.
The fifth RTD framework programme deals with the question of ports, maritime infrastructure and marine technologies, devoting particular attention to sustainable mobility, intermodality and research into sustainable marine ecosystems.
Finally, the Research Committee supports the Council of Europe's proposal for the creation of a European Maritime Agency, which would be responsible for encouraging cooperation between centres of excellence in Europe, the European maritime industry and the relevant political decision-making bodies; the cooperation model employed could be along the lines of Eureka.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Jaak Vandemeulebroucke whom I have succeeded as rapporteur for the Committee on Regional Policy, I should like to stress a number of points made in the committee, including how difficult it is to implement uniform measures in an area where there is so much diversity in terms of organisation and ownership structure.
I should also like to stress the importance of integrated and multimodal transport.
I am pleased that the exclusive interest in road transport is progressively being replaced by other priorities.
I would also mention the importance of ports as a connection for Europe's less developed regions and also emphasise the great geographical diversity.
The report does indeed refer to the difficult position of certain insular locations, but I would also point out that some major sea ports are located inland.
I live close to Antwerp, so you will understand what I mean.
It requires dredging operations costing 8 billion a year to keep the port open and it would be a disaster for this sea port's competitive position if the cost of this dredging had to be passed on to the user.
You will understand that we are looking at the specific measures that will result from the implementation of your policy.
Unlike major southern European and Norwegian and British ports, our ports cannot make use of ERDF aid and the Cohesion Fund.
I hope the Commission will see fit to take account of this geographical position.
I am also very pleased that you intend to implement an integrated town and country planning policy, as our ports are very greedy when it comes to space.
I should like to take this opportunity to express my solidarity, here in the House, with a small village in my neighbourhood, by the name of Doel, which is condemned to disappear due to Antwerp's expansion.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I very much admire Mrs Langenhagen's remarkable report, which defends a European strategy for global navigation systems for civil use.
It is a complex issue because of its very technical nature, but the system is also an eminently political issue in that the independence of Europe in the field of air traffic control is at stake.
The GNSS is a prime example of complementarity between the European Commission and the European Space Agency involving Eurocontrol, which also applies to the EGNOS programme.
This being the case, I will underscore three points voted for by the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and which I, as draftsman of its opinion, have tabled as amendments.
Firstly, we must emphasise the need to promote, by means of the fifth framework programme of research, the basic research and technological demonstrations required to develop high performance satellites that are adapted to the needs of navigation and positioning, and also the need to improve ground installations and in particular on-board equipment on the different vessels, aircraft and land vehicles.
In fact, the GNSS world market is in the order of EUR 40 billion, of which satellites represent 10 million and ground installations and on-board equipment represent 30 million.
The improvement and in particular the safety of air traffic is one of the challenges of the European GNSS but we must also aim to improve the management of sea and land traffic and also of road and rail transport.
It is also important to extend the use of the GNSS to other applications such as those mentioned by the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen, and in particular for sea rescue.
In this context, it is essential to identify correctly the location of the ground installations and, in particular, to ensure that they marry up to airport installations and sea and land transport communications centres.
Europe will thus have not only a satellite navigation and positioning system but also the means to use it to improve air, land and sea traffic, which is the ultimate aim of the European GNSS.
Mr President, I shall devote part of my four minutes' speaking time to the Green Paper.
Indeed, that is where I should like to begin: the Green Paper on sea ports and maritime infrastructure has aroused great expectations, not least because for the first time ports are recognised as an integral part of the trans-European network system.
Yet it has aroused some concern among port operators concerning the funding of port infrastructure, in that full account does not appear to have been taken of the difference in circumstances between Europe's northern and southern ports.
After a long period of stagnation, traffic in the Mediterranean has experienced its fastest growth ever over the past ten years, as a result of the increase in international traffic via the Suez route and in local traffic, including that of passengers.
Growth rates in double figures have been recorded, and many ports have at last become more business-oriented, organising themselves in a more up-to-date, competitive fashion.
Nevertheless, in the main the infrastructure is still inadequate to cope with this growth.
What is more, the nature of institutional and administrative cooperation between port authorities and local administrations still differs considerably from one sea port to another in the various regions of Europe.
For this reason, Mr Jarzembowski quite rightly recommends in his excellent report that the Commission should carry out a fact-finding study on the different types of sea port in Europe.
I would stress two further points here.
The rules on fair competition among sea ports should not allow for exemptions and should, if anything, favour those which have made the transition to private undertakings rather than those still operating as state enterprises.
My second point relates to maritime passenger transport which, especially in the Mediterranean, is of crucial importance as a factor of economic, social and regional growth.
The expansion of sea port infrastructure in the Mediterranean must be encouraged, including in third countries.
Moving on now to satellite navigation, as spokesman of the Committee on External Economic Relations I would add a few comments on the excellent report by Mrs Langenhagen.
Europe is clearly embarking here on a strategy with tremendous potential; it is not too complex technologically, nor is it disproportionate to Europe's resources and ambitions.
In short, it is within our means.
Furthermore, this venture would symbolise the use of technology for safety and efficiency purposes, and could make European cooperation more visible to our citizens.
The time has therefore come to press ahead with the decisions and investment needed for a European satellite navigation system.
I believe that the Research Committee has done its work on the fifth framework programme; it is now up to Mr Kinnock to propose a method of funding the infrastructure.
As far as international negotiations are concerned, clearly the United States still regard the GPS as having dual use, civil and military.
I would therefore say - somewhat paradoxically - that it is in the interest of the US, as well as Europe, for Europe to take its own initiative concerning a new constellation of regional and global satellites.
Of course we wish for interoperability with the American system, that is obvious; let us also foster cooperation with Japan and with the countries where the space sector is taking off, such as China and India.
It would likewise be worthwhile to continue cooperating with Russia, despite the risk that their system may be unreliable.
Finally, a European entity needs to be established to certify satellite data protocols.
This too should be given due consideration.
Mr President, last week I heard a story on the radio about a transport firm which did a trial run by sending a container by train from the south of the Netherlands to Cadiz and was notified five and a half days later that its consignment had arrived in Spain.
I could not help thinking of this when I was looking through the Green Paper on sea ports and maritime infrastructure again and was struck by the second rule.
Europe's competitiveness in the global economy is increasingly dependent on an efficient and profitable transport system.
This is something that we need to bear in mind now more than ever before when dossiers come before our committee.
There is a lot of competition between ports.
The Green Paper - and not a day too soon - calls for a system that is in line with the rules which apply to many other sectors.
This is all the more necessary as port complexes have increasingly developed into areas where many different kinds of transport, industry, commerce and often other valuable services are concentrated.
Unfortunately, I am not able to go into the most important elements of the Green Paper in any depth at this point.
I congratulate the Commission for the thorough job it has endeavoured to do and my colleague Mr Jarzembowski for the results of his diligent work.
I should also like to point out that the Green Paper was published at the end of 1997.
Since then we have clocked up another two years, which is another way of looking at it, Mr Jarzembowski.
You opted for a somewhat different approach, but we have clocked up another two years since then.
Although I have no doubt that the Commission will accept Mr Jarzembowski's report, soon to be approved by Parliament, we must assume that, given the passage of time, the Commission has progressed with the necessary work.
The first but decisive step is to gather the necessary information.
Reliable and comparable information.
I would appreciate it if the Commission could inform us this evening what progress has been made in this area, as I understand that detailed questionnaires have been sent out.
Finally, Mr President, various groups have submitted amendments.
The fact that there are not very many further underlines what we have known since we looked at the report in the committee, namely that there is broad support for Mr Jarzembowski's report.
We therefore have no need to support the new amendments.
But I should like to put one question to the Commissioner in connection with Amendment No 8 tabled by Mr Lagendijk.
Could the Commissioner review the scope for promoting genuine cooperation between ports, while respecting the subsidiarity principle, as in my decided opinion this would also benefit the competitiveness of Europe's economy in the world.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating the other two rapporteurs in this joint debate, Mr Jarzembowski and Mrs Langenhagen.
It is very clear that the development of trans-European transport networks is crucial for economic growth, socio-economic cohesion and the competitiveness of the European economy, and we are all very aware of this fact.
However, it is also very clear that, in order to build such infrastructures, we need substantial investment. Given the current budgetary constraints, it is impossible for the Member States to finance such projects.
The participation of private capital is therefore essential. That is why the public-private partnerships proposed by the Commission may be a valuable way of ensuring the funding required to implement trans-European transport networks and allow them to become operational.
This will only be possible when potential investors and construction companies, along with transport service providers and the capital goods sector, are offered a stable framework for their financial transactions.
This stability will naturally also be dependent on governments and partner countries accepting their responsibilities, thereby creating a clear political and legal framework that enables investors to recognise the political and administrative risks involved in the projects. It would mean, too, that the European Union's rules on competition, the environment and public procurement were being respected.
Until now, and in spite of a general sense of goodwill, it seems as though the various agents involved are not having a great deal of success in initiating the involvement of private capital in the construction of transport infrastructures.
To overcome the present difficulties and bring together the resources needed to create the transport infrastructure network, we need greater efforts on the part of all Europe's financial institutions, both public and private, and on the part of the various economic and social agents concerned.
This network is essential to achieve the objectives the European Union has set itself, which include the construction of a trans-European network of infrastructures that will promote the successful enlargement of the European Union, and the opening-up of the pan-European transport system to the countries of Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean.
Mr President, let us start by agreeing that the three reports which we are debating this evening have little to do with one another, but that it is nevertheless an interesting debate as it illustrates that we in Europe are developing a somewhat broader vision of the networks and how they operate.
The sea ports are naturally the most important intersections in these networks.
Not only the most important intersections in fact, but also by definition points where intermodal transport takes place.
We share the Commission's view that short sea shipping- must be encouraged.
I should now like to put a specific question to the Commission.
Mr Commissioner, would you please reply to this specific question: if subsidies are not allowed for infrastructure because they do not fall within the public domain would there then not be another possibility, because intermodal installations are eligible for subsidies. So you could always turn around the argument and say no, this is not infrastructure for private use, this is intermodal.
Mr President, I shall now revert to my mother tongue and must again make it clear that we need to abolish subsidies and increasingly move to normal market mechanisms.
Consequently, the sort of idea proposed by Mr Castricum that ports should work together is utter nonsense.
Ports are general companies and you cannot tell them to have one kind of transport in one port and another kind of transport in another.
Ports compete with one another and we must allow the market to do its work.
Perhaps the cooperation between socialists and liberals which we have had for so long in my country can convince Mr Castricum of this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we can be pleased that the situation of sea ports is finally being debated and examined within the European Union.
Moreover, the Commission's Green Paper has been eagerly awaited by professionals in the sector, who quite legitimately hoped that it would generate development prospects.
However, the response to these expectations, as described in the Commission document, is a long way from living up to the hopes they had inspired.
We cannot help but note that this document does not correspond to the objectives set initially.
We must regret in particular the limited view which the Commission has of the role and importance to be given to sea ports.
In fact, to my mind, ports do not merely have a commercial role but are also tools for developing employment and regional planning.
In this capacity, they must be able to continue to receive a certain degree of backing from public authorities.
We thought that the inadequacies and gaps in the Commission's proposals would be noted by the rapporteur and that certain points in the Green Paper could usefully be improved upon when examined in committee.
We ourselves had made a number of proposals to promote a new dynamism for Europe's ports.
However, none of our proposals was included either in the Commission text or in Mr Jarzembowski's report.
For this reason I am sorry to say - and Mr Jarzembowski must forgive me - that we find the present report no more satisfactory than the Commission text.
Both documents have an excessively restrictive view of sea ports.
Certainly, these have a commercial purpose but I must stress that they also play a fundamental role in terms of regional planning and have a certain impact on employment.
The absence of references to the necessary public service obligations assigned to port authorities is regrettable.
Mr President, the Green Paper on sea ports and maritime infrastructure concerns important issues as it involves 90 % of European Union trade with third countries, 30 % of intra-EU trade and 200 million passengers a year.
This sector plays an important role in employment, economic development and regional planning; it cannot therefore be considered solely in commercial terms.
We approve of the fact that Mr Jarzembowski's report rejects the idea of adopting directives on infrastructure charges and on port fees and for the moment sees no need for Community legislation on organisational structure and market access for port services, given the current diverse situations.
This position is also in line with that of the Council.
While we also appreciate the progress made in committee, we must note that the report, like the Commission proposals, relies too much on reasoning that is based exclusively on the market. This reasoning leads the Commission to propose, as in other sectors, a process of port liberalisation, and thus aims to restrict financial aid.
The public service tasks performed by these structures are highly underestimated and must be given greater consideration.
Our group's amendments aim to affirm that port activities serve the general interest and, as a result, refuse to ban the aid needed to achieve these tasks.
Such decisions must remain a matter for the Member States.
I would add that it would be useful, on the other hand, to draw up a Community framework for professional qualifications and respect for safety requirements in order to fight effectively against distortions of competition and to promote social harmonisation from above.
Therefore, despite a certain degree of progress, this report in its current form does not in our opinion meet this sector's development needs.
Mr President, with reference to the report by Mr Jarzembowski, the Green Group appreciates the inclusion of environmental considerations, particularly in recitals J and K, highlighting the importance of strategic impact assessments and environmental safety standards.
I would add that, as Greens, we maintain that proper use of marine and inland waterways forms an integral part of a sustainable transport system. For this very reason, however, we consider it important that some aspects which the Commission has to a certain extent endorsed should appear not only in the recitals but also in the body of the text.
We Greens have therefore put forward an amendment asserting more forcefully the need for strategic environmental impact assessments.
As regards the creation of new sea port infrastructure, we believe that account should be taken of existing capacity and, above all, of cooperation between sea ports.
I know that this will not be music to the ears of Mr Wijsenbeek, who has described this suggestion as nonsense, but I repeat it nonetheless.
Mr President, European ports are a constant source of disagreement between the various Member States.
They argue over which can call itself the biggest, or whether the financial state of affairs in Europe's fiercely competitive ports is according to the rule book. The great differences in structure between the ports is to blame here.
I would stress that ports grow up in a particular culture and are characterised by this.
This is why verifiable regulations must take account of this diversity.
It is not a good thing if ports inside Europe are given unequal treatment.
In order to correct this discrepancy, it is first necessary to conduct a thorough inquiry into the financial structure of Europe's ports.
In addition to this there must also be guidelines for identifying any improper aid, which must be clear and unambiguous in every respect.
That is why I have tabled two amendments on this point that should enable the classification of financial flows to be considered on the basis of clear and simple criteria.
Irrespective of whether ports are legally granted state aid, the area of tension between state aid and fair competition needs to be more clearly defined.
Excessive subsidies going to competing ports cannot be allowed to destroy everything a port has built up over many decades with major investment.
We must remain very vigilant about this.
On the other hand it is desirable to take measures to stimulate coastal transport.
On many previous occasions Parliament has expressed the view that more transport should be by means which place the least burden on the environment.
For this reason I should like to see more investment in our ports in order to encourage a shift in the modal split in this direction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on the Danesin report on trans-European transport networks.
The development of transport TENs is obviously a key element in the process of European unification.
In my opinion, mobility - especially within the single market area - is crucial not only in economic but also in cultural terms, so as to promote trade, competitiveness, communication and overall social development.
As the report makes clear, however, these projects require substantial financial resources and a considerable economic commitment, and the Member States' current difficulties in supporting such ventures through public funding are becoming increasingly apparent.
This report therefore proposes that use be made of joint public-private partnerships to create the trans-European transport networks.
We share this view; we also share the concern of the rapporteur, Mr Danesin, that, on the one hand, private operators should be assured of profitability - obviously, if there is no profit there will be no private investment - but that, on the other, the infrastructure created shouldt be socially beneficial.
Hence the need to share out the entrepreneurial risk, taking account both of commercial and of social and environmental criteria, as part of an overall strategy for mobility within the Community.
We therefore endorse the report's concluding proposals.
Finally, I hope that the Commission will not merely offer long-term credit arrangements, but will also take more active steps to attract substantial private investment.
Mr President, Commissioner, the creation of a satellite positioning and navigation network is a very important part of the European Union's cohesion strategy.
In some respects we have been rather slow off the mark in this area, but we realise that this development has considerable potential, not only for navigation but also for safety, and that it offers major opportunities in terms of urban and non-urban traffic management.
Every effort must be made to ensure that this network is interoperable, building on the intelligent transport system currently being developed in a systematic manner within the Community, which has already had a significant impact in the EU's most built-up areas: Turin, Hamburg and London have all experimented with intelligent transport systems.
The navigation network represents a step forward, and the cooperation between the European Space Agency, Euratom, the IMO and the ICAO underlines the value of this approach.
I believe, however, that this approach should be regarded not merely as being dependent on the wishes of the Commission and the EU institutions; a significant input of both public and private resources is also required.
I would point out here, for example, that in Italy the Prime Minister has established an ad hoc group on satellite navigation systems, thus attributing great importance to this sector.
Moreover, with reference to the likely impact of the positioning and navigation system, investment should not be restricted to positioning alone; investment and experimentation should also be furthered by boosting the role of SMEs, providers and all bodies capable of making a valid contribution to disseminating this advanced technological system.
Let me now make two observations concerning the Green Paper on sea ports.
There is a need for competition in this field; we need to find out all the facts, yet we must not forget that investment required in strategic sectors - the environment, combined transport and so on - is enormous.
Of course we should not confuse investment with subsidies, as Mr van Dam rightly said, but we must bear in mind that Structural Fund resources are vital to economic cohesion in Europe.
In this light, Structural Fund resources cannot be regarded as unfair competition.
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to welcome all three reports and the high level of support from all political groups within the Committee on Transport and Tourism attained by those reports.
I should like to concentrate on the Danesin report so eloquently moved this evening by my colleague, Mr Sisó Cruellas, and on the Commission communication on public-private partnerships in trans-European transport networks.
Trans-European networks have a crucial role to play in achieving and operating the single market and assisting European businesses to speedier access to that market for their goods and services.
I would like this evening to unreservedly support and encourage partnership between public and private sectors in this field.
Through you, Mr President, I would like to make a plea to the Commissioner this evening to look closely at the United Kingdom model and in particular to learn from the private finance initiative schemes operating in the United Kingdom.
While I am sure he will accept that this initiative was the creation of the last Conservative government, it has been so successful that it has been wholeheartedly embraced now by the new Labour government.
In particular I think we could use the opportunity presented to the House this evening to set conditions in which public-private partnerships can flourish.
We must ensure that conditions of legal security or, more properly expressed, legal certainty apply.
The public sector needs to know that the legal framework for public-private partnerships can flourish with private investment in trans-European transport network projects; that these investments will be secure and will not necessitate at some future date that the public sector or the governments must intervene to bail out the private investment financing or operation of the project.
In particular, the European Union in my view can benefit from the United Kingdom experience I referred to earlier, where we have built up some very real, concrete expertise in both road-building and the construction of new schools.
Similarly, through the Danesin report and the Commission communication we must seek clarity in the implementation of competition rules to avoid any distortion of competition within and between the Member States.
Equally, there should be greater transparency and clarity in the implementation of the European Union rules on public procurement.
Also, greater access to long-term financing and availability of risk capital will be hugely beneficial.
I firmly believe that the Danesin report will be a great and positive step along the way, building on the Commission communication to create such public-private sector partnerships.
I am delighted that three major UK schemes will benefit as priority projects: the Ireland-UK-Benelux road scheme, including access to the east coast ports, the Channel Tunnel rail link and the west coast mainline rail improvements.
I would make a plea that the A120 road scheme in north Essex will benefit sooner rather than later.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs and address myself to the Danesin report also on public-private partnership financing.
New trans-European networks, as has already been stated in this House, provide an opportunity for greater mobility and easier access to the market for people with their goods and services.
There is a further consequence which links in with our debate here some time ago on the coming into operation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, that is the question of employment.
These are such major infrastructural works that they require massive amounts of people to be employed which gives a kick-start to many economies.
Because of reform of the EU financial systems and reductions in structural funding and cohesion funding to certain countries under the Agenda 2000 reform package, it is essential that we find new ways of financing these very essential projects.
So I wholeheartedly agree with the establishment of the public-private partnership arrangement to ensure that the monies and the extra revenues which are created because of the single market within the European Union are put back into the European Union rather than allowing money which is invested in pension funds and so on to be invested in countries outside the European Union, which means that the Union as a whole loses all that money.
The Commissioner, Mr Kinnock, whom I congratulated on his initiative on this point, has drafted a report into this question and has seen the positive benefits which could accrue from it.
That is not to say that we do not need safeguards to ensure that there is not exploitation and to maintain the legal certainty which my colleague, Mrs McIntosh, referred to.
It also encourages governments like the Irish Government to be innovative in the way that they look to the future.
They need not be afraid to take on the challenge of a reduction in future funding from Europe, and should grasp the opportunity to encourage Irish business and the Irish financial institutions to get involved.
Finally, could I say that if we are to guarantee the success of these measures then it must be done on a tripartite basis with national, local and European involvement.
Most importantly, now we can bring in private financing to give the extra impetus and kick-start needed.
Mr President, in the little time I have, I wish to say something about the trans-European transport networks.
I want a voice of protest to be heard on behalf of working people.
Six years after the White Paper by Mr Delors, the trans-European networks, which were put forward as a way of increasing employment to compensate for the complete disruption of labour relations and the promotion of flexible forms of employment, are still making very little progress due to lack of the resources to finance them.
Now, the Commission is abandoning any final pretence.
Knowing that against the background of restrictive financial policy for EMU there is no prospect of Community or state funding for the trans-European transport networks, it has adopted its well known policy.
In an ingenious way, it is handing over these important infrastructures to private profit-oriented capital and indeed promoting a whole range of legal guarantees to ensure that the related capital and profits will be completely secured.
That policy is to the disadvantage of our peoples and their interests, it promotes an accumulation of private profits to the cost of the public service, and it constitutes a complete abandonment of any prospect that trans-European networks could contribute to the development of employment.
Let us understand this at last: the market cannot provide solutions for social problems, nor for the problems of infrastructure and public service development.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, simply trying to reach a common position with regard to the ports in Europe is a brave thing.
It takes a brave Commissioner to throw a green paper - not to the lions - but to the harbour masters and port authorities in this way.
They will immediately begin to compare and compete with each other.
However, the real challenge does not come from the neighbouring port, but from the roads.
The message from Parliament this evening will be that by modernising, by giving the ports some opportunities and by being united, we can change transport habits.
Go home to your own ports and tell them that it is not the neighbouring port which is the competition, but the roads, and then let us ensure that we make some progress.
I know that there are very large differences between ports as far as public-private partnership financing and harbour costs are concerned, but let us remember that we cannot change transport habits through market forces alone.
So now and then we should also try to do so through political decisions.
May I say to Mr Wijsenbeek that I regard him very highly, but his contribution this evening shows that he does not know very much about ports and ships. So stick to the roads, Mr Wijsenbeek, and the rest of us will take care of the ports.
May I also express my unreserved support for the project concerning a strategy for global navigation systems.
It is extremely important that we participate in this, and that the Commission, the Council, Parliament and so on all contribute to creating a European profile in this area.
Mr President, I should like to comment on the report on satellite communications. The great challenge facing the European Union at the moment is to ensure that its industry establishes the EGNOS service.
In doing so, we will have reached the goal of having a specifically European component in the first generation global satellite system for the year 2003. It would be similar to the Union's great achievement in the area of GSMs, having already succeeded with the second generation of mobile communications, and now trying to succeed with the third.
I am aware that this first generation of satellite communications still has to rely on the dominant military systems: both the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS. However, there is no doubt that this first step must act as a trampoline for the next stage, that is, GNSS2, which is planned for 2008.
This will be exclusively European and will be independent of the Americans and the Russians. A great deal of patience is required in the race to achieve this objective of the fifth framework programme for research.
In conclusion, Mr President, I would like to make two recommendations.
Firstly, the group of experts being formed for this purpose, which is naturally going to rely on the European Space Agency, must in no way marginalise Eurocontrol. And secondly, if a decision is finally made to use the Structural Funds for the resources needed, these must be provided in accordance with the regulations, with absolutely no exceptions.
That is all I have time to say on this excellent report by Mrs Langenhagen.
Mr President, it is quite clear that the construction of the trans-European transport networks, envisaged in the White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment in 1993, has veered off course.
The straitjacket of the stability and employment pact has led the Member States to restrict their budgets and investment plans for major public transport works.
However, aware of the multiplying effect of this type of investment on economic growth and the creation of jobs, and also on the internal cohesion of the Union, these same Member States still want to take this forward.
How can we escape from this impasse?
Using partnerships between the public and private sectors or national and regional partnerships may be one solution.
However, these cannot solve all the problems because it is never easy to reconcile objectives of financial profitability with those of risk control which govern private investment. This is due to the equilibrium between macroeconomic, social and environmental criteria which must be achieved by public bodies.
It is true that increased effectiveness may be achieved by transferring the technical, commercial, financial and management experience of the private sector to the PPPs during the initial design stage of the projects.
It is also true that there could be better coordination between the Community instruments for financial assistance, the Cohesion Fund, the Structural Funds, the EIF, the EIB and even potential new instruments such as structurally subordinated loans and the so-called 'mezzanine funds'.
But we must take care!
Our hope that these partnerships will provide a miracle solution must not be too high as there are many projects, particularly in less-populated or more outlying areas of the EU, which will not raise any interest because they are simply not profitable.
It is not just a question of altering the legal framework of public contracts or competitions in order to encourage these partnerships, as this is not enough.
Without a strong political will on the part of the EU, the 14 priority projects defined at Essen will not be developed.
In 1995, these projects amounted to nearly ECU 99 billion.
Between then and today, the Community budget has allocated the measly sum of ECU 1.8 bn, or less than 2 %, which is absolutely nothing.
Agenda 2000 only provides ECU 5 million, which is also nothing, and nothing plus nothing will continue to produce nothing, until a sensible sum is provided which can achieve something.
Mr President, the emphasis in the Green Paper on fair competition between ports and on market mechanisms is very much after my own heart.
I should like to make five points.
One, it is a complex business, and each country has its own subsidies.
To my mind, greater transparency must be an absolute priority.
Two, not only state aid but also differences in the regulations and their application in the field of the environment, safety and employment can lead to distortions of competition.
Three, how does the Commission believe it can strike a balance between its objective of regional development and its task of combating distortions of competition?
Four, I would criticise certain passages in the Green Paper on financial intervention in order to increase the efficiency of ports.
I would warn against new interventionism at European level.
I place my trust in market mechanisms to produce efficient ports.
Five, good links with the hinterland are important for Europe's competitiveness.
Public-private partnership seems to be a good instrument in mobilising the necessary private capital.
Could the Commission primarily look at the waterways and railways in this connection? I thank the Commissioner for his positive response to the link between the Scheldt and the Seine.
I should like to ask him, also on behalf of my colleagues Mr Tindemans, if he could consider whether the Commission can play a stimulating role in the renaissance of the 'Ijzeren Rijn ', as we call it.
This link is included in the trans-European networks' list of priorities for combined transport.
It is by far the shortest rail link between Antwerp and the German Ruhr, but the special thing about it is that it runs through three countries when the supposed national interests of the three countries do not correspond. Hence our question.
Unlike Mr Wijsenbeek I think it would be a good idea to consider the advantages and disadvantages of cooperation between ports, given world developments.
I would point to the cooperation in the aviation sector here.
Mr President, first of all let me congratulate Mr Jarzembowski on his excellent report on European sea ports.
Maritime transport is very important, in particular because it has the great advantage of being able to reach most parts of the world in a reasonably convenient way.
The majority of the world's goods are therefore transported by sea.
In terms of figures, this means that the EU's ports handle over 90 % of Community trade with third countries and that 30 % of intra-EU traffic is handled by the port sector.
More than 200 million passengers a year are also transported in this way.
Maritime transport also has a less damaging impact on the environment than other forms of transport.
During its work, the committee stressed that the various research and development studies being carried out in the infrastructure sector should take account of long-term environmental effects.
But despite its numerous advantages, issues relating to port and maritime infrastructures have often been marginalised in EU discussions.
This is clearly indicated by the fact that this branch of the transport sector was not included in the initial discussions on the trans-European transport networks.
But as a result of increased trade with more countries and the opening-up of new markets, especially in some of the former Eastern bloc countries, the maritime sector has grown considerably and become more globalised.
While all of this is extremely good news, it is essential to encourage the sector and to promote further development.
As a matter of course, therefore, all countries should to a large extent apply the same rules, practices which distort competition should be eliminated, and the efficiency of our ports should be increased.
In this way, we shall be able to strengthen the EU's overall position in the world.
To achieve this, it would clearly be advantageous for EU ports to be integrated into the trans-European transport networks.
It would enable us for the first time to adopt a truly comprehensive approach to the transport sector as a whole.
We might then be less inclined to deal with transport legislation on a piecemeal basis and more inclined to view the sector as a single entity - a major advantage in many respects.
In the committee's view, the Commission should make recommendations on the future public financing of port infrastructures at the earliest opportunity.
The report by the Transport Committee contains one item which I regard as crucial, namely that transport networks and the rules relating to them should not just apply to the existing Member States.
They must be extended as quickly as possible to cover the EU's neighbours and, in particular, the applicant countries in the former Eastern bloc states.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Langenhagen, on a very successful report which could be of great importance for the establishment of a European strategy in the area of GNSS.
It is a great pleasure for me to see that the Commission and the Council have succeeded in reaching agreement on a strategy. The strategy follows the approach which Parliament set out in earlier decisions on European space travel, on the basis of the reports which the former Member of the European Parliament, Mr Toksvig, and I myself presented in the last parliamentary term.
The development of increasingly accurate systems with accompanying communications possibilities will lead to a strengthening and a much better and safer use of European airspace.
The economics and safety of the roads will be improved and there will be substantial savings in the modernisation of railway equipment, for example in connection with reconstruction in Central and Eastern Europe.
I expect the ESA - the European Space Agency - to continue to act as the EU's technological arm in this area.
Even if substantial public financing could prove necessary, there is no doubt in my mind that the savings on new infrastructure projects will easily be able to pay for much of the establishment of GNSS.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
Mr President, very briefly, I quite understand that the Commissioner cannot answer everything in the short time available.
Can I presume that he will reply in writing to the question regarding the 'IJzeren Rijn '?
A written answer would be preferable, since we are running very late.
Mr Wijsenbeek could also be answered in writing without us hearing his question.
Mr President, the same goes for me.
I put a specific question to the Commissioner concerning the possible exchange between infrastructure subsidies and the subsidies for combined transport.
I assume I will receive an answer in writing soon.
It would be better if these two colleagues could receive written answers; otherwise our two remaining debates will be excessively delayed.
Mr President, I should like to receive a written reply to my question on ports with an inland location.
Mr President, I will happily provide the responses.
As all Members who know me know I always do - fastidiously.
However, it must be said, in this week of particular delicacy, that if honourable Members rightly want Commissioners to respond to the questions they legitimately raise in debate then some of the Rules of Procedure of the House need to be changed.
I would welcome that.
I, like my colleagues in the Commission, welcome the opportunity to be accountable but sometimes, as I am sure honourable Members recognise, it is the procedures that actually intervene to prevent the transparency and accountability we would like to provide.
That is another issue, Mr Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Electronic signatures
The next item is the report (A4-0507/98) by Mr Ullmann, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on a common framework for electronic signatures (COM(98)0297 - C4-0376/98-98/0191(COD)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the use of electronics in public and private communication is so far advanced today that the mechanisms used for such communication can even speak and read digitised language.
Not only are they capable of doing these things; they actually do them in the market for goods and services and in the area of official and private communications.
What are the legal consequences of this, and which legal questions need to be answered? Our task is to translate the present legal standards in these fields to take account of the new communication dimensions without restricting them.
The draft directive before us does this in a restricted but fundamental area, namely that of signatures and authentications of every type, albeit - and this must always be emphasised - only in open systems.
Only three things have to be regulated in this context: the conditions for guaranteeing the reliable identification of the person communicating by means of an electronic medium, whether digital or binary, the integrity of the transmitted information and the legal status of electronic or digital signatures.
So it is not a matter of the relationship between the power of the state and that of the market in the realm of public and private security, as is sometimes claimed.
It is actually about the relationship between public information and privacy in the digitisation of certificates and their legal validity.
The directive takes a convincing approach to solving this problem by laying down provisions on the equivalence of electronic and written signatures on the one hand and by restricting the conditions of certification to the minimum standards which are indispensable for European harmonisation, as the two annexes to the directive put it.
Discussions in the Council at the present time evidently centre on the desire, founded on the current legal position in the Member States, to have a higher standard of public security.
The German Government has told me that there could be a compromise solution to this issue, involving the addition of an Annex III, dealing with the technical specifications for certification equipment.
I am interested to hear, Commissioner Bangemann, what the Commission thinks of this proposal, which has no doubt come to your attention too.
I believe Parliament could live with it.
In my view there is a small problem, but otherwise this Annex III does not affect the basic rationale of the directive: completely free market access for all providers of certification services and guaranteed protection of consumers' privacy within reasonable levels of data protection, including scope for the use of pseudonyms and incorporation of the principal rules governing liability.
As far as the amendments tabled are concerned, I recommend their adoption, with the exception of Amendments Nos 2, 4, 8, 9, 21, 22 and 26, which either create inconsistencies within the directive, duplicate other clauses or effectively water down the provisions of the directive.
I therefore ask the House to approve the report, but I cannot do so without thanking Directorates-General XIII and XV of the Commission for their extremely willing and active cooperation, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the draftsman of its opinion, Mr Tappin, as well as all the other honourable Members whose amendments have helped to improve the report.
Finally, let me make a prophecy to all those who have stayed away from this interesting midnight debate: you will be amazed at the impact this directive will have.
In the Federal Republic of Germany, no fewer than 3 800 laws are affected by it.
This should keep us in suspense.
Mr President, this report will establish a stepping stone on the path to the future.
It is estimated that commerce on the Internet will double by July.
In all Member States there are moves towards introducing technology into so many aspects of daily life - for example, electronic voting, electronic social security systems and electronic banking transactions.
If we are to move into an electronic age we must have safe and controllable procedures in place to ensure that citizens and organisations can carry out transactions swiftly and securely.
We need a clear common framework for electronic signatures to boost confidence in the new technologies.
We need to make sure that we do not sacrifice peace of mind for convenience.
An electronic signature needs to have parity under the law with a manuscript signature.
There should be no distinction, no disadvantage and no privilege.
For that reason we have focused on the need for those who issue certificates to respect the information carried electronically and the fundamental rights of a signatory to privacy.
A signatory must be able to determine the extent to which their personal data are published in directories.
Pseudonyms must be available for legitimate use but not be allowed to cover illicit transactions.
We need to ensure that the move to electronic trading is not accompanied by a growth in fraud.
Also, recognising the range of existing proposals and initiatives currently operating within the different Member States, the need to protect the principles of the internal market are paramount.
We have an obligation to ensure that the shift to the use of electronic signatures does not create technological barriers and there is, not just within the European Union, the need to promote the principle of interoperability on a worldwide basis.
For this reason it is vital that the Commission involves experts in the formation and review of policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I can see the enthusiasm on all your faces and it is clear that many of us welcome the foundation stone that has been laid here.
As already expressed by Parliament in its resolution of 17 July 1998, it is important to set up a regulatory framework to ensure that electronic signatures and manuscript signatures have the same status in law, so that a document bearing an electronic signature may be used as evidence.
A great deal is at stake here, and according to Internet forecasts electronic commerce should reach 220 billion dollars this year, or by next year at the latest, of which Europe will account for 26 billion.
The know-how of traders, bankers and computer scientists in converting a network that is ill-adapted to economic needs - we must remember that it was the two principles of freedom and lack of cost that governed the network in the beginning - into an area for commercial transactions must not blind us to the fact that the protection of personal data and compilation of customised listings are often a neglected aspect of the legal problems posed by the development of electronic commerce.
Obviously, this proposal for a directive carries on this unfortunate custom.
However, I congratulate Mr Ullmann on having included the proposals put forward in my opinion on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
They aim to clarify the status of certification service providers in order to prevent the divergent measures that have already been seen in a number of our Member States.
Take the case of France, where two decree-laws have created intermediaries, known as 'trusted third parties', which carry out their work under the supervision of an administrative super-service, the French central service for security of information systems.
This super-service actually seems to be more keen to ensure that the information systems do not have any security which they cannot penetrate rather than checking that they are secure.
Another example is the case of Spain, where the 1998 finance law this time authorises the Minister for Home Affairs to act as a certification service provider.
It is doubtful whether such a measure guarantees the confidence of the signatories.
I say this simply to remind you that cyber consumers also have rights and that the pretence of secrecy, anonymity and confidentiality must become a reality once again.
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of my group, may I convey our sincere congratulations to the rapporteur for his report. In particular, I wish to thank him for guiding this report through the committee stage and now through the plenary stage within a fairly short time of our receiving the draft from the Commission.
I believe we all agree that the entry into force of this directive is a matter of extreme urgency, since it will put an end to the tangled mass of disparate legal provisions that are hampering the single market in the domain of electronic signatures, a crucial aspect of cross-border electronic transactions.
There are two major concerns of the Commission and the rapporteur that deserve particular support.
The first is their desire to strike a balance between the need to ensure that the new areas of business activity opened up by the electronic signature are not shackled and virtually nipped in the bud by excessively detailed and restrictive rules - for which we have had no shortage of proposals in Parliament - and the need to increase demand for these services and promote acceptance of electronic signatures by means of confidence-building measures.
I think we have jointly succeeded in establishing an even better balance than the one created in the Commission proposal, in particular by stipulating that providers of certification services should be independent and that accreditation systems should be voluntary, and by providing for the additional option of these accreditation systems being operated by non-governmental organisations too.
These provisions and the liability legislation, which we have done nothing to alter, may also be regarded as start-up aid for future providers of certification services or as a sign of trust in their ability to deliver.
At the same time, we expect them to make good use of these benefits.
Our second concern relates to the principle that whatever is legal offline must be legal online, and whatever is illegal offline must be illegal online.
We must help to establish this principle in all its implications. This applies especially to the right of consumers to use a pseudonym for online transactions in order to preserve the anonymity that is customary when small everyday purchases are made in shops.
The consumer's right to conduct small electronic transactions under a pseudonym can also serve to prevent the creation of excessively detailed customer profiles.
Finally, I should like to appeal to the Commission to accept the amendments adopted by Parliament, to the rapporteur to reconsider his position with regard to Amendment No 26, and above all to the Council to come up quickly with a common position.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I also wish to begin by sincerely thanking the rapporteur for his swift and very cooperative work.
In the field of electronic commerce, consumers and businesses in Europe must be able to rely on every message being attributable to its actual sender, with no possibility of legal doubt.
So as not to obstruct the development of our economy, we must therefore give the people of Europe the opportunity to supplement the traditional written signature by electronic means.
In my own country of Germany, a law was passed a year ago which provides for the use of digital signatures at quite a high level of security.
The first electronic identity cards, in other words smart cards with which electronic signatures can be produced, have been on the market since last week.
It is therefore high time that this material was incorporated into a uniform European framework, otherwise there is a danger that we shall eventually have 15 different laws on digital signatures with a variety of different standards.
This would ultimately result in serious impairment of the free movement of goods and services in our internal market.
That is why the draft directive that the Commission presented to Parliament last year was such a welcome development.
The directive guarantees providers of certification services free access to the market; provided that electronic signatures fulfil certain conditions, it puts them on a par with conventional signatures and recognises their validity in cross-border transactions and as evidence in court proceedings.
Provisions governing the liability of certification service providers are designed to ensure consumer and business confidence.
So although I believe that some of the amendments adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights do represent useful improvements, the Commission proposal itself was a very progressive and balanced one.
For example, Article 8(3) of the proposal provides for digital signature certificates to be issued under a pseudonym at the signatory's request.
Not only do we have no reservations about this provision, we expressly welcome it.
In its efforts to ensure the protection of personal data, however, the Commission goes rather too far.
In its proposal, it seeks to ensure that the identity of any person using a pseudonym cannot be revealed without that person's consent, unless such information is required for the investigation of criminal offences.
It is therefore gratifying to note that an amendment - the rapporteur's Amendment No 27, which was adopted by a clear majority in committee - also permits the transfer of such data if it is necessary for legal claims relating to transactions in which a pseudonym was used.
I do not think this amendment diminishes the protection afforded to personal data, particularly since any such transfer is explicitly required to comply with the provisions of data protection legislation.
On the contrary, this amendment strikes a balance between the rights of the pseudonym user and the interests of the other party to the transaction.
Moreover, a number of other amendments succeed in formulating provisions more precisely and eliminating contradictions.
One example is the term 'digital signature', which standard usage limits to a particular and currently prevalent form of electronic signature. This term has been replaced in the amendments by 'electronic signature'.
In this way, the directive is given broader scope to cover future technological developments.
Regrettably, there are also some rather inappropriately worded amendments, such as nos 8, 15 and 23, which my group feels have overshot their target, namely to formulate the text more precisely.
Instead of the intended clarification, they have the opposite effect and should therefore be rejected.
The same applies to the amendment on the electronic submission of petitions, which, in the view of my group, has little to do with digital signatures and is consequently out of place here.
Other amendments, namely Nos 6 and 7, seek to have data protection clauses inserted in all multilateral conventions to which the Union is a party.
They insist that other parties to such agreements should respect the right of not only the EU but also its Member States to maintain existing rules on data protection.
They are thereby placing unnecessary restrictions on the flexibility of the Union at the bargaining table.
We therefore cannot support such amendments to the recitals either.
I assume that, when the votes are taken, the House will bear these considerations in mind and will adopt a balanced version of the directive.
Mr President, Commissioner, a great deal has already been said about the importance of this issue.
We are therefore pleased that the rapporteur has carried out his work so quickly.
However, I still believe that a decision on this proposal should be postponed until the Finnish Presidency.
So I look forward to that.
I think we have made some worthwhile revisions which complement the preliminary work carried out by the Commission. In principle, Certification Service Providers would not have to be accredited, but we have nevertheless highlighted the private organisations.
The Commission proposed strict responsibility - in Finnish 'ankara vastuu '.
Now it appears that the Council intends to change this.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to clarify the position as regards responsibility in the future.
In my view, the Commission's proposal represents a reasonable point of departure.
A central issue in the directive is legal effect.
Is there to be a special technique for this or not? I think that here too the decision we have made, with the Commission, is a good starting-point.
In principle, we should give the same legal effect as we do to manuscript signatures.
One might say jokingly that if national legislation does not allow marriage by correspondence, then marriage by electronic means is also inadmissible.
That is perfectly reasonable.
However, I do not share the rapporteur's view that we should be prepared to approve the so-called Annex III put forward by the Council. I do not regard it as being technologically neutral in the way that most of the committee would have wished it to be.
I also asked the Commissioner what position he would adopt in future discussions with the Council, since in my view this will be a key factor in future negotiations.
Finally, I should like to ask the language services whether they do not think that in Swedish the term should be 'elektroniska underskrifter ' rather than 'elektroniska signaturer '.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Ullmann for his - as ever - conscientious work and extremely good report.
This is an important subject, as all the other speakers have highlighted.
More and more commercial transactions are being conducted by electronic commerce and the Internet particularly facilitates cross-border transactions.
Having a consistent, pragmatic, secure system of recognition of signatures on electronic commerce is important.
The Commission proposal recognises the need to ensure legal recognition of electronic signatures which have the same validity as handwritten signatures.
The clarification is necessary for the certification services.
Two particular concerns can be highlighted: first, the requirement for privacy; secondly, the requirement for security.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights recommends that the use of pseudonyms should be investigated and monitored.
I recommend this report and the draft directive to the House as an important plank in opening up the single market to electronic commerce.
As an aside, it is curious that it is mainly women who have stayed for this debate.
In some ways we could compare Mr Bangemann to a thorn amongst roses, although I am quite sure he will take the subject very seriously.
I am particularly intrigued by the thought of getting married on the Internet.
As someone who is not married, perhaps it is something I can look forward to in the next ten years.
Mr President, at the end of her speech, Mrs Oddy just addressed a problem which really can arise in this area, where the issue is to what extent electronic signals can satisfy formal requirements laid down by law in the Member States.
It reminds me of my law studies, where one professor used to ask this memorable question: 'If the legally prescribed answer to the question, 'Do you take this woman here present for your lawful wedded wife?' - and this is the very problem which you raised, Mrs Oddy - is 'I do' , is it sufficient for the gentleman to say 'But of course' ?' That is roughly how a number of the Member States see the problem of electronic signatures too.
First of all, I should like to thank the rapporteur.
The report has been of great assistance to us.
We have also been able to accept a good number of amendments.
Of the 35 amendments, we can accept 17 in their entirety and eight in part.
We could not endorse the other amendments, because they either do not actually improve the original wording or touch on problems that lie outside the scope of this directive.
That, I have to say, is an old parliamentary failing, which I have often mentioned before.
You have this constant urge to use any given piece of legislation to put the whole world to rights.
That does nothing to further the cause of clarity.
It was rightly mentioned that Member States as well as international organisations have been working very assiduously in this area, which means that, if we wish to play our part by obtaining a common set of uniform rules, which are naturally needed for the single market, we shall have to make haste.
So far, Parliament has been maintaining a brisk pace.
At the last discussion in the Council, which was not conclusive, as you know, because the opinion of Parliament was not yet on the table, we ultimately came to grief on the question of whether we could issue operating licences to certification services without becoming involved in technical details which would more or less dictate a particular technological solution.
The Commission and Parliament, of course, are against intervention on the technological side.
That is why we have tried to present a proposal which, though naturally not permitting indiscriminate certification, also deliberately avoids laying down any technological conditions.
In the end, we did not make any progress at that Council meeting.
The new proposal, which develops our ideas somewhat further, Mr Ullmann, still needs to be examined very closely by us, because in its present form, although it may not prescribe any technical solutions, it does seem to imply a kind of type approval.
This needs some thought before we can say whether it is really the ideal answer.
The Council is more or less divided into two camps. One camp comprises the smaller countries, which take a far bolder approach to this issue, while the other comprises the larger countries, which insist very strictly on such formal requirements and therefore take a less liberal view of this matter.
At any rate, we shall see how far we can progress at the next meeting of the Telecommunications Council.
There should not be too much rigidity either.
It is worth remembering that a handwritten signature can be forged too.
We should not start subjecting electronic signatures to more stringent requirements than are normally applied to handwritten signatures.
We do have liability rules for providers of certification services.
I am not entirely sure what you meant here, because these liability rules are set out in Article 6.
On the technology question I have already said what I think.
I have told you which amendments we can and cannot accept.
I do not intend to list these in detail at the moment; we can do that at the second reading.
As I said, the report is very constructive on this point too.
We are largely in agreement, and I hope that at the next meeting of the Council we can arrive at a common position, which we can then re-examine in detail.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Quality of ambient air
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0483/98), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0540/98-97/0266(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive relating to limit values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide and oxides of nitrogen, particulate matter and lead in ambient air (Rapporteur: Mrs Pollack).
Mr President, as we know, it is only the most important matters that are dealt with at the midnight hour.
We do it particularly so as to keep it a deep, dark secret from the press so that they cannot let anyone know that we really do deal with important matters here that affect people's lives.
Thousands of people are dying every year across Europe as a result of breathing polluted air and one of the main causes of this is traffic.
This directive for the first time lays down a set of tough, legally-binding limits for emissions of the four major pollutants - sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, particulates and lead - to be met by 2005 and 2010 and based on 1997 guidelines from the World Health Organisation to protect public health.
Of the amendments proposed by Parliament at first reading, 21 out of the 28 were largely accepted by the Council in the common position under the British presidency.
These include more public information and an alert threshold for oxides of nitrogen, as well as the one proposed for sulphur dioxide.
However, the Council also weakened some of the original Commission proposals.
This is a matter of some concern to us in Parliament and so we have tabled 11 amendments to the common position.
Some of these amendments simply adjust inaccuracies or anomalies, such as Amendments Nos 1, 3 and 8.
Amendment No 4 ensures that action plans for any areas for which a derogation is in operation must also be made available to the public.
Amendment No 5 asks that, since the Council did not agree our proposal for an alert threshold for particulates, the Commission should reconsider this when more research is available after the review in 2003.
Amendment No 7, sadly, I understand the Commission, amongst others, cannot support and, as a result, the problem of dealing with especially sensitive ecosystems is obviously one of those that will have to be dealt with by action at national level.
But we feel in Parliament that it is important to highlight that the World Health Organisation recommended four different levels of limits where the directive only allows for one.
We do not feel that is satisfactory so we have retabled that.
Where we have greater problems are, firstly, on sulphur dioxide.
Amendment No 6 restores the original proposal for eight exceedances per year on the hourly limit, which the Council weakened to 24.
The Commission acknowledges that this pollutant is directly toxic, especially for asthmatics and those with cardiovascular conditions, even in short peaks of excess pollution, and that is why such a tough limit was proposed in the first place.
I hope, therefore, that the Commission will stick to its guns on this, and likewise on Amendment No 2.
The insertion by the Council of the words 'where practicable' is a big problem.
I know, for instance, there is a particular difficulty with the French monitoring equipment for producing this ten-minute averaging figure but, nevertheless, this information is essential for the mid-term review.
In any case Member States are able to choose their own selection of monitoring points so they ought to be able to find a way in which they can actually deal with this difficulty.
Secondly, as far as oxides of nitrogen are concerned, this is obviously hard for Member States to achieve.
It is, of course, one of the key parts of the directive.
It is not acceptable for the Council to increase the number of exceedances for the hourly limit value from the original eight up to 18, and Amendment No 9 seeks to restore this.
At the very least, it is essential that the Commission look very carefully at this again when it has more research at the 2003 review.
Amendments Nos 10 and 11 cover exactly the same sort of problem but for particulates.
We know more research is needed and that it is under way.
However, the common position text allows ten more permitted exceedances per year on the 24-hour limit and on the hourly limit and, in effect, pushes the review back so that not a great deal is going to result from that until at least 2010.
Although we do not know enough about particulates, we do know that they are a killer and the World Health Organisation is not even able to suggest a safe limit.
Given that for particulates we have one derogation for southern dust and another derogation for Nordic road gritting, it must be said that there has to be more political will to tackle this problem in the Member States.
There is enough slippage there for people to cope with the very serious problems and they will have to take action.
As rapporteur I urge the Commission to look again at its strategy, particularly on the last two points and to try and accept some of these amendments.
I commend the common position to the House.
Before Mrs Flemming adds her opinions to those of Mrs Pollack and Mrs Hulthén as to why we find ourselves discussing Environment Committee business at midnight, I would merely point out that these decisions are taken by the Conference of Presidents.
This situation has been brought about not by ghosts, but by the Conference of Presidents.
Mr President, I am gradually losing any faith in chance.
I also believe that the Conference of Presidents, sadly, does not attach very great importance to environmental issues.
But some day the people of Europe will call them to account.
Parliament is to adopt stricter EU pollution limits in order to ensure better air quality.
Just like the previous speakers, I regret that only 21 of the 28 parliamentary amendments adopted at the first reading have been accepted in letter or in spirit.
The aim of this directive is therefore to establish emission limits on the basis of the World Health Organisation's air quality guidelines.
The report even provides for a very sharp reduction in the limits for particulates, and compliance with the envisaged limits will require a considerable effort in most of the Member States.
It lays down uniform methods and criteria, applicable throughout Europe, to help prevent any further harmful effects of atmospheric pollution on human health and the environment.
The European Union is thus introducing the strict limits that have long applied in Austria.
In some cases, they have turned out to be even stricter. I am pleased about that.
Nevertheless, I am by no means entirely happy with all the details of the report.
Annex I(I) lays down limits and alarm thresholds for sulphur dioxide, and the proposed limit of 350 grams per cubic metre with 24 overshoots is far too high in my opinion.
The reduction envisaged in the maximum number of overshoots from 24 to 8, while not satisfying my wish for a lower concentration limit, is undoubtedly a step in the right direction and will therefore have our support.
In Annex II(I) on NO2 and NOx limits and the alarm threshold for nitrogen dioxide, I should welcome the complete deletion of any right to exceed these limits.
Here too, the amendment tabled by Mrs Pollack reducing the number of overshoots from 18 to 8 is a step in the right direction and will also have the support of my group.
I know that Mrs Pollack has taken a great deal of trouble with this report, and even though it has not turned out to be everything an environmentalist could wish for, I should like to offer her my sincere congratulations on her report. And finally, my wish for all of us here is that we shall perhaps be able one day to conduct a debate on environmental affairs in the morning.
Mr President, cleaner air is a necessity of life, especially for asthma and bronchitis sufferers.
Good air quality is also important for the protection of the environment, buildings and vegetation.
Measures have been taken in Europe to control sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions since the 1970s, with some success.
Despite the increased energy consumption, there has been a dramatic fall in emissions of acidifying substances.
A reduction of more than 50 % since 1980 is fortunately fairly common for most European countries.
It is even likely to be possible to meet the planned SO2 and NO reductions for 2010, thanks to the new standards for vehicle emission gases.
Particulate matter is a threat to human health.
The European Environment Agency has calculated that a reduction in the average PM10 value from 30 micrograms per cubic metre to 20 micrograms per cubic metre would prevent 10 000 premature deaths from particulate poisoning in the EU.
The reduction in pollutant emissions by traffic should now be followed by such measures as cleaner fuels and better engines.
Drastic measures are also required for industry: 30 % of NO emissions come from incinerators, cement ovens, electrical power stations and other factories.
New guidelines must therefore take serious account of the need to reduce emissions of particulate matter, NO and SO2 .
I congratulate Mrs Pollack on this report.
Mr President, I agree of course with the comments which have been made that it would be good if we could also discuss environmental proposals at a time when more Members of Parliament could take part in the debate.
But I also agree with the comments and remarks that have been made concerning the importance of this proposal, and I shall at this time be brief and, of course, thank the Committee on the Environment and especially its rapporteur, Mrs Pollack, for the speed and for the insight with which the committee has once again dealt with this proposal.
It is the case that a large number of the European Parliament's amendments from the first reading were incorporated into the common position by the Council, either word for word or in substance, and the Commission is of the opinion that several of the additional proposals now being put forward by the committee could also help to make the proposal even clearer and more concise.
This applies, for example, to Amendment No 1, which concerns the definition of natural events.
Seismic activities should continue to be included in the definition, but geothermal events should be added, and the rest of the amendment will clarify the text.
We are also able to support Amendments Nos 3 and 4. They clarify the public information requirements, which as we all know are a very important aspect of the proposal.
We are also able to support the demand that the question of alert thresholds for particulates should be reviewed in 2003, and so we accept Amendment No 5 and also Amendment No 8, which corrects a mistake concerning the margin of tolerance.
Then there are some other amendments which Mrs Pollack has already mentioned.
Amendment No 2 would require all Member States to report cases where the WHO's guideline ten-minute concentration for sulphur dioxide has been exceeded.
We in the Commission want to see as much information as possible about this guideline value, but it would be too difficult for a number of Member States to comply with this, and therefore we cannot support this amendment.
Then there are Amendments Nos 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11.
In one sense, I might be pleased with the amendments, because they propose that we return to some of the limit values originally proposed, or that we tighten them further, and I can only be pleased that Parliament agrees with the Commission's original proposal.
The fact that I nonetheless do not support them has to do with the debate which took place in the Council, because it appears that it would be too demanding for several Member States to comply with the limit values which are set out in the common position, especially those for particulates.
It would require decisions which are too difficult.
The Commission's aim is, of course, to ensure the highest possible standards of protection which can be achieved in the Union.
The situation with regard to this proposal is that Member States which are in a position to go further may do so in connection with this proposal, because it is in keeping with the framework directive on air quality for them to go further if they can.
But as I have said, in view of the conditions in the Union as a whole, I dare not - if I may put it that way - accept these amendments, for fear that we would not then be able to push through the proposal as a whole.
The proposal is the first concrete implementation of the EU's new programme for the improvement of air quality for its citizens and for the environment.
The Commission believes that the proposal, as it now stands, will still provide a high level of protection, and that it is therefore a strong basis for the programme.
We recently adopted another proposal on carbon monoxide and benzene.
We shall also return to the pollutants dealt with in this proposal in 2003, to see whether even more can be done in the next phase.
I therefore put my trust in the fact that, as time goes on, the impact of the programme will gradually increase. And I also hope that we can all look forward to the cleaner air, better health and improved environment which this proposal will bring about.
I hardly dare in the present climate with the Commission to ask for a guarantee that the Commission will take on board some of the requests we have made for the review in 2003.
I will just leave that on the table and live in hope for the moment.
I should simply like to congratulate the Commissioner and thank her for coming tonight, given her recent accident and the lateness of the hour, and also to ask her to extend my thanks as rapporteur to the staff in DG XI who have been particularly helpful on this very technical directive.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
The sitting was closed at 0.10 a.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I did not participate in the votes yesterday but I am recorded as having voted in a very odd manner: on my own and against my group. And I had no intentions of doing that.
Therefore, the fact that I voted, and particularly that I voted in such a way, should be deleted.
That is all I wanted to say. All that appears is: Mr Puerta of the GUE Group, voting against my group every time.
Very well, Mr Puerta, we shall naturally make the corrections as you request.
Are there any other comments? There are not.
The Minutes were approved
Communication on the 1996 discharge
Madam President, pursuant to Article 6 of Annex V to the Rules of Procedure, following the vote of 17 December on the 1996 discharge, the Committee on Budgetary Control must report back to Parliament at the subsequent part-session.
We had a meeting yesterday and discussed what action should be taken. We unanimously agreed on the following statement which I - as instructed by the committee - must read out to you.
I shall do this in English, as we agreed to use this language to avoid misunderstandings and translation errors.
The statement reads as follows:
The Committee on Budgetary Control is taking into account Parliament's vote of 17 December 1998 by which its proposal to give discharge for 1996 was not approved.
Secondly, notes that according to Annex V of its Rules, the discharge procedure is not yet closed.
Third, is dealing with the question of closing the financial accounts for 1996.
Fourth, will present to Parliament a report by 31 March 1999.
Thank you for that statement, Mrs Theato.
Agenda 2000
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0444/98 by Mr Mulder, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the financing of the common agricultural policy (COM(98)0158 - C4-0298/98-98/0112(CNS)); -A4-0494/98 by Mr Garot, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the common organisation of the market in beef and veal (COM(98)0158 - C4-0294/98-98/0109(CNS)); -A4-0446/98 by Mr Goepel, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, onI.the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a common organisation of the market in the milk and milk products sector (COM(98)0158 - C4-0295/98-98/0110(CNS))II. the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 3950/92 establishing an additional levy in the milk and milk products sector (COM(98)0158 - C4-0296/98-98/0111(CNS)); -A4-0496/98 by Mr Fantuzzi, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, onI.the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1766/92 on the common organisation of the market of cereals and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 2731/75 fixing standard qualities for common wheat, rye, barley, maize and durum wheat (COM(98)0158 - C4-0292/98-98/0107(CNS))II. the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a support system for producers of certain arable crops (COM(98)0158 - C4-0293/98-98/0108(CNS)); -A4-0480/98 by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing common rules for direct support schemes under the common agricultural policy (COM(98)0158 - C4-0299/98-98/0113(CNS)).
Madam President, may I begin by welcoming Mr Funke to the House.
I think it is a good tradition that the President of the Council of Ministers always takes the trouble to attend when we hold important debates on agriculture.
Regarding the financing of the agriculture dimension of Agenda 2000, I think it is a good thing to be continuing the trend of recent years.
If agriculture policy changes, the funding of it naturally has to change as well.
The Committee on Agriculture broadly endorses the Commission's proposals.
The EAGGF must remain the principal source of funding for the common agricultural policy.
As with the MacSharry reforms of a few years ago, we think it is a good thing to modify its content.
Just as the MacSharry reforms for the first time introduced a budget line which had little to do with policy on markets and prices as such, this time too all manner of new chapters are being added.
Firstly there is a chapter on rural development, and the Agriculture Committee finds that this makes sense.
Agriculture policy is no longer just a policy on prices and markets, but an all-embracing policy which includes policy on the countryside.
Secondly, the Commission is also proposing that veterinary and phytosanitary measures should be included. That seems logical to us.
Thirdly, there is information policy. The Commission proposes to include that too.
This is likewise welcomed by the Agriculture Committee. We think that in general the CAP is not sufficiently well regarded in Europe.
We need to highlight its positive aspects - and there are plenty of those.
What the European Commission's proposals do not include, and the Committee on Agriculture is adding this, is any mention of a policy on agricultural product quality.
If there is one thing Europe needs after the BSE crisis and all the fuss over the quality of foods, it is for Europe to devise a policy for the quality of agricultural products. That has to be an key part of European farm policy.
The Agriculture Committee also thinks that in future too, farmers must be able to get their prices from the market as far as possible.
Filling in a pile of forms is not all that helpful. What they want is a better price.
That can be secured by a policy on quality, but also by developing other markets, namely the market in non-food uses of agricultural products.
As far as the environment is concerned, it will be very useful if we can legislate for the use of certain farm products in certain areas.
That will open up new markets, and prices may pick up as a result.
Lastly, with regard to European enlargement, we have no quarrel with the fact that some measure of pre-accession assistance is also included in the regulation.
As far as Parliament's powers are concerned, all spending on markets and prices policy must remain compulsory expenditure, we accept that.
Given that Parliament has to have a voice in all other spending, this must be non-compulsory expenditure, because Parliament has full power of codecision on that.
What, in the view of the Agriculture Committee, should not be in the Guarantee Fund? All the structural measures under Objective 1 and Community initiatives.
Management of the funds must of course remain under the control of the Commission itself.
Where monies are disbursed by Member States through the payment agencies, they must be scrutinised by the Member States.
In view of this week's events, it will come as no surprise that we want that scrutiny to be greatly improved.
We have to have better scrutiny. And how do we see that scrutiny?
The Commission's proposal is for a report on the financial accounts three months after the end of the financial year, and for a policy review after two years.
The Agriculture Committee has tabled a number of amendments to improve things here.
We want to be told straight away, not two years later, if something has been rejected or approved.
We want to have our finger firmly on the pulse of any developments in that area.
We want the Commission to report to us on this every three months.
This does not need to be a weighty tome. We have enough reading to do already, but it must be provided as swiftly as possible.
In conclusion, I have a comment on one contentious point in our proposal, namely the cofinancing of certain agricultural expenditure.
It includes a recital in which the Agriculture Committee is cautiously in favour of that cofinancing, but there was a tied vote on whether or not to include an article on this.
Eighteen members of the Agriculture Committee were in favour of cofinancing for certain types of expenditure, 18 were against and one member abstained.
So this is something which the plenary will have to decide in its ultimate wisdom.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in my report on beef and veal, due care was taken to ensure that three vital points were taken into account.
The first is that new consumer expectations have emerged as a result of the mad cow phenomenon, expectations which focus on product quality in terms of taste and health.
The second is the need to correct the structural imbalances of the market, where there is an annual 2 % increase in supply and a 1 % fall in demand. The third is the validity of the Cunha report which Parliament adopted and which advocates reconciling the economic dimension of agricultural activity with its social, environmental and territorial role.
Ladies and gentlemen, as everyone has discovered, the Commission's proposals advocate a reform in which these three concerns are not central.
In fact the Commission firstly intends to increase the European Union's share of world markets and bring European prices closer to those of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The approach favoured in this case, contrary to previous reforms, means that it is moving towards market regulation through price control, which is why it is proposing to lower the intervention price by 30 % and abandon the public intervention system.
I, for my part, am of the opinion that if we are to be realistic about this situation we have to think in terms of future European beef and veal production as being primarily linked to the European market, with external markets acting increasingly as limited markets for disposing of surpluses.
As the Asian and Russian crises reveal the Commission's excessive confidence in international markets this option appears increasingly viable.
The relevance of the Commission's trade strategy for the beef and veal sector has not been decisively demonstrated. It is a sector in which our production costs are twice as high as in Argentina and three times as high as in New Zealand.
In this context, accelerated moves towards alignment with world prices is likely to have detrimental effects on a large number of European Union cattle farmers which would of course be inadmissible.
This is why the proposals I have submitted for debate combine a reasonable price reduction with proactive management of volumes, the essential promotion of a food policy and the need to maintain decent incomes for producers.
As regards the lowering of prices, I am proposing a 15 % reduction to stimulate consumption and maintain a correct competitive relationship with white meat, which will benefit from a reduction in cereal prices.
In terms of production control, I am proposing that measures advocated by the Commission to increase extensification aid, implement veal calf premiums, encourage carcase weight reductions and introduce individual quotas for the male bovine premium, be further enhanced.
In relation to food policy and in addition to the innovative measures in the packaging and presentation of meat products, efforts should focus on restoring consumer confidence.
In this respect, it is obviously by placing demands for high quality products in terms of taste and health at the centre of the COM that we will be able to restore consumer confidence in them.
Lastly, as regards cattle farmers' income, a 15 % reduction and vital production cuts are set to further exacerbate their situation, which therefore gives rise to the issue of compensation.
I proposed to deal with this within the budget set for this COM in Agenda 2000.
This report, which was put to a vote in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in December, was not adopted, probably for reasons which go beyond its content.
And yet, majority votes were obtained on a number of issues: 15 % price reduction, maintaining public intervention, uprating aid for suckler cow herds and extensification, the need for veal calf premiums and maintaining the deseasonalisation premium.
I have therefore highlighted these elements so as to propose them with my political group, the PSE Group, to the House.
Then, new amendments are aimed at solving the problems posed by Italy, Germany and Holland regarding the treatment of young male bovines.
The essential measure put forward in this connection consists of putting aside a sum of ECU 1 800 million, in the form of extra payments, to grant a slaughter premium for male bovines, suckler cows, dairy cows, heifers and veal calves.
Such a premium would be allocated on the basis of Community criteria of a slaughter ceiling for each country, determined on historic bases, and a premium ceiling per animal for each of the categories mentioned, so as to avoid distorting competition between Member States.
This compromise should restore the balance that countries which produce male bovines have waited for, without calling into question the core element of the measure taken to enable the necessary adjustments to be made to the COM in beef and veal.
This is why, Madam President, I think that the conditions are now right for Parliament to adopt this report in the near future.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, the Commission's proposals on the organisation of the market in milk cover three main areas: price support, income support for milk producers, and the provision on guaranteed quantities.
The Commission's proposals on price support provide for a reduction in the price of milk of 17 %, and a reduction in the intervention prices for both butter and skimmed milk powder of 15 %.
These measures are proposed in order to encourage the consumption of milk and milk products in the Community, and to improve the competitiveness of these products on the world market.
In view of the proposed amount of compensation, the price reduction should, however, be substantially smaller overall than the Commission is seeking.
With a smaller price reduction and with amounts of compensation remaining the same, it will be easier to achieve full compensation for loss of income.
We therefore propose reducing the target price for milk by 12 % instead of 17 %, and the intervention prices for butter and skimmed milk powder by 10 % instead of 15 % in each case.
Turning now to income compensation, the Commission is proposing four components: a dairy cow premium (Article 15), an additional payment (Article 16), a supplement to the dairy cow premium (Article 12) and an additional payment within the limits of global amounts (Article 13).
These proposals are extremely complicated and will lead to serious implementation and monitoring problems.
In principle, however, I am in favour of the dairy cow premium together with a supplement under the beef and veal regulation, but not on the basis of a virtual European cow yielding 5 800 kg of milk per year; the basis of this cow premium must instead be financial compensation based on the amount of quota, and national or regional animal yields must guarantee full compensation.
A general slaughter premium for dairy cows might also be considered - as a second strand of the organisation of the market in beef and veal - to make up for the price reduction.
In practice, we would thus have two forms of premium with which to provide compensation.
Now, as regards the provisions on guaranteed quantities, we support the Commission's proposal to extend the quota until 2006 and, rather more reluctantly, the proposed 2 % increase in quotas.
In allocating 1 % to young farmers and 1 % to producers in mountain areas, however, it should also be possible, in the latter case, to take account of less-favoured mountain areas, although only as far as the quantity allocated is concerned.
When discussing a reform of the organisation of the market in milk, we cannot avoid the problem of the additional levy.
I propose that it should be reduced by more than the reduction already achieved through the drop in the target price for milk, and that it should be structured flexibly, almost as an economic instrument, so that an active milk producer would have the possibility of adjusting the quota for his holding to the economic situation, either through leasing or by going over quota.
That would certainly influence the market price for quota leasing to the disadvantage of the so-called 'armchair milkers', and European milk producers and the dairy industry would, despite the quota arrangements, have the possibility of selling more dairy products on the world market without the payment of export refunds.
On linking land and quotas, all I have to say is that one reason for the growth in leased quotas is the fact that both EC and national law allow non-producers to possess a quota of these quotas.
Another is the principle of linking quotas to areas of land.
In my view, the question as to whether or not quotas should be tied to land - that is, transfer of milk quota only with a partial transfer of land - should be decided in the individual Member States themselves; there should therefore be an optional arrangement.
Article 7(2) should, then, establish the optional suspension of the link between quotas and land, authorising Member States to introduce regional restrictions on the transfer of reference quantities without land.
Two days ago, it was reported by DPA that the presidency and the Commission were both convinced that all the Member States had to show a willingness to compromise, and that national interests should be represented impartially and clearly.
That is precisely what I wanted to do here as rapporteur - to be impartial, but clear.
In principle, I agree with the Commission that the competitiveness of European farming on the world market needs to be increased.
However, I would say to Commissioner Fischler and President-in-Office Funke that I cannot cleverly boost competitiveness on the one hand, and at the same time, by clobbering farmers with step-by-step reductions, exclude whole regions of eastern Germany from this competition on the other.
Jobs in agriculture are to be found in particular on mixed farms, producing beef, veal and pigmeat, but above all milk.
You should give these families the same chance as all the others in the European Union.
Finally, I am grateful to have been given the opportunity as a Member of this House - almost ten years after German unification - to have a hand in the reorganisation of such an important market.
I especially wish to thank those who did the groundwork for me and who have supported me in this complicated, but interesting work.
Madam President, I was not entirely happy with some of the amendments made to my report in the Agriculture Committee, such as the one aiming not to reduce intervention prices for cereals but to increase aid nonetheless.
It makes little sense to me to increase internal support, at an additional cost of some hundreds of millions of euros, in a sector which - although it accounts for 11 % of gross saleable agricultural production in the Community - alone consumes 40 % of the CAP budget, in other words EUR 17 billion out of 40.
I hope the Christmas break has given everyone time to reflect, and that the vote in Brussels on 28 January will lead to a revision of these amendments.
I am convinced, on the contrary, that a 20 % reduction in the intervention price - I shall be proposing 15 % - is not an irrational display of pessimism on the part of DG VI officials.
The gap between the intervention price and the world price is wider than that at present; thus the reduction proposed through Agenda 2000 should be even greater, strictly speaking, as the President of the Court of Auditors reminded us in this House a few weeks ago.
Indeed, the spectre of surpluses, which we thought had been banished in 1992, is rearing its ugly head again in the Community: all it took was a 2 % better harvest and a set-aside rate of 5 %, and here we are already now with cereals surpluses of some 20 million tonnes.
I fear that, if we continue along this road, the forecasts for 2006 will have to be revised upwards.
Therefore, if we wish to be serious and responsible, a thorough, far-reaching reform is urgently needed.
It is useless to turn a blind eye; I believe that the phoney reforms which you have outlined, Mr Fischler, would upset no one but would leave us once again with production surpluses.
So there is no point in deferring the problem, because it would then have to be tackled as an emergency in the near future, under much more adverse conditions than now.
For cereals, we can avoid this danger if we deal with the sector in the manner suggested by the Commission.
This is in any event my own opinion.
Of course certain rectifications are needed, three at least. The first consists in excluding oilseeds from the single premium.
We have a protein deficit in the Community, and it has become increasingly acute since the BSE crisis; it is absurd to invoke the Blair House constraints to claim that, with this reduction in the basic premium, we shall no longer have to suffer them.
That is rather like rejoicing when we hurt ourselves, because in that way we no longer feel pain inflicted on us by others.
Let us take the bull by the horns, Commissioner, without taking make-believe, dangerous short-cuts. In other words, let us renegotiate Blair House!
The second rectification needed is a set-aside rate of 10 %.
Its proposed abolition in 2000 is unrealistic.
Even now we could certainly do with a positive set-aside rate, because of the market difficulties already highlighted and in order to ensure that the set-aside system functions effectively.
The third rectification lies in demonstrating greater solidarity and cohesion in the COM for arable crops than currently exists.
If the Commission itself acknowledges in its introductory statement that the CAP reform of 1992 has not worked to the advantage of less favoured regions and producers in respect of arable crops - the most significant item of expenditure, representing the bulk of direct income support - we cannot remain hidebound by the logic of 1992.
I propose that, in order to start redressing the balance, our frame of reference for productivity should be a weighted average of one third to two thirds of - respectively - average Community production and the traditional yield of a given region.
I hope that these rectifications will be accepted; looking to the future, they would make aid more justifiable in social terms.
I believe that these aspects should also be included in other reports on Agenda 2000, for example the one on the horizontal regulation.
This is an important opportunity to bring the CAP into line with consumers' and citizens' needs.
Eco-compatibility, ceilings and differentiation are not intellectual flights of fancy, but much-needed elements to ensure that the mother of all Community policies has some sort of a future.
Otherwise it will not survive.
With EUR 40 billion earmarked for 7.5 million individuals, when twice that number are out of work, economic arguments alone are ultimately no longer enough unless they are accompanied by the environmental, social and territorial considerations for which society is pressing hard.
I am concerned about the outcome of this discussion in the House.
I fear that, by pulling out all the stops to protect producers, we shall ultimately much dilute the Commission's already tentative new proposals and rule out innovation altogether.
It cannot be maintained that because of the crisis in Russia or eastern Asia we should reject or review the reduction in cereals, milk and meat prices.
I have never believed in 'fortress Europe'.
For Europeans to shut the door to the outside world has always been a mistake: it is precisely at times of crisis that Europe must be a little more adventurous and assert its presence on the world stage.
This is not unquestioning confidence in international markets but self-confidence; otherwise there is no point in launching the euro to stand up and be counted in the world.
What is more, such a defensive stance sends a most unfortunate message to the CEECs, to the other Europe.
It really is paradoxical that Agenda 2000, launched in order to bring the two halves of Europe together, is now dividing them.
Unfortunately, Mr Funke, the Agriculture Council has not impressed us with its far-sightedness over the past few months.
The Agriculture Council itself deserves a motion of censure. It has been treading water for weeks on the reform of the CAP, rehearsing the same old arguments time and time again: the agricultural model, the two pillars.
This has not amounted to much, and has left the field clear for the ECOFIN Council, whose theories on cofinancing and expenditure freezes have complicated and even seriously jeopardised the reform's future.
Let us avoid wars of words here too: to say 'no' to cofinancing in the name of Community solidarity is to sow discord; to discuss it seriously is another matter, and means assessing all the implications.
The tendency to compare net contributions and a reluctance to stump up for the poor countries of the south will not bring much progress in Europe, in my view. What is more, to turn the CAP as it stands into a monument to the inviolable principle of solidarity is an insult to common sense.
Whatever anyone may say, the CAP is certainly not the best example of Community solidarity; one need only look at the level of support granted to production in Mediterranean areas.
In conclusion, Minister, we should like you to explain this new enthusiasm for a zero-cost reform.
If we wish to curb expenditure and tackle the structural difficulties of excessive, uneven support leading to distortion, the way to do so in my opinion is to enact more radical reforms, not to preserve the status quo.
It would be galling to discover, after March, that what lies behind the slogan of zero-cost reform is the umpteenth postponement of any reform.
The last thing that farmers need is for everything to be deferred until October.
Madam President, I should first like to provide a formal clarification: I am speaking here as rapporteur of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, as all the other previous speakers have also done so far.
I am not, therefore, giving my own opinion or that of my group, but that of the committee.
We have the unusual situation in the Agriculture Committee that in many areas no decisions were made at all, that is, that there was no position of any kind, except that of rejecting the Commission's position.
I was lucky, however, in my appointment as rapporteur because, Mr Fischler, I can congratulate you: the committee has approved in full the Commission's proposal on direct support schemes and their modulation.
I am, therefore, in a position to report on your proposal here and to explain it.
I shall, however, try to make a better job of doing so than you did in your remarks.
The basis for this proposal is of course the premiums, which were introduced in 1992 in the so-called MacSharry reform - as yet we have not heard much of the Fischler reform; we still need to introduce that - when prices were lowered and it was said that compensatory payments would be made in the form of premiums.
These compensatory payments were not linked to quality, which, logically speaking, was right, because the amount paid out was, of course, supposed to be the same as that by which prices had fallen.
The fact that this was not quite correct and that, overall, agriculture lost out somewhat, is something we discussed at the time.
The impact of these changes was, of course, considerable.
Let me quote the European Court of Auditors. The Court writes in its investigation that a point was reached where 40 % of these premiums were going to 4 % of holdings.
And then a point was reached where 80 % of these premiums were going to 20 % of holdings and where, for example - according to the Court of Auditors - one leading holding received DEM 6.61 million from Brussels in one year.
That meant that some holdings were in a position to pay their rent and labour costs out of the premiums and still had money left over.
Of course, for the holdings which were less well provided for, this is an extremely difficult situation, because the former are of course far better able to withstand price reductions than the latter.
The Commission has therefore said - and in the committee we think this is right - that this has to be stopped.
We must make the payment of premiums more dependent on criteria such as employment and the environment, and take greater account of these factors.
So far, the committee agrees.
Now, contrary to the Court of Auditors, which actually said that direct payments above ECU 100 000 should be stopped completely - that is, capped - you have rightly, like the committee, come out in favour of a sliding scale.
The intention is for 20 % to be deducted between ECU 100 000 and ECU 200 000, and 25 % above ECU 200 000.
That would be the level set by Brussels.
Then you say that it is now up to the Member States to make further deductions of up to 20 % for holdings which have a below-average number of workers, or in other words have reached a much more advanced stage of rationalisation than other holdings.
That would therefore give a reduction of up to 45 %.
This proposal is based on a reasonable approach, because it makes employment a factor in the payment of the premium, albeit in a standardised form and not in the form of remuneration for the actual work done.
But this would still mean that highly rationalised holdings would see their premiums reduced, and holdings with a large number of employees would receive a higher payout.
The only problem with the whole scheme is that only around 1 % - or perhaps not even that - of holdings are affected and that the vast majority of agricultural holdings do not stand to gain anything from this sliding scale, because obviously the reductions made higher up do not necessarily benefit those lower down.
Commissioner, with your permission I will outline the proposal we tabled in the Agriculture Committee; it was not voted on, but was reported in the Commission - at least unofficially - to be a better proposal than yours.
I am not allowed to report on it as such, because the Agriculture Committee has of course decided otherwise, but I should nevertheless like to touch upon it.
We could in fact say that very high administrative expenditure is required for the holdings to prove that they are not working to full capacity.
This might lead to legal disputes and cause difficulties.
That is why we have proposed giving the holdings an option: we deduct 45 % straightaway, and then holdings with a large number of employees may voluntarily submit evidence of their labour costs, 50 % of which are offset.
Calculations showed that under these arrangements, 97 % of holdings would be wholly unaffected.
We therefore create a mechanism for holdings which have a large number of employees and which use ecologically sound farming methods. The two usually go hand in hand.
We give holdings of this kind more than we give holdings which have undergone a process of rationalisation.
That seems to me to be very sensible.
The other holdings are competitive anyway because they have reached such an advanced stage of rationalisation.
Thank you, Madam President.
I will save the rest for when I speak for my group and on my own account.
Madam President, we have to let fairness prevail.
I must insist!
I too would have very much liked to have another two minutes to talk about the milk market.
I would ask you to indicate that speakers must keep to their allotted time.
Applause
It is very hard to interrupt a Member, Mr Goepel, especially a rapporteur, and if you had gone beyond your time you know that I would not have interrupted you either.
Our rapporteurs do an important job.
As the President of the sitting, I cannot simply cut off a rapporteur.
You are well aware that I do not do that.
I may be wrong, but I do not do it!
Madam President, the grain reform programme in Agenda 2000 involves undoing much of the regulation relating to letting the land remain fallow.
At the same time the document does not, however, pay sufficient attention to other uses of farm land.
It would be sensible to invest in the increased cultivation of crops for energy, as an alternative use for land.
In rural areas important work, for both nature and the economy, is to be found in the production of bioenergy.
The benefits of bioenergy are that it is renewable, clean, localised, and it provides employment.
So far indirect regional, national and environmental benefits have tended to provide the incentive, rather than direct economic benefits.
The adoption of developed technology has brought new opportunities for the exploitation of bioenergy, and that will allow us, in the future, to increase our level of self-sufficiency in energy production in Europe.
More investment in bioenergy product development will also bring with it a vital economic benefit in relation to other energy sources.
As part of the implementation of the Kyoto agreement on climate the Commission has announced its objective to double the use of renewables in the Union area by the year 2010.
Recognition of the non-food option in Agenda 2000 would also prove that the Commission meant business.
The production of bioenergy as a cheap source of power will need support, along with that given to other alternative energy sources in the future, for it to gain the status we intend for it as part of European energy policy.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to the rapporteur for his hard and time-consuming work.
Madam President, in its Agenda 2000 communication, the European Commission includes proposals that improve and consolidate economic and social cohesion through the reform of structural policies, the common agricultural policy and the policy on rural development.
Within the proposals for agricultural reform, the top priority is the Union's commitment to maintaining some viable rural communities and to protecting European rural heritage.
In order to do so, it must have a very strong and competitive agricultural sector at global level that operates within a framework of sustainable development.
In this context, the Commission has set out its proposals on direct support schemes within the common agricultural policy relating to all common organisations of the market that grant direct payments.
In the proposal for a regulation in question, the Committee on Budgetary Control calls on the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to incorporate three amendments that have the common objective of ensuring that Parliament is better informed.
The Commission's proposal is based on the principle of subsidiarity.
Without wishing to question this approach, it is important that the measures adopted to guarantee payments to farmers benefiting from these schemes are accompanied by a certain degree of coordination at Community level.
The system of penalties applied to farmers who do not meet labour or environmental standards must be applied for the same reasons in all Member States and should be similar throughout the Community.
Lastly, I should like to draw attention to the fact that the Commission wants this proposal for a regulation to be implemented by the management committees in which the Council and the Commission are involved yet which Parliament is excluded from.
On this same theme, I should like to point out that Parliament approved a resolution in September in which we asked that we be guaranteed real control over the implementing measures.
For this reason, the Committee on Budgetary Control stresses that the Commission must inform Parliament of the measures Member States adopt in applying this regulation. Moreover, before the final decision is adopted, Parliament should have the right to contribute, for a limited period of time, to the debate on the Commission's proposals on the implementing measures.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, may I first thank you very much for your warm welcome and for giving me the opportunity to be here in the European Parliament for my first, as it were, official appointment as President-in-Office of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, and to address you.
I should like to outline the German Presidency's priorities on agriculture and fisheries; I hope that Parliament will be a constructive partner in this work and will actively support us in the quite enormous project we have ahead of us.
As you know, we are also under pressure of time because, of course, parliamentary elections are on the horizon.
I am setting great store by your cooperation, ladies and gentlemen.
Today, you will be debating the agricultural component of Agenda 2000.
I have followed the deliberations hitherto in the European Parliament's committees and plenary closely - and in this respect I am also grateful that I was able to hear what each of the rapporteurs had to say today - and I conclude, although this will certainly come as no surprise to you, that opinions do still diverge widely on the core issues.
I therefore deduce that the German Presidency has its work cut out to reach an appropriate compromise.
Certainly, if you include the question of financing, Agenda 2000 is the central political theme of the German Presidency as a whole.
The federal government has set itself the goal of adopting Agenda 2000 in its entirety as early as this spring.
This is a truly ambitious task and it will only be achieved if Parliament, the Commission and the presidency work together constructively and in a spirit of mutual trust, and if they really want political success.
The Commission's proposals for the sector of agriculture and rural development are part of a package, and I welcome the fact that this is also how the European Parliament sees it.
I would, therefore, earnestly request that you bring deliberations in Parliament to a close in good time, so that we can also stay on schedule in this respect.
I believe that it is in both our interests to make a success of the Agenda and to make it clear to the people of Europe that the European institutions are not only capable of action but also of successful action, and that they can design policies for the future.
On 1 January, Germany took over the presidency for the eleventh time since the foundation of the European Economic Community.
The German Government is very conscious of the great responsibility this brings, especially when the projects on the table are, after all, of such great historical significance, such as paving the way for eastward enlargement and preparing for the WTO negotiations which will begin at the end of the year.
That is also why concluding the negotiations on Agenda 2000 is our top priority.
We can - and for this I am very grateful - build on the solid preparatory work carried out by the Austrian, but also the British and Luxembourg Presidencies.
All the same, I must add that very intensive work will be required to overcome the differences of opinion - which are in part still considerable - and to reach a workable compromise.
Despite the uncertainty over financing - and further intensive discussions will also be held on this - I will, as chairman of the Agriculture Council, lead the negotiations on the agriculture part of the Agenda on the basis of the Commission proposals. This is what was envisaged from the outset.
In the meantime, we have set up a high-level group, which started its deliberations this week, beginning in fact with beef and veal, and milk.
It is intended that this group should prepare for negotiations in the Agriculture Council and demonstrate possible ways of reaching compromises, and that it should, therefore, prepare draft decisions to a very large extent.
At the federal government's meeting with the Commission on Monday of this week in Bonn, Commissioner Fischler and I agreed that, if convincing alternatives are presented, the Commission is prepared to review its proposals and if necessary to table new ones.
I welcome this and am extremely grateful to the Commissioner and his colleagues for giving this undertaking.
For at the present stage of the negotiations, it is certainly still too early to speculate about compromises.
I do not think that would be sensible.
But it should be pointed out - and I fully endorse what Mr Goepel said - that all of us, despite the respective interests we hold at national level, must also be prepared to reach compromises; otherwise at the end of the day we will not have a result.
I should like to make it clear, however, that I believe it is essential to safeguard the interests of European agriculture, to invest the European model of agriculture with tangible initiatives, and to bolster rural areas by encouraging sustainable development.
In the future, European agriculture will have to be competitive in order to hold its own against international competition.
With this in mind, European market organisations ought to be reformed and geared more closely to the requirements of the market.
I must add, however, that in so doing it still is, and will continue to be, up to us to maintain and further improve our high standards of environmental and consumer protection, and also - in the interests of fair competition - to ensure that these standards are adequately safeguarded in international trade agreements.
As chairman of the Agriculture Council, I should like to work with the Commission towards further improving the status of environmental protection in agricultural policy, giving Member States and regions a greater say in policies on agriculture and rural areas, and making animal welfare and precautionary consumer protection integral parts of the common agricultural policy.
Important ideas on these matters - for which I am extremely grateful - have emerged from the European Parliament; I am pleased about this and fully support its greater involvement, including in agricultural policy.
I would emphasise once again the necessity in European politics of the trio - if I may express it thus - of the Council, the Commission and Parliament. I could of course list the members of the trio in any order: the Council, the Commission and Parliament; Parliament, the Council and the Commission - as you wish, the order should not make any difference.
Although Agenda 2000 will be the German Presidency's main priority, alongside it are other important dossiers in the field of agriculture and fisheries, which should, if possible, also be completed.
As always in the first half of the year, negotiations on agricultural prices are on the agenda, the importance of which has admittedly - as we all know - diminished.
I would be grateful if Parliament were able to complete its deliberations on the outstanding Commission proposals within this parliamentary term.
If it is to live up to the expectations of the consumer, Community law should be further developed on the basis of the Commission Green Paper.
The entire food production chain needs to be regulated efficiently and consistently.
We also want to make improvements in the field of organic farming, in terms of both production and marketing.
In addition, we attach great importance to animal welfare and combating epizootic diseases.
I might perhaps mention the most important animal welfare issues here.
They are as follows: decisions on treating laying hens in battery cages in a way appropriate to their species; laying down standards for the carriage of animals by sea; continuing to specify minimum slaughtering standards; and incorporating the Council of Europe recommendation on animals kept for farming purposes into Community law.
Combating epizootic diseases is becoming increasingly important in the light of the growth of trade in live animals and the economic damage resulting from outbreaks of disease.
In view of this, moves are being made to amend the directives on swine fever, foot and mouth disease and zoonoses.
Those are my comments on the agricultural side.
I also wish to talk briefly about fisheries, because there too we have an extensive work programme. Of course the Agenda 2000 negotiations also affect the fisheries sector.
Therefore, for example, a decision has to be made on the core issue of the future financing of fisheries support.
Alongside this, negotiations need to be held on the regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector, to ensure that this proposal is adopted by June 1999 at the latest.
I am aiming to table the key political elements of this proposal for a decision as early as the March Fisheries Council.
In addition, the common fisheries policy needs to be further developed to ensure sustainable and balanced management of fish stocks.
Discussions on continuing or renewing fisheries agreements with third countries are a further priority, as is the review of these agreements, which was initiated by the Council.
The Fisheries Council will also be dealing with restructuring the common organisation of the market in fishery products.
That was a brief presentation of the German Presidency's priorities and the work it will be doing on agricultural and fisheries policy.
Obviously, in the ten minutes available to me I was only able to touch on some points very briefly.
I am aware that I have exceeded my speaking time somewhat, but as this is my first speech and presentation in this House, perhaps I might be forgiven.
I should like to assure you that as the President-in-Office of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, I will continue - including within the so-called informal trilogue - to seek an in-depth exchange of views with the European Parliament. I believe it is necessary and I am convinced it is important.
Applause
After what was your first speech to the House, I should like to welcome you here very warmly on behalf of Parliament.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to warn you straight away that I shall need rather more than ten minutes to comment on all the reports before the House today.
If possible, however, I will try to save some time at the end of the debate.
Firstly though, I should like to thank all the rapporteurs very warmly for the work they have done in the run-up to today's debate.
The individual market organisations were dealt with in the reports of Mr Fantuzzi, Mr Garot and Mr Goepel, the horizontal regulation by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and the EAGGF regulation by Mr Mulder.
The report on the reform of the market in wine is on the agenda for February, and the reports on rural development and on pre-accession aid were already dealt with in November.
I do not, therefore, need to comment on those reports today, but I should like to make it clear that my thanks also go to the rapporteurs, Mr Görlach and Mr Sonneveld.
As rapporteurs, all of you have contributed to our being able, so far, to keep to our timetable for dealing with the Agenda 2000 proposals.
Negotiations in the Council have now entered the decision-making phase.
The technical issues have been resolved and the newly created high-level group started work this week.
As soon as a political agreement is reached, the Commission will, in any case, make all the necessary arrangements, so that the legal texts can be adopted definitively before the parliamentary elections.
Most farmers and farming unions now agree that reform of the common agricultural policy is unavoidable.
The danger of further surpluses - despite growing demand on the international agriculture markets - the forthcoming WTO round and rising production potential, which will also increase considerably with eastward enlargement, are factors which are shaping the discussion on the future structure of market management policies.
In addition, there is an important internal debate on what society demands of agriculture.
The effects of agricultural production on the environment are part of this debate, as is the question of social criteria for agricultural policy and the desire for a better quality of life, be it through higher food safety and quality standards, or through sustainable development of rural areas and considering the purposes they serve for our society.
We have, as you know, encapsulated this approach in the concept of a 'European model of agriculture'.
If this model is not to be doomed, however, we not only need to gear it more closely to consumers and the markets, we also need to strengthen policies on rural areas.
I am therefore opposed to any attempts to adopt only a slimmed-down reform or to leave important areas out of the reform.
I do not believe in ruining the future prospects of farmers and the processing industry with half-baked, and therefore ineffective measures, and running the risk of our being faced with another debate on reform in the near future.
The question now is what the final reforms should consist of, so that we can equip European farming for the challenges ahead.
The European Parliament has played an active part in finding an answer to this question, and has prepared a number of amendments in this regard.
I will now, therefore, comment on the most fundamental of the proposed amendments and explain my position on them.
Let me start with financing.
The transition from price support to direct income payments will not lead directly to savings in the agriculture budget.
To start with, expenditure on the agricultural policy will even increase slightly.
Crucial here are, however, the positive effects which the reform will have on the economy.
Independent academic institutes estimate the increased cost to the budget to be between EUR 3 billion and EUR 4 billion, but put savings to the consumer at between EUR 10 billion and EUR 17 billion.
That means a reduction in the consumer price index of between 0.3 % and 0.45 %, and thus an important contribution to stability in Europe.
The most important objective of our proposal for the new EAGGF regulation is, in the future, to use the Guarantee Section to finance rural development measures outside Objective 1 programmes.
This is an attempt to take account of multifunctionality and would also make it easier to defend the common agricultural policy at international level.
It is intended that the Guarantee Section should also finance a series of accompanying structural measures in the fisheries sector, specific veterinary and plant protection measures, and measures to provide information on the common agricultural policy, and overall that the existing legal provisions should be consolidated and simplified.
I am pleased to see, Mr Mulder, that you support the proposal to extend financing by the EAGGF Guarantee Section in your report.
Let me now turn to the individual amendments you have proposed.
The legal base for the regulation is Article 43 of the Treaty.
A number of amendments seek to base it on Article 209 as well.
But, Madam President, this proposal only relates to provisions specifically on EAGGF financing; basing this regulation on Article 209 as well is therefore superfluous.
A number of amendments concern the issue of cofinancing for measures which are at present financed exclusively from the Community budget.
This is a question of principle, which must be settled outside the agricultural regulations.
The same goes for the question of whether agricultural expenditure should be classified as compulsory or non-compulsory. These matters should be discussed in connection with the interinstitutional agreement.
We also think that the amendment aimed at changing the budget year would actually simplify matters considerably. This would mean, however, that the budget year in which the change was made would last twelve and a half months, resulting in a one-off cost to the budget of around EUR 800 million.
The Commission can therefore only accept this amendment if it is clear where the extra money is going to come from.
As regards the amendments on the quality of agricultural products, there is no question in my mind either that measures to promote quality are becoming increasingly important.
These can, however, already be financed under the Guarantee Section at the moment, and are indeed financed by it to some extent.
The same applies to promoting the use of renewable raw materials.
If we were now to start specifically naming, as it were, every single measure which we think is important, then we would have to give a whole list, which does not actually make any sense either.
On the wish you expressed for financing under the Guarantee Section not to disrupt the management and implementation of measures not previously financed by the Guarantee Section, I should like to point out that financing the supporting measures from the 1992 reform out of the Guarantee Section has not caused any particular problems.
It is true that the financial provisions on paying agencies and the clearance of accounts are different in the Guarantee Section, but I maintain that overall this is an advantage and can very easily be combined with structural financing.
In addition, we intend to set up a special advance payment system for rural development programmes.
Another amendment emphasises that at the end of the year, non-utilised appropriations from the Guarantee Section should be transferred to a special reserve for future years.
This is an interesting idea, but the rules in the Financial Regulation for the Community budget do not allow it. This would contravene the principle of the annuality of the budget.
Finally on the Mulder report, I should like to make it clear that I will take your request for regular information on decisions on the clearance of accounts into consideration.
Similarly, I will include precise evaluation measures in the financing from the Guarantee Section.
That brings me to Mr Garot's report on the beef and veal sector.
I am grateful that you in this House think it is necessary for the package to include reform of this market organisation.
It is well known that without a price adjustment, prospects for beef and veal on the home market are hopeless.
It is also well known that WTO rules will - from the middle of 2000 - limit Community exports of beef and veal which are eligible for refunds to just 820 000 tonnes a year.
If the European beef and veal industry is to be able to maintain beef production at anywhere near current levels, then, according to our analyses, a 30 % reduction in the intervention price is imperative.
I have examined in detail the alternative proposal, which consists of restoring market balance solely by reducing production.
I cannot endorse this proposal, because it cannot guarantee the future of the European beef industry.
Nor can I, therefore, accept any amendments which - contrary to the Commission proposal - are aimed at lesser price reductions.
We have to leave open the possibility of taking advantage of the positive market trends on the horizon.
If we do not, then our competitors certainly will.
As regards the level of direct aid, it is necessary - alongside the beef premium itself - also to take into consideration the other proposed changes to the common agricultural policy, and not least the impact we can expect these to have on the market.
That is why I cannot accept amendments seeking to raise the beef premiums either.
Another question is how to find a fair solution to the question of the form in which direct payments are made.
In the EU, we have, broadly speaking, just two different systems of beef production: one is based primarily on cereals or silage maize, and the other is primarily grass-based.
I do not see any prospect of a solution, if we do not take sufficient account of both systems.
Furthermore, as early as November 1996, the Agriculture Council committed itself to examining appropriate solutions for the particular situation of regions dependent on intensive stockfarming.
On the other hand, I do also admit that the common agricultural policy needs to be more environmentally friendly. This is one of the key elements in the future success of the European model of agriculture.
In view of these ground rules, and the diversity and complexity of the production systems used in the European beef and veal industry, the Commission believes that one solution might be to allow subsidiarity through national envelopes.
It does seem, however, that this proposal is meeting with strong resistance here in Parliament - but not only here - and I shall therefore give further consideration to how this fact can be taken into account.
Although I cannot accept the amendments today, for the reasons I have mentioned, I can assure you that the Commission will show an open mind if progress is made in the debates on the form which compensation should take, especially if it becomes apparent that this will also simplify matters.
Various other amendments seek to further tighten the criteria for granting extensification aid.
Although I cannot formally accept the amendments concerned at this stage of the discussions, I should also like to point out that this issue needs to be examined further, and that I am favourably disposed towards improvements.
I shall now turn to the reform of the milk sector.
I know that it will be particularly difficult to reach a consensus here, because opinions still differ widely.
Let me start with the regulation on milk quotas.
I am pleased that Parliament supports the proposal to extend the arrangement for a further six years.
As regards the situation after 2006, I agree that we should turn our attention to this well in advance of that date.
In this context, Amendment No 45 seems to me to be quite acceptable.
However, your proposals also include more extensive quota increases.
You have to be clear on one point: every percentage point increase in quotas requires an 8 % reduction in price and an additional budget of around EUR 1 billion.
On the other hand, I do not see the quota arrangement continuing, unless we accept a certain increase in quotas.
In political terms, this means that if you want the quota arrangement to continue, you also have to accept market reform.
As far as the allocation of additional quotas is concerned, we have based our proposal on priorities, set according to the support expressed by Parliament on various occasions.
I cannot, therefore, endorse the amendments which upset the delicate balance we wish to achieve with the additional quotas.
The proposal to apply sanctions when the reference quantities are exceeded, as a means of managing the market, may admittedly seem attractive at first sight, but in practice I see it causing us huge difficulties.
The problems we have, in particular in Germany, with so-called 'armchair milkers' are something we have to overcome, and we should do so without departing too far from the main principles of the quota arrangement.
Nor should we disregard the possible legal consequences of some of the amendments and the demands for compensation which might ensue.
For that reason, I cannot support the amendments along those lines.
As regards transfers of quotas, what we are trying to do in our proposal is to extend and improve the options Member States have under the law, without restricting their room for manoeuvre in this field.
The wording therefore tries to preserve a balance between the call for subsidiarity, on the one hand, and maintaining the basic principles of the quota arrangement on the other.
In my view, most of the amendments tend to disturb this balance.
The wording is actually being revised in a number of areas at the moment, so that the aim of Amendment No 12 can, in any case, be achieved.
Allow me to emphasise once again that the current developments on the milk markets and our quota policy make me all the more determined to press on with the reform of this sector.
I conclude, from discussions in various forums, that our proposals present a balanced and reasonable answer to the challenges facing the milk sector.
I cannot, therefore, support the amendments advocating a greater or lesser degree of price reductions for milk as a starting-point for reform.
On the direct payments to compensate for price reductions, discussions have focused on three problem areas.
Firstly, the level of compensatory payments: here too, you should not look at the compensatory payments in isolation. The Agenda 2000 package does in fact contain several proposals which will be of benefit to milk producers, either because they result in a fall in costs, or because they result in increased output.
Moreover, it is unlikely that the fall in institutional prices in the milk sector will be fully reflected in producer prices.
That is why I cannot support the amendments which advocate increasing the compensatory payments.
The second point concerns the methods by which compensatory payments are made. By tying them to the milk quotas, we have tried to make the system both straightforward and fair.
Unfortunately, the various alternatives discussed in the report do not meet these criteria.
I thus find myself unable to comment on them here.
The third point is related to the system of national envelopes.
Our proposal tries to give the Member States scope to modulate the aid, so that they can take account of producers' different circumstances.
At the same time, however, Member States are obliged to notify the Commission of their national provisions before they are enacted.
This should provide a guarantee against distortions of competition.
That is why I do not share the fears expressed in this regard.
But it will certainly be necessary - once the final shape of the beef and veal production model is clear - to make sure that the compensatory payments in the milk sector fit in with this model.
One final comment on the basic regulation: I do not believe that it is appropriate to include provisions in the basic regulation which are not directly related to the common organisation of the market in milk.
I therefore propose to accommodate the provisions on animal welfare, and the aspects of milk production which concern structural policy, the environment and quality, where they each belong.
I should now like to turn to arable crops.
Developments so far have shown that, although the 1992 reform was a major step in the right direction, it did not go far enough.
Continuing the present regime would mean either increased surpluses or set-aside far in excess of the 17.5 %.
Against that background, the reform is therefore necessary as a matter of urgency, I welcome all the changes which improve the Commission proposal, but not those which water it down.
First of all, several amendments seek to lessen the proposed price reductions, or even to dispense with them altogether.
I fear that a price reduction of less than 20 % would not allow us to achieve our objectives.
A limited price reduction would result in increased use of export refunds, and our exports of cereals, pigmeat and poultrymeat would thus be restricted to the maximum quantities set by the WTO, while the volume of international trade increased.
As regards set-aside, I am not ruling out the possibility that from time to time - because of unfavourable market conditions - certain areas of land will have to be taken out of production for a year.
However, this should be the exception, because the market should be eased primarily by exports and not by compulsory set-aside.
Should it be necessary to fall back on set-aside, then the Commission will make a proposal to the Council and Parliament to depart from the normal rate of 0 %.
All amendments relating to this are therefore unnecessary.
A further bone of contention is the area direct payments.
The changes you have proposed would simply perpetuate overcompensation, which came in for severe criticism, in particular from the Court of Auditors.
We should not forget that, in the future, although market prices will be subject to greater fluctuations, they will, on average, be above the guaranteed price.
Several amendments provide for additional payments for voluntary set-aside, in order to promote renewable raw materials.
I can certainly support any efforts to find new markets for agricultural products in industry.
However, I doubt whether modulated set-aside payments are the right answer to the problem.
I must also point out that subsidies introduced on new crops will not be covered by the so-called peace clause, and can easily be contested by the other WTO members.
We should not, therefore, accept changes of this kind.
It is a different case for the numerous amendments directed towards retaining the existing regime for oilseeds or maize.
This is not supporting new crops, but continuing or extending the existing regime.
In the case of maize, I should, however, like to emphasise two points.
First of all, evidence should be provided that special treatment for maize is still economically justified, when as it is, the Commission is proposing that a distinction should be drawn between irrigated and non-irrigated crops.
Moreover, singling out maize for special treatment would hugely complicate the aid system, and would further enhance the privileged treatment accorded to silage maize.
For oilseeds, it is true that keeping a specific premium would mean that the Blair House constraints would continue to apply, but in some cases, these are already - because of the massive sanctions - forcing the premiums actually paid out below the future target level.
For all these reasons, I cannot accept changes which shake the foundations of the proposal.
I can only comment on the main aspects of the changes here.
I must also tell you, however, that the Commission cannot accept changes aimed at radically redistributing aid, or gearing Community instruments - such as, for example, the calculation of yields for the intervention system - to the national specifications of particular Member States, and to the detriment of other Member States.
I should just like to add a few words on the quality of cereals.
Our produce must conform to the needs of the market and, in particular, to the requirements of importing countries, which means that we have to produce high-quality cereals.
This point is in part addressed in Amendment No 4.
Although I cannot accept the form of wording chosen, I do share Parliament's concerns in this regard.
The Commission will therefore consider ways and means of improving quality as part of the application of Agenda 2000.
That brings me to the last report, on horizontal rules for direct support schemes.
The reform of the market organisations will mean that in the future most agricultural expenditure will be in the form of direct payments.
It therefore seems reasonable to align these direct payments with the general aims of the common agricultural policy.
That applies just as much to the social as to the environmental criteria.
The proposed ceiling on direct payments should help the social balance.
Should Member States wish to go further, they can introduce a system of modulation based on the number of employees.
Making it compulsory to apply this rule Community-wide would, however, cause serious problems, in particular with regard to carrying out checks and the definition of work units, which differs from Member State to Member State.
I reject the idea of extending capping or modulation to payments other than the direct payments within the market organisations, because payments made, say, under rural development, are pursuing specific goals and should be regarded, for example, as payment for work done to protect the environment, and not simply as income support.
Given the great ecological variety and number of different farming structures in the Community, it would, realistically, be very difficult to lay down environmental conditions for the receipt of direct payments at Community level.
The Member States should, however, be able to make direct payments conditional on compliance with environmental requirements.
As regards the appropriations saved by capping payments, it was proposed to hand this money over to the Member States.
Clearly, however, this would have corresponding consequences for the budget.
Consideration should be given to whether there are not other options - in addition to the agri-environmental schemes - for utilising the appropriations saved through modulation and cross-compliance in ways which would not affect competition.
Perhaps we could consider earmarking appropriations for the other accompanying measures, or for the compensatory supplement or the forestry measures.
They should not simply be used for income support or structural measures.
To sum up, let me stress once more that the Commission is not in the business of pushing through the Agenda for its own sake, as it were.
At the heart of the debate between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council is much more the fact that, for the Commission, the agricultural part of the Agenda will be its position for the WTO negotiations to be reopened at the end of the year, which will result in further liberalisation of the agricultural markets.
Since everyone agrees that this will be the outcome, the Commission does not believe it can justify imposing several reforms on farmers shortly afterwards.
This may indeed be more convenient and perhaps it also wins more approval in certain quarters, but European agriculture - like other sectors of the economy - needs stable basic conditions.
The Agenda provides these, while also allowing European agriculture to have a share in the growth of the agriculture market.
A slimmed-down reform could do neither.
That is why it does not make sense.
Associated with this, I admit, is the fact that, in particular for demographic reasons - half of European farmers are over 55 - we are not seeking to prevent inevitable structural change, but to accept it and to shape it in an appropriate way.
I am therefore extremely grateful for the broad support which our proposals on rural development have found in this House.
I can assure you that I am open to all practical alternative proposals which share our objectives, as I have already suggested here in connection with the beef and veal sector and step-by-step reductions.
Applause
Madam President, I should like to ask the Commissioner if the Commission could give Parliament a list of its position on all the amendments which have been tabled to the Agenda 2000 proposals. I ask this because we have to vote on 28 January.
Madam President, I think that it would be useful to have a list of this kind.
We will see that you have one for the vote on 28 January.
Madam President, I have a question for Commissioner Fischler: we have in fact just dealt with amendments which have not yet been put to the vote.
You have anticipated events somewhat. The situation is rather difficult, as you yourself described just now.
That might mean, however, that after the vote we have to ask you once again whether you can accept the amendments.
If you do not accept them, there is a possibility that we will refer them back to committee, which is, of course, what we also did in the case of the structural measures under the second pillar.
Will you be present at that time to give us that information, if it proves to be necessary, so that we can decide whether to embark on this procedure?
Yes sir, God willing, I will be there!
Laughter
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, following on from what you just said, Commissioner, may I also wish you a long political life, irrespective of the discussions which will - we hope - be coming to a head again tomorrow!
Ladies and gentlemen, in this parliamentary trilogue - and I should like to start on a positive note - we agree on one point: CAP reform is inevitable and necessary, and it is not only up for discussion because of imminent eastward enlargement.
This is an argument which, when advanced in various Member States, including my own, is always misleading.
The problems caused by overproduction and the fact that the agricultural policy has hitherto lacked an ecological dimension - and this is something we Social Democrats explicitly recognise, Commissioner - have actually been tackled successfully in the past, and here too, some success can be discerned.
Nevertheless, and we are all agreed on this, reform of the current agricultural policy, in the light of the many years of repeated and serious shortcomings - and this is once again our view - constitutes our primary duty to the people.
The common agricultural policy does work, but recently it has in particular started to lean more towards the social side, meaning that there is a danger that a common agricultural policy and its attendant costs will meet with less and less acceptance from the European public, and the European taxpayer.
This increasing lack of acceptance on the part of the general public cannot, however, be written off as academic debate, and thus as not having any repercussions.
An increasing number of jobs in rural areas will be at risk as a result of these difficulties, unless, in the interests of those concerned, an unvarnished and - if necessary - blunt analysis of the shortcomings is finally carried out.
We have indeed come a long way together in this respect.
Commissioner, some of your proposals are along the right lines, but these parts of the proposals are not, in our opinion, sufficiently thorough and remain basically symbolic.
You are somewhat lacking in courage here to lead the way and to show your teeth for once, so as to improve the lot of weaker farmers in Europe.
Some details are, we believe - and this also emerged from the contributions made here by our rapporteurs from the Group of the Party of European Socialists - in need of improvement: you made proposals in the milk sector, for example, which further undermine the position, in particular, of smaller and weaker farmers in less-favoured areas and which - I must also add this - are a hotbed for yet more bureaucracy to rear its ugly head.
In the Middle Ages, being sentenced to be quartered was one of the most severe punishments there was.
In bringing in the dairy cow premium, please do not reintroduce the quartering of premiums.
We have actually moved on since then, and by the way: why not just go outside and try to explain this to a perfectly normal European - no one will understand a word, not to put too fine a point on it!
Detailed criticism in this House should not, however, result in total rejection of reform, which would only become necessary with eastward enlargement.
We cannot accept that.
We Social Democrats strongly urge all the Members of this Parliament to make an active contribution to this analysis, to help to provide alternatives which fulfil our responsibilities in the field of social and environment policy, and not to make themselves dependent on pressure groups which refuse reform of any kind.
We have, unfortunately, had bad experiences in the various countries in this respect.
I should also like to make the following point clear: anyone acting and arguing in this way - including through the media - robs the weaker, and often enough those who have lost out as a result of this agricultural policy, robs those very people of their hope for a better future.
For us as Social Democrats, it is intolerable that only one third of the annual agriculture budget reaches active agricultural employers.
This state of affairs becomes nothing short of grotesque when 80 % of this aid is paid out to just 20 % of farmers, who are also the wealthiest ones.
The President of the European Court of Auditors was quite right when he recently once again described this - basically, although he expressed it in diplomatic terms - as a scandal.
Moreover, the Social Democrats refuse to support a policy in the future which still gives the same entitlement to aid to the country millionaire - who, by massive rationalisation, has almost made his well-situated holding into a one-man business, and by having the best access to world markets secures the best prices - as to a farmer in a less-favoured area, who often enough can only hold his own by going short himself.
Let me just make one point clear: we do not envy this global player in the agriculture industry his economic success.
But in our policy, which must be geared to social criteria, we take account of the fact that this role of global player is something which smaller and weaker farmers in many areas of Europe simply cannot assume.
European support policy, Mr President-in-Office - and I believe this to be one of the most important headlines to have emerged from recent discussions, including under the new presidency - European support policy in rural areas must, in critical aspects, become social policy.
We must also make this clear to the lobby groups.
Obviously, we also have to come up with an integrated policy for rural areas throughout Europe.
We must not only safeguard existing jobs, we must also create new jobs in rural areas and also, by means of better infrastructure policy, ensure - and this is all part of it - that in a rural area it is possible to travel, on a daily basis, to a job outside agriculture, so that the rural community remains viable.
If we translate this better approach - which is also perceptible in the Commission's proposals on Agenda 2000 - into active policy, then I will have no further concerns about its being acceptable to the public.
One of the points close to the heart of European Social Democrats is that we make the amount of aid distributed to agricultural holdings dependent on the number of long-term jobs - on which social security contributions are payable - to be maintained and created in that holding, and of course this includes both employees and members of the family.
Reducing unemployment is one of the main themes of the Council presidency; of course, this also affects rural areas and agriculture, and we want to work together against this severe employment crisis.
The Social Democrats in the European Parliament call this policy a policy for rural areas.
This is an integrated policy.
We have also had a wide-ranging discussion in our group.
We have had to reach compromises, and we are glad that we are also able to reach compromises of this kind in direct negotiations with the Council and the Commission.
I can, however, tell you a secret - it is no secret really - the secret of the democratic Members of this House: in the future, we do not want these negotiations to lead simply to our making a contribution; as elected representatives of the European people, we also want to have the power of codecision in this final part of the European budget, because that is what we have been elected for, and we ask for your support in this respect too!
Madam President, I wish to begin by thanking Mr Garot for his report on beef.
As rapporteur he tried to mellow the severity of the proposals in the beef sector.
The beef regime is the most complicated of all the regimes, mainly because it has the longest lead time.
Beef farmers are still suffering from the aftermath of the BSE crisis in the UK, which has thrown the whole beef industry into a spiralling free fall, with consumption badly damaged.
For example, pig and poultry meat consumption at 23 million tonnes is now more than three times higher than beef consumption at 7.1 million tonnes per year.
This is only partly related to price.
When imports of beef into the EU are added to domestic production, the total is almost one million tonnes higher than the internal market uptake.
A major difficulty arises because of the constraints of the Blair House agreement on export volumes and the level of export refunds payable, together with the collapse of the Russian economy and the strategic downward price pressure which is applied by other third-country markets as they take advantage of the Russian problem.
On the one hand there are added pressures from the West, mainly from the US and the Cairns Group, as we prepare to start negotiations on the next WTO round and, on the other, there are pressures from the East to reduce the cost of enlargement.
It is essential that beef farmers are shown the maximum consideration.
The 10-month and 22-month premium for steers and the deseasonalisation premium must be kept in place.
The proposed slaughter premium, while it is a contentious issue, is not a good replacement system.
While it might be very simple to operate, it is not linked directly to land area and does not suit the highly desirable objectives of the Commission to promote environmentally friendly grass-based systems of production - which the Commissioner has just mentioned.
It is also vitally important that the market be stabilised with the continued availability of intervention, whenever that is necessary and until such times as balance is restored to the market, and that imports and production be reduced.
Finally, I wish to say to the Commission that I understand what it is trying to do but, until the beef market has time to recover from the recent crisis, it is absolutely necessary to ease the very severe proposals so that farmers can stay in business.
The Commission has a responsibility to find out why food prices to consumers are increasing steadily while farmers' product prices continue to fall heavily. Someone in the middle is profiteering.
We need to stop this so that consumers can benefit from the price reductions to farmers. I know the Commissioner is aware of this.
Madam President, in the first instance I should say that despite all the interesting contributions we have had to this debate, the whole discussion of Agenda 2000 is somewhat unreal, because as Commissioner Fischler has rightly indicated, the changes in policy will mean that the policy costs more.
I keep hearing everywhere that there is less money available. Is there really much point in talking about changes to agriculture policy when we do not know exactly what the future financial position is going be?
It is high time Parliament was told.
What funding is available for agriculture? I should like to know how Commissioner Fischler sees his proposals in relation to the availability of funds.
The position of the Liberal Group in general is that the prospect of accession by the Eastern European countries makes it necessary to modify the agricultural policy.
We are in favour of price cuts for the principal products.
However, and above all because the world situation has changed significantly from two years ago, the general line is a smaller price cut than that envisaged by the Commission, together with full compensation for that reduction.
We favour equal treatment for the most important products, and in specific terms that means equal treatment for the price of cereal starch and potato starch.
We think that quotas have to remain, so we must have the milk quota, but also and above all a variable system of set-aside.
Lastly, a word or two on cofinancing, largely for the benefit of the German minister who is here with us.
The Liberal Group favours the cofinancing of income subsidies, not in order to improve the net payment position of certain countries, but primarily because this is unavoidable in the context of the accession of the Eastern European countries.
If we had to pay income supplements as well, that would bankrupt the common agricultural policy and we do not want that.
Yes to cofinancing, provided it can vary according to region, provided payment by the Member States is compulsory, and provided that Member States which do not do this are penalised by Brussels.
But policy must continue to be set in Brussels, and there must be equal opportunities for competition throughout the European Union, with no distortion of policy by national rules.
These, Madam President, are the broad lines of the Liberal Group's position, and many speakers from my group will have points to add.
Commissioner, having heard your proposed reductions, I doubt that the famous European model of agriculture can continue because there is not just one model but two: the successful model and the poor model.
In addition, the famous and much-discussed option of multi-functionality will actually become a reality.
Many farmers will have to work in other sectors in order to earn a living.
It is interesting to see that the five reports were produced by Members who come from the rich areas of Europe and who naturally have shown evident impartiality for which I must congratulate them all.
I come from a poor area and this is reflected in my views.
I must also congratulate Mr Rehder for having made a left-wing speech in this sitting, which is something I do not normally expect from the social democrats, while the Commission generally talks only of the market, using highly capitalist rhetoric.
This is therefore somewhat of a change, hopefully in the right direction.
With regard to cofinancing, I must say that this is clearly a problem for the poor countries.
They will have difficulty in maintaining cohesion and in remaining within the concept of cohesion if the compulsory expenditure is not covered in full by the European budget.
As for milk and milk products, it is clear that a fairer allocation of quotas and the targeting of the more disadvantaged areas and young farmers is of the greatest importance to us.
This would correspond to the European model of agriculture.
With regard to cereals, we are clearly in agreement, but not on the amount by which the price of cereals must be lowered.
However, we do agree, for example, that non-food production must be encouraged so that we can continue to be farmers.
We agree that the compulsory set-aside should be maintained and in this I agree with the opinion of Mr Mulder who suggests a figure of between 0 % and 17 %.
With regard to beef and veal, Mr Garot is an expert on the subject.
We agree almost totally with his proposals and we naturally consider that the modulation is important. I also feel it is important to carefully note this modulation in the report by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
Just one thing needs to be decided: who is going to assess the modulation and who is going to judge the question of the work units on each holding?
Madam President, Commissioner, I will simply make a few general comments on Agenda 2000.
I should like to acknowledge the work done by Parliament's various rapporteurs.
My group is always prepared to contribute right up until the last minute and I should point out that we believe that some of these reports are extremely valuable.
Commissioner, before beginning this debate, we must take two basic facts into consideration: firstly, the result of the votes in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development; and secondly, the debate on the Cunha report.
Although it is true to say that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has not managed to produce clear reports on the reforms of the common organisations of the market, we must take account of the fact that the Commission's proposals have been rejected by a wide majority.
The reasons for this situation are clearly outlined in the Cunha report and reflected in Parliament's limited authority in agricultural matters.
In my view, if this House had greater powers in agricultural issues, as should be the case, the Commission would not have been able to put forward the current proposals once the Cunha report had been adopted.
The Commission's proposals do nothing more than take the 1992 CAP reform one step further. Yet we are now unfortunately aware of the considerable consequences of that reform.
Extremely high numbers of holdings are disappearing and agricultural jobs are being destroyed. In addition, the current imbalances caused by the fact that aid is allocated to farms in accordance with their size are becoming more marked, as are the imbalances between continental and Mediterranean production.
As a result, these proposals would compound the social problems in rural areas.
The Commission's proposals on the fundamental question of limiting and modulating direct aid are tentative and insufficient. They do not rectify the imbalances between farmers, so they will not help us prevent farms from disappearing.
Commissioner, with all due respect, it cannot be said that your proposal for modulation will protect social equilibrium.
The Commission should have been aware of the problems in presenting proposals for Agenda 2000 when it drew up a package of proposals on rural development that attempted to convey the idea that it would compensate for the negative effects of reforming the common organisations of the market.
The truth is that the proposals on rural development are insufficient, as Parliament has said.
At times they are more destructive than constructive and the whole fundamental and innovative aspect of agri-environmental aid, which my group supports, is partially distorted by financing regimes and proposals that, to some extent, conceal a partial renationalisation of the Community's policy.
Having discussed the content, I should like to briefly mention the circumstances that gave rise to Agenda 2000.
Although it is clear that it was an attempt to prepare for the enlargement of the European Union to include the CEECs, this aspect is only reflected in the dramatic reduction of the mechanisms for regulating the markets.
However, there is no indication of how the CAP would apply to the new members, nor of how it would be financed after 2006. Therefore, Commissioner, what will happen after 2006?
Will the dismantling of mechanisms regulating the market be taken even further?
Will the common agricultural policy be renationalised once and for all? This all remains a mystery.
In truth, my group believes that the proposals in Agenda 2000 are not so much related to enlarging the European Union but rather to developing negotiations within the World Trade Organisation.
And if this is the case, Commissioner, we should like to know that recent legislative developments in the field of agriculture in the United States will not be ignored, and that the proposed mechanisms for decreasing protection for Community agriculture will not be taken too far.
Lastly, I would like to make a brief comment on the financial aspects of Agenda 2000.
Initially, the proposals proved wanting due to the Commission's game of juggling the flow of euros.
What is more, the effects of the crisis have not been sufficiently analysed and, in the agricultural guidelines, the margin needed to finance rural development will undoubtedly be reduced.
In this respect, the Commission's lack of political vision has given rise to the suggestion in the context of the report on own resources that direct aid be cofinanced.
This is an abuse of the Commission's powers, as well as a violation of Article 2 of the Treaty and of the principle of financial solidarity. It may also pave the way for the renationalisation of the CAP.
Commissioner, you yourself have acknowledged that the debate on cofinancing should not have been held in the context of agricultural regulations, but in other forums.
However, Commissioner, this severely distorted the debate we held in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I believe that the Commission has sent out clear signals with its messages.
Finally, I should like to end by once again acknowledging the difficult task the various rapporteurs had, and to point out that my group believes that some of this work was extremely important.
Madam President, Commissioner, our group believes that the approach being taken to reform is a step in the right direction.
We think, however, that in many areas the action being taken is too half-hearted.
It is a question of abolishing public intervention, and not just of reforming it.
A price reduction within the intervention regime is wrong; instead, we need to set a deadline for being able to dispense with intervention altogether.
It is also wrong to cling to the instrument of export promotion; instead, we need to indicate when we will finish with this.
I believe that both the policy of reducing prices and, in particular, the policy in the beef and veal sector, constitute a step towards abandoning intervention.
In 2006, we - or however many of us are still around then - will discuss this, but a deadline should be given.
The same applies to issues connected with the milk sector.
We need to be told what will happen in 2006.
Are we to expect quotas to be discontinued at that time? Holdings need to prepare for this.
This also affects the question of quota trading, and the value of the quota. That concerns Germany in particular.
This should be clarified. Of course, Mr Funke, that is also a request to the presidency.
Holdings need to have security.
A further criticism is nothing new to you, Mr Fischler.
We do not want old-style alignment with the world market.
We do not want a closed shop.
We want doings and dealings, but please, if so, then we also want farmers to compete on quality.
Anyone who wants to produce for the world market should go ahead and do so, and will then have to see that he adapts his trade to the other trading partners.
The state must stay out of this.
This should not be supported with public money.
Our next criticism is that you are still not concentrating enough on the internal market.
After eastward enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, we will - after China - be the largest internal market in the world.
Production should also be targeted at this market, and competition on quality should prevail.
We want the market, and we want to make it possible for producers and farmers to gear themselves to the market.
I now have to commend you - and our group has consistently supported this - for deciding to create a specific line for structures, appropriations for which will be diverted from the EAGGF Guarantee Section, albeit rather too cautiously.
More should be done here!
But the resistance to going down the road of quality-based policy is huge.
Perhaps your courage has deserted you. But we can of course still appeal to it.
At the next round of reforms in 2006, it is to be hoped that the measures which are at present only accompanying measures will become the focus of agriculture policy.
Allow me now to comment on the conduct being displayed here in Parliament.
Until the elections in Germany, you had the German Government's blocking tactics to deal with.
Now we have the PPE Group's blocking tactics to deal with.
All the groups' coordinators on agriculture policy here had come to a unanimous agreement.
We wanted to reach a compromise. We wanted to produce a line of argument, and this time we wanted to have a say in the reform; we wanted to use this procedure to postpone the vote, to bring our influence to bear, and also to strengthen your position vis-à-vis the Council in many other areas.
Chaos was the only result.
I hope that in the vote in the plenary it will still be possible to reach a sensible consensus, so that we achieve a majority and are, after all, able to continue to exert this influence.
I should like to say to you, Mr Funke - as President-in-Office and as the German Agriculture Minister - that if Mr Borchert had still been here, the PPE Group would have gone along with this, so that there was support and a demand from Brussels; Borchert could thus have claimed that Brussels had issued demands.
Now they are going down the opposite path, so that people can say that the new Agriculture Minister is selling off agriculture and reducing prices. You should bear that in mind too.
It is the opposition which is at work here, and the present opposition still has to learn to adopt a constructive approach.
I hope that at the Council negotiations a way will be found to move employment and the environment to the centre of agriculture policy, and that in 2006 we shall be able to set this agricultural policy back on its feet once and for all.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, last year Parliament adopted Mr Cunha's report on CAP reform within the framework of Agenda 2000.
The ARE Group, in its proposal for a federal and united European Union, contributed substantially to this report and fully endorsed the proposed European agriculture model.
In the context of today's debate we must enter into the spirit of the Cunha report and the measures adopted by Parliament, in particular regarding future CAP financing.
The cost of enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe requires a more ambitious reform and equitable budgetary revision.
For the second year in a row, the average agricultural income per holding has fallen in the Union.
What is more, after more than a year the Commission has still not responded to the political demands of the European Parliament.
I should like to remind you that although the 1992 reform led to a temporary improvement in markets, it did not remedy the main problems in the operation of the CAP.
For the European Union to be able to cope with the challenges of enlargement and renewed negotiations within the WTO, the CAP needs to be thoroughly reformed so as to provide us with a viable system for the next ten years.
Such reform must be jointly determined and controlled by Parliament.
Simply proposing a unilateral reduction of the intervention prices of agricultural products does not in itself constitute a policy.
Proposing to offset scheduled price reductions by giving farmers national direct aid that might quickly be called into question, would weaken agriculture, employment and the environment, and would once again increase public aid.
If there has been a consensus on one issue, that issue is the need for CAP reform.
What is more, the Commission's motivation to carry out such a reform might indeed be questioned. It doubtless needs amending, but with what aim in mind?
The Commission, while claiming to uphold CAP principles, is in fact gearing its reform towards scrapping Community preference in favour of prior acceptance of a new opening to third-country imports, to the detriment of a thorough reform for the benefit of the Community. This would lead, among other things, to an increased reduction in the number of holdings.
In this context, what new approaches can be taken in relation to these five reports, none of which was fully adopted in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development because of national disagreements, despite efforts by my fellow rapporteurs who should be congratulated for their work and tenacity.
In my opinion Mr Mulder's report is an improvement on the Commission's text, particularly as regards agri-environmental measures and technical management measures, but the problem of cofinancing remains to be solved.
As regards Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's report and the fact that the European Commission's proposal was adopted unamended, I intend, in the spirit of the report, to endorse those amendments aimed at improving provisions relating to aid ceilings, for example on the basis of measures relating to employment and the environment.
As regards Mr Garot's report, which I fully endorse, the compromise currently under discussion calling for a limited slaughter premium per animal category should be fully endorsed by the committee. What is more, I shall support the rapporteur's call to restore balance to cattle farmers' low incomes in relation to other categories of farmers who receive more support.
In terms of milk, which is the only COM that was not amended in 1992, a delicate balance has been created by introducing quotas. This must be preserved by resisting overproduction and inflationary tendencies.
Like the rapporteur, I am in favour of balanced development in all regions and of equal income.
Additional quotas that do not distort the market must be granted firstly to young farmers and less-favoured areas such as mountainous regions by increasing aid for processing high-quality milk products.
Lastly, we must support Mr Fantuzzi's position regarding more selective intervention in quality standards and the implementation of minimum import standards.
We cannot endorse a single rule for cereals and high-protein oleaginous crops when the European Union continues to suffer a shortage of proteins for animal food.
The Commission's refusal to propose a specific regulation for high-protein oleaginous crops does not bode at all well for future WTO negotiations.
As regards set-aside, the base rate must remain low and continue to allow production to be controlled.
By the same token, voluntary set-aside for environmental reasons or non-food purposes must be reviewed.
To conclude, once again on behalf of the ARE Group, I call on the Commission to set this necessary and urgent CAP reform in motion by redistributing aid in a way which resolutely favours the rural economy, the environment and product quality, for the benefit of farmers, consumers and European taxpayers.
For many reasons, of which you will all be aware, the CAP in its present form is neither sustainable or permanent.
It is the Commission's duty to bring CAP reform closer to Community preference by basing its bilateral agreements on equitable trade rules that are aimed at maintaining jobs in agriculture and a balanced number of holdings in line with the notion of rural development adopted by Parliament.
By moving away from the traditional policy of support through price control, the CAP is not aimed at sustainable and humanist agriculture.
Any future CAP must respect the right of Europeans to control their agriculture and their food. This is the price the European Union will have to pay if it wants to be a leading player in globalisation.
Once again, to conclude I would say that it is not more or less aid that is needed, but better aid!
Madam President, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteurs for their hard work and diligence in preparing the reports.
Unfortunately the committee did not reward them as it should have done when they brought their reports to committee.
We are now embarking on a further reform of the common agricultural policy under Agenda 2000.
There is no doubt that when we are finished it will cost more and will become more difficult to defend.
We have to strive to find a balance between the producer on one hand and the consumer on the other because the taxpayer is becoming less inclined to support the rural community.
The whole of agriculture across the European Union is facing a very difficult time financially.
Returns to the farmers are reducing year on year in spite of major support going into the industry.
We are in agreement with that support.
We have to ensure that the industry survives because the family farm is the backbone of the European Union.
We must ensure that young farmers will come into the industry, that their status within that industry will be a good one and that it will be an industry they want to be part of.
Milk is an important part of the industry.
Many farmers throughout Europe depend on it and we must ensure that we get a policy that is balanced and correct.
Milk quotas in principle should remain but should be changed in line with the suckler cow and sheep quotas.
In my area farmers who do not get out of their beds in the morning to milk cows can lease their quota and make more profit than the farmer who does and who has to pay money to lease the quota through another farmer.
There must be something wrong with a system that produces a situation like that. It must be reformed and brought in line with other quota systems.
With regard to beef, in my area the industry has been totally shattered and something needs to be done to restore it.
I do not think private storage would be enough and we need to consider keeping the whole area of intervention.
I am against paying premiums on heifers and bulls and that is something the Commission should look at.
I do not think it will be a help because no extra money is available.
I cannot agree with the Commissioner when he speaks of the national envelope.
This will thoroughly change the common agricultural policy.
The national envelope will mean inequality between the nation states.
It means farmers in one area will have advantages over farmers in other areas.
We should not go down that road.
I would ask the Commissioner to take on board one other point.
If we are going to tie the hands of the producers as to how they produce food, we should not import food from non-EU countries which is not produced to the same high standards.
Do not tie farmers' hands any more.
Give them fair and equal competition with the rest of the world.
Make sure that imports into the Union are of the same standards as the food we produce.
Madam President, Commissioner, the debate on the agricultural facet of Agenda 2000 and its 8 regulations would appear to provide us with a solid legislative structure and a whole range of attractive new elements.
It therefore seems strange for us to be talking about the national envelope, sustainable or global development, cofinancing, multifunctionality, eco-conditionality, subsidiarity, high quality and the challenges to be met when, in fact, everything can be summed up in just one word: continuity.
What we are dealing with here is a new CAP reform, an overhaul of the 1992 reform.
Nothing has changed: price reductions - 15, 20, 30 % - the Malthusian set-aside, rationing and austerity.
The situation is even worse than in 1992 because not everyone will receive compensation.
It is true that you have at least achieved something new tactically speaking in that you have succeeded in dividing the Committee on Agriculture.
Proof of this lies in its rejection of the five reports. Northern Europe, Britain, Germany, ultra-liberal Europe and the Europe of accountants have applied pressure which has led to submission, then despoliation and lastly, illusion.
Pressure, submission, despoliation, illusion: this is the downward spiral in which European farmers are trapped.
The first stage is pressure, which has three sources. Firstly, there is budgetary pressure from Germany, which is keen to reduce its contribution; I can understand this and, what is more, the French might be working along similar lines; secondly, there is pressure from the cohesion countries, namely Spain, Portugal and Ireland, who all want to retain their share of the Structural Funds; thirdly, there is pressure due to enlargement to the East, which will require additional Structural Funds.
Enlargement is adding pressure precisely because it dictates agricultural price reduction to the extent that once the ten Eastern countries have arrived, EAGGF expenditure and guaranteed prices will not increase.
Lastly, pressure is being exerted by the WTO 2000 negotiations, given that Agenda 2000 is the progeny of WTO 2000.
This will lead to reductions in land aid and export aid and, as a consequence, will result in submission once again to the United States.
This submission is twofold: in the first place there is submission to Germany.
It is Germany that is pushing for cofinancing to reduce European agricultural credits and evidently to increase the Structural Funds for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which are of strategic interest to Germany.
Then there is submission to the United States, as in 1992, something which appears to be genetic in the case of the European Commission.
Even before negotiations got under way, it began by aligning itself with the United States and not once did it call on them to engage in fair trade which would take into account animal welfare, environmental protection, social protection for farmers and food quality.
No, instead it aligned itself with the United States!
And this occurred despite the fact that the United States, exceptionally, is not hesitating to release 6 billion dollars of aid for farmers when they advised us to stop giving out aid.
The result is that instead of taking the offensive we give in to them.
A perfect example of this is the symbolic banana dossier.
Section 301 applies, or is threatened to apply, and we, moreover, do not even possess the same legislative arsenal.
A fitting expression to sum this up might be: when the going is good we give in, when the going is bad we still give in!
The consequence of this is the despoliation of farmers, which is my third point.
By way of example, under the Guarantee section of the EAGGF, ECU 500 million are to be redirected to cover pre-accession funds. In other words, farmers in the West will suffer in order to finance the accession of farmers from the East.
The last to arrive will be the first to receive financial aid.
This is undoubtedly a very Christian way of going about things: the worker who arrives at the eleventh hour earns more than the people who arrived before him.
Moreover, the financial resources under the Guarantee section of the EAGGF will be used to finance restructuring and the fishing fleets which until now have been financed by the FIFG. This means that in order to help the victims of the fisheries policy, those who have suffered under the agricultural policy are forced to endure further hardship.
This is the unfortunate illusion the reform has created.
Commissioner, we are told that the aim of the reform is to achieve the European agriculture model as developed by Arlindo Cunha.
Indeed, we all agree with the family-run farms, food safety, environmental protection and sustainable development.
Nonetheless, in reality you are rigorously ensuring that the opposite of this occurs. If the reduction in agricultural prices is not fully compensated the outcome is a fall in agricultural incomes, which forces the farmer to look for other forms of compensation to keep his head above water.
And where does he find such alternative sources?
In the race for overproductivity.
This in fact means that farming will grow to the detriment of young farmers, family-run farms, country populations and the survival of the European model.
Costs will be reduced through the use of growth activators, cheap inputs and urban sludge, for example by using antibiotics, which results in a drop in quality, safety and environmental protection.
And lastly, it will lead to increased depopulation, desertification and insecurity, and a reduction in quality and food independence.
I grant you that if this scenario comes true you will have achieved the tour de force of turning the clock back to the 1960s where we counted for next to nothing on the world market.
So in this context, that of an agricultural Euro-Disney, you will not play the part of Mickey as that part is played by Mr Kantor. Neither will you play Uncle Scrooge as Germany plays that part.
You will not be the director as Walt Disney is American.
All that is left to play is the part of Pluto, the dog that keeps guard over American interests.
But at least the character of Pluto is as nice as Sissi, which will mean that Austria will get out while the going is good.
All the same, it is a shame that you are forgetting and abandoning the great agricultural operas in favour of little operettas.
Madam President, today we are debating the proposals for reform of the various agricultural sectors without knowing the possible financial impact of such proposals and, above all, whether or not they fit in with the future financial perspective.
This prevents us from being able to realistically address the fundamental question of how to finance such proposals.
It is true that the Commission has come up with some optimistic hypotheses, according to which there will not be any problems.
However, as the Court of Auditors itself has established, the truth may be somewhat different. In particular, the Court of Auditors draws our attention to the question of whether or not we will be able to manage an agricultural policy where the new Member States, which will join from 2003 onwards, will not receive direct support.
Could we maintain such a course over time without tensions arising?
The second general comment is that, although the Commission wishes to increase the competitiveness of European agriculture, it is essentially doing so through pricing instruments and by reducing guaranteed prices.
But this new direction lacks the necessary extra element as the Commission has not set up programmes promoting the high level of quality in European production.
Having established these premises, I should like to say that the path chosen by the Commission would seem to be the right one, in view of international growth forecasts, the increased competitiveness of European agriculture, the opening up to new Members and the future WTO negotiations.
But this should be an opportunity for using these proposals to correct any anomalies which still remain from the past.
For example, in the cereals sector, it would appear to be too optimistic to establish a zero rating for the compulsory set-aside of land.
There are some forecasts which say that we will still possibly need to reintroduce export refunds and will certainly to reintroduce legally binding measures.
Also, the possibility of adjusting the reference periods for regionalisation plans in some Member States should be raised, and even the idea of setting different production levels for maize in comparison to other cereals.
Moreover, it does not seem necessary to use surface area to even out aid for oilseed in relation to aid for other cereals.
As regards dairy produce, whilst the price guidelines are acceptable, there is no real justification for providing support according to the 'virtual cow' system.
Prices drop in the same way for all livestock farmers and it is ridiculous that the way support is allocated benefits precisely those who are most competitive and, in contrast, penalises those who are working to make their farms become competitive.
A similar situation applies in the meat sector.
Reform should not further penalise those Member States who have less premium units - whether these be for suckler cows or male bovines - and these reforms are on top of the age limits established for obtaining premiums for sheep.
The system that allows the Member States to distribute some support according to national guidelines also seems to us to be raising more problems than it solves. And, as the Court of Auditors itself pointed out, the need to respect a minimum Community framework is still a vague provision in the proposals.
The proposed decentralisation could cause problems when it comes to precisely determining which costs can be subsidised with Community funds.
Finally, in relation to the horizontal regulation, although we are delighted that it tries to correct some imbalances within the CAP, we do however regret the fact that there is a danger that this will be unworkable.
Defining the environmental obligations to be fulfilled must remain in the hands of Community authorities. The same applies to setting the overall ceilings for receiving aid where permanent employment can and must be taken into account.
Despite their tentative nature, we support the Commission's proposals, not so much for the savings that these proposals could make but more because we believe the indiscriminate granting of subsidies is unjustifiable. And as the Commission's own information shows, we must remember that only 0.2 % of farmers receive aid worth over ECU 100 000.
We believe that the Commission's small effort outlined in these proposals should not be subject to so much criticism from the right.
Madam President, Mr Funke, we are almost namesakes! The Fantuzzi report, on which I should like to say a few words, has indeed received a great deal of attention - at any rate, 93 amendments have been tabled by the groups, all of which are, of course, justified to a greater or lesser extent.
Mr Fantuzzi has done a good job - I have to grant him that - and he also always wears the nicest ties in Parliament, because they are made in Italy.
But he has advocated a 20 % reduction in prices, which I oppose, and I shall tell you why: 20 % is far too much for farmers to withstand.
We can only just, with gritted teeth, withstand a 10 % reduction, above all because only 50 % of this will be compensated.
In my region in Baden-Württemberg, there are not any of these holdings which Mr Rehder always claims are receiving millions.
Perhaps he should show them to me.
Not in my region in any case, where the situation is quite the opposite; farmers have a hard time of it there, and it would be nothing short of insulting to reproach them constantly for being some of the rich ones.
If we want to be competitive on the world market, Mr Funke, then we also need to know whether farmers are able to withstand this.
I wonder, however, with whom we are supposed to compete. With countries where wages are only 10 % of ours?
Where the environment is being damaged? I reject conditions of competition of this kind.
That is also why we must reject price reductions of 20 %.
Price reductions alone are not the right way to help agriculture in the long term; instead, we need more intelligent solutions, if we want to hold on to our farmers.
In practice, therefore, we also need to promote oil plants and protein crops - I fully agree with Mr Fantuzzi there - and we need to promote energy and industrial crops.
There is a shortage of these crops on the markets, and we need better support for them so that industry, and the processing plants we have now set up, can also source these products in the future.
If we promote these crops, they will enrich ecological diversity, while at the same time this would have the advantage of our not concentrating solely on cereals, cereals which we cannot sell as it is.
By constantly reducing prices, we should not turn our agricultural producers into whipping boys - it only serves to depress farmers.
After all, there is 1.5 pfennigs' worth of wheat in a bread roll, and a bread roll costs 70 pfennigs.
After the reform it will probably cost 80 pfennigs, despite the Commissioner's reducing the price of wheat by 20 %.
I cannot explain that to anyone, Mr Fischler. Can you?
Please let me have the recipe, and then I can go to the people and say that this is as it should be.
Two thirds of EU governments are led by Social Democrats, and they are unable to accept Mr Rehder's proposals.
Why then, Mr Funke, are the two thirds not saying: Mr Rehder is right, we will adopt this agricultural policy? I would take advantage of his claim that 20 % of farmers receive 80 % of the aid, but I am not even sure if he really knows what he is talking about.
In the future I should like information which is a little more specific, because that is a sound bite which is doing the rounds and which disavows agriculture ...
Heckling
... perhaps in many other regions too: I have also seen holdings of this kind in Andalusia, Mr Colino.
It does not irritate us when the information is specific, but it should be specific, and not delivered as a sound bite; otherwise we will also have to investigate in Lower Saxony, to see whether all is well there, that is quite clear.
We reject sound bites, Mr Funke - I agree with you there - and instead we should call a spade a spade.
Help us out of our plight, and afterwards I will shake your hand again, because having the name Funke is not such a bad thing after all, is it?
Mr Rehder feels that he has been challenged.
I hope that you only want to ask a question, since we are not going to embark on a debate amongst ourselves.
Madam President, I should just like to point out that this is not something which Mr Rehder - who may have been underestimated - has made up.
I invite you to go and see the President of the European Court of Auditors; he can show you the figures.
The fact is that you cannot simply denounce things which do not suit you.
That is a remedy which inflicts further damage on small farmers.
Mr Friedmann will explain it to you quite calmly, even if you still do not believe Mr Rehder, whom you have surely underestimated.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, the Luxembourg summit called for agricultural production to be able to continue in all regions of the Union, including wherever there were special problems.
The realisation of this expression of political will is the responsibility of the Council of Ministers, for which Parliament drafts an opinion.
Agricultural conditions vary widely in the Union.
In the south it is too hot and dry, while in the north it is the opposite: too little warmth, which reduces crop yield and raises building and heating costs.
The Union's permanent adverse natural conditions, both in the southern and northern regions, must definitely be taken into consideration when decisions are being made.
Maize does not grow in all Member States.
Aid for the storage of maize should therefore extend to silage for those producers of milk and beef who cannot farm maize because of the prevailing natural conditions.
Otherwise aid for maize will distort competition in the single market.
Parliament has already approved aid for silage in Mr Cunha's report.
In northern regions crop farming needs increased subsidies owing to local conditions.
Grain too has to be dried.
The harsh experience of the war has taught the nations of Europe the vital importance of their own food production.
In Finland, the Union's northernmost Member State, food production is possible thanks to the Gulf Stream.
The reductions in producer prices in Agenda 2000 are too great for producers in the EU's most problematic regions, as farmers there will not even be able to recover their production costs at current market prices. This would lead to virtual farming.
The crises of the global economy in Asia, Russia and South America have forced world market food prices down.
The USA also had to grant aid to its producers to the tune of USD 8 billion, so that farmers would not go bankrupt.
For that reason the proposed reductions in producer prices in Agenda 2000 should be halved and farmers should be fully compensated for those reductions, so as not to put too great a squeeze on European producers.
The changes in the global economy have to be taken seriously, and we should not be making it difficult for farmers to cope in the face of major challenges.
I have a question for the President-in-Office: how do you intend to make sure that the considerable producer price reductions in Agenda 2000 do not lead to a wave of bankruptcies in Europe?
Finally, I would like to remind everyone that food is a lot more than just a product with a price on it. It is European culture at its best and high quality food always has its own price.
Madam President, the common agricultural policy was to remain central to the medium- and long-term planning of European agriculture.
Despite its limitations it has stood the test of time.
But having said that, we must also provide for the unpredictable.
The present difficulties experienced by farmers are serious.
They are not the result of the 1992 reform but due to unpredictable circumstances which include BSE, the collapse of the Russian economy and, in some cases, the renationalisation of food markets.
In my view we are not responding to these short-term difficulties.
Many farmers may not survive to benefit from the long-term measures of the proposed reform which is the subject of Agenda 2000 and this debate.
I urge the Commission to look seriously and urgently at these more immediate problems.
Whatever the cost, it is not in the interests of the European Union that the family farms which are central to the European agricultural model are fast becoming marginalised.
We have a duty to respond to their plight.
In my view they are not crying 'wolf'.
Perhaps their difficulties serve the hidden agenda of some who do not have to courage to say openly that family farms do not have a future in the Europe of a new millennium.
I propose today that some financial reserve be provided within the agricultural budget to address such emergency eventualities when they occur.
With improving job opportunities outside agriculture I am worried about the continuity of family farming.
I feel young people will not take up farming as a profession.
If we ignore this fact we are burying our heads in the sand.
Down the road this Parliament will find itself having to address the serious problem of the human resources of agriculture necessary for the continuity of the agricultural sector.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, everyone is engaging in an analysis of the exceptional conditions which appear to have reduced today's debate to an impasse.
In fact, although the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development clearly rejected the Commission's proposals, it has been unable to come up with any coherent alternatives in spite of the quality of the reports presented. There are at least three reasons for this.
The first is the lack of precision and the weakness of the Commission's projections.
Today it appears clear that these projections were seriously affected by the financial crisis, the underestimation of the actual cost of the reform and prior acceptance of American demands in renegotiating the WTO agreements.
The second reason for this impasse is the financial constraints imposed by the Stability Pact with the introduction of the euro.
The third and most fundamental reason is the decision to base this reform on the need for capital returns through a reduction in agricultural prices, and not on the needs of producers, consumers or society.
The Commission can firstly be reproached for having retreated into the triple across-the-board logic of reducing prices, dismantling market management instruments and reducing European financial intervention.
It can also be reproached for wanting to impose all its ideas despite their unpopularity.
In this way, following the Vienna Summit, President Santer labelled the positions adopted by Heads of State and Government as being 'purely tactical' and went on to state that the final agreement would be based on the Commission's proposals.
To think in these terms amounts to a blatant refusal to acknowledge the widening gap between the aspirations of farmers and citizens of the Union for more jobs, higher incomes and a better quality of life, and the Commission's ultra-liberal ambitions.
If those countries who are experiencing the gradual exodus of agricultural workers, the growing imbalance between producers, produce and land, and the uncertainties surrounding food safety, had the opportunity - as we will tomorrow - to censure such a policy, they would do so.
In this context, it is incumbent on both Parliament and the Council to develop an alternative policy.
We have the means to do so.
Twice Parliament has called for a new approach to the CAP, an approach based on employment, balanced land use, the Community preference and a rejection of cofinancing.
I also think that the Committee on Agriculture's vote on the various reports has revealed an overall desire to reject alignment with world prices, to protect agricultural incomes, to pay for all the social benefits agriculture offers in terms of employment, land development and the environment, to limit and modulate public aid by distributing it more fairly and to maintain producers' organisations and market management instruments by improving them.
This constructive and alternative approach can once again be demonstrated either in preparation for Parliament's vote on 28 January or by referring the reports back to committee, which would give the Commission a strong hint that it needs to formulate other proposals.
As regards the Council, the presidency yesterday and today reaffirmed its good intentions to develop a more competitive and ecological form of agriculture, protect farmers' interests and advance a more effective employment policy.
However, by enclosing all of these proposals in the straitjacket of budgetary austerity and reduced agricultural expenditure, would the Council be able to resolve current contradictions in European integration?
Might it not worsen the economic and social recession that threatens us at present, given that the solution would appear to lie in increasing the Union's financial resources from the profits generated by financial activity?
This would appear all the more essential as agriculture and food production are faced with the human and global challenges of the next millennia.
Parliament focused its report on the need to respond to the challenges facing humanity in terms of food, energy, the environment, water supply and sustainable development.
The decisions this House will make on 28 January must remain faithful to these aims.
Madam President, the Agenda 2000 package of reforms provides a major challenge to Europe's decision-makers and I do not underestimate that in any way.
The need to achieve an early agreement on the package must be balanced with the importance of ensuring that a fair and a reasonable set of proposals is seen to be adopted.
The common agricultural policy clearly must be examined and adjusted in an attempt to strike a balance between on the one hand providing proper support to our food production industry, and on the other hand ensuring that good value is achieved for the expenditure of public funds.
Adequate and transparent systems must of course be in place to ensure that financial controls meet the high standards that we are entitled to expect.
The diversity of circumstances across the European Union in the agricultural sectors clearly requires due consideration in the new common agricultural policy, which must be tailored to properly fulfil its purpose.
My home area of Europe - the north-east of Scotland - is sometimes called the larder of Scotland, containing as it does some of the best examples of high-quality agricultural, and indeed fisheries, production in Europe.
Aberdeen Angus beef, cereals, oilseed, sheep, poultry, soft fruit and potatoes, to name but a few, are all produced in an industry which is economically crucial to Scotland, with an output of £2 billion and one in ten of all Scottish jobs being dependent on it, directly or indirectly.
Our farmers are all aware and accept that common agricultural policy reform is needed, but the nature of the final report proposals should reflect the needs of the industry in Scotland, for example, in the definition of farm unit size.
Scotland, politically, is in a disadvantaged position at this moment, with our national interests being represented from London.
I hope that, as the reform package is finalised, the UK Government will, this time, properly articulate the case of Scotland's agricultural industry and that the Commissioner will take due note of any direct representations received from Scotland.
Our farmers, as well as our consumers and our taxpayers, are entitled to expect that reforms will bring about a genuine improvement in any new package and that specific changes, once agreed, can be carefully phased in so that our farmers can adjust to further changes in a properly managed way.
The farmers that I know are hardworking people, many in small family businesses who are aware of, and accept fully, their responsibilities to the consumer, to the environment and to the rural economy.
Madam President, Commissioner, let us work towards a common agricultural policy which will encourage, not further discourage, their efforts to continue to survive.
Madam President, Commissioner, in September 1997 when I drew up the opinions of the Committee on Agriculture on the Agenda 2000 Communication and on the Structural Fund reform, especially concerning Objective 2, I highlighted the financial problems of the CAP as well as the dramatic consequences that the initial proposals put forward by the Commission would have on European farmers' incomes.
For more than a year these problems have been hidden to a certain extent, both by the Commission and by a great many professional agricultural associations who at the time had not fully comprehended the situation.
Today the problems are building up, from the partial disappearance of the green ECU to the fall in both farmers' incomes and the number of farmers - it must be added, contrary to the objectives of land-use planning - and so on.
So, in order to solve this financial equation we no longer talk only in terms of reduced prices for agricultural products, with of course the promise of full or partial compensation through aid that will inevitably be called into question within the framework of future WTO negotiations.
Given that this will not be enough to help budgetary balance, the needs of enlargement and many other problems, some are advocating CAP cofinancing. This would mean an artificial increase in the European budget which would be entirely inconsistent with the Edinburgh agreements and the Treaties.
As Mr Fantuzzi mentioned earlier, all of this seems worthy of a motion of censure even if a good financing plan that was clear, precise and took into account the development of expenditure at current or constant prices had been able to clarify our debates and prevent all the rapporteur's proposals from unfortunately receiving such a pounding.
The CAP, I should like to stress, is the only genuine common policy we have and I was surprised to note today that the defenders of a federal Europe are prepared to sacrifice it in favour of other interests.
No one would deny that the CAP in its present form is in need of reform, Commissioner, which goes to show that the original version was no good or at least was not sufficiently well adjusted to agricultural development and the needs of society.
We have had the problem of BSE to contend with and very shortly the GMO problem will lead to understandable consumer concerns over food safety.
If there was one reform needed it would evidently be needed in this area, but the Commission's proposals - your proposals, Commissioner - for price reductions force farmers to seek compensation for this steady fall in their income through ever more intensive production methods by enlarging their buildings, finding ways to reduce their input costs and by intensifying production to the detriment of environmental issues.
For some this will mean fertilisation using urban sludge with all the risks associated with it. For others it will mean using growth activators and using less costly animal feed.
Finally, Madam President, when these proposals for CAP reform are discussed with other proposals on animal welfare and the responsibilities of farmers who produce agricultural foodstuffs, we note that European farmers are caught up in a downward spiral, the inevitable consequence of which will be to speed up rural depopulation.
Is this really your aim? Is this really our aim?
I do not think so, but the action we are taking is unfortunately leading us in this direction.
Madam President, as is well known, the CAP is based on three principles: the unified market, Community preference and financial solidarity.
Regrettably, these principles are increasingly being called into question.
In particular, the principle of Community preference is under attack from the large multinational food companies, which see it as standing in the way of their attempts basically to destroy Europe's small farms.
As far as financial solidarity is concerned, the Member States' main concern seems to be to assess the costs and benefits arising for each of them from the implementation of the CAP.
We are aware that resources must be earmarked under the Community budget to finance employment and infrastructure measures but, in our view, if agriculture is sacrificed to this end, Europe will be taking a step backwards in a sector which is crucial to international competition.
I should therefore like to know what guarantees are to be given for the future of farmers in Padania and Europe, so as to protect their incomes and their technical and human resources.
Madam President, I welcome the work carried out by our rapporteurs.
It remains to be seen what you will make of it, Commissioner, at a time when the Commission is being particularly criticised.
In my opinion, the best proof of our will and ability to work towards improving human society in Europe and throughout the world would involve shrewdly deciding our future and making social choices.
But we need to have the means to be able to do this, and instead of limiting ourselves in budgetary terms and thus restricting our political activities in a way that is unsatisfactory, we need to ensure that we have sufficient financial resources to progress.
Since the beginning, the common agricultural policy was the motor behind the creation of what was first the common market and then the European Community and now the European Union, pending the advent of the European State.
We are in a state of political penury.
European decision-makers are all too often in the pay of the United States which has forced its ideas, its operation and production methods on us to the detriment particularly of European farmers - 40 million jobs in agriculture have been lost since 1960 - and the cultural dimension of European agriculture.
The United States, having imposed their antisocial rules on us by means of the GATT, now want to impose their hormones on us until such a time when they can unleash their unfettered genetic engineering in Europe.
These practices, which mean a couple of extra dollars in the pockets of genetic engineers but rarely boost farmers' incomes, undermine consumer confidence in the food products that we place at their disposal.
There is a huge distance between the debate on quality and the measures actually taken to implement this quality.
Budgetary phobia, added to the bad handling of what has been termed the mad cow crisis, has considerably undermined my confidence in the Commission, in its ability to shrewdly predict the future - and not only the future of European farmers - and its overall approach to what is generically referred to as rural society, its role and its future, without forgetting the Community preference provided for in the Treaty of Rome.
Commissioner, you are being asked, as we indeed are, to reorganise European agriculture through Agenda 2000 with farmers of whom over 60 % are over 50 years old. And, as you mentioned earlier, as much as possible will be achieved with these people, but there appears no desire to take measures to make the farming profession and that of rural and environmental manager more attractive to young people.
Nothing specific has been proposed, not even a credible 20-year draft outlining what will be done for farmers about to retire or for the young people who might begin their careers.
I suggest you do a little test, Commissioner, if you have enough time, among the people in your office to see what conditions would be necessary to entice civil servants away from their jobs to take over or start a farm somewhere in either Northern or Southern Europe.
I am sure that if we were to create conditions based on the answers given we would see young people flocking to work in farming.
Agenda 2000 also requires us to provide for enlargement to include countries of the East.
I should like to say straight away that I am in favour of this enlargement taking place.
But if it is stated that there will be no increase in the budget and that the same envelope will be kept for agriculture and for the Structural Funds, this will essentially boil down to Southern Europe paying for enlargement to the East. In other words it is the poor in the South who will be paying for their poor Eastern counterparts.
This situation is unacceptable, Commissioner.
I should like to conclude by reminding you that our common enemy, politically speaking of course, is the Council.
Commissioner, in your position regarding the resolutions adopted by Parliament, you will need to remember this.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, for us the Agenda is a package.
At the outset, I will say quite deliberately that in the end, it is the results which will count and not only whether we keep to the timetable.
For me, the Commission's proposals on agriculture go too far.
I think that the votes in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development have made it clear that there will be no majority in this House in favour of the Commission proposals, as they currently stand.
After all, if we look at America, we find that two years after the farm bill came into force, discussions on parts of it have already been reopened.
Let us not make the strategic mistake of already wanting, as it were, to negotiate away some of the negotiating points which we need for the forthcoming WTO round.
I tell you quite clearly, Commissioner Fischler, that anyone who works in this way has never worked with cattle.
Mr President-in-Office, perhaps we should issue a joint statement to the German and European public, saying: we do not have any problem, in terms of both sides making the necessary adjustments, with fully integrating the agricultural economies of the applicant countries by 2004, provided that the basic freedoms of the internal market - free movement of people, capital, services and goods - are established at the same time. There could then at long last be a fair debate in this House about the other difficulties and stumbling-blocks connected with the agricultural policy.
On the financial side, I should like to say that obviously the issue of fair contributions and a balanced budget in terms of both income and expenditure forms part of the Agenda debate.
The question of cofinancing also belongs in this negotiating package.
As you know, Parliament will be giving its definitive opinion on this in February.
I must of course also confess, Mr President-in-Office, that the reason why the question of cofinancing is so controversial with German farmers and the subject of such contentious debate is that they might see themselves being faced with considerable problems - in view of the transposition of the accompanying measures and the reluctance of several Länder to cofinance them - if we were to choose this approach. As you know, even Lower Saxony was not exactly at the top of the list for transposing the accompanying measures in Germany.
These days, of course, everyone has their experts.
Commissioner Fischler, I should like to say very clearly that the experts recently drafted in by the Commission, whom you specifically referred to as testifying for the Commission proposals, produced reports which are based on very foolhardy theories.
This is because if you are going to say that price reductions will benefit consumers, that unions and employers will take account of these price reductions and that this will affect prices accordingly, then the price of pigmeat in recent months ought to have been substantially lower.
When, during this presidency, we are debating and arguing about employment policy, we should not forget that these experts are assuming that there will be a substantial decline in the number of those employed in agriculture, if these proposals go through as they stand.
That is another reason why they need to be fundamentally amended.
Madam President, there is widespread agreement in Parliament that we should have agricultural reform.
The question is whether we can agree on a reform which has the right balance, so that the agricultural sector does not end up carrying the heaviest load, and so that the burden in connection with the reform which will take place because of enlargement and the WTO negotiations is evenly distributed.
I have a few comments to make.
The first concerns the Fantuzzi report on cereals.
I think the reduction in the price of cereals proposed by the Commission is too great, because inadequate compensation is being provided.
I would like to bring the attention of both the President-in-Office and the Commissioner to the fact that cereals are the most important element in controlling agricultural production.
If the price of cereals is low, this will result in over-production of animal products in the form of beef and veal, pigmeat, eggs and poultry, because the farmers will want to have compensation and everyone will exploit the low price of cereals.
I therefore think the price of cereals is set too low and the Commission is not sufficiently interested in using set-aside.
The set-aside scheme is the best tool for regulating the production of cereals. The USA has shown this for many years.
If the production of cereals is too high, land is put into storage. That is cheaper than putting cereals into storage.
Finally, Commissioner, a comment on the calculation showing that EUR 3-4 billion is being saved on the budget and that consumers are saving EUR 10-15 billion.
This means that agriculture will transfer EUR 15 billion to consumers and agriculture will lose out in the reform, because compensation will not be available through the market, and that is no solution for supplying the market with agricultural produce.
I think there is a long way to go before we can reach agreement on agricultural reform, but I hope we can succeed.
I agree that it should happen before March, and we will do our best.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, 1999 will be a decisive year for the future of European agriculture.
At the Vienna European Council in December a number of disagreements remained and some Member States wanted to reduce their contribution to the Union budget. This seriously called into question the financial solidarity between Member States and overall European unity.
I should like to remind you and, moreover, stress that agriculture is the only sector to have a common policy on which European integration has hinged for the past four decades.
In Agenda 2000 the Commission proposed a reduction in support prices, an increase in direct aid to producers, cofinancing by Member States, and so on, but it remained frustratingly silent about the increase in the production of agricultural products for non-food purposes, which is something I regret deeply.
I remain absolutely convinced that the European Union needs to create a development strategy for non-food agricultural products and that the Commission needs to include a specific section on such products in the CAP reform.
In fact, these non-food agricultural products are able to meet a large number of needs in terms of agriculture and rural development. For example they can meet needs relating to food production control, diversification and employment, and they can help maintain a rural bias in industrial spheres in the production of new renewable materials and meet general interest needs regarding the protection of the biosphere.
All of these elements will very positively help define a specific European agriculture model.
This is why, on behalf of the UPE Group, I have tabled three amendments along these lines, in the context of the Graefe zu Baringdorf report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the proposed CAP reforms presented by the Commission are no more than an attempt to continue the 1992 reform.
The effects of this are well-known and included discrimination between farmers, regions and products. In addition, its consequences, particularly for my country have become clear in recent years and include reducing the number of holdings and jobs, abandoning and emptying the countryside and ruining family-based agriculture.
The proposals must therefore be changed by radically altering their orientation.
The support for large farmers and holdings must be drastically limited and the aid to family-based agriculture and small and medium-sized holdings must be significantly increased through positive and genuine modulation.
Furthermore, sufficient resources must be provided to finance a common policy which aims to include new countries struggling with the fall in prices and the American requirements in terms of the next WTO round of talks.
Finally, it must be reaffirmed here and now that the recent cofinancing proposal, that is, the recent proposed renationalisation of the costs, and only the costs, of the CAP, is not acceptable, neither in the light of solidarity nor on the basis of the Treaties.
The recent rejection of the proposed regulations in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is a sign which must be fully respected by the Commission and particularly by the Council.
Madam President, one of the intentions of CAP reform is to reduce support prices to bring them into line with the world market, in order to comply with international agreements.
The compensatory payments to farmers do not, however, cover the resulting loss of income, and thus endanger the farming community.
The Commission proposals are geared towards the world market.
The European farming industry is, however, very diverse and structured in smaller units than is the case in the United States, for example; it is hard to make a direct comparison.
Even US experts warned that full-blown liberalisation would threaten international agricultural commodities markets with the same fate as that of US farmers - a loss of income of 16 % - and advocated market stabilisation measures.
Quantity management must continue to form part of the market organisations.
We need farmers who maintain the ecological balance and care for the countryside.
Linking compensatory payments to environmental requirements is desirable and important, but for this to be fair, it has to be done on the basis of uniform European environmental standards.
This reform package would continue to sound the death knell for farmers. It is not acceptable in its present form.
Thank you, Mrs Raschhofer.
The debate is now adjourned; it will be resumed this afternoon at 3 p.m.
VOTES
Mr President, the text of the Treaty is perfectly clear.
We have expressed our intention to reject the Council's common position and it must now call a meeting of the Conciliation Committee to see if it can reach some sort of agreement regarding the amendments.
If this is not done, if the Council refuses, it is likely that when discussions have ended, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media will put forward a motion rejecting the common position.
But we are still hopeful of finally arranging a meeting with the Council so that we can work together on amendments which will enable the Council and Parliament to agree on a solution which both respects Parliament's prerogatives and guarantees the cultural quality of the cities chosen in 2005 and beyond.
I thank the rapporteur Mr Monfils for his explanation.
We will await the Council's reaction and determine our position accordingly.
Mr President, you took the vote incredibly quickly, which I welcome, but I did not have a chance to speak.
I would like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that there is an error in the German version of Amendment No 18 on Article 5 which needs to be corrected.
In Article 5(1) it says 'sorgen dafür ' and in Article 5(2) it says 'stellen sicher '.
In legal terms there is a considerable difference between the two.
It should say 'stellen sicher'.
Mr Ullmann, we will look into that without any difficulty.
In linguistic terms it can be corrected.
In any event, the House has approved your report by a large majority, and that is why I congratulated you.
Mr President, I should like to clarify two points in relation to this report.
Firstly, we need to take into consideration in paragraph 2 of the resolution the fact that Portugal - and this is something I welcome - has ratified ILO Convention 138.
The reference to Portugal in paragraph 2 should therefore be withdrawn.
Secondly, I agree with Mr Kittelmann's Amendment No 9 as a replacement for paragraph 19.
Mr Sainjon, thank you for your explanations.
Of course, there is no question about the first point; it is a technical correction of a factual matter, and I need not therefore seek Parliament's approval.
I have taken note of the second point.
Mr President, I am pleased to note the statement made by Mr Sainjon about the need to remove the incorrect reference to Portugal in paragraph 2 of this motion for a resolution.
However, I would like to ask the Bureau what procedure we can use to remove this reference. Is it the rapporteur who makes the correction or do we have a separate vote to remove these two words from paragraph 2?
Mr Barros Moura, what I said was precisely that we do not need a vote, it is a technical correction of a factual matter and now that the rapporteur has pointed it out, the reference to Portugal can be deleted without further ado.
On Amendment No 9
Mr President, I would like Mr Sainjon to explain how he intends to proceed with paragraph 21 if he supports Amendment No 9 by the PPE Group.
As I pointed out, Mrs Mann, I accept Amendment No 9 tabled by Mr Kittelmann as a replacement for paragraph 19, on the understanding that the rest of the resolution, namely paragraphs 20, 21 and 22, remains unchanged.
Mr President, I can confirm that approval of the Kittelmann amendment means for us the approval of paragraphs 20, 21 and 22.
I must add that for us the voluntary nature of the code de conduite is a crucial point.
Only if this is included in our text can we approve it fully.
Mr President, as regards paragraph 19, I should like to withdraw the Liberal Group's amendment in favour of Amendment No 9 by the PPE Group on condition that a phrase is added, namely 'for boys and girls' after the words 'career opportunities'.
I have discussed this with the PPE Group, and therefore ask for it to be approved.
We are withdrawing Amendment No 4 in favour of Amendment No 9, provided the words 'for boys and girls' are added to Amendment No 9.
Parliament adopted the resolution
We think there is good reason to consider carefully our stance on the committee's proposal to reject the common position adopted by the Council.
We believe that the European Capital of Culture event is of great benefit to the Community.
For the sake of the event's future, it is essential that there should be a fair and effective system for deciding which cities should host the event and when.
We feel that the compromise proposal of an automatic rota system with a guidance panel with diminished powers, as put forward by the Council, has some definite disadvantages.
On the one hand, the proposal would transfer the emphasis from the cities - which are supposed to be the focus of the event - to countries, and on the other, the Council procedure undermines the position of the European Parliament.
In this respect, the committee's criticism - in line with previous decisions - is correct.
We would nevertheless stress the need to find a solution that is acceptable to all Member States, in order to avoid future arguments over the selection of cities and the designation of years.
Moreover, the advantage of the Council's proposal is that an element of predictability would be introduced which would make planning and follow-up activities easier for the city concerned.
Our position on this issue depends partly on whether or not we think a compromise will improve the way in which nominations for the European Capital of Culture event are handled, and partly on whether a viable solution to the problem can be found which avoids argument in the future.
We have decided not to support this report.
The European Capital of Culture event is one of the most successful Community projects.
If it is to be as highly regarded by Member States in the future, then we must settle our differences on how cities are chosen, and it is important that this is done fairly.
It is doubtful whether the Council's compromise proposal to establish a rota system based on the same order as the presidency, with an additional city from a third country being chosen every year, is the best solution. However, it is a proposal for which all the Member States, after a good many ifs and buts, have expressed support.
Negative criticism of the event has mostly been levelled at the need for long-term planning and the lack of ongoing results.
An automatic rota allows both countries and cities to prepare for the event and to develop it further.
Pollack recommendation (A4-0483/98)
Mr President, I would like to emphasise the importance of Mrs Pollack's report. It is part of a general endeavour to improve air quality throughout the European Union.
I consider it extremely important that Parliament continues to demand binding limit values for particle emissions, for example.
The issue is a serious one and one that concerns the health of all our citizens, since the latest studies prove just how dangerous particle emissions really are.
I hope the Council of Ministers will also take Parliament's position seriously.
Ullmann report (A4-0507/98)
Parliament underlined the importance of EU legislation in this area on 17 June 1998, in a resolution in which it argued that it was necessary to create a legal framework at European level to ensure mutual confidence in digital signatures and to promote the development of a number of certification schemes which could be used in various areas such as electronic shopping and electronic communications between government bodies and citizens.
The Commission's proposal for a directive on a common framework for electronic signatures is a positive measure and a major step in the right direction.
However, I hope that the many relevant amendments proposed by the committee, which are aimed at clarifying the text of the directive, will be taken into account during the next stage of the procedure.
Elchlepp report (A4-0437/98)
It is gratifying that negotiations with the applicant countries are progressing and that agreements are being reached on a country by country basis.
Competition policy is a major issue for the countries concerned, but let us hope not unduly so.
It was assumed that it would take approximately ten years for the applicant countries to complete the transformation from dictatorship and a planned economy to democracy and a market economy.
The process involved adapting to the EU and its established law and practice, but despite what appeared to be almost impossible odds, these countries, in particular the Baltic states, have succeeded beyond all our expectations in a remarkably short period of time.
However, the political and economic pressures on these countries are enormous.
If they are to succeed, the Union must be flexible and provide generous economic support.
The Green Group has maintained that accession negotiations should be held with all three Baltic states simultaneously, in order to promote harmonious political and economic development in the area and to avoid endangering the fragile cooperation process.
We very much regret that the Commission has chosen an alternative strategy which makes it more difficult to achieve that objective.
Seppänen report (A4-0443/98)
Mr President, I am of course in favour of the agreement with Latvia and I am also in favour of Latvia's inclusion in and accession to the European Union as soon as possible.
However, I must say that, although I agree with the Seppänen report, I have considerable problems with its explanatory statement as it is an accurate representation of the Russian nationalist point of view in this context.
It describes NATO membership for Latvia as dangerous and points to the problematic issue of Russian minorities.
But it does not mention that this problem is a consequence of the fact that, contrary to the provisions of international law, Latvia was occupied for decades and subjected to a systematic settlement policy, and that the country was therefore settled by occupation in violation of international law.
Attempts are now being made to use this problem, which undoubtedly needs to be solved sensitively, as an excuse for possibly calling Latvia's independence into question.
Therefore, I believe that Latvian membership of NATO would not aggravate this problem but would alleviate it.
If Latvia knows that its freedom and independence are no longer under threat it will also deal with its minority problems in a more relaxed manner.
Porto report (A4-0445/98)
This agreement has now been on our desks for more than two years, as the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy was right to initially withhold its approval in April 1997.
Korea has admittedly been a member of the OECD since 1996 but this country has not met the corresponding conditions with regard to its labour legislation.
The main trade unions are still banned, hiring and firing is customary, and the situation in the workplace is unacceptable.-The harmful consequences of dictatorial regimes such as the National Security Law, and the resulting host of political prisoners are contrary to our understanding of the rule of law.
Fundamental democratic rights continue to be flouted.
As Article 1 of the agreement consists of a democracy and human rights clause, the agreement would have to be immediately suspended as soon as it came into force.-The death penalty continues to exist, and so on.Great hopes were pinned on the change of government.
The financial crisis in Asia also changed the situation.
Nothing, or practically nothing, has been done for this people that has been abused for centuries.
Yet industry, businesses and certain sections within the Commission want the green light for bilateral trade.
The reasons they give include the shift in the balance of trade, enormous market opportunities, liberalisation and the whole package of measures that the IMF has made a condition of its financial assistance.
Human rights and labour rights, on the other hand, are no longer mentioned by those in favour.
From experience, however, we cannot rely on a simple trickle-down effect where human rights are concerned.
There have already been too many dictatorships whose economic performance was excellent while people lived in want and disappeared.
We in Parliament would be giving up an important instrument for bringing pressure to bear if we were now to give our approval.
We would then no longer have any way of intervening. Parliament has no say on the democracy and human rights clause.
Yesterday evening's debate confirmed the view of the Green Group that we should withhold our approval of the agreement.
Sir Leon Brittan has assured us that he will do everything that he deems diplomatically appropriate to ensure that conditions are improved in Korea.
Unfortunately, we know that the euro is much more important to him than social well-being.
And his refusal to give Parliament an annual report on the situation in Korea simply means that we will never have the Commission's position in writing on this.
His offer to present the information orally in Parliament certainly sounds promising, but by doing so he is avoiding any serious possibility of having to do his duty properly.
A good relationship with Korea and the welfare of its inhabitants are issues that are very important to us. It is precisely because of this that the time is not yet right for this agreement.
Brok report (A4-0488/98)
Mr President, I abstained from the vote on the Brok report, not because I do not agree with most of his proposals; of course I do!
Indeed, this week I am more strongly than ever in favour of Parliament having a stronger influence over the Commission.
We must ensure that Parliament is no longer the Commission's slave but that instead the Commission - which must of course also be strong, but supported by Parliament - is monitored by a strong Parliament.
This week we have seen the disaster that has occurred as a result of this not being the case hitherto.
I am in favour of the strictest measures in the current crisis, perhaps going as far as a motion of censure.
But there is one thing that I do not agree with: the proposal to have an elected President of the European Commission.
I could perhaps have accepted this in the Social Democrats' more moderate version but not in the form in which it has now been adopted, because in my opinion an election of this kind is not appropriate for a multinational structure such as the EU and could easily lead to national or nationality-related problems.
In my view, the Commission and the Commission President must be determined by Parliament, but I do not believe in this kind of EU-wide presidential election.
The report is a very relevant one as regards the changes in the appointment of the President of the Commission introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, we do not entirely agree with the ideas contained in paragraphs I(2), I(3) and I(4). We think the implications of these requirements are too far-reaching and specific.
Instead, we support the amendments to the above paragraphs tabled by the PSE Group. In our view, they allow the governments of the Member States more room for political manoeuvre, since they make the more modest assertion that it would be interesting if, in future, the political movements were to nominate candidates for the presidency of the Commission.
Amendment No 2 is also more circumspect, pointing out that it would be wise for Member States' governments to take account of the outcome of the European elections when nominating the candidate for the presidency of the Commission.
The amendment goes on to propose that Parliament should hold a vote as soon as possible on the candidate nominated by the Member States.
Nor are we able to support paragraph II(1), which we regard as too broad in scope but too specific as regards the number of Commission members to be chosen from among sitting MEPs.
Instead, we support the amendment to this paragraph tabled by the PSE Group, to the effect that we should continue to develop the practice which has been successful up to now of choosing some MEPs as Members of the Commission.
Furthermore, we cannot give our wholehearted support to paragraph IV(3), since we think it is far too specific as regards the time appointed for the nominee to make a statement of intent.
Instead, we support the amendment tabled by the PSE Group to the effect that the nominee for President of the Commission should make, as extensively as possible, a statement of intent, followed by a debate, at the July 1999 part-session.
This debate was needed because the Amsterdam Treaty strengthened Parliament's powers with regard to the investiture of the Commission President since the vote is now binding. It also strength the power of the nominated President with regard to the choice of the Commissioners - in agreement with the national governments - the definition of the Commission's programme and, once appointed, the political coordination and direction of the Members of the Commission.
It is therefore necessary to strengthen the democratic legitimacy and political responsibility of the Commission and consequently of its President.
This is the main thrust of the idea proposed by Jacques Delors, and backed by Mário Soares and Felipe González among others. It aims to organise the European election campaign around not just a political programme but also the choice of Commission President, with the European political parties having to publicly present their candidate for this post to the electorate.
The main positive effect of this would be the personalisation of the election campaign and therefore increased visibility of the institutions, better understanding of the rationale and greater emotional identification of the citizens with the European Union itself and its objectives and policies.
I believe that the EU would surely gain in terms of greater prestige, proximity to the people and democratic responsibility.
The Brok report generally includes these objectives, although the requirements of realpolitik , which aims to preserve the power of the prime ministers to negotiate and choose the person to be proposed to the European Parliament, have dulled the clarity of the report in favour of forms of parliamentary compromise that allow room for both sides of the argument.
In any case, it has been proposed - I am pleased to say that this is due to my amendment - that the European Council should choose the person to be nominated as Commission President bearing in mind the election results.
It is therefore not right for the German Government to claim that it will start the process of nominating the next Commission at the Cologne European Council set for 3 June, before the European elections!
The method thus proposed allows the necessary involvement of the other relevant and pro-European political forces in the Commission by means of the Commissioners in important posts.
In particular, this does not conflict with the continuing intergovernmental nature of the EU and its institutions, which were originally conceived as having a supranational nature.
However, this method is the only way for the nomination and future appointment of the Commission to correspond to a genuine agreement - as specified in the Amsterdam Treaty - between the Council of Ministers and the Parliament directly elected by the people.
Parliament would surely gain in legitimacy - because the elections would have a higher turnout - and also in responsibility.
The Commission President would gain in authority in respect of the Commissioners and the governments. This is essential in order to guarantee that the Commission is the independent body acting as the political driving force of the European Union and defining the Community interest, as is provided for in the Treaties.
It is not the administrative secretariat of a Council, easily dominated by the large Member States. It is clear that this system would involve a strengthening of the political responsibility of the Commission and its Members who would be considered individually by Parliament, and this would certainly be welcome.
The experience of the appointment and performance of the Santer Commission and the circumstances which caused this motion of censure demonstrate that realpolitik has not led in this case to satisfactory solutions, be it for the EU and its prestige, be it for the Member States and their citizens, or be it for the European Parliament and its irreplaceable role in the construction of a European democracy.
Since the beginning of my term of office as an MEP, I have met many European citizens who deplore the lack of democratic dialogue within the Community institutions and particularly within the European Commission.
The most frequent criticism relates to the European Commission's lack of direct democratic base, which is partly due to the more or less secret negotiations it holds and the balances it strikes without most of the electorate knowing.
The single currency is in place, enlargement continues according to its own criteria, and in six months the European Parliament elections will take place. It would therefore be highly appropriate for European democracy to fully commit itself to a broader process of reforming the Commission.
To satisfy some 370 million Europeans it is time to seriously consider nominating candidates for the presidency of the European Commission in the elections next June to allow them enough time to present a genuine political programme. It would also enable the person nominated to be accompanied by Commissioners who have been selected from among the elected representatives of the European Parliament.
Article 214 of the Amsterdam Treaty confers new powers on the European Parliament and brings the Commission's term of office into line with that of the European Parliament.
It is therefore perfectly possible for this proposal to be implemented in time for the June 1999 deadline.
The advantage of this would be twofold: it would make the electoral campaign more dynamic by upping the stakes, namely European policy for the next five years, and it would also create a more independent European Commission, one that would better implement Community law and do so with respect for political equilibrium.
A more tangible Europe, and one which is closer to its citizens, has never seemed as realistic and feasible as it is now, thanks to the Brok report.
I therefore approve of its provisions and as it is the beginning of a new year, I should like to express my wish to see the majority of us commit ourselves to this aim, an aim which the majority of Europeans are hoping will be achieved.
Grand federalist moves to definitively transform the European Commission into the government of Europe are once again in full swing.
Last October, the President of the European Parliament in this House welcomed the new role conferred on the Commission by the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, which according to him involve the Commission exercising political, legislative and budgetary management.
Today, through the Brok report, the Committee on Institutional Affairs takes over by trying to create new provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty, the 'catalyst for fundamental changes in Community interinstitutional relations'.
The new provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty are deliberately quite unclear, in line with the tried and tested federalist way.
In any case they have never been clearly explained to the citizens, as the debate currently taking place in France goes to show.
For example, amendments to Articles 158(2) (appointment of the President and Members of the Commission) and 163 (internal organisation of the Commission) help the Committee on Institutional Affairs to twist its interpretation of the Treaty according to the federalist view. This view sees the gradual transformation of the Commission into a sort of government of the Union, invested by Parliament on the basis of a programme of 'political guidelines' which reflects the results of the last European elections.
The legal basis is exploited for the good of the cause.
In particular, the 'political guidelines' evoked in Article 163 of the Treaty are, in the context of this Article, aimed at constituting the Commission's instrument of internal discipline and not an 'investiture programme'.
Furthermore, such a programme certainly does not exist under Article 158, which deals with the Commission's appointment.
More generally speaking, the Commission's shift towards government status, as recommended in the Brok report, in our view goes against the nature of the Union and as a consequence, beyond the terms of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In fact, despite its ambiguities, the Treaty leaves the Council the right of initiative in choosing the nominees for the Commissioners' posts and the power to finally appoint the new Commission (Article 158).
These provisions should also be viewed in the light of the Treaty as a whole, which leaves the Member States the most important role, both under Article D, which entrusts the European Council with responsibility for providing the Union with the necessary impetus and defining the general political guidelines thereof, and Article 145, which gives the Council the power to take decisions, coordinate economic policies, and confer implementing powers on the Commission.
Therefore, notwithstanding federalist eagerness to exploit the new Amsterdam provisions to their own ends (which was only to be expected) we are firmly convinced that the Council should retain its pivotal role in accordance with the general thrust of the Treaty and the Union's status as an association of States.
In fact, we should like to consolidate this role by making the Commission itself accountable to the Council.
Lastly, the idea of the 'Commission's independence', on which the report lays great emphasis, is, in our view, extremely ambiguous.
Although we agree that the Commission's independence vis-à-vis pressure groups should be enhanced (and, indeed, have tabled amendments seeking to ensure this), we do not believe it to be of the least use vis-à-vis the democratically elected governments meeting within the Council.
As I emphasised yesterday in the general debate, the theory of the Commission's independence has induced a feeling of superiority which is largely responsible for the lax behaviour noted today.
Fraud is the natural outcome of poor European institutional planning.
We must not increase but reduce the Commission's independence, and we must reduce the excessive privileges this body enjoys: a monopoly on initiative, self-regulation, discretionary powers, and so on.
We abstained on the report by Mr Brok, which emphasises the influence and responsibility of the European Parliament with regard to approving the Commission.
We are supporters of this form of vetting of the Members of the Commission before they take office, but we do not think that people should only be eligible for a post in the Commission if they are current or former Members of the European Parliament.
There are many other ways of gaining parliamentary experience so as to be able to carry out such a job.
Similarly, we are not avid supporters of each group in the European Parliament having its own candidate for the position of President of the Commission as part of the election campaign.
The Commission should retain its independence, and Parliament should retain its own independence as a supervisory body.
The Brok report was originally scheduled for debate at a different part-session, but the departure of Mr d'Andrea means that it has now been put on the agenda in a very timely way, because this week is dominated by the issue of the European Commission's accountability to Parliament.
I voted against the report, because what the rapporteur is seeking goes much too far.
Apart from anything else, it would not be a good thing for the election of the Commission President during the European elections to mean that we got a kind of 'minister for Europe'.
The European Commission is after all an executive, and in principle it thus has no responsibility for making policy.
The Amsterdam Treaty gives the European Parliament greater powers in the appointment of the Commission President.
Logically, this should mean that Parliament has more influence when it comes to malfunctioning on the part of the Commission.
But I think Parliament can use its powers primarily to influence the budget.
That does not impinge on the work of the Council which, after all, appoints the members of the Commission and therefore bears the main responsibility for taking action.
It seems strange to me that the report makes no mention at all of this responsibility of the Council.
The President of the European Commission does not have to be elected on the basis of a political programme, since the Commission, as I say, is the executive arm of the Council and Parliament.
If the vote on the discharge for the 1996 budget is now considered to be in the past and if the vote of censure of the Commission is currently making a mockery of this parliamentary session, then the motion for a resolution currently being examined doubtless belongs to the future.
The importance of this resolution lies in the fact that it will not only affect future relations between Parliament and the Commission but also the future democratisation of European institutions.
In this respect, this declaration is indeed aimed at all European institutions but its chief justification is as an internal discussion paper for Parliament. This is because it attempts to chart the most democratic course possible for Parliament to negotiate in 1999.
When the public first heard of the Amsterdam Treaty it thought that the intergovernmental conference had been a great deal of effort that had led to nothing much.
The Treaty is undeniably complex and those who expected institutional progress to lead to a trouble-free enlargement of Europe have been disappointed.
However, it did introduce a number of new elements which it is our duty to consider so as to fulfil our mandate as representatives elected by universal suffrage.
Our comments here centre on three of the new elements contained in the Treaty.
Firstly, Parliament shall give its assent on the person nominated by governments as President of the Commission. The nominee shall then act in the capacity of the person jointly responsible for forming the Commission.
Secondly, the Members of the Commission and the nominee for President shall be subject as a body to a vote of approval by Parliament.
And thirdly, the Commission shall carry out its duties respecting the political guidelines as set out by its President.
In this way we are able to see the gradual emergence of a European Union with an executive body, namely the Commission, which will be formed by two legislative institutions. One of these institutions, namely Parliament, will represent the citizens, and one will represent the Member States, namely the Council.
It will be a tripolar structure which a priori may seem somewhat fragile, unstable even.
But we are all aware of the fragility of democracy itself and that the most elaborate structures which aim to respect the rights and duties of everyone are the weakest.
This does not make them any less effective even if they do require the various partners to make huge efforts to listen to each other and compromise.
With the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty, it is obvious that neither the Council nor Parliament will be capable of forming their executive body without first taking into account the position of the other.
They are in fact forced to listen to each other and negotiate the composition, political guidelines and operating methods of the Commission.
Today Parliament is therefore clearly capable of playing a bigger part in the formation of the college of Commissioners.
My second point concerns the opportunities that have arisen because of the points I have just mentioned regarding the European elections and the boost they are likely to receive thanks to a process to create ever greater European integration.
In short, the main thrust behind the proposal put forward by Jacques Delors is, in my view, relevant.
There is a striking contrast between the obvious loss of impetus in European architecture and the concerns of the public. This is because the public feels the impact of European policies on their daily lives but fails to see any evidence in Europe of the democratic practices they are accustomed to in the different Member States.
Giving a fresh impetus to the European debate means making the choice of the future President of the Commission a campaign issue in the next European elections and preventing them from being dominated by exclusively national concerns. Lastly, this would also herald the beginning of a genuinely European political life and one which, at the same time, is highly personalised.
My third point concerns the desire to better politicise relations between Parliament and the Commission and, in this connection, to reduce the Union's democratic deficit.
The public has been surprised to see that the European Parliament - which is essentially a breeding ground that states dip into when forming their governments - is called on so little when it comes to appointing the Commission and the President of the Commission.
This goes against the democratic practices of our respective countries. What is more, Parliament's democratic credibility will only be truly strengthened when, as our declaration requests, 'a significant number of the members of the Commission (are) chosen from among sitting Members of the European Parliament ...'
This, in my opinion, also implies due respect, here as elsewhere, for the balance between men and women.
In spite of the progress made in terms of reform of the Treaties, many of us have for a long time been absolutely convinced that this House will only be considered as a proper Parliament when it is able, among other things, to make the European Commission fully accountable to it.
That said, it is absolutely vital that the reform of European institutions takes place within the context of future enlargement to include Central and Eastern Europe.
An enlarged Europe including some 20-25 members would be totally inefficient if it were to have a European Commission that comprised at least one Commissioner for each Member State.
The vital reform of the structure and composition of the Commission should therefore confer on it a legitimacy other than that conferred on it today through the national appointment of its members.
In any democratic state the government is formed as a result of ideologies that exist in representative assemblies which reproduce more or less faithfully the divisions existing in the society that elected them.
In an ever closer union, genuine democratic legitimacy will always be visible in this House which is elected by direct universal suffrage.
It is therefore indeed the European Parliament that should confer new legitimacy on the European Commission.
Implementing the report's proposals in this regard will constitute a further step forward in both Parliament's emancipation and in the democratic unification of the European continent.
I should particularly like to highlight once again the vital need for the Commission's independence from Member States and for the inevitable consequence of this, which is that Parliament would have increased control over it. At the same time the Commission must remain protector of the Community's interests and guardian of the Treaties.
It must also once again become the driving force behind European integration.
The aim of this report was, among other things, to support the proposal put forward by the Jacques Delors 'Our Europe' foundation, which suggests that the appointment of the future President of the European Commission should be an issue in the next European elections.
This is a proposal that I endorse, which is why I have signed it.
Our proposal to make European elections more personal and more political by encouraging electors to participate in appointing the future President of the Commission was watered down in the Brok report to the point of being ridiculous.
This is due to the compromises made between the groups.
Why is this the case?
It is because the Heads of State and Government simply do not want it.
Whether they are socialist or conservative they want to go about their business without any democratic debate, preferring a Vatican-style conclave instead.
In short, they are anxious to retain control over the appointment of the President of the Commission without any outside interference, be this from the electorate or from political parties.
If this continues we may end up with the following outcome regarding the future President of the Commission:
on 3 and 4 June 1999, at the Cologne Summit, the German Presidency proposes to initiate the process of appointing a new Commission by nominating a President; -on 13 June 1999 the European elections take place.Henceforth electors will only have to record the result of 'in camera' negotiations of Heads of State and Government.
This topsy-turvy world is yours if you want it.
By interpreting these articles in the as yet unratified Amsterdam Treaty in a somewhat extreme way, the rapporteur and Parliament will end up turning the Commission into a kind of government. This is further borne out in the explanatory statement.
I believe that this contravenes the articles in the Treaty which establish that the EU should be a form of international cooperation between independent nations.
It is an attempt to turn the EU into a federation without giving Member States the chance either to discuss it or take a decision on it, and this I cannot accept.
The Brok report on the approval of the President of the Commission and the 'independence' of the members of the Commission clearly reflects the ideology which prevails in the Committee on Institutional Affairs and its belief in a federal culture.
We should like to point out that the Commission has never been regarded as independent, but as a joint decision-making body with Parliament and the Council.
In the conclusions of the explanatory statement, mention is made of going beyond 'the intergovernmental method to the Community method', and of strengthening the process of integration by 'furthering the goal of a united federal Europe'.
The purpose is to prepare the way for the Commission to become a kind of government that is chosen directly by the European Parliament and not by the Member States.
In our view, the report goes too far in its interpretation of some of the provisions contained in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The committee has also taken too much to heart the proposals put forward by the former President of the Commission, Jacques Delors, to make the main purpose of the European elections the nomination of the President of the Commission, rather than the election of MEPs.
The report is also full of contradictions.
On the one hand, it wants to safeguard the Commission's independence, while on the other it would like Parliament to be involved in negotiations to choose members of the Commission, hence 'a relevant number ... should be chosen from among sitting Members of the European Parliament'.
Since we are opposed to the transformation of the EU into a federal power and advocate an intergovernmental arrangement instead, we have decided to vote against this report.
The report tackles some of the institutional problems that exist in the Union, above all from a democratic perspective.
According to paragraph III(1) of the report, Parliament would be able to call to account and to dismiss individual Commissioners. As we have seen during the past week, this is an instrument which, in Parliament's hands, carries considerable weight.
Unfortunately, the same paragraph also contains the rather curious statement that it is important to safeguard the Commission's role as 'the only body with the right of legislative initiative', an idea to which I am strongly opposed.
It would be democratically damaging to cooperation, as we have seen today.
I do not think that the right of legislative initiative should be the exclusive prerogative of the Commission.
In my view, an instrument that allows individual Commissioners to be dismissed is so important that I intend to vote for paragraph III(1); however, I should make it clear that I am opposed to the Commission having the sole right of legislative initiative.
Despite its good points, the report also has certain weaknesses. A number of these would be improved by the amendments tabled by the PSE Group, which I shall be voting for.
For the most part, the report follows up the modifications to the process of appointing the President of the Commission which are contained in the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, we are not in complete agreement with the report as a whole.
The governments of the Member States should be given more room for political manoeuvre, as provided for in the amendment tabled by the PSE Group.
Furthermore, we think the report goes too far in calling for a number of members of the Commission to be chosen from among sitting Members of the European Parliament.
We do not share the view that the Commission should have the sole right of legislative initiative.
This would in fact give substantial power to the Commission, which cannot be held accountable since it is not popularly elected.
In this respect, we think it is important for national parliaments to have more say in intergovernmental cooperation than at present.
Mr Brok's report outlines proposals for fundamentally changing the European Union's institutions, an idea which has been gathering support over recent years.
Nonetheless, we must fiercely oppose such damaging proposals that will lead to the demise of our institutional system, which is revolutionary in the history of constitutional politics.
By moving closer to the model proposed in the founding Treaties, we will perfect the EU's institutions and they will progress.
Any trend towards developing the Union's institutions so that they resemble the now defunct constitutional systems of the nation state would lead to disaster.
The Community system supersedes the nation state as it governs different relations and realities.
The Commission, Parliament and the Council are institutions which can only work together thanks to the interinstitutional way in which they operate and the internal balance between them.
Although the governments of the Member States nominate the President and Members of the European Commission, the Treaties wisely put a counterweight to power, the motion of censure, in Parliament's hands.
If Parliament and the political groups were to nominate the Commissioners and the President of the Commission, this essential balance would be upset and the College of Commissioners would be politicised. The Treaties stipulate that it must be independent, not only from the governments but also from any political group.
On the other hand, if each political group were to put forward a candidate for the Presidency of the Commission, this candidate would actually become politically dependent on a particular political persuasion and would therefore not have the necessary independence.
What is more, this would lead to a tendency to create some support or opposition groups in Parliament which would in turn upset the free political game where all Members are part of the opposition from the outset and have no reason to support either the President or the Commissioners.
At every stage of the game, majorities are formed according to the issues being discussed and this is a much more free and democratic system.
Mr Brok's report is marred by some severe contradictions.
It defends the collegiate responsibility of the Commission and yet, at the same time, supports the possibility of calling for Members of the Commission to resign from office.
Also, giving greater powers of leadership to the President goes against true collegiate responsibility.
It seems to have been forgotten that the essence of these Community institutions lies in the principle of giving all the power to the institutions and not to any of their presidents.
The responsibilities belong to the institution and not to the person.
It is for this reason that the Presidency of the Council rotates, is restricted to six months and only plays a coordinating role.
The President of the European Parliament does not have any significant power either and if the President of the Commission were to have too much power, this would harm the 'unity through diversity' of the College of Commissioners.
The presidents of the institutions have the full authority of the bodies they represent but do not have their full power. And this is a good thing.
The Commission maintains its independence by strengthening and heavily emphasising the principle of political independence and by avoiding the pressure from governments for increased politicisation of officials by imposing national and party quotas.
Parliament should also be aware that if it has the power to monitor the Commission, it should adapt its staff structure and its working methods accordingly, instead of channelling its energy into commenting on news in the papers one month after the event.
Sainjon report (A4-0423/98)
Globalisation offers more opportunities, but it also brings new dangers.
Codes of conduct for multinational undertakings play a vital role in safeguarding human rights.
Using the ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work and other international minimum standards as a starting-point, a minimum code of conduct should be drawn up, to be ratified voluntarily by the European multinationals.
It is crucial that the Commission, in initiating and carrying through this proposal, should work closely with representatives of companies, trade unions and non-governmental organisations.
In particular, we would like to stress that the Commission and those Member States who sit on the WTO's decision-making bodies, when assessing applications, should make it a criterion of acceptance into the WTO that candidate countries comply with minimum social standards.
In order to ensure the constructive development of the multilateral trading system and to bring about reforms in world trade, further work in this area must be guided by the principles of accountability, equity and solidarity.
The profits that accrue from world trade should be utilised to improve living standards in all parts of the world and to bring about an equitable distribution of wealth, with the ultimate objective of eliminating the widening gap between rich and poor.
The Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of the report concerning the upholding of human rights in international trade.
To begin with, the EU should ensure that the ILO conventions are ratified and respected in the Member States.
Furthermore, the EU should ensure that a social clause based on ILO principles is incorporated into agreements with third countries.
We voted in favour of making a code of conduct for European multinational undertakings based on the ILO conventions as binding as possible.
Experience shows that voluntary codes of conduct are not respected.
It is more effective to adopt European framework provisions which can be accompanied by possible sanctions.
The need to take the social dimension into account when liberalising international trade has, in the past, been evoked by those who in fact wish to increase protectionism in the industrialised world to the disadvantage of developing countries.
It is even more important that the call for widespread respect of a few simple principles and rules enshrined in ILO international conventions be considered as highly legitimate. These conventions are designed to restrict the use of child labour, prohibit the use of forced labour, and guarantee the right to join trade unions and engage in collective bargaining.
The European Parliament has called for this on many occasions and has also expressed its desire to see minimum standards included in a social clause, within the unilateral and multilateral trading system.
It has also said that it is willing to support the principle of a more in-depth dialogue on this issue, within the multilateral framework of the WTO.
We need to demonstrate our credibility to our partners at the many discussion and negotiating forums in which the European Union and Member States participate.
How can we hope to maintain this credibility when some of the Union's Member States have not ratified all of the ILO conventions specifically relating to these fundamental rights?
I broadly share the rapporteur's concerns and wishes, but I should particularly like to stress the need to put our own house in order first of all.
This is why I urge Member States who have not already ratified these conventions to do so as soon as possible.
Accordingly, I call on colleagues from these countries to use all of their powers of persuasion over their government authorities to ensure this is carried out.
The resolution and the Commission's communication recommend the inclusion of a social clause, in the context of international trade. More substantial support for the ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work is also called for, particularly in respect of child labour both inside and outside the Union.
I therefore support the report, even though there are one or two things which I would question, such as financing.
The Year of the Child is just beginning.
The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by the governments of all the Member States, will be ten years old this year.
It is distressing to see the splits that exist in the Union over compliance with even minimum standards, such as a child's right to a childhood - to play and learn without having to work, as established in the Convention.
The report calls on the Member States to respond to serious shortcomings in the protection of children in society and at work.
However, there are a number of amendments which substantially weaken the report's intentions.
Amendment No 10 is the only one that actually enhances the report, and I am therefore going to vote in favour of it.
Even if it contains several inappropriate comparisons, for example, regarding child labour in the United Kingdom, which are based on unsubstantiated information (school children or students who do a morning paper round cannot be considered in the same light as those who work 12 hours a day making carpets), the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has nonetheless decided to vote in favour of Mr Sainjon's report. This is because we all recognise the need to put an end to social dumping which has corrupted the world trading system as it currently operates within the framework of the Marrakesh agreement.
And yet, in 1994, not so many of us were of the view that the Uruguay Round negotiations had their place in the 1960s, in a world in which trade generally took place between a small number of similar or comparable countries. However, the end of the Cold War and the globalisation of transport and communications systems meant that countries of socially different levels found themselves in competition with each other.
Rules which may be beneficial in a specific context can nonetheless become quite the opposite in different circumstances.
Such is the situation we have been forced to acknowledge just a few years after the Marrakesh agreement entered into force.
In making an inventory of the EU resources still available to combat social dumping, the Sainjon report notes that such resources are scarce. What is more, the rapporteur can only propose optional and incentive measures.
One can only agree with the rapporteur's recommendations regarding the very stringent limits to be brought to bear on the marketing of products made by prisoners.
The same applies to the desire to combat forced child labour.
The suggestion put to the Commission to intervene in WTO decision-making procedures to ensure that respect for minimum social standards by the applicant countries is upheld as a criterion for admission is also very positive.
We must urge the Commission to rigorously ensure such demands are carried out.
It is in fact clear that the decisive level for action in this area as in many others is global and not European.
Unilateral European provisions may even backfire on European companies if competitive third-country companies are not subject to the same rules.
The European Union and the Member States must therefore work at global level to promote the need for binding measures to put an end to both unacceptable working conditions and the phenomenon of distortion of competition linked to social dumping which has a direct effect on European companies and jobs.
The increasing liberalisation of world trade has shown that this area of human activity cannot do without standards and values either.
We have to have standards for trade. If we do not, there is the chance of certain groups of people being exploited.
International recognition of labour standards is a valuable way of preventing such exploitation.
We are therefore glad to see the Commission making the point that the liberalisation of world trade is not altogether being matched by the recognition of labour standards.
We as the European Union must endorse international initiatives in this area as far as possible.
But if the Union is to do this credibly, its Member States must first put their own house in order.
We back the rapporteur's call for various Member States of the European Union to recognise and comply with labour standards.
However, the development of a whole range of independent European initiatives goes too far in the opinion of our group, for example when it comes to promoting education and training opportunities for young people in other countries.
We think it is better for us to make labour standards an integral part of our other policy areas, such as development cooperation.
So we did not support the rapporteur's paragraph 19.
We were happy with Amendment No 4, however.
We are in favour of a voluntary European code of conduct, and Mr Howitt's Amendment No 10 best reflects our vision of this.
Later this week, we shall be having a more comprehensive discussion of this topic.
Various other amendments are, we think, of little significance and we did not support them.
Our group agrees with the rapporteur that little has been achieved in the last four years as regards the recognition of international standards.
The adopting of this resolution will be a significant step towards an ethical system of trade.
We thus voted wholeheartedly in favour of the rapporteur's report, precisely because it seeks to support existing international initiatives.
Danesin report (A4-0372/98)
Since 1996, in discussions about the common transport policy action programme for 1995-2000, Parliament has considered using private capital to fund TENs.
The delay in financing means that the whole job-creation project is failing at European level.
We are all aware that one of the reasons for this delay is the decline in infrastructure investment by Member States that are keen to reduce their public deficit.
The public sector alone cannot provide this financing, which is why private sector funds are being considered.
The Commission's communication, which is the subject of our colleague's report, paves the way for such collaboration by setting up partnerships between public sector organisations and private sector investors and companies.
However, as with any successful collaboration, guidelines need to be set out.
A public-private partnership (PPP) should be aimed at planning, programming, financing and carrying out a project given the go-ahead by public authorities. And in order to see it through to completion, the risks involved should be distributed according to everyone's ability to cope with them.
In fact there should be some form of guarantee to fall back on should one of the partners involved fail to deliver.
Lastly, as the rapporteur suggests, for the PPP to succeed, 'public procurement' directives will need to be amended. However, they must not become too liberal in nature and, to counteract this hypothetical risk, it would be preferable if the notion of public service utilities were taken into account.
Although the concept of the public-private partnership has the support of high-priority projects, there is doubtless great interest in smaller-scale infrastructure projects which are also 'of major potential value at local or regional level' (paragraph 17 of the resolution).
The rapporteur believes that the mobilisation of private capital is essential if we are to be able to implement Community transport policy and, in particular, construct the trans-European transport networks (TENs).
Before the final vote, we should like to stress that in our view it is vital, when establishing public-private partnerships for infrastructure projects, to ensure that the basic infrastructures remain in public ownership.
We welcome private capital so long as public-private partnerships remain temporary ventures within an overall public procurement framework, but cooperation should not be allowed to lead to shared ownership.
Jarzembowski report (A4-0375/98)
The port sector handles more than 90 % of the Union's trade with third countries and approximately 30 % of intra-Community traffic, as well as more than 200 million passengers every year.
It is therefore indispensable for Europe to have an efficient port and maritime infrastructure in order to assure the important services offered by this sector.
Similarly, it must not be forgotten that ports constitute a crucial factor within the regional economy, particularly in the peripheral and ultraperipheral maritime regions of the Union.
The European Commission's Green Paper has the advantage of initiating a broad debate with all the parties involved (port authorities, sea transporters, freight forwarders, Member States) on the opportunities for improving the infrastructure and economic efficiency of European ports.
I welcome the fact that the House has had the opportunity to participate in the debate and, as an elected representative from a large port city in the south of France, I should like to make two comments.
The Commission document does not deal with the issue of recognising the notion of general interest services pursuant to Article 90(2) of the Treaty.
Nonetheless, a large number of installations, services and undertakings in sea ports can be classed under this category.
This omission therefore needs to be rectified.
Lastly, the main objective of the Green Paper is to eliminate the present discrepancies in regulations in the various Member States.
This is to enable European ports to be better adapted to the international context and relates mainly to the establishment of financial and competitive conditions.
We agree with the Commission's proposal to make an inventory of the financial flows of Europe's biggest ports before drawing up a proposal for a directive.
This should not be made on the sole premise of banning state aid for this sector, but should aim to correct the imbalances between southern and northern ports in terms of development.
The key role that ports play in local employment should not be undermined.
The need to define and implement a European policy in the area of sea ports and maritime infrastructures has been apparent for some time.
In our opinion, the ports constitute a fundamental part of the European and trans-European transport networks, not only in terms of European competitiveness in the world economy, but also for intra-Community traffic and for the integrated development of the whole European territory.
Particularly in an enlarged Europe, short sea shipping is the alternative to road transport which is causing increasing congestion on Europe's roads.
The French lorry-drivers' strike, for example, paralysed a large part of the economy of several regions, and this is a warning that Europe needs transport alternatives based particularly on sea and rail transport.
Also, from the environmental point of view, sea transport offers unrivalled benefits.
An efficient port system can also constitute a local and regional development factor, particularly in outlying and insular areas. In addition to bringing these outlying areas closer to the centre, it is a dominant factor in economic and social cohesion.
We therefore welcome this Commission initiative, in the belief that other measures will follow to finally produce a port policy.
Mr Jarzembowski's report is a balanced one.
Measuring it against the situation of Flemish ports and my party's priorities in that respect, I am glad to see that the rapporteur has focused on the right things.
Our priorities for a policy on ports and maritime infrastructure are as follows:
Easy accessibility of ports and better communications with the hinterland.
Better opening up of ports by means of improved rail links with the interior will ease the burden on the road network and lead to sustainable mobility.
I would mention here the importance of modernising the existing 'zeren Rijn ' link which connects Antwerp with the Ruhr.
The port of Zeebrugge also needs better links with the hinterland.-Greater clarity over the financing of infrastructure, whereby it must be clear that port superstructure does not have to be financed by government.-It is essential to have the same operating conditions for all ports.
This should ensure that all structures which distort competition will disappear.
It is no longer acceptable that the Flanders region as a shareholder in the port of Zeebrugge should act as both judge and jury.-I would also stress how important it is for each port to have a strong local base.
Every port must retain its autonomy.-Finally, the success of a port depends partly on the economic and fiscal policy of the country in question.
We must ensure that economic but above all fiscal measures do not have an inhibiting effect, and we must prevent high wage costs and tax considerations from making a given port less competitive than others.I support Mr Jarzembowski's report and hope that we will follow this example in Flanders too and rapidly approve the maritime ports decree.
Maritime transport and therefore ports play a vital role in terms of both people and goods.
We must increase the use of waterways if we are to achieve a 'policy of sustainable mobility'.
We are all agreed on that.
At the same time, conditions in terms of coastal regions, climate, population density, fishing and so on differ widely between Member States.
There is still some doubt as to whether ports come within the EU's field of competence, or even whether they should be regarded as part of the TENs.
However, a significant proportion of the structures, services and operations in ports are not specific to ports, and so comparisons cannot be made.
This also has repercussions in terms of competition and public procurement.
On the whole, the matter needs further discussion, particularly in the Member States and with the players concerned.
The economic importance of European sea ports lies in the fact that more than 90 % of Member States' trade with third countries and almost 30 % of intra-Community trade is handled by them.
Traditionally considered by governments as growth poles, fulcrums of national and regional development and instruments of regional planning, Member States' ports and in particular the bigger ports have today become interfaces between trans-ocean sea transport, short distance sea transport (coastal shipping) and land-based transport. They are also centres of transshipment, services, distribution and logistics.
Given this development, the most pressing problem concerns finance and charges for sea and port infrastructure.
However, it must be stressed that Member States' ports differ in terms of ownership as well as in their organisational and administrative structure.
This structural complexity generates a considerable number of problems when it comes to analysing the differences in aid to be given so that the level of fairness in competitive terms can be gauged.
Our group endorses all the points contained in the Committee on Transport's resolution.
But it must point out that another category of ports exists.
In fact, some ports or port installations, services and undertakings are, by their very nature, of general interest and should therefore be entitled to aid for specific development projects, contrary to the rapporteur's proposals.
There are a number of modest or medium-sized ports which serve as a good example of this because they enable links to be established with remote islands.
Since these ports enable islanders to receive supplies they are clearly of general interest.
If the motion for a resolution were to be adopted in its present form, this category of ports would be excluded completely, which would certainly have detrimental economic and social consequences.
This is why our group supported Amendments Nos 1 and 3, which would enable this type of port to receive aid from national and local authorities.
In the name of fair competition, the public service offered by some ports or port infrastructures must not be undermined.
We condemn any attempt to intervene in the ownership status of ports.
The aim of such a policy is to do away with the social role ports and marine infrastructures are called upon to play, and to open them up to private exploitation and the creation of more profits for the Community's monopolistic enterprises.
Aiming to facilitate the direct or indirect privatisation of the whole or parts of port installations and to liberalise the market in port services, the Commission views ports as mainly commercial enterprises, 'commercial entities' as it characteristically calls them, and is promoting the restrictive application of the concept 'public asset' to obscure their inalienable and non-negotiable nature.
The Green Paper we are debating gives notice of specific legislative proposals, such as a proposed directive on port dues, a regulatory framework for the liberalisation of the port services market, facilitating the participation of private capital in port activities, the adoption of uniform pricing principles, etc., supposedly to improve the 'competitiveness' of ports, whereas in reality it promotes cost cutting and increased profits for private capital with major adverse consequences for society as a whole, on the pretext that there are prospects for the further development of international trade, for increasing European exports and for intensifying competition against other major ports outside Europe.
In the context of the celebrated public-private sector cooperatives, the Commission is trying in this branch as well to hand over the prime profit-making activities to the shipowners.
It is burdening the public sector with the cost of financing infrastructure and insisting that private capital must participate even in the planning and formulation of investments, and should be granted long-term exploitation rights.
The Commission's statements about the way ports are to be financed aim to undermine public or public-law enterprises by giving notice of the systematic and strict application of the Community framework for state aid.
The Commission is ignoring the fact that besides purely commercial transit functions, ports and port authorities provide very important services related to monitoring the implementation of safety requirements, carrying out surveys and reviews, exercising supervisory and administrative responsibilities, for example in the context of implementing the principle that ports should be controlled by the state, and social services to the benefit of the coastal and island regions they serve.
Measures are announced for the pricing system, which will result in a steep rise in prices in the name of the 'user pays' principle.
The cost, of course, will not be borne by the shipowners who have been pushing in that direction, but will emerge in the end price, in other words the price paid by the travelling public and in consumer prices for goods.
There is no mention at all of the fact that for countries like Greece, with an extensive island network, sea transport is the basic means for local development, communication and the development of tourism, and consequently any increase in transport costs would have an adverse effect on the development potential of those areas.
The Commission's plans for port dues will lead to a substantial reduction in the revenues of small ports which have a low turnover, with the result that their viability and operation will be placed at risk.
There are also serious threats to the rights of working people, while significant job losses are also on the agenda.
The Commission is seeking to extend flexibility in the port sector, it expresses reservations about the legitimacy of worker registers, and is preparing the ground so that the private companies it wants to bring into the market can use other personnel, non-registered personnel, thus giving the green light for an extension of black-market labour and the employment of low-paid port workers and thereby abolishing the long-established rights of workers in the sector.
Finally, as regards the inclusion of ports in the trans-European transport networks, we wish to stress that the said inclusion is not intended to secure Community resources for their development, but to impose the involvement of major capital in that sector.
We consider that any Community aid must take into account the development needs and characteristics of each region, and not be determined by the choices made by major multinational capital.
Workers in my country and in other countries too are already disturbed by these proposals, which some governments are already trying to implement by amending their national legislative framework.
Already the Piraeus and Thessaloniki Port Organisations - though both are profit-making bodies - are among the agencies likely to be privatised with a view to bringing Greece into the euro and are in the process of being converted to limited companies.
In any event, we will support working people in their struggle to prevent the adoption of these proposals, which hold out no promise of anything good for them.
Langenhagen report (A4-0413/98)
The Commission's proposal for an EU strategy for Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) deserves the full support of Parliament.
This is a very important area in which the EU already has substantial strategic, political, economic, industrial, employment, security and defence interests.
With a world market for GNSS estimated to be worth EUR 50 billion in 2005, it is clear that a European strategy must be given high priority.
The action plan proposed by the Commission represents a practical step towards developing a civil multimodal system, fully integrated into the trans-European transport and telecommunications networks.
I assume that the ESA - the European Space Agency - will act as the EU's technological arm in this area.
I was pleased to note the list of recommendations and proposals made by the committee in its report, and I largely agree with them.
Over the past 30 years the satellite sector has undergone a veritable revolution.
Telephone networks and television channels are the prime users of space technologies, but a great many services based on satellite facilities are also provided to other sectors such as transport, agriculture, fisheries, protection of natural resources, and others.
As regards transport, for example, satellite navigation could help to make more efficient use of existing transport infrastructure, improve safety and reduce pollution.
In the fisheries sector, satellite navigation systems will enable widespread and undisputed implementation of controls within the framework of the common fisheries policy, but also and above all they will improve safety for ships' crews.
In terms of agriculture, satellite systems will facilitate control over planting perennial plants (arboriculture and viticulture), the analysis of ground water resources, the control of irrigation, and so on.
Over the next few years new applications will be developed to include worldwide satellite communications networks and new research platforms in space.
Everything must be put in place to enable Europe's Member States to gain a leading position in this highly competitive satellite market which is at present dominated by the United States.
Aeronautical and aerospace activity has developed thanks to cooperation between European companies in these sectors in accordance with their specialisms. As a rule, this cooperation has largely occurred outside the European Community.
It is therefore necessary for European countries to adopt a similar approach to the satellite sector. The success of the Ariane and Airbus projects, which were both developed outside the scope of European institutions, proves that it is perfectly possible to build a high-technology Europe without a heavy administrative technostructure.
The example given of the Ariane and Airbus projects, which used very few Community financial resources and in which the Commission played a purely anecdotal role, should serve as a model for the development of this European satellite industry in years to come.
The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Agenda 2000 (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the reports from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on Agenda 2000.
Mr President, by way of a point of order, I have a request to make.
We are all busy preparing for important votes.
The Commission has promised to give us the list of the 157 UCLAF inquiries. Twenty-seven of these concern the work of the Commission itself.
I think it is most important for us to have that list if we are to make a sound assessment of the Commission's work and its financial management.
May I ask you, as the President of Parliament, to do what is necessary tomorrow to get these documents for us ahead of our important votes on the Commission?
Mrs Maes, there is no list at present, but your request will be passed on and, if any such thing appears, you will be informed at once.
Mr President, when I spoke on the Görlach report on rural development late last year, I said that this Parliament should be honest as to whether it is serious about reform of the common agricultural policy.
A large number of amendments tabled to the reports we are discussing today sadly demonstrate that some political groups in this House are more interested in short-term political advantage in the run-up to the European elections, than in achieving realistic reforms to create an agriculture policy appropriate for a Europe of 20 to 25 countries in the 21st century, operating in a global economy and subject to World Trade Organisation rules.
It is unrealistic for some political groups to table large numbers of amendments to all the reports calling for increased subsidies year on year, where the Commission is proposing progressive decreases in order to reduce agricultural spending and make EU enlargement possible.
Indeed, events of this week and the last month must make the applicant states wonder just what sort of organisation they have applied to join.
Either we are serious about building up a genuine Europe, embracing all the countries which were separated from western Europe for 40 years by an accident of history, which we must ensure never happens again, and take steps that we know are necessary to make that possible, or a majority of this Parliament votes for amendments calling for subsidies we know are unsustainable and betray this historic moment of change.
Yes, we need to protect our farmers in the short term against too rapid change, so that they can cope with this transition period.
Yes, we should be encouraging the development of renewable non-food crops, though not tobacco, particularly on voluntary set-aside land.
Yes, we should encourage more extensive livestock rearing by adjusting the way premia are paid.
Yes, there should be financial assistance to those farming on the most difficult terrain and to help older farmers to retire.
Subsidies should be targeted to where they are most needed and an upper limit put on the size of individual payments, unless higher payments can be proved to benefit the wider rural economy or the environment.
These reforms are necessary quite apart from the wider context of Agenda 2000.
Europe needs competitive, but also sustainable, environmentally-friendly agriculture producing the high-quality food our citizens need for a healthy diet, without massive surpluses, without polluting our countryside, and without causing unnecessary animal suffering.
We need to support those who preserve on our behalf our rural environment and beautiful countryside, through special environmental payments.
New jobs, not directly connected to agriculture, need to be created in rural areas if we are not to suffer rural unemployment, depopulation and villages reduced to dormitories for towns and cities, with all the attendant transport and environmental problems that entails.
I challenge the groups when they draw up their voting list to look beyond short-term electoral gain and to vote in such a way as to support and improve implementation of the Commission's reform proposals rather than undermine them.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, there are different ways of discussing agricultural policy: in principle and with a long-term perspective, or in terms of what can be achieved today.
In principle, I would prefer to see a more extensive reform of the CAP than the Commission has proposed.
Our agricultural policy has been handed down to us from the 1950s. It is out of tune with our wish for a more efficient global market in line with the objectives agreed during WTO discussions, namely a global market with increased demand and where quality and protection of the environment are given higher priority both at home and abroad.
However, there have been many changes since the Commission first devised Agenda 2000.
In a single year, we have been hit by economic crises, particularly in South-East Asia and Russia, which knocked the wind out of our export market.
It is also interesting to note that the USA has reintroduced significant agricultural support measures.
There is consequently a question mark over what we should do in our present situation.
With hindsight, we know that between 1996 and 1997 the market caused prices to rise.
However, the position today is that the market has depressed prices.
In my view, it is an absurd situation when prices drop so far that they cannot be compensated for by direct payments.
On the question of 'renationalisation', I should like to ask the Commissioner for his assurance that compensatory payments and premiums at national level can be organised in a way that will protect farmers from distorted competition in countries whose governments are unsympathetic towards agriculture.
Mr President, taken together, the Commission's proposals amount to a package of measures designed to make even more suffocating and oppressive the Procrustes' bed upon which for some time now farmers' incomes have been sacrificed, with price cuts and the reduction or abolition of subsidies, the abolition of interventions to save resources, amounts which will now be made available for funding the campaign for the colonial exploitation of the Central and Eastern European countries by monopoly capital.
On the other hand, the same measures aim to do away with the inalienable right of farmers and their children to cultivate their land and develop their output, by means of unacceptable and arbitrary quotas, large and savage compensatory fines, so that there too monopoly capital will be able to spread, get its hands on agricultural holdings and throw farmers out of work or, if it allows them to remain and work in the countryside, then to do so as a new type of share-cropper.
Finally, these measures aim to establish economic and trade conditions such that monopoly capital, in negotiating its agreements with the World Trade Organisation, will be able to make concessions in return for benefits from American capital which will be to the cost of farmers.
By speaking for more than half an hour, the Commissioner tried to make all this sound better than it is. But the whole plan will be upset by the angry and orchestrated response of the farming community.
And do not think that such a thing will never happen, that we will not have a repetition of the peasants' revolt.
We will have a mass agricultural movement with the manpower to brush aside this unacceptable policy.
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, CAP reform doubtless constitutes a vital stage in Community life because it must pave the way for the third agricultural millennium.
The same can be said of Europe's economies and cohesion as well as life in Europe's countryside.
CAP must of course evolve, but let us not too hastily overlook its finer points.
It has enabled the development of modern agriculture, agricultural exports and European markets to be supplied with safe, high-quality products.
It has also guaranteed farmers' incomes and has been the only fully integrated policy at European level.
What form does the Commission propose the reform should take?
A generalised price reduction in line with the world market, compensation in the form of direct aid, but granted on the basis of the criteria set, and Member States' participation in the allocation of flexibility envelopes. At the same time Member States are set to become the promoters of animal welfare in an increasingly globalised market.
None of this is acceptable in its current form. The tough negotiations taking place here in both the Council and Parliament are proof enough of this.
I am particularly concerned about the COM in beef and veal and about extensive production systems in general.
Their role is in fact important in terms of land use and environmental protection and must not be overlooked, but it is above all the interests of farmers and consumers that I should like to protect with this reform.
In this connection, we will support Mr Garot's position as rapporteur and his request for limited price reduction, increased production controls and quality in terms of taste and health. We also support his request for public intervention to be maintained.
The difficulty of managing this reform is further complicated by the milk reform and other general measures.
Overall, CAP reform should prepare European agriculture for moving closer to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and their agricultural products, as well as preparing Europe for future WTO negotiations. This should not be carried out by setting European prices and immediately aligning them with world prices, but by asserting our European model which respects human life and life on earth.
Mr President, today we are in the home stretch for the completion of approval for the part of Agenda 2000 which relates to the common agricultural policy - I would say its most important part, given the importance of the agricultural sector at many levels and its multi-functional character, let alone the extent to which the agricultural guideline plays a part in the Community's budget.
The proposed regulations for financing the markets for beef, cereals, dairy products and the direct support systems constitute a substantial package which relates to the rules and procedures for financing the common agricultural policy, while in parallel it concerns three common organisations of markets which absorb most of the agricultural guideline.
Of course, the fact that those three COMs relate to the main sectors of farming activity in northern Europe indicates the inequality and the degree of preferential treatment they enjoy compared to markets for products from southern Europe, inequalities which the present review - like its predecessors - has been able or has tried to mitigate.
As regards the financing regulations, though the Commission's proposals are not very far removed from the existing framework, they leave a substantial gap.
The addition of new actions to the EAGGF's field of intervention in the Guarantee Section, especially the measures concerning the development of the countryside and pre-accession aid to the applicant countries, raises serious questions about whether it will be possible to finance those policies in the future in parallel with expenditure related to the COMs, given the resources available.
A second but very important problem will be created by the proposal to introduce a cofinancing system for direct income subsidies by the Member States.
Commissioner, if cofinancing is adopted under pressure from the Member States who regard themselves as net contributors to the Community's budget, this will clearly be a first step towards renationalising the CAP and will act as a catalyst to exacerbate inequalities and nullify progress towards economic and social cohesion within the framework of the Union.
The attempt to renationalise the CAP is at the same time an attempt to call into question the fundamental principle of financial solidarity upon which the European Union's only common policy so far has been based.
As for the COMs for beef, cereals and dairy products, and granted how difficult it is to formulate common policies which will reconcile and satisfy so many different interests, the Commission's proposals form a good basis and are on the right lines.
This is the first time I have said that to the Commission.
I believe, however, that there is still much room for improvement and I have two things to say, one general and one particular.
The general comment concerns the need to increase support for small producers and for producers in mountain and disadvantaged areas.
The particular comment concerns the conditions pertaining to the milk market in Greece, because of the distance from other markets and the existence of a large number of islands.
Those conditions, along with the real need for fresh milk, have created a large discrepancy in relation to the existing reference amount.
I believe the Commission should take another more realistic look at the request to increase the reference amount for Greece by 150 000 tonnes.
The problem is not just a recent one, it began after the 1992 distribution and, unfortunately, though the Commission claims that it is trying to eliminate or mitigate the inequalities between products from different countries and areas, where milk is concerned it is causing this really distressing situation in Greece to continue.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr Santer, despite the efforts of the rapporteurs, it was not possible to find a compromise solution on this reform within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. This is to be regretted as it does not lend prestige to the role and image of this House.
I want to highlight four priorities with regard to the CAP reform, which were actually contained in the report approved last June.
The first priority is that it is essential for care to be taken when lowering prices.
The proposals of 15 % for beef and veal and 10 % for milk and milk products presented by this House seem more acceptable than those of 30 % and 15 %, respectively, presented by the Commission.
The reduction of 0 % approved by Parliament for cereals seems unrealistic.
The second priority is that it is essential for every effort to be made to achieve the internal rebalancing of the CAP by strengthening its second pillar and particularly by strengthening structural policy, agri-environmental and agri-forestry measures, special aid to disadvantaged areas, support for quality products and, in general, economic diversification and rural development.
Without this, there can be no European model of agriculture and no fair response from the CAP to the various European agricultural systems, which are patently very different.
The third priority is that it is necessary to avoid an uninformed decision in terms of the criteria for establishing different types of quota, premium rights or reference surface areas.
Very special cases, such as in my own country, Portugal, which is lagging behind structurally and which is highly dependent on imported food, will have to be dealt with selectively.
The fourth priority is that it is essential to respond to an enormous European deficit in oilseeds and protein plants.
Therefore, the difference in aid between cereals and the other oilseeds and protein plants must be maintained together with a specific base surface area for maize.
Finally, I want to say that the option of renationalising 25 % of the CAP financing is a matter for debate which must not be considered within this reform.
It is not a prohibited or taboo subject, but the debate must take place on a different level from this one, namely on the level of financing and own resources.
To conclude, I must say something to the President-in-Office, who I would especially like to welcome.
I would remind him that yesterday in this House, his colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, said that one of the main reasons for reforming the common agricultural policy was to reduce the expenditure of the European Union.
Previously when holding the Presidency of the Council, Germany has always defended agriculture.
It now seems that the new German Government has changed strategy.
We would like clarification on this.
Mr President, Commissioner, Parliament deserves no bouquets for its failure to reach a compromise on a number of dossiers.
Personally, I think we have to be realistic.
Agriculture policy must not become any more of a drain on European resources.
So I found it particularly interesting to hear Mr Santer saying this morning in his first speech that he was very sorry that Parliament had not welcomed a partial renationalisation of income support or national budgets.
It is an interesting option.
It would be a weapon in the battle against fraud, and this system would also make it easier to introduce environmental standards in individual Member States.
And I believe this part of the debate must really be conducted on a far broader basis, because I think this is what a majority of Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs wants to see.
Furthermore, I agree with Mr Olsson that we ought really to be far more innovative in agriculture policy.
Eighty per cent of people live in towns.
I do not, I live in the country, but I am well aware that this is so.
So there is a need for good animal health, a sound environment and a policy for quality. It is therefore extremely important that attention should be focused on these things.
I also believe that any incentives we give should favour the countryside, such as using non-food products as raw materials for construction and energy.
Lastly, I would point to the great opportunities which information technology provides for new initiatives in the agriculture sector.
We have been too prone to see European agriculture as the producing of food in a way we have been accustomed to for years.
At the moment, innovation is the most important thing that we can introduce.
Mr President, when we speak about financing the CAP within the framework of Agenda 2000, we must remember that the Vienna Council was a Council which put off taking any decisions.
No decision was reached about own resources, nor about the way to divide the cost of enlargement.
The important decisions were left for March in Brussels, and there is no Council position on how much of the cost of enlargement is to be borne by Europe's citizens.
Meanwhile, the German Presidency's first concern was to inform us that Germany wants a considerable cut in its contribution to the Community budget.
Here, it is useful to remember that in Edinburgh the Community budget's own resources were set at 1.27 % of GDP, with the intention of increasing them over the period 2002 to 2006 to 2.5 % against average Community inflation of 2.2 %.
All this simply means that agricultural expenditure will have to decrease steadily if any of the above assumptions are not adhered to, or if, as mentioned in Agenda 2000, agricultural expenditure should become non-compulsory.
Let us also remember that in the last two Community budgets the upper limit of own resources never rose above 1.15 %, while a limit of 0.4 % of GDP has also been set for the Structural Funds.
This cofinancing for agriculture is really tantamount to partial renationalisation, indeed up to a significant level of 24 to 25 % in accordance with the third solution in the Commission's report.
We have already accepted some underhand activities vis-à-vis cofinancing, such as the 1996 review of the COM in fruit and vegetables, the recent abolition of intervention for oil and the possibility of redeeming unused individual tobacco quotas.
The proportion of cofinancing must be related to the level of economic strength of the Member State concerned, and in that case special attention must also be devoted to agricultural products in which the European Union is deficient.
We support the 'fair assumptions' on which the rapporteur at least wishes cofinancing to be determined, but we disagree with the choice of Article 43 of the Treaty as the decision-making procedure to be followed.
We favour Article 209, granted that what is involved is a financial amendment which requires unanimity in the Council, and we oppose partial renationalisation and the introduction of a generalised structural mechanism.
Now, as regards the reform of the CAP, we call for equal treatment for Mediterranean products and full compensation for loss of agricultural income by direct aid, especially for small producers and disadvantaged regions.
Finally, as regards the persistent more general imbalances between north and south, which have been mentioned already and are quite evident, I would like to remind you that the Cohesion Fund was no more than compensation for the single market policy which mainly benefits the industrial countries in the north.
Mr President, in my opinion the review of the common agricultural policy is largely motivated not by the actual internal dynamics of development and the new challenges to be faced, but by pressures exerted by certain powerful Member States related to the reduction of the European Union's budget, and especially a reduction of their own national contribution to it.
In that sense, I think we are rapidly moving towards worsening conditions governing the exercise of agricultural policy, which ought not to abandon agricultural production and the countryside to the dictates of the free market, but should take into account demographic and environmental factors and the danger that large areas of agricultural production may be deserted.
I wish to express our complete opposition to any attempt to use financing provisions to renationalise the common agricultural policy in any way, which would be particularly intolerable for countries with the weakest national budgets and financial means, and also to express my opposition to two major imbalances: firstly, between products from the north and the south, and secondly, between large and small producers.
Mr President, I am always delighted to listen to Commissioner Fischler because he has come on several occasions to this House. We are very concerned about the extent of the common agricultural policy reform.
He says that he intends to carry out a reform for the future yet I do not see how the Commission can claim to be carrying out a reform for the future which involves wasting half the Community budget on a sector in which 1 % of the richest people in Europe receive 40 % of this budget.
This is not right, Commissioner Fischler.
It is not right that a few Members and the Commission are speaking on behalf of farmers.
You are talking about a privileged minority who, thanks to the CAP system, will apply for public funds that we should be managing very carefully. This is not happening because we are giving these funds to people who do not need them.
It is impossible to reconcile your speech on the protection of the environment, on the protection of employment, and on the protection of safety and quality with payments for production.
There are currently no problems with production, Commissioner.
Technological developments and biotechnologies guarantee that production will continue to rise.
The problems are with the people.
Due to this policy, the rural population is already seven times smaller than in 1950. Under this policy, just 2.5 % of the population will still have links with the rural world.
What you have to do is propose an end to all the production aid.
This aid must be used for research, it must benefit small farmers and it must be used for family-based companies, employment and quality.
This is how the aid must be used rather than for this incredible waste of half the Community budget, which is potentially paid for by those who need it most and distributed among those who do not need it. I am doing you justice, Commissioner.
You are less of a lobbyist than the Members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development because the three dossiers presented by that committee are worse than the proposal from the Commission itself. In fact, they want more, not to modulate, not to set a fair ceiling, not to keep people in agriculture, but to produce more for the surpluses.
We can then pay ourselves for storage, pay ourselves for not producing, and even pay ourselves again for producing, storing and exporting.
This policy cannot continue Commissioner Fischler.
Enough is enough!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at this stage in the debate we have already torn apart each and every one of the legislative proposals contained in Agenda 2000.
Therefore, please let me comment on a few aspects that have not been touched upon by my colleagues, although I support much of what has been said here by Mr Goepel, as well as by Mr Funk, Mr Cunha and Mr Colino.
I will only mention three specific major points and three minor points.
As regards the major points, I should like to discuss the innovative aspect of Agenda 2000 regarding rural development.
Although it is not an issue under debate today, you said that more than 50 % of the population was over 55 years of age.
Therefore, the main objective in agricultural policy, Commissioner, must be to support the population in the rural environment and here there are two major problems: that of young people, and that of supporting women in the rural environment.
Without women, there is no solution to this problem and that is the truth of the matter, however much we may resent it.
Men follow along behind women and we are left with a rural environment where the number of people is dropping and where we have too many agricultural policies.
Another major point is the issue of cofinancing.
Do not destroy the principle of solidarity.
I believe that in cofinancing direct aid - aid that requires Member States to comply with certain measures - we could be heading towards severe discrimination.
In addition, we must maintain the requirements - and the control of such requirements - for products coming from third countries.
These products must meet the same requirements as we lay down for our own products.
As for the minor points, I cannot forget a few long-standing problems.
I should like to remind you of the matter of past yields, or of the increase in male bovine quotas, which is already over 70 000 and which should once again be increased.
We also welcome the increase in milk quotas although we will continue to protest that it is insufficient.
Commissioner, we have already established a European agricultural model. Adopt it, fight for it and, along with all the European institutions, fight for those farmers whom you already defend so fiercely.
Mr President, the common agricultural policy, which was set up in the 1950s when there were only six Member States, is now facing change.
Everyone, or virtually everyone, recognises that this policy is not equipped for an enlargement which means that the Union is going to consist of more than 20 countries.
We are therefore obliged to make some changes, whether we want to or not.
We would like to participate in those changes, and we actually think that the Agenda 2000 proposal from the Commission is both elegant and bold.
We know the main ideas: general support schemes are to be abolished and European farmers will have to compete on the world market.
That is something we shall have to accept as a result of the WTO negotiations, and I also believe it is healthy for agriculture that we are going to have this liberalisation in future and that we are therefore also going to move closer to world market prices.
I also believe that, in the slightly longer term, this will make it necessary for us to abolish the whole milk quota system.
Some people will have regrets. But I have no regrets.
I think it will be a good idea to do this in the longer term.
I believe in fact that people should be aware that the process which will be started by Agenda 2000 will lead to more and more liberalisation in the agricultural sector.
We Danish Social Democrats are very happy with the Commission's proposal, and we think it is a necessary change both in view of the WTO agreements and also because of the enlargement project and the whole financing situation we are in.
We have tabled amendments to a number of the proposals which have been put forward in Parliament.
We also have some other amendments.
We feel that in many ways the Commission's proposal is more realistic than what Parliament has been able to agree on, and I hope that Parliament will understand that it is in fact necessary to fall in line with the approach set out by the Commission.
The fact is that a number of the amendments proposed by Parliament - which we have voted against, but which are still on the table - entail an increase in the budget rather than a reduction, which is what the Commission's proposal is about.
We therefore have to find a solution which can be implemented, and we also have to respect the time factor.
That is why it is crucial for us to be able to deliver our opinion when we vote on this later this month in Brussels, and it is crucial that these things are ready on time. I therefore wish both the President-in-Office and the Agriculture Commissioner good luck, and hope that things will be in place in March.
Mr President, I agree with those colleagues who are concerned that the very valuable debate being conducted on Agenda 2000 might result in low-profile conclusions in terms of CAP reform.
The difficulties are clear; they emerged during our deliberations in the Agriculture Committee, where we were unable to come up with a uniform view on reforming the major sectors, and they re-emerged this morning during the speech by the President-in-Office, when it was said that a compromise should be sought within the Council of Ministers - and we all know how many obstacles to such a compromise have already arisen.
It would however be wrong to adopt the interpretation which has tended to surface during this debate, namely that on the one hand we have an innovative, reforming Commission and, on the other, a Parliament which is incapable of following the trail marked out by the Commission.
Unfortunately the truth lies elsewhere, as we have said since the outset: the Commission's proposals are interesting and important, but the resources earmarked are inadequate to sustain them from a quantitative and qualitative point of view.
On one side we have the ECOFIN Council - yesterday morning the German Foreign Minister repeated what the UK Foreign Secretary said at the start of his term of office, namely that we must curb farm spending - and on the other we have the farmers, concerned that price cuts will adversely affect their budgets.
We must get out of this impasse and move forward.
The appeal I would make at the end of my contribution, therefore, is that the high-level group announced by the Commissioner this morning, which is to begin its work very shortly, should make a real effort to find a way of protecting farmers' interests, somehow seeking an outcome which is in keeping with the declared objectives - very ambitious ones - of the reform.
Mr President, I will speak generally and not to any specific report.
Whatever policies we agree for European agriculture from the year 2000, they must be easy to understand, easy to administer and easy to inspect.
Our reforms must continue to use the common policy as a social tool.
We argued during the GATT talks that our policies were helping the economies of poorer rural areas, not supporting production.
If we argued this before, we cannot now argue that it is wrong to penalise efficiency.
We must put a ceiling on the aid to larger cereal farms.
We must use modulation but we must use it fairly and sensibly.
We must ensure the local economies do not suffer unjustly.
We must develop efficient and effective complementary national policies but we must ensure the policies remain common to us all and we must retain common financing.
We must resist the move to renationalise funding and policy-making.
If we agree part-national financing the required spending must be mandatory.
There is merit in the proposal for area payments.
This is part of our social responsibility but we must retain benefits for farmers in the hills and other difficult terrain and we must ensure that benefit goes where it is required - not to the large, the rich or powerful.
Re-distribution must ensure fairness.
While we should all welcome proposals to increase extensive farming, we must ensure that we can police the system simply and efficiently.
We must not build a huge bureaucracy living off the back of small farmers.
We must also ensure that health and safety costs, consumer protection costs and abattoir control charges do not escalate to the point where they cannot be afforded.
At present in my country of Wales there seem to be more inspectors than sheep.
We must also ensure that where regional policy objectives apply, they and agriculture policies cooperate rather than compete.
All over Europe we are seeing rural areas getting poorer and losing vitality and urban areas getting richer.
Rural areas need economic aid as well as houses for holiday-makers and relatively rich retired people.
Agenda 2000 through the CAP must be an integral part of the support required for rural economies.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, the development of the common agricultural policy is a concern for all of us.
Nevertheless, I would like to make it clear that I personally consider the level of the cuts in intervention prices contained in the Commission proposal to be unacceptable.
I would now like to discuss two points contained in the Graefe zu Baringdorf report.
The first point concerns the concept of good farming practice, which means that farms that are managed in accordance with the principle of good farming practice will in future receive full financial aid.
Of course, this applies only if they also meet the other conditions laid down in this regulation.
Where services rendered by farmers with a view to preserving the agricultural environment go beyond good farming practice, special payment should be given, for example within the framework of Regulation 20/78.
Member States should be able to impose sanctions on the basis of objective criteria if environmental principles are not complied with, and these criteria must also be in accordance with the principle of good farming practice.
This method of farming must be recognised EU-wide and generally accepted.
I believe that Member States should develop codes which they can then promote accordingly.
The second point I would like to discuss concerns the employment situation in rural areas.
We all know that farming families must in future be given more new opportunities for income security.
It is up to politicians to create the conditions so that well- educated, innovative farmers - and this is how I see the farmers of the future - can ensure that rural areas retain their attraction.
An eco-social agricultural policy must be tailored to the multifunctional world of agriculture and rural areas.
The European farming model was agreed at the Luxembourg Council, and this must be the fundamental criterion for the next round of WTO negotiations, as European agriculture is of course considerably different from that of our other partners in the WTO.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, one of the major issues of a future common agricultural policy must be how we are going to achieve an active rural policy and a clarification of roles in the field of agricultural and rural policy.
The countryside must be viewed in its entirety.
There must be diversity in the range of rural occupations, and the countryside has to be developed with respect for nature and recreation.
We must safeguard access to areas of recreation. We must have access to woodlands, meadows, beaches and the shores of lakes.
The right to roam the countryside must in no case be connected to rights of ownership, and public right of access must be secured.
Agricultural policy demands reform.
Agriculture that is closer to nature must be the norm, not the exception.
It has to be said that the views of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and those of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are reasonably close to one another here.
Direct subsidies for agriculture must be tied to compliance with environmental standards.
The decisions taken under the Treaty of Amsterdam and later at the Cardiff summit on the inclusion of the environment in all EU policy, based on the principle of transparency, must be taken seriously in agricultural policy too.
Under this principle, linking environmental standards to the payment of aid cannot be left up to individual Member States.
This would not achieve the aim of a more environmentally sustainable agricultural policy and agriculture, whose produce we can rely on as being healthy and safe.
In order for the environmental view to be taken fully into consideration Member States must work with the Commission to develop a code of practice for environmentally sustainable agriculture.
Aid should be paid only to farmers who comply with the agreed rules.
Special agricultural environmental aid should be paid only for projects which either protect the natural environment or improve the present state of the agricultural environment.
Special attention must be paid to the protection of areas of water.
Applying a code of good agricultural practice must be made more effective by being able to claim back our resources.
It is vital that the question of diversity in the European Union is taken into consideration, as agriculture is practised from the north to the south.
For example, in Finland organic meat production is not successful as the animals have to be kept outside the whole year round.
At this time of the year there might be a metre of snow and the temperature could be thirty degrees below zero.
Mr President, I also wish to welcome the President-in-Office of the Council.
I do not want to reiterate what has already been said today but I should like to mention to the President-in-Office one of the points he mentioned: the WTO.
I have long argued within the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development that it is important that Agenda 2000 and WTO dovetail together.
The Americans are no angels when it comes to WTO negotiations and we have to be very careful not to lose out in those negotiations.
I am quite sure that he is well aware of that situation and will make sure that we are in a strong position for those WTO negotiations.
I was delighted to hear the Commissioner say that 50 % of farmers are over 55.
I just qualify as being under 55 - I am not quite sure whether that also applies to the Committee on Agriculture.
It is a very poignant point: we must prepare for the younger generation because if we allow these young people to wither then the vine dies and with it the industry.
I should like to air one or two things which have already been said.
I agree with Mr Wilson that we must have clear decisions, uniform policies and continuity, because agriculture needs continuity.
There are three main issues in British agriculture which worry us.
We have seen a 40 % fall this last year in our income and yet we talk about such things as national envelopes and a renationalisation of the common agricultural policy, which strikes fear into people's hearts in the United Kingdom because it allows governments to control the spending on agriculture.
One of my colleagues mentioned modulation.
One of the problems with modulation is that there is genuine concern that it will not be fair across the board.
Modulation is great as long as it is larger than your particular farm.
We are totally opposed to that.
Finally, again, do not allow cofinancing to be a renationalisation of the common agricultural policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that the success of the Agenda 2000 negotiations is closely linked to success in all parts of the Agenda, in other words to a compromise that we must all accept.
The reform of the common agricultural policy is a central pillar of the overall structure, but it is only together with the other pillars of reform that it can support the Agenda 2000 structure.
This means that the course for a successful financial reform must be set now in the context of the negotiations on the common agricultural policy.
It is obvious that proper financial regulations are not possible without appropriate changes in agriculture, the area that accounts for almost 50 % of the European budget. As a financial manager myself, you will forgive me for being particularly annoyed by this.
President Santer rightly pointed out that the negotiations on the future financing of the budget represent one of the key elements of the Agenda 2000 negotiations.
But alongside the financial reforms support must also be given to the necessary agricultural policy reforms.
I do not agree with the assessment given by Commissioner Fischler this morning.
Cofinancing of agricultural policy measures, as proposed in some amendments, should not be dealt with separately from agricultural reform.
On the contrary, in our view it is one of the successful elements of the reform proposed for the agricultural sector, and it is clearly in line with the Commission's thinking in proposing to redirect the CAP away from price guarantees and towards income support.
If is it correct that we can assist rural areas more effectively by means of this redirection, the Commission should not have applied the brakes halfway through; not only should it have thought it through logically to the end but it should also have prescribed reform.
This also means that we have to put our faith in the tried and trusted mechanism of the Union and the Member States sharing joint responsibility for structural measures under the agricultural policy too.
In addition, Commissioner Fischler, if I had been you I would not have missed out on the dynamic effect of cofinancing.
There is no doubt that it increases willingness to discuss the scale and structure of the common agricultural policy objectively and in detail.
Awareness of the need for reforms, as proposed by the Commission, will increase rapidly in the Member States if in future the Ministers for Agriculture have to fight with their Ministers for Finance for part of the funding.
The proposed cofinancing is not in fact a means of solving net contributor problems but instead will play a crucial role in restoring the balance between market policy and income policy on the one hand and structural policy in rural areas on the other.
It is not a form of renationalisation, to reply to a fear that has just been expressed.
Like Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, I hope that the Committee on Budgets will find a majority in favour of cofinancing, as we need to show that almost 50 % of the budget is being used efficiently and is achieving results if we are to allow citizens to have confidence in the way their taxes are being used.
Mr President, the common agricultural policy must manage and control agriculture all the way from Sicily to Utsjoki, in countries that have totally different natural conditions.
It will be a tough job, and the fear that the special conditions prevailing in peripheral areas will be ignored in the final decisions that are taken is a very legitimate one.
One of the many problems with the Agenda 2000 agricultural reform is the plan to turn grain policy upside down.
The reduction in the administrative intervention price of grain proposed by the Commission is a problem.
At the same time the Commission is proposing that only half the reduction in the administrative price should be paid back in compensation.
Grain production in the areas that are classed as peripheral in Finland is now very unprofitable, so that any reduction in price would cause production to suffer even further.
Special regional conditions, relatively low yields, and high costs must be taken into account in the reforms.
Rural Europe will need viable agriculture in the future to preserve its vitality and diversity.
Agricultural development will continue to affect the well-being of the entire population of the continent.
If agriculture were left to waste away it would at the same time lead to the decline of the food and agricultural equipment industries and the commercial sectors connected with them, as well as limiting consumer choice.
Agriculture has to move in step with the liberalising world market, but we must be able to impose a change in direction and speed.
The direction in agriculture must not be downward.
Preserving the model of the family-run farm is dependent on the political will of the European Union.
If we can put our trust in the future of European agricultural production and unanimously take the necessary decisions, Europe will have a vital, diverse food and agriculture industry for the next millennium.
Mr President, the proposed reform of the CAP contained within the Agenda 2000 package, to be implemented through the Structural Funds and the draft regulations under discussion today, is an effort, albeit a tentative one, which deserves our support.
But in actual fact, even these tentative efforts are being undermined by the desire for balanced national budget contributions and the lack of any true innovation.
The outcome or compromise, as the President-in-Office, Mr Funke, deliberately repeated several times this morning, must however take account of a long-standing culture which is remote from the real interests of consumers and producers.
High-level groups, diplomatic mediation, informal contacts and claims that the budget is untouchable, on the one hand, and the desire to renationalise expenditure, on the other, make the gulf between economics and politics plain for all to see.
Farm incomes have dwindled.
Price reductions have forced European producers to compete in ways which have often been detrimental to both quality and social conditions, quite apart from having led to a decline in health and hygiene standards.
We shall never forget BSE and what it did to consumer confidence.
But the most immoral aspect here is that the type of production which caused BSE has not been rooted out.
Production for its own sake, to rake in premiums, the misuse of scientific research, the difficulty of monitoring certification standards on the use of transgenic products at consumer level, the use of antibiotics and growth promoters in plants and animals - all of these have continued.
Impenetrable levels of specialisation and sophistication have been reached, and the phenomenon has continued to spread even since the BSE crisis.
How should we respond to these questions and these external costs?
Mr President, as a Spanish Member, I must express my disappointment at the Commission's proposal on the common organisation of the market in the milk and milk products sector. As I see it, a great opportunity has been missed to propose a true reform that would redress the balance in this sector of the European Union.
Commissioner, you are well aware that my country has been asking for increased quotas of one million tonnes, but in your plan we are allocated approximately 220 000 tonnes, which is much lower than our needs.
It is clear that there is no real explanation for the fact that a Member State such as Spain, which accounts for 12 % of dairy farms, 11 % of the population and 6 % of consumption, only has 4.67 % of the overall Community milk quota.
In contrast, other Member States receive considerable increases in quotas that they neither need nor have ever requested.
Nor is it acceptable that less favoured areas have been forgotten in the new reallocation of quotas. These areas should have been included, along with the mountain regions.
I also do not believe that the 'virtual cow' system is acceptable in calculating premiums as, once again, it will clearly penalise those countries that have insufficient quotas and whose production is less than the Community average.
Lastly, Commissioner, I believe too that maintaining the unjust and insufficient fat content referencing quantities, which many dairy farms have, is unacceptable.
There is no explanation for the fact that a Spanish livestock farmer can produce milk with an average fat content of only 3.63 % and yet, in contrast, a Danish livestock farmer is allowed to produce milk with a 4.31 % fat content.
All this, as you know, has serious consequences, not only for profits but also for the quality and viability of farms.
Perhaps, Commissioner, an interim solution would be to allow all dairy production with an average fat content reference quantity under 4 % to be exempt and not subject to an additional levy.
Mr President, Commissioner, regardless of the outcome of the vote on the Agenda 2000 agricultural package and of the decision taken in the end by the Council of Ministers, I think it is clear that we expect - and must expect - European farmers to undergo enormous changes.
However, I have the impression that we are still doing too little both at national and European level to facilitate change and support the farmers through it.
Unfortunately, it is often the traditional farmers' associations who, in their indiscriminate rejection of reform, forget to draw the attention of their members to new opportunities in good time.
These new opportunities are contained in the Commission's agricultural reform package, despite all the tough measures it may contain.
For the majority of farmers in Europe - and these are the smaller farmers - the package of reforms is a step in the right direction, even if it is often lacking in vigour and is not sufficiently binding in terms of environmental and social criteria for aid.
Incidentally, it is the smaller farmers who have so far been most willing to accept change and to approach it positively.
But we often neglect them.
By way of comparison, I would point out the important and necessary measures taken by the Commission and the Member States in order to prepare companies and banks for the euro.
Companies and banks are not exactly helpless organisations.
Nevertheless, we have helped them.
Members of Parliament have now even received euro key-fobs from the Commission.
It would be much more important to launch a campaign to support farmers not only with practical matters such as adapting facilities and adjusting to change, but to lend them what we could perhaps call moral support.
It is sometimes easy to understand why farmers feel excluded from European politics and feel that they are always cap-in-hand outsiders.
We must also place much greater importance on farmers' non-output-related performance in terms of its image as a service and a job, and we must make the transition from price support to direct aid more palatable.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, Agenda 2000 already contains many far-reaching proposals from the Commission for making changes to the agricultural policy.
A reduction in prices to world market levels for milk, beef and cereals has been proposed.
The price reductions would be partially offset by higher compensatory payments based on area and the number of livestock.
In my view, it is important to adhere to the Commission's principle of basing this compensation on production capacity, for example in the case of milk.
In some cases, Parliament is proposing lower price reductions and thus lower fixed compensatory payments.
I have to say that I think the Commission's proposals are better and more carefully thought out, and therefore more deserving of our support.
It is true that there will be more pressure on the budget when the compensatory payments are raised, but any extra burden on European consumers and taxpayers would be more than offset by lower food prices.
In all probability, the charge on the budget will lessen over time.
According to most forecasts, the world market prices for current products are going to rise, enabling the compensatory payments to be gradually phased out.
The danger in some of Parliament's proposals lies in the fact that they go only half way and would make it harder for European agriculture to operate on the world market and achieve the competitiveness that is essential for our long-term survival.
The Commission's proposals also contain a number of drawbacks.
Countries which cannot grow silage maize should receive fair compensation.
In the debate, it has been said that 20 % of farmers would receive 80 % of the support, but in fact most farmers come within the 20 % band.
This is where we find the family-run farms. The rich minority who happen to farm a large area make up a tiny group.
Mr President, I should like to begin by expressing my regret that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development was unable to come to any opinion on these reports in committee.
It seems to me a sad loss that no-one has mentioned that so far.
However, sadly, the vision of many of my colleagues in the Agriculture Committee appears to be one of national interests and not the global view that has been expressed by the Commission.
The global view must prevail if progress is to be made in this important sector.
The reductions in support prices envisaged by the Commission are not only desirable but vital in the light of expansion and our WTO commitments, not to mention the legitimate concerns of those who have levelled criticism at the level of support enjoyed by this sector.
I have doubts as to whether the proposals will meet the objective of lowering the cost of agricultural products to consumers, but I sincerely hope that the Commission's forecasts are correct.
The introduction of measures designed to protect our rural environment and encourage more extensive farming practices are welcome, but I would draw attention to the degree of flexibility proposed for Member States to decide their own priorities, namely the national envelopes for the beef and milk sectors, the application of cross-compliance requirements and the labour force criteria.
Whilst the notion of flexibility is commendable, we must caution against creating an uncompetitive situation which will divide Europe's farmers.
In conclusion, we need reform.
Most people in this Chamber would accept that.
I hope that my colleagues can be realistic in their voting pattern on 28 January and ensure that at least, at minimum, the Commission's proposals will be accepted.
Mr President, the Commission has quite rightly proposed to extend the role of the European Agricultural Fund, which will in future undertake additional activities aiming to develop the countryside.
In addition, part of the review of the financing system should aim to improve the quality of agricultural products.
This helps both the producer facing international competition and the consumer as the end user of the products.
I also think that the Guidance Section should finance all measures to develop the countryside, including structural, agri-environmental and agri-forestry measures, as well as provide compensatory aid for disadvantaged areas.
The common agricultural policy is a cornerstone of the Union's European integration and an incentive towards development in the agricultural sector.
The possibility of cofinancing will in essence lead to renationalisation of the CAP, even in part, and will affect mainly those countries which fall below the Community average in economic terms, such as Greece and other countries in the south, while in parallel it will have negative consequences for the development of Community agriculture.
For that reason, I categorically oppose proposals, legislation and amendments which undermine the fundamental nature of the CAP and go against the principles of economic and social cohesion and solidarity.
The Union must not condemn the financing of European agriculture to Procrustes' bed in order to satisfy the demands of some countries for a reduction of their contributions to the budget.
And on that point it would be useful to examine not just what those countries contribute to the budget, but also the extent to which they benefit from the common market of the European Union's millions of purchasers.
I therefore believe that the principles of cohesion and solidarity demand that the agricultural policy should remain an undiluted common policy, and that it must be understood that efforts to renationalise it would set us on the slippery slope towards its gradual abolition, with the result that the cohesion of the European Union's fabric would be eroded.
Finally, I disagree with the proposal for pre-accession financing of agricultural measures in the applicant countries from the Guarantee Section, and I support the entry of a separate category of pre-accession aid, one that is independent of the guideline for agriculture.
Mr President, we waited seven years for this reform of a reform.
Now that it has arrived, the manner of its presentation hardly makes us reach for the champagne.
Let us repeat once again that the Commission's proposals severely marginalise the countries south of the Alps, that is, on Europe's southern periphery.
There is no in-depth understanding of the true problems inherent in carrying forward the proposals for the future.
A second reason for dissatisfaction comes from the work which we have done - or rather, I should say, have not done - in Parliament, in that only one of the five reports under discussion was approved in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
I dare not imagine what will happen next week, when we begin to discuss the reform of the COM in wine.
It has to be said, all things considered, that the scope of these proposals is very broad, in a territorial sense as well as time-wise.
Reference is made to a target date of 2006, but the effect of this attempted reform will probably last even longer.
Reference is made to openness towards Eastern Europe, and above all to what is happening in the west, in other words the WTO constraints.
What is perhaps missing, Commissioner, is a little more attention to people, to farmers themselves, who are still somewhat unprepared for all these developments.
The challenge of so-called globalisation affects them directly, but insufficient account is perhaps taken of the persisting uncompetitiveness of European agriculture.
The transition is a harsh one, and for once we can say that bureaucracy has actually outstripped the pace at which Europe's citizens are adjusting.
I am reasonably satisfied with the particular attention devoted in this reform to peripheral areas, such as mountainous regions, with the raising of milk quotas by 1 %, and above all the attention paid to young farmers.
Farmers are in fact a dying breed, Commissioner, given that 3 % of them are lost every year.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the wake of important events, it seems that everyone wants to have their say on agriculture today.
So I would just like to comment briefly on the Graefe zu Baringdorf report, specifically on direct payments and reductions.
I think it is right that European agriculture needs more long-term stable conditions, but it also needs to become more competitive so that, as well as producing foodstuffs, it can also, in accordance with the European agricultural model, cope with the additional major tasks facing the whole of society, such as preserving the agricultural landscape or generally protecting the environment.
The Commission proposals are logical.
Changes made in one area are balanced by changes in another.
But they are also very blunt.
For example, not enough attention is given to the situation of individual holdings.
Compensatory payments, introduced in the 1992 reform, are almost always really only partial compensation for losses incurred by farmers in the past and still today as a result of price reductions.
They are necessary if we are to be able to maintain extensive farming.
Good farming practice should be a prerequisite here.
However, high payments are often made in the case of farms that have substantial land or a high number of livestock, and these often attract criticism.
I think that reductions are necessary for this reason.
Large-scale holdings find it easier to cut costs than smaller family-run farms.
Reductions are necessary in order to allow the situation to become reasonably fair for family-run farms.
The question is how to we are to carry out these reductions.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, in the two minutes I have been allocated in this important debate I will merely state clearly, in view of the significance of the present reform proposals for the existence of European agriculture, that these proposals could have unreasonable consequences for agriculture and for the European economy and society as a whole.
They are therefore not acceptable unless they are amended as my group has recommended.
In addition, they are incompatible with the decisions made at the 1997 Luxembourg summit.
I would remind you that, following the exploratory debate by the Ministers of Agriculture on the European agriculture model, the EU Agriculture Council on 19 November 1997 unanimously requested that the agricultural reforms should be organised in such a way as to allow the European agriculture model to be maintained.
At the Luxembourg summit in December 1997 this demand was taken on board.
The Heads of State and Government declared themselves not only against unilaterally dismantling European agriculture but in favour of further developing the existing European agriculture model with its multifunctional role in all regions; this means that the provisions of the reform under discussion today must target solutions that make economic sense and are justifiable in social terms, and also allow farmers to achieve an appropriate income.
Why did the Commission, in presenting its drafts, pay so little attention to these options that were agreed at a high political level? It is truly incredible.
In my small country the proposals in their present form would result in income losses of LUF 650 million, and would of course mean that agriculture would, quite unreasonably, be dependent on public finance.
This cannot be allowed.
I would also like to comment on milk production, which is such an important part of agriculture in Luxembourg.
We at least agree that the milk quotas must be retained.
However, the proposals as presented by Mr Goepel are the absolute minimum if we wish to prevent milk production from disappearing in many European regions.
I fear, Commissioner Fischler, that it is a naive fallacy if you would have us believe that the drastic price reductions you propose, which are so damaging to farmers, would allow consumers to enjoy price reductions in the order of EUR 10 to 17 billion.
The collapse of prices in the beef and pigmeat sectors has shown us that this is not the case, and you do not have a monopoly on political wisdom.
Listen to us and to the farmers a little, and then we will be able to find a balanced arrangement.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a long-standing error is restricting the development of agricultural and livestock farming in those Spanish regions that are lagging behind economically. Galicia is one of these regions, with Objective 1 status under the European regional policy, and it has a clear and long-established history of livestock farming.
The error I am referring to is, of course, the inadequate milk quota Spain was allocated when it joined what was then the EEC.
Spain, and Galicia in particular, is therefore still calling for a larger milk quota.
In our amendments, we ask that special consideration be given to allocating an additional quota to certain regions that suffer as a result of this unfair disadvantage. This would rectify the severe imbalance in the economic and social cohesion of some less favoured areas.
In order to survive and be competitive, these regions need a specific restructuring programme, cofinanced by the European Union.
The structural deficiency of the sector in these regions has led us to ask that premiums be allocated not in relation to the average Community milk production, as the Commission suggests, but rather in relation to the actual national or regional average, which is very different to the virtual Community production.
And to make it worse, beef and veal, which could partially alleviate the problem, are not included among European premiums that do not cover calves.
We ask that they be regulated and included and that the age for the slaughter premium be brought down to a maximum of eight months. This could help rectify the serious and unjust situation experienced by the Galician livestock sector, a sector which could have great potential.
We call on our European colleagues to show some understanding and ask them to support our amendments in a spirit of solidarity and justice.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in the belief that persistence will get us there in the end, we hope that the discussion today will achieve something.
The farming families of Europe need a reliable political framework.
The 1992 reform introduced direct payments for farmers as a result of a price reduction.
Commissioner, the criteria for direct payments are explained only in vague terms by the Commission and are even left to the discretion of the individual Member States.
But what we need in this area is equal treatment for all agricultural holdings in Europe.
The level of the direct payments to be made to farmers and the additional conditions to be imposed must not be decided at national level.
This is the only way in the end to ensure that market and competition distortions are avoided.
Farmers must be given a regular sum on which they can rely, and they must also be able to plan economically and successfully.
The Commission recognises the need to adjust to the world market.
This would expose European agriculture to worldwide competition, but it would at the same time be burdened by additional costs resulting from Europe's high environmental and social standards.
But how can we be competitive if conditions are so varied worldwide? Direct payments to agriculture must in my view be considered from the point of view of less favourable natural production conditions.
We must not forget that farming families look after and preserve the agricultural landscape.
I would urge the Commission to use the given criteria as a basis for deciding on any further requirements to be imposed on agricultural production.
We must in future regard the principle of good farming practice as our starting point, a principle addressed by both Mrs Schierhuber and Mr Mayer.
We must establish a framework for European agriculture in which Europe's farmers can in future also survive on the world market.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it seems that everyone wants to have their say today.
Seldom have such great expectations been held of an EU presidency as of the German Presidency in the first half of 1999.
Bringing Agenda 2000 to a successful conclusion is almost equivalent to squaring the circle.
You may be able to bring our negative response to the proposals back to the Council in time, Mr Funke.
The content of the new agricultural policy must be finalised quickly, by the end of February, and my question is: are the Ministers of Agriculture still involved in any way in determining policy, or will the Heads of State and Government set the financial framework in advance at the summit in March?
The time for questions is long past.
Specific options are required, and farmers want finally to know where we are headed.
Yesterday in the House Mr Fischer, the German Foreign Minister, called for a reduction in agricultural expenditure.
However, he also promised support for European farmers.
Mr Funke, I am sure you will be able to explain this confusion.
You speak in a very straightforward way that I really like; you have not adopted this technocrats' German, and please do not do so.
But to achieve the same result with less and less money is, in my view, a very difficult task.
Financial leeway is becoming limited in the search for solutions and there is not very much room for manoeuvre.
Perhaps this reform is the last available.
Following enlargement towards the east, the emphasis is increasingly on liberalisation, which our farmers know, but in my view the solutions that must now be negotiated under Agenda 2000 are only an intermediate stage.
In 2005, following the accession of the first group of applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe, agricultural policy will be under the microscope once again.
As a member of the farming community, I really cannot endorse the discussion about price reductions.
In twenty years of professional involvement in agricultural policy I have never seen consumer prices fall as a result of lower agricultural prices.
Mr Funk said the same this morning.
We have a German expression: although cereal is becoming cheaper, bread is becoming dearer.
I could also say that although milk is becoming cheaper, yogurt is becoming dearer; you can be fairly sure of that.
In order to lay down Community rules for direct payments, which was my task as shadow rapporteur, I would also like to ask the Commissioner what these regions must commit themselves to paying their farmers if they can expect higher environmental requirements at the Commission's insistence, as is currently planned.
I know what I am talking about; I come from North Rhine-Westphalia and our farmers may be able to handle increased environmental requirements, but the question is: who will pay?
My second and final question concerns the sliding scale of direct payments to farmers in accordance with the number of workers, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf proposes.
Please simply tell me whether you accept Amendment No 27 or not.
Then we will be in agreement.
Mr President, when Mr Andriessen became a Commissioner which was many years ago, I was already a Member of Parliament.
I said to him that the big challenge before him was to make European agriculture competitive.
Since that day there has been no talk about making European agriculture competitive, but I want to thank Mr Fischler for continuing with that theme and at least putting forward the aspiration that European agriculture can take its place in the world and take its share of world markets.
With the world population increasing by 80 million per year, it ought not to be all doom and gloom.
We ought to plan and lay out some sort of strategy by which we can play our part in supplying this market.
It was extraordinary to read this morning that Argentina is importing beef at the moment.
That is an area of the world which we had thought was a great competitor and a threat.
Because of the climatic situation Australia is able to supply them with beef.
It gives us some reason to believe that things do not always remain exactly as they are.
When the MacSharry reform came in we proposed reducing production and increasing importation of food.
Today we propose taking a bigger share of world markets. I welcome that.
I was a bit disappointed that the President-in-Office of Council talked more about animal welfare, environmental considerations and consumer protection than about the livelihood of farmers.
While I accept the point he made on those matters, we cannot consider those ideas in isolation from the need to provide farmers with an adequate income.
Farmers may complain about the common agricultural policy, but without it we would have a worse situation in Europe.
So I would be seriously concerned about any effort to shift the cost or the policymaking of the common agricultural policy back to Member States.
Under no circumstances can we permit this to happen.
There are so many different countries and climates in the EU and the common agricultural policy has saved us from the tensions that would have arisen in recent years with the great reduction in the number of people on the land.
We have a policy that works.
Farmers suffer from it at the moment but our best hope is to carry out the necessary readjustments and keep it a common agricultural policy for all Europeans which contains all three elements - financial solidarity in particular.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to concentrate mainly on two areas: milk and beef.
With regard to milk and the report by Mr Goepel, which in itself I would like to support fully, I regret that some of the amendments did not meet with approval in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Examples include the important alternative proposals concerning price support and income support for milk producers, particularly in the disadvantaged mountain areas.
These must be given greater consideration and distortions of competition must be avoided or offset.
It is also essential to introduce measures to promote the consumption of milk and milk products, and the necessary funds must be provided for marketing.
I would advocate that the individual reference quantity for milk be divided by the number that corresponds to the average milk yield of the region.
This would be a fairer method for the mountain areas.
Finally, in my opinion the Member States should be paid in accordance with objective criteria, taking particular account of their respective production structures, especially in the mountain areas, so that they are not so dependent on variations in the market.
Fourthly, I also consider publicly-financed transportation aid to be absolutely necessary and indispensable.
As far as the beef situation is concerned, greater consideration should be given to the disadvantaged areas, for example in terms of eligibility for premiums.
Accordingly, young farmers should receive further additional financial support.
Action needs to be taken in this regard, as Commissioner Fischler said earlier today.
I hope that the Commission, in particular the very skilled and able Commissioner Fischler, who comes from a mountain area and knows the situation extremely well, and the Council will give my objections the appropriate consideration.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you can imagine, it was very interesting for me to attend this debate, to listen to and digest the various speeches as best I could, this morning and this afternoon, and of course to take this with me to the debate we will be having on this subject in the Agriculture Council.
I already indicated in my introductory speech this morning that I place great importance on hearing your opinions and taking part in discussions with you.
I am also of the opinion that what you say and think must carry weight in the discussions in Council.
So I thank you for your contributions.
I should like to look at a number of points that were raised, without dwelling on them too long, particularly as some of them were addressed to me.
Perhaps I might begin by saying that when I compare the various speeches the overall effect seems to me to be equivalent to squaring the circle - to quote Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert - as is so often the case when the subject of farming is discussed anywhere out in the countryside.
Farmers are required to provide high-quality foodstuffs and use environmentally friendly production methods; at the same time, they are supposed to preserve the agricultural landscape, just on the side, and in addition they are supposed to do all of this economically, preferably at what we call world market prices.
Put in these terms, this is already equivalent to squaring the circle.
Nonetheless, we must put it in these terms, as no other terms are possible in pluralistic societies.
When considering compensatory payments, which I believe we were this morning and this afternoon, we are told by some that these should be as fair as possible and should take the respective structures into account.
I understand and accept all of that.
Yet at the same time calls are made - sometimes in the same speech, but at most two or three speeches later - for these to be implemented as simply and with as little bureaucracy as possible.
Again, this seems to me to be like squaring the circle, if I am judging it correctly.
I would like to begin by making a point concerning a speech that came towards the end.
I believe it was Mr McCartin who said to me that I had talked about animal welfare and environmental considerations but not the issue of competitiveness.
Mr McCartin, this morning I was in an excellent position; I had been asked not to improvise because the text of my speech had been given to the interpreters, so I kept to the text.
I do not usually do this, I will freely admit, but I can therefore say quite amicably and in all modesty that I know exactly what I said and what requests I made.
I quote: 'Future European agriculture must be competitive in order to hold its ground against international competition.'
I admit that it is possible, of course, not to hear a sentence like that.
But because it is such a crucial one, I would like to quote it here once again to show that it was not the case that I completely neglected this aspect of agriculture.
It would have been terrible, had I done so.
I would like to add the following. We have often been called upon to tell farmers the truth, so in my view we need to make one thing clear over and over again: if we reduce European agriculture - however it may be defined - solely to supplying raw materials for the European market, it will fail.
We have a wealthy internal market, with 80 million inhabitants in Germany alone.
In total, if we include the applicant countries, we will have a large number of consumers throughout Europe who can mobilise enormous purchasing power.
When reference is made to the purchasing power of the European internal market - especially when the other countries join - I must on the other hand continually point out that we have a degree of saturation in Europe and even surpluses, at least in some areas of agricultural production.
How can we hope to develop an image of the future face of European agriculture if we do not recognise that we must also conquer markets outside Europe? I do not want to expand on this now, but to my mind this has to be part of European agriculture.
I want to make it very clear that European agriculture cannot function otherwise.
On the other hand, if European agriculture produces under very specific requirements - whether crop or livestock production - because society demands it, but the agricultural systems in other competing countries do not do so because their societies react differently to certain production conditions, then both compensatory payments and a minimum level of protection from foreign competitors must be guaranteed.
This is part and parcel of the fair trade conditions that we want to see, and it is a crucial point.
It also concerns the WTO, which you mentioned, Mr Sturdy.
Of course we must also look at this in detail, including in the debates on that specific issue.
In any case, Mr Sturdy, I agree with what you said.
In view of the Commission proposals, the question arose - or rather I was asked very specifically, by Mrs Anttila, I believe - as to how I, as President of the Council, proposed to prevent farmers from going bankrupt as a result of the price reductions.
Here I must say something about our concept of politics in general.
To believe or claim that politics can prevent bankruptcies - by means of any instrument, action or basic conditions - is an assumption that I would warn against.
Politics will never be capable of this under any conditions.
At best we can ask whether, with a view of the proposed solutions, the basic competition conditions are fair or not.
We must discuss whether this makes sense for the future of agriculture.
But it does not relieve farmers of the business decision; it does not relieve me, as a manager, of the responsibility of taking the necessary decisions in my company to ensure its long-term existence in the light of the current conditions.
But we should not ask too much of politics.
Indeed, it seems to me that in the past we perhaps too often gave the impression that politics was capable of such things.
Perhaps we should no longer give this impression in future.
I therefore very much agree that we need reliable basic conditions, that we need to be competitive.
I also agree with the view that we must be careful with our money.
Another element of this squaring of the circle is that, on the one hand, we rightly require agriculture to provide a livelihood for as many people as possible, but on the other hand we must constantly explain to the non-farming population, and also to the farmers themselves, that the total sum spent on agriculture is not a small one, when we take into account the European budget, the national budgets and part of the regional budgets in federal Member States.
Nonetheless, we have a correspondingly high drop-out rate in farms, and we have not managed to satisfy the farming population either.
This is a discussion needs to go into more detail in certain areas.
This seems to me to be particularly important.
Perhaps it is true that we spend a great deal of money, but we do not spend it in such a way that it benefits the people working on the farms.
That is putting it very simply, but it is certainly worth thinking about.
It is a point some speakers mentioned, and although I do not want to go into detail because of time constraints, it is certainly a point worth noting.
Yet the call for greater extensification, increased environmental protection, a move away from purely economic considerations, and at the same time reduced expenditure - and such a call was made, if only indirectly, unless I misunderstood - is again asking us to square the circle.
It is important that we realise this is impossible.
It is easy to talk about whether to pursue greater extensification or increased environmental protection, but we must realise that it costs money, either because local requirements make compensatory payments necessary or because the environmental protection is organised as part of an agreement; it could be either.
One will mean more for one person, the other will mean more for another, but either way it will cost public money.
That is an aspect that must not be forgotten.
I believe I have covered the main points that were put to me.
Perhaps I placed too much emphasis on certain points, as I am new to this, but that should help you to get to know my point of view.
With regard to the view that we should perhaps nationalise the financing of the agricultural policy, which means that we would only receive money from Europe if we had organised national funds in advance or were obliged to organise these funds subsequently, forgive me for saying so, but I think that would be the end of a Community agricultural policy.
For this reason I have great doubts as to whether we should choose this path.
Applause
Mr President, I should like the President-in-Office to clarify a statement by his colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who yesterday said that we should reform the common agricultural policy in order to reduce the expenditure of the European Union.
The Minister did not give me any information on this subject and he did not answer me, but I asked him if the German Presidency had changed from its traditional position.
This question is very relevant, politically speaking, and I would therefore ask and insist that I am given an answer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Cunha, it is not just the Germans who have so far discussed financial issues, particularly with regard to the agricultural policy; we can see from the negotiations in the Agriculture Council in which I was involved, and from the discussions which followed with the various Member States, that financial issues are discussed continually.
I just emphasised in my reply that in my opinion it is of course very important, and indeed it is part of the reason we need agricultural reform, to ask whether the money we spend on agriculture - at European, national and, in federal Member States, regional level - is always spent in such a way, because of the way the system is organised, that it really benefits those on the farms.
To my mind this is not really a question of the level of funds provided, but a question of distribution.
I want to place particular emphasis on this point.
We say that for an indefinite period we will allocate 45 %, or, according to some, 50 % - I do not want to argue this point - of the European budget to agriculture, and at the same time we see that agricultural income is going down, not up, at least in some areas of agricultural production.
Surely we have to ask ourselves what we think we are doing? We cannot simply accept it and say that the more money we have, the happier everyone is.
I believe we would all, in particular the landowners, be well advised to get involved in this discussion.
I do not know what the Foreign Minister said on this point, but if he thinks, as I understand it, that we can reduce expenditure without saying how and in what area it is to be done, then I would be inclined to say that just as I would come to an agreement with the Foreign Minister before expressing an opinion on foreign affairs, so should the Foreign Minister come to an agreement with the Minister for Agriculture before expressing an opinion on agricultural issues.
But I do not know what he said on this issue so I cannot comment.
I would like to discuss this with him.
In conclusion, I would like to say something that should give cause for thought.
I do not have sufficient information to speak for the other Member States of the European Union, but I can speak for Germany and for its Länder: it makes almost no difference - please note that I say 'almost' - what instruments we use in agricultural policy or what we focus on, we have had an average drop-out rate of 3 % in farming in the last 50 years since the end of the war.
Note: the last 50 years.
This drop-out rate corresponds exactly to the increase in agricultural productivity.
Scientists have looked into this and the answers are quite clear.
I cannot be quite so clear cut, but I wonder whether we are not going to have to realise that the increase in productivity levels is undoubtedly going to mean structural changes in agriculture, with farms being abandoned, as long as economics is the basis of agricultural policy, I might add.
For me it would be inconceivable not to have economics as the basis of agricultural policy.
The result would be a great waste of resources if this were not the case. But perhaps we should also discuss this more in public than we have done in the past.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank all those who contributed to this debate.
In my opinion it was very constructive and set an excellent example, as I hope the public will note.
On the many questions concerning specific amendments, I will repeat what I said this morning, which was that I am prepared to distribute a list clarifying which amendments the Commission considers acceptable.
I also realise that I promised to be brief in my final speech, and I would like to keep to this.
Mr Funke has just given a very clear explanation of what is important in relation to the competitiveness of European agriculture.
European agriculture must be competitive in two ways.
Firstly, our products must be competitive, and they can only be competitive if we pay greater attention to quality that we have hitherto, if we realise and act upon our consumers' new appreciation for quality, and above all if we take into account the strength of European agriculture, which, as we know, lies in using agricultural raw materials to produce high-quality end products.
However, competitiveness in European agriculture also means that services other than the production of agricultural products must be accorded economic value and must be integrated into our market economy system.
A great deal has been said about the extent to which agricultural policy must also be social policy.
We must be realistic here.
Agricultural policy should have a social dimension but should not be purely social policy.
That would really be a mistake.
The question here is surely how we are in future to achieve a reasonable ratio, so that we do not have an imbalance like the present famous 80: 20.
With regard to environmental policy, I would like to remind you once again of the principle on which we in the Commission based our considerations.
The issue is not the importance of the environment within the common agricultural policy but the fact that in future we want to emphasise that compensatory payments, as we currently call them, must be linked to the environment.
For us it is essential that all farmers who receive public funds from the Community budget at least observe the principles of good farming practice.
We must certainly discuss the definition further in terms of production system, climatic region and so on.
However, we also consider it essential that other services that go beyond this are compensated separately, but these services must be voluntary.
We do not want to introduce a command economy in Europe by the back door.
I now come to the issue of financing.
The Commission has not made any proposals concerning cofinancing, as was suggested several times. It merely described, in the context of its report on own resources, possible ways of achieving a better balance between the contributions of the individual Member States.
In our view, it is now primarily up to the Member States themselves to say which of these financing models they would favour. I therefore believe that we firstly need the basics to be clarified before any political agreement can be set out in the relevant legal texts.
In the meantime, however, as you know, there are also other considerations such as stabilisation models that are very much worthy of examination. We are prepared to look into them.
But one point must be clear: regardless of which model we use, we will not be in a position to bring about an agreement between the Member States if we do not have the necessary financing to compensate for changes in pricing policy. As the saying goes, money makes the world go round.
We really must make available the funding that is needed and that is recognised as being needed, otherwise we will not achieve proper reform.
I would like to remind you of one further point: do not forget that with regard to payment for services that will in future be part of rural development, cofinancing has already been agreed and is planned to continue.
This means that the more we push forward rural development and the more importance we attach to payment for environmental services and similar, the more likely it is that cofinancing will become automatic, but in a form that does not allow cohesion to fall by the wayside.
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on 28 January at 9 a.m.
Organic production
The next item is the debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0719/98 by Mrs Barthet-Mayer on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Council, on rules relating to organic production (livestock production); -B4-0720/98 by Mrs Barthet-Mayer on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on rules relating to organic production (livestock production).
Commissioner, Mr President, as rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture on the extension of Regulation 2092/91 to organic production, I would remind you that we obtained very wide consensus in Parliament on this text.
To the great satisfaction of Members, the Commission then took over a large number of our amendments and included them in its amended proposal.
During 1998, the successive versions of the text discussed in the Council unfortunately resulted in a significant shift.
So the purpose of my two oral questions today is to alert the Commission and the Council on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture, and I want to thank my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture for their confidence and support in taking this action that meets their concerns.
This shift relates to three areas.
First, the transitional conversion periods are considerably extended.
It does not take 15 years to reduce the number of chickens in a building.
Next, there is an increase in the number of derogations, which could end up distorting the proposal.
This applies, for example, to the sensitive issue of feed. In principle, this should be entirely organic in this type of production, and in this respect the Commission's proposal is already sufficient derogation in itself, since it recommends 90 % organic feed.
Finally, standards and thresholds going far beyond the Commission's proposal have been progressively introduced.
There is also a risk of it becoming a form of catch-all regulation authorising intensification in organic agriculture, which is a contradiction in terms.
I am aware of what is at stake economically in connection with consumers' recent interest in this sector of production in the European Union, and also in connection with potential future exports. I thus felt bound to react to put the legislators on their guard against the internal risk from such a flimsy and incoherent regulation, which is likely to distort competition according to different national or regional interpretations and methods of control that are not harmonised.
I also want to put them on their guard about the fact that the application of a complete regulation is being delayed even further, with the risk that the European Union - a pioneer in this field - might have only have to meet the general standards of the codex alimentarius , its text being currently under discussion, with all that that also involves in terms of the actual nature of imports from third countries.
As in other agricultural sectors, the lack of a strong common proposal threatens to weaken the Union later on in the World Trade Organisation, because we know the debate is going on in the United States to try to impose GMOs, the use of urban sludge, irradiation of foodstuffs, and even natural hormones on organic farming.
All this is very different from our European conception of this sector.
Organic farming must undoubtedly remain a symbol of the most demanding, the strictest and the most thoroughly controlled quality, to the benefit of all who want it, both producers and consumers.
It is a voluntary approach and everyone is free to adhere to it or adopt another type of quality production.
As a result, I call on the Commission to stand by its proposal, and even withdraw it if it is being excessively distorted by the Council.
But I do hope that it will not be necessary to go that far.
And I am also very hopeful when I call on the Council to have another in-depth look at this proposal, in the knowledge that we are, of course, in agreement with its proposal of last December, which lays down the principles of organic breeding.
But we very firmly reiterate our request that the Council's text be revised, and we hope, in line with what Mr Funke gave us to understand this morning, that the Presidency-in-Office will heed the combined voices of Parliament and the Commission.
Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, please do not let cut-price organic farming develop.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Barthet-Mayer, we dealt with this issue in the Agriculture Council of 14-15 December and, as you know, agreed on guidelines, but we also urged that it should be adopted as soon as possible in the spring of this year, in accordance with your wishes, as the Council also saw the need for speedy adoption.
Certainly, we cannot currently predict what the substance of the text of the regulation ultimately submitted will be.
We shall have to wait and see, but the opinion of the Council was that, as you requested, we need a clear demarcation between organic production and conventional production.
I fully agree with you on this.
However, on the other hand, we must proceed with the necessary flexibility and simply appraise the situation as we go along.
We must also be flexible in facilitating the transition for those who wish to change over to organic livestock production.
For this reason we also discussed appropriate transitional periods.
One side called for fifteen years.
If I remember correctly, we agreed on twelve years.
I know that there was a lengthy, in-depth discussion about this twelve-year period and - you are shaking your head anxiously - that we can of course also call for shorter periods.
On the other hand, however, we know that it was as a result of practical experience that we decided to favour longer periods.
I assure you that we will implement this quickly in accordance with your wishes and that we will monitor observance of the demarcation very strictly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Funke has already indicated, there were various problems in the discussions in the Council with the proposal submitted by the Commission following debate in Parliament.
The main problem is really that some of the elements of our proposal cannot be readily introduced in all Member States.
We therefore had a debate on transitional derogations to allow the national provisions that currently exist in most Member States to be brought into line with future Community law.
Some of the amendments concern in particular the origin of the animals, as animals or feedingstuffs can come from conventional holdings.
We must not forget that in a number of Member States organic farming has hardly been practised up to now.
We must give these countries an opportunity to start organic farming if they wish to do so.
This is really why we want a transitional provision of this kind.
I would also like to stress that harmonisation can only progress gradually, particularly if the relevant livestock production has hitherto been governed predominantly by national or regional rules.
Certain amendments were proposed in order to solve this problem. They concern in particular the tethering of animals and requirements in terms of the lying area and litter area that should be provided for each animal.
Do not forget that for centuries tethering was the normal way to keep animals, particularly on small holdings.
And if a farmer has his small farm in the middle of a village it is not always easy to provide the appropriate litter areas.
Nor should you forget that it is the smaller holdings that today are already recognised as organic farms, but that this recognition would have to be revoked if they did not have a litter pen.
So here we must be prepared to reach a compromise.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that derogations always apply for a transitional period only and that these are by no means unprecedented.
Such provisions also exist for example for seeds and plants or for conventional ingredients in organic foodstuffs.
With regard to future action I would simply like to clarify that the Commission is of course prepared to defend its proposal and if necessary to justify why certain exceptions are necessary on a temporary basis.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, I would like to say briefly that the Social Democrats in the European Parliament are very pleased that you have clarified these matters for us and that common sense has prevailed.
Of course snow falls in the beautiful Tyrol, in the almost as beautiful Allgäu and also in beautiful Lower Saxony, and then the cows just have to be brought into their stalls.
All this - you know that I defend the Commission and also the Council on all important issues - fell victim to propaganda in my home town during the election.
It was said that ropes were banned from cowsheds, so of course people moaned about the nasty Eurocrats again.
I am pleased that this subject is now closed and that common sense has prevailed in Europe.
Thank you.
We can now at long last continue to support a very reasonable method of production.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office, organic farmers have often been depicted as outsiders, and I believe that if this continues they will continue to be outsiders.
The basic conditions should be created to ensure that they do not remain outsiders, with the exception of ideologues.
Flexibility, which you mentioned, Mr Funke, is right, necessary and sensible, but it should take the right direction and should not be a form of protection for large industrial concerns that wish to maintain forms of production that admittedly lead to relatively low unit prices in economic terms but ultimately harm public health.
I believe this is what you meant by flexibility.
In any case that is how I see it.
In my view, the transition periods are too long.
Pointless conditions that make organic farming much more difficult should be abolished or not introduced in the first place.
But I believe that marketing and promotion are vitally important and necessary, both to change consumer habits and, in the form of commercial initiatives, to create sales opportunities for small farms, as most of the farms concerned are small holdings.
Four weeks ago a study was presented to us by the chamber of commerce in Bozen in the south Tyrol. It was a comparative study of 1 500 cooperatives in the Alps, from France to Slovenia, and we learned that the farms that were involved in these cooperatives fared much better than the others in terms of income security.
Since mainly small farms are involved we would need to introduce greater support for cooperatives in this area.
If you do not yet have this study, I would be glad to provide you with a copy.
In Austria we have learned that almost 20 % of current production comes from areas of organic production.
I believe we are moving in the right direction.
It is an advantage for our consumers, for health, for better extensification of farmland and, I believe, it offers good future prospects for young farmers too, particularly as the average age of more than half of those employed in agriculture is over 55 years.
Mr President, in terms of our subject this afternoon, we all agree that there is a steadily increasing consumer demand for organic products.
There are already rules in Europe on fruit and vegetables, and almost everyone knows what the definition of these is.
This is far from being the case with animal products.
I think it is very important that we should allow as few derogations from the rule as possible.
If there are derogations, I think consumers will lose all confidence, and it will also mean that there is no proper competition.
I think that Mr Funke's suggestion just now that we should look at all this again in the spring is a very welcome one.
Certainly not all countries will be able to start at the same time.
But that is not the issue here.
The issue here is whether we can sell customers things which satisfy their expectations and which are able to meet certain standards for organic production.
Other countries can join in later.
But it is important that consumers should have the assurance that there is a specific definition consistent with their expectations, and that producers should know the requirements to which they must produce.
That is it, really.
Anyone who cannot meet those expectations will not sell these products and will not produce them either.
Once again, we look forward with interest to the spring.
Mr President, the history of the regulation on organic farming began in 1992.
Initial discussions led to the regulation on plants, then followed the commitment by Parliament and then by the Commission that animals would be covered a year later.
It is now 1999, and as the President-in-Office said earlier, all we have to do now is to adopt it.
But please, Mr Funke, do not put urgency before quality since we have been working on this for so long already!
What is the current situation? We are now at the stage of the legislative procedure where Parliament has adopted a position on this issue.
The Commission has adopted some of Parliament's amendments.
The Council requires a unanimous vote to reject this modified proposal containing Parliament's amendments, if the Commission keeps to its proposal.
I would like to discuss two points: tethering and gene technology.
Tethering is not mentioned at all in the Commission's proposal.
This means that it will have to be inserted later and the Commission will have to be prepared to compromise so that this problematic issue can be covered, because it is a subject that has been neglected completely, at least for cattle.
I would ask you not to insist excessively on animal welfare, which essentially has nothing to do with appropriate ways of keeping animals.
Appropriate tethering is perfectly possible, but exact details must be given, and we must not throw the baby out with the bath water.
For the use of genetically modified organisms the principle is different.
The Commission adopted the proposal that we do not want the use of genetically modified organisms to be included in this regulation and therefore in organic production.
This is therefore a ban.
There is a ban on using genetically modified organisms, and it should remain.
Yet we have the problem of what to do with potentially contaminated organisms.
This is where we begin to weaken.
With regard to tethering I am in favour of a moderate approach, but here I am in favour of a strict approach, because if we allow contamination and then in the novel foods regulation, to which it relates, allow a certain percentage that need not be labelled, we are allowing the use of genetically modified organisms through the backdoor; if tests then show that products do indeed contain such organisms, we will lose our markets.
Here I would ask that we proceed with caution.
Furthermore, the question of contamination is dependent on what measures are taken to ensure that other areas are not contaminated during release experiments.
I would ask for a very strict approach to be adopted here, Commissioner.
It is in your hands.
If you do not seek a compromise with the Council on this, the Council's hands are tied.
We may postpone the matter once again, but then we must not act in haste but give priority to quality.
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has also signed the joint motion for a resolution on organic livestock production because the Commission's proposal is much too lax.
It provides for far too many derogations and it is in contradiction to the rigour of the national standards established by a number of Member States, including France.
Even if the final revised version allows Member States to maintain stricter national provisions than those to be applied at European level, we are bound to fear a levelling down.
Our group is aware of the potential of organic livestock production for the agriculture of Member States.
After what has happened with BSE and GMOs, the consumer wants a level of food safety that organic production can guarantee.
But before signing the joint motion for a resolution, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations called for the incorporation of a certain number of points that it considers essential.
Derogations must be strictly and entirely limited to production subject to the external constraint of extreme and exceptional climate conditions.
Transitional regimes must be limited in terms of their duration to allow producers to adapt their system of production to European standards that are stricter their own specifications.
With the codex alimentarius due to determine the rules relating to production, labelling and marketing of organic products as from the end of June 1999, the Union needs to adopt a clear position that incorporates strict standards.
Finally, as regards labelling, our group is opposed to the harmonised European logo for organic products that some people want.
As national specifications are different, the harmonised European logo would be a source of confusion for the consumer and would involve a levelling down of the health standards of organic livestock products.
Through its national legislation, the United States has tried to authorise the incorporation of GMOs into feed for animals intended for organic production.
American consumers have succeeded in getting this proposal withdrawn and our group welcomes that fact.
Thanks to the constraints it imposes in terms of specifications and the traceability of products, organic farming represents an attractive opportunity for some producers.
It represents one means of linking agriculture closely to the land and permitting an agricultural price differential higher than standard world prices.
Mr President, this dual advantage must not be abandoned to the benefit of the purely mercenary approach adopted by certain Member States towards organic production.
Mr President, two types of farming coexist today.
The first is one that responds to the demands of the multinationals, which are mainly American, that poisons the ground and foodstuffs, and that intends, for the first time in history, to patent living creatures and alter genetic heritage.
It also plans to market non-reproducible seeds, has been spreading cancer for the last 50 years and has cut human sperm production in half through pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. Then there is the other kind of farming, the form of peasant, traditional farming, which respects employment, the environment and human health, but which has been systematically marginalised by the lobbies, right down to its very name - organic - which is an ambiguous and opaque term as far as the general public is concerned.
The National Front prefers to talk about traditional and natural farming and chooses the farming that has shaped our civilisation down through the millennia.
Farmers are the main victims of chemical methods.
The socialists are the leading accomplices of this system: in France, for instance, they only grant FRF 100 per farm per year for conversion to organic farming.
For the leading agricultural nation in Europe, faced with the challenge of a rapidly expanding market, this is ridiculous.
Consumers want something other than mad cow disease, hormones and GMOs. These substances should be banned.
In the face of the challenges of pollution, urban overcrowding and the destruction of the countryside, organic farming makes only a vague appearance in Agenda 2000 and that is unacceptable.
So what should be done? Firstly, we must increase the level of resources set aside for conversion.
Secondly, we must oppose all levelling down and any derogation that will endanger the quality and credibility of organic farming networks of any kind.
French standards are excellent in this respect, and must not be undermined.
We say 'no' to cut-price organic farming!
Thirdly, it is scandalous that in 1999, products that guarantee jobs and protect the environment and public health are taxed at the same rate as doctored products that are full of hormones and that are the result of chemical, transgenic methods that are tragically destructive for consumers and for natural environments.
So no tax or VAT should therefore be levied on organic farming.
Mr President, the UK currently lags behind most EU countries in its production of organic food.
Currently only about 1 % of our farm output is recognised as organic.
However, the demand for such produce has risen enormously over the last few years, and not just because of the BSE crisis: our supermarkets simply cannot obtain enough organic produce to keep pace with this rising demand from their customers, even when looking to other Member States to meet the shortfall.
The demand is there and consumers are prepared to pay high prices for what they regard as a healthier and higher-quality product.
However, the transitional period for farmers switching to organic production is often very difficult, as they incur extra costs for some years before being able to obtain recognition as a fully organic producer and so able to command the higher prices.
On the other hand, consumers need to know that they are paying more for a genuine organic product.
Here I want to join my colleagues in urging both the Commission and the Council to take speedy action to implement the measures to further organic husbandry, as recommended by the Committee on Agriculture, for which Mrs Barthet-Mayer has been such an eloquent spokeswoman on this issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will help to save us some time.
I think we can say that the EU Agriculture Council has essentially succeeded in dealing with the new EU eco-regulation.
In our opinion the Federal Government has found acceptable compromises, particularly from a national point of view, in order to achieve vital objectives relating to livestock farming, feedingstuffs and veterinary medicine.
I consider this intermediate step to be an initial reaction.
An acceptable basis has been found for sustainable basic conditions for improved ecological livestock production.
Several speakers considered this to be long overdue.
It is now possible to conclude the amendment of the EU eco-regulation under the German Presidency in the first half of 1999.
I have another question concerning the quality mark.
But perhaps I am simply not well enough informed.
Are we again to have all the different national quality marks and an additional quality mark that can be recognised EU-wide, as Mr Mulder requested before in his report? I think it would be helpful to have an answer from you on this issue.
But perhaps it is already in the text.
Will there be different national quality marks or a harmonised EU quality mark?
Mr President, I would like briefly to answer two questions.
In reply to Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert's question, the Commission is working towards developing an EU-wide logo, as called for in the resolution.
The second question concerns GMO. For us it is not problem - and we stand by this - that we do not want to allow the use of GMO.
But as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf rightly said, there is a problem with contamination.
However, we wish to be as restrictive as possible here, so we would rather talk about unavoidable contamination than just contamination.
The details have yet to be worked out, however, so that there can be no excuses.
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0004/99).
I should like to welcome Mr Verheugen, and we look forward to working with him and having the pleasure of his company in the days ahead.
Mr President, in reply to this question, the Council has already pointed out on several occasions when answering questions on this subject in the House - and I can only repeat this - that it has never been involved with issues concerning the matter which the honourable Member refers to in her latest question.
I would therefore ask her to appreciate that the Council is not in a position to provide an answer on this.
I would also point out that the interception of telecommunications, which is the subject of the proposal for a Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters, seeks to promote international cooperation in order to control international crime.
This type of interception does not pursue any other objectives apart from that of fighting organised crime.
I might add then that the honourable Members' questions are concerned with the interception of telecommunications for the purpose of solving crimes.
The relevant Council bodies are currently dealing with a draft Council resolution on new technologies which is clearly connected with both the Council Resolution of 17 January 1995 on the lawful interception of telecommunications, and the discussions on the interception of telecommunications within the framework of the Draft Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters between the Member States of the European Union.
The requirements of the competent authorities with regard to the technical implementation of lawful interceptions in modern telecommunications systems are summarised in the 1995 resolution.
It should be noted that this resolution does not deal with the legal basis for authorising interception; it deals solely with the technical requirements for the monitoring agencies with regard to monitoring telecommunications on the basis of a valid authorisation.
The 1995 resolution is applied in principle to current and future telecommunications systems.
In view of ongoing progress in telecommunications technology, however, it is being considered whether the resolution needs clarification on a series of points, pertaining to satellite systems and the Internet in particular.
This draft resolution seeks to provide the necessary clarification.
As regards the Draft Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters, the possibility of adopting rules on the interception of telecommunications for the purpose of solving crime has been carefully examined both by experts and by the Council itself.
Conventional telecommunications systems operate within one country and are based on the assumption that a target in any one country can only be monitored by means of the telecommunications system in that particular country.
However, these technical restrictions do not apply to the new satellite systems.
New forms of cooperation are therefore necessary.
The ongoing discussions involve a series of highly sensitive political issues.
Moreover, the issues concerned are of a highly complex technical nature.
Naturally, due respect should be paid in this connection to the human rights angle and in particular to the relevant provisions of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.
At its meeting on 3 and 4 December 1998, the Council examined the most difficult political issues.
These concerned cases of monitoring for the purpose of solving crime, where the technology could be made available for a country to monitor a target in another country without this country providing the technical support to do so.
A broad majority of Member States took the view that the country in which the target is located should be informed in these cases and should be in a position to demand that it is not monitored, or that it ceases to be monitored.
One Member State declared itself in favour of providing for exceptions for reasons of national security.
Some other issues were also discussed, in particular the question as to what extent the Member State in which the target is located should be in a position to demand that material already seized be destroyed.
In this connection, however, the question that requires urgent clarification is whether it is sufficient to merely inform the country in which the target is located, or whether this country should arrange for the target to be monitored under the mutual legal assistance arrangements in accordance with its legal framework.
This issue is also particularly important because the result of an obligation to merely inform the country in which the target is located would be to shape technology in such a way that individuals could be monitored in their own country by another Member State.
What we are talking about here is that the Internet would be forced to put facilities in place so that the police can come in through the back door.
If these plans were implemented ENFOPOL would be able to monitor almost every communication mode. This would be a gross abuse of people's right to privacy and of basic civil liberties.
There is an internal Council document which was to be discussed.
It has been put on the Internet in German.
In the interests of transparency, this document should be available in all languages so people can see what is going on at these K4 meetings.
Even though you talk about the justification for this, you do not mention what the consequences are or the cost effect for the Internet providers to provide such a facility.
They are going to be asked to pay for this so that the police can, without warrants and without any justification, bar this bland statement by yourself, say that this is done to fight crime.
We need openness and to know what is going on.
Parliament should be informed, Member States should open up this discussion so that people in the Member States know what is going on before it is too late.
Mrs McKenna, I would point out once again that the interception of telecommunications, which is the subject of the proposal for a Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance in criminal matters, seeks to promote international cooperation in order to control international crime.
This type of interception does not pursue any other objectives apart from that of fighting organised crime.
I should like to ask if the President-in-Office can comment on the memorandum or protocol issued by the K4 Committee, which states that work on the overall structure of a global surveillance system, as agreed in the scheme arranged between the EU and the FBI, should take place outside the third pillar.
This is rather an interesting piece of news, since it could be that discussions do not take place within the Council itself but elsewhere, for example in the K4 Committee and in other committees and working groups.
However, the question still remains: why does the Council not find it convenient to discuss the matter openly with the European Parliament, particularly in view of the fact that it has a direct bearing on the public's right to privacy? There is also the possibility of any agreement turning out to be in direct conflict with national legislation.
A reply would therefore be much appreciated.
Mrs Schörling, I fully understand your concern, and I can assure you that the Council takes this seriously.
However, the discussions which you mentioned have not been concluded and, therefore, the outcome you indicated is not the case either.
If the Council were to achieve an outcome, everything necessary would of course be done to safeguard the rights of Parliament, but also of course to give the Member States the opportunity - which they will also have during the discussions that take place beforehand - to explain their interpretation of the law, and to see to it that fundamental questions concerning the legal culture of the European Union are not adversely affected.
I have two supplementary questions.
The first concerns the 1995 resolution on the lawful interception of telecommunications.
My question is as follows: what kind of cooperation has taken place with the USA and other non-European countries in this area?
Equivalent legislation already exists in the USA.
My second question concerns illegal telephone tapping and more precisely the Echelon system, which is a global military surveillance system without any legal base.
Has the Echelon system ever been discussed in the Council of Ministers, and is there any link between Echelon and the system of lawful interception that exists in the EU?
Mr Sjöstedt, I would gladly answer your question, but I am unable do so because it is so far from the original question that I was unable to prepare for it.
I therefore hope it is acceptable if I reply in writing to both these questions.
Question No 3 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-1174/98) Subject: Changes in the system of EU own resources
The Commission report on the operation of the EU's own resources system includes a proposal that the Member States should continue to pay direct aid under the common agricultural policy based on Community legislation as they do at present, but that instead of receiving a 100 % refund from the EU budget, they will receive only a partial refund of 75 %.
Since, according to the Commission's data, such a change to the own resources system will not only harm the 'cohesion countries', and particularly Greece, but will also undermine the basic principles and rules governing the common agricultural policy, will the Council confirm that no proposals will be adopted which deprive the cohesion countries of some ECU 1.2 billion annually, while the unacceptable refund arrangements enjoyed by the UK since 1984, amounting to some ECU 1.3 billion, are retained?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Alavanos's question.
Mr President, the negotiations on Agenda 2000 have entered their final phase and are to be brought to a close at the European Council meeting on 24 and 25 March 1999 in accordance with the undertaking given at the Vienna European Council.
Mr Alavanos will understand that the Council cannot comment on individual points mentioned during the discussions, given that the negotiations are still taking place and full agreement has not been reached.
However, the Council can at this stage indicate that it was specifically asked at the Vienna European Council to carefully examine all the issues raised and viewpoints set out during the discussions, so that full agreement can be reached.
The European Council has also asked all Member States to participate fully in helping to achieve, on the basis of solidarity and careful budgetary management, a fair and balanced outcome that is acceptable to all.
Mr President, I thank the President-in-Office for his answer, though it cannot be categorical since the negotiations are still in progress.
More particularly, I should like to ask whether this proposal for the substantive renationalisation of part of the funding of the common agricultural policy is still on the negotiating table, because in negotiations some initial proposals are lost, other new ones appear, and so on.
Is the proposal for the nationalisation of part of the common agricultural policy still up for negotiation?
Mr President, Mr Alavanos, the situation is such that all proposals which were made by both the Commission and the Member States during the discussions up to now are still on the negotiating table.
An important prerequisite for the German Presidency was to make it clear that in this final stage of the discussions all proposals are on the table for the moment.
This does not mean that the package which is to be adopted as a final compromise will include everything that is currently on the negotiating table, but that all proposals which the Commission has made, and which have in the meantime come from the Member States, are part of the negotiations which the presidency is currently holding.
Moreover, I can assure you that solidarity in financing the European Union and making decisions on the European Union's budget is a matter which is of crucial importance for the German Presidency in particular.
Question No 4 by Eva Kjer Hansen, which has been taken over by Mrs Spaak (H-1176/98) Subject: Institutional problems on enlargement
Do the unresolved institutional problems really mean that there will be no enlargement of the EU before 2005?
There are still no plans as to how enlargement will take place: Firstly, the protocol on the institutions with the prospect of enlargement of the European Union reduces the number of Commissioners to one per Member State provided that the weighting of votes in the Council is modified, but 20 new Commissioners are to be appointed in January 2000 for a 5-year term of office. Secondly, Article 137 of the Amsterdam Treaty lays down that the number of Members of the European Parliament must not exceed 700, but at the next elections 626 MEPs will be elected for a 5-year term of office.
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer this question, which Mrs Spaak has now taken over.
Mr President, the Council would point out to Mrs Spaak that the protocol on the institutions with the prospect of enlargement of the European Union, which is intended to form the basis of a plan for adapting the institutions, has not yet entered into force, since the Amsterdam Treaty to which this protocol is annexed has not yet been ratified by all the Member States.
As soon as all the instruments of ratification have been deposited in Rome, the treaty and the protocols in the annex, which constitute an integral part of the treaty, will enter into force on the first day of the second month following the deposit of the final ratification instrument.
Mrs Spaak, this last sentence was so incomprehensible even in my own language that I should prefer to clarify it.
In other words, if everyone has ratified the treaty by the end of March, it will enter into force on 1 May, and if everyone has ratified it by the end of April, it will enter into force on 1 June.
I had trouble understanding the sentence myself.
At the Vienna European Council on 11 and 12 December, it was agreed that the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty still constitutes our first priority.
When it meets in Cologne the Council will decide when and how to tackle the institutional problems which are not resolved in the treaty, and which must be resolved before enlargement takes place.
The important question which you raised, Mrs Spaak, must be considered in this context.
Moreover, the Council would point out that, until now, there has been no formal confirmation of the date on which the current accession negotiations with the applicant countries will be brought to a close.
The case considered by Mrs Spaak is therefore not on the agenda.
As regards the question on Article 189, formerly Article 137 of the consolidated treaties, it should be noted that the number of 700 Members of the European Parliament from the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty is valid for the number of Member States in the Union at that time.
Apportionment amongst the individual Member States following enlargement will be negotiated at the appropriate time.
Mr President-in-Office, I would just like to point out that the Amsterdam Treaty resolves none of the institutional problems raised in Mrs Kjer Hansen's question.
Waiting for ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty seems to me to amount to a long delay, especially for the applicant countries.
My supplementary question is as follows: has the Council yet considered the various proposals and the various problems highlighted by Mrs Kjer Hansen in her question?
Mr President, I consider the question to be a completely legitimate one, and I also share the concern which underlies it.
The Council has not yet dealt specifically with the proposals you mentioned, but has merely discussed the question of how the unresolved institutional problems are to be tackled.
As you know, the German Presidency was instructed only a few weeks ago to make a procedural proposal for the summit in Cologne.
We are currently holding the necessary discussions on this, and I have just pledged within another parliamentary body to ensure that the discussion within Parliament and the opinion it forms will be duly taken into account, because Parliament has a particularly important role to play, especially concerning the development of the institutional character of the Union.
We will therefore not be able to reach a decision on the core issues regarding institutional reform during the German Presidency, and do not even wish to, because for the moment we have only been instructed to make a procedural proposal.
I must draw your attention to the fact - and you of course know this - that agreement on a particular procedure is often already halfway to reaching overall agreement in the Union.
In connection with enlargement, I should also like to tell you that in the opinion of the presidency, there is full agreement on the need to resolve the institutional problems by the time the first accessions take place.
That the presidency also wishes to speed up the decision-making process on institutional issues is a positive signal to the applicant countries, and I think it is in our mutual interest that this positive signal can actually be given as well.
I found the President-in-Office's reply very helpful and encouraging as far as it goes, but it does not fully address some of the points that are made in this question.
I am a member of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with Poland.
The Polish Government has indicated that it believes it will be ready for accession in January 2003. They may not be able to achieve that.
But are we, in effect, shutting the door to any enlargement within the period of the next five years? It seems to me that if Commissioners are to be appointed at the end of this year on the same basis as they are at the moment, it would present serious problems.
The same, to some extent, applies to Parliament.
I wonder if some thought is being given to these issues.
If we are going to wait until next year or later before we begin to think about these factors, you can see the difficulties that will arise.
Mr President, I am very grateful to you, Mr Elliot, for asking this question because it gives me the opportunity to clarify a point. A date has not been fixed for the accessions.
Neither a later nor an earlier date has been indicated, but rather the date fixed will depend solely on how the negotiations progress. As you know, there are altogether 31 packages for negotiation.
You are aware of the current situation.
Three of the 31 negotiation packages have been concluded provisionally, and four more are about to be concluded.
We intend to start negotiations on six to eight more packages during the German Presidency, so that about half of all the packages are in the process of being negotiated by mid-1999.
By then we will have perhaps almost reached the stage where we can see how much longer we actually need. We will then have to decide whether or not to fix a date for the accessions.
I do not see the danger you seem to in the effect that institutional reform would have on enlargement.
According to the consensus we have established within the Member States, the institutional problems should be resolved by the year 2001.
However, I would see this as the latest date for this. It is highly unlikely that an accession treaty can be agreed upon and concluded with any one applicant country by 2001.
To answer this question very precisely, I do not believe that we will be in a position where the negotiations on accession have been concluded, but the European Union is not ready for enlargement because the institutional issues have not been resolved.
This matter is of the utmost importance for the German Presidency, and I am grateful to see that this is also an extremely important issue for Parliament.
I firmly believe that the credibility of the entire enlargement process also depends on how seriously we work towards completing the institutional reforms.
Question No 5 by Paul Rübig (H-1183/98) Subject: Security in cities
During the European Parliament's May part-session in Strasbourg, the representative of the British Council Presidency, Mr Douglas Henderson, agreed to the immediate establishment of a group of experts who were to deal with the topic of the increase in crime in European cities.
Could the Council give me some indication of the composition and the activities to date of this Council group, as well as an insight into the further priorities of the German Presidency in this field?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Rübig's question.
Mr President, security in cities is certainly one of the areas in which only a coordinated approach extending across authorities and disciplines can be successful.
Experts within the Council group on police cooperation are dealing with crime in European cities.
In the past, their work focused on violence in cities, police cooperation and violent gangs in urban areas.
In order to improve the exchange of information on proven methods, increase the exchange of experiences and extend practical cooperation, the group has agreed on an exchange programme for officials active in the area of violence in cities.
One of the first exchange schemes for police officers who are active in the campaign against violence in cities took place in France in October 1998.
Such exchange schemes will also be run in the future.
Mr President, a few days ago Mr von Wogau's press officer was attacked at Place Schuman at 7 o'clock in the evening.
He was taken to hospital with a cut.
However, this is by no means an isolated case.
In the last year, Mr Voggenhuber, Mrs McCarthy, Mr Schiedermeier, Mrs Pack and many others have been attacked in Brussels.
My office carried out a survey of 300 offices in the European Parliament; over a third of them reported an incidence of criminal assault in Brussels within the last year.
I believe that the European institutions need to be made safer.
The Belgian national parliament is kept under surveillance by the army and the police force.
As far as I know, the European institutions are not kept under surveillance at all.
There are more than 10 reported cases of theft on average each month in the European Parliament alone.
How does the Council presidency intend to improve this situation?
Mr Rübig, you will understand why I have to point out firstly that maintaining public law and order on the territory of the Member States is primarily a matter for the police forces of the individual states.
Having said this, the facts which you described are to be taken seriously, and I will use this as an opportunity to address the issue at an appropriate time.
Question No 6 by José Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra (H-1185/98) Subject: Communication on the First EU-Latin America and Caribbean Summit
The First EU-Latin America and Caribbean Summit of heads of state and government is to be held in Brazil in June 1999. The European Parliament has already participated in the Ministerial Conferences of the San José Group and the Rio Group, in both the opening ceremonies and the various work sessions.
On what basis does the Council intend to include the European Parliament as a participant in this summit?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Salafranca's question.
Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, I must say right at the outset that you will be disappointed by my answer, but you will appreciate that as we have only been in office for 12 days there has not yet been a Council meeting during the German Presidency.
The Council has therefore not yet had any opportunity to examine the question of the European Parliament's possible participation in the meeting which you mentioned, and indeed has not done so.
I should like to say to the Council representative that the disappointment in his response does not mean that the Council's action should be disappointing.
I would like to point out that at the last Ministerial Conference in San José, held last February under the British Presidency, the way in which the European Parliament delegation was treated was obviously wrong. It was in fact treated worse than the delegations from third countries.
I would like to ask the Presidency-in-Office to ensure that the European Parliament delegation is treated correctly at this important summit, in accordance with the institutional role it plays and in accordance with its importance in maintaining momentum in relations between the European Union and Latin America
On that particular occasion, a rather serious incident occurred at the beginning of the Conference. I would therefore be grateful to the German Presidency if it would guarantee that the European Parliament will be able to fulfil its corresponding institutional role, as I have requested.
I am grateful to Mr Salafranca for expressing these concerns. They give us a reason to make an effort to ensure that complaints of this kind are no longer necessary during our presidency.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together:
Question No 7 by Freddy Blak (H-1192/98) Subject: Ending of duty-free sales in the EU
As a vice-chairman of Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control, I was astonished to read the answer I received from the Council to my question of 1 October concerning the ending of duty-free sales.
I am a directly elected Member of the European Parliament, and the people I represent expect the questions I submit to be treated seriously, as do I. What I received on 19 November 1998 is not a serious answer.
I therefore have no alternative but to resubmit my original question, and I expect that, this time, a proper answer will be given.
Duty-free sales in the EU will come to an end on 30 June 1999.
The 22nd recital of Council Directive 92/12/EEC states that before their abolition 'a certain period of time will be required to take the necessary measures to alleviate both the social repercussions in the sectors concerned and regional difficulties ... which might arise'.
In a reply to the Ombudsman, the Commission takes the view that it is not required to carry out an analysis of these problems, stating that it had never been the Council's intention to impose such an obligation on the Commission and that this was confirmed when the Ecofin Council discussed the question in November 1996, adding that, as these were informal discussions, the conclusions were not recorded in the official minutes, but that the matter was again discussed by the Ecofin Council on 19 May 1998 with the same result (Commission's observations in response to a request from the European Ombudsman for further information (complaint by Freddy Blak, ref.
0879/97)).
Will the Council confirm the Commission's reading of the Council's conclusions and explain how this view is in keeping with the above Directive?
Question No 8 by Gisèle Moreau (H-1227/98) Subject: Postponement of the abolition of intra-Community duty-free shopping
On 19 May 1998 the Council confirmed that the decision it took in 1991 to abolish intra-Community duty-free shopping would indeed be implemented on 1 July 1999.
All the studies that have been carried out highlight the very large number of job losses which will result from the abolition of duty-free shopping in airports and on ferries.
In France, for example, more than 12 000 jobs would disappear in regions where unemployment levels are already very high.
Is the Council prepared to draw the appropriate conclusions from these impact studies and postpone implementation of the decision abolishing intra-Community duty-free sales?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer these two questions together.
Mr President, the joint answer to both questions is as follows: I should like to refer to the conclusions of the European Council on this matter, as my predecessor did in a written answer to the questions asked by Mr Cushnahan, Mr Watts and Mr Wibe at Question Time in December last year.
The conclusions read as follows: With regard to the decision taken in 1991 on duty-free sales for travellers between the Member States, the European Council has asked the Commission and the ECOFIN Council to examine by March 1999 the problems which may arise with regard to employment and, on the basis of proposals from the Commission, to look at how these problems can be dealt with, including the possibility of extending the transitional provisions for a limited period.
From the Council's point of view, it cannot say anything further on this matter at the present time.
I should like to welcome the new President-in-Office and say that I was extremely pleased with his reply, in which he said that it would be sensible for us to decide to postpone the matter.
I am particularly pleased that you say that the Council has directed the Commission to carry out this study and produce an answer by March 1999.
I have received an answer from the Commission in which the Commission denies any responsibility and says it is not its job, so I would like to ask you as President-in-Office of the Council to kick the Commission up the backside and ask it to start carrying out the study, which should be ready in March 1999.
I am extremely pleased with your reply, which is what we would have liked to have heard from the Austrian Presidency, which gave a completely unintelligent reply last month.
I really think this is a good start. We would really like to thank you for that.
Mr President, Mr Blak, I am grateful to you for your kind words of acknowledgement, though I must add that we do not deserve them.
The praise should go to the Austrian Presidency, because the decision which I referred to comes from the communiqué of the Vienna summit.
It was agreed in Vienna.
The European Council has asked the Commission to present a report on this by March 1999; this is therefore not very far away, and it will of course be the presidency's task to ensure that the deadline set by the Council is observed.
I can promise you that we will not wait until the end of the year before asking whether the report is on its way and when it will be made available.
Mr President, first of all I want to emphasise that the Commission's study ought to be carried out objectively, given the serious consequences the elimination of duty free could have on employment, and I have an article here, an interview with the President-in-Office, Mr Schroeder, which highlights those serious consequences for employment at a time when the Council is, in fact, stressing the importance of employment issues.
So my question is as follows: do you not think that the Council use as a basis the precedent of the extension of excise duty exemption for the Nordic countries, which was justified on economic grounds and accepted by Mr Monti in 1996, and the opinion expressed by the European Economic and Social Council last September in favour of an extension of this system?
Mr President, Mrs Moreau, as you can imagine, the opinion of Mr Schröder, the President of the Council, is well known to me. Your information is indeed correct.
However, I am still not in a position to report any conclusions; the Council cannot of course draw conclusions until the reports it commissioned are actually available.
I would ask for your understanding in this matter, but once again I specifically refer to the last phrase in the Council decision I quoted, which mentions that the possibility of extending the transitional provisions for a limited period is also to be reviewed.
Mr President, at the start of this afternoon's sitting, I asked for the list of the 27 cases referred to UCLAF so that Parliament could deliver an informed opinion tomorrow.
I received an answer in writing to a note in German from someone who is a French speaker - so it was a truly European conversation - and I was assured that this list had been given to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
All the time we have been sitting here, my colleagues have been trying to track down this list which we were supposed to have been given.
It could not be found.
Mrs Theato, for whom I have the utmost respect, refers us to the secretariat of the Committee on Budgetary Control. But we have been talking all afternoon to this committee and to Mr Darras, the head of division.
The list is nowhere to be found.
I would ask you as President to take the necessary steps to procure this information for Parliament before we vote.
Thank you very much, Mrs Maes.
The Bureau's services will set to work immediately as you are indeed right and we must find out where this list is and bring it here.
I therefore share your concern in this matter.
The Bureau's services will look for this list so that it is in fact available before the vote.
I should like to underline the words of the President-in-Office when he emphasised that the Vienna European Council spoke only of a possible extension of the duty-free regime and said that this would be for a limited period of time.
I would like the Council to pay due attention to those two conditions.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if he is aware that many Members of this House do not share the view that an extension of duty-free is a good idea?
The duty-free regime is a tax break mainly for the benefit of the alcohol and tobacco industries.
If the Finance Minsters of the Member States have some money to spare, I would submit that there are better ways of spending this money than allowing a tax break to continue for the benefit of the alcohol and tobacco industries - available, incidentally, only to international travellers.
Mr President, I can answer this question in the affirmative.
The Council is aware that opinions on this issue vary a great deal both in the Member States and in Parliament.
The Council is also aware of the fact that the decision which was taken in Vienna commissions a review and nothing more for the moment.
Does the Council share the view of my own Prime Minister, Tony Blair, that the loss of duty-free could lead to the loss of thousands of ordinary people's jobs across the European Union? Does he consider it helpful as part of this examination that there is consultation with the industry, with the trade unions and indeed the regions to make sure that the concerns of local people are addressed?
Would he agree with me that a suitable limited extension could be five or six years?
That is a figure that Messrs Blair and Schröder were contemplating during the Vienna Summit.
Regrettably, during the whole of Mr Watts' intervention there was no interpretation because his microphone was not switched on.
Yes, it was interpreted.
Perhaps you could not hear it but it was interpreted.
I could hear Mr Watts and I believe Mr Verheugen could too.
Mr Verheugen, I would invite you to reply to Mr Watts' question.
Mr President, Mr Watts, I understood the question in both languages.
I am assuming that the Commission and the ECOFIN Council will naturally be using all relevant sources as a basis for carrying out the task which they have been given.
I believe the sources you mentioned are relevant and should therefore be taken into account when collecting data and estimates which are really important for this.
You will understand that in my present capacity I cannot and may not comment on the political opinion of a Member State's Head of Government. However, I can of course assure you that conclusions from the reports which have been commissioned will not be drawn until the reports are made available, and that no conclusion is excluded for the moment; neither, therefore, is the one to which you referred.
Question No 9 by Anne McIntosh (H-1193/98) Subject: Third country poultry hygiene inspections
What inspection measures is the President-in-Office taking to ensure that EU hygiene standards are being met in imported poultry from third countries?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs McIntosh's question.
Mr President, on 15 October 1990 the Council adopted Directive 90/539/EEC on animal health conditions governing intra-Community trade in, and imports from third countries of, poultry and hatching eggs.
This directive has been in force since 1 May 1992, and Articles 20 to 28 in Chapter 3 include provisions for imports from third countries.
As you know, Mrs McIntosh, it is the Commission's task to ensure that the standards laid down here are complied with.
If in your view there is cause for complaint, the presidency would be grateful if it were to be duly informed of this.
However, I also believe that it would be better to address your question to the Commission.
I have put this question to the Commission on a number of occasions.
The last time was yesterday. Is it really the Council of Ministers' and the Commission's intention to put our own poultry producers out of business in favour of third-country imports?
My question relates in particular to the implementation of the directive on fresh meat, which dates from the 1960s, which states that checks on poultry can be made only on a through-put basis, which would help producers.
In fact, they have to be done on a one-hour inspection.
The increased cost to the United Kingdom alone is deemed to be £40-£50 per inspection of each factory.
I cannot believe that it was the Council of Ministers' and the Commission's intention to do this.
There is also a 1972 poultry meat directive which makes EU and UK producers equally uncompetitive.
I just want an assurance from the Council of Ministers tonight that it is not its intention to put our own poultry producers out of business.
Mrs McIntosh, I fully understand your concern, and I think that it will be necessary for the Commission to propose a solution to the problem which you have rightly described.
Question No 10 by David Martin (H-1195/98) Subject: Democracy and human rights in Burma
In the light of continuing reports of human rights abuses and the detention of democratically elected MPs in Burma, would the Council raise with the Burmese Government the issue of the 182 elected MPs and 701 members of the National League for Democracy (NLD) who are still held in detention in Burma?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Martin's question.
Mr President, the Council's position on this issue is clear.
It has repeatedly called for the immediate release of all political prisoners in Burma.
It was because the Burmese Government did not respond to this demand, nor to the Union's appeal to the SPDC to promote democracy and national reconciliation, that on 26 December 1998 the Council reformulated its common position on Burma, extending its scope and expressing it in stronger terms.
The Council has also made an attempt to discuss these issues with the Peace and Development Council.
The presidency proposed a visit of the ministerial troika to the Burmese Government in the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in September 1998. However, the Burmese Foreign Minister turned down the proposal.
I thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
He is quite right to say that the Council has been consistent in its opposition to the regime in Burma.
I would ask him to consider, during the German presidency, putting this matter either on the informal Foreign Ministers' meeting or on the Heads of State agenda so that we can look at further measures for tackling this regime.
I agree that it is very difficult.
We are getting no cooperation from the SLORC regime in Burma but the European Union must continue to put pressure on that regime and the Council should continue to monitor and look at new ways of applying pressure.
Mr Martin has hit upon the presidency's intentions completely with the suggestion he made in his question.
We consider it to be quite an important matter.
Our concern over the continuing human rights abuses in Burma is so great that I am able to add that the situation will be discussed further among the Foreign Ministers.
We will also have other opportunities to discuss this issue during our presidency, and also with the countries in the region.
The aim of promoting the European Union's clear position on human rights and human rights issues in the area of international relations and wherever possible, to not only convey our concern regarding human rights issues, but also to take action to remedy the situation, is an absolute priority for our presidency.
Question No 11 by Gerard Collins (H-1199/98) Subject: Expanding voluntary care programmes at EU level for children with disabilities
In the mid-west of Ireland, a voluntary 'Have a Break' scheme - aimed at enabling children with disabilities to have a holiday in the home of another family while their own family can have a break from constant care - has been running since 1987.
Does the President-in-Office consider that such schemes should be extended to other EU countries and, if so, in what way does the Council consider such schemes could be promoted and developed at EU level?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Collins's question.
Mr Collins, I regret to have to inform you that the Council has not received a Commission proposal on the promotion of a scheme similar to that which you described, where families provide care for children with disabilities.
I can therefore only suggest that the information you require can be obtained from the Commission, if anywhere.
Arising from the reply from the President-in-Office, would he consider requesting a proposal from the Commission on this important matter?
Mr Collins, your suggestion is certainly worthy of consideration, but you know the procedures.
It must firstly be discussed in the Council, and only then can such a decision be made.
Question No 13 by Liam Hyland (H-1207/98) Subject: Reversing rural depopulation
Does the President-in-Office of the Council consider that the extent of rural depopulation is a cause for serious concern at the level of the European Union and that a comprehensive strategy to safeguard the common agricultural policy and promote new rural development policies should be considered as an essential way of reversing this decline?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Hyland's question.
Mr President, the Council has always shown a special interest in matters in connection with maintaining a healthy population structure in rural areas.
I should like in particular to point out to Mr Hyland that the employment problem in the rural areas of the European Union is the subject of a letter which the President of the Agriculture Council sent to the President of the European Council in November 1997 in the context of the special employment summit.
This letter focused in particular on the possible ways of maintaining a healthy rural population structure throughout the European Union.
A European agriculture model was drawn up in the context of work previously carried out by the Council on the Agenda 2000 proposals. This model, which is to be further developed in the future, is for a multifunctional and competitive form of agriculture throughout the European Union, and also in the regions with specific problems, which is viable in the long term.
It is a programme which should in particular be able to make an important contribution to the survival of rural areas.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office whether he perceives the role of family farming as representing the backbone of the rural economy.
Does he agree that the contribution of farmers to a society cannot always be evaluated in purely economic terms and that their role as environmental managers and guarantors of food security and quality puts them outside the economic realm of other professions?
Finally, does he agree that rural development policy will not achieve its full potential in isolation from integrated regional policy? Is it intended to make it mandatory on national governments to implement such a regional policy, thus providing jobs in the regions to sustain rural communities and provide off-farm employment for farmers who do not have viable farms and other rural dwellers?
I can assure Mr Hyland that I fully understand his question, because I, as a Member of Parliament myself, come from such an area and see the problems at first hand everyday.
I can therefore say in principle that the task of maintaining sustainable rural areas is a matter of priority for the Council.
We must really make sure that the people in rural areas have the chance of a future.
This future need not necessarily be in the traditional areas of agriculture.
Opportunities for the future can of course also be created through structural change, as you know very well.
I firmly believe that we will manage to target European Union funds in the area of regional and structural policy even more efficiently on this objective, not least within the framework of the reforms which are being carried out under Agenda 2000.
This is a really important objective of the Union's regional and structural policy, in the opinion of the presidency at least.
It not only involves making standards of living more equal, but it means that important agricultural landscapes in the rural areas of Europe will continue to offer people quality of life and job prospects in the future as well.
I welcome Mr Hyland's question and the Council's reply on rural depopulation.
Would the Council accept that agricultural policy is only one method by which we can assist rural areas? In particular, looking at reform of the structural funds, will he bear in mind that we should not just look at per capita income or unemployment but also at levels of population density and depopulation in determining areas that should qualify for Objective 1?
I have in mind here - to be parochial - particularly the Highlands and Islands in my own country. On per capita income, it would not qualify but - given its other problems, particularly depopulation - it should in my opinion remain in the Objective 1 zone.
I completely agree with Mr Martin.
The problem which we have just discussed can naturally arise in any of the assisted areas of the European Union, with the exception of urban agglomerations, of course.
It can arise in Objective 1, Objective 2 and former Objective 5b areas, and we now need a coherent policy which coordinates and uses all our funds in such a way as to limit the effects of the problem we are discussing.
Moreover, I am firmly convinced that the reform proposals which are under discussion within the framework of Agenda 2000 will considerably improve the quality of life in the countryside as well.
The adoption of Agenda 2000 is therefore also a matter of priority for the German Presidency.
In connection with the Employment Pact which Europe is seeking to achieve, it will depend to a great extent on not only bearing in mind the traditional areas of industry or the development of new technologies, but also taking into account in this context the specific problems of rural areas.
I am able to add that the German Presidency will give this matter its fullest attention.
Following on from the President-in-Office's two responses to my colleagues, Mr Hyland and Mr David Martin, I would like to ask whether you have any proposals with regard to more focused coordination between the regional funds and the rural development funds as a way of ensuring that people in rural areas who suffer because of a drop in income can gain off-farm income through job creation and so on?
Would it be possible to see, through the presidency, whether this type of coordination will take place and would it be possible for the President-in-Office to come back to Parliament and present a proposed model of the type of integration which would take place, at the same time ensuring that there is no reduction in the commitment towards rural development, but also guaranteeing that all of the funding towards employment creation - which is so important for all of us here in Europe - is not just focused on urban areas.
Mr Crowley, I agree with you that this is a very important issue. I can therefore assure you that the presidency is convinced that it will be possible, on the basis of the forthcoming reform of the agricultural policy and as a result of the new impetus which the rural development policy will be given, to develop a second pillar of the common agricultural policy; this second pillar will then be the foundation for a comprehensive and coherent policy for the benefit of the rural population in the European Union.
In order to achieve this, it will actually be necessary to achieve greater coordination between the different policy areas and also to establish clear priorities.
However, I must ask you to appreciate that we cannot be more precise about this until Agenda 2000 has been concluded and we have started to implement its objectives.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
As the author is not present, Question No 14 lapses.
Question No 15 by Pat Gallagher (H-1211/98) Subject: Fisheries
Will the Council, under the German Presidency, state what importance it attaches to developing the fishing potential of the less-favoured regions, such as Ireland, which have to contend not only with competition from within the EU but also from outside the EU and how it intends to conduct future negotiations with the applicant countries as regards fishing policy?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Gallagher's question.
First of all let me thank the President-in-Office for his response.
In short I presume it can be said that, in the negotiations, any applicant country will have to comply with existing criteria, and that any transitional arrangements will have to be limited.
Unfortunately that is the situation. But can I say this to the President-in-Office: I am sure he will appreciate that in the region I represent - the west and the north-west of Ireland - and indeed the entire Irish coast, we had at one time prolific fishing grounds until these were plundered, not by Irish fishermen but indeed by our partners in Europe.
We have learnt a sad lesson from this and I would not wish this on any of the other countries who in future may join the Union.
In the regions and the coastal area of our country, an island state, we have no alternative source of employment.
Priority should be given to this in any future negotiations.
We will deal with the Irish case in the review of the common fisheries policy, but other small states should learn from the serious situation in Ireland, as a result of fisheries not being treated on the same level as agriculture or indeed industry.
Let us learn from the past and let other smaller states benefit from our sad experience.
Reference was made to the Structural Funds, and I should like to ask the President-in-Office whether he believes that Ireland will qualify for the transitional arrangements.
He will be aware that we are an applicant for Objective 1 status for the west coast of Ireland, which is very much part of the region that I referred to, but will he also let me have his view on having an Objective 5 or 6 or a specific objective for regions highly dependent on fishing, whether or not the country in question has Objective 1 status?
Mr Gallagher, I am very grateful to you for the advice and information you have offered, and we will naturally take it into account during the current accession negotiations.
Also, your country, Ireland, is participating in the accession conference and has every possibility to raise the national and supranational viewpoints you have described during the negotiations. I also firmly believe that this will be done.
However, I am not in a position at present to tell you anything about the implementation of the redefinition of assisted areas, or the criteria which affect assisted areas, as the decision of general principle has not yet been taken.
The individual Member States have obviously established their own positions.
However, as you already know, the Council has not yet stated its common position with regard to Agenda 2000.
I would therefore have to rely on assumptions at the present time, and making assumptions unfortunately serves no purpose in this case.
We must continue to be patient and wait until Agenda 2000 can be concluded.
However, it might be important for you to know that the presidency has agreed to exchange information and cooperate closely with Parliament on a particularly intensive and regular basis during the current decision process.
I should like to thank Mr Gallagher for the question and the President- in-Office for the very positive response.
As you are a new and fresh man in this particular position, may I also remind you, concerning the question of conservation, that somewhere in a cupboard in the Council or the Commission there is a very important scientific report concerning seals and the living resources in the North Sea.
I appeal to you, President-in-Office, that during your six-month presidency you take that report out, have it reviewed, its consequences applied, and hold a very fresh and open debate on this most serious matter.
It is a reliable fact that the seals in the North Sea are eating more white fish than the total allowable catch by the European Community. It is a very serious matter.
It is a matter which necessitates immediate consideration and an open and frank debate, before all the stocks are taken by the seals.
Mr Killilea, I see that your question is an attempt to help the presidency carry out its task.
I am grateful to you for this, and I can assure you that the information which you have just given me, and the political problem to which you refer, will be taken into account during the current negotiations.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
As the author is not present, Question No 16 lapses.
Question No 17 by Brian Crowley (H-1215/98) Subject: The fight against organised crime
Will the President-in-Office of the Council provide an outline of the policy issues which it proposes to pursue in relation to the fight against organised crime, its position on the consumption of drugs, and the way it would like to see EUROPOL's role developed?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Crowley's question.
Mr President, as far as organised crime is concerned, it is the presidency's intention to actively promote the implementation of the action plan approved by the European Council at its meeting in Amsterdam in June, and to start discussions on stronger measures to fight organised crime in accordance with the request made at the Vienna European Council, as well as to guarantee the unrestricted protection of civil rights.
In connection with this, the Council will examine measures to step up the fight against fraud and counterfeiting.
On the basis of the Communication from the Commission on a framework for action on combatting fraud and counterfeiting of non-cash means of payment, discussions on an instrument of criminal law in this area have already been started.
The work begun under the Austrian Presidency on the protection of the euro under criminal law is being continued and intensified.
Moreover, the German Presidency will take an initiative under criminal law against fraudulent activity in awarding contracts in the internal market.
Particular attention is being given to creating a European legal and judicial area in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty.
This European legal and judicial area will be, or is meant to be, equipped with instruments which are necessary for effective judicial and police cooperation.
The presidency will arrange initiatives which will make it possible for the Council to closely examine to what extent and in which priority areas some form of approximation or harmonisation of the Member States' laws could help to fight organised crime.
Furthermore, the presidency will actively continue the discussions on the Convention on Mutual Legal Assistance, which will be an important instrument for officials working on the ground to fight organised crime.
The effective operation of the European judicial network and the mechanism set up by the Council for mutual assessment will also be priority issues for the presidency.
The German Presidency is particularly concerned to see Europol take up its duties.
As the agreement entered into force on 1 October 1998, we are making every effort to remove the remaining legal obstacles so that Europol can take up its duties.
In this context, it is of prime importance to clarify the questions which remain unresolved in terms of the adoption of rules for the joint data protection monitoring agency.
Europol will take up its duties on the basis of a mandate which in the end was extended to include terrorism and certain aspects of trade in human beings.
Its mandate is soon to be extended to cover criminal offences such as counterfeiting of coins and banknotes and of other means of payment.
The German Presidency also intends to make a start with the discussions on the development of Europol in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty.
In connection with this, consideration needs to be given to the role and duties falling to the judicial authorities in their relations with Europol in view of the extension of Europol's powers.
As regards the drugs problem, the German Presidency will actively continue to pursue the current initiatives, particularly in connection with Latin America and Central Asia.
In addition, great importance is attached to the development of a strategy for the period following 1999, under which measures to reduce demand will play an important role.
This role was confirmed at both the recent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly and the conference which followed it in Vienna in December 1998.
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction is a very important player in the campaign to reduce demand.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his response.
Indeed, I am delighted to hear that he sees Europol's role as being central to the development of the fight against organised crime on a pan-European level.
I hope that the presidency will have the opportunity to expedite the removal of the remaining difficulties, by bringing fully into play the role and opportunities available through Europol's operational capabilities.
However, I was somewhat disappointed at your lack of response on the matter of consumption of drugs.
The increasing use of drugs is one area where there is common concern across all Member States.
Bland statements such as 'reducing demand is an important aspect' is not good enough.
What we want to hear from the President-in-Office to day are specific measures for a common European strategy to save the future generation from dying from the effects of drug abuse.
This is a very difficult issue.
Mr Crowley, you know of course that a special summit of Heads of State and Government on the subject of organised crime is planned for the second half of this year under the Finnish Presidency, and that the issues you mentioned in connection with the fight against drugs will also play a central role in the preparation for this special summit.
However, in cooperation with the Finnish Presidency we will do our bit so that the preparatory work for this is under way and so that the decisions we are currently in a position to make can be made at this special summit.
This limitation relates to the fact that we can obviously only make decisions which are in keeping with our capabilities, our resources, our instruments, and our institutions.
The presidency wholly shares the political assessment on which your question was based.
We consider the fight against drug abuse to be a key task of domestic policy in Western countries, and indeed in all countries.
It is naturally also a joint task which we should tackle - as far as possible - within the framework of the European Union.
Question No 18 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-1217/98) Subject: Agenda items for the forthcoming Euro-Mediterranean Summit in Stuttgart
What measures or proposals are being prepared in order to give substance to the 'new impetus' to be applied to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, as referred to in paragraph 116 of the conclusions to the Vienna European Council? What new suggestions are likely to be put forward at the Third Euro-Mediterranean Conference, to be held in Stuttgart in April 1999?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Izquierdo Rojo's question.
Mr President, please excuse the fact that this answer will also be relatively long, because it is a very complex issue.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, the Foreign Ministers' meetings which are held regularly generally serve to examine whether the Barcelona Declaration is being applied, and to define measures which make it possible to achieve the objectives of the partnership, as laid down in the Barcelona Declaration itself.
The work of the conference in Stuttgart will therefore cover all three chapters of the partnership.
As at the previous Euro-Mediterranean ministerial conferences, the participants should confirm their total commitment to the partnership, examine the results which have already been achieved, and give new impetus by laying down new guidelines.
The importance of the partnership's balanced development in all three chapters of the Barcelona Declaration and its work programme should also be emphasised.
As in the case of the second ministerial conference, the Council expects a Commission communication this time as well; this should be available at the beginning of March, and will serve as the basis for establishing the EU's position for the conference in Stuttgart.
Close cooperation with our Mediterranean partners will continue to be necessary in order to guarantee a successful outcome at the conference.
Within the framework of the economic and financial partnership, particular importance should be attached to the work carried out by government experts on economic transition and the overall view, which covers issues of free trade and the effects of economic transition in the region in accordance with the conclusions of La Valetta. This will serve as a basis for the discussions on the future strategy.
In this context, the Council continues to hope that the negotiations on an association agreement with Egypt and Libya can be concluded before the ministerial conference in Stuttgart, and that progress can be quickly made on negotiating agreements with Algeria and Syria, in order to achieve the objective of creating an area of shared prosperity.
Moreover, the Euro-Mediterranean Conference on regional cooperation, which is being held on 28 and 29 January in Valencia, will prepare for the discussion of various aspects of regional cooperation at the conference in Stuttgart.
The EU's programme for these discussions will essentially be based on the Council's conclusions concerning the Communication from the Commission on the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and the single market.
The Council continues to expect proposals for the renewal of the MEDA regulation, MEDA 2 covering the period 2000-2004, including proposals for the simplification of MEDA procedures, which the Commission should present before the conference in Stuttgart.
The Council pays particular attention to achieving the political objective of creating a Euro-Mediterranean area of peace and stability.
At the ad hoc ministerial meeting in Palermo on 3 and 4 June 1998, an integrated approach for regional stability was adopted, and it was made clear that we need to devise a common understanding of the factors which can, according to general consensus, contribute to a regional stability programme of this kind.
These factors include terrorism, organised crime, proliferation of weapons, illegal entry of immigrants, socio-economic challenges, prejudice, racism and xenophobia.
Furthermore, the Euro-Mediterranean partners will concentrate their efforts on drawing up a charter which contains the elements mentioned, and which will help to create a stable political and institutional framework for the whole region.
The creation of an area of shared prosperity will make it possible for the Council to firmly support common values that should be recognised and applied by all Mediterranean partners.
With this in mind, the Council will work to ensure that greater attention is paid to human rights and fundamental freedoms as crucial elements of security in the region.
Without a political framework, the economic, social and cultural progress in the Euro-Mediterranean region will not be sustainable.
The Council will work energetically towards the adoption of the charter which I have referred to.
The conference in Stuttgart could give a lasting impetus that allows us to move a little bit closer to achieving this objective.
It seemed as if the President-in-Office was talking and was saying something, but in fact, he said absolutely nothing.
He did nothing more than make empty general statements that we had heard before
It is truly disappointing, Mr President-in-Office, to listen to a question from Parliament being answered in this meaningless bureaucratic tone.
As someone who, in just over four minutes, said nothing, please now answer a question for me, and I only have one minute to ask this question. I want you to be more specific about something that is extremely important in the Mediterranean.
I would like to know what the German Presidency is going to do, as far as Algeria is concerned, to combat fraud, corruption and abuses of power. Above all - and this is a very important matter - how is it going to defend the human rights of the Algerian people?
How are you going to safeguard the right to life of the dying rural population in Algeria - where 20 people died today, 20 yesterday and 40 the day before that - if the Council of the European Union does not take the hint, not even to say that it will take some action?
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I am sorry that you are so unhappy with my answer.
However, I would ask you to understand that I must report the positions which are supported by 15 countries.
Surely you realise as well as I do that one of the Union's problems is that we do not have a common foreign and security policy in the stricter sense.
Answers such as that which I have just given you are the result of this situation.
Such an answer does not reflect the capabilities or intentions of the presidency; it reflects the state of affairs in the European Union in the area of foreign and security policy.
I assume that you see this in exactly the same way as I do.
The presidency is obviously not in a position to change internal relations in Algeria.
It is merely in a position to exert an influence - by continuing the intensive political dialogue which has already been started with Algeria - on the improvement of relations with regard to democracy, human rights, rule of law, and fair social development.
I can assure you that the German Presidency will work towards this in this dialogue.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentleman, we have reached the end of, and indeed gone beyond, the time set aside for questions to the Council.
I should therefore like to thank Mr Verheugen for being here and for his political contribution. I wish him the very best for the coming year, particularly the six months we will spend together.
That concludes Question Time.
Questions Nos 12 and 19 to 29 will receive written answers.
The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
Application of Article 93 of the EC Treaty
The next item is the report (A4-0418/98) by Mr Areitio Toledo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation laying down detailed rules for the application of Article 93 of the EC Treaty (COM(98)0073 - C4-0160/98-98/0060(CNS))
Mr President, this evening in the privacy of this Hemicycle we are going to debate an issue with the Commissioner which, in spite of the fact that there are very few people present, is very important.
The issue of State Aid and the need to control it has been a longstanding objective for the Commission and for the whole European Union.
Such aid distorts competition and free trade, hinders industrial restructuring and impedes the achievements of the stability pact.
The total volume of State Aid awarded is by no means insignificant, and I should like to remind you of the amount involved.
We are talking about figures approaching 1.5 % of Community GDP.
We are talking about 2.6 % of public spending in national budgets which, compared with the Community's own budget, is even higher.
And I believe that this cannot be tolerated within the framework of monetary union.
Unfortunately, due to the Treaty, the Commission only has the necessary authority to control such aid on an individual basis, analysing the compatibility of each case with the Treaty.
It is obvious that the resources available to the Commission to carry out such controls on each situation where aid is granted or on each aid scheme are clearly inadequate.
As I was able to point out on other occasions, I believe that in the long term there will be a need to put a global limit on the total volume of aid awarded by each Member State. Indeed, Parliament has already approved this approach in various resolutions.
If this does not happen, then tensions will develop within monetary union.
It is true that if there are weeds growing in a garden they can be pulled up one by one, but if there are too many weeds, then it is best to use weedkiller.
In any event, the Commission was aware of this problem and it began to reorientate the State Aid control policy at the end of 1996. The aim was to reduce the number of cases to be investigated and to improve the efficiency, transparency and coherency of the control procedure.
To this end, the Council adopted a financial regulation in November 1997 which allowed the Commission to exempt the Member States from declaring certain categories of aid, such as for small and medium-sized enterprises, for research and development, regional aid, aid for employment, aid for training, and so on.
The Commission's proposal for a regulation that we are considering today is the second stage of this reorientation which the Commission's new direction is based upon.
The aim of this regulation is to establish a clear procedure, which has never existed before now, to be applied to the Commission's control procedures for State Aid.
In short, it is a matter of increasing the transparency of this procedure and the legal certainty of those involved.
I must say that the Commission should be congratulated on this initiative that will undoubtedly make the control procedure easier, both for those who enforce it as well as for its victims.
With this very objective in mind, the rapporteur has suggested three amendments to the text which the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has adopted and which simply seek to strengthen the guarantees of transparency and legal certainty and to eliminate some aspects of the proposal which we believe to be of a discretional nature.
In any event, the need to give the Commission prior notice and the principle of suspensory effect, laid down in Article 93(3), remain central to the control policy.
I am not going to go into detail on the amendments.
I believe that the Commission is already aware of them and, in addition, they were also debated in the Council.
I trust that the contribution we have made with this report will help towards improving the State Aid control policy and I trust that State Aid will be more strictly controlled.
But I cannot fail to highlight, as I have said before, that when weeds grow too wildly in a garden, pulling them up one by one is ineffective. I must also point out that, sooner or later, this issue will also have to be dealt at macroeconomic level within the stability pact.
Thank you very much.
That is a good example from colleagues.
Perhaps we will not go beyond midnight.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, looking around me I realise that my three minutes would still be pretty much intact even if I were to greet everyone in the Chamber individually!
But time is precious at this late hour and I shall not be needing to use up my ample allowance of minutes on too many questions of substance. Let me explain why.
Firstly - as we have seen on many similar occasions - there is no fundamental disagreement among the big political groups in Parliament on the substantive issues of competition policy.
Unanimity reigns.
As to this particular matter, we may have argued in committee over a few minor points, but in the end we reached a uniform, consensual view.
We all share a desire to see procedures clarified and decisions taken in a transparent way.The Commission needs to see its position as a competition authority consolidated and its supervisory role in the field of aid strengthened.
I can go along with the rapporteur on all these issues.
I would make one point, however.
Not surprisingly - looking at the clock - no one from the Council is to be seen.
Our much-esteemed Competition Commissioner is with us, however, and perhaps he can enlighten me.
I am keen to establish what precisely we are doing here tonight. It is not the content of the debate that worries me, but the form.
We have come together to deliberate over a text; tomorrow we shall be voting on our amendments. As far as I can see, however, we have been overtaken by events.
The actual decision was taken two months ago in the Council. So I am wondering where we as a parliament come in.
Perhaps it is true that our views have been taken into account, but what about the points which were not heeded?
Article 14 - in the Council's version of the text - contains a paragraph which refers to the suspension of recovery proceedings. This paragraph was unanimously rejected in committee.
I happen to know, because the relevant amendment came from me and, as shadow rapporteur for my group, I managed to get all my points through.
The committee expressly voted against this paragraph, but it figures in the Council text. What happens now, Commissioner?
Could it be that we are simply engaged in intellectual gymnastics?
This is what concerns me. Maybe we need to rethink our own procedures.
The horse would appear to have bolted; it seems rather futile for us to be discussing the angle of the stable door.
Mr President, the time when my group thought state aid was the ideal solution is long past, and we now support the Commission's current view that state aid should be allowed only in special cases, such as for regional aid or research.
But even here we must be careful.
Regional aid must not be allowed to lure jobs from one area of the Union to another, and research support must not become state aid for businesses by another name.
However, it has to be said that state aid is still being granted on a considerable scale, even to firms that do not represent the public interest.
Some of it is traditional aid that the Commission has tolerated or even approved up to now, and some is illegal support.
I have to say that it is very hypocritical of the Member States to support the generally rather restrictive policy on state aid, but then to make difficulties about claiming back aid that has been granted illegally. As I see it, punishing abuses is all about showing credibility and effectiveness.
This also applies in my view to state aid in the form of tax concessions.
Demanding repayment means of course that the state has to get money back from individual firms, and it is rather ironic that the governments should be worried about this.
Regarding the fiscal aid that the Commission has tolerated up to now, I would heavily criticise the Commission decision published in the Official Journal of 18 December last year, which classifies Ireland's extremely low corporation tax that applies only to foreign undertakings as aid for exploitation and distortion of competition, but at the same time allows it to be extended until 2003 or even 2010.
The Commission is clearly being far too lax and inconsistent.
It is time to put an end to these sorts of practices.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I shall be brief.
As previously mentioned, the matter has already been discussed in the Council, but I would like to mention something that was also touched on by Mr Metten, namely that there can be extenuating circumstances in connection with state aids.
What we are talking about is employment. I would like to emphasise that aid should be given during periods of restructuring, and that it should always be temporary.
I would also like to emphasise that it has been found that when people decide to remove the aid and to develop businesses instead, then jobs are in fact created.
So some of our competition money could well be used for development rather than aid.
I hope that when the Commission comes to simplify the administration of Article 93, it does not turn a blind eye to problems.
I realise that Mr Van Miert does not have so many people at his disposal, but I hope that it will be a good and effective simplification.
I am particularly pleased that on-site checks are being proposed.
I think that is a good thing, which could make this more effective and transparent and improve legal certainty.
I also think it is good for countering national bureaucracy and bad faith.
It is very difficult for a country to admit that it has made a mistake.
I know that from Denmark and from Germany.
We have had a lot of cases in shipbuilding, but as politicians we must all commit ourselves to looking forward.
I believe that what is on the table, even if it has now been dealt with in the Council, is a good way forward.
I also believe that, year by year, we should look at how it can be improved.
What the Council has arrived at this time could perhaps be improved next year, because we are always becoming better or more skilful at administering these rules.
I would therefore like to wish the Commissioner and the Commission good luck in future, and point out that Parliament supports the Commission in this area.
Mr President, as the rapporteur said just now, we are discussing this dossier here, which is nevertheless an important one, in what is almost an intimate atmosphere.
Firstly, my sincere thanks to our rapporteur, Mr Areitio Toledo, and those who have spoken in the debate.
In a way, we are discussing this subject amongst ourselves, amongst people who are familiar with it and want to improve things, a desire which is not new.
We have been trying for years to work together to achieve better discipline in the monitoring of state aids, to improve the procedures, to be more transparent and better balanced.
On this or that point - and I shall reply to Mr Metten presently - we do of course have differing views.
Opinions will not necessarily be the same on how this or that affair should be managed.
But I think I can say, generally speaking, that despite the sensitive nature of the subject of state aids, there is - if not a consensus - at least the feeling that by and large things are moving in the right direction.
This is our second initiative on the basis of Article 94, and you will remember that we made one attempt before without success.
This time we have managed to agree two proposals and, between ourselves - since we have been debating privately among friends, as the rapporteur said - we have done it far faster than I had expected.
And, Mr Rapkay, that rather explains our problem.
A proposal which was put forward several months ago was in the end dealt with very quickly by the Council of Ministers. I was very surprised by this, because initially there had been disagreement on it.
I had myself been present at the Council meeting when the Council considered this matter for the first time, and I threatened to withdraw our proposal because there was no support for it.
And now, a few months later, to my astonishment, the Council of Ministers adopts our proposal on the substance in five minutes flat.
There are lessons to be learned from all this - for Parliament first of all, in that it might perhaps work rather faster in cases of this kind, and for the Council of Ministers too, which might sometimes be encouraged to work more quickly.
Having said that, I think in essence that what was agreed in principle by the Council is very broadly consistent - and I stress very broadly, Mr Rapkay - with what Parliament has always said.
For the first time, in fact, we shall have a truly transparent procedure.
So this was a kind of inaugural act, an act which was necessary. It will enable us to work against a background of greater clarity and transparency and will enable others to understand the procedures better: I think that is in everybody's interest.
I should now like to reply to one or two specific comments.
One problem in particular, Mr Rapkay, is of great concern to us.
Once the Commission has decided against, which as you know it is doing more and more often, the Member State or authority which granted the state aid has to recover that aid.
Most Member States do just that, but in some of them it is extremely complicated.
In Germany, for example, the matter may be referred to the national courts and can drag on for years.
This leads to a certain discrimination between Member States.
We have tried to correct this, because there has to be consistency in implementing Commission decisions throughout the territory of the European Union.
This is why we have battled over this.
Another point concerns on-the-spot checks of compliance with the conditions which are sometimes attached to the decision to grant state aids. Such checks are carried out, for example on shipyards.
But in other sectors too, it is sometimes necessary to be able to check whether the undertakings given are indeed being respected.
These are a few examples which prove that things are improving.
That said, I know that the question arose in Germany as to whether the Commission can do something which is not in accordance with national law.
That needs to be discussed, because once again, if the Commission's decisions are implemented in most Member States but not in one or two others, there is a problem.
Those who do carry out the decisions will say 'yes, but look at what these other countries are doing, payments wrongly made are not being recovered'.
I come up against this problem more and more. I have to say that in all honesty.
More and more I am asked 'if the others are doing that, why shouldn't we?'
I feel I have to point that problem out.
My time is limited, Mr President, so I must finish, and in concluding I would address myself particularly to Mr Rapkay.
I think most of the amendments were agreed in the end so that we have reason to be satisfied, even if it is somewhat after the event.
On one or two points, I cannot allay your concerns, because we do not agree, as is sometimes the case.
But overall, I think I can say that this arrangement satisfies the wishes of the European Parliament.
In reply to the last question put by Mr Metten it is true that we were in a special situation because in the past, rightly or wrongly, the Commission accepted this system.
It goes back to the time of Ireland's accession.
So the situation was, I repeat, one which the Commission accepted at a given time. It could not be ignored.
And there are established rights.
What we tried to do was to end that system after a transitional period. And that is what was agreed.
Another question is what the rate will be for companies.
This is a more general debate which is part of the issue of fiscal harmonisation, because once you are talking about a general measure you are no longer talking about state aids.
Thus we told the Irish authorities that the system as applied in the past was no longer acceptable, just as we shall have to tackle a whole series of other fiscal aid dossiers, some of which were also accepted in the past.
So there too, solutions will have to be found for other dossiers which have never been notified, which have never been accepted by the Commission.
We shall have to be tougher, stricter, that much is obvious.
But I am sure that we shall discuss this again on future occasions.
My last point, and the rapporteur raised it, is that this lovely lady sitting next to me is part of the team of officials who handle dossiers of this kind.
But as you know, we are seriously short of staff to do all the work.
There are 30 or so 'fiscal aid' dossiers pending, and I do not have the human resources I need.
We have to find taxation specialists to administer these dossiers.
So once again I make the plea, but I know that you share my concerns here: when you have a new field to cultivate, but not the means to do it, you cannot work miracles.
We are faced with a mountain of dossiers, and the human resources available to us are laughably inadequate.
I have to say: do not be angry if we cannot process all these dossiers in a period of a few months.
But I know that I am preaching to the converted here.
All I can do is restate the problem in the hope that you may perhaps, in other places, give us a helping hand to get the minimum of personnel we need to manage our dossiers.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at at 11 a.m.
Right to deduct VAT
The next item is the report (A4-0490/98) by Mr Garosci, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on
I.the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards the rules governing the right to deduct Value Added Tax (COM(98)0377 - C4-0474/98-98/0209(CNS)); II. the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on verification measures, measures relating to the refund system and administrative cooperation measures necessary for the application of Directive 98/xxx/EC (COM(98)0377 - C4-0475/98-98/0210(CNS)).
Mr President, I am pleased that Mr Van Miert has called for a human and social interpretation even of fiscal and economic problems.
This House will undoubtedly provide the assistance he is seeking.
Besides, the matter under discussion this evening, concerning value added tax, is of no small consequence for the harmonisation which we are seeking at this very time in launching the single currency.
The Commission's document contains two closely related proposals, both aiming to improve the common VAT system.
The present lack of uniformity in this system directly results in the fragmentation of what should be a single market, or rather an internal market, as we prefer to call it.
The fact that it is impossible to know about all the VAT provisions in force in the other Member States means that taxpayers have to operate in a situation of legal uncertainty, which provides those who know how to exploit it with the opportunity of creating a competitive advantage, which in effect constitutes a distortion of competition.
It is important to stress that these proposals are merely provisional, pending the entry into force of the definitive rules governing the common VAT system based - as we all know - on the principle of a single place of taxation and deduction.
The Commission takes the view that at present the best way to simplify significantly the common VAT system is to authorise taxable persons to deduct the VAT paid in another Member State in the periodic VAT declaration submitted in the state of residence.
This proposal requires an amendment to Article 17 of the sixth VAT directive introducing a regulation governing relations between Member States as regards compensation and VAT refunds and revoking the special VAT refund procedure described in the eighth VAT directive.
The effects of this proposal for taxable persons residing in the Community are that, if the taxable person is identified for VAT purposes in a single Member State, the VAT is deducted there, irrespective of the Member State in which he incurred the VAT-bearing expenditure.
If the taxable person is identified for VAT purposes in several Member States, then if he is identified in the Member State in which he has incurred the VAT-bearing expenditure, the VAT is deducted in that state.
If the taxable person is not identified in the Member State in which he has incurred the VAT-bearing expenditure, the VAT is deducted in the Member State where he supplies goods or services for which the expenditure is used.
Hence, the amount of VAT eligible for deduction will be determined in accordance with the rules of the Member State of residence, rather than of the Member State which collected the tax.
This proposal introduces a derogation from the eighth VAT directive by establishing that the Member State of purchase will be responsible for verifying that the VAT has actually been paid, whilst the Member State of deduction will be responsible for monitoring the actual deduction of the tax.
The second part of the Commission proposal concerns expenditure which is not eligible for full deduction of VAT.
This is expenditure which, even when incurred as part of the normal running of a business, is often intended to meet private needs too, because it has the characteristics of final consumption.
At present, most Member States exclude or limit the right to deduct by simplifying the administrative procedures and limiting the opportunities for tax fraud.
Only three Member States - Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands - guarantee the right to full deduction, the only exception of course being expenditure which has no business element.
The Commission is proposing harmonisation of the different national rules, whilst leaving the individual Member States a margin for discretion.
As regards expenditure relating to passenger cars, generally speaking the normal deduction rules apply.
The only exception provided for is if it becomes difficult to ascertain the non-business use of the vehicle, in which case the Member State is entitled to limit the deduction to a maximum of 50 % of the total VAT applied, thereby obviating the need to monitor whether a vehicle is actually used for business purposes or not.
If the percentage of business use is not as high as the percentage of the ceiling for deductible VAT, the deduction is made according to the normal rules.
Finally, so-called 'business tourism' - conventions, congresses, business travel and so on - accounts for approximately 20 % of the total turnover of the tourism sector and plays an increasingly substantial role in it.
The business sector is of both economic and social importance, and makes tourist activities and resorts less dependent on holiday seasons.
In other words, the choice of a seaside, mountain, lake or other location for a business congress outside the tourist season enables such locations to be revitalised even in the off season or low season.
The national legislation of only eight countries out of the 15 allows use of the option provided for in the Sixth Directive No 388 of 1997.
It would therefore be logical to make VAT deductions the same in all the Member States with regard to hotel and restaurant expenditure.
Finally, the Commission considers that expenditure on luxuries, amusements or entertainment should be totally excluded from the right to deduction.
I believe that we and the Commission should be guided by this logic, given that a single currency ought to dovetail with a single fiscal, taxation and banking system.
That is true harmonisation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I warmly commend the way in which the Commission has used this proposal for a directive to simplify significantly the procedures governing the right to deduct value added tax. This will assist the further harmonisation of VAT in the Union.
In future, taxable persons registered in one country only for the purposes of value added tax will quite rightly be entitled to enter the deduction directly on the periodic tax returns which they complete in their country of residence.
The actual place of supply of the services to which the expenditure relates is not the key element here.
The level of the deduction depends, as one would expect, on the rules applicable in the Member State of residence.
If, however, a company is identified for VAT purposes in several countries, and has outgoings in one of them, the right to deduct value added tax will also be granted in the country of purchase.
Where the company has no VAT registration number in the Member State in which the expenditure is incurred, the deciding factor will be the place where the services to which the expenditure relates were supplied, bearing in mind that the deduction is linked to that expenditure.
Henceforth, value added tax will no longer be deductible solely in the Member State in which turnover is taxed.
Businesses and tax administrations alike are set to gain from this new situation.
The current reimbursement procedure under the eighth VAT directive is far too complicated and bureaucratic.
It has meant that companies were generally obliged to hire local tax consultants and endure a long wait for refunds. Every application outside the framework of the standard tax return has to be considered individually at the moment; this takes up the tax authorities' time and creates additional red tape.
Against such a backdrop, the bilateral approach to debt compensation and refunds envisaged in this proposal certainly promises to be more efficient.
Member State 'A' notifies Member State 'B' of the amounts it has deducted over the previous six months.
The two states then work out what they owe one another; there is no need for a costly and time-consuming clearing procedure.
The multi-phase monitoring system ensures that tax administrations are not called upon to take an immediate and final decision on deductibility.
The first stage corresponds to the assessment performed by the Member State granting the VAT deduction.
This state electronically informs the state in which the expenditure was incurred of the amount of turnover for which a deduction was allowed pursuant to Article 17(3)(a).
Provision is rightly made for eventual irregularities to be reported; the Member State uncovering a problem must notify its counterpart within three months of having obtained the relevant information.
The authorities which granted the deduction will then check whether this was legitimately obtained.
I welcome harmonisation of the rules governing deductions for expenditure of a dual business and private nature - on company cars or business trips, for example.
There are currently many different yardsticks used in assessing borderline cases - witness all the various provisions in national law and the different ways in which they are interpreted nationally by the tax authorities.
A single market cannot afford these variables; too often the result is that the tax due is not paid.
In future, outgoings on cars will be covered by the standard rules, which is right and proper.
I also think it wise that Member States should be allowed to limit the deduction to a maximum of 50 % of the tax applied. Where problems arise with establishing levels of private use, this ceiling will be calculated on the basis of maximum estimated business use.
The other solutions envisaged succeed in addressing the problems.
With business travel in particular, it is certainly the case that action is required on the flat-rate deduction of 50 % in respect of accommodation costs.
While it is to be welcomed that this proposal for a directive remedies some of the shortcomings of the transitional system, I would not wish that fact to be used as a pretext for shelving the idea of a definitive new regime.
The Union needs uniform arrangements in terms of structures, definitions, procedures and monitoring.
The country of origin principle must become the basis for taxing turnover everywhere; we also need a single clearing procedure.
This is essential, given the differing interests of the various Member States.
The dawning of the age of economic and monetary union does not necessarily demand total tax harmonisation, but VAT is one charge that can be dealt with in a uniform fashion.
As we speak, untaxed goods are circulating through the commercial channels, effectively depriving the EU exchequer of over 700 billion euros.
That is too high a price to pay.
Mr President, I wish to begin by expressing my support for this proposal and congratulating the rapporteur, whose arguments I fully endorse.
I should like briefly to explore three points.
Firstly, I believe that - as has already been said - this proposal has the great merit of helping to simplify the VAT system by allowing the right of deduction in the country of residence in certain cases. In one sense, therefore, over and above the advantages already highlighted, it also represents something of a bridge towards the definitive system.
Secondly, I would take up the rapporteur's point concerning the right of deduction and the need - especially in certain areas - to harmonise the different Member States' systems.
I too would emphasise the fact that business tourism is penalised in Italy - but not only there - from this point of view.
Such tourism is clearly at a disadvantage, in that the existing rules are not only incompatible with the elaboration of a broadly harmonised, definitive VAT system in Europe, but they are also unable to compensate for the serious distortions currently burdening a sector which can provide a large number of jobs, to the benefit of local economies adversely affected by seasonal factors.
My third point ties in with what I have just said, namely the need to step up our efforts to make the VAT system more compatible with the aims of job growth and economic development.
Because time is short, I would merely draw attention to the fact that the proposal to introduce on an experimental basis a reduced rate of VAT for non-commercial activities - ones unlikely to distort competition but likely to boost employment - has faded away. Quite frankly, I find it increasingly difficult to understand the inactivity in this area.
Mr President, at the outset I should like to congratulate Mr Garosci on the preparation and indeed on the presentation of his report.
We live in an internal market operating within the Union, with the free movement of goods, services and capital across the territories of the 15 Member States, covering a population of nearly 250 million people.
There is no common VAT system operating within the Union at this time and this lack of uniformity at this time has led to the fragmentation of the working of the single market across the 15 different fiscal areas.
The fact that it is impossible to know all about the VAT provisions in force in other Member States of the Union means that taxpayers have to operate in a situation of legal uncertainty as well as having to work with different bureaucratic structures.
VAT is one of the areas covered by the second phase of the SLIM initiative, in which the Commission has shown considerable interest.
In particular, SLIM has identified the need to bring in more simple VAT refund procedures, which would assist businesses across the Union in the payment of refunds for the sale of goods and the provision of services.
This is to be welcomed. As part of the ongoing work to improve the common VAT system the European Commission has put forward proposals concerning the rate for deducting VAT costs that have been incurred, seeking to change the current system by which traders have to go through exceedingly complex and costly procedures to ask for a refund from the tax authorities in the Member States in which the VAT was incurred.
This will be replaced with the simpler system under which companies can use their regular VAT returns to deduct VAT incurred in another Member State.
I support measures which help businesses to prosper and operate more effectively within the territories of the Union.
The European Union must introduce fair and definite rules governing a common VAT system based on the principle of a single place of taxation and deduction.
Any proposal to simplify the tax procedures does not necessarily mean harmonisation of taxes.
To simplify tax procedures is indeed to be welcomed.
Mr President, my group also supports the Commission's proposals for simplifying the VAT system among the fifteen Member States.
But as far as deducting VAT is concerned, we actually think the Commission's proposal is more sensible than what the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is proposing.
We believe we have to distinguish between business travel and private travel and recognise that travel is very often dual-natured.
So we support the Commission's proposal that there has to be a limit to any deduction, for example 15 %.
The hotel and catering sector has obviously appealed to the parliamentary groups that business travel hotel and restaurant expenses should be deductible in full, but, in our opinion, that is not reasonable because of the possible dual nature of the expenses, as I said.
However, the hotel and catering sector in itself is vital for employment and Member States should now be able to experiment with lowering VAT to give support to employment in these areas.
In our opinion, the Member States should undoubtedly seize this opportunity.
It is quite clear that jobs in the future will be created ultimately in service industries and the hotel and catering sector is an important example of this, but it would be a mistake if business travel costs were made entirely VAT-exempt.
Mr President, in this case my group supports the Commission rather than the rapporteur's amendments.
We recognise the importance of VAT as a possible way of promoting employment, but we do not support a policy in which certain sectors are promoted on an ad hoc, arbitrary basis.
We are certainly in favour of objective and transparent experiments to find ways of using VAT to promote employment.
The Commissioner knows what I am getting at here.
After Parliament's innumerable calls for this to happen, the European Council in Vienna finally asked the Commission to put forward proposals on experimenting with low VAT rates for labour-intensive services.
I would ask the Commissioner when Parliament can expect to see this proposal.
You know that this is a subject to which Parliament attaches great importance, and I would urge you to ensure that before this Parliament is dissolved we are given the opportunity to approve a Commission proposal on experimenting with low VAT rates for labour-intensive services.
This means that you would have to come up with something concrete either this month or next, which you could do perfectly easily, because we have already had extensive negotiations on this issue and we are, I think, largely in agreement that it must be limited to a number of very labour-intensive sectors.
We already agree on the approach, so I think the proposal is actually already there.
I would therefore urge you most strongly to ensure that we receive the proposal in the next few weeks.
Mr President, in an internal market where borders no longer exist and where we have now had a single currency for thirteen days, it is not logical that traders wishing to reclaim their VAT should have to apply to each separate Member State where they have spent their money. The result, as we know, is that because of all the red tape involved many of them give up their right to deduct VAT, which is certainly not the intention.
Business people have been waiting for a long time for the rules on reclaiming VAT in other Member States to be harmonised, and harmonisation is certainly something to be welcomed, so we agree with the Commission's proposals here.
They represent genuine progress.
The principle of harmonising the rules on expenditure for which VAT cannot be deducted in full is also a step in the right direction, but here we support the amendment tabled by the rapporteur, Mr Garosci.
The proposal to make VAT on hotel and restaurant costs fully deductible not only responds to what the business community wants, it is also a logical fiscal approach.
Entertaining business partners is often the only way to publicise a company's products and services, particularly for small firms, so it is therefore logical to classify the actual costs incurred, whether in a hotel or a restaurant, as business expenses from which VAT is fully deductible.
In my opinion, the Commission could come up with more than these specific proposals, and then we can show businesses that the European institutions are concerned not just with the problems of the multinationals, but also with the problems of small firms and more besides.
This is why I support Mr Metten's question about what progress has been made with the idea of experimenting with low VAT rates for labour-intensive services. It is a question asked many times before, Commissioner, but one that is not going to go away.
Mr President, Mr Garosci's report has my full backing.
Serious distortions of competition arise because of the differences in the way Member States treat tourism companies in respect of the right to deduct value added tax.
This affects 'business tourism' - in other words, conferences and congresses - as well as private business travel.
As the rapporteur says, business travel accounts for approximately 20 % of total turnover in the tourism sector. Expenditure per guest is by far the highest, since many overseas visitors - especially from North America and Japan - attend these business events.
Competition between the various congress and conference locations is consequently extremely tough.
Business tourism deserves our support as a valuable source of jobs.
Hence the particular importance of Amendment No 7, which advocates full deduction of expenditure on accommodation and food or drink, as well as on entertaining business partners.
Mr President, the main objective of these two initiatives is to simplify the complex and extremely diverse procedure that exists in Europe regarding the refund of VAT as specified in the Eighth Directive.
Due to the lack of time, I will concentrate on the amendments on tourist activities, which I fully agree with.
These amendments relate to so-called 'business tourism' - conventions, congresses and business travel - which already accounts for nearly 20 % of European tourism and is highly likely not only to increase significantly in the medium term, but also to compensate for one of the most complicated phenomena in the tourist sector, namely seasonal variations.
Business tourism is therefore a way of helping to ensure that employment in the tourism sector remains stable throughout the year.
In fact, business tourism occurs in particular outside the high season, thereby contributing to a more balanced and more profitable operation of tourism businesses throughout the year.
Eight EU countries are fully aware of this.
Belgium, Germany, Spain, Finland, Luxembourg, Holland, Sweden and the United Kingdom already allow the deduction of VAT on hotel and restaurant expenditure in the case of business travel.
This is a real incentive from the authorities of these countries to the development of business tourism, both for nationals of these countries and in order to attract congresses to the respective markets.
It must be borne in mind that competition in this sector is quite tough, despite Europe having exceptional conditions in terms of its supply.
The seven countries that have not adopted this principle, namely Austria, Italy, France, Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark, are at a disadvantage due to both the competitive edge of the other eight EU countries already mentioned and the growing number of non-European destinations in the tourism sector where VAT does not even exist.
I am therefore personally in favour of the proposals included in the amendments tabled by Mr Garosci, who I must congratulate, as they seem to me to make a very important contribution to the future of European tourist activities.
Mr President, this proposal does not entirely seem fitting in this turbulent week, since it is all about trust, trust between countries and between institutions.
The tax authorities in the Member States are going to have to work with each other to make this proposal successful, and it must be a success because the current state of affairs is a recurring source of irritation for the business community.
The legislation on which we are delivering our opinion today has great potential.
European businesses are heavily burdened by the red tape involved in claiming back VAT paid abroad, and if the VAT is reimbursed it often takes months or even years until it actually reaches the company in question.
It seems fitting that we should have an Italian Commissioner and an Italian rapporteur here, because the longest wait that I have ever heard of was twelve years for a VAT repayment from Italy to reach the firm entitled to it.
The proposal solves a number of existing problems, but this change to the VAT directive is not enough.
Our ultimate aim must still be to achieve a definitive VAT system based on the principle of the country of origin.
This proposal from the Commission is an important intermediate stage and should improve confidence between the various Member States and their administrative systems.
This confidence will be needed if we are ever to have a definitive VAT system with a sort of repayment clearing house similar to the repayment system now on the table.
The definitive VAT system will involve infinitely greater sums than is currently the case, since the VAT reclaimed from abroad, which is what we are discussing here, forms only a small part of the total VAT payments in Europe.
I very much support Commissioner Monti's proposal, and I congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
This first step should bring us closer to the definitive VAT system, which will make a world of difference to the non-exporting small and medium-sized companies that unfortunately make up the majority of those affected.
I agree with what Mr Metten said.
I think that from now on we must insist on lower rates of VAT for labour-intensive services in all our reports on taxation.
Mr President, the Belgian National Front, a national and European movement, has always believed that introduction of the single European currency, of which we were in favour, would require the harmonisation of social and taxation systems within the Union.
The Council's proposal to simplify the system for deducting VAT expenditure incurred in a Member State in which the taxable person is not established, a proposal which was improved by the amendments of Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, is a small step in the right direction, a very small step, since this simplification will make life difficult for the fraudsters.
A pity the Council does not have another, equally effective magic formula for preventing the corruption regularly perpetrated by one or two European Commissioners who cheat, scheme and fiddle with impunity.
So much for that footnote - I have finished, Mr President.
Mr President, Commissioner Bangemann, ladies and gentlemen, in principle I welcome the proposed changes in the deduction and refund system for VAT.
These procedures are particularly cumbersome in certain Member States; we repeatedly see the adverse effect on businesses of the time and costs involved.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is therefore expressly in favour of simplifying the procedures.
We would even go a step further in some areas.
Accommodation and food or drink expenses incurred as part of a person's business activities should, we believe, remain fully deductible.
It is hard to see why money spent in hotels and restaurants for purely business purposes should be treated differently from any other business expenditure.
The business lunch or dinner is valuable when it comes to fostering contacts and building up client confidence - especially for small companies, who can also use the occasion to present their products.
In Austria, we have found that reducing the tax deductibility of business entertainment can harm the gourmet restaurant sector.
We therefore believe that Parliament's amendment offers an appropriate way of resolving this problem.
We also have a proposal on translation costs.
Tax administrations are quite entitled to ask for the details on an invoice or whatever to be translated.
We do know, however, that this can cause difficulties for SMEs, who often do not have the necessary language expertise to hand.
Some countries even require officially certified translations; this can mean bringing in a 'sworn' translator or court-recognised interpreter.
Consequently, it would make sense for the costs of external translation to be borne by the requesting administration.
I am delighted to see that the Commission's commitment to a leaner and fitter regulatory system at single market level is now bearing fruit in the VAT sector too.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be discussing with you one of the first legislative initiatives on VAT which derives directly from the SLIM exercise, and to be doing so on the basis of such an excellent report as the one by Mr Garosci.
The work of the SLIM group has led to a series of important recommendations which we are following up as a top priority within the Commission's work programme, so as to improve the operation of the VAT system.
Therefore I am always happy to hear observations to the effect that, as Mr Secchi said, this is one stage on the way towards the definitive VAT system, to which Mrs Randzio-Plath also referred.
This proposal contains two parts: the first relates to the procedure for refunding VAT to non-resident taxable persons; the second relates to harmonisation of the rules governing deduction.
As regards the first aspect, the refund procedure - the purpose of which is to allow a taxable person to recover the VAT paid in a Member State in which he is not resident - has been identified as an area where simplification is urgently needed.
The procedure set out in the eighth directive has proved very unsatisfactory in practice, both for national administrations and for operators. The latter criticise in particular the cumbersome administrative formalities and the delays in obtaining refunds.
The Commission has concluded that the only modification likely to bring about true simplification consists of abolishing this procedure altogether and replacing it with a mechanism enabling a taxable person to deduct, in his regular returns, tax paid in a Member State in which he is not resident.
This system requires the introduction of a bilateral refund and compensation system for debts between Member States, as well as a clear-cut division of the Member States' responsibilities for verification, presupposing that a relationship of trust exists.
The Commission notes with satisfaction that Mr Garosci's report supports its proposal concerning this first aspect.
The second aspect is harmonisation of the rules governing deduction of VAT paid on expenditure which is of both a business and non-business nature.
The proposal relates first of all to the deduction of VAT applied to expenditure relating to passenger cars, our aim being to end the total exclusion from the right to deduct which currently applies in certain Member States.
Furthermore, the Commission is proposing a flat-rate deduction of 50 % of the VAT payable on expenditure on accommodation, food and drink, and a total exclusion for expenditure on luxuries, amusements or entertainment.
I note that Mr Garosci's report basically endorses the Commission's proposed approach.
The amendments put forward relate mainly to the provision for a 50 % flat-rate deduction in the case of expenditure on accommodation, food and drink.
Even when incurred in the context of an operator's business activity, such expenditure is, by its very nature, intended to satisfy personal needs.
Application of the normal rules requires a discrete assessment of the business and non-business elements of expenditure; this assessment often gives rise to awkwardness between tax administrations and operators.
Consequently, the Commission is proposing a flat-rate deduction of 50 %, with a view to simplifying - that is the key word - verification, especially in view of the obvious risk of improper deduction.
Moreover, a flat-rate deduction makes it easier for operators to prove the business nature of such expenditure.
For these reasons, we cannot accept the proposed amendments.
Nevertheless, I can assure you that the Commission will take your observations into account during the forthcoming negotiations on this proposal in the Council.
Indeed, were the Council not to agree unanimously on flat-rate deduction but to argue that the application of the normal rules creates no insurmountable problems of verification, the Commission would then be prepared to suggest a practical solution, allowing a Member State to apply either a deduction in accordance with the normal rules or the flat-rate deduction of 50 %.
As well as thanking you for your support, which I consider particularly important in persuading the Council to adopt the proposal, I wish to close - in this very welcome climate of confidence between our institutions, referred to by Mrs Peijs - by answering the question concerning the possibility of a reduced rate of VAT on labour-intensive services, a subject touched on by Mr Secchi, Mr Metten and Mrs Thyssen.
As has been pointed out, the Commission presented a communication to the extraordinary European Council in Luxembourg in November 1997, asking the Council to back this proposal.
As you know, there has since been some inconclusive discussion in the ECOFIN Council.
The Vienna European Council invited the Commission to authorise the Member States to apply the reduced rate on labour-intensive services having no cross-border content.
Naturally, under the existing legal system, the Commission cannot authorise the Member States to do this; that would require an amendment to the sixth VAT directive.
I know that this matter is of great concern to Parliament, and I am pleased to take this opportunity of announcing that I intend to present the relevant draft amendment to the Commission in February, in order that Member States wishing to do so may, on an experimental basis, apply a reduced VAT rate to labour-intensive services.
I believe that the best way for taxation to help employment is to move towards fiscal coordination, and Parliament has always supported this major undertaking of recent years.
One specific contribution which may well be worth trying out is the one to which we have referred: the possibility of a reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive services.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Globalisation and the information society
The next item is the report (A4-0366/98) by Mr Malerba, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission on Globalisation and the Information Society - the need for strengthened international coordination (COM(98)0050 - C4-0153/98).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the two Commission communications which are the subject of my report - one on the need for strengthened international coordination in the information society and the other, related to it, on the problem of an international framework of management for the Internet - raise specific points and also outline a method for addressing the challenges, legal ones in the main, which the Internet revolution has brought about.
What is new about the Internet that cannot be regulated merely by extending the rules already in force for the other media? This is a valid question.
My answer is that the Internet really is a new, revolutionary technological product; its advent is on a par with the invention of the printing press.
Television, print and radio messages are one-way, broadcast indiscriminately to an audience without the means to interact.
In contrast, the Internet changes the way we distribute information in two fundamental respects: every message can become highly participatory, while the distribution costs of information, on a worldwide basis, fall almost to zero.
Whereas in general the traditional broadcasting media are tightly regulated, on the Internet anyone can become a publisher and engage in dialogue with his readership.
There are no central points of control and no access barriers; no special licences are required to get on the Internet.
The Internet is still in its infancy, but statistics show that participation is growing exponentially.
Whereas a few years ago it was predicted that by 1998 there would be three million users in Europe, when 1998 came we realised that there were already 18 million, and this growth is still continuing.
As the new method of electronic data interchange develops, so do new forms of corporate organisation, looking ahead to the economy of the future.
Hierarchies are disappearing, production plant and physical processes are no longer concentrated in a fixed location, as was typical of the industrial era; a new knowledge-based society is emerging, one which is more mobile both geographically and culturally.
It could be argued that highly complex organisations, such as the information society and interactive IT networks, should be regulated not from the centre but from the periphery, as happens in the biological world.
Simple laws are imprinted into every cell of an organism without there being a single central control unit.
Order is maintained through the interaction of a huge number of individual entities, linked together by a close network of connections and reactions.
A pragmatic and flexible approach to the Internet phenomenon would therefore appear judicious.
I believe that Mr Bangemann deserves credit for his far-sightedness and perseverance in pursuing the policy of liberalising telecommunications services in Europe.
It is for this reason that we are not now fazed by this new challenge.
When, at the Bonn Conference in July 1997, the Americans proposed the promotion of world-wide electronic commerce, Europe was able to respond in the same vein, reasserting the principles of user protection and free access for all citizens, personal data protection and security of communication, fiscal non-discrimination where new technologies are used for electronic rather than traditional commerce, and intellectual property rights.
There is ample evidence of the need for international coordination, ranging from domain name management to the risk of a US monopoly, to the German judiciary's initiatives concerning providers' real or presumed responsibilities, not forgetting the risk of a proliferation of dissimilar legislation from one country to another as electronic commerce gradually gains ground.
I would stress that our aim here is certainly not to define and list all the crimes to which the Internet potentially lends itself - although the media tend to focus mostly on these aspects - but rather to draw up a code of conduct making this new tool more secure and reliable to use.
On this basis, dialogue can be established at various levels, involving industry and content providers, and multilateral agreements can be sought not only with the United States but also with Japan, India and any other countries embarking on electronic commerce.
This multi-layer, multilateral dialogue must recognise the competence of international organisations in individual fields, and the private sector and professional and users' associations must be involved in laying down the new rules.
What can Parliament do? As well as giving encouragement and support to the Commission's international initiatives, I believe that Parliament should place this item on the agendas of its interparliamentary delegations, especially the one with the US Congress, and should continue working to raise public awareness.
As for the Commission, it must finalise and put forward for adoption in 1999 - before the end of this parliamentary term - a substantial set of rules governing electronic commerce.
We have observed the Commissioner's initiatives with industry in Brussels, at the OECD conference in Ottawa and at the Aspen Institute meeting in Lyons.
I should now like to hear him comment on the state of play.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on External Economic Relations welcomes the Commission's proposal on international coordination, since this is the interests of both the public and private sectors.
The committee has already said in earlier opinions that it is the authorities' task to achieve agreement on an international legislative framework that is transparent, clear, technology-neutral, non-discriminatory and likely to stimulate competition.
It is important that the entire business community should be involved, as at the round-table conference on 29 July last year in Brussels.
The business steering committee set up recently by Commissioner Bangemann fortunately recognises this principle and includes representatives of firms from around the world.
There is a tremendous amount of work to do when you think of protecting intellectual property, the problems of encryption, data protection, liability and so on.
Parliament must be closely involved in drafting legislation, whether binding or not, and in particular must be closely involved in any future conferences on the subject.
The information society has enormous implications for the public and for businesses in terms of well-being, employment and prosperity, so democratic controls are absolutely vital.
This brings me on to my final point.
The Commission's proposal for a new directive designed to improve the climate for electronic trade on the Internet in Europe has come not a moment too soon for the European Union, or perhaps even a little late.
If we compare the European Union's performance in the field of electronic trade with that of the United States, we are forced to concede that the European Union is already lagging behind.
In December alone online spending in the United States grew by 230 %, the sort of figure that many firms in Europe can only dream about.
I thank Mr Malerba for his excellent report.
Mr President, Commissioner, as the information society has begun to use new technologies in trade, one of the problems that has emerged is the need to establish a system of general legal guarantees for supranational transactions made on open access networks.
The fact that transactions are increasingly international has led to certain conflicts over jurisdiction. These involve matters such as the terms and conditions to be used in cross-border contracts, liability for third parties, the labour laws affecting teleworkers - even in cross-border transactions - copyright, and so on.
These are all matters that affect the reliability of transactions.
Without doubt, establishing a safe framework for businesses and consumers to operate in is essential in resolving these conflicts.
But it should be possible to achieve this objective if, on the one hand, the open access nature of the Internet is preserved and, on the other hand, the plurality and diversity of the network is maintained.
Introducing controls, barriers or licences for access to the Internet could be dangerous, and the jurisdiction of one sole country such as the United States becoming too widespread would be equally dangerous.
In my view, security must be compatible with freedom and limits should only be set in order to protect the public interest, with all that this entails.
The proposed International Charter would be a good idea, but Parliament should be involved in the debate surrounding it.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must apologise for my colleague Winnie Ewing, who cannot be here this evening to present the opinion she drew up on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
In adopting Mrs Ewing's opinion unanimously, our committee showed itself to be less keen on this project to create an Internet charter than the European Commission and Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Whilst our committee agrees with the European Commission on the universal nature of information networks, which transcend regional, national and European borders and require an international response, it does not agree with the Commission's analysis of the legal and technical nature of the problems created by the globalisation of the information society.
The Committee on Culture believes that our approach to the development of these new digital technologies is a mistake.
We believe the current approach, which seeks to make the regulation of electronic commerce a priority in the development of the information society, is effectively giving preference to a constricting policy which is geared solely to competitiveness and which fails to appreciate the extent of social and cultural change.
How can you think the new information technologies will benefit the greatest number of people, will help to reduce inequality of opportunities, if you do not take account of the risks they create? I am thinking in particular of the dangers we have already mentioned in many of our resolutions in this House: the danger that cultural and linguistic diversity will be marginalised, the danger that inequalities between urban areas and rural and peripheral regions will widen further.
As regards the plan to create a world economic area, barely disguised in the electronic commerce sector, it seems to me that the European Commission and our Economic Affairs Committee underestimate how far ahead the United States is in the technology and how far it is commercially dominant in the information sector and the Internet, accounting for more than 80 % of the world market in computers, software and electronic banking services.
Presenting this draft agreement to you as legally non-binding, whether it is or not, will not change the current situation in any way.
It will only benefit the multinationals, Microsoft today, Netscape or Sun Microsystems tomorrow.
To conclude, the Committee on Culture believes - you can shake your head, Mr Bangemann, but this is what our committee believes - that the priority for the European Union should be to address the technology gap between itself and the USA, and to put in place not an umpteenth policy of protectionism, as some Member States are tempted to do, but a coordinated and dynamic European multimedia policy by stimulating a market centred on European products and services, facilitating their spread throughout the territory of the Union, in association with the most innovative small businesses - in short, by using European skills in this area to maximum advantage.
After this first stage, these new technologies should also be placed at the service of the citizen, to encourage cultural and linguistic diversity and to further the development of general-interest networks.
Only in this way will the myth of a European model of the information society become reality.
The 12 amendments which the ARE Group has tabled to Mr Malerba's report reflect the main concerns expressed by the Committee on Culture and seek more broadly to offer concrete proposals to ensure that the European Union does not continue to lag behind in this battle.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are not yet living in the information society; we are still on the way there.
It is a matter of information, which is refined into data, then perception and realisation, and finally culture and education: information is only a raw material.
Its content, however, is of the essence.
Our problem is no longer one of transmitters or receivers, computers or hardware.
Content is the area where the European Union has fallen behind, compared with its competitors.
Content also provides employment and is very profitable.
You could say there was no end of uses for content, just as with food, such as the sausage, for example.
People can in practice enjoy content in an infinite number of ways.
I support the Commission's initiative for international action and a charter for the Internet and electronic commerce.
The Internet cannot work beyond the reach of the law and standards.
A crime is a crime on the Internet too, and that we must be aware of.
Apart from that, one advantage of electronic commerce is that the location is safe.
Rules, however, must not hinder developments, but lead and alter, and be flexible.
Obviously, there must be cooperation.
I believe that the United States is very keen to reach an agreement with us, as they have both economic and political interests.
Apart from companies and consumers, it is important that everyone should have access to this system.
It is a modern European Union's civil right and we will hold on to it.
Nevertheless, it cannot be exempt from taxation.
Mr President, this is the new computer age and it is here to stay.
The myth of an information-based society has become a reality.
Information is now the key to everything, turning us into listed consumers of classified products.
Virtual reality is the order of the day, mesmerising us into accepting our collective loss of freedom on a global scale.
We are now ruled by the drug of information and all its consequences.
Thinking is in binary form: I buy - yes or no; I sell - this or that; my opinion - left or right.
The information drug has invaded our daily lives and we are now even calling for computer police.
The Internet revolution, due to its extraordinary potential, has developed into a massive free-for-all involving every type of deceit, fraud and abuse.
Consumers are being violated and the applicable law is contradictory, incoherent or even non-existent.
The central issue now for an information society in which electronic commerce is assuming a previously unimaginable dimension is to urgently establish, by worldwide consensus, the main economic groups of the world and the respective leaders.
The objective is to provide a solid and coherent legal framework that can regulate the activity of the information networks.
Using the argument of American supremacy in the electronic commerce sector to exclude Europe from being a pioneer in the creation of this new global economic space, as recommended by the opinion of the Committee on Culture, Youth Education and the Media, is an unrealistic attitude. It implies that we should stick our heads in the sand and ignore or refuse to understand the major changes in the world today.
The risks of cultural and linguistic marginalisation and of outlying or rural areas becoming more isolated are real.
It is obvious that the disparity between north and south has increased in the last few decades despite economic growth. Nothing can prevent the world of one-way messages becoming a world of two-way communication via the Internet where everyone can be a publisher and broadcaster simultaneously.
Trying to ignore this change is as futile as trying to stop the tide coming in.
Mr President, this is actually a very interesting item on our agenda this evening.
In my view, the problem lies in the fact that we are trying to find a balance between the right to freedom of information and the difficulties we are facing in connection with the right to freedom of information, the right to freedom of electronic commerce, etc.
And we are facing difficulties, as everyone must agree, to do with tax, liability, the protection of information and information of a harmful or illegal nature.
The proposal before us is to introduce a non-binding international charter.
The fact that the charter is non-binding indicates where the seat of the problem lies.
We want to regulate a number of matters, but it is precisely in trying to establish the right to free trade and freedom of information, as I said earlier, that it is extremely difficult to restrict a number of things that we do not want.
I think that we should all welcome the fact that this proposal has been made and that we are going to reach a number of agreements, but agreements must never be so strictly defined that they infringe the rights of the individual.
As I see it, the information society is partly a way of encouraging individuals, states and so on to make responsible choices.
What we now have to recognise is that a number of countries that have up to now been accustomed to regulating certain matters within their own borders are now no longer able to do so because of the Internet.
I wish the Commissioner success with this charter.
It is a very brave effort, but it is going to be extremely difficult to find a balance between what we want and what we do not want.
Mr President, the Green Group, including myself, agrees with the Commission and its Members when they say that there is no need for a global regulatory framework, nor a new international authority to regulate the Internet.
Above all, we do not need an information police.
We now have the chance to come up with a viable solution, as I believe the rapporteur, Mr Malerba, has also recognised in his report when he calls for cooperation. That is what is needed, not legal regulation.
Any agreement reached between the different countries should not be legally binding, but more on the lines of a code of conduct or, in the words of the rapporteur, a kind of highway code for the Internet.
I think that such an approach would find support, since a code of this type is needed to safeguard privacy, copyright and security.
We have also tabled some amendments which address the need to resolve this issue, not only from the point of view of the international organisations, but in a way that takes account of the interests of commercial undertakings, consumer associations and so on, and which also protects the interests of the general public.
Moreover, the ARE Group has put forward a proposal with which we absolutely cannot agree, since we regard it as protectionist.
However, they have also tabled some amendments relating to the interests of the general public which we can support.
We would also like to remind you that this is not just about Europe and the USA; we must ensure that the Internet becomes a truly global and democratic highway that everyone can use.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I compliment Mr Malerba on his report, which enables us to consider the issues surrounding the Internet and the information society.
It enables the people and the elected representatives of Europe to engage in a debate which, as we know, has major implications for society and I know that Commissioner Bangemann is personally very aware of that.
So for me the proposed text is a starting-point for our shared deliberations, but we all know that it cannot be an end in itself.
The idea of a global charter is interesting and I am in favour of it, even if it cannot answer all the challenges entailed in developing new communication tools.
The priority for all of us is to move our European cooperation forward as fast as we can, so that we are better placed to negotiate from a position of greater strength with our major partner, the United States.
I also agree with the rapporteur on the question of electronic commercial transactions and his desire to protect the consumer or user by means of secure systems of payment and the respecting of civil liberties.
At the same time, I think our European debate has to go further than that.
The faster pace of economic processes, new forms of work, is creating complex problems. These are challenging the systems of social relationships we have in Europe.
The information revolution is breaking down the ways in which society orders itself, and at the same time communication, the degree of information, is breaking down all the hierarchies, including those within businesses.
So although international agreement is necessary, I believe we must do more to ensure consistency with social and business legislation.
We must never forget, Mr President, that the new technologies and the Internet are tools.
After that comes the question of knowing what to do with them, and to what end.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the single market is now almost complete.
A few days ago, the euro was introduced; frontiers are disappearing.
These are good signs, I feel.
Nowadays we can use our European-manufactured mobile phone to ring home from Moscow or Malaysia; we can link up directly to the Internet. The world is in fact coming together faster than some people are willing to accept.
Regulatory systems vary around the globe, so we need to come forward with ideas on how best to strengthen international coordination in this area too.
Markets will want to know what the rules of play are.
Drawing these up is primarily the job of policy-makers, but it is essential that we involve users and manufacturers. All three sides will need to sit around the table.
We must first of all establish the current state of play and then move to develop ways of achieving our chosen goals. Mr Malerba illustrates the situation very well in his report.
Member States have considerable scope for shaping the information society, but need to bear in mind the extent to which previously separate sectors are moving closer to one another.
This is where the challenge lies. We should be envisaging setting up virtual libraries - places open to everyone, just as traditional libraries are.
A click of the mouse will suffice, but people must be aware that the virtual library exists.
The benefit in terms of knowledge and experience will be enormous. And think of the boost for industry if concerted efforts are put into making this vision a reality.
Mr President, Commissioner, it seems to me that a great deal has happened since the Commission first began work on its initiative nearly a year ago.
I am referring in particular to resolving the problems posed by the Internet domain names, and here I believe the Commission has chosen the right way forward.
Furthermore, our approach to the whole issue has changed since the initiative was first introduced.
We are not just dealing with a highway, there are many other areas where regulation is needed, either by means of legislation, rules or standards.
In my view, we have also taken forward the debate on the information society.
We should therefore avoid statements like the one we heard last night about Europe being so far behind America.
In fact, Europe has also made progress in this field.
Two issues that were agreed and discussed recently give some cause for concern.
Why did Europe go along with the so-called amendment of the Wassenaar Convention which makes it more difficult for us to export encryption techniques, and what part did the Commission play in this? And the second is, of course, that there has still been no agreement on the UMTS standard.
What is needed here is continued vigilance and discussion.
We cannot accept that protecting our interests is the answer; there must be a solution that is to everyone's advantage.
We are told that the transatlantic dialogue has been useful and that there has been some degree of convergence.
Many people believe that it is important to combine the European and American approaches.
We have also seen that there is not always total independence in the USA, but that there is possibly more administrative regulation because of the federal system, which raises more obstacles than there are in Europe.
Finally, I should like to say that Commissioner Bangemann has done a very good job in this field simply by encouraging dialogue.
I am one of those who hope he will keep up the good work.
Mr President, an Internet Charter makes very good sense. We are confronted daily with new communications technologies; these are penetrating ever deeper into all areas of our lives.
Care must be taken with regard to competition law, however.
We do not want to see it undermined. Globalisation and the information society influence not only industrial and cultural policy; the impact on human rights is considerable too.
I am disappointed, therefore, to see that combating Internet crime is accorded such marginal treatment.
The Internet is being misused for the purposes of spreading child pornography; child abuse is happening online; and trafficking in children is even being organised over the net. Society has a massive problem here.
The European Union should be giving its full attention to this baser side of globalisation. Greater international cooperation between administrative authorities and more financial resources are called for.
Thank you very much, Mr Lukas.
Mr Torres Couto is now due to speak but he has not graced us with his presence.
Therefore, we have reached the end of the speeches by Members and I would ask Commissioner Bangemann to take the floor.
Mr President, may I begin by thanking the House for this debate, which has confirmed that there is no fundamental disagreement between Parliament and the Commission on this issue.
There is in fact a broad consensus and my thanks go to the rapporteur, who has made a big effort to absorb the logic and rationale of our proposal.
As a result, the analysis given in his report is very much to the point.
I should perhaps remind people, however, that today's discussion touches on only one element of the information society.
Just because we are focusing at present on electronic commerce and the Internet does not mean that other important aspects are being neglected.
What a pity that, yet again, the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media is coming out with the same old clichés. Its members preach their blinkered cultural pessimism and then depart, depriving anyone else of the chance to lighten their darkness.
Culture and open debate go together; in German, we even speak of a 'culture of debate'.
The information society has now entered that debate, and committees such as Economic and Monetary Affairs, or Research, Technological Development and Energy, or Foreign Affairs - with its Subcommittee on Security and Disarmament - are demonstrating more receptiveness towards this new cultural phenomenon than the culturally-challenged Committee on Culture, which cannot seem to grasp what is at stake.
The same old arguments have been wheeled out regarding the negative impact on minority languages and small or medium-sized companies.
But if ever there was a 'small-friendly' technology, it is the Internet. The new developments offer global exposure to smaller languages and small businesses at a fraction of the previous cost.
Much to my dismay, however, the Culture Committee fails to see this.
I have attended their meetings two or three times and, on each occasion, I came up against a brick wall.
We also hear repeated reference to US domination. Mrs Thors rightly pointed out that this a red herring.
Thanks to the Internet Charter, Europe has taken a global lead.
We have been successful on domain names, as Mrs Thors also noted.
There is a danger, however, that people will begin to believe all this constant talk of how America has got poor little Europe pinned against the wall.
But it has not, and our progress can only be undermined if this is the message coming across.
I am therefore grateful to you for having stated clearly that you believe we are making headway.
Mr Malerba asked about the current state of play and where we go next. Of course, Parliament will be involved in the whole process.
Anyone wishing to attend the conferences has an open invitation to do so.
Mr Malerba and other Members have participated in such events in the past, and we very much hope that this practice will continue
The familiar problem raised by Mrs Boogerd-Quaak has to be seen in the light of the speed of technological advance and the inherently global nature of the Internet.
When things are happening fast, legislation is not easy.
Regulations which we adopted at the outset are already in need of review; keeping pace with these developments is extraordinarily difficult.
That is why we are seeking to devise alternative-style legislation.
The second element in the equation is the global dimension of this technology.
Even if we do decide to enact directives at EU level, these have no impact beyond the frontiers of the Member States; hence the need for political agreement with other legal areas on equivalent approaches.
The Internet Charter is a move in that direction, and it has taken off internationally.
We have also been involved in promoting the Global Business Dialogue, which has been officially launched in Brussels.
A management board has now been appointed and is currently, as I understand it, holding a two-day meeting in New York. Moreover, a conference will be taking place in September at which consideration will be given to the possibility of self-regulation.
The interested parties will either agree to sort out the problems amongst themselves or, where this proves impossible, will seek to find the most appropriate solutions.
The OECD meeting in Ottawa produced a list of some 12 to 15 problem issues, many of which can only be resolved through political decisions.
Taxation matters obviously cannot be left to the parties directly involved.
Nor can we afford to leave questions such as encryption to the sectoral players alone.
And I would point out that no decisions have so far been taken on which of the various possible systems will be authorised.
Some thought was given to the matter at a meeting of justice and home affairs ministers, but no statutory provisions have been adopted.
Until Parliament and the Council have been consulted on a Commission proposal, no legislative act can be envisaged. We all know that.
And there is as yet no Commission proposal.
There are similar issues with regard to intellectual property; legislative decisions are required.
The idea is that this conference should prepare the ground; we will then come forward with proposals for decisions.
The Japanese are already convinced of the need to initiate a political process to parallel the one whereby private interests are working to find a suitable accommodation. It now remains for us to win over the Americans; we shall then be in a position to respond at international level to the ideas emerging from the private sector's deliberations.
All in all, I think it is fair to say that we are satisfied with the progress of events.
May I once again express my gratitude for your understanding and positive input.
I know that you have high expectations of me over the coming months - and thank you for your good wishes.
I take it that I may hold out some hope for tomorrow's vote!
Laughter and applause
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
We all share in that hope.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Commercial communications in the internal market
The next item is the report (A4-0503/98) by Mrs Larive, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee on the follow-up to the Green Paper on commercial communications in the internal market (COM(98)0121 - C4-0252/98).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Larive.
Mr President, this report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy on cross-border commercial communications also considers that the Commission is failing to do its duty.
As the guardian of the Treaties, the fact that it regularly flouts Article 169 - the infringement procedure - is a major democratic failing that cannot be tolerated in a democratic constitutional system.
The public, businesses and organisations are often rightly furious when their complaints take years to be dealt with, such as on France's Evin law and Greece's ban on the television advertising of toys.
I was also not exactly pleased to be handed just two minutes ago Commissioner Monti's reply to the letter that Mr Cox and I wrote to him about the infringement procedure.
All I have been able to read of it is the last sentence, which says 'I am nevertheless interested in the suggestions made by Mrs Larive in her draft report on commercial communications and will take them into consideration when they will be adopted by Parliament'.
I have not had time to read the rest, but I will hold him to his word.
In his eight-point plan last Monday, President Santer promised the European Parliament greater transparency and more information.
If he is to remain - or become - credible, therefore, the demands made in our resolutions must be met.
This means that the Article 169 procedure must be applied scrupulously and transparently, with time-limits for decisions to be reached and the compulsory proportionality assessment of all pending and new complaints.
Complainants must also be able to appeal against negative decisions.
Parliament is also calling for a public register of complaints accessible via the Internet, with the complainants' agreement, naturally, giving all the relevant information on the progress of the cases, or lack of it.
Parliament must be informed on a very regular basis, perhaps through its Committee on Legal Affairs, and I would propose that the committee should set up a working party to monitor infringement procedures, and not just those relating to commercial communications, of course.
The Commission can no longer be allowed to put unverifiable political considerations before legal arguments behind closed doors and without being answerable to anyone.
Commercial communications are a very delicate area.
On the one hand, they too should be able to take optimum advantage of the European single market, an extremely important consideration for this rapidly expanding, new technology-led sector which already employs more than one million people.
On the other hand, we naturally have great respect for national values and cultures.
This is why, Commissioner Monti, we are extremely happy with your proposals to liberalise the European market for commercial communications too, first in the Green Paper and now in the follow-up communication.
We support the proportionality assessment you propose.
Objective criteria can be applied in each case to determine whether a national restricting measure is in the public interest, or whether the intended public health or consumer policy objective, say, could be guaranteed by less drastic measures.
Unlike the Commission, however, we would like to see all new infringement cases subject to this assessment with clear time-limits, not just upon request, because then we would be back to the situation that I just described.
We also support the Commission's proposals for a central contact point, a website and a database, along with the expert group.
In this group too, the watchwords must be transparency and accessibility, so the agenda, minutes and minority opinions must all be made public.
We feel it is very important, as you know, Commissioner, that other people concerned should be included in the group alongside national officials.
I know you are a brave man, so try to persuade your colleagues to introduce what I call the 'European polder model' for the first time. By this I mean participation on an equal footing, with one representative from the government, industry and consumer organisations in each country.
It is time to stop civil servants from having absolute power here.
Finally, the principle of mutual recognition and the country of origin principle must be the keynotes for commercial communications too.
Only if the proportionality assessment establishes that a national restricting measure is justified can these principles be overridden.
The industry must be given the chance to solve problems through self-regulation and a European code of conduct.
In my view we should set to work on this now, and only as a last resort should we consider harmonisation legislation to supplement the dozen or so directives that already apply to this sector.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, commercial communications should certainly be broadened further.
They are a source of employment and are going through immense changes.
Advertising has also made progress as far as content goes, but not necessarily only for the better.
Commercial communications are becoming increasingly image-orientated.
They are more and more often manipulative and carry value-related messages.
This is the basis of my own viewpoint here.
Today advertising creates society's opinions.
The consumer is not always able to resist the image of the world created in advertising, which is often a very unrealistic one.
A good example is a certain brown drink made from a plant extract.
The drink is no longer advertised as a drink in itself, especially on television, but the lifestyle that goes with it is: youth, beaches, freedom and beauty.
This means that we have gone from advertising the product to advertising the image, and the social issues that go along with it.
Some things are regarded as desirable, others not.
Problems are caused by advertising which is targeted at children and others who are vulnerable.
We have to protect the weak.
The rapid spread of sponsorship, for example, in schools, is a good example of this.
Similarly, sports sponsorship and its sometimes negative associations, including the business of the Olympics, show what can happen when there is inadequate control and a criminally-inclined element.
A key aim of the Union is that the workings of the internal market should remain untarnished.
By making it easier to market goods and services we are giving support to our own objectives and, at the same time, providing opportunities for growth and, obviously, employment.
Good, flexible advertising is therefore an important goal.
Commercial cross-border communications must be founded on recognising the importance of reciprocal action.
The rapporteur suggests that if this is not going to be possible, we will have to resort to self-regulation.
I do not believe, however, that that would be a satisfactory approach.
Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating Mrs Larive on her report and welcome it on behalf of the European People's Party.
For some time Mrs Larive has steered the opinion of Parliament in this area on liberal economic principles and the fact that there is a lack of amendments to her report testifies to the hard work she has done and the support she has received.
I should like to emphasise four points which arise from her report.
The first is the emphasis on mutual recognition in this area.
The second is the approach based on emphasising self-regulation as the first resort and, as Mrs Larive said, the addition of further directives only as a last resort.
The third point which strikes me as arising from this report is the importance of a mandatory system to assess the proportionality of further legislative initiatives.
This is a constraint on legislators, but it seems to me a proper constraint.
We must fasten rules around ourselves.
If I may associate myself with Mrs Larive's broader points, the Community prospers the greater the more it is a Community of law, rules and of predictability.
This leads to the fourth point I should like to mention, which is about complaints.
The Commission has built constructively on its Green Paper, but if there is one obvious area where it might usefully make some further vigorous progress, it is in the area of handling complaints.
Strict time-limits would clearly be very useful here.
Also, the idea of a complaints register accessible on the Internet links the last debate with this one rather nicely and empowers those who have difficulties in this area. It makes the Community systems more accessible to them.
That is something I believe we can all support.
Mrs Larive emphasises the importance of the expert group and the need to bring in true outside experts to it at an early stage. We in the EPP would support that too.
I conclude by encouraging Commissioner Monti to continue his work in this area. It is a rather messy and confused one.
Not all the directives which currently exist promote the aims which we would support together in this Parliament.
Perhaps Mr Monti might be able to apply his skills in bringing order and synthesis to a number of subjects to this particular area.
Mr President, along with the single market comes transfrontier commercial communication. Huge amounts of money are being deployed by the advertising industry, affecting the behaviour of ordinary people and conditioning their needs.
Through sponsorship, product placement and image transfer, the influence of advertising and marketing has long been felt throughout the world of communication and interpersonal contact - in feature films and schools, for example. The net result is de facto dominance of the mighty and powerful over the smaller and weaker.
This applies at both state and company level.
The report is basically very sound, but it could be more explicit in advocating protection of those traditions and customs which are rooted in our historical psyche and form part of our cultural heritage.
More emphasis could also have been placed on protecting human rights and the interests of minors. These are important elements - and not all parts of Europe are necessarily on the same wavelength in this respect.
Mr President, Commissioner Monti, ladies and gentlemen, the notion of commercial communications might initially seem a rather abstract one.
Thanks to the Commission's Green Paper and Mrs Larive's report, however, we can appreciate the true range of the subject.
At issue are all forms of communication where suppliers - in order to enhance their product's image or promote sales - set about targeting consumers. The scope is that wide.
The term commercial communications therefore covers advertising, direct marketing and sponsorship, as well as sales promotion and - significantly - public relations.
The sector already provides over a million jobs, and that figure is constantly increasing.
More importantly, we are dealing with a market of the future, which will eventually employ even greater numbers in other areas.
Since the single market will have a special role to play here, we need to ensure that its completion in this sector is speeded up.
To my mind, the section in the report on mutual recognition is therefore of paramount importance.
One of the cornerstones of a common market is that once an activity has been authorised in one Member State, transfrontier communication must be permitted.
This brings to mind the directive on buses, as dealt with by Mr Murphy in his celebrated report.
Buses are not our topic today, but we did give priority to the principle of mutual recognition when considering that report.
Let us then hope that the Commission and the Council will rise to the challenge when pursuing their legislative agenda.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Larive for her comprehensive and detailed motion for a resolution on the Commission's communication, as well as for her interest in our policy on commercial communications in the single market.
Thanks to your commitment, Mrs Larive, the European Parliament supported the Commission's proposals its Green Paper on commercial communications, thereby enabling the Commission to activate this policy through the communication now under discussion.
I welcome the rapporteur's positive attitude to our policy in this area, and I willingly take up her constructive criticism concerning further possible improvements.
In addition to making suggestions on the policy as such, Mrs Larive's report also proposes various ways of streamlining the Article 169 infringement procedure.
Since I have competence in both fields, I should like to give a brief preliminary reply to the main suggestions.
Let us begin with our internal policy on commercial communications.
The suggestions here focus on the need to improve the methodology for assessing proportionality, on the one hand guaranteeing that none of the proportionality criteria are used as a pretext for retaining protectionist barriers and, on the other, making this method for assessing proportionality mandatory in every infringement procedure.
I must say that I agree with both proposals and shall attempt to ensure that this instrument is applied effectively.
Concerning the suggestions on greater transparency in the work of the expert group, we are already taking steps to place the group's opinions and meeting agendas in the public domain.
I can inform Mrs Larive that the group's first opinion, on rules governing discounts in the Member States, should be adopted and made public in February.
Moreover, the names of the national representatives have been made known, and several Member States have established working groups with the relevant national organisations to inform them about discussions held in the expert group.
I hope that all the Member States will eventually proceed in this fashion, so that the organisations concerned are kept fully informed and can contribute to the debate.
The members of the expert group also consider that it would be useful for the organisations concerned to be able to submit their observations to the group, but that their permanent presence could detract from the frank and constructive deliberations enabling the group itself to comply with the six-month time limit laid down for its opinions.
Finally, since we are expecting two opinions per year on average, we hope to be in a position to present these to Parliament on a regular basis, together with the initiatives proposed by the Commission in response to these opinions.
I therefore believe, Mrs Larive, that we shall be able to follow through most of your specific suggestions concerning our policy on commercial communications.
Turning to the innovations proposed in the resolution concerning the Article 169 infringement procedure, I am particularly grateful for these contributions because I attach considerable importance to infringement procedures.
We have in fact attempted - perhaps not to the extent desired by Mr Mather, given his kind words - to bring order to this area, accelerate matters and lend greater transparency to the practices followed under the infringement procedure.
I agree with the rapporteur that this aspect is of crucial importance, since complaints of violations enable us to identify areas where problems still exist for the internal market.
I admit that the complexity and slowness of the infringement procedure may sometimes dissuade market operators from lodging complaints.
This means that the infringement procedure is not properly fulfilling its important role of identifying barriers, consequently making it more difficult to achieve our aim - and yours - of a single market which operates seamlessly.
As regards more specifically the frequency and time limits of decisions, I have done everything in my power to comply with the time limits, as suggested by the rapporteur.
Nevertheless, the two proposals on a public register of complaints and on access for complainants to the Commission's analysis prior to the reaching of a decision are worthy of more in-depth examination.
The register could only include cases in which the complainants had agreed to forego the right to confidentiality under the procedure.
As for the second proposal, the fact of asking the complainant's opinion on our analysis before the Commission reaches its collective decision would inevitably cause further delay.
I do however agree that there are good - very good - reasons for telling a complainant why, for example, his case has been closed.
I hope I have managed, at least to some extent, to convince you that the Commission intends to attach considerable importance to this resolution, and I would conclude with a very brief remark on transparency.
I am very keen on transparency and, as you know, one essential instrument of transparency in terms of compliance with Community single market legislation is proving very useful: the so-called scoreboard, which is putting pressure on the Member States to be more rigorous in enforcing the rules of the single market.
With regard to transparency in the infringement procedure in particular, I would point out that since 1996 we have been abiding by our decision of that year to inform the press systematically of every decision concerning a reasoned opinion or the referral of a case to the Court of Justice.
This, I must say, is a very useful means of exerting peer pressure to encourage the Member States to eliminate more effectively and more rapidly the infringements which trigger the procedure.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
Mrs Larive has asked for the floor as rapporteur.
You have one minute, Mrs Larive.
Thank you for your reply, Commissioner Monti.
It offered reassurance on a number of points, but it was also disappointing on certain others, particularly the composition of the expert group.
There were another two questions of mine that you did not answer.
Are you prepared to allow complainants to appeal against negative decisions? And are you prepared to apply the time-limits referred to in the resolution for the infringement procedure?
Mrs Larive, as I said in general terms and also with particular reference to these last two points of yours, I reserve the right to carry out a more in-depth assessment.
As regards the first aspect - complaints - I believe that a modification of the Treaty would be needed there.
I would recall that, at the Intergovernmental Conference leading to the Amsterdam Treaty, both I myself and the Commission as a whole supported the proposal from certain Member States to strengthen these powers in order to streamline the appropriate procedures.
As for compliance with time limits, I think I said before that we are doing our utmost to comply with these time limits; I can stress this once again.
As you will in fact have noted, in some cases I have hesitated to take up your proposals immediately for the very reason that, although they seem good in themselves, they could slow down the procedure to some extent.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
European postal services
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0718/98 by the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on European postal services; -B4-0006/99 by the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on postal services; -B4-0007/99 by the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on the liberalisation of European postal services.Mrs Moreau has the floor for three minutes.
Mr President, with one million five hundred thousand employees and a hundred thousand post offices serving the public, postal services play a leading role in employment and social cohesion.
The European Parliament, after eight years of work seeking to involve the social players, did much to slow down the process of liberalisation which the European Commission sought in its initial proposals.
How, therefore, can we fail to take a keen interest in the Commission's stated intention of stepping up the liberalisation of postal services, even before Directive 97/67 has been transposed into national law? Such important matters require a full understanding of the options for future developments, and the consideration of precise information.
Our group is therefore urging Parliament to reject any new liberalisation measure and asking that any revision of the regulatory framework provided for by the directive should be preceded by a review of all the consequences of implementing it.
Is it not time, in this sector as in others, that the Commission abandoned its blind insistence on inflexibly and dogmatically applying principles which are based on one theory alone: that liberalisation is the right thing and must be taken as far as possible? On the other side of the fence from dogmas of this kind there are men and women who want a quality service, and others who work in it.
One cannot fail to note a number of common trends in sectors which have already been liberalised.
In transport in particular, for example, thousands of jobs have been lost and staff earnings and conditions of employment are under threat.
Everyone will agree that it is essential to have the proper information at one's disposal before taking any new decisions.
For this reason, there is an urgent need for serious and thorough studies of the consequences of liberalisation, in the area of jobs, regional development, the economic and financial balance of operators, and the quality of the services provided.
Recent studies of this kind carried out by the Commission have been strongly criticised by the European Joint Committee on Postal Services.
If there is to be proper transparency and the conclusions of these studies are to be fully credible, they must be carried out with the cooperation of all the players, operators, trade union organisations and postal service users in the Member States.
Looking at the commercial and financial offensive currently being mounted by private multinationals in the postal services market, one can be forgiven for thinking that their prime concern is not to provide a public service.
Given this situation, we stress the need for everyone to have equal access to postal services, under the same fair conditions, regardless of location, and consequently the need to foster the development of cooperation, of understanding, and not war between national and European operators.
In emphasising the importance of these services, I must stress that the service they provide to users cannot be treated simply as a commodity governed by the laws of the market, because it is part of a fundamental human right, the right to communicate.
Mr President, Europe's postal services are big business: with a turnover of 360 billion francs, they handle a total of 108 billion items, their network comprises more than 106 000 contact points, but above all they employ 1 400 000 people and have more than 370 million potential users.
The main question is therefore whether there can be a single formula, a harmonious formula, for situations which are different: different in population terms to start with, because the areas and densities are not comparable, and four countries account for 60 % of the population; different in economic terms, with a per capita GDP ranging from less than 90 000 francs to over 150 000 francs and four countries accounting for 75 % of the turnover; different in financial terms, with a basic charge varying from 1.70 francs to 3.20 francs; and lastly, different in legal terms, with very different geographical situations and products covered.
In other words, a number of principles have to be upheld: the principle of a fair and just universal service, the principle of economic effectiveness, and the principle of cohesion and maintenance of the public service.
In other words, we must not give hallowed status to competition on the pretext of transparency, which would penalise the most deprived and the most remote users.
In other words, we must ensure proper safeguards for jobs and for the general interest.
Mr President, listening to the arguments put forward in these two last speeches, I feel as if I have gone back in time and am reminded of our very first discussions on liberalising telecommunications services.
The same fears were voiced then, although the dread scenario never came about.
On the question of a universal service, we did describe certain financial instruments that the Member States would be authorised to use, including in the telecommunications sector. But a universal service is, for the most part, being provided without recourse to these instruments, solely on the basis of the economic laws naturally governing the operation of communications systems.
These laws are clearly so alien to some Members and political groupings in this House that anguish grips them at every turn.
Let me be perfectly clear on this, Mrs Moreau. Provided a market functions according to rules - and these can and should be laid down as part of a political process - there is no reason for an anti-social climate to arise.
On the contrary, if that market is run according to the rules which we ourselves set - and I am a logical man - the consequences certainly need not in any sense be socially damaging. Just consider prices in the telephony sector.
Thank goodness we say 'prices' and not 'tariffs' nowadays.
Because of competition - in other words, thanks to the market - by the end of this year we shall probably have prices that are every bit as favourable as in the USA. Ordinary communications, together with access to the Internet and other information sources, will be readily affordable.
That is social policy at its best.
The system is perfectly straightforward. It is no longer a matter of measuring need against yardsticks, with large bureaucracies doling out money at great administrative expense - and at the risk of fraud - to those who fit the criteria.
Today it is possible, Mrs Moreau, to telephone free of charge.
You need not pay anything at all; you can ring me up whenever you like - but not at night, please.
What is more, Mr President, this is the second time that I have been up and active at unearthly hours in this Chamber.
I would ask you to take note that I shall be looking at the possibility of establishing a trade union for Commissioners.
Things cannot go on like this.
We are being forced to work under inhuman working conditions. My human dignity is at stake, Mrs Moreau.
As to your questions, Madam, I really cannot answer them, unfortunately, and I will tell you why.
You understandably raised these issues because you felt the time had come for plain speaking. The trouble is, I have not reached any final conclusions yet myself.
You are not happy with the studies that were carried out because the results do not match your particular vision, but there is not much I can do about that.
We aimed to base our research on information from all postal operators around the Union, but I will be frank with you: sadly, not all of them provided us with the necessary information.
Heckling: It was not delivered!
That may well be so.
In any event, I am still working on my own final position, which will be submitted to the Commission at a meeting in about two weeks' time.
At that meeting, there will be a general policy discussion and I will endeavour to gather the views of my colleagues on the various issues. Then, and only then, will I be in a position to indicate provisionally where we intend to go in some of these areas.
There can be no question of my coming out with a Commission position as such today.
What I can say, wearing a purely personal hat, is that we shall be modelling our approach to the universal service requirement on the method which has been applied in the telecommunications sector. The principle is to provide a kind of safety net, if colleagues can follow my drift.
Although there will be no obligation, it will be made available for Member States if they feel the need to use it.
I myself do not see the need for such a provision, but so be it. We are in the habit of taking seriously even unjustified fears, and will probably be making a proposal along these lines - or I shall be, at any rate.
You can therefore go to bed with a calm conscience.
Let us hope, however, that the postal services people will soon be up and about.
Mr President, the oral question on postal services and the subsequent wind-up motions give this Parliament an opportunity to reaffirm its often stated position on the future of postal services in the European Union.
It is also a great coincidence that this subject is being discussed on the same agenda that Parliament is considering the motion of censure on the Commission.
One of the reasons for the deterioration in Parliament/Commission relations without doubt has been the arrogant attitude sometimes displayed by certain Commissioners.
We experienced that ourselves in 1997, and I think we are about to experience it again in 1999, when Parliament overwhelmingly supported the report I put forward but it was dismissed at that time by Commissioner Bangemann with the words that he would return to pursue his highly liberalised plans - plans that have been rejected by Parliament.
Let me remind Commissioner Bangemann of Parliament's position.
Perhaps in this new spirit of reverence and respect for Parliament which seems to be sweeping the Commission this week, he will take note and ensure that Parliament's position is fully included when he finally gets round to presenting us - late - with the new postal directive that is being worked on at the moment.
We want to see a reserved area large enough to sustain a viable universal service. That includes keeping direct mail and cross-border mail in the reserved area.
That reserved area is the responsibility of the national postal administrations.
We want to see a reserved area based on a realistic weight limit, not the 20 grammes, or even the 50 grammes which is rumoured to be the view of the Commission.
We want to see a detailed definition of what a universal service is and we want to know what the social effects of liberalisation will be on employment on jobs and on the quality of service that is delivered to the people of the European Union.
Reminding the Commissioner of the thousands of jobs involved and also reminding him that Parliament has severe doubts, as Mrs Moreau mentioned, about the authenticity of previous so-called studies in this and other areas.
We frankly believe they are rigged.
Florus, you will get your chance in a minute, so stop whining and belly-aching at the back.
We are still awaiting this Commission proposal, in line with Directive 97/67/EC, which means that the articles relating to liberalisation of the previous directive may no longer apply.
When, oh when, will the Commission recognise that you cannot compare fairly telecoms and post because, as we have often said, telecoms is about machines, and post is about people.
But we still have this great difficulty in getting that between the ears of the Commissioner.
Parliament knows I am a reasonable man.
But I say tonight to the Commissioner and the Commission in general that whether that Commission has one day or one year left to run, if you come to Parliament with a postal directive which attacks the concept of a publicly accountable universal service of high quality for all, if you come to Parliament having dismissed - as you have done in the past - or ignored - as you have also done in the past - Parliament's previously stated position, a position supported by the Council, and if you persist in enforcing a dogmatic, totally liberalised approach to the detriment of the postal services, then you are in for a monumental battle: a mother and father of all battles.
Be warned, Commissioner, Parliament's position has not changed.
Parliament is still of the same view with the exception of the lunatic fringe of the Dutch liberals.
What you need to do is to listen to what Parliament is saying to you, listen to what the people in the European Union want and stop this folly of trying to liberalise the postal services purely on a dogmatic basis.
Thank you, Mr Simpson.
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5) to wind up this debate.
I give the floor to Mr Ferber, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, may I begin by saying a few words to the last speaker. I would point out to Mr Simpson that he was speaking there on behalf of the Socialist Group, not of Parliament.
Here we are again, sitting late into the night and having to acknowledge once more that the Commission has problems getting the timing right when it comes to directives.
This is not the first sitting at which the Commission has had to be asked how much headway has been made.
A fresh proposal for a directive was supposed to have been submitted by the end of 1998. That deadline has been allowed to pass.
As I have stated on several occasions in the past, Commissioner, you cannot expect the legislative process to run smoothly unless you meet the timetables.
You have forfeited the chance to produce long-overdue proposals on enhancing the quality of the EU's postal services. With proper competition, costs could be brought down and the system made capable of matching alternatives such as fax or e-mail.
If you did not act for fear of the left-wing majority in the Council, then I have little sympathy.
If you failed to deliver because you are not happy with the way the Member States are transposing the directive, then that means that the Commission has not fulfilled its duty as guardian of the treaties.
And whilst on this topic, I note with interest the provenance of the three questioners; their countries seem to have a particular problem with transposing this directive, although it has been officially adopted.
I would therefore appeal to you, Mr Bangemann, to come back to Parliament as soon as possible with a committed proposal for a further directive. The old one called for an intelligent approach to the development of our postal services, and I trust that this will be forthcoming in the near future.
Mr President, as we have heard in the debate this evening, everyone knows our position.
Some people may call us the lunatic fringe, but we are standing up for consumers, because they are entitled to a better service.
The postal service must not be seen as a welfare service, nor must it be used by countries to provide services that belong elsewhere.
We all know that as soon as postal services are put in a monopoly position, they tend to be sidelined by faxes, e-mails and other modern media.
It also appears in practice, in countries like Sweden, for example, or the Netherlands - and Sweden is not a small, densely populated country like the Netherlands, it is an enormous place covering huge distances - that a privatised service or a service where competition is possible can be just as good as the inefficient monopolies that also provide social services.
This is why we are calling on the Commission not only to implement the old, outdated directive as soon as possible, but also to put forward new proposals on liberalising the sector. This is what the Commission undertook to do.
The failure of Reims II and the failure to achieve full compliance because all sorts of integrators are now at work means that we need to come up with proposals for a new, modern service.
I hope that the Commission is not going to take another ten years over this and that it does not produce another white elephant like the last time.
Any resemblance to persons here present is, of course, entirely accidental.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I wonder if we might have a few comments from Mr Bangemann on his new role, since he said that it might be a good idea to start a union for Commissioners.
What an interesting thought!
I must say that I am rather surprised at the way the Commission has acted in this case.
In general, I am not opposed to privatisation and nor is my political group.
But why is the Commission in such a tearing hurry? On the contrary, Parliament has already asked the Commission to assess the economic and social consequences, as well as the state of the postal sector, on a country by country basis.
However, this has not been done.
We have also said that in evaluating the effect of liberalisation on postal services, account should be taken not only of the Commission's own feasibility studies, but also of Parliament's consultations, postal sector trade unions, user organisations and so on.
If that had been done, Mr Bangemann would not be able to say that our concern is unfounded.
One of my colleagues has already mentioned that some liberalisation of postal services has taken place in Sweden.
However, studies show that the quality of services has deteriorated in the more remote areas, that there has been 'cherry picking', and that postal services in villages are not as good as they used to be. Naturally, the postal sector has to be large enough to maintain the quality of what is, after all, a public service.
In my view, it would be totally inappropriate to put forward new legislative proposals without having some idea of what their overall consequences would be and without carrying out a general overhaul of the sector at the same time.
So there is no hurry, and it would be better to take our time.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Bangemann himself said, this is by no means the first time that we have sat in this House at midnight discussing the question of European postal services.
And today's debate will doubtless not be the last - although a better slot next time round would be nice. We as a parliament clearly cannot overemphasise our position on liberalising postal services.
No one in the European Parliament would dispute the need for a functioning single market in the postal sector; we shall therefore need to expand on the existing market liberalisation directive within a reasonable time frame.
The differences of view among ourselves and with the Commission begin over when to take action and how much liberalising should be carried out. At the time of the majority decision on the current directive, that was certainly the case.
So let us take a close look at the timetable set for the new version of the directive.
It was adopted in 1997 and was due for transposition in the Member States by the end of 1998, although quite a number of countries have yet to take the necessary steps.
The directive also called upon the Commission to submit fresh proposals for further liberalisation by the end of 1998.
It would, however, be rather strange to start revising the directive before the consequences of the original have been properly assessed.
I appreciate that Parliament endorsed this schedule at the end of 1997, but what is the point of amending a directive that has not yet even been put into effect in all the Member States? The Commission first needs to submit a report detailing the state of play on transposition and - most importantly - comparing the measures put in place in individual countries.
It will certainly emerge that there are some considerable discrepancies. Once the facts are established, action can be taken.
If the directive is to be amended, two sets of guarantees will be required.
We must be able to rely on an efficient universal service, with a solid financial base. And the postal sector must continue to offer jobs with proper social security coverage.
You cannot reasonably make comparisons with the telecommunications sector, Mr Bangemann. As Mr Simpson said, technology pretty much holds sway there, whereas the workforce - the human factor - is far more significant in the postal services.
Only a universal service is capable of ensuring that each and every European citizen, however remote his or her place of residence, has access to postal facilities.
Only then can we speak of 'communication'.
Our postal services fulfil a social remit; it is not just a matter of providing a commercial service.
This remit is to offer the people of Europe an affordable and readily usable means of communicating.
It is therefore not enough to equip the Greek islands and more isolated villages in the Bavarian forests with computer terminals.
These regions need real letter boxes, which will be emptied daily.
A universal service of this kind needs a solid financial foundation - which it will be denied if the reserved area is broken up, opening the way for commercial suppliers to pick the cherries out of the cake.
Instead, what is required is a system whereby postal undertakings offer a range of services, including non-profitable ones. The universal service and reserved area dimension can then benefit from cross-funding.
Nor should we forget the 1.5 million people employed in the European postal sector, for whom we bear a social responsibility.
It is common knowledge that the process of postal liberalisation to date has been painful for the workforce, accompanied as it was by redundancies and switches to often socially insecure conditions of employment.
I doubt that any political group would argue with me when I say that this parliament will not stand idly by while the postal service suppliers turn their workplaces little by little into production lines.
We will not countenance quick profits for the companies at the expense of employees and quality.
We demand guarantees that a comprehensive and high-quality universal postal service, offering proper job security, will survive.
Mr President, the old monopolies are no longer up to providing the efficient service which we have all come to regard as a right.
This has led to the deregulation and liberalisation of one sector after another.
Unfortunately, the postal services are a major exception to the rule.
A number of EU countries have already moved so far in the direction of free competition that they have extended it to the postal sector, and they can point to satisfactory results.
In Sweden, the process has gradually assumed a political significance of its own.
It is essential that encouragement should be given to its continuation.
Having filled you in briefly on the background, I should now like to put a question to Mr Bangemann which should wind up this debate: what measures is the Commission thinking of taking in order to further the process of liberalisation in the postal sector?
Thank you, Mr Stenmarck.
With that speech by Mr Stenmarck, we have reached the end of the list of speakers.
Mr Bangemann has asked to make a brief statement, and he now has the floor.
Mr President, let me attempt to answer these questions.
What Mr Stenmarck asked illustrates the confusion besetting this debate.
The Commission has not yet decided what measures it will take.
Not, Mr Ferber, because I am frightened of the Left - or indeed of anyone else.
I am not even in fear of Mr Stoiber, unlike some CSU members seeking re-election to this House.
I do not aspire to have my name on the CSU list, and this spares me the need to draw attention to myself with fiery rhetoric.
Nobody frightens me - not even you, Mr Ferber.
Mr Simpson seems to hold a very simplistic view of the relations linking Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
He has got things the wrong way round if he thinks that the Commission should always make proposals which match Parliament's vision.
The procedure is that the Commission proposes, then Parliament and the Council deliver their positions. The Commission of course takes on board the results of this democratic process.
Our own right to propose would be totally undermined, however, if I or any of my Commission colleagues were systematically to advocate what Parliament wanted - particularly since you will have noticed that the parliamentary position is not clear at this stage. And how could it be?
The Commission has yet to make a proposal. Once it has done so, we can see what Parliament has to say.
Let me repeat, however, for the sake of clarity: my personal intention - and I can speak only on my behalf at this juncture - is to defend the universal service. So you need have no worries, provided my colleagues in the Commission follow my lead.
What I cannot do is come forward with a proposal which would rule out extending the liberalisation process to the postal sector; nor can I advocate delay, since our postal services would simply end up being overtaken by developments elsewhere.
This is a point I have endeavoured to drive home in previous debates; once you have grasped it, you will understand that I am not 'out to get' those employed in the postal sector.
We can already see competition developing between those postal service providers who operate in a liberalised environment - Deutsche Post AG, for example - and the others who do not.
The former enjoy a natural advantage born of their market fitness.
They will be better placed legally as well, free as they are to buy up or merge with other companies; that door is closed to the monopolies.
Anyone who fails to comprehend that will truly be letting down postal employees - and Mr Wijsenbeek's consumers - alike.
This is not about ideology.
Very well, I am a Liberal and have been all my life.
Occasionally one wonders if one's colleagues on the Liberal benches have the same degree of common sense; be that as it may, I have certainly never abandoned my Liberal convictions.
It is not ideology which spurs me on - I see nothing Liberal in ideological positions; my aim is to do the job entrusted to me.
If you are not happy with the way I perform, Mr Simpson, you have all the opportunity in the world to kick me out, along with my colleagues.
It is fine by us; that is life on the democratic stage.
You can do it tomorrow if you like; the opportunity is there if you so decide.
I shall not be offended; Parliament will simply be doing its job.
And if you refrain because you believe that the Commission has not done so badly, after all - then many thanks in advance.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I would like to point out with regard to yesterday's Minutes that for the umpteenth time the UPE Group tabled an oral question with debate, to be moved by Mr Donnay, with an associated resolution on postal services being tabled by Mr Pasty.
Yesterday evening at 11.45 p.m. the UPE Group did not even take the trouble to be here - not a single one of them turned up.
I would urge that these sorts of unnecessary requests should not be allowed in future, because no new information or views were put forward and the Commission had absolutely nothing to tell us that it had not already told us before.
We take note of that.
The Minutes were approved
Article K.6 EU; Schengen cooperation
The next item is the joint debate on:
the oral question (B4-0716/98) by Mr Nassauer on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, to the Council, on the annual debate on Article K.6 of the Treaty on European Union, December 1998; -the oral question (B4-0717/98) by Mr Nassauer on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, to the Commission, on the annual debate on Article K.6 of the Treaty on European Union, December 1998; -the proposal for a recommendation (A4-0006/99) by Mrs Van Lancker, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the programme of activities to be conducted under the Schengen cooperation arrangements up to June 1999.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that today's debate on Schengen has come at just the right moment at the start of the German Presidency of the Union, which also coincides with Germany's Schengen presidency.
This is of crucial importance, because it is the time when, under the Schengen Protocol, the Schengen acquis must be transferred to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Parliament has also just received the second annual report by the Executive Committee and the Joint Supervisory Authority.
I should therefore like to thank the German Presidency for this first opportunity to discuss this issue with them, and I would like to thank my colleagues for their helpful cooperation in dealing with this report as a matter of urgency.
Parliament has always had mixed feelings about Schengen.
On the one hand, we are naturally delighted that a number of Member States have taken the lead in establishing the free movement of persons and an area of freedom, security and justice in practice, but on the other hand we have always regretted the fact that this has happened outside the EU structures.
Legally speaking, too, Schengen is not exactly a thing of beauty.
The acquis is a melting-pot of guidelines, measures and decisions through which few people can find their way, let alone their rights.
Now that Schengen is to be integrated into the EU Treaty, we can take definitive steps towards greater clarity and democracy.
The inclusion of part of the acquis in the first pillar will pave the way for the communitarisation of this policy and will enable us to take measures to tidy up 'la nébuleuse Schengen ', as my predecessor used to call it.
However, all these good intentions have been jeopardised by the discussions that have been dragging on for 18 months now on how the Schengen acquis should be integrated into the Treaty.
First and foremost, it has not yet been possible to define what the Schengen acquis is, nor to eliminate the redundant clauses from it.
Thirdly, there is still a major debate going on about whether to include Schengen in the first pillar or the third.
I have to say that the obstinate refusal of certain Member States to transfer part of the Schengen acquis to the first pillar is threatening to undermine the modest progress that we have made with the Amsterdam Treaty.
At the European summit in Vienna last month, the Heads of State urged that a decision should be taken quickly.
This was an important political signal, Mr President-in-Office, and I should like to hear from the German Presidency and also from the Commissioner as the guardian of the Treaties what political measures they intend to take to get out of this impasse.
I would also like to know how they intend to involve the European Parliament in this transposition process.
The integration of the Schengen acquis into the Treaty, and in particular how it is divided between the first and third pillars, will have important implications for Parliament's future involvement and the future development of all European legislation on security and freedom.
Even if the Schengen Protocol does not specifically provide for Parliament to be consulted, I still think that Parliament's rights must be respected, because it would be of enormous damage to our interests if we were not.
Parliament would have to think very seriously about going to the Court of Justice if our democratic rights were disregarded.
We would certainly urge that the aims of the Treaty should be borne in mind when integrating Schengen, and that the balance must be restored between efficient policing and respect for fundamental rights and the rule of law.
In my first report on Schengen we called for greater transparency, greater parliamentary and judicial controls and respect for human rights.
I think that these now need to be put into practice, and that in defining the Schengen acquis the opportunity must be taken to publicise it, to involve the European Parliament and the national parliaments more, and to provide the public with better information about their rights.
I would also point out that we feel that the future of the Schengen information system is of crucial importance.
Our recommendation even calls for the SIS to be developed as a trans-European network, managed by an agency under the operational authority of both the Commission and the Council, with data from the various sections strictly separated for end-users, and supervised by the body provided for in the Treaty.
I would like to know what the President-in-Office thinks about this point in particular.
The Presidency has naturally fixed other priorities, most of which we support, such as strengthening international cooperation in cases of criminal prosecution, which is very necessary.
The German Presidency is also calling for further harmonisation of visa policies, which would also be a welcome development, because the current situation is an out-and-out disaster.
As regards the accession of new Member States, Mr President-in-Office, I would simply say that the mistakes of the past are threatening to be repeated.
The evaluation of the applicant countries must involve more than just demanding watertight border controls.
We also expect you to assess the operation of their legal systems, their human rights record and their respect for the principles of the rules of law.
Finally, I should like to take a quick look at a number of points from the Schengen annual report.
Firstly, France is still maintaining border controls at its frontiers with Belgium and Luxembourg, despite all the efforts that have been made.
Can the President-in-Office tell me when this unfortunate situation will be resolved? Secondly, there is the evaluation of the Schengen information system.
I have to say that as far as we are concerned, evaluating the amount of data stored is not a measure of the system's success, and we would strongly urge that a qualitative assessment should be made of the efficiency of the Schengen system.
Thirdly, there is the report by the Joint Supervisory Authority which monitors compliance with data protection requirements.
I have to say that reading this report raises serious questions about a number of lapses.
I could give you some hair-raising examples here, but unfortunately there is not time.
I would simply say that the Supervisory Authority has uncovered some very serious problems relating to data finalisation, the removal of data and refusal of access to the Schengen area.
We expect the Council presidency to carry out the Authority's recommendations here.
After the four years in which Schengen has been in operation, this first debate has come not a moment too soon.
There are many adjustments to be made and there is still a good deal of work to be done before a European area of security and freedom can be achieved.
The European Parliament expects to be involved in this work from now on.
Thank you, Mrs Van Lancker.
The very difficult subject we are dealing with today means that the presidency is represented by two ministers, namely the Federal Justice Minister and the Federal Minister of the Interior.
I should like to thank them both for being here and first give the floor to the Federal Minister of the Interior, Mr Schily.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Van Lancker and Mr Nassauer. Mr Nassauer, you were quite right in saying that it would be normal to give the report at the end of the Council presidency, but you know why it was postponed.
So the blame in this matter cannot be laid at the Council's door. Nevertheless, the fact that we are the ones making the report does have certain advantages, although I was not involved in both stages during the previous presidency.
But it does mean that we have the benefit of a certain distance which perhaps gives us a better view of the outcome of these presidencies.
Drawing on information provided by the previous two presidencies, I shall try to be as objective as possible.
There are two possible approaches to assessing progress. The first is a quantitative approach, summating all the various achievements.
It is certainly true to say that a great deal has been accomplished: a dozen joint measures have been adopted under two agreements and political agreement has been reached on two further agreements.
But maybe it would be more helpful to assess progress in qualitative terms, paying particular attention to the Council's activities concerning the European Parliament's participation. I would like to say straight away that I am happy to take up your suggestion of producing a written report, and we will try to implement that.
It is a perfectly reasonable suggestion to have a written report before us so that we do not have to rely on an oral report.
Like the Luxembourg Presidency before them, the two presidencies over the last year have involved the European Parliament in anticipation of the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and we shall endeavour to do the same.
My colleague Mrs Däubler-Gmelin will give you further details of this.
We shall of course take advantage of this opportunity today not just to assess progress but also to give you a foretaste of our presidency.
Today the main focus of this is of course on justice and home affairs, with particular reference to the action plan for the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
Mrs Däubler-Gmelin will also have detailed comments on that point.
I would now like to address a number of different points, taking one subject at a time. The first is asylum and immigration.
More than any other, this is perhaps an area where we need to match our work to the pace of developments and to react to international events.
You know that Kosovo is one of the trouble spots we shall possibly be considering at the next informal meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers because of its current relevance.
It will also be necessary to develop forward-looking strategies and to establish generally applicable rules.
1998 was notable for two influxes of migrants. First, the influx of Kurdish refugees from Iraq and the neighbouring region, and second, the problems caused by the conflict in Kosovo, which has already been mentioned and which has resulted in an influx of asylum-seekers throughout Europe.
Some countries have been especially affected by this.
In January 1998, the Council reacted to the influx of migrants from Iraq and the neighbouring region by adopting a comprehensive new action plan.
This influx of migrants also made it apparent that the Dublin Convention that had recently come into force was only capable of solving some of the problems it was intended to address, because of the role of criminal organisations in smuggling in migrants on an ever more massive scale.
And the situation is deteriorating.
The Kosovo crisis led to a similar but less widespread phenomenon.
In order to counter these developments the Council, acting on a proposal from the Netherlands, decided in December 1998 to set up a high-level group to formulate proposals for joint measures for a number of countries which seem likely to be the source of a massive influx of illegal immigrants.
This group is to analyse the push factors and then develop a strategy for dealing with them.
Last year there was a preliminary discussion of a Commission proposal for an agreement governing the admission of third-country nationals to the territory of Member States.
This is a very important proposal that would come under the new EC powers included in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The exchanges of views held so far suggest that Member States see a need for considerable further discussion before agreement can be reached.
I have already mentioned the Dublin Convention that came into force in October 1997.
Although it is certainly to soon to pass judgment on how the Convention is working in practice, there has already been a feeling for some time that a legal instrument is needed to support the implementation of the Convention by providing for fingerprints to be taken from asylum-seekers so that these prints can be compared by a central office.
This brings me to the draft Eurodac Convention, and I am pleased to report that the Council did indeed reach political agreement on this in December.
With the massive influx of Kurds revealing problems in implementing the Dublin Convention, the Council decided in March to extend the Eurodac project to fingerprinting illegal immigrants.
The protocol that will create the necessary legal basis is still being negotiated.
The progress made at the December Council meeting gives grounds for hope that the work will soon be concluded, which I regard as a matter of urgency.
On the subject of asylum, one side of the discussions was the implementation of the Dublin Convention itself.
In this context, the committee set up under Article 18 of this Convention adopted a work programme and a declaration with the intention of improving some of the practical aspects of the implementation of the Convention.
The other side was the discussion of measures for temporary refuge and sharing of the burden between Member States in accepting refugees, particularly those fleeing from civil wars. These proposals were put forward by the Commission in July and considered by the European Parliament in December, and the German Presidency intends to move them forward with all speed.
I should like to say that the German Presidency firmly considers that temporary refuge and burden sharing are inextricably linked.
As far as we are concerned, this is a sine qua non .
Turning to travel, identity and residence documents, in June 1998 the Council adopted a recommendation on the provision of forgery detection equipment at ports of entry to the European Union.
In order to facilitate the checks concerned, in December the Council accordingly adopted a joint measure setting up the FADO electronic image archiving system, providing for a rapid exchange of information on both genuine and forged documents.
The Council has pursued contacts with the applicant countries concerning visas, and two visa group meetings took place with the applicant countries, in May and November 1998.
Following the second of these two meetings, expert groups were set up to assess the security of the applicant countries' documents and to bring their computer systems into line with the Schengen cooperation requirements in relation to checking visa applications and the administration and organisation of visa offices.
A partnership has also been set up to evaluate the training and equipment needs of the applicant countries.
In 1998 the Council adopted three instruments on the uniform format of residence permits. The first of these was a Council decision on sharing the cost of producing specimens of the common-format residence permits.
The second was a communication on the publication of the format for these permits.
The third was a Council decision on common rules for filling in the uniform format for residence permits.
I would now like to turn to police cooperation, and especially Europol and the war on drugs - Europol has, of course, already been mentioned.
On 1 October 1998 the Europol Convention came into force, and although this was a very welcome intermediate step, Europol has still not commenced its activities, as it has not yet been possible to conclude work on certain implementing regulations required before it can start work.
The following texts have been approved or adopted so far: determining the rights and obligations of liaison officers in relation to Europol, the rules applicable to analysis files, staff regulations, confidentiality regulations and the Headquarters Agreement. The financial regulation is to be adopted shortly.
I am pleased that it has been possible to reach a compromise on the senior appointments at Europol. Once again, the financial regulation is to be adopted shortly.
The following legal instruments have either not yet come into force or still need to be finalised: the Europol immunity protocol, Europol's institutions and staff members - in this case you may be aware that the ratification process has not yet been completed by four Member States - and the bilateral immunity and privilege agreements for liaison officers posted to Europol and their families.
The Member States have reached agreement with the Kingdom of the Netherlands on a text, and the relevant verbal notes are soon to be exchanged.
The Council has also adopted texts governing Europol's external relations with third countries and third bodies and the receipt of information by Europol from third countries and third parties.
The joint supervisory body has reached agreement on its rules of procedure, which are now before the Council for approval.
The most important question still to be settled is on procedural aspects of the complaints procedure.
This relates to both the non-disclosure of data with security implications and observance of the necessary procedural guarantees.
A succession of discussions has taken place on this, and I hope that we will be able to resolve these issues during the German Presidency.
I would now like to talk about Europol's institutions.
Following the entry into force of the Convention, the management board and the joint supervisory body started work in November 1998.
The joint audit committee has been established and has issued a declaration concerning the financial regulation.
At the meeting of the Council held on 3 and 4 December, agreement was reached on the future composition of the management board.
The financial regulation will be revised to take account of this, if necessary.
I would now like to talk about Europol's computer system. At its meeting in September 1998, the Council took note of a progress report on the setting up of the Europol computer system, TECS.
The report pointed out that because of the delay in setting up TECS, which is at present only approaching the procurement phase, an interim system would be provided for analysis and index purposes when Europol started work.
Regarding the scope of Europol's mandate, at its meeting on 3 and 4 December the Council adopted a decision instructing Europol to deal with crimes committed or likely to be committed in the course of terrorist activities against life, limb, personal freedom or property.
The Council also agreed that Europol should be instructed to prepare to extend its mandate to dealing with the forgery of money and means of payment, particularly in view of the introduction of the euro - something which I consider to be very important.
Lastly, the definition of traffic in human beings as a form of crime in the Annex referred to in Article 2 of the Europol Convention is to be supplemented.
I will now turn to the subject of drugs. As under the previous presidencies, the war on drugs was also a priority for the British and Austrian Presidencies.
The most important activities in this field were the preparation of a drug strategy for the period after 1999, the UN General Assembly special session on drugs, and the development of regional initiatives in Latin America and central Asia, both centres of the drug trade.
The principle underlying the European Union's approach has been to combat the scourge of drugs in a comprehensive, integrated and balanced way.
Several initiatives, especially those of the UN General Assembly and the measures relating to Latin America, focused on reducing demand.
The work of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction played an important part here.
The programme of Community action on the prevention of drug dependence was continued, and a European Drug Prevention Week was held at European, national and regional level in November.
As you know, we also attach great importance to prevention at national level.
It has emerged from the Member States' progress reports on the continued implementation of the joint measure on the approximation of laws and procedures that many Member States have, at national and European level and also within the Schengen arrangements, further strengthened measures aimed at achieving close cooperation between police, customs services and judicial authorities.
Implementation of the joint measure on new synthetic drugs was carried forward, and a detailed report on these activities was presented to the European Council in Vienna.
That brings me to relations with third countries and enlargement issues, which Mrs Van Lancker has also expressed a particular interest in.
On enlargement, I would like to refer to two particularly important measures: on 28 May 1998 the Council adopted the Pre-Accession Pact on Organised Crime between the Member States of the European Union and the applicant CEECs and Cyprus. The German word for pre-accession pact is one of those interesting new words that the bureaucrats are always inventing, and I nearly mispronounced it so that it came out as pre-cession!
In the case of organised crime we are faced with criminal activities which are unfortunately spreading not only within the applicant countries but also from them into the Member States of the European Union. It therefore makes sense to involve representatives from the applicant countries at this stage in the general effort to combat these widespread criminal activities - illicit drugs, traffic in human beings, prostitution and money laundering.
We really must not underestimate the dangers of these forms of crime.
A group of experts on the Pre-Accession Pact, which consists of representatives of the 15 Member States and the 11 applicant countries, meets regularly for mutual exchanges of police experience and to draw up a joint strategy, in conjunction with Europol, to identify the main dangers and develop effective countermeasures.
There is also the joint measure of 29 June 1998 establishing a mechanism for collective evaluation of the transposition, application and effective implementation by the applicant countries of the acquis communautaire in the field of justice and home affairs.
Recognising that it is not enough to pass laws and ratify agreements, but that the new legislation concerned also has to be applied by appropriately equipped and trained forces in sufficient numbers, the Council has set up a special group.
This is of course a well-known problem: it is not just about having the legislation itself, it is also about how it is enforced.
The remit of the joint evaluation working party is to prepare and subsequently update, by analysing all available information, a collective evaluation of the situation in the applicant countries regarding the transposition, application and effective implementation of the acquis communautaire in the field of justice and home affairs, working in close cooperation with the K.4 Committee.
The Justice and Home Affairs Council receives regular reports on this.
This ensures that in particularly sensitive areas such as checks at external borders or the fight against organised crime, experts can monitor whether the standards flowing from the European Union or Schengen acquis are being achieved, and where there may still be room for improvement.
Relations with third countries are particularly important in the field of justice and home affairs.
During the year the existing cooperation under the TREVI system was systematically extended and now includes the USA and Canada, the Mediterranean countries participating under Euromed, countries such as Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Turkey, Morocco, Russia and Ukraine, while in special cases such as the fight against drugs it also extends to the countries of Latin America and central Asia.
I now come to the second part of my report, on Schengen cooperation, and I would like to start with some fundamental comments.
Schengen cooperation consists of a balanced system of measures which guarantees freedom of movement in the Schengen area and at the same time reduces the security risks inherent in ending controls at internal borders.
Over the period of almost four years during which this system has been applied in practice, it has largely proved its worth.
We must therefore continue to pursue its underlying concept of freedom of movement combined with security.
As Mrs Van Lancker has already commented, the development of Schengen cooperation has reached an important turning point.
The entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam means that Schengen will be integrated into the European Union.
The required legal and institutional preparatory work is already under way.
We must now push ahead with this work at full speed, so as to complete it, if at all possible, by the time the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into force.
Germany has always firmly supported this objective and will ensure that the necessary effort continues under its EU presidency in the first half of 1999.
The fact that we have already agreed that Germany will continue to hold the Schengen presidency in the first half of the coming year will assist the integration process.
Now let me say a few words about defining the Schengen acquis .
For Schengen to be successfully incorporated into the EU, we will have a lot of homework to do on the EU side.
First and foremost, this means defining exactly what the Schengen acquis consists of.
Mrs Van Lancker talked about nebulous structures, and we certainly want to help to disperse this fog.
For reasons of legal certainty and clarity, the states already applying the acquis , the states that will have to adopt it on accession to the EU, and above all our citizens themselves need to know precisely which Schengen provisions will continue to apply and which will not.
One of the tasks still to be accomplished is dividing the Schengen acquis between the legal bases of the Treaty establishing the European Community and the Treaty on European Union.
Current thinking and future strategy can be summed up as follows: because of fundamental differences between Member States at expert level, it has not yet been possible to find conclusive answers in either area, I have to admit.
It may well be necessary to sort this out at political level.
If it really proves impossible to reach agreement on this, we would have to resort to the Schengen Protocol safeguard clause, which fictionally deems that Schengen is entirely based on the third pillar.
Mrs Van Lancker, I know that you do not approve of that, and for the time being we will have to make every effort to reach agreement, but that would be the consequence.
Negotiations with Norway and Iceland, which I am pleased to say have already made great progress, are to be finalised by means of an association agreement.
Germany has already sought to achieve the most efficient possible means of linking these states with the Schengen cooperation, and that remains our approach.
The planned cooperation structure is a good way to take account of these Nordic states' legitimate interest in participating in the process.
My next subject is EU enlargement.
Schengen faces another significant challenge because of the Central and Eastern European countries' accession to the Union.
The Schengen states will have to be prepared for the fact that in future all states joining the EU will automatically become members of the Schengen cooperation under the EU umbrella.
The transition protocol commits them to adopting the acquis in its entirety.
I must stress that it will not be possible to allow any departures from this principle during the accession negotiations.
Schengen's carefully balanced association of freedom of movement and security will only carry on working if it requires the same of all Member States.
We also need to ensure that it will only be possible for a state to take part in this association in future if it can demonstrate that it fully complies with the necessary requirements.
To this end, the instrument concerning the entry into force of the Schengen regulations for any given state must at all costs be complied with.
We also still have a special problem with one country in the south.
We need to actively support new EU members preparing to adopt the Schengen standards.
To conclude, I would like to say just a few words about the focal points of the German Schengen presidency in the first half of 1999.
This presidency has set itself the objective of further reinforcing cooperation in the Schengen states by means of a number of initiatives.
In doing this, we are continuing where the German Schengen work programme for the second half of 1998 left off.
The focal points are to be the following: improving police mutual assistance in criminal matters by adopting a catalogue of criminal investigations compulsory for all Schengen states, which the police can apply for and deal with without involving the judicial authorities, as a means of speeding things up, but without any loss of legal sovereignty; mutual posting of liaison officers involved in border police work to Schengen external borders to give advice and support; establishing the interoperability of various police digital communication systems in internal border areas; reviewing Germany's implementation of the Schengen Implementation Agreement, which means that we are subjecting ourselves to the first review, which I think is a good thing in itself; and improvement in the exchange of visa information and the introduction of an exit document.
Madam President, Madam Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank you for this opportunity to discuss this interesting subject with you here today, a subject of great importance to the citizens of the Member States of the European Union.
I welcome the fact that we are not just discussing these issues today alone.
Continuing the theme already embarked upon by Mr Schily, we are at an interesting point in time.
As you, Mr Nassauer, pointed out, we are today in the unusual situation of not only having to report on the events and progress of the last year, that is on the achievements of the British and Austrian Presidencies. We also have to give you a short overview of the German Presidency's plans for the next six months.
It is good that today is not the only chance to do this, and I am delighted that we shall have an opportunity to continue this discussion about our plans and the problems informing our decisions over the coming week in the relevant committees of this House.
For that reason, I hope you will forgive me if I limit my presentation here to a few significant points.
Mr Nassauer, I would like to start with a few general comments about relations between the Council and the European Parliament.
I am very much in sympathy with your suggestions.
We must certainly heed your comments about democratic control in areas which we have always traditionally felt - and I am sure rightly so - are subject to the law-making process.
I have read the passages in the motion for a resolution to be debated today with great interest.
You can rest assured that we will do what we can, within the bounds of the Treaty, to further enhance relations between the Council and Parliament.
Looking back over the events of the past year, in the areas on which I have to report today, of course, it is fair to say that on the whole relations between the Council and the European Parliament have been fruitful and positive.
Both the British and the Austrian Presidencies had an opportunity to present their work programme for the next six months to you and to discuss it with you.
Depending on the area of competence, these work programmes were explained in detail and discussed with the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs or in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
There was also an exchange of views between the presidency and Members of Parliament on aspects of mutual interest in the fields of justice and home affairs.
I think we can safely say, Mr Nassauer, that there was accordingly a chance to discuss issues before they were considered at formal or informal meetings of the Council.
We thus ensured that the views of the European Parliament had some impact at those meetings.
It was also a useful exercise for the Presidents-in-Office to give a detailed report to Parliament's committees at the end of each half year on the work done by the Council during the period under review.
We will continue that practice.
Furthermore, the presidency also continued the practice established by the Luxembourg Presidency in the second half of 1997 of consulting the European Parliament in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We should carry on doing that.
It has been another way - a successful one to my mind - in which we have tried to take account of the views of the European Parliament.
And in each case the presidency has conveyed Parliament's views to the relevant Council body.
I would like to add that in December 1998 the Council consulted the European Parliament on a project which has a very special role to play, namely an action plan for the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice, which your resolution also touches upon, albeit from a particular point of view.
This action plan is intended to point the way ahead and broadly determine how we proceed in future, in the first five years - you yourself, Mr Nassauer, said five years plus x - after the Treaty of Amsterdam has come into force.
Let me say this again: you can rest assured that the German Presidency attaches great importance to improving relations between the Council and the European Parliament still further.
We think it was very positive that throughout the year the European Parliament demonstrated considerable interest in work in this field.
The Council received more than 100 questions, which I think is proof enough.
Lastly, I would like to talk about the conclusions of the Council of 19 March last year.
These conclusions related to openness and transparency in the Council's activities in the field of Title VI of the Treaty on the European Union, providing a wider range of information on the activity of the Council and reinforcing its external impact.
Some of this relates to matters we have already discussed and some of it to your own proposals: making the calendar of meetings available to the public, publishing Council decisions on the Internet, and having public debates in the Council.
I shall now turn to my second point.
What progress was made on judicial cooperation last year under the British and Austrian Presidencies? The first point I should mention is judicial cooperation on civil matters.
I say that simply because we know very well that this is of special interest to Europe's citizens. A key event in the field of judicial cooperation on civil matters was the adoption by the Council of the Brussels II Convention on jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters, and the signing of this convention by the Member States.
As you know, this convention is of great interest to Europe's citizens.
It stipulates in which Member State a divorce, legal separation or marriage annulment can be applied for, and also determines which Member State is responsible for making a judgment on parental authority for children of binational marriages when a divorce, separation or marriage annulment has been applied for.
I do not have to tell you that for binational marriages in particular, divorces involve many problems.
By virtue of this convention, we can endeavour to create a reasonable framework for legal and judicial processes and practice.
But it is of course almost impossible to legislate for the human aspect of the problems associated with this, and I think we will have to explore other options in this case.
I believe that the Members of this House also have a part to play in helping with this aspect of regulation and practice.
But let me return to the convention itself.
As soon as the courts of a Member State have made a judgment, it can then be recognised and enforced in other Member States by means of a quick, simple and inexpensive procedure.
It is also important to note that in connection with this convention the Council adopted a legal instrument simultaneously signed by the Member States concerning the interpretation of the convention by the European Court of Justice.
This legal instrument is not only important as a means of taking matters further forward, but also in that it highlights the importance of the European Court of Justice.
I believe that emphasising the significance of the European Court of Justice in this way is important as a means of furthering the concept of judicial control and thus also of constitutionality in the European Union, in exactly the same way as in all the Member States.
Important work on judicial cooperation in the field of civil law was launched in relation to revising the Brussels I and Lugano Conventions.
This too was a very positive development.
The Brussels Convention of 27 September 1968 lays down uniform rules for the Member States on international jurisdiction, lis pendens conditions, recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.
The Lugano Convention of 16 September 1988 is similarly structured but, as you know, there are differences of detail.
The signatories to the Lugano Convention are, in addition to the EU Member States, the EFTA states of Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
The German Presidency plans to revise these conventions over the next six months.
The objective of the discussions is to bring these two conventions more closely into line with each other, to make improvements on the basis of experience of legal practice and in particular to further simplify the mutual recognition and enforcement of judgments.
We particularly want to keep an eye on the simplification side.
So the aim of these negotiations is to achieve an important step towards establishing the area of freedom, security and justice which the Member States want to create together.
We hope to complete this during the German Presidency.
In July 1998, a Council working party met to consider the requirements for creating a legal instrument on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations.
This is known as the Rome II project, and it builds on Rome I, the agreement between the EU Member States of 19 June 1980 on the law applicable to contractual obligations.
The working party achieved a positive interim result and is now to produce a draft on the basis of a working document prepared by the Austrian Presidency.
I shall now turn to judicial cooperation in the field of criminal law, which Mrs Van Lancker also touched upon.
First, I would like to mention the importance in practical terms of the Convention on driving disqualification, another subject with a very immediate impact on people in the Member States of the European Union.
I have to tell you that in Germany too people are constantly asking questions and expressing their fears about this convention, although it is also widely praised.
The convention adopted by the Council on 16 June 1998 provides that judgments no longer subject to the right of appeal may in certain circumstances be enforced in a Member State other than the state of residence.
This therefore makes a valuable contribution to road safety and simultaneously, by tackling such a practical subject, helps to create a common legal area of which our citizens are directly aware.
There is another field in which I unfortunately cannot report the same degree of progress.
I am talking about improving mutual assistance in criminal matters.
Despite the extraordinarily commendable and persistent efforts of the Austrian Presidency in particular - which I would like to emphasise - there has been far less progress in this field, the reason being the different systems that exist in the Member States.
Another reason is the various expectations people have of the European Union in this field, and I think that in this case all the European institutions, and above all the European Parliament, have a duty not only to generate greater appreciation of the issue, but also to take supportive action so as to facilitate effective international negotiations.
To do this it is necessary to improve the existing instruments of international mutual assistance in criminal matters and to adapt them to the requirements of modern international law enforcement.
This particularly applies, as we all know, to modern international communications technology, such as satellite communications.
The German Presidency plans to work towards adoption of the Agreement on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters as quickly as possible, preferably within the six months of our presidency.
There is a considerable body of earlier work for us to build on.
In particular, there is already a consensus about simplified procedures for passing on requests for mutual assistance, and also on rules governing modern methods of passing requests across borders - the key words here being controlled deliveries and undercover agents - as well as questioning via video-conferencing.
However, I am sure that I do not need to tell you again that there are still many problems to be solved.
We may perhaps have a chance to tell the relevant committees more about this next week.
In the field of combating fraud and corruption, by adopting the joint measure on corruption in the private sector in December 1998 we have managed to create a new basis for combating corruption in business in the common market under criminal law.
I have no doubt that this too is a very important step forward that should be brought to the public's attention in an appropriate way.
Let me now turn to the fight against organised crime. Just before the Treaty of Amsterdam was signed the European Council instructed a high-level group on organised crime to work out an action plan to develop a comprehensive approach to this task.
This has enabled the various parties involved - the police, judicial and customs authorities - to work together in a multidisciplinary team, initially for a limited period, to combat the scourge of organised crime. This is in marked contrast to the artificial barriers which previously separated them.
I would once again like to stress that the Council very much appreciates the important contribution made by the European Parliament to the Multidisciplinary Group on Organised Crime.
I particularly have in mind Ms Cederschiöld's report on the action plan. This report was - and still is - one of the cornerstones of the Group's work.
For example, the resolution adopted by the Council on 21 December 1998 on the prevention of organised crime goes back to an initiative inspired by the debate in the European Parliament.
Substantial progress has been made in implementing the action plan, and this was set out in detail in the report to the Vienna European Council.
I would like to draw special attention to the launch of the European Judicial Network and the adoption of a joint measure on money laundering, the identification, tracing, freezing, seizing and confiscation of the instruments used in and the proceeds from crime, and the adoption of a joint measure under which the legislation of all the Member States will make it a criminal offence for any person on their territory to participate in a criminal organisation, regardless of where it is located or pursues its criminal activities.
As you know, the deadline for implementing the recommendations in the action plan is the end of 1999.
The Council will then have to reach a decision on the follow-up to this work and on how it links up with the new action plan on the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
I am sure I do not need to tell you that this decision will be a rather important one.
I would now like to say a few words about the action plan on the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
The process of drawing up this new action plan was the focal point of the Council's work in the second half of 1998, making it the centre-piece of the Austrian Presidency.
As you know, the Cardiff European Council called upon the Council and the Commission to present proposals to the Vienna European Council on the best means of implementing the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam concerning an area of freedom, security and justice.
A document was presented to the Vienna Summit in which an attempt was made to pinpoint the changes and progressive innovations contained in the Treaty of Amsterdam, or in other words its added value, and to draw up a work programme for the next two to five years.
The Vienna European Council approved the action plan and stated that it would give the field of justice and home affairs a new dimension after the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, thus creating a concrete framework for developing activity in this field.
I think it is right to draw attention to this.
At the same time, the European Council decided that progress to date should be assessed at the Special Justice and Home Affairs European Council to be held in Tampere in October 1999 and that that meeting should set further guidelines for EU action in the field of justice and home affairs.
This is an important task and the opinion sought from Parliament by the Austrian Presidency in mid-December will be accorded its full weight.
I can certainly assure you that the German Presidency, which will be making the initial preparations for Tampere, will ensure that the European Parliament's opinion is fully taken on board.
I am convinced that the Tampere Special Council will give us an opportunity to make significant further progress with discussions in this field and I hope that the German Presidency can count on the continuing support of the European Parliament in achieving this objective.
I would like to mention once again that we are at the interface of two interesting phases.
The European Parliament elections are about to take place, and it will be important to enter into a dialogue with our citizens about the progress we have made and the potential of a European legal area and common security area.
The entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam makes this a time of radical change, and this will have a special impact in our area.
We should all be aware that a key factor in driving Europe as a whole forward is the enormous interest shown by Europe's citizens in the common legal area - which will mean additional and common rights for all - and also in the common European security area.
So the challenge we face is to act jointly and to use our knowledge and ability to the full to find ways of bringing Europe as a whole closer to a social and democratic constitutional identity.
I think that is your objective, and it is also the objective of the German Presidency.
Applause
Mr President, on a point of order.
You mentioned that we are under great time pressure.
This is partly occasioned by the fact that the statements by the two German Ministers took up some 50 minutes.
I am not complaining because what they said contained some fascinating, important and valuable information.
I wonder if it might be possible, exceptionally in this case, to have their statements translated into the official languages promptly.
I know this happens in the normal course of events but it can take up to a year.
It is such important information that it would be very valuable.
Thank you, Mr Elliott.
I think that can be done through the committee or by other means.
I can also see that the ministers are nodding, so that should be possible.
Mr President, I really have very little speaking time, and I have to say that in comparison with the time given to the Council and the Commission, Parliament's time is extremely limited.
I shall therefore confine myself to a few comments on what Mrs Däubler said about relations between the Council and Parliament.
First of all, it is a major step forward that the Amsterdam Treaty now requires us to be consulted about relevant issues.
It does not always happen, unfortunately, but nevertheless a good many proposals are put to us.
However, we are often given very little time to deliver our opinion, and the Council always seems to be in a hurry as well, so that it often scarcely has time to look at Parliament's opinion in detail.
My first question, therefore, is this: would it not be a good idea to organise a meeting shortly before the Council so that our rapporteur can inform the ministers? This would be a good way of ensuring that the best use is made of our work.
For example, we will finish work on the action plan in mid-April, so it would make sense if we were given time then to explain our position.
Secondly, following on from this, we never actually hear what happens to our opinions.
I have just been told here that our recommendation on the action plan on organised crime was very useful, but it has taken until now for us to hear this.
It would therefore be useful, in addition to sending a representative to the Council meetings, if the Council could send us a written report on which parts of our opinions it is prepared to accept and which not.
Thirdly - I cannot go any faster or put my points any more briefly - as far as our committee is concerned the K.6 debate is extremely important.
We have asked on five occasions for an annual progress report on the third pillar, so we were absolutely delighted to read that the Council had decided on 19 March last year to send Parliament progress reports not just once but twice a year.
But nothing has happened - we have not actually seen one of these reports yet.
So I hope that the Council intends to keep its promise and that we will receive these reports in future under the new presidency, which I naturally wish every success.
Once again, I hope that we will receive replies to these three questions.
Mr President, I should like first of all to apologise to the President-in-Office of the Council for the fact that so few members of my group are here - an important vote is currently being taken in the group on an issue that is one of the next on the agenda.
However, I shall try to make my group's position on the Van Lancker report clear.
I should also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Van Lancker, on the way in which she got us all to work together on this report, which had to be prepared under very difficult circumstances given the extremely short time it was before the committee.
We have been given a very comprehensive picture by the presidency this morning, for which I would thank the ministers concerned.
The presidency has clearly described the work which has to be done to integrate the Schengen Agreement into the EU Treaty.
There is an important point in the document from the German Presidency to which I would to draw your attention, where it talks about the Schengen system being founded on two pillars: the free movement of persons and security.
It says that the abolition of individual controls at the internal borders of the Schengen states is based on the assumption that the planned compensatory measures are genuinely effective.
I think that this is an important principle and one which my group wholeheartedly supports, because a number of Member States have attempted to use Schengen to introduce freedom of movement.
We must also not forget security considerations.
I think that internal security is an extremely important issue for the public, and that people want to have both freedom and security at the same time.
What we need to do now is to ensure that the fairly complicated transition from inter-state cooperation to cross-border policy measures should happen as smoothly and flexibly as possible.
With the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, and this was another point made at the European Council in Vienna, Schengen must be incorporated into the European Union as quickly as possible.
The minister referred to the problems that are still being encountered, although these have not really been identified - the choice of legal bases for the Schengen acquis , perhaps?
I know that this is a fairly complicated subject.
Perhaps we could be given more detailed information, maybe in writing, on this and on the operation of the Schengen information system.
The PPE Group feels that the system must not become a 'big brother', but on the other hand it must not be a little system either.
In other words, data must be recorded accurately and carefully in the system and only the competent authorities must have access to it.
We must prevent any infringement of privacy, and we must prevent those responsible for international organised crime from having access to information that encourages the white slave trade or the trade in foreigners.
These are two of the biggest phenomena that we are facing and for which the international community, whether under the Treaty or the Schengen Agreement, has really not found an answer. I think, Minister, that we must give our fullest support to further efforts in this direction.
I have no more time to deal with any other points.
Mr President, I am sure you are aware that our thoughts are elsewhere at the moment, which is a great shame given the importance that should be attached to this debate.
I will therefore only say a few words in support of the approach proposed by Mrs Van Lancker.
The Liberal Group as a whole is in favour of her proposals and, once again, we join her in deploring the difficulties that the Member States are having in coming to an agreement on the definition of the Schengen acquis .
It would be unfortunate if these difficulties could not be overcome in such a sensitive field as the movement of persons.
It goes without saying that the European Parliament must be informed of the substance of Schengen and consulted on the draft decision that will allow the acquis to be integrated into the Treaty.
I welcome the presence here today of the German ministers who are assuming the Council presidency, and I would like to say to them that they will always be able to count on the Liberal Group whenever the rights of the defendant are at stake.
It is a matter that we feel is fundamental, and I welcome the initiatives that you announced in this field.
Although we should be pleased about the extension of the Schengen area, the common European approach means that the United Kingdom and Ireland need to join their partners as soon as possible so that the same rules can be applied to the movement of persons as to the movement of goods.
The timid approach that is the root of many obstacles in the field of free movement of persons must give way to a wider vision that focuses on the requirements of the vast area of freedom, security and justice to which a great majority of us aspire.
I will conclude by saying that through her sound proposals, Mrs Van Lancker is making a significant contribution towards achieving this great plan, and we will be sure to demonstrate the support that I have just outlined when it comes to the vote.
Mr President, the dual German Presidency for the next six months of both the European Union and the Schengen area gives weight to the recommendation to the Council from the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, presented by our colleague Mrs Van Lancker.
While the objective of Schengen cooperation is to ensure the free movement of persons and to remove internal border controls, that objective only has meaning if the necessary accompanying measures are put in place at the same time.
In Mrs Van Lancker's report, one senses an element of reproach, considering as it does that the main emphasis has been placed on strengthening external border controls, on admission policy and on police and judicial cooperation.
While these measures are not the primary objective of the Schengen agreements, they are an essential consequence of it, in order to guarantee the greatest possible security for the citizens of the Union and to ensure that they support the system.
With regard to the integration of Schengen into the Treaty and the division of the acquis between the first and third pillars, my group cannot share her view on the institutional catastrophe that would result from the application of the safeguard clause, which would mean a complete transfer to the third pillar. This would be even less the case if the Council, as requested by the recommendation, informed Parliament by involving it both in defining the strategies and also in the legislative measures to be taken under the third pillar, and if it respected the transparency rules, certainly with regard to the European Parliament but also with regard to the national parliaments and the citizens.
My group welcomes the proposal to make a start now on converting the Schengen Information System into a European Information System by strengthening links with the Europol data processing systems.
This would allow the involvement, at least in this area, of the United Kingdom and Ireland, who are signatories of the Europol convention and, for obvious geographical reasons, are outside the Schengen area.
On behalf of my group, I of course welcome the German Presidency's objective of improving international cooperation in criminal affairs as well as the decision of the Member States to harmonise their visa policies and to introduce without delay a computerised format for residence permits for third-country nationals.
With regard to assessing the operation of Schengen, we also welcome the progress that has been made, in particular in the accession of Italy and Austria, and we agree that it is important to encourage the involvement of the United Kingdom and Ireland in the areas covered by Title IV of the Treaty.
I cannot, of course, agree with the regrets expressed concerning France's use of the exemption mechanism provided for in Article 2(2) of the Convention in respect of its land borders with Belgium and Luxembourg.
I prefer, and I have tabled an amendment to this effect, to place emphasis on continuing the efforts being made by those countries to combat drug trafficking.
The rapporteur also highlights an incident which occurred at the Belgian Sirene office, where personal data was stolen.
She questions the reliability of the database protection system, and I wonder whether the problem lies with Belgium rather than with the Sirene network.
Overall, apart from these various points, we will vote for these two reports.
Mr President, in this annual debate on the progress made on cooperation in the areas of justice and home affairs and, more specifically, the Schengen area, I would like to highlight certain aspects that prove that a great deal still remains to be done before we can talk about a true area of democratic justice that is subject to the supervision of Parliament and the jurisdictional bodies.
As the speaker before me, Mrs d'Ancona, pointed out, it is vital for the Council to comply once and for all with the provisions of the Treaty and to inform Parliament regularly of the preparations for and results of its discussions and official meetings.
Without such information, it is impossible to have any sort of adequate democratic supervision.
It is significant that at this stage we have not adopted any legislation relating to our policy on asylum, refugees and immigration. This demonstrates the lack of political will among the governments and European institutions to give decisive, serious and, above all, consistent consideration to these matters.
In this Schengen area that is being created, there should be a clause making it possible to implement common policies on the socio-cultural integration of immigrants, avoiding any discrimination against people or groups due to race, colour or religion or due to national, social or ethnic orientation.
The Schengen responsibilities must be incorporated into the Union's policies, as provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam, but they must also be subject to the supervision of its institutions in order to ensure that they do not turn into an instrument for resisting immigration.
Integration is essential, yet we must also unequivocally guarantee respect for the fundamental rights of the citizens of the European Union and third country nationals.
The same can be said for the transparency and democratic supervision of the decision-making procedure.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to mention a specific problem, but one that is no less important in the creation of this Schengen area of freedom and justice: the protection of personal data, which must be guaranteed without exception in any democratic society.
The incident in the Belgian SIRENE office, where personal data were removed, is proof of the lack of sufficient protection for databases and the need to take clear measures to guarantee effective protection in this respect.
Mr President, my group cannot support Mr Nassauer's motion for a resolution.
We cannot accept the wording on Europol and on asylum and migration policy.
We are not opposed to Europol, quite the contrary, we are in favour of Europol and citizens' rights.
What is at stake is the legality of the work done by officials in the EU who are supposed to be dealing with citizens' security.
It seems that there is agreement on police cooperation, and on setting up Europol, but they are being denied the legal bases required for their work, in other words democratic legal bases guaranteed in the Member States.
We find that unacceptable.
The police need generally applicable laws in order to operate properly.
But that was not the subject of the decision - it was about the immunity of Europol officials.
Who are we protecting against whom? We are protecting our officials against our own democratic laws and courts, but we are not protecting anyone else.
I am sorry that Mr Nassauer is not with us now.
He welcomed the Austrian Presidency's failed initiative against illegal immigration.
The fact that he also welcomes the campaign in my home Land of Hessen against dual nationality is his problem.
I would like to ask him if we agree on the definition of illegal immigration. What does illegal mean in the EU?
Does it include people recognised as refugees in one Member State but rejected in another because it has different asylum laws? There is indeed illegal immigration, from eastern Europe for example.
We are not defending the idea of open borders, and we are prepared to accept reasonable regulations and harmonisation. However, this must not mean that human rights suffer as a consequence.
I am grateful for the current Council presidency's suggestion that we need a new summit, as explained by Mr Fischer, the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, and I hope that the German Presidency will succeed in making certain changes in this area.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mr Schily, Mrs Däubler-Gmelin and the Commissioner for what they have said, as I really think that in them we may have a joining of forces which will enable us to progress more quickly than we have up until now, and this is probably a good sign for the future.
The goal of the operation is still to set up this area of freedom, security and justice, and this is worth repeating, insofar as nowadays more importance is attached to increasing the number of bolts, fortifications, barbed wire and protective walls than to explaining to citizens the measures to be taken and the point of a Europe without borders, this Europe that is behaving more like a club for rich people who intend to continue to increase their wealth.
I do not know if you have been curious enough to take the train between Brussels and Strasbourg.
Well, between Brussels and Strasbourg, perhaps not exactly at the border crossing but a few kilometres either side, passengers are subjected to controls in which they are asked their nationality, their profession and the reason for their journey, and all with a degree of courtesy that is inversely proportional to the presumed importance of the traveller.
We have tabled two amendments in order to condemn and put an end to the French Government's attitude, as it continues to demand the application of exemption clauses.
The controls that are currently carried out at European internal borders should be able to end.
I would like to draw your attention to this point.
Secondly, with regard to the report presented by Mr Nassauer, this text will of course receive at least our qualified support.
We naturally welcome the progress made in 1998, although we know that despite everything this progress was made at a snail's pace rather than the fast pace we would have liked.
Commissioner Gradin drew attention to the fact that we were perhaps simply not very fast.
Nevertheless, I think that we must radically increase our speed.
In any case, Mr Nassauer must be supported in his demand that Parliament should be listened to and heard, and that its decisions and positions should be taken into account by the Council.
There are, of course, initiatives to be taken, but first of all it is enough to apply the clauses of the Treaty and to implement them effectively.
That would already be a significant step.
There are still two small points on which I would have reservations or disagreements, or which I would at least like to have clarified before the report is adopted, as they concern me slightly: one is the central fingerprints file and the other is the status and the monitoring of Interpol staff.
Mr President, in its day, the Schengen Agreement caused a stir in France because, having been negotiated in the utmost discretion, it was disclosed to our citizens somewhat inadvertently, proving once again that Europe and transparency do not go well together.
One of the fundamental elements of the Agreement is of course the gradual removal of border controls among the signatory states, and experience has shown that implementing the Schengen Agreement is a delicate and difficult matter.
Indeed, this is why France was obliged to apply exemption mechanisms.
If the implementation of Schengen was difficult, then integrating it into the legal corpus of the European Union appears to be just as difficult.
The Member States are unable to agree on the definition of what, in Eurospeak, we call the Schengen acquis , nor can they agree on the division between the first and third pillars.
The easy solution would otherwise be to place everything under the third pillar.
In addition, as Mr Nassauer pointed out, in the transitory period, national parliamentary control will disappear, but without our Parliament's control coming into effect, and on that point we join Mr Nassauer in his request for information.
However, information does not mean control.
In practice, all these problems point to a reality: Schengen disregarded the facts and they are now catching up on Schengen and on the European Union.
Mr President, as this debate on Article K.6 of the Maastricht Treaty is most likely the last one before the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, it is no longer the time to bemoan, once again, the slow pace, the inefficiency and the lack of transparency and democracy of the operation of the third pillar.
We have done plenty of this in previous years and the criticisms that we made then are still valid now.
The President of Parliament made an excellent summary of the situation on 16 October at a conference in Avignon, when he said that an evaluation of the initiatives and proposals of the last few years bears too great a resemblance to Dante's hell, in that it is paved with good intentions.
He also said that a huge number of conventions that were signed have not been ratified and it is reasonable to doubt that they will ever come into force.
The President was illustrating, in a concise but extremely exact manner, a major concern expressed by our committee in Article 23 of the Nassauer resolution.
This article gives a list of the main acts that have not yet been ratified. What will become of these agreements and protocols?
How can we escape the legal insecurity that we are currently facing? The members of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs invite the Commission to present, in good time, the proposals that are essential for transforming these acts into Community measures as from the entry into force of the new Treaty.
I also share the concerns expressed by Mr Pradier and by the Green Group. I do not have enough time to dwell on those concerns and I would particularly like to refer back to a point that has already been made by several of my colleagues, notably by Mr Nassauer and Mrs d'Ancona, and which concerns us greatly.
It is the issue of democratic control, which for citizens is an essential counterweight to the sharing of sovereignty that they are being asked to accept.
I believe, and the opinion polls show, that they are prepared to accept the transfer of sovereignty that results from bringing part of the third pillar within the Community's powers.
They understand that together we are more capable of fighting large-scale crime, organised international fraud, and trafficking of every kind.
They do not want internal borders to continue to be an obstacle to justice, nor do they want mixed couples who divorce, and the children of these couples, to continue be faced with contradictory rulings.
In short, they feel that there is an evident need for the European judicial area that is taking its first steps, and they understand that a shared European sovereignty is better than a declining national sovereignty that no longer has a grip on events. However, this is on condition that effective parliamentary control, which is the only means of democratically operating that shared sovereignty, can be exerted, which is why the Council must take into consideration Parliament's opinions and change its behaviour towards Parliament.
Why is it, Mr President-in-Office, that the demands that we have made one by one over the years, through resolutions like today's, go unheeded? Mr Nassauer's resolution recalls the terms of the resolution of 12 December 1996, for which I was rapporteur, which detailed the demands that we made then to the Council for more genuine and more complete information, for systematic consultation, and for our points of view to actually be taken into account.
Today we could repeat these terms word for word, as nothing has changed.
It is not acceptable, for example, that we were not consulted on the Austrian Presidency's strategy paper that is going to determine European policy on asylum and immigration for many years.
Nor is it acceptable that the Council, having taken the official decision, on 19 March 1998, and following our repeated demands, to publish an interim report at the end of each presidency, that is every six months, has not done so.
You have expressed your agreement, Mr President-in-Office.
You see, the problem is that the Council always agrees, in words, but the necessary actions do not follow.
If a report was presented beforehand, there could be a real debate in the House.
Mr President, although I cannot be here this afternoon, for which I hope you will forgive me, we will be able to continue this discussion in the relevant committees over the next week.
I would therefore like to pick up just two points which I consider especially important in this context and which need to be followed up.
The first is exchanges of information and relations between the Council, the Council presidency and the European Parliament.
It is evident from the comments made by honourable Members that there are genuine problems.
I would like to assure you that we will endeavour to work with you to solve these problems in a spirit of cooperation and in accordance with the European treaties.
The second point I would like to pick up is the transition from the Maastricht Treaty to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I believe that we can expect an important debate on new ideas here - including the work done by the Commission - so that we can push ahead with our plans in the fields of internal security and the common European legal area, quickly and profitably.
VOTES
The Conference of Presidents adopted an agreement yesterday on the order of votes.
We will begin with the motions for resolutions, and then request the Commission to give its position. This will be followed by a short suspension to allow the groups time for consultation and we shall then proceed to the vote on the motions of censure.
I have received a request from the Green Group to vote first on the motions of censure and afterwards on the motions for resolutions on the refusal to grant discharge for 1996.
Therefore, we must first decide whether or not to accept the position of the Conference of Presidents or to amend it.
Mr Telkämper wishes to speak to move the request by the Green Group.
Mr President, we have made this request under Rule 119 because we assume that the vote on the motion of censure is the more significant one.
There is now an institutional conflict between the Parliament and the Commission, and I believe that we will not be able to explain it to our electorate if we start arguing about various individual positions and split Parliament into subtly differentiated factions, instead of adopting an unequivocal position towards the fraud, corruption and nepotism inside the Commission.
I think this House agrees that that is what this motion of censure is all about, and in that sense it is the most significant.
That is what we have to vote on.
We have requested a roll-call vote in this case because if it eventually comes out that Parliament did not act firmly in this institutional conflict, it will have made a poor start, a false start if you like, to the election campaign.
That is why I am requesting this vote.
Mr President, I would like to oppose that proposal on two grounds.
Firstly, there is a precedent for this way of proceeding.
As we discovered, when your services looked at the precedents, this is how we dealt with the BSE motion of censure: the resolutions first and then the motion of censure.
Secondly, this is an eminently political debate.
We all know that the way in which the resolutions go may well affect the outcome of the motion of censure.
There is no escaping that reality.
I put the request from the Green Group to the vote.
Parliament rejected the request
Joint motion for a resolution on the consequences of the refusal to give discharge
Parliament rejected the joint motion for a resolution
I give the floor to Mr Santer, President of the Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, your Parliament has just given its opinion by means of a resolution that sends a clear and firm message to the Commission. It will shortly take a position, in all sovereignty, on the question of confidence.
This is an important moment in the life of our institutions.
I would first like to say a few words about the resolution.
As I said, the message to the Commission is a clear one, and I understood it fully.
I am taking on board the criticisms that have been expressed and I commit myself here and now to completing, according to a strict timetable, the ambitious programme that I have proposed, and to fulfilling the demands made by this Parliament.
I see this test as a means of giving a very strong impetus to the necessary reforms.
Today the European Parliament has strongly reaffirmed its authority and its monitoring role.
As democrats, we should all welcome this.
I would like to say a few words about this idea of a committee of experts.
I accept it, as it will enable us to completely review our methods, to improve our management, and to cast a critical eye over the fight against fraud.
Obviously, this committee could also examine certain individual cases, and I will state clearly that the recommendations from the committee of experts will be followed up with actions.
Moreover, it goes without saying that the Commission will continue to be accountable to Parliament's monitoring bodies.
I said to you on Monday that each case of fraud pains me.
Each time it is Europe that loses out.
I admit that mistakes have been made.
We have been criticised, but our good will has never been questioned.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President, I have now been involved in political life for thirty years. I have always thought of that as a privilege, but also as an obligation to absolute integrity.
I respect taxpayers' money and, with the help of Parliament, I am more determined than ever to continue the fight against fraud.
Now it is up to you, ladies and gentlemen, to decide, in good faith and in good conscience, whether you are going to grant us your confidence, the political confidence that we need to continue and to complete our political work in the interests of the citizens of Europe and to enable Europe to succeed.
That is purely and simply what I ask you to grant us today.
Applause
(The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. and resumed at 11.40 a.m.)
Following our agenda, I shall now give the floor to the first signatories of the two motions of censure - Mrs Green and Mr Fabre-Aubrespy - and then to each of the group chairmen for one minute.
Mr President, I want to express my welcome and thanks to all those who voted with our resolution this morning.
In his comments Mr Santer said that this vote and this whole action has reaffirmed the authority of Parliament.
It is a major success for this Parliament ...
Protests
It is always a shame to see bad losers.
What the resolution has done is to give us the most extensive reforms ever of the internal workings of the European Commission.
Mixed reactions
Had we not tabled the motion of censure that would not have happened.
Mixed reactions
We heard Mr Santer's commitment to carrying through the requests in the motion for a resolution.
Mr Santer understands that this group and those who voted for the resolution were voting for a stronger European Commission, a stronger Europe, and we will keep him to those commitments.
Mr President, having achieved what we consider to be a very considerable success in reforming the working practices of the European Commission, I would like to give you notice that I am now withdrawing the motion of censure on behalf of the Socialist Group.
Mixed reactions
The motion of censure of which Mrs Green is the first signatory having been withdrawn, I now give the floor to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, first signatory of the second motion of censure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the 70 signatories of the motion of censure who come, I would like to point out, from all the political groups in the House and represent almost all the peoples of the European Union, maintain, with conviction and determination, their motion of censure against the entire Commission.
Applause
They invite you to ask yourselves, in good faith and in good conscience, a very simple question: 'do I have confidence in the Commission or not?'
Did it take the necessary measures following the various cases that came to light concerning the management of Community funds? Did it inform the Parliament correctly and adequately?
If you answer 'no' to this question, then you must vote for censure.
Ladies and gentlemen, never in the history of our Parliament will your vote be of such importance!
Do not take the risk of hearing your electorate ask you in a few days or a few weeks, when a new case is revealed to us, why you placed your confidence in the Commission once again.
By voting for censure,
Applause
you will strengthen the credibility of our Parliament, you will give Europeans a renewed confidence in their institutions.
Loud applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, I do not think I am a bad loser.
What we have been calling for since December, thanks to the excellent work of the Committee on Budgetary Control led by Mrs Theato and with Mr Elles as rapporteur, has now been accepted in the Commission's eight-point programme within a very strict deadline.
Why should we not be happy with this? On the contrary.
We have not been party to any political manoeuvring, and we have every reason to be happy because what was most important to us was the content.
There is a second point I would like to make.
It is now undeniably the case, Mr President of the Commission, that the era of bureaucracy and technocracy is over.
From now on, you are going to have to work with Parliament.
Applause
This is an undeniable and extremely important result, and I hope that it will be reflected in the forthcoming negotiations on the revision of the Treaty.
Mr President of the Commission, we passionately defended you here in the House in July 1994, and I am still happy with my commitment and confidence in you personally.
I certainly do not regret it today, far from it.
I should therefore like to tell you that even if the members of my group vote with their consciences and even if there is a majority - but of course everybody will be voting with their consciences - I still hold you in the highest esteem as a man of integrity and as the President of the Commission.
Applause
Mr President, this week the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party raised consciousness inside and outside this House of the fact that the rules of engagement for the democratic control of the European Commission by this Parliament are self-evidently inadequate.
This must change!
Our instrument of naming names was perforce indelicate since no proper Treaty-based alternative yet exists to hold individual Commissioners publicly accountable before this Parliament for the political management and conduct of European affairs and subject them to sanctions where and when they fall short.
For months in this House the college of Commissioners has suffered from a self-induced collapse in its credibility.
In collusion with the Socialist Group, the Commission inexplicably last December drew this week's crisis upon itself.
Applause
Politically we believe that this Commission is dead in the water.
Applause
When we demanded individual accountability, we were rebuffed by the shield of collegiality.
We have decided, Mr President of the Commission, to turn your shield of collegiality into our sword of parliamentary accountability.
For Europe, in good faith and in good conscience, the ELDR Group believes this Commission should go.
My Group will vote for censure.
Applause
Mr President, the Union for Europe Group is unanimous in deploring the serious management errors made by the current Commission and the previous one, as revealed in audits carried out by the Court of Auditors, internal enquiries and enquiries carried out on the ground by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Our group condemns the lack of cooperation and transparency that the Commission has demonstrated for too long towards both Parliament and the Court of Auditors.
The Union for Europe Group has taken note of President Santer's promise to put right the most glaring problems, but it deplores the fact that it took a vote of disapproval, the refusal of discharge, and the threat of an actual motion of censure, on which we are now going to vote, to bring about that result.
As a result, some members of the group, notably the French members, noting that previous commitments that were made at the time of the BSE motion of censure, and also following the decisions of the Committee of Inquiry into Fraud in Community transit, were not entirely fulfilled, have decided to vote for the motion of censure ...
Applause
in order to remind the Commission that the European Parliament's monitoring powers must be respected because they are the only real means of protecting the citizens, the European taxpayers.
However, other members of the group, notably our Irish, Italian and Portuguese colleagues, have decided to grant the Commission mitigating circumstances and not to vote for censure, so as not to give rise to an institutional crisis at a time when Europe is faced with enormous challenges. This leniency cannot, however, be interpreted by the Commission as a blank cheque of confidence.
Applause
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I would like to say that we hope that the only winners in these votes and decisions by the European Parliament will be the citizens of Europe, European democracy and transparency, an element that is absolutely necessary, whether we are in the run-up to or in the wake of elections.
We hope that from now on, these decisions by the European Parliament will increase the credibility of this institution and its links with the real lives of the public. We also hope that they will mean greater political supervision of the Commission and that the Committee on Budgetary Control will be able to work under the necessary conditions.
I must add that, as regards this joint statement by my group, there were differences of opinions and conflicting ideas, as has happened in other groups.
The majority of the group believes that the Commission's management deserves to be censured and it is therefore going to vote in favour of the motion of censure.
However, certain Members are going to vote against, while others - a substantial number, including myself, although not the majority - believe that our political life and our institution have been constantly exploited by the motions of censure. We are therefore not going to take part in the vote.
We wanted to make this point here so that it can be recorded in the Minutes of the sitting.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if Parliament now puts its trust in the Commission, then it also assumes political responsibility for the Commission's past.
The Commission itself has refused to do this, and will only make proposals for the future.
I have two comments on the resolution we are adopting. Not only have we thrown away some of the things we achieved in December by voting differently from then, but worst of all we are surrendering our own powers by allowing a committee of wise men to decide what has gone wrong.
Applause
This is an out-and-out scandal and not worthy of any parliament.
What we are doing is tantamount to censuring ourselves, and this is supposed to be strengthening Parliament's authority, for goodness' sake!
My group has always made it clear that our basic line was that the Commission should resign and that we cannot put our confidence in it, not just because of the financial scandals, but also because of its policies in so many fields: BSE, genetically modified foods on the market, and so on.
So we say that the Commission does not have our confidence and we should vote en bloc for the motion of censure.
Applause
Mr President, the resolution that has just been adopted is a good text. It is firm, even severe, and demanding.
It also contains many demands and proposals.
We note the comments made by President Santer, who has recognised the errors that have been made and has promised reforms.
The political climate is certainly far from being stabilised.
Our disappointments and our criticisms remain.
It will take time to restore confidence.
Should we vote for censure?
Our group has already done so in the past.
However, today, voting for censure would be an excessive gesture; it would be inappropriate for the situation and also dangerous for the stability of the institutions.
We are also aware of the calendar.
We know that the current Commission will in any case reach the end of its mandate at the end of this year.
For all these reasons, the majority of our group - we do not have unanimity - the majority of our group will not vote for the motion of censure.
Applause
Mr President, there is a difference between blame and accountability.
You can have accountability without having blame.
The Europe of Nations Group does not have an opinion about who is to blame.
We leave that to disciplinary proceedings and the Court of Justice.
We are voting to censure the college because the whole Commission is accountable and must accept responsibility for the fact that so much has gone wrong and will continue to go wrong.
If the political leadership does not accept accountability, then there is no accountability. The budget would then become a matter of helping oneself.
The main problem is that Mr Santer and his colleagues are not leading, but are allowing themselves to be led into a muddle of waste, fraud and corruption.
Mr Santer is a prisoner in his own fortress.
The Personnel Commissioner is a prisoner.
The Director of Personnel is a prisoner.
Only a motion of censure will release the prisoners and create a new culture of openness, closeness to the people and democracy, instead of secrecy, arrogance and bureaucracy.
Mr Santer reacted firmly when he should not have done, but he was not firm when he should have been.
He sacked an official for giving a document to an elected representative.
Instead, he ought to sack the people who do not give the elected representatives what they ask for.
That is why the Europe of Nations Group also wishes to sack Mr Santer's Commission today.
Applause
Mr President, we have taken up a position against granting the discharge and we have raised the issue of the legality of certain operations in various questions.
We thus refuse to excuse mistakes in management or errors of omission and we want everyone in power to draw the appropriate conclusions in terms of political responsibility. But the Alleanza Nazionale - which will vote unanimously - will not be joining in the chorus of those who, in the name of cleaning up management, are actually either attacking the institutions themselves or engaging in power struggles to gain control of the particular institution in question.
With the current turbulence on the Brazilian markets a 'no' to the Commission could mean irreversible damage to the credibility of the euro and, consequently, serious damage to the completion of the Union and probable impoverishment of our fellow citizens later on.
As far as we are concerned the Commission and Parliament ought to become increasingly transparent and cooperative with each other in the interests of the people of Europe, because these are the two institutions appointed to establish not only the euro, but also that political union without which there will never be an economic project and the fight against unemployment will remain a dead letter.
Now we expect everyone to do their duty as responsible politicians.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the motion of censure on the European Commission (B4-0053/99).
Parliament rejected the motion of censure on the Commission
Mr President, it was unfortunate that during the procedure the President of Parliament did not allow me to speak, although I had requested the floor in plenty of time.
I want to state, in accordance with the Rules, that I was present but did not vote.
Therefore, I would like it recorded in the Minutes that I was in the House and that I did not vote because I disagree with the whole process that has led us to the motion of censure.
I am thus also expressing my rejection of the entire process.
Thank you, Mr President, and I would appreciate it if you could inform President Gil-Robles of how displeased I was that he did not allow me to speak at the right time.
Mr President, the theatrical performance that we have seen today may have been a perfectly normal and legitimate procedure in parliamentary terms, but from the point of view of our electors it was highly regrettable, as the Socialist Group has unanimously covered up for its discredited Commissioners, and that is the real scandal that we will have to come to terms with in the next few months.
A few votes one way or other on the motion of censure will not change that.
We shall continue to work towards transparency, propriety, democracy and stronger rights for Parliament, whether the Socialists like it or not.
Since December when the majority of Members of the European Parliament, including the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, refused to grant discharge to the Commission for the implementation of the 1996 budget, due to various management errors, fraud, and a general lack of transparency, we have observed in the House a whole series of diversions and excuses aimed at avoiding the logical consequence of that act: a vote on a motion of censure.
Firstly a resolution was tabled that was aimed specifically at certain Commissioners, with the purpose of defusing the risk of a general vote of no confidence in the Commission.
This first manoeuvre was thwarted.
At the same time, the Socialist Group tabled a false motion of censure, intended to neutralise its opponents, which it then withdrew at the last moment.
However, fortunately, this second manoeuvre was also thwarted, as the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations in the meantime tabled another motion of censure, this time a genuine one.
Finally, a draft resolution was tabled, aimed at putting an end to the debate by setting up a 'committee of experts'.
That third manoeuvre appears to have succeeded, as the resolution has just been passed.
However, in reality, it discredits Parliament.
In fact it is not a parliamentary committee of inquiry that has just been adopted, it is simply a committee of experts which, the resolution specifies, will be placed 'under the auspices of the Parliament and the Commission'.
In other words, this committee will depend at least partly on the very institution whose management it will be responsible for monitoring.
This blatant abandonment of Parliament's powers displays clearly the complicity that has long existed between the European Parliament and the Commission in order to advance the federalist cause at all costs.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations considers that the Commission's errors are sufficiently serious, evident and repeated to warrant a motion of censure.
With this approach, we wish to call into question the very system of federalist complicity that has led to all the current problems.
We welcome the fact that our motion has received the support of 232 Members of the European Parliament (against 293), which, taking account of the usual discrepancies between public opinion and Parliament, must demonstrate that an overwhelming majority of citizens support us.
Today's votes in this House signal the end of an institutional crisis that was threatening the very existence and effectiveness of the Commission, following the refusal to grant discharge for the 1996 budget.
In adopting the motion for a resolution by the PSE, ARE and GUE/NGL Groups with 319 votes in favour, 157 against and 54 abstentions, Parliament has demonstrated its authority and capacity for control, as noted by the Commission President.
However, the Socialist Group's motion for a resolution does not represent a blank cheque for the Commission.
On the contrary, it requires ambitious reform of the Commission's administrative and financial practices and a rigorous investigation of all the accusations of irregularities made in the last few weeks in order to find out whether or not there is anything to be censured.
The reports containing the results of this investigation will be presented very shortly, by 15 March.
The Socialist Group has therefore wholeheartedly confirmed the strategy it outlined during the last part-session in December, in accordance with its proposed objectives of maintaining institutional stability at a crucial time for the future of Europe and of blocking the partisan manoeuvres of the PPE involving insinuations targeted at individual Commissioners. These actually represent an indirect attack on the socialist governments which are in the majority in the European Union.
The Portuguese socialists are convinced of the need to maintain confidence in this Commission so that the Agenda 2000 reforms could have a more favourable conclusion for the countries of southern Europe than the reforms planned by some of the Member States in northern Europe. We therefore decided to vote in favour of discharge in December's part-session.
Similarly, now, having achieved the strategic objectives set out, we have decided to support the withdrawal of the motion of censure tabled by the Socialist Group.
However, the Portuguese socialists are highly critical of all the Members of all nationalities and of all the political groups that have preferred to go down the destructive road of instability, instead of following the constructive road of serious criticism, which could lead to the reforms that are undoubtedly required.
The rejection of the motion of censure tabled by the I-EDN Group, after the Socialist Group had withdrawn its motion, was also an important moment.
The results of the vote on this motion of censure - 232 in favour, 293 against and 27 abstentions - show that there are political forces keen to weaken the Commission in this final period of its mandate.
Although there were not enough votes to topple the Commission, it must be realised that this vote has serious consequences.
During this crisis, the Portuguese socialists have constantly tried to defend the interests of Portugal and the overall interests of Europe, which would certainly not have benefited from the fall of the Commission a few months before the European elections in June.
The Danish Social Democrats are satisfied that the Commission is now committed to a plan which will rapidly change the corporate culture of the Commission and increase morale.
We believe that any suspicion of irregularities, waste and fraud should be investigated, either by the new independent office for the combating of internal fraud or by the national police authorities.
In such cases, the Council should be called upon to make use of Article 160 of the Treaty, which states that any Member of the Commission can be compulsorily retired by the Court of Justice, on application by the Council or the Commission, if he has been guilty of serious misconduct.
It is expressly the Council and the Commission itself which have this option, not Parliament, although we could consider including it in a future Treaty amendment.
In this way, we can have cases examined thoroughly, without succumbing to the lynch law of the press.
However, if this option is to work, Mr Santer will of course have to recognise his accountability as President of the Commission.
We shall follow very closely how the Commission keeps to the action plan we have adopted today.
The Commission should also consider a redeployment of all the senior officials in the Commission in order to clear the air.
We support Mr Liikanen's work on personnel reform, which is key to the whole clearing-up operation.
I voted for the Socialist, GUE and ARE joint motion and against the PPE, ELDR and Green joint motion.
The naming of two Socialist Commissioners was clearly politically motivated.
There are equally grave charges of mismanagement against a number of Commissioners from other political families.
All these must be thoroughly and swiftly investigated and, if found guilty of gross mismanagement or sleaze, Commissioners must go.
The Socialist joint resolution calls for Article 160 of the EC Treaty to be used to get rid of duff Commissioners.
I welcome this.
But the Commission is a political body, the European version of a national government.
In any democratic national government, ministers who fail to answer the sort of serious charges that have been levelled at some Commissioners would have to resign or face the sack.
I hope that the EU can now start to acquire this culture of democratic accountability.
I welcome the agreement to set up a committee of independent experts to look at how the Commission manages (or mismanages) its finances and personnel.
It is extraordinary, however, that Parliament has found it necessary to establish such a wide-ranging inquiry.
No political system can operate without a reasonable understanding that its executive is honest and competent.
The Commission must now ensure that it introduces proper management practices.
Jobs and contracts must be given on the basis of merit, not nationality or personal friendship.
Motion of censure
Mr President, the fact that the Commission - and this proves just how right my group was to vote for the motion of censure - said that it had behaved ineptly or that it had been the victim of its own transparency is neither here nor there.
It simply proves, once again, that the Commission is still incapable of grasping the political dimension.
The Commission has slipped back into a pre-democratic way of thinking. It has proved incapable of behaving reasonably throughout this disastrous affair.
We were not just worried about nepotism and corruption.
We were also concerned that the Commission has recently become incapable of doing justice to the clear political remit entrusted to it.
It was obvious to us that this risks playing into the hands of those who want renationalisation.
Because we want a strong Europe and need a strong Commission, we had no option but to express our lack of confidence in this Commission.
We hope that the Commission has at last learnt the lesson that we are in a democracy and that it is time to end this pre-democratic mindset and behaviour. We also hope the Commission will now at last be able to take responsibility for creating a strong Europe without nepotism, corruption and affairs.
That is the reason why we voted for the censure motion today.
How sad that the Socialist Group has been playing political games with this, only to get cold feet at the vital moment.
That not only undermines the European ideal, it is also a drain on the energy that we need to implement Agenda 2000.
I just hope that in view of this vote the Commission will at least have the decency to accept responsibility for its actions and that the Commissioners who stand accused will resign.
Mr President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations took the initiative, through Hervé Fabre-Aubrespy, of a motion of censure following the malpractice discovered in the functioning of the European Commission because we consider these errors to be neither accidental nor individual.
They are in fact a result of the nature of the institutional system itself.
The Commission says in its defence that it was overburdened with tasks which it did not have the resources to take on.
We reject this false excuse, because the rush to seize powers from the Member States is part of the system itself, which is always seeking to forestall the legitimate defensive reactions of the nations.
Moreover, of all the institutions, the Commission has always shown itself to be the most zealous promoter of this deplorable policy.
We do not have to go back very far in order to find the Court of Justice ruling of 12 May 1998, which ousted a whole series of budgetary headings that had been put forward by the Commission without a legal basis.
Some of these headings, such as the poverty programmes, had even been undertaken when the Council had formally opposed them.
Such behaviour, in contempt of the rule of law, is a direct result of the Commission's sense of superiority towards the nations that make up the Council. The inevitable consequence of this is fraud, and this is the reason for our motion of censure.
The European institutional system has, for a long time, declared the Commission to be the guardian of an interest that is above that of the nations.
It has refused to allow the Commission to be monitored, and has used a lack of transparency as a deliberate strategy for achieving integration, and through its central figures has moved around considerable sums of money.
A haven for fraud, corruption, waste and nepotism has therefore been created in Brussels, and what was bound to happen has happened.
A sordid little world has been built up around the Commission, where influences are traded, far away from the concerns of citizens.
We are appalled to see that this little world has been granted considerable powers in initiating legislation and managing Europe.
We want to put an end to this system and give the control of the European institutions back to the nations.
Mr President, in legal terms, the censure was not passed, but in political terms the vote of no confidence is evident.
I voted for censure.
I had difficulty doing so, and it was done with regret and against my instincts.
I did so, not out of a desire to take part in a witch hunt, and in this respect I regret that Mrs Cresson was too quickly assigned the role of scapegoat.
I did it for political reasons, because, at a time when enlargement means that the institutions need to be strengthened, the scenario arrived at by Mr Santer and Mrs Green causes us to turn our backs on that reinforcement.
The Commission prefers the tutelage of experts to real parliamentary monitoring and Parliament is surrendering its monitoring powers temporarily, but once again, and it goes on, from one temporary surrender to the next.
I regret, Mr President, that the Commission and some groups have taken part in this game.
It is because I want strong European institutions for a strong Europe that I voted for this censure.
D66 is in favour of a strong Commission and a strong Europe.
As Mr Nordmann just said, it was difficult for us to vote in favour of the motion of censure.
This Commission has relinquished its independence by placing its future in the hands of a committee of experts.
We do not wish to be associated with those of our colleagues who are against a strong Europe, which is why it was so hard for us to vote in favour of the motion.
Nevertheless, the question now is how Europe can become stronger. With a weakened Commission that will be unable to provide any real impetus over the next few years, or with a new, dynamic Commission?
This was why D66 voted in the end in favour of the motion, but let there be no mistake about it, we want to see greater democracy, greater authority and greater power in Europe, and not weaker European institutions.
Mr President, the French Socialists refuse to grant a free rein to Jacques Santer's Commission.
Throughout this crisis of confidence between the European Parliament and the Commission, the French Socialists have firstly tried to secure the collegiality of the Commission and observance of the presumption of innocence.
Pigeon shooting is not a method of parliamentary monitoring.
They have also tried to show their unity and to find the basis for the widest agreement possible within the Socialist Group.
The French Socialists deplore the fact that the President of the Commission took so long to express the solidarity of the college and to make proposals to Parliament in terms of methods to improve the management of the Commission.
They deplore that we had to reach this degree of confusion before the President of that institution finally realised the scale of the malfunctions in the institution for which he was responsible.
What lessons can we draw from this crisis? The fight against fraud, corruption and irregularities must be pursued with determination, and the means of doing this must be strengthened.
The collegiality of the Commission must be consolidated.
It is the guarantor of Community integration and the foundation of a common administrative culture.
Otherwise, whoever had a majority at any given time could choose whichever Commissioner they liked as a whipping boy to fit in with their electoral calendar.
The Commission must have at its head a strong political figure.
Today political union is paying for the mistake made by the Council, which, under pressure from the British Conservatives, agreed to nominate a weak President.
I will now conclude, Mr President. It would have been absurd for the Socialists to have used the strongest political weapon at their disposal in this vote.
We have significantly contributed to limiting the damage. There is still a long way to go.
The resolution that we have just passed opens the way for this, but the Socialists would like to merit this crazy escalation of events with having revealed the urgent need for a reform of the institutions of the Union before any enlargement can take place.
Mr President, while I am very critical of the Commission's way of working, I have abstained, along with other colleagues in the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, from the vote on the resolution on discharge for the 1996 financial year and on the motion of censure because I do not agree with any of the texts presented.
Mr President, it was my unshakeable European conviction that made me vote for censure of the Commission.
Indeed, I feel that the crisis situation brought on by the Commission itself, with the support of the Socialist Group, demands a vote of no confidence in order to safeguard the institution.
This vote is justified especially by the fact that the Commission did not comprehend, or is comprehending too late, the following reality: the Maastricht Treaty and the future provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam make the European Parliament into a true political institution which has a duty to assume its political responsibilities.
President Santer's proposals aimed at improving the transparency and the running of the Commission come too late and at a time of crisis that does not allow us to evaluate them objectively.
The monitoring committee set up by paragraph 1 of the text of the Socialist resolution is placed under the tutelage of the Commission and of Parliament. That is unacceptable.
The ultimate priority today was to re-establish in the institutional balance the authority of an institution that is, when it is in agreement with the European Parliament, the driving force behind progress in the European Union.
This Commission has a duty to be strong, united, independent, respected by the Council, by Parliament and by the citizens of Europe.
Each of us should now, at the end of this debate, ask ourselves the following question: have I, through my attitude, really contributed to the progress of the Union?
My vote responded clearly to that challenge.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, over the last few days, and again today, there has been an enormous amount of tactical manoeuvring which has dominated the behaviour of the leading political figures in Parliament.
This has somewhat obscured the fact that a motion of censure is actually a very simple question. The question is: do the elected representatives of the people still have sufficient confidence in the leadership of the central executive body of the European Union?
The answer to this question has to be either yes or no.
And in my opinion, anyone who listened to Mr Santer on Monday, anyone who has listened to him in recent weeks and has witnessed his behaviour here today, is bound to conclude that given the important tasks ahead of us we can no longer have faith in the leadership abilities of this Commission and its President.
That was what Parliament needed to make a decision about, not about tactical trickery.
This is also the overwhelming view of my social democrat colleagues in the Federal Republic of Germany.
That is why we could see no alternative but to fulfil our parliamentary duty and tell the central administrative institution of the European Union that it is not people who express a lack of confidence who cause an institutional crisis, but people who fail to carry out their distinguished and important duties fully and adequately.
The leader of my group has told us that she has withdrawn the motion of censure submitted by the Socialist Group.
That is not correct.
The motion was submitted by individual members of the Socialist Group. I would like that to be minuted.
Mr President, it was with some regret that I voted for the motion of censure against the Commission.
But given the current legal position I had no other choice, as there are people in the Commission, such as Mrs Cresson or Mr Marín, whose behaviour and character indicate that they are not fit for their job.
I would like to emphasise that my vote was not directed again President Santer, for whom I have the greatest respect.
Today's events have demonstrated that there is still an unfortunate lack of democracy in Europe's institutions. We need to reform these institutions if Europe is to make real political progress.
The Tindemans Plan provided us with a model that is just as relevant to the current situation as it was all those years ago.
So we do not need to conduct a great deal of research or set up token committees of wise men in order to achieve a substantial reform in the near future.
That is the task facing Parliament in view of today's events. In this way, in the not too distant future it will be possible - God willing - for a united and enlarged Europe satisfactorily to accomplish its task not only on behalf of the people of Europe but also in the interest of world peace.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my group is divided, as all the groups are to a greater or lesser extent.
I cannot therefore speak on its behalf. However, I can speak, I believe, on behalf of approximately half of the Members of my group who voted against our own group's resolution, supported the Socialist resolution and voted against the motion of censure.
I must begin by calling on Parliament to have a little modesty.
Last night, at 9 p.m., a debate was opened here on an own-initiative report by my friend and fellow countryman, Mr Areitio.
Mr Van Miert responded for the Commission.
Ladies and gentlemen, do you know how many Members were here in this Hemicycle with Mr Areitio at 9 p.m. last night?
There were none. Can this Parliament therefore cast the first stone?
Moreover, can we cast an individual stone at any of the Commissioners when we know perfectly well that the College of Commissioners is exactly that, a college, a single unit, and that - whether we like it or not - those are the rules and we have to respect them?
There are obviously a lot of things that need to be put right.
And I believe that the Commission, presided over by a man of honour, Mr Santer, will keep its promises and make the necessary changes to a system of management that, as we know, is far from perfect.
There was a time when certain Israelites - those in the Bible, not the Israelis - wanted to demolish the temple, and they succeeded in doing so.
But the cost of this was that the Philistines and Samson died.
As I said to my group, the Philistines are of no importance to me, neither those in my group nor in the others.
And Samson is scarcely of any concern to me.
However, what does matter to me is the survival of our temple that has cost us so much to build.
Mr President, I voted against the motion of censure, remembering that Talleyrand said that all that is exaggerated is insignificant.
After the vote on the firm resolution on an in-depth reform of the administrative culture - and I hope, not only that of the Commission, but also that of Parliament, for example - after the undertaking, which was just as firm, by President Santer to deal with all the cases of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism so that those responsible can be punished at whatever level, voting for censure would be exaggerated.
I am happy to see that reason and a sense of responsibility have triumphed and that, along with them, Europe has triumphed.
The Santer Commission has indeed taken on its political responsibilities.
It has indeed completed the introduction of the euro and I hope that after the shocks that the euro has already undergone in the last few days, for which certain sorcerer's apprentices in this Parliament and their political policies are responsible, I hope that after this vote the euro will once again become a strong currency serving the citizens of the Union.
The Santer Commission has submitted Agenda 2000 to us.
It is up to this Parliament to deal with these important Agenda 2000 proposals, on which the welfare of hundreds of millions of Europeans depends, and which should concern us a lot more than the nepotism of which Mrs Cresson and others are accused.
The Commission is stronger, having come through this test. I congratulate it.
I give it my renewed confidence, and I say that, today, it is Europe that has won.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what were we supposed to do?
What have we done? We were not supposed to vote for censure, because the motion at the root of this entire turmoil was tabled with an explicit aim: to grant the Commission our confidence.
What have we done? We have done three things.
Firstly, we have not voted for censure, but we have not granted our confidence.
In this House an absolute majority of Members that had confidence in the Santer Commission could not be found.
The Commission engaged in a diabolical process, at the end of which it has not gained our confidence.
Moreover, we have made the cowardly decision to prolong the torture instead of executing the Commission.
That is not a brave thing to do. It is not in accordance with the authority of the institutions.
Finally, the most cowardly thing of all is that we have decided to leave it to others to administer the torture.
We have therefore both weakened the Commission and refused to exercise our own prerogatives.
Today is a day of mourning for the institutions of the European Union.
Mr President, I did not vote in favour of censure, unlike most of the French members of my group.
It seems to me that this motion of censure aimed to interrupt the process of refusal of discharge when it was tabled by Mrs Green.
She played with fire and the political coup that she had plotted was skilfully stolen away from her by Hervé Fabre-Aubrespy.
I am too old for these little games and, what is more, I no longer find them amusing.
This is why I did not join in with the 'Villierite' manoeuvre that was guided more by a rejection of Europe than by any other motives.
A fortnight after the launch of the euro, our Parliament and our Europe deserved more.
Despite this, the Commission is not being let off without giving us what we are due, and continuing the discharge procedure will now be its priority.
This why I am now giving it an appointment with us in March, and I hope that this time it will be able to answer the questions that we have put to it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I will not seem like a bad loser if I say that this was an own goal.
All the complications and mess that came to light over the 1996 discharge were supposed to be swept away by means of a vote of confidence, but there has not been a vote of confidence.
I too see a committee of wise men as a poor substitute.
We must take this opportunity to make sure that this Commission - which I have already heard described in the corridors as a 'dead man walking' - now at least does whatever is necessary to achieve what Mr Martens rather pompously promised us here: an end to bureaucracy and technocracy.
If Parliament had not voted in such great numbers to express its lack of confidence, the Commission would have sat back and said it was just a storm in a teacup.
That is why I am glad - and I thought long and hard about this - to have supported this initiative and that we have effectively had a vote of no-confidence.
I would like to stress once again - and Mr Berthu can confirm this - that the aim of this initiative was to ensure a strong Commission and a true parliamentary system for Europe, and to make sure that we stop resorting to technocratic and bureaucratic practices, combined with a lack of transparency, to hush up shortcomings in Europe.
Lack of transparency is the real cardinal sin, though this does not mean that we can afford to be complacent about nepotism, mismanagement and fraud.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, where do we stand now? 232 Members have voted for the motion of censure, and 27 have abstained.
So in principle, 260 Members of this House have refused to express their confidence in the Commission.
We should not lose sight of that, that is the real message.
I find it totally unacceptable that Mr Santer steered the debate towards talk of reform of administrative structures, smaller private offices, and organisational change.
What is really at stake here are the personal failings of two Commissioners: Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín.
We are talking here about nepotism and about accepting responsibility for one's actions.
And that is precisely why I and many others have refused to express our confidence in the Commission.
What will happen next, I wonder?
The Commission cannot ignore this vote.
Surely we will not carry on as if nothing has happened?
I am pleased that the CDU/CSU group in the European Parliament unanimously supported this vote of no confidence.
The Socialist Group wants to cover up the Commission's actions.
I cannot emphasise that - and criticise it - too strongly.
However, one thing has certainly come out of this vote - the relationship of the institutions towards each other has changed.
We should not forget this, despite our disappointment that there was not a majority in favour of the motion of censure. It means that the CDU/CSU Members in this House made the right decision.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as a co-signatory of the motion of censure I of course voted for it and I believe that the large number of Members who supported the motion - about 40 % - makes it clear that the Commission no longer has the support of a broad majority.
The Commission has been wounded by this debate, and politically speaking it is dead in the water.
The fact that there was in effect a grand coalition between the majority groups makes the large number of Members who supported the motion of censure all the more significant.
Considering that in comparison with the BSE motion of censure the number supporting the censure vote has almost doubled, there is every reason to claim that confidence in the European Commission has eroded.
It seems that the European Parliament has taken two steps forward and one step back: having launched itself into the air like a roaring tiger, it has come down to earth again with a sad bump. It is regrettable that the European Parliament has relinquished its right of control to a 'committee of experts', thus depriving itself of its own rights.
I hope that will not mean that the European Parliament loses credibility, and I particularly regret the tactical manoeuvring of the majority groups.
Although there was wide support for the motion of censure, this is not the place for detailed discussion of the role of the committee of wise men - today should have been a day of political reckoning.
So as a co-signatory I am satisfied with the outcome of the motion of censure, which I think has given the Commission a great deal of food for thought.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the National Front, we are voting for censure of the European Commission, due to the irregularities in management of which it has been accused by Parliament and which it has disregarded.
I will nevertheless add that I did in fact sign the motion of censure, along with Mr Mégret and Mr Le Gallou, at the express request of Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, who then decided to withdraw our signatures without consulting us, an action which I publicly deplore.
Moreover, I would like to note that the Christian Democrats of the PPE and their allies, along with the Socialists, make up a real block that supports the Commission in and against everything.
We are well aware that this outrageous alliance between those who claim to be right-wing and those who say they are left-wing gives the Commission a theoretical majority.
In my opinion, this is a failure for democracy.
Europe is revealing itself as what it is: a technocratic and oligarchical organisation.
In such a Europe, the interests of citizens, and thus of taxpayers, are censured to some degree.
By not censuring the Commission, I feel that the majority of this Parliament has in fact chosen to censure the interests of the people, and notably those of the French people. Obviously, I deplore this.
The current motion of censure has as its direct cause the refusal by Parliament to grant discharge for 1996.
With this House having decided to refer the whole matter back to the committee responsible, I feel that the tabling of this motion of censure is premature.
Furthermore, the Commission has put forward a programme with an appropriate timetable to tackle the problem of fraud in cooperation with our own Parliament.
Added to this, as I do not agree with accusing individual Commissioners without an in-depth investigation into their guilt, I could not in all conscience vote for the motions of censure that have this intention.
Finally, Europe is at an extremely important stage.
Following the introduction of the euro, we are now facing the challenge of Agenda 2000, the reform of the CAP, enlargement and the Structural Funds, all of which are of enormous importance, particularly for the cohesion countries.
In order to ensure calm and stability and to avoid an institutional crisis, I have voted against the motion of censure.
The Luxembourg Socialist Members of the European Parliament supported the Commission, while expressing their criticisms and their serious concerns regarding the management of certain financial and administrative affairs.
It is for this reason that we welcomed the eight-part plan presented to Parliament by President Santer on Monday.
The measures for financial and administrative reorganisation advocated in the Socialist resolution are along the same lines as the plan put forward by the President of the Commission.
This is why we clearly and plainly rejected censure of the Commission in order to affirm its mandate.
If we want the Commission to improve its management, we need to give it the time to do so.
Unlike some, who took advantage of the vote on discharge in order to weaken the Commission, the Socialists have always insisted on the need for a Commission that remains strong and operational right to the end of its mandate.
The Socialist motion of censure was a motion of confirmation of the Commission.
President Santer had himself requested it, the day before the vote on discharge, in December, in order to clarify relations between Parliament and the Commission.
Without this political initiative on the part of the Socialists, the measures announced by Jacques Santer would never have seen the light of day.
Moreover, the debates on this motion have led to the formation of a coalition in the European Parliament that is hostile to the Commission.
This incongruous coalition goes from the CDU and the Bavarian CSU (whose vice-president signed the motion of censure from the anti-Maastricht right), through the Liberals, to the Greens and the extreme right-wing.
Six months away from the elections, it wants to benefit at all costs from an unparalleled witch hunt that, through the most absurd rumours, is even affecting President Santer himself.
This irresponsible coalition has damaged not only the prestige of the Commission, but also the European Union itself, as a result of its extraordinarily relentless attack on a Commission whose political record, at the time of the introduction of the euro, is largely positive.
The vote of censure against the Commission is a political vote against lack of transparency, maladministration, bureaucracy, the democratic deficit, arrogance towards the European Union's citizens, and the networks of companies and consultants that feed like parasites on the Community budget which is financed by the European taxpayer.
It is a political vote for a strong Parliament in the European Union, which can intervene decisively and boldly in what is going on.
The intention of this vote is not to cast doubt on the trustworthiness of the Commissioners collectively or individually.
More particularly, I would like to take this opportunity to confirm our confidence in the Greek Commissioner, Christos Papoutsis, who has taken responsibility for areas in which in the past there have been major problems involving scandals and mismanagement, such as tourism and nuclear energy.
I voted for censure of the European Commission because, firstly, I feel that not doing so would mean granting them our confidence, which would be inconceivable, having seen the overwhelming number of cases of irregularities, fraud and malpractice that have been brought to light in various Community policies managed by the Commission.
I reject the trap of the Socialist text, which aims to do nothing less than exonerate the Commission of its serious errors and ensure that the executive remains in place, and I think that we should not hesitate to make the Commission face up to its political responsibilities, which it has so far cunningly shirked.
To vote for censure is to defend the credibility of the institution of Parliament, which has been treated with contempt by the Commission, the latter being more willing to give information to the press than to the committees of the European Parliament.
To vote for censure is, above all, to defend the interests of the citizens and the electorate of Europe, whose money has been misappropriated and squandered by a silent and secretive technocratic institution that has so far been incapable of doing its duty.
There is a great deal at stake. In my opinion, this is a decisive challenge that clarifies the debate.
We the undersigned voted against the motion of censure against the Commission, as it had not been shown that the Commission was guilty, in the discharge of its official duties, of any one particular action that might result in a call for resignations, although there is cause for comment with regard to its administration.
It is in accordance with Finnish interests that a properly functioning Commission continues to maintain the balance of power between the large Member States and the smaller countries in the final round of the Agenda 2000 talks, in which our country has important national interests to protect.
We nevertheless regard it as vital that the Commission should embark on measures, as requested by Parliament, to improve the administration of its finances and clarify individual responsibilities within the Commission.
Details of abuse and improper conduct must be brought to light and the parties concerned must be brought to justice.
The information that has been given to Parliament in the last few weeks, especially that given to the Committee on Budgetary Control, prevents me from maintaining my confidence in the political management of certain Commissioners.
Parliament has weakened itself by entrusting its task of monitoring the Commission to a committee of experts.
I abstained from the vote of confidence in the Commission as a whole because I cannot condemn an entire institution for the actions of a few within it.
Moreover, I cannot be a party to the political game being played by certain groups, a game which is dictated more by electoral interests in their regions than by an objective assessment of the situation.
If every crisis brings with it a chance of renewal, we can, through our attitude, force the Commission to put an end to malpractice and to excessive bureaucracy.
The June Movement and the People's Movement have only voted to name individual Commissioners because the largest group in the European Parliament said that it would only vote for its own motion of censure if there was a majority in Parliament in favour of criticising a named Commissioner.
There is a difference between blame and accountability.
You can have accountability without having blame.
The June Movement and the People's Movement do not have an opinion about who is to blame.
We leave that to disciplinary proceedings and the Court of Justice.
We are voting to censure the Commission as a college because the Commission is accountable and must accept responsibility for the fact that so much has gone wrong and will continue to go wrong.
If the political leadership does not accept accountability, then there is no accountability. The EU's budget would then become a matter of helping oneself.
The main problem is that Mr Santer and his colleagues are not leading, but are allowing themselves to be led into a muddle of waste, fraud and corruption.
Mr Santer is a prisoner in his own fortress.
The Personnel Commissioner is a prisoner.
The Director of Personnel is a prisoner.
Only a motion of censure will release the prisoners and create a new culture of openness, closeness to the people and democracy, instead of secrecy, arrogance and bureaucracy.
Mr Santer reacted firmly when he should not have done, but he was not firm when he should have been.
He sacked an official for giving a document to an elected representative.
He ought to have sacked the people who prevent elected representatives from obtaining what they ask for.
That is why the June Movement and the People's Movement wish to sack Mr Santer's Commission today.
The events of the last few months, which led the European Parliament to refuse discharge for the 1996 financial year, widely demonstrated a general lack of rigour in the management and monitoring of a number of Community initiatives and programmes.
This lack of rigour, which leads to waste and damages the interests and the image of the European Union, is in itself a reason to express our lack of trust in the Commission.
However, to this is added the Commission's politically unacceptable handling of the conflict with Parliament: a refusal to hand over documents, political cant, even arrogance, which reveal a culture of impunity that is present throughout the Commission.
Repetitive speeches from the Commission about transparency and the desire for 'open cooperation' with Parliament disguise an ever present reality.
There is often only transparency concerning widely-known issues and those on which Members have had to prise out information.
Cooperation is only rhetoric: we have lost count of the number of resolutions from Parliament that have still not yielded results, even when they have been adopted by a large majority, and Parliament is frequently kept at arm's length when it comes to burning issues such as transatlantic relations and trade agreements.
Some people cite the Commission's supposed efficiency in its role as the driving force behind the Union and the guardian of the Treaties.
The current Commission demonstrates varying levels of rigour: at the will of Mr Van Miert, it niggles over public aid and suspicions of distortion of competition, but it is more than reserved, if not silent, when it comes to implicating certain Member States.
For example, the attitude of the British Government in operation 'Desert Fox' is a violation of Article J of the Treaty, and with regard to the 'Echelon' affair, the Commission quite simply refuses to give an answer.
The current breaches in terms of management, transparency, coherence and political initiative are of a structural nature: it is the Commission as a whole that is in question and not only one or two Commissioners.
Those who talk about a political void in the event of censure are wrong.
It is true that it brings on a political crisis, but it is a useful crisis.
In fact, it is an illusion to believe that the Commission can still play a significant role in the various challenges with which the Union is faced (reform of the CAP and of the Structural Funds, the funding of the Union, enlargement) with the team of Commissioners currently in place.
The Santer Commission, which was already politically weak from the start, has lost its credibility and its authority!
The best thing it can do for the European Union is to go.
The European Parliament has the opportunity to send a strong signal to European public opinion by censuring the Commission: the time has come to admit that the European institutions are operating in an obsolete manner.
The time has come to make the European institutions, and particularly the Commission, whose hybrid status must be reviewed, more efficient and above all more democratic.
Censuring the Commission is not a solution in itself, but it is the necessary condition for change.
I voted for the motion of censure, because through his actions President Santer has undermined confidence in the Commission to such an extent that - regardless of the decision by Parliament today - it has made its position politically untenable.
It is incapable of acting with the strength required on the important issues currently on the European agenda.
As a Liberal and a devoted friend of Europe, I would like to use my vote to help restore the confidence of Europe's citizens in the EU institutions and the European idea.
My position does not mean that I deny that, in many ways, the Commission has done a good job and that the vast majority of the Commissioners are capable people deserving of respect.
It is therefore also my hope that the majority of Commissioners should be given the opportunity to fulfil their mandates by being confirmed in their office.
My hope therefore is that the Commission's President, Mr Santer, will soon be replaced by someone who can restore confidence in the Commission, and in the Union and cooperation in Europe as a whole.
Speaking on behalf of the EPLP and Alan Donnelly as its leader, we have absolutely no hesitation today in voting against Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion of censure against the European Commission.
Mr Santer has belatedly recognised that the Commission's procedures need drastic overhaul if the system that has enabled fraud, nepotism and corruption to have a much regretted place within the institutions of the Community is to be ended.
We also have a commitment from the President of the Commission that the allegations against contractors, officials and Commissioners will be vigorously investigated and prosecuted.
Today it would have been totally wrong for the Parliament to act as judge, jury and executioner in advance of such investigations.
Nevertheless, this is the beginning not the end of the process.
If the Commission's promised reforms do not turn into reality, and if the report of the Group of Wise Men is not followed to the letter, we give notice that our critical support today cannot be taken for granted in the future.
This vote is less a vote of a confidence than a final warning.
I voted against the motion of censure because I believe that my personal goal of efficient European administration and the concomitant economical use of budget resources can only be achieved if all the European institutions work together to create a new European-level administrative structure.
The undersigned members of the European Parliament are of the opinion that a motion of censure by Parliament against the Commission would have made it virtually impossible for the forthcoming Finnish Presidency to operate normally.
Censure would have led to the appointment of a temporary Commission for the rest of its term, that is, until the end of this year, and this would have had an immediate negative impact on the Finnish Presidency due to start this summer.
However, it should be emphasised that the suspicions of fraud, mismanagement and maladministration that surround the Commission provide grounds for justified and heavy criticism.
The Commission has dealt with the many incidences of neglect in a cumbersome way, while at the same time trying to cover up mistakes.
With the facts that have come to light we have not been able to declare our total confidence in the way the Commission goes about its important work and sees to its enormous responsibilities.
In view of the above we considered that it would be best for us to abstain in the vote on the censure motion.
At the same time we hope that Commission Members Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín will draw their own conclusions from the situation that has arisen and resign of their own accord.
We would further like to emphasise that the Treaty of Rome does not permit Parliament to vote on the issue of confidence in individual Members of the Commission.
The members of the Greek delegation in the Group of the European People's Party felt a sense of great responsibility in voting against the motion of censure that remained after the withdrawal of the previous motion by the European Socialist Party, which was a stillborn attempt to impress public opinion.
Under no circumstances, especially just as the euro has made its appearance amid high hopes, just as procedures connected with the historic necessity of enlargement are gathering momentum, just when there is a need to promote the CFSP, is it acceptable to generate an artificial institutional crisis and to weaken the Commission.
Only those who refuse to recognise that among the peoples we represent no distinctions are made between the institutional bodies, could rejoice at the authority of any one of the three being undermined.
It is the overall image of Europe that suffers if, without scrutiny of the facts, the reputations of prominent members are sullied and critical functions become tarnished by the breath of scandal.
In the confidence that this heavy cloud will soon disappear, as the President of the Commission has promised, the rejection of the motion of censure is a constructive vote which safeguards the control that the European Parliament has to exercise.
We supported the Liberal Group's proposal for Commissioners to be individually accountable, with the call for the departure of Commissioners Marín and Cresson.
However, the individual Commissioners have taken shelter behind the Commission as a whole, so it has not been possible to impose accountability on them.
The President of the Commission, Mr Santer, has not shown understanding of the criticism which has been made. Thus the Commission as a whole has assumed responsibility for all the criticism which has been directed at the Commission by the Court of Auditors, Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control and a large number of Members of Parliament.
We therefore voted in favour of the motion of censure against the Commission.
The failings and irregularities which have been discovered are now being put right, in the interest of everyone.
I have just voted for the motion of censure against the European Commission because of the incorrect, incompetent and scandalous manner in which two Commissioners have performed their duties.
In December, the Commission itself, in a flight of rhetoric, inappropriately dubbed the refusal of a majority in the Parliament to give it a discharge in respect of the 1996 budget as a 'crisis of faith'.
At the time of that vote, the leader of the Socialist Group, Mrs Green, gave notice of a motion of censure in the hope of effectively achieving a vote of confidence for lack of sufficient votes.
Her feeble tactics, including her theatrical withdrawal of the motion of censure today, will not be forgotten in the forthcoming European elections.
The two Socialist Commissioners who stand accused, Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín, have not acceded to the request that they should resign, which was supported by a large majority of the PPE Group and unanimously by the German group of Christian Democrats.
Confidence in the present Commission has therefore been permanently damaged, as demonstrated by the result of the vote, 232 to 293.
Mrs Cresson is responsible for the lamentable management of Leonardo, and for mismanagement of funds, nepotism and considerable irregularities in the commissioning of external consultants.
Similarly, Mr Marín has failed to demonstrate economical management and effective implementation of funds and financial control in accordance with regulations.
Neither has so far been prepared to accept full responsibility for their actions.
Furthermore, last week Mrs Cresson again repeatedly demonstrated her contempt for the European Parliament.
Her attempt to trivialise accusations of fraud and to portray herself as the 'victim' of 'conspiracies' originating in Germany is laughable.
The Commission has had time enough to root out these problems, as the European Parliament decided to defer the discharge back in March 1998.
So far, there has been no sign of any follow-up regarding the serious errors made in managing external policies such as ECHO, MED, PHARE and TACIS or the suspicions of corruption on the part of officials.
We have not been given a relevant list of all internal investigations on fraud prevention, and the European Parliament's democratic control has been hindered by documents being withheld, censored or forged.
During today's voting I also voted again the committee of wise men suggested by the Commission President in his eight-point plan.
We do not need an additional outside committee of inquiry that will not be able to complete its work in just a few weeks anyway.
I regret this majority decision, which is tantamount to the European Parliament depriving itself of its own rights.
In addition to the European Court of Auditors there is another powerful monitoring body, the European Parliament's own Committee on Budgetary Control. That committee is the place for financial investigations.
I am in favour of a strong European Commission, but it will only remain efficient and effective if it is cleaned up.
It would have been in the Commission's own interest to clear up irregularities, sack corrupt officials and protect those officials who are competent, conscientious and reliable.
It needs to reform itself from within by means of a code of conduct on the appointment of senior officials and appropriate staff regulations.
The culture of cronyism and hiding behind collective decision-making has to come to an end.
Every member of the Commission must be prepared willing to answer for his area of responsibility.
Our citizens have a right to expect a transparent, fair and hard-working Europe which manages the funds entrusted to it with due care.
They also have a right to expect Members of Parliament to exercise their control functions without resorting to party-political tactics.
I believe that the best interests of the European taxpayer are served not by sacking the Commission but by achieving serious and meaningful reform of the Commission's financial and personnel management.
The allegations are serious: financial irregularities, nepotism, cronyism and even fraud at the heart of the Commission.
In these circumstances Parliament must get at the truth, ensure mechanisms are put in place to rectify the situation and insist that any individual shown to be guilty of criminal activities is prosecuted.
The grand gesture of sacking the entire Commission will not achieve these objectives.
The Socialist proposal to appoint a committee of independent experts to examine how the Commission detects and deals with fraud, mismanagement and nepotism provides a basis for rooting out these unacceptable practices.
The President of the Commission's belated acceptance of the serious nature and extent of financial mismanagement in his services is welcome.
If Parliament and the Commission work together real progress can be made in 'cleaning up' the Commission.
If this does not happen the college of Commissioners will cease to have my support.
He who is not punished for a greater crime will be punished for a lesser crime.
Between 1989 and 1992, the European Commission blithely allowed Great Britain to poison millions of cows.
146 000 British cows were destroyed without Brussels batting an eyelid.
Contaminated feed continued to be in circulation, and the European Commission still said nothing.
Several tens of cases of Creutzfeldt-Jacob's disease were declared, condemning young Europeans because the cattle disease had perhaps been transmitted to humans.
In any case, the risk was knowingly taken to contaminate millions of human beings. This was done by the European Commission.
This health risk was taken by the Commission. Let us not mince our words: in this affair the Commission's attitude was more than negligent, it was an irresponsible and criminal attitude.
Yet the European Parliament did not punish the Commission.
The motion of censure of 20 February 1997 concerning mad cow disease was not passed.
Also, in 1992 the European Commission, going beyond its powers, did not hesitate to secretly sign the Blair House agreement with the United States, an agreement that sacrificed the agricultural interests of Europe and of our farmers.
There was no punishment in this case either.
On top of that, in the Central American bananas affair, the Commission in Brussels, on its own initiative, made a gift of 12 billion francs' worth of annual customs duties, to the sole benefit of three American multinationals: Chiquita, Dole and Del Monte.
No motion of censure was tabled, and there was not even a single sign of indignation.
However, for the 3.9 million francs of humanitarian funds for the Balkans and for two of Edith Cresson's friends, hidden away in her office, the European Commission is finally inciting disapproval.
Europe is a system in which the poisoning of cows leaves us cold, where we are indifferent to a gift of 12 billion francs, but where the quiet fraud of a good traditional Socialist and the good kleptomaniac habits of 1980s socialism provoke reactions, which this time are heated reactions.
This is confirmation of the principal that he who is not punished for a greater crime will be punished for a lesser crime.
But better late than never.
After all, Al Capone was only convicted of tax fraud, after having escaped any punishment for murder, violence, robbery and organised crime.
Today is a watershed in the reform of the European Commission.
It was necessary to threaten the Commission with the sack in order to ensure that Parliament's demands for more scrutiny of budgetary procedures and financial management were met, and to force the Commission to undertake a root-and-branch review of the Commission's management of taxpayers' money.
There can be no tolerance in the Commission of fraud, corruption or financial irregularities.
President Santer has accepted reforms proposed by the leader of the EPLP, Alan Donnelly.
In particular, a panel of experts to scrutinise finances will provide for ongoing rather than retrospective scrutiny allowing a rapid response to any irregularities.
This will begin the process of restoring public confidence, but we have to acknowledge as must the Commission that this has been a real crisis of confidence and that strenuous efforts must be made to overcome the credibility gap.
As Labour's regional spokesperson, I will be calling for a standing item on the Committee on Regional Policy's agenda on budgetary implementation and scrutiny, and look forward to working closely with the Commission on monitoring funding under European regional grants so as to ensure transparency and accountability.
To have voted for Mr Fabre-Aubrespy's motion of censure to sack the Commission today, at the critical juncture when the Commission needs to be capable of taking major decisions on Agenda 2000 and reform of regional grants, could have thrown this decision-making process into paralysis.
This would have jeopardised timetables and led to potential delays for future European programmes.
It would be irresponsible to leave our needy regions in Britain with uncertainty and insecurity over future grants.
Our demands have been met and now it is our duty to see the Commission pledges and rhetoric translated into action.
I stress this is only the beginning of a process of stricter and more rigorous financial control and accountability.
Today's vote constitutes an unprecedented political rejection of the Commission, even though the majority for censure could not be achieved, although only by a few tens of votes.
This is the first time that a motion of censure has obtained such a high score.
Despite the manoeuvres of the two main groups in the European Parliament that were completely opposed to censure, 232 Members (out of the 552 who are present), including all the French Communist and allied Members, and the great majority of the GUE/NGL Group, voted for censure.
This demonstrates the strong discontent that is developing in the Union with regard to the ultra-liberal choices, the excessive role and the arrogant practices of the Commission.
The GUE/NGL Group also wanted to outplay the manoeuvres from the right-wing, attempting to release the Commission from its responsibilities by solely accusing two Socialist Commissioners.
In support of the new situation, we will continue to work towards a progressive reorientation of European construction and for transparency and democracy within the institutions.
The reason that I am voting today for censure of the Commission, as I also did at the time of the BSE crisis, is to express a precise political position without discrediting any one Member of the Commission, which is not our responsibility.
The relentless manner in which accusations have been made against individuals could almost lead me to withdraw from this debate, but my political responsibility demands that I take a clear position.
The Commission has on three occasions demonstrated its inability to deal, transparently and in the interests of European citizens, with such fundamental and varied issues as BSE (public health), international relations (the GATT, NTM, MAI and P&T agreements) and the budget (on several occasions).
It seems to me to be incoherent and dangerous for the future of European construction to continue to give our confidence to a Commission that is unceasingly arrogant on a day to day basis, but which says it is sorry and promises to change when sparks fly, without ever fulfilling its promises.
I do not want to grant political confidence to an institution that is too often only concerned with ultra-liberal aims, in contempt of the aspirations and needs of the citizens of Europe.
Parliament has an important investigative role with regard to the work of the Commission.
If Parliament is unwilling to grant a discharge for 1996, it is logical that the question of censuring the Commission should be raised. And that is what has happened.
The arrogance with which the President of the Commission has received Parliament's criticism is incredible and unacceptable.
Using suspension to punish an official who has provided Parliament with information about the Commission's unwillingness to get to grips with fraud and corruption does not demonstrate the openness which is needed to gain the confidence of the citizens of Europe.
The reports of nepotism do not strengthen confidence in the Commission in any way.
An independent investigation of the reports of corruption, fraud and nepotism is essential, and the Commission's work needs to be substantially improved.
In fact, we have no confidence in the President of the Commission.
Regardless of the outcome of the vote on the motion of censure, the Commission has been seriously weakened in political terms through its own actions.
By rejecting the motion of censure tabled by 70 Members from all political standpoints, the European Parliament has covered up the fraud and serious irregularities in the European Commission, and has therefore lost all credibility in the eyes of its citizens.
In an attempt to protect two Socialist Members of the European Commission, the Frenchwoman Edith Cresson and the Spaniard Manuel Marín, the Socialist party, as usual, has made itself an accomplice to the dishonest - or even the mafiosos - and has taken the actions of the Brussels bureaucrats a little further away from the interests of the nations and of the people.
On this occasion, the National Front has unanimously reaffirmed its vocation: to defend the interests of our native countries and the freedom of the peoples of Europe and in particular of the French.
I voted against the PPE Group's resolution and for the PSE Group's resolution for the simple reason that my group's resolution would have destabilised the Commission at a time when Europe is in need, not of additional problems, but of strength and courage to overcome problems.
I voted for the Socialist resolution because it asks for a committee of inquiry to shed light - as quickly as possible - on the fraud and unscrupulous actions committed in the Commission.
This resolution also takes up the arguments that led Parliament to refuse discharge on the budget in December.
President Santer and the large majority of his Commission have my complete confidence.
I have no doubt that the warning has been heard and that the admonishments from Parliament and the Court of Auditors will be followed up with actions.
Jacques Santer has promised to clean up his Commission, and that is why I rejected the motion of censure.
I want to give the Commission the opportunity to correct its mistakes, to make those at fault face up to their responsibilities and to emerge stronger from this crisis.
With this vote, I am expressing to President Jacques Santer the confidence I have in him and my confidence in the building of a strong, transparent and democratic Europe, a Europe that will know how to avoid fraud and malpractice in the future.
What we are voting on indirectly is to grant the Santer Commission discharge for 1996, so I shall be voting for the discharge and thus expressing confidence in the Commission presided over by Jacques Santer.
This has been a difficult decision for me too, as the European Court of Auditors' report quite rightly drew attention to the sloppy way certain Commissioners and some of their officials carried out their work.
However, Jacques Santer is not to blame for that, as with the best will in the world he cannot intervene in his Commissioners' individual departments.
However, it has to be said that the European Parliament has repeatedly called on both the European institutions and the national authorities to manage the money entrusted to them more carefully.
Unfortunately, the President of the Court of Auditors has once again reported that the Community lost billions last year because individual administrative units failed to cooperate satisfactorily.
But in this case it is not the Commission we are calling upon to discharge its duties properly, but rather the individual Member States, who have failed to equip their administrations so as to enhance European cooperation.
Although the European Court of Auditors and the European Parliament have repeatedly called for improved and more rapid checks, it is obvious that the Member States do not have the will to act here.
Remedial action is called for.
This cannot be achieved by sacking the Santer Commission.
Of course, it would have been in the interest of the Commission as a whole if a couple of Commissioners had accepted political responsibility for their actions, but as they have not done so, we shall in future have to find a way of avoiding a cliff-hanging censure vote potentially leading to the removal of the entire Commission.
As the supreme monitoring body, Parliament should be given the right to fire individual Commissioners and officials who do not carry out their duties in the general interest, even if this does not suit certain governments.
If we cannot achieve this, then I feel sorry for any future Commission President, as the present system, with all its faults, will go unchanged.
All the more so in view of the enlargement of the European Union, which will certainly not make matters any easier.
Furthermore, the European Parliament will not in future be able to opt out of exercising its absolute control function.
In the hope that this will never be necessary again, I shall, as I have already said, vote to grant discharge to the Commission under Jacques Santer.
We voted in favour of the motion of censure against the Commission. We did so on the basis of the responsibility we have assumed as representatives of the citizens of Sweden and of the rest of the Union.
We tried to disregard irrelevant, party-political considerations.
We cast our votes in order to facilitate the fundamental reforms which could create a credible and honest administration in the Union.
The credibility of the current Commission has been seriously damaged.
The financial mismanagement has been allowed to prevail for far too long.
The Commission President's promises of improvements, which were given under strong political pressure, cannot revive our confidence.
The inability - and to a large extent unwillingness - to get to grips with the mismanagement has persisted for much too long.
The scale of the mismanagement has been extensively documented, first and foremost through the Court of Auditors' investigations, and most recently in the report from our Committee on Budgetary Control (the Bösch report).
A complete change in the patterns of behaviour is therefore required.
Our position is based on the fact that the Commission has collective accountability.
Our vote does not cast a shadow over the many conscientious and honest officials to be found in the Commission's services.
We express our solidarity with Paul van Buitenen, whose actions are evidence of this.
However, we are convinced that only a new Commission can restore confidence in the institution and implement the structural reforms, the new set of rules and the openness which the situation demands.
For the first time in the history of our Parliament, a motion of censure against the European Commission has obtained a number of votes which is close to a simple majority, and these votes come from all the political groups and all the Member States represented in the House.
The extent of this vote of no confidence, which gained 232 votes in the only real motion of censure, which was tabled on the initiative of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, powerfully demonstrates our people's rejection of the way in which Europe is currently being run.
The repeated scandals that tarnish the Commission in all its fields of intervention are not a matter of chance: they are the result of a system that the Member States have allowed to develop, the structure of which breeds corruption.
This system could be considered to be an actual distortion of democracy, because the result of it is that the responsibilities entrusted by the people to the governments that they elect are in fact carried out, through the Commission, by subcontractors that are not monitored by anyone: consultancy firms, ad hoc service companies, and so on.
Yes, we do need to review the European institutions, but this review needs to be in-depth: that is what we mean when we talk about the need to build 'another Europe'.
We mean that we must put an end to this absurd process that involves the Member States relinquishing powers to a Commission that is so greedy for powers that it is incapable of exercising them.
The solution does not lie in unmonitored sub-contracting, which leads to wastage and fraud at the expense of the taxpayers in our Member States, nor does it lie in constructing a federal super-bureaucracy.
The fraud that we are discovering and condemning today is nothing more than the result of applying the federalist dogma of the Commission's sacrosanct independence from the Member States.
Under the cover of this 'independence', there has been a quite natural development of the habit of exercising uncontrolled power, a culture of non-transparency, nepotism and arrogance, a society in which there is connivance and complacency, and a contempt for the rule of law. It is a closed world, cut off from the people and from their representatives, and it thinks that it is allowed to do anything: in short, it is the opposite of democracy.
We therefore need to move towards a complete reorientation of European construction if we really want to put an end to this drifting off course of the institutions of the Union that is discrediting the very idea of Europe.
The Member States in the Council must forcibly regain control of the Commission.
Their past laxity, in thoughtlessly allowing a body to develop outside any control, by shirking their responsibilities and giving in to the Commission's bulimic appetite for power, has endangered the future construction of Europe.
In order to clean the Augean stables, there is today no path to take other than that of setting to work on a Europe that is truly democratic and transparent.
The current system has shown itself to be incapable of reforming itself and incapable of taking account of the desire for reform expressed by the European Parliament: we only have to look at what became of the conclusions of our first two committees of inquiry.
The Commission only finds the energy to condemn those within it that advocate transparency, from Bernard Connolly to Paul van Buitenen.
Obviously, the little plans concocted between the President of the Commission and the Socialist Group to set up not a parliamentary committee of inquiry, but a committee of experts, on the appointment of which the Commission will have a right of veto, are not the worst of the problems to be solved in order to enable us to break the deadlock that is currently blocking the construction of Europe.
I did not vote for the motion of censure but will be prepared to vote for a similar motion in future if the committee of independent experts reveals serious wrongdoing or mismanagement and if culpable Commissioners do not then accept their responsibilities.
To use one of the few political clichés that has not been used this week, the current Commission is drinking in the last chance saloon.
Today I voted to express confidence in the Commission, because my judgement was that the Commission's departure now would do more harm than good to the Union.
My decision was guided by the fact that the final negotiations on the budget, structural policy and agricultural policy should be able to be completed as soon as possible.
This is in Finland's interests, especially as far as agricultural policy is concerned.
The issue now is one of recognising responsibility and not of demonstrating power, which has wrongly become an issue for many Members of the European Parliament.
In order to continue the battle against abuses in the EU, to achieve a sound administrative structure and to move away from blaming others, the Commissioners should be personally accountable.
The struggle for a better and more open administration is the key.
That is another reason why I have given my support to the ideas in the resolution from the Liberal Group. It is also in line with the administrative reforms which have already started.
I also believe that the Commission has made substantial progress in cleaning up its administration.
The fact that mistakes have been uncovered is largely due to increased efforts to bring about a sound and healthy administration.
What has been uncovered is mainly mismanagement, and fortunately not many cases of fraud.
I abstained in the vote on the motion of censure in order to register my protest at the way the Socialist Group has handled the discharge for the 1996 budget.
The author of the report put forward an excellent proposal, now referred to as paragraphs 26 and 27 of the Elles report.
He suggested a work programme that the Commission would have to fulfil by certain predetermined dates, thus allowing Parliament both to keep the debate open and to demand that the Commission put its house in order.
The Socialist Group wanted to close the debate and tabled a motion of censure which it itself was not prepared to vote for.
The motion resulted in the over-politicisation of the entire issue and, even worse, produced a result that was weaker than the proposals in the Elles report.
The committee of experts is a capitulation by the European Parliament.
Things should not have been allowed to get this far.
The motion of censure tabled against the European Commission did not have adequate grounds.
The debates did not provide any new proof, any evidence, or any sound arguments.
I was therefore unable to vote in favour of the motion of censure.
Great political and institutional confusion has arisen.
Public opinion has received a very negative impression of the European institutions.
The same old anti-Europeans have made use of the occasion to damage the stability of the European integration project.
Consideration has not been given to an essential reality of the constitutional and administrative doctrine: that we must differentiate between the responsibilities of government and the responsibilities of administration.
We have also forgotten about the spirit and letter of the Treaty on European Union.
The European Parliament has the ability to monitor all the European Commission's activities on a daily basis.
This is one of Parliament's roles, which we carry out through oral and written questions and the periodic reports on the management of the European Union's activities.
Equally, the European Parliament has power to vote for a motion of censure to prevent the European Commission from continuing in office.
However, this crucial power must be used to assess serious incidences of negligence in the Commission's essential institutional responsibilities, which, basically, are its ability to initiate legislation and its responsibility as guardian of the Treaties.
Throughout the world, public opinion is aware that in recent years, the European Union has reached a high level of development and achieved some revolutionary goals.
The launch of the single currency has been a vital success.
The launch of negotiations to enlarge the European Union to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will lead us to a united Europe, a revolutionary institutional model and a factor for global peace and prosperity.
The debate on Agenda 2000 is also underway and will put Europe in a position to face the challenges of the next seven years successfully.
Give all these successes, it would be irresponsible to censure the European Commission, which is undeniably the driving force behind the Community institutions.
This does not prevent us in the European Parliament from continuing with our task of strictly monitoring all the Commission's activities, and this includes the demand to improve its management structures.
I personally have been calling for changes in the Commission's procedures for the last 12 years.
Among other proposals, we have been asked to approve rules on administrative procedure and administrative justice, an area where there is a great vacuum in Community legislation.
These rules will provide legal certainty for citizens, as well as increasing efficiency and transparency.
At the same time, they will be an essential instrument in tackling the problems in the economic and administrative management of the European Commission. They will also allow us to distinguish, with legal certainty, between the economic and administrative responsibilities and the major political and institutional responsibilities, to which the final and most serious response is the motion of censure.
The sitting was suspended at 12.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Mr President, in order to clarify procedure for the future, I would like to request that you ask the Committee on the Rules of Procedure on the basis of which Rule the sitting was based just now in agreeing that the motion of censure tabled by the Socialist Group, and therefore signed by at least 63 Members, be withdrawn from the vote.
In my opinion, if this motion of censure had been retained, it would have gained more votes than the one on which we voted.
I would therefore like to know on which of our Rules of Procedure the withdrawal of this motion of censure, with more than 63 signatories from the Socialist Group, was based.
Thank you, Mr Happart.
I have noted your statement, which will be forwarded as you request.
Mr President, just to clarify the Agenda, I understand that we are now going to continue with the debate on the Van Lancker proposal, then move to the urgencies.
As someone who is a signatory to the urgency at point 5 on the Agenda, I should be glad if you would confirm that we are going to finish the Agenda, which simply means the vote is likely to be delayed by a few minutes rather than, as it were, losing an item of urgency which was, as you are well aware, lost from the Agenda last month for a similar reason.
There are people in the gallery who have come from the United Kingdom to hear this debate.
It would be rather absurd if they had to be told for the second month running: 'come back again next month'.
I realise the importance of the urgent item to which you are referring, Mr Ford, and I can confirm that our intention is to deal with all the topical and urgent subjects and then proceed to the vote, in other words to delay the vote on the urgencies so that all the items can be dealt with.
Article K.6 EU; Schengen cooperation (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the two oral questions to the Council and the Commission and the proposal for a recommendation by Mrs Van Lancker on the annual debate on Article K.6 of the Treaty.
Both the Commission and the Council are represented.
I should like to thank you for coming back this afternoon to fulfil your duty to the House.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I regret that this interesting debate and your equally interesting statement have been overshadowed by today's other events.
But I am grateful to you for staying on.
It is a very encouraging sign of the positive attitude of the Council presidency and the Council towards Parliament.
I have three points to make.
First, I am very grateful that you went into considerable detail on the subject of eastward enlargement. As Parliament's rapporteur on eastward enlargement and internal security, I of course think that these are pivotal subjects.
I have in mind not only the pre-accession strategy and the acquis communautaire , but also a series of measures ranging from jointly combating crime to Europol's eastward extension, which can be anticipated by means of agreements with the police in the applicant countries. I also have in mind the vital area of education and training, which requires some restructuring of the PHARE programme, but it has been possible to achieve a great deal already.
There are also two long-term objectives which I have mentioned in my report, and which I want to drawn your attention to.
One is the protection of Europe's future external borders.
I believe that we need to provide support measures to prepare for a common European border protection system, because I feel that we will need such a system in the long term.
I would also point out that we have proposed a European academy for internal security.
The Austrian Presidency was fairly receptive to this idea and I hope that you will seriously consider this project, which would be situated in the border area between the EU and the applicant countries.
Second, I would like to mention the topic of burden sharing.
We need an EU burden-sharing system with quotas for civil war refugees and asylum seekers.
The Austrian Presidency and the European Parliament have carried out some important preparatory work in this area too.
We will judge this presidency by the progress it makes in this field.
Thirdly, without wishing to spark off any internal policy debate, I would ask you to defer the sensitive subjects of citizenship law and thus of EU citizenship law in the individual Member States ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, for me the motion for a resolution and the report we are discussing lack a clear refugee perspective - and by that I mean the perspective of the refugees.
It is increasingly clear that the Dublin Convention and the Schengen Agreement are contributing to the creation of a brutal and restrictive refugee policy in western Europe.
We can already see the unreasonable effects of the Dublin Convention when the principle of the first asylum country is applied to countries which have different criteria for granting asylum.
People are passed around between countries and their applications are not dealt with properly.
We can see that one of the main real motives of the Schengen Agreement appears to be to use methods such as carrier liability, tough visa policies and excessive border controls to prevent asylum seekers from coming to the EU at all in order to be able to seek asylum.
Unfortunately, we can also see how this motion for a resolution defends the totally unreasonable document produced by the Austrian Presidency, which is one long attack on anything that represents a humane and responsible refugee policy.
It is about 'Fortress Europe'; it is no longer about taking responsibility for the asylum seekers.
Mr President, I would just like to highlight some of the many points which ought to be discussed.
The aim of Schengen is to bring about the freedom of movement of persons in the EU.
However, Schengen's rules are centred entirely on border controls, security controls and compensatory measures.
What message does this send to our citizens? Only a few articles are concerned with the positive aspect of freedom of movement.
This is not acceptable.
We also fear and are very concerned that Schengen could lead to a less generous and humane policy on refugees and asylum.
There are many things which point towards that.
That is why we are insisting that the UN's conventions on refugees should apply in all situations, even in the EU.
Schengen also has to be compatible with the intergovernmental Nordic Passport Union, so that freedom of movement in Scandinavia can continue and develop as it has done for 40 years.
It is therefore pleasing that the committee unanimously supports this.
As far as Schengen's integration into the Treaty is concerned, the negotiations must be open and involve both the European Parliament and the national parliaments. Access to information and documents must be made easier so that both politicians and citizens are able to participate.
The Greens are of the opinion that the Schengen Convention should be revised and amended, having regard to the principle of subsidiarity, various important basic rights and the legal guarantees designed to protect our citizens' personal safety and integrity.
We are concerned about the enormous demands which are being made on the applicant countries and their ability to meet the requirements concerning border controls, legislation and so on.
We are therefore calling for flexibility, responsibility and understanding on the part of the EU for the serious problems which these countries are facing.
Mr President, I shall be very brief.
On all the main points, I agree with the views expressed by my Swedish colleagues, Mr Sjöstedt and Mrs Lindholm.
There are two trends in the two proposals we are considering which are decisive for our group, for me personally and for the movement I represent in Denmark.
One is towards a strengthening of Parliament's power in these areas, which is taking place at the expense of the authority of our national parliaments, and the other is a drive towards integration and an almost imperialistic urge to dominate the world around us, not least Norway and Iceland.
We must oppose the trend to communitarise criminal law and all other areas of law, including police cooperation - in other words, the transfer of the third pillar to the first.
This is rash and ill considered.
It is an alarming development which runs counter to national legal traditions, especially the Danish one, which I support.
Mr President, I would first like to support the rapporteur's critical remarks about the timing of this debate, which is being held in the presence of representatives of a Council presidency just a few days old.
Our job is to assess the work done by the British and Austrian Presidencies.
Both initially presented a realistic programme and announced improvements in cooperation with Parliament.
In practice, however, things turned out somewhat differently.
Neither the spirit nor the letter of the promises made to us has been honoured.
Many of the decisions foreshadowed have been deferred, and in a number of areas unsatisfactory compromises have been reached.
The most striking example of the European Union's laborious progress is probably the slow start that Europol has got off to.
I would like to make one more point.
Paragraph 1(2) of the version of the Van Lancker report that I have before me seems to suggest that the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force a year ago - this must be one of those pre-cessions the President-in-Office was talking about this morning!
Mr President, it is not easy to say everything that needs to be said about these two important reports in just two minutes.
And I am also going to take a moment to mention the presence here of the Presidency-in-Office, as I believe it is important.
We all know that this does not happen often, although it should be a regular occurrence, and I hope that we will continue to have a Council presence during our debates.
As regards the Nassauer report, I only want to say that it seems to me to be an excellent report and I agree with its contents.
In terms of the report on Schengen cooperation, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his work, as it is a very difficult subject.
And I would thank him, in particular, for the way in which the vote unfolded in committee.
As far as the principles in the report are concerned, I must point out that neither the Schengen Agreement nor the Schengen Protocol establish a hierarchy between the values of liberty and security. Both of these must be respected together if Schengen is to meet the objectives for which it was created.
It has been said that the Schengen acquis is vague.
However, it is not vague; it is evolutionary, as it is constantly changing. This is the way it must be and must continue.
The Schengen acquis will continue to change right up until the last moment before it is incorporated at European Union level, and its Executive Committee will continue to do its job.
As a result, we cannot criticise the fact that its evolution may be marked by a certain degree of vagueness.
Secondly, Schengen represents a whole, and it must be incorporated into the Community acquis as a whole.
It cannot be divided up for fear of losing this marvellous instrument that has already guaranteed us freedom of movement within a common area, which is what it was designed for. And I should like to give you an example of this.
I have already mentioned that neither the SIS nor the Schengen Agreement establish a hierarchy of values between security and liberty and, with respect to the SIS specifically, a hierarchy cannot be established in terms of the importance of Article 96 or Article 95.
We cannot say that it is more important to draw up the list of foreigners than the list on the admission of terrorists.
That all forms part of a whole and must be incorporated as such.
Mr President, regarding Mr Nassauer's report on police cooperation and the development of EUROPOL, I was very pleased with what we heard from the German presidency in relation to the development of EUROPOL in the context of the newly ratified convention.
I agree entirely with what others have said here: if we are to see any significant further extension of EUROPOL into the operational sphere then we must ensure that there is a proper system of democratic accountability of its activity, involving an enhanced role for this Parliament, and indeed a proper system of independent complaints against any of its activities.
This is essential, just as it is for any national police force.
Above all, in this whole area of judicial and home affairs there is now an overwhelming need for extensive and rapid progress in harmonisation.
The minimal progress we have made in this area, compared with the headlong progress we have made in the financial, economic and many other spheres of Community activity, is now causing serious problems.
We need to do everything we possibly can to catch up in the areas of, for example, extradition, cross-border crime, judicial and court cooperation, including civil matters as the German minister outlined, and legislation regarding nationality and citizenship.
Let me give you one example: I am dealing with the case of a family where the mother is Irish, the father British, and their daughter was born in Holland, but for the last eight years they have lived in Spain - very European.
But this girl, who is now 13, has no nationality and only a temporary travel document issued as a concession by the Irish authorities.
We must be able to deal properly with the situation of people in these circumstances and not allow a situation to develop where children can be virtually stateless.
We must get to grips with this.
I fully support Mrs van Lancker's report.
It contains many excellent proposals.
I am glad that the amendments adopted at committee removed some of the mild criticism of the British and Irish position which was agreed at Amsterdam as regards non-participation, for a period at any rate, in the Schengen agreement.
I am sure that as time moves on the situation will change.
We need to be aware of the implications for the whole operation of the European Union of the fact that Schengen will contain two non-EU Member States when Icelandic and Norwegian participation is confirmed.
And the fact that two or three existing EU Member States will not be part of Schengen creates complications which will need to be resolved.
Finally, I was pleased at the references the minister made to the question of the applicant countries.
The Committee on Civil Liberties has had a valuable meeting with parliamentarians from these applicant countries to discuss the whole judiciary and home affairs area.
The influx of people seeking asylum from certain of these eastern European countries at the present time calls into question the situation in certain of these countries and makes it urgently necessary for them to introduce effective legislation to protect their ethnic minorities.
I very much hope that in the ongoing negotiations Council and Commission will ensure that the issue of human rights and the protection of minorities is given the urgent priority it deserves.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, it is true that the Treaty of Amsterdam improves the running of European policy on justice and home affairs.
However, for five years at least, that policy, for example on asylum, is beyond all parliamentary control.
National parliaments no longer have a say in the matter and the European Parliament's rights are limited to consultation only.
This is insufficient.
It is unacceptable that such an important field as domestic security should be beyond parliamentary control and decision-making and should not be a part of democratic transparency.
My second point concerns the fact that important acts are adopted by the Council of Ministers, and then nothing happens.
These texts, which are essential to the smooth running of the Union and to the security of our citizens, are not ratified and therefore cannot enter into force.
Mr Nassauer's report cites thirteen such texts, which are among the most important ones.
This amounts to a denial of political efficiency, and to absolute opposition to change.
In other words, in terms of the fight against crime, and asylum and immigration policy, we see a lot of declarations and few actions.
I am not questioning the good will of our leaders.
I am quite simply stating the political reality, which is not very positive, and I strongly urge the Council to draw lessons from this negative situation and ensure that, the next time the Treaties are reviewed, the structures are changed, as the current shortcomings of the institutions are preventing us from doing good.
Our citizens ask us to act, and often we want to but are unable to do so.
Mr President, Madam Commissioner, we all agree that the Schengen security system is quite simply essential if we are to achieve freedom of movement.
We should never forget that we can only enjoy freedom of movement if we continue to guarantee security for all our citizens, and if possible even increase it.
The facts demonstrate just how important the Schengen security system really is.
I requested some figures which show that there are approximately 30 000 successful searches made each year, totalling around 120 000 searches by the end of 1998.
That means that tonnes of drugs have been seized, thousands of stolen cars have been identified at the borders, weapons and stolen works of art have been seized, and thousands of illegal immigrant smugglers have been arrested, or, in the case of illegal immigrants, intercepted at the border.
So Schengen has led to an improvement in security.
This is also proof that the Schengen security system, as already implemented by 10 Member States, is sound.
I would go so far as to say that it is unique in the world, with 6 million data records on missing persons and stolen property, and controls at over 1 500 border crossing points.
So what further progress can we expect? I see the emphasis as being on three focal points, which I would like to single out.
First, now that we have seen how well Schengen can function, and how important it is for achieving freedom of movement, we should implement the Schengen Agreement in all our Member States and thus improve security for all Europe's citizens.
Second, we should offer more support to those Member States faced with tougher challenges, particularly in connection with migration, by means of help with border controls and also help with burden sharing.
Third, we should use the Pre-Accession Pact as a means of offering support to the applicant countries, as accession to the European Union is only possible if the security standards are met.
Mr President, it is understandable that many states in the Schengen zone have been undecided about accepting the institution of a passport-free area in its entirety.
There has been alarm over such issues as the easy transportation of drugs within the internal market, and spillage over the EU's external borders, which we have had some grim reminders of, especially in signs of organised crime emanating from the east.
The fact is that Schengen is not yet a fully workable system.
When the Treaty of Amsterdam takes effect it will bring with it important changes to the judicial status of the Schengen provisions, bringing them largely within the scope of the first pillar.
For this reason, solving the Schengen problems and dispelling the doubts of ordinary citizens will demand action on the part of this year's countries holding the presidency, Germany and Finland.
Security arrangements for travel within the Schengen zone may best be ensured through multi-level cooperation, whose key elements will comprise rapid exchanges of information between national authorities, the work of Europol, and highly developed customs information systems.
Because there will be no checks at borders within the zone, the so-called system of invisible surveillance must be effective enough to ensure that the enormous benefit of freedom of movement is not abused by criminal organisations and tax evaders.
There has to be a sustainable balance between citizens' freedoms and general considerations of security, a system that will maximise the advantages of free movement.
In recent opinion polls Finns said they thought one of the most important tasks during Finland's presidency would be the prevention of international crime.
This must be borne in mind when this issue is next discussed at the summit in Tampere.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would particularly like to thank those Members who have stressed in their speeches that Schengen is of course a two-part system.
On the one hand we grant our citizens the enormous privilege of freedom of movement, which clearly enhances their quality of life. However, this cannot be allowed to mean a loss of security, and that is why the second part is so vital.
I totally agree with what Mr Pirker said about what needs to be turned into reality.
I mentioned in my report that Germany will be the first country to submit itself to a review under the Schengen Implementation Agreement.
I also agree that we particularly need to help countries with special problems, as regards both burden-sharing and support for applicant countries.
Incidentally, we are not only doing that as part of our EU presidency, we are also trying to do this bilaterally, and in my capacity as Germany's Minister for the Interior, if you will allow me to mention this in passing, I am also holding various meetings with my colleagues from the applicant countries, with a view to progressing these matters.
Some of the comments I have to make now relate to speeches which we heard this morning, although I do not know if the Members present now were also here then.
The situation here today is a rather unusual one.
Various Members were not sure that the process of informing and involving the Parliament had been as good as it might be.
I think it is fair to say that there has always been an effort to honour the necessary obligations, and the German Presidency will certainly do everything in its power to comply with your wishes.
As far as Schengen is concerned, I would like to point out that we are providing information in accordance with traditional practice, and that we will certainly continue this tradition.
We are trying to do this in a wide range of forums.
My State Secretary last November gave the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs a detailed report on the Schengen situation, covering both integration measures and the forthcoming work programme, and I will certainly be attending the committee in Brussels myself next week in my capacity as minister to report further.
As to whether reports could be improved further, as I said this morning we are happy to take up the suggestion of publishing a written report at the end of the presidency.
I must, however, make it clear that we cannot synchronise publication of the report with the last Council meeting, it will have to be drawn up by the presidency. That is our intention, in any case.
As the presidency, we will honour this undertaking to present a written report.
That would no doubt also considerably facilitate your work in the House.
It will probably not be possible to present a report before the meetings, but I am more than willing to make an oral report after the formal Council meetings.
So I think that we can accommodate each other.
And with regard to the time-limits mentioned earlier, the three-month time limit has been adopted as the norm, and there is nothing we in our presidency capacity can do to alter that.
I was also asked if it is possible to judge whether Parliament's opinions have been sufficiently taken into account when decisions are adopted.
I could carp and say that the recitals which precede such decisions are too general.
But at the end of the day the position is no different to what you find in many other places: you can only really judge whether your ideas and suggestions have been taken on board or not by looking at the end result or the content of a decision.
I think that it would hardly be feasible to record who had an idea first or presented it most forcefully, to acknowledge authorship, so to speak.
Many problems arise because the situation is neither one thing nor the other.
Regarding the institutional deficit which various members touched upon, I do not dispute its existence, but I think we will have to cope with the situation as it stands.
Furthermore, I would like to remind you that in March we have an interparliamentary conference which is intended to prepare the ground for the Tampere special summit.
Given that there have been quite understandable complaints that adequate information on the action plan has not perhaps always been published in good time, then this would seem to be a good opportunity to reiterate comments made here in Parliament.
I would also like to point out that the next special summit is to establish whether the action plan is to be reviewed in Tampere, and this will be on the agenda of the conference in March.
I would like to emphasise once again that in 1998 Parliament was consulted 15 times and provided with information seven times on justice and home affairs matters, in the hope that some of the criticism expressed here could be tempered somewhat.
Some of you suggested that you had not been provided with full information on the Schengen Information System.
One Member asked if I could redress the balance with written information.
I am very happy to do that, Mr Chanterie.
As I have to adhere to the time limits that apply here, I hope you will forgive me for not going into full detail about the Schengen Information System.
Although it is always possible to generalise, specific issues can be of vital importance in this field.
If we weigh these various issues against each other, it emerges that there are certain fields in which national sovereignty plays an even greater part than in others.
In such cases it is important to see that justice is done to the overall picture.
We are certainly making an effort to arrange matters so that there is adequate democratic control, but I would say that our chances of achieving institutional reform within the six months mentioned here are not great.
In any case, on behalf of the German Presidency, I can only assure you that we will be very glad to comply with our duty of information, and I accordingly look forward to successful cooperation.
Applause
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
Mr Mendes Bota has the floor.
I am sorry, Mr President, but I must make a complaint regarding the fact that Portuguese was the only language for which interpretation was not provided during the speech by the President-in-Office of the Council. I find this totally unacceptable.
That is indeed completely out of order, Mr Mendes Bota, being both contrary to our Rules and unlike our excellent interpreters.
We shall look into it immediately so as to put things right.
In the meantime, my thanks again to the President-in-Office.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place this evening at 5.30 p.m.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0044/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Iraq; -B4-0059/99 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on future developments in Iraq; -B4-0079/99 by Mr Oostlander and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Iraq; -B4-0097/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Iraq; -B4-0098/99 by Mr Manisco and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on Iraq; -B4-0104/99 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the V Group, on Iraq; -B4-0105/99 by Mrs Aelvoet and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the Iraqi Kurds.
Mr President, during the last part-session, as you know, we held a very comprehensive and detailed debate on Iraq and the American and British air strikes.
Our present discussion is not intended as a repeat of that debate, but is designed to deliver the following clear message: in this House, among the European population and throughout the world there has been perfectly understandable criticism of the bombing raids by the United States and Britain.
That, however, does not mean that we either understand, tolerate or condone what Saddam Hussein and his regime are doing in Iraq, particularly to their own population.
Let me say quite clearly that the defence of the so-called no-fly zones in Iraq is absolutely necessary and warranted, especially for the protection of the Kurds and Shiites.
However widely opinions may differ on the events surrounding the air strikes, we are firmly behind the defence of the no-fly zones.
Secondly, the Kurdish organisations reached an agreement in Washington.
We in this Parliament wish to urge the Kurdish organisations to uphold this agreement, to set aside the argument that interests no one - except perhaps some Kurdish political leaders, but certainly not the Kurdish population and certainly not the Western world - to cooperate and to represent very clearly the interests of the Kurds.
Thirdly, we seek to draw attention to humanitarian issues, to the question of humanitarian aid for Iraq, especially the population of the no-fly zones.
In addition, we should do everything possible to ensure that the entire population suffers as little as possible from the policies of Saddam Hussein, from military actions and from the sanctions.
I believe that sums up our concern.
We want to help the population, not the regime. That is what we wish to re-emphasise today.
Mr President, this is the first time that we in the House have had a chance to comment on Iraq since the bombings last month.
My group regrets that the bombings were necessary, but under the circumstances we support the US/British action.
It was Saddam Hussein himself who flouted the UN resolutions, who refuses to allow UNSCOM to do its work, and who represses his own people and threatens his neighbours with his weapons.
It was Saddam Hussein who broke the agreement with Kofi Annan.
The bombings were right, and this sort of action could again be justified in future if the Iraqi leader continues down the same path.
We must uphold the UN resolutions, and we must uphold UNSCOM and ensure that it can continue its work.
Campaigns to undermine a just and consistent policy towards Saddam must be stopped.
If we give in to this dictator, we are not just undermining the international rule of law, we are also tolerating repression and threats.
The Union must adopt a hard line en bloc .
The no-fly zones must be maintained, and the people of Iraq must be helped, of course.
Saddam's policy of starving his people for his own political gain must be unmasked as the inhuman policy it is.
The Union must be prepared to send food aid if Saddam agrees to let his people be helped, but we must send it only through independent organisations.
Saddam must not be allowed to claim these measures as his own doing.
Mr President, I believe this resolution dwells rather too much on past events and does not focus on the fact that a new danger is looming.
It is perfectly clear that the provocations are starting again, that the actions by the Iraqi side, or rather Saddam Hussein's side, are continuing, with the result that there is a serious risk of war on the horizon.
Saddam Hussein does what he wants, showing utter contempt for everyone.
The very fact that he has spurned the 'food for oil' programme is itself clear proof that he does whatever he pleases with the Iraqi people.
One simple fact should not be forgotten: this man comes from the town of Tikrit and is only interested in the Tikrit tribe; all others are only slaves who are used as cannon fodder.
Saddam Hussein is essentially an Arab version of what Hitler was in our part of the world.
He has exactly the same personality profile and pursues exactly the same type of policy, which is why there will be no peace until he has been replaced, until a different government is at the helm.
Actions that signal a real will to replace him are therefore entirely justified.
That is why I have been critical of the air strikes, which are a futile gesture.
Missiles were fired, the people were terrified, but Saddam Hussein was not harmed; on the contrary, the air strikes gave him an opportunity to strengthen his position still further and aroused worldwide suspicion that the purpose of the whole escapade was to divert attention from certain embarrassing events in the United States.
I even saw in one of our newspapers that they were calling the missiles 'Monica'.
We should perhaps bring out that point more clearly in the resolution, or at least in the discussion on the resolution.
For that reason, if the House adopts the resolution, which is a good one, it should reject the three amendments, the only real purpose of which is to undermine and water down this resolution.
That is important if we want to send a clear message.
Mr President, let me do a rather unusual thing in the European Parliament and respond to the previous four speakers, not a thing that people often do.
All four of them, in different ways, criticised the US and British bombing of Baghdad last month.
I have to say to them: if you believe that, why is it not in your joint resolution?
We too should be condemning that bombing, as indeed most of the people of the European Union did when it happened last month.
As one of the speakers pointed out, it was mostly to do with American domestic affairs.
We in the Greens deplore the bombing.
As the speakers have said quite rightly, it strengthens Saddam Hussein, it does not weaken him.
The real policies to weaken Saddam are to back the democratic movements inside Iraq, to lift the sanctions, to help the people restore democracy.
That would be the quickest way of getting rid of Saddam.
Some of us have been around for a long time and have opposed Saddam from the start, when Christian Democrat and Socialist governments around the world were selling him arms and strengthening him.
Let us have a little consistency here in terms of historical perspective, something which Mr von Habsburg is certainly capable of.
Let us say that we should be maintaining our support for democracy.
In particular I want to deplore the role of the British Government in this.
Mr Blair again displayed, despite his warm words about Europe, his lack of commitment.
He is the man who is going around saying that we need a common European defence policy, but at the first sign of action from the US Mr Blair was there announcing his support for the bombing even before the US announced the bombing was happening.
If he is serious about a common foreign European defence policy then he has to demonstrate that by action as well as words.
As for the British Foreign Secretary who was previously a leading supporter of CND in Britain, it is a disgrace that he attaches his name and support to that action as well.
So let us support the Green amendments and let us mention the role of UNSCOM, which has been exposed as a conduit for the CIA.
Let us have an investigation into that issue, which needs to be dealt with before UNSCOM can go back to Iraq with any authority.
Mr President, all the main points have already been made by Mr Bertens as the person who signed the resolution.
I think that however much we may all regret that it has been necessary to take further military action against Iraq, it must be perfectly clear that the person most responsible is Saddam Hussein who, as previous speakers have said, ruthlessly continues to hold his people to ransom, as can be clearly seen from the way in which he blocked the oil for food programme, bringing further suffering for the Iraqi people.
That said, I would like to express our group's support for the call for the Council to try to define an EU position on this issue.
Mr President, the Commission is very concerned about the events that followed the air strikes of 16 and 19 December 1998.
Naturally, the Commission and the Member States fully support the implementation of the 'oil for food' programme, which is administered by the United Nations. This allows the sale of oil up to a value of USD 5 000 million over six months, in order to obtain humanitarian supplies and spare parts and equipment for the oil-producing plants.
The Commission also welcomes the fact that the UN Security Council renewed this 'oil for food' programme on 24 November 1998 for a further six months.
We are obviously concerned at the slow rate at which the humanitarian aid and spare parts are being supplied, and we hope that the Iraqi Government will give its full support to the application of this programme and establish favourable conditions for its implementation.
Since the Gulf War in 1991 the European Union has been the largest donor of humanitarian aid to Iraq, having given aid to the value of EUR 200 million.
ECHO earmarked EUR 10 million for the first eight months of 1998 and another EUR 4 million for the period from October 1998 to 1999.
Our commitment, and that of the European Union, is to relieve the suffering of the Iraqi people, and this is what will continue to guide the Commission's actions, in line, of course, with the Council mandate and decisions.
However, I must point out that the Iraqi Government is creating a lot of problems for us because of the restrictions it is imposing on non-governmental organisations.
This attitude may well threaten the implementation of humanitarian aid programmes financed by the European Union.
As far as the Kurdish conflict is concerned, we must welcome the rapprochement of the two rival Kurdish factions in northern Iraq as a result of the 1998 agreement on a system of power-sharing, and elections are now being prepared in order to set up a Kurdish regional assembly.
The Commission and the Member States will together explore the possibilities for promoting the application of the agreement within the context of the common foreign and security policy.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0054/99 by Mr Cunha and Mr Coelho, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the situation in Angola; -B4-0057/99 by Mr Nordmann, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on resumption of the war in Angola; -B4-0060/99 by Mr Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the crisis in the peace process in Angola; -B4-0075/99 by Mr Telkämper and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the crisis in Angola; -B4-0088/99 by Mr Hory and others, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Angola; -B4-0094/99 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in Angola; -B4-0099/99 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Angola.
Mr President, oil and diamonds have fuelled the 25 years of civil war in Angola and are at the root of all the problems.
They are the cause of the poverty and misery of the Angolan people and they are ensuring the prosperity of the arms traffickers and the corrupt politicians.
The number of mines that appear secretly in the night is double that of the mines opened during the day.
The masses of humanitarian aid, including food, seem to be a drop in the ocean for the people who are desperately in need.
The shooting down of two cargo planes chartered by MONUA, causing the death of 23 people, represented a new level of disregard for all the international agreements and institutions.
The war has been rekindled from the ashes of the Lusaka protocol, clearly demonstrating the failure of the UN mission responsible for overseeing its implementation.
The tolerance needed to consider the Angolan problem in a balanced manner and with equal respect for all the parties involved has been exhausted.
We know that the government excels in corruption and incompetence.
But the main party guilty of this carnage is UNITA.
This organisation of Jonas Savimbi, which recently made nearly four billion dollars on the world diamond market, has reinforced its military positions on the ground and its level of equipment. It has not disarmed or facilitated the extension of the state administration and it has disregarded all the accords and all the previous resolutions of the UN Security Council.
The latter has just passed another resolution in order to restrict the satellite communications controlled by UNITA and to prevent the trading of diamonds.
The patience of the international community is wearing thin.
There are powerful economic and geo-strategic interests supplying this machinery of war.
It is time to say that we have had enough.
Those responsible for this conflict must be charged with crimes against humanity.
Plundering and prospering on Angola's God-given wealth, leaving millions of war and famine victims to die, is a crime against humanity.
Mr President, the situation in Angola is extremely serious, and the resumption of the civil war is particularly worrying.
We have seen a peace process break down.
The Angolan Government, whose legitimacy is doubtful given its failure to complete the presidential election process, has tried to politically and physically destroy those who should have been its partners, and has forced UNITA to take action in self-defence.
That is the current situation.
It is a tragic situation because meanwhile the Angolan people are languishing in unspeakable poverty, while a few of the supposed élite are sharing the oil resources that they have seized.
We must be very firm in showing our disapproval of this situation and our determination in appealing for peace.
Peace is made between those who are fighting.
There will be no destruction of one side or the other. The two parties involved need to finally be able ...
Thank you, Mr Nordmann.
Mr Newens now has the floor for two minutes as the author of a motion for a resolution.
You have the floor, Mr Newens.
Let me just say to the speakers that we must keep strictly to the speaking time.
Mr President, hundreds of thousands of Angolan people are today facing the threat of misery, starvation and death in central Angola as a result of the renewed outbreak of civil war initiated by Dr Savimbi and UNITA, despite all the efforts of the United Nations and other parties to bring peace and relief to this long-suffering country after decades of destruction and merciless hostilities.
Much-needed humanitarian supplies have been cut off after the disgraceful shooting down of two UN planes, whose personnel are still unaccounted for.
The son of the pilot of the first plane was on board the second, which illustrates the tragedy as far as those engaged on missions of mercy are concerned.
Every possible effort must now be made to end this war and sanctions must be tightened.
In particular, action must be taken to prevent UNITA from finding any market for the diamonds which have been used to buy arms and supplies, and De Beers and all other traders must be made to verify their sources of supply and to ensure no monies whatsoever get through to fund this war.
Peace cannot be achieved by armed hostilities and there must be a return to the Lusaka protocol.
We call upon both belligerents to cooperate immediately with the UN in seeking to establish the fate of the occupants of the UN planes which were shot down.
In the interests of the long-suffering people of Angola, it is vital that the UN, subject of course to the safety of its personnel, continues to be involved in Angola.
We appeal to the Commission to assist in the provision of humanitarian aid and, when it is possible, with the clearing of mines.
This war is a major disaster and all possible power must be mobilised to restore peace at long last.
Mr President, we had hoped for peace in Angola.
Such hopes had been raised many times before.
Years ago, Jonas Savimbi was invited here to our Parliament and promised to make peace.
Then he took up arms, and the country was plunged into war again.
Four years ago there was the Lusaka protocol, an agreement that we saw as the basis for many years of peace.
We have been there with various delegations from the European Parliament, and we have seen weapons being surrendered in Huambo, for example.
We parliamentarians, however, criticised the fact that the weapons being surrendered were arms from the Second World War, not the weapons that had been used in the civil war.
In other words, UNITA has been pulling the wool over our eyes for years; they used a cease-fire to keep the lid on the civil war to some extent over a period of several years, but this civil war scenario was always on their minds, and they wanted to pursue it.
I believe we must take serious note of the UN Security Council resolution, which calls for the enforcement of sanctions against UNITA.
We must take it seriously in two respects.
First of all, there is a need to ensure that UNITA can no longer mine diamonds and buy modern weapons with the proceeds from their sale.
Secondly, these diamonds must not find their way into the European Union, be marketed here and provide the capital for these arms purchases.
So it is up to the Member States not to let these diamonds from Angola enter their markets and to take steps to prevent their sale in the European Union.
On the other hand, as in every war situation, we have a suffering population, a population sucked into the war, generally against their will.
In such cases, Commissioner Marín, it is our duty to keep providing humanitarian aid wherever possible, wherever the people who want to administer that aid are not endangered.
So that it can be administered, I believe it is essential for us to continue the efforts we have been making to ensure that landmines are cleared, to support the removal from that country of the most barbaric weapons in existence.
We should also support the rehabilitation effort.
We visited rehabilitation workshops and can confirm that they are working well.
I believe that both humanitarian aid in general and the specific projects are a very important asset to the suffering population, as well as a good and vital contribution by the European Union, by the Commission, Parliament and the Council - the budgetary authority and the executive.
Mr President, our group has no more sympathy than Mr Nordmann for the Angolan regime, for its internal practices inherited from an Africanised Sovietism, or even for the shameless manner in which it is now interfering in regional affairs.
However, the fact remains that the truth does need to be established and that we do not feel that it is fair to apportion equal blame to the government and to Jonas Savimbi's uprising, for restarting a civil war for which UNITA bears the overwhelming responsibility, notably by seizing land and towns that in theory had been restored to government authority.
Similarly, we do not think that it is fair to suggest, as in the initial Liberal text, a European boycott of Angolan oil and diamonds.
We feel that it would be much more appropriate to check whether those products are in fact being exported by the Angolan State and not by UNITA, which is using them as a means of ruining both its country and the peace agreements that it has signed.
With regard to those agreements, which were made reluctantly and were never really applied, it is reasonable to demand a return to the Lusaka protocol.
We believe that peace needs to be completely rebuilt following a prior and very serious warning to UNITA, and that this can be done by a new conference in which European Union diplomacy could finally have an opportunity to assert itself.
Mr President, our colleague, Mrs van Bladel, who cannot be present due to family reasons, has asked me to make a statement. After the part-session in December 1997, through both an urgent debate and questions to the Council, she asked for steps to be taken to prevent a war in Angola.
On three occasions she tabled motions for resolutions that were not accepted by this House, and she therefore considers that Parliament must also bear responsibility for the current situation in Angola.
She also says that, in her opinion, the deep mistrust between the government and UNITA, which has a historical basis, was aggravated by the 1992 massacres and that this is the fundamental reason for the conflict in Angola.
Personally, I believe that the Angolan problem is basically a question of trust, and the climate of distrust is the fault of both sides, not just of UNITA.
It must be said that many clauses of the Lusaka protocol were also flouted by the MPLA Government.
For example, 700 000 weapons were not collected from the civilian population and were consequently used for the bloodshed in 1992.
The second round of elections was not held.
The armed forces - except for those of UNITA - were not confined to barracks.
The reorganisation of the police force was not carried out.
The presence of the United Nations was not welcomed as was promised.
The national symbols - the flag and anthem - were not changed and are still those of the MPLA party.
The mercenaries were not returned to their countries and, in defiance of the agreement, the government continues to buy arms, particularly from Russia, which is a member of the troika and the UN Security Council.
Compliance with these clauses would have led to mutual trust.
But much more serious is the fact that, the state administration having been extended, this consists not of administrative officials but of the police and the army, which are destroying all the UNITA headquarters and killing or arresting all the leaders of this organisation.
In the meantime, a fictitious UNITA is being created in Luanda. The UN representative was prevented from talking with the real and historic UNITA and the mistrust has grown.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am not representing anyone, only my conscience and my beliefs.
I wanted to relate these facts because the dualistic attitude of always accusing just one of the parties does not seem right to me.
This is not how problems of war are resolved.
Sanctions will not bring peace to Angola.
Only an atmosphere of trust can do that, which this House can help to build.
Mr President, Commissioner, UNITA is without a shadow of a doubt guilty of restarting the war in Angola and must therefore be held responsible. It has not abided by the election results, it has prevented the demilitarisation of its forces and the extension of the state administration to the whole territory and it has disregarded the Lusaka protocol and the recommendations of the UN Security Council.
At the same time, we note that the rearmament of this organisation has only been possible due to clear disregard for the international embargo, making it necessary for the European Union and the whole international community to apply and reinforce the sanctions.
The proposal made today by the Commission to investigate the diamond trade that is financing UNITA's war effort is therefore welcome.
The incredible and disgraceful episode of the shooting down of two MONUA planes in territory occupied and controlled by UNITA together with the fact that hundreds of people have been killed and thousands left homeless by the resumption of this war form the basis for our demands. We want the weapons to be silenced, the peace process to be restarted, UNITA to agree to abide by the Lusaka protocol and the UN decisions, and the UN to decide to extend the mandate of MONUA in order to secure the conditions needed to help the refugees and to proceed with the emergency food aid.
I will end by saying that, in view of UNITA's continued disregard for the UN decisions, the international community will have to act more firmly. If not, it may be accused of having two different responses in accordance with the location of the conflicts and the convenience of certain countries.
Action must be taken to ensure peace and to help a people tortured by the permanent war waged by one organisation - UNITA - which is becoming increasingly irresponsible and more terrorist-like in its activities.
Mr President, to be perfectly honest, I very much regret that the opinion expressed by many speakers and representatives of the authors is not reflected in the resolution itself.
Although I support the substance of the resolution, it is unfortunately very one-sided.
It depicts UNITA as the only villains of the piece. This obscures the fact that there is actually a cruel dictatorial regime in power in Luanda and that both sides should really be treated alike, as they are in fact treated in some respects by the United Nations.
It is not enough to condemn the trade in diamonds, Mr Telkämper; you should also be condemning the oil trade, such as the sale of oil from the Kabinda province, occupied by the government, which, without any compunction, brings in foreign troops to exercise its power in the province.
This oil trade ought to be stopped in exactly the same way as we are now calling for a halt to the trade in diamonds.
I believe it is important that both sides are treated equally.
That is the only way for us to remain credible here.
Mr President, despite all the United Nations' efforts, the situation in Angola is deteriorating again.
The warring factions are once again squandering the country's wealth and reducing the people to penury.
It is not fair to blame just one side for this - the government and the army must share some of the guilt.
They have failed to provide stability and are proving extremely two-faced.
We must not allow ourselves to be distracted by political tricks and stratagems.
In my view, neither side is willing to make any serious efforts to achieve lasting peace.
What should we do to try to stop the spiral of violence? I hope that the United Nations will not relinquish its efforts and that MONUA will stay on after 26 February.
The international community must continue to provide support, but it will not be easy to maintain donors' commitment to Angola.
We must try, however.
Finally, Mr President, a point of order.
There is an unfortunate misprint in the joint motion for a resolution, which says that it was tabled on behalf of the ELDR Group by Messrs Bertens, Fassa and Cunha, whereas the last two went over to the PPE Group a considerable time ago.
Mr President, we firmly condemn the resumption of the war in Angola, which constitutes a setback in the peace process, and we believe it is necessary, as emphasised in the resolution we are debating, to start applying the Lusaka protocol and the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council again.
We think UNITA should be urged to respect human rights and to cooperate with the UN special representative, so that a negotiated solution can be found to the current conflict.
This call must also go out to the President of Angola, Mr dos Santos, who has equally failed to respect the rights of opposition Members of Parliament. They have been persecuted and prevented from carrying out their mandate as directly elected representatives of the people.
Finally we must emphasise that the European Union has a duty to mobilise all the necessary resources to contribute to the humanitarian aid effort and a duty to remind the parties involved that no military solution to the conflict is possible and only a return to negotiations will allow the Angolan people to find peace once again.
Mr Telkämper has a point of order.
We are desperately short of time.
We are not going to have a debate within a debate, but if you want to make a personal comment in response to an earlier comment, please carry on.
Mr President, I can be brief.
Mr Habsburg more or less implied that we were not credible.
What I said was the result of a report compiled by a delegation of the European Parliament that had just visited Huambo in Angola.
We observed time and again that UNITA had violated the peace agreement and had taken up arms again.
I believe the basis must be the Lusaka peace agreement, and we as a Parliament should insist that it be upheld.
It is the basis of a future peace, and we must demand compliance.
That is a credible approach.
To that extent we have a responsibility here, and we want to ensure that the agreement is respected.
Mr President, the European Commission shares the view that the resumption of fighting in Angola is clearly very unfortunate and that any attack against planes not involved in military operations is unacceptable.
It also agrees that UNITA bears the main responsibility for the resumption of fighting and that it obtains funds through illegal trade in diamonds.
The Commission does not have the necessary resources to carry out an investigation into this illegal trade, but we will nevertheless forward Parliament's concern on this issue to the Council.
The Commission believes that the European Union will only be able to adopt further sanctions through a UN Security Council resolution.
In order to try to help the Angolan people the Commission's services have monitored the situation as closely as possible, and our monitoring of the European Union's cooperation will include, among other things, an analysis of the possible redeployment of the aid that the Union is currently providing.
The Union's aid will undoubtedly depend on the specific possibilities on the ground.
As Mr Telkämper rightly pointed out, this aid includes mine clearance. However, although this work has not been brought to a complete standstill, it has been restricted by the military operations, and this has meant that it is less safe for the teams that are working in Angola to clear the mines.
The European Commission has, of course, allocated and financed humanitarian aid to help the more vulnerable sections of the Angolan population in various areas.
The implementation of these programmes has also been partially affected by the deterioration of the political and military situation following the resumption of the armed conflict.
The suspension of aid flights by the United Nations after the serious incidents that took place - the shooting down of aircraft - has meant that practically no humanitarian aid can reach the areas most affected by the fighting.
I can therefore confirm that the situation is critical.
The Commission is going to make all efforts to resume the process of providing humanitarian aid as soon as it is safe to do so, and this will involve the participation not only of our delegation's services but also of the international institutions and the NGOs that are working with us in this field.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on following 25 motions for resolutions:
East Timor and Indonesia
Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the human rights situation in Indonesia (B4-0056/99); - Marinho and Barros Moura, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the human rights situation in Indonesia and East Timor (B4-0064/99); - Cunha, Coelho, Costa Neves, Lenz and Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the human rights situation in Indonesia and East Timor (B4-0066/99); - Dupuis, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in East Timor (B4-0092/99); - Janssen van Raay and Pasty, on behalf of the UPE Group, on self-determination for the people of East Timor (B4-0095/99); - Ribeiro, Miranda, Novo, Jové Peres, Elmalan, Manisco and Ripa di Meana, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in East Timor and Indonesia (B4-0101/99); - Telkämper, Hautala and McKenna, on behalf of the V Group, on Indonesia (B4-0108/99); Western Sahara
Watson, Fassa, Vallvé and Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Western Sahara (B4-0045/99); - Swoboda, García Arias and Schmidbauer, on behalf of the PSE Group, on Western Sahara (B4-0061/99); - Telkämper and Aelvoet, on behalf of the V Group, on Western Sahara (B4-0073/99); - Oostlander and Hernández Mollar, on behalf of the PPE Group, on Western Sahara (B4-0080/99); - Ainardi, Sierra González, Eriksson, Miranda, Ephremidis, Vinci, Carnero González, Marset Campos, Alavanos, Seppänen and Gutiérrez Díaz, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Western Sahara (B4-0100/99); Trafficking of children in Guatemala
Bertens, André-Léonard, Vallvé and Goerens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0058/99); - van Putten, Kinnock and Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0062/99); - Kreissl-Dörfler, Kerr and Lindholm, on behalf of the V Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0076/99); - Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0089/99); - Pasty, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0096/99); - González Álvarez and Novo, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the illegal trafficking of babies coming from Guatemala (B4-0103/99); Peace process in Colombia
Gasòliba i Böhm and Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the peace process in Colombia (B4-0055/99); - Miranda de Lage, Howitt and Morgan, on behalf of the PSE Group, and Escolá Hernando, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the peace talks in Colombia (B4-0063/99); - Kreissl-Dörfler, Aelvoet, McKenna and Lindholm, on behalf of the V Group, on the peace talks in Colombia (B4-0074/99); - De Esteban Martín, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the peace talks in Colombia (B4-0085/99); -Puerta, Sornosa Martínez, Elmalan, Novo, Seppänen, Ojala, Alavanos, Theonas and Manisco, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the peace talks in Colombia (B4-0102/99); Sierra Leone
Telkämper, Aelvoet and Schörling, on behalf of the V Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone (B4-0072/99); - Hory, Castagnède and Maes, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone (B4-0087/99); East Timor and Indonesia
Mr President, Indonesia's new president, Mr Habibie, is confining his reforms to certain selected measures, whereas what Indonesia needs are different measures which will promote democracy, respect for human rights and economic recovery.
The people of Indonesia are entitled to this.
The government must understand that democracy and human rights are essential elements for giving fresh impetus to economic renewal.
The Union wants to help Indonesia, but it must also take steps to help itself.
When will it release all its political prisoners, including Xanana Gusmao?
When will the repressive measures in areas such as East Timor, Aceh and Irian Jaya be stopped? I hope that the new government will start to work in a genuinely democratic manner and will install a new, legitimate authority that is able to take action.
Indonesia still has a long way to go, as does East Timor.
Mr President, this motion for a resolution could not be more opportune.
The developments in Indonesia had led to the belief that the conditions were being created for the negotiation of peaceful solutions.
However, this was merely cosmetic.
Despite President Habibie having recognised the special status of East Timor owing to its profound religious and cultural differences, nothing has changed in the attitude of Indonesia towards the Timorese. This is despite pre-negotiation agreements having been reached in order to demonstrate the good faith of the parties and despite negotiations having been started.
The disproportionate and aggressive military presence is continuing and has now assumed the role of maintaining order and carrying out criminal investigations in the place of the police force and an independent judicial system.
The military are responsible for new acts of violence, new disappearances and new political imprisonments, and recently in Alas, the hope of the Timorese died along with a still unspecified number of people.
As we have said, this motion for a resolution is extremely urgent and opportune. Its most important elements are the call for the immediate opening of an inquiry under the aegis of the UN to establish the identity of those directly responsible for committing these crimes and the call for negotiations to find a rapid solution involving the democratisation of Indonesia.
In the first ten years of occupation, 200 000 Timorese disappeared.
It needed journalists to witness a massacre for international consciences to be aroused.
We must hope that more massacres are not needed for the UN resolutions to be complied with.
It is time to demand that Indonesia respects human rights, it is time to end the suffering of the Timorese and it is time to submit the dictator Suharto and the military personnel responsible to the force of international justice.
We cannot have two levels of response and two approaches, as demonstrated by the desire of some people to condemn Pinochet and to absolve Suharto.
Mr President, East Timor is once again on our agenda at a time when three important events are occurring.
Firstly, there is the greater isolation of Indonesia due to the change in the official position of the Australian Government on East Timor, applauded by almost all the Australian political parties and criticised only by the Indonesian Government.
Indonesia is becoming increasingly isolated in its claim to continue its military occupation and in its attempts to force the integration of East Timor into its territory.
Secondly, there is the fresh outbreak of human rights abuses.
Since the crackdown against the civilian population in Alas in November, the news reaching us from East Timor, despite being diluted by the censure of the military authorities, has contained worrying signs of repeated human rights abuses. We have also been informed of the creation of armed popular militias by the military, which is attempting by force to sow the seed of terror among those opposed to integration into Indonesia.
Bishop Ximenes Belo recently confirmed the arrival in the capital of East Timor of thousands of Timorese who have been forced out of their houses through violence and terror.
Thirdly, there is the refusal to accept a visit from a delegation from this House.
The Intergovernmental Group on East Timor met yesterday to assess the letter from the Indonesian ambassador refusing visas for Members to visit East Timor.
This refusal is indicative of their fear of this House, which is a shrine for freedom, democracy and respect for human rights.
We will not give up and we believe that the European Parliament should continue to cooperate through the motions for resolutions it has approved and through the one before us today, which we are proposing jointly with colleagues from other parties.
We are sure that, with tenacity, persistence and courage, the path of history can be directed towards respect for the individual and for freedom rather than towards tyranny, violence and disregard for the most basic human rights.
Mr President, a number of speakers have already talked about the lengthy conflict in which Indonesia has illegally occupied East Timor.
The European Parliament has always supported the UN resolutions, and now is a good opportunity to focus attention on them again and put this issue back on the international agenda.
As has rightly been pointed out, Australia, the only country to have recognised the annexation of East Timor, has changed its position.
The new thinking that is rapidly gaining ground at all levels of society in Indonesia could also mean new hope for East Timor.
The Indonesian Government is now coming under increasing pressure to improve democracy and to recognise the independence and right to self-determination of East Timor and other areas whose traditional identity has come under threat from Indonesia, such as Irian Jaya.
Mr President, I should like to say that the problem of East Timor, having been forgotten for many years by the international community, has fortunately now become a subject of almost constant and major debate in the international institutions, in the United Nations, in the American Congress and so on.
I must also applaud the fact that the Council has already stated its position on this matter.
I believe that the Commission has done so too.
This House has also had an important role to play in the debate on this issue by highlighting the problems of Timor and the violations of human rights.
Obviously we support this motion for a resolution but I regret that it does not contain a proposal made by Mr Janssen van Ray that, at the time of the elections in Indonesia, a referendum should be held in East Timor on self-determination.
I believe that self-determination is the path that will have to be followed and for which this House must continue to fight.
Mr President, Indonesia and East Timor are again the subject of an urgent debate in this House. This has occurred periodically as a result of the persistence and insistence needed to ensure that we never forget this people's heroic struggle over twenty years for their right to self-determination.
Moreover, in addition to the basic need to keep this issue alive, there are always new reasons provided by Indonesia - due to its military occupation and repression - to justify this insistence and repetition.
The current reasons are the recent events in Alas and the violent military repression by Indonesia.
We must be informed of the extent and consequences of this. We therefore repeat the demand for inquiries and visits to East Timor, which Indonesia has refused this House since November 1991.
We also denounce the manoeuvre caused by Indonesia's abject weakness, which it is trying to hide. This manoeuvre involves agreeing to the principle of self-determination but it is accompanied by the assumption of Timor as a province of Indonesia, coinciding with a mock referendum at the time of the Indonesian elections next June.
Mr President, President Suharto fell from power in Indonesia last spring, but just six months later Amnesty International has found that promises relating to human rights given by the new president have not been kept.
I am most concerned that force has been used against peaceful demonstrators and that no progress has been made in freeing political prisoners.
I wish in particular to speak about East Timor.
There too repression has increased alarmingly.
There is also reliable information that military power has been increased to a greater extent than official sources would have us believe.
Fortunately, the European Union has recently sat up and started to take notice of East Timor and it was with satisfaction that we noted the conclusions on East Timor reached at the Vienna summit, for example.
Information received only recently reveals that Australia's attitude has also changed for the better with regard to East Timor's future.
The aim must be to cautiously set the scene for a national referendum on the future of East Timor.
I would like to ask Commissioner Marín whether European policy on East Timor is becoming more active on specific issues.
For example, would it be conceivable to have an East Timor office in the European Union, in the same way that the Americans have a Kosovo office? It would not need to be a fully-fledged diplomatic mission if the matter were deemed too delicate.
Secondly, I would like to stress that the forthcoming parliamentary elections on 7 June in Indonesia require European Union Member States and the Union itself to undertake to send people as observers, not just parliamentary observers but observers from voluntary organisations too.
Finally, I wish to inform you that on behalf of the East Timor Solidarity Group I am at this very moment engaged in negotiations with the Indonesian Government so that Members of Parliament might send an unofficial delegation to East Timor.
Western Sahara
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are witnessing a slow process of progressive pacification in Western Sahara.
It is probably still too early to be able to say that we are optimistic about the outcome, but we cannot fail to welcome the start of the referendum process which may mean the achievement of self-determination for the people of that region.
So it is vital for the European Union to urge the Moroccan Government and the Polisario Front to cooperate fully with the United Nations in the holding, without further delay, of a free, fair and impartial referendum on self-determination for this region, which has witnessed so much fighting and suffering in the past.
Mr President, the European Union stands for democracy, human rights, self-determination, or nothing whatsoever.
There is a real possibility that the United Nations may decide to pull out of illegally-occupied Western Sahara at the end of this month and at this moment in time Kofi Annan is preparing a report to submit to the Security Council by 22 January.
I last had the privilege of meeting him in Algeria in November.
The European Union has been consistent in its support for self-determination and an end to the conflict.
I would like to thank in particular Mr Marín for the work he has done and give thanks for the humanitarian support and for the commitment to logistic support, as we approach a referendum.
We are on the eve of the end of this conflict that has caused so much suffering over 20 years, but we know that the problem today - and this is the view of the United Nations - is that Morocco is yet again up to its tricks of trying to delay and to block an agreement.
Morocco - present again of course in the gallery - cannot be bothered to have meetings with certain people in the European Parliament but is very effective in lobbying, in corrupting and even in acts of burglary in this building.
It is Morocco which is holding up a peaceful resolution.
We in the European Parliament can do even more.
I expect even more from you, Mr Marín - you know so much about this issue and you have been open to dialogue with Morocco and the Polisario Front.
Do not let the people of the Western Sahara down.
Let us make sure that we are fully behind the United Nations and the commitment of Kofi Annan and James Baker and that we can see an end to this conflict.
Mr President, one difference between Angola and the Western Sahara is that there is a cease-fire in the Western Sahara. A cease-fire, however, is still a step short of peace.
One of the last colonial conflicts is being waged there.
Since the Spaniards withdrew and the Moroccans occupied the country, this means that the old colonial policy has become Europeanised, and I therefore believe that the European Union has an obligation here and a responsibility for this part of Spain's colonial history.
The people who were forced to flee their homes have been living for decades in refugee camps.
For years, Morocco has vetoed the idea of a referendum, which is why the discussions on the Western Sahara have had a certain sameness over the years.
Now, apparently, the UN wishes to guarantee that the referendum can take place in December 1999.
That was what we had hoped for, we expect it to take place this year, and Kofi Annan seems to be emphatic about this, as his last visit to the region showed.
This means that we in the European Union are now in demand too and will have to give this process decisive political and logistic support.
We call on Morocco to refrain from obstructing the registration of electors and to stop evading the issue.
It would even be appropriate to encourage direct negotiations between the Sahrawi people and Morocco.
We call on the Council - and the Austrian Presidency gave many encouraging signals in this matter - to ensure that the referendum is guaranteed and that the humanitarian aid is continued until then.
I think we also need observers in the Western Sahara during the run-up to the referendum, not just when it takes place.
We ask the Commission to make the necessary resources available so that the referendum can be guaranteed and the humanitarian aid continued.
One approach we could use relates to the forthcoming fisheries agreement with Morocco, which could be linked to the holding of the referendum.
Whatever its outcome, the Commission and the Council - the troika - should guarantee that, along with the UN, the European Union will provide the necessary security for the referendum to take place.
That is my plea to the German Presidency of the Council.
Mr President, once again we can see just how sensitive this House is towards the issue we are dealing with, and the active role being played by the United Nations on the ground.
There is also significant humanitarian aid being donated, and this should continue.
However, while we are aware of this reality, a mirage is appearing in the sand dunes of the desert: the mirage of the referendum, a referendum that is seemingly never going to be held.
In spite of this, we must prevent feelings of impatience on the part of the United Nations, the international community, the Polisario Front and the Moroccan Government.
And we must avoid such impatience so as not to leave any deep-rooted problems behind, problems that could lead to future conflicts or a permanent state of guerilla warfare.
Therefore, Mr President, we hope that a referendum will be held soon and that its results will be accepted by all.
Mr President, we can welcome the fact that the Secretary-General of the United Nations has personally taken on the matter of Western Sahara.
In November and December he went to the area, and following his meetings with the parties in the conflict, he put forward a set of recommendations in order to break the deadlock in the peace process and to implement the Houston agreements.
The Polisario Front agreed to implement all of these proposals which come as an indivisible package.
However, the Government of Morocco is still rejecting them.
As a result of these blocking manoeuvres, it is responsible for holding up the implementation of the peace process.
The United Nations Security Council has also recognised this.
In its resolution of 17 December, it welcomes the agreement of the Polisario Front and urges the Government of Morocco to implement the United Nations settlement plan.
We are now in the home straight of the referendum process.
In order to ensure that it is carried through, that it is to the holding of a referendum on self-determination in December 1999, we have to frustrate the attempts by the Government of Morocco to block the process.
The Council and the governments of the Member States can contribute to this by playing a more active role in ensuring the success of the peace process, especially by using all the means they have available to persuade the Government of Morocco to implement the proposals put forward by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in their entirety.
Could the Council not also define a common position, as was requested by the European Parliament on 10 March 1998, or at least adopt a declaration expressing its support of the United Nations?
We need to support the compromise resolution in order to send a signal to the Council and to the governments of the Member States and to support the efforts of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in ensuring the success of the referendum process.
This referendum, which will finally allow the Sahrawi people to express the right to self-determination and independence, is the most appropriate democratic means of finding a fair and lasting solution to the problems of decolonisation in Western Sahara.
Mr President, I believe we all want peace in the Western Sahara, and for that reason we probably all support the purpose of this resolution.
I must say, however, that I personally would have preferred this parliamentary resolution to be tabled after the Security Council resolution.
But let me say that it is surely not enough for everyone to point the finger at Morocco and to blame that country for all the delays.
We should perhaps correct certain fallacies that have even gained currency here in Europe.
If we talk about the people who are entitled to vote in the referendum, we cannot simply exclude those who have been living in what is now the Western Sahara for a good deal more than ten years and who have effectively earned their right of residence.
After all, there is also a great deal of discussion today in the various Member States of the European Union about the specific rights that people acquire by living in our countries for a certain length of time.
These people cannot simply be excluded from a referendum; similarly, those who are living in the refugee camps in Algeria must also be enfranchised.
But allow me to add a very brief historical footnote, since there is so much talk here about colonialisation, recolonialisation and so on.
The territory of the Western Sahara belonged to Morocco for many centuries before it came into Spanish possession.
I could not let that go unsaid.
Mr President, during the last part-session we held a debate with the Council after 10 Members asked an oral question.
I believe that it is necessary to repeat here some of the things that we said at that stage to the Council.
Firstly, what is lacking here is any sign that the European institutions are playing a visible role in the resolution of this conflict.
There is humanitarian aid; there is a presence, but it is only relative. From what we understand the United States has a greater presence.
The conflict in the Sahara is more closely linked to the European Union and certain EU countries than to the United States, yet it has a more obvious presence there than we do.
Secondly, and in spite of what Mr von Habsburg says - although I have great respect for him - it is Morocco that has been putting up obstacles to the referendum. We must be clear on this point once and for all.
I would remind you that, in principle, Western Sahara only accepted the Spanish census with an increase of 10 %, and now the Sahrawi people, in the latest proposal by Mr Baker, have accepted another 65 000 potential voters.
Yet Morocco is still putting up obstacles.
It seems as though the referendum is going to be delayed by another year, but this year is crucial.
It is crucial because we must ensure that there are no further obstacles in the path to a fair referendum that will provide an important boost for a brave and valiant race which, under terrible conditions, educates and cares for the health of its people.
Therefore, the European Union should set an example and try to resolve the conflict or help to resolve the conflict, and not leave Mr Baker and the United Nations to work alone.
It should also support the United Nations so that Morocco does not continue to obstruct the resolution of the conflict.
Mr President, I want to express the full support of my group for the compromise resolution, but above all full support for the referendum process in progress in Western Sahara and for the undertakings given to the United Nations by Morocco, the Polisario Front and the individuals involved at this time in this fragile part of the world.
Naturally I would urge Members of this Parliament not to start immediately identifying the guilty and the victims in what is an ongoing and, I admit, difficult process. This is an unfolding situation which calls for close international attention, but we do not need to intervene with greater force than is actually called for by the current problems.
I confirm the full support of our group.
Mr President, Commissioner, what we are seeing here is a clear imbalance between Parliament's insistence on the issue of Western Sahara and the Council's silence.
Several months ago, we approved a proposal for a recommendation and in December we held a debate with more than 10 questions.
Today, we are discussing a motion for a resolution that has been signed by practically all the groups in this House.
In spite of this, the Council is maintaining its position of principle - which is important, yet easy - by saying that it supports the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara and the United Nations resolution. But it does not dare to take the necessary second step: helping the Secretary-General to carry out his work to ensure that the Security Council resolutions are applied, in this case by organising and holding a free referendum on self-determination within the time specified.
How can we help the Secretary-General? In my view, we can help by stating which party is putting up obstacles and preventing the international legal provisions from being fulfilled.
And today that party is clearly Morocco.
I therefore believe that the Council should be aware that political pressure - along with cooperation - is essential to ensure visibility in this conflict and to help put an end to this situation.
Trafficking of children in Guatemala
Mr President, international gangs in Guatemala are earning dirty money from the illegal trafficking of children.
It is, of course, entirely unacceptable and action must be taken to combat this inhuman abuse of poverty.
I think it is a pity that a recent UNICEF 'fidadigna' report is not mentioned in the resolution.
The government of Guatemala must ratify the relevant international conventions as soon as possible, and the Union must bring pressure to bear on Guatemala to ensure that it does.
What sort of government would allow its own citizens to be bought and sold? The Union must ensure that a careful watch is kept for Guatemalan children at the receiving end, so to speak, and it must also support the aid projects for statutory adoption programmes in Guatemala itself.
In this the tenth anniversary year of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, measures to protect children should be given maximum publicity and should be our very top priority.
Mr President, the previous speaker described just how serious this situation is, and I would like to add the following points.
I think that if we do not do whatever we can about the situation in Guatemala, the problem will spread to other countries.
The threat is already there.
There are other countries where we need to be on our guard, particularly at the moment in Eastern Europe.
However, I am happy enough with the compromise text, because this is a specific issue of which we have a fairly clear picture, no matter how great the scale of the problem, and the Commissioner and his officials can now try to do something about it through their contacts with the Guatemalan government.
The organisation that we mention, Casa Alianza , and its leader have revealed what is going on and are now themselves under threat.
The organisation and its workers, particularly Bruce Harris, deserve Europe's support.
I too regret that the UNICEF report is not mentioned, and I would add that I am also sorry - I think the liberals had something to do with this - that the resolution does not mention what I said in my original text about the need for DNA testing.
The United Kingdom already requires adoptive parents to prove that it was the child's legal parents who gave it up for adoption.
At the moment bogus mothers and other poor women are being paid to go to an embassy and say that they want to give their child up.
Other mothers hand their children over themselves.
A DNA test such as the one the UK requires clearly shows whether it is the child's real parents that are giving it up.
I would therefore call for this DNA test to become a Europe-wide requirement.
Mr President, trafficking in children in Guatemala is a lucrative business.
A veritable Mafia kidnaps children, persuades poverty-stricken women to hand over their children, forges birth certificates and sells the children abroad.
Even a notary public has the power to authorise adoptions.
Prices of 15 000 to 20 000 dollars per child are not unusual.
Under the Guatemalan penal code, trafficking in children is not a crime and does not carry a penalty.
All the countries in the region have amended their laws in recent years in order to eliminate this inhuman and exploitative practice, but Guatemala has not yet taken that step.
It is now high time it did.
Guatemala must also proceed without delay to ratify the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption and must meet its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child by promulgating its Juvenile and Adolescent Code.
Adoptions are sometimes a valid last resort, but the child should remain as close as possible to its cultural and geographical roots.
Adoptions, however, can never be a contribution to development aid, because development aid means creating the conditions in which children can grow up in their own countries.
I urge everyone to bear that in mind.
Mr President, once again we have cause to speak on the fate of children in the world.
Today we are discussing the adoption of Guatemalan children.
There is certainly no question of condemning international adoptions, but of considering the conditions in which they are carried out.
In this respect, Guatemala has become a real baby-trafficking location, so that in 1997 it was estimated that more than two thousand children were sold at a price of 15 000 to 20 000 dollars.
It is not difficult to imagine how such a lucrative activity could give rise to abominable practices on the part of the traffickers, who will stop at nothing to protect their dubious trade.
They will therefore not hesitate to intimidate or even threaten those who seek to reform these adoption procedures.
The Member States therefore need to ensure that legal provisions on international adoption are applied, especially with regard to children from Guatemala.
However, above all, we must also encourage the Guatemalan Government to be more strict in dealing with this matter, especially given that hurricane Mitch has recently increased the number of children available for adoption, which means that we should be even more vigilant.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is clear that some people are getting rich through the most despicable and revolting form of trafficking that exists: the trafficking of children.
I believe that the European Union must bring pressure to bear on the Guatemalan Government to prevent this trafficking, and one way of doing this is to help the Guatemalan Attorney General's Office, which is responsible for ensuring that the adoption procedures comply with legal provisions.
We are in no way opposed to legal adoptions.
We believe that they save many children from an uncertain and terrible fate in some countries. However, I agree with what a previous speaker said that if there were better living conditions in those countries, it would be better for the children to stay in their own country.
In any case, we must prevent the terrible trafficking of children, which is the most despicable form of all trafficking.
Mr President, this problem of the illegal trafficking of children in Guatemala, or children who come from Guatemala, could be on a much wider scale involving many other developing countries.
However, what is certain is that the root of the problem can often be found in the developed world, where there are well-structured and experienced trafficking networks that are involved in the trafficking of children, women and human organs.
I believe that Parliament's resolutions must always be objective and rigorous, particularly when they relate to friendly countries such as Guatemala. Parliament has frequently recognised the progress achieved by President Arzú's government in consolidating the peace process, in bringing democracy to Guatemala and in consolidating the rule of law.
It is true that cases involving the trafficking of children have been uncovered in Guatemala.
But this has been happening there for a long time due to the unfortunate decades of civil war that have left behind a high number of orphans. The situation has deteriorated even further as a result of the terrible consequences of hurricane Mitch.
The United Nations mission in Guatemala has the express task of ensuring respect for human rights there, and I believe it is important to highlight the fact that Guatemala forms part of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
I am pleased that the Commissioner responsible, Mr Marín, is here this afternoon, and it is only fair that we recognise that, faced with the devastating effects of the hurricane, the European Commission has reacted quickly and effectively. We hope that it will soon be able to propose a rehabilitation plan for the region in accordance with the Commissioner's statement.
I therefore want to emphasise once again the need to strengthen cooperation with Guatemala and with all of Central America, and, more importantly, to step up our actions to relieve the suffering of the people and especially that of the children.
Mr President, international adoptions doubled in Guatemala in 1997: over 2 000 at an average cost of USD 15 0-20 000.
The most striking thing is that trafficking in children is not classified as a crime under the Guatemalan penal code and even the abduction of children merely carries a sentence of about a year, and that may be suspended.
Furthermore we do not believe international adoption can be penalised because these adoptions, if carried out through the correct channels and with guarantees for the child, almost always offer the chance of a better standard of living. Nor can we deny that international adoption constitutes an important form of international cooperation.
In expressing serious concern about information reaching us that people working in Guatemala to prevent illegal trafficking in children are being subjected to threats and intimidation, we look to the Commission and the Member States to urge the Guatemalan Government to ensure that adoption procedures are carried out with the proper legal guarantees - national and international - and that the law officers combatting illegal trafficking are protected.
Peace process in Colombia
Mr President, the past 30 years have indeed been dark ones for Colombia, with tens of thousands of people killed, rocketing unemployment and low levels of economic growth that do not reflect the country's potential.
The drugs barons, on the other hand, are earning a fortune: 80 % of the drugs sold in the US come from Colombia.
President Pastrana has given us renewed hope and has injected fresh impetus into the peace talks.
The last-minute decision of the leader of the FARC not to attend was extremely disappointing.
The Union must, of course, encourage the peace process and make its own contribution to it.
Stability and peace, as everyone knows, are vital to give the economy a fresh boost.
I hope that all our good intentions will bring results here.
I would like to ask the Commissioner a question about the peace process.
A number of ECHO projects are running in the Comunidades de Paz, an organisation of villages that were built a year ago at Apartadó and Rio Sucio in the north of Colombia.
I was there a month ago, and I saw a sign in a field that said 'ECHO is building a hospital here'.
People there told me that this had been promised eight months ago, but the money had obviously got no further than Bogota.
Bogota is muy, muy, muy, lejos de aqui .
I know that you cannot give me an answer straight away, but perhaps you could think about this, and I will contact you about it later.
Mr President, I would like to begin by congratulating President Pastrana very sincerely on the work he is doing to promote peace in his country. The dialogue held in San Vicente has given rise to real expectations and fulfills the mandate for peace which 10 million people voted for.
However, we must also point out that the FARC has understood the historic importance of the occasion and accepted the challenge to participate in the construction of this new area through dialogue.
We must recognise this, just as we must recognise that there are similarities between President Pastrana's agenda and the guerrillas' proposals.
After yesterday's meeting, the paths towards peace can be seen much more clearly.
Nonetheless, peace has very powerful enemies.
In this case, we must condemn the paramilitary activities and crimes that are taking place.
More than 100 people have been killed with the sole aim of obstructing peace. This is a direct attack on the whole of society.
The will to combat paramilitary activities is crucial in order to make progress.
It is equally vital to wipe out drug trafficking and corruption, and these issues are all on the agenda. However, the most important element is ensuring that the guilty are brought to justice, to ensure that human rights are guaranteed for the entire population.
The paths to peace are those expressed in the mandate from the people. Their voice cannot be ignored, nor can the victims.
The government is responsible for extending and strengthening the rule of law and for protecting those who are fighting for dignity and democratic principles.
However, we can also make certain requests, and I have some of my own.
The first is to ask the guerrillas to free all civilian hostages, and here I would like to thank them for having freed the European development assistant Camino Villanueva.
I would also like to ask the Commission, if possible, to explain how the European Union would be involved in the construction of these areas of peace. There is hope in Europe and I believe that we here can also provide a response.
Mr President, there can be no peace without human rights.
We had numerous first-hand experiences of that when our delegation visited Colombia in December.
The murders - well over a hundred in number - committed by the paramilitaries have been another horrific reminder of the truth of that proposition.
The paramilitaries are not parties to peace talks. The paramilitaries are criminal gangs that must be dissolved immediately.
Their members and their paymasters must be brought to justice, and all their helpers in the administration and the armed forces must be summarily dismissed.
Not until the right to life is guaranteed in Colombia will there be hope of real peace.
This means that the warring factions must immediately start to apply the fundamental principles of humanitarianism.
It means that the government must act to protect the victims of the conflict, including more than a million refugees, many of whom are blacks and Indios. No more impunity for lawbreakers!
Reform the administration of justice, particularly the system of military jurisdiction.
Agrarian reform has to be implemented, and economic and social justice must be established.
This is a task for the European Union too.
We should be helping here, instead of competing for pole position in the export markets.
We must pay fair prices and promote regional development, because peace is the reward for completing this process, not the prerequisite for launching it.
Mr President, I can only agree with the words of the previous speakers.
We do have to ask when this circle of violence, murder, kidnapping and hostage-taking will finally end, when the political authorities and the responsible democrats will finally be strong enough to silence the guns and stamp out corruption and drug trafficking.
The Pastrana government - and we congratulate them on this - are using the strength inherent in a new government to open negotiations with the strongest of the warring factions, with all the difficulties this involves.
We can but hope that negotiations with the other groups will follow, that the paramilitary groups as well as the guerrillas will stop the kidnapping, hostage-taking and killing and that the armed forces finally come to realise that their function is not only to defend the power of the state in a military sense, but also to defend democratic and humane practices.
In this respect, not only the armed forces but also, as has been said already, the constitutional State of Colombia - assuming it wishes to become one - certainly still have a very great deal to learn, and we must help them in that learning process.
It is degrading for a country when its name appears at the top of such a blacklist.
But it is even worse and even more horrific for its people.
We call on the Colombian Government to protect the defenders of human rights and shall support their efforts to do so. We shall also support them in their quest for justice and peace.
During our visit to Bogota in December, we also spoke to the UN High Commissioner for Bogota, who has been an extremely courageous champion of human rights.
There was a question mark over the future of her post.
We very much hope that the office of High Commissioner, which is held in high esteem in Colombia, can be preserved, and I should like to ask the Commission whether it is doing everything in its power to ensure that the post will in fact be preserved.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that we all welcome the peace proposals, but it is impossible for there to be peace when, as other Members pointed out, more than 100 peasants, including women and children, have been killed indiscriminately in the last few days.
An article I have here by a Columbian who works for Justicia y Paz can express better than we can what conditions are needed to achieve peace in Columbia, and it is not a matter of just sitting down and talking.
He mentions reforming the agricultural legislation so that the land that was stolen from the peasants can be given back to them. He also talks about a law on natural resources, and the fact that four basic needs must be met: housing, health, education and employment.
In other words, vital basic standards must be guaranteed to prevent the situation from continuing in this manner, not only in terms of the murders, but also in terms of a hidden war that would have the same results.
Mr President, since Thursday, 7 January, between 100 and 150 people have been killed in a series of brutal massacres carried out primarily by the AUC paramilitaries.
These were not indiscriminate massacres: the paramilitaries had lists of names - in particular community activists and leaders - and executed the people on those lists.
Many of the victims of the past few days were badly tortured before they were killed and most of the paramilitary attacks were in the north of the country.
So, whilst welcoming the peace talks between President Pastrana and the FARC guerrillas, which began on that day, Thursday, 7 January, we have to condemn the fact that the paramilitaries are seeking to sabotage these peace talks.
The Colombian President has committed his government to taking decisive action against these illegal paramilitary forces.
On Monday, 11 January, Mr Pastrana reiterated the exclusive responsibility of the state to disarm the paramilitaries in his ten-point proposed agenda presented to the FARC.
Yet this has just not happened.
On the contrary, there is well documented and internationally verified evidence of active and ongoing collusion between the Colombian armed forces and these paramilitary groups.
I ask the Commissioner, in closing this debate, whether he could commit himself to making urgent representations to the Colombian Government to discuss the need for immediate and decisive action to be taken against the paramilitary groups to protect the fragile peace process and prevent future tragic loss of life, in particular during the peace talks of these coming weeks.
Mr President, Columbia is a country facing a very difficult situation.
A civil war has been gradually developing there for more than 40 years.
Two significant guerrilla groups control a third of the country and clash with the army on a daily basis. There are many paramilitary groups that are committed to instilling fear among the population by carrying out massacres, and to date they have kidnapped 1 500 people.
Two peace processes have failed in recent years and thousands of people have died.
In the midst of this serious situation, a new opportunity for peace is emerging through an initiative by the new president, President Pastrana.
In my view, this initiative encompasses the feelings of most of the Columbian people.
A group of Members, including myself, recently had the opportunity to get closer to the situation and we met practically all of President Pastrana's ministers, various social bodies and the main trade unions.
The conclusion I myself reached is that there is a real and genuine desire to achieve peace. I also became aware of just how long and difficult the process will be and, above all, of the need for international support on both political and economic levels.
Our group believes that the European Parliament, and the European Union itself, can play an important role in the peace process in Columbia by adding an international dimension to the support for the process and by providing whatever help might be of use to the parties involved.
Sierra Leone
Mr President, we are dismayed and appalled that the civil war has broken out again in Sierra Leone.
We had hoped that a stable peace could be established between the government and the Revolutionary United Front once the President and the civil government were restored to office in March 1998.
We should do everything in our power to re-establish peace, and we call on both parties to agree a cease-fire without delay, to open negotiations - and I believe we must support these negotiations - to respect human rights fully and to recognise the international human rights conventions.
For the needy, who always bear the brunt of these conflicts, the provision of humanitarian aid is essential.
We want to ensure that famine does not develop in Sierra Leone and that the refugees in neighbouring countries are cared for, which means that there is a pressing need to conclude a cease-fire in the first instance.
Mr President, everything has already been said in this House about the legitimacy, albeit untoward, of President Kabbah and the illegitimacy of the RUF and the military rebellion.
I will therefore not dwell on these points, and, using Sierra Leone as an example, I would like to make a more general observation concerning a triple failure brought about by unstable countries: that of the UN, that of the OAU and, it must also be said, that of EU diplomacy.
With regard to the UN, if a matter is not sufficiently serious in the eyes of the Americans for it to assert the right to state the rules of international law and to support this with military action, the UN goes from humiliation to rebuff to retreat, and its list of failures, from the UN peacekeepers of the former Belgian Congo to the intervention mission to Sierra Leone, must be a long one.
That list will never come to an end as long as the UN does not have the permanent military resources that it needs to ensure respect of the international law that it is trying to create.
As for the Organisation of African Unity, which is so badly named that it would be better to call it the organisation for connivance between the leaders of African States, it has decided to delegate its powers to regional authorities.
Meanwhile, is it dealing with development or democratic progress that would help reduce the tension? Not at all.
Since it was set up, it has been almost exclusively concerned with ensuring the respect of the old colonial borders, thus guaranteeing the continuance of its members' power structure.
Finally, with regard to the European Union, it must be noted that, in Sierra Leone as elsewhere, it is noticeable by its absence, as it has been unable to attach any real diplomatic influence to its economic aid.
It therefore leaves the way open for the post-colonial diplomacy of its Member States, who have in the past sometimes shown their tendency to fuel crises and, in all cases, their inability to resolve them.
Mr President, in the past few months we have already had to deal with the worsening situation in Sierra Leone on a number of occasions.
In fact, in the course of the last few years, the situation there has steadily deteriorated both politically and in terms of the standard of living of the population.
Because of another attempt by the rebel forces to conquer the country, bloody clashes have again been taking place in the last week, resulting in another thousand victims and making life even more difficult for the civilian population.
In the last few hours news has come through of the abduction of the Archbishop of Freetown, Joseph Hendri Ganda, after Italian missionaries had been taken hostage, one of whom, the Jesuit Father Mario Guerra, is still in the hands of the rebels.
In these circumstances, the first and most urgent requirement, obviously, is to achieve an immediate cease-fire and the release of all the hostages, and to provide for the immediate needs of the population.
The immediate essential is for all harassment of the civilian population to cease and for the aid workers to be able to fulfil their mission.
But at the same time as the legitimate government forces restore order in the country, a start must be made on the more profound work of mediation and national reconciliation which alone can provide a stable political and institutional base for the country and prevent future tragedies.
Here again, the role of the Union must of course be to provide humanitarian aid to meet the urgent needs of the population, including the thousands of refugees in neighbouring countries, and also to take action to promote dialogue, reconciliation and respect for human rights, if necessary through initiatives of its own.
Mr President, Commissioner, and unfortunately in the absence of the German Presidency of the Council, we are all terrified.
That was exactly what the UNHCR observer said about the events in Sierra Leone.
Only recently, we have seen terrible scenes on television. They showed what Foday Sankoh's rebel forces have described, with awful black humour, as the 'short sleeves' and the 'long sleeves', according to whether they cut off the arms of the civilians - including children and women - just below the shoulder or at the wrist.
There is no doubt that the international community has a responsibility in this matter.
However, the people of Sierra Leone, and particularly the political and military leaders, must find a solution to their own problem. Efforts are currently being made in this respect.
It has been suggested that the leader of the rebels, whom I just mentioned, be flown from the city where he is imprisoned, Freetown, to Conakry by the Nigerians to take part in negotiations to which he would add the pre-condition of his own release. That would indeed be a surprising turn of events.
But if his freedom meant that his supporters would not act with such brutal cruelty and that the supposedly civilian government - which shoots members of the military junta without allowing them any right of appeal - would not respond in the same way, then some progress would have been achieved.
Two excellent Spanish journalists, Javier Reverte and Alfonso Armada - and I am sure there are excellent journalists in other countries - have recently published very good books on sub-Saharan Africa, and they have asked us all to be understanding.
I believe that we must be understanding, but we must also demand that the armed citizens in Sierra Leone at least behave like human beings.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is extremely important that this resolution has been brought before Parliament, because it may play a part, however small, in re-establishing what is currently lacking in Sierra Leone, as in so many other countries of sub-Saharan Africa, and that is a minimal sense of statehood.
In fact, any semblance of a state has now been lost in that zone.
Armed bands, warlords, arms dealers - and especially dealers in raw materials, which this land is rich in - do as they please, riding roughshod over the most elementary human rights.
It is crucial that the action taken by the European Union should draw attention to the fact that what is most important, even more important than the rule of law, even more important than democracy, is just being a state, so as to contribute to re-establishing at least some of the minimum conditions of civil society.
Mr President, I will go through the debates in the order in which they were held.
I will look firstly at East Timor and Indonesia.
The Commission has always supported the democratic process in Indonesia and will naturally provide assistance during the next elections in the form of an overall package. The details of this have yet to be decided, although it is a subject that is being discussed in the Council, as Mr Bertens is well aware.
On 8 December 1998, the ambassadors of the European Union troika in Jakarta met President Habibie to gain first-hand information on his plans to implement the measures taken by the People's Consultative Assembly in relation to the political and economic reforms, and, in particular, its plans to hold democratic, open, free and fair elections.
President Habibie confirmed the following dates: there will be elections on 7 June 1999 and the new members of parliament will be sworn in on 29 August 1999.
He had no objections to international assistance and monitoring, nor to the presence of international observers during the elections.
As far as East Timor is concerned, the European Union also entirely supports the United Nations initiative to set up a permanent representation of the United Nations in that region.
The European Union has frequently expressed its concern to the Indonesian authorities about the various violent incidents that have taken place in certain parts of East Timor, in which a considerable number of civilians have reportedly died.
A visit to East Timor by the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention is planned for the beginning of February. The European Union also welcomes the creation, in January 1999, of interest sections that will enable the Portuguese to maintain a presence in Jakarta, with the possibility of free access to East Timor.
The European Union is confident that a final agreement will be reached on the United Nations proposals for a statute of autonomy.
In relation to other East Timor issues, we have informed Parliament on a number of occasions that there is a specific cooperation programme with East Timor, which is, for the most part, implemented through NGOs and the churches in the region.
I will now go on to look at the Sahara, Colombia, the trafficking of children and Sierra Leone. Since it was decided at this morning's sitting to review the entire working methods of the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council, I am sure I am going to disappoint you, as 90 % of the questions that have been asked should instead be addressed to the Council.
All I can do, in fact, is to repeat what is in the common positions that have already been adopted and that you are all aware of. As a result, I am sorry if I cannot give you an adequate response to the problems relating to Western Sahara, Colombia, Sierra Leone and the trafficking of children.
With regard to Western Sahara, the European Union's general position is based on the statement by the Presidency of the Council on 29 December last year.
I will therefore pass on Parliament's concerns to the Council.
As far as the Commission is concerned, we are going to continue to provide humanitarian aid to help the Sahrawi population through NGOs as we have been doing.
We will continue to provide food as well as medical and health assistance for the refugees.
A decision on this was adopted in October 1998, as you know, and the aid being donated to the Sahrawi people now totals approximately EUR 10 million.
The Commission shares your concerns regarding the serious problems in Guatemala involving the trafficking of children and illegal adoptions.
This is indeed a totally despicable form of trafficking.
We have been following this issue carefully - not only in Guatemala, but also in other countries - and, as far as Guatemala is concerned, a series of specific programmes have been implemented with a view to finding a solution, or part of the solution, for this section of the population.
To be specific, there is a programme in Guatemala costing EUR 2.5 million that acts on three levels.
It is primarily aimed at promoting the application of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by Guatemala in 1989, in the hope that the Juvenile and Adolescent Code will be implemented.
In other words, the problem is not with the Convention and the Code as such, which we are helping the Guatemalan authorities to develop. Rather, the problem relates to their ability to apply them and their effectiveness in doing so, as is the case in most similar countries.
To make people aware of the new Juvenile and Adolescent Code, staff are being trained and preparations made for the institutions involved, including judges, the secretariat for social welfare, the attorney general's office, and the institutions responsible for childhood and youth issues. UNICEF is naturally providing a great deal of cooperation on the Code.
Attempts are also being made to ensure that a law on adoption is approved by the National Assembly, as this represents one of the great problems in Guatemala. It is hoped that it will cover both national and international adoptions.
Legal adoption in itself is clearly not the ideal solution for poor families, but it will at least be better to have normal, legal adoptions than illegal ones. In this respect, I would also mention - not only as regards Guatemala, but in general - all the problems related to the trafficking of children, child prostitution and paedophilia, as well as other problems involving third world countries, such as the trafficking of organs.
We need to look at all these issues to gain an overall impression and to deal with them under the principle of joint responsibility.
However, the rich countries are the ones that adopt illegally, that take drugs, that buy organs, and so on. We cannot just look from the North to the South with a critical eye, since we know that the developed countries are the ones that facilitate this type of trade because of their advanced economic and financial situation.
We must therefore redress the balance.
Moving on to Columbia, we will forward your political arguments to the Council and provide details of what the Commission might be able to do.
The Council's position and thus the European Union's position is set out in a statement that was made on 8 January 1999.
I would once again stress that it is very difficult for the Commission to take part in such debates since, apart from telling you what you already know - that we have a Council position, which you will undoubtedly say is of no use - there is very little I can add.
I therefore believe that in the future it would be a good idea for the Council to attend on these occasions so that it can hold a real political debate with you.
As regards the question from Mrs Lenz - and this is indeed a matter for the Commission - Mrs Mazarrasa has informed us that she wishes to leave, as she has been working there for two years.
As you can imagine, human rights work in Columbia is very demanding, and she has therefore decided to leave.
Mrs Robinson came to see us, as a commitment had been made on the part of the European Union to provide the Bogota office with funds for one year only.
Since the human rights situation in Columbia was extremely distressing, we decided to provide funding for a further year and we will have to decide whether or not to continue with this.
I believe that we should because the United Nations, and particularly Mrs Robinson's office, do not have a great deal of money at their disposal.
So we should provide this funding.
However, I say this very cautiously because, after this morning's debate, it is not easy for the Commission to take independent decisions. We will therefore keep Parliament informed.
If you agree - and I am sure you will - then we will be able to begin to provide more funds.
We are going to be very meticulous as regards your decisions.
Nonetheless, we must begin to show consistency.
We are approving resolutions that involve expenditure.
And we cannot vote for one thing in the morning and then in the evening call for decisions that involve spending.
I have told you that I agree with the proposal and that we need to continue to provide funding. But from now on, we will have to do so in the way you requested this morning.
I am therefore in favour of continuing to provide funding, and I will put forward a proposal to that effect.
In addition to this, we must look at what we can do to help the peace process.
The European Union as such is not an international player in the process, although it is true that the Commission delegate was invited to the ceremony marking its beginning.
The proposal we made to the previous government, and which still stands for President Pastrana - who is apparently going to visit the European Community soon - involves the implementation of an accompanying policy relating, in particular, either to internal reforms or to displaced persons and refugees. We already have some experience of this following previous conflicts in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
In response to your comments on Sierra Leone, Mr Robles Piquer, the Commission is following events there very closely, particularly the recent fighting between the rebel forces, including the Revolutionary United Front, and the soldiers from the old Sierra Leone army supported by the ECOMOG regional intervention troops.
With other partners, the European Union has condemned the recent attempt by the rebels to overthrow President Kabbah's legitimately elected government for the second time in two years.
The European Union has decided to give political support to President Kabbah's government and to all those currently working to resolve this crisis through negotiation. However, as you pointed out, the truth is that the situation is changing every day.
Once the situation has become clearer, the Commission will consider what practical support it can provide to help the peace negotiations.
As regards the Commission's area of responsibility, that is, the humanitarian situation, I cannot deny that, in view of the circumstances, we have been forced to evacuate all foreign citizens. And as a result, due to the extreme violence particularly in Freetown and its surrounding areas, there is no possibility of providing humanitarian assistance.
I can therefore tell you that the situation in the country is impossible.
The humanitarian aid situation is much better in neighbouring countries such as Liberia and Guinea, where, although the situation is not under control, it is at least somewhat easier to work.
Mr President, there was one point which the Commissioner made that I did not entirely understand.
I very much appreciate what he said about giving his full commitment to Parliament and work.
We will only see the benefit of this in days to come.
However, I do not understand why, when he then gave a list of countries where we want action to be taken, he started talking about budgets.
I think that in the case of Guatemala, for example, Casa Alianza is already being financed by the Commission and is an active member of the European Network on Streetchildren Worldwide, which has also been funded by the Commission in the past, so it should not be a problem.
The Commissioner could ring the delegation there tomorrow and tell them to approach the Guatemalan Government about it.
Mr President, I agree that, as Mr Marín said, a great deal of what we approve here during topical and urgent debates is the responsibility of the Council.
I would therefore like the Presidency of Parliament, which you represent, to explain the situation to me, because we often debate foreign policy issues in these topical and urgent debates, and that is a matter for the Council. Therefore, what can we do as Members of Parliament, or what can Parliament itself do, to guarantee the Council's presence at these very important debates?
Perhaps there is a gap in the Rules of Procedure. If so, I would ask you to make the Presidency of Parliament aware of it so that it can examine this issue and put forward a proposal regarding the Rules to solve this problem.
The Commissioner, I am sure, will allow me to tell him that he is right.
However, I noted that when discussing the various procedural issues ...
The President cut the speaker off
I have been very indulgent but I cannot allow you to go on any longer.
However, I will respond to your point about the attendance of the Council.
The Council is entitled to attend any of our debates and to speak in any of our debates if it so wishes.
There is someone from the Council here taking notes.
There is no one here authorised to speak on behalf of the Council.
But the Council will be aware of our discussion.
Until now there has been no tradition of a representative of the Council presidency being here to speak.
Parliament is free at any time to ask the Council to be present.
If we were to do so I suspect we would have to change the timing of urgencies because no Member State would be able to field a minister at this time on a Thursday.
Mr Marín, do you wish to respond?
Mr President, when I said that many of the points raised would have been better served by a political debate with the Council, I did not mean to create a dialectical contradiction or highlight the fact that the Council is not here.
This is all being interpreted in a slightly strange manner.
I was not referring to that in any way.
Apart from discussing the common positions and statements approved by the Council, it is very difficult for me to add anything further.
Consequently, I must point out that you have mentioned many political aspects to which I am unable to respond.
That is what I meant.
And since I am unable to do so, I would prefer not to, because these are all subjects that I can refer - or Parliament can refer - to the Council.
But it is the Council that must take the final decision.
As far as Guatemala is concerned, Mrs van Putten, we do have the programme that I mentioned which deals with the children in Guatemala.
However, Guatemala is not the only example of this.
If my memory serves me correctly, I would say that within Latin America the same problem exists in Brazil, where there is another programme, and we also have further programmes for Columbia and four or five other Latin American countries.
With the financial resources we have available, we are first of all trying to implement basic legislation, although this is quite advanced in Guatemala.
Nonetheless, I would stress that the problem is more than just about having legislation; above all, it is about being able to enforce it.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
Am I right in thinking you have a point of order, Mr Telkämper?
Madam President, I wanted to take up the suggestion made by the previous President of the sitting, Mr Martin.
There is no disagreement here between the Commission and the Council, or between the Council and Parliament.
I believe the Council should be present, because we parliamentarians have addressed remarks to the Council on several occasions, and it ought to know what we are saying.
If I may give the example of the Western Sahara, the Council's function with regard to humanitarian aid differs from that of the Commission, for example, and it must be aware of our views.
That is a political necessity.
I would therefore ask you, Madam President, to raise in the Bureau our wish as Members of Parliament that we should be holding a joint sitting on these matters, at which the Commission speaks but the Council is also aware of what is being said.
Yes, Mr Telkämper, I will certainly do that, and I think the Council should indeed be present.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-1096/98 by Mr Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the peace process in the Philippines; -B4-1106/98 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Philippines; -B4-1147/98 by Mrs Lenz and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Philippines; -B4-1158/98 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the peace process in the Philippines; -B4-1160/98 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the V Group, on the Philippines.
Madam President, the European Parliament has long been in favour of a peace process in the Philippines and has in various respects sought to assist this.
Now that an agreement between the government and the National Democratic Front is in force and has been endorsed on both sides, it is important that its proposals are fully implemented and that all consequential steps are taken without delay.
It would appear that goodwill exists on both sides, but some factions which reject the NDF leadership are still not prepared to renounce conflict and a great deal of painstaking work therefore remains to be done if the peace is to be truly comprehensive and lasting.
The issues of human rights, humanitarian aid, land reform and rural development need to be vigorously pursued if the agreement is to be completely successful.
The Commission and the Council - and again we mention the Council - must give full support to this process and we appeal to them on this count.
In conclusion, I call on Parliament to give full and unanimous support to this motion.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, for once we are here in this Chamber, on a Thursday afternoon, to applaud something which actually seems to be good, instead of condemning something dreadful.
The Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, approved by the Government of the Philippines and the former rebels on 7 August 1998, is being respected. Socio-economic projects, development projects, projects to restore full democracy in the country are being approved and it even seems as if human rights may be respected.
So we should not only support this resolution, but we should also study the case of the Phillippines carefully, because it looks like a good example which is worth exporting.
I do not think there is anything further to add except that we must not drop our guard, as support, and not just moral support, from the European Union is certainly still necessary if the process of democratisation is to continue and be consolidated.
Madam President, the Philippines is a country that has a variety of ties with Europe, some of which, unfortunately, have certain adverse repercussions from a European point of view.
Foremost among these is sex tourism, the causes of which lie primarily in Europe.
What we are discussing here is a resolution on the peace process in the Philippines, the process of establishing peace between the government and the National Democratic Front.
This peace process should benefit the people and their country.
The potentially violent disputes must not be allowed to continue; efforts for peace, social and economic reforms and land reform must come to dominate the political landscape.
Human rights can only benefit from such efforts.
They are part of this process.
At least the people of the Philippines are well aware of the value of democracy. They are also aware of the value of international humanitarian conventions.
There are many non-governmental organisations in the Philippines - social and church organisations - which care for people and promote peace.
I very much hope that the assistance provided by the European Union will also reach its target there too, for there is a need to mobilise all forces to assist in this complex process in a country which is, of course, already democratic, with a view to reconstructing peace and democracy.
We call on the government and the political parties to intensify their efforts, and we call on the European Union to support these efforts.
May I take this opportunity to say, Commissioner, that I am not sure whether I am entirely happy about your sudden solicitude for the Council.
We are not used to that here.
The point of the question I asked you before, and of many other questions besides, was to ascertain who has a say in the use of EU funds.
That was the point I raised.
Madam President, the peace process in the Philippines has certainly been a lengthy process.
The European Union and Parliament, of course, have also made important contributions to the peace effort.
I can certainly recall visits by several delegations in the EC-ASEAN framework, for example in the early days of Mrs Aquino's government.
At that time we gave strong backing to the process.
There is goodwill on both sides - on the NDFP side and on the government side - as has been said.
We must support and encourage this goodwill.
It seems to me that there are two especially important points.
The first is the monitoring of human rights observance, and the second is the essential land reform.
This takes us back to the institutional conflict between the Commission and the Council.
I believe - and I should like to say this quite explicitly today, Mr Marín - that the Commission has done valuable and significant work with regard to the Philippines.
It is, of course, important that projects are implemented and that there is no possibility of projects being implemented in which human rights are infringed.
But that is a political issue.
The call for land reform is addressed to the Council.
That is why I shall close by repeating my request that you in the Bureau, as David Martin suggested before, should ask the Council to attend these debates, to hear these messages for itself and to organise this new practice jointly with ourselves.
Thank you, Mr Telkämper.
The message has been heard.
Madam President, Commissioner, I welcome the fact that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines have been engaged in building a peace process.
It is particularly pleasing that this has taken place with good faith being shown on both sides and also that they have been addressing political, human rights and social and economic issues.
However, it is a source of regret that latterly this process has slowed down and it is indeed a worrying development.
It is vitally important that this trend is reversed and that we accelerate the progress of the peace negotiations.
An important element in ensuring that this happens, as has already been said by Mr Smith in proposing the resolution, is the role of both the Council and the Commission.
In this context I would certainly like to underline the proposal contained in paragraph 4 of the compromise text, which urges these two bodies to provide whatever support and assistance is necessary to facilitate the peace negotiations.
In underlining that point I would ask the Members of the House to support this particular compromise resolution.
Madam President, at the first meeting between senior officials of the European Community and the Philippine Government, held in Manila in December 1997, it was decided that the main target of European Union assistance should be the redevelopment and reform of rural areas, issues that affect only the indigenous Muslim population in Mindanao.
As a result, three projects costing a total of EUR 21 million are currently being implemented with a view to encouraging and consolidating the peace process between the Philippine Government and the NDF.
Moreover, the Commission is currently drawing up a project costing EUR 14 million to strengthen the communities affected by the agrarian reform in the four provinces in the centre of Mindanao. Preference will be given in this project to the Muslim and indigenous people in the region's provinces.
In accordance, too, with the aim of the Philippine Government, the project will be aimed at the Muslim communities, particularly the rebel repatriates who have become beneficiaries of the agrarian reform of approximately 37 communities.
Its aim is to provide assistance to improve the quality of the land, to organise and strengthen farmers' associations and to supply the basic social infrastructure. It also aims to guarantee water supply, build schools and health centres, promote productivity and undertake projects with minor infrastructures.
This is a summary of the European Union's participation in the process of rural redevelopment and reform in the Mindanao region. And indeed, it is one of the key elements in the peace process that was negotiated some years ago with the Moro Liberation Front.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place shortly.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-1094/98 by Mr Ford and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the relocation of the Xerox Corporation; -B4-0077/99 by Mr Lagendijk and others, on behalf of the V Group, on the relocation of the Xerox Corporation; -B4-0081/99 by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mr Pronk, on behalf of the PPE Group, on relocation by Rank Xerox.
Madam President, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group on the relocation of jobs by the Xerox Corporation, first I should like to apologise on behalf of my co-signatory, Mr Metten, who, because of the delay in this debate has had to return to Holland.
With respect to our resolution let me be clear.
Our resolution deals with the transfer of 250 jobs from Venray in Holland, and over 500 jobs from Mitcheldean in the United Kingdom, to Ireland.
However this resolution is not an attack on Ireland or the Irish; nor is it an attack on the peace process.
We will be voting in favour of Amendment No 6 tabled by Mrs Ahern and Mrs McKenna which points out that the creation of employment in the Dundalk region is an important support for peace and reconciliation in the border area and welcomes in principle the initiative to create jobs in the region.
The joint resolution on behalf of the Socialist Group, the Christian Democrat Group and the GUE Group deals with two major separate issues.
First is the failure by the Xerox Corporation, an American-based multinational, to adequately consult with the workforce, particularly in Mitcheldean and with local government in both locations.
The company claims they have followed the letter of the law, but testimony from the workforce in Mitcheldean, two of whom were seated in the gallery today, suggests that the spirit of the law suffered from gross abuse.
They - the Xerox Corporation - claim they went through the presentation of a fait accompli in slow motion.
The company told me earlier this week that the consultation started on 7 April 1998 and the final decision was not made until September.
Since that time, however, I have been given a copy of a photograph and a press report that shows a picture of Irish Deputy Prime Minister Mrs Mary Harney with Mr Bill Good, Deputy Managing Director of Xerox, announcing the new plant on 2 June.
The period of genuine consultation was so short that the process was little short of a farce.
I hope the Xerox Corporation, when this resolution is passed, will try again, try harder and try properly.
The second issue we deal with is the more general concern about the possible use of European aid to shuffle jobs around Europe.
We are very much in favour of job creation with a rising 20 million unemployed in the European Union, but Xerox is an example - by no means the only one, by no means the worst and, unfortunately, by no means the last - where, on closer inspection, what are claimed to be shiny new jobs being created turn out to be a mirage.
They are somebody else's job, kidnapped and held to ransom and eventually sold across Europe to the highest bidder.
The 'somebody else's jobs' are devastating families and communities.
In the Forest of Dean, an area with high unemployment, Xerox is the single largest employer.
This is not an appropriate use of Community funds.
This is not an appropriate use of European assistance.
This is not an appropriate use of national assistance.
We should all be clear about this.
Ireland has suffered as much as any.
Fruit of the Loom recently moved on to richer pastures.
We should all learn from each other that getting engaged in this kind of Dutch auction is not the way forward in terms of job creation.
I spoke to Xerox this week.
They have moved a little.
They have at least now agreed to consider applications for job transfer from individuals with appropriate qualifications, which is why we have to reject Amendment No 5 by Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the ARE Group which claims that Xerox is considering such requests.
It is a doubtful claim when the principle was only agreed two days ago.
Xerox is one particular example of an all too common problem.
We have good cause to complain and to protest about this case in particular, but we also have a responsibility to use Parliamentary power to change the rules to protect tomorrow's victims as well.
Madam President, it is always a cause for deep concern when people lose their jobs and it is perfectly proper and natural to raise matters regarding consultation and compliance with EU regulations.
However, to target the creation of jobs for others, particularly in a region like Dundalk, which needs economic stability to copperfasten the process of peace and reconciliation, is unacceptable.
Therefore I very much welcome Mr Ford's comments, and the fact that he agrees with my amendment - which states the principle of the creation of jobs in that area - is important.
Relocation concerns the movement of industrial facilities from one Member State to another and is of concern to the EU in so far as state aid or Structural Funds are, or seem to be, fuelling and encouraging such relocation.
Many factors, however, can contribute to a commercial decision to relocate a plant.
In this context, it is a matter of constant criticism in Ireland that members of government, in particular prime ministers and deputy prime ministers, rush to announce decisions before they are properly constituted.
I would criticise Mrs Harney for so doing, if, as was said, she did that at a time in the process when consultations should have been taking place.
However, in Ireland we refuse to be cast in the role of villain because of one or two high-profile relocations in recent years.
We have also been the losers of important projects and significant job numbers.
Structural funds are not a factor in these packages, and the policy that state aid should be recouped if an enterprise relocates has been the consistent policy and practice of the Industrial Development Authority in Ireland.
This is simply a matter of best practice in industrial policy and the correct management of public finances.
Madam President, the reason we have tabled this resolution is not because we want to criticise the way in which Xerox has dealt with its works councils.
We have no such criticisms.
We also do not wish to criticise the way the Irish authorities have tried to make sure they secured this Xerox plant in order to bring jobs to the area.
What we do criticise is that European funding has been able to be used to relocate the electronics division from the Venray plant to a new location in Ireland.
Xerox claims that this is not a relocation, but some staff and part of the company are being moved.
What we want to know is why the Commission agreed that this multinational, which as we know wants to downsize worldwide, should be allowed, either by being provided with a suitable site or with subsidies, to transfer part of its staff to its plant in Ireland.
How can European Union funding, in other words taxpayers' money, be used to create such a distortion of competition?
Madam President, this is not a very suitable subject to deal with through urgency.
First of all, most of the investment in Ireland is in entirely new projects and does not involve the relocation of jobs.
The incentives given to Xerox in Ireland comply fully with EU competition policy.
No European money whatsoever has been involved in the project.
So there is a serious mistake there.
The UK gets 40 % of all foreign investment which comes into the European Union.
Are we to have a Commission inquiry into this, with allegations that because it gets 40 % of all investment there is something wrong? Recently we have seen headlines in Dutch and Irish newspapers about jet aircraft being chartered to fly workers from the west of Ireland to jobs in the Netherlands because the Netherlands cannot get workers to do this work.
Yet we cannot get enough workers for our own labour-intensive industries in Ireland.
Are we going to ask the Commission to investigate that? Please do not be jealous of Ireland because we have had economic growth for the last year or two.
Ireland represents 1 % of the European Union, 1 % of the economy.
The 8 000 net jobs which we gained last year, our best year ever, will not solve the problem in Holland or the UK.
Please, MEPs, do not try to tell your constituents that it is the economic boom in Ireland that is taking jobs out of your constituencies.
That is a total distortion of the truth and an abuse of the urgency procedure in this Parliament.
Madam President, while I welcome the more moderate tone of the compromise resolution, I still cannot endorse it as it implies an unacceptable criticism of Ireland which is untrue.
Should it not be adopted, I am even more opposed to the thrust and the tenor of the Socialist and Green resolutions, nor can I support the EPP resolution.
Structural Funds are not a factor in these type of packages.
Our state aid to industry is reasonable and permissible and has been approved by the Commission.
It is declining in response to our increased development, public expenditure reductions and new European Union rules.
The question of relocation has been discussed in the Industry Council and Commissioner van Miert believes that the existing rules are more than adequate to prevent abuse of state aids and that no further action can be called for by the Commission.
I am proud of our record in securing inward investment.
Many factors can contribute to relocation decisions.
In Ireland we now have a talented and well-educated workforce and a good skills base, and the aid profile of the workforce in Dundalk is right.
We have the language skills and the necessary flexibility, productivity and labour costs.
Our wise investment in telecommunications has enabled us to benefit from one of the most advanced networks in Europe.
I would point out to the British proponents of the original urgency motion that their own Labour Government was the most vociferous when the German Government recently mooted the introduction of a harmonised tax system in the European Union.
How can you call in effect for a realignment of taxes in the Member States while such a move is opposed by your own government? The Irish Government has reached an agreement with the European Commission with regard to regulating our corporation tax regime.
Naturally I welcome the Xerox decision to relocate in Ireland and I would urge it to do its utmost to avoid the need for any redundancies.
Madam President, I do not think that we should be surprised at how things have developed.
Certain colleagues in this House have constantly broadened the scope of our urgency procedure.
We have discussed doping, and today we are faced with an even more serious matter, the individual case of a company.
Imagine how many company cases could be brought before this House and would convert it, as it is now, into a Parliament for unions and bosses in which no-one has the documentation and no-one can judge by the evidence.
In this case, there are a number of inaccuracies, and a number of things that are frankly false.
Moreover, we are talking about relocation.
My colleagues should know that, in a single market, it is no longer a question of relocation, but of a choice on the part of companies who have every right to go wherever they please, wherever they feel offers the best conditions for them to produce.
Therefore, as we can do no more than limit the damage, I strongly urge my colleagues to adopt the amendments tabled by the Group of the European Radical Alliance in order to try to set the record straight and not to punish an American company that has done some restructuring in the Netherlands and in the United Kingdom, and which, in addition, has created 1 000 jobs in another country of the European Union.
We should, and we must, congratulate them.
This is why I invite our colleagues to vote in favour of the amendments from the ARE Group and I welcome the fact that there are still Americans who have confidence, who come to invest in our countries and who carry out restructuring when it is necessary.
Madam President, the resolution before us on the relocation of a major company from one Member State to another brings us face to face with a familiar but fundamental problem.
What it boils down to is that huge amounts of money from the Structural and Cohesion Funds can be used directly or indirectly not really to create new jobs, but to attract firms and jobs from other Member States.
To put it bluntly but accurately, it is a sort of organised theft of employment.
I have to say that I do not know enough about the case in question to be able to judge, and I actually think that Ireland in particular has made a huge effort over the last few years to use the European funds intelligently and efficiently, which unfortunately cannot be said of all the other Member States or regions.
Generally speaking, however, the problems of how the European funds are used remain enormous.
There are problems of waste and fraud - as I am sure the Commission will agree - there are problems with the improper allocation of funds, and there are problems with jobs being relocated rather than created.
My province of West Flanders too has similar problems, with the neighbouring province in Wallonia luring firms with the 30 billion francs of Structural Fund money that it has at its disposal.
The Commission knows about this and acknowledges that it is a problem, but up to now it has done nothing about it.
If it is not tackled at its roots, I fear that the time will soon come when the people of Europe will no longer be prepared to show solidarity, and this would be a great pity.
If we want to prevent this, then it is high time we did something about it.
Madam President, most of what has to be said about this issue has been said.
But I would just like to return to the fact that many colleagues are under the misconception that European funds have been used in an unethical way to attract the Xerox Corporation to Ireland.
I believe that what has attracted Xerox and many other high-tech companies to Ireland has been the decision on the part of successive Irish Governments to target education for young people and to prepare them for these high-tech jobs, which has resulted in Ireland becoming an attractive place for the location of such companies.
I should also like to say that I fully understand the anguish, particularly in the UK, of the workforce who perceive this as an attack on their jobs.
I accept their point that they were not given adequate consultation and if there was any, it was a very superficial kind of consultation, which in fact went against the works directive that this Parliament has supported.
That having been said, I welcome the jobs that are coming to Dundalk, a sad black spot that is desperately in need of better development and more jobs.
I hope that we can resolve this in a way that is acceptable to all of us.
Obviously there is not a strong difference of opinion between us here.
Madam President, I would like to begin by saying, on behalf of the Commission, that I fully understand the problems of regions that lose jobs to other parts of the Community.
Fortunately, such cases are still relatively rare within the European Union and, of course, as you just pointed out, the new jobs created in regions that attract investment are welcome, since this means an increase in employment.
However, these positive elements do not mean that we can ignore the distressing consequences involved for the regions where the jobs are lost.
Therefore, it is a very difficult balance to strike.
The social repercussions of relocations can be worse if workers or their representatives are not adequately consulted beforehand.
In order to alleviate the negative social effects often caused by industrial restructuring, the European Union established various legal instruments designed to guarantee that this type of operation takes place in an acceptable social climate and that due consideration is given to the interests of those who may be affected.
In this respect, the Commission's services are currently trying to establish whether or not Xerox has complied with national and Community regulations on this issue.
When considering relocations, we must not exaggerate the importance of subsidies in the decisions taken by companies.
Such subsidies may influence the choice of the new site, but they do not necessarily influence the decision to close or reduce the capacity of existing plants.
However, this issue was discussed at the last two Industry Councils and on both occasions the Commission explained the measures that have been taken to reduce the incentives that Member States can offer to companies to make them move from one area to another.
I will give you a brief summary of them.
Firstly, in the new guidelines from December 1997, the Commission has reduced the levels of regional aid that Member States may grant.
These guidelines will enter into force at the end of 1999.
Secondly, the recent multi-sectoral guidelines on regional subsidies to large investment projects may reduce even further the levels of subsidies for large projects.
Thirdly, a durability clause has been added to the guidelines on regional subsidies and to the Structural Fund regulations, stating that investment projects that have received subsidies must last at least five years.
Fourthly, the Commission has also adopted a new communication on fiscal aid that explains how the rules on state aid are applied to tax incentives.
Fifthly, and this aspect is especially important in this case, the Commission has taken measures to eliminate the element of state aid involved in Irish corporation tax.
As regards the specific question of Community funding, Parliament should note that since 1 January 1998 the European Regional Development Fund has not provided any subsidies for local investment in Ireland.
There has thus been no intervention on the part of the European Regional Development Fund in Ireland since 1998.
This decision was taken in order to rationalise Community aid to the Irish production sector, but also because it was believed that this area should no longer receive Community aid precisely because of the high performance of the Irish economy.
Therefore, no subsidies for the new Xerox plant in Dundalk have been cofinanced by the ERDF, nor has it received any subsidies from the European Social Fund.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place shortly.
VOTES (continuation)
We live in an internal market operating within the European Union where there is free movement of goods, persons, services and capital across the territories of fifteen Member States covering a population of close to 340 million people.
However, there is no common VAT system operating within the European Union at this time, and the present lack of uniformity in this regard has led to fragmentation of the workings of the single market operating across fifteen different fiscal areas.
The fact that it is impossible to know about all the VAT provisions in force in the other Member States of the EU means that taxpayers have to operate in a situation of legal uncertainty as well as having to work with various different bureaucratic structures in different Member States of the EU.
VAT is one of the areas covered by the second phase of the SLIM initiative (Simpler Legislation for the Internal Market) in which the European Commission has shown considerable interest.
In particular, SLIM has identified the need to bring in simpler VAT refund procedures which would assist business across the European Union in the payment of refunds for the sale of goods or the provision of services.
As part of the ongoing work to improve the common VAT system, the European Commission has put forward proposals concerning the right to deduct VAT costs that have been incurred.
It seeks to change the current system by which traders have to go through exceedingly complex and costly procedures to ask for a refund from the tax authorities in the Member State in which the VAT was incurred.
This will be replaced with a simpler system under which companies can use their regular VAT return to deduct VAT incurred in another Member State.
The proposal also seeks to lay down common rules for the right to deduct VAT on certain categories of expenditure which have an element of private consumption such as food, drink, hotel accommodation and passenger cars.
I support measures which help business prosper and operate more effectively within the territories of the EU.
The European Union must introduce fair and definitive rules governing the common VAT system based on the principle of a single place of taxation and deduction.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party abstained in the final vote on the report by Mr Riccardo Garosci on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC and Directive 98/xxx/EEC regarding rules governing the right to deduct Value Added Tax.
Both the rapporteur's recommendations and the Commission's proposal make significant changes to tax deductibility in respect of business usage of cars, hotels, food and drink, and entertainment.
In many instances these proposals will add to the administrative burden of businesses, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises.
In addition, not enough flexibility has been built into the proposals to reflect national systems of addressing such VAT deductibility.
Malerba report (A4-0366/98)
I support the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of the European Parliament which has expressed strong support for a proposal by the European Commission to strengthen international coordination in order to meet the challenges of globalisation and the information society.
The European Commission has examined the problems caused by the interaction between traditional regulation and the requirements of the on-line economy and it tries to identify areas where strengthened international coordination is needed.
It does not propose a specific solution to these questions as such and it does not suggest that global regulation should be introduced for the Internet or that new international entities should be created.
However, I believe that the idea to establish an Internet charter which will be a legally non-binding document setting out internationally agreed objectives and principles in areas such as taxation, liability, jurisdiction and data protection would be a very good idea indeed.
From a European perspective, the main purpose of this charter would be to ensure that European companies and organisations can fully participate in the opportunity offered by the Internet and electronic commerce so as to avoid premature and conflicting regulations and to ensure that the interests of consumers are safeguarded at all times.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy of Parliament is right to endorse the European Commission's proposal for an international initiative for the Internet and electronic commerce.
Such a document would ensure that a set of internationally agreed objectives be drawn up in close cooperation with other countries, most notably the United States of America, and would encourage simplified regulatory governance of the Internet.
Information technology has made extraordinary strides in recent years and the advent of the Internet has brought the benefits of IT into many homes and businesses in recent times.
The setting up of an Internet charter would be a very sensible idea and one which would be for the benefit of consumers.
The rights of consumers must be of paramount consideration for the European Commission and the European Parliament at all times.
From an Irish perspective I welcome the recent initiative by the Irish Government which seeks to make Ireland the centre of electronic commerce in Europe in the very near future.
The global electronic market requires technical, legal and commercial regulation of a flexible kind which does not prevent the electronic market from developing.
I therefore agree with the Commission that a broad dialogue between the authorities, business, consumers and international organisations is absolutely essential.
For the same reason, I have long supported the creation of an international Internet Charter, and I therefore welcome this proposal from the Commission.
However, I also support the extensions of the charter recommended by the committee, for example to protect the interests of consumers and avoid conflicting legislation, both inside and outside the EU.
I am voting in favour of this report today.
Strengthened international coordination will assist the fight against pornography on the Internet and protect consumers taking advantage of the electronic marketplace against credit card fraud.
In an increasingly knowledge-based society, the Internet is a major tool of empowerment for the people of the North West, Britain and Europe as a whole, whether in the marketplace or the workplace.
The Labour Party has a long track record of supporting the development of information technology.
It was Tony Blair who reached a ground-breaking agreement with British Telecom to connect every school in Britain to the Internet.
A recent survey found that 29 % of British adults now have access to the Internet.
I want to see this figure increase and Internet access broadened to as wide a cross-section of society as possible.
A successful, high-skill economy demands that knowledge be available to the many and not the few.
Larive report (A4-0503/98)
Although there are a number of good points in Mrs Larive's report, we decided in the end to vote against the resolution.
I should like to outline the main considerations that led us to this conclusion.
It is clear from the outset that it is not easy to apply the principles of the single market to commercial communications while at the same time meeting the public interest objectives.
Each Member State has its own rules on the admissibility of commercial communications, and the wide range of laws, rules and practices reflect the diversity of the religious, cultural and social values held by people in the Member States.
So it is more than just a legal problem.
Promoting efficiency is a good thing, but when the need for efficiency takes precedence over ethical and cultural aspects - such as by saying that they do not come within the concept of 'the general good' - then as legislator you no longer have any means of guaranteeing the necessary respect for fundamental values or of preventing people from being hurt or offended by things said in commercial communications.
The recognition of religious, cultural and social differences in the Member States should therefore be given full consideration in any legislation on cross-border commercial communications.
Recitals D and H and paragraphs 2 and 5 of the resolution call for exactly the opposite.
Finally, it must be seen as an omission that not a single mention is made of the harm done indirectly to the environment by the fact that many commercial communications simply encourage consumerism.
Commercial communications play a key role in the EU.
They employ more than a million Europeans and are still growing, thanks to the development of new information technologies and new demand.
The Commission has now decided to adopt a number of measures which will make it easier to offer commercial communications services across borders, but not of course at the expense of the general interest.
The Commission's initiative is a necessary and positive one, but I agree with the committee that the actions proposed should be adjusted and made more specific in a number of respects.
It will be extremely important to consider the committee's recommendations when the concrete proposals for measures are discussed.
European postal services
The economic, social and employment benefits derived from postal services cannot be negated or reduced by the rush to free market liberalisation, as there are no guarantees that this move will allow the essential services on cost and universality to continue.
In Ireland the local post offices play a very important role as a contact point for people, especially the elderly.
Also, of all the public utilities, people employed in the Post Office generally live in their working area and contribute to the local economy and community development.
Therefore, it is vital that any moves towards liberalisation will have to be preceded by a full state-by-state evaluation of the economic, employment, social and community effects.
The gradual and controlled liberalisation of the postal services has been underway since the adoption of Directive 97/67/EC.
The Luxembourg Socialists have always stressed the social and economic importance of the postal services and the need to provide quality services.
They also insist on a universal service that is not a minimum service, but one which ensures optimum coverage of the whole national territory.
The Commission had announced that it would present a new proposal on the gradual and controlled liberalisation of the postal services before the end of 1998, but nothing came of it.
We therefore support the wish of the European Parliament to evaluate the consequences of liberalisation before any further progress is made.
This evaluation must be based on the Commission's feasibility studies, but also on Parliament's own analysis, in cooperation with the postal services in the Member States.
It is clear that the evaluation must take into account not only short-term profitability, but also the consequences for employment, the social benefits for all consumers, and efficiency for the economy.
This is the manner in which the Luxembourg Socialists will approach any other moves towards liberalisation on the part of the Commission.
I welcome the resolution on the liberalisation of postal services. It puts its finger on the causes for concern and the risks which liberalisation could bring with it.
Efficient postal services are a right for all EU citizens and should not fall victim to the whims of the market.
I look forward to becoming acquainted with the various feasibility studies which the Commission has carried out.
Just one year ago, on 15 December 1997, we were adopting a framework directive on postal services.
Now, according to some information, the Commission services are preparing a new proposal for a regulation.
This would call into question the provision that was recently decided on, which notably moves towards increased liberalisation.
However, we had decided that, before undertaking any review, we should evaluate the effects of the new regulation.
Although we admit that any measure can be adapted to make it more effective, we question the merits of a major review of all the recent regulations on the European postal services, when we have still not established the results of those regulations.
If we try to legislate too much, and too quickly, we legislate badly.
This is why we think that, before any changes are made, we need to know the effects of the regulations that are in force.
With this in mind, we therefore ask the Commission to undertake an impact study of the changes brought about by the 1997 directive.
This evaluation would consider the consequences of increased liberalisation of the postal services, covering the social, economic and financial aspects.
The results of such a study would enable the European legislatures in the various countries to have highly precise information in order to be able to judge whether it is really necessary to take new measures, and to what extent.
As long as the results of this impact study of Directive 97/67/EC are not known in each country, we consider any change in the regulations to be inappropriate.
Annual debate pursuant to Article K.6
Mrs Van Lancker must be congratulated on what has been exemplary cooperation in this sensitive area.
Schengen creates the conditions for freedom of movement which we are seeking.
It is in all of our interests that the Schengen Convention should work effectively, without undermining integrity.
And indeed on these issues there is reason to praise the report.
My concern is the Nordic Passport Union.
In Scandinavia, we have an effective system of freedom of movement, and it is important that this can still be maintained when Schengen becomes part of the Treaty.
This requires better Scandinavian adaptation to EU legislation.
One example is the extradition legislation in Norway.
Other examples can also be found where coordination in Scandinavia is necessary.
The Nordic Council should go through the legislation to find areas which involve Schengen in order to achieve a common Nordic harmonisation.
The police and customs cooperation in Scandinavia, the Nordic Passport Union and the common travel zone between the UK and Ireland are all examples of effective ways of developing freedom of movement which do not involve creating more police controls than in other countries.
The legislation in the Nordic countries is not uniform, but there is a significant degree of approximation.
This shows that such approximation could also take place at European level, in step with the increase in day-to-day interaction between the Union's citizens, thereby also strengthening our common sense of identity and culture.
Legal approximation between countries must always be handled very carefully.
However, it is clear that this is needed within the Union. It would make living together in the Union easier.
It has been possible to detect a certain north/south divide in the concept of right and wrong in the debates this week, as far as irregularities in the Commission are concerned.
Approximation between our countries with regard to a concept of justice would be welcome, exactly as has taken place in Scandinavia.
Finally, I would like to thank the presidency for its kind words about my reports on organised crime, especially the latest on preventative measures, which I hope will be able to provide a stimulus towards developing a common approach to legal issues.
The Socialist Group voted for the Nassauer resolution on Article K.6 because this resolution, as amended in committee and in the House, places emphasis on various points that we consider to be fundamental: the slow pace of the work towards implementing the area of freedom, security and justice and integrating the Schengen acquis into the Treaty; the delays in ratifying fundamental acts; and the failure of the Council to sufficiently take note of Parliament's demands with regard to being informed and consulted and its opinions being taken into account.
Paragraph 16, if it had been retained, would have prevented us from voting in favour of the final report, as it anticipated the right to consultation demanded by Parliament concerning the Austrian Presidency's strategy paper, and welcomed its repressive aspects.
As this paragraph disappeared in favour of Amendment No 4, which is more neutral, we did vote for the final text, despite the adoption of Article 19, which we would also have liked to have removed.
We felt that it was necessary for this report to be adopted in order to urge the Council to make up for the delays that it denounces and to take into account Parliament's demands on relations between Parliament and the Council.
Van Lancker report (A4-0006/99)
Madam President, the recommendation that the European Parliament has just adopted on Schengen cooperation calmly states that 'the countervailing police and judicial cooperation measures cannot therefore under any circumstances' - I stress, under any circumstances - ' take precedence over consolidation of this area of freedom and security and continuing to ensure the free movement of persons.'
In other words, the free movement of persons is a priority and the countervailing security measures must, in all cases, take second place.
This astonishing statement sheds a very dangerous light on Articles 61 onwards of the Treaty of Amsterdam and could be sufficient cause for France to halt the ratification of the Treaty in order to find out more.
In particular, we would find it intolerable if the Council working group, which is currently considering the division of the Schengen acquis between the first and third pillars, were to block the Schengen safeguard clause.
This clause must be introduced in its current form and without the slightest restriction into the first pillar, notwithstanding the recitals of the Schengen Protocol, which, absurdly, seem to state the contrary.
If necessary, the French Government will have to go as far as using force on this issue, as it is so crucial for the security of our fellow citizens.
I would like to conclude by expanding a little on this.
For a week now, in the debates on fraud, we have been hearing the Commission say that if everything is going badly it is because it is overloaded with tasks that it does not have the resources to undertake.
Now, the recommendation on Schengen that we have just adopted after the Amsterdam Treaty demands that an unthinkable number of new tasks be transferred to the Commission, from the international criminal networks in Naples to tracking down illegal immigrants in the suburban areas of France.
Do we not think, by any chance, that things are already going badly enough?
Justice and home affairs issues should be dealt with first and foremost by the national parliaments.
We do not support the Schengen rules and their incorporation into the Union framework, which will deprive Member States of their right to take direct decisions on several justice and home affairs issues, such as those involving visas and asylum.
Cooperation in the fight against crime is necessary. This should primarily take place between the national police authorities and Interpol, and not by building up a competing European police organisation, Europol.
The reason why cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs has not progressed more quickly probably lies in the fact that these issues are national ones and should therefore be decided at national level.
However, cooperation in distributing flows of refugees in the event of crises is desirable.
Schengen is supposed to be about the free movement of persons.
However, only a few articles deal with freedom of movement, while most of the Schengen rules are concerned with border and security controls.
The register of persons which is being built up around Schengen is unacceptable, and violates personal integrity.
Schengen could also lead to a less generous refugee and asylum policy.
The whole Schengen system must be revised.
Schengen could also have an adverse effect on the Nordic Passport Union, and we have therefore voted against the report.
Protection of families and children
The next item is the report (A4-0004/99) by Mrs Hermange, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the protection of families and children.
Madam President, Robert Debré, the renowned pediatrician, used to say that our children are our eternity.
Now, in the construction of Europe, children and families are the ones who are most forgotten in the mechanisms that are being put in place for cooperation and solidarity.
This is unacceptable, as our children face particular risks such as road accidents, drug addiction, sexual abuse, stress at school, illiteracy, instability, and paedophile networks.
It is also unacceptable that 250 million children worldwide are at work, and that we in the developed countries buy, at a low cost, some of the products made by those same children.
It is unacceptable that more than a million children are used for prostitution and for the perverse satisfaction of western tourists.
It is also unacceptable that some families are tormented by distress.
While we were having what is certainly an important political debate these last few days, a few Members among us have been considering a very delicate matter, that of the Lancelin-Tiemann affair in which children were kidnapped by their father because procedures are not harmonised between two countries.
This is why, on behalf of the committee, I am presenting to you today an own-initiative report which has the sole objective of instigating a real political will to create a global approach to family policy based on giving the priority to children and on four principles: taking account of the diversity of family models, placing children at the heart of the European debate, going beyond the socio-economic approach of policies geared solely to benefits, and respecting equal opportunities for men and women.
Firstly, this approach means, as in the first measure in the report, drawing up family impact statements geared to the well-being of children to accompany all proposals for Community acts.
Secondly, at an institutional level, a series of measures should be implemented as quickly as possible, notably the extraordinary European Council meeting in order to debate the consequences of the demographic, family and child protection policies pursued by the various Member States. There should also be regular debate on family affairs and children in the Council of Ministers, and the unit within the European Commission that is devoted to those policies should be restructured.
In this respect, I would very much like the European Commission's inter-departmental group on matters related to childhood to be revived, especially as there are particular problems with the legal basis for budgetary headings concerning children.
I would also like to point out that, in order to implement this European strategy, I advocate the adoption of guidelines for action in favour of children drawn up with the partners in government after consultation with Parliament and in close collaboration with family organisations and solidarity organisations working directly or indirectly to improve the social integration of children in Europe.
With regard to child protection policy, certain proposals should be highlighted.
In the field of health care policy, we want to set up a European perinatal epidemiological network composed of regional perinatal surveillance units for each set of data and a common European perinatal database, which is something that urgently needs to be put in place in order to combat infant and maternal mortality.
With regard to parenting and education, which is a serious problem nowadays, we must implement strategies for relations between mothers and children from a very young age. Also, the establishment of schools for parents and out-of-school associations, which will improve children's integration into social life, should be encouraged.
In the field of prevention and of protection from danger in childhood, I would like to encourage the Member States to appoint children's ombudsmen with the task of reaching an amicable settlement in conflicts involving young people under the age of 18.
Finally, in order to prevent ill treatment and violence, I propose the creation of a European centre for children in danger, which would have the task of promoting the exchange of know-how and making available a European register of children who have disappeared and of culprits who have received sentences, drawn up in cooperation with the national police and judicial authorities and Europol.
Also, events that are unfortunately too frequent highlight the need to design, on the basis of the consideration currently being given to the European judicial area, a coordinated mechanism among our countries in the area of family law, for the well-being of our children.
These, Madam President, are the main measures that I would like to submit to the House.
On 24 November last year, the Committee on Women's Rights unanimously supported my opinion.
The committee feels that pursuing a family policy at European level is impossible and undesirable for the following reasons. Firstly, family policy is typically one of the areas where the principle of subsidiarity applies.
The Member States do not need the Community in order to have an efficient family policy.
Secondly, there is no definition of a European family, nor do we need one.
Differences in culture and tradition make it impossible to find a common basis for formulating proposals for such a policy.
The Committee on Women's Rights is therefore against the rapporteur's proposals calling for a European Council of Ministers on family policy, and all the other proposals for a special family policy at European level.
All that Europe can be responsible for is ensuring that, when new policy measures are introduced, account is taken of their effects on the situation of families in the Member States.
More European interference in the family could mean that families would suffer.
The Committee on Women's Rights agrees with the rapporteur's proposals regarding the protection of children and their rights, provided that they are consistent with the existing international legal framework and that they are cross-border measures.
The Liberal Group is against any European interference in family matters, and will therefore support only those paragraphs that are aimed at providing better protection for children.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, at the start of my speech I should like to thank the rapporteur for her willingness to compromise, because that is the only reason why the House has now been presented with a report that we in the Socialist Group are able to support.
We undoubtedly had problems in the initial stages, because I need hardly say that many things have already been decided here by Parliament in a similar manner.
But we also had problems because Mrs Hermange's first version incorporated many elements of social policy that were completely unacceptable to us, such as the expression 'Europe without Europeans' or the suggestion that Europe was committing suicide by letting its birth rate fall.
These and other misleading statements certainly made us have serious doubts at the start of the process.
There was also the fact, of course, that our committee became embroiled in an decidedly impassioned discussion on the enshrining of the traditional family model.
I shall return to that in a moment.
And then suddenly we had a number of amendments from other committee members which would have totally distorted the report; moreover, I have to say that the committees asked for an opinion did not exactly make things any easier for us.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs even changed draftsmen, one draftsman having tried to refer the entire matter back on the subsidiarity issue.
That was not the position of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
It is our view that the family is definitely a matter which the European Union is competent to deal with politically at European level.
What is more, we in the European Parliament are a more suitable forum than national parliaments for the discussion of this issue, since everywhere in the Member States there are ideological battles about the concept of the family, about what does and does not constitute a family.
We in the European Parliament, with the mutual tolerance and respect we practise, are undoubtedly in a position to reach agreement on a modern family model, thereby setting an example for this debate in the Member States.
Before I move on, let me examine some aspects of subsidiarity.
I do not share the previous speaker's view that the subject under discussion has nothing at all to do with our area of responsibility.
Of course, I would not wish to interpret our remit too broadly, because the family should naturally be first and foremost a matter of national and preferably local government policy.
But as we know, policies on the family are also invariably associated with issues of sexual equality, which makes them a partly European responsibility.
Let us recall the guidelines for 1999, which include a new pillar specifically dedicated to equal opportunities, and the call for modern forms of work organisation.
What else does that mean but giving women and men, fathers and mothers, new opportunities to combine work with family responsibilities through changes in the organisation of workplaces and social structures?
This position, incidentally, has also been adopted by the European Court of Justice, which has delivered several relevant judgments on subjects such as part-time work and equal pay.
This is another argument in favour of the European dimension.
We jointly adopted the European legislation on parental leave, which is another contribution to a modern, enlightened policy on the family.
The fact that the amount of parental leave taken is so unevenly distributed between men and women in Europe should, I believe, provide some important food for thought in the Member States.
Let me mention just three statistics: 30 % of all parental leave in Sweden is taken by fathers, in Germany the figure is 3 %, and when the data were collected in Greece, only three men - yes, three men - were on parental leave.
That too is an indication of how we in Europe can learn from each other.
Let me finish with a point which is of great importance to me, a point that should stir us into action.
We have legally guaranteed freedom of movement for employees in the European Union, and that naturally extends to their families too.
For that reason and because of the single market, we have a duty - a shared duty, of course - to pursue a European policy on the family.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I really do not understand why some Members are citing violation of the subsidiarity principle as their reason for wanting to vote against this report.
I really cannot identify any such violation.
What could be more important to us than our children? That is precisely what makes this report necessary.
The subject is so wide and touches on so many areas that several reports ought actually to have been devoted to it.
The term 'family' is not a purely national or European one, but is a worldwide concept which means many different things to many different people.
The only thing I am sure of is that we can talk of a family when children have been born and are being brought up.
The subject can be described as European in scope, because families in Europe are in similar situations and have similar problems.
There are two reasons why it is very important that Europe should provide answers here.
The first is that Europe is growing old and grey.
This has critical repercussions, and not just on social security systems.
The second is that Europe is becoming lonely.
There are an increasing number of one-person households and elderly people living alone.
Our society is becoming perceptibly more individualistic.
The weakest link in the social chain, namely our children, are being exposed to more and more dangers.
Television and the Internet without frontiers are bringing repulsive material into our homes.
Organised criminals have long been aware of the potential of children.
The report deals with the protection of families and children.
Both need protection and support.
My last point relates to a welcome development, but one which has extensive ramifications. More and more women in Europe are going out to work and have to be able to juggle their occupational and family responsibilities.
These developments have momentous repercussions, which must be reflected in political decisions.
Europe has to provide answers here, because families are far more important than we tend to realise.
We speak so often of social exclusion; the family is the most natural remedy.
Where does a person spend the most important years of the social integration process? In the family!
What is the most suitable framework for the care of elderly and disabled people? The family!
To express this in a simple formula, social policy begins with a policy on the family.
In the age of the euro and the single market, the term 'welfare' must not be entirely reduced to the growth of the gross domestic product.
The family is an essential element of quality welfare.
It is of inestimable value to us. At this point, let me thank the rapporteur once again for her constructive cooperation and for this excellent report.
I hope that these ideas are followed up and that the report does not turn out to have been a mere paper exercise.
Madam President, much of what has been said here makes good sense.
The basis of a secure environment for growing up is often an upbringing in a secure family.
However, families can look very different.
They may have two parents or a single parent, which is often the case around Europe today.
It is of course important for each of us in our own countries to ensure that people can combine work with shared responsibility at home.
There are many dividing lines and differences between children's chances of growing up in secure conditions.
Not only are there the differences between families, but also substantial differences between large towns and rural areas.
In rural areas, isolation is often a major factor in making children feel insecure, which we must of course combat by establishing more secure conditions for growing up by means of various kinds of support.
Poverty, exclusion, the more demanding pace of work in our modern world and, not least, unemployment all have a strong effect on children.
With 18 to 20 million unemployed people in Europe, our children are naturally affected.
It is therefore important to ensure that we can give them the security which enables social problems to be avoided in the future. Several speakers have already mentioned this.
However, we in the Liberal Group believe that it is going too far to propose that the family ministers should meet regularly, that there should be a special unit within the Commission for family affairs, and perhaps a directive on childcare. These are issues which first and foremost concern the most private of all areas, the close relationship between parents and children.
This should be handled within the family and in communities, in other words close to home.
These are communal, social, regional and national issues.
In Sweden we have a children's ombudsman, which works extremely well.
It is something we can imagine other countries introducing too.
The task of the children's ombudsman is to look after the rights and interests of children.
However, this is hardly something which should be regulated through a European family policy.
It is clear that a major effort is required to combat violence against women and children, which is increasing precisely because social circumstances are difficult for many people today.
Such problems stem from a hard working life and high unemployment.
Crisis centres are needed. These already exist in Sweden and the Nordic region, as well as elsewhere.
We have talked about the sexual exploitation of children.
Obviously this must be combated, but it should be done by proper methods at the proper level.
One thing which I believe we can do together here is to ensure that, in the negotiations with new Member States, we oppose in every way the abuse of children and the trafficking in children which is taking place, with children being exported from Eastern Europe and non-European countries.
From a Liberal perspective, we would like to say that all of this is extremely important and has to be addressed. However, it must be done in a proper way and in the proper place.
Family policy, childcare and raising children are first and foremost national issues which should be dealt with at national level.
We must draw a line between what are children's rights and what are private matters of family policy and childcare.
As elected representatives, we have an obligation to protect children through such things as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
This is essentially a good report, but we cannot support the proposals designed to introduce a European family policy.
Madam President, it is fortunate that we have reports to discuss in this House like the Hermange report, and I would say the same about the Sainjon report that we adopted yesterday.
It is fortunate that this House still finds time to discuss these matters and to adopt resolutions like those resulting from these reports, on which the rapporteurs must be congratulated.
It is fortunate that in discussing these reports and adopting these resolutions, we can find justification for some of the reasons for our presence in this House, having deserved - if this is what we deserve - the vote and representation of our voters.
Notwithstanding our general agreement, this does not mean that we have no comments and reservations to make or that we totally agree with the motion for a resolution tabled by Mrs Hermange on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
However, in order to express these comments and reservations, we have these debates which, through everyone's contributions, aim to improve what would already be satisfactory.
We do not totally agree with this proposal, not just due to the precise terms chosen but also due to the fact that we believe there is an omission or an aspect that is not sufficiently developed in the report.
We feel that it would actually be very appropriate for there to be a closer connection between the subject of the protection of families and children and the social consequences of a specific economic strategy and the interests that this serves.
It is true, as stated by the rapporteur, that 'the reconciliation by mothers and fathers of professional life and family life is a key factor in a modern family policy'. This same concern can be detected in paragraph 14.
However, we believe that the extent of this connection is insufficient and that the wording is not totally satisfactory. We have therefore tabled two amendments in order to specifically strengthen this aspect, as we feel it is necessary, and to contribute in a small way to improving the motion for a resolution to be adopted, without causing any imbalance.
We have the honour of being the first signatory of the motion for a resolution on child labour that is contained in this report. We would like to highlight the connection between the deregulation of working relations and the employment of the labour force being made clandestine, the consequences of this for the protection of families and children and the promotion, tolerance and concealment of child labour.
Our other amendment involves removing a value judgment from what can only be an objective reference.
Although it can be said that the directive on part-time work has the purpose of allowing, on a voluntary and non-discriminatory basis, improved reconciliation of family life and professional life, it is wrong to state that the directive makes this reconciliation 'easier'.
Finally, and to end as I started, it is fortunate that we have these opportunities to discuss such matters in this House, but much more is needed.
We need to ensure that the requests, recommendations and demands contained in this motion for a resolution are not ignored or given less importance than the aims that are regarded as more important due to the fact that all political and social action is conditioned by the reactions of the so-called markets.
Madam President, the problem we have in this debate is to know what it is we are talking about when we talk about families.
When I was growing up in Scotland we used to have an event called the Kerr Jaunt.
This comprised two large buses going to the seaside once a year with 150 people aboard.
That was an extended family.
I suspect that when she speaks about the family Mrs Hermange means the nuclear family of two parents: one husband at work, a mother at home looking after one child - indeed, only part of one child, given the birthrate in Europe at the present time.
The truth is that picture of the family is a declining picture of the family.
Families are a very disparate entity across the Union and therefore to try to adopt common social policies, legal policies and economic policies which deal with all families is probably a mistake.
Instead, we have to look for the best practice and best policy to deal with issues which may impact upon the way in which people want to live their lives, bring up children and live together, which varies considerably across the Member States.
Therefore, we need good policies for social security which, for example, include the notion of disaggregation, i.e. the notion of treating women independently from men, in their own right, with entitlements and access to social security, the question of children's rights, children's benefits and children's allowances, which relate to children and the cost of children, to the question of child care and the protection of children and to enshrining these rights.
The Swedish model we heard about from Mr Lindqvist with its children's Ombudsmen is very good.
All these things are separate in a sense from family policies but may add up to the same thing.
Whether we need the kind of policies at European level that Mrs Hermange suggests is open to question and although I am a federalist, there are areas here where subsidiarity has to operate.
I suspect that many other Members may feel the same.
We may achieve the same objectives by going about it in a different way.
That may be the way we have to approach it.
There is a slight moral overtone in the report, suggesting that single parent families are somehow deficient.
The evidence is very clear from all my social research over the years that where single parent families are properly supported in terms of social security and legal rights and child care, they are just as successful as nuclear families.
We have to encourage and allow that diversity across Europe.
Madam President, it is clear from reading this report that it contains a lot of vague statements.
Politicians are gradually beginning to become aware of the ageing of the population, and we might have expected this report to head off in this direction.
But it would be naive simply to opt for a birth rate policy, particularly at European level.
What we need to achieve is a society in which parents can have as many children as they want and children can develop their full potential.
In our view this is primarily a task for the Member States, the regions and the local authorities, as other people have said.
I would have preferred the report to have dwelt rather less on this point, but I would stress that it is an important task nonetheless.
The report has a rather moralising tone, as if it were telling people what they should and should not do.
Looking at our various initiatives, we can see that there is often a lot more happening than could ever be listed in this report.
The protection of children is still a major concern, and I would point out that various countries still have serious problems here and that European and international measures are needed.
I would simply mention the international networks for the sexual exploitation of children, sex tourism, child pornography and so on.
The international Convention on the Rights of the Child requires reports to be produced at various levels, including European level, on how the convention is being implemented, and I am therefore very pleased with one of the practical measures in Mrs Hermange's report calling for a specific unit to deal with child protection.
Sweden has already set an example here, and Flanders too has a commissioner for the rights of children.
I shall be putting forward a proposal on this subject to Parliament shortly, but it is still being translated at the moment.
The terminology used in legislation on the protection of children is also something that we should be able to harmonise.
We approved the fight against child labour in the Sainjon report, so we do not need to keep coming back to it in other reports.
I would make a special plea for efforts to be made to track down children who have disappeared and to combat child abductions.
These are international agreements that Europe simply must subscribe to.
Madam President, I congratulate our colleague, Mrs Hermange, for the work that she has done and especially for the very extensive explanatory statement which enables us to consider the family from every point of view and to see how it is in fact at the heart of the reality of European life and how it should be at the heart of all sectorial policies.
Family policy is therefore not so much a policy in itself as a concern that should inspire all those who think about any aspect of economic, social and cultural life in the various countries of Europe.
I will leave the question of discussing a common family policy for the Community for the explanation of vote on 28 January, and I would just like to emphasise certain points that were watered down in the final report that was presented to us due to compromise amendments.
I do think that you were right to stress the need for economic justice for families.
Families are not charity cases for governments and their policies.
No, families are at the very heart of the creation of national wealth.
I think that here we can see a change of mentality to which your report could contribute, but we need to go further.
When we consider the question of the cost of living, we have to take into account those who have family responsibilities and should not take an overly individual, or rather individualistic, view in our calculations.
I would like to conclude with a point that I consider to be very important.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have no hesitations about talking about a political model.
In Europe we are referring to democracy.
We do not hesitate to talk about models when we are discussing social issues.
We talk about the European social model, which combines responsibility, personal initiative and solidarity.
So I must ask why we are so reluctant to mention the existence of a European family model in which men and women, with equal responsibility, in a loving relationship, are capable of engaging with society and with the children that will be born of that union, and of taking on that responsibility.
Madam President, it is very encouraging to see the European Parliament taking an interest in the future of the family as a basic social unit.
Should we therefore also agree on what we mean by a family and by a home?
The current trends in the development of morals are leading the very concept of the family to be devalued.
I will not expand too much on this subject, as others have already done so before me.
I would simply like to propose going to Brazil, for example, to see what becomes of children there who are from broken or single-parent families.
Protection of the family and of children is a very broad subject.
Today, Madam President, I would like to deal with only one of the many issues, but one that affects just about all children and that has a very profound influence on them.
That issue is violence on television, and I am surprised that this serious problem has not been dealt with in the report.
Here are a few figures: in a week chosen at random, the French weekly ' Le Point' counted 670 murders, 15 rapes, 848 fights, 419 shootings, 14 abductions, 32 hostage situations and 27 scenes of torture.
Scientists have observed a correlation, and sometimes even a causal relationship, between the violence in the images seen by children and their level of aggression in real life.
Television is indeed guilty of encouraging violence.
Regardless of age, exposure to violence on television leads to an increase in childhood aggressiveness.
There is more and more violence on television.
In the space of 40 years, the number of murders has multiplied by one thousand.
Also, you should be aware that in the days following the portrayal of a suicide, the rate of real suicides among adolescents increases by 13.5 % among girls and 5.2 % among boys.
You will understand, Madam President, why I am particularly surprised that the issue of violence on television was ignored in this report, but maybe that would be touching on commercial interests that are beyond us.
Unfortunately, it would not be the first time.
Madam President, in the context of this debate, I want to express my concern at the totally inadequate cooperation and coordination throughout the European Union in response to the increasing activity of international paedophile groups.
The recent report entitled 'Child Abuse on the Internet', along with other research, indicates the scale of paedophile abuse of information technology.
It has recently been revealed that international paedophile groups are targeting child-friendly sites on the Internet to trace potential victims.
It has been estimated that some 20 000 paedophiles in Europe use the Internet daily.
While I appreciate that this is a complex technical issue, there is more that could be done to police this particular abuse.
I am also concerned that recently in my own country we have seen an increase in a number of attempted child abductions, especially over the last couple of months.
It is believed that this is the work of British paedophiles who have fled their native country.
This illustrates the need for better cooperation between law enforcement agencies in various Member States.
EU Member States need to consider ways in which we could harmonise our laws to exchange or compile registers of serious sex offenders.
Certainly I, personally, would support the concept of an EU-wide list.
We also need to place movement restrictions on those who have finished custodial sentences.
There are many ways we can tackle this problem.
There are many ideas. I would like to see some attempt throughout the EU to coordinate activity.
Madam President, the basic tenor of this report, which places the child at the centre of the European discussion, is to be very warmly welcomed.
And in very many details too, it strikes exactly the right note and addresses reality in a very frank and open manner.
I do not think the question of subsidiarity or competence arises here at all.
The family and the protection of children are naturally a matter for local authorities, municipal administrations and civic and charitable associations.
But the family is also a European and a global phenomenon, so why should European policymakers not concern themselves with the family, and why should there not be a special interest in the protection of children at European level? It is necessary to break down the walls of silence, because there is far too much maltreatment of children in disturbed family environments.
Among the many proposals in this report, those that deal with the subject of child abuse are very important.
Where does the sexual abuse of children begin? Probably in the family environment.
But a long time ago it began to assume a very global dimension, and what is happening on the Internet and in the domain of mass tourism may perhaps be termed the globalisation of perversion.
I should like to mention two more points that I consider very interesting and constructive, namely the call for a special meeting of the European Council devoted to child protection policy and the suggestion for the creation of a European centre for children, one of the principal tasks of which would be to compile and maintain a database on missing children and convicted child abductors, in cooperation with the national authorities and Europol.
Madam President, I would firstly like to congratulate Mrs Hermange on having taken the initiative to draw up a report on the protection of the family and children in the European Union.
This is an extremely important issue since the changes currently taking place in our society, be they demographic, sociological, ethnological or scientific, greatly influence the family.
The Commission notes the requests made in the resolution, although it admits that issues relating to the family are still the responsibility of the Member States themselves.
The birth rate is falling in almost all the Member States of the Union, fewer people are getting married, more couples are living together without marrying and more children are born out of wedlock, while the divorce rate is continuing to rise.
These are the trends that are currently influencing the family unit and, indeed, society as a whole.
There is a constant interest in the situation of families and its implications for our social and employment policies. It is also becoming increasingly evident that we need greater international cooperation on issues relating to the family as part of the global effort to promote social progress and development.
Although the Community has no direct responsibility in the area of family policy, it is paying increasing attention to the analysis and understanding of the social and economic repercussions these new trends and social changes have on families.
There are striking differences between the Member States as far as family policy is concerned.
These are based on the different ideas of the role of the State in economic and social life, the family's position in society, its rights and obligations, the roles of men and women within the family and the principle of the rights of the child.
However, the family has always been highly valued and will continue to be highly valued in all the countries of the European Union.
The Commission is promoting a series of measures and policies aimed at reconciling work and family life: the challenge of finding a balance between these two areas is vital for a whole range of employment and social matters.
Issues that directly affect the family include the changes in the composition of the workforce, the new forms of labour organisation, the restructuring of social protection, and the changes in the distribution between men and women of tasks involving the care of dependents.
The directives on pregnant workers, parental leave and part-time work are all valuable examples of the European Union's commitment to helping men and women in their family lives.
The recommendation on child care suggests that we should adopt initiatives that aim to provide child-care services for parents who work or who are still undergoing training, that pay greater attention in the workplace to the needs of workers with children and that encourage men to participate in caring for children.
The employment guidelines are also providing a great boost in terms of helping to reconcile family and professional life.
The employment guidelines for 1999 put even greater emphasis on the issue of reconciling family and job responsibilities as an integral part of the European employment strategy.
I would like to end by saying that the European Union must make substantial efforts to determine the similarities and differences in the way that the Member States react to the changes I mentioned, and to promote, at Community level, exchanges of information and the gathering of experience relating to all family issues.
Thank you, Mr Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday, 28 January 1999 during the part-session in Brussels.
Code of conduct for EU firms in developing countries
The next item is the report (A4-0508/98) by Mr Howitt, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on EU standards for European enterprises operating in developing countries: towards a European code of conduct.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it will be no secret to the rapporteur that I harbour numerous doubts concerning the legality of the measures he proposes, of which, for reasons of time, I shall only be able to cite a few representative examples.
The cases you describe relate to glaring and despicable abuses.
We shall have to make every possible effort to scrutinise international law for ways and means of developing a code of conduct that will justify the conviction on moral grounds of the European firms which violate these principles of human rights.
On the other hand, we shall have to take care - and this is a point that has frequently come to my attention here in Parliament - to exercise our responsibility for keeping our reports within the legal bounds we have set for ourselves.
I strongly support the involvement of non-governmental organisations in the development of the existing guidelines for an international code of conduct, such as those followed by the OECD.
We must realise, however, that it is Utopian to call for a European legal framework governing EU-based companies with worldwide operations, and that such a framework would even be illegal because of its extraterritorial character.
We cannot condemn the Helms-Burton or D'Amato legislation for claiming extraterritorial jurisdiction, and then think that we can introduce the same sort of thing here.
The law is the law!
For that reason, I rather regret that there are four, five or six other cases which will be relevant to tomorrow's vote and which deviate from established legal standards.
For that reason, Mr Howitt, I should be glad if you would exercise some flexibility and tolerance at the vote in plenary tomorrow, otherwise I believe the form in which you wish to organise the vote will be unacceptable to many Members, at least to those in the European People's Party, even though you undoubtedly have a legitimate case.
Madam President, first, on behalf of myself and my group, I want to thank Mr Howitt for pressing for this own-initiative report from the Committee on Development and Cooperation and for having done some excellent work courageously, correctly and diligently. The report is the result of serious analysis of the international situation and of listening to the opinions of representatives of civil society, and is distinguished by the creativity of the proposals put forward.
The subject of the report is not simple, because of its obvious implications in dealing with the presence and activities of European firms operating in developing countries in terms of respect for the principles, standards and aims linked to recognition of fundamental human and social rights.
First let us say what it is not about. It is not about wanting to impose rules artificially which make European firms less competitive or hamper them more in international competition.
It is not about wanting to invent new rules, nor does it propose to.
It is simply - although we are well aware that this is not a simple thing - a matter of wanting to guarantee effective respect, by European firms, for international and European standards which already exist but are often simply ignored or actually violated.
It is a matter of creating a solid European political and legal base which strengthens and increases the credibility of the Union's commitment and that of its Member States to affirm those standards at international level without hiding behind the easy alibi of always leaving it to other authorities to shoulder the burden of taking action.
We think the European Union has something to say and a lot to do here, starting with itself.
I would add that, on this subject too - and here I would like to reassure Mr Kittelmann - the Group of the Party of European Socialists has worked to secure a wide consensus with the other groups in the European Parliament, even though they often started from very different points of view.
I hope we have succeeded and that the vote on the Howitt report, which should take place tomorrow, can be as positive and consensual as possible.
What are the fundamental factors underpinning this report?
First, there is the conviction that, especially in the age of globalisation, it is necessary to promote and integrate different intervention instruments to guarantee and promote human, social and economic rights, respect for the environment and sustainable development.
Secondly, there is the conviction that the actions of the various players operating on the international scene - regional and international organisations, national and local authorities, civil society organisations, companies - while differing, perhaps profoundly, in motivations and aims, are equally important in terms of their real impact on the actual situation of individuals, the local community and the people.
Research into optimising the action taken by the various players - public and private - in the different sectors and regions of the world is fundamental to pursuing the objectives of development and justice which ought to characterise the world of tomorrow.
In this context it is very important to support the process, already underway, of companies operating in third countries setting up their own voluntary codes of conduct.
But these codes cannot take the place of the obligation to respect principles, standards and rules ratified by law.
They can anticipate or supplement action by the public authorities to protect individual and collective rights.
So there is no contradiction between voluntary codes of conduct and codes with a legal basis; instead they should be complementary.
For codes of conduct - voluntary or not - standards, principles and instruments of control to be realistic and effective, they must necessarily be based on the direct involvement of all those concerned: institutions, companies, trade unions, NGOs, etc.
Finally, development cooperation policy and economic cooperation policy in general must be able to respond to principles and aims which are diverse, yet consistent.
Of the various proposals contained in the report being debated today, the one I consider central is the European Parliament's request to the Commission and the Council to put forward proposals on developing an appropriate legal basis for establishing a European multilateral framework governing companies' operations worldwide and to organise, for this purpose, consultations with those groups in society which would be covered by that code.
If we succeed in doing that, I think the European Parliament will have made no small contribution to promoting a vision of the world and of international relations which corresponds to the expectations of the citizens of Europe and the developing countries, who are right to look to Europe as a positive factor for fairness and development.
Madam President, I am sure that the examples used by the rapporteur at the start of his presentation are not in any way figments of someone's imagination, but there are also plenty of examples of companies conducting their foreign investments in a responsible manner.
If we look at these flagrant abuses that have been allowed to occur on the one hand and the many valuable global contributions of European companies on the other, we must surely have reason to hope that we can reach a solution in the end and bring about a reduction in the number of cases that we have been so loudly lamenting today.
I also see this whole thing in the context of our noble aim of supporting good governance, wherever it exists, through our development cooperation.
In my view, this also involves encouraging the countries of the third world to ensure that their own legislation, their jurisprudence and the implementation of their statutes and case-law create the sort of standards and provisions which would more or less eliminate the issue of extraterritoriality raised by Mr Kittelmann.
It is right to view the report in the context of a number of agreements, standards and conventions.
I believe we should really focus on the need to ensure that the decisions which have already been taken are actually implemented, and that we monitor the way in which promises are being honoured.
The numerous declarations that have already been made in this area were one of the reasons why the committee members from my group did not necessarily see it as a priority for the committee to produce this report on its own initiative and why we were initially opposed to dealing with this subject at the present time.
On the other hand, these codes of conduct are absolutely acceptable to us if they are adopted on a voluntary basis and if there is scope for us to publicise the involvement of companies in such schemes, including details of their compliance or non-compliance with the code of conduct, so that pressure can also be exerted by public opinion, which is certainly a very potent instrument.
I have already indicated that we are opposed to the exercise of extraterritorial jurisdiction.
I am not entirely convinced of the cogency of the examples cited by the rapporteur, because the question of arms exports concerns the Member States, which deal with such matters on the basis of their own export regulations.
We should not create a situation in which the appearance of weapons in any country legitimises some kind of recourse against the country of origin.
We should also beware of bracketing the infringement of social and environmental standards with child abuse, of all things, because the latter involves a paramount legal interest which is unquestionably eligible for extraterritorial protection, whereas I cannot see that the same applies to the former.
The third critical issue in this report was the question of a so-called monitoring mechanism.
All manner of bodies were to cooperate within this mechanism, which would be coordinated by the European Parliament.
We cannot see any legal basis for such a mechanism.
During the negotiations we arrived at a number of compromises, and I hope that the report is acceptable in its present form and that we are all flexible enough to steer it successfully through the final vote.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too want to thank Mr Howitt sincerely for his wide-ranging, in-depth and articulate work and for the generous and passionate commitment he has put into drafting this report.
It would be extremely serious if the Howitt report were to be read in a light unfavourable to business.
As liberals, we are far from opposing the involvement of companies in developing countries, and believe it is an absolute and essential condition for that economic development which is the logical premise of all human development.
Of course, it is necessary to prevent certain extremely negative cases from ending up polluting the climate and causing foreign involvement to be considered unsuitable.
From this point of view the Howitt report is undoubtedly helpful.
So 'yes' to the voluntary code of conduct for companies; 'yes' to a European code of conduct which would have to be largely based on existing international standards; 'yes' to clear, precise and agreed procedures for identifying any infringements or violations of the established rules backed by verification guarantees.
But an equally strong and clear 'no' to the kind of temporary platform suggested in the Howitt report for the interim period, under the auspices and the aegis of the European Parliament, which, in our opinion as liberals, carries the risk of turning into a kind of people's court, without adequate guarantees, and is liable to be counterproductive at the end of the day.
So we rely on Mr Howitt's good sense as regards the amendments we have tabled on this.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to codes of conduct for multinational enterprises operating in developing countries, the position of this group can be summed up as follows.
We are in favour of the principle of codes of conduct adopted on a voluntary and non-compulsory basis. We are in favour of the multilateralism that would allow these codes to be defined within appropriate bodies, such as the OECD and the ILO, and that would make these codes applicable to all European and non-European multinationals.
Finally, we support the guarantee of impartiality of the bodies responsible for verifying compliance with the codes thus defined. This is why our group is tabling several amendments to ensure what, in our opinion, is a more balanced position, along the lines of what this House adopted in January 1998 on relocations and direct foreign investment.
However, we cannot support certain proposals in the report.
The rapporteur measures with extraterritorial effect covering human and workers' rights, the environment and the prevention of corruption.
Yet the European Union and Parliament are fighting against extraterritorial laws that the United States are trying to impose, such as the Helms-Burton Act.
It is therefore not appropriate to go down the same road.
With regard to the European Monitoring Platform, if such a body were created at some point, the proposals relating to both its composition and its tasks should be seriously reconsidered.
Our group has therefore tabled an amendment aimed at establishing transparent processes for the operation of this body and, in particular, for the appointment of experts of recognised competence and authority. This would involve processes to identify complaints, the guarantee that all parties would receive notification of complaints and the proof accompanying this, and the guarantee of possibilities of recourse.
In terms of Parliament's role, we are not in favour of a temporary European Monitoring Platform under the auspices of Parliament, nor of the appointment of special rapporteurs within this as these proposals seem to involve activities that do not fall within the competence of a parliamentary assembly.
Madam President, we welcome Mr Howitt's report on EU standards for European firms operating in developing countries.
The development of a European code of conduct is a very important aim which we must pursue vigorously.
It is an excellent idea to create a legal basis for this, Mr Howitt.
A model code of conduct is a necessity.
It is important that a European monitoring mechanism should be created, but a crucial factor from our point of view is the form that the monitoring and verification are to take.
Without monitoring and verification, a code of this type is an irrelevance.
The principle of voluntary action is important to us and must also underlie the legal basis in this domain. Each firm must be free to commit itself as far as it feels able.
There must, however, be some compulsory minimum standards.
This reflects the ethics of our Community, and these ethics must also be applied in our dealings with the rest of the world.
So there should be binding standards as a minimum basis, supplemented by voluntary undertakings.
The cooperation you propose in the new global agreement with the ACP countries is important, and represents another addition that we support.
We are also in favour of stepping up the initiatives at European level.
I did not entirely understand what Mr Kittelmann was saying.
He spoke of morality and said that we shall find ways and means of developing this at some time.
I do not know how he intends to accomplish that.
He also seemed to make a slip of the tongue.
He was speaking on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, yet he said in conclusion that the PPE Group could not accept the report.
Mrs Günther then seemed to say the opposite.
To borrow loosely from Brecht, first bellies are filled, then comes morality, and we know that capital is a great shark, and when it makes a killing in international business, the leftovers are few.
I also believe that this cannot be compared with the Helms-Burton Act.
Helms-Burton is a repressive measure on an international scale. The aim of the present initiative is to create our own code of conduct for European firms.
We have other versions of this in the Basle Convention, in the Rhine Agreement within Europe, and in connection with the toxic waste that is shipped from Europe to South Africa, for instance, as the British example illustrates.
So we already have self-imposed codes of conduct to which we have committed ourselves.
That is why it is right and important that this initiative should be taken.
We support it and hope that a large majority of the House will do likewise.
Madam President, a short while ago we were talking about the protection of families and children, and now we are talking about the sustainable social and economic development that should form the basis for this, not just in the West but also in the developing countries.
Unrestrained globalisation cannot guarantee such development and can only, at best, provide a chance of achieving it.
But striving for maximum profit can also derail sustainable development.
Earlier this week, we debated the Sainjon report which is along the same lines.
Poor countries cannot force people to adopt a code of good conduct, nor can wealthy countries.
Many multinationals have a budget many times greater than that of many developing countries.
It is difficult, even for international organisations, to get a grip on these developments, yet they remain the greatest challenge that we face as a political community.
Our failure to create an international legal order based on internationally accepted rules, such as when the World Trade Organisation was founded, was in many respects a missed opportunity as far as I am concerned, because then we could have achieved a great deal.
So we are going to have to make do with the possibilities we have.
We are going to have to maintain a sense of moderation and realism, and the whole thing will have to be monitored very closely, because it will not work on its own.
We naturally welcome voluntary codes of conduct, but they are not enough.
We think we can count on the increasing awareness of Europe's consumers, who will not want to be party to exploitation.
This is why I would call for binding agreements and warn against hypocrisy.
I would like to finish here, because this would not be the first time that the countries of Europe, in claiming to support fine principles, were actually just protecting themselves against developments in developing countries.
Madam President, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
Operating standards deserve constant attention, particularly when they relate to trade with developing countries.
We need to put an end to exploitation in these countries.
European undertakings must be held responsible for establishing dangerous industries in countries where there is no labour inspection, for example.
In recent years, increasing attention has been given to codes of conduct in European firms, and a large number of multinationals have - perhaps under pressure from international pressure groups and public opinion - voluntarily undertaken to respect human rights in business and to publish an annual social report.
The European Union must support these developments, and this is why I am in favour of a voluntary European code of conduct, which will make it easy for businesses to trade ethically and responsibly, and will ensure that responsibility stays where it belongs: with the firms themselves.
The work we do with international organisations is another way of promoting compliance with international codes of conduct.
I do not think it makes sense to introduce all manner of European legislation and authorities, which would simply add to Europe's bureaucracy, and after the debates earlier this week, I think we would all agree that this is the last thing we need.
Finally, I have to say that I agree with Mrs Maij-Weggen that the developing countries must be involved as much as possible in the development of codes of conduct, but I see no reason to postpone the vote on this report because of this.
Madam President, I would largely endorse the congratulations to the rapporteur, but I would like to look at what this report means for the future, because I think it is an important document that will now trigger an entire debate on this issue.
At Mr Howitt's request, I would like to mention six points.
Firstly, what would the developments now being proposed mean for small and medium-sized firms? After all, many of these also operate in developing countries, so should not the same or similar measures apply to them?
Secondly, should we not look at what we are already doing for environmental protection, in other words the covenants? What does the type of covenant we are looking at mean for firms here?
Is there not work to be done in this field?
And the same applies for quality marks.
Thirdly, I sympathise with the argument which businesses put forward that if only European firms are affected, their competitiveness could suffer.
Take Shell in Nigeria.
We were right to put pressure on Shell, but in the end we have to accept that Canadazen and other non-European oil companies have reaped the benefit.
Fourth, what are we doing about the informal sector? This is not covered adequately in the report, because the informal sector also supplies to businesses, and this is where help must be provided.
I have already dealt with my fifth point, which was that only European firms would be affected.
Sixth, how to involve the firms themselves in the discussions.
This too was not covered in sufficient depth, and in future I think it is important to involve firms both large and small in the debate.
I shall finish here, but I think that we are going to have to have a much broader debate on this issue in future.
Madam President, I should first of all like to congratulate Mr Howitt on his report.
Although we do not agree with all the points he makes, we support the main thrust of his report and the principle of the need for a code of conduct for multinational companies, though I agree with the previous speaker that this does not mean that SMEs should not be included.
The need for such a code has become obvious from the large number of incidents or even disasters in the third world for which a number of firms have been responsible in recent years.
Think of the environmental pollution in Ogoniland in Nigeria, the problems of slave labour used in laying oil pipelines in Burma - which the European Union punished by taking away the preferential system - and the use of child labour in India, Pakistan and the Philippines.
These are all problems that we can prevent from happening in western Europe because we have legislation and a reasonably good inspection system, but the developing countries do not have this sort of legislation.
This gives carte blanche not just to the good firms, which some are, of course, but also to the bad firms, which then flout social and environmental legislation that they would have to respect in their own countries.
The developing countries, it has become clear, are the ones that most desperately need our help.
I would also point out here that this is also a good thing for the decent companies too.
Shell now has a code of conduct, but it has also told us that the Canadian and American companies in Nigeria do not follow it, and this has led to distortion of competition.
So we will have to be careful that goodwill on the part of certain companies does not itself lead to bad practices because codes of conduct are not universally accepted.
This is why a European code of conduct is both useful and necessary, and I support the idea.
What we do not think would be useful is an institution such as a monitoring platform that would result in far too much bureaucracy.
It would also not be a good idea to grant extraterritorial powers, and it would not be possible either, because the WTO would not allow it.
We would have preferred this issue to be put to the ACP Assembly again, but I understand that the rapporteur did not want this.
Perhaps we could approve the report tomorrow and still put it to the Assembly?
I think this would be a good idea.
I intend to support the proposal.
Of course we shall have to wait and see how the vote goes, but I hope that there will be broad support for this excellent report by Mr Howitt, for which I would like to thank him once again.
Madam President, there is no easy way for poor countries to introduce the same standards and conditions in working life as rich countries.
If things were so simple that it was possible to increase prosperity quickly in developing countries by means of conventions, declarations, international conferences and sanctions adopted by third countries, then there would be no poor countries and no conditions for workers which we would consider substandard.
Unfortunately, however, things are not as simple as that.
Many countries are interested in attracting foreign investment to increase the availability of capital, enterprise and technology and thereby boost growth and employment.
Growth provides the real opportunity to improve working conditions, increase wages and extend social benefits.
Of course there are some irregularities in many places, but there are already rules to deal with that.
Now that we are considering the fundamental problem, it should be pointed out that countries which have relied on international investment have achieved far more progress than countries which have shut themselves off behind all kinds of socialist regulations.
That is why the economic development of Thailand has been much faster than that of Tanzania; poverty reigns in Cuba, but not in Taiwan; North Korea is characterised by exploitation, but South Korea is not.
Foreign entrepreneurs have contributed to improvements in wages and social conditions.
I think that this is still what we must use as a basis for judging what further efforts need to be made.
However, I think the report lacks sufficient understanding of this process; instead, it portrays international investment more as a means of exploitation which needs to be regulated.
If it is the case that host countries do not know what is best for them, then the EU should use extraterritorial measures, which we otherwise oppose, to ensure that our objective is achieved.
All reports have their good points, and this one is no exception. However, it does not make a sufficiently constructive contribution, because in my view it is based on the wrong premise.
Madam President, Commissioner, I would first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur on the production of this report.
Ironically the European Union can take pride in its achievement in improving health, safety and working conditions through the implementation of the social chapter.
We also strongly support the protection of human rights and we are always strengthening legislation to protect the environment.
It is not acceptable that at one and the same time as we improve the quality of life internally within the European Union that some EU firms are breaching health and safety rules or exploiting labour and are causing serious and permanent damage to the environment in developing countries.
It is totally immoral that we should increase the prosperity of the European Union at the expense of the people of developing countries.
I support the adoption of a code of conduct and the establishment of a European monitoring platform.
We must ensure that EU firms operating outside the EU treat their employees fairly, both in terms of the remuneration they receive and adequate health and safety standards in their workplace.
We must also prevent the construction of projects or the manufacture of products that have devastating consequences for the environment in these places.
I agree with the rapporteur's comments when he introduced his report that voluntary codes of conduct and binding agreements are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
They are in fact complementary to one another and should form the basis of our strategy in this particular area.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is well-known that the European Union is the leading world donor of development aid.
But coordinated support is needed to ensure that governments of developing countries can incorporate standards that are already accepted internationally into their own national legislation.
So supporting European firms in this context is fundamental, because they are the major direct investors in developing countries and play a decisive role in sustainable global socio-economic development.
In contributing directly to the economic development of the poorest regions, business has a great social responsibility, especially as regards human rights.
This is why I think it would be useful to draft a European code of conduct which could help to ensure the better harmonisation of voluntary national codes of conduct on the basis of international standards.
The main objective of this code would be to guarantee the application of minimum standards relating to the environment, health and safety at work, the abolition of child labour, the protection of women's rights and, obviously, respect for basic human rights.
We must provide for an evolving and gradual approach to the rules of this code, identifying positive incentives for companies undertaking to observe the new arrangements.
But I do not agree with setting up a European Monitoring Platform, as already proposed by some trade associations, to monitor the situation and assess reports empirically. Not only can it not determine wages in developing countries but, as it stands, it will certainly not improve working conditions and, above all, there is no legal basis for European monitoring.
But it is important to recognise that the impact of liberalisation on the international community has both positive and negative effects.
Progressive expansion of social awareness, international recognition of human rights and free movement of goods, persons, capital and services could be counted among the positive aspects.
Unfortunately rights are sometimes threatened by environmental conditions and by the vast gap between rich and poor.
Madam President, there is no shortage of conventions, charters and declarations containing standards on labour rights, human rights, minority and indigenous peoples' rights, the environment or the fight against fraud and corruption.
The ILO, the UN, the OECD, the FAO, the WHO and the World Bank can provide a suitable ethical and legal supply of standards as the starting point for determining a European code of conduct intended for European enterprises operating commercially in developing countries.
Unfortunately, the profits of many European and American multinationals are stained by connivance with authoritarian regimes in which practices of oppression, abuse and exploitation of workers completely undermine the basic rules on fair competition.
These practices are an attack on the rights of people in fragile social situations, and involve, in particular, women and children who are subject to actual practices of forced labour.
The governments of developing countries must be made take responsibility for the implementation of standards that respect fundamental labour principles and rights.
However, the problem lies in the difficulty of imposing effective sanctions to penalise transgressors.
One practical solution may be positive discrimination, by providing special support and incentives to those countries that demonstrate good governance.
Specific initiatives must be undertaken.
We agree with the establishment of the European Monitoring Platform, bringing together trade associations, trade unions, NGOs and public bodies, with the initial impetus being provided by the European Parliament acting as a catalyst.
However, it should do more than this in order to stay within its competence.
Although sharing some of the concerns of our colleague Mrs Günther, we congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Howitt, on the report he has presented. It gives expression to the idea that the practice of fair trade is essentially a different philosophy from that of being in the world for a share of the spoils.
Madam President, I would first of all like to thank Mr Howitt and Parliament for their initiative and their action to increase the protection of the rights of workers throughout the world and, in particular, those in developing countries who work, either directly or indirectly, for European companies.
Over recent years, public opinion has been very sensitive towards these issues and progress has been achieved, thanks to the action of the European Parliament at times.
I am thinking specifically of the initiatives - which were then implemented by the Commission - always to include a system of incentives as regards, for example, the Generalised System of Preferences in the so-called social and environmental clauses.
A certain amount of progress has certainly been made in that area in recent years within the European Union and in its trade instruments and development.
Turning now more specifically to codes of conduct and social standards, following the technical meetings held in the European Parliament, with experts invited along to discuss the issue, the Commission considers that the voluntary nature of these codes is important and that, along with this, it is above all important to try to find ways of encouraging cooperation. Thus, with social pressure and incentives, European firms will gradually come to accept that when they work abroad they must meet certain basic standards in terms of labour and social rights.
Against the background of this generally positive philosophy, I would like to make a few more specific comments.
For years, the Commission has supported the voluntary initiatives of companies, industries, trade unions and NGOs to promote codes of conduct, and has particularly encouraged dialogue between the various partners.
Thus, in February 1998, a joint conference was held in Brussels in conjunction with the North American Department of Labour, where companies, trade union organisations and NGOs came together. The aim of this conference was to analyse the possibilities and limits of codes of conduct and social standards, and to consider what role public authorities might be able to play in this process.
The conference was followed by a seminar in November, which looked at issues involving the monitoring of codes of conduct and social standards, and by a visit to the United States in December 1998.
However, we must not forget that codes of conduct - and this is something I want to make clear on behalf of the Commission - can under no circumstances replace national and international labour regulations, which, at the end of the day, are the only way to guarantee universal respect for the fundamental rights of workers. What do I mean by this?
What I mean is that a code of conduct can be important and positive and can apply a great deal of social pressure, yet it is also very important for a country receiving development aid to incorporate the international conventions on the protection of workers into its own national legislation.
In other words, it must be a combined effort, as not all countries receiving aid from us have incorporated certain basic regulations on protection into their national legislation.
As regards the legal basis for establishing a European framework governing companies' operations worldwide, the Commission believes that priority must be given to incentive schemes and measures involving a participative rather than a repressive approach.
In other words, we have never agreed with the idea of certification.
We have always thought more in terms of positive discrimination and incentives rather than sanctions.
Moreover, the Commission - and the European Union as a whole - believes that multilateral agreements are more important than unilateral rules with an international element.
I do not need to explain the Helms Burton dispute to you.
The European Union does not support such measures with extraterritorial effect.
As a result, to maintain some degree of logic, since we opposed the extraterritorial measures advocated by the United States Congress, it would be difficult for the European Union to apply extraterritorial laws even if they have what I believe to be noble objectives, such as social protection and the protection of the environment.
We must be consistent and we must therefore introduce this type of approach internally through dialogue and through incentives.
As regards the possibility of creating a European monitoring platform, it is true that the Commission had not included this in its conclusions of the November seminar.
However, we are prepared to help the partners involved to come together to create links through the various initiatives and we are equally prepared to encourage exchanges, to promote and share experiences, and to increase the visibility of the companies who apply these codes.
In other words, the Commission can collate all the experiences, all the codes and all the actions taken by each company, not only in Europe, but also in the United States. Indeed, some US companies have already introduced codes of ethical behaviour when working abroad.
In this respect, we are open to whatever Parliament decides.
Finally, the Commission is also willing, if the partners so wish, to set up a network that will allow us to work on the content of the codes and pool the various elements involved. It would also deal with the delicate question of independent monitoring.
This is a very sensitive issue because if we establish a monitoring system, it will have to be extremely objective and neutral in order to prevent situations from naturally being judged according to economic interests, a company's interests or simply political interests.
In any case, as has already been mentioned, subsidies have been requested by the European trade union federations for textiles, clothing and leather.
And, in principle, the Commission's response will be to work with the trade unions and federations for the textiles, clothing and leather industries with a view to providing them with financial mechanisms that will allow them to form their own networks.
As regards the financial resources required, which you asked about, line B7-6000 is available to cofinance a large number of NGOs, so we should be able to encourage this method of increasing awareness.
In any event, we are already taking action here, and I hope that we can continue to do so.
Last year, funding was granted, in particular, to those NGOs who worked under the 'fair trade' slogan, which I am sure you have heard of.
On a practical level, a 'fair trade' campaign was run in all the supermarkets in Europe involving products from this type of trade, for which an amount was credited at the checkout.
We can continue with these sorts of awareness-raising measures.
Thank you, Mr Marín.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
The day has ended rather more quietly than it began!
The sitting was closed at 8.50 p.m.
VOTES
Mr President, in response to the barracking, it was not my wish to make an oral amendment, but we have come to a compromise and it seems to be sticking as far as the vote this morning is concerned.
Paragraph 24 has caused a lot of discussion between the political groups.
We have managed to come to a compromise on only a very short part of this paragraph.
I will read the slightly amended wording of the first line carefully.
It is extremely short.
It is: 'request the European Council clarify the scope of the 1968 Brussels Convention'.
Mr Wolf has the floor to speak against this oral amendment.
Mr President, I object because this changes the meaning of the paragraph and I do not think we should do this orally.
Mr President, there are two elements to this UPE amendment.
The first is to delete five words and as rapporteur I recommend against that deletion.
The second amendment is to add in the words later 'the OECD Committee for International Investment and Multinational Enterprises'.
It is to that second part that I advise the House to vote in favour.
It is not the whole of the first paragraph, just the deletion of those five words that I recommend against.
I gather that the five words in English come to eleven in the Spanish text.
In any event, this is a purely linguistic problem.
Laughter
On this occasion, ladies and gentlemen, the Spanish win 11-5.
Parliament adopted the resolution
I should like to congratulate Mr Howitt and to thank you all once again for your cooperation during that complicated vote.
Everyone knows that poverty is the rule in developing countries.
The wealth of the 15 richest people in the world exceeds the total gross domestic product (GDP) of sub-Saharan Africa.
There is a high risk that this underdevelopment in the countries of the third world will continue or even become more marked.
The sale of raw materials is the most important area of trade for the economies of the developing countries, but the prices of raw materials have either reached their peak or are steadily falling. There is no hope of these prices rising again because the number of synthetic products that can replace them is increasing.
These same countries are falling even further behind in education and in terms of access to new technologies.
Faced with this worrying picture, we are witnessing the merger of large multinationals, some with a budget in excess of that of countries such as Austria or Denmark.
Together, they control 70 % of world trade.
The counterforce provided by the political parties, trade unions and independent media is becoming increasingly ineffective and this means that the public are seeing them as increasingly powerless.
In view of the state of the world and the concentration of the economy, some are tempted to surrender given the lack of proposals for a realistic alternative.
However, the world is always changing and the worst approach would be to despair and throw in the towel.
Potentially, humanity has reached a stage of development where - for the first time in its history - everyone could be fed, housed, cared for and educated, for just a few per cent of the global budget.
The scandal of poverty is therefore not totally inevitable and I am pleased that this is indicated in the reports - such as that by Mr Howitt - which intend to regulate the laws of the market.
Recital A of his motion for a resolution stresses that 'the EU ... and European enterprises ... can play a decisive role in global sustainable social and economic development'.
The 'Euroworks councils' were set up without any provisions for sanctions in the event of the rules being transgressed, which meant that certain European multinationals did not take them seriously. In light of this experience, I approve the three-fold action proposed here.
The first element of this involves establishing a European framework governing companies' operations worldwide. It also includes the definition of a code of conduct incorporating the minimum international standards that ensure respect for human rights, minority and indigenous peoples' rights, working conditions, the environment and the fight against corruption.
The second element involves setting up an independent 'European Monitoring Platform' responsible for monitoring the application of this code of conduct and for verifying that the activities carried out in the host countries are socially and environmentally sustainable. The final element involves legal actions against enterprises that fail to honour their commitments.
I regard this structure as completely justified.
The EU still has to act to introduce such a code of conduct. In addition, it has yet to to set up effective monitoring mechanisms and apply sanctions in the event of transgressions through agreements within the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
The political world and public opinion must win this battle, essentially through the help of NGOs.
The European Union is the largest donor of development aid while European enterprises are the largest direct investors in developing countries.
As the rapporteur points out, Europe's attitude can therefore play a decisive role in ensuring global sustainable social and economic development.
I am personally convinced that a worthy social policy must be based on wealth production that allows only sustainable economic development.
I am also convinced that economic expansion based on social injustice cannot last.
In this respect, Parliament must approve and support the voluntary initiatives taken to complement the international rules and obligations that fall to national authorities, with a view to promoting codes of conduct, provided that these are drawn up by all the parties concerned and are monitored and controlled in an effective and independent manner.
We must support the idea of drawing up a model code of conduct comprising the existing minimum international standards and the establishment of a European Monitoring Platform responsible for ensuring that these standards are adhered to. However, this monitoring platform must work in close collaboration with all the partners and must not eventually become an instrument used as an elaborate form of protection against the goods and services supplied by emerging and developing countries.
Finally, it would be beneficial if legal action against enterprises that failed seriously to meet their commitments in an emerging or developing country were taken in the EU country where they have their registered offices. Equally, legislation should be drawn up to allow legal action against multinationals in this respect to be taken before the European courts.
However, these ideas must be subject to lengthy discussion because if care is not taken to prevent this, they could also be diverted from their primary aim towards protectionist ends.
I voted against the Howitt report.
Although the rapporteur's aim to define minimum working standards applying to trade with developing countries, the method suggested is illogical and dangerous because it limits a global issue to the European context.
These codes of conduct must be negotiated within a global context so that we can find a compulsory mechanism that can be applied fairly to all enterprises, both in third countries and in the Member States of the European Union.
Otherwise, we will inevitably be left with patchy and non-compulsory measures.
We must, on the one hand, rigorously ensure that the existing international rules, particularly within the context of the ILO, are effectively applied by all, and on the other hand, develop the rules of the WTO so that they take account of the essential issues of social and environmental dumping.
This is the direct responsibility of the Member States and the Commission.
The European Parliament does not add anything to the debate by merely making lofty proposals and may, in fact, detract from it, thereby risking penalising our European enterprises alone.
Democracy, rule of law and human rights in EU/ACP partnership
The next item is the report (A4-0411/98) by Mr Fernández Martín, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the Commission communication entitled 'Democratisation, the rule of law, respect for human rights and good governance: the challenges of the partnership between the European Union and the ACP States' (COM(98)0146 - C4-0390/98).
I give the floor to Mr Pomés Ruiz, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
Mr President, it is an honour for me to present Fernando Fernández Martín's excellent report to this House. His report seeks to give renewed momentum to relations between the European Union and the ACP states.
Of course, the content of this report contains a real political challenge for the future of our relations with the ACP states. This is clearly highlighted in the title of the document the Commission has submitted to Parliament.
The Lomé IV Convention already had one innovative aspect in that it referred to the respect for and promotion of human rights in the actual body of the Convention.
The review of the Lomé IV Convention in 1995 introduced an explicit reference to the recognition and application of democratic principles in Article 5, and to the consolidation of the rule of law and good governance in Article 366a. Article 224 goes into more detail on these issues.
What we must now do is move beyond the theoretical debate of concepts that are full of good intentions and move towards defining specific measures that will facilitate the transition from theory to practice.
We must make our friends in the ACP states aware that, to a certain extent, these guidelines should be seen as an attempt to participate in matters that come under their competences, responsibilities and sovereignty.
I must say that many of the guidelines and measures we advocate in this report would not have any effect and would be inefficient if they were not adopted by the various ACP actors, and especially by civil society in the ACP states, as civil society is the ultimate beneficiary of such measures.
I would also add that the Union must remain vigilant and must adopt exemplary sanctions to deal with some of the problems we must address. One such problem is corruption where, for example, infringements involve natural or legal persons or European companies.
As one of the most brilliant European thinkers of the end of this century said, corruption is the cancer that corrodes democracy.
Corruption, in whatever form it takes, inevitably leads to an economic system that smiles on immediate profit, arbitrary acts and individual interests and is opposed to any concept of transparency, fairness and the rule of law.
Through the reports by Mr Martens and Mr Rocard, the European Parliament is demanding a new political dimension in European Union-ACP relations, based on the promotion of democratic principles and on respect for human rights.
In this field, education is an essential environment for political action seeking to encourage the strengthening of a strong and healthy civil society.
It is vital that such action pays special attention to the specific role of women and to protecting the rights of minors, who in some cases are victims of forms of indigenous slavery that is humiliating and that insults the dignity of human beings. Strengthening the rule of law and democracy must include developing the conditions in which the courts of justice, the police and the army operate.
It must encourage support for the media who seek to provide true information and remain independent of the public authorities. Society must be strengthened through citizens' associations, professional organisations and trade unions.
We realise that these objectives, which, although ambitious are no less urgent or utopian, cannot be achieved without working on dialogue both between the European Union and the ACP countries and among the ACP states themselves.
This dialogue must be as broad and as intense as possible, covering all issues and areas affected.
In addition, it must include not only representatives from each state, but, in particular, members and organisations from the political opposition, representatives of the legislature and judiciary, as well as representatives from civil society and from non-governmental organisations.
For this purpose, we support the strengthening of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly's role as the preferred forum for developing such a dialogue.
Mr President, the Commission communication on EU support for the promotion of democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights and good governance in the ACP countries is a good document on an equally good initiative by the Commission.
This is the view of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, whose opinion I have drawn up for the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
The Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy had certain comments which it has tabled as amendments, such as the fact that the communication does not take sufficient account of the unique existing EU-ACP structure, which enables both sides to consult each other about human rights, democracy and good governance through the EU-ACP Council and the EU-ACP Assembly.
Instead of introducing a lot of new structures, we feel that the existing structures should be put to optimum use.
Secondly, where a certain ACP country has violated human rights or there is a serious lack of good governance or democracy, the EU-ACP Assembly can send delegations, draw up reports for discussion in the Assembly and take measures on that basis.
Instead of introducing a great many official reports, we feel it would always be better to give preference to and to make better use of this route via the Assembly.
This would avoid duplication of effort and place the emphasis on a political approach rather than an official one, which is generally more effective.
Thirdly, most ACP countries have signed international conventions in the field of human rights and democracy.
This means that these countries are themselves obliged to report on a regular basis and to evaluate the reports in their parliaments.
If the European Union intends to take action, then account must be taken of the fact that these countries have their own responsibilities here.
All of these points are set out in amendments which have been incorporated by Mr Fernández Martín.
We are therefore very happy with his report and we hope that the Commission will react favourably to it and to our amendments.
Mr President, one of the greatest challenges of our time is how we can help the general principles of democracy and the rule of law to take root in developing countries.
Physical and spiritual development is possible only in circumstances where there is general protection under the law and equality of social rights.
The hustle and bustle of finance requires clear legislation for its protection.
A major task of the European Union is to promote democracy, respect for human rights and the adoption of the principles of the rule of law.
It has already done much to further this cause, and will continue to do so. Money has been set aside for this purpose in the budget.
The cultivation of democracy has to begin at the beginning.
The birth and growth of political parties have to be encouraged.
We must support openness, honesty and legality in government.
Local traditions and customs often hamper developments.
Corruption and the custom of favouring relatives are fairly common and, worst of all, widely accepted and tolerated.
In such circumstances it is difficult to use European Union funds wisely, because that can also easily lead to abuse.
That is why the implementation of democracy programmes is difficult and demands an enormous sense of responsibility on the part of the authorities concerned.
When it was preparing last year's budget Parliament decided that an interinstitutional working party, including a representative from the European Parliament, should be set up to decide on funds - how to spend them and follow them up - to promote democracy, respect for human rights, and the furtherance of the rule of law.
The purpose of this working party would be to aid the implementation and follow-up phase of these programmes.
It is to be hoped that this system of coordination will get off the ground as soon as possible.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mr Fernández Martín on the intelligent and balanced work he has done on this report, and give him my best wishes.
What is the main thrust of the Commission's communication and the parliamentary report we are examining?
It is nothing less than the recognition that democracy, the affirmation of the state of law, respect for and promotion of human rights, the fight against corruption and the implementation of good governance are not just universal principles and aims which should obviously be promoted all over the world, they are also, and above all, essential conditions for success in implementing policies for healthy, balanced and genuine development.
In short we do not want to 'export' models to our partners in the third world, and the ACP countries in particular.
We do not want to impose the principles and practices of the world's most developed countries, but we do want to affirm what is now recognised objectively: that democracy and human rights are the foundations on which a modern society can develop, and not the end result of development.
Of course we know a close correlation exists between democracy and development, but that can never be used as an excuse to justify anti-democratic regimes and violations of the most elementary human rights, to deny the right to participate in decision-making, to tolerate widespread corruption, and so on.
In the course of the last few years we have been able to witness, in many ACP countries, the turbulent, and even sometimes contradictory, emergence of civil society, which is demanding space, guarantees and rules, calling for the reorganisation of the authorities, and demanding that the authorities gear their action to the collective interest and the welfare of the citizens.
It is on that basis that a start has been made on new processes of democratisation on the continent of Africa and elsewhere.
The Union's approach has evolved a great deal over the years and since the start of the 1990s the focus has been on the issue of democracy as an aim of all development cooperation.
Of course it is still useful to calibrate the instruments according to the two main types of possible measures. First there are measures of 'negative discrimination' whereby sanctions are applied to countries responsible for human rights violations, involving active intervention.
This makes the negative approach 'expensive' and 'inconvenient'.
The problem is that this approach, while necessary, often fails to secure the agreed participation of all those involved in international cooperation with a country, often rendering the measures useless.
However the accent is now being rightly placed on the need for 'positive measures', that is, measures which, through direct cooperation, create conditions for effectively implementing the commitments set out in Article 5 of the Lomé Convention.
Given that I agree with everything contained in both the Commission's communication and Mr Fernández Martín's report, I do not want to go into the substance of the various initiatives proposed.
I would just emphasise that, almost inevitably, there is a risk of an omission.
We need to consider whether, in some cases, the rules and procedures set out in the current Lomé Convention relating to contracts, the allocation and management of financial resources, and respect for commercial rules of origin, may not be the subject of mismanagement and even corruption in some ACP countries.
To be more specific, the problem is that the lack of transparency and knowledge about the instruments of the Convention, which concentrates enormous power in the hands of the national organisers in ACP countries, can certainly give rise to problems of mismanagement, corruption or misuse of the resources.
I think this is a point to be looked at carefully when it comes to renegotiating the rules for the next Convention.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his excellent report and being brave enough to highlight such issues as corruption and the lack of pluralism in some States.
We are all aware that many developing nations are in a serious financial situation because corruption is adding to the debt problem.
Sadly, in many ways, democracy - or the lack of it - go hand in hand with corruption.
Having used democracy to gain power, some do not wish to relinquish that power.
For that reason, we need good governance as well as democracy if we are to combat corruption.
The whole structure of our Lomé agreement is based on democracy, human rights and good governance.
I should like to tell the Commissioner that fine words are not enough.
We cannot force nations to abide by these principles but we can use incentives.
The whole thrust of any new arrangement after 2000 will have a much more political dimension, and we must insist on political pluralism in countries receiving aid programmes.
It is up to nations themselves to develop this.
As our rapporteur says, measures should be put in place to assist those ACP nations struggling towards democracy.
Regional cooperation should help in this.
I totally support that but we must strike the right balance.
There are a growing number of applicant States which are altering their constitutions in such a way that political pluralism will be impossible and opposition parties will never have the chance to come to power.
We should not tolerate that.
What incentive is there for responsible nations struggling to stay within the rules if other nations which flout those rules of democracy continue to receive support?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group I would like to endorse the praise that has been showered on the rapporteur, Mr Fernández Martín. I must say he has worked with uncommon speed.
In fact few reports have been put together so fast since the Committee on Development and Cooperation came into being.
The picture he paints of relations between the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the countries of the European Union is very interesting.
He is quite right to highlight the move from a purely economic approach to a form of cooperation which instead puts the accent strongly on human rights, evolution towards democracy, and aid from the European Union countries to establish the rule of law in the developing countries, not just in form but also, and above all, in substance.
We should not forget that simply affirming the rules and principles of modern western constitutions is not enough to make democracy exist automatically, nor is establishing democracy enough to create conditions of genuine development automatically.
This is why the Fernández Martín report wisely puts the accent on specific local characteristics as well.
We cannot assume that our institutional models are universal, eternal and incontestable, nor can we think of superimposing them uncritically on the situation in countries with very different histories from our own.
But one thing is certain: the battle against corruption, embezzlement and bad governance must be fiercely fought, both in Europe and in the developing countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, I should also like to welcome both the Commission's initiative and the report by Mr Fernández Martín.
I must mention the Commission's initiative because I regard this as extremely opportune.
As the Convention will soon be renewed, I believe that this is the time to clarify how the European Union interprets the contents of this Convention on human rights, democracy, the rule of law and good governance.
A few months ago in this House, Commissioner Deus Pinheiro threw down the challenge involving the need to consider how the European Union cooperates with the ACP countries and with developing countries. This related, in particular, to those countries that have violent regimes in which fundamental rights are not respected, those where corruption forms part of daily life, and, above all, those where the existence of conflicts may result in cooperation funds being diverted to the war effort.
However, it is refreshing to note that, in recent years, many ACP countries have implemented significant institutional reforms, often under very difficult socioeconomic and political conditions. And the fundamental values of the rule of law, the participation of the people, good governance and the protection of human rights have formed the structural objectives of these governments.
Anyone participating in the ACP assemblies can confirm this concern on the part of these countries.
The new ACP-EU partnership must be given a strong political dimension based on the promotion of the values of democracy, as only a democratic state can guarantee full respect for human rights.
Furthermore, the Convention must include detailed and very clear provisions on measures to combat corruption, accompanied by very specific sanctions that can be applied to the ACP country, to the Member States or to the economic operators.
Finally, we also believe that the appropriate institutional framework for the debate on the new concepts of the Convention and the pursuit of this policy is a new ACP-EU Joint Assembly that has been adapted and restructured.
Mr President, our group will also be supporting Mr Fernández Martín's excellent report.
We have spent many years debating democracy, the rule of law, human rights and good governance in developing countries and in the ACP countries.
Negotiating the Lomé IV Convention played an important role, and this report is the next step.
It is important to create the necessary infrastructure to bring about the separation of powers.
To achieve this, however, many countries need support, which we should provide in the areas of development policy and cooperation with the ACP countries.
It is vital that the Joint Assembly is itself pluralistic, and that it is a body which is representative of the various parties and not of authoritarian regimes.
We must act together to ensure this.
We must also act together regarding the allocation of funds.
If we in the EU wish to combat corruption - which was the subject of yesterday's debate - then this also applies to cooperation with the ACP countries.
We should also look into the areas where, by means of infrastructure measures, human rights are being violated by the present international economic system - as Mr Fernández Martín points out in paragraph 7 of his report - that is, due to the debt burden issue, structural adjustment measures or the fact that European companies force the indigenous population to submit to structural adjustment measures, which is often an obstacle to the introduction of the rule of law and the separation of powers.
Mr President, in the Commission document on relations between the European Union and the ACP countries I found an excellent definition of good governance: 'Good governance refers to the transparent and accountable management of all a country's resources'.
If we replace the word 'country' by 'European Union', then we can clearly see that we have no right at all to be paternalistic towards the ACP countries.
I have the impression that we are using the term political dialogue to conceal the fact that what we are really trying to do is to impose a western political system on the ACP countries.
The poor results of the Lomé Convention as revealed in the Commission's 1997 Green Paper led to a wide-ranging discussion about whether the Convention should be continued.
If there was to be a new convention in 2000, then its substance would have to be completely different, and we now appear to have decided that this new substance should be political.
The failures of the past are all put down to inadequate government structures, corruption and other practices, in an attempt to find political solutions for economic problems.
I have serious doubts as to whether this is the right approach.
I also think that the European Union is not the right place for this sort of political dialogue.
We would do better to channel our efforts into promoting the genuine involvement of the developing countries in the world economy, even if this could work against our own economic interests.
Mr President, may I congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent work and stress how important it is that in future the promotion of human rights becomes a priority component of the EU's development policy.
I consider it important to give special emphasis to the fight against corruption, which is an evil that is all too present in many ACP countries.
Without wishing to polemicise over this issue I would however like to say that the EU must in future set a good example.
We cannot preach water and drink whiskey.
It is also a matter of priority to give urgent attention to the situation of children and to protecting the rights of children in the context of dialogue between the European Union and the ACP countries.
The only effective way to achieve a lasting improvement in the fate of socially deprived or sexually abused children in some of the countries involved is to convey an unmistakably clear message and impose certain conditions within the framework of development policy.
If the 'democracy and human rights' dimension is to become an essential component of the Community's foreign and development policy, children must be the focus of our attention.
We must not permit the growing phenomenon of child labour and the sexual abuse of children, which is taking place on an enormous scale, in any of our partner countries.
Even though worrying developments in the environment sector are not necessarily taking place on our own doorstep, we must also, in view of the significant global interdependencies that are being created, integrate environmental aspects into our relations with the ACP countries.
Mr President, I would of course like to endorse the congratulations offered to Mr Fernández Martín.
I naturally attach great importance to this report and to the Commission report, because the ever-recurring conflicts between the United States of America and Europe can be attributed not least to the fact that we have particularly close economic ties with 70 countries throughout the world and that great mutual support exists.
I believe that it is quite natural that we, as Europeans, should attempt to introduce and support, in these 70 countries with which we cooperate, certain principles which we have recognised as being correct, and that we look upon them practically as a basic condition in this area.
Allow me, however, to make a slight criticism of this report that seems to me to be very important.
It relates to the fact that, once national rights have been established, we naturally place a great deal of emphasis on human rights and thus on the individual. The fact that there are certain groups which also have rights is unfortunately being ignored.
The groups I am specifically referring to are the minority groups and the various ethnic groups which live in these countries and which unfortunately are not mentioned in this report.
We see only too often that it is these very minority groups which are treated abominably and have no rights whatsoever.
In this connection I have in mind certain African countries, for example in the Great Lakes region.
If we look at what is happening in Rwanda and Burundi, it is my belief that it is enormously important for us, as a European Parliament that continually supports not only individual human rights but also the rights of ethnic groups, to ensure that the rights of these groups are guaranteed at an international level, which is not the case at the moment.
Mr President, I applaud the way in which the Union's human rights policy is being progressively extended.
If it is to have maximum effect a human rights policy must be clear, transparent, fair and consistent.
Various proposals are put forward in this document, some of them good, some of them not so good.
I agree with some of what the previous speaker, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, said about this.
In its communication, the Commission rightly proposes to extend dialogue with the ACP countries with the aim of promoting democracy and human rights there.
It also suggests a combination of positive and negative instruments in order to achieve this, and this balance is vital for success, in my view.
The rapporteur, Mr Fernández Martín, is therefore right to point out that Parliament must have a say in any decision on suspending ACP cooperation.
Finally, I would urge the Commission to prepare a similar communication on the implementation of democracy and human rights policy in other regions.
The Union's policy on this in all areas of the world must be based on clear criteria.
You know what they are, I have already listed them: fairness, clarity, transparency, consistency and making allowance for the fact that not everyone in the world has managed to come as far as we have.
Nevertheless, in this case I entirely agree with my colleague, friend and fellow countryman Mr Blokland that once in a while we need to put our own house in order here.
Mr President, in September 1998 negotiations started between the EU and the ACP to agree the successor to the Lomé Convention.
I welcome the fact that a fundamental basis for this negotiation is a strengthening and deepening of political dialogue, an element which had been largely missing in the previous discussions.
One of the major components of the political dialogue is the subject of this report, namely democratisation, the protection of human rights and the operation of the rule of law.
The report considers these issues thoroughly and I support its recommendations to include stronger provisions on the human rights front and to tackle corruption, and particularly important, its recommendations for the use of sanctions.
I support the strategy outlined in this report, I congratulate the rapporteur and I hope Parliament overwhelmingly approves it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I should like to thank Parliament for its proposal for a resolution on the Commission's communication entitled 'Democratisation, the rule of law, respect for human rights and good governance: the challenges of the partnership between the European Union and the ACP States'.
And I should particularly like to thank the author of this report, Mr Fernández Martín, for the quality of his work, as well as Mr Pomés who spoke on his behalf. I should also like to thank all those speakers who participated in the debate.
The importance of including human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles in EU policy in general, and in its external relations in particular, has grown over the last decade. This is mainly due to the belief that there can be no lasting human development without an institutional and political environment that respects these principles.
However, each country must decide upon the political and economic model around which it will organise its communal life, whilst respecting the general principles of human rights as well as the conventions and international and regional legal instruments on such issues.
This communication follows the same lines as previous communications from the Commission on these issues, particular that of May 1995 on the inclusion and respect for democratic principles in agreements between the Community and third countries. It is also along the same lines as the November 1995 communication on the European Union and the external dimension of its human rights policy entitled 'From Rome to Maastricht and beyond', as well as the March 1996 communication on the European Union and the issue of conflicts in Africa: 'Peace-building, conflict prevention and beyond'.
This communication responds to three requirements: the need to clarify for ACP members how the European Commission interprets these principles; the need to contribute in terms of stepping up the debate in the ACP states; and the need to prepare and facilitate the debate on the future relations between the ACP states and the European Union.
Therefore, the Commission believes that it is necessary to draw up a specific communication on the ACP states. The aims of this communication will be to clarify the concepts that appear in Article 5 of the revised Lomé IV Convention, to draw up an action plan for coordinating dialogue with ACP countries, to strengthen the debate on such matters in these countries, and to give special emphasis to a series of specific measures and priority actions.
As regards principles and objectives, the Commission welcomes Parliament's approval and the fact that it responds to the guidelines from the reports by Mr Rocard and Mr Martens.
The Commission once again stresses the principle that the promotion of human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles forms an integral part of the European Union's development policy and constitutes an essential element of the Lomé Convention. The Commission also shares Parliament's concern that good governance be added to this with an explicit reference to combating corruption, as stipulated in the negotiating mandate for the ACP states and the European Union.
In relation to the action programme, the Commission is delighted that Parliament supports the positive approach in these matters, the suggestion to the ACP states that they propose criteria relating to the promotion of human rights, and the recognition of the specific social, economic, political and cultural situation of each ACP state. As a result, they will be able to define objectives, priority actions and the pace of development, as well as assessing what has been achieved.
Finally, I should like to stress that it is only through dialogue between the Community and the ACP states on such issues that the political and institutional dimensions of cooperation will be able to flourish, as will respect for the sovereignty and distinct characteristics of the countries in question.
We therefore support the proposals in the current resolution on how to forge ahead on these matters, with a view to negotiating the ACP-European Union Convention.
We also support the need to define and institutionalise the process and the arrangements for this dialogue in the next ACP-European Union Convention - as defined in the negotiating mandate - as well as the importance of developing and extending this dialogue by including the various actors from civil society. Advantages are to be gained by developing this dialogue to negotiate national and regional indicative programmes.
Finally, we share Parliament's view on the need to make the most of, and strengthen, the joint institutions, including the Assembly, in order to promote and develop this dialogue.
In terms of determining specific measures and priority actions that will have to be taken, we do, of course, agree with the proposals in the resolution on the importance of supporting actions to help vulnerable groups, particularly the rights of children and of army and police personnel. These have been implemented over recent years through projects financed by budgetary headings from Chapter B-7, European initiatives for democracy.
Finally, let me repeat what Mr Fernández Martín said in his report and welcome the laudable efforts and progress made in many ACP states over the last few years in spite of the difficult economic conditions they face.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament adopted the resolution
The priority given to the promotion of human rights, the rule of law and democratic principles in the European Union's policy on development aid must be welcomed once again.
It can never be stressed enough how the efforts made in these areas by developing countries must not only be welcomed but also encouraged, and, above all, they should be supported as they are more often than not made under difficult socioeconomic conditions.
Another priority to be added to the next ACP-EU Convention must be the promotion of good governance and the fight against corruption, together with the instruments and specific measures needed to implement these.
It is not actually possible to have a socially balanced policy on economic development as long as most of a country's resources are being diverted into the pockets of a few people.
Similarly, another condition that I feel is essential to any sustainable development is that the new Convention should pay particular attention to our partners' respect for and implementation of the minimum international standards of the ILO.
This Convention must also ensure that the economic and social partners become stronger in the ACP countries and that a permanent and constructive dialogue is established between them.
In more general terms, it is once again important to support and extend the role of civil society in drawing up and implementing development and democratisation programmes among our partners.
To conclude, I would also highlight the essential role played by women in all stable development processes and I would emphasise, together with our rapporteur, the need to constantly ensure that greater consideration is given to their legal and social rights as well as to their increased participation in political life.
Export of renewable energy technologies
The next item is the report (A4-0477/98) by Mr Elchlepp, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the new prospects of the European Union in exporting technology and services for the use of renewable energy.
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report draws our attention to a new, extremely promising, but unfortunately under-utilised opportunity for Europe to export to and cooperate with third countries in the field of renewable energies, and also proposes a practical plan of action.
It is a happy coincidence that, in this very area, Europe is in an ideal position to merge its interests in the export and labour markets with the interests of third countries in cost-effective, suitably adapted energy supply systems.
The fact that renewable energies are an essential part of a responsible energy and environmental policy which may yet achieve the climate protection objectives set out in Kyoto is, hopefully, well-known.
But forecasts show that, because of both financial and non-financial considerations, wind power, solar energy, biomass and other energy sources in the renewable energies sector deserve to have much stronger support in the EU's industrial and employment policy.
That is why I expect the new German Presidency to set new trends in this area.
Back in 1995, in the Commission's White Paper 'An energy policy for the European Union', a clear statement was made concerning renewable energies, also from the point of view of foreign economic policy, and in the 1997 White Paper 'Energy for the future - renewable sources of energy', the one million solar roofs programme for photovoltaic systems was introduced, which would satisfy half the energy requirements in third countries, and at the same time provide an opportunity to promote exports for our domestic industries in Europe. Yet I ask myself: where are the actions?
I ask the Commission: where are the implementation proposals? I ask the Council: where are the necessary funds, the majority of which must be provided by the Member States?
Two things need to be done. Firstly, we need a long-term European strategy to encourage exports in the renewable energies sector; this will include the entire export chain and will be trans-sectoral in nature, and it will help in particular our small and medium-sized enterprises to gain a foothold in world markets.
Our SMEs often lack reliable information on overseas markets, which I was able to gain first-hand knowledge of during a visit I made yesterday evening to such an enterprise in my own constituency which exports solar vessel systems to third countries.
As is made clear in a report, out of 17 potentially relevant EU support programmes, there is not a single one that aims specifically to provide export support for renewable energies.
Many of these programmes are unsuited to small and medium-sized enterprises, as only large projects requiring at least EUR 1 million are being supported.
The lack of market information and problems in finding business partners are further obstacles, as I have seen for myself.
In order to synchronise and significantly strengthen appropriate foreign trade activities in Europe, I am calling for a 'European Export Council for Renewable Energies', which will in particular help SMEs through effective advice and facilitate their access to the world's future markets.
This Export Council could be funded jointly by the EU and by industrial associations in the renewables sector.
It should first and foremost serve as a point of coordination, encourage the foundation of export cooperatives, link these up with strong partners in the target countries and support premarketing activities.
Haste is paramount.
The competition in the USA and Japan never sleeps.
In the USA there is already a 'US Export Council for Renewable Energies', which has offices in the client countries of the future and also has generous funding.
I will quote some figures to illustrate the importance of the sector as a whole.
For the period 1990-2010 the overall world market in renewable energies will be almost EUR 1 800 billion.
The annual productive investment volume is estimated at EUR 86 billion.
The photovoltaic sector, which is not even the biggest sector, is recording an annual market growth of 15 %.
Even in the wind energy sector an average market growth of 26 % is being projected in emergent and developing countries for the period 1998-2002.
Employment opportunities are also considerable.
The Commission itself has talked of between 500 000 and 900 000 new jobs by the year 2010, and an equal number of jobs could be created by exports in this field.
No other industrial sector, apart from telecommunications, has such a high growth rate in employment as, for example, wind energy; Denmark is an example here.
The proposed export initiative can only have a chance if we in Europe help renewable energies along the road to success, as we create confidence in European technology among our world partners by using it ourselves and by creating a viable domestic market; we must therefore promote it considerably better than hitherto and in a completely targeted way.
Mr President, this is a very important issue which should be examined particularly from the point of view of how to create a demand for renewable energy sources.
We live in a market economy, and commercial applications for which there is no demand are rarely developed.
However, we in Europe are in a situation where there is natural demand.
We have a situation of natural demand in the Member States of the European Union, but there is still more demand in the applicant countries.
The European Union is to enlarge, and in those countries that are currently applying for membership of the European Union there are very great problems in the energy sector.
They have obsolete industrial plants which are a serious risk to the environment, and outdated nuclear power plants which are also a risk to health and safety.
Nuclear safety must improve in these countries to comply with international regulations, and defective nuclear power stations must be taken out of use.
This has been said many times.
But what should replace them? In my opinion it is necessary to switch to renewable energy resources and power stations that exploit the highest possible technology.
This will also be in the interests of the applicant countries in the European Union's internal market, enabling them, in this very difficult situation, to acquire an immediate competitive edge over the present Member States.
What it will mean for the present Member States is that we will be able to export the know-how.
But the problems themselves will obviously have to be solved in each country individually.
The Kyoto agreement as it is obliges us to find solutions.
When, for example, the international funding institutions of the European Union support energy programmes in the applicant countries, special attention must be paid to making sure the money is spent on the best possible technology as well as renewable energy sources, in order to improve our chances of acting in accordance with international climate agreements.
The rapporteur raised the issue of employment very forcefully; it is just as important in the applicant countries as it is in the European Union.
From the point of view of the applicant countries, if we underline the importance of decentralised production and renewable energy sources we can also do much to weaken the conflict that exists between environmental demands and questions of employment.
This problem will diminish if new jobs are created from the production of energy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Elchlepp report is unequivocal and contains a number of demands. It is a report which will enable us to become directly involved in the spheres of activity of the European Union and to implement the measures it contains.
I believe that, as Mr Elchlepp has already stated, this can go some considerable way to helping third countries meet the environmental standards that were set jointly in Kyoto.
For us, however, it is an enormous opportunity to progress through positive economic cooperation within the various development scenarios and agreements and, through cooperative partnership, to not only export new technologies but develop them jointly with our partners in the developing countries, within the framework of joint ventures.
First and foremost, these new technologies could help African countries to reduce their very costly consumption of fossil energy sources and to make significant progress, above all in rural development, not only in production of energy for electricity, lighting and hot water, but also for the energy needs of small and medium-sized industries and craft industries.
All in all, therefore, this is an excellent report which calls upon us to take action.
I would also like to mention that the European Union should establish a means of channelling aid, just as the Americans have done.
However, we are not in support of a system of aid which introduces export subsidies, such as those in the agricultural sector, for example, but we are in favour of one which covers quite a broad spectrum, as Mr Elchlepp has already partly indicated.
This should include, first of all, the provision of information.
We need to inform our SMEs, who are leading players in this sector, about opportunities in the third world.
At the same time, however, we need to inform third countries, especially the ACP countries, about these opportunities and, above all, about the opportunities in rural development, where, for example, cooperatives and producer groups could implement these uncomplicated technologies.
Secondly, this should include education and training in respect of the new markets which could arise for our enterprises.
We already have the appropriate provisions and even the new budget items which make this possible.
However, these are far too modest, and every year in the Committee on External Economic Relations we fight to get the Committee on Budgets to see the importance of these opportunities and to translate this importance into a few extra million.
In comparison to the huge budgetary blocks, this is virtually nothing.
Finally, this should include pilot projects to show the SMEs what is possible in the third world in the field of rural development.
I would like to end by saying something more about actual implementation.
I am now talking, in my role as Vice-President of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly, about actual implementation for these countries.
In Africa there is sun in abundance.
We must take advantage of this and give our African friends the chance to use this energy correctly.
Secondly, we must also make the necessary organisational decisions.
I am glad that our rapporteur on the future of the Lomé Convention and chairman of the PPE Group, Wilfried Martens, is still here and is perhaps listening to my contribution.
We first of all have the possibility of setting up an energy chapter within the framework of the new Convention and then, within this new energy chapter, of giving priority to renewable energies.
Thirdly, we must also inform the Centre for Industrial Development, which is provided for in the Lomé Convention, about this report and, in our next meeting with the ACP countries we must point out to this centre that here we have new opportunities for action which can be very quickly implemented.
Fourthly, I would like to say that we must hold this discussion in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly over the coming months in a very intensive, result-oriented and targeted way.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp, has produced an excellent and very interesting report on this important issue.
Renewable energy technology and its markets are a global issue, requiring EU resources for development.
As the report points out, the new opportunities can help to solve problems caused by uncontrolled migration in developing countries, in rural areas, and elsewhere.
I see a great opportunity in the development of renewable bio-energy and wood energy technologies, and the logistics know-how associated with this whole sector, in the development strategies for countries like these.
I would also like to emphasise the importance of something close to us in the Nordic countries, which people are not always sufficiently aware of in more southern parts of Europe, which is that the most important aspect of renewable energy is the biomass that comes from the natural forest, such as branches, crowns and small-diameter trees in a thinned-out forest.
There could be a demand in other parts of the world for the export of know-how and logistics associated with gathering these, especially in the EU partnership and applicant countries.
We have already managed to develop the world's highest levels of know-how in the technology used in small combined heat and power plants.
It has also been adopted on a very large scale, as, according to the latest statistics, bio-fuels are the largest source of energy in Finland.
Renewables can thus be used for combined heat and power production.
Furthermore, in Central Europe the consumption of conventional fuels for fires and boilers could in this way be lessened or altogether replaced with renewable energy sources.
Some of the know-how already exists, as do more efficient boilers.
The common policy of the European Union calls for a particular focus on the most important issues, having, as we do, limited resources at our disposal.
I would like to emphasise in this connection the importance of business in developing and exporting renewables technology.
For that reason, the European Union must, as a priority, strive to support commercial exports, through marketing subsidies and investment aid, for example, in the less developed regions of the European Union.
Furthermore, there should be more opportunities for companies in the partnership countries such as those in the TACIS and PHARE programmes.
Because technology is still searching for new forms, instead of so much planning and guidance, the main focus should be on decentralised methods of progress, where all endeavours are encouraged and these forms of renewable energy become competitively priced compared to other energy sources.
During the first stage, however, we will still need financial incentives.
Mr President, world energy production is predicted to grow at a rate of 1.6 % a year.
That means that by the year 2020 the world's energy production figure will have increased by 50 %.
The developing world's share in that figure will be substantial, and it will account for perhaps three-quarters of the increase in oil consumption.
The earth, however, will not tolerate this kind of democratised energy consumption if we go on the way we are.
Democracy of energy consumption demands new thinking and new technology.
It requires us to make room in our developed capitalist countries for energy consumption in other lands.
Market mechanisms hamper the role of democracy in energy consumption.
Prices of conventional forms of energy at the moment are too low compared to those of the new technologies, and for that reason we have to create incentives for their introduction.
We have common resources in the world and the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp, quite rightly points out that the partnership countries and the developing countries are in an important position from the point of view of the future of energy consumption and its technological development.
It is also very important to stress the importance of solar and biomass energy.
Neither the goal of doubling the consumption of renewable energy by the year 2010 nor the Kyoto agreement will be implemented unless room is made for the new technologies in the production of energy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased with this very detailed and unambiguous report by Mr Elchlepp.
I am also very pleased that it is slowly getting through to this House that renewable energies will be quite crucial in the future.
We have neglected this sector for far too long. For far too long we have relied on energy sources that cost the earth and cannot be disposed of, such as nuclear power, for example.
This report gives us the opportunity to place our future hopes in new energy sources, in tandem with the countries in the south and with the new countries in the east.
This is also a special challenge for the German Presidency, which is held by Joschka Fischer.
We will need money, which we must take away from other energy sources, to effect this volte-face.
Despite the fact that new oil reserves are still being discovered, word should have got around by now that this substance is finite.
That is why we must follow this new path out of our responsibility towards future generations.
Mr President, Europe is currently in an advantageous position in terms of research and development in the field of renewable energies, despite the scant support received by this sector of European industry in comparison with its most direct competitors, the United States and Japan.
In order to maintain this position, it is vital that the European institutions demonstrate their political and financial support for this important industrial sector. It is a sector that is capable of making job creation compatible with the protection of the environment.
A true Community policy for renewable energies and SMEs in this sector, coupled with an increase in the specific budget for such forms of energy and in appropriations for exports would make a valuable contribution to job creation, the European Union's main preoccupation.
It is estimated that close to one million direct and indirect jobs could be created between now and the year 2010 if the use of renewable energy were to double.
These jobs would also be compatible with the protection of the environment because the use and promotion of these forms of energy avoids the use of fossil fuels, thereby preventing emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere.
This is a particularly interesting point when we take account of the fact that, with this reduction in environmental pollution, we would also be fulfilling the commitments made at the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change.
Moreover, a third of the world's population, mainly in third world countries, do not have any electricity supply. The use of renewable energies would therefore offer a rapid and effective way of resolving this problem without harming the environment.
It is for all these reasons that we welcome the idea of creating a regulatory European Export Council for Renewable Energies.
It would provide the Union with a coordinating body to work on a true European strategy for the entire export chain. In this way, it would contribute to job creation, to the protection of the environment and to the development of third world countries.
Madam President, exporting renewable energy is in the interests of a sustainable economy, and there is therefore every reason to encourage it.
I congratulate Mr Elchlepp on the inventive way he has tried to find ways of doing this.
There are still a few hurdles to overcome before exports can really get under way.
According to the rapporteur, the long-term export outlook for renewable energy is good, but as yet there is no prospect of it happening.
Up to now, European firms have been less than eager to export technology.
The market share held by renewable energy also needs to increase dramatically, and European firms must use the lead that they have gained in this field to promote exports.
Renewable energy cuts down pollution and prevents natural resources from being exhausted, so there is every reason to try to promote it.
Our current biased economic system which charges too little for fossil fuel energy is not geared towards this, however.
Money therefore needs to be provided to get exports under way, and the rapporteur has a number of ideas here.
He calls for extra funding for an active European export council for the product, and for renewable energy projects to be included in our development policy.
I think this alternative way of spending development funding is an excellent idea.
I would suggest that the funding should firstly benefit the developing countries, such as by implementing the proposals on 'debt for solar swaps'.
The developing countries should be rewarded by having their debts reduced if they use sustainable energy.
Madam President, without claiming to be an expert on the subject, I nevertheless wish to stress some of the very positive aspects of the excellent report by Mr Elchlepp, and to add my voice to those of the millions of people who are fighting for the future of our planet, which is threatened by headlong destruction of the environment, by irresponsible use of natural resources and by a widening gap between rich and poor countries.
Faced with the reluctance of world leaders to adopt direct measures, especially the greatest polluter of all - the USA - which emits a quarter of the world's total pollution, the Union is the only hope and the only possible avenue for effective action.
The White Paper and the positions of the European Parliament, as expressed in this report, provide a very good framework for stepping up efforts for the further development of technology, mainly through assistance for small and medium-sized enterprises and through the transfer of this technical know-how, so that the huge energy requirements can be met by renewable sources.
It is frightening to think that even today there are two billion people on our planet who live without electricity.
Renewable energy is certainly an important future market, because its potential is unlimited compared with the limited and low-entropy energy sources in the earth's crust.
In any event, the European Union must cooperate closely with developing countries in the context of the new Lomé Convention, to promote viable forms of development and to settle their debts - as proposed in the report - in exchange for coverage of their energy needs from renewable sources.
It must be clearly understood that mineral energy reserves are becoming exhausted, while solar and wind energy ensure a continuous and unlimited flow and their use involves no pollution at all.
In my own country, Greece, we have both those types of energy in abundance.
In Buenos Aires, the world's powers assured us that they will be adopting measures in the coming century to implement the Kyoto decisions, but in the few months before the end of the millennium, ecosystems - which cannot of course await the outcome of negotiations - will have sustained further serious damage.
That is why the Union must act at once and incorporate fully into its trade policy, external economic relations and the framework for enlargement the promotion of renewable energy sources as a principal means of securing viable development, protection of the environment and enhancement of the Union's competitiveness and the creation of new jobs.
Madam President, I would like first and foremost to congratulate Mr Elchlepp.
I have been in Parliament for 20 years now and rarely has there been such a good report as the one he has written.
Many thanks.
Applause
However, I would like to broaden the subject somewhat to include an area which lies particularly close to my heart.
We have a massive market for renewable energies on our very doorstep, that is, in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
I should like to cite as examples the countries which I frequently visit: Hungary, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Lithuania.
In all these regions there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done.
In this regard, Mr Elchlepp, I should like to add one point to your excellent report.
The people in these countries do not yet know enough about renewable energies.
They must be informed and the governments must be informed, because we are dealing here in with certain large commercial concerns which have no interest whatsoever in the use of renewable energies and will therefore do everything they possibly can to stifle it.
I should therefore like to ask you to ensure that both the people of these countries, and their governments, who also do not know enough, are informed.
In this context, two points are of particular relevance.
It must not be forgotten that under the Russian regime many dreadful sins were committed against the environment, but now in these countries the environment is being severely damaged by lignite.
The massive utilisation of lignite, which I see especially in Hungary, for example, in the region of Obosar, must be replaced by energy sources which have no such harmful impact on the environment.
This is a task which it behoves us to carry out because we can achieve so much in this field.
We can and should give these countries a great deal, because in these countries we can start from scratch and carve out the correct path.
Applause
Madam President, Mr Elchlepp's report is an excellent one, and I would like to express my sincerest thanks to him.
In Finland we use renewables mainly in the form of wood, in its various forms, and peat, which has a substantial share of the market.
The volume of peat that grows in marshlands is approximately equal to the volume of wood that grows in the forests.
When they form, wood and peat absorb carbon dioxide, so burning them does not upset the earth's carbon dioxide balance as with fossil fuel.
Harvesting and preparing the wood and the peat requires work.
Peat and wood consumption, therefore, at the same time promotes employment.
Promoting the consumption of wood and peat is also sensible because energy can be produced as a cottage industry using very simple methods.
On the other hand, mass production requires highly developed technology.
The EU and our country too leads the world in the large-scale exploitation of renewables, and this will also mean great opportunities for exporters.
Madam President, our group fully supports the factual, in-depth report by Mr Elchlepp. Not only is it important because there exists a huge future export market for renewable energies, but it is also necessary to reduce the dependence of many developing countries on imports in this sector.
As a result of the improvement of social and environmental living conditions, especially in third world countries and in Eastern Europe, and the finite nature of fossil resources, together with the lessons learned from the dangers inherent in atomic energy, it is necessary to take urgent support and cooperation measures in the renewable energy sector.
That is why we recognise that an important basis has been established in this report.
We have put in place five new budget items for third world countries.
This report could be the starting point for us to move forward in this area.
Expansion of production capacity in third world countries must be supported, for example by means of the European Development Fund.
Just as important are education and training, support for small and medium-sized enterprises, the one million solar roofs programme, 'debt for solar swaps' and also what was said by Mr von Habsburg.
I believe that the PHARE programme offers an important basis, not for supporting nuclear power plants in the East, but for supporting the renewable energy sector.
Within the framework of the Lomé Convention, we need not only an energy chapter but, as Mr Schwaiger said, determined action on the part of the Commission to implement the necessary measures.
In my opinion the Commission must set up a special unit to promote marketing and cooperation here, to support the NGO projects in third world countries and, through the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes, to support projects in the Mediterranean region and in Eastern Europe.
As we do not have responsibility for the budget in the European Development Fund, demands must be made of governments and so the impetus must come from the Commission.
They must make use of our joint potential with these countries to help the people and to maintain the basis for our lives and our existence.
Otherwise we would not be able to survive because we would not have the energy sources.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to be able to address Parliament on the issues raised in this very timely report and to respond to the proposal for a resolution.
For a few moments at least, this will be an opportunity for me to return to a former role I had several years ago as Commissioner for energy.
The report and its explanatory statement are a valuable contribution to the current work on promoting renewable energy and will help us to understand better what opportunities such energy forms offer.
In a very clear and detailed manner, the report sets out the possible different courses of action that must be considered if our ambitious goals are to become an achievable reality.
Therefore, I should like to begin by expressing my sincerest thanks to Mr Elchlepp for this report.
The Union's strategy, contained in the November 1997 White Paper on renewable energy sources, has already received the support of both Parliament and the Council. Its main objective is to increase renewable energy sources in the Union and thereby enable us to create the internal base and platform needed to increase exports to the rest of the world.
In the work leading up to the adoption of the White Paper at the end of 1997, the Commission tried to take Parliament's contribution into account, as expressed in its resolutions on the White Paper itself and on access for renewable energy to the electricity market as well as the Altener II programme, which was adopted in 1998.
The White Paper reflects the views expressed by Parliament in 1997 on the main renewable energy issues that would be useful when drawing up a Community policy in this field. It also reflects the wide range of reactions and requests of industry, specialists, interest groups and the people in general throughout the Union who would be affected by such a policy.
One essential aspect of our common priorities is, of course, the export market for renewable energies.
Moving on from this, I will briefly tell you about the progress made in the first year since the White Paper was adopted.
Work on the necessary advance studies of the current programmes and efforts being made concerning renewable energies has almost been completed in the Member States and in the Community.
I should like to pass on the Commission's satisfaction with the progress made. It is pleased with the diversity of action plans and national programmes on developing renewable energies that have been drawn up since the adoption of the White Paper.
It is clear that much of the work we are asking Member States to complete over the next decade has already been planned, or at least initiated.
Of course, there is still a great deal to be done and there is no reason for us to be complacent, especially if we take into account the commitments made in Kyoto, as the report rightly points out.
I am pleased, however, that the majority of Member States have already announced policies and national plans which, generally speaking, have a similar scope and objective to the proposals for Community strategies and action plans. This will make applying these strategies and action plans much simpler.
The public debate that took place at the Energy Council of November 1998 confirmed their importance. The Commission will draw up a detailed study as soon as possible that will serve as a starting point for subsequent planning and coordination.
The key action plans must be applied within the Union but it is clear that the actual experience of promoting exports is valuable. We will also increase our credibility through successful marketing in third countries.
The amount of effort all this will require in terms of planning and presentation is also clear and the Commission fully shares Parliament's desire for close cooperation between the industry and the public sector, both at Union level and within each of the Member States.
In accordance with Parliament's wishes, renewable energies are, and increasingly will be, promoted in European assistance programmes such as PHARE, TACIS, MEDA, the European Development Fund and other Lomé Convention instruments.
All the relevant cooperation agreements will therefore be revised, as will other agreements with both industrialised and developing third countries. This will encourage our partners to follow this same line, yet without forgetting each of their priorities and specific restrictions.
As the proposal for a resolution suggests, a pro-active approach for exports and cooperation in the field of renewable energies will be promoted, particularly through EU programmes related to energy, such as the SYNERGY programme. We will also encourage the elements of the fifth framework programme on research relating to scientific and technological cooperation.
Many activities have been set in motion under the Thermie programme.
In the five years that this programme has been running, more than 190 programmes have been set up by the European industry. These have been cofinanced by the Community with more than EUR 20 million.
There have also been measures aimed at countries outside the European Union. These include projects aimed at determining and assessing export markets for EU technologies and at designing and applying the best strategies to encourage the use of new technologies in the markets selected in this way.
Aid for exporters of renewable energy sources from the EU will continue to be seen as a priority, particularly in terms of credit guarantees, insurance, organising the necessary contracts, disseminating information and setting up networks.
Another priority is cooperation on energy planning and integrated resource planning, particularly with emerging economies on energy policy. The reasons for this are highlighted in the resolution.
An additional aspect that the Commission believes to be extremely important is that of access to innovative financial instruments that are specifically adapted to the needs of the renewable energies market. The Commission will continue to cooperate with financial institutions such as the World Bank, the European Investment Bank and the Global Environment Fund.
I could give a number of examples of such cooperation, which currently extends beyond the European Union, such as the World Solar Programme 1996-2005, which aims to carry out high priority regional and national projects worldwide, particularly in developing countries.
And in relation to this, I should like to point out that the White Paper stressed the need to make special efforts regarding the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
Initiatives for promoting solar electricity and for encouraging diversification to alternative renewable energy sources have been implemented.
As regards the associated countries, one of our priorities is to encourage them to bring their legislation on renewable energies into line with European legislation. Other priorities are to extend EU programmes such as Altener to include these countries, and to involve them in activities under the fifth framework programme on research.
Some of this morning's speakers asked if any organisation had been established at European level with similar responsibilities to the United States Export Council on Renewable Energies, which receives federal funding.
On these lines, I should like to inform you that back in 1996, Commissioner Papoutsis opened the European Export Council on Renewable Energies in Brussels in the presence of various senior officials from the Commission and other organisations. The Council is currently composed of five European associations for renewable energy.
Finally, Madam President, I have briefly tried to explain what we are doing, and what we have in the pipeline in relation to the content of the report and resolution in question.
The European Parliament has once again shown itself to be most constructive in its initiatives for promoting renewable energies.
I can assure you that the European Commission also believes that the export market for renewable energy sources constitutes one of our main priorities for the immediate future.
I should like to finish my speech by once again thanking the rapporteur, Mr Elchlepp, and all the Members who participated in this debate.
Thank you, Mr Oreja.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament adopted the resolution
There is no doubt that the technologies that use environmentally compatible renewable energy provide a cheap, decentralised energy supply.
Intensive use of these new technologies would therefore give the developing countries a more realistic chance of reducing their energy bills while increasing the amount of energy supplied to their populations, particularly in the countryside.
The increased use of these cheap and clean technologies also provides an opportunity for industrialised countries in that it may lead to the creation of new jobs in high value added sectors together with access to new and immense markets in the southern hemisphere.
As an aside, I must point out, as the rapporteur did, that greater use of these technologies within the EU would allow us to achieve our self-imposed objectives on climate protection. It would also increase our independence in the energy sector and have a positive influence on our energy balance.
In general, I support the proposal to set up a European Export Council for Renewable Energies whose responsibilities would include encouraging and structuring the activities of SMEs in this area.
I agree with the rapporteur that the European approach must be transverse and that, within the context of international cooperation and our partnership agreements, we must encourage our representatives to give strategic priority to renewable energy when planning their energy, environmental and development policies.
This must occur in such a way so as to ensure that their natural interest in guaranteeing development at the lowest possible cost matches our search for external markets.
This excellent report on new prospects for exporting technology for renewable sources of energy, which I have voted for, would gain in credibility if the EU's domestic energy policy had the same priorities.
Subsidies for nuclear power would then have to cease, and nuclear power would have to be phased out.
Oil and gas dependency would also have to be reduced, and the use of renewable energy sources would have to increase.
Impact of financial crisis on European industry
The next item is the joint debate on the oral questions (B4-1162/98, B4-1163/98, B4-1164/98, B4-0005/99, B4-0008/99 and B4-0010/99) on the world financial crisis and European industry.
Madam President, this debate could not have been more topical or relevant.
One month ago we were wondering what impact the economic instability resulting from the crises in the Asian and Latin American markets would have.
And now this week, still without having had an approximate assessment of the impact of the crisis that flared up in August, a new episode in the saga has developed with the devaluation of the Brazilian currency. This may drag down other Mercosur currencies or force them to make adjustments.
Although this situation could temporarily benefit the Brazilian economy, it has already caused a truly spectacular stampede of capital.
And we are facing this fresh crisis with our new currency, the euro, which was indeed greeted with loud applause from the Japanese market.
However, we do not know how the economy will behave. Nor do we know how, in the medium term, it will withstand the consequences of a possible deterioration of the crisis, an increase in imports or unfair practices against our industry and exports.
As we all know, unfair practices and increased imports are already damaging two industrial sectors that are particularly sensitive: iron and steel, and shipbuilding.
Over the past 20 years, these two sectors have suffered losses and staffing levels have been drastically reduced.
If such reductions continue, these sectors will disappear. We will have gone from considering strategic aspects to industrial ruin in a period of 40 years.
We wonder what will happen to employment and that is the million dollar question.
Japanese and Korean practices aimed at cornering markets, their State aid and, in short, their unfair practices and disregard for standards that attempt to regulate the sector at a global level should all make us think carefully.
If these attitudes persist, the OECD or even the World Trade Organisation will find their regulatory role and their prestige severely affected.
The shipbuilding sector, for example, cannot make any more sacrifices.
If State aid disappears before the year 2000 and current practices continue - namely Asian dumping - the majority of shipyards will be forced to close and all the work on modernising and adapting them, financed with European citizens' money, will have been in vain.
If steel imports continue to be subsidised in the country of origin, I do not know how our businesses will be able to survive when left at such an unacceptable disadvantage.
For this reason, I should like to remind the Commission that the proposal for a resolution on shipbuilding included an amendment that called for a study on how to address the problems described.
Could the Commission inform us of the results of this study and the corresponding proposals, as well as giving us its opinion on the extension of State aid until the year 2000?
And as regards steel and industry, what proposals could the Commission put forward to support the affected sectors and when could it present them? What trade policy measures could it muster up to combat the growing number of cases of unfair practice?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are only just beginning to feel the knock-on effects of the financial crisis which has created such a stir over the last few months.
As we predicted, the crisis in South-East Asia has had global repercussions.
The collapse of the financial system in the Far East has led to weaker market demand there.
The question that has been raised today in the House can only be the beginning of a very fundamental debate on this problem.
The European economy, in so far as it has been adversely affected by the crisis, is legitimately entitled to financial support in the sectors affected.
This is the background to our question.
So far the EU has in large part been able to cushion the changing trade conditions which have arisen as a result of the crisis and has also borne the corresponding financial burdens.
No other market, not even the American market, has had to cope with such a substantial rise in imports both in terms of absolute figures and percentages.
The European market is now being swamped with goods which would normally be exported to markets in the Far East.
Not only does this development look set to continue, but it will accelerate.
The damage inflicted on the European steel market, for example, will be further exacerbated by the dishonest trade practices implemented in certain countries.
In this connection, the intention of the American steel industry to solve the problem through draconian trade-policy measures, or protectionist measures, constitutes a serious threat to the EU market.
I call upon the Commission to see to it that the United States Administration is left in no doubt that, if it does not demonstrate solidarity in such matters but, on the contrary, resorts to dishonest measures, it will have to reckon with severe countermeasures on the part of the European Union.
If the EU does not adopt a clear and unambiguous position, the USA will make further attempts to push forward its own world trade policy.
In view of the fact that European industry is clearly in no way to blame for the present critical situation in the US market, in which it has operated extremely well over a long period of time, the United States must be called upon, at the highest political level, to ensure that there is a fairer trade policy.
The USA and Europe play a leading role in the WTO.
Conduct that is less than exemplary would be disadvantageous for both sides.
Madam President, the previous resolutions of 17 September and 3 December 1998 on the global financial crisis do not make today's oral questions and motions for resolutions redundant or merely repetitive. That is because, in this first part-session of 1999, this subject is still current, and because the economic situation is unlikely to stabilise.
Another recent resolution, this time on asymmetric shocks, which was also adopted in December, was particularly relevant in the context of the financial crisis and its consequences on the national economies. It further strengthens the belief that this is the right time to discuss and determine solutions to prevent this situation from having economic and social effects on European industry and international financial development.
The situation is changing and developing, at times at a dizzying speed, and the signs are not reassuring.
If it was considered that the events in Brazil in October were the worst point of the crisis and that efforts had been made and financial resources mobilised to prevent this turning into a disaster, then the news of the last few days must be worrying.
This is why we are supporting the joint motion for a resolution, although we believe that it fails to attribute the basic responsibility for the crisis, which lies with the priority given to the financial and nominal situation over the real economy. We also feel it is right that concern is growing and that the requests are becoming urgent.
The inclusion of references to shipbuilding and iron and steel, which is the aim of Amendment No 2, is very relevant.
However, it justifies an extension to other sectors, particularly the textile sector, which was included with these other sectors in a recital of our motion for a resolution and which was sacrificed to the benefit of the joint motion.
We therefore believe that, in order for the amendment to be approved, it should include the textile sector.
We are talking here about currency problems, stock market collapses and financial crises. Those are the subjects of these oral questions and motions for resolutions.
However, the crux of the matter is that it is becoming clear that this is increasingly a question of the currency, stock market and financial aspects of a latent economic crisis that is about to explode.
Brazil had better watch out. Indeed, this crisis is due to the fact that the financial and speculative instruments and mechanisms are out of synch with the structure and operation of the real economy.
Madam President, with three major economic upheavals within a few years in Asia, Russia and now Latin America, there should perhaps be some lessons for us in this experience and we should learn from our mistakes.
There seems to be a remarkable similarity between the build-up to the Asia crisis and that more recently in Brazil with, in both cases, massive lending power being given on the basis of over-optimistic projections of growth and industrialisation.
Investors, of course, can leave as quickly as they arrive, taking their money with them.
And when the bottom falls out of an economy there can be enormous knock-on effects.
In Scotland, as elsewhere, we are still suffering from the effects of the Asia crisis, with promised investments failing to materialise and with delays in lowering interest rates and the strong exchange rate of sterling continuing to hit our industries and our exports hard.
While the crisis in Brazil may not be quite so serious it can still have repercussions.
Greater economic stability in Europe should increase our ability to safeguard the well-being of those of our citizens most directly affected.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, given that there are a number of questions on the impact of the financial crisis on European industry, I will, if there are no objections, answer them in one fell swoop. I will begin with the questions on the general impact of the crisis and then move on to answer those that refer specifically to the steel sector.
Last year's downturn in the world economic climate undoubtedly had a negative impact on the European Union.
However, in 1998, good internal conditions more than compensated for negative external effects. The growth of the 15 Member States in 1998 was 0.1 % higher than predicted in March 1998.
The economic crisis will mean losses for the European Union's economy in 1999. However, its effects should, in principle, be limited thanks to the introduction of the euro, as Mrs Miranda just mentioned, and by maintaining healthy economic conditions.
The Commission trusts that Europe's economy will recover in the year 2000, a year in which it is hoped growth will reach 2.8 %.
In that general context, some sectors of European industry are faced with fierce competition from imports.
There has been an increase in imports from South-East Asia and other regions. But exports have also increased in all sectors, despite the drop in exports to South-East Asia.
In the year leading up to September 1998, the European Union registered a trade surplus of ECU 22 billion for industrial products, that is, ECU 16 billion less than the surplus for the same period in 1997. The significant devaluations of South-East Asian currencies have damaged the competitiveness of short-term European prices.
However, this has been partially compensated for by the high national inflation rates in those countries.
It is difficult to predict what the final impact of the crisis in South-East Asia will be in terms of the EU's relative competitive position.
It is particularly difficult due to the fact that the fluctuations in South-East Asian exchange rates can have repercussions on the countries' commercial output and competitiveness. As a result, it is difficult to give a prognosis at this stage.
Clearly, the Commission is concerned about the implications of an increase in competitive pressure on European industry.
This heavy pressure will probably continue in 1999, although perhaps not at such high levels as in 1998.
The European Union's trade balance for industrial products should improve in relation to 1998.
Although we do not yet have data for the 1998 period, the Commission calculates that the direct repercussions are marginal in terms of total industrial output for that year, but that they could be more significant in 1999.
When the Commission made its autumn forecast, it pointed out that it expected growth in employment to reach 1.2 % in 1998, a more rapid rate of growth than the 0.8 % rate recorded in spring.
However, the slower growth of gross domestic product in 1999 will also be accompanied by a drop in the employment growth rate to 0.9 %.
Nonetheless, it is hoped that unemployment will continue to decrease. It should have dropped to 10 % in 1998 and should then drop to 9.5 % in 1999, from a maximum of 11.2 % recorded in 1994.
As regards the increase in competitive pressure on European industry, this does not necessarily mean that the Union's trading partners are using unfair trade practices.
The Commission is prepared to apply the instruments of the Union's commercial policy where conditions dictate and in accordance with the relevant WTO agreements.
To illustrate this point, only last week the Commission initiated two proceedings, based on two complaints submitted by the European Union's steel industry. The first relates to dumping concerning hot-rolled strips from Bulgaria, Iran, Yugoslavia, India, Taiwan and South Africa.
The second is a complaint against subsidies for the same products from India, Taiwan and South Africa. None of the countries mentioned in the anti-dumping or anti-subsidy cases are South-East Asian countries implementing IMF stabilisation programmes.
The Commission is not aware of unfair trade practices relating to imports of steel products into the Community, except for the cases it is already dealing with.
During 1998, until the month of September, imports of finished or semi-finished steel products rose to 18.5 million tonnes, 6.6 million tonnes more than for the corresponding period in 1997.
At the same time, exports dropped by 2.7 million tonnes to 18.3 million tonnes.
As a result, the European Union showed a trade deficit of 0.2 million tonnes compared with a surplus of 9.2 million tonnes for the previous year.
The unexpected increase in imports of steel products into the European Union caused prices to collapse in the second half of 1998.
Demand for steel from the manufacturing industry is expected to fall in the first half of 1999, but is later expected to improve, leading to total annual results similar to those of previous years.
In 1999, the level of imports is expected to remain high.
It is difficult for the Commission to estimate to what extent the South-East Asian steel industry will contribute to economic recovery in the region, given that it varies from country to country.
Nonetheless, it is clear that several countries in the region significantly increased their revenue from steel products in 1998.
This was the case for South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China and Indonesia, amongst other countries.
During the United States-European Union Summit, held in Washington on 18 December 1998, debates were held on a wide variety of issues and one of these related to imports of steel products.
The Commission highlighted the need to keep markets open and to avoid delaying the recovery of those countries hit by the crisis that were carrying out IMF stabilisation programmes.
It is essential that all parties involved act in a responsible manner and in accordance with international standards in order to safeguard the advantages of trade liberalisation and avoid further trade disputes.
The United States administration, for its part, is aware that imposing trade barriers would harm countries that have been seriously affected by economic problems. But it is also facing strong internal pressure to react to the recent fluctuations in steel imports.
There is a possibility that the United States may adopt commercial measures on steel imports in the coming months.
The Commission will follow any developments closely to ensure that the United States acts in accordance with international trade standards.
I would now briefly like to refer to two questions that have been raised.
The first is from Mrs Miranda de Lage on the impact of the Asian crisis on the shipbuilding industry.
Following the devaluation of various currencies in South-East Asia, the Koreans, in particular, have enjoyed higher sales in this sector.
However, the Community industry managed to maintain a strong position in the world market in 1998: it obtained 29 % of new orders between January and September 1998, as opposed to 22 % for Korea.
As I said earlier, the Commission is watching closely to ensure that the countries involved in the crisis respect the conditions laid down by the International Monetary Fund and, more specifically, the conditions relating to structural reforms and the relations between industry and the Korean Government.
I should now like to say a few words on the impact of recent events in Brazil on European industry.
I believe that, at this stage, it is still difficult to give a correct diagnosis, and would, in fact, be rather hasty. A great deal will depend on how the financial markets react to the events in Brazil.
Here we have - as you will also have - the latest news to reach us on how the markets reacted and on the packet of urgent measures put forward by the Brazilian Congress.
These were part of the fiscal reforms demanded by the International Monetary Fund, in exchange for aid amounting to USD 42 billion. These measures form part of the restructuring plan being pursued by President Fernando Cardoso.
The Managing Director of the IMF, Michel Camdessus, yesterday stated that he was satisfied with Brazil's commitment to apply the budgetary consolidation programme agreed with the IMF. At the same time, the Brazilian President has continued to send out messages of confidence to investors.
In any event, the European Union and Brazil have important trade links and European businesses have invested quite substantially in industrial development in Brazil, in the automobile sector for example.
The European Union imports a large quantity of raw materials from Brazil and the devaluation of the real could obviously force down the prices of these products, with some positive implications for European industry.
However, the devaluation might increase the competitiveness of Brazilian exports to the European Union and reduce the competitiveness of the European industry's exports to Brazil.
These are just a few comments I wanted to make on the situation currently unfolding. There is still a need for caution in a situation such as this as we do not know how the financial markets will behave over the days and weeks to come.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, of course the successful introduction of the single currency justifies greater confidence on the part of the Union, and nobody wants to be a herald of pessimism at a time like this.
I also believe, however, that we all know the success of Europe's economy will be judged not so much in monetary terms but in relation to the real economy, and there the situation is not at all encouraging.
Unemployment, the supposedly number one economic problem, which I fear we are making zero effort to address, has stabilised despite all your forecasts - for what you told us, Commissioner, amounts to no more than forecasts - at around 10.5 %, and even if it falls by 0.5 % that is not very much.
We have long forgotten the optimistic words spoken by Mr Delors in this Chamber at the beginning of our parliamentary term, about the creation of 15 million new jobs which would reduce unemployment to 6 or 7 %.
The prospective growth rate of Europe's economy in 1999 has fallen to just 1.4 %.
The money market crisis in the third world, which has of course become a crisis of the real economy there, has brought about huge job losses, reductions in real incomes and a fall of our own exports.
It is a fact that any development comes from the services sector in our own area and in the United States, while in contrast, in the manufacturing industry, there are already clear signs of surplus production capacity.
In the face of such a situation, it is not surprising that voices have been raised in favour of protectionism.
And what you told us about the steel industry verges on a brief protectionist declaration, not by yourself, but one that is increasingly to be heard in major parliaments, in Congress and in other decision-making centres in the world.
This is a very dangerous development, because there is nothing more dangerous than a return to the restrictions on world trade, which would of course affect the weakest economies worst.
Without oversimplifying matters, common sense shows that we must not make such a difficult situation even more difficult by suppressing demand in our own economy by the restrictions we have imposed on financial policy, in other words the celebrated 3 % deficit limit of the Stability Pact.
Besides, it is forecast that in 1999, in the present economic situation, the 3 % limit will not easily be held to by Germany, Italy and France, in other words the big European countries.
Will unemployment have to increase to 25 % before we begin reviewing a restrictive policy which, though it may have reduced inflation to zero, is now moving towards the achievement of zero employment as well?
Commissioner, the question you are being asked deserves relatively general answers that can be found, together with your comments, by reading our daily papers.
I would first of all point out how unwise we were to condemn the instruments that gave us the ECSC Treaty.
At that time, I asked for more care to be taken. We knew that the crises in the iron and steel industry would reoccur fairly frequently and we now find ourselves very poorly equipped.
It is a little too late for you to tell us that the Commission is going to determine whether or not the United States contravenes the international conventions or international WTO commitments.
As Mr Katiforis has just pointed out, measures have already been taken by the United States, which do not seem, at least at first sight, to comply to any great extent with WTO commitments.
In other words, the Commission seems to be equally at a loss when it tells us that caution is necessary and that the situation is difficult: that is just about all it can tell us.
We should be able to say to the WTO that changes in the exchange rate are in some respects similar to duties or customs duties. What difference is there between imposing a customs duty on imports and devaluing the currency in a competitive manner?
There is something amiss there. Rather, the emphasis should be placed more on the stabilisation of exchange rates and we should positively adopt the approaches that Japan and some of our countries have already taken.
In my opinion, we should either improve the stability of exchange rates or at least ensure that we still have the resources to protect ourselves like other countries.
Madam President, three large volcanoes have just erupted: one in Asia, one in Russia, and one in Latin America.
The next volcano is already showing signs of erupting. That is China.
The problem is that capitalism, with its capital markets, creates instability and imbalance in the world.
Today's capital markets are hyperinflated.
Any concept of inflation worth its salt must take account of the fact that capital markets mean the unrestricted rise in value of capital goods.
International institutions issue erroneous advice when this situation occurs.
They give the same kind of advice to all countries, which are all different, and generally that advice is deflation, or, in the case of industrialised countries, cuts in social welfare.
These institutions, under the leadership of the IMF, do not prevent the forest fires from starting: they only light other fires to counter the problem, but that is not enough.
We should be preventing the fire, or, in this case, the volcanic eruptions, from starting at all.
In this situation the left has a real opportunity.
Real capitalism causes problems, so let us make a joint assessment of the situation and work according to that.
The third way is the outside lane.
We must now together find the second way for the left and the Greens.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we must not keep on protesting that things are not really all that bad, as is always the case in short-time crisis management. Instead, we need to develop strategies, at the core of which must be, not moralistic advice, but well-understood self-interest.
The very real danger of a deflationary process which can no longer be controlled is moving ever closer.
Assurances that there is really no problem ring ever more hollow.
We must realise that long-term stabilisation of the global financial architecture is impossible without the stabilisation of the economy in global terms, and that this will not come about without the stabilisation of the global social order. In other words, the question is not: how do we arrive at an alternative global economic and social order?
This would be illusory. Instead, the old Keynesian questions - not his answers - are becoming once again very pressing.
How do we achieve a global payment system that functions well and remains stable in the face of short-term irritations and volatility?
How do we achieve a global monetary policy?
How do we construct an international trade organisation that is in a position to stabilise commodity prices?
How do we achieve aid programmes with low-cost loans and subsidies to assist developing countries? And now that we are faced with globalisation it is no longer just a question of developing countries but also sectors, projects and industries.
The present discussion is too narrowly focused on the imposition of antidumping and antisubsidising measures, which in effect means denying certain countries the opportunity to develop.
The question must be posed differently: how is it in fact possible to solve the problem of actual demand, which is currently not being met, in terms of the value of money? As an example, let us take global shipping.
We have a shipping fleet which is completely outdated, environmentally unsound and unsafe, the renovation of which would bring lasting employment and progress in resource efficiency.
So, instead of continually asking the wrong question about the world economy locomotive, we should be asking ourselves about a joint global investment train; as Europeans, we can make a contribution here and we have a responsibility to do so, a responsibility which we are currently not fulfilling.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, today we have a delegation from the US Congress here in the House.
It is apparent to all that our debate is highly topical and that global problems need to be tackled at a global level.
Although the European Parliament can be criticised for perhaps proceeding with considerable caution and deliberation in certain matters, I nevertheless believe that the fundamental criterion for the European Parliament is to produce results and to benefit those who need it.
In this House we have already dealt on a number of occasions with turbulences in the world of international finance.
In Europe we now have the euro, which has brought with it a new stability, at least in the euro zone of the eleven and thus in the European Union as a whole.
Through the single market we have made progress in respect of border tariff problems, and we are also moving in the right direction in the area of subsidies.
That is why I am very grateful to my colleagues in the House for providing the opportunity for us to devote our attention once again to this issue, in particular to the repercussions in Europe.
Entire sectors of industry, such as the pharmaceutical industry, ship building and, above all, the steel industry, are facing new challenges.
Our opportunities for export in these areas have shrunk dramatically.
Exports to Asia, for example, have fallen by 56 %.
By contrast, imports into the single market from this region have risen sharply.
Import escalation rates of up to 700 % are currently being quoted.
For the first time the European Union has become a net importer of steel.
We must work together to reverse this trend, in the interests of those industries affected and of their employees.
In the light of these developments, I am delighted that we can today welcome to Strasbourg a delegation from the United States Congress.
The USA is facing similar, if not quite so far-reaching, challenges.
We can only get to grips with these developments through cooperation, joint strategies and a joint problem-solving approach.
In this way each country will take on its share of the responsibility, but always in relation to the actual burdens and opportunities.
In this context, free access to markets has a crucial role to play.
Trade-policy instruments naturally include antidumping measures and WTO procedures in places where state interference is pushing down the price of exports.
But such measures can only be regarded as a last resort.
In the long term we need constructive transatlantic dialogue because only if we preserve free trade in goods and observe the rules of fair competition on both sides of the Atlantic, will we be able to guarantee a stable global environment.
Madam President, I should firstly like to thank the Commissioner for the information he gave us which, to a certain extent, was rather optimistic. However, it also demonstrates the same concern we have when asking questions.
And those of us who live in regions such as Asturias are concerned. Asturias has already lost more than 6 000 direct jobs in the steel industry, not to mention the indirect job losses that can also be added to this figure.
It is very important to us to prevent further job losses.
This is the Union's main concern at the moment.
Not only must we create employment, but we must also ensure that existing jobs are not lost.
If we do not do so, the employment plans drawn up in all the Member States will be of little use.
In the resolution we have signed there is the suggestion - and I know it is not a very popular one - that we should once again discuss a tax on financial capital transfers in the economies of such countries.
We do not know what might happen in Brazil.
You said so yourself.
We have received this news but we do not know what impact it will have on the European Union's economy.
Nor do we know whether the European Union, in spite of the euro umbrella sheltering us, will be able to weather the storm of serious problems that will affect such extremely important sectors in the future, that is, the steel, shipbuilding and textiles sectors.
This last sector is not included in an amendment by Mr Kittelmann, but we suggest that it be included because it is also extremely important.
Madam President, I will only speak for a minute and I would like to thank everyone who has spoken this morning.
I will very briefly say to Mr Katiforis - whom I cannot see here at the moment - that I in fact believe that it would be a serious mistake at this time of international economic fragility for the European Union to lift protectionist barriers. This could provoke similar responses all over the world and lead us into a global recession that could last for a long time.
I should like to say to Mr Herman - whom I cannot see here either - that the Commission does not believe that the American plan for the steel industry is its last word on the policy it is going to adopt in order to address pressures facing the steel trade. Instead, we believe it is the beginning of a negotiating process with Congress and the steel industry that could lead to specific measures within a few months.
I should also like to say to Mr Herman that the ECSC Treaty still applies.
Our steel industry is bearing up well. The measures that the United States is currently adopting are the same as those being adopted by the European Community, in other words, provisions for applying the instruments of the commercial policy.
In response to some speeches, specifically that by Mr Wolf, I should also like to say that our concern at the current moment is that the countries in crisis come out of it as quickly as possible. This would not only benefit them but would also put them in a position to import European products.
Consequently, I believe that, on the one hand, we must see how well we can survive this situation, and on the other hand, we must help these countries to recover as we will then be able to export to them.
It is well known that the World Trade Organisation does not accept measures against currency devaluations and, until now, the United States and the European Union have not applied any measures in this respect.
Finally, I should like to say to Mr Rübig that we must use the instruments of our commercial policy against unfair practices in imports, that is, the instruments I referred to earlier: the anti-dumping and anti-subsidy instruments.
In any event, I should like to say that I have fully noted all this morning's speeches and I will pass them on to my colleagues in the Commission.
Madam President, in the original resolutions the three sectors of most concern are mentioned: steel, shipbuilding and textiles.
These three sectors are not covered in the joint resolution and I think this is due to a transcription error. However, there is an amendment by Mr Kittelmann that includes the steel and shipbuilding industries.
We have talked to him and with other colleagues about adding the textiles industry, which is important for our country and for others.
If there are no objections, we will approve this amendment by Mr Kittelmann if it includes the textiles sector.
I believe that everyone agrees with what we are saying.
Parliament adopted the resolution
The Commission has just presented us with a cautiously optimistic theory on the economic and social consequences for Europe of the global financial crisis.
Leaving aside Europe as a whole, and concentrating instead on France, I would actually be even more cautious.
Even a moderate slowing down in growth can have very negative consequences if it occurs in a country that has no room for manoeuvre.
This is the case with France.
It already has record compulsory levies, it no longer has any monetary autonomy following the introduction of the euro, and it cannot, in any case, allow itself the luxury of increasing its budget deficit, which is already the highest in the European Union in terms of percentage of GDP.
These constraints will be added to further by a series of additional costs caused by socialist policies, from the cost of the 35-hour week to that of the massive programme to regulate the situation of illegal immigrants. This does not even include the costs of the euro resulting from the establishment of the European public authority needed for its operation.
Without returning to the issue of the single currency, on which my feelings are well known, I must stress that the European Union can be useful to us in a crisis if it conducts a vigorous common trade policy to combat dumping, for example in the iron and steel industry or shipbuilding, and to ensure compliance with the Community preference, for example in agriculture.
The EU must also help us to conduct international negotiations aimed at a relative stabilisation of exchange rates, an action that goes hand in hand with a common trade policy.
However, we must not delude ourselves: Europe can only provide us with supplementary aid.
The essence of the solution is in the hands of the French themselves.
They must choose between the current negligence which, if it continues, will one day mean that we are controlled by Europe, or an effort of self-discipline which alone will be able to preserve our sovereignty.
Common fisheries policy action plan
The next item is the report (A4-0462/98) by Mr Novo, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the Commission working document 'Improving the implementation of the common fisheries policy: An action plan (SEC(98)0949 - C4-0378/98).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to dealing with the specific proposals of the Commission's action plan, I intended in this report to consider, and often to confirm, political issues involving the whole common fisheries policy.
In fact, it is my understanding that controls cannot or must not be regarded as an isolated political priority. Rather, they must be looked at as one aspect of a set of broader policies that ensure the social and economic sustainability of the sector and of the fishing communities reliant on this sector.
Monitoring is clearly decisive in ensuring the success of the fisheries policy in a situation of declining resources that is affecting a growing number of species.
However, in order for controls to be accepted and effective, it is essential that they be applied correctly, universally, transparently and fairly.
This requires, from the start, a simplification of rules and the broad and effective participation of all the social partners, at both state and Community level, in the process of defining these rules.
Furthermore, the need to adjust the fishing effort has to be based on multilateral and systematic scientific research, using adequate financial and human resources, which can identify the true state of the resources. They must also be able to assess independently and reliably the consequences of the various sources of pollution on the state of the oceans.
We must promote stability in the sector, particularly with regard to access to resources.
The central issues must therefore be to guarantee the continuation of the exclusive national use of the territorial waters within the twelve-mile limit, and even to consider whether it needs to be extended and to guarantee the continuation of the international fisheries agreements.
The social development of the sector also requires policies establishing general levels of social benefits and welfare entitlements that are identical for all Community fishermen and that guarantee them the foundations for a common legal statute in line with higher standards of living.
The widespread introduction of new technologies is certainly positive, not only in terms of improving the reliability and transparency of the controls, but also in terms of allowing an overall modernisation of infrastructures, thus improving health and safety conditions at work and guaranteeing a higher quality of fisheries products.
However, the effects on increased productivity must be assessed. We must prevent over-fishing as well as the creation of conditions leading to large monopoly enterprise groups that are totally alien to the economic realities of the sector.
For these policies to be implemented in a global and integrated manner and for the controls to therefore be successful, it is essential that, at both state and Community level, fisheries policy has adequate financial support, thereby putting an end to its position as the poor relation of the Community budget.
In this context, the way in which the sector is dealt with in Agenda 2000 does not augur well and this situation must be radically altered.
As for the proposals of the action plan, in essence, responsibility for monitoring naturally lies and will continue to lie with the Member States.
This does not mean that efforts may not be made towards real cooperation in terms of information, without breaking any confidentiality rules. We can also aim to achieve effective equivalence and reliability of the assessment procedures, which are increasingly computerised, and ensure an agreed definition of the basic rules and offences and of the equivalent sanctions.
Inspection procedures must also be established by consensus, with a code of conduct being proposed. In addition, cooperation between administrations must be increased while equivalent vocational training must also be encouraged and the human resources allocated to the controls increased at all levels.
Similarly, it is vital to conclude the procedures allowing proper comparison of fleets and respective productivity by implementing the commitments made by some countries under the multiannual guidance programmes.
At the same time, we must accept that the reduction in the fishing effort cannot be implemented on the sole basis of reducing the number of vessels, but must also involve the voluntary reduction of operation time. These measures should, in any case, be permanently accompanied by adequate and general compensation and by training programmes and aid for retraining.
The report argues in favour of tighter controls on third-country vessels and on the so-called flags of convenience, as regards both access to resources and landing.
In this respect, it calls for compulsory satellite control of these vessels in Community waters and the correction of the imbalance between the controls carried out in Community waters and those carried out in international waters.
Finally, the recourse to greater certification of products landed and marketed in the EU is decisive.
Tighter controls on their origin are necessary and we must take into account the social and environmental conditions of their production methods, the minimum size requirements for the species and the health and hygiene standards required in the EU. Tighter controls on transport from landing to the final point of sale are also required in order to make it possible to reliably ascertain the origin and legal situation of products on the market.
The rapporteur and Parliament now hope that the Commission and the Council will take due note of all the policy guidelines approved today. If followed, these may contribute positively to improving the implementation of the common fisheries policy.
I must thank all my colleagues for their contributions to the drafting of this report and I must particularly thank all the secretariat of the Committee on Fisheries for its diligence in preparing this report.
Madam President, Mr Novo has produced a very interesting report.
It is apposite in a week when we have been talking about control of the finances and the activities of the European Union, that here at the tail end of the session we should be discussing control of one of the most important policies and one of the few common policies we have, namely the common fisheries policy.
The Commission has produced a five-year plan for the common fisheries policy over the next five years.
When my party formed the presidency of the Council last year under the chairmanship of Jack Cunningham and Elliot Morley control and supervision of control was made a high priority.
It is very important because nothing brings the Union into greater disrepute - and we have seen that this week - than to have disputes and allegations of bribery and cheating.
Fishing is an area where a great deal of this goes on.
Indeed, in my constituency only last year a Spanish trawler was arrested and impounded in Greenock for illegal fishing off the coast of Ireland.
No doubt Scottish and Irish vessels have been impounded elsewhere.
All fishermen, irrespective of nationality, are very adept at bending rules to their own advantage and blaming it on the foreigner, blaming it on the Irishman or the Dane or the Spaniard.
This happens throughout the Union and it is important that the Commission and the Member States get together and establish some common rules and some common responsibilities.
Member States must face up to their responsibilities and we in Parliament must play our part by ensuring that sufficient resources are voted into inspection and surveillance.
It is apposite too that Mr Novo is the rapporteur because Portugal has a second-to-none scheme of satellite surveillance which our Committee on Fisheries visited only last year.
I was very impressed when I saw how they carry out surveillance by satellite and then send spotter planes out.
They can take photographs of ships and if they are in the wrong area they can be taken to task and the fishermen can be fined in the courts.
It is a very successful method.
My own government has introduced a designated port scheme which will stop the landing of illegal fish. This has been a serious problem in the United Kingdom.
The Fish Merchants Association in Aberdeen has lobbied me about this. It is worried about the impact of illegal fish on price in the North of Scotland.
These are some of the areas which are mentioned in the report.
It is a very good report.
The Commission has a produced a reasonable working document and hopefully together, Parliament's Committee on Fisheries, the Commission and the Council - who must face up to their responsibilities in this - will bring about proper control of the common fisheries policy.
Madam President, the success of the common fisheries policy depends on effective monitoring and strict enforcement.
This applies both to non-EU vessels and to the fleets of Member States.
Some fisheries resources have been badly depleted by over-fishing which threatens the current livelihood of fishermen and of fishing communities, which are often in the poorest peripheral regions of the EU. Equally important, it threatens their long-term future.
I welcome this report.
I believe the rapporteur is correct to criticise certain Member States for failing to supply adequate data.
It is totally unacceptable that vessels in the Mediterranean are exempt from the obligation to keep logs and declarations of catch in contrast to the requirements placed on vessels in other EU waters.
It is supposed to be a common fisheries policy, therefore common rules and obligations should apply to all equally.
We must improve the methods of monitoring and impose stronger penalties for breaches.
Further cooperation between the Commission and the Member States is needed to achieve an effective implementation of the control of EU fisheries policy, even if the responsibility for the control is on Member States.
This cooperation will not be complete if we exclude the main actors affected by the fisheries policy, namely fishermen, producers' organisations and vessel owners.
Since control measures might harm the industry, we also must support the rapporteur's plea for the issuing of new compensatory training and reconversion measures.
It is also vitally important that Member States should allow access for Community inspectors to their waters, allowing for a complete and more effective cooperation between national and European authorities.
Furthermore, an effective control of the CFP would also be incomplete if no measures are taken in the marketing of sea products.
Size control should also be a 'must' when we consider the design of an effective control policy.
Finally, I should like to make a point in relation to my own country.
The Irish navy has the responsibility of policing some 20 % of EU coastal waters. Despite the meagre resources at its disposal it does an exceptionally excellent job.
While the EU has been helpful in providing additional resources, more is always necessary.
The reason I underline this point is that the role of the Irish navy is not an Irish one; it is undertaking a European task.
The Commission should provide much more resources because the task that they are doing will certainly improve the lot of fishermen throughout the EU.
Madam President, the Commission action plan on monitoring, if its aims come to fruition, is a positive move towards improving implementation of the common fisheries policy.
I suspect, however, that the enforcement of the CFP, despite repeated efforts, remains ineffective.
I am sure we could all quote examples of that.
It is thus important to stress the need for monitoring to be effective throughout the Community and not just in certain Member States.
Uniform application of monitoring methods and standards of implementation must persist throughout the European Community and the disparities that exist should be brought to an end.
To this end I welcome the recent adoption of a regulation seeking to establish a control system applicable to the CFP emphasising the use of Community inspectors in addition to national inspectors.
The use of new technologies in improving implementation is a step forward but clearly such methods should be financed properly and equally across Member States.
It is little wonder, for instance, that Scottish fishermen get annoyed when they are prevented from accessing support available to fishermen of other Member States.
In my view such inequalities undermine the objectives of the CFP.
I agree strongly with the report where it states that standard penalties for the same offences should be the norm throughout the Community.
The fair and consistent application of controls is important but, again agreeing with the report, the system of controls must be an integral part of all the measures implementing the CFP.
There must be a wider approach to fisheries which includes transparency, cooperation and harmonisation of data and administrative documents.
A fundamental prerequisite for successful implementation is the greater involvement of the fishing industry in the entire process from decision-making to implementation.
This is something we must strive to achieve.
The UK's designated port scheme may have been well-intentioned but it has not been helpful to those ports which have not been designated but which do, in fact, have fish processing activity, which is important to these communities.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of and according to the instructions of Mr Souchet, the vice-chairman of the Committee on Fisheries.
The deliberations by Mr Novo and the Committee on Fisheries on the need to improve the implementation of the common fisheries policy have highlighted four main proposals that we fully support.
The first proposal relates to the issue of controls.
These must be fair and new technologies must therefore be used.
However, this issue cannot be considered in isolation or without extensively involving the industry.
The second proposal involves the need for very vigorous international action so that the measures allowing responsible fishing are applied to both third country fishermen and to Community fishermen, so that our fishermen are not penalised.
The third proposal refers to the priority to be given to research, which will prevent dubious decisions being taken that are devoid of scientific basis, such as happened recently with the decisions on drift gillnets.
Finally, the fourth proposal requires a strong political will to ensure that the fisheries sector is no longer the poor relation of the Community budget and that it is finally recognised as a specific asset of the EU countries.
In our opinion, these proposals are therefore excellent and we will vote in favour of this report.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank you on behalf of the Commission for this report which shows a significant level of agreement between the Commission and Parliament.
Concentrating on the two specific issues in this report, the Commission agrees with Parliament's idea of the need for overall consistency in the common fisheries policy. Efforts should be made to control all activities in the fisheries sector and this should be done fairly.
The Commission also agrees with Parliament on the importance of transparency and cooperation, both among Member States and with the Commission.
In addition, this is reflected both in the plan itself as well as in our proposal to amend the control regulation.
Other elements in the report have already been covered in the amendments to the control regulation adopted by the Council in December.
We were able to discuss this in relation to Mr Teverson's report, which you have approved.
It is a matter of strengthening post-landing controls, strengthening cooperation between Member States and the Commission, tightening controls on third country vessels and even using new technology such as satellite controls. Lastly, there is also the matter of harmonising the concepts of infringements and penalties.
This was also debated at that time but at the moment is rather far removed.
Some of the issues addressed in the report are linked to decisions to be made in a different context, as they relate to monitoring fisheries.
I am referring to matters such as European Social Fund allocations for training in the fisheries sector, or controls in international waters, which are, in principle, dealt with by the competent regional fisheries authorities.
The same can be said of the Community financial contribution towards expenditure incurred by the Member States in implementing control systems, as governed by Decision 95/527.
Your report also mentions controls to be carried out before fisheries controls relating to scientific research into the state of resources.
We support this idea and agree with your opinion, although we will address this issue in a different manner.
As for the rest, ladies and gentlemen, we believe it is especially important that the fisheries sector participate in these initiatives in order to increase its level of cooperation and to promote better information.
We have laid the foundations for adopting common parameters which will be useful for measuring the capacity and the size of the Community's fleets. We were also involved in a debate with the Member States and made commitments on a number of questions that centred on a common definition of inspection.
The Commission notes Parliament's comments regarding the content of the list of pilot schemes, which it believes to be biased as it centres too much on certain areas. We will closely examine the possibility of improving the Mediterranean's situation and we will keep an open mind.
Thank you, Mr Oreja.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Fish discards
The next item is the report (A4-0403/98) by Mrs Hardstaff, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the problem of fish discards.
Madam President, before I start I should like to request that the vote be taken at the beginning of the next part-session in Brussels.
We are down to 38 Members present, and I am sure that some of those Members will have to leave within the next half hour, during the course of this debate.
I should like to feel that a reasonable number of Members have had the opportunity to vote.
Mrs Hardstaff is requesting that the vote be postponed to the next part-session in Brussels.
Parliament agreed to the request
Thank you very much, Madam President.
Fish is the only major food in the European diet which is still hunted rather than farmed.
Our century has seen major technological developments in hunting methods which have led to a massive increase in catches, resulting in a corresponding serious decline in global fish stocks.
Many measures have been introduced worldwide, particularly by the European common fisheries policy, to try to stem and reverse this decline.
Unfortunately, the introduction of quotas and total allowable catches to deal with this problem has brought about a further problem: discarding of over-quota and non-quota fish, which itself kills huge numbers of fish.
Many of these fish are discarded because they are of the wrong species, below the legal size and/or immature and are therefore killed before they have spawned.
It is estimated that between 20 and 40 % of all catches are discarded.
Not all discards damage the ecosystem: some are of species which are not under stress or they provide food for other species.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt that discarding, particularly of immature fish and species already under pressure, is a significant contribution to the depletion of fish stocks.
The fishermen themselves deeply resent having to throw back parts of their catch, which could be sold if the rules did not exist.
We cannot avoid the need to continue to reduce overall fishing effort in the short term.
Technical measures can achieve a great deal but they have to be within the context of a strictly controlled total effort.
Larger mesh sizes and wider introduction of the square mesh cod end and other selected gears which allow undersized fish and non-target species to escape, clearly have a key role to play.
However, careful monitoring of fish-spawning grounds is also necessary and should lead to short-term closures of certain areas.
If a catch includes over 15 % of immature fish, boats should be legally obliged to leave that area.
Further research is required in Europe to identify species most at risk from discarding in our waters; also research into fish behaviour to develop the most appropriate and effective selective gears.
In particular, my report calls for a pilot project and associated research to investigate whether the Norwegian system of banning all discards could assist in preserving stocks of one or more particularly at-risk species.
Such a pilot scheme should involve some flexibility to enable up to 10 % of over-quota good-quality fish to be sold on the market and taken off the following year's quota.
Obviously there should be no deliberate over-fishing but this would encourage fishermen to observe the no-discard rule.
Targeted species of fish should only be landed at designated ports with proper inspection to cut down the amount of illegal over-quota fish being smuggled into the market.
Landed fish unsuitable for human consumption should, whenever economically practical, be used for processing for fishmeal and fish oil, to cut down dependence on industrial fishing.
Member State governments should play their part in cooperating fully with the Commission to ensure fishing grounds under stress within their jurisdiction are closed when necessary and that they are conducting the controls and inspections for which they are responsible thoroughly and effectively.
Fishermen bitterly resent feeling that they are being subjected to very strict controls whilst others from other Member States are allowed to flout the rules with impunity.
Aquaculture has been suggested as a means of providing additional fish, particularly for processing, and thereby reduce pressure on the most popular and at-risk species.
This could also provide employment in areas affected by a reduction in traditional fishing.
There is no one simple solution to this problem of discards.
A multiplicity of related measures is required to make a real impact.
Above all, the fishermen themselves must be fully involved as they are the people who will make whatever strategies are agreed work.
It is important that we improve training so that fishing training is as well organised as agricultural training and education.
If all those catching the fish understand the reasons for the many measures being introduced to conserve the fish, as well as they understand the technicalities of catching them, they will be willing to cooperate in the long-term interest of their industry.
Finally, if overall fishing effort is to be reduced, fewer days will be spent at sea and fewer people will catch fish.
The EU must ensure that funds are available to help those areas very dependent on fishing to adapt and develop alternative employment opportunities.
I believe that a combination of these strategies can lead to a significant reduction in the wasteful discarding of good-quality edible fish.
Madam President, the EPP Group welcomes this initiative particularly because it is the first initiative on discard tabled by the European Union.
It shows that the Union is currently working with other international organisations to deal with the discard problem.
Nevertheless, discard is not only about juvenile catches but is also about the harm done to fish stocks.
The report focuses all its attention on the juvenile problem, but these discards have wider consequences.
In fact they have negative effects on fish stocks, the marketing of non-human-consumption species, technical measures and so on.
That is why, in spite of supporting this report, it is important to remain vigilant on all the initiatives taken by the Commission to deal effectively and in a broader way with the problem.
The main actors in resolving the discards problem are the Member States, as they have to support the European Commissioner if she decides to close fishing grounds within the waters or jurisdiction of their Member States when there is a clear conservation aim in doing so.
The report highlights the need for further studies on discard and its biological, marine and economic consequences.
However, this should only be the first step to deal with it, both at European and international level.
Other measures are mentioned in the report, such as implementing new technical measures, compulsory landing of catches in specific fishing ports and a fixed reference price for non-human-consumption species.
The EPP Group will remain attentive to further proposals from the Commission and, although we do not particularly share the limited approach followed by the rapporteur, we are ready to lend our support on this significant matter.
Madam President, the Commission is pleased to have the opportunity to give its opinion on this own-initiative report by the Committee on Fisheries, and I should like to begin by congratulating the Committee on Fisheries, and particularly Mrs Hardstaff, on drawing up this report.
On the whole, the Commission supports the majority of conclusions and recommendations included in the motion for a resolution, and it is pleased to note that the report underlines the vital importance of increased selectivity of fishing gear.
The report also includes a reference to implementing a ban on discards.
As the members of the Committee on Fisheries are already aware, the Commission does not fully support the idea of a global ban on discards for a number of reasons. However, the new regulation on technical conservation measures, which will enter into force on 1 January 2000, includes a significant number of provisions that could lead to increased selectivity of fishing gear and, as a result, may reduce the need to discard catches.
The Commission notes the suggestion included in the report on investigating the value of banning discards for one or two species as a pilot project.
Once again, Madam President, the Commission should like to thank Parliament for having drawn up this report.
Madam President, I would just like finally to say that we have had a very exhausting week and that a really important point has been made. We have received confirmation from a representative of the Council that the Council will now look after security in Brussels.
That is an important piece of news.
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the report by Mrs Hardstaff will take place on 28 January 1999 in Brussels.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 12.20 p.m.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 15 January 1999.
Mr President, I appeal to you and the office of President to find some time, if only little, during this part-session of Parliament to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the death of a young European who gave his life for the freedom and dignity of his people and his country.
Many people will have understood that I am referring to Jan Palach who committed suicide in January 1969, turning his body into a human torch in protest against the oppression of his people by national and international communism.
Mr President, the Alleanza Nazionale delegation believes a place should be created amongst the many commemorations and prizes this Parliament promotes, possibly even a place of honour, in memory of a young man from Prague who sacrificed everything in the name of liberty, which is also championed by this Parliament.
As you will appreciate, Mr Schifone, what you have just said has no connection with the agenda and cannot be included in our order of business at the present time.
Mr President, during question time at the December part-session Mr Pérez Royo and I put a question to Mr Van Miert concerning the legality of the aid the Spanish Government intends to award to the electricity industry.
Subsequently, at a meeting of the European Energy Foundation held a few days ago, the Commission Director-General responsible for energy went so far as to criticise so-called political exhibitionism and the fact that certain issues had been brought into the public domain when in his view they should have been dealt with discreetly in the European Commission's offices.
If the Director-General was referring to the public debate Members of this House are entitled to during question time, I must ask you to lodge a very strong protest on my behalf with the European Commission. I object to a senior official of the European Commission voicing the opinion that such issues should not be discussed in the public domain - the precise phrase used was 'in the marketplace' - and that they should instead be discussed discreetly in the offices of the European Commission.
I believe public declarations of this nature, made at a European forum such as the European Energy Foundation, must be criticised. As regards the transparency of the debate held in Parliament during the December part-session, I would ask you again, please, to convey a strong protest on my behalf to the President of the European Commission.
That will be done.
Mr President, can I raise a point of order on the declaration of Commissioner's interests.
You will recall, as a former distinguished member of the Rules Committee, that pressure was put on the Commission some time ago for a declaration of Commissioners' interests.
This was done reluctantly but in the best spirit of Soviet bureaucracy kept secret, available only to the President and the Secretary-General of the Commission.
Following last week's events, it has now been published and what we have is twenty virtually blank pieces of paper, three years out of date, indicating, much to even my surprise, that the Commission are so dull and uninteresting that they have no interests.
Mr Ford, that is not a question we need look at today.
You know perfectly well as a member of the Rules Committee that you have the option of putting questions to the Commission.
Then it can explain the matter to your satisfaction or you can call for changes.
It is not on the agenda today.
Ways towards a sustainable agriculture
The next item is the statement by the Commission on agriculture and the environment - towards sustainable agriculture.
Commissioner Bjerregaard has the floor.
Mr President, Commissioner Fischler and I have today presented a communication to the Commission on the link between agriculture and environmental policy.
The communication comes after long and fruitful cooperation between our departments, and I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to Mr Fischler.
The political response to the demand for a better environment is currently reforming the way in which the EU makes policy.
Integration is the watchword of the process that was set in motion by the Amsterdam Treaty, with the help of the conclusions of the Cardiff and Vienna summits, and integration is a process of which this Parliament has also been a keen supporter.
Integration can take us further in areas where we are making no progress with traditional environmental policy.
The relationship between nature and agriculture is a good example of the fact that it has been difficult to achieve the right balance with the traditional instruments.
For too many years now, agricultural policy and environmental policy have each gone their separate ways.
In some places, the consequences have been dramatic.
Pollution of the groundwater with nitrates and pesticides and erosion and impoverishment in some of Europe's regions are partly the consequence of intensive farming.
Other areas are suffering from the marginalisation of agricultural land and depopulation - a development which also has serious consequences for nature and the countryside.
Alongside these trends in agriculture, Europe has adopted some ambitious environmental legislation which reflects its citizens' wish to have a cleaner, healthier and more attractive future.
However, it has also become clear that the developments in agriculture have in fact made it difficult to ensure compliance with the environmental legislation.
Parliament's recent report on the implementation of the nitrates directive was a very good demonstration of this problem.
There is therefore every reason to integrate the environment into agricultural policy, and that is precisely the intention of the Commission's proposal for agricultural reform as part of the Agenda 2000 package.
That was the one which we presented in March last year, as you know.
It is as one of the components of this integration project that the Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Fischler, and I have today presented a communication on agriculture and the environment to the Commission.
The communication aims to demonstrate and stand up for the need to maintain the environmental elements which are included in the Commission's proposal.
Anything else would make the governments' calls for integration sound hollow.
Before I deal with some of the key elements in Agenda 2000, let me stress that a good deal of Community legislation - including some outside traditional agricultural policy - has a bearing on agricultural production.
As I have said, the nitrates directive is a good and well-known example, but there is also EU legislation on pesticides, genetically modified organisms and consumer protection.
Legislation in these three areas is helping to limit the environmental impact of agriculture.
But when we turn to purely agricultural policy and the environment, the Agenda 2000 proposal is a key element.
In brief, a reform is planned which is so green that agricultural policy and environmental policy will increasingly complement one another.
I should like to describe some of the main features.
Firstly, the guaranteed prices for beef and veal, cereals and milk are being reduced.
This price reduction is necessary to create a better balance in the market, but lower product prices are also good for the environment.
This part of the proposal gets to grips with the artificially high prices which for years have been partly to blame for the over-use of sprays, artificial fertiliser and energy.
Secondly, the Commission is proposing that Member States should make the payment of all income support conditional on farmers observing the rules that are required to protect the environment.
This will provide a much greater incentive to implement what are ambitious but necessary EU rules in practice, and in this context I would once again mention the nitrates directive, as well as the environmental protection legislation and legislation on pesticides.
Thirdly, support for particularly environmentally friendly farming methods is being increased as part of the so-called accompanying measures.
This is support for farmers who are willing to make a positive environmental contribution beyond the minimum legal requirements.
This may be organic farming, extensification or reforestation.
In this respect, the proposal is a consolidation of the pioneering schemes introduced at the beginning of the 1990s by what is known as the MacSharry reform.
Fourthly, so-called 'national envelopes' are being established for the livestock sector. This expression covers a sum of money which the Member States are free to distribute within the sector as they please.
A more environmentally correct distribution might be based on the amount of pasture land a farmer has, rather than providing support in proportion to the number of animals, as is now the case.
If used correctly, these 'envelopes' could help further promote environmentally correct forms of cultivation and reduce the cultivation pressure on sensitive land.
I would stress the fact that it will be up to the Member States, and not the Commission alone, to ensure that this takes place.
Fifthly, it will now be possible for farmers in Natura 2000 areas who have had extra burdens placed on them to share in the aid distributed to less-favoured areas.
This should make it possible to increase the benefits provided by what is a cornerstone in the protection of Europe's environment.
Let me also remind you that last spring I presented and secured the adoption of a strategy for biodiversity in Europe.
This means that by the end of 1999 an action plan will be drawn up on how European agriculture will contribute to safeguarding biodiversity.
Agricultural reform is, of course, a precondition for this measure.
All these building-blocks of a new agricultural policy go a long way towards what a number of environmental NGOs and a large section of the European Parliament have been campaigning for.
It is clear that the Agenda 2000 reform proposal is an unambiguous signal that, from now on, aid will be redirected towards more neutral support for production and more support for the environment.
In future, the common agricultural policy will increasingly reward environmental values and responsible farming.
Farmers who take up the environmental challenge will have a financial advantage compared with the current system.
Agriculture itself, as Mr Fischler has often stressed, has a long-term interest in a redirection of aid.
I expect the outcome of the forthcoming negotiating round of the World Trade Organisation to point in the same direction.
It is a positive development in which there is the great challenge of ensuring that environmental aid does not just become a kind of window-dressing, protecting traditional monetary flows.
But there are also other long-term perspectives in the reform.
My message is that, if it is adopted, the proposal will lead to greater local influence on policy than is the case today.
To a greater extent, agricultural policy will become a matter for our citizens and farmers.
Individual countries, regions and districts will be involved in deciding the requirements that will apply in their areas.
There will of course be conditions to ensure that existing European and national legislation is respected, but with an opportunity for people to take more account of local circumstances than is possible with very centralised solutions.
In fact, this is the principle of subsidiarity in practice.
Environmental organisations, local authorities, water companies and other interested groups will be able to sit down together with farmers and discuss how agriculture and the environment should work together to contribute to sustainable development.
Brussels will continue to draw the outlines, but the citizens will fill them in.
This will of course make considerable demands on both citizens and farmers.
A dialogue will be created covering everyone's interests.
This will give our citizens a great opportunity to influence developments, but they will naturally need to become involved and be willing to accept the responsibility which this brings.
It is important that all the EU countries take up this challenge.
The Commission's proposal, which was put forward in March 1998, has since been discussed in the Agriculture Council together with Mr Fischler.
It is far from being adopted, and it would be wrong to say that all the European agriculture ministers were enthusiastic about the prospect of a greener policy.
As you know, however, at the June summit in Cardiff, the Heads of State and Government called for agriculture to be one of the policy areas which should lead the way and demonstrate how integration should be carried out in practice.
This challenge was renewed and built upon in Vienna, with a request for a report for Helsinki.
That report will contain a timetable for gearing agricultural policy further to the environment and will deal with the question of what indicators can be used to measure the state of the environment.
This is an important question, because it is difficult to pursue environmental goals if the relationship between agricultural production and the state of the environment cannot be assessed in a way on which there is general agreement.
It is of course a precondition for making progress that the agriculture ministers should reach agreement on the reform package.
However, it is not enough to cross our fingers and wait for the outcome.
The environment could easily be forgotten in the final dash for cash.
I see it as a great personal challenge to ensure that that does not happen, which is why Mr Fischler and I have today presented the communication, which states, amongst other things, that intensive agriculture conflicts with the EU's ambitions for the environment and that a further effort must be made if drinking water and biodiversity are to be safeguarded.
The communication also highlights the important role played by organic farming, because it can make a positive contribution to solving these problems.
The agriculture ministers will be held to the instructions given by the Heads of Government in Vienna and at previous summits.
Above all, it will be made clear that a reform without environmental progress is not sustainable, either for the environment or in political terms, for that matter.
Europe's taxpayers deserve and demand an environmental return on the cheque for EUR 40 billion which they donate to the agricultural sector every year.
Like Mr Fischler, I hope that the European Parliament will welcome this initiative and use it to reopen the public debate on agricultural reform and the environment, which is so essential.
The long-term success and acceptance of the reform depend at least as much on a sound environmental profile as on the price of cereals and meat.
Mr President, this Commission initiative must be welcomed.
In the last few years I believe that significant progress has been made in reinforcing the environmental dimension of the Common Agricultural Policy.
I also believe that the 1992 reform was a very important point given its establishment of agri-environmental and agri-forestry measures.
This Commission communication is heading in the same direction and will reinforce this aspect.
However, there is one issue which I feel is rather contradictory.
If we analyse these proposals for reforming the Common Agricultural Policy, now being discussed within Agenda 2000, we find that there is only an increase of 5 % in the amounts intended for agri-environmental measures.
In other words, this is only a very small increase to reinforce the environmental dimension of the CAP, which to a certain extent is in contradiction with the Commission's current political aim which I support.
I would ask the Commissioner to explain why there is only a 5 % increase in the amounts for agri-environmental measures.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I point out that Mr Cunha did not put a direct question, but since I do not agree with his last statement I would like to make the following clear.
It may be true that expenditure on those environmental measures that are currently summarised under Regulation 20/78 is only rising by a certain amount, but it is also true that this results in a whole range of other, additional expenditure, for instance an extra incentive for extensive beef production.
Finally, it must be emphasised that in future all direct agricultural aid payments will be subject to the observance of good agricultural practice, which de facto also means higher environmental requirements and for which absolutely no provision is made under our existing rules.
Mr President, I must first recognise that progress has been made towards reconciling the needs of the environment with those of agriculture.
Nevertheless, I feel the Commission has shown a certain lack of judgment, in that a distinction should be made between measures designed to encourage good practice and simply meeting minimum standards.
The arrangements now in place mean that failure to meet minimum standards could lead to farmers not receiving aid.
The Commission needs to codify these minimum standards clearly. At present, they are scattered throughout Community legislation.
However, measures designed to create an incentive are better codified, and in future we are likely to see them in the rural development programmes and then in certain sectoral COMs.
For instance, the Commissioner has just mentioned how those who wish to benefit from the ECU 100 extensification premium know they will have to maintain a specific intensity of cattle.
These measures are designed as an incentive to improve the quality of the environment.
I would like the Commission to codify all the standards which will have to be met in order for farmers to qualify for aid.
Member States should not have the latitude to act as they see fit. It seems from the Commission's proposal that it is delegating all its responsibility to the Member States, whereas I feel it is incumbent on the Commission to codify the minimum standards required across the length and breadth of the Community.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very grateful to Mr Colino Salamanca for the statements he has made.
But let me clarify the Commission's point of view again.
Firstly, we have to distinguish in the proposals between measures that are obligatory and those that are voluntary, meaning first of all those that are obligatory or voluntary on the part of the farmer.
So the point is that the farmer is guaranteed the same level of direct payments, which correspond to compensatory payments, but that these will be subject to the general requirement of what is called gross compliance, which the Member States are indeed required to impose.
It will no doubt prove possible under the implementing provisions also to coordinate the level of these requirements in such a way as to avoid any bias.
The second aspect is the voluntary payments, which must go beyond normal practice.
That is one of the conditions of eligibility for such payments in the first place.
But here too it is clear that they are a component of the second pillar, namely rural development policy.
After all our proposal is that we must have a rural development policy of this kind for every rural region.
But the proposals also specify that a programme will only be accepted if it definitely incorporates an 'agri-environmental measures' heading.
Seen from that aspect, I believe our proposals to a very large extent satisfy your requirements.
Mr President, Mr Fischler, would you admit that environment-friendly agriculture is still the exception, that intensive farming is still the rule, that price reductions within the intervention system trigger more intensive production? Secondly, I find it very sensible for you to say that the second pillar should contain an environment-based programme, but the funding is very low.
How do you propose to help the rural areas with this kind of structural programme? Thirdly, when you, or Mrs Bjerregaard, refer to subsidiarity I wonder how this is to be achieved if we do not have any framework conditions at European level.
That is not subsidiarity, it is giving free rein.
Two small examples: in set-aside land you allow chemical industrial raw materials to be used in farming but you do not allow vegetables to be grown for animal feed.
My other example ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, to simplify matters let me reply to the first part of the question and, as Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf wanted, Mrs Bjerregaard will reply to the second part.
On the first part: Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, I often agree with you but on this point I do not agree that price reductions, in fact the reduction of guarantee prices, automatically triggers more intensive farming.
We had the opposite experience with the 1992 reform.
If you look at the trend in expenditure on fertilisers, pesticides and so forth between 1992 and 1998 you will find that it fell rather than rose.
So your hypothesis is not correct.
Let me add here that in my comments on subsidiarity there was no suggestion of any kind that people did not need to comply with environmental legislation.
On the contrary, I emphasised very clearly in my speech that one condition for discussing these things at all was compliance with environmental legislation.
As is emphasised in the communication, the positive message - which is also contained in the Agenda 2000 proposals - is that there should be cooperation at local level between people who are close to these problems.
So I think we all agree that environmental legislation should be respected, but also that the people who are close to the problems should sit down together more often and find some sensible solutions.
Mr President, in principle, I am all in favour of decentralisation. Nevertheless, I was somewhat surprised, to say the least, to hear Commissioner Bjerregaard sing the praises of decentralising environmental policy.
Where the decision-making process in relation to the environment is decentralised, different conditions will naturally obtain in the different countries.
This would distort competition by giving countries with lax environmental policies a competitive advantage.
That is not the right approach for the Union.
No, Mr Olsson, that is definitely not right.
European environmental legislation must be complied with.
That is also why I said in my introduction that I was pleased with Parliament's report on the nitrates directive, and that we have taken specific measures against countries which are failing to comply with the directive.
In my introduction just now, I said that 'agricultural policy will become a matter for our citizens and farmers.
Individual countries, regions and districts will be involved in deciding the requirements that will apply in their areas.
There will of course be conditions to ensure that existing European and national legislation is respected, but with an opportunity for people to take more account of local circumstances than is possible with very centralised solutions.'
I therefore do not believe that there is a great difference between Mr Olsson's views and my own in this area.
Mr President, Commissioners, organic farming is a very good example of sustainable agriculture.
The joint resolution from the European Parliament on organic livestock production questions the Commission and the Council on the technical progress needed to fulfil the Commission's proposal that is currently being examined. As regards the fundamental issue of animal nutrition, the derogation in this proposal that allows 10 % conventional feed to be used is quite sufficient.
With the 25 % recommended by the Council could production really still be called organic, particularly as organic farming must remain a byword for the strictest and most stringent quality standards? You agree with this, I know for a fact.
Does the Commission believe that an animal fed with 25 % conventional feed can still be described as an 'organic product'? What is more, the nature of this conventional feed is not specified in any way.
It could include intensively farmed products, whereas the least we could do would be to specify products from regions covered by the agri-environmental measures, from integrated farming or even farming converting to organic methods.
What does ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question Mrs Barthet-Mayer has put in fact goes in two directions.
We must draw a very careful distinction here: what is conventional production, what is integrated production and what is organic farming?
They are three different categories. As you know - and, Mrs Barthet-Mayer, we recently discussed this in Parliament - the Commission proposed Community-wide guidelines that would also protect animal products, so as to establish a common, Europe-wide standard for the definition of organic products.
This proposal has now been on the table for some years and the Council of Agriculture Ministers is currently discussing it in detail - the most recent discussions were at the December Council - but to date it has not managed to reach a unanimous view.
There are a few sensitive aspects involved which, in my view, need further discussion, without accepting any watering down of the core question, namely the definition of what is actually meant by organic products; one specific aspect you addressed in this connection is the use of conventional feed and of feed containing GMOs.
That is a question that is currently being discussed at another level, in connection with the revision of Regulation 220/90, and I believe we must endeavour to take a more balanced look at any measures that can lead to clearer consumer information.
Mr President, could I have an assurance that both Commissioners are united in opposition to the import of beef produced with hormones and also milk produced with BST.
Mr President, Mrs Hardstaff, this is not in fact directly connected with today's subject but I would like to tell you one thing quite clearly: what we will and must do is, as stated in the panels' findings, to adjust our risk assessment to the WTO provisions.
In all the Commission has commissioned eight scientific studies.
We are now awaiting the findings of these studies and I hope we can then adhere to our position, as we have always intended.
Mr President, Mr Fischler, am I right in assuming that in fact you drew up Agenda 2000 in order to make farmers more competitive on the world market and not in order to reduce the consumption of fertilisers and other means of production that farmers urgently need?
That is my first question. Mrs Bjerregaard's explanation was about the last reason that could be given for why we have to implement the Agenda at all!
Second question: can you tell me what percentage of the aid under Regulation 20/78 the Member States are taking up? In my region it is 100 %, so it is worth raising this matter.
I would also like you to tell me what you mean in real terms by agricultural practice. Please do not confuse the concepts of intensive farming and farming appropriate to the location!
Mr President, I believe there is a good deal of similarity between what I have said to Parliament today and the proposal presented by the Commission in Agenda 2000.
The new communications on which Mr Fischler and I have reached agreement, and which it is important to have distributed, point out that there should be an interaction between environmental and agricultural considerations.
Neither of us accept non-compliance with environmental legislation.
We are framing the policy in such a way that it is feasible.
We are both of the confirmed opinion that it is feasible, and that it is possible for us to secure some sensible decisions in the Member States.
It may be that some help will be required before we achieve a constructive outcome, and we also naturally hope that Parliament will enter into this debate, so that we can achieve a result which ensures both sensible agriculture and a sensible environmental policy.
Commissioner, let us presume that your intentions are good and what you have told us is interesting.
Let me remind you that agriculture does not stand alone in the economy. It too operates in the context of a complete environment.
How can our farmers farm ecologically when the industries that supply them and those which are their customers impel them towards anti-ecological practices?
How can they compete against countries from which we import products which are not ecological, not produced by poor farmers but by the worst and most appallingly intensive exploitation of the soil and animals? And how can they farm ecologically - I know many who do in Greece - when they face enormous problems in marketing their products, marketing which receives no aid under our regulations?
Perhaps, therefore, we should consider these issues in relation to their environment? Perhaps, instead of talking about ecological farming, we should be talking about an ecological economy?
Mr President, as Mr Fischler said a moment ago, the reform is about more than just organic farming, which accounts for a very small percentage of European agriculture.
Obviously, it is desirable that this percentage should be increased, but we have of course concentrated on many other things.
Let me say this loud and clear: I believe that the citizens of Europe want clean water.
They are not willing to accept a situation in which the water they drink is not clean.
They cannot understand why it should be impossible to formulate a sensible agricultural policy and at the same time to have clean water.
We believe it is possible, and that is why we have put forward these proposals and also why we maintain that the environmental legislation must be observed at the same time that we have sensible agriculture in Europe.
It may be that we have to talk tough with the Americans on occasion, but if that is the case, then that is what we shall do.
I should like to put a question to the Commission.
In the context of the search for a natural balance between agricultural production and the needs of the environment, what use does the Commission have in mind for agricultural produce not intended for consumption? In particular, what future does it see for biomass which could be used to produce renewable energy?
I believe this would be a logical use for some of the surplus production of European agriculture.
Mr President, Mr Robles Piquer, on the second part of your question, whether we are also prepared to encourage biomass farming and the production of alternative energy sources, i.e. renewable raw materials, let me reply as follows. Firstly, our proposals on cereal growing and oilseeds do provide for support for these products.
Secondly, under our proposals for rural development, investment in this sector is also eligible for support measures.
Thirdly, we have included an expanded forestry chapter in the rural development proposals, and these forestry support measures will also provide for increased support for wood as a renewable raw material.
Mr President, it is very important that environmental policy is integrated into agricultural policy, and that environmental policy is integrated into all policy in the European Union.
Especially important, where agricultural policy is concerned, is the protection of rivers, seas and lakes, as has been mentioned here.
There has obviously been progress, in that compliance with environmental standards is being made a direct condition of income support, but, on the other hand, it should be clear as day that aid is to be paid only when the regulations are being observed.
But we should be happy to have come this far.
Now the question arises as to how Member States will respond to what is, to my mind at least, a step forward: how shall we monitor it? Will we need a long transition period?
And how should the matter be treated? Should we have recourse, for example, to an agricultural code of practice, to be used as an instrument of comparison in relation to established policy, and only after that grant direct income support?
Mr President, Mrs Myller, first of all there will of course be appropriate controls and here, as always in such matters, we will have a shared responsibility.
That means that in situ checks on farms will primarily be the task of the Member States and the Commission departments will be responsible for ensuring and verifying whether the Member States are indeed adequately fulfilling this obligation.
Moreover, you must not forget that in regard to carrying out and applying agricultural practice and the financing of direct payments we are looking at Guarantee Fund resources, which simply means that all the expenditure is also subject to EAGGF supervision.
That means that if a Member State does not carry out the necessary checks adequately, we can debit that Member State when we carry out the audit.
Mr President, the way we have approached the area of the environment is illustrated very well by the nitrates directive.
When it was clear that the Member States should have implemented the nitrates directive, we simply carried out a study in all the Member States of how far the implementation had progressed.
We published this report, and we instituted legal proceedings against - as far as I recall - 12 Member States which had not implemented the nitrates directive.
I believe that such an approach, whereby we examine the situation in all the Member States, increases our chances of persuading the Member States to implement the legislation.
One point on which I agree entirely with Mrs Myller is that it is of course vital for the credibility of our policy that it is also implemented by the Member States.
Mr President, when I hear Mr Fischler and Mrs Bjerregaard propose a joint strategy here in this Chamber I am always very much on my guard, for in the view of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection there has been no harmonisation at all in the environmental field over the past five years; quite the reverse!
The legislation of the past five years teems with vague legal concepts, such as the ATO, a high protection level, good agricultural practice, etc.
All this has to be transposed into national law and only then, Mr Fischler, when we have a uniform policy line, can you carry out checks.
My question to you, Mrs Bjerregaard, is this: do you intend to define all the vague legal concepts in this area via Ispra or some other instrument?
First of all, may I say to Mr Florenz that I am quite happy to leave the question of a definition and a more detailed explanation of good farming practice to my colleague Mr Fischler.
However, I would like to say that, in view of the many discussions I have had with the Committee on the Environment, we can only welcome the fact that we now have a joint communication on the environment and agriculture.
Had we discussed this issue two or three years ago, I am sure Parliament would not have thought it possible for us to be in a situation where we have a document like Agenda 2000, which contains so much environmental thinking in the area of agricultural policy.
Obviously, there may be areas in which we would like to achieve more or where there are special wishes, but like Mrs Myller, I think we have every reason to be pleased that we have come as far as we have today.
Mr President, I have two questions.
In 1950, 35 % of the total European population was involved in agriculture.
Today this figure is 5 %.
As a result of this reform and due to ageing in the sector, this figure will fall to between 2.5 % and 3 % by 2006.
My first question is: can the environment be protected while the countryside is being abandoned, and why therefore is this reform heading in this direction?
My second question is: how can the protection of the environment be promoted by spending 50 % of the budget on this 5 % of the population, which will shortly be 2.5 %? In particular, aid for production just encourages producers to use every intensive production method available.
This does not protect jobs, quality, the environment or safety.
How can the Commissioner reconcile the policy which he claims to want to implement with the abandonment of the countryside and payments for production?
Moreover ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, Mr Campos, let me first address the question of expenditure in relation to the percentage of the farming population. To be fair, you would have to compare it with total public expenditure.
If you add the national budgets to the Community budget and then deduct the agricultural part, you obtain a percentage of 2 % for 5 % of the population.
I do not think that is really excessive.
Secondly, on jobs in agriculture, there is only one thing I can say to you. The more environment-friendly our farming is, the more jobs that will imply and not the reverse.
So this proposal to incorporate environmental aspects more firmly in the reform is certainly in the interests of agriculture and of jobs.
But there is one thing you must not forget. If we are going to discuss making these additional demands on European agriculture, and in fact considerably higher demands than we make on our overseas competitors, then we must also be prepared to pay for it.
And we also have to stop arguing that agricultural reform must not cost anything!
Mr President, we have talked about implementation of the nitrates directive on a number of occasions already.
In reply to a written question of mine, the Commission said recently that there were no uniform rules for sampling groundwater to check whether the directive was being implemented correctly.
That seems to me a very feeble basis for monitoring legislation.
When is that going to improve?
My second question is this: nitrate in groundwater can come from sources other than animal manure.
It also comes from artificial fertiliser and from factories, sewage treatment plants and so on.
How does the Commission intend to differentiate between nitrate in groundwater from these sources and nitrate from animal manures, so that the burden is not placed entirely on agriculture?
Mr President, it is of course not the job of the Commission to determine whether nitrates come from one source or another.
Our job is to monitor whether the Member States are complying with the nitrates directive, which simply means that checks are carried out as to how much nitrate there is in the groundwater.
That is what we are doing.
That is what we are investigating, and we have found that the areas where there have been particular problems in connection with the nitrates directive are also areas with a high concentration of livestock production, whether it be cattle or pigs, although pigs in particular have caused a great many problems.
That is why some countries have had particular difficulties in implementing the nitrates directive.
As I said, however, it is not our job to check whether it comes from one source or another, but we must ensure that the directive is complied with.
Mr President, my question is to both the Commissioners.
Tomorrow we take a vote on a pretty important piece of legislation, Mr Kindermann's report on animal welfare.
I would like to know how the Commission views the situation.
For example, in the United Kingdom, because of animal welfare legislation, the British pig farmer is suffering.
In Sweden it is estimated that environmental legislation in their country puts one Swedish kroner per kilogram onto the price of meat.
How does the Commission see the protection of European agriculture when it comes to imports from countries which do not have the sort of animal welfare legislation that we have in the European Union? Please, Commissioners, do not use the argument that the consumer will decide.
The consumer decides on price.
I hope I can get a satisfactory answer.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in regard to animal protection may I point out firstly - and precisely in order to counter the argument about international distortions of competition - that this should play a part during the next WTO round and should be considered during the next agricultural negotiations.
Secondly, let me point out that it is of course self-evident that animal protection provisions must be respected.
We can never accept, either in agricultural stock-breeding or in stock-breeding in general, that the existing laws are infringed.
But what we have also made provision for, especially in relation to encouraging investment in agricultural undertakings, is that if a farmer sets up stock-breeding systems that are particularly kind to animals and invests to that end he will receive greater support than a farmer who is only prepared to observed the minimum standards.
I have seen the report of the Consumers Consultative Committee on the reform of the CAP on the DG XXIV Internet page.
It is a very harsh indictment, expressing the consumers' point of view and in line with the position of the EBCU.
My questions are: how do you react to it and do you plan to do anything to reconcile the two sides, agriculture and consumer demands?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can entirely agree with Mr Fantuzzi here.
I really do find it most regrettable that this report is based in part on statements that are consistent neither with our actual proposals nor with the current state of the discussions.
I invite you to endeavour jointly with us to give the public more objective information, to protect agriculture against wrong and biased accusations.
Mr President, my question is one for Mrs Bjerregaard.
I am, of course, delighted by the cooperation between the two Commissioners on the agriculture/environment problem, but I do wonder about the danger which may emerge as this sector develops in the future, namely the risk of the transfer of pollution.
I believe that biodiversity is vital.
So I begin to ask questions when I see that the Commission, and Mrs Bjerregaard's service in particular, has shown it is in favour of using genetic technology and putting genetically modified organisms on the market before there has been any serious evaluation of their impact on biodiversity.
I should like to know if Mrs Bjerregaard is prepared to reconsider the authorisation that has already been granted to some genetically modified organisms if it later emerges that such authorisation has a negative effect on biodiversity.
Mr President, on the question of genetically modified organisms, I would like to say that the Commission has been very careful not to put itself into a situation where we have to say either that we want them or that we do not want them.
Instead, what we have done initially is to try to ensure that everyone who had a need to know was informed, which we did by implementing labelling of the products at a very early stage.
We then dealt with the second question which was raised, namely the effects of GMOs.
Obviously, we are also aware of the connection with biodiversity.
This means that in the new proposal which is now before Parliament we are very clear on the question of risk analyses.
But we have also dealt with the long-term effects, which is probably what the question was actually about.
We should of course examine what is involved when such products are released into the environment and whether there could be any effects in the long term.
We are watching this very closely, and as the questioner perhaps knows, proposal 90/220 contains some provisions which mean that GMO products will not simply be approved for all time, but will be subject to reassessment, because we cannot rule out gaining some experience of the long-term effects or obtaining some new information.
So, all in all, we are trying to be as careful as we possibly can, and I am also looking forward to the discussion which I will clearly have with Parliament in February.
I should like to thank the Commission for its comments.
That concludes this item.
Defence-related industries
The next item is the report (A4-0482/98) by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission on implementing European Union strategy on defence-related industries (COM(97)0583 - C4-0223/98).
Mr President, the European industrial, scientific and technological base is essential to the security of the European Union.
It is that base which provides the capacity and capability which makes possible the political and military pillars of the European defence identity as expressed through the CFSP, the WEU and NATO.
That statement is as true today as when I made it in my first report nearly two years ago.
Yet that base continues to get weaker despite the fact that Europe has some outstanding companies.
We have lost 50 % of the jobs in this sector in the last 10 years.
In 1995 the EU imported from the US six times the value of its exports.
In 1985 the ratio was 4: 1.
The reasons for this are set out very clearly in my first report but can be summed up in one statistic: we have 43 defence-related companies and a defence budget of 94.5 billion euros; The US has 14 defence companies and a defence budget of 212 billion euros.
A further 75 % of what we import comes from the USA.
We do not even trade with each other, intra-EU trade being only 4 % or 5 % of procurement.
It is not that we are not aware of the problem.
I have spent the last 3 years attending endless conferences where everyone is agreed on the problem, most people agree on the solution, but very few people seem willing to take the necessary action.
This is one field where rhetoric and action almost never meet.
I often feel, in fact, that all the players involved are cautiously circling each other in an elaborately choreographed 18th century dance when in fact what we need at this moment is a good dose of rock-and-roll.
I am sure that Commissioner Bangemann will be quite happy to lead that rock-and-roll.
Of course, there has been progress.
There has been the establishment of POLARM.
We have had the defence armament section in the Amsterdam Treaty.
We have had the setting up of OCCAR.
We have had declarations by Heads of State saying how important this is.
We had the letter of intent of 6 July by the six defence ministers which was actually a vital step along the way, as indeed was the code of conduct on arms sales.
We have had the WEAG action plan decided last November but action is not always carried through in this section.
Last year there was the announcement of the intention to set up a European aerospace and defence company but nobody can agree how we do it and there is a battle between those who believe there should be heavy state investment and those who believe it should be a private company.
We agreed a long time ago that there should be a single corporate entity for Airbus but this has still not actually been signed.
It has become rather like watching the Becket play Waiting for Godot .
Westland and Agusta helicopters were meant to be merging but they are still wrangling about simple matters of valuation.
British Aerospace and DASA were meant to be merging but could not agree on the basis of the shareholding which is incompatible.
We have had the often proposed but never consummated marriage between Aérospatiale and Dassault.
In fact, in Europe, it takes us three times as long to create a merger as it does in the USA and the end result is smaller.
British Aerospace/Matra has sales of 1.5 billion dollars compared to its main US competitor with sales of 5 billion dollars.
I will say nothing more about the saga of Euro-fighter, the Horizon or the multi-role armoured vehicle.
Compare that little minuet with the rock-and-roll in the United States where, since 1992, there has been a mass of mergers resulting in basically 3 1/2 major companies.
That is why it is essential that we take action now.
We must use all our resources.
There should be no institutional wrangling.
There should be no standing on our dignity or on ceremony.
The Commission's recent communication is so important because it shows a willingness to use all the means that we have at our disposal whether they are Community or Member State instruments.
Firstly, companies have to be allowed to get on with it following commercial logic.
Governments should stand back and only use Article 223 where it is absolutely essential.
That is indeed what British Aerospace is doing, which is probably the closest we have got in the industry to a leather-jacketed rocker, in their amalgamation and mergers with companies like Saab and Matra.
The recent merger with GEC/Marconi is a good deal because it is based on the principles of shareholder value and a sound financial footing is important if we are to get value for money for the taxpayer.
It is also important because what we have seen in the US is that mergers have gone along like Noah's ark, two by two.
They have not tried to force too many companies together at one time.
That is why I think the British Aerospace merger with Marconi makes good sense.
Secondly, we now need to follow the Commission action plan and apply the principles of a single market as far as possible.
We should also use the instruments of CFSP in defining a common position on armaments cooperation, although that common position has to be flexible, bearing in mind the needs of this particular industry.
We also need to establish greater clarity in the CFSP and the function of the European defence identity which is why the initiative of the British Prime Minister and the San Malo Agreement are so important.
We need to define exactly what the Petersberg Tasks involve for our military so that industry knows what equipment it needs to be providing.
On procurement, we must move towards a European armament agency, bringing together OCCAR and WEAG in a loose arrangement, if necessary.
There has to be greater coordination here as indeed there has to be on research.
We have to establish that the best deliverer gets the contract.
We should now no longer rely on a juste retour .
Basically, if we do not start rocking the Americans are going to roll all over us.
Having said that, it is not intended that this report should be anti-American.
Rather we need a strong industry if we are to compete with or collaborate with the Americans and if we are to fulfil the security demands of NATO under the European defence identity.
We should be looking to collaborate with the Americans.
This, after all, is a global industry.
European companies are not really European companies any more.
They have investments in the United States and companies like Boeing have investments in Europe.
So let us stop this artificial distinction and build a strong European industry to collaborate with the Americans.
In fact, I know the industry will hate me for saying this, but the logical consequence of the Boeing/McDonnell Douglas merger is that the next step forward should be a link between Airbus and Lockheed Martin.
Then we will have global competition in the aerospace industry.
Mr President, democracy and freedom are worth defending.
If the will to defend them had not existed in Europe and America when it was most needed, we would not be sitting here today.
In Europe, experience has taught us that a feeling of security prevents war and helps bring about the disintegration of powerful dictatorships from within.
Where an adequate system of defence provides security, ideas about freedom can penetrate and break down even the thickest of walls.
The men and women charged with the task of dealing with European defence are entitled to have access to new weapons.
The question we should now be asking ourselves is whether some of those weapons could be developed and manufactured in Europe.
The response of this committee, including myself, is an unconditional 'yes'.
It is essential for Europe to keep ahead, and even to be right at the forefront in certain areas.
If we have something to offer as producers, we shall also be respected as customers. Otherwise, we are more likely to have to make do with what we are offered, and at the seller's price.
During a long period of peace - something we dare hope may continue - it is natural that we should reduce our defence expenditure.
It is therefore all the more important for us to coordinate our dwindling European defence industry, so that by maintaining its competitiveness it will be capable of furnishing us with the arms we need to defend ourselves adequately. There will also be more likelihood of the United States wishing to exchange its experience and defence materials with us.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following Mr Titley's very impassioned plea there should really be no need to discuss this report further.
Let me begin by thanking Gary Titley for his report in which he tirelessly addressed and discussed a subject that is most important in both economic and defence and security policy terms.
Economically, we should have no illusions.
The United States of America, which of course always stands up for totally free trade, for totally free economic development, shows enormous interest and activity when it is a question of defending its own industry and securing its position on the world market.
That is particularly true of anything to do with the defence industry, the aircraft industry and so forth.
So unless it is to be naive, Europe must respond to this kind of competition, but without creating new monopoly positions.
But what we have here is in fact global competition, to which we must of course respond.
Secondly, in regard to defence policy, we are currently talking - and for the time being we are merely talking but I hope we will soon be taking concrete steps - about a European defence identity.
We are talking about Europe having to assume certain tasks without always stealing a glance at NATO or in particular the United States to check what they are going to do.
This kind of European defence identity cannot imply full self-sufficiency, yet a minimum of independence for our arms industry, coupled, of course, with cooperation with the Americans, is absolutely necessary.
I hope Gary Titley is right in saying that what is currently happening between British and American undertakings does not prevent the corresponding decisions and mergers from taking place at European level.
On the contrary, perhaps this will even create a pressure for rapidly taking the necessary decisions now to build up a European industry, not against the Americans but as strong partners.
Lastly, let me point out something that is also contained in the report although it is not its main subject. We in the European Parliament should also talk about disarmament when we talk about defence.
The Social Democrats do not believe that all these endeavours to create a European security identity, a European defence industry, conflict with further steps towards disarmament.
That is still on the agenda!
The safest world is a world in which disarmament is writ large, which is why we should not play one aspect off against the other.
Sadly this is a world in which arms are necessary, in which we have to continue to modernise.
We should do so at European level while at the same time fighting for global, world disarmament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are used to Mr Titley's numerous well-prepared reports and speeches on the subject of defence-related industries.
Mr Titley's work as a whole represents a commendable effort by this House to bring the matter to the attention of the European institutions and to call for changes to an inadequate policy on the military equipment of the Member States' armed forces.
I and my group are in total agreement with Mr Titley's report.
However, I am rather pessimistic about just how dynamic a European arms policy would be within a common defence policy, as mentioned in paragraph 3 of the report.
In actual fact I believe that only an effective common defence policy will allow a concerted strategy to be convincingly and properly achieved in the European arms industry.
But in my opinion, it will take many years for common actions to be realised in defence policy.
We are reassured by the protection provided by the Americans in terms of defence, although we regret our subordinate position in foreign affairs.
While this situation continues, I do not envisage there being a strong will, particularly among certain Member States, to develop and genuinely accept an EU strategy on military equipment.
If I may briefly refer to bilateral and multilateral cooperation, for which I do not want to take the credit, these initiatives which often benefit from WEU support must also be praised.
However, they can be sporadic and timid, lacking the comprehensive political will of the EU.
With every year that passes, we in the European Union are falling further behind our American allies in terms of the quality of our military equipment.
This is also true in defence matters.
This is why we are increasingly followers and no longer leaders in world policy.
Mr Titley's report, by drawing the EU's attention to these problems, deserves credit and also, therefore, our full support.
Mr President, the Commission is right to have given priority to developing a European policy on the defence industry.
The European industry is fragmented and is losing the competition war to our American rivals.
Fortunately, the industry itself takes occasional steps in the direction of cooperation, mergers or expansions.
But the legislation has to keep pace with it all.
The Member States made a big mistake in keeping the defence industry out of the single market, at Amsterdam as well.
In seeking to defend their own national industry, our Heads of Government have signed that industry's death warrant.
I hope today's Commission proposals may change this.
But Europeanising the industry also means Europeanising the export control regulations.
Last July's code of conduct was a first small step, and now we need further steps.
My group, the Liberal Group, backs the German Presidency's proposals to have this code of conduct made mandatory as part of the legislation.
The issues here are not just the industry, but the legislation too.
I should also like to thank Mr Titley for giving us so much of his time as we discussed his report, both in the Subcommittee on Security and the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
My compliments to him.
Mr President, as the coordinator of the Socialist Group as well, Mr Titley has an important contribution to make to the work of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
However, specifically in relation to armament issues, I think it would be better if his passion and, I would say, fanaticism were to give way to a greater sense of reality and cool-headedness.
For I believe it would be a mistake for the European Union to become involved, so to speak, in a frenzy of competition with the United States over arms industry issues when the European Union still has no principles and basic mechanisms for its foreign policy.
When we see that over major issues, as for example the recent attack on Iraq, some countries align themselves with the Americans, other countries pretend an ostrich-like blindness, and others still make critical comments, how and upon what are we to base such an armaments policy?
I think we are moving into dangerous territory.
The important thing would be to establish the principles and fundamentals of our foreign policy and only then to look at economic and similar aspects related to military equipment for defence.
Of course, I too wish to stress that Mr Titley's report contains important observations which we will support despite our primary overall position, such as the issue of continuing the Konver programme, such as the subject of measures against anti-personnel mines, and such as the subject of a weapons export code which, we fear, will remain no more than a general principle.
And we know very well that the European Union countries persist in the iniquity of exporting the weapons they manufacture to various regimes around Europe, even the most odious and bloodthirsty among them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, have you forgotten? We are living in a post-cold war era.
Europe is surrounded only by friends.
This is an age of peace.
It is the age of disarmament.
It is the arms industry that is not prepared to adapt to the new criteria of an age of disarmament and that is sounding the alarm. It is calling for industrial mergers that would not be approved in the civil sector.
It is calling for subsidies, for political support for arms exports; it is calling for a more flexible policy on cartels. What forces us to give in to these demands when we know that it would be senseless to do so, when we know that this will not solve the global problems facing mankind, the problems of unemployment and poverty, the problems of climate change?
Do not forget that we created Konver to replace rather than supplement rearmament. That is why the Greens reject this report.
Mr President, I must add my voice to the criticisms we have heard here today of this report and the Commission communication.
There are too many arms in the world, nuclear weapons must be banned outright and conventional weapons must be drastically reduced.
There is too much selling of arms to unstable areas, whether legal or not, and it merely adds to the level of violence and insecurity in the world.
The codes of conduct are inadequate and poorly enforced.
If you are asking for a European policy, then we say yes to a European foreign policy and a European security policy which pursues the above priority objectives.
We want arms where they are absolutely essential.
The only thing to which I can give my unreserved support, and this is my personal view, is that the matter should be coordinated within a common European area.
For the rest, I have other priorities.
I should like to see a common policy of arms reduction.
I should like to see our own defence industry converted into an industry which pursues peaceful objectives.
I should like to see as few people as possible dependent on the defence industry for their livelihoods.
I want legally binding export controls for arms at European level.
I shall certainly endorse the call for the Council to submit an annual consolidated report on arms exports to Parliament so that we can check on how the codes of conduct are being implemented.
In the meantime, there seems to be very little of the European spirit behind the restructuring operations currently under way.
Mr President, the European Commission wants to implement a European strategy on defence-related industries.
Good idea, it is never too late to do something good like this!
The Titley report wants Europe's security and defence identity to be asserted - I am with him up to this point - but he goes on to say that this should be within NATO, which I find very disappointing.
As sceptical as I am, in its time, the Soviet monster was reason enough, in my eyes, to justify the fact that Europe should forget all conflicts of interest that pitted it against the United States in order to present a united front against a common threat.
Since then, as the European Union has developed, such points of conflict have only become more apparent.
Today, nothing short of an attack by extra-terrestrial monsters could make me forget that Europe is the United States' main competitor and that the United States will not rest until they have thwarted our expansion.
Once again, a free Europe cannot thrive without saying 'no' to NATO.
Mr President, I share the view that the Titley report is an important one, and it comes at a significant time.
It is very much in line with convictions which many of us hold and which we reaffirm, because controlling arms production and exports, indeed raising this issue, is already a way of preventing policy being made by weapons and those who use them, which is exactly what we do not want. So it is an important report, and for three reasons in particular.
First, because it evaluates Europe's defence industry in terms of forming European groups and competing with others, especially the United States industry, supporting scientific research and cutting-edge technology and, finally, in parallel, establishing coordination between the Member States to offer a frame of reference.
Secondly, because talking about the defence industry is a direct reminder of the need to get the common foreign and security policy off the ground, which is essential to the European Union's international credibility - and here I believe coordination with the applicant countries in the enlargement process is important too.
Thirdly, because I think it is right to highlight the fact that we are establishing a code of conduct for arms exports. This code governs a very sensitive area, introduces morality to it, makes it transparent and specifically prevents arms exports being in contradiction with European Union policy.
It is significant that the German Presidency recently stated its intention of making the code of conduct more legally binding.
That is the right road.
Finally, I think it is right to mention that the Titley report contains a small paragraph, which we should bear in mind, on the ratification of the Ottawa Treaty on Anti-Personnel Mines by all the Member States.
So all things considered, I think this is an important report.
Mr President, I would have preferred to see this important report discussed primarily in terms of security policy rather than economic policy aspects, for it represents a major step forwards towards achieving a Common Foreign and Security Policy, and surely the political need for that should gradually become undisputed.
Unfortunately perhaps, that requires an arms and arms procurement policy coordinated at European level. Why?
Firstly, I am convinced that it is important for Europe to retain some independence in providing itself with military assets.
What I regard as important is not so much economic competition but a policy that is independent of the United States.
Secondly, it is also quite crucial for us to reduce our existing surplus capacity in the arms industry only on a basis of coordination, thereby also preventing financial resources from being wrongly allocated to arms contracts that are awarded under the heading of 'we want to protect jobs by creating more employment'.
We are all familiar with examples of this kind in our own home countries.
I also believe it is important that we consistently include the Central and Eastern European countries.
They are facing the biggest problems here and I believe, especially in view of EU and also NATO enlargement, that it is important that we include them here. I regret - here I agree with the direction taken in the report - that the Konver programme is not being continued.
We have to demand that it is!
In the end it is not a question of markets.
The arms industry is not a question of markets and I believe that security policy is the decisive aspect, which is why it is important that we coordinate the arms industry, arms procurement, on a European basis in the interests of the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following on from its 1996 communication, in 1997 the Commission put forward an action plan for defence-related industries.
It refuses to make allowance for the specific nature of this sector, particularly in terms of the close link between defence and sovereignty, and is determined to apply the principle of free competition for the sake of competitiveness.
It is even going one step further by opening the way for a European armaments policy within the framework of a European security and defence identity.
These guiding principles, approved by the report from the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, are reflected in the restructuring policies that have been implemented in the Member States.
Such restructuring, in the form of merger-acquisition operations at a global level, is based more on financial grounds than purely industrial ones and has serious economic, social and regional consequences.
For example, the French Government is pressing ahead with the restructuring and privatisation of the armaments industries, jeopardising more than 50 000 jobs.
Being active supporters of peace and disarmament, the French Members of my group support cutting expenditure on armaments, particularly on nuclear weapons.
We also suggest that an international conference on reducing the arms trade be organised, which could lead to an international convention.
But at the same time, we are against the restructuring and privatisation that cost so many jobs.
Currently, only 5 % of France's requirements are met by state enterprises and munitions plants.
This is why we believe that the arms we need to defend ourselves should be provided by national enterprises, despite the fact that the Commission thinks that the rules governing public procurement should be applied to military equipment.
The industrial activity generated could also go hand in hand with strengthened cooperation at European level, but without giving up all our advantages, technology and know-how to achieve this.
Such cooperation will only be effective if it is complemented by the establishment of a genuine Community preference for arms purchases, so we can stand up to a dominant America that has cornered 50 % of the world market.
This approach is further justified by the fact that 75 % of major conventional weapons bought by European countries come from the United States.
We also need to begin, and continue with, the process of diversifying and reorientating some military activities to the civilian sphere, particularly the aeronautical, space and electronic industries.
As the CGT, France's national state workers' union, stressed, the engineering and technical staff of these armaments plants have industrial skills and know-how and use technologies that could quite easily be used for civilian purposes.
Such diversification will only be truly effective if social measures are also introduced, such as reduced working time and improved training, in order to safeguard employment and keep sites operational in places where economic and social life is almost exclusively dependent on the armaments industry.
Mr President, the overarching goal of any security policy is global disarmament.
This presupposes a scaling-down of both the manufacture and sale of arms.
The EU should take the lead on disarmament and limiting the arms trade.
This should be a constant element in any discussion on the European defence industry.
Although the international arms trade is a global problem, the Member States of the Union together represent the second most important player in the international arms market and therefore have a particular responsibility.
Mr Titley has certainly done an excellent job, but I cannot agree with him when he says, in paragraph 3, that 'a European arms policy is an essential element in... the establishment of a European security and defence identity within NATO'.
Sweden is a neutral and non-aligned country; it does not belong to NATO and will not be involved in a common defence.
Moreover, I do not believe that it is appropriate to create an institution to deal with arms production before any decision has been taken on a common defence.
As regards Article 223 of the EC Treaty, in my view armaments cannot be regarded in the same light as other goods and traded freely; on the contrary, they should be subject to special rules.
The EU should play an active role, not in making it easier for the arms industry to produce and export weapons, but in tightening up the rules so as to limit the sale and export of armaments.
Mr President, fortunately we are living at a time when there is far less likelihood of an armed attack against our countries and more scope for Europe to continue its policy of disarmament and détente.
However, such a perspective is entirely missing from Mr Titley's report.
Instead, it is all about building a common defence and devising a common code of conduct for the arms industry and exports.
A report of this kind should be seeking to formulate a strategy for turning a military capability into a civil one.
If the EU adopts a more active and aggressive approach to the export of arms, this will also serve to aggravate conflict situations where they occur in the world.
I also disagree with paragraph 2, where it is stated that European research and technology policy should begin to be used for military purposes.
On the contrary, we should be redirecting the enormous resources squandered on military research into the civil sector, where they will at least be of some benefit to the human race.
Furthermore, the report does not adequately take account of the fact that some EU Member States do not belong to NATO or the WEU. Nevertheless, the rapporteur would like these structures to be included in the Western European Union and in cooperation links with NATO.
I am also unhappy that, as we can see, extending NATO to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is having the effect of encouraging them to energetically rebuild their defence capabilities, which only leads to more countries in turn equipping themselves with new weapons systems.
As a result, tension is likely to increase in Europe rather than the reverse - even if some arms manufacturers are made happy in the process.
I agree that there should be an international code of conduct to limit arms exports, but this proposal goes much further than that.
I am therefore going to vote against what is, for the most part, a very reactionary report.
Mr President, first let me thank Mr Titley, and not just for the fact that in terms of substance his report follows the lines proposed by the Commission but also for his realism and for the courage that is indeed required in order to deal realistically such a difficult subject.
That is why I want to begin with a very simple statement, before Mr Sjöstedt leaves.
This is what we so often see in debates: a Member tells us something or other and then leaves. He never listens to what the others have to say.
Applause
Let me begin with a very simple statement.
I do not believe there is much dispute in the European Parliament about the need for a Common Security and Defence Policy.
A Common Security and Defence Policy, as its name suggests, is not some kind of policy of aggression but reflects the need in a world in which, unfortunately, we cannot guarantee security by peaceful methods alone, to build up a system that shows the public that we are able to defend ourselves.
That is why, even in a neutral country such as Sweden, there is no question at all about having a national defence system of its own.
Mr Sjöstedt, if in relative terms the European Union were to export as many weapons as Sweden, we would have to increase our exports considerably.
The reason why NATO adopts a different approach to Sweden than to Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania is partly because Sweden was never part of the Soviet Union.
So we should begin by stating quite soberly that we do need to defend ourselves.
That is my first point.
The second is that if that need exists and if it will take some time before we can achieve a common security policy - which is not easy politically - then, if it is going to take us another five or ten years to achieve that common security policy and if when we have finally achieved it we no longer have a common arms policy, we will face the problem that although we have a common security policy we have no means of producing weapons ourselves.
Anyone who does not understand that is beyond help!
That is why the Commission has taken the initiative of telling Parliament and the Member States that we have to do something.
For one thing is clear: our industrial policy approach in this area has been purely national to date.
That will not get us any further.
The complaints that have been made here, by Mrs Elmalan too, I believe, that we are constantly losing ground to American exports to the European Union, are true!
The reason is simply that the European industry is too widely dispersed among national undertakings, so that it does not achieve the same overall market penetration as some American undertakings.
We should just look at the order of magnitude. If all the companies that produce arms in Europe joined forces, merged, they would still not be as big as the largest American undertaking operating in this area.
That is also a question of industrial policy.
The answer lies not just with the Commission, with the European Parliament and the European Union, it also lies with the Member States.
All the Member States have said they are aware of the need to restructure the industry.
The same applies to the Airbus.
Just recently the six countries cooperating on the Airbus came together again.
The problem there is quite simple.
Each country begins by defending its own interests, and sometimes its own policy.
The reason France finds it more difficult to privatise Aérospatiale is not because Aérospatiale does not want this but because the current French Government has more problems with this than a different government would have had.
The reason two UK firms have now merged is partly because if this aviation merger takes place, a company that has more influence can of course make more demands.
So we must realise that a kind of power struggle is taking place here. It would be naive to disregard that.
At the same time all these trends show that the industry and the Member States have realised that something has to be done here.
I consider Mr Titley's report on this very difficult question most encouraging - it is easy enough for some people, including Mr Frischenschlager, to take the position that the right method is in fact to disarm.
The European Union would certainly be the first to accept that if we could make sure it applied worldwide.
Sadly, that is not an option.
That is why we have to take a different road.
We have proposed an action plan that quite clearly states what we can do.
I can assure you that the Commission will propose and implement all the necessary aspects of this action plan this year.
Standardisation is the first aspect.
On public contracts: what Mrs Elmalan said on the subject is the usual reflex in some EU Member States; when a problem arises, people take refuge in protectionism and in a European quota.
You could call it agricultural policy transposed to the arms industry.
But that is the very last thing we should do. That would not get us any further at all.
So we must muster the strength to create competitive structures.
That means: common standards, joint invitations to tender, for the European arms industry can only become competitive if it issues joint invitations to tender and has common rules on the internal arms trade and on arms exports.
The European Court of Justice has on several occasions ruled that arms exports also lie within the Community's sphere of competence.
The Commission will do all it can to make progress in this area, for if we do not act now, we cannot complain five years hence that we cannot even ensure our own defence any more.
I believe we should follow a good European tradition here. We should be able to produce for ourselves what we need for our own defence.
That is precisely the Commission's aim and I am glad Mr Titley also sees it that way and supports it.
The Commissioner has commented on the fact that Sweden exports arms and the manner in which it does so.
I agree with him that this is both irresponsible and a good example of how it should not be done. Take for example the export of arms to Indonesia, or the present extremely aggressive techniques being used to sell fighter aircraft.
I too think that such actions are wrong. Nevertheless, instead of having to witness the same mistakes at EU level, I should like to reduce the likelihood of that happening.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Environment, security and foreign affairs
The next item is the report (A4-0005/99) by Mrs Theorin, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the environment, security and foreign policy.
Mr President, security policy has undergone many changes.
The cold war has ended, and a major war in Europe would seem impossible.
The conflicts which we see around us are the result of ethnic, religious and social differences.
At the same time, new threats are emerging in the form of massive displacement of refugees, terrorism, international crime and, no less importantly, environmental and natural disasters.
Bullets and gunpowder, however, are not the way to resolve such conflicts.
A number of environmental disasters have brought the human race new problems, such as the recurrent flooding in Europe, the dam disaster in Spain and, most recently, the widespread landslides in Central America.
It is clear that there have not been sufficient resources to detect or prevent such disasters.
Since environmental threats do not respect national boundaries, what is required is international cooperation.
There is a growing international awareness of the extent of environmental problems, as illustrated by the UN follow-up conferences on water, desertification, the environment and development, and climate change.
Environmental problems can lead to such serious difficulties that they endanger the security of both individuals and countries.
Fresh water is a very unevenly distributed natural resource.
Fewer than ten countries possess 60 % of the total fresh water resources on earth, and several countries in Europe are dependent on water imports.
In future conflicts, attacks on fresh water may not simply be an end in themselves, but may also be the cause of conflict.
An estimated 300 rivers, lakes and sources of groundwater are located in international border areas.
In the Middle East, nine of the 14 countries have a shortage of water resources.
Local and regional ecological problems can have serious implications for international relations, for example limited water resources or the large-scale displacement of environmental refugees.
The number of environmental refugees has now reached 25 million, compared with 22 million 'traditional' refugees.
By the year 2010, it is estimated that the number of environmental refugees will have doubled.
These new causes of conflict must be reflected in foreign, defence and security policy and the way in which nations establish and maintain peace and security.
We need to mobilise resources to meet the environmental challenge.
A much greater effort is required, but our means and resources are strictly limited.
At the same time, the change in the security situation has resulted in détente and disarmament.
The freeing-up of military resources has given the armed forces a unique opportunity and plenty of capacity to deal with the increasing number of environmental problems.
The armed forces have a highly efficient organisation and extensive technical resources which could be used for the enhancement of the environment without incurring any significant costs.
Prevention of environmental crises requires infrastructure, organisation and increased resources.
These are to be found within the armed forces, although capability may certainly vary from one country to another. In the main, however, they can supply qualified personnel, technologies, advanced technological resources, organisational capacity and military methods of research and development.
Military personnel are well equipped to intervene in the event of disasters and are trained to carry out missions under extreme conditions.
Military activity is also responsible for widespread environmental destruction.
Destroying the environment has been an established method of waging war since ancient times.
War is also far and away the most serious threat to the environment.
The military is responsible for emissions of several gases affecting the climate, fossil fuels, freons, nitrogen oxides and sulphur dioxide.
Nuclear and chemical weapons and landmines are some of the most obvious types of armament that cause extensive damage to the environment, even in peacetime.
The committee held a public hearing to find out more about the 'non-lethal' weapons and HAARP, the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project.
However, I very much regret that the USA did not send representatives to the hearing or use the opportunity to comment on the material submitted.
There have been two public hearings to try to shed more light on the complex technical and legal aspects of the 'non-lethal' weapons and HAARP. We have also put forward proposals relating to the economic and practical implications of a training programme for environmental defence troops.
My original proposals were dealt with under the Hughes procedure, and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has looked into the environmental aspects very carefully.
Against this more detailed background, I am now presenting this resolution on the environment, security and foreign policy, which makes a series of proposals for measures to be carried out both at EU and national level.
The resolution recommends that the Member States should seek to utilise military-related resources for environmental protection through the setting-up of a training programme for environmental defence troops with a view to establishing a coordinated European environmental brigade, listing their environmental needs and the military resources available, and exploiting these resources in their national environmental planning while also putting them at the disposal of the United Nations and the European Union in the event of an environmental disaster, or under the Partnership for Peace.
Furthermore, the armed forces should comply with specific environmental rules and make good past damage to the environment caused by their own actions.
Civil environmental legislation should be applied to all military activities.
We call on the Commission to present to the Council and Parliament - as foreseen by the Amsterdam Treaty - a common strategy which brings together the common foreign and security policy and the EU's policies on trade, aid, development and the environment.
It is noted in the resolution that preventive environmental measures are an important instrument of security policy, and the Member States are urged to define environmental and health objectives as part of their long-term defence and security assessments.
The resolution also addresses the problem of the uncontrolled unprofessional storage and dumping of nuclear submarines and surface vessels, as well as their radioactive fuel and leaking nuclear reactors.
The Commission is urged to conduct an in-depth study of security-related threats to the environment in Europe and to draw up a green paper on military activities affecting the environment.
The report also examines the legal aspects of military activities and calls upon the European Union to seek to have the new 'non-lethal' weapons technology included in and regulated by the international conventions.
So long as nuclear weapons exist, there is a danger of them being used in error.
That danger could soon be considerably reduced if the nuclear powers were to implement the six proposals of the Canberra Commission.
Let me conclude by saying that almost every day we receive reports of environmental disasters which could be prevented if we used our available resources sensibly.
The resources in question belong to the armed forces, who could be allowed to continue to operate them.
All that is lacking is political will.
Mr President, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has considered this report and delivered an opinion about which I should like to make a few brief comments.
First of all, I am pleased to say that we agree with the background information provided by Mrs Theorin here in the House.
However, I should like to conclude my intervention by touching on one or two issues which we view in a different light.
It is quite obvious that nowadays there is no direct military threat to Europe's security.
However, there are other bigger dangers, such as environmental devastation, shortages of fresh water, desertification, climate change, accidents in chemical and nuclear power plants and so on.
It is therefore vital that we revise our ideas about security and develop them to include environmental threats, and on the whole, the report does just that.
It is a very good sign that we are applying normal civil environmental criteria to military activities - this is a necessary development in the present situation.
Tackling the problem posed by earlier nuclear weapons is a major step in this respect.
As to how this would be done, the report proposes that the armed forces should be 'trained' to enable them to cope with environmental problems.
That would certainly be a practicable solution, but the Environment Committee would like to make the point that if substantial resources continue to be allocated to the military, which is certainly the case today, some of those resources should be switched from military defence to the environmental sector, for example rescue and disaster relief services, the decontamination of land and water, and preventive measures to safeguard the environment.
We believe that this is more important than the creation of a special environmental brigade.
It is also an idea which could be put into practice.
Mr President, I hope colleagues are aware of the importance and significance of this report.
I refer not just to the quality of Mrs Theorin's work, for which I congratulate her, but the fact that this report was produced by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
It is a sign that Parliament has recognised that the end of the Cold War has brought with it an entirely new concept of security and that environmental security is crucial to future peace and prosperity.
There is no doubt that the scarcity and degradation of environmental resources will lead in the future to conflict and we have to use all the resources available to prevent that happening.
If I have a criticism of the report as it has finally emerged, it is that the way it was amended by both the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has meant that we have tended to throw everything in including the kitchen sink.
That is a mistake.
We ought to focus on the basic points.
What is important to most people is the air they breathe, the food they eat and the water they drink - indeed, the water which helps to grow the food they eat.
I would like to concentrate on that one question of water.
It is perhaps the most important security challenge facing us in the next century.
For example, if we look at the Caspian Sea region, we find that it has tremendous oil potential leading potentially to great prosperity.
But it is also a disaster waiting to happen, specifically in the republics of Central Asia.
We all know the horrific tale of the Aral Sea.
Equally, there are other conflicts as a result of both the Soviet system which wasted water and the collapse of the system which has led to chaos in terms of distribution of water supply.
There is Kyrgyzstan's hydro-electric power which is undermining the downstream countries.
Illegal tapping of water supplies and questions of water access intermingled with nationalist rivalries could easily explode at any moment.
Similarly, if we look at the Indian sub-continent, a growing population accompanied by deforestation is causing flooding which is undermining effective water supply and dykes.
The headwaters of several river systems are to be found in Kashmir and we are all aware of the security implications of that.
In the Middle East access to the Jordan River is one of the key aspects of the Middle East Peace process, in particular in relation to the Golan Heights.
Indeed, the history of Israel-Jordan relations is as much a history of water relations as anything else.
So I welcome the fact that we are addressing these issues at long last.
I share with Mrs Theorin the hope that we can use all our resources - specifically military resources of satellite intelligence, etc. to start to attack environmental security.
If we do not, then in terms of conflict 'we ain't seen nothing yet'.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Theorin's report on the environment, security and foreign policy addresses a detail of security policy, namely questions relating to environmental policy, exaggerates their importance and therefore tries to look at the security policy role of the armed forces mainly from that aspect and to change the task and role of the security forces.
It has become particularly clear in the former Warsaw Pact member states how the armed forces can pollute the environment, for there the withdrawal of the then Soviet troops very often left serious environmental damage in its wake.
Abandoned and often disintegrating nuclear submarines have become a danger to the seas, former barracks have left a legacy of oil-polluted soil.
Of course it is legitimate to ask who is responsible for disposing of the military waste, especially in these countries.
But to use this as a pretext for defining armed forces only in relation to their environmental compatibility, to prevent research on the grounds that it is not environmentally compatible, is to undermine the security policy task of those armed forces.
Since the end of the cold war has not yet brought peace, we have to reject this basic approach that is taken in the report.
To hold the armed forces responsible for the environmental damage does not take us forward, for it would put an unacceptable burden on the defence budget, limited as it is.
What is, however, important and right, is for the governments to have to pay for environmental damage and to apply the polluter pays principle here.
In spite of the basic approach taken in the report, which I reject on principle as unrealistic, some aspects are of course definitely worth supporting, such as the inclusion of environmental aspects in military research, gearing the arms industry more to the production of civil goods, the call for a ban on anti-personnel mines and for the immediate signature of the 1997 Ottawa agreement, control of waste from the nuclear weapons industry, control of biological and chemical weapons, the further dismantling of nuclear weapons and in particular observance of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
There is a great danger that weapons of this kind could fall into the hands of irresponsible despots or terrorist organisations and this must be prevented by a network of international agreements and by the appropriate controls.
To call for environmental training of military personnel with the aim of setting up an environmental protection brigade is inappropriate here and would get us nowhere since environmental aspects are already taken into account in the national armed forces and in the NATO Partnership for Peace.
Of course the armed forces must be prepared to deal with environmental disasters.
But that is certainly not their primary task.
Mr President, the environment has to be an important factor in our foreign and security policy.
That is the essential message of this report.
I am grateful to Mrs Theorin for her energetic input here.
It would indeed be a good thing for the Union to devise a common strategy in this area.
There are already numerous conflicts which have their origins in problems of the environment.
Mr Titley mentioned some of them: water in the Middle East, overpopulation as a factor of conflict in the Great Lakes region, deforestation and floods in southern Asia.
It is clear too that the armed forces are part of the social fabric, of a society in which high priority is given to protecting the environment.
Where possible, we must make use of military personnel to resolve environmental problems.
Airborne surveillance of illegal fuel dumping by tankers in the North Sea is a good example of how the military can be used to good effect.
Environmental troops could usefully have been deployed to cope with the fires in Indonesia.
But this report also contains many things which are unrealistic and unnecessary.
We must not start setting up new centres, writing countless green papers and forming new task forces.
And we must leave it to national governments to switch budget funds away from the defence sector.
It is not Parliament's job to tell governments that they must have the army running environmental policy.
Each Member State must reorganise its budget as it sees fit, and then the environment will naturally be one of the issues dealt with.
My group, the Liberal Group, wants to see the report pruned to its essentials.
We shall table amendments to delete a number of paragraphs.
My group will wait to see what happens to those, and we shall then decide whether to support this report or not.
Mr President, Mrs Theorin has written an important report which has been improved during its passage through the committee. Nevertheless, it still lacks muscle in some respects, for example the responsibility of the armed forces for environmental destruction in peacetime, claims for damages against the military and, above all, space-based weapons systems.
There is a remarkable contrast between the explanatory statement and the resolution itself.
In the explanatory statement, HAARP - the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project - is said to be a military research project on the lines of 'Star Wars' which is environmentally damaging, has an unknown effect on people's lives and is legally questionable and probably in breach of international law.
However, none of this is mentioned in the resolution, which only refers to further investigation.
The Green Group thinks the time has come to say loud and clear that this research has got to stop, and this we do in our amendment.
Mr President, Commissioner, the realisation that security policy is closely bound up with environmental questions is to be welcomed on principle.
The conclusion that military activities have far-reaching environmental effects is also important.
But I would also draw your attention to a circumstance to which more account must be given in our future peace policy work.
In Africa as also in the Middle East, in South America and in the states of the former Soviet Union wars are being waged about oil and other resources.
Only when we manage to do away with this central source of war over the past century and move instead towards renewable primary energy sources will we see the first real success in regard to long-term peace protection on an environmental basis.
I regard one point as particularly important here. The EU should launch an offensive against the increasingly widespread problem of mercenaries, which is very much implicated in this fight for resources.
Mercenary troops should be prohibited worldwide and their European headquarters should be prosecuted.
, Security and Defence Policy. Mr President, I want to endorse the conclusions this report comes to.
It seems to me clear that the impact of the environment on security is both immediate, important and growing.
I absolutely endorse what both Mrs Theorin and Mr Titley said about conflict over water and resources and how central this should be as we plan the Common Foreign and Security Policy over the next ten years Equally, I am not going to add to comments that have been made on the impact of the military on the environment.
You can see that in the Kola Peninsula.
You can see that in the insecurity of nuclear sites in the Soviet Union of the kind that has been highlighted by General Lee Butler.
However, I want to say a word about the HAARP Project Mr Gahrton mentioned.
Having listened to the hearing and done some considerable work myself I find the dangers of experiments with polar electromagnetism to be potentially very damaging and possibly calamitous.
I say that without making any particular judgment as to the potential military applications of this technology, either as a weapon for disrupting an enemy's climate or its adaptability for the use in non-lethal weapons in either a military or a civilian situation, or perhaps most dangerously of all as a covert continuation of 'Star Wars' defence policies.
The fact is that when we look at this issue and when we listened in the hearing on HAARP, we appeared at times to be listening to science fiction.
But that science fiction should not blind us to this turning into a considerably threatening reality.
I echo other speakers' comments in saying that I regret that the American administration, despite contacts at the very highest level and contacts inside NATO, did not feel it reasonable to come to this Parliament and express a view.
In the absence of that, I have to say that this Parliament must take the view that this is a matter which should concern us all and to which we should return in the next mandate.
There are unanswered questions and this Parliament deserves some answers both from the Americans and from scientists involved in this issue.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mrs Theorin, for her considerable efforts, which also - if I may be allowed a brief personal comment - admirably complement much of the political work that she has carried out in the past.
Clearly, this report covers a number of areas besides those I work with on a daily basis concerning the environment, but I shall be dealing with the report as a whole.
The Commission has taken great interest in Parliament's report and the motion for a resolution on the environment, security and foreign policy which it contains.
As has also been emphasised here today, it deals with a complex subject, the great importance of which is now being realised by the international community as a whole.
The report is commendable because it clearly points out many of the connections which exist or could arise between the environment, lack of natural resources and security.
A number of examples have also been provided in this debate, such as refugee problems and overpopulation or - in terms of the environment itself - water and climate.
The Commission's services have been investigating a number of security problems and their economic consequences in a broader context.
As part of this work, we have held a number of seminars, including one on the environment and security.
It was decided that, as a follow-up to these seminars, the Commission should produce a paper on the interaction of foreign policy, security and sustainable development, with the aim of starting a debate with the parties concerned and decision-makers throughout Europe.
As a result of this, my own services are already in the process of taking a closer look at some of the points in Parliament's report concerning the risks connected with global climate changes and the exploitation of resources, which could lead to an increase in environmental refugees, crisis situations and - as Mrs Theorin herself emphasised - direct conflicts.
DG XI has started its work on the environment and security.
This will focus on issues such as water resources and water shortages, which Mr Titley touched on in particular, whether we are dealing with the Caspian Sea, the Aral Sea or the Black Sea, which Mr Spencer and I had the opportunity to look at more closely a little while ago.
We shall also be focusing on soil erosion, lack of natural resources, transfrontier problems regarding the destruction of forests and biological diversity and the security problems which could follow as a result.
In this context, we shall also look more closely at the effect on policy in other areas, such as trade, development aid and cooperation.
This work therefore covers a number of the proposals which have also come from the European Parliament, particularly the resolution's very important first paragraph.
On various occasions, the Commission has expressed its concern at the deforestation and desertification in Africa.
A large part of the emergency aid under the Lomé programme has been earmarked for combating these two phenomena, which of course have many causes, some of which are quite clearly of a military nature.
However, the Commission has neither authority nor expertise in the area of military affairs.
It does not have access to military activities or resources, because these are exclusively the concern of the national authorities.
We in the Commission will therefore not be in a position to ensure that some of the paragraphs in the motion for a resolution are followed up.
This applies to paragraphs 18 and 29.
The Commission participates fully in the common foreign and security policy, and we shall therefore try, together with the Council presidency, to act as spokesmen for the views expressed in the resolution in the various international security forums, including the UN.
Finally, Mr President, the Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament has produced this resolution and report.
It shares Parliament's concerns about the connection between environmental degradation and future risks in terms of security.
As I said, we have already started working on some aspects of the problem, particularly those which directly concern the environment.
With these comments, I would once again like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Theorin, for an excellent report and for the debate which we have had here today.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Comprehensive partnership with China
The next item is the report (A4-0479/98) by Mr Bernard-Reymond, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission - Building a Comprehensive Partnership with China (COM(98)0181 - C4-0248/98).
Mr President, China, an immutable yet changing country, has once again recently given us an example of its contradictions and its difficulties.
Having shown encouraging signs of opening up on human rights issues, a series of hurried trials have just reminded us - as if there were any need to be reminded - that unfortunately this country remains hostage to an authoritarian policy that shuns freedom, democracy and human rights.
Over recent months, there have been several encouraging signs such as the signing of two UN conventions on economic, social and cultural rights and on civil and political rights, the fact that there has been indirect contact with representatives of the Tibetan people, the Taiwanese representative's visit to Peking, the freeing of political prisoners, the troika's visit to Tibet, the fact that Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, visited Beijing, and the public dialogue between the United States and Jiang Zemin which took place on Chinese television.
We are, of course, not so naïve as to think that, in themselves, these things all constitute a bold new policy, but the simple fact that they took place and the fact that the authorities in Beijing deemed them necessary, was, in itself, an incentive to continue and extend dialogue.
It was in this context that the Commission decided to draw up a new communication, which the Council has approved before Parliament has even given its opinion on it - hardly a good example of democracy to show China.
The Commission has adopted five guidelines that you already know about and that have been approved by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
I note with satisfaction the fact that these guidelines make political dialogue a priority, along with proposed aid to China to help establish the rule of law in compliance with international requirements.
We need to maintain political dialogue with this future major actor in the multipolar world, a power that could act as a stabilising influence in that region of Asia.
But political dialogue is equally necessary in order to persuade China that the key to becoming part of international society lies in the respect of universal values.
In view of this, we welcome the legal and judicial cooperation programme put forward by the Commission, providing a total of ECU 13 million over four years.
In this programme, respect for individual and trade-union freedoms should be made a priority, even though the legal security of economic society is also necessary, particularly as regards protecting investments and intellectual property.
However, ladies and gentlemen, we are considering these guidelines at a moment when Xu Wenli, Wang Youcai and Qin Yongmin have once again been imprisoned, and where a wave of arrests and trials forces us to ask just what this crackdown means.
Of course, we know that the prospect of the tenth anniversary of the events in Tiananmen Square is worrying Beijing, but we fear that the roots of such a hardline stance go much deeper than that.
On an economic level, China is undergoing major change.
Having learned from international developments over the past twenty years, from the development of globalisation and the efficiency of the market economy, China has decided to open up to the world and move from a centralised and bureaucratic economy to a socialist market economy. It has rapidly reaped the benefits of this change.
For a long time now growth has been 10 % or more, currency reserve levels have been high, foreign investment has increased considerably, external trade is in full expansion and inflation is gradually being brought under control.
The Commission proposes to support this trend by offering to cooperate in such diverse fields as human resources development, administrative reform, social protection, reform of the financial sector, combating poverty and regional disparities, the transfer of technological know-how in the energy sector, widening scientific and technical cooperation and protecting the environment.
But, as always, these sweeping changes have also exacerbated or created major disparities: between town and country, between coastal regions and the interior, between Beijing and local authorities, between the poor and the newly rich, between those in and out of work, and in environmental matters.
The authorities' desire to overcome these difficulties without endangering China's unity and whilst preserving its internal stability is justifiable but does the path which the Beijing authorities appear to have chosen not increase the danger rather than avert it?
A changing society needs flexibility, decentralisation, accountability, initiative, debate: in short, democracy.
Anything that is inflexible, authoritarian and centralist may fool people for a while, but in a changing economic society such an attitude always leads to obstacles being created, which in turn will trigger explosions or lead to that society being ostracised and isolated.
Although Europe is still willing to enter into constructive dialogue, it does not want China to follow any of these roads.
Europe would like China to gradually become part of international political and economic society.
We are prepared to help it to reach this goal.
However, China must be capable of being as courageous in the political world as it has been in the economic world.
We strongly encourage China to do this as we know that, for all peoples, freedom is the future of history.
Mr President, three large economic areas the size of Europe have collapsed over the last year and a half.
The neo-liberalist doctrines of the IMF have been unsuccessfully applied to all three, that is to say, South-East Asia, Russia and Brazil.
Now it would appear that China is to be the next target of assault by international market forces.
China is nevertheless a politically more stable fortress that the other countries I have referred to.
Its stability could be vital for the whole world, including Europe and the United States.
If China's currency is devalued, European and American competition will not stand the pressure.
Mr Bernard-Reymond's report rightly stresses the importance of a constructive but unconditionally critical attitude towards Chinese society.
China is crumbling from within as a result of environmental problems.
Its population is predicted to grow to one and a half billion quite soon.
When subject to rapid intensive and extensive economic growth, nature and the environment become vulnerable.
80 % of China's energy is produced from coal, the country relying on exports for other sources of power.
Burning coal in China adds to the world's carbon dioxide emissions, and China produces more emissions than any other country in the world apart from the USA.
China, however, is not bound by an international agreement on climate, and, as a developing country, does not have to be.
It would be in its own interests, however, to reduce emissions.
The report fails to discuss environmental problems thoroughly enough, and hardly at all, in fact.
The Committee on External Economic Relations has focussed its attention on these problems, which the rapporteur has largely ignored.
The sale of modern technology that protects the environment and innovative products that incorporate environment-friendly technological know-how would be an important growth industry for companies in the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the picture painted by the rapporteur, Mr Bernard-Reymond, clearly illustrates the failings of the so-called constructive dialogue policy which the European Union has pursued with China for many years now.
He has highlighted all the shortcomings, or some of them at least, and the whole thing really is a failure of major proportions.
It must be pointed out that the Union and the Member States showed the same condescending attitude towards the citizens of the Soviet Union, who it was felt did not count as such.
For years, we believed that what worked for us, namely democracy, was something that did not apply to them, and for some time now we have been applying the same analysis to China. We have been following the same policy of not acknowledging that Chinese citizens, like us, have a right to democracy.
This is particularly serious as the situation in China is much more desperate than we are often told.
Tens of millions of people are unemployed due to social and economic contradictions.
Contrary to what people would have us believe, it is not the communist system - and this is indeed the issue here - that will guarantee the stability which our socialist colleague was discussing, but rather democracy, with its safeguards, its opposition forces and its social control mechanisms. Only democracy could help China to rid itself of such contradictions once and for all.
It would be better to push China, to demand that it and its leading communist class relinquish their monopoly on power, their violent monopoly over tens, even hundreds of millions of people. Such violence is the reason behind the tens of thousands of political prisoners - and these are official figures.
I would ask everyone to consider for a moment the conditions in which individual political prisoners are today being held in China, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Turkestan.
We forget about them, we listen to dissidents when they are released from prison and we applaud them, but we forget that tens of thousands of other political prisoners are being subjected to violence and torture and very often killed, even as we debate this report here today.
This is the policy of constructive dialogue with the People's Republic of China that the European Union is endorsing and it is a disaster.
We have seen examples of such a policy with the Russian loans at the beginning of the century, and even if the situation is not entirely comparable I believe that, as far as our businesses are concerned, we should perhaps be slightly concerned at the risk to the high levels of capital invested by firms from the Member States of the European Union, which are in danger of waking up tomorrow to find themselves in a situation of unprecedented confusion in the face of enormous losses.
Next door to China is the world's largest democracy: India.
The European Union acts as if it has forgotten that this country and this great democracy exists and that at least there we can count on the ruling democratic classes there.
But no, we dig our heels in, we head straight for China and we forget these other examples.
My socialist colleague mentioned the Asian tigers but he forgets that South Korea, following the recent economic growth crisis, has further developed its democratic institutions.
He forgets that democracy in Taiwan, which is a Chinese country, is working better and better.
He forgets the positive examples but he also forgets about North Korea, a vassal of the People's Republic of China.
In a few years' time, when the North Korean regime has fallen from power because, for one reason or another, there is no longer any support from the international community, we will discover that there were millions of deaths in North Korea, and we will act as if we are surprised by this.
These are the sorts of regimes we are encouraging with our constructive dialogue policy.
We have not seen any progress in the People's Republic of China.
The rapporteur pointed out that international conventions have been signed, yet a few weeks after they were ratified new dissidents were arrested and sent to the notorious 'laogai', the Chinese concentration camps.
We saw young Chinese people being arrested for surfing the Internet.
This is the China we wish to support and for which we are providing de facto support with this constructive dialogue policy.
I am pleased that Sir Leon Brittan is here with us, as Parliament's policy used to be rather different, as shown in its urgent resolutions. No fewer than twenty resolutions have been tabled over the past five years, calling, in particular, for the release of dissidents.
None of them was released as a result of pressure from Europe.
Two or three were released due to pressure from America, namely Wong Dan and Wei Jingsheng, but we achieved nothing.
Mr Hada, the democratic leader of Inner Mongolia, is still in prison, as are the dissidents from Eastern Turkestan, and as are tens of thousands of political prisoners.
We do not have a High Representative of the European Union for Tibet, as Parliament has requested.
We have achieved nothing here either for human rights or for political freedoms.
Mr President, I would make it clear from the beginning that the Socialist Group is in favour of the Commission's communication about building a comprehensive partnership with China.
We emphasise the word partnership which is about dialogue between two parties not one party constantly lecturing another.
As Mr Bernard-Reymond is aware, my initial concern at his first draft report was that we were spending most of our time lecturing China.
I would like to thank him and pay tribute to him for the way he has been prepared to take on amendments and adapt his report.
I feel it is now a far better balanced report.
China is, of course, important, not just to the EU but to the world, as we saw when everybody was trembling at the prospect of a devaluation of the currency.
That does not, of course, justify us ignoring our own traditional positions.
We have our own standards and our own beliefs in relation to democracy and human rights and we are quite entitled to express those and expect our partners to respect the same principles.
However, we have to recognise that changing a system is not easy and that China in many ways is actually a developing country, not a developed country.
Therefore, we should be looking to encourage progress and reform.
Mr Dupuis is right.
The political and economic reforms go together. They are not isolated from each other.
Sudden dramatic about-turns, such as those we had with the Cultural Revolution in China, do no good to anybody.
They disrupt and increase poverty.
We should be prepared to recognise when China is moving in the right direction, for example, the transition to Chinese rule in Hong Kong has gone far better than most people ever expected and we should recognise that.
We should be trying to encourage China to take its place in the world system, particularly its membership of the WTO.
That will allow us then to get to grips with issues like counterfeiting and lack of respect for intellectual property, which are major concerns for us at the moment.
We should, of course, be constantly driving home the message of human rights but we have to recognise that access was given to Mary Robinson and that China has moved towards taking on board the UN conventions.
We need to ensure these are ratified and we are quite right to condemn the recent crackdown which goes against the trend we have seen in the last 12 months.
We have to be aware when criticising China that we ought to be looking at ourselves.
We must speak as the European Union with one voice in our relations to China.
It is no good one or two Member States deciding to go it alone for trade reasons.
The European Union has to have a common policy in relation to China.
My final observation is in relation to Taiwan.
I am glad we were able to change the report's comments on relations with Taiwan because, while we should not interfere in the relationships between Taiwan and China, our position should be very simple.
Any solution to Taiwan should respect international law and the right of self-determination.
Beyond that, of course, it is a matter for the Chinese to resolve.
Mr President, the Christian Democrats support the line taken by the Commission and the rapporteur, whom we thank for his good report.
We believe that only through constructive dialogue can we make progress. In reply to Mr Dupuis I would say that I share many of his views, but none of our urgent resolutions did any good.
We must begin a constructive dialogue and strengthen it, and I hope the other side, the People's Republic of China, understands that we are willing to meet it halfway if it does the same for us.
Both sides bear a great responsibility.
Firstly, the European Union would like and hopes to see the People's Republic of China take the necessary domestic steps to enable it to become a member of the World Trade Organisation as soon as possible.
We are also quite prepared, if it so wishes, to support the People's Republic of China in achieving its own objectives, to support it in transforming its economic system from a bureaucratic planned economy into a socialist market economy.
Above all, we believe that in the interests of trade and investment the approach taken by the People's Republic of China must lead to reforms of the legal and taxation system, otherwise world trade cannot continue to flourish.
Signing the UN conventions does not suffice for the development of human rights and democracy and we should tell our friends quite clearly that as we see it the principles of democracy and human rights also require the recognition of, in particular, political parties of a different tendency, the recognition of the cultural autonomy of regions such as Tibet, the civil rights of the individual and the release of persons imprisoned because of the exercise of their civil rights.
This message should in fact have got through today too.
Allow me to make one more comment on the subject of peace and stability in Asia. Recognition of the existence of the State of Taiwan and of the rights of its citizens to self-determination is a fundamental condition for stability there.
The talks between the representatives of the People's Republic of China and of Taiwan are promising signs that both sides are moving towards a peaceful solution.
Mr President, the Swedish writer Per Ahlmark has collaborated with a number of famous peace researchers in different parts of the world to show, quite convincingly, that democracies never go to war with each other and that disasters causing hunger over a wide area do not occur in countries which have a free press and market economies.
In the twentieth century, the victims of dictatorships can be reckoned in their millions. The dictators have driven these people out in time of war, they have executed them, degraded them in concentration and labour camps, or starved them to death.
Among the most notorious mass-murderers of our time are Hitler, Stalin and Mao, but others have existed - and still exist - who are their equal in many respects, among them Pol Pot, Verwoerd, Saddam Hussein and Kim II Sung, to mention but a few.
Since Mao's time, China has made considerable progress.
In Europe, we welcome this and share in the happiness of hundreds of millions of Chinese people who are enjoying better lives as a result.
But the people of China still have enormous problems to contend with.
China is still far from being a democracy; there is little room for freedom of speech or to form trade unions.
Those who have called for democracy and human rights in China have been given long prison sentences.
Executions are common, the Tibetans are oppressed and Taiwan is subject to blatant threats from Beijing.
So long as this situation continues, it is the duty of the European Union and of this Parliament in particular to call for change and to use all the means at our disposal to bring it about.
It is in our interests, but to an even greater extent it would be in the interest of China and its people too.
Mr President, the communication by the European Commission, and by extension, I think, the debate as it is taking place, seem somewhat ignorant of history.
They have no basis in reality.
You are not prepared to take any account of the fact that China, that great country, that great nation, emerged only 50 years ago from foreign wars, from a status of prolonged colonialism, from civil wars, and within 50 years it is striving to create its own model, one which matches its history, its culture, which goes back 5 000 years before our debate today.
That is why the Commission's statement is of questionable credibility, it is presumptuous, self-interested in its objectives, it aims to explore how, through what loophole and by what artifices European multinationals can take part in the sharing of the enormous cake represented by the Chinese market.
So what is the statement doing?
I have no time, so I will try to mention only a few points.
At one point, the statement mentions continuing reforms which we will assist.
If that were sincerely aimed at China's development, at the prosperity of its people, we should all be in agreement.
No such thing!
The real aim is to establish reforms which will draw China in and subject it to your own model and to the standards dictated by your multinationals.
Elsewhere, the statement speaks of assisting the reforms in order to forestall crises in China such as those in other Asian countries.
But, ladies and gentlemen, those countries - the three you referred to earlier - had long been immersed up to the neck in your own models and liberal measures. And yet the crisis still occurred.
Is that where you want China to go as well?
Has there not been a crisis in your own countries too, despite unrestrained liberalism? Where are you looking for the causes of the crisis and seeking reforms according to your own models, supposedly out of concern, in case China suffers a crisis?
And another thing which means an attempt to intervene in China's internal affairs: yes, let us have bilateral trade, but where this concerns Chinese enterprises which, inside China, do not conform absolutely with the rules of the free market, then we must adopt special dumping measures against them.
That is blatant and inadmissible intervention.
And finally, the rule of law, democracy and so on, so that we can have 'partnership' and close relations with China.
That, of course, would be a very good thing for the Chinese people, for the European Union and from an international perspective. But why are you closing your eyes?
The rather small country of Latvia, with which you have very close relations and which you are striving to bring into the Community, has 700 000 inhabitants out of 2.5 million who do not have the right to call themselves citizens, who have no rights at all. Why?
Because they suffer the sole disadvantage of being Russian-speaking. Why do you want such relations with them?
Why can you not see that? This, then, is hypocrisy, self-interest and presumption.
One of the speakers even said that you aspire to teach them.
Mr President, democracy in China has suffered a severe setback in recent months.
That is why I, as chairman of the delegation for relations with China, together with other members of the delegation and numerous colleagues, have tabled a separate amendment in which we not only express our concern, but also call for concrete information from the Chinese authorities regarding the large number of people who have been arrested recently.
It is vital that we continue to exert pressure on the Chinese Government and do not allow them to believe that we only see the positive developments. Of course we cannot do that.
Why are the Chinese people behaving in this way?
The situation in China is certainly very serious.
I should like to quote the French professor, Jean-Louis Rocker, writing in the report of the annual conference organised by the European Union - China Academic Network, which took place last week in Madrid: 'In recent years numerous demonstrations, petitions, sit-ins and violent actions have taken place in most big cities in order to protest against the degradation of living conditions'. There is a feeling of social unease in China which the authorities harshly suppress.
There is good reason for the European Union to reconsider its policy towards China.
Mr President, the rapporteur Mr Bernard-Reymond deserves congratulations. He has drafted a very good report.
We have had a number of discussions and draft amendments and I believe that has resulted in a very balanced report.
As Members we are in an extremely difficult situation in regard to China.
I could quote Mr Gorbachev, who said 'life punishes latecomers', but perhaps China would find that rather difficult to accept given the man who said it and against the background of the fact that the Soviet Union disintegrated in a manner that was not exactly positive and that it would be a disaster for China and the world were history to repeat itself in this regard.
That is precisely why we must remain in continuous dialogue with the Chinese and with the representatives of China and convince them that it is important for them, for China, to carry out the appropriate reforms and that this is not being forced upon them from the outside but forms part and parcel of the democracy movement in China.
Here we must consider three important issues, the political, the economic and the human rights issue.
Let us not be naive enough to believe we could eliminate any of these.
Let us not be naive enough to believe we could fight for human rights unless we continue the political dialogue at the same time and also support and promote the economic development of China.
China is an important partner and it is precisely those who keep saying that we need the United Nations and the Security Council for security policy measures and decisions in the world who must conduct this political dialogue with China, even in China's present, unhappy political form.
In regard to the economic question, of course I know that a number of undertakings have purely economic or trade interests.
But our common objective is the progress of economic development in China.
It cannot be in our interest to see China collapse; on the contrary we want China to develop economically.
Our policy and that of the European Union must be that at the same time - not as an alternative or substitute for that objective - we remain unyielding on the human rights issue and endeavour to persuade China to make progress with political democracy, in its own interests and in the interests of human rights.
For however many mistakes Mr Gorbachev made, those words are crucial.
They apply for China too and in the case of China they could have far-reaching, disastrous results and consequences for the whole world: life punishes latecomers!
China will be the first to be punished if it does not try in good time to make parallel progress in the economic, political and human rights fields.
That is why I so much endorse what the report is now endeavouring to do: it is trying to approach China through dialogue, rather than prescribing from above in a kind of imperialist manner how China should conduct itself; instead China is being invited to join with us in making the world a better, fairer and economically more successful place.
Mr President, Mr Bernard-Reymond's report constitutes a valuable contribution to the on-going and evolving debate about the nature of the relationship between China and the European Union.
It is important that we engage in a positive and constructive relationship with China.
However, it must be an open and honest relationship.
The European Union has consistently supported the principles of democracy and the protection of human rights.
While we want to be positive about many of the changes that are taking place in China, we cannot, and indeed must not, turn a blind eye to the continuing abuse of human rights, in particular the scandalous treatment of political dissidents and members of religious faiths.
Failure on our part to speak out simply because many of the leading Member States of the European Union have profitable trading relationships with China would be an abdication of our responsibility and would undermine the moral authority of the Union to speak on other situations elsewhere in the world where human rights are being blatantly breached.
Furthermore, it would be a betrayal of the philosophy of the founding members of this Union.
As far as Hong Kong is concerned, I welcome the fact that the handover has taken place without many of our worst fears having been realised.
However, we must continue to keep a watching brief on Hong Kong and I welcome the publication of the Commission's recent report in that regard to which I hope we will be able to respond.
There have been a number of instances where the independence of the rule of law and the observance of human rights have been called into question.
These fears must be addressed as must also the wish to see the introduction of an accelerated timetable for the introduction of universal suffrage.
With these few comments, I commend the rapporteur's efforts and I very much welcome the report he has produced.
Madam President, Mr Bernard-Reymond's report indicates that there is no reasonable alternative to a balanced and comprehensive approach.
That is the view of a large majority of this Parliament.
I also welcome the fact that we do not now have a series of endless urgencies on incidental items but that we have a comprehensive approach.
This Parliament needs to take a mature approach and this is what Mr Bernard-Reymond has done.
As Mr Gahrton has indicated, the Delegation for China tabled Amendment No 11 which points out that it is very important that certain of the negative developments at the present time should be tackled.
I would like to hear how Sir Leon Brittan sees this turnaround on democracy and human rights. It is an important and a negative development.
As other speakers have said, there are also positive developments.
We should at the present time see that in economic terms China is in the midst of a hurricane.
If that hurricane swamps it we will also feel the effects.
There has been economic and political courage on the part of the Chinese which is worth noting.
On Hong Kong, as others have said, things are better than we expected.
That is why I should like to emphasise that between the extremism of Mr Ephremidis and - my apologies, Mr Dupuis - the non-alternative of the ARE, which has tabled 26 amendments but really has no alternative policies, Mr Bernard-Reymond's policy is the right one.
We want to apply pressure to China on human rights, not only for moral self-satisfaction but because it is in the best interests of China itself.
That society can only develop if it takes into account pluriformity, human rights and political opposition.
That is the road ahead as the example of Russia has indicated.
The size of China is such that there are not many models that can be applied to that country.
For that reason we hope that Mr Bernard-Reymond's approach will be shared by a large majority of this Parliament.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that, yet again in dealing with China, Europe has demonstrated that it is weak with the strong and strong with the weak.
It is easy to get angry with Sierra Leone or Guinea- Bissau, but much more difficult to tell the truth about what is happening in China today.
Every kind of opposition is fiercely repressed, all freedom of expression and opinion is denied, the only representatives of a possible opposition to the communist regime, which tortures and butchers those who oppose it, are convicted after farcical trials.
And we continue to have this accommodating attitude.
We see it in this report too. Despite Mr Bernard-Reymond's excellent intentions, it seems that, here again, Europe is demonstrating that it is completely subservient to the de facto logic of trade.
What has happened in the last few weeks cannot be passed over in silence.
I strongly believe that if Europe is worth anything, if it still has a purpose, it must speak out in defence of human rights, especially when dealing with the strongest countries which obviously set an example, as is currently the case with China on the Asian front, and not only there.
In the light of all this, how can we still consider granting aid and subsidies and maintaining relations with people who torture and butcher their political opponents?
In the light of all this, I ask you all whether there should not be a radical change in the attitude of the European Parliament and the Commission towards this bloody and oppressive regime.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I too approve of the five-point strategy proposed by the Commission which has already received the Council's support. This strategy is aimed at helping China to become an increasingly prominent player on the international stage.
In this respect, bearing in mind its own interests and the need to define an independent policy from that of the United States of America, I believe that the European Union should support China's accession to the World Trade Organisation given the obligations inherent in this.
I am pleased to see that progress has been made in the area of human rights.
However, I feel that the realpolitik of the economic and commercial interests of the European Union, or rather of certain Member States, should not make us think that China is already applying the rule of law because it is not!
But we should support the progress being made in this direction.
However, I believe that we should give our Chinese partners a stern warning with regard to the recent worsening of certain problems involving human rights, the persecution of political opponents and ethnic and national minorities and, in particular, the situation of workers laid off without any union rights, trade-union freedoms or respect for the right to strike.
Turning now to the specific matter of Macao, in my opinion the rapporteur has handled this well because he has understood the specific situation of this territory arising from its history and its particular characteristics.
Macao can act as a gateway for China to the West and to the European Union and as a bridge between Europe, in all its diversity, and China.
In this respect, I believe that the European Union should monitor the transfer of Macao to Chinese rule at the end of this year as closely as it did with Hong Kong, in order to support the application of the 'one country, two systems' principle.
There are many problems still to be resolved relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms, nationality, the guarantee that China will respect the ban in force on the death penalty, religious freedom, freedom of association, the regulation of the two official languages of the territory - Chinese and Portuguese - and the need to establish an independent judiciary as quickly as possible, specifically with a local court of last instance.
I believe that the European Union can help the civil society in Macao to develop.
I would ask the Commission to prepare a communication, as happened with Hong Kong, on future relations between the European Union and Macao and, at the same time, to produce regular reports on the situation.
In order to ensure that everything works correctly, a Commission delegation is needed for Macao.
I must point out that the current delegation to Hong Kong has not been able to assume its responsibilities of also representing the European Union in Macao.
I would ask the Commissioner to explain the unacceptable attitude demonstrated by the European Union delegate to Hong Kong, who seems to be ignoring the fact that he is also responsible for representing the EU in Macao.
Madam President, the building of a comprehensive partnership with China is to be welcomed in all respects as this is in our interest, it is in the interest of China and it is also undoubtedly in the interest of world peace and prosperity. This has been duly emphasised in the Commission communication and in Mr Bernard-Raymond's report, both of which should therefore be congratulated.
It is clear that this therefore lends particular importance to paragraph A-5 of the communication and to paragraph 41 of the motion for a resolution, which expresses the hope that the transfer of Macao to Chinese rule will be done correctly.
This transfer must happen in a way which benefits the Macao population and also China, which has much to gain from the existence in Macao of a democratic and prosperous society and of another gateway to the rest of the world.
However, the role which Macao can play is also of primary interest to the European Union. This role must be totally independent of Hong Kong's role, as has just been mentioned.
The alternative to links with us is surely not links through Hong Kong, which the people of Macao are entitled to reject in view of the fear that this would put them in a subordinate position with a real risk that they would become lost, without their own voice, in the massive territory of China.
Macao has its own identity and lies in an area which is very different from China, giving us twice as many opportunities to become closer.
This identity and these opportunities have to date justified the participation of Macao in the World Trade Organisation and the conclusion of a trade and cooperation agreement between the European Union and Macao - unlike with Hong Kong - which must be maintained after the transfer to Chinese rule.
This therefore represents a clear opportunity which the European Union would be foolish to waste.
An obvious step towards maintaining and increasing our presence would be the immediate introduction of our own representation in Macao. This would not cost much as the Macao authorities would certainly be keen to share the costs with us.
I would ask the Commissioner whether he intends to take any steps in this direction?
Madam President, I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to Mr Bernard-Reymond's balanced and well-reasoned report.
I am glad to see that for many parts of the House, in particular Mr Swoboda, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Porto, there is considerable support for its balanced approach.
The European Union has a profound interest in helping the emergence of a stable, prosperous and open China that embraces political pluralism, free markets, the rule of law and assists in building a secure international order.
To those such as Mr Dupuis' wing who believe that we have not been strong enough on the human rights situation, or Mr Ephremidis who approaches things in a rather different way, I have to say that I do not believe that they have put forward a real alternative.
The essence of our approach is that it is a long-term one.
It has to be pursued in good times and in bad, unless there is a fundamental change in the situation.
There is no doubt that both economically and politically the situation in China today is less hopeful than it was even a year ago.
I do not believe that is a reason for fundamentally changing the approach we have followed or the one that is commended by Mr Bernard-Reymond both in his speech and in his report.
The adoption of the report is timely.
Under Prime Minister Zhu Rongji China has launched a series of key economic reforms.
Against the backdrop of the Asian crisis, however, these reforms are likely to come under pressure this coming year as economic growth slows.
Recent events in China have also given rise to serious concerns related to respect for human rights.
In these circumstances it is important - indeed essential - for us to convey the right signals to China.
Our communication set out a number of fundamental objectives.
Firstly, we want to engage China further through an upgraded political dialogue into the international community.
Over the past decade China has taken welcome steps on arms control, non-proliferation regimes, on preserving the global environment, combatting international crime and drug trafficking.
We should build upon China's desire to be recognised as a global responsible actor on the world stage and develop dialogue on global issues of common concern.
The history of the past shows that can yield practical results and is not just an idle dream.
Secondly, we need to integrate China further in the world economy by bringing it more fully into the world trading system and by supporting the process of economic and social reform that is under way.
China is the fastest growing market for European goods and services.
It is clearly in our interest to bring it more fully into the global economy.
Access to that market is too restrictive.
We do not want to retaliate though by creating a self-defeating cycle of protectionism.
On the contrary, the openness of the European market will constitute our best contribution to helping China face the current crisis in Asia but we remain committed to opening markets further, including China's.
To the proposition that China should join the WTO, the answer is Yes, but on commercially meaningful terms, agreeing to the opening up of its economy.
That is appropriate for a country of its size and state of economic development.
I make no apologies for referring to the question of size.
It is the case that in a country the size of China - and it is not going to disappear and it is not going to change because we say nastier things or pass nastier resolutions - it is only by engaging honestly, economically and politically, being frank and candid, that we stand a chance of bringing about change in that country.
The European Union is dedicated to supporting China's transition to an open society based upon the rule of law and full respect for human rights.
Of course we are not satisfied with the current situation in China.
We have chosen a pragmatic and results-oriented approach on this issue in which we challenge the Chinese authorities on issues and events of concern to us such as the recent spate of dissident trials and arrests.
We are not silent on those issues but, at the same time, we expand our areas of cooperation.
Both poles of the policy are necessary.
The dialogue on human rights has been useful but we have made it very clear to the Chinese authorities that we now need to achieve specific and tangible progress to maintain the credibility of this dialogue.
Recent developments in China that have been referred to have underlined that need.
We have asked for the release of dissidents imprisoned after the recent crackdown and that issue will remain on our agenda until these dissidents are released.
Most importantly, we have made clear to the Chinese authorities that we will identify benchmarks by which progress in the dialogue will be judged.
This innovation will ensure that the necessary pressure and momentum in the dialogue is maintained.
The question arises: What kind of benchmarks? The kind we will be looking at include the following demands: Firstly, we need more detailed information on political prisoners, their number, the charges on which they have been sentenced, their health conditions, as well as access to some prisoners for European and NGO representatives.
Secondly, we want to see specific steps taken to improve prison conditions and reform the penal system, including conditions of appeal and access to judicial review in line with international standards.
The latter point is particularly relevant with regard to the death penalty and the situation of dissidents convicted for so-called counter-revolutionary crimes.
Thirdly, we want to see benchmarks for progress towards the ratification of the United Nations Human Rights Covenants which includes the follow-up to Mary Robinson's visit and closer cooperation with the European Union within the human rights dialogue.
Fourthly, another category of benchmarks relates to ethnic minorities especially those in Tibet.
It covers a wide range of issues such as the transparency of demographic information, the free use of the Tibetan language as well as open and clear information on alleged incidents involving ethnic minority groups and dissidents.
Despite these recent differences on human rights, I hope you will agree that European policy towards China, as exemplified by the Commission communication and Mr Bernard-Reymond's report, has progressed significantly in a positive direction in recent years.
I am heartened to see that our communication and your report are broadly in agreement with each other.
That applies to Hong Kong as well.
I am sorry that I am not able to promise an early opening of a delegation in Macao.
We are having great difficulty in getting the resources and support we need for the delegations we want to open.
We will certainly examine the specific suggestions made in the report and incorporate them as fully as possible into the substance of our relations with China.
The challenge of developing a comprehensive and robust relationship between China and the European Union is one of the great geo-strategic challenges for the next century.
It is my belief that we have laid solid foundations to allow the European Union of the future to meet such a crucial challenge and that we should be steady in our approach, firm in what we have to say but balanced in our policy.
Thank you, Sir Leon.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Regional policy and competition policy
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0412/98 by Mr Azzolini, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Member States on regional policy and competition policy (COM(98)0673 - C4-0247/98); -A4-0421/98 by Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the XXVIIth report by the Commission on Competition Policy - 1997 (SEC(98)0636 - C4-0379/98).
Madam President, Commissioner, I am delighted that 'my' Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, is in the Chamber, especially as I am sure she will understand and listen very carefully to what I have to say.
I do have to thank my Committee - the Committee on Regional Policy - for entrusting me with this report on regional policy and competition policy just two years on from 1997.
My 1997 report was entitled 'Cohesion policy and culture, a contribution to employment'. These are two very important subjects which definitely add value to other European issues that knowledgable colleagues have discussed in detail here in the Chamber.
Commissioner Wulf-Mathies is naturally very well aware of how difficult some Member States find it to transpose directives, legislation and regulations, and it is hardly news to most people involved in the work that, altogether, only five of the fifteen Member States of the Union have had a systematic approach to Community legislation for any length of time.
This means that, at bottom, there is no culture of methodology.
As Commissioner Wulf-Mathies has frequently told us in committee, communication is needed, a great deal of communication. But I would say that simplification is also needed because some Member States, obviously out of lack of understanding, are continuing to swim against the tide, and perhaps do not have the determination to act.
Being an Italian rapporteur, I do not want to confine this criticism to my own country, but it is regrettable that some Member States which could be taking advantage of the benefits of belonging to the Union are, in actual fact, often using no more than about 52 % - when everything is going well, and in my opinion things are not going well - which shows that there is still a gap between the 'Union' as a body and the 'Member States' as a periphery.
So I do ask everyone to think about this as a real issue. It should not be marginal if it is true - and it is true - that the top priority of the Union is its economic and social - I stress that word - cohesion policy.
That being so, I must also concur that the rules of competition should represent a guarantee of the correct and transparent operation of the internal market and that exceptions to free competition, claimed by some Member States, are in fact only justified by the need to maintain and strengthen that economic and social cohesion.
I agree with the Commission's statement on the multisectoral framework for regional aid for large investment projects, proposing to limit this type of aid to those projects requiring major inputs of capital which, without seriously distorting competition, have an undeniable impact at regional level, as a genuine source of direct and indirect employment.
What I would urge, however, is that it should be possible in future - in the near future, Commissioner, not the distant future - to extend this procedure, currently at the experimental stage, to all sensitive sectors still governed by specific rules on control over state aid. I am thinking of sectors like shipbuilding, the motor industry, iron and steel and textiles, all areas in serious crisis and needing to achieve social and economic cohesion even earlier than the rest.
But I have to say that certain provisions, like those on the maximum intensity of aid to Objective 1 and 2 regions, seem too strict.
Equally, the rules on competition must be applied in way which takes account of the need to strengthen cohesion, precisely to prevent the proliferation of certain substitute fiscal measures which are bound to damage the internal market but which, because of the lack of methodology I mentioned earlier, many Member States end up adopting.
I have received 25 amendments to this report and I am grateful to the Members who tabled them.
I am definitely in favour of some of them, but not of others, because I want to signal very clearly to the Commission that I entirely agree that the content of this communication must not be distorted by 'interference' of a different kind, which has been discussed elsewhere.
I want to assure those colleagues that no discourtesy towards them is intended. I am simply determined to keep to what is strictly necessary for a report assessing a communication from the Commission and calling with equal seriousness and rigour for the Commission to adopt our proposals.
After the period of great tension between the Commission and Parliament at the last part-session in Strasbourg, we are now asking that same Commission to pay greater attention to social cohesion, after having clearly made a good start with economic cohesion.
So I hope the Commission will not only continue its work with determination but will also take proper account of Parliament's recommendations.
Madam President, I am privileged to have been appointed rapporteur for the report on competition policy for the second time during my career in Parliament.
I should like to begin by praising the Commission for the excellent work it has done in the area of competition policy.
I have very much enjoyed working together with the Commissioner, and I think there has been superb cooperation between the Commissioner and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
In my speech, I would like to concentrate on the five proposals for improvements I have identified in my report, and I look forward to hearing the Commissioner's comments on them.
The first concerns the democratic control of competition policy.
In my first report, we proposed a specific procedure whereby the Commissioner comes to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs every quarter to give an account of policy in the competition sector.
We have been very pleased with that and it has worked very satisfactorily.
The committee now wishes to create a permanent and more standardised procedure.
This procedure makes the same demands, but represents a more formal arrangement between the committee, Parliament and the Commissioner.
The second point concerns small and medium-sized enterprises, which are very important when we are discussing competition policy.
The committee regards it as important to ensure that SMEs are able to evaluate their legal position and can find out for themselves which side of the competition rules they are on - or in other words, whether or not they are in breach of the rules on competition.
I am myself a lawyer by profession, but I have no objection to SMEs being able to avoid paying too much money to lawyers to help them find out whether they are in breach of EU rules.
I am therefore calling on the Commission to put forward proposals or guidelines on how to use the so-called de minimis notice.
This is discussed in paragraph 10.
The third point also concerns SMEs and is dealt with in paragraph 15 of my report.
Again, it is a question of how SMEs can ensure that they comply with the EU's rules. Here too, I should like the Commission to publish guidelines and criteria on what the relevant market is and how it is defined.
Those are the two points concerning SMEs.
Then there is the question of state aid.
I know the Commissioner agrees with the committee that there is far too much state aid in Europe, but what can we do about it?
We should always remember that it is the Member States who distribute the money.
So it is not the EU which distributes the money, but the Member States who are the villains of the piece.
I think it is important for Parliament to ally itself with the Commission in the campaign against state aid.
The committee's proposal is that we should make things more transparent, so that third parties are able to see the extent of state aid.
I propose that we set up a register in which the level of state aid is published and that this register should be put on the Commission's website, so that everyone can easily go and find out the level and purpose of the aid, including state aid given under block exemptions, so that all state aid, regardless of whether it is referred to the Commission or simply takes place in the Member States, is publicly accessible.
It is important for individual companies, both small and large, to be able to find out whether they are being exposed to unfair competition.
Internet access will help, because in that way the company concerned will be able to check the level of state aid for itself. It will also have, or so I hope, the opportunity to complain to the Commission in a simple way via the Internet.
I have one more proposal concerning state aid.
This has been inspired by the Commissioner responsible for the single market, Mr Monti, who has set up a 'scoreboard' showing the good guys and the bad guys of the single market.
We could do the same thing, in other words set up a list of the good boys and the bad boys - or girls - in terms of state aid.
Those are my proposals for improving competition and some instruments for increasing transparency and improving legal certainty for SMEs.
I hope very much that the Commissioner will enter into a dialogue with us on the subject of these proposals.
Once again, I would like to express my thanks to Mr Van Miert for the sincerity and enthusiasm with which he takes care of Europe's interests in these matters. And in passing, I should also like to thank him for his excellent work in bringing to an end the tubing cartel in Denmark and Europe and thus creating price freedom and low prices for consumers, because ultimately that is the most important target group for competition policy.
The important thing is that consumers get lower prices and more quality for their money.
Madam President, as draftsman of the opinion on the XXVIIth Commission report on competition policy, I should start by saying that Community competition policy is gradually becoming more transparent. From a legal point of view it is also becoming more efficient and its administration has improved.
This is most certainly due to greater decentralisation of the implementation of certain regulations on competition to the relevant national authorities, and to the reduction in unnecessary notifications.
If we continue along these lines efficiency and transparency should improve still further.
Decentralisation has, however, come up against a serious obstacle: some Member States lack the legislation needed to implement Community legislation. In other cases, national case-law does not allow Community legislation to be directly implemented.
In addition to these legal difficulties, other problems have arisen concerning state aid. Legal protection can be reduced, depending on whether national law or Community law is applied.
Thus, Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty allow enterprises and individuals to enjoy greater legal protection and therefore greater rights of appeal under national legislation than they would under Articles 92 and 94 of the Treaty.
No ruling has been given on which law should take precedence in such cases.
The issue has not been resolved, and disputes continue.
Finally, I would like to point out that the procedure adopted for the supervision of state aid for regional development purposes ought to be subject to the demands of economic and social cohesion. Further, the method of determining resources must take account of the legal concept of ultraperipherality.
Mr President, the Azzolini report on the communication from the Commission to Member States on regional policy and competition policy comes at a very pertinent time, only months before Member States are expected to deliver their list of state aid areas to DG IV and at a time when big decisions are to be taken by Member States on the future maps of structural funds for both Objective 1 and Objective 2.
Let us hope that this will be at the Berlin summit in March.
In this debate I will restrict my comments to the issue of coherence and the linkage between regional policy and competition policy.
We know that concentration is the name of the game now in both the Community competition policy and indeed in structural fund assistance.
Of course, in the Commission communication consistency is a stated objective.
We support those principles, we support coherence and consistency.
We perhaps differ on the point of how we deliver that coherence and how we actually ensure some flexibility around the issues.
I must say that it is somewhat disappointing that some of the amendments to this report are seeking to look for exemptions for areas under Article 92(3)(a) in my view seeking to secure Objective 1 status by the back door.
My group will not be voting for those particular amendments.
Parliament is asked to take into account the need for this consistency and we are in favour of ensuring better coherence.
This is evident under Article 92(3)(a), Objective 1 areas, and the principle is very strongly adhered to in this area.
Nonetheless, there is a need for the Commission to acknowledge in its proposals, as is the case in the communication, and I quote 'that Member States must have a margin of manoeuvre to pursue regional policy goals specific to their situations in addition to areas designated jointly for purposes of Community and regional policy.
The Commission is aware that Member States deploy diverse goals and objectives for national and regional aid policy.
We need to respect this diversity and we need to find a balance between diversity and achieving coherence.'
Therefore, the context of concentration and consistency, referring to Article 92(3)(c) areas, is somewhat restrictive and let me say why that is so.
The timetable in which Member States will produce their maps to DG IV predetermines potentially Objective 2 areas on the future structural fund map.
I will give you a very good example of that: in the 1994 to 1999 reforms the then Conservative government submitted a map to DG IV in the hope that those areas would then automatically be Objective 2 areas.
I am glad to say, the Labour commissioner, Bruce Millan, spotted this and was very clear about the fact that these areas could not possibly qualify for European Objective 2 under economic social cohesion need areas.
This is why we need to have that flexibility and we do not believe they should be, in fact, in the same map, even with the measure of flexibility that the Commission has proposed.
In some ways this Commission communication has been overtaken by events and I am delighted to see that in the General Affairs Council this week there has been a victory for common sense.
I believe it is important that we have had this debate.
I believe Member States must address themselves to the fact that there must be better coherence but we need the flexibility to ensure that we are getting the right areas for state aid and Objective 2.
In that sense, the time of change, the time for concentration has come but the Commission must not complicate or impose additional constraints forcing integration of these areas through prescriptive mechanisms.
It is wise for the Commission to have chosen the route of allowing some margin of manoeuvre and thereby trying to encourage Member States in their efforts to make these maps more consistent.
Madam President, as a member of the Committee on Regional Policy I will speak on the report by Mr Azzolini, whom I would sincerely like to congratulate on his work, which was exceptionally difficult because there were conflicting interests and - I think I need not explain - the issue of 'national aid' speaks for itself.
I also wish to congratulate the Commission on its generally courageous attitude towards this issue.
The aid provided by Member States to their various regions can indeed constitute a distortion of competition and consequently impede the normal and effective operation of the internal market.
That is why the basic principle must be that when national aid is permitted, over and above the areas covered by the activities of the Structural Funds, such cases should be exceptional and should only be permitted in special cases when justified by the need to achieve economic and social cohesion.
In that sense, there is indeed a need for closer links and correspondence between the competition policy and the European Union's regional policy.
Consequently, I agree with the Commission's intention to reduce the eligible areas, so far as Community aid is concerned, from the present 51 % down to 35 % - 40 % of the population, a reduction completely in line with the corresponding reduction of eligible population which will be entitled to structural aid in the future.
I also agree that the criteria for state aid should correspond to those for Community aid.
However, I must express my concern and opposition to the restriction of the extent of the permitted national aid for Objective 1 areas to only 50 % of the cofinancing for those areas which are below 60 % of the Community average in terms of GNP, and to 40 % for areas above 60 % of the Community average.
We also ought not to forget that even if 66 % of national aid in total goes to the less developed areas, the considerable economic resources of some wealthy Member States enable them to subsidise areas which, even though they may be less well developed at the national level, are not among the most disadvantaged in the European Union.
That, of course, goes against both the principles of competition and the need to achieve economic and social cohesion, because it means that already wealthy regions grow still wealthier, so widening the gap compared to the European Union's less developed areas.
Madam President, Commissioner, I should first like to congratulate Mr Azzolini on his report, particularly as it deals with such a complex and complicated issue.
In the context of competition policy a ban on state aid should guarantee the operation of the free market, and it is therefore necessary to regulate state aid and also regional aid in those Member States whose regions are empowered to grant it.
When identifying areas where such aid can be authorised - as provided for in Article 92(3)(a) and (c) of the Treaty - care must be taken to ensure compatibility with state aid to Objective 1 and Objective 2 regions.
I shall now turn to the Objective 2 regions known as 'areas undergoing restructuring'.
State aid should be targeted at such areas: areas in the process of rural restructuring, with a low density of population, with population loss, and with an aging population.
State aid to such regions should certainly be authorised.
Other areas undergoing restructuring are experiencing an industrial crisis of some sort, with high and rising levels of unemployment.
In the areas where it is granted, state aid is important in order to supplement and guarantee better economic and social cohesion and also territorial cohesion.
In conclusion, I should like to support what Mrs Riis-Jørgensen said concerning the need for transparency in connection with aid of this nature.
I believe such aid should remain available, but the process of awarding it ought to be as transparent as possible. It should also be made clear that in no way will this aid prejudice the freedom of trade and the single market which must prevail within the European Union.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the basic issue raised by the Commission document involves deciding whether public, state or regional aid should be restricted territorially. As proposed by the Commission, this involves accepting the increasing and almost inevitable overlap between maps of Objective 1 and 2 regions and the map of regions which may be granted public aid.
This perspective does not seem quite right as, in our opinion, public aid must be granted whenever the social sustainability of certain sectors is at risk, particularly because of employment reasons, and also for many different reasons where problems of economic and social cohesion are involved, regardless of the location of the territory where these are occurring.
It is obvious that control and monitoring systems will be acceptable and necessary in order to prevent abuses and instances of unfair competition.
However, these systems must not be confused with or turned into a comprehensive and universal obstacle to the granting of public aid where such abuses and instances of unfair competition are identified.
In our opinion, Mr Azzolini's report, on which I congratulate him, does not tackle this question with sufficient clarity or depth.
However, it does deal adequately with the need to make the decision-making on specific regional situations more flexible.
If approved, the amendments, which deserve our support, should extend and increase the degree and scope of this flexibility.
The Azzolini report also emphasises the priority given to the most disadvantaged regions, for obvious reasons of economic and social cohesion, the inclusion in the framework of possibilities of public aid for areas which will fall within the 'phasing-out' of the next Community Support Framework and the rejection of the Commission proposal to significantly reduce the state aid to be granted to the regions and sectors which need it and which will become eligible for it.
Finally, on the plus side, we should note the reference made to the need to monitor and control the public aid granted to transnational undertakings in order to prevent them from relocating and to prevent them from taking advantage of public aid without developing long-term economic activities in the region.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, regional policy and competition policy work towards objectives that do not seek to achieve the same outcome.
Competition policy is based on the principle of banning state aid to businesses, with derogations from Article 92(3)(a) and (c) that are restrictively applied in the free competition environment of the single market.
As for regional policy, it is based on the principle of providing aid for regional development by redistributing the Community budget, and it provides financial support for projects involving all the socio-economic actors in a particular region, including businesses, albeit in a minority capacity.
If we want greater coherence we must draw a distinction between the two zoning systems when the diagnosis for certain regions indicates that it would be to their advantage.
The Member States must still be free to define their own business development policies, as if these were to be brought exactly into line with regional policy it would remove the specific benefits of the zoning of regional aid and the regional planning problems.
Deciding on the level of coherence should be left to the Member States which, in any case, are responsible for submitting proposals for negotiation with the Commission.
The Commission must also realise that there is a risk it could harm many still fragile regions with its proposals for drastically restricting the intensity and duration of aid granted under Article 92(3). This is particularly true, as has just been said, of regions which will undergo a 'phasing out' period.
Finally, as regards the list of regions assisted under Article 92(3), I should like to ask the Commission to reconsider the possibility of including the regions that the Amsterdam Treaty has acknowledged as having permanent handicaps, namely island regions, including those that are not eligible for Objective 1 status.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, the Member State governments and you too, ladies and gentlemen, have always emphasised, in relation to Agenda 2000, that the Union's new structural policy must observe the guiding principles of concentration, efficiency and administrative agreement.
I would add that transparency must also be a basic guiding principle.
Accordingly the Commission has presented a proposal for implementing these principles and establishing broad coherence between the Structural Fund aid and national aid.
That is consistent and it is a sensible solution.
I hope the Member States also decide to follow that line consistently.
What it so significant is that this is the only way to restrict competition about standards and the abuse of aid.
But we will also find that the different authorisation times in the different Member States will make it very easy to circumvent this.
So I ask the Commission to tell us how it proposes to organise the authorisation timing so as to prevent this from happening.
Let me also point out that the Commission proposal does not deal with one particular problem, namely subsidy shopping.
National undertakings can still go on taking up aid unchecked and thereby damage regions.
So in that respect there are a few things missing in the proposal.
How are you going to resolve this question?
Madam President, the Agenda 2000 proposals as also this report seek to strengthen the complementarity between competition and regional policy.
The arguments put forward for this are the ever widening divergences between policies and the overlaps in the various aid maps.
But those who support this approach are forgetting that the desired equal cover of national and EU aid areas makes it even more difficult for the Member States and regions to support their own problem areas by using their own resources.
That reinforces this policy of positive discrimination in favour of the most disadvantaged regions.
In any case the objectives of Agenda 2000, namely greater concentration and coherence, already involve a serious cutback in aid to the relatively successful regions.
It would be not just absurd but in fact inconsistent with the very principle of subsidiarity to also deprive them de facto of the instrument of national aid.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate the speakers, the Commissioner and his department on their reports. The public tend to perceive competition policy as essentially an economic issue.
They think of it as the system of ground rules governing the relationship between businesses in a market economy.
That is indeed what it is.
Yet they sometimes overlook the implications these arrangements can have for their daily lives as consumers and workers. In particular, they fail to appreciate the impact of these arrangements on their lives as ordinary citizens.
For instance, monitoring concentration of ownership and dominant positions will become increasingly important in view of globalisation and the development of new technologies.
This is particularly true in the energy and telecommunications sectors, the information society and the audio-visual industry. As far as these are concerned, not only is concentration taking place, but enterprises are becoming increasingly interrelated both amongst themselves and with the financial groups which control decision-making bodies.
This is why public statements such as those made by the Commission Director-General responsible for energy are so alarming and a cause of such concern to all democrats.
I should like to take this opportunity of countering the Director-General's remarks.
They stem from a reprehensible philosophy of secrecy and confidentiality - in the worst sense of the word - which would confine debate on matters directly affecting consumers and citizens to the European Commission's offices. Such matters ought of course to be debated instead in the marketplace and with as much exhibitionism as possible.
I quote from Mr Benavides' derogatory description of the parliamentary debate taking place in my country.
It is far easier for the economic and strategic power groups we sometimes euphemistically term lobbies to penetrate the Commission's offices than it is for the ordinary consumer or for the ordinary citizen to do so.
It pains me to say this, as the Director-General responsible for energy is a Spanish official, but it appears that where the so-called 'transitional costs' relating to competition in the Spanish electricity sector are concerned, he has departed utterly and absolutely from the principles of neutrality and objectivity. As the relevant political authority, the Energy Commissioner should immediately relieve him of responsibility for this matter, as this is the second time Mr Benavides has allowed himself to be swayed by external pressure and because considerable misgivings have been expressed in Spain as to his objectivity and impartiality in this regard.
I do not expect the Commissioner responsible for competition policy to comment at the moment.
I am confident that a thorough and objective study of the legality of this aid will be undertaken, bearing in mind the needs of consumers and small enterprises. They should, in theory, be the ultimate beneficiaries of the free market and of liberalisation, yet in this instance, they have come out unanimously against this aid - aid which I consider to be illegal.
They will be forced to pay for it through their electricity bills, like a modern generation of feudal serfs. Not only will they have to pay for the losses the liberalised companies will allegedly incur over the next ten to fifteen years in a situation of free competition, but this will be covered by a legal argument alleging that the electricity companies have an acquired right to be indemnified or compensated.
I believe this would mean setting a serious legal precedent in the liberalised sectors, which has in fact already been invoked by Telefónica, the company which until recently held the monopoly over the telephone service in Spain.
Madam President, it is consumers and citizens who are the touchstone where liberalisation is concerned.
If the European Union cannot guarantee that they will not be crucified by the processes of liberalisation, the European institutions, including our own, will become ever more distant from the citizens.
Madam President, I want to confine my comments to two aspects.
First, let me unreservedly agree with what is stated so clearly for the first time in paragraphs 17 to 20 of Mr Azzolini's excellent report: tourism is a good thing!
For many parts of Europe tourism is the key to survival.
But subsidised tourism is a bad thing, it is unacceptable, because it does not produce sustained structural improvement but simply throws away and wastes huge amounts of European money.
When an undertaking that receives a large amount of aid relocates to the next place, it generally leaves far more damage than useful things behind it.
So let us put an end to this nonsense as quickly as possible!
Let the Commission apply its collective wisdom to finding good solutions.
This brings me to the second aspect I want to address. We also need good solutions to Agenda 2000 as a whole and to structural reform in particular.
We need these good solutions quickly.
We have barely two months left under the German Presidency's new timetable and we have to put this time to good use.
The Commission and the European Parliament have done good work together in the past months.
Now the Council has to show that it can reach consensus.
It will certainly not be easy to accommodate fifteen different opinions on this difficult subject.
The Council must now show that it is prepared to cooperate with the Commission, but also and in particular with Parliament, which has been playing a very responsible part in this process so far and sought to find common, rational and objective solutions, but which must now also attach great importance to being included in the final decisions.
We cannot wait another seven years for the assent provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty to enter into force.
We want to have a constructive say now.
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate both rapporteurs on the presentation and, of course, the preparation of their reports.
I, of course, agree that the internal market for the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital should operate in an even-handed manner.
For an internal market to succeed, all regions within Europe must be able to economically compete effectively in such an arena.
At present there are some regions within my country and within Europe lagging behind the European Union average for economic performance.
It is only right and proper that the poor, disadvantaged and peripheral parts of Europe, namely Objective 1 regions, continue to be entitled to grant aid to the industries setting up within their region to the maximum of 40 % or indeed higher, if necessary.
The Commission has already brought out new revised state aid guidelines which have been approved by the 15 Member States of the Union.
These guidelines provide that Objective 1 regions will be entitled to grant aid to endogenous and inward investment companies setting up within their localities to a ceiling of 40 %.
Non-Objective 1 regions within the Union will be entitled to grant aid to industry to a limit of 20 % only while those areas within the Union, which are doing better than the Community average, will only be entitled to grant aid to industry to 10 %.
This may appear unfair competition but it is necessary to bring the less well off regions up to a Union average.
I agree with the state aid guidelines and, of course, favourable state aid policies to Objective 1 regions, including my own constituency of Connaught-Ulster, will go a long way to ensuring the creation of long term sustainable jobs in the region.
It is also important that such policies are complemented by a higher proportion of spending under the ERDF so as to guarantee that any infrastructural deficit which exists in our transport network is rectified in the near future.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Azzolini for his excellent report.
As regards the Commission's proposal concerning regional aid, I find it both unacceptable and ridiculous.
The reason for this is that the Commission is proposing that only those areas which receive EU aid should be eligible for national regional support.
This implies that the Commission does not believe that the Member States are capable of conducting a regional policy which is in the interests of the respective countries and their citizens.
Instead, everything is to be centralised and managed through the EU and Brussels.
Decentralisation and flexibility are conspicuous by their absence. It is not that I am opposed to a policy on regional aid, it is the way in which national regional aid is to be distributed that I find unacceptable.
Sweden has a long tradition of regional aid, the purpose of which is to achieve a balance and to iron out differences between the various regions.
It was implemented in the interests of social solidarity and was an extremely costly process.
However, it was worth the expense and was a sound move, in my view.
The Commission's proposal rules out this kind of social and economic solidarity, which is a mistake.
Consequently, I believe the rapporteur has tried to remedy the worst deficiencies of the Commission document, and that Mr Macartney has also tabled a good amendment which I shall support and which substantially improves the report.
Mr President, all too often the situation in reality suffers when rigid and theoretical rules of economic policy are applied in the name of free competition.
There is a risk in this Chamber of allowing the European Parliament's priority objective of economic and social cohesion to fade into the background and be compromised.
The cost will largely be met, so runs the script, by the new Objective 2 regions and, under the Commission's plan, all the benefits and advantages will be enjoyed by the applicant countries.
Objective 2 groups together areas with a very wide range of characteristics and needs, but the restrictions announced will further penalise our disadvantaged areas and have negative and indiscriminate impact on all the areas in the new Objective 2, which covers urban, industrial, rural and mountain areas, or areas dependent on the fisheries sector.
The chorus of Members of Parliament asking the Commission to modify its position is swelling daily: I hope the increase in volume will at last convince the Commission.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the need for additionality and coordination between the competition policy and the Union's regional policy, aiming to provide equal development opportunities for all the regions and to secure economic and social cohesion, is one which I hope we all understand, along with the need for Europe's economy to adapt and respond successfully to the new worldwide competitive environment.
A Union with huge differences in economic and social development between its various regions certainly can be neither credible, nor viable, nor competitive.
That is why the policy of economic and social cohesion, real economic convergence, a reduction of inequalities between the regions, the concentration of resources upon the Union's poorest areas and solidarity between Europeans are the essential parameters for a development which will be the more effective and competitive the more fairly it is distributed.
It is a fact that the European regional policy has led to great improvements in the development rate of areas which were characterised by macroeconomic imbalances and low competitiveness, such as Greece.
However, there are still important regional inequalities which could become more acute, as a general phenomenon, as a result of economic and monetary union and the Union's enlargement.
So the policy of economic and social cohesion is a long-term and continual process which, in any event, must be compatible with competition policy if it is to be effective.
However, it is known that several Member States are pursuing national strategies and state subsidy policies which are in many respects incompatible with the European cohesion policy to combat regional inequalities.
Indeed, if we include all the horizontal branch and regional forms of aid, it becomes evident that it is the wealthier areas which benefit most, and not the disadvantaged areas.
For that reason, I think the Commission's proposals, and in particular the efforts by the Commissioner responsible, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, to achieve a new, fair and efficient regional aid system are on the right lines, and we support them.
However, I have a slight reservation concerning the extent of permitted aid for Objective 1, which could have an adverse effect upon the achievement of economic and social cohesion, as Mr Azzolini very rightly and appropriately pointed out in his excellent report, on which I congratulate him.
Mr President, as is customary every year, the Commission's 27th report on competition policy provides a good picture of the Commission's thinking in this area and of its specific policy data.
Flexible operation of the single market can only be achieved, certainly following the launch of the euro, if competition conditions are fair not only in law but also in fact, and if there really is equality of opportunities for all businesses.
The Commission's efforts to ensure that there is free competition within the single market are thus vitally important.
The Commission does good work here, and the fact that its decisions are not always palatable to those Member States which it is forced to reprimand in no way detracts from the value of that work.
I must compliment the rapporteur, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, on the work she has done.
I thank her for her fine and constructive cooperation, and all I can really say is that her report sets out what we in the PPE Group wished to say on the subject.
So I have nothing more to add, in point of fact.
I just have one question for the Commission, a very specific question.
Last year, in June 1998, the Court of Justice ruled in a case against Italy's National Council of Customs Agents that people in the professions are entrepreneurs like anyone else and are subject to Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty.
I should like to hear from the Commissioner whether that ruling has implications for all the regulated professions.
The PPE Group's view is that account must be taken of the special role of certain professions in the general interest of society.
We should have liked to know the Commission's thinking on this.
I appreciate that I am rather springing this on the Commissioner.
I do not necessarily expect an answer here and now, but perhaps a written reply?
Forgive me, Commissioner, for not waiting to hear your answer now, but there is a group of 100 people waiting for me 50 kilometres away.
Unfortunately, I have to leave the Chamber straight away.
Mr President, I think it is very important that both Commissioners are here at the same time, so that we can speak about regional policy and competition policy together, and speak too about regional aid and state aid.
The Commission should make its work more effective, encouraging as great a degree of transparency as possible with regard to all public aid.
In my opinion it makes no difference whether it is a matter of state aid or regional aid.
We should be creating a situation where every citizen and business would at any moment in time be able to acquire information about how much state aid or regional aid has been granted to which project.
There should be a page on the Internet where information could be listed on all public aid in order to ensure transparency.
Another issue I wish to raise is the importance of real commitment on the part of business to regional aid programmes.
Thus, if a company receives aid it must remain in the region.
It must stay there for at least five years and ensure that jobs are preserved.
It cannot just pack its bags the moment it has been given public aid.
Mr President, we definitely need a strategy which targets better coordination of regional policy and competition policy at European level.
The Commission plans to reduce the percentage of the total population of the Union receiving state-funded regional aid over the period 2000-2006.
Geographic concentration is welcome if it serves to improve the effectiveness of this type of aid and create positive discrimination towards the less favoured regions, especially when 85 % of state regional aid for industrial projects today goes to the four richest Member States and only 8.3 % to the least developed four.
In these lean years for employment, synergy between national aid and Community aid can open up new paths and inspire new hopes. In particular, national regional aid could be granted to provide an incentive for productive investment, paying particular attention to the creation of jobs directly and indirectly linked to the investment.
Investment in jobs must then be maintained in the region concerned for at least five years, so that national aid does not encourage relocations.
To conclude, while taking note of the guidelines imposed by the Commission, I am perplexed by certain points which do not seem to me to encourage greater economic and social cohesion, as rightly emphasised in the excellent Azzolini report.
I refer to the reduction in the maximum intensity of regional aid especially for the new Objective 2 regions, where the maximum intensity of aid is reduced from 30 % to 20 % or even 10 %, in which case these regions will receive less aid than they did in the past.
In addition to that there is also a problem for the ultraperipheral and island regions which, because of their difficult geographic position and their particular intrinsic nature, are already amongst the least favoured regions in the whole Community.
As the elected representatives of the citizens of Europe, it is our duty to voice the needs of the people in the least favoured areas and to remain constantly vigilant to ensure respect for the fundamental principle of economic and social cohesion in the policies of the Union.
Mr President, I rise to speak on the competition report introduced by my colleague, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, to whom I offer my congratulations on the quality of her work.
I want to particularly praise Paragraph 14, where she is asking the Commission to examine unfair practices and also Paragraph 22 which is recognising the need for increased consistency between national aid schemes, Union aid schemes and competition policy.
I want particularly to support the amendments from my colleagues Mr Hendrick and Mme García Arias which talk about the possible abuses of dominant positions.
All over the European Union we are seeing a merging of the ownership of the old, publicly owned utilities: telecommunications with broadcasting, electricity with telecommunications, railway links used as telecommunication networks, gas companies investing in water and over all banks taking a major share in these utilities.
This is not, in itself, an unwelcome development but it does exacerbate the risk of an over-concentration of ownership of the essential utilities.
The whole point of the liberalisation process is that it should bring the benefits of efficient, competitive, consumer-sensitive utility supplies to be widely available to consumers, both domestic and business.
The reported situation in Spain, therefore, is of major concern.
It would be against the whole spirit and letter of European Union competition rules if the costs of the transition to competition in electricity supply were to be met initially out of public funds and this then to be passed on to the consumer.
This is a most serious distortion of the level playing field, particularly if the money is then to be used to gain a share in other utility markets.
I hope that the Commission will deal with this point in response because it is particularly important that the issue is highlighted and that the Commission response is on public record.
The rapporteur in this report mentioned naming and shaming and on the basis of the evidence available, this is a situation of sufficient seriousness to merit a considered reply from the Commission.
I am sure that this will be forthcoming.
I have apologised to you, Commissioner, because I cannot stay.
My colleagues are going to take a careful note of your response.
I know that we will want to follow up this issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Azzolini, on his excellent work.
In the 1960s it was the European Assembly, today the European Parliament, which was concerned about regional imbalances, drafted the plan for regional policy and started the procedure for implementing it.
30 years later, the geographic distribution of economic prosperity, in other words the achievement of economic and social cohesion, constitutes Parliament's, and especially our political group's, main interest.
Certainly, ever since the Treaty of Rome, competition policy has been an integral part of the European economy as an essential factor in competitiveness for each of the European regions, whether less favoured or developed.
Before the Treaty of Maastricht, competition policy and the policy of economic and social cohesion ran parallel, but with the new provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, currently in the process of ratification, it has become necessary to strengthen the complementarity and balance between them, given that cohesion, which expresses the duty of solidarity between the Member States, has become the priority for the construction of Europe.
There is a danger, which is that aid from the European Union to particular regions may distort work already in progress in the market in favour of certain areas.
Here the rapporteur has highlighted the importance of having competition rules capable of guaranteeing the proper and transparent operation of the internal market, bearing in mind that exceptions to free competition, in the form of aid to Member States, are justified for the purpose of preserving economic and social cohesion.
While, on the one hand, the European Union's structural policy has contributed to reducing the existing development disparities, in particular in the cohesion countries, on the other hand it has also led to an ever-growing number of objectives, programmes and Community initiatives, a fragmentation of subsidies, and a complex and inconsistent approach to zoning.
I think the rapporteur's approach to all this is fundamentally correct and I hope Parliament will follow his lead.
Mr President, I welcome very much the Azzolini report and I agree with the essential arguments which are put forward.
Although the European Union's competition policy and its regional policy have very different roots, there is now an obvious need to have greater coherence and consistency on coordination between, on the one hand, national state aids, competition policy and the European Union's regional policy.
I have to say that I have one reservation and that is whether we should have virtually total co-terminosity between the two kinds of maps that we are talking about.
I fear that we could be aiming at uniformity for the sake of uniformity.
I really believe that there is a real need for a measure of flexibility, that recognises that there are particular situations in different parts of the Union.
Flexibility is needed essentially because we are talking about two different kinds of aid.
On the one hand, there is aid for developing the infrastructure and human resources of the less prosperous regions.
That is done through the European Union's structural funds.
On the other hand, there is aid for particular industries and enterprises through national state aids, like regional selective assistance in the United Kingdom.
That is national state aid.
In many cases, of course, the two will naturally go together.
But in some instances we need to acknowledge that to help certain areas we sometimes need to support industries that are adjacent to Objective 1 and 2 areas.
Why do we need to do that? One simple reason is that people are increasingly travelling significant distances to work on a daily basis.
To help people in one area occasionally you have to allow state aid to industries in another area.
Often, of course, firms developing in one particular area help the region immediately next to it.
There is a knock-on effect to economic development.
Therefore, there is a strong case for flexibility and with that one reservation I support Mr Azzolini's report in total.
Mr President, I agree with Mr Azzolini when he says that regions which are coming out of Objective 1 must not be treated as strictly as the Commission is proposing to do.
Regions that have just emerged from a state of low economic development usually suffer from serious deficiencies in their infrastructure.
In the case of Ireland where I come from, it is estimated that it would take 10 billion euro to bring our road networks up to the average EU standard, even if we have just enjoyed six years of very generous structural funds.
In all the regions of the EU which are just emerging from economic backwardness we must realise that there is still a serious burden of the past to be carried.
Until genuine economic equality has been achieved the Commission must be extremely careful not to impose rigorous harmonisation which could lead to a reversal of gains already made.
The Commission must also be aware that countries that have oppressive tax regimes, which are retarding economic growth and creating unemployment, are sometimes the authors of their own misfortune and it is their national policies that drive some industries to locate elsewhere.
Such tax regimes must not be imposed by the Commission as the norm for the EU as a whole.
Rather, we must promote as normal for all Member States the tax regimes which have been shown to be successful.
The basis for the European convergence model must be the successful tax regimes rather than the ones that are creating difficulties.
It is important to explain to EU citizens that they can only enjoy free trade and the benefits that it brings if they are prepared to have a body to enforce discipline and fairness.
There will always be those who will attack the efforts of the European Commission as bureaucratic interference but we must be prepared to explain to our citizens that they can only enjoy consumer benefits within a single market if fairness and equality is enforced.
It is also fair to say that levels of preferential treatment, either in the form of tax concessions or grant aid, that are not acceptable within a Member State are also unacceptable within the European Union, whether these are in the form of benefits that come from the EU or from national governments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the deepening of the single market, the creation of economic and monetary union and the globalisation of markets change the conditions of competition and the rules of play in competition policy, not just at international level but at European level too.
When I look at the Commission's report on competition policy, I find that it addresses many of these new problems and also considers the fact that in an era of globalisation we will have to reckon with an increasing number of mergers, of forms of cooperation and mega-mergers.
However, I wonder whether we always draw the right distinction between strategic alliances and the possible emergence of monopolies, which would be harmful to competition.
When I look at the Communities' competition law in regard to, for instance, cartels and subsidies I find, however, that it is in fact being reviewed continuously and as required.
In regard to state aid it certainly needs emphasising that this aid is still needed.
But we have good reason to criticise the very high subsidies granted in a few Member States.
It is also right to criticise the fact that increasingly few resources are being made available for the aid agreed under the common market rules, in the field, for instance, of small and medium-sized undertakings, environmental protection, research and development, while more and more aid is being given to individual undertakings.
That is certainly not in the common interest of effective, free and fair competition.
At this moment in time, distortions of competition as a result of tax aids are more important.
Not enough cases of this kind are being investigated.
More and more Member States want to attract business to their national locations by granting tax reliefs to undertakings, in the financial and insurance sector, as also in other economic sectors.
That distorts competition.
I believe the aid rules must look more closely into these distortions of competition.
The Commission must investigate more of these cases.
The list of 85 cases of tax reliefs, some of which are reminiscent of tax havens, currently before us speaks volumes.
The Commission must also play its part in preparing the next round of WTO talks, for we do need competition law that also works at international level.
Here the current GATT and WTO rules need to be supplemented by internationally effective competition rules.
I believe it would be important to have national reports on competition, like the WTO national trade reports.
I also believe it would be important to try to establish minimum standards for all states in order to prevent anti-competitive practices, and to set up independent competition authorities.
That could lead to effective, international competition rules under which the signatory states undertake also to make their national competition law internationally applicable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, I want to begin my speech by congratulating Mr Azzolini on the excellent work he has done on his report on competition and cohesion.
Moving on to the substance, I want to say right away that the idea that the two maps used by DG IV and DG XVI should coincide might actually make sense if, in applying all its financial and constitutional instruments, the European Union would deal with the geo-economic problems by implementing Community competition and cohesion policies in the same way.
Failing that, it would make more sense to leave the Member States free to act where the Union is not in a position to do so, although within the limits laid down by the regulations of the two separate Community policies, or, alternatively, to support countries or take their place where Community resources and, above all, the European logic dictated by the requirements of the single currency market permit this.
The Treaty of Rome defines competition policy in order to eliminate any form of distortion likely to interfere with the free play of market forces.
From Rome to Maastricht it was recognised that we needed a cohesion policy geared to strengthening the less favoured regions of the Union, thus substantially pursuing the same purpose - a homogeneous common market.
Between Maastricht and Amsterdam the aim was adjusted, as it was recognised that the free play of competition and market homogeneity could only be achieved through a policy of economic and social cohesion that paid more attention to territorial reality.
It is in that spirit that the Amsterdam Treaty adds, for example, a reference to the island regions, so that they can start from a level playing-field and compete on an equal footing while respecting market forces.
Now, on the other hand, we are seeing a development in competition policy, which is attempting to take account of cohesion policy by including it in its most important regulations, but all it is really doing is complicating those regulations.
In fact, on the say-so of the Commission and regardless of Parliament's opinion, only the island regions will be left on the sidelines, and the Commission will have to explain to them why, in addition to losing Community aid, they are also going to lose national aid, or why, faced with the Community's refusal to take their case into consideration, notwithstanding the Treaty, and for the sake of consistency with what DG IV wants, they will no longer be able to seek the state intervention which allowed them to compensate for the competitive disadvantage they suffer.
Mr President, regional policy and competition policy can be complementary and need not conflict with one another.
It is the wealthy Member States which make greatest use of the instrument of state aid, and cutting down on this by a more rigorous implementation of competition policy will definitely help the poorer Member States by creating a level playing field.
But regional policy can actually lead to unintentional distortions of competition.
I am not talking here about explicitly giving preference to the poorest regions, because that is what we are trying to do.
What I am talking about is regions which cannot, by any criterion, be deemed still to need assistance, but which continue to receive a great deal of aid and are also able to benefit from discriminatory tax regimes because they did need assistance in the past.
Our regional policy is too slow to react to change.
Part of the reason for this is that we take a decision just once every six or seven years on which regions qualify for aid, and we do that on the basis of figures which are already a few years old.
Thus it can happen that Ireland is still an Objective 1 region in 1999, the criterion for which is a GDP of less than 75 % of the Union average.
Yet Ireland's GDP in 1997 was already above the Union average, and the following year it was actually 116 % of average GDP for the Union.
To say that a country like Ireland has to adjust to no longer being an Objective 1 region under the new financial perspective and that it therefore needs both operating and investment aids for a few more years, whilst discriminatory tax regimes can continue till the year 2010, seems to me too daft for words, because that aid enables Ireland to lure firms away from other Union countries which are now poorer than Ireland.
The statement in the Azzolini report that the provisions are too strict for initial investment for whose who have since become too rich will certainly be too much for some of my group to swallow.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioners Wulf-Mathies and Van Miert for their presence here today.
There is no doubt that to date the single market, together with its necessary consequence, economic and monetary union, has been the greatest achievement of the process of building the new Europe.
Such success would not have been possible without a policy guaranteeing competition as the best security for economic growth and job creation.
Nevertheless, free competition and growth must never compromise social and economic cohesion, key elements of the acquis communautaire , to which the Union devotes a significant proportion of its budget.
I should like to focus on the need to tackle the thorny issue of state aid.
According to the existing arrangements, agreements between enterprises, the abuse of dominant positions and unjustified state aid are regulated by constant monitoring to safeguard competition.
However, what sort of aid could be justified? This is not a trivial question and has never been clarified, though the Commission attempted to do so in 1975, 1979 and 1988.
The interpretation of Articles 92(1), 92(3)(a) and 92(3)(c) still gives rise to a number of problems.
As regards the regions with the greatest objective and structural deficits, the only possible interpretation has to be the one that will provide for the greatest development of these areas.
Any other interpretation would certainly be branded as eurocentrist, difficult to justify and therefore unacceptable.
Mr Van Miert is a politician and not a technical expert.
He will surely understand that I would be failing as a politician if I did not take advantage of his presence here today to enquire about the current position regarding the problem being discussed by the Spanish Government and his department in connection with state aid to the Canary Islands.
I realise this is not the time for him to give me a detailed report, but I trust he will be able to give his opinion on the state of the discussions, and reassure public opinion which is very sensitive to this issue.
Mr President, Commissioners, Mr Azzolini's report on the links between regional policy and competition policy is a most important one.
It deals with concerns that directly affect the people in the Member States and the regions.
The resolution may not have any direct impact on the progress of the regional policy reform, yet it must be regarded as directly linked to it, given that we are talking about coherence between European and national regional aid.
Some Member States have no problem with the requirement of coherence which the Commission is laying down in order to secure its competition policy aims because almost their entire territory is covered by European aid.
But the situation is different in some other countries.
Here the dual approach of concentrating the European objective areas on the essential ones, which is right, while at the same time calling for maximum coherence with national aids, sometimes imposes a double burden that is very difficult in regional policy terms.
How can we explain to the people living in the regions concerned that both European and national aid is prohibited, despite the imminent threat of unemployment, despite the absence of promising job prospects?
It is a contradiction in terms for the Commission quite rightly to provide for multiannual transitional periods for phasing out European aid, which ensures that the regions have time to adjust, while using a sledge hammer to reduce national aid and calling for this to be phased out as quickly as possible.
The 2 % flexibility margin is not enough, nor is it convincing.
Nor is there any justification for it being 2 % rather than more or less.
That does not mean that the Commission's endeavour to bring about greater coherence is wrong as such.
In the long term we need a more balanced coverage if we want to avoid distortions of competition.
But the Commission is not taking sufficient account of the special problems of the regions when it subordinates everything to the imperative of free competition and tries to cut back European aid while at the same time taking away any means of granting national aid to compensate for this in a flexible manner.
That would take away any chance of adjustment for many of the regions.
In that respect I welcome the fact that agreement seems to be emerging between the Council and the Commission on taking a more flexible approach to the flexibility question, on not specifying any target dates and giving the Member States more margin for decision.
So the discussion we held in Parliament has had the desired effect.
Mr President, we have arranged that I will speak first and try to respond to Mr Azzolini's report.
My colleague Mr Van Miert will then address the many concrete questions raised in connection with the competition report.
First I want to thank Mr Azzolini for his most interesting and careful report.
I am also grateful that we agree at least on the question of principle, namely that we need greater coherence between national and regional aid policies.
Let me emphasise again, as others have rightly said, that different problems are involved here.
In relation to Objective 1 we already have equal cover between competition aid and regional aid from European resources.
So no problems can arise here, whereas problems can indeed arise in areas where we have less competition aid and where the need for concentration - for Agenda 2000 to lead to greater geographical concentration - basically means that the aid must be reduced from two sides.
Nevertheless I believe that we must begin by emphasising the logic of our policy.
For it makes no sense, given that we concentrate European resources on a minimum number of eligible regions, namely those that have to undergo the biggest structural adjustment processes, for us then to allocate all the resources to these regions, not just European money but also the higher aid intensity.
It makes no sense to embark on a kind of division of labour that would mean that European structural policy looked after the less eligible areas and that national aid was then concentrated on the areas most in need of structural adjustment.
I do not think that would be logical.
What we are in fact proposing is to widen the Member States' regional margin for play, for as a rule national competition aid covers areas wider than those that can be supported through the Structural Funds.
That means that over and above European structural aid the national states and the regional authorities have a variety of means of supporting their structurally weak areas.
Mrs Randzio-Plath was quite right when she said that unfortunately far less use is made of aid that is authorised, aid for environmental improvement and technological development, than of aid for individual undertakings, which very often does not offer any guarantee that this investment will lead to integrated regional development.
That is why I believe that it does indeed make sense to establish more congruence between Objective 2 aid and Article 92(3)(c).
A number of Members have pointed out that on 25 January this year the Foreign Ministers' Council reached agreement on a compromise, which I shall briefly describe to you because it is important to your further discussions.
Let me take up what Mr Rack said, namely that Parliament can play a careful part in the discussions and in seeking Agenda 2000 solutions only if it also has the appropriate information.
I shall therefore read out part of the Foreign Ministers' agreement: 'In the interests of efficient programme planning, the regions undergoing economic and social adjustment must to a large extent be the same regions that are assisted by the Member States under Article 92(3)(c).
Here the Community's aim should be to achieve better coherence by the end of the period 2000 to 2006, with the Member States making the appropriate efforts - in accordance with their situation at the time.'
As I am sure you will notice, this is not necessarily the most direct way of saying that we want to improve the situation.
And I am sure it is no secret either that Mr Van Miert and I myself would certainly have wished to see better coherence.
Nevertheless, I believe that the compromise the Council has now reached will at least lead, on the one side, to rather more flexibility, which is something Parliament has always called for, but - and I believe it is important to note this, given also what Mrs Schroedter said - will also impose an obligation on the Member States to contribute through this regulation to a greater concentration.
Mrs McCarthy may no longer be here, but I would say that consensus will win the day only if we actually succeed in the end in bringing about greater coherence, not because we are purists or take fundamentalist positions in the Commission, but because that is the only way we can actually achieve the effects we want.
In regard to timing, the problems of competition policy and structural policy do indeed differ.
We take the view that the agreement that has now been reached in regard to the common communication will help us find sensible and closely coordinated solutions in both competition and structural policy.
Regarding subsidy shopping, let me point out that we are calling for a certain sustainability of investment for both policies, to ensure that once they have pocketed the aid undertakings do not then relocate and then claim new aid, be it national or European.
In relation to structural policy I just want to point out that I believe that if the monitoring committees play more part in the evaluation and are also given a more substantial role, there will be careful discussion about the sustainability of the investments and that the a major criterion for granting or not granting aid will be whether the assisted undertaking really is established in that region.
That could mobilise a substantial steering instrument.
I hope that in future the monitoring committees will ensure this too.
Let me return now to the concentration of aid on the most disadvantaged regions.
During this debate many speakers have said that this concentration is the crux of the reform and that without concentration any positive effects for poorer regions would be reduced out.
That is why I think it is so important that we do not counteract our own endeavours by watering down the 75 % criterion.
For the rest, the ultraperipheral regions do not face any problems, because they all fulfil the strict 75 % criterion.
In the case of Objective 6 regions we must indeed differentiate, as we must for islands, because there the state of development differs widely and we must all take that into consideration.
We would be doing ourselves no favour if we said that exceptions would guarantee everyone their own special rules; instead we must ensure that the level of aid is adjusted to the severity of the problems.
In that sense I hope we will agree during the further discussions on Agenda 2000, and above all its implementation, on the need jointly to promote the necessary coherence so that the structurally weakest areas can catch up.
Mr President, firstly I should like to offer my sincerest thanks to the two rapporteurs, Mr Azzolini and Mrs Riis-Jørgensen.
This is not the first time that I have had the pleasure of debating our annual report in person here with Mrs Riis-Jørgensen.
I am truly delighted by the quality of the reports, and also of the debate.
As a result, it is rather a shame, Mr President, that there is so little time to respond to the many comments made and real issues mentioned.
Therefore, I would like to ask you to forgive me for only responding to a few of the points that have been raised, but this is down to necessity.
Firstly, I should like to answer Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's question about democratic control and transparency.
It is a fundamental issue as the Commission has a direct and specific responsibility in this field.
It is both logical and necessary that, at any point in time, the Commission should be prepared to appear before Parliament or before the responsible committees to explain the decisions that it is taking or refusing to take.
Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, I am fully prepared to commit myself to coming here every month and talking to the responsible committee, which is much more than the three visits a year that were made a few years ago.
This is all I ask.
I am in your hands.
There are plenty of issues and problems to debate.
So it is up to you: if you invite me each month, I will be here.
With that said, I should very quickly like to turn to the report by Mr Azzolini, as Mrs Wulf-Mathies has already responded to a number of comments.
We need to agree on the objectives of this process.
Currently, 51 % of the population live in regions eligible for Structural Fund aid, and 47 % in regions eligible for national or regional aid.
With enlargement on the horizon, and bearing in mind that all the countries involved will be eligible for such aid, our policy is threatening to become illogical, given that the aim of regional policy is to help the regions in greatest need.
Therefore, we, Mrs Wulf-Mathies and ourselves, must now work together to try to reduce the number of eligible regions. We must make an effort to concentrate aid and try to be as consistent as possible.
And I am delighted by the fact that, at Commission level, we have been able to reach an agreement on this.
This is a rather delicate and at times politically difficult operation because even reducing the number of eligible regions by only 4 % - and reducing them from 47 % to 43-42.7 % is not difficult - is already causing a great deal of political upset.
Even a small reduction spurs all manner of forces into action, standing up to demand that their region remain eligible.
But if we do not do this, I feel that we will not be doing our job or our duty given the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union.
Therefore, we must work along these lines and accept that our policy will have certain effects.
We also need to decrease the intensity of aid.
On many occasions you have specifically criticised the problem of relocations.
Such relocations can be explained by the fact that sometimes, in certain regions, the intensity of aid is such that firms leave other eligible regions to move to regions where the intensity of aid is much greater.
You have called on us to do something about this.
So, in answer to your request, we are reducing the differences in intensity whilst also remaining within acceptable limits as the limit for A regions is 40 or 50 %.
For the outermost regions the limit may be even more, but for C regions I believe that an intensity of 20 % is a suitable ceiling and, in certain circumstances, could even drop to 10 %.
As a result, I believe that this is a better balance and, what is more, the national authorities will still be able to do a lot for the most needy regions.
Therefore, in the future, our policy will be much more balanced than before.
I will finish there on your report as there are a number of questions on Mrs Riis-Jørgensen's report also awaiting an answer.
Firstly, there is the general question of state aid.
Many of you have said that the economically most developed countries award the most aid.
This is indeed true, and it is also why we are trying to be much stricter.
I can tell you that, last year, we made a series of negative decisions on state aid, as many as 31, compared with only 9 in 1997.
This is clear proof that, little by little, we have become far stricter, as should be the case.
You know what the consequences of this are, sometimes involving disputes with governments, regional authorities and so on.
But that is the price that has to be paid for a more credible, consistent and coherent state aid control policy.
There is no other solution.
We must be sure of what we want.
Having said this, there are grounds for forging ahead with this issue.
Mr Metten talked specifically about fiscal aid.
Mr Metten, as you know we currently have approximately thirty cases to consider, but I should like to ask you where I can find the human resources to do so. Once again, we have been given an extra job to do, which we are quite prepared to do as there is a need for it, but no one in the Council of Finance Ministers has asked if DG IV has the means to do this job.
No one has asked if we have the tax consultants to do it. No one has asked this question.
Once again, we have been given an additional responsibility, which we would indeed like to carry out, but for goodness' sake, from now on, there should be more consistency by giving us the means we need to carry out this type of work.
As regards state aid, I would particularly like to mention the matter of the energy sector in Spain very briefly.
I am aware that this issue is gaining extraordinary political proportions.
This is how the situation stands.
Firstly, the Spanish authorities would like to liberalise the energy sector more rapidly than in other Member States or than stated in the directive, and we can only welcome this.
This much is clear.
Secondly, it is true that this operation, not only in Spain but in other Member States, will involve what we call 'stranded costs', but in principle it is a state aid issue.
So the Commission and DG IV must be notified of all these cases, as well as DG XVII, so that we can examine them separately but coherently.
After the contact I had with the Spanish minister a few days ago, the Spanish Government has now agreed that it will also notify us of Spain's case. This will mean it can be examined by my service as it should be, in accordance with the principle that stranded costs should be classified as real costs linked to public service obligations previously imposed on businesses by the public authorities, and which now, in the liberalisation process, are in danger of causing the businesses involved to lose out.
This is the background to this whole exercise.
For the moment, I cannot say any more than that.
Once we have been notified, we will, of course, attempt to clarify the situation as quickly as possible.
Another issue is that of the Canary Islands.
We have already approved what we call REF, the economic and fiscal regime.
And now, we have been notified about the ZEC, as we call it - the Canaries special region.
The fact that the Canary Islands will remain an A region will clearly let us consider allowing more aid than if they had moved from an A ranking to a C ranking.
It allows for a broader based approach.
However, for the moment we are examining what the government has brought to our attention.
At this point, I cannot tell you any more.
Mr President, I see that I have already exceeded my speaking time.
Please allow me, by way of conclusion, to highlight an issue which unfortunately has not been fully debated here today, namely the modernisation of competition policy.
Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, I will take the liberty of suggesting a subject to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy so we can debate it.
You know that we have already taken a series of steps as regards state aid and in other areas such as vertical restraints, and so on.
But there are others and, very briefly, I should very much like to have an opportunity to discuss them with the responsible committee.
So we are attempting - and I will stop here - to ensure that our competition policy is more transparent, more efficient and more credible, but also that it is well enough prepared to face the challenges ahead.
Enlargement is one such challenge, and it is an extraordinary one. However, before the end of this Commission's term of office, we must also ensure that together we can say that we have done everything possible to prepare for the future and to allow the Commission to do its job properly.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Climate change
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to report to you today on the results of the climate negotiations in Buenos Aires and the follow-up work for the coming months.
Parliament has put forward a very interesting resolution and I note with satisfaction that we are agreed on the great majority of points.
My assessment of the Buenos Aires conference is also that it was a success, although the overall result was limited.
To begin with the Community achieved its minimum objective, namely a Plan of Action with a Work Programme for concrete decisions on outstanding issues arising from the Kyoto Protocol and the Convention, which as you know will be taken up by the Sixth Conference of the Parties in less than two years' time.
Secondly, the EU played an important role in getting the G77 countries and China to the negotiating table, so that they could feel more closely involved in the process.
I continue to focus on better relations with the developing countries in connection with the preparations for the Fifth Conference of the Parties, not least by prioritising the practical formulation of the mechanism for sustainable development, the Clean Development Mechanism.
Finally, there is a commitment on the part of the Argentinian Presidency to strengthen political control of the process by holding ad hoc meetings at ministerial level in the enlarged Executive Committee between annual meetings of the Conference of the Parties.
I believe that such ad hoc meetings are crucial in keeping the process on the right track.
On the whole, therefore, I think that the Fourth Conference of the Parties succeeded in making good progress towards implementing the Kyoto Protocol.
As regards the individual parts of the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, I have the following comments to make: we have some hard work ahead of us in formulating detailed rules on the mechanisms, in particular because monitoring and recording are needed in order to prevent these mechanisms from being used as loopholes in the environmental legislation.
I therefore think it important that a decision should be taken at the Sixth Conference of the Parties on the three mechanisms together, so that the package will include a strong and cohesive system for monitoring the mechanisms.
We also want to continue the debate on how we can achieve the Convention's final objective, namely to prevent dangerous climate change, at the same time ensuring that the burdens are shared fairly and taking into account our common but differentiated responsibilities.
I call upon honourable Members to consider how we can best resolve this difficult question, especially having regard to the reluctance of the developing countries to take part in discussions on their own obligations, which was in fact again clearly demonstrated at the Fourth Conference of the Parties.
It is important that we do further work on implementing policies and measures to combat climate change, not just at international level but to an even greater degree in the EU and hence in the Member States.
I also agree with Parliament that we must concretise how we can achieve our aims, since good intentions are certainly not enough.
The Commission, Parliament and the Council must take their responsibilities seriously and come up with concrete actions and decisions.
In this connection, I stress that some important proposals have been presented which require a decision, for example the proposal on taxation of energy products.
I strongly urge Parliament to deliver its opinion on this proposal before the parliamentary elections, so that the new momentum from the German Presidency can be used to advantage and so that political agreement can be reached at the meeting of the ECOFIN Council in May.
In the field of taxation, our first objective must be to ensure that the proposal on taxation of energy products is adopted, since an increasing number of Member States now seem to agree that such taxation is necessary.
If the German Presidency does not succeed in bringing about agreement - which I certainly hope it will - we can still consider what we can do with the proposal for a CO2 tax, which was originally presented in 1992 and which, as you know, has not been withdrawn by the Commission.
With the Plan of Action and the internal policies and measures, our aim is that the Kyoto Protocol should be ratified and take effect as quickly as possible.
I am strongly in favour of speedy ratification.
But this means that we must put our own house in order, so that ratification will not be just an empty gesture.
In this context, the more proactive stance of certain American industrial interests in the effort to combat climate change and the signature of the Protocol by the USA can be regarded as positive steps.
There were signs in Buenos Aires of a more positive attitude on the part of certain sections of the American Congress.
But the goal has still not been attained, far from it, and honourable Members have a valuable role to play in continuing - as they did in Buenos Aires - to persuade their colleagues in the American Congress that the Protocol must be ratified.
Here I have to say that I am sceptical with regard to declarations from Argentina and Kazakhstan signalling their willingness to enter into a binding commitment at the Fifth Conference of the Parties.
In the long term it is important that the developing countries should be involved, but the real test of such voluntary commitments is their final effect in practice.
In order that a country can take advantage of the benefits of the Protocol, it must sign it.
It must also honour in full the obligations it has thereby taken upon itself.
Moreover, we must - as we have said before - ensure that we do not just get more hot air into the system through having unambitious objectives.
So let me come back to our internal programme of work.
As I already announced in September, I shall be presenting a communication in the spring of 1999.
This undertaking was welcomed by the European Council in Vienna, which concluded that it would take a decision on the basis of a report from the Commission on a comprehensive EU strategy for climate policy at its meeting in Cologne which, as you know, will be held at the beginning of June.
I entirely agree that we need a comprehensive EU strategy.
The year 2008 looks far ahead in the future, but we must act now if we are to have any chance of achieving our objective.
In the Commission communication therefore, we will concentrate on those elements that are crucial to ensuring that the EU can achieve its objectives.
These key elements include common and coordinated policies and measures, the Kyoto mechanisms and links with third countries.
The communication will contain a full analysis of the effects of the trade in emission rights, common implementation and the Clean Development Mechanism.
I assure you that I will do my utmost to expedite the adoption of this communication so that it can be presented promptly and be ready for the Cologne summit.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will say in closing that, generally speaking, I can support Parliament's resolution and I look forward to further very constructive cooperation in our common effort to combat climate change.
Mr President, may I remind the Commissioner that, according to one of our sayings, words and deeds are often oceans apart.
If we want to keep to the timetable that was drawn up in Buenos Aires and if we want to draw up our own timetable for that purpose, we shall have to cross those oceans together in the fastest possible time with the firmest measures we can implement, otherwise we shall be left sitting helplessly on one shore as the climatic disaster breaks out on the other.
I think it is essential, Commissioner, to do a number of things at international level.
One of these - and a very important one too - is to continue the dialogue with the developing countries that was so productive in Buenos Aires so that we can develop the proposals for the clean development mechanism together with these countries.
I also believe that, even though we have had little joy on this from the outset, we in the European Union must come up with some very specific proposals as to how emissions trading should ultimately work, how monitoring can be carried out and how individual emissions and reductions in emissions are to be assessed, so that we are armed with this information when the time comes.
I also believe it is essential to incorporate these issues more effectively into our strategies for negotiating the accession of the applicant countries to an enlarged Union.
In Kyoto, the countries whose applications are being considered for accession in the first wave undertook to make the same reductions in emissions as the Member States of the European Union.
The crux of the matter now, however, is to involve them in the preparation process, so that we do not have a situation in which they accede to membership of the Union without having made the necessary preparations and therefore cannot be integrated into the European system of burden-sharing.
I think some of my colleagues will want to deal in greater detail with European burden-sharing.
I only wish to say that, besides the coordination of national plans, it will also be necessary to ensure that we have the required legal bases at EU level and that we create such bases wherever they are lacking, because unless we pool our efforts we shall not achieve the goal we set ourselves in Kyoto.
I also believe that these measures will have to be accompanied by the development of safeguards in the areas of health, agriculture and ecological protection, because as the change in climate becomes ever more apparent, dangers will emerge that we may never have contemplated.
It is my belief that, as we prepare to enter the new millennium, we now have the opportunity to achieve sustainable development, rapid technological progress and above all a fairer distribution of the world's resources, and I hope we have the strength and the courage to grasp that opportunity.
Mr President, before I speak to the resolution, can I clear up a translation error.
In the English interpretation of what the Commissioner said, reference was made to the withdrawal by the Commission of the CO2 tax.
In fact, you were much wiser than that.
You did not withdraw the proposal, you amended it, and that amended proposal is still on the table and I hope the Council will take it up.
I trust that all the language versions will be consistent with what you actually said.
I am grateful for a copy of the text in English.
I had the honour to lead Parliament's delegation to the Buenos Aires Conference and the report from myself and other colleagues is available to Parliament.
In my view, COP IV was a moderate success dragged screaming from the jaws of what might have been a negotiators' deadlock.
The Buenos Aires Action Plan promises some progress by the time of COP VI in the year 2000.
For the first time it reflects interest in the principles of contraction and convergence and of global equity which this Parliament has voted for regularly.
My report draws attention to the helpful and positive role of the Commission in Buenos Aires for which I am grateful and for the courtesy which it showed towards Parliament.
My report also draws attention to the failure of the Council either to recognise, to use, or intelligently to consult MEPs during the course of the Conference.
The latest Council guidelines on MEP involvement, decided on a week before Buenos Aires, are positively insulting to Parliament.
I have raised the matter with the President and I hope that the Committee on Institutional Affairs would look at this in the context of the next IGC.
The Union learnt the lessons of our relative failure in Kyoto and reached out towards countries in the Group of 77, looking for allies in the cause of sanity in protecting the climate of the planet.
I would like to use my last few seconds to make an appeal to the Commission.
Despite what the Commissioner said about the possibility of political progress between COPs, I should like to encourage the idea of a structural review of the whole process of the Conference of the Parties.
In my view at the moment it is far too prone to technical logjams stopping political initiatives.
The rhythm of the Conference of the Parties makes it difficult to take political initiatives between conferences.
I was in Bonn yesterday talking to Michael Zammit-Cutajar of the Climate Change Secretariat and I suggested to him that maybe the time had come for a structural review of the way we organise this whole process, perhaps using our old tried and trusted friend the Group of Wise Men - or Eminent Persons or whatever we call it nowadays - to stand back from the detailed negotiations and look at the destination of this process.
It seems to me, having been to all these COPs, that we are caught now between this being a continuing and at times difficult negotiation and, at the same time, being an institution with administrative responsibilities.
I hope the Commission will take up this suggestion.
I thank the Commissioner for her statement and I commend the resolution to the House.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is difficult to claim that Buenos Aires was really a success.
Whilst the Kyoto talks managed to agree on a reduction of greenhouse gases, regrettably no detailed rules were agreed on how exactly this should be achieved.
I think it is fair to say that the Union has done what it could, and I warmly congratulate Commissioner Bjerregaard on her hard work and determination.
We have the Buenos Aires action plan and we should give this our full attention, because important decisions will have to be taken at the climate conference in the year 2000.
I should like to emphasise two points. Firstly, if the Kyoto protocol is to come into force, it has to be ratified by at least 55 of the parties which account for at least 55 % of all emissions.
We must keep hammering home the point that it is essential for the USA to ratify.
If the biggest polluter - the USA - and Russia do not ratify, for example, then Kyoto is meaningless.
My second point is that emissions trading can only be allowed if the bulk of the effort is made at national level.
I quite agree with Commissioner Bjerregaard that we must set a ceiling on emissions trading.
We must not, so to speak, export the problem.
The positions of the Union and the USA are diametrically opposed to one another here.
The Union rightly maintains that action to combat climate change only makes sense if everyone plays their part.
And this has always been the position of Parliament, even if it is not explicitly stated in the resolution now before us.
Finally, regarding the harmonised energy tax, we too are in favour of a tax of this kind, but provided it is fiscally neutral.
Our group has tabled two amendments calling for a harmonised tax, and they should be understood in that context.
I have one last question to the Commissioner.
Where does she stand on the question of a possible tax on aviation fuel, to be introduced at European level?
There are those who say, perhaps rightly, that the answer lies in better technology so that the level of emissions is reduced.
But the increase in air transport means that measures will definitely be needed in this area too.
Mr President, how can one fail to agree with the Commissioner when she proposes specific measures, follow-up procedures, cooperation with developing countries and taxation in connection with the production of energy? I am sure we all agree with her, particularly as she has put forward specific measures to ensure that what has been agreed is carried through.
According to scientific opinion and to the United Nations' report, 50 000 deaths and losses totalling 12 billion pesetas were caused by natural disasters in 1998. I do not myself believe these disasters were all that natural.
I am not sure what the losses amount to in euros, but 12 billion pesetas is certainly a lot of money.
In my opinion, there are a lot of economic powers and governments that should be taking appropriate action, if only because of the economic consequences of these natural disasters. We, however, are going further, and we truly believe the European Union's proposal was the best, despite being rather cautious.
The European Parliament has expressed this view on several occasions.
Scientists also tell us that emissions must be brought down to between 50 % and 60 % of their 1990 levels, if we are to have a positive impact on climate change.
We are aiming at an 8 % reduction in the emission of six greenhouse gases.
If we do not even achieve that 8 % reduction, we shall be endangering the future of the planet.
We therefore welcome your proposals, Commissioner, provided you do ensure that the Member States comply with them. In particular, we should like to see the load spread fairly between industrialised and developing countries.
We are opposed to the idea of making developing countries start to pay, as the United States would have them do.
It is for us to pay.
Mr President, I was part of the delegation with Mr Spencer and Mr Linkohr at the conference in Buenos Aires.
How one judges the conference is a matter of opinion.
Mr Spencer said it was a moderate success. I think that is a fair description.
I recall Commissioner Bjerregaard saying at the press conference at the end that we would have wanted to achieve more, that we always do, but that this was as much as we could persuade the other parties to the conference to agree to.
The European Union showed real leadership, supported to a large extent by the candidate countries, the G77 and China.
I also recall the President-in-Office of the Council saying that at Kyoto we agreed on concrete reduction targets and greenhouse gas emissions by the industrialized countries.
In Buenos Aires we kept the momentum of Kyoto by establishing the action plan which was one of the objectives of Buenos Aires and deciding on other measures like the elaboration of a compliance system.
The international press treated the conference with a certain amount of cynicism; some called it a fiasco.
It was a difficult conference because there were long, tortuous and turgid negotiations but I cannot but support Mr Spencer and congratulate the Commission.
I also applaud the decision by the United States to sign the protocol.
While recognising that it may be a diplomatic formality, as we say in the resolution, at the same time it is very effective and signals a change of opinion in the United States.
We must also applaud the COP IV host countries, Argentina and Kazakstan for signalling their willingness to enter into a binding commitment at COP V to reduce their greenhouse emissions further.
That is progress of some sort, small though it may be.
So, it is a good resolution. I support it as does my group and, along with Mr Spencer, I commend it to the House.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Fitzsimons, I would ask you not to exceed the time you have been allocated.
The services tell me we are running late.
I have no wish to cut you off, and I am confident you can regulate yourselves.
I know you are all very responsible and will take this reminder in the spirit in which it is meant.
Mrs Hautala now has the floor for one minute on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament.
Mr President, the European Union has had a very positive role in worldwide negotiations, and, in my opinion, the Commissioner deserves personal recognition for this.
But at the same time the fact remains, and it gets ever more embarrassing from one day to the next, that the Union has not been able to take any decisions of its own which would lead to establishing its own commitments too.
For that reason it is vital that we debate the issue of energy taxation, something the Commissioner mentioned earlier.
It is also important that those countries that wish to go further than others can, in addition, adopt this original proposal for a carbon dioxide and energy tax.
It would be interesting to hear what estimates the Commission might have here.
We must remember that the Treaty of Amsterdam makes provision for a situation where some countries can move forward more swiftly than others, if those others are not ready.
But I am sure that industry has also realised that climate policy can give it a competitive edge, and this should be seized upon.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, was Buenos Aires a flop?
I do not think so.
It was not a flop, it just suffered from the last night at Kyoto when the Americans tried to introduce flexible mechanisms into the protocol without which they were not going to sign up.
It must also be said that the Conference President did not show the same diplomacy as Ambassador Estrada, who led the proceedings at Kyoto extremely well, but that is just a minor detail.
My group agrees with the idea of pursuing a 50/50 position in the flexible mechanisms. This means that at least 50 % of the reductions must be made at home before the flexible mechanisms may be used.
The European Union must continue to support this position.
I therefore agree with the introduction of the flexible mechanisms, which will finally allow the cost of emitting one tonne of carbon to be calculated in economic terms.
This will have repercussions on the tax systems of the industrialised countries which are included in Annex I. I particularly dislike the pressure put by the developed countries, in particular the USA, on the developing countries to undertake to reduce their emissions too.
It must be said that the developing countries, which are non-Annex I countries, do not even have any quota to sell under Article 6.
I recall a comment by the Chinese delegate at Kyoto, who said that the Americans have three cars per family whereas the Chinese go to work on foot and yet the Americans and the Europeans want to stop the Chinese from going to work on the bus.
We must be serious about this and rather more flexible with regard to the developing countries.
I would now like to turn to a subject of great interest to me, which is forestry.
The Kyoto Protocol stipulates that funding can be granted for reforestation, particularly for carbon sequestration and especially within the CDM or Clean Development Mechanism.
This can play an important role in allowing the industrialised countries to support and provide funding for reforestation projects in developing countries.
The NGOs concerned with the protection of the environment point out that it is essential that only projects which respect biodiversity are subsidised.
We must ensure that projects for intensively managed plantations are not subsidised at the expense of protecting biodiversity.
Mr President, the outcome of the 1997 Kyoto conference on climate change was rightly seen as a turning-point, albeit only a first step in the right direction.
It represents a first attempt to reduce greenhouse gases and so halt the progress of man-made changes to the world's climate.
It is most important that the Kyoto Protocol should be speedily ratified by all the parties, notably the United States and Russia.
Pressure is building towards this, particularly amongst business circles in the United States.
It is clear that much remained to be done after Kyoto in terms of concrete follow-up.
The follow-up conference in Buenos Aires has resulted in a single programme of action with pledges and timetables. That was a welcome development.
Much consideration must also be given to dialogue with the developing world.
But there is a danger that it may be restricted to the conclusion of agreements on emissions trading.
Firstly, in my view, the European Union itself must work to cut greenhouse gas emissions within the EU.
It is also very important to assist other countries, for example by the transfer of cleaner technology which can be provided through development aid.
It may be that emissions trading takes place within the continent of Europe.
Emissions trading will only take place with countries outside Europe if those countries actually take steps to reduce greenhouse gases.
If countries within the EU itself make an effort, this may encourage non-European countries to play their own part in cutting emissions.
To achieve this reduction in emission levels, environmental policy needs to be incorporated into other policy sectors, such as energy, transport and agriculture.
Appropriate ways to do this are the promotion of efficient energy use, renewable energy and energy taxes.
Once again, I would advocate the introduction of a tax on aviation fuel.
Lastly, our responsibility for these issues is a shared one, but each individual country has an individual responsibility to contribute to resolving the problems too.
The individual citizen likewise has an individual responsibility.
So work is needed to create a worldwide awareness of the fact that things cannot go on this way and that a new model of sustainable economic development is needed, based on respect for the natural world and its Creator.
Mr President, the slower-than-slow approach to reducing emissions that was adopted in Buenos Aires is like trying to have a wash without getting wet.
An effective policy on the global climate will not be achieved until the real cost of emitting active substances into the atmosphere is borne in full by the polluter.
For that to happen, we need a suitable legal framework.
The oft-repeated excuse that reducing emission levels is too expensive is suicidal.
A society that is unwilling to invest in the preservation of its own vital resources, and hence in the survival of the human species, is doomed to extinction.
The emissions catalogue that was negotiated in Buenos Aires is no way to tackle the problem.
In the long run, problems can only be solved at the point where they actually occur.
Mr President, I must say that one pleasant side-effect of the debates in this House on the global climate is that we are always in agreement.
That is the one ray of sunshine.
But when we compare our declarations of intent with the actual outcome, the picture begins to cloud over.
I shall simply use the figures I have obtained from the Commission.
Total CO2 emissions in the European Union rose by 2 % between 1990 and 1996.
In 1997 there was a small reduction, but the winter weather was mild in 1997, and there is nothing to suggest that we have wrought any fundamental changes.
The reduction we saw in the first half of this decade, which has now given way to further increases, can be explained away. We replaced coal with gas.
We replaced oil with gas.
As a result of German reunification, an entire region was deindustrialised.
In addition, existing plants were modernised.
These are processes that will not be repeated.
In other words, accelerated economic growth in particular means that, by the year 2000, we must expect CO2 emissions to be higher - and indeed measurably higher - than their 1990 levels.
Let me cite the example of my own federal state of Baden-Württemberg; it is quite a highly industrialised state.
Since 1995, per capita CO2 emissions have risen considerably there as a result of economic growth.
So the tide is definitely not turning.
That makes us stop and think.
Now of course we can say, 'Very well, we need to try harder' and so on.
But we have tried harder in some respects, as a result of which - and these too are Commission figures - there has been an average annual increase in energy efficiency of only 0.6 % since 1990, whereas 2 % increases were being achieved in the eighties and the late seventies.
That too makes us stop and think.
It implies that we are capable of achieving less now than we could manage ten or fifteen years ago.
What we need - and this is addressed to the Commission and more especially, of course, to the Council - is an action plan with measurable targets.
I should really like to know exactly what each country and each industry has to do, what is expected in terms of transport policy and even what households should be doing.
Above all, we have to ask ourselves how this can be funded. So how can it be funded?
And this brings me to my final recommendation to the Commission. Put something on the table here; suggest a way to reach agreement with the banks so that investments in the energy sector can be prefinanced, because funds are not being advanced at the present time for energy investments, and I believe this is the main reason why we are not making progress.
The technology is generally there, but the money is not!
Mr President, although Mr Linkohr has taken two-thirds of my speech, I am actually 100 % in agreement with what he has said.
I want to start by thanking the Commission and particularly the Commissioner for their work and personal commitment and also for the way in which, in Buenos Aires, they received and worked with the representatives of this House.
Unfortunately, the Council adopted an attitude which it cannot maintain.
In institutional terms, Parliament must now adopt a position in relation to the Council and each of the Presidencies, and before the next intergovernmental conference at that.
The second part of my speech is connected with what Mr Linkohr said about policies and measures.
My concern is that reductions are not being made in many areas of the EU and in the majority of the world's countries.
In Portugal, for example, electricity consumption grew by 6 % last year, which was double the growth in production.
It is clear that this cannot go on.
I support the Commission's intention to prepare a directive - which I would like to see as soon as possible - in order to establish certain compulsory minimum levels of penetration of renewable energy.
We have spoken to Commissioner Papoutsis and we agree that the directive is urgently needed.
The penetration of renewable energy in the market has been shrinking because of the fall in the price of oil and natural gas, and also given that the cost of energy does not currently include environmental costs.
Secondly, we have the Structural Funds and the European transport network which are areas over which the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has some influence through the budget. The Member States must be forced to use this money to consider transport options which consume less energy.
As for the applicant countries, PHARE and TACIS now have no influence over their energy consumption.
If this situation continues, Mr Linkohr's prediction will come true: as soon as the acute crisis has ended, emissions will increase.
To conclude, I must say that the Commission could perhaps support the initiatives of certain companies such as BP and others, which are assuming positive attitudes towards climate change, by organising a major event in Brussels on the positive role that could be played by companies prepared to take this issue seriously.
Thank you, Mr Pimenta.
After your first few words, Mr Pimenta, I was considering withholding two thirds of your speaking time, but you then went on to exceed it by a minute.
Once again, I must urge Members to keep within the time they have been allocated, as the services tell me we are running late.
I know you all have very important issues to raise, but I would ask you to be concise.
My remarks are addressed in the first instance to Mrs Breyer, who now has the floor for one minute.
Mr President, Commissioner, you referred to the role of the United States.
I believe the issue today is a different one. It is about the need for the European Union to take the lead here.
To put it plainly, loopholes in the Protocol such as the scope for emissions trading must not be used as a means of wriggling out of responsibility. Which takes us straight to this question: what has happened to the promised measures?
I should also like to hear from you exactly what is to happen now with regard to the implementation of the White Paper on renewable energy sources?
You referred to the key role that the energy tax is to play. All right, we now have a proposal on an energy consumption tax, but that is surely a tiny step.
After all, the Commission itself has admitted that the implementation of this proposal will not prevent a 6 % increase in emission levels by the year 2010.
What did you say about the most intractable problem of all, namely transport? We know that CO2 emissions by vehicles are set to rise by 38 % between now and 2010.
Here too, I would ask you to answer the questions my fellow Members have been asking. When will kerosene finally be taxed?
When will you make some serious efforts to honour the promise that was made to us last year? We need action, not paper and not fine words.
Mr President, we need to lift our eyes from concentrating only on the fiscal measures.
We seem to do quite a lot of wringing our hands about the Council's reluctance to agree an energy tax and other fiscal measures.
I agree with the Commissioner that it is time the Commission put its own house in order on climate change.
I want to hear some detailed commitments that this is happening.
Early in the debates we heard some nice aspirations about sustainable agriculture and I applaud that.
However, I want to ask the Commission what action it is taking to green its approach to the single market, to the way it is implemented and to the way competition policy works, to the way in which it spends overseas aid, to its policy on trade, to its accession negotiations, which a lot of colleagues have mentioned, and the structural funds as well as the CAP.
We need to see active implementation on strategic environmental assessment with an eye to climate change and to use this as a tool for assessment of policy at European level, especially external aid as well as policy here in the European Union.
We also need more work on exactly what clean development technology transfer will consist of and the relationship with our overseas development assistance.
Active implementation of CDMs is going to be pivotal to winning the support we need for the Kyoto protocol from the developing countries.
Without some support from them for the notion of equity, we will continue to have problems trying to get America to ratify.
If we can make progress on some of these issues, the European Union could go forward with confidence to set the tone for COPs V and VI.
Certainly we know that climate change is not going away and it certainly will not go away because of the text that Parliament is going to vote tomorrow.
The United States is not going to ratify simply because we asked it to.
This week the Environment Ministers are down in the Antarctic watching how it is melting away, looking at what the problems are going to be.
We need some kind of commitment from the Commission and I hope that we will hear the Commission and the Council ensure that the European Union takes the necessary action to deal with the points I have raised as well as the perennial favourites of energy taxes.
Mr President, Commissioner, of all the environmental challenges facing us, climate change is undoubtedly the most complex. Every country in the world is tangibly affected.
Emissions do not pose a threat in the short term, but in the long term they are infinitely more serious.
The first hesitant steps towards a negotiated solution have been accomplished with a certain amount of pain.
Since the commitment which has to be made can impinge noticeably on a nation's finances, it is essential to find solutions which benefit the environment at the lowest possible cost.
There is no doubt that trade in emission levels provides such a solution.
Therefore, in my view, it is absolutely crucial for the Commission to carry out a wide-ranging study into how this instrument should be used to ensure that the problem of climate change is dealt with in the right way.
Research carried out in Scandinavia shows that trade in carbon dioxide emissions in the Nordic countries would cut costs by 50 %.
Although a reduction in emissions may be hard to verify, the research shows that the benefits of a successful outcome are so substantial that a huge effort needs to be made to establish a sustainable system.
It must also be in the EU's best interests not to unilaterally adopt economic instruments which have the effect of substantially increasing costs, for example in comparison with the USA, putting us at a competitive disadvantage.
In future negotiations, we should put right some of the mistakes that were made at Kyoto.
For the sake of the future, we should not dismiss economically sound methods which have shown themselves to be effective.
The phasing-out of nuclear power would lead to serious problems if it became a reality.
Instead, this excellent source of energy should be developed and improved.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the Kyoto Conference on Climate Change and the conference in Buenos Aires last November, the European Union has drawn up its own genuine action plan covering certain crucial issues. First, it covers funding mechanisms to help developing countries face the challenges linked to climate change.
Secondly, it covers future work on policies and measures to be implemented which are already on the agenda for the next conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention.
Thirdly, it covers the development and transfer of clean technologies, which will help developing countries not to repeat the environmental blunders the developed countries have made, and fourthly, it covers the basic rules for the flexibility mechanisms contained in the Kyoto Protocol, although agreement needs to be reached on an institutional structure for these.
I agree with Members who have said that dialogue is fundamental, but I also want to mention that, in just two months, the Joint ACP-EU Assembly, which has a working group on climate change in small island states, will not only be adopting a highly important resolution for the developing countries but will certainly be making a statement after two years of work.
I would therefore like to ask Mrs Bjerregaard why on earth we have received no satisfactory response from the Commission when, for example, we have highlighted the importance of acting in synergy with other Directorates-General, such as DG VIII and DG XI, on science, research and development. We are extremely concerned for the ACP countries and we have called for a disaster prevention fund because we believe the small island states are extremely vulnerable to climate change.
So I would ask the Commissioner either to respond here and now or to let those of us who are working in very close synergy have some answers as soon as possible.
This is becoming crucial for us because the crises occurring in Africa and the ACP island states are leading to grave disasters.
Mr President, I should like to thank Parliament for the debate.
I think that Mr Linkohr was quite right and that he put his finger on something we may have noticed in these debates.
Parliament and the Commission are in agreement, but the reality we come up against is different: it could be said that the other parties we have to deal with, who are crucial in ensuring that all this will come to something, are not thinking on the same lines as ourselves.
In the course of the debate, I have heard a number of suggestions as to how we can do more to persuade the other parties to become more actively committed to the line that we have taken.
So I entirely share the view of Mrs Graenitz that it is important for us to continue the international effort, not least in relation to the developing countries.
I agree with Mrs Graenitz and others that the applicant countries must be more closely involved. I think it was Mr Pimenta who also stressed this point.
It is what we are trying to do all the time.
It is also what we did in Buenos Aires but clearly, on the point of energy policy and its consequences, there is a great deal still to be done in relation to the applicant countries.
Mr Spencer was quite right about the interpreting error - that happens from time to time when one speaks a minor language - so I am happy to confirm that what I said was that the CO2 levy, which had originally been proposed in 1992, was not withdrawn by the Commission.
I also think we have good reason to consider how we organise the process.
We had some discussion of this in Buenos Aires.
I also mentioned that the continued Argentine Presidency had plans for a more political process, but I am happy to take part in discussions on other ways of tackling it.
Mrs Hautala stressed - and I think quite rightly - that we must meet our own objectives.
If we want to stick to the line we have embarked upon, then we must also be in a position to see it through to the end, and that is indeed what we intend to do, both by presenting a communication and also by taking the matter up at Council meetings.
In other words, the Commission must come up with a further plan, which I will be happy to discuss with Parliament.
The question of a flight tax or a kerosene tax, which we have discussed once or twice, is somewhat more difficult.
We have also taken this up in a number of forums.
The last occasion on which I myself pressed very hard for it was at a meeting we had under OECD auspices with the environment ministers.
It was very clear that there was powerful opposition from the USA, Canada, Japan and others, so the question is whether something can be done at European level, because the opposition at international level is formidable.
I share Mrs Pollack's view that there are a great many areas we must tackle.
There will be some initiatives on the internal market.
Later in the year, I think, we shall have an opportunity to discuss the problems relating to the WTO.
I think Parliament may remember that there was a joint communication from Sir Leon Brittan and myself, and we certainly intend to continue this cooperation up to the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
Fortunately, I can say that the German Presidency has included the proposal on strategic environmental assessment on its prioritised list, so it is also my hope that we can make further progress in this area.
Mr President, there may well be many things we need to discuss, but let me close by thanking Parliament for its support for the line we have embarked on. I look forward to the continuation of that cooperation.
We really need all our forces if we are to convince the other parties that we have set the right course.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Food treated with ionising radiation
The next item is the report (A4-0008/99) by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on
I.the approximation of the laws of the Member States concerning foods and food ingredients treated with ionising radiation (3631/98 - C4-0021/99-00/0169(COD))II.the establishment of a Community list of foods and food ingredients treated with ionising radiation (3632/98 - C4-0022/99-00/0169B(COD)).I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz.
Mr President, I must, of course, express my pleasure at our having finally arrived at a joint text for the directive on irradiated foodstuffs after ten years.
It is worth noting that the Council alone has spent eight years considering the draft, which further testifies to the controversy that surrounds this method.
Naturally enough, we might ask why foodstuffs should be irradiated at all, since it has been proved that vitamins in fruit and vegetables are killed off and also that the irradiation of products with fat content releases free radicals, which, as we know, are carcinogenic.
But I should also like to remind the House that, for as long as we have not had a standard framework, we have naturally had no compulsory labelling either.
Since irradiation is practised in several countries, such as France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and since we have a single market in which irradiated products are traded, there is no real point now in maintaining the old position that Parliament once adopted.
We must prohibit it.
Just wait, Mr Bangemann; it is too soon to be rejoicing.
This will not now happen.
Eighteen months after the entry into force of the directive, labelling will become compulsory.
This naturally also applies to spices and other ingredients, even - and this is very important - if such ingredients constitute less than 25 % of the product.
In addition, we have managed to ensure that, after 1 January 2003, irradiation will only be permissible if standardised and validated verification methods are in place.
You certainly did some resolute stonewalling on this point, Mr Bangemann, and the only reason why we were able to overcome the resistance of the Commission is that the Council was on our side for once.
That was naturally very gratifying. Another important point is that changes to the list of foods and ingredients - which, for its part, has to be on the table by 31 December 2000 - are always governed by the provisions of Article 100a of the Treaty.
It has also been established that the treatment of foodstuffs with ionising radiation must not be a substitute for hygiene, nor must it be used in production processes or in agriculture.
It used to be the case that when food started to go off, ionising radiation was applied, and the eye was deceived, so to speak.
This will no longer be possible in future.
But the crucial point will naturally remain the extent to which we educate consumers on what it means when foodstuffs are treated with ionising radiation.
This, of course, is not something that the average housewife would know.
I can only hope, and we shall be pressing this point, that it will not appear in such small print that it is overlooked, because I still take the view that there is no real need to irradiate foodstuffs.
We should do better to ensure that we eat whatever is in season.
It is not absolutely essential to prevent onions, potatoes and so on from germinating.
For all that, we are naturally in favour of the agreement we have now reached.
Goodness knows how hard it was to achieve this agreement, and we shall do everything in our power to ensure that those who buy these products actually know what they are buying.
If that can be achieved, then I believe we shall have established a good Community system.
I am pleased that progress has been made at long last, and at the end of the day it is almost satisfying, if not entirely so, that we have all received our dues.
Mr President, in several European languages the verb 'to congratulate' is reflexive.
I believe that today we not only need to congratulate the rapporteur on her report but that we can also congratulate ourselves as a Parliament for our dogged, lengthy and ultimately successful efforts to achieve a number of improvements to the original Council proposal and hence to the common position too.
Even though I myself do not believe it is necessary to treat many foodstuffs with radiation, because I share the rapporteur's view that the healthiest food is local produce consumed when it is ripe, I believe that labelling is of great importance to consumers as a means of indicating to them what they are buying and what they can expect from their purchases.
I also consider it important to emphasise that ionising radiation cannot replace good agricultural practice, which means that food should only ever be irradiated when it is fresh.
I also believe it is very important to validate and standardise inspection procedures, so that the Member States can exercise an unambiguous right of control and so that consumers are ultimately able to assert their rights.
At this particular time, when the issue of food safety is under widespread scrutiny, it is essential to have such a directive.
I also believe that the large size of many farms in the applicant countries makes it necessary for us to ensure that the directive is adopted before any enlargement of the Union, so that there is a body of EU food-safety legislation which can be applied to these farms from the outset.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the treatment of foodstuffs with radiation conjures up diabolic visions in the minds of many people, while sending many a practitioner and expert into transports of delight.
European policymakers were faced with the task of reconciling these two extremes and making the practical application of radiation treatment possible.
The treatment of foodstuffs with ionising radiation must be possible, we believe, where it is prudent and necessary, but not as a substitute for health measures and hygiene.
I do not believe what Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz said about radiation being used on food that is going off to make it fit for consumption again.
Not even radiation can do that.
That will be explicitly stated in future directives too. It is a very important principle.
In my opinion, it goes without saying that the food in question poses no health hazard whatsoever.
But that has to be re-emphasised, because we have heard the opposite message again today.
Food treated with ionising radiation is not radioactive food, and we, the population of the EU, can consume it without becoming seriously ill.
Harmonisation at European level is therefore an urgent necessity.
The legal position in the various Member States has hitherto been unduly disparate.
Whereas food has been treated with radiation for years in France, Belgium and the Netherlands, for instance, irradiated foodstuffs are prohibited in other countries, so there is no trace of the single market here.
The result of the conciliation proceedings with the Council is good and has our approval.
The market in food treated with ionised radiation will gradually become a single market too.
Compulsory labelling will also enable consumers to make a choice.
I believe this represents a major success, and I cannot help emphasising the specific role played by my group in the inclusion of standardised and validated verification methods in the directive.
Without validated verification methods, there can be no credible labelling system. And without a credible labelling system, there can be no consumer confidence.
On the subject of confidence, I must repeat - and I agree with Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz here - that spending ten long years on a directive is not something we can afford to do very often.
Let me say to the Commissioners that we certainly cannot afford a repeat with regard to the chocolate directive or the labelling of alcoholic beverages.
Directives like the present one should not become the norm.
It is high time we started to build up consumer confidence by acting quickly.
Mr President, I welcome this directive because it creates a legal framework for the single market in foodstuffs treated with ionising radiation.
It sets high standards and limits to production which may be treated.
Improving food variety and quality through added value is now central to a modern food sector. The quality of the product, information on its source and full details of the added value process must at all times be fully available to consumers.
Food products resulting from new research must only enter the food chain after the most stringent tests have been undertaken.
Consumers must at all times be protected from the uncertainty of inadequate testing of new products.
In a nutshell, public health and consumer protection must be paramount to all other considerations for Europe's agrifood sector.
This Parliament has played a key role in ensuring that the concerns of consumers are taken into account and that the eventual risks related to the control mechanisms are minimized.
The highest standards of food quality must be the primary goal of national governments and the EU.
And measures which enhance and improve food quality must be supported.
I am pleased that in Ireland there is a growing appreciation of the professional role of farmers in providing quality raw material to a food sector committed to the highest standards of consumer satisfaction.
Mr President, in her absence, I should like to congratulate Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz for seeing this very difficult conciliation through. It might have come more quickly.
Anything which includes the word radiation is bound to be fraught with difficulties, misunderstandings and misgivings.
What is the proper use of ionised radiation? Essentially it has to be where consumer safety benefits.
It is for the consumer and for the consumer's health. It is not where producer profits benefit because of the cosmetic effect on fruit and other foodstuffs of limited durability.
We do not benefit from eating strawberries which have passed their natural span simply because they can be artificially preserved.
We do, however, benefit from maintaining the natural span of spices and preservatives which are used in our stores and which are kept for long periods of time.
We have a strict range of products which can be sold now throughout the single market.
We can understand that in each Member State the same conditions apply and the same safeguards apply.
With enlargement soon to come, we should also understand that this is an important benchmark for the applicant states where all kinds of temptations lie in wait for the agricultural sectors in those countries, as Mr Schnellhardt has already said.
This is perhaps the first time we have been able to come to some sort of consensus on an aspect of radiation and radiation treatment. It will not be the last.
Mr President, it is always a very silly situation when people feel they have been proved right, because it is very easy, of course, to feel vindicated by events and to say 'there you are, for ten years I have been fighting the good fight, and the others have finally recognised that I was right'.
But it really has to be said, as I have told Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz - and I believe this may not be primarily the fault of Parliament - that for ten years the Council has purely and simply turned a deaf ear to the argument which was presented here by Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz and which I have advanced at every Council meeting for the past ten years, namely that the situation we had was worse for the consumer than what we have been proposing. Why?
Because we have placed very tight restrictions on the scope for using ionised radiation.
My second point is that we have always pressed for labelling, so that every consumer can choose whether or not to buy one of this limited range of treated food products.
Consumers can leave them on the shelves.
No consumer will be deceived into buying these products unwittingly, because they will be labelled.
As for the honourable Member who has now left, Mr President, I shall get up and leave in the middle of one of the next sittings to bring home to the honourable Members of Parliament how idiotic it is, not to mention discourteous to the Commission, for anyone here to comment on the chocolate issue and then simply to go away before the Commissioner can deal with the point that has been raised.
Protest
Oh I see, you have put your jacket on.
I thought you had left, because you were in shirt-sleeves when you spoke!
Well, as far as chocolate is concerned, the problem is exactly the same.
We proposed labelling so that all consumers can make an entirely free choice as to whether the chocolate they buy is made entirely of cocoa bean ingredients or whether they will accept the use of other vegetable fats.
Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz rightly said that we should have a certain amount of trust in the consumer.
That is the view of the Commission too.
So why not let consumers choose what they want? Some of them can then insist on buying chocolate with only cocoa fats, while others might not mind taking other types of chocolate.
That has been precisely the problem with the radiation too.
As long as we did not have a common set of rules, some Member States treated all sorts of food with ionising radiation, and it was not labelled.
I am now in my eleventh year as a Commissioner. If Parliament is gracious to me, I shall see out my term.
If not, I would not be unduly upset either.
But for ten years I have been putting the case for this directive to the Council; for ten years I have been advancing these arguments - and this applies to many parliamentary debates too, by the way - and it has been like talking to a brick wall.
Sometimes one really does wonder whether it is at all possible to come up with a reasonable set of rules which everyone can accept while appreciating that they might not represent any one person's ideal solution. There is no such thing as an ideal solution in a democracy anyway, because wherever a hundred people are gathered together, at least three or four different opinions will emerge.
But labelling will give consumers the freedom to choose for themselves.
Given the range of opinions on such subjects, the only answer is to give the individual a set of reasonable options.
That is why I am glad that we have finally reached this point.
But if I were a Member of Parliament, I should think thrice before celebrating this as a parliamentary triumph.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your frankness in speaking to the House.
However, it has provoked a comment from Mr Fernández Martín.
Mr President, following the misunderstanding which arose and the Commissioner's remarks, I feel it is incumbent on him to apologise to the Member he addressed so discourteously, and to the whole House.
He cannot just get up and leave in the middle of a sitting.
Mr President, I shall not do that, because the purpose of this debate is to draw some clear political lines at long last.
I did not say that Parliament alone was to blame; Germany, my own Member State, has blocked the solution of this problem for ten years.
I have spent ten years repeating the arguments that Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz has presented this evening.
I am damned if I will apologise, because this is a proper democratic discussion.
You have been wrong for the past ten years, and now you do not want to admit it!
That is unacceptable.
Duplicity kills democracy!
You will know what it says in the Bible about a sinner that repenteth, Mr Bangemann, and I think you should see Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz in that way.
Just a brief comment, Mr President.
Commissioner, I have absolutely no idea why you should be pillorying Parliament.
With regard to the chocolate directive, I was merely trying to express precisely what you went on to say.
The Council thinks it is entitled to drag this whole thing out, and the other business too.
But if you can quote anything in our Rules of Procedure or in the Maastricht Treaty to show how Parliament could have been any quicker in dealing with this matter, I shall naturally be more than willing to act on your advice when the other two subjects come up.
But I agree with you entirely that both of us - the Commission and Parliament - should pillory the Council.
That was all I said.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Aid to ACP banana producers
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0012/99), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council (10460/98 - C4-0583/98-98/0014(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation establishing a special framework of assistance for traditional ACP suppliers of bananas (Rapporteur: Mr Liese).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a rapporteur can discover some astonishing things when he listens to the debate on the preceding report.
I was certainly rather surprised to hear Mr Bangemann say that he would not be unduly upset if he were unable to complete his term of office.
That would not be a matter of indifference to me if I were a Commissioner bearing responsibility for Europe.
And perhaps I would work inside the Commission to ensure that the cases criticised by Parliament did not give any further cause for criticism.
But let us move on to the bananas.
Our debate on my report at second reading deals with bananas at a time when this subject is in the international spotlight once again because of the possible escalation of the dispute between the EU and the United States, as well as some Latin American countries, and because of the threat of a trade war.
The report, which was adopted unanimously by the Committee on Development and Cooperation, deals with one aspect of the banana problem; although it is undoubtedly relevant to the WTO issue, it only deals with the payments to banana producers in ACP countries.
In 1997, the United States and several Latin American countries applied for a WTO panel investigation.
The WTO panel found that the EU market organisation of that time did not conform to WTO rules.
The Commission then submitted a proposed amendment package, which was accepted in 1998.
As part of the package of proposals, the Commission suggested that additional payments be made from the EU budget to the ACP banana producers.
There is still some controversy, even within the WTO, as to whether the adjustments made to the actual organisation of the EU markets meet WTO requirements.
I believe I speak for everyone here when I emphasise that it is not for the USA to take this decision, but rather the competent WTO authorities.
It needs to be emphasised time and again that the USA has no right to take unilateral action in this matter.
Speaking personally and on behalf of no one, however, I must also say that the European Union will surely have to prepare itself to accept the WTO ruling, and that further adjustments may have to be accepted at some future date.
The report, however, is only concerned with the package of compensatory payments proposed by the Commission, even though they are not part of a legal framework.
It asks the question how these compensatory payments are to be made, in what form and to which producers.
Here too, there are various positions within the European Union.
There are differences between the Council and Parliament.
The Council has rejected some important amendments which Parliament tabled at first reading. Some of these decisions are beyond my comprehension as the rapporteur, and I am sure the whole committee finds them equally baffling.
One of Parliament's main priorities was to support 'fair trade' producers.
This has always been a parliamentary priority and should also play a very prominent part in the allocation of funds to producers, rather than the minor role suggested by the Council in the common position.
We believe that payment should depend on compliance with minimum standards in terms of working conditions, and we believe that grower and producer organisations, the farmers' organisations, should be involved in the allocation of the funds.
The committee also decided by a majority vote to increase the funding of the programme and to diversify the funding targets in some respects, as set out in Amendments Nos 19, 9 and 15.
As the rapporteur, I voiced my opposition to this, but I had to bow to the majority of the House.
One of the key amendments, in my view, is our exclusion of multinational corporations from eligibility for support under this financial instrument.
It surely cannot be right, when everyone believes that Europe's purpose in this market organisation, in everything we do in the banana business, is to protect the small and independent growers against the large multinationals, if we table an amendment to precisely that effect, specifying that support payments are to be made to small and independent growers and not to multinational concerns, and if this amendment is then rejected.
That, however, is exactly what the Commission and the Council have done, even though Parliament adopted the amendment by a large majority at the first reading.
The committee has tabled it again, and I would ask the Commission to reconsider its position very carefully, because the European Union will forfeit all its credibility if we operate on the basis that it is all right to support the multinationals as long as they are working in the ACP countries, but if they are working in Latin America they are evil, and we must erect a wall of bureaucracy to keep them out of the European market.
That, in my opinion, is hypocrisy.
It divests our entire policy of any credibility.
I believe the European Commission should express itself quite clearly on this.
Otherwise, I shall be more convinced than ever that our policy on the banana issue is rather too deeply steeped in hypocrisy.
There is a principle involved here, and we must apply it consistently.
Mr President, Commissioner, on behalf of the Socialist Group I must endorse Mr Liese's report on the establishment of a special framework of technical and financial assistance to help traditional ACP suppliers of bananas to adapt to the new market conditions.
I support this report because it takes account of the interests of the most disadvantaged suppliers.
Small independent producers must be given special assistance and the multinational firms which possess banana plantations in several countries should not be eligible for assistance.
I also support this report because it stresses the importance of respecting social standards, working conditions and the environment and because it stipulates special support measures for fair trade bananas.
We socialists hope that assistance will be granted to improve quality and we believe that it is essential to help diversify production because, for many ACP countries, the banana is the only source of income.
Thus the contributions made by MEPs, added to the proposals accepted by the Council at first reading, such as taking into account the particularly dramatic situation of Somalia, will, I believe, all help to produce a very satisfactory regulation, provided that we are able to allocate a budget to the tune of approximately ECU 500 million for more than ten years, depending on how the ACP countries and the market develop.
However, what concerns us, as you suspected Commissioner, is the new line taken by the United States of America at the WTO, with threats of sanctions against numerous European products and delaying tactics and stratagems which do not befit a great country.
In a few days, the WTO will rule on the import regime for bananas and therefore on the possible sanctions that might be taken by countries which consider themselves to be prejudiced by this regime.
I fear that the World Trade Organisation's decision may once again serve American interests.
I hope that these decisions will not be imposed on the European Union without us having a chance to respond or at least show our political will to defend our own producers and the producers of the poor countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific at any cost.
I believe that we have more than trade agreements with these countries: we have moral commitments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as I said last June during the debate on the first reading of this report, the reform of the common market organisation for bananas proposed by the Commission was forced on us following the decision taken by the World Trade Organisation's group of experts further to the complaint from Ecuador and three other countries.
Now as then, Parliament, by a substantial majority, supports the Commission's proposal in principle. Some amendments have been put forward, and we would like to see them incorporated at the second reading.
In the interim, however, a critical event has taken place in the progress of what has become known as 'the banana war', and as a result, the debate has become political rather than technical.
What happened was that the United States showed its true colours and is now openly threatening the Union with trade reprisals against a list of European products if we do not modify our policy on protecting the banana production of ACP countries.
Weakened by certain developments at home and abroad, the United States administration has been unable to withstand the enormous pressure exerted by a number of American banana multinationals, and is preparing to take the law into its own hands.
The most extraordinary scenes were played out only yesterday at Parliament's REX Committee meeting. In this very House, the ambassador of the United States gave a splendid example of how that would-be empire understands WTO regulations, demanding they are complied with when it suits it but disregarding them whenever it sees fit.
I should like to take this opportunity to congratulate Commissioner Brittan on his forthright defence of the legitimacy and legality of our regulations at yesterday's REX Committee meeting.
Given the uncertainty of the current situation, I would ask the Commission, at the second reading, to accept Parliament's suggestions as they appear in Mr Liese's report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the ELDR Group, I must compliment Mr Liese on his energetic support in this report for the European Union's position on the framework of assistance for banana producers.
The stress on diversification, Somalia's special position, and not least, socially sustainable production and fair and supportive trading conditions, are definitely some of the report's strong points.
These very points indicate the philosophy of the European Union, which gives us the right idea of the free market.
It is wrong to think of the free market as a market without rules and where everyone competes regardless of relative strength.
Obviously that kind of free market would see abuse of power by the strongest economic operators or countries to the detriment of the others.
That is exactly what the European Union must do everything possible to prevent, by all necessary, useful and appropriate means.
It is precisely because we support this view of the free market that my group opposes Amendment No 9 to Article 1(2) of this report, tabled by the ARE Group.
The original text talks about a special framework for banana producers, to be implemented for a maximum period not exceeding ten years starting on 1 January 1999.
We believe that text should be maintained.
We must take action to put the ACP banana-producing countries in a position to stand on their own feet and not keep them in a state of permanent immaturity, which in our view would be the result of accepting the ARE amendment.
Mr President, Commissioner, any changes to the organisation of the market for bananas must not be to the detriment of Community or ACP producers.
Though it may be too early to establish whether ACP banana suppliers have been adversely affected by the changes made, appropriate preventive measures should be taken, based on the values which underpin the principle of fair trade.
These values should be extended and applied to the promotion of alternative economic activities for those producers least able to adapt to the new market conditions, and should include technical and financial support for ACP suppliers who are in a position to adapt, enabling them to do so under the best possible conditions.
The aim is not only for the special aid regime to reflect the Union's desire to meet its obligations to its traditional suppliers, but also for it to contribute to the fight against poverty. At the same time, it should send a clear and unambiguous message that the Union will not bow to unacceptable pressures, such as those currently exerted by the United States with its list of reprisals.
I would urge the Commission to take into account the amendments contained in the Liese report, particularly those inspired by the principle of fair trade, which only received cursory attention in the common position.
This is most disappointing. It is also unfortunate that the large multinationals may be able to receive aid from Union funds in ACP countries.
It simply would not make sense to help the rich instead of the poor.
Mr President, we have two symbolic issues before us this evening.
On the subject of laying hens, we will shortly be discussing the Kindermann report on the revolting practice of battery rearing which is symbolic of hyperproductivity.
With Mr Liese's report on bananas, this is symbolic of globalism.
This issue has been around for many years in this House.
Europe produces around 800 000 to 830 000 tonnes of bananas from Guadeloupe, Crete, Martinique, the Canaries and Madeira.
We buy around 830 000 tonnes of bananas from the ACP countries, including the Côte d'Ivoire and Cameroon.
And then there are the dollar bananas from Central America which the Germans particularly like.
Initially there were two million tonnes of these, and they were subject to customs duties, as were cereal substitutes.
Then, under the pretext that Sweden, Austria and Finland were joining the European Union, thereby prejudicing the United States, we agreed to import 2.5 million tonnes of Latin American bananas without customs duties or with reduced customs duties.
Yet all this is not enough for the United States.
They referred the matter to the World Trade Organisation, we went through various panels of first instance and appeal, we amended our legislation and the issue was referred again to the WTO; this evening, now that we have given in, we are even going to have to compensate the poor ACP countries that are going to lose out.
This smacks of hypocrisy, given all our talk of defending the financial interests of the European Union. Mrs Cresson and Mr Marín may have redirected a few pence here or there, like any good socialist, but in this case, 14 billion francs have been given as gifts to a multinational firm, Chiquita.
Who are we to talk about the financial interests of the European Community?
We are calling into question our regional policy in Crete, Madeira, the Canaries, Guadeloupe and Martinique.
We are calling into question our cooperation policy with the ACP countries because the import licences are being called into question.
We are calling into question our human rights policy because, in Honduras, it is the multinational firm United Brand, now owned by Chiquita, which keeps order.
We are calling into question our social policy because the people producing these bananas are slaves earning only EUR 35 per month.
We are calling into question the superiority of European law because we are submitting to the law of Geneva and the World Trade Organisation.
And once again, faced with the United States' Section 301, our Europe of 370 million inhabitants, of the euro, a Europe with new power, is submitting in Kosovo, in Iraq and now on the issue of bananas.
We are toeing the US line.
I hope that we can slip on this banana skin in order to get back on track, but I doubt it.
Mr President, we have now reached the second reading of the proposal for a regulation we are forced to adopt, following the World Trade Organisation ruling, so as not to penalise further the traditional banana suppliers of the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
On the whole the common position of the Council improves the original proposal for a regulation, thanks primarily to the European Parliament's action at first reading.
In particular I would mention that there is now a stronger possibility of using some of the resources provided under the regulation to promote diversification by suppliers unable to continue banana production in decent conditions.
On other points Parliament will back its own amendments, above all with a view to ensuring that small and independent producers can use the resources.
The Council's common position accepts Parliament's amendments designed to take account of the special position of Somalia and its banana producers.
This is the only commodity that unfortunate country can export to the European market and its fate largely depends on being able to maintain and strengthen banana production.
That is positive, but I would still point out that for the last two years, despite clear recommendations from the European Parliament, the Commission has frequently appeared to want to boycott Somali banana exports.
The country's banana regions have been seriously damaged by the natural disaster which has struck in the last two years but, incredibly, the Union has decided not to respond with aid.
So the Union must immediately undertake to give Somali banana producers direct access to the assistance provided under the regulation we are debating.
This would be a very tangible way to encourage the rebirth of Somalia and prevent its definitive departure from the Community 'Banana Club'.
Mr President, Commissioner, regardless of the validity of each side's reasons, the banana issue cannot fail to shock because of the disproportionate reactions of the Americans.
Just how disproportionate the current reaction is with regard to this product can be seen from the fact that the European Union has been pursuing a protectionist agricultural policy with regard to various goods produced in the United States itself for four decades now.
As there has never been such a reaction before, we can only conclude that the US administration is more concerned about one or two multinational firms producing bananas in Latin America than about its own farmers. Having said this, its reaction is also disproportionate in view of the production claimed by the European Union, which is relatively small and comes from peripheral regions such as Madeira and the Canaries or from poor ACP countries where there are no alternatives capable of supporting the rural population with a minimum decent standard of living.
We are not therefore talking about rich regions but areas which understandably deserve some support.
This applies to the financial support currently being suggested, the level of which is to be determined shortly, thereby removing any doubt about the seriousness of our proposals.
Finally, the retaliation that has been announced of limiting the imports of various products is also disproportionate and inappropriate because it will indiscriminately penalise countries, regions and sectors which have nothing to do with bananas.
Looking at the list, we can see that in order to defend one major multinational whose name has already been mentioned several times, European sectors where small and medium-sized businesses predominate are to be condemned, to a large extent involving the poorest countries and regions.
It seems to us to be in even worse taste that attempts are being made to divide the European Union by granting an exemption to Denmark and Holland, because of their alleged good behaviour, when this is a common policy which we accepted jointly once it was decided.
Disregarding this sad episode - which we hope will rapidly enter into obscurity - we must now look at the basic question of whether this will be the pattern for the future, with the two major world powers with very particular responsibilities in international trade being at loggerheads?
Mr President, I want to concentrate on a single issue that was touched on just now by Mr Vecchi: the case of Somalia.
I would stress, with satisfaction this time, that the Council regulation finally takes sufficient account of this problem, which was something I highlighted in vain as rapporteur for the banana COM, when we debated the general problem as well as certain particular issues in this House.
Somalia is emerging from a couple of seasons which have been disastrous to say the least, in terms of environmental calamities piled on top of those of the past. Between October 1997 and January 1998, 70 % of the banana plantations were destroyed by a flood which submerged the plants for four or five months, permanently undermining their ability to survive.
Despite desperate appeals, the European Commission decided not to intervene in any way, either with European Social Fund money, STABEX resources, or any other kind of resources.
From the first, during the debate on the COM, it has refused to recognise the civil war, endemic and uninterrupted for some 30 years now, as force majeure , a disaster like those which have secured lavish compensation for producers in the Caribbean islands, for example.
Since last June all exports of bananas from Somalia have been suspended. Either there are no supplies or such as do exist are not cheap enough, in short, they are not marketable.
Now with this regulation Somali producers can finally lift up their heads.
But they should be able to have direct and immediate access to the financial benefits through their independent association, which was set up to counter the old excuse that there were no clear and authoritative recipients for aid in the past.
Well, now the organisation of Somali producers exists and is recognised at both continental and international level. DG VIII, especially, must take this into account.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like firstly to thank the Committee on Development and Cooperation and in particular Mr Liese for the hard work put into this dossier.
Before turning to the amendments, I should like to remind you briefly why this proposal is so important for the Commission.
Last year the Council adopted the measures necessary to bring the common market organisation for bananas into conformity with WTO rules.
These have now been applied since 1 January and will radically alter the market conditions for traditional ACP banana suppliers.
In our opinion this will jeopardise their continuing viability on the EU market, in particular since the special important licence system has been dismantled and there will no longer be a mechanism to bridge the gap in competitiveness between ACP and dollar bananas.
In order to enable traditional ACP suppliers to maintain their presence on the EU market as agreed under the Lomé Convention, the Commission has in parallel put forward this proposal establishing a special framework for technical and financial assistance.
This support is intended to help them to adapt to the new market conditions and in particular to enhance the competitiveness of their production.
I think we are agreed on the need for this regulation and for the need to get it in place as soon as possible so that the traditional ACP suppliers can continue their efforts to improve their competitiveness.
This action is required whatever the outcome of the ongoing discussions in Geneva.
Turning to the matter in hand, I should like to emphasise how much we see eye-to-eye on this proposal.
We have taken on board four specific amendments but our agreement goes much further than that.
Let us take diversification.
We agreed that funding should be available for diversification projects where improvements in competitivity would not be feasible or sustainable.
We all know that there are parts of the banana industry in the traditional ACP countries where production will probably not survive in a more competitive EU market.
These farmers should be given assistance to diversify into other crops.
There is now new wording introduced in the common position to provide for this.
Another area is social and environmentally-friendly banana production, so-called fair-trade bananas.
This is an important facet of an ACP country strategy to improve its competitiveness.
This is why specific wording was added to the common position but I must stress that this is not a regulation about fair trade.
There are many other methods by which an ACP country can improve its banana sector in a sustainable way.
These include improving transport links and distribution, designing new marketing strategies and providing training and technical assistance to farmers.
It should also be recalled that the list of programme criteria is not a prescriptive nor an exhaustive one.
The wording has been kept simple to allow for the necessary flexibility.
Another area where we agree is the need for open and transparent consultations.
This is part of good working practice to ensure that producer groups and banana growers associations are involved in the process of designing strategies for the banana sector.
We are already encouraging these discussions.
They are also an integral part of the ACP-EU partnership.
Specific wording does not need to be added to the regulation on this point.
There are one or two areas where we have somewhat divergent views. This is where we have not been able to accept your proposed amendments.
Our arguments are the same as they were for the first reading in June.
One of these points is the provision of the direct aid to farmers, a form of income support.
This concept does not reflect our overall objective of improving the level of competitiveness of traditional ACP banana production.
Providing income support will postpone the day when non-competitive producers must leave the market.
It is a short-term measure. It will not produce a sustainable industry.
Investments must be made to the infrastructure of the banana sector to unblock the bottlenecks, to produce an efficient industry for the countries as a whole.
To give you an example, one of the important producers, where the banana is very important to the economy, is St Lucia.
For those who do not know it, St Lucia is a very hilly country in which it will take you more than an hour to drive a distance of 20 km.
There the key to improvement of banana production, competitiveness and productivity will be to be able to water the crop on a drop-by-drop basis.
As some of the farms are relatively small, to do this they would have to get together.
So we started very early to try to form a strong farmers' association so that they could share this kind of watering system.
But this also requires the support of the government so some infrastructure related to this major work will also be taken up by government.
Therefore, the provision of such aid runs the risk of a challenge from our trading partners for being incompatible with international trade rules.
We also believe that regulations should not include specific budget figures in order not to prejudge the annual budgetary discussions as agreed in the Joint Declaration of 1982.
The annual figure of EUR 45m is the correct one and additional money should not be set aside for urgent measures.
This will create expectations.
We would need to discuss what constitutes an urgent measure and in my opinion it will delay the implementation of this project.
All projects should be integrated as part of a country strategy within the global envelope envisaged.
Nor should the door be left open to extend assistance beyond the ten years proposed.
This is not because I am absolutely convinced that ten years will be sufficient but because at this juncture we must have some radical changes as soon as possible in order to gain that competitiveness.
To give the idea of an extension at this stage would be to send a wrong message.
One final issue is the position on multinationals.
In this regard, the only one concerned, if I am correctly informed, is Fyffes in Surinam, Belize and the Windward Islands.
The reason we have some resistance is very simple.
It is not because we want to finance rich multinationals. It is because quite often it is important not only to have joint financing for some projects but also because, on the specific allocation of funds, one should look at the specific situation of the one who puts the demand and on the merits of the project.
This would give us greater flexibility and would in the end be more effective regarding the country.
If you ask me if I expect multinationals to have a large share, the answer is No.
But we should allow this joint effort to be made if the multinational - in this case, Fyffes - wants to contribute.
I do not see why they should not co-finance such efforts.
Finally, I should like to say a word or two on Somalia.
This country, as you know, has been without a government as such for a long time.
Therefore, it was impossible for it to ratify the revised Lomé IV convention, the one which was revised in Mauritius.
So, in principle and in theory Somalia was not entitled to any aid from the European Union.
The Commission proposed that, bearing in mind the conditions prevailing in Somalia, and the fact that in some parts of the country the situation was more peaceful and the people were willing to make efforts for the development to continue our assistance, including in the case of bananas. And so we did.
What is the current difficulty in Somalia? It is not the definition of a quota or providing funds for assistance.
It is to identify who should be the one that should a grant a certificate for exporting bananas from Somalia.
There are some indications conveyed to us that one of the factions that is at war in Somalia is willing to have the possibility of certification.
This would be equivalent to financing the war effort of that specific faction. That we cannot do.
That is the reason why discussions are continuing.
We want the association of producers to be the ones issuing the certificate rather than any political faction in Somalia.
I am confident that with the support of our Member States and in particular the efforts that Italy is deploying, we will be able to overcome these difficulties.
Finally on the WTO panel, I am absolutely in agreement with those who say that it is not a technical problem any more.
It is a clear situation in which the economies of different small countries - and if you visit them you would understand why they depend so much on this product as there are not many options - are being absolutely ignored in comparison with the interests of two multinationals.
On top of that, the fact that the United States is apparently not prepared to accept the rules of the WTO means that we will have to rethink this concept of globalised liberalisation.
My feeling is that if we leave this we turn a blind eye to the interests of the small and the poor and I do not think that Europe would be fulfilling its duties. So far the Commission has stood very firm in this dispute.
I fully agree that Sir Leon Brittan has done a very good job.
But we must be aware that if we do not stand united, be it in Parliament or especially in the Council, we will weaken our position very much. I sincerely hope that will not be the case.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Universal telecommunications service
The next item is the report (A4-0386/98) by Mrs Read, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission communication on the first monitoring report on universal service in telecommunications in the European Union (COM(98)0101 - C4-0249/98).
Mr President, first of all, can I say that the Parliament and the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee recognise that the implementation of universal service is at a very early stage and I hope that my criticisms, as set out in the report, will be taken in that spirit.
I want also to remind us all that the European Parliament's support for the liberalisation process of telecommunications goes hand in hand with the introduction and implementation of universal service.
It is very clear that market forces cannot, at least in the short run, deliver on universal service.
If this does happen through market forces in the next year I shall be the first to congratulate and draw attention to this.
Unfortunately, as the text of my report makes clear, there is a lack of information from the Member States on which to assess progress.
I give some examples: there is a lack of truly harmonised national data, there are failures to achieve uniform tariffs across an operational territory.
It is particularly disappointing that in half the Member States there has been a substantial rise in rental charges for the residential consumer.
Of course, this weighs particularly heavily on the infrequent user, often elderly, housebound, who cuts down on telephone calls.
It is important, too, to draw attention to the disabled users.
Remember in the voice telephony directive, the Parliament placed great stress on the rights of disabled users to access to telephones, both from a social point of view and also from the point of view of being able to gain work often from home.
Disabled users on the whole in the Community still do not benefit from satisfactory, special arrangements.
Indeed, the general trend seems to be that there is a penalty for residential users.
Although charges have come down they have come down disproportionately in favour of international calls which of course heavily favour the business user.
I am not being critical of those reductions in charges but I am drawing attention to the unsatisfactory skew against the residential user.
I wanted to draw particular attention to Paragraph 9 in the report which talks about the lack of definition of affordability by the Member States.
Without that definition of affordability it really does deprive consumers of a sound legal base with which to defend their interests.
I know how hard the Commission worked on getting the balance right between being over-prescriptive from the point of view of directives and allowing Member States some discretion, but it does rather shake one's faith in the amount of discretion that is left to the Member States when on something as basic as the definition of affordability there really has been comparatively little progress.
After I had drafted this report, BEUC, the European Union consumers' organisation, produced their own analysis on the implementation of the voice telephony directive.
Like me, they recognised that it is comparatively early days.
Nevertheless, the evidence contained in the BEUC report and the lack of satisfactory evidence supplied to the Commission give some cause for concern.
I will end on a personal note because I think the views of consumers in this field across the European Union really are important.
I tried to change my telephone.
Formerly a British Telecom consumer I switched some 18 months ago to Ionica, a company that sadly has now gone out of business.
I transferred my number, as my colleague Mr van Velzen laid down and as the Commission rightly proposed.
When I now try and change to a cable company I am told that number portability is not possible.
If I want to keep my own number my only choice is to go back to British Telecom, the old public monopoly.
It was a salutary lesson for me that, in spite of all the efforts of the Commission and the efforts of the Parliament, in practical terms it is still very rare to find true effective competition at local level for the domestic consumer.
I very much hope that the Commissioner will accept this report with its criticisms and I hope that it will strengthen his arm and those of his officials in making greater and speedier demands on the Member States to truly implement a universal service in the telephone field.
Mr President, I should like to begin by paying tribute to the wonderful parliamentary work undertaken by the rapporteur, Mrs Read, during the preparation of this report. I must also say how pleased I am that almost all our amendments - eight in total - were adopted by the Committee on Economic Affairs.
These amendments were of great importance to us. Amongst other issues, we called for increased social support for the most vulnerable users - the less able - the dissemination of information to consumers, due consideration of the needs of low-income users and a halt to the current discrimination against residential consumers.
Given our commitment to the aim of putting a genuine information society in place as soon as possible, we are also delighted that this initiative represents a further step towards the implementation of agreements concerning interconnection arrangements, making preferential tariffs for schools, libraries and other educational institutions a reality.
I am of course referring to the Internet.
We remain concerned that the European Union has not yet adopted a uniform approach to providing a sensitive response to the needs of the disabled. Even now, one Member State is proposing to make free access to directory enquiry services available only to the visually impaired.
Another has so far failed to put forward any proposals. I am aware that reduced connection charges and free specially adapted equipment are available in many Member States.
I recognise that substantial progress has been made, but the final goal, the ideal, is yet to be achieved.
In addition, if we are serious about making the European Union increasingly cohesive, a determined effort is urgently needed to put in place the facilities which should be available to consumers in less populated areas.
Universality of service in the telecommunications sector must be further promoted. I refer not only to take up but also to improvements in the quality of the service offered.
For instance, we should press for an across-the-board reduction in the waiting time for connection to the network or for supply, and of the time taken for repairs to be carried out.
Equally important are improving accessibility to services and the regulation of costs, particularly as regards implementation of the option of spreading payment, types of prepayment, and less distressing disconnection procedures. The introduction of reasonable rates for selected calls and provision by the operators of a range of service packages tailored to the customers' needs should also be considered.
In conclusion, Mr President, this report certainly represents a significant step forward, but a lot of ground remains to be covered.
Mr President, a motion for a resolution from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is now before us, relating to the first monitoring report on universal service in telecommunications. In this motion, Mrs Read has given us an excellent opportunity to reflect on the changeover from what were public services originating in the public sector to the so-called universal service to be provided by private companies.
Our worst fears and expectations have been confirmed.
The promises and commitments made have not been fulfilled.
The liberalisation and privatisation of the sector has not led to the fall in prices for the economically weakest users which universal service should have provided as a result of the much vaunted virtues of competition.
On the contrary, the most powerful users economically speaking, namely multinational firms, have benefited from the change, and the private operators which have come to dominate the sector have even been able to obtain other lucrative benefits through the public financing intended to mitigate the change, contrary to the spirit of universal service, not to mention the public service obligations.
It is true that the current competition in mobile telephony, in addition to causing changes in social behaviour, has altered the parameters of the telecommunications market.
However, this cannot justify the rises in rental charges and the increased costs of local calls, even to the extent of creating perverse situations where prices for currently competing products are increased in order to assist the introduction of new and more lucrative products.
Portugal and Portugal Telecom - and it is impossible in many respects to determine whether the latter is the original or copy of other telecom services - appear, in this process and in this monitoring report, to be in a rather unsatisfactory situation from the point of view of social balance and justice. These elements should be inherent in universal service if this is not just to be an attractive way of dismantling the public service.
Portugal is participating in the global tariff increase and is one of nine countries which have increased rental charges.
It is also, with Germany, one of only two countries which have increased installation costs in addition to having created the activation charge which particularly penalises the poorest users.
This monitoring report therefore also provides a way of assessing something which is much more than just a name - ' universal service' instead of 'public service' - it is a whole philosophy which is self-revealing as it has shown how commitments which were used as justification or even a pretext have been sidelined or even ignored.
Mr President, I too would like to join with my colleagues in welcoming the report by Mrs Read. In particular it now gives us an opportunity to look at the question of liberalisation and its effect on the universal service question.
What is common to all the public utilities across Europe is the fact that they were originally established to ensure there was a social equality with regard to the distribution of services.
Whether one looked at telecoms, post office services, water supplies and so on, there was this idea of universality.
No matter what part of a country one lived in one got the same level of service at the same cost as everybody else.
Because of the advent of liberalisation and greater competition, which I welcome, let me hasten to add, we have also learned of some of the mistakes that can be made by just having a headlong rush into liberalisation.
There must be some restrictions and some controlling mechanisms and methods with regard to that liberalisation.
Some of my colleagues have already touched on the points.
I would like to deal with four particular points: firstly, ensuring that there is no cherry-picking of the most profitable and easily serviceable areas of telecoms.
Secondly, dealing with special facilities for the elderly population, particularly in this year, the International Year of the Elderly.
When we look at the increase in the numbers of people who are over 55 years of age in the European Union there is a social necessity to ensure them ease of access to telecommunication networks at very low cost, sometimes at no cost at all.
To give you one example, in Ireland telephone line rental for people who are on the old age pension is free.
Next, the disabled. Because the new technologies which have been brought forward do offer new opportunities for communications and for greater interaction of people with disabilities and the wider community that should be encouraged and given at a lower rate.
Finally, with the Internet now being presented to us, we must ensure that this resource is tapped for the greater good not for exclusivity.
Mr President, I welcome the consideration given by the rapporteur to the aspects of social policy that have taken on a new dimension in the modern information society.
I also support the amendments that are designed to take account of these new factors.
We must, for example, be absolutely rigorous in ensuring that disabled people are given access to service models that meet their special needs.
The development of public access to the Internet, in schools and libraries for instance, is an extremely important matter to which this and other Parliaments ought to devote more attention in the future.
The information society must not lead to wider social disparities.
If access by part of the population to the information media is denied or obstructed, stark differences in education levels will result, and these could create a glaring inequality of opportunity in the job market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector was a pioneering strategy which not only represented another step from the single market towards a European domestic market, but also had a significant dimension in terms of employment.
This development was referred to when we assessed the implementation of the reform package.
The information society is currently responsible for every fourth new job in the European Union.
For that we owe our thanks to the Commission, and especially to Mr Bangemann.
The Read report makes the accessibility of the basic services at acceptable prices and standards of quality a prerequisite of our support for the present liberalisation process.
I would like to go further than that.
The provision of a universal service can ultimately be a logical result and product of liberalisation.
What exactly are the universal services? They are generally held to comprise a minimum range of telecommunications services of a certain quality that can be made available to all users at reasonable prices.
This includes access to standard public telephone services, such as 999 calls, directory enquiries and special facilities for people with particular disabilities.
This subject is therefore important in terms of the general confidence which the European technology of the future must enjoy.
It is also clear that in many areas, market forces cannot be given free rein from the outset.
That is why the concept of affordability is such a topical issue these days - and rightly so. The affordability principle means that the Member States set geographical average prices, price ceilings and so forth.
One of the important aspects of this mechanism is the scope for easing unreasonable burdens on providers of universal services.
But I do support the Commission when it says that such measures can only apply until the market is competitive enough to exercise effective price control itself.
Mr President, I am standing in for my colleague, Mr Mendes Bota, and I must start by saying that telecommunications has now become a permanent part of our lives. It is integral and indispensable to the information society which Europe increasingly wants to join and it is the gateway to a global market of which the European internal market is the vanguard.
However, there are several points to be considered.
Firstly, there is a great disparity between tariff trends in terms of installation costs and rental charges and between the costs of local, regional, national and international calls.
Some countries have low costs, others have high costs, but this report does not give a clear and comparative view of the costs of using the European telecommunications networks in the various Member States.
We believe that the more open the telecommunications market becomes to competition from the private sector, the more responsible it will be for regulating itself and for ensuring a minimum harmonisation of the European tariff system.
Secondly, it is clear that users on low incomes and the more peripheral and isolated regions are the sectors most prejudiced by the current tariff regimes.
This is an aspect often neglected by the Member States.
Thirdly, the use of the Internet has exploded, and it is now being adopted by individuals, companies and institutions.
However, it is in no way accessible to everyone and it is far from forming a basic instrument for the promotion of solidarity and equal treatment.
Negotiations on creating an Internet card or code are continuing but the Internet remains outside the universal service in telecommunications.
We totally agree with the adoption of measures which will allow special tariffs to be granted to schools, libraries and other equivalent institutions and to charitable and non-profit-making organisations.
Public access to the Internet must be regarded as a personal right and as a strategic position in the fight against a new form of emerging illiteracy which will afflict all those in the future who have not mastered the use of the modern information technologies or who do not have access to them.
Mr President, may I express my sincere thanks to Mrs Read as well as to everyone else who has contributed to this discussion for their comments.
The Commission is trying to find sensible solutions to this diverse set of problems.
The report we have presented is not entirely up to date, because it cannot yet cover the implementation of the voice telephony directive in its amended form.
In other words, when we present another updated report this year as part of our task of evaluating the implementation of the existing directives, we shall be far better able to deal with some of your questions.
In the meantime, I should like to focus especially on four questions that have resurfaced in this discussion.
First there is the question how the Member States have established what affordability means.
Some Member States, anticipating the amended voice telephony directive, have already introduced more stringent measures to protect consumers.
Amongst other things, there are price-monitoring and prepayment systems, particularly in the field of mobile telephony.
Six Member States - Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Finland and the United Kingdom - have already notified us that they have transposed the amended directive.
We expect that Belgium, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden will shortly announce similar measures.
As one speaker said in the course of today's discussion, affordability depends to a great extent on income levels in individual Member States. These vary widely.
Average incomes in some areas are three or four times the average income in another. For that reason we are really relying on the Member States, in accordance with the solidarity principle, to take greater responsibility in this area than we could take ourselves.
What we shall be able to do, however, is to provide details in the new report of the progress that has been made in implementing the stricter consumer safeguards.
The second question relates to support for low-income users and disabled users, as well as for occasional users.
We have recommended special tariffs for such users precisely because we wish to counteract the first adverse effects of liberalisation that we, like others, expect to occur.
We have now managed - and Mrs Read knows this, as do her colleagues who have spoken on this subject, because they have all been studying these things - to achieve quite considerable reductions in mobile call charges this year, which incidentally has had a knock-on effect on standard call charges for fixed-network subscribers.
Moreover, the amended voice telephony directive provides for special tariffs for low-income users, price ceilings and affordability criteria in Article 3 and prescribes special measures for disabled users and users with special social needs in Article 8.
This, it should be said, has now been transposed into the national law of five Member States - not just of France, as the report stated, but also of Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
The new report will show us how things have developed from there.
The Commission, like Parliament, is anxious to ensure that the new legislation is actually benefiting these groups of users.
How should the operators of the universal service be chosen? The Commission has no objections to any system that ensures the provision of a convenient, cost-effective universal service.
The services may be put out to tender, but they may also be based on a cost calculation, prices then being fixed to cover only the net cost of the service.
That is why we do not wish to come down on the side of any particular process.
The final question concerns the widening of public access to the Internet and especially the use of the Internet by public institutions.
We have always said that this is absolutely crucial to the development of the information society, and we are now gratified to note that competition has developed among service providers, as a result of which interfaces have become more user-friendly and charges have been reduced.
That is not the case everywhere, Mr President, and Mrs Read was right to criticise this state of affairs.
The root of the problem has been the so-called rebalancing of tariffs, whereby the relatively cheap local calls have become more expensive while the price of the relatively expensive trunk calls and international calls has been reduced; since Internet access is obtained through a local number, it initially became more expensive than it had been.
But that is now in the past.
We have certainly been observing price reductions; special rates for schools and other special tariffs are in no way inconsistent with the rules of competition, and we encourage these as long as the marginal cost is covered.
I can promise you that we intend to re-examine the universal service in connection with the review of legislation scheduled for the end of 1999, and that we shall subsequently communicate the results to Parliament.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Public procurement
The next item is the report (A4-0394/98) by Mr Tappin, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission on public procurement in the European Union COM(98)0143 - C4-0202/98).
Mr President, as colleagues will know, this report offers a broad outline of the progress we have made and should be making in the immediate future on the question of public procurement.
In general, the Commission is showing that our past discussions during the debate on the Green Paper have been listened to.
What we now need is to ensure that although the broad approach is right, the detail must be equally precise, firstly, in terms of social and environmental standards and sustainability.
Following the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty where the EU underlined its commitment to the greening of European policies, we need to clarify how these principles will affect public procurement legislation.
Members may remember from previous discussions that we asked the Commission for an assurance that there would be horizontal harmonisation of EU directives.
It is ridiculous if the right DG does not know what the left DG is doing.
The same applies to parliamentary committees.
It is even worse if we are aware of the discrepancies but do not take positive action to eliminate them.
In this way we have to confront the problems of building a certain model within our Union which is not always reflected in the directives we pass.
We have further requirements placed upon us by global or international commitments. We must recognise these.
This is not a plea for one policy position or another but a recognition of the need for clear legislation which builds upon a secure base and thus becomes operational.
Until we address this problem, which does not only affect procurement, we lay ourselves open to allegations that the Member State is the origin of all clarity and wisdom and it is the EU which is generally mucking up the system.
Since, following the Green Paper, we have agreed that contracting authorities have a right to set environmental standards if they so wish, we need to know exactly how they can implement those rights without breaching the overriding rules on competition.
I shall say again - and let us be clear on this - we are not recommending a particular policy.
We are recognising the need for clarity, simplicity and applicability.
In the same way, concerning the issues of social affairs and employment, we have consistently said that public procurement is not a vehicle for promoting a particular policy in this area but adhesion to the rules and regulations of procurement must not be allowed to impede good employment practices.
Again we need clear guidelines on how this can be operationalised.
The Commission has promised a report on this. We wait with bated breath.
We want to see how they are taking forward the principles of clarity, simplicity and legal applicability and making public procurement legislation pertinent, effective and enforceable within our modern society.
Any further legislation put forward now must cover these areas.
This point is important.
We are already looking to exempt telecoms from the procurement directives.
I do not think anyone would dispute that, generally, the choice available to the average user is increasing.
There may be some differences still which can be identified at national level but it is clear that the process of liberalisation in this sector is irreversible.
However, we are now also looking at the future liberalisation and possible exemption from procurement rules of other sectors.
There are a couple of issues here.
Firstly, we are waiting for the Commission to come forward with proposals for the process which they intend to use for these sectors: which article, what will be the criteria for deciding who can or cannot apply.
Secondly, we go back to the point we made at the very beginning of the Green Paper negotiations, namely the issue of competitiveness.
We must never forget that procurement legislation exists to benefit and protect the consumer.
That is the reason why we favour competition.
It is supposed to benefit the user so the underlying principle of any decision on competition must always include the consumer to ensure they retain the right to choose the most cost-effective service for them.
Retaining consumer choice will be a key element in proving that real competition exists.
As I have said before, new simple procedures must not undermine the principles of best practice through full competition.
I am aware that getting a fixed definition of what constitutes competition is not going to be easy.
It is not our aim to make it harder but if European industry is not to continue being disadvantaged by a requirement to prove de jure and de facto competition, it is a challenge we have to face.
We have tabled an amendment to this effect and hope the House will support us.
I wish to make just one oral amendment tomorrow.
I should like to thank the Commission for listening.
I spoke to Mr Monti outside.
I have another engagement now and I know he will understand my reason for leaving.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has issued a communication on public procurement: it wishes to establish a legal framework, to simplify procedures, and bring a degree of flexibility to the market.
In addition, however, it is important to bear in mind the broader social objectives: principles of humanity, the demands of society and the working principles of the public sector, which are not always directly compatible with models of private enterprise.
I would like to thank my colleague, Mr Tappin, for an excellent report.
He feels that it is necessary to harmonise the social principles of the Union with EU legislation.
Workers' rights, such as minimum pay, working hours and health and safety, have not been such obvious issues to those who have profited from competitive bidding.
Why, for example, in the privatisation of transport, has it turned out that old drivers are being got rid of while at the same time they have started using old buses?
In developing EU procurement legislation the regulations need to be tightened up, and we have to make methods of monitoring their enforcement more effective.
Obviously, there have been problems in adhering to the content of directives.
The are even grounds for suspecting that it is not just a question of practical problems, such as legal complications or problems of varying labour market cultures.
What if it were also that bidding for public procurement contracts is not compatible with other principles that apply in the public sector? Public corporations have also had to meet certain social policy objectives while involved in the business of procurement.
The quality of services has to be improved, employment figures have to rise, and environmental questions have to be tackled.
I await the report promised by the Commission on the total impact of procurement.
Both the Commission communication and Mr Tappin's report raise the issue of the need to make it easier for SMEs to access the public procurement market. That is only right.
It is important as there appears to be a danger of cartels forming connected with bidding for procurement contracts.
SMEs, and especially those that are obliged to observe labour legislation and environmental standards, need more information and training, however.
That is particularly important when it comes to using information technology as mentioned by the rapporteur, and that too has to be broadly applied, as it speeds up and simplifies processes.
We should also remember that local authorities, because of their democratic nature, generally have a better sense of morality than the business world.
Mr President, the directives on public procurement were an important step in our efforts to make the European market more competitive and more open.
A good deal has changed in Europe since the first directive in this area.
A sector like telecommunications has been liberalised, and there have been optimistic signs here and there concerning public contracts.
Generally speaking, red tape was once again the villain of the piece.
The procedures which business and industry had to grapple with were unbelievably complex and inefficient.
We talk of a 720 billion euro market which really must be opened up if we ever want to have a truly single market.
But at what cost?
The directive provides for thresholds whereby it is no longer possible, above a given threshold, to tender in a private or national capacity.
In principle, that is a good thing. The problem is that the incredibly complex bureaucracy involved makes it virtually impossible for small and medium-sized businesses to get a look in.
The fact is that under the system, framework contracts are not really feasible.
Large companies simply decide to have nothing further to do with public contracts and concentrate solely on the ordinary market.
The concept of the economically most advantageous bid is also frequently understood as meaning the cheapest bid.
That works against sustainable building methods, for example, since public authorities are interested only in the lowest price.
Many authorities have no provision for the service of capital, a system which is short-sighted and expensive for the citizen in the long run.
It is a poor system for small businesses, which do not have the longer-term strength of a bigger company that can calculate its profit out of capital resources.
So it is right that the Commission should give special attention to SMEs.
In the meantime, a large or medium-sized company can use digital systems to obtain information on published calls for tender.
But there is a good deal of ground to cover between the announcement of an opportunity and actually securing a contract.
In addition to the expense of putting together a bid, the firm or consortium has to demonstrate that it is financially sound and has enough experience in the field in question.
Registration systems may be the answer here.
These mean that companies only have to prove once that they are sound and competent, but for an authority which does not put work out to tender often, it makes no sense to set up a system of this kind.
I have therefore tabled an amendment jointly with Mr Langen and my group, an amendment which won the backing of the Committee on Economic Affairs, to have the threshold amounts increased.
This places the majority of contracts outside the scope of the directive.
To my mind, the thresholds are at present unacceptably low, given the huge amount of bureaucracy - hence the need to raise them.
The European Commission produced a green paper in 1996 and now it has produced a communication.
The communication does include some constructive proposals, but not a word on threshold amounts.
I hope that Parliament will give a clear message to the Commission with this report that things have to change, and that the Commission will address the matter.
My group will be voting against Mr Tappin's Amendment No 5.
It is unacceptable for firms to be blacklisted because accusations have been made against them.
In my country, you are innocent until proved guilty.
That would make competition far too easy.
We oppose Amendment No 4 because we have no idea what it means.
We have already requested a number of split votes and, lastly, we congratulate Mr Tappin on his report.
Mr President, in its communication, the Commission has stressed the importance of full and fair competition.
However, similar emphasis has not been placed on the fact that it should be possible to apply environmental and social criteria to public procurement.
This point has been made by the rapporteur, as well as by Mrs Van Lancker in her capacity as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
They are proposing certain amendments which would mean that environmental and social considerations are taken into account in public procurement, but in my view the wording should have been tighter and clearer.
Nevertheless, the Green Group will vote in favour of the amendments, which still go further than the Commission's proposal or the report itself.
It seems to me to be quite a commonly held view that applying environmental and social criteria to public procurement would destroy free competition.
Nothing could be further from the truth, since environmental and social considerations naturally involve additional costs for individual firms.
If public procurement is not subject to the same extra costs, then those firms will be at a disadvantage - so much for full and fair competition.
Mr President, first I would like to express the support and appreciation of my group for the Commission's initiative designed to improve the Community's legislative framework for public procurement. As has already been mentioned, this is an enormously important area of activity, representing over 10 % of the Union's GDP.
There are many innovations, an ambitious timetable has been proposed, and naturally we hope the various measures can be implemented smoothly.
There are two points I want to make: the first is to explain why I have tabled Amendment No 1 to paragraph 30, which is about making the competitive dialogue procedures more widely available.
I have to say that I am opposed to the possibility of post -tendering negotiations because even if they could be done transparently - and I find that hard to believe as there does not seem to be much point to them beyond publicity as an end in itself - surely such negotiations would damage parity of conditions, given that only the successful tenderer would enjoy its results.
That is what is behind Amendment No 1.
I also tabled Amendment No 2, but I hereby withdraw it so obviously I shall not dwell on it.
That just leaves Amendment No 1 from me.
At a general level, I want to take this opportunity to emphasise the need to make the tender procedure more transparent at European level, both procedurally and in terms of the dissemination of information.
This laudable initiative must not prejudice the need to simplify and remove some of the red tape, as my colleague Mrs Peijs and others have already said, particularly with a view to further integrating small and medium-sized firms into the single market.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to draw your attention to one aspect of these directives and of this report by the Commission.
Parliament, through the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, has called for a marked increase in the thresholds, and I believe, Commissioner, that the Commission ought to display considerably more courage in this matter than it has done in the past.
The thresholds that apply today are far too low in many areas.
In particular, experience has shown that, with cross-border transactions accounting for less than 3 % of public procurement, the whole bureaucratic fuss, if I may say so, is a waste of time, because the thresholds are so low that no genuine competition takes place at all.
That is why our amendment provides for a marked increase in the thresholds, amounting to an average rise of 100 %.
It is a proposal that we ask you to incorporate into the next amendment of the directives, and we would urge you not to wait until something happens on the international front, but to ensure that Europe takes the lead in increasing these thresholds.
There is no point at all in insisting that all procurement contracts are put out to tender if the procedure is insufficiently transparent, small and medium-sized businesses do not bid, and these thresholds are ultimately devoid of impact on the competitive structure in Europe.
That is why we ask you, Commissioner, not only to improve the transparency of the public procurement system, but also to take the initiative now in preparation for the next round of international negotiations in the GATT framework in the year 2000 by substantially increasing the thresholds, not only for services but also for public works contracts.
I believe that this, along with the exemption of telecommunications from the utilities directive, will signal Europe's future intentions with regard to the development of public procurement.
If additional transparency can also be achieved through the use of modern media, such as the Internet, I believe all these things will put us on the right path, and I am convinced that the Commission can also take action to that end with the support of Parliament.
Mr President, first I would like to thank the European Parliament and the rapporteur, Mr Tappin, for the very significant contribution which his report makes towards making procurement policy more effective and adapting it to the needs of today's society.
The largely positive assessment of the action programme launched by the Commission with the communication on public procurement, which emerges from reading Mr Tappin's report and the motion for a resolution, is further evidence of the fruitful spirit of cooperation developing between the Commission and the European Parliament in this sector.
So it gives me great satisfaction to welcome the proposals and suggestions in the report on which there is a substantial convergence of view between our two institutions.
This applies first and foremost to Parliament's manifest concern about environmental and social issues, which the Commission fully shares and has already addressed in the communication.
It is our intention to examine these issues in depth to identify appropriate ways of reconciling the objectives of competition and transparency pursued by the rules on procurement contracts with the legitimate environmental and social protection requirements, which have been strengthened by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Here we should not forget that the current rules already offer concrete opportunities for achieving adequate levels of protection, environmental in particular, but also social, without this altering the fundamental purpose of procurement policy, which remains essentially economic in nature.
These opportunities are not widely known and the Commission therefore believes they should be promoted and their scope clarified.
That is why we propose to adopt instruments for this specific purpose as soon as possible.
If this proves inadequate, the Commission will certainly consider whether it is appropriate to put forward more incisive proposals.
With reference to the social aspects mentioned by Mrs Van Lancker, Mr Paasilinna and Mr Schörling, I would point out that respecting current social legislation forms part of the clear and recognised obligation to comply with current legislation - all current legislation, not just social legislation - arising not from the directive but from the national legal system into which the directive is transposed.
Positive action is far more feasible than is commonly believed.
Of course it must respect the principles of the Treaty, and the interpretative communication we will be publishing is precisely intended to clarify all this.
I would add that there are provisions in the directives to exclude candidates failing to comply with national social legislation.
The case-law of the Court of Justice confirms, in the Benjes judgment, that social requirements can be taken into account if this is stated in the general specifications for a contract.
Again, the Commission will spell out the possibility of taking these requirements into account in its interpretative communication.
As to the need, mentioned by Mr Secchi in particular, to simplify the current rules and related procedures and make them more flexible and adaptable to market developments, the Commission intends to clarify the scope of obscure or complex provisions and, if necessary, modify the current system.
With a view to this, proposals are being put forward designed to exclude from the scope of Directive 93/38 the sectors and/or services covered by it which operate under conditions of effective competition - water, energy, transport and telecommunications - and establish more flexible procedures, like the procedure known as 'competitive dialogue' and the framework agreements system.
With two 'public procurement' consultative committees, we are examining a new competitive dialogue procedure which ensures maximum transparency, as well as allowing greater flexibility.
Mr President, the report also specifically refers to the need for the new initiatives announced in the communication to help to ensure healthy and effective competition between economic operators during the tendering procedure.
This is an aim the Commission has always pursued in public procurement and it is the ultimate purpose of the interpretative communication on concessions and other forms of public and private partnership, which will be published in draft form in the next few weeks.
I would also like to touch very quickly on the important point raised, in particular, by Mrs Peijs.
We are aware of the difficulties currently faced by small and medium-sized businesses in taking part directly in tendering procedures, especially cross-border.
To reduce these difficulties and encourage the participation of small and medium-sized businesses, the Commission is drafting a communication to highlight the possibilities for giving SMEs increased access to public procurement in general, both through appropriate legislative changes and by identifying the opportunities currently offered by the existing programmes.
Internationally, the Commission will continue to act to ensure that the principle of reciprocity is established in the context of the current World Trade Organisation negotiations on the modification and simplification of the public procurement agreement.
I agree with Mr Tappin when he says that communication simply announces the initiatives the Commission intends to take and presents them in general terms, without providing details and particulars on each of them.
Mr Tappin is absolutely right.
That is inherent in the very nature of a general policy statement like the communication in question.
Obviously the details on each initiative will emerge when the initiatives themselves take shape.
As regards the legislative initiatives, these will be based on Article 100a of the Treaty and their adoption will therefore require the active participation of Parliament.
Finally, on the drafting of the interpretative instruments, while emphasising that this is an institutional responsibility entrusted to it by the Treaty, the Commission naturally appreciates the support of Parliament.
In this regard I have already proposed that a discussion group should be set up in Parliament for ad hoc informal meetings, tasked with interacting with the Commission departments concerned, and I think this idea should be studied in greater depth and acted upon, while still, of course, respecting the separate spheres of responsibility of our two institutions.
Mr President, even at this late hour, a certain degree of attentiveness is required.
I found it difficult to follow the Commissioner's interesting remarks because the background noise level had risen very perceptibly in this Chamber, where sound carries over considerable distances, as a result of individual conversations.
Please ensure in future that we can listen in silence to every speaker.
Please advise Members and parliamentary staff that conversations involving groups of people can be conducted outside.
Protests
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Jobs of the future
The next item is the report (A4-0475/98) by Mr Thomas Mann, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on jobs of the future in Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, numerous academic studies and publications by employers' associations, organisations representing small and medium-sized businesses, trade unions and public institutions have served as the basis for my report on jobs of the future in Europe.
I am grateful to my colleagues in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Women's Rights for their amendments, most of which I have incorporated into the report.
In the brochures I have obtained, even the glossiest of them, I find only a catalogue of achievements.
There are no visions or specific statements of intent for the next 10 to 15 years.
Globalisation, fierce international competition and ever shorter lifespans for innovations and decisions are resulting in deep-seated insecurity for everyone, from managers to part-time staff.
The hearing organised by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, in which the Union of the Industries of the European Community (UNICE), the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) and the European Union of Crafts and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (UEAPME) took part, also made it clear that the current structural transformation is moving too fast to permit any long-term forecasts.
What are the trends that might influence the jobs of the future? First of all, as we enter the information and knowledge society, we shall need suitably qualified employees.
They must have facts at their fingertips, they must keep educating themselves, even in their spare time, and they must be able to master technological equipment.
Once they have amassed a wide range of knowledge, they will be able to move from one discipline to another, switching from the occupation for which they were initially trained to another occupation and repeating that process three or four times in the course of their working lives.
They will have to be specialists and all-rounders at the same time, and will have to acquire key skills such as in-house communication, public relations, creativity and the skills of conflict resolution. As hierarchical structures dissolve and staff assume an increasing amount of responsibility, they must also be good team players.
They must be multilingual and able to empathise with foreign cultures.
School curricula and training programmes in the Member States will have to be reformed so as to emphasise knowledge of applied technology, educational breadth, new career profiles and the mentality of lifelong learning.
It is not only wrong to demand too much of people; it is also wrong to expect too little of them.
Secondly, in order to achieve high employment potential, in addition to these multiskilled employees there will be an increase in the number of job opportunities which involve the performance of basic tasks. These are required in manufacturing and in labour-intensive industries.
Millions of people will obtain this type of work and will contribute to gains in productivity.
Thirdly, I cannot share the euphoric vision in which the service sector appears as an indestructible generator of jobs, because not every job that is done without payment today can be transformed into external paid employment.
Demand for services provided by regions and individuals will certainly increase.
These include care services, from the training of carers and care management to care of the elderly, home care and health care in hospitals and nursing homes.
Some services are business-related, ranging from insurance to corporate services; others are distributive, such as transport and communications; household-related services include retailing and catering, while other services relate to the social sector, covering areas such as employment and personal finance.
Tourism will be a strong growth area, from travel agencies marketing products designed for specific target groups to rural and cultural tourism.
To pave the way for new entrants to these jobs of the future in the Member States, the European Commission will need to launch initiatives but must, of course, respect the principle of subsidiarity at the same time.
Fourthly, there are good prospects in the fields of biopharmaceuticals and agricultural biotechnology, although public acceptance must be secured before these industries can take off.
No such controversy, however, attaches to systematically applied environmental technology, in which we Europeans already lead the field.
Considerable growth should be seen in research and development, which are the source of the innovative products and processes that enable companies to secure niches in the world market.
The TIME industries - telecommunications, information technology, the media and electronics - will be among the beneficiaries of the changing employment structure as networking and decentralisation take hold.
I believe there are three priorities with regard to sustainable jobs in the European Union.
First of all, European support programmes - and this, Mr Flynn, is addressed to the European Commission - must be maintained in the long term without any reduction in their volume.
These include start-up programmes, schemes designed to enhance the competitiveness of SMEs and measures whereby women, who are still a disadvantaged group, can upgrade their qualifications and enjoy real equality of opportunity.
Secondly, the flexibility that is required for the jobs of the future demands a reorganisation of the work process.
There is a need for more company agreements to be concluded, providing for such things as part-time arrangements designed to enable parents to reconcile their occupational and family responsibilities, as well as proper social protection and childcare facilities.
Thirdly, instead of merely considering how to share out the existing workload among more people, the Member States must launch education and training campaigns.
The current presidency of the Council would do well to give up the idea of an EU-wide alliance for work, which is still a nebulous concept, and replace it with a far more meaningful and, what is more, an achievable alliance for the future.
Millions of people, especially those who are marginalised and unemployed as well as young, experienced and women employees, are waiting for this ambitious step towards a new dawn.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I did not understand your last comment at all, Mr Mann.
There is absolutely nothing contradictory in the fact that the alliance for work which the German Federal Government is pursuing nationally, and which it is pursuing at European level during its presidency, is a useful contribution to employment growth.
So I am quite amazed by your comment because, as you know, we support your report in principle.
We also support your proposals on the environmental orientation of future economic activity and on the sabbatical year, and we hope that your group will not succeed in watering down the content of your report.
We see your report as a tile in the mosaic of the parliamentary quest for more employment, as part of the continuous process that we have been pursuing in Parliament for the past four years through the employment policy we initiated, through the Amsterdam employment summit and through the Luxembourg guidelines, despite some governments having dropped the occasional spanner into the works.
I also think you were right to include in your report the Commission's critical assessment of the national action plans, because there is little point in our being unwilling to learn from past mistakes.
But I am pleased, and I take the liberty of stating it here, that the priorities of the German Presidency will be the fight against youth unemployment and female unemployment.
This was not such a matter of course in Germany as you have implied.
I support the proposals contained in your report regarding the various means of creating sustainable jobs, and particularly the two main avenues.
The first of these is the redistribution of existing work.
That is hardly a new proposal, but we should not underestimate it in the context of a democratic society which enables mothers to hold down a job and which allows fathers to fulfil other social responsibilities besides their paid employment.
In my opinion, the second avenue of strengthening growth potential and improving basic conditions also requires special support.
By this, of course, I mean support for new business activities, for the tertiary sector, care services and, needless to say, for our great hope for the future, the SMEs.
By basic conditions I do not mean the supply-side policies that some countries have been pursuing, but the conditions for a modern system of education and vocational training.
I was also pleased to hear Mrs Edelgard Bulmahn, the German Federal Minister of Education and Research, emphasising to our committee that many Member States - including Germany, unfortunately - have education systems that are not Europe-friendly, not to mention their systems of further education, which are essentially at odds with the objectives we always proclaim in connection with lifelong learning.
Another important aspect is undoubtedly the acquisition of key skills, team skills and holistic thinking; we agree on that, and you know that I laid particular stress on the need for the men of our society to learn this kind of team skill.
I also thank Mrs Bulmahn for her pledge that Germany for one would be doubling its education and research budget over the next five years.
That, of course, is a signal by which we shall judge her.
We all know that the transfer of knowledge between the academic world and industry, in terms of real exploitable discoveries, is far too slow and that in many Member States it falls far short of what is required.
Our best bet in the initial stages, of course, is to support small and medium-sized businesses, which are the most powerful generators of new employment.
I should also like to mention one other target group that is often neglected in this debate, namely the foreigners who live with us in our EU Member States and whose enterprising spirit has done a great deal to provide additional employment.
Let me say here that I consider it a scandal that in my home state of Hesse, foreigners are currently being subjected to an unacceptable campaign of discrimination.
My last point concerns the lack of emphasis on what women can do in small and medium-sized businesses.
Their innovative capacity and their creativity are simply not able to come to the fore in the real world.
I believe the European Union should provide special support for enterprising women who want to start up in business.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Mann for his report.
I think he has made a good attempt to focus attention on a number of new sectors in which jobs can be created.
He mentioned small businesses.
He also mentioned the need to learn.
'Learn, learn, learn' is the title I would like to give his report, because we can only create enough jobs if we have a population capable of meeting the challenge of the new technologies.
I think that is a most important point to make, and his report makes it.
We in the PPE Group of course support this report most warmly, but it is naturally something of a compromise.
I think Mrs Weiler is right in calling it a mosaic.
I have to say that some of the pieces added to the mosaic are worth rather less than others.
The bits added by the rapporteur himself are rather better than those put in later, and that is a danger.
When I was learning German, I had a little book entitled Schwere Wörter - difficult words -the differences between German and Dutch.
What we are getting at the moment from the German Government are schöne Wörter - fine words.
No new deeds. At most it is going as far as the previous government went, but no further.
Absolutely nothing new is being done in real terms.
But the language used is splendid.
Old ideas are being dressed up in splendid new words.
But we are interested in deeds, in action.
I think it is important that the rapporteur has emphasised the need for action, for real and new jobs here and not various kinds of redistribution and other solutions, and not the fine words of the Federal Chancellor.
What we need is action, and it is on this that we shall ultimately be judged.
Mr President, jobs are the Achilles' heel of the EU.
The economy and competition have dominated cooperation in the EU for far too long.
EMU has become a kind of mantra for the Member States which has pushed them into fighting inflation, meeting the convergence criteria, reducing their budgets and cutting back public spending, at the expense of creating new jobs.
From a European perspective, these things are important, but the approach is too narrow and one-sided.
EMU is actually making it more difficult to increase the number of jobs in the future.
I believe that peace, employment and the environment are the only areas by which our European citizens set great store.
The sections of the Amsterdam Treaty devoted to employment are commendable.
The approach should be based on intergovernmental cooperation, with objectives and guidelines set at European level and the possibility of coordinating national efforts. A good way for countries to do this would be by adopting sound ideas from other countries, for example variable taxation, shorter working hours and time off for study or training.
I would emphasise the fact that transport, the environment and energy are the sectors of the future.
I should for example like to see the EU, together with the Member States, making a substantial investment to ensure that, over the next ten years, petrol is replaced by environmentally friendly fuels, creating a large pool of environmentally friendly jobs in the process.
There is a market for vehicles powered by ethanol, methanol, electricity and so on.
Last summer, I visited a company in central Sweden: a small paper mill with 300 employees.
I asked the managing director what his biggest problems were in terms of the workforce.
I was anticipating that they would be pay, taxes and EU rules, but he told me that above all people wanted to know about schools, childcare, medical facilities and communications.
Basic public services are absolutely crucial when creating new jobs in many places, not least the northern part of Europe.
The Liberal Group supports this report.
Mr President, I would like to welcome, very warmly, the report by my colleague, Thomas Mann, because it looks to the future and that is what we are talking about. Not trying out failed systems of the past, not trying out failed mechanisms of the past, but dealing with the reality of what we are presented with.
Despite the risks and the dangers which new advances and new technologies present, they also offer us a wonderful new opportunity to correct some of the errors of the past, to be more socially cohesive within Europe.
A lot of mention has been made within the report and by colleagues speaking here tonight, and I am sure the Commissioner will also touch on it, about the importance of lifelong learning and education.
There is a very old saying 'Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for life'.
By investing more of our resources into giving real education and real training to our people then we can guarantee that they will benefit from the huge explosion in job creation opportunities which will be presented.
But there are dangers relating not just to individual actions taken by Member States but also to the question of tax harmonisation, about increasing taxation.
That is the biggest disincentive to investment which will hit job opportunities.
No longer can we have a huge state sector which will automatically take the overflow from the unemployed and give them meaningless jobs. People now demand that they must have a meaningful role to play in life, with dignity.
If that requires them working part-time, so be it. If it requires bringing more women back into the workplace, so be it.
Nobody should be denied the opportunity to ensure that they can play their full role in life. But likewise, nobody should be forced, out of necessity, out of poverty, to take up a job opportunity that is not suitable for them.
Let us focus on education, let us work together for the common good.
Mr President, actions, not fine words - that is absolutely the right approach; that has to be appreciated from the outset.
An employment pact, rather than an alliance for goodness, beauty, truth or other intangible values, seems to me to be the proper step for us to take at this time.
There is much in Mr Mann's report that we are able to endorse, and we are opposed to any attempt by the PPE to emasculate it, but there are also a few points in it which are rather unclear.
So that we can have these points clarified, I shall try to present them systematically.
There are two possible sets of measures.
Additional demand for work can be created.
This can be achieved by means of an employment-oriented economic policy, by restructuring society and the tax system in line with environmental objectives, and by developing the tertiary sector to create social tasks which are necessary but which the market does not perform.
The second set of measures is designed to cut back the available volume of work.
This can be achieved by redistributing the workload, reducing working hours, introducing part-time work, reorganising the work process, cutting the supply of work to employees by granting individual and collective rights to leave of absence and by granting sabbatical leave, which Mr Mann had in his report but which his group now wishes to delete.
This training measure has the dual effect of improving the quality of human resources after the sabbatical year and drastically reducing the available labour pool during it.
These measures can be taken, and we can close the labour gap in the European Union: 27 to 34 million, the Commission has calculated.
To do this, however, we must consciously address the problem, and for that we need a very substantive employment pact, not just a finely worded document. We are in agreement on that.
Mr President, this report is like a mosaic which has the virtue of being in many different parts and therefore raising many issues.
It is a report which has not confined itself to simply expressing our concerns or to obtaining the unanimous approval of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (our concerns necessarily involve opposing exclusions from the current development model), but has put forward certain solutions which have already been mentioned such as work-sharing.
However, we all know that work-sharing is an approach that produces immediate but inadequate results given the scale of the problem.
We therefore have to find new ways of tackling this problem by recognising that we need to establish companies rooted in the people which, as has already been said, can help to solve the problems of the elderly, of community services and of the environment and which can be recognised and compensated in tax terms.
Companies involving the people and rooted in the people have a new role which must be welcomed and encouraged.
We know that the social security systems are now playing a role which they are unable to fulfil and for which they were not created.
Never, since the post-war years, have so many depended so much on these systems, either totally or partially, and they cannot withstand the pressure.
Therefore, only employment can produce appropriate, reliable and genuine social integration.
Jobs must be created and this means achieving agreement and cooperation on investment, because jobs which appear only in social statistics, which have no social quality, which have no future and which are inappropriate forms of social interaction between people are surely not the European social model which we want to build.
Therefore, it is not with jobs 'for statistics' that we will solve the problems, nor can quick fixes of training and work help us to tackle this mosaic which has to be sorted out.
We look to the Commission, knowing that, with the White Paper, we have overcome the obstacle of indifference.
It is time to act!
Mr President, I should like to sincerely congratulate our esteemed friend and colleague Mr Thomas Mann on his very good work, although I think the end result is less good compared with the initial proposals he himself put to the Committee on Social Affairs.
In any event, be that as it may, I think this report is particularly important for two reasons.
The first reason is that we are in a period of very rapid developments.
We are in the age of globalisation, biotechnology, the information society, and it is essential and important for the European Parliament to look at the issue we are considering today, jobs for the future.
The second reason is unemployment, which is the scourge of the working population in the European Union in particular, and that is therefore yet another reason to consider how to deal with the developments that are coming and which are before us.
In a free economy, it is clear that the state cannot foresee exactly what is going to happen.
It can, however, do two things.
Firstly, it can support flexible, up-to-date and effective systems for the training and retraining of working people so as to keep pace with developments; and, secondly, it can put emphasis on language education, which also encourages the mobility of working people, especially in the context of the common market.
Above and beyond that, it is clear that the sectors to which attention should be turned, even in an indicative way, can be identified.
And here, quite rightly I think, the report points out that, firstly, one such sector is information technology and the electronics industry; a second sector, and one of particular interest to my own country, is tourism, agri-tourism and more generally the leisure industry.
Thirdly, emphasis should be placed on the tertiary sector, the provision of services.
It is clear that this sector will grow at the expense of the secondary sector; and, of course, a fourth sector comprises small and medium-sized enterprises, which are much more flexible and can create many jobs, as has been demonstrated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to raise three points.
A major problem group throughout the European labour market of the future will consist not only of young people and adults without any training qualifications at all, but also those whose training qualifications are outdated or irrelevant.
Vocational training and further education systems must be adapted ever more rapidly to changing employment structures.
Joint efforts by the Member States to introduce innovations in this sector seem to hold the greatest promise.
Leonardo II in particular will offer excellent opportunities for cooperation in education and training, and it is imperative that these opportunities should be taken.
Secondly, the people of Europe have hitherto made little use of the single European job market.
A mere 2 % have been living and working for any length of time in a Member State other than their own.
Jobseekers are still too frequently unaware of employment opportunities beyond their national borders, and obstacles to the mobility of trainees and labour have still not been removed.
Initiatives such as EURES and Citizens First are steps in the right direction, but are not yet the complete answer.
It is up to Parliament, the Commission and the Council to launch new initiatives.
One particularly useful development has been the introduction of the Europass Training document, which guarantees the transparency of vocational qualifications acquired abroad.
Thirdly, additional employment opportunities can be created in Europe if new businesses are set up on the basis of innovative technology, new marketing potential or new service functions.
This, however, depends on young people in particular being able to take full advantage of these assets.
Even during initial training and then in the course of lifelong learning, entrepreneurship and knowledge of business practices must be imparted and encouraged.
At the same time, however, it is also necessary to eliminate excessive legal regulation, financial obstacles and information gaps.
The availability of venture capital, for example, is a key factor here.
Finally, may I again express my very sincere thanks to Thomas Mann for his excellent report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a few weeks ago, the unemployment rate dipped below 10 % for the first time in several years. That is encouraging, but let us not rest on our laurels.
In particular, it would seem important to highlight positive trends and future job markets.
Thomas Mann's excellent report is especially valuable in this sense.
He quite rightly states that employers have an obligation to ensure the continuous training of their employees.
The point here is that the ability of staff to apply the latest specialised knowledge will primarily serve the interests of their employer.
That is why lifelong learning must be at the forefront as the prime instrument with which we can increase the level of employment throughout the Union, because only consumers can create jobs.
For this reason, it is essential to supply products and services that will actually be bought.
Care should also be taken to ensure that when a company changes hands there is a possibility of securing the jobs of the existing staff and subsequently expanding the workforce.
The report also refers to the fear that technological change could result in more redundancies than new jobs.
We must work resolutely and systematically to allay those fears.
The information society, for example, is the most dynamic economic sector in the European Union.
It already accounts for 5 % of our total GDP, is growing faster than every other sector and is creating more jobs too.
More than four million people are already employed by companies in the field of information and communications technology.
More than 300 000 new jobs were created in this area of the information society between 1995 and 1997.
But this potential has not been exhausted by any means.
There are still about 500 000 vacancies for ICT specialists.
Opportunities abound. All we have to do is take them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, as the last speaker on this item, let me examine the problem under a slightly different light.
What are jobs with a future? The crucial thing is not the type of work that will be done, but rather whether jobs will still be available in the future.
The way I see it, some of the jobs of the future already exist.
And so what I should like to analyse is why these jobs of the present have a future. That is not even a difficult task.
The management team or, in smaller businesses, the manager, must be quick to recognise market openings for their products and services and must adjust their range rapidly to keep up with customer demand.
To that end they require employees who are well trained, highly motivated and always prepared to undergo further training.
Such workforces do not grow on trees.
They need to be well treated, well informed and well paid.
Greater flexibility is more essential than ever today, but it must be a two-way flexibility that benefits not only the company but its employees too.
Modern workday patterns must not be detrimental to employees, as the latest example from the Volkswagen works in Wolfsburg illustrates.
Duties at work must not exclude anyone from his or her own family or from society.
National governments must play their part with a balanced taxation system, including tax relief where necessary, and must not capitulate under pressure, as in the case of your new government's DEM 630 legislation, Mrs Weiler.
So much for my basic analysis.
Inadequate school education, a lack of vocational training, an absence of further education and insufficient skills prevent many people from obtaining employment.
Discrimination against the older age groups and against disabled people must henceforth be prohibited by law.
We in Europe should learn from one another in this field.
The rapporteur, Thomas Mann, has made many good proposals.
The latest technological developments and in particular the service sector offer opportunities for the creation of secure, sustainable employment in which women and men would enjoy real equality.
I am all for defending the welfare state in the market economies of Europe, but I reject any attempt to spoonfeed people, because that could prevent the creation of jobs with a future.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Protection for laying hens
The next item is the report (A4-0481/98) by Mr Kindermann, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Directive laying down minimum standards for the protection of laying hens kept in various systems of rearing (COM(98)0135 - C4-0196/98-98/0092(CNS)).
Mr President, this Commission proposal is intended to replace, from 1 January 1999, the existing directive 88/166/EEC on battery cages with a directive on the protection of laying hens kept in a variety of rearing systems.
These are only minimum standards.
The Commission's proposal implements the revision clause in Article 9 of the existing directive, whereby, on the basis of a report by the Scientific Veterinary Committee, it must put forward proposals for adaptation to take account of advances in our knowledge.
All new rearing systems will have to have nests, perches and litter.
Conventional cages without nests and litter may continue, exceptionally, to be permitted by Member States, but they must allow at least 800 cm2 floor area per bird and be at least 50 cm high at all points.
Under certain circumstances, old systems may continue in use until 31 December 2008 at the latest.
Our committee welcomed the Commission proposal because it is a step in the right direction, in other words it seeks to improve the conditions in which laying hens are kept.
In the first place, there is the increasing of the minimum floor area per bird from 450 to 800 cm2 , a measure which we particularly welcome, since the widely held view is that the current rules do not allow birds to follow their natural behaviour patterns, with the result that they are not kept in a manner appropriate to their species.
Regrettably, in formulating minium requirements for other rearing systems, the Commission only went half way.
The rules for non-cage systems in enclosed premises are incomplete, and above all there are no provisions on stocking density.
On free-range farming, there are no provisions at all. We find that unfortunate, since the new directive will mean greater competition between the different rearing systems.
We therefore call on the Commission to bring forward a proposal on this shortly.
Also regrettable in the committee's view is the fact that the new 'enriched' cage with a nestbox, perches and litter, which in future is to be the standard cage, is not defined in detail.
I think we have helped to remedy that.
We also suggested that the date on which the new directive comes into force should be put back by two years, because the timetable envisaged by the Commission is totally unrealistic.
By the deadline it is setting, there will not be any cages on the market in the form specified for commercial use.
We also want a tighter definition of the Commission's monitoring activity.
This is because if the Commission merely tightens up the conditions for farming and changes the obligation to conduct on-the-spot inspections into an option, it is not carrying out its duty to ensure that the directive is complied with throughout the EU.
I shall move on now to the socio-economic considerations.
In addition to the option of cofinanced investment aids under the efficiency Regulation 950/97/EC, the committee is proposing the introduction of a system of aid which is independent of production, limited in time and paid on a reducing scale.
We think this tax mechanism will encourage reluctant Member States to adopt higher standards of animal welfare, and we urge the Council and Commission to consider this proposal closely.
The committee also wants care to be taken to ensure that Community producers are not disadvantaged vis-à-vis imports from non-Union countries.
In particular, this means that imports must meet the same animal welfare, veterinary and hygiene standards as EU products.
At this point, I should like to add a few words on the demand for a total ban on battery cages, made primarily by animal welfare groups.
The committee did not use the term 'battery cage' in connection with the new proposal for a directive, because it is inadequate and misleading.
There are at least three types of cage and each one, including the so-called 'enriched' cage, can be used as part of a battery.
So the term 'battery cage' only tells us how the cage is used, but nothing about its dimensions and properties.
Our committee therefore suggests that the term 'conventional cages' should be used to describe the cages defined in the current directive.
It is true that the October 1996 report of the Scientific Veterinary Committee concludes that 'because of its small size and barrenness, the battery cage as used at present has inherent severe disadvantages for the welfare of hens.'
But the key words here are 'at present', because the Veterinary Committee also says that alternative farming systems have serious disadvantages due to the risk of pecking and cannibalism ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, firstly I should like to say that I very much welcome the constructive and well-informed work of Mr Kindermann as a significant improvement to the Commission proposals which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection feel are an inadequate compromise between the understandable concerns of producers and the welfare of laying hens.
The life-sized photograph I have brought with me tonight from a national newspaper showing the realities of space that are allowed by a conventional or battery cage says more than many hours of debate here possibly could.
Sadly, my committee is of the opinion that without financial measures in Member States to assist producers to move to alternative methods, it is unlikely the welcome aims of the directive will be effectively met.
They meet neither the aspirations of those seeking to achieve the best possible welfare standards, nor provide a realistic framework for EU egg producers to remain competitive or change rearing methods and retain sustainable employment levels.
In those circumstance, the committee gave priority to tackling the inherent severe disadvantages as quoted in the report of the battery system and therefore calls for an EU-wide ban on the use of such cages to be implemented as soon as possible but together with appropriate financial measures to be put in place by Member States with support from the Commission for alternative systems and relevant studies.
The Commission is also urged to take a strong negotiating position at the forthcoming WTO negotiations on equal welfare conditions for imported eggs, and particularly egg products, in line with the recommendation of the Commission Egg and Poultry Advisory Committee.
Therefore, in conclusion, I hope that tomorrow Parliament will adopt amendments such as Nos 50 and 92 tabled by my colleague Mr Watts and others and that the passage of Mr Kindermann's good report, thus amended, will be seen as a positive step towards the end of these cages - however we describe them - in the European Union.
Mr President, I would also like to thank the rapporteur for his report and for the constructive and comprehensive way in which he has tackled this very sensitive and controversial issue.
Like him, I welcome the Commission proposal to reform the battery cage system.
There appears to be recognition across the board that the existing battery cage system has got to go.
Whilst the proposal, from my point of view, does not go far enough, it signals the end of the existing battery cage system of production.
And about time too!
According to the European Commission's own Scientific Veterinary Committee, the battery cage system has - and my colleague Clive Needle just referred to this - ' inherent severe disadvantages for the welfare of hens'.
Only yesterday a new report highlighted the pitiful plight of the battery hen, crammed into a cage at just 18 weeks, no room to flap its wings, not enough room to stand fully upright, not able to scratch, doze or bathe.
After a year, at the end of their working lives, the scrawny near-naked birds are slaughtered and turned into pies, soup or petfood.
One in three of these birds sent for slaughter have fresh broken bones and almost all birds suffer from osteoporosis.
The cage is factory farming at its very worst.
However, if we believe the cage system to be cruel we should ban it completely.
My amendments and those of other colleagues seek to do just that.
By 2009 the battery cage system of egg production will be no more.
A ten-year phase-out is the best way of promoting the welfare of laying hens.
A ten-year phase-out is fair on the industry with a clear and certain future to plan for. That future is free-range production.
In Britain it works. It protects the welfare of the hen; it is profitable and it is popular.
89 % of the British public believe keeping hens in small cages in cruel.
Almost half of all Britain's households now buy barn or free-range eggs.
Some supermarkets like Marks & Spencers have banned battery cage eggs completely and now only sell free-range eggs.
This is the cruelty-free future we should all plan for and I hope we will all vote for tomorrow.
Mr President, the new directive on battery cages is a political issue of the first rank.
We get a great many reactions on this from the public.
But it is also relevant to the farming operations from which many EU poultry farmers derive their living.
This latter fact means that we must take care over our legislative work and give producers a powerful incentive to review their systems of production in such a way as to ensure a higher level of animal welfare in farms which are economically viable in the European Union.
That must never mean an approach which forces all EU poultry farmers to switch to free-range egg production, even though this method is set to become increasingly important.
An alternative must remain in place, whereby birds are kept in greatly improved cages.
Tests on systems of this kind show that their quality of life is much better.
The Scientific Veterinary Committee will have to give a ruling on this too, and other aspects will have to be considered such as environmental considerations and the working conditions of poultry farmers.
If we want these greatly improved systems to take off in the very near future, we must make it more expensive to keep laying hens in conventional battery cages by significantly increasing the statutory number of square centimetres required per bird.
Whichever of the two production methods the European poultry farmer opts for in the next few years, in the interests of fair competition we shall also have to take full account of the conditions in which imported eggs are produced, whether fresh or as egg products.
What we must resist is any threat of a total ban, from a given date onwards, on the whole system of keeping hens in cages, even greatly improved cages.
The majority of the PPE Group will be supporting the line of the Kindermann report.
We do so with grateful thanks to the rapporteur. We greatly appreciated his expert guidance as we tackled this subject.
Mr President, to start with I must compliment Mr Kindermann on his report and on all his hard work.
I think he has produced a good report.
The Liberal Group believes, in the first place, that in this case we should have not a directive, but a regulation.
We think it is most important to have this proposal acted on in the same way in all the countries of the European Union.
We cannot have certain countries falling short of the requirements.
So that is one important argument which the Liberals wish to express.
I have to say that I have rarely received as much post as I have in recent weeks on this matter.
My group has always been in favour of consumers deciding what they want to eat, and if they want to eat eggs from cages with a larger floor area, then we are very much in favour of that.
In this respect, we therefore support the Kindermann report's advocacy of 800 cm2 , rather than the 450 cm2 which are the rule at present.
We think that as much research as possible is needed in the meantime into alternative systems.
We shall look with great interest at the Commission's reports on this matter.
There is one thing we do not like.
In the USA, a major exporter to Europe, the area for laying hens is 350 cm2 . And no one in America is making any fuss about it.
It is of course totally unfair competition if American eggs are imported free of any restriction under the WTO rules, and we strongly urge the Commission to raise this issue forcefully at the WTO talks.
We have to have fair conditions of competition.
We are very much in favour of mandatory labelling.
The customer has to be able to make a choice.
We hope that they will do exactly what they tell us in their letters.
Lastly, my group will be divided in its vote on Mr Watts's amendment seeking to have all battery hens banned from 2009.
Mr President, a cage is no place to live in. And Mr Kindermann's honest and well-intentioned report will certainly do nothing to change that, because all it achieves is better cages and then only in ten years' time.
What we want is no cages at all, and I therefore hope that the amendments tabled by my honourable friend Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf will be approved tomorrow, because until we stop thinking of animals just as commodities with a sell-by date, supplying us with products as cheaply as possible, we shall not have decent and appropriate methods of animal husbandry.
We really must start seeing animals as they really are, namely living creatures, and not commodities to be used and then discarded at will.
I therefore urge the House to vote for our amendments tomorrow.
It would also be very beneficial to consumers if we do so, in the interests of health.
Only decent and appropriate methods of livestock management will produce healthy products.
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report.
It is a subject that causes great concern to many people.
It is extremely difficult to achieve the necessary balance between all the elements involved and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development amendments are just about as good as we can achieve at this moment in time.
I know some will want to go further and much faster. But I do not believe that we are in the right position to do so at present.
In the long term we must aim to achieve the ultimate.
This can only be achieved in cooperation with the industry.
We need to ensure that the industry is in a profitable position for these new regulations and others that will be required in the future which are extremely expensive to implement and to carry through.
The industry is in no fit position at this present moment in time to take on board the challenge that has been presented to it.
Profit margins are low.
I would support the amendment to provide assistance to modernise but with no expansion through increased numbers of birds within the industry.
We must also be very conscious as we burden our industry with extra costs that other world producers will not have the same criteria or pressures.
We have witnessed this in the pig industry, the beef industry and the milk industry.
I know it is a hobby-horse of mine but I firmly believe that if we in the European Union are going to set down such strict criteria and tie the hands of our producers so tightly then we must not allow imports into the European Union that fall below the criteria under which are expected to produce.
That must be the bottom line.
I urge the Commissioner to stand firmly behind the producers in the European Union because, while we will respond to him and the producers will respond to him, he must defend them against the world when it tries to take over our markets.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am in favour of abandoning the use of cages for laying hens.
Naturally, I welcome the Commission's initiative to improve things and draw up a new directive, but that is not enough.
Even the Scientific Veterinary Committee agrees that the current method of keeping birds in cages is particularly problematic.
I think it is an especially cruel form of livestock management which should be eliminated as soon as possible.
Of course perches, litter, baths and nestboxes are an improvement, but are we not once again encouraging producers to invest money which will very soon prove to have been wasted? The fact is that more and more consumers throughout Europe are calling for a blanket ban on cages.
This will come, the only question is when.
We have 250 million hens in conventional cages, and only eight million free-range hens.
Certainly we cannot change that overnight, but we can change it in maybe eight, nine or ten years, and the amendments tabled by Mr Ebner, Mr Watts and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf are all aimed at achieving that.
Europe's farmers have enough land to make the change, and the extra jobs will no doubt be easy to fill!
And battery farming cannot be healthy.
These poor hens usually die after a year, they last no longer than that, whereas a normal chicken usually lives for four to five years.
The extra cost to the consumer of an appropriate system of poultry management is estimated by the Commission - and for this too we thank them - at two euros per person per year.
Anyone who has ever seen a battery cage operation goes right off eggs for a very long time!
But the enlightened, informed consumer is perfectly willing to pay a little more and - once again I quote the Commission here - wants to see cages scrapped.
Please vote tomorrow in favour of Amendments Nos 52, 62 and 67.
You will all find that your breakfast egg tastes a little better!
Mr President, it is as well to bear in mind that the current legislation on laying hens goes back to 1988 and should have been revised in 1993.
So this debate is taking place at least five years late, and yet the revision proposed by the Commission, which ought to guarantee both the welfare of the animals and the quality of the product, is not at all satisfactory.
The extraordinary logic underlying the rearing of laying hens in batteries will be recalled: they are no longer regarded as living creatures but as objects, industrial machines, parts of a production line.
Unfortunately, 93 % of eggs are produced like this in Europe, but the consumer does not know that the eggs he buys come from egg factories, where the hens are kept in narrow cages, piled up to ten storeys, like a sort of concentration camp.
There are four or five hens in each cage, they cannot spread their wings or scratch the ground or perform any of the activities typical of their natural behaviour.
But a few extra square centimetres do not solve the problem.
That is why the Greens urge all colleagues to support the amendments tabled with a view to eliminating cages over the next few years and proposing free range rearing at a density compatible with the characteristics of these birds, a law which is, moreover, already in force in Switzerland.
Finally we support the request to the Commission to make it compulsory, as soon as possible, to label eggs so that the consumer will know how the hens laying them are reared.
Mr President, I find it deeply depressing when animal welfare is only taken really seriously in this Parliament when it is a question of fox trapping or seal hunting and when it is indigenous populations who have to pay the price with their own welfare, which is sometimes even more precarious than that of the animals.
We have 70 amendments to a report on chickens, seeking to improve conditions for laying hens, in particular by imposing requirements for more space and stimulus.
This is somewhat illogical when what really disrupts the welfare of the hens is that they cannot satisfy the particular egg-laying needs which are natural to them.
And that will not be altered by giving the hens more space, which will only help to legitimise the situation for many years to come.
We should be more ambitious than that.
We should of course in the long term ban battery cages for laying hens.
In order to minimise the disadvantages for the egg producers, we could pay transitional premiums for a switch to alternative production systems.
Neither the Commission paper nor the Kindermann report contained proposals for such a ban.
I can therefore only urge everyone to support the amendments which seek to achieve this.
If the EU wants to speak up in the forthcoming WTO negotiations for including animal welfare in world trade, a domestic ban on battery cages would undeniably strengthen the EU's credibility and hence its negotiating position.
As a next-best solution, the Commission's proposal for compulsory labelling of the production system used should be welcomed.
All the indications are that a great many consumers are willing to pay extra and choose alternatively produced eggs.
But that is only possible if the market is transparent.
For example, the designation 'fresh eggs' is confusing. All eggs should be fresh.
Besides, these eggs do not come from free-range hens, as some may be tempted to believe.
In Denmark, a labelling scheme of this kind specifying the production system was recently introduced, and there was a marked shift in consumer choice, since it was then clear which eggs were from battery hens.
Politically aware consumers are generally far more responsible than politicians.
The committee's proposal that labelling should also include egg products is a good step in the direction of better consumer information, and the proposal that the new minimum requirements should also apply to imports from third countries needs to be supported.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we should not just improve battery rearing, we should ban it.
If we look at battery rearing in general, we can see that firstly it destroys biodiversity, secondly it destroys jobs and rural employment in particular and thirdly it constitutes a real hell on earth for these poor birds.
I personally cannot accept billions of hens spending their unfortunate lives in a space smaller than a shoebox. These birds also have to live through having their beaks being cut, their decalcified skeletons fracturing repeatedly and the skin being burnt from their feet and abdomen by the ammonia from their droppings.
How can we talk about quality after that? Finally, at about the age of one year when their production drops, they are gathered together in scandalous conditions and piled up for their final journey.
On arriving at the abattoir, one in three have broken feet.
As with sows, their sorry state means that their flesh cannot be sold, even in pieces. They will end up as the filling for ravioli or in stock cubes.
There is a fourth aspect which should be decisive in this dossier and which should result - if we are fortunate enough to live in an intelligent economic and social system - in a total and definitive ban on this type of rearing.
This fourth aspect is the health of consumers.
Here are birds which eat flavourless food with no consistency but which is loaded with hormones, if only natural hormones resulting from the animal's stress, and antibiotics whose improper use has significantly contributed, through a process of habituation, to penicillin-based antibiotics becoming ineffective in humans.
It is clear that these diabolical methods and this gigantic-scale production do not benefit consumers, who are entitled to expect more than poor quality food full of water and medicines, or producers, who can only watch as prices crash with the resulting risks of bankruptcy, or of course the animals who are the first victims.
The solution is obvious but it goes against the interests of the large multinationals.
Priority must be given to a system which is healthy, which creates jobs and which is capable of revitalising the rural environment. Basically, priority must be given to everything which is contrary to the concept of meat factories.
We need free range rearing where the hens can wander across grass and gravel.
We need quality products which obviously are a little more expensive, by say two euros per person per year, but which will reduce the social burden and medical costs.
Finally, we should not forget that one of the basic elements at stake in this type of dossier is quite simply the future of the rural environment.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we should 'go to work on an egg', as the advert has it.
For many Europeans, a hen's egg is a welcome part of their breakfast.
But increasingly, they have cause to wonder about the conditions in which that egg is produced.
Animal welfare organisations have enlightened us on the subject.
Thousands of laying hens, shut up in iron coops with no freedom to move, that is an appalling thought.
Sadly, consumers' purchasing behaviour does not change to reflect their concern.
Because more humanely produced eggs cost slightly more, many people continue to buy eggs from battery hens.
In our relatively prosperous Europe, it is all the more surprising, since the price of eggs in the last few decades has risen very little and they have thus effectively become cheaper.
Ten or so eggs will cost you just one euro, a price by weight which few foods can rival.
That exceptionally low price is only possible thanks to mass production on as small a surface area as possible.
I am convinced that the economic motive is out of place here.
Animals are part of God's creation; they may be subordinate to man, but they still deserve a decent and appropriate quality of life.
In 1996, the Scientific Veterinary Committee reported on the welfare of laying hens.
On the basis of that report, the European Commission has proposed new minimum standards.
I agree with the rapporteur that this proposal is a step in the right direction, but no more than that.
Battery cages must be got rid of entirely, and the sooner the better.
The Commission is proposing a lengthy transitional period, so that existing batteries may remain in use for a further ten years.
But there are amendments seeking to stretch that period further, and even to allow new battery cages to be introduced for a further two years.
Given that producers have known for years that new standards were coming, I think that is an ill-judged concession.
Imports from countries whose systems are even less kind to animals must not lead to distortions of competition.
Producers who switch to animal-friendly systems must not suffer financially as a result.
Getting rid of battery cages is a matter of civilised behaviour.
And we must make sure that once they are scrapped in the European Union, they are not then reassembled in countries outside the Union.
I therefore urge the Commission to consider, as part of its interim reporting, the possibility of a scheme for dismantling battery cages, tied to the provision of aid for systems of production which allow the birds their proper dignity.
Mr President, I too very much regret the fact that neither the Commission report nor Mr Kindermann's report proposes ending the practice of keeping laying hens in cages.
As long as cages continue to be used, even if they are bigger and fitted with a perch, we cannot really speak of appropriate methods of keeping these birds.
The European Parliament ought to prove that it wants no half-hearted compromises in matters of animal welfare, and it should vote for those amendments which seek to have the cage system done away with altogether.
The fact that 93 % of eggs produced for consumption in the EU come from battery cages must not stand in the way of a ban on this shameful form of mass animal torment.
Rather, this figure proves that the European consumer is not sufficiently aware of animal welfare issues, or of questions of product quality.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must thank Mr Kindermann for his extremely competent and detailed report.
I am happy to see that Parliament's basic position on the protection of laying hens kept in various systems of rearing is the same as that of the Commission.
What objective is the Commission pursuing with the proposal we are debating here today? Firstly, a real improvement in the welfare of laying hens on the basis of scientific knowledge.
The present system of battery cages is very much a candidate for being improved or replaced.
Secondly, in order to facilitate the switch to methods of rearing which are more appropriate to the basic needs of laying hens, we wish to ensure that the minimum standards result in production costs which are comparable for the various alternative methods of rearing and the improved battery cage system.
Acceptable systems are non-cage systems and so-called 'enriched' cages.
These are enriched in the sense that they have not only perches, as already mentioned, but above all nestboxes and scratching areas.
Thirdly, a ten-year transitional period is envisaged for existing barns, but new and converted barns will have to meet the new standards straight away.
Fourthly, the directive will be revised after seven years to take account of any further scientific progress.
Egg labelling will be mandatory.
Let me comment now on the amendments which have been tabled.
In drafting its proposal, the Commission took due account of jobs, the environment, health and the economy.
Amendment No 1 is therefore consistent with the Commission's thinking and we accept it.
This does not apply, however, to Amendments Nos 20, 21, 45, 51 and 61.
Amendment No 10 represents an improvement in the wording and seeks better protection for poultry. So this amendment too is acceptable.
The Commission's proposal amounts to the same thing as Parliament's Amendment No 13, but this amendment can also be accepted as it makes the text clearer.
Amendment No 15 is acceptable, since the provisions on feed and water systems in the Commission proposal relate to cages.
In systems other than cages, however, the space per hen can be reduced.
The distinction between single-floor cages and multi-floor systems is perfectly acceptable.
So Amendments Nos 16 to 19 can also be accepted.
Amendments Nos 22, 23 and 29 are also acceptable. These are improvements to the Commission proposal.
The remaining amendments are not acceptable to the Commission for the following reasons: Amendments Nos 2, 37(3) and 36, 42, 59, 69 and 70 are not consistent with Community policy.
As for Amendments Nos 5, 38 and 55, current WTO rules do not allow the Community to use animal welfare provisions as an instrument of trade.
As you know, however, the Commission is considering whether, at the forthcoming round of WTO negotiations, animal welfare provisions might be introduced as a new element in the WTO's terms of trade.
Amendments Nos 4, 54, 57 and 68 are superfluous to this proposal.
Amendments Nos 6, 12, 43, 44, 45, 51, 58, 63, 64 and 65 have no scientific basis, and our proposals have to be constructed on a scientific basis.
Amendment No 8 is linked to Amendments Nos 24 to 28, 30, 32 and 33.
These, together with Amendments Nos 9, 14, 46, 49 and 56, do not constitute improvements of any kind and therefore cannot be accepted.
Amendment No 7 clearly concerns a linguistic problem, because this amendment corresponds exactly to the English text of the Commission's proposal.
Amendments Nos 50, 52, 60, 62, 66 and 67 are premature in the Commission's view, since the matter concerned is still under discussion.
It is therefore a good idea to postpone the date of the directive's entry into force.
This then makes Amendment No 11 and the related Amendments Nos 31, 34, 35, 39, 40, 41, 47 and 48 perfectly acceptable.
Finally, I agree with the view that a directive is preferable to a regulation, and consequently I cannot accept Amendment No 53.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 0.15 a.m.
Madam President, as we are voting on these agricultural reforms, the Agenda 2000 reforms, I would just like to inform my colleagues that it has been over fifty degrees below zero in Finland this week.
Such conditions are worth noting, as cars and other kinds of machinery are frozen solid.
Madam President, I have a point of order on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
At the sitting of Wednesday, 13 January 1999 in Strasbourg, Commissioner Bangemann spoke on the Malerba report on globalisation and the information society.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media is sorry to see that Mr Bangemann is apparently so afraid of it that he felt obliged to exercise his prerogatives under the Rules of Procedure and criticise the committee as a whole for having presumed to express its own views on the substance of the report in the form of a letter.
But the committee members can be forgiving of Mr Bangemann's remarks.
The Committee on Culture is happy that its principal comments on the Green Paper on convergence were taken on board last October.
Mr Bangemann must have been sorely disappointed to find that a committee which he regards as so insignificant was in fact able to push through its main ideas on convergence.
Thank you, Mrs Hawlicek.
I note what you have just said, but Mr Bangemann is not here to give you an answer.
Madam President, I would like to say that the acoustics in this room are very bad.
We can hardly hear you without the headphones.
The technical services should deal with this, as the situation is absolutely intolerable.
You are quite right, Mr Fayot.
You will know that several of us have raised the question of the acoustics here in the Chamber.
I would make two comments in response to what you have said.
Firstly, the Bureau has given the matter consideration, and we have called in a firm to see how the acoustics can be improved.
Secondly, I would ask Members to cooperate; if they would be good enough to take their seats as quickly and as quietly as possible, that would naturally improve the situation.
Madam President, I would like to come back to the point that was made about Mr Bangemann, and to urge the House to show some understanding towards him, as he is clearly suffering from end of mandate syndrome.
Thank you, Mr Wolf.
VOTES
Madam President, may I suggest that we postpone the vote on the legislative resolution, in line with our practice on other reports on agriculture and also because the Commission failed to keep the promise it gave in Strasbourg and did not make its position on the reports available to us until last night.
We are happy with that, Madam President.
But we shall see what we actually achieve with the Council in the direct talks beginning next week, and then we shall vote.
We all had a chance to read that yesterday evening, of course.
Our thanks to the Commission, although it did come a little late!
Yes, I understand the situation.
To do things in the proper form, I shall put the proposal by Mr Mulder to the vote.
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
I should like to ask the Commission, pursuant to Rule 60, whether it is prepared to accept the amendments that we have put forward here.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we distributed a list yesterday of the amendments which the Commission is currently able to accept.
Regrettably, the Commission cannot accept all the amendments which have been adopted here.
I have read the Commission paper, Madam President, but I wanted to do things by the book, which is why I asked Mr Fischler once again to say that the Commission is not accepting everything.
I therefore request referral back to committee pursuant to Rule 60(2).
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
Madam President, this means that we have finally got rid of one of the most grisly premium payments, namely the Herod premium.
I should like to thank the whole House for that!
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
Madam President, I would like to request that the vote on the legislative resolution be postponed, pursuant to Rule 60(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
Madam President, I should like to clear up one more point concerning the vote on Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf's report.
I think there was some confusion at the end.
We approved the report, and as I understand it the rapporteur's request for referral back to committee concerned the legislative resolution.
So this is not a referral back to committee, but simply a referral of the legislative resolution forward into a better future.
We are counting on the wisdom of the Commission and the Council to round the whole thing off nicely.
Yes, Mr Rehder, I think that was quite clear.
I did indeed put the Commission proposal as amended to the vote, and it was approved by a considerable majority.
The same thing happened with the other reports, for example that by Mr Garot which we have just dealt with.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am basically very happy with the way in which the House has voted.
I should like to propose, and I would ask my colleagues to agree to this, that we postpone this final vote pursuant to Rule 60(2), in other words when we come to the legislative resolution.
Yes, Mr Goepel, you are being a little premature, but I think that everyone will have understood your intention.
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
I put to the vote the rapporteur's proposal that the vote on the draft legislative resolution should be postponed.
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
Second proposal for a regulation
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
Madam President, Commissioner, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, I would ask you if you are prepared to accept Amendments Nos 7, 10 and 11 - the amendments concerning the option of transfer with or without the corresponding land, and more flexible application of the superlevy if quotas are extended to the year 2006?
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Goepel has in fact asked two questions.
The first refers to the option of transfer with or without the corresponding land.
I am prepared to accept the amendments relating to this.
As regards the superlevy, I should point out that a more flexible superlevy is not something which can be achieved overnight.
In the meantime, we are discussing a possible review of the operation of the milk system, about half-way through the conversion period, so in 2003 or thereabouts, and consequently I would prefer it if we could take this matter up again after that review has taken place.
Madam President, I am grateful to the Commissioner for having explained it for the third time.
I hope everyone has now grasped it.
Madam President, I shall take the Commissioner at his word, because to me these are the most important features of this market regime.
He has confirmed his willingness to accept them.
So we can vote on the legislative resolution.
Parliament rejected the draft legislative resolution and the report was thus referred back to committee
Madam President, there is no point in repeating the same old story.
For the same reasons as my colleagues, to have more time to examine the Commission's position properly, I would ask for the vote on the legislative resolution to be postponed.
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
Second proposal for a regulation
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution
Madam President, after that stroke of luck, I hope to be equally fortunate in asking for the vote on this legislative resolution to be postponed.
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, to my mind we are in something of a quandary here.
We have a report which admittedly covers only one aspect of the whole dispute over bananas, but in the present delicate situation we should be careful not to make any mistake here, perhaps as a result of having too few Members present in the House.
I have the feeling that, because we need 314 votes, there ought to be rather more Members present for this vote.
The fact is, though, that we were given the common position of the Council on 5 November.
So I would ask the presidency to check whether we can still vote on this report in Strasbourg, given the low number of Members present, or whether the deadline for doing so has automatically expired.
I would urge my colleagues to come back to the Chamber, otherwise we shall have no means of influencing this procedure if we cannot obtain the necessary 314 votes.
Mr Liese, I understand the problem.
I will first check to see how many Members remain in the House and then I shall consider what to do.
This is because, on the other hand, if we postpone the vote until Strasbourg, until the February part-session, we will have a deadline problem.
It was established that 335 Members were present
I wonder whether I ought to propose that the vote should be postponed until February and, if necessary, we can request an extension of the deadline.
Mr President, while it is true that there are only a few more Members present than the absolute majority required, there are actually enough Members here.
All the amendments from the Committee on Development and Cooperation were adopted by very large majorities.
This is the second reading of a very urgent and very important legislative proposal, so I think the right thing to do is to vote on it now.
Every Member and every political group must take responsibility for the outcome of the amendments.
Mr President, I think the majorities are extremely slender.
So I would suggest that we postpone the vote and that you put this proposal to the vote.
We shall now vote on the proposal to postpone the vote until February.
Parliament rejected the proposal to postpone the vote
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
I would like to point out to Parliament that in future the Bureau does not intend to accept these requests for votes on sections of texts, which create total confusion.
We would also ask the political groups to take more care.
It is very difficult for the House to understand when a phrase within a sentence is taken in isolation.
I will accept it now, but for the last time.
Parliament adopted the resolution
On reflection, I should like to ask for voting to be halted at this point.
I think that not only we, but also the Chair which has performed so well, are getting a little tired.
My apologies to those whose reports have not yet been put to the vote, but I think there is no longer any point.
Mr President, I should like to make a brief point on Mr Bernard-Reymond's comprehensive and excellent report on which we are about to vote.
We can do it much faster if some of the amendments are withdrawn.
I will explain because it is quite an important point.
We have been here all morning dealing with some very trivial amendments.
In the Bernard-Reymond report there are 32 amendments tabled by Mr Dupuis.
None of them were tabled in committee.
The rapporteur has generously accepted five of them.
Only two of them relate to events since the report was taken in committee.
I therefore invite Mr Dupuis to withdraw all his amendments except the two.
If he will do so we can deal with this report in two minutes.
Mr President, with all due respect to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten's suggestion, I must point out that it is not yet 1 p.m.
We can therefore vote on Mr Bernard-Reymond's report.
Mixed reactions
I am well aware that we are all very tired, but it is not yet 1 p.m. and we could follow Mr McMillan-Scott's proposal and vote on this one last report.
We shall now vote on the proposal to suspend voting at this point, before the vote on the report by Mr Bernard-Reymond.
Parliament approved the proposal to suspend voting
Mr President, I asked for the floor five minutes ago, firstly in order to congratulate you on the way in which you have conducted the sitting.
I note the result of the vote, and I am bewildered by the proposal that was made by a Member of this House, namely Mr McMillan-Scott.
I thought that such methods belonged to the People's Assembly in China, but I see that people dare to put forward such proposals even in the Strasbourg and Brussels Parliament.
Mr President, I voted in favour of the Mulder report, because this represents the first official mention in a European Parliament decision of the principle of cofinancing.
I regard this as a major policy success, because we keep on saying that the autonomy of the regions and nations has to be preserved, that we must only do at European level things which cannot be done at national level, and this principle holds true also and above all when it comes to the funding of agriculture.
We must not have the funds going first to Brussels and then coming back from Brussels.
It is feasible and would make better sense for a proportion of these funds - 25 % or even 50 % - to be provided by the regions and the states themselves as their contribution to financing agriculture.
That will also reduce the chances of mismanagement and fraud: the money can remain in the hands of the Member States.
I think this is a good idea and a good resolution on the part of the European Parliament, offering sound guarantees and prospects for the future, and for that reason I voted for the Mulder report with a clear conscience.
The Swedish Social Democrats are in favour of three overall objectives for agricultural and food policy in the EU.
Firstly, agricultural and food production should be driven by consumer demand; secondly, production should be sustainable in the long term, both ecologically and economically; and thirdly, the EU should be contributing towards worldwide food security, for example by ensuring that the principles of free trade are upheld in the agriculture and food sectors.
Free trade should, however, be compatible with the interests of consumers, animal protection and regional and environmental policy.
We think that in the long term, both restrictions on production and subsidies under the COMs should be phased out.
The financial resources thus released could be used for investment in regional industrial development, infrastructure, rural development and environmental services, which may well be necessary as a result of reform.
In the long term, agriculture - like other sectors - will generally have to operate on the basis of market conditions.
During a transitional period, however, temporary support may be required to enable the adjustments to be made in a way that is acceptable from a social point of view.
Well-defined measures are needed in order to meet the vitally important environmental goals, as well as to promote rural and regional industrial development.
We are also convinced that the reduction and eventual abolition of market support measures and better adaptation to free market principles will lead to a reduction in the cost of the agricultural policy.
In order to achieve this goal, some additional pressure on the EC budget, of a temporary nature, may be acceptable. In the long run, however, there will be a reduction in agricultural spending.
We regard this as an urgent matter, since it would facilitate the forthcoming enlargement of the Union towards the east.
The Danish Social Democrats today voted in favour of the Mulder report. This is because we support the entire enlargement project, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
We did however vote against the amendment on cofinancing, since we think that this would mean a renationalisation of the agricultural policy.
Only as a euphemism can we any longer speak about financing the CAP, when the proposals we are debating in reality concern savage cuts in the appropriations available for agriculture, leading to the annihilation of small and medium-sized family holdings mainly in the southern parts of the Community, with the result that the number of holdings and the number of people working on them will fall drastically and the unemployment ratio in rural areas will rocket upwards, dangerously accelerating the desertion of the countryside.
By calling into question and continually reducing the share of the Community budget for agriculture, which is what the 'Agenda 2000' proposals and the CAP review proposals are doing, what is in reality being called into question and undermined - and this moreover without any further attempt to hide the fact - is the decisive role played by agriculture hitherto in most of Europe's regions, especially in the south.
The European Union is constantly reducing its existing agricultural workforce, since now its declared aim is to save resources and to prepare for the predatory enterprise of enlargement towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, so that European monopolistic capital can respond to the new regime of the World Trade Organisation from 2000 onwards, with its notorious submissiveness to the demands of the USA.
We disagree with the rapporteur's view that pre-accession aid to the applicant countries should not be entered under a separate category and that it should be included in the guideline, in order to reduce the burden on the rest of the budget.
Pre-accession aid must be a separate category, not included in the guideline, so as to prevent a reduction of the already savagely reduced resources available from the Guarantee Section for farming in the Member States.
With compulsory cofinancing of direct aid by the Member States, this proposal heralds a flagrant and unacceptable intrusion in the national budgets of Member States, on what are effectively conditions of submission.
This not only contravenes the provisions of the Treaty, but indirectly prepares the ground for a substantive transfer of compulsory expenditure to national budgets - with no prior opinion from the national parliaments - for policies and decisions adopted by the EC executive. With a surfeit of hypocrisy and populism, and in the name of an illogical so-called rationalisation which goes against any notion of solidarity, a misrepresented renationalisation is being sponsored which will nevertheless relate solely to expenditure, while the Community will retain exclusive powers to determine every detail of the CAP - quotas, price and export subsidies, taxes and so on - without any margin of flexibility or any scope for the Member State itself to frame its own agricultural policy.
We are categorically opposed to this Commission proposal, and there is no room for 'its better management'.
It is our duty to oppose and reject such a policy, which is against the interests of small and medium-sized farmers and growers.
I agree with the main objectives in Agenda 2000.
The agricultural policy is definitely in need of reform.
However, this should not be carried out in a way or at a speed that is detrimental to either agriculture or employment.
Slightly smaller price cuts are therefore in order.
Some crops will have to be used for purposes other than food, for example as fuel and in industrial processes.
Europe should embark on a wide-ranging programme aimed at bringing about a switch from petrol to environmentally friendly fuels.
A ceiling should be set on the amount of agricultural support that can be given to individual holdings.
Additional support should be made available to less-favoured regions, particularly in northern Europe, so as to ensure the survival of farming in Sweden and Finland.
Quality assurance should be introduced for agricultural methods and products.
In general, support should be geared more towards environmental purposes.
Cofinancing by the Member States should be allocated on the same basis as assistance from the Structural Funds.
However, it should be possible to vary the amount according to the needs of different countries and regions.
Naturally, farmers should be adequately compensated for lower prices which reflect price falls on the world market.
Where the relevant environmental or animal welfare legislation is not applied, it should be possible for payments to be withheld.
However, in the case of organic food production, price cuts should not be too large or happen too quickly.
The present system must be reformed in line with market principles in terms of paying for what is produced, and support should gradually be phased out. This is what had been decided in Sweden just before we joined the EU.
More support should be provided for environmental and rural development.
It is also what many farmers, as well as a significant section of the general public, would like to see.
If the enlargement process is to be carried through, then agriculture will continue to be dependent on some EU funding.
The timescale for this should therefore be extended.
I am reluctantly voting in favour of this report today. In my view it is far too cautious.
Nothing less than root-and-branch reform of the CAP will do.
A CAP designed for the Europe of the 1950s is no longer suitable for a Europe entering the new Millennium.
Radical reform will benefit consumers, taxpayers and most farmers.
For far too long the people of the North West, like every one else, have been paying the price (literally) for the failure of the CAP.
Consumers have been paying too much for their food bills, taxpayers have been paying too much for their tax bills, and hard-pressed small farmers and hill farmers have not received the support they need.
Indeed, it is hard to see who actually gains from the CAP.
The answer, of course, is large farmers backed by their Tory allies.
The Tories have always been the large landowners' lackeys.
They supported them during the BSE crisis while Labour supported consumers.
They continue to support them on fox-hunting while Labour - like most people - support a ban.
Once more, in championing CAP reform, it falls to Labour to stick up for the interests of ordinary people.
Graefe zu Baringdorf report (A4-0480/98)
The Danish Social Democrats today voted in favour of the Graefe zu Baringdorf report on direct support.
We think it important to reduce intervention as an element in the overall reform of the common agricultural policy.
The reform of the common agricultural policy is a precondition for enlargement, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
We voted against the amendment on special support for the planting of fodder legumes which would be good for the environment.
We do not think that fodder legumes are necessarily any better for the environment than other plant species.
We have followed the voting instructions of the PSE on these two reports, with the amendments and conditions which we consider appropriate to safeguard the interests of Portuguese agriculture and farmers in the framework of a revised and fairer European agricultural policy.
Despite the fact that the results achieved in the votes may be regarded as heading in a direction more favourable to these interests than the original proposals, particularly those of the Commission, we feel it is necessary to vote against these reports in the final vote. This is because we believe that it only makes sense to take decisions on, or with implications for, the financing of the CAP in the framework of the ongoing negotiations on own resources, financial perspectives and the financing and content of policies covered by the Structural Funds and of all EU policies.
We are once again being guided - while still supporting the extensive reform of the CAP - by the aim of not limiting nor jeopardising before time, by piecemeal decisions, the negotiating scope required to secure a final result which is favourable to the interests of Portugal in these difficult negotiations, which should lead to an EU with greater solidarity and which is more fairly financed.
The Swedish Social Democrats believe that investment in rural development is both right and necessary.
However, we doubt that the way to go about this is to deliberately scale down agricultural productivity.
For the sake of the rural economy, employment and the environment, we think it would be preferable for agriculture to adjust to the market and to be exposed to competition.
Garot report (A4-0494/98)
We should like to use this explanation of vote to point out that the Swedish Social Democrats believe that the Member States should make up their own minds on whether to grant premiums for heifers under the suckler cow scheme up to a ceiling of 20 %, which in the case of Sweden would mean that the ceiling for male bovine animals should revert to its original level.
The same would apply to the quotas for suckler cows and heifers.
We have serious reservations about the effect of increased production, as proposed by the Commission, on the environment.
To allay our fears, we are calling on the Commission to draw up a more extensive and radical proposal based on a study of the environmental implications, in accordance with the conclusions reached by the Council meeting in Cardiff.
The Danish Social Democrats today voted against the Garot report on the organisation of the market in beef and veal. This is because the report seeks to maintain intervention on beef.
We think it important to reduce intervention as part of the overall reform of the common agricultural policy.
The reform of the common agricultural policy is a precondition for the enlargement project, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
We support the proposal presented by the Commission on the organisation of the market in beef and veal.
Yesterday the Commission presented to the House its proposal on agriculture and the environment, rightly stressing the need for European agriculture to be environmentally friendly.
The proposal for a reform of the COM in beef that the very same Commission is now proposing to us is in complete contradiction with its desire to promote environmentally friendly agriculture.
The Commission actually wants to abolish the specific compensation for the production system that is most environmentally friendly: the production of suckler cows.
Rather than consuming imported proteins, these suckler cows eat grass and use pasture land.
This form of agricultural production, which is mainly practised in less-favoured and environmentally sensitive areas, will eventually disappear if the Commission's proposals are accepted as they stand.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has therefore tabled several amendments to enable this form of production, which responds to the particular expectations that consumers have in terms of both health and safety and of land management, to be re-established.
The removal of this type of production would in fact weaken areas which are already suffering from major desertification.
As for lowering the price by 30 %, this is unacceptable.
The world price for beef is half the European price.
This 30 % reduction will therefore not be any help in gaining market shares, but it will weaken the sector as well as considerably reducing the incomes of a category of farmers that already earn the least.
In order to compensate for this reduction in prices, the Commission envisages partial compensation through direct aid.
This direct aid will be called into question by our partners in the WTO (the former GATT).
To conclude, what is being proposed today is a major reduction in the price of beef, for which there will only be partial compensation, and from 2003 onwards we will be told that in order to fulfill our international obligations we must reduce compensatory aid.
At the end of the day, the only ones who will lose out are the farmers, whose income will be reduced unless they increase their production by using growth promoters (hormones).
Once again, farmers will be confronted with a dilemma: either they disappear, or they use technology that is not in keeping with ethically responsible behaviour.
Our group will vote against the Commission's proposal if the amendments that it has tabled are not adopted and accepted by the Commission.
Basically we agree with the rapporteur that a 30 % cut in the guaranteed prices for beef and veal is particularly severe.
Unfortunately, some reduction is inevitable in view of the imminent accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
In these countries a high proportion of people's incomes goes on food, even though food prices are relatively low.
Current EU guaranteed prices would be disastrous for those countries and a serious obstacle to their accession.
Lowering guaranteed prices to world market level is going too far, in our view.
Livestock breeders in the EU are entitled to continue to be assured of a decent income, this being the raison d'être of the CAP.
So a lowering of guaranteed prices must go hand in hand with a raising of compensatory payments, which cannot be paid if there is no longer any price support.
Not enough attention is given in the Commission proposal to limiting production, as the rapporteur rightly points out.
Set-aside and quotas are useful for limiting surpluses, which work very much to the disadvantage of developing countries.
But limits on production must not lead to an artificial shortage, so that market prices rise far above guaranteed prices.
Goepel report (A4-0446/98)
We Social Democrats believe that milk quotas should be phased out as quickly as possible, and by the year 2006 at the latest.
We also think it is reasonable for quotas to be raised by a further 2 % above the proposed 2 % during the transitional period.
In our view, the intervention price for butter and skimmed milk powder should be reduced to the world market level, meaning a cut of 30 % instead of the proposed 15 %.
Finally, we think it is essential for direct payments to be based on the quantity of milk produced, in other words on milk quotas and no other criteria.
The Danish Social Democrats today voted against the Goepel report on milk and dairy products. This is because the report only seeks to reduce price intervention by 10 %, whereas the Commission is proposing 15 %.
We think it important to reduce intervention as part of the overall reform of the Common Agricultural Policy and are in favour of a reduction of 30 %.
Reform of the common agricultural policy is a precondition for the enlargement project, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
While there is a world market for cereals, meat and protein-rich foods, our Group would like to point out that there is not a world market for milk, but only for milk products.
This is the reason for the position adopted by the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, which is opposed to any reduction in the price of milk.
Moreover, more than 90 % of European milk production is consumed on the European market, so why does the Commission reject the system of 'double price, double quota' that is used in some countries such as Canada?
Rather than maintaining a European price for the milk consumed on the European market and defining, on the basis of a specific quota, an adjusted price which will enable companies and cooperatives to market their processed milk products in third countries, without any refunds, the Commission prefers to lower the price of milk across all European production.
That reduction will only encourage producers to increase their productivity, either through intensification or by expanding their farms.
During this legislature, we have experienced the painful problem of BSE.
We all know that this problem was linked to the feeding of suckling herds.
Why, therefore, should we encourage further intensification?
Meanwhile, the expansion of farms leads to the desertification of the countryside.
More than two million farmers have already disappeared in the European Union since 1992.
Do we want unemployment to rise?
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations will vote against the Commission's proposal, as in the milk sector there is nothing to justify a reform of the common organisation of the market in milk and milk products.
Fantuzzi report (A4-0496/98)
We Social Democrats warmly welcome the Commission's proposal, which is a step in the right direction.
Consumers are in favour of having cheaper food, and there are better prospects of removing export subsidies.
The proposed changes are particularly urgent in relation to maize, which is a major food crop as well as an important element in the production of livestock.
In our view, the premium for silage maize should be phased out, for the simple reason that it has a distorting effect on competition for those countries in the northern part of the Union where the climate makes it impossible to benefit from this support measure.
If for some reason it is not abolished, then the farmers in those countries who are adversely affected must be compensated for the cuts in the price of milk and male bovine animals, which have been linked to the continuing support for silage.
The Danish Social Democrats today voted in favour of the first part of the Fantuzzi report on arable crops and against the second part.
We support the first part of the report, which backs the Commission proposal to reduce the intervention price for cereals by 30 %.
We think it important to reduce intervention as part of the overall reform of the common agricultural policy.
We are also in favour of the Commission proposal for a support system covering certain arable crops, but since the second part of the report rejects this proposal, we are voting against the second part.
The Commission proposal maintains compulsory set-aside, and direct payments for oil seeds and linseed are kept at the same level.
Reform of the common agricultural policy is a precondition for the enlargement project, which we think is one of the most important steps taken by the European Community in our time.
It must be the aim of all Europeans to ensure peace and stability in our continent.
The planned reform of the common organisation of the market in cereals proposed by the Commission would have to be seriously modified before it could be adopted by our Group.
The Commission's proposal makes absolutely no mention of agricultural products for non-food use.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations deplores this and stresses its interest in this sector, which could allow considerable advances to be made in environmental terms (renewable energy sources, bio-fuels, etc).
With regard to oleo-proteins, the Commission's proposal takes no account at all of the European Union's huge protein deficit.
As a result of the ban on animal meal feed for cattle following the BSE problem, the European Union's level of self sufficiency has fallen from 20 % to 10 %.
Instead of promoting a policy of developing protein-rich foods, the Commission seems to want to destroy the industry by drastically reducing the compensatory aid to that sector.
Protein-rich foods, as well as being useful for reducing the European Union's dependence on the United States and Brazil as its main suppliers, are also an important sector of production in agronomic terms, as they are an ideal rotation crop for farmers.
Another rotation crop is maize.
In that sector, the Commission's proposals are unacceptable as they stand.
If we apply the reform as proposed, European maize production will be dramatically reduced.
I would point out that a quality rotation crop means that wheat on wheat rotations for the soil can be avoided.
All farmers know that the absence of a rotation crop reduces the quality of the soil and obliges them to increase the use of fertilisers and phytosanitary products.
To conclude, Mr President, rather than drawing up their own sophisticated technocratic proposals, the Commission staff in Brussels should make the effort to gain a little more knowledge of the agronomic constraints on farmers.
Some directives and some regulations aim to make European farming more environmentally friendly, using less fertilisers (nitrates directive) and less phytosanitary products (directive on residues and liability for food products).
However, there is a total contradiction between those positive steps and the proposal for the reform of the COM in cereals which has been submitted to us.
In order to compensate for the shortcomings and weaknesses of the Commission's proposal, our Group has tabled several amendments, and if they are not accepted by the Commissioners we will be forced to vote against this proposal.
Mulder, Graefe zu Baringdorf, Garot, Goepel and Fantuzzi reports
We have decided that, in the main, we will support the Commission's proposals in the vote on the agricultural part of Agenda 2000.
In our view, this will help to make European agriculture more competitive on the world market, which in turn will serve to increase prosperity.
The fact that consumers will benefit from lower food prices will more than compensate for any initially increased budget costs.
According to the Commission, the reforms will also facilitate the enlargement of the Union.
In the numerous votes on agriculture, I have tried to vote as far as possible for cuts in subsidies and for further deregulation of the food sector.
As long as there is due consideration for the environment, the EU's objective should be to abolish all subsidies and to place farmers and food producers on an equal footing with other manufacturers and businesses in the Union.
I want the agricultural policy to be transformed into a system which is geared to market conditions.
That must be the aim of reforms to the EU's agricultural policy.
However, the reforms must take place with due regard for transitional arrangements and the environment.
In the final votes, we voted against the above reports for the following reasons.
The reports reflect the unwillingness of the majority in Parliament to accept the reforms and policy changes which the common agricultural policy so badly needs.
In particular, the Garot, Fantuzzi and Goepel reports resemble nothing more than an attempt to sabotage the reform process instigated by the Commission and the Council.
The Commission's proposal to cut intervention prices as a means of restructuring is being thwarted by the requirement that full compensation should be paid through direct support, and that new support measures or other forms of market intervention should be introduced.
Such requirements imposed by the majority in Parliament reduce the scope for an active policy of rural development, which is badly needed if we are to provide alternative ways for farming families and other country dwellers to earn their living.
We support the Commission's overall efforts to bring about agricultural reform, particularly the importance it attaches to a broader rural development policy.
We also support the proposal that there should be less intervention.
However, we are doubtful - or indeed critical - regarding some of the specific proposals, for example the so-called horizontal measures, and every possible outcome needs to be more carefully examined.
It is also regrettable that there is no detailed description of the environmental implications of the various reform proposals, a shortcoming that should be corrected.
In any further work on reform, it will be impossible to avoid addressing the question of export subsidies, which apart from being a problem in themselves also adversely affect the global food situation.
We are aware that any major reform process has to be carried out gradually and taking account of the wider social implications, particularly as regards the many small farms that still exist in some Member States.
We are opposed to an unfettered free-market approach in the agricultural sector on the lines of New Zealand.
Any such policy would further undermine the global market and damage food production in the third world.
Farming serves to sustain us, and should be treated as a special case to which it is inappropriate to apply dogmatic economic principles and market philosophy.
With this explanation of vote we are saying that we have no more doubts about our position on the proposals on which the House has just voted.
Our amendments were duly considered, yet it is obvious that these amendments - although positive - can only amend parts of the regulations without altering their basic content or aims.
We should have prevented the present reform from being a mere extension of the 1992 reform by eliminating the discrimination which this reform introduced and worsened among farmers, regions and products, with profound consequences in terms of the reduction in the number of holdings, the abandonment of the countryside and the ruin of small and medium-sized holdings and family-based farming.
We should have prevented the attempted submission to the WTO and rejected further price reductions which will generate further falls in agricultural income - which in Portugal has already fallen by 13 % in each of the last two years - without full and total compensation.
We should have rebalanced the funding by drastically limiting the support to large farmers and directing it instead to small and medium-sized holdings.
This would have introduced genuine modulation instead of accepting the mockery which the Commission is intending to introduce.
We are therefore voting against the proposals on the reform of the meat, milk and cereal sectors and the regulation on horizontal measures and we want the position of the Socialist Group against the principles of genuine modulation to go on the record as we feel this is highly relevant.
We are also voting against the proposed regulation on the financing of the CAP in which one amendment was approved, tabled by Mr Cunha in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. This amendment opens the door for the Commission's proposal for the cofinancing of this common policy to be approved.
With this door opened by this Portuguese Member it will certainly be easier to renationalise the costs of the CAP, which will further worsen discrimination and exacerbate the negative consequences for internal cohesion, disregarding the Treaties themselves and calling into question the basic principles of solidarity.
Maybe the Commission is currently so pumped full of gaucho - the insecticide that is supposed to make our bees mad - that it has itself lost its sense of direction, and at the same time its sense of the sound balance required for a European model of agriculture.
For any observer this is becoming more and more evident in the proposals that are put forward, the failure to respond to our amendments, and the discretion with which the Commission, allegedly for financial reasons, pursues its objective of destabilisation through guidelines that are actually designed to meet other objectives, such as:
reforming the Structural Funds in order to complete enlargement in time and to give assurances to our American partners in WTO negotiations; -controlling and taking decisions without consulting the Member States or even the European Parliament, which has almost become standard practice for the Commission.It is true that in the last motion of censure, the Commission only escaped defeat by a hair's breadth.
Is not the easiest way of preventing the European Parliament from giving an economically logical and sound opinion on the various COMs and other Agenda 2000 reforms to create a 'genetically modified mammoth' which bears no relation to the agricultural policies of the Member States?
The Council will decide, because obviously the European Parliament, with its social, economic and cultural differences, cannot do so in the run-up to the elections.
The Commission goes from one compromise to the next, awarding a cheque to some, a tip to others, and some compensation here and there, which may be more or less depending on the products, people, individual situations, climates and policies. The Commission is discrediting the European Union by acting in this manner, but it will be the farmers, the guardians and managers of the land, who will pay for it.
Our I-EDN Group will not vote in favour of the legislative resolution, in the hope that the first rays of sunshine of the forthcoming spring will add some positive colour to this document, which is deciding the future of European agriculture and especially that of young farmers.
I think the European Commission's approach of not radically modifying the old model of financing the CAP is right. Although certain points need adjustment, it has been an effective and efficient instrument for supporting European agriculture.
I agree that the rural development interventions should be included in the guarantee section of the Fund, so as to ensure modernisation and diversification beyond Objective 1 programmes, and I would stress the importance of including in that section actions designed to improve the quality of agricultural food and non-food products, with the ultimate aim of ensuring that European producers receive an adequate return on capital invested.
I also agree that the rural development measures under Objective 1 and the Community Initiatives should be included in the guidance section.
As regards Parliament's supervisory powers, I believe the House should intervene at the payment stage.
I also agree with the need to ensure national financing of income support measures for farmers, thus strengthening the principle of subsidiarity in aid.
Finally, I accept the Commission's proposal for establishing a new system whereby direct support to farmers is reduced on the basis of a digressive sliding scale depending on the manpower employed and environmental requirements, but I do not think it is right to impose a maximum intervention ceiling linked to respect for environmental standards.
In general I think it is important that the Agenda 2000 reform of the CAP should be in place by next spring and should still guarantee protection for the interests of small farmers while providing consumer protection and market orientation measures geared to protection of the environment.
Small farmers represent a large percentage of the predominantly agricultural economies of some European regions - for example Southern Italy - and they must be able to count on compensation for the greater costs imposed by the reform.
Liese recommendation (A4-0012/99)
Our basic position, founded on detailed explanations from the Commission and others, is that preferential trade arrangements have not acted as a real motor for trade.
We therefore agree with the Council's proposal that the protocol relating to bananas should only be applied so long as the Convention is in force.
The committee refers to 'fair trade' in its amendments.
In principle, we are sympathetic towards 'fair trade', but we do not think that the support measures should be concentrated on this type of production.
In our view, priority should be given to supporting diversification, in other words moving away from banana production, and the support should be made available through the states in question.
Consequently, we believe that ownership should be in local hands and that the administration should therefore be carried out by the recipient countries.
For the above reasons, we are unable to support the following amendments tabled by the committee: Nos 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17 and 20.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supported Mr Liese's report.
Indeed, Parliament must support all efforts by the Union and the Member States to help our African and Caribbean partners to deal with the negative impact on their economies of the changes made to our COM in bananas following the findings of the World Trade Organisation.
Nevertheless, it is regrettable that, in calling for aid for the retraining of banana producers to be included in the programme, Mr Liese's report is going along with our opponents.
We are in the paradoxical position, having amended our COM in accordance with the demands of the WTO, of having to defend its conformity against an opponent, the United States, which is refusing in advance to abide by any decision that does not rule that the COM is incompatible.
Even beyond the obligations that we have to our development partners, which are just as important politically as the obligations to which we agreed in the WTO, the current banana crisis is a test case and its outcome will set a precedent: it will either be proved that respect for the law and for international commitments are legitimate demands, or else globalized trade as we know it today will hereafter only have one rule, that of unilateralism, and the survival of the fittest.
The underlying issue in this dispute is in fact the following: what objective is the American administration hoping to achieve through this outbidding process? What drives a country that does not produce a single banana to take the risk of triggering an economic war with Europe, the Caribbean countries and part of Africa?
Maybe, for the United States, globalization simply means applying American law on an international scale?
The day before yesterday, when Commissioner Brittan presented the various sides of the banana dispute to the Committee on External Economic Relations, he blamed the crisis on certain multinational companies, particularly Chiquita.
That explanation oversimplifies the issue.
It is in fact the 'transatlantic dialogue' as a whole that is being severely put to the test.
It is the usefulness of the TABD and the summit meetings that is being questioned.
The real question that the banana crisis is asking us is this: Do we or do we not accept the law of unilateralism, bypassing the WTO time and time again?
Kindermann report (A4-0481/98)
Mr President, I voted against the Kindermann report, which is not fair to egg producers and which appeals to people's emotions by dressing up an economic offensive to look like concern for animal welfare.
Researchers who specialise in the production of food from animal sources, whom I went to meet in the wilds of Brittany, assured me that a study on the implementation of the proposals in the revised directive did not show any improvement in the well-being of hens.
The efforts made by a pressure group to get its message across by disguising Members as hens, taking their photograph and putting hen cages in our letter boxes, amount to behaviour that is unacceptable in this Parliament.
Who pays for all of this, if it is not those who have an interest in destroying the egg production industry? Where in this report is the health of consumers taken into account, given that it seems to prefer to put eggs in dirty and dusty nests, as long as the hens are happy?
Europeans are shocked to see that Europe is more concerned about living conditions for hens than about housing people who have to sleep under bridges and who may sometimes only have duvets to keep them warm.
Let us all come to our senses and stop giving in to the pressure groups who only exist because of the money that they receive from the countries and companies for which they act, as they appeal to people's emotions.
Mr President, as regards the Kindermann report on battery hens, I wish to say that we Danish Social Democrats are in favour of anything that will lead to the abolition of battery farming.
There is in fact a powerful desire among consumers for free-range poultry farming of various kinds.
I think it is our task to help bring agricultural production up to date and not cling to old production methods which do not take account of animal welfare.
The step which has been taken here today is in my view a partial victory for the philosophy that wishes to get rid of these battery cages.
It is not happening fast enough, in our opinion, but it is a partial victory that the amendments seeking to abolish this method of production over the next ten years have been adopted.
That was good, and I also hope that the Commission, which has now left, understands this, and I hope that the Council in its deliberations will also take account of what has been adopted here in Parliament today.
Mr President, I am delighted that the Parliament has adopted the Kindermann report and that in particular the amendments calling for the total phasing out of the battery cage system by 2009 were also adopted.
I hope the Commission and Council listen to the view of the Parliament on this issue.
I could not disagree more with Mrs Guinebertière.
Of course I am concerned about homeless people but concern for the welfare of animals and concern for the welfare of people go together.
This is a very progressive and important step forward.
It is something that the Parliament's intergroup for animal welfare, which I have the honour to chair at the moment, has demanded for a very long time.
We have to end this domination of our society by the producers and ensure that the concerns of consumers and ordinary people are given far more consideration.
The overwhelming majority of people condemn factory farming and the battery system.
The fact that more and more free-range eggs are being bought and that more and more retailers are now moving towards the sale of free-range eggs demonstrates the concern of people in many countries of the European Union.
Let us hope that we have many more examples of this very important and progressive step forward.
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report on what is a pressing matter.
The situation of laying hens in various systems of rearing is serious from an animal welfare point of view.
The Commission's proposal and the report are therefore welcome.
In order to improve animal protection, it is essential that systems of rearing should take account of scientific studies in order to avoid impeding the natural behaviour patterns of the animals.
At the same time, the systems should comply with strict labour regulations to protect the workers in these plants.
We welcome the committee's proposal on the animal welfare aspects, but we do not think that a delay in implementing the directive can be justified.
The Danish Social Democrats today voted against the Kindermann report on the protection of laying hens in various systems of rearing.
We supported some of the amendments, since they contained improvements in this area, but we voted against the report as a whole.
We did so because we felt that, in spite of everything, the result was not good enough.
The report contains too many derogations, and the time-limits for improvements are too far off in the future.
We think that in the longer term, production should be switched to other systems which take more account of the environment and animal welfare.
Altogether the report does not contain enough improvements, so we cannot vote in favour of it.
I am voting in favour of this resolution today.
I am a keen supporter of animal welfare and have received many letters from my constituents on this matter.
This resolution is just a first step towards banning battery hen farming throughout the EU for good.
The battery farming of hens is undeniably cruel.
Hens, sometimes four or five at a time, are routinely kept in battery cages their entire lives.
The cages are so small they cannot even stretch their wings.
The battery farming of hens is also unnecessary.
British consumers are able and willing to buy eggs from free-range hens.
They would rather pay slightly more for their eggs than support inhumane farming methods.
Britain's Labour Government is leading the way.
We have announced our intention to phase out the battery farming of hens in the United Kingdom.
This is in sharp contrast to the uncaring attitude of our Tory predecessors who always put wealth before welfare, whether for hens or for humans.
An effective ban must be an EU-wide ban, however.
Battery hen farmers must not be able to ply their cruel trade elsewhere in Europe.
For Britain, famously a nation of animal lovers, such a ban cannot come soon enough.
Hermange report (A4-0004/99)
At the close of the 20th century, does the family still have a role to play in our European societies? The regular heated debates in our national parliaments, regional institutions and in the media leave us in no doubt about this.
Sociologists and demographers all agree that it is the family that binds together a social system.
Without the family unit, there cannot be a well-functioning society.
If we all accept this, we should also recognise that it is vital that our national governments should be concerned about the family given the fact that the population is ageing.
Who knows better than the family how to fight against marginalisation and isolation?
Who is the prime source of education for children?
Who is taking more and more responsibility for elderly and disabled members of the family? Who ensures that there is solidarity between generations?
Although the answers to those questions would be almost identical in the fifteen countries of the European Union, the support provided by the different Member States varies considerably. Family policies are extremely disparate, and as the family does not have any authority which is recognised in law or in legislation, so far no efforts have been made to bring them into line with each other.
Given this state of affairs, the European Union must act through its own institutions and through the governments of the Member States in order to put forward these arguments: there cannot be a balanced society without active support for the family.
Pro-family policy deserves to be supported by comprehensive measures which place the child at the heart of society.
A family policy cannot be limited to just paying out allowances and benefits, but should also encompass the problem of housing, recreational infrastructures, care facilities for very young children, out-of-school support, etc.
Despite the advances made by international bodies, children are increasingly in need of protection.
In this area, family structures can also play a key role, by fighting against poverty, child labour, child prostitution, violence and paedophilia.
I therefore support the Hermange report and its provisions, as they show a real will for genuine action to be taken and are not simply a catalogue of broad ideas.
I am referring, for example, to the very specific measures aimed at evaluating the impact on the family of every European measure introduced.
The European Parliament has a major role to play in such plans.
Failure at school, exponentially increasing juvenile delinquence, anti-social behaviour, drug addiction, marginalisation - there is no end to the list of disastrous consequences of the breakdown in family solidarity.
Top-heavy population pyramids, pension schemes under threat, social protection in danger, a very alarming decrease in the proportion of the population that is working - there is also no end to the list of catastrophic consequences of the demographic slump.
The Grand Panjandrums of politically correct thinking are forever attacking the family, especially when it is based on marriage.
However, most inconsistently, the very same people bemoan the consequences of their ideological frenzy.
It is, however, clear that even though the structure of the family has evolved over time, it has always been the natural context for caring for children, for the development of individuals, for solidarity between generations and for educating young people, and an assurance for the future and for the stability of society.
Mrs Hermange's report contains some excellent elements, for example the proposal for all Community acts to be accompanied by a family impact statement, and we can only support the request made for Member States to conduct ' specific family policies supporting and protecting the family financially and in its role as an educational and social force and a source of solidarity between the generations'.
However, insofar as family policy does not fall under the competence of the European Union, we could be forgiven for having doubts about the proposal to create a 'clearly identified unit' within the Commission.
As we are all aware of the tendency that this eminent institution has to continuously extend its powers, we might be justified in fearing that it may drift off course and go against the principle of subsidiarity.
To conclude, I have to say that I regret that the rapporteur rejected all the amendments tabled by our Group for reasons that had nothing to do with their substance, but simply in order to conserve an agreement that had been made with the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
We abstained from the vote on the Hermange report.
We entirely share the view that family policy is the responsibility and competence of the Member States; the EU should therefore not involve itself in these areas.
So we cannot vote for those sections of the report dealing with Europol and the Commission's responsibility for various initiatives in connection with the Member States' policies, or the considerations regarding a European judicial area.
We believe that children must be protected against abuse, that they must be integrated in society and be covered by acceptable provision in the education and social fields and so on, but this is and will continue to be a responsibility for the Member States.
I voted against the entire report in the final vote because I believe that family policy, including protection for families and children, should be a purely national matter and not subject to EU procedures and decisions.
In our European societies, which are seeing a number of fundamental changes taking place at once, the education, protection and welfare of children must be a central concern.
Even within the European Union, too many children are victims of poverty, exploited or maltreated for us not to notice the symptoms of an underlying evil that is eating away at our society, and which as a result is a challenge for politicians.
Along with our rapporteur, I think that each level of authority needs to grant a significant place to child care and child support policies, while respecting the principal of subsidiarity.
With this in mind, it would be useful for the Commission to examine in detail the policies that should be pursued by the various levels of authority, in order to ensure that children have the best possible conditions in which to develop.
This thought process should be ambitious and should be broad in its scope, covering the economic, social and cultural dimensions of the problem.
I unreservedly support the proposals contained in the resolution before us.
Indeed, I think that in this respect each level of power should have the ability to put right anything in the economic, social and cultural spheres which may be unfair to children or make life too difficult for them.
However, we need to have the courage to stress that no policy will ever be able to replace a good relationship and real dialogue between parents, whether they live under the same roof or not.
Political leaders need to have the courage to remind parents that, whatever their marital status or their personal relationships, in having children they have committed themselves to maintaining a minimal level of dialogue without which their offspring will be left to their own devices.
We are sympathetic towards much of what is contained in the report as regards the treatment of children in the Union Member States.
However, we cannot support the call for a 'coherent and coordinated family policy' as referred to by the Council, or a strengthening of the structure for dealing with family policy issues under the aegis of the Commission.
Furthermore, we are extremely sceptical about the references to Europol and the SIS.
The Council of Europe and the UN are already organising conferences on the situation of children at which the EU Member States are represented.
We shall therefore abstain on the points where we think such action is appropriate, and we shall vote against the report when it comes to the final vote.
I would like to thank all my colleagues in Parliament for having voted for this report on the protection of families and children.
In fact, in all the time that the European Parliament has been sitting, there has never been a report on this issue, which is such a sensitive one.
Up until now, for reasons of ideology and hostility towards the protection of families and children, our institution had not considered this very important issue.
Legal arguments were put forward, using the principle of subsidiarity as a pretext.
It is true that we cannot underestimate these legal obstacles, but we cannot say on the one hand that Europe is too technocratic and that it should not just be a 'Europe for traders', while on the other hand being hostile when Europe is used for the service of the people.
That is why I welcome this vote.
I also welcome the fact that it was my political group, the Union for Europe (UPE), that brought a message of optimism to families and children.
Finally, I would like to say that although, as rapporteur for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, I was obliged to oppose a number of amendments that were absolutely fundamental, it was only in that capacity that I did so, because an agreement had been reached and I had to observe that agreement.
Otherwise, we were in danger of not achieving a majority on this text, and therefore of depriving the families and children of Europe of genuine progress.
To the authors of those amendments, which defend the family as an essential component of our society, with the family based on a couple offering a solid educational framework, I would like to say that I agree with them and wholeheartedly support them.
I thank them for their fundamental contribution to this important debate, which aims to construct a Europe that is more humane and is based on solid values as we enter the 21st century.
The aim of this report is undoubtedly commendable, and it should be taken very seriously with regard to children's welfare.
Many of the ideas and intentions in the report are also good, and I can support them.
However, I have two major complaints.
Firstly, the report indirectly implies that a family should be defined as comprising a man, a woman and children, in accordance with the usual practice.
However, I should also like to see other family situations being recognised, for example homosexual couples with children.
In Sweden, we are currently looking into the possibility of whether homosexual couples should be able to legally adopt children, a move of which I am in favour.
It would have been helpful if this aspect had been dealt with in the report.
Secondly, many of the requirements and intentions relating to the protection and welfare of children are currently dealt with at national, regional or local level, in other words closer to the parties concerned.
I do not think that issues relating to the treatment of children should be dealt with at EU level, for a number of reasons.
We must respect the principle of subsidiarity.
Naturally, this does not mean that I approve of the way in which children are treated in Greece, for example.
However, there are widely differing reasons for the problems that exist, and EU involvement would only serve to complicate the situation.
It goes without saying that countries and regions should share their resources in terms of information and capabilities.
Some of the specific proposals in the report are worthwhile.
However, there are many others which concern local, regional or national issues and therefore should not be addressed at EU level.
I am in favour of all the proposals relating to the protection of children's rights, but I cannot support those which are aimed at establishing a common European family policy.
Hardstaff report (A4-0403/98)
The management of fishery resources at Community level is based around three main elements: fixing fishing quotas for certain species, regulating the fishing effort and the technical characteristics of the various types of fishing gear.
These three elements enable us to control catches and to guarantee the continuance of the various fish stocks.
It is true that fishing involves wastage of resources, mainly as a result of fish discards.
The report presented by our colleague Mrs Hardstaff highlights this problem and its complexity very well.
Nevertheless, our Group has tabled certain amendments to this report, as adopts a rather questionable approach to certain problems to do with fishing techniques, such as the use of trawl nets with square mesh and the banning of the use of drift nets.
With regard to the use of trawl nets with square mesh, we should be aware that several scientific studies have shown that this type of gear is, in some circumstances and for some species, less selective than the traditional cod end nets.
This is why the Council, when it adopted Regulation 850/98, did not consider it appropriate to generalise the use of that type of gear.
With regard to the use of drift nets, this is the first time that this type of gear has been associated with the problem of fish discards.
Everywhere in the world, apart from in the Community institutions, the drift net is considered to be one of the most selective types of fishing gear.
Finally, we can only support the suggestion of limiting or banning discarding into the sea for certain species, and we ask the Commission to carefully examine this proposal.
Titley report (A4-0482/98)
Global disarmament should be the overarching goal of any policy on security.
This presupposes a scaling-down of both the manufacture and sale of arms.
The EU should take the initiative and give a lead on disarmament and limiting the arms trade.
Whenever there is discussion of the European defence industry, the ultimate objective of global disarmament should always be borne in mind, particularly since the EU Member States together represent the second largest player in the international arms market.
It is stated in paragraph 3 that a European arms policy is an essential element in strengthening the European security and defence identity within NATO.
Sweden is a neutral country and does not belong to NATO, nor will it be involved in a common defence.
Moreover, we do not think it is appropriate to create an institution to deal with arms production before any decision has been taken on a common defence.
As regards Article 223 of the EC Treaty, armaments cannot be viewed in the same light as other goods and traded freely; on the contrary, they should be subject to especially restrictive rules.
The EU should play an active role, not in making it easier for the arms industry to manufacture and export weapons, but in tightening up the rules so as to limit the sale and export of armaments.
We are voting against the Titley report, since we cannot in any way support the EU's arms policy, which goes hand in hand with the ambition of establishing an EU defence policy within the framework of the CFSP.
The report's view that production in the arms industry should be geared to actions taken under the CFSP and the specific requirements of these for military equipment reflects a wish to turn the EU into a military superpower - a wish that we oppose.
The shortcomings of the CFSP, the absence of a real European identity with regard to security and defence, the lack of any truly operational European armed force, the fact that budget resources are spread too thinly because of the way they are distributed at national level and the division of defence contracts among companies that are both too numerous and too small, all place the Member States in a situation of blatant incapacity and military dependence.
Recent and current events barely a few miles from the external borders of the Union have repeatedly shown the tragic effects of this situation.
It is therefore high time that the single market was extended to defence equipment.
The action plan proposed by the Commission in its second communication is definitely heading in the right direction.
I also completely agree with the rapporteur that setting up and developing a technological and industrial base for defence depends on close cooperation between the WEU and the European Union, and that the Union should be granted observer status in the European armaments cooperation bodies.
At least in the aerospace sector, the restructuring of the European defence industries seems to be under way.
However, in order to progress, industrialists need a clear framework of reference provided by the European Union and the Member States under the CFSP.
The Member States also need a common body of doctrine for the use of arms.
Only such an agreement will allow the economies of scale which arise from group purchasing.
I therefore agree with all the rapporteur's conclusions in which he reaffirms the need for an agreement between the Member States on clearly defined objectives under the CFSP, both in its foreign policy dimension and in its security and defence dimension.
Our objective must be global disarmament, and this must be a reciprocal arrangement.
Furthermore, the EU should be taking the lead on disarmament and arms control, but such a perspective is entirely missing from the report.
Some basic rules to control arms exports could provide a solution.
I do not agree with the proposal relating to the use of EU research funding for military purposes, or the proposal in paragraph 3 for a European arms policy, which takes no account of the fact that some EU Member States - Sweden, for example - are neutral, non-aligned nations outside NATO and the WEU.
For these reasons, I have voted against the report.
The push for implementing European Union (EU) strategy on defence-related industries is clearly aimed at boosting arms sales and finding new markets for EU arms manufacturers.
The EU is going in exactly the same direction as the United States and what many of us wonder about is will EU taxpayers eventually find themselves subsidizing EU arms manufacturers as they try to compete with the U.S.
We believe the boosting of the arms industry is totally irresponsible and runs counter to efforts around the world to end armed conflict.
How the unsuspecting taxpayer can end up helping the merchants of death (the arms manufacturers) is clearly outlined in a special report by the Arms Trade Resource Centre World Policy Institute in the U.S. The report states that the Cold War has not brought an end to U.S government subsidies for weapon exports, instead government support for weapons exports has increased in the form of taxpayer-backed grants, loans and promotional activities.
And if the plan to expand NATO to include Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic goes ahead then the subsidies are likely to increase even more rapidly.
Nineteen potential NATO members are receiving Pentagon Foreign Military Financing.
These funds are being drawn from the FMF financing that has been allocated to the Partnership for Peace programme.
The Clinton Administration's foreign aid submission to Congress makes it clear that these Partnership for Peace monies are specifically designed to 'Prepare countries for NATO membership' by supporting 'acquisition of NATO compatible equipment.'
These findings make it clear that firstly, Partnership for Peace is only a stepping stone to full NATO membership and secondly, that Partnership for Peace is very much connected to the principle of helping weapons manufacturers to sell weapons to these countries, countries who do not even have money to provide proper health care and education for their citizens.
Although the U.S is unwilling to pay its debt to the United Nations it is quite willing to write off arms exports loans.
During this decade alone, the U.S has written off or forgiven $10 billion in loans for military-related exports including $2 billion in guaranteed loans for militarily useful technology to Iraq.
In 1997 Norman Augustine (former CEO for the major military contractor Lockheed Martin) toured Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovenia with the goal of 'drumming up business and supporting the largest possible expansion of NATO.'
In Romania, Augustine even promised to support their bid for NATO membership as a follow-on to Romania's purchase of an $82 million radar system from Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed Martin is one of a number of U.S arms manufacturers who will be supplying funds for a pro-NATO expansion foundation that is being established by the Romanian Embassy in Washington.
It is not just the U.S who are supporting NATO expansion with the primary aim of finding new markets for their weapons, EU weapons producing countries are taking the same approach.
In 1996, the former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind flew to Slovenia en-route to Bosnia.
In subsequent newspaper reports it was suggested that he told the Slovenian government that their acquisition of better military hardware would be one of the preconditions for British support for their bid to join the EU and NATO.
The end of the cold war has not brought an end to excessive support for arms manufacturers, instead the EU has pushed along with the U.S to expand NATO and to find new justification for arms manufacturing and weapons exports.
The stark reality is that EU and U.S arms manufacturers have helped fuel conflicts around the world and coerced poor countries into buying weapons which caused death and destruction and diverted much needed monies away from essential services such as health and education.
The involvement of vested interest groups such as EU arms manufacturers in EU policy on this issue is totally unacceptable.
The involvement of the WEA and others is clear proof that any EU policy on arms will clearly favour, support and boost the arms industry.
The Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU is clearly designated to help the arms manufacturers as stated in paragraph three on the resolution.
Will EU Member States not involved in this wretched trade be dragged in? What we should be doing is pushing for conversion to non-weapon production.
The vast sums of money used in the arms industry and the technical expertise which it requires should be reallocated to helping people not killing people.
If the same efforts were directed towards helping cure diseases, solving world hunger and environmental degradation then the world would be a far better place and there would be little justification for military blocks, armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction.
The Green Group voted against the Titley Report today because it supports and values arms manufacturers and the arms industry over and above the safety and welfare of the EU citizen, a policy the Green Group could not possibly condone such a policy.
Theorin report (A4-0005/99)
The environment is indeed an important subject, and it is most important that environmental considerations should be made a part of foreign policy.
This report makes this and a number of other points well.
At the same time, however, it covers such a wide range of subjects that the focus is totally lost.
The ELDR Group has tried to remove some of the most unrealistic and undesirable proposals from the text.
Our group prefers a transfer of funds out of defence and into the environment, rather than the achieving of environmental and health objectives via defence.
We tried to get the most problematic paragraphs voted out of the report, but did not fully succeed.
Consequently, my group has abstained in the vote.
We are voting in favour of this report, since we believe it is sensible to use military-related resources for environmental purposes.
We are aware of the problem that there are not sufficient resources in the world to cope with the environmental problems which already exist and those which are yet to come.
We therefore consider it an excellent initiative to call on the Member States to restructure their armed forces so that they can be used in environmental disaster situations.
We support the committee's view that preventive environmental work is an important security policy instrument.
We would like to point out that it is the Member States which are to be called upon to set up centres, train military personnel and take account of the environment, and definitely not the Commission or the Council.
We support arms reduction, the abolition of nuclear weapons and the environmentally sound destruction of arms in general.
We also think it a splendid idea to call for openness and public information in relation to national defence.
We further support the call to train military personnel to enable them to deal with environmental problems.
We have voted in favour of those parts of the report which call on the Member States to take account of the environment during military exercises.
We also take a positive view of the requirement that the military should clean up after exercises, and so on.
We have decided to vote for this report because we think it an excellent idea to call on the Member States to restructure their armed forces for the benefit of environmental objectives.
We abstained from the vote on this report because the basic concept of using surplus military capacity for the environment is wrong.
If there are too many military resources, military expenditure should be reduced.
I cannot vote for this report, since I am unable to support military cooperation under the auspices of the EU.
I object to the basic idea of raising the EU's foreign and security policy profile.
This report seeks to promote the coupling of the CFSP aspects of EU policy with the EU's trade, aid, development and international environmental policies.
The report reflects the idea of having a common corps, organised militarily under the auspices of the EU.
I fear that despite the well-intentioned environmental considerations, this common corps is merely the starting-point for an actual military force under EU auspices, which would be assigned real military tasks both inside and, not least, outside the area of the EU.
I do not wish to legitimise general military cooperation through 'military environmental cooperation'.
I can support that part of the report which deals with arms reduction, the abolition of nuclear weapons and the environmentally sound destruction of arms in general, and can also endorse the calls for openness and public information in relation to national defence.
I have voted for those parts of the report which call on the Member States to take account of the environment during military exercises and so on.
But for the reasons I have indicated, the People's Movement against the European Union is unable to support this report.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 1.15 p.m.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 28 January 1999.
Statement by the President
I should like to inform the House that I have addressed a telegram to the Jordanian royal family and to the President of the Jordanian Parliament, expressing the European Parliament's condolences on the death of King Hussein.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 28 January 1999 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on a point of order.
I wrote to you last week drawing your attention to a letter which was addressed to you, dated 28 October, from President Santer of the Commission.
Although it was addressed to you, the letter was in fact in response to a letter from me.
I wrote to President Santer on 28 October; his reply, addressed to you, came on 7 January.
I rise not about the substance of the letter but to ask whether it is normal practice for the Commission to respond to letters from Members in this way and whether it is acceptable that there should be a ten-week delay.
Perhaps I should add that the correspondence was to do with matters that were very much under debate during the last part-session.
I would ask for your view of the conduct of the Commission in this regard.
Mr Chichester, as you will appreciate, this is a question that only the Commission can answer, especially as regards the delay.
Perhaps you could put the question to the Commission in the normal way.
In any case, when I meet President Santer, which happens very often now, I will raise the question with him.
Mr President, my name is not on the attendance register in the Minutes.
As there is proof of my attendance in the form of various comments and in the roll-call votes, I would ask you to add my name to the register.
Thank you, Mr Malangré.
We shall make the necessary checks.
Mr President, I am shown as voting for Amendment No 6 to Mr Garot's report.
I do not know if that was my fault, but in any case I intended to reject this very important amendment.
I wanted to vote against it.
That will be corrected.
Mr President, I should like to point out that I was in fact present at the last sitting on 28 January.
I apologise for not signing the attendance register.
The vote took so long and I was so tired by the time I left that I forgot to sign.
Please note that I was present on that occasion.
Thank you, Mrs García Arias.
That will be noted.
The Minutes were approved
I give the floor to Mr Spencer.
Mr President, I wish to make a short personal statement of apology to the House.
The greatest of Conservative prime ministers is supposed to have advised parliamentarians: 'never apologise, never explain'.
I intend to disregard half of Benjamin Disraeli's words of wisdom.
The act which brought my private life to public attention was one of extraordinary foolishness.
I broke the law of England, Her Majesty's customs officers treated me fairly, and I paid the penalty.
While I believe that my personal life has always been, and continues to be, rooted in love, I accept that it may cause genuine offence to my colleagues.
I wish, therefore, to offer a personal apology to anyone who is offended, to every Member of this House.
I love this House and I love this Chamber.
I was here at the hour of our democratic birth in 1979 and I was here for the censure debate, when we came of age.
I believe in Parliament, and I believe in Europe, and future historians will understand that the spirit of Europe lives here.
I wish, therefore, to make it clear to those who would use my stupidity and hubris to attack Europe and its Parliament, that the fault is mine and mine alone.
I offer my apology to Parliament.
Applause
I should like to thank Mr Spencer for his statement.
He has addressed the House with dignity and indeed with courage.
He and his family have paid a heavy price for what is a personal matter.
We in this Parliament must respect the dividing-line between private issues and public and political matters.
Applause
The House has expressed its sentiments on the question and, pursuant to Rule 108, no debate is necessary.
Applause
Membership of Parliament
The Spanish authorities have informed me that Mr Carlos María Bru Purón has been appointed to replace Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza with effect from 4 February 1999.
I am unable to welcome Mr Bru to the Chamber at present, because he experienced the same problems as I did - fewer means of transport - and travelled on an aircraft from Paris which arrived over two hours late.
I should like to say, however, how very much I regret Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza's resignation, and especially the reasons for it.
Those of us who are aware of the situation are all very saddened.
Applause
Mr President, thank you for your comments. I would be grateful if you could send an appropriate telegram to Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza.
Applause
I shall certainly convey the message, and also Parliament's sympathy.
Mr President, you have just explained that our colleague Carmen Díez de Rivera has resigned from Parliament.
We are all aware of her reasons for doing so.
As a member of the Spanish Socialist delegation Carmen was part of, I would like to speak for the whole delegation and say how very much we regret her departure. We shall miss her strong campaigning in favour of the environment and in favour of European integration.
Please note her colleagues' appreciation in the Minutes.
Applause
Mr President, I would like to add my voice to Mrs García Arias'. I am sure that not only will the Spanish Socialists regret Mrs Díez de Rivera's departure, but that she will be sorely missed by all Members of this House, whatever their nationality.
We all pay tribute to our fellow Member's work.
We are aware that she resigned for health reasons, and hope she will recover and be able to return to the House.
She will be constantly in our thoughts. We recognise the significance of her work and pay tribute to her unfailingly friendly and approachable manner in her dealings with all Members, regardless of their political affiliation.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to say that we, too, very much regret that Carmen Díez de Rivera is unable to continue her work in the House.
We worked together for many long hours, and came to know her as a friend. We valued the personal dignity, common sense and spirit of solidarity that always characterised her work and are very sorry that events should have taken such a turn.
Carmen will always be in our thoughts.
Mr President, lest it be thought that it is only the Spanish Members who appreciate Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza I, as one of her friends in this group, would like to say how concerned we are for her health and how deeply we regret that she will not be with us for a while.
Hopefully she will come back.
She is much loved throughout Europe.
She knows my country very well, and there will be great distress when they hear she is ill and unable to continue her work here in Parliament.
Mr President, on behalf of the Spanish Socialist delegation, I should like to express my appreciation for the tributes paid to my colleague today by so many Members of the House, not all of them Socialists. I shall pass on their kind words to Carmen Díez de Rivera myself.
She is certainly much loved here and, as Alonso Puerta said, let us hope she makes a speedy recovery.
Mr President, I have been here longer than any other Member, and ever since Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza came we have been close personal friends.
I admired her in every respect, as a friend, as a politician and as a loyal Member of this Chamber.
I would like my words to be added to the tributes she has had.
Mr President, I had the good fortune to serve alongside Mrs Díez de Rivera Icaza on the Environment Committee from 1984 to 1989.
She really had a great fighting spirit, but at the same time she was flexible and ever cheerful.
She and I, and also Beate Weber, worked together very successfully during that period.
On behalf of our entire group I would like to wish her a speedy recovery and a good future.
I shall pass on these unanimous sentiments to Mrs Díez de Rivera.
Monitoring mechanism for greenhouse gas emissions
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0052/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (8829/98 - C4-0542/98-96/0192(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision amending Decision 93/389/EEC for a monitoring mechanism of Community CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions (Rapporteur: Mr Fitzsimons).
I give the floor to Mr Hyland, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
Mr President, I should firstly like to apologise on behalf of my colleague Mr Fitzsimons who is unavoidably absent and has asked me to present this report in his place.
In 1993 a decision was adopted establishing a monitoring mechanism for the Community's anthropogenic CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions.
Having a monitoring mechanism for greenhouse gas emissions in place has always made sense as part of an overall coherent strategy to limit greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy efficiency.
This monitoring mechanism serves a double purpose.
It could monitor progress towards the stabilisation of CO2 emissions at 1990 levels by the year 2000 in the Community and it could monitor the fulfilment of the Community's commitments under the United Nations framework convention on climate change which entered into force in 1994.
The Kyoto Protocol adopted in December 1997 established principles and introduced legally-binding targets and timetables for Annex 1 countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
At COP IV in Buenos Aires in November last year some further progress was made.
For the first time parties agreed to the adoption of a single plan of action.
The Buenos Aires plan of action contains an important list of commitments with timetables on a range of key issues which will help to achieve the Kyoto objectives.
A monitoring mechanism is all the more necessary now.
Many assessments would indicate that CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions are likely to increase significantly.
At the same time the Community has signed up to the Kyoto Protocol and has committed itself to a reduction in its emissions of carbon dioxide and a group of other gases of 8 % below 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012, that is 5.2 % in the case of Kyoto Protocol parties as a whole.
It is as simple as this.
We need a reliable efficient system for measuring and monitoring our emissions.
This draft recommendation is the outcome of Parliament's and Council's consideration of the Commission's updating proposal of 1996.
Parliament held its first reading of this proposal in September 1997.
The Council's common position was received by Parliament in October 1998.
In the meantime, of course, the 1996/97 proposal and report have been largely superseded by the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol.
The common position has done a workman-like job of updating the mechanism to make it consistent with the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
It has also incorporated several of Parliament's amendments.
However, while the rapporteur is on the whole satisfied with these aspects of the common position, he has retabled some of Parliament's amendments from the first reading which he feels will strengthen the text.
Other amendments have been added to lend further coherence to the new elements introduced into the common position by the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol.
Most of the amendments are self-explanatory, but Mr Fitzsimons would like to draw your attention to two compromise amendments that he has tabled.
One of the amendments is a compromise reached between Mr Fitzsimons and Mrs Pollack: it strengthens the text and is in line with two requirements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol.
The second amendment is a compromise between the rapporteur, Mr Fitzsimons, and the Commission: it deals with the evaluation of progress and draws attention to the absence or incompleteness of newly reported data from Member States.
If the proposal does not provide for sanctions, the compromise text on Article 6 by Mr Fitzsimons and the Commission is, in his view, the best way forward.
Mr Fitzsimons hopes that Members will be able to support these compromise amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, any agreement on CO2 emissions is of course meaningless without a sensible monitoring mechanism.
We have to be able to check compliance with what has been agreed.
Otherwise, we can agree or negotiate whatever we like, but without a monitoring mechanism it means nothing.
That is why we need to get to work as quickly as possible on creating a consistent monitoring mechanism for the European Union.
The Commission submitted its proposal on 4 September 1996, so we have been discussing this for nearly three years.
I think this is disgraceful when you think of all the developments since then and the urgent need to make progress on climate protection.
That is why I am anxious that there should not be any further delay, and that we should be in a position to implement this directive as quickly as possible.
Nevertheless, I do have a few reservations, especially because subsequent developments have meant that some aspects of the international negotiations on CO2 reduction have not been taken into account yet.
Nowadays, we are no longer negotiating about whether and by how many percent CO2 emissions should be reduced.
No-one is disputing that any more.
The negotiations are now about whether emissions can be traded and in what framework.
That has not been included here yet, so to that extent this legislation needs to be developed further.
And of course to do that we also need a framework guaranteeing the democratic rights of Parliament.
The Council's amendment of Article 8 is arguably so substantial that we ought to consider, in accordance with Rule 62 of our Rules of Procedure, whether this debate should continue at all.
I believe that we should finally get this sorted out here and now, so that we at least have an instrument that would enable us to make progress and set up a monitoring system.
So I do not advocate going down that particular road.
However, in view of developments in the CO2 debate, and given the issue of Parliament's democratic participation, I would like to put two questions to you here in the House, Commissioner, and I would also ask you to reply to these two questions in the House.
The first question is about comitology.
Article 8 provides for a specific regulatory committee. However, even if our amendment is accepted, the Commission alone will bear responsibility for further development.
So my first question is whether the Commission can assure us that Parliament will be kept informed about agreements reached in this committee and about further development, both promptly and in detail.
Secondly, in view of the need for further development of monitoring systems, can the Commission assure us that a new amendment to this directive will be brought forward, and that in particular flexible mechanisms for emissions trading will be covered in this new version?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Lange has just mentioned that if we want to achieve objectives, we also need to produce proof.
It is intended that in order to counteract the greenhouse effect the level of emissions recorded in 1990 should not be exceeded.
It is of course because of carbon dioxide, that is CO2 , and other greenhouse gases that, as the experts have it, warming is occurring.
Admittedly, looking outside, it does not seem to be getting warmer, quite the opposite.
Nevertheless, you know that the seasons vary quite dramatically and that overall there will probably be a warming effect here.
That is why there has been a call at global level for each region to make its own contribution.
I can only say that this version of the directive as it stands in the common position also fully reflects the wishes of my group.
Various amendments proposed by Parliament have already been accepted, but now there are more.
I would like to ask Commissioner Bjerregaard if she is able to accept the committee's amendments.
This is important for us, because we believe that our amendments make for greater precision.
However, I would like to repeat that we believe this system gives us a reliable basis for preparing further legislative action, as without this overview we are really fishing in the dark.
We will only be able to ensure that we have reliable data once effective measuring and monitoring systems come into force.
Important decisions have been taken at international level since the first reading, and these have been picked up in the common position.
For example, the European Union's greenhouse gas monitoring system has been adapted to the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol.
This legislation therefore has an important part to play in implementing European climate protection policy.
I believe that Europe is really well ahead of other parts of the world in this field.
This also applies to the reporting requirements of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which stipulate that a body of data is required and that we cannot examine results until we have this data.
So I must say that the work done by Parliament in conjunction with the Commission and the Council has been a success.
I hope that we will be able to complete it as soon as possible, and that there will be no more delays, as it is important for Europe to set a good example.
Mr President, Mr Fitzsimons has done a good job on his report.
Monitoring CO2 emissions is very important in ensuring that the commitments given in the Kyoto Protocol are met.
It serves a dual purpose, evaluating progress made in reducing greenhouse gases and also in fulfilling commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
I support the European Commission's proposal to extend the monitoring of emissions beyond the year 2000.
It is also useful to extend the monitoring system to include anthropogenic emissions and reductions.
Nevertheless, it will remain very difficult to monitor greenhouse gases, where a staggering number of factors are involved in determining emissions and concentrations.
This system for monitoring CO2 emissions is therefore very much a first attempt and we should have no illusions about this.
I very much support the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the debate on reducing greenhouse gases is like a never-ending story.
Everyone talks about it, and everyone is convinced that it must happen, but when it comes to actually implementing it the picture is not so rosy.
Both reports are helpful steps in the right direction, but we need to be clear about what is fundamentally at stake here.
The amount of CO2 emitted every day world-wide is equivalent to the total amount for the 3 000 years before the industrial revolution.
If we extrapolate this figure to a whole year, we find that this corresponds to a period of 1 million years for every year. In other words, every year we are releasing as much CO2 as was previously released in a million years of the world's history.
And these are scientific results.
No one can predict precisely how long the earth's atmosphere can sustain this, or what the long-term consequences will be.
No one disputes that the effects are already perceptible now.
The important thing is for the reduction targets to be met as quickly as possible.
In this context, the amendments to the Hautala report tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are crucial.
Technically speaking, it is certainly quite feasible to bring the measures forward by two to four years.
People often recommend switching from oil and coal to natural gas as a way of achieving the Kyoto objectives, but this is not a real solution.
It is true that compared with oil and coal, less CO2 is released during direct combustion of natural gas, but large quantities of methane escape at the exploration stage.
At the same time, an enormous amount of power is consumed in transporting energy from Siberia or Algeria to Europe.
The former Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs and current President of Georgia, Edvard Shevardnadze, has admitted that up to 50 % of methane gas transported escapes into the atmosphere.
These considerations also need to be taken into account if total greenhouse gases are to be correctly calculated.
Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 4 in the Fitzsimons report, which delete the words 'as far as possible', are particularly important.
Those Member States with no particular interest in reducing greenhouse gases could use these three words to avoid meeting their obligations in full.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I do not have very much to add to the previous speakers' remarks.
I would like to ask Mr Hyland to convey my congratulations to Mr Fitzsimons on his report, particularly because of the way he has highlighted essential points and cut out irrelevant detail.
I would just like to add one further point about measurement being necessary if we are to establish precisely where reductions in emissions need to be made first and in what way, and how we can then check whether objectives are being achieved. Once we have adopted this legislation, applicant countries will have to adopt it as common legislation during their preparations for accession, enabling them to bring their strategy more into line with EU strategy at an early stage and to use the same measurement techniques as the existing Member States.
This means that on accession they can be assimilated seamlessly into the European emission reduction strategy for achieving the Kyoto objectives.
This is something I attach great importance to.
I also believe that we cannot achieve everything we are now discussing about flexible mechanisms without precise measurement both within the European Union and world-wide.
In this context I would like to remind you that the flexible mechanism most successfully implemented so far, both for the environment and for industry, namely the reduction in CO2 emissions by US industry, has worked because penalties applied if obligations entered into were not met within the relevant time frame.
I wonder if we should not consider something like this in the European Union, especially given that Member States do not always report their figures, data and reductions to the Commission on time, so that the Commission's reports to the Parliament are delayed and it is not clear why this is happening.
I think we would all very much welcome it if it were possible to monitor from the outset what measurements are being taken, what efforts Member States are making and what needs to be done to coordinate those efforts in order to achieve the Kyoto objectives.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the Environment Committee and Mr Hyland, who spoke on behalf of the rapporteur, Mr Fitzsimons.
I would like to thank Parliament for the work that has been done, and for the attention that has been devoted to this proposal.
We all know that, after the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, it is extremely important to have a clear and effective monitoring mechanism for CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
There is an obvious link between such a mechanism and the Protocol.
Compliance with the Kyoto obligations is of course the most important aspect, if we want to show that our action has a real effect in moderating climate change.
Having said that, I recognise that the present proposal for an amendment to Decision No 389/93 on a monitoring mechanism does not cover all the elements in the Kyoto Protocol. Several speakers have drawn attention to this.
There are for example no provisions on how the mechanisms are to be monitored.
There are good reasons for that.
To begin with, it must be remembered that the Commission presented its original proposal to the Council in September 1996, in other words a long time before the Kyoto summit, and it is true, as Mr Lange said, that much has happened since then.
Secondly - and this is perhaps more important - the principles, rules and guidelines that govern these mechanisms have not yet been laid down at international level.
If we look at the Buenos Aires Plan of Action, they must be laid down within two years from now at COP VI.
The Commission's stance has always been clear in this respect.
As soon as we have greater clarity on how these flexible arrangements are to operate, we will present a new decision on monitoring which will cover this key aspect of the Protocol, and it is clear that we will continue to be active in this matter.
As far as the amendments are concerned, let me say that the Commission can support all those which have been tabled.
Mr Lange put one or two specific questions to me.
One was about further proposals. Certainly there will be some.
I expect to have a new communication ready in the spring, which was also mentioned at the recent part-session in Brussels.
And as regards contact with Parliament, quite clearly that is important.
It was important in connection with the progress which we made in Kyoto and Buenos Aires.
In Brussels we spoke about the need to improve cooperation with the European Parliament, not least in connection with the forthcoming COP negotiations.
Whatever happens, I will certainly play my part in ensuring that Parliament is actively involved in our continued work.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Reduction of sulphur content of liquid fuels
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0002/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (10577/98 - C4-0564/98-97/0105(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive relating to a reduction of the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels and amending Directive 93/12/EEC (Rapporteur: Mrs Hautala).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal concerns the view that emissions that acidify the atmosphere should be reduced to a minimum.
The Union has a strategy for acidification, and this proposal relates to legislation to limit the sulphur content of liquid fuel oils.
As we know, sulphur falls to the earth, acidifies the soil and does harm to nature.
It also causes damage to buildings.
It thus has many kinds of adverse effects.
If we look at the common position of the Council of Ministers we could say the European Parliament has already in fact convinced the Council, in certain respects, of the justification for our views.
The Council has acted as we hoped it would: the Council and the Commission have, for example, jointly decided to start fixing limits for the sulphur content of fuel oils used on ships.
This is undoubtedly to be seen as a step forward.
The Council has also approved in principle the view of Parliament that the sulphur content of light fuel oil should be limited far more drastically than was originally intended.
This is also highly satisfactory.
The problem remains, however, that the Council's common position, which is a unanimous compromise, will mean this reduction in the sulphur content of light fuel oil will not take place until the start of 2008, and that can hardly be regarded at this stage as a hugely radical move.
We really are talking about very long transition periods if we start to enact laws now that will not come into force until the year 2008.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection therefore proposes a compromise of sorts, which is that this stricter sulphur content limit for light fuel oil should come into force by the year 2004.
Then there is the very important question of how the sulphur content of heavy fuel oil should be limited.
The difference of opinion that still exists between the Council of Ministers and Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, when the common position is examined, lies in the fact that the Council is only prepared to apply a limit to the sulphur content of heavy fuel oil as from the start of 2003.
Now the Committee is suggesting that we should reach a reasonable compromise here too, with an amendment to come into force by the start of the year 2001.
There is a certain aspect of this report that is perhaps sometimes forgotten: Finland, Sweden and Austria, when they joined the Union, gained the right to maintain tighter environmental requirements over a four-year term, which ended at the end of last year.
This proposal was originally intended to guarantee that the strict sulphur content limits for light fuel oil which apply in Austria would be adopted throughout the Union.
This is not exactly what has happened.
Member States have not had the courage to go as far as to introduce the sorts of provisions that currently apply in Austria.
This is directly relevant to the view of the Council of Ministers, which is that we cannot achieve the Austrian levels until the year 2008.
As I said, this really is a long transition period.
On the other hand, it has to be said that the nightmare scenario of Austria giving up its stricter limit values is now not going to happen.
Things have been organised in such a way that the legal basis of the proposal is Article 130s.
It is thus a minimum requirement, which enables Austria to maintain its own stricter limit values.
We could say that, at least as far as this is concerned, the worst has not happened.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, and I have been very firm in our dealings with the Council about the Auto-Oil programme.
We also went into battle over the reduction in the sulphur content of fuels and really thought that the fight was going to go to a second round.
But it has now turned out that this is not really necessary.
Which is just as well, as the problem of acidification is of course vital for the northern Member States, and we are therefore delighted that the Council has taken almost all Parliament's requests on board, which means that we finally have a really good piece of legislation.
I cannot help thinking of the words of a German pop song called 'Miracles keep on happening'.
I must say that in this case the Council has shown that this is true, and that it can sometimes simply accept the proposals made to it by Parliament - well-founded proposals of course.
I would like to highlight one particular point, and that is the inclusion of bunker oil for ships and the need to make progress with negotiations at international level to ensure that the fuel used in ships is as low in sulphur as possible. I say this because potential emissions from this source are now far greater than from power stations on dry land.
Of course there is also a little link with the Auto-Oil programme here: if you demand that oil with a relatively low sulphur content should be supplied for use in cars, it is quite conceivable that the refining industry will hit upon the idea of offering the rest, the mucky stuff, to ships.
In the interests of consistency, identical or at least similar legislation must also apply in this field.
That is why I particularly welcome the inclusion of bunker oil in the directive and I recommend that we should press for regulation at international level.
I have just one very small request relating to Amendment No 1, which is about the sulphur content of heavy oils.
This is the only thing it will take to make me perfectly happy with this legislation.
In this case the Environment Committee proposes bringing forward the relevant date by two years, from 2003 to 2001.
This is not an unprincipled suggestion, but really just a reinstatement of your own proposal, Commissioner.
I would therefore urge you to accept at least this one amendment and make my day!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we all agree on the objectives we are trying to achieve as regards acidification.
We are all extremely aware of the problems this causes and we can be content with the common position that included most of the amendments that the European Parliament had adopted at first reading.
As far as heavy fuel oils are concerned, some people are questioning the date set by the Council, which is 1 January 2003.
I believe that this date is perhaps more sensible as, if we wish to achieve our environmental objectives, we must also take account of one another's problems. Such problems are not always the same in northern Europe as they are in southern Europe.
As regards gas oil, the Council provides for two stages in reducing sulphur content.
I am always in favour of a gradual reduction rather than setting objectives that, if achieved in a single stage, may sometimes be rather restrictive.
The Council has set an initial deadline of the year 2000 - which is just around the corner - for limiting sulphur content to 0.20 %. It has then set a second deadline of 2008 for limiting this content to 0.10 %.
It also provides for derogations but limits their duration to a five year period from 2008 onwards on the understanding that this derogation period is non-renewable.
We can, I believe, be pleased with the fact that the Council, in its common position, has not covered bunker fuel as this accounts for only 2 % of total sulphur emissions.
However, I believe it is important to remain extremely vigilant in the case of particularly sensitive areas that must be protected, such as the North Sea and the Baltic Sea in particular.
Here, it would be appropriate to take action within the framework of the MARPOL Convention.
I believe it is important to stress this and to be extremely vigilant.
Therefore, we must insist that some areas that are particularly sensitive to sulphur emissions from bunker fuel, such as the areas I have just mentioned, be declared special protection areas.
Lastly, I believe that it is good that aviation fuel, which only accounts for approximately 0.2 % of sulphur emissions, is not included and is not deemed a priority.
In conclusion, there were some difficult negotiations in the Council over this common position and I believe we should bear this in mind.
On the whole, the content is along the lines of what we had hoped to see at first reading.
I believe this is a balanced common position, as it lets us delay until 2003 the entry into force of the limit value for sulphur content in heavy fuels. It also gives stricter guidelines for the exceptions that can be made.
In view of these conditions, the Group of the European People's Party refuses to systematically try to outdo the Council.
We will vote against the three amendments that have been tabled.
In effect, if the European Parliament adopts a single amendment at second reading, a unanimous or a qualified majority vote is required in the Council, depending on whether or not the Commission accepts the amendment. This will be impossible given the differences of opinion that exist between the northern and southern countries, and given that the oil coming from the Persian Gulf has a higher sulphur content.
Mr President, a dynamic approach to acidifying emissions is required if we are to protect human health, plants and sensitive ecosystems, as well as buildings.
The proposal we have before us is just a part of this approach.
The most effective way of combating acidification is through large furnaces, as these are responsible for 63 % of SO2 emissions in the European Union.
Nevertheless, we are pleased with the Council's common position on the reduction of the sulphur content of certain liquid fuels.
Thanks to Mrs Hautala's excellent proposals, the common position now looks a lot better than the original Commission proposal.
I can also wholeheartedly support the few amendments the rapporteur proposes at second reading.
The prospects of meeting the various demands are fair.
The crude oil from Norway, Libya and Russia contains less than 0.5 % sulphur and there are good techniques for desulphurizing the crude oil from the Middle East with its high sulphur content.
Another point is that the heavy fuel oil used by furnaces and cement factories should also contain less sulphur.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the Environment Committee and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, for the valuable work that has been done on this proposal. I would also like to thank Mrs Hautala and Mr Lange for their comments on the progress that has been made.
The proposal provides for a reduction in total emissions of sulphur dioxide of about 1 million tonnes, of the 3 million tonnes required by the acidification strategy.
The average cost of EUR 700 per tonne of pollution reduction will be far outweighed by the benefits, in particular to public health, which are put - and we have figures for that too - at about EUR 4 000 per tonne.
These figures for costs and effects say something about how important this proposal is.
Most of the 27 amendments adopted by Parliament at first reading have already been incorporated into the common position.
The aim of the common position was to perform the difficult act of striking a balance between what specifications for the sulphur content of a fuel will be necessary to reduce acidification damage and what we think European industry can achieve.
The Commission therefore supported the common position in its communication to the European Parliament.
I will now comment on the three new amendments.
Mr Lange and Mrs Hautala asked directly about Amendment No 1, which brings the deadline for implementation of the new 1 % limit for sulphur in fuel oil forward from the year 2003 to 2001.
As Mr Lange also noted, the Commission had originally proposed 2000, and we regretted in the communication on the common position that the Council had deferred that deadline.
The Commission therefore considers that the Council should take up the matter again. Hence it follows that we can accept Amendment No 1 and, if that satisfies Mr Lange into the bargain, then that is another plus.
However, as I said before, the common position sought to strike a very careful balance, and we may in the end have to accept that it is not possible to get the Council to change its mind. But at least we shall try.
However, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 2 and 3.
Amendment No 2 provides for a different upper limit for sulphur content in fuel oil in conjunction with a possible dispensation from the 1 % requirement.
The Commission wishes to discuss dispensation applications individually on the basis of the criteria laid down in the directive, so in that context the precise upper limit is not so critical.
It should be pointed out that in the common position, the Council has tightened up the conditions for the granting of dispensations by introducing the 'critical load' concept, which I think we can all find acceptable.
Amendment No 3 seeks to bring forward introduction of the 0.1 % limit for sulphur content in gas oil from the year 2008 to 2004.
In its communication on the common position, the Commission was favourable towards a tightening-up of the requirements for sulphur content in gas oil from the year 2008.
The reason why the Commission did not originally propose that tougher standard, however, was that it is not cost-effective throughout Europe.
There is still no justification now for bringing forward the deadline for implementation throughout Europe.
I would therefore emphasise - as the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala, also has - that we are talking about minimum requirements, which was also a key element in the Commission's original proposal. This means that the Member States are free to introduce the more stringent limit earlier than the year 2008.
Let me end there, Mr President.
The proposal as it stands will already improve the environment from next year.
It is therefore a good start on the concrete implementation of the acidification strategy.
Thank you for your time and your attention.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Shipments of waste to non-OECD countries
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0001/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (5474/98 - C4-0538/98-95/0029(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation establishing common rules and procedures to apply to shipments to certain non-OECD countries of certain types of waste (Rapporteur: Mr Virgin).
I give the floor to Mrs Jackson, who is deputising for the rapporteur.
Mr President, as the more observant amongst you will have noticed, I am not Mr Virgin.
Mr Virgin is stuck in the snow somewhere between here and Sweden.
He may have got as far as Brussels and is probably now trying to come cross-country with huskies.
I apologise that I am not Mr Virgin, but I am presenting the report in his name.
It is particularly sad that he is not here, because this is an important report which he has worked very hard on over the last few years.
I have only a few remarks to make in relation to it and one very important question to ask the Commissioner, a question which I hope she will be able to answer.
The amendments look extremely technical and they are so.
In particular, Mr Virgin, on behalf of the committee, considers that the new Annex C proposed by the Council should be deleted, as the ban on exports of the types of waste listed are already covered by lists of waste in the Basle Convention, and yet another list further complicates what is already very complex legislation.
I would be grateful if the Commissioner could comment on the individual amendments as she goes through them and on their acceptability to the Commission.
The general point I want to make is one that has been raised by a number of Members of the European Parliament, particularly from the United Kingdom.
There is a scare in my country, and possibly other countries as well, that the net effect of this legislation would be to make it much more difficult to export used clothing of the types that are collected by charities to countries that have not replied to the Commission's questionnaire on the acceptability of exports of waste to them.
Perhaps this sounds complicated, but it does not necessarily have to be.
The trouble is that - perhaps they were not well brought up or something - a number of countries have simply not replied to the questionnaire sent to them by the Commission.
The suspicion has grown amongst Members of the European Parliament that one of the consequences of this is that it would then be extremely difficult to continue to export used clothing to these countries.
The problem is, as we have understood in the course of the debates as it were, off-stage, on Mr Virgin's report, that used clothing, when collected by organisations belonging to the churches, Oxfam, or whatever, ceases to be a waste once it is sorted and that sorted used clothing does not actually come within the orbit of this directive at all.
Therefore there would be no difficulty for charities and others that export such used clothing.
I spoke this afternoon to the BIR - the Bureau of International Recycling - and was told: 'Yes, that is our understanding, but there is legal uncertainty on this point'.
My question to the Commissioner - she may not be able to answer now but could perhaps write to us to let us know exactly what her position is - is as follows: is it true, therefore, that there is absolutely nothing flowing from this legislation to prevent charities from our countries exporting quite freely, with no bureaucracy about it, used clothing to those countries - predominantly, I suspect, in Africa - which import them at the moment? If it is true, then can we make sure that there is legal certainty on this point?
If we need legal certainty, does that mean that we therefore need to have some adjustment to this regulation?
I am sorry to labour this point but it is one which has emerged in what is otherwise a rather technical regulation as a point that people can understand and about which many people are worried.
I would be grateful for the Commissioner's reply.
Mr President, Commissioner, any economic activity in developed countries unfortunately results in damage both to the environment and to public health.
Waste is an unavoidable side-effect of such activity.
Both toxic and non-toxic waste cause huge problems in all countries in relation to reprocessing and storage.
The export of waste from producing countries to recipient countries, either for reprocessing or for final storage, is a 'solution' which is fraught with dangers, both for the environment and for the health of EU citizens.
It is very important, therefore, that the entire process should be governed by strict rules and procedures.
The European Union is fully aware of this need and has put forward a number of measures and rules for the transportation of waste.
One such regulation, which is contained in the document before the House, relates to the implementation of common procedures which are to apply to the transportation of waste of certain kinds intended for countries which are not members of the OECD.
This regulation must set limits and respect the decisions of the countries involved, without, in so doing, causing major problems.
It is a well-known fact that, in third countries, cheap labour, poor environmental legislation and a relatively free import system provide favourable conditions for waste to continue to be exported to them as recipient countries.
Environmental organisations have set in motion information campaigns about the problem, both in developed countries and in those countries which accept waste for economic reasons.
We must realise that waste is not just another exportable commodity.
It is a great pity that Mr Virgin is not here today to outline his report to the House, but we certainly agree with most of the points which he expresses.
There is just one point on which our group does not agree and that is on Amendment No 2.
We believe that the monitoring mechanism contained in Article 15 of Regulation (EC) No 259/93 should remain in Article 2 because a simplification of the procedure would lead to major pitfalls.
Can I also make the point that there is another important question: the question of monitoring compliance with this regulation.
The European Union must put in place stiff penalties for Member States which are in breach of this regulation, and it must make available procedures to prevent the illegal exportation of waste which, as we know, is going on.
The final point I wish to make has to do with the addition of a new annex, Annex 5, to Regulation (EC) No 259/93.
I believe that amalgamating the lists of waste in the Basle Convention will simplify the implementation of the legislation.
I would like to thank Mr Virgin - albeit in his absence - for his report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should just like to point out that we have with us in the official gallery a delegation from the Conseil régional d'Alsace and from the Conseil général du Haut-Rhin , brought here by their president, Mr Constant Goerg.
Thank you, Mr Striby.
We therefore welcome them to the House.
Mr President, the issue of waste shipments to non-OECD countries brings us back to some rather delicate and difficult problems that all come at a price. One such problem is that of public health and, as a result, our ability to help protect the most vulnerable populations, who are mainly children.
There is the problem of our ability to help protect those we call street children, who often live in these non-OECD countries.
Then there is the risk of environmental dumping that leads to some countries being transformed into rubbish tips, particularly so-called developing countries.
This is because these countries are often forced to agree to all manner of deals to bring in the revenue required to finance their needs, particularly in terms of public facilities.
There is also the problem of sovereignty, and of restricting the possible choices in some activities.
In other words, we are forced to try to strike a balance.
On the one hand, we must be extremely strict, and this means introducing the highest possible requirements for waste shipments.
On the other hand, we must leave these countries the flexibility they need to be able to choose the possibility of recycling. Recycling would then help these countries to establish industrial or semi-industrial activities that would, as a result, help them generate income.
When we consider the idea of drawing up lists, namely the green list and the red list, it is clear that such industrial opportunities mainly affect products on the green list.
In effect, we should keep to the principle that the danger level is linked to the product and not to the difficulty some countries have in responding.
We are fully aware that all countries are not equal as regards administrative controls and techniques for the import, storage and processing of such waste.
We should support them but firstly we should suggest the principle of transparency. We should consider the issue of extending the waste producers' responsibility.
Perhaps we should finally take a good look at the volume of waste we produce. In other words, we should look at the risks that our consumerism poses to our common heritage, and also at the drawing rights we have awarded ourselves on the common heritage of the planet and, as a result, on the protection of the environment.
Mr President, I also wish to thank Parliament for the report, although Mr Virgin is not here, and for the active work done by Members on it.
As Mrs Jackson remarked, there has been much disruption due to the weather today, so we must get by without Mr Virgin.
The proposed regulation deals with the shipment of waste on the so-called green list for recovery to certain non-OECD countries.
Waste on the green list is waste whose transfer is generally not considered to pose any risk to the environment.
Waste on the green list for recovery is traded as merchandise within the OECD and in the EU.
I would also make it quite clear that the export of hazardous waste to non-OECD countries is prohibited under current EC legislation.
In 1994, the Commission asked all non-OECD countries what control procedures, if any, they wanted to be applied to the shipment of waste on the green list.
The proposed regulation is only concerned with countries which replied that they did not wish to receive items from the green list or certain of those items, and with countries which did not respond to the Commission's survey.
Mrs Jackson asked me specifically to comment on the eight amendments which have been tabled, and I will say something about them now.
The Commission can accept six of these, five in their entirety and one with a minor change, and the Commission can accept one amendment in part.
There is only one that is not acceptable to the Commission.
According to Amendment No 1, the Commission must inform the countries which are covered by the regulation on changes to Annexes A and B on a regular basis.
The Commission can accept this, and we shall of course make sure that it happens.
Amendment No 2 implies that the shipment of waste on the green list to countries which have not replied to the questionnaire can take place under the procedure for the orange list, which only requires tacit consent from the importing country.
I am pleased to note that Parliament is no longer, as at first reading, demanding a ban on such exports, because that would be against WTO rules.
But your proposal to follow the procedure for the orange list, i.e. based on tacit consent, goes in the opposite direction.
The control procedures which you are now demanding will mean that the shipment is permitted if there is no answer from the importing country within 30 days, in other words you take silence to mean 'yes'.
In July 1997, I heard it said in this House that it is unacceptable for the Commission to assume the right to interpret non-response on the part of a country to its own advantage.
The Commission agrees with that statement, and it is therefore more appropriate, where we have not had a reaction from a country, to apply a procedure based on express written consent.
In this way we can make sure, prior to any shipment, that the destination country is really aware of the implications of the waste import in question.
I would appreciate it if this comment could be duly noted.
Thus the Commission still prefers the red list procedure, whereby the shipment can proceed after express written consent.
This procedure takes account of both the exporter's and importer's interests in a transparent manner.
In its common position, the Council has requested application of the procedure under Article 15 of Council Regulation No 259/93, according to which written consent but also a longer time-limit are required.
The Commission thinks that the solution applying the red list procedure strikes the best balance between Parliament's and the Council's proposals and therefore cannot accept Amendment No 2.
Then there are Amendments Nos 3, 5 and 8 dealing with waste which, according to Article 39 of the Fourth Lomé Convention, may not be exported to ACP countries.
These are useful proposals, since recital 9 in the preamble is clear enough and yet another annex with yet another list of waste may give rise to confusion.
The Commission can therefore support these three amendments.
Also, Amendment No 4 is acceptable to the Commission since the wording corresponds to that of Article 17(3) of Council Regulation No 259/93.
Finally, the Commission can support a change in the time-limit for periodic review under Amendment No 6, but cannot agree to consultation of Parliament in this connection, since the Commission considers that the regulation falls within the common commercial policy and that Article 113 forms the only legal basis.
The Commission can support Amendment No 7, provided that Commission Regulation No 2048/98 is explicitly mentioned along with Council Regulation No 120/97.
The Commission Regulation of 6 November 1998 involves an amendment to Annex V to the Council Regulation.
I would come back now to the very important question of the shipment of used clothing, which Mrs Jackson had a good deal to say about in her speech and which I myself have raised on a number of occasions.
It is quite clear that charitable organisations have been very concerned over how the proposal we are dealing with today might be interpreted.
I know that three amendments were presented at the meeting in January of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, but they were not followed up for procedural reasons.
Certain misunderstandings have arisen in that connection.
It is also clear that many representations have been made and there is widespread concern over the matter.
It is true, as Mrs Jackson mentioned, that people are afraid that the export of used clothing for recycling will be prevented.
I would therefore like to place on record the Commission's view that used clothing, when it is sorted, cleaned and repaired prior to export, cannot be regarded as waste but can be treated as products.
Since the proposed regulation only applies to waste items, this regulation will not apply to used clothing and, with the debate that has taken place here today, we should be able to dispel completely the concerns which have been voiced by charitable organisations.
I think in fact that it will give them much reassurance.
Mr President, would the Commissioner agree, in the light of what she has just said, that she would actually need to move an amendment to the text here to clarify that it does not apply to secondhand clothing which has been sorted and disinfected?
Mr President, let me say to Mrs Jackson that we do not think there is any need for an amendment because we think that the text is in fact clear enough.
But I agree with Mrs Jackson to the extent that, because of the many misunderstandings which have arisen, we should at least find some way of ensuring that the charitable organisations know what rules apply.
We shall try to find an appropriate way of overcoming this problem.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Landfill of waste
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0028/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (6919/98 - C4-0539/98-97/0085(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on the landfill of waste (Rapporteur: Mrs Jackson).
Mr President, I hope somebody somewhere is taking notice of the fact that Mrs Bjerregaard and I and other Members are spending this evening doing very unglamorous things such as debating landfill and the export of used cardigans.
The landfill directive is one of the most important environmental directives the European Parliament has dealt with in recent years.
It marks the beginning of a major shift in waste management practice in Europe.
For the public this is the end of an era in which many people in many countries have had to give very little thought to what happens to the waste they produce.
Seven countries currently landfill more than half of the municipal waste they produce.
These are Austria, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.
For these countries in particular, this directive marks the end of what one might call the throwaway society.
It also marks the beginning of an intensive period of innovation of waste management restructuring and, above all, of expenditure on other means of disposal by taxpayers.
I represent part of the south-west of England and a recent study that I did of the local authorities in the south-west of England led me to the conclusion that most of them were thinking very hard about schemes for recycling and reuse and recovery of waste.
However, none of them had actually been able to move near the kind of demands which this directive is going to make on them within the next five to ten years.
The three key features of the directive are firstly the promotion of the move away from landfill to what are considered more environmentally acceptable alternatives.
I use the words 'what are considered more environmentally acceptable alternatives' advisedly since I personally do not have much faith in the hierarchy of waste management alternatives.
Secondly, the directive calls for the establishment of European Union wide standards for proper management of landfills; thirdly, it should result in the discouragement of the transport of waste across frontiers - waste tourism we call it - by removing the disparities between the practices and prices relating to landfill in the 15 Member States so that waste simply searches for the cheapest hole.
The Environment Committee, while welcoming the directive as amended by the Council, still wanted to insist on further amendments and it is these amendments which I move tonight since this is the second reading of this directive which is coming forward under the cooperation procedure so we will not, I regret to say, see it again.
First, as regards the timetable for implementation; at its maximum we will have to wait until the year 2020 before those Member States with more than an 80 % dependence on landfill, which are Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom, have to reduce the volume of waste going to landfill to 35 % of the total in 1995.
That is a very big switch indeed.
But that is looking a very long way into the future.
Think about it.
Four Parliaments hence at least.
We MEPs have therefore altered this grace period to two years and set the figure to be attained at 25 %.
What we are saying is that at its maximum this directive should mean that by the latest 2018, all European Union Member States should only be sending to landfill 25 % of their 1995 totals.
Make no mistake about it, this directive does not rule out landfill as an option.
Landfill will still be a very important option but it will be diminished from its present importance.
This is going to be very difficult to achieve and we feel that the totals and timescales set out in the directive tend to represent, as so often in this House, the triumph of hope over experience.
We have therefore submitted two amendments to Article No 5(2).
The first would ensure that Parliament is involved in monitoring, over the next 20 years, what progress the directive is actually making.
In Amendment No 10 to Article 5 we try to ensure that the directive does not become the kind of legislative Titanic sailing on into the iceberg of non-compliance.
Since the timetable set out for compliance is in three stages, we should surely monitor along the way whether compliance is satisfactory throughout Europe.
If it is not, then we may need to take practical steps to make sure that in practice we get the high level of protection the directive demands.
In the past the Commission has been reluctant to go along with the quite elaborate mechanism of reporting to it and to the European Parliament from the Member States which we would like to see.
We believe that this system of reporting is our best hope of ensuring that this directive itself does not join other directives in, to change my metaphor, the landfill of non-compliance.
Our Amendments Nos 14 and 16 represent the committee's concern that there are two important loopholes in the directive.
First existing landfills below a certain size on islands would be exempt from considerable proportions of the directive altogether.
We think that these should not be allowed to continue to operate without full public access to the record of what is dumped there.
Secondly, we insist that Member States shall close any existing landfill sites which have not been granted a permit under the waste framework directive.
It is a bad omen that such sites are still operating at all.
The siting of landfills is extremely controversial.
It is no part of our responsibilities to interfere in local planning matters but the committee agreed that we should set out our guideline in the annex for the desirable minimum distance between new landfills and residential areas.
As rapporteur, I must present the report on behalf of the committee, although personally I am not in favour of some of the committee amendments, notably the refusal to place a time limit on liability for damage occasioned by land filling.
I would be grateful if the Commission could comment on Amendment No 15 and its workability.
In conclusion, I commend this directive to Parliament.
Once it is adopted, however, the work begins, especially in my country.
Once we accept the directive's targets, we must put in place recycling and composting schemes - and we hope that we will get a composting directive before the end of this year - that will work and have good markets for what they produce.
We must reduce the amount of waste we produce.
We must make a bold assessment of the part that energy from waste incinerators can play in dealing with the waste that we must divert from landfill and take the necessary decisions, if we decide to take that route, to build such incinerators in the full knowledge that public opinion at the moment will have to be won around.
This evening and tomorrow when we vote, we pass the baton now to Members of Parliament and, above all, to local councillors in our various countries, some of whom may be here in the gallery tonight.
I cannot think of a directive that better illustrates the partnerships that must exist between legislators at the European, national and local levels.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mrs Jackson for her work.
I want to reassure her that people are interested in the environment but they are not interested in paying for the improvements we all want to see.
I was a member of a local council for many years and I did not think it would take so long for the various Member States to coordinate action in this area.
It is amazing that so little progress has been made.
I represent one of the countries that has been mentioned among the guilty parties with regard to landfill.
Therefore I have studied the report very carefully.
What I find most disappointing is the Council's attitude to this legislation.
The Member States have placed the concerns of industry and their own cost concerns ahead of the interests of our citizens.
I note in particular that the Council has failed to include minimum distances from residential areas for landfills which contain either hazardous or non-hazardous waste.
This is certainly a very contentious issue in my own area of Dublin.
The Council has instead persisted with its vague commitment to consider the matter when the location of future landfills is chosen.
I also oppose the Council's position that Member States should be given eight years, rather than the five years proposed by Parliament, to ensure that existing landfill sites comply with the terms laid out in this directive.
I welcome the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection's support for the polluter pays principle and the proposal for a tax on waste going into the landfill sites.
I find it very ironic that Ireland has supported this common position.
In a recent policy paper the Irish Government committed itself to reducing landfill and increasing the use of more sustainable means of waste disposal.
As has been said, Ireland relies very heavily on landfill - I think only Greece is more reliant.
So we have to wonder just how committed the Irish Government is to tackling the problem if it continues to support the Council's very watered-down amendments.
I would hope that the Commissioner present today will fight the case for consumers and for citizens who want to see the whole waste disposal and landfill issue dealt with in an environmentally friendly way.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am very happy indeed to support the report presented by Mrs Jackson, because I believe this represents a great step forward in environmental matters for the whole of Europe.
Although it will involve some tightening up in Austria, I have to say that a number of provisions already apply in Austria which it would have been impossible to gain acceptance for throughout Europe.
I certainly tried to emphasise this by the way I voted in committee.
I would like to illustrate this point with a single example - Article 6, the classification of waste according to categories of waste.
It is to be permissible to deposit certain types of solid non-reactive hazardous waste on landfill sites for non-hazardous waste.
This relates to waste which is categorised as hazardous because of handling issues, that is to say where there is a risk of inappropriate handling, but which can in fact be deposited with other non-reactive waste without any risk to the environment.
This implies waste with low leachability.
Such waste cannot be deposited in Austria unless it can be scientifically proven that it is not dangerous in landfill conditions.
We have also developed a model for providing this proof.
This chiefly relates to vitrified or solidified hazardous waste.
I believe that this is a very important point which we will have to reflect on again in the future.
Nevertheless, this directive represents a great step forward for Europe and I am therefore really pleased to give it my approval.
Mr President, first of all may I thank Mrs Jackson and congratulate her on her report.
I would like, President, to make a few comments.
Listening to this debate I feel as though I am from a different planet, living as I do in a country, Greece, which, as Mrs Jackson said, is one of those countries which depend heavily on landfills for the disposal of waste.
First of all, I agree with the proposal that there should be prevention, then recovery, followed by recycling, incineration and finally landfill.
But in my country, Commissioner, virtually nothing has been done about prevention and recovery, and recycling has only been talked about. As for incineration, it has been recommended to us on many occasions, and even by the Commission itself.
Is the Commission so much in favour of incineration?
Personally, I have my doubts about incineration. I know that cities in Belgium, including Brussels, and recently Lille in France have come out against incineration, claiming that it causes serious environmental and public health problems.
I would like a better response in relation to this issue before I cast my vote and declare that incineration is a way to solve the problem.
A second point, with which I am in full agreement, is the taxation of waste destined for landfill sites. I find this a perfectly correct thing to do.
But who decides the level of taxation?
Who collects the tax and what is to be done with it? We are talking about a long period of time - three decades.
In my own country local government does not have the power to raise taxes, which puts paid, at least for the time being, to this, in my view, perfectly reasonable solution.
A third point I would like to mention is this. What kind of authority is to be responsible for landfill sites?
I agree with Mrs Jackson when she says that there should be a time limit.
I would say, however, that I do not fully agree with her.
If an authority is to have responsibility for a landfill site for 30 years after its closure and be permanently liable to pay compensation, then it absolutely has to be a public authority.
I am not sure whether it should be centralised or decentralised, autonomous or independent, but it must be a public body.
No other solution can be envisaged and this has to be said otherwise how, in 30 years' time, will I be able to find the responsible owner, who has meanwhile closed down his company or his establishment?
Finally, I would like to make one further point, Mr President.
We have not made sufficient reference to former debates we have had in relation to the severe problems that implementation of this legislation will entail for certain regions such as small islands and isolated mountain regions.
The transportation of waste to sites which can financially justify this transportation is virtually impossible. Rather than look for loopholes in the legislation, we must find alternative subsidies to enable these regions to get rid of their waste in a hygienic and environmentally friendly way.
Mr President, I welcome the thrust of this report, which seeks to implement strict rules with regard to the operation of landfill sites within the territories of the Union.
The essence of the report includes the implementation of the following key provisions: procedures which must be met before a licence can be granted for landfill operations; the monitoring procedure during landfill sites' operational phase and closure; technical conditions to be met by sites and facilities which have to serve as landfill deposits; classifying the different sets of wastes which can be accepted in landfill sites across Europe and setting targets for the reduction of the amounts of biodegradable municipal waste being deposited in landfills.
European and Irish waste policies have to be based on a hierarchy of options, with prevention the most desirable and disposal the least desirable.
However, the stark fact is that over 90 % of municipal waste is disposed of in landfill sites in my country, and four million tonnes of waste is produced each year in the continent of Europe.
Future waste disposal in Ireland does not and cannot rely on the continued search for landfill sites by local authorities up and down the country.
I fully welcome the initiative taken by my government which has commissioned a study into the possible use of new, alternative forms of waste management and disposal.
The government is right to look boldly at new ways of disposing of residential, industrial, commercial and agricultural waste.
Only 8 % of all municipal waste in Ireland is recycled and this figure is simply too low.
We need to give consideration to all innovative options for waste minimisation so as to put in train the medium to long-term process of eliminating the use of landfill sites in the future.
This, in itself, would be a very bold objective.
The government is presently formulating its national development plan outlining our social and economic investment priorities for the years 2000-2006.
I am very confident that, if proposals are included in this plan to deal with our waste problem in a novel manner, the European Commission will financially support alternative waste-disposal methods during the next round of EU Structural Funds.
The European Commission and European Parliament certainly want all Member States to take advantage of the cleaner new technologies which are coming on-stream to deal with the problem of waste management.
The implementation of the Waste Management Act of 1995 is also a positive step in the right direction.
Under this legislation local authorities are required to prepare waste-management plans either individually or jointly, but I believe that there must be widespread public consultation in drawing up such plans.
Finally, it is important that, as newer technologies come on stream, this process must involve the consent and widespread participation of the general public and local communities.
Mr President, I should like to ask the Commission to clarify Article 14.
Authorities in some countries, including my own, are already planning to close down a number of landfill sites over the next two years.
One of the important aspects of this legislation is after-care.
What I want it know is this: if, for example, these waste sites are closed down before the transposition into law of the directive, will they be exempt from the directive, in particular in relation to after-care? That is one of the major problems.
Some of the landfill sites that are being closed down pose major problems, so it is essential that these sites also come under the directive.
There seems to be a slight confusion here.
One of the most important aspects of this report that I want to raise is the whole issue of the distance of landfill sites from residential areas.
We have been very disappointed with the response of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and its members who are there to protect public health, because they are basically saying that a suggested guideline is proposed in the text.
That is unacceptable.
It is like saying we will make legislation as suggested legislation, and you can do what you want afterwards.
There have been a number of recent reports - a very important study in The Lancet last year for example - which show that babies born within three kilometres of toxic landfill sites - and potentially all landfill sites - are more likely to suffer birth defects than babies born elsewhere.
The research stated that residents within three kilometres of a landfill site were associated with a significantly higher risk of congenital anomalies and that systematic environmental health surveillance is needed for municipal landfill sites and other pollution sources.
It is extremely important that a precautionary approach is taken here.
It is clear that the proximity of residential areas to landfill sites poses a huge risk.
It is essential that this legislation makes it mandatory for local authorities and the authorities of the Member States to adhere to a minimum distance.
We know that there have been cases of toxic waste being dumped in Member States, including my own, in sites that were not geared towards toxic landfill: local authorities in my own country have been found responsible for illegally dumping toxic substances like mercury into landfill sites which were not meant for toxic waste disposal.
So there is a huge time-bomb waiting to go off, if, first of all, these landfill sites are not covered by the directive and have been closed down before it enters into effect and, secondly, if no action is taken to ensure that any landfill site is beyond a certain radius from residential areas.
It is not acceptable that public health be put at risk like this.
We will be looking for a roll-call vote on this aspect of the report tomorrow.
It is essential that the voters in the Member States know how serious the Members of this House are about protecting the health of European Union citizens.
Studies have shown that babies - the most vulnerable members of society - are at risk.
There are other aspects of the legislation which are also extremely disturbing.
In landfill sites which are geared to non-toxic waste, there will be a loophole to allow toxic waste to be added, depending on what kind of justification is given.
Although the directive is an improvement on the Commission's proposal which we rejected in 1996, it still does not go far enough to protect the environment and public health.
I would therefore like some clarification on Article 14 from the Commission.
The directive must make it mandatory for landfill sites to be located beyond a certain distance from residential areas.
Mr President, I have to begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Jackson, on her excellent report, and backing the amendments tabled by the Environment Committee.
I agree wholeheartedly with this order of priority.
Pollution has long been a concern in Europe and we in Galicia, Spain, face a problem with waste disposal that, in our opinion, has yet to be resolved.
This relates to an urban waste incineration programme.
A plant known as (...) is to be started up in Vila Boa, not the best choice of site since:
firstly, it will be on the coast near the Galician river-estuaries or rias , an area known worldwide for its fish stocks and as a tourist attraction; -secondly, it will be located in the town of Vila Boa, which is densely populated and is near Pontevedra, a town already heavily polluted because of a cellulose factory. A river running through an extremely beautiful and fertile valley has been diverted to build a railway line which has spoilt part of the historic Portuguese route to Santiago de Compostela.
A number of protests against the plant have been staged by local residents, with as many as 30 000 people marching, and messages of protest have been sent to the Environment Committee in Brussels.It is up to the Commission to control waste elimination and processing plants like this one.
Given that they are built with the aid of substantial European financial subsidies - as much as EUR 78 million in this case - there should be checks on where they are located, how they are built and how they are run.
The Commission should also make sure that these investments are not only properly planned and carried out, but also used profitably.
Madam President, there are various options for waste processing.
The solution to the waste problem must be sought in prevention, reuse and recycling.
European waste policy must ensure that progressively less waste is dumped.
I therefore agree with the rapporteur Mrs Jackson when she describes landfill as the very last choice on her list of possible waste processing methods.
Unfortunately, in the past, in other words between 1991 and 1996, attempts to introduce effective landfill regulations failed.
The Commission proposal is a considerable improvement on the common position rejected in 1995.
It is no longer the case that 50 % of EU territory is excluded from the directive.
Every effort must be made to process biodegradable waste into compost and biogas, rather than landfilling or incineration.
A good system of separate collection should make it possible to further reduce the 25 % norm for the dumping of such waste.
I agree with the rapporteur's proposal of imposing a levy on landfill waste.
This must be based on the real operating costs, so that the taxpayer does not have to contribute.
In this respect, we are concerned at the continuing practice of transporting waste to cheaper landfill sites or incineration ovens.
There is a very large landfill site in Spain, for example, and this will not be closed until it is completely full, which will not be for some decades.
There are of course many uncertainties in regard to the protection and management of landfill sites.
The risks of soil and water pollution remain very considerable, especially in the long term.
It is my hope that the Member States will implement this directive effectively, but giving absolute priority to waste prevention, reuse and recycling.
Mr President, as Liberals we also believe it is very important to adopt a waste management strategy in connection with the landfill of waste, which must be the very last resort.
The release of dangerous substances into the soil and groundwater places an excessive burden on the environment and on public health.
This is why we attach such importance to this directive.
We find it irresponsible to further delay appropriate legislation.
We therefore believe the common position must be approved, as modified of course by the amendments proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
In this respect I believe the amendments on biodegradable waste are crucially important.
The rapporteur is right when she says that it is much kinder to the environment to produce compost and biogas from biodegradable waste than to dump it or incinerate it.
I support this view.
However, I believe the rapporteur is being too cautious by proposing no more than a guideline on the minimum distance of landfills for urban waste.
I do not believe this is a matter for subsidiarity.
In this instance we prefer the amendments tabled by the Green Group, which seek to impose a minimum distance of half a kilometre for urban waste and two kilometres for hazardous waste, the precautionary principle taking priority over that of subsidiarity.
Mr President, coming as I do from a small country which landfills 99 % of its waste, I am particularly anxious to make a few remarks about this extremely important directive.
The directive allows a 20-year period for countries which landfill more than 80 % of their waste to come into line.
But small countries like Ireland simply do not have 20 years!
We are going to have to address this problem a lot more quickly, in particular we finally have to address the extremely sensitive issue of incineration which in most countries, I believe, causes local problems when it is mooted.
Many years ago somebody asked me what I thought were the five most important environmental issues of our time.
I answered: number one is waste, number two is waste, number three is waste, number four is waste and number five is waste.
It remains perhaps one of the most intractable problems facing all of us.
I should also say that I would like to have seen the directive slightly stronger on the protection for redundant landfill sites, because resistance to landfill and also to incineration is very often directly connected to the fears of those who live near these sites that they will not be adequately maintained and protected.
We also need finally to take seriously the question of the sorting of waste into recyclable groups of waste and of course, the recycling of treated waste.
I congratulate the rapporteur.
We have relied very much on the leadership of the Commission to push this as a political issue in our country.
I am very happy to support this report.
Madam President, I believe that this directive can serve as a model because it is aimed at the citizens and affects everyday life, and also because it shows how Community regulations approved centrally by the institutions must subsequently be implemented by local authorities.
It underlines the fact that we are primarily addressing local and regional authorities.
I believe that there are three important points which warrant repetition because they should always be at the forefront of our minds: landfill must be a last resort; all sites must be secure and monitored; and all costs must be covered.
It is easy to state these three requirements, but fulfilling them will be rather more difficult.
Although the regions are constantly calling for the implementation of the principle of subsidiarity and for the autonomy to enable them to implement the relevant legislation, we must nevertheless appeal to those whose responsibility it is to comply with it. This legislation is very important, and yet there are thousands and thousands of unregulated sites.
Even worse, in small villages there are official sites on steep riverbanks and waste is incinerated daily. It is incredible that this should be happening in this day and age, but it is.
I believe that the European Parliament is sending a very clear and positive message, and that we should congratulate the rapporteur on reaching this overall result. The European Commission is also to be congratulated of course, as it kept this proposal alive for years despite the many difficulties it encountered, even, it has to be said, in the Council of Ministers.
Madam President, I would also like to congratulate Mrs Jackson on the substantial amount of work she has done on this.
As a Liberal Democrat I always favour measures which protect and enhance our environment and there is much in the Commission directive and in this report which does just that.
However, I believe that good legislation should be practicable.
And I am surprised that the rapporteur, coming as she does from the south-west of England, believes that Amendment No 11 which reduces the time allowed to Member States to postpone attainment of targets from four to two years and Amendment No 17 which reduces the compliance timetable by three years from eight years to five are practically achievable.
Indeed, Amendment No 17 may lead to the rapid adoption of new means of disposal which will mean less sustainability.
In the south-west of England we landfill more than 85 % of our waste.
We have a rapidly growing level of environmental consciousness leading to much composting and much landfill geared specifically to the production of biogas.
Indeed, I launched a report this morning called 'The Greening of Somerset' in which we pointed to what Liberal Democrat authorities have done in this direction.
We are proud of our record.
We are making great strides but I will vote against Amendments Nos 11 and 18 because I believe they are almost impossible to attain, will demoralise the industry and add very substantially to the costs imposed on waste site operators and on local authorities.
In conclusion, I favour the use of legislation to push, to coax and to accelerate change but there are many ways to crack an egg.
Using a sledgehammer is only one of them.
These two amendments are the sledgehammer approach.
Madam President, the Council directive is a positive step, and the amendments proposed by Mrs Jackson make an even more positive contribution.
However, although these will go some way to improving the existing situation, I fear - and I do not here wish to make a prediction - that the future situation will not be radically different.
I have listened to talk of measures stretching over 30 years, of measures which will come into force very gradually. However, all the waste materials destined for burial, incineration and so on are multiplying at a very dangerous level and at a much faster rate than the measures put forward by the Council and the Commission and those put forward by us in this House.
We run the risk - that is, those of us who introduce such measures - of being buried along with those waste materials, because of the speed, or lack of it, with which we are moving to tackle the problem.
Madam President, I have heard the word 'prevention' being bandied about.
What does this mean?
Who is producing this waste?
Who is the main source, the person responsible for the excessive production of waste? Is it the individual, the citizen?
And why is it that never before have we had such a rampant increase in the amount of waste? The answer is clear to all: at the root of the problem lie certain industries, certain conglomerates, which produce and sell for profit, without the slightest regard for the waste generated as a consequence.
Prevention, therefore, must be carried out at source, so as to reduce the volume and the hazards of waste.
Prevention through the management of the reduced amount of waste produced either as a result of recovery or through alternative waste management methods. Only a tiny proportion of waste should be destined for landfill, in conjunction with preventive measures to ensure that such waste does not harm people's health, the environment, or the eco-system.
I have not seen, nor have I heard talk of, such measures, and this is why I have expressed the fears that I have.
I wish to say that this hesitation on the part of the Council and the Commission owes more to their reluctance to confront those chiefly responsible for this wretched situation. Take the bull by the horns and face up to the problem with courage.
Parliament will be right behind you and you will have public opinion on your side. Madam President, in every corner of the Community, epic battles are being waged to avoid landfill sites being opened up.
By contrast, there are numerous interests that wish to establish landfill sites in certain regions and set up incineration units etc. from which they can obtain kickbacks, rake-offs and profits.
Such are the multitude of lobbies which are milling around the issue.
Liberate yourselves from the nightmare of lobby pressure and confront this problem, which is a matter of life and death for our society.
Madam President, I too should like to join with my colleagues in welcoming the Jackson report.
As we move towards a new Millennium we are facing new problems associated with the wealth which is being created and the extra economic growth.
One of these problems is how we dispose of our waste.
For many years landfill was seen as the easiest and least expensive option.
However, the studies which have been carried out - and referred to here - on public health and, in particular, the health of children and babies, show that there is an urgent need to take action to resolve this problem.
I welcome Mrs Jackson's report.
It is, in the main, a balanced approach to tackling this problem.
In particular, it highlights the necessity for increased use of regulation to ensure that all Member States take action at the same time.
However, it also points to the fact that some Member States are more advanced than others, I believe we should also now focus on the new opportunities and new technologies available to us.
Using waste for renewable energies, recycling some other types of waste and incineration are among those that have been mentioned.
The dangers associated with incineration in the past have generally been overcome as a result of technological progress.
Also, with new designs of landfill sites, certain of the dangers have been eliminated.
I would draw Members' attention to Amendment No 7 where we lay down guidelines allowing non-hazardous waste and inert waste to be excluded from the scope of the directive.
However, we should not allow this amendment, if it is adopted, to be a carte blanche for those who want to abuse the directive.
It is there merely to help those Member States that are lagging behind or that cannot catch up quickly enough with regard to new technology.
I welcome the action of the Irish Government in initiating a process whereby the extra options will be looked at.
With the reform, under the Agenda 2000 proposals, of the structural and cohesion funds, perhaps an opportunity could be found to make new funding available, not only for research and development as regards how the new technologies may be best adapted but also for cooperative programmes between the local authorities and the Member States at a local, as well as a European Union, level to try and resolve some of these difficulties and problems.
My final point is that there is no simple solution to the problems of the excess waste which is now being created.
There is no one simple answer.
There are a range of multi-faceted options which can help to alleviate the problem.
The waste can also be turned to good use through the different processes.
Unless we are willing to cooperate with each other and learn from the best practices available, we cannot hope to resolve these difficulties.
I commend the bulk of this report to the House.
My group will be supporting its general tenor.
Madam President, I wish to add my voice to those Members who have criticised the Council's common position, which apparently takes no account of the needs of either citizens or the environment.
It is particularly important to say that the approach to waste management has to be based on prevention, reuse and recycling; incineration and dumping, both of which involve potential risks to health and the environment, ought to be the exception and not the rule.
And so it is important that we put a stop, as soon as possible, to the dumping or incineration of the organic biodegradable component of waste.
Our aim has to be the production of compost or biogas and, on that point, I hope the Commission will transmit to us the proposal for a directive on composting as soon as possible.
I should add that if a number of different measures are applied to separate out, at the start, those components of waste that can be reused and recycled, and if compost is produced, all we shall be left with is inert waste that can be managed much more easily, avoiding the need for incineration which in any case leaves us with ash that has to be dumped.
Let me end by saying that it is important that we approve the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, but it is also - and I stress this - necessary to take the steps required to establish a mandatory minimum safety distance from residential areas.
Madam President, I would like to express my sincerest thanks to the rapporteur for her subtle treatment of the directive.
The amendments comprehensively cover issues required for the landfill directive.
I would especially like to stress the importance of two points, in Amendments Nos 6 and 7, which deal with the disposal of non-hazardous waste.
Non-hazardous waste is defined as that which has undergone no significant physical, chemical or biological change.
This includes waste produced from mining and its associated refining processes, or by-products of that industry.
By-products include surface material, quarried host rock and sand, which are stored in the area of the mine or service area and are used in mining, for example as filler for extra support and safety, or which may be processed further.
The principle of sustainable use is immensely important and is something we should all be aware of.
Let us exploit what materials we can.
It is unreasonable to classify this sort of non-biodegradable but otherwise still useful extracted material as landfill.
Further measures simply need to be taken.
Mrs Jackson has understood this very well, and included it in her proposal.
Finally, I would like to ask the Commission why it still has not made any distinction in its own report between hard, non-biodegradable, non-hazardous stone, and biodegradable materials.
Madam President, I have listened closely to the Commission's views on the amendments, but I am afraid that the Commission's position on Amendment No 19 escaped me.
Can you give an answer to that, Commissioner? It was on the subject of Amendment No 19.
Yes, Mr Eisma, I think I mentioned that, because I can see that it is the amendment on the technical committee which I could not accept.
Would the Commissioner also clarify whether or not she said she would accept Amendment No 11?
It was not clear to me.
Yes, Madam President, I did also mention that amendment.
We can accept Amendment No 11.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 7.35 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, a French weekly paper, Marianne , has just announced that the members of the Committee of Independent Experts appointed by Parliament and the Commission are to receive 29 200 euros per month, which is 191 000 French francs.
As this committee was set up under the auspices of Parliament, it is important to check that this information is correct.
If it is not accurate, what are the true figures that should be passed on to the taxpayers in the various Member States? Which budget article do the corresponding amounts come from?
I should like to know whether this information is indeed accurate, particularly as regards the members of the Committee of Independent Experts who already receive an allowance from the Community budget. I should like to know whether, in these cases, the above sum will be added to their allowance or not.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot discuss here each and every newspaper article that is published.
A decision has been taken by the Bureau. That can be made available to you, and the matter can then be discussed at the appropriate level.
The plenary is not the right place for that, however.
Madam President, last night I wished to go through the amendments to the Philippe Martin report but they were not available in English.
Although I have a whole stack in German, I would prefer them in my own language.
As this is a very important and technical report, could you please make sure that they are available so that everybody has the chance to go through them carefully in their own language before the vote on Thursday.
Thank you for pointing that out.
We shall ensure that everything is available in good time.
Madam President, can I ask whether, in view of recent political developments in France, the Conference of Presidents will put the issue of Rule 31 on the agenda and consider, in the interests of order in the Chamber, separating Mr Mégret's runt faction of the Front Nationale from Mr Le Pen's 'diva' group.
Secondly, turning to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I suspect the newspaper he is reading is very similar to the ones we have in the United Kingdom where they say the only thing you can believe is the date.
Madam President, I do apologise. Yesterday it was my privilege and pleasure to be permitted two minutes' speaking time in this House.
It was obviously out of excitement at this great event that I forgot to sign the register.
I was definitely present.
Yes of course, that was demonstrated by the fact that you spoke.
Madam President, I rise for the same reason as the previous speaker.
My name does not appear to be on the list, even though I was here in Parliament yesterday from 10.30 a.m.
We take note of that, and it will be checked.
Madam President, I just wish to point out that I was here yesterday.
I would therefore like to have my presence recorded, even though I forgot to sign in.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a good thing that the details of Members' attendance are corrected.
As long as there are just one or two cases, that is all well and good, but when there are ten or twenty, things become difficult.
I would ask you to ensure that you all sign the register.
The Minutes were approved
There was clearly a misunderstanding yesterday, when it was said that the recommendation by Mr Fitzsimons would not be put to the vote until Wednesday.
That is wrong. This item has been correctly placed on the agenda and will be put to the vote at 12 noon today.
The deadline expires today, so if we do not vote, we shall miss the opportunity to deliver our opinion.
The vote must take place today.
I simply wished to make that clear to the House.
Madam President, I quite understand and you are perfectly correct.
However, I would draw your attention to the fact that the amendments to the Fitzsimons report were not yet available this morning.
That will also have to be looked into.
We shall investigate the matter.
Taxation of energy products
The next item is the report (A4-0015/99) by Mr Cox, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive on restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy products (COM(97)0030 - C4-0155/97-97/0111(CNS)).
Madam President, in its proposal to extend and deepen the base of energy taxation the Commission will have the support of Parliament.
The energy tax directive is timely in terms of our commitments to reduce global warming and is desirable as a means of promoting greater energy efficiency and encouraging a lower energy intensity per unit of output; furthermore, it is necessary to explore new tax bases if we are ever to tackle successfully the structural difficulty in too many of our States of lowering non-wage labour costs in societies suffering unacceptably high rates of unemployment.
We in Parliament will say 'yes' to new taxes but 'no' to more taxes.
Regrettably Parliament cannot insist in law on fiscal neutrality, but it does so as a matter of political conviction.
Member States and the Council will betray the wider public purpose of this proposal if they fail to use the extra revenue from energy tax to offset excessive non-wage, tax-driven labour costs.
We insist on such a trade-off because, to reiterate the point, this Parliament wants new tax but not more tax.
The Commission proposes an extension of the excise tax regime on hydrocarbons to a much more comprehensive tax base, including sectors that have heretofore been excluded in some or all of the Member States - sectors such as coal, gas, electricity and home-heating oil.
Parliament supports this as commendable, yet no sooner is this tax base definition established in the Commission proposal, than, through a complex series of total or partial exemptions, total or partial refunds, which variously are mandatory or optional, the Commission proposes a form of tax governance based more on exceptions than on rules.
This, in our view, is a bad legislative proposal because it is too complex.
It lacks the characteristics of good tax law, which should be simple to understand, easy to collect, predictable in its statutory implications and difficult to evade.
I should say that some colleagues confuse this proposal with the CO2 tax.
This is not a CO2 tax directive.
The Commission services, and ultimately the College of Commissioners, have submitted to Parliament a proposal which, we believe, reflects too many of the priorities of the lobbyists with which they have dealt and too little concern for the wider public interest.
In first studying the proposal, I recalled the rather unkind remark about a recent presidency in the United States, which likened the behaviour of the President to a cushion which, it was reported, always bore the marks of the last arse to sit on it.
In some respects, the exceptionalism in this document appears to me to reflect that kind of logic.
This is the kind of legislative proposal that has to stop.
My report proposes radical surgery to remove the glut of exemptions but still proposes the retention of green exceptions.
On tax deepening, we believe the Commission has opted for an unnecessarily complex formula.
We propose starting with the Commission's Year 2000 tax rate proposals and then applying an accelerator formula, subject to five-year review, but which would stay in place pending the outcome of the review.
It has the advantage of clarity and certainty and avoids the endless institutional complications of the alternative proposed to us.
There remains the outstanding difficulty about firms and sectors whose costs may dramatically increase to the point where their competitive position could be destroyed.
We do not ignore this issue: we propose a form of constrained subsidiarity, where such firms or sectors can seek relief provided there are extenuating circumstances, but where they must pass a wider EU test for objectivity so that they do not violate the rules of fair competition or the rules related to state aids.
I also propose an additional amendment at this stage that sectors where this is systematic should potentially be subject to a Commission-approved block exemption or refund.
In summary, the European Parliament will support new energy and ecotaxes, but does not support more taxes.
We demand fiscal neutrality of the states.
We insist on lowering labour taxes as the counterpart of this tax.
We want a simpler and more certain tax-based definition than that proposed by the Commission.
We want a more predictable base-deepening formula for determining the evolution of tax rates.
We want competitive handicap to be addressed where it is a genuine problem but not to be used as an excuse for going soft on necessary change.
I commend the report to the House.
Madam President, Commissioner, the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy is well aware of the fact that we should be working towards tax harmonisation and that, as Mr Cox pointed out, what is needed in Europe is new tax not more tax.
It should be borne in mind, however, that we are currently implementing the directive liberalising the electricity and gas markets whose main objective is to bring down energy prices.
Progress is in fact being made.
I am most familiar with the situation in my own country, Spain, where electricity prices have fallen by 11 %.
Other countries have not moved as quickly.
The directives are being implemented and liberalisation of the electricity markets is beginning to take place.
I feel we would be trying to do too many things at once if we placed an additional tax burden on energy at the moment.
Consequently, we do agree that in the future direct taxation should be replaced by indirect taxation and that energy should be taxed, provided there is genuine fiscal neutrality and that such a move does not result in increased costs for businesses.
The current situation means that we must become more competitive.
As you are well aware, Commissioner, energy is very cheap in the United States.
In Europe, taxes constitute the major part of the cost of energy and hydrocarbons are a good example of this. In France and Belgium, for instance, taxes on transport are very high, whereas in other countries such as Spain they are considerably lower.
Within the Union, we need to legislate for all 15 countries and that is not an easy task.
We must begin to liberalise the gas and electricity markets and we must become more competitive and implement countless regulations on the environment which businesses must then comply with. This week, for instance, we shall be considering the directive on water.
Industry will be very much affected by this directive, and will have to make substantial investments.
We shall also consider directives on waste.
In our view, Commissioner, we must allow some breathing space before implementing this directive.
We do agree with the spirit of the directive, but we do not think the timing is right.
There should be no more discussion on CO2 .
It is certainly true that if the cost of energy rises, it will be used more efficiently and less will be used.
However, this calls for considerable investment. Emissions of CO2 and other pollutants will certainly be reduced.
We are not going to support Mr Cox's report.
The directive you are proposing, Commissioner, is indeed complex and full of exceptions, but Mr Cox's document, as approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, is far more radical and is also impossible to implement as it would do away with all grants and subsidies.
We will vote against Amendments Nos 13, 14, 15, 16 and perhaps also against others.
If they are approved by the House, we will vote against the report.
What is currently consultation may in the future become codecision.
Whatever the outcome, it would be advisable to postpone this directive for a while.
Madam President, may I say what a pleasure it is to be speaking to the House on this subject.
I would also like to add that I failed, because I must have been distracted, to sign the register yesterday.
I wish to endorse absolutely what the rapporteur has said.
I want to speak on my own opinion on behalf of the Environment Committee in which the amendments were unanimously adopted by all members from all groups.
The aim of those amendments is to indicate that while Mr Monti's proposals would be good, a green version of Mr Monti's proposals would be better.
So our view is 'brown Monti good, green Monti very, very good'.
However, I suspect that the Council will not have the wisdom either to take up Mr Monti's brown proposals or even any green version of Mr Monti that we choose to recommend to it.
I believe that when you discuss harmonising taxation, you are talking not just about the technicalities of harmonising taxes but how you use them, and - it seems to me - the Council will miss a huge opportunity if it does not pick up the Monti proposals.
It should remember what it has been saying about Kyoto and Buenos Aires and use this as an opportunity to influence the way in which energy is used in our Community.
As a consequence of my own stupidity, it may be that the Spencer report on CO2 Energy Tax, for which I have been hereditary rapporteur for nearly ten years, will not reach Parliament in my time.
It is being held in committee and I strongly recommend to Parliament that it remain held in committee.
I believe that the Commission and the Council will have to come back to a CO2 Energy Tax because that is one of the ways of making a real difference.
I recommend that future Parliaments hold that report in committee and, if I might be a bit mischievous, perhaps leave the words Spencer on it, not for me but - since climate change is a long-term issue - maybe for my daughters' time in this Parliament.
Madam President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists supports both the Monti proposal and the proposal in the report, because on many points the latter has some practical suggestions to make which are better geared to the aim of changing tack on tax.
In this respect, it should be emphasised that neither the original proposal for a directive, nor the proposal as amended by the European Parliament, can be anything other than a first step towards ecological tax reform, even though I have to agree with Mr Spencer that the proposal itself does not actually provide for a green energy tax.
That is why my group also supports amending the Cox report, so that we at least make it obligatory for the Member States of the European Union not to levy taxes on electricity and other products derived from renewable sources of energy.
I believe that this proposal, which rightly seeks to tax energy so that the tax burden on labour can be eased - as already foreseen in the Delors White Paper of 1993 - improves the directive in this regard, also making it greener.
I do not think that this has an adverse effect on the system; I believe it is necessary.
I know that this directive is intended to make the internal market function more effectively, and to eliminate anything that interferes with it, including in the country of consumption, but we also need to bear in mind that in 1920, when the former economist, Mr Pigou, first developed the whole idea of using taxes to help to save resources, he also brought about a change in the nature of our debates by choosing this approach.
It is also important for the proposal for a directive to emphasise fiscal neutrality.
In this respect, when it comes to implementation, efforts must be made in the Member States to ease the tax burden on labour so that the effects on employment really can come into play too.
The energy tax - and this needs to be emphasised - is not an ecotax.
I believe that there is actually an urgent need for us to reopen the unfortunate discussions and debates which we held at European level after Rio and Kyoto, and which yielded no results.
Since then, I believe that many Member States have gone further than the proposal for a directive does.
I also think it would be a good idea for European countries to learn from one another, and I would very much welcome any moves by companies which are heavy consumers of energy - and to whom a rebate will definitely have to be granted - to adopt a practice which has been so successful in Denmark, and to submit to an energy audit.
Madam President, this directive was devised to meet a triple objective, and is therefore difficult to analyse. Difficulties have also arisen in the drafting of Mr Cox's report.
On the one hand, the directive aims at fiscal harmonisation to improve the operation of the market. On the other, it seeks to meet an economic target: replacing labour taxes with energy taxes.
In addition, it also has an ecological purpose.
Combining three objectives in a single directive is bound to prove complicated.
I feel that in his report, Mr Cox, the rapporteur, has attempted to lighten this heavy burden somewhat, and to reduce the scope of the triple objective a little.
Preparing a Union-wide harmonising directive on as complex a matter as energy is certainly a complicated business.
I believe that the Commission's initial approach was wise, because the problem calls for countless exceptions to the general rule.
There is no other way of dealing with the situation.
On this point, our group differs from Mr Cox's approach.
The fact of the matter is that when it comes to drafting fiscal regulations, exceptions are the rule, as existing regulations will prove. I therefore find it hard to understand why in this case the exceptions we feel are essential in order to safeguard the competitiveness of the European Union's system of production cannot be accepted.
Consequently, as Mrs Estevan Bolea has already said, if the rapporteur's position on the deletion of a series of amendments, that is, Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 15, remains unchanged, we will vote against the report. We earnestly believe that to deal with this issue appropriately, and in view of the difficulties involved, the whole range of exceptions envisaged by the Commission, along with others which are bound to arise, ought to be included and analysed in depth.
Madam President, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I should like to express our support for Mr Cox's report. This report contains a range of improvements to the Commission's proposal for a directive and represents a timely and appropriate response at European Union level to three fundamental challenges.
The first of these involves strengthening the internal market. The proposed fiscal harmonisation aims to do away with current imbalances.
The second is to ensure that the European internal market becomes more competitive at international level.
Clearly, if better fiscal harmonisation becomes a reality, as the application of this tax sets out to achieve, it will be possible to do away with labour costs or lower them without reducing the level of fiscal income at Union and Member State level. As a result, the European Union as a whole will introduce an element of competitiveness into the cost structure on the international market.
The third challenge is also important, although I am aware that there have been some criticisms in this respect. An appropriate environmental policy will contribute to sustainable development, which is one of the European Union's main aims.
As we see it, Mr Cox's report will allow these three challenges to be met, whilst allowing the Member States considerable leeway to adapt this directive, provided that there are no negative consequences for the level of competitiveness nor for the achievement of the European internal market, which is one of the Union's main aims.
Madam President, with reference to the Commission's draft directive and Mr Cox's report I have three comments to make.
First, nobody can disagree with the need to protect the environment from energy product emissions.
However, what we really need is positive intervention in favour of renewable forms of energy, in favour of the modernisation of plant and production methods in order to ensure that our energies are more environmentally friendly. We do not need indirect tax-raising measures which will have a serious impact on people's incomes.
Secondly, the level of taxation of energy products of all kinds which is being proposed here will, we feel, lead in some cases to a very significant rise in prices, which could be as much as 9 % or even 11 %. In a period of severe financial constraints within the framework of economic and monetary union, this will put increased pressure on the living standards and conditions of the public at large.
Thirdly, Madam President, we would like to express yet again our deep concern at the proposed substitution of social contributions made to the social security system, the so-called 'employment tax', by the so-called 'energy tax'.
Such substitution would not only not lead to an increase in social security funds, but would actually permit governments to privatise these funds, which would have severe repercussions on the entire social security system.
Madam President, our colleague, Mr Cox, has done some excellent work on the Commission's proposal.
I would also like to thank Tom Spencer for the work he has done for years now in this House in connection with the CO2 tax proposal.
The Green Group fully agrees with Mr Spencer that we must preserve this proposal for a CO2 tax.
We must not reject it, as it contains more elements which would influence environmental behaviour than Mr Monti's proposal which we are now discussing.
Mr Cox really has made this proposal of Mr Monti's 'greener'.
It now contains clear justifications for exemptions, and these exemptions have indeed to be justified from the environmental point of view.
Furthermore, his explanation of how industry could receive energy tax relief is extremely clear.
He suggests that industry must be able to justify this relief for reasons of competitiveness, and everything should then proceed under the eye of the Commission.
Mr Cox's report proposes taking as a starting point the tax base in the year 2000, which would then be increased by 2 % above inflation every year for a period of five years.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is a very modest increase.
If we wish to move in the direction of environmental sustainability, we would do well to consider a slightly bolder approach.
For this reason the Green Group have made a proposal for this annual index figure to read 4 % above inflation.
The difference between Mr Cox's proposal and ours is that over five years his proposal would increase energy taxation by some 10 %, while ours would not increase it any more than 20 %.
I therefore appeal to you all to consider this amendment by the Green Group.
Madam President, the June Movement supports minimum taxes on energy, but the money must remain in the national treasuries and not provide new revenue for the EU.
We want the right to impose higher taxes on energy so that we can make savings and promote the switch to renewable energy.
The June Movement also insists on representing those who have no voting rights, those who will come after us.
We cannot simply squander the Earth's scarce resources.
If the border between Denmark and Germany is abolished, people will go to Germany and buy cheap petrol and heating oil. The taxes will end up in the German Treasury instead of the Danish Treasury.
We shall then be forced to lower our taxes and duties to the German level. There will then be less money in the public purse to finance support for education, early retirement and old age pensions.
We have greater equality between people in Denmark than in Germany and the rest of the EU.
The June Movement defends this Nordic welfare model, and that is why we vote for the highest possible minimum prices but, at the same time, we want to remain free to tax energy which is imported at lower prices, so that French nuclear power does not replace action to switch to renewable energy, solar energy and wind power.
There are only guaranteed minimum prices for wind energy in three countries: Germany, Spain and Denmark.
And it is here that we have most of the world's windmills.
Solar energy and wind power must not be exchanged for nuclear power.
Madam President, the rapporteur has been successful in reaching a sensible compromise between the needs of the environment and the need to reduce the statutory charges on labour.
This is an accomplished balancing act between the two main thrusts of our policy, which come into conflict with each other in the most fundamental of projects.
At a time when combating the massive levels of unemployment is the main economic and social concern of European policy, and when we are all aware of the dangers of damaging the environment by using non-renewable forms of energy, the cautious but clear-cut approach outlined here seems to be the right way forward.
It is to be hoped that some of the amendments which make the report more obviously a green one, giving greater emphasis to the decisive role which renewable sources of energy will play here in the future and promoting their use, will be accepted.
On the other hand, amendments such as Amendment No 13, which would bring huge losses for some branches of industry and cause jobs to be lost, should be rejected.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I fully support Mr Cox's report. It makes the Commission proposal clearer and ensures that it will be effective.
Nonetheless, I should like to take up two points which are mentioned in the Environment Committee's report.
At this stage, I should also like to thank Mr Spencer, in particular, for his determined efforts on this matter and for his trusting cooperation.
The first point concerns the issue of renewable sources of energy.
I believe that if we also want this tax reform to result in a change of direction, then we need to exempt renewables from this tax, because we should not make them subject to national competition.
If one country says it will exempt them and another says it will not, then this issue will immediately be at the mercy of competition.
That is why we should send out a clear signal based on Mr Cox's proposal - clear, efficient rules.
I say: let us exempt renewables from this tax.
The second point relates to the sector currently responsible for the greatest increases in CO2 emissions, namely aviation.
Last year, there was a 17 % increase in CO2 emissions.
This sector is completely excluded because there are certain problems with levying this tax on kerosene.
I would urge you, therefore, to accept Amendment No 29 and to say that we are bearing this in mind and that we instruct the Commission to propose an adequate solution so that this sector too can be included.
Madam President, this proposal to introduce harmonised minimum taxation of energy products is designed to please a lot of people.
It aims to improve the environment, reduce labour costs and promote the optimum operation of the single market, while all the time of course avoiding any risk of jeopardising the competitive position of our industries.
The proposal is no doubt based on good intentions, but both the proposal itself and its amended version lead me to question what its effects are likely to be in practice for labour-intensive companies, including many SMEs.
If, out of a perfectly justifiable concern for the competitive position of energy-intensive companies, they are granted an exemption, refund or reduction in energy tax, on an individual basis or otherwise, I wonder whether this does not present a real risk that it will be mainly the labour-intensive companies which will find themselves paying the CO2 tax.
If we assume that tax neutrality is not applied per operating unit but rather in a horizontal and more general manner, is there then not a real danger of shifting fiscal pressure from energy-intensive companies to labour-intensive companies?
Would we not then, I wonder, be achieving the very opposite of what we set out to do, with small polluters paying relatively more than the large ones, and labour-intensive companies being harder hit than energy-intensive companies?
Commissioner, the SMEs are not very happy about this.
There is not much support for this proposal in such circles, and I should like to have heard you say something to refute what I have just suggested.
I should also like to know how you view the timing.
When do you think the Council will take a decision on this?
Madam President, a good environment tax is a tax that can be avoided. It steers producer and consumer behaviour in a way that has a positive impact on the environment.
The prime objective cannot be a fiscal one.
But there are certain issues that cannot be avoided.
One is the northern view of this matter.
The record for cold weather in Finland was exceeded this winter: minus fifty-four degrees.
At the moment it is minus thirty in Helsinki, and more than forty degrees below zero in the north.
Furthermore, I should like to point out that distances are very great in the north, and energy is required for purposes of mobility.
My constituency measures a distance of 1 300 kilometres across.
When I consider the two issues of the need for heating and the need for mobility, we must be eligible for exemptions and these exemptions must be made available for households too, as otherwise ordinary people living in remote areas will be paying for the very tax relief which this policy wants to grant to energy-intensive industry.
It is being proposed that employers' contributions be reduced, but in our case those reductions would result from wrong intentions.
Because the European Union is so naturally diverse, it must be able to apply differing taxation systems.
We accept a minimum standard, but EU regulation must end there.
Madam President, of course as a member of the Greens, I too - as Mr Spencer said - would have liked this to be an even greener proposal.
However, as a Green, I can say that I regard this as an important, if tentative step, in fact only a first small step forward on taxation - or at least harmonisation - in this sector.
If I may, however, I shall also make two points: I think Mr Cox was right to say that renewables should be exempted, because of course this is also about triggering a turning-point in our energy policy.
We all know that the future belongs to renewables, and that here too we need to set the right course.
I am also hoping, however, that the House will support our amendment seeking to exempt local public transport, because this too is a decisive point.
If we want to contribute towards reducing CO2 emissions, then we need to cut the damaging numbers of private cars on the roads, which is of course one of the aims of this tax on consumption.
But it is also necessary to create incentives for environmentally friendly local public transport.
We also believe that we should not continue to subsidise air traffic.
There are other possibilities, such as a tax on CO2 emissions, which might exonerate us from the principle of unanimity, and which would also be compatible with international agreements.
It is to be hoped, therefore, that the Commission will finally present an adequate proposal to us in March.
To sum up: we think that this is an important step in the right direction.
Madam President, over the last two decades labour in Europe has been taxed increasingly heavily.
If this trend is reversed, which - the exception proving the rule - is what has happened in my country since 1994, the persistently high level of unemployment in the European Union can be substantially reduced.
It is in this context that we must view the two taxation reports - the Cox and Pérez Royo reports - submitted to us today.
The tax burden must be shifted from labour to the environment and capital income.
The Cox report deals with excise tax on energy products.
The main problem with the present legislation is that the tax base is very incomplete.
A number of energy products, such as natural gas, coal and electricity have to date been exempt from excise duty.
Other fuels which are normally taxed are granted exemption in the case of specific uses, such as kerosene for aviation or fuel for shipping or fishing.
A third problem is that the same fuels are taxed differently depending on their use.
Fuels used for transport purposes are taxed more heavily than if used for heating.
Fuels which are generally used by industry are also subject to a lower tax than fuels for consumer use.
A final problem is that although the minimum taxation rates are harmonised at European level, this is at such a low level that it virtually ceases to have any meaning.
Of course the Cox report cannot be expected to deal with all these problems at once.
This is legislation requiring a unanimous vote in the Council, which is usually a guarantee of inaction.
But what the report does recommend - and we strongly support this - is extending the tax base to include coal, natural gas and electricity, scrapping some of the mandatory use exemptions and increasing and index-linking minimum rates.
This indexing also includes the notion of an accelerator.
Every year the tax must not only keep pace with inflation but increase by 2 % above the inflation rate.
Finally, the Cox report retains optional exemptions which the Member States are at liberty to grant, while nevertheless tightening up the conditions.
All in all, this report is a major step in the right direction, not only in terms of shifting the tax burden but also in environmental terms, as many uses which were previously tax exempt will now be taxed for the first time.
It is also clear that much more remains to be done in both these respects.
The lower rates for energy products used by industry, for example, are totally indefensible from an environmental point of view as it is precisely these fuels which cause the most pollution.
Finally, the optional exemptions which the Member States can still apply are totally irrational in environmental terms.
Nevertheless, this report is still very much needed, and it sends a strong signal to the Council about where Parliament stands on this issue - a necessary signal, as the Council does not seem to be strengthening the Commission proposals but rather undermining them to the point where they scarcely have any meaning at all.
This is why I appeal to fellow party members in the European governments to put the need to shift the burden of taxation away from labour before national short-term interests.
I believe this matter should be a test case in this respect.
Madam President, there can be few areas that call for such a dispassionate analysis as this one - energy taxation. We must make sure that the objectives claimed for it are attainable and that fairness and cohesion are not overlooked.
Just as with the initiative on the taxation of carbon dioxide emissions, once again it is being claimed that the targets are fiscal neutrality and the replacement of taxes on labour, thereby helping to create jobs.
Apart from the obvious fact that any measure that changes production processes cannot be called neutral, another question is whether taxation penalising energy use will not discourage investment - by SMEs in particular - and thereby result in job losses. We also need to ask to what extent direct taxation will be replaced by a form of taxation that, if it succeeds, will discourage the use of energy and therefore will not bring in more revenue.
In other words, there is a conflict between the parafiscal and fiscal aims - you cannot have your cake and eat it.
Another important question is how to avoid regressive taxation, given that poorer people spend proportionately more of their money on energy, and how we can prevent poorer countries from being penalised, as they lie on the outer edges of the continent, have less up-to-date equipment and face higher transport costs.
This problem exists in the north, as Mr Seppänen said, but it is more serious in the south.
It is especially unacceptable to penalise road transport when there is no proper alternative in the form of rail - something that should be given European Union support as a priority.
Let us take a look at the figures: in fuel tax, road tax and tolls, road users already pay twice as much as is spent on them, compared with just 56 % in the case of rail and 18 % for shipping.
These taxes are equal to 2 % of the European Union's GDP.
I therefore call on you to support the amendment tabled by Mrs Esteban Bolea, from my group, to avoid discrimination between different forms of transport - not forgetting air transport, which is also responsible for pollution.
Madam President, the Commission's proposal relating to the taxation of energy products was accurately summed up by the Environment Committee in its opinion as a proposal to improve the functioning of the internal market.
Now the rapporteur, Mr Cox, and the opinion from the other committee, as well as some of the amendments, have in fact turned this report into a 'green' proposal, setting us on the road to compliance with the agreements reached in Kyoto and Buenos Aires, as well as in the other conventions relating to the reduction of CO2 emissions.
The introduction of tax credits for solar, wind and water power might also send a clear signal to industry when it is investing in energy, thereby facilitating the transition to renewable energy sources.
I therefore regard this report as a first step in the right direction.
Furthermore, the recommendation that the Member States should achieve fiscal neutrality by lowering labour taxes and taxing energy instead - a so-called tax trade-off - immeasurably improves the proposal by pointing it in a totally 'green' direction.
I would also urge you to support the amendment tabled by the Green Group.
Madam President, we should certainly be moving towards fiscal harmonisation in the energy sector.
This will, however, be a difficult task in view of the existing differences amongst the 15 Member States and because we ought not to increase prices. That might mean losing competitiveness and employment, which is the exact opposite of what we are aiming at.
As it stands at the moment, this proposal involves increasing taxes and making the cost of transport dearer in the 'cohesion countries', that is, those countries that are located on the periphery of Europe and that, in fact, produce the least pollution.
Moreover, if the tax is extended to cover other energy products, the internal market will not be harmonised.
Instead, competition amongst the various sources of energy will be distorted. For instance, coal - which is still our main indigenous source of energy and currently undergoing a technological revolution - will be heavily penalised.
Mr Cox's proposals present a somewhat contradictory situation.
If the European energy-consuming industries that are currently making great efforts to save energy are exempted, our competitive edge will be lost.
That technological effort would be penalised and competitiveness on the international field jeopardised.
The steel sector is a good example of many of these industries. It competes both within the European Union and internationally, with energy as an important factor.
In light of this situation, we find it difficult to accept a number of unilateral proposals that were put forward.
The Spanish Socialists will vote against Mr Cox's proposals and we hope agreement will be reached in Council. Nevertheless, I must stress the difficulty of the task because not only do the different arrangements for energy in the various countries need to be harmonised but also the very countries that are least responsible for the high level of pollution in Europe will be penalised.
Madam President, Commissioner, it is clear that this is a complex topic from the fact that this whole dossier has been in a protracted stalemate for some time now, and given the divergence of positions, this will be the case for longer still.
Mr Cox's approach, basically to simplify the proposal, is of course commendable, but it does not meet with the approval of a majority of the Group of the European People's Party, as indeed has already been emphasised.
I believe that we have also already made it clear in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy that we agree with Articles 13 and 15 in terms of the approach chosen by the Commission and presented to us here, and are not in favour of their deletion.
The Commission's approach, to have the EU define the main exemptions and not the Member States, is the one that we favour, because we believe that if the Member States lay down the exceptions, then competition will become a major factor after all, because in fact no indication is given of the scale of the exceptions permitted.
There will be a flood of control measures here.
We have heard - and indeed we know - that the focus is on the environment, but also on jobs.
However, it is precisely the competitiveness of energy-intensive end products, such as steel, cement, aluminium and others, which is at stake here, and it is also from the point of view of competition from third countries that uniform rules should be adopted in the EU, as advocated by the Commission.
An increase in energy prices, as proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and in particular in Mr Cox's amendments, is something we oppose, because this of all things seems to us to be counter-productive from the point of view of employment.
Madam President, I too think that Mr Cox's proposal is very reasonable, and I am prepared to vote in favour of it.
I should also like to thank Mr Spencer, who has, after all, kept the home fires burning for many years.
Unfortunately, the fire will probably have to burn for even longer, because I suspect that the Council of Ministers will not reach an agreement. That is also illustrated even now by the very inconsistent picture here in the House.
That is the real problem.
In this respect, I think that the Commission proposal is sensible, because it does not in fact take the environment as a starting-point, but Article 99, and therefore the harmonisation of existing taxes.
I think that is much more sensible; it brings us closer to our goal perhaps, simply because liberalising the markets means that we are compelled to harmonise the background conditions too.
The fact that this also has an environmental side-effect is all to the good.
Whether the Council appreciates that, I do not know; I suspect that there will be substantial difficulties there, but in any case I wish the German Presidency the best of luck with making further progress on this.
I have one more comment: paradoxically, it is actually industry which has had the greatest success in cutting its energy use in recent years, while private consumption and consumption in the transport sector have tended to increase.
This is plain to see in the countries of Central Europe.
In proportion to gross domestic product, energy consumption has fallen, in some cases dramatically, while the energy consumption of households and the transport sector has risen.
If, therefore, we wish to have a device, an environmental device, for reducing energy consumption, we must, I am afraid, mainly target households and the transport sector and design a tax instrument in such a way that it particularly affects them.
That is probably also why this tax is so unpopular.
No party will win an election if it puts this at the centre of its campaign.
Nevertheless, I see this as a long-term task which we have to set ourselves, and I should like to thank all those who are working on introducing these thoroughly unpopular, but reasonable measures.
Madam President, as a member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, and as rapporteur on the Green Paper on the internalisation of external costs and the ensuing Commission White Paper on fair payment for infrastructure use, I am glad to have the opportunity in this debate to consider the complex subject of energy taxation from the point of view of one aspect of transport policy.
In its proposal for a directive to introduce a new framework for energy taxation, the Commission has made a proposal for road transport which the rapporteur, Mr Cox, obviously regards simply as one of the many confused exemptions which he wishes to remove from the draft directive.
In Article 16 of its draft text, the Commission proposes that it should be possible for Member States to introduce tax reductions for road transport, if at the same time charges are imposed on a non-discriminatory basis which reflect infrastructure, environmental and congestion costs.
As you know, in the committees, my colleagues in the Group of the Party of European Socialists voted against the deletion of Article 16, and I should like to strongly urge all of you to do the same at the vote in plenary, because the provisions which the rapporteur wishes to delete from the draft directive form the starting-point for a new approach to European transport policy, for a transport policy which is environmentally friendly and efficient.
The Commission was only being consistent when it integrated the concept of charging into the proposal on energy taxation, because this is in line with the proposals it made in its Green Paper and subsequently also in the White Paper.
As rapporteur, I agree with the principles contained in these documents, and that is why I should like to advise Parliament also to be consistent and to support this new departure for transport policy in the debate on energy taxation, particularly since we have already done so in the House in the context of our debate on the Green Paper.
I would therefore urge you to make an efficient and sustainable transport policy a possibility in Europe and to vote in favour of Article 16 as it stands in the Commission proposal.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Schmidbauer has hit the nail on the head: the fair payment model in the transport sector has shown us that we need to work on the essential points, which means that we should dispense with cross-subsidisation.
Non-wage labour costs are a completely self-contained issue which needs attention.
We need more competition there and we must see to it that we bring about significant reductions in these costs, and that personal responsibility plays a greater part in the system.
Energy taxation is a completely separate sector. As far as energy taxation is concerned, it is basically a question of bringing costs down to reasonable levels, so that we become more competitive internationally and create new jobs.
Excessive price increases will simply result in job losses in the energy-intensive sectors, such as steel, and all the others with which we are so familiar.
I must also stress that we cannot disregard the consumer.
At the end of the day, it is consumers who create jobs, by deciding which products to buy and which services to use.
We cannot force them into these decisions by adopting general regulations.
That is also why I think having a ceiling for energy-intensive companies is very important. It ought to ensure that those businesses which have already brought their technical facilities up to date - and have thus gone a long way towards bringing their energy consumption close to its theoretical minimum level - are given due recognition.
We should reward those which are minimising their energy input.
In this case, higher rates of energy tax will not bring any further significant reductions.
In addition, and quite apart from the environmental argument, doubt has also been cast on the effect which this would have on easing the employment situation.
Only competitive companies are in a position to meet these requirements.
I am therefore in favour of a system which is not out of proportion, but which will actually be able to achieve the declared objectives.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely grateful to Mr Cox for his clear and consistent report and for the conclusions he has reached in it.
I am really glad that you are in full agreement with the grounds for this proposal and the way in which they have been put into effect.
The Commission has put a proposal to the Council, based on the need to modernise the Community system of taxing mineral oils, and extending this to cover all energy products.
This has to be done to improve the functioning of the internal market.
The measures proposed are actually designed to reduce the distortions caused by taxation that currently exist in this sector.
The Commission has also taken advantage of the opportunity which this proposal affords of both meeting its responsibility for reviewing the minimum rates of duty on mineral oils and responding to ECOFIN's request that it table new proposals now that, as you will be aware, the negotiations on the CO2 /energy tax have reached an impasse.
I have also to say to the House that we are seeing ever increasing concern - and that has been patently clear this morning - about the environmental effects of burning fossil fuels; and the Council's recent adoption, in response to the Kyoto Protocol, of the limits on polluting emissions to be achieved by the Union is a further example of this.
Those objectives will not be easy to attain, but the fiscal measures - and Mr Spencer and a number of other honourable Members pointed this out - are one of the specific ways that can be used to achieve them.
I am also grateful for the acknowledgement that has come from many sectors that this is a step in the right direction in environmental terms as well.
The Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4 and 5 and some parts of Amendments Nos 12 and 14, particularly those parts of Amendment No 14 that refer to renewable energies.
However, we cannot agree to the proposal that we should move directly to the second stage, provided for in relation to the minimum rates, as early as January 2000, and then move on to annual increases equivalent to the rate of inflation plus 2 % for the five following years.
Moreover, as regards removing the initial stage of increases in the minimum rates for which the date was initially set at 1 January 1998, it is worth pointing out that this deadline has long since passed.
However, the discussions in the Council have shown that even the minimum rates caused problems for a number of Member States.
Consequently, any increase in those rates is unacceptable.
The same applies to the proposal that the minimum rates could be increased annually on the basis of the rate of inflation, increased by 2 % for a period of five years.
The Commission proposal limits the tax increases to the rate of inflation in an effort to meet half-way those Member States that would be compelled to introduce substantial tax increases simply in order to reach the minimum rate laid down.
It is therefore unacceptable to compel the Member States to apply increases that are actually above the rate of inflation.
Moreover, we cannot agree to the removal of the bulk of the - compulsory or optional - exemptions and reductions that have been proposed for products that are not currently subject to taxation.
Those exemptions and reductions were provided for very specific reasons: some are already reflected in the Community legislation currently in force, and others are needed to meet certain Community commitments arising out of international agreements.
There is a final group considered vital to secure the competitiveness of the Community industries in relation to their third country competitors.
Furthermore, I do not need to remind the House that this is an issue that requires unanimity.
Mrs Thyssen and other honourable Members have asked for information concerning the progress of this issue in the Council and the timetable for it.
I can tell you that the relevant Council working group has been asked to submit to the ECOFIN Council meeting of 15 March a report that will then be referred to the Cologne European Council in June.
And so we shall soon be able to see whether or not a political consensus is forming.
I very much hope it is.
There is one point I should like to make in conclusion, Mr President.
What we are dealing with here is fiscal coordination which meets the needs of the internal market and, in this instance, environmental needs, and which is also, as many of you have pointed out, a response to the need to shift the tax burden in such a way as to promote employment.
There have been times in the course of recent European debates when a peculiar attitude has emerged: there has been a tendency to look back and to reflect on the earlier White Paper, as if no progress had been made since then towards achieving the kind of coordination we are talking about.
In point of fact, the progress that has been made is now clear: this morning, we have the Cox report on energy, and the House will shortly be debating the Pérez Royo report on taxation of savings income.
Meantime, the code of conduct to prevent harmful tax competition is being applied, and next week I shall be presenting to the Commission the proposal to allow those Member States that so wish to apply a reduced rate of VAT to labour-intensive services.
And so, as you can see, the various elements of genuine progress towards fiscal coordination designed to encourage employment are under way; they all have the firm backing of this House, for which I am very grateful.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Taxation of savings income
The next item is the report (A4-0040/99) by Mr Pérez Royo, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive to ensure a minimum of effective taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments within the Community (COM(98)0295 - C4-0404/98-98/0193(CNS)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a directive we have before us deals with a difficult issue. Any matters involving taxation are always difficult within the Union and, as you are well aware, they require unanimity within the Council.
Allow me to summarise the historical background to this proposal for a directive.
It has been anticipated for more than 10 years.
The present proposal arises, in fact, from the directive liberalising the movement of capital, approved in 1988 as part of the programme to set up the internal market.
The directive on liberalising the movement of capital created legal conditions which, in fact, expedited the operation of the internal market as far as placing capital was concerned.
Yet this same directive also opened the door for fiscal competition amongst Member States which, in turn, tended to create the appropriate conditions to attract capital from other Member States.
This very directive liberalising the movement of capital therefore set out a clear timetable for the harmonisation of taxation of savings income to prevent such harmful competition.
As you know, the proposal for a directive presented by Mrs Scrivener in 1989-10 years ago - was never even discussed seriously and was eventually withdrawn.
Meanwhile, the Member States approved rules that discriminated between residents and non-residents with regard to taxation of savings income.
Residents were subject to the relevant tax, but payments to non-residents were considered tax-free.
This gave rise to a number of dangerous situations.
Firstly, a situation arose that was harmful to the operation of the internal market. Capital was not placed in the interest of profitability but according to fiscal considerations.
Secondly, fiscal fraud - tax evasion - increased.
Thirdly, as a result of all this, the tax burden gradually shifted to the detriment of employment prospects.
Ten years on, we have been presented with the new proposal which, it has to be said, represents a definite improvement on the previous one from a technical point of view. Crucially too, and this is the significant factor, the political context is much more favourable.
The general feeling is more positive and, we hope, it will therefore be possible to overcome any obstacles that would prevent it being approved.
The proposal is presented as part of a flexible strategy included in a broader package and in a context in which it has been possible to include the notion of 'damaging' fiscal competition, harmful fiscal competition, into our common language.
What we are dealing with here is a clear example of such damaging fiscal competition, which the directive aims to eliminate. This is nevertheless a minimalist directive with relatively modest objectives.
The directive is based on a coexistence model, that is to say, it offers the Member States two options. They may either operate a withholding tax on payment of interest within their territory, making no distinction between residents and non-residents, or choose instead to provide other Member States with information on savings income paid to non-residents in their territory.
This is a flexible proposal enabling the interests of the various Member States to be coordinated or harmonised. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has given it majority support, and this rapporteur strongly supports it.
There have only been a few isolated amendments opposed to this approach and these were subsequently rejected.
Naturally, certain issues are open for debate, particularly the problem of third countries.
For a directive of this nature to maintain the competitiveness of the European financial sector, similar measures ought to be applied in neighbouring areas. I am referring, of course, to our trading partners and to countries where European capital might be placed.
There appear to be two ways of approaching this issue, two lines of thought.
The first is to introduce an element of conditionality, for the approval or implementation of this directive to be dependent on us reaching an agreement with these third countries.
Another way forward, outlined by the Commission and supported by your rapporteur, would be for the Commission to put forward its own legislation, thus gaining moral credibility and even achieving a consensus, in the hope of imposing or carrying through negotiations in this area.
Our committee has come out in favour of this proposal. Only one fairly significant amendment was approved in committee.
It involves lowering the minimum rate of tax from 20 % to 15 %. I appreciate that this matter has to be debated in the Council, but as far as Parliament is concerned, Madam President, I can inform you now, on behalf of the Socialist Group, that we shall be voting for 20 %.
Madam President, my group supports the rapporteur's position.
Like the rapporteur, whom I congratulate, I too should like to say once again how glad I am that - ten years after the last proposal foundered - there is at last a possibility of making progress in this field.
I think that there is a need for fair taxation in the European Union.
Fair taxation is also a principle which should be observed in the internal market, which means that interest on savings cannot simply be exempted from tax.
Both the proposal for a directive and the rapporteur's report make it very clear that according preferential treatment to non-residents - a concept which is not actually compatible with the concept of the internal market either - is now a thing of the past, because the directive will not permit any further discrimination.
Of course, a major difficulty with the proposal was that, here too, the unanimity rule applied and continues to do so.
At this juncture, I must emphasise once again that it is absolutely essential for further discussions to be held in the Council on the issue of majority voting.
The Commission proposal contains a coexistence model, and rightly so, because I think that this was the only basis on which there was any chance of its being adopted, although I do believe that a uniform regime is inevitable in the long term.
What is important is that this proposal is part of the tax package, because in this way unfair tax competition can be consigned to the past.
That is also why we could not allow any exceptions, because if we had, we would in fact have been authorising a kind of tax haven in a particular sector.
In this respect, I must support the Commission proposal, which also includes Eurobonds in the regime.
At this stage, I should just like to say a brief word on the problems associated with only taxing the interest on savings accounts.
Even though this particular proposal does not cover interest payments to legal entities and companies, in the interests of fairer taxation and also bearing in mind the opportunities open to all the Member States in the European Union to secure revenue, further thought needs to be given to how the scope of this directive can be extended.
I should also like to say that I fully support the rapporteur's call for us to keep to the rate of withholding tax proposed by the Commission, namely 20 %.
Madam President, the fact that quite a lot of Member States give more favourable fiscal treatment to the savings income of non-residents than the savings income of their own residents leads to problems on the single market.
People go tax shopping with their savings and for obvious reasons omit to declare the savings income received in other Member States to their own tax authorities, thus avoiding paying tax.
The Member State of residence fails to collect its tax on savings and the single market becomes distorted.
It seems the Member States' reaction is to try and keep the tax burden on volatile capital at a low level or to reduce it, often at the expense of upward pressure on labour taxes.
Now that we have entered the euro era with the disappearance of the exchange risk and soon also transaction costs, there is a great fear that the temptation to engage in this form of tax evasion will increase further.
The Belgian tax authorities have been familiar with this for some time.
The exchange risk between Belgium and Luxembourg disappeared a long time ago, and the so-called coupon trains to Luxembourg are always very full.
Although the proposed directive consists of just 15 articles, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy tabled no fewer than 89 amendments.
Fortunately, in the opinion of the PPE, only 10 were approved. Each of these 10 was approved by our group.
Madam President, Commissioner, the PPE wants to keep as close to the Commission's proposal as possible, but we would like to see the withholding tax reduced to 15 %.
We hope that this amendment, which has also been adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, will be accepted here in the plenary.
The PPE also continues to oppose extending the field of application to include legal persons and the exclusion of Eurobonds, for reasons which were discussed at length in committee.
Finally, the PPE also does not support the amendments which want to see an agreement at OECD level first and which seek to make the directive's entry into force dependent on this.
We believe there are sound arguments for adopting a different approach to intra-Community and international capital movements, including those to do with the free movement of capital and exchange risks.
Madam President, this directive does not provide the ultimate, comprehensive solution, but it is a major step in the right direction.
We want to encourage this and will therefore be voting for the Commission's proposal.
But I would have liked to have heard from the Commissioner, and this is my final point, when he thinks the Council will grant its approval.
Madam President, the proposal we have before us today and which is the result of extensive but fruitless discussions 10 years ago is once again back on track because it has been decided to opt for a coexistence model.
I believe it is a good solution and a step forward in ensuring that existing differences, and in particular unfair differences, are removed.
The Liberal Group supports the main thrust of the proposal as it stands and is pleased that the original proposal to extend it to include undertakings has now been dropped, so that it is now purely concerned with the interest earned by physical persons.
This being so, as was pointed out in connection with the previous proposal, we have to consider whether there is scope to reduce labour costs.
This is why we have retabled our amendments in order to ensure we have a kind of fiscal neutrality by which the resources in question are channelled back to the individual.
At the end of the day, the fact that a number of people - and these were very large groups - were able to pay less than no tax had a knock-on effect for everyone else, because the money has to come from somewhere.
If we now introduce taxation, and can do so on a common basis, then I believe we must ensure that the others who have had to pay more get this back in the form of lower taxation on incomes.
I have one last comment regarding the article and amendment, as approved by Mr Pérez Royo's committee, concerning the sale before maturity of the relevant securities.
I myself added a technical amendment on this, that in the case of purchase after the original issue, you must be careful to ensure that - especially now that it is increasingly common for the portfolio to be reclassified in line with developments on the capital market - a provision is also in place for private individuals.
Madam President, at the outset I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo, for his report on the proposal for a Council directive on the taxation of savings income.
The difficulty of trying to find a system aimed at a minimum of taxation on savings income within the European Union has been more keenly appreciated as progress has been made in liberalising the movement of capital.
This liberalisation goes back some 12 years.
It is important to recall that the Commission directive which aimed at introducing a single Community-wide scheme for withholding interest at source did not obtain the unanimous consent of the Council.
It was withdrawn and replaced by the proposal which is under discussion today.
In 1997 the Council agreed that the Commission should preserve the idea of a coexistence model of taxation, meaning that each Member State will have different options: either to operate a withholding tax or to provide the other Member States with information on savings income paid to residents or indeed, a combination of both.
The Commission proposed a withholding tax to be levied at a minimum of 20 % by the paying agent.
Our committee has opted, albeit narrowly, for a lower rate of 15 %.
It is important that the Member States were able to agree that the Union should promote the establishment of equivalent measures in third countries in parallel with the discussions on the proposed directive.
The Commission is due to report back to ECOFIN next month on consultation with third countries.
Contact with third countries and associated territories must cover the same ground: in other words, minimum taxation on the equivalent co-existence model and adoption of the paying agent method.
I fully support the need for contacts with third countries.
At this stage it is obviously necessary to limit initial contacts to nearby third countries, for example, Switzerland and Monaco.
Our group can support the principle of the draft directive.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there is no need for me to comment in detail here on the general problem of tax competition, where there is of course a basic conflict between the democratic principle of equal voting rights and the economic principle of purchasing power.
On this we agree: there is harmful tax competition within the EU.
This is precisely the source of the mechanism - and this is always portrayed as the pressure of globalisation - which causes destructive competition between the Member States in the internal market, triggering a downward spiral and undermining the tax base, tax equity and the use of taxes to promote employment.
We can do something about this.
We can intervene in this mechanism and do something for ourselves, without simply waiting for a lead from the OECD or worldwide negotiations.
I have three points.
Firstly, we should not tread more carefully than the Commission here.
What we should actually do is apply the US model and demand 25 %.
Secondly, we should not allow this to be postponed indefinitely, and we should not introduce provisions restricted to physical persons.
If we achieve all that, then I believe that not only will it be a step in the right direction, Mrs Thyssen and Mr Goedbloed, but that it really will be the first step on the way to reform and a political union.
I should especially like to thank Commissioner Monti for his patience, accuracy and perseverance, because in actual fact the only way in which we will overcome the principle of unanimity is by making progress on taxation and the internal market in tandem.
Mr President, as you know, the issue of a minimum taxation of savings income in the Union does not quite have the unanimous support of all Member States, and these differences of opinion are reflected within my group.
As a result, I will speak here only in a personal capacity and on behalf of the majority of the ARE Group. I should like to say that we are in favour of the Commission's proposal for a directive on a minimum taxation of interest at the rate of 20 %, along with the option of declaring interest paid to the fiscal authorities in the country of residence.
We support this position for two main reasons, but I will not go into the details here.
On the one hand, Commissioner Monti reminded us earlier of the need to redress the balance in the Union's tax system, a system that places too heavy a burden on labour. On the other hand, there is a need to bring direct tax systems closer into line, which would be consistent with healthy tax competition, without going as far as harmonising such tax systems.
Our support for the Commission's position is accompanied simply by a few recommendations.
We should like to thank the Commission in advance for doing everything possible to extend this minimum taxation beyond the Union and, in particular, to OECD countries.
Perhaps we should also make additional efforts to reach a consensus on minimum taxation between all Member States, possibly by agreeing on an appropriate timetable.
We also think that it is important to establish a sound link between the provisions of the tax agreements and this minimum taxation project.
In our opinion, this is the aim of the amendment we tabled, namely to establish sound links between minimum taxation and the provisions of the tax agreements, and this amendment was adopted by the Commission.
It is rather a shame that, in this respect, our measures for eliminating double taxation within the Union are currently based on bilateral agreements.
Finally, to come back to Mr Pérez Royo's excellent report, we should like to point out simply and succinctly that we do not support the idea of extending taxation to include interest payments to companies.
Instead, we are in favour of taxing interest received through undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities (Ucits).
Mr President, at the end of the report, the rapporteur describes the intention of the proposal as 'a major step on the way to tackling fiscal evasion and the distortions to the functioning of financial markets at Community level'.
That is a laudable intention, I must say, but is it enough?
In other words, is it enough to take measures against tax evasion on interest income at EU level? As far as I can see, the answer to this is a clear 'no'.
The problem is more a global than an EU one.
It is necessary to take measures on a worldwide scale in this area.
I do not think there is any need in this House to remind you that there are tax havens in other parts of the world, outside the EU.
The possibilities are there.
Recital 8 of the Commission proposal says: 'in accordance with the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality set out in Article 3b of the Treaty, the objective of this Directive, which is that of the effective taxation of savings income within the Community, cannot be sufficiently realised by the Member States and can therefore be better achieved by the Community'.
But is not the real issue something different? I think it is.
Surely what this is really about is that, after the introduction of the single currency, the euro, on 1 January 1999, some people cannot wait to bring about further harmonisation of the whole area of taxes and duties.
That is understandable enough, of course, when we remember what the purpose of monetary union actually is: further political integration.
The former President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, said that EMU was a launching pad for political union, and you cannot say it more clearly than that.
But that is not the language used in everyday encounters with the bemused populations of the EU countries.
Why not say quite openly that, if monetary union is to function satisfactorily, it means that there must inevitably be a common policy on finance, taxation and redistribution? Then people would at least have a fair chance of grasping the real issue.
Perhaps the reticence is due to fear of the reaction which would come from the people if the unvarnished truth were told.
Credit should be given to the Commission for putting an end to tax havens for savings and, at the same time, embarrassing the most corrupt political parties in Europe: Belgium's Francophone Socialist Party, the PS, and its Flemish counterpart, the SP. Both parties have developed the nasty habit of stashing their spoils with welcoming bankers in Luxembourg who, in spite of themselves, accept the plentiful bribes generously handed out by Dassault and Agusta.
However, I cannot help feeling rather sad when I think about the small-time Belgian investor who, having had an excessive amount of direct tax deducted from the fruits of his labour, will see his honestly earned but small savings being heavily penalised yet again.
This person will never enjoy the astronomical incomes that elicit such kindness from His Serene Highness the Prince of Monaco, whose status as a tax haven is confirmed by the European Union without any hesitation or crises of conscience. In the most illegal and immoral manner possible, it is a tax haven reserved for the rich only, no matter how they may have obtained their fortune.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, after the birth of the euro, we are well aware that the fight against fiscal dumping is one of our main tasks.
In view of this, Commissioner Monti's initiative has come at just the right time.
The text we are considering today, in the form of the excellent report from my colleague Mr Pérez Royo, is one of the strands of this initiative.
The other strand relates to interests and charges.
We should not confuse the two strands.
I understand the concern expressed by those who did not want us to deal with the issue of the rights of companies or legal entities under this text, as they clearly come under the other draft directive.
As for the two proposed options, I believe their merit lies in the fact that they should make it easier to obtain unanimity within the Council.
We must use this device if it allows us to make progress.
I believe that there are grounds for negotiating the rate.
Some suggested 15 %. This would be wholly unacceptable to us.
In its proposal, the Commission retains a rate of 20 %.
In my country, the rate currently in force is 25 %.
There is room for negotiation here and I believe that the proposal from the Commission is a useful one.
In terms of the scope of the directive, the issue of Eurobonds was raised. I am delighted that the Commission's proposal includes these Eurobonds in the directive.
What sense would it make to have a directive on this subject that did not cover these Eurobonds even though, as we well know, they are the main form of activity for some of our Member States? This directive will only make a difference if it can be applied to all actors and operators in all Member States.
It is with this in mind, Commissioner, that you drew it up. It is, I hope, with this in mind that the Council will accept it.
Whilst debating this report, I believe that we should perhaps begin to draw a lesson from the method to be used for tax harmonisation.
Two approaches are becoming clear, one of which is a pragmatic approach.
The directive being put forward today is clearly along these lines. We are delighted by this and will seize any opportunity to use it.
On the other hand, there is a more long-term approach.
I will outline three aspects of this approach.
The first is clearly the issue of tax havens that we will have to resolve one day as we in the EU cannot impose drastic measures on ourselves and yet see tax havens flourish on our doorstep, or even within the Union itself.
The second aspect relates to the issue of qualified majority voting.
Some people feel that changing over to qualified majority voting comes up against problems with the transfer of sovereignty.
Unfortunately, the issue is more complicated than that.
Undoubtedly, in some of our Member States, there are questions being asked about the fact that changing over to qualified majority voting will lead to a transfer of sovereignty. Yet there are also conflicts of interests between states inside the area and states outside the area.
Finally, and I will conclude here, Mr President, the third aspect relates to external issues.
In this respect, our rapporteur's proposal that multilateral agreements could be reached with our main partners, the United States or Switzerland, without introducing a sine qua non condition on this issue, seems to be perfectly credible and realistic in the longer term.
Mr President, I too take the floor to speak on behalf of the PPE Group on this extremely important Commission proposal which, as has already been said, is part of a broader package of measures designed to set in train a process of fiscal coordination among the Member States in all those areas in which excessive fiscal competition is very clearly having negative effects that must be countered.
But I must tell you that my group is firmly convinced that it is important not only to move in this direction, but also to restrict our activity to those situations in which the damage is evident. In that way, we avoid losing the benefits of healthy fiscal competition which may bring about convergence of taxation systems, particularly in the direction of lower levels of fiscal pressure that would certainly have a positive effect on the competitiveness of the European system.
Turning to the directive and the proposal for a directive that we are debating today, I agree with what Mrs Thyssen said, and also join with all those who have complimented the rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo, on his work, even though we cannot agree with some of his proposals.
We consider the Commission proposal to be largely acceptable, subject to a few technical improvements that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has sought to introduce: we believe, in particular, that this should be limited to non-resident physical persons, excluding therefore companies already taxed on the basis of their results.
We are in agreement with the model of coexistence and take the view that, as far as the proposed rate is concerned, and subject, of course, to the Council's prerogatives, the idea of lowering rates in an initial stage from 20 to 15 % could also help prevent the risk of capital flight from the Union.
In fact, we have pressed the Commission to embark on negotiations as soon as possible, particularly with those countries closest to the European Union, to persuade them to incorporate the main principles of the directive into their own taxation systems in this area.
This, we realise, will be no easy process, and we certainly do not want to see any kind of conditions attached to what we are asking the Commission to do, as we have no wish to see the entry into force of the directive postponed indefinitely; we actually want the Council to give its consent as soon as possible.
It is important that the whole package should be implemented as swiftly as possible, since that will also enable us to acquire the knowledge we need to set to work in other areas: to quote just a couple of examples, the taxation of company profits and transfrontier working would appear to be good candidates for this.
We agree with Amendments Nos 1 to 10 by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, but reject all the others, although we have some sympathy with Amendments Nos 23 and 24 from the Liberal Group and Amendment No 25 from the Socialist Group which we shall therefore be supporting.
Mr President, I am speaking both as an environmentalist and a Luxembourger.
Allow me to link the Pérez Royo report to the Cox report, which we have just debated.
If a tax reform is to be worthy of that name within the European Union, it must, by necessity, involve a redistribution of the tax burden in favour of the environment and of labour. I do not believe that introducing a tax at source on savings would favour labour or the environment.
I agree with introducing energy taxes to promote energy efficiency and, while on this subject, I must point out that I am also speaking as a representative of a country that, under the Kyoto Protocol, is committed to cutting its emissions by 28 %.
It is clear that Luxembourg will have to do something about energy taxes.
What is more, I do not believe that introducing a uniform tax of 20 % on savings for residents and non-residents alike is a good idea. This is simply because the middle classes will have to foot the bill yet, for them, saving is a way of supplementing their pensions.
These savers, who often do not have lucrative pension schemes, do not deserve to be punished by the widespread introduction of a tax on savings income.
You can also rest assured that the major companies and multinationals will be able to arrange to have their capital hidden outside the Union.
I believe that by allowing such behaviour we will be doing a disservice to financial markets within the European Union.
Mr President, to sum up, I should like to say that I support a tax reform that involves a redistribution in favour of the environment and of labour, and that I am against a tax on savings income.
Mr President, Commissioner, I agree with the basic approach of the majority of Parliament in saying that a single economic and monetary area also requires a certain degree of tax coordination; if we do not have this coordination, we will be heading closer towards fiscal and social dumping.
I also agree with those who wish to redistribute the tax burden on labour, capital and natural resources in order to contribute to the fight against unemployment, and I think the majority of Members of Parliament support this.
I should also like to stress the fact that the fiscal package put together under the Luxembourg Presidency must be implemented in its entirety.
To turn to the directive that Parliament is today being consulted on, it will undoubtedly be the subject of lengthy haggling in the Council, where unanimity is required.
It must be said that the fiscal instrument, together with a whole range of legislative provisions and regulations, is of considerable importance for the development of financial services in Europe.
We cannot manage such an instrument without dealing with immediate competitors and neighbours, as there is a danger of weakening this important service sector in the European Union.
I therefore welcome the amendments on this subject that were adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
I should also like to ask the Commissioner what stage negotiations with third countries have reached, countries that, in the financial services sector, are immediate competitors for European Union markets. Have negotiations really begun?
How will they develop?
When can we expect to see some results? I believe that the answers to these questions are vital for the events that will follow, particularly for negotiations in the Council.
I am of the opinion that a European tax system on savings will only materialise in the European Union as a result of binding agreements on a code of conduct on tax.
I am told that we must first start with the European Union and that other countries will then follow. I do not really believe this.
I rather believe that there will be a certain amount of upheaval, that capital will be re-invested elsewhere under better tax conditions, and that the financial services sector will suffer as a result.
In addition, we can see that professional groups have reservations concerning the dual system proposed in the directive.
The European Banking Federation accepts a minimum rate of a 10 % withholding tax, but rejects the regime of information.
It is true to say that this regime of information is technically cumbersome and in danger of becoming bureaucratic.
However, it does have the advantage of making it easier to coordinate taxation of savings and it could, as Mrs Ber&#x010D;s has just said, help obtain a unanimous vote within the Council.
In my opinion, a tax of 10 %, which is deducted at source, would allow the internal capital market - and I stress that it is the internal market - to function smoothly and the services sector to flourish.
If I am stressing these aspects, Mr President, it is for the simple reason that I consider the development of a services sector with high employment potential, in my own country as in all the countries of the European Union, to be important above all.
Mr President, you will see that there are a whole series of Luxembourg Members on the list of speakers.
The debate must have something to do with Luxembourg.
I well remember the Luxembourg Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Jean-Claude Juncker, stating on more than one occasion that where this important issue was concerned, he saw the coexistence system as providing a definite opportunity to achieve an acceptable degree of harmonisation in terms of taxing interest.
You see, Mrs Randzio-Plath, this is not just about savings income, but about income of any kind received by physical persons.
That is why the committee also proposed including Eurobonds, so that the United Kingdom and the City of London would not be virtually exempted from the provisions.
The second key point in Parliament and in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was deciding what tax rate to opt for in the coexistence model. The Commission has proposed 20 % and Mr Fayot 10 %.
However, there do not seem to be any amendments calling for 10 %.
I have not seen any, despite reading them all.
We have proposed 15 %, and I believe that this is a reasonable approach.
Curiously, Mr Pérez Royo, speaking in his capacity as rapporteur, has just mentioned 20 % - it is not for him to do so.
We adopted the report with 15 %, and it is the rapporteur's duty to convey that here too.
I should like to recommend that we give our full backing to the compromise reached in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy: a minimum rate of 15 %, with an invitation to work towards greater harmonisation in negotiations with third countries at OECD level, and in the knowledge, Commissioner Monti, that your commendable work on tax harmonisation finally needs a worthwhile result.
We hope that this will be the case, for our own and for your sakes.
I hope that it will be possible, despite unanimity, to find a sensible solution.
Mr President, the proposal for a minimum level of effective taxation on interest earnings is really very modest.
Most Member States tax the interest their own residents receive but not that received by residents of other countries.
That is of course an invitation to tax evasion, which occurs on a major scale.
When tax on movable sources of income is so easy to evade, we should not be surprised to find that the tax burden on labour, which is not so easy to evade, increases.
If we want to break this trend - and we certainly do - we must ensure that movable sources of income can also be effectively taxed.
The Commission's proposal for a coexistence model does no more than that.
Member States can either exchange information on interest receipts with the tax authorities in a saver's country of residence so that it can tax them, or they themselves can levy a withholding tax without exchanging information on the saver.
This proposal, although better than nothing, is of course very imperfect, because although the withholding tax does not in principle provide discharge, and thus should be declared for income tax purposes in the country of residence, in practice it can easily provide discharge as the information on the withholding tax paid is not exchanged.
A compulsory exchange of information would therefore have been better.
Because of this loophole it is important that the withholding tax should be as high as possible so that there will be a maximum incentive to declare such income in the country of residence.
The proposal to reduce withholding tax to 15 %, adopted by a narrow majority by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, is therefore astounding, and seems more of an encouragement to lower taxes on interest earnings throughout Europe than to increase them.
I am not convinced by the argument that otherwise savers will turn to Switzerland or eastern Europe.
The Union is in such a strong negotiating position with all these countries that any tax flight to them can be avoided if the Union itself has a credible system.
In addition, the exchange rate risk is likely to scare off most investors.
Finally, the UK-Luxembourg proposal to exempt Eurobonds is unacceptable.
Any residents using them do so purely in order to evade tax.
Members of this House who are so strongly in favour of exempting Eurobonds should reflect for a moment on this.
Despite all its limitations, this proposal must therefore be supported, but with a higher level of withholding tax than 15 %.
Mr President, let me begin by saying, and this will come as no surprise to the Commissioner, that I do not see the need for this particular directive, because I believe the concept of harmful tax competition is absolute nonsense.
We, in the European Parliament, believe in competition as being good for the consumer in goods and services.
What is wrong therefore with tax competition? My conclusion is that some Member States are doing themselves harm by having excessively high rates of tax, whereas they really ought to be reducing the tax burden on their citizens.
However, due to time constraints here, I am unable to elaborate on the mechanisms of doing that, but you are welcome to talk to me afterwards.
There is one respect however in which I very much support the excellent work done by the rapporteur.
Unfortunately neither I, nor the rest of my group, was able to agree with him when he proposed that the directive should be extended to companies: this would have done enormous harm to the citizens of Europe, as it would have had an negative effect, for example, on undertakings responsible for trading in transferable securities as well as harming the potential of crossborder pension funds.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy did well in rejecting the rapporteur's amendment and indeed, from that point of view, I am happier with what the Commission is proposing.
I understand that some Member States have reservations about the detail.
Could the Commissioner tell us a little bit about those Member States and their technical reservations? Secondly, I understand that the presidency, the Commission and the past presidency, have opened exploratory contacts with third countries about the possibility of extending it.
Thirdly, a question addressed to the Socialist Group - is it Socialist Group policy to support Amendment 25 by Mr Hendrick which is calling for the harmonisation of capital gains tax in Europe?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, whether people like it or not fiscal coordination is a matter of great importance.
It is to Commissioner Monti's credit, and I bear witness to this, that we again have some movement on this matter.
The code of conduct on company tax is operational.
Today we have two directives before us, including this one on capital income.
Let us be quite clear about this, this is a fundamental debate from three different points of view: the single market, about which Mrs Thyssen has already spoken; making sufficient budgetary resources available to the Community; and finally, breaking the disastrous spiral of constantly increasing taxes on labour and constantly decreasing taxes on capital income and other movable tax bases.
Coexistence is not exactly the best system, but in the short term it was the only possibility for a compromise.
I still hope and believe that in the course of the decision-making in the ECOFIN Council we will perhaps be able to move towards a single system, maybe based on the withholding tax.
Opponents of coexistence are clearly right on one point, which is that the system must not end up subsidising the Member States with the greatest banking secrecy, in other words those Member States with the most non-residents who will collect the withholding tax.
It must be possible for this to be declared for tax purposes in the country of residence.
This is why I want this discussion to be included in the debate on the European Union's own resources.
It is the view which Belgium is currently putting forward in the own resources debate, and I believe it is a view which must be given serious consideration.
Finally, it is my belief that it is not for us to deal with rate levels.
The rate level must be determined, for example, according to whether or not it grants discharge.
I believe this is a job for the final compromise round of Europe's finance ministers.
This is again a test for the tenability of the unanimity rule.
I hope and am counting on the fact that no country will dare to use the right of veto to block something which the vast majority of Europe's citizens want to see, namely a shift from taxes on labour to taxes on savings.
Mr President, may I first point out that it was under the Luxembourg Presidency that a historic breakthrough on harmonising direct taxation was made on 1 December 1997.
On that occasion, four elements were adopted that could form a basis for a proposal for a directive on taxation of savings.
One of the elements was the coexistence of the system of a withholding tax and the regime of information.
Unfortunately, if we want this to work, the system provided for in the proposal for a directive is too complicated and too expensive for the paying agents.
The certificates procedure provided for under the framework of the withholding system is extraordinarily complex and makes the coexistence of both systems practically impossible to manage, and even distorts it.
Leaving aside such administrative atrocities, the proposal for a minimum of 20 % for the withholding tax would destabilise the Union's financial markets.
15 % is also unacceptable and, in my opinion, a deduction of 10 % at source is a maximum.
What is more, the broad definition of interest, which differs from the definitions adopted in the conventions against double taxation, will lead to conflict and even discrimination between financial products that are all much of a muchness.
By including in the scope of the directive collective investment undertakings in the sense of the 1985 directive, we will be chasing them out of the European Union once and for all. They will flee Europe, unless they have already 'got the hell out' - if you will excuse the expression - due to administrative burdens that would put them at a competitive disadvantage in terms of their internal management costs.
Therefore, the end of European collective investment undertakings is on the cards, as is the early redemption of Eurobonds, as the market for such bonds will be established outside Europe.
It is of little consolation that few natural persons hold Eurobonds and that major capitalists will therefore be able to continue with their plans outside the Community.
This would mean accepting that taxation at source will only apply to small savers' deposits.
With things the way they are, to adopt this worthless text that only advocates agreements with third countries offering a particularly attractive environment to non-residents, is to completely ignore the fact that Switzerland, for example - which is already rubbing its hands with glee - does not discriminate between residents and non-residents as regards taxation of savings.
Agreements simultaneously establishing measures similar to those adopted in a directive are needed with all third countries that are likely to attract the Union's capital.
If the directive comes into being there cannot be any question of not applying it to dependent territories or territories linked to Member States.
Mr President, I must tell you that there will no fool's bargain struck with us.
Mr President, time and again I am filled with admiration for Commissioner Monti and the patience with which he is trying to disengage the brakes on coordinating tax policy in Europe.
He really deserves the utmost respect for this.
Where coordinating tax policy is concerned, the main objective is to limit manoeuvring and distortions on the capital markets.
It is a question of reducing harmful tax competition between the Member States, and part of creating equal economic opportunities is to make sure that investors are subject, at least in terms of approach, to a similar tax burden.
Seen in this light, the Commission proposal is definitely a step in the right direction, and this is accordingly supported for the most part by our rapporteur, Mr Pérez Royo.
But it is precisely because we agree on the principles in this Parliament - at least in what we say out loud - that some of the amendments adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy are more than just ideas to curb the development of European tax policy or precautionary measures.
However, seeking to reduce the rate of withholding tax from that proposed by the Commission to 15 % or 10 % falls into the 'back to square one' category.
In this context, we should not forget that there are some countries in the European Union with a 25 % tax rate. My country is one of them.
Ultimately, it is also necessary to reduce the imbalance between the taxation of wages and salaries on the one hand and capital on the other. That is the goal we have set ourselves.
Moreover - and this is also worth mentioning - exempting Eurobonds from the tax arrangements, as intended or desired by several financial centres in Europe, would give the securities market a considerable advantage over other savings instruments and would substantially limit the scope of the directive.
With 'a little less, please' as our motto, we will not be able to make any progress on coordinating tax policy.
You will need to be patient, Commissioner!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as a Socialist and a Frenchman, I am particularly pleased today to approve a proposal for a directive that will finally let us put an end to a situation where a whole section of savings income was completely avoiding taxation, and this within the European Union.
I should like to thank Commissioner Monti and his team for this. Of course, I should also like to warmly thank our colleague and rapporteur Mr Pérez Royo for the important and serious work he has done on this issue.
Ladies and gentlemen, at a time when the single currency will promote the cross-border movement of capital, this text was long overdue. It is quite simply vital for the Union's cohesion.
Of course, like many others, I approve of the fact that the idea of excluding Eurobonds from the scope of the directive was rejected. If we were to exclude them, there would be a danger of serious tax evasion and of distortion of competition.
Lastly, of course, I am also against establishing a conditionality link between adoption of the directive and its simultaneous application in third countries.
In conclusion, I would like to discuss an extremely important point that has been debated at length this morning, namely the rate of the withholding tax. Although I personally would have preferred a rate of 25 %, I am prepared, together with the rapporteur and the Socialist Group, to accept the 20 % rate put forward by the Commission.
I will do so in the spirit of compromise and negotiation.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I now hope that this case will be closed, as we expected, at Helsinki in December 1999 at the latest and that, after this, tax harmonisation will finally gain pace.
Mr President, I too should like to welcome this proposal to work towards greater coordination.
I believe that it is a question of establishing common definitions and creating an environment which makes fair competition possible.
My question is as follows: is there already a study or a simulation model of the impact of the proposals or ideas put forward?
How will competition develop within the European Union on the basis of the amended provisions, and how will the European Union be able to prove itself when competing at international level?
I believe that it is also important to highlight again and again the difference between the fiscal regime applied to companies - and its consequences - and that applied to consumers.
Ultimately, of course, we believe that it is important to reduce the tax burden as a whole, so as to become more competitive and to guarantee a higher personal income for consumers.
My final question is this: when will these proposals be agreed with the OECD countries, and are discussions under way with Switzerland and Liechtenstein?
Mr President, I must congratulate Mr Pérez Royo on his excellent report, which reflects his own considerable talents, and for supporting the rapid adoption of the directive.
My thanks also go to the other members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and all honourable Members for their contributions to the debate and for the kind words they have had for the Commission.
This proposal is part of a package which, as everyone has reminded us, was adopted during the Luxembourg Presidency, and the first element - the code of conduct - was swiftly put in place by the United Kingdom Presidency.
I therefore have to make it quite clear that, although they may have reservations on some points, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom are participating fully in this process to counter harmful tax competition, the aim of which, as mentioned by Mr Secchi and other speakers, is not general harmonisation but a concerted effort to counter the harmful effects of tax competition.
The aim is not to increase fiscal pressure in Europe, but to allow it to be reduced gradually and in an orderly way.
The further aim is, of course, to shift the balance of the tax burden which is currently having an excessive impact on employment.
I welcome the amendment tabled by the rapporteur which is designed to improve the current text of Article 5© and tighten up the criteria for identifying collective investment funds.
I think I can safely say that, subject to possible technical drafting improvements, the Commission's services are optimistic about the possibility of including, in an amended proposal for a directive, that amendment and, similarly, the amendment relating to tax competition, that is to say the new recital 7a.
While I understand the spirit of the other amendments tabled concerning the scope of the directive, I think that, as matters stand, they should be considered useful contributions to the debate rather than a direct contribution to the legislative text.
I am referring here in particular to the problems of the zero coupon bonds which are being discussed in detail in the Council.
We are able to accept the spirit, if not the wording, of Amendment No 24 from Mr Goedbloed and will try to ensure that it is accepted by the Council.
As far as the issue of Eurobonds is concerned, the Commission's position is that we are opposed to general exemptions; we are very much willing to consider solutions designed to contain the administrative burdens on intermediaries and take a balanced approach to the problems relating to those bonds already in circulation.
On rates, the Commission still believes a 20 % rate to be a sufficient compromise which could, from the point of view of all the Member States, meet the need to secure a minimum of actual taxation of interest.
I have noted that a great deal of attention - and I am entirely in favour of this - has been paid to the issue of contacts with third countries.
Though no questions were put on this, I can say that, as instructed by the ECOFIN Council, the German Presidency along with its Austrian predecessor and Finnish successor, as well as the Commission, is establishing both technical and political contacts with Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Andorra, and we have been asked to report back on this to the ECOFIN Council meeting of 15 March.
A report on the whole subject-matter of the directive will be presented to the May meeting of ECOFIN and, Mrs Thyssen, as regards the timetable for reaching agreement on this matter, the Vienna European Council set the target date of the Helsinki Council.
Two points finally: this is not a new tax; that would be a great mistake.
This is not a proposal for a new tax, it is a way of enabling the Member States to cooperate to ensure that the taxes already in existence are not systematically evaded as a result of the creation of a fifth freedom alongside the four freedoms of the internal market, that is to say the freedom not to pay taxes because of transfrontier movements.
On the question of financial services, my response to Mr Fayot and other Members is that the Commission is very much aware of the need to boost the financial services industry in Europe and that, in that context, in the recent framework action on financial services, it has shown how a degree of sensible coordination of taxation can benefit rather than penalise the financial services sector.
Finally, Mr Cassidy, I appreciated what you had to say today, as I always appreciate your comments, even when critical.
I have said that we do not favour combating all forms of tax competition, but only those that are harmful and unfair.
However, were we to accept the idea that any form of competition between the Member States is good, given that competition is a positive thing, then we should also, for the sake of consistency, have to allow them to compete fully with each other using state aids.
That is not, I think, a generally accepted view.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Liquid-fuel tanks
The next item is the report (A4-0495/98) by Mr Camisón Asensio, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 70/221/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to liquid-fuel tanks and rear underrun protection of motor vehicles and their trailers (COM(98)0097 - C4-0257/98-98/0071(COD)).
Mr President, as you all know, the aim of this proposal is to introduce new provisions concerning vehicle fuel tanks made of plastic material, to extend the title and scope of Directive 70/221 to include tanks for fuels other than liquid fuels - gaseous fuels, for instance - and to amend the directive adapting it to technical progress so that in future, technical provisions for tanks for all kinds of fuels may be introduced and modified by the committee procedure.
It is also appropriate to bring the directive into line with the technical requirements already adopted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe in its regulations concerning the harmonisation of services in connection with the prevention of fire risk.
The use of gaseous fuels for the propulsion of motor vehicles is increasing, particularly for ecological reasons.
It would therefore also be appropriate to include specifications relating to tanks for non-liquid fuels.
In the interests of consistency, the title and scope of the directive should be modified to allow for the inclusion of technical specifications on tanks for gaseous fuels.
Given the impact of the proposed action on the industrial sector concerned, the measures under consideration are essential to attain the desired objective, namely, the harmonisation of vehicles across the Community.
It is impossible for Member States to meet this objective acting individually in isolation.
The Commission is proposing that these new provisions be applied to all new types of vehicles with effect from 1 October 1999, and to all new vehicles with effect from 1 October 2000.
These time-limits are clearly too short, and have therefore been amended in our report.
We should remember that the modifications to the present directive only concern fuel tanks made of plastic material, and that there is therefore no need to invalidate any approval already granted under the directive. Nor is there any need to refuse the registration, sale or entry into service of new vehicles with metal liquid-fuel tanks approved under existing harmonisation arrangements.
The eight amendments we put before the Committee on Economic Affairs, and which were subsequently approved, stemmed from these arguments and form the basis of our legislative proposal. One amendment states that the modifications needed to bring the requirements into line with the annexes to the technical project be adopted following a more appropriate procedure.
Another concerns the time-limits mentioned earlier.
Another provides a more rational definition of unladen mass.
Two further amendments introduce an element of common sense by restricting regulations on the flow of fuel from one compartment to another to normal conditions of use only. They seek to prevent us making impossible demands on the industry.
Yet another amendment is aimed at simplification, taking references to the tank to include its accessories as a matter of course. The final two amendments stress the hazard that the accidental spillage of fuel - especially diesel - onto the roads represents to pedal cyclists and to the riders of motorcycles.
This was a major gap in the Commission's proposal.
We are firmly of the opinion that this proposal represents an important step forward in the approximation of Member States' legislation on liquid-fuel tanks and rear underrun protection of motor vehicles and their trailers. The approval of vehicles with regard to the prevention of fire risk, particularly for fuel tanks made of plastic material of category MI vehicles will therefore be more rational.
Category MI vehicles are those intended for the carriage of passengers comprising no more than eight seats in addition to the driver's seat.
The general objective of the Commission proposal seems to be very reasonable and we therefore believe that the situation for the industrial sector concerned will improve when provisions at European level are harmonised with these provisions.
The technical changes proposed by the Commission concerning the title and scope of the directive to make the inclusion of gaseous fuels possible in the future do not cause any problems for the industry concerned. Equally, the proposal to modify Annex 1 to the directive to include more severe tests does not appear to pose problems for the industry either.
As was mentioned earlier, these provisions are already included in the United Nations regulations.
However, as regards the amendment on the comitology procedure to be applied for adaptations of this directive to technical progress, we do not share the Commission's view.
We believe that it would be more appropriate to convert this into management committee procedure 2A. The Commission could then defer application of the measures proposed for a period of not more than one month if the measures were not in accordance with the opinion of the committee.
Furthermore, the proposal is in line with the approximation of provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States which have as their aim the establishment and operation of the internal market.
In this context, the Commission is striving to guarantee a high level of protection of health, consumers, the environment and safety. We fully support this endeavour.
The principle of subsidiarity is also safeguarded, as the measure proposed by the Commission is justified by the fact that the Member States acting individually could not adequately achieve the directive's objective.
I would like to end by summing up and saying that what we have before us are purely technical provisions which will not have any negative impact on the competitiveness of enterprises or on employment and which will significantly increase road safety.
We therefore ask you to vote in favour of them.
Mr President, we should like to thank the rapporteur for the work he has done on this rather technical proposal.
Although these are technical changes, he is also right to say that this is actually about safety and environmental considerations, which are important policy objectives for us.
Of course, our proposal is also intended to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market, and to make it easier for manufacturers to comply with the provisions by introducing a standard form of type approval.
We can accept four of the amendments tabled, Nos 3, 4, 5 and 6.
As far as the other four amendments are concerned, we believe that this is not the appropriate place for some of these rules, and that instead we can refer to provisions which either already exist or are to be adopted; that is why we do not think that we can accept these amendments.
However, Mr Camisón Asensio, ladies and gentlemen, given that this is the first reading, we will certainly have further opportunities to look at details, and an overall agreement may still be possible.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
The sitting was suspended at 11.25 a.m. until voting time at 11.30 a.m.
VOTES
Mr President, following the debate on the Pérez Royo report earlier, your fellow President announced that the vote on that report would take place tomorrow.
However, it appears on the list of votes for today even though it has only just been debated.
As a result, it would make more sense to vote on it tomorrow.
You are absolutely right, Mrs Lulling.
The Pérez Royo report is scheduled to be voted on today, as you quite rightly said. If we have time, I hope we will be able to vote on it today.
Mr President, the opposite is the case.
Your predecessor said earlier - we only finished the debate barely twenty minutes ago - that this report would be voted on tomorrow. I am asking that the vote indeed be held tomorrow, as the President said it would.
Mrs Lulling, perhaps my predecessor in the Chair made a slight mistake.
The Pérez Royo report is scheduled to be voted on today and, as I said, if we have time, we will take the vote today.
Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be taken by the Community within the Association Council established by the Europe Agreement signed on 19 December 1994 between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Slovak Republic, of the other part, with regard to the extension for a further period of five years in accordance with the provisions of Article 64(4)(a) of the Europe Agreement (11544/98 - C4-0633/98-98/0073(CNS))(Procedure without report)
Parliament approved the Commission proposal
Mr President, I would like to put forward an oral amendment calling for the removal of the words: 'pursuant to the Amsterdam Treaty'.
So I am requesting that these words be deleted.
The deeper meaning will not be changed by this amendment, but it will provide greater scope for ensuring future development.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Could you remind members of staff in the House that it is not their job to substitute for Members by indicating how the vote should go? The woman in seat 301 seems to be telling the rest of her group how to vote.
Thank you for your comment, Mr Ford.
I do not think that Members of the European Parliament need advice from anyone, and of course we are not going to encourage them to accept advice.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Since it is in Europe's interest - and that of the international situation - we are backing the Commission five-point plan that gained the support of the Council on 29 June last year.
We welcome the improvement in relations between the EU and China, which are in the interest of ordinary people in both places, and which should boost the EU's influence in international politics, independently of the USA.
The EU should therefore support China's accession to the WTO, in keeping with China's multilateral principles.
But, without denying that some progress has been made in resuming talks on human rights, such as the ratification of the two United Nations pacts on economic, social and cultural rights and on civil and political rights, I do not think that we can act as though China respected fundamental rights and freedoms.
China is far from doing so.
The economic and financial interests of certain EU Member States cannot justify a Realpolitik that skims over truth and justice and means that we fail to apply common standards and demand less of China than of weaker countries with which the EU has economic or trade agreements including the human rights clause.
The latest serious violations of fundamental rights and freedoms in China - the persecution of political opponents, human rights activists and members of ethnic minorities - should be condemned by the EU in the strongest terms.
The same goes for the violation of workers' rights, especially lay-offs without compensation, and the absence of trade union freedom, collective bargaining and the right to strike.
Now we come to the references to Macao.
In the motion for a resolution, we have:
' Hopes that the joining of Macao to China will comply on all points with the agreement of 13 April 1987 and enable it to develop a democratic and prosperous society on its own soil; '
In the explanatory statement, we find:
' Macao: another bridge between Europe and China
Similarly, the situation in Macao, whose return to China in December 1999 has been settled by an agreement signed on 13 April 1987, should be monitored closely.
Macao embodies a Latin culture, and therefore stands in direct connection with one of the fundamental components of European civilisation.
Macao consequently is in a position to help improve relations with China by enabling that country better to understand our diversity as Europeans.'
I think that the rapporteur has understood the role that Macao could play in the future, given its past and its special characteristics, as an 'open door' for China into Europe and the west in general, and as a bridge between Europe, with all its diversity, and China.
The EU should very closely monitor the handover due on 20 December next. It should be just as demanding as it was in the case of Hong Kong, mutatis mutandis , so as to guarantee that the principle of 'one country, two systems' also applies to Macao.
There are still a number of problems about enshrining the rights and principles contained in the constitution, as guaranteed by the Joint Luso-Chinese Declaration, into local legislation.
The EU could give both parties, and the authorities of the territory, its backing with a view to achieving the following:
to guarantee that China respects the prohibition of the death penalty; -to ensure that China honours its pledge not to station troops in Macao; -to make sure that China duly stops criminals from crossing the border into Macao and threatening safety there; -to regulate and guarantee fundamental freedoms, especially religious freedom, freedom of association and membership of political parties, trade union freedom and the right to strike; -to regulate the use of the territory's two official languages - Chinese and Portuguese; -to regulate the issue of nationality, fairly and humanely; -to establish an independent judiciary with a local Court of First Instance.The EU should, both now and in future, support the development of a civil society; give its backing to associations including human rights organisations; support cultural activities and university cooperation with China; support the action of the European Studies Institute and foster exchanges between lawyers, enabling continental European law to be made known in China, in particular through the activities of the legal translation centre and the centre for training judges.
I would ask the Commission to repeat what it did in the case of Hong Kong - namely to issue a statement on future relations between the EU and Macao, guaranteeing from the outset that it will draft regular reports on developments in the situation after the handover.
The EU's responsibility for Macao requires an active and competent Commission and EU delegation in the territory.
I would like to ask the Commission what measures it intends to take or has already taken in this respect.
Once again may I point out to the Commission how displeased the entire EP/China delegation was that the Commission's delegate to Hong Kong and Macao did not bother to meet the EP delegation in person or by proxy when it last visited the territory in mid-1998.
I hope that this serious incidence of discourteous, incompetent and inconsiderate behaviour will not be repeated.
The way China develops is vital for the way our own societies develop.
It will influence not only our economies but also - and above all - prospects for democracy world-wide.
I think that the European Union must shoulder the main responsibility for steering China into the democratic fold.
It must do so audibly, consistently and effectively, particularly by backing the notion of 'one country, several regimes'.
Europe is not treating Macao or Taipei with the attention that their status as outposts of democracy in the East demands.
The European Union must show more determination.
For that we need:
European Union delegations in Macao and Taipei (not miserly little offices but fully operational agencies); -clear support for either China or Taiwan's membership of the WTO; -political action by Members of the European Parliament of all colours in support of Portugal in the final 'sprint' to thrash out an agreement with China on a democratic and Sino-European identity for Macao; Although I agree with the Bernard-Reymond report, I should have liked it to take a firmer line in calling for the European Union to shoulder its full responsibility.
Directive 96/96/EC established the principle that commercial road vehicles must undergo an annual roadworthiness test at an approved testing centre.
In its proposal for a directive, the Commission gives every Member State the option to carry out unannounced roadside checks on such vehicles.
We believe that this initiative has arisen out of concern for the respect of users' safety.
In fact, if we look at how international traffic has increased, statistics show that a high number of vehicles travel more than 150 000 kilometres per year!
Carrying out annual roadworthiness inspections is no longer enough to guarantee the safety and reliability of the vehicle.
Our rapporteur supports the proposal for unannounced roadside checks, and we are pleased with this.
Yet for this initiative to have the greatest possible effect, we must implement a proper system of checks, with agents trained to the highest technical levels.
In the same way, the Member States must cooperate with the Commission to strengthen approval procedures.
Finally, transport operators must not see this measure purely as a repressive one.
Deciding to immediately immobilise a road vehicle when an unannounced check has revealed a manifest defect is a necessary step in protecting users' safety.
We cannot allow 'travelling bombs' to drive on our roads simply so that we can save money.
Camisón Asensio report (A4-0010/99)
What would become of all our attempts to eliminate obstacles to free movement and speed up the dismantling of our borders if we did not have an ambitious and high-quality policy on transport? What can our actions on economic and social cohesion and regional development amount to without vital infrastructure links?
What can come of a policy for boosting employment if there is no real desire to provide transport links?
Today, it seems vital that we coordinate national efforts and that there is cooperation between public and private sectors.
Until now, there has not been any significant progress in the field of goods and passenger transport.
There is now more of a need than ever for fresh momentum.
Too many projects are vague, with uncertain timetables and financing.
The European Parliament is in a position to monitor the level of progress, particularly where local and regional financing are concerned.
It is, in fact, vital that public finances are contributed, in spite of current restrictions.
Nothing can be done without this active role because, as in many fields, financial matters are at the heart of the debate.
I therefore support the Camisón Asensio report, and I am disappointed by the serious delays and disagreements that have occurred in implementing the majority of projects drawn up in Essen in 1994.
I also believe it is a shame that, in view of such a situation, the European Commission has not proposed measures to stimulate these projects and has simply accepted this state of affairs.
It would perhaps be worth reminding the Commission of its mission and asking it to arrange for a Council of Ministers to seek solutions to the problems I have just highlighted.
Through this explanation of vote, I should like to put on record my vote in favour of the Camisón Asensio report. My main reason for voting in favour of the report was the explicit call to speed up the 14 Essen projects.
Early completion of the Essen priority projects is indeed crucial to the development of social and economic cohesion within the European Union. Together with the other trans-European transport networks, these projects will strengthen the internal market and contribute to job creation.
To this end, Community structural policy must be coordinated with the trans-European transport networks in order to promote balanced sustainable development within the European Union and to reduce the disparities that currently exist between the regions.
Most of the priority projects identified at the Essen summit are running well behind schedule.This is due, amongst other reasons, to the lack of funds to implement them.
An appropriate Community response to meet these financial needs would be to encourage public-private partnerships, along with financial efforts by the Member State concerned. This would be of great help to the delayed projects and to the trans-European transport networks as a whole.
Soltwedel-Schäfer recommendation (A4-0044/99)
We should like to stress the importance of ensuring that the design of the euro takes account of the special needs of the disabled.
It is essential that all our citizens should be able to use it.
With regard to the specific proposal relating to the introduction of the gold 100 euro coin, as put forward by the rapporteur, we are inclined to think that no real justification has been provided for the introduction of such a coin.
In the vote, therefore, we have decided to follow the line adopted in committee by our political group.
The second reading of the Council's draft regulation on the definition of the technical specifications of euro coins provides me with an opportunity to point out that it is completely inappropriate to propose taking all national currencies out of circulation on 1 January 2002.
This operation would be extremely costly for citizens in psychological terms and would serve only to provide ideological satisfaction for those who wish to see nations disappear. However, both could quite easily continue to exist simultaneously, as is the case today.
There would be the euro, on the one hand, staying as it was when it came into force and restricted to the stock exchanges and to international financial activities. Then, on the other hand, there would be the national currencies which would remain in circulation.
In any event, eliminating the national monetary level would hardly be wise, as we do not know what crises will emerge in the future. If an asymmetric shock hits us in the near future, we may very well be glad that we can modify the exchange parities between the euro and some national currencies in order to bring a certain amount of flexibility to the system and not force our fellow citizens to make unnecessary sacrifices.
In this way, if we continue to allow both European and national monetary levels to coexist, we will have rediscovered a system similar to that of the common currency, which the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has always supported.
Such a solution would safeguard our future without forcing our fellow citizens to take pointless risks.
Therefore, I hope that the Council will listen to the voice of wisdom and that ministers will not charge headlong towards unification, as this would be a dead end.
However, in order to justify continuing with unification, some people will no doubt hide behind the legal argument in Article 109l(4), which states that 'at the starting date of the third stage, the Council shall...adopt the conversion rates...at which irrevocably fixed rate the ECU shall be substituted for these currencies (the currencies of the participating countries)...The Council shall...also take the other measures necessary for the rapid introduction of the ECU as the single currency of those Member States'.
But this argument does not have the same weight as other legal arguments: in circumstances beyond our control, we can modify the text in an emergency or we can find another way to interpret it.
For example, we could say that as the euro was due to replace the national currencies on the starting date of the third stage, in other words on 1 January 1999, then it has already happened and we should not discuss it any further.
Governments would do well to seriously consider this line of thinking.
On behalf of the non-attached Members, I stress the need to provide a gold coin with the nominal value of EUR 100.
As well as enhancing the symbolic value of the single currency, the effect would be to stabilise the price of gold, making gold reserves increasingly unnecessary.
Finally, I agree with the rapporteur's decision to limit the cost of the metal and actual coinage production to the latter's nominal value.
Bernard-Reymond report (A4-0479/98)
In the vote, we have taken a far harder line on China's human rights violations than that expressed in the motion for a resolution.
Even though it may be important for Europe to develop trade and political relations with China, economic interests should not blind us to the human rights violations perpetrated there, nor prevent us from criticising them.
The EU should also be consistent in following the same line in its dealings with a number of other countries, for example Colombia and Peru.
Naturally I am in favour of the development and opening-up of China.
Openness is one way of undermining the totalitarian regime and bringing freedom to the Chinese people.
However, I seriously doubt that the introduction of free market principles, which the report so enthusiastically recommends, is the right solution.
We should learn from the mistakes that were made, for instance, in the former Communist states of Eastern Europe.
The people were looking for freedom and openness but instead they ended up with the crudest form of capitalism, which brought with it social exclusion and poverty.
As cooperation with China increases, we should place greater emphasis on the social situation and those areas where we might be able to support development, such as youth exchange programmes, education and increasing the number of non-governmental organisations.
Furthermore, as the report makes clear, we must go on exerting pressure so that, in the end, human rights will be respected.
In its communication, the Commission quite rightly noted the major changes which are currently taking place in the economy and civil society of China.
But it is also important to stress that fundamental human rights are still being suppressed by the Chinese authorities.
In its report, therefore, the Foreign Affairs Committee included some very positive demands for the incorporation of a human rights clause into the agreement between the EU and China.
If economic cooperation with China is to be possible, it is of crucial importance that such a clause should be fully respected.
The supplementary requirements which the committee has added to the areas prioritised by the Commission may help to point development in China in the right direction.
Mr Bernard-Reymond's report advocates the development of economic and cultural links between European Union countries and China. The report claims that this is in line with the belief that intensifying relations with China will automatically lead to an improvement in the democratic and human rights situation in that country.
This strategy, which may prove to be effective in certain cases, seems, in the case of China, to come up against realities that must not be trivialised.
It is now nearly 15 years since China began to modernise its economy and in these 15 years it has experienced unprecedented development. Western heads of state, company managers and buyers from the retail and distribution sector are now all rushing to Beijing and Shanghai to sign numerous contracts.
Nonetheless, we must note that although China has liberalised its economy considerably over the past 15 years, it has, in contrast, made very little progress in terms of civil liberties and religious freedoms.
The policy on bringing Tibet increasingly under Chinese rule has not relented in the slightest over recent years, in spite of extremely strong pressure from the West.
On a more general note, the very serious problems linked to violations of religious freedoms in China should have received more attention from our rapporteur.
Implementing a policy of compulsory registration for all places of worship in 1991 gave rise to the biggest wave of anti-religious repression that has taken place since the cultural revolution.
This new policy gives the Chinese authorities the means to completely control religious activity on spiritual and material levels.
The Chinese Government has, for example, decided to control the content of the articles of faith of the various Christian religions, and is itself selecting which it deems acceptable and which are banned.
The civilian authorities thereby label religious truths such as the Last Judgement, the communion of saints, genesis and the sanctity of life as forbidden truths.
Faced with such pressure, many Chinese believers are joining 'underground churches' and one of these is the illegal Catholic church. Followers of these churches are then subject to police harassment, confiscation of their possessions, imprisonment and torture.
Members of the clergy are victims of particularly insidious torture.
Such totalitarian practices do not spring from a bygone era but affect the daily lives of Chinese people today, and we must not disregard this.
The European Parliament is usually more exacting on human rights issues.
Why are we being so lenient with communist China?
Azzolini report (A4-0412/98)
The communication from the Commission, on which our colleague's report is based, reflects the political priority of applying competition rules to the Structural Funds policy.
The Commission is striving to ensure that the state aid map and the Structural Funds map are entirely consistent.
We support the idea of a discussion in this field, taking into consideration the specific nature of certain regions that makes them eligible for Community funds.
In effect, we are forced to acknowledge that state aids are exceptions to free competition for a very specific reason, namely that of maintaining economic and social cohesion.
The Member States, in partnership with local authorities, must have a certain degree of flexibility. This will vary according to the development problems in certain regions, and I am specifically thinking of Objective 1 and 2 regions.
It would not be a good thing to blindly apply competition rules and risk endangering the efficiency of Community and national interventions.
I believe that the report by our Committee on Regional Policy is heading in the right direction, with finishing touches added by amendments the PSE Group submitted to this House.
What is more, this request for flexibility was noted at the last General Affairs Council meeting. It will cooperate with Member States, local authorities and the Commission in order to determine the economic and social criteria specific to each region that allow them to be classed as exceptions.
The European Commission's initiative is clearly laudable and necessary, seeking as it does to establish better concentration and increased coherence of national regional aid and European regional aid, all of which leads to strengthened efficiency.
The aim is to identify the regions most affected and to make European structural aid coincide with national regional aid.
The Commission therefore thinks it is being pragmatic. But, more to the point, perhaps it is being too pragmatic!
In effect, until now, Objective 1 regions were determined by the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, such as NUTS regions where GDP per capita is less than 75 % of the Community's mean.
Objective 2 and 5b regions were determined by the Commission using Community and national socioeconomic criteria as a basis and in cooperation with the Member States.
In addition, the Commission has exclusive competence in matters of state aid.
In this new proposal, the Commission suggests also including the Objective 2 map in state aid maps under Article 92(3)(c).
This amounts to saying that the Commission will include under the new Objective 2 all the regions that the Member States undertake to include in the list of assisted regions, which they must notify the Commission of under Article 92(3)(c).
The proposal also suggests that Objective 1 regions be determined on the basis of strict respect of the 75 % criterion for GDP per capita, so that they fully correspond to regions that will be exempt under Article 92(3)(a) and can therefore be assisted at national level.
And all this must be defined by 31 March 1999 at the latest.
We believe that this is a little too rigid to be accepted in this form by governments, by our group and by this House, even more so as all states are calling for some flexibility in choosing their aid policies and in defining their territorial competences.
I believe that making zoning systems consistent must continue to be a political objective for the Member States, without forcing them to obtain results.
It is for this reason that the PSE Group has tabled several amendments, in particular a new paragraph after recital Q and a new Amendment No 6 calling for greater flexibility. These are amendments that I hope will be adopted by this House.
The great merit of the Commission's communication and of the report we are considering today lies in the fact that they once again highlight, in an almost paradigmatic manner, the contradictions inherent in European integration. These contradictions set European policies at odds with one another and the report highlights the paradoxical effects of these very same policies.
There is, in fact, a major need to review and rationalise economic and social cohesion policy, that has been implemented pragmatically and sometimes erratically over the past twenty years to respond to successive enlargements and the different crises that have weakened the economic and social fabric of the Member States. This must be done in order to face up to fresh challenges and to better meet the objectives of this policy.
In this vein, I should like to offer my support for the options endorsed by our rapporteur.
Therefore, in this speech, I will concentrate on two of the new measures proposed in the context of reforming the social cohesion policy.
Although this reform was designed to reduce disparities between the levels of development of European regions, it has in fact increased the disparities between the richest and the poorest regions.
Reducing the share of aid cofinanced by the European Union would worsen this situation, as such a decision would effectively force Member States to make a larger financial commitment. This would, by necessity, increase the burden for the poorest Member States.
There is clearly a contradiction between the stated aims of social cohesion policy and the foreseeable outcome of measures taken to attain these aims.
Finally, I also believe that the time-limit for 'phasing-out' aid given to regions that previously had Objective 1 status seems too draconian for still fragile economies.
There is no good reason why state aid should be dependent on EU regional aid.
Such a serious infringement of national freedom of action is unacceptable.
I therefore support the committee's proposal that Objective 6 funding should be exempted from this linkage.
According to Agenda 2000, Objective 6 funding which was agreed during membership negotiations would eventually be included under Objective 1.
This is acceptable provided that the former Objective 6 support criteria are transferred, unchanged, to Objective 1 and that the funding for Objective 6 regions remains the same.
In its communication, the Commission has presented some proposals for greater consistency between regional policy and competition policy in the EU.
This is an immensely interesting and important initiative.
Under the current rules for support to poor regions and those lagging behind, there is a high risk of distortion of competition.
There have unfortunately been examples of this.
It is therefore crucial that the regional classification which will apply in future in respect of the scope for Member States to allocate regional aid should be defined in such a way as to minimise the risk of adverse consequences for free competition.
I therefore fully support the analysis presented in the committee's report.
There is no doubt that, despite all the efforts made, disparities of development between the regions of the EU still remain wide.
On the other hand, a strict application of the principle of concentration - which we must strive for if cohesion policy instruments are to be deployed effectively - must not overlook the fact that, in the context of subsidiarity, national support measures must continue to be permitted outside these regions.
The so-called rich countries must be given the possibility of introducing appropriate support measures in good time, especially in structurally weak regions bordering third countries.
I am voting in favour of this report because my Amendment No 1 opens up this possibility.
Mr Azzolini's report on regional policy and competition policy addresses the question of national regional aid.
It is particularly concerned about the provisions of the new guidelines which limit the permitted intensity of national aid.
For Objective 1 regions it is reduced to 40 or 50 % depending on the poverty of the region concerned, and for Objective 2 regions it is limited to 10 or 20 %. The report asks whether such a restriction could be paving the way for the gradual disappearance of national regional aid and, in time, for the pure and simple banning of such aid.
The report from the Committee on Regional Policy once again comes out in favour of changing regional planning policy in the Community.
We could not support making this policy more systematic even though, in certain fields, we believe harmonisation or close cooperation is vital, such as in trans-European transport networks or ecologically sensitive areas, for example.
Yet Member States must maintain their freedom to use state aid, if they deem it necessary, to maintain the balance in their territory and to correct distortions induced, in certain cases, by some Community policies, such as the policy on free trade, the effect of which has not yet been evaluated.
In this respect, I should like to point out that recital C of the report is the result of an amendment by our group that was adopted in committee. It points out that competition policy is essential to the competitiveness of the economy of the European Union, on condition, however, that this competition is conducted fairly, particularly on the part of certain of the EU's trading partners, and does not have the effect of sacrificing our social and environmental standards.
This text shows that the Commission's recent decision to prevent France from awarding aid to its textiles industry, which had undergone a particularly severe relocation process, was unacceptable.
This case is an excellent example of blindly applying competition as a dogma, regardless of social or regional planning considerations. This is a concept that our group is resolutely opposed to.
Read report (A4-0386/98)
I should first like to thank Mrs Read for the reliability and clarity of her work, which has allowed us to hold such a useful debate.
As well as this introductory praise of the content, I should also like to offer my full support for the recommendations made by our colleague.
This constant wish to guarantee equitable access for all and, first and foremost, for the most vulnerable users among us, fits in with what should be a universal service.
Following Mrs Read's example, I believe that the Member States of the Union should consider implementing, by means of certain terms and conditions, a tariff scale adapted to low-income users.
If some people believe that such a measure is unfair, then what do they think of the majority of consumers subsidising the long-distance calls of a minority? As a result, people who are poor or unemployed can only have low level usage paid for at full price.
We must not forget that the telephone is also a useful job-seeking tool.
Similarly, the fact that the Internet is becoming more common calls for the implementation of adapted tariffs, both for individual users and for educational establishments.
I have already said this but I should like to reiterate that the Web must not become the property of a well-off minority!
On the other hand, I should like to draw my conservative colleagues' attention to the amendments they wish to introduce. I believe that, in the long term, these amendments jeopardise equality of access to this means of communication.
These proposals are dangerous, both for the telecommunications sector and for the future of the universal service on a more general level.
I am at last daring to hope that the right wing will be brave enough to declare their intentions in the coming months, in this field and in others.
A politician's first duty is to defend his ideas.
So, if you believe that liberalising services should mean unequal access, please be honest enough to say so to our fellow citizens.
The guarantee that everyone should be able to have access to essential services at affordable prices and to a satisfactory quality standard is a sine qua non for the socially successful and sustainable liberalisation of what used to be called public services.
This is why there is such major importance attached to this monitoring report on universal service in telecommunications, which we are examining today.
We cannot fail to notice that this first report describes a situation that is far from satisfactory. It shows that the free play of market forces and competition cannot of itself ensure that everyone is properly included in the information society and in communication technology.
Of course, this first report points out a number of problems that must be rectified as quickly as possible.
I would pinpoint in particular the fact that operators are under no obligation to use a uniform tariff for the same service throughout their territory. This is a serious threat to a true universal service.
The fact that some Member States show an overall upwards trend in tariffs is equally worrying, especially as it affects in particular residential users, especially those on low incomes.
Like our rapporteur, I firmly believe that we must pay particularly urgent attention to the case of infrequent users, and especially of disabled people.
One effect of the liberalisation of the telecommunications sector in the EU is that the Member States are obliged to ensure provision of a minimum set of telecommunications services by all operators, and that there is intervention if these requirements are not met.
The Commission has noted that steps have been taken to secure this minimum access to telecommunications services for consumers, but the collection of data has not been entirely adequate in all cases.
It is therefore right for the report to stress the importance of remedying these shortcomings, and of ensuring that the relevant information on the compliance of telecommunications services with the minimum requirements is available.
Mrs Read's report has shown that a mixed assessment of the progress made on universal service provision is in order.
Overall, progress is rather unsatisfactory.
That is why renewed efforts need to be made.
We Greens support this conclusion in Mrs Read's report.
In addition, however, it is necessary to consider whether in fact more instruments are needed - such as specifications, different levels of state supervision and so on - to increase the public interest element, to safeguard the quality of the services and to take account of the social and societal impact of new services.
Some instruments of this kind are already provided for under media law and can be used as models.
Tappin report (A4-0394/98)
We should like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent report.
In our explanation of vote, we wish to stress the importance of applying social criteria and objectives, a possibility that features most prominently in paragraphs 10 and 11 of the committee's draft report and in Amendments Nos 5 and 6 by the rapporteur and Mrs Van Lancker.
In our view, it is essential that in achieving greater openness in public procurement, in the interests of employment and increased competition, there should be an equal balance between social and environmental objectives.
As regards the increases in thresholds proposed in the report, past experience shows that the lower the thresholds are set, the more firms participate in public calls for tender.
However, a correspondingly larger number of businesses then fail to receive a slice of the cake.
This also results in an overall increase in what might be termed futile expenditure.
However, since I personally am against raising thresholds on principle, I have abstained on the paragraphs in question.
T. Mann report (A4-0475/98)
As the next millennium approaches, we cannot tolerate the fact that, in the European Union, more than 28 million people are unemployed.
It is our responsibility to combat this plague, and the paths outlined in the report submitted to us are along the right lines.
Since the Luxembourg summit, guidelines established in each Member State have already helped us to fully gauge the Member States' commitment to this fight.
But the fight must also take place at the level of the European institutions.
In order to achieve this, we could firstly devote our energies to potential job-creating sectors, for example the tourism sector; it is a shame that the Philoxenia programme was blocked within the Council of Ministers.
This remains an impressive framework for action and there are many operators and actors waiting for it to enter into force.
We must also consider jobs in local services or care services.
It is often difficult for local authorities to take over job creation measures that were set in motion by associations.
On the other hand, there is also the possibility of beginning discussions on a new organisation of work.
We can see that several Member States are currently working towards bringing in a reduction of working time, and this has been negotiated with various partners.
This solution must not become entrenched in a national-level mentality. A joint contribution at European level must be considered.
Our rapporteur makes some excellent recommendations, presented as an inventory.
We must not fall short of our citizens' expectations.
For many months I have been asking that we open a debate on the social consequences of technological developments.
As a result, I welcome the report by our colleague, Mr Mann, which responds to one of the main themes of this debate.
In fact, it is important that this House promotes the emergence of these new jobs that appear to have great potential.
I should also like to point out that I support most of the concerns and proposals outlined by the rapporteur.
However, I will express certain reservations and make a few comments on different points that do not in any way detract from the author's initial aim.
Although I agree with Mr Mann that society must invest financially to generally adapt training to such new sources of employment, I would like to make two comments.
Firstly, I believe that we must invest a considerable amount, particularly as regards jobs with high added value.
We have an obligation to do so, in view of the means needed to obtain quality training.
Furthermore, I admit I was pleasantly surprised to note that our conservative colleagues are becoming aware that private initiative cannot cater for some of society's needs.
I am also delighted by the willingness to legislate on life-long training by including it in the law on entitlement to annual training leave.
This request for legislation is an important step forward in terms of recognising this right, a right that must allow all employees to develop their careers and enjoy increased employability.
Finally, I cannot finish without mentioning some of the threats posed to workers' rights that, to my mind, must not adapt to new technologies but should instead aim to guarantee an acceptable quality of life for all.
I believe that our fellow citizens will not indefinitely accept a deterioration in their quality of life, a quality of life that is very much threatened by a minority among us.
How can we not vote in favour of this report that endorses a whole range of common sense measures. The report begins with observations on the current state of affairs: an unemployment rate approaching 11 % in the European Union, of which 22 % are young people, and a precarious work situation for women.
These are therefore common sense measures as they place the emphasis on SMEs, which offer the greatest job creation potential but, in the context of increasing globalisation, must have favourable conditions in order to develop.
The Commission has already established a number of actions to help them. We must increase the number of SMEs and encourage them.
They are common sense measures as they emphasise the sectors of the future: tourism, culture, new technologies, research and media. There are so many fields that could breathe new life into our local authorities and our regions if we properly prepare access and training for future occupations.
They are common sense measures as they call on Member States to implement the employment guidelines drawn up in Luxembourg in 1997.
They are also common sense measures because they call for a system of further training that adapts to the constant development of new information and communication technologies. They call for a system that is capable of accompanying the worker throughout his career in such a way that he can develop as technology develops.
Again, these are common sense measures because they do not want to exclude groups of people, nor do they wish to further isolate regions that are already classified as less-favoured regions.
This is why there are calls for transport and telecommunications infrastructures to be developed to provide access to world markets, so that regions and their populations are not cut off from the labour market of the future.
Finally, they are common sense measures because they call for the principles laid down in the Amsterdam Treaty to be recognised, in particular that of equal treatment of men and women.
Some of our French senators could certainly learn from this!
In conclusion, this resolution, which analyses our society, the changes it is experiencing and its future prospects, is not a revolutionary one; however, if it were truly to be taken into account, it would mean the beginning of a better world.
No one here will deny that job creation is one of the few fundamental problems that public opinion will use to judge the overall positive or negative effect of European integration on the everyday lives of our citizens.
We can therefore be pleased once again that the Amsterdam Treaty has fully gauged the scale of this challenge and has devoted a chapter to employment.
Nonetheless, such awareness must result in tangible positive effects for our fellow citizens, especially for young people and women, as they are the most vulnerable groups.
I wholeheartedly support the analyses and recommendations outlined by our rapporteur, and therefore it is without any hesitation that I will vote in favour of this report.
Nevertheless, I should particularly like to stress the fact that if we reorganise work according to opportunities provided by the development of multimedia, it will allow us to make substantial ecological gains for society as a whole. It will also result in improved quality of life for many workers who will no longer be forced to make arduous daily journeys.
Reorganising work in this way would ease congestion in access routes to major towns and would also allow us to eventually free up considerable human and financial resources that could then be used to concentrate on developing communications infrastructures in less-favoured regions and in job-creating sectors of activity.
I also wish to emphasise that measures that use very little of the budget and are, on the whole, relatively easy to implement would also let us create jobs rapidly.
For example, I should like to discuss rationalising and streamlining any form of red tape that places a burden on small and medium-sized enterprises. Or we could even give such enterprises access to a powerful network for market research and for passing on the information gleaned from these markets.
Fundamentally, this is a very good report. It concentrates on combating unemployment and ensuring that everyone has a job.
No one is left out; there are clear references to women, for example.
The report contains many excellent ideas about the labour market in the future.
It is heartening that the European Union recognises the problems and is willing to focus on them.
Sadly, what is otherwise an excellent report is spoiled by two unfortunate items.
Firstly, taxation is a matter for individual states.
The European Parliament should therefore not 'recommend' that tax 'burdens' should be reduced, as is the case in paragraph 41.
Even more shocking is the ignorance displayed in paragraph 23.
What the rapporteur refers to as the 'tax burden on labour' is in fact employees' own money.
The money which employers hand over to the state to be administered, in the form of payroll tax, is money which we have chosen to set aside, instead of taking a higher salary, to pay for sickness benefit, pensions and protection against unemployment.
Payroll taxes represent an increase in employees' salaries which they have chosen to forgo to pay for state welfare.
Moreover, a system in which this task is undertaken jointly is the most effective and equitable kind.
This report is both timely and extremely significant since employment is one of the main concerns of the citizens of Europe.
Consideration of the future will enable us to undertake sound preparatory work now, as we strive to do away with unemployment. This latter is currently at an unacceptably high level and is threatening the cohesion of our societies.
The main aim is to combat unemployment through the creation of sufficient quality employment, taking into account the new needs of a society that has changed and that will undergo further changes in the future.
Information technology, communications, demography, sustainability, leisure - with the consequent growth of tourism - and, above all, the accession of women to the workplace, with more equal opportunities, all combine to create new needs for this new society. As I stated in my opinion, these needs call for an innovative, balanced and realistic political response.
Such a response must bear in mind the great opportunities for job creation and respond to the new demands, whilst preventing new forms of discrimination against women at work as well as further uncertainty and deregulation. We should certainly welcome and support new job creation initiatives and the extension of social welfare and workers' rights aimed at guaranteeing social cohesion and full employment for both men and women.
Fitzsimons recommendation (A4-0052/99)
The full cooperation of Member States is needed if the European Union is to play its full part in reducing the level of greenhouse emissions.
We owe it to future generations to take seriously the long-term implications of the uncontrolled emissions of CO2 and its impact on the environment.
Failure on the part of some Member State governments to cooperate fully in updating and reporting 'new data' is unnecessary and only has the effect of undermining attempts to implement effective control programmes as envisaged in the Kyoto protocol.
Unless we have proper measurements then it is impossible to monitor the effectiveness of control programmes or the full extent of the threat from global warming to 'future generations'.
Ignoring now what is accepted as a real threat will only make the final solution more difficult to achieve.
I welcome the fact that the Environment Ministers have agreed to reduce the EU emissions of six greenhouse gases by 8 per cent between the years 2008-2012.
The figures agreed will permit Ireland to increase emissions only by 13 per cent relative to 1990 figures.
The European Parliament has worked hard in implementing legislation which reduces the use of CO2 gases.
For example, the EU's new directive on regulating pollutants obliges oil companies to sign up to ensuring that the sulphur content in petrol is cut by a threefold reduction and that the sulphur content in diesel is cut by a seven-fold reduction by the year 2005.
If the overall social, human and environmental benefits of clean air are to be secured then the standards laid down by the EU's recent directive on vehicle emissions and fuel quality must be strictly adhered to.
There must be maximum cooperation between the EU Member State governments and all interested bodies so that a reduction in the use of CO2 becomes a reality in the very near future.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted in favour of all the amendments improving the Council's proposal for a monitoring mechanism for CO2 emissions.
In effect, the monitoring mechanism must form one of the essential parts of the Union's general strategy on stabilising CO2 emissions at their 1990 level.
This stabilisation will help to improve energy efficiency, whilst also allowing us to honour the commitments we made under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
However, CO2 monitoring alone is not enough.
We need to monitor and stabilise methane (CH4 ) emissions, nitrous oxide (N2 O) emissions, gases that directly affect air quality, and gas emissions that have negative effects on the ozone layer, such as perfluorocarbons (PFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6 ).
Expanding our monitoring to include gases not initially provided for will allow us to carry out a more reliable analysis of all elements that harm our atmosphere.
I should also like to remind the House that although the European Union has made visible efforts to maintain air quality, similar efforts must be made by all developed countries.
Our efforts would be in vain if other countries did not bring their greenhouse gas emissions under control.
This is why the action taken by Member States to extend the debate to world level is so important.
Hautala recommendation (A4-0002/99)
Acidification is a very serious problem in Scandinavia.
It is not just we who create the problem - the United Kingdom and continental and Eastern Europe also contribute to it.
The Commission's proposal to place a ceiling on the sulphur content of heavy fuel oils and gas oils is a step in the right direction. Allowing for exemptions and permitting Member States to impose tougher standards also bodes well for the future.
However, the proposal lacks muscle.
The committee's requirement that the objective should be the elimination of sulphur as a pollutant is, on the whole, a definite improvement.
The Council has accepted Parliament's demand that the directive should also include bunker oil and marine gas oil.
At second reading, the committee has specified that implementation should be speeded up by bringing forward the deadline for fuel oils.
I support the committee's proposal that the lower limit value for gas oils should come into force as from the year 2004, instead of 2008.
Virgin recommendation (A4-0001/99)
One day waste is of no value, but suddenly the next day it is very valuable.
That transformation was particularly noticeable in the past, when waste from the EU was exported to third countries.
These countries may possibly have been able to extract a small amount of the metals contained in the waste, but it was not a very good proposition for the environment.
There were also examples of third countries simply not being able to use the waste they accepted; they were simply paid for acting as the receiving country, in other words we used these third countries as dumping grounds because they were cheap alternatives to compliance with European environmental standards.
The new rules have given rise to much confusion and concern among humanitarian organisations which make collections for people in need.
Let us make it clear that the collection of clothing for people in third countries who need it can continue.
However, the new factor is that recipient countries must actively inform the Commission that they wish to receive the waste.
That is the only way in which we in the EU can be sure that the recipient countries have actually decided that they want the waste we ship in across their borders.
It is a guarantee that the countries can handle it in a proper way, according to their own rules.
We must keep all unusable waste at home and treat it under our own rules in environmentally sound waste disposal facilities.
The report by our colleague Mr Virgin attempts to provide a satisfactory response to shipments of certain types of waste to non-OECD countries.
On the whole, I share the rapporteur's views, particularly as regards abandoning the idea of a new list of forms of waste that cannot be exported.
Like Mr Virgin, I believe that we need to reconsider the definition of waste.
In this respect, it is vital that the Commission is able to take swift action in this field.
I also share the fears of non-profit organisations as regards exporting certain forms of waste and, more specifically, exporting secondhand clothes.
These organisations' activities help our most vulnerable fellow citizens to truly become part of society, as well as trying to 'offer' the affected populations in these countries a better life.
Challenging the export of these clothes would have serious consequences for the viability of such organisations.
Jackson recommendation (A4-0028/99)
It is with satisfaction that I welcome the report by our colleague Mrs Jackson.
However, I cannot help thinking that this text has taken far too long to come into being.
My disgruntled mood is not caused by the author of this report but rather by the Commission which, I believe, has behaved very casually towards such an important aspect of environmental policy.
Faced with the increase in waste from urban areas there is, as the rapporteur underlined, a need to take steps to reduce the volume of landfill.
In view of this, it would be most pleasing if the Commission were to take strong initiatives to promote alternatives such as composts and biogas from biodegradable waste.
However, I support the proposal to introduce a tax on waste going to landfill.
How can we actually think that we have an infinite amount of space available for use as landfill sites? Health considerations are also part of the equation as no one can deny that this type of landfill is potentially dangerous, not only for the environment but also for human beings.
Finally, I certainly support the hierarchy in waste treatment introduced by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
However, once this hierarchy has been established, the Commission must take it into account when drawing up Community programmes related to such issues.
We must show how determined we are to progress in this field as we cannot accept that future generations be left to suffer the consequences of our current inactivity!
As at the first reading of the Jackson report, I have decided to support the report because its basic views are reasonable and well thought out.
However, I would continue to point out that the greatest threat to the ability of Member States to set up national waste disposal systems which go further than the rules that can be adopted at EU level remains the EU's internal market.
As long as waste in the EU's terminology continues to be treated as merchandise, there will be an incentive for large producers of waste in EU countries with strict rules on waste management to ship their waste to facilities in other Member States which only comply with the EU's minimum rules.
If it is not made possible, not just in principle but also in practice, to put a stop to this waste tourism across the EU's internal frontiers, the environment will continue to suffer.
At the same time, we should not forget the economic damage to waste disposal facilities located in environmentally progressive EU countries.
Their facilities will lose quantities of waste, perhaps to a neighbouring country with its cheaper solutions.
I am pleased to support Mrs Jackson's report.
Landfill of waste should, as the rapporteur says, be an option of last resort.
Landfill is necessary in some cases. We must accept that.
The problem is that in many EU Member States it has become the easy option with dire consequences for the environment.
Stricter controls are necessary.
People in residential areas should not have to put up with unsightly and potentially dangerous sites in their neighbourhoods.
At the same time we should have a much better programme in every state to encourage people to dispose of waste with more regard to the environment.
I know that in some countries there are already schemes for the separation of household waste to provide for better recycling.
I trust that this will eventually become the norm in every Member State.
It is the responsibility of Member States to improve waste disposal, using alternatives to landfill, without penalising the taxpaying public.
The landfill tax in my country is a prime example of how an ill-conceived idea that does not address the real problem can lead to taxpayers being out of pocket.
Without a strategy from central government to rethink waste disposal, the landfill tax simply means that local authorities find themselves with no alternative but to pass the cost on to ratepayers.
How this contributes to reducing dependence on landfill is anyone's guess.
I trust that in the future we will have a much better approach to waste disposal in the EU.
It is essential that landfill becomes, as far as possible, a thing of the past.
To achieve this compliance with the legislation is essential.
Member States must embrace this legislation if it is to have any effect.
The EU Council's common position on a proposed landfill directive aims to prevent or reduce environmental damage and health risks caused by landfill. But unfortunately it is lacking in a number of key areas.
This directive will have major implications for waste disposal throughout the EU and especially in Ireland where waste management has tended to focus exclusively on landfill.
Despite the fact that landfill is considered the least-favoured option for waste disposal in Europe, Ireland comes top of the EU list for using landfill to dispose of its huge waste mountains.
This is the second attempt at an EU landfill directive.
The Commission first submitted a proposal in 1991, which was withdrawn after Parliament, under pressure from environmental groups, rejected the Council's common position in 1996.
Although in some respects the proposal is much better than what was presented in 1996, I am concerned that a number of aspects of the legislation are very weak and could result in governments finding ways to opt out of their commitments on waste management and public health protection.
One major problem is the possibility that landfill sites which have closed at the time of transposition of this directive will be excluded from the remit of the legislation.
Authorities are already planning to close down a significant number of currently active landfill sites in Ireland over the next two years.
Some of these are extremely problematic sites.
Since aftercare is an important part of the directive, it is essential that these sites due to be closed come under the directive.
I am extremely disappointed with the attitude of the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for not insisting that a minimum distance from the site boundary to residential areas be established.
The EU Commission had originally proposed stipulating a minimum distance of 0.5 km from the site boundary to residential areas but the Council of Ministers deleted this from the text of the draft directive.
The issue of distance is extremely important to community groups throughout the EU. Especially since research (published in The Lancet , August 1998) has shown that infant mortality and birth defects increase by as much as 33 % in host communities within a 3 km distance of landfill dumps.
This failure to set a minimum distance and thus protect local communities from the dangers of landfill goes against the precautionary approach and the protection of public health.
The Green Group tabled an amendment on the issue and will be requesting a registered vote so that local communities at home can see how serious MEPs are about protecting public health.
We find it incredible that so many MEPs would reject measures to ensure that public health is protected.
It is also worth pointing out that in the original proposal from the Commission a minimum distance from residential areas was included and was later removed by the Council.
The Commission should have stuck to its original position and the Socialists should not have done a U-turn on this issue either.
They have failed miserably in their responsibility to protect public health.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is in favour of Community harmonisation of measures on the landfill of waste.
Indeed, if one of the Member States had lax legislation, we could easily find ourselves faced with the problem of waste being relocated. Member States with stricter legislation would obviously transfer their waste to the less strict Member States.
However, our group points out that the Member States must retain sovereignty as regards setting a tax or fee.
This is why we voted against the amendments providing for a European tax on the landfill of waste.
On a technical note, we voted against the amendment replacing the term 'inert waste' with the term 'non-hazardous waste'.
I know from experience that in the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the majority of Members prefer the term 'non-hazardous waste'. At what stage can we decide that waste is non-hazardous?
Initially, some people may wish to use a sufficiently vague definition and then later draw up increasingly strict standards, or even unrealistic ones. This would have severe financial repercussions both for economic operators and for local and regional authorities.
Finally, our group voted against the amendment seeking to shorten the time-scale for applying the directive.
It is important to allow enough time for local authorities and waste sector operators to conform to the directive.
I should like to point out that any standard and any decision will only be accepted if it is realistic and fair.
To conclude, our group did, of course, vote in favour of the recommendation at second reading and in favour of the majority of amendments promoting biodegradable waste, which is the most environmentally friendly form of waste.
Cox report (A4-0015/99)
Mr President, we are now in a very difficult position on this report. The whole report has been referred back.
I hope this Parliament will now look at the implications for taxation on those products which are manufactured using energy.
In particular in the ceramics sector we have a policy in the European Union of encouraging employment, and having a resolution which will tax one sector unilaterally is going to be very difficult.
We now have a second bite at the cherry.
I reserve my right to come back on this when it goes back to committee.
The Swedish Social Democrats are of the opinion that a tax trade-off whose aim is to improve the environment and create jobs should be based on a high minimum level of taxation.
Consequently, we have decided to vote for the highest possible minimum level of taxation on electricity and fuel.
On the question of whether to exempt energy-intensive industries, in our view the Commission's proposal has advantages and disadvantages.
There is a danger that imposing very high taxes on energy-intensive industries will mean that their competitiveness in relation to their counterparts outside the Union will be impaired.
At the same time, it should be borne in mind that energy-intensive industries represent a major source of tax revenue if we are to meet the environmental objectives by means of a tax trade-off.
Furthermore, it should be noted that exemptions for energy-intensive industries could put the enterprises against whom they are competing, but which do not use energy-intensive methods to produce their products or materials, at a competitive disadvantage.
In adopting a position on the taxation of energy-intensive industries, we have decided to strike a balance between these approaches.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a revision of the minimum rates of duty in the EU for the taxation of mineral oils.
The Commission's original proposal had a long series of complicated grounds for exemption, but the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has proposed a better solution. Its effect will be that firms which can show that they will suffer a competitive loss as a result of the duties may be exempted from paying them.
This proposal builds on the EU's active employment policy in providing a reasonable stimulus for a change in tax systems so that the taxation of labour is reduced, while at the same time taxes on the use of natural resources are increased.
This is a green policy with an employment objective.
We strongly supported the Cox report, which adopts a courageous and original stance on a subject full of pitfalls.
The Commission proposal tried to steer a course through them all, but the complex result remained stranded on the sandbank of the status quo.
The European Union cannot afford to let this happen. It must respect the undertakings given in the UN Framework Treaty on Climate Change.
The rapporteur is right in starting from the assumption that the polluter must pay.
It is not a question of saddling taxpayers with extra taxes, but of making the polluter face up to the consequences of his behaviour.
Our ultimate goal is to reduce harmful emissions and improve public health and the environment.
Member States must therefore make a serious start on reducing secondary labour costs.
In this respect, the Member States must be given maximum scope on the exemption options, so that one Member State can pursue a stricter than average environmental policy on the one hand, and its own exemption policy on the other.
Of course this policy must not negate the objectives of the Community legislation.
We voted against Amendments Nos 37 and 38, as they are inconsistent with the rapporteur's proposals.
Above all, people have to realise that transport prices in general are too low in relation to the external effects which transport causes.
We supported Amendment No 29.
The international exemption for aircraft kerosene must be abolished as quickly as possible.
Until an agreement on this seems to be within reach, an EU regulation on a fly-over tax would seem to be a good temporary solution.
Finally, we believe that this regulation will be more readily accepted if we fix the minimum rates for a period of five years.
Companies will then know a long time in advance what they are going to be faced with.
The indexing of minimum rates introduced by Mr Cox is a good way of making the regulation simple and reliable.
I fully agree with our rapporteur that a good tax is one that is simple to understand, easy to collect and difficult to evade.
The proposal for a Council directive, as amended, largely meets these criteria.
I also support the line taken by our rapporteur in advocating a strict application of the 'polluter pays' principle.
It is also important that any increase in tax measures in order to better protect the environment is accompanied by an equivalent reduction in the tax burden on labour.
Through the principle of tax neutrality, better respect for the environment will make a positive contribution to the fight against unemployment and to job creation, which is something that we all need. And it will do this without jeopardising the financing of social security, the pride and joy of the European development model.
Unfortunately, in the final analysis, it would seem that our rapporteur only partially takes into consideration the different environmental aspects of the issue.
This explains why he supports, for example, preferential tax treatment for more environmentally friendly modes of transport, and quite rightly so, yet does not distinguish between whether or not the energy used has harmful effects on the climate.
The implication behind the proposals is that 'the common minimum rate will apply equally to electricity and heat generated by solar, wind or combined heat and power and to that generated by coal'.
One may think, as the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection does, that there is a gap that must be filled as rapidly as possible if the Union and its Member States are to honour their international commitments concerning climate preservation.
To my mind, we should seek to develop this proposal a little further along these lines.
I cannot support the Cox report, though not because I do not share its views on the need to tax the use of energy and fuels, especially those which are non-renewable.
The reason why I am withholding my support is that I do not wish to contribute to any decision whereby policy on taxes and duties is determined to an ever-increasing extent by the EU.
There may be many good reasons why countries should negotiate common minimum rules for the taxation of areas such as energy consumption - concern for the environment, as well as concern for fair competition between countries - in various international forums such as the UN, the Council of Europe, the OECD, the WTO and so on.
For me, the Cox report and the proposal for a directive on which it is based are a glaring example of the creeping harmonisation of Member States' tax and duty policies which is currently taking place in the EU: harmonisation which is motivated first and foremost by concern for the internal market, but to an ever-increasing extent by concern for EMU and the single currency, the euro; harmonisation which is logical and correct, if one is an advocate of the EMU and the euro.
I am not an advocate of either the euro and EMU or the internal market, and for that reason I shall not be supporting the Cox report.
The Commission's proposal represents the first step towards a tax trade-off from labour to energy through the introduction of minimum levels of taxation.
However, the Commission's proposal contains far too many exemptions for energy-intensive industries, in other words those which should by rights be taxed.
As a result, the legislation is complex, hard to understand and difficult to apply.
The committee's proposal broadens the tax base by removing some of the exemptions.
The committee also proposes that the Member States should be entitled to allow firms a tax-free period if they can demonstrate that it really puts them at a competitive disadvantage.
General exemptions should only be granted on renewable sources of energy such as bioenergy and solar and wind power.
The committee proposes that tax rates should automatically be reassessed in line with inflation, with an extra 2 % increase every year, to enable industry to plan ahead.
This is a good way to proceed.
However, I have voted to raise the level to 4 % in order to facilitate compliance with the Rio, Kyoto and Buenos Aires declarations on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, with the majority of the House, rejected the Cox report.
Firstly, it was rejected because it is the Member States' responsibility, and theirs alone, to define taxation on the energy products they deem appropriate to their needs and specific requirements, particularly as regards energy independence.
In addition, our group voted against the proposal for a directive as presented by the Commission as it was both too complex and too unjust.
Our group also voted against the proposals by Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy as the proposals appeared both to excessively penalise some sectors of activity and to be fully inconsistent with the commitments we made within the framework of the WTO.
That concludes voting time.
The sitting was suspended at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Mutual recognition of telecommunications equipment
The next item is the report (A4-0055/99) by Mrs Read, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on connected telecommunications equipment and the mutual recognition of the conformity of the equipment (3635/98 - C4-0024/99-97/0149(COD)).
Mr President, I am glad to see that one or two colleagues have arrived.
I was tempted to start my contribution with a quotation from Gray's Elegy written in a Country Churchyard: 'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, /And waste its sweetness on the desert air.'
I hope the interpreters can cope with that.
It is a bit presumptuous to compare myself to a flower, but, as so often, those who have worked very hard on this particular piece of the jigsaw in the liberalisation of the telecommunications market are here to join in the debate.
I am also delighted to report the successful conclusion of this piece of work.
The Commission and other colleagues will recollect that seven or eight years ago we tried to do this using a system of test-house certification for type approval of telecommunications terminal equipment.
For a variety of reasons, which we need not dwell on here, that really did not work terribly well, and Parliament and the committee took the view that the Commission was right to look at moving towards a system of manufacturers' self-certification.
We have resolved a number of important issues, particularly at the conciliation stage.
One was the question of the ability of terminal equipment to harm the network.
I would draw the attention of Members to the joint declaration of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission that came out of the conciliation process, because this is very sensible and states that the Commission will carry out a continuous assessment and will evaluate whether that risk occurs frequently.
I went to a considerable amount of trouble to try to find out how frequent a risk this was going to be. I am very happy that the Commission will undertake this piece of work.
At the conciliation stage we also adopted some strengthening amendments on the whole question of consumer rights that were flagged up to us from some Member States, but Portugal in particular.
The directive is now the stronger because of that work.
During the work in committee and Parliament we also consulted with the Commission about essential requirements and the rights of disabled users, which, again, strengthened the proposal.
There are also clauses on the efficient use of radio spectrum and the emergency services.
All in all, I hope we can congratulate ourselves on having done a very worthwhile piece of work.
I commend both Parliament's view and the conciliation conclusion to you all.
Mr President, Commissioner, in my opinion Mrs Read has achieved excellent results.
I did not realise that she was such a fine diplomat when it comes to politics and the telecommunications and radio sector.
She has succeeded in combining the many very diverse elements of this issue, and, on behalf of my group, I wish to say I am happy that we have achieved consensus.
Certain factors which Parliament feels are important have now been taken into consideration, such as, for example, adapting equipment for use by the disabled, something that has to be included in all technical matters.
Standards have been raised, and the question of the radio ham has also been given attention.
The question of the responsibility of the manufacturer and that of the distributor has also been raised.
That is important because when this procedure is applied more widely it will be as if the burden of responsibility were much further removed, and thus Parliament is absolutely right to have highlighted the issue.
We have found a procedure to apply in the case of equipment that does not comply with standards and in emergency situations, and naturally, as usual, Parliament has stressed the need for transparency.
We see that many of the requests made by Parliament have been given due attention, making for a healthy compromise.
Customers and consumers can therefore feel safe using equipment, while sanctions and operations remain in skilled hands.
I therefore think the agreement that has been reached is a good one and an example of how progress can be made in such matters, to end in a spirit of consensus.
Practice will reveal what the future holds, and if there are defects in the system we will have to go back and deal with them.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I rise to address this subject out of sympathy more than anything else, because everything that there was to say on the content of the proposal has already been said.
I say out of sympathy also because since 1992 this subject has played such a major role here.
Parliament and the Council are of course working on the final phase of adoption, but in the preliminary stages, the Commission and all the services were very heavily involved.
I mention this in particular because - especially as far as radiocommunication services are concerned, and this is the direction in which the debate is now heading - it simply was not possible to start work on this soon enough for this dossier to be brought to a conclusion in time to have an effect.
It is this area of development which we believe is particularly significant.
If you think that in the future a large proportion of terminal equipment will operate by radio, that is by cordless transmission, then you will see how important this whole subject is, and how important the whole debate has been.
If you listen to the experts, who say that in terms of technical development, one year today is equivalent to seven years in the past, then you have some idea of how urgently this decision was needed.
I can only congratulate all of us - Parliament, the Council and the Commission - on going through the conciliation procedure and thus concluding our work on this far-sighted proposal.
Mr President, if Mrs Read is feeling a little lonely here in plenary she could comfort herself with the words of England's own bard, Shakespeare: 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers' (and, I would add, sisters ).
The presence of many people is not always a sign of the importance or seriousness of the subject.
Both the Commission and I personally have always greatly appreciated your work.
By bringing forward European legislation and in that way defending the interests of citizens I would say that you are one of the most effective Members of Parliament.
I only hope my remarks will not harm your chances of re-election.
Unfortunately the citizens themselves do not always appreciate the good that is being done for them, especially here.
Both Parliament and the Commission have to show that they are effectively fighting red tape and over-regulation.
There is a prejudiced view that we produce ever more regulations but, in fact, the piece of legislation that we have been producing here - and, thanks to your efforts, have been able to complete and convince the Council of - is replacing more than 1, 000 national regulations.
I am sure that we are listening to each other.
People who have prejudices will not listen to us.
They will repeat what they are always repeating, namely that the European Parliament and especially the Commission are eager only to produce new regulations for regulation's sake.
Considering the advantages for small and medium-sized enterprises that this is creating, I would like to see some of their associations praise Mrs Read.
It is something which is making their lives easier.
I would say to our trading partners, the US and Japan especially, who are always attacking Europe and saying we are a Fortress Europe, that we are now the most open market-place for these products in the world.
We can only hope - and we will do our utmost to ensure - that our trading partners will follow our example.
So many thanks to Mrs Read and to everybody who has participated in the work.
The Commission is quite satisfied, and we endorse the declaration by Parliament and the Council that some adverse effects could possibly result from the introduction of these devices.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Copyright and related rights in the Information Society
The next item is the report (A4-0026/99) by Mr Barzanti, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the Information Society (COM(97)0628 - C4-0079/98-97/0359(COD)).
Mr President, let me first of all say how much I appreciate, as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, the job that Mr Barzanti has done.
His responsibilities as rapporteur on this highly complex issue have not been easy to measure up to.
I now speak as the person who drafted the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and I have some sympathy with what he has gone through.
This is the bundle of lobbying letters, faxes and e-mails that I have received this week on Strasbourg on this particular issue.
I suspect that Mr Barzanti has probably got a pile even larger than that.
This is a highly controversial issue.
On the one hand you have the deserving cases of the artists.
We are shortly to be lobbied here this afternoon by Jean-Michel Jarre and one or two other prominent people in the music industry.
But behind them you have also the very powerful phonogram companies, most of which are American.
I have also discovered from the letters I have received, in this file, that many other bodies have a legitimate interest in this, particularly people who have an interest in the economic results of what the Commission is proposing.
I have been astonished in the time I have been working on this to find out how wide a range of interests are involved in this particular project: not only the performers and the record companies but the manufacturers of consumer electronic products; the Internet service providers; representatives of telecommunications companies and of the disabled - I have a letter here from the European Union for the Blind who are very worried about the implications for them of some of the amendments proposed by the Legal Affairs Committee.
Here, I have to make a confession. Confession, as we say in English, is good for the soul!
I have to admit that as a member of the Legal Affairs Committee, I voted for Mr Barzanti's opinion.
But I also confess that it was such a complicated vote that I lost sight of some of the amendments that my committee - the Economic Committee - had been responsible for.
Some of them - particularly those that affect broadcasting - were incorporated into the Legal Affairs Committee's opinion, but many of them were not.
If I have a criticism of the Legal Affairs Committee's opinion, it is that it is too one-sided.
It comes down too much on the side of the owners of the rights and ignores the legitimate interests of those other groups that I mentioned: the disabled, the consumer electronics manufacturers, the Internet service providers, the telecommunications companies etc.
Neither the Commission nor the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament wishes to make life unduly difficult for people.
But the fact is that we have - as I respectfully suggest - got too involved in detail in the Legal Affairs Committee's opinion.
What I would hope is that, as a result of tomorrow's vote, we will come up with something which is clearer, technologically neutral, at least as good for industry as is American legislation and sufficient to comply with the World International Property Organisation treaty commitments which we have entered into.
Mr President, I want to congratulate my colleague, Roberto Barzanti, who has always been an elegant and eloquent contributor to our debate.
Speaking as a near contemporary of his, I am somewhat alarmed that he has felt that this should be his last Parliament, which of course also means that this will be his last report.
I salute him for all he has done in this area.
He has, of course, been caught in the balance of forces between all the great interests involved here which Mr Cassidy referred to, and he is also caught by the fact that the regulations we are trying to make here have to fit in with the new world of encryption and electronic commerce, as well as all the other areas where copyright and ownership are of the essence.
I wish I could say all was sweetness and light in this debate.
Alas this has not been the case and there are doubts that have to be expressed.
I wish to list just a few in my brief minute.
Many of us are not certain that we should assume that the world is utterly changed because of digital technology.
We can see from the report that the Commission takes a more cautious view than the rapporteur, and rightly so.
Digital copying obviously makes profound differences to some, especially in the field of music reproduction, which we need to take account of that and protect it as fully as we can.
We also need to deal with piracy with an iron hand.
But when you use the iron hand, you have to be very careful what you crush, and many of us have tabled amendments giving some protection to other interests which may lose in the new digital field what they have traditionally enjoyed in the analogue field, because of the implications of some of the rapporteur's suggestions.
I mention in particular those groups which are covered by such exemptions under the right of reproduction and may lose them: the disabled in all their various categories that are not specifically and sufficiently mentioned by the rapporteur; and those institutions of learning which also tackle disadvantage.
Amendments 89 to 96 which I and a number of other colleagues have tabled attempt to strengthen their position, not because we have anything against the definition of copyright and the protection of rights holders, but because we consider other cultural matters as well.
The last doubt I can raise in this brief account concerns the right of free speech which is entrenched in the protection of quotation, criticism and review.
We have to be certain that this does not disappear under the assertion of copyright.
I have to declare my interest as a rights holder in some broadcasting matters, but I am not speaking here today in that sense.
I am speaking against myself and in the interests of access by consumers and citizens which also has to be considered very seriously when we debate this directive.
Mr President, I too should like to join in the congratulations to the rapporteur, also on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, because I think that the draft report, as subsequently adopted in the committee responsible, does actually adapt the legislation effectively to the new technical reality.
I wish to comment briefly on the points already made in connection with Article 5, points which proved to be particularly contentious in the discussions of recent months and to which the mountain of letters piling up in all our offices also relates.
Should the exceptions in Article 5 be compulsory or voluntary for the Member States? Both the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media and the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights have opted here for non-compulsory provisions, because - and this is also in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity - they give the Member States a certain amount of scope when drawing up their own legislation.
If the Member States provide for exceptions in this context, however, they must also ensure - by a method to be devised by the Member States - that rightholders receive a share of the proceeds or a particular level of compensation.
The Culture Committee envisages that rules of this kind might comprise either a flat-rate charge and/or methods analogous to those already used in the Member States to regulate the protection of intellectual property.
A further point was how private copying should be regulated in the digital environment.
I think that a derogation should only be granted for reproductions made by individuals which are intended purely for their own private use and not for commercial ends, and where there is no further dissemination to third parties.
If technical measures are insufficient to prevent this right from being abused, then in my opinion a remuneration scheme - for example a levy on equipment or copying materials - should be introduced to ensure that rightholders receive at least partial compensation, as is of course already the case in the analogue field in eleven of the fifteen Member States.
This position may at first sight conflict with the interests of consumers and the hardware industry, because their associations are calling for the existing provisions in the analogue field to be extended to digital copying as well.
I can understand this demand from the point of view of the groups I have mentioned, but I think that ultimately, exceptions to the exclusive right of copyright can only be justified by a higher social interest, which should then be substantiated as accurately as possible.
Broad sections of the population having access to these new forms of knowledge and learning is something we should very much welcome.
We should not forget, however, that in the long term, the wishes of equipment manufacturers and consumers can only be met if diversity of content is guaranteed. This diversity of content requires those offering it to be protected too.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has generously accepted a number of the ideas put forward by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, which means that we can also support the report's adoption in the form in which it has been presented by the Legal Affairs Committee.
I think it is balanced, even though this concept has now been the object of some criticism here.
It is a directive which safeguards the interests of rightholders and protects intellectual property.
It is therefore bound to carry a certain amount of weight in this sector, and rightly so in my view.
Mr President, where cultural matters are concerned, it is the duty of the European Parliament to protect artists, stimulate creativity, strengthen society's creative powers and thus show respect for intellectual achievement.
That is our cultural duty, and it is one which the rapporteur has fulfilled admirably.
That is why the Socialist Group will be supporting this position.
The Commission proposal bears all the signs of a compromise.
Of course, with such diverse interests it is very difficult to reach a consensus, and of course there is room for improvement.
I should just like to mention two points which I think are very important.
The first concerns the limitations on copyright, in which context we have logically proposed providing compensation.
Limiting copyright is not synonymous with doing without compensation.
I know that this view was shared by some of the Commission. I would be very grateful if the whole Commission would support these proposals.
The other point concerns the infamous Article 5(1).
I really do not understand the Commission here at all.
You see, by introducing Article 5(1), what the Commission does is abandon artists.
It leaves them unable to defend themselves against piracy.
Illegal distribution of works, of all things, is to be promoted, with artists being left defenceless.
Anyone acting in this way and actually giving preference to the interests of the distributors is no longer being objective.
I do not believe that the comments we have heard on this point in the public debate are accurate.
It is claimed that the Internet would grind to a halt or that services would not be able to work uninterrupted. That is certainly not true.
That is why I make this urgent request: let us rectify this, the most dangerous point, as it continues to be in the amended Commission proposal.
Let us say no, we will equip artists and rightholders with the technical instruments, in particular, with which to defend themselves against piracy.
The Commission is not able to tell us today how it actually intends to do this.
I believe that we in the European Parliament should stand on the side of the artists, the rightholders, and that in so doing we are making our contribution to the intellectual development of the European Union.
Mr President, this directive affects at least three interested parties. Their interests may not always conflict, but they certainly do not coincide either.
In the first place, there are the creators.
One of the distinguishing features of European culture is that long ago it gave rise to the concept of intellectual property, the creator's property. There has been a general consensus that creativity should be recognised and remunerated, remuneration being the ultimate form of recognition.
Creators are therefore the first interested party and we should not forget this, as it is one of the distinguishing features of European culture.
The consumers constitute the second group.
The third group is made up of the middlemen, who have a range of differing interests.
If there is a conclusion to be drawn, it has to be that nobody is happy with Parliament's report.
From my experience as a lawyer, that could be a good sign, because when none of the three parties to a dispute agree with the solution, it probably represents a good compromise between them.
I must therefore congratulate the rapporteur, because both his detailed knowledge of the subject and his skilful handling have been crucial to the matter in hand.
Further, I have to say that the Group of the European People's Party will support this report, even though it is a contentious issue within our group, as indeed it is for your group, Mr Barzanti. In addition, we will support all the amendments, including some that you personally are not in favour of, and in which certain points of detail are indeed technically incorrect.
These amendments - particularly Amendments Nos 30, 31 and 48 - may well prove problematic.
Our group approached this matter from a broad political point of view rather than a technical one. We are aware that the report contains a number of technical difficulties, but they can be dealt with at second reading or by the Commission.
We wish to adopt a political stance.
We support this report and I feel that the fact that neither of the two main political groups has tabled amendments as a group must be an encouraging sign.
I should also like to point out that this report is in line with the Commission's thinking. The directive is not aimed at complete harmonisation.
It only concerns 'the harmonisation of certain aspects'.
It is primarily a directive aimed at updating Community regulations to suit other existing directives, such as the directive on hire, the directive on databases and the directive on computer programmes. In particular, it follows the two major 1996 WIPO agreements.
The structure must therefore be respected, and I feel that this report by the Committee on Legal Affairs represents an excellent response to the delicate balance called for in the Commission's proposal. The three fundamental principles - reproduction, communication and distribution - receive even-handed treatment in an article which allows room for manoeuvre, enabling the various Member States to maintain often long-standing differences which do not hinder the smooth running of the internal market.
I believe that this is an important directive, pointing the way, as I have suggested, to 'framework harmonisation' directives which do not seek to harmonise every last detail, but only what is necessary.
I offer the rapporteur my full support, and hope that his position will be endorsed by a majority vote tomorrow. Finally, I must reiterate my view that the rapporteur's approach is well-balanced and sends a clear message to the Commission.
Mr President, Commissioner, it has been said on countless occasions here in the House that what is needed is a set of international rules for the information society to ensure that our countries retain their competitiveness in the new business sectors it creates.
If we adopt the directive in the form in which it has been submitted by the committee, I am afraid that we shall not be acting consistently with what we have said in other circumstances. We will be setting up a system which makes it more difficult for many of those participating in the information society to operate.
There are no clearly defined rules governing the sharing of responsibility.
As a result, I believe that a growing part of the action is moving away from Europe to other places - one might say that 'the best is the enemy of the good'.
While the proposal for a directive was being drawn up, I asked repeatedly and with ever more insistence the following fundamental questions: would it not be better to ratify the WIPO Convention quickly and approve the directive dealing with electronic commerce?
Do we need anything else? Should we not accept that this directive was produced before we had come up with a definite proposal on electronic commerce and before we had formed a general view on the sharing of responsibility on the networks?
It is essential that the WIPO Convention should be ratified quickly.
It affects absolutely everyone in this sector.
It is not certain that we need this directive, and in fact I believe it is holding up ratification.
Is it really in anyone's interest?
Many countries in Europe have public rights of way, in other words the public has access to private land where no damage is likely to result and prohibition would be unreasonable.
In my view, similar rights of way should exist in the digital world.
To a degree, the Commission's proposal respected that, but not the rapporteur's.
Consequently, we have tabled a number of amendments which are based on the idea of a 'digital right of way'.
I agree with Mr Whitehead that we should not make too great a distinction between digital and analogue technology here.
Cultural differences do exist, and so I do not understand why there should not be mandatory provision for exemptions.
On the other hand, the list of copyright exemptions needs to be complete.
We have to combat piracy, and the way to do so is through cooperation with the countries with whom we have dealings and other forms of association.
However, we should encourage those concerned to devise a method that is neutral, in other words capable of preventing piracy but which does not impede openness or lead to the emergence of a closed system.
That would fit the bill, and I am glad to see that Mr Cassidy has at last woken up to the fact.
At the same time, it is also crucial that the public should not be deprived of the rights which the directive would give them.
I also wish to join in the congratulations to the rapporteur on his very able handling of an extremely difficult brief and report.
Even though I do not subcribe to all the proposals put forward by the rapporteur, I personally believe that he has come up with a very balanced approach towards resolving the problem.
However, I disagree with some Members who say that the Internet and the new technologies offered by digital communications do not present a danger or mean a huge change in the future, because we can already see, in its very infancy, that digital technology, the Internet and the new information society have altered the way we do business and communicate.
In the future, they will also alter the way in which we get our entertainment - whether through music, plays, television programmes, films or books.
Therefore, it is essential for us now to come up with a balanced approach as to how best protect the intellectual property rights of the creators.
Often people involved in music, art or literature tend to be laughed at because they have no business sense: they tend to care more for their art and the public presentation of their art than for mere commercial realities or business necessities.
Therefore, it is incumbent on us, as we benefit spiritually from the material these people produce, to put in place protection to guarantee that their rights will not be usurped by pirates or others.
Some time ago we debated about giving the rights to artists who sell their artwork.
There was a lot of debate in this House about whether artwork sold by auction would go to America rather than to Europe if we adopted this legislation.
Since that legislation came into being, there has been no noticeable difference.
There is a proper balanced way to achieve the rights that everybody here wants to see.
Whilst consumers also deserve protection of their rights - ensuring that they have the widest possible access to information at the most reasonable cost (sometimes for free) - there are also responsibilities on the consumer to pay for some of these rights.
That responsibility must also be balanced with the rights of the authors and the creators of these works to ensure that their rights are protected.
I have submitted a number of amendments to this report to ensure that there will be no reduction in the dissemination of information through public libraries, educational facilities and so on; that indigenous culture will be preserved and developed; that the needs of disabled people will not be undermined by this legislation and that the cultural and social importance of major sporting events will be protected.
All in all, my group will support the Barzanti report but we urge that our amendments be adopted.
Finally, I should like to ask the Commissioner whether there will be another proposal from the Commission with regard to copyright and related rights in the information society in the near future?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, thanks to digitisation, reproduction technology is now so advanced that there is no discernible difference between the original and the copy.
In an age of digital communication, anyone not wishing to put at risk everything that copyright rules have achieved must reformulate them in such a way as to take account of the demands of the new technology and the industry using it.
The fact that this draft satisfies these demands - and not least that it puts the stress on copyright - is due to the preparatory work carried out by the Commission, but in no lesser measure to the judiciousness, determination and patience of the rapporteur.
If these achievements are not to be put at risk, it is particularly important to adopt Amendments Nos 33, 34 and 37 and also to take into account the consequences, as expressed in Amendments Nos 97 and 95.
I hope we all agree that we do not want to go back to a time when the famous composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Chopin's teacher, had to secure copyright protection for composers for the very first time, and when the great philosopher Schelling lost a case challenging the illegal reproduction of his texts because he was not protected by any rights at all.
Mr President, the June Movement sees free access to information as the very cornerstone of democracy.
The public must retain the right to information and education at libraries and other publicly financed institutions.
In this context, consideration should be given to the weaker members of society.
That is why the June Movement has tabled amendments, seeking to ensure that for example the visually handicapped have the same free access as everyone else to material in libraries when the purpose is not commercial.
A second general principle is that artists should own all the rights connected with the exploitation of their work.
They themselves should be able to negotiate the scale of their remuneration and what rights they transfer to a producer.
In Scandinavia, we have a long successful tradition of solving difficult copyright issues with the help of licensing agreements, and we need to retain this option.
Finally, I would like to draw attention to Amendment No 56, which quite unreasonably calls for journalists to have the same rights as authors when newspapers use their articles.
Such a principle is contrary to both copyright law and agreements, and would entail an unreasonable commercial risk for the newspapers.
This too is a question of democratic access to information.
In other respects I am in complete agreement with Mrs Thors with regard to this directive.
Mr President, the proposal for a directive is significant because it points the way ahead. This has already become clear from the public response.
The right of artists to have their works protected must also be guaranteed in the age of the Internet.
For this to be the case, a legal framework needs to be established and the rapporteur has successfully done this.
I can support most of the amendments proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Alongside the pro-artist provisions, I should in particular like to draw your attention to the proposed rules on the use of archive productions.
I think that the rules need to offer incentives to producers - producers of audio media and those who work for radio - to provide on-line access to the productions they have either produced themselves or on someone else's behalf.
The new technology can make it possible for the film and audio material currently languishing in cellars to be made available to a much larger audience.
Finally, however, let me sound a note of criticism on the linguistic quality of the proposal.
Parts of it are, I think, the perfect example of legislation which is remote and difficult to understand, and which intrinsically fails to comply with the rule of transparency.
Mr President, in all the time that I have been a Member of the European Parliament and its Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, I have never before experienced anything like as complex a legislative procedure as this one on adapting copyright to the requirements of the information society.
There is, therefore, all the more reason for me to wish to thank the rapporteur for trying to guide us through the jungle of numerous conflicting interests and to identify a sound policy.
We may perhaps not agree on all the individual points in this policy, but it has been sketched out and can therefore serve as a guide to both the Council and the Commission.
One point on which everyone is agreed in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is, in any event, the need for a European model of the information society, in which works of high cultural and artistic quality form the core of the content, and the new technologies are not used to undermine existing rights.
Given that content and technologies are universal, however, this does beg the question of whether this aim can be better achieved by having a higher level of protection - compared with the situation worldwide - or whether by doing so we in fact make life so difficult for other players in the European information society that this ultimately also has an adverse effect on rightholders.
If we want more high-quality content, then we should not make it too difficult, or even impossible, for the content providers - as they are now known - and in particular television and radio broadcasters, to distribute this content and pioneer new ways of publishing it.
Consumers are also expecting the information society to bring an increase in easily accessible content, and not repeated requests for money in the future.
This is true, above all, of particularly sensitive groups of consumers, especially the disabled.
I should therefore once again like to call on the rapporteur to tone down the reservations he expressed concerning Amendments Nos 30, 32 and 48, which were accepted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I should also like to express my thanks for the support which these have attracted from the speakers in the House so far.
Mr President, I will confine myself to just two points.
The first is that in Europe we need to encourage the use of the Internet and not discourage it.
Equally, we have to recognise that new technology requires modern thinking and a digital copy simply is not the same as an analogue copy.
It is a clone. This poses a risk for the music industry if such cloning is totally unrestricted.
We should not underestimate the young people of Europe and their entrepreneurial capacity to produce those clones.
Even in today's Financial Times I saw reference to a product of a French company which has launched a multipurpose CD duplicator.
At the press of a button you can produce an exact clone of the original CD.
I have no doubt at all that the long-term solution to all of this lies in new technology, but there will also be legal restrictions where that is necessary.
The second point I want to address is the proposal made in a number of amendments, including my own, concerning the possibility of having mediation where there could be disputes between the producers and the disseminators.
We are going to see a lot of litigation as a result of this legislation and that no doubt will play into the hands of the lawyers.
We want to have a system where, in those countries that are prepared to allow it, there should be the right of recourse to an independent mediator who can listen to both sides of the story and arrive at an objective solution that is not actually going to cost vast sums of money which the small users, the small producers, the individual musicians and the like would not have access to.
That is a small point but one I would hope the rapporteur and the Commission would have some sympathy with as a way of helping some of those who are going to be affected by this legislation.
Mr President, the report by Mr Barzanti is excellent and perfectly balanced.
It defends legitimate copyright but takes into account the concern to make all works available to as many people as possible.
This is an important point because in this technical and complex debate some people would have us believe that consumer interests are being prejudiced. This is completely inaccurate.
Neither the author's copyright on his creation nor the remuneration that he is entitled to expect for its dissemination constitute obstacles to making the work available to the public.
If Member States consider that cultural policy demands free access to works, for example, it is up to them to provide for the necessary measures; it is not up to the authors to foot the bill.
In education, for example, could we imagine asking teachers to give up half their salary to pay for the education service? This would obviously be absurd.
Moreover, in my view the fears expressed by television companies and electronics manufacturers are groundless.
Copyright has never been, and never will be, an obstacle to technical progress, and this has been the case since printing was first developed.
On the other hand, without serious protection, technical development can undermine copyright and, as a result, stymie creation.
In my opinion the system proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights in the area of digital private copying is a good one because before any technical measures are developed to protect the rightholders, there will be a financial contribution and fair remuneration, probably as is currently done with the analogue equivalent.
In conclusion, our job is not just to organise a technological free competition and free trade area. It is also our job, as Mr Rothley said, to maintain and develop cultural creation in Europe in all its diversity.
This directive, as amended, generalises and thus confirms the European copyright model without preventing works from being disseminated.
For this reason I, together with part of the ELDR Group, will vote in favour of Mr Barzanti's report.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal and the report both pinpoint the flaws that exist in the Union's legislative procedures.
An international panel of experts should have been appointed to investigate thoroughly the complex problems associated with copyright and public access.
There should have been a broad public discussion before the legislative process was embarked upon.
Instead, we now have a legal text that is obscure and not sufficiently businesslike. Nor does a surfeit of words make the legislation any clearer.
In particular, we regret the lack of clarity in defining the position as regards the provisions that exist in the Nordic countries whereby ordinary people are entitled to have access to official documents and information.
What is most needed in this, as well as in other areas, is a serious in-depth analysis of the problems.
Mr President, Tony Blair once said that his country's culture industry is a greater source of revenue than the steel industry.
But digital technology has now opened up a whole new dimension for pirating.
It is estimated that about one million CDS are stolen from the Internet every day.
It is therefore high time that we introduced legislation, not just for music but for all kinds of audio-visual material.
We must ensure that the author or copyright holder is granted exclusive rights to the reproduction, distribution or any communication of his work to the public.
That is the only way to create a favourable environment which can stimulate creativity and investment.
Effective cross-border protection of intellectual property offers many benefits.
In economic terms it will ensure an expanded market, which in social terms will create more job opportunities, and last but not least there is the cultural dimension.
Consumers must continue to have the guarantee of good quality and, let us not forget, creativity and artistic innovation are the source of income for authors.
In order to continue to preserve and further enrich our artistic identity, our artists must be further encouraged.
Above all, we must take care of young talents who are busy creating what in future may be much loved but unprotected.
People are looking to us to provide effective regulation, including on behalf of those who are not yet famous.
It is up to us as the European legislator to guarantee this.
For this reason I shall be voting for Mr Barzanti's report, on which I congratulate him.
Mr President, the directive is on three levels, namely technical, legal and political, which adds considerably to its complexity.
Both the committee and the rapporteur, Mr Barzanti, have nevertheless done an excellent job.
However, I would urge the House to vote against Amendment No 48 which calls for a non-voluntary licence, or legal presumption.
The Nordic countries have had licensing and collective agreements for a long time, and the experience has been constructive. The agreements also extend to authors who remain outside the organisations responsible for concluding the agreements, and guarantee rights and levels of remuneration.
It is essential that such a system, which benefits all the parties concerned, should be retained and not replaced by a non-voluntary licensing arrangement. To do so would contravene both the Berne and WIPO Conventions.
This is basically a cultural issue, but there is also the question of safeguarding the rights of public institutions, such as hospitals, schools, libraries, museums, archives, prisons and, last but not least, both the rights and opportunities of the disabled.
Free and equal access to information, culture and public documents is essential for the democratic development of society. It is essential that this is guaranteed by the directive.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his good humour and fortitude in tackling this difficult report: difficult, firstly, because it needs to strike a balance between the rights of the authors and the needs of consumers and, secondly, because technology is changing rapidly, which makes it hard to anticipate legislative problems in such a context.
I want to pinpoint three issues: disability rights; the need to be able to report parliamentary and judicial proceedings; and the issue of fair compensation.
On the disability rights issue, I have tabled an amendment for the British Labour Group which is preferred by the disability lobby because it is mandatory rather than optional like the amendment adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
Philip Whitehead and I have also tabled an amendment to allow fair reporting of parliamentary and judicial proceedings.
The issue of fair compensation, and I speak for the British Labour members, poses a problem for the United Kingdom.
Although the exceptions are optional and can be adapted to national law at the will of the Member States, the amendments as they stand at present would introduce the obligation to introduce fair compensation.
In Britain people have got used to copying their favourite TV programme and watching it at leisure at the time most convenient for them.
This is a right which does not incur financial consequences.
The British public would be extremely unhappy if this right was curtailed by having to make a payment.
Therefore my Group cannot accept that concept.
Mr President, copyright is not merely restricted to the question of who is due compensation and how it may be most effectively collected.
Mr Barzanti's report should basically be concerned with the principles of the free development of the information network and its commercial exploitation, in other words, enabling the consumer to use the Internet at the lowest possible cost to him or her.
The protection of copyright is in everyone's interest, but not necessarily on the terms of those who up to now have been in the strongest position.
It is a matter of setting priorities: greater rights for the holder, or the freedoms of the Internet user and the right of the Internet service provider to operate.
As far as the future of the information society is concerned the latter objective is the more crucial one.
The report's basic theme, that digital copyright may be best protected by prohibiting the temporary reproduction of material for transmission, is completely at odds with the widely accepted principles associated with operating the Internet.
If the prohibition of temporary reproduction is allowed to go through and technological monopolies spring up, such practices as surfing the Internet could be forbidden and an ordinary computer could be regarded as an illicit piece of equipment used to dodge copyright protection.
One of Mr Barzanti's main objectives is to improve the conditions under which European copyright holders can get their work published.
However, over 80 % of the market in the sales of music products in Europe is now in non-European hands.
Tightening up on electronic copyright would further concentrate business in the mega-companies of Hollywood.
This, contrary to the opinion of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media in particular, would not improve conditions for European artists to get their work published and sold.
Mr President, safeguarding copyright in the world of the digital information network is a crucially important objective.
Illegal reproduction threatens the legitimate interests of copyright holders and ultimately the production of content in its entirety as well as the profitability of creative work.
However, the public's right to information is just as legitimate and important, as is the development of an information society available to all.
In many Member States a viable copyright environment has been successfully created, one that safeguards a balance between a flexible approach to the use of material and the interests of rightholders.
The EU's copyright directive, and especially the more stringent version proposed by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, is a threat to this balance.
In its present form the directive would significantly restrict the free circulation of information and the ability of public service institutions to provide citizens with a service.
The copyright balance also requires provision to be made for minimum compulsory exemptions connected with access to information, study and research, to act as a counterweight to strong harmonised protection of copyright; such exemptions have already been acknowledged and ratified in all international agreements in this sector.
In addition to compulsory exemption we must be able to create codes of practice to be applied nationally, on the basis of local tradition and culture, for example in collective bargaining agreements.
The consequences of library services being solely dependent on licences being granted, or not, by rightholders, as the proposal for a directive suggests, will be particularly disastrous.
The right to information must not be subject to licence in the lifelong learning society, while distance learning and virtual network services are becoming ever more common.
We certainly do not want to take a step backwards and have a situation where electronic material cannot be seen, browsed or reproduced without a separate licence or charge.
In the democratic information society it is appropriate to safeguard the practice of reproducing material for purposes of study, research or private use particularly via libraries, as libraries, archives and museums have an obligation to guarantee that materials connected with matters of culture and heritage are preserved and accessible in electronic form also.
Mr President, many thanks to Mr Barzanti. He has balanced diverse interests very well.
Quite simply, intellectual creation is vital to the future of our economy but it is also the lifeblood of our society, be it music, film, photographs, books or software.
We are told we must balance interests but, quite frankly, all interests are not equal.
Large telecoms companies will always survive but if we strangle and silence individual creators we will never win them back.
Blank screens will not enrich our society.
We have to ensure creators enjoy sufficient incentive and reward for their work.
A strong system of copyright as proposed by the Commission and Mr Barzanti will ensure dignity, independence and survival for creators.
Too many continue to scrape together a living in a kind of La Bohème garret.
Only 7 % of authors in France earn above the minimum wage.
Let us never forget that.
I have friends who are authors and they survive hand-to-mouth on royalties and have to sell their own belongings to write the next book or create the next film.
I can therefore never support an amendment providing for the forced transfer of rights away from authors to others.
It is absolutely critical to have exemptions for the disabled, education, research, archives, investigative journalism and libraries.
Some would argue that there should be fair use without fair compensation.
Why do we demand of authors and artists what we do not demand of other workers in our economy? Systems of fair compensation through a blank tape levy exist in 11 out of the 15 countries.
All the UK creators and their trade unions support a blank tape levy.
All I am saying to British Members of this House is: do not vote against Amendments Nos 34, 36, 37 and 41. Allow the creators and others in the United Kingdom to have a fair debate about whether we should have a blank tape levy.
Let me make it clear that these are not obligatory exemptions.
Voting for those amendments will not force the British Government to introduce a blank tape levy.
Let us ensure that out of this we have a cultural rainforest, in the words of our great author Maureen Duffy.
Mr President, in my opinion, the report drawn up by Mr Barzanti is a very balanced document.
Whenever the paths cross of those who own intellectual property rights and those who have access to the information, there is a conflict.
I believe that the property issue is a fundamental one, and that this is not a question of how the information is disseminated.
For this reason, I believe that the principles Mr Barzanti has identified and incorporated into his report are the right ones.
Obviously exceptions are needed, but they should be limited and should uphold the rules on the protection of intellectual property.
I will soon have served as a Member of Parliament - both at national level and here - for 20 years, and in all that time I have never before been lobbied so intensively on an issue by the interest groups.
When it comes to the vote, I hope that this Parliament will not help the new forms of media - which have a role to play and should be able to do so - to strike it rich, at the expense of authors.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are three branches of industry which have an interest in seeing a strong and clear copyright directive, namely the content industry, the telecommunication and service providers, and suppliers of consumer electronics.
Then there are also of course our consumers, libraries, schools, etc. to be considered.
The Barzanti report clearly weights the balance in favour of the content industry, at the expense of the other branches of industry and especially the consumers.
Copyright holders are given an absolute right to protection, with the banning of copying for private use for example.
American companies are now trying to lobby for legislation in Europe to go much further than in the United States, where such an absolute right has just been forcefully rejected.
US companies are therefore deliberately placing Europe at a disadvantage and Europe will be accepting this if we accept the Barzanti report.
We will be falling behind, especially our industry, and this will cost jobs.
It is primarily the Committee on Legal Affairs which is now busy fighting a rearguard action, because with this directive the established industry is trying to maintain its present market position in the old media at the expense of the new.
New technological developments, such as the Internet, will be held back by the directive and artists manipulated and made to dance to industry's tune, with big names such as Claudia Cardinale being brought in.
But the new generation of artists who are distributing their products on the Internet are being left out in the cold.
Finally, I have a question for Commissioner Monti. How does the copyright directive stand in relation to the proposal for a directive for electronic commerce?
In other words: if there is a difference in copyright protection between the Member States, which applies? The principle of the country of origin or the country of destination?
In the directive on electronic commerce we now have before us, the basis is the country of origin. I would appreciate an answer from Commissioner Monti to this question.
Ladies and gentlemen, the directive we have before us is a complex one, and I have appreciated the way in which Mr Barzanti has dealt with it.
I am not overjoyed about everything, as he and many other Members of the House know.
This is the first reading - we still have the chance to improve many aspects - and I hope that we are on the right track.
But let us just get one thing clear, and let us not be under any illusion: we are not waging a cultural war here.
This is not actually about poor artists; Ms Tongue, you know how strongly I support your position against the large telecommunications companies.
It is not about the software industry, about Microsoft versus European companies.
Nor is it about the fact that one industry is being played off against the others here.
Let us be honest.
It is about who wins control of this electronic marketplace, and a hard battle is being fought out there over this.
We are standing in the midst of the interest groups, as we can tell from the constant stream of publications arriving in our offices.
But let us not skate on thin ice by supporting one industry and believing that in doing so we are helping creators and artists; we do not want to follow a good European tradition and then end up in an American blind alley. I would urge you not to make this mistake.
In the United States, a compromise has been reached on many points which is acceptable.
Let us not fall behind this compromise in Europe. I would urge you to examine the law.
The happy medium lies somewhere in between.
It lies in the Commission proposal.
It lies in the proposal which Mr Barzanti has made. It lies in the proposal made by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which I supported - and as you know, I put forward many suggestions.
It will lie in the second reading, and in the proposals which the Council tables.
Only please let us not choose the wrong approach, let us not be under any illusions, but let us choose a very realistic, pragmatic approach which puts European industry on the right track, which protects the interests of authors and all those in this market - the great and the small, the telecommunications industry and the Internet providers too.
I would urge you to adopt this approach, and that is why I am asking you to take another considered look at the amendments, and in particular those relating to Articles 5 and 6, in time for tomorrow; Article 6 also safeguards the interests of European industry.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, there are very few areas where the quality and the future of the European integration process are really at stake. Copyright is one of them.
It may seem that the common agricultural policy or the trans-European transport network are higher priorities, but they are not.
European copyright policy also relates to food and transport.
It concerns the production and distribution of books and newspapers, of music, and of audio-visual and multimedia products.
If these products are in short supply or of inferior quality, that will sound the death-knell for Europe.
European society will be unable to assert its differentness, will lose its vitality and will fail to balance its trade unless it can claim that share of the cultural market that is its by right.
With the advent of the Internet and digitalisation, and whatever other unknown technologies are around the corner, along with globalisation of the market, enlargement of the Union and the increasing role of multilateral treaties, a policy on copyright is a priority for Europe.
That is because creators and artists act as our antennae for the future, as our critical conscience and as our calling card.
It is therefore in all our interests that they should thrive.
So what is involved?
Basically, facilitating the distribution of creative work, rewarding everyone taking part in that process, creators and investors alike, and eliminating piracy. What ought to be done?
We should set up a permanent body to help the Member States negotiate, guarantee the international compatibility of European legislation and make sure it is constantly updated. We should also automate remuneration systems as far as possible, and increase the use of protection technologies.
The Barzanti report is an excellent one because it not only adopts a cultural perspective but it is also an appeal for the key words to be 'compatibility' and 'harmonisation'.
That is after all the only way of defending the interests at stake. All parties - Member States and artists, producers and users - have to be shown that they are in the same boat and need to row in time and row hard if they are to reach a safe harbour.
Mr President, in today's proposal on copyright, we are rightly concerned to protect authors and performers, but also record and phonogram producers who must be properly remunerated.
At this point, however, the House is being asked to approve legislation which limits the right of European operators to have access to the Internet, in contrast to what has been provided in the recent World Intellectual Property Organisation treaty and the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
This is rightly being done to protect copyright, but under pressure from the big multinational record companies which are now all American, if not by origin then at least in terms of their economic interests.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has required technical copies to be authorised, but I do not see how that can strengthen copyright.
Copyright is in fact already substantially protected by Article 2 of the directive, which establishes the principle whereby no one may place works on the networks without the permission of the copyright holder.
How will that further authorisation improve the position of authors? That is not the way to combat piracy, at least according to the US legislation, which takes the view that the procedures for identifying and closing suspect sites provide the most effective way of combating that particular scourge.
If network operators were required to monitor all of the 'packages' sent by service suppliers, numbers would have to be reduced, leaving them concentrated in just a few hands.
That is not what the independent record industry in Europe wants, that same industry which is investing in most of the recordings made in Europe, which is creating jobs and development, believes in young artists and is exporting Europe's musical products to the outside world.
It is those with interests on the other side of the Atlantic that want it.
The people who are asking us to close off access to the Internet are importing into Europe music produced elsewhere.
Even the small proportion of music produced in Europe is adopting commercial standards that require mass sales, which are in turn dependent on the kind of hugely costly advertising campaigns that the Italian supervisory body recently condemned in Italy in its decision against the Big Five, that is to say the five big music companies.
Let me end by pointing out that the independent record industry and the managers - the artists' true representatives - are asking us to call a halt before it is too late.
I propose to accept their advice and vote for the Cassidy and Thors amendments which come closer to meeting the needs of artists.
In that way, we shall be able genuinely to protect the future of the information society, of music and of consumers.
Mr President, Mr Barzanti's report is an important one, and he has demonstrated some artistry in putting it together!
It is true that this is only the first reading and we can correct many of its possible shortcomings if any emerge later on.
However, I would like to point out that a good balance has been achieved in many Member States by virtue of agreements made without any directive whatsoever, as, for example, in my own country.
Three issues are at odds with each other: first, there is the public's right to information, which means libraries, lifelong learning, and so on.
That cannot be violated; it is a vital principle.
Secondly, most important is the right of creative people to their intellectual property.
Thirdly, we must create and maintain a viable context for the electronic market, as it is an area that employs a lot of people in Europe.
We have to be able to make these three issues compatible.
We all believe that piracy is a crime, and we have to oppose it.
For that reason, I believe we should look at the next stage of the directive, after voting.
We need to discuss the work of the rightholder on the one hand, and industry on the other, from the employment point of view, to achieve the best possible European employment model in relation to copyright and industry, with regard to radio, television and other electronic media.
At present we seem to be squabbling quite a lot among ourselves, and employment and material in Europe are suffering as a result, yet both these issues are now among our most crucial concerns, as they represent European identity, culture and jobs.
Mr President, as this debate draws to a close, I should like to refer to an oft-neglected matter, namely, certain recitals.
I said earlier that this report set a political course although it was technically imperfect. There are some very clear examples of this in the recitals.
Some of the recitals do not correspond to any of the amendments to the main body of the text and are therefore technically unacceptable, but they outline three clear political ways forward. Mr Barzanti mentioned the first of these, which concerns indigenous peoples and their cultural rights.
The second, referred to by Mr Perry, suggests that the WIPO has made a determined effort to promote mediation as a solution to disputes.
The Group of the European People's Party will support two amendments to recital 21 to that effect, that is, Amendments Nos 82 and 91, if I remember correctly. The final political direction concerned an issue that I should like to consider in greater detail, as it has been somewhat sidelined, even though it was the subject of heated debate.
Despite being related to another important directive under discussion at the moment - the directive on electronic commerce - and also to a directive on responsibility in a general sense, this directive has its own distinctive features.
The usual procedures should be followed and it should be approved as soon as possible.
An amendment has, however, been tabled - and it is supported by the Group of the European People's Party - emphasising in effect that though all these directives have their own distinctive features, they should be handled in parallel and implemented at the earliest opportunity.
Finally, I have to say that I was delighted to hear such an authority as Mrs Mann sound a note of reason with regard to what is often portrayed as the entrenched rivalry between European and American industry. I fully endorse her views.
I believe that this is a balanced directive.
It will need to be improved at second reading, but it sends a clear political signal.
The ball is now in the Commission's court.
Mr President, Italian companies account for 80 % of original European production, but the big multinationals take up 80 % of the market by importing products from outside Europe, in particular from the USA.
At one time, almost all Europe's major hits came into being with the help of a producer who believed in them.
Only later, because of distribution needs, did they have to approach a multinational.
That is why our approach to the directive differs from that of the big multinational record companies, which have established a stranglehold on distribution and advertising because they control all the systems for access to stores, the media and the charts.
We feel that the Internet provides an effective way of avoiding that stranglehold.
What is really at stake here is not protecting copyright, that is already guaranteed by Article 2 of the directive, but maintaining the current state of freedom of access to the Internet for everyone, and not just the big boys.
The requirement for technical copies to be authorised, adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, would actually have the effect of extending to the digital sphere the dominance which the multinationals already enjoy over the way in which music is conventionally distributed.
We therefore take the view that it is necessary to redraft Article 5(1) to avoid limiting de facto access to the networks for independent operators.
Furthermore, we believe it necessary to encourage the investments of independent access providers who are the natural partners of independent music producers in Europe.
The reality is that European producers primarily need unrestricted and low-cost access to the networks in order to be able to offer the kind of music which the big multinationals regard as uneconomical in terms of their own commercial criteria.
In offering their product on the Internet, the companies also need to use systems compatible with the interfaces most commonly used by consumers, as they cannot run the risk of investing in websites that might subsequently prove incompatible with the new versions of dominant software.
Secondly, European producers need programmes of support similar to those through which the audiovisual sector is supported via the media.
Finally, they need strategic research and development programmes that will allow the European music industry and the European technology industry to establish, by common accord, standards for the secure and effective distribution of music, as an alternative to the American analogue standards.
For all of these reasons, the non-attached Members believe that it is right to reassess the situation and are therefore calling for the directive to be referred back to committee.
Mr President, creative and innovative activities will be critical to the development of the information society.
This proposal for a directive is an important part of the legislative framework which is currently being drawn up at both a European and a global level to guarantee harmonious development of the information society.
The information society is in fact evolving in a global context.
In 1996, the international community adopted two treaties under the auspices of WIPO: one on copyright, and the other on interpretation and performance and on phonograms.
I would remind the House that the European Union played a vital role in the drafting of those treaties. It can now accede to them as the European Community and be among the first to ratify them.
The United States has already met its requirements.
Thirty instruments of ratification will have to be deposited before the treaties enter into force.
The European Union accounts for 42 because of the agreements that link it to the countries of the European Economic Area and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and the fact that it has association agreements with still more countries.
Ratification of the treaties by the Union and its Member States is based on their incorporation into the national legal systems; it is their incorporation into Community law that is, among other things, the objective of this proposal.
Alongside meeting our international commitments, the basic aim of the proposal is to put in place a harmonised legislative framework for copyright and related rights.
We expect that greater legal certainty, guaranteeing investment in creative and innovative activity and in the network infrastructures, will boost growth and the competitiveness of the European industry and job creation.
It is for us to tap this huge cultural and economic potential by providing the appropriate legislative framework.
In drafting and adopting this proposal - which, as you will remember, is the product of wide-ranging consultation dating back to 1994 - the Commission has taken the greatest care to retain a fair balance between the various rights and interests at issue, which are frequently in open conflict.
I am well aware that this was also the aim of Parliament's work.
On behalf of the Commission, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mr Barzanti, for having done his job so efficiently.
He has managed to combine a thorough understanding of the problem, founded also on the earlier work on the 1995 Green Paper and the 1996 communication, with the great resolve that tackling such sensitive proposals demands.
Fifty-eight amendments have been tabled, 30 of which relate to the operative part of the text and 28 to the recitals: of those 58 amendments, the Commission is able to accept 28 and to take into consideration 14, but it has to reject 16.
The amendments the Commission is able to accept are the following: Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 29, 31, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 55 and 57.
The Commission will take into account the following amendments, albeit with a number of mainly drafting changes: Amendments Nos 9, 11, 16, 22, 33, 39, 46, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 58 and the new Amendments Nos 82 and 91.
As far as the recitals are concerned, the Commission rejects Amendment No 3 which, in our view, confuses protected work and information in general and is contrary to the principles of the acquis communautaire ; the first part of Amendment No 13 which is incompatible with the WIPO treaty, though we accept the second part; Amendment No 14 which does not, in our view, succeed in defining the concept of 'public', a responsibility we believe is best left to the Member States, which are in a better position to define this somewhat elastic term; Amendment No 19 which does not correspond to the amendments tabled in relation to Article 5(2)(b); Amendment No 23 because it calls into question the approach taken in the proposal to the exceptions; Amendments Nos 27 and 28 which are already covered by the third recital; and Amendments Nos 15, 25 and 26 because they are too far outside the scope of the proposal.
Turning then to the actual articles of the directive, the Commission rejects Amendment No 30 because the issue it tackles is taken into account in Article 5(1); Amendments Nos 32 and 48 which are designed to introduce new exceptions for the benefit of broadcasters - I wish to deal separately, in just a moment, with our rejection of Amendment No 56 concerning Article 5(1) - Amendment No 40 because the concern on which it is based is amply taken into account by Article 5(3)(c), an amendment at your suggestion; and Amendment No 47 because that issue is being dealt with under the 27th recital, amended by Amendment No 20.
As regards the amendments tabled at this part-session, given that they either reflect viewpoints and concerns already taken into account in the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights or are amendments rejected by that committee, the Commission endorses the report.
Of the new amendments, we are able to take into account only Nos 82 and 91 which relate to mediation, a point mentioned by Mr Perry and taken up by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi.
Overall, the Commission is thus able to take Parliament's line on many points.
I repeat: we are rejecting 16 amendments, taking account of 14 and accepting 28.
To conclude, I have two points to make concerning two specific issues.
As far as the broadcasters are concerned, the House is proposing to add three new exceptions for their benefit.
I would remind you of our interest in observing a balance between the rights and interests which are at stake.
The Commission accepts Amendment No 39, which introduces an exception for broadcasters in respect of specific acts of reproduction necessary to facilitate a legitimate broadcasting act, because it meets a genuine technological need.
In contrast, and in an effort to achieve a balance between the interests in play, the Commission feels compelled to reject Amendments Nos 32 and 48, the first of which introduces an exception that would allow broadcasters to make available, on request, programmes largely consisting of phonograms.
We then come to Article 5(1) - the source of such controversy.
What is the purpose of that provision?
It is designed to establish an exception to the right of reproduction in regard to some technical acts of reproduction that are an integral part of a technological process, carried out for the sole purpose of enabling a different use to be made of the protected material.
This is the only mandatory exception in the whole of the proposal and it is therefore very clearly drafted.
That provision will give the telecommunications operators and service providers the legal certainty they need to be able to perform operations for the benefit of the network services, which are very often transnational in nature.
We have subdivided your proposals on this and are able to take account of some.
As far as the definition of the scope of the exceptions is concerned, we are able to accept the inclusion of the words 'transient' and 'incidental', as providing a closer definition of the concept of 'temporary' that appears in our proposal, and of the word 'essential' which further defines the incidental nature of the act in relation to the technical transmission process.
Consequently, we reject Amendments Nos 65 and 88, which have the effect of watering down the latter condition.
We cannot, however, accept the concept of 'economic significance' for the rightholder.
The reference to our concept of 'independent economic significance' is consistent with the aim of the exception and therefore workable when the exception is actually applied.
It is in any event worth bearing in mind that protection against unjustified economic harm is provided for in Article 5(4).
Finally, we cannot accept the insertion of the clause referring to 'uses... authorised... or permitted by law', the addition of which would mean that the exception would be triggered only in relation to items whose use had been authorised by the rightholders or permitted by law.
We are aware of the concerns of rightholders who fear that the network will end up acting as a broadcasting vehicle for items that have been illegally copied - pirated items - but if we are to hit our target, we have to consider beforehand what is the most workable and balanced way of achieving it.
In this case, that way has to be sought by ensuring a proper balance between rights and exceptions to those rights.
Finally, I would draw your attention to a very important group of amendments: those concerning private copies.
Your amendments uphold two important principles: the right of rightholders to fair remuneration and the fine distinction concerning private digital copies.
The first principle protects a need for equity; it is a measured step forwards in the quest for legal certainty in this sector.
The Commission's acceptance of the amendment relating to digital copies for private use must be seen in the context of the approach already set out in recitals 26 and 27 of our proposal.
Specifically in the light of what is set out in those sections of the proposal, the Commission agrees to recognise the principle that, in the digital sphere, the possibility of making a copy for private use must exist, without prejudice to the effective and workable technical means that are capable of protecting the interests of rightholders.
We therefore align ourselves with the solution you have put forward, though the amendment will have to be redrafted in such a way as to provide an accurate statement of the principle.
You link not only analogue and digital copies for private use but also the exceptions concerning illustration and teaching to the principle of fair remuneration for rightholders.
That is a formula which allows broader harmonisation and respects the traditions and practices of the Member States.
The Commission is able to follow Parliament's line here too, and therefore accepts Amendments Nos 36 and 37 as well as Amendments No 35 and 41.
The protection of technological measures forms the subject-matter of Article 6 of the proposal, which has been substantially recast by your Amendments Nos 49, 50, 51, 52, 53 and 54.
We are able to take those amendments into consideration, subject to a degree of clarification which the Commission considers important.
We congratulate Mr Barzanti on a comprehensive and determined piece of work. I welcome the fact that you support the Commission proposal, in terms of both the overall approach and - I think I can honestly say this - the main components.
In the past, Parliament's influence has been decisive in the adoption of the five directives already in force; the cooperation that exists between Parliament and the Commission in the field of copyright and related rights is something we can rely on, and for that I am truly grateful.
Mr President, I put a specific question about the compatibility of this amended copyright directive with the proposal for a directive on electronic commerce that the Commission made to the Parliament and the Council.
In the proposal on electronic commerce the country of origin is the principal component. In this copyright directive it could be the country of destination.
That is why I asked my question and the Commisioner did not answer it.
Mr President, I am fully aware that I did not answer.
This was because of time constraints.
However, I shall now answer very briefly.
The Commission submitted its proposal on the legal framework for electronic commerce last year.
Both proposals are independent and each has its own crucial importance.
According to the proposal on electronic commerce the country of origin principle does not apply to intellectual and industrial property in accordance with existing international law.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Common organisation of the market in wine
The next item is the report (A4-0261/98) by Mr P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on the common organisation of the market in wine (COM(98)0370 - C4-0497/98-98/0126(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the common organisation of the market in wine is certainly the most complex of all the COMs because it includes not only aspects relating to vineyard management and conditions of grape production but also all rules concerning oenological practices - the processing of wine - as well as rules on labelling.
The very structure of the text of the COM in wine shows us that wine is an agricultural product rather than an industrial product.
In the time I have been allocated I am not going to present all of the 248 amendments that are included in my report and that are the result of a vote in committee on almost 600 amendments tabled by all Members.
I would like at this stage of my presentation to thank firstly all the officials in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and all those colleagues who made my task easier for me and enabled me to draw up a coherent report.
What are the central themes of my report? Firstly, a significant number of amendments concern the decision-making procedure.
The Commission, in its proposal, wanted to have sole authority to change the rules.
In my report we have asked that the procedure known as the Article 43 procedure be reinstated, so that the Council takes decisions on the basis of proposals from the Commission and after consulting the European Parliament.
I personally believe that this procedure, although cumbersome, will allow us to preserve specific rules for wine, promoting its status as an agricultural product.
In view of wine imports from third countries and the intentions that some people have, as we well know, European wine must retain its status as a local, quality product.
In this connection, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development adopted an amendment which I had put forward, prohibiting the vinification of musts imported from third countries.
If this proposal is accepted by the Council, in the form in which we adopted it, the quality image of European wines will be preserved.
With regard to structure, the Committee on Agriculture adopted the principle of the right to growth, by an increase of 3 % in the vineyard, while preserving restrictions on planting.
Vineyards with an expanding market will be able to obtain other rights on condition that the Member States and, where appropriate, their regions genuinely monitor them.
This was what led us to adopt a specific amendment on maintaining the rules on the computerised vineyard register.
The duration of planting rights has been extended to allow the land to be rested as necessary.
Other structural measures were adopted concerning the renewal and regeneration of the vineyard.
We have also included measures relating to the vinification tool.
If we finance measures allowing the quality of the grape to be improved, the vinification tool must also be adapted so that the wine will be of good quality.
Finally, the Committee on Agriculture, concerned about the future of the wine-growing profession, wanted all structural measures taken to give priority to young wine growers, either on their establishment or during the period when their holdings are growing.
In the area of market management we wanted to set up distillation for the purpose of supplying potable alcohol so that European viticulture can preserve its own market.
Moreover, as far as crisis distillation is concerned, we have adopted an amendment specifying that it should be compulsory rather than optional, on condition that it targets only those regions and products in which there is a surplus.
Budgetary reasons and considerations of fairness argue in favour of our position.
With regard to producer organisations, the committee has changed the Commission's proposal only slightly.
Nevertheless, it has deleted measures extending their powers and has reserved the tasks given to them for its members alone.
As for the interbranch organisations, which we have called 'trade organisations', we have completely changed the Commission's proposal, which seemed to us to be more suited to the fruit and vegetable sector.
At my request and at the request of the chairman of our committee, Mr Colino Salamanca, the European Parliament's Directorate-General for Research carried out a study analysing the role of trade organisations in the wine-growing sector.
I must commend the excellent work carried out under the leadership of Mr Ramsay and Mr Angelidis, which led to the drafting of Article 42 setting out the principle of delegation of powers and the role of trade organisations.
I believe that the amendment we have adopted takes all interests into account, those of the producer Member States and the non-producer Member States, while preserving all the rules on competition and the internal market.
With regard to oenological practices, we have adopted amendments allowing the reintegration of all Community legislation currently in force.
We are wary within the committee of implementing regulations that could turn out to be much too lax.
Finally, with regard to inspections, we wanted to establish a Community inspectorate that has sufficient manpower and is responsible for checking whether inspectors in the Member States are applying Community provisions fairly and consistently.
To conclude on my report, I would like to make it clear that as rapporteur I will be voting in favour of all the amendments adopted in the Committee on Agriculture, with the exception of Amendment No 121, which is inconsistent with Amendment No 124.
I feel it is necessary to preserve the production of marc, such as Burgundy marc or Gewürztraminer marc, and for this reason I will be voting in favour of Amendment No 124 and against Amendment No 121.
Some Members have also tabled amendments, and I will vote in favour of those which follow the line taken in my report, as adopted in committee.
For this reason I will be voting in favour of Amendments Nos 250 and 251 by Mr Arias Caete, Amendments Nos 256, 257, 259, 261 and 268 by the GUE Group, Amendment No 273 by the ARE Group and the Green Group, and Amendment No 274 by the ARE Group and the I-EDN Group. I will not be voting for Amendment No 249 because we cannot know how the potable alcohol market will develop.
I will also be voting against Amendments Nos 252, 253, 260, 262, 264, 265, 266, 267 and 269, which are contrary either to the principle adopted by the committee of maintaining the status quo on enrichment and dry sugaring or to other amendments adopted by the Committee on Agriculture.
Mr President, I should like to start by offering my sincere thanks to Mr Martin.
By putting in a great deal of work and showing a great willingness to compromise, the rapporteur has successfully produced a good compromise between the individual regions of Europe - which are of course also reflected within our group.
I emphasise that it is a good compromise.
Sometimes, of course, if there is no prospect of a result, compromises are hastily stitched together, simply to paper over the problems for the time being.
That is not the case here! That is why I am very grateful to Mr Martin.
Where wine growing in the European Union is concerned, we must make sure above all that the wine and the regions in which the wine is produced are not seen solely from the point of view of the end product.
It really makes a difference whether I see the wine - be it directly from the wood or in the bottle - just as a product, or whether I see the whole culture and the whole region behind it, and how it is part of the landscape.
I therefore believe that it is worthwhile for Europe to take special care of its wine.
It is at this point - and I may be speaking on behalf of my group, but I do come from a northern Member State - that I should like to thank Mr Martin, because he has shown a feel for the peculiarities of wine growing, for how wine-growing traditions and also oenological practices have developed - over centuries, almost - and because his proposals have made it possible for us actually to forget the dispute we had for a very long time between northern, southern and central Europe.
Problems will remain, and new ones will arise.
When I think of the amount of rectified concentrated grape must which is coming into the European Union in increasing quantities from outside, it seems that we will also have to call on the Commission to be watchful here.
I think it is particularly positive that flexibility is being preserved where new planting rights are concerned, and that a fair compromise has been found here.
It was decided to increase the area under vines by 3 % by 2010.
Although many would have liked to have seen more, for others this already goes too far.
On distillation, the approach - which is the same as that adopted by the Commission - is absolutely right, namely that we need to cut back on compulsory distillation and that here too we need to introduce a little more market, but that we should keep compulsory distillation as an instrument, to be used in the future where it proves to be necessary.
A particularly positive initiative, both in the Commission proposals and in the proposals which we discussed and adopted in committee, is the specific and rather privileged - because it is necessary - support for young producers.
Anything which is important in terms of actively supporting young farmers is particularly important where young wine producers are concerned.
I should like to say, even at this early stage, that of course my group wishes to support the rapporteur in his efforts to maintain the compromise reached in the committee and to examine with due care all the amendments which could unravel that compromise.
There are a number of amendments which are in the spirit of the compromise, but there are also a whole series of amendments which could destroy it.
Our group would like to support it, to make it possible for the considerable amount of work which we did in the committee with Mr Martin to be crowned with a large majority at the vote in Parliament.
The Commission supports this, and the Council would be well advised to take this good compromise produced by Parliament as the basis for its deliberations, because it has in fact failed to make a start on these negotiations for at least the last three years.
Mr President, I too should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur and his colleagues, because they have produced a very good piece of work.
This new Commission proposal has taken us down a different path from the one we took in 1994 and 1995.
At that time, Parliament was split.
The proposal, Commissioner Fischler, was also not nearly as good as this one.
Circumstances have changed in some respects, while in others they have remained the same.
Compared with the 1980s, surpluses have tended to decrease.
Unfortunately, per capita consumption has fallen in the main producer countries, Italy and France.
As a result of the GATT round, we have new competitors in the quality wine sector, a fact which we have borne in mind, and this is where we have made real progress under the leadership of the rapporteur, Mr Martin: in this Parliament, we have finally accepted the special regional characteristics of wine growing in the north and south of Europe.
That is where the real progress has been made.
That is why my group, the PPE, has not, as a group, tabled any amendments to the Agriculture Committee's proposal and against Mr Martin's compromises.
I should like once again to outline briefly why we have acted in this way.
I believe that in this new proposal, we have successfully put right what was wrong with the old organisation of the market in wine.
Take the subject of distillation for a start.
Compulsory distillation has not proved its worth.
It is right to make it voluntary.
On the other hand, it is also right - and that is why we have also voted in favour of various compromises - for the potable alcohol market to have a guaranteed supply of wine, for example for cognac, brandy and other products which are traditional regional specialities.
Secondly, for the very first time we have a legal base for producer associations and trade organisations.
We want to make this rather less complicated than it is in the Commission proposal.
That is why we support the Agriculture Committee's call for a framework regulation.
There is - we have agreed in our group - just one point on which we wish to depart from the compromise.
This relates to the first indent of Amendment No 179.
Mr Martin, we have agreed that we want to settle the issue of compulsory packaging in the area of production - as previously discussed - in the Lulling report and not now, and that we want, above all, to wait for the decision of the European Court of Justice on this issue.
We will be voting against the first indent at that point.
On all the other issues, however, we have supported reasonable compromises, on the status quo for saccharose, on oenological procedures and on diverse traditions.
I believe that overall we can vote in favour of this draft report.
For the first time, Parliament has the opportunity to speak with one voice on this very controversial issue and thus - and most importantly - to influence the Commission and the Agriculture Council.
Applause
Mr President, I do believe that this time we have come up with a helpful document on the common organisation of the market in such a complicated sector as that of wine growing and wine making.
I also feel that the Commission's proposal, though initially valid, has nevertheless been substantially improved by Parliament's report.
Wine growing and wine making naturally take place in certain specific areas with a long tradition of growing vines, areas where replacing vines with other crops would prove difficult. The producers have years of experience in making wine and it is traditional to drink wine.
Wine used to be almost the only alcoholic drink consumed by the local people.
However, as a result of the so-called globalisation of society, the situation has changed dramatically in recent years.
This COM seeks to bring production into line with market demand, and in that respect, I believe it is a positive move.
I feel it is helpful to allow a slight increase in new planting, and also welcome the measures designed to allow new young growers to become involved in this traditional process.
I have no wish to discuss the various methods of wine making, some of which have long been established in certain Member States.
Each area has its own way of making wine.
Consumers, however, are a key element of our society and certainly deserve consideration.
It is not enough simply to put the wine on the market.
A certain amount of information is called for, together with research into the beneficial effects of wine and education in the sensible consumption of this product.
Wine does have a beneficial effect on health, and should be considered as a food.
Wine and health is a nice phrase, but we cannot just depend on tradition. It is up to the producers' associations to make information available to the consumers.
Mr President, it is unusual for Parliament to deal with the same issue twice in a single legislature.
Fortunately, the context of the common organisation of the market in wine is now radically different from what it was at the beginning of this legislature.
The difference lies in the nature of the Commission's proposal.
The proposal put before us early in the present legislature was based on what I would call an apocalyptic vision of anticipated surpluses.
In the Commission's view, the only way of pre-empting such a situation was the mass destruction of vines.
Fortunately, the ensuing proposal gave rise to such opposition within the Council that the matter was shelved.
Five years later, the situation is radically different due to the fact that the proposal put forward by the Commission is so unlike the previous one. Reality is stubborn.
Five years have gone by and the much-feared structural surpluses have not materialised. The Commission's draconian proposals therefore no longer make sense.
It is worth pointing out that proposals of this nature abound in the Commission when reforms affecting mainly the southern Member States are at issue.
Of crucial importance to us today, however, are the rigour and quality expected from research undertaken by the Commission in its role as the institution charged with putting forward legislative proposals.
This is of key importance when what is at stake is the whole package of agricultural reforms contained in Agenda 2000. Often, problems can arise not only from research undertaken but also from what is omitted or has not been done.
I trust the Commission's present proposals will not have the negative consequences of the 1992 reform as far as the grubbing up of vines and the loss of agricultural jobs are concerned.
As regards Mr Martin's report, I must congratulate him on the excellent work he has carried out.
His report is coherent and this is particularly commendable as he has had to deal appropriately with a great many amendments.
I would, however, like to highlight - and I know he will not take it amiss - a fundamental problem which remains unresolved. It appears that the use of sucrose for enrichment will continue to be permitted.
A valuable opportunity to replace sucrose with concentrated musts might therefore be lost. Replacing sucrose with must would be in line with traditional practice and would allow wine making to be based entirely on the vineyard.
In conclusion, Mr Martin, I should like to remind you of a visit you made to my country, and to thank you for having taken the trouble to go there and to meet with the agricultural organisations.
I am most grateful to you for doing so, and feel that some good has come from it.
Mr President, I hope it was not under the influence of wine that such wide-ranging agreement has been reached in this Parliament.
But if Dionysus has helped us to reach agreement, so much the better!
The truth is that Philippe-Armand Martin's report, while defending the status quo , also manages to modernise and adapt it to the new circumstances of the globalised market, to make it flexible and to free it from the Commission's inherent dirigiste tendency. It places the onus on Member States, producer organisations and committees of viticultural experts, and increases the responsibility of both producers and Member States' governments.
It also takes into account the need to increase our wine production, market conditions permitting, but at the same time to ensure that this is achieved through greater cooperation between the Member States.
I have no doubt that very simple measures are called for, such as reliable registers, something that does not exist right now.
We must also prevent the fraudulent use of concentrated must, for example, and in our negotiations with certain third countries we should apply a very low tolerance threshold about the fraud practised in those countries.
As for compulsory distillation, we should be more flexible.
And this implies greater responsibility on the part of whoever decides whether or not to distil, on the basis of market fluctuations.
But arbitrary, senseless compulsory distillation should not be the rule.
Another important point is to respect oenological identities, regional oenological practices, and to avoid pointless squabbles: I have to say that I am sick and tired of arguments that frankly have not improved relations among European wine growers.
I also think it is important - and I must confess that this is an extremely sensitive area for Portugal - to look at the issues of bottling in the region of origin, of accountability, and of quality wines, which are products with a considerable international reputation.
We therefore disagree with Amendments Nos 171 and 179 and we, or at least the Members closest to me, will be voting against them.
Otherwise I think this is an extremely positive report because we have avoided consensus for consensus' sake but have reached a proper agreement.
That is what is of interest: consensus for its own sake is little short of treachery but an agreement is a contract in everyone's interest.
Mr President, the reform of the organisation of the market in wine is another case where the EU must eliminate the problems at their source, instead of only intervening - as it always does - when the floodgates have already been breached.
Distillation and the grubbing-up premium are typical end-of-pipe solutions. They actually ought to be abolished, because distillation is an invitation to produce massive quantities of lower-quality wine, and the grubbing-up premium encourages the transfer of production from regions which are problematic in terms of labour costs, but important in terms of regional culture, to rationalised, export-driven production.
We will only counter overproduction by introducing comprehensive new quality criteria.
I would caution against the belief that here too genetic engineering can be of assistance.
We wish to retain the historical lands developed and cultivated by man and to safeguard an appropriate income for wine growers.
In the long term, quality is the only way this can be achieved.
I am particularly concerned about this, because I believe that we will only be able to defend our European viniculture at the next WTO round if we are able to throw something into the ring related to the environment, social policy and quality, because the Americans would like to have our designation of origin off the negotiating table and to negotiate about brand names instead.
That would mean that Coca-Cola could buy the Bordeaux name and then resell the cheapest wines in the world under that name.
But that is not what we want!
We must therefore have good arguments to explain why designation of origin needs to consist of more than alcohol content, quality grade and colour.
The much vaunted EU model of agriculture will only carry weight and have any substance if we are able to designate regional, social and environmental characteristics for each wine and thus also enter into the negotiations on the offensive.
We support Mr Martin's report and we say one thing: quality not quantity!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like very much to thank our rapporteur Philippe Martin for his excellent report which takes account of all Europe's vineyards.
I was there when, at the beginning of August, Mr Martin met viticulture and trade representatives of the Languedoc-Roussillon region in the town hall at Carcassonne.
I was pleased to note that their principal demands were included both in the report and in the vote in the Committee on Agriculture.
What are these principal demands? With regard to wine-growing potential, we must preserve the principle of limiting rights by providing for the right to growth of 3 % in the short term, with the possibility of updating this in line with market needs once a proper inventory of planting rights has been carried out.
With regard to improving vineyards, I must stress the importance of this structural component.
As an elected representative of the biggest wine-growing region in Europe, whose vineyards have undergone considerable renewal, I can assure you, Commissioner, that quality is essential for the future of viticulture.
This is why we have asked that the whole of the 'reconversion' component should allow regeneration of the vineyard and vinification tools.
All of these structural measures, both in terms of wine-growing potential and vineyard improvement, must give priority to young wine growers.
As far as market management is concerned, we must maintain compulsory distillation of by-products, apart from existing derogations.
The alcohols produced must be suitable for the potable alcohol market in order to reduce the budgetary cost of this measure.
As for crisis distillation, in order to be efficient this must remain compulsory only in the regions in which there is a surplus.
With regard to authorisation in the sector, the tasks and responsibilities of the producer groups have to be recognised even though the rules cannot be extended.
I therefore consider the report as adopted in the Committee on Agriculture to be perfectly suitable.
With regard to oenological practices, we must draw up an exhaustive list of authorised practices and preserve the principle of status quo, including in aid for enrichment using concentrated musts.
I would like in particular to draw your attention to Amendment No 274 on the production of natural sweet wines.
Here too we need to maintain a list of compulsory information to be given on the labels.
Finally, Mr President, with regard to trade with third countries, we must keep in place the current rules prohibiting vinification of musts from third countries.
If this ban is lifted, as the Commission proposes, there is a danger that the image of wines produced in the European Union will be considerably damaged and that there will be an actual reduction in quality, which is inconsistent with the objectives of the COM.
In conclusion, I must just mention the procedure proposed by the Commission both for managing planting rights and for labelling oenological practices and market management measures.
Contrary to the Commission proposals, we must preserve the current procedure known as the Article 43 procedure.
Mr President, I very much hope that all Members will vote in favour of the main body of the proposals by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which are the result of considerable effort by Mr Martin to compromise in order to be fair, realistic and open, and I congratulate him.
It is essentially a question of ensuring that wine remains a more strictly defined agricultural product, banning imports of musts from third countries, allowing vineyards to increase in size in line with market demand, maintaining the status quo on oenological practices - including dry sugaring - and having compulsory crisis distillation only in regions where there is a surplus.
As the text does not specifically mention natural sweet wines, I, along with several other Members, tabled Amendment No 274 in order to refer to them expressly, which is essential if we are to adhere to our common aim of respecting the diversity of the 'terroirs ' which give European wines their quality and individuality.
In conclusion, Mr Martin, I shall be tabling two or three amendments, for example on GMO, in the hope that this new wording will be acceptable to the rapporteur and to all the Members.
Mr President, we have been dealing with this wine dossier for six years now, which shows how important - or even doubly important - it is.
It is important firstly because our wine growers are important. They account for 7 % of agricultural GDP and only 2.5 % of budgetary expenditure, which means that wine growers bring in a lot of revenue and cost very little.
It is important also for the economy in general because viticulture is a key item in our balance of trade. Moreover, on the issue of the balance of trade, Commissioner, I fear that your proposal is rather putting us at risk.
We know what the Commission proposal involves. It is based, as always in the field of agriculture, on the fallacy of overproduction.
According to you, by the year 2000 we would have produced 180 million hectolitres of wine.
We would consume 150 million of these, leaving a surplus of 30 million hectolitres of wine.
Hence the measures you proposed in 1993: early harvests, wine quotas, in short, all the extreme measures that we know so well.
Fortunately, today we know that in 1998 the figures balanced and you agreed to compromise.
Technically, therefore, there were positive changes.
But I believe that, beneath the surface, the Commission's negative attitudes remain.
I will look firstly at the positive changes.
It is true that from the Sierra Bardaji report in 1993 to the Fantuzzi report in 1998, and now the Martin report, we have succeeded by means of amendments - 600 in this case - in improving the situation: amendments on distillation, which is now compulsory, amendments on new planting rights of 3 %, on regeneration of vineyards, on rest periods for the land, on potable alcohols, on aid for concentrated must - and not merely for the CIII zones, which worried my wine growers in Languedoc-Roussillon and those of Raymond Chesa - amendments also on inspectors, as we had only two inspectors for the whole of Europe, and perhaps even on interbranch organisations, which go back to Maréchal Pétain and are supported by the Left.
But that is not the important point.
We may even have made progress in the religious war on dry sugaring.
However, I fear that other more sinister attitudes are lurking beneath these technical concessions.
There are four, as far as I can see: Malthusianism, fundamentalism, internationalism and dehumanisation.
With regard to Malthusianism, firstly, as is the case with meat, cereal, milk and even coal and steel, you only ever have one management instrument: a drastic cut in supply.
You never look into developing demand.
It is true that we must prepare for the opening of the wine market to the East, with the arrival of Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian wines, and even the World Trade Organisation in the year 2000, with our Australian, Californian and South African friends.
Fundamentalism in this case is the fiscal anti-wine fundamentalism of Northern Europe, with 3 euros in excise duty on each litre of wine in Denmark and the United Kingdom.
It is the health fundamentalism that is seen in Sweden and Finland, where they are lax about drugs but puritans when it comes to alcohol, even though wine is a health product with positive cardiovascular effects, to say nothing of the mental effects of beer-drinking seen in the hooligans at Heisel.
Internationalism is the six million hectolitres of imports, a tenth of a euro in customs duties and the famous concentrated musts from third countries that you were preparing to authorise.
Fortunately, the Commission was able to resist.
All that was needed to perfect this internationalism was to authorise wines in bulk and not to authorise bottling in the region of production. This brings me to the fourth and final undesirable effect, that of dehumanisation, which would make wine an industrial product rather than an agricultural one.
This is the source of the conflict between the beer-drinkers of Northern Europe and the wine-drinkers elsewhere in Europe, and I fear this must affect the balance in the Council of Ministers.
But I would suggest to the House that if there had ever been vines in Saudi Arabia this would have changed the strategic face of the world.
I fear there must be some complicity here between the fundamentalism of the North and the fundamentalism of the South, since neither of them drink wine.
We will adjourn the debate at this point for Question Time.
It will resume at 9 p.m.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is questions to the Commission (B4-0020/99).
Question No 38 by Paul Rübig (H-1252/98)
Subject: The euro in textbooks The smooth introduction of the single currency and its acceptance by European citizens will depend to a very great extent on how rapidly and comprehensively information can be provided in the educational sector.
Particular attention will, of course, be paid to educational establishments and subjects which are in general concerned with currency aspects, for example commercial colleges and subjects such as accountancy and bookkeeping.
Can the representative of the Commission present today say what progress has been achieved in the transition to the euro in the educational sector and, in particular, in updating textbooks and teaching materials?
I should like to welcome Mrs Cresson and ask her to reply to Mr Rübig's question.
You have the floor, Mrs Cresson.
The Commission is aware of the major challenge which the transition to the euro represents for the educational sector.
Children will play a crucial role in helping parents to adapt to the single currency.
While respecting the exclusive competence of the Member States in this area, the Commission is supporting several projects within the Socrates programme which are helping to disseminate information on the euro in schools and to integrate this topic into the different curriculum subjects.
A number of concrete measures are worth mentioning here.
A working group entitled 'Education and the euro' has been set up, comprising representatives of the Ministers for Education and the national agencies of the Socrates programme.
This group's work concerns the promotion of educational initiatives on the euro and the exchange of information and good practice in this area.
The work of this group has led notably to the creation of an inventory of educational tools and initiatives on the euro, both at national and Community level, which is accessible on the Internet on the page entitled 'The euro at school' on the Europa server.
A handbook describing Member States' initiatives in this area, particularly concerning the training of teachers and adaptation of school syllabuses and textbooks, is currently being put together.
This document will also be available on the Internet and will be distributed to interested parties.
Commissioner, I should like to ask a supplementary question: if this is being offered on the Internet and multimedia information is thus also being made available, do you see any chance of this being learning entertainment or a learning adventure, which will make it an enjoyable experience for people to learn about this subject, because in the end it is also a question of parents finding out from their children what prospects this has to offer for the future?
As far as the research programme is concerned, I would be interested to know whether there are programmes in the research sector which address the issue of how the euro can best be introduced and what problems might arise when this actually happens, so that these can once again be overcome by giving instruction before the event.
This activity or action does not directly concern the research sector but rather the education sector. As I said, we are indeed intending to disseminate information via the Internet which will be designed for schools and will therefore be presented in the most attractive format possible.
The idea of designing innovative educational software and games has not been ruled out.
Moreover, I would point out that, every year, we carry out a project of Internet and multimedia dissemination during a week of what are known as 'net days'.
For the next week of net days, which will take place at the beginning of the next school year, I will recommend that we introduce the topic of the euro in exchanges which take place between European schools so that this genuinely topical issue can feature in the programmes organised at the time.
I also believe that raising the awareness of teachers is absolutely essential. This was already begun three years ago, as part of my initiative concerning the use of multimedia and the Internet.
As we will have to explain the subject of the euro in greater detail, however, we can start the ball rolling first with the teachers.
That is the information I have on this type of activity.
With regard to research, at my request and suggestion, the structure of the fifth framework programme of research was modified substantially compared with the fourth framework programme, and the second main chapter heading now deals with information technology.
As in the other chapters of the framework programme, within information technology there is a series of key horizontal actions relating to disciplines in both pure sciences and social sciences.
With regard to the issue of educational software and multimedia, it will also be very useful to be able to introduce incentives and invitations to tender relating to the euro so that we obtain responses to our proposals which we can then disseminate if they are good.
Question No 39 by Richard Howitt (H-0094/99)
Subject: Charges for international bank transfers and the single market in financial services Does the Commission agree with my constituent, Mr Vaughan of Rochford, that it is unreasonable for UK banks to charge up to GBP 20 for direct transfers to banks in other EU countries when the same function is operated by the Dutch bank ABN/AMRO for just NLG 15 (GBP 6.50)? In a Union where we are trying to abolish barriers to trade and free movement of labour, would this high cost of transferring money from one Member State to another not contradict the Commission's principles and actively discourage citizens from undertaking work and business in other countries?
Will the Commission consider whether the UK banks are thus responsible for anti-competitive behaviour in breach of Article 85 of the Treaty or whether this is indeed a breach of the single market in financial services?
I should like to welcome Mr Van Miert and ask him to reply to Mr Howitt's question.
You have the floor, Mr Van Miert.
The honourable Member asked first of all whether the level of fees charged by British banks for international money transfers within the European Union could be an infringement of Article 85 of the Treaty of Rome.
This famous article outlaws agreements or concerted practices between undertakings in so far as they have a restrictive effect on competition and affect trade between Member States.
So as long as the pricing in question is the result of an independent, uncoordinated decision of individual banks there is no infringement of Article 85.
But if something else is going on there might well be a real problem.
Secondly, the honourable Member asks whether the level of fees in question is a breach of the single market in financial services.
In its communication on easier cross-border payments of 1992 the Commission stated its view that the full benefits of the single market and economic and monetary union will be achieved only if it is possible for businesses and individuals to transfer money as rapidly, reliably and cheaply from one part of the Community to another as is now the case within most Member States.
The Commission continues to hold this opinion.
However, there is no legal base in the Treaty for using legislation to eliminate the higher costs borne by users who are making cross-border as compared with domestic transfers.
Indirectly, however, the Commission has brought pressure to bear on the banking and payments systems concerned, notably by proposing a directive on cross-border transfers.
This directive has been adopted and is going to enter into force on 14 August 1999.
That proposal has encouraged banks to review their systems and to make them more efficient in order to be able to meet the directive's requirements, especially on transparency, guaranteed time schedules for transfers and the money-back guarantee to senders.
There is some evidence that some banks have reduced their prices over the past five years since the proposal came on to the Commission's agenda.
Pricing policy, however, is ultimately a matter for the individual service providers, whether the transfers are made within one country or between countries.
Finally, in its Green Paper on the introduction of the single currency, the Commission renewed its appeal to banks to treat the introduction of the euro as the golden opportunity to move towards a single payment area, at least for euro payments.
The Commission is presently reviewing its policy on retail cross-border payments in order to deal, amongst others, with the issue of what are still significantly higher prices.
The situation as it is now is certainly not satisfactory. You can rely on the Commission to continue to work to remedy that.
I thank the Commissioner for a very full answer and for agreeing with me that this is an unsatisfactory position.
Will he go further and say that the 1992 survey showed that most Member States - most but not all - have low rate and efficient payment systems?
Does not the survey by my constituent, Mr Vaughan - showing that British banks are charging up to three times more than their Dutch counterparts - reveal that we have a particular problem in Britain? Will you commit yourself specifically to addressing that problem?
When you say that you will continue with voluntary efforts, will you take into account the commitments from your own colleagues. Commissioner Monti, after he met the European Banking Federation on 29 January said: 'I intend to examine in a communication what remains to be done to improve the functioning of retail payment systems in the single market'.
Similarly, Commissioner de Silguy, issued a warning to Europe's financial institutions on 7 May 1998 urging them to look at this matter again.
Will we have more action, not just more of the same?
As far as the last part of the question is concerned, the answer is yes, but leave it to us to use the instruments in the best way we can and according to the rules.
There should be no doubt about our determination to do so in all respects.
As far as the first part of the question is concerned, this should also be addressed to the British authorities to find out what is happening in Great Britain.
To the extent that it might concern the European Commission, including as a competition authority, we certainly are prepared to look into it.
May I welcome the Commissioner here to the Chamber this evening.
May I ask him if he does not agree with me that there is, in fact, great difficulty in ensuring the transparency of the cost of transfers until such time as the euro applies in each Member State?
Would he also agree with me that there is a lack of choice of financial intermediaries within the United Kingdom to access venture capital, particularly for small and medium-sized companies? I feel great concern, which I would like to place on record, that to access loans through the European Investment Bank there is only a choice of one intermediary in the United Kingdom.
Is there anything the Commissioner or the British authorities can do to stimulate competition in this field?
As far as the intermediaries are concerned, if you could give us some more evidence, we would be certainly prepared to look into that. It is also related to the responsibilities of my colleague, Mario Monti, but, again, we are certainly open-minded about it and will look into whatever evidence you might make available to us.
For the rest, I am puzzled to learn that there is such a big difference between the transfer fees which are still applied in Great Britain and some other European countries.
There must be an explanation for that though, as far as I can see, it would be very difficult to come up with a satisfactory explanation.
Something must be done about it.
As I mentioned earlier, it is also a reason for the British authorities either to take action or to look into what is really happening.
But there should be no doubt that, as we see it, the present situation is largely unsatisfactory.
Question No 40 by Willy De Clercq (H-0091/99)
Subject: Major national differences in respect of recognition, recognition procedure, classification of and controls on medicinal products Completion of the Internal Market still seems a long way off as far as medicinal products are concerned.
Companies are experiencing difficulties in having new medicinal products recognised in the various Member states because of differences in recognition procedures and in exactly what is classified as a medicinal product.
It is not only companies but consumers, too, who suffer as a result.
In some Member States patients can use a particular product but not in others.
Furthermore, the different controls in the Member states are often the source of legal uncertainty and of inadequate protection.
Nor is this an adequate means of guaranteeing safety for patients.
What progress has been achieved with completion of a uniform and harmonised market within the EU for pharmaceuticals, and what action does the Commission intend to take in the short term?
I should like to welcome Mr Papoutsis and ask him to reply to Mr De Clercq's question.
You have the floor, Commissioner.
Mr President, there has been considerable progress made with regard to the internal market for medicinal products.
The picture presented by Mr De Clercq in this respect fully reflects the reality of the situation as it was several years ago.
However, since 1995, major steps have been taken leading to considerable progress being achieved in bringing about a single market, the technical harmonisation of which is almost completed.
In broad terms, what is being pursued in this sector can be broken down into three strategic action plans: the development of a European procedure for the granting of permits for the circulation of such products; the development of a high level of protection of intellectual property rights; and the development of the medicinal products market itself.
As regards the granting of permits for the distribution of medicinal products, in 1995 two new Community procedures were launched which today allow us swift access to the European market as a whole by means of a single procedure. This procedure is based either on a joint central assessment carried out by the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products, resulting in the granting of a single distribution permit issued by the European Commission, or on mutual recognition amongst Member States, resulting in the harmonisation of national distribution permits.
As regards intellectual property rights, I must say that, through legislation adopted by Community institutions, Europe now has available the most adequate provisions worldwide in respect of medicinal products.
The legislation adopted in 1998 by Community institutions made it possible to safeguard innovations in the biotechnology sector by issuing patent certificates, thereby putting an end to the uncertainty plaguing this particular sector.
Furthermore, the procedure for the granting of distribution permits protects the data that is used in such requests for six or, more generally, ten years.
The third aspect of this strategy for developing the internal market in medicinal products is the development of the single market itself and, more especially, the development of the principles of free movement and competition in the context of economic regulation in this sector, in which products are subject to strict checks in terms of pricing and returns.
In May 1998, the Single Market Council adopted provisions regarding the development of a single market in medicinal products.
In November 1998, the Commission made a statement on these issues in the form of a communication which deals with a survey conducted into the progress made thus far in constructing a single market for medicinal products.
Mr De Clercq has asked a question which relates to the existence in the near future of plans to improve the operation of the internal market.
I can assure you that the Commission has already made a number of proposals in the realm of so-called 'orphan drugs', in other words, drugs for rare diseases, and also in relation to a more effective regulatory framework for clinical tests.
The debate on the single market in medicinal products will continue.
Last year, in its communication, the Commission emphasised the importance of a more rational approach, which would be supported in the market, towards a regulatory framework in the pharmaceutical sector.
The aim is to improve patients' access to quality drugs and to improve the competitiveness of the pharmaceutical industry.
Thank you for that reply.
I will check it with those who requested me to ask the question.
Question No 41 by Ludivina García Arias (H-0080/99)
Subject: Neutrality of the Commission's Director-General for Energy Does the Commission not believe that the remarks made by its Director-General for Energy, a Spanish national, during the debate organised by the European Energy Foundation on 'the implementation of the energy directive in Spain' constitute an intervention in respect of the texts enlarging on and interpreting Article 24 of Directive 96/92 (EC) on the arrangements governing the transition to competition, and that serious doubts therefore arise concerning his neutrality as regards the legality of the imputation of the costs of the transition to competition relating to the Spanish electricity sector?
I give the floor to Mr Papoutsis to answer Mrs García Arias's question.
I regret to have to say, Commissioner, that the first part of your answer is not an accurate account of what actually took place.
I was myself present at the European Energy Foundation dinner together with a number of other journalists. In the light of some of the things said on that occasion, I began to feel that, as a Spaniard, I was betraying my country.
However, other journalists present confirm what has since been made public, and I agree with them. As I said, I was myself present at the dinner.
In addition, I now have serious doubts as to the neutrality, impartiality and objectivity with which the Director-General for Energy is dealing with this issue. By his very presence at that meeting and by what he said there, he endorsed the legality of the costs of transition to competition in Spain.
I should like to put a specific question to you, Commissioner, in view of the fact that this appointment has provoked a mixed reaction in Spain.
In fact, it has led to much debate, is being challenged in the courts as unconstitutional, and the consumers' associations have lodged appeals in the hope of ensuring that the procedure is carried through in an objective manner.
Would you be prepared, Commissioner, to meet with representatives of the consumers and of the political parties in Spain who are opposed to the procedure chosen to deliver this aid?
Mr President, I would like to stand firm on what I have already said.
The cost of transition towards competitiveness is something which the Commission services are investigating thoroughly under conditions of absolute confidentiality. Neither I nor any other Member of the Commission would wish to second-guess the outcome of these investigations, in strict compliance with the provisions of the Treaty which insist on the confidentiality of this process.
For this reason, we will leave no stone unturned in our attempt to achieve an objective, neutral and substantive assessment of this particular case.
All of us - the Commission, of course, the Directors-General and all the Members of the Commission - have a duty to remain neutral and objective in assessing the various cases.
I would like to assure all the political parties in Spain that this is the line the Commission will continue to take.
The cost of the transition to a competitive market will not be taken from public funds.
It will be borne by the consumers and will constitute an additional element of the price of electricity used.
My question relates to the nature of the costs. However, further to Mrs García Arias' comments, I should like to say that I, too, was present at that dinner, and I agree entirely with you, Commissioner, as to the neutrality of the Director-General.
It is quite usual for senior officials from the Commission to attend dinners. It would be much stranger if you did not allow them to go.
Furthermore, we all want to hear what they have to say.
I am also quite sure that you all operate discretely and maintain confidentiality.
My question, however, is this: is the cost we are discussing state aid? Or is it an additional element of the price of electricity which will simply be absorbed like any other, since it is a result of investments made to guarantee energy and to guarantee supply in tightly regulated and controlled markets?
I would like to assure you that, following discussions held with the Commission, both with me and with my colleague, Mr Van Miert, the Spanish Government has accepted that the Spanish case be looked into. This will allow our services to investigate, as is proper and in accordance with the rules, whether these are indeed costs relating to the obligations of the public services, which were previously imposed by the public authorities on their own corporations, and which are now being imposed on the process to free up the market, and which run the risk of causing casualties among the companies involved.
These are the boundaries within which the matter is being handled.
For the time being, I have nothing more to add and under no circumstances will I seek to pre-empt the conclusion which our services will come to.
What I can do, however, is reassure you yet again that, in carrying out their assessment, our services will abide by the principle of absolute neutrality and will simply assess the facts on their merits.
I would also like to point out that this procedure is closely bound up with the operation of the internal market for energy and, as such, it must be a litmus test for the credibility of the system.
This is one more reason for the Commission to stand firm on the impartiality of the procedure.
It will be for the Commission to consider whether the so-called costs of the transition to a competitive situation are genuine costs and should be included in the electricity bill or whether, on the contrary, they are to be seen as state aid.
I must take this opportunity to mention that prior to this debate, the government had refused to raise the matter with the Commission.
Secondly, I wish to put a question along the lines of that raised by Mrs García Arias concerning Mr Benavides' attitude. I find it quite unacceptable and I feel personally insulted.
Mr Benavides' reference to political exhibitionism can only be understood as a reference either to members of the Spanish Parliament or to Members of this Parliament, and I find any such reference totally unacceptable.
I must also remind Mr Papoutsis that very soon, when the common market for energy becomes a reality, all issues relating to energy - and this one in particular - will come within the Commission's competence.
In this context, I have to make it quite clear that in my judgment - in our judgment - Mr Benavides has forfeited the impartiality and objectivity which are essential when dealing with an issue of this nature.
Mr President, allow me to give my assurances yet again to the honourable Member and to this House that I personally and the services within the Commission will do our utmost to ensure that the directive to create the internal market in electricity is implemented in the most neutral and impartial way possible.
Let me reiterate that what is at issue here is the credibility of the operation of the internal market system and the responsibilities assumed by the Commission in implementing this directive.
On this basis, therefore, I would ask that you respect the answer I gave before regarding the Director-General for Energy.
Mr President, in line with Parliament's rules and the conditions governing the conduct of its proceedings, the honourable Member will receive the same answer I gave to Mrs García Arias in writing, as provided for in the Rules of Procedure.
Thank you for those answers, Mr Papoutsis, and for attending Question Time.
Question No 42 by Jan Andersson (H-0020/99)
Subject: Conditions for Swedish adoption of the common currency The introduction of the euro at the beginning of the year has lent urgency to the debate in Sweden on its possible future adoption of the common currency, the timing of which is one of the principal issues.
Here it would be valuable to clarify the formal criteria for adopting the euro.
Can the Commission explain how the present qualifying periods for joining the ERM are to be interpreted? Are they irrevocable and absolute, or are there circumstances which might be invoked for allow Sweden to join the ERM at an earlier date than that implied by the qualifying periods laid down for the ERM?
I give the floor to Mr de Silguy to answer Mr Andersson's question.
In reply to Mr Andersson, I would like to say firstly that the Treaty does not specify any qualifying period for the passage of a Member State to the third stage of economic and monetary union.
I would remind you that in accordance with Article 109k(2), which lays down the procedure for entry into EMU for Member States with a derogation, the Commission and the European Central Bank must report to the Council at least once every two years or at the request of the Member State concerned.
So to enter the third stage of economic and monetary union it is necessary to have achieved a high degree of sustainable convergence.
This is what the Treaty says.
The Commission examines the following criteria here: the achievement of a high degree of price stability, the sustainability of the government financial position, in terms of both deficits and debt, and the observance for at least two years of the normal fluctuation margins provided for by the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System.
The sustainability of convergence achieved by the Member State and of its participation in the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System are also reflected in the long-term interest rate levels.
With regard to Sweden, the Commission considered in its report of 25 March 1998 that this country did not fulfil the necessary conditions for the adoption of the single currency.
Firstly, Sweden's national legislation, including the statute of the national central bank, was not compatible with Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty and the Statute of the European System of Central Banks.
Secondly, Sweden did not fulfil the criterion of exchange rate stability.
The Swedish krona never participated in the exchange rate mechanism and, in addition, in the two years under review by the Commission, 1996 and 1997, the Swedish krona fluctuated against the ERM currencies, reflecting, among other things, the absence of an exchange rate target.
With regard to the criterion of exchange rate stability set out in the third indent of Article 109j(1) of the Treaty, the Commission considered in its report last March that the currencies of Finland and Italy, although having rejoined the ERM only in October 1996 and November 1996 respectively, had 'displayed sufficient stability in the last two years'.
In conclusion, I would say that there is no qualifying period and I would point out again that the conditions of entry for the Member States that are today the 'pre-ins' are the same as for the countries that are currently participating in economic and monetary union.
I should like to begin by thanking the Commissioner for his reply.
I put the question because the main reason why Sweden decided not to join EMU was that public opinion was against it. Now, I can safely say that public opinion in Sweden has changed dramatically.
According to the latest polls, a large majority of Swedish people are in favour of the euro and of joining the single currency.
This means that next year, or perhaps a little later, Sweden will hold a referendum to decide whether to join the single currency.
I should therefore be grateful if there could be some flexibility over the timetable for entry.
In the past year, the Swedish Parliament has decided on the position of the central bank.
Consequently, I believe that we are now seeing a period of more stability.
I am therefore once again putting the question to the Commissioner.
The most important aspects should still be Sweden's economy and its eligibility for a place in the club in terms of inflation, interest rates and so on.
In this respect, the situation looks fairly promising.
I have already had the opportunity to comment on this subject and I pointed out that there are only two countries which have an opt-out facility under the Treaty, and these are Denmark and the United Kingdom.
It is obvious that we are not going to force a country manu militari to adopt a single currency if it does not wish to do so.
As for the rest, I very much hope that the economic and political advantages of membership of the single currency that we are currently observing will be able to sway opinions in the countries which do not belong today.
I hope that opinions will be changed quickly, and the excellent stability programme presented yesterday by the Swedish Government and accepted by the Council of Ministers is an encouraging factor here.
However, I would add that the exchange rate criterion is important.
It has legal force and will therefore be applied under precisely the same conditions.
I will gladly forward to Mr Andersson a copy of the speech I made yesterday concerning the Swedish Government's convergence programme.
I should just like to make sure that we have understood the reply correctly.
The background to this issue is as follows. The French Minister for Europe, in a leading article in a Swedish newspaper, recently described his perception of Sweden's attitude to the euro under the heading: 'A stronger euro if Sweden joins'.
He also said that Sweden was perfectly entitled not to join the single currency for the time being.
As my Swedish colleague mentioned earlier, the situation has now changed significantly.
I believe it would be a very good thing, in view of the new positive attitude that currently prevails, if the Swedish people were to feel that the present members of the single currency were keen for their country to join.
I should just like to confirm that the Commissioner and the French Minister for Europe are both agreed on that point.
It is not my place to comment on any statements or articles by European Union ministers.
What I can say is that the Commission obviously hopes that Sweden, together with the other countries which are not participating in economic and monetary union, will join or be in a position to join the euro zone as quickly as possible, because our analysis shows that this is in the interest of the countries in question and in the interest of the EU as a whole.
Question No 43 by Astrid Thors (H-0042/99)
Subject: The Target payment system The new Target system for payment transactions between European banks was put into practice in connection with the transition to the euro at the beginning of this year.
The system has, at least during the initial phase, been extremely unsatisfactory and caused considerable delays to payments between EU banks.
Delays in payment have resulted in substantial losses for the banks.
According to the Commission, which measures are needed in order to guarantee that the new Target system will facilitate the banks' transactions instead of making them more difficult, as is now the case?
I give the floor to Mr de Silguy to answer Mrs Thors's question.
Mr President, the Target payment system comes within the competence of the European System of Central Banks, which operates it.
It is not therefore the Commission's responsibility to deal with matters concerning the operation of Target, nor is it my place to advise the ESCB on the matter.
Nevertheless, the Commission has read the various reports describing the initial difficulties encountered by the system.
I assure you that these difficulties are rare and limited, and that they in no way represent functional defects.
According to the Commission's information, Target itself has posed hardly any problems and seems to have operated normally from the first day of use.
The difficulties mentioned are more likely to result from the inexperience of certain commercial banks, which is only to be expected in the early stages of using a new system.
For example, these banks have input data that are incompatible with the system; it has also been the case that, out of habit, certain banks have concentrated most of their transactions in the latter part of the day, thus giving rise to bottlenecks.
Finally, it has been necessary to bring the national payment systems' links - particularly computer interfaces - into line with Target, which also explains the teething problems noted.
However, given the scale and complexity of the system, these difficulties appear to be minor, and the European System of Central Banks now seems to have them completely under control.
This is illustrated by a press release of 21 January in which the European Central Bank indicated that the problems encountered with the cross-border flow of liquidity during the first few days of the euro area money market had diminished substantially and that, overall, only three weeks after its creation the market had reached a satisfactory level of integration.
Mr President, Commissioner, I quite agree with you.
I think you have explained that the problems I asked about were really just teething troubles.
I think it is important to note that part of the problem stems from the fact that some systems do not operate throughout the day. This means that there is a great deal of payment activity at the end of the day.
Is the Commission aware of the continuing existence of this problem? According to my information, the situation at the end of January was that some banks were still not connected to the Target system throughout the day.
That is why the problem has arisen.
I should also like to ask whether the Commission has taken part in any discussions regarding the question of compensation that has arisen as a result of the delays.
It was my understanding that in certain circumstances the compensation issue was to be addressed.
Consequently, I should like to thank the Commissioner for his written reply about another matter, which I received this morning.
Mr de Silguy, we are supported by interpreters in the House, and the Spanish booth at least had not completed the interpretation of Mrs Thors's speech in Swedish. I was obviously anxious to hear the speech in full, and would therefore remind you to wait until you are given the floor.
I have no wish to flaunt my authority. I am merely concerned for the smooth running of proceedings.
You now have the floor to respond to Mrs Thors's supplementary question.
I apologise, Mr President; interpretation may be quicker in one language than in another.
In any case, I congratulate Mrs Thors on her French; I certainly cannot speak in Swedish or Finnish.
On the two aspects you raised, Mrs Thors, I must point out firstly that this was an extremely complex and cumbersome system and that the difficulties encountered were negligible compared to what could have happened, although all preparations had been made.
Once again, it is a question of habit.
You referred to payments made at the end of the day; this is also a question of habit and all these problems will disappear as the market becomes integrated and begins to operate more smoothly.
I believe that now only small technical or electrical problems occur occasionally but these are dealt with quickly and, I believe, in everyone's best interests.
In any case, the system works.
Secondly, when the system was introduced, the Commission had to deal with certain aspects which fell within its jurisdiction, for example issues related to competition, which might have posed a problem when the system was set up.
These have now been resolved and are once again the responsibility of the European Central Bank; you could ask Mr Duisenberg this question at the next opportunity.
As the author is not present, Question No 44 lapses.
Question No 45 by Anna Terrón i Cusí (H-0082/99)
Subject: Excessive commissions charged by Spanish banks Is the Commission aware that, on the pretext of the introduction of the euro, Spanish banks are charging excessive commissions for exchanging euro-11 currencies, ranging from 3 % to 10 % (in the case of sums less than Pta 30 000)? Does the Commission believe these practices are likely to make the public more enthusiastic about the advent of the euro?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mrs Terrón's question.
These two questions are very much related and it is difficult to separate them because they rightly raise the problem of the cost of banking transactions now that the euro has been introduced.
This is a vitally important issue for the Commission because the acceptance of the euro by the general public depends on it.
We must make the situation clear and distinguish between national banking transactions and cross-border transactions within the euro zone.
With regard to national transactions, on 15 April the Commission adopted a recommendation providing both for equal treatment of the euro and the national currency and for compulsory transactions to be free of charge.
In accordance with this principle, all banking services must cost the same, whether the sum is in euros or in the national currency.
On this point, as far as we know, breaches of the recommendation are quite rare.
The situation regarding cross-border transactions, on the other hand, is different.
There are both manual foreign-exchange operations - exchanging notes for notes - and cross-border transfers.
In the Commission's opinion a clear and detailed presentation of the level and structure of bank charges for both types is essential to promote competition and thus a reduction in the commission charged, which would be of great benefit to the consumer.
The exchange rate risk has disappeared with the advent of the euro.
The conversion rate between currencies in the euro zone has been fixed irrevocably, thus preventing the use of 'spread', which means different buying and selling rates.
But the euro does not eliminate all costs, for example certain handling or transaction costs.
In total, according to our information and our calculations, the birth of the euro should represent an average saving of approximately 20 % on transaction costs in comparison to the period prior to its introduction, and this should of course logically be passed on to the customer.
With regard more specifically to cross-border payment systems for small sums, the introduction of the euro does not automatically unify these systems. They will therefore continue to operate independently, in accordance with the structure of the national systems.
The issue of manual exchange will, by definition, be resolved definitively on 1 January 2002, but there will be no automatic progress with regard to transfers.
For this reason we must aim, as soon as possible, to create a Target system for the public so that transfers of small sums - these being of interest to individuals, whereas the Target system which we were just discussing is of interest to the banks - between countries in the euro zone are carried out as securely and quickly as national transfers and at a similar cost.
That is the situation. In the light of this, the Commission has taken a number of measures to encourage banks to facilitate use of the euro by reducing excessive bank charges.
Firstly, the banks are called upon to increase transparency.
To this end they must publish the structure of the bank charges that they have applied since 1 January 1999.
Ireland, for example, has published notices on this issue in the national press, and I believe this sets an example for other countries.
The European banking federations must submit a complete overview to the Commission by 31 March at the latest, and at that time the Commission will undertake a full evaluation of the situation.
Secondly, the Commission has just set up a fax and e-mail system, known as 'eurosignal', which the public can contact directly; it has also published e-mail addresses in the press so that people can send messages, and we guarantee to reply to every single one of them.
Thirdly, the Member States are called upon to quickly set up euro monitoring centres, as the Commission has recommended.
Finally, the Commission has encouraged the banks to develop the cross-border payment systems that I have just mentioned, which are safe, fast, efficient and at a reasonable cost.
In spring, the Commission will publish a communication which will allow us to bring all this together and to propose a framework for creating a single payments area.
This communication will examine both existing methods of payment - cards, cheques - and future methods, and here I am referring to the electronic wallet.
My aim is that, this summer, all tourists - and God knows there are plenty in Europe - will realise that the euro makes it cheaper for them in 1999 than it was last year to travel to another European country and to exchange money.
The Commission has not delayed in taking action; it is determined to achieve a real improvement in the situation, and this must be visible by this summer at the latest.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your detailed account of planned developments in the euro zone, but I had put a specific question to you. Are you aware that on 4 January, all the financial institutions in Spain simultaneously began to charge high commissions on the purchase of currencies that are part of the euro?
This development and the fact that all the institutions took action simultaneously lead us to suspect that some agreement on this policy must have been reached in advance. Clearly, any such agreement would contravene the basic rules of the market.
Commissioner, you claimed that tourists will find it cheaper to travel within the euro zone this summer. However, tourists who come to Spain and try to change spending money may find that they lose up to 10 % of the money they change, and with no prior warning.
Are you aware of the situation and do you intend to introduce specific measures to remedy it?
To give you further details, I can tell you that Mr Van Miert is going to speak before the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs next week.
I am sure that for the specific case you have mentioned he will be able to provide you with all the information that you require and that can be given.
I would also assure you that the Commission will fully assume its responsibility and will apply the powers it holds in accordance with the Treaty.
Finally, we have been in direct and constant contact with the banks for one and a half months now, precisely in order to help advance the situation. I think we are currently making progress.
We could not hope to resolve everything on the first day.
I believe that, from now on, the whole of the banking sector will be more aware of what is happening, and the situation has already improved in a great many cases.
I hope that this will become more widespread in the weeks and months to come.
You will recall, Commissioner, that when this House approved the report on the euro and the consumer - for which I myself was the rapporteur - it also approved a recommendation to the effect that the Commission should put forward legislation designed to eliminate or curtail such practices.
Unfortunately, this never happened, and so unfortunately, events have shown that we were right, and we are now having to raise our voices and complain on behalf of consumers about current practices in the various countries. These practices are preventing the citizen - the consumer - from appreciating fully that the euro has arrived and that charges should therefore disappear.
The Bank of Spain is to be commended for its initiative to provide free exchange of all currencies from within the so-called euro zone in Spain.
Unfortunately, however, the Bank of Spain's network is limited and this initiative has not prevented the private banking institutions from pursuing a policy which may well have been agreed in advance. If that proved to be the case, I am sure Mr Van Miert would have something to say about it.
In any case, our misgivings as to possible abuses of this nature have proved well founded.
Firstly, I believe we should not generalise certain cases which have arisen.
Secondly, it must be understood that the Commission does not have the necessary legislative powers to compel banks and bureaux de change, by regulatory means, to exchange notes free of charge or to observe a maximum tariff.
This also applies to charges on cross-border transfers.
The Commission ensures that banks observe the existing legal obligations: conversion between the euro and the national currency unit without charge, conversion of accounts to the euro unit without charge, and non-discrimination between the euro and the national currency unit in charges for identical services.
Furthermore, the measures we have taken are currently leading to progress in this area.
I have already said this and I will say it again: I believe that what happened at the beginning was overexposed in the media.
We must not generalise this at EU level.
We must be vigilant.
This is why we are maintaining pressure on the banks, and this pressure must be translated into action.
If in fact no change is observed at the end of a reasonable period, we might have to consider alternative measures.
But I do not believe that we have reached this stage yet: the results of measures undertaken in recent weeks lead us to believe that the situation is improving.
It took forty years to put this single currency into circulation, so we should not expect the obstacles and constraints encountered by our citizens and consumers to disappear all at once.
Also, these obstacles are not generally linked to the currency itself but result from other factors, for example the links between banking systems.
I can therefore assure you once again that the Commission is aware of the problems, and we are being vigilant.
We are working in close cooperation with the banks and consumers, and we have issued a number for dealing with complaints and any difficulties that arise.
We will answer all calls.
Like you, Commissioner, I believe in European integration and I certainly believe that we have taken a historic step forward.
Furthermore, millions of euros are in fact being spent on campaigns to inform the citizens about future developments which will benefit them in two years' time.
Nevertheless, the citizens have had to put up with being charged commission by the banks from the very first day of trading, and there is a sneaking suspicion that the banking institutions may have come to an agreement. This is quite feasible, as there are not many of them.
I do not therefore believe that we can dismiss these as just a few isolated cases seized on by the media.
In practice, when an ordinary citizen travels, he is forced to part with a commission.
Do you not think that a public statement might be called for, Commissioner? I understand that you have been in contact with the banks, but could you not give a more helpful response to the citizens who have complained?
Question No 46 by Christine Oddy (H-0002/99)
Subject: Amnesty International and the European Union's human rights policy Is the Commission aware that Amnesty International has marked the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the publication of a report on EU human rights policy? What steps is the European Commission taking to evaluate this report with a view to using its main recommendations to flesh out EU human rights policy?
I should like to welcome Mr van den Broek and ask him to reply to Mrs Oddy's question.
You have the floor, Commissioner.
I am pleased to confirm that the Commission has received the report to which the honourable Member refers.
This report by Amnesty International contains a number of interesting proposals which warrant closer examination.
This is why the Commission has invited Amnesty and a number of other human rights organisations to exchange their views on this with members of the interservice group of the Committee on Human Rights, which includes representatives from all the relevant Directorates-General.
I would also point out here that in our external human rights policy, a subject which we have discussed on several occasions in Parliament, the European Union is certainly very active.
Where I believe we need to step up our efforts is on the proposals to focus our attention on human rights situations within the European Union itself.
In this connection I should also like to refer once again to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the human rights paragraphs of which were the subject of lengthy debate during negotiations.
There is also a proposal by the German Presidency circulating at present to draw up a charter of human rights.
We will be discussing this tomorrow with representatives of the Council of Europe, in particular in order to see how this initiative should relate to the existing European Convention on Human Rights.
To return to external human rights policy, I would remind you of the important declaration in Vienna by the Council of Ministers in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
This declaration also announces a number of initiatives and studies in the field of human rights policy, one of which I should particularly like to mention, which is the suggestion that we should consider whether the European Union should draw up its own annual human rights report, something that the European Parliament has also called for.
Finally, I should like to point out that the Commission feels that if we are to take such a far-reaching initiative it could be very important to opt for an annual report which deals with a limited number of human rights themes, rather than perhaps seeking to produce a worldwide report.
Apart from the human and financial resources which would be required, the US State Department already issues such a report.
I fear that otherwise we will simply be duplicating their work.
All these initiatives are currently being discussed, a fact which we welcome.
I would say to Mrs Oddy that we have the very definite feeling that interest in human rights issues is not only widening but also deepening in the European Union, which is most definitely to be welcomed.
I thank the Commissioner for his helpful response.
As this is such a broad subject, I will just devote myself to one area.
On the EU code of conduct on the arms trade, is there yet a common list of military equipment covered by that code? How many countries have refused export licences for arms?
And how are you monitoring that Member States are carrying out their duties under this code properly?
Mrs Oddy will recall that under the British Presidency agreement was finally reached on a code of conduct for arms exports, that of course the content of this agreement was the result of a compromise between the Member States on a difficult issue which has been the subject of discussion for so many years, and that the German Presidency has resolved to see whether the terms of this code of conduct can be further tightened up to allow stricter controls on arms exports.
We must await the outcome of this, but it goes without saying that the European Commission strongly supports these efforts.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Please remain with this question.
Mr Truscott has the floor to put a supplementary.
In welcoming the recent legislative changes in Latvia and Estonia to expedite the naturalisation process for non-citizens born in these countries, does the Commission believe further measures are necessary under the Copenhagen human rights' criteria to allow the full integration of Russian speakers in Latvia and Estonia?
The Council and Commission both welcomed the legislation to facilitate naturalisation which was recently adopted in Estonia and Latvia.
I believe I am right in saying that in the past we insisted on compliance with the recommendations of the OSCE High Commissioner for national minorities, and on this point, and particular in relation to stateless children, these recommendations have been met.
What we are currently monitoring more closely, on the basis of cooperation and constructive dialogue with these countries, is the situation regarding the language regime for minorities and the language knowledge requirements in order to stand as candidates in national or regional elections.
But I believe there is every reason to be optimistic as the politically difficult decisions taken in this area fortunately, particularly in the case of Latvia, received very broad support in a referendum on the issue.
Mr van den Broek, you spoke about an EU charter of fundamental rights, but all the Member States have incorporated human rights into their own constitutions and there are also international rules on human rights, so what would the EU achieve through having a special EU charter on human rights?
This is an interesting question in itself.
It is also the reason why I said earlier that we need to take a careful look at what this charter could mean in terms of strengthening human rights within the Union.
The honourable Member is quite correct, apart from the national constitutions of the Member States, which generally provide sufficient protection for fundamental rights and freedoms, there is also the Council of Europe's European Convention on Human Rights which is still unique, including in the sense that it is the only human rights convention in the world which also includes an enforcement mechanism, on the basis of which a separate court in Strasbourg can be asked to pronounce on violations and infringements of the convention.
Taking all this into account, the honourable Member will also remember that there has already been an in-depth debate on whether or not it would be possible to allow the European Community to be a party to the European Convention on Human Rights as a legal personality.
The Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled that this was not possible on the basis of the present EU Treaty.
So if this is out of the question, it then raises the question of how else human rights protection can be regulated at European level, perhaps including powers for the Court of Justice.
That is the debate currently on the agenda, but as I said, we are also having discussions with the Council of Europe.
We will certainly keep you informed of the progress of these discussions.
Question No 47 by Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos (H-0007/99)
Subject: Security in Cyprus Given that the EU, and some Member States in particular, had raised objections to the initial plan of the Cyprus Government to site a surface-to-air missile system, consisting of S-300 missiles, on the island and subsequently congratulated it on its decision to cancel the plan, how does the Commission feel that Cyprus should improve its security?
I give the floor to the Commissioner to answer Mr Dimitrakopoulos's question.
My expert colleagues have prepared a long answer to Mr Dimitrakopoulos' question.
With all due respect for everything this contains, which I am sure Mr Dimitrakopoulos is already perfectly familiar with, I would like to try to give him a rather more off-the-cuff reply. I agree with him entirely that the developments in Cyprus have had a positive effect in that President Clerides' decision not to place air defence missiles on the island has considerably helped to ease tensions, and not only on Cyprus: it has also reduced tensions which were in danger of escalating between Greece and Turkey, which could in turn have put further strain on relations between the European Union and Turkey.
We also know that we are engaged in an intensive process of cooperation with Cyprus with a view to accession.
I believe that this wise and courageous decision by President Clerides has created a better climate for that process.
Thirdly, and this is not the least important point, the honourable Member will be aware that the European Union, both the Council and the Commission, are intensively supporting the efforts by the UN Secretary General, and more particularly the special representative Mr Herkus who is on the island at present, to try to make progress towards a political solution for Cyprus.
Here too we can say that the process was certainly not made any easier as long as the threat of conflict over the air defence missiles was in the air.
The positive step taken by President Clerides - at the expense of internal political tensions within his government - was not only a wise but also a courageous act.
But what does this mean for the whole political development of Cyprus as such? Although I cannot be very optimistic - there are not enough positive indications that the political process under UN supervision will bring concrete results in the foreseeable future for that - it must be said that it has increased the prospect that, for example, the dialogue on security and the military situation on the island, which is being conducted in the form of confidential diplomacy by the United Nations, will have a greater chance of success.
The honourable Member can be sure that the European Union will try to contribute where we see such chances developing, through the presidency, Member States' contacts and also the European Commission.
To conclude this answer, we all know what an enormous positive contribution would be made to Cyprus' integration in the European Union if a solution could be found to the still fundamental problems that exist on the island.
When I speak of expectations my answer must always be conditional, in the sense that positive steps may of course be expected from two parties when it comes to solving political conflicts.
I have clearly stated what President Clerides' contribution has been.
It could therefore also be expected, especially when the security situation on the island itself - and here I am speaking of matters such as the militarisation or demilitarisation of the island - is so closely linked to President Clerides's decision, that it would be extremely welcome, and we must now urge the Turkish Cypriot community and thus also Ankara to move forward on this very issue.
Mr Herkus too has made great efforts recently to see whether it is possible to progressively demilitarise the island, also given the very positive boost which that would give to the rest of the political talks which, as the honourable Member well knows, are at present at a serious impasse.
Once again, wherever the European Union, including the European Commission, can give encouragement in its contacts with the Turkish Government, it will certainly do so.
I believe we must also be realistic enough to recognise that Turkey is at present on the eve of parliamentary elections, which is not a period when it is customary to see the most courageous political acts.
But let us hope that when the elections are over we will again see new opportunities opening up.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I must make a further demand on your time, because in accordance with the Rules, Mr Hatzidakis has asked for the floor to put a supplementary question.
Mr Hatzidakis now has the floor for one minute, and his will be the last question to Mr van den Broek today.
Commissioner, I would like to ask you two things.
Firstly, the Cypriot Government previously put forward a proposal to completely demilitarise the island, which was rejected by the Turkish Cypriots - wrongly, in my view. But now the Cypriot Government has put forward a new proposal to establish a NATO peacekeeping force on the island and to bring about the withdrawal of the Turkish forces of occupation and the Greek armed forces from the island.
What is your position on this?
Secondly, in the light of the positive gestures made by the Cypriot Government and given that it has put a stop to its plan to install the S-300s, and since it has said that the Turkish Cypriots should participate in discussions concerning the membership of Cyprus in the EU, which the Turkish Cypriots have refused to do, and in the light of the more general mood of conciliation within the Cypriot Government, do you not think that the Commission and Council should now make an unequivocal statement that Cyprus will join the EU, notwithstanding the stance of the Turkish Cypriots and their participation or otherwise in the negotiations?
It is not exactly the business of the European Commission to state whether or not it is desirable to replace the present UN contingent on Cyprus with a larger peacekeeping force.
However, I am convinced that if the parties could agree at some point on the terms for demilitarisation and if the UN Secretary General's special representative should deem it useful and necessary to comply with the desire for a UN peacekeeping force, then it would certainly then be discussed on the Security Council.
A decision would have to be taken at that point.
I do not therefore believe that the problem lies in the international community's reluctance to make a contribution, in whatsoever form.
But there must of course be a basic agreement in principle between the parties themselves.
As regards the negotiations, you know the Commission's position.
We have said time and time again - these negotiations have been going on for nine or ten months now - that now is not the time to talk about what the situation will be if the negotiations end without a political solution to the problem of the divided island.
We do not believe it is productive to speculate on this at present and will therefore refrain from doing so.
At the same time, the Commission has done all that is necessary to keep the momentum of the negotiations going and will continue to do this if the situation remains as it is at present.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
As I indicated, ladies and gentlemen, that brings us to the end of the time set aside for questions to Mr van den Broek.
Questions Nos 48 to 56 will therefore receive written answers.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 57 and 58 lapse.
Question No 59 by Alex Smith (H-0045/99)
Subject: Nuclear waste mismanagement Has the Commission examined the report on nuclear waste mismanagement at UK nuclear sites, drawn up by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and released in December 1998, which sets out how the incompetent management of solid radioactive waste at Dounreay and Sellafield may affect the health of UK citizens and the environment of other EU Member States as a result of the leakage of radioactivity into the sea?
I give the floor to Mrs Bjerregaard to answer Mr Smith's question.
Mr President, the Commission was not aware that in December 1998 the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate published a report on solid radioactive waste at Dounreay and Sellafield.
The Commission has asked the UK authorities to give us this report.
It is not clear whether the report to which Mr Smith is referring only concerns the safety of the plants, or whether it also deals with the impact on the environment in the event of radioactive discharges into the sea.
If the latter is the case, our study of the report will focus on compliance with the basic safety standards for the protection of the population against ionised radiation, and if necessary will take the form of an inspection pursuant to Article 35 of the Euratom Treaty.
The Commission plans to carry out further inspections under Article 35 of the Euratom Treaty in March 1999 at Dounreay and probably in the year 2000 at Sellafield.
I notice that Mr Fitzsimons is actually in the Chamber.
Perhaps the Commissioner will reply to his question as well.
I must confess I am totally surprised that the Commission was not aware of this report, given its sensitivity at this particular time.
It may indeed talk about the things that the Commissioner talks about, or it may indeed talk about something completely different.
But the important thing is: I would have assumed that the Commission, given its obligations under Article 35, would have been aware of this particular matter.
Quite honestly, I am getting a bit tired of the Commission coming along here and telling us various things.
When we approach the Council on these matters the Council always says this is a matter for the Commission, the Commission's responsibility.
We come here to ask a question of the Commission and the Commission says 'We were not aware of this'.
So I do not have a supplementary question, I just want to register my protest.
Mr President, I am very surprised by the comments from Mr Smith, because in the light of his question, I am naturally obliged to tell the House that we were unaware of the report and that, as soon as we were made aware of it, we asked the UK authorities to give it to us.
We assume, of course, that we will receive it, and then we shall deal with it in accordance with Article 35 of the Euratom Treaty.
Since we had not heard of this report, it would have been very difficult for me to respond other than in the way I have done here today.
I would like to ask Mrs Bjerregaard whether there is such poor communication between the environment ministers and the Commission that the Commission is also unaware, as Mrs Ahern points out in her question, that in December 1998 the Scandinavian environment ministers complained to the UK Government about the radioactive pollution which also affects Scandinavian waters; whether against that background it is not a very long time to wait until the year 2000 to start inspections; and whether it would not be more relevant to immediately send the inspection team to Dounreay, as Mrs Ahern is asking the Commission to do?
Mr President, I would like to give the reply which was prepared for Mrs Ahern - who is not present here today - to Mrs Sandbæk instead, because that is what the question was about, as I understood it.
The Commission is also unaware that the Scandinavian environment ministers have submitted complaints about marine pollution due to radioactive discharges from the processing plants at Sellafield and Dounreay.
This is not in fact a great surprise to us, because it concerns matters which are subject to the bilateral or multilateral contacts between these countries and the UK, and Mrs Sandbæk also said that they had complained to the UK.
However, the Commission is of course aware that high concentrations of technetium 99 have been found along the coastlines of the Scandinavian countries and in the Arctic Sea.
The Commission took an active part in the Council of Ministers meeting held in Sintra in July 1998.
At that meeting, at which I was also present, the question of radioactive discharges was raised and a reduction in principle of the volume of waste was adopted with a view to reaching a concentration close to zero - and now we are looking a long way ahead - by the year 2020.
The UK Government has given assurances that it is acutely aware of the problem with technetium 99, not least in connection with the handling of Sellafield's discharge licences.
Against that background, I think I can say that we are of course monitoring developments very actively and that we also have the necessary contacts, but that we must of course have it incorporated into our work schedule and take into account the number of people available if we are to carry out inspections.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
I should remind the House that we are dealing with Question No 59 by Mr Smith, to which that was a supplementary question.
Mr Fitzsimons now has the floor to put a further supplementary.
My question is related to Mr Smith's question.
I thank you for your replies thus far, Commissioner, but for years the Commission has been side-stepping the whole Sellafield issue which Mr Smith, myself and many others have been raising.
It has always failed to deal with the real issue, namely the closing-down of Sellafield.
Recently the German Government has been doing U-turns and going through all sorts of contortions in relation to the whole nuclear issue.
Since there is no real future for the reprocessing of nuclear waste, Commissioner, do you not agree that it is time, and that there is justification, for the closing-down of Sellafield?
Mr President, it is of course a pleasure to see Mr Fitzsimons so that we can also deal with this part of the question.
Now, we may of course have many different opinions about nuclear power, and for that matter about Sellafield and other things.
I can well understand that Mr Fitzsimons and others think that some of my replies have been inadequate, but I am obliged to confine myself to our areas of competence.
And the Commission has no competence when it comes to inspecting the safety of nuclear plants.
This supervision is the responsibility of the competent authorities of the Member States.
It is also the operator and the Member State concerned who have to assess the economic viability of the facilities.
Therefore, every time we have had questions on these lines, we have had to examine where we have competence and where we do not. And if you want more to be done, as I understand that Mr Fitzsimons and others do, I am afraid I have to disappoint you, because I cannot exceed the competence we have been given in this area.
Mr President, I would like to ask a supplementary question.
I indicated at the beginning of Question Time that I wanted to do so.
I have sat here patiently and I find it quite extraordinary that you are not calling me.
Dounreay is in my constituency.
Mrs Ewing, it is not that I wish to deny you a supplementary question, but the Rules only allow for two supplementaries, and those have already been called. As President, I have to abide by the Rules.
The two supplementaries to Mr Smith's question have been dealt with.
I must now move on to Question No 60.
Do you have something to add, Mrs Ewing?
Mr President, Mr Fitzsimons had his own question.
It is very common when someone is a minute or so late to allow their question to be taken.
That is what Mr Smith suggested.
Instead of that, you called Mr Fitzsimons as a supplementary to Mr Smith.
My request, which was registered in good time, is being ignored.
As the longest serving member in this House, I would say to you that there is no point in coming to Question Time if this is how you are going to treat the Member who represents the area in question.
I am quite disgusted.
I hope I have made it clear how sorry I am, Mrs Ewing.
In any event, however, Mr Fitzsimons was not given the floor to put his own question but for a supplementary one, because he arrived late.
Question No 60 by Antonios Trakatellis (H-0026/99)
Subject: Maliakos Bay link - breach of Community environment law As part of the Pathe road network, tenders are being invited for the Maliakos Bay link, an underground tunnel 4.5 km long and 4 metres wide, to be dug at 18 metres below the sea bed.
Local authorities and organisations in the area are categorically opposed to the proposed project and studies have shown that Maliakos Bay is an unsuitable site for construction of this type (a small, shallow closed bay, geological fault, earthquake-prone, fish farm).
Is the Commission aware that the location of the project and the invitation to tender are in breach of Directives 85/337/EEC and 97/11/EC in that no complete and specific environmental impact assessment has been carried out, no information has been made available to the public and there has been no attempt to find alternative solutions?
Bearing in mind that Maliakos Bay and the wetland of the River Sperkhios have been proposed as protected areas under the Natura 2000 programme, is it possible for this project to go ahead when it endangers the ecosystem and threatens to wipe out all forms of marine life in the region?
Can the project be jointly financed from Community funds when it is in breach of Community legal provisions and what measures does the Commission intend to take to enforce those provisions?
I give the floor to Mrs Bjerregaard to answer Mr Trakatellis's question.
Mr President, the project concerned is part of the new motorway between Athens and Salonika.
Large parts of the rest of the motorway are being cofinanced with the Commission.
The section referred to by the honourable Member is not included in this financing.
On the contrary, it is to be built, financed and operated by private investors.
However, I would like to stress that EU legislation must, of course, still be observed.
Only the provisional studies in relation to the tunnel, including therefore the environmental studies, are being cofinanced through the operational programme for road networks within the framework of EU aid to Greece for 1994-1999.
I have the impression that the honourable Member believes the public invitation to tender in connection with the tunnel has already started.
That is not the information which I have.
According to the information which the Commission has, that is not the case, and the only thing the Greek authorities have done is to announce that the project will be carried out and thus invite individual businesses to register their declarations of interest.
Before a public invitation to tender is issued, there will be an environmental impact assessment in accordance with the provisions of Directive 85/337.
The Sperheios River valley and the Maliakos Kolpos estuary are indeed among the sites which the Greek authorities have proposed for inclusion in the Natura 2000 network in accordance with the habitats directive.
The Sperheios estuary has been designated as a specially protected area under the birds directive.
According to Article 6 of the habitats directive, a project which is damaging to the ecological integrity of a Natura 2000 area, and for which there are no alternative solutions, can only be given consent for imperative reasons of overriding public interest, and if appropriate compensatory measures are adopted.
These rules already apply to the specially protected areas, including the Sperheios estuary, but not to the site as a whole.
This will happen automatically if the site is included in the Natura 2000 network.
Consequently, in accordance with Directive 92/43 and the Treaty on European Union, the Greek authorities must refrain from any activity which could significantly damage the ecological integrity of this site.
The Commission's services will make enquiries of the Greek authorities to ensure that they have complied with their obligations under the current legislation, and with regard to the project in question.
According to the Greek authorities, the project will not affect the Sperheios area, but that is one of the things of which the Commission wishes to be sure.
Mr President, I would first of all like to thank the Commissioner for her answer and I would also like to remind her - and I am sure that she is mindful of the fact - that all the prefectures and communities in this region have already registered their protests.
Thirty-two authorities from throughout the region, which have protested and which have not been asked about the project, have appealed under Greek law to the State Council.
In accordance with the Community directive, these official bodies should be allowed to participate in the project.
As a result, there has been a great deal of turmoil in the region and nobody wants this project.
However, there are alternative solutions.
This bridging project could be carried out differently - not via the Gulf of Maliakos. It is curious to note that, while the Ministry for the Environment places this region within Natura 2000, with the onset of the work it will destroy this region by carrying out a bridging operation which will totally transform this deep gulf into one which is incapable of supporting any form of marine life whatsoever.
I would ask the Commissioner therefore to monitor this affair very closely, as it is of great significance for all communities and inhabitants in the region.
Yes, I am aware that this is a matter which has aroused a great deal of interest in Greece, and also that there have been protests in connection with the project.
That is also why I can assure Mr Trakatellis that we will ask the Greek authorities about this matter.
There are rules which apply in this case, both in connection with the habitats directive and Natura 2000, and we shall of course study carefully the replies we receive, because it is our task to ensure that the environment is treated properly, which is also what we shall do in this case.
It is now 7.14 p.m. and as Commissioner Bjerregaard was given 20 minutes for questions, starting at 6.55 p.m. by my calculations there is still some time remaining.
Could I draw your attention to the Rules, in particular to the annex to Rule 7 - conduct of Question Time - and could I respectfully suggest that, as well as showing a red light to Members, you show a red light and a red card to Commissioners at times because this is what is taking up the time.
The last answer that Commissioner Bjerregaard gave took 3 minutes, 56 seconds.
Members are cut off at 1 minute while some of the answers from Commissioner van den Broek were very long-winded.
It might be salutary for the Commissioners to instruct their staff to give briefer and more pungent answers to Members' questions which in turn would allow more Members to get a chance to raise the concerns of their constituents.
I was about to raise a very serious incident relating to a power failure at a nuclear power station which, had it taken place, could have had catastrophic implications.
I would like to draw this to your attention.
I am always grateful for comments and suggestions from the floor, because I believe I need to take everyone's views into account to be an effective President.
Do bear in mind however, Mr McMahon, that this afternoon's sitting began at exactly 5.30 p.m. Question Time to the Commission should therefore have finished at 7 p.m.
We ought to be concerned not only for the Members, but also for the services working in the House.
At present, for instance, we are running 16 minutes over the finishing time for our services, including the interpreters. As you are aware, the work of the latter is particularly demanding.
As President, I do my best to deal fairly with the many supplementary questions which arise, but I cannot work miracles.
Hence we have run 16 minutes over the time allocated for today and Mrs Bjerregaard has used the time to which she was entitled.
I must now close Question Time and thank Mrs Bjerregaard for her replies, for being here today, and indeed for her patience.
Questions Nos 61 to 104 will receive written answers.
That concludes questions to the Commission.
The sitting was suspended at 7.15 p.m and resumed at 9 p.m.
Common organisation of the market in wine (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0046/99) by Mr P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the common organisation of the market in wine (COM(98)0370 - C4-0497/98-98/0126(CNS)).
Mr President, I think we need to begin by acknowledging the significant amendments the European Commission is making to the 1994 proposal.
The image of a wine sector that produces huge surpluses was all that remained of that proposal, a proposal we have fortunately moved on from today and which was geared exclusively to the wholesale grubbing-up of vineyards.
The current reform, however - which is today clearly also the subject of discussion and controversy - focuses on improving the present balance between supply and demand and, above all, giving producers the opportunity to adapt to and take advantage of expanding markets.
But we should not be overly optimistic.
In my opinion, the proposals put forward by the European Commission in relation to one of the issues being debated - new planting rights - seem more fitting than the Committee on Agriculture's opinion.
I also think that the Commission's proposals are better able to provide this guarantee of dynamic equilibrium.
What is more, it seems more positive to grant 1 % of the replanting rights in relation to the designated wine-growing areas in zones where demand is increasing, than to extend the limit to 2010.
Complementary measures in this regard might include permanent grubbing-up measures for regions with structural surpluses and a revised regulation for replanting rights, which might extend beyond the 13 wine years after the year in which grubbing-up took place.
The chapter on reconversion, which also focuses on aligning production to market demands, has been concluded positively, both in terms of recovering restructuring costs and including the possibility of financing specific measures to support wine making in regions which, because of drought, have difficult cultivation conditions.
However, we completely disagree with the fact that Member States may continue to contribute up to 25 % of the cost for production regions located outside of Objective 1.
As regards market mechanisms, we fully endorse the increase in the volume of alcohol in wine-making installations to 15 % from 7 % through the vinification of grape musts. Similarly, we think that an important step has been taken as regards the use of specific distillation methods in potable alcohol which means that supplies to the Community sector will be guaranteed, a sector that annually demands almost 15 million hectolitres.
Lastly, in the event of a market disturbance, we should like to see the continued application of crisis legislation on a voluntary basis, in line with the Commission's proposal in Article 30.
In our opinion, it is vital that specific aid and measures for promoting wine consumption and providing consumers with information be included in a new title in the new regulation.
From the point of view of who has overall responsibility for these matters, the number of important decisions to be taken by the management committee as laid down in Article 74 and subsequent articles seems excessive. This is why we endorse measures aimed at restoring balance to the decision-making procedures.
Finally, we must once again stress our opposition to the oenological practices used to increase levels of alcohol strength through the addition of saccharose. This immediately calls into question the definition of wine in Annex 1, where it is defined as the product obtained exclusively from the total or partial alcoholic fermentation of fresh grapes or of fresh grape must.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with regard to Mr Martin's report, we should welcome not only the important and high-quality work produced by the rapporteur, but also the fact that the time devoted to preparing, discussing and organising this work enabled the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development to provide Parliament with a good report which is comprehensive and coherent, and which was adopted by a large majority.
We should be aware that such a result was only possible due to the close dialogue held with wine growers, and also because the basic ideas behind the report were inspired by the general report on the reform of the CAP which had already been adopted by Parliament.
This also means that in several areas the report does not follow the liberal proposals made by the Commission.
The report therefore maintains a definition of the quality of wine, an agricultural and viticultural product, and in this way rejects all forms of industrialisation.
It affirms Europe's intention to increase its share of world production of quality wine, which is linked to human health when consumed in moderation.
In order to achieve this, the report proposes controlling the expansion of vineyards, notably for the benefit of young farmers, and a more efficient measure for replanting and improvements to vineyard management techniques.
Finally, all of this must be guaranteed by regulated management which includes promotion and adjustment instruments such as compulsory distillation, and which must not be left to the responsibility of the Commission.
I strongly support the priority given within such a framework to enrichment by grape musts rather than by sugaring, the ban on the import of musts from third countries, which would be a Trojan horse for the quality of European production, the ban on blending white wine and red wine and, finally, the clear definition of the specific characteristics of each wine product; natural sweet wines, for example, are the only product capable of maintaining a level of human economic activity in certain areas of production of the Union.
Everyone can see that the draft CAP reforms tend to become embedded in the rut defined by the Commission's too liberal tendencies.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is very attentive to the demands of the experts and of society.
This is why we will be approving the report which has been presented to us.
Mr President, today the round of debates on the reform of the CAP within the framework of Agenda 2000 comes to an end.
These debates have revealed how difficult it is to find a common denominator which will reconcile national interests which are divided by profound and increasingly visible differences.
I hope that the debate on wine-growing will benefit the wine producer, the product and the consumer alike.
Our rapporteur, Mr Martin, has contributed substantially towards this.
If nothing else, wine has brought people together from time immemorial and has been an important element in social, cultural and religious life.
As far as an appreciation of the Commission proposal is concerned, it represents in principle a step forwards in tackling the problems faced by the sector.
The complex regulatory framework which has thus far taken shape is an obstacle to attaining market equilibrium, developing productive capacity, improving the quality of wine and promoting products on the European and global market.
The current policy of grubbing up vines has resulted in a 20 % reduction in the area given over to vines in the EU, which is being inundated with wine from third countries, thanks to their aggressive production and marketing policy.
In Greece, in particular, there has been a 35 % reduction, which is threatening the quality of Greek vineyards, as the abovementioned policy has primarily affected vineyards of local varieties of high quality but with a limited production capacity.
For this reason, at least 3 % must be se aside for new planting rights in order to enable European vineyards to make the necessary quality adjustments, especially in the regions which have been damaged most by the grubbing-up policy.
As regards trade with third countries, we cannot accept a proposal which allows grape must to be imported from third countries for use in wine production.
With regard to wine-making practices and the possibility of increasing the alcoholic content of wine with sugar, we must maintain the status quo, the historical continuity of a product which is pre-eminently traditional.
I would like to end with a word about the problems faced by island vineyards and vineyards in mountainous regions, especially in Greece, where production is dispersed over small-scale vineyards in just such regions.
The special soil and climatic conditions favour the production of high-quality products, which the consumer wants, but production costs are high and constitute an inhibitory factor.
The new COM must provide a special support structure for these crops.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to congratulate Mr Martin, not only on his excellent report, but also on his tireless efforts in the search for agreements and compromises.
I should also like to congratulate the Commission because, on this occasion, it has put forward a proposal which differs radically from the famous proposal it unfortunately put forward in 1994.
This time, the proposal is better adapted to the current needs and concerns of the sector and therefore constitutes a valid starting point to allow Parliament and the Council to reach important agreements.
I should like to concentrate here on three of the fundamental issues approved by Parliament.
First, safeguard clauses have been included in the recitals, articles and provisions on repeal which, in spite of the repeal of more than 23 Council regulations, are aimed at guaranteeing future respect for the acquis communautaire in the area of quality wines produced in specific regions.
Second, with regard to the distillation of table wines to obtain alcohol for potable uses, I should like to thank the rapporteur for having accepted our amendments and for having included them in the final version.
This has meant that the aid set for table wines to be distilled for potable uses will definitely not be set at the Commission's discretion. Instead, the Commission will have to set the aid in proportion to the needs to supply potable alcohol to those sectors which, according to the rules, are obliged to use it.
Brandy and liqueur wine production will be safeguarded as a consequence, and the production of more than 300 000 hectares of vines and thousands of jobs in vineyards, wine-cellars, related industries andancillary services will be maintained.
It is crucial for this aid to be set at a level which guarantees the competitiveness of by-products of wine for potable uses.
If both the by-products of wine and the aid given for these products were to disappear, the cost of the by-products used to make brandy would increase by 300 %, whereas alcoholic products made from molasses and cereals would remain stable. This would increase the current price differences in alcoholic wine products and force drinks that have to use the by-products of wine off the market.
Moreover, Parliament has improved the Commission's proposal by setting out the ways in which the aid given will be annually reviewed and precisely how primary and secondary aid will be monitored.
And, as in previous amendments that I tabled in the House, I believe that this will guarantee the prices of potable alcohol as well as an annual minimum distillation volume of 15 million hectolitres.
Lastly, I welcome the Committee on Agriculture's decision to accept separate technical definitions for fortified wine and fortified liqueur wine in Annex 1.
The particular production methods and organoleptic characteristics of these types of wine mean that they are differentiated and distinct, and, as such, merit a separate definition.
The proposal for a reform offers a welcome opportunity to set out an independent and distinct definition of these fortified wines, which were not and are not the same as the liqueur wines mentioned in the original 1970 COM in wine. And, in terms of geographical appellation, surface area of the vineyard, wine producing and wine making, trade and job creation, they mean far more than other products that are defined separately in the basic regulation of the original COM.
Mr President, this proposal encourages and promotes free imports of wines and musts from third countries destined to be mixed with Community wines.
The Council and Commission forget that there are Community wines of a very special quality, which can enrich the quality of Community wines in a most wonderful and natural way. It is not necessary to import such wines from third countries.
They also forget the relentless way in which the vineyards have been targeted over many years.
Tens of thousands of hectares of vines have been grubbed up, at a rate which has been very detrimental to Greece.
This tragic situation is very difficult to reconcile with the approach you are taking today, unless of course there are ulterior motives and dubious interests at work.
You are promoting a moratorium on planting and you want to restrict wine growing, push it to the brink and perhaps even create a shortfall to justify opening the floodgates to imports to serve the interests of the WTO and GATT, thereby obtaining compensation in other sectors which interest you.
You are allowing sugar to be added to Community wines, especially to German wines, in order to increase the alcohol content.
This is inconsistent with the restriction on production and the quality that you are after.
If you wish to favour Germany, then at least have the sugar content written on the product.
Finally, Mr President, this proposal upgrades the institution of the inter-branch organisations and aims to force the poor wine grower to compete on the same terms as the ruthless industrial processors of this precious commodity.
You are sacrificing this product, Commissioner, and you are sacrificing it to illicit, questionable interests.
You forget that it is not simply a product, it is a popular form of sustenance, and it provides excellent employment. Wine is civilisation, it is tradition and culture.
Do not forget that.
There are countries in which, since the time of Homer, people have been brought up with this culture of wine.
And you are sacrificing it on the altar of questionable multinational interests.
Mr President, I too believe that Mr Martin has done a good job overall, particularly bearing in mind the outcome secured in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as compared with the others.
Nonetheless, I am not one of those satisfied with the end result, and I therefore did not vote in favour in the Committee on Agriculture.
I think more can be done, and will therefore discuss two aspects in particular that I believe to be gaps about which I am dissatisfied.
My first point concerns the reinclusion of compulsory distillation, which had actually been removed from the Commission proposal.
This proposal is contradictory: we cannot demand, on the basis of the market equilibrium that has now been achieved, to be allowed to launch a policy of replanting and renewing vines, while once again proposing compulsory distillation.
I think this is a contradiction that has to be resolved by the vote in plenary, and our action - as I suggested earlier in the 1997 price package - must be based primarily on a policy of replanting or intelligent grubbing-up, managed on a regional basis within the European Union.
I believe this is the policy that must be pushed forward, combined with the flexible, adaptable and creative approach that other honourable Members have already mentioned.
I believe this is a problem that must be remedied.
At any rate, all we Italian Members will be working for that, not least in the vote in plenary.
My second point concerns our conception of quality.
Many Members in this House have spoken about quality and the need to protect the agricultural origin of the wine and the product itself; however, no effort has been made to work towards harmonisation, not even of production and vinification methods.
I recognise that it is difficult to ban the addition of sucrose, but all the same, something could be done to improve quality: measures could be taken regarding the level of minimum must content or labelling, or we could leave things as they are but find a way of rewarding those countries with the best record on this.
But nothing significant has been done here.
And that is why - without wishing to start a revolution - we shall again be raising the issue of quality rather more seriously and consistently.
Finally, it is worth pointing out that we are discussing a sector that has been penalised in terms of resources; it is accorded half of what it contributes to European agriculture's GDP.
More must be done to promote the product on the international markets.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Philippe-Armand Martin's report modifies some aspects of the Commission proposal.
These changes are mostly positive ones and take account of the amendments that we tabled and adopted in the Agriculture Committee.
They include the possibility of renewing vineyards and aid for promoting consumption in the internal and external markets, and banning products made from musts originating in third countries or prohibiting imports of such musts for vinification.
Lastly, I would like to refer to our acceptance of crisis distillation and the introduction of certain aids, albeit insufficient, for producer organisations and vines planted in less-favoured areas.
However, we cannot go on allowing wine, a Mediterranean product accounting for around 7 % of the Community's agricultural production, to be funded by only 2.5 % of the agriculture budget, whilst arable crops, which chiefly concern the countries of central and northern parts of the EU, receive 43 % of that budget, although they account for less than 15 % of Community agricultural production.
This is just one more example of the clear discrimination that will still exist between different crops after this reform.
We also think it is unacceptable for products resulting from processes such as sugaring to raise alcohol content to be called wine.
We are therefore tabling certain amendments, which we hope will be approved, making it compulsory to include this on the labels of such products, to inform and protect consumers, and also to set a five-year deadline for ending once and for all the practice of adding sugar to wine.
Mr President, Commissioner, for at least seven or eight years now, we have been discussing wine and the now notorious reform of the wine sector.
As you will be aware, Commissioner, back in 1993-1994 for instance, proposals were tabled on which I had the honour to act as rapporteur in the House, in 1995.
So this particular wine has been tasted at some length.
That shows both how complex and controversial reform of the sector is, but it also demonstrates that clouds do sometimes have a silver lining.
And that is fortunate, because the failure to implement the old 1994 concept of reform has been a blessing for European wine-producers.
That reform was finally shelved, and what we have on the table today, as previous speakers have rightly pointed out, are other ideas which are certainly an improvement on the past.
The fact is that the fundamental approach taken previously was flawed.
I recall that your predecessor, Commissioner Steichen, predicted that come the year 2000 there would be a 40 million hectolitre wine surplus; that was used to justify adopting drastic and extremely punishing measures, inspired by the pessimism of the bureaucrats, which would have been highly damaging to Europe's wine growers.
In point of fact, there have been no surpluses for some years now, and that change of fortune is, I believe, not the work of Bacchus but a result of the extensive grubbing-up and the ban on replanting during that period which substantially impoverished European vineyards and left us with ageing vine stocks.
Europe has therefore lost ground in an art in which it has been and remains the world leader.
Of course, that has caused some alarm bells to ring.
Competition from new European producers is beginning to have a significant impact within Europe too.
In the space of a few years, imports of wine from outside Europe have doubled.
There are countries where costs are far lower than they are here, countries that enjoy far greater freedom of movement and which are not restricted by the bureaucratic obstacles and red tape that have always plagued European wine growers.
And so this new and sensible approach is welcome; I acknowledge that, Commissioner Fischler.
With this new proposal, the Commission is I think taking a fresh approach based on the premiss that we now need to help a sector which has in recent years achieved market equilibrium, and must therefore avoid adopting measures that could destroy it.
In my view, the best remedy is a good dose of liberalisation.
I realise that, coming from a Socialist, that may sound surprising, but the wine sector in particular shows that excessive regulation can also be fatal.
And so we need to take a more dynamic approach to Europe's vineyards: there has to be advance replanting, extensive restructuring of vineyards and higher allocations than currently provided for in the Commission proposal.
Indeed, I share the view expressed by previous speakers that more must be done to restore balance.
We have an agricultural policy under which products continue to be protected by applying two different sets of criteria, a policy under which there is a huge gulf between the support given to products from central and northern Europe and the support given to Mediterranean products.
I think that the rapporteur has done a good job, but not good enough: the report is sound on a number of controversial issues, such as the import of musts, the powers of the Commission and the efforts made to make Europe's vineyards more dynamic.
On two points, however, which have already been mentioned by Mr Filippi, we are unable to agree with Commissioner Fischler, principally the questions of compulsory distillation and the addition of sucrose.
I do not agree with the point concerning compulsory distillation, because the Commission has proposed optional crisis distillation which I consider to be the right response to the new market dynamic.
As far as the addition of sucrose is concerned, I am well aware of the fact that anyone tackling this problem runs enormous risks, in particular the risk of blocking all the rest of the reform.
Nonetheless, it would have been worth taking account of the existing differences and inequities and sending out the message, which we are always calling for, that European producers must enjoy equal worth and show solidarity.
We are always talking about quality; well, I believe that quality also means giving priority to products wholly derived from the vine.
Mr President, Commissioner, I hope it has been worth the wait!
After the abortive proposal to reform the Common Organisation of the Market in Wine in 1994, and following our proposed amendments in 1995, the Commission has certainly taken its time in submitting a new proposal for reform. However, it has now adopted a more positive approach, and it is indeed inconceivable that we should think of meddling with Europe's wine-growing potential, with all its tradition and its wonderful variety, and simply abandon the European internal market and the world market to competition from third countries, whatever the World Trade Organisation may say.
The human race would be healthier if far more people could afford to drink one, two or even three glasses of wine every day.
The way to meet such a level of demand is not compulsory distillation or grubbing-up, but a far higher production levelof quality wines, especially in the Community, and of course far lower excise duties than those currently levied in many Member States, particularly in the north of the EU.
Having said that, I am delighted that, thanks to the enormous amount of work put in by our rapporteur, Mr Martin, whom I would like to thank very sincerely, the Agriculture Committee has managed to make some real improvements to the Commission proposal. This has involved some sensible compromises, and to achieve these compromises we have all had to mix a little water with our wine.
I am sorry that despite all these efforts some of our colleagues from the south have again gone on the war-path against the centuries-old wine-growing practices in the north of the Community.
And the strange idea some people have that wine growers not using enrichment should be given additional planting rights is simply crazy.
I personally can agree to the compromise, which took so much hard work to achieve.
I can live with it, especially because overall it represents a positive approach to maintaining and increasing marketable wine production, which after all makes a magnificent contribution to preserving our wonderful landscape, not least in my own country.
But the Agriculture Committee's proposals are also well-balanced and sensible when it comes to wine-growing practices, new planting rights and flexible measures in the event of poor weather conditions or unusually abundant grape harvests, where maximum yields are involved.
I would ask the Commission, and Mr Fischler in particular, to adopt our proposals for the additional chapter on special aid and support measures for wine products and for the involvement of trade organisations in this.
I would be pleased if he could confirm this today.
The proposals also include initiatives to promote moderate wine consumption and advertising campaigns outside the Community.
That is the right way to go. I hope that the Commission and the Council of Ministers will support us in this, and that a substantial majority of this House will vote for it, as a large majority for this sensible compromise is our best chance of making our voice heard in the Council of Ministers.
Mr President, I wish to point out that firstly vineyards are just recovering from the shock of large-scale grubbing-up.
Secondly, they are suffering massive discrimination.
Statistics given by the Commissioner show that, in 1994, a dairy company received an average of ECU 13 140 million from the EAGGF, a combined meat and dairy company received ECU 11 536, arable farmers received ECU 11 207, while a wine-producing company received, on average, ECU 4 590.
The figures speak for themselves.
We are concerned about what is happening, and I wish to highlight the following important points.
Firstly, sugar is used for making cakes and pastries, not wine.
Existing regulations and their planned extension will, in my opinion, undermine the essence of the European Union wine-producing proposal and position.
Secondly, do we not want to improve the quality of our wines? We have must within the Community, which is of excellent quality, and we do not need to turn to imports from third countries.
Thirdly, to alleviate the shock caused by grubbing-up, there must be an increase in planting, which can start with the 3 % which is being debated.
Fourthly, we believe that distillation is not something we can impose willy-nilly on the producers.
They produce wine.
If they want to carry out distillation, this should be left up to them, as it is now, and we should not legislate to make distillation compulsory.
Finally, Mr President, I think that special measures are needed for vineyards in mountainous and island regions.
Mr President, I am sorry to see that the idea of insisting on bottling at source has crept into Mr Martin's otherwise excellent report.
Insisting on bottling at source is a well-meaning and naive attempt to protect jobs and the reputation of the wines from particular wine-growing regions.
Unfortunately, with respect, it shows an enormous ignorance of what actually happens to wine in those countries that it is shipped to. Nor does it recognise the changing way in which wine is distributed, marketed or consumed, especially in northern Europe.
On arrival the wines are specially packed to meet the needs of the particular markets.
They are canned or boxed with the supermarkets' own labels or they are placed in specialist chilled containers for the restaurant and pub market for easy sale by the glass.
I am assured that bulk imports in the UK are carefully protected by making sure that the right label goes on the right wine.
They do not put the word 'Bordeaux' on a bottle of wine or a can of wine that has come from a third country.
They make certain that their computerised systems respect quality.
The bottlers have an interest in ensuring that they are seen to be selling quality wines.
It may be that we need to ensure that these control systems are transparent and obvious to all.
Perhaps this is something we can discuss in detail during the passage of Mrs Lulling's report at some point in the future.
But, please, do not let us risk job losses in our own wine areas and possibly creating problems for our own bottlers by creating barriers between producers, distributors and consumers which are artificial and will damage trade within the Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the importance of the wine sector in the rural economy of the European Union is recognised by all.
However, it must be pointed out that this is due to Europe's dominant international position: Europe's share of the production in this sector is 60 % and, moreover, 80 % of this is exported.
So, you may ask, why have a market organisation? Well, quite simply because the economy is increasingly becoming a global one, and we have to adopt Community rules in order to organise ourselves properly in view of this globalisation.
That is why I consider it useful to emphasise certain aspects of the report which are of major importance to wine growing in Europe.
As regards the planting of vines, we have made great efforts over the past ten years to reduce the areas under vines.
From now on, if we need to know how to grub up vines in certain fragile zones, we should also know how to replant them taking into account the requirements and demand for quality.
This is why we must show flexibility and allow expanding regions to meet demand by replanting vines, while reducing surpluses in certain areas.
As for oenological practices, I am very concerned by what I have just heard.
As a Frenchman in the heart of Europe, I would say this to you: let us put an end to this war waged by the Gauls in southern Europe against those in northern Europe, and let us respect the traditions inherited from our ancestors which are accepted and effective.
We are fighting amongst ourselves, and our attitudes are equally rigid.
As regards the wine industry, it is clear that it is the close cooperation between production and trade that has established satisfactory trade patterns for both the consumer and the quality of the wine appreciated by him.
This is why we need to respect the organisations set up in our regions and, above all, the crucial role they play in adapting resources to requirements.
As far as exports are concerned, let us know how to open up our markets to the outside world and provide the means to promote communications on product quality in Europe.
Finally, it is in this spirit and on the basis of a Commission proposal which seemed to us overcautious and, at times, Malthusian and too bureaucratic, that the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has examined the report on the COM in wine.
Numerous meetings and discussions have enabled us to arrive at the compromise reflected in the text which has been presented to you.
Ladies and gentlemen from both North and South, we must vote in favour of this report.
It represents significant progress in comparison with the 1994 proposal, and it should ensure that our opinion is taken into account by the Council.
At any rate, I sincerely hope this is the case.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is the diversity, its variety, the special characteristics, the taste and - last but not least - the way it is identified with specific regions that ultimately sets European wine apart.
We now find ourselves faced with the difficult task of trying to regulate this diversity within a Common Market Organisation, and to regulate it in such a way that this diversity is preserved.
We do not want a uniform European wine, but we do want a legal framework that is workable.
I come from one of Europe's northern wine-growing areas, from the Mosel region.
Our wines grow in different climatic conditions, which makes them different, but they have their connoisseurs, and there is certainly a market for them.
I would like to thank the Commission and our rapporteur Mr Martin, and also the Agriculture Committee, for making it possible to reach a compromise on this common organisation for wine, which, in recognition of the specific characteristics of individual regions, provides for traditional wine-growing practices to be maintained.
This means the wine from Europe's regions that we know and appreciate will be preserved. Jobs in upstream and downstream sectors will also be preserved, as will our agricultural landscapes.
You can regulate the market, but you cannot regulate nature, the weather and the harvest.
I am therefore in favour of setting a quantity of wine that can be marketed in any given year.
Our wine-growing regions have already set corresponding maximum yields per hectare.
But I am vehemently opposed to the Commission's proposal that if the yield per hectare is exceeded by 120 % the entire harvest would lose the right to be designated as quality wine.
Up to now, quality wine has not been regulated in this way.
Every farmer and every wine grower is dependent on the weather, and good years are needed to compensate for bad ones.
Wine from years when there was a good harvest can be marketed during years with poorer yields, as a way of ensuring the income of family businesses.
So we should allow carry-over.
I would particularly ask you to consider this point again.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report and on the level of consensus reached in the House, which is something that has not been easy.
This issue is still pending from the 1992 CAP reform and the Commission's proposal is of vital importance for the present and, above all, the future of this sector, especially given the crossroads European wine making has reached.
We need the instruments to enable us to be competitive in today's open market and to enable the European Union to maintain its position as world leader in this sector, a sector which has an enormous added value in both social and economic terms.
The consensus reached clearly respects the specific traditional qualities and the various oenological practices that exist and also lays great emphasis on quality and promotion both inside and outside the European Union. What is more, it enables European wine making to enjoy moderate and controlled growth.
As regards alcohol and other related issues, I shall try not to repeat everything that has already been said, but I should like to stress the need to strike a balance between the technical progress made and the need to preserve the specific characteristics of European wine.
This is something else that the reform must resolve.
As a result, demand for European wine in an increasingly open market would increase if it were more competitive, and if such competitiveness was not solely confined to vineyards but also extended to include improved installations, as was mentioned, and wine promotion that is linked to the dissemination of the results of scientific research on wine.
We are also in favour of the creation of a standing committee for wine exports, as we believe this is vital.
Commissioner, there is, however, one other issue which concerns me, namely, wine making which purports to be European but which uses grape musts that have been imported from third countries.
Can you comment on this?
In my view, Commissioner, you have a golden opportunity to adopt the amendments approved by the House and, in particular, the consensus reached here which we have worked hard to achieve. Indeed, we must admit that some have worked harder than others.
Nonetheless, I believe that this would be in the interests of European wine making for you to adopt these amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, as far as I can see I am the last speaker.
Well, we have drained this particular bottle and, as often happens, we are left with the lees that could have clouded the wine.
Thank goodness I am, as I said, the last speaker: yes indeed, because I think that the Commission proposal is a sound one, I think the rapporteur has shown admirable zeal - taking the diplomatic rather than the technical approach - and yet, for me, the reform and the outcome of this work are something of a hollow victory.
In politics, there is a tendency to evaluate any given issue depending on whether you come to it from the Left or the Right.
When we discuss agriculture, we inevitably return, Mrs Lulling, to the old way of looking at a problem as perceived from the North or the South.
Despite the best of intentions, that gap has yet to be bridged; in fact the gulf is still very wide.
This could have been an opportunity for trying to reach across it but, for reasons that other Italian colleagues have already explained, we cannot be optimistic about the chances of what I would venture - a little exaggeratedly perhaps - to describe as an almost epoch-making recovery from an age-old handicap, and it will be a few years yet before there is any possibility of even a partial recovery.
However, I do not wish to cloud the issue of the wine at all.
There are some positive aspects, and I would like to mention one or two of them. First we have the move towards quality and the promotion of wine as a drink that is completely harmless and digestible, suitable for all ages and all tables; then there is the aid for vineyard restructuring, replacing table wines with quality wines; in addition, we have aid for young producers and for disadvantaged mountain regions.
Those elements with which I cannot agree are, however, the dearth of protection against wine from third countries, and the excessive focus on the technical aspects of cultivation and bottling, with less attention paid to the aspects of production.
Unsatisfactory also is the drive towards replacing saccharose with concentrated and rectified must, with all the necessary incentives, for reasons already explained by other colleagues.
Finally, I come to compulsory distillation: I have to wag my finger at my old friend Mr Martin here.
It was an excellent idea on the part of the Commissioner and the Commission to get rid of compulsory distillation and keep only crisis distillation.
For reasons that I have yet to understand, our friend Mr Martin has sought to reinstate it.
It is up to you to redress the balance, Commissioner!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to thank you all for the work you have put into examining the Commission proposal on the market in wine.
And I would especially like to thank Mr Martin as rapporteur for his analysis of the proposal, and above all - and this has already been acknowledged by several speakers - for his efforts to achieve a compromise.
By virtue of all these efforts we have been able to ensure that the proposal for the wine sector will not slip behind the other Agenda 2000 reform proposals.
As you know, this proposal is intended to replace 23 existing Council regulations, to achieve simplification and to cover all basic areas, from the vine to the labelled product.
Although the final list of amendments is rather long, I am still pleased to see that there are many important subjects on which we are at one.
In particular, we are in agreement that quality is essential to maintain and improve the competitiveness of Community wine, and that the conversion measures planned should play an important part in achieving this objective.
We are also agreed that the market position requires more flexible administration of production potential. There is also agreement that we must preserve the specific character of all Community wines and provide a legal basis for this by means of regulations on traditional winemaking methods.
Before I respond to your amendments in more detail, allow me to remind you once again of the seven objectives of the Commission's reform proposal.
First, we want to make the wine sector more competitive.
Second, we want to maintain the improved balance between supply and demand.
Third, we want to eliminate the availability of intervention as an artificial outlet for surplus production.
Fourth, we want to continue to maintain all traditional outlets for potable alcohol and other products.
Fifth, we want to accommodate regional diversity.
Sixth, we want to strengthen the role of producer organisations and inter-branch organisations.
And, seventh, we want to considerably simplify the legislative framework and make it more transparent.
There is a large degree of agreement on these objectives.
Some of your amendments suggest improvements in the measures we have proposed in order to realise these objectives.
In particular, we consider the new wording of the provisions on the creation of a legal framework for producer organisations and inter-branch organisations to be a very constructive proposal.
I hope that will answer Mrs Lulling's question.
We have already started to discuss this.
Other helpful amendments are those on the introduction of criteria for triggering crisis distillation, new rules for liqueur wines and a whole series of technical improvements.
However, there are also areas where we differ and I would like to discuss those in rather more detail today.
In order to give areas where production cannot keep pace with demand an opportunity for some limited expansion, the Commission is proposing an allocation of newly created planting rights totalling some 35 000 hectares.
Spread over a period of three years, this is nearly twice as much as the additional rights granted under the last two agriculture price packages.
Furthermore, the proposal that producers undertaking to grub up areas under vines will simultaneously be granted replanting rights will also lead to a considerable expansion in production potential.
This expansion could even be substantially greater than the 35 000 hectares which we are to achieve with the additional percentage.
So I cannot see any scope for us to go any further, as we would otherwise jeopardise the objective of balancing supply and demand.
In one amendment, there is a call for the inclusion of pure and simple renewal of vineyards in the restructuring measures.
I would like to remind you that the restructuring measures are intended to help to adjust production in certain problem areas to changes in market demand.
Of course we only have limited means at our disposal and we cannot therefore afford to finance measures which up to now have always been part of normal vineyard management.
Again on restructuring measures, you have suggested that restructuring costs outside Objective 1 areas should be cofinanced by up to 25 % by Member States.
I recognise that cofinancing is still under discussion, but a final decision on that will have to be taken as part of the Agenda 2000 package.
This therefore needs to be dealt with separately from the common organisation for wine, as part of the overall financing of Agenda 2000.
Certain other amendments raised doubts about the status quo as regards enrichment, especially enrichment by sugaring.
I have to agree with Mr Bébéar in this case: I think it is 150 years too late for us to start thinking about waging a new war between the southern and northern states.
So I believe that we are right in sticking to the various traditional enrichment methods or oenological practices.
As regards the amendments concerning the proposed crisis distillation measure, I am firmly convinced that the Commission's approach is the right one.
Compulsory measures are inappropriate in the more open market which has prevailed since the Uruguay Round, in which minimum prices can no longer be set, as the withdrawal of quantities of wine would simply result in making room for additional imports.
However, I can accept your proposal to incorporate additional criteria for triggering the measure in the Council text, particularly those on market prices.
Another amendment calls for the common market organisation to include measures for internal and external sales promotion.
I would like to be clear about this: I think that external sales promotion would be more effective in a horizontal regulation.
But I am of course in favour of external sales promotion measures.
However, I think that the various views of the Member States on the promotion of sales in the internal market and the overall stance of the Member States on the sale or promotion of sales of alcoholic drinks would make it difficult to include this in the common organisation of the market in wine.
With regard to lifting the current ban on producing wine from must originating from third countries - a subject several Members touched upon - I am conscious how strongly some Member States feel about this provision.
We have taken detailed advice from various experts, and have received clear legal opinions indicating that our WTO obligations quite simply require us to lift the present general ban.
The Commission has nevertheless explained to the Member States that our proposal will very probably include provisions on controls and labelling, including a scheme for depositing an import security, in order to guarantee that wine made from third country must cannot be regarded as Community wine.
Lastly, a number of amendments have been tabled about quality wines produced in specified regions.
I would like to make it clear that we intend to adopt the provisions of the current Council regulations in their entirety.
Nevertheless, we want to limit the Council regulations to general provisions and to cover the remaining provisions in implementing regulations.
With regard to maximum yields of quality wine, the Commission has already taken this opportunity to draw up a common scheme for cases where a maximum yield is exceeded, so that uniform conditions are guaranteed for Community producers of quality wine.
As long as Member States can settle this question efficiently themselves by means of transparent provisions at national level, then we could revisit this proposal and thus take account of Mrs Klaß's concerns.
Lastly, I would like to discuss an amendment affecting various parts of the proposal.
This calls for various Council decisions affecting market organisation to be subject to Parliament's opinion.
Although I regard this as an excellent decision-making procedure for major changes and above all changes of policy, it is simply too slow and cumbersome for purely technical market organisation measures, where decisions are needed so that we can react promptly to the market situation.
It is precisely for that reason that we have made a conscious decision to cover basic principles in a Council regulation, whilst decisions on market organisation are to be made at Commission level.
This is intended to maximise flexibility and ensure a rapid response.
I cannot therefore accept any amendments that would jeopardise this objective.
I hope that my comments have made the Commission's position on the amendments included in the report sufficiently clear. In conclusion, I would like to stress once again the large measure of agreement which is apparent on many important questions.
Mr President, I was thoroughly confused by Commissioner Fischler's explanation about imports of must from third countries for vinification.
I did not understand his explanation. Does the Commissioner realise what an explosive decision it would be to allow this precedent?
Mr President, I really thought that my explanation on that point was very clear.
I clearly stated that the present GATT rules do not allow us to keep a ban on imports of must.
If we are to comply with GATT, we have to change this.
However, what we very probably can do is to ensure that imported must, even if it is mixed with musts produced in the Community, is adequately labelled so that anyone can see that the wine in question has been produced from imported musts.
So it is a question of ensuring that consumers can see that a wine containing imported must is indeed a wine that is either partly or entirely produced from imported must.
But we cannot simply ban imports of must.
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
Crossing of EU external borders
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, thegovernments of the Member States have now accepted the fact that asylum policy can no longer be dealt with at national level only.
The Amsterdam Treaty has confirmed this view by making it possible to eventually make asylum a Community policy with qualified majority voting in the Council.
However, time is short and such an uncertain time-limit for harmonising Member States' practice is not feasible.
Several attempts have been made under the third pillar, and we must hope that these will be transposed promptly into Community law.
The Dublin Convention has entered into force, but several problems have been observed with its implementation.
The Council resolution on minimum guarantees for asylum procedures comprises some positive developments, but we regret that its provisions are not binding.
The Council's Joint Position of March 1996 on the harmonised implementation of the definition of the term 'refugee' endorses a restrictive interpretation of the Geneva Convention, which excludes persons persecuted by third parties from being granted refugee status, and creates situations which are difficult to manage and tragic in human terms.
The successive proposals for a joint action on temporary protection which seek to provide a response in the event of massive inflows of displaced persons have met with difficulties in the Council.
There is an area where progress has not been made on harmonisation, and that is forms of protection complementary to the Geneva Convention, although it has been included as an item in the Council's programme for several years.
In fact, the Geneva Convention does not cover all situations involving persons who have fled their country of origin and cannot or do not wish to return because they have justified fears of being persecuted.
Even if the Geneva Convention were interpreted in accordance with the UNHCR recommendations, which is what we are firmly calling for in this report, a legal vacuum would still continue to exist between the level of protection guaranteed by the Geneva Convention and the temporary protection currently under discussion, which is only applicable to massive influxes of refugees and therefore excludes individual cases.
At present, solutions, where they exist, are left to the discretion of the national authorities, and they differ widely, to say the least.
What happens to nonsuited persons according to the terms of the Geneva Convention who would be in serious danger were they to return to their country of origin? Fortunately, the majority remain within the territory of the Union, and we will see under what conditions they do so.
However, we must not forget that some are sent back, regardless of the danger and putting their lives at risk, as several tragic cases have demonstrated.
The situation is becoming so worrying that for example, in my country - the situation in other Member States not being any better - NGOs which do not have a reputation for following hardline or irresponsible policies have set off alarm bells denouncing the ridiculous bureaucratic demands made on displaced persons reporting incidents of torture or degrading treatment.
These organisations deplored the decline in recognition rates for the status afforded under the Convention and the tragic situation of nonsuited persons, some of whom were convinced that their applications would be rejected and no longer dared to request refugee status.
They advocated a change in our way of thinking and a return to a code of ethics based on precautionary action.
As regards nonsuited persons who are not sent back to their country of origin, what conditions are they offered? They are subject to national provisions in the host country which vary extremely widely.
These range from those who are fortunate enough to enjoy genuine protection complementing refugee status, to those who are merely tolerated and do not have refugee status or rights, and whose situation is totally unstable, precarious and constantly being called into question.
Current national provisions, where they exist, differ widely in the various Member States, and often even within a Member State.
Who benefits from this kind of inextricable labyrinth? Evidently not the interested parties, but neither the Member States, which cannot expect asylum applications to be distributed in a coherent fashion and are faced with the problems that arise from the presence of less advantaged people in society.
The aim of my report is to bring to the attention of the Commission and the Council the urgent need to make headway on the harmonisation of these complementary forms of protection and to define refugee status and rights, thereby making it possible for those persons who will remain on the territory of the Union in any case to extricate themselves from precarious and distressing circumstances.
These forms of complementary protection must not call into question the full implementation of the Geneva Convention and must at the same time be clearly distinguished from temporary protection.
As regards the amendments, the majority of those proposed aim to alter the meaning of the text considerably and in fact appear to conflict with the actual object of the report.
Everyone will therefore understand why I am rejecting them.
I would have liked to agree to the ARE Group's amendments concerning the persecution of homosexuals. However, I understood that agreeing to them could negate the lengthy consultation process with members of other groups and, when all is said and done, the final vote could be jeopardised.
I will therefore be asking my group to reject them.
I should like to conclude by thanking the many Members who have contributed to this report, which I hope will eventually establish a practice in the area of EU asylum policy that is more in keeping with the international undertakings to which the Member States have subscribed, and with the humanitarian principles on which our Union is based.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am presenting two reports here today. The first is about the Convention on third-country nationals, and the second is about the harmonisation of visa law within the European Union.
I would like to start with the Convention on third-country nationals, which is certainly the more complex legislative project.
I believe that within a functioning European Union internal market we need to have close cooperation on immigration and of course on the rights of third-country nationals who are long-term residents.
It makes no sense using Schengen and other provisions to abolish borders if at the same time there are large numbers of third-country nationals living here whose freedom of movement within the internal market is very limited, and if there are in any case different immigration regulations in the Member States.
This can lead to cases where some Member States admit immigrants who then of course find their way onto the internal labour market as a whole, ultimately contributing to the impact - I do not want to say burden - on other Member States.
That is why I very warmly welcome the fact that the European Commission has brought forward a proposal for a Convention on third-country nationals.
I think that this in itself is a step forward.
Unfortunately, the history of Parliament's consultation on the Convention on third-country nationals is not a happy one.
You will recall that we concluded our discussion of this Convention in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs last summer, and that the final debate on it was to take place in the plenary in September.
At that point, the Socialist Group requested that the Convention on third-country nationals be referred back to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, and I supported this.
The reason was quite simple: at that time a series of highly controversial changes had been made in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and submitted to the plenary. These included an almost unlimited extension of the right to reunification to all members of the immediate family, including grandparents.
The existence of a partner relationship was to be adequate justification for family reunification.
Opportunities for seasonal workers to repeatedly enter into rolling contracts were extended.
The mere offer of a job was to be sufficient to justify immigration rights.
Expulsion for serious criminal offences was to be abolished.
All this would have led to overloaded labour markets and social systems in the Member States of the European Union.
Apparently the very people who supported the amendments got cold feet and then quite sensibly requested referral back to committee.
At that point I attempted, as rapporteur, to find compromise solutions.
I believe that the report before us today is a genuine compromise and that an attempt has been made to reconcile the various points of view within the committee.
On family reunification, we have gone no further than the Commission proposal. Regarding seasonal workers, we have given the principle of subsidiarity priority in the individual Member States.
We have also been guided by the principle of subsidiarity in the case of making jobs available in Member States.
At the same time, and I always thought this was correct, we have quite simply deleted Chapter 8 from the Convention entirely.
This chapter refers to the rights of third-country nationals who are long-term residents of the European Union. We have done this because we believe that, as its name implies, the Convention should deal with immigration and not the rights of third-country nationals who are long-term residents.
However, we are at the same time calling on the Commission to submit a new proposal to Parliament dealing with the rights of third-country nationals who are long-term residents of the European Union in a separate draft, because that of course also needs to be legislated for.
Furthermore, we in the committee have gathered from preliminary discussions with Commission officials that in view of Parliament's opinion on the third-country nationals convention and in view of the Council's reaction to it at first reading, the Commission in any case intends formally to withdraw this draft Convention and rework it, with a view to reviving it as a proposal for a directive once the Treaty of Amsterdam has entered into force.
I welcome this and I am sure that it will also be welcomed by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
I believe that a revised Commission proposal would provide a more appropriate basis for discussion than has been the case up to now.
I would like to stress that I intend to reject the amendments tabled by the ARE Group, the GUE Group and the Liberal Group, purely and simply because these amendments effectively resuscitate ideas from the first consultation in September, which I rejected for the reasons I have already stated and which I have no alternative but to reject again now.
Let me make myself very clear: if these groups' amendments were to be adopted, I would be forced, after the votes had been taken, to ask the House to reject my own report.
That is why I am asking you to reject these amendments.
Now for the second report, on what is known as the visa directive.
This too has a rather unfortunate history.
You will recall that the European Parliament gave its opinion on this directive years ago, and the Council subsequently reached a decision on it.
We did not agree with the text adopted by the Council, for the very simple reason that although the Commission had submitted a mandatory proposal for a visa list which we in Parliament supported, the Council subsequently adopted a visa list which was effectively not mandatory at all, as each Member State was allowed to introduce additional visa requirements for other states, and was simply required to notify the Commission of this.
The result of this was that the European Parliament brought an action concerning the directive before the European Court of Justice, and ultimately won, because we had not been adequately consulted.
The debate in recent months, since this judgment was pronounced, has essentially revolved around procedural aspects, namely what we are actually being consulted on - the amended Council Regulation annulled by the European Court of Justice or the original Commission proposal? We subsequently reached a compromise by taking the Commission proposal as the basis for our consultation, but by also giving an opinion in our new report on the proposals mentioned in the Council decision.
I would like to draw attention to a key political problem on which my position as rapporteur has always coincided with the majority view in Parliament in previous debates.
This is the question of Bulgaria and Romania's inclusion in the list of states required to obtain a visa.
In my opinion, Bulgaria and Romania should be deleted from the list, for two reasons: firstly because discussions with the relevant Commission officials, and in particular with Directorate-General Ia, have shown that Romania and Bulgaria have already met some of the conditions imposed on them for the removal of the visa requirement.
They have not all been met, but a great many have.
Secondly, I believe that it is time for the European Parliament to set an example.
You know that in the negotiations on eastward enlargement and in the run-up to these, some states felt that they had done well, but there were also other Central and Eastern European countries which felt that they had come off badly.
I believe that it would be good if Parliament set an example by lifting the visa requirement for Bulgarians and Romanians.
I do not intend to use all my speaking time.
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
That completes my comments on the two reports which I am presenting to Parliament here today.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and my group, I should like to begin by pointing out something that has come to my attention.
Following the approval of the Amsterdam Treaty, our committee received several documents detailing the progress made in the communitarisation of issues relating to immigration, asylum and refugees, in addition to all the other work being carried out within the framework of the third pillar.
This is something we welcome and look on as a step in the right direction.
However, my attention would not have been drawn to this information quite as much had it not been so easy to see that the progress made is not always consistent in terms of content and strategy.
Proof of this lies in both the proposal the Commission is putting forward with regard to the entry of citizens from third countries and the other documents Parliament has recently received, for example, on the strategy adopted by the Council.
In my opinion, Parliament is not some machine designed to give out orders or amend each and every document we receive, but it does have to have an overall view of events and proposals put forward by institutions in relation to this matter. As a result, I should like to find out what strategy the Council and Commission intend to adopt, if indeed such a strategy exists, and what direction we are heading in.
As regards the convention, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I should like to point out that we are aware of how important the way in which we deal with immigration is in terms of our relations with third countries.
I should like to make three comments in this regard.
The first relates to the fact that we cannot carry out border controls alone. We need the help of third countries, as has clearly been demonstrated by events at Mediterranean borders and the troubles experienced there.
We also believe that immigration is an important factor in codevelopment and we should help, for example, to provide citizens from third countries with the opportunity to study in the European Union, and for account to be duly taken of this. It is also something we would like to see reflected in the report.
As this is closely linked to the content of the draft convention that has been proposed, I have to say straight away that I feel that the rapporteur's reference to the previous debate was inappropriate.
I am under the impression that the report had been referred back to committee with its support, and I also think that we have made an effort to continue with the debate because, as I said before, we think it is heading in the right direction.
This is why the rapporteur's comments seemed inappropriate.
There are a number of things that we should like this report to avoid in particular. First, it must avoid generating a climate of legal insecurity for immigrants and those wishing to enter.
Second, it must avoid the tendency for illegal immigration which occurs because of excessive bureaucracy or bureaucratic red tape. In other words, we must prevent people who could reside among us legally from being reduced to the status of sans papiers , as they are known in France.
Nor must we be over stringent, because zero immigration does not and will never exist. And in my opinion, if we were to act in such a stringent manner, we would be forcing these people into the hands of people traffickers.
That is why we have tabled a number of amendments and reached a compromise; these both represent positive steps forward on a number of important issues.
As regards people who work for others, we believe that entry into a country should be linked to an offer of work, and, in turn, that the work contract should be linked to the opportunity to reside in that country or obtain a residency permit, as opposed to granting entry and residency solely on the basis of a contract.
To me, this seems somewhat utopian.
Certain countries, such as Italy, have already put forward imaginative proposals along these lines.
As regards temporary work, subsidiarity must be adhered to, as the rapporteur pointed out.
And as regards entry granted to people wishing to undertake independent economic activities, I think it should be pointed out that countries that have quotas should be excluded from the rule provided for in the report.
There are a number of points that I unfortunately do not have time to go into here, but I should like to mention the fact that through the issue of family reunification, we have introduced the question of exceptional cases. I should also like to stress that under no circumstances shall we accept the amendment tabled by the PPE Group which seeks to lower the age at which children have the right to family reunification to 16.
Lastly, I should like to mention section eight.
We believe that the Commission should put forward a proposal detailing the rights of immigrants living here to give them a status and regulate their legal situation.
These are rights that all European citizens living here enjoy.
We do not wish to create a Community with two types of citizens, one with one set of rights and the other with a different set, but, in effect, the rights citizens possess in order to be classed as a citizen in a Member State - if you will excuse the repetition - do not apply to immigrants. We therefore believe that the Commission should put forward a proposal which includes these immigrants and resolves the issue of free movement for those legally residing here.
Mr President, two years ago, in December 1997, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy called in the Oostlander report for the visa requirement for Romania and Bulgaria to be abolished.
This position was supported by the plenary and was adopted again in a second report in March 1998.
So Parliament has always been consistent in its view that the visa requirement for those countries should be lifted.
Of course, as everyone here this evening knows, the requirement causes a lot of problems for people in both countries, many of whom are increasingly seeking opportunities to come to the European Union for study meetings, seminars, exchanges of contacts and so on in the context of the enlargement process.
This means that there are huge queues at the EU embassies and people face long waits, often after travelling considerable distances to get there.
In short, it all takes a great deal of effort and is an obstacle to opportunities for direct contact.
This is why we would strongly urge that the requirement should be abolished.
Furthermore, the countries in the leading group, in other words those which have made more progress in negotiations with the European Union, are now also planning to impose the same requirements as part of the adoption of the acquis communautaire , so instead of becoming more integrated, they are not only becoming more excluded from the Union, but it is also being made more difficult for them to have contact with former eastern bloc countries.
In my opinion, which has the backing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, I also draw attention to the fact that it is wrong to introduce a visa requirement for Hong Kong, given that it does not apply vice versa and EU citizens are free to visit Hong Kong without a visa.
It is also sending an important political signal to let it be known that the Union still regards Hong Kong as an autonomous administrative region.
Mr President, I am draftsman - or should I say 'draftswoman' - of the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights on the initiative taken by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs which seeks to establish harmonised minimum rules that are uniformly applicable for asylum seekers not covered by the Geneva Convention.
This initiative, commendable in itself, must not of course result in the European Union leaving its borders wide open in order to grant asylum to almost all the inhabitants of most countries throughout the world.
However, if we are limited to justified and necessary harmonisation, my aim is to draw attention to the specific problems experienced by certain categories of refugee women whose situation is a special one in some countries.
In the opinion of the Committee on Women's Rights, the harmonisation recommended to complement the Geneva Convention should cover special situations, such as gender-specific persecution, sexual violence and exploitation, and trafficking in women, where these put the lives and health of the women concerned at risk.
Our intention is certainly not to grant asylum to all women in all countries because of women fearing sexual violence.
Moreover, there are also cases of this in the Member States of the Community.
However, where women can legitimately invoke the right to asylum in this type of special situation in their country of origin, we urge in particular that they are granted a status separate from that of their husband or relatives, and that they also receive special medical and psychological help. All of this is along the lines of the conclusions adopted in my opinion.
Madam President, as you know, this report has already had a remarkable history, to say the least.
This also accounts for why it has taken so long to reach the plenary, but now at last it has arrived.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights would like to see Parliament give its support, as it has recommended, to the amendments such as those calling for the criteria determining who should appear on the common list - black or grey or whatever you will - to be the same for all countries and accessible to the public.
On the other hand, these initial criteria should also include provisions allowing for the list to be abolished.
The list itself should be evaluated and updated on a regular basis. There is no need for it to be set in stone.
The question of compulsory visas for Bulgaria and Romania has already been mentioned and the Legal Affairs Committee has delivered its opinion.
This concerns the applicant countries which are still in the process of membership negotiations, but which in the meantime are being discriminated against.
Such a situation is unacceptable. We should also like to have sight of the reports that were compiled by the Committee of Experts who visited the respective countries and on which the visa requirement for Bulgaria and Romania has been based.
We should like to see these reports laid before Parliament, since it would be interesting to see on what principles they are founded.
Consequently, we shall give our support to Amendments Nos 28 and 29, amongst others.
With regard to the policy on refugees - which is the subject of this joint debate - on behalf of the Green Group, I should like to express concern over the EU's refugee policy, particularly in the light of the Schengen Agreement and the fact that each year fewer and fewer refugees believe that such a thing as asylum actually exists within the EU.
Should we not be preventing the walls around the Union from becoming too high?
The Green Group believes that a generous policy on refugees, in accordance with the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, is an absolute requirement.
Madam President, it is unfortunately the case that asylum and immigration are politically sensitive issues, particularly in the run-up to elections.
It is a great pity that they are increasingly being exploited for political reasons, despite the fact that many political parties have signed up to the charter against racism drawn up by the Monitoring Centre in Vienna.
It is obviously very tempting to try to curry favour with the voters by exaggerating the risk that we will be overwhelmed by sweeping tides of asylum-seekers and by playing on people's fears that too many foreigners will threaten our prosperity or identity.
There is therefore every good reason to regulate asylum and immigration policy at European level, not just in order to prevent these sorts of abuses at national level, but also because of the cross-border nature of the problem.
Time and time again, however, the Council has disappointed us here.
Of course, when it comes to restrictive measures, defending fortress Europe and passing the problem off onto neighbouring countries, it is only too happy to turn a blind eye and has no problem in finding agreement.
But constructing and harmonising a humane and fair asylum and immigration policy seems to be well-nigh impossible.
This is why I think it is good that the Commission and Parliament keep putting these issues back on the agenda.
Mrs Lindeperg's report on the harmonisation of forms of protection complementing refugee status is certainly needed now that it appears that many people are falling through the net, sometimes because the Geneva Convention is interpreted too narrowly and sometimes because people do not actually meet the criteria to be classified as genuine refugees but cannot return to their country of origin.
It is often claimed that the Geneva Convention is being abused, that the people asking us for asylum are not genuine refugees, and that the asylum problem is beset by liars and criminals.
But we ourselves largely encourage this by making the Convention the only possible way of getting into Europe.
This is why I particularly welcome the fact that the Commission has looked at this side of the problem and considered under what conditions the nationals of third countries can be admitted.
We very much appreciate the fact that the Commission, and particularly Commissioner Gradin, have asked us for our opinion on this.
However, in order to arrive at an opinion we have had to make a sacrifice, because we were only able to achieve a majority in the committee by deleting Chapter 8.
We can well imagine that this will come as a disappointment to the Commission, as indeed it is to us, because it means that the basic objective, which is one that we value, has been nipped in the bud.
Amendment No 49, which calls for a status to be introduced for third-country nationals, is designed to counter this objection.
I hope that the Commission realises that my group at least supports its idea of improving the position of illegal residents too.
We are therefore hopeful that a status will be created which establishes the rights of fellow citizens from third countries.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my own comments relate to the proposals, underlying trends and amendments emanating from the left of the House.
They generally have one thing in common: they repeatedly support immigration from third countries and above all an extension of family immigration and reunification, with an overwhelming tendency to class all forms of partnership - regardless of gender - as a family, and at the same time adopting an increasingly wide definition of relatives.
The result must be obvious.
These proposals also tend to facilitate access to the labour market of the European Union. For example, one amendment suggests that the mere offer of a work contract should be enough to qualify for a one- to four-year stay in the European Union.
The extension of refugee status is another issue exercising our minds.
I am all for thought being given to this and for seeking solutions.
However, we will not find any solutions based on the very vague definitions we have of the groups involved, for example, if when we talk about groups of people threatened with violations of fundamental human rights, we insist on categorising the right to health or the right to work as basic rights, or if we include groups who are threatened by major disruptions in public order, or people who give homosexuality as grounds for asylum.
The net is being widened somewhat too far if all these groups are to be given the status of refugees wishing to enter the European Union.
If you consider the extensive new appeal arrangements, which provide that an appeal always has suspensory effect for all these groups, even if there has been abuse of the system, then you end up with similar problems, as I have already mentioned.
Regarding asylum, I would also like to mention that we must of course give positive signals to states such as Bulgaria or Romania who are making an effort.
However, I know from my own experience of the Ministry of the Interior there that there are major problems with the justice system, the police and the development of border security.
We know that there is a constant risk of illegal immigrants entering the Member States of the European Union via these countries.
We must help them to improve their border security.
However, we cannot remove the visa requirement whilst Europe has no guarantee of security.
The effect of all these demands tends to be an increase in immigration, an invitation to abuse asylum status and an impression that we are doing too little for refugees.
This effect is unacceptable and that impression totally erroneous.
What we need, and we in the PPE Group are arguing for this, is a comprehensive solution embracing asylum and refugee issues, which provides for burden sharing and for measures to counter abuse.
The objective we should be setting ourselves is to help refugees, but to limit and regulate immigration and to combat abuse and illegal activity, so that in future we can guarantee a safe and stable Europe, in the interests of our all our citizens.
Madam President, I should like to make four remarks in the joint debate on the Lindeperg and Lehne reports.
The first concerns the appropriateness of holding the debate on the Lehne report at this time.
Mr Lehne himself said in his report that we can raise the question as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty - once it has entered into force - provides a more appropriate framework for dealing with problems connected with the admission of third country nationals.
In this case, however, the Commission has exercised its right of initiative for the first time by formulating a position on the subject.
Parliament has repeatedly called upon the Commission to give impetus to policies which come under the third pillar, and therefore cannot take a favourable decision on this.
Moreover, the urgent need for harmonisation in this area no longer has to be demonstrated.
Secondly, the admission of non-Community nationals concerns issues as important as the labour market, vocational training, family reunification, all issues giving rise to controversy which is sometimes very acute.
In short, we are dealing with an extremely sensitive issue here, which - if the case arises - provokes emotional and impassioned reactions and is also very often the cause of irrational thoughts and behaviour.
Words are therefore important in themselves because of the ideas they express and the messages they convey, or rather suggest.
Recent events remind us that regarding nationality as an ethnic concept, for example, would by its very nature wake evil spirits from the past and make it possible for parties pursuing this line of approach to win elections.
It is the whole political class that is being questioned about the way in which it must take up these challenges.
To summarise my view regarding the admission of non-Community nationals on the territory of the European Union, in particular, and general relations between European citizens and non-Community nationals, I would say that there is reason more than ever before to consider how the debate should be organised, and how to encourage reflection and to convince the sceptics.
We need to show ourselves to be understanding and sometimes patient, as well as imaginative and generous towards those concerned by the policies referred to in the Lehne and Lindeperg reports.
In other words, two different approaches are possible.
The first approach, which is based on populism and electioneering, tends to send out a strong message to the more fortunate members of society, and a weak one to disadvantaged social groups.
The second approach, which consists in giving positive signals to the vulnerable groups in society, and less positive ones to those who are more fortunate, seems to me quite obviously to be more compatible with our duty to show solidarity, as is stipulated by the Geneva Convention with regard to asylum seekers.
Thirdly, and I thank Mr Lehne particularly for having mentioned this aspect, we should welcome Parliament's coherent attitude towards maintaining visa requirements for Romanian and Bulgarian nationals.
Of course, the Member States will probably not follow the conclusions of Parliament, which calls upon them to remove Bulgaria and Romania from the famous common list.
It would be a real shame if the Council were to persevere in its attitude.
However, without being particularly optiministic, I hope it will respond favourably to our demand.
In doing so, it would merely be recognising the progress achieved by both these countries. What is more, it would merely be putting an end to a form of discrimination which affects two countries associated with the European Union.
Finally, I should like to say that the policies at the centre of our debate are part of an overall picture.
I am also the first person to regret that no progress was made on burden-sharing, a subject to which a previous debate was devoted.
This would allow us to progress more quickly in terms of the policies we are currently discussing.
Madam President, once again we are dealing with the important issue of asylum and, more specifically, protection complementing refugee status in the European Union.
However, we must remind ourselves that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - a declaration that is often cited and one that is presumably adopted by all - recognises the right of any person to protect themselves against persecution and to enjoy asylum in any country. We must also bear in mind that the Geneva Convention, without restrictive interpretations, must be the frame of reference for all national or Community regulations on the right to asylum and refugee status.
On the basis of the content of these texts, we strongly criticise the ever more stringent conditions that Member States are imposing on persons seeking protection in countries of the Union.
Entry, residence and the status of persons seeking international protection in the territory of Member States cannot, under any circumstances, be treated merely as issues relating to the internal security of those states. They must be considered with respect for international conventions and a supportive policy of aid for development and economic cooperation.
In recent years we have noted with some concern that legislation on asylum has been tightened up. This has resulted in a downward trend in the number of applications for asylum in the European Union and stagnation in the rates of acknowledgement of refugee status in many countries, despite the fact that the human rights situation in the world has not considerably improved.
With regard to protection complementary to refugee status, we support the measures put forward by the rapporteur. They focus on the protection of persons threatened by widespread violence, internal conflict or violations of human rights and lay particular emphasis on the international recognition of women who are subject to sexual violence.
We also believe that it is essential to adopt measures to ensure the integration of refugees into society and to help them develop as residents.
Lastly, I should like to highlight the case of the Kurdish leader, Abdullah Ocalan, and call on the Council to make a determined effort to intervene in this situation.
Madam President, human rights and citizens' rights are not principles that are infinitely variable.
They must be applied constantly and coherently in all countries; there must be no exceptions and no grey areas.
In this sense, Mrs Lindeperg's report endeavours to increase throughout the European Union the level of protection for refugees and persons subjected to persecution. It proposes a useful complement to measures protecting human rights.
With reservation, we approve the need to harmonise at EU level the rules applying to refugees who cannot claim the status afforded by the Geneva Convention but cannot return to their country of origin for fear of losing their lives or being subjected to degrading or humiliating treatment.
The definition of refugee status given in the Geneva Convention is interpreted in a narrow sense by a Council decision: refugee status is only granted where persecution is carried out or encouraged by the authorities.
Where the authorities fail to act, the persons concerned are eligible for forms of protection under national law, and this is where the shoe pinches and the measure proves to be inadequate.
Complementary protection can vary from one Member State to another, creating to all intents and purposes disparities with regard to opportunity of protection depending on the place where the individual being persecuted makes his application for asylum.
This unequal treatment can have serious consequences, for example where a refugee's life is at risk if he returns to his country of origin.
Harmonisation is therefore desirable. Moreover, it will make it possible to establish a set of rules which will provide a basis for examining the forms of protection taken from the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, refugees benefiting from complementary protection must not be confused with immigrants.
Poverty in a country may result in severe disruptions to public order or create internal conflict.
Is a person fleeing this type of disorder a refugee with the right to complementary protection or an immigrant?
This is where there is the risk of confusion.
Harmonisation of these forms of complementary protection must not of course be an end in itself either.
We must not only pursue a policy of education by constantly denouncing human rights violations, but we must also provide development aid for those countries and regions where human rights are flouted.
Mrs Lindeperg's report corresponds to the notion of generosity to which we are attached, and proposes solutions which seek to improve the rights of persons subjected to persecution by making progress in the area of the rule of law and in this case, accepted standards of behaviour in Europe.
However, our final vote will of course take account of possible subsequent amendments which will be tabled and adopted in plenary.
Madam President, at a time when in many European Union countries asylum seekers are not necessarily regarded as refugees who are to be welcomed, Mrs Lindeperg's report is a valuable document.
She is a Member of Parliament with the courage of her convictions.
Migration is a social reality in the European Union.
We are concerned about the tendency in some Member States to substitute temporary so-called refuge for genuine recognition of refugee status under the Geneva Convention.
The EU should not harmonise forms of protection supplementing the Geneva Convention without allowing for a liberal interpretation of the Convention on the status of refugees.
For this reason we welcome the debate needed on the Austrian strategy paper on migration and asylum policy.
The report makes it clear that Austria's so-called strategy paper is intended as a deterrent, and is not suitable as a basis for solving the problems of migration and asylum-seekers, because it confuses not only the various issues surrounding their causes, but also the solutions to these problems.
Of course there is an urgent need for coordinated action.
The objective is to create approximately equivalent admission criteria for refugees by means of a common legal protection system, so that recognition criteria can be interpreted as uniformly as possible. Mrs Lindeperg's report makes a valuable contribution to this.
I would also like to say something about the two amendments tabled by my group.
It is our view that Amendments Nos 16 and 17 are not relevant to this debate.
A debate about the future or the fate of refugees in general is not the place for a discussion of what has happened to Mr Ocalan.
That should be dealt with separately.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mrs Lindeperg.
The ARE Group has always supported her attempts to find a decent solution to the problems facing asylum-seekers and many others in this world who feel oppressed and threatened.
We share her concern and we will continue to support her.
We are in favour of harmonising legislation at European level in principle, but we fear that it would be used as a way to consolidate fortress Europe, with the legislation and the Convention being applied increasingly strictly, whereas what we want is greater understanding for the huge numbers of refugees throughout the world and for all those under threat.
We regret the fact that the European Parliament has been reduced to an advisory body on this issue and that we are not able to make a more decisive contribution.
In our experience the Member States are the only ones that take the decisions, and they are often very hypocritical about it.
Very often they talk about solutions that need to be taken at European level, while at the same time rejecting existing European solutions and pursuing their own restrictive policies.
We are extremely unhappy that various countries are pursuing this approach, and we think that the Convention should be updated to include a more modern definition of the term 'political refugee'.
We want new categories to be admitted to allow people over this very difficult hurdle.
We want people persecuted for their gender or sexual orientation to be included, and we want new rights for a new generation.
We know that Europe cannot escape its responsibilities here, and we know that we are weak when it comes to protecting democracy in the world.
On the other hand, we ourselves create illegality.
It will always be more difficult - it already is - to enter Europe legally than illegally.
And this causes distortions in our own society and condemns people to go through life 'sans papiers '.
We want nothing to do with such a short-sighted policy.
We want things to be regulated properly so that the problem can be brought under control.
We do not want to be or to become a totalitarian state, but we want to adopt a pragmatic approach in order to deal with current problems realistically.
We have tabled two amendments which, from what I have heard, can count on considerable support.
Mrs Van Lancker, I am sure that there are a lot of people as well as you who agree in their hearts, but we will have to wait and see if they actually vote for them.
What is the point of going for a Conservative majority when we could win a more progressive majority here in the House, with various representatives of the Liberals and our two groups?
Madam President, I have decided.
I have to point out that we agree with the first Lehne report, but we definitely cannot vote for the decisions in the second report, where we thought the Commission text was much better than what the report says.
Madam President, the three reports on the crossing of EU borders, which are the subject of this joint debate, are very different.
Two of them are the result of what is termed the intergovernmental method of negotiation: they concern the draft Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals, and the proposal for a Council regulation which was also negotiated by consensus within the Council, which determines the list of countries whose nationals require a visa to enter the Union.
The third text comes under a completely different category: it is an own-initiative report produced by the European Parliament which proposes a wide interpretation of the refugee status laid down by the 1951 Geneva Convention.
Yet, just as the first two texts try to be strict on the subject of the crossing of external borders, the third text clearly adopts a more liberal attitude and is inspired by ideas which it would be difficult to claim are shared by the majority of our fellow citizens.
I will come back to this point in my explanation of vote.
In fact, it is as though this joint debate had a hidden agenda seeking to lead us to the following conclusion: the intergovernmental negotiations unanimously concluded in the Council are the ones that produce the texts which are the closest to what happens in the real world.
This is why, for all crucial issues connected with the international movement of persons, my group hopes that we stay with this method and reject the possibility of switching over to majority voting and codecision with the European Parliament, as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty.
Madam President, first of all, let me congratulate the rapporteurs of both reports for having grappled well with exceedingly complex issues.
As far as the Lindeperg report is concerned, this is a very positive attempt to try to provide - and encourage the provision of - supplementary assistance to asylum-seekers.
There is a lot to be said for trying to harmonise the social provisions which the Member States make in varying degrees and indeed for endeavouring to have a harmonised and common approach.
There are some amendments, which Mrs Lindeperg has already referred to, which I equally would not be happy to go along with.
But we can end up, if we accept this report essentially as it has been drafted, with a very positive contribution to dealing with this issue.
As far as the Lehne report is concerned, I must say that here again I have some concerns: it exposes the inadequacies of the convention proposals in that they are particularly restrictive in some respects but lacking in others.
Not a happy set of proposals, as the Lehne report explains.
I basically want to talk about the report on visa requirements for third country nationals.
Here I have a lot of problems and difficulties.
I agree entirely with those speakers from my group who have highlighted the undesirability of introducing complex and difficult-to-operate rules relating to employment conditions, and also the reduction of the age at which family members would be allowed to enter the country.
The reference in the Commission proposals to the age of majority is correct and we should not introduce some other factor.
But I must say - and here I think I speak for the majority of British Labour Members - that we really find it difficult to accept that the rights of Member States to respond to changed circumstances by introducing visa requirements should be removed.
The difficult situation that we have encountered in Britain with people coming from Slovakia in the last year or so has led the British Government to introduce visa requirements, which were almost unavoidable.
It is premature to talk about removing visa requirements for people from Romania and Bulgaria when a number of western European countries are already receiving considerable numbers of asylum-seekers from those countries, some of them with very genuine complaints.
Much more needs to be done in these countries in terms of ensuring proper protection for the rights of their minorities before we can think of removing these restrictions.
In all those respects I really could not accept the report as it stands and I shall be voting against those particular parts.
Madam President, the right of asylum is sacrosanct. That is enough said about the grand and noble principle.
On no account should the right of asylum be changed in any way, either in the form of a restrictive interpretation of the Geneva Convention by the Member States, or through abuse of the system by interested parties.
What we need, on the other hand, is an extension of the principles of the Geneva Convention by means of a regime providing complementary protection to deal with exceptional cases.
However, such an extension must in no way aid the interests of those who try to misuse the right of asylum and wish to throw the door wide open to all forms of abuse.
If we are to be effective, we need to find solutions which are pragmatic as well as humanitarian.
We must firstly promote transparent solutions at European level and then - instead of pursuing a liberal line of action - seek sensible solutions which guarantee the right of asylum while preventing it from being misused.
I do not think that the Member States are closing their doors to asylum seekers, as is suggested in the Lindeperg report, but they are rightly closing them to illegal immigrants seeking to abuse the system on economic grounds rather than on political grounds.
By combating illegal and uncontrolled immigration, the Member States guarantee the right of asylum and prevent our citizens from making asylum seekers outcasts.
Yes to the right of asylum and complementary protection! No to lax and ideological attitudes on this serious matter!
Madam President, I fully endorse the Lindeperg report because it reinforces the right of asylum and provides an adequate response to the strategy paper produced by the Austrian Presidency, which calls into question the international law on refugees guaranteed by the Geneva Convention.
However, I am opposed to the Commission's draft Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals. In fact, it proposes an admission and residence policy which conforms with the Member States' most restrictive rules.
This is particularly true in the case of employment since it makes national and Community preference one of the key principles of the admission policy.
Was the Commission never informed of the OECD study in which it is acknowledged that there is no close correlation between the influx of foreigners into a country and the increase in the unemployment rate?
I nevertheless admit that the adoption of certain amendments has made a significant improvement to the draft.
However, I am dismayed at the compromise amendment proposed by the PSE/PPE to Article 7(1) on employment.
This amendment not only implies acceptance of the notion of national preference, but it clearly vindicates the system of quotas which would allow each Member State to take from poor countries the manpower and qualified workers it needs.
My group has therefore tabled an amendment to correct what I had hoped was only a mistake until I heard Mrs Terrón i Cusí's speech.
My group's final vote will depend on acceptance of this amendment, and I will be requesting a roll-call vote.
The Commission's draft convention does not augur well for the substance of future Community immigration and asylum policy, as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty.
We must warn the organisations of the dangers of this and take action with them to transform the present stumbling blocks into proper reception conditions.
I am taking pains to do this.
I reject this notion of a fortress Europe which is inward-looking.
We must put an end to this scapegoat strategy which the Minister of the Interior, Mr Schily, also talked about a fortnight ago in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs. However, our French Minister is no better on this subject.
He has never addressed the issue of immigrants in terms of the legal implications. He has consistently linked immigration with unemployment, insecurity and criminality, as if evil always comes from elsewhere.
The danger of this type of xenophobia - it cannot be called anything other than this - is great, for as Gorki wrote, 'it is preferable to expect the best of man; expecting the worst will only lead him astray'.
Madam President, I wish that Mrs Lindeperg could have had a better time-slot and a fuller House for this debate.
Not only is it one of the most important reports we have discussed for a long time, it is also one of the most outstanding.
It demonstrates, with depressing sobriety and enormous clarity, that we find ourselves slipping into a human rights dilemma or even a human rights emergency.
Many of the Members not here today would, if they were to study this report, very probably have to stop telling the public that asylum, in terms of human rights and international law, is not under attack.
It is.
Mr Pirker, on the other hand, is an example of someone quite capable of maintaining all his aggressive prejudices despite being in possession of the facts.
I would really like to know how you can escape into Europe.
I think you would need to be the invisible man or jump down from a satellite.
Otherwise, it will soon be impossible to penetrate this continent famed for its justice and human rights.
We have abolished the right to asylum within the European Union, despite the Geneva Convention and current international law.
We have simply taken matters into our own hands, and no one is doing anything about it.
Outside the EU, we have created a cordon of states that we have lumped together as being safe third countries, thus flying in the face of the Geneva Convention and current international law.
Under the Geneva Convention, an applicant is only entitled to asylum if a justified fear of persecution can be demonstrated. We have changed the criterion to one of proving that persecution is a fact.
We are constantly raising the hurdles, creating barriers and imposing new conditions, so that it has become virtually impossible to get into Europe.
The end result is mass deportations, children held in pre-expulsion detention centres, families torn apart, and refugees being repatriated to countries where they are in danger of life and limb.
That is where we now stand in the European Union, which when it wants to implement something like the internal market, the euro or competition law, applies itself with great determination, but which is achieving less and less when it comes to human rights and democracy, the underlying principles of the Union.
Madam President, Mr Lehne's report gives me the opportunity once more to denounce the excesses of Europe's emigrationism .
Immigration policy is and must remain the responsibility of each Member State.
I reject the outright harmonisation of immigration policies, the right of asylum, and criminal and judicial procedures that is advocated by Brussels.
A healthy state is first and foremost a state which controls its influx of immigrants and makes it possible for its nationals to work and go out in the evening in complete safety.
We will vote against this report which protects non-Community nationals and damages the interests of European nationals, and which encourages family reunification even where a family unit is not legitimate or recognised as such in the eyes of the law, since it talks about partners.
What is more, we want to offer jobs to foreigners when seven million people in our own country are unemployed or live below the poverty line.
I would point out that according to this report, a contract of employment will be sufficient to obtain refugee status.
If adopted, these various amendments will undoubtedly turn our Europe - which is already an open door when it comes to immigration - into a Europe where the floodgates are opened to what will become a spate of immigrants.
Some Members of Parliament talk to us about populism, electioneering and racism.
But they do not live in the so-called problem areas.
It is the poorest and weakest people who put up with this type of situation, and this can no longer be tolerated.
It is unthinkable that those who advocate jobs and security in Europe could support such initiatives which are destructive to our countries and people.
I for my part will not do so.
Allow me to remind you of the famous words of one of our colleagues, who said that we cannot take all the troubles of the world upon our shoulders.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased that most of us in this House are not of the same opinion as Mrs Stirbois - thank goodness! - and that the majority of us see refugees in a different light.
I confess that I am now finding it difficult to keep to the subject I had actually planned to speak about, that is Mr Lehne's report on visa policy.
We have been discussing this subject ever since I have been in Parliament.
Our discussions on how to formulate arrangements giving people from third countries legal access to the European Union spanned the whole of the previous legislature.
The judgment of the European Court of Justice - as Mr Lehne has already said, Parliament took this to court - still failed to clarify the degree of consistency we should apply to this question.
My group has also taken the line that if we want to retain our credibility we should give our opinion on both the Council and Commission proposals.
But as we have found ourselves in a state of deadlock with the forthcoming ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, we expect that once it has been ratified and the Treaty has come into force, the Commission will submit the new proposal it has announced without delay, and that the amendments from Parliament that we are voting on tomorrow will appear in the new proposal.
Nevertheless, I agree with the rapporteur that the procedure for granting visas should comply with the same requirements and procedures in all the Members States.
The fact that there is a visa requirement for certain third-country nationals does not mean that the relevant procedures should be unjust or even discriminatory.
Yet that is very often the case at present.
People who need a visa for relatives or business visitors or for youth and student exchanges should be given clear information on the documents required and the time taken to issue a visa when they submit an application.
We know all too well that waiting times of six months are frequent, with all the costs that implies.
The authorities in the Members States should have to observe clear guidelines in this area, to make the process both transparent and humane.
Article 62 in fact requires uniform conditions and procedures in this field.
We also hope that incorporating the Schengen Agreement into the Treaty will at last make it possible to draw up a single European list of third countries whose nationals require a visa for travel into the EU.
Many members of my group also believe that both Romania and Bulgaria should be deleted from the list, something Parliament has indeed been advocating for the last four and a half years.
It cannot be right that countries with whom we have association agreements are still at a disadvantage and are still on this list.
I often go to Romania and Bulgaria myself.
When you see how things are going there, you are bound to conclude that this needs to be changed, because both these countries have already made great efforts ...
The President cut the speaker off
Madam President, even though the two Lehne reports are extremely important, I am only going to refer to the Lindeperg report, as it would be impossible to talk about all of them in the two minutes I have available.
I should firstly like to welcome and thank the rapporteur for demonstrating her ability for dialogue and for constantly seeking solutions. Of course, when such solutions have not been forthcoming, she has sought to point out discrepancies in a way that I consider to be very constructive.
The rapporteur is aware that many of us, and in my view, a broad majority in the House, agree with her objectives.
As she points out, these complementary schemes of protection must be harmonised so that those who genuinely merit a specific form of protection, but who do not meet the conditions laid down in the Geneva Convention, can receive it.
Therefore, we must not lower ourselves to the level of popularity-seeking, because this is ultimately the worst enemy of those who are or who should be allowed to enter under the terms of the Geneva Convention, and those for whom complementary forms of protection must be found.
The two amendments tabled by the ARE Group, which Mrs Lindeperg wanted to accept and which I hope she does not accept, are a clear example of this.
I hope they will be rejected because they are really the epitome of what Parliament is not able to do.
Whether we like it or not, the Geneva Convention says what it says and, Mrs Lindeperg, there are other people who are qualified to interpret it apart from the United Nations High Commissioner, including the Member States' high courts.
However, this is something that appears to have been overlooked.
We obviously cannot try to change the Geneva Convention and say that it protects homosexuals. That would be impossible because in order to change the Geneva Convention, we must use all the traditional instruments of international law.
And, were we to do this, in short, we would merely be prejudicing those groups - and potentially even homosexual groups - in need of adequate protection, protection that is not provided for in the Geneva Convention. Indeed, the complementary measures we are currently seeking are, in fact, aimed at those groups.
Madam President, Commissioners, I should like to begin by saying something about the Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals.
Mr Lehne's report and the Commission proposal are extremely important elements of what should become a common immigration policy.
A European approach is particularly important here because the differences that currently exist between the Member States undermine not only the free movement of persons, as Mr Lehne said, but also, in my view, the rights that we grant to immigrants.
This is why a European approach is so important.
I must admit that the view that Parliament is putting forward today does not exactly fill me with enthusiasm.
Even here in the House there is not a majority in favour of opening the door a little wider for further immigration.
Of course, I realise that this is a highly sensitive issue with its connotations of unemployment and social exclusion.
But the main point is that there are still people, even here in the Chamber, who constantly manage to present immigration as a threat and as something that will inevitably bring an increase in crime, thus encouraging xenophobia and making the whole issue taboo.
I hope that some day the majority will support the view that migrants not only need Europe, but also that Europe needs migrants, if only for the sake of our own labour market and demographic development.
It is important to have this report, because these proposals ensure that European harmonisation will not be harmonisation downwards.
The references to quotas and measures deliberately allow those Member States which have a broader policy the scope to implement it.
We are not defending quotas as such, but as some countries already have them, it is important for us to support them.
This also guarantees that families have the right to be reunited.
We must learn to accept that people do not migrate temporarily - these are men, women and children who are entitled to a family life.
I would like to say a few words about the report by Mrs Lindeperg, on which I congratulate her.
I am particularly pleased that there is broad support for this report in the House at long last, as an additional status is absolutely necessary.
Many countries such as Belgium only have a 'tolerance status' with complementary forms of protection, and this has particularly damaging consequences.
It causes uncertainty for the refugees in question, and uncertainty for society, because having residents with no rights in an insecure position is not good for any society.
So we really need an additional status in Europe.
All I would add is that in December 1998, the Council of Ministers of Justice and Home Affairs put these two important issues that we are discussing today on the agenda for the forthcoming legislative period, but with such an unreasonable deadline that there is a danger that it could become a long-term project or even be shelved altogether.
So I think it is particularly important that Parliament should today send a political signal to the Commission, and via the Commission to the Council, that we in the House want to tackle these two sensitive and difficult issues, and I hope that this will then lead to a clear signal being given not in five years, not in twenty years, but at the Tampere summit that we need solutions to them.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, many speeches on asylum and refugees in Europe remind me of Bertold Brecht's famous play 'The Good Woman of Szechuan', in which the main character has to work hard at night as a realist to put right the damage she has done as a philanthropist during the day.
We are being urged to drop the visa requirement for Romania and Bulgaria, yet any security specialist can show that this would promote organised crime, traffic in human beings and drug smuggling.
Where does that leave our concern for our citizens' security?
Here in Europe, we quite rightly accept refugees and people facing political persecution.
There is no dispute about that, as every right-minded person knows.
However, there are also numerous economic refugees who can neither come here nor remain here permanently, and now Mrs Lindeperg is proposing that we should accept everyone coming from countries where there is widespread violence, internal conflict, or other circumstances which have severely disrupted public order.
My dear Mrs Lindeperg, this definition applies to three quarters of Africa and half of Asia.
So provision is to be made for measures to ensure that all these people are integrated into social and economic life - not forgetting that we have 20 million unemployed in Europe - and at the same time, if they are rejected, they can lodge an appeal with suspensory effect!
Mrs Lindeperg, that may well earn our respect and you may deserve our sympathy, but it will not win our vote for your report.
It is high time we limited immigration into Europe.
Only then will we have a chance of integrating those who already live here, and that should be our priority.
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the two rapporteurs, Mr Lehne and Mrs Lindeperg on the enormous amount of work they have put into the three reports we are discussing jointly this evening.
I can support Mrs Lindeperg's report without hesitation.
It must be sensible when subsidiary protection issues will be an area of growing importance for the EU, for Member States to operate similar procedures and a similar level of social provision for all refugees.
With respect to Mr Lehne's report on the admission of third country nationals, one can only share the report's view that the draft convention is unbalanced with unnecessary rigidity in many areas and with unworkable elements in others.
However, despite my acknowledgement of Mr Lehne's hard work, I have some problems with his report on visas for third country nationals.
The main areas of difficulty are: firstly, the fact of his adding to the visa-required list a visa-exempt list; secondly, the ruling-out of Member States' right to impose national visa regimes in certain circumstances like those we have experienced in the United Kingdom recently; thirdly, while I acknowledge the progress made by the Bulgarian and Romanian authorities in combating illegal immigration, the reality is that significant numbers of Romanian and Bulgarian nationals continue to make poorly-founded claims for asylum in Member States of the European Union.
Despite this, however, I intend to support the report, primarily because I completely endorse the rapporteur's view that visas should be not be required for individuals who hold residence permits in any state in the Union.
As long as he continues to press the point that residents of the European Union should have the same rights and same duties as citizens I have to be in favour of this report.
Madam President, Mr Lehne and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs have spent a great deal of time familiarising themselves with the Commission's proposal relating to the Convention on rules of admission, and I appreciate their efforts.
I have followed with particular interest the various twists and turns of the committee's deliberations.
Numerous demands have been made, many of which touch on one or two issues that are absolutely central to the proposal. It is those that I should now like to comment on.
The first concerns family reunification, which is a fundamental right laid down in international law.
The Member States of the Union, through international agreements, have established the importance of the family for the welfare and well-being of the individual.
This bodes well for agreement on a common line to be followed, but as ever, the question is how far should we go?
The concept of family varies from one Member State to another, and the same applies to age limits.
In both instances, my proposal means a step towards a closer approximation within the Union.
The discussions in the Council of Ministers will show whether there is scope to advance our positions further, which the Commission naturally welcomes.
Secondly, integration requires stability and a long-term perspective.
The objective must be that immigrants are able to live under the same conditions as those enjoyed by European citizens, a vision that should run through all the policy initiatives on immigrants.
Consequently, our proposal also addresses the question of the rights to be offered to Europe's immigrants.
In this respect, my first thoughts are focused on the nationals of third countries who have lived legally in Europe for many years.
In the proposal, we have identified the following basic areas in which we think our citizens and immigrants should receive the same treatment: access to the labour market and freedom to pursue an activity as a self-employed person, basic education, vocational training, trade union rights, freedom of association, and access to the housing market and social assistance.
We have also taken up the question of freedom of movement for nationals of third countries.
For example, it would be reasonable for permanently domiciled immigrants to apply for jobs that are not filled in other Member States.
The alternative is a segregated Europe with all the attendant problems of discrimination, social tension and instability.
As one might expect, the views in the Council of Ministers differ widely on this issue.
Consequently, I had hoped to be able to count on a clear expression of support from the European Parliament.
Now it seems as though this is not to be, which is deeply disappointing.
Nevertheless, I have no intention of withdrawing the Convention.
The underlying causes of current migration are largely unchanged.
People are looking for a better life for themselves or their children.
There are no longer any uninhabited continents, and migrants therefore look for places which they can physically reach.
Europe will continue to be an attractive destination, a state of affairs we should accept as permanent and normal, instead of regarding it as a passing and somewhat dramatic occurrence.
Furthermore, a strategy for a common policy on migration is a natural consequence of integration and the idea that similar social and economic conditions should prevail throughout Europe, with no one being left behind.
I would assume that the ideas contained in the Lehne report will be taken into account in the forthcoming negotiations.
Naturally the Commission will do its best to ensure that progress is made.
Mrs Lindeperg, in her report, addresses the issue of protection for people who flee their homes but do not fulfil the requirements laid down in the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees - what we sometimes call supplementary forms of international protection.
The rapporteur urges the Commission to begin work at the earliest opportunity on harmonisation of the European Union's asylum policies.
I am sure the House will be pleased to learn that this work is already in hand.
As a beginning, I have put forward a proposal for a directive on asylum procedures within the Union.
At the request of the German Presidency, I will soon be submitting a working document on the subject.
The aim is to begin discussions on the points at issue as early as the spring.
Secondly, we have now begun work on adapting the Commission's proposals on temporary protection and burden-sharing to meet the requirements of the new Treaty.
As you know, we have been putting in a great deal of hard work on this since the Commission submitted its original proposal in 1997.
The issue will be discussed for the third time at ministerial level during the informal meeting of the Council in Berlin at the end of the week.
But despite all this, the Member States are still a long way from reaching a decision.
If there is no agreement by the time the new Treaty enters into force, we shall have no alternative but to submit entirely new instruments.
In my view, this is what will happen.
Thirdly, the adaptation of the Eurodac Convention is another major task.
Last December, the Council of Ministers decided to freeze work on Eurodac, wishing to wait until the Amsterdam Treaty had entered into force before further negotiations.
During the meeting, the Commission was also asked to submit a new proposal in the form of a regulation.
Such an adaptation of Eurodac will mean a great deal of work, and it goes without saying that it should begin immediately.
The work on this area alone will take up much of the time between now and next June.
In the longer term, the new Treaty stipulates minimum standards for supplementary protection.
This is in fact mentioned as a key point in the action plan on freedom, security and justice which the Council approved on 4 December.
Asylum policy in general and supplementary protection in particular will accordingly be the focus of considerable attention during the coming years.
Consequently, the Lindeperg report makes a welcome and constructive contribution to the discussion on the future direction of asylum policy in Europe.
Madam President, my thanks to Mr Lehne for his excellent report.
This consultation of the European Parliament completes the process that began with the annulment by the Court of Justice in June 1997 of Regulation No 2317/95 laying down the list of third countries whose citizens had to be in possession of a visa.
We need first to put this into context.
The regulation that was annulled was based on Article 100c of the Maastricht Treaty.
According to that article, Community jurisdiction in relation to visas is limited, firstly, to determining the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of a visa when crossing the external borders and, secondly, the introduction of a uniform format for visas.
If it has to be adopted before the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the new regulation will be adopted by the Council again on the basis on Article 100c.
That circumstance, which cannot be avoided, makes matters still more complex.
This tricky situation has been well depicted by Mr Lehne, and some of your amendments reflect this.
My view is dictated by the evolving legislative context.
I wish also to draw attention to the prospect of incorporating into the Union the progress achieved through the Schengen Agreement and its consequences for visa policy.
I turn now to the amendments, which I shall separate into two categories: first of all, there are many amendments based on the evolving legislative framework that I have just described and which I would roughly classify as anticipatory amendments: Amendment No 1, concerning the title, describes the regulation as provisional; Amendments Nos 3, 7 and 11, relating to the recitals, include a number of references to changes that will be introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But when we look at the actual articles of the regulation, the amendments I have described as anticipatory are incompatible with the provisions of the current Article 100c.
Let me cite to you, by way of example, Amendments Nos 18, 19, 20 and 21, concerning the various aspects of visa issue, an area that is not at the moment - and I stress for the moment - an area of Community responsibility.
In these circumstances, it is not legally possible for the Commission to accept those amendments which anticipate an area of Community jurisdiction that will not exist until the Treaty of Amsterdam enters into force.
Secondly, the European Parliament is proposing a number of amendments that fall perfectly within the scope of Article 100c: these respect the parameters of that article, but we do have to consider them, paradoxical though this may seem, in the light of the forthcoming entry into force of Amsterdam.
I can explain this better by taking as an example Amendment No 5 concerning the criteria for determining which countries will be subject to the visa requirement.
The way in which this issue is dealt with, viewed in terms of the existing Article 100c, will be significantly different once Article 62(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam has given the Community the additional authority to draw up the list of countries whose citizens will not be required to be in possession of a visa.
The prospects for achieving total harmonisation of visa policy, something which Parliament wants, moreover, therefore mean that we have to look again at the issue wearing our Amsterdam-tinted spectacles, so to speak.
I do not, however, wish to be absolutely negative about the possibility of accepting the amendments Parliament is proposing as part of the new consultation on the following regulation.
The prospect of the now imminent entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty will bring about profound changes with regard to visas; new powers will be transferred to the Community in relation to the measures to be adopted in these sectors.
The Treaty of Amsterdam has set definite time-limits, while the recent Commission and Council action plan on the area of freedom, security and justice actually provides for more rapid adoption of some visa-related measures.
The Community must shoulder the obligations its new powers bring with them, and the Commission will have to assume its own responsibilities without delay.
I can assure you that the work Parliament has done as part of this new consultation will not have been in vain.
I am also certain that some of the proposed amendments will be largely taken into consideration in the new proposal for a regulation that the Commission has included in its own programme of work, on which Parliament has recently delivered its opinion.
I shall conclude, Madam President, with a reference to the question that has been raised concerning Bulgaria and Romania.
The inclusion of a third country on the common list of countries whose citizens have to have a visa is based on an assessment of the main criteria involving the risks to security and the threat of illegal immigration.
Having said that, the assessment made at the time the regulation is adopted is not set in stone.
And with that in mind, the Community and Bulgaria and Romania have on several occasions in recent months had the opportunity of discussing this problem, which has a variety of implications.
From those various contacts, through the association councils at ministerial level and through correspondence, it has become apparent that Bulgaria and Romania are making considerable efforts, not least with the help of the Union and supported by the PHARE programme, in a whole range of important areas, with a view to the decision that will have to be taken on their inclusion in the common list.
Without entering into detail, I would just mention the strengthening of controls at external frontiers, the conclusion of readmission agreements with other states, security of travel documents, the fight against crime and so on.
The progress that has been made is, I assure you, being closely monitored, thanks to the presence of experts in the field.
The view of the European Parliament will probably be a decisive factor as far as the Commission is concerned, at the proper time, once the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force.
Thank you for that speech, Mr Monti, and for the explanations you have given to the House.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0020/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (8956/98 - C4-0537/98-96/0200(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations (Rapporteur: Mrs Baldi).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal for a directive is designed to replace, expand and revise Directive 88/379/EEC, in an effort to harmonise the rules on the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous preparations placed on the European market.
It therefore facilitates free movement and seeks to avoid creating obstacles to trade, at the same time guaranteeing a high level of protection for human health and the environment.
On 26 June 1997, the European Parliament delivered its opinion at first reading, adopting 26 amendments.
Subsequently, on 23 September 1997, the Commission tabled an amended proposal and, on 24 September 1998, the Council unanimously adopted its common position, taking on board 12 amendments unchanged, accepting two in principle and rejecting 12.
Although this second reading takes up the fundamental points approved at first reading, we also have a range of new and interesting elements, such as the specific reference to animal welfare and the obligation to use suitable alternatives to animal testing whenever possible; there is also the extension of hazard classification and labelling requirements to cover pesticides, with the label specifically stating: 'To avoid risks to man and the environment, comply with the instructions for use'.
Furthermore, a clearer and less complicated procedure is provided for requesting confidentiality for harmful and irritant substances, allowing the industry to protect its own know-how and thus remain competitive on the global market, while at the same time guaranteeing a high level of protection for consumers.
The proposal also requires safety data sheets to be provided, and this requirement must therefore be extended to cover non-classified preparations, such as for instance industrial detergents containing substances dangerous to the environment.
This is an important point, because the safety data sheets are mainly of use to specific users and experts in the sector.
The mandatory information on the label also applies in the case of preparations containing at least one substance classified as sensitising, present in concentrations equal to or in excess of 0.1 % That limit, lower than in the past, means that the preparation will have to be labelled, bearing a warning for individuals who may be sensitive to it.
Finally, we have the introduction of transitional arrangements for Finland, Sweden and Austria, which had pointed out at first reading that they would have problems.
The intention has thus been to rationalise and harmonise the existing legislation in relation to chemical substances, and even though those not directly involved may find the proposal hard to understand, we do need to be aware of the role of this House.
I any event, the danger a product presents is assessed by determining its characteristics by reference to its physical and chemical properties, those of its properties that have effects on health, and those that affect the environment.
I would point out to the House that, as compared with the 1988 proposal, this proposal introduces changes designed to extend the scope of the directive in relation to dangerous preparations to the following five new sectors: classification and labelling in terms of environmental risks, plant health products and biocides, non-classified dangerous preparations, explosives and the labelling of some sensitising substances.
I thought it appropriate to retable at second reading three of the 12 amendments rejected by the Council.
Those amendments, which were unanimously approved by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection on 20 January this year, are: Amendment No 1 concerning comitology, the intention of which was to restate a fundamental principle of the European Parliament.
In this instance, we refer to consultation of a type A committee, made up therefore of one representative per Member State and chaired by a Commission representative, which is able to adopt the proposed measures should the Council fail to respond, subject to consultation.
Type B committees cannot adopt any measure without the Council's agreement.
I have retabled Amendment No 2 concerning the possibility of using tests already in existence to assess possible risks to the environment, thus making it unnecessary to develop further methods; and finally, there is Amendment No 3 which simplifies the text of the information given on the label of preparations containing sensitising substances.
If the House adopts these amendments, since the directive is based on Article 100a, we shall have to appoint a delegation from the European Parliament as soon as possible to take part in the conciliation committee, in accordance with Rule 75 of the Rules of Procedure.
There is no question that the work which has been done to achieve the widest possible degree of consensus has been particularly demanding and exhausting, but I believe it is crucial to draw up a directive that takes account of the health of consumers, the different laws of the Member States and the needs of manufacturers of dangerous products.
The labelling of dangerous substances and preparations is thus a vital way of ensuring that easily comprehensible information on the dangers of the product is provided faster.
Consumers must be protected when purchasing and using certain products by giving them clear, accurate and simple information which sets out the risks.
The aim of this report is to group together in a single act all the existing Community legislation on dangerous preparations, and it concerns hundreds of thousands of products, destined both for European consumers and more specialised operators.
If this new labelling is approved, and this also involves classification and packaging in the light of the potential danger, it will be easier to recognise and use any kind of product in the most appropriate way.
Madam President, it is once again time for us to discuss important health and environmental questions at an hour that is scarcely popular either with those responsible for the report or us who are involved in the debate.
It is a remarkable coincidence that in Strasbourg environmental work always seems to take place on Tuesday nights.
In every other way, the report we are discussing tonight is very important.
It concerns many citizens of the European Union, since it deals with the classification and labelling of dangerous preparations.
The topic is particularly relevant for Finland, Sweden and Austria, for whom the problem of regulating chemicals was a matter of concern in their membership negotiations.
Transitional arrangements were made for all three countries allowing them to retain for a time their own legislation on chemical preparations, which was more stringent than that in force in the Union.
I have to admit that I had serious misgivings during the first reading of the directive.
The position adopted by the rapporteur and then by the Commission was, in my view, far too lenient, bearing in mind the dangers associated with chemicals.
Consequently, we had a fairly intensive discussion on the subject at first reading and, as a result, the outcome now looks quite promising.
Many of the earlier amendments have considerably sharpened up the wording of the document, thereby bringing into focus the health aspects for European citizens.
It is particularly important from the point of view of those people who have to work with these types of chemical preparations every day.
The obligation to provide safety data sheets means that information is available both on the components of the preparations and on how they should be handled.
It is essential that everyone has access to these data sheets, regardless of the size of the enterprise - everyone is entitled to a safe working environment.
Classification and labelling should not only be carried out where the danger is apparent or life-threatening, but also where the preparations are allergy-forming, cause irritation or are harmful to the environment.
In other words, the rapporteur has done a good job and deserves to be congratulated.
The classification of preparations is not an easy subject to discuss, but Mrs Baldi has certainly succeeded.
Nevertheless, I should just like to bring up a minor point if I may.
Even though it was agreed in committee, I cannot really see the point of Amendment No 1.
Perhaps we are only further complicating a matter which should really have left Parliament as quickly as possible once a decision had been reached.
But the card has been played, and now it is up to the Commission to make a move.
For the future, let us hope that many more alternatives are found to replace these dangerous preparations, so that we can be spared having to discuss how they are to be regulated and concentrate on finding substitutes instead.
None of these preparations can be said to enhance either the environment or people's health in the long term.
We must therefore begin by doing our best to find suitable substitutes.
Madam President, the title of this debate is so boring that many people must believe it makes no difference.
But behind the words packaging, classification and labelling of dangerous preparations there are some important rules for the environment and, above all, for the working environment.
In practical terms, the common position means that painters will now have information about what they are working with.
From 1 July 2000, volatile organic solvents will be labelled for their narcotic effects.
You may ask yourselves whether this kind of information ought not to be a human right.
The improper use of organic solvents was already causing problems 20 years ago.
In Denmark, we call it the painter syndrome.
Now we are going to get the safety data sheets for which Denmark has been campaigning for many years.
We have finally silenced the oil industry, which tried to block the directive with every means at its disposal.
The idea that painters are less intelligent than other people has been dispelled for ever, and can in future only be used in history books as an example of how a debate can sometimes degenerate for economic reasons.
It should be clear to everyone that the EU is developing in the right direction and that the working environment and public health are now being improved, which is the only way to go if the EU project is to have public support.
We will now continue the good work of gaining recognition of the long-term effects of solvents on the sense of balance, hearing and sight, and explaining the effects of hormone-like chemicals.
Chemicals are still on our agenda in the EU.
Madam President, on behalf of the Commission, I should like to congratulate Mrs Baldi on a very worthwhile effort.
There has been excellent cooperation on this highly technical proposal.
Thank goodness we have finally reached the last stage before adoption.
The proposal particularly concerns Finland, Sweden and Austria, and it offers an acceptable solution to the difficulties they experienced over their existing legislation on the products in question and pesticides in their membership negotiations.
As we know, this led to temporary transitional arrangements for those countries.
At first reading, the European Parliament supported the proposal's underlying principles.
At the same time, Parliament had to decide on the 26 amendments, which were also adopted.
The Commission was able to include the majority of these in the common position, and the discussions in the Council also produced results.
In the Commission's view, the common position adopted by the Council meets both the objectives laid down in Article 100a of the Treaty, namely the establishment and functioning of the internal market and a high level of protection.
Furthermore, the proposal also takes account of the needs of new Member States.
Consequently, the Commission is endeavouring to ensure prompt adoption of the directive.
Now, at second reading, Parliament has tabled three amendments, all of which the Commission supports.
The first aims to change the committee procedure from type 3b to type 3a, which marks a return to the Commission's original proposal.
It so happens that this was the position we adopted in the Council, but it was unanimously voted down.
We still think that this amendment would make it easier to carry through the directive.
The second amendment, which we also accept, is intended to clarify and improve a particular provision.
The third amendment, which the Commission had already approved at first reading, was as you know rejected by the Council, so we would like to retable this amendment as well.
The Commission warmly welcomes the practical approach adopted by Parliament in only submitting three amendments at this reading.
As I have already said, the Commission finds all three acceptable.
Naturally, I hope the Council will also give its approval, so that we can avoid conciliation.
It is now up to Parliament and the Council of Ministers to make a decision.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
I am also sorry, Mrs Hulthén, that there are not more Members here to follow the debate on this very important report, but that is how things are.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
The sitting was closed at 0.10 a.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on a point of order under Rule 9 - Code of conduct.
Last month Parliament rightly demanded openness and transparency with respect to the Commission, yet Parliament at the moment is being hypocritical in respect of its own openness and transparency.
What is sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.
Rule 9(2) and Annex I (Article 3) indicate that declarations of Members' interests should be available to the public.
At the moment the register is only available in the three working places - Luxembourg, Brussels and Strasbourg.
It is very difficult for me to defend that when I receive questions in my constituency.
If someone wants to look at the register, they have to travel abroad.
Mr President, I should like to ask you whether you will give an interpretation of the Rules to say that 'available to the public' means that it should be available in Parliament's information offices.
If you are not prepared to do that, will you refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities because, as a member of that committee, you are very well aware that it was the clear intention of the committee that 'available to the public' should mean in each Member State?
Mr Ford, I will check the matter you have raised.
In fact there was an amendment asking for the register to be made available in every Member State but Parliament rejected it.
I cannot give an interpretation against what was clearly the will of the House at that moment.
I will refer the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, as you request, so that it can submit the appropriate proposal, if necessary.
In which case it would be necessary to translate the declarations from Members which, at present, are only available in their original languages.
Mr President, you will remember that I raised that very issue last week in the Conference of Presidents.
I suggested that, given our insistence that the Commission is more open, there is a very simple way in which we can be in the vanguard of actually demonstrating transparency on this issue, and that is by attaching the declaration of Members' interests to each Member's particular entry on Parliament's website.
That would immediately demonstrate to everybody that we were both transparent and prepared in the public interest to put our record completely publicly on the website.
Mrs Green, I agree, but I cannot give an interpretation on a very sensitive matter contrary to what was decided.
It was not decided that these declarations would be public: the House decided to make them available to the public.
The Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities could make this proposal and, if it obtained the necessary majority, that would be excellent and it could be put before the House for ratification.
This would be better and everyone then would have full knowledge of the proposal which, personally, I have nothing against.
Mr President, we all received your letter saying that the Bureau has decided to alter Parliament's information strategy.
From now on ten or twelve subjects of interest will be selected from the week's part-session, which Parliament's press service section will publish.
At present we have a daily report giving information on the previous afternoon's sitting.
Today's report focuses on Mr Barzanti's report, which is most definitely of interest as far as the issue of information is concerned.
I am worried what the impact on Parliament's profile will be if only ten or twelve subjects of interest are selected from the week's part-session.
How, for example, will voluntary institutions acquire information on issues the press are not necessarily reporting, and which are not necessarily the main news stories of the day? I am rather worried about this, and I will be writing to you on the matter, Mr President.
I would like a reassurance that this change with regard to Parliament's press service will not lead to a situation where citizens are deprived of information on the work of Parliament.
Mrs Ojala, the Bureau took this decision after studying Parliament's information policy. It takes the view that if Parliament details everything that has been debated in the House, then ultimately of course nothing will be publicised, because the newspapers cannot publicise 30 or 40 different issues.
If we want the media to make the public aware of the work we are doing, we naturally need to select those issues that might be of most interest to them.
This is a purely technical problem involving communication and the transfer of information.
At the same time, the Rainbow will be available much more quickly so that everyone can read it as soon as possible.
Mr President, we should spare a thought this morning for the victims of yesterday's avalanche in the Chamonix valley which swept away around 20 chalets.
In this winter holiday period, this incident should serve to remind us that the mountains form a specific area which rarely gives the European Union cause for concern.
I propose that this issue be included in the topical and urgent debate during the part-session in March in the context of natural disasters.
In the meantime, we should send the victims and their families a message of support.
Thank you, Mrs Leperre-Verrier.
I shall of course be sending Parliament's condolences to the families concerned.
Mr President, this morning Parliament was besieged by police officers and others, and I have read in the press that Parliament will suffer another round of sieges, this time by farmers, especially from the Alsace region.
I wanted to ask you whether you could inform us what has brought this on, what is happening, and whether you have already had requests from the farmers that they should be received.
It is clear that they wish to submit requests through the Members of this House and that they are not simply surrounding Parliament for the good of their health.
It would be interesting if we had a briefing on this matter, as farming is going through a critical phase and we have debated these problems on several occasions, both last week and this.
Mr Ephremidis, it would seem that they are not going to perform any gymnastics because they are coming on tractors.
Nevertheless, President Santer, Commissioner Fischler, Mr Colino, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and myself are going to meet them to find out what exactly their demands are.
Mr President, I should also like to know what the European Parliament is planning to do about today's demonstration.
It is important that we make an effort to listen to the demands of European farmers and that we have a delegation ready to meet them when they arrive.
I think the actions I have proposed would be effective.
It would be a constructive move to meet the farmers who are here and to answer their questions when they arrive at the European Parliament.
Mr Lindqvist, I would remind you that Parliament does not have any forces to maintain public order. That is a matter for the French police here.
We have therefore naturally taken no measures in this respect.
I would ask you all to let the matter rest, now that we have given you information on this issue, since there is nothing to be gained from discussing it any further.
Mr President, on the subject of Article 47 and natural disasters, such as snow and farmers, I would draw your attention to the fact that yesterday in the Netherlands - a country 325 kilometres long - we had tailbacks totalling 975 kilometres. That is three times the length of our country, with the result that nobody could get in or out.
Could we not at some time, Mr President, discuss road pricing and how to relieve road congestion in Europe under the topical and urgent procedure?
Mr Wijsenbeek, I am sure you are well aware of the procedure for topical and urgent debates.
If you believe that this matter is urgent, you should ask for it to be included in a forthcoming debate.
Mr President, I should like to ask for your advice.
Yesterday I had a question down to the Commission and today I have a similar one to the Council.
In fact, it was so far down on the list that, naturally, it was not taken.
This morning I received the reply to my question, and it was the greatest fudge and cowardly reply I have ever heard from the Commission.
Mr President, what recourse have we in this Parliament to such cowardly responses to serious questions? My question concerned the absolute destruction caused by the seals in the North Atlantic fisheries.
It has now been conclusively proven scientifically and yet we here in the European Union are not capable nor even have the courage ...
Mr Killilea, I do not know what we can do.
However, what we cannot do is to go into the issue now, as this is not the appropriate occasion.
Mr President, I find it interesting that Mr Killilea quotes scientific evidence.
However, on another issue: I should like to know under what criteria you agree to meet certain demonstrators who come here to Strasbourg?
Do you take into account farmers on the periphery of Europe - Ireland, Greece, Spain or wherever - who cannot get here? Under what criteria do you meet people?
People in close proximity can come, other people cannot.
Mrs McKenna, what you are saying reminds me of an anecdote.
Once, after a demonstration had been announced, a Spanish minister for the interior said to the British ambassador: 'Do you want us to send more police?' The British ambassador replied: 'No, send me fewer demonstrators'.
Laughter
I do not think that Parliament is providing demonstrators or organising the demonstration.
Therefore, I cannot answer your question.
Before moving on to the objections concerning the topical and urgent debate, I should like to congratulate our colleague Mr Menrad, who is celebrating his sixtieth birthday. We hope he celebrates many more years with us.
Applause
(The Minutes were approved)
EMU and enlargement
The next item is the report (A4-0030/99) by Mr Barros Moura, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on constitutional consequences of EMU in the context of enlargement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this report takes as its starting point the undeniable success of the adoption of the single currency after a rigorously applied convergence process.
The achievement of Economic and Monetary Union, with an independent European Central Bank, is a quantum leap for the European Union, leading to the emergence of a genuine supranational political authority with responsibilities in matters of monetary and exchange-rate policies that once belonged to the sovereign States.
However, the institutional establishment of Economic and Monetary Union has been unbalanced, in that the power to centrally manage monetary policy is not matched by any real powers for the Union to effectively coordinate economic policies by means of broad guidelines or any binding multilateral surveillance.
At the same time, the inadequacy of the Union's arrangements for ensuring transparency and democratic accountability in the activity of the European Central Bank has become apparent.
In order to deal with these problems, my report recommends two approaches: one is to explore in depth the opportunities offered by the existing Treaties, in particular through the interinstitutional agreement already proposed by the European Parliament, and the other is to reform the Treaties, now that the successful introduction of the euro has eliminated the risk that starting the review process might jeopardise EMU itself - the famous 'Pandora's box' theory.
The current situation, that of a common monetary authority without matching political authority, highlights the Union's democratic deficit and also conflicts with national economic and social policies, where a possible clash with centralised monetary policy could undermine that rigorous centralised policy as regards the need to safeguard the overriding aim of maintaining price stability. However, we should also be seeking to guarantee all of the European Union's policies, including job creation and fighting unemployment, at the same level.
The report therefore recommends that EMU should be accompanied by effective means of establishing and guaranteeing coordinated economic policies in Europe so as to promote solidarity, economic and social cohesion and equal opportunities among all citizens of the Member States.
This calls for a constitutional framework, the only elements of which I should like to highlight for the time being are an Economic and Social Union as a counterweight to Economic and Monetary Union, and a new social contract to underpin intra-European solidarity. This should involve a minimum of social harmonisation: labour legislation, social security, combating social exclusion and creating jobs.
The proposals on Monetary Union are intended to guarantee the independence of the European Central Bank while strengthening its democratic accountability.
The proposals on Economic Union are essentially intended to guarantee effective coordination and coherence between the Union's economic policies and those of the Member States, by means of a set of binding 'policy mix' policies.
For that purpose, given the shortcomings of the Stability Pact, the recommendation will have to be replaced by a decision on the annual preparation of the broad economic policy guidelines and the multilateral surveillance of their application.
As far as the institutions are concerned, the report calls for Parliament's monitoring and codecision roles to be reinforced in all areas of EMU.
It also recommends strengthening the initiative-taking and political impetus of the Commission, whose political accountability would also be improved in that way.
It further calls for improved coordination of the Council's work so as to give macroeconomic regulation priority over the tendency to centralise all powers in ECOFIN. And it recommends monitoring the formal economic coordination carried out by the Euro-11 Council by means of legitimate democratic machinery, and participation by national parliaments in monitoring EMU.
As far as EMU's external representation is concerned, the report recommends speaking with one voice - to be decided upon jointly by the Council, Commission and European Central Bank, according to their respective powers in international financial bodies like the IMF or G-8.
The aim will be to use the power conferred by the euro, a monetary unit that may even challenge the supremacy of the dollar, to economically regulate globalisation in such as way as to promote justice and to challenge the hegemony of the USA.
Finally, I should like to refer to the proposals for new European policies which, according to the report, are vital in view of the introduction of EMU. These are: a guarantee that employment will be the Union's top economic priority; harmonisation of taxes; a social policy promoting and safeguarding the European social model; and a federal-type budget that promotes economic and social cohesion and helps us to tackle crises or asymmetrical shocks in one or more Member States.
We do not intend to call EMU into question but we want this quantum leap forward to be mirrored by corresponding democratic progress in the political, economic and social fields.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, given the lack of time, I will mention just three issues: the coordination of national economic policies; the legal framework for supervision; and the external representation of the monetary union.
On the first issue, the current situation is unsatisfactory.
This is because we were told in Amsterdam not to touch the monetary union title for fear that this would open Pandora's box from which anything could emerge.
This was just a pretext to hide the disquiet, uncertainty and lack of conviction of many governments.
However, this problem, which was pushed under the carpet then, is now reappearing.
We have one monetary policy for 15 different economic policies.
Clearly, we should try to balance this situation from an operational and functional point of view but this is not being achieved.
We were told that recommendations would be made, represented by the infamous broad economic policy guidelines.
However, we realised straightaway that these guidelines were a disaster.
This was because the representatives of the national administrations and national finance departments all decided to maintain the status quo and refrain from any criticism of the policies conducted by their respective countries.
The result was that these guidelines have been reduced to formulaic and generalised declarations of principle which commit no-one.
This approach was therefore a failure and has resulted in the development of totally divergent and uncoordinated economic policies.
This situation should be viewed in terms of the striking contrast between the US economy which is bursting with health and the languid European economy.
Since the triumphant introduction of the euro, reality, in the shape of inadequate national economic policies, has reestablished its grip.
I do not want to cause a political controversy, but we must recognise that the fact these problems have not been resolved just because once again the majority of those in power are Socialists.
The second issue involves the legal framework for supervision.
There is not yet sufficient awareness in political circles of the enormous changes that the international financial markets have experienced.
Politicians believe that the current system, in which each country organises its own banking supervision, is adequate.
But times are changing.
The Internet and globalisation are now prevalent and the instruments for supervising these financial markets are clearly inadequate, even at European level.
An extraordinary transformation is therefore needed mentally and culturally to cope with this.
Clearly, the current situation in Europe is unsatisfactory and it must change.
I am not alone in thinking this, as reasonable and moderate people like Mr Lamfalussy also share this view.
I cannot go into detail on this issue due to lack of time. Also, I want to briefly mention the third issue of external representation.
We have seen the results of this.
At the moment, the people of Europe are still incapable of speaking with one voice on monetary problems, even though they have one monetary policy.
We keep returning to the same problem of everyone wanting to retain their authority and refusing the Commission the right to speak on their behalf. This means that, in the G7 or elsewhere, we are paying our dues but we cannot make decisions or exercise any influence.
These three issues must be resolved.
I note that the Council is not present.
I know that Mr de Silguy is convinced of the validity of my thoughts, but it is the Council that must be convinced. I believe that the Commission and Parliament would do better to work together in order to try to achieve this.
Mr President, in his excellent report the rapporteur has rightly pointed to the further problems of institutional questions in the context of monetary union but also of enlargement.
We must indeed put far greater intellectual and political emphasis on finding means of resolving these questions, in relation to the international representation of EMU but above all in relation to policy coordination.
On the international aspect I would add that just as the rapporteur said, we must speak with one voice here.
But in this context we must also give the Commission, as the motor of European integration and guardian of the Treaties, equal rights of participation in this international representation.
Parliament must continue to support that.
What is particularly important is that we use the successful launch of monetary union in order to reduce the democratic deficit in the European Union.
It really is time for the European Parliament to be given a codecision right that is consistent with the further democratic development of this European Union; that right must apply not just to the annual economic report and the economic policy guidelines but also to the whole procedure for determining the excessive deficit and to the deliberations on the stability plans and convergence programmes.
This is particularly necessary with a view to enlargement as well as to monetary union and the form it assumes.
In this connection I want to point to one other matter.
The idea of the Euro-11 Council may be useful and may be very pragmatic.
I am not criticising, indeed I am welcoming the Council's efforts to improve economic coordination and begin preliminary discussions on the kind of policy mix that can act as a positive incentive to growth, investment and employment.
After all, the crucial point is that today we can no longer just have the European Central Bank responsible for monetary policy, the social partners for wage policy and the states for financial policy.
We need all these players to act together.
The European Parliament must not be kept out of this interplay.
The Euro-11 Council is not an institution enshrined in the Treaties.
So we really do need an interinstitutional agreement.
I very much hope that the German and the Finnish Presidencies will find a procedure for including the European Parliament in these discussions and that we who represent the people of Europe can actually offer some impetus towards achieving a balanced policy mix that promotes employment in the European Union.
This interinstitutional agreement is overdue.
We called for it in 1994 and it must be concluded before the year 2000.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I quite agree that following the launch of the euro we need a more closely coordinated economic policy.
This is urgently needed if we are to round off the whole project and make it effective.
But I would warn against using the term 'counterpart'.
We do not want a counterpart to the European Central Bank; rather, we want to complement it.
We do not want a political counterpart that runs counter to the European Central Bank's search for stability, for that is something that is beyond dispute and irrevocable; nor do we support the attempts to undermine the Stability Pact through the policy mix.
I think we must make it clear that this complementary policy of coordination is the key to supporting stability, to making stability a prerequisite, to ensuring that stability is not one aim among many others; it is on this basis that we must pursue a sensible economic policy aimed at growth, progress and employment. That is a different approach from the one Mrs Randzio-Plath put forward just now.
We also believe that the kind of social contract envisaged is not acceptable as it stands.
We want to see an approximation of social policies, but not to opt for a social contract that acts as a counterpart to the European Central Bank.
After all, until now we have been pursuing a sensible social policy based on minimum standards rather than harmonisation, and I believe that is an important aspect that we must not forget!
Mr President, allow me to make a final remark on external representation.
We must emphasise the need to upgrade the Commission's role, as Mr Herman also pointed out.
European economic and monetary union comes under the first pillar.
It is a Community task.
But the finance ministers are acting as though it were an intergovernmental matter, in terms of both external representation and the role they are taking upon themselves with the Euro-11 Council.
That is why Parliament should now make it clear that we will not allow a Community task to be watered down into an intergovernmental task, just to flatter the vanity of the finance ministers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, anybody reading the title of this report would think it was concerned with the constitutional aspects of EMU in the light of enlargement.
But that does not seem to be the case at all, because there is just one reference to enlargement, and then only indirectly in Recital A. The rapporteur is not really concerned with enlargement and its consequences for EMU or vice versa.
The rapporteur has used this report to argue for an enforceable and compulsory policy mix of social, fiscal and economic measures which must be as mandatory as the measures on EMU.
I do not doubt that the rapporteur believes in all good faith that growth and employment are things which can be decreed, despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary.
I and my group do not share this belief, and a large majority of us will consequently be voting against the Barros Moura report.
That said, I should like to clarify our position.
We support the European Parliament's increased and more on-going involvement in determining global guidelines.
It is just that we do not want guidelines to become directives.
We therefore support the proposed interinstitutional agreement.
We are in favour of social convergence, but we do not believe these minium standards can be imposed from above.
Finally, we most certainly support strict and clear rules of jurisprudence.
But we do not believe that a Council of Ministers - even if it is made up of wise men - can bring employment and prosperity to Europe by means of an enforced policy mix.
Mr President, despite the welcome I would give to the report by Mr Barros Moura, to be frank, I feel there is still much to be done and improvements to be made.
I have three remarks to make in this respect.
Firstly, you say that there is no point in calling into question the foundations of Economic and Monetary Union.
However, in my opinion, the current economic realities, combined with social tensions and social and national conflicts, will result in the contract being redefined.
In particular, there is a fundamental structural division in the legal framework and in our institutional procedures between the economic sphere and the social sphere. This is causing the social sphere to be marginalised.
Moreover, you are only considering the basic minimums.
In this respect, there is one point in Mr Herman's opinion which I particularly support: the reunification of the procedures for coordinating employment policies with economic policies.
This would be a very important step in the right direction.
You also accept the budgetary stability pact in its current state.
In my opinion, we must recognise the need for public expenditure to be increased in order to finance development.
This does not involve the budgetary deficit in itself, but rather the financing of development.
Lastly, with regard to the statutes of the European Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks, you are only considering limited improvements.
I believe that we need a kind of framework directive to regulate the European System of Central Banks.
Secondly, and more briefly, you are staking everything on the coordination of economic policies.
However, as has been said, there is a lack of will, content and means.
In my opinion, we need a greatly improved democratic method.
The role of the European Parliament in debating economic and social policy choices will become essential, in coordination, I hope, with the national parliaments.
This cannot be left, as you propose, to a simple consultation and debate on a single text from the Commission.
Finally, will the relationship between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank involve the Bank's policy being legitimised by Parliament or a political force being established to counterbalance the ECB? We need a dialogue within a political framework so that the EU policies which serve social and sustainable development objectives will necessarily be involved in monetary policy choices.
The work must therefore continue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when this House gave its assent to the third stage of monetary union on 2 May last year, many speakers maintained that this common currency would lead almost automatically to political union which, thanks to its own internal logic, would remove the imbalance between economic and political integration in Europe.
For those with the insight to realise it, that was a dangerous illusion even at that time.
I believe that today it is clear to us all that it was an illusion.
Anyone who thought the common currency must and would necessarily lead to a common economic policy, then to an employment policy and finally to a social union is now disappointed.
One employment summit after another has failed.
The economic players of European integration will not manage to create a political Europe: they cannot because many people are far too interested in creating a market Europe and not a political Europe.
Mr President, there is a good deal to welcome in Mr Barros Moura's report.
Whatever Mr Voggenhuber says, EMU will certainly have great political consequences.
It is premature to expect to see an immediate and fully fledged economic and social union after five weeks.
There will be great political consequences from EMU which have very often being underplayed or even denied by its proponents.
Mr Barros Moura is to be congratulated for highlighting those political consequences.
He is also to be congratulated on seeking to ensure that EMU will not widen the democratic deficit more than is absolutely necessary.
No doubt it will widen: an independent and barely accountable central bank publishing its minutes someway down the line seems to me to be utterly undesirable.
However, Mr Barros Moura makes various sensible proposals for ensuring that the democratic deficit is not too greatly widened.
Nevertheless, I have several concerns about the report and I speak here on behalf of the other British Labour MEPs.
In particular, we do not welcome the proposal to enshrine the euro-X Council in the Treaty.
Already four EU members are not actually members of Monetary Union and, as enlargement proceeds, other members will join the European Union without taking on the euro.
We must be wary of institutionalising a two-tier Europe in the way that entrenching the euro-X Council in the Treaty would.
We also do not accept the need to harmonise taxes by qualified majority.
Already, not only in Britain, but across Europe there is great scepticism and concern about the effects that monetary union will have and it can only be a success if it proceeds by consensus.
To try and force people into tax harmonisation in this way will certainly not help achieve that consensus in the United Kingdom.
For that reason also, the reference to a federal style budgetary system was decidedly unhelpful: anybody here who knows anything about British politics knows you must never use the 'f' word in a European context if you are trying to persuade people to get more closely involved in the European Union.
For those and other reasons the British Labour MEPs will be abstaining on Mr Barros Moura's report.
Mr President, as spokesman for the Group of the European People's Party, I would like to close this debate by saying, on behalf of my group, that we are going to support the report by Mr Barros Moura.
I believe that this report and our support for Mr Barros Moura prove that the consensus needed on the implications of Economic and Monetary Union does exist.
I also believe that the decision of 2 May is of great significance.
As far as Spanish people are concerned, for two centuries 2 May has represented the rebellion against the French.
However, I believe that from 1998 on, 2 May will mean something else: it will mean that we are building Europe together.
In my opinion, the most important element of the report by Mr Barros Moura is that it looks to the future.
There is no doubt that the way forward is fraught with difficulties, since we are building something that is completely new.
I think it was Baron Lamfalussy who said that in the process of building a single currency there were more 'ifs' and more conditionals than in the famous poem 'If' by Rudyard Kipling.
There are clearly many 'ifs' along the path towards the creation of the single currency.
Mr Barros Moura outlines the problems we are going to face in the future.
He does this very well in respect of the role of the European Parliament and the new European policies.
I realise that there are many things that Mr Spiers does not like - he seems to me to be more Old Labour than New Labour.
However, Mr Spiers, it will happen in the end.
Whether we like it or not, we will eventually have to bring our fiscal policies more into line with each other, and decisions will have to be taken by qualified majority.
In an enlarged Europe with 28 or 30 Member States - which is the issue Mr Barros Moura raises - it will be impossible for decisions to be taken unanimously.
Clearly, what we really want is consensus, but decisions will have to be taken if we want Europe to work.
This House has always led the way on the issue of European integration and I am sure that it wants Europe to work.
I believe that many of the points made by Mr Barros Moura are useful and will be useful in the future.
We will therefore support his report.
Cooperation on the euro requires self-discipline, which prevents certain acts of stupidity and forces countries to show more consideration to each other.
It is not a threat to employment.
It will benefit employment and social stability.
It is a safeguard against acts of stupidity carried out in the past to the detriment of prosperity and stability, especially by some social democratic governments.
But it is still the Social Democrats who believe they can protect us against the effects of the euro through new centralised control instruments.
That is complete nonsense!
On the contrary, the euro is what protects us against old-fashioned social democratic policies of devaluation, deficit and interference in the operation of central banks.
For those of us who come from a country which has lived with fixed exchange rate policies for 17 years, this has been the backbone of the prosperity, stability and employment we have enjoyed during that period.
We look forward to being able to join the euro and so enjoy its full benefits.
Mr President, when we adopted EMU and the euro we thought that, with the euro, politics was making a come-back in Europe, and I believe that Mr Barros Moura's report proves this.
I think that it proves one thing above all: that the Amsterdam Treaty has already come to the end of its useful life and it is time that we took steps to revise it. This is in fact what Mr Fischer said the other day in Parliament, and it is now being said by others in the German Presidency.
I read in the press, Mr President, that there are committees of wise men already working informally on revision of the Treaty.
I think that the European Parliament should be preparing rather more officially for this new revision, with all of us participating in it.
I think that Mr Barros Moura's proposals are very good ones and I wish to highlight those relating to the interinstitutional agreement, which could give a political interpretation to the existing terms of the Treaty, to control of the Euro-11 Council - it is hypocritical to allow it to decide on policy and for us not to say anything on the matter - and to the Community's policy and the pact on employment, without which neither the euro nor EMU has any legitimacy in the eyes of EU citizens.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Amsterdam Treaty has been mentioned today, yet this Treaty was not even allowed to mention the institutional consequences of the transition to Economic and Monetary Union.
We are now considering this issue and not before time.
If we failed to do so, we would be allowing the intergovernmental approach to sneak in by the back door, which is something we do not want.
At first glance, I feel that there are three essential aspects to this issue.
Firstly, as stated by Mr Herzog, we need a closer link between the broad economic policy guidelines and the employment guidelines. We have been calling for this for some time in this House.
Otherwise, the social sphere will remain an appendage of the economic sphere, which is not the best way to resolve the matters facing us.
Secondly, the external representation of the euro zone is clearly only just beginning.
This was a matter of urgency and that meant that a solution was cobbled together which is not satisfactory in the long term.
A more substantial solution must be found.
Thirdly, the transition to EMU and the changeover to the euro will force us to adopt qualified majority voting, both in taxation and in the whole social sphere.
I now come to the crux of the matter.
The institutional consequences of the changeover to the euro cannot be analysed solely in the context of enlargement.
They must also be considered in the wider context of the institutional reform needed.
In this dual context, the existence of the Euro Council is positive because it ensures an element of effectiveness which we need.
However, it is just being created and we must think about the future.
We must therefore strengthen the democratic control of this body. Given its effectiveness, it must be controlled and we must determine how it interacts with this House.
It must also be included in the overall institutional mechanism with regard to enlargement.
The essential issue in the reports by Mr Barros Moura and Mr Bourlanges is the interlinking of these two questions.
The ECOFIN Council cannot become the dominant Council and the General Affairs Council must regain its coordinating position.
If this means that it no longer deals with foreign affairs, then so be it.
However, we do need a Council to coordinate foreign affairs, the economic and financial situation and employment, but this role cannot be played by the ECOFIN Council.
Mr President, the report we are debating is moving towards greater centralisation of the economic and monetary policy of the Union and of the Member States which, in my view, goes beyond the ambitions of the architects of EMU, who of course are not in this Parliament.
It reinforces the institutional expression of a multi-speed Europe and, in the name of a single economic policy, it aims to bestow on ECOFIN characteristics of an economic government and, on the general guidelines of economic policy, a legal substance which will be compulsory for Member States.
These are choices which strengthen the policies of imposing a centralist Europe, and which reduce to zero the possibilities of Member States to shape their own economic and social policies. These are choices which give rise to concern among working people and the public at large, who are suffering the consequences of the choices made at Maastricht and over EMU and the stability pact.
It goes without saying, Mr President, that, under these conditions, we cannot support the report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by Mr Barros Moura is to be welcomed, coming, as it does, just after the introduction of the euro.
It has come at a good time as it is useful to consider the consequences of Economic and Monetary Union and the imminent institutional reform of the Union prior to the next enlargement.
The Commission broadly supports many of the proposals and analyses in this report.
However, I believe that this work must be extended by looking towards the future, as Mr Méndez de Vigo just mentioned.
And this is the right time given the operating practices of Economic and Monetary Union and the dynamic created by the euro in other European policies and institutions.
In this respect, I would like to mention briefly two points in response to your questions.
The first point concerns the economic aspects of Economic and Monetary Union from an institutional perspective while the second relates to the effects of implementing Economic and Monetary Union on the institutional balance of the Community.
On the first point, EMU has its own unique structure, as several Members have pointed out, because it consists of a single monetary policy combined with separate national economic policies.
This is why we need to coordinate these policies and why the European Councils have for many years been defining the framework for increased coordination of economic policies.
However, this is not a question of establishing counterweights, as Mr Brok quite rightly pointed out.
This increased coordination is based on a whole series of instruments with which you are familiar.
These are the broad guidelines, the excessive deficits and the stability and growth pact. However, along with the Commission, I agree with your rapporteur when he says that the broad economic policy guidelines must be the overall instrument for coordinating economic policies.
The Amsterdam European Council asked for the broad guidelines to take account of the employment guidelines.
And since the Vienna European Council, we have had the prospect of two complementary contributions: one concerning the internal market, the Cardiff 1 report, and the other involving the economic reforms, the Cardiff 2 report.
Therefore, the introduction of the euro has clearly encouraged and is encouraging the development of a genuine European economic policy programme.
It is therefore the content of the broad economic policy guidelines that is important. They will affect budgetary policies, our level of competitiveness, and the exchange rate policy together with economic reforms and structural policies, both in the market in goods and services and in the labour market.
All these elements aim to make our economic policy work to the advantage of growth and employment in Europe.
This is a brief outline of the current legal and institutional framework. As the rapporteur has quite rightly pointed out, it is the Commission's responsibility to see to it that this work is coherent by ensuring that the various components of this economic policy coordination come together perfectly.
I note with interest your proposal - which was highlighted by Mr Herzog and Mrs Berès - to develop the guidelines for employment at the same time as the broad economic policy guidelines.
Personally, I agree with you but this is a very controversial point, even within the Commission, because it poses various problems.
I am not going to go into detail on these today but this is why, given the failure to fully resolve this problem, we have included the content of the employment guidelines in the broad economic policy guidelines. This will form the work for next June.
To fulfil its task, the Commission is clearly trying to ensure that this work is coordinated. However, the Commission is also responsible for constantly monitoring the economic situation of the Member States.
This is why we are insisting on professionalism, promptness and awareness and these are the instructions and the method being applied, at least in the services under my responsibility.
This is also why the services of Directorate-General II have recently been completely reorganised to allow us to assess the situation of the euro zone as accurately as possible using analyses and forecasts.
We must learn to learn to think in terms of the euro zone.
Furthermore, we are currently thinking of organising economic discussions in Brussels, in the form of study days, in which this House would be involved.
They would take place from this year and could be held at regular intervals, for example, once or twice a year.
They would obviously be run with the help of top independent experts and would allow the debate on European economic policy to be extended. The aim would be to make this policy more visible and more transparent and therefore to contribute to the democratic debate you are calling for.
Your rapporteur asks us to go further and to consider the scope of the broad guidelines, with a view to creating an obligatory policy mix. You have suggested amending Article 103(2).
However, I would remind you that the current Treaty already provides for the adoption of the broad economic policy guidelines by a qualified majority in the Council.
Nevertheless, I have taken note of your wish and the Commission will consider your proposal with interest.
In any event, we understand the reasons behind it.
Nevertheless, this issue must be considered in light of the operating practices of Economic and Monetary Union, which is only just starting out. It must also be considered in light of the respective roles of the Euro-11 and the ECOFIN Council.
I had proposed to you that the Euro-11 be recognised in the Treaty, but my understanding was that Mr Spiers did not agree.
This is a problem which is arising now and which will arise in the future in the light of experience gained.
For its part, the Commission has always been in favour of improving the operation of the broad economic policy guidelines.
These are not a failure, Mr Herman, even if this aspect is not as good or as successful as we would have liked.
We will make more specific, formal proposals on the 1999 broad economic policy guidelines for each Member State this year, and you can expect to receive these in March.
With regard to external representation, an agreement was signed in Vienna.
This must be respected and it is the responsibility of the German Presidency to ensure that it is accepted by our main trading partners and our main international partners.
I have every confidence that the German Presidency will ensure that this agreement by the Heads of State and Government is respected, remembering that this is a minimum and transitory agreement.
The second point that I must briefly mention concerns the institutional balance.
Mrs Randzio-Plath very rightly underlined the democratic deficit affecting the European Union in the context of EMU.
I believe that an interinstitutional agreement is a good idea. This is actually one of two courses set out by your rapporteur and something that was also highlighted by Mr Papayannakis.
The Commission is in favour of this and has always supported the possibility of reaching such an agreement.
In my opinion, the practices already used in this respect should be made official and some of the courses mentioned by the rapporteur should be explored, in terms of both defining and monitoring the multilateral surveillance.
The euro will also have an impact on certain policies.
I am thinking mainly of fiscal policy, if only to prevent the tax race as it were.
I am also thinking of social policy as this House must take part in drawing up the new social contract and in the actions intended to preserve the European social model.
These are areas into which the Economic and Monetary Union will clearly extend, although I am not going to go into them in detail here.
I will end by mentioning the final stage, that is, the new institutional developments.
EMU offers us the option of a method that involves defining precise objectives - transition conditions and deadlines - and ensuring a form of organised flexibility to inspire certain institutional innovations.
This method must be given particular consideration with the imminent enlargement of the European Union in the context of our discussions on the institutional question. There are two key issues involved here.
The first is qualified majority voting.
Mrs Berès is right: if we want to avoid the risk of paralysis in the decision-making system, we must extend this type of voting and bring it into general use.
However, the problem with this, as pointed out by Mr Spiers, is the fiscal policy.
A choice must be made between effectiveness and national sovereignty and in this case the dilemma must be resolved.
The second key issue is the workings of the Commission, the institutions in general, and therefore the Council.
Whatever formula is envisaged, it must respond to the triple requirement of effectiveness, representation and democratic control.
To conclude, I must point out, like your rapporteur, that in my opinion, the euro can now act as a genuine catalyst which Europe can use to become structured, stronger, more developed and enlarged.
Europe still has to be able to adapt and reform itself.
It is in this respect that your report is an interesting and useful element which will contribute to the discussions in the months to come.
Mr President, I must just say something very quickly, not to comment on the debate, but to give Mr Herzog some information.
I am pleased that you recognise that my report raises questions for the future, even if it clearly cannot provide an answer for them at the moment.
I am also pleased with the criticisms made by the Liberals in the House as they reassure me that I have chosen the right economic and social policy.
I would just like to ask Mr Herzog to read Amendment No 11 tabled at my request by the Socialist Group. This amendment deals specifically with the role of public investment expenditure which, when calculating the public deficit, must not be compared to or put on the same level as consumer expenditure.
I appreciate that the Commissioner is being polite and diplomatic, but will he not give an opinion on paragraph 10 of the report? Is the Commissioner in favour of the euro operating with common goals, or is he in favour of having a binding common economic policy, as proposed in paragraph 10?
That is what I would like the Commissioner to give an opinion on. The Commission usually says what it is for and what it is against.
Is the Commission in favour of paragraph 10? I hope not, but I would like to have that confirmed.
I believe I gave a clear answer on this. The broad economic policy guidelines must be as realistic, precise and specific as possible.
The ideal situation would be for these to be binding and obligatory but, as the Treaty currently stands, this is not possible.
We must therefore proceed pragmatically which means initially using the system of group pressure and ministerial pressure in order to succeed in pushing through changes.
This is beginning, as noted last Monday in the ECOFIN Council, with regard to the stability and convergence programmes.
It is in the light of experience that we will see to what extent and in what way we can introduce an additional stage to make the system more binding.
To be too hasty would be prejudicial and would probably be contrary to the objectives set out by those who are in favour of making the guidelines binding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Decision-making in Council
The next item is the report (A4-0049/99) by Mr Bourlanges, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on decision-making within the Council in an enlarged Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the main features of the report before us are its aim, its scope, its content and its orientation.
As regards its aim, Parliament, through its Committee on Institutional Affairs, has chosen to interfere in something which is not really its concern. In other words, it has chosen to talk openly and transparently about another institution, namely, the Council.
Some have taken offence at this. However, we consider that this is our duty because Parliament must be concerned with the institutional future of the European Union as a whole and also because scrutiny is always much more thorough when carried out by someone else.
Personally, I would not have any problem with the Council preparing a report on Parliament.
Secondly, with regard to its scope, this report analyses the decision-making process in the Council and, in general terms, the difficulties the Council experiences in its operation. It does not hope to lay down the full institutional history of the European Union for when this is eventually achieved, but it is not confined purely to the short term.
We have tried to define certain changes that must take place in light of the three challenges facing us. These challenges are the political transition of the European Union, the euro, which requires an economic policy to be defined, and enlargement, which is exerting a quantitative pressure.
In terms of content, in certain sections, the report proposes and recommends institutional reforms affecting the Treaties.
In other sections, less extensive interinstitutional changes and even administrative changes are suggested.
We believe that the Council operates as a whole, regardless of the legal instruments used.
There are certainly only a few reforms that affect the Treaties, but all the changes to be made to the Council's operation are very important.
The final key feature of the report is its orientation. It aims to protest against certain drifts that are becoming evident, and I will mention two instances.
The first is a drift towards paralysis, linked, in particular, to an increase in the number of participants without the necessary reforms.
And this is related to the whole problem of qualified majority voting. The second is a drift towards the use of informal procedures, ad hoc committees and meetings between staff or between governments, which are tending to bypass the effective, transparent and democratic procedures laid down in the Treaty.
What we want to see is more formality and stricter respect for official procedures.
The report is divided into two main sections relating to structures and procedures.
I clearly do not have time to go into them in detail.
However, with regard to structures, I must stress a point that Mrs Berès rightly made and that relates to the crisis of the General Affairs Council.
The report recommends a very clear separation between the foreign affairs function, which must be carried out by the foreign ministers, and the general affairs function, which is a coordinating function to be carried out by ministers close to the coordinating authority.
This is an important point.
Indeed, there is nothing to prevent the foreign ministers from fulfilling this role, if that is what the Member States want.
With regard to the procedures, we are rather concerned about the limits on the extension of qualified majority voting.
The report makes rather daring proposals on own resources and foreign policy which will perhaps not be accepted by our colleagues.
However, we must realise that in the Europe of the future, everything subject to unanimity will be paralysed.
More generally, the report calls on each of us to participate in the logical distribution of roles between the Council and the Commission.
We are currently helping to create two parallel executive structures, which is not advisable.
The Commission must be responsible for proposing and implementing in all areas.
The Council must be responsible for making provisions but does not need to propose and implement, while the Commission must not assume parallel functions of government.
Our message is that we must clarify this distribution of roles.
Mr President, I would like to speak on a point of order.
As Mr Bourlanges rightly pointed out, the Council is at the heart of this debate.
I would therefore like to ask the President of Parliament to tell us who is now representing the Council in this debate.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, the Chair shares your sentiment that the Council should be here today.
However, this was not scheduled, the Council was not informed and is therefore not present.
That is all I have to say.
Mr President, there is no issue of greater importance for the future of the Union as we move to have over twenty Member States, as will be the case in the next few years, than the reform of the decision-taking procedures within the Council.
That is why it is legitimate for Parliament to examine this question.
The very functioning of an enlarged European Union will depend on the answers brought to the questions raised in this report.
We know that as we soon will have 20-something states around the table of the Council any area that requires unanimity will be an area in which the European Union is likely to be paralysed.
If it can take decisions, they will be slow, cumbersome and on the basis of the lowest common denominator.
That is why reform is essential.
Any policy area subject to unanimity will be blocked.
But on top of that the very functioning of the European Union can so easily be brought to a halt by a single government if it choses to do so.
Take appointments: to appoint the President of the Commission, to appoint the Governor of the Central Bank, even to appoint a member of the Court of Auditors requires unanimity in the Council.
A single government may well be tempted to hold the Union hostage.
After all, we have seen this in the past.
The former Conservative British Government, a few years ago, in the dispute over mad cow disease blocked all decision-taking in the Council that required unanimity in pursuit of a particular dispute.
Who is to say that when we have 20-something states around the table that sometime some government or another will not be tempted to use a similar tactic?
We also saw the difficulty of wrangles over the appointment of the Central Bank Governor recently and over the President of the Commission four years ago.
In both cases a single government was able to hold up proceedings to make the others pay a political price for an eventual concession that was made or a new compromise that had to be found.
It was very difficult.
Imagine that with more than 20 Member States.
That is why the first and most essential reform is a massive extension of qualified majority voting.
Without that, enlargement will be a hazardous exercise and risks bringing us to paralysis.
Yes, we must look also at the question of the weighting of votes in the Council.
There is a proposal to have a double majority system: a majority of votes and a majority of the population or a majority of states and of population.
Mr Bourlanges' report underlines that that is not strictly necessary to avoid the possibility of a qualified majority being composed of states representing a minority of the population.
Arithmetically that cannot happen.
That is why I - and up until now - my group have always been very reticent about the idea of moving towards a system of double majority in the Council.
The Council should have votes representing the states just as Parliament has a more proportional system representing the population of the European Union.
In this report Parliament is fulfilling its traditional role of looking ahead, being a little bit adventurous, but looking to the future: as we did with Spinelli report that preceded the Single Act, the Martin report that preceded Maastricht and the Bourlanges report which preceded Amsterdam.
We know that there will be new intergovernmental negotiations to reform the treaties on these points.
It is right that we put something forward-looking on the table.
Of course there will be problems on specific points.
My own group has problems and will be tabling amendments and requesting split votes on particular points.
But if it is understood that Parliament is fulfilling its visionary role here, looking to the future, putting the problems on the table, pushing governments to go further rather than being reticent, then there will be an understanding of the role of this report and I congratulate the rapporteur for the tremendous efforts that he has put into it.
Mr President, Mr Corbett has given Mr Bourlanges' report the best possible praise by comparing it to the Spinelli report.
I believe that the two reports have something in common: they both concentrate on the future and propose courageous solutions.
And that is indeed welcome.
I believe that, just as in the case of this morning's report by Mr Barros Moura, what we are actually doing here before the Treaty of Amsterdam is ratified by all the Member States is looking to the future, which is one of Parliament's tasks.
I agree with the comments made here regarding the extension of qualified majority voting.
That is the major challenge facing us, particularly since this report has been drawn up with an enlarged Europe in mind.
Since the accession of the last three Member States the difficulties involved in decision-making have increased.
What will happen when Europe has 25 or 28 Member States? We must provide solutions, find ways of preventing paralysis and work to ensure that the European Union does not turn into an intergovernmental organisation.
Our most important task is to defend the principle of integration.
And when we eventually have 25, 26 or 28 Member States, the principle of integration will only be able to be maintained if decisions are taken by qualified majority.
There is no doubt about this, and we will have to ensure that it happens one way or another.
In this respect, I believe that the report by Mr Bourlanges hits the nail on the head in terms of the sensitive issues to be dealt with. I am sorry that the Council is not represented here because I think that it would learn from this debate and the points made during it.
The issue of the weighting of votes is one of the areas included in the Protocol on the institutions in the Treaty of Amsterdam. In addition, the German Presidency seems to want to make some kind of proposal in this area.
I believe that we must look at two possibilities: giving new weighting to the votes or creating a simple double majority system, as proposed by Mr Bourlanges. He is from a country that has always opposed this idea and I think it is admirable that he has considered it in his report.
As a result, and because we believe that this is an important report, my group will vote in favour.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I usually defend the unanimity rule, but not this time.
The rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, whom I respect, but with whom I basically disagree, declares in his latest report that this is a conservative report.
In my opinion, anyone familiar with thinking on Europe will know that while he might be accused of a certain cautiousness, he can scarcely be labelled a conservative.
That is why, now that the debate over who is pro-European and who is anti-European has become fairly meaningless, and now that Eurosocialists are asking for more Europe, we, who are neither on the left nor Socialists, are best placed to propose and actually achieve a better Europe.
A better Europe at institutional level - the subject of this report - quite simply means that the Council should be in charge of Europe's political management, since that is where the Union of States and the primacy of sovereign States come together.
It should be the European Parliament that supervises the executive actions of the Union, in a seamless and close connection with national parliaments. The Commission should, in our view, be given back its original implementation and administration role, instead of trying to grant it new tasks, new prerogatives and new powers.
The rapporteur also claims that the European Council has become the vanguard of the European Union.
We could not agree more.
But here too the conservative side of this report gives way to the bolder side, with the suggestion that the European Council should meet, whenever necessary, as the Heads of State and Government, when for decision-making purposes it should adopt the procedures usually followed at normal meetings of Councils of Ministers.
I am no Europhobe nor am I Euroallergic.
I think that first and foremost we have to explain to the citizens of Europe, as a matter of urgency, the kind of Europe we have and the kind of Europe we want.
I have already been called a Eurorealist for taking that stance, despite my optimism.
That adjective is not to my liking - but I would rather be a Eurorealist than a Eurocentralist, Eurofederalist or, most certainly, a Eurosocialist.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Bourlanges on this own-initiative report, which makes very interesting, though sometimes quite demanding reading.
I entirely agree that we should be directing our efforts towards establishing a system that is clear and simple, and eliminating any ambiguity as to who has responsibility and authority.
The present confusion over roles, which is all too obvious, is of course to be criticised.
Informal networking and meetings behind closed doors with no democratic control is also unsatisfactory.
Furthermore, we know that the second pillar is unsound, a situation which is totally unacceptable.
On this much we are all agreed.
Might I be permitted, with all due respect, to call into question Mr Bourlanges's analysis of the situation and the basis of his reasoning?
He considers that the Member States have reacted to the new challenges with an 'excessively ad hoc approach to the institutional question ... this approach has led to the rampant de-institutionalisation of the Union'.
But is this really the case? On the contrary, I believe that the new Treaty and institutional arrangements go in quite another direction.
However, a much-needed reform which should be implemented is the apportionment of roles, in other words the allocation of decision-making responsibility.
In my view, we should return some of the decision-making that is currently carried out at EU level to the Member States and the regions.
Furthermore, there is no good reason why the European Council should play a less central role; nor would it be legitimate for the Commission to develop into a 'European executive', as envisaged in Mr Bourlanges's proposal.
The European Union is the sum total of its Member States, and even if unanimity has not always been an effective arrangement, the aim was that it should not just be effective, but also democratic.
I do not say that the Committee on Institutional Affairs was wrong to take an interest in an area which does not really concern it, but let us accept this report for what it is: an intellectual exercise.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also have taken this opportunity to welcome the Presidency-in-Office but, unfortunately, I cannot as there are no representatives present.
Firstly, on behalf of the ARE Group, I must congratulate Mr Bourlanges on his important work, particularly as he has managed to include in his report the essence of many suggestions made by his colleagues in the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
My group therefore regards this report as an excellent starting point.
There is currently a lack of transparency in the European Union due, for the most part, to the dual nature of the Council, which can meet as an executive body and as a legislative body.
This situation poses a problem which could worsen with enlargement in that, in its legislative function, the Council operates more like the Congress of Vienna than a real legislative house.
Our fellow citizens must be able to understand the European Union's institutional system. This is definitely not the case at the moment.
Therefore, the Council must no longer be a gathering of national executives meeting in secret and deciding virtually everything unanimously.
It must become a second legislative house, just like the European Parliament.
We also need to find a new balance for the institutions and this will put an end to the constant strengthening of the Council and the European Council.
The latter must extend its role of laying down general guidelines and providing political impetus for the Union without becoming a decision-making body.
The bases of this new structure mean extending qualified majority voting in the Council.
In the Treaty, there are still no less than 40 articles on which unanimity continues to be the rule. This means that there are many areas in which, given the prospect of enlargement, the European Union is virtually condemned to paralysis.
We feel that the report by Mr Bourlanges can be improved further.
This is why my group has tabled two amendments which we would ask the rapporteur to consider.
The first amendment involves the urgent need to use the Community method to prepare the next revision of the Treaties. It became apparent during the negotiations on the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties that the intergovernmental method was unsuitable, ineffective and even out of date.
The second amendment relates to the opportunity we have to consider creating a new function, that of President of the Union, in order to add a degree of permanence and to allow greater visibility in an enlarged Union.
I hope that these constructive proposals will be adopted by the majority of Members.
Mr President, the report before us today was written by the French chairman of the Europe Movement according to the formula: much more Union.
The June Movement is opposed to union, so we are voting no.
Mr Bourlanges wants many more laws to be adopted by a majority decision in the Council of Ministers, but that means democracy can be outvoted, because the essence of democracy is that you can go to the polls, elect a new government and change the law.
The report's proposal means that we can go to the polls, but that we as Danish voters will never again be able to change the law.
We can replace three out of 87 votes in the Council of Ministers.
We can replace 16 out of 626 Members of the European Parliament, but we can never again as voters decide to bring in a new law.
We can get new politicians, but not a new policy.
We shall be transformed into an electoral district instead of a nation.
We shall become a national minority, instead of an independent people.
The June Movement does not want to reduce democracy.
Our mission is a Europe of democracies in which each country cooperates closely, but which only adopts common laws on issues which transcend borders.
Air pollution and marine pollution are problems which we cannot solve individually.
Here we need to have binding international cooperation, but they should be minimum rules, giving everyone the right to go further.
The EU should not be able to forbid a country from banning pesticides and colourings which cause allergies.
We want an environmental Europe, but not more union and certainly not a new state, so we are voting against the Bourlanges report.
Mr President, my apologies for being somewhat late - I had another engagement.
To Mr Bonde, I wish to say that he is at the wrong debate.
We are not talking about Europe's general position; we are talking about the Council of Ministers.
I welcome the excellent report produced by our colleague, Mr Bourlanges.
It is consistent and very coherent.
The institution where we find the greatest difficulties in decision-making is not the Commission or Parliament - although there are a number of difficulties of which we are aware - it is the Council of Ministers.
Mr Bourlanges spoke about the rampant deinstitutionalisation of the Council of Ministers and that is exactly right.
The Council does not even follow its own rules.
He spoke about the European Council as the 'Tour de France broom-wagon'.
Indeed, the European Council is becoming increasingly inconsistent, and it is against that background that I very much welcome the overall approach of Mr Bourlanges.
I wish to make two essential points: the qualified majority is a problem and Commissioner Oreja is aware of how the Commission has been fighting to obtain the necessary changes here.
The point about internal coherence relates to the fact that there are too many specialised councils, as Mr Bourlanges said, and the Foreign Affairs Council fails to play its proper role.
The suggestion that we establish a real General Affairs Council strengthens coherence.
I hope that the Commission will also stress this point.
Then we have the proliferation of committees.
Unfortunately, we have a first, a second and a third pillar but as we move towards communitarisation, for instance in the area of Justice and Home Affairs, it makes no sense to retain a K.4 committee of some kind in the first pillar.
It erodes the initiative power of the Commission as well as the role of COREPER, the central body that prepares the work of the Council of Ministers.
I endorse that view also.
Turning to the political committee, we should move in that direction.
But there everything depends on whether the CFSP finally becomes a real common foreign and security policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today we are supposed to point the way institutionally. Where do we stand, where do we want to go?
We are about to see the conclusion of the ratification procedure and the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
As we know, the last intergovernmental conference did not manage to resolve some of the important issues relating to the forthcoming enlargements.
So the German Presidency is seeking a procedural decision on the necessary institutional reforms at the summit this June, once agreement has been reached on the key questions of Agenda 2000 at the end of March.
The European Parliament outlined the scope and direction of these reforms in its Mendez/Tsatsos resolution.
In its programme of activities over the past year and a half the Committee on Institutional Affairs has clarified the direction to be pursued.
The result is the three reports we are debating today.
The Bourlanges report contains a resolution that departs from the norm.
It is not a list of demands but an important prospective document.
Its key concern is the need to move to majority decisions in more areas and to adjust the voting procedures in the Council so that it will retain its ability to act even after the forthcoming enlargements.
These tasks derive from the Treaty of Amsterdam and the positions the European Parliament has adopted thereon.
Let me say openly that in my view the significance of some of the details of today's resolution is a rather more illustrative one.
In the current stage of the European debates, the general guidelines require political authority.
In that way we and Jean-Louis Bourlanges will live up to our view of ourselves as giving impetus to the European integration process.
It follows that the next European Parliament will also have to debate the next round of institutional reforms in more depth.
Here we expect the Cologne European Council to consider our ideas too when it decides the timetable and methods of these reforms.
Jean-Louis Bourlanges has done very good preliminary work in this respect.
Mr President, Mr Bourlanges's report, which has cast a stone in the stagnant waters of the institutional bodies, is worthy of our praise both for its audacity and its realism.
Time forces me to confine myself to highlighting the effort to drive out the lethargy and to dispel the confusion which, over the years, have stood in the way of a coherent common foreign and security policy taking shape.
Such a policy is a sine qua non for what we have been rushing headlong since March to call the European Union to be a real union of states and citizens.
Not only has the aspiration contained in the original Treaty not been fulfilled by the revision of the Amsterdam Treaty but it has, on the contrary, been undermined.
It has become even more complicated and obscure.
Since the enlargement procedure has begun, it would be dangerous to delay finding a solution to existing institutional indecision.
It is quite symptomatic and yet sad that we have recently begun to hear nationalistic outpourings from heads of Member States.
This regression simply means that individual interests are being supported at the expense of Community interests.
Paragraph 24 of the Bourlanges report contains specific and unambiguous proposals to check this slippery slide.
We may not agree with one or two technical details.
What none of us can accept, however, is to allow the acknowledged inability of the EU to fulfil its supranational role of ensuring international order and peace to be concealed behind a wall of silence.
Mr President, the political testament of Mr Bourlanges, coming just before the end of our mandate, contains some important points.
However, only when the euro is a success and the national parliaments are prepared to provide a good foundation for the Europe of Nations do I believe the time will have come to take major new steps forward.
In the meantime, it remains to be seen whether a common approach to crime, asylum for refugees, the harmonisation of fiscal policy and the creation of jobs is going to be successful.
Nevertheless, European ideas for deepening European institutions and enlargement must be further developed. But let us not overwhelm the public with too many changes in too many different fields, as this obscures their control over and insight into their own sovereignty, and that is more likely to lead to a rejection of Europe than the contrary.
The Bourlanges report is an interesting intellectual exercise, but we must not force the pace with giant steps but rather take the slow road like Tom Thumb.
That way we will keep the public with us.
At present my group cannot support your report.
Mr President, reforming the Council is probably the most difficult task of all.
In practice it simply means calling on the Council to reform itself.
So I am not surprised to find it was not even present to listen to this appeal and that it seems to be fairly indifferent to Parliament's reform project.
The Council is the Achilles heel of European democracy, if not the black hole.
That is because of its amphibious nature.
As a European institution it is constantly distancing itself from the national parliaments and the national and European courts.
It is constantly distancing itself from the European Parliament by presenting itself as a meeting of the Member States.
That is why I do not have any real hope that this black hole of democracy can be closed, that we will finally see open legislation, majority decisions, the democratisation of the second and third pillar.
This kind of governmental cooperation is increasingly becoming a democratic no man's land.
I congratulate the rapporteur on his attempts to at least sketch out the broad lines of reform here.
I also congratulate him on the clever way in which he proposed a revolutionary shift of power in favour of the large states while presenting this as maintaining the existing balance.
That is a particularly successful intellectual proposal.
Mr President, the Bourlanges report subscribes to the view that the Council should become a second house representing the Member States and that the Commission should gradually develop into a genuine European executive.
As I explained in the minority opinion attached to the report, the I-EDN Group considers that such a development would be dangerous and that the Council must continue in its role as a central decision-maker, representing the Member States, and as the hierarchical superior of the Commission.
In fact, one of the lessons we should draw from the recent debates on the motion of censure against the Commission is that the European institutions, which cover many countries, are particularly at risk of becoming cut off from the people.
This is especially true of the Commission, which relies on a European civil service with fairly weak national links.
The remedy must involve carefully strengthening the subordinating link by which Brussels serves the Member States.
This link places the Council in a privileged position.
This is why the individual voice of each Member State must be maintained in the Council by preserving unanimity and why every means must be used to strengthen the Council's control over the Commission.
On this essential issue, the Bourlanges report is silent.
Therefore, the opportunity to solve one of Europe's current major problems is being missed. In fact, Europe is heading in the wrong direction towards a superstate cut off from the people.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur who, in my opinion, has presented us with a magnificent report that offers a forward-looking analysis of the institutions of an enlarged European Union and of issues that the Treaty of Amsterdam obviously failed to resolve.
I think that his report's strongest point is its defence of the Community method at a time when there are clear signs of a return to intergovernmental working in the European Union.
I think especially that the rapporteur's proposals on reorganising the Council's business are a step in the right direction.
Not only in terms of efficiency, by extending qualified majority voting, but also by restoring the institutional balance provided for in the Treaty, where there has been a shift towards a greater executive and governmental role for the Council, to the detriment of the Commission's roles in taking initiatives and acting as a political driving-force, which are recognised in the Treaty and which it should continue to play.
That is why I cannot understand the rapporteur's detailed proposals on the weighting of votes in the Council.
It is obvious that the demographic weight of the different countries should be reflected in their voting power and that a minority of the population should not be able to prevail against the majority.
That would be undemocratic and would be rightly rejected by public opinion in the larger countries.
In my opinion, however, it is in Parliament, with its legislative codecision rights, that the different demographic weighting of the Member States should manifest itself: we shall in any case soon have to change the current proportion of Members per country, in view of enlargement and the plans for a smaller Parliament with 700 Members.
In the Council, given its governmental role, the original balance between small and large countries should be maintained. We should avoid giving the impression that we are setting up a directing board of large countries - especially four months away from the elections and in the midst of all the anti-European propaganda that we have heard in today's debate.
One last remark on the content of paragraph 33. I cannot accept this because it would give greater decision-making powers on the budget to the bigger contributors and is totally at odds with the Community method.
Mr President, the Bourlanges report is excellent, as was only to be expected.
For many years Jean-Louis Bourlanges has spearheaded the process of European integration. Looking at him, though, perhaps he is not quite as pointed as a spearhead.
But the Bourlanges report is also an important one. For it reminds us in good time that the Union is constantly facing two tasks: enlargement and deepening.
We have spoken a great deal about enlargement over the past months.
And we have repeatedly and rightly referred to the homework the applicant countries must do.
Let me remind you, for instance, of the debate in this House prior to the Vienna summit.
At the same time we must not forget to do our own homework here in this House and here in the Union.
The European Union must remain able to act, or to be more precise, become more able to act.
Amsterdam has brought some progress in this area, but the opportunity for progress at the last minute was clearly not taken.
In particular, the important questions of decision-making in the Council have remained open.
The Bourlanges report considers these questions and seeks constructive, forward-looking solutions to them.
By and large, I believe it has done so with great success, as many of the previous speakers have pointed out and emphasised.
I believe there are still some question marks in regard to certain parts of the call - however right in principle - for the general introduction of majority voting in the Council.
I am particularly sceptical about paragraphs 28, 32 and 33 concerning own resources and qualified majority voting.
Let me address a last point that was rightly raised in an amendment tabled by Mr Saint-Pierre.
We must also consider the method of the next treaty reform, and here it is the Community method that is the right one, not the intergovernmental conference method, which is governed only by the power of veto.
Mr President, this is a crucial time to be debating and voting on this report on the Council - an excellent report incidentally.
The European Union is currently at a complex and difficult stage. It is going through a period of evolution, and a lot of balances are being undermined.
So it is becoming one of the European Parliament's essential tasks to debate the institutions and the way they work.
I am tempted to say that in the absence of real reform and with all the institutional balances fluid, Parliament really must start thinking strategically about the development of the Union again.
The Commission is being weakened. That is a fact.
I cannot say whether there is also a political attack going on against the Commission, but it is certainly being weakened.
The role of the European Council is developing in an anomalous way, as the Bourlanges report rightly emphasises.
Parliament and the Council should legislate in parallel, but it cannot really be claimed that this is really what is happening.
In essence, the whole way the system operates is changing, especially with the enlargement approaching and after the launch of the euro.
The Bourlanges report confronts these issues head on, with a free-ranging, imaginative approach to the institutions.
There has never been a greater need for imagination about the institutions, inspired by a dynamic rather than a literal interpretation of the Treaty, and of course, as everyone knows, dynamic interpretations sometimes go beyond the legislative text. There has never been a greater need to highlight the institutional hypocrisy of those who claim that an enlarged European Union can continue to function without reform of the institutions.
There are many worthwhile ideas in the report but I am not going to highlight what is probably the central point, namely the redefinition of the role of the General Affairs Council, which Mr Bourlanges discusses.
Instead I want to emphasise a point which, in my opinion, emerges from the interpretation of the report.
I believe that attention should be focused on trying to restore the balance between the European Council and the Commission, the two authorities driving policy and legislation.
The future progress of the European Union will largely depend on this balance.
This is a fundamental point.
I think the balance is currently being undermined by both the anomalous development of the Council and the weakening of the Commission.
To conclude, Mr President, I see this whole report as going beyond the old approach of intergovernmental versus supranational.
Redefining the balance between the Council and the Commission marks the end of that approach.
That is where I think Mr Bourlanges has made an extremely important contribution.
Mr President, I did prepare a speech but I have left it aside because many of my points have already been excellently made by previous speakers.
I therefore see no need in repeating what has already been said.
However, I must mention two points.
The first is that it has been a matter of regret for a long time, and still is now, that the Amsterdam Treaty did not go to its logical conclusion and effectively prepare for enlargement.
The European Parliament must take some of the blame for this because it did not propose any solutions because of the fact that it was still divided.
Now that this moment has arrived, I welcome the fact that the Committee on Institutional Affairs and its rapporteur have dared to put forward a solution.
I feel that the most important point is that our hands are no longer empty.
There may be better solutions, which must now be put forward, but at least we have a solution to offer.
My second point is that, through the debates within the political groups, between the small states and the large states, a fundamental element of the future of Europe has become evident: within the European structure, each of us as individuals is part of a minority and each of the Member States is part of a minority.
We must therefore heed each other and develop this minority culture which is the future of Europe. To conclude, I believe that with a solution in one hand and a philosophy in the other, this process has indeed begun, and I welcome that fact.
Mr President, regarding the content of the report, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, for having supported the amendment we tabled. It is an amendment that will make it possible in the future for there to be formal Council of Ministers meetings involving the ministers responsible for women's rights.
It is an important amendment as it deals with a key problem in Europe today: the traditional exclusion of women from the decision-making process.
I hope that the PPE Group will also support this amendment and that the Commission, which is represented here in this debate, will be sensitive to this issue and support this move.
At the moment, the ministers responsible for women's rights cannot meet in a formal Council of Ministers.
I therefore believe that by providing for this possibility, we are taking a major step forward in defending the necessary involvement of women in the decision-making process.
Secondly, and from a general point of view, I believe that it is not only advisable but also necessary for us to reflect on such issues given that the European Union is currently initiating a large-scale process of enlargement.
The report by Mr Bourlanges proposes undeniable improvements and I must say that, in my view, he also proposes the correct path to be followed in favouring a Community method that renders the traditional, and until now prevalent, intergovernmental method obsolete.
It is truly shameful that the Council of Ministers is not represented here when Europe's elected representatives are debating something that directly concerns both it and all Europeans.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not rightly understand the meaning of all this paperwork and its timetable.
Perhaps it is obvious to some, but to many of us it is not.
There has been insufficient preparation for and discussion of this issue, yet it is a very serious matter.
Nevertheless, I believe that an increase in qualified majority voting is appropriate if the work of the Union is to be more effective.
The report contains some conflicting ideas, however, such as paragraphs 35 and 36.
Paragraph 35 states that Member States with small and medium-sized populations are over-represented and this system should thus be replaced with a reorganisation of the weighting of votes and a double majority.
However, paragraph 36 says that the current balance must not be overturned.
This seems to be in conflict with the previous paragraph.
It is perhaps due to the fact that the rapporteur is actually only referring to the balance that exists among the states with large populations.
At the time of the Amsterdam conference Finland put forward a preliminary proposal for a compromise, whereby all Member State votes would double in number; however, the larger countries would get two or perhaps more extra votes in the process.
This would also be an acceptable solution for small countries.
Such a model would possibly be a less destabilising solution than the current weighting structure, and would not be too much of an upheaval for the countries with small populations.
The basic position here is that institutional reform will not succeed without also taking the share of the small countries into consideration when the number of votes is being weighted
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the Committee on Institutional Affairs and its rapporteurs for their various reports on specific issues related to the application of the Treaty of Amsterdam or on issues that we will have to tackle in the near future in order to achieve a more effective, democratic and transparent institutional system.
The report by Mr Bourlanges fits perfectly into this context and the vast majority of speakers clearly recognised this.
I would also like to thank him for the educational way in which he presented his report, outlining, as he did, its key aspects: its objective, in case we were in any doubt; its scope; its content; and its focus.
The report deals with an institutional problem that, to my mind, is essential in defining the future architecture of Europe and, more specifically, that of a Union that hopes to become the instrument that peacefully unites the continent.
I am referring to the European Union's decision-making process in the light of enlargement, an issue that many speakers referred to.
Our task is to devise and build an institutional system that must be based on three key principles, in my opinion. The first is to ensure the continuity of a process and an institutional structure that has provided extraordinary results in terms of peace, progress and democracy.
The second is to adapt to a changing world that, even as far as public institutions are concerned, requires a high degree of flexibility.
I agree with the idea put forward by Mr Izquierdo Rojo concerning formal meetings of the ministers responsible for women's rights on issues that directly affect them and that must become a Community responsibility.
This idea is very welcome and I have taken note of it.
The third principle is to ensure that we can organise an entire continent around a single system that must aim to be politically and economically coherent.
I therefore believe that we must initially look at the various aspects of our system with a view to reforming it and implementing the constitutional mechanism that Mr De Giovanni mentioned. This mechanism is currently being discussed and is in need of clarification.
I believe that we can ask ourselves a series of basic questions here.
Is there confusion between the Council and its various formations, as mentioned by Mr Brinkhorst and other speakers?
Is there confusion between the institutions that have an executive role? This was mentioned by Mrs Cardona, among others.
However, I must admit that I totally disagree with the idea that the Commission should merely play an implementing role. It has another key function, that of initiating legislation, and we cannot forget that.
Moreover, can we talk about excessive bureaucracy in the preparations for the Council's political decisions? Should it not improve its capacity for action, as Mr Rack pointed out?
The report seems to respond positively to these questions. It also puts forward certain proposals that would undoubtedly improve the current situation.
I entirely agree with the rapporteur's opinion about the Council's dual executive and legislative role.
And in this respect, I understand the comments made by Mr Saint-Pierre to the effect that the Council cannot merely be the sum of the national executives.
In my opinion, this dual role - legislative and executive - is only possible from an institutional point of view if we also have a strong Commission. The Commission must be able to carry out its full role and exercise its right of initiative as well as monitoring the application of Community law and, where possible, its implementation.
Without going into each of the specific proposals in the text, I would say that Mr Bourlanges' comments on the European Council should be given consideration. And in my view, the European Council must clearly continue with its role of providing political momentum and direction for the entire Union.
In this respect, I also agree with the remark by Mr De Giovanni concerning the need to find a balance between the role of the European Council and that of the Commission.
I recall that during the speech I made when I assumed responsibility for institutional issues, someone asked me if I thought that the Commission should only have a relationship with Parliament and not with the European Council.
I replied that both should be given consideration.
As far as I am concerned, there is to some extent a form of double legitimacy and it is therefore logical to have such a double relationship.
I would now like to look at the issue raised by the rapporteur concerning the need to strengthen the legal aspects of the Council's decision-making process, including the decisions taken by the Heads of State and Government. I must say to Mr Bourlanges that I have some doubts here.
Moves in this direction would undoubtedly eventually weaken the noble role of the European Council as an institution that is the driving force behind our major political and strategic orientations. It would risk becoming a body to which we referred even the most minor decisions, as happened in the 1980s.
We must ensure that that situation is not repeated.
I do not need to remind you of the dangers that situation brought with it.
In short, it is clear that we now need to strengthen our institutional system, although it has already reached a certain degree of maturity since its institutions are increasingly subject to the democratic control of this Parliament. Moreover, we need to clarify the responsibilities of the national parliaments within the Community framework.
There are two roles here: the fundamental role of the European Parliament and the role of the national parliaments.
As Mrs Schörling said, we must do this in such a way so as to ensure that we know who does what. We therefore need greater clarification of the issues, something that is often lacking.
I also believe that it is of the utmost importance to do all we can to make the Council more coherent.
This means that both from the point of view of the workings of its various formations and in terms of the participation of the governments, we need to ensure that we can guarantee that its positions in the various bodies are consistent.
This is an issue that several speakers mentioned.
There are other points in the resolution that are particularly important. Firstly, I fully agree with the basic principle that the power of initiative should not lie with the Council.
The Community system is based on the Commission's monopoly of legislative initiative, and this is a system that, in general, has worked well.
Despite certain attacks on the Commission's monopoly, the negotiations during the last Intergovernmental Conference confirmed that this is not only to remain intact as far as the Commission is concerned, but that in certain areas - such as justice and home affairs - the Commission will automatically gain the monopoly after five years.
This principle is probably the most original feature of our institutional system, and perhaps even its cornerstone. We must certainly not relinquish it.
As regards decision-making in the Council, I am of course totally in favour of the extension of qualified majority voting. Most speakers referred to this issue, although some were naturally opposed to it.
I believe that the extension of qualified majority voting does not mean that there will not be certain exceptions.
There must be exceptions that are very clearly defined, specifically as regards what we could call constitutional decisions.
The resolution considers these. In my view, they are only logical, as there are clearly some fundamental decisions that have to be agreed on by all the Member States.
However, as Mr Corbett mentioned a moment ago, the most important question is: how will a Europe with 20 or 25 Member States be able to take decisions unanimously in certain areas?
It is extremely urgent to give consideration to the weighting of votes, to the composition of the Commission and to the extension of qualified majority voting. As you know, these issues were not resolved at the last Intergovernmental Conference, but we need to find solutions to them in order to comply with both the Protocol on the institutions in the Treaty of Amsterdam and the express wishes of the Member States.
The report puts forward balanced proposals concerning the weighting of votes.
However, I noticed that some speakers, such as Mr Corbett, for example, were rather reluctant about creating a double majority system.
I have also noted the comments made by Mr Barros Moura in this respect.
I would like to end by looking very briefly at two issues.
Firstly, I believe it is important to ensure that the framework for the common foreign and security policy set out in the Treaty of Amsterdam is applied as soon as possible and as willingly and effectively as possible. However, I have noted that some people are pessimistic in this respect.
The second problem relates to transparency.
The Treaty of Amsterdam requires additional efforts in this area on the part of the Union and its institutions.
Each institution must therefore review its procedures and eliminate a whole series of prejudices concerning confidentiality and the secrecy of deliberations. These are incompatible with legislative activity that requires deliberations to be made public.
The Council needs to make significant efforts in this direction, as the Court of Justice has pointed out in recent judgments.
Transparency and the public's trust in the institutions are an essential condition both for the very existence of the institutional system and to guarantee that it runs smoothly. And this is particularly true in an enlarged Europe.
We can adopt the reforms we want to, but if we do so in secret meetings, or if we give the public the impression that we want to hide the reasons behind our decisions, we will come to realise that we are lacking the important democratic and public nature that all national democracies possess. This is something that we need to bring to European democracy.
I will thus end with three words: democracy, effectiveness and transparency. And, as Mr Méndez de Vigo very wisely said, we must concentrate on the future and provide courageous solutions.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Strengthening EU institutions
The next item is the report (A4-0034/99) by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on strengthening EU institutions with a view to creating an area of democracy and freedom.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this House is today considering the report on strengthening the Union's institutions with a view to establishing an area of democracy and liberty. This report is the result of the contributions from the Committee on Institutional Affairs and includes the valuable opinion by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, which Mr Goerens drafted.
The initial consideration of this issue stemmed from the contributions by Mr Herzog, whom I replaced as rapporteur. In replacing him, I hoped to be able to complete the definitive version of the report we are considering today, which takes account of the debates held and includes most of the amendments tabled by the Committee on Institutional Affairs designed to increase the involvement of the general public and social players in the operation of the European Union's institutional system.
The key aspect of the report is based on the belief that it will not be possible to construct a democratic Europe unless its citizens are recognised not only as being the direct beneficiaries of the integration process, but also - and perhaps, fundamentally - as subjects who actively help to formulate common objectives.
Despite its inadequacies, the Treaty of Amsterdam does offer us some new elements that strengthen the guarantees provided at European level for the respect of fundamental rights. It also reinforces the social dimension of European integration by coordinating national employment policies and incorporating the requisite legal bases for the formulation of European social legislation.
Finally, it enhances the free movement of persons.
In our view, this should all be brought together within an overall plan for a European area of freedom and democracy built on strong foundations. To construct such an area, we will need to specify the common objectives of European society, to upgrade the rights accorded to Europe's citizens, to reinforce the rights of minorities, to determine the legal instruments for the implementation of such rights, and to provide for citizens to participate in the creation and enrichment of this area.
The report sets out three major objectives here: freedom of movement, social rights and European citizenship.
As regards freedom of movement, I would like to point out, in particular, that security and justice must be accompanied by the necessary democratic and judicial guarantees.
As far as social rights are concerned, the concept of European integration is based on solidarity between the Member States. As a result, enlargement to embrace the countries of Central and Eastern Europe should not be regarded as an extension of the internal market but as a duty imposed by the requirements of solidarity.
As regards European citizenship, I would like to highlight the final proposal in the report that calls for the Treaty to bring all the rights conferred on citizens within the ambit of a specific title.
I believe that if we approve this report by a wide majority, we will be contributing to the much-needed construction and reinforcement of an area of democracy and liberty within the Union. I would therefore urge you to vote in favour of this report.
Finally, allow me to thank those who tabled amendments to the report. As I mentioned, I generally tried to incorporate them, except in two cases: when the amendments did not conform to the vision of European integration that I support, or when they introduced points, albeit legitimate ones, regarding competitiveness, which I felt did not belong in this report.
I would therefore like to thank you all.
Mr President, we are indebted to Mr Gutiérrez Díaz for this excellent report. As he has just said, the area of freedom, security and justice introduced by the Amsterdam Treaty represents the Union's most ambitious forthcoming programme of integration.
And because of the way it connects with daily life in families, cities and businesses, the programme is also arousing great public interest.
Furthermore, it establishes vital links between the roles of this Parliament and the national parliaments.
I think this five year transition phase does involve Europe's entire parliamentary system, but during transition there must also be pressure to start applying the community method and the codecision procedure as soon as possible to a field as vital as this to integration.
In a sense this programme has already begun to form part of our legislation and it is natural that it should become the focal point of the wider vision which inspires this report - the establishment of a European area of political freedom and democracy.
Encapsulating the catalogue of fundamental rights and social rights in a single vision, and developing programmes for freedom, security and justice is exactly the right way to set about promoting and actually achieving the concept of European citizenship introduced at Maastricht.
Indeed, this is the essential constitutional institution on which to build the very idea of a European public and political area, an area where rights and duties - all rights and duties, with no special emphasis on any one - are balanced in the European Union's framework for inclusive democracy.
Mr President, that is why we should vote for this report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, every citizen of the European Union should be entitled to live in an area of freedom and democracy.
That is what the report is endeavouring to safeguard.
There is a great deal in the report about social rights, but rather less when it comes to establishing a legal base for them.
Up to now, we have held fast to the idea that in Europe, citizens should enjoy the same rights as the citizens in the countries in which they work.
At the beginning of paragraph 14, however, the rapporteur proposes that citizens should be provided with guarantees at European level equivalent to those provided at national level, which in some cases would be absurd.
Therefore, we strongly support the indents calling for an improvement in cross-border coordination of civil legislation.
We would also stress the need for the mutual recognition of judicial decisions.
Observance of the Union's pension provisions is abysmal.
They should be made more effective, so that citizens are granted pension rights irrespective of their place of residence or work.
In that respect, the rapporteur is right.
However, we should be wary of any change that would lead to the adoption of a rate based on the highest common denominator, which would in turn lead to a very high level of taxation.
It can be difficult to reconcile social legislation of this kind with the overall objectives, for example stimulating employment, reducing unemployment and enhancing the quality of life, because of the different levels of development and economic progress that obtain in the various countries.
Sometimes social rights that are appropriate in one country are inappropriate when translated into another country's social and economic system which is based on a different set of priorities.
Imposing social rights on others may lead to a hypothetical quality of life, but in reality only serves to undermine the general well-being - this is always so where the welfare system is financed through taxation.
We should approach the problem from the other direction, by ensuring that the Union has in place the right structures for strengthening competitiveness and providing a climate that is conducive to business development. After all, it is enterprises that will generate a better quality of life and, as a result, an improved social welfare system.
The main aim of the report is to strengthen citizens' rights, and in particular to protect them against crime.
It is essential for the Union to make progress in this respect, particularly in view of future enlargement.
In this context, we have tabled an amendment on the incorporation of Schengen into the Treaty.
Accordingly, we should like to see an end to the Council's tortuous decision-making process during the five-year period with regard to certain legislative issues.
What is needed in that area is a clear and unambiguous taking of positions, just as Mr Bourlanges has done in his exemplary and practical report.
Mr President, I should like to compliment Mr Gutiérrez Díaz on his report which covers a wide range of issues.
Originally it did not quite do justice to the crux of the matter which is the strengthening of the institutions involved in the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice.
After the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force that will be one of the major achievements of the Intergovernmental Conference.
These areas of asylum, immigration and border controls are now going to be common policies.
However, this has come about at a cost.
Member States have watered down the role and the competence of the European Union's democratic and judicial institutions, notably the European Parliament and the Court of Justice, and also the decision-making procedures for a period of at least five years.
This undermining of the Community must not create a precedent. Rather, it must be reversed.
Against that background, I tabled amendments and I should like to thank Mr Gutiérrez Díaz for accepting them.
The key points are that the unanimity requirement stands in the way of efficient and rapid action in this field.
Action in the field of freedom, security and justice must be accompanied by the necessary democratic and judicial guarantees.
The Council must start applying the Community methods in full.
Ultimately the Treaty must also remedy the very bizarre position of the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland which have opted out of the new policies, although, in fact, a country like Denmark will apply the policies as they stand but on an intergovernmental basis.
For the time being - and this is a point I have always emphasised very strongly in this hemicycle - there is the continuing failure to incorporate Schengen into the first pillar.
We still do not have the final division between the first and the third pillar.
Against this background, the report has now developed these concepts and my group will vote for it.
However, I hope that we see it only as the beginning.
We have only started the common area.
The final development will take place in the coming years.
Mr President, first I would like to congratulate Mr Gutiérrez Díaz on an excellent report.
Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam provides a legal basis for the action necessary to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability, age or gender, among others.
How much weight Article 13 will carry in the future very much depends in the long run on political will.
Take the guidelines on employment, for example.
There was sufficient political will there, and hopefully this will also be the case with Article 13.
I am happy to see that the Commission has embarked on preparatory measures as a result of Article 13.
I also hope that Germany, as the current presidency, and its successor - my own country, Finland - will be active in the Council in exploiting the opportunities presented by Article 13.
Our citizens have considerable expectations.
It is also important that the European Parliament has a major influence on what is contained in Article 13 in practice.
Mr President, the gradual creation of an area of freedom, security and justice has constantly been held up as one of the successes of the Amsterdam Treaty.
This is logically linked to the idea of supporting the steps required to achieve freedom of movement with accompanying measures to respond to the citizens' need for security following the opening up of the borders.
The security summit it has just been decided to hold, and which the Finnish Presidency has undertaken to organise, is also a sign pointing in the right direction.
So I regret the fact that the report we are debating today treats the subject of security in a rather summary manner and is reduced to a report on democracy and freedom rather than on security.
As I find in my daily dealings with them, our citizens take the subject of security very seriously.
The Commissioner has also emphasised its importance.
Of course it is important to take a visionary approach.
But as the representative of the people, the European Parliament would be well advised to attach greater importance to the citizens' need for security and to focus particularly on looking after their interests within the institutional system.
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty is a good starting-point for achieving a more democratic and open EU with freedom of movement and more fundamental rights for our citizens and a stronger social dimension.
I think there are many sensible things in this report.
The new Treaty opens up a host of new possibilities, but whether or not they are carried out in practice depends, of course, on the political will.
There is no doubt that we in Parliament will have to exert pressure if it is to succeed.
There is no other way.
Some decisions still require unanimity and some countries, including Denmark, still have reservations about participating in supranational cooperation, for example in the area of refugees and asylum.
That is a decision taken after a referendum on the Maastricht Treaty and it should of course be respected, until the people decide otherwise.
I would like to stress that it is also part of democracy that people in nation states can form an opinion on these things on the basis of how they see them, and that only the people themselves can change the decisions they have made.
The rapporteur is very concerned about a multi-speed Europe, meaning that countries opt out of some areas of cooperation, or that a group of countries begin to cooperate more closely.
I too can see that this danger exists, but sometimes it is necessary, not least when more countries join in cooperation, to respect the fact that there may be different speeds within that cooperation.
I also believe that we shall face such a dilemma in future when people have different ideas about what we should cooperate on, but I agree with the rapporteur that a multi-speed Europe should naturally be a last resort.
I think we should be aware that the pragmatic cooperation we need to have, at the same time as our visions, may also make it necessary for there to be different speeds.
Mr President, I welcome Mr Gutiérrez Díaz' report.
I have known the rapporteur a long time and I know him well.
He has produced a very good report but there are a number of points I find it difficult to agree with.
We must remember that Europe is an area of democracy.
There are 15 Member States with democratically elected governments.
There are also numerous regional governments and local government.
And that is all the democracy we require.
We are in danger of going too far.
I do not believe we need further levels of bureaucracy paid for by the European taxpayer.
However, there are areas where we could bring Parliament and, indeed, Europe closer to the people.
I feel very strongly that anywhere there is a Commission office in the Union there should also be a Parliament office.
This is necessary because the people of Europe can identify with the European Parliament more easily than with the faceless bureaucracy of the Commission.
That has been proved in this Parliament in recent times.
So, where you have regional parliaments or assemblies Parliament should also have an office.
That would go a long way to counteracting the remoteness of Brussels and the European Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a great deal has been said about the democratic deficit in Europe. As a result of that legitimate and well-founded accusation, the European Parliament's powers have been increased as each successive new Treaty has been approved.
The democratic deficit in Europe's institutional architecture has naturally made it essential to strengthen a body with the direct legitimacy bestowed by European citizens.
But sometimes this debate has concentrated too much on the relationship between the European institutions, the balance of power and their operational and decision-making procedures.
The initial success of the introduction of the euro and the resulting dynamics have once again highlighted the economic side of the Union, thus accentuating the delays in other areas, that is the political, security and social fields.
That means tackling institutional reform not so much in terms of distributing powers between the Community institutions, but rather in terms of stressing the link that gives our mandates their legitimacy: the people we represent here.
There is a need for a continuing debate, to which the report by Mr Gutiérrez Díaz has just given a further boost.
We certainly want a more efficient Union, but we also want a Union that is not so much a bureaucratic monster or a complex and impenetrable web of vested interests and influence, as an increasingly important reference point for our citizens.
We need measures to strengthen the rights of European citizens, improve labour relations and social welfare, guarantee genuine freedom of movement, and improve information systems and administrative transparency. These are measures that would help to reinforce European citizenship, which is so often spoken about and so seldom practised.
In addition to these measures to simplify and strengthen people's rights, I should like to emphasise two more:
first, the need to simplify the Treaties, creating a clear body of law, accessible to ordinary citizens, thus making European law a benchmark that everyone can understand instead of an impenetrable mass of rules and regulations; -second, we need a charter of citizens' rights guaranteeing all Europeans that, regardless of the Member State where they were born, live, study or work, they are assured of a set of economic and social rights that safeguard our civilisation and our standard of living.
Mr President, Europe will go no further unless Europeans can feel, experience and desire a Europe that is a genuine area of democracy and freedom.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, anyone who has been following the three reports of our three colleagues throughout the morning will be asking themselves what in fact was discussed at Amsterdam about issues such as EU institutions, the democratic deficit, transparency and the rights of European citizens.
The answer is a resounding nothing!
Mr Gutiérrez Díaz is to be congratulated on his report, in particular in respect of a proposal he makes to create a special charter for the rights of European citizens.
However, I have to say to those European citizens who are listening to us today in the public gallery that we turn our minds to them once every five years, just before the elections.
The Parliamentary groups, in particular the two large groups, the Socialists and the Christian Democrats, present them with ideological manifestos which are utterly remote from reality and which bear no relation whatsoever to what they do and to their voting record over their five-year term of office.
It is a great pity that the Council of Ministers appears to be too busy to come here and attend the debate today.
And the citizens of Europe must know that there are just two institutions in the entire world which meet behind closed doors: the National Assembly of China and the Council of Ministers of the European Union.
How is it possible for this to go by the name of democracy and how is it possible that, in the name of this democracy, we call upon you to vote in the June elections!
Mr President, I wish to begin by complimenting Vice-President Gutiérrez Díaz on his interesting and thought-provoking report.
If the Union and its institutions are to continue to develop and become stronger over the coming years, it is vital that the citizens of each of our countries continue to accept the democratic legitimacy of these institutions.
We are all citizens of democratic countries and, as far as I am aware, the vast majority of the citizens of each of our countries accepts the democratic nature of our national governments.
However, at European level serious questions continue to be raised by many of our citizens concerning democracy and the European institutions.
It is important that the European institutions that are directly accountable to the electorate - in other words, Parliament and the Council of Ministers - should continue to have - and be seen to have - the final decision-making authority on issues of importance to our citizens.
It is equally important that the Commission, as the institution charged with implementing European policies, should have a reputation for efficient, fair-minded and even-handed administration of European policies agreed on in Parliament and the Council.
This could be best achieved by first ensuring that the interests and concerns of the citizens of each of our countries are made known at the highest level in the Commission.
The present system, whereby there is at least one Commissioner from each Member State, has worked well in the past and should be maintained.
Those who advocate the end of this guarantee of one Commissioner per Member State, supposedly in the interests of efficiency, risk the creation of a Commission which is remote from the citizens of our individual countries.
This, in turn, would weaken the Commission as a European institution.
In any event, the basic structures of the Union, which existed at the time individual countries joined the Union and which enjoyed the support of the majority of our electorate at that time, should be preserved as far as possible.
Foremost amongst these basic structures was, and still is, the principle that each country should have representation at decision-making level in all the major institutions.
Finally, the Council, the Commission, Parliament and the Court of Justice all have representatives from each Member State at present, a fact which contributes significantly to the legitimacy which these institutions enjoy in each of our countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to congratulate Mr Gutiérrez Díaz and the Committee on Institutional Affairs on this excellent report.
In my view, the Treaty of Amsterdam is inadequate in some respects; it has both good and bad points. However, it has allowed us to make significant progress in the area of citizenship, although it is currently difficult to assess the full scope and implications of this.
The Treaty provides us with the possibility of creating the largest ever area in which people can move and work without any obstacles, with equality and with full respect for their rights and for the foundations of the rule of law.
The Commission presented a communication in July 1998 on the creation of a European area of freedom, security and justice.
As you all know, and as Mr Hager just pointed out, during the informal meeting of the Heads of State and Government in Pörtschach, a decision was made to hold a special Council meeting dedicated solely to issues relating to justice and home affairs in October of this year in Tampere in Finland.
I fully understand your concerns over certain issues raised by the Treaty and, in particular, the question of how to establish the conditions required for its implementation.
The Treaty of Amsterdam does not precisely define the objectives to be met by the institutions, as Mr Kaklamanis pointed out.
However, this lack of precision is to a certain extent necessary since an area of liberty can never be fully consolidated. It can only exist if it is capable of constantly adapting to reality and of guaranteeing freedom and rights along with security and justice, to all people in general and to its citizens in particular.
The definition and implementation of these objectives require democratic participation, which, in the long term, should come to mean full participation.
Unfortunately, as Mr Brinkhorst pointed out, the Treaty specifies that a period of five years must pass before the Commission will have the monopoly of initiative in this area and before it can apply the codecision procedure in decision-making.
Parliament must fully exercise its democratic control in this area by continuing to cooperate closely with the national parliaments. This cooperation is something that Parliament has been building on and that will continue to develop.
In this context, we must make full use of the role of the Court of Justice in order to assert respect for the law as a condition for creating this area.
One possibility here would be for the Court of Justice to sanction the actions of the institutions if they did not respect fundamental rights.
There are limits to the jurisdiction of the Court in Luxembourg, particularly as regards the second and third pillars, but these must be progressively overcome.
I agree with the rapporteur that it will not be possible to build an area of liberty unless we fully respect certain rights inherent in freedom of movement, which are only partly respected at the moment.
We must ensure that we adapt our rules to the reality of civil society.
We have social standards that were perfectly adapted to the type of freedom of movement that existed 20 or 30 years ago, but these might prove ineffective in the future.
Equally, the restrictions demanded by the Member States in days gone by may seem unjustified today.
We need to create an area of liberty like that so skilfully described by Mr Manzella.
In addition, we need to realise that we will only have achieved complete democracy when European citizenship is fully consolidated in that area and fully accepted in our daily lives.
I believe that the key here is to go back to the heart of the process of European integration as it was conceived in the 1950s.
We need to get rid of the feelings of hostility and rejection or even the idea that a European from a neighbouring country is a foreigner, and we must replace them with the firm belief that the process of integration is, above all, a process of solidarity.
I would also like to say that I am convinced that if these principles had formed the starting point for the actions of the Member States, our institutional system would have been able to adapt much more quickly to citizens' needs. I therefore fully agree with the opinion expressed by the rapporteur, Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, in this respect.
Moreover, if these principles were truly followed, the intergovernmental conferences would concentrate more on the common interest and be able to take some of the drama out of negotiations that are so important for the continuation of the process of European integration. At the same time, we would move towards a Union that is more closely linked, that has a greater sense of solidarity and that is more in tune with the concerns and needs of its citizens.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
OCTs, ACP countries and remote regions
The next item is the report (A4-0036/99) by Mr Aldo, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on relations between the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs), the ACP States and the ultraperipheral regions (UPRs) of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the own-initiative report on which the House is to vote is of fundamental importance for the future of the people of overseas Europe which, since the Treaty of Rome of 1957, have all had different relations, to varying degrees, with the European Union.
The report highlights the structural, economic and social problems brought about by the relations that the European Union currently has with its remote territories, relations that are not very well adapted. However, before looking at the report itself, I would like, in particular, to express my sincere and heartfelt thanks to all those who contributed in any way to the drafting of this report.
In order to ensure that this subject is properly understood and to avoid any misunderstandings, I would also like to briefly explain the origins of this report and the motivation behind it.
When I became a Member of the European Parliament in 1994, I was struck by the lack of knowledge and the total absence of understanding of the overseas territories.
This was particularly evident in the confusion that existed between the overseas departments and the OCTs until the Hansen ruling that was handed down by the Court of Justice in 1978. I was also struck by the lack of consideration for the overseas dimension these regions bring to the Union, as well as the failure to take account of their specific characteristics when applying Community law.
For the OCTs, there are anachronistic association arrangements, which have their origins in the Treaty of Rome of 1957 and which ignore the fact that the vast majority of these countries have achieved sovereignty. The OCTs and the ACP countries are constantly lumped together, funding is not adapted to the institutional reality of the OCTs, with their respective capitals, and there is a total lack of partnership and consultation when applying Community law to the OCTs.
As I come from an ultraperipheral region of the Union, I therefore quite naturally set myself the objective of clarifying this issue and removing all those ambiguities and confusions that have tarnished the European Union's relations with its various peripheral partners for almost half a century. In this respect, I had the unconditional support and encouragement of my political group and of other Members with an interest in the matter.
Therefore, in February 1995, I invited my political group to visit Guadeloupe in order to see for themselves the reality of the problems that I have just set out, through study days on the European Union's relations with the overseas departments.
As a result, on 6 February 1995, in the presence of political and socio-professional leaders from the West Indies, Guyana, and the overseas territories, along with members of the press, I proposed for the first time that Article 227(2) of the Treaty of Rome should be revised. Once the French Overseas Minister had taken over, and following various processes and stages of consultation, this led to the establishment of the new Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The aim of this approach was similar to that of the provisions of Article 73 of the French Constitution of 1946 and then of 1958. It hoped to move the utlraperipheral regions towards an adapted integration, removing their status of legal egalitarianism, through a simplified interpretation of the law that applies to them.
It was from this same perspective that in 1996, I fought for and obtained a more generalised debate on the European Union's relations with the UPRs, the OCTs and the ACP countries.
As a result of this, on 8 October 1996, I requested, as coordinator, that this issue be included on the list of proposals to be the subject of a future parliamentary own-initiative report in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
I was successful in this respect, so with this in mind, and in order to move this issue forward while respecting the European Parliaments's Rules of Procedure, on 20 January 1998, I sent a letter to Mr Michel Rocard, who had recently been appointed as chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation. I asked him to include this issue in the committee's agenda to discuss the matter of the own-initiative report.
Therefore, following a vote at its meeting of Wednesday, 25 February, the Committee on Development agreed to an own-initiative report on this issue and requested authorisation from the Presidency to draw up the report.
That authorisation was granted by the Presidency at the beginning of July 1998.
As a result, I have the great honour and the very great pleasure of presenting to you today this own-initiative report that summarises the European Union's vertical relations with its overseas partners, but also attempts to summarise the horizontal relations between these different entities.
We consider the UPRs to be outposts of the Union in various parts of the globe. They are therefore showcases and the key players in Community action in their respective environments.
The UPRs must play a leading role in Lomé 2000 and must be the driving force behind interregional cooperation.
As far as the OCTs are concerned, we now need to clarify their legal status, especially by doing away with the analogy that is drawn with the ACP countries and all the ambiguities surrounding the system of rights to citizenship and rights of establishment.
The hybrid regime for the OCTs, which is somewhere between integration and cooperation, must in no way be a collection of negative elements aimed at curbing, through lack of knowledge or understanding, the good and intelligent relations that must exist between the European Union and the overseas countries and territories.
The association arrangements must therefore be reviewed, as the original dual nature of their institutions - with autonomy in terms of their national law and their justice system under Community law - means that the OCT Declaration 2000 must give priority to four lines of reform. These include strengthening the human dimension, strengthening the partnership between the political leaders of the OCTs and the European Union, strengthening financial solidarity by setting up a special development fund for the OCTs that would replace the current EDF, and respecting the specific institutional features of each OCT.
In our approach, we must make every effort to preserve the powers devolved to the OCTs through their autonomous status.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my voice in this Hemicycle here today is nothing more than a reflection of the combined expectations of the elected representatives and the people of the overseas territories. To assure myself that the views of the people were the same as mine, I have made every effort to consult the people since I first began to consider this issue, firstly as a regional councillor, a member of the COPM since 1986, then as a founder member of the Committee of the Regions in 1993 and, finally, as a Member of this Parliament since 1994.
There have obviously been others before me who have had the opportunity and the honour of speaking for the overseas departments, notably through the Ligios report. It was that report that in 1987 report initially raised awareness in the Community institutions of the problems of the overseas departments and ultraperipheral regions and their specific characteristics, and I would also like to thank and congratulate those people for their work.
Applause
Mr President, the Committee on Regional Policy was consulted on the excellent own-initiative report by our colleague Mr Aldo, and considered the issue of relations between what are known as the ultraperipheral regions and the OCTs or ACP countries close to those ultraperipheral regions.
This is the case for the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean.
The Committee on Regional Policy unanimously decided that here we have countries that are united by geography, history, culture, and often by language, but that completely ignore each other from an economic point of view.
Moreover, there are complaints about how confined the markets are in the ultraperipheral regions.
In reality, we feel that it is absolutely necessary that these neighbouring countries - which are naturally close - should form real regional markets, with a view to achieving sustainable and balanced development.
The European Union must contribute to this by promoting joint ventures, that is, associations between companies from ultraperipheral regions and from neighbouring ACP countries and OCTs in order to develop these regional markets and their exports to the Union or to third countries. The Union will also have to include the ultraperipheral regions, the OCTs and the ACP countries in the negotiations that will lead to the future Lomé conventions.
These conventions must, of course, promote the establishment of the regional markets by doing away with the customs barriers. In our view, these barriers are like the leftovers from traditional colonial agreements, and I would like to draw our colleagues' attention to this.
Economic exchanges between these countries must be guaranteed so as to encourage them to develop in a harmonious manner. And, once again, there needs to be better understanding between neighbouring countries that are in such close proximity.
Mr President, the Committee on Fisheries welcomes Mr Aldo's initiative. It has the advantage of drawing attention to the perverse effects of the diversity of Community action concerning territories that are close in geographical terms, but which have a different status.
We need to avoid a situation whereby membership of the Union means that a territory is subject to a series of ill-adapted constraints and whereby non-membership means that a territory benefits from aid that promotes extra-Community competition to the detriment of our own territories.
The socio-economic balance of all these territories is largely linked to activities that depend on the sea, particularly fishing.
Therefore, our committee unanimously adopted a series of recommendations, which were all taken over by the rapporteur. They are aimed precisely at preventing a situation whereby membership of the European Union is a handicap for our ultraperipheral territories.
Our committee highlights the need for changes in the law to allow the CFP to be applied differently in these regions that are very remote from the European continent. It must be adapted to the opportunities for development offered by their maritime areas that have a strong fisheries potential.
We also emphasise the need to improve equipment, in particular by regionalising the MAGPs. Moreover, we would stress the need to introduce a modulation of the POSEIDOM aid scheme, as although its effectiveness has been proved, certain provisions need to be refined in order to ensure better protection of resources.
Our committee recommends that Community policies for the OCTs should be consistent with the European Union's cooperation policies for the ACP countries, particularly as regards preferential trade measures and policies on direct aid. They should also be consistent with the GSP measures, especially the drug GSP, and we should reconsider the validity of this mechanism.
Finally, our committee underlines the urgent need for delimitation of waters in the Caribbean, as that is the only means of achieving fisheries agreements in that region. It also calls for stricter checks in Community waters dependent on the OCTs and ultraperipheral regions, as these waters are frequented by many fleets from third countries that are drawing on the resources in an anarchic manner.
We shall suspend the debate on the Aldo report at this point; it will be resumed in the afternoon.
We have now reached voting time.
VOTES
Madam President, I would like to speak on a point of order pursuant to Rule 101.
Like all my colleagues who were present in the House this morning, I noted with astonishment the Council's absence during the debate on the Bourlanges report on decision-making within the Council in an enlarged Europe.
Under Rule 101, the Council may be present in the Chamber.
As this is a debate on the reforms which must be undertaken in future in the context of the process of major institutional reform which Parliament is firmly demanding and which is at last gaining widespread support, we feel it is imperative that the Council should attend.
It may not be required to do so by any rules as such, but it is surely only proper for it to do so.
Whatever our opinions, we all agree on the importance of this debate and of the ideas it allows us to develop prior to enlargement.
I would ask the President to protest strongly to the Council, on Parliament's behalf, at its absence during this morning's debate.
Applause
I can assure you that I will pass on your request, Mr Duhamel, since this is indeed a very unfortunate absence.
Madam President, we are now going to vote on Amendment No 18.
There is a technical problem here, because I believe it would be a good idea to replace the first part of the original version of recital D with the first part of this amendment.
I therefore propose a vote in two parts, the first part up to 'victims of gender-specific persecution'.
But if the second part of the amendment is not adopted, I would ask that we should vote on the second part of the original version of the recital.
Otherwise this would not make sense.
Madam President, paragraph 11 poses a linguistic problem in the French language version.
Mrs Pailler put forward an amendment in committee and I pointed out to her that the term 'statut de non-droit ' was contradictory.
We therefore changed it with her agreement.
However, I see today that it is still included in the French version.
You must tell me which text is authentic, and if it is the French text, this expression must be changed once again.
Yes, it is the French version which is authentic.
I propose that we insert 'situation de non-droit ' in the French version to replace 'statut de non-droit '.
This is also the term that was adopted in committee.
Parliament adopted the resolution
I am voting against this recommendation/common position because I believe it does not adequately address the technical issues involved.
I intend to vote against the proposed draft Council regulation because I believe that the technical details have not been properly or fully investigated.
There is need for a full review of the technical standards to ensure that safety standards are fully met whilst at the same time aircraft that are satisfactorily functioning from every point of view are not lost to our fleets.
Gahrton report (A4-0047/99)
A civil peace corps is an old 'green' idea for channelling European foreign policy cooperation in a constructive, rather than a military and therefore destructive direction.
The European Civil Peace Corps will be able to call on a core of full-time employed professionals, as well as a pool of mission-specific professionals, including conscientious objectors on a voluntary basis and unpaid volunteers, for specific missions.
It often happens that conflicts flare up again in the wake of a military peacekeeping mission because the causes of the violence have not been addressed.
Facilitating dialogue and mutual confidence building should be a part of every peace mission.
A lasting peace can be achieved, above all, through a genuine process of reconciliation.
It is in that context that a civil peace corps should be able to fill a gap.
I am fully aware that many of those who voted for this proposal believe that a civil peace corps should be complementary to the Union's military capability.
However, the Green Group, including myself, clearly hope that it will become an alternative.
We have absolutely nothing against the EU taking part in operations abroad, provided that the activities are peaceful and constructive.
Perhaps a successful civil peace corps might persuade some European activists that it is unfashionable and outdated to earn respect on the world stage through a show of military might.
The future belongs to those who promote peace, not war.
This is a very important and much needed initiative.
It is imperative that a peace corps of this type should be an entirely civil undertaking.
The main task of the peace corps should be to reduce tension and prevent conflicts from escalating; it should operate under a mandate of the United Nations or the OSCE, and its primary purpose should be conflict prevention.
In my view, concrete examples of the tasks to be performed by a civil peace corps are as follows: mediation and confidence building, humanitarian assistance, the disarmament and demobilisation of former combatants, supporting refugees, rehabilitation and reconstruction, and the stabilisation of economic structures.
Other tasks might include monitoring and improving human rights situations, empowerment for political participation, as well as interim administration to facilitate short-term stability.
A civil peace corps might also extend its remit to providing information and establishing educational structures and programmes designed to eliminate prejudice and hostile images.
An essential condition for achieving a peaceful outcome is involving both parties to the conflict in common projects.
What is required is a core of full-time employed professionals, backed up by a pool of experienced men and women to be called on for specific missions.
In particular, their professional expertise as peacekeepers, conflict-solvers, psychologists and so on should be exploited to the full.
Read report (A4-0055/99)
Through an active and very skilful effort by Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, Parliament has succeeded in having most of its wishes from the first and second readings put into effect.
For me it has been crucial, throughout the procedure for the adoption of this extremely important directive, to ensure that transmission and receiving equipment built by radio amateurs for their own use should not come under the directive's rules on manufacturer's self-testing and declarations of conformity.
Barzanti report (A4-0026/99)
I wish to thank the rapporteur for his work on the EU Copyright Directive which is a complex and technical subject of importance to artists in Europe.
The Greens have sought from the beginning to make the protection of the creativity of writers, composers, musicians-performers EU-wide, a priority in amending the Copyright Directive.
In Ireland musicians and performing artists such as BoyZone and the Corrs have appealed for copyright protection for their work.
The rapporteur has my full support in his appeal for a strong directive, protecting the music industry from piracy on the Internet.
The fact is that digital technology can 'clone' an exact reproduction of the original, leading to an increased risk of piracy on the Internet.
I will continue to support a call for a strong Copyright Directive.
I am personally committed to the protection of the rights of European artists, writers and composers.
Europe's cultural industries have a great deal to lose if this new directive is not absolutely protective of creative rights and intellectual property.
We share the rapporteur's view that harmonisation is needed to create a fully functioning internal market for those with copyright protection.
However, we cannot agree with Amendment No 48, since it would mean that anyone wishing to set up a broadcasting organisation would be required to have a licence.
In Sweden, we have an effective system based on a licensing agreement. In practical terms, it consists of a collective agreement concluded by a representative licensing body.
We would also like to emphasise that, in our view, the Member States should provide for exemptions from the copyright restrictions specified in Articles 2, 3 and 4 in the case of non-commercial use for the benefit of people with disabilities.
This is best expressed in Amendment No 72.
We would point out that, in our view, there should be exemption from the restrictions in Articles 2 and 3 for use where the purpose is to make official documents accessible to the public, as set out in Amendment No 69.
We support the amendments granting exemption from the restrictions in Articles 2 and 3 in respect of the setting-up of a library or archive, for example.
At the end of 1997, the Commission put forward a controversial proposal for the harmonisation of copyright law in the Community.
It did not believe that national laws were working well or had kept up with technological developments.
The Commission also wished to limit the extensive pirate copying of CDs and CD-ROMs.
In its original form, the proposal meant that a consumer who had bought a CD could not copy it on to tape in order to be able to listen to the music while he was out jogging.
Furthermore, the Commission's original proposal for a directive ignored the fact that a number of public service stations would have problems if they wished to use CDs as background music for TV broadcasts, and that the visually impaired and people with reading difficulties would not be able to enjoy special offers from libraries.
Special offers made available by public institutions to the handicapped will not be affected by the proposal.
In the light of this, the Danish Social Democrats have endorsed an amendment which ensures that special national schemes will not conflict with EU law.
In this way, it has been possible to secure a well-balanced copyright law which both safeguards the rights of producers to their own output and protects the interests of TV and radio stations and consumers.
At the first reading of Mr Barzanti's report today, we have abstained from voting on the report as a whole.
We are very concerned that the harmonisation of copyright law in the EU will obstruct free access to information for all social groups, especially people with a visual handicap, for example.
The June Movement regards free access to information as the very cornerstone of democracy. Without opportunities for individual citizens to obtain knowledge and information, the democratic process would become confused.
Nonetheless, we would have liked to support the report in order to protect the interests of artists and safeguard their rights in connection with the exploitation of their work.
Because most of the amendments which we had hoped would safeguard the rights of artists were not adopted, and since most of those which we had either tabled ourselves or endorsed and which would have ensured free access to information for the handicapped and others were also rejected, we chose to abstain on the report as a whole.
We will take the matter up again at second reading.
Issues related to the information society and the Internet are of great interest to me.
Apart from the aspects which imply a radical change in the way our societies are organised, there are still a number of questions about how our legislation and our legal tools are going to have to change in future in this area.
I would therefore like to congratulate our President, José Maria Gil Robles, and Roberto Barzanti for having responded so rapidly to artists' concerns that their work is too often being used illegally on the Internet.
While it is relatively easy to draw up a report and protecting the concept of copyright is the least we can do, it is not easy to legislate at European level to provide proper protection for the 'victims' of this plagiarism.
This is an area where we need to show imagination in establishing effective legal protection.
To do this, I believe we must promote measures which are appropriate for the different forms of dissemination and piracy.
Following the example of existing broadcasting legislation, should we not also introduce a user charge levied when compression tools such as MP3 or MP4 are sold?
However, we have to be realistic, since we have to find common ground with all parties concerned, and in particular with the United States and the producers of this type of software.
Therefore, while I agree on the whole with the rapporteur's concerns, I question the distinction that is made between analogue copying and digital copying.
In my opinion, digital has already won.
The Barzanti report stems from an important debate concerning the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society.
We believe that the report creates a good basis for further discussion of the protection and exercise of the privileges of rightholders.
If we cannot endorse the report, it is not because we wish to remove the advantages enjoyed by rightholders with regard to the exploitation of their work, but because the proposal adopts an unnecessarily restrictive approach to the definition of rights, which in the worst case would deny artists the right to negotiate for themselves both the scale of payment and what rights they transfer to a producer.
The Scandinavian countries have a long tradition and great experience of solving difficult copyright issues with the help of licensing agreements.
We think that this traditional Scandinavian model involving collective agreements ought to be retained.
At the same time, we take the view that publicly funded institutions which are open to the public, such as museums, libraries, archives and so on, should have the opportunity to participate fully in the development of the information society.
Taken to the extreme, the contents of the report would mean that copyright legislation would prevent them from fulfilling their non-commercial, educational function.
If the report is adopted in its current form, without taking into account a number of proposed amendments, it will for example no longer be possible to record radio and TV broadcasts for short-term use for the inmates of care homes, hospitals, prisons and so on.
We believe that a move in this direction, which does not sufficiently take account of the general public's need for and right to free and equal access to information, would be disastrous in terms of social development and democracy.
Technological changes are currently weakening certain legal categories.
This is true of the field of taxation, where the Internet is changing basic concepts such as the tax frontier, tax territory and the tax base.
It is also true of the field of artistic and literary property.
Two principles are in conflict here: the right of the author to protect his work and his right to a fair income from his work versus the freedom of the Internet.
In this respect, the European Union is all the more contradictory as one of its fundamental principles is precisely that of free movement.
However, where there is freedom of movement, there cannot be protection, and vice versa.
In literary and artistic works, the Europe of Brussels is finally discovering what it has spent 40 years refusing to see with coal, steel, textiles, cars and agricultural products, namely that freedom of movement prevents real protection.
We want to give the field of culture what we have denied our farmers by reducing customs duties and the common agricultural levy, and we wish to do so by means of an exception.
This is good, but it must be applied across the board.
In itself, the draft directive that we have been looking at includes entirely acceptable elements which are designed to protect authors' ethical and financial rights.
If we take music, for example, there is no doubt that digital compression technologies, such as MP3 or the new VQF standard that has appeared recently, represent a potential danger to the record industry, even if no scientific study has as yet been undertaken to confirm this.
In France, we have seen only a slight drop in the sale of singles but this may be a mere coincidence.
Another danger that is equally real lies in the solutions that might be introduced.
It would be tempting to place the information society under supervision, then we could control everything.
The European Union makes no secret of its ambitions for the Internet: to transform this information area, this tool of cultural and personal development, into a mere shopping arcade.
In France we have seen the success of Canal+, where a broadcasting monopoly was effectively created.
But nobody pointed out that Canal+ developed without any competition.
In France the state has a monopoly on broadcasting.
By penalising the pirating of Canal+ decoders, we effectively created a monopoly on reception.
And some people would like to do the same with the Internet... the best of all possible worlds!
The solution is not only to be found in a directive inevitably restricted to the European Union.
Taking into account the level of market penetration, it is above all American authors who are protected.
European authors, on the other hand, do not have the same sort of guarantee as in the United States, for example.
The concept of copyright is much more restrictive there than in France, for example.
In order to effectively protect copyright and related rights, a better solution would be an international conference on the subject, where sovereign states could defend their own industries and agree to protect other countries' in accordance with the principle of reciprocity.
A balance must be struck between freedom and ownership.
For the first time in history, freedom is being played against art.
This is a novelty for the artists.
They had been taught by the Left to be defenders of freedom.
Today they are pleading against it for the sake of their right to ownership.
The Internet really is changing everything, even the most firmly entrenched roles.
The Community has certainly taken its time in getting round to harmonising the legal framework for copyright.
In the last few years we have seen open and flexible legislation designed for an increasingly developed world of technology and computers on the one hand, and on the other, old and outdated rules, as in Italy, where the matter is governed by a law going back 60 years.
While there is absolutely no question of challenging the sacrosanct right of authors and editors to have their work protected, we think it is crucial, in regulating individual Member States' exceptions to the right of reproduction, not to dance to the tune of large record multinationals, for example, to the detriment of small and medium-sized European recording companies.
Article 5 needs rewording to avoid de facto restriction of access to the network for independent operators.
There still needs to be a right of reproduction for scientific and cultural works which are educational rather than commercial, together with a flat rate payment if more than 20 % of the book is reproduced.
This would also make things easier for small craft companies involved in reproduction, and indeed for their clients, almost always university students forced to buy very expensive textbooks even when they only need one chapter, thus feeding an often unregulated lobbyist market obviously speculating on comparative prices.
Until standard criteria which meet the needs of the market are finally established at Community level there is a risk that Member States may embark on different and even divergent paths, seriously prejudicing the much-trumpeted achievement of the single market.
I was sorry to have to abstain from the final vote on the Barzanti report.
Adopting the text for Article 5(1) as proposed by the rapporteur and approved by the Committee on Legal Affairs means that quite unjustified authorisations will be required for making technical copies from the Internet, which will simply have the effect of extending the supremacy in distribution of the great American recording multinationals into the digital world.
This is an extremely restrictive measure for European operators, in clear and paradoxical contradiction to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act just promulgated in the United States.
In other words, two different legal frameworks are being constructed as regards Internet accessibility.
In the United States operators' freedom of access is recognised, while in the European Union, under pressure from the large multinationals and with the pretext of combatting piracy, the scope which authors and independent groups have to express themselves is being reduced.
As the procedure provides for a second reading, considerable efforts are needed to promote an approach that gives greater weight to the legitimate principles of expression and right of access for European operators, who are excluded today.
At a time when incredibly rapid development is taking place in the area of digital technology, we have found that earlier legislation in the field of copyright does not cover this area adequately.
In dealing with this directive, the Conservative Members of Parliament are working to create a balance between protecting the rights of copyright holders who are threatened by digital developments and safeguarding access to information for individual consumers, especially in connection with television and radio.
For me it is crucial that this balance is secured in the best way possible, so that in future, copyright holders will be assured of payment for the use of their work, without severely limiting the range of information available to ordinary citizens.
The creators of intellectual works, and all those who have contributed to their creation, are now virtually defenceless against the use, distribution and reproduction of their work by means of new reproduction and communication technologies.
National laws to protect intellectual property and associated rights together with the corresponding Community legislation, which was inadequate even before globalisation and the implementation of digital technologies, need reforming and supplementing immediately on the basis of the new technological facts.
It is also crucial that measures be taken at national, community and international level to protect authors and composers from piracy and from the theft, use and reproduction of their work. We believe that there has already been a considerable delay in implementing such measures.
Notwithstanding certain objections and reservations we may have, the report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is a positive attempt to tackle this problem. It also calls for already existing Community legislation to be brought up to date, by providing legal protection in areas such as reproduction rights, public broadcasting rights and distribution rights, and by providing legal protection against piracy.
Extending such protection to cover not only authors, composers and performers but also producers of CDs and CD-ROMs and radio stations, while positive and logical in principle, must be examined to determine whether all these rights can be regarded as the same. Perhaps it would be better to examine such protection separately to avoid the danger of misinterpreting the term 'intellectual creation' and the definition of composers and performers.
Finally, the most important, and perhaps the most intractable problem is that of the distribution of artistic works and, more generally, intellectual property via the Internet, and the possibility of reproducing such works using digital technology.
Although the report attempts to tackle this problem, we feel that it can only be solved if we address the more general issue of electronic copying, especially at an international level, and if we combat the new forms of piracy and forgery which are springing up and going unpunished.
The Green Group in the European Parliament welcomes the draft directive aimed at revising the protection of copyright and related rights by harmonising it on a Union-wide basis so that it can meet the requirements of digital electronic communication.
It takes account both of the user's need for access and of the market conditions for the media suppliers and for the producers of the required technologies.
We endorse the rapporteur's endeavour to define the directive more precisely by giving precedence to copyright as the main concept.
That decision was justified not only by the subject matter of the directive.
Authors' rights are the weakest in terms of the requirement of market and industrial freedom and therefore most in need of protection, given that they relate to works that can only be treated as products to a limited extent.
Consumer and producer protection have their place within this primary aim in that the consumer receives free access to the desired transmission of a work while at the same time the rightholder obtains fair compensation, and the producer receives full protection against piracy.
We welcome the fact that the Commission has largely incorporated Parliament's position and therefore very much regret that it has rejected Amendment No 25, in the form of a new recital, which deals with the treatment of cultural works not protected by copyright, as not relevant to the subject of the directive.
Pérez Royo report (A4-0040/99)
The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament are voting in favour of the EU setting rules on the minimum taxation of interest income from savings.
Until now, people have been able to avoid paying tax on savings deposited in other countries.
This has led to unreasonable incomes and distortions in the market, and has favoured banks in Luxembourg, for example.
The European Parliament has just approved a twin-track approach which means that a minimum percentage of interest income will either be withheld in the individual Member State or that banks and authorities will exchange information across borders so that tax can be collected.
Banking secrecy could therefore be maintained if the first option is used.
The Danish Social Democrats do not see the proposal in any way as a move towards tax harmonisation, but as convincing evidence that the EU can put a stop to the extensive tax speculation in Europe.
The proposal for a Council directive that we are examining today is one of the most important on which we have had to give our opinion in recent years.
We all acknowledge that a guaranteed minimum effective taxation of savings income in the form of interest payments in EU Member States other than the investor's country of residence is an ideal way to prevent harmful tax competition between the Member States.
Apart from helping to reduce the distortions that are still widespread in the internal market, this widening of the tax base will allow Member States, if they so wish, to reduce the excessive costs that burden labour income and sometimes seriously handicap our businesses, subject as they are to international competition in an increasingly global economy.
The proposal for a directive that we are discussing today is certainly not the last word in capital taxation regimes.
On this point I agree entirely with the rapporteur that a great deal remains to be done in order to achieve an ideal capital taxation system and, in particular, that we need the broadest possible discussions on the issue with the EU's major partners in the capital markets: the US, Japan and Switzerland.
While we are working on such an agreement, I, like many others, believe that this proposal for a directive is certainly an important step in the right direction.
I would even say that it is the progress we have been waiting for for a number of years.
The Commission has certainly done some excellent work here.
I will therefore be supporting, without any reservation whatsoever, the proposal for a directive as amended by Parliament.
I am delighted with the amendments introduced by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to the proposal for a directive on taxation of savings, which aims to ensure a minimum of effective taxation of individuals' savings income in the form of interest payments within the Community.
I am particularly delighted that my amendment to reduce the level of withholding tax from 20 % to 15 % has been adopted, for three reasons.
Firstly, too high a rate would harm investment, and therefore also growth and employment.
Secondly, the rate of withholding tax applied in international tax agreements only rarely exceeds 15 %.
Thirdly, too high a rate would make all attempts to limit capital flight completely futile.
The aim of the directive is to prevent capital flight to EU Member States where rates are higher.
So how can we prevent capital from seeking out more favourable tax environments? From this perspective, choosing a rate of 25 %, as suggested by the French Government, would be an economic error that would run counter to the objective of fighting harmful tax competition.
In this respect I am delighted with the proposal by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy to begin negotiations with neighbouring countries on fiscal matters.
It has also been suggested that these discussions could then be extended to include the OECD members.
This being the case, it is good that the European Union is not making the outcome of these discussions a precondition for implementing the directive on taxation of savings.
There are enough stumbling blocks already without adding others...
I will therefore vote in favour of the resolution and the proposal for a directive, provided that no amendment is adopted to modify my proposal for a withholding tax of 15 %.
As the House approves the 20 % and does not deem it necessary to first reach an agreement with our neighbouring countries, I am voting against the report.
Tax policy is, for the most part, a national matter.
However, dumping through unfair tax competition where the aim is to avoid paying tax should be tackled by means of European rules, provided minimum rules are applied.
I have therefore voted in favour of the report.
I voted against the Pérez Royo report on taxation of savings because it is the best way to ensure that savings leave the European Union.
New York and Zurich, which are already rubbing their hands, will be the main beneficiaries of this suicidal relocation operation, Zurich in particular when it comes to European collective investment undertakings within the meaning of the 1985 directive.
To top it all, it is only the collective investment undertakings that are targeted, with the result that the promoters will try to relocate outside the EU in order to continue to sell collective investment undertakings to their European customers tax-free.
This will mean the end of many of the European collective investment undertakings.
You will have promoted tax evasion outside the Community and internal tax revenue will be non-existent.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has turned a deaf ear.
None of my 34 amendments were adopted and my arguments against the ridiculous administrative burden proposed were not heeded.
This enormously expensive red-tape for the paying agents will in itself create competitive disadvantages in terms of management costs and will result in collective investment undertakings leaving the EU.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, like Mr Monti, is also turning a deaf ear to the need at the same time to take measures equivalent to those adopted in a Community directive in third countries that are likely to attract EU capital.
If the directive was introduced it should apply above all to the dependent or associated territories of certain Member States and also where these Member States have particular responsibilities or tax prerogatives.
The real tax havens within the Community are Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, the Channel Islands, the Netherlands Antilles, and so on.
Surely you do not believe that, as Mr Poos, the Luxembourg Minister, has just stated in our Chamber of Deputies, my country is prepared to agree to a fool's bargain and to be the only one to play the unenviable role of the sacrificial lamb on the altar of rigged tax harmonisation?
Moreover, do not forget that there can be no question of abandoning our condition that the fiscal package put together on 1 December 1997 under the Luxembourg Presidency should apply across the board.
Long live unanimity!
This is a classic example of tax harmonisation.
First there was harmonisation of VAT and excise duties.
Since then, the European Commission has been dragging out its plans to harmonise corporate tax and above all to harmonise taxation of savings, especially as the single currency has heightened the distortions between many tax systems, with all the risks of relocation and competition between them.
Being a poor loser, the Commission has tried to guard against the fiscal dumping that is inherent in free movement by means of its European Code of Conduct, which is in fact only a cartelisation code for tax authorities in order to maintain the oligopoly.
It is against this background that we have the Pérez Royo report on the proposal for a directive of 4 June 1998, which clearly aims to set a ceiling on taxation of savings income in order to counter the Luxembourg tax haven.
There would be a dual ceiling: either the application of a 20 % rate of taxation on interest payments or the supply of information.
Taxation or information.
The choice would be between paying the withholding tax and being subject to taxation in the Member State of residence.
This is what we call the model of coexistence: the coexistence of states that apply the withholding tax regime and states that do not.
But that does not solve the problem of globalisation.
Capital moves around, even beyond Europe.
The problem exists for Eurobonds, which may be underwritten by investors outside Europe.
Hence the proposal from Professor Pérez Royo for a multilateral agreement with Japan, Switzerland and the US.
This shows how outdated Europe is: the tax village is becoming global.
In terms of capital, globalisation is complete.
European taxation is therefore obsolete.
It can only apply to taxpayers whose residence is fixed and localised, with the glaring injustice that we all know so well.
Europe without frontiers overtaxes labour income to make up for not being able to tax capital income.
This is why the Europe of free movement is a Europe that deprives people who are permanent residents in favour of nomads.
Britain's Labour MEPs support the principles behind the Commission's proposals to prevent tax evasion on cross-border payments of interest to individuals.
However, these proposals as currently drafted are flawed and against the interests of employment in Europe's financial services industry.
The timing of the introduction of a withholding tax directive is crucial.
Unilateral European Union level action runs the genuine risk of creating an outflow of capital to third countries- for example, Switzerland.
Should this happen, then jobs in EU financial centres will be lost to third countries as capital leaves.
In addition, there will be no benefit to exchequers as the taxable interest payments will be outside the 15 Member States.
It is not appreciated that Eurobonds or international securities are included within the scope of the directive.
Such a move would also run the genuine risk of relocating the whole Eurobond market outside of the EU and in particular, the City of London.
British Labour MEPs are acutely conscious of the New York experience of imposing a unilateral tax on such financial services.
For many years, Eurobonds were almost exclusively traded in New York.
The introduction of a unilateral tax regime saw their near total relocation to London.
As currently drafted therefore, this directive poses a direct threat to between 10 000 and 110 000 jobs, mainly in London's financial services, depending on whose analyses you believe.
Indeed, there are already clear indications of Swiss preparations for any new opportunities that may arise as a result of EU action.
British Labour MEPs will be supporting calls for a multilateral policy development with the other OECD financial centres to tackle this important issue of tax evasion, and for the exclusion of Eurobonds from this directive.
In the absence of such amendments being carried, British Labour MEPs will vote against this directive.
Both the Commission proposal and the Pérez Royo report on introducing a minimum level of taxation on savings income undoubtedly deserve our support.
Especially now, with the single currency and the absence of any exchange risk, this is the only way to rule out predatory fiscal competition.
We must, however, be vigilant about competition in this area from third countries and should therefore demand - particularly via the OECD - that they too should apply minimum levels of taxation.
We recognise that this cannot be expected immediately and must therefore agree with the amendment approved in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in favour of a 15 % rather than a 20 % minimum rate, to less the impact of any harmful competition.
We therefore disagree with the rapporteur, who has just told us that he would be voting for the 20 % figure.
Alongside the Code of Conduct adopted by the Council in an effort to avoid harmful tax competition among Member States, the Commission has presented a text, in the form of a proposal for a directive, that is both premature and immature.
It is premature because it lacks a global approach towards tax harmonisation.
Harmonisation of taxation of savings is just one specific aspect of a harmonisation operation that must encompass a number of other areas, of which company taxation is one of the most important.
Harmonising only one part of the tax system is potentially more harmful than maintaining the different fiscal regimes that currently exist.
As a result, the true merit of a directive on harmonising taxation of savings can only be appreciated once the overall plan has been drawn up and approved.
The text is immature because all of its components are largely controversial and their effects on the European economy are not known.
The European Commission and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy set out the principles on which agreement could be reached in time: a withholding tax, coexistence, a common rate of withholding tax.
But the practical application of these principles requires more careful consideration and, above all, solutions must first be found to many specific problems: the definition of a realistic minimum rate of withholding tax; coexistence, yes, but without the additional untransparent complications of a system of certificates and reimbursements, paving the way for problems in the system; imprecise definitions of the 'beneficial owner' and the 'paying agent'; potentially negative consequences for the European financial markets if Eurobonds are included in this directive without exemption, and so on.
None of these problems has as yet been resolved and as a result this proposal for a directive can at the very most be considered as a preliminary draft that still requires intensive work.
Some of Parliament's amendments are a step in the right direction, without necessarily touching on the fundamental problems: the rate of the withholding tax has been lowered; the role of certain neighbouring countries, which will be the sole beneficiaries of the directive in its current version, is mentioned; the usefulness of a certain degree of fair tax competition and the subsequent beneficial reduction in fiscal pressure is underlined.
Otherwise, the report remains too close to the Commission text.
Even though the explanatory statement is not part of the legislative text, it contains several opinions with which I do not agree: reducing the problem of Eurobonds to a purely British problem and, above all, the rapporteur's ideal vision, according to which 'an ideal (fiscal) regime should be based on the principle of supply of information to the fiscal authorities, i.e. on the elimination of banking secrecy for fiscal purposes'.
For these reasons I am voting against the Pérez Royo report.
I can support an effort being made to counter speculation due to the different rules on the taxation of interest on savings accounts in the EU's Member States, so as to ensure a modest minimum level of taxation.
I can also support the Commission's thinking as regards a minimum level of taxation, but I would like to stress that this does not mean that the Danish Conservatives endorse an actual harmonisation of tax rates.
I would also like to help bring about a certain exchange of information between Member States to make it possible for taxation to take place in one form or another.
At the same time, however, we must ensure that new EU rules in this field do not encourage pension funds and other financial institutions currently based in the EU area to move to countries outside the European Union.
'It is not necessary to recall the origins of this proposal for a directive, or the importance that the fiscal regime of interest assumes in the functioning of the single market - especially when regarded in relation to the introduction of the euro.'
The first three lines of the rapporteur's explanatory statement thus crudely reveal that the objective being pursued is to combat the pernicious yet entirely predictable effects of the creation of the euro on certain capital movements.
As a result of the introduction of the euro in the single market, the tax differentials between the various Member States are causing significant capital movements, and attempts are now being made to curb these, for example by introducing a minimum rate of taxation on income from capital invested by individuals.
It is astonishing to note that the effects of the euro on capital movements were not properly understood before it was introduced.
Regarding the report itself, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has voted in favour of the amendments spelling out the need to harmonise the basic principles of taxation with OECD members.
If we introduce harmonisation that is limited only to the Member States of the European Union, it is highly probable that we will witness the flight of capital to third countries.
With regard to the minimum rate of taxation of interest paid, our group voted in favour of the amendment by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which lowers this minimum rate to 15 % from the 20 % rate proposed by the Commission; a minimum rate that is too high could result in the flight of capital to third countries.
EMU and the euro demand the harmonisation of fiscal policy within the European Union and the shaping of a single taxation framework for economic activity in all Member States.
This attempt at equalisation pays scant regard to the different growth levels of each country, to the repercussions that a single tax policy will have on national budgets, to growth and social expenditure and, above all, to the incomes of working people. Its aim is to increase hard-hitting tax measures at the expense of working people and to lighten the tax burden on businesses and capital markets, thereby increasing their profits.
The fiscal policy which is taking shape, little by little, within the European Union, a typical example of which is the proposal to tax income from savings that we are debating today, will strengthen even further regional and social inequalities. It will make big business even more unaccountable and strengthen the divisions in economic life.
The Commission proposal favours tax havens of all kinds and the multifarious exemptions that exist in the system for taxing large corporations.
It taxes the interest on the savings of the small investor and the small saver and eases the tax burden on companies and large conglomerates. This is happening at a time when, in the name of social security funding or the reduction of public deficits, proposals are being elaborated or ideas are being put forward to further increase the burden of indirect taxation, which blights the lives of the ordinary person in the street, and to further reduce the public social provision of health and pension cover, because of the high costs involved.
It is clear that those who rule the EU believe that the enormous profits and revenues which can legally avoid any form of tax burden through a series of exemptions and derogations which are provided for in national tax laws, such as revenues from financial products, cannot and, what is more, must not play a role in achieving these aims.
The people and the workers will bear the costs, and the profits will go to large companies and the capital markets.
We regard as unacceptable and at the same time revealing of the intentions of the EU and EMU the fact that the proposed directive only covers physical persons, when we know that the vast majority of those entitled to hold foreign accounts or cross-border bonds - government or not - are the large institutional investors.
Indeed, it is extremely telling that the amendments which called for the directive to be extended to cover legal entities were rejected.
It is incomprehensible to us that taxes should be instituted which exempt companies.
Such a regulation is a harsh blow to employment and growth, as it encourages capital to be kept in banks or to be converted into bonds or other financial products rather than into investments in production.
This is not taxation. Working people are being penalised for doing their utmost to save money.
This regulation is simply paving the way for the corruption of economic life, the exploitation of working people and the creation of brass-plate companies, which are set up solely to avoid taxation.
It is also creating the conditions - and this is made easier by the convergence of interest rates - to transfer accounts to a country other than the country of residence, or to strengthen the cross-border market in bonds at the expense of the domestic market. The aim is to circumvent tax legislation for 'residents' and to avoid paying tax.
In particular, this regulation makes it easier to use zero coupon bonds as a way of laundering money, as they can be sold before their due date to people who are not covered by the directive and are therefore not subject to tax.
The proposal for a directive that we are examining is part of a package adopted by the Council in December 1997, and we wish to reiterate that we wholly disagree with the logic of packages which aim to ward off any genuine objections which may arise and to allow decisions to be made which hurt the weakest countries. This is exactly what is happening with the proposal for a directive to tax the interest earned by affiliated companies, which directly hurts Greece as it is an importer of capital.
Taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the relevant forecast in the draft directive, and bearing in mind that the start of a new round of multilateral negotiations is approaching, we urge the Commission and the Council to take the necessary actions to institute, at international level, a means of ensuring that interest on bank deposits and revenues from bonds of all kinds and other financial products are taxed. Such actions must be targeted at large international institutional investors and, more generally, at legal entities.
A way must also be found to tax all kinds of cross-border capital movements which are carried out for profit, in order to put a brake, albeit in a limited way, on the increase in the volume of parasitic, speculative capital.
Lehne report (A4-0045/99)
In our view, the opinion delivered by the European Parliament on this subject is the result of a compromise which is preventing Parliament from helping to advance the Commission's continuing work in this area.
Unfortunately, the opinion is representative of the fact that the right, particularly the PPE Group, is working to ensure that Parliament becomes an obstacle to third-country nationals enjoying the rights to which they are entitled while in the European Union.
A common set of rules defining the rights of third-country nationals and their freedom to travel and reside in the Member States is a precondition for all citizens being able to move around freely.
In this context, it is regrettable that the PPE Group and others are trying to restrict these rights and opportunities.
Not only is it detrimental to the rights and opportunities of a number of third-country nationals, but it also makes it more difficult to achieve the goal of the free movement of persons.
We should like to make it clear that we are opposed to the ranking of people seeking work in a Member State in the following order: citizens of the Member State itself, citizens of the Union and third-country nationals, as set out in Article 7.
Nor are we able to agree with the view expressed in Amendment No 43 tabled by Mr Nassauer of the PPE Group, in which he calls for the age limit for family reunification to be lowered to 16.
However, we welcome Amendments Nos 44 and 45, which place partnerships on an equal footing with marriage in terms of family reunification, although we are concerned that the wording of these amendments to EU rules detracts from the possibility of them being applied effectively in all the Member States.
It is essential to point out at this stage that asylum seekers are covered by existing conventions aimed at protecting them against persecution.
Different criteria must be applied to those wishing to enter the European Union on economic grounds.
The key issue now under debate is whether we should have a strict or a relaxed admission policy.
I would argue that if the European Union admits third country nationals for the purpose of servicing the specific needs of individual Member States' labour shortages then it would be repulsive to adopt a 'revolving door' policy by taking no responsibility for the tangible economic input of workers from third countries.
I would further argue for a strict rather than a relaxed admission policy so as to protect the rights of third country nationals by outlining clearly the necessary criteria for admission.
Harmonising Member States' visa policies with regard to third countries is, in my view, essential as a major step towards improving the safety of travel documents.
The mutual recognition of travel documents is paramount to implementing EU policy on the admission of third country nationals.
From an Irish perspective, the influx of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants is a relatively new experience for us as a nation.
Mistakes have been made in dealing with this evolving problem by successive governments.
I have to say I am angry at how some of our citizens treat these strangers.
We can at times hide behind the provisions of the Dublin Convention, which states that the first EU country that an asylum seeker enters must process their application for asylum.
Ireland is seldom the first port of call for prospective asylum seekers.
The Irish Government should be bold and courageous enough to bring in an amnesty for existing refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland.
It should then introduce new and uniform rules to deal with new applications in the future.
The Irish people must show some compassion on this issue.
We, more than most nations, have benefited from the generosity of spirit and kindness of other nations in our history, most notably Britain, Australia and the United States of America.
The very fact that Ireland is currently experiencing an unprecedented economic boom must mean that we do not forget our humanitarian duty to others.
Immigration in Europe is one of the areas which we have dealt with least during the present parliamentary term and, as a result, the work done in this area is largely superficial.
However, the Amsterdam Treaty which is to be implemented in the near future obliges us to broadly review the current status quo with a view to implementing new immigration measures.
All this will very probably lead to numerous problems, in view of the current inflow of persons and the inability of the European Union to become an outlet for world poverty.
One of the major difficulties will consist in making the distinction between foreign nationals who have already been resident in the European Union for several years, and those who have just arrived.
Hence the importance of new provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty which differentiate - with a considerable degree of humanity - between short-term and long-term residence, and immigration and temporary asylum policy.
In the face of the numerous political conflicts currently taking place throughout the world - including on our continent - we cannot close our eyes and just turn away asylum seekers saying that they are not our concern.
Significant progress has been made with regard to the idea of collective responsibility of a group of nations.
European legislation must therefore act as a very strict barrier to foreseeable inflows of persons.
The same applies to 'economic' immigration, the criteria for which must be laid down very clearly.
The European Parliament has always ardently defended very strict international rules that can be applied in practice.
Controlling our migratory inflows is becoming a major issue, particularly on the eve of enlargement when a number of third country nationals will soon become full citizens.
I therefore approve the second Lehne report because it takes into consideration the realities of the world today without being too liberal and causing harm to our own nationals, but leaving the door open to integration that is controlled in terms of the number of immigrants and in terms of time.
The European Parliament needs to find the right balance.
Immigration must not constitute an obstacle to European cooperation programmes, but for all that we cannot refuse positive immigration, nor can we reject agreements with third countries.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of a report concerning uniform rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States.
In Denmark, there has been a halt on immigration since 1974.
We have some very tough rules on immigration for the purpose of paid employment.
Age patterns in the Member States and a general upturn in the economy mean that we are going to have a shortage of labour in some sectors in the near future.
We may therefore be forced to consider how persistently this halt on immigration should be maintained.
Lehne report (A4-0043/99)
The draft Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals to the Member States of the Union is quite obviously responding to a need: to try to introduce minimum conditions for the crossing of EU external borders in order to avoid wide gaps allowing immigrants to enter a Member State and then move throughout the whole of Europe.
However, this text, which has clearly been carefully negotiated by the Council, has been damaged by the European Parliament's amendments.
At any rate, it is affected by a structural defect which calls for serious reservations on our part: possible revision would be practically out of the question.
In fact, Article 42 provides that the Council shall unanimously decide on any amendments to the Convention, which might seem logical given that the text will have been adopted unanimously.
However, this provision poses a problem because if unanimity governs the adoption of a text, it ends up being ultraconservative and even intransigent when it comes to its revision.
In fact, the proper rule which should be laid down is that when a text has been adopted unanimously, the failure of one Member State to give its support - by requesting that it be revised - must automatically lead to improvements being made to it.
This is not a hypothetical question.
It is currently being raised in France in relation to the 1979 directive on the conservation of wild birds.
It could be raised tomorrow in relation to the Convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals, for example, if a signatory country requests amendments to the rules on family reunification.
Nor is there anything extraordinary about this question: no text can remain unchanged forever, and it is normal to provide the means to make changes to it in the future.
Moreover, an additional problem arises in the Convention we are dealing with today: if a country which had not managed to successfully renegotiate a text wanted to be withdrawn by democratic means from part of or all of the text, it would be difficult to see how this would be possible when - as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty - it would not have the right to re-establish unilaterally certain checks at its internal borders.
We may therefore find it quite strange that governments are pursuing such conventions without having resolved problems as serious as these beforehand and without having taken all the necessary precautions.
Demands relating to the desire to harmonise immigration and visa policies are also made in Mr Lehne's report.
The rapporteur's original idea - like that of Mrs Lindeperg, whose report results from the same logic, despite the fact that they belong to different political groups - is that in view of the present difficulties in these areas, the policies can no longer be dealt with at national level alone.
The draft Amsterdam Treaty should therefore allow the simultaneous harmonisation of visa policies, without which the free movement of persons, implementation of a fair asylum policy, harmonisation of immigration rules, action to combat illegal immigration and effective checks at the external borders would be jeopardised.
The report has undoubtedly been produced within the context of the ratification of the draft Amsterdam Treaty.
It establishes a provisional regulation, the Commission having already undertaken to submit a fresh proposal - in the form of a directive - as soon as the amendments agreed in the Amsterdam Treaty enter into force.
However, in the explanatory statement of the proposal for a Council Act, the Commission considers that current economic factors and the situation on the labour market make it impossible to do away with selective admission policies formulated by the Member States for the purposes of paid employment or independent economic activity.
Nevertheless, it persists in believing that it is Europe's duty to adopt a global approach with regard to immigration policies.
What about the problems experienced by immigrant populations integrating into societies which already have difficulty defining structures for human and social relations, both internally and with other societies?
What about the economic and social cost of such measures?
What about the checks I mentioned at the Community's external borders which we know do not actually exist or are ineffective in certain regions? How much flexibility will the Member States have to react to special situations, in view of a safeguard clause providing for an exception whose duration is limited to what is strictly necessary, and taking into account the interests of other Member States which the state keeps closely informed as well as the Commission?
All these questions remain unanswered today.
Too much is at stake for us to venture into the unknown in this way.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
This maxim is too easily applied to the spirit of Mr Lehne's reports.
Politics is the art of reality, not of utopia.
The generations of this century have been paying too high a price for this since 1917 for us to transform the European Union of tomorrow into a vast Yugoslavia in the name of false generosity.
The Amsterdam Treaty and Schengen both give the EU greater discretion as regards immigration, visas and asylum, and the report is an extension of this policy.
However, the committee is of the opinion that the report does not go far enough in respect of the harmonisation of visa requirements in the individual Member States.
The existence of common rules for visas makes the European Union more like a state.
For a number of countries, it also means that some third-country nationals would have to apply for visas to enter the Union.
There is also a strong possibility that such a policy would serve to reinforce the external borders and encourage an inflexible approach to refugees and immigrants.
Consequently, I have voted against the report.
Lindeperg report (A4-0050/99)
Madam President, in the Lindeperg report which has just been voted on, the European Parliament calls for the 'upwards' harmonisation - these are the words used in the explanatory statement - of forms of protection complementary to refugee status.
In fact, the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951, signed by all the Member States of the Union, provides for this status to be granted to individuals persecuted in their country of origin on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or political opinion; the European Parliament thinks this is too restrictive.
In particular, it would like a broader definition of the recognised causes of persecution - to include gender-specific causes, for example - and of potential persecutors, whose definition would no longer be confined to state bodies.
In addition to a less restrictive interpretation of the definitions of the Geneva Convention, which would open up the way for a complementary refugee status, a temporary protection scheme for displaced persons is being set up at the same time by the European Union, in order to offer a full range of legal structures for reception to all individuals or groups of persons wanting to flee their country of origin for one reason or another.
The proposal which the European Parliament is making with regard to this complementary status seems to me to be completely typical of how it usually acts.
It is announced that the new status will grant rights, without taking the trouble to say which ones and merely giving the impression that they will not be subject to a time-limit.
No attempt is made to ascertain how many new refugees there will be as a result - directly or indirectly - nor how much all of this will cost the taxpayer.
Of course, there is no mention anywhere in the report of what the citizens of the Member States might think about this.
For our part, we consider that this is a completely irresponsible way of doing things.
Of course, the countries of Europe must show concern for the welfare of foreigners who have been persecuted, firstly by scrupulously applying the provisions of the Geneva Convention.
However, this solicitude can take very different forms, one of which being residence on our territories for an unlimited duration, which we would have to reject more or less outright.
Madam President, I am making this explanation of vote not only on my own behalf but also on behalf of the Spanish delegation in the Group of the European People's Party.
We abstained in the vote on this report and I think that I should give you an explanation as to why we neither voted in favour or against. This is particularly important since an issue such as this is perhaps one that requires us to take a particular stance, which is what the Spanish delegation in the PPE Group is doing.
We are naturally in favour of harmonising complementary forms of protection so that refugees who do not meet the conditions laid down in the Geneva Convention yet who truly deserve protection, will receive it.
That is why we have not voted against the report.
We agree with the rapporteur and the majority of this House about the objectives involved.
However, we did not vote in favour of the report because it contains serious flaws. In addition to its legal shortcomings, it also tries to force an interpretation of the Geneva Convention on us which is totally contrary to international law.
However, it was essentially political reasons that prevented us from voting in favour of the report: the demagogy it uses only serves to harm the interests it aims to protect.
This therefore explains the constructive abstention of the Spanish delegation in the PPE Group.
We should like to thank the rapporteur for his very thorough work on an urgently needed report.
We think there is good reason to focus attention on the serious deficiencies that exist in the Union's reception procedure for asylum-seekers.
The report deserves praise for the way in which it discusses the measures that will be required to create a workable common refugee policy in which compassion, solidarity and generosity play a major role in determining the Member States' responsibility for accepting refugees.
With regard to the amendment tabled by the GUE/NGL Group relating to Abdullah Ocalan, we do not believe that the matter really comes within the ambit of the present discussion.
Unfortunately, we note from the amendment tabled by the rightist UPE and PPE Groups that the difficulties which the Council had in reaching agreement on a common refugee policy are also reflected in the narrow attitude displayed by these groups in the European Parliament.
The way in which this matter has been handled shows, yet again, the ideological divide that exists between the right and left in Europe in their approach to a humane and generous refugee policy.
We regret that the same ideological differences have served to deprive Amendments Nos 1 and 2 relating to persecution on the grounds of sexual proclivity of the support they warranted from the European Parliament.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of a report on the need to adopt common rules in addition to the Geneva Convention.
There is a need for European cooperation on refugee questions.
The first step towards a common refugee policy was taken with the adoption of the Geneva Convention.
The next step should be some common rules for people who are not covered by the latter.
These are people who are not being persecuted individually by the State for political reasons, but who need asylum on other humanitarian grounds.
The Member States should have a uniform interpretation of how these people can be assured of proper protection.
It is time for us to start discussing a common definition of de facto and other humanitarian protection.
There should be certain minimum standards with which all the Member States are obliged to comply.
Since the start of the 1990s, the European Union has been experiencing an influx of refugees who have fled their countries of origin for various reasons.
Many of them do not fall into the category of 'refugees' as defined by the Geneva Convention.
However, the European Union cannot refuse these persons entry into its territory.
In fact, sending them back to their country of origin without further ado would put their lives at risk, or would at the very least jeopardise their moral or physical integrity.
Harmonisation of the policies pursued by the Member States is necessary in this area, and this will be possible as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force.
Within this framework, we need to set up an instrument to harmonise the forms of protection complementing refugee status.
I broadly agree with the rapporteur on all these points.
In fact, I believe as she does that the European Union must grant a specific status to persons who cannot claim refugee status within the meaning of the Geneva Convention.
The debate is mainly concerned with the definition of the categories which are eligible for this complementary status.
It seems to me that a number of points still need to be clarified.
One example will illustrate my view: whatever we think otherwise of the death penalty, can a person who at the end of a fair trial is sentenced to death for crimes and offences under civil law, having exhausted all the possibilities of legal redress, really enjoy the specific status I mentioned - as the rapporteur seems to suggest - under the pretext that capital punishment has been abolished by the Member States of the European Union? If so, on what terms?
Can a condemned person be given the same status as, for example, a woman fleeing her country of origin because she has fears of being subjected to sexual violence, or inhuman or degrading treatment?
This type of question is at the very least worth taking time to discuss in depth.
Complementary status is essential.
I just think that the dossier is not ready yet.
I am therefore voting against this report and urge that the debate be continued.
The June Movement is going to vote for the Lindeperg report to show our willingness to accept refugees.
The Lindeperg report is more humane than the policy which the civil servants and justice ministers are planning.
But, for the record, we should not forget to point out that it should be for the Member States themselves to decide on immigration and refugee policy.
We do not want any supranational cooperation in this area because refugee policy is improved if the people have the opportunity to endorse it.
In the main, this is a balanced document which addresses some very important fundamental issues.
I sincerely hope that the amendments tabled by the Conservative groups are not adopted. They would only detract from the quality of the report, as the aim of those political groups is not to make life easier for refugees and asylum-seekers.
Consequently, I hope that Amendments Nos 1 and 2 relating to homosexuals tabled by the ARE Group are adopted by the House.
The matter should be taken very seriously, since homosexuals are persecuted in many countries.
Some countries mete out a range of punishments, including the death penalty, for a person's sexual predilections.
Freedom from persecution or harassment because of one's sexual predilections is a basic human right.
It is essential that this should be taken into account in the discussions on asylum legislation, as well as with regard to protection for homosexuals.
I cannot endorse the Lindeperg report, because I do not think that asylum policy should be a matter for the EU.
In my opinion, this belongs solely at national level.
Of course, individual countries are morally and politically obliged to comply with whatever international conventions there may be in this field, both in letter and in spirit.
The rich democracies in particular are obliged to take a lead where the protection of the persecuted people of the world is concerned, which includes providing asylum themselves for those who are being persecuted.
However, my rejection of the report on grounds of political principle should not overshadow the fact that Mrs Lindeperg clearly deals with an important matter in a proper and humane way.
An example is her highlighting of the problem that there are people today who in reality are refugees, but who are not recognised as such according to the definition of the term contained in the Geneva Convention.
I would like to point out, however, that it would be a grave mistake for the EU to set about creating an alternative definition of refugees.
That would be contrary to the principle that refugees are protected by an international convention, agreed under international auspices.
At the same time, I could well imagine that an EU agreement on a different definition of refugees would not be seen as an addition to the Geneva Convention, but as a step towards depriving the Geneva Convention of its substance, so that many more people could be turned away - with a clear conscience - at the EU's external borders.
The general impression of the EU, and not least of its Member States, is not that they want to expand the definition of refugees, but on the contrary that they wish to restrict it.
The Danish Prime Minister said before the Danish referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty that 'a yes to the Amsterdam Treaty will mean fewer refugees in Denmark.'
The report by our colleague Mrs Lindeperg totally misses the main point of the asylum seeker problem in the European Union, which is that we are not in fact facing a real asylum problem at all, but an asylum cheating problem.
That is something totally different.
Everybody knows that just a few percent of asylum seekers in Europe can justifiably invoke the recognised international conventions on asylum.
If the hundreds of thousands of asylum cheaters who arrive every year to benefit from social security in our Member States were systematically and effectively sent back over the borders, then there would be no asylum problem at all in Europe.
You may be shocked by the use of the term asylum cheater.
Yet it has the benefit of clarity, highlights a reality and contains no human condemnation.
There are only two possible approaches here: either you play at being Santa Claus and say 'all foreigners are welcome in Europe and can be supported by us', or you must apply the existing agreements to the letter, in which the case the asylum cheaters must be sent back to their own countries: not just because they put the whole asylum system at risk and thus harm genuine asylum seekers, but also because in Europe itself there are many poor and underprivileged to whom we first owe an obligation before we can take all the suffering of the world on our shoulders.
Mrs Lindeperg clearly opts for the Santa Claus policy.
But she is playing Santa Claus at the taxpayers' expense.
If her proposals for a further undermining of asylum regulations were to become a reality, the final barrier would be down and we would risk being swamped by fortune seekers from all over the world.
This is therefore an irresponsible report - yet another to come before Parliament - that we will not be approving.
The sitting was suspended at 1.25 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Progress on Agenda 2000
The next item is the statement by the Council on progress on Agenda 2000.
I give the floor to the President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when Mr Fischer presented the programme of the German Presidency here approximately a month ago in his capacity of President-in-Office of the Council, the first priority he listed for this six-month term was the successful conclusion of the Agenda 2000 negotiations by the time of the special European Council meeting on 24 and 25 March.
It is now just six weeks to the day until this meeting, which will be held in Berlin at the request of Chancellor Schröder.
The negotiations on the individual components of the Agenda, which we have been conducting intensively since the Commission submitted its legislative proposals eleven months ago and at full stretch since the beginning of the year, have now reached a crucial phase.
I am glad that at this stage I can now discuss Agenda 2000 with you in detail.
Let me start with a brief outline of the timetable up to the special summit.
By the time of the General Affairs Council and Agriculture Council in just under a fortnight's time we will have had a first run-through of all the major components of the global compromise to be reached by the Council bodies and Councils.
This first consideration of the key questions, under the aegis of the General Affairs Council, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council and the Agriculture Council, has already proved fairly successful in terms of reaching compromises and consensus on some aspects.
But it also became clear that we still have an enormous way to go and very little time to do so.
The Heads of State and Government will assess the progress made to date, especially the results we hope to see from the Agriculture Council on 22 and 23 February, at their informal summit in Bonn on 26 February.
We expect this meeting, to which Chancellor Schröder has also invited the President of the European Parliament, to provide important guidelines for the further activities of the final phase.
Immediately after the Bonn summit we will, after all, have to start tying up the package that the Heads of State and Government are to finish negotiating on and bring to a political conclusion at the end of March and during April, under the responsibility of the General Affairs Council as the coordinating body.
For the rest, you could regard the fact that Chancellor Schröder has moved the special summit from Brussels to Bonn as a sign of our strong commitment to bringing the negotiations to a successful conclusion.
The German Presidency will do its utmost to achieve that successful conclusion.
We have become convinced that other Member States are also firmly resolved to achieve it and therefore want to conduct the negotiations in a constructive and positive manner.
Everybody realises that a balanced package is the only solution, and that there can be no winners or losers.
Each Member State must have its appropriate say on the final result, but at the same time each must make its contribution to achieving that result.
Everything must be laid out openly on the table.
There can be no taboo subjects!
It is of paramount importance to the Union and thus to all the Member States - and all the partner states realise this - for us to be able to declare the European Union the winner at the end of March; for one thing is sure, Europe could very easily become the loser.
Putting it off will not make the solution any easier, on the contrary.
If a few months after the entry into force of monetary union, and indeed only a few weeks before the June elections to the European Parliament, we disappointed people's hopes that we would prove capable of action, the consequences would be very serious.
If the European Union, which since the beginning of this year has become a new financial market with global influence and global responsibility, cannot also resolutely assume the corresponding political responsibility - on the basis also of the Amsterdam Treaty - then too Europe would be the loser.
And if the momentum of the enlargement negotiations is weakened and the date of their conclusion is postponed, the effects would be so damaging as to set us back in our work for a long time.
I hope these and other arguments will prompt all the Member States to make more and even greater concerted efforts.
Meanwhile it is generally realised that, unlike the case of the earlier Delors I and Delors II packages, this time it will not be possible to reach a compromise in the end by making extra funds available.
On the contrary, the unequal burden-sharing that resulted from this kind of approach in earlier cases must be corrected this time, for the sake of the legitimacy and future viability of the European Union.
I do not think any of our partners questions the principle of fair burden-sharing, just as they cannot question the principle of solidarity, which is the constitutive principle of the European Union.
One basic condition for the success of the negotiations as a whole is that the Heads of State and Government decided in Vienna to include all the components of the Agenda in the discussion and only to seek a solution in the form of an overall package.
Everything is laid out on the table.
That means a balance can be found covering every aspect, and the combination of various parameters ensures that the further negotiations will be sufficiently flexible and dynamic.
In many areas of the Agenda, it has proved possible to broaden the basis of agreement over the past weeks.
This applies in particular to the reform of the Structural Funds, where consensus has now been reached on major issues.
I am thinking, for instance, of the reduction of the number of objectives from seven to three, the reduction of the number of Community initiatives and the long-disputed question of coherence between national aid and EU aid; I am also thinking of the efficiency performance reserve, where gratifying progress was made at the last General Affairs Council.
On other important questions, such as strict adherence to the 75 % criterion for Objective 1 areas and reserving some two thirds of funds for Objective 1, the discussions have already produced clear majorities.
Here you must not forget that under the Austrian Presidency broad political agreement was already reached on the pre-accession instruments that are so important to enlargement policy.
The same applies to the financial regulation on trans-European networks.
In both areas - structural reform and pre-accession instruments - I held talks yesterday with European Parliament representatives under the informal consultation procedure, continuing those that were begun under the Austrian Presidency.
We attach the utmost importance to this dialogue at political level as a means of concluding the Agenda successfully and on schedule.
In the coming weeks we will therefore carry on with this dialogue intensively and in a constructive spirit.
Mr Fischer gave another assurance to that effect in his reply to the letter from your President, Mr Gil-Robles Gil-Delgado.
Dialogue is not a one-way street.
The Council will take account in its decision-making of the positions expressed by the European Parliament during these discussions.
The informal consultation forms part of our endeavour to provide Parliament with comprehensive information at all times, as reflected in our debate today and our offer to hold an exchange of views on Agenda 2000 at any time in an informal political trialogue.
We are well aware that not only the Council but especially you, the Members of the European Parliament, will have an important part to play in resolving the Agenda-related problems in good time.
Our presidency will do all it can to cooperate closely with you on a basis of trust.
Applause
I do not need to remind the President-in-Office of how essential it is to meet the timetable, not only to secure the necessary democratic legitimacy for the Agenda 2000 package but also to allow programmes and policies to be implemented in a timely and effective manner.
We welcome his efforts in this respect.
We, however, need to make progress on our priorities.
Parliament's priorities on the general framework regulation are, in fact, clear.
As regards the modified proposal on the efficiency performance reserve, Parliament must be involved in decisions on the mid-term review and the reallocation of the national reserve.
What role for Parliament can the presidency and the Council envisage to guarantee effective parliamentary scrutiny of the reserve mechanism?
Thirty-four pages of guidelines have been produced by the Commission for the operation of regional programmes. How will these relate to the regulations?
How will they be discussed in the Council? The guidelines underline the vital role of urban areas in the European economy.
Will the presidency demonstrate its commitment to urban areas by arguing in favour of Parliament's priority requiring continuation of the URBAN Community initiative?
The Commission's reform proposal does not contain any contingency plans for unexpected economic and social restructuring in the regions.
Does the presidency agree that it would be wise to set aside some resources under a special Community initiative for unexpected crises to enable the Union to act in such situations? Likewise, is the presidency prepared to promote this priority in the Council.
Finally, partnership is a key priority for Parliament in ensuring that the Europe we build and its policies are genuinely inclusive, supporting a People's Europe.
For this reason, we want a strong partnership pact in both designing, drafting and implementing the new generation of programmes.
Will the presidency back Parliament's demands in the Council for a strengthened partnership pact, and what concrete and practical actions will the presidency take to ensure that partnership is not just an optional extra but an integral component of all programmes, strengthening the cohesion of a People's Europe?
Mr President, having just listened to the presentation by the Council we cannot immediately say that it has provided a great deal of information.
We are in fact very much interested in the Council's own activities concerning enlargement, and in particular how the Council views the state of progress in the negotiations.
Is it the case, as we often read at present and also hear from the various think tanks, that we are already thinking about discussing accession dates for certain countries? There are certain reports to this effect and there is a great deal of optimism, and we have also heard the Foreign Ministers of certain Member States say that it is time to set accession dates.
It has always been the case with the enlargement strategy that both the Commission and the negotiators have said that this would be the wrong approach, that the accession date is a matter for the country itself and not the Commission or the European institutions as such.
The countries themselves must satisfy the rules and conditions for membership and it is our job to encourage progress.
It has always been said that setting dates for certain countries would be an encouragement for them to be rather less energetic in their efforts as it would be seen as a kind of guarantee of membership.
Is there any reason to review that position and now to say it is better to set dates after all?
What would be the reason for this? Do you see any virtue in this?
Secondly, we are seeing that public opinion is changing, and this is affecting the negotiations.
In some applicant countries public opinion is becoming progressively less positive towards membership of the European Union.
It is perhaps also true that in many cases there is a serious lack of knowledge about the Union, as also in the Member States at present.
Is there not good cause for the Council too to encourage a drastic improvement in information on the European Union in the applicant countries?
Mr President, first of all I should like to express my appreciation to the German Presidency for taking the trouble to come here this afternoon in order to explain how far negotiations have progressed.
I am pleased that Mr Verheugen has said that everything is on the table during these negotiations.
I should like to stress that fair burden-sharing is one of the important points in this whole negotiating process, and I believe that this must not be ignored when we talk about support for Europe.
Over recent weeks Parliament has voted on the main points of Agenda 2000.
We voted on structural policy and on agricultural policy.
If my calculations are correct we are planning to spend considerably more than what I read at present in newspaper reports on the Agenda 2000 negotiations.
I believe there is a danger here that we will not reach agreement on the financial perspectives.
If my knowledge of the rules is correct 314 votes are needed, and when I saw the voting pattern on the main points here in Parliament we seemed to be very divided.
I would also warn against assuming in advance that if there is agreement in the Council on drastic spending cuts, Parliament will automatically approve them.
I fear this is not so. We would then fall back on Article 203, which would mean that we would be spending considerably more than the Finance Ministers generally want to see or consider desirable in relation to the launch of the euro and so on.
I am a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and I should also like to say something about agriculture.
I would warn against the general view that everything spent on agriculture is a waste of money.
I am not just saying this because of this morning's demonstration here in Strasbourg.
Too often I hear that half of the European budget goes to 3 % of the population and so on.
I believe we must see this in relation to all tax revenue.
When I look at the tax burden in Europe, approximately 50 % of the gross national product, my calculations tell me that approximately 2 % goes to 5 % of the population.
That is certainly not excessive.
We must of course always ensure that money is not wasted. We must have no more surpluses and keep production within limits.
But we need to keep agricultural management in Europe basically as it is, and I think the German Presidency would do well to try to achieve this..
Mr President-in-Office, you have just said that there would be neither winners nor losers in the general agreement that you hope to develop between now and the Berlin summit.
We saw today that there were many French and German tractors in Strasbourg.
If my information is correct, there will also be many tractors on 22 February in Brussels and these will come from all over the European Union.
We understand the farmers' concerns.
The common agricultural policy is the European Union's main common policy.
They are worried because they cannot subscribe to the Commission's proposals.
Moreover, I am very surprised that Mr Fischler is not on the Commission bench, while two other Commissioners concerned with the Agenda 2000 package are present.
The Commission's proposals are going to bring a drop in prices that will not be fully compensated, but if my information is correct, the Council would favour more moderate reductions in prices but with a reduction in compensatory aid.
I would therefore like you to explain how, when agricultural revenue fell by almost 4 % throughout the European Union in 1998, you will ensure that there are no losers among farmers when the final package is presented. I would like to know what the Council's current thoughts are on this matter.
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that we obviously all agree that reaching agreement on such an important matter as this should not be put off indefinitely.
But I would also say that a good agreement is better than agreement at any price, we should not seek just any agreement but rather a good one, especially since it will remain in force for seven years.
I must also refer to an underlying problem in this area: both in the original Commission proposal and in the proposals that have been discussed in the Council, we have noted the same thing: a lowering of own resources from 1.27 % to 1.13 % in the case of the Commission proposal - entirely to the detriment of the structural funds and actions.
How can that be acceptable?
I should therefore like to ask the Council how it can reconcile this situation with the fundamental principle of economic and social cohesion enshrined in the Treaties. And what can you tell us about own resources, Mr President-in-Office?
Mr President, I welcome the President-in-Office here this afternoon.
Could he tell us, firstly, what pressure he is under from the Finance Ministers to bring about a deal within the financial limits they require? Will he be able in the longer term to bring about a deal under which the European Union will be able to finance the extra support that is required because of the cuts in prices?
Is it not time to face up to reality and accept that this reform as proposed will not work? It will be more expensive to the budget and the consumer will not get any benefit.
The processors and the retailers will eat it all up.
We saw the demonstration here today and know that agriculture throughout Europe is in a serious state.
My problem is that when I go back to my farmers and tell them of 30 % cuts in beef and 15 % cuts in milk they do not understand.
Nor do they want to understand it.
The most recent statistics indicate a 57 % fall in income in my region during 1998.
This is on top of other serious falls in 1996 and 1997.
Turning to the regional aspect, I understand that yesterday in Bonn the President-in-Office met my party leader, David Trimble, First Minister Designate from the Northern Ireland Assembly.
I understand that during that time you had discussions with him on support for Northern Ireland under Objective 1 and our position in the future.
As you will know, politics in Northern Ireland is at a very delicate stage at this moment in time.
Could you tell us if you were able to reassure him, that the Council will be supportive to Northern Ireland in the future? The fact remains that if the Republic of Ireland and border counties achieve Objective 1 status and Northern Ireland does not, that will be unacceptable.
Mr President, the meeting of the ECOFIN Council of 8 February marked the collapse of negotiations on Agenda 2000.
A joint text setting out the financial framework is vital to enable finance ministers to allow their opposite numbers in the agriculture ministries to implement the long-debated reform of the common agricultural policy, but there was no consensus.
The German minister, Mr Lafontaine, went too far and, instead of confining himself to the subject of agricultural spending, structural spending and own resources, sought to widen the debate. The result was disagreement and, in effect, a decision to stabilise spending for the period 2000-2006.
The countries in favour of freezing agricultural spending lined up with the position of the German Presidency, leaving the question of the CAP worryingly unresolved, while outside the Chamber the farmers' anger is becoming a genuine cause for concern, especially as the next few days will see demonstrators from all over Europe joining those who are here today.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I would like to ask four specific questions.
Firstly, are you working on the basis of the Commission's proposal or on the information provided by the Austrian Presidency? Secondly, given that the Union's main objectives are to strengthen the euro and create employment, what resources are being set aside for these in the financial perspective?
Thirdly, as regards the fair distribution of payments, how are you going to remedy the fact that under the agricultural policy, 20 % of farmers receive 80 %of the funds? And finally, as regards enlargement, do you plan to divide up the budget in the areas of agriculture and the Structural Funds in particular, and, if enlargement does not fit in with the Cohesion Fund, to separate regional funding too?
Mr President, I too have noticed that there has been a delay in negotiations in the Council.
If you were to continue at this rate, Mr President-in-Office - and I do not want to level criticism at you personally or at the German Presidency - you are not going to be able to stick to the timetable that you yourself have set.
It is clear that, unlike the Council, the European Parliament after painstaking debate has been able to adopt coherent positions on the issues arising under Agenda 2000.
Back in November last year, Parliament set out its priorities regarding the general framework regulation. Perhaps I may be allowed to mention a few of them.
Firstly, we said that 0.46 % of Community GDP should be made available for structural actions.
I understand the pressure that is exerted by public opinion in the richer Member States. However, we must not forget that the EU budget, despite all the ambitious targets it sets, is currently equivalent to that of Spain.
Secondly, we said that exactly, and not approximately, two thirds of Objective 1 resources should be made available, and that we must stick to the criteria defined by the Commission for including regions under Objective 1, one of which states that only those regions with a per capita GDP which is less than 75 % of Community GDP can be included.
Thirdly, we said that priority status should be given to Interreg, and that there should be a special part relating to cooperation with islands and among island regions.
Fourthly, we opposed the efficiency performance reserve, as originally proposed by the Commission.
Proposals for a smaller reserve of 4 % with national top-ups are a move in the right direction.
I also want to make two points in connection with the Cohesion Fund.
Firstly, Mr President-in-Office, I think that we must respect the Treaty, which provides that Member States with less than 90 % of Community GDP must participate in the Cohesion Fund. Secondly, I would like you to tell me to what extent the positions of Parliament will be taken into consideration, as it is obvious that the European Parliament is not prepared to budge from these positions.
Of course, we will discuss and negotiate, but we cannot adopt stances which are completely out of line with these priorities.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I do not know if the Presidency-in-Office is fully aware of the fact that large sectors of European public opinion currently think of Agenda 2000 as a threat rather than as a necessity or an opportunity.
Nor do I know if the Presidency-in-Office is aware that this is largely due to the way in which Austria, and now Germany, are approaching this issue.
In my view, they are putting an overly unilateral slant on the work and giving too much consideration to the pressure of public opinion within their own countries, rather than taking an overall view of the European Union as they should do.
Clearly, the basic problem, in my view, lies in the fact that the ceiling for own resources is insufficient.
However, it is also true, of course, that the debate has concentrated on expenditure and forgotten about revenue.
There is no doubt that we need an agreement that not only guarantees but also develops the principle of social and economic cohesion, together with the relevant instruments.
We also need to have a proper debate not so much on how to reduce those instruments, but on how to increase the contributions from all the Member States fairly.
For example, what is the Presidency's view of the proposal to include the criterion of relative prosperity in the chapter on revenue? Does the Presidency agree with the French proposal for some form of aggressive measures for the Cohesion Fund, which to my mind would be unacceptable?
Mr President, I have two questions for the Council.
The first concerns the pre-accession aids. Pre-accession aids are to be coordinated in the PHARE committee without, as it seems now, the presence of the applicant countries themselves.
To what extent can this kind of pre-accession strategy be described as being based on partnership?
My second question to the Council concerns the regional policy/Structural Fund component in the EU.
How much importance does the Council assign to the principles of partnership in the Structural Fund regulation, especially the participation of the environmental partners, the participation of the environmental NGOs, the participation of representatives of equal opportunities for women and of the social partners?
Mr President-in-Office, we discovered yesterday evening that we agree to a very wide extent on the pre-accession funds.
Even though the Austrian Presidency already achieved a consensus, that is to say a consensus was already reached during the Austrian Presidency, I do of course have to ask again how far you can still take Parliament's decisions into consideration. We saw positive steps in that direction yesterday, but I believe you should clarify once again whether there is in fact still any chance of movement here.
Let me also say a few words on the Structural Funds.
The current debate that centres on the need to stabilise expenditure and ensure fair burden-sharing is certainly right, but we in the European Union have another task before us which must always be given due consideration: it is the question of job creation.
Here I will take up the cudgels for the Structural Funds and for maintaining these policies as far as possible.
Structural aid is targeted at forward-looking development models and economic sectors which have the potential to create new employment opportunities.
Is the Council aware that we must set this as a priority? Fighting unemployment and creating jobs is in fact the top priority, and this is reflected in Agenda 2000 too, where it is very strongly emphasised.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioners, the President-in-Office said that the choice of Berlin as the seat of the European Council is a symbol of how important the Presidency believes it is to bring Agenda 2000 to a conclusion in time to allow this Parliament to complete its legislative procedures before the European elections.
He pointed out that the final agreement should not have any winners or losers and that Europe must be the only winner.
We agree with that.
But he also said that at this stage there will be no additional budgetary resources, and he stressed, in particular, that the budgetary burden should be more fairly distributed.
Up to now, Mr President-in-Office, none of the proposals that the Presidency has put forward in the Community institutions, be they in official documents or in 'non-papers', appear to look for a compromise to ensure that this burden is fairly distributed between all those involved. Instead, they only appear to consider the decision to reduce Community expenditure, which is beyond any logical justification.
With all due respect, you are planning a reduction in agricultural expenditure of almost EUR 41 770 million - almost EUR 6 000 m per year - and a reduction in Category 2 expenditure of EUR 47 000 m - almost EUR 6 714 m per year - without any justification, in the light of Commission reports on cohesion. This does not seem to reflect a compromise that has no winners or losers.
On the contrary, there clearly are losers: the cohesion countries who will have to bear the burden of enlargement.
I would therefore like to ask the German Presidency the following question: when is the Presidency going to put forward truly balanced proposals for a compromise in which all the Member States will participate, with each country naturally prepared to make allowances that might enable us to reach an agreement when necessary?
Up to now, Mr President-in-Office, there has been little progress in the informal negotiations between Parliament and the Council. Parliament merely sets out its views and the Council takes note of them.
We were in the same situation with the Austrian Presidency, and we have very little time left now to conclude important agreements.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, allow me to link the beginning of your speech with the end.
You said that the main priority was Agenda 2000 and ensuring that it reached a conclusion on time, while, at the same time, you said that you hoped for our cooperation.
I think you should have added something there.
It is not that you hope for our cooperation, but that you need it.
The financial perspective forms part of the Interinstitutional Agreement and, by its very definition, the Interinstitutional Agreement is an agreement between institutions.
Therefore, it is not enough for you to reach an agreement with the members of the Council. You must put forward a proposal that Parliament is satisfied with, and, as Mr Mulder pointed out, it will require 314 votes to be approved.
What proposals can you put forward that might satisfy us? Have you already considered some kind of flexibility mechanism or would you prefer us to apply Article 203?
You cannot call for more Europe in every way and more policies, try to combat unemployment and proceed with enlargement while providing less funds to do so.
I think that a clear proposal is needed here. And in conclusion, I would like to ask whether we are soon going to see signs that social democrats are in the majority in the Council?
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, except for the fact that you once used the term Agriculture Council you have actually succeeded in speaking for 10 minutes without even once really mentioning the reform of agricultural policy; as the agricultural spokesman for my group I do feel a little hurt.
But I will probably manage to stop myself from asking you your views on voluntary set-aside since you will certainly not be able to answer that question.
But there is one thing I would like to know.
I understand from a major German newspaper that as from the year 2002 for field crops, 2004 for beef and 2005 for milk products, the respective compensatory payments will be reduced cumulatively by 3 % a year and that the intention is to reuse only 25 % of these cuts for special agricultural measures, which means that 75 % goes back into the EU budget.
Let me ask you quite plainly: if this 75 % of aid is removed again, then as I see it that will lead to a spectacular increase in the net contributor position of some states. That in turn will produce a further redistribution at the cost of those who already pay a large amount into the EU and get far less back.
I would be grateful if a little more could be said about this issue, at least in relation to Agenda 2000, since it does after all have something to do with agricultural policy.
Mr President, we already had an opportunity yesterday to exchange views with the presidency of the Council on Parliament's demands in relation to the Social Fund.
But who could know better than you, Mr President-in-Office, that political demands can only succeed if they are repeated again and again?
Yesterday you announced that the German Presidency of the Council felt great sympathy for our concerns.
Yet I would like to formally ask you again today whether the German Presidency of the Council is also prepared, where necessary, to actually firmly support these demands in the Council, namely the demands that in future 15 % of Social Fund money is allocated to preventive labour market policies and specific aid measures for women, that people who are already marginalised socially are given an opportunity to work through the Social Fund, that the Member States assume obligations in all five intervention areas and that the target groups are designated centrally, and finally that in future 1 % of Social Fund resources for global subsidies is earmarked for local projects.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, we are aware that this is an important time: we are planning for the next seven years before the beginning of enlargement, which will transform so many things.
The atmosphere surrounding the negotiations does not seem to be particularly optimistic. Instead, there is a vague but nonetheless real feeling of renationalisation.
I only want to make a brief comment on the structural policies.
You said that you believe that solidarity is a key ingredient of the European Union.
Solidarity in structural terms is not something that is easily achieved, but it is something that is, in fact, required by the single market.
Will funding continue to be allocated to the structural policies?
Will the Cohesion Fund be maintained? Are you going to accept the budgetary level of EUR 270 000 million proposed by the Commission, which many Members here consider to be a minimum?
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I hope that you will reply to three questions.
The Commission is proposing, with Parliament's support, that the current Objective 6 regions be incorporated in a new Objective 1 region. There are excellent grounds for this, as the northern geographical situation, with its long distances and the fact that it is so far away from European centres, puts the Objective 6 regions in a much weaker position than many others.
What progress has been made on this in the Council?
There has been much forceful discussion on the issue of employment, not least during the German Presidency; how is this matter viewed in talks on structural policy?
Will greater importance be attached to the issue of employment in the Objectives 1 and 3 criteria?
Border area cooperation is often regarded merely as cooperation which is linked to borders.
Is cross-border inter-regional cooperation now to be developed, with border areas being seen as a broader cooperation issue?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would be happy to answer the questions.
I have noted down 83 questions.
Do I have 83 minutes' speaking time?
No. So I will have to try to summarise the main subject areas and give combined answers.
First, all the questions relating to supposed results are pointless.
So far there are none except for the two I mentioned.
There is agreement on the efficiency reserve and there is agreement on the question of the consistency of national aid regions and EU aid regions.
But these two agreements are also conditional on an overall agreement being reached.
Let me tell you at the outset: before the European Council meeting in Berlin there will be no advance agreements on any of the questions you have raised here, simply because the global package has to be made up of many, many components, components that will bring the individual Member States advantages and disadvantages.
The Member States' assent is bound to depend on the overall balance the package produces for each Member State.
We are talking about a lot of money for the individual states.
Unfortunately, the political majorities in the Council play no part at all here.
During the deliberations each country naturally looks to the needs and interests of its own people and tries to reconcile them with our common European objectives.
I am not counting on us being able to obtain advance results on important individual issues before Berlin because the global package has to balance out the different interests.
Most of the questions in fact suggested that agreement or plans already exist on these issues.
Nor has the German Presidency made any compromise proposal at all at this stage.
After all, our duty as the presidency is not to put all our efforts into pushing through the German point of view; our duty as the presidency is first of all to sound out where the broad lines of a compromise are emerging and then, when the time is ripe, to propose that compromise.
And that is what we will do.
But at present we are still trying to narrow the options.
I gave you a few examples of areas where we can already see majorities and perhaps also consensus beginning to emerge.
But this process is not complete yet on any single important issue.
One Member of this Parliament referred to public opinion in the Member States.
That is something I take very seriously and which the German Presidency also takes very seriously.
Let me just point out to you that public opinion in Europe is not united on these questions.
I am well aware of public opinion in Spain. But public opinion in Germany, for example, is quite the opposite of what it is in Spain.
The same applies elsewhere. So there is no point in telling the presidency about public opinion in a particular country.
We have to concentrate on finding a solution that is acceptable to all and consistent with our European objectives.
Let me confirm quite specifically that one of the objectives of Agenda 2000 - and we treat it as such - is to concentrate available European resources more emphatically on the objective of combating unemployment.
That is one of the key objectives of the whole operation.
The people of Europe see unemployment as the main challenge and expect us to do everything possible to combat it effectively.
Agenda 2000 can make a major contribution towards that.
I also confirm specifically that the Agenda is directly linked to the question of enlargement.
I do not believe that the question of dates is really important at this moment.
In any case there has never been a fixed date for the enlargement process.
Neither the Council nor Parliament, nor the Commission, nor the applicant states ever fixed a date.
Agenda 2000 also establishes the preconditions for enlargement.
If we do not manage to conclude the Agenda by March, that will send out a discouraging signal to the applicant countries.
That is another reason why it is so important for us to conclude the Agenda in good time.
In view of the conditions under which Parliament is meeting today, with farmers and tractors outside on the street, let me point out that agricultural policy forms one component of the global package.
It is not a question of agricultural policy alone.
That policy is a component of it in terms of financial volume, and given the structure of our budgets it is of course the biggest component.
A large majority of Member States are convinced that agricultural policy must also play its part in achieving the overall result, which is to say it must also be reformed, firstly in relation to compatibility with the WTO competition rules and, secondly, in relation to the financing of the European Union after enlargement.
Since the specific question was asked, let me also say quite clearly that the objective of a European agricultural policy cannot and must not be to jeopardise or even destroy farming.
On the contrary, the objective of European agricultural policy must be to preserve farming in all the European regions for the future.
The presidency for its part is convinced that the proposals that are under discussion - after all we are still only at the discussion stage - do not tend in a direction that would allow us to say that farming no longer has a future in Europe.
I can understand that you would like to be able to discuss concrete agreements now.
But that is not possible because, given the negotiating process that is under way, the global package will in fact not be tied up until March.
In cooperation between the presidency and Parliament we opted for a procedure that is now gathering momentum rapidly.
We are meeting more and more often and are also discussing more and more subjects.
We are fully aware that we need Parliament's assent.
During the discussions in various forums the presidency does indeed point out that when the various national positions are put forward, account must be taken of the European Parliament's opinion.
However, I must admit that some Member States take this more seriously than others.
And some people seem to think we can just leave it to the presidency to decide how it will then persuade the European Parliament to agree to the results of the special summit.
In any case we are endeavouring to incorporate as many as possible of Parliament's views in the results of the summit.
That is why I am grateful for all the ideas put forward in this debate in the form of questions.
Let me assure you that we will take account of all these ideas, comments and recommendations in our deliberations.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
The debate is closed.
Mr President, on a point of order.
As a Member of Parliament who has sat through this question-and-answer session, I find it particularly unsatisfactory that, after a lot of statements, the President-in-Office has, in the end, such a short period of time in which to answer about 83 questions.
A much better way to hold this sort of debate, which is vital, is to inject some life into it and apply the Brussels format we use to question the Commission on occasion.
At present, it really does not work!
This is a vital subject for European citizens.
This has been a dead debate, where few Members have been able to ask questions, but even fewer have received answers.
I shall bring your comments to the attention of the Bureau, Mr Teverson.
Situation in Kosovo
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
I give the floor to the President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the contrast could hardly be more glaring.
While you, ladies and gentlemen, are discussing how the Member States of the European Union can live together more unitedly under a common European roof, a few hundred kilometres away, in Rambouillet, the issue being discussed is whether they can live together under any kind of common roof.
That shows the strategic challenge Kosovo represents for the Union.
Here we have the single market and the dismantling of borders, there a policy that still regards national borders as a means of fencing oneself off, as a shield.
In line with good diplomatic practice, it was agreed that the Rambouillet negotiations would be confidential. They are to be held between the parties concerned and not publicly.
So I know no more about them than you, who are well-informed politicians.
That is why at this point I have to confine myself to informing you that as expected the negotiations are proving difficult, that so far both sides are giving no ground at all and that the mediators are currently concentrating on identifying any common areas over and above the differences.
Moreover, progress reports on this kind of negotiations can be very misleading, for the truth is that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
The European Union has a key role to play in the search for peace.
With his preliminary work in Pristina and Belgrade, the EU special envoy, Mr Petritsch, made a crucial contribution to enabling these negotiations to take place at all.
He is now conducting the negotiations in Rambouillet together with his American colleague Mr Hill and his Russian colleague Mr Mayorski.
That is a great challenge and one in which Mr Petritsch deserves our full support.
Incidentally, the fact that the negotiations are being conducted jointly by an American, a Russian and a European shows that the European Union has now acquired a certain ability to act in the field of foreign policy too.
We have certainly not reached our goal, but at least we are on the right road.
The European Union reacted to the conflict in Kosovo at an early stage.
Since spring last year it has gradually established a differentiated system of sanctions in response to the brutal use of force by the Serbian security forces.
At the same time it has allocated a substantial volume of humanitarian aid, amounting of over ECU 45 million in 1998 alone.
The EU has supported the independent media to counter the propaganda from both sides.
It has also provided aid for democratisation and the development of a civil society in Kosovo.
Our political objective was always the same: far-reaching self-government for Kosovo together with maintenance of the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and effective protection of all minority rights.
At its last meeting on 25 January 1999 the General Affairs Council again confirmed the European Union's position.
Let me briefly repeat the key points.
One: the European Union is seeking a political solution.
The use of force, by whichever side, only exacerbates the conflict and inflicts even greater suffering and misery on the people.
Two: in this context the European Union supports the political solution proposed by the Contact Group, which forms the basis of the negotiations in Rambouillet.
Three: the European Union is calling on Belgrade to fulfil in full the undertakings it gave to the OSCE and NATO and to comply with the demands of the UN Security Council.
Four: the perpetrators of the Racak massacre cannot go unpunished.
Their names must be transmitted to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.
Five: the European Union calls on the Kosovo Albanians to fulfil their commitments vis--vis the UN Security Council in full.
It condemns KLA provocations that give added impetus to the spiral of violence.
Six: the European Union supports the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission, which has developed into an important stabilising factor, regardless of all the difficulties it faces, and emphasises that President Milosevic has assumed responsibility for the safety of the mission personnel.
Seven: the European Union is prepared to make its contribution to implementing a negotiated settlement.
That applies also and in particular to reconstruction.
Eight: the people of Kosovo must know that the European Union is prepared to help them along the road to peace.
On 25 January 1999 the General Affairs Council extended the mandate of the former Spanish Prime Minister Felipe González as EU Special Representative for the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia until January 2000.
I want to thank Mr González for his willingness to continue with this difficult job.
At the same time I call on the Belgrade leadership to cooperate with Mr González and to make full use of the opportunities this offers it in relation to the European Union.
Peace and stability in Europe not only demand a successful negotiated settlement in Rambouillet, although that is of course the conditio sine qua non ; peace and stability in Europe also mean that we must regard the conflicts and problems in the former Yugoslavia as a challenge to which we have to find the right, which means the European, answer.
We must strengthen the democratic, pluralist elements in the societies concerned.
We must promote and develop regional cooperation.
We must establish cooperation and pre-accession structures that match up to these countries' European vocation.
Above all, of course, we must establish peace in this region and show how the people of this region can coexist.
The European Union offers its support to that end. However, the responsibility for this lies with the warring parties.
They must realise that nothing is to be gained through force whereas much is to be lost and that there is no realistic alternative to finding a compromise solution at the negotiating table in Rambouillet.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
I now give the floor to Mr van den Broek for the Commission.
Mr President, naturally the European Commission is also pleased that the parties have acted in response to the urgent call to begin peace negotiations in Rambouillet.
Many more efforts will be made to reach an agreement, the presence of the Serbs and Kosovo Albanians in Rambouillet being seen as a sign that they are ready in principle to find a solution.
Pressure must however remain at a maximum if an acceptable and workable result is to be achieved.
As you will know, Foreign Ministers Robin Cook and Hubert Védrine regularly attend in order to help keep the momentum of the negotiations going.
The European Commission is also represented in Rambouillet and is contributing to negotiations on the economic and reconstruction aspects of the draft agreement.
Next weekend there will probably be a further meeting of the Contact Group at ministerial level. The aim will be to appraise the results to date and to discuss what points require extra effort or attention.
For its part, the European Commission is making the necessary preparations for its contribution to the process of reconstruction following a possible agreement.
In December and January a so-called 'damage assessment' was carried out on the Commission's initiative, looking at the damage to houses and the basic infrastructure, although it was not possible to visit all the areas because of the fighting.
Rough estimates currently put the number of homes damaged to some extent at about 30 000. Initial calculations estimate that it will take EUR 330 million to repair them.
The Commission is planning to hold an international donors conference shortly after a peace agreement is reached.
But of course neither this nor reconstruction are possible until there is an agreement and a clear will by the parties involved to live together in peace.
Given this necessary conditionality, the actual reconstruction work can of course only begin when the security situation in the field permits.
It is encouraging to see the growing consensus among the Member States and other countries to support a possible agreement with an international force on the spot.
That will help further guarantee the reconstruction work.
The most important objective of the reconstruction work is of course to allow the thousands of displaced persons and refugees to return to their original homes.
The financial resources made available by the Union for this year are limited.
It will certainly be possible to make a start on reconstruction, but the budget lines available for this, which is in fact the budget line for the reconstruction of the former Yugoslavia, is also needed to pay for the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Commission will return to these matters as soon as we know what the international contribution to the reconstruction work is to be and the time-frame involved.
Humanitarian aid through ECHO, to which the President-in-Office of the Council has already referred, will be granted in the meantime.
We also want the European Union's activities to be very visible, which is only possible by coordinating and presenting all our activities as effectively as possible.
To this end, the Commission's presence in Belgrade and soon also in Pristina must be increased and assured.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, on behalf of my group I certainly support the statements by both the President-in-Office of the Council and the Commissioner.
I believe I may say without any arrogance but with a certain pride that it was my group that kept pointing out that we need both: the offer of talks and the threat of force.
Some people, here in this House too, wanted us to use force sooner; but that would have been wrong.
As is becoming clear, there is still a possibility of achieving what is - I hope - our common aim through talks and mediation.
I do not exclude the possibility of failure, as at any conference, which would then make it all the more necessary to use force.
But the opportunity that now exists really must be used to the full.
The President-in-Office of the Council named names.
I am glad that a European representative is playing a prominent role.
And I take a personal pride here, for before becoming ambassador in Belgrade Wolfgang Petritsch was a colleague of mine and he really is doing a splendid job here, which is much appreciated.
But I am concerned not with personalities but with the matter itself. And that is the importance of having a European Union representative playing the most prominent part here.
Secondly, I consider it just as important that not only the Americans but the Russians too are involved.
People often disregard the fact that we also need to remind Russia and the Russian Government of their responsibility for this continent.
Given that it does have that responsibility, Russia must play its part in finding the solution, to ensure that it is a lasting solution.
On behalf of my group let me also repeat that we are against borders being forcibly redrawn in today's Europe.
If any changes are to be made, they can only be made on the basis of a final consensus, not by force, not unilaterally.
If necessary, troops will have to be deployed, as the Commissioner said, to ensure longer-term security.
I have no illusions about a solution being found overnight and I would ask everyone in this House to remember that it is not just Kosovo that is under threat now, but that the entire region will be under threat unless we find a sensible solution: FYROM, and Albania too.
It is most important for the European Union to urge Albania in particular to listen to the voice of reason and the voice of consensus.
It is important to have Albania as a whole on our side, not a divided and divisive Albania, if we are to achieve a common solution here.
In that sense I fully endorse the statements by the President-in-Office and the Commissioner.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my dear Mr Verheugen, we did nothing about Kosovo in the early days.
We have known what is happening in Kosovo since 1989.
We took no notice; we only took notice when we ourselves triggered the KLA movement.
Those are the facts and anyone who denies them has not been watching the story unfold.
Today we applaud ourselves and pat ourselves on the back for providing so much funding, which we would never have had to provide had everything not been destroyed, had the West intervened sooner.
Our group also supports the Rambouillet negotiations.
And I am glad the Europeans are playing a more important role, but as always, of course, they are too late.
I hope they are not entirely too late, but I believe we should realise that we could have made an earlier start, for instance last October.
Many people would not have died in Racak and elsewhere if we had done in October what we are doing now.
NATO's threat of air strikes must be credibly maintained.
Here I am addressing some Members of this House who are against this.
With the unconstitutional destruction of the autonomous status of Kosovo in 1989 Milosevic set in motion the disintegration of Yugoslavia as a whole, after which he stirred up nationalist resentment with his Kosovo propaganda.
He is now facing the end of his pointless policy of violence against the Kosovo Albanians and will try to extend the 15-day deadline by any means possible.
He does not and cannot want a solution to the Kosovo conflict forced upon him by the West.
For then he would lose all international significance and would finally have to govern his people. And then his political mediocrity and incompetence would very soon become apparent.
The long-overdue prosecution in The Hague would then also become inevitable and our countries would have to produce the evidence in their possession.
So the NATO threat is indispensable.
Should an interim solution be found in Rambouillet, as we hope it will, it would have to be safeguarded by ground forces to protect the Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo.
But even if no solution is found, air strikes alone cannot secure our objectives.
We will need ground forces then too.
We are all hoping to see results, but at the same time we expect the West and NATO to show their steadfast resolve, otherwise we will bear responsibility for throwing away this last chance!
Mr President, I think that this is the time for hope, hope that the negotiations in Rambouillet lead to positive results.
Parliament has often called for effective international action on Kosovo. Unfortunately, it has come too late for those who have already died, those who have lost their homes and their belongings, and those who have become refugees.
Nevertheless, we must support the efforts made and the substance of the plan proposed by the Contact Group.
If we do not want these problems to spill over into other countries, the solution to the conflict must undoubtedly allow Kosovo to enjoy broad autonomy within internationally recognised frontiers.
This is the first thing that must be done.
I think that three very clear points must be taken into consideration.
The first is that we must continue to exert pressure on the parties involved to persuade them to reject the use of violence as a means of achieving their objectives.
Secondly, if NATO is going to carry out military operations, the international High Representative should clearly be European, as is the case in Bosnia where excellent results have been achieved.
Thirdly, as Felipe González has pointed out on many occasions, we must not forget that President Milosevic and the absence of democracy in Serbia are the main causes of these conflicts. If we do not get rid of them, further conflicts are bound to arise in the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is true that the European Union has acted with too little effect and too late.
But the difficulty is and remains that if the Council is divided no unanimous action is possible.
Parliament was also divided in its opinions.
So let us not condemn others when we are facing the same difficulties ourselves.
I believe it is a good start that work is now being done towards a political solution.
The whole question is whether or not the present offer of extensive autonomy - comparable to that of Montenegro - will be sufficiently convincing for the Albanians after all that has happened and after the radicalisation which has taken place within the various movements there.
My question remains: what about the big stick?
There is always agreement that pressure must be kept up, and I share that view, but how can we apply pressure on the KLA to honour its commitments? It is not only the Serbs who fail to keep their promises.
The KLA is also guilty of this, as we have seen.
We therefore believe that a solution must be sought in a common approach to the whole of the southern region of eastern Europe.
Mr President, I would like to begin with a question to the Council. I would be grateful if you could tell me whether or not Rambouillet was a European Union initiative or a Franco-British initiative, as I did not quite understand this point.
Having said that, I will now follow on with what our colleague Mr Carnero was saying.
The Serbs, that is, the Serbian people, are the ones that have been forgotten in Rambouillet.
Once again, Europe, and the Council in particular, is counting on Mr Milosevic.
I believe that Milosevic is part of the solution, as he clearly represents the problem, and I do not have bleak doubts like Mrs Aelvoet, who wonders whether or not the KLA is going to respect its promises.
We are dealing with a man, Mr Milosevic, who has shown himself to be an expert in this field.
I think that these are fundamental issues.
The Council tells us that it will apply pressure to put an end to this situation and to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice. We therefore also need to know if it will analyse the statements in the press, which are communications between the operational units in Kosovo and the leaders in Belgrade, in order to show that the chain of command does not stop in the working-class areas of Kosovo, but that it goes directly to Belgrade.
I hope that we will thus go straight to Milosevic, and that Europe will adopt a clear policy on this issue, because it is obvious that the criminals - those who committed these acts - received very clear orders from Belgrade.
The deputy attorney general of the court in The Hague was saying nothing less than this when he said that it was time for the member countries, including some of the Member States of the European Union, to pass on the evidence in their possession that proves that the chain of command goes from the villages of Kosovo right to Belgrade, right to the heart of power in Belgrade, right to Milosevic.
It is time that this was done and I would ask the Council to respond to this point.
Mr President, history teaches us that it is hard to tell who is good or bad or cruel or kind in the Balkans.
Likewise, historical accuracy requires us to recognise that, for the Serbs, Kosovo is their original homeland, just as Israel is for the Israelis.
If anyone wonders why intervention in the Kosovan tragedy has come so late, I would cynically suggest that it probably suits some people to destroy and then rebuild.
All the same, we welcome the attempt to resolve the conflict through diplomatic negotiation guaranteed by the international institutions. Yet we cannot deny that the European Union's role is too weak and it hardly amounts to a common foreign policy when some Member States take a view of the Balkan question which is the complete opposite of the position of other Member States, including their view of history.
The complex Balkan question has its roots deep in time, in the history of these people, and in their traditions and cultures.
There is one incontrovertible fact which must never be forgotten in trying to find a way out of the present tragic situation. The integration of the two civilisations - Muslim and Orthodox - is becoming impossible because the nature of each is so strong and the two cultures so diverse.
So the aim must be coexistence. That is becoming vital unless we want to see the current conflict perpetuated - and where there is conflict there is also violence, ethnic cleansing, genocide, abuses and violations of human rights.
Europe can no longer tolerate such an explosive situation, rooted more in ethnic than geopolitical considerations, continuing to develop on its doorstep.
That is why we believe that coexistence, respecting the different values and cultures, must be the goal.
This kind of conflict cannot be resolved by war, nor can the Belgrade Government restore peace to the region by arming the police.
But the Kosovans cannot be allowed to use the profits from drug-dealing to buy arms to perpetuate the war.
Uprooting people from their land and the land of their fathers, where their identity is rooted, will always be a source of new tragedies and future conflict.
The best way to ensure peace is to find means of making coexistence possible, with guarantees for both parties.
So we think the most appropriate political and institutional solution would be the widest possible autonomy for Kosovo within a constitutional framework which guarantees it, backed by the international institutions and the European Union.
In turn, Europe can and must contribute to economic development in the region and become, both for the Serbian people and for the people of Kosovo, a reference point for a peaceful and balanced Federation.
Mr President, despite the intensive effort by the international community, acts of violence remain the rule in Kosovo.
The OSCE observer mission is not having the desired effect.
The dreadful massacre in Racak on 15 January marked a new low point in the conflict between the Kosovo Albanians and the Serbs, and it ended the uneasy cease-fire which was imposed in November.
It is not only the Serbian forces but also the KLA, which is proving increasingly effective in its guerrilla tactics, which are responsible for this daily violence.
As a result, several thousand people have again been forced to flee their homes.
There is and was good cause for the international community to be more active in its intervention.
Brutal violence, the ethnic cleansing of the civilian population and the destabilisation of Yugoslavia must be stopped.
Those who commit all these crimes must also be brought to justice.
My group strongly supports the Contact Group and the proposed draft peace plan, with a transition period in order to establish substantial autonomy for the Kosovo region. This is a precondition which my group has always supported.
The talks in Rambouillet are a final attempt to arrive at a workable solution without military action by NATO.
Parliament also therefore supports NATO's preparations for intervention as a way of applying pressure in order to ensure a successful outcome to the negotiations.
I would add that it is also important for us to prepare to send troops as part of the implementation of any agreement.
During the talks pressure is being applied to the Serbs and to the Kosovo Albanians to agree on a solution to the conflict.
In order to prevent the Rambouillet talks from playing into the hands of the KLA, it has quite rightly been made clear to the Kosovo Albanians that the only way of having a NATO peacekeeping force in the area is for them to make genuine efforts to reach complete agreement with the Serbs on interim autonomy for Kosovo within the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
It was in March last year that the conflict broke out in full force.
That is nearly a year ago.
It is time all the parties to the conflict reached agreement.
We therefore also call on the European Union and its Member States to play a clear and active role in ending this conflict.
We should like to express our support for the action of the British and French Governments and also express our appreciation for the efforts of the German Presidency.
As the European Union we are taking the lead.
Let us continue to do so.
I say again: this is not about Kosovo's past but its future, and the future of the people who live there.
It is not a question of being right but of being put in the right.
Mr President-in-Office, there is no question of breaking the confidentiality of the Rambouillet meeting, the negotiations were obviously secret. But perhaps you could tell us a bit more because, having heard that a start has been made but it is an uphill task and there are difficult issues, we do still need to know that, if Rambouillet fails, there is a fall-back plan for resolving the problem and dealing with the aftermath.
As has been said, we cannot rely solely on the parties involved acting responsibly; that would mean Europe's policy had failed again.
The Commissioner mentioned the idea of a peace-keeping force possibly being stationed in the area. But the broader and more important question the German Presidency needs to confront is the creation, at last, of a general framework for the whole of the former Yugoslavia.
Fires are being lit even now in Macedonia.
The newspapers say nationalist tension is breaking out again in Brisco between Muslims and Serbs, and the situation is heating up. The European Union as a whole needs to succeed in implementing a policy across the whole area.
What guidelines are there, beyond mere emergency intervention, beyond mere stopgap solutions to a difficult situation? What general guidelines does the European Union intend to pursue to establish a genuine peace process for the whole area?
That is the question, and we hope that Germany will be in a position to launch the debate on this issue.
Mr President, like Mr Bianco we too would have preferred to have had answers from the Minister and the Commissioner to the questions raised and the reservations expressed by many people about the opening of these negotiations.
Naturally, everyone in this Chamber hopes Rambouillet will succeed in defusing the Kosovo time-bomb, but plenty of people in this same Chamber can see in the political-military approach some alarmingly counter-productive factors liable to make that bomb explode, with an inevitable chain reaction of associated flare-ups.
The threat of military intervention - assuming it can make either party to the conflict less intransigent, which is not necessarily true - would prove counter-productive once it ceased to be a threat.
NATO aircraft would be KLA aircraft to all intents and purposes and would also involve the prospect of an intervention force.
Such a force could only be commanded by the OSCE, with a NATO component and a UN mandate, and it should obviously include men and resources from the Russian Federation.
And then there is the problem of Albania, which continues to provide a means of transit for massive arms supplies to the rebels.
But the stress should be on diplomatic, political and economic pressure, and the imminent deadlines that were rashly imposed on the Rambouillet negotiations should be extended to leave no alternative unexplored which might eventually be acceptable to the two parties involved.
Mr President, I have to say by way of prologue how refreshing it is to hear a government minister admit he does not know any more about a situation than we do.
I welcome the statement by the President-in-Office.
We have to recognise that, although frequently in these debates about Kosovo it is all doom and gloom for Parliament, tremendous progress has been made, and two points in particular should be reinforced.
The fact we have negotiations now is largely due to European Union leadership.
At long last we are taking effective action and I congratulate the German presidency on the progress made, and indeed the British Foreign Secretary and French Foreign Minister also.
Secondly, as the Socialist Group has always demanded, we have managed to keep the Contact Group together and, indeed, have now got Russia actively engaged in pursuing peace.
This is very important and we must not do anything to undermine the cohesion of the Contact Group.
Of course the background of the NATO military threat has been absolutely essential, as we in the Socialist Group have always insisted.
Clearly our next great challenge will be if these negotiations drag on.
We have set a timetable.
Inevitably negotiations go on beyond a timetable but we clearly must not be sucked into the kind of manoeuvring we have seen in the past with one side or the other deliberating dragging on negotiations for much too long.
We must be clear that we are ready at literally 24 hours' notice to carry out the threats that NATO has made to bomb Yugoslavia if it is not prepared to reach appropriate conclusions in the negotiations.
We must be clear that we are not going to commit ground troops until there is a political settlement.
We should not send one soldier from the European Union or from NATO to risk his life unless we, as politicians, have delivered a political settlement.
In doing this, we must put particular pressure on the KLA.
It has been very easy for the KLA to provoke the Serbian forces into inappropriate responses in order to win international sympathy.
We must make it clear to the KLA that they can gain only if there is a political agreement which will give them a large degree of autonomy.
Only then will we as a European Parliament sanction the sort of reconstruction effort that Commissioner van den Broek has indicated.
We have to ensure that, in condemning the Serbian side, we are equally tough on the Albanian side and do not, out of sympathy for one side or the other, provoke a worse situation than exists at the moment.
Finally, we must, I think, as Mr Wiersma has said, avoid the trap of constantly reciting history in this dispute.
We have to look forward to a system of government that would allow the Balkans finally to be at peace, enabling economic reconstruction to go ahead and prosperity to be built for the future.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, we thought of having this debate after the Racak massacre, but I do not really think we can make a major contribution today, with the Rambouillet Conference still going on.
All the speeches we have heard have been interesting, but it is difficult for us to speak at a stage which is quite properly secret, as you said, Mr President.
But not everything needs to be kept secret.
Of course secrecy is right at diplomatic conferences but, for instance, the Council and the Commission could help the European public understand who is helping the combatants when fighting breaks out. Why do we always have to wait two, three, four, or even five years?
Why do we only find out who is supplying the weapons by reading about it in the newspapers? Why do we not improve prevention, given that informing the public is a means of prevention?
Having said that, I support the work the presidency has done. I think it is important for the European Union to take the initiative and demonstrate to the public that it has a greater political role than it had in the past, even though our humanitarian role, our aid for democratic development and our support for the growth of civil society remain the priorities.
These are all extremely important, but they do not add up to actual political weight.
I do not want to condemn the European Union entirely, of course, because I think its role is on an upward curve.
But the point I want to make is the same one as I made last time we debated the situation in Kosovo.
We are not dealing with a great area of peace, serenity, tranquillity, progress and economic development which just has one rather serious recurring problem of inter-ethnic conflict.
No, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, we are looking at a part of a larger problem.
The strategic limitation of our operations - and I mean the operations of the European Union, the United States, Russia and all the other countries involved - is that we persist in looking at one piece of the mosaic, and forget that even if we were to succeed in finding a solution to the Kosovo problem, there would still be the Balkan question.
That is the point.
We need a Rambouillet which lasts for years, involving far more players. We need a standing conference with Albania, Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia and Bulgaria participating.
I know that is very difficult, but we should be looking at the whole Balkan scenario, because the situation will not be resolved even if - and we hope it happens as soon as possible - a solution can be found for Kosovo.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want briefly to address three aspects that were brought up during this important debate.
First: what can the European Union actually do? We should realise that we have neither the political nor the material capacity to resolve the Kosovo conflict by ourselves.
It was necessary for various institutions, namely the Contact Group, the European Union, the OSCE, NATO and the United Nations, to work together in close coordination, which they managed to do, by using their great political prestige and all their energy, and that is a special achievement.
Five different international levels had to be coordinated.
That was the only way to create the necessary political, legal and military conditions for this initiative.
And in fact all this was achieved in less than ten days.
Mrs Pack rightly asked why nothing was done earlier.
The question should really be handed back to her, because the government I represent here was not in office at the time.
But I would have liked to see an earlier German Government ...
Heckling by Mrs Pack
Yes, it was a German Government!
I would have liked to see it put forward this initiative.
So I do not know why it did not, but we are now in the present time.
It has happened now because, as it turned out, the agreement the American special envoy Mr Holbrooke reached with Milosevic last autumn did not hold up because Milosevic did not keep to it.
Let me make it quite clear again: the European Union was not in a position by itself even to provide the necessary military backup, to build up a credible military threat.
It does not have a single soldier it could have used as a threat.
So we should not just keep saying that the European Union has simply gone on making mistakes in Kosovo.
You must realise that it is not exactly an easy task to get these institutions to work together, to keep the Russians and Americans in the same boat, to make the Contact Group effective.
I could also make a few comments on the difficulties in the Security Council, on the need to gain Russia's support; but most of that has already been addressed.
The second point I wanted to make is this: once an interim agreement has been reached, which is of course what Rambouillet is all about, it needs military backup.
What I am talking about is the military backup for an agreed settlement. I am not talking about military intervention against the will of the warring parties.
That is an entirely different matter.
What we are seeking is an agreement now in Rambouillet, which would initially be a three-year interim agreement.
During that period it will certainly need the military backup of a SFOR-type operation.
A number of European states have already declared themselves willing to make ground forces available to that end, including the UK and Germany, but others too; so it is highly probable that we can set up a sufficiently large and also robust operation.
We must use the time between the Rambouillet agreement that we hope to reach and the expiry of the interim period to prepare a Balkan conference that will do what several speakers have called for, namely look at the overall picture and finally move away from a policy that focuses only on one issue and forgets that all these individual issues are interrelated.
It is the presidency's intention - and this forms part of the EU initiative that the UK, France and Germany jointly put forward - that we work towards that conference with the aim of establishing stability, security and cooperation throughout the Balkan region. That is a very, very ambitious project.
We will only achieve it - and this is my third point - if we can define a clear and convincing strategic perspective for that part of Europe.
I said this morning during the discussions I held with the Council of Europe on behalf of the presidency and I repeat it again: the situation we are facing is a confrontation between two different concepts of Europe.
This Chamber here represents the Europe of the 21st century, the Europe of integration, of peace, of democracy, of human rights and therefore also, in the final analysis, of man's prosperity and personal welfare.
The Europe we see before us in Kosovo, in Bosnia and sadly also in other parts of Europe remains imprisoned in the atavistic attitudes of the 19th century.
We must make it clear to those people that they have the choice of joining the modern, forward-looking Europe of integration, or remain imprisoned in the conflicts, the blinkered attitudes, the nationalism of the 19th century, which can only result in misery, oppression and the loss of human lives.
But we must at least make it clear to them that they have this choice.
That means we must also be willing to offer the prospect of integration into Europe, and do so with all the institutions and instruments available to us.
It is certainly a very long-term prospect. I am speaking not of years but quite certainly of decades.
But even the longest journey requires a first step. The time has come for us to take this step.
I am in fact confident; and as for all the business about secrecy in Rambouillet, well, those happen to be the rules.
You know that and it would be naive to believe that we could have genuine negotiating results, interim results so early on, or that, if there were any, we could present them here.
But let me put it this way: the fact that the delegations are still talking, that they have come in the first place, that there was no game-playing at the outset - for example, we won't sit in the same room, or so-and-so cannot participate, or we will only talk under such-and-such conditions - the fact that the negotiations have been going on since Sunday does suggest that the participants are looking to achieve results.
In a few days' time the Contact Group will present its evaluation of the results so far; then it will be time to decide the further procedure.
I would definitely contradict the speaker who protested because the negotiations were being put under such time pressure.
A major component of the chosen strategy is to put the warring parties under the strongest possible pressure, which includes the pressure of time.
I firmly believe that a negotiating approach that allowed the warring parties to play for time would fail.
So there is a certain element of pressure, and it is very strong.
You must remember that they were not prepared to come to the negotiating table in the first place; they only did so in response to a very strong and severe threat and ultimatum issued by the international community.
Part of it was that the negotiations must produce results within a given time frame, which was deliberately made very short.
In summary I want to say that we Europeans may now have shown an improved ability to act in foreign and security policy.
Mr Swoboda was right to say that it is an initiative in which the European Union has played a prominent role, which shows what we can achieve if we are creative and use our imagination.
Mr President-in-Office, may I cordially ask you not to forget that when you come here you are not a German minister, but the President-in-Office of the Council who speaks for the Council. I have always spoken my mind to the gentlemen of the Council - and apart from once they have always been gentlemen - of whatever political persuasion they happen to be, without regard for party politics.
If I have a complaint to make against the Council, I will do so, and you are now representing the Council for six months.
Next time it will be a Finn, and I will not treat him with kid gloves any more than I do you.
You are here not as a German minister, but as President-in-Office of the Council, so please do not be so touchy and do tell your people back home that we are not attacking the Germans here, but the presidency!
Mr President, speaking as an Italian, and since you referred to the countries involved in the problems of the Balkans, I just want to say that, as well as France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Austria and Italy are also involved and they are crucial countries in the area.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
OCTs, ACP countries and remote regions (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0036/99) by Mr Aldo, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on relations between the Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs), the ACP States and the ultraperipheral regions (UPRs) of the the European Union.
Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mr Aldo, on behalf of the Socialist Group, on producing a brilliant report for the Committee on Development and Cooperation, a report he pressed for and felt very strongly about.
In today's debate we are looking at an issue that is important for the development of territories which are very diverse in terms of legal status and levels of development, but which at least share a geographic location. Overseas countries and territories, ACP countries and ultraperipheral regions do in fact differ and the Union has rightly established a range of instruments for them.
To be frank, I am not entirely convinced by everything in Mr Aldo's report.
But I think we must support its basic political message, which is the need to deepen relations between the three different groups through intensive decentralised cooperation, with a view to achieving harmonious territorial development.
The report essentially deals with the outlook for the ultraperipheral regions and OCTs, and that is what the European Parliament is expressing its opinion on today.
But I do think it is absolutely vital to involve the countries of the Caribbean and the Pacific fully, to listen to their ideas and their requests and make sure that any initiative is in their interests too.
The full involvement of all interested parties in the consultation and decision-making process is very important.
The report also deals with issues relating to commercial regimes.
Here it is essential to proceed with great caution, because even recently difficulties have arisen from abuses of the special rules relating to OCTs.
The aim of encouraging the commercial integration of UPRs, OCTs and ACP countries is undoubtedly laudable, but its implementation must respect the special position of the ACP countries and take place in the context of the definition of new, broader rules linked to the new post-Lomé Convention, the new GSP, the CAP reform and the WTO rules.
At the same time, the interests of all European farmers must be taken into account in the context of the common organisations of various markets.
As a whole, however, this own-initiative report sends an important and positive message. Closer external cooperation and more refined instruments will mean that even those territories of the Union which are geographically most marginal can find new roles and embark on new development paths, which will also benefit neighbouring developing countries.
That is an important message, and it has our full backing.
It is the reason our group will vote for the whole report as approved in committee, although we still think some specific points need further study.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion, the report by our colleague Mr Aldo is a significant text.
It is significant due to way in which it was prepared, because it affirms the natural desire of the regions, countries and territories concerned to establish regional partnerships. It is also significant because of the proposals that it puts forward.
During a fascinating meeting, the Committee on Development and Cooperation listened to representatives from the overseas regions and overseas countries and territories.
That was a new experience, but it was a fundamental moment in Parliament's understanding of the problems, needs and plans of Europeans from other corners of the globe.
Such a dialogue was necessary and must be continued in as many contexts as possible.
Indeed, the report makes proposals in this respect and we support them.
As I said a moment ago, this report affirms the natural desire of the ultraperipheral regions and the overseas countries and territories to establish regional partnerships.
This is obviously extremely important for them, for their development and for their future. However, it is also, and perhaps above all, essential for the Union, because the Union will be involved in each of these partnerships, adding a particularly important dimension to its cooperation with the ACP countries.
To some extent, this is recognition and affirmation of the Union's global dimension, of its economic role, but also, and above all, of its political importance.
We should not only accept these partnerships; rather, we should support them and help them to develop.
In order to achieve this, the rapporteur makes several proposals.
In the time I have available, I would like to mention just one of these: the establishment of devolved units of the Commission in the ultraperipheral regions and the establishment of offices or contact points in the overseas countries and territories.
This suggestion comes, notably, from local elected representatives in an ultraperipheral region, and I would thank the rapporteur sincerely for having included it in his text, thereby giving it weight and strength. However, this suggestion must not just be wishful thinking.
If Parliament adopts it tomorrow, we will have to closely monitor its implementation.
Little by little, it will become an essential element of the cooperation between the Union and the ACP countries and we will have to pay particular attention to this.
Mr President, the committee adopted this report by a large majority and I think it is the result of lengthy discussions.
It describes the pressures on island regions that are remote and isolated from the economic centre of the Union.
It points out that there are three different kinds of subregions, which must be consulted, must be involved in the decision-making; and here I believe the reference to new ACP negotiations is important.
The reference to trade, to the generalised system of preferences and to the need for a coherent policy is one of the key points of this report and a key to the future negotiations.
We should support the concrete demands set out in relation to telecommunications, research and development, education and training and the prevention of natural disasters.
I believe we all agree on the need for regional integration.
However, the use of the term 'Caribbean Europe' on page 11 of the report reflects both the problems that exist but also, in my view, a problem we have been carrying around with us since colonial days.
Would it not make sense to consider these three subregions together, to give them independence, to link them into a regional association through a new treaty and to help them in that endeavour, so that we can finally be through with this episode of old colonial history? That is a thought and an idea worth considering, because I find this demand, and the very term 'Caribbean Europe', quite incomprehensible!
I am in Europe, I am in this economic area, I am in this trade area, which we want to shape and control democratically.
And the people of other regions want the same.
Do we not want to support regional developments? Our resolve for the future should be to pursue this idea further!
Mr President, on my own behalf, on behalf of Mrs Taubira, who has been detained due to threats of various demonstrations, and on behalf of my group, I would like to express our total support for the particularly relevant initiative by our colleague Blaise Aldo. He is finally proposing that we take a global and consistent view of the regional relations of the ACP countries, the ultraperipheral regions of the Union and the associated OCTs.
As regards the OCTs - and particularly the one I know best, the territorial collectivity of Mayotte - I agree entirely with the analyses made by Mr Aldo and by Mr Castagnède, the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy. They highlighted the lack of legal precision, the economic inconsistency and the social injustice of the situation created in the OCTs by the European Union.
Mr Aldo tells us that they are the poor relations of the European Union.
He is absolutely right. He could have highlighted the paradox that exists in that when it comes to the European Union's internal solidarity, the OCTs are not rich enough to be with the rich, and when it comes to the Union's external solidarity, they are not poor enough to be with the poor.
I would like to take a few examples from Mayotte of the inconsistency of our situation.
Mayotte, for example, is not part of the European Union, but it votes in European elections.
In order to develop, Mayotte needs stable and sound legal rules.
Community law does not apply there, either directly, or automatically through a process of incorporation into national law.
It is applied at the whim of the instructions for implementation which are a feature of the special legislative system.
We are also told about economic development through local production, but Mayotte - which is already at a disadvantage due to its limited market, the fact that it is an island and the cost of labour - is penalised by the rule of non-reciprocity of the preferential arrangements granted to the ACP countries in its region.
Finally, I would like to mention one last example. Mayotte imports everything from the European Union, but the only sources of tax it has are those that involve penalising its own imports with customs duties.
This is why I believe that the only solution for the OCTs - and I would ask my colleagues to make a clear distinction between the OCTs and the overseas departments - is to totally rewrite Article 227(3) of the Treaty. This would allow them to assert their full membership of Europe and, particularly through local decisions, to bring the wealth of their diversity and their particular characteristics to the European Union.
Mr President, the June Movement can only applaud the fact that the Committee on Development has taken the initiative to produce a report investigating the connections between the Overseas Countries and Territories, the ACP States in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and the ultraperipheral regions of the European Union.
It is important that the projects supported by the EU in these areas are coordinated, and that the EU takes more account of them in its own policies.
There is an advantage in promoting decentralised and regional cooperation among the OCTs themselves and with the ACP States, because this can help promote their development.
It is therefore important to enter into a dialogue and to develop an equal partnership which respects each of the partners' characteristics.
We neither can nor should sit in Strasbourg and dictate what this cooperation should be aimed at.
In the first place, that is unworthy.
Secondly, the countries themselves naturally have the best understanding of the local conditions.
However, as the Committee of the Regions points out, we can encourage cooperation financially in areas such as research and development, technology transfer, education and culture, the improvement of sea and air connections, environmental protection and access to information technology.
And we should also ensure in the negotiations on international trade that we maintain the trading privileges enjoyed by the OCTS and the ACP States.
In that way, we shall also promote the thing on which all our discussion of development should be focused, namely the fight against poverty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must congratulate our colleague Blaise Aldo on the outstanding work he has done. It is a mark of his realism, his wisdom, and also what I would call a healthy empiricism, and these are all qualities that, in general, are rarely evident in this House.
However, this is only a report and I believe that it shows the fruit of his work and his considerations.
I also believe that it clearly demonstrates other political currents and forces, and I would like to share some of my reservations with you.
In principle, we cannot accept the risk of a drift towards the progressive assimilation of our overseas departments and territories into the ACP countries.
This is a considerable risk and it becomes evident when we read between the lines.
For us, and I would like to clarify this for the French people that we represent, our overseas departments, our overseas territories - Réunion, Mayotte, the West Indies, New Caledonia, Polynesia and Guyana - are French territory just as much as our departments in Metropolitan France.
We are aware of their particular characteristics and we constantly stress the need for national solidarity in order to face the challenges of their remoteness, their demography and their economic situation.
I would also like to say that I listened very closely to what was said by our colleague Mr Hory. He knows a great deal about the situation, and his remarks were entirely relevant and sensible.
For example, unemployment is very high in Réunion and in the West Indies. Therefore, we should not devote our efforts to integrating unlimited numbers of immigrants.
Indeed, the volume of such immigration is becoming unbearable and more and more tragic, and it also affects our department of Guyana. Nor should we try to overcome the effects of losing the connection with one's roots, the failure to adapt and the refusal to assimilate, or the effects of the presence of communities that want to be increasingly dominant and overpowering.
Instead, we should fully exercise solidarity with our overseas departments and territories.
We wish to see a different Europe and a different system of cooperation with the ACP countries, although I cannot expand on this in the context of these proposals. However, we are not questioning the specific proposals that our colleague Mr Aldo rightly sets out in his report, such as those on fisheries.
We would like to say that this is a good report.
Nevertheless, we do have certain concerns, based on our sense of national interest and the interests of our overseas departments and territories. It is therefore with a certain amount of regret that we abstain on this report, pending further consideration.
Mr President, I think that we must begin by clarifying what the actual aim of the Aldo report is.
It does not try to define the status of those regions of the European Union that are outside the European continent. Their status has already been defined.
The ultraperipheral regions form part of the Community territory and have equal rights.
The citizens of those regions, including myself and Mr Aldo, are therefore voters and can be elected representatives within the European Union. We live in regions that are situated far from the continental heart of Europe but we are members of the European Union in the same way as any Community citizen.
The only difference is that we live further away.
There is clearly a certain ambiguity as regards the British, French, Dutch and Danish overseas countries and territories, as some of these regions still seem to be evolving. Nonetheless, they too are still territories of the European Union.
The ACP countries are independent and are sovereign states.
No-one is trying to regulate their status or to assimilate them.
On the other hand, the Canary Islands - where I am from - clearly form part of the European Union and will continue to do so as they have been a part of Spain since the fifteenth century.
The purpose of the Aldo report is to use the European Union's potential in these far-off regions to help to promote one of the EU's aims, namely development aid.
The ultraperipheral regions - and perhaps to a greater extent the overseas countries and territories - have a relatively low standard of living compared with the Community average, although it is still much higher than that of the ACP countries.
The proposals in the Aldo report are aimed at establishing a relationship, and this is of particular importance for the region where Mr Aldo himself lives, the Caribbean. The geographical distribution there rather affects the situation and the status of each of the regions.
I believe that these are positive proposals, as Mr Vecchi said.
They probably need to be examined in more depth, but the fact that the Commission is using these regions as platforms for development aid operations is a positive step. This is a way of promoting a certain degree of integration between those regions and their less developed neighbours.
This report by Mr Aldo is an own-initiative report and is clearly not binding. The Commission could therefore use some of the points and proposals made by Mr Aldo as a basis for specific proposals that would allow both the ultraperipheral regions and the overseas countries and territories to play a serious role in its work to support development aid in the rest of the world.
In this respect, I believe that we should welcome this excellent report by Mr Aldo. For me, it represents at least the beginning of one aspect of the Community's action in the area of development aid.
Mr President, the debate on the report by Blaise Aldo has the merit of being politically expedient.
The ACP countries have often shown their support for an increase in regional cooperation in the fields of politics, economics, trade and culture. This was particularly evident last spring during the meeting of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly in Mauritius.
The European overseas territories are increasingly calling for greater consideration so that they can participate in a developing world with a globalised economy.
We must remember one basic fact: the overseas territories are not territories of the Union, but their inhabitants are Community citizens and we must never forget about them.
The Union's ultraperipheral regions enjoy a specific status, which has been incorporated into the Treaty of Amsterdam as primary Union law. If they are capable of making the most of their geographical situation, they will be able to play a role in the future development of the Union's relations with ACP countries, for example, within the framework of Interreg.
There are many examples of interregional cooperation, including Réunion in the southern Indian Ocean, the French overseas departments in the Caribbean and the cooperation between the Canary Islands and certain countries in western Africa.
These cases demonstrate the possibilities offered by cooperation; we cannot ignore them. Three weeks ago, the general secretariat of the ACP Chamber of Commerce met in the Canary Islands with a view to establishing its headquarters there.
This is just one of the many examples of cooperation.
For these and other reasons, we are going to vote in favour of the Aldo report.
The Commission is aware of all the points we have made. I would therefore like to end by asking the Commission for its opinion - given the absence of a legal basis - on how we could bring all these elements together so that three different entities might be able to cooperate and help each other.
Mr President, the Committee on Development and Cooperation welcomed this own-initiative report on relations between the overseas countries and territories, the ACP countries and the ultraperipheral regions of the European Union.
Blaise Aldo, the rapporteur, has completed a significant report, and I congratulate him on his bold conclusions.
Mr Aldo has shown us that we had a duty towards these regions.
They are strong in their originality and in their diverse cultures, identities and statuses. They are true representatives of the European Union in the world, as they are also outposts in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic and the Pacific, and they embody the European model in their values of democracy and freedom.
Moreover, our cultural and historical links with them mean that we must support and cooperate closely with them.
Despite our trade agreements and our specific programmes, we had never succeeded in holding a global discussion on the future of these regions and on their relations with the ACP countries.
At a time when the Union is engaging in a threefold process of renewing and renegotiating the Lomé Conventions, it was fitting to review its association with the OCTs and to implement a form of adapted integration with the ultraperipheral regions.
I believe that the discussion led by Blaise Aldo comes just in time, as it is becoming essential for the European Union to promote harmonious economic and social development in these regions and to help them to integrate into the international and commercial system and face global competition.
With this in mind, I would just like to highlight three points from the Aldo report.
The first is its political dimension, with the establishment of a forum for dialogue between the European Union and the OCTs.
The second is its economic dimension, with the establishment of a European Fund for developing economic and social projects. And the last point is the establishment of representative offices of the European Union and contact points to promote training and information projects for individuals or whole populations.
I naturally support the rapporteur's proposal to maintain the current trade arrangements, in other words, free access for products from the OCTs, under conditions that would not harm the interests of the ACP countries.
To conclude, I believe that the Commission should pay a great deal of attention to the Aldo report, so that this document might result in specific proposals.
Mr President, when I look at the globe and consider the regions we are discussing, it almost makes me feel dizzy to think about the problems around the world that we are tackling from here in Europe.
First and foremost we have special obligations towards the ACP states.
The rapporteur, whom I congratulate on his work, pointed out in his explanatory statement that developments in these regions, in the OCTs, are not particularly positive, in spite of favourable conditions.
I do not know whether we are taking the right approach to changing this situation.
On the one hand he proposes a range of administrative measures, on the other a range of financial measures.
I would like to see more emphasis put on the regional approach to which some previous speakers have repeatedly referred.
For I believe that is where the best chances lie for development, that we must exclude the long-distance approach from the outset and focus more on cooperation within these regions.
Although I am a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation I still have a few problems with some of the paragraphs and sections of the report.
First there is the question of enhanced Union citizenship which it discusses; but that is after all tied to very definite conditions.
Then there is the question of a special fund under the Community budget. Here I fear that we would to some extent be restricting ourselves, tying ourselves down and losing flexibility.
Thirdly, there is the idea of setting up offices or contact points in all these countries, which I also see as an added administrative burden without any obvious benefits.
Mr President, I too would like to stress the importance of the Blaise Aldo report, for which I thank him.
He is right to call for attention to be paid to these regions which have just been described, and he looks, among other things, at the issues of trade and equal treatment with the ACP countries.
As regards the funds, I also have questions like those raised earlier by other speakers such as Mrs Günther.
But I am not yet convinced that this is the best solution.
It is also striking that it is largely the French who are conducting this debate and, unfortunately, I find that I am the only Dutch person to speak on the subject, despite the fact that the Netherlands Antilles are also concerned.
It is very noticeable too that there are no Englishmen present, yet they also have overseas regions. There are two kinds of overseas regions.
There are the Overseas Departments and there are Overseas Territories.
The Overseas Departments are exclusively French.
We say in the Netherlands that the Overseas Territories are a sort of poor relation in that they are treated rather differently, and it is on this that there is now a major conflict again.
This sometimes results in bizarre situations.
The Netherlands Antilles, for example, have Sint Maarten, while the French have Saint Martin.
That is simply the other side of the island.
On our side there is the airport, while the French side is European territory.
It is amazing that no graduate student in the Netherlands or France has written a thesis on what this means for Europe's border controls and the like.
Finally, Mr President, I believe that we must also look at the treatment of the Overseas Territories in relation to the Overseas Departments.
If these Overseas Departments have such a special status, what does that mean for the Overseas Territories? I should like to know whether in the future as a follow-up to the Aldo report - which I repeat is very important - the Commission will also turn its attention to this matter.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am standing in for Mr Mendes Bota who is unable to be with us.
The possibility of a new tripartite regional set-up - with closer economic, social and political links between overseas countries and territories, the ACP countries and the ultraperipheral regions of the European Union - could not have come at a better moment.
Mr Aldo's report opens up new avenues towards a new type of development aid, a new model that differs considerably from traditional aid, as provided for until now in the Lomé Convention, the old EDF or in bilateral agreements between rich countries and developing countries.
At present there is a dangerous decline in world solidarity.
In 1997 state aid and private credits in the OECD countries earmarked for cooperation fell by 41 billion dollars, to 324 billion, the lowest level for a decade.
We need to reverse that trend and these regional and sub-regional partnerships could prove to be an investment with a visible return for all interested parties.
The institutionalisation of the OCTs and the ultraperipheral regions of the EU as special partners under the Lomé Convention, particularly by including them in the new Joint Assembly, deserves a warm welcome from us.
By the same token, we also support, overall, the very diverse range of proposals and ideas contained in the draft legislative resolution in this report.
With special reference to the ultraperipheral regions of Madeira, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Réunion, Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana, we should stress that they are not only furthermost frontier of the Union but also genuine strategic centres for strengthening trade relations with various regions around the world, as well as local beacons of democracy and freedom in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The European Union should set up delegations in those regions with decentralised powers to coordinate support actions as part of the regional cooperation debated here today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I want to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Aldo, on his excellent work and the impassioned way he has imparted his own experience in this report.
There are certainly parts of the world where ACP states, overseas countries and territories of Member States of the Union, and ultraperipheral regions which are an integral part of the European Union coexist in one region.
The Third Lomé Convention, covering 1984-89, first introduced the idea of strengthening cooperation between these three groups with differing status.
Now, in parallel with the negotiations for the Fifth Lomé Convention, which opened on 30 September 1998 between the European Union and the ACP group, and the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, the future of the ultraperipheral regions and overseas countries and territories will begin to be considered.
Undoubtedly we need to take a keen interest in these territories and distinguish them carefully.
One point the rapporteur highlights, and which I particularly want to stress, is the fundamental importance of disaster prevention. This has also been stressed by the group on climate change for the small island states, which I chair in the Joint ACP-EU Assembly, because these territories are particularly vulnerable and need our assistance, especially as the activities vital both to their economies and to social welfare principally develop along the coastal strip.
Mr Aldo has looked at these problems in great detail and I think he should be strongly supported, especially as a report along these lines is to be approved at the next Joint Assembly.
Mr President, my colleague João de Deus Pinheiro deeply regrets that he is unable to address you this afternoon.
I am very honoured to replace him in the debate on this matter, as the Commission welcomes the work that has been done by your Committee on Development and Cooperation, thanks, in particular, to its dynamic rapporteur, Mr Aldo. It also welcomes the work carried out by the committees that were consulted for an opinion and their draftsmen, Mr Castagnède and Mr Souchet.
This work resulted in an own-initiative report that is very detailed due to the wide range of subjects it covers, including financial, trade, humanitarian and geopolitical issues. It is also complex due to the various types of status to which it refers: the ultraperipheral regions of the Union, the four overseas departments, the Canaries, the Azores and Madeira, the 20 countries and territories associated with the European Community, and the ACP states, with which the Union is currently negotiating a future partnership agreement.
I would like to add that this is a bold own-initiative report, and I think that that is the best compliment that can be given to Members.
It often goes very far in asserting certain concepts that have yet to be realised.
Examples of these are the decision to do away with the unanimous procedure governing the association of the OCTs, Article 136 of the Treaty, or the establishment of free trade areas in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean, involving ACP countries, overseas territories and overseas departments.
Other examples include the establishment of a special fund for the development of the OCTs, to be included in the budget, and the plan to give a voice to the OCTs through some sort of involvement in the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
Elaborating your ideas, coming up with revolutionary concepts and drawing up daring proposals are the most important contributions your institution can make to help the Commission and the Council.
The Commission, for its part, has also entered into extensive discussions on the 20 OCTs.
The results of this will be submitted to Parliament, through its Committee on Development and Cooperation at its meeting in April.
The Commission plans to consult local leaders on the results of its discussions.
The ideas taken up in your own-initiative report will be very useful to the local representatives involved during these consultations.
Finally, they will also be of great use to the Commission as it will have to draw up proposals following these various consultations.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Coffee and chicory extracts
The next item is the report (A4-0054/99) by Mr Lannoye, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to coffee extracts and chicory extracts (C4-0023/99-96/0117(COD)).
Mr President, I hope my presentation will be sufficiently brief to allow us to settle this matter.
Parliament has been called upon to give its opinion on the joint plan, approved by the Conciliation Committee, for a directive on coffee and chicory extracts.
I would like to point out that this is one of seven proposals on food products.
Along with coffee extracts, chocolate, honey, fruit juices, jams, tinned milk and sugar were originally the subjects of a joint debate that took place in October 1997.
However, these were separate proposals for directives that were naturally inspired by the same idea of simplification in order to facilitate trade. But those seven proposals had varying results.
Only the one that we are discussing today managed to come this far.
The political and technical obstacles, as well as the differences in opinion between the institutions - the Council, the Commission and Parliament - have, in my view, been overcome to the complete satisfaction of Parliament.
Indeed, after a Council common position in which Parliament's three amendments were rejected due to an unfavourable opinion from the Commission, Parliament then confirmed the amendments at second reading. That was in September.
Two months later, the Council rejected the amendments again, which meant that the Conciliation Committee was convened.
What do the amendments involve? Two of them - one a recital, the other an article - aimed to keep the principle of limitation of the range of nominal weights available on the market in the directive.
That appears to be a technical matter.
In fact, it is a little more than a technical matter.
The purpose is, in fact, to prevent any confusion for consumers and unfair competition for producers.
Needless to say, these amendments were widely supported both by consumers' associations and by producers' associations, which is unusual.
The third amendment related to the method of analysis of the free and total carbohydrate content, for which the European Parliament wished to apply Standard ISO 11292 of February 1997, which is the most modern method available.
At technical meetings and in a tri-partite meeting between the Council, the Commission, Ken Collins, chairman of the Committee on the Environment, and myself, it became apparent that the disagreement was not a political one, and was based more on methodology than on substance.
We therefore gave our agreement to a compromise, which was endorsed in the Conciliation Committee in December 1998. This compromise alters the common position of the Council by first of all introducing a new recital into the text.
This recital announces a Commission initiative, to be introduced before 1 July 2000, that aims to introduce a range of nominal weights for coffee and chicory products in horizontal directive 80/232 on weight ranges.
Parliament's aim is thus clearly achieved by a different method, but what matters is that we achieve the same result.
Secondly, paragraph 1 of the annex to the directive includes a clear reference to the methods of analysis of the carbohydrate content which allows the use of the most modern methods, but without making the text rigid by limiting it to a particular method.
Here, the Commission's concerns, which we found to be legitimate, were taken into consideration.
I will conclude by saying that the political balance of this conciliation is, in my opinion, entirely satisfactory.
Moreover, it has been unanimously approved by the Committee on the Environment, and I feel that it is essential that Parliament votes in favour of it.
I therefore call on the House to support this report.
Mr President, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur on his work on a subject which he has presented so clearly.
This has become a rather technical dossier in which it is hard to see the wood for the trees, but it nevertheless deals with a subject which is of concern to people in their everyday lives, namely their cup of coffee, or at least what appears to be coffee.
People rightly expect us to also take these matters seriously and deal with them thoroughly, which is what has happened in this case.
At second reading we adopted a number of amendments with which the Council did not immediately agree, but in the end conciliation has produced a good result.
Everything finally went so smoothly that the official Conciliation Committee became no more than a formality.
The PPE fully approved the present result in the Conciliation Committee, and we will also of course do the same here in the plenary.
I would just like to add that I hope that progress will also be made on the other six proposals to which the rapporteur has referred in principle, including chocolate, and also the other points in the package originally submitted to us, and that here too we will ultimately arrive at a satisfactory result.
I would like to know whether the Commissioner has any idea of the timing.
When can we expect something, Commissioner? Then we will have a better idea for planning our own work.
Mr President, I just want to make two comments.
First, I want to congratulate the rapporteur and also Mr Collins on the very good result they have achieved.
We have an excellent compromise that really can be supported in all good conscience.
Secondly, in the case of chocolate, it depends upon whether the Council can make up its mind to adopt a sensible position.
That is not entirely out of the question, although we will have to wait and see.
Thirdly, this is the shortest speech I have made so far!
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0020/99).
Question No 1 by Roy Perry (H-1253/98) Subject: Media ownership concentration
Does the German Presidency plan to address the ramifications of increasing media ownership concentration, in particular when this leads to dominance in other economic spheres, i.e. sport?
I should like to welcome Mr Verheugen and ask him to reply to Mr Perry's question.
Mr President, Mr Perry, let me preface my answer to your question with the following. As President may I specifically state on behalf of the Council that it attaches the utmost value to protecting freedom of expression, of which the freedom of the media is one of the most important factors.
The Council is profoundly convinced that freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democracy and of the other individual freedoms, as stated 50 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
That is why the Member States and the Community check very carefully, within their sphere of responsibility, that access to the media is assured in all areas of society, taking account of the variety of political and religious convictions.
As regards consulting the Council on questions of media ownership concentration, let me point out that to date the Commission has not submitted any proposal on the subject to the Council.
Of course the Council would consider any such proposal in detail.
In this connection, let me draw the honourable Member's attention to the fact that the question of concentrations between undertakings comes under the Community's competition law, specifically in this case Council Regulation (EEC) No 4064/89 of 21 December 1989 on the control of concentrations between undertakings.
Responsibility for applying that regulation lies with the Commission.
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his response.
I, of course, like all democrats, totally share the views expressed about the necessity of a free press in democratic societies.
The problem I am seeking to address in this question is that concentration of media ownership sometimes causes problems with freedom of the press, particularly when that concentration of ownership stretches beyond just ownership of newspapers and into other economic fields.
Many European citizens are concerned when they see, for example, the takeover of Manchester United by BSkyB, the extension of the ability of broadcasters to strike deals with particular football clubs and the proposals for a European Super League.
All this could be challenging the freedom of sport to operate as it has up to now.
I would like to think that when a report comes from the Commission the Council will address that issue.
Mr Perry, I fully sympathise with your concern.
But let me point out again that this matter comes under competition law.
We have definite legal bases for this within the European Union and the Commission is responsible for applying this law and implementing the regulations.
This matter has to be dealt with in the Commission and that is the appropriate procedure.
Let me repeat that the Council is prepared to consider the matter if the Commission puts the appropriate proposal before it.
Question No 2 by Hans Lindqvist (H-1254/98) Subject: Depopulation of the Swedish countryside
Not since the 1960s has there been greater depopulation of the Swedish countryside.
The population has declined in some 210 of the 280 municipalities in Sweden, mainly in inland central and northern Sweden.
Membership of the EU was to have strengthened regional policy so that the country as a whole could be developed.
The reality has turned out to be different.
The present trend is unacceptable.
Can the Council hold out any hope for those regions in Sweden which are now severely affected by depopulation? Will the approximately SEK 4 billion refund on Sweden's annual membership fee of SEK 21 billion increase or decrease in the future?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Lindqvist's question.
Mr Lindqvist, the Council is aware of the problem of depopulation, especially in certain parts of the Union, and has always attached great importance to measures to maintain a viable population structure in rural areas.
As for aspects related to the reform of the common agricultural policy, during the deliberations on the Agenda 2000 proposals the Council envisages formulating a European agricultural model that will have to be further developed in the future, namely the model of a multi-functional, sustainable, competitive agriculture that exists throughout the Community, which means also in regions that have the kind of specific problems to which you refer in your question.
The Council acknowledges that rural development policy has a fundamental role to play in endeavouring to make use of every means of preserving viable rural structures throughout the European Union.
Under EU regional policy Sweden currently receives structural aid for its least populated regions.
Until 31 December 1999 the Structural Funds, the financial instrument for fisheries guidance and the European Investment Bank will each continue to make their respective contribution to achieving a priority objective, which is called Objective 6.
That objective is to promote the development and structural adjustment of very sparsely populated regions.
As is also provided in the second recital of Protocol No 6 of the Swedish Act of Accession, these rules are currently being reviewed in the context of the Commission's proposals on reforming the Structural Funds.
For the period from 2000 to 2006 the Commission proposes continuing the fund aid for Objective 6 regions under Objective 1.
As for the progress of discussions within the Council, I can tell you, Mr Lindqvist, that in addition to this Commission proposal there is another one from the Member States, on which no decision has yet been taken.
It proposes that the existing Objective 6 be retained and the aid measures continued.
This will be decided on in the context of the global package of Agenda 2000, on which I reported to you during this afternoon's debate.
Thank you for that reply.
Today's demonstration by French farmers in support of their livelihood and their very survival provides a graphic example of the situation in this part of Europe.
The same problems exist in Sweden, particularly in the north of the country.
Three or four farms close down every day.
It is the small farms with 15 to 20 cows whose owners are forced to give up and move to the cities, above all to Stockholm, Malmö and Göteborg.
There has not been such a dramatic migration away from the inland communities since the 1960s.
Of the 279 local authorities that exist in Sweden, 211 - all of them in the interior of the country - have lost part of their population.
I have a supplementary question concerning Objective 6.
Could the Council provide more information on whether Sweden and Finland are to remain as Objective 6 regions, and will the Objective 6 criteria be included in the new framework for Objective 1? I would appreciate an answer to this question.
Mr Lindqvist, we are fully aware of the problem.
I myself was informed of it in detail by the Swedish Government in Stockholm last Sunday. Let me repeat that in addition to the Commission proposal there is another one that will be decided upon.
Only when it has been decided what funds will be available in future for structural aid in sparsely populated areas, and not just, as you rightly said, in Sweden and Finland, but also in other parts of the Union, can the decision be taken on the concrete shape of such a programme.
Will the President-in-Office assure Parliament that it will be able to have full details of every subsidy from the agricultural funds, so that we can do something about the fact that 80 % of the farmers receive 20 % of the subsidies, while 20 % of the farmers receive 80 % of the subsidies from the EU, and about the fact that these 20 % together receive less in income than we as consumers and taxpayers pay in subsidies, i.e. that a large amount of money disappears somewhere between the two?
Mr Bonde, I do not think I need tell you how the present system of the EU common agricultural policy came into being and how it has developed.
It is based on decisions that were taken in years gone by. At this moment we are about to embark on a reform of European agricultural policy that is aimed at making agriculture in Europe more competitive, more productive, more sustainable and more ecologically acceptable.
The Commission's proposals to that effect are on the table and what I have just said holds true here: within the Council, the Member States have very different ideas about the final shape of the reform of agricultural policy.
Some Member States even think we should not make any changes at all.
I am expecting the Agriculture Council, which will be meeting from 22 to 24 February, to give us the first insight into the agriculture ministers' view of the future of European agricultural policy.
It is too soon to do so today.
I cannot answer this question today because the relevant decisions have not yet been taken.
I appreciate that the President-in-Office cannot anticipate the outcome of the structural fund reforms, but would he draw the attention of the other members of the Council to the fact that there is serious concern in this House that the Commission proposal for Objective I - namely applying the strict criterion of 75 % of GDP is unfair to some regions of this Community.
On the regional question, if you take the Highlands and Islands of my own country, Scotland, you will find that it is a very rural area in danger of greater depopulation.
At over 75 % it would seem to be the very sort of area that we should be defending in this reform.
Yet if we stick to the Commission's strict 75 % it will lose out.
Mr Martin, I am happy to do what you say and draw the Council's attention to this fact.
You will not be surprised if I say that one Member State has already done so and is doing so very insistently, which means that the Council is very well aware of this problem.
I must add, however, that the deliberations to date show that a broad majority within the Council is in favour of an extremely strict application of the 75 % criterion for Objective 1 regions.
That is partly because there are of course also a number of areas that come just below that threshold and a few that are just above it.
The trend as I see it at present is to continue to apply this criterion strictly.
But the Council is fully aware of the problem.
I will see to it that Parliament's and your concerns are taken into account during the further deliberations.
We should now be taking Questions Nos 3 and 4 together, but as the author is not present, Question No 4 lapses.
Question No 3 by Christine Oddy (H-0001/99) Subject: Amnesty International and the European Union's human rights policy
Is the Council of Ministers aware that Amnesty International has marked the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the publication of a report on EU human rights policy? What steps is the Council of Ministers taking to evaluate this report with a view to using its main recommendations to flesh out EU human rights policy?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Oddy's question.
Mr President, Ms Oddy, the Council attaches great importance to the human rights activities of non-governmental organisations.
It pays great attention to the NGOs' opinions and recommendations and seeks contacts and exchanges of experience with them.
The same applies to the question of fleshing out the European Union's human rights policy.
In that respect let me point out that in December 1998 the then presidency of the Council distributed the Amnesty International report referred to by Ms Oddy to the CFSP Working Party on Human Rights.
The Council agrees with Amnesty International on the importance of seeking constantly to further improve EU human rights policy.
In that endeavour, the Council will also pay attention to Amnesty International's proposals.
The Council would refer you to the declaration published on 10 December 1998 on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was subsequently confirmed by the European Council.
The declaration of 10 December contains a range of operative proposals and the Council will be discussing their formulation in the coming months.
On 25 January 1999 the General Affairs Council confirmed this.
The follow-up to the operative proposals in the declaration of 10 December 1998 forms an important part of the presidency's work programme.
It includes the question of an annual EU report on human rights.
The work programme also gives high priority to the endeavours to gain recognition of the EU's positions on human rights policy in relation to specific countries and issues in the framework of the United Nations.
That includes the important questions of the reform of the UN human rights mechanisms and preparations for the world racism conference.
As I have been war-wounded getting here and fallen over I shall expect a better answer than I got from the Commission yesterday.
I should like to know about the EU code of conduct on arms sales.
I should like to know whether a common list of military equipment is adopted in that code, how many licences have been refused and what progress the Council and Member States are making in this area?
As I said, I shall expect a better answer than I got yesterday, which was dreadful.
No I cannot and, above all, I will not do so, for major reasons of principle.
I cannot see that this supplementary has any relevance at all to the original question that was put.
The presidency could not be prepared for this question.
I am not about to give you an answer on such a sensitive matter off the top of my head, so to speak.
I am quite willing to give you a written answer.
But, as I said, I cannot see that the supplementary has any relevance to the actual question.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Mrs Oddy, you cannot come back on that again.
You are well aware that during Question Time, you can only have the floor once.
Mr Verheugen has offered to respond to you in writing.
You will therefore be able to have your question answered by him in that way, as he has promised.
However, in accordance with the Rules, I must now continue with the next question.
Question No 5 by James Provan (H-0004/99) Subject: Humanitarian aid to the Russian people
In the resolution on humanitarian aid to the Russian people, adopted by Parliament on 19 November 1998 , attention was drawn to the outbreak of tuberculosis in Russian prisons, where up to 15 % of the prison population are carriers of the disease.
Will the Council instruct the Commission to propose an action plan to combat the danger that Russian carriers of tuberculosis might infect other sectors of the Russian population, neighbouring peoples and, sooner or later, European Union citizens?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Provan's question.
Mr President, at its meeting in Vienna the European Council reaffirmed the EU's solidarity with Russia and its people during the current economic crisis.
For that reason, on 17 December 1998 the Council adopted a comprehensive programme to supply agricultural produce to Russia.
Since 1991, ECHO has spent ECU 50 m on humanitarian aid for Russia.
A sum of ECU 4.8 m remains from the allocation for 1998.
After checking where the people were in greatest need, it was decided to concentrate on trying to resolve the problem of tuberculosis, especially in the prisons.
The Commission and the Council therefore entirely share the concerns expressed in the European Parliament's resolution of 19 November 1998 and the concerns voiced by Mr Provan.
With the new outbreaks of tuberculosis in the developing countries, prisons became the main breeding ground for this disease.
Russia has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world, 1 % of the total population.
Russian prisons are overcrowded.
In many penal institutions up to 10 % of inmates are infected.
That is why the Commission decided to use the lion's share of the ECU 4.8 m remaining from the 1998 budget, namely ECU 4.24 m, for projects to stem the tide of tuberculosis.
As you know, the ECHO aid is dealt with by NGOs in the EU, the United Nations agencies and international humanitarian organisations.
Thank you very much President-in-Office of the Council for a very full reply.
I am concerned about tuberculosis and I am glad to know that the Council is making a major proportion of the funding available to that end, because it could be a serious problem.
Regarding the other aspects of agricultural products that might be going to the Russian people at the present time, I believe that part of the programme is going to allow the food aid that is sent there to be sold on the local market at existing market prices.
The main problem, however, is that the people do not have the funds to pay for it.
There is insufficient funding in the economy at the present time, and that is a major problem.
What assurances can the Council therefore give us that any produce that is sent from the European Union to Russia will in fact find its way to the actual people who need help?
Mr Provan, you have addressed a very grave problem and one which the Council in fact considered at length during a very serious debate.
Indeed we are facing the dilemma of on the one hand recognising a humanitarian obligation and wanting to help, while on the other we know that in the country we want to help we come up against structures that often stand in the way of achieving the purpose of the aid.
The Council has therefore laid down a political guideline for the Commission, to the effect that when these products are supplied to Russia, it must be ensured that they do indeed reach those who are in greatest need, that this does not disrupt any remaining food supply structures that still work and that it helps promote a viable policy for securing future food supplies to the people.
That was the Council's intention.
It has proved extremely difficult to apply these political conditions in relation to practical aid.
That is why I am persuaded that the Council will have to look into this whole issue again at once.
Question No 6 by Giorgos Dimitrakopoulos (H-0006/99) Subject: Security in Cyprus
Given that the EU, and some Member States in particular, had raised objections to the initial plan of the Cyprus Government to site a surface-to-air missile system, consisting of S-300 missiles, on the island and subsequently congratulated it on its decision to cancel the plan, how does the Council feel that Cyprus should improve its security?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Dimitrakopoulos's question.
Mr Dimitrakopoulos, in the European Union's view, the way for Cyprus to improve its security is to continue seeking a political solution to the problem of the division of the island.
Here Cyprus can continue to count on the full support of the European Union and of the entire international community.
The European Union takes the view that there are already far too many weapons in Cyprus, producing a real risk that each new build-up of weapons on one side will immediately be matched by the other side, which will lead to less rather than more security.
For this reason the European Union welcomed the decision by President Clerides, which Mr Dimitrakopoulos mentioned, not to site S-300 missiles on the island of Cyprus.
That decision sent out an important signal about reducing the excessive number of weapons in Cyprus and the European Union hopes both sides will take further steps in that direction.
The decision not to site those missiles has removed one of the sources of tension on the island.
The Council believes this can promote progress towards a just and lasting solution to the Cyprus conflict.
The European Union strongly endorsed UN Security Council Resolutions 1217 and 1218 and fully supports the ongoing efforts of the UN Secretary-General's Deputy Special Representative for Cyprus.
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply. There are two additional points I would like to make.
Firstly, the President-in-Office talked about further measures which could be taken by both sides.
Bearing in mind what has been said so far and the statements that have been made, what kind of measures does the Council expect to come from the Turkish side?
Secondly, is there any prosect of Cyprus becoming a member of NATO when it joins the European Union, in order to solve the security problem? Or at least is there any prospect of deploying a NATO force on Cyprus which will enable the Turkish and other armed forces to leave the island?
Mr Dimitrakopoulos, the Council's principal demand to the Turkish side in Cyprus is that it should finally be willing to take part in the accession negotiations.
As you know, the European Union's political strategy here is to start the accession negotiations with Cyprus, in the hope that they can act as a catalyst to help resolve the political problem and in the end indeed resolve it.
So far this hope has not been fulfilled, but we still make the same very clear demand to the Turkish side to take part in the negotiations.
In any case, of course, we call on the Turkish side to keep a low military profile and to help defuse the situation by taking steps towards disarmament.
I cannot tell you anything about the possibility of Cyprus joining NATO, or about deliberations within NATO on the potential membership of Cyprus, since I represent the presidency of the European Union and not the NATO Council.
Mr Sánchez-Neyra, the Council has not deliberated the matter to which you refer.
Nevertheless I can provide you with some information.
The Council reaffirms the position it adopted in regard to the agreements reached at the EU-USA summit in London in May 1998.
At that time the Council said that for legal reasons and reasons of principle it firmly rejected secondary boycotts and laws with extraterritorial and retroactive effect.
The Council welcomes the new measures taken by the US Government.
But even if they reflect a more flexible attitude on the part of the US towards Cuba, the Council regrets that the American embargo on Cuba remains in place.
Such actions are not the best means of promoting democracy and respect for human rights.
The Council still believes it right to seek a dialogue with Cuba, as we stated in the common position of December 1969, and to support a process of peaceful transition to a pluralist democracy, together with respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and sustained economic recovery in Cuba.
The EU still regards the implementation of the agreements of the EU-USA London summit of 18 May 1998 as a priority.
But in spite of the efforts of the US Government, to date there is still not the kind of progress that would lead the USA to radically review its sanctions policy.
I would like to thank the presidency for its assessment of these measures and to put a supplementary question.
You are aware, Mr President-in-Office, that it was agreed at the Transatlantic Summit between Commissioner Brittan and the Clinton administration that the European Union was to withdraw the complaint it had filed with the World Trade Organisation. As you know, one of the other agreements was that the United States would amend Title IV of the Helms-Burton Act.
When speaking before Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Mr Brittan confirmed in response to a question I put to him that if the United States Congress did not amend Title IV, the complaint might perhaps be lodged once again with the World Trade Organisation.
Does the Council share this view? If so - and I will end here, Mr President - when would the deadline be?
Yes, Mr Sánchez-Neyra, the presidency does share the Commission's view on this question.
I cannot tell you anything about time-frames at this point because the Council has not taken a decision on this.
I personally think it should happen at the time of the EU-USA summit in June this year at the latest.
Mr President-in-Office, thank you for the information you have provided. However, I would like to give you some new information which was received this week by a group of Members from all the political groups who form the intergroup against the blockade affecting Cuba, and, of course, against the Helms-Burton Act, which is exacerbating the situation still further.
During a meeting, the Cuban authorities showed us a letter from farmers in the United States who are putting pressure on Mr Clinton to allow them to sell directly to small Cuban firms or relatives of Cubans in Miami, within the context of the recent flexibility measures introduced by the United States Government.
Mr President-in-Office, you have just said that the situation will have to be assessed in June. I would ask you to bear in mind that the paradox might arise that North American farmers are able to sell to Cubans without any problems, while Europeans continue to find it very difficult to trade and conduct a normal relationship with Cuba because of the Helms-Burton Act and the blockade, which, as you know, is illegal and contravenes United Nations resolutions.
Mrs González Álvarez, I am extremely grateful to you for that information and would in fact be most obliged to you if you could, as you say, put the relevant documents at the Council's disposal so that it can take account of them in the appropriate decision-making processes.
I would not like to make any political assessment at this moment, before actually seeing the documents.
I am sure you will understand that.
But this course of events you have just described ought also to be considered at the EU-USA summit in June at the latest.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Questions Nos 8, 9 and 10 will not be taken because the subject to which they refer is included on the agenda of this part-session.
Question No 11 by Esko Seppänen (H-0016/99) Subject: Wassenaar Arrangement
At the beginning of December it was decided that cryptographical goods should also be subject to the Wassenaar Arrangement.
The EU is not a party to that Arrangement, but plans are now afoot for the EU to adopt a Directive on the subject.
What are the Council's grounds for not allowing free trade in cryptographical goods, and does the Wassenaar decision accord with the WTO Agreement?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Seppänen's question.
Mr President, Mr Seppänen, under the Wassenaar Arrangement, cryptographical goods always were subject to export controls.
At their plenary meeting on 2 and 3 December 1998, the 33 contracting states of the Wassenaar Arrangement merely decided to review the rules on export controls for encryption techniques; these are known as cryptographical goods.
The aim was to relax the export controls and ensure that cryptographical restrictions did not become entrenched.
Those contracting states that are also EU Member States were particularly concerned to avoid any rules that would further restrict free trade.
It is true that the European Union as such is not a contracting party to the Wassenaar Arrangement.
At present there is an integrated system in which the Council, the Commission and the Member States exercise their respective responsibilities, with a view to protecting the Member States' fundamental security interests and fulfilling their international obligations.
The Council is currently preparing to implement the Wassenaar decisions.
To this end it will amend Council Decision 94/942/CFSP and adjust the list of dual-use goods subject to export controls pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 3381/94, which is the dual-use regulation in question.
The Council hopes the revised list can enter into force on 1 April 1999.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, did I understand correctly that you mentioned a decision taken at a meeting on 2 and 3 December 1998 at the plenary meeting of the states participating in the Wassenaar Arrangement to ease trade restrictions in respect of cryptographical goods?
If you did, you are wrong. The licensing process was made much tighter at that time, and the Member States of the European Union went along with demands mainly from the United States to make the prevention of espionage more difficult.
Cryptographical goods are used specifically for protection against Echelon and other spying activities carried out by the USA.
Was I right in thinking that you said the trade in cryptographical goods has become less restricted, and do you think that this licensing arrangement for trade in cryptographical goods is generally in line with WTO regulations?
Mr President, yes Mr Seppänen, you understood me correctly.
Let me repeat: at the plenary meeting on 2 and 3 December the Wassenaar contracting states decided to review the export control rules on encryption techniques.
So these are the cryptographical goods you mentioned.
Under the new rules the export controls have been relaxed.
And that was precisely the aim of the EU Member States, namely to prevent cryptographical restrictions from being entrenched in these new rules.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Mr Seppänen, you cannot speak twice during Question Time.
Moreover, your speech is not being interpreted. It is therefore impossible to continue with this discussion.
Mr Rübig wishes to put a supplementary question.
Mr President, I wanted to ask about the quantity and quality of these systems in the future.
Has the Council carried out any analyses?
Mr President, Mr Rübig, I am genuinely sorry I cannot answer this very specialised question offhand.
I will have to give you a written answer.
Mr Rübig will await your response in writing.
Mrs Ahern, at last year's conference of the contracting parties to the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic - the OSPAR agreement - held in Lisbon, the OSPAR Commission adopted a strategy on radioactive material, in the form of a political declaration.
The goal of that strategy is to prevent the pollution of the marine environment from ionising radiation.
This is to be achieved through the continuous and substantial reduction of discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive material with the aim of keeping their environmental concentration close to the background values for naturally occurring radioactive material and keeping them virtually nil for man-made radioactive material.
In pursuing this aim, account was also to be taken of the legitimate uses of the sea, technical feasibility and the radiological effects on man and organisms.
By the year 2020 discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive material are to be reduced to a level where any concentration increases above the already existing concentrations are virtually nil.
The OSPAR working party on radioactive material that is responsible for implementing this declaration met in Dublin from 19 to 22 January 1999.
The contracting parties agreed to report by autumn 1999 on the measures they had respectively planned to reduce discharges, emissions and losses of radioactive material.
The Council wishes to point out that the question raised by Mr Fitzsimons primarily concerns bilateral relations between two Member States of the European Union and therefore falls within their terms of reference.
At the same time the Council would specifically remind him that the nuclear plant he referred to is subject to the Community's legal provisions relating to health protection, in particular Directive 96/29/Euratom, which lays down stricter standards for the protection of workers and the general public against ionising radiation.
The presidency-in-office of the Council can also inform you that the German Government is currently holding intensive negotiations with the UK on the continued operation of the Sellafield reprocessing plant.
I will be happy to report to you on this at a later date, once these talks are concluded.
I would like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council if he thinks that fuel reprocessing at Sellafield can possibly be compatible with the commitment to reduce emissions to zero, or virtually nil as he puts it? I note what he says about the intensive bilateral negotiations currently taking place between Germany and the UK and, indeed, I believe France over emissions.
Since 1994 significant increased emissions have been documented from THORP, and this cannot possibly be compatible with the commitment to reduce emissions to zero.
While I am very pleased to hear about these intensive negotiations, I would also like to make the comment that, according to recent scientific journals, there is no question of compensation being paid.
Mrs Ahern, in your supplementary you have linked two entirely different matters, which really have nothing to do with each other.
The current talks between the German and UK Governments on Sellafield have nothing to do with the decisions OSPAR took in Lisbon.
They are two entirely different matters. There is no link between them.
I do not have any way of judging to what extent the operation of the plant to which you refer is or is not compatible with the provisions.
As I said, this autumn we will be receiving reports from the contracting states on what they propose to do in order to achieve the objectives laid down in Lisbon.
Is the President-in-Office aware of the continuing concern of people, in particular on Ireland's east coast, about the safety of the accident-prone Sellafield plant? Is he willing to bring this concern to the attention of the Council with a view to encouraging the British Government and British Nuclear Fuels to cease operations at Sellafield and, in particular, to stop the reprocessing of nuclear waste?
I would ask the President-in-Office if he could provide a clear timetable as to when the reprocessing trade will be brought to an end. This is a matter of great concern to most citizens.
Mr Hyland, obviously I cannot provide a timetable of this kind because the Council is not currently considering the question of bringing nuclear technology in Europe to an end or the question of when the reprocessing technology will come to an end in Europe.
That is a matter for deliberation in the Council.
As for the concern of the citizens, I believe that the Member States concerned should make these concerns known to the Council.
It cannot be the presidency's job to discuss a Member State's problems if that Member State itself does not wish it.
I have a very brief question on the issue of Sellafield.
Perhaps the President-in-Office could comment on these remarks from the deputy chief executive of the Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland printed in The Irish Times .
He says: 'they do not pose a significant health risk ... and have been dropping for some time'.
Could the President-in-Office comment, please.
Mr President, I cannot comment on that quotation because the Council has not considered this matter.
Question No 14 by Jan Andersson (H-0019/99) Subject: Conditions for Swedish adoption of the common currency
The introduction of the euro at the beginning of the year has lent urgency to the debate in Sweden on its possible future adoption of the common currency, the timing of which is one of the principal issues.
Here it would be valuable to clarify the implications of the qualifying periods for joining the ERM on the date Sweden might adopt the euro.
Does the present position of the Council rule out Sweden's adoption of the euro at an earlier date than that implied by the qualifying period for it to join the ERM?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Andersson's question.
Mr President, Mr Andersson, pursuant to Article 109k(2) of the Treaty, at least once every two years, if not sooner, at the request of a Member State with a derogation, the Council shall decide which Member States with a derogation fulfil the necessary conditions for the introduction of the euro on the basis of the convergence criteria in Article 109.
In relation to Sweden, that means that in May 2000 at the latest the Council will review the derogation agreed for Sweden in May 1998.
If Sweden wishes to adopt the euro at an earlier date, it can do so.
Many thanks for your reply.
The fact that Sweden is not a member of EMU has nothing to do with the Treaty, but with public opinion which has prevented a decision on whether to join.
However, there has recently been a sea change in people's views.
There is a continuing debate on whether countries would have to have been in ERM II for two years, and my question also refers to this, since events may move quite quickly in Sweden.
There could be a decision next year following a referendum.
If that turns out to be the case, would Sweden be obliged to be in ERM II for two years before being allowed to become an actual member? Or would it only be necessary to fulfil the criteria relating to inflation, interest rates and so on?
Mr President, I cannot make a political judgment here because this is a purely Swedish matter.
In legal terms, in terms of the Treaty, I can certainly give a positive answer.
Mr President, I apologise as I refer not to this question but to my own question, No 18.
I am in the middle of an emergency meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I wish to apologise to the President-in-Office as I will not be here to take his response.
If possible, could he give me a written response?
Thank you, Mr Crowley.
In any event, when we come to your question, I will call your name. If you are not here, then in view of the explanation you have provided, I will ask the President-in-Office to answer your question in writing.
As the author is not present, Question No 15 lapses.
Question No 16 by Mihail Papayannakis (H-0027/99) Subject: Third pillar and illegal immigrants
What is the position regarding the problem of illegal immigrants who are smuggled into an EU Member State which does not have diplomatic relations of any kind with the countries of origin of the illegal immigrants, thereby leaving that State in a quandary over what to do with them? In Greece, for example, this intractable problem is apparent with immigrants mainly from Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Myanmar who have been held in police cells or prison for some 7 months and have been poorly or humiliatingly treated.
Could dilemmas of this type be dealt with at Community level by enlisting the help of those Member States which have diplomatic relations with the countries in question? Should there not be specific provisions within the third pillar to deal with such cases, which would take into account the principles of human rights, fundamental freedoms and respect for private life?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Papayannakis's question.
Mr President, Mr Papayannakis, the Council is aware of the problems arising from situations such as those described in your question.
The responsible Council bodies have taken them into account when they discuss the problems facing Member States that want to deport people to certain third countries.
Deportation to third countries does indeed call for good cooperation with the state in question so that the necessary formalities can actually be completed.
In particular, the identity of an individual must be determined before he or she can be provided with the necessary re-entry documents.
If there are no diplomatic relations or there are only restricted diplomatic relations, that is of course an obstacle to this cooperation.
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply, but the real point of my question was this: Greece has diplomatic but not consular relations with the countries I mentioned, such as Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Myanmar.
These countries do not have embassies in Athens, and I imagine that this must be the case in other countries as well. The upshot of this is that illegal immigrants who have been arrested cannot be set free or expelled; nor can they be sent for trial, which means that they stay in police custody for months, and I regard this as unacceptable.
Could not the Council intervene, possibly via the consular authorities of these countries in another Member State, so that these people can be given the documents they need to solve their problem? Otherwise we end up with something resembling a Kafkaesque impasse.
This is my question to the President-in-Office and I would ask him to intervene, if he can, in such cases.
Mr Papayannakis, I find it very difficult to answer a question concerning a problem that Greece has with certain other states.
To my knowledge what normally happens is that a state that does not have diplomatic relations with a particular other state can be represented in that state by a protecting power.
I do not know whether this is the case for Greece, but if not, the most obvious solution would probably be for the Greek Government to request representation from another state that does have diplomatic relations with the states concerned.
Mr President-in-Office, I just want to ask whether this problem that is facing Greece is not also connected with two other issues. One is the question of common measures to combat illegal immigration, the other is a fair distribution of the personnel burden as regards asylum applicants and other immigrants.
So long as no progress is made on these issues, I fear we will not have a common approach on other such issues either.
So my question is: on what is the Council focusing in this area in order to adopt a common approach on these two issues?
Mr Posselt, as you know, we do indeed regard this as an important and fundamental issue.
But it is not directly linked to this very specific Greek problem.
I really cannot tell you how the immigrants from Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Myanmar actually get to Greece. But the basic problem you have raised is one that is currently being discussed in depth in the Council, and the Council intends to cooperate more closely in this area and to take decisions and decide on joint action here at the latest by the time of the special summit to be held in Tampere in Finland during the next six-month presidency.
Question No 17 by Bernie Malone (H-0028/99) Subject: Access to transport for people with disabilities
Does the Council agree that the needs of people with disabilities should be mainstreamed into regulations for structural funding of Member States' transport systems, in the light of the recent protest made by Mr John Doyle of Bray, Co Wicklow, Ireland, outside Heuston Station in Dublin after it was revealed that CIE had spent IEP 8.5 million of EU funding as part of an IEP 26 million investment on the acquisition of 150 buses which did not provide for disabled access.
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Malone's question.
The Council shares the concern expressed by the honourable Member and by Parliament as a whole in relation to the quality of life and especially the mobility of disabled citizens.
Access to public transport plays an important role in this context.
The Council's concern in this regard is also reflected in the new Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty, one of the aims of which is to prevent discrimination on the basis of disability.
As for the special case to which Mrs Malone referred, I am sorry to say that the Council is not aware of it.
But since it obviously concerns an EU Structural Fund measure, I would suggest that she address this question to the Commission, which is responsible for ensuring the proper implementation of EU structural policy.
This is one of those rare occasions when cynical politicians get outraged.
It happened when I saw disabled people protesting in the rain outside the transport company because of the fact that new buses had been acquired with EU structural fund money and that they were not accessible.
There are buses that are accessible. They are in use in London.
So this is disgraceful.
I hope that the presidency will bring it to the attention of his colleague, the Irish minister for public enterprise, Mary O'Rourke, and to try to force her to take the needs of disabled people into account in all EU funds expenditure.
She will probably tell you that the shape of our roads is inadequate.
One of the excuses the minister has given is that there is a dip in the roads and the types of buses available in London would not possibly be suitable.
I do not find that to be an acceptable explanation.
Mrs Malone, I would very much like to tell you what I think about this, because I really have very specific views, which I am sure are not very different from yours. But as you know, I cannot do so.
All I can tell you at this point is that the Commission would have to check whether in the case you describe there was any infringement of the provisions on the use of Structural Fund resources.
It is up to the Commission to do this; the Council cannot do so.
Presumably today's Question Time will, as you hoped, raise European public awareness of this issue.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
We should now be taking Question No 18 by Mr Crowley, who was with us earlier and asked Mr Verheugen to answer his question in writing.
Question No 19 by Liam Hyland (H-0036/99) Subject: Tourism
As we move ever closer to the next millennium, a time which corresponds to long-term predictions that, by the end of the 20th century, tourism would be the biggest industry in the world, will the German Presidency outline what new directions it intends to give at EU level to consolidate the strengths of the EU tourism product, particularly in relation to the peripheral regions which are dependent on tourism?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Hyland's question.
Mr Hyland, the Council is aware that European tourism will be a very important industry in the next century.
On 6 June 1996 the Commission submitted a proposal for a decision on a first multiannual programme to promote European tourism.
The subject has been considered several times since then.
The Austrian Presidency took it up again and at its meeting of 7 December 1998 the Council once again considered the multiannual programme to promote European tourism on the basis of a document drawn up by the Austrian Presidency.
In spite of the presidency's proposal to shorten the duration of the programme and to reduce the budget funds allocated to it, some delegations continued to raise objections.
Let me point out that if no consensus is reached the German Presidency proposes the following: continuation of the work on this programme, taking account of the recommendations made by the High Level Group on Tourism and Employment, and renewed consideration of the subject in the light of new developments.
Does the President-in-Office agree that rural tourism must be prioritised in the context of the broader EU tourism package and that agri-tourism must be promoted and developed as a means of sustaining farm families and rural communities? Would he agree that rural tourism requires additional funding under the proposed new operational programme for tourism?
I am sure the President's heart is in the right place when it comes to promoting rural tourism.
Mr Hyland, I am sorry to have to tell you that there is no agreement in the Council on any of these questions. On the contrary, there is much dispute about them.
Unfortunately my personal view in this regard is of no significance.
But you can guess what it is when I tell you that I myself represent a rural constituency in the German Bundestag.
Let me say again: the German Presidency will continue nonetheless to try very hard to achieve the consensus that is still lacking, and will certainly continue to keep the matter under consideration.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 20 to 24 and 27 lapse.
Question No 25 by Mrs McIntosh will not be taken because the subject to which it refers is included on the agenda for this part-session.
Mr Papayannakis wishes to raise a point of order.
Mr President, I had asked, with the agreement of Mr Alavanos, to take over his question.
Is that not possible?
Mr Papayannakis, to reach such an agreement with Mr Alavanos, the Rules state that a written request must be received from Mr Alavanos before the beginning of Question Time, asking that you be allowed to deputise for him.
We have not received any such request from Mr Alavanos.
Therefore, under the Rules, you cannot deputise for him.
Question No 29 by Ioannis Theonas (H-0074/99) Subject: Provocative statements by UK spokesman on Cyprus, Sir David Hannay
Statements made by the UK government spokesman on Cyprus, Sir David Hannay, advising the Greek Cypriots to follow the Swiss model, which recognises the sovereignty of the Swiss cantons, an alternating presidency and equal numerical representation of the cantons, have been met with utter dismay and sharp protests by the Cypriot government as well as all political circles in Cyprus.
Bearing in mind that such statements are completely in keeping with Turkish views and are contrary to UN Security Council resolutions, including the most recent, resolutions 1217 and 1218, will the Council say in what manner it will respond to these provocative remarks, which cultivate a climate of tolerance, enabling the Turkish side to advance unacceptable positions which contravene all notion of international legality and law and undermine efforts to bring about a just and viable solution to the Cyprus problem?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Theonas's question.
Mr Theonas, it is for the British Government to react to the alleged statements by the UK government spokesman on Cyprus, Sir David Hannay.
He is the spokesman on Cyprus for the British Government and not for the European Union.
The presidency has information to the effect that Sir David Hannay's statements were misunderstood and that the British Government has now clarified the matter.
The presidency therefore sees no occasion to comment on these statements.
Mr President, unfortunately I am unable to thank the President-in-Office for his answer because, whether Sir David Hannay represents the British Government or not, it is important to state one's position on the substance of the declarations.
In this regard, I am interested in the position of the Council, that is if it insists on solving the Cyprus problem on the basis of the recent Security Council Resolutions 1217 and 1218, and if it considers that a loose federation, such as that sought after by Mr Denktash - and unfortunately Sir David Hannay appeared to agree with this idea - is the solution which the European Union could be happy with in respect of the Cyprus problem and in respect of the process of solving one of the longest-standing problems in Europe.
There has been no change to the Council's position on the Cyprus question.
As I just said, Sir David Hannay's statements do not fall within the remit of the Council or the European Union, and therefore I cannot comment on them.
Question No 30 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0075/99) Subject: German Presidency and accession of Cyprus
The German embassy in New Delhi, India, reportedly issued an official document on 6 January 1999 concerning the German Presidency's objectives for the first six months of 1999.
This document makes no reference to the accession of Cyprus to the EU; chapter 5 ('Enlargement of the EU and accession process - European Conference', pp. 17 and 18) merely refers to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, while placing particular emphasis on the promotion of EU relations with Turkey.
What are the German Presidency's views on this entire matter and when will the mistake of omitting Cyprus from the document issued by the German embassy in New Delhi be rectified?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Kaklamanis's question.
Mr Kaklamanis, the document you mention does not specify any applicant country by name but refers only to the applicant countries as a group, which of course means all six of them.
Mr President-in-Office, I am not going to beat about the bush.
You are here in the European Parliament.
This morning, when we debated issues concerning the Council, the Council was absent, which shows a lack of respect for this House.
You are mistaken if you think that a 30-second answer is adequate for the question I asked you.
This shows contempt for the European Parliament and our intelligence.
The contents of the official telegram from your embassy were not disclosed this time by Sir David Hannay, but by the representative of the German Government.
I would like you to give me a direct answer.
Firstly, what is the position of the German Government and of the German Presidency? That is what concerns me.
Is there a question mark over the accession talks concerning Cyprus because the political problem has not been solved? Secondly, if the talks end and the problem has not been solved, what is the position of the presidency?
Please give me direct answers to both these questions.
I reject this criticism.
The Council was perfectly well represented at this morning's sitting; it must be left to the Council to decide at what level it is represented.
I have nothing to add on the matter.
The document you quote does not refer specifically to any one applicant country but refers to all the applicant countries.
That means Cyprus in the same way as it does Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Estonia.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Mr Verheugen, Mrs Theorin has now arrived in the Chamber for Question Time, which she usually attends.
The fact that we dealt with the previous questions so quickly clearly explains why she was not present when we came to her question.
I would therefore like to ask you if you could perhaps respond to Mrs Theorin's question.
Question No 26 by Maj Theorin (H-0061/99) Subject: Nuclear disarmament
Nuclear weapons continue to represent a huge threat to the whole of humanity merely because they exist.
The UN General Assembly has decided, by a very large majority, to support the proposal by Sweden and Ireland for new nuclear disarmament measures.
The vote showed a marked change in attitudes towards nuclear weapons; the only EU Member States to vote against the resolution were the UK and France.
What steps does the Council intend to take to support new nuclear disarmament measures?
I should like to appeal to your generosity, Mr Verheugen, and ask you to answer Mrs Theorin's question.
Of course I will answer this question.
Naturally the European Union is committed to strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty and making it universal.
This treaty gives rise to obligations on the part of nuclear states to take nuclear disarmament measures.
The EU reaffirmed this commitment and took note of the decision in question and of the New Agenda Resolution at the European Council in Cardiff on 15-16 June 1998, thus expressing its position.
Thank you for answering my question.
My reason for putting it is that nuclear disarmament is at a standstill.
Nothing much had happened before the initiative by Sweden and Ireland, amongst others, which prompted new questions about a realistic way to eliminate nuclear weapons.
The initiative was based on the Canberra Commission proposals, as they are called.
It does not involve anything unrealistic or Utopian, but is a practical initiative.
I am pleased to note that most Member States of the Union either voted for the resolution or abstained; only the two nuclear powers voted against it.
I have high hopes that the German Presidency will be prepared to take up the initiative, bringing nuclear disarmament a step nearer.
Let me specifically confirm again, Mrs Theorin, that in the presidency's view the Non-Proliferation Treaty is one of the most important international instruments of disarmament and international security.
The German Presidency attaches the utmost importance to strengthening the non-proliferation system, to ensuring that the provisions are respected, that the commitments contained in the treaty are fulfilled and that the non-proliferation system can be maintained and further developed in future too.
As you yourself just described, there are still differences of opinion on this subject among the Member States of the European Union; that also applies to the New Agenda Resolution tabled by Ireland, Sweden and a number of other states in the First Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.
Irrespective of these differences of opinion, the reasons for which you know as well as I, let me also emphasise that there is agreement in some important areas.
That means the Council supports the implementation of the decision, of the principles and objectives of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, of the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference.
In this context I would point out again that under this treaty the nuclear states have undertaken to totally abolish these weapons in the framework of the general disarmament efforts, under strict and effective international control.
As the author is not present, Question No 31 lapses.
Questions Nos 32 and 33 will not be taken, as the subject to which they refer is included on the agenda of this part-session.
Question No 34 by Patricia McKenna (H-0088/99) Subject: US breaching UN Conventions
What opinion does the Council have of, and how does it intend to react to, plans by the US Administration to deploy anti-ballistic missiles, in breach of the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty , and to the fact that the US Administration is developing, and is likely to deploy, weather-modification weapons in breach of the 1977 ENMOD Convention (Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques)?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs McKenna's question.
Mrs McKenna, the Council has not been informed of the US Government plans referred to in your question.
Neither the European Union nor any its Member States are parties to the ABM Treaty.
But the US Government has declared that it intends to adhere to the core of the treaty and jointly discuss a modification to it with Russia.
Some Member States of the European Union are parties to the 1977 Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques.
But to date this convention has not been discussed in the framework of the EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The European Union has a responsibility here, and the Member States that are cooperating with the United States on military matters have an obligation to ensure that international treaties are respected.
There seems quite a lot of evidence to back up these allegations.
The President-in-Office has said that they are only allegations but there is a lot of information and data to back them up.
It seems to be fact.
The United States would appear to be thumbing its nose at international treaties, and it is incumbent on the European Union, as regards global disarmament and international security, to make sure that the United States is held accountable for what it is planning.
Mrs McKenna, I am happy to take note of your comments but I cannot predict whether the Council will consider this matter.
Question No 28 by Mark Killilea (H-0071/99) Subject: Seals
In April 1997, Bord Iascaigh Mhara, the Irish Sea Fisheries Board, submitted a report to the European Commission on the physical interaction between grey seals and fishing gear.
Research at two selected sites in Ireland over a 2-3 year period produced conclusive evidence of damage to fish stocks by seals.
This study is supported by extensive previous research.
Can the Council inform me whether it has been made aware of this research by the Commission?
Would it not agree that this report and others reveal that the extent of damage to fisheries by seals is very significant financially in local terms?
Would it not also agree that measures to prevent such an impact would have to be considered justifiable, particularly where a proven case existed? Would it be in support of the Commission financially assisting national fisheries organisations to carry out such studies in order to scientifically assess such a need?
I would once again call on Mr Verheugen's generosity and ask him to answer Mr Killilea's question.
Mr Killilea, I will give you an answer. But I know in advance that you will see it as a non-answer because the Council has not received the report on the interaction between grey seals and fishing gear, which is, after all, the report you are referring to.
For this reason the Council cannot give its views on the report.
But I have been informed, Mr Killilea, that you have addressed a similar question to the Commission.
I believe the Commission is more likely to be in a position to give you a satisfactory answer.
Mr President, thank you for allowing my question and thanks to the President-in-Office for his answer, even though he has stated that it is a non-answer.
I received another non-answer from the Commission.
I do not know where we stand.
European taxpayers' money was given to the Bord Iascaigh Mhara to do this research.
The documentation and the serious scientific research has been in print since 1997 and it sits there gathering dust.
I suspect, Mr President-in-Office, that we lack courage to tackle this major problem.
But I want to point out to you that in the three sample cod catches on the west coast of Ireland, 98 % of the cod caught in the nets was either destroyed or severely damaged by the seals.
Similarly, with other species of white fish, the overall figure was 58.8 % of the total allowable catch of Irish fishermen destroyed by seals one way or another.
It will take a lot of courage to stand up to the nonsense that goes on about those pretty animals.
They may be pretty with their heads out of the water but they are not so pretty beneath the sea where they are devouring thousands of tonnes of very precious fish and food for the people of Europe.
I say to the critics: is it more important to feed the seals or to feed human beings? My opinion is that it is more important to feed human beings.
I would like the President-in-Office to continue to put pressure on the Commission to have the moral courage to stand up to this awful situation which is staring us all in the face.
Mr Killilea, since I too have experience of the lengthy procedures in this House I fully understand your problem.
I do not quite know whether I should support the seals, the fish or the people.
I would advise the Irish Government to bring the matter up again if as you say - and I do not doubt your words - it is important to the people of the west coast of Ireland.
The Council cannot take the initiative to discuss a report by an Irish authority or to take a position when the report has not even been submitted to it.
My advice would be, if the Commission cannot give you an answer either, that the Irish Government itself should raise this matter in Brussels.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
That concludes Question Time.
The sitting was suspended at 7.02 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
Water policy
The next item is the report (A4-0261/98) by Mr White, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal and amended proposals for a Council Directive establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy (COM(97)0049 - C4-0192/97, COM(97)0614 - C4-0120/98 and COM(98)0076 - C4-0121/98-97/0067(SYN)).
I should like to say at the outset - as I will be repeating through the evening - that I shall have to be strict with regard to speaking time, since we have a very tight schedule which will take us late into the night.
Mr President, I am very glad to be able to present my report on the water framework directive for this first reading.
The path of this proposal has been almost as tortuous as a salmon swimming upstream.
I should like to acknowledge the personal contribution of my colleague, Mr Collins, in the long haul that has finally brought us to this first reading.
In 1995 Mr Collins chaired Parliament's hearing on water policy that gave birth to the water framework directive.
Perhaps we should call it the 'water baby', and he will be heartened to see his 'baby' at last christened by this Parliament before he leaves us later this year.
I should like to pay tribute to the little puddle of water rapporteurs - also present at the christening ceremony - which include my colleagues, Mr Florenz, Mrs Schleicher, Mr Eisma and Mr Collins himself, who also has a water report.
We have developed amongst us an esprit du corps , whereby we have become water-minded, and that is a very useful thing to have done.
This proposal provides an historic opportunity to secure the Union's most basic need for adequate supplies of good quality water for today's and tomorrow's generations.
Its outcome will determine the future of the Union's water resources well beyond the Millennium.
Reform of the Union's water policy is overdue and welcome.
Piecemeal evolution has resulted in an incoherent body of legislation, with differing and sometimes conflicting methods, definitions and aims.
The perilous state of much of the Union's water resources is plain to see from the evidence provided to us by the Environment Agency in Copenhagen.
The first report on Europe's environment - the so-called Dobris assessment - sets out the problems in a clear manner and last year saw the publication of another assessment by the Environment Agency.
Comparison of the two reports shows that progress still has to be made.
The Dobris assessment reported that a quarter of Europe's rivers are of poor or bad quality, with either sparse populations of fish or completely devoid of fish.
Last year's assessment noted that there has been 'no overall improvement in river quality'.
There has not been any significant improvement in groundwater quality since the first assessment.
Europe's groundwater is endangered and polluted in several ways, we are told.
'Problems include pollution by nitrates, pesticides, heavy metals and hydrocarbons, leading to eutrophication, toxic impacts in other parts of the water environment and possible effects upon human health'.
Moreover, despite the numerous international agreements and many statements of good intent, the implementation of Union water legislation remains poor.
The Commission, having taken part - and I am grateful to them for that - in the hearing which took place in 1995, produced its communication in February 1996.
Following Parliament's response to the communication, a dialogue has been continuing between the Commission and myself.
In that dialogue I voiced the concerns of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection about the early proposal.
The Commission is to be congratulated on its response in providing detailed annexes and basic definitions missing from the original.
I am also heartened by the constructive attitude of the present German presidency.
Before Parliament today there are 12 compromise amendments dealing with important issues where, in the spirit of the Amsterdam Treaty yet to be ratified, I am pleased to present the results of a recent trialogue between myself, the Commission and the Council.
These compromise amendments show a new willingness to move towards the Environment Committee's position on wetlands, public participation, marine monitoring and underground gas storage.
This is, and has had to be, a complicated proposal.
It aims to promote a sustainable use of water resources.
Member States will be obliged to achieve good status for all surface and ground waters by a set date.
Good status means a healthy ecosystem and a low level of pollution.
These targets will be achieved by river-basin management plans and backed up by Union-wide limits on pollution.
The proposal sets out how Member States must identify river basins, appoint river basin authorities and ensure that they produce plans.
The plans will stipulate what must happen for good status to be achieved, including pollution control, promoting more efficient use of water, regulating obstruction and introducing a charging system.
My suggestions for the reform of the Commission proposal are designed to address the considerable problems which continue to undermine the implementation of Union water policy.
At the same time, my amendments seek to create a water policy framework which is both practical and ambitious.
I urge that a tougher regime of pollution control is needed, the goal for the longer term, already contained in international conventions such as OSPAR, HELCOM and Barcelona, to which the EU and Member States are signatory, is the eventual phasing out of toxic substances.
In conclusion, I should like to repeat the importance of the proposal before us.
What can be more important to the future of the Community than secure and abundant supplies of healthy water.
This is the first piece of Community water legislation to apply to all surface and ground waters.
It bases the management of these waters firmly on the principle of sustainable development.
Mr President, water quality, particularly in coastal waters, is vitally important to the fisheries and aquaculture industries.
The seas are generally the end recipients of pollutants emitted into the water, particularly their coastal fringes, which are vital for the reproduction of many species.
The proposal for a directive directly affects those who live off these activities, particularly as it will repeal two former directives, one on fish waters and the other on shellfish waters.
We have therefore tabled amendments in this respect. Amendment No 154 extends the directive's scope to include coastal areas and estuaries.
This amendment falls within the context of recital 11(a) adopted by the Committee on the Environment and specifies that the Member States will have the option of taking into account pollution in coastal areas in order to assess its consequences on fishing activities. Amendments Nos 153 and 156 state that fishermen cannot be classified as users of water in the strict sense since their activity is not detrimental to this resource in quantitative or qualitative terms and since they are primarily the victims of any pollution.
Finally, Amendment No 155 proposes support for the more vulnerable economic categories, in particular, the small aquaculture plants which must take measures to protect themselves against the pollution which they may cause.
This would not involve tax exemption measures but rather support for filtration and purification equipment.
Finally, on behalf of the UPE Group, I must express our support for the concept of management by river basin.
This has demonstrated its worth in certain Member States and is the key issue in the Commission's proposal.
It must therefore be safeguarded.
Mr President, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development calls on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following conclusions in its report.
Firstly, the Agriculture Committee stresses that farmers use water for the benefit of consumers in general and that they are the first to be concerned about obtaining good water in order to ensure quality agricultural production.
Secondly, the committee acknowledges that, in addition to the objectives of protecting water against degradation of aquatic ecosystems and the long-term conservation of water resources, further steps need to be taken to reduce the adverse effects of floods and droughts.
With specific regard to agriculture, the committee rejects the idea of full cost recovery in respect of services provided for water, as advocated in Article 12 of the proposal for a directive. However, it does agree with the principle of amortising the costs of water services, taking due account of the social, environmental and economic consequences of amortisation and the geographical and climatic situation of the regions concerned.
In particular, the hydrological regime of the Mediterranean and southern areas of the European Union requires specific solutions in this respect.
Without these and also without irrigation systems, which often involve extremely high water storage and distribution costs, it would be impossible to ensure the modernisation and long-term survival of these areas.
Without a specific solution, agriculture in the southern regions of Europe would not be able to survive in competition with the northern areas which have rain throughout the year.
Fourthly, the Agriculture Committee suggests, with regard to the definitions and annexes, that specific reference be made to bodies of water used for irrigators, namely aqueducts, and to the way in which their quality and quantity is to be assessed, and also to irrigation farming as a distinct form of cyclical water use.
Fifthly, it proposes involving irrigators' associations so that they can participate in the use and management of water basins and water in general.
Finally, as a Portuguese national, I must stress the importance of establishing more stringent rules for the management of cross-border water basins in order to ensure basic quality levels and rates of flow of the water in these international rivers.
Mr President, the primary purpose of the framework directive on Community action on water policy is to ensure that every citizen has a right to good quality water, both as something that sustains life and as something that exists in the environment.
Water quality has been argued over a good deal, however, as pollution has been difficult to regulate.
For this reason, as a binding guarantee of people's entitlement to good quality water, provision must be made for the polluter pays principle, effective monitoring to ensure that water is of good quality with the smallest number of exemptions possible, and the examination of materials that harm water quality, primarily from the health point of view.
Negligence and irresponsible action can have disastrous and irreparable consequences.
There is much that is good in this report, so I would like to thank the rapporteur.
It contains a particularly welcome amendment with Article 3(a), which provides for the monitoring of the implementation of the River Basin District Management Plan.
The authorities in the Member States must be committed to better monitoring of water quality.
However, there is one problem with the report, in my opinion, which is to do with how water charges should be regulated.
To my mind, at least as far as Finland is concerned, this is a matter of local democracy and the right of the local authorities to regulate charges, and this should therefore not be interfered with.
Special attention must be paid to groundwater.
No-one should ever think that the situation is hopeless, and that the water is so polluted that it is not worth doing anything about it.
There are plenty of examples of problems being solved, not perhaps returning water to its natural state, but at least making it safe for humans.
Mr President, Commissioner, representatives of the presidency of the Council, the fact that we are discussing a framework directive today is thanks not least to Ian White.
A few months ago the situation still looked quite different.
The Commission wanted to present us with a communication - at the time I was the rapporteur and together we ensured that we would achieve this result today, in face of the rapid-fire decisions the Council wanted to take.
That is in itself a success. As Members of this Parliament we must not forget that.
The object of the directive is not, as many of my colleagues believe, especially Austrians, that we want to regulate the ownership of water.
Quite the contrary: we want to protect the quality of water; that is the purpose of the directive.
Now it seems to me that the Council and the Commission want to propose that we should promise one another to protect the water, but how we protect it should be left to the Member States to decide.
I am not quite sure this is the right European approach.
I am not in favour of issuing thousands of bans, but I am in favour of issuing a few important bans and making them applicable throughout Europe.
They need to have sound scientific backing.
We decided to create the single market and one of the main objectives of the single market was to harmonise standards in the European Community, not necessarily to make them exactly the same, but to approximate them more closely.
We seem to be moving away from that at present in environmental policy.
You know what I am criticising.
Unfortunately, the directive on a framework for Community action in the field of water policy does not define Europe-wide quality standards and emission standards, at least not the way the Council and the Commission formulate it although that is certainly what Parliament wants to do.
I believe it is important to take this combined approach, which we want to and will continue to pursue in future too.
As someone who lives beside the Rhine - my house and my farm are a few hundred metres from it - I believe it is important that the local residents, whoever they are, make a start further up the river.
If they do not make a start there, if we Germans do not continue setting high standards, our colleagues in the Netherlands will soon be drowning in dirty, polluted water.
This cannot after all be a matter for individual, national policy-making; we need European standards, not hundreds of them but perhaps 40 or 50.
I believe the Rhine, the Rhone, the Mosel need these European standards if we are to make any progress here in the future.
The Council did not show any very serious commitment.
We turned 188 amendments into ten compromise amendments.
So we have done a little better than the Council.
The presidency of the Council has certainly achieved much in administrative terms.
But in my view Parliament's proposal was the better one.
We believe that if we get what the Council wants, we will find it complicated to regulate matters at national level and will end up with a Babylonian environment policy.
Mr President, the decision-making surrounding this water framework directive has certainly been a clumsy affair as a result of the informal political agreement that the Council reached without waiting for Parliament's first reading.
The enormous gulf between the substance of that agreement and what Parliament wanted, reflected in over 200 amendments, forced Parliament and the Council to the highly unusual step of informal consultation, something which is not yet provided for in the European Treaties, though it may well be in future.
Mr White has been our guide through this political jungle, and I must congratulate him. He did a good job of defending Parliament's views before the Council and succeeded in winning a number of points.
He refused to succumb to pressure from the Member States on the points we feel are important, such as the priority list and the combined approach.
Despite the pressure of work and the complicated nature of the discussions, he also managed to keep us all as up to date as possible.
However, it is now Parliament's job to deliver a report at first reading clearly setting out how the quantity and quality of ground, surface and coastal waters can best be protected.
Strict definitions, clear targets and transparent procedures are needed here.
The Committee on the Environment has put forward some excellent proposals, and I cannot understand why the Council is prepared to accept so few of them.
It even has difficulty with amendments designed to ensure that environmental standards are met in line with other European directives such as the nitrates directive, and with international conventions such as the OSPAR Convention.
It is quite incomprehensible.
I have no idea why the Council is against them.
But we need not worry, as the common position will not be dealt with in this parliamentary term, and by the time the new parliamentary term begins, the Amsterdam Treaty will have entered into force, so the second reading will come under the codecision procedure.
The Council will then have no choice but to take account of our views.
I hope it realises how it cut off its own nose in concluding the informal political agreement, and draws the relevant conclusions from this.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for all his hard work on today's report, which takes account of the need for a more transparent framework directive that has a higher level of participation. As the rapporteur himself says, echoing the concerns expressed in the Committee on the Environment, one third of European rivers are polluted and coastal waters and groundwater are being overexploited.
It is therefore extremely difficult to obtain enough drinking water for the population. It will be even more difficult in the future, particularly in some southern countries.
That is why we are in favour of the proposal and why we were even more in favour of the previous proposal.
For example, Amendment No 38 by Mr White was, in our view, an improvement as it was more complete.
However, we must work to ensure that there is a high level of participation in the river basin management plans in order to create a common, transparent framework and to promote cross-border cooperation.
Along with our Portuguese colleagues, we visited the River Tagus and we realised that the Portuguese were anxious to ensure that Spain made good use of its resources. That will be the only way of guaranteeing cross-border cooperation between our two countries.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his tremendous work.
These proposals are very welcome indeed because they attempt to establish an integrated approach to water management and protection, which are very important.
The underlying basis of all of this, the polluter pays principle, is one that we should be pushing most of all here.
However, the terms of the analysis that has been carried out must be broadened to consider the very important social consequences of what is essentially a unique social service.
The provision of water for domestic needs, as a necessity of daily life, for economic needs and for farming and other activities must be guaranteed.
I would refer Members in particular to Amendment No 22 dealing with Article 12 (1) which provides that there will not be universal charges for water where special social and other conditions apply.
These distinctions are important and, in particular, we must ensure the continued free service for those who most need it.
Mr President, in discussing the water framework directive tonight, we are unfortunately talking not about water protection but about a piecemeal policy.
The proposal makes that clear.
There are too many exceptions, no clear limit values and standards, quality targets that are in no way binding, that follow the English principle of: let's water it down and nobody will notice.
Then there are the excessively long transition periods of up to 34 years, which make it clear that water protection is basically being postponed to some never-never day.
That makes a mockery of consumer protection.
But for me the worst of all, the ecological Waterloo, is the question of the discharge of hazardous substances.
In spite of the OSPAR convention, this quasi-common position proposes that nothing, nothing at all should be done.
I believe we must realise that water is too precious a resource to be used as a rubbish dump.
In that regard I expect us to give a very clear signal during the vote tomorrow.
I also hope that we will reach agreement tomorrow on setting limit values for radioactivity, as we did in the case of the drinking water directive ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, in my autonomous community of Aragon, we believe that our future depends on water.
We also believe that it is not that there is too much water in our territory, but that we are lacking the investment needed to use and make the most of what there is.
We are very aware of the fact that without water, there can be no development. It is essential in order to preserve the environment and to generate wealth and employment, in both the agricultural and industrial sectors.
Our problem is not the quality of water, but the quantity of water, in other words, its scarcity.
It is therefore almost an insult to us that the River Ebro, the largest river in the Iberian Peninsula, flows through Aragon for 200 kilometres, part of which is desert, yet we scarcely make any use of its considerable volume. This is mainly because of the Spanish Government's historical lack of investment.
In fact, it is precisely because of this lack of investment that some might say that there is an excess of water and thus justify transfers to other more developed areas. We therefore believe that it is extremely important to prevent these policies of transferring water between basins.
Far from balancing the region, in practice they actually heighten the imbalance and lead to further depopulation.
This is because the work involved is costly and it almost always harms the environment.
Moreover, it does not guarantee sustainable development with an unlimited supply.
Indeed, these transfers are merely the reflection of a policy where the strongest asserts its power over the weakest.
Tomorrow, we will vote on various amendments that have already been approved in committee. They aim to limit inter-basin transfers to very specific situations where prior authorisation has been granted.
It must also be demonstrated that the basins receiving the supply have taken all possible measures to reduce demand. In our opinion, this is the appropriate path to follow so as to ensure that our water policy is an effective instrument for European social and territorial cohesion.
Mr President, I would like to point out the differences that exist in some respects between the position of the Spanish Socialists and that of our political group.
We fully support the idea of a framework directive for the Community's water policy and we very much welcome the proposal for a directive.
However, these legislative attempts to harmonise policies may become something of a farce if we disregard Europe's special territorial characteristics.
The issue of water in countries with sufficient rain cannot be dealt with in the same way as it is in other countries, such as my own, where water is a very scarce commodity.
We cannot treat countries that are used to floods and droughts, such as the Mediterranean countries, in the same way as northern countries.
We have therefore tabled a number of separate amendments.
We believe that it would be very unfair, for instance, to impose the strict obligation to recover full water costs. This generalisation would mean that a Spanish citizen or farmer would pay between 40 and 60 times more for water than British or Belgian citizens, for example.
Other amendments refer to situations involving infringements, some of which are impossible to resolve in certain southern regions, and to the requirements for transfers and the recharge of aquifers. They are all following the same line of thought.
Parliament has legislative power that can be used on the basis of scientific and balanced criteria. However, it should not be used to try to make the various European regions seem the same, particularly given the differences that exist in terms of the quantity, quality and pattern of their rainfall.
Mr President, I fully agree with the speech just made by my colleague Mr Aparicio. It is clear that we must not forget the idea of unity in diversity, nor the fact that proactive measures can cost us dear.
We must therefore remember that Spain's water problem is a strategic one, as you are well aware, Commissioner. Amendments have been tabled in this respect and I hope that the Commission takes account of them and excludes cases of serious drought or flooding from the directive's requirements.
This is a factor that must be considered.
The directive must also allow Spain to build links between basins that are adequately balanced, as provided for in the National Hydrological Plan.
It is only in this way that we can guarantee supply for the southern parts of our country.
We also need to adapt the principle of recovering full costs.
We cannot add further difficulties on top of those that some countries are already faced with. We must avoid making the cost of water in countries with less water so expensive that individuals and multiple users cannot afford it.
I cannot support many of the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment in this case as they are unreasonable.
There are some things that do work, such as the interregional agreements between neighbouring countries. I therefore do not see why we need to have agreements on international river basin districts when these agreements are already working well.
We should restrict this to consultation with the Commission, on the initiative of the Member States, if a problem arises so that it can resolve it and act as arbitrator, as it always does.
As regards the quantitative aspects, I am very concerned at some of the amendments tabled regarding transfers and the recharge of aquifers.
This is standard practice in Spain and it allows us to derive much more benefit from our scarce resources.
These are mere quantitative issues which, moreover, would prevent this directive from being approved.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would also like to begin by congratulating the Commission and Mr White on the proposal and expressing my support for it.
However, I would like to look at two issues that are the product of neo-liberal fundamentalism and the democratic deficit in the European Union.
As far as neo-liberal fundamentalism is concerned, the desire to recover the full costs of water use is a comparative insult to Spain, as was pointed out by Mr Cunha, Mr Aparicio and other speakers.
It would be particularly bad for regions such as Murcia, Andalusia, Aragon, and so on, where it would have serious consequences.
As regards the democratic deficit, I think it is important to consider involving the communities of irrigators such as the Tribunal de las Aguas and the Consejo de Hombres Buenos , which in some cases, such as in Valencia or in Murcia, have been working for over a thousand years. It is essential to ensure that there is democracy in this field too.
Mr President, the framework directive that we are discussing today and voting on tomorrow will be a breakthrough in the European management of water quality and quantity.
But it will be more than just that.
It is also the crowning glory of all the tireless hard work done by some of our colleagues.
Let me mention here Karl-Heinz Florenz, who initiated and championed our cause, my Dutch colleague Doeke Eisma, and of course the rapporteur Mr White, whom I congratulate on his report and on the compromise amendments that should enable us to achieve a large majority tomorrow.
The water framework directive is the only correct response to our hitherto fragmentary, inefficient and inadequate policy on water quality and the total absence of a policy on water quantity.
Water plays a supremely important role in the lives of Dutch people.
In one of our folk songs we sing about Limburg as 'where the broad Meuse flows majestically to the sea', and the Zeelanders' motto 'luctor et emergo ' - I struggle and I emerge - refers to their struggle with the sea which, after the disastrous floods, eventually led to the Delta works, a dam that brought us worldwide fame.
We also reclaimed land in the Flevo polder.
We struggle with water on a daily basis in the Netherlands - in the polders, the delta where the Meuse, the Rhine and the Scheldt flow into the sea.
Anyone who dares to claim that we with our well-organised Dutch water management system can solve the water quantity problem ourselves has only to look at the floods that have overwhelmed us in recent years.
Mr President, I have just three points to make. Firstly, I support a water policy which promotes the rational use of water by encouraging rational control of its demand and discouraging irrational increases in its supply.
Secondly, I would stress that river basins form the basic unit for surface water and groundwater management. These river basins do not stop at national borders: they always run from source to mouth, no matter what countries may lie in between.
Finally, I must emphasise the understanding and collaboration achieved within our group between the Spanish and Portuguese Members. This recently led to the preparation of a water manifesto considered in this report and which is particularly symbolic as, because of our group, it involved Members of both these nationalities.
Although we can be pleased with this motion for a resolution, the same is not true of the agreement on common rivers signed between the two governments. In this case, Community solidarity must be shown and cooperation between the Member States is called for.
Mr President, this directive had a difficult birth.
On behalf of our colleagues let me after the event thank all those who played a constructive part in the work, including of course our rapporteur, Mr White, but also the Commission, which has showed signs of flexibility.
I expect the German Presidency to scrutinise Parliament's work carefully, otherwise there could be a bad surprise in store for it at the second reading in the European Parliament, in the form of rejection.
As rapporteur on the groundwater action programme, which is another extremely important area, I regard the following requirement as essential: to lay down comprehensive groundwater protection measures, ban direct discharges of harmful substances and, linked to that, not to lay down limit values for groundwater, to preempt what is called the watering down effect, and finally to remove and prevent where possible what are called indirect discharges into groundwater and of course to clean up polluted groundwater as far as possible by technical means.
Three of my amendments serve those goals.
Let me point out again that I am particularly concerned with Amendment No 77 and do not accept the compromise amendment.
I would warn against making exaggerated, unrealistic and impractical demands.
Even if environmental protection has in the past had a raw deal in many other policy areas and too little attention has been paid to it, we must not repeat the same mistake by going too far in the opposite direction.
That is why I and my group are firmly opposed to certain amendments, some of which are simply not feasible, either for financial reasons or because we do not have the available technical resources.
Legislation that called for too much would not be credible.
Let me conclude with a question to the Commission.
What is happening with the draft directive on ecological water quality? If the Commission has officially withdrawn that proposal, I am not aware of it.
Mr President, Commissioner, in line with Parliament's wishes this report introduces very important innovations in regard to protecting what is perhaps Europe's most valuable asset, water. It clarifies and enshrines the combined approach, enshrines across-the-board water protection and sets ambitious quality targets for groundwater.
For many Member States, the combined approach represents a real quantum leap in terms of clean water.
It is high time to rethink our approach Europe-wide.
We do not have the right mercilessly to pollute and poison the rivers and seas; instead we have an obligation first of all to clean up all waste water, including industrial effluents, to the best of our technical ability, and then to divert it.
We need strict emission standards, not just discharge standards.
I regard the attempts to enshrine water resource management in the directive in quantitative terms as negative, so I am very glad that the legal services of both the Council and the Commission take the view that enshrining it in this way is not compatible with the legal basis envisaged for the adoption of the directive.
I am also glad that I have already managed to get an amendment through in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection that specifies quite clearly the kind of supranational authority that needs to be created.
A Member State's right to manage its water resources cannot possibly be restricted.
If that is decided tomorrow, I will be happy to vote for the report, on which I warmly congratulate Mr White.
Mr President, the ample supply of good quality water is a basic need of the Community.
Problems have been discovered both in the quality of the water in the rivers and with water being wasted in urban and industrial areas.
Water resources in the different European states do not constitute the common property of Europe, as with any other natural resources which are used for trade.
Each Member State, however, must, as a nation, become involved in improving the water quality of its own rivers, in developing and implementing action to save water, and in protecting its groundwater.
The idea of a common water policy should be made a reality through measures to protect areas of water that are shared by neighbouring countries and those affecting different states.
Recently the condition of the Baltic Sea has deteriorated because untreated waste water has been pumped into it.
Efforts must be made to prevent environmental disasters such as these, in accordance with northern dimension policy, and those responsible for the Community's water policy should also be involved.
The northern dimension will provide staunch support for this, as it does for other projects aimed at protecting the environment.
The desire is expressed in the proposal to introduce certain quality standards for water consumed in the European Community.
It is good policy to incorporate such elements in a common policy, as long as we remember to leave sufficient scope for solutions to be found which correspond to specific national conditions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am the last speaker in this debate on water and since the problem is being looked at from the point of view of quantity rather than quality, I shall allow myself to take certain liberties.
I will try not to repeat what has already been said by my Spanish and Portuguese colleagues and will talk about something that is not contained in this report.
I should merely like to put forward a specific argument regarding the issue of costs.
We reject the initial proposal presented by the Commission that the full cost of water services - such as infrastructures - should be recovered from the users, who are mainly farmers. We also reject the proposal that the costs must be taken into account, since this could ruin the already fragile agriculture in the south.
We need to look at the technical improvements that are possible in industrial processes, taking account of the cost-effectiveness ratio as well as the situation in the sector.
We must abide by the political agreement reached by the Council of Ministers in June.
We must look at eliminating hazardous substances and the environmental objectives we want to achieve in the light of the actual technical and economic possibilities open to us.
We nevertheless agree with the proposal to make an exception in cases of drought. Indeed, it is very important that an exception be granted for both droughts and floods.
As far as the international river basin districts are concerned, I believe that the principle of subsidiarity should be applied. An agreement has already been reached with Portugal, which is responsible for our neighbouring basins.
As regards the quantitative aspects, the conditions for transfers and the recharge of aquifers, the proposal offers no legal basis. The Treaty requires unanimity in this area and we are therefore not going to support this at the moment.
As far as the amendments I tabled are concerned, I would only say that three relate to definitions that have not been taken into account, such as the mass of artificial water ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the Committee on the Environment and its rapporteur, Mr White, for their thorough consideration of the new proposal for a framework directive on water resources.
As has been emphasised, Parliament has taken the reform of water policy very seriously, and I would like to take this opportunity to praise the substantial and very positive influence which Parliament has had both with regard to starting the reform and developing it further.
The Commission's proposal on the treatment of dangerous substances and Annex V on ecological status are largely based on Parliament's constructive involvement.
The same constructive involvement lay behind the recent informal talks between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, and as Mr Eisma pointed out, this was largely an innovation.
On the whole, the results of these talks further improved the text, while they also brought the views of the two legislative institutions closer together.
This is a positive development, and I can of course endorse the outcome which appears in the form of Compromise Amendments Nos 189 to 201.
In fact, most of Parliament's amendments improve the technical quality and make the text clearer, and I am very pleased to be able to say that we endorse the thinking behind most of them.
We can in principle accept 85 of the 122 amendments in full or in part.
The Commission is also able to endorse a number of the other amendments.
We support Parliament's initiatives with regard to the treatment of dangerous substances, openness, the combined approach and the inclusion of radioactivity.
As you can see, Mr President, there are a great number of amendments, and it would be impossible for me to go through them all in a reasonable period of time.
I shall therefore confine myself to mentioning some of the main areas.
Firstly, there is the treatment of dangerous substances.
This is a major problem, on which the report rightly focuses.
It is important for us to be consistent with our obligations within international organisations in terms of discharges.
However, a lack of information about the social and economic consequences means that it is not always appropriate to introduce legally binding requirements at the present time.
We therefore intend to accept the principle behind Amendments Nos 6, 19, 47 and 83 and in Article 1 of the proposal of introducing a reference to elimination as a final goal.
This is in line with the approach in the declaration of the North Sea Conference and all the relevant maritime conventions.
The other amendments on this subject, i.e. Amendments Nos 22, 43 and 46, are therefore rejected.
As far as openness and involving the public are concerned, the discussions between the Council and Parliament have been particularly productive.
The Commission can fully endorse the rapporteur's compromise amendment, which reflects the agreements reached concerning public inquiries or consultation, and both the Council's and the Commission's reporting.
Amendments Nos 25 and 29 concern the need to define the combined approach, which the Commission accepts in principle, although we are proposing a slightly different wording in order to make the scope more precise in legal terms. The Commission is also able to accept in principle Amendments Nos 87 and 88, which call for a timetable for the Commission to introduce controls for priority substances.
However, Amendments Nos 84 and 85 on reviewing the priority list do not allow sufficient time to deal with the substances. The Commission is therefore rejecting these amendments and is proposing to keep the existing review period of six years.
The Commission accepts in principle Amendments 34 and 122 concerning the inclusion of radioactivity in the proposal, although they may require some rewording.
With regard to charges, which have featured strongly in the debate here this evening, a more complete integration of environmental and resource costs is essential, but the problem needs to be looked at more closely.
Amendments Nos 67, 68 and 69 therefore cannot be accepted at the moment.
However, Amendment No 66, which calls for charges to be set at a level which encourages the attainment of environmental objectives, is very helpful and can of course be accepted.
Then there are a number of amendments which the Commission is rejecting for technical reasons.
There are also some which we are rejecting in the form in which they are presented, but which contain many elements which we think can be included in the amended proposal.
I shall refrain from mentioning all of these.
In conclusion, I can only welcome this report, and the same applies to the progress which has already been made.
Parliament has played a significant role, and the constructive approach which has been expressed in the discussions provides the basis for a good working atmosphere at future negotiations.
In connection with such an important subject, it is clear that a number of issues will require in-depth discussion before they can be resolved.
I am convinced that the firm stance adopted by Parliament as the legislative process has progressed will help us to achieve our goal, which is a water policy we can be proud of.
Let me just add, on the question raised by Mrs Schleicher, that in our view the proposal concerning ecological water quality is contained within this proposal, and is therefore now redundant.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Deliberate release of GMOs
The next item is the report (A4-0024/99) by Mr Bowe, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 90/220/EEC on the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms (COM(98)0085 - C4-0129/98-98/0072(COD)).
Mr President, scientific knowledge is very often shaky when it comes to almost all issues of general environmental interest.
Various research institutes produce ever-changing data which are used as a basis for political decision-making, and which may be interpreted whichever way is desirable.
Painting a threatening picture is often the easiest option.
Excessive restrictions on research shift the responsibility onto the shoulders of others while the Union sneaks along behind, like a stowaway.
But then regulation is an unconditional prerequisite, and this is indeed a very sensitive area of research.
It is the choice of the consumers themselves which products they wish to consume.
Their choice is informed by factors that have to be respected, factors based on knowledge just as much as feelings.
For this reason goods must be labelled clearly, comprehensibly and uniformly.
There must be an attempt to increase consumer awareness of the benefits and possible risks of genetically modified products.
To achieve this objective we have to invest time and money in publishing the work of the research institutes in a language that everyone can understand, giving the consumer the chance to take part in the lobbying process.
To gain consumer confidence we have to observe the precautionary principle.
As our experience and scientific knowledge grows, the content of the directive will naturally have to be reappraised.
There would have to be a thorough evaluation of the risks involved, and that would have to extend to an assessment of possible delayed effects.
Farmers cannot be assumed to have sufficient knowledge to bear any responsibility, but developers and manufacturers of genetically modified products, having conducted the appropriate tests, will have full responsibility for any harm resulting from the release of any product, whether into the environment or for human consumption.
Mr President, the Committee on the Environment originally called for the introduction of a European moratorium to give us time to reflect.
The Council rejected the idea, but that does not mean there is anything wrong with it.
On the one hand we have so much scientific uncertainty, and on the other there is a rather dubious decision-making procedure for individual applications to place products on the market, so there would have been grounds to call a halt, and even the Commission's influence has lacked direction.
There is uncertainty in particular regarding the question of ethics, the benefits to society and the long-term consequences for the environment and health.
We should not have GMOs containing antibiotics or resistant genes, or GMOs which can cross-pollinate with their cousins in the wild.
The Commission's proposal tightens up the procedures in many ways. This applies to the common principles for environmental risk assessment, obligatory monitoring of products placed on the market, and limiting the period on the market to seven years.
This is all very good.
It provides the right basis for the approval of genetically modified organisms, a basis which I think should apply to the approval of all GMO products.
But the same proposal will exclude products covered by other Community legislation in such a way that there will only be an environmental risk assessment.
This could lead to GMO products evading the thorough controls, time limits and evaluation proposed in this directive.
I am also concerned about the new, simplified procedures which make it easier to release or market certain GMOs.
This is a problem because the basis we have for making such decisions is too small.
Our experience is too limited and too uncertain in the area of GMOs.
The technology is so new that restricted authorisation would enable the authorities to have better control.
Let me say this from the point of view of the PPE: I hope that what I just heard Mrs Jensen say is not the point of view of the entire PSE Group, for that would mean the talks we have been holding over the past weeks were not very constructive.
But I believe we will manage to agree on many points during the vote tomorrow.
I particularly thank the rapporteur, David Bowe, for going to such great trouble with this report, for always being open to discussion and also being very pragmatic and determined, even if we do not agree on every point.
I hope therefore that we will manage to adopt the report tomorrow on the basis of a very broad consensus.
What is the PPE Group's standpoint? We want safety for man and the environment, but we do not want more red tape.
I believe it is a big mistake to believe that more and more red tape will protect man and the environment from harmful effects.
We need clear rules that match up to the risk.
If we bear that in mind, as we in the PPE Group do, then we could say there is both good and bad in the Commission proposal. And there is both good and bad in the report from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
In the Commission proposal we particularly welcome the improved labelling provisions, compared with those in the original directive, and we welcome the fact that the Committee on the Environment has improved them again.
We particularly welcome the fact that the Commission has opted for the simplified procedure.
We also welcome the fact that provision is made for at least a rudimentary majority-state procedure.
What is very negative about the Commission proposal is that it lays down that consent shall generally be granted for a fixed period of 7 years.
Let me ask the Commissioner: what is the scientific basis for these 7 years? What risks arise after precisely 7 years?
Do they occur after 7 years for all GMOs? Why not after 6 or 8 years, why not after 12, 15 or 2 years?
We are in favour of the approach that has become established in pharmaceutical law.
If there is a risk, then the consent must be withdrawn at once, without waiting until the seventh year.
If there is no risk, then there is no need for a time limit.
So we are very much against any general time limit.
We agree with the Committee on the Environment's proposal to make this a discretionary rather than a fixed provision.
I would prefer to be even more specific here.
That is why we have tabled an amendment.
We want time-limits to be the exception, justified on scientific grounds.
But the Committee on the Environment is moving in the right direction here.
On another question the committee is moving in the wrong direction.
I listed a number of points in the preliminary discussions.
One important point we are discussing again tonight is the question of socio-economic criteria.
I believe that you are giving the Americans a through ball here.
If we make authorisation conditional on socio-economic criteria, we will be taken for a ride at the WTO.
Then we will not have a chance to gain the support of any panel in this area.
For that reason alone we should not take that decision.
The PPE Group's decision at the final vote will depend on whether the disputed points, which we have also raised in committee, are properly clarified and agreed.
I hope we will all be able to vote for the report tomorrow and thereby send out a good signal for biotechnology in Europe.
Mr President, the report we are now debating is one of the more sensitive ones before Parliament.
It contains genuine conflicts between European industry and its desire to catch up with the USA and the more cautious environmental approach expressed through the application of the precautionary principle.
I believe that this really is an area where the precautionary principle should be applied in practice, not of course as a rejection of GMOs nor in the form of slow handling of the matter by the authorities, but as a cautious approach to the subject.
In my view, a great deal can be achieved through open discussion, not least with interested citizens - without of course revealing commercial secrets - and through careful and preferably rapid handling by the authorities.
Like other groups, the Liberal Group is divided in its attitude towards both the Commission proposal and the amendments.
I personally belong to the group which supports the Commission's seven-year rule but not the simplified procedure, although a simplified procedure could become a possibility if we considered a renewal of the marketing authorisation for the products, in other words extending the seven years.
Nor am I a supporter of creating a multinational application procedure at this time.
One of the problems in connection with the complex procedure is that decisions are made through a committee procedure in which Parliament has no influence. We have seen in the past that this creates conflicts later on, and it would therefore be desirable if the process could begin now.
We hope it will be possible to find some form of sensible compromise tomorrow - in my view preferably with as tight a timetable as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, genetically modified organisms can be regarded as the latest food scare.
In my opinion, every effort is being made to fuel these scares, even down to the terms used.
GMOs should actually be called GIOs, genetically improved organisms, as they are being created to substantially improve quality.
The words 'deliberate release' in the directive's title imply a deliberately committed offence. However, this phrase actually means placing the organisms or their products on the market only after very strict controls have been carried out and after carefully considered consent has been given for the experimental cultivation of these products.
These food scares are forcing the political decision-makers to hide behind the sacrosanct precautionary principle which, if comprehensively applied, would prevent any scientific progress. Yet this progress is demanded by those who want their comfort improved and their ills cured.
As a surgeon, this principle would have prevented me from getting anywhere near a scalpel.
We really should not be using this word of the moment - ethics - for anything and everything as it has a very specific meaning and can be better replaced in most cases by a much more appropriate term.
As for including in this directive the medicinal products already covered by another directive, as indicated by Amendment No 22, which aims to delete the excellent Article 5, this would strike a fatal blow to research on new medicines which are desperately needed to treat new and serious illnesses.
To conclude, we must make certain requests.
Firstly, a full information package must be provided before any consent is granted to the placing of GMOs or their products on the market.
Secondly, there must be a rigorous labelling policy.
Thirdly, traceability and monitoring must be guaranteed together with a detailed assessment of the risks and benefits involved, rather than using the precautionary principle at each stage.
Producers must be held liable for any damage to people or property and the placing of these products on the market must naturally be halted in the event of an alarm. We should authorise the cultivation of GMOs to be marketed within the European Union to prevent our Member States from being penalised and other countries enjoying an advantage, such as the United States, which produces and consumes genetically modified products and these are increasingly invading our supermarkets and will continue to do so.
Clearly, we must continue to ensure that these products do not constitute a risk to human health or the environment by taking account of the periodic opinions of appropriate and competent scientific committees.
Mr President, since 1990, when the current directive was adopted, the situation involving GMOs and their release has changed significantly.
Firstly, scientific uncertainty about the nature and extent of the risks is increasing.
Secondly, for certain categories of GMOs, there is proof that serious or irreversible risks do exist.
Thirdly, and with all due respect to Mr Cabrol, the precautionary principle has acquired legal and political status and has become a basic principle of European legislation.
The directive must therefore be adapted to this new situation.
The Commission's proposal does not take this into consideration.
Instead, it aims to accelerate the consent procedures and facilitate international trade.
The adoption of a simplified procedure for placing new GMOs on the market cannot be justified on the basis of a claimed equivalence with existing GMOs.
This concept of equivalence does not have any serious scientific basis.
In fact, this simplified procedure opens the door to the mutual recognition of standards allowing products authorised in the United States to be imported into Europe in increasing numbers.
We therefore feel that certain categories of GMOs that constitute particularly serious risks to the environment or health should be destroyed, not released.
This relates, in particular, to those GMOs that contain antibiotic-resistant genes, those that release toxins that are harmful to the useful fauna, and those that are likely to cross-breed with related wild or cultivated species.
We have tabled eight basic amendments which we hope will be adopted by the House.
Our group's vote depends on the fate of these amendments.
Mr President, it is claimed that the world's food production will struggle without genetic modification, but I have serious reservations about this statement when I compare it with the story about the terminator gene.
By making seed infertile, western firms are making developing countries dependent on their grain supplies, thus perpetuating the unfair distribution of food even with genetically modified organisms.
This example shows that our debate on GMOs must look at more than just the long-term effects on consumer health and safety.
We would be missing the really central issues, because what we are dealing with here is an ethical problem.
I believe that God created reality, and I therefore reject the simple reduction of plants and animals to production factors to be manipulated.
As humans we are not masters but stewards, and this is the principle on which we should base our position on the introduction of GMOs.
In practical terms this means that we must strictly enforce the precautionary principle, as the rapporteur rightly points out.
From an ethical point of view, I am wholeheartedly in favour of this.
In the Committee on the Environment, I tried to put forward amendments to extend the risk assessment to include ethical aspects, but unfortunately there was not enough support for this.
Fortunately there are proposals from the rapporteur which give people with ethical objections the freedom to choose GMO-free products.
I think it is highly desirable for GMOs to be traceable through clear labelling and the preservation of GMO-free production chains.
Mr President, there is a proverb from the Ladin hills, not far from your own home area, that goes Qui va prudan', va sicur' e lontan' .
It means, he who goes cautiously, goes safely and goes far.
I believe it is a proverb that the rapporteur, whom I thank for his work, has borne in mind in his proposals. He has made the Commission proposal more precise, careful and safer in a number of areas.
I believe it is indeed necessary to take that approach in a field in which we do not yet have the necessary experience.
I do not have the time to go into every individual point so I will only comment on a few that I regard as most important.
I think it is most important that the precautionary principle is specifically enshrined.
In my opinion, now that it is enshrined in the Amsterdam Treaty, we should do so in all legislation.
I also consider it most important that Parliament's proposal makes greater provision for information, for involvement of the public.
It is also most important to ensure that genetically modified products and organisms can be identified, to make it easier to recover them and also to assess the risk.
Risk evaluation of long-term effects has been enshrined, as has the possibility for Member States to set additional requirements for environmentally sensitive areas.
I also consider it most important - and here I would second the rapporteur's question to the Commissioner - for consent to be limited rather than unlimited.
There are other areas of environmental legislation where we find that unlimited authorisation has been granted for plant and then at a time when we already have quite different legislation, that plant can go on operating under the old limit values for a long time and does not have to adapt to new technology.
So I believe it is necessary to set limits.
But I would also have liked to ask the Commissioner whether seven years is the right period, or whether there could not be a different, more appropriate number.
For it is important when we inform the people to be able to tell them why a particular decision was taken rather than another one.
I hope Members will endorse the Environment Committee's proposals at the vote tomorrow, so that we can present the Council with a proposal that takes account of what this Parliament stands for, namely concern for the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, we cannot forget that this proposal amends a previous proposal and that the Member States and the Commission itself therefore already have a great deal of experience with it.
As a result, we should welcome some of the proposals that improve on previous provisions, such as the introduction of a mandatory post-marketing monitoring system for products, the introduction of clear risk assessment criteria, the classification of the experimental releases of products, an improvement in administrative procedures and increased transparency throughout the process.
These are all improvements and I therefore find it difficult to understand many of the amendments that have been tabled in the Committee on the Environment. They seem to reflect an excessive desire for control.
Biotechnology in general and genetic manipulation techniques provide great hope for humanity. They are not a threat and we must get that message across to the whole of society.
We must also get rid of the whole unscientific mentality surrounding this issue.
We must not allow fundamentalist political ideas to hide behind the cloak of ethical objections.
We cannot forget that the patent laws already take account of the ethical dimension and public policy before a patent is granted. In addition, we have always rejected socio-economic criteria when approving the release of any product onto the market.
This is political pro-activism pure and simple.
I therefore clearly support the main points of the Commission's balanced proposal, although I will vote against many of the amendments that have been tabled.
Mr President, I welcome very much the tightening that this new directive represents.
It confronts a number of important issues as does the report by Mr Bowe.
However, it misses one major strategic point and that arises from the fact that European citizens are very much more concerned about GMOs and their potential effects than other populations, particularly in North America.
What is missing from the recommendations here, and the directive, is the provisions for Member States to apply moratoria that are not necessarily based on strict existing scientific opinion.
What I would want to see, certainly in the second reading of this directive, is provision for Member States at least to put forward moratoria for five years while that research is taking place.
Mr President, thank you for the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate.
Genetic research has much to offer mankind in alleviating disease, enhancing food security and quality and in the area of environmental protection.
Understandably, there have been many concerns raised in relation to this new and developing science. They include lack of product labelling, environmental effects, antibiotic markers used in the selection process along with ethical, moral and social considerations.
These issues need debating and both consumers and public are right to be cautious.
On the question of food safety, I repeat my view that only after the most stringent tests should genetically modified food or food ingredients be allowed into the food chain and only then with detailed consumer information.
The consumer must be given a clear choice at all times.
It would be wrong, however, to deprive agriculture of the benefits of modern research.
To do so would tie the hands of the industry at a time when, for example, my country Ireland, as an agricultural exporting nation, must become increasingly competitive.
The selective use of genetic research would assist in developing my country's green image and lead to a reduction in the use of fertilizers and pesticides.
Mr President, I was very glad that Mr Bowe accepted our proposals regarding liability.
But I hope I have no grounds for mistrust after hearing Mr Liese's statement and hearing about his preliminary talks.
I hope we do not drop the idea of the insurance certificate, for otherwise liability would be pointless.
People would think we were mad if we said tomorrow that drivers were allowed to take their cars on the road without an insurance certificate.
It would be even more senseless in the case of a risk technology to call only for liability without making it compulsory to have insurance.
I hope that tomorrow's vote will be the proof, indeed the acid test, that the European Parliament can assume responsibility.
I was also pleased by the call just now for Member States to be able to apply moratoria.
We tabled an amendment to precisely that effect in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, but unfortunately it was in vain.
We hope you will be able to approve it tomorrow.
I hope tomorrow we will send out a signal that we take the alarming scientific findings seriously.
A simplified procedure is irresponsible, as is Category I and the majority-state procedure.
But what I regard as the ultimate irresponsibility is a 12-year consent period for doubtful cases.
That is pure cynicism, for surely it means that we are using man and nature as a form of guinea-pig!
We believe it is vital to ban antibiotic-resistant genes, for otherwise we are heading for a therapeutic disaster, and to ensure that high-risk plants, i.e. those that can cross over to others, really must not be allowed to spread ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, the applications of genetically modified organisms are very broadly based and can be found in significant areas of human life, from medicine and the protection of the environment to agriculture and foodstuffs.
However, it is natural for the citizen to ask how we can ensure that the explosive pace at which this phenomenon is evolving does not exceed our capacity to regulate the issues that arise, while at the same time ignoring the safety of our society and our eco-systems.
Taking all these factors into account, the Community issued Commission Directive 90/220/EEC, which was implemented for the first time in 1991.
However, experience necessitated that it be revised.
Today we have before us a report which seeks to revise the directive, and I should like to thank our rapporteur, Mr Bowe, for the tremendous work he has put into this report.
By tabling my amendments, I wished to clarify the relationship that exists between humans and GMOs, and this because the definition of such organisms in the Commission's text is formulated in such a way as to include humans.
Amendments Nos 9 and 10 which I have tabled help to clarify this point and permit the use of human genes in the transfer and creation of GMOs. In this way, we can produce useful substances such as human insulin and many other human bio-molecules.
In my second amendment, I have ruled out human beings as recipients of GMOs, which would have led to the creation of genetically modified humans, and this would not have been acceptable for scientific, ethical, social and legal reasons.
We must wake up to the fact that GMOs and biotechnology are neither an economic nor a universal panacea, but nor are they a Pandora's box.
This is indeed a force, a force which opens up wonderful opportunities, if we use it prudently and responsibly.
It offers us the opportunity to combat far more effectively catastrophes on a global scale which all types of polluting activity inflicts on the environment. It offers us the opportunity to combat the misery that disease inflicts on human beings and the wretchedness wrought on society by famine.
Mr President, I can think of a number of basic requirements in relation to GMOs.
First of all, there is a stronger requirement for food to be wholesome.
People are becoming more aware, and this is leading to discussions concerning antibiotics, salmonella and additives.
Secondly, consumers should be able to make an informed choice, and labelling would enable them to do this.
Such a requirement is absolutely crucial.
Thirdly, the ethical and environmental implications should be explained, and there should be a ban on crops which have been made resistant to pesticides.
Fourthly, there should be rules at both European and international level governing the safety precautions that are required should GMOs be released into the environment.
Clearly, there has to be a deadline for drawing up these rules, as well as rules relating to producer responsibility.
Finally, the Member States should be entitled to impose their own stricter rules and to adopt more progressive measures, for example moratoriums.
Mr President, I welcome the Bowe report and congratulate the rapporteur, who has put an enormous amount of work into this.
It is obviously very important that we put in place legislation that the people of Europe will have confidence in.
I am one of those who regard advances in genetic modification as having enormous potential benefits for mankind.
However, in recent months and years the voices of those calling for caution have got louder than those pointing out the advantages.
Of course, politicians should never simply react to the loudest lobby but public concern about GMOs has grown to such an extent that it is now very difficult to find farmers in my country who are prepared to have these trial crops grown on their land.
Unfortunately for the scientists engaged in GMO research, the public have heard relatively little about the benefits of GMO technology and a lot about the potential disadvantages.
This is a defect of the debate that scientists still have to put right in the public arena.
The directive before us is on the right lines and we believe broadly strikes the right balance between the freedom of the scientists to innovate and market the product of their innovation and the right of public authorities to insist on safety.
I agree with Mr Liese that the seven-year authorisation period is unsatisfactorily arbitrary.
If there is doubt about any genetically modified material, then surely it should not be permitted for release in the first place.
There are, however, certain amendments - for example Amendment No 68 - which call for more caution and which we, British Conservatives, want to support.
In this we shall be taking up the recent call of our party leader in the House of Commons where he spoke in favour of a three-year moratorium on the commercial release of genetically modified crops until more research is done into the consequences of such releases, especially for biological diversity.
Curiously, the British Government, which Mr Bowe unfortunately does not adorn, has ignored the advice of its own nature protection body - English Nature - by refusing to agree to such a moratorium.
More curiously still, Mr Bowe and Mr Collins, we suspect, were on the brink of supporting such a moratorium before their voices were stayed by a telephone call from London.
Such is the fate of principle in the New British Labour Party.
Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement under Rule 108.
I listened carefully to what other colleagues said with regard to the issue of a moratorium.
I should say first of all that the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and I, as the rapporteur, signed a request to the Commission to consider the possibility of some kind of moratorium until the new proposal we are debating today was brought into place and the appropriate safeguards introduced.
However, there has been a reference to a moratorium in the amendments by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Green Group.
I hope that somebody can identify for me in the eight amendments tabled by Mrs Breyer the one which calls for a moratorium.
It seems to me that none of them do and I do not understand why she says there is one because that is simply not the case.
Finally, I would just say this: I was very surprised by Mrs Breyer's remarks describing the maximum time limit of 12 years as something awful, because Amendment No 75 by her own group itself requires a maximum time limit of 12 years!
Mr President, on the 12-year question: the committee called for a 12-year time-limit where there are safety doubts.
I am surprised to hear Mr Liese applauding, for it would be cynical of me to say: I shall put products on the market which I know in advance are doubtful.
That would be turning man and nature into guinea-pigs.
What we would have liked to see are monitoring programmes before the seven years are up, i.e. a fixed time-limit but with monitoring programmes that start before that date.
We tabled several other amendments in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, doing so in three different ways in regard to the moratorium for release.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists rejected them.
We have now tabled Amendment No 77, which reverses the burden of proof by saying that the Commission must provide proof to the contrary.
That is not a personal statement, Mrs Breyer, and I must therefore cut you off.
Mr President, this is not the first time I have had the opportunity to discuss the issue of GMOs with Parliament.
We have done so several times, and each time we have created more clarity in the area, and now we have come to the legislation.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs of the committees which have been working on the subject, including Mr Bowe of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
As has been pointed out during the debate this evening, the directive currently before us seeks to make the decision-making process more efficient and more transparent, while at the same time ensuring a high level of protection for health and the environment.
In the long term, the directive will thus hopefully increase public confidence in the legislation in this area. I believe that is a crucial point.
In line with the precautionary principle in the field of health and the environment, the Commission's proposal aims firstly to toughen up the risk assessment to be carried out before authorisation for the release of GMOs is given and, secondly, to improve the chances of identifying and monitoring GMOs so that the competent authorities can react immediately and appropriately in the event of acute risk.
Against this background, I am glad to note that many of the proposed amendments improve on or clarify the Commission's proposal.
In many cases, we shall be able to use the ideas behind Parliament's amendments.
We can accept 44 of the 100 amendments in full, in part or in principle.
Amongst others, the amendments aimed at introducing a means of identifying genetically modified organisms will simplify, though not reduce, the monitoring and inspection measures.
However, the Commission will word these amendments a little differently, and we would also like to position them slightly differently so that they fit in better with the rest of the text.
The proposal seeks to meet the growing scepticism of the public towards biotechnology, which is something all of the speakers have probably touched on.
The Commission therefore cannot accept those amendments which change the balance and weaken the safety net which is built into the proposal, including the principle that authorisation is to be for a limited period.
On the strength of this principle, all new information will be taken into account and it will be possible to amend the requirements in accordance with the latest knowledge.
We have proposed a seven-year period.
Mr Bowe said this must be my favourite number and others also asked why it should be seven years.
Obviously, there are several options which people could argue for.
We saw it as a balance between the normal lifetime of a genetically modified product, the monitoring system we have proposed, and the need for the administrative procedures for this directive to be clear, practical and founded on science, in accordance with the precautionary principle.
I would also like to add that I personally, at any rate, do not think that the seven-year period should be extended, which means that I reject a number of the amendments. This applies to Amendments Nos 41, 45, 45 and 75.
In the light of the debate which has taken place in the various Community institutions, however, the Commission can go along with an optional time-limit for the renewal of authorisations.
In line with this, the Commission is unable to accept Amendment No 24, which is aimed at introducing tacit approval for trial releases in Category I. In the Commission's view, the precautionary principle means that express written authorisation is required in all cases of release into the environment.
Labelling is one of the means which creates openness and reduces public misgivings.
The proposal therefore requires clear labelling of all genetically modified organisms which are placed on the market.
If there are any doubts, the labelling must state that the product 'may contain genetically modified organisms'.
If we introduce a system which does not require labelling below a given threshold, companies which process genetically modified organisms will not receive the information they need in order to be able to fulfil the strict labelling requirements imposed by the product legislation.
Therefore the Commission is unable to accept Amendments Nos 37, 67 and 76.
Another important question is the liability of the Member States in connection with decisions on product approval.
Here the Commission has proposed to change the committee procedure to give more influence to the Council.
The participation of the European Parliament in the committee procedure will now take place in accordance with the modus vivendi agreement and will, I believe, be formalised in a decision on the new committee procedure.
The Commission therefore cannot accept at this stage Amendment No 55, which is aimed at making alterations to committee procedure 3b.
Amendments Nos 36 and 80 strengthen the connection between this directive and product legislation, and so ensure that the whole framework legislation on biotechnology involves an extensive environmental risk assessment.
These amendments can therefore be accepted in principle, after some rewording.
However, the Commission cannot accept the removal or any alteration of Article 5, as proposed in Amendments Nos 2, 22 and 98.
The question of liability in Amendments Nos 7, 56 and 95 is currently being considered in the Commission, which intends to publish a white paper on liability.
A good deal of progress has been made in this area, and the Commission will of course present its white paper as soon as possible.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 19, 21 and 51, which are aimed at regulating the import and export of genetically modified organisms.
These amendments would pre-empt the final wording of the Protocol on Biosafety which is currently under discussion.
I would also like to draw attention to Amendments Nos 27, 29 and 32 on public inquiries or consultation in connection with trial releases.
The Commission is able to accept these amendments in principle, but we would like to see them reworded so that they ensure agreement with the Århus Convention on public participation in the decision-making process.
Amendment Nos 6 and 54 are acceptable in principle because they confirm that the Council and the European Parliament can request the Commission to consult with the Ethics Committee on general ethical problems in connection with the release of genetically modified organisms.
Finally, I would like to emphasise that, apart from the question of the fixed-period authorisation, the amendments which the Commission has accepted in full, in part or in principle have resulted in a clear improvement of the quality of the proposal.
An example of this is Amendment No 14, which will simplify the monitoring and detection of GMOs.
In my view, the amendments make the Commission's text clearer and sharper, and will therefore create a sensible and feasible framework for achieving the high level of safety we all wish to see for the release of GMOs into the environment.
Mr President, I find it unacceptable that the Commissioner has been coming here for the past six years and announcing that a White Paper on liability is imminent.
We debated Directive No 90/219 exactly a year ago.
There too we called for the introduction of liability.
The Commissioner said there would be a White Paper in a few weeks' time.
But a White Paper is not a directive.
Six years have passed since the Green Paper.
Commissioner, I think what you are doing here is gradually becoming an insult to our intelligence!
You refuse liability by stalling us for six years with a horizontal directive
I would now like you to tell us exactly why you keep lying to us and in particular why you said there would be a White Paper in a few weeks' time and why you are stalling us again now. Even then we would still be far from having a directive.
That means it would still take years.
Where, I ask myself, is the own responsibility of industry and science?
I find it totally irresponsible and no longer acceptable for you to stall us like this!
You have had one minute, and it was exceptional for me to give you the floor.
Mr President, we are moving quite a long way away from the actual proposal, but I would like to emphasise that I have definitely not promised Mrs Breyer in the past that there would be a proposal for a directive on liability.
We have previously discussed the question, and we have worked on a green paper.
It is an extremely complicated issue which produces a great many reactions, and of course it takes time to get such a proposal through.
That is why I have emphasised this evening that we will make an effort to have it ready as quickly as possible, but the Commission has not yet finished its work on the proposal.
Mrs Breyer also knows very well that these are the conditions for presenting a proposal in Parliament.
Mr President, I am asking for the floor because I was personally addressed and attacked in the last but one statement by Mrs Breyer and if she is given the floor again this must be clarified.
She said that because we are in favour of an optional time-limit that means we regard people as guinea-pigs.
That really is absurd.
The fact is that the Commission evidently sees a need for introducing a time-limit.
We say there need to be scientific grounds for doing so.
If there are scientific grounds, then it should be done; so it has nothing to do with guinea-pigs.
For there are some areas where no such grounds exists, where no scientific reasons can be found for setting a time-limit, and that is the issue.
The issue has nothing at all to do with guinea-pigs or whatever but concerns a procedure that is commensurate with the risk!
Thank you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
I shall now suspend the sitting for a few minutes.
The sitting was suspended at 10.45 p.m. and resumed at 10.48 p.m.
End-of-life vehicles
The next item is the report (A4-0051/99) by Mr Florenz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on end-of-life vehicles (COM(97)0358 - C4-0639/97-97/0194(SYN)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, eight or nine million or cars a year are discarded in the European Community.
That calls for rules, and I think it was high time the European Commission addressed this issue.
I was a little annoyed to find that in this very important area, which is important not just to environment policy but also to economic policy, we received a proposal from the Commission that contained no annexes, or rather annexes that were empty.
For we know that the annexes are the crux of the matter.
Normally we have tended to send this kind of proposal back.
But since we have started, we may as well try to go on with our endeavour.
I believe this directive has set a good course.
There are some areas where it needs tightening up a bit.
And in some areas it is very strict. In committee we decided by a fairly substantial majority to concentrate only on two- and three-wheeled vehicles, unlike the Commission, which wants to set out broader rules.
The object of this directive is to ensure that in future vehicles that have reached the end of their life can only be deregistered on production of a certificate of destruction, which may sound very good at first, but which is in my view rather difficult to achieve, in some Member States at least.
A little more work needs be done here and we have made a few proposals to that end.
Article 6 concerns the treatment of end-of-life vehicles.
I believe here too a few nuances are needed, but basically we will follow the Commission line.
Another point I do not entirely understand is how the costs will be distributed in future in Europe.
The Commissioner reverted to a rather fuddy-duddy approach and opted for no costs for the last owner and/or user.
No doubt that sounds quite interesting to a politician, especially when elections are on the horizon.
But no costs for the last user either, that can never be!
That is a fallacy.
I think we have overlooked the fact that no costs will automatically lead to a monopoly and, as we all know all too well, monopolies always lead to concentration processes, which are always a bad thing!
That really will drive the small and medium-sized enterprises that we keep supporting and praising in our electioneering speeches out of the market.
Jobs will be lost.
It will cut the regional incomes of our petrol stations, of our garages. After all I would not drive to some posh body repair shop to have my car deregistered, I would go to my local dealer who lives in my village and has been looking after my car for years.
I believe that is the wrong approach.
My proposal is that the Member States should be responsible, together with the economic operators involved, i.e. the manufacturer, recoverer, shredder, last owner, etc., for developing a system at their own cost that will where possible involve no cost for the last owner, but not par ordre de moufti .
I think an insurance system like the one for motor vehicles, where everyone pays in one euro a month, would be quite a good solution.
That would certainly have been in my amendment.
There is a second point - and here for once I agree with the Commissioner, in fact I am quite enthusiastic - and that is the very exacting recovery targets.
These very exacting recovery targets will without doubt require the industry to make quite an effort.
And that is a good thing, for we have a great number - hundreds of thousands, millions - of cars in Europe and obviously we want to go on having them.
But precisely because we want to have them, we also need sensible recovery quotas.
I believe the committee has moved in the wrong direction here, because it has accepted an amendment by a colleague of mine, whom I normally hold in very high regard, that prescribes that nothing more will be done until the year 2020.
If I am interpreting that amendment correctly, then in future the motor industry will only have to ensure that there are no passengers in the car; apart from that, it can send the car to the shredder and do whatever it wants.
That is not environmentally friendly, and you know that this is something I keep a very close eye on.
I believe the Commission's approach is a little too harsh, but if it could be toned down a little the basic principle would be right.
It is precisely because we have nine million tonnes of scrap cars that we need recycling rules.
We turned the whole of Europe upside down for one ridiculous little package and introduced packaging regulations for it.
We are now deciding on the labelling to go with this packaging regulation - the rapporteur is sitting behind me.
So if we fix a recycling quota for such a small matter, then we surely also need to have recycling quotas for nine million tonnes of scrap cars, and certainly before the year 2020.
I do not think this is acceptable!
A lot of lobbying is going on here, but we will put a stop to it.
We may quarrel about the ban on hazardous substances.
The Commission has proposed values and parameters which, in my view, are very tough.
In this field too we are now seeing an enormous expansion.
I would stick to the Commission's principle and propose a combined committee made up of Directorates-General III and XII, which would make a critical, scientifically sound proposal after three years on whether these tough rules need to be maintained and implemented.
I know it is sacrilege to invite DG III and DG XII to the same table, but I do not think it is such a bad idea.
Some people want to ban PVC.
I cannot judge the merits of that. I am not an expert in chemistry.
But if PVC is dangerous, then all this junk should be banned in a horizontal directive and not stigmatised in an individual secondary directive.
The Commission needs to hurry up here, and that is where you, Mrs Bjerregaard, come in.
I know you have some very important colleagues who are slowing this whole business down.
It is up to you to see to this horizontal directive.
This kind of thing cannot be regulated in the directive we have here.
That is stigmatisation, and I do not think it is right.
I am a passionate supporter of voluntary agreements.
If there are Member States which dispose of their old cars in line with the objectives of the European directives then, for God's sake, provided they can be monitored, we should also allow them to retain their voluntary agreements.
Instructions from above are always a second best.
Mr President, in this debate it falls to me to represent the views of the committee which has offered an opinion to the Environment Committee which, I have to say, was very favourably received, and I thank the rapporteur and the members of the committee for accepting many of our amendments.
I can, therefore, commend the report itself to the House, on behalf of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.
In relation to that report we do not just have to take on board the importance of the ideas expressed by Mr Florenz about recycling - endorse them though I do.
He is absolutely correct: there are large tonnages of waste coming from cars every year.
Much of it is not metal and much of it has to be dealt with under very difficult circumstances.
We need a serious and proper approach to it.
Certainly one of the outcomes of this would be a more orderly market-place, one in which recycling takes place, not in the traditional scrapyard, which we are all familiar with, but in a proper recycling facility which will create employment opportunities and the kind of jobs which are so sorely lacking in many parts of the Union and which will isolate the metals and other substances from cars and put them to good economic use.
There are two issues we cannot ignore and I would press on the House.
The first is the issue of leaded steel.
We have some amendments before us tonight which recognise the difficulties involved in removing certain metals from cars completely; I hope we will endorse those amendments tonight to ensure that the recycling of cars is done in an environmentally friendly way that does not require additional expenditure of energy which, if we took out all the metals referred to by the Commission, would be needed.
In addition, I should like to point out that it is very important from the point of view of the final consumer that take-back is free of charge - perhaps the consumer could even receive the deposit back, but take-back must be free of charge.
That is very important if we are to ensure that the system functions effectively.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are aiming at two major objectives with this directive.
First, we want to dispose of these eight million vehicles properly and, secondly, we want to dump as few as possible as landfill. The question is: how do we achieve that?
I believe that first we must guarantee take-back free of charge to the last owner, and for several reasons, one of which is of course social.
For it is surely not acceptable to penalise the last owner in this way.
Many others have had the benefit of this car; many others have driven it.
The manufacturers sold it, of course, so they also benefited from it.
So if we take this approach we must distribute the cost fairly among everyone and not just foist it on the last owner.
That is why I say: no charge for the last owner.
How the Member States apply that is of course their business.
There is the Dutch system, there is the German system, the French system - I do not want to lay down any rules.
It is the principle that concerns me.
And there is a second reason. What, I ask you, is happening today in countries where disposal is either self-financing or is cost free?
In those countries used cars are stored illegally or exported to the east. Surely that cannot be our waste-disposal policy!
In Germany some 50 % of used cars are transported in an exodus to the east.
So it is quite clear to me that we must insist on freedom of charge. Nor will that spell the death of small and medium-sized enterprises.
After all, what does the motor industry do in the case of services, of supply contracts? It invites tenders and there is competition.
The same will apply to the recovery of old cars.
However, and this is my second point, I believe we must draw a distinction between old and new cars.
After all, we cannot expect a car that was built 20 years ago to satisfy today's requirements.
That would be like saying that a 20-year-old car had to meet the Euro 4 standard for 2005 under the current legislation on exhaust gas.
So we must ensure that as few old cars as possible are dumped, but we certainly cannot lay down what quota is to be recovered in what way.
Just imagine in real life: an old car is taken to the shredder, goes through the shredder; at most you can determine the weight before and after, but not how the individual materials are used - that is quite absurd.
It would mean that the very people who keep fighting bureaucracy would have to set up an enormous monitoring system for old cars which would be impossible to verify.
I think we should only decide on matters that we can also guarantee and verify.
So for old cars we can restrict the materials that may be dumped, but not set a sub-quota on how they may be used.
For new cars, however, which are being manufactured now, we need an ambitious system to ensure that they are as recycling-friendly as possible.
So in that case I am in favour of a type approval that lays down such quotas.
There we can carry out checks, as we do with the crash test, as we do for exhaust gas emissions.
For new cars we must apply stringent reuse and recycling requirements.
After all, the question of application is the key question.
Mr Florenz said, in his nice way, that we would be taking a softer line and the directive would only apply from the year 2020.
Let me tell him, that is total rubbish!
We say the directive should apply immediately, and to all cars.
Regardless of how they are serviced, regardless of any spare parts they contain - all cars must be taken back and recovered free of cost at once, not just in 2005, as the Commissioner proposes.
So we are taking a more stringent line.
Secondly, we say that the type approval rules as from 2005 must provide in precise terms that new cars must be recycling-friendly. That too makes this legislation more stringent.
That means, to put it mildly, that it is not right of Mr Florenz to say that we would be watering down these Commission proposals in any respect at all.
On the contrary, we are following a different system.
But I am firmly convinced that we are tightening up the Commission proposal for the sake of environmental protection and consumer protection and moving it in the right direction.
It is quite obvious to me that we need clarification on the question of heavy metals, which is why we must now make it clear once and for all in what areas we want or do not want heavy metals.
Mr President, the proposed directive under discussion is particularly important and concerns all of us as users of motor vehicles.
I am not going to go over the ground covered by my colleagues Mr Florenz and Mr Lange, but will instead mention a few points which I feel are essential.
Firstly, some people are calling for a ban on PVC, but we must be consistent.
Calling for a ban on PVC is in complete contradiction with our recent call to vehicle manufacturers to build vehicles that consume less and therefore have lower levels of emissions.
It is common knowledge that if vehicles cannot use PVC, they will be heavier and will therefore consume more.
So we must be consistent.
On the other hand, I totally agree with Amendment No 34 tabled by Mr Lange. In my opinion, it is essential to make a clear distinction between old and new vehicles that will receive type approval before and after 2005 respectively.
At least this gives vehicle manufacturers an idea of the constraints to be imposed on them after 2005.
Finally, it is essential to carry out a risk assessment of the materials and substances included in Annex II.
In my opinion, it would be better to assess these risks and, if a risks exists, to then look at the exemptions that could be granted.
That would allow us, in this case, to achieve an appropriate balance between the environment and the motor industry.
These are the points which I feel are particularly important if we are to find a solution to a problem that is sweeping through our entire industrial society.
I sincerely hope that appropriate solutions can be found to solve this problem of end-of-life vehicles, particularly since we are now all aware of it.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to say that I was impressed by this proposal for a directive.
Mr Florenz has also done his work well, although I would actually rate his work in other areas more highly than in this one.
He has not been quite as tough as he has tended to be in other circumstances.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has, however, sharpened up the directive and I sincerely hope that the Commission will now approve it.
I should like to mention one or two points.
It is abundantly clear that there should be some form of manufacturer responsibility for cars as well.
It would therefore be reasonable for manufacturers to bear the major share of the responsibility, but in point of fact the consumer alone foots the bill; it is always the consumer who has to pay.
However, the final consumer should be able to get rid of his or her car free of charge.
I believe that this is necessary if the scheme is to work.
There should also be quotas and rules regarding the quantities to be recycled using different methods.
As regards new cars, far more stringent criteria need to be introduced as quickly as possible.
We know the industry often claims that to do so would be impossibly difficult or expensive, but it then goes on to do just that.
In a number of different areas, the industry has shown that it is capable of making the necessary adaptations.
Bearing in mind that cars eventually have to be scrapped, environmentally unfriendly materials such as lead, mercury, chromium and cadmium should be eliminated, that much is patently clear.
My group and I also think that the same should apply to PVC, since if we allow it in cars, it is never going to be clear to people that we want to eliminate this material, only we have to wait for a horizontal directive in order to do so. You cannot explain such things to ordinary people.
In all probability it is only our politicians who understand them.
Consequently, I think it should be included in this proposal.
Mr President, I have two initial remarks to make.
The first concerns so-called 'historic' vehicles.
In a limited number of cases, these vehicles are kept by their owners either for restoration or as a source of spares.
They are part of our industrial heritage and their preservation must be encouraged.
We therefore fully support Amendment No 1 tabled by the rapporteur.
My second remark concerns two-wheel vehicles, which cannot be regarded as a threat to the environment for the simple reason that the concepts of 'end of life' and 'discarding' do not apply to them.
Although a few may attain the hallowed status of historic vehicles, the ruthless world of two wheels is typified by cannibalism as parts are easy to strip off and many owners carry out maintenance and minor repairs themselves.
Two-wheel vehicles are therefore generally stripped and their components naturally reused.
I must also highlight Amendment No 53 which concerns the recycling or recovery percentages.
It maintains our ambitious objectives but, based on the experience of the 'packaging' directive, it pragmatically provides for the option to periodically review these objectives and alter them if necessary.
We will also support Amendment No 54 which rightly stipulates that the free recovery of vehicles will not be backdated.
On the other hand, we will vote against Amendment No 21, which would ban the use of PVC, for three reasons.
Firstly, the usefulness of this material is indisputable.
Secondly, it is an anticorrosive product which extends the life of vehicles, reduces their weight and thereby has a positive impact on consumption and pollution, as indicated by Mrs Grossetête. And thirdly, the majority of PVC is reused or recycled and it would therefore be particularly illogical to move away from the Commission's horizontal approach in this respect.
Mr President, this proposal for a directive is a stroke of luck for the environment, since assigning responsibility to the manufacturer was long overdue and it was also high time waste prevention applied to the motor vehicle sector too.
I am glad the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection also stood up for freedom of charge to the last user.
I very much regret that Mr Florenz has expressed his personal view here rather than that of the Environment Committee.
I hope that tomorrow Members will also stand by their amendment on banning PVC from the year 2005.
I find it shocking to hear that there are obviously plans to bow to the PVC industry here tomorrow!
And let me tell Mrs Grossetête and others that we are not talking about banning plastic.
We are talking about banning PVC, about products involving chlorine.
There is actually a bioplastic and other plastic materials.
The argument she put forward was quite absurd and I must say that unfortunately that shows that she was not well-informed and that obviously this is merely a question of arguments ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, problems with end-of-life vehicles which are to be scrapped are largely due to the way they are produced.
That is why we should both ensure that vehicle parts are reused and that specially harmful substances are not used in the new generation of vehicles.
That brings us to PVC.
Like other Members, I wonder what the Commission intends to do about this.
As we know, PVC is not the solution of the future, even though in the material it sends us, the PVC industry tries to distort the Swedish PVC action plan, for example, so as to persuade us that the Swedes think PVC is a health product which everyone should have more of.
In fact, they do not think that at all.
PVC has a wide range of applications, but its disposal creates environmental problems.
PVC produces even more waste after incineration than the amount that was sent to the incineration plant.
Incinerated PVC produces dioxins, which are among the most dangerous toxins that exist.
In addition, the plasticisers used in PVC, the so-called phthalates, are suspected of being hormone interferers, and in legislation which is geared to the future we must observe the precautionary principle.
Every time that PVC is involved in a proposal for a directive, we are told that this problem in particular cannot be looked at on its own or vertically, but that we should look at it globally and horizontally, and that the Commission will do the thinking for us.
As far as I am aware, it has been meaning to do so since the 1980s.
Today the Commission must tell us when it will take an initiative in the area of PVC, because that will have a bearing on the way we vote tomorrow.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Florenz because reuse really should be given priority; but I also want to say absolutely no to the PVC ban because we do not yet know of any viable alternatives.
To include the collection of used parts from repaired cars would involve the entire garage waste disposal system and in the final analysis that has nothing to do with the directive.
Take-back free of charge would also destroy market forces and, above all, would exclude existing firms from the recovery chain and produce expensive bureaucratic obstacles to trade.
On Amendment No 42 I would say it is a positive sign for environmental agreements because with many agreements on end-of-life vehicles in Europe compliance tends to be concentrated on just a few articles.
On Amendment No 44: in my view the technical annex is too detailed and also contains provisions that make no sense.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Florenz for the work which the Committee on the Environment has done on this important and complex proposal.
The Committee on the Environment has proposed 45 amendments, and with a further 16 there is a total of 61.
Some of the amendments clarify or improve the proposal, and I can already say that the Commission is able to accept 20 of them in full or in part.
There are also some amendments which dilute the Commission's proposal and reduce the level of environmental protection.
Here I am thinking in particular of topics such as producer responsibility, recovery targets, and the scope and implementation of the proposal.
These elements are central to the Commission's proposal, and we cannot accept any watering-down of them.
I would like to comment on the many amendments in groups.
Let me begin with the scope of the proposal.
Here I shall comment on two aspects in particular.
The first aspect, which relates to Amendments Nos 9, 14 and the second part of 17, concerns veteran vehicles.
We do not think that veteran vehicles which are in museums or owned by private individuals constitute waste.
They are therefore not covered by the proposal, but we can of course make that clearer in the proposal itself.
Then there is the proposal concerning the extent to which this should apply to two and three-wheeled vehicles.
We have also considered this, and we think that these vehicles should only be exempt from Articles 4 and 7 of the proposal.
Amendment No 18 means that two and three-wheeled vehicles would be exempt from all the articles apart from Article 6 of the proposal, and we cannot agree to that.
Then there are the heavy metals and PVC.
In its proposal, the Commission has chosen to require that some of the heavy metals should be removed from the vehicles before they are reused, and I see that the Committee on the Environment is in favour of a clear phasing-out of such heavy metals and a list of derogations which can be amended through the committee procedure.
Unfortunately, I have reservations about this, so at the moment I cannot support Amendments Nos 20, 21, 45, 56 and 59, and Mrs Jensen was quite right that my answer concerning PVC would be that we are currently working on a horizontal initiative, so I cannot accept Amendments Nos 8, 19 and 21.
Then there is the question of the collection and take-back of end-of-life vehicles.
Here the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 24, 28 and 29 which clarify the text, but we cannot accept Amendments Nos 26 and 27. Amendments Nos 22 and 23 require careful consideration, so we are not accepting them today.
I would like to emphasise that both free take-back and the principle of producer responsibility, which have also featured strongly in the debate today, are key elements in connection with making production and consumption more sustainable in the longer term.
This is also the reason why we cannot accept Amendment No 25 or Amendments Nos 46 and 54, but we can endorse Amendment No 43.
As far as recycling, reuse and recovery of end-of-life vehicles is concerned, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 34, because it would remove the short-term recovery target.
Then there is Amendment No 61, which makes the targets less clear, and Amendment No 53, which represents a serious obstacle to achieving the long-term targets and is also unacceptable.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 49 and 50, which would make it difficult to monitor whether the quantified targets have been reached, but we can accept Amendments Nos 57 and 58.
There are also the amendments relating to implementation and, lastly, there is the question of environmental agreements, which we cannot accept at the present time.
In this context, I must point out in passing that this concerned an entirely different debate, when we were discussing a different proposal from the Committee on the Environment regarding voluntary agreements.
I hope it will be possible to find a compromise in the course of further negotiations which strikes a balance between considerations relating to the environment, consumers and industry.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Unilateral US measures against banana regime
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions:
B4-0017/99 by Mr Querbes and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, to the Commission, on unilateral retaliatory measures taken by the United States against Community exports in the wake of the 'bananas' dispute; -B4-0018/99 by Mr Aldo and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, to the Commission, on unilateral US retaliatory measures in the dispute over the European banana import regime; -B4-0019/99 by Mr Castagnède and Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance, to the Commission, on the new WTO panel on bananas and unilateral US threats of retaliatory customs action; -B4-0139/99 by Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel and Mr Moorhouse, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, to the Commission, on the functioning of the WTO Dispute-Settlement Procedures and the US/EU banana dispute; -B4-0140/99 by Mrs Mann, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the Commission, on unilateral measures taken by the United States against the import of EU goods; -B4-0141/99 by Mr Souchet, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, to the Commission, on unilateral retaliatory measures which the United States of America is threatening to take in the dispute over the European banana import regime; -B4-0142/99 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament, to the Commission, on the WTO and the trade dispute between the EU and the USA concerning the common organisation of the market in bananas; -B4-0143/99 by Mr Kittelmann and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to the Commission, on unilateral trade measures taken by the United States of America against selected European products and the WTO Dispute Settlement Procedure.
Mr President, I would like to point out that the measures agreed on by the United States, the problems involved in applying the regulation on the COM for bananas and the conflicts that have arisen in this area mean that we must consider two basic issues.
The first is that the Union must defend its internal law, which is an expression of its autonomy. It is being attacked by rules such as Section 301, that are applied with extraterritorial effect and that are used to defend interests rather than rights.
The second is the need to guarantee that the arbitration procedures are effective. These have been used against the Union in the past and now, due to circumstances, they are being called into question because of the unilateral protectionist measures that have been taken.
Both questions lead us to the conclusion that we are pursuing an open market policy that is not reciprocated and that benefits the United States.
The US not only wants European markets to be open to products from the United States; they must also be open in the way that the United States dictates.
We must ensure that we maintain the Union's legislative autonomy; in this case, the COM for bananas is symbolic.
What we are trying to do is to assert the Union's autonomy.
Thank you, Mrs Sierra González, and thank you for keeping to your speaking time.
I would remind the House that I have to be extremely strict this evening in order for us to stay on schedule.
Mr President, since my election to this House, I have repeatedly denounced the constant attacks by the United States against the COM for bananas.
Despite the far-reaching concessions granted by the European Union during the reform of the COM, this new regime continues to be attacked by the United States which basically wants it to be dismantled. I must point out that, at the time, we fought against those concessions as they undermine the basic principle of Community preference.
The threats now being made by the United States, in total defiance of the rules governing the multilateral trading system, are coming directly after the establishment of the transatlantic partnership.
The UPE Group is therefore calling for an appropriate response from the European Union.
In essence, the European Union can under no circumstances be subject to United States sanctions if no decision has been made by the relevant bodies of the WTO, in accordance with the applicable procedures guaranteeing the observance of due process.
If the Americans were to go down the road of unilateral action, they should realise that they would bear a heavy responsibility for weakening the international trading system.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to go into detail today.
Some Members have already addressed certain questions and I assume that others here present will be referring to many of the details.
If the consequences of these fresh disputes with the United States were not so serious, this quarrel might seem amusing. But the consequences are very serious and I hope that we will reach a satisfactory solution in the very near future, otherwise we would seriously jeopardise transatlantic relations.
Let me remind you: the European Union and the United States did most to initiate the dispute-settlement procedure within the WTO.
This procedure may not be perfect in every way and may need to be developed further but it is the only international instrument we have to resolve trade disputes.
The United States doubts whether the new banana market organisation is WTO compatible.
That is indeed its right.
But it does not have the right to take unilateral measures against its trade partners and to issue sanctions, such as in this case the absurd 100 % duties on products from EU Member States.
It does not have the right to take it upon itself to deliver a verdict.
The conduct of the United States does considerable damage to the WTO dispute settlement procedure.
It makes the preliminary negotiations for the new WTO round considerably more difficult and it damages confidence in the process of transatlantic partnership.
It gives the impression that the American margin for play in trade policy is increasingly determined by a purely national political agenda, which causes justified fears that it is trying to impose a particular American trade philosophy worldwide.
That is playing with fire and puts the WTO itself in the firing line.
Protectionism must not always be seen as the solution to national problems.
In the scheme of things we are all dependent on one another and the WTO is an instrument for harmonising egoistic national approaches. It is not beloved of everyone, it is not perfect, but it is extremely necessary.
To approach national issues, such as bananas, hormones and many others I could mention, in emotional political terms, takes the reason out of politics as a whole and sets in motion a trend that may not be stoppable.
My group fully supports the Commission's position.
You have before you an appropriate joint resolution from the Committee on External Economic Relations that strongly rejects the unilateral measures taken by the United States, fully supports the Commission and, moreover, in my view can form a good basis for further European policy measures.
With regard to the banana dispute, the crisis affecting the relations between the European Union, its Member States, its ACP partners and the United States illustrates the ambiguities of the EU's trade policy.
Faced with the determined stance of the Americans, who are skilfully playing a double game with their European partners by seeking both partnership and sanctions, the European institutions appear divided, powerless, paralysed and reluctant to truly defend European interests.
There are several reasons for this.
Firstly, the American desire for domination is not perceived as such by many Member States.
Secondly, the 15 Member States increasingly appear to have divergent interests. And thirdly, the absence of democracy within the European institutions is ensuring that any complicity is obscured.
The fact remains that we are faced with a situation in which the United States has unilaterally decided to publish a list of European products which it intends to sanction by raising customs duties to 100 % if the EU does not amend its new banana import regime. In addition, they have taken this decision even before the WTO has decided whether or not this regime is compatible with its rules.
Mr President, as US Ambassador Vernon Weaver recently made quite plain in the Committee on External Economic Relations, the current banana war is a test case.
The real test will come when the EU bans meat containing hormones in a few weeks' time.
Next on the cards - and here too Mr Weaver did not mince his words - will come genetic manipulation.
Under the pretext of offering the consumer a wider choice, US firms are to be allowed to put genetically modified tomatoes and laboratory-made soya on our supermarket shelves.
And if possible they will not label it as such, since the poor consumer might find it too hard to take in so much information!
The issue goes far beyond bananas.
That is precisely why we cannot give way to the unjustified US demand, even though and in fact just because they are threatening lunatic sanctions.
After one WTO panel we revised the organisation of the banana market.
Whether that revised regime is compatible with the rules is something that same panel will decide again.
Any form of US sanction against European firms prior to the panel's findings would deprive the WTO of all meaning.
If any penalty duty is imposed before the panel's findings, we might as well shut down the WTO.
Unfortunately the Commission has to take some of the blame for this situation.
The founders of the WTO manoeuvred themselves into this position because world trade is not being regulated according to the principle of sustainable development, consumer protection and social protection.
Instead the ruling principles are economic growth and profit seeking.
With a view to the forthcoming millennium round, it is high time to formulate concrete reform proposals.
Precautionary measures, the environment and local development must become the guiding principles of economic action.
At the high-level WTO meetings in March, the Commission ought to begin by submitting the appropriate documents if it really wants, as promised, to make transparency the primary obligation of EU officials.
Today's protests in front of Parliament by the French farmers have given some idea of what they think of the adjustment to the world market and the mania for liberalisation and deregulation, as also what they will be capable of once they really get going.
Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party supports the joint resolution.
We consider it most important for the WTO rules to be observed.
It is absolutely unacceptable for the USA to threaten unilateral measures again European firms that really have nothing at all to do with the banana market organisation, with the dispute about it.
It is also entirely unacceptable for US policy to give in to the pressure from Chiquita and others.
We must support the Commission in its demand for respect for the WTO rules.
But the EU must also respect the WTO rules, which means that if we lose again at the next panel, we will have to revise the market organisation again.
I would ask the Commission to consider how we will react if that happens.
For myself, I would say that I do not regard this as a good organisation of the market.
It discriminates against producers in Latin America and it does not protect small producers against the multinationals, as is said so often, for there are small, independent producers in Latin America too.
In Ecuador, 60 % of producers have fewer than 20 hectares, and they are owned nationally, not owned Chiquita.
In Costa Rica there are fair-trade bananas, and the organisation of the market discriminates against all of them.
For Commissioner Pinheiro actually to say two weeks ago in regard to my report on bananas that the Commission should give the multinationals in the ACP states money to build up banana plantations is pure hypocrisy, if at the same time we say we want to defend the small producers against the big shots.
Perhaps quite different issues are at stake here.
But that should not prevent us from insisting again and again that the WTO rules must be respected and that we cannot accept the US attacks.
Nor can we accept the US views on hormone-containing meat and on the question of genetically modified organisms.
Here we must stand up for our legislation.
But should we find that our legislation is not compatible with the WTO rules, then indeed we have to revise it.
I would also draw Sir Leon Brittan's attention to the debate we have just held on the Bowe report.
There the committee proposed an amendment to the effect that we should take account of socio-economic criteria when authorising genetically modified organisms.
I believe that if that amendment is adopted and has an influence on the legislation, it will be a through ball for the Americans.
We have to prove on the basis of scientific evidence that our policy is the right one, and this applies both to the hormone issue and to GMOs.
We regard the precautionary principle as the foundation of our policy, not some arbitrary socio-economic criteria.
Here too we must take care we do not come up against new problems in the autumn.
Mr President, I wish to begin by welcoming the support that Parliament has given generally to the Commission on this issue and also thanking it for the resolution that has been drafted, which we find very supportive.
The questions raised two key issues: what is the Commission doing to avoid the threatened US sanctions and, if sanctions are nevertheless applied, what does it intend to do then? All our actions, both present and future, are and will be taken in full compliance with WTO rules.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
That does not, however, mean, that we are powerless.
American sanctions are illegal because they are based on a unilateral determination that the European Community has failed to bring the banana regime into compliance with WTO rules.
We have therefore sought to persuade the Americans to submit the question of the conformity of the new banana regime to a WTO panel procedure, in accordance with Article 21(5).
In fact, WTO procedures make this an obligatory step before any sanctions can be authorised.
As early as last September, and in the weeks and months following, we offered to reduce the WTO procedure to an absolute minimum of time.
We even initiated the procedure ourselves, inviting the United States to participate.
But the fundamental problem is that, at the end of the Uruguay Round, the US Administration promised Congress that it would take sanctions immediately at the end of the period for implementation of the WTO panel ruling in application of the domestic Section 301 procedure.
The Administration now has to prove that it can deliver.
That is the simple American political background.
The United States has, therefore, ignored the fact that where there is disagreement between the parties, the conformity of implementing measures must first be tested through the obligatory WTO procedures.
In the bananas case the American Administration promised Congress to implement sanctions at the latest by 3 March 1999 whatever happens in the WTO!
That is what ties the hands of the US Administration.
That is why the United States has refused to participate in any WTO procedure on the conformity of the new EC banana regime simply because that would have taken the Americans beyond their self-imposed internal deadline, which does not comply with WTO rules.
By initiating the Article 21(5) procedure ourselves, we succeeded in bringing Ecuador to launch its own procedure to challenge the conformity of our regime.
This procedure is now under way and panel reports are due by 12 April.
After this, the normal procedures provide that the other side has the right to appeal.
Meanwhile, the US has continued to press for authorisation to take retaliatory measures by 3 March.
There has been a major debate on this, in which almost all the WTO members who spoke supported our position that there cannot be authorisation of retaliation in the absence of a WTO ruling on the conformity of the regime.
We will now continue to argue before the arbitrator that he can only determine the level of any retaliatory action if and when the non-conformity of the new banana regime has been determined.
Otherwise, the arbitrator would be sentencing the European Community while its guilt has not been proven.
We have also asked the WTO General Council to give an authoritative interpretation on this question.
Finally, we are challenging the conformity of the American Section 301 legislation.
We have requested a panel which will, in due course, be set up.
The US, from its side, has requested consultations with us and we will enter those consultations in good faith.
This brings me to the second question: what would we do if the Americans go ahead with sanctions on 3 March? Firstly, we would challenge the legality of those sanctions through the WTO dispute settlement procedures.
Finally, as long as those sanctions lasted, we would have the option of retaliating, quite legally, by withdrawing concessions or imposing measures in areas not covered by WTO disciplines.
There are such measures that could be imposed and we would be entitled and would give the most serious consideration to applying them in the face of such flagrant breach of the law.
Mr President, we support the Commission view that the unilateral action by the United States is illegal as it is outrageous and totally irresponsible.
Its very threat is already causing severe damage to cashmere garment producers who are wholly innocent parties in this dispute and who stand to lose around GPB 20 million of export orders and possibly 1000 jobs.
By these vindictive actions, the United States has prejudiced, not only their own reputation, but also the future of the transatlantic partnership.
Precisely what the USA asked for - an arbitration panel under Article 21(5) - I believe in the letter to Sir Leon of 13 July is now under way.
We must condemn the crude attempt at intimidation by the United States, singling out for exemption from sanctions products from Denmark and the Netherlands because these countries voted against the banana regime in Council.
On this point, I wish to ask the Commission what mechanism is at the disposal of the US authorities that would allow them to distinguish between products originating in say Denmark or Holland as opposed to those from France or the United Kingdom.
The points we make in the resolution of the Committee on External Economic Relations are very clear.
We demand that the European Union fulfill its obligations to our ACP trade partners and we expect the Commission to achieve that objective within the WTO framework.
Finally, we cannot and will not tolerate further damage to our industries by a regime whose ambition is matched only by its arrogance.
Mr President, perhaps we have not done very well with the banana regime we have adopted in Europe.
But to react to that by immediately declaring war, by imposing a 100 % duty on candles, weapons, pullovers and suchlike, is not, in my view, the right answer.
It is the old method of trying to get your way by might and main that was used in the wars of the past.
The winner is the one who can shoot most people dead.
We have learned a lot more since then in Europe.
Basically it is a question of finding a better solution.
That means if we have two different points of view, we should acknowledge that both sides could be right.
Then we should try to meet each other halfway and say, let us not just accept solution 1 or 2, let us also try solution 3, 4, 5, 10 or 15 and go on until we find a solution that everyone can accept; and these solutions must be worked out at a high official level.
Mr President, because two or three major American companies control the banana production of the Latin American countries, the United States, which does not itself produce any bananas at all, is relentlessly maintaining its offensive against the Community import regime.
Although the European Union has taken account of the WTO verdict by amending its regulations, the United States is again threatening trade sanctions against imported European products.
The United States also wants the EU to lift its embargo on imports of hormonised meat and is preparing an offensive against genetically modified organisms.
On 28 January, the US ambassador to the European Union stressed that the banana dispute was a minor issue compared to the potential scope of the hormonised meat and GMO issues.
This reaffirmation of the commercial and political domination of the United States and the latter's desire to start the next round of negotiations from a position of strength are basically calling into question the WTO mechanisms.
The motion for a resolution tabled jointly by my group and the Green Group condemns the threats of American sanctions.
It urges the Commission to stand firm in the face of this new offensive so that we can continue to protect the interests of Community and ACP producers.
While awaiting the next arbitration proceedings of the WTO panel, an interim agreement has been obtained. However, the United States has not abandoned its threats.
If the sanctions announced are applied unilaterally, is the Commission ready to reply by applying equivalent retaliatory measures if necessary?
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Brittan for being here at such a late stage in the evening as it shows his interest in this issue.
Tonight, we are showing our support for the Commission, as the Commissioner himself pointed out. There is therefore no point in repeating arguments that have already been put forward.
I should like to make a few comments, although I do not know if I shall receive any response to them.
Firstly, I would like to look at the problems that this crisis entails.
The initial problem is that although, during the final round in Marrakesh on the World Trade Organisation constitution, we insisted that the dispute settlement procedure be included, what we wanted was to combat American unilateralism.
Now, however, Section 301 of US external trade law is coming back to haunt us.
Secondly, it seems as though the Americans may be exempt from the dispute settlement procedure as it has not been possible to contest either the Helms-Burton Act or the D'Amato Act effectively within the World Trade Organisation.
Thirdly, what we are concerned about - particularly the members of Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs - is whether or not the Commission really has sufficient resources to face up to the huge team of legal experts the United States has assembled in Geneva.
It seems as though the United States is capable of winning almost all the cases we are bringing: we have just mentioned the issue of hormones, we have a possible appeal on genetically modified organisms and we also have the banana war.
In other words, if we do not soon reach an agreement on this issue and if the United States insists on multilateral measures, the Community may have to reconsider to what extent it is prepared to submit to a multilateral mechanism, which the United States itself does not seem to want to respect.
Mr President, during the last part-session in Brussels, we discussed the banana issue with regard to the financial assistance to be granted to ACP countries suffering from reduced production.
As we pointed out at the time, the scale of the retaliatory measures announced seems to be disproportionate, regardless of the rights and wrongs on each side.
On our side, this dispute threatens assistance for two peripheral regions - Mr Mendonça will doubtless mention Madeira - and for poor ACP countries which have no satisfactory alternative to banana production. As for the Americans, this dispute does not threaten the interests of their own farmers, just those of extremely powerful multinationals which operate in Latin American countries.
While we obviously must be sensitive towards the populations of these countries, it must be stressed that the market available both outside and within Europe is still very extensive, regardless of the established quotas.
We therefore support one of the oral questions put to the Commission about whether or not an understanding can be achieved within the WTO panel.
As we inevitably have major reservations about the fairness of the American position, we would also ask - and this is also a policy suggestion - whether the Commission is ready to rigorously and rapidly apply the trade policy instruments at its disposal.
We must lend our full political support to the Commission's continued firm position on this dispute, as clearly indicated in Paragraph 3 of the motion for a resolution which follows on from the oral questions tabled.
By taking this step, we are not simply trying to legitimately defend the interests of the people and areas affected, which in this specific case are the banana-producing areas on one hand and the areas which would be hit by American retaliatory measures on the other. Much more importantly, we are ultimately helping to ensure the multilateral resolution of disputes, in accordance with WTO rules, and consequently the rejection of unilateral retaliatory measures which use a political logic which we would rather not qualify.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the United States of America is not satisfied that a WTO arbitration board, convened on behalf of its interests and its multinationals in the dollar banana zone, recently ordered the revision of the common organisation of the banana market.
Instead, the USA is continuing its offensive with the aim of destroying any Community banana support regime and wiping out the remaining production in less-developed and ultraperipheral regions, as is happening in Madeira.
However, the most scandalous aspect of this offensive is its unilateral nature, with total disregard for WTO structures.
The USA is now threatening to impose new customs duties on European products exported to the United States. In practice, this would mean a ban on various products entering the American market, including textile products.
This offensive also includes new attacks to force the European Union to accept imports of American hormonised meat and genetically modified products, with total disregard for the health of European consumers.
Commissioner, this offensive must be stopped in its tracks.
If the USA carries out its threat, it is essential that the EU should be able to retaliate immediately by clearly restricting the access of American products to the European market.
It is also essential, and fundamental, that the Commission should use all available mechanisms under international trade law to reestablish the legality which the USA is trying to undermine.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as I come from an ultraperipheral banana-producing region of the European Union, I wish to protest in the strongest terms and indicate my deep anger at the retaliatory stance taken by the United States of America in the latest dispute over the Community banana import regime.
I must take this opportunity to point out that the European banana-producing regions include some of the ultraperipheral island regions which are still suffering from a lack of economic development. In these regions, banana production is the main and sometimes only source of income for thousands of families.
We cannot begin to imagine the economic, social and environmental damage which would have occurred in the autonomous region of Madeira if the European institutions had yielded to the pressures which American-controlled multinationals determined to defend their own interests are continuing to exert on the banana market.
Under these circumstances it is clear that, in order to protect itself, the European Union must not submit in any way to the pressure exerted by the USA with regard to matters which may still be under discussion.
The European institutions should, within the various international bodies, maintain their steadfast opposition to unilateral retaliatory trade measures.
In this respect, the sanctions announced by the USA are scandalous and are already starting to have negative effects on other sectors which have nothing to do with the infamous banana dispute.
We totally support the Commission's position as long as this remains resolutely in accordance with the spirit of the principles and rules of the World Trade Organisation.
However, the Commission must be prepared, as it seems to be, to respond rigorously and rapidly if unilateral measures are applied by the United States.
Mr President, may I first of all say that those who have spoken in the latter part of the debate have pointed out that the action taken by the United States is not only action taken against parts of the Caribbean countries, but also against parts of the European Union which are very dependent on bananas.
In the case of some of the Caribbean countries, if they gave up producing bananas they would be likely to be driven to being drug havens which would do more damage to the United States than it would do to the European Union.
Mr Smith asked how can the United States discriminate against products completely unrelated to bananas such as cashmere, and in the case of Italy pecorino, and other products of other countries? Our view is that they have no right to do so whatsoever and that this is simply a bullying tactic designed to persuade the European Union to succumb to American threats.
As to Article 301, which was also a point that has been raised, our view has always been that it is unlawful.
Up to now we have been content to let it stay on the American statute book and only to take action if it is actually implemented.
If it is implemented, the action will certainly be taken.
We were asked by Mr Medina Ortega whether we are able to face up to the American lawyers in these various threats?
The answer is certainly Yes.
We have done so as he has pointed out in the case of the Helms-Burton and D'Amato Acts and we will do so in the face of all other legislation.
What will we do if action is taken? First of all we will respond in the WTO by taking a case against the Americans, as we have begun to do.
Secondly, if we win that case, we will be entitled to retaliate lawfully against the United States but, in addition to that, we will have to give serious consideration to taking action which would be in accordance with the WTO but would involve the withdrawal of concessions which are not bound in the WTO and which the United States do not have as of right.
I hope it does not come to that but the European Union is ready to defend its interests against anybody, including the United States.
Mr President, perhaps I did not make myself clear to the Vice-President.
The United States have exempted two European countries from sanctions.
What mechanism do the United States authorities have at their disposal to distinguish between goods coming from these two countries as opposed to goods coming from any of the other 13?
I do not know how the United States proposes in practice to do that.
It will be difficult for them.
It is not a question for me, because we think the action is unlawful in any event and we will take action against it.
I agree with you that looked at from their own point of view, they might well have some problems.
I have received nine motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 11.55 p.m.
EC-Israel scientific and technical cooperation agreement
The next item is the report (A4-0035/99) by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technical cooperation between the European Community and the State of Israel (COM(98)0457 - C4-0555/98-98/0241(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, back in 1996, Israel became the first non-European country to be fully involved in the framework programme for research and technological development, and it remains the only non-European participant.
The basis of this agreement is that research cooperation is fundamentally international in character and that it makes no sense to limit it to the territory of the EU if it would benefit both parties and if there are no other political objections.
Israel pays and is treated like a Member State.
The other states' contributions are not reduced, which means that the funding of the programme as a whole is topped up as a result of Israeli participation.
Under the fourth framework programme, which has been implemented since 1994, the number of calls for tenders for the various programmes was higher in 1995 and 1996 than at the end of the programme period.
Although Israel, anticipating the conclusion of the agreement, began to contribute financially and submitted tenders, subject to conclusion, in 1996, the bulk of the funds for many programmes had already been allocated by that time.
That is why Israel is very interested in full integration into the fifth framework programme from the outset.
We all know that the start of a multiannual programme is an important phase, and so for sheer reasons of time my first plea to the House is that we approve this agreement today.
But it is, of course, essential to take account of the general political context too, even in the case of a technical agreement.
Let me say the following on that: first of all, there are many strong links between Israel and the European Union.
The value of trade between us is twice as high as that of Israel's trade with the United States.
It is important that the Union's relations with the Middle East and its influence in that region remain steady and strong.
This agreement is one of many instruments that govern these relations and with which Parliament will deal in greater detail in March.
I believe that EU-Israeli relations in general are so stable that they can withstand the difference, important though it admittedly is, in our respective assessments of the progress achieved in the peace process.
And now my second point: even during the fourth framework programme, we were pressing for Palestinian research groups and companies to work with us and to be involved in projects.
This agreement is therefore an indirect means of promoting mutual understanding.
We shall insist that this cooperation be intensified, and when we come to review the programme here in Parliament we shall check that this is actually happening.
My third point is this: if the agreement is implemented, information networks will be set up under Article 6.
The Israeli side has expressed the wish to participate more fully in future evaluation measures.
I would ask the European Parliament to support that wish.
The fourth point I wish to make is that, in order to reinforce this cooperation and to incorporate it into the same framework as the other agreements and cooperative projects, we should ensure that regular contacts are established between the European Parliament and the Knesset, so that the research cooperation can be monitored and promoted at parliamentary level.
Some of the groups in this House believe that, by approving the agreement and not suspending it, we would be intervening in the internal political debate in Israel, since as we all know, a general election is about to be called there.
Let me say to you that our failure to approve the agreement today would constitute far more serious interference in Israel's domestic politics, and we have no right to exert heavy pressure on foreign governments to alter their domestic policies.
Lastly, as your rapporteur I should like to make the following comment: relations between the Commission and Parliament are somewhat strained at the present time.
For that reason it is my sincere wish, Commissioner, and not just a pious hope, that in future negotiations the Commission will provide Parliament with comprehensive information from the very start and keep it abreast of the latest developments in the negotiating process.
Applause
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, my group endorses the report and very largely agrees with what the rapporteur, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, has said.
The Agreement on Scientific and Technical Cooperation between the European Community and the State of Israel allows us to build on past successes, which began in 1996, at least as far as the present high level of cooperation is concerned.
At that time Israel, with the status of an associated state, was allowed to take part in all non-nuclear programmes under the fourth framework programme for research and technological development.
In a period of only three years, 369 joint projects, costing a total of ECU 53 million, have been successfully implemented.
However, the added value deriving from cooperative arrangements is far greater than that.
In fact, some 1 000 joint applications have been received.
The continuation of this cooperation in the fifth framework programme is in the interests of both sides.
Our own interest lies not only in the high quality of Israeli research, but also the emerging adoption of European processes and standards and the future development of more marketing opportunities in the region.
Israel, for its part, has an interest in being involved in the discussion on strategic developments in the research field which Israel alone cannot achieve.
Moreover, high-tech products are the only means whereby Israel's balance of trade deficit, like ours, can be reduced.
This cooperation in our mutual interest is therefore a long-term proposition.
That is why it is natural that not only Israel but also our Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy and the great majority of my group favour the smoothest possible transition from the fourth to the fifth framework programme.
Postponement of our decision for whatever reason would mean, as has already been explained, that the conference of foreign ministers on 22 February could not ratify the agreement, as a result of which Israel would be unable to take part in the first round of tendering, which will take place in March, and would be placed at a financial disadvantage, as happened in the fourth framework R&D programme.
In accordance with its gross domestic product, Israel will contribute to the success of the fifth framework programme for research and technological development by making an annual commitment of around EUR 30 million.
Various members of our committee have had the opportunity to see at first hand the high quality of joint EU-Israeli research.
At our insistence, Palestinian companies and research establishments were also involved in joint projects.
It is true that even greater efforts could be made in this direction, as my honourable colleague said, and indeed we are demanding progress here.
In my own personal opinion, further research cooperation can help in the long run to stabilise the peace process, which, it has to be said, is seriously deadlocked.
The aims of science are full understanding and effective communication.
Its universal nature also offers a matrix for resolving conflicts that arise from sectional interests.
Conversely, however, scientific cooperation can only flourish in the long term in a peaceful environment.
Even if the procedure applied here is that of a simple hearing, I would ask the House to approve the report.
Mr President, our group can also endorse the report and would like to see it implemented as soon as possible.
We are delighted at Israel's participation in the Community's research programmes up to now, and we look forward to the results of the cooperation between the European Union and the State of Israel in connection with the fifth framework programme.
Israel was, of course, largely created by immigrants, refugees and individuals with a very strong character, who have been able to endure dictatorships and oppression and who in many cases have an extremely high standard of education to contribute.
This has been reflected in the research programmes.
What is being made available here for the cooperation between the European Union and the State of Israel is therefore a considerable mass of talent with high levels of education, competence and diligence.
We look forward to the cooperation and hope that the report can be implemented as soon as possible.
Mr President, our group is very pleased with this very reliable and broad-minded report by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl.
However, we cannot approve it at this stage, because we - the European Union and the European Parliament - would be being used by a head of state who has shown total disregard for the peace agreements and for the process of promoting peaceful coexistence in the region.
We do not want to be manipulated by a head of state whose actions are almost Nazi-like: he demonstrates nothing but racist disdain for the Palestinian people in general.
As a result, and for that reason alone, we believe that it would be better to suspend the application of this agreement. We must hope that, after the elections, we will see the arrival of a new government whose behaviour and positive attitude towards coexistence, the United Nations resolutions, the Oslo Agreements and the Wye Plantation Agreements show that guarantees do exist.
We understand the situation in the region and believe that both parties should receive equal treatment. In order to do so, it would be more appropriate if, instead of establishing cooperation between Palestinian firms and universities in Israel, the European Parliament itself implemented an agreement with the Palestinian people, its research organisations, its university and its firms.
This would be more fitting in that since the end of the Second World War - when the UN was set up - the question of consolidating the Palestinian state through a UN resolution has remained unresolved. By doing so, the European Union would be giving equivalent, equidistant and equal treatment to both parties involved in the conflict, thereby showing that it does not allow itself to be swayed by either side.
Therefore, when it comes to the vote on this report, our group will ask that it be referred back to committee so that it might indeed be approved under better circumstances.
Mr President, this report on the research agreement between the EU and Israel is no simple matter.
I can go along with part of what Mr Marset Campos said here, namely that this report, which we had thought would support the peace process, could just as easily be seen as a threat to that process if these issues are used to the wrong ends and in the political arena.
As far as the content of this agreement is concerned, those parts of the programme that relate to nuclear safety and fusion are, of course, excluded. These areas are not included in this research agreement, a fact which I am pleased about.
At the same time, however, I am concerned, because we need to be aware of the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons, even though the country denies this.
I am a little anxious that, in spite of everything, funds will sneak in from other programmes precisely for use in research on nuclear fusion and nuclear activity.
This is something that I simply cannot support.
In this context, mention also needs to be made of Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli researcher who disclosed details about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy research in Israel.
It will soon be ten years since he was imprisoned.
It would now be appropriate for Israel to release him as quickly as possible.
There was an application for his release, but that has now been rejected.
I would like to ask Mrs Cresson what steps the Commission is taking to seek Mr Vanunu's release.
Openness is perhaps not Commissioner Cresson's strong point, but I would nevertheless like to appeal for efforts to be made to prevail on Israel to release Mr Vanunu.
There are several other parts of this research project which I do not, perhaps, view as positively as the rapporteur does.
One such area is space research.
We Greens do not think that the EU should take part in space research.
We are therefore also against cooperation between the EU and Israel in this field.
We are just as reluctant for such research to be conducted in the EU as we are for it to be conducted within the framework of agreements with other countries.
Mr President, the issue with which we are concerned today has an obvious political element.
Renewing a link between Israel and the European Union in the middle of an electoral period could be looked on, at least locally, as support for the political powers. It could also facilitate the re-election of the rabble-rousers and those behind the disastrous situation in which the peace process now finds itself.
That would indeed be absolutely deplorable.
It is also why some countries have still not ratified the association agreement with the State of Israel.
However, in this case, the situation is entirely different.
It is worth giving more consideration to continuing scientific and technical cooperation, especially as several Palestinian companies and universities are involved in this agreement. I am thinking, in particular, of Al Qods, the University of Jerusalem, and the University of Bethlehem.
They will benefit from participating in it and this is also something that we must monitor.
Moreover, penalising universities or the high technology sector - which, on the whole, are avid supporters of peace - would probably amount to targeting the wrong enemy.
Finally, an agreement such as this is not only an agreement, or a matter of charity; it is also - and this must be pointed out - a means of returning to prosperity through exchanges.
This all means that there are varying opinions within the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
Many of us will perhaps abstain or will, in any case, either want to vote in favour or be tempted to do so.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mrs Quisthoudt on her excellent report and the speech she has just given.
I entirely agree with her, and my group will also be supporting her position.
In an increasingly global economy and with growing competition, cooperation between European partners in the fields of research and technology is no longer enough.
Scientific and technological cooperation between the European Union and third countries and the involvement of third countries in the framework programme help to promote knowledge and technology transfers and innovation in the European Union, which is good for employment here and helps to strengthen the links between people in the partner countries and the Union.
Such cooperation can also help to find solutions to the trade disputes that the Union sometimes has with its partners.
The Liberal Group is therefore very much in favour of continuing scientific and technological cooperation with Israel.
However, we do not want it to use participation in the framework programme as a political instrument in the Middle East.
There is no reason to block aid to its neighbours.
The Union has good relations with those countries too, and our aid to the Palestinians in particular is not producing the hoped-for economic development in the region because Israel sometimes frustrates our aid programmes.
My group therefore hopes and expects that if Parliament delivers a positive opinion on scientific and technological cooperation, Israel will clean up its act.
I am hoping to see some positive developments in the Middle East.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the conclusion of scientific and technical cooperation agreements between the European Community and the State of Israel.
We would nevertheless like to take advantage of this debate in order to express our concern.
We are concerned because, although a large proportion of Israeli research is dedicated to the civilian sector, another part of it - for which we do not have exact figures - involves the military sector. With this in mind, it is impossible to forget the plane crash involving a plane full of chemical and bacteriological weapons, which claimed so many victims in the Netherlands.
That brings us to a question I raised in this very House on an article in The Sunday Times , which I actually thought was a hoax. The article claimed that Israeli researchers had tried to isolate genes specific to Arabs in order to be able to use bacteriological weapons against them.
I did not receive an answer to this question, but in the Israeli press, the daily newspapers Haretz and Maariv also published the story, and it has not yet been denied.
We could therefore be dealing with the most extreme and most abominable type of racism ever experienced.
As a result, we would like to be convinced that these cooperation agreements are not going to contribute to such extremely dangerous research.
We are in favour of the security of the State of Israel, and we are aware of the threats that have hung over this young nation. However, Israel must understand the desire of the Palestinians to regain their land and their sovereignty.
Therefore, we would like Europe to do everything possible to ensure that a definitive peace agreement, based on the recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, is finally reached.
That is the necessary condition for peace in the region.
Mr President, Commissioner, it has certainly emerged from the statements on behalf of the various groups that this is not a purely technical agreement but that there are many political aspects involved, a point which the rapporteur made perfectly clear too.
It is true that there have been voices in all the groups, including the group to which I belong, which have spoken against the conclusion of such an agreement at the present time.
However, it is my experience of foreign policy more than anything else which makes me think that the reasons against concluding the agreement are far more tenuous than those in favour of concluding it.
Whenever anyone says that we need a few good cards in our hand to engage in diplomacy and that such agreements should be used for that purpose, I can certainly endorse that argument.
But if we in the European Union want to make our voice heard more clearly in Israel, which we do, and if we want to have more influence on the decisions taken by the State of Israel, we have no option but to approve this agreement.
We would forfeit any credibility as a negotiating partner and any possibility of bringing our influence to bear in Israel if we did not approve this agreement now.
By so doing, we shall not be endorsing the current government.
The choice of government is a matter for the people of Israel.
They will decide who should be prime minister and they will no doubt decide on the composition of the Knesset.
The agreement will scarcely influence their decision.
The present government could perhaps use our rejection of the agreement to illustrate how ill-disposed and hostile Europe is to Israel at heart, which is not the case at all.
The only reason for our heavy criticism of the present government is that it has done nothing to promote peace and has failed to do many things that it could have done.
We do not know who the next prime minister will be; nobody knows that today.
Above all, we do not know what the composition of the Knesset will be.
That is why a postponement will achieve very little. The same situation, or even a far more difficult one, may result from the elections.
Things cannot become all that much easier, given the abundance of parties and candidates.
That is why it surely makes good sense to decide now.
To my Palestinian friends - and I do not hesitate to say that I have very many of them and am in close contact with them - I should like to say here and now that, precisely because we are developing ideas in Israel, with Israel and for Israel, because we are establishing cooperative mechanisms that can help to break the deadlock on the peace issue, we in Parliament should, and indeed must, decide to ratify this agreement in order to maintain the common ground that can underlie and justify our continuing dialogue with Israel.
For that reason, the Palestinian people have a special interest in our approval of this agreement, which I, particularly as someone involved in foreign policy, can certainly commend to the House.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, because her report is quite outstanding and her presentation is a model of balance and synthesis.
Of course, we must ratify this agreement.
The proposals to postpone it are extremely worrying because postponing the agreement would naturally mean changing the nature of the agreement.
Excluding Israel from the first round of invitations to tender would amount to a virtually irreversible penalty and would make Israel into a lesser partner in terms of cooperation. This cooperation must be exemplary in all respects, and it is of fundamental importance, both in terms of scientific exchanges and in terms of developing our cooperation with all the countries in the region.
It obviously augurs well that Israel is prepared to accept the participation of Palestinian Arabs in this project.
I will conclude by saying that it is extremely worrying to see that some people are trying to postpone this cooperation. The combination of the extreme right and the extreme left is significant in this respect and it is clear that these attempts are due to the resurgence of old feelings of hatred that we would have hoped not to see here again.
Mr President, I will not respond to the attacks that were just made.
I am a friend of Israel too.
I even have family in Israel.
However, I think that the scientific cooperation agreement with Israel appears, at first glance, to be an essentially technical document that could stand in the way of the development of cooperation between universities and research institutes elsewhere in the Mediterranean.
There is a risk that the adoption of this agreement could be seen as an electoral tactic and a positive sign for the Israeli Government, which would be encouraged to continue blocking the peace process.
The Palestinians are already under considerable pressure to abandon their decision to proclaim a Palestinian State on 4 May 1999. Indeed, some of that pressure comes from this House, as we can hear.
We must use all the means at our disposal to put pressure on Israel, on Netanyahu's government, to respect its commitments.
We have the ideal opportunity to do so by postponing the vote on this scientific cooperation agreement until after the Israeli elections.
This would not, in fact, be the first time, as in January 1990, Parliament blocked the scientific cooperation agreement so that Palestinian universities would be reopened; at that time, they had been closed for over two years.
It was mainly due to this vote that the Israeli Government decided to reopen them.
Why should we not repeat this approach in order to achieve some real progress in the peace process?
Mr President, I congratulate the rapporteur on her work.
There are two aspects to this report.
Firstly, the technical aspect, and here the agreement is sweet: mutual benefit to the European Union and to Israel.
The latter has a technological advantage in a number of areas: biotechnology, opto-electronics, medical information technology and software development.
The European Union can benefit from the knowledge that is available there.
The Israelis also have skills in space technology and in the nuclear sector, areas where I would have strong reservations about cooperation.
This applies particularly to the nuclear sector: ten years ago I spent some time outside Mordechai Vanunu's prison in Gaza trying to visit him.
He is, of course, still in jail.
I would welcome the Commission putting some pressure on Israel to deal with that.
I would reassure Mr Antony who has now left us that if anyone in Israel or, for that matter, in the Arab world was stupid enough to try and develop ethnic weapons, they would be self-destructing in the sense that the gene pools of the Arabs and the Israelis are sufficiently close that it would be very difficult to identify or produce weapons that would not harm people on both sides of the divide.
I hope that this can be a force for progress.
I will certainly be voting in favour of the report, as long as there is a commitment that we will not cooperate in the nuclear area.
I certainly would not want to have any cooperation in the space sector and I agree completely that we should be encouraging Israel and putting pressure on the Israelis to cooperate with the Palestinians in their research programmes.
Finally, I hope that we will make sure that none of this money goes into parts of Occupied Palestine.
That would be a provocation and the European Union would have some responsibility for that.
Mr President, I would also like to express my thanks for this report, especially for the conclusions that are drawn in it, and above all for its desire to support the peace process by means of cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian research bodies.
The problem with this agreement is that no mention is made of cooperation between Palestinian research bodies.
The rapporteur says in her introduction that after the agreement has entered into force, and after it has been in operation, we shall make an assessment of the extent to which different Palestinian centres have been given the opportunity to participate.
This would appear to me to be a rather absurd way of drafting an agreement if one wishes to achieve a given objective: surely one would normally include that objective in the agreement?
This aside, I would very much like to endorse Mr Holm's request that we should do something for Mr Vanunu.
I also believe that we must address the question of obliging Israel to sign a non-proliferation agreement as far as nuclear weapons are concerned.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, as the chairman of the Delegation for relations with Israel, I would like to welcome the fact that our colleague Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl has proposed that the new scientific and technical cooperation agreement between the European Union and the State of Israel be approved.
As many people have pointed out this morning, this is the result of particularly effective joint work: since 1996, 369 joint projects have received subsidies amounting to a total of more than ECU 59 million.
It is also the proof of real cooperation between the European Union and Israel, and as we are well aware, it has considerable technological and intellectual benefits for both parties.
This is a clear example of how a balanced partnership should work.
It is actually helping the peace process in the Middle East, and we make no secret of this. In fact, the agreement will lead to further joint work with Palestinian researchers, laboratories and universities.
And the Israeli authorities have made commitments to this end.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur very sincerely, to thank all our colleagues in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, and, of course, to express my agreement with the very strong proposals made by Mr Stockmann.
A few weeks away from the Israeli elections, I would personally like to see in our decision - which I hope will be a positive one - a strong signal to those in the region with intelligence and spirit in favour of a peace based on development, progress, mutual respect and partnership.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to express my gratitude to the rapporteur and to the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy. They dealt with this issue in a very short space of time and almost unanimously support the conclusion of the scientific and technical cooperation agreement between the European Community and the State of Israel.
The Commission welcomes the fact that Parliament is now able to make a decision on this matter.
In 1996, the Union and Israel signed a scientific and technical cooperation agreement for the duration of the fourth framework programme.
Israel thus became the first, and currently the only non-European, country to be fully associated with the Union's research activities.
What has this cooperation become today? As has just been mentioned, it has led to around 350 joint projects and these have produced results that are already visible.
New products and practices have been developed, for example, a high-performance camera for medical imagery and a rapid photo-printing machine, to mention but two.
All these projects are based on partnerships that combine their complementary skills, and the institutions of the two parties involved draw considerable benefits from them in terms of knowledge, but also in economic and commercial terms.
The association between Israel and the Union is firmly based on the principal of mutual benefit, which is applied to each project. Israel's population is among the most educated in the world.
It could be looked on as an example from which we could learn a great deal. This is due to its extremely advanced technological know-how, the dynamic nature of its small and medium-sized enterprises and its innovation policy, which makes it the second leading country in the world in terms of the number of start-ups that are generated as a result of cooperation between universities, laboratories, businesses and financial organisations.
Moreover, I have visited the country on several occasions to see what progress was being made.
Israel has become a partner that is very much in demand and highly valued by European consortiums.
All the evidence shows that the participation of Israeli institutions brings a considerable added value to our programmes.
I would like to add that, insofar as the agreement guarantees reciprocity, European researchers also have access to Israeli programmes.
The agreement has fulfilled all its promises.
The two parties have therefore expressed their desire to continue and to strengthen their cooperation for the duration of the fifth framework programme.
The Israeli authorities would like this agreement to be implemented as quickly as possible.
In fact, Israel would suffer if there were a delay with respect to the agreement entering into force, as happened with the previous agreement.
With this in mind, the Commission and the Israeli authorities completed the negotiations in the record time of three weeks.
Nevertheless, certain Member States are reluctant to bring this to a rapid conclusion and link the approval of the agreement to the progress of the peace process in the Middle East.
On the contrary, I think that the development of scientific and technical cooperation could make a significant contribution to the peace process.
As the rapporteur points out, it is important, from this point of view, for Israeli and Palestinian research institutes to be able to strengthen their cooperation. Some speakers have spoken on this subject, and I would like to reassure them.
This work has already begun and such cooperation will be particularly encouraged within the framework of the international section of the fifth framework programme, which gives priority to actions in the Mediterranean region.
Above and beyond its intrinsic interest, cooperation between the Union and Israel in research is part of a broad political perspective.
This is an additional reason for concluding the agreement to associate Israel with the fifth framework programme as soon as possible.
Finally, the Commission will continue to keep the relevant committees regularly informed of the progress of the negotiations.
In order to respond to certain speakers, I would like to say that the Commission believes that rather than encouraging regrettable abuses, the renewal of the scientific and technical cooperation agreement aims to maintain dialogue within a specific sector and with a population that should be supported.
We must not turn this agreement into a political challenge as the effects of this would be counter-productive.
I would like to add that the agreement does not cover nuclear research, even of a civilian nature, nor, of course, does it cover the military sector.
The Commission wishes to encourage cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian research institutes, as I have already said. In order to achieve this, it will use all the possible actions provided for in the fifth framework programme for the Mediterranean countries.
One very specific area that comes to mind is that of water management. This is naturally an extremely important field as it is vital for bringing together populations that may be in a conflict situation.
Israel's recent policies in certain respects have shown regrettable shifts.
However, as regards the measures contained in this agreement, given that the peace process is facing certain obstacles, we cannot add to those problems by suspending cooperation with a scientific community that is among the most brilliant in the world. As has already been mentioned, its members are in favour of peace, and some of them are even very actively involved in the peace process.
We should not punish those people.
On the contrary, we must try to help them, support them and continue to hold dialogue with them, in the interests of the people. If we do not, the people will be directly penalised by our reservations.
We must show that we are open and generous, although that must not prevent us from being aware of any possible shifts in Israeli policy. However, I do not think that we should join these two elements together in order to use this scientific and technical cooperation agreement as a bargaining chip.
It is a good agreement, it has a certain symbolism and it has considerable political implications.
It tries to take the best of both scientific communities in order to make things easier for the people there who are going through difficult times. We must learn to appreciate better their skills, courage, nature and great intelligence, and become aware of how much we have in common with them.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Ship-generated waste and cargo residues
The next item is the report (A4-0023/99) by Mr Lagendijk, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues (COM(98)0452 - C4-0484/98-98/0249(SYN)).
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the Commission on its proposal, which I feel is a successful attempt to combat the pollution that is still being caused by vessels dumping their waste at sea.
The approach adopted here is, in my view and that of the Committee on the Environment, a balanced one, in that vessels are required to deliver their waste and ports are required to build facilities to deal with it.
So far so good.
But you will not be surprised to hear that there were also certain points where the committee wanted to improve or tighten up the proposals.
First of all - and this is the most important point on which there was the most discussion, as there probably will be in future - there is the issue of payment.
The Commission proposes that a substantial proportion of the costs of receiving and processing the waste should be paid by all those using the port.
In my view this is rather too vague, so we have tabled an amendment to replace the word 'substantial' by 90 % of the costs. Why?
Because I think it is extremely important to prevent ships from having a financial incentive to dump their cargo or cargo residues at sea outside the port.
If only a small part of the costs are shared in the port dues, then there will always be an incentive for vessels to consider dumping their waste at sea.
This is why we are in favour of replacing the word 'substantial' by at least 90 %, not because we want to have a precise figure, but because we simply want to make it clear that the processing costs are to be shared among all vessels, irrespective of whether or not they use the reception facilities.
The second point on which we think the proposal could be tightened up is the monitoring of compliance.
This operates on two levels.
First, monitoring at ports of call.
If a vessel, for some good reason, does not have the time or the opportunity to deliver its waste at a particular port, it must not be free to do likewise at the next port.
It must be possible - and it is already possible - for ports to inform each other about the situation of vessels sailing to and fro between them or calling in at subsequent ports.
The systems are already in place, but they need to be further developed, which is why we are calling on the Commission to support efforts to do this.
Another aspect of monitoring concerns inspections within ports, and here too we were a little unhappy with the rather vague wording used by the Commission, which says that 'a sufficient number of such inspections' must be carried out.
Instead of this we would prefer to use a figure which the Commission itself suggested in earlier regulations, so that 25 % of all vessels must be inspected.
This figure is already included in a number of regulations.
The Commission has said that it may be dropped, but at the moment we do not feel that there is any reason not to go ahead with this, so as far as we are concerned the directive should contain the reference to 25 %.
The third change to the Commission proposal concerns fishing vessels.
The Commission itself has admitted that it was a mistake that its proposal excludes all fishing vessels.
We do not want to create unnecessary red tape, so we are not in favour of bringing all fishing vessels within the scope of the directive, but it seems too stupid for words that huge vessels like factory ships which generate enormous quantities of waste should be excluded from the rules.
This is why we have proposed to exclude vessels under 15 metres and include vessels over 15 metres.
The fourth improvement concerns rewarding environment-friendly behaviour, which we feel is an important part of any environment and transport policy.
We should be in favour of rewarding vessels that do their best to encourage environmentally friendly work practices on board or in dealing with waste.
To do this we need to make it clearer exactly what an environment-friendly ship is, which is why we urge the Commission to support the attempts being made to produce a more detailed definition.
My conclusion - and this is perhaps more of a comment on EU proposals in general - is that all too often, the Commission and sometimes Parliament too put forward proposals that are difficult to implement because they do not correspond to the situation in practice.
I am convinced that the Commission proposal, with Parliament's amendments, does correspond to the situation in practice.
There are ports which already have reception facilities or are planning to build them.
Vessels are prepared to deliver their waste.
There are plans to produce better definitions of what environment-friendly vessels are.
It is precisely because these plans are already being made and the proposal dovetails with them that I think the Commission proposal is a necessary, useful and viable attempt to prevent the dumping of waste at sea.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, when the British Presidency put marine pollution on the agenda, following quite a few requests from the Committee on Transport and Tourism, among others, there were many of us who said: At last!
And I mean this quite sincerely.
We have witnessed many accidents involving oil in European waters.
We have witnessed many ships that have spilt oil in our waters.
This directive imposes obligations on the ships.
We are moving from a convention - an IMO convention - which was a recommendation, to legislation, whereby we oblige the vessel and its master to give an account of any oily waste that may be on board.
In addition, we shall be obliging the ports - but not necessarily all ports - to receive waste oil.
In my opinion, it is essential that this directive should be made as functional as possible.
It must not be difficult or bureaucratic.
I hope that in the final version, the Commission and the Council find a model that makes this directive workable and attractive for the ships and the ports.
There are two problems.
The rapporteur has touched on one of them.
There are two problems that I would like to address.
Of course it must be paid for.
Of course it is not free of charge.
I hope that these costs will not become yet another restriction on shipping.
After all, the short-sea report clearly demonstrated that port charges are one of the contributory reasons for choosing other forms of transport.
So the small coaster - or the large coaster for that matter - will certainly incur a charge here, and I consider this to be a problem.
If one were to regard this as infrastructure, it would be possible to make it free of charge.
It is also possible to look at it from the point of view of the waste oil that is brought ashore. Surely this can actually be recycled and used.
If one were to exempt it from oil taxes, VAT and so on, then it could actually finance this system.
I think that we should come up with some good ideas with regard to this question of financing and present them to the Member States.
Ships in transit in international waters that do not call at European ports are a different matter.
After all, we do not get hold of them.
I feel that we should think back to what happened with the Pallas Athene .
Here we have a vessel which bursts into flames in international waters, drifts through Danish territorial waters and ends up on German territory, and there we all are, sitting down together and playing a kind of official 'pick up sticks'.
The first ones to make a move lose the game, since it is they who pick up the bill.
If we had had a monitoring system in the North Sea, we could have intervened collectively - Denmark, the United Kingdom and Germany - but we did not.
We allowed the bill to be passed on to the place where the ship ended up.
I therefore believe that it is also our job to get the Member States to take ships in transit into account in their deliberations on future policy.
I am well aware that this is not covered by this directive.
Mr President, let me express my thanks for the preceding remarks and extend a special welcome to my honourable colleague the Transport Commissioner.
I am delighted that we have been given another rare opportunity to discuss this matter in the morning, rather than at 11 o'clock on Tuesday night.
But let us turn to the business in hand.
I believe that the Commission has adopted an excellent approach in the directive.
As a native of Hamburg, I am pleased to see that it incorporates all the results of a European international conference on the issue of port waste-discharge facilities, which was held in Hamburg.
Practice has shown us, of course, that the Marpol Convention with its discharge requirement for ships is inadequate.
We must ensure that the waste on board ships is actually discharged.
If we say here that the ports must provide discharge facilities and that everyone will have to pay anyway under a no-special-fee system, I believe that more captains will decide to use the port discharge facility, since they have paid directly for it in their harbour dues.
This is a very important issue, because we have no other way of cleaning up our beaches, especially those on the North Sea and Baltic coasts.
We still have a lot to do here, but the same can be said for the Mediterranean and other parts of the European Union.
The approach, then, is exactly the right one.
I thank Mr Lagendijk, who is a new member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, for his excellent cooperation.
I believe the committee adopted the recommendation unanimously, and it is a good thing and to be applauded that all the groups in this House are pulling in the same direction on this occasion, promoting environmental protection without neglecting economic interests.
Allow me to deal briefly with two more points.
We have tabled a number of amendments, and I hope the Commission will be able to approve them all, Mr Kinnock.
At any rate, I should like to highlight two things. First of all, the Commission must be urged to ensure that the system of charges now being introduced does not distort competition between ports.
It is to be expected that one port or another will try to offer a particularly attractive scale of charges or to obtain particularly large profit margins in order to secure a competitive edge in the usual conflict, so to speak, that occurs between ports over cargoes.
The Commission must be watchful, and we may have to beef up the legislation.
I also believe, as the rapporteur said, that we must require Member States and ports to ensure that 25 % of all ships are actually inspected every year.
After all, we are familiar with the problem of inadequate control from our experience with rest periods for long-distance lorry drivers. We had to tighten up there, because the Member States were not sticking to the rules.
That, Commissioner, should not be a problem either, since we have the same figure of 25 % in the port state control directive.
One and the same official may be able to carry out both types of check.
We need effective control of waste discharge, for the sake of the sea and for the sake of animal and human life.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the proposal for a directive that has been submitted to us responds to a perfectly commendable objective, as it aims to ensure better protection of the marine environment.
International rules do exist, but everyone recognizes that they are not always respected, far from it, in fact.
These international rules include the MARPOL Protocol, and the proposal for a directive transposes its provisions into Community law. These include reducing dumping at sea, improving port reception facilities, stepping up monitoring in order to force vessels to hand over their waste, and establishing a system to fund these facilities.
On the whole, we can agree to this, but the methods of implementing these objectives are of some concern and add to those we already expressed when considering the Green Paper on ports and maritime infrastructures.
I would like to mention here the principle of subsidiarity.
I would point out that the Maastricht Treaty does not give any particular powers to the European Union to organise the port system and the rules for managing sea ports.
It would be unfortunate if the Union tried to interfere in that management through environmental issues.
We should therefore ensure that the principle of subsidiarity, to which my group is particularly committed, is not called into question through such methods.
With these reservations, we approve and support the proposal for a directive, as amended by the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
To conclude, I would like to commend the excellent work carried out by the rapporteur and congratulate him on the quality of his report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, people in civilised societies do not relieve themselves in the street.
The requirement that ships discharge their waste in port follows the same elementary logic.
I believe that Mr Lagendijk's report makes that perfectly clear.
There must be no incentive, such as the avoidance of special fees, to circumvent that requirement.
There must be a 50 % inspection rate.
Anything else will give rise to absurd or dangerous situations, and the system must be weighted in favour of environmentally friendly vessels.
Basically, this report pussyfoots its way indirectly towards addressing three key points.
The first is the question of a European maritime regulatory area.
The United States has had one for a long time.
The European Union continues to act as if it were a patchwork of small states, between which only the IMO standards apply.
That is an indefensible state of affairs.
The second point is the need for control by the port state.
This is an imperative of the first order, given the development of flags of convenience and dual registration.
The third point is the primacy of ecology, since the destruction of our vital resources is certainly no basis on which to develop an economic activity.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Lagendijk, on his excellent work, which, it must be pointed out, rightly deserved the unanimous approval of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
I fully agree with what was said by Mr Jarzembowski and would merely like to clarify a few points.
As was mentioned, the aim of this proposal on port reception facilities for ship-generated waste and cargo residues from ships is to reduce pollution and thus protect the environment, in particular by monitoring the legal discharge of waste and other pollutants at sea.
In this case, the Commission proposal was a necessary and desirable addition to existing legislation on the protection of the marine environment and the creation of fair conditions of competition between the ports of the Community.
We therefore welcome this opportunity, especially the legal requirement for ships to dispose of waste and cargo residues in ports.
The fee system proposed, which comes very close to a 'no-special-fee' system but avoids any downward pressure, is to be welcomed in general terms.
The proposal includes provisions that mean that ship-generated waste is treated slightly differently from cargo residues.
Ships are required to deliver both types of waste in ports, but under MARPOL 73/78 rules in the case of cargo residues. This means that the treatment and disposal of cargo residues are not covered by port charges but special fees could be charged for the process.
I would like to end by saying that it is only natural that warships should be exempt from the provisions of the directive and, generally speaking, we support the proposal.
Mr President, we are all familiar with pictures of birds and fish fighting that final, impossible battle against oil spills and other waste from our ships along our coastlines, because the international conventions which prohibit dumping at sea are not being enforced.
This situation will hopefully be remedied by this directive, together with the amendments proposed by the committee, whereby the ships must - under all circumstances and regardless of the quantity of waste - pay a port fee to dispose of their waste.
Like the rapporteur, we in the June Movement normally uphold the principle that the polluter pays.
But we also agree with the rapporteur that in this case there is a need to depart from this principle, since a fee which corresponds to the quantity of waste would make it tempting to dump the waste at sea.
Control is the cornerstone of this directive.
But in order for this to become effective, the June Movement is urging that the amendments tabled by the rapporteur should receive particular support with regard to the following points: that a definition should be found for the term 'environmentally friendly ship'; that the controls should be made more specific; that the expression 'a substantial contribution' should likewise be made more specific, so that this becomes sufficiently large to ensure that it does not pay to dump at sea; and finally that cargo residues should be covered by the port dues.
Mr President, it is in many contexts a major problem that waste from ships is not being managed in the proper way.
The traffic through the Baltic Sea is a particular problem in this respect, not least due to the extremely sensitive nature of this particular sea.
Every year huge quantities of oil are discharged directly into the Baltic.
In Swedish waters alone, there are hundreds of discharges of this type every year.
And it is virtually never possible to determine which vessel the oil has come from.
In the light of this situation, Sweden has a law which gives every passing vessel the opportunity to enter practically any port and dispose of its surplus oil there.
Of course, such a system has both advantages and disadvantages.
Naturally, a huge plus point is that this means that nobody will need to dump oily waste directly into the sea for purely economic reasons.
At the same time, however, a system like this costs a great deal of money - above all when there are only a few countries that apply the system.
Given this situation, it is a natural and obvious development to implement the same type of measures in a European context and also, in my view, to make the same demands of all the EU's applicant countries.
This would mean that, within the near future, practically all the countries situated around the Baltic would be subject to the same conditions with regard to the reception of such substances as oily waste.
On this basis, let me put a question to the Commissioner responsible: what steps is he prepared to take in order to include the EU's various applicant countries in today's decision?
Mr President, I wish to begin by welcoming Mr Lagendijk's report, not only because it supports the Commission's efforts to ensure a major reduction in marine pollution, but also because it is his first as a member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism - I congratulate him on that.
It is an accomplished piece of work, if I may say so, and in return for the support and the quality of the work, I am very happy to say that the Commission can endorse many of the amendments tabled by the rapporteur.
Specifically, the Commission can accept at least the underlying principles of Amendments Nos 1, 3 4, 5, 12, 16, 17 and 18 (England 0, France 2 - I thought I might get that in).
There is, however, another set of amendments which the Commission must reject, mainly on the grounds that it feels that the concerns expressed have already been dealt with in other parts of the existing text.
I am sure that, on further examination, the honourable Members will understand and, I hope, accept that point.
I refer specifically to Amendments Nos 6, 10, 14 and 15.
That leaves just 6 out of 18 amendments where there is a more substantial degree of disagreement with Parliament and I must say that, even in those cases, the divergence is not fundamental.
Amendments Nos 2 and 7 propose to extend the obligation to notify the onboard waste situation in writing to fishing vessels over 15 metres.
Mr Lagendijk referred specifically to this in the course of his speech earlier on.
The Commission's concern is that this could easily lead to an excessively bureaucratic system without bringing any substantial benefit to the environment.
We should bear in mind, of course, that fishing vessels are not excluded from the requirement to deliver their waste in ports and to contribute to the cost of facilities.
They are only exempted - I emphasise this - from the obligation to make a written notification before each port call.
The reason for that is simply that most fishing vessels, obviously, have one or more standard ports where they normally land their catches.
The prior notification proposal exists in order to allow the port to make the necessary arrangements for receiving waste from ships.
In the case of fishing vessels, the port will generally be very familiar with the needs of the vessels, even without a written notification.
We also believe that the length limit of 15 metres, like any other limit, is bound to be somewhat arbitrary and therefore difficult to justify.
For those reasons - we hope that the House will accept practical reasons - we cannot accept Amendment No 13 either.
Having said that, however, I share Parliament's concern that if very big fish factory vessels were to be excluded from the statutory obligation, that would be very retrograde.
I should like to reassure the House that those vessels are definitely subject to the notification and control obligations, since fish factory ships, which are not engaged in catching fish, are not considered to be fishing vessels under the terms of this proposed directive.
The most controversial amendment, as indeed Mr Lagendijk said, is probably No 8 on the charging system for the delivery of ship-generated waste.
Here the objectives of Parliament and the Commission are absolutely the same: all of us want to achieve a charging system in which ships are not given incentives to discharge waste at sea.
However, we differ about methods of securing that objective.
The Commission's proposal seeks to strike a balance between the need to make the best possible progress in encouraging waste delivery to ports and the plain political reality of taking into account the very different views of Member States on this issue.
The end result of both Parliament's and the Commission's approach is that fees cannot only be based on actual delivery.
Neither of us thinks that ships which do not deliver waste should be free from the fees associated with waste management.
Our divergence, therefore, arises only from the fact that the Commission's proposal preserves a greater flexibility for the Member States in deciding the extent to which the so-called no-special-fee system will be applied.
In addition, we should bear in mind that ports, marinas and fishing ports in Member States are obviously very different, not just between but also within Member States.
As I said, however, the fundamental objective of sharing the cost between users and non-users is crucial if we want to encourage the delivery in ports of waste and reduce and, indeed, prevent the pollution of the sea.
Amendment No 9 is unacceptable because the Commission can adequately deal with competition matters under the powers it already has under the Treaty.
The proposed amendment would have the effect of reducing those necessary powers merely to the possibility of making a proposal, and that, clearly, would not be in order.
Again, I hope, on reflection, that amendment may be withdrawn.
Finally, we cannot accept Amendment No 11, which relates to the number of spot-check inspections to be carried out for control purposes.
The Commission considers that a certain flexibility is needed, partly because of the potential future inclusion of the waste control regime in the existing port state control directive, which obviously would have exactly the effect anticipated correctly by Mr Jarzembowski.
Our feelings arise partly from the fact that the main elements for enhancing compliance with this directive are not only set down in the control part of the directive.
The Commission, therefore, considers that a slightly less systematic spot-check system is adequate for the purposes of the directive and achieving the purposes of combating the pollution of the sea, at least as far as checks outside the port state control regime are concerned.
Clearly, as Mr Jarzembowski said and as other Members have noted, in the course of the normal port state control check, it would be extraordinary if the inspector taking his 25 % quota, as it were, were not to pay attention to the waste-disposal situation on board the craft.
One could readily anticipate that will be undertaken - it is a relatively simple check.
One or two questions were raised by the honourable Members, to which I should like specifically to respond very briefly.
Mr Sindal raised the question of wrecks in international waters.
We recall in this House that he has fastidiously pursued the questions raised by the disastrous wreck of the Pallas in international waters.
Currently, as the House and Mr Sindal know, just vessels are the responsibility of the flag state but we are all aware of the deficiencies of that system, and coastal states may get involved in order to protect their own environment.
Clearly there is something to be desired in respect of using those powers as well.
The House may be glad to know that the Commission is supporting discussions in the International Maritime Organisation about placing the mandatory responsibility for safeguarding against pollution and other effects of wrecks on the vessel owner.
In my view, that could be a very real breakthrough in our efforts to achieve quality shipping in all waters, particularly in European waters.
I hope that progress can be achieved without great delay in the IMO.
Naturally we would prefer the standards to be global, if that is at all possible, and then followed up with a legal regime in our own maritime area.
I hope we can embark upon that without great delay when the discussions are completed in the IMO.
Further, Mr Sindal also asked about VAT on waste disposal fees.
That is a crucial question which is probably why discussions on the matter are still continuing.
However, in the course of the further development of this legislation, I will be in a position to give a more specific response.
Mr Jarzembowski's point, which is well taken, that it is essential that the fees levied do not result in the distortion of competition between ports, because their rivalry is, to say the least, very interesting.
After I retire I propose to write a novel about this to do them real justice - maybe a fairy tale, who knows!
There will be differences in the level of the charges which arise mainly because of the relative efficiency or inefficiency of the system.
If a port, because of its efficiency in handling waste disposal, is able to charge smaller fees, well the very best of luck to that port.
What we are then seeing is effective competition and not a distortion of competition, as I am sure Mr Jarzembowski will agree.
I conclude by expressing my gratitude to the Committee on Transport and Tourism and specifically to the rapporteur, Mr Lagendijk, for the expeditious work and the excellent report on this detailed and important proposal.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place shortly.
Combined traffic: dimensions and weights
The next item is the report (A4-0031/99) by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on
I.the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 92/106/EEC on the establishment of common rules for certain types of combined transport of goods between Member States (COM(98)0414 - C4-0485/98-98/0226(SYN))II.the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 96/53/EEC laying down for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorised weights in international traffic (COM(98)0414 - C4-0486/98-98/0227(SYN)).
Mr President, combined transport is one way of reducing the negative effects of road freight transport, the aim being to replace a considerable proportion of the road transport by water or rail transport.
However, the situation is disappointing: combined transport accounts for only 5 % of the total freight transported by road, in spite of all the encouragement which Parliament has given.
We must conclude from this that the efforts made up to now have failed to produce adequate results.
For this reason, the Commission's initiative to improve the position of combined transport is certainly to be welcomed.
It recognises that the existing policy has not achieved the desired results, and proposes four measures to improve the current situation.
First, it broadens the definition of combined transport, which now applies not just between Member States but also within one Member State.
Second, it proposes to reduce the fixed costs of road use.
The road transport legs make less use of the infrastructure than other road transport, so it seems reasonable to reduce the taxes paid.
Third, the Commission proposes an exemption from the bans on weekend driving for the initial and final road legs, thereby reducing the total duration of combined transport operations.
Finally, it proposes to increase the permitted vehicle weight for lorries involved in combined transport to 44 tonnes, thereby enabling certain transport units to be operated to full capacity.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism has a number of comments on the Commission proposal.
First of all, we agree with the broader definition of combined transport, but it must be absolutely clear and leave no room for differences in interpretation.
This is why we propose that the distance travelled by road in combined transport operations should be limited to 40 % of the total journey.
I should like to make the following points about the rest of the Commission proposal. The problems of combined transport can largely be put down to variations in the services provided by the railways and the high transshipment costs which combined transport inevitably involves.
The question is whether a permanent solution can be found which does not involve a structural approach to these two factors, and any new policy has to get to grips with them.
This is why the Committee on Transport and Tourism supports the plans to offset the high transshipment costs at least partially by reducing or reimbursing the tax paid by lorries.
The Committee on Transport does not agree with the proposal to exempt the road transport legs of combined transport from the ban on weekend driving, as this will distort competition between combined transport and road transport.
Parliament is trying to create a level playing field for the various forms of transport, so such distortions are not what we want to see.
The proposal would also bring disadvantages for the public, since freight transport on main roads would increase at weekends.
It would come up against the same objections that have been raised in connection with harmonising the restrictions on weekend driving.
The Committee on Transport and Tourism also does not support the proposal to allow exemptions from the maximum permitted sizes and weights.
This would first of all undermine the generally accepted 40 tonne limit established in order to prevent damage to the infrastructure.
Allowing 44 tonne lorries means putting the infrastructure under greater strain, and the high costs of this make it unacceptable, particularly in view of the accession of the Central and Eastern European countries.
It would be the first step towards a general 44 tonne limit, which is by no means desirable for the reasons I have described.
We also have to ask whether higher vehicle weights really serve the best interests of mankind or the environment.
In conclusion, as the present rapporteur, I should like to thank Mr Wijsenbeek for the work he did as rapporteur in the earlier phases of this report.
I think that a collective day of rest is essential if society is to operate successfully, which is why I am pleased that the retention of the ban on weekend driving prevents another group of workers from having to lose their hard-earned rest day on Sunday.
I therefore commend these proposed amendments by the Committee on Transport and Tourism to the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a word of thanks first of all to Mr van Dam, who stepped into the breach for Florus Wijsenbeek, who for very honourable reasons handed back the report.
If I sense the mood correctly, the House will reject the report when it is put to the vote or at a subsequent stage, and with good reason too.
But why? After all, we agree on the aim of promoting combined transport, because we want to see the transport of goods shifted from the roads to the railways and waterways.
So we agree on the aim.
The question is whether the solution proposed here by the Commission is a suitable means to that end.
I believe it is an unsuitable means; I believe it is counter-productive.
When the Commission proposes in Article 9a that goods vehicles be exempted from all restrictions on traffic movements that may be applicable at weekends, at night, on public holidays or in the event of heavy atmospheric pollution, provided they constitute combined transport within the meaning of Article 1, this would open a Pandora's box, which we cannot endorse.
In other words, as well as the 44-tonne trailer combination that we have consistently rejected in Parliament, another adverse development is being permitted here, allowing almost anything to run on our roads as long as it operates in the name of combined transport.
That cannot be our line.
We are willing to negotiate about precise times and routes in this Parliament too, but this blanket clause, this carte blanche , cannot be in our interests.
It is the wrong way to proceed.
That is why the Commission must think again on this in order to come up with a better proposal.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in view of the shortness of time, I can only state that we essentially agree with the Socialists and in particular with the rapporteur.
We do not want to promote combined transport in this way.
We are in favour of promoting it by offering tax relief.
But lifting the bans on night driving and weekend driving and increasing the maximum permissible weight are unsuitable measures which, in the interests of the people of Europe, we must reject.
Mr President, I shall be very brief.
I have seldom encountered a worse example of hypocrisy than what we are hearing this morning.
How do people intend to achieve the modal shift if combined transport is not given any advantages? How is rail transport supposed to compete with road transport if large containers cannot be brought to the trains and we are therefore forced to accept the 44 tonne limit?
Trains run every single day, including weekends and holidays, but the freight has to be brought to them, which will be impossible if we keep the ban on weekend driving in place.
I would add that, structurally speaking, a total weight of 44 tonnes or 40 tonnes makes no difference to the infrastructure whatsoever.
Mr van Dam, who was the one who included this in the report, is telling us a load of nonsense here.
Mr President, I too want to defend the Greens' opposition to the Commission's proposal.
Taking up points made by those who have already spoken, with the exception of Mr Wijsenbeek, we believe it is crucial to keep road transport down to 40 % and we cannot accept conditions which entirely favour road transport in every particular, such as being allowed to drive at weekends.
We think the road transport legs should be limited to a maximum of 200 kilometres but an increase in the maximum weight to 44 tonnes is unacceptable.
In view of all this, although this approach is obviously designed to promote combined transport, we think it is just a means of making road transport easier.
We shall suspend the debate at this point since it is now voting time.
It will be resumed this evening.
Mr President, I would like here to raise an issue that has led to the European Parliament being deluded.
In his reply to Mr Donnelly's question, Wim Duisenberg, the President of the European Central Bank, said that the members of the board of the European Central Bank receive a salary that is ten per cent greater than that of the Members of the Commission.
In Finland yesterday it was revealed that the Bank of Finland, which belongs to the European Central Bank organisation, pays Sirkka Hämäläinen, who is on the board of the European Central Bank, a pension of around EUR 10 000 a month in addition.
I believe there is reason to suspect that other members of the board of the European Central Bank receive such additional payments.
I hope that the appropriate parliamentary committee will look into this matter, and will not condone such immoral goings-on.
I am sorry, Mr Seppänen, but that is not a point of order and I therefore cannot let you go on.
Mr President, yesterday, when the President of Parliament was in the Chair, I raised the point that Parliament had been besieged by demonstrating farmers, and I asked the President if he would give us further information on the subject either yesterday or today, after he had talked to them. I also asked if Mr Santer and the Commissioner responsible for farming would be present to report back to us on what had taken place between them and the demonstrating farmers.
This is an extremely important matter.
Farmers are also demonstrating in Greece.
I would like to know whether we are going to have a statement from the Commission today or not.
We take note of what you say, and no doubt the Commission will also have heard your comments.
We shall now move on to the votes.
VOTES
Mr President, with regard to the legislative resolution, I would request that we do not vote on it so as to comply with the procedure that has been adopted for all the reports on Agenda 2000.
As I have the floor for a moment, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues for the vote and to inform them that I have analysed the Commission's position on each of the amendments that were tabled and adopted.
I noted with great satisfaction that the Commission has accepted half of the amendments adopted in the Committee on Agriculture.
Nevertheless, there are naturally differences on some points that were considered to be fundamental by the majority of the members of the Committee on Agriculture.
I will defend these points in the meetings we will hold with the Council and the Commission up until the vote on the legislative resolution.
Applause
I therefore put to the vote the proposal by Mr Martin that the vote should be postponed pursuant to Rule 60(2).
Parliament decided to postpone the vote and the matter was deemed to have been referred back to committee
Mr President, I just wanted to inform you that in the official gallery there is a delegation from the parliament of Taiwan, led by Mr Lee and Mrs Song.
Loud applause
Mr President, the report on which we are about to vote, the White report, is, in my view, the most important report for the physical territory of many countries of southern Europe and even for European agriculture.
Since it is likely that there will be few Members here for the vote this evening, I would ask you, along with the rapporteur and our colleagues here, to agree to postpone the vote on this report to the next part-session in Brussels to be held in 12 days' time.
Mr President, I am acutely aware of the problems presented to the Iberian peninsula by the issue of water.
In view of what has just been said I do not object to what is proposed.
Mr White and Mr Aparicio, the decision will have to be taken in due course, at the beginning of the vote.
You can ask then for the vote to be postponed, if you so wish, but as things stand at present the vote is on the agenda for today at 5.30 p.m.
The Swedish Social Democrats are of the opinion that wine - bearing in mind the health aspects - is not a product which should be supported by the Union's common agricultural policy.
Our view is therefore in principle that this support should be stopped.
We are voting against the common organisation of the market for wine because it falls outside the whole existing CAP framework.
The financial envelope allocated to this COM is insignificant compared to the amount earmarked for meat, cereals, milk and tobacco.
Contrary to what happens with those COMs, wine producers will not be entitled to any direct aid.
The permitted planting areas cannot sustain a self-sufficiency policy for the European Union, with 14 % of trade already in the hands of third countries.
Despite the Union's campaign to ensure transparency for the consumer, the COM does not make it compulsory to list the ingredients used to produce the wine on the label, leading to unfair competition between wines containing sugar and those produced from grapes alone.
The COM seeks to distinguish liqueur wines from naturally sweet wines, thus adding to the fiscal burden on them and creating unfair competition between port and Madeira wines.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the Martin report because it rejects large parts of the Commission's proposals for a reform of the organisation of the market in wine.
We support the Commission's proposals, since the reform is in line with the thinking behind Agenda 2000.
The Commission has proposed that the wine sector should become more market-oriented, so as to achieve a better balance in future between supply and demand.
The proposed arrangements therefore mean an adaptation of the market, which in turn means reorganisation and bans on replanting of wine areas in certain regions, together with the abolition of artificial outlets for products that cannot be sold on the market.
This avoids surplus production, which is marketed at prices far below the costs of production and distillation.
The Martin report paves the way for a dilution of the Commission's proposals by retaining part of the distillation arrangements, which the Commission proposes should be abolished, and imposing longer timescales for the individual objectives, and this we cannot endorse.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted in favour of almost all of the amendments that were adopted in the Committee on Agriculture as they reflected our position.
During the debate on the Martin report in the House, Commissioner Fischler made a speech in which he expressed views that were contrary to the interests of French and European wine growing.
With regard to the ban on importing musts from third countries for wine making, Commissioner Fischler said that he disagreed with the European Parliament's position, basing his argument on the WTO agreements and stating that suitable 'labelling' regulations would be introduced.
The amendment as adopted in the report reflects the very same current legislation that was consolidated in the GATT.
Our group does not, therefore, understand Commissioner Fischler's views and is opposed to the introduction of specific labels for wines made from musts imported from third countries.
The wine will be promoted according to where it is made, so the final product will have the designation of origin of the place where the wine was made, in line with the GATT agreements.
As far as planting rights are concerned, the Commissioner says that he still favours limiting the growth of European vineyards to 1 % in the 2000-2010 period.
The European Parliament wanted 3 % growth in order to enable vineyards with structural problems to adapt to their market without relocating from regions of production where the product is less highly valued.
In terms of the restructuring of vineyards, the Commissioner said that he was in favour of this measure because it fulfilled the objective of quality. Nevertheless, he remains opposed to our proposals on the regeneration of vineyards and the improvement of wine-making facilities.
Once again, the Commission's approach is too restrictive and does not embrace the real economic situation of the wine-making industry.
What is the use of altering the quantity of vine stocks in a production region without altering its winemaking facilities? How do we plan to alter the vine stocks in an area of designated origin?
The Commission's proposal is therefore going to limit the qualitative improvements of the qwpsr and table wines with geographic designation. I must point out that these are products that are exported by the European Union and that therefore contribute both to the development of rural regions and to the balance of trade in the wine-producing Member States.
As regards the promotion measures, the Commissioner stated that they would be subject to a horizontal regulation, that is, one that is valid for all so-called quality agricultural and food products.
I must point out that only eight of the European Union's fifteen Member States produce wine.
It is highly probable that of the financial resources to be used for this horizontal regulation, the majority will be used for agricultural and food products that are produced in all the Member States of the European Union, such as milk products and meat products.
However, I was pleased to note that the Commissioner took account of all the amendments tabled by Parliament on trade organisations.
In France, we are aware of the fundamental role of professional organisations. They need to have a legal status that is specified in Community law in order to ensure that they are not called into question by the non-producing Member States on the premise of the single market and competition.
As a Member from the Languedoc-Roussillon region, I welcome the fact that we were able to reintroduce the definition of natural sweet wines into the Commission's proposal.
However, I regret the fact that certain French pressure groups wanted to remove this definition, purely for tax reasons.
In conclusion, I was pleased to see that some of our proposals were taken over by the Commissioner. However, once again, all the measures that we envisaged in relation to revitalising supply and demand, with regard to both the single market and third countries, have been rejected by the European Commission.
I must point out that the European Union is the world leader in terms of wine making, and alone accounts for 80 % of world trade in this sector.
Rather than trying to preserve this dominant position on the world market, the Commission is taking an approach that puts constraints on the European wine-making industry.
I want to use this explanation of vote to express my support for the report by Mr Martin on the reform of the common organisation of the market in wine. This reform is essential and aims to adapt the sector to the current situation and to the high degree of competition in the global market.
We need to establish a better and more complete system of Community aid and support for those wine-growing zones that are both in crisis and expanding, due, for the most part, to increasing competition from third countries.
In this respect, the Commission must provide greater protection for quality wine through the designations of origin system both within the EU itself and in international agreements with third countries.
A comprehensive policy to combat the crisis in the wine sector must aim to ensure that vineyards do not relocate to areas receiving EU subsidies.
In this respect, the Commission must allow the sector to be cofinanced at national level. Moreover, we must not consider wines made with grapes from third countries to be Community wines, as the Commission proposes, since they would therefore be eligible for subsidies.
It is also essential to increase to 3 % the area for new planting up to 2010.
The organisation of the market in wine is, from start to finish, an absurdity that would make the Soviet Gosplan planning authorities green with envy.
Moreover, support for wine amounts to an irresponsible waste of taxpayers' money, which not infrequently is actually embezzled.
In spite of this, it is proposed to increase the support from around EUR 1.1 billion per annum to around EUR 1.3 bn - i.e. from some SEK 10 bn to SEK 12 bn a year!
We believe that this form of organised swindle involving EU funds should be phased out as quickly as possible.
Wine is not a foodstuff, but a luxury item which should be subjected to the laws of the marketplace without any further intervention from central authorities - apart from any steps that might be justified for reasons of alcohol policy, but these would need to be effected at Member State level, not EU level.
If, for social reasons, the wine-growing countries wish to support their growers, then of course they have every right to do so, but to make taxpayers contribute in this way, over and above what they pay to purchase the wine, is nothing short of grotesque.
It is hard to imagine a more flagrant example of misdirected pseudo-solidarity than support for wine.
We are in favour of genuine international solidarity, including increased foreign aid.
This is one of the reasons why we have voted against the report as a whole.
Wine producers are farmers, and must therefore be entitled to EU support in the same way as other farmers.
However, EU support must be changed and become more of an environmental support and focused more on smaller agricultural holdings.
In the long term, the support needs to be reduced.
It is wrong to include such a large number of detailed provisions in the report.
I have abstained from the final vote.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Parliament has not gone along with the Commission's proposals but has devised a counter-project, as it were, thereby eliminating some obvious weak points in the Commission text, and has tabled a compromise proposal.
The important thing is to preserve wine production in Europe, attaching special priority to quality products.
In particular, it will be essential to safeguard the diversity of traditional production methods, many of which go back thousands of years.
That is why it is incomprehensible that some of my fellow Members keep trying to fan the flames of north-south discord over winemaking processes.
The north does not find fault with southern production methods, so the MEPs from southern climes should not oppose typically northern methods either.
The message here is 'Live and let live'.
Wine is a natural product which, taken regularly and in moderation, is beneficial to health.
This has been proved by a number of scientific analyses.
I should like to refer in this context to a recent study conducted by the University of Mainz, which clearly demonstrates that daily consumption of one to three glasses of wine protects the heart and reduces the risk of coronary thrombosis.
In my opinion, it would be appropriate to advertise these findings as part of a series of large-scale European wine campaigns.
Initiatives to this end should be supported by the European Commission.
They would also serve to refute explicitly the recurrent false reports according to which the Commission intends to prohibit the advertising of alcoholic products.
Again and again and again - one regulatory frenzy after another from the European Commission!
In 1962, for example, a set of market regulations for wine was adopted and remained in force until 1970.
Then came new market regulations for wine, but these were originally devised for France, Germany, Italy and Luxembourg only.
The accession of Greece, Portugal and Spain made the problems greater, and as time went by we had a growing surplus of table wines which had to be brought under control.
The Martin report is therefore of great importance to Luxembourg wine growers too.
Who does not remember the epic discussions on the two wine reports by our honourable colleagues Mateo Sierra and Julio Fantuzzi?
Two worlds were pitted against each other - the wine-growing areas of the south and those of the north.
Although the Fantuzzi report was adopted by a slender majority, it did not attract majority support in the Council of Agriculture Ministers.
The Moselle and our winegrowers once more emerged relatively unscathed, because the Commission's pessimistic forecasts of wine production and consumption proved to be inaccurate.
Almost five years after the Fantuzzi report, Parliament has to deal again with a proposal from the Commission on the common organisation of the market in wine.
And at this point I should like to congratulate Mr Martin as a specialist in this field for the good report he has tabled, and especially for its fairness.
In the expectation that the report will achieve a majority in both Parliament and the Council this time, let me say that the compromise amendments he has tabled will enable the wine growers of the northern vineyard regions to go on producing their quality wines just as they always have done.
In any case, I believe that the production of quality wines in the European Union falls under national jurisdiction by virtue of the subsidiarity principle, and that Luxembourg still produces some of the best of those wines.
Our aim must be to achieve a decrease in the production of table wine and to prevent the importation of must from non-EU countries.
Above all, there must be a reduction in large-scale distillation, in other words the organised destruction of wine, before it reaches the market.
I shall therefore be voting for Mr Martin's report, and I do so in the hope that producers in all wine-growing areas will be spared any further rules and regulations in future.
I would first of all like to commend the exceptional quality of the work that has been done in the context of this detailed study of the importance of activities linked to wine in our societies.
This is due to the professional experience of the rapporteur, combined with the best possible knowledge of the subject that came from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, and the study carried out on the ground by the writers of the report, on the basis of contributions from producers and in close cooperation with our Directorate-General for Research.
This debate brings to light several fundamental points, dealing with both the nature of the common agricultural policy and the actual running of the European institutions.
At the centre of our concerns is the desire to clearly affirm that wine is an agricultural product and not an industrial one.
It is essential to take this position, as it conveys the need to maintain a genuine, close and rigorous link - not only in terms of marketing - between the land and the product.
It also implies the desire to encourage the promotion of products on the basis of the place of production.
Respecting this link between the land and the product is essential to ensure consumer safety.
It is a necessary condition for the future of food safety, and also for the possibility of maintaining balanced land-use planning.
It enables us to prevent destructive concentrations and to continue to develop the production of food from the land, which is part of our culture.
In order to maintain this link, we must prevent the development of a dangerous shift, that is, the possibility of making wine from musts imported from third countries.
Our colleague Mr Chesa, who comes from one of the most important wine-making regions in Europe, rightly highlighted the risks of a reduction in quality and of breaking the link between product and land that this move would entail.
Parliament has proposed banning wine making with musts from third countries.
However, Commissioner Fischler argued that this position was not well-founded, considering that the provisions of the Marrakesh agreement establishing the WTO no longer allowed the countries of the European Union to declare such a ban.
We in turn contest Mr Fischler's interpretation, as the proposals in the Martin report merely take up the exact provisions of the COM in wine which are consolidated in the GATT.
I have, moreover, addressed a written question to the Commission on this fundamental point, and this must be clarified quickly.
Rather than taking the relevant step of encouraging the development of a sector in which European countries are world leaders, the Commission has adopted a Malthusian, restrictive and cautious attitude towards several issues.
Fortunately, the Martin report deliberately breaks away from this philosophy by rightly proposing a controlled restructuring and regeneration of vineyards and measures to improve the quality of grapes and wine-making facilities. It also gives priority to structural measures to help and support young people when they are setting up their operations and as they expand.
Finally, the Martin report quite rightly requests that the Council's authority and rights be entirely preserved in this important sector, while the Commission proposed, as usual, an excessive increase in its own powers, claiming that it alone held all the powers of modification and regulation.
We can only hope that the Council, which is the only European institution that has real democratic legitimacy, will be able to resist the pressure from the Commission.
The Alleanza Nazionale is voting in favour although, personally, I am only partly satisfied.
I think reform of the organisation of the market in wine must essentially respect the following principles:
Although market regulation mechanisms are needed to balance supply and demand, the Commission is not justified in extending the ban on new planting up to 2010 while permitting wine making from imported musts.
While other world wine producers have a free hand, this restriction represents a serious threat to the Union's dominant position on the world market, where Europe currently accounts for over 50 % of total production.-Maintaining the status quo on enrichment with sucrose to obtain the final alcohol content of wines is unacceptable.
This kind of regulation would hinder the development of markets like Italy's which focus on alcohol produced in vineyards rather than cellars.
The significant cost-savings achieved by the simple addition of sugars would make quality production, like Italy's, barely viable and condemn it to a niche position on the market.-I also think it is important to regularise the position of the Italian vineyards planted without formally respecting Community regulations, and I reject the Commission's idea of deducting these from the new planting reserve.
In fact, if the Commission's approach were accepted, Italy would be at a distinct disadvantage compared with Spain, which currently meets the provisions in the proposal.-Finally, under Commission Decision No 94/173/EC of 22 March 1994, the wine-growing sector should be included amongst those benefiting from aid for product transformation and processing.
If Italian cellars cannot access European aid to invest in production technology it will be impossible to improve the quality of their products and entrepreneurs boasting one of the oldest wine-making traditions in Europe, who accept the market logic of product improvement and are counting on penetrating the upper segments of the market, will be penalised.- Barros Moura report (A4-0030/99)
Mr President, Mr Barros Moura's report raises the issue of which European institutions and policies are needed to complete the transition to the single currency and enable it to function.
It has not come too soon.
This issue was deliberately avoided at Maastricht so as to facilitate the Treaty's ratification, and again at Amsterdam, so as not to open debates that might have led to doubts among the citizens on the eve of the single currency's entry into force.
Nevertheless, we are faced with the issue now and we must face up to it.
The Barros Moura report opens up several debates, but by no means all the debates.
For example, it does not thoroughly examine the issue of the democratic control of the single currency, as this issue seems practically impossible to solve.
It also fails to consider the issue of who will make the ultimate decision on external exchange rates, because it is such a contentious issue at present.
And even though it mentions the need for a federal-style budgetary system, it fails to specify what this means in terms of new taxes and the rates they would be set at.
In fact, what does this report actually deal with?
Essentially, it deals with the coordination of economic policies which it would like to see extended to other related areas, such as structural policies. This is something it would like to see become more centralised, to the Commission's advantage, and more binding, along with the obligatory decisions taken by a qualified majority.
The socialist leanings of the rapporteur, who views all solutions in terms of a superstate, are clearly evident in all of this.
Our Liberal colleagues appear somewhat taken aback by this prospect, and yet the result was obvious.
It is true that the choice has still not been formally announced between socialist or Liberal-style euro management institutions, but, in short, that choice has been largely predetermined.
The single currency is in itself a unifying and rigid principle, something our Liberal friends seem to have realised a little too late.
We would like to thank the rapporteur for the accomplished work that has been put into this important report.
We believe that there is good reason to highlight the need for an effective consensus with regard to the policy on EMU and other policy areas, such as employment and social policy, the overall macroeconomic policy and environmental policy.
We also believe that there is good reason to highlight the need for political control over the ECB within the framework of the independence demanded by its operations.
The enlargement of the EU compels us to pay greater attention to these questions, a point which is also emphasised in the committee's proposals.
However, we feel that in several instances the committee's proposals run the risk of tackling the issues from the wrong starting-point.
The development of increased coordination between policies relating to EMU - above all employment and social policies, overall macroeconomic policy and environmental policy - should be based on more active initiatives and more closely coordinated objectives in these areas, rather than on static demands for changes in the Council's decision-making procedures and the introduction of binding rules.
In our opinion, it is essential above all that the Community should increase its efforts to achieve more active employment and social policies and better coordination of overall macroeconomic policy.
We believe that increased efforts cannot in all respects be driven primarily by institutional changes in the way that is proposed by the committee.
In our view, this is a valid position even in the context of enlargement.
Furthermore, we are of the opinion that changes in the rules for making decisions on economic policy should be based on clear definitions of which areas of the Member States' current economic policy would be affected.
We believe that some of the proposals for institutional changes that are being submitted by the committee do not take into account this need for clear definitions.
One example of these essentially unclear definitions is the committee's paragraph 18 on 'federal-style' budgetary systems.
As regards the committee's proposal of a legal basis in the Treaty for the Euro Council, we believe that this fails to take into account the fact that EMU should be seen as a matter for all EU countries, even those which are not currently taking part in the euro.
EMU and the common currency have an impact on large areas of Community policy and should therefore not be a matter that is handled exclusively by the Euro Council, as envisaged in the proposal put forward by the committee.
This consideration has guided us in the position we have adopted on individual points in the report and the individual amendments that have been tabled.
The fact that the report as a whole contains certain weaknesses does not mean that we believe it should be rejected in its entirety.
The relationship between EMU policy and other policy areas and the consequences of enlargement for EMU are so important that this matter warrants further attention.
The Barros Moura report sets the course, in a clear and technically convincing way, for the development of the EU in terms of the establishment of the internal market, EMU and the euro.
Consequently, the next logical and inevitable step - if a breakdown of the monetary union project is to be avoided - is to establish a real federal structure.
Amongst other things, this means giving more power to the Commission and the European Parliament and less power, first and foremost, to the national parliaments.
At the same time, majority votes will be the norm.
There will be a common economic policy and a common tax policy.
In addition, a 'federal-style' budgetary system will be created - a budget that will be used to resolve crisis situations in the individual Member States.
To put it more directly: the report is canvassing for the establishment of a federal state with a federal budget at its disposal, similar to the federal system that exists in federal states such as Germany and the USA.
As a counterbalance to EMU, the report wishes to create a social and political union.
The establishment of a social union will mean that a framework will be created at EU level for the way in which social security benefits and schemes are to be administered.
The Union will establish parameters for determining who is entitled to benefit from the social security system, how much they are able to receive and how the benefits and schemes are to be financed.
We do not share the Barros Moura report's vision of a federal EU, and we are therefore voting against the report.
The transition to the euro is the result of the political will demonstrated by the Union and its Member States.
It was not an end in itself, but simply one stage further along the road to European integration.
The launch of the euro provides the Union with a single monetary policy which makes it necessary to restore some kind of balance, particularly in the economic sphere.
The ECB, among other institutions, now performs all of its tasks with full independence, which is certainly a positive thing.
However, the absence of a genuine political authority in economic matters at the European Central Bank clearly places the issue of the lack of democratic accountability in European integration at the centre of the debate.
It also gives rise to the fear of an uncompromising monetarist policy which would govern the Union's strategic choices and be a burden for potentially healthy economic growth which is able to create jobs.
Coordinating economic policies becomes a pressing need if we wish to promote an efficient and competitive European economy, which - as our resolution states - is also able to generate jobs, solidarity, economic and social cohesion and equal opportunities between citizens of all the Member States.
In order to attain this, we now need to openly declare our commitment to an economic and social union as well as to define a new 'social contract' that establishes the common principles in social matters.
However, this will not be possible if the development of an integrated economic policy is not accompanied by closer alignment of Member States' tax systems.
In short, I very broadly share the conclusions reached in the resolution we are considering.
I will support it all the more as it highlights the need to strengthen Parliament's role in all matters concerning Economic and Monetary Union.
Sadly, I have to note that the scenario we feared will become a reality if this text is adopted. We predicted that the existence of EMU would result in calls for harmonisation in areas such as taxation, as well as employment and social policy.
The Member States are, in other words, being asked to harmonise their economic policies - which is one of the reasons why I voted against this report.
EMU means 'more Union'.
Decisions on economic policy, as well as interest and exchange rates, become an EU-only affair.
In the long term, fiscal and financial policy will be decided at Union level too.
A whole raft of reports from the European Parliament confirms this trend.
EMU is an economic and political project - the cornerstone of a future EU state.
This report admittedly takes a relatively softly-softly approach, but the underlying message is there.
Economic policies are described in terms of 'issues of common interest'.
The report speaks of approximation of fiscal and social policy, more qualified majority voting and a stronger Commission.
The rapporteur calls for 'conclusion of the draft interinstitutional agreement on the coordination of national economic policies and on monitoring the stability and growth pact'.
Such measures would only increase the power of the EU and widen the democratic deficit.
I therefore voted against this report.
The rapporteur clearly views EMU as a platform for championing the transformation of the EU into a federal state.
In the recitals to his report, he uses formulations such as 'The European Parliament... considers that the absence of a common economic and fiscal policy appears to be completely incompatible with the unified management of monetary policy'; or '... points out that establishing monetary union would require a 'federal-style' budgetary system'.
EMU as an enterprise is fundamentally undemocratic.
Yet the rapporteur erroneously hopes to remedy its shortcomings by granting increased powers to the European Parliament and allowing qualified majority voting in the Council on the general guidelines for the Member States' economic policy.
The EU should operate on the basis of intergovernmental cooperation.
Accordingly, unanimity must be the rule when Community-wide measures are decided upon. It should be governments that appoint the president of the ECB, and the Member States must be responsible for shaping national economic and fiscal policy.
In the interests of the continued positive development of the EU, it is necessary for economic and monetary union to be a success.
Especially in the light of the prospective enlargement, it has become even more important to ensure that the structure of EMU is as healthy and as effective as possible.
This can be achieved in part by providing for strict control of the economies of the participating countries.
In my opinion, it is important to ensure that a healthy balance exists between decisions taken at national and supranational level.
Coordination of macroeconomic regulation is essential, but it is important that the EU does not deprive the Member States of the responsibility which they are obliged to live up to as members of the economic and monetary union.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party welcomes much of the Barros Moura report, and the attention it pays to the political consequences of Economic and Monetary Union.
However, we have major reservations about some aspects of the report.
In paragraph one, second indent, we cannot support the implication that social security must be harmonised to make EMU a success.
If the President of the Central Bank is to enjoy the confidence of all Member States, he or she should be appointed by consensus.
We therefore voted against paragraph 8.
We are concerned about the proposals to extend QMV to the management of economic policy and voted against paragraphs 10, 16 and 20.
The proposal for a 'federal-style' budgetary system in paragraph 18 is also one we oppose.
Paragraph 14 calls for the Euro Council to be enshrined in the Treaty.
This risks institutionally a two-tier Europe in which non-EMU Member States of the EU will be in some sort of second division.
We oppose this.
On the final report, the position of the EPLP was to abstain.
Mr Barros Moura focuses on a key problem connected with the current stage of European integration, which can only be described as lopsided market radicalism.
Although we have a single European market, a European currency and a European monetary policy, we have no equivalent instruments of political union.
There is not even an effective European exchange-rate policy at the present time which could position the euro strategically in relation to the other currencies of the world, especially the dollar.
To prevent any misunderstandings, let me stress here that such a policy would have to be based on cooperation; it must not mean an intensification of unbridled competition through government interference.
This lopsidedness that market radicalism has inflicted on the European integration process must be rapidly rectified as a matter of urgency.
We need a Community exchange-rate policy that is worthy of the name, a binding 'monetary dialogue' among the Community institutions, European economic governance as the basis of a Community macroeconomic policy, and the effective development of Community policies and of coordination between the Member States' policies in key areas such as taxation in the single market, employment and the establishment of the social and environmental conditions in which fair competition can take place within the European single market. These are the things we need in order to build up the general economic momentum that will drive us towards the goal of sustainable economic activity.
In view of the effective new level of supranational and global interconnection in the business world, the EU, in pursuing its goal, will always have to present a united front to the international community.
But we can and we must make the first move here.
Bourlanges report (A4-0049/99)
Mr President, we believe that of all the European institutions, the Council of Ministers and, to a greater extent, the European Council, possess the greatest relative legitimacy because people see their elected representatives meet in these institutions at the highest level.
No other European institution has achieved such status, neither the European Parliament, which is still considered to be a lower House, nor, of course, the Commission, which is considered to be a mere collection of civil servants.
In the very interests of Europe, attention must be focused on the most legitimate institution.
Therefore, the Council must be granted the right to propose legislation and exercise control over the Commission, even censure it.
Also, decisions must be taken unanimously for all major issues.
In this respect, the Bourlanges report asserts that 'unanimity is an arrangement fundamentally inappropriate to effective decision-making '. In the explanatory statement, the rapporteur presents some gloomy calculations showing that with 15 players, the probability of achieving a unanimous position is one in 32 769.
This is quite clearly wrong, because in today's Europe, a great many decisions are taken every day by general consensus.
In fact, the system of unanimous voting forces each partner to respect the point of view of others and endeavour to understand that point of view in order to negotiate better.
The decisions taken as a result are more valid because they are based on mutual consensus.
It seems as though this system is perhaps somewhat slower than others that are more authoritarian in nature, but it nonetheless produces good results.
An enlarged Europe with 25 or 30 members should be able to operate in this way.
We also reminded you, through an amendment, that the Luxembourg compromise should be incorporated into all parts of the Treaty. Unfortunately, that amendment was rejected.
In any case, we have to accept that a Europe with 25 members cannot be monolithic and must obey the model of variable geometry.
All of these measures, including the variable geometry which will make decisions on European cooperation more flexible, will strengthen the link between Europe and its nations.
If the Union is to meet its goal of enlargement, reform will need to extend beyond agricultural policy and the Structural Funds to embrace the whole process of decision-making.
The report is therefore a welcome initiative.
We do not however agree with the rapporteur's proposals on the common and foreign security policy, the CFSP.
Our view is that the Council plays - and should continue to play - a central role with regard to the EU and the CFSP.
We would refer to the political spirit underpinning Article J.7 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, where it is stated that the Council shall be responsible for decisions in all areas affecting the Union's security.
The rapporteur's paragraphs 10, 13 and 14 are not acceptable in the light of this.
We believe that the concept of positive abstention could be of assistance in fulfilling the Petersberg tasks (humanitarian intervention, and peacekeeping and peacemaking measures). In our view, however, political will alone can equip the EU to be more active in crisis management.
The outcome will hinge on how the new decision-making procedures work out in practice. We cannot therefore support paragraphs 30 and 31.
We support the forward thinking in the Bourlanges report about the way the Council should operate in an enlarged European Union.
In particular, we support his call for better coordination and greater efficiency through increased use of qualified majority voting and, above all, the vital importance of returning to the Community method by re-establishing institutional balance, with a strong Commission endowed with a real power of initiative and political drive.
We have voted against certain points:
The rapporteur's limited definition of constitutional issues for which unanimity would be maintained; -Paragraph 33, which would give qualified decision-making power in budgetary matters to the States contributing most. This is at odds with the Community method and the principle of constitutional equality between the Member States; -On the weighting of Council votes, anything that goes beyond maintaining the current balances and might therefore encourage the concept of a 'directing board' of the larger Member States; -As in the previous points, anything that might predetermine the position of the European Parliament on basic political and constitutional issues before the process of revising the Treaties begins; -Anything that would make good anti-European propaganda in the coming election campaign.Our final overall vote was determined by the outcome of the votes in the House on these issues - on which, thanks to our initiative and our efforts, the PSE Group has adopted exactly the same approach.
Given that some of these essential concerns of ours - especially the weighting of votes in the Council - have not been sufficiently safeguarded, we have voted against.
Before I make any comments, I should like to congratulate Jean-Louis Bourlanges on the quality of his report and the relevance of his remarks.
Without prejudice to the future of the Community institutions, this text provides a particularly interesting basis for an excellent debate and, moreover, is proof of the maturity of this House, if indeed that still needed to be demonstrated.
As regards the comments made about the Council, I share the rapporteur's concerns and cannot imagine enlargement ever taking place without there first being a thorough reform of the present decision-making process.
My greatest fear is to see a paralysed European Union and one that is incapable of giving impetus to a clear policy.
Faced with the challenges of the next millennium, we need a Council that is capable of setting out Europe's central themes.
I also think that the ability to do this is fundamentally incompatible with the present system of the rotating presidency, which is why the question raised by Jean-Louis Bourlanges regarding the Council's powers is important, even if it is difficult to answer.
As regards the way in which the Council of Ministers currently operates, and following the rapporteur's example, I am actively campaigning for a rehabilitation of its role: in my view, it must be the Union's driving force.
Contrary to the report, I would prefer to see the various ministers for European affairs engage in closer coordination with a view to achieving greater consistency in national and European policies.
In accordance with the agenda, the relevant minister should be in charge of the matter.
Lastly, as regards the system of procedures and, more specifically, the general principle of qualified majority voting, I believe that this system should be extended.
I am not opposed to the principle of the double majority, which to me seems more fair and legitimate than the present weighting system.
Indeed, I also think that we need to begin debating the powers of the future European Commission within the context of the Union's enlargement.
Finally, I should like, once again, to stress that enlargement cannot take place without there first being a change in the present institutional framework.
This prerequisite is not, in my view, designed to hinder the process but, on the contrary, aims to establish the foundations of a political Europe that is able to take responsibility for the choices it makes.
Jean-Louis Bourlanges has quite rigorously conveyed the expectations of our Committee on Institutional Affairs, which has for a long time been calling for a radical reform of the Council's role, structure and modus operandi .
Without such reform, successive enlargements will paralyse this central decision-making organ.
During the discussion on this report, my concern - in thinking about European citizens - was to extract clear principles from the recitals which will push the European project towards the objectives of our efforts and proposals.
In my opinion, this project is inextricably linked to an increased democratisation based on the principle of majority voting, the political accountability of the authorities, scrutiny on the part of parliamentary institutions and the transparency of decision-making procedures.
The Union must progress towards a model which clearly reveals its dual nature as a union between Member States on the one hand, and as a union between peoples on the other.
In this model, the Commission will become a genuine European executive, with Parliament representing the people and the Council representing the Member States.
This model of Europe will be able to act as an integrated whole, which is both coherent and united, thereby increasing its international influence.
As this is an own-initiative report from the European Parliament, my second concern relates to both the principle behind the report and the time chosen to adopt it.
Generally speaking, I appreciate the efforts made by Jean-Louis Bourlanges and, in particular, his attention to detail in the proposals.
However, I think that until the Amsterdam Treaty is ratified and implemented by the Member States, it would often be appropriate to leave to the future negotiators the job of putting forward specific rules and limiting our role to simply announcing the general guidelines we are to follow.
In this way, we can be justified in our desire to see the double majority adopted in the long term, as this is a guideline that the vast majority of the House can ratify. But we will not go into detail regarding percentages here, as these should be studied at a later stage.
I was pleased to note that the rapporteur had recommended that the weighting system be maintained until this double majority is adopted.
However, it would perhaps be somewhat restrictive and ill-advised to suggest that current percentages must be maintained.
The most important thing is for the principle of equilibrium to be maintained, chiefly between the larger and smaller countries.
We should by all means clearly specify a guideline - maintaining equilibrium - but try to prevent divisions emerging by beginning a debate on quantification.
As regards qualified majority voting, in the majority of cases, Jean-Louis Bourlanges' intention to withdraw the resources that belong to the cases that are excluded from this type of majority gives rise to concern.
Parliament already gave its opinion on this matter when it examined the Méndez de Vigo-Tsatsos report - a report which expressed a balanced opinion and which was approved by the broad majority of Members - by making an exception of constitutional and 'semi-constitutional' matters in terms of qualified majority voting.
In my opinion, it would not be wise to go back on this agreement at the present time, even if the term 'semi-constitutional' poses a problem.
With regard to the issue of foreign policy, we are waiting for the Amsterdam Treaty to be both ratified and implemented before deciding whether or not to reject the idea of 'positive abstention'.
I think that opinions on this are divided, even within the groups.
Allow me to briefly sum up the approach that I advocate.
At the present moment in time, we simply express the principles that guide us, which essentially means our desire to keep the balance, but we avoid discussing details that might divide us.
This approach is similar to the 'culture of minorities', which leads to respect for others and rejects the abuse of dominant positions.
For a long time, it has been clear to those of us that are in favour of consolidated European integration that successive enlargements have brought European institutions to the edge of paralysis.
Any further enlargements are likely to hamper a system which, in its time, has proved its worth, but which was never designed to function with 15 members and less still with 20 or 25 members.
Before any further accession takes place, European institutions must be reformed, including the Council, which has become tangled up in the growing multiplicity of its organs and takes more and more liberties with procedures that had, however, been determined in the Treaties.
This is clearly an unacceptable situation.
I fully share the rapporteur's conclusions, particularly where he affirms the need for a thorough reorganisation of the Council's structure and role, as well as the need to rationalise and consolidate procedures with a view to making it more efficient and transparent.
I lay great emphasis on the role the rapporteur would like to see conferred on both the President of the Commission and the High Representative for the CFSP, instead of and in place of a Council presidency that is forced to concentrate on its conciliation duties.
This effectively implies a new division of tasks that is likely to give fresh impetus to the Union.
In this connection, I fully approve of the idea that qualified majority voting should become the general procedure for decision-making in the Council.
Unanimous voting would then become the exception, its use only justified on the grounds of the seriousness and importance of a few rare decisions.
What is more, I think that any future change to the weighting of votes needs to retain the present principle of the relative over-representation of Member States with small and medium-sized populations.
To conclude, I should like to highlight the quality and importance of the work carried out by the rapporteur in the hope of helping European institutions to cope with the challenges they have yet to meet and overcome.
There are several comments I should like to make in relation to this excellent report.
1.I do not believe that Parliament should get involved in the Council's internal procedures as the Council has nothing to do with Parliament's.2.Contrary to the rapporteur's wishes as set out in paragraph 1, I believe that we would be ill-advised to make a distinction between the national and legislative role of ministers, as this might lead to calls for the creation of a new institution, such as a senate, which we do not need.3.I do not approve of the high-profile role the rapporteur confers on the European Council, as it is a role that appears to result from a very centralised and radical approach to politics.4.I do not share the rapporteur's scepticism concerning the rotating presidency.
I cannot accept his proposal to hand over the tasks of Union leadership to the President of the Commission.
On the contrary, I think that the presidency, with its enhanced responsibilities, has a significant effect on the attitude of each Member State towards the process of integration.5.This report once again raises the problem of small and large European countries in the context of the weighting of votes in the Council.I was extremely pleased to note the reasonable and well-thought out approach taken by the rapporteur on this issue and his rejection of the popularity-seeking attitude shown by the larger Member States. It is an attitude that comes from an unfounded fear of being dwarfed by a coalition of less populated states.
What we need to do is to find a way of preventing a deadlock in the key areas of common legislation and extending the use of qualified majority voting. However, we must not lose sight of the fundamental principle of the partnership between small, medium and large states, formed on the basis of mutual confidence and equality; it is a principle that is all too often forgotten today.
Lastly, I would wonder about the status of this text.
If it intends to establish Parliament's position for subsequent negotiations, it is somewhat premature, but if it aims to launch the debate, it is welcome.
For once, I shall abstain from voting.
I do not oppose the report, because it is both detailed and interesting.
However, if I voted in favour of it, I would feel that I was making a definitive decision about a matter that has yet to be debated and that will surely evolve.
I am disturbed that three quarters of this House should be backing a report which unequivocally advocates such a radical institutional overhaul of the EU, without there having been any proper airing of the issues in the Member States or among ordinary citizens.
The call for effective abolition of the right of veto and the desire to turn the Commission into a quasi-government constitute a huge leap in the direction of political federation, and away from the principle of intergovernmental cooperation as enshrined in the Treaties.
I wish to distance myself resolutely from this new trend.
This report advocates a set of measures which, taken together, would lead to 'more Union'.
Specialist committees, it is argued, should be abolished, centralising power at Coreper level.
The Commission - and, in particular, its president - would gain power too. It would be entrusted with 'tasks of leadership of the Union' and would act as the driving force behind foreign and security policy, in conjunction with the CFSP High Representative.
This scenario is quite unacceptable to a non-aligned country.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs is calling for qualified majority voting in the Council to become the general rule, even when contributions to the EU budget are at stake.
I therefore voted against the report.
I believe that the EU should be based on intergovernmental cooperation.
I cannot therefore endorse statements lamenting that there 'must' still be unanimity when decisions are taken in certain fields.
Nor can I go along with the idea that the Commission should be the only body enjoying the right of initiative.
Not allowing elected representatives to amend or propose legislation constitutes a serious breach of democratic principles.
Finally, I believe that the CFSP High Representative should be Council-based and not transferred to the Commission, as the rapporteur proposes.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party welcomes much of the Bourlanges report, which deals with an important subject and makes many useful suggestions.
Nevertheless, the EPLP has serious reservations about some aspects of the report.
We voted against paragraph 10, which suggests that the leadership of the EU and the conduct of foreign policy will have to be handed over to the Commission President and the High Representatives of the CFSP, while the Council presidency concentrates on its conciliation tasks.
If senior appointments are to retain the confidence of all Member States, they should be appointed by consensus.
We therefore voted against paragraph 23.
We do not accept proposals to extend QMV to matters of taxation, own resources, foreign policy and the UK rebate.
We therefore voted against paragraphs 28, 30, 32 and 33.
The EPLP position was to abstain on the final report.
Gutiérrez Díaz report (A4-0034/99)
We fully endorse the assessment of the Treaty of Amsterdam offered by the rapporteur in paragraph 1, where he says that the new provisions in many ways constitute a new stage in the development of the European Union.
In this connection, we welcome his reference to the principle of non-discrimination.
It is absolutely vital, in our view, that the Treaty be ratified as soon as possible.
We cannot therefore support paragraph 11.
On paragraph 13, we feel that it would be inappropriate, in the current circumstances, for the European Parliament to propose that 'police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters ... be defined more broadly'.
As a result, we are unable to accept paragraph 13.
The Gutiérrez Díaz report unintentionally shows, right from its title, the impasse the European Union is about to reach, stating that it is aimed at 'strengthening Union institutions with a view to establishing an area of democracy'.
What more blatant admission could there be that, for federalists, European democracy is now an objective, rather than a path to achieving a goal?
This is indeed the situation we are faced with because of the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty which is building a European superstate at the cost of a real decline in democracy. On the one hand, it is destroying the national democratic area, excluding national parliaments, and making national law - including constitutional law - subordinate to Community law.
On the other hand, it is proving incapable, for the time being, of establishing the slightest democracy at European level, quite simply because the European people do not exist. What is more, the transposition of parliamentary procedures into this House only manages to produce joint positions that are all too often artificial and that are only ever accorded secondary importance by the people of Europe.
It would appear that, in spite of all of these diversions, genuine democracy remains the ultimate goal.
I, however, have my doubts about this.
Once antidemocratic institutions that are allowed to be strengthened without impunity are established, a return to control by the citizens can no longer take place spontaneously and painlessly.
In spite of its good intentions, the Gutiérrez Díaz report exacerbates the situation by proposing that all the rights conferred on citizens by membership of the European Union be brought within the ambit of a specific Treaty title on 'citizens' rights'.
It is to be noted that this aim appears very similar to that of the German Presidency, which has proposed to create a 'charter of fundamental rights' for the post-Amsterdam period.
However, this is a guideline that would bypass national democracies even further and restrict their legitimate role as a pillar of the Union.
It is indeed this role that we wish to preserve instead, so that democracy and respect for the people are always present in the life of the Community.
European integration will only progress in the long term if the citizens of the Member States see any interest in it either for themselves or their children.
Therefore, it is, in fact, vital that the Union's citizens do not perceive the various stages in European integration simply as an accumulation of ethereal texts, but as something tangible and meaningful for all.
The rapporteur is right to lay particular emphasis on the practical provisions that have resulted from the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty.
So surely the free movement of people is thus a tangible way for everyone to assess the reality of the Union in a positive manner.
On the contrary, the insecurity associated with organised crime which, to a certain extent, is also a result of the removal of internal borders, generates a very negative image of European integration in the eyes of our citizens.
In my opinion, it would be irresponsible of us to lead citizens to believe that it is possible to simply remove internal borders in Europe without there being any negative effects, something that the rapporteur does not do.
The free movement of persons naturally goes hand in hand with the creation of an area of security and justice which also enjoys enhanced police and judicial cooperation and respect for transparency and legal certainty.
It therefore falls to the various institutions to act promptly, each in the area of its responsibilities, in order to meet people's expectations.
I am absolutely convinced that it would be beneficial for everyone if the Council and the Commission were more open in their cooperation with the European Parliament, in these areas, as in many others.
And on this particular point, I fully agree with the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
This resolution, which was unfortunately adopted, includes a series of demands, amongst which are: increased power for the Court of Justice; the coordination of national employment policies at EU level; the creation of legal bases for the formulation of social legislation; legal recognition for transnational or 'European' political parties, with an entitlement to financial resources from the Union budget.
These are all important issues, but they must be the subject of wide-ranging debate in the Member States before politicians from this Parliament adopt a position. And this debate - which will need to be held at all levels, in all contexts and in all countries - will have to centre on the major questions.
Where is the EU going?
What are the goals being pursued by the various organisations?
What do our citizens want? If we wish to retain people's faith in us, I believe that the time has come to discuss these matters openly.
I cannot support this report in its entirety.
I believe instead that:
Since the EU ought to be based on intergovernmental cooperation, the employment policies of the Member States should not be coordinated at Community level, although far-reaching cooperation is of course possible.
This applies to legislation on pensions, civil legislation, etc.-Unanimity should be required in the Council on matters of asylum, visas, immigration and free movement.-Schengen should be done away with as soon as possible.-Police cooperation should also cease; we already have Interpol and it works very well indeed.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party voted for the Gutiérrez Díaz report, but with reservations.
We abstained on paragraph 6, which is critical of the use of unanimity in the Third Pillar, and paragraph 8, which calls for co-decision for Third Pillar decisions.
We abstained on paragraphs 10 and 19 on the Court of Justice and voted against paragraph 11, calling for the incorporation of Schengen into the Treaty, and paragraph 12, which criticises the Danish, Irish and UK opt-out.
The Amsterdam Treaty has not even come into force and would be better judged after it has been tested in practice.
Paragraph 28 calls for funding for transnational political parties.
We oppose this.
Bowe report (A4-0024/99)
Mr President, the Green Group voted against this report because we feel it does not go far enough.
We have succeeded in some areas such as antibiotic resistance - that has been banned - and also on GMOs that cross-breed. That too has been banned.
Other categories may be added later.
There is a huge amount of confusion over the time limit of 12 years.
Initially we wanted what the Commission proposed, namely seven years.
We then had to propose 12 years because the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which is supposed to protect public health and the environment, actually weakened the proposal and took out the time limit.
So it was essential that we put some amendment in.
We put in 12 years because we felt we would get some sort of consensus for it, which we did.
But it is still unacceptable that the Environment Committee should actually water down a proposal by the Commission.
We are supposed to be there to protect public health.
That is a total contradiction.
The whole issue of fast-track marketing is extremely concerning for the Greens.
Basically it will mean that Member States who have some sort of conscience about environmental protection and public health will be side-lined because the Commission will decide and negotiate with the United States.
Member States who feel it is important to protect the environment and public health will be side-lined.
Already there are Member States within the European Union who have a conscience about this issue, who have serious reservations.
The European Union is now going to set aside their concerns and negotiate as a whole.
So multinational companies who control the EU and the United States are going to control this whole issue.
Those are two of the reasons why we voted against this report.
Having said that, there are some very positive elements in it.
But even on time limits it is quite confusing.
In certain areas we voted for the 12 year time limit but later on there were other votes taken which seemed to confuse the whole issue.
So it is not very clear.
One of the most disappointing things is the fact that the Environment Committee and the Socialist Group, along with the PPE in this House, have collaborated with industries' interests instead of with the interests of public health and consumer protection and the environment.
History will prove that they were irresponsible in not upholding the rights of the environment and of public health.
Mr President, GMOs provide an extra tool of dependency for nations and people, as is already the case for non-reproducible hybrid seeds and, generally speaking, all patented life forms, because these days, man's madness is leading him to patent the living world.
Let us not be mistaken, all of this comes under a strategy for world domination, since people are being deprived of the ability to feed themselves.
We must not forget, in passing, that these methods lead to large-scale job losses, and destroy the environment, quality, tastes and biodiversity.
As the next millennium approaches, here is a sample menu the European Commission might serve up: human gene ham, hormone-enriched beefburgers, somatotrophic pasteurised cheese, and genetically modified apples from Chile.
Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you all bon appétit !
Mr President, I voted against this, because despite two major successes, namely the ban on marketing those genes that can be made untraceable and the fact that we managed to insist on a certificate of liability insurance, the text on which the House decided at the end of the day is worse than bad.
It represents the demolition of environmental and safety standards.
We have even backtracked from the Commission's stance.
The fact that we want to limit the marketing of products to a fixed period where there is inadequate monitoring experience relating to the marketing of comparable organisms effectively means that human beings and their environment are being used as guinea pigs, because if there is not enough experience available, these products should not be put on the market at all.
And we have no right to say that they can be marketed for a fixed period.
This is tantamount to saying that we shall see what has happened after twelve years, and only then will we draw the necessary conclusions.
That, I believe, is utterly irresponsible, just like the simplified procedure, the procedure for simultaneous release in several Member States and the Category I classification, because all these organisms fall under Category I. This means in effect that an environmental risk assessment is virtually ruled out.
I find this more than deplorable, along with the fact that no scope has been created for more stringent labelling.
This makes it obvious that we have bowed the knee to industrial interests here.
We shall see what the Council makes of it, and whether we can still pull the fat out of the fire together and initiate something that will really take us forward.
I also hope that industry will finally get down to discussing the risks and that the insurance business stands by what it has said, namely that the risk is too great for it to cover.
I call on all Irish MEPs to protect the Irish environment and peoples' health by voting to strengthen the Directive on the Release of Genetically Engineered Organisms in the Environment.
This is a huge opportunity to safeguard the future of Ireland's clean green image of food production.
I am calling on the Irish representatives to come off the fence and, along with other Members of the Parliament, to resist the intimidating lobbying tactics of the gene-industry.
These companies are panicking because their plan to foist their tampered food products on the public in secret has been exposed.
Governments and even the companies themselves are now admitting the dangers of gene crops and food, so the genetic industry is now reverting to type by pressurising governments on the quiet, while trying to fool consumers in public.
The Bowe report will subsequently translate into the legislation to govern the crops grown and the food eaten throughout Europe.
The Green Group is pushing for full and open labelling of GE foods, proper risk assessment and a moratorium on GE crop and food which would be of immense benefit to Irish agriculture.
I call on all Irish MEPs to support socio-economic provisions along with public liability.
One of the most important questions is that of liability and who pays if there is a crisis like BSE.
The insurance companies say that they cannot give cover unless the risks can be quantified.
I am demanding that the Irish Government take steps to ensure the biotech companies quantify the risks to consumers.
As well as resisting the attempts by the multinationals to water down these proposals, we have to eliminate fast-tracking mechanisms which would allow the gene industry to be unaccountable and uncontrollable.
Genetically modified organisms - particularly when used in food crops - have been the topic of intense debate within the Union.
Ethical considerations underlie many of the questions surrounding genetic engineering technology.
Research has run on ahead, with public debate and political regulation lagging well behind.
Ordinary citizens lack the knowledge to oversee developments, and this limits all our scope for reflection and critical appraisal.
This directive is designed to introduce strict rules to govern the deliberate release of GMOs.
The safety of human beings and the environment is put first, which is a good thing.
And many of the amendments tighten up the Commission's text.
Nonetheless, we feel that a more restrictive stance on the development of GMOs for use in food production should have been adopted from the outset. Equally, there should have been broader discussion of the advantages of this kind of research before we accepted trial applications, followed by the presence of GMOs in our food.
We also believe that consumers have an absolute right to information, which means that they ought to be able to choose whether to buy products containing genetically modified ingredients or substances.
The title of the Commission's new proposal for a directive regarding the placing of GMOs on the market might mislead people as to its severity: 'directive relating to the deliberate release into the environment of genetically modified organisms'.
And yet, in spite of this somewhat dramatic title, the actual context of the text turns out to be quite vague, to the extent that 177 Members - including those from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations - out of 439 saw fit to oppose it.
The content of this text is admittedly not completely negative.
For example, the European Parliament has just voted in favour of some interesting amendments that recognise civil liability and force people to take out sufficient liability insurance to cover the losses that might be incurred by persons releasing GMOs.
In spite of this positive point, there are four major faults with the report which have led us to reject it.
First, it confirms that a centralised procedure in Brussels for the release of GMOs is planned for the majority of cases without any safeguard for Member States who would like to adopt more stringent measures.
Therefore, under the auspices of the single market, it appears that underhand plans are afoot which might soon force Member States who do not want anything to do with GMOs to soften their approach towards them against their wishes.
Second, it creates a simplified consent procedure for GMOs which contains a number of references.
Speeding up the procedure of common law like this would mean that cases would not be properly researched, and that is unacceptable.
Third, the European Parliament has extended the time-limit for placing GMOs on the market to 12 years, whereas the Commission itself only proposed a seven-year time-limit.
This undoubtedly signifies a victory for pressure groups who have been lobbying the larger parties in this House, both the Socialists and the Christian Democrats.
Fourth, some high risk GMOs have not been banned with sufficient force.
Like the Green Group, we would like to see three categories of GMOs prevented from being placed on the market: GMOs with antibiotic resistant genes; GMOs with toxins that are dangerous for useful fauna; and GMOs likely to crossbreed with similar wild or cultivated species.
Instead of voting for an outright ban, Parliament has voted in favour of some very weak amendments, while claiming that certain measures need to be taken to prevent the transfer of genes from these GMOs.
Overall, this proposal for a directive provides a general view of the direction in which European integration is currently heading: it is taking power away from the Member States and centralising it in Brussels under the pretext of being able to defend the people better.
However, once the people have been stripped of their powers, the central decision-makers, who are in the driving seat, are themselves not monitored by anyone and do what they like.
In the end, we find ourselves in a no-win situation, at the mercy of forces that are based in Brussels far more than anywhere else.
Questions concerning genetically modified products loom larger every day. Neither politicians nor scientists can foresee the consequences for man and nature.
It is therefore unforgivable, as things stand, to be giving the green light to genetically modified products; future generations may well have to pay dearly for our mistakes.
The Environment Committee has produced a good piece of work, endeavouring to make the best of the situation. Many of the amendments were tabled in a similar spirit.
Sadly, Parliament did not vote in favour of some of the most important ones, however, including the right of Member States to say 'no' (a 'black list') and more stringent labelling requirements.
Along with the rest of the Green Group, I therefore voted against the report.
Future employment in Europe largely depends on the successful development of biotechnology.
This is why it is important that European firms and research institutes should be able to operate in the same way as their partners in America and Japan.
Only then will they be able to survive against cut-throat competition worldwide.
The industry needs a clear and viable legislative framework, and it goes without saying that great care is needed in this new field.
Many of today's amendments to the Commission proposal for the release of genetically engineered organisms in the environment would result in excessively restrictive legislation for the biotechnology sector, putting the food industry and the EU's competitive position at a disadvantage compared with the US.
The legislation would also have an impact in the Netherlands, where biotechnology has become one of the country's leading sectors, and this is why the VVD delegation has departed from the ELDR Group's position by voting against a number of amendments, including those tabled by Mrs Dybkjaer and Mr Eisma.
The VVD continues to demand an unambiguous, viable and straightforward European legislative framework with simplified procedures for the biotechnology sector.
The position of our group regarding the Commission's communication on biotechnology favours some degree of development in this sunrise industry, while taking great care to anticipate potential drifts.
With this in mind, strict labelling procedures must be introduced to enable genetically engineered products to be monitored effectively.
During the various debates we have had on genetically modified organisms, industrialists have persistently stated that the release of such organisms is under control.
This is why our group supported the urgent request calling on the Commission to introduce specific rules relating to the liability of the various operators.
The BSE crisis has highlighted the dangers of focusing all research on extremely high levels of agricultural production and the need to provide for a genuinely independent monitoring system.
To this end, we supported the plan to create a central scientific committee, but we must ensure that the proper procedures are developed so that the mistakes that were made during the mad cow crisis are not repeated.
To conclude, our group places much emphasis on the need to retain the precautionary principle so as to guarantee both consumer and environmental protection.
The citizens of Europe will only fully accept biotechnology if they receive genuine assurances about its safety.
It takes 15 years for experiments to be carried out on medicines before they can be placed on the market.
However, here we are faced with the prospect of GMOs being released into the environment after only three years of piecemeal experiments and with no extra time allotted for assessing their direct or indirect effects on the environment and health.
In this regard, we must bear in mind the answer given by the Commissioner for Industrial Affairs when asked if he thought that industrialists and politicians were not playing the sorcerer's apprentice once again.
Mr Bangemann replied, ' We must not create metaphysical problems with GMOs; placing them on the market will prove their worth'.
In other words, in the Commission's view, the best guinea pigs are still the consumers, to the extent that they are not even granted the right to correct information on the goods they are buying as labelling procedures are so lax.
They are not even granted the freedom of choice.
The report mentions on page 33 that genetically modified crops present 'few risks', but what does this decidedly unscientific term actually mean?
We should remember that the nuclear power station at Chernobyl was, until April 1986, said to have presented 'few risks'.
According to Professor Cabrol, we should not ban GMO production in Europe and thus let the Americans have a monopoly on GMO products.
This is an interesting comment, but his conclusions are surprising since if the Americans are allowed to export products that have not been fully tested to Europe, the best response is not for us to produce similar products ourselves.
The only acceptable answer for the sake of public health is to ban the import of such products altogether.
This is the logical application of a simple, but fundamental, principle, namely, the precautionary principle.
How can we explain the European Commission's submission in the face of American agri-industrial lobbies?
GMOs, sterile hybrid seeds, the patenting of life forms, and so on, are all perhaps part of a more global strategy concerning people's and nations' dependency on food.
As one American secretary of state said, food is the best weapon of the future.
Mr President, while I support technological progress, I am voting in favour of this report today because I believe that my constituents should be protected from the excesses of US biotechnology firms, like Monsanto, eager only to turn a quick profit.
All genetically modified foods must be clearly labelled to allow consumers make an informed choice when feeding their families and loved ones.
Recent advances in bio-technology were first brought home to us by British scientists when they produced Dolly the Sheep - the world's first genetically-cloned sheep.
And, with proper safeguards, biotechnology has the potential to help mankind defeat world hunger and disease.
Without proper safeguards, however, the consequences of altering the order of nature are unthinkable.
Safety must always come first.
The Labour Government has proven its commitment to the welfare of consumers by creating the FSA (Food Standards Agency).
Its Tory predecessors, in contrast, were committed only to the welfare of the food industry and created BSE.
Only Labour will stand up for ordinary people against Monsanto's madness and ensure that the food on our plates is safe to eat.
The sitting was suspended at 1.15 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0126/99 by Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on presidential elections in Kazakhstan; -B4-0161/99 by Mrs Lalumière, on behalf of the ARE Group, on presidential elections in Kazakhstan; -B4-0184/99 by Mrs Schroedter and Mr Lagendijk, on behalf of the V Group, on violation of international human rights standards in Kazakhstan; -B4-0186/99 by Mr Swoboda and Mrs Hoff, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the presidential elections in Kazakhstan; -B4-0196/99 by Mrs Castellina and Mrs Sornosa Martínez, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on presidential elections in Kazakhstan; -B4-0205/99 by Mr von Habsburg, on behalf of the PPE Group, on presidential elections in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Madam President, the presidential elections in Kazakhstan on 10 January were a slap in the face for the partnership and cooperation agreement that the Union signed with that country.
Democracy and human rights are now a fundamental element of these agreements, but the conditions under which the elections were held did not correspond to the promises which the Kazakh Government made.
The OSCE rightly refused to give the elections a seal of legitimacy, and the Union too must also - and not for the first time - clearly link the continuation of cooperation with progress in democratisation.
President Nazarbayev must move quickly to take corrective measures, and we must hope that he has the means to do so.
The suspension of cooperation must be a real option if he cannot guarantee that the forthcoming elections will be truly democratic.
I know that this is easy to say here in the House, but if we do not take this approach with a country like this, with which we have signed agreements, then we are in nowhere country.
In the meantime, we must step up cooperation with social organisations and the free press to promote democracy in Kazakhstan.
As I have said, this is not a task we are setting ourselves, it is a request we are making to the Kazakh Government.
Madam President, it is essential that we work for consolidation of the democratisation process in Kazakhstan, ensuring that developments take place in the interest of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The partnership agreement signed with the EU stipulates that Kazakhstan must comply with OSCE rules for free and fair elections.
The serious crimes committed in connection with the presidential elections in January deserve firm condemnation.
We do not wish to see a repeat performance, with infringements of civil liberties, when elections are held later this year.
Freedom of the press and the right of individuals to stand as candidates are fundamental elements of democratic elections.
I would like to use this opportunity to ask the Commission what steps it intends to take in order to ensure that the existing partnership and cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan is fully implemented. And how does the Commission plan to assist in strengthening the faltering democratisation process there?
We must help to ensure that democracy fares better than it did at the ill-fated presidential elections in January.
Madam President, on behalf of my Group, I wish to say how profoundly disappointed we were in the conduct of the recent presidential elections in Kazakhstan.
It is clear that these elections did not conform to OSCE standards for free and fair elections which are part of the commitments entered into with the signing of the partnership and cooperation agreement between the EU and Kazakhstan.
This House should make it absolutely clear to President Nazarbayev, as both Mr Bertens and Mr Holm have said, that implementation of the PCA will depend on progress with the democratisation process and full respect for human rights, especially in the forthcoming local and parliamentary elections.
At the same time the Commission must monitor the human rights situation in Kazakhstan closely and report back to this House on progress, or the lack of it.
Kazakhstan is a vast country with great economic and political potential. It should not allow that potential to be stymied by its failure to guarantee civil and human rights.
Madam President, I believe that when we talk about Kazakhstan, we often tend to wag the finger at the Kazakhs and tell them that they ought to start functioning as a perfect democracy with immediate effect.
In so doing, we forget that Kazakhstan has only been a free country for ten years and it has actually done remarkably well to come as far as it has done in that time, not to mention the fact that Kazakhstan is a very important partner for us in that region, a partner which, I am glad to say, has freed itself of at least some of the shackles of Russian rule.
We should show a great deal more understanding towards the Kazakhs, as well as remembering that we did not become perfect democracies overnight; we too required a lengthy development process.
So we should exercise the same patience with the Kazakhs that we keep demanding for ourselves.
The only reason why I wanted to say that is that I believe we ought not to forget, in our dialogue with Kazakhstan, how important this country is, not only for our own future but also for that of the entire region.
We should therefore take due account of this important role and show patience; of course, we should keep telling them how to improve, but without that unbearably schoolmasterly tone which we are all too often inclined to adopt.
After all, we must not forget that the Kazakhs are a people with a great history of which they have reason to be proud; if we act like the world's teacher, they will react in a way that neither benefits us nor promotes the achievement of our objective.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as chairman of Parliament's delegation for relations with Kazakhstan and other countries in Central Asia, I closely followed the news we received about the progress of the presidential elections held in Kazakhstan on 10 January.
Unfortunately, this news was not as encouraging as we had hoped as regards the observance of essential and indispensable democratic standards.
Kazakhstan is an important country surrounded by other important countries - Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and even Mongolia - all of which are of enormous interest to the European Union.
This is due not only to their significant potential in terms of natural resources - natural gas, oil, gold, wool - but because the European Union is the global power that at this moment in time can contribute most to resolving the deficits that oppress these countries most after almost a century of Soviet influence: the democratic deficit, the human rights deficit, and the deficit in terms of learning how to establish themselves in a free market economy.
That is why this resolution comes at just the right time. All it does is to draw attention to the democratic safeguard clause in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and Kazakhstan.
It is also timely in that free elections are going to be held in Kazakhstan this year.
However, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with Mr von Habsburg.
I would like to end by warning you that this resolution must be seen more as a statement of help and understanding than as a reproach.
We cannot expect to see perfect results immediately.
What we really want is for the process of democratisation to continue. We want it to progress as quickly as possible, to continue and to be free of obstacles.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with the points that have been made about the need to see Kazakhstan in a historical perspective and about the importance of Kazakhstan to us and in the region and also about the fact that we have to encourage Kazakhstan to move further, to say when things have gone wrong but to do it in the right way.
The resolutions are based in part on the statement made on 20 January by the presidency on behalf of the European Union.
It was clear ahead of the presidential elections that the way in which they were to be conducted fell short of OSCE standards, and that is why the OSCE did not send a full monitoring mission, nor did the EU participate.
I also agree with the preliminary statement issued by the OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights that we have a basis for important further cooperation with Kazakhstan in these fields.
President Nazarbayev announced last October a wide-ranging programme aimed at the gradual democratisation of Kazakh society.
The Kazakh Government has assured us that it intends to cooperate with the OSCE and the EU in implementing this programme, in particular regarding the law on parliamentary elections which will be held in the course of this year.
I expect the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Kazakhstan to enter into force in the coming months.
The first cooperation Council has already been scheduled for July, and it is the Council's intention to continue the exchanges of view on the democratisation process and to incorporate these into the political dialogue foreseen in the PCA.
The European Parliament will also open a direct dialogue on these issues with members of the Kazakh parliament through the Parliamentary Cooperation Committee which is one of the three institutions which will oversee the PCA.
Despite the flaws and irregularities which marred the presidential elections, the atmosphere in Kazakhstan remains relatively liberal.
These elections were the first in the history of the country to be contested by a number of candidates.
I am firmly of the view that the only way to improve the situation is through constant patient work on the part of the EU and other donors and international organisations.
The PCA offers us the basis for this.
Moreover, we are about to launch a major TACIS project to support the entry into force of the PCA and you will recall that the PCA incorporates by reference the principles set out in the OSCE documents.
Commissioner van den Broek intends to visit Kazakhstan shortly, and we will reiterate our determination to implement the principles we have jointly subscribed to and our readiness to assist with the further development of democratic institutions and the rule of law.
The Commission will keep Parliament informed of developments in Kazakhstan and other countries of the region with regard to the implementation of our agreements.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0165/99 by Mr Fassa and Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0182/99 by Mr Telkämper, Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Schörling and Mr Tamino, on behalf of the V Group, on the new outbreak of hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0195/99 by Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea; -B4-0210/99 by Mr Hory, Mr Castagnède and Mr Scarbonchi, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
Madam President, after the cease-fire, the senseless war between Ethiopia and Eritrea has broken out once again.
I really wonder whether we will ever manage to make the two sides realise that there can only be losers here.
The issue now is who actually started the fighting - a fratricidal struggle between two obstinate leaders who six years ago lived in one country.
Both sides claim land on the basis of old colonial maps, and both are too stubborn even to talk to the peace negotiators and listen to what they have to say.
There are mutual recriminations, with each accusing the other of having started the trouble.
All the efforts of the UN, IGAD and the OAU have come to nothing, but I hope that they will not give up.
International pressure must be brought to bear on both sides to bring about a new cease-fire for a start.
Eritrea and Ethiopia must realise that they have a great deal to lose if Lomé cooperation is suspended.
Both sides will eventually come back to the peace proposals put forward by the OAU, or at least I hope they will. I also hope that they will come to their senses quickly.
The longer it takes them to realise that there can be no military solution to this conflict, the more enormous will be the cost.
The disastrous effect that this is having on the people and the economy of both countries is indescribable.
I can tell you this from first hand experience, as I spent some time there when both countries were still united.
I have to say that the situation in this area of Africa deserves to be given our fullest attention.
Madam President, may I make an initial remark outside my allotted speaking time.
At our last part-session, we said that the presidency of the Council should attend these debates. It would be good if that were the case, but unfortunately I see nobody from the presidency.
Perhaps you could arrange that for next time through the Bureau.
On the border between Ethiopa and Eritrea, serious conflicts occurred between those two countries in May and June of last year.
There were battles in which thousands died; in June 1998 a moratorium was signed, but hostilities have broken out again.
We have a frontier conflict here which the population certainly does not want.
International conciliation efforts appear to have failed.
Nevertheless, we should not stop trying to achieve peace in that region, because peace will never be achieved there by military means.
It is right to say that we shall have to exert pressure on both countries.
That is why it is also right to threaten them with suspension of support under the Lomé Convention and of development aid from the European Union and its Member States.
But this pressure may not be enough.
Perhaps it would also be important and appropriate - and we saw this when we met the two ambassadors in the Committee on Development and Cooperation and in the Executive of the ACP-EU Joint Assembly - for us to draw up a development plan, subject to both sides withdrawing their military hardware, to their showing willingness to negotiate, and to their being prepared to develop democracy and the rule of law and to grant reciprocal inspection rights.
We would then deliver a development plan and would step up the current level of development aid as an initial measure.
Madam President, sadly what we all feared has happened.
It was widely predicted. Armed conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has broken out again with unprecedented violence.
Although the information reaching us is very patchy, it is clear that there have already been thousands of victims, military and civilian, and the conflict, which apparently flared up after a small border problem, is threatening to become one of the bloodiest wars in the history of Africa.
In this Parliament we have always been concerned about relations and tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and Parliament's Committee on Development and Cooperation succeeded in getting the ambassadors from both countries to attend several meetings it organised - something which no-one else has managed to do.
Today we call on the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea to cease hostilities immediately.
We also call for absolute compliance with the moratorium on air raids, which has already been violated, unfortunately.
The leaders of the two countries of the Horn of Africa now have the historic responsibility of choosing between peace and even worse crimes against their peoples.
The OAU proposal for an agreement between the two countries must be accepted by both parties without further delay, before the situation on the ground renders it obsolete.
All arms supplies and military assistance to the two warring sides must immediately cease, as called for yesterday by the United Nations Security Council.
The European Union must join the Organisation for African Unity in applying intense pressure and offering political and diplomatic mediation, which has been totally inadequate in the last few months.
The United States of America might have been expected to take on the task over the last few months, but it has proved quite incapable of doing so.
So we call on the Council to take a clear and strong political initiative along these lines, and on the Commission to ensure that the thousands of refugees and victims of the conflict receive the maximum humanitarian assistance wherever possible.
Madam President, alas the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has a long history, but so have human rights abuses in Ethiopia, as all of us know only too well.
One can but continue to deplore the fact that international mediation efforts have failed to secure a peaceful settlement, and the two countries must surely share the blame.
The double tragedy is that the population of the two countries is poverty-stricken and suffering in so many ways.
This makes it all the more difficult to link development aid and Lomé-related benefits.
But it may be that a hard line will need to be taken by the EU.
Clearly, the OAU and the UN have a continuing role to play, but is it out of the question for the ACP-EU Joint Assembly to play a key role as well in trying to resolve this desperate situation?
Madam President, in yesterday's International Herald Tribune, the following appeared in the section 'News from 50 years ago'. I will quote it in English and hope that the interpreters can follow me: '1949: Eritrea's fate.
Rome. Foreign Minister Sforza said that the interests of three powers - Great Britain, Italy and Ethiopia - are involved in the problem of Eritrea, former Italian African colony.
Count Sforza expressed the hope that Eritrea would not be annexed to Ethiopia.
The attempt to reconcile these interests at the expense of Eritrea by territorial partition recalls the old scramble for Africa.
Count Sforza said it was repugnant.
He said Eritrea could achieve independence after a period of trusteeship administration.'
End of quotation.
Fifty years later, on 11 February 1999, the headline in the International Herald Tribune reads 'Addis Ababa rules out cease-fire in border war'.
So that is that!
The article goes on to say that Washington is particularly angry that Antonovs and Migs are being used to bombard Eritrean territory.
This is exactly what Ethiopia has been doing for some time, arrogantly disregarding all advice or agreements, simply because it enjoys political support in the world.
However, I think that we cannot allow this to continue: we need to adopt a rather more critical approach.
Ethiopia's diplomatic circles may be bombarding us with paper to try to convince us that its cause is just, as it has every right to do, but at the same time various issues relating to the border war and attacks on the Oromos - the largest minority in the area, some of whom have been imprisoned - are being brushed under the carpet.
Our urgent resolution today is a desperate attempt by the European Parliament to prevent the war in the Horn of Africa from escalating and further destabilising the region, and it even calls for more humanitarian aid.
Quite honestly, I think that we should be talking about stopping financial aid, since it is obviously being used to buy Antonovs and Migs.
We all know that Russia will not supply on credit, because it needs cash in hand.
If it appears that Eritrea too is not prepared to listen to what we say, then it should suffer the same fate.
Although the tone of our resolution is very mild and no mention is actually made of stopping financial aid, I would like to ask Commissioner Brittan what he thinks about this, because it is just a waste of money, like in Angola.
Madam President, after the madness of the red dictator Menghistu and the tribal hatreds of the Yemen, the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea places the Horn of Africa centre stage again, while Europe looks on with nothing but words to offer.
Antagonism which could have been resolved through democratic dialogue has instead deteriorated into a tragic situation inflamed by ethnic claims.
The Africans therefore need to consolidate still delicate regional balances by combining as much of their authority as possible, and in particular by involving civil society so as to put the necessary pressure on the governments involved to find a peaceful solution to the conflict.
This is where Europe should intervene, speaking one language: the language of development aid, guided and determined by the drive to achieve political and social stability, which remains the only means of preventing conflicts and reducing the number of zones at risk.
Madam President, in the resolution we are discussing today, great importance attaches to paragraph 6, which actually says everything.
That is where we say precisely what is to be done, namely that the payments made by the European Union to Ethiopia and Eritrea should be linked to both countries' compliance with certain conditions.
I believe that this is enormously important if we bear in mind on the one hand that the war which we now experiencing between Ethiopia and Eritrea was entirely foreseeable, and on the other hand that the settlement of this conflict will surely be frustrated by a real lack of democracy in both countries.
To my mind, it is a very serious problem when I see, for instance, that newspapers in Ethiopia, which are naturally controlled by the government, are even now reporting continuously on the amounts of money they have already amassed for the next 'election campaign'.
I have to say quite honestly that I fear the campaign chest contains some money which our taxpayers might have provided, whereas the opposition has to try desperately to raise funds abroad in order to conduct its election campaign, in order to establish itself as a proper opposition, and the resources for that are non-existent.
This is extremely regrettable, and I very much hope that the appropriate steps will be taken within the European Union to ensure that the funds we provide are used for legitimate purposes.
I am sure the Commissioner will agree with that.
We have to call on both sides to cease all hostilities and stop fighting because clearly negotiation is the only way to solve the problem.
The Commission has underlined on several occasions, to both governments, the need to resolve and settle the conflict by peaceful means alone.
A military option or so-called solution will entail - and is already entailing - enormous human suffering and loss.
We will continue to support all efforts aimed at peaceful resolution of the conflict, in particular the OAU efforts and proposals.
We will continue to put the maximum pressure on both parties, are willing to take any action needed to help find a solution and are currently examining what could be done.
I listened with interest to Mr Moorhouse's suggestion that the EU/ACP Joint Assembly could play a role, and will draw that to the attention of my colleagues dealing on a more day-to-day basis with this issue.
As regards the humanitarian situation the Commission is providing humanitarian assistance to both countries and has responded to appeals from both to assist the displaced population in the area of conflict.
The Commission has allocated EUR 1 790 000 to two NGOs: Norwegian Church Aid and the Lutheran World Foundation for food and non-food assistance to persons affected by the conflict in Eritrea.
In Ethiopia the Commission has allotted EUR 1 890 000 through CISP, an Italian NGO, also for food and non-food assistance.
Furthermore, EUR 300 000 was approved for ICRC activities in Ethiopia and in Eritrea.
The Commission will continue to monitor closely the situation and is ready to mobilise additional resources if needed.
I should like to comment on the wider point that has been raised.
The Commission is preparing a communication to the Council on cooperation with ACP countries involved in armed conflicts.
In the meantime, in the absence of a European Union position on the matter, the Commission does not think it should take unilateral and isolated measures in the case of this conflict.
But the Commission has decided to allocate structural adjustment programme funds in smaller tranches and link further disbursements to a periodic review of the conflict and its possible impact on public spending, particularly in the social sectors.
Moreover, when releasing financial assistance to countries in conflict, the Commission will send a letter to the head of state or government requesting assurances that no funds are diverted for belligerent purposes.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Greg Summers
B4-0188/99 by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the death penalty against Greg Summers - Texas, USA; Leonard Peltier
B4-0169/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the case of Mr Peltier in the United States; -B4-0175/99 by Mr Weber, Mrs Ewing and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the detention of Mr Leonard Peltier in the United States and refusal of proper medical treatment; -B4-0179/99 by Mr Cohn-Bendit, Mrs Schroedter and Mr Kerr, on behalf of the V Group, on Leonard Peltier; -B4-0199/99 by Mrs Pailler, Mr Coates, Mr Manisco, Mr Vinci, Mrs Sierra González, Mrs Ojala, Mrs Eriksson, Mr Alavanos, Mr Novo and Mr Ephremidis, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the case of Leonard Peltier; Religious freedom
B4-0131/99 by Mrs Lenz, on behalf of the PPE Group, on religious persecution, xenophobia and racism; -B4-0132/99 by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the I-EDN Group, on anti-Christian violence in India; -B4-0189/99 by Mr Hallam, on behalf of the PSE Group, on anti-Christian violence in India.Greg Summers
Madam President, it is a sad fact that the European Parliament is once again having to draw attention to terrible events that are taking place in a so-called civilised country.
I am referring here to the use of capital punishment in the United States of America.
Despite the horror that we have expressed in a number of urgent resolutions, a horror that we share with many human rights organisations all over the world, with the churches and with Amnesty International, the number of people being sentenced to death in the United States is increasing, often because their trials are not conducted with due care.
This afternoon we are calling for attention to be given to the case of forty-year-old Greg Summers who, although innocent, has been sitting for years on death row in the Alace Unit in Texas waiting for the lethal injection that is shortly to end his life.
Our resolution calls on the judicial authorities at least to examine the application for a review of his case.
We also call on the United States, and in particular the authorities of the State of Texas, to abolish the death penalty immediately and to sign up to a worldwide moratorium on the execution of death sentences.
Finally, there are a number of amendments calling for attention to be given to other similar cases, and it goes without saying that we will vote for them.
Leonard Peltier has been sitting in gaol for 23 years now, and the American authorities have finally admitted that he was wrongly imprisoned.
It is absolutely incredible, and it is something the House should not just criticise but condemn.
I hope that his case will be reviewed very quickly, and it would appear appropriate that a pardon should be granted.
Human rights must be defended all over the world, it is as simple as that.
Partly as a result of his treatment in prison Mr Peltier's health has visibly declined, but he is still being denied appropriate medical treatment for reasons which no one will explain.
Like anyone else, this man deserves proper medical treatment in hospital, the prison hospital if necessary.
A few months ago, I put a number of questions to the Council here in the House about the Peltier case, but the President-in-Office said that he did not think it necessary to take action, and it was not in his power to do so.
I would now urge the Commission to take the case up, and I think that the Union as a whole should at least enter into discussions with the United States about its human rights policy.
Madam President, during December's part-session, the American delegation led by Angela Davis, who had come to prevent Mumia Abu-Jamal from being executed, alerted us to the fate of Leonard Peltier.
I can still remember the alarming remarks made by their spokesperson, Bobby Castillo, who had experienced American prisons.
As a leader of the American Indian Movement, Leonard Peltier has played and continues to play a major role in the defence of the rights of indigenous people.
Following the events of June 1975, in the Pine Ridge reserve, South Dakota, he was given two life sentences, although no proof of his guilt was ever furnished, and despite the fact that he had been illegally extradited from Canada.
After 23 years in prison, his health has deteriorated dramatically and, although he permanently suffers as a result of complications from an operation, the prison's management deny him access to adequate treatment in a specialised hospital.
Amnesty International, the IFHR and France Liberté have launched a new campaign to defend Leonard Peltier and fight the unacceptable number of human rights violations in the United States.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is still on death row, has sent him a message of support.
We should, for our part, once again participate in this action and ensure that public opinion is alerted throughout Europe.
If Parliament adopts the resolution cosigned by my group, it will be sending a clear message to the American authorities and prison directors.
Leonard Peltier must be given the chance to get better and receive the appropriate medical treatment in the clinic of his choice.
He must be released from prison so that he can take up his legitimate struggle for the defense of the rights of the indigenous people that the United States continues to scorn.
Madam President, I have always advocated the principle whereby the European Union must first of all put its own house in order before giving human rights lessons the world over.
The latest report on human rights in the European Union shows that we are far from being beyond reproach in this area.
In other words, if I take the floor today to speak about the case of Leonard Peltier, it is because all other possible avenues have genuinely been exhausted and time is short, given the worrying state of Mr Peltier's health.
There are, in fact, two issues to our message to the United States. The first concerns the procedures used that resulted in Leonard Peltier's sentence, and the second concerns the prison authorities' refusal to let him receive the appropriate medical treatment.
We must remember that Amnesty International expressly admitted that it had reservations about the procedures that lead to Mr Peltier's sentence and that the government authorities themselves admit to the vagueness that surrounded the sentence. Moreover, the trial revealed the unusual methods used during the case's preparation, as my colleagues previously mentioned.
These facts should have lead to a retrial, but this case confirms that no court, be it American or European, will easily reopen a trial on which a sentence has already been passed.
Herein lies a future struggle.
However, as the previous speaker pointed out, the most incomprehensible and intolerable aspect of this case is the refusal of the American authorities to let Mr Peltier, whose health has considerably deteriorated, receive the medical attention he needs.
The fact that prison facilities are unable to treat his condition is completely unacceptable as an argument to deny him the treatment he needs.
Solutions do exist and have already been put forward.
The refusal of the prison authorities to let him receive such treatment amounts to a blatant violation of human rights and of the commitments made by the United States.
This is why our group will support the call for appropriate treatment and the request to grant Mr Peltier clemency.
Madam President, there is an annual pantomime that always sends something of a shiver down my spine or at least leaves me open-mouthed in amazement, and that is the occasion when the President of the United States delivers his address on the state of the nation and the world.
All the countries of the world are given plus and minus points.
Words of praise and censure are pronounced.
What it boils down to is that the whole world has to submit to American values and ideals.
I believe it is very important to do what Parliament is doing today, to hold a mirror in front of the Americans and to tell them that, if they must try to force their values on everyone else, they should also acknowledge that there are sections of the population of their own country - some of them native Americans - who may have other ideals in some respects, a different bond with their own country, with their own native soil, than the Americans who arrived later.
In this situation, it is very useful for us to keep returning to the specific case of Leonard Peltier.
This is a case that has attracted international attention.
There is an international Peltier Committee, of which I, for example, am a member and which has been dealing with the case for many years.
I consider it particularly important that the European Parliament too has adopted a resolution calling for the case of Leonard Peltier to be placed on the agenda of the next talks between the delegation for relations with the United States and its American counterparts, in order to expose something of the hypocrisy that has so often dominated the US line of argument in this matter.
Peltier has now been kept in prison for 23 years under exceedingly dubious circumstances.
He is in very poor health.
He has frequently been transferred, which has happened whenever public pressure has mounted and has become too great a burden for the prison in which he was accommodated.
This just goes to show that not only the US population but also the international community are really unwilling to accept such injustice from a country that is constantly preaching justice.
Madam President, it is with a feeling of dismay and deep anguish that we again raise our voices on behalf of Leonard Peltier, languishing in an American jail for 23 years for crimes he did not commit and after a court case which cast serious doubt on the administration of justice in the United States of America.
Representative, Joe Kennedy, the son of the martyred President, recently said: 'This government has the moral duty to correct this injustice. Seeing that justice is upheld for Leonard Peltier would amount to a major act of reconciliation for past injustice done to the native American peoples.'
The anguish of millions of people who follow this case increases by the day with the rapid deterioration of his health.
After an egregious case of medical malpractice in prison hospital, Peltier is suffering a fibrosis of the masseter muscles and ankylosis of the mandibular joint.
That means that he cannot eat - that his mouth cannot be opened any more.
The United States Bureau of Prisons still denies his request to be operated on by proper surgeons.
Enough is enough.
In the name of humanity we urge the United States Administration to take prompt care of its native son.
We ask President Clinton to use his powers of pardon to release Leonard from prison immediately.
Madam President, half an hour ago, in the discussion on Kazakhstan, I said that we should not go around teaching the world how to behave.
This time, however, it is quite a different matter, because we are now dealing with those who constantly seek to lecture us, as Mr Habsburg-Lothringen was saying before. In other words, we do have the right in this instance to say that things simply cannot go on like this.
The whole process, which I have studied very closely, raises all sorts of doubts.
Not a single piece of conclusive evidence was brought against Peltier.
The way in which the American judiciary dispensed so-called justice in this case is simply indefensible for a highly civilised country.
We should therefore point out to our American friends, to whom, of course, we owe a huge debt of gratitude, that something has to be done about Peltier.
To deprive a person of 23 years of his life, to cast an Indian into prison and give him no opportunities to move about, to give him literally not a single moment of freedom and to leave him languishing in uncertainty is utterly indefensible.
Having followed the history of the Peltier case, I would almost make so bold as to say that, even if he had done something, which I do not believe, he would already have paid twice over for everything that happened.
If we are convinced that he is innocent into the bargain, that is all the more reason for us to make every effort to ensure that the Americans make justice prevail in their country too - and if not justice, then at least clemency.
Madam President, if the European Parliament resolves today to speak out against the increasingly frequent and violent infringements of religious freedom, such a resolution will be a token of our great concern.
Freedom of religious observance is a sign of respect, not only for a very profound sense of devotion within many people but also for freedom of expression and association, and hence for a significant part of the corpus of human rights.
We are well aware that the violation of religious freedom can have many different causes.
We also know that these waves of persecution are not always unleashed by governments.
The causes vary from one country to another.
There are power struggles for the control of sources of raw materials and water, as in the Sudan, where an armed majority is let loose on a large minority; hatred, envy and social and political tension can focus on ethnic groups, as in India and Pakistan and now in Indonesia too.
There are intolerant state religions, as in Iran, Afghanistan and other countries; intolerance can also come from adherents of non-established religions.
It would be impossible to list all the countries involved.
The toleration of these persecutions and the forms they take cause us grave concern.
They range from horrific murders, as in the case of the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two children in India, to arrests, torture and the disappearance of individuals; they extend to trials on trumped-up charges.
Extremism, xenophobia and racism often rear their ugly heads, with governments either impotent or unwilling to curb them.
And yet there are many constitutions, even in those very countries, which enshrine freedom of religious worship, and states have signed international covenants and UN conventions which are supposed to guarantee religious freedom.
But there are also new religious laws with provisions that hover dangerously on the brink of intolerance, and the European Parliament wishes to draw attention to these new risks.
Religious groups themselves, however, must also remain tolerant towards those with different beliefs from their own, and must respect freedom of conscience and of the individual as well as obeying the law of the land.
That goes without saying.
Abuse of religious freedom is symptomatic of the abuse of human rights. That cannot be said often enough.
Respect for the religious beliefs of minorities is also a sign of properly functioning constitutions rooted in natural law and guaranteeing tolerance and peaceful interaction between the various sections of the population.
We in Europe have bitter historical experience of the effects of intolerance.
We have overcome our intolerance, and we are now trying in this House to help others to do the same.
Political and social tensions have been used time and again in the past as an excuse for savage religious persecution.
On the threshold of the third millennium, and in view of the increasing degree of global interdependence, I believe we must call on governments and on the representatives of the major religions, who also exercise power in their own name, to observe and to act upon the warning signs.
By including democracy and human rights clauses in its treaties with non-Member States, the European Union tries to ensure observance of human rights in the countries with which it cooperates.
The European Parliament will not cease to ask searching questions on these matters.
Suppression of religious freedom - let me emphasise again - is a clear symptom of human rights abuses, the causes of which are rooted in national circumstances that need to be improved, circumstances that not only result from religious strife but are also due in particular to social and political factors.
The Commission supports interdenominational organisations in many countries; in that way, it reaches the people and gets to the roots of the problems, and we want to ensure that the resources we provide for this purpose are not affected by the developments on which we have been focusing today and that these channels remain open to us.
That is the background to the resolution which we have tabled today.
Madam President, 50 years on from the introduction of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, more and more new rights are being added to it.
In fact, people have been saying, quite rightly, that it is all beginning to get out of hand.
But this does not mean that the old, established rights are now universally respected.
Quite the reverse.
There are still problems with the rights of religious minorities, which we are discussing today in connection with an urgent resolution on the issue.
In many countries, people are still not free to express their religious beliefs in public or to follow their faith as they would wish.
They are subject to persecution, repression and discrimination.
Recently in Parliament we have talked about Pakistan and Iran, for example, and now unfortunate events in India are giving us cause for concern.
For years now, but increasingly so in recent weeks, Christians in India have suffered attacks by Hindu activists.
In fact, over the last year there has been an enormous increase in the number of attacks on Christian schools and churches in India.
Priests are accused of forcing people to convert to Christianity by bribing them with money and jobs, for which they must be punished.
Missionaries in particular are bearing the brunt of the attacks, because they are seen as the legacy of British rule, although strangely enough a lot of the missionaries are actually Christians of Indian origin, a fact that seems to be overlooked here.
Recently, a large group of Christians and Muslims protested against the fact that the authorities are doing nothing to counter these forms of aggression.
The attacks have been condemned in the media, and it is certainly not true that the majority of the population approve of them.
But this does not make the attacks any less worrying.
One possible reason for them is the increase in the number of Christians in India, and strangely enough they are the ones who have been bearing the brunt in recent times, whereas before that it was mainly Muslims who were the target.
The reason for this shift is clear: the Muslims in India are concentrated in certain areas, where they are an important factor when it comes to the elections.
The Christian minority is smaller in number and is largely scattered all over the country, so it is not important in electoral terms.
Fortunately the Indian Government has now promised to set up a committee to investigate the recent attack on an Australian missionary and his children aged seven and ten.
Yet it still appears indifferent to such occurrences.
There is clearly a link between the increase in attacks in India and the fact that the BJP, an extremist Hindu nationalist party, has come to power.
It believes that too much attention is paid to religious minorities in India, and these attacks help it in its attempts to change this situation.
With this resolution Parliament is making a clear appeal to countries and governments to take a responsible approach in dealing with religious minorities living in their territory.
In particular, it calls on the Indian Government to investigate the attacks of recent weeks and to try to prevent them in future.
If the situation does not change, the European Parliament and the Member States may wish to consider whether the events in India should affect their dealings with that country.
Any respectable government must help to ensure that minorities in its country can live in freedom and can pursue their faith as they see fit.
Human rights here involve not just rights for individuals, but also an obligation upon governments to give minorities the freedom that is God's gift to everyone.
Madam President, as someone who has a parent who was born in India and has many friends from India in the various and diverse communities of faith which make up India's rich mosaic of cultures, I can assure you that it gives me no pleasure to move this resolution today.
There have been Christian communities in India since St. Thomas landed in Kerala in AD 52.
By and large the Christians have lived alongside their neighbours for many years in peace.
But the horrific death of Graham Staines and his two sons, in January, sadly brought to public attention a worsening persecution.
These murders were the apex of a spiralling campaign of violence against Christians of all denominations.
In a courageous address to his people the Prime Minister of India highlighted other incidents which are not acceptable in a modern, tolerant democracy.
These killings and other attacks have been unreservedly condemned by the World Hindu Council.
The perpetrators of these atrocities do not represent the people of India or mainstream Hinduism.
This resolution will be a significant message to those extremists that the people of Europe are in solidarity with all those who value and defend religious and communal tolerance.
Finally, not as a spokesman of my group but as an individual who worships Sunday-by-Sunday in a British church where we have members of the congregation who see India as their mother country, let me assure the people of India that they are in our prayers and that we pray for both the persecuted and the persecutors.
India, you have our love, our respect and our prayers in this difficult time.
Madam President, I oppose religious persecution wherever it occurs.
However the text of this resolution, I believe, is ill-judged and unfair in singling out one country when throughout the region and elsewhere there are many similar cases.
We should realise that Christianity has flourished in India for 2000 years - longer, in fact, than here in Europe.
I have been given permission to move on behalf of my group an oral amendment, which is to add to rectial C. the words: 'and applauding the Prime Minister's speech to the nation on 30 January supporting this and opposing sectarian violence'.
We will be supporting that during the vote but unfortunately I will not be here because of the difficult timing of flights out of Strasbourg, so I have to leave before the vote.
The officials have a copy of that text and so will the Socialist Group representatives.
Madam President, the Liberal Group has always stood up for human rights in general, and of course the right to freedom of religion deserves attention as part of this.
I know that I am entering dangerous territory here, but from time immemorial, the greatest violations of human rights have been carried out in the name of religion.
It has happened regularly throughout history that religious minorities have not been entitled to exercise the same rights as religious majorities, and this is still true today, with religious riots and other problems in India and on Ambon, and structural repression in Iran and Afghanistan.
We are not here just to protect Christians, I hope - we must protect and make room for all religions, and this means standing up for Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia, for example, who are currently facing prosecution in Moscow.
The Liberal Group calls on the Commission and the Council to remain vigilant and to take account of religious freedom when assessing the human rights situation in third countries.
I hope that there will be an opportunity in the next legislative period to produce a comprehensive report on human rights and the role of religion.
Sadly, I will not be here to see it.
Mr Bertens, I deliberately allowed you to exceed your time, as you are one of the most regular attenders in this House.
We have some time in hand, but I would ask you not to exceed our time-limits.
Mr President, attacks and assaults on religious minorities are unfortunately frequent in India.
Although the Indian Constitution expressly guarantees religious freedom, the violence goes on.
Human rights are also constitutionally safeguarded.
This resolution was tabled following the murder of a Christian missionary, but we must not limit our attention to Christians alone; other religious minorities in India, such as Sikhs and Muslims, are subjected to even greater religious persecution.
There is no inevitability about these attacks; people are not programmed to use violence.
Not at all. The truth is that several extremist groups are fanning the flames, among them the VHP, which patently has links running high up the political ladder.
Nor should we forget the origins of the stand-off in India between different religious groupings: social strife, poverty and illiteracy.
Efforts must be made to tackle these problems; then we may well see less religious tension.
India is not the only country where religious groups are pitted against one another, however.
Similar problems exist elsewhere in Asia, for example in Pakistan, Bangladesh and the Maldives.
It is incumbent upon all of us to work for human rights.
Religious freedom is one important element, together with freedom of speech, freedom of movement and the right to non-discrimination.
We must also counter violent crimes against individuals on the basis of their sexual orientation.
A great deal remains to be done in defence of these principles.
Mr President, I belong to a political party that has itself experienced in its own country what it is like when a government tries to clamp down on the freedom of expression of a growing opposition party, so I have every sympathy for anyone whose freedom of expression or religion is under threat.
We will therefore naturally be supporting the joint resolution on freedom of religion in India.
We unreservedly condemn the use of violence against Indian Christians, and we demand that the national government and the state authorities responsible for maintaining law and order should take firm measures where necessary not just against the perpetrators of the violence, but also against the police officers who simply stand by and watch.
I would point out here that in Orissa, where a missionary and his two children were brutally murdered, it is not the BJP that is in power, contrary to what some people think, but the Congress Party, to which the likely murderer also belongs.
The violence against Christians should also not make us forget that for the last ten years, particularly in India, thousands of Hindus have been systematically murdered by Muslim fanatics in riots and pogroms that have sadly been much worse than the current violence against Christians.
For example, in 1990 almost the entire Hindu population of the state of Kashmir, around a quarter of a million people, fled after a series of massacres in which more than a thousand people were killed.
The instigator of this ethnic cleansing, Amanula Khan, the leader of the Kashmiri Muslims, is still given a hero's reception in various European countries, including my own.
I think a little consistency is called for here.
In this respect the joint resolution, which I think is very general, could also have made reference to the systematic and particularly barbaric persecution of Christians and all non-Islamic religions in the neighbouring country of Pakistan.
That omission has now been put right.
For the rest, we shall be happy to support this resolution.
Mr President, despite the important contribution made by representatives of all faiths to the humanitarian mission of aid, care and relief for the underprivileged, religious intransigence seems to be becoming increasingly radical in many parts of the world.
Last month we heard that, in clashes in Djakarta, Islamic fundamentalist mobs were busy burning Catholic churches and hunting priests and nuns, while the forces of public order looked on powerless.
In India violence against the clergy is currently being encouraged by anti-Christian - but also anti-Muslim and anti-Sikh - rhetoric from fundamentalist groups who claim that they are determined to end any form of religious conversion in the country by the year 2000. This illustrates the lack of effective protection for religious minorities working in India, but above all it shows that the real aim of racist fundamentalism is to restrict freedom of religion and opinion.
All this should prompt Europe to stress its wholehearted support for the basic principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, making respect for those principles a prerequisite determining the very nature of the bilateral relations Member States maintain with countries which flagrantly disregard them.
Mr President, I shall begin with the resolutions on the death penalty.
The Commission shares the general concern of the European Parliament on this issue, especially in respect to the United States.
We believe that in all cases in which the death penalty is imposed the guarantees laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and other international instruments should be respected.
We welcome the adoption by the Council of Ministers of general guidelines on the issue of the death penalty in June 1998.
These guidelines make it clear that the objective of the European Union is to work towards the universal abolition of the death penalty.
We also welcome the adoption by the UN Human Rights Commission on 2 April 1998 of a resolution which calls for countries that have not yet abolished the death penalty to apply a moratorium on the execution of death penalties with a view to abolition.
EU Member States co-sponsored the resolution, which had been introduced by Italy, and it is striking to note that the United States voted against it.
The Commission is greatly concerned about the rising number of executions taking place in the United States.
The European Union has raised this question a number of times with the US authorities.
As the Commissioner responsible for relations with the United States, I have no embarrassment or hesitation in raising this issue with them: it is appropriate that one should do so with a country with which we have close links and which has expressed on numerous occasions its concern about human rights elsewhere.
The European Union follows closely individual cases in the United States and has made a number of démarches in specific instances.
In the event that it concerns a person having the nationality of one of our Member States, the Union will pay special attention to compliance with the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963, which in Article 36 provides arrested foreigners with the right to consular assistance.
I turn to the specific case of Mr Peltier, who, of course, is not on death row but is a long-term prisoner.
I can only say that anybody who heard the speeches made from diverse parts of the House, with different political viewpoints, could not but be moved by what was said.
The Commission, through its delegation in Washington, is looking into the circumstances of the medical condition of Mr Peltier and will do its utmost to support the actions of the European Parliament in this regard.
We will carefully follow up this case, and look forward to the exchanges on this issue at the next meeting between the European Parliament Delegation for relations with the United States and the United States' Congress.
Not only is it legitimate that this subject should be discussed but, in the circumstances described, it is inevitable and natural.
On the question of freedom of religion, I am glad that it has been broadened out and has not concentrated entirely on the situation in India, because it is right to say that there are problems, to put it mildly, with regard to freedom of religion in many countries, and it would be misleading to focus only on India.
As far as we are concerned, freedom of religion is a fundamental human right and we should defend it wherever it comes under attack.
Nonetheless, there has been a certain topicality with regard to the reports about attacks on Christians in India, which are deeply worrying.
The Commission's delegation, which continues to keep us fully informed on the situation as it develops, is fully associated with Member States' missions in monitoring the situation.
Sadly, ethnic and religious violence is not a novelty in India, but violence against Christians on the scale reported is new.
The issue is now highly politicised in India and it has the potential to affect the political situation there - reference has been made to the statement by the Prime Minister which, of course, we have noted.
The issue is dividing not only Opposition and Government but is also controversial within the BJP itself.
There is no doubt that the principle of secular government and the protection of minorities is deeply ingrained in Indian democratic tradition.
There can also be no doubt that opinion leaders and civil society in India are deeply shocked about the events and the damage done to India's image, and that is amply reflected by the wide press coverage which these events have received since they began.
The Commission is convinced that responsible Indian politicians, together with a strong consensus in civil society, can succeed in mobilising the necessary political momentum to control violence.
We strongly support the continuation of the quiet and persistent work of our representatives on the ground, our ambassadors, NGOs and concerned Indian citizens as the best guarantee to check the current situation, and for that they were recently thanked by the Archbishops of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.
The Commission fully endorses the objectives of racial tolerance, social harmony and full respect for human rights which underpin the European Parliament's motion for a resolution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions on the situation in Guinea-Bissau:
B4-0136/99 on behalf of the UPE Group; -B4-0168/99 on behalf of the ELDR Group; -B4-0173/99 on behalf of the PPE Group; -B4-0183/99 on behalf of the V Group; -B4-0191/99 on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-0202/99 on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group; -B4-0211/99 on behalf of the ARE Group.
Mr President, the situation in the West African state of Guinea-Bissau is extremely worrying.
After the November 1998 agreement and the new agreement at the start of this year, violence has broken out once again between the troops of President Vieira and General Ansumane Mane.
The conflict of June 1998 has returned and people are once again fleeing in large numbers.
The civilian population are suffering yet again as a result of the destruction caused by this war.
The Abuja peace agreement has been suspended and the foreign troops are committing countless human rights violations.
It is extremely important that the Abuja agreement should once again be applied in full.
All foreign troops - except of course for the ECOMOG forces - must leave the country and the government of national unity must try to organise proper elections, which would be an almost unprecedented event.
Europe must be prepared to do something to help here.
Great efforts are needed in West Africa to prevent conflicts from spilling over into other countries.
There are far too many transnational conflicts.
We must do everything we can to prevent the proliferation of light weapons, and the Union must offer ECOMOG technical and financial support and humanitarian aid for the people.
Mr President, Commissioner, war has returned to Guinea-Bissau.
The European Parliament must show its solidarity with the people of Guinea-Bissau, who are suffering in this civil war.
Hundreds of people have died, thousands of civilian refugees have had to leave their country, hospitals are short of medical supplies and are struggling to cope, and hunger and disease are spreading.
There was an agreement in Abuja which provided for a cease-fire and arrangements to contain the conflict.
Despite this, military operations have started again, and everything points to this being the responsibility of President Vieira's troops.
We deplore the political irresponsibility and shortsightedness of political and military leaders who put their own interests above the interests of their people.
The European Parliament must demand respect for the Abuja agreements which provide for the formation of a government of national unity and the organisation of presidential and legislative elections, respecting the independence and territorial integrity of Guinea-Bissau.
There is a danger that the conflict will become international, given the situation in Casamanca.
The presence of foreign troops, notably from Senegal and the Republic of Guinea, whom international human rights organisations are accusing of human rights violations against civilians, is aggravating that danger.
So the withdrawal of all foreign troops is a fundamental prerequisite for restoring peace.
The only troops that should stay to guarantee the cease-fire and ensure compliance with the agreements are the ECOMOG troops.
The people of Guinea-Bissau desperately need help, and this means strengthening humanitarian aid and ensuring that aid actually reaches the people who need it.
Here I would stress the importance of neutral non-governmental organisations operating on the ground.
Finally I call on the European Union to support the efforts of the Prime Minister designate, Francisco Fabu, to establish a government of national unity capable, above all, of serving the interests of the long-suffering people of Guinea-Bissau.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what is happening in Guinea-Bissau is tragic. There are thousands of displaced persons, and widespread hunger and misery caused by a war which it seems nobody wants and is of no use to anyone.
It is vital to restore peace and to silence the guns in Guinea-Bissau.
It is vital to observe the Abuja agreement and rapidly establish ECOMOG, the peace-keeping force of the Economic Community of West African States.
President João Bernardo Vieira and General Mané have to bear the heavy responsibility of enabling and ensuring compliance with the agreement they have signed, by stabilising the situation in Guinea-Bissau, installing the new government of national unity, organising free elections and allowing the country to develop.
Europe can and must help, and that is what our compromise resolution is about.
Humanitarian aid and technical and financial support are needed, but we can also help by firmly condemning the escalation of the war and demanding the immediate withdrawal of the foreign military forces involved in the conflict.
Without that withdrawal the human rights abuses will continue and peace will not be possible.
In this case, Parliament's recommendation that the Council should speak with one voice on this matter is very apposite.
And given much of the news published in the media, I would like to ask if the Commission can give Parliament any information guaranteeing that there are no military forces from any Member State of the Union involved in this sad conflict, which we hope to see ended as rapidly as possible.
Mr President, the acts of violence in the West African State of Guinea-Bissau are causing us serious concern.
President Jean Bernardo Vieira and General Ansumane Mané concluded a peace agreement in Abuja on 1 November 1998, and it is absolutely essential that they observe the terms of that agreement.
The Council and the Commission must insist on that.
The agreement requires the withdrawal of foreign troops, especially from Senegal and the Republic of Guinea.
Here too, it is up to the Council and Commission to exert pressure.
The deployment of ECOMOG troops was requested, permitted and wanted.
The peacekeeping forces of the Economic Community of West African States are essential as guarantors of the peace.
Since 3 February another cease-fire has been in force.
We support the territorial integrity of the country, or so I believe.
We call on the government to reform itself into a government of national unity.
If that is done, the Commission should then provide appropriate aid, since thousands of people have fled their homes.
Refugees are being produced here, and famine is being produced here.
We should also mention that much of the misery has been caused by weapons from Western Europe.
The politicians and the armed forces must abide by the terms of the peace agreement.
If they do not do that, they are irresponsible, uncaring and blind to the lessons of history.
They must observe international law and human rights.
Their observance of international law and human rights is the basis on which we can provide humanitarian aid and support ECOMOG through the Council and the Commission.
I believe that would be a strategy for underpinning the peace. It is up to the two sides in Guinea-Bissau.
Mr President, Commissioner, first I would like to welcome this joint motion for a resolution and stress our joint condemnation of the new wave of violence in Guinea-Bissau and our demand for full implementation of the cease-fire agreed on 3 February.
Recent events have frustrated the hopes raised by the Abuja agreement of 1 November, hopes that the conflict might be over and that Guinea-Bissau, and especially its martyred people, might enjoy the peace needed to recover from a situation of enormous economic backwardness, aggravated by the destruction and chaos provoked by the conflict which broke out last June.
That hope must be urgently rekindled, above all in the Guineans who have witnessed and been victims of this senseless confrontation, which can only be ended through negotiation, peace and respect for the agreements.
We also want to highlight and denounce the destabilising role of foreign troops since the beginning of the conflict. That role is all the more serious because it may be one reason why the Abuja agreement is not being respected.
Withdrawal of all foreign military forces not in the territory in strict compliance with that agreement, like the troops from Senegal and the Republic of Guinea, is a prerequisite for implementing the agreement and for the government of national unity to take office in line with that agreement.
The West African intervention force has a peace-keeping mission, and that mission must not be complicated by other foreign forces hindering its action or pursuing other purposes.
This conflict must not be turned into some kind of cockfight for the only perch in the chicken coop.
A political solution must be found which guarantees peace, respects what has already been agreed, does not undermine the independence and territorial integrity of Guinea-Bissau and puts an end to a tragic situation which is destroying a country and a people.
Initiatives to bring humanitarian aid, particularly food and medical aid, to the people are urgently needed and should be welcomed and encouraged.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is a sad fact that the situation in various parts of Africa brings one question to mind: how far can the absurd, the ridiculous and the irrational go?
Guinea-Bissau is one of the poorest countries in the world. Before the recent conflict that began eight months ago, it had an average per capita income of around USD 220, which is equivalent to less than half an ecu per person per day.
The situation was beginning to improve. The country was starting to see an increase in reserves, inflation was falling and annual growth stood at 5 %.
This has all disappeared over the last eight months.
The country will now have negative growth, in other words over the next few months the annual growth rate will be -5 %.
The war there was undoubtedly the result of the conflicting ambitions of a president who seems to have been in power for ever and an ambitious general. As we know, it has left the country in a situation in which its citizens are fleeing, some are becoming refugees, people are starving and its limited reserves have been squandered.
The conflict is even becoming international, with the clear involvement of troops from Senegal - moving from the conflict in the southern region of Casamance - as well as troops from the Republic of Guinea.
There is no doubt that the international community must do everything in its power to try to put an end to this situation.
We must be able to restart the aid programme that the international bodies had launched and which has once again been paralysed.
We must ensure that foreign troops are withdrawn and that only the ECOMOG peacekeeping forces remain. Finally, given that the cease-fire that was renewed in February - only a few days ago, in fact - has already been broken, we must provide the Prime Minister designate with the power he needs to allow the people of Guinea-Bissau to resolve their future in peace.
Mr President, I can be comparatively brief because the Commission shares the view set out in Parliament's proposed resolution.
We are closely monitoring developments in Guinea-Bissau and are aware of the tremendous difficulties faced by the civilian population.
Through ECHO we are providing, I hope, speedy and effective humanitarian assistance to meet the population's needs.
We also support the mediation efforts currently underway and call on the parties involved in the conflict to comply with the Abuja agreement.
We are ready to resume cooperation with Guinea-Bissau once democracy has been restored.
We are aware of the role played by ECOWAS in the international community's efforts to maintain stability in the region and we support the Abuja agreement including the deployment of ECOMOG troops in Guinea-Bissau.
Reference has been made to the suggestion that troops of some Member States are participating.
I am aware of those rumours but I am not in a position either to confirm or to deny them.
We are consulting Member States, however, on ways to finance aid in the form of supplies and non-military equipment for the ECOMOG forces.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions concerning natural disasters:
Storms in the Canary Islands
B4-0128/99 by Mrs Sierra González and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group; -B4-0163/99 by Mr Escolá Hernando and others, on behalf of the ARE Group; -B4-0193/99 by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-0207/99 by Mr Fernández Martín and others, on behalf of the PPE Group; Earthquake in Colombia
B4-0192/99 by Mr Newens, on behalf of the PSE Group; -B4-0203/99 by Mr Puerta and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group; -B4-0206/99 by Mrs Banotti and others, on behalf of the PPE Group.Storms in the Canary Islands
Mr President, the order of speakers was not really very important.
What we are talking about here is the catastrophe that devastated the Canary Islands, and I must point out that this catastrophe adds to the problem of the region's ultraperipheral location. The storms affected its entire port and coastal infrastructures, as well as its agriculture, in other words the tomato and banana crops which are fundamental for the region's economy.
We do not need the full minute we have been allocated as we merely want to urge the Commission to make additional efforts in its structural programmes to help this remote region to overcome this catastrophe. It is called a 'natural' catastrophe, although we may soon have to consider the fact that such catastrophes are not so natural and that they are sometimes the result of the damage we have done to the environment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, at the beginning of January a violent storm struck the islands of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Palma and Hierro, doing untold damage to port infrastructure, coastal roads and shore installations. It also affected the tomato and banana crops, and other fruit and horticultural production.
As these are islands, there is no alternative infrastructure, so it is vital to the life of the archipelago for it to be in full operation.
Agricultural production in the islands in 1997 amounted to 105 495 million pesetas and the damage to agricultural production represents 14.4 % of the damage to infrastructure and about 16.7 % of 1997 turnover.
Furthermore, the largest tomato producers in the Canary Islands have suffered damage amounting to 5 664 million pesetas, equivalent to 19 % of production, and the damage in the banana sector amounts to 7 393 million pesetas, corresponding to 20.5 % of 1997 production, while damage to infrastructure amounts to 2 470 million pesetas.
That is why we are asking the Commission to check the extent of the damage quickly, and to include the Canary Islands and specific projects for repairing damage caused to the coastal infrastructure in the Union's structural programmes.
We are also concerned about the effects of the storm on the turnover of agricultural producers for 1999 (and consequently, on the Canary Islands' economy) and we call on the Commission to provide the aid necessary to mitigate the damage suffered in this sector.
Ladies and gentlemen, while I have the floor I want to take the opportunity to express my deep sadness at the news of the devastation caused by the Colombian earthquake of 25 January 1999, which is said to be the worst earthquake to have struck the country this century, killing over a thousand people and injuring countless others, most of them from the poorest communities in the region.
So I want to express the solidarity of the Group of the European Radical Alliance with the victims and the families of the dead, and with the people of Colombia.
According to news from the area, the Colombian army apparently faced great difficulty, despite sending thousands of soldiers to the region, in preventing widespread looting in the city of Armenia, where the looters fired on the rescuers and public disorder is hindering rescue operations. There is also the danger of corruption, which may also prevent all the international aid reaching the people it is actually intended for.
So I urge President Pastrana and the Colombian Government to take firm measures to restore public order in the disaster areas while respecting human rights, and to take all measures necessary to ensure that emergency aid reaches its proper destination.
But most of all I hope this terrible event will not disturb the peace process under way in Colombia, which is already difficult enough.
Finally, Mr President, I also want to express our satisfaction that the Commission made EUR 1.5 million available immediately, including EUR 0.5 million not spent last year, and to applaud the constructive cooperation of the Red Cross, Oxfam and other NGOs operating in the region.
And I call on the Commission and the Governments of the Member States to cooperate with the appropriate NGOs in making every possible effort to resolve this crisis and to implement a special development programme to meet the medium- and long-term needs of the earthquake zone.
Thank you, Mr Posada. Of course you did not mention just the problems of the Canaries, but those of Columbia as well, which is the next item on the agenda.
Mr President, we are fortunate that Commissioner Brittan is present here with us because last night he took the trouble to stay here until midnight to discuss an issue that is very closely related to the ultraperipheral regions and the Canary Islands, that is, the banana industry.
Mr Brittan, I am addressing you directly because if you read our motion for a resolution you will see that it relates to the serious damage that has been caused to agriculture in the Canary Islands.
To be specific, and although this is not mentioned in the motion for a resolution, I can tell you that as far as banana production is concerned, there has been so much damage that neither in 1999 nor in 2000 will we come close to the minimum guaranteed production of 420 000 tonnes per year.
This is because not only parent banana trees but also young banana trees were destroyed. I am telling you this because when we hold talks in Washington with a government that talks about defending free competition, I think we should let them know that our banana plantations have to contend with adverse climatic conditions and that in some regions of the Community, both in the West Indies and in the Canary Islands and Madeira, such catastrophes often occur.
I believe that this is an important argument.
However, the aim of the resolution we are moving is rather different.
I would like to read something unusual to the Commissioner as I think it is very interesting.
It comes from the Las Palmas newspaper La Provincia today, 11 February 1999, which states that the representative of the federation of fruit and vegetable exporters in Las Palmas, Roberto Góiriz, welcomed the agreement that the European Parliament is about to adopt and pointed out that it would be an institution based in Strasbourg that would eventually find the solution to a problem that affects everyone living there.
It is unusual that regions as remote as our own now look to the Commission as a source of inspiration and a source of aid.
The Commission has always been very receptive to the problems experienced in these regions.
We are now asking, among other things, that it should implement as soon as possible the new Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, which provides for special measures for these regions precisely because of the adverse conditions affecting their economies.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Fernández Martín, as he has had to leave.
As has already been pointed out, and as you are all aware, at the beginning of January the Canary Islands were hit by a violent storm that has led to significant economic losses in terms of both infrastructure and agricultural production.
I must emphasise that the losses do not just translate to the significant figures contained in the resolution of around EUR 90 million between the banana and tomato crops, which, as you know, form the basis of the region's economy, a fact that has been highlighted. In addition to these losses, there were also significant losses in terms of infrastructures, totalling approximately EUR 15 million.
We therefore call on the relevant institutions within the European Union, and particularly the Commission, to take account of the scale of the destruction and to launch specific projects to remedy the damage caused to the infrastructures.
We also ask that adequate measures be taken to provide effective and rapid aid to the people affected by this catastrophe and to the regional government to repair the damage that was caused.
Earthquake in Colombia
Mr President, the tragedy caused by the earthquakes in the Colombian regions of Pereira and Armenia come on top of other violent catastrophes that have destroyed people and property in Central America and parts of the Caribbean.
Europe's response in every instance has been rapid and united. This has allowed us to alleviate some of the devastation and bring a little hope to the victims.
Clearly, the extreme circumstances affecting Columbia were aggravated by the destruction of infrastructures, which delayed the arrival of aid and the implementation of the emergency plans.
It is therefore extremely regrettable that some unscrupulous people are exploiting the tragedy to rob, steal and trade in the scarce resources that were already in the region or that were able to get through.
Nonetheless, these regrettable facts must not overshadow the heroic acts or the excellent example of civic-mindedness demonstrated by the non-governmental organisations, the civilian population, anonymous individuals and the army, who are all involved in the recovery and rescue operations.
We must highlight their positive responses, as well as the rapid reaction of ECHO and the European Commission in distributing the aid that is so important at the moment. I congratulate them on that.
After the damage has been assessed, we will have to follow up the present project with a further programme aimed at helping the recovery of those regions that have been totally devastated.
Unfortunately, we can do nothing for those who have disappeared apart from extending our condolences to their families. Indeed, there is very little we can do to predict other earthquakes.
However, we can see to it that the donations from European and other countries are used as transparently and effectively as possible so as to prevent any doubts about embezzlement or the misuse of the funds.
I would like to end by saying that this resolution supports the commitment made by President Pastrana to combat corruption. We call on his government to make every effort to guarantee security in the region and respect for human rights.
Mr President, there is very little I can add to what our colleague Ana Miranda de Lage has just said on this issue.
In my view, the same thing has happened with this earthquake in Columbia as happened with Hurricane Mitch. As usual, it is the poorest people that are affected.
More than 1 000 people have died and many have been injured.
In my opinion, we must first of all welcome the rapid response of the European Commission in releasing EUR 1.5 million, which is a considerable amount, and its work in collaboration with non-governmental organisations such as the Red Cross, Oxfam and others.
It is important for the European Commission to guarantee, in some way, that the aid sent reaches those who are genuinely affected.
On previous occasions, a certain section of the population has taken advantage of the confusion - as is now the case - and exploited the breakdown in public order to use or sell goods that were intended for those who were most severely affected. There have also been cases where the aid was not distributed as it should have been and did not reach those most in need.
So the European Commission can perhaps play an important role in this respect.
We must also welcome the fact that Mr Pastrana has made a commitment to eliminate corruption and that while those most in need are receiving aid, human rights are being respected in Columbia.
Mr President, I can certainly subscribe to the previous speakers' remarks, on behalf of my group.
It is not the first time that Colombia has been hit by such a great disaster, and on this occasion it appears to have occurred in a part of Colombia with relatively few problems.
It is all the more tragic that a region inhabited by people who, though dependent on help, had hitherto managed to eke out a decent living, has now been struck by such a disaster.
Our urgent plea to the Commission is that it should cut through the red tape wherever possible, that it should ensure as far as possible that the aid goes directly to the people in need.
We are pleased that action has been taken so quickly, since we often criticise Colombia here.
It is our biggest headache in several respects, as you well know, Commissioner.
I believe that if we can take this occasion to show clearly to Colombia and President Pastrana that we are also capable of constructive intervention when practical humanitarian assistance is needed, we shall have achieved a great deal.
Mr President, in joining in the expressions of sympathy for the victims of the Colombian earthquake, let us ensure that the European Union provides the long-term assistance required to help people rebuild their lives.
Still today the communities affected lack basic storage containers for clean water, have too few latrines or waterproof shelters and not enough equipment for food preparation or tools to help clear and reconstruct their homes.
Barefoot children lack shoes to climb over the rubble of their former homes, and lives have been destroyed.
Though agencies like Oxfam are seeking to help 8 000 families per month, over 400 000 people have lost their belongings or their livelihoods.
We must learn the lessons too, for despite the early announcement of assistance which we welcome, no international aid had arrived locally a full 48 hours after the earthquake struck.
Finally, in a situation which should unify the disparate groups in the Colombian conflict for absolutely clear humanitarian reasons, I have to express disbelief at reports that paramilitaries may have used the disaster to cover the killing of human rights defenders in the NGOs in Colombia and that it may have been the pretext for withdrawing a bill condemning forced disappearances at an extraordinary session in the Colombian Parliament last week.
We call on President Pastrana not simply to attack fraud and corruption but also to promulgate that bill.
The twenty-fifth of January is a date which will be etched in the memory of the Colombian people but, regrettably, for the wrong reasons.
It was a tragedy of immense proportions, as has already been pointed out, resulting in over one thousand deaths and many thousands more being injured.
It must be said that the Commission is to be congratulated on the speed with which it responded to the crisis and in particular the way in which it cooperated with NGOs in the region.
However, the aid sent from the European Union and other donor countries is a mere token, given the scale of the destruction and suffering, and particularly in view of a statistic mentioned by Mr Howitt: almost half a million people have lost their homes and their belongings.
Therefore, a very comprehensive aid and development programme is required to meet the long-term needs of the country and its people.
It is vitally important that, if this aid is forthcoming, it is properly coordinated and channelled to those who need it most.
The resolution is right to point out the danger of corruption and the need to eliminate it.
I welcome, as does the resolution, President Pastrana's commitment to ensure that this does not happen.
The resolution is also right to point out that, in trying to restore public order, it is vitally important that human rights are not violated.
Mr President, everyday life in Colombia is grim.
Every month we could discuss the latest human rights violations, the paramilitaries, attacks on the Indios and the black population, people driven from their homes and the disappearance of individuals. This time, however, the cause of our concern is what we call a natural disaster, namely the earthquake in the city of Armenia.
It has heaped untold suffering on the population, and I do not propose to repeat everything my honourable colleagues have already said on the subject.
Nevertheless, the natural disaster has been compounded by a home-made disaster in the form of corruption and incompetence, partly within the Colombian government apparatus, which are hindering the effort to ensure that help reaches the victims and reaches them quickly.
We must be particularly worried by reports that the allegedly rapid assistance provided by the European Union has failed to arrive in many places.
There is an urgent need to find out how accurate this information is. An official report on this matter is urgently required.
In the wake of the earthquake, the paramilitaries have launched a campaign to annihilate human rights activists.
Politicians and others at home and abroad insist that it is high time President Andrés Pastrana took decisive action.
Alas, we have seen too little of that.
Here too, there is an urgent need for the Commission to demand that the Colombian Government act to stamp out these violations of human rights in the aftermath of the earthquake.
Mr President, dealing first with the situation in the Canary Islands, the Commission is well aware of the terrible storms which hit the islands between 6 and 9 January.
I am grateful for the further information supplied by the honourable Members in their resolution and also in the speeches that have been made.
As far as the issue of bananas is concerned, I am well aware of the particular role that industry plays in the economy of the Canary Islands and have particular sympathy for what has occurred, coupled with the other problems which we dealt with last night.
I would like to express the Commission's sympathy and support for the local population affected by the storms.
We are very sensitive to the difficulties that have arisen as a result and we will be looking carefully at the situation as a whole in the light of the instruments and regulatory provisions that may be available to give assistance.
So that those involved can make a proper study for the Commission, what we would like the Spanish authorities to do, is to provide, as soon as possible, detailed information about the nature of the severe weather, its impact on production and production potential in the region as well as the damage caused to the infrastructure.
If we receive a formal request from the Spanish Government at the next meeting of the monitoring committees for structural assistance in the Canary Islands and the Objective 1 Community Support Framework for Spain, we will look into the possibilities of reprogramming current structural assistance in partnership with the national and regional authorities as well as any allocation from other resources available as a contribution to repairing the infrastructures damaged by the storms in question.
Turning to the situation in Colombia, preliminary official figures show that the number of dead has risen to over 900, of whom 582 are in the Department of Quindio and the number of injured to approximately 3 400, and 200 000 persons are homeless.
Clearly the immediate priority is to respond to the emergency needs of the most vulnerable sections of the population throughout the region hit by the disaster.
A detailed needs assessment confirms that it is essential to provide temporary shelter, food, blankets, kitchen utensils, medicines and chlorine as a matter of urgency.
Pending a more exhaustive analysis of needs, a relief programme, amounting to EUR 1.5 million has so far been prepared by ECHO.
The Commission was able to announce on 26 January a timely contribution to international relief efforts, and I am grateful for the kind words that have been spoken this afternoon about what the Commission has been able to do.
This first contingency plan is being implemented by various European NGOs in cooperation with the Colombian Red Cross.
ECHO is considering the adoption of a further relief programme for the victims of the earthquake.
In the context of their mission to Colombia next week, the Commission services will begin to study possibilities for the long-term rehabilitation of the earthquake areas.
But I would add that we fully share the view expressed in the European Parliament that President Pastrana's government must take steps to restore public order and combat corruption, whilst fully respecting human rights, and should ensure that the killing and kidnapping of human rights activists and of local NGO workers is fully investigated and the results of any such investigation are acted upon with firmness and speed.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
In view of the fact that the debate has ended early and we cannot proceed immediately to the vote, I am obliged to suspend the sitting until voting time.
The sitting was suspended at 5 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.
We now come to the vote on topical and urgent debate.
After the vote on the joint motion on Kazakhstan
Mr President, I congratulate the House on its unanimous adoption of the resolution on Kazakhstan.
I have the German version in front of me. It consists only of the following phrase: 'beauftragt seinen Präsidenten, diese Entschließung an die und die weiterzuleiten ' (instructs its President to forward this resolution to such-and-such).
The only other thing on this sheet is two straight lines.
I just wanted to ask whether others have read the resolution and whether their versions contain the text.
Mr Posselt, I am sure every Member has read it.
There must have been a mistake in the particular text that you were given.
After the vote on topical and urgent debate
Mr President, I have to say that my previous remark was not meant as a joke but as a formal protest.
The resolution on Kazakhstan, at least in the German version, consists of two straight lines.
Laughter
May I ask you to declare the vote null and void.
According to our Rules of Procedure, a vote is invalid if the text is not available.
Failure to annul this vote would establish a precedent.
Mr President, that is not the case.
There is a complete version of the German text.
Perhaps you have been given the wrong sheet, Mr Posselt.
I will gladly provide you with a copy so that you know exactly what you voted for!
Mr Swoboda, I have also been shown a full version.
I was suggesting to Mr Posselt that there was something wrong with the printing in the version he had obtained.
Mr President, could it be that an honourable Member of the Christian Social Union has one or two blind spots?
Laughter
Surely not.
VOTES (continuation)
Mr President, I wish to make one or two points about the vote.
Firstly, I apologise that there are more than 200 amendments; we tried as best we could to reduce the number.
I should like to explain the meaning of 'compromise amendments' in connection with tonight's vote.
They are not compromise amendments in the way we normally understand them, that is to say compromise amendments between political groups.
They represent the results of an informal trialogue which took place in Brussels over the last couple of days and weeks and amount to a considerable amount of work put in by myself and the other water rapporteurs.
It is absolutely imperative that we, having agreed those compromise amendments between the water rapporteurs, now agree to endorse them because the German presidency, which was not represented at last night's debate, has stated in a letter: 'The German presidency is hoping to achieve a common position on the draft directive at the March Council. They will do their best to include in that common position the text that came out of the informal consultations.'
A prerequisite will be that this text is included in the decision on the proposal that Parliament will be taking tonight.
So we need to fulfil our side of the bargain: endorse the so-called compromise amendments, and then we have the beginnings of something we can take further after the second reading when we move to co-decision.
Mr President, at the end of the votes this morning, I requested that the vote on this report be postponed to the next part-session in Brussels.
I would like to repeat this request, given the importance of this report, and ask that the vote be taken in Brussels.
You are quite correct that the point was raised this morning but the Rules say that it either has to be a political group or 29 Members.
I have had no formal request from any of the political groups or any wish expressed by 29 members.
So I intend to take the vote.
With good will I do not think it will take us very long.
Mr President, what you have just said about the request is proper but the trouble was that I could not get the consent of my Group to have this matter put over until next week.
I apologise to the Spanish delegation.
After the vote on Amendment No 165
Mr President, I wonder whether the political groups which are asking for so many roll call votes are aware that each roll-call vote costs the European taxpayer EUR 300.
Mr President, may I simply ask the questioner whether he knows how important it is for the public to know who bears political responsibility and how much that knowledge is worth?
Mr President, there is not the slightest doubt that our citizens have the right to know, and we are under an obligation to inform them. But not about every proposal and every political group.
Colleagues, we have had a long week and we are all tired.
Let us move on.
Mr President, I merely wanted to reassure the honourable Member.
We are all in favour of budgetary thrift, Mr Anastassopoulos, and when I cast my eye over your group and see all the empty seats, it is clear that many Members will only receive half of their per diem allowance today, which will no doubt please you.
Laughter
I am tempted to have a roll-call vote on whether roll-call votes are worthwhile but that would be absurd.
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
Mr President, this has been a very long and complicated vote but it is a very satisfactory conclusion.
However, I want to draw the House's attention to the fact that, firstly, it was made necessary by the fact that the Council reached a political agreement on this at a very early stage.
This is an example of the unwisdom of the Council in reaching these political agreements.
Secondly, the satisfactory result would not have been possible without the immense work by Mr White.
But I want to stress that it would not have been possible without the cooperation of his fellow rapporteurs on water, Mr Eisma and Mr Florenz; it would not have been possible without the coordinators of all the political groups; it would not have been possible without close cooperation with Commission staff, with the chairman of the German presidency's Working Group on Water and without the secretariat of the Environment Committee.
I hope that people recognise these people are due recognition, because without them Mr White would not have been so successful.
I am glad to hear the water directive was 'overflowing' with cooperation.
Mr President, I am interested in the number of roll call votes we have been having on this report.
In the vote on the previous report you always identified the group which called for the roll call vote, which caused some discomfort for our colleagues in the Green Group.
In this instance, not once have you identified who has asked for the roll call vote.
Surely we should be told who has asked for a roll call vote.
If you really want I can read it all out but it will only take up more time.
On Amendment No 44
Mr President, I should like to point out to the House that in Amendment No 44, in the second indent of point 2(a), the German wording 'entfernen pyrotechnische Komponenten ' must be replaced by 'neutralisieren pyrotechnische Komponenten ' in order to make the wording consistent with the rest of the legislative text.
In an engineering dissertation the wording would be excellent, but it is entirely unsuitable for a legislative text.
As the rapporteur confirms that, we will ensure that the German text is amended accordingly.
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
I have received a request under Rule 129 from the Group of the United Left to refer this report back to committee.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, I request that the Quisthoudt-Rowohl report should be referred back to committee, under Rule 129, for the following reasons: we think the adoption of the report at this time may be interpreted as interference in the electoral processes of a sovereign state, Israel, and - regardless of its merits or intentions - as explicit support for one of the more controversial parties in the election, specifically that of candidate Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mr President, if we had to refer the reports back every time there were elections in the countries concerned, we would no longer vote on any reports.
I therefore do not believe that we can refer this report back.
Applause
Mr President, I believe we should vote on this report now.
Any delay would be detrimental to Israel as well as to the Palestinians.
Parliament decided against referral back to committee
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I just wanted to table an oral amendment, but one that I feel is appropriate.
I propose that after the words 'regional integration', we add 'through the abolition a priori of the principle of non-reciprocity in ACP/OCT/UPR relations as soon as the new EU/ACP general agreement enters into force', so as to provide us with a better understanding of the amendment.
Mr President, the Socialist Group supports Mr Aldo's motion for a resolution in general terms. However, the oral amendment he is proposing is quite serious, so we cannot accept it at this stage.
It is not a simple formal amendment; its content is very significant. We therefore oppose the oral amendment.
More than 12 Members indicated their opposition to the oral amendment
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
In the 21st century, good quality water will perhaps be of greater strategic importance than oil, which is a good reason for thanking Mr White for the efforts he is making now to ensure that we have good quality surface water by 2010.
The river basin approach enables the Member States to pursue policies which are specifically tailored to river basins, which we think is an excellent idea.
If the best use is made of local knowledge, such as the water boards can provide, it will help to achieve better results.
Involving those who are directly concerned makes it much more likely that new policies will be accepted.
Establishing a new framework directive is certainly going to take some doing: the way it was dealt with at first reading was extremely confusing.
Our examination of the draft framework directive was postponed several times, mainly because of the 'premature position' that the Council adopted last June.
All in all, it was a strange state of affairs.
After that, with the Amsterdam Treaty in mind, progress started to be made towards reaching a political agreement, though this has only been successful in a small number of areas because certain Member States refuse to be flexible.
This is a pity, because it is often much easier to reach agreement at an early stage before opinions become too firmly entrenched.
The compromise amendments which I and others have tabled are a rather disappointing result after a very promising start.
Amendments Nos 189 to 193 on the wetlands are designed to maintain a buffer water capacity which is essential in order to prevent floods and drought.
Compromise Amendments Nos 194 and 195 take account of the fact that the protection of marine waters is already covered by international agreements.
We are in favour of organising occasional conferences on water policy, which all parties concerned, including NGOs, should be able to attend, as proposed in Amendment No 198.
The re-injection of water for certain necessary activities must still be possible, provided that it is done in a responsible manner, and Amendment No 201 creates adequate safeguards here.
With the emission limit values, all the various sources must be considered, not just the major polluters.
The difficulty here is in enforcing the polluter pays principle, and we therefore wonder whether Amendments Nos 65, 67 and 68 can really be implemented in practice.
The Commission's proposal establishing a framework for Community action in the field of water policy is a reworking and combination of a number of directives currently in force on the quality of surface and bathing waters, waters used for fish and shellfish farming and waters for human consumption, on the protection and management of groundwater, the treatment of municipal waste water, control of effluent and pollution by nitrates.
In addition to simplifying the situation, the main new feature of this proposal for a directive is its underlying approach, which is based on the notion of river basins. Good management of these will ensure that the quantity and quality of surface and groundwater are safeguarded, whether these waters belong to one Member State only or straddle a border.
By the end of the year, the Commission is to put forward technical specifications which will form the basis for all data collection and analysis operations, notably regarding the definition of river basin districts and the analysis of their physical, demographic and economic characteristics, analysis and monitoring of water quality, and the evaluation of water quantity and quality.
Each management plan will consist of a programme of measures to be fully operational by 31 December 2007 at the latest.
The objective of 'good status' must be achieved by the year 2010.
Responsibility for implementing these requirements will very largely rest with the Member States.
In response to this proposal, I tabled 17 amendments on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, most of which were adopted either on their own or as part of a compromise amendment.
These amendments naturally included wetlands and their specific ecosystem in the context of these Community measures.
But we also pointed to the importance of agriculture and the specific link between this industry and water.
We needed to take account of the special features of agriculture to ensure that it was not restricted by too bureaucratic an approach.
We voted against compromise Amendment No 201 on the underground storage of natural gas and LPG.
The Commission proposal introduces a derogation for existing stores, but would ban any plan to develop further storage of natural gas in aquifers, whilst the French experience of storing gas underground (since 1957) and LPG in abandoned mine workings (since 1965) indicates that all requisite measures for protecting the environment are in place.
We did, however, vote for Amendment No 160, which authorises underground storage where this does not compromise the environmental objectives of this directive.
This directive recognises the importance of the advances in certain areas and therefore concentrates on the quality of water, leaving aside the quantitative aspects of the problem.
There is a serious shortage of water in southern countries, which means that it is becoming a limited resource.
We must therefore restrict the temptation in wealthier, more developed and more powerful regions to transfer water from other areas, as is the case with the River Ebro.
Through Amendments Nos 16, 18 and 75 the White report puts an end to such practices by limiting this water policy.
I was therefore happy to vote in favour of these amendments and the entire report.
To begin with, we should welcome today's adoption at first reading of this framework directive on water policy which Parliament has been pressing for hard for a long time.
This text will clarify and simplify the existing Community legislation, which is fragmented and labyrinthine.
Secondly, I must deplore once again the fact that political agreement was reached in the Council before Parliament had had its say.
Moreover, after his report was adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, Mr White, outside all the normal channels of official procedure, negotiated 12 'compromise' amendments with the representatives of the Council.
I find it most regrettable that he did not take the trouble to inform the Committee on the Environment at any stage of his dealings.
Over and above that, I deplore the fact that he added on his own initiative a thirteenth Amendment No 201 which was never agreed with the Council delegation.
The rapporteur made this addition without respecting the elementary rules of transparency, and without even consulting the authors of the amendments which his compromise proposal was designed to replace.
This is no way to do things.
On principle, therefore, and also because the content of Amendment No 201 was not consistent with the wishes of the PPE Group, we voted against this amendment.
Despite Mr White's best efforts, his attempt to reduce the number of amendments to this text as far as possible only succeeded with the Council on points which, whilst useful, were thought to be of minor importance.
We have had to vote in today's sitting on nearly 200 amendments.
That proves, Mr President, that Parliament is using the powers granted it under the Treaty, despite the dubious practices employed by the Council of Ministers.
A good environment in rivers and streams is an important element in the overall quality of the environment in the European Union.
However, the highly intensive exploitation of freshwater resources that has taken place over the past 25 years has created major problems for animal and plant life in European rivers.
It is therefore gratifying that the Commission has taken the initiative of a directive establishing a framework for EU action in the field of water policy.
The Commission's proposals for a phased solution to the dual problems of pollution and supply bear witness to a legislative proposal that has been prepared with great care.
Through the discussion in Parliament and the Council, I hope that it will be possible to satisfy the demands of both the environment and supply.
Florenz report (A4-0051/99)
This explanation of vote is mainly concerned with those sections of the report dealing with PVC.
Although we appreciate that PVC is not the only issue here, we are ready to back those amendments which seek either to ban or to restrict the use of PVC.
We naturally support reduced use of traditional PVC, but we do feel that today's technology offers ever more ways of cutting back on those component substances in PVC that are a danger to the environment and health.
We also know that industry, and in particular the automobile sector, is working actively on many fronts to find alternatives to PVC, or to use less hazardous forms of it.
We therefore hope that the Commission will very soon come forward with a proposal for a directive on the whole issue of PVC, without this being restricted to any particular sector.
As to the disposal of PVC, we believe that the optimum solution is reuse or recycling; the second-best choice would be incineration, coupled with energy production.
Landfill has to be seen as the option of last resort.
Adopting Amendment No 25 fails in our opinion to do justice to the important area of producer liability.
We therefore voted against this amendment.
The following order of priorities is used in the treatment of waste in the European Union: prevention, reuse, recycling, incineration and landfill.
The same order must therefore also be used in disposing of vehicles, particularly when we consider that there are huge numbers of end-of-life vehicles each year and that the first priority must be to ensure that the dangerous substances they contain are given appropriate treatment.
As regards the prevention of PVC waste, we feel that this would be better dealt with in a horizontal directive, and we are expecting a proposal from the Commission on this shortly.
This is why we voted against Amendments Nos 8, 19, 21 and 56.
The best way of ensuring successful collection is to enable the last owner to deliver the vehicle to an authorised treatment facility free of charge.
The treatment costs can then be passed on in the price of new vehicles.
In many countries, however, it happens all too often that vehicles are dumped illegally, even in surface water, with all that this implies.
We voted for Amendments Nos 22 to 25, even though they do not take adequate measures to prevent these problems from happening.
The existing arrangements for the collection of two and three-wheeled vehicles must be left in place, and it is therefore a good idea to exclude them from Article 5.
We voted for Amendment No 18, despite the fact that all the provisions on prevention, reuse and recovery have been dropped.
On the subject of treatment, we wholeheartedly supported Amendment No 30, and the same applies to Amendment No 34 on the percentages for reuse and recovery.
As everyone probably knows, the complete dismantling of end-of-life vehicles is currently possible and economically viable.
This would mean a reduction in the shredding of such vehicles.
The targets set out in Amendment No 34 are certainly attainable: in the Netherlands, for example, we have already reached 86 %.
We are in favour of Member States concluding agreements with the economic actors concerned, so that the directive can be implemented flexibly.
I am glad that the European Commission and Parliament are at last planning to legislate on the recycling and proper disposal of end-of-life vehicles.
Motor vehicles are one of the most important areas of capitalist production.
In the European Union, as we approach the year 2000, close on 10 million vehicles are scrapped every year.
To quote just one of the many eloquent figures, the non-recyclable waste which remains after crushing and shredding makes up 10 % of the total volume of hazardous waste.
In the case of vehicles and other major consumer items, a fundamental principle could usefully be adopted on a large scale.
The producer should also be made responsible for disposing of and recycling his products.
The purchase price would of course reflect the cost of this responsibility.
In this way numerous pollutants, often harmful to the environment, would be eliminated and this would enable the process of recycling and disposal to be organised more efficiently.
European standards should be put in place for the various product categories to regulate their collection, processing, reuse, recycling and the monitoring of these operations.
I think this idea will also enable many pollutants to be eliminated at the production stage, since the producer himself will have to make provision for recycling his products in the simplest and safest way possible.
First of all, I must compliment Mr Florenz on his good work.
This text is of prime importance to the environment.
Sadly, we are all familiar with the eyesore of abandoned car wrecks on our landscapes.
This proposal is very important too for producers in the industry concerned.
There are many sectors directly involved in the treating of end-of-life motor vehicles: the car makers, the suppliers of parts and fittings, the plastics and metal components sector, the recycling and salvage professionals, and so on.
Consumers, the current or future owners of a vehicle, are of course the people primarily concerned: on what terms will their vehicles be taken back and treated? We ought not to be dogmatic here.
Taking back vehicles free of charge, as envisaged here, is to my mind a snare.
The real cost of collecting, free of charge, an old vehicle which does not comply with recent environmental standards will have to be met sooner or later.
The intention of my Amendment No 54 was to make it compulsory for vehicles type-approved after the date of the directive's entry into force to be taken back free of charge.
At the same time, Member States would have to provide incentives so that all vehicles could in fact be taken back free of charge.
With the same ideas in mind, I supported the proposal by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection which seeks to set differentiated objectives according to whether the vehicle is an old one or one which meets the standards of the present directive.
I also feel strongly about the amendments seeking to ban the use of PVC.
Firstly, there is no way one can suggest banning the use of a material in a horizontal text on end-of-life vehicles.
Secondly, we have to be consistent; this House has always strongly advocated measures to control atmospheric pollution.
In that context, it encourages the use of light materials in vehicle construction, so as to reduce fuel consumption.
At present, given that there are no alternative materials, it is neither meaningful nor realistic to seek a ban on the use of PVC in motor vehicle construction.
I naturally welcome any proposal which aims to improve waste management in the European Union.
Clearly, the waste which results from lack of control in the motor industry has become unacceptable, and measures are needed to address the problem.
To that extent, I support the report and the means of improving waste management contained in it.
However, I am not satisfied that due regard has been given to motorcycles.
Motorcyclists, if anything, have been more environmentally friendly than those of us who travel on four wheels.
There is a strong tradition of recycling motorcycle parts.
I was therefore concerned when the original proposal was put forward that it appeared to ignore this tradition by putting two-wheeled vehicles in the same category as four-wheeled vehicles.
My own view is that motorcycles, as well as vintage cars, should have been excluded from the legislation and that separate legislation should be drafted which would ensure compliance with genuine environmental concerns.
End-of-life vehicles are a major environmental problem in the European Union.
There are pollution problems associated with the types of waste that are separated from scrap vehicles during shredding, but abandoned vehicles in particular are a major environmental problem in nature.
It is therefore necessary to ensure that end-of-life vehicles are managed in a lawful and responsible way.
Common EU rules in this area will help to reduce substantially pollution from hazardous substances.
In addition, end-of-life vehicle treatment undertakings can become more viable and generate more jobs.
The proposed directive is therefore an immensely positive initiative.
An appropriate means of preventing the use of certain hazardous substances in the manufacture of new cars is an important element in the proposed directive.
However, it is not realistic at the present time to introduce a total ban on certain substances which are necessary - in small quantities - in connection with certain alloys and rust-protection procedures.
Moreover, the demand for a horizontal directive providing for a total ban on PVC in the EU before 2000 is unrealistic, and therefore cannot be given Conservative support in the European Parliament.
Quisthoudt-Rowohl report (A4-0035/99)
Mr Antony's tirade in this morning's debate on research and development cooperation with Israel in which he accused Israel of producing ethnic weapons that would select their victims on the basis of race tell us more about Mr Antony's views than Israel's research policy.
Only a racist could give credence to such nonsense.
Only someone who believes the world is composed of sharply-defined 'races' arranged in a neat hierarchy with them at the top of the food chain could imagine such a horror.
It is not possible.
There are more similarities in the genetic make-up between so-called 'races' than between individuals within such 'races'.
Anyone who started such a programme would have already demonstrated they lack the scientific knowledge to carry it through.
As I said this morning I will be voting to support this report with the few reservations I indicated then.
Mr Antony's views have only reinforced this decision.
The State of Israel has laws which result in the persecution of and discrimination against its Palestinian neighbours.
I support this agreement, but would stress the need for the EU to draw attention to the way the State of Israel is showing scant respect for human rights and the ongoing peace process.
Peace in the Middle East can be brought closer through cooperation with the West and technical development. Sustainable peace, however, requires acknowledgement of every human being's right to life, together with compliance with the peace process that has been entered into.
Kosovo
Our group did not co-sign the draft 'joint' resolution on Kosovo.
We believe that the text remains excessively one-sided, containing too much simplistic and inflexible analysis, a black and white approach left over from the cold war, with its 'good guys' and 'bad guys', and a measure of inability to grasp properly the complex historical, cultural and religious realities which a resurgence of Communist ideology has caused to resurface and which nevertheless now form the very heart of the problem on which an agreement is being sought.
What our resolution should have done was to welcome the fact that, firstly, the advocates of a diplomatic solution have for the moment won out against the irresponsible hotheads and, secondly, that two European countries are playing a leading part, for the European Union as a whole, in the search for that solution.
The Council clearly recognised that the best way to help achieve a diplomatic solution was not to use the complex and uncertain machinery of the CFSP, but to lend resolute support to the work of the 'contact group' made up of the powers inside and outside Europe which are best placed to play a decisive role in finding a way out of the crisis.
The Rambouillet talks confirm the major role played in the 'contact group' by the two European countries most heavily and specifically engaged in the search for a peaceful solution: France and the United Kingdom, the two European members of the UN Security Council.
This House can only hope that the two European co-chairmen of the Rambouillet conference, helped by the negotiators of the 'contact group', will bring both their diplomatic skills and the utmost political determination to bear in persuading the protagonists in the fighting - despite the absence of Milosevic, which weakens the process - to reach an agreement which will allow the question of Kosovo's independence to be managed as peacefully as possible.
Aldo report (A4-0036/99)
We unreservedly agree that it is vital to extend cultural and trade relations between the overseas countries and territories, the ACP countries and the ultraperipheral regions of the European Union, such as the Azores, the Canary Islands and Madeira.
But it is not enough to affirm that and institutionalise it, by clarifying the position on the status of ultraperipheral regions, as the new Treaty on European Union, the Treaty of Amsterdam, does in Article 299(2).
Policy guidelines and permanent means must be created to respond to specific needs and the proposed broadening of cultural and trade relations.
We cannot accept the worrying tendency to view the UPRs in geo-strategic terms and exploit them accordingly, involving quid pro quos or links with political and military blocs. Besides, there is only one, NATO, which is celebrating its half-century not by seeking to make its own existence unnecessary, but with every intention of carrying on.
Banana exports
I pointed yesterday to the unacceptability of the retaliatory customs measures announced by the US against European products, even before the WTO has looked at the new common organisation of the market in bananas.
And this threat of sanctions has a definite effect, because even before it is put into practice, it is prompting the economic players to react.
No WTO member has the right to take such measures unilaterally: they must use the procedure for settling disputes laid down by the WTO.
What do we see on the European side? Firstly, we are seeing every day the very regrettable consequences of the European negotiators' failure to secure adequate guarantees in the GATT agreements allowing us to preserve our preferential relations with the ACP countries.
Secondly, we deplore the apparent willingness of certain European Member States to sacrifice European solidarity on condition that the US exempts them from its sanctions.
Lastly, the attitude of the German Presidency does not seem to be altogether unambiguous, in that it has sought a direct settlement with the US without consulting its partners.
We for our part wish to encourage the European Commission to show the utmost firmness - which for once it seems intent on doing, albeit very late in the day - and consequently the Europe of Nations Group chose not to sign the compromise of the PPE and PSE Groups, the content of which seemed to us insufficiently robust, but proposed a more forceful compromise text instead, together with four other political groups.
We wished in particular to reaffirm in strong terms our support for our ACP partners, to whom we are linked by an international agreement.
We wished also to indicate Parliament's fundamental disapproval of unilateral measures and deplore in no uncertain terms the USA's declared intention to apply Section 301 and 'super 301', the spectre of which we were told had been banished for ever thanks to the Marrakesh agreements.
In the absence of a European 'super 301' we would also like to know how the Commission will react to safeguard our interests if the US should take the unilateral measures it has threatened.
That concludes voting time.
Statement by the President
At a meeting today the Conference of Presidents decided, pursuant to Rule 10(4) of the Rules of Procedure, to bring forward the second March part-session to 22 and 23 March.
The part-session will begin at 5 p.m. on Monday 22 March and will continue on Tuesday 23 March.
Voting time will be at 3 o'clock on Tuesday.
The Conference of Presidents has decided to include in the agenda of Monday 22 March a Commission statement followed by a debate on the action to be taken on the report of the Committee of Independent Experts.
The deadline for tabling motions for resolutions will be Thursday 18 March at 5 p.m..
The deadline for tabling amendments and joint motions will be on Monday 22 March at 10 p.m.
The other items on the agenda will be decided by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting on 4 March.
It should be noted that it will be possible to hold a political group meeting on Wednesday 17 March at 6 p.m. and possibly on 18 March at 10.30 a.m. as well as on Monday 22 March before 5 p.m.
Committee meetings already scheduled for 22 and 23 March will be postponed until 24 and 25 March.
Further details will be provided by the committees involved.
Mr President, I am afraid I do not intend to respond to the remarks made by Mr Hänsch, who was probably inspired by the Carnival in the Rhineland, because he could not possibly have been inspired by the election results in Hesse.
No, my intention is to raise the question of the Kazakhstan resolution again.
Since making that point before, I have received faulty copies from other Members, and I now have this pile of 63 faulty copies of the Kazakhstan resolution, each comprising only straight lines.
Following our earlier exchanges, I checked at the desk outside - this is no laughing matter, gentlemen - to see whether proper texts were available there.
They do not have a single text that is properly printed.
I do think we ought to take our parliamentary work seriously enough for me to be able to ask you to check what has happened here and for you to ensure that it does not happen again.
We are going to check again but I have been assured that a fresh batch of properly printed resolutions were made available at the distribution desk.
Mr President, I would appreciate it if you could tell me whether or not the statement you have just read out has been printed and is being distributed in some way to Members. We have naturally taken note of it, but there are too many changes to the calendar.
It would therefore be better if we received a written copy this evening, perhaps in a fax to our offices.
Mr President, I should like to ask whether there will also be a vote in plenary on this change of date, because as far as I am aware, the original calendar of part-sessions was adopted by us here in the House. If there is to be a vote, when will it take place?
I understand that the answer is No.
The Conference of Presidents has the power to alter the date.
I cannot answer detailed questions as I am no more informed about it than you are.
Mr President, I am interested in your announcement about the changing of the date of the mini-session.
I am sure you are aware that visits are arranged for people from many parts of the world in the light of the timing of the mini-session.
This change will certainly cause great difficulty as far as some of my visitors are concerned.
Could you give me an explanation, that I can pass on, as to why the mini-session has been changed? I am sure there must be some very clear political reason but I did not quite understand what it was - I did not quite hear what the explanation was.
As I say, I am learning as I go along.
I am told it is because the original date clashed with the European Council meeting and we wish to meet before that meeting.
Mr President, just to give an explanation to Mr McGowan.
The problem is that we have to hold a debate on the results of the Committee of Independent Experts in that mini-session.
This has to happen in the presence of the Commission.
But on the same date the Council is meeting in Berlin and it is impossible for the Commission to be in two places at the same time.
Therefore, the only solution was to find another date for the mini-session.
As it is a sensitive issue, we could not postpone it until the month of April.
That is the real political explanation.
Of course, normally we would hold the mini-session on 24 and 25 March, and the committee meetings would take place on 22 and 23 March.
So this is reversed: the mini-session will be on 22 and 23 March and the committee meetings on 24 and 25 March.
That is the whole explanation.
It is useful to have someone who attended the meeting to explain the situation.
However, the plenary is not the place to debate this.
It was a decision taken by the Conference of Presidents.
If you have a problem with it speak to your group leaders and raise the matter in your political groups.
Combined transport: dimensions and weights (continuation)
Mr President, I hope that I can find my bearings again in the debate which we interrupted.
The role of combined transport is to shift goods transport from the roads to the railways.
It is capable of doing that despite its structural disadvantages, thanks to the preferential measures designed to enable it to compete with the transport of goods by road.
Nevertheless, it has not developed to the extent that we transport policymakers had hoped and expected.
The main reason is that the railways are taking a very long time to develop into modern service enterprises, if they are developing in that direction at all.
Combined transport is also the forerunner of a future model, namely that of intermodal transport, which will improve the flow of traffic for all types of carrier.
A decisive breakthrough in the development of intermodal transport will naturally require a sea change in the political regulation of transport in Europe.
What we are asking about today are the conditions under which the present superannuated form of combined transport can be sustained for long enough to develop into that model of the future, without it grinding to a halt and simply being overrun by the road-transport juggernaut.
The new proposal for a directive starts off in the right direction, broadening the definition of combined transport to pave the way for intermodal transport.
We are naturally calling for a precise limitation of the ratio of road legs to total mileage.
The second step in the Commission's proposal, namely the European harmonisation of preferential measures, also points in the right direction, in my opinion.
The issue of grants poses fewest problems.
The maximum weight of 44 tonnes and the exemptions from driving bans, however, remain bones of contention.
I personally consider them necessary for a transitional period until a level playing field has been created for all modes of transport and intermodal transport has become an everyday phenomenon.
I share some of my colleagues' fears, however - firstly that the abuses which are already occurring today will become more widespread, and secondly that the increase in exemptions from driving bans and derogations from weight limits could open the political floodgates for the extension of these privileges to road hauliers in general.
For that reason, we insist on follow-up negotiations to review the situation.
Madam President, both Parliament and the Commission agree that there is a need to actively promote combined transport by increasing the efficiency of the means of transferring transport of goods from road transport to more environmentally-friendly, safer and more energy-efficient modes which are less prone to congestion.
I welcome Parliament's support for this approach.
However, I regret that the report before the House rejects two of the three main measures proposed by the Commission to promote combined transport and substantially amends the other.
The suggestions set out in the report would not achieve what both of our institutions and the majority of Member States want and that is the further development of combined transport as an efficient and viable alternative to current dependence on road transport.
Therefore, it would be useful to pursue discussions on this text at a later stage to allow us to take Council's view on this proposal into account.
Meanwhile, on Mr Wijsenbeek's amendment, it is generally acceptable, since it developed some of the ideas in our proposal, while remaining faithful to the existing directive.
But I am aware that Mr Wijsenbeek's colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism do not share his views.
Let me briefly comment on two of the three components of the proposal: exemptions from driving bans and derogations from weight limits.
The Commission proposed Community-wide exemptions of the road legs of combined transport from restrictions on driving at weekends, during the night, holiday periods and during periods of high pollution.
Such exemptions would improve the competitiveness of combined transport, by comparison with road transport, and would ensure greater reliability and regularity of combined transport services without jeopardising social and environmental standards.
Obviously combined transport would have a major advantage if clients could have their goods moved and delivered when unimodal road haulage was forbidden.
At present, there are about 47 lorry bans in existence in the Community, with many detailed exceptions to them for combined transport services.
That needs serious improvement because combined transport obviously involves several links and if one is not allowed, for example on Sunday night, the whole chain is jeopardised.
If a ban ends at 10 p.m. there just is not time after the trucks have reached the terminal to form a rail train that would allow arrival the next morning.
That means all transport operation starting at 10 p.m. would go totally by road; and in international road container traffic, that means average driving distances of about 1 000 kms.
Is it really safer, or more socially acceptable, or more efficient to do that than to have a road journey of about 100-150 kms to or from a rail terminal on a Sunday? The environmental congestion, social and efficiency arguments all point in one direction.
Secondly, we believe that transport operators should have the option of using a maximum authorised vehicle weight of 44 tonnes for road transport when it is specifically used as part of a combined transport operation involving the movement by different transport units in the whole Community.
That is not just a marginal incentive.
It may lower costs by 10 % and is, of course, only applicable over the shorter road legs of the combined transport journey.
It is an efficient way of making combined transport more attractive.
For these reasons, I am at this stage only in a position to accept two technical amendments in addition to Mr Wijsenbeek's ones, Nos 3 and 6, and I have to reject the other ones.
It would be most productive to revisit this issue at a later date, against the background of the Council's common position, and after detailed discussion of the arguments.
I hope we could then take a joint view about how a satisfactory compromise could be developed so that we could fulfil our common objective of supporting combined transport.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Article 366a of 4th ACP-EC Convention
The next item is the recommendation (A4-0013/99) by Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the draft Council Decision on the framework procedure for implementing Article 366a of the fourth ACP-EC Convention (5644/98 - C4-0156/98-96/0050(AVC)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, about two years ago the Council consulted the European Parliament about the procedure for implementing Article 366a of the Fourth ACP-EC Convention, which deals with how the European Union reacts to serious human rights abuses or the total failure of democratisation processes and so on, as a result of which the Union may suspend cooperation with the country concerned.
The whole issue has been dragging on for two years now because of a fundamental disagreement between Parliament and the Council about the role that Parliament should be allowed to play in this process.
Originally it was the view of the vast majority, in fact nearly all Members of this House, that we wanted the assent procedure to be applied, but this was rejected out of hand.
We then decided to go for the consultation procedure.
In connection with this, I had informal contacts - not really enough to merit the term negotiations - with the UK Presidency on behalf of the Council, but these proved fruitless.
The issue was raised again during the Austrian Presidency, which then ensured that the Council was formally consulted to see whether it would agree to the consultation procedure.
The result was that only two of the fifteen Member States were prepared to agree to Parliament's request.
So once again we came back empty-handed.
Since then the Council has made a small change to the text of the proposal, which had originally called for a qualified majority for any decision to be taken in this context.
The qualified majority still stands, but unanimity is now required in the case of full suspension of the application of the Convention.
It is important to note that up to now this has never actually happened, even in very difficult situations such as with Nigeria a few years ago.
It was always the case that a number of articles were suspended, but never the entire Convention.
The situation today is as follows. If Parliament decides to refuse to give its assent, then in any event as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force - and that is not so far off now - all that is required under the provisions of the Treaty is that we should be informed.
That is the only right we have in this context.
So there is little point in obstinately refusing to give our assent here in Parliament, given that this will only result in the unanimity rule applying for the remaining months if cooperation is to be suspended.
This is certainly not likely to promote rapid and appropriate action by the Union in cases of serious human rights violations.
So because we would much prefer rapid action to be taken where possible by a qualified majority, I did not think I would be justified in calling for us to stick to our guns and refuse to give assent to the Council's draft decision.
Against my will, therefore, but in consideration of the practical consequences, I therefore recommend that we accept the decision as it stands, knowing that we have one small consolation, which is that whenever such a measure is to be taken, the Commission will inform Parliament at the same time as the Council, so that Parliament can react in good time.
I have to say that it is thanks to our particularly close cooperation with the Commission on this document that we are able to relinquish the genuine consultation that we should have had with rather less distress than would otherwise have been the case.
Madam President, we have already debated the implementation of Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention on many other occasions. It lays down the procedure for suspending cooperation with countries in violation of the essential provisions of Article 5.
This was one of the principal innovations of the Fourth Lomé Convention, and it makes cooperation dependent on respect for human rights, democracy and the principles of good governance.
I also want to thank Mrs Aelvoet on behalf of the Socialist Group. Under her wise guidance as rapporteur the European Parliament tried to democratise the procedures the Commission proposed, by making Parliament's opinion compulsory through the assent procedure.
But the Council's intransigence, plus the objective legal restrictions of the Lomé Convention, made it necessary to move towards a compromise.
As the rapporteur says, all things considered, the result is better than nothing.
The decision in the Council is no longer required to be unanimous but is to be by a qualified majority, and the Commission undertakes to inform Parliament in good time of any major change in the implementation of the suspension procedure.
Parliament will obviously be extremely vigilant and insistent about this.
It is, effectively, better than nothing, so our group will vote in favour of the draft decision, as recommended by the rapporteur.
Madam President, as always Mrs Aelvoet has produced an excellent report on a very delicate subject.
However, it is a sad indictment of the world we live in that Article 366a has to be written into the fourth ACP-EU Convention at all.
Having just returned from Africa yesterday and hearing of the latest events in Zimbabwe, it is vital the Commission has the power of suspension and is able to act quickly.
Of course it would be good practice if Parliament - and by that I assume the Committee on Development and Cooperation - could be consulted before suspension took place.
But I have to be honest and say that we live in the real world.
There will be occasions when the Commission has to act quickly to convey the message to any nation abusing human rights before it has the opportunity to ask Parliament.
The key to the report is the sentence that the Commission, wherever possible, will inform Parliament in advance of any suspension or indeed resumption of cooperation.
I believe that is a fair compromise between the Commission and Parliament and therefore support the proposal that Parliament give its assent to the draft Council decision.
However, there is an interesting situation which will arise after the year 2000, under the new Lomé Agreement, whatever that may be.
As the Commission will know, the proposals for any new ACP-EU agreement could be based on regional cooperation and integration, with funding being distributed via the regional organisations rather than through individual nations and national indicative programmes.
I wonder how Article 366a can operate in such circumstances, as the Commission will have lost the ability to sanction an individual nation within a region.
It would be unfair to sanction the entire region.
Perhaps Commissioner Brittan could pass on that particular question to the appropriate Commission service for an answer at a later date.
As there are a number of difficult situations building up in various African states I hope the Commission will use Article 366a in its widest form.
Human rights, to me, should include pluralism, good governance, an independent judiciary, a free press, as well as free and fair elections.
My group will be supporting this report.
Once again, I congratulate Mrs Aelvoet on the work she has done on behalf of this Parliament.
Madam President, the Liberal Group has always called for transparency in our human rights policy.
Procedures must be clear.
Article 5 of the Lomé Convention makes human rights policy an essential element of cooperation, and Article 366a which we are discussing now deals with the procedures surrounding the suspension of cooperation with the Lomé countries.
The fact that such an operational article exists is an advantage, but the procedures themselves should have been better.
The rapporteur has done her best to ensure that Parliament has a say and that majority decisions apply in the Council.
The Liberals have always taken the view that Parliament's assent should be needed for Lomé cooperation to be suspended.
After all, Parliament's assent was needed for the Lomé Convention to come into force.
The fact that we are now simply to be informed by the Commission if cooperation is to be suspended is not enough, but as a pragmatist, I realise that we could not have obtained more.
After all the interinstitutional discussions since the Commission proposal of February 1996, the procedure finally needs to be wound up, and we must put this new instrument to good use in our human rights policy as quickly as possible.
Finally, I should like to thank and congratulate Mrs Aelvoet for this recommendation, but she does not need to be told that.
I should like to thank and congratulate Mrs Aelvoet for all the work that she has done to make it possible for Parliament to give its consent and for the realistic and reasonable approach that she has shown, as have other speakers such as Mr Corrie and Mr Vecchi.
I would like to reiterate what we stressed when the interim report was discussed here last June, namely, that we intend to keep Parliament fully informed of any initiative which we might take or any proposal which we might submit to the Council with regard to the implementation of Article 366a of the Fourth Lomé Convention which sadly, as has been said, is not something that can be regarded as a purely theoretical possibility.
I would add that in the only case so far in which Article 366a was invoked, against Togo, the Commission immediately informed Parliament of its intentions, as the rapporteur has acknowledged in her report, for which I thank her.
We will continue, as ever, to take very seriously any opinions or resolutions adopted by Parliament which might affect implementation of the consultation and suspension procedure laid down in Article 366a.
With regard to Mr Corrie's query about how it would work in a situation where the regional element is to the fore, I will certainly convey that query to those who are handling this matter on a day-to-day basis.
The Commission is pleased that with Parliament's assent the framework decision will take effect, giving us a proper and transparent procedure for taking appropriate measures if essential provisions of the revised Fourth Lomé Convention are violated.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Macro-financial assistance to Albania
The next item is the report (A4-0041/99) by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing macrofinancial assistance to Albania (COM(98)0507 - C4-0590/98-98/0273(CNS)).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in this debate on the granting of EUR 20 million in macro-financial assistance to Albania, I think it is extremely important to look at the political and economic context in which the assistance is being provided.
Let me pick out a few points.
Albania freed itself from Marxist dictatorship much later than other countries in the eastern bloc, and this means that the problems of developing a pluralist society are persisting for longer than in any of the other countries, where some progress has been made.
The economic and social conditions are such that, in my view, Albania can rightly be described as a third world country on the Union's doorstep.
The collapse of the pyramid schemes, the plundering of the munitions depots - which we all remember very clearly: a Kalashnikov now has a street value of five to ten dollars - the effects of the conflict in neighbouring Kosovo: all of these things have led to the enormous tide of refugees who are now on the move, with economic refugees coming to the Union and political refugees fleeing Kosovo for Albania.
In short, Albania does not just have serious internal problems to resolve. Because of its geographical situation, it cannot escape being politically influenced by surrounding countries in the Balkans.
Mr Imbeni made this point very clearly during the Kosovo debate yesterday.
However, there are some glimmers of hope.
Last November a new constitution was approved with a 90 % turnout, and a new leader, Mr Majko, seems to be making good progress towards guaranteeing independent roles for the president, the legislature and the judiciary.
However, Albania's political recovery is closely linked to the priorities to be met for economic recovery.
Last October, the Albanian authorities in Tirana assured the group of donors that they will promote the development of an action plan to combat corruption and introduce legislation to create the climate needed to encourage investment, which is currently at a very low level - there is almost no investment from outside the country - so that investors will also have a better guarantee of getting their money back in future.
It is also important here to monitor whether the new Customs Code does indeed consolidate customs and tax revenue collection, and then the main concern is the further winding-up of the pyramid selling companies, though it is still not known whether Albanians will ever see any of their money again.
Unfortunately, we can do nothing to ensure that they do.
Since 1991 the European Union has been the largest donor to Albania, and in view of the country's economic and financial situation, international aid is still desperately needed, if only to keep the current account going.
This is why it is vital that we should flesh out the ECOFIN Council decision of last April as quickly as possible.
The Commission is in an excellent position to do this, with its considerable experience of Albania.
Up to now we have mainly provided donations, but this time it is a loan.
However, in my view we must prevent Albania from falling into the disastrous vicious circle of being financially dependent on outside help.
For this reason, in the extremely successful cooperation which I had with Mr Brinkhorst from the Committee on Budgets, for which I would like to thank him - unfortunately he could not be here this evening - I proposed that a coherent assessment should be made of the direction and state of progress of the political and institutional reforms in Albania.
I have therefore asked the Commission not just to rely on the technical evaluations of international financial bodies such as the IMF, but to involve the Committee on Monetary Affairs and the PHARE committee in its assessment.
The aim is for Parliament to have a comprehensive picture of the reforms before the second tranche is paid.
The intention is not to put Albania under the microscope, but to promote sound and efficient management.
In my opinion, this is not just what EU citizens want, it is what Albanian citizens want as well.
I should like to thank the members of the Committee on External Economic Relations for their critical yet supportive views, and I hope that tomorrow the House will accept the amendments which are before us, because almost a year has already passed between the ECOFIN decision and the start of implementation, and Albania is simply raring to go.
Madam President, we know that Albania is still facing many intractable problems, especially problems in connection with internal security and public order which are affecting all other areas.
Nevertheless, in the midst of all these problems, relatively speaking I am amazed at the success this small country has had in implementing the six-month contingency programme from October 1997 to March 1998, which allowed it to tackle the social crisis and the civil war in the spring of 1997.
We therefore have initial proof at least that, by following a specific programme in a well-disciplined manner and with adequate technical support, the Albanian Government can be effective and make progress.
However, as was clear from the serious regression which took place in September last year, the problems of Albania centre more around the lack of communication and dialogue among the country's political powers and their inability to reach agreement on a minimum joint programme to extricate the country once and for all from the crisis it is in, rather than on the genuinely deep economic recession.
The European Union and international organisations must give generously all the help they possibly can to enable this country to find positive solutions to its problems.
Albania is part of Europe, it has contributed to the history of Europe and, from this standpoint, it is a potential applicant country for the European Union.
It must nevertheless be made clear to all the political powers in Albania that responsibility for the progress and future prospects of the country lie fairly and squarely with them.
The European Union is granting macro-financial aid to support the efforts made by Albania, but this must in no way be taken as a shifting of responsibilities.
The Albanian Government must intensify its own efforts to solve its problems, and it must push forward policies and economic reforms to ensure that democratic institutions run smoothly and that the rule of law operates correctly.
The adoption of the constitution was of course a major step in the right direction. However, we must have guarantees that human rights will be respected, that there will be a smooth transition to a market economy, financial stability and, above all, a revitalisation of the credit system.
Corruption must be stamped out and organised crime combated.
Structures and procedures must be created to guarantee transparency and to ensure that public money is handled honestly.
Only in this way can a climate of security be created for investment.
The EUR 20 million are rather less than what the Albanian Government had hoped for and, more importantly, less than what the country needs to tackle its problems.
Nevertheless, strengthening the credibility of the country and ensuring economic and political stability will gradually increase its ability to take on loans and, above all, will attract foreign investments, which Albania desperately needs.
We all know that my country, Greece, sincerely hopes that progress will be made, and it supports in every way the attempts of the Albanian Government to carry forward the necessary policies and institutional reforms which will bring Albania closer to the European model.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mrs van Bladel for her excellent report.
It has our full support.
As she said, and as my honourable colleague Mrs Karamanou has just stated, Albania is not only one of the weakest countries in economic terms, it is also lagging far behind the other countries in the development of democratic structures.
Its situation is similar to that of Bosnia-Herzegovina; in other words, Albania has to be financially drip-fed by the European Union.
We not only provide food aid.
We not only provide general reconstruction aid.
The European Union also spends money on the refugees from Kosovo who have found a temporary abode in Albania.
But the crucial point - and this is where we start to see the light - is that the last government reshuffle and the adoption of a constitution in Albania have laid the foundation stone for the construction of a stable system of government.
It is important to us, of course, to have a partner in whom we can have at least a reasonable degree of trust, and whom we can provide with the necessary funds to develop the structures of government and to ensure that the police and the armed forces return to their role as servants of the democratic order instead of being a law unto themselves, with all the problems which that has entailed in Albania over the past two to three years.
It is also crucial that Albania should gradually win over the confidence of the international financial system and of investors, that Albania should thereby become an interesting location for prospective investors in the long run, and that at the same time the conditions should be created in which welfare capitalism can flourish.
We have come a long way.
What we must do is to make sure that the control which is now required can also be extended to cover macrofinancial aid to a certain degree.
The very idea of macrofinancial aid, of course, is that it is not designed to fund specific projects, but to provide the state with a pool of funds with which it can perform and develop the tasks of government.
But I nevertheless consider it important that we strike a good balance between trust and verification, a balance that will also encourage the Albanians, the Albanian Government, to progress along the right path.
I have the impression that this financial aid of ours represents a small mosaic tile that Albania needs in order to go on constructing a stable future, and I hope that we shall soon see appropriate verification measures from the Commission to help ensure that this goal is achieved.
Madam President, my comments on the report and the rapporteur's amendments are very brief.
Our group supports them in their entirety.
As regards the aid, although we feel this should be granted under the most favourable conditions possible for the time being, there must also, of course, be a number of conditions attached, as both the Commission and the rapporteur propose.
Let me just mention one of these.
We think that it is high time that the investigation into the pyramid selling schemes was completed; the capital collected should be paid out to the creditors and legislation should be introduced to combat money laundering.
The schemes demonstrate the need for better financial controls on all sorts of institutions, including banks.
That said, the greatest risk still remains, as the rapporteur pointed out, that one hand will be paying out what the other receives, in other words that one loan will be applied for in order to pay another loan off.
This would be a disastrous development for a country that does not need one loan after another but productive investment, including from the European Union, so that it can generate its own, independent economic development.
This is what Albania needs in the long run.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we must compliment Mrs van Bladel on her report.
Obviously the European Union has made a good many mistakes over Albania, and this EUR 20 million loan will not fundamentally change the situation.
That said, this loan will be something of a shot in the arm for Mr Majko, who is making heroic efforts but has very little room for manoeuvre.
It is the European Union's general attitude on Albania which is wrong.
We are witnessing the growth of criminal activity, encouraged ultimately by the European Union.
The Union should be far bolder in its policy.
We should do what to some extent our Greek friends are doing - but not other countries, starting with Italy - and set very generous immigration quotas in order to break the power of mafia groups which feed on the traffic in labour and other commodities, such as drugs.
We should generously open our universities and give thousands of study grants to Albanian students.
Measures are needed to block the rise of opposition to the legal authorities in Albania, to prevent pyramid selling operations and situations of general political instability, notwithstanding the good intentions and intelligence of the current Albanian leadership.
In the absence of such measures, Albania will mark time for a good many years to come.
I therefore call on the Vice-President of the Commission in particular and the Commission in general to urge the Member States not to regularise the situation after the event, as has been done now in Italy, where 250 000 people have been legalised as immigrants - because in the meantime the emigration mafia have netted their profits.
We should act ahead of the event and set quotas in all countries of the European Union.
I think that if the burden were spread over the Union as a whole it would not be too severe, and this is what we need to do to tackle the root of the problem.
Madam President, I should also like to begin, of course, by expressing my sincere thanks to the rapporteur, who in my opinion has truly produced a very, very good piece of work.
I believe that when we speak of Albania, we must not forget that it is a country which has had to make an unimaginably huge leap forward within a few years and still has an enormous amount of ground to make up.
During the Enver Hoxha era the country was virtually dragged back into the Stone Age, and now it needs to progress by leaps and bounds at a time when the entire surrounding region is far from stable.
I believe our aid can only be a drop in the ocean, but it may serve a useful purpose inside the country, helping to overcome the barriers that exist there.
We must remember that Albania is divided into two large areas, the north and the south, with the Gegs and the Tosks respectively, traditional enemies who naturally continued to wage war during the Stone Age into which Enver Hoxha led the country, and that many of the conflicts we see today have their roots in that antithesis.
It is even reflected in the party structure we find in Albania today.
The new Albanian constitution has naturally raised high hopes.
I very much hope that it will be possible to give the opposition a suitably constructive role to play in the Albanian political system, because I believe it has adopted very constructive positions in many areas.
Only then will it be possible for Albania to bring the problems with its neighbours under some sort of control.
Naturally - and this has been emphasised several times this evening - it will be necessary to introduce appropriate verification mechanisms.
Only if these mechanisms exist, particularly in relation to the Albanian democratisation process, will the aid from the European Union be able to achieve anything.
Many other verification measures have been mentioned, especially the mechanisms designed to curb the corruption, the arms trade and the drug trafficking that exist in Albania.
We cannot achieve complete control in these areas; we can only do a little here to help the Albanians to help themselves, but we should do whatever we can.
In that respect, Mrs van Bladel's report and the efficient aid that should result from it represent a step in the right direction.
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on the excellence of her report and also thank her for the support given by Parliament to the Commission proposal.
The purpose of the macro-financial assistance of a maximum of EUR 20m for Albania is to shore up the country's official exchange reserves.
This operation forms part of the global strategy pursued by the international community, and in particular by the European Union, since the crisis began at the end of 1996.
It supplements the actions we have taken under the PHARE programme, the priorities of which are institutional reform.
The specific purpose of this operation is to support the programme of structural economic reforms embarked on by the government under the aegis of the IMF.
Even during and immediately after the crisis that broke out in the country at the end of 1996, after the collapse of the pyramid saving schemes, fiscal and monetary policy management was actually extremely prudent and, as a result, the macro-economic situation has improved in recent months.
The budget deficit as financed domestically has been reduced substantially, inflation has fallen dramatically, but the external payments position is still precarious.
The shoring up of foreign exchange reserves that the Community operation will permit will, therefore, help the Albanian authorities in pursuing a prudent macro-economic policy.
Of course, the Commission will pay special attention to efforts to combat corruption by improving customs procedures and the management of public expenditure.
I turn to some of the amendments: the Commission supports and welcomes Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 6, some of which, in particular No 3, will enable us to adopt a stronger negotiating position with the Albanians in sectors which we think are very important.
Generally speaking, our rejection of the other amendments stems from our concern to safeguard the effectiveness of the implementing arrangements and the integrity of the objectives being pursued.
These implementing arrangements have stood the test in numerous similar operations managed by the Commission, and to make them unduly onerous would prejudice the effectiveness of the operation.
For example, the mandate of the PHARE Committee does not provide for it to be consulted in advance on a macro-financial operation and on the financial conditions attached to the associated borrowing and lending operations.
But the Commission will ensure that the operation is fully consistent with and complements the objectives of the PHARE programme in Albania.
Under the proposed arrangements, the Commission will send to Parliament and the Council, at least once a year, a report evaluating how the decision is being implemented.
It does not make sense to go beyond that.
In the context of the evaluation provided for, the Commission will keep Parliament informed of the conditions attached to the loan.
Furthermore, we are, of course, prepared to reply to any questions Parliament might put to us, both during the operation and after it has been completed.
But negotiating the conditions of disbursement, which lies at the heart of such an operation, necessitates some room for manoeuvre and the observance of the confidentiality requirements that the authorities of the countries concerned might impose with regard to the substance and timetable of reforms.
It is essential to protect the objectives of an operation designed to underpin stability and economic reform.
Its scope would be over-stretched if immediate policy objectives were also assigned to it.
As we have invariably done in the past, the Commission will, of course, examine during the implementation phase whether the political context is compatible with disbursement in accordance with the principles of sound management.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 7.50 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, the work which we have carried out this week could not have been done without the help of interpreters.
It has come to my knowledge that we have 300 freelance interpreters whom the Commission has not paid properly since October.
This week the Commission published a document on how it is going to improve things in the administration.
We have 300 interpreters who have been without proper pay and who are experiencing some financial difficulties.
Could Commissioner Bangemann take this back to his colleagues, and would President Santer, when he has some time away from meeting farmers, arrange to meet the interpreters who work for us and settle this problem?
We take note of that, Mr McMahon, but at the moment we are dealing with the approval of the Minutes.
I would ask that only Members who wish to speak on the Minutes should ask for the floor now.
If you have a point of order, please say under which Rule you wish to raise it.
Madam President, I would just like to reiterate something that was said yesterday in the minutes about the large number of roll-call votes.
We have 245 pages of roll-call votes, and it seems that the smaller the group the more roll-call votes it wants.
I defy anybody to tell me whether there is one citizen anywhere in the European Union who wants to know how David Hallam voted on the second part of Amendment 20 of the Florenz Report.
It is a ridiculous situation and a waste of money, and should be brought to an end.
That point was raised yesterday, Mr Hallam.
We take note of your comment.
Madam President, it is recorded in the Minutes that I raised an objection yesterday to the effect that we did not have a correct German text of the Kazakhstan resolution.
My objection was not about the lack of a correct text, but rather the lack of any text at all!
Lines drawn below the heading 'Kazakhstan' and crosses and dots can scarcely be called an incorrect text; quite simply, there was no text.
That is why I must insist on asking for a check to be carried out to ascertain why such a document was distributed.
The reason why some Members mistakenly thought that the proper text was available is that copies of the text were produced for a meeting of the group leaders yesterday morning, but by yesterday evening the distribution desk only had this version with the lines and crosses.
The point I am making is that all Members of the House must receive printed texts and not only individual representatives of the groups, otherwise we might as well abolish the Chamber and conduct all our business in the Conference of Presidents!
I can understand your dissatisfaction, Mr Posselt.
The matter has been looked into, and it appears that there was indeed a version such as you have described, although there was the other version too.
We shall investigate why the proper text was not the only one to be distributed.
At least the rest of the House did have the correct version.
But we shall look into how it was possible for this to happen.
Madam President, it grieves me to have to agree with Mr Hallam, but the point I would like to make also concerns the number of roll-call votes which was discussed yesterday.
What concerns me is not the actual number of votes - I know this is already in hand - but rather why every single Member has to be presented with this weighty tome, when far fewer copies could be produced for those sad Members who actually wish to go through and check how they voted.
Alternatively it could be available on the Internet which would save an awful lot of money.
Likewise, with the huge book of minutes.
I am sure it is very important, but there are large numbers of Members who have already departed from Strasbourg but are still getting a copy of this in their pigeonholes.
It represents a vast expense of time and effort, and could be made available just to those Members who want it or drawn down off the Internet when people wish to refer to specific items.
Ladies and gentlemen, I can understand your agitation, but the Rules of Procedure provide for this to happen.
If you wish to change this, you have the opportunity of submitting amendments to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
Every Member is entitled to do that.
Madam President, concerning pages 29 and 30 of the Minutes in the French version, the president of the sitting - Mr Martin, I think it was - reported that the Conference of Presidents had decided to bring forward the Brussels mini-session from 24 and 25 March to 22 and 23 March.
I should like to repeat here what I said at the Conference of Presidents on behalf of my group.
We find this decision neither opportune nor legally correct.
It is not opportune because the calendar was set long ago, was adopted by the plenary, and this change has not been put to the House.
I am not sure that it is really the place of the Conference of Presidents to change the calendar which has been agreed.
The fact that the summit is scheduled for 24 and 25 March in Berlin is no reason to bring the part-session forward and make us decide our position at all costs in advance of that summit.
And legally speaking, I am surprised that the Committee on Budgetary Control, one of Parliament's committees, should have been sidestepped in this matter.
The report we asked for from the committee of experts is part of the consequences of our withholding the discharge for 1996.
It runs parallel to the procedure normally followed here.
The Committee on Budgetary Control, under the annex to the Rules of Procedure which lays down the powers and responsibilities of the committees, has sole responsibility for all questions concerning the implementation of budgets and all questions concerning the financial management of the Commission.
It thus has responsibility for giving an opinion - under paragraph 11 of the annex in question - for giving its opinion to Parliament before the House decides its position.
The group of experts does not have to put itself in the hands of the political groups.
It must first put itself in the hands of the appropriate members of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
That is why I regard this decision as neither opportune nor legally sound.
Applause
Ladies and gentlemen, I know there is dissatisfaction, but I should like to explain the legal situation to you once again. According to Rule 10(2) in Chapter II of the Rules of Procedure, which deals with the sessions of Parliament, Parliament shall itself determine the duration of adjournments of the session.
This therefore means that we decide once a year on the dates of our sittings for the year ahead.
In addition, Rule 10(4) states that the Conference of Presidents, stating its reasons, may alter the duration of adjournments decided pursuant to paragraph 2 at least two weeks before the date previously fixed by Parliament for resuming the session; the date of resumption shall not, however, be postponed for more than two weeks.
Now, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is saying that he opposed this in the Conference of Presidents.
However, it was announced to us - and most of the chairmen of the political groups are present here - that this was in fact the decision taken by the group chairmen in that body.
In legal terms, that is perfectly in order, even if you are expressing your dissatisfaction at what was decided.
The reasons are as follows - only a few Members were present yesterday, and Mrs Aelvoet made the same point, and she is also a member of the Conference of Presidents: the Conference of Presidents decided to bring forward the part-session in Brussels to Monday, 22 and Tuesday, 23 March to enable Parliament to express its views on the report by the Committee of Independent Experts before the European Council meeting on 24 and 25 March, and in the presence of the President of the Commission.
That is quite clear, and we do not need to discuss it any further.
The decision has been taken!
If you are unhappy, please take the matter up with your group chairmen.
There is no point in discussing it any further now, since the legal situation is quite clear.
Madam President, you were kind enough to announce that Mr Posselt's legitimate objection will be examined.
May I ask another favour of you: would you please inform the House what will happen if it transpires that Parliament really did vote on a series of lines and dots?
Madam President, this morning I bought a postcard of the new European Parliament building - the new Hemicycle that is being built - but...
I am sorry to interrupt you, Mr Vallvé, but we are still dealing with the approval of the Minutes!
It says on this postcard that the new building is the new hemicycle, the new plenary chamber for the Council of Europe.
Did we really erect this building, I wonder, for the Council of Europe?
Madam President, during the last two part-sessions of this Parliament we have sat in this Chamber and voted on hundreds of amendments in various different reports.
Many of those reports have then been sent back to committee.
Is it not about time that we looked at the Rules of Procedure and tried to decide that if any report comes forward with a certain number of amendments to it, it goes straight back to committee without wasting the time of this House? We would then have more time to get on with debates, which is what we should be doing as Members of Parliament.
Let me repeat: if any Member feels that the Rules of Procedure need to be changed - and incidentally there will be a debate on this subject in March - then they should simply take the necessary measures.
Each and every Member is entitled to propose amendments to the Rules of Procedure.
There is no point in just calling for these changes and then not following this up with any action.
If you think that things are not being done in an appropriate way, then you can submit your proposals.
Madam President, you rightly said, and substantiated it by reference to the Rules of Procedure, that the part-session dates are laid down and can be changed again within a certain time-limit. I do not question that.
Nevertheless, I should like to remind everyone that the report by this committee of wise men has been produced in response to the whole question of how we should deal with the discharge for 1996.
To that extent, it is only right that the committee responsible, namely the Committee on Budgetary Control, should be able to deliver its opinion on the issue.
Applause
If we did that through resolutions by the political groups, that might be a solution, but at the end of the day this report is floating in thin air somewhere, in the sense that it is not in any way incorporated into our parliamentary work.
I wish to point out that we should initiate a proper procedure here to avoid the possibility of the report falling victim to political discrepancies and thereby failing to shed any light on the issue, in which case Parliament could do nothing with it.
That is why I insist that this report by the wise men be dealt with in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Applause
Thank you, Mrs Theato.
Your comments will be passed on and recorded in the Minutes.
They will be dealt with by the appropriate body.
Madam President, may we therefore assume that the committee meetings which would have been held on the 22nd and 23rd have now been postponed until the 24th and 25th?
That is indeed the case.
However, you will be informed of that again in writing.
Madam President, still on the subject of the Minutes, may I say that you quoted the Rule correctly, but that Rule 10 in Chapter II also has a fifth paragraph, which states that, exceptionally, after consulting the Conference of Presidents, the President shall convene Parliament at the request of a majority of its Members or at the request of the Commission or the Council.
So this means that, provided a majority of Members so wish, we can indeed discuss these dates.
That is correct, Mr Rübig, but at the moment no such request has been submitted.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it was essential to find another date for the mini-session, because otherwise the Commission would have had to be in two places at once - with us in Brussels to hear Parliament's assessment of the report of the committee of wise men, and in Berlin discussing Agenda 2000 with the Council.
That was not possible.
So we agreed at the Conference of Presidents - I did, my group did - that the mini-session should be brought forward.
That is one part of the story.
The second part of the story is the question of why this is being discussed here in the plenary.
I maintained that this should be dealt with through the Committee on Budgetary Control.
But I was in a minority, as other people were too.
So if the House thinks it would be better done through the Committee on Budgetary Control - as I do - we should plan to hold a vote on it, and we can easily do that at the March part-session here in Strasbourg, because that will be coming up first.
So I propose that we schedule a vote on this for the March part-session, and then it will be over and done with.
Thank you, Mrs Aelvoet.
Since some of the members of the Conference of Presidents are also present, that will no doubt be discussed again.
Madam President, I had not intended to intervene but some of the questions that have been raised here and in the debate are based, perhaps, on a certain misunderstanding.
Mrs Aelvoet has dealt with the issue of the date.
There was a preference in the Conference of Presidents to bring the date of the plenary session forward.
That was for a number of good reasons.
We wanted to have present at our debate President Santer from the Commission.
If the House insists on maintaining the original date, President Santer will, instead, be at a European Council meeting.
It would not make sense for us to have a debate without the President of the Commission.
A second point on the timing: this Committee of Experts will make its report available - if I recall correctly - on 15 March.
In my view, the Conference of Presidents rightly considers that this House should express a political view on that matter at an early date.
We should not have a report on which everyone in Europe has their say but the people who commissioned the report are not players in the field.
That too means we should come forward earlier, and not later.
The Committee of Experts was established, as you will see if you read the terms of reference and the original vote in this House, under the auspices of Parliament not one of its committees.
In the first instance Parliament will then need to have the work of that committee returned to it and express political conclusions in a debate in the House.
At the Conference of Presidents it was also said, acknowledged and understood that in the normal course of events, apart from that political debate, the substance and conclusions of the work of the experts will revert to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The Conference of Presidents assumes that the committee will then wish to incorporate any of the relevant observations and conclusions into its proper, ordinary work which serves this House so well.
So we should not have a debate based on misunderstanding.
No-one is highjacking the work of the committee.
The House set up a group which reports to the House and we have a general political debate.
But within the House there is a committee responsible for incorporating the substantive work.
Nothing was done at the Conference of Presidents to undermine, diminish or set to one side the substantive or procedural work of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
If that was the case I would have objected.
It was not the case and hence I did not object.
Madam President, Rule 24 deals with the duties of the Conference of Presidents.
It is high time the chairmen of the groups, Mrs Aelvoet especially, grasped the fact that our calendar of part-sessions is set by the plenary a year in advance.
If the dates of meetings of the Council of Ministers then clash with those of our part-sessions, it is the Commission's duty, since it is the Commission which is under scrutiny here, to be with Parliament and not the ministers.
Mr Wijsenbeek, the Rules also say that in an exceptional case the reasons must be stated, and that has been done.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am disinclined to contribute to this debate.
I feel a little bewildered.
Various group leaders are each giving their version.
What we need is an accurate account of what was decided yesterday at the Conference of Presidents.
Parliament needs to be informed in the case of sensitive procedures like these.
That seems to me the right way to do things.
The wrong way is to have each member of the Conference of Presidents standing up here and giving his version of what was decided.
I am in favour of this decision, and I shall vote for it.
There was no majority in favour of some of my views, but I think that if Parliament is to function properly we must have decisions reported here properly, by the President of Parliament, for example.
Madam President, as Mr Wijsenbeek says, the Council manifestly takes no account of Parliament's calendar, since it sets dates which clash with ones we ourselves earmarked over a year ago.
But I think we should have held the debate yesterday evening, when the announcement was made, and when there were still enough people in the Chamber to hold a vote, if necessary.
Personally, I suggest quite simply that we get on with our work this morning and proceed with the votes.
My colleague Mr Martin was in the Chair yesterday and announced the facts of the matter to the House.
The sitting then continued as usual, without any debate.
I would assume that most Members were at first somewhat taken aback and needed to reflect on the situation.
However, it must also be possible for such a topic to be discussed outside the normal schedule, since that is in all Members' interest.
Madam President, I simply want to express my absolute agreement with the comments made by Mr Cox, not just as regards the outcome of the decisions which he expressed but the reasons which guided the decisions that were made yesterday in the Conference of Presidents.
He was absolutely correct.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it has clearly emerged during our discussion here that this is an impossible state of affairs.
Just because the ladies and gentlemen who head our states and governments - all gentlemen, as it so happens - are to gather for a meeting, they take it for granted that this Parliament will alter its schedule to accommodate them.
That is unacceptable!
Applause
Just imagine that a national government - and as a German, I am naturally aware that my country is currently presiding over the Council, but that is not my point; the identity of the government is irrelevant - decided to hold a cabinet meeting and expected the national parliament to alter its schedule.
That would be an intolerable state of affairs, which is why I say that the European Parliament should not take this lying down.
Applause
Madam President, these dates were set by the former German Government.
I thought Mr Poettering would like to know that.
There would seem to be no further comments on the Minutes.
The Minutes were approved
VOTES
This House has spoken out on more than one occasion in favour of a mode of transport which is kind to the environment.
How could we fail to welcome this opinion? The European Commission is endeavouring to develop combined transport as far as possible, as an alternative to road transport.
This solution is endorsed by transport operators, and likewise by the members of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
But this time, as part of its moves to encourage the development of combined transport, the European Commission is putting a controversial measure to us, namely the lifting of restrictions on weekend and night driving for movements of road freight which are one leg of a combined transport operation.
We cannot agree to this proposal.
Its aim would be purely and simply to get round national prohibitions.
Moreover, it is for each Member State to enact such prohibitions, according to the principle of subsidiarity.
There are other ways of promoting combined transport, and I am thinking in particular of the PACT programme.
We should use and expand existing initiatives before introducing measures which are unpopular and which often do not produce the right effect.
van Bladel report (A4-0041/99)
It is a good thing to be giving macro-financial assistance to Albania.
Events in Kosovo are having a major economic and social impact on that country.
Various international embargos, including that of the European Union, are a partial factor too.
So we cannot deny them macro-financial aid.
For these reasons, I voted in favour of the Commission proposal.
I did not, however, vote for Amendments Nos 5 and 12 to the van Bladel report.
These amendments make the provision of aid contingent on political criteria which are far too demanding.
Of course a healthy political climate is necessary for economic progress.
But you could equally well put it the other way round.
We have taken on political obligations which we cannot evade, even if the political situation in Albania is other than we would wish.
My second reservation concerns the breadth of the criteria.
To my mind, a good customs code is not a sensible criterion for granting aid.
These reservations do not mean that I think aid should be given with no strings attached.
The European Union has a clear policy here. There is the human rights clause, for example.
For individual countries, general criteria provide the guideline for decisions on whether or not aid should be given.
EAGGF: recovery of claims
The next item is the report (A4-0009/99) by Mr Bardong, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 76/308/EEC on mutual assistance for the recovery of claims resulting from operations forming part of the system of financing the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund, and of agricultural levies and customs duties and in respect of value-added tax and certain excise duties (COM(98)0364 - C4-0392/98-98/0206(COD)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the directive we are debating today and on which we shall be voting relates to mutual assistance between Member States in the recovery of tax debts.
There is certainly a great deal of scope for such assistance.
Member States can even enforce judgments in these matters.
The proper functioning of the single market depends in part on the effectiveness of this mutual support.
That, sadly, is far from being the case at the present time.
Nevertheless, since 1993, the annual number of recovery requests has averaged about 1 000, the total sum claimed amounting to ECU 50 million.
This enforced payment of tax debts always becomes particularly difficult for both parties when the debtors have deposited all or part of their assets in another Member State to protect them from seizure.
The result is that only 3 % to 5 % of such debts are actually recovered.
Directives which were adopted back in 1976 and 1977 contained provisions designed to deal with this problem, not only for agricultural levies but also for customs duties, and subsequently for VAT and excise duty too.
In 1990 the Commission made an additional proposal, but it was voted down.
It is now proposing new amendments to improve and modernise this procedure, because some aspects of it are no longer in tune with present-day requirements.
The crux of the matter, to which I shall restrict my remarks, consists of three points. Firstly, taxes on income and property are brought into the scope of the directive.
This may come as a surprise to many people, because it is not even mentioned in the title.
In Article 2 of the amended directive, however, it is explicitly stated.
We welcome that, and surely cannot do otherwise, but I wonder why the Commission did not deal with this more clearly and why this aspect of the directive is not really apparent from the title.
Secondly, when one state asks another to recover tax debts for it, the requested state must take the same trouble that it takes to collect its own taxes.
Thirdly, executory titles transmitted by a requesting state are to become directly enforceable in the requested state.
This means that there should be no more of the delays that have hitherto resulted from the need for official recognition of the titles, sometimes entailing an additional authorisation process.
Executory titles will therefore be directly enforceable, even in the other state in which the debtor is being pursued, and no requested state may insist on implementing its own validation procedure.
We believe that the Commission proposal is right in principle and is necessary if the single market is to function properly.
In our view, however, it does not go far enough in some points to provide the basis for really decisive improvements.
For that reason, the Committee on Budgetary Control is proposing a number of further amendments.
First of all, to combat fraud and tax evasion more effectively, we need to guarantee the assistance of the other Member States for a longer period of time.
Instead of a three-year lifetime for claims, the committee proposes five years.
If the period is made any shorter - and there could certainly be reasons for so doing - the notice or decision that the attempted recovery has failed will be delivered more rapidly, but fewer cases pending does not mean a higher success rate.
In addition, Member States must accord the same priority to claims from another Member State as they accord to their own claims.
Community claims, indeed, may even take priority over national claims.
These statements have only been included in the recitals.
We hope that they will ultimately be included in the operative section too, but for the time being we are happy to see them in the recitals.
At the same time, the Member States are absolutely free to decide whether and how the costs are to be shared in cases where recovery causes particular problems or is especially costly, for example when it is a matter of trying to combat organised crime.
Irrespective of the proposals before us, I believe that the Commission still has much to do.
For example, the training of tax officers in the Member States under the Fiscalis programme needs to be improved.
Efforts are also needed to assimilate or at least harmonise the different recovery powers of the various Member States.
At all events, this is another area where solidarity and mutual trust are indispensable.
These qualities are essential to the projects in question.
Allow me to say in conclusion that the financial interests of the Community and the Member States, as is often the case, would be well served by the plans presented here.
Not only the Community, but also - and to a greater extent - the Member States will benefit from an efficient recovery procedure.
Some of the calls for amendments which the Commission has now answered have come from the Member States. They ought therefore to ensure that the Council makes the right decision.
As for the Commission, however, if you think about the length of time that elapsed before it tabled a proposal, the Commission does appear to have been rather dilatory.
Madam President, on a point of order. I ask for your clarification.
The title of the report we are discussing appears to concern the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund but the comments of the rapporteur went very much wider than that subject.
Is there an error in some respect in the title or is the report broader than that?
Secondly, the text of the rapporteur's report refers to tax havens and raises that question in relation to Amendment No 5.
However, that amendment does not mention the subject matter.
I wonder whether there is another problem with this report there.
These are really things which should be discussed in committee, However, Mr Bardong will say something briefly on that as rapporteur.
Madam President, I shall be brief. The report and even the title of the report are certainly broader, or at least cover more types of taxes and public charges, than may appear from your documentation.
The effects on incomes are clearly formulated in the Commission proposals.
All I was criticising was the fact that they do not feature in the title too, because I consider them to be important.
We are not going to have a debate here which ought in fact to take place in committee.
Under which Rule do you wish to raise a point of order, Mr Mather?
Madam President, on a point of order.
I seek your guidance again.
It seems to me to be dangerous for the Rules of the House and the proceedings if Members are asked to vote on a subject of a report which bears very little relation to the title.
Members who look at the titles of reports and think this is limited to agricultural matters ...
The President cut the speaker off
I am sorry, Mr Mather.
To repeat, we are not going to have a debate here which ought to take place in committee.
You could have gone to the committee and expressed your views on this there.
Also, you did not ask for the floor through your group, and you cannot force your way into making a speech now, even though you were not down to speak.
Everyone might start to do that!
You must now listen to what other Members have to say, and then we shall vote on the matter.
Madam President, I did ask for the floor, and my name is down on the list to speak at this point.
I hope I am not pressurising you unduly on this Friday morning.
The title of the directive on which we have to take a decision today could hardly sound more technical, but for all that, I believe Mr Bardong's report manages to pack a powerful political punch.
We know that any freedom can be abused.
This is also true of the freedoms which the common internal market offers the people of the European Union - freedom to travel without frontier checks, freedom to settle in another Member State.
Welcome though these freedoms may be, they have also occasionally been abused for purposes such as tax evasion.
The instruments we have today to protect ourselves against such abuses are not effective enough.
Since 1976, there has been a directive which provides for mutual assistance between Member States, but the main purpose of the directive was originally to collect customs duties or levies in the framework of the common agricultural policy.
Today, with the spiralling volume of intra-Community exchanges, this provision is no longer sufficient. That is why the Commission has put forward these proposals on which we have to decide - for example, the proposal that Member States should be able to collect each other's fines and fixed penalties in response to a request for administrative assistance.
We in the Socialist Group support this proposal as well as the other proposals, because they target all forms of tax evasion and fraud.
The Commission is also proposing procedural improvements, for example that administrative assistance should be requestable in future even before all domestic means of recovery have been exhausted.
This is designed to prevent crafty lawyers from stalling for time and to eliminate abuse of the legal system.
As far as the rapporteur's amendments are concerned, he has our full support for all of them.
I shall mention three points, some aspects of which have already been addressed by Mr Bardong.
Firstly, the statute of limitation proposed by the Commission is too short and should be extended from three to five years.
This view is substantiated by practical experience in past years.
Secondly, when a case of enforced recovery relates to both Community claims and claims in favour of a national budget, the Community claims should be accorded priority.
Thirdly, liability for the costs arising from administrative assistance should be determined by common consent between the Member States.
The precise division of costs is something that a directive does not have to dictate to Member States.
Let me sum up: despite the technical nature of your report, Mr Bardong, it is a very important document that will help to secure the long-term functioning of the common market in the European Union.
Madam President, Commissioner, beyond the technical complexity of the subject - after all even the title is quite a mouthful - I think this report should be hailed as a further contribution towards achieving the objective so dear to many European citizens, namely transparency. Transparency in public administration means rectitude in Community systems for distributing resources and fighting fraud, both public and private.
The rapporteur reminds us that there has been a strategy for mutual assistance in recovering claims since 1976, but because of anomalies in implementation, recovery cannot be fully guaranteed for either legitimate creditors or the Community and its budget.
The rapporteur - whom I compliment on the work he has done - mentioned an average recovery figure of 3-5 %, which verges on the ridiculous.
This figure is bound to worry people who are talking, with increasing conviction, of common fiscal systems, Community contributions policy, and intra-Community VAT and excise regimes.
Indeed, the introduction of the two latter regimes in 1993 has led to a considerable rise in claims to be recovered, and many Member States are already demanding their rights.
Member States themselves are calling for so-called direct taxation, mutual control of potential evaders and the fight against tax havens, which are easily established today not only inside the cumbersome banking systems of third countries, but also inside those of Member States.
It is a bold step from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund to tax havens, a strange departure by this report, but it serves to demonstrate that large systems, including fraudulent ones, start small, at individual level, and then become widespread.
That is why the strategy for demolishing them must be based on the general interest, but must also be able to reach right down to the very roots of fraud in order to eradicate it.
Madam President, Mr Bardong's report now under discussion focuses on how the recovery of claims, agricultural levies, customs duties and taxes relating to the EAGGF can be made more effective.
The subject is a difficult one, as it is a delicate area.
I wish to thank Mr Bardong for what is a well prepared and expertly explained report.
Mutual assistance in the recovery of claims is becoming ever more important.
With the establishment of the single market it will be much easier for those with tax liabilities to move their assets and income from one country to another.
There is a danger that tax havens will start forming within the European Union.
This would mean conditions that were all too ideal, especially for organised crime.
The European Union's problem is that it has its own budget but does not have the proper machinery to implement it.
Member States are taking practical steps to improve the situation regarding both the payment of levies and the recovery of claims.
However, the Member States are independent economic units which are primarily concerned with their own affairs in respect of revenues, and the recovery of other revenues takes second place.
Thus only 3 to 5 % of requests for recovery in the EU have been successful.
The second problem is that the act of recovery itself, the recovery of claims, the seizure of property and other matters connected with the process, fall under the second pillar of the Union.
The matters that fall under this pillar are not a proper part of the EU decision-making process, but they do call for cooperation among Member States.
Member States are very sensitive to the threat of violation of sovereignty in this area.
For that reason, the recovery of claims, and the degree of cooperation which that demands, are politically sensitive questions.
Despite everything, it is clear that the recovery of claims in respect of taxes and overpayments must be successful in the EU context too.
For this reason, Mr Bardong's report and the Commission's proposal are to be strongly supported.
Madam President, I would like to thank Mr Bardong for all the effort he has put into this important report, although I too wish to comment on its title, which fails to do justice to the full range of the subject.
A large part of the problem could well be that the Commission does not want to admit what is really at stake.
The question of how much power the EU should exercise in this area has been the subject of much debate, not least in our Member States.
Perhaps that is why the Commission is beating about the bush in this way.
Several speakers have commented on Amendment No 5.
The Commission proposes that Articles 4, 5 and 6 should apply only to claims not more than three years old.
I believe that it is right for us to be calling for five years, since these matters take a great deal of time to process.
If the articles in question are to have any impact at all, the Member States must have more than three years to complete their work.
Amendment No 2 causes some difficulties for me personally.
I am not sure that we should be saying that national claims are secondary in importance to claims payable to the Community budget. This strikes me as unfair.
My feeling is that national and Community claims should be treated equally; it would be wrong to give precedence to one set over the other.
As I said, however, this is my personal view.
The Green Group will be supporting the report, together with the amendments from Mr Bardong and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
This is a good report, Madam President.
The amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgetary Control are good too.
We shall vote in favour of them.
All of us here are aware that some shameless debtors may organise their insolvency in such a way that the creditor Member State is obliged to apply to another Member State to whose territory the recalcitrant taxpayer has transferred - or where he holds - assets that are available for enforcement.
I should like now to put a very specific question to Commissioner Bangemann.
One scenario envisaged by the Commission as part of Agenda 2000 is that Member States should cofinance the CAP.
In that case, who in the event of fraud will be responsible for recovering sums disbursed in error out of the portion cofinanced by the Member State? How would one recover a sum paid in error to a fraudster who had transferred assets to another Member State or who had assets in another Member State?
Before proposing a scenario, we need to consider the legal procedures that are essential for it to come about, because in this case, where operations are cofinanced, it is the European institutions which decide on the amount of agricultural aid and thus the amount payable by the Member State in question.
The separation between the party deciding and the party paying will pose real legal problems when it comes to debt recovery, and these may hamper the implementation of cofinancing as envisaged by the Commission - one more obstacle along a road which appears decidedly rocky.
Madam President, I should like to convey my special thanks to Professor Bardong for his excellent work on an insoluble problem.
The report, which has been criticised in some points, such as the inconsistency between its title and its content, shows quite precisely the real sort of jungle in which we find ourselves.
I should like to say a few words on that.
There have been repeated references in this discussion to tax havens or, as we call them in German, 'tax oases'.
Let us consider what that expression means.
Where do we find oases? In the desert, of course.
This means that when we speak of tax oases, we have to admit that everything in this landscape that is not an oasis is a desert.
That is the very nub of this entire discussion.
Our difficulties derive from the build-up of bureaucracies and technocratic measures; above all, they are indicative of the way in which our whole tax system is becoming increasingly complex and incomprehensible.
In that respect the report is truly excellent, and I shall vote for it, because it is technically correct and shows us precisely where the problem lies, namely in the fact that in the individual states, but also to some extent in the Union as a whole, the situation is becoming ever more complex for our citizens, which naturally gives crooks the opportunity to exploit that complexity.
I should like to see us addressing that problem very seriously, because if we do not establish a clear picture here, if we cannot adopt and implement simple solutions, we shall continue to have the same problems.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I wish to draw your attention to the fact that during the speech of Mr Souchet and also during part of Mr von Habsburg's speech, Mr Mather was using a mobile phone, which I believe is not allowed in this Chamber.
I should perhaps point out again that using mobile phones in the Chamber is not allowed.
Please switch them off!
Madam President, this is indeed a very important report.
I have to say that I am not a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, but I am certainly rather confused after everything I have heard.
Now I must ask Mr Bangemann this question: if the system is extended, can it happen that, for instance in the case of value-added tax, excise duty ? well, just give us some examples of charges that might be covered here.
If we were then to have a withholding tax on interest and dividends - which heaven forbid - what would the situation be with regard to recovery by one country on behalf of another? Please tell us what this monstrous title covers.
I am not at all sure any more whether I can support this proposal.
Is Commissioner Bangemann prepared to answer that question?
Madam President, I shall answer any question from Mrs Lulling, since she voted in favour of the Commission.
Laughter
I shall also answer questions from the Members of Parliament who voted against the Commission, though somewhat more briefly!
Well, Mrs Lulling, the areas covered by the draft directive are indicated in the proposal.
Claims for value-added tax can certainly be subject to the recovery procedure.
It is indeed possible, and the proposal refers explicitly to that possibility.
At the present time, of course, we cannot include a reference to a withholding tax on interest and dividends, because it does not exist.
Should such a tax be introduced, a separate provision on its recovery would have to be inserted, because that type of tax is not covered by the proposed legislation.
Since there is no withholding tax on interest and dividends, there are no provisions for its recovery.
Should it be introduced - against your ardent wishes, which are naturally inspired by your concern for the future of Europe and for justice and are totally unconnected to the situation in your own Member State - the directive would have to be supplemented so that any outstanding amounts of withholding tax could be recovered.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
European standardisation
The next item is the report (A4-0501/98) by Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament 'Efficiency and Accountability in European Standardisation under the New Approach (COM(98)0291 - C4-0442/98).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, what we have here is a Commission report on efficiency and accountability in European standardisation under the new approach.
The new approach for the field of technical harmonisation was introduced in 1985 and is based on four principles.
Firstly, the European legislator sets out the essential health and safety conditions which products must meet before they can be placed on the market.
The standards institutes then draw up the technical specifications which the manufacturer needs in order to manufacture products to those requirements.
There is, however, no obligation on the producer to produce on the basis of the standards.
Lastly, the authorities are required to associate products that comply with the harmonised standards with a 'presumption of conformity' with the essential conditions.
The Economic Affairs Committee judges the new approach to be a good one, above all because the harmonisation of legislation is restricted to the essential conditions.
This is a policy matter and separate from the compilation of technical specifications, which is the business of the standards people.
In other words, every man to his own trade.
The market-oriented character of the new approach contrasts too with the mandatory nature of the legislation.
No one is forcing the manufacturer to comply with the technical specifications.
A new approach makes flexible legislation possible, which can be rapidly adapted to keep pace with technological progress.
More efficient and more transparent standardisation work is the province of the independent institutes CEN, CENELEC and ETSI, but the reviewing of progress and the process of checking that the institutes take account of deadlines remains a crucial responsibility of the Commission.
At regular intervals, the Commission has to remind the standards institutes of their duty of responsibility, using cost-benefit analyses.
It can also benchmark the standardisation process vis-à-vis our main trading partners and study market effects.
Lastly, and we attach great importance to this, it can take the Member States to task when it comes to transposing the European standards into national standards if they record a poor performance on the internal market scoreboard.
We are against a merger of the three institutes, for the simple reason that this would dramatically impair efficiency.
Nor am I sure that the use of formal voting is desirable at an early stage of the standardisation work with the aim of speeding up the process.
After all, the new approach requires the involvement and mutual trust of all the partners, namely the national standards institutes, small businesses, employers, employees, consumers and the environmental groups.
Another important factor is the extent to which national bodies recognise each others' technical approval or declarations of conformity.
For many manufacturers this is a real problem, especially in the building materials sector.
In effect, they cannot export their products to all the Member States.
So the Commission needs to tighten up the procedures for dealing with infringements of the principle of mutual recognition.
More generally, firms need to have a clearer idea of whom to contact if they have complaints about the mutual recognition of test results. A unit at the Commission?
Or is there another solution, Commissioner? The European Parliament has already said that the parties concerned, namely small businesses, employers, employees, consumers and environmental groups do not have the funds or staff to keep abreast of everything happening in the standardisation field.
So I suggest the Commission looks at whether they might get more help from Europe.
But there is not just a problem at European level; consumers are involved, for example, in only seven Member States.
I think something needs to change there.
The Commission is asking CEN, CENELEC and ETSI to have an independent assessment made of the way in which the European standardisation process is funded.
I support it on that.
Lastly, we must ensure that standards institutes in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are involved more closely in the work of the European institutes, and that the parties concerned in those countries are able to count on aid from the European Commission.
These are the main observations of Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
My thanks to honourable Members for their interesting and useful contributions to this report.
I have two more questions for Commissioner Bangemann.
The first concerns closer involvement of the parties involved in standardisation.
As I said earlier, it is a matter of money.
I should like to ask the Commissioner if he has any concrete proposals which will allow small businesses and other organisations to take a more active part in shaping the European standards.
My second question concerns the problem of harmonising plugs and sockets. I deliberately did not cover that in my report.
But the question comes up regularly and questions are asked about this.
As we all know, the debate has been going on for 30 years.
I would like to hear from Commissioner Bangemann if there is actually a solution - is it a matter of money, or technology?
Is there actually the political will to do anything about this? These are my two questions to the Commissioner.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we want to move from an internal market to a domestic market, and for that we need principles, and an important determining factor here is standardisation.
Standardisation is an economic instrument which will guarantee us freedom of movement for goods and services in future too.
But we want modern legislation.
We want the new approach, and specifically in the area of standards we have seen that it is necessary to reflect together on how we can secure better procedures.
The story of the tractor seat has shown that it makes better sense to opt for the new approach, that is to say to let the standards institutes in the individual countries operate independently of one another.
I think it is important nevertheless to have legislation - a directive - for this area in order to provide a political framework.
But there is a clear division here between the legislator on the one hand, who does not want to have to compose weighty tomes full of rules which are often difficult to understand - we want legislation which is lean and efficient - while on the other hand there are the voluntary and independent standards organisations where manufacturers and users quite simply meet and discuss areas which they know extremely well and where they can decide very precisely what it is they want.
We had a good example here in the House with the bus directive, the so-called European bus.
We had 142 pages of proposals, and Parliament managed to trim this proposal down to three pages.
There is no reason why buses in Europe should all look the same, from a hot and dusty village in Sicily to the rush hour in London or the distant wastes of Finland.
We think the legislator should really confine himself to specific points here, to a few requirements which have to be observed throughout Europe, while the rest should be decided on freely within standards organisations, so that here too there can be competition which does not hamper innovation but ensures that good products get on to the market safely and fast.
A further part of the system is the CE symbol.
I think the CE symbol gives us a guarantee that existing legal provisions are not being flouted.
But in addition we need to have voluntary symbols of conformity which are designed to ensure that subsequent production is monitored by independent bodies.
Madam President, when my group told me that I had 1 1/2 minutes to speak on normalisation and standardisation this morning, I was worried that it was part of a New Labour process to apply standardisation to candidates across Europe.
But I discovered, to my relief, that it is in fact a very good report by my good friend, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, which I commend to the House.
There is a serious issue which I want to raise on the report and I hope Commissioner Bangemann might respond to it.
He may remember a constituent of mine, Simon Hossack, who wrote many letters to the Commission and I tabled many questions on his behalf.
He was an inventor who had produced a very ingenious device which made any electrical apparatus standard across Europe.
He found that it was impossible for him to market this device because the standards committees were dominated by the big plug manufacturers of Europe who were perfectly happy with the situation where a variety of different plug forms across Europe were allowed to operate because this allowed them to retain their market share.
By refusing to allow his device the standards committees prevented him from entering the market.
I know that Commissioner Bangemann as a good free-market deregulator would not approve of this and I hope that he will take account of this in making sure that the standards committees are fully representative of all the people in the Community, including new people who want to enter the market, as well as the existing large monopolies.
Finally, Commissioner Bangemann, I voted to sack you last month and I will vote to sack you again next month, so you can give me a very short reply.
Madam President, like the rapporteur, I think the Commission's report on European standardisation under the new approach is broadly satisfactory.
It wants harmonisation of the legislation to go no further than is essential for safety and health.
The machinery of standardisation is based essentially on consensus between the professionals and the institutes.
The report does not prohibit manufacturers from making products which do not meet the standards, and the responsibility thus lies with the market.
There is of course one sector where problems remain, that of building materials.
But the general line adopted seems to be satisfactory.
However, it would seem opportune to mention here the problem of standards being used for protectionist purposes on markets outside Europe.
I am thinking of the USA and Japan.
The subject was not strictly speaking considered in the report, it is true, since the report dealt only with the functioning of the internal market, but I think it needs to be looked at by the European institutions.
In fact, the subject is not unrelated to the setting of internal standards for Europe: the external and internal aspects cannot be separated.
There is no reason, for example, why these internal European standards should make it easier for American imports to come in, unless there are reciprocal arrangements over the setting of standards in the USA, product for product.
So the European standards institutes cannot disregard the policy pursued on the other side of the Atlantic.
I should like to see this too being taken into consideration in the future.
My thanks, Mr President, to the rapporteurs and those honourable Members who have spoken. I shall try to deal briefly with some of the questions raised.
We follow the work of the three European standards organisations with close attention.
We meet with them at regular intervals.
The last time was just two weeks ago.
We talk about problems, for example the issue of transparency and efficiency, and we try to make the overall procedure as efficient and helpful for consumers and industry as possible.
Misconceptions will always arise, for example the misconception that our standards might create technical barriers, or alternatively that if we allow other countries such as the USA and Japan to use our standard, the Americans and Japanese will not reciprocate.
All these are misconceptions of the principle which underlies our standardisation work - and the work in the USA and basically in Japan as well.
I must repeat that, with an eye to the charge of protectionism levelled against us by the Americans.
We are not accusing the Americans of some kind of protectionism; it is the Americans who constantly accuse us of it, the latest example being UMTS.
This is quite untrue, because - and I say this once again most emphatically, since it is the essence of this policy - with a few exceptions which are necessary for reasons of safety or security, there are no standards which are mandatory.
No standards which are mandatory!
In other words, anyone - including this ingenious inventor with his universal plug - can market his products.
He does not have to comply with a standard.
He can market a product which is constructed quite differently.
What we want, especially with interoperable systems, is that a standard agreed on by the parties concerned, including consumers, trade unions and so on, should also to some degree be attractive, so that people accept it.
The attraction is basically that the manufacturer of a product - without any need for recognition by other Member States - can make the claim that this product meets the requirements of the European Union.
That is then the CE symbol and it gives him an advantage, if you like.
That is the system.
Now to your individual points.
Firstly: we already fund small and medium-sized enterprises and their participation.
We have no objections at all to transparency.
Anyone with a legitimate interest is free to take part in this process.
It may be a little longer as a result, but it is altogether possible.
Thirdly, I should say for the benefit of the rapporteur, Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, that we have taken numerous initiatives involving potential new Member States of the Union, and with great success.
CEN, CENELEC and ETSI work very closely with the standards organisations of these countries.
We fund this work under PHARE and other accession-oriented financing programmes.
So in principle all that is being done.
One last comment regarding plugs: since the standards organisations are supported by business and industry and their work is funded by business and industry, it is perfectly understandable and obvious that in the current situation - which is not a problem for manufacturers, only for consumers - business and industry are not unduly interested in hearing that we ought to have standard plugs throughout the Union.
So they do nothing about it.
Member States too - and we could of course resolve this by political pressure, admittedly not for reasons of safety, but certainly very much in the consumer interest - are totally uninterested in applying a standard of this kind unless the standard adopted is the one already used in their own country.
Thus Denmark would be very keen to see Danish standards becoming European standards, and so on.
But that cannot of course be the right answer.
The right answer can only be to devise a European standard that is fully consistent with modern technical requirements.
We would then treat this standard the same as others; it would not be mandatory, but would bring certain advantages to the manufacturer.
If everyone manufactured their plugs to this standard, this would then mean not only that future plugs and sockets would look like that, but also of course that all existing plugs and sockets would then have to be converted, and you can imagine how much all that would cost.
That is why neither business and industry nor the consumer is all that keen on changing things.
But this report goes to the Council as well as to Parliament, and we shall be discussing it again with the Council.
In effect, this is a clear example of something on which there has been no European standardisation, although it has nothing at all to do with the work we do, and do successfully.
The way we go about the work of standardisation is the best in the world.
To quote just one example: GSM, the second generation of mobile phones.
With this standard, European manufacturers have captured two thirds of the world market.
If we complete UMTS, the third generation, successfully - and work is still ongoing because there are a few problems with intellectual property rights - if we succeed in this, and American and Japanese firms have also been involved with the work right from the start, we shall probably capture a bigger share of the world market than we did with GSM.
So we have no need at all to be modest about standardisation.
We are the world leader here!
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Before the vote on paragraph 5
Mr President, I just wanted to point out that in the English version on page 9, it says binging instead of binding and I know Commissioner Bangemann would not want to be associated with binging.
Thank you very much for letting Mr Bangemann and Parliament as a whole have that information.
That warning will be noted.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Euro-Mediterranean partnership in the transport sector
The next item is the report (A4-0438/98) by Mr Kaklamanis, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament concerning the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in the Transport Sector (COM(98)0007 - C4-0102/98).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report is a follow-up to the Barcelona Conference on Euro-Mediterranean Cooperation.
It also attempts to gradually implement the decisions taken at the meeting of the European Council in Cardiff on the same issue.
The report aims to turn the Mediterranean Sea into a bridge of political, economic, developmental and cultural communication between all the countries of the European Union and the third countries on the shores of the Mediterranean.
It discusses all modes of transport from the European Union to these third countries and vice versa.
It attempts to set out guidelines for developing modes of transport within the third countries of the Mediterranean and establishing links between them.
I hope that the Forum on Transport in the Mediterranean, which will meet on 24 and 25 March in Malta, will turn to good account the green light which I am sure the European Parliament will give today, and that the Council will draw up a list of priorities relating to the implementation of the plan to develop modes of transport in the Mediterranean region.
I hope that the EU's budget will be able to reinforce this attempt, but I must confess that I am not very optimistic. You only need to look at the EU budget for 1999, or at what has already been discussed in relation to the budget for the year 2000.
I should like to draw the attention of the Commission to the question of the continuous monitoring of the proper use of funds which will be made available to the third countries of the Mediterranean region. We know that in a number of these countries there are problems of democracy and transparency, and that in some of them there are also problems of political stability.
The European Parliament strongly emphasises the need to protect the environment during the implementation of this programme - especially the marine environment - from all types of pollution, mainly involving toxic and nuclear waste.
I should like to draw the Commissioner's attention to this last point in particular, because of the decision that has been taken by the Turkish Government to construct its own nuclear power station on the shores of the Mediterranean, in the region of Akuyu. This comes at a time when we know that the epicentre of the major catastrophic earthquake which struck Adana just a few months ago is just 50 kilometres from the proposed site of this nuclear power station.
Commissioner, the Malta forum will take place in March, and it is a great pity that the European Parliament will not be allowed to participate in it.
Moreover, it is Parliament's view that it should have taken place earlier to enable us to put forward more specific proposals. Be that as it may, we hope that you will keep us informed of the decisions that are taken there, above all in relation to the list of priorities I mentioned earlier.
In conclusion, I would like to make a correction to paragraph 3 on page 6. The Malta Euro-Mediterranean transport forum, which was to have taken place in February, will now take place in Malta on 24 and 25 March, and the corresponding changes need to be made.
My thanks go to my colleagues on the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
Their amendments have done a great deal to improve my report.
I would also like to thank the secretariat of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, and indeed the Commission. Our opinions may have differed on certain points of detail, but cooperation overall has been very good.
Mr President, first of all may I thank the rapporteur for his report, and above all for his critical approach to the Commission communication.
We are constantly talking in Parliament - and not just here, but in international organisations in general - about globalisation.
This report brings home to us the fact that this concept of globalisation is not always appropriate. The fact is that we cannot even manage to establish a proper order and structure in our immediate vicinity which is beneficial to a body like the European Union in matters that concern its immediate sphere of interest.
In talking of the Mediterranean region, I think we must of course look too at its common history.
We should not forget that the Mediterranean was once really an inland sea in Europe and only later became Europe's southern frontier.
This common history means that the goals we have set ourselves, such as the creation of a free trade area by the year 2010, should really be perfectly feasible if the necessary infrastructure can be put in place, if it is possible to do that.
Inadequate infrastructure, especially in transport and telecommunications, is the main barrier to the development of this area's foreign and interregional trade.
I think it is most important to look at transport not just for the states immediately bordering on the Mediterranean but for the region as a whole, including the various Balkan states.
These countries must be included, and they must be included in a report of this kind.
I think a critical eye is important and necessary to ensure that this debate, this support and also the involvement of Parliament continue, and that communication between Commission and Parliament also continues in future to help bring about progress in this region.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think it is very positive that we are talking about the Mediterranean today, the southern border of the European Union, and that we can hold a debate specifically on transport in the Mediterranean.
It is nearly four years since the 1995 Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference, and I believe that the Commission has acted positively in presenting this document on transport in the Mediterranean.
Transport is the means of communication which makes trade possible.
The last speaker said that the Mediterranean was an inland sea, but for many years it divided the North from the South, a developed North and an undeveloped South, a North with a stable population and a South with a rapidly growing population, a generally Christian North and a Muslim South.
And this division has made dialogue and mutual understanding difficult.
The major challenge of the Barcelona Conference was greater mutual understanding and a closer relationship between the North and the South.
There is talk of a free trade area for the year 2010, but this needs groundwork.
Communications must be improved as must the relationship between North and South.
If that relationship does not improve, then unfortunately the only transport on the Mediterranean will be those little tubs full of immigrants, struggling across the Straits of Gibraltar to find the answer to their problems in the European Union.
Better transport and more mutual understanding can lead to development in this area, which should be an area of close relationships and mutual comprehension to the benefit of all concerned.
As our poet says, there should be ' un pont en la mar blava' , a bridge across the azure sea.
Mr President, the Commission is very busy.
We all know that, and not a great deal can be done about it in the short term.
What we need to do is to set priorities amongst all the work which is planned.
A number of comments on this initiative therefore suggest themselves.
I do not altogether agree with the objectives of the agreements, although I do believe that the effort put into ties with the Mediterranean countries is certainly justified, in view of the agreements reached by the various parties.
In the first place, I think the Union has a duty to improve relations between the Union and the Mediterranean countries.
Once we have done that, we can worry about relations between the various Mediterranean countries themselves.
These countries must also make efforts of their own to improve their position.
Moreover, the Barcelona declaration on the Euro-Mediterranean partnership mentions transport, and specifically infrastructure.
This means that the European Union does not have to concern itself with promoting particular transport services in the Mediterranean countries. It must, however, ensure that investment is consistent with the policy of sustainable transport initiated by the European Parliament.
This must lead to prime consideration being given to sustainable connections between the sea ports of Member States and those of the Mediterranean countries.
Only at a later stage should connections between the Mediterranean countries themselves be addressed.
Naturally, these connections too must be consistent with efforts to achieve a sustainable system of transport.
I am all the more sure of this when I see that the trade flows between the European Union and the Mediterranean countries, in themselves not all that large, are considerably larger than the trade flows between the Mediterranean countries themselves.
To my mind, this makes the reservations which the rapporteur mentions in his report somewhat relative.
In short, we have to respect and abide by agreements.
So I would like to see us upholding the agreements we have concluded with and in respect of the Mediterranean countries.
But this must not be at the expense of other, equally important tasks.
Hence my amendment, which seeks to ease somewhat the pressure which the rapporteur is putting on the Commission.
Mr President, following approval of the communication being debated here today, the recommended working party has already been set up.
The programme has been drawn up, so we have made a fair amount of progress.
We shall of course monitor the work of this forum and make suggestions in the context of the priorities set at the Barcelona conference.
We do not need to change those.
For example, environmental measures too have already been dealt with there as a priority.
We shall also - and this is the other matter arising from the debate - support and prepare the first meeting of the forum to be held in Malta on 23 and 24 March.
The European Parliament will be fully briefed on this.
All the texts presented and adopted there will be published.
Here too, there is already a clear emphasis on environmental activities.
So I think that we are currently well advanced with our efforts and have no need to fear a lack of success.
Of course - and that is really the problem with all this work, and with industrial cooperation too - success depends not only on our goodwill, but on that of our partner countries as well.
This goodwill on the part of our partner countries is certainly there, but to varying degrees.
Some partner countries in the Mediterranean area will certainly react very positively to all these activities.
Others would like to, but for a wide variety of reasons cannot, so we shall probably have to reconcile ourselves to a variety of results.
But that is not down to us, it is down to the partner countries themselves.
We in any case will do everything necessary to ensure a successful outcome.
Thank you, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Europe's relations with its neighbours to the south will undoubtedly be the major challenge in the years ahead.
The minimum degree of economic prosperity, social balance and security that is desirable in the region depends on the revival of a dialogue which is currently faltering, and which needs to produce greater consideration for the interests of the countries on both sides of the Mediterranean.
In 1995, the Barcelona conference came up with an answer, launching the MEDA programme which built a new partnership on three pillars - political, economic and human.
The communication placed before Parliament outlines a general strategy for transport.
This text has the virtue of restating the importance of transport links towards the south, which have to be balanced against the extension of the trans-European networks, the TENs, towards the east.
But like our rapporteur, I wonder if the will to rebalance the TENs is really there.
There are no concrete plans for financing them at all.
Are they to remain merely a pious wish?
We need to launch, support and give practical form to a genuine Mediterranean project.
There is no apparent will to do this, and that must be deplored.
Let us get away once and for all from all the shilly-shallying and endless fine words that never turn into deeds.
If we look at the fact that the MEDA programme has been translated only into one or two association agreements, it must be said that all this falls well short of the intentions stated and the resources promised at various summits both before and after Barcelona.
Salmon
Mr President, the Commission deeply regrets the heavy losses suffered by the Scottish salmon-farming industry due to the presence of infectious salmon anaemia (ISA).
This is a severe blow to a sector which is already under strain on account of the fragile market situation for salmon.
The Commission services are following very closely the evolution of the disease and the measures taken by the UK authorities to combat the disease.
We trust that the measures taken are in compliance with EU legislation. These measures impose compulsory slaughter at infected sites and movement restrictions on suspected farms.
We are concerned about the consequences of both the disease and the eradication policy for the sector.
I draw your attention, therefore, to the possibilities that exist under Community legislation for Member States to grant national financial aid in case of disease outbreaks in the aquaculture sector.
Any request to the Commission from the competent authorities in the UK to establish a compensation scheme will be examined rapidly.
Provided such a request meets the required criteria under the present rules for approval by the Commission, we will not hesitate to act accordingly.
We further believe that the disease is so serious and its presence puts such a heavy burden on the future of salmon farming in the Community, that eradication of the disease is justified.
If this policy proves unsuccessful, we could, of course, consider submitting proposals to change this policy.
Mr President, it is very apt that Commissioner Bangemann is taking this speech at the end of the week.
He may remember a previous occasion when he and I had an exchange of views about the Commission's position, after I had spoken to Scottish farmers.
I welcome wholeheartedly the Commission's views.
It is a very serious issue in the Scottish farming industry.
It is a disease which started in Norway and has affected several farms in Scotland.
It started off in Glen Nevis in a fish farm in the Highlands.
It is extremely serious indeed coupled with the threat from the Norwegian government dumping salmon within the European Union at prices which threaten the livelihood of many salmon industries.
In Scotland and Ireland we have about 6 000 people employed in aquaculture.
It is important that we ensure that the type of chemicals that the salmon industry uses are not harmful to the marine environment.
As in all fishing policy we have to marry the exploitation of resources with the proper treatment of the environment and conservation of stocks, although the salmon farming world would obviously not want to conserve the stocks.
I welcome the Commissioner's statement.
This week my own government has very generously committed itself to offer GBP 9 million - GBP 3 million a year over a three year period - to assist the salmon farmers.
They are asking for matching funds and it is going to be administered by Highlands and Islands Enterprise and the industry itself.
This follows on from discussions which the Scottish office has had with the industry.
I welcome the fact that the Commission is not going to stand in the way of Member States because the second major condition is that the EU competition policy allow these salmon farmers to benefit from this assistance.
This is particularly important, given the ownership of many of the salmon farms in Scotland by Norwegian companies.
Indeed in the Shetland Islands, 50 % of the salmon industry is owned by Norway so it is extremely important that the Commission does not stand in the way and responds, as the Commissioner very generously promised, extremely rapidly to the moves and to any approaches from the Scottish office.
I will be contacting Callum McDonald and John Sewell immediately after this meeting urging them to put in a quick request to the Commission.
Mr President, I wish to thank the Commission for the vigour it has exercised in tackling this issue of salmon in Scotland.
Meanwhile, I would like to point out that Scotland is not the only region to have suffered from salmon diseases, which are partly due to the very efficient breeding of salmon in nets, as practised in Norway.
Stocks of salmon are under threat in Finland too as a result of this sort of intensive farming, particularly as the dreaded salmon parasite has spread to the waters of southern and central Norway.
It has spread north up as far as the Skibotn river, and therefore to the top of the arm of Finland, as it appears on the map, and the Tenojoki river is under imminent threat.
The Tenojoki is Europe's longest salmon river.
The Finnish authorities have been involved in intensive talks with their Norwegian counterparts, but no solution has been found for the protection of natural salmon stocks in the Tenojoki river.
An added danger is the net breeding that is practised by the Norwegians in the Teno fiord.
On the one hand, it threatens the genes of the salmon in the Tenojoki and their future survival in Europe's northernmost salmon river, and, on the other, the spread of the salmon parasite threatens the whole salmon stock in the Tenojoki.
I would hope that the European Commission will embark on vigorous action to save the salmon stock in the European Union's longest salmon river for future generations and prevent it from being sacrificed on the altar of intensive fish farming.
Mr President, this is the third instance of this type of infectious anaemia in the North Atlantic.
Previous outbreaks occurred in Norway and Canada, and now Scotland is affected.
These situations arise because large numbers of salmon regularly escape from fish farms.
Last year, for example, at least 70 tonnes of salmon disappeared from a fish farm near Oban.
To make matters worse, we happen to know that the presence of infectious anaemia was suspected at this particular site.
I believe it is only a matter of time until the disease spreads to wild salmon too - in which case we really will have serious problems, given that wild salmon stocks are already so depleted.
A whole host of problems surround aquaculture and salmon farming in general.
All aspects of the question need to be brought together; perhaps a thorough investigation of the whole practice of aquaculture is now called for.
I wonder whether the Commission would support such an initiative.
Another parasite called gyrodactylus sallaris is also present in Scandinavian waters.
Norway recently came forward with a plan to treat 20 rivers with rotenone.
That was an extreme decision, since such toxic treatment also extinguishes all other forms of life.
What a desperate attempt to get to grips with this parasite!
Perhaps Commissioner Bangemann could tell me whether the Commission is aware of the presence of this parasite in fish in Scotland, Ireland or elsewhere.
Madam President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his helpful statement and for his recognition of the fragility of the salmon market and for the concern he expressed about the consequences of this disease for the hard-pressed fish-farming industry, particularly in Scotland, where it is of vital economic importance to areas such as the Highlands and Islands where there is very little alternative employment.
Around the coastline some 340 salmon farms are supporting some 6 000 jobs in some of the most rural areas of Europe.
It is an industry that is well organised and well managed, but it is in crisis due to infectious salmon anaemia.
This disease, which is a kind of salmon 'flu, was exotic to the European Union until it first appeared in Scotland in May 1998, since when millions of healthy fish from just ten affected farms have had to be destroyed.
ISA has been known to cause very high mortalities in farmed salmon cages, but it is a disease that cannot affect human beings and it does not render the affected fish inedible.
European Union directives as well as UK regulations aim for eradication.
However, the eradication policy does not address the social and economic consequences of the destruction of millions of fish.
The reality is that mass destruction brings with it the prospect of financial ruin for many of the small family firms which are involved.
It can destroy the whole financing of smaller enterprises.
Since this issue was put on Parliament's agenda, the Secretary of State for Scotland has acted, recognising the employment consequences.
As Mr McMahon said, the government has promised GBP 9m over three years, but this being on a matched funding basis with the industry, it is now under negotiation.
It may not be possible for the small farms to meet the matched funding and so what sounds generous may, in fact, for some small enterprises be meaningless.
Banks have indicated that they will not lend on the security of fish stocks, so unless the larger companies are prepared to act as a financial umbrella, it is difficult to see how the offer will stave off financial ruin for these small firms.
The big companies might be able to buy up the small ones, but in many cases it is the small companies which have a fine investment record in our rural areas.
Norway has tacked this problem with a policy of containment rather than slaughter and the question must be asked whether consideration should be given in the European Union to alternative methods of combating the disease.
It is vital that we take action.
Scottish salmon farms are standing at a critical juncture, with decisions on buying next year's smolts now imminent.
It is essential that urgent consideration be given to what further measures, including compensation, may be possible to assist the small-scale enterprises I have referred to.
I cannot emphasise enough the seriousness of this situation.
Swift and determined action is essential if we are to avoid the severe consequences being felt in some of Europe's most economically vulnerable communities.
Finally, Commissioner, may I ask you to confirm whether you would be prepared to consider the introduction of a Community-funded eradication programme should the current national proposals fail?
Mr President, it may seem odd that with my constituency in Hampshire, I should want to intervene in a debate about Scottish salmon.
My constituency is called Itchen, Test and Avon, and these are three rivers famous for their salmon.
I listened very carefully to Commissioner Bangemann.
He mentioned the treatment of the areas affected.
Does he specifically exclude any veterinary or pharmaceutical treatment of the disease, either where it occurs, or as a prophylaxis in areas which could in future be affected?
Mr President, as I said, the Commission is awaiting the proposals of the British Government.
Some measures have been announced but we have received no plans giving detailed and concrete proposals and their financial impact.
But, as I indicated, we appreciate the seriousness of the situation, so no measure is by definition excluded.
I have outlined the policy we are following for the time being.
If it becomes necessary to add a new policy, we will, of course, try to be as helpful as possible.
That also applies to research measures - as far as I know - I am not an expert in research.
As far as we are aware, we have not undertaken any research so far.
But, as always, in our fisheries policy there may be funds available immediately.
If there is a need for additional research from the Community side, of course we could do that as well.
I repeat, we are waiting now for concrete proposals and then we will do our utmost to authorise them and, if necessary, add something more.
Thank you very much, Mr Bangemann.
The debate is closed.
Parliament has now completed its agenda.
The Minutes of today's sitting will be submitted to Parliament for its approval at the beginning of the next sitting.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our work in what has been an interesting week.
I gather from Parliament's services that we have broken a record. We can put this week in the Guinness Book of Records, because we have held over 150 roll-call votes.
I cannot comment on the advantages or otherwise of roll-call votes from my position in the Chair.
They are governed by our Rules of Procedure.
But in any event, ladies and gentlemen, there is no doubt that each and every one of you has made a great effort, and so have Parliament's services.
Our officials and interpreters have had to make a special effort, so it is my pleasant duty to thank them for their cooperation, and I say that with special emphasis today.
After a week of snow this city has presented us with a wonderful day, so let us thank the city for this wonderful day and hope it will accompany us to the various points of the compass to which we shall now disperse to continue our work for the European Union.
Before we end, Mr Bangemann has asked to speak and it is an honour and a pleasure for me to give him the floor.
You have the floor, Mr Bangemann.
Mr President, I just wanted to ask, if you are going to have this number of roll-call votes entered in the Guinness Book of Records, please add the speech I made yesterday.
It was the shortest speech ever given by a Commissioner.
Applause
Mr Bangemann, I think there should be a double entry for that, firstly because it was the shortest speech, and secondly because it was made by you and your answers are usually very comprehensive, which is much appreciated.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 11.15 a.m.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 12 February 1999.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, several Members and political groups have drawn my attention to the fact that over the last few weeks a number of avalanches have taken place in France, Italy, and more recently in Austria, and there have been a great many casualties.
Indeed, the latest avalanche in western Tyrol was the worst for the last 50 years. Five people lost their lives and 33 more are still unaccounted for.
I am sure I speak for the whole House in expressing our condolences to the authorities and to the victims' families, as is our custom after disasters of this nature.
I am quite certain that you all share in the sadness following these events within our Union, in France, Italy and Austria.
Applause
Mr President, let me give you warm thanks on behalf of my delegation and also of the delegation of Austrian Social Democrats for your words of sympathy on the avalanche disaster in Tyrol.
Let me also make a point of order.
As you said, this was the worst avalanche disaster in Austria since the second world war, although of course other Alpine regions have also been hit, in Italy and France and in a non-Member State, Switzerland.
In Austria, the National Assembly observed one minute's silence for the victims.
I think it would be fitting for the European Parliament also to observe one minute's silence in memory of the victims of the Galtür avalanche.
I would add the further request - addressed to the Commission representatives - for funds to be allocated from the 1999 budget, from budget line B4-330 for protection against environmental and other disasters, to help the regions concerned.
Aid that is given rapidly is doubly useful.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs Stenzel.
I am sure the Commission will have taken note.
It is not Parliament's custom to observe a minute's silence following disasters of this nature, for the simple reason that we would have to do so frequently since they are, unfortunately, all too common in Europe, and Europe is so large.
Nevertheless, I am quite prepared to agree to your request.
I invite Members to observe a minute's silence if they feel this to be appropriate.
Parliament observed a minute's silence
In the past few days, I have also received a number of complaints from certain Members concerning the decision to cancel the meetings planned for last Monday.
I should like to take this opportunity to explain the precise impact of this decision and the reasons for it.
I must first emphasise that the European Parliament did not close its doors.
It remained open throughout the whole of Monday, and the minimum services required to support Members and any visitors were provided.
For example, Vice-President Imbeni was able to meet a delegation of Italian farmers on Parliament's premises.
Secondly, it is worth pointing out that the European Parliament is not empowered to guarantee public order in the immediate vicinity outside its buildings.
That falls to the Belgian authorities, who were responsible for the decision to seal off the area surrounding the Community's institutions.
Thirdly, in view of the fact that due to the arrangements put in place by the Belgian authorities, it was impossible to guarantee the presence of the staff needed to ensure the smooth running of the parliamentary committee meetings - which, as you know better than I, require the attendance of a whole range of officials, interpreters and so on - the wisest course of action seemed to be to cancel the meetings.
That decision was taken by the Secretary-General, who had been in constant contact with me. It was taken on my express authority, following consultations with the Quaestor responsible for security.
Finally, it should be made quite clear that at no time did the demonstration's organisers request a meeting with any European Parliament body.
However, the farmers who took part in the demonstration held in Strasbourg during the last part-session did request a meeting, and I myself met them together with President Santer, Mr Colino, the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, and Commissioner Fischler. The meeting lasted approximately one hour.
On this last occasion, the demonstrators were targeting the Council, not Parliament, which is why no meeting was requested.
Had such a meeting been requested, the necessary arrangements would certainly have been made. Naturally, any delegation would have been officially received if it had been possible to do so.
The decision taken may or may not have been the right one, but I can assure you that it was based on the practical difficulties of gaining access to the premises and on the perceived need for caution. It should not be interpreted as a slight, nor as an attack on the right to demonstrate or to put political positions to Parliament.
Parliament always welcomes citizens' political views.
Mr Nassauer, you have the floor.
Mr President, did I really understand you to say that the Belgian state informed you, the President of the European Parliament, that it could not guarantee the security of sittings in this Chamber?
Secondly, where does it say in the Rules of Procedure that with the agreement of the President the Secretary-General can cancel duly convened parliamentary sittings or other meetings? Is that not a matter for the Bureau or the responsible bodies?
Applause
Thirdly, do you really think it fitting for the European Parliament to abandon its sittings under pressure of an announced demonstration and to bring its political activities to a halt? Would it not have been more appropriate for Parliament as such to have spoken to the demonstrators, rather than simply closing its gates?
Applause
I shall certainly reply to your three questions, Mr Nassauer.
With regard to your first question, the Belgian authorities did not tell us whether or not we could hold meetings.
What they did say was that they intended to seal off the area, that public transport - the underground, trains and buses - would be unable to reach it, and that there would be three access routes for cars.
It did not seem possible to guarantee that committee meetings could go ahead in the light of these plans, as the presence of the officials and interpreters required to support the meetings could not be relied on. I should point out that this was the only parliamentary business cancelled.
Concerning your second question, this decision was made public by the Secretary-General but authorised by me. In taking it, I was merely exercising the powers granted to me under Rule 19 of the Rules of Procedure, according to which I am empowered to ensure that parliamentary business, and therefore committee business, is properly conducted.
If I am unable to do so, because I cannot guarantee interpretation and the support of the relevant officials, it is my duty to request the Secretary-General to cancel the meetings in question.
Turning to your third question, business was not cancelled as a result of the demonstration, but because the Belgian authorities had decided to seal off the area in which the European institutions are located. This affected not only Parliament, but also the Commission and the Council.
The measures that were planned hindered access to Parliament.
A number of Members have asked for the floor.
I have no wish to deny the floor to anyone, but I would point out that as Mr Verheugen is unable to be present through illness, the Council will be represented today by Mr Volmer.
Mr Volmer also has commitments in the Bundestag . The more time we spend discussing this matter now, the less there will be to discuss the items on the agenda.
Mr President, on a separate but related point: when I came into this building this afternoon there was some sort of demonstration taking place at the very doors of this Chamber.
A huge banner was being raised - it does not matter to what end.
I have in the past written to you, Mr President, and I have received a reply from the College of Quaestors to say that demonstations of that nature at the door of this Chamber will not be allowed.
This afternoon such a demonstration took place.
Can I be assured that if we cannot keep order in the streets of Brussels, we can at least keep order inside the Parliament building?
Mr Perry, unfortunately it was our own Members who were demonstrating.
I presume you are not asking me to ask the gendarmerie to disperse them.
Five Members were involved and we felt it was better to let their demonstration take place than to help their cause by breaking it up.
I do not think we should continue with this discussion.
I see there are six people asking for the floor.
I regret it very much but we must proceed with the approval of the Minutes of the last session.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 12 February 1999 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, my name appears to be missing from the attendance register for the last sitting, although I was definitely there and even remember signing the register.
I am therefore very surprised at this omission and would ask that my presence on Friday, 12 February be recorded.
We shall check that without delay.
Mr President, I have a comment, or rather a request, to make to you about page 7 of the German version of the Minutes of the sitting of 12 February 1999.
In the point of order recorded in it, I said that the expected Wise Men's report should also be referred to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Let me ask you to forward this report to us officially for our committee meeting on 15 and 16 March.
We need it for consultation, we need it so that we can, if necessary, consider it in the light of the discharge procedures that are still pending.
I said that this committee is the right forum for deciding the appropriate steps to take.
The report is quite clearly of great relevance to our committee.
So I would ask you to ensure that we receive the documents in good time for our meeting.
Applause
Mrs Theato, the Committee of Independent Experts is due to submit its conclusions at 5 p.m. on Monday, 15 March. The report will be made available to your committee as soon as it has been translated.
This should be on the following day, as the translators will work overtime. The Conference of Presidents has decided that the groups may present their own resolutions on this report, but your committee will naturally receive the report in order to consider the outstanding issues.
Mr President, I asked to speak about the Minutes.
The Secretary-General and the Deputy Secretary-General seem to be able to see the demonstrating farmers in the distance better than they can see the Members in the Chamber.
On page 1 of the minutes, my speech has been recorded rather too concisely in my opinion.
It says that I described the decision taken by you and referred to by the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, as inopportune and legally inappropriate.
I would like the Minutes to record that I quoted Article 5 of Annex V of the Rules of Procedure as the basis on which the Committee on Budgetary Control should receive the report of the Committee of Independent Experts. My speech should not have been presented so concisely, even in the Minutes.
We shall check the transcription of your speech, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, and make any necessary corrections.
The Minutes were approved
Agenda
At the request of a number of political groups, the following changes to the agenda are proposed:
Wednesday
from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. in fact now from 3.20 p.m. to 4 p.m.: Council and Commission statements on the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan and the need for a political solution to the Kurdish question; -from 4 p.m. to 4.30 p.m.: Council statement on the refusal to approve the draft agreement with South Africa negotiated by the Commission; -from 4.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. and 9 p.m. to midnight: the agenda to be changed as follows: the Commission communication on competition in sport to be deleted; the recommendation for second reading by Mr Bazin on vehicle registration documents (A4-0033/99) to be taken without debate and put to the vote tomorrow, at the request of the Committee on Transport.Mrs Breyer has the floor.
Mr President, pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure, the Green Group requests referral back to committee of the Grossetête report.
I would justify this as follows. I believe we should not vote on reports that have already passed their sell-by date.
The Commission is already working on a new proposal and has also spoken to a number of MEPs and made it quite clear that a completely revised version now exists.
I do not think there is much point voting on a report that is totally out of date.
I also think it would make us look a little ridiculous. There is enough other work to be done without embarking on this kind of Sisyphean task.
So I would ask for this report to be referred back to committee.
You need only ask the Commission, which will confirm that a new draft will be available in the very near future and that there is little point deciding on a report that is already out of date.
Mrs Breyer, I cannot put your proposal to the vote.
The agenda was approved in Strasbourg.
The only proposals I have made now concern modifications previously discussed with the political groups, and I have done so because there was general agreement amongst them.
You are raising a new issue, which nobody has been able to debate, at a time when, according to the Rules, it is not possible to do so.
I cannot put your proposal to the vote because you should have submitted it earlier so that it could have been debated, or at least submitted it prior to the fixing of the agenda.
I will put to the vote the modifications to the agenda proposed in agreement with the political groups.
Parliament agreed to this proposal
Mr President, I do not think you are proceeding entirely correctly.
Rule 129 states quite clearly: 'may be requested ... when the agenda is fixed or before the start of the debate'.
We have not yet started the debate and, if I have understood you correctly, we have just fixed the agenda.
Let me also point out that at its last meeting the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy actually asked for this item not to be included on the agenda because of the new Commission proposal.
So let me urgently repeat my request - and you are welcome to give the Commission the floor again.
After all it really is outrageous for us to debate a totally obsolete report.
So I urgently ask you to put this motion to the vote!
Mrs Breyer, please read the Rule carefully.
It allows you to request referral back to committee at three stages.
Firstly, when the agenda is fixed, which we are not doing now.
We are not fixing the agenda now, but only changing it.
Secondly, before the start of the debate.
When the time comes for the start of the debate, you will be able to make your request.
And thirdly, before the final vote.
At the moment, however, we are not fixing the agenda but simply approving a number of changes, which is what we have done.
Detention of Abdullah Öcalan and Kurdish question
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan and the need for a political solution to the Kurdish question.
I give the floor to Mr Volmer, President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad to have this first opportunity to speak to the House.
Unfortunately, the matter we are about to debate is a regrettable one.
Following the arrest of Mr Öcalan by the Turkish authorities, and the inability or impotence of the international community to find an international solution to the question of how he could be brought to trial, there has, unfortunately, been a rising tide of violence in nearly every European country, which has caused loss of life, injuries and very serious material damage.
We utterly condemn the use of violence.
We cannot tolerate or accept political problems, however serious, being tackled by the use of this kind of violence.
Ever since this issue erupted into a crisis, people at all levels, in all the European states and in the European Union, have been discussing how they can help to resolve the conflicts in south-eastern Turkey.
You, ladies and gentlemen, took note of the EU's joint statement of 22 February 1999 on the subject.
There are increasing calls to the effect that after the PKK riots in Europe this is now an EU foreign policy issue.
I agree.
We must not forget that the excesses of the last few days were precipitated by a conflict that is occurring primarily in the country of a NATO partner that will one day also be an EU partner, namely Turkey, where it also has its origins.
In any case, the thinking behind much of what has been said in the public discussions over the past few days needs to be sorted out.
Let me try to contribute to this.
In my view it is true that the PKK has discredited itself by its acts of terrorism and violence.
It has also discredited itself in terms of its claim to represent the legitimate interests of the Kurdish people.
But Öcalan's PKK, as it is seen and perceived today, with the role and power it has today, would certainly not have been conceivable were it not for the present internal situation in our partner state, Turkey, which lives in constant fear of its territorial integrity being put at risk.
In that sense the PKK, its aims and its methods are in part the symptom of a more deep-seated problem.
And it is precisely for that reason that we cannot regard it as the legitimate expression of Kurdish interests or as a warring party that we should recognise.
On the contrary, because of its random acts of violence, the PKK has repeatedly discredited itself as a political force.
There is now an unmistakeable risk that this will also discredit Kurdish concerns as such among large sections of European public opinion.
The PKK is largely responsible for the fact that today Turkey still perceives almost any movement towards ethnic identity as a threat to its national unity and territorial integrity.
If Turkey is to be in a situation in future where it can satisfy the legitimate demands of ethnic groups and distinguish them from terrorist threats, the first need is to allay these fears.
The major if not only obstacle to such a process is that a group that is prepared to use violence and all too often does so in Europe too is presenting itself as the legitimate representative of Kurdish interests.
If we really want to see progress here, we must have the courage to speak the truth and the strength to promote reconciliation.
The first step along that road is having the courage to speak the truth in all friendliness, however uncomfortable or inconvenient that truth may be.
In my view we must recognise, first of all, that there is a Kurdish question.
Secondly, in the end that question can only be resolved in Turkey.
Thirdly, we should start a dialogue with Turkey on the best way of resolving this question.
We believe that every nation and every ethnic group has the right to cultural autonomy and to at least partial self-administration in this area.
But that right must be clearly distinguished from the right to national independence, which implies separatism.
This distinction between cultural autonomy and national separatism was the key to the Contact Group's attempts during the Rambouillet negotiations to seek a peaceful settlement, and in our view this same distinction is also the key to resolving other regional conflicts.
We hope the Turkish Government will grasp the opportunity presented by Öcalan's arrest and that it will perceive the difference between national separatism and cultural autonomy.
We could also argue on the basis of international law.
The people's right to self-determination does not automatically imply the right to form a state; but conversely minority rights, such as the right to cultural autonomy, must not be rejected and suppressed simply on the grounds of a justified or unjustified fear of separatism.
We hope we will be able to start a dialogue with Turkey that has a fruitful outcome.
Some statements from Turkey itself encourage us in that hope.
For example, President Demirel suggested there could be an amnesty for PKK fighters who laid down their arms.
Prime Minister Ecevit spoke out against the death penalty.
The Turkish Parliament has drafted a bill providing for a degree of regionalisation in Turkey.
These are encouraging signs, which we will gladly follow up in the hope of reaching a viable result both for the Turkish State and for the Kurdish minority.
Our stand is entirely clear: Turkey has a quite justified interest in maintaining its national integrity.
We will support it in that.
On the other hand, the Kurds also have a quite legitimate interest in developing their cultural autonomy.
We support that position too.
We will discuss the open questions with the Turkish Government.
The conditions for a dialogue are better than they were in the past, now that Turkey has been informed from various quarters that there is a prospect of it becoming a full member of the European Union if it satisfies all the conditions laid down in Copenhagen for all applicants to EU membership.
In particular, these conditions relate to standards of democratisation and human rights.
The discussions on improving citizenship rights in Germany - to turn for a moment to the domestic politics of my own country - have also led to a considerable improvement in the terms of our dialogue with Turkey, which is one of the most crucial prerequisites if we assume that the problems of refugees and asylum-seekers must be resolved in the country where their causes lie.
In that respect our German discussions on reviewing citizenship rights fulfil an important function.
I hope Turkey will grasp the opportunity inherent in the present situation and that by resolving the Kurdish problem on the basis of democracy, human rights and minority rights Turkey will itself move a step closer to Europe.
Applause
Time is short, Mr President, so I will be brief and simply echo what has been said by the presidency and emphasise that the Commission naturally endorses in every respect the statement adopted last Monday by the Council.
That once again condemns acts of terror in the most explicit terms, but it applies not only to measures which Turkey takes against extremists when they break the law but also to acts perpetrated by the Kurds, of the kind we have regrettably seen subsequent to Mr Öcalan's detention and removal to Turkey.
Secondly, and equally, there is a reaffirmation of the territorial integrity of Turkey, which should not be an issue in this whole debate.
We also want to see Turkey abiding by the agreements it has signed, allowing a fair and independent trial and respecting the rights of the accused to defend himself. We expressly urge Turkey to do that.
Lastly, we urge too that there should be no let-up in resistance to terrorist activity, and we must of course support Turkey in this.
We do not accept terrorism in our own countries either, but we should not leave it at that, and should look afresh at ways of finding a political, non-violent solution to what has come to be known as the Kurdish question.
Recognition that this question exists is the first step towards a solution.
We agree with the Council that it is not right simply and solely to criticise Turkey.
On the question of upholding human rights, neither the Council nor the Commission has pulled its punches in criticising Turkey.
But the Kurdish question as such is of course enormously complex and complicated, with broad repercussions in all directions.
And with that in mind, I would remind your President and the House of earlier proposals which the European Commission made in an attempt to help improve the situation in the south-east of Turkey, in particular the social and economic underdevelopment there, by means of MEDA programmes aimed specifically at that region, knowing as we do that areas of social underdevelopment are usually a fertile breeding-ground for terror.
The Kurdish question is not intrinsically an economic one, of course, but economic factors have to be considered alongside political action to find a lasting solution to the Kurdish community's legitimate claims to respect for their cultural identity and their minority rights.
Mr President, until today whenever we have raised the Kurdish question, the response from Turkey was that, firstly, it is an internal matter and, secondly, it is a question of terrorism.
The events of the last days and months, and in particular, the recent demonstrations in Europe have proved that it is an international question with important implications for European peace, stability and security.
My group believes and has stated on many occasions that terrorism is a symptom of problems and that terrorism can only be tackled if the causes which nourish it are eliminated.
Just as in Northern Ireland, Bloody Sunday created a ready-made recruiting ground for the IRA, the destruction of villages in the south-east of Turkey and the impact of the state of emergency on civilians have only served to strengthen terrorism.
In my constituency in North London live many thousands of Kurdish refugees, mainly from Turkey.
Anyone like me who has spent time listening and talking to those people cannot doubt their despair or their passionate desire for peace, and their genuine desire to exercise their culture, language and tradition as Kurds.
Those of you who watched your TV screens last week will have seen a 15-year-old Kurdish girl set herself on fire in London.
That young girl lives in my constituency in Wood Green.
She and her family live as refugees.
I want to reject any suggestion that those people, who we all saw demonstrating last week, were nothing but a bunch of terrorists.
Applause
This is simply not true.
Of course, amongst those demonstrators were those who support terrorist activity and we all actively condemn them.
But the majority were people as concerned for peace as you and I. That is why my group would now make an appeal to Turkey to recognise that this moment represents a chance for the Turkish authorities and political parties.
The arrest and forthcoming trial of Mr Öcalan provide an opportunity to demonstrate that even in the most sensitive of trials, Turkey's judiciary can act in a fair and transparent manner, fulfilling its international obligations.
People ask if we have a right to even ask that question.
Of course we do.
I have spoken to Turkish ministers who have told me that there are extrajudicial murders in Turkey and torture in prisons.
So of course we have the right to state those demands.
However, a bigger opportunity exists.
Turkey could now move to address the legitimate grievances of its Kurdish citizens.
I welcome the Council's statement in that context.
It could reform the political system to allow the Kurdish minority to express itself within the political system.
It could move to address the stark economic inequalities between the south-east and the rest of the country.
It could ensure that Kurds in Turkey enjoy the right to have their children educated in their own language.
As we approach elections in Turkey it could put an end to the harassment of HADEP and give them the chance to participate on an equal footing with Turkey's other parties.
Applause
These are the steps which would convince us that Turkey is serious about its application to join the EU.
These are the steps which would immediately promote stability and security both for Turkey and the European Union and would receive the most enormous support from this House.
Applause
Mr President, everyone of course, including the press, is saying very clearly just now that there must be a fair and public trial for Mr Öcalan; even for someone who will probably be found guilty of manifest acts of terrorism; even for someone who has not shrunk from acts of violence, a kind of action with which we have never had the slightest sympathy, any more than we like the brutal repression exercised by the Turkish army in the south-east of the country.
Öcalan has to have a fair, just and public trial, and not just because of our concept of the values of the European Union, and because otherwise Turkey cannot aspire to become a member, since it would of course be strange to hold a fair and public trial for those reasons alone.
And in any case, we have quite a few other political problems to resolve over our relations with Turkey before there can be any question of its joining the Union.
I am surprised by the reactions we hear along these lines, sometimes from the foreign ministers too, the Dutch minister amongst them.
We in the European Union must realise that this trial is symptomatic of a deeper problem, a problem which is relevant to us all, since there are so many Turks and Turks of Kurdish descent living in the European Union.
Year after year, generation after generation, they have become used to democracy and the rule of law, and many of them would be willing to hold talks, would really like to enter into a dialogue.
I would urge those who speak for the Union, and the Council and Commission, to support the people in our Union, Kurds and Turks, who would be willing to engage in a dialogue from here, from inside the Union, in order to help Turkey to resolve its minorities problem, because these people are moderates who might succeed in finding a solution here.
Mr Öcalan's arrest prompted more than just violence.
We unreservedly condemn that violence, but there were also demonstrations, including ones in Amsterdam at the end of last week, which were very dignified and in which the Kurds showed that their numbers include a moderate and democratic community of people. We ought to listen to them.
I think Turkey must now make use of this development and show generosity - generosity in resolving the problem of the Kurds.
I think we all want a state which is seeking membership of the European Union to give proper heed to this minority issue.
It can be resolved without disturbing the territorial integrity of Turkey.
I think we all agree with the President-in-Office that you have to make a distinction between self-determination and the justification for separatism.
Self-determination is possible when you live in a democracy where the rule of law applies.
Turkey needs to seize the opportunity of moving resolutely in that direction.
Applause
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, there are two aspects to Mr Öcalan's arrest.
Firstly, we have here the man who is the tough leader of a terrorist organisation, the PKK.
This House has never expressed the slightest support for the actions of this man and his PKK, however tragic and hopeless the fate of the Kurds might have seemed.
But we are pressing for a public trial before a civil court.
If Turkey seriously wants to join the Union, it goes without saying that it must show itself to be a state truly based on the rule of law.
Secondly, the arrest of Mr Öcalan once again puts the tragic fate of the Kurds on the political agenda.
I would refer the House to a report by my former colleague, the Italian Liberal Mr Gawronski, which was adopted seven years ago in this House by a very large majority and which examines ways in which Parliament, the Commission and the Council might place the Kurdish question on the agenda.
This, as you know, is a people numbering 25 million souls, whose existence is not recognised.
They were the victims, it is said, of internal discord, and they were scattered over seven countries, but above all they were denied a national identity by the international community at the beginning of the 1920s, when France and the United Kingdom were still world powers.
The PKK is not the same thing as the Kurds.
This radical movement speaks for only a fraction of them.
There are many organisations among the Kurds which do respect the rules of democracy.
The Turkish Government is wrong to ban all these organisations, and Mr Oostlander touched on this.
In so doing, it alienates the forces of democracy and encourages the Kurds to be more radical, closing the door to possible solutions.
What can our Union do? The Union must continue to promote democratisation and the rights of Turkey, and we must send observers, yes, of course.
The Union must press Turkey to respect the rights of its citizens and minorities.
Its citizens must have the right to their own language and culture.
Democratic parties, such as HADEP, must be given their rights too.
When are all these Kurdish members of parliament, currently held in detention, going to be released?
Turkey must move forward with the social and economic development of south-eastern Turkey.
I have a whole list of other things it must do.
Without meaning to, Turkey has indeed put the Kurdish question on the agenda.
Perhaps, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, we too can put something on the agenda.
We must have a common position on the Öcalan case. We did not have this before.
As a Union and as Member States we should have determined our responsibilities, had our contingency plans ready, for a problem which has been in existence now for 20, 30 or 40 years.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after years of guerrilla fighting and repression against the perpetrators of terrorist attacks, resulting in thousands of deaths, Turkey has now managed to arrest the main instigator of this violence, the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Öcalan.
Our aim must not be to criticise, which is easily done when not personally involved in a conflict, but to try and highlight the positive aspects of the new situation caused by Öcalan's arrest, in order to promote peace in the region.
For more than two decades, the only means of expression open to the Kurdish people living in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria has been violence.
Clearly, we condemn all forms of terrorism and all acts of violence, which are never helpful to a cause. However, now that the leader of the main organisation responsible for these attacks is in prison, an urgent solution must be found to the problem which this population of thirty million presents.
The last twenty years of guerrilla war have obscured the cultural, linguistic and humanitarian rights of these people. The international community's role should now be to work for a peaceful diplomatic solution which gives the Kurdish people the right to a certain degree of autonomy within the current borders of the four countries involved.
Öcalan's arrest must also be used to highlight the fact that the PKK is not the only representative of the Kurdish community. It is our duty, in this respect, to stress to the Turkish authorities that the whole Kurdish community should not be held responsible for the actions of Öcalan, who has taken it upon himself to act as spokesman for all the Kurds.
We must also insist that the Turkish authorities should ensure that the trial is conducted in such a way that the international community and also the Kurds themselves can assess the true merit of the reasons for his arrest and imprisonment.
My last point concerns the violence which has occurred in Europe and the hostage-taking at various embassies by Kurds demonstrating against the arrest of their leader.
Whereas these violent actions were clearly very well organised, it is apparent that the European Union was totally disorganised. This should act as an incentive for us to strengthen links between our respective police services in terms of exchanging information so that we can crack down on international terrorism in our countries.
Mr President, the Abdullah Öcalan affair started badly last November and it has continued badly.
The countries of the European Union were agreed that Mr Öcalan should not be handed over to Turkey, but they did not give any answer to the question of where he should stay.
No one, not one country either individually or as part of a group, offered him political asylum.
That of course was the other side of the coin.
If you state one part of your position, you have to state the rest of it as well. Europe did not do that.
In Turkey itself, despite the many triumphalist pronouncements made there, we now see the dawning realisation that Öcalan's arrest has not resolved the Kurdish question.
The question now is whether Europe can take any action which is politically relevant.
It is true that the Kurdish problem is a political problem, an international one, but also that it is primarily an international problem arising within Europe.
We do not have the feeling that the measures taken by the United States took account of the implications for Europe.
We believe that what Europe can do in specific terms is, firstly, to continue exerting pressure on the way in which the trial is conducted.
We see that the criticisms to date have already had some degree of success, in that Turkey is beginning to soften a little on the fact that the case is to be heard by a state security court, where normal independent jurisprudence does not usually apply, by starting to take some limited measures to appoint only civilian prosecutors and so on.
We must persist in consistently attacking the idea of a military court.
And we must send a delegation from the Union, with doctors, lawyers and people well versed in human rights issues, to ensure that Öcalan gets a fair trial and is kept in a decent state of health.
Secondly, we think it is crucial that in the run-up to the elections there should be room for democratic Kurdish voices to be heard.
HADEP currently has great difficulties in this regard, and we need to make it clear that, in a normal and fair electoral process, all parties must be free to take part without impediment.
That is not the case at present.
The European Parliament should take an initiative here, and it can do that very well by sending a delegation.
It is only in a democratic Turkey, a democratised Turkey, that a solution to the Kurdish question can be found.
Madam President, in my opinion this House is too fond of giving lectures as an easy way of salving its conscience.
We will once again be voting tomorrow to denounce the grave threat to the life of Abdullah Öcalan. We will also rightly be demanding a political solution to the Kurdish question.
In my opinion, we should also take this opportunity to examine our own consciences, which we have not done either in this resolution or even in this discussion. Öcalan's friends who have tried to support the PKK leader's cause and who have actually, I believe, speeded his downfall should also examine their consciences with regard to the attitudes that we have been led to adopt in the European Union.
A country which should have requested Öcalan's extradition did not do so.
The very least we can say is that Italy hesitated too long instead of choosing the only route which might have prevented what happened subsequently.
Öcalan is in Turkey, yet everyone said this was the last place he should go.
Italy should perhaps have shouldered our responsibility for us, given that neither Germany nor the European Union managed to find the political solution needed, perhaps by strengthening the Schengen procedure and the asylum procedure.
In my opinion, Italy should have accepted the rules of the terrorism convention and shouldered its responsibilities by judging Öcalan itself.
This has not happened and I believe that Europe must acknowledge that it was at fault in order to act as a lesson for the future.
Without political union, such cases are likely to occur again, and the Union's reputation is hardly enhanced by them.
Madam President, every people has a right to its own nation, and anyone accused of a crime has a right to a fair trial.
Turkey is oppressing the Kurdish people, and I have no confidence that Mr Öcalan will get proper justice.
I believe that even now he is being tortured.
I have never known of anything else in the course of my work with political prisoners in Turkey.
Once I was with a group of politicians drawn from most Western European countries who accompanied two exiled politicians to Ankara.
We were to be their shield.
As soon as we arrived at the airport, they were arrested and sent directly for interrogation and torture.
We tried to visit them in prison but were not allowed in.
In the entrance hall I saw two boys of the same ages as my own children - 8 and 11 - in handcuffs with their hands behind their backs.
How can adult human beings treat children as criminals before they have even reached puberty? When we visited Ankara for the second time during the trial, I delivered a personal letter from the President of Parliament, Lord Plumb, to the two detainees.
In that way I was able to get through the barrier and talk to them.
They told of serious torture.
The worst was not the cigarette burns or electric shocks.
The worst was that they were woken every time they fell asleep for fresh interrogation and torture.
The European countries must tell Turkey once and for all that torture is a crime against humanity.
It is not possible to have normal relations with Turkey as long as it continues to torture and as long as it continues to oppress the Kurdish people.
May I propose that we send members of our Turkey delegation to take turns in attending the trial as observers?
Madam President, Alleanza Nazionale is prompted by the Öcalan affair to make a number of comments.
Firstly, the Kurdish minorities in Turkey, Iraq and Iran are entitled to recognition of their identity, specific character and aspirations to large-scale autonomy; secondly, the PKK is neither the sole nor the largest party capable of representing these aspirations; thirdly, in its struggle the PKK has resorted to outright terrorism and deployed the most unscrupulous methods of funding itself, including drug trafficking; and fourthly, the Europe of left-wing Socialist governments has proved unable to handle the Öcalan case in a united and coherent way.
Having said that, a summary trial by Turkey without any guarantees is unacceptable; we call for the trial to be conducted with respect for the rights of the accused, rather than under threat of the death penalty.
It is equally unacceptable for our cities to become the scene of clashes and gratuitous violence on the part of those who are allowed entry for humanitarian reasons.
Finally, I would refer to the extremely serious statements made by the President-in-Office.
It would indeed be a cause for concern if a Member State such as Greece really had been supporting the PKK - more or less indirectly - on the grounds of a deep-seated and, these days, incomprehensible antagonism towards the Turkish people.
Madam President, the President-in-Office of the Council said in so many words that the Council and the European community of states have shown that they are unable find a common position on the Öcalan issue.
Yes, this inability is there and it is a scandal how it has been demonstrated in the last few months.
But what annoys me especially and what is particularly scandalous is that even after Öcalan ended up in Turkey - against his will - a statement was issued that is not worth the paper it is written on, for it does not once mention the Kurdish problem or the Kurdish situation.
It refers to problems that need to be resolved.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you are not specifically responsible for that document.
You have spoken out quite clearly here.
You did not treat the PKK gently, but at least you spoke clearly and unequivocally.
I would like to see the foreign ministers or the Council get round to speaking unequivocally instead of producing documents that merely reflect their inability to reach a common position.
Secondly, we are also dealing here with the Öcalan case and not just with the Kurdish question in general, and Pauline Green very clearly described our position in regard to achieving a peaceful political solution.
We regard Öcalan neither as a great hero nor as a particularly nice man, but like many others he deserves fair treatment, treatment that respects his health, treatment that is fair, decent, public and transparent, treatment that allows him to be visited by lawyers, whom we hope he really can choose freely.
That is why we are also discussing Öcalan, because he has become a symbol, a symbol for many other proceedings in Turkey which unfortunately go unnoticed and which are unfair, untransparent and make a mockery of the constitutional state.
For Turkey it is not just a question of humanity, it is also a question of political wisdom that it conducts at least these proceedings in an objective, fair and public manner.
We call on Turkey - and will not cease to do so - to change its approach and seek a political solution to the problem, to take a political approach to the problem of the Kurds and the rights of the Kurds - and here I entirely agree with what you said on the matter.
If it takes that approach, then Turkey can be sure that every Member of this Parliament will try to convince the Kurds that they too must make their contribution towards a peaceful, political solution.
It takes two sides, it takes Turkey and it takes the Kurdish organisations, who must do their utmost to achieve a peaceful settlement.
But we in this Parliament will not cease to support a peaceful solution to a question that can only be resolved by peaceful, political means.
Madam President, it is a fact rather than a value judgement that once a man's name becomes - or is made - synonymous with a political problem, it is then difficult to distinguish one thing from the other.
We should have learnt as much from the Arafat precedent!
In other words, just as the name Arafat was and is connected with the Palestinian question, so the Öcalan case raises the unresolved problem of the Kurdish people.
Like it or not, this should be Turkey's starting-point in tackling what is a domestic problem, by granting autonomy to the Kurds and fulfilling one of the conditions that will enable it to make a dignified entry into Europe at some date in the future.
And yet the events since Öcalan's illegal arrest do not give us much cause for hope.
When a prisoner is shown off - proudly - in the conditions in which Öcalan was shown, every human right in the book is being flouted.
When lawyers find it difficult even to meet with their client, it is doubtful that the procedural rules are being observed.
When a special tribunal is appointed, one of whose members is a colonel, one has the impression that the rule of law is no longer a valid concept.
And finally, when the shadow of the gallows looms over the outcome of the trial, Turkey should be informed of Europe's views, for the sake both of Turkey and of Europe itself.
Madam President, when crises flare up, as they did after the arrest of the PKK leader Öcalan, we only discuss the immediate symptoms rather than the general political background to these conflicts.
That is true of the Kurdish problem, it is equally true of the problems in Kosovo or the trouble spots in the CIS states.
Of course we must call emphatically on Turkey to observe the European Convention on Human Rights.
Similarly, we must condemn the death penalty worldwide.
But over and above day-to-day politics, we should use the Öcalan case as an opportunity to take long-term measures, to develop an active European peace policy; but that also means imposing the appropriate sanctions on countries that systematically violate human rights.
Human rights and the right of the people to self-determination must take precedence over economic interests.
Unfortunately, at present the reverse is true.
Every time we stand by and watch basic injustices continue for years without raising our voice, we ourselves become accomplices.
Madam President, Mr Swoboda has just reproached the Council communiqué for not including the word 'Kurds'.
Let me quote a Turkish newspaper, the Turkish paper Radical which praised this text as being 'rédigé avec finesse et précaution ' - carefully and delicately worded.
So in other words it is an exceptionally hypocritical text.
I agree with the Council that the problems in Turkey must be solved by political means. I welcome the Council's statement that '... all genuine efforts to separate the fight against terrorism from the search for political solutions ...' must be made, but my problem is that the Council does not say that efforts of that kind are conspicuous by their absence at the moment in Turkey.
Mention was made of the HADEP trial before a state security court, a trial which significantly is being held before the elections, to be concluded after the elections, so that voters know that they risk voting for the wrong party if it has just been banned.
The number of intellectuals sentenced or still before the state security courts for doing precisely what the Council wants to see happening in Turkey is alarmingly high.
There is not a word about this in the whole of the Council document. That is what I regret most.
A word or two on what Commissioner van den Broek said just now about aid to south-eastern Turkey.
I agree with him.
But I think it has so far been extremely difficult to give aid to an area where two parties are engaged in military confrontation.
Aid is then always aid to one side which gets used against the other.
The situation at the moment is somewhat clearer, in that the PKK really has been pushed back quite a bit by the army, so that rather more can be done in the region.
But the Commissioner might also have said that the European Union, with Parliament's backing, is currently addressing this, and that we have initiated some fairly sizeable health and vocational training projects aimed at that region.
The problem remains, though, that the Turks have still not signed the cooperation agreement and therefore cannot currently accept this aid because the financial basis is not yet there, and that is their fault.
One more small point. I think it is essential for the Commission to support the NGOs in Turkey in order to bring about the civil society, the democracy and the human rights we need there.
I think it is quite dreadful that the Commission, by insisting that the NGOs provide financial guarantees, sums which they do not have, has currently brought these kinds of programmes to a complete halt.
Urgent action needs to be taken on that, and very soon.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Parliament too must take a definite position on the arrest of PKK leader Öcalan.
I find that the opinion delivered by the Committee on External Economic Affairs, Security and Defence Policy of 17 February does not do so, for in my view there is no doubt that the European Parliament must condemn the PKK's terrorism most emphatically.
We must also very strongly condemn the acts of violence committed by PKK fighters throughout Europe.
So we call on all the states to take consistent action to combat this use of force and terrorism, as they keep declaring they will do.
Some EU Member States have not covered themselves in glory in recent years when it came to Öcalan and the PKK.
Let me tell the state minister, Mr Volmer, that these states include Germany, not just Greece.
I can only repeat what we said at our delegation meeting in Istanbul, as President Dankert noted: for Turkey, this arrest is a total success, given the attitude of the European states.
The result is clear to see: acts of violence throughout Europe.
We must be clear about a number of things.
One: Mr Öcalan deserves a fair trial, has a right to a fair trial.
Two: Turkey must also guarantee an independent judiciary.
Three: independent observers must be admitted.
Four: if Mr Öcalan is, as expected, condemned to death, Turkey must allow him to live.
Five: although we totally condemn the PKK's acts of terrorism, Turkey itself must take steps to find political solutions to the Kurdish problems.
Six: Turkey would be sending out a clear signal if it allowed the Kurdish party - which obtained 4.6 % of votes last time - to participate in the elections on 18 April.
That is another demand that is not set out in the statement!
Madam President, much confusion has been created, both intentionally and unintentionally, around the issue of Mr Öcalan.
Government propaganda, secret services, mutually opposed organisations, as well as a multiplicity of interests, have whipped up and continue to feed public opinion in Europe, thereby diverting it away from the responsibilities of the European Union.
Amid all this confusion, we are overlooking the simple and universal principles which must be observed.
Firstly, the civilised world abhors terrorism and condemns it whatever its aims.
The end can never justify the means.
Secondly, however, until guilt can be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt, everyone must be protected so that they can defend themselves.
It is a sad fact that in Europe, the birthplace of these principles, their implementation was not called for.
All those responsible tried, each for their own reasons, to rid themselves of the Öcalan problem.
Germany could have tried him, since it acknowledges that he was the leader of a terrorist organisation in Germany.
Instead, Mr Öcalan finds himself on trial in a country where there is not the slightest guarantee that he will get a fair trial. And now we are uttering vain wishes that Turkey will hold a fair trial, when just the other day the Council of Europe decision was issued regarding the tortures that are taking place there.
Madam President, I very much regret that Europe will have to apologise, not to the terrorist organisation, the PKK, but to the blood-soaked Kurdish nation, which has been persecuted by Turkey for 60 years.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, all Members of this House who carry out their democratic function here day in and day out do of course earnestly hope that Mr Öcalan will receive a fair trial in the presence of external observers and with all the rights to which a defendant is entitled.
Many of us are nevertheless aware that what has happened is the natural outcome of many years of war, death and destruction throughout which Mr Öcalan has led the Kurdish Workers' Party.
Those who resort to violence regularly must be aware of the danger of having it turned against themselves.
Recent events are certainly regrettable inasmuch as they cast a shadow over Europe's handling of matters of public order.
We must hope for a solution to the Kurdish problem and continue to call for such a solution. The natural right of the Kurdish people to express themselves in their own language must be recognised together with their right to their own culture and way of life.
Such recognition should not, however, jeopardise the stability of old European nations. Turkey is undoubtedly one such nation as although it is not part of the European Union, it is certainly an important member of the Council of Europe and of other European bodies.
We must therefore appeal to all sides to remain calm.
We must urge the Kurdish Workers' Party not to spearhead more violence nor to resort to the shows of force which have endangered their leader's position. Let us hope that justice will prevail and that the legitimate rights of the Kurdish people will be recognised both within Turkey and in neighbouring countries.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am glad that by far the majority of speakers have in principle supported the Council's basic views on this matter.
I get the impression from this debate that there is very far-reaching agreement on some points, which I would like briefly to summarise again.
One: we very definitely condemn all use of force or terrorism.
In any case the EU ministers of the interior will be meeting to discuss this question in the next few days.
Two: we must recognise politically that the Kurdish question does exist. The Kurdish question must not be suppressed any longer.
Three: we must distinguish clearly between the PKK and the Kurds.
Only a minority of Kurds commit acts of violence.
The majority of Kurds are peace-loving people, as we all are, and simply want to live in peace and security.
Four: the Kurdish question is no longer a domestic Turkish matter, for the violence on our streets shows that it affects every European country.
Five: drawing a distinction between separatism and cultural autonomy can be a key to progress in resolving this problem.
Six: we agree that we must call on Turkey to conduct a trial that is in accordance with the law and that we reject the death penalty on principle.
Let me add that a troika mission of political directors will be visiting Turkey before April, followed by a troika mission at foreign minister level.
We will use these opportunities to hold talks with Turkey, drawing on the discussion we have held here and on the points I have just addressed.
Madam President, I just have a brief question for the President-in-Office of the Council. Is he prepared to submit what he has just said as a general statement to the Council and to ask the Council to accept it?
Madam President, I hope what I just said was recorded in the Minutes and that we can put the Minutes before the Council.
Madam President, I spoke earlier about the three Kurdish women who are in an embassy in Nairobi and I asked the Council to give assurances that, since they have foreign passports, they would be able to go in safety to the country which issued them with their passports.
Their lives are in danger.
The President-in-Office did not give me an answer.
Would he please tell us whether he will do something about this matter?
Madam President, the Council has replied.
As I understood it, the Commission was going to reply too, but I saw that vanish from the screen all of a sudden.
That seems a little strange to me.
The Commission has not expressed the wish to do so.
Did the Commission wish to say something on this?
I do not want to make life difficult for you, Madam President.
In reply to Mr Dankert, I shall look into the problem which he mentioned about NGOs being asked to provide a bank guarantee.
For the rest, I agree with him that at the moment Turkey is not cooperating in the implementation of programmes at all, let alone wholeheartedly.
In any event, I am grateful to Mr Dankert and his colleague Mr McMillan-Scott for their efforts to get these programmes up and running.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Draft agreement with South Africa
The next item is the statement by the Council on the refusal to approve the draft agreement with South Africa negotiated by the Commission.
Madam President, the European Union has been negotiating an agreement with South Africa since 1995.
Among other things, the draft agreement provides for the creation of a free trade area within the space of ten years and for the wide-ranging development of cooperation in the political, economic and development policy fields.
The negotiations proved very difficult from the outset, especially because of the problems on both sides in regard to opening up their agricultural markets and because of the divergent positions on the use of designations of origin for port and sherry produced in South Africa.
Sensitive agricultural products can only be exempted from the liberalisation to a certain extent, because otherwise the agreement might not be WTO-compatible.
Despite these problems, the European Union has repeatedly confirmed its great political and economic interest in the agreement with South Africa.
The Vienna European Council called for the agreement to be concluded by the time of the Berlin special Council at the latest.
A global compromise was negotiated between Commissioner Pinheiro and the South African trade minister Mr Erwin in Davos on 29 January, on the margins of the world economic forum.
The German Presidency of the Council tried to achieve political agreement on the conclusion of that agreement in the Council on 22 February, on the basis of this compromise package, which was to have been formally confirmed in the Council on 22 March.
But it emerged at that Council meeting that there was still no consensus within the European Union on the conclusion of an agreement based on the compromise package negotiated by the Commission.
The main problem is the reservations expressed by several Member States about the proposed rules on the use of designations of origin for port and sherry.
In practice it is a question of the use of the designation port and sherry on the South African market for products produced in South Africa.
What is a particular headache for some Member States is that unsatisfactory rules might create a precedent for relations with other trade partners.
Similarly, some Member States are not happy with the negotiated import quotas and tariff-dismantling timetables for tinned fruit and fruit juices.
Given this situation, the Council welcomed the progress made in the last round of negotiations and requested the Commission to submit proposals for resolving the pending questions as soon as possible, with the aim of reaching political consensus on the conclusion of the agreement at the next Council meeting on 22 March.
At the same time the presidency confirmed that the EU was resolved to reach consensus before the special European Council meeting in Berlin on 24/25 March.
The Commission has already gone to work and opened bilateral talks with those Member States that still have problems with this.
We do not yet know the details of a possible solution.
Perhaps further talks will be needed with South Africa.
In the run-up to the Council of 22 January the South African leader of the negotiations, the trade minister Mr Erwin, sent a letter to Commissioner Pinheiro in which he actually categorically rejected any amendment of the compromise reached in Davos.
The German Presidency is fully aware how important this agreement is to political and economic relations with South Africa and of its importance as a clear sign of support for South African democracy and as a contribution to stabilising southern Africa.
In the next few weeks we will therefore resolutely support the Commission in its difficult task.
We are firmly resolved to keep to the timetable laid down by the European Council in Vienna - conclusion of the agreement by the time of the special Council in Berlin.
We are confident that all concerned will show the necessary flexibility to resolve the few remaining points of dispute.
You may rest assured that the German Presidency will do all in its power to ensure that the Council assents to the conclusion of the agreement in good time.
Madam President, ever since the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, the leaders of the European Union have constantly given President Mandela assurances that a fair agreement on trade would be concluded - a much-needed, strategic agreement which would encourage development in the poorest regions of South Africa, and which is of the utmost importance for the peace, stability and development of the whole southern African region.
The negotiations, which have been in progress for nearly four years, have not always reflected those fine promises, but have been marked on numerous occasions by the worst sort of protectionist tendencies, regardless of whether the goods involved were fruit and vegetables, wine, potatoes or cut flowers.
Time and again, Parliament and its delegation for relations with South Africa have called for the finalisation of such an agreement.
The Heads of State and Government, when they met in Cardiff and Vienna, promised to conclude the agreement as soon as possible, and no later than March 1999. The reasons are obvious: the negotiations have been going on for far too long, the South African Parliament is to be dissolved in March, and Nelson Mandela's term as President will come to an end.
To put it mildly, it is embarrassing that now, in the final stages of the negotiations, some countries are prepared to assume the enormous political responsibility of jeopardising the agreement and thus the whole credibility of the European Union in the eyes of the third world.
How is anyone to feel confident about negotiating with the EU if we cannot finalise this agreement with South Africa?
What has Europe done? Well, our predatory pricing tactics have forced down the price of tomatoes on the South African market, thereby putting thousands of women out of work - women who, in turn, provide for seven or eight other people - and now, at the last minute, we are quibbling over port and sherry.
This is an issue that has already been resolved during the negotiations.
I assume that the constructive approach which the Council has shown here will actually be carried through.
Of course, it is not just the European countries that are protesting with whom we should be having discussions: South Africa should also be a party to the talks.
South Africa also has to have something to show its citizens.
Should we really be jeopardising Europe's good name in this way?
Madam President, I shall open this debate on a positive note by expressing our thanks to Commissioner Pinheiro, who really did everything possible to put a good compromise on this agreement before the General Affairs Council.
Mr Pinheiro stuck his neck out. I think it is in fact a great shame that he was let down by four Member States.
In my opinion, the issues involved - wine names, quotas of wine, fruit and a couple of juices - really did not merit such a fuss.
But I am glad that the matter of cut flowers, which was causing quite a few problems in my own country, has at least been resolved.
The talks have taken four years.
It was a very difficult dossier.
We knew that.
But the fisheries problem had already been sorted out, because a round of talks was held at the same time.
So I find it all the more regrettable that the problems were not resolved beforehand in the specialist Councils.
Thirdly, the social and economic situation in South Africa is downright bleak.
It is a great deal worse than we had expected back in 1994.
Surely - and I put this question to the Council presidency - part of the reason is that we continue to close our European market to them? So I wonder if we are not partly to blame.
Remember Cardiff: remember the promises made to Mr Mandela there.
And remember what was agreed in Vienna, that the dossier had to be completed.
My question to the German Presidency is this: what rabbits can you pull out of your hat in order to unblock the dossier? I do not doubt that you have done your best.
But how are you going to unblock it? I am calling on the presidency here, and in fact I am issuing you with a challenge: let us see what you are made of, and try to find a solution, because the people of South Africa are entitled to our continuing support.
Madam President, we Europeans have good reason to be ashamed of the totally inadequate support we gave the people of South Africa during apartheid.
Are we to be shamed yet again? We have often said how much we respect South Africa for the way it has tried to heal its wounds following the abolition of apartheid, and how much we admire and esteem President Mandela.
Consequently, we are mortified to learn that our Council of Ministers has been too weak to give its approval to the trade agreement with South Africa, an agreement that has taken an unconscionably long time to negotiate - three and a half years, to be precise.
The arguments put forward by the French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish ministers for not approving the agreement are trivial and petty in the extreme.
There is some cause for concern that their true objective is to leave the door open for a renegotiation of the whole agreement.
Consequently, I should like to ask the representative of the presidency if he can give his assurance that my concern is unfounded, that all the main elements of the agreement stand and that it will be approved in the near future, in other words by 22 March, without undergoing any substantial change.
If the European Parliament receives such an assurance from the presidency, then today's debate will have been worthwhile.
For my part, I can assure the Council that indignation is rife in the House over what we see as a betrayal of the strong desire that exists in Europe for an expansive and warm relationship with a country and a continent that are close to our hearts.
Madam President, after more than three years of often difficult negotiations, the Commission and South Africa have achieved a draft agreement.
This House has already underlined the importance of this agreement by asking for the negotiations to be speeded up.
Having helped to eliminate the odious system of apartheid, we cannot ignore the fate of the people of South Africa.
Every effort must be made to ensure that the black population which has suffered so much finally sees an improvement in its living conditions. The European Union must help with this.
This is why my group is disagreeably surprised by the Council's rejection of this agreement.
Obviously the reasons cited must be taken into consideration, but they could be resolved at a later stage without jeopardising the whole agreement. I must stress this point.
Surely the agreement could be implemented and the problems raised could be sorted out later. The Council's rejection sends the wrong signal to the South African people.
Therefore, on behalf of my group, I must ask you, Mr President-in-Office, to intervene in order to ensure that the Council urgently gives the go-ahead to an agreement which can only serve to help South Africa develop.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, first I would like to welcome you to your first part-session here. I can assure you that this new presidency of the Council already enjoys a good advance reputation and we hope that good reputation will be reflected in an equally good outcome to the negotiations with South Africa.
We are surprised that at its last meeting the Council did not accept the compromise Mr Pinheiro negotiated with South Africa.
Four years of negotiations means of course four years of toil on both sides.
We expected a great deal of South Africa after the bitter times of apartheid, a policy that was supported by many EU countries and not just financially.
I think it is, therefore, only appropriate that the European Union should support South Africa, and time is pressing.
Mr Mandela has tried his best.
He needs the support of this agreement for the forthcoming elections - for it is not just European elections that are about to be held, but South African elections too - and support not just from the Member States but from the presidency of the Council.
We do not want the debts of apartheid to have to be paid, because that the would mean that the population, the people of South Africa, would have to pay twice over.
That is one point.
But we also want to try to accommodate them, not just in regard to the wine and sherry market but also in an area that seems to be causing difficulties - for Germany, the Netherlands and Austria - namely the emigration clause.
I believe it is up to us to show that we can reach a rapid outcome by March, and that is what we request and urge you to do as President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, everyone thinks that the agreement with South Africa is necessary to maintain a burgeoning democracy in a country that could act as a role model for other African countries in the same geographical area.
Although we understand the United Kingdom's special attitude towards the South Africans, we would like to see the same understanding and tolerance of our own position on products which rival those of our Mediterranean economies, as 40 000 farmers reminded us the other day. I particularly have in mind products with such revered names as sherry, port and grappa, which are flooding our supermarkets.
We are not just opposed to the quantity of these products. Our opposition is chiefly aimed at labelling, which sparked off this dispute.
Consumers need clearer and more informative labelling, particularly as regards origin. France is waging a campaign in defence of French names such as champagne and cognac.
They are even tackling the Russians because of their Champansky. It is only logical that we should be anxious to protect our own designations of origin, because these reflect the cumulative cultural effect of generation upon generation of producers, and this is certainly appreciated by connoisseurs.
In addition to products covered by agreements on fishing, textiles and imports of competing agricultural products, the question of designations of origin is also a legitimate source of disagreement. We cannot accept this situation.
Madam President, the Council has acted wisely and consistently in rejecting the Pinheiro-Erwin compromise on the grounds that it does not respect the negotiating mandate which the Council itself gave the Commission.
This latest example of the Commission exceeding its mandate highlights the need for strict supervision of its role in trade negotiations.
The negotiating mandates must be sufficiently precise and their execution must be subject to constant monitoring by the Council. The Commission must not be allowed to sign draft agreements which appear to be binding on the Council and which put the countries with which we are negotiating in an uncertain position.
It must be made clear that it is not the Commission which gives undertakings on behalf of the EU but the Council acting as the representative of the Member States.
In the present case, although the Commission may be acting with the best of intentions in trying to reach an agreement with South Africa, it should not be allowed to exceed its mandate and irresponsibly offer to sacrifice the interests of whole sections of our agriculture, particularly at a time when, as we saw on Monday here in Brussels, European agriculture is experiencing very serious social problems.
Madam President, as a veteran observer of these four-year long negotiations I suppose I should not have been surprised by the attitude, particularly of France and Spain, at Monday's meeting of the General Affairs Council.
How can they argue that the Davos package is too generous to President Mandela's South Africa? How can such a ridiculous proposal as that on port and sherry be allowed to scupper the greatest opportunity that we have to offer real and practical solidarity to South Africa?
Contrary to what we have heard over here, South Africa has made considerable concessions on port and sherry in the interests of making a wide agreement.
The South African negotiators have brokered a very significant consensus in their own country in a very difficult situation.
Alex Erwin, the Trade Minister, speaking this morning in Cape Town, said that the decision on Monday was extremely disappointing.
He does this against a backdrop of increasing nervousness in the agriculture, industry, trade union and other sectors in his country.
Mr Erwin asked Europe to see sense, to avoid re-opening the package, and once again to talk about trade, development and cooperation.
We do not want to open up the wider negotiations, to talk about multilateral negotiations regarding trips and the WTO.
The time has come for all EU Member States to display realism, generosity and vision, and less of the petty short-sighted protectionism we saw on Monday.
Political vision is what we need to see now.
Both the South African Parliament and the European Parliament are anxious now to sign off this agreement once and for all before both in South Africa and here we move on to elections.
March 22 is the EU's last chance to complete this agreement and to show real solidarity with our partners in South Africa.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as chairman of the delegation for relations with South Africa, I should like to thank the House for having agreed to draw up rapidly a resolution aimed at safeguarding our relations with this great country, following the collapse of the five-year compromise which was operated by the Commission and destroyed by the Council.
In my opinion, the Council has taken no account whatsoever of the political aspect of our relations.
South Africa needs help in consolidating a democracy which at present still seems very fragile; it needs to develop and progress; it needs people to teach the inhabitants how to work and how to become part of a world which is unknown to many of them.
South Africa should be helped and not humiliated, especially now that the second democratic elections are about to take place, in May.
Europe must not miss this opportunity.
Europe is expert in the art of work, it has strong traditions, it can provide training, and it has SMEs that are ready to teach others how to see a job through and how to develop employment.
All these talents should be passed on, so as to help promote a great nation which, until a few years ago, did not know the meaning of freedom, democracy and progress.
The Council should consider all these aspects and not dwell on four fruit juices.
Next Monday, our delegation will be in South Africa.
I should like to take President Mandela and the Speaker of the South African Parliament, Mrs Juvuala - who was our guest in Strasbourg three months ago - a message of hope and fraternity and a positive response to their request for assistance.
I should like to tell them that we wish to negotiate as equals but with understanding for their problems, not merely to listen, and also that we can overcome the obstacles which - regrettably - have emerged on our side and have wrecked the compromise.
I hope that the joint resolution will be adopted tomorrow, so as to restore a relationship which is currently looking rather jaded, it seems to me.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as long as I have been involved in politics I have fought against apartheid and I do not think there is anything I do not know about the subject.
I say that by way of introduction to my comments on this issue.
I think that the Council did the right thing in blocking this agreement until the points on port, sherry and other related issues have been rectified. These points are very important for our citizens and electors.
Whereas we as Members of this House represent our electors, Commissioner Pinheiro only represents himself.
Let me repeat that: he only has himself to represent.
That is why he can afford to be so relaxed about solving the sherry and port issue.
Therefore, whilst I am all in favour of rapidly concluding an agreement that would meet the key requirements of our friends in South Africa and strengthen the anti-racist democratic system in that country, I am also appealing for a sensible approach which recognises the interests of our own producers.
My English friends who have spoken in this debate will know from their history lessons that port is produced in Portugal.
Furthermore, they are linked to that history themselves.
That is why they should be defending the authenticity of this product.
I would be pleased if those historical links did not stop with the Methuen Treaty, but continued with present-day port.
Madam President, I am not particularly pleased about the reason for this debate, but I am pleased that in this case we have to settle two fundamental questions in a short space of time.
Mr Volmer said in his charming fashion: we are firmly resolved, we are confident, we will do our utmost.
In the same breath he added: but we do not yet know what the various components of the solution will look like.
Thirdly, he said: South Africa has rejected any amendment of the agreement out of hand.
Somewhere in the middle of all this is the discretion that we actually have at our disposal.
Like all the previous speakers on this subject, I personally regard what we are doing with South Africa as a scandal.
Anyone who looks at developments in South Africa can see that things are going downhill, that social conditions are getting worse and worse, that social conflict can be expected when Mbeki takes over from Mandela, because the people who were promised the moon can be given nothing.
We had all hoped this southern African country could hold the promise of economic growth, from which we could draw some hope again for this supposedly lost continent.
And what does the Council do, and incidentally not just after this rejection? The whole business has been dragging on since 1995, with one scandalous decision after another!
The Council is deliberately allowing a country that needs our help to go downhill.
That has psychological consequences too!
It is a question of credibility, of honesty, which is why you, esteemed representative of the Council, must be as tough and rigorous as you can!
Germany also hesitated for a long time before openly discussing the agricultural problems, but now, like other countries, it is doing so.
I beg you not to underestimate the implications this also has for the European Union!
Madam President, I want to make two points.
Firstly, we are talking here about a package.
Both sides have made compromises.
If you try to re-draw the package at this stage you will lose the whole deal.
Various Members have talked about wines and spirits and the labels for port and sherry.
They should read what is in the agreement.
South Africa agrees to phase out the labels in third countries within five years.
In any case, it is a minuscule market.
They will phase them out in SADC over eight years.
They will keep them in SACU for twelve years pending settlement in the WTO.
The EU should not try by thuggish pressure to subvert South Africa's position in what are multilateral negotiations.
Secondly, I agree with Mrs Oomen-Ruijten that Commissioner Pinheiro has behaved well.
That does not apply to all the Commission.
DG VI has been at its protectionist worst and everyone knows that is very bad indeed.
Behind all the arguments about wines and spirits, port and sherry lies raw agricultural protectionism.
Spain raised problems with agriculture.
France raised problems with export refunds.
If the Heads of Government cannot assert themselves and overcome these sectional interests we risk losing the whole agreement.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have taken very careful note of your criticisms of the decisions, but I feel that in principle you have tended to support the approach of the presidency of the Council.
After all, the Council has made enormous efforts to finally get this agreement concluded, for we rate its importance as highly as many of the speakers here.
Considering that we introduced economic sanctions in the past to bring down the apartheid system, it would be only logical to give economic aid now in order to support the process of democratisation.
The European Union must take a decision of principle between solidarity with developing countries that are going through a difficult phase of transformation and the national interests of individual Member States.
I think that what many Member States are demanding for themselves, namely the improvement of their own development chances by structuring their economy in a certain way, applies all the more and all the more clearly for third world countries.
That is why basically all I can do is take up your criticism and your ideas and put them before the Council in the hope that the countries that are blocking the conclusion of the agreement will also take due note of what you have said and perhaps review their position again.
Applause
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Harmonisation of social legislation on transport
The next item is the report (A4-0032/99) by Mr Grosch, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on transport policy and the harmonisation of social legislation.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it certainly was a most interesting enterprise to examine the social legislation on transport on behalf of the House, for the different rates of development of liberalisation, which is far advanced in air, sea and road transport but lagging behind in rail and inland waterway transport, also affect the development of social legislation.
These nuances had to be taken into account in the report.
The social aspects on which the report focussed naturally concern working time, safety and health, qualifications and training, mobility in general and not least employment.
As an important economic branch in freight and passenger transport, the transport sector is clearly situated in a field of tension between the demands of competition on the one hand and safety and working conditions on the other.
In road and rail transport, it forms part of the public service and is also the basis for the mobility we want for all citizens; with 6 million employed and 3 million self-employed workers, it also represents an important branch of employment.
For these reasons we believe we must look at the social provisions in the field of transport separately, for in areas where liberalisation has occurred without the necessary minimum social rules, competition has had an adverse effect on working conditions and the safety of workers and therefore also of the public.
This unregulated competition not only has destructive social effects but also has questionable economic effects.
So the kind of realistic and pragmatic harmonisation proposed in this report does not conflict with sensible liberalisation measures - quite the contrary.
It will provide the stable foundation this economy needs for sustainable growth.
I regard that as the basis of this report, namely complementarity between liberalisation and social harmonisation.
Of course - and this is the first aspect on which the report focussed - dialogue with the social partners is vital in the preparation of all the measures to be taken.
In this context it must be ensured that they are fully represented; but even if the negotiations do not produce any results, the Commission will have to take legislative action and must not use the inconclusive negotiations as a reason for delay.
The directives on working time must now cover every sector of transport.
Road transport is a good example because it shows, on the one hand, that the Commission needs to take initiatives but on the other that this is not just a matter of driving time and rest periods.
In addition, the concepts of mobile and non-mobile workers and the various activities involved in the job need new, common definitions in all areas, especially road transport.
The flexibility proposed in this report must relate to the various aspects of transport, including working time, but must never call in question the principles of the health and safety of the employees and therefore also of the public.
Fifty thousand transport-related deaths - there is a report that speaks volumes about road safety.
Strikes that paralyse whole countries in a matter of hours, ferry disasters - these were signs of the need for action here.
We believe we should not wait for accidents or strikes to create new pressure for taking initiatives in areas where they are still needed.
But good rules are not enough in themselves.
They will only be effective and even revive the market if uniform checks are carried out and inappropriate behaviour carries uniform penalties in all European Union states.
No country may fall short of the minimum controls and Parliament must not be made to wait another four years for the reports evaluating these controls.
In this context, modern technology that can improve safety must be used to full advantage and in our view there are no economic interests, such as producers' interests, that allow or justify any failure to draw on technological progress.
I need only cite the example of the tachograph.
Compared to the technology available now, I would describe the tachograph that is still in use today as well-nigh medieval.
The report also places great emphasis on access to employment.
Qualifications and their mutual recognition are one of the cornerstones of transport policy, as is working time.
They guarantee a quality service and safe working conditions.
In air transport, for example, the Council seems reluctant to clear this hurdle, although the aircraft cabin crew perform important safety tasks.
Taking account of social aspects in the transport system also implies ensuring the mobility of the public in its various forms, which includes the needs of persons with reduced mobility.
This concerns the public service and, of course, calls for a very general discussion.
Let me conclude by commenting on the employment aspect of transport policy.
Every year our Member States spend more than EUR 180 billion on employment, which is why our committee believes that every proposed measure must always be examined as to its employment impact.
Finally, I would say that if we want to create a transport area in the European Community, in which working conditions are no longer detrimental to the health, safety and quality of life of its citizens, we must consent to a minimum of social harmonisation, for there are aspects we need to regulate that the market alone will never be able to regulate.
The Treaty of Amsterdam may offer us limited means of doing this.
So it is in our hands.
Thank you for your attention.
Madam President, Mr Grosch's report introduces wide-ranging issues covering all the social aspects of transport.
The fact that his report was carried virtually unanimously in the Committee on Transport and Tourism shows that there is a great deal of support within Parliament for provision in the social area of transport.
Indeed, Mr Grosch's report will be complemented by the forthcoming report from Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment dealing with the extension of the general working time directive and my own report on lorry drivers' hours.
There is no doubt that there is a direct link between the proper regulation of working time, the health and safety of employees and, of course, most important of all, passenger safety, irrespective of the mode of transport used.
The Commission must be congratulated on assisting the social partners in the railway industry in achieving an agreement on 30 September last year.
We rightly believe that a similar agreement should be found in the other transport sectors.
Unfortunately, this has not happened and that is why I am producing a report on lorry drivers' hours because the Commission was forced to resort to the legislative route.
The other area which gives us some cause for concern is the slow progress being made in the harmonisation of flight times and rest periods for air crews.
We are particularly perturbed about this.
In conclusion, the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment supports the report.
We believe several difficulties have arisen with the transport industry as a result of liberalisation.
I would mention in particular postal services.
In many Member States liberalisation of the postal services has resulted in considerable problems in this sector.
As a consequence, postmen throughout the Union are being put on part-time contracts, in many instances without adequate pension cover.
I believe that the concept of universal service should be the norm and it should be applied in the postal services operating throughout the European Union.
Madam President, Mr Grosch is trying with this report to rekindle a discussion which has been going on for fifteen years or so, aimed at improving Regulations Nos 3820/85 and 3821/85.
In the meantime, the Social Affairs Council has adopted a common position on the proposal for a working-time directive.
I think it is outrageous to regulate all activities in the private and public sectors and yet to leave unregulated a sector such as road transport which employs over seven million people.
In my opinion, in order to put a stop to all the abuses which have occurred in the past and will continue to occur in the future, we must consider annualising working time in the transport sector. We must also decide that any hours worked over and above the standard 48 hours must be classified and paid as overtime, including social security contributions and taxes.
I believe this is the only way of persuading employers to stop requiring workers to do unpaid overtime, and it would have the major benefit of allowing professional drivers to take advantage of the right to retire at 55 because of the number of hours they have worked annually and the contributions they have paid.
Finally, I realise that Commissioner Kinnock recently proposed to allow the working time of a professional driver to include all work, in other words all the time when he is at his employer's disposal.
This is a long-standing trade union demand.
In addition, in a fairly specific sector like the transport sector we could go along with Mr Kinnock's proposals to extend the 48-hour week to 60 hours if the average of 48 hours per week is not exceeded over four months.
However, this complex concept will certainly pose problems in practice, and I believe that not enough thought has gone into it.
Although calculating 48 hours over four months may not pose any problems for a large company, it could be difficult for small and medium-sized firms.
The supervisory authorities in the Member States would also find this difficult. The new tachograph will clearly help, but until then this idea will only cause problems.
In any case, the supervisory authorities responsible for implementing the regulations must be required to set up a system of checks and sanctions which is both effective and acts as a deterrent.
Mr Grosch's report should lead to the House exerting the necessary pressure on the Commission and the Council of Ministers in order to ensure that the intolerable situation in the transport sector ceases once and for all. In this respect I must thank the rapporteur.
Madam President, the liberalisation of transport markets, a process started in 1993 as part of the implementation of the internal market, has resulted in greater dynamism and diversification of supply and has in general led to lower prices for consumers.
However, the downside of these benefits has been the heavy social and professional cost paid by workers in the transport sector.
The general public is normally only aware of such problems when heavy goods vehicle drivers periodically paralyse the whole of Europe with long-running strikes which inflict serious damage on the economy as a whole and capture the media limelight.
The truth is that the climate of exaggerated competition in the transport sector - between companies, between the Member States themselves and between the European Union and the Central and Eastern European countries - has led to instability on the job market, lower wages, less consistent social security provisions and dumping in terms of prices, taxation and the vehicles used.
The extent of liberalisation in the various transport sectors - road, air, rail, shipping and postal services - still ranges from total liberalisation to a monopoly of the few.
This range is also reflected in the working conditions and social protection enjoyed by workers.
But there should be a guaranteed minimum level.
That is why the Council and the Commission need to intervene to provide for harmonisation of social legislation in the transport sector, as improved safety, greater job security and improved health protection for the workforce also implies higher productivity for companies and enhanced safety for passengers.
Nevertheless, there are two particular points that cannot go unmentioned. The first relates to road transport and is the issue of working time.
This includes not only driving time and time spent loading and unloading the vehicle, but also all the other time during which the worker is at his employer's disposal. This needs to be approached cautiously and impartially, because if companies are faced with an unreasonable definition of working time, they are in danger of becoming non-viable and possibly going bankrupt.
Lastly, although we support the Commission's firm approach in not extending the scandalous fiscal privilege of duty-free sales, we also exhort the Commission to adopt specific support measures for the sea transport sector, in view of the serious consequences that this change will have on existing jobs.
In conclusion, we would like to congratulate Mr Grosch on his excellent report.
Madam President, I too am happy to add my own words of appreciation to the rapporteur, who has done an excellent job here, and to the three previous speakers, namely Mr McMahon and my friends Mr Schlechter and Mr Mendes Bota.
I have said right from the start that working time has to be the decisive factor in the transport sector, inclusive of other activities over and above merely sitting behind the wheel or otherwise travelling in a vehicle, ship or whatever.
On the other hand, however, there has to be the necessary flexibility in implementing the rules, so that hauliers are not forced to be on the road or travelling for longer than is strictly necessary.
If you work longer hours in one week and can be compensated with shorter hours another week, that means that you have to be able to work longer hours in order to complete or conclude a journey.
Mr Grosch is mistaken on one point.
We have already introduced rules for the digital tachograph.
All we are waiting for now is the latest technical data and then these can be made generally applicable, but the rules are there, and the Commission has been waiting to put forward this proposal so that both things can be dealt with together.
We must be careful not to get it wrong.
The frequent reports of driving and rest periods being exceeded - and grossly exceeded, according to the press - are prompted mainly by the fact that rest periods which are too short are counted as not having been taken at all.
This gives rise to idiotic figures of 48 hours' consecutive driving time, which does not happen and is impossible.
I have just one or two more comments to make. Firstly, there must be no discrimination between countries.
Secondly, the safety risks of road passenger transport must not be exaggerated.
It is the safest mode of transport that we know, with the lowest percentage of accidents per kilometre travelled.
And lastly, in maritime transport it is essential, in order to maintain proper levels of infrastructure and training, that we should indeed have very strict rules on this for European crews too, but especially shorter sailing times overall, not working hours, not work and rest periods, but simply a reduction in the length of time that ships are under way.
Madam President, the work of Mr Grosch and the Committee on Transport and Tourism deserves close attention.
Social harmonisation in the transport sector is essential and must be keenly pursued. It is essential first for the sake of economic efficiency, which means addressing the glaring inequality between modes of transports, particularly rail and sea transport compared with road transport.
Secondly, it is essential in order to improve working and living conditions for employees and to encourage employment.
Finally, it is very important for safety, particularly in road transport.
The improvements suggested by our group and accepted by the committee confirm certain important ideas. These include the need to reduce working time without cutting wages, the development of social dialogue and the principle of social non-regression, so that progress for some does not lead to a backward step for others.
These principles, together with the demand made in Mr Grosch's report for a clear definition of working time in the road transport sector, which should include all the time when a worker is at his employer's disposal, and the confirmation of the role to be played by the public services, should help to promote a progressive approach to the construction of Europe with technical progress and know-how being used to ensure the advance of civilisation. This involves using everyone's skills but without opposing existing diversity, which would bring everyone down to the lowest common denominator.
Finally, I would stress that we must be very careful to ensure that the proposals in the Grosch report are more than just good intentions. They must be incorporated into all the specific decisions which Parliament is called upon to make, particularly in sectors excluded from the working time directive.
The view which the people of Europe have of the European Union is dependent on the assertion and effective implementation of the principles of social justice.
There is a major deficit in this area which must be remedied without delay.
Popular sympathy, support and participation are required in order to breathe life into the objective of social harmonisation at the highest level so that the Europe that people want can be constructed.
Madam President, people's increasing mobility and the very rapid growth of the travel industry make it urgently necessary to approximate certain social rules at a high level, if only for transport safety reasons.
This particularly concerns transport by air and road.
In the field of bus and coach transport, which is a welcome form of transport for environmental reasons, we need Europe-wide rules to guarantee that overtired drivers do not put passengers and others involved at risk.
I want to address recitals D and G, in which the rapporteur says that social harmonisation should eliminate competition which is damaging to health, quality of life and mobility and that working time is an important factor in protecting transport safety.
Any move to eliminate competition is dangerous on principle.
But I believe that in this case, and especially since it is a question of people's safety, it is justified.
Madam President, harmonisation of social legislation in transport policy has been the focus of much attention from our committee and the Commission, and I am sure that everyone in this Chamber can see the problems.
I also think that we can agree on certain solutions, but when it comes to decisions in the Council, that is when things slow down.
Should good conditions give way to inferior ones? That is what is at stake when harmonisation is under discussion.
How do we harmonise? The report shows the extent of the problem, or shows how many opinions there are on this matter.
Transport is a cross-border process and is therefore a suitable area for drawing up common rules.
There must be common traffic rules and there must be common provisions on the environment and working time, as the rapporteur also pointed out.
On the other hand, we have very large national transport industries.
But national rules and traditions are so divergent that social provisions often determine the ability to compete, another point that has been raised here this evening.
We have the employees on one side and the transport customers on the other.
Safety and working time go together, and that must not be at the expense of competitiveness.
In my view, there should be European rules where they are needed, but to a certain extent we need to take account of national agreements and traditions.
As soon as we bring social conditions, taxes and duties into the harmonisation context, things go badly wrong.
I think that we have an excellent document here, but if we are to achieve a reasonable result, we must see what the possibilities are in the Council of Ministers, and we must see at what level we need to harmonise.
I repeat my question: must good conditions give way to inferior ones? That is what we should be discussing.
Madam President, let me begin by thanking Mr Grosch for the effort he has put into preparing this report.
There is much that is constructive in the report, on which we now have to take a position, for example where the rapporteur states that the aim of harmonising social legislation is not to control market forces.
I am one of those who has doubts about carrying harmonisation of social legislation in the different countries to extremes.
As I see it, social legislation is mainly the responsibility of the individual states.
I think this is in keeping with the principle of subsidiarity, which we refer to in many other contexts, and so to a large extent this would be the appropriate way to go.
I would also question whether it is actually possible to proceed in any other way.
There are already huge differences in the conditions that exist in the Member States, and they will increase dramatically with each enlargement of the Union to include the countries of Eastern Europe.
However, that is not to say that certain areas of social policy would not benefit from having common rules.
For instance, there is a need for greater traffic safety, and no one would dispute that having common rules would improve the situation.
In my view, however, the rapporteur oversteps the mark when he says that a reduction in working time without cuts in wages is one of the major objectives in the transport industry.
I do not believe that an across-the-board reduction in working time is the answer where traffic safety is concerned. Instead, the hours that people work at a stretch should be reduced and regular rest periods introduced.
Clearly, there is good reason to find a common solution at European level.
Madam President, I would like to join with others who have spoken in the debate in congratulating Mr Grosch on his report which is generally complimentary towards the Commission.
Naturally therefore, I reciprocate by thanking him and his colleagues on the work they have undertaken introducing this report on social harmonisation in transport.
It is a helpful reminder that, whilst liberalisation to strengthen transport performance and systems must be pursued, it is essential to ensure that it is undertaken in a way that pays proper regard to the reasonable need of employees and to the security and service of the general public.
That is a point Mr Grosch has made himself and it has been echoed throughout the debate.
On the major issue of working time, it is clear that there is hardly any divergence of view between Parliament and the Commission.
I have to advise the House, however, that, as most honourable Members will know, the Commission has absolutely no power to make proposals relating to the desire that reductions in working time can take place without loss of wages, a point made by Mrs Moreau and by others in the course of the debate.
The Community directive on working time - and therefore the current proposals - are based, as the House will know, on the protection of the health and safety of workers.
Whilst it is obvious that proper application of that principle could bring about reductions in working hours in some cases, management of the practical consequences of changes in the law must be left to negotiations between employers and employees, preferably through normal social dialogue.
Management of that kind obviously cannot - and, indeed, should not - be done by the Commission or by the law.
Concerns have been expressed about the levels of checks on driving and rest periods and also about the levels of fines and penalties imposed for contraventions.
In response, I would say to the House that I agree that controls must be effective.
Otherwise, they are meaningless.
As Mr Grosch's report recommends, the Commission will consequently propose an increase in the minimum number of checks that have to be carried out.
The Commission has also been aware of the concerns relating to fines and penalties for some time and we are currently therefore preparing a report on the efficiency and effectiveness of enforcement measures.
That report will address all aspects of these questions.
Naturally I will acquaint the House with our findings when we have completed that work.
The report before us suggests that there is a need to evaluate measures in the transport sector in terms of their effect on jobs, working conditions and mobility in general.
I hope that everyone in the House will accept that neither I nor my colleagues in the transport sector would neglect such issues when preparing proposals.
I have to say, however, that I do not think there is any significant added value to be gained from drafting a general report that considers these issues.
The House will be aware that all the proposals we present take account of such issues by providing for flexibility or for derogations or for transition periods.
I hope the House will recognise that this is a practical and transparent way of doing things and has the essential effect of being a continually applied principle of policy rather than a periodic report which merely offers comments.
That is, however, a relatively minor point in the overall context of this report and it should not detract in any way from the substance of the work done by Mr Grosch and his colleagues which I am very glad to be able to commend to the House.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Including Turkey in Socrates and Youth for Europe
The next item is the report (A4-0048/99) by Mrs Heinisch, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, onI. the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending the basic Decision relating to the Socrates programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries (COM(96)0199 - C4-0293/96-96/0130(COD))II. the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending the basic Decision relating to the third phase of the Youth for Europe programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries (COM(96)0199 - C4-0294/96-96/0131(COD)).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have now spent nearly three years considering whether Turkey can participate in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
Now that these programmes are coming to a close at the end of this year and we are already discussing follow-up programmes, this subject has finally come onto Parliament's agenda.
One reason why it has taken so long is that people tended to link the subject of this report to the basic question of relations between the EU and Turkey and of Turkey's full membership of the European Union.
Article 28 of the EU-Turkey Association Agreement already provided for the possibility of Turkish accession to the EU.
The December 1997 European Council in Luxembourg, and in particular the June 1998 Cardiff European Council, confirmed the importance of binding Turkey more closely to the European Union in every area.
From the outset that also implied Turkish participation in Community programmes such as Socrates and Youth for Europe.
However, the Council has repeatedly noted that the applicant states must first achieve institutional stability, as a guarantee of a democratic and constitutional system, of the protection of human rights and of respect for and the protection of minorities.
There is no doubt that the human rights situation in Turkey, especially in regard to the treatment of minorities, remains unsatisfactory, as reflected in the most recent annual report by Amnesty International.
Moreover, Turkey's policy of obstructing Cyprus' application for accession is not acceptable. Let me say that quite plainly.
But I do not want to go into any further detail today on the current human rights situation.
We have made our position on this clear on several occasions and in a variety of reports, as most recently in the Swoboda report by our committee on the development of relations with Turkey and on the European strategy for Turkey.
We have said all that needs saying on that subject.
Parliament's demands have been set out in numerous documents.
So this report confines itself to the question of Turkey's participation in the education and training programmes.
The wider-ranging discussions on Turkey's accession to the EU distract us from the objectives we are actually pursuing with the exchange programmes and which should really be our main yardstick when we look at this question.
The Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes were developed in order to teach young people the values of tolerance, democracy and active citizenship.
A declared aim of the European Union in establishing these programmes is to enable young people to play their part in building Europe, for young people who are brought up in a spirit of openness and tolerance are the most promising architects of a peaceful and humane Europe. That is precisely why we should try to bind young people more closely to the idea of Europe and to its values.
That is why we began by opening these programmes to young people from the EFTA states and then also to young people from the associated Central and Eastern European states and also Cyprus and Malta.
That is why we must not simply leave Turkey out in the cold.
One of the tasks named in the justification for the first phase of Socrates was to put Europe within the reach of the man in the street and to give it a human dimension.
With that in mind, Turkey seems almost predestined to take part in the exchange programmes.
Europe must be brought into the field of vision of young people in Turkey, for it is these young people who are open to change in their country and are forward-looking enough to bring it about.
Moreover, young people have a very basic and responsible role to play in the process of democratisation and rapprochement between peoples.
The potential that exists here is shown by the fact that people under the age of 25 make up more than 50 % of Turkish society.
That offers a huge opportunity!
Of course we can only reach a fraction of these young people with our programmes.
But just think of the enormous amplifying effect produced by young people who gain positive personal experience from these programmes.
That is why we must offer young Turks a chance to get to know our western European culture and the way we treat fundamental rights and human rights for themselves.
This does actually work, as we have seen from the existing cooperation schemes between European youth and students' organisations.
Let me also emphasise again that we will seek fair participation of minorities and especially Kurds when we carry out the programmes.
The violent disputes that are now occurring on European soil make no difference here.
But we cannot achieve that through votes or suchlike. Instead, we must carefully monitor the participation of the various minorities by drawing up an annual report.
In conclusion, let me just say that in my opinion we should remember the well-known saying by Jean Monnet, who kept emphasising that all European efforts at integration must in the end be based on bringing people closer together and not just uniting nations.
Closer cooperation among young people and the offer of exchange grants are important factors for strengthening democracy and respect for human rights in Turkey.
So both are an important step in terms of binding Turkey to the west in the long term.
I would therefore ask you to support me in calling for Turkey to participate in the Community's education and training and youth exchange programmes.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, exchanges between pupils and young people from Turkey and from the European Union offer an excellent opportunity to promote mutual understanding between our people and citizens.
They also encourage Turkey to open up more to the democratic and constitutional states of the European Union.
The Committee on External Economic Relations therefore unanimously endorses Mrs Renate Heinisch's excellent report.
We want to see young people in Turkey participate more closely in the long-term construction of a pluralist society within a constitutional state, as the Turkish social partners have repeatedly demanded.
The adoption of this report would also be a sign that the European Union is gradually living up to its responsibility towards our great neighbour in the south by formulating a medium and long-term strategy for Turkey, and that areas of cooperation are constantly growing and being strengthened so that in the long term they will manage not only to eclipse the conflicts of the day - indeed we have been discussing Öcalan today - but also to eradicate them in the long term, with the growth of a new society in Turkey.
Commissioner, the European Parliament for its part is prepared to promote cooperation in other areas too, in addition to the areas covered by this Heinisch report, so that the European Union can successfully complete all its unfinished homework - here I am thinking mainly of financial aid.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be brief.
My group is also in favour of extending the Youth for Europe programme to Turkey, although this decision has nothing to do with our everyday political relations with Turkey or with our serious reservations about certain domestic conditions in Turkey.
Why?
The Youth for Europe programme pursues its own educational objective, which is to promote tolerance among young people towards other ways of thought and life in other countries, through projects of intercultural encounters and exercises in solidarity based on practical participation in local schemes, to name one example.
The programme is aimed at encouraging personal experience and making young people less vulnerable to nationalist movements.
The young Turks who visit my country, even if some of them are hand-picked, do have their first chance to really get to know Europe and to correct the biased picture of Europe they may have received from their national press.
The softening of set ways of thought and the advent of a new generation can bring about socio-political change in a country.
That is precisely why we must support the dialogue with young people in Turkey, with the help also of this democracy programme. To all those who are against it I would say: the young Turks we invite to our countries should not be made to pay for the wrongs of their government.
We cannot combat nationalist attitudes while at the same time saying no to a cross-frontier dialogue with young people in Turkey.
Madam President, although Mrs Heinisch's report is a very good one, it clearly poses a political problem, as has just been mentioned. This is because it proposes to let Turkey benefit from the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes even though, by the rapporteur's own admission, the human rights situation in Turkey is still giving cause for concern.
Recent events are also not indicative of any change for the better in Turkey: I am of course referring to the arrest, detention and trial conditions of Abdullah Öcalan, and also to Turkey's reactions to the European Union's statements and proposals calling for Turkey to solve its human rights problems. What has Turkey's response been?
It has said that the EU's statements simply add to the list of items to be resolved prior to cooperation being extended between Europe and Turkey.
The mind boggles!
In view of this situation, the sensible course of action might have been to refer this report back to committee in order to allow time for reflection.
However, this will not happen and so we must decide what to do. Some people may consider, as has just been said, that the young people of Turkey cannot be held responsible for the current problems in their country and that perhaps closer ties with the EU could in the long run steer Turkey towards greater democracy, greater respect for the resolutions of international organisations, improved justice and more freedom.
However, others, myself included, consider that to vote for Mrs Heinisch's report would be tantamount to telling Turkey that it can take any liberties, that it can refuse to make any gestures and that it can continue to take everything offered by Europe without giving anything in return. We would also be saying that Turkey can continue to violate human rights while arrogantly ignoring the fact that the basic principle of the EU, to which Turkey wants to accede, is actually absolute respect for human rights.
You cannot be heavy-handed in negotiations, as Turkey has been, but I feel that the European Union is being too timid with Turkey, whereas with the applicant countries of Eastern Europe the EU is being very demanding about their legal systems and the protection of human rights.
The ELDR Group wishes to give the young people of Turkey a chance, which is why we will not be voting against the report, although it would be wrong to think that Turkey's current attitude is not supported by its young people.
Nevertheless, we should still give them a chance, but Turkey should not be allowed to regard a positive vote as another victory and as a ratification of its current policy of arbitrary executions which are attacks on freedom of expression.
This is why our group intends to abstain.
Madam President, this report on including Turkey in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes has been the subject of much debate in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media. We have also been awaiting decisions for a long time given that the first exchange took place in September 1996.
The programmes concerned will end in 1999 and the new Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes will start in 2000, when they should be open to Turkey in accordance with certain procedures to be established.
In the current context, I am therefore wondering what sort of urgent message we need to send to Turkey. Clearly, such programmes are a way of imparting the values of a community based on democracy and tolerance of other people and other cultures, not to mention all the other virtues of education and training.
In this respect, I agree that the Socrates programme should be extended as broadly as possible.
However, I must point out that an amendment tabled by my colleagues on the Culture Committee, which stated that this decision should enter into force after the European Parliament has verified that human rights are being respected by Turkey, has been rejected.
For this reason, the members of our group are to vote freely and according to their consciences on this report. I myself intend to abstain.
Madam President, I think that human rights can only be assured in a country if there are enough people there who stand up for them.
And that is precisely the point of today's debate.
We unreservedly support Turkey's participation in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes because we believe that we can make an important contribution by giving young people in Turkey a chance to use the opportunity offered by our programmes to turn their country, Turkey, which, sadly, is rightly described as not sufficiently democratic at this moment, into a democratic republic.
In that sense we regard Mrs Heinisch's report as very useful.
We certainly endorse it and believe that this report, today's discussion and, I hope, the vote in favour will act as a signal in Turkey.
Madam President, happily we do not need to wait for Turkey's young people to learn about Europe.
There are a lot of young Turkish people living in Europe, and they spread the word within Turkey.
So I do not see such a pressing need for decisions today.
In 1996, the Commission submitted its proposal to have Turkey included in the Socrates, Youth for Europe and Leonardo programmes.
In the meantime other countries have been admitted, but specifically because of its human rights record, Turkey remained excluded.
The European Parliament backed that exclusion in 1996.
At this stage too, the Social Affairs Committee wonders, to my mind quite properly, whether we should not hold back on budgetary measures for implementation of these programmes until there has been more progress on solutions to the Cyprus and Kurdish questions.
After all, our debate a few hours ago on the Kurdish question and the Öcalan affair are proof enough that Parliament still regards the situation in Turkey as highly problematic.
Everyone recognises the value of the programmes as a means of promoting mutual understanding and respect amongst individuals and peoples.
But what guarantees do we have that participation in these programmes will be open to young people in Turkey from all the various population groups? I have no illusions about this at all.
It would surely be sending the wrong signal if we approved Turkish participation and opened the door now, at this dramatic moment just before the elections. We know very well that a start cannot be made before the year 2000.
So why should we start making preparations just as Parliament is pressing Turkey to show some real movement on human rights? We must be logical and consistent and not send out the wrong signals.
We are basically in agreement with the proposal, but we shall abstain because we think that this is absolutely the worst possible time to be sending out this signal.
Madam President, first of all I would state my firm belief that as Europeans we have every interest in having the best possible relations, political and cultural, with all our neighbours, and naturally that goes for our neighbour Turkey as well.
However, I have the feeling, with this proposal to admit Turkey to the group of countries eligible for Socrates and Youth for Europe, that Parliament is firstly making itself seriously ridiculous and, secondly, that we are committing an error of principle.
We are making ourselves ridiculous here in Parliament because for years now, and in any case since the final talks on the Customs Union in 1995, we have been threatening Turkey that there had to be progress on Cyprus or on the Kurdish question, otherwise we would have to see, and Parliament would then block this or that dossier.
Well, I should like to know what progress there has been since then, on Cyprus for example. I am not aware of any.
Parliament makes itself ridiculous by constantly uttering threats and not following them through.
Secondly, we are committing a particularly grave error of principle in embroidering further, without protest, on the position of the Council and the Commission and in seeing Turkey as a candidate for membership of the European Union.
That is absurd!
Historically, culturally and even in purely geographical terms, Turkey is not part of the continent of Europe - or at least only 3 % of it is.
Europe is not a product like a soft drink or dog food; unless I am very much mistaken, it has evolved from a social, cultural and historical base.
In short, and I will end here, Parliament should have the courage to tell our Turkish neighbour that we wish to maintain ties of the greatest friendship and cooperation, but that Turkey is not a European country and so cannot be a candidate for membership of the European Union.
Madam President, this whole debate in fact shows up the dilemma of human rights discussions in the European Parliament.
We support this report, perhaps also because we believe that there should be no abstentions when it comes to human rights questions.
We must decide for or against, support or impede the process.
We think Turkey must be included in the educational programmes because the level of education of a society always has a direct bearing on the progress of democracy.
We can and must certainly use every political means of persuading Turkey to become more democratic.
But we must not punish the young people for the sins of their political leaders. These leaders will not change their behaviour if we exclude young people from the educational and cultural programmes.
Perhaps it is a sign of political intelligence if for once we show the ability to differentiate.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Italian group Alleanza Nazionale very much welcomes the proposal for Turkey to be included in the European programmes for training and young people.
We cannot, however, refrain from voicing our disappointment that this House is only now being consulted on a proposal which was put forward by the Commission back in May 1996.
There can be no denying that this delay has been caused by obstructionism, resistance, hostility and reluctance in various quarters and at various levels, with regard to Turkey's inclusion in the cultural programmes.
The Turkish Government, it is maintained, does not yet provide sufficient guarantees regarding human rights.
Of course we share this opinion and concern, in spite of the considerable improvements in Turkey's legal order in recent years; our concern is compounded by the continuing affair over the terrorist leader Öcalan and the uncertain and - for us - distressing fate of the Kurdish people.
Nevertheless, the European Union cannot penalise Turkey for the reprehensible slowness of its democratisation process by abandoning to dangerous international isolation that very section of the Turkish population which is most sensitive to change and to the basic principles of civil coexistence: I refer to young people, in other words 50 % of the population of this Mediterranean country, since youngsters are the main beneficiaries of the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
This rich and opulent Europe, this pacifist Europe - which is as strongly critical in words as the sternest public prosecutor, but timid as a rabbit when it comes to action - already bears the responsibility for not having intervened to prevent the Öcalan case from degenerating.
It must not now make itself similarly responsible for preventing Turkish youth from acquiring - by means of cultural exchanges - those values of democracy, freedom, tolerance and justice through which Turkey will soon become a new reference point in the policy of enlarging Europe in the Mediterranean area.
This at least is our wish, as pro-Europeans and citizens of the Mediterranean.
Madam President, this new report by Mrs Heinisch marks a new phase in the European Union's prevarication towards the situation in Turkey.
It aims to allow exchanges between Turkish and European young people through the Leonardo, Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
However, it should be pointed out that Turkey's population, language, culture, religion and history are not European.
In December 1995 we denounced the agreements on the Customs Union - which were what the United States of America wanted - warning that they were an unacceptable first step towards the integration of a non-European country into the Union.
Now, by extending European youth and education programmes to Turkey, the EU is taking another step down this road.
The European Union is also being inconsistent in its relations with Turkey.
On the one hand it is concerned about human rights in Cyprus and the rights of the Kurdish minority, yet on the other hand it is aiming to strengthen its political and cultural relations with Turkey.
This is a contradiction and is not a serious-minded or responsible attitude.
Madam President, may I say first of all that I am pleased to see that a large majority of honourable Members are now in favour of admitting Turkey to these Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
With specific reference to the previous debate and the many earlier debates we have had on the European Union's relations with Turkey, I would say that I agree with all those who think, despite the many political problems we have with Turkey and our many differences of opinion, that we have to make an effort - precisely towards Turkey's young people - to develop and strengthen our mutual understanding further and seize the opportunity through these exchange programmes to exchange and share our views on democracy, tolerance and citizenship.
Catch them young, as the saying goes, and I am sure that this is true of programmes such as these as well.
I must also compliment Mrs Heinisch on her report and her perseverance in producing this recommendation, after long discussions in the Committee on Culture, and seeing it supported.
I should add that we do not really have any problems with the proposed amendments, although as regards Amendment No 5, which refers to the need to ensure fair representation of minorities - something altogether consistent with Commission policy - we are rather less happy that this may create the impression, when it comes to implementing the programme, that a quota system is to be applied, albeit informally, for the numbers of participants from minority groups.
We think these minorities must be assured of success without that assurance being introduced into the text in this way by the amendment in question.
I hope that the rapporteur and other Members of the House will go along with us on that.
Lastly, decisions on Turkey's participation in the context of the current proposals do not, as we know, mean that Turkey can take part in the programmes straight away.
After discussions with Turkey, a decision has to be taken on the implementing rules, the financial aspects of participation.
Parliament will of course be consulted on this.
It is already assumed, however, that the new Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes running from the year 2000 to 2004 will include Turkey, and approval of the draft decisions now before us will give the green light for a series of preparatory measures which are absolutely vital if Turkey is to participate satisfactorily in these programmes.
Decisions to allow Turkish participation are, I think, one more positive signal from the European Union to civil society in Turkey that the EU is prepared to develop its cooperation with Turkey in certain sectors further.
We are hoping for a positive reply and a positive response from the Turkish side.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Socrates programme (second phase)
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0062/99), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the common position adopted by the Council (C4-0018/99-98/0195(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing the second phase of the Community programme in the field of education (Socrates) (Rapporteur: Mrs Pack).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to discuss the fundamental importance of this education and training programme.
We have done so often enough over the past months and even years.
Basically we know it all.
Perhaps I could say to the President-in-Office of the Council, although he is not present, that good Europeans do not grow on trees!
They are educated for Europe in Europe.
We have to create the necessary European added value, the European dimension in the education and training system, by creating a European area of education and training.
We are not trying to take over any of the obligations of national, regional and local politicians to carry out European education and training activities; but we want to give them the extra help that is more than ever needed to achieve coexistence on a basis of tolerance in Europe.
At the first reading we already found that the Commission had greatly improved its Socrates II proposal.
The procedures are simpler, access is easier, there is less red tape.
We also achieved one small thing that was important for many in the Comenius programme, namely that where necessary, exchanges of pupils can also be arranged in the framework of Comenius.
I will confine myself now to the amendments we are tabling today and will be voting on tomorrow that I consider important.
First I want to say that I believe it is particularly important for people living in frontier regions to be taught and learn languages.
Frontier regions where the inhabitants do not understand their neighbour's language cannot fully experience the single market at local level.
Learning English is of little use to them; for instance in Saarland, where I come from, on the frontier between Luxembourg and France, French is useful, which is why the inhabitants should learn French, from nursery school on!
It is in their interest to do so.
A second point we made is that we absolutely must strengthen the system of recognition of studies pursued abroad, what is known as the ECTS system.
We need to do so to ensure that the time young people spend studying abroad is credited to them when they return home rather than being a waste of time in that respect.
There is another aspect we consider very important.
The Erasmus programme study grants are very small, given the shortage of funds, but young people cannot go to a foreign country with only 100 euros in their pocket.
They can only do so if they have parents or relatives who will finance them.
If they have parents and relatives who will do so, they might not even need the 100 euros, so perhaps it would be a good idea if the universities looked at students' financial and economic circumstances before handing out grants.
If someone wants to go abroad as an Erasmus student and can finance their studies themselves, it would be better to save these euros three, four or five times over.
A less well-off student could go abroad to study with four or five times these 100 euros.
So that is what we have urged and I hope that at this next sitting the Council will show more understanding here than it did before and perhaps endorse our approach.
Of course we have suggested something else too, for given that the programme now runs for seven years rather than five, which we have accepted, we obviously need an evaluation at the end of the year 2002.
This evaluation can no longer relate just to quality but must first and foremost also be financial. That is why I hope the Council will agree that given the length of the programmes we should carry out a mid-term review, but a serious one, not just a piece of paper!
The main point of dispute facing us now is, of course, as it has always been with Socrates since 1994, when I first dealt with it, funding.
The Commission wanted EUR 1.5 billion for a five-year period.
We said: that is not enough, we need EUR 2 billion.
And we do need that in view of the extension of the programme to all the countries that want to join in.
We have just been talking about Turkey today, but Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia also want to join.
The Council promises all that in its Sunday speeches, and then on Monday we do not have the money to pay for it.
So we need more money.
Now the Council has played a very clever trick.
It has extended the programme to seven years and given us EUR 1.55 billion.
But all that is rather symbolic, for it has given us less than we used to have for the five-year programme.
So we have made a very wise proposal: we want EUR 2.5 million.
We do not want it for ourselves; we want it for all the young people in the European Union, for the 300 million people eligible for this programme, from the cradle to the grave, as I said last time. For this is a programme of life-long learning that begins at school and continues into old age.
It would be a pity if the Council did not keep all its promises to allocate substantial funding.
For then we really could do something for the citizens of Europe, and in view of the coming European elections, I believe we must fight for this together.
I assume you will join me in this!
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I congratulate Mrs Pack on her report and I am glad we reached broad agreement in committee on the direction of the future programmes.
We have had enough discussions about the principles of this most successful Socrates programme.
One thing I want to highlight today is the totally inadequate funding proposed by the Council.
Unfortunately, thousands of people are still barred from taking part in this programme, as shown by the high number of applicants whom the agencies concerned have to turn away each year for of lack of funding.
Here the EU could do more to demonstrate its support for the European exchange programmes.
That is why my group has called from the outset for more funding, in order to give young people a chance to experience living abroad and also to make the current Socrates programme less socially biased.
Sunday speeches may well tell of a Europe in which young people meet each other, a Europe of tolerance and a common education and training area; in practice, however, great difficulties arise when it comes to funding decisions.
But surely it would be a good thing, and reflect a genuine European vision, if as many young people as possible could receive part of their education in a neighbouring country.
Let me also point out that a wider knowledge of foreign languages and early awareness of the cultural situation in other countries are excellent means of promoting mobility on the European labour market, which forms part of an active employment policy.
Labour market experts have long recognised this as an accepted fact.
The call for EUR 2.5 billion for the new programme period agreed by the committee is the absolute minimum.
In contrast, the Council's proposal of only EUR 1.5 billion for seven years is not really an increase in funding but, as Mrs Pack rightly said, no increase at all if you consider the total duration of the programme, if you look at the extra tasks of adult education and opening up the programme to Central and Eastern Europe, if you seriously want to remove the social bias apparent in some parts of the programme.
The Erasmus grants, for instance, which currently amount to about EUR 70, really offer little added incentive to young people from socially disadvantaged families to do some of their studies abroad while those who can afford it in the first place get this extra funding anyway.
For the rest I am very pleased that the socio-political demands my group made in its amendments were carried, for instance that universities should in future take more account of the applicants' means when allocating Erasmus grants and that Comenius should focus on mobility measures, especially for young people from vocational schools and in vocational training, because this group has always had fewer chances of taking part in exchange projects.
I also welcome the fact that the committee agreed that aid for learning the official neighbouring language should become one of the priorities under the Comenius programme.
That will promote cross-frontier activities and the creation of bilingual areas, as for instance in the region where I come from.
We want to create a bilingual area on the southern upper Rhine, and if we could do so, with the approval also of the Council, that would be a wonderful means of supporting this development.
All this will do much to show the public the practical and useful side of Europe, something that is often lacking in European policy.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me thank Mrs Pack very warmly for her strong support for the Socrates programme.
In particular, I am in favour of a financial boost for this programme.
As rapporteur for the report on the European year of life-long learning, I know how important the Grundtvig III action is, which supports life-long learning for young people without adequate basic training and also for adults who want and need to widen their knowledge and abilities.
If we want to work together in partnership on education and training at European level, we must keep all the parties concerned informed about education and training issues.
In terms of schools, that means we must first of all inform parents and teachers, so that they can recognise and promote the European dimension of education and training jointly with the young people involved.
Especially in the Central and Eastern European countries, in Cyprus and in the Baltic states, parents and others involved in education and training expect to be given the means to support the process of democratisation in schools and in society.
I spoke earlier about the report on Turkish participation in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes and I discussed this question with young people and teachers in Istanbul last week, as I did this week in the delegation with our Lithuanian counterparts.
They all regard adult education as a big chance of moving towards a more democratic society in their country.
Here again the old saying I learned at school about adult education still applies: it is often more important to educate and train parents and adults than young people.
So I am glad this programme offers support in that area.
Mr President, Parliament is now discussing the second phase of the Socrates action programme and the Council's common position on it.
I would like, at this stage, to thank Mrs Pack for all the very hard work she has done for the good of the Socrates programme, which is evident from the report now under discussion.
Socrates has been one of the most successful of EU programmes.
Within its framework thousands upon thousands of Europe's young people have been able to study abroad, gain knowledge and stimulation, and have their image of the world enriched through actual international experience.
The programme has been particularly invaluable for Member States with small populations.
It has both opened new doors for students in those countries and brought new students in from other countries, thus strengthening highly-valued European interaction.
The Council has now reached a common position.
The main difference between Mrs Pack's report and the Council's position is that the latter is offering a sum of EUR 1550 million, whereas Mrs Pack and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media are asking for EUR 2500 million for the next seven years.
When we consider that the EU will, in all likelihood, enlarge in the next seven years, EUR 2500 million would seem to be the right figure.
It is further justified by the fact that European industrial and commercial competitiveness depends greatly on the level of education we can offer our young people and our older citizens too.
Concerning the content of the Socrates programme, I would like to raise just one question: the report specifies that the study of languages should be limited to the official languages of the EU, as well as Irish and Letzebuergesch.
As the languages of the Member States' neighbouring countries are not often learnt to any considerable extent within the EU, it would be appropriate to remove this harsh restriction and broaden language learning to embrace the often ignored but important languages of our neighbouring countries.
In this way we would be advancing the cause not only of EU enlargement, but also transnational cooperation.
Mr President, I must firstly congratulate Mrs Pack, the rapporteur for the Socrates programme, on the work which she has accomplished not only in the House but also in the negotiations with the Council and the Commission to obtain EUR 2 000 million for the programme's operation.
If there is one European programme which our citizens know about, it is Socrates.
This is a programme that has proved itself, and its success has gone far beyond its financial scope. However, it is unfortunately helping to a certain extent to create a privileged class of people, namely those who have had access to Socrates.
Socrates brings genuine European added value to the national dimension of our education systems as it encourages the learning of European languages and the study of other cultures all around us. Why is this programme so popular?
In my opinion, the answer is quite simply that it responds to people's expectation that Europe should be interested in its people, in their personal development and in their integration within their own territory.
Socrates enables students and teachers to meet and it also allows cooperation between teaching establishments, improved recognition of qualifications and experience of other European educational systems.
The Culture Committee tabled a number of amendments to improve the Commission's initial proposal, and in particular we requested an increased budget in order to include lifelong training in Socrates.
The introduction of Minerva, which is intended to encourage the use of multimedia in education, is an excellent innovation in my opinion, as also are the joint projects to be conducted with other Community programmes such as Leonardo and Youth for Europe.
Finally, I hope that the implementation of this programme will be effectively monitored, as I am sure it will, and that information relating to this will be distributed to those responsible for supervising the programme or even to anyone who wants such information.
This is the second reading of this report and we are therefore drawing closer to the programme's implementation. I would therefore wish everyone well who benefits from our work and consequently comes to realise that Europe is for them.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mrs Pack on her report.
Mrs Pack has been a good fighter for Socrates in Parliament for the past five years during which time I have sat with her in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media.
Clearly, we are going to have to go on fighting the Council of Ministers.
Although we managed to get an increase in the budget, it is clear that the increase is inadequate to meet the demands of the growing numbers of countries that want, quite rightly, to participate in the education programmes under Socrates.
It is important that they do.
If we are going to build a greater Europe, not just confined to the current 15 Member States, it is right that we should be expanding the programmes to other countries.
The evidence is very clear from my knowledge of the programmes as a former lecturer in higher education, that the more we can get young people across Europe meeting and talking to each other, the more they will understand the importance of Europe and the importance of building Europe.
I only wish that a few British journalists could take part in the programme as well.
Then they might understand Europe a little better.
I hope that Commissioner Cresson will respond positively to the report and will take up the battle which Parliament wants to continue, to expand the programme and expand the budget so that we can have a truly successful Socrates programme.
Mr President, we are in the midst of a transition from an industrial society to a society based on knowledge, in which education is the new social issue.
If every individual is to be in a position to pursue a variety of professions during their career thanks to technological change, then we have to create the necessary conditions.
One major building block on the way to creating a Europe of knowledge is the Socrates programme for general education, as Leonardo is for vocational training.
These education and training programmes improve individuals' knowledge and abilities and equip them for the future.
Good quality school education and the application of our concept of life-long learning are a way of mastering many of the challenges facing us, for the profile of tomorrow's workers is as follows: the ability to develop leadership abilities and to act independently, while at the same time showing a team spirit and social skills.
Workers and managers must be able to communicate and represent their own interests and aims while also showing an awareness of what appear to be alien cultures, identifying the differences and trying to break down the barriers.
How else, if not by improving their linguistic knowledge, can people become more mobile, can they study away from home anywhere in Europe, can they complete a training course or find a job?
The fact that Socrates supports language teaching even in less familiar European languages is a plus in terms of solidarity.
The proposals put forward by Mrs Pack, a proponent of practical policies, deserve unreserved support.
I have learned from my visits to schools, at which Europe is put to the test nearly every Monday, how much support there is for Socrates, despite all the problems with applications for funding.
Exchanges between pupils and encounters between teachers carry more weight than any number of glossy brochures.
But what is the use of splendid ideas if they do not serve the general good? The EUR 2.5 million we are calling for is a minimum if you look at the growing circle of recipients, if you look at the number of applicant countries.
Socrates is an exemplary, sensible and verifiable investment in the future.
Mr President, I want to address two particular points in connection with this debate on the excellent and important report drafted by Mrs Pack.
We are talking about the cultural project of promoting cross-frontier language learning.
Here we should take particular note of the situation in the Central and Eastern European countries.
When we visit these countries we keep finding that their inhabitants have an excellent knowledge of our languages, but who of us in western Europe speaks their languages? It is here that the European Union has a special responsibility to make sure that our young people learn the languages of their Central and Eastern European neighbours, for economic but even more for cultural reasons, for reasons of European policy.
That is my first point.
My second point is one that Mrs Pack has also addressed, namely our special responsibility for frontier areas.
We are now seeing a phenomenon, especially in Austrian frontier areas, where after complaining for years about dead frontiers and deaths and the iron curtain we are suddenly afraid of open frontiers again.
We must respond to this with cultural initiatives, with education and training measures.
So it is most important that we institutionalise this.
Exchanges between pupils, between teachers, but in particular bilingual, even trilingual schools can be a means of linking up these frontier areas not just economically but also in cultural, linguistic terms.
We have the experience of a particular situation in Austria, in Kärnten, where we have very special Slovenian and German-language educational facilities because of the Slovenian minority.
With the opening up of frontiers, we can now see how useful these young people with their training are in terms of general and cross-frontier economic development.
So we have these examples, which is why I believe that money invested in this programme is money very well spent and well invested.
Mr President, I join with previous speakers in welcoming the opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate.
Socrates phase one has been a very worthwhile experiment in transnational education.
In my own country of Ireland there are many teachers and students who can testify to its success as a unique learning experience.
Apart from its obvious educational dimension, Socrates has provided a sense of belonging and an opportunity for young people to share and enjoy the cultural diversity of the European Union and its Member States.
It exposes young people through well-designed educational programmes to the differing lifestyles and individuality of each EU country, while at the same time helping them to appreciate more their own rich and diverse heritage.
I welcome the fact that the Council has now reached a common position on future education and training programmes including the Socrates programme, that the operational time for the new programme is to be extended to seven years and that the budget is to be significantly increased.
Europe, in my view, must continue to invest in young people.
A skilled and mobile young population is our greatest asset in a world that is becoming increasingly competitive.
Ireland has demonstrated how its young people are contributing in a major way to its significant economic growth.
Mr President, first I want to warmly thank Mrs Pack for her report, and in particular for the commitment she has shown to the subject.
The content of the second generation of education and training programmes was decided on the basis of the discussion on the White Paper on teaching and learning, by the Green Paper on cross-frontier mobility and by the Europe of Knowledge programme.
The aim is to give all the target groups easier access to the programmes, to simplify the application and selection procedure and to achieve a participation rate of 10 % of schools and 10 % of students and pupils.
Particular emphasis is also placed on removing all forms of discrimination.
So at second reading we now have the additional provision that the economic situation of applicants should be taken into consideration in an appropriate fashion when grants are awarded, as should the promotion of equal opportunities for women and men and, which I particularly welcome, closer involvement of the social partners.
One innovation found in Socrates II, as a consequence of the concept of life-long learning called for in all education and training programmes, is the inclusion of adult education in the Grundtvig programme.
Another innovation is that we now have a training programme with a female name, in the form of the Minerva education and multi-media technology programme, another successful proposal by Doris Pack.
In short, this means that Socrates is a good programme covering added aspects, that seeks a higher quota of participants and is open to a larger number of eligible applicant states.
We must not forget that most of the applicant states can already take part in the training and education programmes and that more and more of them will be able to do so in the next seven years.
That makes the Council proposal to reduce the Commission's proposed funding from EUR 1.4 billion for five years to EUR 1.55 billion - but for seven years - even more scandalous.
That would mean that Socrates II had to do more for more participants for less money.
So I ask the European Parliament to endorse the committee's justified amendment, that was adopted unanimously, providing for EUR 2.5 billion for a period of seven years.
That really is the minimum we can ask for if the Socrates programme is to continue to be applied successfully for young people, for students and teachers and for all those who want to teach and engage in further education in Europe.
Mr President, the Socrates programme is one of the most important channels of support for mobility and diversity of education within the Community.
To include the student population of EU applicant countries and certain other countries close to us in the programme is a natural step towards an enlarging Europe.
In the expanding Socrates process we need to ensure that individual participation in the programme is not made more difficult by such matters as underfunding.
It is important to take account of the financial situation of participants when deciding how to allocate funds.
The study of minority languages in the European area, as well as support for the Sami language as part of international policy, will preserve valuable local cultural traditions, which must be kept alive in an ever more internationalist Europe.
The inclusion of adult learners and trained teaching staff in the programme will broaden its scope by appealing to a much larger section of the population.
Their involvement will make it considerably easier to promote the mutual recognition of courses undertaken in different countries, which in turn will help the mobility of labour.
Money invested in the programme will be recouped many times over in the future.
I hope that the Council and the Commission will the give this issue the consideration it deserves and that the present Socrates programme will have a follow-up which is just as good as the current programme, supported by the funding proposed by Parliament.
Obviously, there are many parties with a claim to a share in the budget, but if we make cuts in the youth programmes, we will be making cuts for our future and the development of Europeanisation, which will be a be very shortsighted policy.
Mr President, I should also like to join with my colleagues in congratulating the rapporteur on the tremendous proposal she has put before us.
When we discuss any issues regarding education we have to see this as an investment in the future for our young people to give them the skills to adapt to the changing technologies in the changing world in which we live.
It is also an investment in the future for a greater understanding of the diversity in the European Union - cultural, social and linguistic.
That is why it is important, as the previous speaker has said, that the study of minority languages should be encouraged in the Socrates programme.
I speak in particular of the Irish language.
It is an official language of the European Union and should be given greater prominence.
However, as many speakers have said, despite what the Council may say about the importance of education and despite the Commission's good faith regarding lifelong learning, there is a lack of commitment on financial resources.
Therefore, I urge all Members to support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur to ensure that this new seven-year Socrates programme is given proper funding of EUR 2 500m.
It is also important that we learn from mistakes made in the programmes in the past.
I refer in particular to the Erasmus programme which dealt mainly with third-level student exchanges.
It contained an element of exclusivity so that if a family could not afford to support a student studying in a foreign country that student could not benefit.
It is incumbent on us to ensure that some financial support would be available under these programmes, either at European or national level.
If Member State governments will not provide this, we should reduce the amount of money they receive under the Socrates programme and other education programmes.
In conclusion, I urge all Members to support this and to give more hope for the future of the European Union.
Mr President, I strongly commend these recommendations and the amendments which the rapporteur has put forward.
I have not been so directly involved with the discussions on these programmes in Parliament of late but some five years ago I was co-author with Mrs Pack of Parliament's report on the first Socrates programme.
Everything that has happened since has vindicated the strong support which Parliament gave to this programme.
Other speakers have referred in glowing terms - and rightly so - to the value of the Erasmus exchanges and the school networking which these programmes provide.
Not only do these programmes benefit the individual students who participate in them and the schools and colleges of which they are students, but we must also remember that they make a real contribution to awareness and a meaningful understanding of the work of the European Union itself for large numbers of students and their families.
It makes it real for them.
I am pleased also to see the inclusion of the applicant countries, together with Malta and Cyprus.
I was in Malta last week for the joint committee and I can tell you they are very eager that Malta should be fully participating in these programmes.
The key point is the funding.
Unless we have adequate funding we cannot ensure that all young people who could benefit from these programmes are able to do so, nor can we avoid the elitism which means that only those able to afford it are able to participate.
I very much hope we will support this figure of EUR 2.5 billion.
It sounds a lot of money and Ministers quail at the figure.
But what is EUR 2.5 billion? It is EUR 1 per European citizen per year of the programme.
For many people it is less than the cost of a cup of coffee or a newspaper.
It is less than 5 % of Bill Gates' personal wealth - which is an interesting reflection.
Perhaps we could ask him for a donation if we cannot find the money any other way.
Mr President, Socrates is a wonderful idea.
As a university teacher I can only endorse, year after year, what Doris Pack has described in general terms and has rightly highlighted as positive, as well as what she has rightly criticised.
The idea is wonderful, but the stumbling block is the funding.
Only a few weeks ago we had to award grants at my university and I well remember the enthusiasm of the young people who heard that they could now study in Rome, Paris, Trieste, Thessalonica and elsewhere, just as I remember the tears of those who could not do so because of lack of funds.
I remember, and in fact see it again week after week with great pleasure, how much an Erasmus student can do for his or her place of study abroad during a traditional academic year.
But as we said, the problem is the money.
We keep enlarging, and we are right to enlarge towards the Central and Eastern European countries.
We are deliberately trying to open up new horizons there.
But - and this is something I have thought about very deeply in recent weeks - when I compare the applications before me now with the typical applications of two or three years ago, I find there is a huge difference, namely that a great many people apply for grants who really do not need them any more, who already have two, three or four study periods behind them.
In fact, I no longer tend to receive applications or receive fewer and fewer applications from good, young candidates with linguistic knowledge, who are committed, who are prepared to make their contribution but who have not already had one or two previous study opportunities in the course of their curriculum vitae .
So I think we must not cut the funding but must jointly do all we can to offer the young people of Europe the kind of opportunities we would all wish them to have.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Pack, and Mr Elchlepp in our group who has helped to prioritise disadvantaged students in the programme.
As everyone has said, Socrates is a success story.
Its extension to schools is an incredible success and extraordinarily beneficial.
I would just like to mention one project: four primary schools, four countries, entitled 'Water in our Culture'.
The children have learnt that other countries, cultures and languages exist, that we share aspects of our culture and that we must protect the environment.
They have also learnt how new technology can help them communicate across frontiers - an absolutely fantastic achievement.
It is the cornerstone of the People's Europe.
I know that Mrs Cresson joins us and appreciates this point.
As has been said, EUR 2.5 billion must be found.
It is a very small price to pay for building empathy and understanding between our children and our young people.
After all, that is the real basis for long-lasting peace and understanding in Europe.
Mr President, anyone who is seriously concerned about education and training, about mobility and therefore about giving the young people of Europe greater opportunities on the labour market must also be most concerned about Socrates II.
Unfortunately the Council and Parliament have not yet managed to reach agreement on the amount of funding.
Since the duration of Socrates is being extended to seven years, it is only logical to call for EUR 2.5 billion for this programme.
Socrates must also be evaluated in both qualitative and financial terms by 31 December 2002.
I support Doris Pack's proposals in every respect and hope they will be taken into account.
Promoting linguistic knowledge, learning two foreign languages, of which at least one should be the language of a neighbouring country, is a vital means of giving our young people the chance to obtain qualifications, to make use of the single market, to find work and to develop a sense of Europe.
I also fully support the proposal to change the way grants are awarded to ensure that people do not all automatically receive grants that are barely enough to keep body and soul together.
Those who need the money should be given adequate grants.
I hope these points will be accepted and that the Conciliation Committee reaches a satisfactory conclusion before the end of this legislative term.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must warmly thank the House for its unfailing commitment and support which will allow the second reading of the new phase of the Socrates programme to be concluded today, barely two months after the adoption of the common position by the Council.
In particular I note the political will of Parliament to conclude the negotiations on the new programme as quickly as possible. This sends a strong political message to the people of Europe, just before the European elections, about our common desire to advance the construction of a European educational area.
I must particularly thank Mrs Pack for her excellent report and also her colleagues on the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media for their constant support.
I have previously emphasised the very positive attitude taken by the Austrian Presidency, which was strict but sensible in advancing the work within the Council so that the common position could be adopted in December.
The signals from the German Presidency are also positive and encouraging, and show that a common political will exists to adopt this decision before the new Parliament is elected.
You will remember that we had an opportunity during the sitting on 5 November to discuss three proposals on the Socrates, Leonardo and Youth for Europe programmes.
As you know, the Council of Ministers for Education of 4 December adopted common positions on the first two programmes, although a consensus was not reached on the Youth for Europe programme for budgetary reasons.
I could not give the Commission's agreement to the proposal made, which meant that an overall agreement could not be achieved.
The situation at the time meant that the Commission was unable to give the go-ahead.
We hope that Parliament will deliver its opinion at second reading on the Leonardo programme before the end of this Parliament so that the final decision can be made under the German Presidency.
As for the Youth for Europe programme, I hope that the situation will be resolved in the coming weeks so that a common position can be adopted at the Council meeting scheduled for 27 May.
The Commission has examined your amendments in an open and constructive manner, and I can tell you that it will accept in full or in part 15 out of the 16 amendments tabled.
These will be included in a revised proposal which will be submitted to the Council in the next few days.
Many amendments are similar to the Commission's initial and amended proposals and therefore help to improve and even correct certain politically important aspects of the common position.
If you will allow me, I will mention a few of the more significant examples.
I must thank you for having accepted the 'European educational area' concept in Amendment No 2, as defined in our proposals.
The term 'area of cooperation in the field of education and training' requested by the Council has excessively technical and abstract overtones and would be difficult for people to understand.
On the other hand, 'educational area' sends a strong political message to all the citizens of the Union and clearly indicates to them the direction that the Community is taking in education and training.
In this respect, I must particularly thank those who insisted on this term, namely Mrs Guinebertière, Mr Hyland and Mrs Hawlicek.
Turning now to the procedures for selecting projects, I am pleased to note that Parliament agrees with the Commission's aim of increased simplicity, greater transparency and increased ease of use for programme beneficiaries, as indicated by Amendment No 14.
Parliament's proposal to eliminate one of the Member State consultation stages within the centralised actions would considerably simplify and shorten the project selection procedure.
I am also pleased that Parliament intends to introduce a revision clause in Article 12, as indicated in Amendment No 8, to allow the Commission to present a report on the results achieved, including on the financial framework, three years after the start of the programme, together with any proposals it deems appropriate.
As the Council has decided to extend the programme's duration to seven years rather than the five proposed by the Commission, the clause introduced by Parliament will allow the programme to adapt flexibly to any new requirements.
Obviously I accept Amendment No 12 which aims, when awarding Erasmus grants, to give priority to students whose financial situation requires special assistance.
On this point I must thank Mr Rack and Mrs Tongue, who stressed the importance of this.
Particular emphasis must also be placed on an aspect which other speakers have mentioned, which is that it is often students from the most-favoured categories who apply for grants. This is because they are less inhibited, they are used to travelling with their families, they hear discussions at home about events abroad and they are, perhaps, culturally better prepared.
But the decisions are, after all, taken locally and we can have every confidence that those awarding the grants will distinguish between those who have ability and those who perhaps have greater merit but less ability and for whom the awarding of the grant will be more decisive in their professional and personal development.
In this context, I would point out that, following Parliament's initiative last autumn, the Commission launched a study on the socio-economic situation of Erasmus students.
The results of the survey, which covered ten thousand students, will be presented to you in the next few months.
In addition, for two years now the Commission has been systematically urging universities and national agencies to take account of the financial needs of students when awarding Erasmus grants.
This is something that I myself have monitored very carefully, and I would like to thank those who have looked into this question.
I can also accept the principle behind Amendments Nos 10 and 16, which establishes the possibility of initiating pilot projects to allow young unemployed teachers to teach for a time at a school in another Member State.
All the Member States really need teachers from other countries of the European Union - we have all experienced language teaching in our own countries.
It is clear that being taught even for a short while by a teacher from a foreign country who can provide a unique view of his or her own culture is very important, particularly for young children.
Such an initiative would allow young teachers to acquire vital professional experience while helping to give a real European dimension to teaching.
Several other amendments aim to clarify and reinforce certain aspects of the common position and as such their substance or principles can be accepted.
This is particularly the case with Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 (second part) and 15 which cover the following aspects, among others: the importance of the European Credit Transfer System; more support for young people undergoing training in the form of language learning projects; clarification of the procedures for the participation of Cyprus; a reduction in the minimum percentages specified by the Council for Actions 2 and 3; the priority to be given to languages less widely used and taught, and, in frontier regions, the languages of neighbouring countries.
Several speakers were concerned about this last subject, namely Mr Elchlepp, Mr Kerr and Mr Mann.
I cannot, however, accept Amendment No 6 on the financial article.
I note Parliament's support for increasing the programme's budget to EUR 2 500 million.
In its original proposal, in line with the priorities established under Agenda 2000, the Commission specified a financial framework of EUR 1 400 m for a five-year period.
Applying the same priorities to a seven-year period, as specified in the common position, and taking into account the average growth rate, the Commission would have proposed a figure in the order of EUR 2 151 m.
However, in order to achieve a common position at first reading, the Commission was forced to adopt the figure of EUR 1 550 m which was approved by a qualified majority.
I am pleased that the Commission and Parliament agree on increasing the budget in line with our ambitions.
I hope that after the negotiations the Council will feel able to agree with us and I also hope that we can move forward together during the conciliation procedure.
Obviously, I will be determinedly on your side in this procedure.
Finally, I would stress that I believe we are on course to achieve a final decision under the German Presidency which would allow us to prepare for the implementation of the new programme under the best possible conditions.
Clearly I hope that a satisfactory agreement on the budget can be reached during the negotiations.
I would like to end by again thanking the Culture Committee and its rapporteur Mrs Pack in particular for their excellent work and their constructive amendments, and also the House as a whole for the support which it has constantly given us.
I am convinced that this programme will help to build a Europe of knowledge which will send out a strong political message and respond to the needs of the public.
Thank you, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Tobacco taxes
The next item is the report (A4-0021/99) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 92/79/EEC on the approximation of taxes on cigarettes, Directive 92/80/EEC on the approximation of taxes on manufactured tobacco other than cigarettes and Directive 95/59/EC on taxes other than turnover taxes which affect the consumption of manufactured tobacco (COM(98)0320 - C4-0402/98-98/0189(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1998 the European Commission submitted a report on the structures and rates of excise duty as well as a proposal for the amendment of three different directives on the taxation of manufactured tobacco.
The report, which provides the basis for the proposed technical amendments and for the changes in the minimum rates of excise duty, examines whether current legislation guarantees the smooth functioning of the single market.
Two factors are particularly important in this context: firstly the fact that tax fraud and smuggling are rife as a result of the relatively high rates of excise duty on tobacco and tobacco products and because of the wide disparities between the excise rates levied by the various Member States, and secondly the fact that the practical application of the rules governing excise duty has raised a number of problems which call for technical adjustments.
The current system was introduced in 1993, and today's proposal has its origins in lengthy discussions in connection with the single market which date back to 1995.
Excise duties on tobacco are a significant source of revenue for the Member States, varying from 0.4 % of GNP to 1.6 % of GNP in Greece, for example.
The fact that duty is generally suspended when goods subject to excise duty are taken from one Member State to another creates problems with documentation, with the potential for forgery and with other aspects of such operations, and indeed the European finance ministers will scarcely be able to rest easy when they check the findings announced last year by the President of the Court of Auditors, which put revenue shortfall from excise duties at the alarming figure of EUR 75 billion per annum, with particular problems in the areas of value-added tax, excise duties on tobacco and duties on wines and spirits.
This is an appallingly large revenue shortfall, which certainly calls for direct action on fraud and tax evasion in particular.
Today, unfortunately, we are not dealing with the fight against tax fraud or even with the harmonisation of measures in that area, but rather with relatively modest adjustments.
When we talk about tobacco duties, we have to distinguish between the excise duties on cigarettes and those on tobacco products other than cigarettes.
These other products account for only about 5 % of the total market.
Cigarettes account for the other 95 %, but as far as they are concerned, this report only deals with technical adjustments to the taxation regime.
The system for calculating the minimum rates of excise duty is highly complex, and I do not propose to hold forth on that subject here, since only a handful of specialists understand it in any case.
The substance of the proposal made by the Commission is that rates of excise duty may fall short of the minimum levy, which is 57 % of the retail price, for an adjustment period of up to two years.
The proposal also provides for a very moderate increase in two stages, the first of which was scheduled for 1 January 1999; as you will be aware, that date has passed without the change having been effected and without Parliament having delivered its opinion.
The second stage of the moderate increase is due to take effect on 1 January 2001. These amendments were supported by a majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, with the tax increases only securing a narrow majority, and the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party has now tabled new amendments which would upset the existing balance.
If we were to accept these amendments, the minimum excise duty on loose tobacco for those who hand-roll their own cigarettes would rise drastically, which would make sudden 30 % price increases inevitable.
We were opposed to this, and I ask the House to reject these amendments proposed by the Liberal Group, since they relate to a specifically Dutch problem and have nothing to do with young people's smoking habits.
It is a fallacy that those who have just taken up smoking are most likely to roll their own cigarettes.
On the contrary, the main purchasers of loose tobacco come from a particular age group and a particular income bracket and are established smokers.
Young people go for lighter cigarettes.
But we have also asked the Commission to present an interim report by 30 June 2000 on the subject of public health and in particular on the problem of tax fraud, and I should like to underline that point.
Another reason why the interim report is necessary is that nothing has been happening in this sector.
I should like to express my thanks for our past consultations, and I hope that the great majority of the House will approve the report as adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
Mr President, on behalf of the Agriculture Committee, I would like to congratulate Werner Langen on the excellent work he has done, on the balance he has demonstrated, and on the common sense he has displayed in presenting an amendment requiring excise duties to be examined every four years instead of every five years.
We welcome his committee's proposal.
But, my goodness, here we are talking about tobacco taxes when a large proportion of these taxes are not even collected in the European Union.
The truth is that, like alcohol, tobacco has an irresistible attraction for organised crime.
And anyone who was present at the Committee of Inquiry on Community transit, anyone who regularly reads UCLAF reports or anyone who keeps abreast of current affairs in my own country, where 70 containers of tobacco disappeared just the other day, with the Portuguese Government claiming 14 billion escudos in compensation from a transport company, will know just how many millions escape the Community's financial checks.
And this often happens with the connivance of the Member States and also of certain European institutions, as funding for scanners for border checks and for physical checks at ports is often not granted.
Nevertheless, I think we should be talking about taxes. But it would also be advisable for the Commission to think about how it checks the payments due to it and how it could force defaulters to pay up.
Another omission I identified in the Commission document was the lack of a programme to educate young people about tobacco. They are the smokers of the future.
Madam President, the European Commission is very modest when it comes to the approximation of taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products.
It gives the Member States more flexibility in applying the minimum rate of 57 % of the retail price.
As a result, this percentage can actually fall below 57 % for a time.
Whilst this is presented as a technical measure, we shall have to make sure that it does not distort competition.
In addition to this flexibility, the Commission is proposing to adapt the specific duties on tobacco products to inflation in two stages.
Given that actual duties are already higher everywhere than the minimum levels, this is primarily a cosmetic proposal.
In the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, however, it was the view of the largest possible minority that the European Commission should have done more.
Mr Langen made reference to this just now.
We think that there should be an end to the preferential treatment given to shag and hand-rolling tobacco, which currently attracts a far lower rate of tax than cigarettes, with which it is in competition.
There are, amongst others, three amendments tabled by the Liberal Group, Nos 6, 7 and 8, which my group supported and will support again.
If there is any reason to tax hand-rolling tobacco or shag differently from cigarettes, then the tax should in fact be higher, because shag is generally more harmful than cigarettes.
The lower tax on shag constitutes a price incentive which steers smokers towards the very product which is most harmful.
That misguided incentive has to end.
This does not in any way mean that the hand-rolling tobacco industry has to come to an end, but simply that it has to lose its fiscally advantaged status.
In this respect, Amendment No 7 by the Liberal Group is less radical, since it raises the percentage of the price to the consumer accounted for by tax from 30 to 45 %.
You have to compare that with the 57 % for cigarettes.
The strangest of arguments are heard in the debate on equal tax treatment for cigarettes and shag.
Not only should hand-rolling tobacco continue to enjoy a tax advantage because that is good for jobs in the small business sector, but shag is supposedly the poor man's cigarette, since the poor man cannot afford real cigarettes.
But if you put a high rate of tax on tobacco products to dissuade people from consuming a product which harms their health, and all Member States do that, you cannot tax the most harmful tobacco products at a lower rate.
If smoking is harmful to health, it is also harmful to the health of the poorest people.
My group's view is that there is no place here for cynical derogations.
Cynical is exactly the word to describe those who favour the present system.
So the Commission proposal and the Langen report do not go far enough.
I very much hope that the Commission will shortly come up with a more radical reform of the taxation of tobacco products.
If my group has anything to do with it, Parliament will make a start on that tomorrow.
Mr President, when we talk about tobacco products, we cannot overemphasise how much damage they cause to people's health, not just active smokers but also those who are passively exposed to the carcinogenic effects of tobacco smoke against their will.
Because of this, we need to give the protection of public health special attention, imposing taxes on tobacco products at national level and introducing legislation on tobacco at Union level.
Revenue from tobacco products will in future have to be increasingly steered in the direction of preventive public health measures.
Tobacco is not just a national or regional problem, but very much a global one.
For example, the activities of American tobacco companies in Asia, where there is still no ban on tobacco advertising or legislation to protect public health, are positively scandalous.
For example, there have been threats to move big sports events to countries where the interests of tobacco companies are viewed more sympathetically.
The proposed directive now being discussed mainly contains technical amendments to Community legislation on taxation of tobacco products.
In addition to the technical amendments, we also need to solve surveillance problems connected with the transportation of cigarettes.
Organised criminal gangs smuggle cargoes of cigarettes to avoid paying duty, yet some Member States are against the introduction of effective surveillance systems.
In my opinion, sanctions should be imposed on Member States in future if they fail to adopt modern and effective surveillance systems without delay within the framework of the taxation system that has now been proposed.
Mr President, I can only agree with what Mrs Matikainen-Kallström said in her excellent speech and with her views on tobacco, which I entirely share.
Tobacco and smoking cause harm.
We must do everything we can to make poor wretches like me who smoke stop, and to discourage young people from smoking in the first place.
Naturally, the Greens would like the tax on tobacco, or rather the price of tobacco, to be as high as possible.
However, the internal market makes that rather difficult.
In Sweden, for example, tobacco prices are among the highest in the EU; a packet of tobacco in Sweden costs an arm and a leg.
However, our overall tax is among the lowest in Europe.
Consequently, Sweden does not currently comply with the minimum tax rate in the directive of 57 %.
It is therefore essential for the Commission to review the problem of taxation, so as to allow individual countries to impose higher taxes. Sweden, after raising the tax on tobacco two years ago, was then forced to lower it again because of a dramatic increase in smuggling and tax evasion, which compelled us to lower prices again.
This should not happen, but we must have higher taxes on tobacco in order to force us to smoke less.
Mr President, I do not intend to comment on Werner Langen's report, although I do congratulate him on it.
I just want to express my regret that the Commission has not taken this opportunity to switch to an ad valorem tax on tobacco instead of the present system, which is largely specific.
As I said here back in 1992, at the time the first regulations were adopted, this means that some types of tobacco bear a heavier burden than others, resulting in a distortion of competition. In this particular case, this distortion works in favour of American tobacco, which is more expensive, so that specific taxation amounts to a smaller fiscal burden, thus disadvantaging European tobaccos, which are generally cheaper and therefore more heavily taxed in percentage terms.
The heavier tax burden on these cheaper European tobaccos amounts to a regressive form of taxation, as they represent a larger proportion of goods bought by people on lower incomes.
It could be argued that this is conducive to the socially desirable objective of reducing total tobacco consumption, given that there are more poor smokers than rich ones.
However, given that we should be equally concerned about the health of the poor and of the rich, it would be hard to justify a policy that benefited the health of the poor at the expensive of the rich.
I cannot imagine what political philosophy could be used to justify this distinction.
We cannot understand, and this is the point of my speech, why the Commission has not taken this opportunity to adopt a purely ad valorem form of taxation.
It cannot say that it is a question of administrative convenience, given that there are precedents for this kind of taxation and given that it is extremely easy to levy taxes of this kind on a very limited number of well-organised producers.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to ask the Commission why tobacco growing is still being supported to the tune of one billion euros, and in particular why lower-quality tobacco is supported rather than the high-quality varieties which are less damaging to health.
And now moves are afoot, in the form of Amendments Nos 2, 5 and 6, to make marketing even more difficult by adding 30 % to prices, which would further increase the incentive to engage in smuggling and line the pockets of those responsible for transit fraud.
I also believe that arbitrary censorship of tobacco advertising is a disaster in terms of health policy.
What we need in tobacco advertising is rational, explanatory, quality-orientated information.
If a blanket ban is imposed on advertising, there will be no means of advising consumers on their best course of action.
I believe it quite simply represents a lost opportunity to educate smokers in the use of better-quality tobacco as a health protection measure.
This arbitrary censorship scheme simply must be scrapped.
We must be given the opportunity to advertise in a way that focuses on health, and in a way that can prevent young people from taking up smoking at an excessively early age.
Perhaps the focus should be on sheer enjoyment and on moderation, to combat chain-smoking, and if some people smoke the odd cigarette for enjoyment, they should not be immediately subjected to social sanctions.
Tobacco is a legal product, a highly taxed product, and I believe it is inappropriate to ban the advertising of such a product.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank Mr Langen for his report and for the conclusions that he has drawn.
In general, Mr Langen recognises the need to make some technical adjustments to Community legislation on the taxation of tobacco products.
These changes were seen to be essential during the last review of the rates and structures of excise duty on tobacco products, in order for the provisions to be interpreted and applied in a more uniform manner in the Member States, and also in order that they may be easier to implement, so that the single market can function correctly.
Having consulted national governments, firms and interest groups, the Commission did not feel it was appropriate to carry out a fundamental review of the existing structure, and in particular of the minimum rates applied to tobacco products.
With regard to the amendments proposed by Mr Langen concerning the extension of the period of review of the rates and structures, the Commission can accept a period of four years instead of the five years envisaged in its draft proposal.
The report will take into account the proper functioning of the single market, the real value of the rates of duty and the wider objectives of the Treaty.
With regard to the amendments proposed, in order to include the recitals on fraud, health and the links between these elements and the price of manufactured tobacco, allow me to say that I do not see the need for such an approach in the directives covered by Article 99 of the Treaty.
The directives are limited to establishing a minimum level of taxation for the products in question, while leaving the governments of the Member States to fix the rates at national level, as long as the minimum levels established in Directives 92/79/EEC and 92/80/EEC are respected.
Subject to this provision, it is therefore to a large extent up to the Member States to decide on the level of taxation that they apply and to take into consideration factors such as health and fraud.
As the assessment carried out in order to draw up the report on manufactured tobacco products did not reveal any justification for progressively aligning taxes on hand-rolling tobacco with the existing taxes on cigarettes, the amendments concerning an increase in rates for hand-rolling tobacco are unacceptable to the Commission.
The hand-rolling tobacco industry is less automated than the cigarette industry and therefore needs a more concentrated work-force.
In order to safeguard their livelihood and also to safeguard employment, the lower rate for hand-rolling tobacco was deemed necessary.
Once again, there is nothing to prevent Member States from fixing high national rates for this product if they consider this to be necessary for health reasons.
Madam President, I refer specifically to Commissioner Cresson's closing remarks to the effect that, even before the amendments on a small increase in the rate of tax on shag and hand-rolling tobacco are adopted, she could not accept this because it would be so bad for jobs.
She then ended by saying that tax on tobacco and tobacco products was so important for health.
I really cannot follow that at all.
She made reference to research carried out by Member States and professional organisations.
I should like to hear from her what the interest groups to which she refers - for example health bodies and consumer organisations - have to say on this subject.
Mr President, may I ask the Commission a question? If what Mr Metten has said is correct, it would have to be an amendment that affects cigarettes, because 99 % of the market is unaffected by the proposals that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party has tabled.
They only affect one per cent, which is precisely the share of the market that is still in the hands of small and medium-sized businesses.
The cigarette industry is highly concentrated.
Can you confirm, Commissioner, that the plans to increase tobacco duty which Mr Metten is advocating here would only affect small and medium-sized businesses, which account for one per cent of total turnover, and that Mr Metten's health-based arguments are therefore unfounded?
I can only confirm what I said earlier: that it does not seem that these products, namely hand-rolling tobacco, are directly in competition with cigarettes.
Moreover, as I have already said, the hand-rolling tobacco industry needs a much greater workforce, even though this product's share of the market is not very great, and it directly affects jobs.
We therefore considered that it was necessary to safeguard employment and the existence of this industry through the lowest level of taxation for hand-rolling tobacco.
Once again, there is nothing to prevent Member States, if they decide otherwise, from establishing national rates which could vary according to their assessment of the effect on public health.
Thank you, Mrs Cresson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Regionalisation of common fisheries policy
The next item is the report (A4-0018/99) by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on regionalisation of the common fisheries policy.
Mr President, in tabling this report on regionalisation which is an own-initiative report from the Committee on Fisheries, let me immediately pay tribute to our former colleague Allan Macartney whose strong sense of European identity pervades this entire document.
His outstanding contribution to the Committee on Fisheries strengthened and safeguarded the European fishing industry whose interests he stoutly defended during his lifetime.
His presence, needless to say, is sorely missed in this House.
But he will not be forgotten.
His commitment to the European ideal lives on in this report to Parliament.
There are many calls for and conflicting interpretations of regionalisation and its relevance to the common fisheries policy.
This state of affairs arises from the belief among many fishermen that there is a lack of cohesion in the regional application of the common fisheries policy and Community institutions.
It has been my consistent opinion that unless greater efforts are made to involve fishermen's organisations in the decision-making process the best efforts of Community legislators will fail.
Consequently, this report draws attention to the potential for an already emergent regionalisation policy within a European context.
In doing so it must be recognised that although renationalisation of fishing areas adjacent to EU countries is not an option, there is still an overriding obligation on Community institutions to safeguard the future of fisheries-dependent communities.
Long-term survival of such communities will depend not just on a legal recognition of their legitimate historical rights safeguarded by the principle of relative stability and the six- to twelve-mile limits but also on a commitment by Parliament to ensure that future European policy reflects the need to facilitate their participation as stakeholders.
The aim of this report is therefore not to discuss whether this regionalisation should be implemented but rather to explore how it can be widened, developed and institutionalised.
No one should take the view that this report is to introduce regionalisation immediately.
It is an opportunity to debate the issues and to explore how it can all be developed.
The current common fisheries policy already includes large elements of regional variation and localised cooperation which could be explored more effectively in respect of stock conservation.
Examples include the introduction of square mesh legislation.
This is now part of my own country's legislation as a direct consequence of initatives by fishermen acting as responsible stakeholders.
Other regional examples exist within the Community, such as the French local, regional and national committee systems, illustrating that developed regional management units, involving the industry and the decision-making process, can lead to a more rational, workable and realistic management system than presently exists.
It is a wonder that, whilst large sums of European taxpayers' money are spent on largely irrelevant, theoretical, scientific and management studies, no effort is made by either Community scientists or legislators to study fully functional democratic management systems that already exist in the Community.
In tandem with this report I would hope that Parliament would support my call for studies on existing regional management systems as a matter of priority, with a view to implementing them on a wider scale within Community regions.
I refer to the amendments tabled by my colleagues, many of which I can support, and I personally endorse the amendments to extend the limits to 24 miles.
In conclusion, while I would wish to draw your attention to the socio-economic implications if we fail to develop a cohesive regionalisation policy in Community fisheries in the very near future, I firmly believe that this report offers a ray of hope for a new departure within the common fisheries policy which will be acceptable to most, if not all, fishermen.
I ask the House for its support by voting in favour of this report.
Mr President, this report is the fruit of a good deal of work by the Committee on Fisheries and follows on from a number of its previous proposals to the House: the reform of the common fisheries policy, the regulations, the own-initiative report on international agreements and the discussion to be held within the next few months on the structural regulations, the FIFG and the Structural Funds.
All of this will be better organised and implemented if the principle of subsidiarity is paramount, if bureaucratic structures and superstructures are eliminated, and if fishermen can be involved in managing the CFP; after all, this is the very essence of regionalisation.
When referring to regionalisation, we are thinking of an aspect of the common fisheries policy which exists already.
We are not of course thinking of a breach of Community solidarity; on the contrary, the involvement of local policies and active subsidiarity allowing for a local presence will make the reform of the CFP more successful.
In this way, it will also be possible to take up useful innovations and to achieve a balance between fisheries and the environment, which is important for the preservation of Community resources, as well as providing worthwhile opportunities for fishing activities aimed at maintaining a balanced environment, such as small-scale fisheries and the creation of new jobs - which the fisheries sector is of course still in a position to offer, in a Europe where unemployment is so widespread. There is work not only for fishermen but also for other guardians of the sea, for example in aquaculture and handicrafts linked to the marine environment.
In the Socialist Group's opinion, it makes sense to call for territorial waters to be extended to 24 miles; this request takes account of the ability to manage marine activities and resources in the coastal zone, and could maximise the involvement of associations.
The common fisheries policy must take account of the various players operating in the sector.
Here we insist, for example, that other players should be brought into the Advisory Committee, without however weakening the participation of certain important parties: the members of the Advisory Committee should comprise not only shipowners and - quite rightly - NGOs and consumers, but also a strong trade union contingent.
This is our blueprint for the future, and in this way we shall make a contribution to the future of fisheries.
Mr President, it is nice to see the Commissioner here with us tonight as this is a debate the European Parliament can be proud of.
The report we are discussing follows logically on from the Fraga report which we discussed in November.
The common fisheries policy was devised in 1973 and enacted in 1983, and it was believed at that time that we were setting up a policy for the long-term future.
With hindsight we can recognise that a number of mistakes were made and the common fisheries policy is highly over-bureaucratised.
It has failed to protect fish stocks.
It has failed to sustain viable fishing communities around the coast.
Many of the rules are arbitrary and unfair and abuse is rife.
The Gallagher report is therefore a great opportunity for this Parliament.
As the rapporteur said, it follows on from the basis set out by Mr Macartney.
I agree with his sentiments that Mr Macartney's loss was a tragedy.
The alternatives are quite clearly set out in the Gallagher report.
In my own view we need to reinforce the localisation of the common fisheries policy.
We need to make the local communities around the coasts of Europe feel part of the common fisheries policy, a policy which they currently reject.
Therefore we have a huge opportunity to get the fishermen involved.
We must recognise the fact that the local communities have to be assisted.
They must be given the opportunity to look after, to harvest and also to husband the local fish resources.
It is essential therefore to extend the 12-mile limit to 24 miles, to make that economic zone an area within which they can earn a living.
It is the local fishermen one needs to look after.
The 24-mile area is the one in which they work.
If we deny them the opportunity of harvesting their own local resource they are not going to feel fully involved in the common fisheries policy.
If they are involved they will police it and will make sure that the long-term management is in place for future generations.
Anybody who really believes in conservation of fish stocks has to be involved in encouraging regionalisation and ensuring that the local fishermen are part of the common fisheries policy and operate it under Community rules.
Mr President, regionalisation can mean different things to different people.
As the report correctly says, to some it means renationalisation.
It can also mean devolution of some aspects of decision-making to sub-national areas or managing on the basis of large bodies of water such as the North Sea or parts of the Mediterranean.
There are many different meanings.
While some sort of devolution may in some cases be acceptable or desirable, it must be remembered that fish swim around so management of fisheries must be achieved at an appropriate level.
The same level of management authority is not necessarily appropriate for all stocks in a region.
For instance, the difficulties in managing highly migratory species such as tuna are completely different from those for harvesting seaweed or some species of shellfish.
The problem with the Gallagher report is that it does not address these points and simply argues the case for regionalisation.
It never defines what is meant by the term or gives any guidelines about what should be regionalised or how.
It simply states that there is a need for comprehensive regionalisation of the common fisheries policy.
Without a clearer definition of what is meant by this, the Green Group cannot support the report.
Mr President, I rise with mixed emotions today.
Allan Macartney was my dear colleague and I am glad that his work is here before us.
I am grateful to Mr Gallagher for carrying it on so ably and to the Committee on Fisheries.
I am happy that Allan was succeeded by his own close friend and election agent, Ian Hudghton, who will be speaking later.
I am passionate about this subject as my constituency has many fishing-dependent communities, including 90 inhabited islands, some of them going almost up to the Arctic Circle.
Some of these communities are very fragile and totally dependent on the fishing industry.
I have shared with them their despairs and their hopes, their tragedies and their disenchantment with this policy.
I have been to sea many times both in calm weather and in gales.
One thing I notice is that fishermen have great rapport with fishermen from other parts of the Community and, in fact, of the world.
Perhaps if fishermen got together and made policy we would not have so many problems.
There would certainly be more fairness and less bureaucracy than hitherto.
We have to be able to offer a future to all our fishermen.
They have to believe they have a future.
Many of them do not have that belief at the present time.
Mr Gallagher has offered a ray of hope.
Amendment No 4 by Mr Provan is very dangerous, as was an answer he gave in a press conference today.
Although the regulation comes to an end, the policy does not.
We have agreed that the principle of relative stability continues.
Any reference to expiry of the common fisheries policy without the addendum is very dangerous.
Ms McKenna talked about fish being different because they do not stay put like animals in a farmer's field.
This is recognised.
The CFP was a derogation in itself from the Treaty of Rome.
The aims were great.
There was to be fairness, maintenance of dependent areas, a traditional way of life, stabilised markets, reasonable prices, relations organised within the Community and with third countries.
It was wonderful.
Unfortunately, the reality has fallen short.
We have neither been able to protect the fishermen, nor the stocks.
That is why I think regionalisation is necessary and I have given examples in Amendment No 24.
We are already on the road to regionalisation.
There are many examples.
I will not read them out but you should all look at Amendment No 24 where you will see positive examples.
Discard problems, for example, vary from country to country.
If you think of the square mesh which could solve the problem of conservation in many areas, you will see that we are already on the road to a regionalisation policy.
I would question Mr Novo's amendments.
He talks about decentralisation as if it is the same thing.
I would suggest that regionalisation could affect a whole region involving several states.
Ms McKenna mentioned that.
It could be the whole North Sea or the whole Mediterranean.
Decentralisation suggests a relationship with one Member State only.
So, although I admire Mr Novo's work and commitment, I have to say that I will not be supporting his amendments.
I support Mr Teverson's amendments and, obviously, I support my own.
I am grateful to Commissioner Bonino who has shown enormous calibre as a very hard-working, clever Commissioner for Fisheries, and to the Commission, which has arranged numerous places where there will be forums for everyone to get involved.
But I go further.
I go with Pat the Cope in wanting direct involvement of the fishermen and I support the regional management committees.
Mr President, I would like to inform Mrs Ewing that we have withdrawn Amendments Nos 3, 4 and 5.
Mr President, the CFP already contains elements of regionalisation.
These may be in the form of regulatory measures specific to particular sea areas, or conservation measures particular to certain fishing regions, ICES areas or sub-areas. There are also restrictions affecting particular species and specific fishing grounds, involving various restrictions with regard to access to the waters or the halting of fishing during certain periods, varied regional regulatory measures decided by the Member States under the principle of subsidiarity, and urgent measures on conservation of resources taken on the initiative of the Commission.
The fundamental issue is of course to know what exactly we mean by 'regionalisation of the CFP'.
If by 'regionalisation' we mean 'decentralisation', that is with global decisions being centralised at national level by each Member State, particularly in planning and fleet management, and the delocalised application of those decisions, we are of course in favour of a certain degree of regionalisation of the CFP.
If, on the other hand, by 'regionalisation' we mean a transfer of decisions from national level to the administrative regions, we are opposed to it.
The principle of subsidiarity must be correctly applied.
Although the Commission's task is to define general objectives, it should in no way lay down the decisions through which those objectives should be achieved.
It is at national level that coherence should be defined for land management, coastal management and maintaining a balance between the various types of fishing - inshore fishing, high-sea fishing, deep-sea fishing - and, moreover, the regions have no desire to take the place of the national authorities on this matter.
Boats from home ports in different administrative regions may in fact fish in the same areas.
In this case, if different or even contradictory decisions were taken by different regional authorities, that could have damaging effects by causing the relocation of fishing boats or reducing the level of monitoring.
It is therefore essential, given that the territorial administrative region and the regional fishing area often do not coincide, to establish a clear system that is coordinated by the national authorities.
The regional authorities, meanwhile, are in a better position to implement, in a decentralised manner, both structural measures and measures linked to the marketing of fishery products.
As a result, our group will vote in favour of the amendments which aim to encourage the development of a decentralised policy rather than an actual regionalisation of the CFP.
We will reject all of the amendments and articles of the resolution which seek to transfer decisions which should remain at national level to the administrative regions, and we also reject the amendments which seek to alter the six and twelve mile zones.
We know the position of certain Member States on the Boxes, but we do not think that this resolution should aim to alter the regulatory bases of the CFP.
It can only deal with the functioning and organisation of the CFP.
Our group will closely follow the development of the vote and will vote in favour of the resolution if national prerogatives with regard to decisions on the implementation of the CFP are preserved.
Under no circumstances do we want the development of the application of the CFP to lead to the role of regional administrations being strengthened to the detriment of the role of national administrations.
However, we believe that the elements of regionalisation in the current CFP, which I pointed out at the beginning of my speech, should be applied further, in order to respond in the best way, and in line with real needs, to the different characteristics, both in terms of fishery resources and in structural terms, of the various areas of production which constitute the fishing zones.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Gallagher on his work and to take my turn in recalling the memory of our former colleague Mr Macartney, who initiated this report on the regionalisation of the CFP.
Mr President, I would like to associate myself with the remarks of other Members of the House about the colleague of the lady from Scotland who has just spoken.
She knows how I feel about this matter personally.
I am glad that Mr Macartney's influence in the committee lives on tonight and that we can help to achieve his goals.
I would remind this House that early in the 1990s the Commission initiated a report on Northern Ireland fisheries.
It found that in the three large harbours which carry on the fishing endeavour - and I refer to Kilkeel, Ardglass and Portavogie - all the fishing is carried on within a family system.
The percentage of people outside the families who work in the industry is very small indeed.
So the life of these communities rests in a proper appraisal of their needs and their voice needs to be heard.
That is why I like this report.
It believes that fishermen's support for fisheries regulations will improve by involving the local fishery organisations in the decision-making process.
What is wrong with that? That is what we need.
We need the contribution of these people whose livelihoods are at stake.
The fishermen will not find a regime legitimate unless they are able to make a contribution and their voice is heard.
This whole programme can be made more acceptable if this happens.
Northern Ireland is an Objective 1 area but this will possibly come to an end. What will happen to the system today that is geared into decommissioning fishing boats when we no longer receive Objective 1 funds?
Will we see to it that these little communities - and they are tiny compared with the big fishing industries of the rest of the Community but vital to us all - are safeguarded? Those are the matters which really concern the fishermen of Northern Ireland.
Mr President, in the past fishermen themselves could run fisheries, but technical possibilities have changed the fishing industry.
It is not only regional or coast-based; it is that too, but not only that.
I am in broad agreement with the rapporteur, in that we must be sure not to lapse into romanticism, because fishing has changed and that is what we should be addressing.
We cannot turn back the clock and dwell on the good old days.
I would therefore also like to comment on the 24 nautical miles question.
Mrs McKenna mentioned that fish swim around; they may spawn in one area and be caught in another.
If we start to be restrictive towards one another, we do not have a common fisheries policy, because what is the use of fish spawning in our area if we are not allowed to catch them ourselves? Some cooperation and exchange of quotas are therefore necessary.
I am also a little sceptical about what Mr Souchet said regarding the national level.
We could talk instead about regional cooperation between several countries.
We have really good experience of that in the Baltic.
As regards over-bureaucratisation, which was mentioned earlier, we must aim for self-management and taking influence on our own situation.
When people have responsibility, they can help in bringing their own situation under control, and that works against bureaucracy.
We have reasonable cooperation in most places.
In this connection I must not forget to thank Allan, with whom I worked in the North Sea Commission, precisely on these matters.
Even though we have good rules, national exemptions may mean that a 100-tonne trawler with a rating of 1000 hp can suddenly turn up, roll out a net the size of a football pitch and simply clean out a sea.
When there are two such trawlers in the Baltic, it hardly matters whether or not we have self-management and regionalisation.
Two trawlers based in the North Sea can make life difficult for 50 small fishermen.
Regionalisation therefore means self-management, responsibility and active participation.
That demands something from us in the European Parliament, but at national level too.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Gallagher for taking over this report from Mr Macartney and for doing an excellent job in maintaining the concern and knowledge which Mr Macartney brought to the subject and his particular feeling for the industry and the people engaged in it.
Mr Gallagher has the same qualifications as he comes from the same sort of region and has the same sort of experience of the fishing industry.
We have to recognise that there is a repair job to be done so far as the common fisheries policy is concerned.
When European farmers demonstrate in the streets about the common agricultural policy, it is not because they are against the policy but because they fear that they may be deprived of it.
But fishermen, generally speaking, do not appreciate what we and the Commissioner have been trying to do on their behalf.
We have to recognise that there is a sort of mutual misunderstanding in fishing ports throughout the European Union.
Everybody believes that everybody else has a better deal.
Therefore, it is important to break new ground, to offer fishermen the hope of greater participation than they had in the past.
If we cannot achieve that we will not bring it home to them that the fight is about their livelihood.
The fight is about preserving the resources they have and protecting the regions they live in.
That is not always clear to them.
I spent Sunday evening in Donegal.
I met a lot of fishermen and generally speaking they were very unhappy people.
If it was not the weather, it was quotas or bad prices.
There are so many problems that they feel it is out of their hands.
This proposal by Mr Gallagher is to reinvolve them.
By no means do we want to tell fishermen that we are offering them anything like a renationalisation or that we are removing the common fisheries policy.
What we want to do is get the regions and the communities involved in the design of the policy and updating on a regular basis.
I welcome this report and I look forward to the discussion that will follow and the eventual policy we can redesign around those proposals.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Gallagher and other speakers for their generous tributes to my predecessor, the late Dr Allan Macartney.
He initially drafted this report to contribute to the current Europe-wide assessment of the achievements and failures of the CFP.
In September last year Mr Gallagher kindly agreed to take over responsibility for this report and I should like to put on record my appreciation of his efforts in steering it through the committee.
The original draft was based on the premise that the common fisheries policy is, and from its inception has been, partially regionalised.
The draft looked at how more local involvement in resource management and conservation measures might best be achieved and called for the existing regionalisation to be consolidated and expanded through the creation of regional management units.
Like Allan Macartney, I firmly believe that bringing the decision-making process closer to those who are most affected by the CFP and are responsible for its implementation would lead to more respect for the provisions of the CFP and for a more successful policy per se .
I would therefore like to call for greater involvement of fishermen and the fishing industry as a whole as an essential prerequisite to the success of the CFP.
Complementary to involving the fishing industry in the decision-making process is the need to heed the concerns of the fishing industry as a whole under the banner of regionalisation.
The causal link between the fish caught in a given region and the industry it supports within that region can be easily undermined.
This was brought home to me last week when I met with fish processors based in my constituency.
They expressed concern that fish caught in that region are not always landed there.
Therefore, essential jobs in the processing industries in what are clearly fisheries-dependent areas are put at risk.
Consequently, I should like to stress the importance of Article 12 of the resolution.
The time has come to consolidate what de facto exists and to expand the principle of regionalisation of the CFP to all Community waters.
This step is necessary if we are genuinely to involve fishermen in the decisions which affect them and offers the only clear and practical means of recognising the unique variables that exist in the fisheries sector.
I am in no doubt that regionalisation would further the primary goal of conserving fish stocks through sustainable fishing so vital for the fisheries-dependent communities of Europe.
At the committee stage Mrs Ewing and I successfully tabled a number of amendments to ensure that the fundamental principles of the CFP such as relative stability are not undermined.
My group has now tabled amendments which complement the consistent regionalisation of the CFP and ultimately will help to secure a successful future for the policy.
Regionalisation already exists, albeit in an ad hoc and inconsistent manner.
These amendments address that anomaly and stress the importance of involving the fishing industry within the Advisory Committee on Fisheries.
I would urge the House to support these amendments and the report as a whole.
Mr President, I welcome Mr Gallagher's report.
It highlights two possible approaches in the reform of the CFP after 2002: an intra-state approach, devolving responsibility to regions within Member States; and an inter-state approach where Community waters are divided into regions with a devolved management structure.
About a year ago the Commission sent out a questionnaire to all Member States and organisations throughout Europe, to people in the industry, consumers, processors and others.
The Commission held hearings in various locations throughout Europe.
A summary of the findings revealed that most expressed the great desire for decentralisation and regionalisation.
So this is what the fishing industry throughout the European Union wants.
It is my belief that the principle of decentralisation and regionalisation, coupled with relative stability, must form the cornerstone of any future reform of the CFP.
The concept of relative stability was enshrined in the 1983 agreement and strengthened by the extension of the coastal bans to 12 miles.
Indeed, I support Mr Provan's amendment to extend the coastal bans further.
It is important that communities such as North-East Scotland, the Western Isles, Donegal, Cornwall, Galicia and Brittany are protected from the over-exploitation of fish stocks.
It is important, therefore, that the European Union sets down various principles with regard to exploitation and conservation.
There must be a stronger commitment within that policy of devolving fisheries policy.
Regionalisation of the CFP will encourage the active involvement of fishermen in decision-making as well as the participation of producers' organisations at local level.
In conclusion, I support Mr Gallagher's call for regionalisation of the European fisheries policy which is necessary if we are to remedy the current deficiencies of the CFP.
Any reform, however, must retain the principle of relative stability which will best serve the interests of fishermen and the marine environment alike.
Mr President, in the context of the necessary evolution of the common fisheries policy, changes should never be rejected outright simply out of fear of the unknown.
I believe it is true to say therefore that changes leading to the sector becoming more actively involved in decision-making and to better implementation of the principle of subsidiarity are fully supported by Parliament.
However, such features are not yet defining characteristics of the common fisheries policy though we would like them to be.
Bearing all this in mind, the imposition of a system of regionalisation as proposed in the report - through the creation of regional management units whose composition and responsibilities are not specified - does appear to be a leap in the dark. It is bound to hinder the process of bringing the common fisheries policy closer to those most directly affected by it, given the lack of a consensus and of the consideration needed before taking such a significant step.
Before even beginning to consider the form regionalisation could take, we should establish channels of communication with the sector and set in motion a decentralisation process reaching down to regional level. Many Member States do not even have the appropriate instruments for doing so, as many national governments have not devolved the administration of fisheries to the regions.
Indeed, according to the replies to the questionnaires sent out by the Commission concerning the review of the common fisheries policy, the sector itself does not support the need for regionalisation, the only exception being the United Kingdom.
Similarly, the request to extend territorial waters to 24 miles is also supported only by a minority.
Any decision of this nature would involve significant changes in the status of the fleets and ought to be considered in the wider context of the review of the common fisheries policy. Indeed, even the details of this are unclear, as the figures of 24, 35 and 50 miles are all quoted when the review of the common fisheries policy is discussed.
I am therefore opposed to Amendments Nos 6 and 20.
Furthermore, the experts who looked at regionalisation on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries have stated that regionalisation would involve substantial changes to the principle of relative stability. Yet many Members who support such regionalisation are opposed to the modification of this principle, and I would be grateful if they could explain this to me.
In addition, it would be necessary to redefine the balance between coastal and industrial fleets. This would call for a system of compensation.
I am sure I have said enough to make it clear that in its present form the proposal for regionalisation is far from being a practical solution. Much more work and thought are called for if the idea is not to be stillborn.
It only remains for me to thank Mr Gallagher for his work and to thank all Members present today.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating our colleague Mr Gallagher, the rapporteur, whose meticulous work is well known to all those in the Committee on Fisheries. I offer him special congratulations on this report, despite disagreeing with it myself.
Although he was not originally the rapporteur, Mr Gallagher was called upon to take charge of this report. In this context, it is appropriate to pay tribute again to the memory of our colleague Allan Macartney.
It is becoming abundantly clear in this debate that the term 'regionalisation' does not have a clear meaning.
What does regionalisation involve? I think we should reach a consensus on what we understand by regionalisation of the common fisheries policy before discussing it.
The terms 'regions' and 'regionalisation' have widely differing meanings in the 15 Member States, and carrying these differences through into an area like fisheries and the common fisheries policy means that, in my opinion, the report lacks clarity. I would even go so far as to say that it is contradictory and that it sheds very little light on fisheries and on the future common fisheries policy, where light is sorely needed.
A process of decentralisation which involves greater participation and transparency has to be welcomed. It must, however, be carried out within the global framework of a common policy which respects the principles of equality and nondiscrimination and which is compatible with the fundamental principles of freedom of movement within the single market enshrined in the Treaty.
The needs of fishing-dependent communities should not be confused with covert renationalisation through regionalisation. Such a move would represent an attack on the global nature of a common policy.
Participation in Community decision-making certainly ought to be improved. However, this should not be at the cost of fragmenting the CFP with regional decisions, thus increasing bureaucracy and weakening the guarantees of impartiality in the decision-making process.
Any review of the common fisheries policy must allow this sector to finally become part of the Community's economy and should naturally take into account the need to continue defending coastal fishing and fishing-dependent communities. The status quo needs to be maintained and there should be no extension of the coastal areas, contrary to what a number of amendments suggest.
For all these reasons, we do not feel that the report before us today is appropriate.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to start by congratulating Pat Gallagher on all the hard and positive work he has put in. I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to our former colleague, the late Allan Macartney, who was a great Member of Parliament and a great friend.
Experience has shown that the fisheries sector is plagued by conflicts between fishing communities about access to fisheries resources, and above all conflicts between fishing communities in neighbouring countries.
In order to keep such conflicts to a minimum, the common fisheries policy has always reserved a fixed area of the EU Member States' territorial sea for fishing by local communities.
This limit was set at six miles in 1972, and was subsequently increased to 12 miles in 1983, under the present common fisheries policy regulation.
However, that regulation expires on 31 December 2002, so that if nothing is done, the principles of the single market will apply, in other words there will be unrestricted access to fisheries resources in all EU waters.
This would of course have a very negative impact on fisheries, especially small-scale fishing, which has a very important economic and social function in many Member States, not least in my own, Portugal.
For this reason, it is essential to ensure that the principle of relative stability is adhered to and that the fishing areas reserved exclusively for national or local communities are not just maintained, but also extended.
For the same reason, I have joined James Provan and other colleagues in tabling seven amendments to the Gallagher report to ensure that this principle of relative stability is safeguarded as of now and to start to have a more active influence on the negotiations on post-2002 common fisheries policy, with a view to extending the 12-mile area for national and local fishermen to 24 miles.
Mr President, I would also like to say that as far as we are concerned, decentralisation is not a route to renationalisation: decentralisation simply means greater decentralisation and flexibility, or, in other words, greater accountability and efficiency.
Mr President, I wish to begin, on behalf of the Commission and in my personal capacity, by echoing the words of sorrow and grief over the loss of your colleague, Allan Macartney, not without recalling that - when I was much younger and a Member of this House - Mr Macartney and I belonged to the same group.
I would therefore echo your words both on behalf of the Commission and personally.
I must say, ladies and gentlemen, that whenever we discuss fisheries - indeed, we have become a 'friends of fisheries' group, always more or less the same people - it is my impression that some of you think, or at least your words imply, that the fisheries sector once experienced a glorious and splendid heyday.
I am something of a novice, having dealt with this sector for only four years, but none of the books or publications I have read on the fishing industry in former times refer to that golden age: the sector has always had an extremely tough existence, particularly at certain moments, constantly struggling to preserve the balance between extraction and resources.
From this point of view, I believe that the Commission has proved very attentive and very open to suggestions from various quarters - Parliament, the Advisory Committee and also the sector itself - in an attempt to improve the situation.
I have studied the Gallagher report carefully from this perspective, and I wish in all honesty to make two points: firstly, as you know, wide-ranging consultations are under way for the reform of the common fisheries policy in 2002. We took pains to launch these consultations well in advance, so as to allow ample time for the debate.
Not all the questionnaires have been returned, but judging by the overwhelming majority of those which have reached the Commission and are now being evaluated, only part of the sector in both the UK and Ireland favours this type of proposal.
Indeed, Mrs McKenna is right on one point: we should first be clearer about what we mean, or what you mean, by regionalisation, and how exactly it differs from decentralisation - which entails greater transparency and greater involvement - and, above all, how the fundamental principle of relative stability, which many of you have stressed today, can be reconciled with regionalisation.
I believe that this report is an important and useful contribution to the debate.
Tomorrow morning, I shall be putting my proposed reforms to the Advisory Committee on Fisheries, but I would assure you that the present common policy already contains some very strong regional elements: for example, the regional MGPs and the whole section relating to regional cooperation and meetings.
In short, a whole range of initiatives can be expanded on.
The final point which I would draw to the House's attention - and this is why I say that further consideration is required - is a problem concerning the Treaty.
While this report does not establish clearly what the Commission's role would be, there would undoubtedly be some difficulty at the final stage, that of the Council of Ministers, the 15 EU ministers.
In my opinion, that stage cannot be seen merely as a rubber-stamping of decisions taken in the regions or by regional organisations.
I hope that we shall continue to discuss this issue with one another, because I am sometimes aware of two overlapping elements: decentralisation - the proper application of subsidiarity, with greater involvement of local communities - which is very necessary, and regionalisation, which I think deserves much more investigation, since certain problems cannot be solved at regional level.
I should therefore not like us to select the wrong approach and to devise radical reforms without having studied them in great detail.
I hope that we shall be able to carry forward these ideas together, in order to make the necessary reforms to the common fisheries policy after having examined them in a little more depth.
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
The sitting was suspended at 8.25 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
Legal protection of inventions: grace period
The next item is the report (A4-0037/99) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the introduction of a grace period for innovations in national patent laws.
Mr President, researchers, scientists and inventors in the European Union are faced with a problem.
Either they publish the results of their research, their scientific findings, thereby waiving the right to subsequent protection by patent, or they steer clear of the academic discussion process in the expectation of a future patent.
That is the dilemma facing researchers, scientists and inventors in the European Union.
They are forced to choose between contributing to scientific knowledge and obtaining a patent.
The problem has been solved in the United States; it has been solved in Japan; it has been solved in many other countries of the world, but not in the European Union.
This has fatal consequences. European researchers, scientists and inventors can naturally apply in the United States for patents on what they have developed, on the scientific ideas they have publicised.
Of course they can do that, with the result that they will naturally make further investments in the country in which they hold the patents.
In other words, the lack of a grace period means that our rules in the European Union both impede innovation and discourage research.
What does the grace period mean? It means that a publication by the inventor himself or herself will not prejudice the granting of a patent to the same person.
I hasten to add that this does not in any way alter the 'first to file' principle.
Now there are some clever people in the European Union, for example in the Association of the Chemical Industry, who tell us that this is all a matter of legal uncertainty.
The Americans, the Japanese, the Canadians and many other peoples in this world would rub their eyes in disbelief to see the German Association of the Chemical Industry citing legal uncertainty. They will scarcely share that sentiment.
Another astonishing thing is that, when Europe negotiated with America in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) framework on the basis that they were introducing the 'first to file' principle, so we would introduce the grace period in Europe, the whole of European industry actually agreed with the introduction of the grace period.
I know that the Commission, which incidentally held a hearing in October and, to the astonishment of the European public, communicated its conclusions the very next day, has said that it can only look at this in conjunction with the 'first to file' principle and with the issue of the 'first to invent' principle, which, as you may know, plays a major role in the United States.
One thing is sure: the Americans will never deviate from the 'first to invent' principle.
This being the case, we Europeans are effectively left with the sole option of doing the sensible thing, of acting in our own best interests at long last by introducing the grace period.
Now it is not my job to make recommendations to the other political parties.
I shall not make any recommendations to the PPE or the Liberals; they may possibly reject all of this.
That may well be.
I merely wish to point out one thing: the position that the PPE seems to have adopted and the position that the Liberals seem to have adopted will both have to be abandoned.
They will not be able to assert their positions.
They will lose this argument.
I am, of course, not entirely unaccustomed to having to wait until the second round before winning the day, but however Parliament may decide on this initiative, I know that we - my group - will succeed with it in the end; that is quite certain.
We shall organise an international congress on this topic with the best people, and then we shall probably be able to tell the Commission how the world sees this question instead of merely presenting the narrow viewpoint of the Association of the Chemical Industry in Germany.
My recommendation would be this: if I were the PPE or the Liberal Group, I should be somewhat more cautious.
It is always difficult to have to give up a position that has become unsustainable because it is hostile to research, because it impedes innovation and because it has nothing to do with the international harmonisation of patent law.
This position is untenable.
You will have to give up this position, and so will the Commission. You will abandon it!
It would perhaps be wiser to line up on the side of common sense from the outset.
So whatever the result tomorrow, whether we secure 314 votes or not, it will be of no consequence at all.
If my group had not taken this initiative, the whole issue would not have arisen.
The Commission, of course, would have preferred to keep the lid on this issue and not to have it discussed in connection with the Community patent.
That is what the Commission would have liked best.
The only problem is that we have now put it on the agenda.
We shall talk about it, and whatever the outcome of tomorrow's vote, the prospect of failing to secure the necessary majority does not perturb me.
We shall conduct the real discussion in connection with the Community patent, and we shall ultimately win this debate and thereby strengthen the European Union as a location for research and industry.
It continually puzzles me, when Europe's standing as a business location is being ruined by such anti-investment and anti-research instruments, how anyone can still wonder why the jobs are all being created elsewhere.
That is why I am convinced that common sense will prevail in the end.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur who is one of the most imaginative Members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
He was the first person to pilot an own-initiative report through Parliament on motor insurance which led to the Commission producing legislation.
Yet again Mr Rothley has been imaginative on the subject of inventions.
It is important that the European Union does not suffer competitive disadvantage, vis-à-vis other parts of the world, as far as our engineering skills are concerned.
Patents are an important plank of legal rights to encourage inventions.
Creativity is the engine of productivity in the European Union.
Engineering is important in my constituency so I particularly appreciate the importance of patents and inventions.
To cite just two examples: in my constituency Frank Whittle invented the jet engine and James Brindley invented the safety gears on bicycles.
This report is important as a proposal because it would allow researchers a year to publish before the need to file for a patent.
This would help researchers to publicise their work and would follow the example of the United States and Japan.
We need to make the European Union as competitive as possible.
We need to have a strong manufacturing base and patents are an important part of developing the industrial output of the European Union.
Mr President, the legislative initiative before us today is based on the second paragraph of Article 138b of the EC Treaty and on Rule 50 of our Rules of Procedure. As the rapporteur has explained, its purpose is to introduce a one-year grace period into legislation on patents.
During this period the inventor may file for a patent without suffering adversely from prior publication of the invention. This therefore amounts to setting up a system similar to that which already exists in the United States and in Japan, where the grace period is six months.
The attempts by the WIPO to introduce such a grace period have so far proved unsuccessful. The main reason for this has been the failure to resolve the issue of who has the right to the patent.
In the United States it is the inventor, but in Europe it is whoever files for it.
Mr President, I have a great regard for my colleague Mr Rothley, as he knows.
I truly believe that he is a great parliamentarian and a fine lawyer.
Nevertheless, I do have to say that, in this case, I am completely opposed to what his report proposes.
He has referred to the need for prudence.
I am not sure whether it is more or less prudent to request a grace period than not to do so.
My speech could in a sense be redundant, as Mr Rothley has already referred to the arguments I intend to adduce.
He has anticipated what I have to say by presenting the arguments against such a request, and I can but wonder why.
As we see it - Mr Rothley said so and I shall therefore repeat the point - the grace period results in a high degree of legal uncertainty and also in financial uncertainty for those responsible for the invention to which the patent relates. This is undeniable and, as Mr Rothley also pointed out, industry would clearly not be able to bear the costs of the uncertainty resulting from such a grace period.
What is called for is a detailed study to establish the actual effect of the existing discrepancies between European and United States legislation, yet no such study has been undertaken. We must remember that the grace period currently provided for in the United States is the consequence of a risk capital system that differs greatly from that which exists within the European Union.
It would therefore be inappropriate to provide for such a period within the Union, as it would not take account of the specific nature of our current financial system.
It should also be borne in mind that in October 1988, the Commission organised a public hearing attended by representatives of the sectors concerned.
The conclusion of this hearing was that for any initiative linked to the introduction of a grace period to be successful, it would have to take account of globalisation. Consequently, it would have to operate within the framework of a regulatory authority.
We do not therefore agree that Article 138b of the Treaty can serve as the legal basis for this proposal.
We believe that it is expecting too much of the Commission to ask it to take a legislative initiative of this magnitude. We do not consider that it would be prudent to do so, and Mr Rothley himself referred to the need for prudence.
My colleague stated that the real debate will take place in the context of the patent and he is quite right.
If that debate takes place, then a grace period is not required and could in fact prove counter-productive.
Mr President, this is clearly no easy matter to deal with.
As the rapporteur has pointed out, it would be advantageous in some cases, for instance scientific research and small businesses which are unfamiliar with the procedures.
However, when we talk about the EU lagging behind in the number of inventions per head, this only applies at EU level.
In my view, we should also be investigating the differences that exist between the Member States, since here the picture is not nearly as clear as the rapporteur is saying.
The disadvantages that have been mentioned include uncertainty about the law and legal procedures, and the possibility that European businesses may end up in a worse situation than their American counterparts.
We Liberals believe that the matter should be looked at in conjunction with some of the trade wars that are currently taking place between Europe and the USA.
Clearly, what is at issue is intangible property; I have in mind the UMTS dispute in this respect.
We were evidently very close to a settlement some years ago, when it would have been better to have had 'first to file' rather than 'first to invent' as a general, worldwide principle.
We should also have made provision for a grace period.
We should not now give up the chance of bringing these two principles together through the unilateral introduction of a grace period.
It is plain that the rapporteur, with this initiative, has goaded the Commission into action.
I think we can see this in the Commission's last communication on Community patents, in which it specifically points to the need for some kind of interim arrangement for an enquiry to take place, whereby it is registered that something has been invented.
Such a clear boundary is considerably better.
Consequently, the Liberals are opposed to a formal initiative.
Nevertheless, we are in favour of further investigations and of the EU holding to this course in the forthcoming trade policy negotiations.
We have reached this decision bearing in mind the current state of relations between the trading blocs.
Mr President, Commissioner, there may be different views, or even very different views, about whether it was wise to abandon the European tradition of patent law in favour of adaptation to the US system.
But what quite certainly cannot be done, and I believe the rapporteur is absolutely right here, is to refuse to accept the consequences of the decision after it has been taken.
Adopting the US patentability criteria without taking the logical next step of introducing the grace period, which has long been in force in the United States, would mean placing European research at a blatantly unfair disadvantage.
It would rob European researchers of the advantages that adaptation was supposed to bring, and would only result in their being compelled to publicise their work and apply for their patents in the United States.
Going it alone at a national level is clearly not an option in this case, and it is equally clear that we need to adapt our rules to those laid down in the Convention establishing the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
The purpose behind the objections to the grace period that have recently been raised by the chemical industry is to ensure that scientists safeguard the industry's interests by keeping their discoveries secret.
I believe it is the duty of this House to defend scientific freedom and the right of scientists to control their own intellectual property, which is why I ask the House to support the rapporteur's initiative as emphatically as it can.
I should also like to convey my special thanks to the rapporteur for having taken this initiative.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, it is indeed an astonishing fact that our global players sometimes perform like teams in the lower reaches of the Third Division!
Here we have international groups and their industrial lobby actually trying to dissuade us from including a grace period in the patent laws.
And the groups of companies that are trying to dissuade us from affording protection to inventors are the very ones that are coping very comfortably with such provisions in other parts of the world, such as the United States or Japan.
Unlike the lobby, which condemns the grace period as hostile to research and a barrier to investment, I share the view of the rapporteur that European patent law cannot go on operating without the speedy introduction of a grace period.
It nurtures research and protects small and medium-sized businesses, to which the European Parliament is very committed, and with good reason, since these businesses create jobs that are urgently needed and are the channels through which the technologies of the future are introduced.
The ideas of young researchers at universities and research institutes provide the vital spark.
They must be able to discuss and publicise their innovations without jeopardising their right to apply for a potentially profitable patent.
Large companies can afford to conduct research behind closed doors and to keep new developments under wraps until the time is right to profit from them in the market-place.
Researchers at universities, on the other hand, must be able to publish their findings in order to establish and confirm their academic credentials.
The usefulness of the grace period can be seen in the United States.
That is where the most frequently cited researchers live, in a country with an enviable wealth of innovative small businesses.
If we want to compete with them, Europe will have to wake up - not gradually but as quickly as possible - whether or not it suits the large industrial groups.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the question of introducing a grace period for innovations in national patent laws is a delicate and, in several respects, important aspect of the current debate on the reform of the patent system in Europe, as implied by the rapporteur himself.
For this reason, the Commission is grateful to the House, and in particular the rapporteur, for having taken this initiative.
Having heard a number of speakers refer to the US and Japanese systems, I feel I must point out that, although US legislation does indeed establish the principle of a grace period, this must be understood in the light of one specific feature of the American law, namely that it operates according to the 'first to invent' principle, whereas the European legislation operates on a different basis: the 'first to file'.
Whether we like it or not, any comparison with other systems must in my opinion acknowledge the different starting-points and rules on implementation.
Secondly, as has already been said, the Commission held an ad hoc hearing of interested parties on 5 October 1998.
The Commission does not take decisions single-handedly: the hearing was attended by 150 people representing all the relevant circles, and perhaps I should list them for your information. They included large, small and medium-sized enterprises, associations of inventors and researchers, national, European and international representative bodies, patent consultants, national and European patent offices, international institutions, Member States and international experts.
Perhaps all these persons were mistaken; the fact remains that one initial, important conclusion can be drawn following this hearing: a legislative initiative concerning the grace period can be envisaged only at international level, through the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
It emerged plainly that a unilateral European measure would not produce the desired result.
Furthermore, according to the overwhelming majority of those attending the hearing, a grace period increases legal uncertainty by abandoning the principle of absolute novelty in favour of relative novelty.
The grace period seems in fact to be regarded as an inadequate response to genuine problems, such as the complexity of the procedure for filing applications, the lack of relevant information and the need to disclose one's inventions before filing for a patent.
In any event, the hearing on 5 October brought to light certain solutions which the Commission has undertaken to explore; moreover, it made such an undertaking in the communication on the future of patents in Europe, which was adopted in February.
In particular, as regards the complexity of the procedure for filing patent applications, the Commission has undertaken to investigate the idea of filing an application provisionally, on the basis of simplified formalities and without payment of a fee.
Our consideration of such matters will be completed by the end of 1999.
Further, to meet the specific needs of inventors and SMEs, who need to disclose their inventions before filing for a patent, the Commission has undertaken to re-examine two exceptions to the principle of absolute novelty, which currently applies under European law: manifestly unlawful use to the disadvantage of the applicant, and presentation of the invention at international exhibitions.
In these circumstances, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission has to say concerning the motion for a resolution that it cannot accede to the request to propose a Parliament and Council directive based on Article 100a of the Treaty.
The Commission can, however, accept the amendment put forward by Mrs Palacio, calling on it to continue its deliberations, taking into account the conclusions of the hearing to which I have just referred.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Reinforcing cohesion and competitiveness
The next item is the report (A4-0027/99) by Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on reinforcing cohesion and competitiveness through research, technological development and innovation (COM(98)0275 - C4-0491/98).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, everyone agrees that research and innovation are the driving force behind economic development, but no-one dares to add that this economic development needs to be balanced.
Indeed, it is trite to point out that fundamental research is demanding ever greater investment, and that it therefore seems to have to be carried out by only a few small powerful teams associated with a very concentrated intellectual and industrial environment.
The demands of inter-continental competition lead to the appearance of major industrial alliances, and public investment, especially European funding, is welcome in order to help these efforts.
The principle of developing research effort should itself be seen as standing for the progress, competition and attractiveness of the most powerful zones of activity and consequently for concentration.
Cohesion, on the other hand, stands for efforts towards prior redistribution in favour of the development of less favoured regions.
These are thus two opposing principles.
It is clear that research processes cannot themselves lead to convergence and that future convergence will be underpinned by autonomous development.
The less favoured localities and regions should therefore create, with the help of the entire Union, an environment which is favourable to initiative and innovation.
The opportunity that we have is that instead of large-scale fundamental research carried out by concentrated teams, today a whole world of intercommunication is appearing, which will facilitate networks of small research teams spread out across an entire territory.
We must seize this opportunity.
All European programmes must take part in the convergence of economies, and the framework research programme should not escape this objective, which is set out in the Treaties and was also highlighted at the Amsterdam summit.
In its communication, the Commission has put together a few paths to take in order to reinforce both cohesion and competitiveness through research and innovation.
The drafting of this communication, interesting though it may be, cannot, however, disguise the discussion that is going on in the Commission on this issue, which is similar to the debate that we could have on regional planning: is it really possible not to reduce the European effort towards competitiveness while at the same time directing research funds to the less favoured regions of the Union?
In any case, several studies show the worrying increase in imbalances between the regions, while the figures for gross domestic product per inhabitant in the Member States of the EU continue to show a residual convergence.
There is in fact a certain discrepancy between national growth and regional cohesion, but even at state level the differences are extreme: in research and technological development expenditure, Germany and France, for example, spent 60 % of the total research expenditure in the Union in 1993, while Ireland, Greece and Portugal spent only 1.3 % between them.
Whether it is the capacity to translate basic research into innovations, the number of patents per inhabitant, or staff employed in research and development, all these criteria reveal the extent of the disparities in technological development.
What is the balance of European action in this respect? Let us note, for example, that a group of regions which includes the whole of Greece, with the exception of Attica, three Portuguese regions and Calabria in Italy, were only able to participate in 2 % of the third framework programme.
It is true that since 1993 the Commission has endeavoured to encourage greater synergy between Community programmes and the objective of economic and social cohesion.
We could also - and the Commission has thought about this - use Structural Funds more in order to correct the trend that has been observed.
Nevertheless, the share of funding devoted under the various objectives of the Structural Funds to specific investment in favour of research and development has remained limited, even though it has increased from one programming period to the next.
Ladies and gentlemen, I propose to you to strongly press for a more balanced distribution of the key factors of competitiveness in the various regions of the Union through programmes to support research.
This House can, in terms of the Commission communication, underline what seems to be the key objective, namely the development of innovation in the SMEs in the less favoured regions.
The idea is to encourage innovation in all the small undertakings that have neither the resources, nor the skills, nor the time necessary to embark on innovation and integrate it into the practices adopted by the undertaking.
However, this type of development requires a well-defined regional commitment, a close synergy between the fifth framework programme and the strategies adopted by the regions as cofinanced under the Structural Funds.
It is also essential that we now fix the criteria for measuring progress in achieving the feasibility thresholds above which the spirit of innovation and competitiveness can be developed.
Without this prior conceptual work, we will find it hard to act in the most efficient manner in order to ensure that these thresholds are achieved in the less favoured regions.
We must also call on the Commission to draw the full consequences from its correct observation that excellence in vocational training is of fundamental importance for the cohesion sought in this area.
The only conclusion which the communication draws for the moment is that there is a need to promote vocational training courses in centres of excellence.
We cannot stress the importance of human resources and then stop at such a weak conclusion.
New funding mechanisms and boosting local policies for improving quality should at least be proposed.
To conclude, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission communication provides an interesting basis for discussing a new way of approaching cohesion issues, but much remains to be done in order to clarify objectives, criteria and procedures.
Mr President, I think that, in his excellent report, the rapporteur has put his finger on the crux of the matter regarding the implementation and the effectiveness of the Union's political, economic and social cohesion. His report underscores the omissions and the wrong choices of the past which have impeded a speedier adjustment of the less-favoured regions, which would have reduced the existing regional imbalances in the European Union.
The enormous disparities in growth which still exist among the different regions of the European Union are in great part due to the huge divergencies in the technology sector, especially in investment in research and technological development.
Details that are available paint a vivid picture of imbalances in the European Union, with discrepancies in technology being double the discrepancies in revenue.
As we have heard, just two countries in the European Union, Germany and France, spend 60 % of the total available funds for research and technological development.
Of course we congratulate these countries on their capacity to absorb funds for research and technological development. However, we must also stress the need to fully integrate research and technological development into meeting the objective of economic and social cohesion and the reduction of regional imbalances, so as to achieve more balanced growth within the European Union.
This can be done by strengthening the basic factors which shape competitiveness in the different regions of the European Union, and by increasing resources and support for attempts to make up for technological deficiencies, especially in the Objective 1 regions, where the problems of technological deficiencies are most pronounced.
We need a more integrated approach to the problems of growth during the new development period 2000-2006 and, of course, more effective cooperation between the Structural Funds and the fifth framework programme for research and technological development.
I believe that this must be one of the basic priorities for the new period of development.
Finally, we all need to realise that cohesion is the ally of competitiveness and of the dynamism of our production system, and vice versa.
In closing, I agree with all the proposals contained in Mr de Lassus's report and with the priority he has given to balanced support for the different regions of the European Union. I agree with the proposals he has put forward to assist small and medium-sized enterprises and, above all, with the proposals to strengthen the links between research centres and universities by means of local vehicles for growth.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, if the creation of jobs in the European Union is one of our priorities, we must devote the utmost attention to research, technological development and innovation.
As Christian Democrats, we are utterly convinced that competitiveness creates the safest jobs.
Businesses that seek to remain or become competitive, however, cannot achieve that aim without sufficiently outstanding research and development and without innovating.
It is true, as the Commission and the rapporteur have emphasised, that there are huge regional disparities in terms of research, technological development and innovation.
Most research, of course, is conducted in regions with high levels of economic development, and far too little research, or indeed scarcely any, takes place in underdeveloped areas.
That is a fact of life.
Our efforts must be channelled into encouraging a continuous exchange of information between richer and poorer regions.
We are convinced that cooperation should indeed take place between the research programmes and the Structural Funds.
But a clear distinction must be made between the finances allocated to each.
They are and will remain separate support mechanisms. That does not mean, however, that they cannot supplement each other or that they are in any way incompatible.
In short, we are saying yes to cross-pollination, but no to common funding.
I can cite some successful examples of this approach from my own part of Germany, from Thuringia, which is an Objective 1 area.
We have companies there which are household names in Germany and which have now established international reputations, such as Carl Zeiss Jena, Jen-Optik or the Jena ovenproof glass company. The European Regional Development Fund has helped to create the infrastructure conditions for the success of these companies, which have also launched some excellent pioneering research and innovation projects with the aid of funds from the fourth framework programme for research and technological development.
From that point of view, however, we cannot entirely endorse the rapporteur's proposal for Article 21, which is why we have requested a split vote on that article.
I do wish to emphasise, however, that this should not detract from our general approval of the report.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
A strange phenomenon is occurring in the European regions.
While the figures for GDP per inhabitant reveal a residual growing convergence amongst the Member States, a process of rising imbalances between regions in the same state is taking place.
In other words, there is a certain discrepancy between national growth and regional cohesion.
An intelligent policy to disseminate technological innovation would be one of the skills to counteract this process of polarisation.
Unfortunately, research and development are still a monopoly of the richest regions.
In view of the sensitivities of this, the Greens have proposed three important points.
There should be more structural assistance for technological development instead of heavy infrastructures in the less-favoured regions, especially in the Objective 1 regions.
Secondly, we call for the application of a principle of positive discrimination in favour of the less-favoured regions under the new RDT framework programmes.
That means the allocation of resources under the framework programme should be made applying award criteria on the model of the structural funds allocation criteria.
And thirdly, an orientation of technological innovation in the less-favoured regions towards the promotion of sustainable development, promoting local skills and using local natural and human resources.
Finally, we have tabled an amendment introducing the principle of positive discrimination in R & D for the poorer regions.
Mr President, I must first congratulate the rapporteur, Mr de Lassus, on what I believe to be an excellent report on the fundamental issue of strengthening cohesion amongst European citizens.
In this connection, I feel that research and technological development are crucial to the development of geographical cohesion amongst the citizens of Europe.
This does not of course mean that research and development ought to be distributed throughout Europe, but rather that specific policies should be put in place to promote activity where maximum benefit could be derived from technological development. This would usually be in the most advanced regions, those most advanced at European Union level and at Member State level.
Such regions are the real economic powerhouses and tend to be in a position to make a more effective contribution to the development of the other less favoured regions.
The latter should not however be prevented from obtaining investment to improve their technological level and their competitiveness.
Indeed, if they do not, cohesive development across the whole of the European Union will not be achieved.
I should like to conclude by congratulating the rapporteur again because I do feel that this report has identified the main issues relating to the achievement not only of economic and social cohesion but also of geographical cohesion amongst all the regions of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, Mr de Lassus, although I do not want to preach a Ptolemaic view of science, which is always a temptation for modern western science, it is impossible nowadays to ignore the fact that knowledge, science and research are the real engines of both intellectual and economic progress in our societies.
And in the face of enormous challenges from the United States, this is in danger of becoming the weakest link in the European Union.
Whilst this is a fundamental challenge for the richer and scientifically better-equipped countries and regions of the EU, it poses an even greater challenge for less-favoured countries and regions: not as regards talent and creative capacity, because these are equally spread, but in terms of know-how and technological innovation.
For these reasons, the Commission communication before us is to be welcomed in that it calls for greater Structural Fund spending on research and innovation, with a view to strengthening the weak scientific capacity and reinforcing the know-how and technological bases of industries in these poorer regions.
Nevertheless, the strategy proposed by the Commission suffers from one great flaw which is flagged up in the excellent report prepared by Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès, on which I would like to congratulate him.
This flaw is that it does not take account of the need for more equitable distribution of resources available under the RTD framework programmes.
I do not have in mind some kind of populist geographical dispersal of major themes and priorities in the framework programmes, far from it. But I would like to see some decentralisation away from the more exalted centres of research and technology towards more modest centres and towards smaller and more flexible teams based in poorer regions.
After all, although these framework programmes only represent 4 % of EU research expenditure, if spending under them were distributed more evenly, they could provide a powerful impetus for countries like Portugal, which up to now have been the poor relations of research and development in the European Union.
Dissemination and absorption of scientific knowledge, technological progress and innovation should be one of the priorities of regional development and cohesion policy in the Europe of the future.
Mr President, the rapporteur attaches particular importance to the need to promote innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises.
He has hit the nail on the head there, because the large combines negotiate directly with the research centres in any event.
Small and medium-sized businesses are essentially in a difficult position.
Our prime concern is to encourage innovation in those companies which are not large enough to devote time, money and human resources to deal systematically, and primarily on their own initiative, with innovative developments.
It is a question of creating a real innovation culture among SMEs with a view to making European business competitive and safeguarding jobs.
Any initiatives that will help to achieve this goal, especially those which encourage young entrepreneurs to invest in innovation, are particularly welcome.
The most efficient approach would be to ensure that the largest possible slice of the budget for both the framework R&D programme and the Structural Funds is devoted to this aim.
Mr President, birds of a feather flock together.
This is the principle that businesses apply when they choose their locations.
They prefer those central positions where the bulk of economic power is already concentrated, and then employees, educational establishments and infrastructure investment are drawn into these existing centres.
Then we have phenomena like the Golden Arc or the Sunbelt on the one hand and the peripheral areas on the other, a scenario which calls for a regional policy to counteract this magnetism and prevent mass migration from the periphery to the main population centres.
There are some especially effective ways of doing this. Research and technological development can be used to establish footholds in the hinterland, so that not only know-how but also employment can develop outside the economic heartland and the main population centres.
This policy is convincingly presented by the communication from the Commission and by Mr de Lassus's report.
My one wish is that the convincing words of both the communication and the report can be turned into action.
One of my main interests relates to paragraph 15 of the report, which speaks of interregional and cross-border cooperation, because it is especially important to break new ground in these areas.
Already this evening we have spoken about educational cooperation in connection with the Socrates programme when we discussed the Pack report, and we expressed our gratification at the fact that European Union funds had paved the way for closer cooperation in the field of education in precisely those areas.
I hope and wish for all of us, and particularly for the regions at the external frontiers of the Union where Interreg is trying to reverse the manpower drain, that the promises made to us in the Commission communication and the de Lassus report will be fulfilled in those regions, so that some birds will start flocking to places where none of their feather have gone before.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr de Lassus on his report.
This is an important matter for my constituency of Devon and for my region of the South-West and in particular for Cornwall, which the Commissioner will know has a very strong claim for Objective 1 status.
There is a great deal of activity going on in the research field in our region already, which shows what can be achieved by way of generating local employment, not just at the universities of Exeter and Plymouth.
There is a very exciting project at a small town called Holsworthy where a plant to create energy from agricultural waste is being developed with assistance not only from a research project, the Altener programme, but also from Objective 5b funding.
This is a good example of the synergy of regional and research funds coming together.
The most important thing for remote regions of the Community is the information technology networks and the potential they have for drawing together researchers from far-flung corners of Europe for mutual benefit.
I am working at present on a report in the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy for integrating environmental policy with energy policy.
Here is a field where there is great potential for employment creation in the less-favoured regions.
There was a rather interesting project a while back for a prototype hybrid bus running on a battery in the city centre and normal diesel fuel in the outlying districts.
This was another example of where funding from Europe can materially assist projects for employment and for environmental concerns.
I welcome the emphasis in this report on small businesses.
In my constituency in Devon small businesses and the self-employed form a particularly large section of the economy.
They are a vital generator both of jobs and of innovation and new projects.
So I welcome giving emphasis to them in this report.
In conclusion, I would like to say that we must beware of placing contracts for research work on geographical grounds alone.
We must treat the merits of the project as the first priority.
Otherwise we will damage the research work of the European Community.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking Mr de Lassus for this highly significant report and the motion for a resolution.
I am delighted to note that Parliament agrees with the main thrust of our communication, and it should be appreciated that this is the first time we have tried to release the synergy between these two policies, as you have rightly been urging us to do, and to achieve closer coordination of our common research and development policy with our structural and cohesion policy.
We share your view that research, technological development, innovation and modernisation of the production basis are essential means of creating steady jobs and reducing regional disparities.
That is why, in the draft guidelines for the next structural programme, covering the period from 2000 to 2006, which it adopted on 2 February, the Commission reaffirms the approach that is also clearly outlined in the present communication.
The competitiveness of a region is crucially dependent on whether or not it possesses an innovation strategy.
In the guidelines for the next period of the Structural Funds, the Commission therefore recommends to the regions a whole raft of measures designed to encourage innovation, from new forms of funding, such as venture capital to promote business start-ups and innovative developments, to specialised services and facilities for technology transfer.
The contributions to the present debate have further emphasised the fact that the transfer of knowledge and know-how and the dissemination of new techniques represent a vital contribution to the enhancement of regional competitiveness.
For that reason, the guidelines state that payments from the Structural Funds should primarily help small and medium-sized businesses to acquire the skills they need in order to go on developing, but they should also be used to set up cooperative ventures and centres where knowledge and skills can be pooled and to fund involvement in Community and international research and innovation networks, not forgetting the business innovation centres and the various European networks through which we have already done a great deal to enable small and medium-sized businesses to benefit from the results of research conducted by other bodies.
In response to your criticism of the fifth framework programme for research and technological development, let me say that this programme, as you know, was the result of two years of negotiation with Parliament and with the Member States, and that the framework programme is not primarily concerned with cohesion, but also focuses on the competitiveness of Europe as a global region in terms of leading-edge technology, which naturally implies that one of its aims is to enable Europe to compete with the United States and Japan.
So the key point is that in pursuing the one aim, we do not neglect the other, and above all that we ensure not only that the development of research, particularly in the field of leading-edge technology, benefits the poorer regions directly but also that exchanges of researchers, which will be supported under the fifth framework R&D programme, can be used to promote innovation in the structurally weaker regions.
If you look at some of the elements of the fifth framework programme - at the development of human resources potential in the field of research, or at the improvement of the socio-economic knowledge base - if you consider the Marie Curie homecoming grants for researchers from underprivileged regions and if you examine the development grants for research establishments in underdeveloped areas, you will see that the fifth framework programme responds to many of the needs of structurally weak regions and that its subject areas, such as the sustainable management of water supplies and water quality, sustainable agriculture, forestry and fisheries, rural areas, the town of tomorrow and the cultural heritage, are all of particular importance to regional development.
The same applies, of course, to objectives such as the promotion of innovation and the involvement of small and medium-sized businesses.
As the rapporteur has already indicated, we have made progress over the last ten years, not least in terms of funding.
We started in 1988 with 200 million, and we now have 8.5 billion allocated to the Structural Funds for research and technology.
It also has to be said here, of course, and I am grateful to Mr Hatzidakis for pointing this out too, that the Commission is not solely responsible, but that the Member States must also do more to ensure that such projects are included in their programmes.
In a recent Objective 1 evaluation, we observed that more money spent on research and innovation does not automatically mean more innovation.
In the cohesion countries in particular, the public sector is still largely overrepresented, while business innovations do not receive their fair share of funding, which is why I believe it is very important to put greater emphasis on the latter, because it is absolutely crucial that the regions themselves should be able to devise their own innovation strategies, which would be the best way to ensure that due account is taken of specific regional circumstances.
That is why initiatives such as the regional information society initiative, in which the regions cooperate - across national borders, incidentally - and exchange best practices in the field of innovation support, are so important.
That is why it is also important that the innovation dimension should become a more integral part of interregional and cross-border cooperation.
Parliament and the Commission are, I believe, on the right path, but I agree with the rapporteur when he concludes that there is still a considerable way to go before we can say that the poorer regions have really started to bridge the gap in research and innovation, as well as in other areas.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Conformity assessment procedure for packaging
The next item is the report (A4-0053/99) by Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on marking and packaging and on the establishment of a conformity assessment procedure for packaging (COM(96)0191 - C4-0627/96-96/0123(COD)).
Mr President, I would first like to directly address a question to the Commission, as there are a number of rumours flying around.
I have reason to believe that certain manoeuvres have been undertaken and I would like to ask the Commission whether it is true that it is preparing a proposal that would encompass the directive with which we are concerned.
If there is indeed a new proposal that we are to discuss in the near future, I would like to know if it really covers the directive that we are discussing this evening.
If that is the case, depending on the Commission's answers, I will decide what attitude to adopt.
Meanwhile, to come back to the main issues of this directive, I would like to point out that an initial examination took place in October 1997, and that work was suspended while awaiting precise answers from the Commission; however, having obtained those answers, after several months' delay, we were not satisfied.
Without an active contribution from the Commission, I was finally forced to make a different proposal.
The Commission was proposing two new symbols indicating the recyclability and reusability of packaging waste.
However, these two symbols are completely new and do not provide sufficient information for the consumer.
As the Commission itself recognises, recycling systems do not by any means cover the whole of Europe.
We are now aware that the 1994 directive on packaging and packaging waste is not correctly applied across the whole of Europe.
I therefore felt it was preferable to provide consumers with information which would allow them to be really active individually.
Consumers must actively participate in the sorting of this packaging waste on the basis of symbols, which are already well-known, indicating the nature of the packaging material.
This should help them in individual sorting.
The symbols were chosen through the work of the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN).
The Commission was concerned about the appropriateness of these symbols, and I can reassure them as all of the symbols are in the public domain.
I even know that certain companies have taken the trouble to write to the Commission in order to inform them that their symbols were at its disposal.
The Commission's proposal also envisages a conformity assessment procedure for evaluating whether packaging conforms to the main requirements of the 1994 directive on packaging.
It says that the manufacturer must draw up a declaration of conformity, establish technical documentation and keep it at the disposal of the national authorities that will carry out the necessary inspections.
We are aware that the packaging sector is particularly complex and often involves a great number of professionals.
In order to take account of this situation, I believed it was necessary to alter the text of Annex III to avoid any confusion for the packaging manufacturer and the product manufacturer, in other words not to force the manufacturer of the product contained in the packaging to take responsibility for any fault in the packaging. The aim of this is to take into account the responsibility of each party at their stage of contribution to production: the packaging manufacturer, the filler and the packer.
I also had discussions with Mr Bowe, and we found common ground which is set out in Amendments Nos 19 and 20.
To conclude, I would like to point out that the approach that I am proposing, which should enable us to find an intermediary solution while we are waiting for the latest revision of the 1994 packaging directive, is supported by all of the packaging sectors and by the consumers' associations, and it seems that the majority of Member States will agree to it.
This is why I maintain my proposal and, while, of course, awaiting the debate, I hope to hear precise answers from the Commission, to which I addressed a question at the beginning of my speech.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I have had the pleasure of serving as draftsman for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, where I have looked at the consequences of this proposal for a directive.
I have the following comments to make.
To begin with, I would point out that barriers to trade may arise with regard to partners outside the Community if a separate European reusability label is adopted.
As I see it, an international label would have more impact and would not give rise to barriers to trade.
It seems to me inappropriate to ask firms in Europe to spend money on introducing a European label if they will subsequently have to change over to an international one.
Of course, the labelling scheme is voluntary, but it still has to be seen as a marketing 'carrot' or advantage to make use of the Commission's proposed label.
According to what I have heard, the ISO will already have a label ready for the summer of 1999, in other words in a few months' time.
And what is actually the point of the Commission's proposal? The Commission's proposed label is not linked to a European collection scheme, which would justify the label's message that the material on which it is used is more environmentally friendly.
For example, packaging which contains PVC could, according to my information, be labelled as recyclable.
Consumers would interpret that as an indication of benefit to the environment, although the packaging in question would in Denmark perhaps go for incineration and not for more environmentally friendly recycling.
No, against that background, I do not see anything that justifies the Commission's proposed labelling or the Commission's timing.
I therefore have no objection to waiting for an ISO label.
Then I have a few comments to make on the essential requirements.
When we look at the Commission's choice of conformity procedure, I grant that the Commission has made a wise choice.
Internal production control is welcomed by industry, since it can be incorporated into existing control systems for quality, the environment and health.
But internal production control is based on the essential requirements of the packaging directive, Directive 94/62.
These requirements seem to be too weakly defined.
This is a view we have heard from industrial circles, but also from the national control authorities.
It serves no good purpose for our firms to spend time and money unnecessarily because they are in doubt as to whether they are complying with the EU legislation.
Similarly, it is not a good idea to leave the interpretation of these essential requirements to the national control authorities, with all the possibilities which that could entail in the form of technical barriers to trade and distortion of competition between the Member States.
So, although I support the Commission's proposal for internal production control, I do not think it would be right to take this proposed directive any further before the essential requirements have been laid down in CEN standards.
The Commission has itself admitted in our committee and in the Environment Committee that this proposal was put together in haste and is not as well thought through as might have been wished.
I therefore believe, as our committee has concluded, that the only correct thing to do would be to hold the Commission to its responsibility and ask it to withdraw the proposal until the CEN and ISO have completed their work.
Let me comment briefly on Mrs Grossetête's report.
In the Liberal Group, we are very much in support of the proposed material identifications.
The labelling scheme proposed by the rapporteur gives consumers real information and involves them in a positive way in relation to the environment.
When consumers have to make a purchasing decision, they themselves can choose the type of packaging they prefer, and - most importantly of all - consumers are in a better position to sort the packaging waste.
This information and this involvement of consumers generates a real, active and positive environmental effect.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur and congratulate her on this report.
I welcome attempts to harmonise the management of packaging waste while recognising the high initial cost of putting in place schemes for recovery, recycling and sorting of waste.
The long-term benefits far outweigh these costs and will lead to a considerable reduction, if not total elimination, of the use of landfill as a waste disposal solution.
We must take the long-term view when dealing with the disposal of packaging waste.
Manufacturers must be encouraged to use far less packaging material.
Quite often, for example, supermarket goods are wrapped several times.
Marking symbols used on packaging to indicate in which category the waste belongs must not only be clear and easily understood but must use the same marking symbols and same colours right across the EU.
Furthermore, bags and containers used for waste selection must also use the same colour codes and symbols in all the EU member countries.
This is not the case at present.
For serious package waste management to be successful such symbols must be easily identifiable by the consumer.
Consumers will only participate in sorting and recovery schemes if they are simple to manage and if good collection of separated waste bags is available.
Modern households living in confined spaces do not have room for holding or stockpiling waste for long periods.
Children are naturally concerned about their environment.
If they can be encouraged to give their support by starting their training in schools, the good practice will be continued in the home.
The key message for success is to keep it simple.
Otherwise it will fail.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the previous speaker very clearly expressed what we should be trying to achieve with the packaging marking regulations under the packaging directive, which is that the consumer is actually able to select the correct means of disposing of packaging, in order to be as environment-friendly as possible.
But we know that the Commission proposal is already obsolete, and it is now absolutely vital to wait for the Commission to revise the basic directive, the packaging directive of 1994, and incorporate its ideas and proposals for the marking of packaging accordingly.
The Green Group intends to vote against this report, as, technically speaking, it would seem to be the only way to get the Commission to withdraw this obsolete proposal.
Excellent though the work of Mrs Grossetête has been, I believe the only rational alternative is to get the Commission to withdraw its proposal.
Mr President, the challenge is how to encourage the European consumer to sort packaging waste.
I think the efforts of the Commission and the rapporteur to that end are well-intentioned, but will not achieve the desired effect.
The Commission's proposal would mean that each Member State had to replace its marking symbols with European ones.
I would not mind that if the markings were better, but in my opinion they are not.
Given that there is no uniform collection system, all the proposed markings do is indicate that the product can be recycled.
The sense of that escapes me.
I would prefer, for example, the various Dutch symbols whose meaning is crystal-clear and which fit in with the Dutch system of collection.
The proposals put forward by the rapporteur will not encourage the consumer either.
She suggests indicating the type of packaging.
This would use voluntary marking, but one form of marking only.
The producer could not use any other form. So the Dutch bottle bank symbol, for example, would have to go.
I do not think we are making it easy for the consumer if he has to decide for himself from a list of packaging ingredients how he should sort his waste.
But I acknowledge that there are wide differences between the Member States in how packaging waste is collected.
They do not all attach the same importance to environmentally friendly methods of collection.
However, I think the solutions suggested by the Commission and the rapporteur are inadequate.
There is a very real danger that they may be counter-productive.
If accepted, these proposals may be very confusing to consumers not only in the Netherlands, but in other Member States as well.
To conclude, if we want to provide an incentive for consumers, we must encourage the Member States to make serious efforts to set up an environmentally friendly system of collection.
Until we have a uniform system of this kind, I see no point in harmonising markings.
Mr President, the management and control of waste can be done through various processes: reducing the materials used, recycling, reusing and energy recovery.
We support the development of all these methods of recovery and re-use, as the considerable development of the role played by packaging, with its functions of protection, safety, logistics, and especially of aiding marketing, means that we need to deal with the growing environmental burden it represents, without ignoring any procedure that could be useful.
We will therefore vote in favour of all the amendments that have been tabled, except for Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 15 from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We reject Amendment No 13, because by specifying that packaging and packaging waste must be treated according to their marking, it favours one waste-management system over the others.
We need all of these systems.
Some people want to give priority to recycling and re-use of packaging, to the detriment of energy recovery: this approach is contrary to an integrated management of packaging and its waste.
Amendments Nos 12 and 15 place all the responsibility for the conformity assessment procedure for packaging on the processor, and exonerate the packaging manufacturer from all responsibility: under the polluter pays principle, it is the packaging manufacturer who should be responsible for this procedure, not the packer.
Moreover, it is much easier to monitor the packaging manufacturers, as they are much fewer in number than the processors: if we take the wine sector as an example, in France there are only a few bottle manufacturers for more than 30 000 bottlers, and this example is typical.
To conclude, Mr President, if these three amendments from the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which we feel distort the nature of our colleague's report, are rejected, we will vote in favour of Mrs Grossetête's report.
Mr President, I am pleased that the European Parliament has put labelling of packaging on the agenda for today.
As you all know, the Commission adopted this proposal back in 1996, and I would like to thank the Environment Committee and especially the rapporteur, Mrs Grossetête, for the report.
The reason why the Commission has presented this proposal is the obligation contained in Article 8 of Directive 94/62 on packaging and packaging waste, which many speakers have also mentioned.
Article 8 states: 'The Council shall... decide no later than two years after the entry into force of this Directive on the marking of packaging'.
I realise that there has been some criticism, especially of the new symbols the Commission is introducing under the proposal.
The intention of the symbols is to indicate to consumers that the packaging can be reused or recycled.
However, the symbols are not meant to give any kind of assurance that the packaging will be reused or recycled, and that is clearly a problem.
I was interested to see the report adopted by the Environment Committee.
The proposed amendments - and this has also been made clear by the rapporteur herself - will completely alter the Commission's proposal.
They will in fact turn it into a proposal on material identification.
The symbols proposed by the rapporteur aim to inform the consumer on the packaging material.
The symbols for aluminium, glass and plastic, however, also show 'chasing' arrows, thus indicating to the consumer that the materials are recyclable, and in this way could give misleading information.
Then there is a further problem, in that we already have a Commission decision on material identification, Decision No 97/129, which was adopted on 28 January 1997.
This establishes identification systems for packaging materials.
Specific identification systems were introduced in the form of figures and abbreviations, applicable to plastics, paper, cardboard, metal, wood, textiles, glass and composites.
The use of the identification system is voluntary.
Under Article 3 of the Commission Decision, however, the system can be made compulsory.
The proposed change from a labelling system for reusability and recyclability to one which serves as an identification system will not provide any value added in relation to the current Commission decision.
For that reason - and this will hardly come as any surprise to the House - I cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 3 to 11, 13 or 14, nor can I accept Amendments Nos 16 and 18.
There is another important aspect to the Commission proposal, and that concerns the procedure for the assessment of conformity.
I would stress that there is an acute need for a procedure for conformity assessment, among both manufacturers and authorities, in order to check conformity with the essential requirements of Directive 94/62.
I fully support Amendment No 12, which stipulates that all packaging must have undergone a conformity assessment procedure before it is put onto the market.
Amendments Nos 2 and 21 are also acceptable, since they clarify and complement the proposal.
It is important to stress that it is the manufacturer who is responsible for undertaking conformity assessments.
I cannot therefore accept Amendment No 14 or Amendments Nos 19 and 20.
Shared responsibility is not possible when conformity assessment procedures are to be implemented.
The packaging manufacturer must ensure that the packaging produced and marketed is in conformity with the requirements of the packaging directive, i.e. Directive 94/62.
In conclusion, let me stress again that I do not believe that consumers, manufacturers, authorities or the environment will gain any value added by turning this proposal into a proposal on voluntary material identification.
Mrs Grossetête began by asking me a direct question, namely whether the Commission was already working on a new proposal.
It is not.
What may possibly have given rise to the rumours is that we have started discussions on a revision of the packaging directive, but we are still at a very, very early stage in those discussions, so it would be wrong to give the impression that we had a new proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs
The next item is the report (A4-0003/99) by Mr Schnellhardt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 79/112/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs (COM(97)0020 - C4-0059/97-97/0027(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have a report before us which has been occupying the European Parliament for a long time.
Even during the preparation of the labelling directive, the question of listing the ingredients of alcoholic beverages was being discussed, but the move was blocked time and again by the Council.
Commissioner Bangemann, so that we have no misunderstandings such as those which occurred at our last meeting at the same place and time, I should like to say from the outset that I am grateful for the timely presentation of this report.
That is exactly what was agreed on during the conciliation procedure.
I find that very professional.
The Commission's proposal seeks to close a loophole, and that is to be welcomed.
Unlike other foodstuffs and beverages, alcoholic beverages have hitherto been exempt from compulsory labelling of ingredients.
For all the points under discussion, there is surely one thing on which the House is in agreement, namely that the labelling of ingredients has to be introduced in the interests of the single market and in the interests of proper consumer information.
I should like to stress that we are all united on that point.
Not only in the committee responsible for the report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, but also in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, these Commission proposals have been supported and enhanced.
The Commission proposal does not deal with the substantive aspects of ingredient labelling.
Let me make that quite clear. It deals first and foremost with the question of the legislative procedures to be applied when the labelling provisions are laid down.
Some widely differing ideas are surfacing here, and I must say that the situation starts to look precarious when the rapporteur and Members of the House attack each other, as for example in a press statement in which my honourable colleague Mrs Lulling implied that I had been guilty of obsessive behaviour and procrastination in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I should be grateful, Commissioner, if you would confirm afterwards that I came to see you a year ago and that we tried to urge the legal services of the Commission and Parliament to deliver a joint opinion.
We do not seem to have succeeded in this, for I have not received any word as yet.
That was also a reason why I hung fire, because I should have liked to know what was right.
There are two divergent opinions on this matter.
The proposal, in my view, is most probably designed to attract the support of the Council, but I do not think it is in any way logical.
Three different legislative procedures for the same legislative measure, a measure of consumer protection, will elicit a protest from any Member of Parliament, especially if the codecision procedure is to apply only to spirits and aromatised wines.
The Maastricht Treaty granted us the right of codecision in the domain of labelling, and I must insist on that right, not only in respect of spirits and aromatic wines, but also for beers and all other alcoholic beverages.
It is surely high time we rid ourselves of this very frequent fault of ignoring expert opinion when we discuss wine and beer in the European Parliament.
That is why I based my work on this report on the following principles: firstly, the provision of consumer information on foodstuff and beverage labels, including the labelling of alcoholic beverages, is essentially a measure relating to the single market, a measure of consumer protection.
The relevant legislation is the foodstuff labelling directive. The listing of ingredients on labels must therefore comply with that directive.
It is simply not true that, as someone is bound to assert in the course of this debate and as others have asserted before, the labelling of wine can only be dealt with in a set of special provisions because it constitutes agricultural produce.
The agricultural aspect is irrelevant here; the issue is the labelling of products and the provision of consumer information.
Secondly, when it comes to labelling the ingredients of alcoholic beverages, all such beverages must be treated equally.
This applies both to the timescale, especially the simultaneous entry into force of the provisions, and to the procedures to be applied.
There are no differences of opinion in Parliament on that principle.
Thirdly, the equal treatment of all beverages does not exclude the possibility of specific labelling directives for each category of beverages to take account of the special features of the individual beverage types.
The proposal made by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection allows for that option.
The response of the industries concerned has shown me that equal treatment of all beverage categories is no mere pipe dream.
It is not my job as a rapporteur, nor is it the task of Parliament as the legislative authority, to champion the cause of any particular industry.
Our task is to provide a level playing field and to avoid discriminatory measures.
That is why we insist that a uniform procedure must be applied and that the same timescale must apply to all categories of alcoholic beverage.
This principle is enshrined in our committee's proposal.
We shall have to decide tomorrow whether we want comprehensive parliamentary involvement or whether we wish to leave some labelling to the Council.
I have to say, Mrs Lulling, that this is not obsessive; indeed, your press statement testifies to a lack of knowledge of this matter when it asserts that, under the Treaty, wine and spirits have to be labelled in accordance with the common organisation of the market in wine.
Now that really is the most novel idea I have come across!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, emotions are running high in the Chamber.
I believe the consumer should be informed, indeed the consumer must be informed.
That is the principle, and we all agree with it.
The difficulty comes when we have to decide in detail on the form that such information should take.
We are talking today about the labelling of beverages with an alcoholic content in excess of 1.2 % by volume - an extremely wide variety of beverages, ranging from wine to fortified beverages and even to the so-called alcopops.
Each beverage has its own special characteristics that distinguish it fundamentally from the others.
Wine is a natural beverage made from grapes, and I believe the consumer is well informed about it.
Above all, there are specific regulations which clearly define the ingredients that wine may and may not contain.
It is a different story with the so-called designer drinks, the alcopops.
A set of rules is urgently required here, first and foremost to establish that these are quite clearly alcoholic beverages, that they must be categorised as such when offered for sale and must not be placed on the same shelf as soft drinks.
The Schnellhardt report does not deal with the details of labelling; our task today is merely to establish who should decide on these details at a future date.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development supports the Commission's proposal that labelling, wherever it may be required, should be prescribed in the specific Community provisions that already exist.
We do feel, however, that the three-year period for implementation proposed by the Commission is too short, given the need to produce a sophisticated classification system, and we are therefore requesting an extension of that period.
The labelling provisions for all other products should be laid down in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 189b of the Treaty.
Criteria based on practical expertise must be paramount in the realm of labelling.
Try telling wine growers and farmers that we need more directives!
For that reason we consider the Commission proposal to be acceptable, since we have specific Community rules in this area, and we can adapt them to cover labelling.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, with the best will in the world, it cannot be said of this report on the draft directive relating to the provisions on the labelling of alcoholic beverages that good things come to those who wait.
For roughly two years the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has been tinkering with its report, despite the fact that the Committee on Agricultural and Rural Development and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy delivered their opinions back in November and December 1997 respectively.
Both committees adopted their opinions unanimously apart from two abstentions.
In both committees, 74 Members took part in the votes on the opinions, which largely endorse the Commission proposal.
The proposal only governs the procedure for labelling the ingredients of alcoholic beverages, but not the technical details of the information that should be displayed on labels.
We have known since 1979 that the Commission, the Council of Ministers and Parliament too are struggling to come up with a set of rules on the labelling of alcoholic beverages.
Nevertheless, it is irresponsible of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection to fritter away a whole year after the submission of opinions by the committees consulted, only to present us with a hotly disputed report which was adopted in the first holiday week of January and for which only 24 Members voted, while 15 voted against it and one abstained. Why were such tactics adopted?
Because the rapporteur and the members of the Environment Committee who supported him simply refused to recognise that, under the Treaty, wine and spirits in their various forms are agricultural products, the production and marketing of which are subject to the common organisation of the market in wine.
A different legal basis applies to all other alcoholic beverages, including beer.
The European Commission has presented a logical proposal on where the rules relating to the ingredients in these two groups of alcoholic beverages will be determined - not how they will be determined, that will come later.
The plain fact is that agricultural policy, whether it suits us or not, rests on the legal basis of Article 43, which only provides for Parliament to be consulted.
As for the legal provisions on the labelling of other alcoholic beverages, which are industrial products, we now have the right of codecision.
The fact that many people in this House plead the case for codecision and are trying - tous azimuts , on all fronts, as De Gaulle would have said - to achieve codecision where the Treaty does not provide for it may be understandable, although I personally have no time for such pettifoggers.
The rapporteur's veritable obsession with securing a right of codecision on the labelling of agricultural products too - he was always speaking about it - is now reaching grotesque proportions, and as you are aware, Mr President, we in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy have reintroduced some reasonable amendments.
We agree that the provisions on the labelling of ingredients for both beverage categories can enter into force simultaneously.
We can also live with a three-year time limit for all of this, but anything else would be in contravention of the Treaty, which is why I hope that the House will agree with us.
Mr President, I want to support the rapporteur against that attack from his own side.
It is not the fault of Mr Schnellhardt that this remained locked in committee for some time.
It is not the fault of Mr Schnellhardt that there has been a woeful refusal to see that common policies on labelling require common procedures.
It is not the fault of Mr Schnellhardt that there have - to put it mildly - been a number of obstructions.
Most of the people in the committee believe that it is imperative and legitimate that Community provisions having the same objective should be subject to the same legislative procedure, namely that which is laid down in Article 189 of the EC Treaty.
We want that to apply both to the specific Community provisions referred to here and to all other alcoholic beverages.
We are not involved, and we do not want to be involved, in an argument about what should be on the label.
That, for the moment, is the concern of another department.
We do not want to be involved in a North-versus-South debate or one between those who have a particular sector of the agricultural market in their care against those who have other such sectors.
We do not want to be involved in the stigmatising of alcoholic drinks with the sole exception of areas where new products may present a health hazard for the unwary.
We want a uniform opinion.
We want all recognised legitimate and traditional alcoholic products incorporated within it.
That is why a series of amendments, most notably Nos 9 and 15, seek to include cider and perry on the standard list with wines, spirits and beers.
I would appeal to the wine enthusiasts here to contribute to the spirit of compromise in bringing about a common procedure.
We all have to do that.
I have done it myself.
I am prepared to accept Mr Bébéar's amendment, supported by the last speaker but one, with regard to the possible dangers of the new alcoholic beverages, the so-called alcopops.
I do that in the full knowledge that these are made in my own constituency.
The people who vote for me make these products.
I am prepared to say on the record here and now that they can present health hazards and they need to be treated in a special way.
I never hear any of that spirit of compromise from those who come here and tell us that the drinking of wine is a cultural experience, that somehow it should be left outside all the arrangements and scrutiny of this Parliament.
Those who say that and make these rather dreary claims are not just insulting the intelligence of Europe's consumers - most of whom would strongly agree with Mr Schnellhardt and his long labours on this issue.
Worse than that, they are insulting this Parliament itself.
They are deliberately saying that there is an area of scrutiny and oversight in which this Parliament, in the matter of labelling, should play no part.
I cannot accept that and I hope Parliament will not either.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, beverages provide us with some of our nutrition.
In my home state of Bavaria, we came to the conclusion back in the 15th century that the consumer also needed to know that his beer was brewed in accordance with precise rules, since beer, after all, is a significant part of the Bavarian diet.
There are naturally other drinks as well.
Doctors are now recommending that we consume at least three litres of liquid every day, and consumers have a wide range to choose from.
However, it is important for them to know the quality that is available on the shelves.
I do not believe that consumers would ever enquire whether a beverage comes under the common organisation of agricultural markets or under other areas of the single market.
What they need is information that will help them to choose the right product.
I am thinking of people who have perhaps already consumed too much alcohol and should not therefore drink any more, but this is also about people with diabetes, for example, who need to know how much residual sugar a beverage contains.
These are all very important things nowadays, and I believe we need legislation that takes account of today's world and not only prescribes that beer and cider should be displayed in the opposite corner of the shop from wine, but actually provides us with a realistic legal basis.
I only wish to appeal to reason. I believe that Mr Schnellhardt's report provides a rational basis, and I should be pleased if Parliament endorsed the material that Mr Schnellhardt has prepared.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Schnellhardt very much for an excellent report.
I think it is important, as many of my colleagues have pointed out this evening, that we do not divide up the alcohol market in such a way that we have one thing in one corner and another somewhere else.
It must be a precondition that uniform requirements for the labelling of ingredients apply equally to beer, wines and spirits.
That is the first point.
The second point is that the rules should come into force simultaneously, in order to avoid a situation in which different rules apply depending on whether one drinks beer, wine or spirits.
And the third point is that, in order to ensure uniform rules, it is necessary that the same decision-making procedure should be used, that the same rules should be applied, with the full involvement of the European Parliament.
On behalf of the Liberal Group, therefore, I support Amendment No 1 calling for the addition of Article 129a as the legislative procedure.
I also support Amendment No 23, which requires it to be indicated on the bottle how much alcohol or how many ingredients it contains, so that we car-drivers and others know how much we can drink from a health point of view.
I also support Amendment No 12, which prefers the word 'ingredients' to the phrase 'prepared with', and finally - as I said before - it is very important that we treat alcoholic beverages uniformly, so I support Amendments Nos 15 and 9.
I very much hope that we can adopt this report tomorrow.
I am well aware that there are major differences between North and South, but I think it incredible - and I agree entirely with Mr Whitehead - that we should talk about culture in connection with wine drinking, whereas beer drinking is regarded as an expression of something completely different.
In both cases, we are talking about liquids which are consumed at social gatherings or with a meal.
So I very much hope that we can arrive at a situation in which all these things are dealt with uniformly and with the full involvement of Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this proposal for a directive amending Directive 79/112/EEC concerns the labelling, presentation and advertising of foodstuffs, in the alcoholic beverages sector.
This proposal, which does not include rules on the listing of ingredients, nevertheless allows for the indication of these ingredients in the five Community regulations which already exist.
The European Commission proposes that this information should enter into force within a period of three years from 1 July 1998.
We would like to make the following comments.
First of all we must congratulate the European Commission on taking account of the need for consumer information on the ingredients of alcoholic beverages.
However, we must add to this the concerns that may arise regarding the new alcoholic beverages aimed at young people, known as premixes or alcopops, which are not mentioned in this proposal.
The presentation and advertising of these drinks attract young people and could result in real damage to public health.
It is therefore important that these drinks should be labelled with their ingredients and the percentage of alcohol.
The European Commission urgently needs to present a text on these drinks, which are referred to as soft drinks but contain alcohol, and which must be displayed on the wines and spirits shelves in shops.
Some of these drinks contain more than 3 to 4 % of alcohol by volume; the alcohol is of non-specific origin and the taste is covered up by sugar.
With regard to the drinks that are affected by these labelling measures, and which are mentioned in Article 6(3), we should add to these aromatised wine-based beverages and aromatised wine-product cocktails, which are governed by Regulation 1601/91/EEC.
Beer, meanwhile, is not subject to any specific Community regulation.
It would normally be excluded from this article, which is why I would like to ask you to support Amendment No 14 and to reject Amendment No 9 by the rapporteur.
This Article 6(3) fixes a period of three years from 1 July 1998 for the application of the labelling rules.
This short period already seems to be impossible to apply, because it comes too soon after the adoption of the directive.
The period proposed by Amendment No 14 is therefore much more realistic.
Finally, as was pointed out by the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the phrase ' élaborée à l'aide de' used in the French version seems less appropriate than the phrase ' préparée à l'aide de' .
We therefore prefer the latter form, which is also well known by consumers in the food sector.
Mr President, 'grasp all, lose all', as we say in my country.
I do not know whether this applies to Mr Schnellhardt, and I hope that his report, duly amended, will at last be adopted by this House.
There is no doubt, however, that Mr Schnellhardt's desire to include wine among the beverages to be labelled in accordance with the procedure set out in Article 189b of the Treaty has caused a serious and inexcusable delay.
Indeed, the Commission referred this proposal to Parliament on 10 February 1997.
The committee responsible, the Environment Committee, appointed Mr Schnellhardt rapporteur on 16 April 1997, almost two years ago.
And the proposal was an urgent one, all the more so because the Commission itself was behind the schedule laid down in Article 6 of Directive 79/112.
Nevertheless, the Environment Committee - which normally examines and approves reports very rapidly, thanks to the efficiency of its chairman - had to discuss this matter no fewer than three times over the two years; this was compounded by an unspecified number of strategic postponements, sometimes due to elections.
Why? Because, believing that Parliament's decision should be as broad-based as possible - a view shared by us all - Mr Schnellhardt sought to remove wine from the scope of the specific measures relating to it, overlooking the fact that, in the case of wine, labelling forms an integral part of its definition: table wine, quality wine and so on.
Those of us who represent regions which are proud to be major producers of wine cannot agree, and I am grateful to the group to which I have the honour of belonging for allowing me to say so in this House.
No, we cannot agree. It is not - or not merely - so as to protect producers, even though that profession certainly does deserve our consideration, given the esteem in which it is held throughout the world; it is not - or not merely - so as to protect production in our regions; it is also, and I would say above all, so as to protect consumers in Europe and elsewhere.
Among these, ladies and gentlemen, I would include keen beer-drinkers, just in case they should decide - and I hope so for their sakes - to drink a good glass of wine once in a while.
Mr President, from a public health perspective it would be difficult to envisage a more important area of administration than the regulations governing food quality.
From an agricultural perspective, it is to the credit of our farmers and the food processing industry that they are to the forefront in providing quality food products in a manner compatible with consumer requirements.
From the point of view of agricultural reform, it goes without saying that the process of extensification is a credible production base for quality raw material for the food sector.
While it has a cost factor for producers, it has not, unfortunately, resulted in a better financial response in the market place.
Since the agricultural economies of European Union and third countries are moving steadily towards globalisation, it is crucial in the context of the next World Trade talks that those countries committed to food quality and consumer requirements are not put at a disadvantage by countries such as the United States, as is happening at the present time.
I fully support the concept of clear, non-technical and standardised labelling of food products.
However, we need to be careful, in our desire for traceability and transparency, to avoid over-regulation which could lead to lack of innovation and research into new products.
On genetically modified organisms I would repeat my earlier statements.
No food product which is genetically modified or contains ingredients which have been genetically modified should be released into the food chain until it has been fully tested, and only then with clear labelling.
To allay consumer concern in this regard, I suggest the colour coding of all labels containing genetically modified ingredients.
I also call for an educational programme on the process of genetic engineering as applied to agriculture.
Concerns in this regard should be based on fact and not as a response to campaigns designed to play on the fears of consumers.
From this point of view we must have an effective educational programme for consumers.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Schnellhardt, I think that you are all wrong.
I do not think that you have understood our approach.
I really think that you are mistaken.
Mr Whitehead, I am a doctor.
I do not accept that you could suppose for one moment that I support alcoholism.
Every day I fight the battle against this scourge.
I cannot accept you talking to us about alcopops.
These are evil, deadly drinks which we should remove from consumption and which are dangerous to young people.
Mr Whitehead and Mr Schnellhardt, I would like you to think a little about our European culture, which, Mr Whitehead, is represented by savouring a quality wine or whisky in moderation, as part of festivities.
I do not think, my friends, that you realize that not long ago, less than a fortnight ago, we passed an essential reform, the reform of the common organisation of the market in wine.
On that occasion we tried to defend the principles of quality and of regionalisation, and the principles of respect for our traditions involving wine and alcoholic beverages, in the interests of the consumer and the diversity that we have across Europe.
Labelling, Mr Schnellhardt, is an integral part of what we adopted, providing rules for the presentation of wine and telling people what may be represented by descriptions and designations of origin, such as the châteaux, the Rivesaltes, Prädikat wines, as you say in German, Mr Schnellhardt, Q&A, and so on.
In short, we are here to defend a particular culture.
We are following our approach towards the recent common organisation of the market in wine.
We want to respect consumers, we want to protect wine, and we will therefore vote against you, Mr Schnellhardt, tomorrow morning.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Schnellhardt for his clear and concise introduction to what is a complex, emotive and difficult piece of legislation.
As regards the labelling of alcoholic beverages, my position is that consumers have a right to transparency and complete openness.
Labelling of all consumer products and in particular all food items, including soft and alcoholic drinks, is essential to give the consumer a clear description of the items concerned.
I realise that traditional products have not normally carried labels as to their content.
Also, labelling cannot solve all problems.
Labelling must be accurate and checked to ensure consumer confidence.
Inaccurate and uncontrolled declarations are useless and bring the whole system into disrepute.
Despite all these problems, labelling has an important role and should apply to all food products including alcoholic beverages.
In the vote I would like to see the proposal to include beer extended to include cider also.
Therefore I will be supporting Amendment No 15 as well as Amendment No 9.
To conclude, consumer information must be complete and accurate.
I therefore support the declaration of ingredients on all food items.
Mr President, I have been involved in these debates for eleven years now, and I have experienced all the various efforts to rationalise the area we are discussing again this evening.
The Commission has now made another attempt, which actually focuses more on procedural and less on substantive issues, because if we begin with the substance, this proposal will suffer the same fate as the first two proposals.
We shall not make any progress.
For that reason the approach adopted by the rapporteur, which is the same approach we suggested in our proposal, is undoubtedly the right basis.
I cannot interfere in internal disputes.
It is true that I spoke to the rapporteur, but I do not know whether he delayed the proposal, Mrs Lulling.
On the other hand, I have a natural inclination to believe everything you say.
However, I have no wish to interfere in this matter.
What did we propose, and what is this argument actually about? I do not intend to involve myself in the question of whether one product is culturally superior, although a great deal could be said about that.
After all, wine is mentioned in the Bible, and that is certainly something!
As far as these things are concerned, we should not be engaging now in any sort of Kulturkampf between wine and beer or between wine-growing areas and beer-brewing areas.
We should be considering how we can ensure that the information which is important to the consumer is actually on the label.
That, in short, is what we all want to achieve. That is certainly an aim on which there are no differences.
If that is our common aim, we cannot ignore the fact that there are already very detailed specific rules for certain alcoholic beverages, as well as very experienced institutions which exercise responsibility for ensuring compliance with these rules.
That is really no more than what we are proposing.
We are not trying to say that there is a difference in quality between wine and beer, or between beer and grappa or whatever; the real question is whether we make use of what we already have and thereby avoid any duplication of effort.
The wine market and the rules governing the sale of wine are already highly sophisticated, and if we were now to overlay the whole structure, as it were, with a set of general provisions, Mr Schnellhardt, the result would surely be a situation in which consumers would tend to lose their bearings and in which producers could face the biggest problems.
That is really the only crucial difference.
Now I could not fail to notice during the discussion that there are very widely differing positions on this issue in Parliament.
That always suits us, because we can then wait and see which position prevails.
That is precisely what I would suggest we do in this case.
However, I can imagine that the Council will be more inclined to subscribe to our proposal. But there too, of course, we can wait and see.
I should therefore like to move on now to say a few words on the various amendments, so that you can consider our positions on these when deciding how to vote.
We can accept Amendment No 3, which proposes an additional recital enunciating the two aims of the proposal, namely consumer protection and consolidation of the single market.
We certainly have no problem with that.
The same applies to Amendment No 17.
Amendment No 1 is unnecessary in our opinion, as there is no need to supplement the legal basis by adding a reference to Article 129a of the Treaty, because Article 100a also covers consumer protection.
In any event, I have no intention of interfering in the dispute between the legal services.
We made this proposal in the way we always make proposals.
We chose what seemed to us to be the most logical legal basis.
If there is a feeling that Article 43 should also be included because we are dealing with disparate products, that can naturally be done too.
I have said that we make a distinction between wine, aromatised wines and spirits because we already have comprehensive Community rules for these, including provisions on labelling.
It seems logical to us that the rules on the listing of ingredients on the labels of these beverages - we shall still have to reach agreement on the substance of those rules, of course - ought to be adapted in the framework of the new provisions.
We shall certainly have new provisions, but they must serve as the basis for the adaptation of these specified rules, and not vice versa.
For beverages that are not covered by Community regulations, such as beer and cider, the labelling provisions must be laid down in Commission directives.
The question will then arise, Mr Schnellhardt, as to the legal basis we have to adopt and the form of parliamentary involvement.
I appreciate that Parliament naturally prefers to work with a procedure that requires, or virtually requires, its consent and thereby strengthens the position of Parliament.
But this cannot be taken so far that the principle is even applied in cases where it offers no practical benefit.
There is no point in waging a conflict of competence at someone else's expense.
I consider that very unwise.
We can accept the improvements of wording in Amendment No 14, and we can also accept the extension to five years of the time-limit for the adoption of procedures.
But that should then apply to all products.
Amendment No 19 proposes that it should only apply to wine and spirits.
We believe that this amounts to unfair treatment, which we cannot accept.
For the same reason, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 5, 6, 7, 11, 16 and 20 or the second part of Amendments Nos 9 and 15.
The first part of Amendments Nos 9 and 15 is acceptable to us.
Amendments Nos 2, 10 and 18, which are evidently designed to make Article 6 of Directive 79/112 directly applicable to other beverages such as cider or new industrial products, are unacceptable to us, because we should have to insist on the listing of ingredients on the labels of these beverages as soon as the amending directive was adopted, whereas the same requirement would not yet apply to wine, beer and spirits. This means that we should then have another case of unfair treatment, although this time the boot would be on the other foot.
As far as these beverages are concerned, by the way, the real problem has more to do with consumers being misled, which is due in many cases to strict application of Article 2 of Directive 79/112.
This could very easily be resolved through the watchdog bodies in the Member States.
It is not so much a matter of new rules.
We suggested in our proposal that the list of ingredients should be preceded by the words 'produced from' in cases where it is impossible to include every ingredient in the list.
It could be decided, for example, not to include water among the contents of many of these beverages, such as whisky, because it is not one of the active ingredients.
Mrs Schleicher put forward an argument that might be difficult to sustain.
She said that when consumers are already under the influence of alcohol to a certain extent, they can consult the label on the beverage to see whether they can drink another glass of it, but I submit that by the time they reach that state, they will no longer be able to read the label anyway!
We are not happy with the wording of Amendments Nos 12 and 22, which implies in some languages that wine is the product of a manufacturing process, and so we do not wish to accept those amendments.
We cannot accept Amendments Nos 4 and 13 either, but we shall incorporate the standard article on consulting the Scientific Committee; in other words, we accept the role of the Scientific Committee in principle.
Amendments Nos 23 and 24 relate to the problem of alcoholism.
That is no more a subject for this debate than the GMO problem - the honourable Member who raised the question of genetically modified organisms has left already.
The problem, of course, has already been the subject of an expert opinion from the medical side.
Mr Schnellhardt, by the way, is a medic too. You specialists can discuss this later among yourselves.
Heckling
Vets are also medics, and animals are sometimes harder to treat than humans.
On the other hand, I have to admit that alcoholism is not a great problem among animals!
Let me ask in conclusion that we establish our agreement on one point, namely that these are truly products with a long tradition.
We need not pit one tradition against the other in a Kulturkampf , but it is clear that these traditions are worth preserving.
The problem of alcoholism does not arise in connection with beverages that a consumer buys and drinks because he or she values its taste and quality.
No consumer will buy a bottle of Pétrus or Amarone in order to get drunk.
There are certainly cheaper ways to do that, and this is something we all have to appreciate.
We cannot be indiscriminate and lump everyone together.
That would be unfair to many people - including, incidentally, the average consumer of alcoholic beverages.
Consumers are not so stupid that they cannot obtain information unless we prescribe labels for them to read.
We should not think of consumers as beings that we alone can release from ignorance.
I do not object to having a little more information on a label, but I know exactly which alcoholic beverages I drink and which ones I do not.
Within the various categories too, I choose very carefully, even if there is no information at all on the label.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 11.25 p.m.
Year 2000 computer problem
The next item is the report (A4-0014/99) by Mr A.J. Donnelly, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: The year 2000 computer problem (COM(98)0102 - C4-0233/98).
Mr President, this is an extremely important issue for the business community and for citizens within the European Union.
Individual citizens own many products.
They travel by different forms of transport.
They use public utilities.
All of these will be affected by the computer problem associated with the year 2000.
While some months ago many members of the public believed that this was a problem only for computer companies, it is now very clear that the issue of the millennium bug will affect all citizens in every aspect of their lives.
The most important thing for the European Union to do in the course of this year is to make sure that all social groups and every part of the business community are made fully aware of the potential complications of the millennium bug.
I am less concerned about the way in which major multinationals are preparing to deal with this issue.
It is pretty clear that if you are a major multinational you can afford and probably have had experts working on this issue for several years.
But we know that within the European Union there are approximately 18 million small enterprises.
How many of those have identified whether or not they have potential problems after 1 January 2000 because of systems they are operating within that small business?
In some countries - my own included - several thousand experts have been appointed to go round and help the small business community to identify whether a small business will be affected.
But across the whole of the European Union, given the importance of the small business community to the EU, we need to make sure that as much pressure as possible is exerted on the Member States to provide the same facility in all 15 countries.
I would be very grateful if the Commissioner could explain to us this morning whether there is any surveillance programme to identify whether all 15 Member States are providing expertise to help in advising the small business community on how the millennium bug could affect them.
In relation to public utilities - electricity, gas, water and so forth - it is essential that they too manage their own affairs in relation to the millennium bug.
It would be disastrous for citizens in the European Union if, because of inadequate preparation, the public sector and the public utilities found they had problems after 1 January 2000.
What measures are being taken across the European Union to have a coordinated response and to ensure that proper information is going to the public services in this area?
As far as European Union legislation is concerned, there is a body of legislation dealing with liability for defective services, product safety and other liability legislation.
What is not clear to me is whether we will be applying those product liability directives to any problem that might occur in relation to the millennium bug.
In the United States, for example, they have considered waiving liability legislation so that companies are not affected by the failure of their products or services.
Will European citizens be able to call upon product liability and defective services liability legislation in the European Union in the event of goods or services not operating as a result of the millennium bug? This is a matter people in the European Union want answers to.
Can they resort to law if they find they have problems?
There are two final points I want to deal with.
What contingency plans are Member States making and what collective initiatives are taking place across the European Union in the event - God forbid - of a serious problem associated with a major industry within the EU? What action is being taken by the civil authorities to prepare for a potential disaster in one or another part of the EU?
For example, are the Interior Ministers discussing whether or not there needs to be a contingency plan for 1 January 2000? Some people may say that this is a Cassandra trying to paint a very black picture but the fact is that we do not know whether there are potentially very disastrous problems waiting round the corner.
Finally, with regard to our external relations.
Around our borders we have relations with the Eastern European countries and with the former Soviet countries.
They have extensive nuclear installations which we know are already in a very serious state of decline.
What work is being done by the European Union to secure these nuclear installations and other major utilities around our borders against potential disaster because of a lack of preparation by these other countries? This is not just a European Union problem but could have very serious implications, in particular in very sensitive sectors such as the energy sector, unless we make proper preparations.
This is critically important to us.
It is not only computer buffs who should be concerned.
It is for every citizen to recognise the danger to their own livelihood and risks to our safety.
The Commission and the Parliament must make it very clear that we will push throughout this year to guarantee that all steps that can be taken are taken to secure the safety of our citizens, to secure the legal rights of our citizens and to secure the prospects for our business community, together with the safety of our neighbours at this very critical time, as a result of the changes in technology.
Mr President, I should like to start by congratulating my good friend and colleague Mr Donnelly on an excellent report which covers most aspects of the problems associated with the millennium bug.
This report has not come too soon - rumours of it being on the agenda of the December part-session are unfounded!
In my own country, estimates are that the millennium bug problems could cost up to 2 % of GDP.
Given that growth in many countries is estimated at below 2 %, this is a very unsatisfactory position and everything should be done to try to minimise the impact of the problem, in particular with regard to public services, business, transport, domestic problems and, as Mr Donnelly mentioned, the threat to safety.
The most worrying of all is nuclear safety and we know that there are problems in Central and Eastern Europe and possibly elsewhere.
I should like to address three areas which give cause for concern.
These are public awareness, liability in the case of failure and, thirdly, the issue we have touched on, namely safety.
In terms of public awareness, I know that there are programmes in each Member State to give information to consumers in particular, but also businesses.
I would call on the Commission to use the European Information Centres to distribute information to ensure that the public and businesses are aware of their responsibilities and the risks involved in not preparing for the year 2000.
Business awareness is a problem for the reasons I have outlined and its effects on economic performance.
The wait-and-see attitude which some businesses are adopting is unsatisfactory.
The situation could be far worse than they could possibly imagine.
In terms of liability in the case of failure, consumers should be protected.
The present position of whether it is unavoidable failure or unforeseen is inadequate.
Many insurers are trying to shirk their responsibilities.
Consumers should be insured on the basis that it is reasonable for the consumer to expect recompense, given the age of a particular product.
Finally, on safety.
Obviously, the nuclear industry is an area of concern - and Mr Donnelly touched on this.
Transport is another.
All attempts should be made to build in fail-safe measures where there are doubts about the proper functioning of equipment after the year 2000.
I commend this report to the House and congratulate Mr Donnelly again.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I must congratulate Alan Donnelly very warmly on this first-rate report.
I think he gives an excellent answer to all the questions of concern to the European Union here.
It is not his fault that the report is late, it is just one of those things.
It looks as if the European Union is reluctant to shoulder its responsibilities in this area, and I should like to put the following question to Commissioner Bangemann.
At one of the meetings of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, he said that the millennium problem was not really all that serious.
We would find in the year 2000 that it had all been 'hype' on the part of the software manufacturers.
What I actually want to ask him is how seriously does he now think we need to address the millennium problem at European Union level? I will focus on four points.
The first is the problem of 'chain reactions'.
We all know that you cannot solve the millennium problem at local, regional or national level alone, you have to look too at the EU dimension as a whole.
But obviously all these things are closely interrelated.
The better we are able to map and resolve the problem of potential chain reactions, the more successful we shall be in tackling the millennium problem.
From the point of view of the internal market, I therefore think it is most important that we pay attention to what develops with regard to potential chain reactions in this area and at European Union level.
The example of electricity is a very familiar one.
If the system cannot cope somewhere in one country, the integrated nature of the electricity grid means that this will have major repercussions on other countries in and outside the European Union.
The second point is liability.
We know that efforts are now under way in a number of Member States to discuss who will be responsible for what, if and when the millennium bug actually strikes.
Some insurance companies have set aside funds, others have not.
I should like to ask the Commissioner how he is handling this manifestation of the internal market?
Because if liability is well regulated in one Member State of the European Union and not in another - take the problem of embedded software, for example - how ultimately are we going to deal with that? I do not think the European Union can remain passive on this question.
My third point is awareness. Awareness of the millennium problem means firstly that plans have to be made, above all that tests have to be run, and also that the public has to be shown what we are actually doing and what the effects of our endeavours are.
The more clearly we can show our people that we are on top of things, that we are working on the problem and that it is of course soluble, the more I think popular confidence will increase.
I think that is most important.
My final point concerns the nuclear sector.
We have no idea what will happen here.
So I think it is most important to pay a great deal more attention to this, because it may be an area of increasing popular anxiety.
So I would urge the Commissioner and his colleagues to clarify what we are doing in Central and Eastern Europe and what we are doing in Russia, because there is of course a big question mark over that in particular, and so our citizens need to be given clear information on that point as well.
Finally, Mr President, a question for you.
What is the European Parliament doing to ensure that the European Parliament is millennium-compliant? Perhaps you could tell us presently what Parliament is doing.
I am very curious to know.
Mr President, I too must compliment Mr Donnelly on his excellent report.
I should like to take up one point which previous speakers have also made.
On 1 January 2000 many computers will think, if they are not millennium-compliant, that the clock has suddenly been turned back to 1900.
This carries great risks to the economy, to the environment and to people.
Above all, I find the situation in Russia and a number of Central and Eastern European countries alarming.
Due to the economic crisis there, efforts to deal with the millennium problem, which had in any case not received a great deal of priority, have virtually ground to a halt.
Now I know that people there say that some computers do not have the problems we have in the West.
But we cannot be sure of that.
To be on the safe side, I recently paid a working visit to the only nuclear power plant which my country boasts.
I found there that they had been working for a full year to make the plant millennium-compliant.
I also raised the question of the Central and Eastern European countries, which they were certainly aware of, and they were not happy about what is going on there.
So I am grateful to Mr Donnelly for having incorporating my amendment on this point.
Mr van Velzen raised the matter of liability, and I would mention that all insurance policies exclude disasters involving nuclear energy or other nuclear disasters.
So that is one more reason to give some thought to this question.
I still believe that the European Union should give a lead here and be open and honest on the subject, together with Russia and Eastern Europe.
It is high time that we accepted our responsibilities, and I think account must be taken of this in our aid programmes.
A variety of studies show that it can be done at relatively modest cost.
The total cost of resolving the Russian millennium problem is put at USD 100 million.
I think that would be money well spent.
If we, the citizens of the European Union, want to be sure of a safe roll-over into the new millennium, then we too must be prepared to get our wallets out.
Time is getting on.
We have no time left, and the responsibility rests with the West just as much as with the East.
So I would urge Commissioner Bangemann to place this subject high on the agenda, not just because of the risks of not being insured, but above all because of the damage to the environment if things do get irretrievably out of control.
Mr President, I should like to begin with a confession.
I am a complete technophobe and clearly this is why my group has chosen me to speak on this complex topic.
I have read Mr Donnelly's splendid report and commend him for it.
A thought did occur to me.
Has he checked out that the Labour Party computers at Millbank Tower have been programmed to take account of the change so that all Members will remain on message in the year 2000 as they have in 1999?
Clearly this is an important issue.
One fundamental question which occurred to me when I read the report is: how did it happen that computer designers and software designers were allowed to make and programme machines in such a way?
Everyone knew that the year 2000 was approaching but it did not seem to occur to them to sort out this rather fundamental fault in the process of design. Then the question arises: what about the matter of liability for any damage that occurs if these machines crash?
Could we sue Mr Gates for his many billions of dollars for his responsibility in the process? Or perhaps we could nationalise him as one US economist recently suggested.
I have read that the British Government has done some serious preparation for this but I was slightly alarmed to read in the papers the other day that the Italian Government - I do not want to criticise my Italian friends - has just set up a study group, with no offices, no budgets and no resources, to look at this problem only nine months before the event.
It seems to me a little late in the day.
Indeed, Parliament is also a little late in the day with its report.
But I am sure that Commissioner Bangemann will tell us that the Commission is well advanced with its planning.
Finally, might I suggest that to restore confidence in Europe, Commissioner Kinnock could take to the air and fly on the eve of the year 2000 and that Commissioner Bangemann should resurrect his well-known feats on motorcycle with Mr Barton and travel through the traffic systems of Brussels on the back of Mr Barton's motorcycle.
That would reassure the citizens of Europe that the Commission has the situation well in hand.
Mr President, if computers jump from '99' to '00' on 1 January next, no one knows exactly what the consequences will be. They may be far-reaching.
But it may also be that the millennium problem exists mainly in people's heads, planted there by software manufacturers eager to make a fast buck.
The millennium problem brings us unequivocally up against the limitations of human knowledge and ability.
To anyone who puts all his trust in technology, the millennium problem must be a huge disappointment.
A mere trifle like leaving out the digits '19' from the year gives rise to a life-threatening situation.
We are too quick to forget that all technology is the work of human beings.
We can fool ourselves that we are all-powerful and talk about the 'triumph of technology', but meanwhile that same technology is an enormous threat.
Recital C of the resolution rightly points the finger at the economic considerations which led to the year being displayed as two digits only.
In a way, we wanted the new computer technology to produce economic results too fast.
Is this not the root of a great number of current social and cultural problems? We are addicted to the pursuit of profit and economic gain.
Everything has to give way to that imperative, including the natural world and our very human existence itself.
It is therefore particularly regrettable that Mr Donnelly's report embroiders further on the theme of the problem-solving ability of human intelligence.
Of course we have to try to prevent possible disasters.
But I think we need equally to reflect on the deeper cultural and religious causes.
Mr President, I should also like to congratulate Mr Donnelly, although, unfortunately, he is no longer as fully involved in the work of our committee as I would have hoped.
He is good at this sort of work.
It is strange that the year 2000 computer problem should exist at all.
It says something about just how susceptible modern societies are to disruption.
Since computers do not understand the two noughts in the year 2000, we are in a real fix; some people are panicking.
For years the experts have been trying to tackle the problem and now there are just a few months left.
Thus our idyllic society will not be threatened or attacked from outer space or by Russia, but by two zeros and a mistake on the part of a computer.
The Commission says that the responsibility for the year 2000 computer problem lies with the suppliers and users of computer systems.
I would like to ask the Commission, then, who is responsible in the case of Russia?
On Monday I visited the nuclear power plants in question in Russia, and I would like to ask the Commission how certain it is that the problem in Russia, which the rapporteur also referred to, will be properly solved. Are the plants to be run down or kept going, and what will happen about the nuclear weapon systems?
My other question is what sort of problems are likely to be caused by troublemakers or out-and-out criminals if we reach the stage where there is some sort of state of confusion, and what does the Commission intend to do to avoid this kind of problem? Thirdly, I am pleased that the rapporteur mentioned the fact that we should be concerned about consumers and the SME sector, which face the greatest problems in these sorts of situations.
Mr President, it is not quite ten months to the turn of the century.
Despite that, the testing of computer systems is lagging behind in many sectors, and has not even yet begun in all of them.
There are some who do not even know anything about the problem at all.
The European Parliament is quite rightly addressing the possible problems the year 2000 will cause, the so-called 'Y2K' problem.
However, it lays the main emphasis on cooperation from its Member States and the western world.
But the problems are not confined to here.
It is well known, and it has been pointed out here, that in Russia and its immediate surroundings there is a lack of intellectual and material resources to solve the problem.
Air traffic needs up-to-date computer systems, particularly for computer-based air-traffic control systems and in modern aircraft that rely on computers; and nuclear power stations are global problems that affect us all.
Failure to upgrade systems could constitute a serious danger to health and present other types of risk for people in various parts of the world.
The issue is neither a political nor an ideological one, and in dealing with it borders must not act as barriers.
The EU must invest in finding a solution on a broad scale that transcends its own borders and that looks at the problem from the human angle.
It is preferable to make this investment sooner rather than later, as delay could prove costly.
The images of horror that have been painted by over-imaginative science-fiction writers, conjuring up apocalyptic visions, must not be allowed to come true.
The responsibility is a global one.
Mr President, I basically agree with Mr Donnelly's excellent report, though his comments about SMEs in recital D need to be modified a little.
It is certainly not true that smaller firms lack specialist technical knowledge; on the contrary, SMEs are the ones that generate innovation and research in many fields.
Their structure and specialist technical knowledge mean that they are able to react quickly to any software problems that come up.
On the other hand, however, if major firms or public administrations have computer problems, these could have a massive impact on SMEs.
The rapporteur's comments on the nuclear sector in Eastern Europe and Russia are extremely important.
This is a field that is receiving huge financial support from the European Union, but up to now, unfortunately, we have not seen any significant improvement in the safety of nuclear power plants.
It is now high time to make sure that the funding available really is used to improve reactor safety.
It is probably unrealistic to hope that the nuclear power stations will be shut down by the year 2000, so we must at least ensure that there are no breakdowns caused by the year 2000 problem.
We need to give top priority to eliminating any risk to the population of Europe, since Europe's taxpayers have after all provided a lot of money for nuclear safety in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Mr President, the subject we are dealing with today, the 'Millennium bug', is an extremely impenetrable one for the majority of our fellow citizens.
To save time, I will simply say that it is like a grain of sand that can cause the most sophisticated machine to grind to a halt.
But we must look beyond this.
I believe that it actually defines the limits of our so-called modern society, a short-term society built on sand, a society that often cannot see beyond the end of its nose.
For the sake of saving a few minuscule bytes in systems software, two generations of computer programmers have deliberately ignored the advent of the new millennium.
Even today, we still do not know how big an effect such irresponsible behaviour will have.
As the saying goes, to govern is to predict. Well, this is proof that no-one is governing our world any longer.
Mitterrand, Fabius and Clinton are all fighting the same war: that of the generation of those who prefer to use politics to serve their own purposes rather than their people. This is a generation where the irresponsible are in charge.
This is a generation that knowingly lets populations slowly poison themselves with contaminated blood, that builds nuclear power stations knowing full well that one day they will blow up in our faces, and that would rather fly bombers over innocent crowds to detract from their sexual dalliances and conceal them.
This whole issue of computer faults is not as innocuous as it may seem.
It is a symptom, amongst others, of this climate of decline and of the widespread shunning of responsibility, where no-one has to answer to anyone any longer.
Unfortunately, the other side of this issue is that, once again, our leaders will probably not take this new lesson seriously, and that is a shame.
Mr President, it is not true that Parliament has come to this problem too late, because it is something we have discussed on a number of occasions over the past few years, and the Commission has constantly reported on what it has been doing.
We have been looking at the problem for four years now and have tried to do everything we can.
I would like to thank Alan Donnelly for spelling out in his report exactly what our responsibility is and where efforts can still be made over the next few months.
I must point out straight away that he is no Cassandra, because Cassandra's predictions were always right.
Her problem was that everything she said was always true, but this is not the case with Alan Donnelly.
I am sure that some of the fears expressed here in this debate will not come true at all.
Let me begin by telling you what the Commission has been doing.
The first problem was to make everyone aware that there was a problem, and that it affected them.
I think we have now got this message across, partly thanks to the rather exaggerated reports of impending doom.
The good thing about these kinds of hysterical reports is that even when they are completely exaggerated, they still have the effect of making people sit up and listen.
All these horror stories of planes plummeting from the skies, electricity failures and the Labour Party being unable to count its members alarmed people so much - particularly the last of the three - that now everybody knows we have a problem on our hands.
This was the most important priority, so in itself it is no bad thing.
The Commission did what it could to help here, focusing particularly on small and medium-sized firms.
From the outset, we involved the Member States and international authorities such as the Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna in our discussions.
Of course, we had to try to ensure that the various measures were carried out by those in the best position to do so, so we did not try to do everything ourselves, but tried instead to provide the various responsible bodies with the highest possible levels of specialist knowledge, and in some cases also with funding.
For example, we provided the atomic energy authority with funding to enable it to carry out operations in Eastern Europe.
So we tried to get a whole series of organisations and responsible bodies involved, and in particular those directly affected in private industry.
The result is reasonably good.
It is true that the smaller firms, as usual, face bigger problems, since they do not have the manpower or often the money which they need - there is now software that can solve most of the problems, of course, but it is relatively expensive, so there is also the problem of affordability.
We have been doing everything we have listed in the communication.
We have had regular meetings with the Member States, and we have worked together, and are continuing to do so, with the relevant international organisations in the financial, telecommunications, energy and transport fields.
These fields were not chosen at random, but because they vary in the way in which they use computers.
For example, if you have computers that are designed and programmed to run according to a regular timetable, they are more likely to suffer from the problem than computers that have nothing to do with regular timetables and simply collect data.
The data are not linked to particular time intervals and will therefore not be affected by the millennium bug.
So this is something else that needs to be looked into.
Nevertheless, we are working with all those concerned to try to establish exactly what they can do and what we have to do to ensure that the various infrastructure sectors carry on operating smoothly.
If people wanted, the Commission could even do more, particularly in the way of providing financial support.
But the sums that the individual private firms affected need to spend are so great that it is hard to imagine any public authorities being able to afford to pay them.
Of course, we have done everything that needs to be done to guarantee immediate security, but many of those involved are also doing a great deal at their own expense to protect their own interests.
I cannot imagine any airport in the world that works with computer systems and that has not found a solution to the problem by now, and it would be absolutely unthinkable if there were airlines that had not now taken the necessary precautions on board their aircraft.
What else can we do to adapt the legal provisions if necessary? This is an interesting question, because it is an area where we could already be taking action.
We have looked into this too.
Legal rules already exist to deal with problems such as this, because in legal terms it is nothing new.
Anyone who makes a mistake when supplying a product or service must of course take responsibility if it is a culpable error or if there is no-fault liability.
Firms which use a lot of suppliers working with these kinds of systems have in many cases already written to them to point out that if there is any disruption they will hold the suppliers responsible.
In other words, they themselves have let their suppliers know that they will be held to be at the very least negligent if they do not tackle the problem.
This is why we do not think it would be a good idea to propose new legal rules.
Alan Donnelly mentioned the 'Good Samaritan Legislation', the new American law designed to promote the provision of information by limiting liability for declarations of millennium compliance.
Of course, this does not encourage people to tackle the millennium bug, quite the reverse, unfortunately.
So we think that the existing legal rules, together with the information that suppliers are being given, will be enough to deal with the problem in legal terms.
Of course, this will not be the case everywhere.
For example, someone asked whether Parliament will continue to operate after the year 2000.
This is a question not of legal responsibility but of political expedience, and the Commission does not wish to comment on it at the moment.
Someone else asked what we are doing about our own computer systems.
It would hardly be good for the Commission if we spent five years telling everyone to do something about the problem but failed to do anything ourselves.
Of course we have ensured that our own systems will operate.
A project designed to ensure that they are millennium-compliant is nearing completion.
Once we have done the tests, we will be able to inform you that the Commission at least will be operating after the year 2000, if that is any consolation to you!
Mr President, I asked if you would be willing to tell the House what preparations the European Parliament is making to deal with the millennium problem.
We now know what the Commission is doing, but can you tell honourable Members what stage Parliament has reached?
I will convey your request to the President of Parliament and ask him to communicate with you in due course.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 11 a.m.
Safety, hygiene and health protection at work
Mr President, I should like to start by discussing the annual reports of the two health and safety committees.
Both the Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work and the permanent body for safety and hygiene in coalmines and other extractive industries work on the tripartite principle, which I hope the Community will adopt to a greater extent in the future.
Both committees suffer from a lack of resources.
Even so, they have succeeded in doing an excellent job.
However, we should be thinking of ways to make the work of the committees more effective, such as through reorganisation, and to put their expertise to better use.
The most important aspect of the Community's activities in the area of health and safety at work is legislation and its application.
Considerable progress has been made in this field.
Whereas in 1996 the Member States had transposed 74 % of the directives on health and safety at work into their national legislation, that figure has now risen to 95 %.
Acceptance of the directives themselves, however, still does not mean they are being interpreted and applied correctly or that they are producing concrete results at the workplace.
Enforcement is, however, what all the EU health and safety activities hinge on.
The report contains specific demands for a total ban on asbestos, an extension of the cancer directive, a call for directives on physical factors, scaffolding and minimum requirements in the transport sector, as well as a proposal to protect those who work outdoors.
In its interim report, the Commission proposes four main priorities for the period 1998-2000: firstly, more effective legislation; secondly, preparation for enlargement; thirdly, stronger links with the issue of employability; and, fourthly, the risks arising from changes in working conditions.
These are important priorities.
The Commission's extended list of priorities will present a real challenge for action on health and safety at work.
Occupational health and safety in the applicant countries is not nearly at the same level as in current Member States.
They will need every possible kind of support to achieve the levels that exist in the Community.
Maintaining older people's capacity for work is also one of the major challenges of the coming years, and I wanted to talk about the Finnish example here.
In Finland, action to maintain the capacity to work is taken jointly by the employer, the employee and the cooperation organisations.
Finland's good record in this area could be taken as a model of good practice for the other Member States.
There is a fundamental link here with employability.
Assessing the health and safety risks at the workplace is still too often limited to physical, chemical and biological risks.
Nevertheless, muscular-skeletal diseases and psycho-social factors currently constitute the greatest threats to workers' health.
Our committee has already mentioned stress, in particular, as being one of these.
I would also draw attention to the issue of violence, which is a growing problem in the service sector.
The Commission also states in its interim report that the increase in female employment brings with it certain special problems connected with health and safety at work.
I think we need to obtain statistics in this area, broken down by gender.
Certain jobs that women do carry their own health and safety risks, which result, for example, from lack of autonomy, monotonous and repetitive work, and other such factors.
Finally, I would like to say a word about the amendments.
I am prepared to approve all of them other than Amendment No 1.
Amendment No 2 I approve as an addition to paragraph 15 in the report.
I cannot approve Amendment No 1, as it would reduce paragraph 3 of the report to a mere complaint about the small number of women on the committees and would exclude the important proposal for improvement.
To explain what I mean, the Committee on Women's Rights has pointed out, in the opinion it has drafted, that women comprise only 10 % of the employers and 20 % of the employees on the advisory committees, and it has urged that the proportion of women be increased.
A more balanced representation of both genders is entirely feasible without impinging on the independence of the nomination system.
In the Nordic countries there are excellent examples of this, and for that reason I recommend that Amendment No 1 be rejected.
Mr President, with regard to the report on safety, hygiene and health protection at work I should like to repeat, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament and as the draftsman of my committee's opinion, that the carcinogens directive is extremely important and that we are particularly keen that the Council and the Commission should act upon this piece of legislation.
Asbestos at the workplace is again included in the amendment I have proposed, and I would like to ask the previous speaker for clarification here: I did not gather whether she accepts my proposal or not.
The asbestos issue is not just about cleaning up buildings, which is what is happening at present, it is also about banning the use of asbestos at work, in the home and in buildings in general.
Worker protection is another important issue in the context of the enlargement to the east.
I very much welcome the fact that Mrs Bjerregaard has already been in contact with many people and has started talks about environmental measures in relation to the forthcoming enlargement, and I would like to see this aspect given greater consideration in worker protection and a higher profile in the enlargement process.
My next point is that it is true - and I have to agree with the previous speaker here - that safety, hygiene and health protection needs to be increasingly extended to include mental as well as physical aspects, focusing much more on issues such as violence and the psychological effects of working conditions.
One type of workplace that is becoming increasingly common in the European Union is call-centres, which are often more like battery henhouses than human workplaces, in that the employees earn very little and work under great physical and psychological stress.
These call-centres are cheap to operate and they are becoming increasingly prevalent, so this is certainly an area where the directives need to be changed and improved.
Mr President, Mrs Ojala has been very effective in the committee in driving through a very important report.
I pay tribute to her patience and understanding on this issue.
There are so many people dying each year or becoming sick and injured that we need to do everything we can to ensure that the activities of the European Union are focused in such a way that reduction is given priority.
Across Europe there are many bodies which play a role in protecting citizens' lives.
Trends and patterns of work tell us that the terrain of that work is changing and we need to adapt new strategies, new techniques and new practices to take account of and anticipate the effects of this change.
I can therefore support both the approach and the substance of Mrs Ojala's report because it moves in that direction.
We should welcome this.
One issue I particularly commend is the recognition of the type of work that agencies such as the Bilbao Health and Safety Agency perform.
It should please us all that SMEs, which have been the scene of some of the worst accidents, are receiving special attention.
Although Safe Action in Europe is no longer with us in body it is still with us in spirit.
The Bilbao agency has succeeded in encouraging the process of spreading best practice effectively.
This year, when health and safety will be defined by working times, scaffolding, chemical agents, carcinogens and, in particular, asbestos - and I am glad the Green Group raised this latter issue - Parliament should feel very proud of the role it has played in promoting the change which is going to be necessary to bring about a ban on asbestos.
The Committee on Social Affairs and Employment has played a key role in making sure that the scientific evidence is there to promote that ban and we can expect to celebrate before the European elections a dramatic reduction in the deaths caused by this.
However, most of all we should celebrate Parliament's vigilance.
It is only by this vigilance that we are able to promote the best strategies which will effect the best practices.
To this end, I regard this report as a major part of the machinery of good practice and effective regulation in this field.
The rapporteur is to be congratulated for bringing it together.
Mr President, I too am grateful to the rapporteur for her report.
It is a good report which has many very valuable things in it and reminds us of the importance of safety and health at work.
This is an aspect of social policy which has actually generated the most legislation.
It is also a part of the internal market. That is sometimes overlooked.
If there are major differences in safety and health legislation, that leads directly to all manner of distortions of competition.
So that is one of the reasons why we have such a broad range of legislation covering the field.
There has of late been a problem, I feel, in that the Commission has not done enough to ensure that the legislation is in fact complied with.
It is only really in the last year and a half that the matter has been addressed with any vigour.
That, I think, is one of the essential things which need to be done.
And I believe we can distinguish between two stages: firstly whether the directives are actually transposed and, secondly, whether they are in fact implemented, in other words whether there is adequate scrutiny.
That too is an extremely important aspect. These comments are all directed, really, at the Commission.
My second point concerns Eastern Europe.
I see we have Mr van den Broek here with us.
It is perhaps worth making the point once again that it is important to appreciate that this directive and everything that goes with it is part of the acquis communautaire .
I know from my own experience that there is sometimes the feeling in Eastern Europe that this is not the case, because people say yes, we want those other things, but these are all social directives and what have you, and all that is a bit difficult.
Of course, we cannot accept that.
It is a formal part of the acquis , but in order to enforce that in Eastern Europe too, it is indeed very important for us to begin programmes now which aim to bring both the technology and the legislation up to the mark on this point.
I think that this is extremely important.
The third point is the question of the committee itself.
In one of her amendments, Mrs Ojala has made a direct attack on the independence of the social partners.
The social partners play an important role in this committee, and she is seeking to restrict the social partners' right to appoint their representatives.
That is not acceptable, in my view, and we have tabled an amendment accordingly.
I think anyone who believes that the social partners should decide for themselves whom they wish to appoint will vote in favour of it, and anyone who has a sort of paternalistic view of the social partners will of course vote against; they will do so in the context of the politically correct thinking observed on the other side of the House, and they will in fact be saying 'we are going to decide exactly whom the social partners can appoint'.
But that, I think, will spell the end of the road for the committee, because then the social partners will no longer be able to speak their own mind. They will be forced to say what others think.
Those are the points I wished to make - my compliments to the rapporteur.
Mr President, like other speakers, I think that Mrs Ojala has produced an excellent report here, and there are just one or two points which I should like to explore further.
First of all, I wish to underline the points she made about asbestos, an issue which certainly merits closer consideration at European level.
I would also like to see attention being given to an area in which European legislation is still nowhere near as good as it might be, namely the need for proper consideration of organic mental syndrome.
OMS attacks the nervous system and can cause severe forms of brain damage.
The disease is caused by occupational exposure to chemical solvents such as toluene and xylene, in painters and decorators for example.
Last year, Parliament approved the amended directive on the protection of workers against exposure to chemical substances at work, and this contains a number of provisions which are very important for the prevention of OMS.
The amended directive introduces a statutory obligation to use less harmful substances in the work process in place of certain harmful chemical substances, including solvents.
I believe that the substitution of low-solvent products for high-solvent products is a powerful way of helping industry to be innovative.
However, reduced competitiveness is often cited as a reason not to use products which have a lower solvent content but a higher price.
Alternatives which are technically perfectly good and less harmful have been available for a long time - as I have pointed out on several occasions - and have already been made mandatory in the USA and the Scandinavian countries.
Ideally, the Member States should transpose the changes to the directive into their national legislation as fast as possible.
My country decided last year already to introduce mandatory substitution for a large number of chemical agents as of the year 2000.
I would urge the Commission to ensure that other countries too make progress on this front.
Another answer might be to promote the use of reactive solvents, in which a chemical reaction causes the coating to become a part of the binding agent, so that it is not inhaled.
I would point here to successful experiments on solvents obtained from the marigold, notably an experiment funded by the European Union which might thus be taken a little further.
Lastly, I should be grateful for some answers from the Commissioner to questions which I put some time ago at a special hearing in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I should like to know what further research the Commission is doing into substances suspected of causing OMS. I am also interested to know if the Commission is still prepared to tighten up the 1990 recommendation on compensation for people exposed to chemical substances.
The European Court of Justice has already ruled that Member States must take account of OMS and set up systems of compensation.
Mr President, first of all I must congratulate Mrs Ojala on her excellent report.
Although all political issues are equally important as a general rule, occupational health and safety can be regarded as particularly important because it involves social relations as well as being a technical issue.
Mrs Ojala's report allows us to consider this issue as requested, we should remember, by Finnish members of our group.
There is a very pertinent comment in the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, drafted by Mrs Soltwedel-Schäfer, which underlines that in the EU almost 8 000 workers die each year in industrial accidents and 10 million fall victim to such accidents or occupational diseases.
This situation must be tackled conscientiously and responsibly.
On the occasion of the 21st annual activity report of the Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work, this report certainly hits home.
We would have preferred the monitoring and assessment of this annual report of the Advisory Committee to have concentrated more on examining and updating Directive 92/57, although we agree that the mere transposition of directives is not enough and that these must also be effectively implemented and applied.
We believe that it is important to ensure that all directives which are considered relevant are transposed into national legislation and that their effective application is monitored.
With regard to Directive 92/57, we raised questions about its transposition and application which were unfortunately very opportune as they referred to serious accidents at civil shipyards in Portugal in October 1994 and March 1995, whereas the Portuguese Government did not transpose the directive until July 1995.
However, transposing the directive is not enough, and we have stressed this, for example in the case of workers suffering from tendinitis at Ford Electrónica Portuguese in Setúbal, by means of questions to the Commission in November 1995 and January 1997.
And we will continue to stress this point!
Yet this is not the only situation which needs to be tackled, as we are seeing a general trend which must be resisted.
Monitoring in this area indicates that general conditions, the working environment and occupational health and safety are not developing positively.
As pointed out very clearly by Mrs Ojala in paragraph 25 of her report, 'some types of atypical working conditions and subcontracting have led to an increase in workplace accidents'. This is why the report urges the Commission to stress to the Member States that the directives must be complied with and that compliance must be closely monitored.
However, the general framework for the reorganisation of work also needs to be revised.
We should remember that, when President-in-Office of the Council, the Luxembourg minister Mr Junker commented that the policies of weakening and creating uncertainty in contractual employment relations result in an increase in the number of accidents at work. He also said that uncertainty is the working condition which most seriously threatens the health and safety of workers.
This is why problems must be tackled on the basis of industrial relations.
Following on from the Green Paper on the reorganisation of work, the House now needs to deliver its opinion on a Commission communication.
This is a major issue, but unfortunately the report on this, for which I am responsible, will not now come before this House as there is not enough time.
I must therefore take the opportunity to stress that this report tackles questions which are unquestionably of prime importance, as they concern working conditions, working relations and the duration of work and therefore particularly affect health and safety at work.
I would also make the point that, significantly, although there is time to discuss minute details on currency matters, there is not enough time for these vital and urgent issues to be debated.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report by our colleague Mrs Ojala critically examines two types of document.
The first type covers two activity reports: one from the Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work, and the other from the Safety and Health Commission for the Mining and Other Extractive Industries. The other type, that is by far the most interesting and, I would say, more political, is the mid-term report from the Commission on the Community Programme concerning Safety, Hygiene and Health at Work.
And from the outset, my group should like to compliment Mrs Ojala on this excellent report.
As regards the first two reports, we fully agree with the criticisms expressed by the rapporteur over a certain lack of transparency in the data from the Advisory Committee. We also share the rapporteur's concern for the lack of financial resources for concrete proposals aiming to improve the situation in the workplace and the exchange of information, and, in fact, these resources are currently decreasing.
Such concern may have become evident through the Safety and Health Commission's report.
The interim report is a more political report as it relates to the Community Programme for two periods: 1996-1998 and 1998-2000. In relation to the first chapter, we support the observations made by the rapporteur on the four fields covered by the excellent work of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, based in Bilbao.
We support her comments on the unjustified cuts in resources allocated to the European Foundation in Dublin.
We agree, too, with the points made regarding the Council's disappointing attitude that led to it rejecting the SAFE programme which aims to encourage specific projects in the field of health and safety. Lastly, we agree with the rapporteur on the positive developments in terms of legislation, particularly as regards transposing these laws into national law in the Member States.
For the 1998-2000 period, we also share the concerns expressed by our rapporteur that, as we see it, relate to two areas. There must be a more careful analysis of the new world of work as in our societies we are seeing changes in working conditions, a growing service sector, an increase in the number of women in employment and the ageing of the workforce as well as new ways of organising work.
We will not go into the details here, but added to this, new risks are also emerging.
There are indeed physical, chemical and biological risks, but there are also risks linked to muscular-skeletal diseases and also to psychosocial factors.
This aspect has already been mentioned so I will not go back over it.
This report is in keeping with our concerns from three points of view. Firstly, it reflects our desire to establish vital social measures for all countries in the Union.
It discusses the economic challenge that the world of work.
Finally, it looks at the situation of work both within the Union and in relation to third countries.
It also highlights the fact that we have a duty to be politically accountable. This is why this report must be followed up and why efficient proposals must be provided to meet our common concerns.
I should like to once again complement Mrs Ojala on her report and assure her that our group will vote in favour of it.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Ojala, who has once again demonstrated that someone from the Left who shows a sense of commitment and responsibility can really help to improve the quality of the work done by the entire House.
What is this issue all about?
It is about a revolution in the world of work, which is currently undergoing fundamental changes.
The traditional factories and conveyor belts and the safety measures that went with them are all in decline.
In the single market, we need to ensure that the new forms of work organisation do not lead to more uncertainty and stress, and that conditions of employment which are protected by social and labour legislation are not gradually replaced by conditions determined by commercial law. We must also ensure that the progress achieved in working conditions under the old structures, particularly at national level, is genuinely reflected in new and appropriate forms at European level.
We have two types of mechanisms here: the balance of interests and communication on the one hand, and the Community programme on the other.
I think it is quite clear that the social partners' right to make appointments is an important element of their independence, but it is also our job to ensure representativeness and efficiency.
I therefore think that Mrs Ojala is right on this issue, rather than the PPE Group.
Secondly, on the subject of the Community programme, some of the major points such as asbestos and mental strain have already been mentioned.
Parliament has already done a considerable amount of work on these, but there is still more to be done.
Generally speaking, the acquis communautaire in this field needs to be deepened and we need to ensure that we are properly prepared for the process of enlargement to the east and, in part, to the south, which will bring new generations of workers into the single market. It will be absolutely vital to ensure that every employee has fair, healthy and humane working conditions, because that is, after all, what this is all about.
The humanisation of working life is the task that now faces us in the single market.
Mr President, I must firstly also offer my compliments to Mrs Ojala.
Secondly, I wish to comment on the question of structures.
In Mrs Ojala's report, we find criticism of the fact that the Advisory Committee and the Safety and Health Commission have too few women members.
On the other hand, I hear it said here that we ought not to concern ourselves with that, because it would look like paternalism vis-à-vis the social partners.
I protest very vigorously against that attitude, because I cannot believe that the social partners would be unsympathetic to the idea that women, being involved in all areas of economic life, must consequently be involved in all areas of decision-making.
Perhaps we should just give the social partners a little nudge, so that they give women with the necessary ability the chance to become members of these bodies.
The criticism I read in this document of the bodies set up by the Commission is fairly fierce.
The accusation is made of a lack of transparency on all sides over the substance and results of the work of the Advisory Committee and of all the new working parties which have been set up, eight of them in 1996.
And may I draw the attention not only of Parliament but of the Commission and the bodies it has set up to the criticism made by the Committee on Women's Rights, namely that the reports pay too little attention to typical gender effects.
Gender issues, and I quote 'must not be restricted to pregnancy and breast feeding, but should be related to all health and safety issues and their impact on women'.
I would argue that for men too there may be typical work-related problems and conditions, and we would like to see more attention paid to those.
There is more than just reproductive health at issue here.
Various honourable Members have mentioned the mental stress factors which increasingly affect workers.
Take yesterday's bus strike in this city, when bus drivers protested at the danger they run at work, where they are regularly the victims of violent attack.
Take the conditions which make life very difficult for teachers in some Member States.
Take the fact that after a few years, nearly all nurses start to have back problems, and so on.
There is a second point I should like to expand on - previous speakers have done so too - namely the removal of asbestos.
The Commission of course earned itself brownie points by spending a great deal of money on stripping the asbestos from the Berlaymont building.
But the Commission probably never knew about the irresponsible way in which this was done by the workers in charge of removing the asbestos, about the way in which the asbestos waste from the building was driven away through the streets of Brussels.
You should make sure that you are better informed, instead of sitting shuffling papers and smugly concluding that on paper everything looks just fine.
It is true that the public authorities are increasingly aware of the problem of asbestos, but in the same town where a small museum is obliged to remove asbestos sheets from its ceiling, asbestos is still being produced, and the Commission really must do something about that.
Mr President, the June Movement can support Mrs Ojala's report, because it is full of good intentions for our working environment and safety and health at work.
But it does not tackle the key issue, namely those cases in which total EU harmonisation will come into conflict with the Member States' wishes to have better rules than those adopted in the Community.
When the EU adopts provisions on the environment and the working environment as such, they apply as minimum provisions under which we all have the right to go further.
We always support those in the June Movement.
However, the problems arise when rules are adopted instead under provisions relating to the internal market, because then a majority decision taken in a secret committee or a closed Council of Ministers meeting can put the Folketing in the dunce's corner and abolish a law, even when it has been adopted unanimously in the Folketing.
Take the cancer list, for example.
Now Danish workers have to handle substances which both the World Health Organisation and the Danish authorities regard as carcinogenic, because the Commission will not present a proposal and because 62 out of 87 votes in the EU cannot be found to prohibit them.
For creosote, Denmark has invoked the environmental guarantee and banned the substance because it can cause cancer, but in the EU it is now forbidden to forbid the substance, and the Commission has not yet approved the Danish use of the environmental guarantee.
When the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force, no doubt we can expect a letter from the Commission requiring us to outlaw the Danish ban on creosote, because the Amsterdam Treaty does not permit countries to go further than the majority where measures relating to human health are concerned.
Free movement for carcinogens takes precedence over public health!
Let me call on the Commissioner - in conclusion to this debate - to announce instead that it is intended to propose a ban on creosote throughout the EU.
Mr President, the contemporary world of work requires specific controls to ensure that safety and health protection standards are adequate to meet the challenges of a society which has long since passed the so-called post-industrial stage.
When we refer to safety at work, we automatically think of the structures already in place.
My first comment relates to asbestos, its use and its applications: some are known, others are as yet unknown or not covered by a rather toothless Community directive.
This strikes one immediately and therefore merits particular attention.
Secondly, because of its need to adapt to the demands of a rapidly developing society, the world of work is beset by difficulties which have caused new psychoses, as well as genuine new occupational diseases that are still under investigation but very much need to be regulated.
I am thinking here of the steady increase in cases of work-related stress, fatigue resulting from sedentary or repetitive activities, but also those with indirect causes such as sexually motivated violence and harassment.
There is undoubtedly a need for a European agency, and we therefore hope that the Bilbao agency, which already exists, will become truly operational. But above all, the second phase of the SAFE programme needs to be adopted as a matter of urgency.
The present rate of transposition of the directives into national legislation is looking very positive, in that it rose from 70 % in 1996 to 96 % last year.
Of course, much still remains to be done, but we hope, or rather we believe - with our congratulations to the rapporteur - that we are working along the right lines.
Mr President, I was immensely pleased when I saw that my good friend, Jens-Peter Bonde from the June Movement, was finally going to take part in this debate.
I thought that we would be hearing something constructive and positive.
But it turned out to be one of the usual propaganda speeches, focusing on what are transient issues.
This report is a good and important initiative.
It is important that the EU and the European Parliament pursue an active and progressive policy in this area.
The EU must be a lever for better safety and health in the Community's workplaces.
Industrial injuries and accidents cost billions of euros every year, but more than anything they represent personal tragedies and costs.
Often it is too late when the damage has occurred.
That is why it is so important to allocate sufficient resources for research and prevention.
It is not just a good investment from the economic point of view; it is an investment whose results cannot be assessed in terms of money.
I am glad that Parliament is calling on the Commission in this report to do something serious about the asbestos problem.
It is time that asbestos was completely banned.
Many workers have been exposed to this dangerous substance over the years, with catastrophic consequences.
The after-effects are something people have to live with for the rest of their lives, and often they develop cancer - a disease which we all know can be fatal and painful.
So we must demand a total ban.
Finally, let me stress how important it is that the EU should be constantly at the cutting edge of developments.
We must not just sit on our hands and wait for more accidents to happen.
We must take an active stance and put pressure on the Member States to act before the damage occurs.
We must focus on new forms of industrial injury, which can involve skeleto-muscular damage.
For example, many people who work in offices contract repetitive strain injury, because they use a computer all day long.
Also, the psychological working environment is a problem which for too long has not been taken seriously.
In addition, we must of course campaign to bring about a reduction in limit values which apply to dangerous substances.
The EU's citizens are entitled to expect and demand action from the European Parliament in constantly monitoring and developing a safe and healthy labour market policy.
Mr President, may I begin by presenting the apologies of Commissioner Flynn, who is unfortunately unable to be here for today's debate, but to whom occupational safety and health is a subject of the utmost importance.
With the help of his excellent officials, I shall stand in for him as best I can.
May I express, in particular, my appreciation of the work done by the committee as a whole, and even more particularly of the excellent work done by the committee's rapporteur, Mrs Ojala. Her report contains much that the Commission is anxious to consider and act on.
We agree on the fundamental importance of promoting safety and health at work in the countries of the Union.
Much has already been achieved at Union level, and we must continue to build on this in the future.
The Commission's priorities for future action are grouped under four main headings.
The first priority is to make EU safety and health legislation more effective.
The Member States have already made considerable efforts in that direction, and 95 % of Community instruments have now been fully transposed.
We now have to concentrate on actual implementation of the national legislation and ensuring that it is effective.
We must also constantly review existing directives and update and streamline them where necessary.
The Commission takes note of your constructive suggestions on how we can best ensure that the legislation is made as efficient as possible.
The ultimate objective must be to prevent and minimise the number of accidents at work.
The Commission will wholeheartedly support Member States' initiatives to create the necessary culture of safety amongst employers and the workforce.
The Bilbao Agency and the Foundation in Dublin play a key role in this policy as providers of information.
Better information to small and medium-sized enterprises is of course crucially important.
A second priority is the work of preparing for enlargement of the European Union.
In the area of occupational safety and health too, the applicant countries will have to make significant efforts if they are to reach the level of safeguards required in the Union.
The Commission monitors the degree to which the applicant countries satisfy the criteria of the acquis communautaire . From the results of that, we can determine the kind of help we need to provide.
There is a need for training, information and technical know-how, as you say in your motion for a resolution, and it serves no one's interest to have poor working conditions used as a means of competition in the internal market.
I say that also in response to something which was said by Mr Pronk.
The third priority is to strengthen the link with employability.
More sustainable jobs and the promotion of employability are two of the principal elements of the European employment strategy.
Measures to improve health and safety at work can make a significant contribution to these activities.
We know that accident prevention is crucially important to individual workers and their families, but we often underestimate its economic benefits.
Fewer accidents mean more work, better competitiveness and lower costs to social security.
That is perhaps not sufficiently understood by the policy-makers and is not taken into account sufficiently in political decision-making.
The fourth priority is the consideration which needs to be given to new risks.
The labour market, as various honourable Members have pointed out today, is developing and changing fast.
The transformation of the economy into a service-based economy, the steadily increasing number of women who work, the ageing of the workforce, the large-scale use of new technologies and new forms of organising work all have implications for safety.
The European Commission will place greater emphasis on identifying the consequences of these changes and will ensure that these matters are addressed in future health and safety policy.
In this context, your analysis is also extremely relevant.
You rightly stress in your report that the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty will greatly strengthen the role of the European Parliament and the social partners.
The Commission is already busy drafting the necessary measures.
The Commission believes that the correct forum for conducting a dialogue on health and safety at work is the Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work.
It plans to strengthen this committee by merging it with the Safety and Health Commission for the Mining and Other Extractive Industries.
A number of questions have been asked, and in response to these I would also say that Parliament's resolution stresses once again the importance of research in this field.
The Commission cannot but agree entirely, and I would add that due attention is given to this in the fifth framework programme of research and development and that under this programme of research, support must in fact follow for community activities in this field.
Mrs Boogerd mentioned new diseases, including organic mental syndrome resulting from the use of certain chemicals.
This field too is receiving attention under the fifth framework programme, which has as one of its themes the prevention or combating of the effects of stress.
As regards the question about possible compensation, I think it will be better to discuss that once the research I mentioned just now has provided us with a better understanding of the issues.
Lastly, the ban on asbestos has been mentioned several times and by several different speakers.
It is true that some types of asbestos have not yet been banned.
That too is something we are still researching in Directorate-General III, for which Commissioner Bangemann is responsible. Once we know more by way of results from the study in question, we shall brief you in greater detail.
So that too is being looked into by the Commission.
I will end with that, and I thank the House once again for your most useful suggestions and contributions. These will point us in the right direction and be of great benefit to worker safety and to the economic prosperity of the European Union.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
The sitting was suspended at 10.35 a.m. and resumed at 11 a.m.
Mr President, the registers of those who were present yesterday have been distributed twice today.
On both registers I am recorded as being absent, whereas I signed the register and I spoke on the Öcalan question.
Perhaps because I spoke in favour of Mr Öcalan and in favour of the Kurds, an anti-terrorist sanction has been applied against me and both registers have recorded me as being absent. Could this please be corrected?
For some reason we have had problems with the attendance register but we know you were present and your attendance will be recorded.
Mr President, I find myself in the same position as Mr Ephremidis.
I should like to make it clear that I was also present and that I did sign.
We will ensure that your attendance is recorded.
I apologise for that.
Mr President, I have been trying to get the floor yesterday and this morning, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to say something now.
Yesterday Mrs Stenzel talked about the avalanche disaster in the Tyrol, and I would like to thank her for her words, which we wholeheartedly endorse.
Unfortunately, she specifically said that she was speaking on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and her own delegation, thus leaving out a third of the Austrian Members.
This was a pity, because in view of the terrible scale of the disaster, we would have been happy for her to speak on our behalf too.
This is no time for internal political grudges.
On behalf of the non-attached Members, therefore, I should also like to convey my deepest sympathies to the families of the victims.
Thank you.
The whole House expressed its condolences to the victims yesterday afternoon.
VOTES
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I request that the Heinisch report be referred back to committee, in view of the delicate political climate currently surrounding our relations with the Republic of Turkey.
We do not think it right to adopt a certain stance concerning the Öcalan case and, at the same time, to establish a cooperative relationship with Turkey.
This is not because our group disagrees on the principle of the matter - on the contrary, we entirely agree that Turkey should be included in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes - but because we do not consider the timing to be appropriate.
By voting in favour, we would be endorsing the political legitimacy of the Republic of Turkey and its government at the very time when the Öcalan affair is on everyone's lips.
For this reason, I believe that it is essential to pause for thought.
Mr President, I think it is the wrong way of going about things to use this report as a political response in the Öcalan affair.
My group believes that if there is one line of communication which must remain open between the European Union and Turkey, it is that of access for young Turkish people to the European Union.
We saw just last week in Turkey that on precisely this issue, there is very great concern amongst the most progressive and open-minded groups in Turkey that it should not be used as an arena in which to fight a war with Turkey which we have not been brave enough to wage by political means in the EU.
Parliament would be sending out the wrong signal if we did that.
Parliament rejected the request for referral back
(In successive votes Parliament adopted both legislative resolutions)
The war against the Kurds in the south-east of Turkey has recently intensified.
According to the representatives of human rights organisations, the situation of the Kurds has deteriorated considerably since the capture of Abdullah Öcalan.
The European Union, individual Member States, other democratic countries and the international organisations have all allowed Turkey to participate in various forms of cooperation, often with the aim of promoting human rights and democracy.
Some of the cooperation links have been accompanied by more or less forthright demands that Turkey should respect human rights, a requirement which, sadly, it has not fulfilled.
It is vital to maintain and continue the dialogue with Turkey.
To sever all links with undemocratic countries is not generally regarded as a constructive solution.
The youth exchange programme gives young people a chance to study the workings of democracy, thereby instilling in them a desire for change.
However, it is vitally important that the selection criteria should make it possible for all young people, regardless of ethnic origin, for example, to participate in the programme.
Another criterion should be that the young people who take part do not find themselves subjected to repressive measures on their return home.
As things stand at present, we think it would be inappropriate for the European Parliament to approve the proposed cooperation project.
Parliament should withhold its approval until there is clear evidence that human rights are being respected.
We abstained from voting today on the participation of Turkey in the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes.
As long as Turkey fails to uphold human rights and to guarantee acceptable conditions for minorities in the country, we have difficulty in supporting its participation in these programmes.
Our voting tactic today is entirely in line with our stance on other questions regarding Turkey, for example the Customs Union and the Öcalan affair.
In relation to the report from the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, the European Parliament is today suggesting that we include Turkey among the beneficiaries of the Socrates and Youth for Europe III programmes.
Even though the European Union has quite rightly set out clear and precise conditions for the accession of the CEECs, this House believes that there is nothing unusual in involving Turkey, a country that can hardly be said to fulfil these criteria, in such Community programmes. Given the current state of affairs, guaranteeing financing for such programmes is already a rather delicate task.
The international community currently suspects Turkey of having prepared a political trial for Mr Abdullah Öcalan where the sentence has already been determined. The European Council has been forced to specify that it hopes that he will receive 'fair and correct treatment and an open trial according to the rule of law before an independent court with access to legal counsel of his (Mr Öcalan's) choice' with the condition that, if this is the case, it 'cannot but affect EU-Turkey relations positively'.
In this way, the Council has displayed its concern as to whether or not these conditions will be met.
Once again, on this subject as on many others, the European Parliament is wearing rose-coloured spectacles, wishing to see its counterparts not as they are but as it wishes them to be.
We cannot have double standards when differences between fact and fiction reach such a high level.
It is perfectly acceptable for the CEECs to participate in these programmes as soon as they meet the appropriate criteria and if they are preparing to eventually become part of the European Union.
However, Turkey has a great deal of ground to cover even to meet these criteria, if indeed it hopes to go further and become part of the Union.
In effect, Turkey, which only has a tiny section of its territory on the European continent is not a European nation, neither through its history nor its civilisation.
It would be more constructive and more logical to make this clear once and for all and to develop partnership agreements and close relations with this large country that are founded on something other than promises of possible membership that are always being postponed.
That is why we voted against this report.
This second reading of the report by Mrs Heinisch under the codecision procedure has been postponed several times due to the controversial nature of the subject.
What is at stake here is whether to allow Turkey to become involved in Community programmes on education and youth. These programmes, the Socrates and Youth for Europe III programmes, do of course expire at the end of 1999, so it is therefore not at all certain that young Turks would in fact participate.
However, voting in favour of this step does at least mean acting on principle and improving relations in sectors that are essential for Turkey's future, that is, education and youth.
What is more, this House already stated that it was in favour of this in a resolution in September 1998, while the Luxembourg European Council of December 1997 confirmed that Turkey was eligible to become a member of the European Union.
Voting in favour of this step also means helping young Turks to open their minds through contact with their European counterparts. It means encouraging them to become more tolerant and, as a result, we can hope that the Turkish population in general will become aware of the fact that democratisation is vital and necessary.
Voting in favour of this step is a challenge for the future and a challenge for the respect for human rights. For these challenges to be met, there is a need for education and specific training that can be obtained by participating in these programmes and in exchanges.
Every possibility of involving Turkish citizens in the work of programmes aimed at securing democracy, freedom of expression and human rights must be exploited.
Dialogue with its people, in particular the young, offers a valuable opportunity for discussing the important social issues implied in democratic development.
However, this is not the right time to be considering extending the Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes to include Turkey.
The manner in which the PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, was detained, and the legally dubious conduct of his trial should be met with resistance and denunciation.
Turkey refuses to guarantee Abdullah Öcalan a fair trial with legal representation throughout, under the supervision of international observers.
Turkey also refuses to discuss the issue of the recognition of Kurdish identity, language and culture, as well as the question of granting regional autonomy to the area inhabited by the Kurds within Turkey's borders.
Nor does Turkey recognise democratic rights such as freedom of expression and the right of the Kurds to form democratic parties in the same way as the Turks.
HADEP, the predominantly Kurdish party which intends to take part in the Turkish elections on 18 April, is currently awaiting a decision from the Constitutional Court on whether it is to be banned from doing so.
The EU should send a delegation to Turkey to monitor developments in the trial of Abdullah Öcalan; an international conference should also be organised to initiate a dialogue for peace in Turkey.
It would create the wrong impression if Turkey were to be given EU funding and allowed to participate in various EU programmes before there is any clear indication of how it intends to tackle the Kurdish question. As a condition of participation in the Customs Union with the EU, Turkey promised, amongst other things, to comply with the requirements relating to democracy and human rights, and to stop the use of torture.
Bazin recommendation for second reading (A4-0033/99)
Insurance statistics show that car theft is a major problem in the EU Member States.
Many stolen vehicles end up being taken out of the EU, where they are repainted, re-registered and sold on.
In order to combat car theft it is necessary to be able to check registration certificates, but differences in the Member States' rules on certificates make verification difficult.
The proposed directive is therefore a valuable and necessary initiative on the part of the Commission, providing for a uniform set of minimum indications and information codes on vehicle registration certificates in the EU.
Fortunately, Parliament's amendments to the Commission text from first reading have to a large extent been taken up by the Council. Hence there is a good chance that the directive will be adopted and implemented soon, so that it may become possible to put a stop to phenomena such as organised car theft in the EU.
Pack recommendation for second reading (A4-0062/99)
Since 1994, the European Parliament has been fighting to obtain sensible and consistent funding for the Socrates programme.
The last compromise voted through in 1998 left us feeling rather disappointed by the European Commission's overcautiousness.
Today, however, I see that our efforts have been rewarded as the overall budget for 2000-2006 has increased.
As a result, I approve the Pack report.
The 119 million students and 4 million teachers in the European Union hope to see this programme continue, a programme that has allowed half a million students to study in another country. It has given 60 000 teachers the chance to teach abroad and has allowed 110 000 young people to take part in educational exchanges.
Such cooperation must be encouraged and this increased mobility and the general European dimension must be developed at all stages of education.
In fact, 87 % of participants believe that their involvement in Socrates was positive, particularly as regards European integration and in terms of increasing awareness of our immediate neighbours.
The new philosophy behind Socrates II concentrates more on the needs that have not been met over the past five years, such as enlarging the programme to include young adults with no qualifications and to include the applicant countries.
In view of this, it would be impossible to maintain this programme with an ever-decreasing level of resources, something that has afflicted the Socrates programme from the outset.
Today's increase in the budget is therefore extremely significant and logical.
The second reading of the report by Mrs Pack under the codecision procedure is proving to be 'in our favour'.
The Commission supported us by adopting, in full or in part, 34 of the 54 amendments tabled at first reading.
At the last meeting of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, our rapporteur was able to reach a compromise with our colleague Mr Elchlepp, and we now have a very good report in our hands.
We should like the idea of student mobility to be strengthened, particularly in the case of those who are already undergoing training. What is more, we maintain that students' socio-economic situation should be properly analysed and taken into consideration when awarding grants.
In addition, we would urge the Member States to provide the extra funding needed for such mobility.
To put it clearly, we would ask them not to stop helping a young person financially just because he is participating in a Socrates programme.
Therefore, all that remains is to confirm our budgetary proposals through our vote today: EUR 2 500 million over a period of seven years, instead of EUR 1 550 million for the same period, as the Council of Ministers wishes.
We must unite to defend our point of view, which is all the more justified as this programme is open to associated countries from Central and Eastern Europe, to Cyprus, to Malta and to Turkey.
Rothley report (A4-0037/99)
We do not think it falls within Parliament's remit to submit a proposal in this area.
In our view, the European rules have certain advantages: that patents are only granted for inventions which are new in relation to what was known before the application was filed.
That is a clear and simple rule.
A grace period would presumably lead to more wrangles over who owns the rights to an invention which has already been made public.
If the rules are to be changed, there should first be a comprehensive study of the legality and implications of such a change.
However, it is not Parliament that should be carrying out this task.
The own-initiative report by the Legal Affairs Committee on the introduction of a grace period covers an immensely important aspect of patent legislation.
Clearly, it is a basic principle of any patent law that patents must not be granted on inventions which are already publicly known.
But the grace period, which is a feature of American and Japanese patent law for example, gives an advantage to these countries in relation to the EU in an area which has great importance for the development of firms and the creation of new jobs.
It is therefore absolutely essential for this imbalance to be removed by the introduction of a limited grace period in the EU as well, during which patents can be granted on inventions which are publicly known.
We appreciate the rapporteur's businesslike approach. In our view, however, patent law should be dealt with by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the European Patent Office.
To make the European Union a party only complicates the issue.
Furthermore, the Commission's claim that the Union has competence here is tenuous in the extreme.
For the reasons given above, we voted against the report in the final vote.
Grossetête report (A4-0053/99)
As my colleague Mr Souchet highlighted in his speech, our group voted in favour of all the amendments tabled to this report, except for Amendments Nos 12, 13 and 15 by the Committee on the Environment.
In effect, there is a need to promote all sectors that support waste management for packaging materials and do not restrict such waste management to reuse or recycling alone.
Heat recycling is a possibility and this should not be forgotten.
Packaging such as cardboard or wood is useful in the incineration process for household waste.
As regards the conformity assessment procedure for packaging, packaging manufacturers must accept responsibility, not those who recycle it. This can be achieved by applying the 'polluter pays' principle and by simplifying the administrative procedure on the number of operators.
Lastly, I should like to clarify our group's position on eco-taxes on packaging.
In some Member States, heavy and restrictive eco-tax systems have been implemented and are restricting access to their market for products from other Member States.
In this respect, it is essential that the Commission adopts a clear position, based on eco-tax systems applied in both Germany and France. In effect, these systems are based on a common marking system that is valid for the whole of the 'waste recovery' sector.
They are based on a simple and fair administrative system, both for internal operators in the Member State and for operators from other Member States. They are also based on a system that allows the integrated management of packaging and waste packaging to be applied in the best possible way.
I should like to point out that the tax system must also be fair in relation to the material or materials used in producing the packaging.
In France, for example, some public services wish to introduce a reduced VAT system promoting the 'multi-material' approach in order to promote the Eco-emballages company, and yet this is to the detriment of other eco-tax collecting companies.
If such a fiscal change is introduced, recycling sectors such as the glass recycling sector would be penalised and other more polluting materials would benefit.
Schnellhardt report (A4-0003/99)
Mr President, I should like to explain why I voted the way I did, because I have been accused of voting in favour of wine and ignoring the beer produced in my constituency.
I deliberately voted in favour of wine, because I happen to believe that wine is one of the most fundamental elements of our civilisation.
We can trace it back to the time of Christ, who performed his first miracle when he turned water into wine.
If he was alive today he might have turned wine into water instead, but he turned water into wine. This is why we must support wine as part of our European tradition, not to mention the fact that European wine is facing a major onslaught, so we need to increase our defences.
I voted against this report as I want the Treaty to be respected. In other words, I want everything related to wines and spirits to be regulated in the context of the rules concerning the common organisation of the market in wines and spirits.
Parliament has voted through a text containing provisions that are totally contradictory.
If this vote had been a final one, which fortunately is not the case, a directive such as this would be completely unenforceable.
Given these conditions, the report should have been referred back to committee.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur himself has wreaked havoc by handing out a voting list that contradicts the official list from the group I belong to and to which he also belongs.
This is further proof of his refusal to play fair, something that has been clear all the way through the debate and the vote in committee.
The Commission is on the same side as the 206 Members who voted against the report, and that reassures me.
Our group voted against the legislative proposal and against the amended proposal for a regulation.
In effect, the aim of this directive was to establish a procedure for labelling alcoholic beverages.
The vote in this House displays two major flaws.
One relates to what we call 'premixes', in other words, alcoholic drinks containing carbonated water, sugar, and flavourings and that are aimed at young people.
After the vote in this House, these drinks would have a much more beneficial labelling procedure than wines or spirits.
Wine is a cultural product aimed at an older population and is mainly consumed during meals.
The effects of the alcohol in wine and in such premixes are therefore totally different as these premixes are consumed on empty stomachs during evenings out.
The second flaw concerns the list of products included in the annex.
In effect, Amendment No 14 from Mr Hallam included beer, cider and perry in this directive.
However, such drinks are not agricultural products, that is, they do not come under the common organisation of the specific markets, as governed by agricultural regulations under Article 43.
Brewers' and cider producers' attempts to amalgamate these products could harm the whole of the wine-producing sector.
Consequently, these two reasons led us to oppose this directive.
We hope that during the codecision procedure, in other words, at second and third reading, these two amendments will be rejected by the House.
Langen report (A4-0021/99)
For the sake of people's health, tobacco should be taxed heavily, since high prices serve to dampen demand.
Through a combination of high prices, age restrictions, strict control of sales outlets and public health information, we stand a good chance of restricting the use of tobacco products.
In some cases, having a higher total tax burden on tobacco products than other countries can lead to an increase in illegal imports and the existence of a black market.
Sweden was afflicted in this way and, as a result, was obliged to lower the tax on cigarettes temporarily to discourage illegal trade and put an end to black market activities.
We will vote against the Langen report.
We will vote against it not because it suggests unacceptable amendments to the Commission's text, but because members of the National Front have always been opposed to tax harmonisation and have defended one of the principal aspects of sovereignty: a state's ability to levy taxes.
We will vote against this report for another reason: the widespread hypocrisy of all public authorities when it comes to tobacco.
Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you.
This even appears on every cigarette packet in words that people stopped reading long ago.
Decision-makers periodically pride themselves on how the fight against smoking epitomises the concern they feel for public health.
But in my country, the government is, at the same time, in favour of producing cigarettes, and for every packet sold pockets 75 % tax.
We are right to ask whether the concern shown for public health is not merely a screen to hide the true tax objective of maintaining significant budgetary revenue. In France, and undoubtedly in other countries of the Union, smokers are being milked in the same way as motorists are.
What is more, there are economic realities which we must not lose sight of.
We must ensure that the tobacco industry in the European Union continues to exist, particularly as we are aware that our national producers only cover 20 % of manufacturing needs.
We must ensure that there is support for such activity as it plays an important role in preserving the fabric of rural society in a number of regions, such as in Alsace.
We must encourage the production of quality tobacco with lower tar levels.
This is why, on the whole, we support reform of the COM in tobacco, and supporting it just this once will not do any harm.
And we can but regret the fact that nothing has been done to reduce the EU's external dependence in this field.
The biggest problem being faced by the tobacco industry in the UK is smuggling, particularly of handrolling tobacco from Belgium and France.
I am therefore pleased that the rapporteur addresses this matter in his report.
It is interesting that because of single market dogma, the Commission could not care less about the people who will lose their jobs through the abolition of duty-free, and yet it has been similarly indifferent to the jobs in the tobacco industry which are threatened by the differences within the single market which allow smuggling.
My own preference would be for my national government to reduce tax on handrolling tobacco in the UK.
Given that this is unlikely, the alternative is for taxes on handrolling tobacco to be increased on this side of the English Channel.
In 1998 alone Customs and Excise in the UK estimated a loss of revenue of £1000 million as a result of cross-channel smuggling.
This did not take account of revenue lost through smuggling in large freight consignments or by air.
There is clearly a major problem which is affecting jobs in the UK.
The Commission should take note of the demands from elected politicians for action on this front.
Detention of Abdullah Öcalan (B4-0223/99)
Mr President, I deliberately voted against everything in this resolution because I disagreed with it for the simple reason that it elevates and honours a terrorist who has thousands of victims on his conscience, yet at the same time the President of the European Parliament - not you, but someone else - refused to allow us to discuss the issue of the Albanians in Kosovo, thousands of whom have been murdered by the Serbs, and postponed the debate indefinitely.
I think this is absolutely outrageous, because our first duty is not to terrorists but to innocent civilians, women, children and old people who are being murdered!
That was why I deliberately voted against the entire resolution, because it was extremely inappropriate.
It is not our job to stand up for terrorists, but for those who are working actively and peacefully to secure freedom for their people.
Draft agreement with South Africa (B4-0222/99)
We do not want this to be mistaken for protectionism, but we cannot recklessly give way on a fundamental issue just because we support Nelson Mandela and South Africa's struggle to consolidate its anti-racist democracy, which, as far as we are concerned, has always been the goal, even though some of its most vocal defenders today were previously on the other side, attacking Mandela and the ANC.
Protection for the port and sherry denominations of origin was hard won from the European Union and, from the year 2000, from the World Trade Organisation.
We therefore cannot allow this guarantee to be abandoned, particularly when no assurance is given in the draft agreement concluded by Commissioner Deus Pinheiro that South Africa will stop using the port and sherry denominations after the lengthy transition periods have expired, during which South Africa would be able to export, for example, to important markets like the USA.
This issue is therefore not restricted to bilateral EU-South Africa relations, as it risks setting a precedent which could be used against port and sherry by other wine-producing countries such as the USA (California), Australia, Chile and so on.
As we represent voters and specific groups of people, unlike those who irresponsibly signed the draft agreement in Davos, we voted against the resolution asking the Council to urgently approve the EU-South Africa agreement amended as indicated.
It is extremely disappointing to learn of the latest difficulty that has arisen in the negotiations between the European Union and South Africa.
The talks with South Africa have been going on for over three years now and I would call to mind the commitment we have entered into to conclude the EU/South Africa agreement by March at the latest.
The final package negotiated by Commissioner Pinheiro and endorsed by the full Commission is the basis of a solid partnership for trade, development and technical cooperation.
In this context I would urge the governments of France, Italy, Spain and Portugal to consider carefully the implications of delaying an agreement.
Let us not forget that this agreement is not merely about trade and commerce.
It bears a highly political significance.
South Africa is a country struggling to build a new democratic identity and reconcile itself with its past.
It is a country where there are both political and social problems.
This agreement is vital to encourage the processes that have got under way.
To hold it up now would be a serious blow to our South African partners.
I appeal to the governments concerned to reassess their position and to remove any obstacles to agreement which reflect a short-term view of the situation.
I call on them to take the long-term view - to accede to the Commission's proposals which also reflect the wishes of this house and indeed of the Vienna European Council.
Every effort must be made to put in place the Compromise reached at Davos which will allow for a copper-fastening of EU-South African relations.
This is as I have said a vital agreement for the new South African democracy, but it is also the basis of a partnership of equals, one which will enhance both sides economically as well as strategically.
The agreement on trade and cooperation with South Africa deserves our full support as it aims to develop relations between the European Union and the major economic and social area of South Africa, an area which represents one of the great hopes for the future of humanity.
However, this agreement only makes sense if it is in the interests of all parties.
Yet some interests of the parties have not been protected.
This is particularly the case with port wine, where it must be made absolutely clear that South Africa may not produce or market any wine with this name after the end of the transition period.
This is an issue which must be enshrined in the text of the agreement or in an annexed declaration.
The aid of EUR 15 million granted by the European Union only makes sense if it is devoted to converting these wines into table wines or to abandoning this activity, otherwise there is no point in granting a tariff concession for a quota of 32 million litres of table wine.
For these reasons, we believe that the Council has acted wisely in postponing a decision until all the issues have been clarified.
We therefore also voted against the resolution which the House has approved today.
There can be no doubt about the political importance for South Africa and its democratic regime of concluding a cooperation agreement with the European Union.
We also cannot ignore the importance and necessity of helping to consolidate a regime which has allowed South Africa to regain its national dignity and which is trying to eradicate racism.
Some of those who are now claiming to defend democracy in South Africa, and who previously ignored the persecution and crimes of the apartheid regime and regarded President Mandela as a terrorist, do not have the moral and political authority to invoke democracy with regard to this agreement.
Having said this and despite the fact that the Vienna Council stated that a decision on a draft agreement should be taken by March of this year, it should be stressed that the further postponement of this decision is not particularly worrying.
In fact, the specific commitments made by Commissioner Deus Pinheiro on behalf of the Commission are not totally acceptable as they are opposed by at least four Member States (Portugal, France, Spain and Italy).
They must therefore be revised so that an agreement which claims to be balanced does not prejudice important Community sectors.
With regard to my own country, these commitments must not undermine the port wine industry, which is so important to the national economy.
Reasonable deadlines should therefore be set in order to finally end the production and marketing of a product which is made only in the Douro valley in Portugal and whose denomination of origin cannot be used elsewhere, whatever the pretext.
We therefore consider it prudent not to offer concessions but rather to wait a little longer in order to ensure the effective protection of this and other issues.
In this way, an agreement can be rapidly reached which fully satisfies all the parties involved.
We therefore do not support the proposal approved today, which ignores important aspects of the future agreement between the European Union and South Africa. If these elements are omitted, they could compromise the full political and economic effectiveness of this agreement.
Grosch report (A4-0032/99)
It is with a certain satisfaction that I welcome the work by our colleague Mathieu Grosch, as he has accurately addressed the social issues in the transport industry, and particularly the crucial matter of working time.
I share the rapporteur's approach in linking working time to safety.
But I would also like to add here the quality of life of employees.
However, I note that the text, as a matter of principle, states that a reduction in working time cannot be accompanied by a drop in basic wages.
This was a necessary step.
Nonetheless, it may be dangerous to link a reduction in working time to the concept of flexibility, as we are aware that, as a general rule, employees in the transport sector already have to be extremely flexible. Such flexibility brings with it a strong possibility of a direct or indirect lack of safety when one looks at the extent of current working hours.
In addition, I should also like to congratulate the Commission, and Mr Neil Kinnock in particular, who became aware of these risks very early on. He was also aware of the impact on society of social dumping by certain companies and its repercussions in terms of intra-Community competition.
Lastly, when faced with the growing internationalisation of transport, it is increasingly necessary to defend our legislation in international bodies and to obtain basic rules, particularly for sea and air transport.
I now hope that this important step towards harmonising social legislation for the transport sector will serve as a lesson for other sectors to follow.
I continue to believe that a strong European Union cannot be built without bringing national social standards closer into line.
It is undeniable that this report sets out to make a constructive contribution.
There are many points which we naturally agree with, for example those relating to working hours in the transport industry and to the disabled.
However, we would question whether the European Union is the appropriate authority to take decisions on many of the issues involved.
It is certainly acceptable for the EU to coordinate decision-making on certain issues, but we believe it would be misguided to make the EU responsible for taking supranational decisions on all social legislation.
This report is absurd, officious and unduly detailed.
Working hours and social legislation in the transport industry should be dealt with through agreements between the partners in the labour market and, if that is not possible, through legislation at national level.
There is no reason why driving times and schedules, rest periods and other specific issues should be regulated through EU directives.
Basically, we think this is a good report.
It tackles the problems that employees whose work involves crossing borders can encounter with social legislation which, in Sweden, forms part of labour law.
We appreciate that there is a need for the proposed legislation, but we do not think that the Commission should be the body to formulate and put forward the legislative proposal.
No one can be left in any doubt that measures to liberalise the market have led to a drastic reduction in jobs, to the growth of part-time, atypical employment as opposed to full-time, steady jobs, to the contravention of labour and social security legislation through the use of contracts for the provision of services, to the overthrow of collective bargaining and to a reduction in incomes. Yet the Commission and the Member States alike are persisting in this logic and promoting new measures aimed at the railways and at passenger road transport.
They insist on adhering to the timetable for the complete liberalisation of maritime cabotage.
Against this background, the provision of high-level social protection for people working in this sector is especially important, to the extent that this improves existing working conditions, complies strictly with protective regulations, supports collective labour agreements and reduces working hours without reducing incomes.
The Commission could use the opportunity of the debate on extending the working time directive in the transport sector to revise the working week downwards.
We are opposed to any attempt to further extend flexibility and to allow the jettisoning of rules on the working week by extending the transition period for mobile workers which is provided for in the proposed scheme.
Moreover, there must be clear consolidation of the concept of working time, since this is an especially sensitive concept in the transport sector. It must include not only driving hours and the time taken to load and unload, but the whole time workers are at the service of their employer.
In particular, we deplore the lack of measures on the part of the Commission to address the issue of the undermining of working conditions and wage agreements through national legislation to enable companies to increase their profits in the light of increased competition.
The issue of second merchant shipping registers, for example, must be addressed immediately.
Instead of taking measures to improve legislation in the Member States, the Commission, through its proposal to amend the regulation on cabotage, is taking away from the recipient state the power to determine its own staffing arrangements.
We believe that international competition and, more generally, market forces must under no circumstances be used as an alibi in order to reduce protection.
On the contrary, they require the most concerted efforts to institute high-level social laws which would strengthen the level of protection in countries with less social protection, protect working people, and ensure their safety and that of users.
This can only be achieved by respecting the principle of public service and by curbing the progress of misguided liberalisation, which thus far has led only to negative developments.
The protection of people working in the transport industry is especially urgent today, since the intensive liberalisation of the sector has given rise to the most serious problems and to the dramatic weakening of safety and working conditions of working people.
On this basis, we wish to highlight the positive nature of many of the rapporteur's proposals and to ask that they be adopted and implemented.
Gallagher report (A4-0018/99)
I have voted in favour of Amendments Nos 6 and 20, calling on the Commission to propose that the 12-mile limit should be extended to 24 miles in the proposals which it is required to submit by 31 December 2001 at the latest.
This is a question of decentralisation and allowing coastal states to manage coastal fishing at national level.
There is no common fisheries policy in the EU because the regions are always overlooked.
There is a growing need to have a better understanding of the needs and requirements of these small but very important areas where the fishing industry, both at sea and on land, is vital to the local community and economy.
We require a fisheries policy that has the ability to reflect the needs of the industry.
The present policy, especially given the Hague Preference, works totally against Northern Ireland and should be altered to allow fair play for everyone involved in fisheries.
We also need an increase in the present limits on our coasts.
I urge the Parliament to vote for a twenty-four mile limit to protect our small fishing fleets.
There are some important elements in this report which must be underlined.
Firstly there is the maintenance of the principle of relative stability.
There are also, in particular, elements which were included in the report as a result of our amendments and which confirm the House's desire not only to keep access to the 12-mile reserved zone within the exclusive national sovereignty of the coastal countries but also to extend this zone to 24 miles.
These elements are important and decisive for the implementation of a regionalisation policy which, as we understand it, means applying the principle of subsidiarity to the common fisheries policy. This can be achieved by increasing decentralisation, which will allow the Member States to adapt general guidelines on stock preservation and monitoring of the common fisheries policy and to determine, together with the sector and the European Community, which specific measures at regional and/or national level are suitable for converting into more general objectives.
However, this is not how the report sees regionalisation.
In the report, regionalisation seems to be a very vague and inadequately defined concept which consists more of dividing seas and parts of oceans into regions and sub-regions. These would then be subject to devolved management assumed by various groups of countries in accordance with the geographic location of these divisions.
Under this management, guidelines would be regarded as definitive and not subject to joint discussion, and they would cover nearly all the aspects currently falling under the common fisheries policy.
The imbalances and discrimination which could result from this are clear.
We therefore support the proposals mentioned relating to access to resources, because we tabled them, but we reject the view of regionalisation which the report contains.
Our group voted against adopting the report by our colleague Mr Gallagher, even though the amendments in favour of the decentralisation of the CFP had been adopted. This was to the detriment of the regionalisation process that the rapporteur had initially proposed.
In my speech yesterday evening in this House, I specified that I rejected all the amendments that aimed to substantially modify the CFP.
Therefore, I rejected Amendments Nos 6 and 7, tabled on behalf of the PPE Group by Mr Provan, which aim to extend the limit from 12 miles to 24 miles.
Such an increase in national waters reserved for fishing will pose major problems for fishermen in Brittany and Normandy who will no longer have access to traditional fishing areas, particularly those close to the United Kingdom.
I am surprised that these measures were adopted in this vote, especially by French Members, as they go against the interests of our fishermen.
That is our main reason for deciding to vote against the legislative resolution resulting from this own-initiative report by the European Parliament.
The CFP is due for reform in 2002 and I hope, in the interests of French fishermen, that this resolution will not alter the views of the Commission and the Council.
The current status quo of a 12-mile limit for the area is the best possible compromise for the whole of the French fishing sector.
I have voted in favour of this report, as it is one of the most important in the area of fisheries to be considered by this Parliament.
The key problem of fisheries in Europe's seas is that of maintaining healthy stocks.
That means good management in terms of control regimes and scientific data.
It is impossible to have good management under the imperfectly centralised regime of the present CFP.
The only answer is regionalisation, and full involvement of all stakeholders.
The Commission must take notice of this report, and that is why I have called for practical action to set up machinery to move towards a regionalised CFP according to a strict timetable.
de Lassus Saint Geniès report (A4-0027/99)
A few months ago, I was rapporteur for a text on the competitiveness of European industry. As a result, I have followed the work of our colleague Mr de Lassus on competitiveness and the regions very carefully.
I must say that the text confirms the analysis I had myself made of the key measures that need to be taken in order to increase our competitiveness. However, the current proposals fall short of what is really needed, especially as the European Union is debating the future of the Structural Funds within the framework of Agenda 2000.
Indeed, for a few years now, we have once again been observing a tendency for regional disparities to increase, particularly in the field we are considering today.
Moreover, to try to redress the balance between the regions, following the example of the rapporteur, I also believe that we must extend the link between the research programme and the Structural Funds.
However, we must be realistic, and for our determination to have an effect, we must also continue to examine how we can improve the lines of communication between these 'less-favoured' regions.
I cannot conceive that innovative businesses will settle in regions that often have few transport services and that, in fact, find it difficult to break this vicious circle.
Lastly, we must not conceal another constraint linked to the Member States. We must remember that European regional planning is still heavily dependent on national planning policies where control has been devolved to the various governments.
Therefore, there is a need to develop our degree of synergy.
Such synergy between local authorities, the Member States and the European Union is, of course, complex but it is also vital. And we must also promote the development of cross-border systems of decision-making.
The report by Mr de Lassus sparks off an interesting debate on strengthening cohesion and competitiveness through research and technological development.
The rapporteur is quite rightly disappointed by the small share of the Structural Funds given over to research: 5.37 % for Objective 1 and 2.06 % for Objective 5b.
The European Union could obtain added value by encouraging high-quality scientific projects and by linking economic and social partners to these projects, such as SMEs, consular bodies and universities.
In this respect, the report emphasises the role SMEs can play in technological development.
On many occasions, we have had the opportunity to stress the importance of SMEs in terms of job creation and also in terms of the vitality of the rural world.
SMEs must be able to reap the benefits of research that has been carried out.
Therefore, it is vital that we make adapted and efficient financial instruments available to them.
In promoting the competitiveness of SMEs, our policy on research and technological development will encourage social cohesion and the vitality of the least-favoured regions.
Mr de Lassus himself mentions the case of ultra-peripheral and island regions.
We believe it is essential that we also highlight the case of rural areas and areas dependent on fishing.
In this respect, new information technologies offer us the opportunity to set up or to relocate research and development teams in these rural areas.
Such teams will allow businesses established in outlying regions to have access to the new technologies they need to remain competitive and innovative.
Whilst we must be wary of being too optimistic, we must realistically make use of the new opportunities that are available to us.
We are naturally disappointed that Mr de Lassus is making use of this occasion to call for a European regional planning policy.
However, the quality of his work and the relevance of his proposals encouraged the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations to support his report.
Alan J. Donnelly report (A4-0014/99)
I am pleased to welcome the report by our colleague Alan Donnelly.
On the whole, I share the rapporteur's concerns regarding the transport, banking and nuclear fields.
In this respect, I support the idea put forward in the text to help Russia to get over this hurdle.
The dangers may become real, even without giving way to gloom-mongering.
Therefore, it is our duty to prevent such risks in this field and also in other sectors of the economy.
However, I do wonder about the responsibilities of the main actors in the information technology industry in the face of this deadline, a deadline we have been aware of for many years.
I am astonished, to say the least, that they feel that once a product has been put on the market, they can wash their hands of it.
This is how they behave over problems linked to changing over to the year 2000, but it is also a valid observation for other products that need regular updating to correct some hidden defects, and for which the luckless buyer must foot the bill.
Therefore, I will vote for the resolution by Mr McCartin so that the Commission can negotiate with this industry to allow individuals and small businesses to rectify this 'error'. It is to be hoped that they will do so without, yet again, having to pay for a problem that has been evident for a long time yet for which they are not responsible.
Lastly, I believe that now is the time for us to extend the debate so that we can take steps that will allow us to protect the consumer's basic rights as regards businesses that supply hardware and software.
The public are today dependent on a range of computerised services, such as pensions, family allowances, sickness benefits, insurance, energy supply and transport.
Many of these vital services could be affected by the 'year 2000' problem.
The responsibility for solving the year 2000 problem rests of course in the first instance with the suppliers and users of the computer programmes, but because the problem is so extensive, the public authorities must also provide support.
I therefore endorse the Commission's many initiatives in the year 2000 area, including the launching of cooperation across national borders and discussions of the problem in the Council and with all the relevant contacts in industry and the Member States.
The Commission's reports on what progress has been made in solving the problem will be of great importance in coordinating efforts.
It is of course absolutely essential that particular attention should be paid to especially sensitive sectors, including for example the cross-frontier problems which may arise at the Eastern European nuclear power stations, and for the necessary measures to be taken.
Mr President, I am voting in favour of this report today.
Although it may at first appear to be a minor technical matter, the millennium bug has in fact the potential to bring the everyday life of millions of people to a grinding halt - if not worse.
It is easy to forget how much nowadays we rely on microchips to run everything from dishwashers to dialysis machines.
Vital services could be interrupted, transport could come to a stop and businesses could be forced to close.
Yet with proper preparation, we can ensure that our hangovers on 1 January 2000 will just be from bubbly and not from bugs.
Britain under the Labour Government is leading the battle to beat the millennium bug in Europe with its ground-breaking Action 2000 campaign.
Under its auspices, British utility companies (including water, gas, electricity and telephone companies) have already reported that they expect to offer 'business as usual' over the millennium.
Other vital public services, such as the NHS, emergency services, DSS, Post Office and railways, are not far behind.
Britain cannot afford to rely solely on its own efforts, however.
In an increasingly globalised world, the preparedness of other countries (or lack of it) will affect Britain too.
I wish to ensure that my constituents are free to enjoy the millennium without fearing the morning after.
I therefore support EU efforts to ensure that Europe - and the world as a whole - are ready to swat the millennium bug.
That concludes Voting Time.
Adjournment of the session
As we have concluded our business, I declare Parliament's session adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 12.30 p.m.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Thursday, 25 February 1999.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, today's agenda opens with a series of debates on one of the most important issues for European and world politics today: equal rights for women. I am sure that we all agree that by including these issues in the European Parliament's agenda, we are contributing to what has been a long struggle.
That struggle has had various successes but it is still not over; indeed, it would seem that it still has a long way to go. Its aim is to ensure that women have exactly the same rights as men in the employment, social and political fields.
I therefore believe that I am speaking for the House when I say that by including these points in our agenda, we are demonstrating Parliament's political will to continue this struggle. It also demonstrates our desire to make progress not only in terms of legislation but also in the various other areas alongside it.
Parliament's Bureau is soon to consider a report by Mrs Hoff, who was asked to consider how we could make progress within Parliament's own administration to ensure that more women hold senior posts.
There is a great deal of work to be done.
Efforts have been made, but there is no doubt that we need to continue in the same direction.
Another important aspect is the fact that we are in the run-up to elections, and it is therefore an excellent opportunity for all the political parties in Europe to ensure that more women hold seats in this House.
It would be a great pity if this opportunity were lost.
Applause
The will of this House is therefore very clear and I would like to end this introduction by expressing, on behalf of the entire House, our thanks to the Committee on Women's Rights and all its members for all the work they have done to help gradually turn this ideal into a reality.
Our fellow Members here in the House are among the most active supporters of this cause and it would be remiss on our part not to thank them for all their efforts and for the work they have carried out during this legislature.
I would therefore ask you to give a round of applause to thank all our female colleagues in the House and particularly the members of the Committee on Women's Rights.
Applause
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Thursday, 25 February have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Wijsenbeek has the floor.
Mr President, what you have just said is all very well, but we should respect our own Rules of Procedure, especially on a day like today.
I must point out that Rule 6(6) states that the report of the committee shall be placed at the head of the agenda of the first sitting following the day on which it was tabled. I see this has not been done in the case of the report by Mr Wibe, which is placed as the last item on today's agenda following a whole range of reports by the Committee on Women's Rights.
Rule 6(6) has therefore not been respected by the Conference of Presidents whose members, as usual, never read our Rules of Procedure.
I thought that you were going to give priority today to the reports concerning women, Mr Wijsenbeek, but in any event, when we come to the order of business, I shall put your request to the vote to determine whether the Wibe report will be taken first.
- (FI) Mr President, I am pleased that you remembered to mention International Women's Day in your opening speech.
I also wish to raise the subject on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights.
As many of us know, the most important topic of discussion on this International Women's Day seems to have become that of violence against women, children and young people, which is really a very serious worldwide violation of women's human rights.
This evening here in Parliament we shall be discussing with the Commission how the European Union can take determined action against violence towards women.
It is most distressing that half of all women who are killed in Europe do not die as a result of violent crime by someone unknown to them, but are murdered by their own spouse or partner.
Violence against women has been a sort of taboo up to now, and it is gratifying that we can embark on a programme of practical measures in this area together in our capacity as the European Parliament.
It is worth pointing out too that the European Parliament has been responsible for the action the European Union has taken to begin to combat violence against women.
I would add that the Treaty of Amsterdam places entirely new obligations upon us and provides opportunities to promote sex equality at many levels.
This means that we have to work more single-mindedly than ever to promote equality.
The Treaty of Amsterdam places us under an obligation to make equality between men and women an essential element in all Community action.
Nothing of the sort has happened as yet.
We know how difficult this work is.
But we are acquiring new tools for the task, and we must carry out this work together.
Thank you, Mrs Hautala.
I would ask that we do not embark on a debate on this question.
Mr Santini has the floor.
Mr President, like many others, I am keen to take up the invitation to highlight all initiatives aimed at avoiding injustice against women.
I would however like to add one further element to such considerations: it is not only women who are subject to injustice and violence, but sometimes entire communities.
This is the case of the Valle di Fiemme communities in Trentino, the German-speaking, Polish and Belgian communities who were the victims of the plane crash on 3 February 1998, which last week became sadly and gruesomely topical when the trial in the United States came to an end.
As we all know, the pilot who - in a hazardous manoeuvre, to put it mildly - severed the ski gondola cable, sending 20 European people to their deaths, was inconceivably absolved of any guilt.
I appeal to you, Mr President, somehow to convey to the US Government our sense of anger and dismay, not of course to demand justice or vengeance, but simply to express our bitter incredulity over this outright injustice.
I would also ask you to be so kind as to reply to the letter which I sent you on the very day of the tragedy, 3 February, proposing that Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy should draw up an own-initiative report on the presence of NATO air bases on European territory, and on the pros and cons of allowing these armed personnel excessive freedom to make training flights.
I sent the same letter to the Commission President, Mr Santer, but he did not reply either.
I now ask that justice be done for the families ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr Santini, this is not the right time for you to be making this speech.
It is, of course, an important issue and you have written to me about it.
On behalf of this House, I will support the Italian Government, which is currently dealing with the issue and which is responsible for any action taken.
Mr President, yes it was, because I wanted to express, on behalf of my group, not just our shock but our disgust at the result of the military tribunal in the United States which acquitted the pilot who was responsible for the dreadful accident in which 22 Europeans died.
I want to give notice to this House that we shall be seeking to table an urgency on this very issue.
I hope the rest of the House will join us in putting it on the agenda for this week.
Mr President, I thank you for your very kind remarks about Women's Day, and a very happy day to all the brothers and sisters in the House and indeed in the gallery.
Your remarks were particularly welcome in view of the proposal to do away with the Committee on Women's Rights.
I hope this kind of support will maintain this very important committee.
I have another question.
On 18 February another woman in the Community won her case in the European Court of Human Rights - Denise Mathews v. the UK Government.
I would like to request that you inform the House, if possible this week, whether any efforts have already started on the part of both Parliament and the Commission to enable the citizens of Gibraltar to vote in the coming European elections.
I cannot answer you because it is up to the groups and Members to take the initiative.
Like you, I have read in the press that the United Kingdom Government is going to deal with the question.
If any group or Member wants to take initiatives they will do so in accordance with the appropriate rules.
Mr President, on Friday of the last part-session I drew attention to the scandalous situation of the part-time interpreters who work for Parliament and have not received proper remuneration.
They want to see some money.
The situation has not been very clear since October when I wrote to Commissioner Liikanen to ask him to investigate it.
It now appears that Commissioner Santer should deal with this matter.
I understand they are threatening industrial action, which could possibly affect the drawing up of the new Structural Fund regulations.
I should like to ask the Bureau to speedily resolve this problem, which is causing considerable difficulties for many people without whose good work we could not do our own work.
Mr McMahon, the Secretary-General is taking the necessary steps to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.
Mr President, a few months ago I asked you when we were going to move into the new Parliament building, IPE IV.
At the time, you said you did not know.
We are now three months away from the end of our term of office, and I should like to ask you once again when the new premises will be completed. Will it be before the end of the present term of office or will we have to wait for the next term?
I can only give you the same reply, Mr Striby: when it is ready.
That is not in our hands, but in those of the contractor, who was not chosen by us.
He was chosen by SERS, a publicly owned company incorporating various public enterprises in the Strasbourg region.
You might do better to put your question to the contractor and ask if it is going to keep to its schedule.
If that were the case, the building would be completed towards the end of this parliamentary term, but it was meant to be finished last year as well, and that did not happen.
So I can only tell you that we shall have the building when it is ready.
I cannot add anything more, since this company regularly fails to keep to its own schedules.
It is unfortunate, but that is how things are.
I would like to make one further point. I happen to know that France has done everything necessary.
It would appear that the ball is in the European Parliament's court.
If you are denying this, I am happy to take note of it.
The French Government has used all possible means to try to make progress on a question which is not its direct responsibility, but that of a company, as I would repeat.
Clearly, when it does not have the means to do so, it cannot force the company's hand and make it fulfil its obligations.
The French Government is trying to move things forward as far as possible, and thanks to its intervention, we have made up some of the delay, which would otherwise be even worse.
I can tell you nothing more.
Put your question to SERS, which can tell you what it is doing in order to meet its commitments.
In any event, we are unable to do anything.
Mr President, after hearing your fine words on the follow-up to Mrs Hoff's report on equal opportunities for women and men at the Secretariat of the European Parliament, I should like to point out that during the COPEC meeting we had with various officials this morning at the Secretariat of the European Parliament in Luxembourg, we took the view that the European Parliament should set an example by adopting a programme of positive action with fixed time-limits and statistical objectives in order to put an end to the under-representation of women, particularly in A-grade posts in the European Parliament where they only account for 20 %.
You will therefore have the opportunity to practise what you preach by taking an ad hoc decision in the Bureau, the majority of whose members are men.
I am sure that all the members of the Bureau will have taken note of your comments.
Mr President, according to an article published by the Finnish joint news agency on 26 February, we said we did not believe that enlargement of the European Union was being delayed, even though the negotiations on Agenda 2000 were dragging on.
Furthermore, we are supposed to have said that the negotiations on Agenda 2000 might continue during the Finnish Presidency and even up to and including the Portuguese Presidency without creating any problems for the enlargement process.
Mr President, I should like to put it to you first of all, was the report in the Finnish press correct in saying that we do not think it would create problems for enlargement? Secondly, what was such a view based on?
And, thirdly, is this consistent with your duties in accordance with Article 19 of the Rules of Procedure?
At the moment, I cannot respond to any articles in the press since I do not know whether or not they accurately reflect my position.
When asked in the past if I believed that Agenda 2000 could be concluded, I have always given the same reply. Parliament is doing everything it ought to ensure that, as far as we are concerned, it can be concluded by May.
As far as the Council is concerned, it will be up to the Council itself to decide if it will be able to conclude the negotiations in March.
Enlargement may perhaps take place in 2003.
But as I do not have the exact details of the article, I cannot tell you whether or not it is correct.
If you send me a translation of the article, I will gladly tell you if it is a true reflection of my views.
Mr President, I thought I heard Mrs Banotti requesting that the citizens of Gibraltar should have the right to vote in the European elections. I may have missed the first part of her speech, so I would like to know if she initially also asked for the citizens of Gibraltar to have the right to vote in British elections, since exercising European citizenship goes hand in hand with exercising national citizenship.
Thank you, Mrs García Arias.
I believe you heard correctly, but that is a quite legitimate contribution to the debate.
The Minutes were approved
Order of business
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
The following amendments have been proposed.
Mr Wijsenbeek made a comment earlier about the Wibe report.
Rule 6(6) of the Rules of Procedure is left over from a time when the reports on these requests were put to the vote at the end of the first item on the agenda.
This was subsequently changed and they are now voted on later instead.
I therefore believe that the spirit of the rule is basically that the debate on the report should be held on the first day of the sitting following the tabling of the report and that this does not mean that we have to change today's agenda.
Mr Fayot has the floor.
Mr President, I have listened to your interpretation of the Rules of Procedure.
I am sorry to have to contradict you, but in my opinion the provisions of the Rules are perfectly clear.
They state that the report of the committee shall be placed at the head of the agenda, and I think that as the French version uses the term 'd'office ', meaning 'without consultation', there is no need to take a vote, and that this term simply means the report should be placed at the head of the agenda.
I am sorry that I have to contradict both the Conference of Presidents and the President.
I think that if we are to follow our Rules of Procedure, we must therefore place the report at the head of the agenda.
There is no need to take a vote.
Very well, we have heard the opinion of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, and I do not claim to be infallible.
We shall therefore place the report at the head of the agenda and the other reports will follow immediately afterwards.
Tuesday:
The Group of the Party of European Socialists has asked for the Commission statement on the trade dispute over bananas between the European Union and the United States to be brought forward from Friday to Tuesday and taken after the report by Mrs Haug on the Union's own resources.
Mrs Green has the floor.
Mr President, I wish to say, on behalf of my group, that it is important that this issue, which has become a major trade dispute between the United States and the European Union, should not be dealt with on Friday.
Important as the Friday sitting is, and we all accept that, it is more important for us to be able to debate and vote on this issue when there is a very substantial number of Members in this House.
In the last few days it has become a very critical issue - bearing in mind the fact that the United States is imposing sanctions at this very moment in advance of the WTO ruling - and my group feels very strongly that we should bring it forward to tomorrow so that we can hear the result of the discussions in the WTO today and the relevant Commissioner can be available tomorrow to deal with it.
Mr President, I am opposed to this.
Why? Because we chose to deal with the matter on Friday.
This means that whenever there is a debate which is a tiny bit important, it gets taken off the agenda.
That is no kind of a solution.
That is the first thing.
The second thing is that we have already had problems enough with the large number of reports which now have to be dealt with on Tuesday.
If we add bananas as well, our agenda for Tuesday will be even more crowded.
We would be prepared to consider Thursday.
But we cannot endorse the principle as such that an important issue should be taken off the agenda for Friday.
Having now heard one speaker in favour and one against, I put to the vote the change proposed by the Socialist Group.
Parliament approved the request
Wednesday: no changes
Thursday:
The Group of the European Radical Alliance has asked for the report by Mrs André-Léonard on EU-India enhanced partnership to be brought forward from Friday to Thursday.
Mr Dupuis has the floor, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance.
Mr President, I find it literally scandalous that a report on the enhanced partnership between the European Union and India has been placed on Friday's agenda.
We manage to find a space on the Wednesday or Thursday agenda for China, the great Communist empire, but we can find only five minutes at the end of a part-session for the largest democracy in the world.
It is absolutely scandalous!
A vast amount of progress is being made in India. There is the potential for a strategic partnership for the European Union with a country that has a population of one billion, and we treat it as if it were a small remote island in the middle of the Pacific.
I therefore urge the House to see to it that this matter can at least be discussed on Thursday.
Is there a speaker for or against?
Mr President, I am not exactly speaking against it but I am concerned that if we take it on Thursday it will, in any case, be voted on Friday.
If that is the case I wonder whether it might not be better simply to take it to the next session when we can discuss it at a more appropriate time.
I have to be against, then.
We have a major problem of principle here in this House.
Various honourable Members have sought to uphold Friday as a full day of the part-session, and we have done that in circumstances which were often difficult.
A second point of principle is that either we take Fridays seriously in Parliament or we do not.
I have some sympathy for Mrs Green's arguments on the matter of voting, but it is an extremely important question of principle here in Parliament if we decide to stop debating important subjects on a Friday.
Mr President, as Mr Martens well knows, we also have an agreement that if there is an issue on the Friday morning that groups feel is inappropriately placed, then we would agree to try and find a better place for it or defer it.
That has been our position for some time now in the Conference of Presidents and I think if there is clear disagreement by some of the groups that this should be on Friday morning then we should stick with that agreement.
I do not think that is quite what the agreement is.
The agreement is that if there are reports which are controversial, they should not be placed on Friday's agenda.
In any event, however, I now put to the vote the request by the ARE Group.
Parliament rejected the request
There are no changes to the agenda for the sittings on 22 and 23 March 1999.
Request for a waiver of immunity
The next item is the report (A4-0076/99) by Mr Wibe, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for the waiver of Mr Rosado Fernandes's immunity.
Mr President, let me first of all say that I had no objection to postponing my business in order to allow the important debate on violence against women to take place.
Instead, I shall be brief.
The matter under discussion concerns a request from the Prosecutor-General of the Portuguese Republic for a waiver of immunity in respect of one of our colleagues, Mr Rosado Fernandes, for his disparaging remarks about Portuguese agricultural policy, as well as certain references he made to the Minister of Agriculture at the time.
The matter turns on whether the remarks can be construed as disparaging.
In judging a case such as this, knowledge of the legal principles that govern parliamentary immunity is of paramount importance.
In this Parliament, as in most democratic countries, parliamentary immunity is most assuredly not a personal privilege bestowed on individual Members.
Rather, it is a form of protection for Parliament as a democratic institution.
It provides protection for Members, thus enabling them to carry out the political duties they were elected to perform.
It follows that the key principle underlying our rules on immunity is that the latter should only be waived where the charge has nothing to do with one's work as an MEP.
If the charge has a direct, or even an indirect connection with one's parliamentary work, immunity should not be waived.
Other circumstances where it cannot be waived include clear cases of victimisation where the aim has been to discredit a Member politically, or where a trivial occurrence might have serious political implications.
In such cases, it is reasonable to maintain that immunity should not be waived.
In the present case, it should first of all be noted that the Member of Parliament in question, Mr Rosado Fernandes, has a deep and lively interest in agricultural policy issues - in actual fact it is his speciality.
He is also a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
It should also be noted that the remarks with which he now stands charged were made in a definite political context.
They refer to the agricultural policy of his own country.
It should finally be noted that the tone adopted by Mr Rosado Fernandes did not greatly depart from what would be regarded as the norm in a heated political debate.
To sum up, it is therefore reasonable to say that the remarks made by Mr Rosado Fernandes cannot be divorced from his work in Parliament.
For that reason, I do not think the request for a waiver of immunity should be granted.
I therefore propose that we do not grant the request for a waiver.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Violence against women - Daphne programme
The next item is the joint debate on:
the Commission statement on violence against women; -the oral question (B4-0145/99) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, to the Commission, on the programme of Community action (Daphne Programme) (2000-2004) on measures aimed at preventing violence against children, young persons and women.I give the floor to Mrs Gradin, for the Commission.
I shall start with the declaration.
It is the last International Women's Day of this century.
A declaration on the situation of women, and especially on violence against women, is thus appropriate.
The Member States of the European Union are democratic societies where women and men have equal rights.
Women form slightly more than half of the population in every country.
However, this is not reflected either in decision-making bodies or in administration or business life.
All of our countries have subscribed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
We all know that the human rights of women and of the girl child are an inalienable, integral and indivisible part of universal human rights.
What then is the situation in our countries? Women have the right to live in safety, but a great number are not even safe in their own homes.
Women have the right to be treated with dignity, but thousands and thousands of women are sold like cattle and regarded as only having the value their pimps and traffickers can get from exploiting them.
Women have full human rights but oppression and violence keep them in subordinate positions in all our countries.
Today the issue of violence against women is internationally recognised as a substantial problem.
With the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights, women's rights were finally accepted as human rights.
Gender-based violence and all forms of sexual harassment and exploitation are incompatible with the dignity and worth of the human person.
Such behaviour has to be eliminated.
The issue of violence against women was on the agenda of the United Nations Women's Conference in Beijing in 1995.
The Platform underlined that violence against women is an obstacle to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace.
For years it was often said that women had themselves to blame if they were beaten and raped.
It was said that they should not wear short skirts.
This argument is sometimes still used but in slightly different forms.
I personally would not, by the way, use the argument that the wearing of jeans is a guarantee against rape.
Today, the common view is that the woman and her testimony should be relied upon in court.
Most Member States have changed their laws so as to make violence against women a criminal act.
Also, rape within marriage is now a crime.
Women often have the right to a special counsellor during court proceedings.
Women's organisations play an essential role in the fight against violence.
They reach out to those at risk and are active in raising awareness among the public.
This is the very basis of the Daphne initiative.
Since 1996 we have supported nongovernmental and voluntary organisations in their fight against violence towards women and children.
The demand for support is far greater than the resources available.
The new Daphne programme will also be open for NGOs from countries from Central and Eastern Europe.
The Commission and the presidencies have also launched a campaign against violence towards women, in response to the demand by the European Parliament to make 1999 a year against violence against women.
During this campaign a number of European actions are being organised.
The next big European event will be the ministerial conference on violence against women, to be held in Cologne at the end of this month.
The campaign against violence is not just a series of official European conferences: the Member States themselves are of course invited to initiate events involving both the public and NGOs.
For many years the issue of violence against women was discussed as a women's problem.
But it is not women who are the problem, it is the violent behaviour of men.
Therefore we should not only focus on women.
Women and children are the victims of this violence.
The problem is men who argue using physical force and violence instead of words.
This campaign should therefore also focus on men and what can be done to change the present situation.
Projects by, for and about men will be supported in the Member States.
Let me quote a Swedish doctor who wrote before the United Nations Women's Conference in Beijing: 'Sufficient numbers of men must discover and take an active stand against the violence which occurs around them.
A greater number of men must make themselves heard at workplaces in the public debate and refuse to go along with this violence.
Violence of this kind is despicable and inhuman and therefore also unmanly.
Real men do not behave like that.'.
Fathers must pass this message on to their sons, teachers to their pupils, military commanders to their men, and friends to one another.
As part of our European campaign I invite all men today to support the campaign by wearing a white ribbon.
This ribbon is a sign that you are real men, who say 'no' to violence against women.
Applause
The achievements under the Daphne programme have been impressive.
Violence against women, adolescents and children has been placed high on the political agenda.
A total of 95 projects have been supported since 1997.
These projects have led to the establishment of useful networks and cross-border cooperation between non-governmental organisations.
An observatory on violence against women has been established and research projects are under way.
An important part of the Daphne programme is the campaign against violence against women.
This campaign is based on an initiative from the European Parliament.
A preparatory meeting was held in June last year under the British presidency.
In December the Austrian presidency hosted a conference in Vienna. It focused on the role of the police in combating violence against women and violence against migrant women.
At the end of March the German presidency will host a ministerial conference in Cologne.
There are also plans for a concluding conference towards the end of the Finnish presidency.
Between these conferences several actions are being organised on both a European and a national level.
Examples are the production of television spots, information packages and a website on the Internet.
We are also conducting a statistical report on violence as well as Eurobarometer.
Projects will also be supported in the Member States.
One of the main targets will be projects focusing on men and how to prevent violent behaviour from men towards women.
On 20 May 1998 the Commission presented a proposal for the new Daphne programme.
This programme will run from 2002 to 2004 with a total budget of ECU 25m.
Since then I have been anxious to have the proposal adopted as soon as possible.
We need to have the programme in place at the latest by 1 January 2000.
During the Austrian presidency progress was meagre.
By the end of 1998 the discussion focused on the legal base of the proposal.
A number of Member States made it clear that they were opposed to Article 235 as the legal base for the programme.
On the other hand, many Member States saw Article 129 as an appropriate alternative to the legal base.
The discussions in the Council in January and February showed clearly that there was a considerable risk of blockage if Article 235 was maintained.
The Commission was therefore forced to accept the proposed new legal base.
Nobody should be in any doubt that we would have preferred to keep Article 235 but we had to face the fact that there is no value in an unadopted Daphne programme.
I assume that Article 129 will not limit the scope of the programme.
The context in which we work to combat violence and in which women and children suffer is, indeed, the context of human rights.
However, the impact of violence on women, young persons and children amounts to injury or the risk of injury to their physical, mental and psychological health.
It should be noted that according to the World Health Organisation's definition, health is 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity'.
Furthermore, the Daphne programme is victim-based.
Its aim is to prevent all forms of violence and to protect all victims and potential victims of violence, irrespective of whether the violence takes the form of trafficking, sexual abuse, the abandonment of children or any other form.
I regret the inconvenience that this amendment has caused the European Parliament.
However, in our view it was necessary to act swiftly in order for Parliament to take account of the amended proposal at its committee meeting on 16 and 17 February this year.
When the new Daphne programme is adopted it will provide a new impetus in the fight against violence.
Under the programme we will continue to provide support for NGO cooperation within the European Union but we will also be able to include cooperation with NGOs in the candidate countries.
I recently participated in a conference in Budapest with NGOs active in the fight against sexual exploitation of children.
The extent of the problem is immense.
The need for support and cooperation with the NGO community in these countries is evident.
If we are to succeed in the fight against violence we need concrete action involving all parts of our society.
To fight against violence towards women is the responsibility of us all.
We welcome the fact that the European Parliament will consider the amended proposal in its appropriate committee in March with a view to submitting it to the April plenary session for first reading.
Applause
Mr President, I am speaking here on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights.
Hardly anyone can be left in any doubt that the Committee on Women's Rights and the European Parliament have been responsible for the European Union's decision to tackle the problem of violence against women, children and young people.
We want these campaigns to be carried out as this is a very serious social problem.
In previous years the European Parliament adopted specific budgetary policies to counter the problem of violence against women, children and young persons, and there has been overwhelming interest in setting up projects of this kind, so that in 1997, for example, funding could be provided for only just over 10 % of all the projects proposed.
The European Parliament has also approved two very important reports dealing with violence against women. A report compiled under the leadership of Marianne Eriksson raises the issue of so-called zero tolerance in matters of violence.
An important report was also put together under the leadership of Susan Waddington extending the debate to cover the issue of the trade in women.
It is an astonishing fact that there are two million women and young girls in the world being sold every year to be sexually exploited, which means that the issue is not actually merely an EU problem, but a global one, and one in which we must be able to intervene.
Our committee is very worried that if the Commission now gives in to those Member States which do not agree that the Daphne programme should be made law under Article 235, the scope of the programme will not be adequate to the scale of the problem.
We would like it to deal with all the possible legal aspects connected with violence against women, including the trade in women.
If the legal basis is the promotion of public health, we want guarantees that the Commission will actually be able to create a programme, in conjunction with the Member States, in which violence against women is not merely reduced to a health problem.
All credit goes to Mrs Gradin for her attempts to meet our demands that the notion of public health must be understood in as broad a context as possible here.
But we actually want guarantees that legal instruments might also be on the agenda.
Let me tell you about the situation in Finland.
A law came into force at the beginning of this year in Finland under which the police or a court can impose a restraining order on a person who has behaved violently.
In other words, a person may be prevented from coming near their victim when there is reason to fear that violent acts will be carried out again.
In the Member States there are certainly other excellent examples of how this matter can be approached using legal means.
As for the global nature of this problem, I have received, in my capacity as chairman of the committee, a letter from an Iranian organisation pointing out that women in Iran are still being stoned.
We should also remember that we are sure to become involved in these global aspects of the issue with this programme.
Commissioner, I was not altogether convinced, having heard your reply, that this change to the legal basis will now guarantee us a good programme within the Daphne context.
Perhaps we can try together to convince those reluctant Member States I mentioned that they should agree to consider Article 235 as a legal basis.
I understand that in fact you were of the same opinion as us originally, but that now you base your opinion on the overall importance, in general terms, of accomplishing this programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I warmly welcome you all to International Women's Day.
I have just come from a worldwide video conference, organised by Unifem, the UN women's organisation, which calls for a worldwide campaign for a world free of violence against women.
We in the European Parliament are preparing to make an important contribution to this campaign. We are taking part in worldwide actions and I think it is most important for the women in our Member States to realise that they are not alone, that we are fighting alongside them.
We in the European Union have been fighting for a long time for a European year against violence against women.
A year ago 350 Members supported the written declaration calling for this and for a campaign to that end.
Now we have reached the point where we can start the campaign and have a draft programme on the table.
But legal problems are arising now: reasons - which in my view are pretexts - are being put forward by the most varied groups of people, which will prevent the Daphne programme from being adopted at an early date.
We Social Democrats want rapid action. We want the programme to be adopted quickly, obviously with the participation of the European Parliament, which also has a greater say thanks mainly to the use of Article 129 as the legal basis.
But I can see that it will be very difficult to get the programme ready on time so that it really can enter into force by 1 January 2000.
What we definitely want to ensure - and we will fight for this - is that large sections of the previous draft programme are not cut, such as those on trafficking in women and domestic violence - I find it difficult to call it häusliche Gewalt , violence in the home, as it is called in German, for no home is violent as such, it is always the people, and usually the men who are violent in the home - and that we get the programme wrapped up in good time.
You all know we will be having new elections, Parliament has to be formed first, and the Council presidencies have to take that into consideration.
The German President-in-Office of the Council, Christine Bergmann, said in the Committee on Women's Rights that she wants to see the Daphne programme signed and sealed as soon as possible.
The Justice Ministers want the programme too, but nevertheless formal difficulties have cropped up again.
This is probably largely because we do not have a formal Council of Ministers for women's affairs that could adopt the programme, and this is another very crucial demand made by my group.
If we discuss the matter at all, we would say that Article 129 must definitely lead to a multidisciplinary approach.
We also want to take account even at this stage of the provisions that will come with the Amsterdam Treaty, which will presumably enter into force by the year 2000, and we want a comprehensive definition of what the concept of health actually covers. This means that we must also look at the social background to violence and in particular we must adhere to the approach that non-governmental organisations, Member State authorities and the judiciary and police can all work together here.
That is vital if we are to pass on the message to our citizens that Europe and the European Parliament are fighting to prevent all forms of violence against women.
Applause
Mr President, today is a day of celebration for many of us, a day of solidarity, a tribute and a mark of our respect for all the women and children who still do not have rights and who are subjected to abuse and violence.
The fight for equal opportunities and the struggle against violence affect us all and their success benefits the whole of society.
I would have liked to have been here presenting the report by the Committee on Women's Rights on the Daphne Programme, for which I am the rapporteur. However, as you all know, this was not possible as the legal basis was changed at the last minute, when a great deal of work had already been done on the report.
It is not bad news although certain aspects do concern us.
Our main priority is to ensure that the Daphne Programme moves forward.
As you will remember, it was this House's initiative to create a special budget line to fund measures for combating violence against women and children, and in the three years since its creation, it has seen magnificent results.
There is a high degree of collaboration between NGOs, civil society and public bodies which has led to many new ideas and projects. Together they are searching for better solutions, and it is our responsibility - and that of all the Community institutions - to implement this programme before the end of the year.
For the first time, the European Union is facing the challenge of a five-year programme to combat violence.
Five years is a long time for those who are suffering.
It is therefore also our duty to prepare a good text setting out an appropriate strategy for the medium term that effectively helps to prevent and mitigate the effects of violence on women, children and young people.
As a result, Commissioner, we are extremely concerned about the definition of the concept of public health.
This must be interpreted more widely to mean a state of physical, mental and social well-being and we hope that this will be the case.
Trafficking in women, sexual abuse and the disappearance of children are all forms of violence.
The European Union can provide an important added value in combating such violence.
It would be unfortunate if these issues were left aside just because a legal concept was poorly interpreted.
Today is the last 8 March of this millennium.
On the first 8 March, women were almost invisible.
Over the last 20 years many inequalities have been corrected but discrimination still exists.
I do not want to end without highlighting the major challenge facing us if we are to make the principle of equality a reality.
The ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam will certainly help us to do that as we will have firm legal bases that establish mainstreaming as a fundamental and horizontal objective.
There is still too much direct and indirect discrimination that prevents women from playing a full role as citizens, that hinders their access to employment and that prevents them from being independent and having high self-esteem.
The fourth action programme serves as a guideline in all the Member States but its aims must not end with the programme. Rather, we should pursue them and improve them in a fifth action programme.
We must promote the reconciliation of professional and family lives and encourage women to get involved in politics. These are key elements for the participation of women in society and, of course, their integration into the labour market.
The European Union has many resources it can draw on to provide assistance.
I hope that Agenda 2000 and the new Fund regulations - which are vital documents - establish clear measures in favour of working women.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I totally endorse what Commissioner Gradin has said.
She rightly points to the fact that women are still under-represented in decision-making forums, government and the world of business and industry.
This is despite the fact that there are more women than men in the European Union.
Parliament's President himself has just said that more work is needed here.
She rightly observes that women's rights are human rights.
Women are entitled to be safe and to be treated with human dignity.
To a lot of men, including men in this Chamber, violence against women is a marginal and rare phenomenon, at least in the European Union.
But the figures tell us that one woman in five has at some point been the victim of violence.
Violence against women and children too occurs in all societies and at all levels of society, irrespective of culture or religion.
She is also right to say that the battle against violence against women must not be waged solely by women and by non-governmental organisations seeking to help stop violence against women.
First and foremost we have to tackle its root causes, and those are not short skirts or too little assertiveness on the part of women, but the millions of European men who use violence in some form or other every day.
We must use 1999, the year of campaigning against violence towards women, to make men aware of their obligations.
For all these reasons and given your most excellent statement, I find it a pity that the new legal base for the Daphne programme is so restrictive, even though you are asking for it to be interpreted broadly.
Lastly, the Daphne programme also covers violence against children and young people.
I have tabled a number of amendments on behalf of my group to ensure that this is made clear in the resolution, in the title and in a number of paragraphs as well.
Mr President, I am delighted to be the first man to speak in this debate on International Women's Day.
I want in particular to assure my colleagues here that the vast majority of men would support them fully in ensuring that they have full equality of rights, parity of esteem and protection against any violence whatsoever.
I am proud to wear the white ribbon to show that I make that stand myself personally.
I know I speak for the majority of my colleagues here as well.
It is important that the statements made in this House are not just made in a vacuum and that we send a message out to the wider world that we in the European Parliament are willing to be visionary and to bring the world into the 21st century by guaranteeing equality of rights for all; and, in particular, by putting in place special protection programmes for those who suffer violence.
That is why the Daphne programme is so important to us, not only because - if I could use the phrase - it was our own child, but also because we see the importance of its effect on a global scale.
We have already experienced some of the benefits from the Daphne programme.
It is unfortunate that legal difficulties - which this Parliament has encountered many times through the use of Article 235 - have delayed the implementation of the new programme.
However, I am confident that, utilising the new legal base, we can begin once again to put this issue on the map.
It is also important that when we decide to bring in new programmes, we ensure that the voluntary sector and the non-governmental organisations who are working at the coalface, who are there with women's and children's refuges to help them, are brought in at the very earliest stage to advise us of what is the most effective way of utilising funding.
But it is equally important to bring the governments of the Member States along with us, because, as has been seen from the use of Article 235, certain governments felt this was an imposition on them, and that it interfered with their democratic rights under the rules of subsidiarity within the Treaties.
Therefore, we must ensure that governments are seen to be playing an active role in that regard.
The new equal opportunities created for us in the Treaty of Amsterdam must be grasped fully.
But henceforth let the message from here be: men and women oppose violence against women, against children, against all.
Mr President, there has been some talk about the legal basis.
If the Commissioner does not have a problem with the legal base, then as regards the Daphne programme, nor do I. It is just that my own personal dream of including preventive medicine and the trade in women has still not been fulfilled.
I hope that in spite of everything, we may yet be able to reach agreement on all areas.
However, I can see that it is going to be an uphill struggle, although perhaps we should not paint too gloomy a picture.
Now that I have the floor, I should in any case like to thank the voluntary organisations for their work, not just within the European Union, but all over the world.
Even though we politicians may be amazingly competent, we cannot deny that there is a need for teamwork between us who are elected by the people and those who toil at grass-roots level.
It is that teamwork which will enable us to make progress.
I should also like to mention that I am wearing jeans in honour of the day.
I must say that I was extremely surprised by the Italian court ruling.
It made me think that if only it were a simple matter for myself and our children to wear jeans, we would have an infinitely better working arrangement with the jeans manufacturers who are currently having such problems.
Unfortunately, however, wearing jeans is not a simple matter.
I have been wearing jeans now for several days in celebration of International Women's Day, which was first proclaimed by women Socialists at the beginning of the century, and by the United Nations in 1975, since we are hardly ever able to celebrate it on 8 March.
I hope that some time in the next century it may be possible to designate 8 March a holiday in honour of us women, so that we can celebrate that one day in a fitting manner.
I am delighted about the 'White Ribbon' campaign, organised by 'real' men in Canada to demonstrate, by wearing this token, that they actively oppose violence by other men against women.
I think it is a very commendable campaign, and I sincerely hope that all those men who are wearing a ribbon today in the House continue to sport it for the rest of their lives, instead of discarding it once this day comes to an end.
Violence by men against women is, as was mentioned earlier, a worldwide problem of enormous proportions and with devastating implications for those concerned.
It is not good enough for one man to say 'but I for one am not usually violent'.
Obviously, there are other men who are.
This is something we are frighteningly aware of today.
I should also like to thank the Swedish Government, which last year brought in legislation to protect women that viewed their problems from a different perspective.
For example, the customers of prostitutes are to be criminalised, an approach which this House found highly amusing some 18 months ago, but which is now the subject of legislation in one Member State at least.
Finally, I should like to extend my thanks to Leyla Zana, one of several women who are still the victims of political violence.
Although the President should never make comments, Mrs Eriksson, I would inform you that in several of our countries there are many initiatives along the same lines as the one launched in Canada, even though they have not yet been as widely publicised.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, once again for the umpteenth time we find that in some Member States it takes clever legal manoeuvring to combat violence against women and children in an effective manner, and that some Member States resist that.
We hope the Commissioner is right, or wins through, and that even with an inadequate legal base she will manage to implement a programme which is effective in combating crimes such as trafficking in human beings.
Measures to combat violence against women and children are a priority worldwide.
They really mean the start of peace - the start of moves towards a peaceful society and a humane society from which many women and children are still excluded.
Many men suffer violence too, but as we take up and intensify the campaign against violence against women and children today, I think we can be pleased with what Commissioner Gradin has said, although of course the Chamber does not altogether reflect that.
The men have drifted away in droves, despite being sympathetic on this issue.
Happily we have already heard one male speaker, and undoubtedly there are many others who will feel sympathetic.
But it took some time before women too realised that we must not simply act to defend the victims better, but that violence is a problem of men which must therefore be tackled by men.
That being so, I readily endorse what has been said here on the subject.
I shall respectfully submit a written declaration to you, Mr President, I hope on behalf of a large number of honourable Members, asking you as the President of Parliament to take steps to set up a commission on children's rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all to point out how ridiculous it is to hand out little white ribbons at the entrance of Parliament, as if it were heroic to wear it as a sign of courage and originality.
For goodness sake, what type of conformism is society being taken over by? Would anyone here dare to say that if he does not wear this white ribbon, it is because he is in favour of violence against women?
There were other periods in history when it was more difficult to wear the white rosette, as did young knights who fought to defend the most martyred queen in our history, Marie-Antoinette.
In France, where I come from, talking about violence against women would involve mentioning all those women who were guillotined during the French Revolution, the Carmelite nuns of Orange and all the acts of persecution.
It would mean having to mention the 3 000 French women who were deported to Algeria in 1962 amidst total indifference.
The European institutions did not want to hear a word about it.
These women were deported to houses of pleasure of the Fellaga army rabble in Algeria.
Jasmina and a friend of hers were saying to me only yesterday in my office that yes, they are frightened every day, frightened of being threatened with their lives or being raped.
That is the reason there is violence against women.
Why not say so then? In some areas in my country, there are more cases of rape each day than there are burnt-out cars.
This year, 700 cars have been burnt out in Strasbourg.
Yet, how many more rapes were there? Nothing is said about this because it is a millstone around our necks.
It certainly must not be discussed.
However, why not talk about the presence of displaced persons on our territory who have the same morals as those who are fighting over in Algeria, and who are raping women and slitting people's throats? Talking about violence against women would mean having to talk about the infamous group, 'Nique ta mère' , which has been glorified as a so-called anti-racist group.
It is despicable that it dares to have a name like that, and yet the records are selling thanks to capitalists promoting them, as is seen in FNAC and elsewhere.
Talking about violence against women would of course mean having to talk about abortion, which is the worst kind of violence, and which has become commonplace nowadays; it would also sadly mean having to talk about self-destruction, a type of violence sometimes forced on women by the propaganda with which we are all familiar.
Finally, talking about violence against women would mean having to admit that the death penalty, which is necessary for the most abominable assassins, must be reintroduced for those capable of such forms of torture.
Mr President, I would like to begin by warmly congratulating Commissioner Gradin on her speech on the issue of violence against women.
This is a very significant day.
It illustrates a real determination for a Europe-wide campaign against violence to women.
All the work we have undertaken in the Committee on Women's Rights and in this Parliament in the last few years illustrates the influence of Parliament and the Committee on Women's Rights in taking a determined stand against violence to women.
We expect to see action across every Member State.
We know the difficulties we have already experienced in getting this far.
There have been objections from many quarters.
Yet we have reached the point, that we know there are going to be new actions, new research, new initiatives, new projects, all of which will contribute towards raising awareness of the issue of violence towards women and combating it.
I am sure all of us recognise that we have a responsibility to work in our own Member States, in our own networks, to combat violence.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party have accepted that and we are beginning our own campaign this week.
We intend to consult with practitioners in all the regions of the UK and to prepare a platform for action.
We also want to develop partnerships between our own non-governmental organisations and those in other Member States so that we can share good ideas and good practice.
We want to extend that globally to work with countries like South Africa.
I have just returned from that country and the issue of violence against women is very high on the agenda.
There is a great need for all of us to work together globally.
Like Commissioner Gradin we also want men to stand beside us.
It is men in this Parliament and men in the various committees that have been dealing with this issue who, for budgetary and legal reasons, have often resisted the work we have been doing.
It is men who are the perpetrators of violence against women and men have to take this seriously.
I think the white ribbon campaign is excellent and I want to see British men, and men in all communities and all towns wearing that white ribbon and supporting women across the European Union.
One in four women experiences violence and virtually every woman is vulnerable to violence.
Every woman supports this campaign.
The European Union is known for combating oppression and opposing violence.
Let us make sure we oppose it in our own cities, towns and homes.
Applause
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mme Gradin.
When she was appointed in 1995 she made this topic one of her priorities and despite a great deal of discouragement she has actually won through and we are now having a major debate in this Parliament about a subject that was often sniggered about but rarely taken seriously until she decided to do so.
I would also like to congratulate the staff who are running the Daphne Programme.
They are always available and always very supportive.
Mr Simpson is perhaps the person we know best.
He has made a real campaign out of this and a real mission for himself.
These programmes - Daphne, STOP and Grotius - came into existence following the tragedy of the Dutroux murders in Belgium.
It was a tragedy but also proved to be a catalyst when finally the political classes woke up to the fact that there was a really serious problem.
If I concentrate my remarks on children in this debate it is not because I am not totally at one with my colleagues who have spoken about the need to confront very seriously the major problem we have in all our societies with violence against women; but increasingly, in the last three or four years the issue of children's rights and the protection of those rights have begun slowly but finally to take their place amongst the political priorities in many of our countries.
All too often the real movers and shakers in this area are the NGOs who are, invariably, inadequately funded and constantly knocking on the door to try and bring these issue to the public.
For that reason we need a dedicated unit within the Commission to draw together the many programmes.
They are quite small, there is not a lot of money in them, but they are in danger of fragmentation if things continue like this.
I would stress that all of us in our own countries, as Mrs Waddington has said, have to get the men to recognise that children are not just the responsibility of their mothers.
Mr President, I obviously agree with Mrs Hautala's resolution and of course, with women's struggle to secure their right to human dignity and integrity.
However, I should like to make one remark in connection with this.
Like Mrs Banotti, I note that the Committee on Women's Rights has to some extent taken possession of the Daphne programme, which is the result of the initiative taken by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, and which to begin with was mainly directed towards the campaign against paedophilia.
Like Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens, I should not like current events to result in this programme being redirected slightly, guaranteeing protection for women only and neglecting its other mission when every day children are the victims of unthinkable acts of cruelty.
I therefore urge the Commission to continue to earmark a substantial proportion of the funds for important measures undertaken by organisations whose task is to search for children who have disappeared and support families who are victims of this type of tragedy.
Finally, I would say to the House that rather than tearing each other apart for the sake of a small amount of funds, I wish that all the different parties could join together - not only today but also when we discuss the budget - in calling for a significant and substantial increase in funds for a purpose which is quite obviously first and foremost a humanitarian one.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are celebrating International Women's Day with great enthusiasm, emotion and hope.
I should like to add 'with admiration and dignity', as women represent 50 % of the world's population and are responsible for the remaining 50 %.
In modern societies, a woman is called upon to perform many roles, as mother, wife, simple companion, scientist, worker, politician, and as a woman in the arts.
Today a woman can claim these roles as her own and on an equal footing with men, with whom she can also share them.
I believe that the European Union has made a significant contribution to bringing this about. The European Parliament especially has taken decisions to strengthen equal rights and equal opportunities legislation on behalf of the women who live in our Member States.
Yet it is a sad fact that, even today in our modern and civilised societies, we see that prejudice still exists in relation to the position of women.
The practical implementation and observance of the regulations we institute cannot always be taken for granted and is often difficult to establish, as discrimination is something which does not always happen directly.
Let us not forget that there are countries where women and children still lack the most basic rights and where women do not know what is going to happen to them or how important their children are.
I should like to remind you that, above all, women continue to be responsible for passing on our culture, our identity and our values from generation to generation.
That is why modern society needs them more than ever, especially as a vehicle for culture and peace.
If we want the legal protection of women's rights to have any substance and if we want the opportunities and rights of women to be put into effect, we must ensure that they receive the support they need to enable them to fulfil their roles. Today more than ever, we must place greater emphasis on education, training and health and on allowing women to grow up with dignity.
Women must be able to take advantage of their rights and to take on their responsibilities. They must be able to pass on the precious values our society needs today and to cross the threshold of the new millennium with faith in justice and in the freedom of mankind.
Mr President, Mr Antony has already left but his speech reminded me of the intrinsic institutionalised violence against women, the disabled, and ethnic and religious minorities that we unfortunately experienced during the era of European fascism.
Commissioner, you are well aware that violence against women is not a public health problem, although as in the publicity against tobacco, we can say that violence and violent men seriously damage the lives and health of women and children.
Violent people are not sick people.
We must make it quite clear that they are criminals.
Nevertheless, we are now faced with a challenge that has been laid down by the European Commission: we must readapt the objectives of the Daphne programme to fit a different legal basis, namely the protection of public health.
Commissioner, I know just how much your personal commitment and efforts have allowed us to truly begin to cooperate in the fight against violence within the European Union. But I would like to ask you what effects you think the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam might have in the coming months in terms of our approach to combating violence.
Will it mean that at a later date we will be able to modify the Daphne programme again or extend its scope? I am worried about this because as you said, despite the broad interpretation of the concept of health, the fact is that all references to cooperation or programmes concerning the trafficking in women have been removed from the programme, yet we know that this is a Community programme.
I disagree with Mr Crowley's defence of the principle of subsidiarity.
The Community provides an added value in combating trafficking in women and children, the abuse of children and paedophilia, and this is important when the European Union has to act not only in the context of cooperation under the third pillar, but also in collaboration with NGOs.
In conclusion, Commissioner, I would like you to give us some reassurance about the broad interpretation of the concept of health and to tell us what effect the Treaty of Amsterdam might have, since I wonder whether it might not be better to wait until it enters into force.
Mr President, how pleased I am to have heard some male voices in this debate, and likewise that this part of our discussion is being chaired by such an attentive male President: thank you!
It is vital that Europe should feel duty-bound to take action concerning both general and sexual violence against women.
All of us - all of our governments, the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council - have been striving over this past year to achieve a single currency and a single bank, to ensure that the euro is capable of holding its own against the excessively powerful dollar.
We all strive to give financial matters pride of place; but we must try equally hard to ensure that the campaign against violence, particularly violence against women, becomes a cornerstone of European culture.
Mention has been made of Daphne and of pursuing new aims: I agree with what has been said here, but I would call for new and steadily increasing funds for the programmes and projects under Daphne relating to children and women.
I must thank the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin, for having mentioned in her speech the question of so-called anti-rape jeans.
A tragi-comical judgment handed down a month or so ago, in Italy, caused astonishment around the world.
Today, provocatively, I am wearing jeans and displaying them for all to see, not to attract attention but because the Italian Supreme Court and Court of Appeal have declared that a woman wearing jeans cannot be raped.
Jeans are a guarantee against rape.
We do not wish to judge the Court of Appeal, but to highlight a lack of culture.
The Europe which we create must be one of culture!
Let me quote an item from yesterday's Italian press, originally published in an Austrian newspaper: the miniskirt is dangerously provocative.
In Austria, a woman in a miniskirt has been dismissed because of her attire.
However, the problem is that everyone rushed to the defence not of the woman, but of the man who dismissed her, because apparently it was he who had been provoked and suffered sexual harassment.
Mrs Gradin said that women must be protected; but we must also look after men wherever they need looking after, as men and as human beings.
Mr President, I shall speak later on the Hautala proposal, and I shall refrain from commenting now on 8 March.
Instead I would turn to the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin, and begin by taking this opportunity to thank her for her hard work.
I believe that Mrs Gradin's dedication to this topic - her strength, intelligence, good will and generosity - will go down in the annals of the European Union.
She is without doubt responsible for the fact that, in recent years, there has been a series of actions aiming to overcome violence against women.
On this point, I would ask that we take a positive view of the transition to Article 129, in that it confers much greater powers on Parliament.
This House should theoretically be pleased, because progress might perhaps be more rapid at the end of the day.
It remains to be seen, however, whether the programme will stay as before.
I am all in favour of looking after men; indeed, I am convinced that only if we do so will they at last stop thinking that women can be bought, robbed and seized rather than being won over.
I also agree to looking after women who have been the victims of violence and have suffered physical as well as psychological damage.
But we are also committed to other actions under Daphne, and all I wish to know is whether the move from Article 235 to 129 will alter the content of this programme.
That is precisely what we would not want.
Mr President, I too am most grateful to the Commissioner, Mrs Gradin.
Without wishing to repeat what colleagues have said, if the European tide has been turned in this area, then we owe it largely to her.
I would echo what Mrs Marinucci said concerning the scope of the programme under Article 129.
Let me give an example: in Italy, as elsewhere, women's organisations have for years supported, protected and housed women who have suffered violence, helping to reintegrate them socially. They have done so partly through refuges, where women can take shelter, along with their children, and can receive psychological and legal support as well as help in returning to work.
In my view, if Article 129 really were restricted to health matters alone, it would greatly curtail the activities which are already under way and need to be extended.
I therefore believe that, although we in Parliament certainly do have an important role under Article 129, since we can step in and bring matters to a rapid conclusion, we share Mrs Gradin's desire to see this programme up and running by early 2000.
It really would be a shame and a retrograde step, in my opinion, if all the actions originally scheduled for Daphne could not be included in their entirety.
Mr President, I wish to thank everybody for a very interesting debate, and the Committee on Women's Rights for the support it has given to this campaign concerning violence against women, and also for the support for the Daphne programme.
Many of you have been concerned that we have had to change the legal base for Daphne.
It must be said that we had a long debate in the Commission before we presented this programme to the Council and Parliament and we came to the conclusion that Article 235 would have been the best base.
That is why we proposed it to both institutions.
During the debate at least five countries - Germany, Britain, France, Denmark and Belgium - were very categorical that they could not accept Article 235.
They wanted Article 129.
In my view, it is better to get Daphne decided, and then after a year we can see whether the programme can be improved.
Perhaps the programme is narrower than we had originally planned but let us get it started now, and then we can review the situation later.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
Women's health
The next item is the second report (A4-0029/99) by Mrs Hautala, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the Commission's report to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on the state of women's health in the European Community (COM(97)0224 - C4-0333/97).
Mr President, I would like to say, concerning the previous speech, that Mrs Gradin has our full support to get the Daphne programme under way, and we will certainly be in a position to cooperate fully on this issue in the future.
But now I would like to focus on another matter.
The European Commission commissioned a report from the University of Limerick on the subject of women's health in the European Union.
However, Parliament was rather perplexed as the Commission did not really make any decisions on the basis of the report, but sent it directly to us and the Council.
Our task, as Parliament, then, is to lay down guidelines on how the issue of the state of women's health should be understood.
It is certainly quite obvious that public health has improved in many respects and thus women are also healthier and live longer.
However, we should realise there are new kinds of health threats which target women, such as the fact that more and more women have to be solely responsible for looking after their families, as single mothers.
As is well known, they have many financial problems in such roles, and it is clear that the capacity and resources available for all the different kinds of health care are perhaps not perfect either.
There are also new kinds of health problems which women seem to suffer from in particular, and which were not really so very widespread in earlier times.
Take, for example, eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia, though it has to be said that, surprisingly, young men too have started to suffer from these.
The nature of such problems is certainly so difficult to understand as to be inexplicable, but we should recognise these phenomena and think about where their actual origins lie.
Why does society put so much pressure specifically on young women, pressure that makes them react in this way?
It is a very interesting time to raise the matter of women's health, as the European Union is committed under the Treaty of Amsterdam to including at least two matters connected with this as part of all its activities.
The first issue to form part of all Union policy is equality between women and men, and the second is public health.
In my report I state that we have before us a double challenge, and that we have to apply the principle of transparency.
Thus we really must examine the Union's future public health policy particularly, in this case, from the point of view of women.
My first contention is that women are very poorly represented in decision making in the healthcare sector.
They are of course very fully represented in the workforce, for example as nurses.
But they are clearly under-represented on the managerial ladder and on decision-making boards in the healthcare sector.
I know of research that shows that when women are also included in the management team the whole perspective changes.
More attention starts to be paid to preventing, rather than merely curing, illness.
This is a very interesting example, and one that shows that women also have their own way of working when they are allowed to take decisions.
Then there are illnesses that only affect women, especially in health problems relating to childbearing.
It is vital that we ensure that at every stage of a woman's life there are good, high-quality basic healthcare services available to her, whether they relate to maternity problems, maternity welfare or other gynaecological issues.
Then there are complaints that affect women in a different way from men: heart and vascular disease, and alcoholism.
Depression also seems to be commoner among women.
This all has to be discussed without forgetting that as the population ages, there will be even more of us older women in society and that will place enormous demands on the healthcare system.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate the Committee on Women's Rights on the report it has tabled and to say that, in general, I support it.
However, I would like to highlight the fact that we do not aim to attach more importance to women's health than to men's health but to look at them in an equal light.
Nonetheless, we need to emphasise that some of the health problems experienced by women are different and therefore require specific action.
I am not going to describe again the state of women's health in the European Union as we already have a very clear picture. Moreover, the rapporteur, Mrs Hautala - whom I would like to congratulate on her report - has already done this exhaustively and the details are included in all the documents.
I am therefore only going to concentrate on those points that the Committee on the Environment wishes to stress.
We essentially want to focus on primary prevention when harmonising measures on women's health to be implemented in all the Member States. Some of these measures are already being implemented in certain countries and, in our view, we need to step up activities in specific areas.
The first of these relates to smoking and alcohol consumption among women. It is particularly important to combat this among adolescents as more and more young women are beginning to smoke and consume alcohol at an earlier age, which is why preventive measures are important.
It is also essential to highlight the importance of a balanced diet.
Anorexia, bulimia and coronary diseases are becoming more prevalent and, in the case of anorexia and bulimia, increasingly common among young women.
We must also work to prevent the spread of AIDS by providing young people with more information.
Preventive measures like these should devote more attention to young people.
It is important, too, to look at secondary prevention measures as there are significant differences between the Member States. We need to introduce and implement more programmes to detect both cervical and breast cancer in the EU and provide systematic screening for all women, particularly those in high-risk categories.
Early detection of diabetes is becoming increasingly important as are the issues of hormone replacement therapy, osteoporosis and so on.
In addition, we need to ensure that any health statistics published are broken down according to sex. There are substantial differences that must be taken into consideration when decisions are made if these statistics are not broken down, as is the case at the moment.
Mr President, this is the second time in the past few months that we have held a debate on a report on women's health in the European Community and I do not want to repeat what we said earlier.
Mrs Hautala has made enormous efforts to improve the report and, in particular, to reach an agreement within the Committee on Women's Rights that will allow us to finally approve it, and I congratulate her on this.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy also studied the report drawn up by the Commission, which shows statistically that there are clear differences between the disease processes in men and women and that particular solutions therefore need to be found to problems or diseases which are specific to women. It also highlights the fact that for women, universal public health cover is essential as they still have lower living standards and earn lower wages than men.
In any event, the Committee on Research believes that we need better statistics on the public health situation which should be broken down according to gender, age group, income level and place of residence.
We also believe that more scientific research is needed into the causes and appropriate treatment of diseases such as anorexia and bulimia which, unfortunately, are currently having devastating effects on the health of adolescents.
It is also important to give greater consideration to occupational illnesses that are more common among working women, and this is particularly important today, 8 March.
We must point out that since it is more difficult to organise women in society, we know less about the incidence of occupational illnesses among women.
Mr President, people are still reluctant to recognise that there is anything specific about women's health, even though ample evidence exists.
How could one fail to realise that women's health is quite different from men's in certain respects? Men do not have problems linked to reproductive health, and have fewer ailments caused by nutrition and lifestyle.
Men lead completely different lives from women and age less.
If it is true - and it is - that ageing is currently one of the major problems confronting all our health systems, there are generally more elderly women among the population, and they are sometimes poorer than their male counterparts.
Women's health is different, as was recognised in the Beijing platform: indeed, its key paragraph recognised the right of women to the safeguarding of their health, above all their reproductive health.
It is a good thing that the Commission has presented a report specifically on women's health, but conclusions must be drawn from it, and I am grateful to our chairman, Mrs Hautala, for having rescued this report against all odds. She has made it down-to-earth, coherent and constructive, and is now rightly calling on the Commission to go one step further by presenting a specific programme.
We wish women's health to be taken into account in the health programmes and mainstreaming to be built into these, guaranteeing the high level of protection which is recognised - first in the Maastricht Treaty and then in the Amsterdam Treaty - as an obligation of the Union.
We wish for even more than that: a specific programme!
Surely the need for this is obvious, especially in respect of information?
Women do not take care of themselves; they are used to looking after the health of their families but neglect themselves and, often, neglect preventive care because they are too busy looking after their nearest and dearest.
Once they realise they are ill, it is already too late.
Campaigns must be mounted to educate and inform women, to convince them to look after themselves.
Information campaigns must be directed at family doctors and general practitioners so that, when they enter a home to look after a sick child, they speak to the mother and ask her whether she is using contraceptives, whether she is looking after herself and whether contraception could help her avoid the need for an abortion.
Family doctors and GPs should take every opportunity to make women think about themselves and answer questions on their health.
Often they do not do so, which is why a specific programme is needed to provide information for women and for health personnel dealing with women.
This topic must not be deferred any longer.
Today is International Women's Day, and not the Festival of Women, as its detractors call it.
It is the day that Clara Zetkin called for in 1912 to advance the condition of women.
We want women to occupy positions of power, but above all else we want them to be healthy, so that they can do so as well as possible.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, although the past few years have seen enormous progress in our knowledge of the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of illnesses that put women's health at risk, there is still a great deal to be done in this area.
I thank Mrs Hautala very warmly for her report.
I think we have managed this time broadly to reconcile our positions on the important aspects with those of the other groups.
The report concentrates on the essential aspect, namely women's health, and also considers the distribution of powers in the European Union.
The provisions on the controversial question of abortion and on toxic shock syndrome are worded in such a way that most Members can support them.
Yet I still believe that it is difficult for the European Union to give an answer to the question of abortion.
However, during the discussion on pregnancy, we gave priority to the possible health risk to the woman, including the psychological health risk, and even the risk to her life, in addition to the child's right to life and protection.
I welcome the fact that the report also takes up issues such as society-related health issues, which also show that lifestyle, socio-economic circumstances and a healthy life are determining health factors.
I think it is only right that the report calls on the Commission to take into account and refer specifically to the topic of women's health in its new action programme on health.
If we want to improve the health of women, it is important to take targeted measures on information, prevention and health promotion.
Women must become better informed and more involved in the planning and implementation of preventive programmes.
Since women live longer than men and have a lower mortality rate at all ages and for all causes of death, there is a general impression that they are healthier than men.
But the price of a higher life expectancy is the risk of becoming chronically ill and infirm.
If we use indicators to assess the state of health that also look at illness and impairment, and not just mortality, we find that in all age groups the state of women's health is worse than that of men.
This applies particularly to older women.
So we must aim to give women a greater chance of living their later years in good health, with greater independence and less impairment.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, improving the position of women in health care was one of the 12 strategic objectives at the conference in Beijing.
The Amsterdam Treaty which will shortly be coming into force increases the Union's powers in the areas of both health and equal opportunities.
There is no longer any excuse to do nothing about a policy for women's health.
More to the point, we need a policy for women's health.
Certain diseases are specific to women, are more frequent in women or affect women differently from men, and in defining this policy the following points are of prime concern. A gender-specific approach to health care can reduce its cost.
Better prevention, for example through realistic health targets for conditions affecting women primarily in later life, such as osteoporosis, certain cancers and cardiovascular disease, can improve the quality of women's lives.
Equal and adequate access to health care remains a problem for some women outside the Union, but in the Member States as well.
In line with its traditions, my group is sceptical about Europe interfering too much in policy areas which ought really to be regulated at national level.
In other words, we do not want to undermine the subsidiarity principle.
We certainly recognise the importance of a specific policy on health at European level, but we think this is only feasible if its aims are to prevent, encourage and coordinate.
So we shall vote against paragraphs 10, 11 and 16, and part of paragraph 24.
We would also warn of the excessive cost to the budget of all the calls for studies and research contained in the resolution.
Speaking personally, I should like to compliment the rapporteur on the way in which she revised the report after broad consultation with the groups.
Mrs van Dijk's report was not acceptable to us and we could not approve it.
This report is much better, and at least makes clear what Parliament's priorities are with regard to women's health.
Madam President, today is known internationally as a day for taking action in support of women, and we need to reflect a little on the continuing, unimaginable struggles of the women's movement, which continue to bring about many changes not only for women but for society as a whole.
Today we must honour the force of these struggles, and stress the need for them to continue, as crucial problems remain unsolved and other, new, problems appear which threaten their rights and achievements.
Women continue to be one of the most vulnerable sections of the population, as their rights, including their right to health, are violated.
These rights are often infringed by the current socio-economic system, and we must acknowledge this if we want 8 March to be more than just an opportunity for anniversary celebrations.
Throughout the length and breadth of the planet cultural and political underdevelopment, hunger, wars and skirmishes, conservative and backward-looking societies, economic regulations, have all dealt a cruel blow to women, to their role in the economy, in society and in the family.
The Hautala report puts forward interesting proposals regarding the serious health problems faced by women, and I congratulate the rapporteur on her work.
However, I wonder whether promoting issues relating to women's health problems, and affording women protection under the law against discrimination of any kind, can be understood and strengthened within a socio-economic system which commercialises everything and subjects public health to the harsh financial policy of EMU. I wonder whether a policy which affords women substantial protection can be implemented, regardless of the reorientation and the grass-roots reorganisation of the development model of our society.
In the face of exploitative and oppressive plans and practices, in the face of discrimination tactics, women are called upon to push forward and assert their claims together with men, in the context of a broad popular battle front ranged in each country.
Today's date, 8 March, and the tradition of militancy which accompanies it will show the way.
Let us follow it unflinchingly.
Madam President, in view of the short time I have to speak, I will be concentrating on the paragraph in my colleague's report which is devoted to reproductive health.
This term is a little complex, and I suppose we must take it to mean all health issues linked to a woman's ability to give birth.
I fully agree with your demand in paragraph 8 that 'high quality reproductive health services' must be available to women, and with your demand in paragraph 12 that 'attention is drawn to the advantages and disadvantages of hormonal treatments for menstrual and menopausal problems, and that alternatives to these are researched'.
Having said that, I should like you to go into more detail about the advantages and disadvantages of hormonal contraception.
However, I will not be able to agree to your recommendation in paragraph 10 where you call for 'the promotion of unrestricted availability of contraceptives'.
Should we take this to mean that contraceptives are to be made available without any medical follow-up, which is essential wherever hormonal contraceptives are being taken since they affect the endocrine system and natural hormonal regulation? I am therefore unable to agree with you on this point.
I think unrestricted availability of contraceptives without any medical follow-up does not show due respect for women's health.
In anticipation of the United Nations Conference on Women in Beijing, I have obtained within the framework of STOA a study on the impact on health of the different contraceptive practices in Europe and the reliability in scientific terms of what is called natural family planning.
Unfortunately, the study was ended prematurely.
It would be worth resuming the work carried out on it because in accordance with the resolutions voted by Parliament on 11 March 1994 and 28 October 1994, I think we need to respect a genuine freedom of choice for women.
They need to be aware of the risks involved in the different methods of contraception so that they can choose alternative methods without risk to their health.
Madam President, I would first of all like to thank the committee for its constructive report on women's health.
Mrs Hautala, the rapporteur, has produced an excellent piece of work.
The Commission decided that its first specific report would be devoted to women's health and medical problems.
The report deals with the major trends in women's health.
It also includes an overview of women's illnesses and the factors that crucially affect women's health.
Furthermore, the report discusses particular problems such as eating disorders, HIV/AIDS, family planning, abortion, the menopause and violence against women.
As has been pointed out, to a certain extent women experience different health problems from men.
We must therefore ensure that these differences are taken account of in health services and medical care.
Adequate resources should also be made available.
I also agree with Mrs Hautala that we need better data gathering on women's health.
It is important that medical research takes into consideration the differences between women and men.
We know, for example, that most experiments on animals are performed on males. As a result, women may experience undesirable and harmful effects when they use medicines that have only been tested on male animals.
The Commission has already taken a number of initiatives with the aim of promoting women's health.
A study has been carried out on osteoporosis in older women, and the report will be ready shortly.
The EU is also giving its support to projects that include studies of life expectancy and general health development, as well as of statistics relating to morbidity and mortality.
In these studies, we have stressed the importance of gender differences.
Support will also be given to studies on cancer, age-related diseases and women's health problems.
Since 1996, the Commission has been running a special programme aimed at preventing AIDS and other infectious diseases.
The programme includes several projects relating exclusively to women.
Last year, for example, we set up a network to combat the spread of AIDS among women in the Mediterranean countries.
The Commission recently submitted a report on the implementation of the 1995 directive relating to health and safety measures at work for pregnant women and women with new-born infants or mothers who are breastfeeding, known as the pregnant workers directive.
The conclusions of the Commission regarding implementation of the directive are generally satisfactory, although unfortunately some Member States have not yet implemented it in full.
The Commission has therefore started proceedings against those countries for non-compliance.
This concerns, amongst other things, sick leave, a statutory two-week paid holiday, maternity leave and a ban on allowing pregnant women to carry out work that is potentially harmful to health.
Another important instrument is the 1996 directive on parental leave.
As you know, it entitles all employees, regardless of sex, to at least three months' unpaid leave to look after their own children of eight years or less.
As part of the programme on equality of opportunity for women and men, the Commission has compiled a report on the representation of women in health services and medical care.
The report covers state and semi-private health care institutions in all the EU countries.
A qualitative study of women in decision-making positions has been carried out in France, Italy and Sweden.
The results showed that involving women in health care decision making has a positive effect.
Women bring new needs, ideas and values to the work.
Furthermore, they often represent a different style of leadership and an alternative approach to decision making.
The aim of the Commission's 'mainstreaming' strategy is to incorporate equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies and activities.
The Union's health policy is no exception, although consideration should be given to the differences that exist between the sexes.
Parliament and the Committee on Women's Rights have, through this report, made a valuable contribution to the work in hand.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Mainstreaming
The next item is the report (A4-0072/99) by Mrs Eriksson, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the follow-up to the communication on incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies (COM(98)0122 - C4-0234/98).
Madam President, what Commissioner Gradin has just said in her concluding remarks about incorporating equality of opportunity into all Community policies, and that health should be no exception, is indeed gratifying.
However, after studying the Commission's progress report on the incorporation of equality of opportunity for women and men into Community policies, I should say with a touch of irony that I hope in fact it is an exception - a positive exception.
Besides the Commission's report, I have also examined other documents from the Council of Ministers and the United Nations, amongst others.
However, I decided to compare the report with the Beijing Declaration.
It is true that we have not signed this declaration. Nevertheless, since 1995 we have been stressing the importance of 'gender mainstreaming' in policy making and other areas of work.
I think that Chapter V, in particular, has most relevance for the European Union.
In comparing the Commission's report with the Beijing Declaration, I see that there has been no fundamental change: there is still a lack of clearly defined objectives and accountability mechanisms, and changes in the internal dynamics - including the introduction of different values, behaviour, rules and procedures - have not been implemented.
The European Union is not pursuing an active and visible policy on equality of opportunity accompanied by such things as follow-up and evaluation procedures to assess its performance and policies.
The Commission rightly notes that there has been progress, but obstacles and shortcomings still exist.
The measures taken up to now have not had an effect in all areas or on the direction in which Community policy is going.
In the Commission's view, the most serious obstacles are a lack of awareness of gender equality issues at the decision-making level, a lack of human and budgetary resources, and a lack of gender experts.
However, your rapporteur believes that the first of these is the key point, namely a lack of awareness of the need for gender equality at the decision-making level.
Unfortunately, this lack of awareness does not only apply to the Commission, it also permeates large sections of society and, I would also contend, Parliament itself in large measure.
We know that for only 28 % of the Members of Parliament to be women is hardly representative of the European population a whole, but that is how things stand in this particular decision-making body.
Naturally, something has to be done.
In our view, the committee, through my report, lays down some constructive proposals. In order to make everyone happy, let me assure you that these proposals do not increase costs by one single euro.
The Commission can and should show the way by deciding on the objectives and accountability mechanisms, cooperating with new policy players, strengthening the methodological framework, overhauling its own structures and introducing gender equality at the decision-making level. Of course, the same also applies to Parliament.
It is still the case that women in the workplace are held in lower esteem than men.
This state of affairs has not changed in more than 100 years, but hopefully at some stage - and perhaps soon - change will come.
Consequently, this is one of the issues on which the committee hopes to be able to cooperate with the Commission - as an ongoing and balanced committee.
Madam President, Commissioner, as today is 8 March I too would like to say a few words. For me today is a day of remembrance, not a day of celebration.
It is a day of remembrance for those women who led the struggle for equal rights and equal opportunities.
8 March is a symbolic day for this unending struggle. It is a day on which to render an account of women's achievements, a day of raising awareness and debate.
I should like to take this opportunity to stress once again that we are fully behind all those women who, at great danger to themselves, are fighting against totalitarianism and against any plan to create a society in which women are marginalised.
They are fighting against violence and racism, they are fighting for democracy and human rights, they are fighting for their survival in many parts of the world where poverty is still rife or where wars are being waged.
I should like to thank Mrs Eriksson for her excellent report and for what she has told us.
It is significant that, in its progress report, the Commission resumes its stance and expresses its desire to promote a policy of equal rights in relation to other policies.
This progress report makes it clear that incorporating an equal rights policy is a long-term measure.
As the Commission correctly points out, there are obstacles to implementing this policy.
Nevertheless, I fervently believe that the Commission must create or strengthen special mechanisms to incorporate equal opportunities, for example in the new technologies and information technology, and in research where access for women is especially limited.
The gender issue must also be incorporated into all legislation and into all action programmes and action plans.
The Commission must continue to urge Member States to take initiatives to promote and implement mainstreaming and we too must push our governments in this direction.
We must stress once again the need for gender relevant statistical data for the purpose of assessment and programme planning, in relation to which the Commission's progress report exhibits certain weaknesses.
The message of this progress report and also of this House must be twofold.
Firstly, there must be systematic implementation of the analysis relating to the gender issue and its impact on all the policies and actions of the European Union. We must also press on with and strengthen the special positive action measures to promote equal opportunities.
In closing, Madam President, I should like to say that, of course, for all this to happen, we need the necessary resources and the right people, as an analysis of the gender issue can only be undertaken by people with the appropriate training.
It requires knowledge and information.
I should also like to stress that a fifth action programme is necessary and I hope to hear the Commissioner announce one.
Madam President, it most certainly augurs well for us that today, on the occasion of International Women's Day, we have the opportunity to review this much talked-about mainstreaming, this great concept which consists in incorporating equal opportunities for women and men into all Community policies and activities.
Two years after the communication on mainstreaming was adopted by the Commission, it seems clear that progress has been rather modest, and that we still have a long way to go both internally and externally.
In fact, in spite of the good intentions of which we are assured, the results seem to indicate some disparities, and numerous barriers and shortcomings still exist as regards the balanced participation of women and men in both the decision-making process and the implementation of Community policies.
This is why I consider it necessary for the Commission to now reassert its firm commitment to the promotion of an active and visible policy on equal opportunities.
The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and the stronger legal basis for equal opportunities for women and men must be turned to good account in order to envisage positive action and take 'all-out' measures, if I may use the military language used by General de Gaulle, in order to achieve equal treatment and equal opportunities for women and men, which we have still have not achieved in many areas.
However, it is my duty to point out here that mainstreaming does not render unnecessary the specific equality policies that have so far been developed by means of directives and Community action programmes.
May I also take this opportunity to remind you once again that we are hoping the Commission will finally propose an amendment to the watered-down 1986 directive on equal treatment between men and women engaged in an activity in a self-employed capacity, including assisting spouses.
Apart from two round-table discussions, no action has yet been taken in response to the report I produced in 1996, in which Parliament unanimously proposed a framework status for assisting spouses in Europe; there are millions of these invisible workers in our societies, and the overwhelming majority are women.
This status - the framework of which needs to be outlined in the 1986 directive that is to be amended - will need to provide for compulsory registration of assisting spouses, independent social security entitlement and, in particular, compulsory pension insurance.
It will need to put an end to all forms of discrimination which assisting spouses are subject to, for example in companies and professional organisations, especially in the event of divorce, and so on.
Rest assured, Commissioner, that the Committee on Women's Rights will - within the scope of its political responsibilities, which will need to be redefined and strengthened following the elections on 13 June this year - keep an watchful eye over the action taken by the Commission in response to this debate and our report.
Madam President, I also hope that Parliament itself and its political groups will not ignore the conclusions reached in paragraphs 19 to 22, particularly with regard to strengthening the political responsibilities of the Committee on Women's Rights, and not abolishing it, as advocated by some of our colleagues.
Madam President, I made my maiden speech in 1984 on emancipation and here I am now giving my 'old maid's speech'.
I have three points to make. Firstly, after seven directives on emancipation, I think the cornerstone of European legislation has to be the burden of proof directive.
A fair distribution of the burden of proof between employer and employee makes it possible for women to enforce the rights which these seven emancipation directives give them.
For the rest, I think we should hold back and leave any law making to the social partners.
Secondly, we have to straighten out the things that are crooked.
In other words, positive action is still needed until the barriers left over from the past have been removed - until the crooked is made straight.
Thirdly, we must strive manfully - or perhaps womanfully - to see that new obstacles do not arise.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century for emancipation is mainstreaming, the integration of equal opportunities into all areas of European policy.
The Amsterdam Treaty provides a good legal basis for this.
It is a splendid concept, but a dangerous one too: splendid because it is more effective, if properly applied, than constantly introducing new pieces of legislation; and dangerous because it can serve as a lightning conductor, a sop, a paper tiger.
So extreme vigilance, healthy suspicion and the measures suggested in Mrs Eriksson's excellent report are called for.
She rightly asks for a breakdown by gender and statistics, as Mrs Hautala does too, whose report is better than that by Mrs van Dijk, though that is not to say it is a good one.
We want more women involved in decision making.
Commissioner Flynn, incidentally, has no women at all in his private office.
The Commission and Parliament have five women officials in lower-ranked policy-making positions.
Mainstreaming means building without obstacles, not first erecting obstacles and then solemnly dismantling them.
Mainstreaming also means emancipation impact assessment.
As suggested in paragraph 21 by our Liberal colleague Mr Cars - a man at that - we need an interinstitutional working party for Parliament and the Commission and a monitoring board within the European Parliament.
Can we wind up the Committee on Women's Rights? No, we still need it as a watchdog, to see that mainstreaming actually happens.
And I think it means one must be able to sit on the Committee on Women's Rights in addition to being a full member of another committee.
We cannot have one cancelling out the other, or we shall have an underuse of resources, we shall have fanaticism operating in isolation.
Madam President, I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly on this report incorporating equal opportunities for women and men in all Community policies and activities.
I want to refer specifically to the need for such integrated policy for women in rural society, for until now suitable employment opportunities have been limited, with women having to migrate to urban growth centres to find employment.
This is an unsatisfactory situation and has contributed significantly to the depopulation of rural areas. It is a serious social and economic problem which everyone, including this Parliament and national governments, now recognises - late in the day, perhaps - and that we are now endeavouring to correct through rural development policy.
Committed as I am to rural policies, I now believe they will not achieve their full potential in the absence of integrated national and regional policy.
Unless we create sustainable employment at regional level and, in the context of this report, employment suitable for women, then the economic and social viability of rural communities will be put at further risk.
If rural society is not economically and socially attractive to women it will be impossible to retain living and vibrant rural communities.
While such policies are relevant to all rural women, I want to specifically refer to the often forgotten role of women in agriculture.
I am sure Parliament will agree that in the context of the present discussions on Agenda 2000 the viability of many family farms will be put at risk.
If we are serious about retaining the European farm model referred to in the Santer proposals then we must provide suitable off-farm employment for both women and men.
I want to acknowledge and pay tribute to the significant contribution of women to the work of voluntary community organisations.
Their role, however, must not be confined to voluntary community work.
They are entitled to participate, if they so desire, in the work of nation-building and to meaningful and rewarding employment opportunities.
Madam President, as the coordinator for the Green Group on the Committee on Women's Rights, I should like to stress the importance of having men support women in achieving equality in the European Union.
I, along with my colleague Mr Mann and one or two other men, are active on the Committee on Women's Rights in support of those objectives.
I only wish we had the wholehearted support of many of the other men in this Parliament including those who tried to abolish the Committee on Women's Rights earlier in the year.
I am glad we have resisted that so far and we must resist it in the future.
I congratulate Mrs Eriksson on her report.
It shows clearly that equal opportunities and mainstreaming are good objectives.
However, we have moved very little towards them.
Until the men in the European Union take them seriously we will not achieve them.
And that begins at the very top, in the leadership of the Council of Ministers: all those male leaders who are not taking it seriously.
I include my own government in this. Its record is rather poor.
Tony Blair forgot to appoint a Minister for Women, then called Harriet Harman back in and gave her the job of Secretary of State for Social Security as well and finally sacked her because she had to carry out unpopular decisions.
He has now given the job to the Leader of the House of Lords and women's issues have tended to sink without trace.
By effectively deselecting three of our women colleagues - Sue Waddington, the Labour Spokesman on Women's Rights, Christine Oddy and Veronica Hardstaff - the Labour Party has made a poor contribution to getting women re-elected to the European Parliament.
We should look at the record in the Member States if we want to achieve our equality objectives.
Madam President, Commissioner, I am happy to add my own thanks to the Commission.
Seven directives, that is no mean achievement.
Women in Europe can see that the Commission is sympathetic to women's concerns.
But much still needs to be done on jobs and equal pay, for example.
I would say that men are still lagging behind when it comes to care, both in and outside the family.
What worries us most at the moment is the continuing inequality of power.
This is an injustice which we must battle against.
The Nordic countries have quite a good record, with 37.6 %, and the European Parliament too, with 28 %, compared with the 13.1 % of women involved in the highest levels of decision making worldwide.
But it is a long way from the democratic parity we dream about.
It is after all a democratic right that the bodies taking decisions which affect society should reflect the make-up of that society.
In any event, the Commission should continue to press the Member States to take steps to ensure that this is indeed the case.
Women will then recognise their role, will feel more involved, will see their problems acknowledged as political problems and will also feel more attracted to the political arena.
That reciprocal effect is by no means commonplace at present.
Many good things have of course already been said about mainstreaming.
I echo them.
We need equal opportunities at all levels, in all undertakings, and we need to study gender effects in all areas, devising instruments to monitor whether or not progress is in fact being made.
But this must not form an excuse for abruptly halting a number of positive actions in favour of women which are still desperately needed.
That is not only the case in Europe; I can think of certain cases in the developing world where actions in favour of women are simply being stopped because all attention has now switched to mainstreaming.
Slogans are no use to us.
We want women to be given the real leg-up they sometimes need in order to make full use of this splendid mainstreaming.
I hope the Committee on Women's Rights will remain vigilant, because we need that committee.
And that is one of these positive actions.
Madam President, I support everything that Mrs Lulling has said on the need to provide a status for assisting spouses, a position held by so many women in the various countries of the European Union.
I hope that the term 'non-working female population', which I find shocking in connection with the subject of equality between men and women, will be eliminated both from Commission texts and various other European documents.
There are probably tens of millions of these women in Europe and they should not be described in this way simply because they are engaged in unwaged work.
I would like Mrs Keppelhoff's report - an assessment of the economic value of women's unwaged work which dates back ten years or so - to be taken up again.
We should broaden our economic concepts so that the contribution made by this unwaged work to a nation's wealth is taken into account in the GDP.
This would seem important with regard to the subject which we are dealing with here.
Moreover, the complete marginalisation of the various aspects of pregnancy and motherhood also seems a great injustice with regard to the matter we are dealing with at present.
I think there are some avenues here which we need to explore at all costs, in order to achieve greater justice between men and women in the different countries of the European Union.
Madam President, equal rights and equal opportunities for men and women are recognised as an indisputable basic principle of democracy and human rights.
This recognition is reflected in the Amsterdam Treaty, in which equality between men and women is set out as a goal of the Union, and in the fact that the principle of equal opportunities is enshrined as the fourth pillar of EU employment policy.
But the Commission's first progress report shows up the very wide gulf between demands and reality.
For instance it states that the measures taken to date have had no tangible influence on the various policies.
That should give us food for thought.
Of particular importance is the awareness raising, awareness changing and sensitisation of all the various decision-makers in all the various areas of society.
But specifically as a woman I would not want to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater.
Will a call such as that for a balanced participation of women and men in the decision-making process really achieve any added value for women? Are we talking about quantitative or qualitative equal treatment?
If I manage to succeed in my job, it is not because I am a woman but because of the good work I have done. I know that many women agree with the view I take of the policy of positive discrimination.
Madam President, several colleagues as well as the rapporteur, Mrs Eriksson - whom I wish to compliment - have said how much has already been done in Europe to implement an equal opportunities policy.
I would point out that the European Union actually introduced the principle of mainstreaming into its actions and documents prior to the Beijing Conference.
As we all remember, this was first done in the regulation on the Structural Funds in 1993.
Therefore, from the point of view of intentions, but also of directives implemented, we can say that much has been done, helping to change our conduct, actions and culture.
It does not, however, mean that no problems exist.
The first evaluation report, which was the subject of Mrs Kokkola's report, made it very clear that the statements and documents were by no means being implemented in practice by the Commission and the Member States.
As regards the Structural Funds, for example, even though the policy of mainstreaming was introduced as long ago as 1993, the latest progress report reveals that only 1.6 % of their resources have been used for this policy.
We are a long way from the practical implementation of equal opportunities in all policy fields!
That is why we, as a Parliament, urge that mainstreaming should not merely be reasserted as a principle in the renewed Structural Funds, but that the Member States and the Commission itself should be subject to some form of sanctions if this principle is not translated into tangible measures.
With regard to the European Social Fund, we call for 15 % of project funding to be targeted at women, since much still remains to be done in terms of their employment and pay.
In our view, the action plans submitted by the governments following the Luxembourg summit are very disappointing.
There are still too few countries where equal opportunities are deemed to be an across-the-board principle to be applied in all policy areas.
The real problem, however - and I can say this because I come from a southern country, Italy - concerns the presence of women in decision-making positions.
In Italy few women are to be found, whereas in northern European countries there are more. Where women are present, the political agenda of governments and institutions really does change, and the policies introduced really do change as well.
Madam President, as soon as the Amsterdam Treaty has been ratified in all Member States, it will produce new benchmarks.
But we will have to wait a few more months before the principle of equal opportunities for women and men is also strengthened. It is stipulated as a principle and a goal of the Community in Articles 2 and 3 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Today, on International Women's Day, I recall other articles, such as those on equal treatment in the workplace and on the labour market, on equal pay for equal work and on combating discrimination on the basis of sex.
The European Commission has established that there are considerable shortcomings as regards incorporating equal opportunities into the Community programmes.
The main reason, according to Mrs Eriksson, the rapporteur, is the lack of awareness of the decision-makers, and this is a view that the Group of the European People's Party naturally shares.
Effective individual measures cannot replace an integrated general concept.
However much cooperation there is with the NGOs, with the committees of other bodies, there are no adequate organisations to promote awareness-raising among the political players.
When they do exist, it will become possible to check the incorporation of equal opportunities in draft legislation, ensure a balanced gender participation in decision-making jobs and finally prepare statistical material that can be broken down into gender-relevant data.
We need a benchmarking procedure to make it easier to evaluate programmes and projects and we must continue vigorously taking positive measures in favour of women.
However, the working party between Parliament and the Commission that is called for in paragraph 21 already exists!
Its members include two representatives of the Committee on Women's Rights and two representatives of the Committee on Employment; I am one of them and we hold regular meetings with the representatives of the European women's lobby on the one hand and the responsible Commissioners and heads of cabinet led by Jacques Santer on the other.
We have always reported on their outcome in the committees.
We will have to do so in more detail and certainly also in writing.
I believe that is one message that comes across from today's International Women's Day.
Madam President, I think that, as has already been mentioned here tonight, the key is to have women in decision-making roles and in positions of power.
That is the only way we are going to get any change.
You only have to look at the European institutions themselves.
Look at the number of women Commissioners.
I know that my own country has yet to appoint a woman Commissioner, and I hope that when it appoints a new Commissioner, the government will take this into account and appoint a woman Commissioner.
The Irish Government has never yet appointed a woman to the Court of Auditors.
In most of the key areas and senior positions of power, women are not visible.
That is the reality.
You only have to look at a photograph of the Heads of States of the European Union and compare the number of men and of women - it is just not acceptable.
The only way we are going to get some sort of equality for women is when women actually occupy the key decision-making roles.
As someone said a few years ago in my own country: when there are as many incompetent women in roles of power as there are men, then we will have true equality.
Women have to be two or three times better than men if they are to get anywhere, to actually achieve anything.
This is the problem - the women who are here at the moment in this Parliament - the women who have actually achieved - who have got somewhere - are much better than the vast majority of men.
That is because they have to be so much better to actually get there, and we really have to address this point.
What we also have to do is make it possible for them to get to that position.
You cannot compare the position of men and women in society because first of all women have families, they have commitments; and it is only in countries where proper structures have been put in place that women can participate on an almost equal footing.
That has not happened throughout the European Union, and we have to do something about it.
Madam President, Commissioner, once again we are nearly only women debating this report.
But I must inject a strong note of protest into our joy at discussing many aspects of equality between men and women. If we look at the draft agenda for this part-session, we find no mention of the existence of our debate about women.
The three reports on women are mentioned once right at the end.
If that is what the press and audiovisual services understand by mainstreaming then I must say I have good reason to fear that in the end all that will be left is the mainstream.
The credibility of our Parliament depends on it.
Last Friday I held talks with colleagues from this House.
Women represent 54 % of the staff working in this House.
At first glance this figure seems fine, but if we take a closer look we see that women account for 80 % of category C staff employed in the lower echelons, 40 % of category B staff but only 20 % of category A, where staff hold senior positions, and 0 % of directors-general!
Women MEPs are fairly well represented in Parliament, making up 28 % - I thank Mrs Eriksson, who established this - but it is not enough.
On 13 June Parliament will be re-elected and then we women must be more strongly represented.
We must move closer towards parity.
I am pleased that in my party in Germany, the Social Democratic Party, 44 % of nominations have been for women.
So we are approaching parity here too.
But we simply must ensure that equal opportunities are enshrined in all policy areas, which means that we cannot just look at the gender mainstreaming aspect but need to accompany it with the dual approach, with special measures for women.
We need the fifth action programme and regular checks of the results, especially by the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, otherwise the whole issue will disappear from the agenda and women will no longer play any part in European politics.
Thank you, Madam President, and thank you, Commissioner.
I am very proud to be able to add in a small way today to what our colleagues have said, particularly in my capacity as a member of the Committee on Women's Rights.
We may be surprised that in our society which is based on human rights, we still need to emphasise the need to incorporate equal opportunities for men and women into all Community policies and activities.
I think Mrs Eriksson's report is excellent, but she raises a number of points on several issues.
I hope her questions will be answered.
I should like to mention a further point which I am concerned about.
You will no doubt remember that of the priorities singled out by the hearing in Luxembourg on employment, the fourth and final priority concerned the problem of equality between men and women.
It is not a coincidence that this priority has indeed been put in fourth place in the subsequent National Action Plans, whereas if it had been incorporated into all the other policies, it would have had to be in first place.
Madam President, the EU's policy on equality has been very progressive, but equality has yet to penetrate the thick walls of the European Commission.
You would have to look a long way to find more traditional gender role patterns than those found in the Commission.
The higher you go in the hierarchy, the greater is the male dominance.
Women make up 80 % of the people who carry out secretarial and office work, while men occupy 87 % of the managerial positions.
The Commission maintains that it sets targets and draws up action plans to bring more women into managerial posts.
I would therefore like to ask the Commission, and especially Mrs Gradin, whether it would not be a good idea to introduce positive discrimination for women in managerial posts within the Commission? Positive discrimination should not be used aimlessly and without thinking.
There should always be individual assessment of individual candidates.
But if a man and a woman are equally qualified, the woman could be chosen.
Positive discrimination should not be a permanent solution, but as the situation stands in the Commission at the moment, it is necessary to resort to drastic measures.
Madam President, I welcome Mrs Eriksson's report on mainstreaming.
It sets out some valuable points of view on the Commission's progress report on the incorporation of equality of opportunity between women and men into all EU policies.
We hope that in a few months' time the Amsterdam Treaty will be ratified by all 15 Member States, thereby making equality of opportunity between women and men an overarching goal in our Treaty.
Mainstreaming is an important policy instrument. The point was made most emphatically by the United Nations at the Fourth Women's Conference, where the EU was one of the driving forces behind the principle.
Even more importantly, some progress has been made.
In my view, one of the most significant achievements is that gender equality has been written into some of the common strategies for employment.
It has also been mentioned during our discussion that gender equality should be taken into account in the allocation of Structural Fund resources.
The Commission has now appointed officials within its directorates-general whose remit is to ensure that equality of opportunity is respected in their day-to-day operations.
I can assure Mr Blak that the Commission practises positive action.
When two people with the same qualifications apply for a job, it is given to the member of the under-represented sex.
In my view, it is not just in terms of employment and structural policies that gender equality is an important factor; it must also be incorporated into all the policies that affect the daily lives of women and men.
At the moment we are trying to pursue major initiatives in the health sector, but the same principle also applies in education, science and technology.
A notable example in this respect is of course the communication recently forwarded to Parliament on women in research.
We have already discussed my own particular areas of responsibility, namely the STOP and Daphne programmes, as well as violence against women and children.
Mrs Eriksson, the rapporteur, also raises the issue of gender equality at the decision-making level.
We know from our research that only when one third of decision-makers are women will they have any real influence on decisions.
In its communication on women in science and technology, the Commission has established that the under-represented sex should account for at least 40 % of those working in these fields. The same figure also applies to the proposals concerning advisory committees, evaluation groups and, more importantly, decision-making bodies in the fields of research and technology.
Finally, like the committee, I too am keen to see separate sets of statistics for women and men.
It is particularly important for us to have clear data, so that we can formulate policies that take account of the needs of both women and men.
We are also working on establishing criteria for measuring gender equality and its practical effects.
At the same time I agree with all of you, and Mrs Eriksson too, that a great deal remains to be done in order to ensure that there really is gender equality.
There is no shortage of work in this area for this House, the Commission or the Council of Ministers.
Earlier, someone alleged that my colleague Mr Flynn did not have any women in his office - he has one.
And I can assure you that in my office I have four women and three men.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin - and for setting such a good example.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Equal treatment for men and women
Mr President, Commissioner, following the Kalanke ruling - concerning the gentleman from Bremen whom the European Court of Justice ruled on 17 October 1995 to have fallen victim to discrimination because his female colleague had been promoted rather than himself, based on the state law on equality in the Land Bremen - the Commission submitted on 17 March 1996 a proposal to amend the 1976 directive.
In so doing, it most certainly believed it had done the right thing.
I was then appointed rapporteur on 2 July 1996. I considered that this proposal - which was admittedly well-intentioned - still jeopardised the positive action which we, at least in the Committee on Women's Rights, still consider to be necessary in order to achieve equal treatment and opportunities for women and men, should we want to see this equality before the year 3000.
In agreement with Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights, I decided to await the Court's ruling on another case, that of the Marschall case: again a man, this time from North Rhine-Westphalia, who claimed to have fallen victim to discrimination because his female colleague had been chosen for promotion over him.
In this case, the Court of Justice did not find in favour of Mr Marschall in its ruling of 11 November 1997.
Why not? Did it want to correct what many experts we consulted had referred to as the serious mistake committed in the Kalanke case?
Does the Amsterdam Treaty, which will soon be ratified, have anything to do with it? In fact, the Treaty makes equal opportunity policies a Community task, and expressly stipulates in Article 119 that measures providing for specific advantages with a view to ensuring full equality in practice between men and women are compatible with the principle of equality, and do not therefore constitute discrimination.
In other words, positive discrimination does not discriminate.
Following the Marschall ruling, we considered in consultation with another expert hearing whether the positive action can be preserved without amending the 1976 directive.
Since we know that on the open sea and before judges we are all in God's hands, we took the view on the one hand that in a future case we would not be able to trust the Court because it might completely change direction on this.
On the other hand, we considered that the proposed amendment still jeopardises positive action.
Why?
Certainly, both judgments can be interpreted as meaning that only rigid, inflexible and automatic positive discrimination granting the absolute and unconditional right to appoint or promote women - or men - where they are under-represented would be incompatible with Community law, but even a quota system which does not preclude the assessment of the particular circumstances of an individual case would be compatible with the directive.
This means that, in practice, a woman can be given priority for promotion in the event of equal suitability, competence and professional performance, unless reasons specific to an individual candidate tilt the balance in his favour.
Precisely because the Commission proposed a text to us which stipulates that measures giving preference to a member of the under-represented sex are possible, 'provided that such measures do not preclude the assessment of the particular circumstances of an individual case', we consider that with such a formulation comes the danger that the aim of positive action will be circumvented where reasons specific to an individual candidate are put forward which risk not being interpreted objectively, thus watering down the positive action which, for that matter, increasingly concerns under-represented men.
In my country, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, the number of women primary school teachers and magistrates has already been increased too much, in my humble opinion.
Giving the current situation regarding the Amsterdam Treaty, we take the view that the amendment of the directive proposed in 1996 is inappropriate.
We call on the Commission to withdraw it, but we also urge it to submit a new proposal based on the Amsterdam Treaty. At the same time, we stress the fact that it is no longer necessary to regard positive action as a derogation - which is permitted and can therefore be revoked at any time - from the principle of equal treatment, in order to recognise an individual right only and not a right which has a place in a society seeking to achieve such equality through democratic means.
We no longer dare to question the right to equal treatment and opportunities between men and women as a fundamental right of a democratic society, which demands equal treatment and opportunities that are achieved through a series of active measures, including positive action.
The proposal for a directive which we are hoping for should contain mandatory legal instructions with a view to taking positive action wherever necessary in order to achieve equal treatment and opportunities for men and women and to remedy the under-representation of women in decision making.
Our message is clear, Commissioner: withdraw the proposal to amend the existing directive and draft a new one, taking account of the conclusions of my report which we will be voting on before the draft legislative resolution.
Moreover, before voting on this legislative resolution, we want to see here and now, hic et nunc , the Commission's clear and firm commitment to agree to both these paragraphs in the draft legislative resolution.
Mr President, I welcome this general debate on equal opportunities on International Women's Day.
Women have come a long way this century.
In the 19th century in English law women had no capacity to enter into contracts and were classified along with minors and lunatics.
It was only this century that they were granted equality in divorce law.
In my profession women were forbidden to become solicitors until 1919, and I recently celebrated 75 years of the first woman solicitor in England.
But there is no room for complacency: women still have not achieved equal pay in reality or equal status in very hierarchical job structures.
Mrs Lulling's report looks at the Commission's proposal on positive discrimination following the decision in the European Court of Justice, namely the Kalanke decision, which decreed that positive discrimination was not normally lawful.
Subsequent to the Commission proposal, the Marschall decision was given by the European Court of Justice which qualified the Kalanke decision and said that in certain circumstances positive discrimination could be lawful.
In addition, we need to note the Amsterdam Treaty, which will strengthen equal opportunity rights for women when it has completed its ratification process and comes into effect.
Consequently, I agree with Mrs Lulling's conclusion that the Commission's proposal is not timely and needs to be withdrawn and a new, better proposal needs to be reintroduced when the Amsterdam Treaty comes into effect.
Mr President, let me once again ask you too to persuade the audiovisual services to ensure that the debate on International Women's Day is at least put on record here tomorrow, even if it is not published in advance.
I would say to the Commission: you really will be offering flowers to the women workers of the European Union if you withdraw the proposed amendment to the equal treatment directive.
Women have waged a hard struggle here in the European Parliament, but also in my country, Germany, especially the Social Democrats, to achieve progress in equal treatment legislation.
In Bremen and in North Rhine-Westphalia we had a very progressive ruling, which then suffered a bitter defeat with the European Court of Justice ruling in the Kalanke case.
We had an equal treatment law that emphasised that given applicants with the same qualifications, preference should be given to the under-represented sex, something we have finally also achieved in the Amsterdam Treaty.
A man felt this law discriminated against him.
So he took legal action and won his case at the European Court of Justice.
Fortunately the Marschall ruling mitigated this a little, by specifically stressing the hardship clause in North Rhine-Westphalian law, which allows positive measures to be taken.
The Kalanke ruling had disastrous outside effects.
The fact that the Commission proposed an amended directive following that ruling reflects the same trend.
I was approached by the Korean president of a women's organisation who had examined the effects of the proposed directive in Korea.
The Kalanke ruling was also discussed at many international meetings.
But worst and most frightful of all was the discussion in our Member States, among the regulars in the pubs and bars, where the men all started to feel discriminated against and thought they could invoke the law.
We must ensure that this proposal for an amended directive is withdrawn.
I cordially request you to announce this today.
Mr President, the struggle for equality between men and women has seen some significant successes but has also suffered some bitter setbacks.
The 1995 Kalanke ruling, which found in favour of a man who believed he had been discriminated against because an equally qualified female colleague was given preference over him, belongs in the second category.
The ruling stated that, given identical qualifications, it was an infringement of Community law for female candidates automatically to be given preference.
The Commission amended its directive and argued that a rigid quota system that did not take account of individual circumstances was unlawful, while positive action - for instance flexible quotas - was lawful.
Our Committee on Women's Rights regarded the proposal as a whole as not very useful and warned against any watering down of the directive.
While the Kalanke ruling was a setback, the European Court of Justice's decision in the 1997 Marschall judgment was encouraging.
Laws that give priority to women but also allow individual cases to be assessed and do not exclude men from the outset are absolutely consistent with Community law.
Accordingly, positive action measures must be taken to remove the still considerable inequalities on the labour market and in regard to promotion.
At the time the Commission was waiting for the Court of Justice's judgment and for the negotiations in the run-up to the Amsterdam Treaty.
So it would be consistent for you, Commissioner, to take a similar approach today.
Articles 2 and 3 of the Amsterdam Treaty stipulate that equality between men and women is a task and an aim.
All active policies will pursue that aim in future.
So I would ask you to accept the plea by Astrid Lulling, our as ever pugnacious rapporteur, which the European People's Party will of course approve again.
Withdraw your proposal to amend the directive; it dates from the time after the Kalanke and before the Marschall ruling, so it is certainly old enough!.
A new proposal must respect the evaluation of equal opportunities as a Community task, as it must the specific advantages allowed in Article 119 for the under-represented sex in the Member States of the European Union.
Mr President, Mrs Lulling's report recommends that Parliament should reject the Commission's proposed amendment to the directive implementing the principle of equal treatment of men and women in the field of access to jobs, vocational training and promotion and working conditions.
It argues for it to be rejected since both the hearing which took place and the text of the Treaty on European Union show that the Commission proposal is already outdated. This further drives home the fact that if this directive, which is getting on for a quarter of a century old, is to continue to be justified it will have to be updated so that it can make an effective contribution towards positive measures to combat social discrimination on the grounds of sex.
The rapporteur believes that it is not enough to combat discrimination by means of civil law and insists that the right to equal opportunities must be guaranteed by having social structures designed to achieve that equality in society. We cannot make do with formal and, to some extent, inconsequential statements.
Equal opportunities have, after all, a lot to do with access to the labour market and, regardless of whether or not we agree with the position taken by the rapporteur and the Committee on Women's Rights which has been put before Parliament, it seems highly appropriate to recall - yet again and at the risk of repeating what has already been said about the subject - what day it is today.
For our part, 8 March is extremely significant and this report makes it all the more appropriate to mention it.
8 March was not plucked out of the air but was selected as Women's Day because, in 1857, the seamstresses of New York held a major demonstration to protest against the exaggerated excess (pardon the tautology) of their working hours.
Nearly half a century later it should be pointed out that one of the main demands is a reduction in working hours in keeping with modern living and working conditions while, on the other hand, employment is becoming more precarious. As a result of what is known as atypical work, the working day has virtually become limitless especially for women, who are taking on all kinds of tasks.
Home-working, piecework and contracting out are all, in some way, turning today's textile workers into latter day New York seamstresses. They are now experiencing at very close hand the worsening discrimination in the labour market.
It is therefore with some surprise that we realise that in 1999 we are not so far from 1857.
We could and should have come a very long way from those times.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the present report on implementing the principle of equal treatment for men and women provides a good opportunity for asking some crucial questions about women's policy.
We have two rulings by the European Court of Justice before us, in addition to the proposal to amend the Council's directive.
The Committee on Women's Rights finds that the proposed amendment would water down the directive.
Just as it cannot be right to rectify one injustice by committing another, so it cannot be right to rectify the discrimination against women by discriminating against men.
The very concept of positive discrimination should make us think again.
Positive and discrimination: how can you combine the two? For the word positive must mean removing practical occupational hindrances, obstacles or disadvantages affecting women, such as the shortage of child care facilities or the non-payment of pensions for the years spent in child care.
The strategy of women's policy should not simply be to achieve a numerically fair distribution.
Reverse discrimination in the form of a mechanical preference in fact conflicts with another basic value, namely the equal treatment of every individual.
Mr President, on this International Women's Day, I would ask Mrs Gradin, who has already been so helpful on women's issues, to give Europe's women a special little present by withdrawing this proposal for a Commission directive, as other Members too have urged her to do.
I fully appreciate that the Commission was trying with this proposal to resolve the uncertainty which has existed since the Kalanke judgment and which in my view the Marschall judgment did nothing to dispel.
We are quite convinced that the proposal now before us will just make things more chaotic still.
The fact is that the individual power of assessment in recruitment and promotion envisaged in the text will in our view trigger huge numbers of lawsuits in which men invoke individual exemptions to the positive actions rule.
We are convinced that escalating numbers of lawsuits like this will weaken the action taken by Member States which have strong legislation on positive action and which apply quotas - not positive discrimination but positive action - in favour of equally well qualified women. This legislation may be undermined.
We have a basic problem in Europe, namely that European law has always regarded positive action as the absolute exception to the individual's right to equal treatment.
All of us in this Chamber know that the position of men and women is very different in employment, in education, in the family, in society, not because one sex is worth less than the other, but because society remains fundamentally male-oriented and thus inherently discriminates against women.
My conclusion from that is that equal treatment alone cannot get rid of inequality.
On the contrary, equal treatment reinforces inequality.
So our view is that this Commission proposal does not provide the answer.
As other speakers have already said, the Amsterdam Treaty will help the Union a great deal, because it commits the Union to taking active measures against discrimination and at the same time to taking active measures to promote equality.
So that means not just the mainstreaming we were looking at just now in Marianne Eriksson's report, but positive action too.
So once again I join other Members in asking the Commission to withdraw this proposal and come up with a new and stronger one.
This really would be the best present the Commissioner could give Europe's women on this International Women's Day, but you could do something else as well.
I had a phone call from Bosnia-Herzegovina recently.
Elections are due there very soon.
There used to be quotas for women on the list in Bosnia-Herzegovina, although it was not a statutory requirement.
It now looks as if these quotas may be scrapped, and Bosnia's women are looking expectantly to Europe for help.
It really would be terrible to see a retrograde step being taken here.
Mr President, as far as women's rights are concerned, we obviously keep taking one step forward and two steps back.
In regard to equal opportunities for women the Amsterdam Treaty may be one step forward, but the European Court of Justice ruling in the Kalanke case and the Commission proposal to amend Directive 76/207/EEC represent two steps back.
Women today are better educated and more mobile than ever and the number of women in employment is rising.
But there is a definite shortage of women in the higher echelons of politics, industry and science.
That is not because women are less qualified or less intelligent but because of the glass ceiling, an unseen barrier set up consciously or unconsciously by a traditionally male-dominated ruling class.
So why the Commission has replaced the term 'women's opportunities' with the term 'under-represented sex' is beyond me.
We should not adopt a directive that falls short of the Amsterdam Treaty and thereby undermines women's opportunities to occupy a position in society consistent with their qualifications, especially now that the European Parliament and the Vienna Council have taken up the equal opportunities cause.
The Amsterdam Treaty represents progress along the road to equal opportunities.
It must be implemented and not watered down.
So the Lulling report and the request to the Commission to withdraw its amended proposal for a directive make sense.
Mr President, in an ideal world positive discrimination should not be necessary but, unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world.
While some people may say that it is not the right approach, it is the only way we are going to get any sort of progress for women.
As you can see, even in the electoral process in Member States positive discrimination is the only way to get women elected to national parliaments and to the European Parliament.
It means that men and the policy-makers are going to have to look at the way society is structured.
As society stands in the vast majority of Member States, it does not favour the participation of women in the workforce.
It is important for women who have not been in the workforce before to get access to it.
Even the way the programmes have been set up in Member States does not take account of the fact that these women were in the unofficial workforce and were contributing to society in their role as carers etc.
They are now being prevented from joining the workforce because they do not have a track record.
Even in training programmes this is not taken into account.
The only way we are going to move forward is if we put in place measures which some people may feel discriminate against men.
Unfortunately, society has discriminated against women for centuries and the only way we are going to move forward is if we put in place some sort of structure that ensures that women actually get into decision-making and into the workforce.
When we eventually have true equality there will be no need for positive discrimination.
The report by Mrs Lulling already has a long history.
After the Kalenke judgment in 1995, the Commission proposed to amend Directive 207/EEC of 1976.
This proposal was submitted to the Council at the end of March 1996.
Since then the Committee on Women's Rights has worked long and hard on that proposal.
In Mrs Lulling's report the Commission is now asked to withdraw its proposal.
That is also what all of you have been talking about.
As you know, my colleague Commissioner Flynn appeared before the Women's Rights Committee on 16 February and clearly stated his position.
His intention is to propose to withdraw the proposal as requested by Parliament.
On the same occasion Commissioner Flynn announced his intention concerning use of the new legislative powers given to the Community.
The aim is to adopt measures in order to ensure full equality or treatment between women and men in the field of employment, and these two issues are linked.
The ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty will hopefully be complete within a few months.
We will then have a Treaty which confers a new legal base, Article 141(3), for legislating equal treatment between women and men in the field of employment.
I can confirm to you that we are looking very actively and positively at the question of legislating under Article 141.
We are doing so with a very open mind.
There are legal questions on several aspects of the Article, particularly as regards its scope.
The Commission is therefore taking legal advice.
In the light of this advice we will then decide the content of a proposal for a directive based on Article 141.
I believe this statement should answer Parliament's question and indicate the Commission's willingness to make use of Article 141 in a general positive action.
Finally, let me once again thank the Women's Rights Committee and Mrs Lulling for their work on this important issue.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Closing of the session
I declare the 1998-1999 session of the European Parliament closed.
The sitting was closed at 8.35 p.m.
1999 Annual Economic Report
The next item is the report (A4-0102/99) by Mr Fourçans, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, 'The EU economy at the arrival of the euro: promoting growth, employment and stability' (1999 annual economic report) (COM(99)0007 - C4-0043/99).
Mr President, the aims of the report I am presenting today, on the basis of the Commission's report, are twofold. First, it aims to analyse the economic situation and then, more importantly, it aims to put forward some guidelines for economic policy which should serve as a basis for the famous broad outlines of economic policy.
First, I will look briefly at the economic situation.
It is no secret to anyone that growth is set to decrease in 1999, however it will still remain above 2 %.
So, it will slow down, but - it must be stressed - there will not be a recession.
The international crisis has, and will have, an impact on our economies, but the extent of the impact will vary according to country.
As a consequence, the internal measures that need to be taken must be adapted to the specific situations in the respective countries.
This means that the interdependency of countries needs more analysis, especially now that we have a single currency, at least in the euro zone.
And in this regard, Commissioner, although we think your report is good, it did not go far enough and should have gone into more detail on the interdependency of countries.
That will be a task for you and I next year, Commissioner.
What conclusions can be drawn from this situation in terms of economic policy?
Should we shift the emphasis away from budgetary consolidation, or even amend the stability pact?
Should interest rates be dropped to stimulate demand, as those to the left of you, in this room at least, Mr President, tend to favour? Or should we pursue the strategy adopted over the past months and years, as those to your right seem to advocate, Mr President?
We believe that the second strategy is the best, as indicated by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in its vote on 24 February.
This does not mean - and we must be clear on this - that a good policy mix is not needed or that macro-economic policy is of no importance, because they clearly are.
But to revert to old Keynesian recipes that have already shown their limitations would, in our view, be a mistake.
We agree with you, Commissioner, that we must continue to reduce budget deficits, especially in the three larger countries - Germany, France and Italy - which alone, it must be stressed, account for 75 % of GDP in the euro zone.
This policy must be implemented without increasing taxes and other levies; indeed, where possible, these should be reduced.
What is more, if public investment is to be increased, as we hope, at least in terms of human resources and research, it will be impossible to implement this policy without reorganising public spending.
Budgetary consolidation is also needed, firstly, to maintain low interest rates, which stimulate overall demand, and secondly, to maintain consumer and investor confidence, which also stimulate overall demand, and I would emphasise this for the ladies and gentlemen to the right of me in the House.
I would now like to look at monetary policy and the question of whether or not the ECB should lower interest rates.
As I said before, in 1999, there will be a slowing down, but there will not be a recession, which is something that must be borne in mind when considering this issue.
Are we experiencing deflation as some claim? In my view, the statistics show that we are not.
The inflation rate appears to have stabilised at around 1 % and the price of raw materials and energy have dropped.
Who says that these decreases are going to last? That said, we must be extremely vigilant and, if it ever looked like we were going to fall back into deflation, then the ECB should lower interest rates.
But we have not reached that stage yet.
To conclude this section on the policy mix, I should like to stress that wage negotiations must remain reasonable and workers' purchasing power should increase more or less in line with productivity gains.
And in this context, workers' purchasing power would increase, which, ladies and gentlemen, would also help to stimulate overall demand.
It is therefore evident that a sound macro-economic policy is needed to guarantee growth and employment, but it is only through far-reaching structural reforms that unemployment will decrease in the long term.
I will not go into this issue as it will be dealt with in more depth in the forthcoming report on the broad guidelines of economic policy.
In short, the labour market must be reformed, which means reducing labour costs, especially for the most impoverished, and making the market more flexible. The poorer sections of our society must also have the chance to integrate better.
We also need to reform the goods and services markets as well as the financial markets. Such reforms have to form part of coherent whole, in line with macro-economic policy, so that all measures benefit everyone.
So, ladies and gentlemen, this is the context of the report I am proposing.
It suggests a sound macro-economic policy and a sound policy mix accompanied by thorough and coherent structural reforms, all based on long-term rather than short-term projections, or on the fine tuning that one might use were it possible to regulate the economy like an atomic clock to within a millionth of a second.
We are well aware that the economy does not operate in this way and if we forget that, we might be seriously disillusioned.
I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that we do not become disillusioned in that way.
Applause
Mr President, first of all let me congratulate Mr Fourçans on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on a highly commendable report.
We are pleased that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy has adopted some important points from our opinion.
In the context of a single monetary policy under an independent central bank, economic policies in the Member States will have to be more closely coordinated than ever before.
However, the call expressed in Amendment No 19 for the abolition of the stability pact does not reflect the views of our committee.
What we are calling for is a balanced policy, which implies a stable currency and effective budgetary consolidation as well as the need to ensure adequate purchasing power.
Like the Economic Affairs Committee, we are in favour of a productivity-based pay policy.
If pay restraint leads to increases in profits and investments, a word of gratitude is scant reward for the staff who have exercised such restraint.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs believes that they should be able to share in profits and capital through voluntary schemes.
As an antidote to unemployment, we also recommend the promotion of business start-ups and the provision of venture capital, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, the development of new services and greater adaptability on the part of companies; at the same time, steps must be taken throughout Europe to safeguard employee participation, to ensure that staff are informed and consulted about structural changes at an early stage, thereby guaranteeing them the opportunity to prepare themselves in good time.
What we ultimately need is an active, forward-looking employment policy, a modern form of vocational training for youngsters in Europe, improved opportunities for retraining, for lifelong learning and for research and development, investments in human capital by companies and Member States and through European programmes.
That will enhance both the social dimension and Europe's competitiveness in the world market.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Fourçans on what I see as an improved attempt at presenting the Commission's annual economic report.
I say 'an improved attempt' because I see the report itself as being unimaginative - unimaginative in terms of how we can improve on projected growth figures; unimaginative in terms of recognising that we are constantly having to revise the growth figures and we do not really know what to do in terms of trying to increase employment, growth and investment in Europe; unimaginative because, whilst it accepts that we have relatively high unemployment in Europe, it does little other than to accept the fact that jobs are being created but are also being lost.
The level of unemployment in Europe at the moment is the same as when I was elected to this Parliament four-and-a-half years ago, and that speaks volumes.
We cannot blame the world situation for everything that is wrong with the European economy.
We accept that 20 % of the world is in recession; we accept that 10 % is close to recession.
But the benefits of the European Union and of the single market should mean that we can still create jobs satisfactorily despite what is happening outside the European Union borders.
The report itself states that EMU is itself a protection.
EMU has not been a protection.
In my view the single market on its own has been a protection.
The fact that most of our trade is internal has been a protection.
The convergence criteria have helped, of course, and we have managed to maintain some investment as a result of consolidated budgetary and fiscal policies.
But the euro is not here, it is on trial and it is not necessarily a solution to Europe's economic problems.
That is why I think this is a failing of the annual economic report because what we need to do is look at how we can generate policies to generate jobs.
The report itself states that the European economy is now used to functioning with an inadequate level of employment.
Try saying that to the thousands of people, certainly in my constituency, and the millions of people across the European Union who are unemployed.
'Inadequate' is not a satisfactory term.
We have a bad international situation and again the report mentions the prospects of the Union having an adequate policy mix.
Adequate and inadequate, in my view, are not particularly appropriate terms to use.
My concern, in terms of policy and responsibilities, is that the Commission has failed to use the annual economic report as a stimulus for action and as an input into the broad economic guidelines.
Stability and growth pacts are important but public investment should not be included in those figures.
We need more private investment, more jobs, more productivity and more sustained growth.
The ECB has a role but it is not just the ECB, it is the Council, the Commission and Parliament working together.
We need a coordinated response. The annual economic report does not call for one.
Mr President, it has often been said that the arrival of the euro is the most important event since the storming of the Winter Palace. This is true in many respects, and is all the more true in relation to what we are debating here today.
In this new world, the Member States' national policies are shaped by three sets of guidelines: the broad macro-economic guidelines, the guidelines on employment, in accordance with the Luxembourg process, and the reports on structural policy that were approved at Cardiff I and Cardiff II.
But these three sets of guidelines are formed, predetermined and limited by the basic principles that gave rise to the process of European integration.
There is the principle of the single market according to which the existence of a single currency permanently rules out the option of adjusting economies by devaluing currencies. There is the principle of a single centralised monetary policy which is managed by an independent Central Bank.
And lastly, there is the principle of a restrictive budgetary policy, where austerity is 'consecrated', to use the biblical term, as a virtue. Therefore, these guidelines are extremely important for Europe as a whole and for each one of the Member States involved, particularly as national policy is being questioned in some of the larger countries.
Over the past few days we have heard statements from representatives of the German Government concluding that the crisis we are currently experiencing is a crisis of demand and a crisis of price stability. In their eyes, these are two important new ideas that rule out the possibility that structural reform might be the appropriate remedy, as had always been claimed in the past.
According to the German Government, this remedy harks back to old Keynesian recipes that we thought had been confined to memory following the 1973 crisis.
A drop in interest rates is being considered on the other side of the Rhine, as an attempt to influence the European Central Bank, and the stability pact itself is being called into question.
In our opinion, we must follow exactly the opposite policy and this will probably be the central debate in the European elections.
What the German Government is not telling us is that many of its internal problems are due to an increase in German salaries that exceeds productivity. They are also due to a certain contentment and somewhat of a return to the days of wine and roses in budgetary policy.
When stability has been achieved, the benefits are clear, at least in my country.
We must address the question of structural reform in order to solve the only problem that really interests us all: unemployment.
Mr President, I agree with the point that Mr Hendrick made, which is that we have been sitting here in Parliament for four years now, and unemployment is just as high as when we arrived.
The White Paper on growth and competitiveness has been on the agenda many times and we have always said that it must be implemented, yet no progress has been made.
In fact we have gone backwards.
I would like to highlight one of the aspects that other speakers have mentioned, which is the conservative attitude adopted by some countries.
If we think about the mobility of labour, for example, and the opportunities for firms to operate across borders, we have to say that more obstacles are being created than removed.
I recently found out that the German Government imposes extra taxes on workers from companies doing contract work there.
I think this is scandalous, and the Commission should put an end to these sorts of practices.
Apart from that, the Member States are perfectly accustomed to using social security and taxation to make it unattractive for people to work in other countries.
If we look at countries like America, where the employment situation is much better than here, we can see that the mobility of labour contributes a great deal to the level of prosperity.
Another subject I would like to raise is venture capital, which is something I have often talked about.
This week we approved a report on this issue without debate, but venture capital can give an enormous boost to small firms which are just starting up.
The insurance companies and pension funds have huge reserves, for example, but in my view these are not being used appropriately because we do not yet have the rules we need in this field.
I would urge that these issues should be given close attention in the context of the employment guidelines.
Mr President, the approach adopted by the rapporteur to the Commission's 1999 annual economic report is comprehensive and also sensible.
The report covers a wide range of issues and makes some very important statements.
In particular, I want to welcome the recognition given to the Irish Government policy towards wage developments.
The Commission states, and I quote: 'Member countries might learn from the positive experience of a number of Member States, especially Ireland and the Netherlands, where continued moderate wage increases over more than a decade have contributed importantly to improved unemployment outcomes.
Both of these countries have also in common that the appropriate wage behaviour was underpinned by tripartite consensus-based wage agreements and was accompanied by a reduction in the tax burden on labour.'
My fear is that the Socialist-dominated governments of Europe are hell-bent on harmonising taxes, on raising tax levels and finding new ways of penalising industry and entrepreneurship.
We want lower taxes, not higher taxes, and we want an atmosphere conducive to economic investment and the creation of jobs.
There is still an enormous and hugely costly infrastructure imbalance in my country.
Nowhere in my constituency on the periphery of Europe is there a semblance of M1-type motorways linking any of the regions.
This stifles economic and business growth and opportunity.
Nor have we any direct motorway link with continental Europe.
We do not want to penalise these people for using the structural funds wisely and openly.
Our infrastructural work is far from finished.
Regionalisation is essential for my country; anything less would set us back decades and run counter to Treaty objectives.
I welcome President Santer's support for the cohesion fund.
The Agenda 2000 proposals fly in the face of Article 104c of the Treaty which the Commission's annual report itself highlights.
Under this article Member States in the euro area must avoid excessive government deficits, and that I support.
Under the stability and growth pact budget deficits must be limited to a maximum of 3 % of GDP in normal circumstances, with the possibility of sanctions, including fines, for Member States breaching this limit.
I am pleased that cofinancing of the agricultural payments is a non-runner.
This would have led to renationalisation and the dismantling of CAP.
Slashing structural fund payments to Ireland, which we have used well, and should not be penalised for having used well, would immediately bring about huge pressure on the national budget and create deficits, leading to fines that would obviously exacerbate economic difficulties.
I urge a re-think and a special case to be made for my country.
Mr President, Commissioner, Parliament's examination of the annual economic report presented by the Commission should be an ideal moment for discussing the main economic policies, for assessing those already pursued and for defining options for the future on the basis of that assessment.
It should also - when the circumstances so demand it - be a time for a serious reconsideration of the approach taken and, on this score, the Fourçans report offers some lucid diagnoses.
However, despite its technical merits, it is not a satisfactory report because it does nothing to throw light upon the approach or the guidelines that have been followed so far.
We shall not dwell upon the already well-known points of disagreement between us concerning neo-liberalism and excessive budgetary restraint, but we should like to highlight another aspect: the way in which the labour market works continually against the workers' interests and treats them as though they were the cause of all our ills.
Slimming down enterprises - which means more unemployment - and wage restraint: the Fourçans report reflects the economic point of view here, neglecting the social aspects and thus merely making the situation worse.
For our part, as well as sitting in the Committee on Economic Affairs where the report was seen as highly controversial and only passed by a wafer-thin majority, we have tabled amendments that we would like to see approved, not because they change the report or do anything radically to alter its macro-economic approach but because they would at least alleviate some of its harmful effects.
In particular we must:
try and find ways of reducing working hours without any loss of pay, as a way of fighting unemployment, -devise a budgetary policy that stimulates growth and employment, while guaranteeing support for SMEs in particular, -bear in mind the importance of the Structural Funds and the trans-European networks as a way of promoting state investment in infrastructure and improving the skills of the labour force, -introduce a tax on speculative capital movements, making an effective contribution to stability through monetary stabilisation machinery or funds, -last but not least, break with the dogma of the stability pact; it should be replaced by another approach or even a growth and employment pact.
Mr President, oh yes, they want to continue as before without realising that we have already reached the outer limits of pure supply-side economics.
What basically needs to be strengthened is the demand element - purchasing power and domestic demand.
This implies that regional policy must be taken as the starting-point, and strengthening the regions really means creating genuine stability.
We cannot create stability by means of an export-led economy; we have been trying to do that, and it has not worked.
What basically happens during a cyclical downturn is that our potential is underestimated. And we do have potential: growth potential and employment potential in a whole range of new technological developments - in environmental technology and in the increasingly efficient use of energy.
Such potential is simply not being used because it is unconventional, because it is new.
Secondly, there is a lack of courage to admit mistakes, to appreciate that international financial crises would be manageable, that action could be taken to prevent them and that they could be averted, if those involved in the formulation of external trade policy were to recognise that economic and social policy need to be coordinated.
That relates not only to the EU, but also to the policy of the IMF.
We can see it in the Albanian crisis, for example, and we have seen what happened in Bulgaria.
One of the root causes of such problems is that the IMF takes absolutely no account of important social criteria in countries undergoing transformation processes.
In this context, may I also say that we can certainly take decisive action to curb currency speculation, which is also a destabilising factor, by showing some long-overdue willingness to introduce the Tobin tax.
It is a stabilising tax, and the stability it created would not only benefit countries in other parts of the world but would also bring stability for us in turn.
For that reason, all I can say to you is that we must introduce another approach here, and at this time I can only appeal to you to incorporate our amendments into the report so that it will contain at least some new ideas and provide a new perspective, thereby clearly signalling to all observers that we really do want more jobs.
Madam President, Commissioner, the euro creates a de facto economic solidarity among eleven of our countries.
However, this does not mean it will eliminate as if by magic the considerable structural disparities that exist within the Union, making it particularly vulnerable to asymmetric shocks which could cause national self-interest and nationalist tendencies to flare up at any time.
This is particularly evident when there is an uncertain global environment and repeated financial crises in most regions of the world.
The individual responses of our governments have been to try to counteract local economic vulnerabilities while broadly coordinating over recent years only their general economic and budgetary objectives.
This is clearly not enough.
We now need to tackle, in a transparent manner, the comprehensive coordination of both social and fiscal objectives, since these two facets of the organisation of European society are the two major means of adjusting our activities.
They create sources of tension between our economies that can seriously exacerbate the impact of the asymmetric shocks that destroy our cohesion.
However, in the context of these common social and fiscal objectives, there can be no question of limiting governments' ability to respond autonomously, just as large companies are nowadays well aware that giving their various units a considerable degree of autonomy makes them better able to respond to day-to-day developments.
It is important to work steadily towards the long-term general coordination of social and fiscal objectives in order to bring vitality to European democracy, although these objectives are extremely difficult to meet as it is. However in addition to this, should we also develop a public investment programme, as the rapporteur suggests?
Since President Delors' proposals, which were put forward some time ago, this has been essential, particularly to improve the major infrastructures for transporting goods, people and information, which, in the future, will considerably help to structure, develop and define the European area.
But the most pressing need is still to strengthen risk investment funds.
Subject to these remarks, we will support the main thrust of the Fourçans report. However, we have to criticise the Commission's economic report for lacking vision.
Madam President, the annual economic report confirms that the introduction of the euro has come at a time when the economies of the Member States are far too divergent.
To deal with this problem, it is proposed that the EU should introduce a new culture for - or, in simpler terms - a harmonisation of, fiscal, monetary and wages policy and a reform of the labour market.
Public deficits are to be reduced without increasing taxes or other charges.
In fact, these are also to be reduced.
That means, for Denmark at least, that we would have to cut tax-financed welfare benefits.
This new so-called culture is very much in line with what the German Presidency says about the euro not being first and foremost an economic instrument, but rather a political instrument which transfers one of the most important areas of the nation state's self-determination to the Union.
The recommendations to reduce the budget deficit and to increase public investment are directly contradictory.
The Economic Council of the Labour Movement in Denmark has pointed out that it is precisely the reduction in the deficit that has halved investment in Denmark.
It is also clearly the reason for the record high level of unemployment in the EU.
The June Movement cannot abolish the euro, but we are voting against the report.
Madam President, the rapporteur rightly highlighted several points which are regularly censured by the single European thinking.
For example, recitals C and F, on the asymmetric shocks that threaten the euro zone, highlight a genuine problem for the future.
In recital I, the rapporteur rightly denounces the persistently high unemployment rate, and in paragraphs 21 and 23 he criticises the public deficits and the heavy burdens of tax and other levies in Europe.
In paragraphs 28 and 41, he stresses the need to reduce labour costs through the reduction of taxes if we want unemployment to fall.
Paragraphs 44 and 49 mention possible deflation and slowing of growth and point out that growth forecasts in Europe have been revised and lowered.
In paragraph 48, he rightly calls for the study of varied economic policy scenarios to give a better understanding of how the economic situation is developing.
We actually agree with all these assessments but regret that the rapporteur was not prepared -evidently for political reasons - to admit that the majority of the errors criticised in the economic analysis in fact stem from one ideology, the socialist ideology which currently dominates Western Europe.
This ideology is responsible, in particular, for the high taxes and other levies we pay, for public deficits and for unemployment.
All of this is, to a large extent, linked to the climate of despondency which is crushing the spirit of enterprise in Europe, quite the opposite of what is happening, for example, among our great American competitors.
Therefore, the economic criticism in the Fourçans report must be accompanied by political criticism; without it, we will not find any better way of combating the continuing unemployment.
Madam President, in the annual economic report, which should be seen in conjunction with the basic principles of the Union's economic policy, we have been focusing time and again since 1994 on the question of whether we are actually doing everything possible at European level to combat unemployment and to stimulate investment and growth.
We have to conclude that in the past, old recipes have always formed the basis of EU policy and that there is a real need for us to break new ground.
We need to break new ground if we are ever to achieve full employment and the sort of growth that will sustain such a level of employment.
It is a fallacy to imagine that the causes of unemployment are purely structural, because one of our particular problems in the European Union is the way in which cyclically induced unemployment has very quickly hardened into structural unemployment.
That is why every effort must be made to kick-start the engine of growth, which is our only hope of reversing this unemployment spiral.
As an economic region, Europe has problems.
It must therefore launch a kind of action plan. The annual economic report represents an excellent basis for that.
It would also do nothing but good if the Commission were to come round at long last to the idea of inviting independent experts to express their views on the state of the EU economy, as is done as a matter of course in many Member States, to give us more food for thought and thus enable us to develop even better proposals, because we certainly must develop proposals.
The Commission is now rightly saying, as the European Parliament has said for the past two years, that the European Union will not be spared the effects of crises in other parts of the world like some tranquil island enjoying peace and stability in the midst of a storm-tossed sea.
On the contrary, we in the European Union must take action, and we can only take action if the various players are finally brought around the table with a view to creating favourable macro-economic conditions in the European Union and above all to coordinating their policies.
Policy coordination, after all, is part of the magic formula that has produced growth, investment and employment in the United States.
The important thing for us now is to find out why the growth process is stagnating again, even though our inflation is at historically low rates and we are practically starting to pen its obituary.
We must ask ourselves why further economic development within a favourable supply-side framework has done little to stimulate the private sector and why investments are not being made.
That is really the central problem for us. That is where we undoubtedly need coordination between the various players.
Above all, I believe that, alongside our very responsible trade unions, we need a monetary policy which can begin at long last to serve the purpose assigned to it in Article 105, as amended by the Maastricht Treaty.
Only then will it be possible to pursue additional new paths and to implement successfully new infrastructure projects in the European Union.
We need to engage the help of everyone who operates in this field, not just the finance ministers.
We need those who formulate monetary policies, we need management and labour, and we also need a bold approach at long last from the Commission and the Council if we are to achieve the modernisation of our infrastructure policy and the creation of a public-private partnership to provide investments that will effectively generate employment.
Madam President, the Commission's annual economic report is a valuable document which covers the European Union's economic activity in an international context. What the Fourçans report does, very well and effectively, is to look at the economy dynamically and to adopt some political positions, which is useful and also beneficial.
I wish to make a remark about the comments on the introduction of the euro at the beginning of this year.
I was expecting a rather more in-depth analysis, but of course as the report was published on 20 January, it was not then possible for it to adopt a position.
Nevertheless, Madam President, I believe we need to give this subject a good deal more thought. I think that we cannot treat monetary stability as an end in itself, although no one should ignore its importance.
Monetary stability is part of a more general policy, and experience has shown that whenever we adopt an economic policy - and, even more so, a monetary policy - which has a single objective, ignoring consequences elsewhere in the economy, the results are not very good.
The dynamic element is essential, therefore, and we must abandon the very sterile fixation with mechanistic approaches to economic phenomena and explore how a policy mix can reflect dynamic factors.
If we do not do this, I very much fear that we shall be vulnerable to the political sirens who advocate solutions which, flying in the face of experience, persist in tackling classic structural economic problems by anticyclical methods.
I do not believe that a reduction of a quarter of one per cent in the interest rate will be enough to alter the course of the economy in Europe.
I do not think that attempting to solve economic issues which are purely internal to one particular economy by trying to establish a corresponding scenario at European level is particularly constructive.
That is why I think we need to see how the euro can be used as a proper instrument for economic growth.
We must not let it lose its value and, above all, we must not try to use it to solve other problems on a temporary basis, without reflecting on the long-term objective which, in the final analysis, is what we must all aim for. We all know that the problem of unemployment, which is the main problem in the European economy, cannot be solved by using ad hoc and purely short-term anticyclical measures: what we need is a very far-reaching structural approach.
Madam President, Commissioner, I should like to thank the Commission for its very lucid report and Mr Fourçans for his comments on it.
I think that now that we are operating in the euro framework for the very first time, it is natural that we should discuss this issue at length, albeit under rather unusual circumstances.
Mr Hendrick pointed out that in the last few years the biggest problem facing us in the European Union, unemployment, has not improved.
This is hardly surprising, particularly when you realise that we have spent the last 18 months under Socialist presidencies.
The ideas put forward by the current presidency, among others - Mr Lafontaine's calls for more government investment, a more Keynesian approach, and less focus on what we have agreed about the stability pact and other issues - leave us Liberals completely cold.
It is a fact, as we can see from the Commission's analysis and Mr Fourçans's comments on it, that those countries which in the last few years have made the best of their economic growth, taken structural measures and reduced their budget deficits have been successful both on the employment front and in reducing national debt, and have put themselves in a position to be successful in the future.
So we feel - and this is a question I would like to put to the Commissioner - that the measures under the convergence programmes of the three largest countries at the moment are not enough.
They are too optimistic.
If we are to discuss global economic guidelines shortly, the national governments - and perhaps the Commission could tell us how it intends to encourage them to do so - need to ensure that they come up with structural plans to make employers, workers and governments face up to their responsibilities and decide on a plan together, rather than having it imposed on them by the government.
Madam President, there is a naive belief that the euro will deliver us from all our economic problems.
It is time to awaken from these illusions.
We know that the euro is falling, the rate is too high. The euro is falling against the dollar; it is even down against the lowly Swedish krona, which is quite remarkable.
Financial investors are giving up the euro in favour of the dollar. It is therefore necessary to stabilise the euro at a lower level.
Why is all this happening? To begin with, because the restrictions imposed on the Member States are preventing governments from pursuing an active economic policy and an assertive policy for growth and employment.
Secondly, because there is a power split where economic policy is concerned between a central bank which is entirely unaccountable and not subject to any democratic scrutiny on the one hand and the governments on the other.
This split is making it difficult to pursue a systematic and cohesive policy.
Thirdly, because the demands for harmonisation of the economic policies of different countries are mistaken.
As the economies and structures of the countries are different, they must be able to vary their policy if they are to achieve the same common objectives.
If on the other hand they are forced to pursue the same policy despite their differences, divergence will increase and in practice the result will be instability.
Convergence in policy is leading to inconsistency in the economy. Variation in economic policy, on the other hand, can lead eventually to real convergence between economies.
Experience has shown that all systems with fixed exchange rates, or large systems with the same currency, sooner or later get into a crisis.
That was what happened in 1931, and that was how it was in 1992.
What we need is monetary cooperation with flexible exchange rates which can fend off the adverse effects of economic change in an orderly, agreed manner.
We need that in combination with an active economic policy in the hands of the governments and effective control over movements of finance capital.
Madam President, there is nothing new under the sun.
Even now that we have the euro, growth, employment and stability are still being quoted as the main aims of economic policy.
I entirely agree with this, but I was surprised to hear a very significant comment that is decidedly incompatible with it: that the structure and operation of the European economy have been fundamentally changed by the convergence process.
If that were true, then all this talk about the problem of high unemployment would not be necessary.
Promoting employment was already the aim when the single market was created in 1992.
Nothing new there, then.
Nor can we expect EMU to solve the problem.
The generic approach of coordinating policies, which the Commission seems to regard as a magic economic cure-all, will not work.
The causes of unemployment are structural, and solutions must be found specifically at regional level.
The current international financial crisis is showing up EMU's weak points, and it is striking that it is the three main EMU countries that are in trouble and are fighting for breath in the EMU strait-jacket.
Anyone who finds this surprising should read the Minutes from the May 1998 part-session, when it was already clear that France and Italy did not meet the EMU criteria in structural terms.
The Commission is right to call for structural reforms and wage restraint to continue, but it is rather too late in the day for that.
This too is nothing new.
I broadly agree with the resolution as it stands, but we cannot accept any of the 22 amendments that have been tabled.
I hope that Parliament rejects them all.
Madam President, the report we are discussing today is a very important one, because the actual issue here is to establish in advance what will subsequently be the approach of the Community, the union of our peoples, to future development.
There is no doubt that, after an initial period of euphoria, the introduction of the euro has caused us to think long and hard. And that process of reflection has also been prompted by the fact that the development we would have predicted has not materialised - the kind of development that would be part of the natural order of things among our peoples because of their distinctive traditions of activity.
But in order to reach this stage, we have had to adopt policies of restraint and they have had a negative impact on employment.
And so, from now on, the efforts of governments, economies and, consequently, the business community and the workforce must focus on relaunching the kind of process that will give us economic development and, as a result, boost employment.
We Europeans take great pride in our traditions; we believe in the free market, but we feel that we must safeguard the special features of our economic system, which is not the kind of absolutely ruthless system that exercises freedom in a way that may sometimes have the effect of carelessly marginalising the more vulnerable within our society.
Ours is a tradition of development that respects the conditions within society and, therefore, the needs of all: it is a balanced form of development which may perhaps seem slower in the initial stages but produces the right outcome in the end.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Annual Economic Report has evidently taken on greater significance since the creation of the euro zone.
It provides the means for defining action plans at European level as everyone is aware that significant growth is needed to solve the problem of unemployment.
However, exactly how a European growth policy should be implemented remains to be seen.
In this regard, I think that Mr Fourçans' report, which is a good report, should be completed with a number of amendments we wisely tabled.
First, we need to develop both public and private investment. In short, we need to finally set in motion the grand plans we have spent so long talking about.
Perhaps we will have to review our original list and shift the emphasis on to new sectors such as communication technologies, low-cost housing and urban transport, which are factors that promote both growth and job creation.
Perhaps we will also have to consider structural reforms.
These are only possible if our economies are growing, so it is not enough to simply talk in terms of structural reforms to solve employment issues without also considering growth.
In order for this growth to develop, we will clearly have to implement a new fiscal policy and Mr Fourçans' report quite rightly included some of our amendments on reduced VAT rates.
This is a step in the right direction as it will mean greater tax harmonisation beyond the present situation in the European Union, with respect for a particular code.
If we were to introduce tax harmonisation solely to reduce national budgets' room for manoeuvre, we would not succeed in the fight against unemployment.
Taxation needs to be readjusted in favour of labour.
Monetary policy also needs to be redeveloped, as proposed in some of the amendments tabled by my group.
We fully understand the present situation, in which the authority and the legitimacy of the Central Bank is being consolidated. It is a new institution and, as such, needs time to make its mark, but at the same time we need to remain as consistent as possible with the Treaty.
Indeed, the Treaty states that once price stability has been achieved, monetary policy must be instrumental in achieving the other main aims of the Union, including, of course, employment.
As far as tools are concerned, Madam President, I should just briefly like to reiterate the need for a coordinated approach to both the broad political and economic guidelines and the employment guidelines.
To achieve this, we need to take a closer look at the role played by social dialogue, while ensuring that the importance of coordination between the Councils and between the Union's various policies is not overlooked.
The last point I should like to make is that we would have liked to have seen greater consideration given to the various possible economic scenarios in the Annual Economic Report this year.
I hope that the House will accept some of the amendments we tabled, so that my group can accept Mr Fourçans' report.
Mr President, faced with unemployment with a structural component of about 80 %, it seems logical to call for structural reforms, despite what Mrs Randzio-Plath might say to the contrary.
However, we must not be naive; the problem is essentially a political one.
In order to reach a position of power these days, it does not pay to advocate structural policy.
Those who have done so have all been ousted, while those who have come to power have promised easy solutions.
This is what we are seeing today.
It is much easier to lower interest rates, increase public spending and neglect the more difficult issues such as training the workforce, reducing labour costs, etcetera.
So in spite of what Mr Katiforis might say, the disagreements among us are not of an economic or scientific nature.
We are still able to listen, we invite top experts along and all agree: the disagreements are not between economists, they are between politicians.
It is therefore much easier, politically speaking, to develop a macro-economic policy instead of a structural policy.
And that is where the disagreements begin.
Mrs Randzio-Plath, who constantly refers to the success of the American economy, is doing exactly the opposite to what the Americans are doing, exactly the opposite.
She extolls the rationale of the Federal Bank.
But the Federal Bank has a federal budget that is in surplus and a market that is totally fluid.
Its labour costs are 25-30 % lower than ours yet she seems surprised to see that everything is going well in the United States but not in Europe.
So let us be realistic and honest with ourselves.
Policies that succeed in combating unemployment are never popular and that is why they are not pursued in Europe.
It is as simple as that.
Applause
Madam President, embarking on the third stage of economic and monetary union is a sensitive process for which the European Parliament has to assume its responsibilities in regard to the peoples of Europe.
Parliament must make a decisive contribution to the debate and to setting the economic policy guidelines, taking advantage of improved statistical data resources and more detailed analyses.
Monitoring is essential if we are to tackle properly the phase of structural reform which the introduction of the single currency is bound to accelerate.
As a result of structural changes in technologies, we have to have an employment policy that focuses on education, on retraining and on improving qualifications: a policy, therefore, that contributes to increasing productivity and competitiveness.
But that alone is not enough.
Employment is boosted by encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit of competitiveness, by reducing the tax burden and harmonising the fiscal policies of the Member States.
If the confidence of entrepreneurs is boosted, the result will be beneficial for productive investment and employment.
The Member States must continue to pursue the objective of achieving budget equilibrium by reducing deficits but without increasing public spending.
The value of the euro must be determined by the market and by market fluctuations: it makes no sense for the Member States to ask the European Central Bank to reduce rates individually.
Political control must be in the hands of the European Union and not individual states.
We must beware of the risk of asymmetric shocks and try to emulate the position in the United States.
But we shall be able to achieve that only if, after economic union, we move resolutely towards political union.
Madam President, I must begin by saying that we do not agree with the proposals in the Commission's communication that presents the 1999 Annual Economic Report.
The Commission's communication is the starting point for establishing the broad economic guidelines, but presents an analysis that we cannot support.
The title of the communication is 'The EU economy at the arrival of the euro: promoting growth, employment and stability'.
I have tried to find where the stimuli for growth, employment and stability are in the communication.
There is indeed sufficient stimulus for stability, but you will not find stimuli for either growth or employment anywhere in the report.
After two years of growth that, incidentally, was not excessively high, the European economy is currently on hold.
We can debate whether or not this represents the build-up to a recession or if it is simply a slowing down of the economy, but the figures are certainly worrying.
The three largest economies in the European Union, which account for 75 % of the gross domestic product in the euro area, are behaving as follows: the German economy experienced negative growth in the last quarter of last year; the Italian economy has experienced very slight growth of less than 1.5 % over the past two years; and the French economy is currently reviewing its growth forecasts for this year, although it is experiencing the highest growth rate of these three countries.
There is therefore a real danger for the European economy and even, if I may say so, for the world economy.
With almost the whole world in recession, except for the United States and the European Union, a possible shutdown in the European engine would have catastrophic consequences for the economy and the global situation. And we have not even mentioned what effects a shutdown of the United States economy could have, which is also a possibility.
In this context, we can debate whether unemployment is structural or cyclical.
What is clear is that, at least in the short term and possibly in the medium term, if we do not have a policy that strongly stimulates growth, unemployment will remain at levels that are unacceptable in our societies.
So what does the Commission say on this subject?
Having carried out a most satisfactory analysis of stability, it tells us that the situation is promising from the point of view of monetary stability. It tells us that such positive effects could be encouraged by improving the policy mix, as the report states on page 39.
Yet later on, on page 67, there is a sentence which says that 'The output gap for the euro zone is still undisputedly negative, both because of the presence of spare productive capacity and the huge slack in the labour market'.
However, it goes on to say that 'as regards budgetary policy, a gradual structural reduction in budget deficits is expected to resume in 1999'.
Even at the risk of sounding Keynesian, we do not agree with this approach.
In fact, we support the opinion expressed in another report that has recently been published under the charge of Jean-Paul Fitoussi, the 'Rapport sur l'état de l'Union Européenne '. This report states the following: 'Nothing indicates that we are facing a situation of an excessive relaxation of budgetary policies.
Moreover, it would appear that excessively restrictive nature of monetary policy has been largely responsible for the increase in public deficit in the euro area in the 1980s and even in the early 1990s'.
It is in governments' interests to cooperate openly and in a more systematic manner within the Euro Council and to work on achieving the best possible harmony between the monetary and budgetary policies.
We hope to see decisive action within the Euro Council to stimulate growth, including by means of the budgetary policy. We are currently lacking such growth in Europe.
Madam President, we must reverse this trend of psychological see-sawing with economic analyses and forecasts.
We switch too easily from Europhoria to Euro-scepticism and back.
We rush from consumer optimism to industry doubts.
Yes, we should be concerned.
Yes, we should be aware of the dangers of the economy sliding off the rails, whether they come from outside or inside the European Union.
But the message that we should be sending from the European Parliament to Europe's peoples and governments should not be a pessimistic one: it should ask them to be rigorous and demanding.
Despite everything, 1999 will be a year of economic growth in the European Union.
It might be 2 % or it might be 2.5 % but it will be growth and the real success will be in using that growth to create jobs.
We need to keep a clear head in order to strengthen the coordination of budgetary, wage and monetary policies.
We need the courage to avoid any temptation to stray from the narrow path that would jeopardise the fulfilment of the stability and growth pact, the credibility of which is the best guarantor of low long-term interest rates and controlled inflation.
We need to make a collective effort, involving both sides of industry to coordinate wage policies and involving the governments of the Member States to speed up the necessary structural reforms and to move beyond their existing stability programmes, in which the budgetary control targets are minimal but nonetheless tend towards a balanced budget, or even a surplus by the year 2002 at the latest.
Public investment in the 15 Member States of the European Union came to 3 % of GDP in 1991.
That percentage has been steadily sliding ever since, falling tono more than 2.1 % in 1998.
Giving a fresh boost to the trans-European networks and investing in education, training and the information society could help to reverse that trend.
At the same time, we must reduce the tax burden on labour and reduce budget deficits.
These are the types of news, recommendations and forecasts that we hope to see in the major economic guidelines promised for 30 March.
Growth, employment and stability are the buzzwords in political debate today.
Stability begins within Europe despite the financial crises on the sidelines in Russia, South-East Asia and Latin America and the overheating of the US economy.
It is time to remain calm in the midst of the storm.
Madam President, in his remarkable report, Mr Fourçans very clearly addresses the major issues of European economic policy.
He advocates a stability-based monetary policy and sound budgetary policy.
For that he has our approval.
We share his concern about the French, German and Italian budget deficits which were forecast for 1995 and which amounted to 2 % of GDP or more.
Given the economic power of those three countries, this could well have had serious consequences for their smaller partners in the event of a crisis.
I support many of the proposals in the report, but time permits me to highlight only three, namely the wish to channel more investments into research, education and training for reasons of competitiveness, the wish to restrict the consumption of non-renewable resources while developing new forms of sustainable technology, and lastly the need to reduce labour costs without endangering the funding of social security systems.
Madam President, first of all I would like to make the following comment regarding the American economy. In 1992, America was in a state of crisis, Mr Herman, and it did not recover from the crisis by relaxing regulations, since regulations in America were already rather loose, and there were no market controls which, you say, hamstring the European economy.
America emerged from the crisis of 1992 and gathered this momentum through the deficits created by Mr Reagan.
These are just a few facts which you cannot ignore if you want to be realistic.
As for the rest, of course our differences are political.
We want to pursue a policy to benefit workers, while you want to pursue a policy to benefit stockbrokers.
Which is more difficult - to come into conflict with workers or with stockbrokers? Only time will tell.
Our work is far from easy, as you were insinuating, and we are not looking for easy solutions.
We have a radically different social and political agenda.
As regards the report, I would like to congratulate Mr Fourçans on the intellectual quality of his work, but unfortunately I cannot support his general position, which of course stems from his political approach.
For five years now, the Commission report has been following this method: it takes advantage of any slight, chance improvement in the economy to say to us: 'look, the policy we are implementing is working and Europe's economy is beginning to move forward'. Each time there is a setback, it is not our fault, it is the fault of others.
The fault lies with the crises in the third world, for which the third world is to blame.
Our own financial speculators, however, are blameless. Neither the Commission report nor Mr Fourçans has addressed the issue of the responsibility of our own financial speculators for the disasters in Asia, for which we will also have to foot the bill - indeed, we have already started to do so.
The average growth rate of the European economy has stuck at 1.9 %, which is 1 % lower than is needed to reduce unemployment.
This has been the case for some ten years now.
Investments remain static, although profit from capital has reached 1960 levels. Neither Mr Fourçans nor the Commission has taken the trouble to ask why.
Two years ago, the corresponding report to the one we are debating today stated that growth in Europe no longer depended on exports and instead was starting to depend on domestic demand and investments.
What are we seeing now? As soon as an international economic crisis hits European exports, we are back in a recession.
Where is the internal dynamism you say we are starting to acquire? We are taking a remarkable step and we refuse to accept that the policy the Commission is adopting has failed and that we must form a united front and totally reject it.
We have become like the Bourbons, Commissioner and Mr Fourçans, who never learned anything and never forgot anything.
And you know very well what the fate of the Bourbons was as a result of the stance which they adopted.
Madam President, now that the European Central Bank has begun operations, all the EU financial machinery is in place to meet the challenges of future economic development.
There will be great scope for coordinated cooperation on the part of the ECB, the Commission and the various Councils, to try to ensure there is favourable development both for the EU as a whole and for the individual Member States.
It must be stressed that currency stability, whose importance the ECB strongly emphasises, cannot be the only objective of economic policy.
Steady growth and the avoidance of recession must be seen as being equally important, since they are the only way to safeguard high rates of employment, which are of vital importance to our citizens.
The ECB bases its policy predominantly on the regulation of the money supply.
It thus believes in the quantity theory of money.
This is associated with the doctrines of the early part of the century, not the thinking associated with a new millennium.
It is not right either that the Commission should be forever stressing the importance of meeting overrated convergence criteria which do not take account of Keynesian views on economic and budgetary policy.
A surplus should be used to curb overheating; when a recession threatens, we should be prepared enter into deficit to achieve recovery.
The budgetary deficit should be reviewed within the framework of the whole economic cycle.
The importance of this is particularly obvious now, when the public deficit forecast for the three largest Euroland countries for the current year is at least 2 %, making flexibility and scope for recovery almost non-existent.
Parliament should therefore monitor developments and, if necessary, speak up to advocate policies of growth, employment and recovery, as well as structural policy.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, although the need to coordinate economic policies is emphasised at every available opportunity, practice has shown us that there is still a wide gap between analysing and evaluating the main indicators of the economic situation and initiating the necessary decisions.
An action plan is therefore becoming essential if we are to close that gap.
Even the present report by Mr Fourçans, the general thrust of which I welcome, still lacks the courage to draw the logical conclusions from its proposals and demand more and better coordination of economic and monetary policy.
An economic landscape that is overclouded by investment fatigue will not bring forth the necessary growth or the necessary crop of jobs.
In this context, let me say that fear is the only reason why we are now saving more, and worshipping the golden calf of budgetary consolidation - important though such consolidation may be - is surely a short-sighted and inadequate response.
This has nothing to do with Keynesianism, which is often misunderstood.
As long as we cannot conduct a coordinated economic policy based on sound arguments, a policy in which monetary policy also plays a key role, both inside and outside the European Union, it will prove difficult to promote employment, growth and stability.
A gratifying feature of the Fourçans report is the very responsible way in which it deals with the question of incomes and competition.
I believe this approach will guarantee that the present rather complex economic situation will not be exacerbated by an erosion of purchasing power.
That would stifle any additional growth, which is the last thing we want at this precise time.
Impetus is what we need now, fresh impetus and a bolder approach, for more employment and more growth.
Madam President, the 1999 annual economic report, covering the first year of the introduction of the euro, duly mentions the progress that has been made in firmly rooting a culture of stability and an established framework of stability in the European Union.
The report - on which I must congratulate the Commissioner - also talks about a revolution in attitudes in all the Member States.
This has occurred because the nominal convergence demanded by the Maastricht Treaty for entering the euro - achieving an historically low level of inflation and interest rates and an improvement in the budgetary balance - did not jeopardise economic growth rates: 2.7 % in 1997 and 2.9 % in 1998. The result was an improvement in the employment situation compared with the previous 5-year period, with 5.1 million jobs created between 1996 and 2000 whereas 4.6 million were lost between 1991 and 1995.
This success was despite the background of considerable instability worldwide, especially in Asia, Russia and more recently in Latin America, with 20 % of the world economy in recession and 10 % nearing it.
This has led to a downward revision of the economic growth forecasts for 1999 but, given the overall results so far achieved, there can be no doubt that we are on target for economic and monetary union.
Rigorous and realistic policies are now called for, as is suggested in the Fourçans report, on which I congratulate our colleague.
Of the other aspects, I should like to pick out just one: the role of public investment is going to call for special attention without a doubt, especially since the requirements of the stability and growth pact mean that the budget deficit cannot be increased.
In paragraphs 25 and 26 of his report, the rapporteur stresses the desirability of performing 'an analysis with a view to a harmonised and consistent definition of public investment throughout the European Union' since 'rises therein may entail a reorganisation of public spending'.
Like other equally important - but perhaps less delicate - measures, such as making markets more flexible or training people, public investment is a difficult objective to achieve. That justifies the need for the European Union - and, in particular, the Commission and the Member States - to discuss practical measures that could be taken in order to rationalise the very notion of public investment.
Mr President, the annual economic report is an excellent opportunity for Parliament to have some input in the overall economic policy guidelines.
The main issue is deciding what policy mix to recommend for the Union and the Member States, traditionally involving budget policy, monetary policy and wage movements, since these are the main macro-economic factors that we in the Union can influence ourselves.
External factors play only a limited role, since external trade accounts for only 10 % of the Union's GNP.
So what policy mix is appropriate in the current situation? Economic growth is declining and the Commission is already warning of a further readjustment downwards.
The official inflation figure has fallen below 1 %, which means that the real inflation figure, allowing for miscalculations, must be almost zero.
If price stability is under threat from anything, it is from deflation.
With the employment threshold at 2 to 2.5 % and growing, unemployment is unlikely to fall any further.
Something must be done to reverse the slowdown in growth.
But what?
There is not yet much slack in the Member States' budgets, particularly in the bigger Member States that should really be making progress by now.
There is some scope in wage trends, but very little, since wages are still lagging behind productivity, which is really not necessary when Europe's businesses are so well off.
So wages could be a way of giving a much-needed boost to consumer spending, which is currently what is keeping the European economy afloat.
However, it is vital here that the ECB should lower interest rates further to make investment cheaper and encourage consumers to spend more and save less.
The present state of near-deflation means that this can be done, and in view of the slump in Europe's economy it needs to be done.
With such low inflation the interest rates are too high, and the ECB must carry out its duty to support the Union's economic policy.
Madam President, the presentation of the annual economic report always reminds me of the presentation of a list of grievances about what is not working properly in the European Union.
This year, however, the picture is very different.
We have an instrument, the euro, which is binding and compelling and is forcing us towards a new kind of cohesion as compared with the past.
We know that the autumn 1998 growth forecasts of all the Member States have been revised downwards, and we also know that France, Germany and Italy alone now account for three quarters of GDP in the euro zone.
If just one of those countries were to find themselves in crisis, the whole picture would be affected.
We are therefore faced with three new elements for which there are at least three responses.
The three new elements are: firstly, a new kind of homogeneity based on the euro, that is to say fiscal, taxation and banking harmonisation - and only last night, at midnight, we were discussing and criticising the banks which have yet to accept the euro - in order to continue the process of achieving budgetary stability in individual Member States.
Secondly, we have a new kind of sectoral division of the market, namely the development of the tertiary sector: we have to focus more on commerce, on tourism, the service sector and the craft sector.
And finally, we have a new market element: the big companies have their place, but it is in particular to the small and medium-sized enterprises that we have to look for the future.
The three responses are: economic but also social market evaluation, a realistic wages policy, particularly for young people looking for their first job and, finally, public investment that is targeted and dovetails with private investment.
To achieve that, I believe that the economic policy guidelines must be coordinated with employment strategy, and therefore the euro is - and remains at this historic moment in the construction of Europe - the main and most appropriate response.
It is certainly not itself the goal, but it is the means of achieving the goal and must always be considered a sound starting-point, as we intended, and a starting-point at any rate.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we are speaking about an employment pact in the belief that jobs can be safeguarded if the representatives of employers and employees jointly formulate policy objectives.
We have to tread warily here, because it is the consumer alone who creates work and determines employment policy.
Consumers, in other words we, the people, decide what to buy; we choose the manufacturers of the products we want to buy and their regions of origin.
Fortunately, consumers are very objective.
They judge the value of the product on offer.
In that respect they are very critical.
When consumers go into a shop, they do not search the packaging of every product to find out where it was made; they base their choice on price, quality and customer service.
I believe we must focus far more sharply on the need to train our employees and our businesses to recognise the needs of the customer and to anticipate the customer's future needs.
What makes a good company is its dedication to identifying the future wishes of its customers.
To that end, such companies need an efficient government.
We must ensure that statutory charges are reduced, that the machinery of public administration operates more efficiently, that we replace redundant departments, by which I mean that we should restructure unproductive departments into genuine service organisations.
That is also a particularly important task for the European Union.
We must set a good example here.
I believe it is worth fighting hard to achieve that aim.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, before I begin, I should like to say to the rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, that I appreciate the quality and thoroughness of his work.
Although our opinions differ considerably as regards the best policy to pursue at both national and European level, I should like to pay homage to his intellectual honesty and stress the importance of some of his proposals.
Most of the serious reservations I have about his text naturally relate to what I would describe as an obsession with budget deficits.
Another point of contention, or obsession, relates to workers and their supposed lack of flexibility and adaptability.
This is hardly surprising: we have neither the same approach to unemployment nor the same concept of the role of workers in the economy.
However, there are many things on which we agree, in particular, something that concerns me here, namely, the need for public investment and the criticism of the bank charges incurred by people making payments in euros.
In relation to the first point, I broadly share the rapporteur's view that Europe needs to give more attention to matters relating to communication and its infrastructures.
I fully believe that society must take on its full responsibilities in terms of training and education in both the short and long term.
As regards the second point, I have already asked Commissioner Silguy and Commissioner Monti on several occasions about the issue of taxation.
In my view, the Commission needs to act promptly on this as it affects the euro's credibility at this intermediary stage.
To conclude, I think that the Fourçans report is very thorough.
It does not mask the differences between the left and the right and it is even very discrete about calling into question certain workers' rights.
Nonetheless, it puts forward some very interesting proposals that are worth discussing.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking our rapporteur, André Fourçans, and congratulating him on his report.
The report tells us that the main European economic indicators remain strong, that investments are achieving good returns, and that inflation and interest rates are at an all-time low.
At the same time, however, we note that previous growth forecasts are now having to be scaled down quite drastically. We must investigate the reasons for this.
It is undeniable that the slowdown is partly due to external economic conditions.
But they cannot be the only reason.
The very fact that our trade with the regions in crisis, such as Russia, Brazil and South-East Asia, accounts for a minimal percentage of the GNP of the European Union shows that this factor is not solely responsible for the slowdown.
The real reason for our low rate of growth - and I believe there is broad consensus on this - is a lack of investment.
Some people blame the European Central Bank and claim that the base rate is too high.
That, however, is an astonishing claim, given that both short-term and long-term interest rates have already fallen to unprecedentedly low levels.
Part of the responsibility for the sluggishness of economic growth in the European Union lies with the uncertainties in the economic policies pursued by some of the larger Member States, as a result of which business confidence is sapped and investments fail to materialise.
Companies will not invest if they have no means of knowing how high their tax and national insurance bills will be at the end of the year.
This is the first problem that the economic policy of the European Union will have to address.
The main reason for weak growth and the threat to jobs lies squarely in the realm of economic policy, and not with the Central Bank.
As an institution engaged in dialogue with the Central Bank, we must not let it be used as a scapegoat for the faults of others.
Another topic that is currently high on the economic agenda is the strength of the European currency.
What determines the strength of the euro, and what matters to the people of Europe, is not the drop in the value of the euro on the world market but its internal stability.
With an average inflation rate of 0.8 % in Euroland at the present time, we have price stability.
The rate of price increase in the United States, with which we tend to compare ourselves, is more than twice as high as it is here in the European Union.
But the reason for the decline of the euro against the US dollar lies primarily in the international finance markets' lack of confidence in the economic policies of our large Member States.
In the report before us, the majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy expresses its support for an economic policy based on the principles of welfare capitalism and its opposition to a dilution of the stability pact.
That is the only way to win back the confidence that has been squandered and to start fostering growth and employment once again.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first of all like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, on his thorough and precise report which analyses the majority, and perhaps all, of the elements of the multilateral monitoring process of which, I should like to remind you, the Annual Economic Report is the first stage.
I broadly agree with his oral presentation and I have listened with great interest to your debate, which, perhaps owing to the forthcoming elections, seemed to me to be more politically charged, with a more marked division than has been seen in recent months.
I want to ask you to look at the results, to be pragmatic.
When the present House was elected in 1994, it was following on from 1993, a year in which Europe had experienced a recession of 0.5 %, whereas in 1998, growth of 2.9 % was registered.
In 1994, deficits stood at 5.4 % and in 1998, they were 1.5 %.
Unemployment in 1994 stood at 11.1 %; in 1998, it was 10 %, so it has decreased in the European Union during the present legislature.
In response to your rapporteur, and if you do not mind me digressing somewhat from the notes that have been prepared for me, I should like to make several comments in the light of this extremely interesting and useful debate.
I should firstly like to comment on the state of the European economy, before looking at the various aspects of economic policy in Europe.
As regards the state of the European economy, I share the rapporteur's view that the European economy is affected by the world crisis. However, I personally felt that the overall tone in several of the speeches made was too pessimistic, for example, the speeches by Mr von Wogau and Mr Pérez Royo.
In my view, the situation now is far less worrying than it was a short time ago, even though there is still some uncertainty.
In fact, with regard to events abroad, the situation in Asia, and particularly in Korea and Thailand, has become far more stable, with any uncertainty in the region mainly in Japan.
Reforms of the Japanese financial and banking sectors have been announced and must now be carried out.
As regards Brazil, the situation is being closely monitored. Moreover, growth in America was higher than predicted in the last quarter of 1998.
This helps to support world trade.
And lastly, but perhaps most importantly, the introduction of the euro offers us a degree of monetary stability and protection at European level.
In this connection, I disagree with what Mr de Lassus Saint Geniès and Mr Blot said: it is thanks to the euro, and the euro alone, that the threat of asymmetric shocks in Europe is reduced because it strengthens economic and commercial integration.
Let us look briefly at the most recent indicators available.
Confidence in industry has once again fallen, but not as much as in the past, and in some countries the situation is even becoming more stable, as is the case, for example, in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands and Finland.
The second indicator is the maintenance of a high level of consumer confidence after a considerable improvement in recent months.
There is also greater confidence in the construction industry.
Contrary to what Mr Hendrick and Mrs Boogerd-Quaak said, unemployment has not increased.
I have the latest figures here, which show that in 1994, as I said, the unemployment rate was over 11 %, in January 1998, it was 10 %, and in January 1999, it was 9.6 %.
In 1998, 1 700 000 net jobs were created in Europe, and although I admit that the employment situation is far from ideal, it has improved.
Growth for 1999 will be lower than we predicted a few months ago, but it should gradually improve during the second half of the year, largely thanks to private consumption.
It is true that the main areas of uncertainty today are to be found in Germany and Italy, particularly as regards investment.
And I agree with Mr von Wogau that confidence is the key to investment.
This situation therefore backs up the Commission's analysis.
Maintaining effective coordination between the various agents of the policy mix must enable operators to remain confident and allow us to pursue and develop growth that generates employment.
This brings me to my second set of remarks which focus on the broad guidelines and the content of the various policies.
International developments in recent months has generated a certain amount of uncertainty regarding our efforts to achieve our main aim, that is, a visible and long-term reduction in unemployment.
How can we sustain growth? It is a question many of you have asked, including Mr Pérez and Mr Metten.
The Commission is of the opinion that the most important thing is to ensure that the Member States' economic policies are better coordinated in relation to the current situation.
This is true of all sections of the policy mix.
I shall begin with public finances as it is an issue that many of you have raised.
You are no doubt aware that the restructuring of public finances was suspended in 1998 because the nominal deficit, which was -2.1 % in 1998, compared with 1997 when it was -2.5 %, hides the fact that there was no reduction in the structural deficit. The majority of this was, of course, due to improved growth, which reached 2.9 % in 1998.
This is somewhat regrettable because we are not far from stabilising the situation once again.
There is still approximately a one-point deficit to recover before the situation balances out, and I should like to remind you that, by contrast, the deficit in Europe in 1993 was -6 %.
Mr Caudron, you will perhaps think that I, too, am obsessed with reducing public deficits, but I only have one obsession, that is, my obsession with growth and unemployment.
What is more, public deficits have never ever created jobs; if they had, we would have known about it and seen proof of it.
So we must not be mistaken about our main objective.
Automatic stabilising mechanisms should indeed be used but only if efforts to restructure budgets create the necessary room for manoeuvre and if the reduction of structural deficits is not compromised; otherwise, this would have negative effects.
Mr Ribeiro, we cannot abandon the stability and growth pact because no-one, and no minister, wants to challenge it, and rightly so in my opinion, because growth is not possible without stability.
This pact needs to be further developed, hence the approach adopted, in particular, to employment, the European employment pact, and the ideas put forward by the Commission in January 1996 on this matter, which now appear to be more pertinent.
The Commission believes - and regrets - that, while they are consistent with the aims of the stability and growth pact, the Member States' stability programmes are not ambitious enough. Here I am replying to Mr Goedbloed, because reduction in this respect is really the basic requirement of the stability pact.
So there is no additional room for manoeuvre, which means that our ability to react in the event of a dramatic change in economic trends might be severely limited.
The Commission will remain extremely vigilant as regards the implementation of the stability and convergence programmes and as regards respect for the commitments made by the Member States on budgetary issues.
In any event, what does budget relaxation actually mean? It means a monetary policy that is more difficult to implement, higher interest rates and, in fact, more unemployment.
I think that I am responding to comments by Mrs Randzio-Plath here: this is why the Commission will monitor the situation and prevent a lax approach from developing, and this is something I can guarantee you.
The second issue that has been mentioned on many occasions today, for example by Mr Porto, is that of public investment.
Priority must first of all be given to private investment, because it is eight times greater than public investment and so needs to be encouraged and enhanced since, by its very nature, it supports growth.
As regards public investment, I would refer you to the Commission's communication of 2 December, which indicated that the level of public investment had fallen in relation to GDP.
At the start of the decade it stood at 3 % of GDP and it now stands at 2.1 % of GDP, which is unfortunate, even if the figures show that the situation varies from country to country.
As a result, we must encourage the reorganisation of public spending and the development of public investment since both stimulate growth.
I took note of several interesting comments - outlined by both Mrs Berès and Mr Caudron - regarding, in particular, investment in what I would term human capital.
It is clear that further public investment must not have an adverse effect on our competitiveness or lead to an excessive imbalance in public finances.
Nor must it result in an increase in compulsory contributions. This would penalise private investment, which is worth eight times more than public investment.
In any case, I should like to reassure Mr Hendrick on this point: the Commission takes account, and will take account, of the level of public investment when assessing the public deficit of each Member State, in accordance with Article 104c(3) of the Treaty, and as recommended by Mr Fourçans.
Wage trends constitute the third area of economic policy.
Over recent years, these have largely been behind the development of a significant number of economic policies, which is good for employment.
The social partners have shown a very responsible attitude and today, in general, wage trends still meet the objective of stability in all the countries in the euro zone.
I am aware that agreements have been signed in Germany, which have been mentioned in several speeches.
We must remain vigilant and ensure that these wage agreements fit the context of what the rapporteur calls a reasonable increase in purchasing power, that is, a context which also takes account of productivity by sector and region and which therefore does not penalise employment in the long term.
The debate in this House on structural reforms - our fourth topic of discussion - has been very lively.
It is true that these structural reforms are vital to overcome the traditional handicaps that hamper Europe's attempts to solve the problem of unemployment.
Mr Herman, you quoted the figure of 90 % for structural unemployment, which is perhaps too high.
In my view, if it represents two thirds of the total amount, it is already huge.
The Member States have made progress in this matter and it should not be underestimated, even though the efforts made to achieve it seem to be inconsistent as a whole.
In my mind, Mrs Berès, these reforms aim to guarantee a high level of social protection and must increase the number of jobs generated by growth.
In this connection, I think that it is essential to both improve the labour market and develop a more appropriate regulatory framework for companies.
I welcome the fact that some of you, particularly Mrs Boogerd-Quaak and Mr de Lassus, mentioned the problem of risk capital and its development in the context of improving the capital markets.
I think that this is a very positive element that will help us to take full advantage of the impact of the euro in terms of innovation and job creation. Here again, I would refer you to the recent Commission communication, which, unfortunately, for the time being, has not been given a specific format by the Council.
Finally, I would like to say a brief word about monetary policy, which is the responsibility of the European Central Bank.
It is a shame that Mrs Berès is not here, because I dare not, and wish not, to interfere in the development of this policy.
I just wanted to point out that price stability is today assured in the euro zone and that, for the moment, there is almost no inflation since it currently stands at around 1 %.
I shall therefore only make one comment on monetary policy.
It will be much easier for the ECB to implement the monetary policy in such a way so as to encourage growth, since the policy mix in the euro zone will not be knocked off balance by a relaxation in the budgetary policy.
In this respect, I also believe that we are making the task of the ECB easier by dispensing with declarations that are too public and sometimes untimely.
To conclude, I should like to stress that the introduction of the euro encourages the Commission to enhance the functional nature of the broad economic policy guidelines.
I congratulate you on your report, Mr Fourçans, and I congratulate the House on the debate today.
It is a first step in the right direction.
The running of the Union and the euro zone and the desire to define sound economic policies that focus on growth and employment are issues that need to be regularly debated.
That is why the Commission has always favoured, and still favours, close collaboration with this House on the current debate on economic policy.
I can therefore assure you that the Commission will carefully consider your comments on the Annual Economic Report, which it will take into account when drawing up its recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines.
This recommendation will include specific recommendations for each Member State, and I hope that they will allow the Commission to get on with its work on this issue and refrain from systematically criticising the recommendations or trying to deprive them of all substance.
In fact, if we genuinely wish to coordinate economic policy, I believe that it is up to the Commission to state clearly and publicly the path it intends to follow. After that, of course, it is the Council's job to make the final decision as it sees fit.
Therefore, having said all this, and after thanking you and congratulating you, all that remains is for me to invite you to attend the presentation of the recommendations on the broad guidelines on 30 March.
Madam President, may I ask the Commissioner to clarify whether he is at odds today with the annual economic report, because in the annual economic report he said that growth alone has created ten million jobs in the United States.
For that reason, I think he should reaffirm that growth is indeed a necessary weapon in the fight against unemployment, be it in the United States or Europe.
Madam President, Commissioner de Silguy made a point of contradicting my statement that unemployment had not changed over the course of this Parliament by saying it had changed from 11 % to 10 %.
If Commissioner de Silguy considers 1 % over a period of nearly five years a success then, if this was a national parliament, perhaps many Members would be asking for his resignation.
As it is, the extenuating circumstances are that there has been a global recession, although Commissioner de Silguy very often claims that we have withstood this global recession almost 100 %.
Madam President, I would like to make the same point as Mr Hendrick.
I am supposed to have said that in my view unemployment has risen.
Of course I realise that it has fallen slightly, but it is by so little that I do not think we can go back to the Member States and tell people that very much has happened at all.
This is why I would strongly urge that we should use the employment guidelines to do the things that Parliament and the Commission have been calling for for years.
Madam President, can I just briefly say first of all that I did not fully understand the question posed by Mrs Randzio-Plath.
I did not actually say that growth was not needed to combat unemployment, because it clearly is.
At no stage did I say otherwise.
However, what I did say - and this is something that was borne out and noted in all the economic analyses - was that growth alone will not be, and is not, enough in Europe to allow us to put an end to the problem of unemployment; it needs to be accompanied by structural measures.
Secondly, Mr Hendrick, I simply wanted to correct what I understood to be a simple technical error, namely, your claim that unemployment had increased.
I said that it had not increased, but that it had decreased, even though it only fell by 1 %, which is not enough.
That said, Europe is set to create more jobs in the 1995-2000 period, generally speaking, than were lost in the 1990-1994 period.
Therefore, what I am saying is that the trend is reversed, but there is still a long way to go before the scourge of unemployment is fully eradicated. This will only be possible through a combination of a sound and stable macro-economic policy that is focused on stability and growth, and a dynamic employment policy, which must be implemented in the context of general and consistent structural measures.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
EU relations with Central Asia
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A4-0069/99) by Mr Truscott, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the communication from the Commission - Towards a European Union strategy for relations with the Independent States of Central Asia (COM(95)0206 - C4-0256/96); -the recommendation (A4-0071/99) by Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision on the conclusion of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Uzbekistan, of the other part (7652/96 - COM(96)0254 - C4-0418/96-96/0151(AVC)).
Madam President, I should first like to thank honourable Members for their cooperation, suggestions and amendments which have been gratefully received.
Since the five Central Asian Republics - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan became independent in 1991 with the breakup of the Soviet Union, the European Union has been engaged in the process of building bilateral relations with each of them.
The five states differ widely in terms of population, land area, resources and democratic developments.
The Commission communication on relations between the EU and the newly independent states of Central Asia published in October 1995 stated that the primary objective of the Union was to maintain the stability of the region which could best be done through the development of broadly-based democratic institutions, the reduction of sources of conflict and economic reform.
Given the length of time since this communication was produced perhaps now would be a good time for the Commission to update it.
Parliament was asked by the Council for its assent to the partnership and cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan in July 1995.
In the case of Kyrgyzstan it gave its assent in November 1995.
However, given the concern over the internal situation in Kazakhstan Parliament delayed its assent until 13 March 1997.
In the case of Uzbekistan the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the rapporteur Mrs André-Léonard decided that the situation was such that it was very clear that the country did not meet the general principles laid down in Article 2 of the PCA, i.e. respect for democracy, principles of international law and human rights.
Thirty months on and human rights and democratic institutions have been further undermined in Central Asia.
The recent presidential election in Kazakhstan was widely regarded as rigged and flawed.
In Uzbekistan, after a series of explosions in Tashkent on 16 February, the government has used this as an excuse to clamp down on opposition groups.
There has been particular concern for the safety and treatment of Mamadali Mukhmurdov and Munira Nasriddinova.
Since the main non-violent opposition parties, Erk (Freedom) and Birlik (Unity) have been closed down, the Committee for National Security (KNB) is also busy arresting and harassing dissidents.
In Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, despite the peace agreement signed in the latter country last year, there has been little or no improvement in the human rights situation, and even in Kyrgyzstan, where human rights are respected in many areas, there are still problems with citizens' limited ability to change the government, freedom of speech and the press, due process for the accused, religious freedom and ethnic discrimination.
On a positive note it is to be welcomed that both Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan have introduced moratoria on capital punishment.
I hope this will be extended to all Central Asian countries.
The Commission has given an undertaking that human rights issues will be regularly raised as a serious issue with the authorities of Central Asia and that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy will be kept fully informed of developments in this sphere.
I trust that Commissioner van den Broek will keep this promise on his forthcoming visits to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and report back to committee on his impressions.
It is regrettable that Commissioner van den Broek could not be here today but I hope that he will keep the committee and Parliament fully informed.
Central Asia is an area of outstanding geo-strategic and economic importance to the European Union.
Its importance has been recognised since the days of the 'silk road' and during the era of the 'Great Game'.
The natural resources of Central Asia, especially gas and oil, are considerable.
US State Department estimates suggest that the Caspian contains up to 200 billion barrels of oil, enough to supply the world for eight years, and 7 000 billion cubic metres of natural gas, enough to supply Europe for 16 years.
Clearly the EU must be engaged with the countries of Central Asia and encourage them to shed their old Soviet era mentality.
The role of TACIS, in particular the democracy programme, TRACECA, INOGATE and WARMAP are to be welcomed.
But cross-border and democracy programmes, assisted by NGOs, should be given more support.
The legacy of environmental degradation, especially round the Aral Sea and the nuclear test ground of Semipalatinsk should also be tackled with an adequate response from the EU.
The region has suffered from both the Asian and rouble crises.
The Commission, Council and international financial institutions must consider measures to help protect the population of the region against severe economic hardship.
While the EU should encourage foreign investment in Central Asia, part of the solution lies in the region itself in terms of introducing assured legal rights for investors.
Currently the EU is the region's most important market outside the CIS.
If Central Asia is to develop its economic independence it will require foreign assistance in developing alternative gas and oil pipeline routes and new markets.
In conclusion, the EU should play its part in helping to build a democratic, prosperous and secure Central Asia in a region of fragile stability.
Central Asia may be far away but its future will affect us all.
When the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy appointed me rapporteur on the partnership agreement with Uzbekistan, I wanted to see the situation there for myself, so I went to Tashkent to meet political leaders and representatives of civil society and human rights organisations.
This country, which was part of the former Soviet Union and gained independence in 1991, has still not fully broken away from the practices of the former Communist regime, though of course efforts have been made to do so.
In December 1992, a new constitution was adopted, which makes Uzbekistan a pluralist democracy.
A constitutional court is currently in operation, the parliament is working quite well and an ombudsman has been appointed to ensure that human rights are respected.
The problem is that the ombudsman is directly dependent on parliament and is therefore under its charge.
In 1991, Islam Karimov was elected to power with more than 80 % of the votes cast, against just one other candidate.
The President's party, the People's Democratic Party, won a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections in December 1994, after several opposition parties had been banned.
And in March 1995, President Karimov was re-elected for a period of five years.
What I saw there did little to reassure me.
In fact, freedom of expression is non-existent, censorship is in force, the press is not independent and there are only four newspapers available, all of which are subject to government control.
The freedom of assembly, the freedom of association and the right to demonstrate are all forbidden, and opposition parties are banned.
Arbitrary arrests and detentions are a daily occurrence.
Torture is frequently carried out and the death penalty is still in force, although we have, of course, asked the Uzbek authorities to commute the death penalty to prison sentences.
My conclusion was that democracy only takes root slowly - even here - and that 70 years of communism and totalitarianism cannot simply be forgotten overnight.
That is why I asked the Committee on Foreign Affairs to postpone our agreement and give Uzbekistan two years in which to make progress in terms of respect for human rights.
Time has unfortunately not changed the situation and today we are receiving some alarming reports from human rights organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
The recent riots on 16 February demonstrated the violence those in power are capable of.
Three people are still in prison and have suffered serious violations to their integrity; no proof of their guilt has ever been furnished.
One of the prisoners, Mrs Akedova, is 60 years old and is the head of a human rights organisation.
However, I think that we should give Uzbekistan a chance, because this country, this region, needs our help, be it democratic, economic or environmental.
The country has substantial mineral and gas resources that are underexploited.
It is the world's fourth largest cotton producer, and yet, according to its leaders, 15 % of the population live in abject poverty and wages are almost as low as they are in the third world.
A great many TACIS projects have been set up, ranging from projects promoting democracy, transport, energy, telecommunications, education and the environment, to projects aimed at combating drug trafficking.
It must be noted that the volume of drugs from Afghanistan is huge, and that 40 % of the drugs that reach Europe come from this region.
I do not have enough time to elaborate on environmental issues here but I can tell you that I spent two hours flying over the Aral sea, or rather what is left of it. I witnessed the sheer scale of the ecological disaster there, which Europe has failed to gauge the importance of.
Pesticides that have been used for years in this area have destroyed everything and dried up the sea.
Infant mortality is 10 % higher in this region than in the rest of the country, as is maternal mortality.
Many of the people are disabled, miscarriages are so frequent that they are no longer accounted for, and diseases such as cancer are rife.
We rapidly need to take action in this part of Uzbekistan if we do not wish to bear a heavy responsibility for these stricken peoples.
These observations were what finally influenced my decision and what led to Commissioner van den Broek's commitment to suspend the partnership agreement should human rights violations continue, as provided for in Article 2 of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement.
Mr van den Broek is to visit Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan himself at the end of the month. I hope that he will be able to act as Europe's spokesman and subsequently give an account of his trip to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Other elements have contributed to the proposal to conclude this partnership agreement, especially the very worrying regional context in Central Asia.
Mr Truscott already discussed this situation and I shall not go into it here.
The geostrategic situation of Uzbekistan, which shares a border with Afghanistan, and the fear that the Islamic fundamentalism of the Taliban will spread, finally convinced me to adopt this position.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must indeed be vigilant, but it is vital that, at the dawn of the third millennium, we continue in our historic duty to ensure respect for human rights all over the world. We must also share our knowledge and experience to enable regions to prosper, regions that have been deprived of fundamental freedoms for far too long and that have lapsed into an economic and democratic backwardness that needs to be overcome.
We must therefore have confidence in Uzbekistan, and hope that we will not be betrayed.
In any case, the Committee on Foreign Affairs will submit an annual report to the European Parliament on how the situation is developing in terms of democracy.
Applause
As you can tell from the applause, Mrs André-Léonard, rather more people were listening than it might have appeared.
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall adjourn the debate at this point; it will be resumed after the topical and urgent debate.
Before we move on to the votes, I have three points of order.
Madam President, I apologise for having to raise this issue again.
It is one I have addressed before.
As Members entered this Chamber this morning some form of demonstration was taking place outside, with people who had labels attached to their clothing advising us to vote in a particular way.
I do not believe that any of them were Members on this occasion.
I offer no comment on the issue they are raising, but I believe Members of this Parliament should be able to come into the Chamber without encountering any form of demonstration outside its doors.
Applause
I entirely share your views, Mr Perry, as I think does a section of the House.
Here in Parliament, we have never cast our votes under pressure from anyone at all.
Madam President, I would like to make a point of order pursuant to Rule 109 on order in the House.
I should like to ask you, Madam President, whether you think that Rule 109(1) means that I cannot display a sign saying 'Stop treating us this way, give us a statute today', because you think it will disturb the sitting, or whether, on the contrary, this Rule does not mean that this is forbidden, because you think that a statute for assistants is essential for a social Europe and for the rights of all.
I shall certainly not pass judgement on the substance of the matter, Mr Duhamel.
That is not something for the Chair to do.
On the other hand, it is up to me to judge whether what you do disturbs order in the House.
I would not think that to be the case.
Madam President, unlike Mr Perry, I have no problem whatsoever with people demonstrating for their rights.
The only thing I would say to the assistants is that it may be worthwhile exposing certain Members who are not paying their assistants the proper wages which they should be entitled to receive.
We should expose people when they are bringing this Parliament into disrepute.
I would also wish to expose an institution that is bringing Parliament into disrepute.
The institution is Parliament itself.
I understand that people who work for us, such as the freelance interpreters, have not been paid since October.
I find that disgraceful!
And I hope every Member in this House finds that disgraceful.
If I were the shop steward, as I was in Rosyth dockyard, there would not be an interpreter in any of those booths today, until such time as that matter had been corrected.
I ask the Bureau to issue us with a clear, categorical statement as to why people who work for us are not being paid properly.
I would ask the Bureau to issue that statement prior to the part-session in April.
Applause
I can tell you that the Bureau is aware of this matter, Mr Falconer.
You will be kept informed of the situation.
VOTES
Madam President, you have just announced that you were going to put Amendment No 90 to a split vote.
Like all other Members, I have the definitive voting list here, in which this split vote is not mentioned.
I should like to know exactly when a request for this was made, and if it was not tabled before the deadline, why is it being introduced now?
As it was our group that originally requested a roll-call vote, I would not like the request for a split vote to be added to the request for a roll-call vote just because too many of the latter have been requested.
I should like a specific answer on this point.
I will give you a very specific answer, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
As regards the request for a split vote, this was certainly made in good time, since I prepared for the votes last night - I could not do so this morning, as I was chairing a meeting on the Structural Funds - and this request for a split vote was already included in the papers prepared by our services.
As for the request for a roll-call vote, on the other hand, I have just been made aware of this.
But I shall turn a blind eye, and we will take this roll-call vote all the same.
Madam President, I should like to ask the other rapporteurs to reconsider how they intend to vote as we do not want to have an incoherent situation where the amendments and the explanatory statement do not make any sense.
Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, you know that here in Parliament we never go back on a vote.
I am referring to the current vote but in relation to a vote that will take place later, namely the vote on Amendment No 98.
And I should like to warn this House that we must be careful when voting on Amendment No 98 so that we are not inconsistent.
Madam President, I am surprised that compromise amendments have been admitted at this stage in the debate.
The report was the subject of many committee meetings and it was even considered by the political groups before it was debated in the House.
Since the deadline for tabling amendments has passed, I object to the fact that we are putting Amendment No 182 to the vote because the request was tabled too late.
To go back to the question I just raised, regarding the request for a split vote, I should like to remind you that the deadline for tabling requests for split votes and separate votes was Tuesday evening and not yesterday evening.
I believe the deadline was in fact before last night.
I simply said that I had at least seen that it had been tabled yesterday evening.
I shall consult the House on putting this compromise amendment to the vote.
Parliament agreed to consider the compromise amendment
(Parliament adopted the decision)
My warmest congratulations to the three rapporteurs, who have done a truly wonderful job.
Loud applause
(Mr Gutiérrez Díaz rose to join Mr Corbett and Mrs Palacio, and the three rapporteurs exchanged congratulations)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have taken a decision in this Chamber which I, as the rapporteur in this instance, believe we have no authority to take.
We decided that questions relating to employment contracts concluded between parliamentary assistants and Members should be governed by general administrative provisions adopted by the European Parliament.
There is no legal basis for this decision in the European Treaties.
That is not only my opinion; it is also the opinion of the European Court of Auditors and is reflected in the decisions of the European Court of Justice which I cited yesterday.
Moreover, we have contradictions once again in our decision, contradictions which were contained in the report as adopted by the Committee on Legal Affairs and which we are carrying forward into the vote today.
So if we want to come up with a prudent solution, with a proposal which can be adopted by the Council too and which ultimately clarifies the contractual position between ourselves and our assistants in an effective manner, it is my view that the Legal Affairs Committee should re-examine this report.
On behalf of my group, I therefore request, pursuant to Rule 129, that the report be referred back to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights. At the same time, I wish to intimate that, should this motion fail, my group will regrettably be compelled to vote against this report.
Mr President, I wish to speak against.
There may be contradictions in what we voted.
Frequently we find that is the case.
But that does not exclude the possibility that we can make significant progress with the dossier.
This is a reform which is both necessary and overdue.
Many of our assistants are potentially vulnerable to exploitation.
Many of our assistants may lack proper social security and other cover.
This House has demanded urgency on a statute for its own Members; it must treat its own staff with no less urgent respect.
This House has demanded that another European institution should clean up its act.
It should demand no less of itself.
Let us proceed to a vote and let us vote for a statute.
Applause from the centre and the left
Ladies and gentlemen, is there a speaker in favour of the request for referral back to committee?
Madam President, I am as well aware as Mr Lehne of the difficulties with the legal basis, but the reasons which Mr Cox has just cited for the urgency of this report and of the matter under discussion here make it imperative that we vote now.
The difficulties will have to be dealt with in the framework of the interinstitutional dialogue.
Madam President, I would ask you to reprimand Mr Ullmann for seeking leave to speak when you asked for someone to speak in favour of the motion, and then saying something quite different.
Either we keep to the rules of the House or we do not!
Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, I have been patiently waiting for the end of that vote before interrupting the proceedings of the House.
But there has been an interview taking place up in the Gallery with cameras and people who have been interviewed.
I believe that to be against the Rules of this House.
I do not think we should allow this Parliament to be devalued by the Rules not being applied.
I therefore ask you and the Bureau to investigate thoroughly what the ushers in the Gallery are actually supposed to do.
If there are rules they should be applied properly; and if people have special permission to take interviews up there, at least the House should be informed.
I can assure you that the Bureau will look into this matter, Mr Provan.
Many of the proposals contained in the report are simply improvements, or necessary adjustments to a new situation resulting from the Amsterdam Treaty.
There are, however, several political sections which seek to go much further by giving the European Parliament more power than there is provision for in the Amsterdam Treaty, which is unacceptable.
It is a fact that, under the Amsterdam Treaty, Parliament gains the right to approve nominations to the Commission.
The report however proposes 'election of the Commission', which goes much further.
At present, it is the people of the Member States who indirectly nominate a Commissioner through their governments.
The intention here is to shift that power increasingly from the national level to the European Parliament and hence to the supranational European level.
Amendment No 69 on international representation is another example of an attempt to go further than the Treaty.
There are some proposals in the report which are not acceptable for other reasons.
Amendment No 90 proposes that a single group may not table mutually exclusive amendments.
This type of censorship is undesirable.
It must be possible for many different views to be accommodated within the various political groups.
Besides, the gain in efficiency which this amendment may offer is entirely negligible.
Amendment No 15, according to which it will no longer be possible to form a group with Members from only one country, is also not acceptable. It has been motivated by the desire not to give large countries an advantage, but it is untenable.
Large countries always have an advantage, for example when it comes to securing 29 signatures.
The intention behind this amendment is to tone down national political differences in this House and thereby to give it a more European character.
Haug report (A4-0105/99)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, along with all the members of my group, I voted against Mrs Haug's report on the European Union's system of own resources.
It is regrettable that, on this important issue of the future financing of the Community budget, this House, as is often the case, allowed ideological and political criteria to take precedence over the fairness and transparency which should characterise the financing of the European Union.
In fact, the solution proposed by the Commission and by the Court of Auditors in its report concerning the assessment of the system of own resources was to continue the development of recent years and increase the GNP-based resource, which is the only genuine indicator of Member States' wealth.
However, the majority of Parliament advocated financial autonomy, for reasons solely linked to a determination to increase the European Parliament's powers.
This is incompatible with the need to rationalise the Community budget, the overall total of which can be, and must remain, subject to strict ceilings, as the Commission itself confirmed.
I naturally welcome the fact that the various paragraphs on cofinancing have been rejected.
This was the only area of expenditure subject to amendment.
As we have already said, the adoption of such a stance is incompatible with the aims of the Treaty, because agricultural expenditure is compulsory.
Moreover, no provision was made regarding the need to reduce other non-compulsory forms of expenditure.
Therefore, although we welcome the fact that the Committee on Budgets' proposal on this matter was rejected, we disagree with the overall tone of the report and were therefore unable to adopt it.
Madam President, I should just like to briefly explain that after having drawn up a minority opinion on the Haug report, I voted in favour of it.
I simply wanted to point out that my argument was essentially based on whether agricultural cofinancing, as proposed by the Haug report, was compatible with the aims of the Treaty.
As this was rejected by Parliament, I was able to vote in favour of the report and I am delighted that my minority opinion in committee has become the majority opinion of the House.
Madam President, we reject both the principle of cofinancing and the introduction of a degressive approach to subsidies.
We are opposed to the idea of revising the European budget at the expense of our farmers.
Moreover, we are also vehemently opposed to the development of new ways of providing the EU with its own resources, because we do not wish to impose any additional burdens on the people of Europe.
It is also wrong to dispute the connection between the Cohesion Fund and the euro area.
No country that is ready for the euro is in need of these funds.
Solidarity cannot and must not be one-sided.
In general terms, the aim on the revenue side of the EU budget must be to create greater transparency and an equitable distribution of burdens.
Since the House has rejected the principle of cofinancing - a decision which we welcome - and since some parts of the report that reflect our views were adopted, while others were rejected, we abstained in the final vote.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted against the report's proposal for cofinancing of the common agricultural policy through national budgets.
We are of the opinion that the support for agriculture in the EU should be phased out instead.
A change in the EU budget is desirable and necessary for the future.
The EU budget is much too wide-ranging, which is clearly leading to considerable problems.
Not least among these are all the reports of fraud and irregularities, which are costing the EU taxpayers some 40 billion a year in Swedish money, i.e. a sum corresponding to double the Swedish membership contribution to the EU.
There must be changes here.
In the first instance, much of this has to do with the fact that no one has any sense of belonging to the EU, and that most only see the EU and its budget as a source of grants and subsidies.
We consider the proposal that the EU's biggest item of expenditure, the agricultural policy, should be financed jointly through the national budgets to be an important and correct step in the direction of reducing the total EU budget.
We believe that, as a result of this, the Member States are bound to become more involved in the EU's agricultural policy and to show greater concern over how appropriations under the agricultural policy are managed.
We oppose all the demands in the report that the EU should take on responsibility for fiscal policy and should direct the coordination of economic policy, especially against the background of arguments such as that of the Union having a role as a 'global political and economic actor of growing importance'.
The Member States, Europe and the world do not need and have nothing to gain from a superpower, whether it be an economic, political or military one.
We have strong objections to paragraphs 9 and 11, because they seek to give the Union clear responsibility for fiscal legislation, and moreover powers to raise and appropriate the taxes.
Fiscal policy and economic policy must be decided at national level, even though a certain degree of international cooperation is needed on some clearly specified taxes or duties.
But that is not the same thing as a fiscal policy decided by the EU, in which the EU takes control of the taxes raised.
It is timely that we are discussing this report when European Union leaders are engaged in tough and contentious negotiations on the future financing of the European Union itself.
While we are debating here today the issue of the rebate which the European Union gives the British Government on an annual basis, this matter should now be put into its overall context.
It is clear that some Member States of the EU, most notably the Netherlands, Austria and Germany, believe that they are contributing too much money to the European Union annual budget.
It is argued that the British Government secured too favourable a deal at Fontainebleau in 1984 with regard to the rebate which the European Union gives to it annually.
This is now a matter for negotiations between European Union leaders, the European Parliament and the European Commission.
A framework for the future financing of the European Union for the period 2000-2006 must be put in place.
One particular financial equation is certainly very clear.
The European Union annual budget will still be raised by means of a levy on individual Member States to the maximum of 1.27 % GDP.
Decisions have already been taken that the future financing of the enlargement of the European Union is to come from within the parameters of this 1.27 % budgetary allocation.
It is clear that a compromise is going to have to be found between those countries which are claiming that they contribute too much to the EU, as equally, those countries which have received favourable treatment from the European Union annual budget in recent years.
The British Government certainly falls into this category and as the negotiations progress to the Berlin summit on 25 March next it is clear that there is bound to have to be a relaxation of the rules governing the amount which the British Government receives via rebates from the EU each year.
With regard to the future financing of the European Union, one option which cannot be considered is the possible renationalising of the common agricultural policy itself.
Such a decision would have serious implications for Ireland because of our unique dependence on agriculture and the importance of family farming as an essential feature of the economic and social infrastructure of rural areas.
For the third time since the Luxembourg Treaty of 1970 and the Fontainebleau summit of 1984, we are faced with the problem of how to finance European integration.
The Member States agree with the assessment of the problem, but are extremely divided as to how it should be solved.
At the heart of the problem lies the complicity and injustice of the way in which Europe is presently financed; in other words, it rests on four supports with four forms of resource.
The injustice lies in how the burden is distributed.
Germany contributes more than it receives in return, as does France, which is why we talk in terms of 'net contributors'.
On the contrary, Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal benefit thanks to the Cohesion Fund.
However, the Member States' financial contributions are much more complex than that.
For example, Belgium and the Netherlands seem to pay a great deal because there are customs duties on imports through Antwerp and Rotterdam.
Belgium and the Netherlands therefore seem to pay a great deal but they do not really have to bear the cost of these customs duties.
What is more, each Member State's financial contribution is subject to the criterion used to make the calculations.
If we were to compare how much each inhabitant pays out of their income in terms of per capita GDP, the result is reversed.
People in the Netherlands who contribute to the Cohesion Fund make a greater individual sacrifice than people in northern Europe.
This just shows how complex the system really is.
An examination of exactly how the VAT-based or GNP-based resources are calculated, as well as the technical mechanism used to cap the British contribution, would reveal an even more unlikely complex situation.
This technical impenetrability hides many mistaken beliefs, in particular, the belief that the European Union is financed by its own resources, by taxes, through VAT, whereas in reality, it is still financed by state contributions.
It is also a mistake to think that enlargement towards the East and the extension of the EU's powers will be achieved with the same budget envelope of 1.27 % of GNP, as the Commission would have us believe.
Tomorrow's Europe will require ever more financial resources and will eventually be forced to tackle the problem of taxation.
This is where the disagreements arise in terms of the best solution to adopt.
Although the mistakenly good idea of cofinancing, which in fact would be a new resource created on the sly without being ratified by national parliaments, has been ruled out, fundamental differences on principles and techniques remain.
As regards principles, should the British idea of the 'juste retour ' be upheld? Should we limit, out of simple common sense, the sacrifice imposed to prevent the despoliation of some countries, such as France?
Should we really move towards a 'single tax' with an ever-increasing GNP-based contribution, even though we know that a single tax is a grossly unjust tax?
Whichever resource or resources are chosen, should they be progressive as Spain advocates, or proportional? Above all, as regards decision making, should the unanimous rule, which is the only way to guarantee security, be maintained or should we opt for majority voting, which we usually do when there are drifts involved?
The differences involving principles and techniques are inseparable.
Will Europe finance itself by making CO2 pay? Only the Greens believe that this is possible.
Will there be a European income tax?
These concepts are to be avoided. We should instead stick to the present system, in other words, financing through state contributions, because we know that old taxes are the best and are the ones that will be respected.
Like the majority of the French members of our group, we voted against the report as adopted by the House.
Once again, I regret the fact that many Members did not think things through rationally enough.
Although we succeeded in rejecting paragraph 13, which put forward the idea of cofinancing the CAP, albeit with a small majority, other parts of the resolution were not acceptable and, in our view, should not have been accepted.
Several paragraphs of the resolution stated that Parliament wanted control of the overall Community budget.
As a consequence, I think that those who voted in favour of this resolution are also in favour of eradicating the principle of compulsory expenditure.
In fact, since the Treaty of Rome, all agricultural expenditure under the Guarantee section of the EAGGF has been compulsory. In other words, Parliament is limited to giving an opinion on this type of expenditure and the Council is the only institution empowered to make decisions on it.
Since the beginning of this legislature, some have been critical of the fact that 48 % of the Community budget is allocated to one socio-professional category representing less than 5 % of the European population.
Experience shows that if the European Parliament were ever to gain full control of the agriculture budget, it would progressively reduce it in order to transfer funds to other areas and policies, forgetting that the CAP is the only fully integrated policy at Community level.
In terms of the European Union's GNP, I should like to remind you that the agriculture budget only represents 0.5 % of the Member States' GNP.
A second factor influenced my decision to reject this report.
Several sections of the text adopted by the House propose increasing the budget of the EU's institutions through the creation of additional forms of resource, without, however, increasing the overall fiscal burden on the people of the Member States of the European Union.
The question immediately arises as to how this will be possible, with the only plausible answer being to transfer funds from the Member States' budgets to the European budget.
In view of the enormous difficulties we are experiencing today in balancing the European budget with regard to all the constraints imposed by the convergence criteria linked to the introduction of the euro, I think that such a proposal is completely unrealistic.
The European Union's priority is to give precedence to its common policies.
It will not solve budget problems through cofinancing or by gradually reducing agricultural subsidies, but by providing these policies with the necessary budgetary allocations.
Not so long ago, before 1992, the CAP accounted for 70 % of the Community budget, and at the outset, it even accounted for almost the entire European budget.
European farmers have contributed financially to the introduction of the euro by doing away with the differences between the rate of the ecu and that of the green ecu.
Today, all we are doing is asking them to finance the EU's enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, while being fully aware that their future hangs in the balance. This is because the European Union only thinks in terms of concluding free trade agreements and dismantling what is left of the Community preference.
The Haug report contains some very positive ideas, such as its condemnation of the principle of the 'just return' and the 'British correction' and the suggestion that VAT as a base should be fully replaced by GNP.
As can be seen from an interesting table to be found in the Valdevieso report, this would do a lot to help us escape from the current regressive trend, already reduced in 1997, because of the proportionately greater importance given to GNP among the current resources.
This is something to be borne in mind when we consider a suggested 'new' resource, a tax on carbon dioxide emissions.
Two other suggestions that could be implemented by the European Union are a tax on profits made from coin minting by the European Central Bank and a tax on short-term speculative investment (the Tobin tax).They are both very interesting, but need further consideration and, in any case, would make only small contributions to the budget.
Given that it would lead to greater revenue, fairly distributed and identifiable by the public (thereby strengthening the desirable notion of accountability), we cannot understand why progress is not being made, as a priority, on a tax linked to personal income.
Finally, with regard to the CAP, rather than renationalise it we should be making moves to reform it, lowering consumer prices, taking measures to restructure agriculture and give the less favoured farmers income support.
There is a need to change and reform the EU's system of own resources.
However, I am opposed to the proposal contained in paragraph 8 of the resolution, because it will lead to increased supranationality.
I believe that in principle only the Council should continue to decide on the Union's own resources.
As regards the cofinancing of agricultural expenditure, I do not think that is an appropriate solution.
The agricultural policy currently pursued must be radically reformed, and we should reduce expenditure without delay.
As we need to devise a general system, I reject the principle of cofinancing.
The current system of own resources has a number of shortcomings.
For example, the collection of the traditional own resources gives rise to a great deal of red tape, irregularities and fraud.
It is therefore entirely appropriate to carry out a detailed cost-benefit analysis of this source of own resources, as the rapporteur proposes.
Another important point is that the benefits and burdens of the EU budget are unfairly distributed among the Member States.
I am quite happy to support the rapporteur's proposals here, such as the introduction of cofinancing of agricultural expenditure by the Member States.
I also share his criticisms of the correction mechanism for the United Kingdom.
Five other Member States are now in more or less the same net contributor position as the UK, so there is no longer any legitimate reason for maintaining the correction mechanism just for one country.
However, I feel it is going too far to reject any correction mechanism on the revenue side of the EU budget out of hand.
I think a compensation mechanism which applied to all Member States could be a perfectly viable instrument for helping to remedy the unfair distribution of the financial burden among the Member States.
Although I support all these various proposals, I felt I could not vote for the Haug report, mainly because of the proposal for a fundamental review of the own resources system, eventually replacing the national contributions to the EU budget with European taxes.
This is designed to create a Union which is entirely financially independent of the national governments, and while this is very much in line with the supranational European model that many people in Parliament still want to see, it is completely at odds with the kind of Europe we support.
The European Union must remain a collaborative undertaking between national Member States, and this means that the national governments must continue to have influence over how it is financed.
An integral system of national contributions based on the level of affluence of each Member State (GNP), which is what Mr Fabre-Aubrespy calls for in his minority position, offers the best guarantee for a balanced and transparent financing system, with a cost-benefit ratio which is also in its favour.
I voted against this report mainly because of its outspoken demands for the Union to raise 'own resources'.
In concrete terms, this first step towards tax-raising powers for the Union also constitutes a major move towards a federal Europe.
Mrs Haug's proposals represent a decisive move away from the principle that every nation has the right in a democratic system to tax itself.
This is reason enough to vote against the report.
Monfils recommendation (A4-0106/99)
The creation of a Community action to support the organisation of the European Capital of Culture should not only cover the nomination arrangements but also make available resources making it easier to nominate cities that are less prosperous but undeniably of a high cultural standard, at both national and European level, for the title of European capital of culture.
We welcome the fact that recognition has been given to the need for the nominated cities 'to ensure the mobilisation and participation of large sections of the population', and also the recommendation that the nominated cities should be able and obliged to include surrounding regions in their programmes.
These are guidelines that we have always fought for, although they have not always been understood or accepted.
It is our hope and desire, therefore, that Oporto, due to be European Capital of Culture in 2001, can be a pioneer in putting these guidelines into practice even before they come into effect.
It is entirely justified that various cities from the same country should be able to apply jointly.
That would enable cities such as Tomar and Santarém, should they so wish, to apply to become cultural capitals, justifiably in their own right. It would enable them to present a stronger case.
Lehne report (A4-0098/99)
Madam President, the Lehne report focuses on an extremely worthy objective, that of rendering the treatment of Members' auxiliary staff and assistants more transparent and fair.
Unfortunately, it exploits this good idea in that it harmonises, or begins to harmonise, a statute at European level, in which the European Parliament, in particular, would be the employer, even if the Member himself was naturally free to hire and fire his staff.
According to the rapporteur, this development would be based on a broad interpretation of the new Article 190(5) of the EC Treaty, as consolidated by the Amsterdam Treaty, which provides for the implementation of a standard European statute for the Members of this House.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations opposes this standardisation as, in our view, such a statute should remain under the remit of each country.
My group therefore also opposes the broad interpretation of Article 190(5), which seeks to extend this harmonisation to Members' assistants.
In our opinion, each Member of the European Parliament represents his country and should be remunerated or compensated by that country, and his assistants should be treated in the same way.
If this is not the case, we will soon have assistants that are fully integrated into the European regime and way of thinking, making spontaneous proposals to their Member on positions to advocate ever deeper integration since they will have become functionally incapable of thinking anything else.
I am very wary of the potential influence such a statute might have on an individual's behaviour.
This is why I think that the equity needed in the management of assistants must be established at national level.
What is more, the assistants of the Members of the European Parliament must be managed according to the same laws and practices and by the same services as the assistants of members of national parliaments.
At present, Members can employ their staff according to the rules of either Belgian or home-country employment law, under terms of employment involving normal social security obligations.
The present system has led to considerable differences in conditions of employment as between staff from different political parties and Member States.
The majority of staff, including those employed by the Swedish Social Democrats, have conditions of employment geared to home-country rules, whereas other staff have neither a contract of employment nor trade union representation.
The lack of an acceptable personnel policy and failure to observe the rules of employment law which the Assistants' Association reports is a cause for concern.
Such abuses must not be allowed to happen.
We also do not think that assistants should be taxed according to Community law.
The conditions for a joint solution to be worked out are not yet present.
Although the Lehne report seeks to regulate working conditions for the staff of Members of the European Parliament, the details have not been sufficiently well thought through.
Today the Danish Social Democrats voted in favour of introducing decent conditions of employment for parliamentary assistants.
The situation at present is that 23 % of the assistants have no contract.
Unfortunately, there are examples of assistants being employed without any salary or social security.
We have therefore voted in favour of introducing binding rules for recruitment, dismissal, remuneration, social security and pensions, amongst other things.
We have voted in favour of introducing binding rules before the end of this parliamentary term.
We hope that the Council will also accept its responsibility, so that we can have proper conditions of employment for all the assistants as soon as possible.
The Commission proposal to extend the European Staff Regulations to cover MEPs' assistants goes much too far, in our view.
The Members themselves are responsible for ensuring that their secretarial allowance is spent properly, but unfortunately many of our colleagues offer their assistants too little security and pay them widely differing wages.
The rapporteur wants assistants working in Brussels to be covered by Community rules.
The income he proposes is less than in the Commission proposal, but it is still too high by national standards.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has created a rather obscure hybrid, with assistants being covered by the Staff Regulations but in a highly ambiguous manner, creating even more uncertainty for some of them.
The PSE Group amendments introduce some fine-tuning, but also take the staff budgets out of the Members' hands.
In our view, we must focus on combating unfair treatment, for example by introducing a code of conduct with minimum conditions of employment, limiting the duration of probation periods, etc.
Members must agree to abide by this code when they receive their secretarial allowance.
We were therefore unable to support the proposals in question.
We fully endorse the assistants' attempts to obtain decent recruitment, remuneration and working conditions.
It cannot be our intention, for example, that assistants can be dismissed at one day's notice or if they are called up for military service.
They too have a right to normal periods of notice.
We are opposed to unnecessary bureaucracy and believe quite unequivocally that national social security schemes can and should be respected.
Although the proposal before us is not perfect, we have still decided to vote in favour of the report, in order to put a stop to the black market in labour.
Members of the European Parliament are elected by the people of the Member States and represent them in the EU.
They are not the EU's representatives in the Member States.
Their salaries and taxation arrangements should therefore be governed by the rules that apply to national parliamentarians.
The assistants of Members of the European Parliament are assigned to the Members and should not be treated on the same footing as employees of the groups, who are directly subordinate to the federalist structure of the European Parliament.
Our assistants, both those who work in the home country and those based in Brussels, are covered by the national collective agreement and tax system.
In our opinion, this arrangement has worked extremely well.
Any attempt by Parliament to regulate conditions of employment in detail, to restrict the freedom of expression and informants' protection to which assistants are entitled and to introduce huge pay differentials is alien to us.
This does not mean that we favour the exploitation of staff which is practised by some MEPs.
But such matters should be resolved in some other way, without the disadvantages introduced by the proposed Council regulation to amend the Staff Regulations, the Lehne report and most of the amendments tabled for this part-session.
There is a need for conditions of service and contracts of employment that regulate the social and other entitlements of assistants.
Their employment should, like that of Members of Parliament themselves, be governed by the legislation of the home country or the legislation of the country in which the person is actually resident.
What is important is not that there should be common rules, but that the rules should be clear and unambiguous, and that the conditions should be acceptable to both the assistants and Members.
Assistants, like Members of the European Parliament, should not pay EU tax but should be taxed in their home countries.
I voted against the proposal for common conditions of employment for assistants, mainly because the proposal would mean that in future assistants would also pay the so-called EU tax, i.e. about 20 %.
I strongly object to this proposal, which would create a tax concession for those who work within the EU system.
Those who work for Swedish Members, for example, should pay either Swedish or Belgian tax in the normal way.
A tax concession for assistants is moreover a political precursor to measures by which Members would also be subject to the so-called EU tax.
European Council in Berlin
Madam President, my group has been entirely opposed to the tabling of a resolution in advance of the Berlin summit.
This House has, over the last few months, spent hours and hours in detailed work, passed by this plenary, on the Agenda 2000 package.
It is completely inappropriate, in our view, that we should have a resolution adopted in literally a few minutes, by comparison, which in some places repeats and in places contradicts the work that went on for the Agenda 2000 package.
It was on that basis that we determined to vote against all the resolutions that were put forward in this House other than our own, which determined that we should adopt and abide by the Agenda 2000 package, as per our first reading.
That is the basis of our opposition.
I can only repeat our pleasure that the plenary rejected the resolutions.
Madam President, as rapporteur for the general regulation on the reform of the structural funds I voted against the PPE resolution and the compromise resolution.
This resolution does not fully reflect the negotiating priorities agreed by the PPE and the PSE in the McCarthy/Hatzidakis resolution and, as such, can only give a partial and partisan view of Parliament's priorities.
It is, in my view, deplorable that the PPE seek to undermine our joint rapporteurship and negotiations with the German presidency.
Parliament has a commitment to continued investment in Objective II-type areas and has requested two additional Community initiatives for urban and industrial areas.
The PPE appear to have weakened their support for these areas and are abandoning them by omitting them from the priorities of the text.
They have sent a signal to Berlin that these areas and communities are not a political priority for them.
I could not support this text.
I hope that the communities from these areas will show their displeasure in the ballot box in June 1999.
Yet again the PPE have demonstrated their inability to sustain any support for the shambolic approach to Council resolutions and, in particular, Agenda 2000.
It is correct that Parliament voted down this compromise as it only sought to undermine agreements in Berlin.
It is extremely important that the forthcoming European Council meeting in Berlin should cut the Gordian knot on Agenda 2000.
Reform of the agricultural and structural policies and new agreements on the financing of the Union are absolutely vital if the Central and Eastern European countries are to be able to join.
Broadly speaking, we agree with the joint resolution on this issue and therefore voted in favour of it, but we would still like to make the following points.
We can live with the Commission proposal to set aside 0.46 % of GNP per year for structural measures in the period 2000-2006, but only under two conditions.
Firstly, as with other expenditure headings, this must be an expenditure ceiling rather than a spending target.
The current privileged status of the Structural Funds tends to mean that the available budget has to be spent at all costs, which does nothing for efficiency and is financially irresponsible.
Secondly, the appropriations for structural aid for the applicant countries must be integrated into the EU programmes upon their accession without exceeding the expenditure ceiling of 0.46 % of GNP.
This means that clear priorities must be set.
The Agenda 2000 proposals are too focused on the acquired rights of the southern Member States, and we must realise that in future the poor regions are going to lie to the east.
We do not share the PPE and ARE Groups' objections to the Council's plans to nominate a new Commission president before the European elections in June, and we therefore did not vote for the amendments on the subject.
The Commission President is the most senior official in the European civil service.
Officials are not selected, they are appointed, and the appointment of the Commission President is first and foremost something the Member States must agree on among themselves.
The decisive factor here must be a candidate's personal qualities, not his political affiliations.
If the nomination is made dependent on the outcome of the European elections, then too much weight will be attached to the candidate's political background.
The Berlin European Council, which will discuss enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, might be the opportunity to finally adopt a friendly attitude towards Belarus.
The accusations levelled against that country are unfounded and it is wrong to say that freedom of expression does not exist there.
Belarus is gradually developing a regime that gives greater precedence to progress and freedom, based on the present constitution.
Any step backwards would be a mistake.
The criticisms levelled against Belarus are reminiscent of those levelled against General de Gaulle by some Anglo-Saxon circles during the Fourth Republic.
On the pretext that he intended to create a new constitution through a referendum, he was accused of anti-republican fascism.
This type of accusation is absurd.
There is far more respect for human rights in Belarus than in pro-American countries such as Turkey, which benefits from an association agreement with the European Union.
We must stop making accusations that are inconsistent with the principle of friendship among peoples, something that is particularly essential in today's enlarged Europe.
The Berlin summit, which will focus solely on Agenda 2000, is of particular importance for the future of the European Union.
Apart from the financial aspects of this reform, the principle of subsidiarity is at stake.
Like our President, José Maria Gil-Robles, I think that this reform must be viewed as a whole, so that we can give a clear political message to the people of the European Union and of the applicant countries.
As regards the more specific proposals put forward by the Commission, I have several comments to make.
First, as regards the CAP, I think that, on one hand, we need to guarantee a stable income for the whole of the agricultural sector, and on the other hand, we need to promote an agricultural model that is not connected to world markets and that is responsible for planned rural development that is accepted by all.
With regard to structural policies, I still support the idea that areas leaving Objective 1 should be given a transitional period in which to adjust.
Another challenge that the European Union must face relates to areas that are very densely populated.
We do not need to be reminded of the number of Europeans living in such areas to reaffirm the relevance of the URBAN programme and the need to maintain it, as the European Parliament has already mentioned.
Similarly, I also share the view that the Structural Funds must be consolidated as a tool for creating jobs and combating unemployment.
In this respect, I agree with the fact that the European Union must consider establishing a system of own resources that allows us to prepare for enlargement without undermining the principles of solidarity and cohesion, two of the most fundamental ideas behind European Union integration.
Finally, I agree with the ideas on human rights and balanced development, which must be major objectives for those countries wishing to join the European Union.
The Berlin summit is undoubtedly of particular importance and it forces our leaders to send out a strong message a few weeks before a deadline when our citizens will take full advantage of the opportunity to express their views on the Europe they are being offered.
The fact that the European Council will be held in Berlin is already a significant symbol of the new strategic order, as Germany is taking advantage of its presidency to defend its interests in the financing of the European budget, in enlargement towards the East and in the CAP.
France's interests are different in all three cases.
The industrialised and Atlanticist Germany would easily sacrifice the agricultural Europe, giving Washington a monopoly over the food weapon. France, on the other hand, would not.
Germany - which is the leading net contributor to the European budget, since it pays in more than it receives - would like to receive at least a financial return that is not extremely unjust, if not quite a 'juste retour ' as Margaret Thatcher demanded in 1984.
With regard to this budgetary issue, France, which has lost more than FRF 20 billion in a single year of financing the European budget, is sensitive to the excessive inequalities in each Member's financial contribution.
However, we must not forget that, although Germany makes a substantial contribution to the European budget, it has also made other states in the Union pay a considerable amount since its reunification.
The high interest rates imposed by the Bundesbank to finance the five Länder of the former East Germany are one of the major causes of the recent economic recession and the fact that six million French people are unemployed.
France has paid a large part of the dowry for the marriage of the two parts of Germany.
Lastly, enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe is displacing the European Union's centre of gravity further towards the former Comecon area, where the currency was the Deutsche mark.
This shows the extent to which we are under Germany's sphere of influence. For France, the accession of the countries of Eastern Europe, where 25 % of the active population work in agriculture, is going further than the problems posed by the present CAP reform, which goes against our national interests.
In other words, the interests of the Franco-German partnership are not necessarily the same in terms of the independence of nuclear energy, the reform of the CAP, where we reject the idea of cofinancing as it would make us pay with giving us any power of decision, or the financing of the CAP, where no clear decisions have been taken on the principles involved.
Instead of talking about limits, ceilings or correction mechanisms, we really need to make a decision on the principles, that is, whether or not Europe should be financed by taxation or by contributions from the Member States. If we opt for fiscal measures, what form should the tax take?
Should it be progressive, as Spain hopes, proportional to wealth, or a head tax?
In fact, in Berlin, Europe is at a junction where all roads meet: the roads from the East, the budgetary roads and the strategic roads.
The time has come for European integration to get rid of any ambiguities and the first of these is to decide if we are building a European Europe or a globalised Europe.
Since the beginning, the National Front has made its choice clear: it favours the Europe of realities and truths, the tangible Europe, and the Europe of states and nations.
In these times of lack of ambition and any sense of responsibility, we should rejoice at certain aspects of the resolution that we have just voted on in the European Parliament.
This is true of the point made in recital A that the Structural Fund and the Cohesion Fund are the main instruments of economic and social cohesion, while the importance of economic cohesion is also emphasised in paragraph 5.
Emphasis should also be laid on the statement in paragraph 4 that budgetary restraint needs to be reconciled with the guarantee of sufficient funds for the essential tasks of the European Union.
Another point to be emphasised is the approval in paragraph 6 of the proposal to earmark 0.46 % of the European Union's GNP every year for structural actions during the period 2000 to 2006.
Let us hope that these are not just good intentions since the most powerful leaders, focusing on Agenda 2000 instead of worrying about having enough resources to meet Europe's ambitions, are basically concerned with setting a sacrosanct limit of 1.27 % of GNP for the Union budget. What is more, in Agenda 2000 the Commission is proposing to transfer EUR 45 billion from the Structural Funds to actions preparing for the accession of the new Member States, leaving the current 15 Member States with EUR 10.2 billion less or, in other words, 0.39 % of GNP.
These are major points which should have been resolved or clarified.
The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0272/99 by Mr Imbeni and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0295/99 by Mr Vinci and Mr Ripa di Meana, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -B4-0317/99 by Mr Santini and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; on the disaster in Cermis (Italy) and the verdict of the United States court-martial.
Madam President, on 3 February 1998, a US military aircraft that had been violating the rules of aviation caused the Cermis ski-lift disaster, with the deaths of 20 European citizens.
Just a little over a year later, the American court-martial at Camp Lejeune has delivered an absolutely scandalous verdict, clearing the pilot and refusing to try to identify responsibility elsewhere, even though the Italian judicial authorities have established, beyond all doubt, that there was a clear breach of the rules of aviation.
European Socialists are scandalised by this verdict, which makes no attempt to try to establish responsibility and prosecute and punish the guilty parties, and is offensive and hurtful to the families of the victims and all of those affected by the Cermis tragedy.
We are asking the US authorities to use all the procedures available to them to identify where responsibility for the tragedy lies, to punish severely those who are guilty and guarantee that relatives of the victims are fully compensated, both in terms of moral support and materially.
We therefore support the stance taken by the Italian Government, which has put these views and requests directly to the President of the United States.
However, events in Cermis also show us that we need to reconsider and act to change the rules contained in the 1951 London Convention, so that tragedies of this kind - which would certainly be more likely were there to be a general feeling of impunity - are prevented in the future, and to guarantee that there would, in any event, be no obstacles in the way of the investigations and judicial proceedings against elements of NATO armed forces that violate the laws of the countries in which they are stationed.
Finally, we are asking for joint action to be put in place to ensure that any form of military exercise within the territory of the Union takes place in conditions of complete safety for the civilian population.
Once again, I join with all who have extended their condolences to those who lost their loved ones in the Cermis tragedy.
Madam President, the few words I wish to say on this sensitive issue can be summed up by way of two premisses and three specific proposals.
My first premiss is that, in the Cermis incident, in which 20 people lost their lives, there was collective responsibility on the part of the NATO command in Aviano which has always authorised training flights, even over densely populated areas, because it has been too liberal in its interpretation of the 1951 London Convention.
My second premiss points the finger of blame at the pilot, Captain Ashby, who broke every rule of care by interpreting even more recklessly an already dangerous flight plan.
It has been said in his defence that the military maps did not show the ski-lift cable: that is unbelievable given, after all, that it has been there for more than 25 years and was reconstructed after an earlier incident, on 9 March 1976, in which 43 people lost their lives.
If the pilot was right, then in any event, the responsibility of those who failed to update such important maps ought to be established.
However, you do not have to be a pilot to find it difficult to imagine that when you enter a mountain gorge at 800 kilometres per hour, at an altitude of only 80 metres, it is still feasible to consult a map.
The inhabitants of the villages situated along the route of the ski-lift know a thing or two about this, and they testified that extremely low-flying aircraft were a common occurrence.
Again, according to their evidence, it seems that the Cermis cable, extending over 80 metres, was considered a challenge for the young Aviano pilots, almost a test of courage, a baptism of fire, swooping over people's heads.
Some, a very few, managed to fly under the cable, while others pulled the nose up at the last minute and cleared the cable.
Unfortunately Captain Ashby stopped half-way.
He severed the cable and caused the death of 20 people.
I believe there are three proposals to remedy this situation: firstly, we need to review and update the London Convention, particularly with regard to overflying; secondly, we need to recognise that the ordinary courts have to take precedence over the military courts in cases of this nature; and, thirdly, we have to put pressure on the US Government to speed up the process of compensating the victims' families.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Vecchi, the person who tabled the resolution, has just said, the American court-martial has delivered its verdict and the pilot of the aircraft involved has been cleared.
It is not our intention to comment on the verdict as such, but we do have some serious questions about the system established under the London Convention.
We would point out that a legal system such as Italy's is perfectly capable of guaranteeing a proper trial, so why, in cases like this, can the airmen responsible not be tried by the regular courts in Italy rather than by special courts, such as the court-martial here?
Do not misunderstand us, this is not a call for a people's court, for emotional justice or for revenge, but for new international procedures so that responsibility for accidents or offences can be determined at the place where the events occurred.
The acquittal of the crewmen concerned also leaves a number of questions unanswered, which is why we expect the investigation at least to continue.
Why did the pilots not have the correct maps? Why was the ski-lift not shown on those maps?
Why did the NATO authorities in charge not have information on the permitted flight altitude in the region? Something or someone in this whole unsavoury business has to be responsible.
Finally, we want the promises and commitments given about compensation for the victims to be honoured, because here too justice must prevail.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the acquittal of the American pilot whose reckless behaviour a year ago caused the deaths of 20 European citizens, including five young people from my immediate neighbourhood, cries out for revenge.
Justice was clearly not done when, despite the incontrovertible evidence, the pilot was not only acquitted of involuntary manslaughter, but even the charges of dereliction of duty and reckless conduct were apparently not admissible.
When Parliament sent its condolences to the victims of this terrible accident last year, calls were already being made for a review of the London Convention, under which jurisdiction in the case of military offences lies with the country to which the military personnel in question belong.
The unacceptable verdict delivered by the court-martial shows once again just how necessary this review is.
There is also the question of whether recourse to the separate system of courts-martial is still justified in peacetime.
Is it fair that a serviceman who commits an offence in the course of an operation which serves no military purpose and in which civilians are harmed should be tried by a separate legal structure made up almost exclusively of other servicemen, in other words colleagues? The special circumstances such as a war which justify the existence of courts-martial did not apply in this case.
We all agree that actual responsibility must be determined and fair compensation must be paid without delay to the families of the victims.
I wish to add my voice to what has been said by other honourable Members and express the indignation of the Green Group at a verdict which is not only an insult to those who lost their lives, but highlights a situation that is totally unacceptable.
Moreover, I have to say that we understand the reaction of the people of the Cermis region and the response of the victims' relatives.
I think that is right, and I also think it right that the victims' relatives should be compensated, even though compensation can never bring back those who lost their lives.
Setting all of that aside, I think we are right to ask how it is that, almost 50 years on from the London Convention, incidents of the kind we have seen can still happen.
I would remind the House that last year, on 19 February, when we were discussing the Cermis tragedy, I tabled a resolution in which I called for the London Convention to be reviewed.
I therefore believe that not only should we call for the inquiry to be reopened to establish whether there is responsibility at a higher level, we should also consider whether it is necessary to retain the NATO bases, as if we were colonies of some kind, or to react and ask for the current rules to be amended so that the national courts are finally given jurisdiction over criminal acts of this nature.
Madam President, the Cermis incident is without doubt a tragic episode, and the impression of US justice which Italy and the rest of Europe have been given has certainly left us with a bitter taste in the mouth. We feel that sense of bitterness first and foremost for the relatives of the victims, of course, but also for all those who have regarded the Atlantic Alliance in the same way as we have always viewed it: that is to say as an Alliance which has guaranteed our countries' security for 50 years.
I believe it is right that, after the Italian Parliament stated its view yesterday, we in the European Parliament should now be discussing the issue and taking an interest in seeing that justice is done, although much - too much - remains unclear about this incident, which is also protected by the provisions of the 1951 Convention.
I do not, however, believe it either right or helpful that we Europeans should be raising for debate, on the basis of these incidents alone, matters which could have been discussed elsewhere.
That seems to me, at any rate, to be a dangerous mix.
Madam President, I think that everyone here in the House can imagine what the families of those who died at Cavalese must be going through and, whatever our politics, would share their outrage today at the fact that a year after the disaster, the pilot responsible has been found not guilty by an American court-martial.
However, I think that we, as politicians, should not simply confine ourselves to a few non-committal words of moral support or criticism of the London Convention.
As the European Parliament, we must have the courage to face up to our political responsibility and say that this is about much more than just the guilt or innocence of one man, of one pilot.
Over the last few weeks, we have been forced to face the facts, facts that we might sometimes prefer not to know.
The facts show that the American troops stationed in Europe are actually above the law in the Member States, they can contravene laws and regulations with impunity, as we have seen, and will never be called to account before the European courts or the courts of the Member States.
We must ask ourselves whether this court-martial verdict, sadly, is not indicative of a certain American mentality today that clearly regards the American troops in Europe as a sort of army of occupation which, like all armies, is above the laws and regulations of the countries in which it is stationed.
We must therefore now not just demand compensation for the victims' families, although it goes without saying that they can never be compensated for their suffering, we must also condemn this totally unacceptable American attitude that can only be described as neo-colonial.
The countries of Europe are not America's vassals, they are not negro villages, and they must not be treated as such.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is surprising how justice goes out of the door when it is left to the country of origin of NATO troops, which is responsible for accidents or breaches of the law, to assign responsibility and exercise a remote - in both a physical and a moral sense - form of justice, from thousands of miles away.
The attitude taken by American pilots to Cermis hardly bears description: they were supposed to be carrying out military exercises, but in fact slaughtered defenceless people. Particularly unjustifiable, however, is the apathy of a court-martial that is incapable of guaranteeing that justice will be done, taking refuge behind international agreements, in this case the London Convention which dates back to 1951 and now needs, as a matter of urgency, to be brought into line with changing times and international political reality.
Equally unjustified, however, is the surge of anti-American feeling which is going so far as to challenge the basis of the international agreements with the United States, those same agreements which have protected Italy from the strategies and subversion of the Communist International.
The non-attached Members therefore wish to dissociate themselves from the protests coming from those who still hanker after the Warsaw Pact, and to affirm the importance of the partnership between the United States and Europe, and between the United States and the Italian Republic. Once again we are voicing our support for the establishment of a European security and defence policy which cooperates and works with the NATO structures and, if necessary, acts independently to defend the interests of the whole of Europe.
Madam President, I think it appropriate and right that this House should state its position on the Cermis tragedy - and not only on the incident itself, but above all on the verdict from the other side of the Atlantic which failed to condemn it.
We consider the expression 'concern', which is used in the resolution on which we are to vote, completely inappropriate.
I do not know what compromise led to that word being used, but I reject it.
There are two things we should be talking about here: about condemnation - condemnation of the action of those pilots who play at cowboys in the skies, risking the lives of others - and above all censure of the verdict of the American court-martial, which is failing to give our people, our nations, justice.
On behalf of the Padania bloc, which I represent in this House, and certain that I am speaking for the people, I therefore ask Parliament to be very firm in the stand it takes.
This Parliament is reaching the end of its mandate, but I think that we should begin to set an example for those who will come after us. This Europe of ours will either gain respect or regularly be walked over by people and states that want to be our friends, although we know that the essential basis for friendship, between both individuals and states, is mutual respect.
I am therefore asking for the wording of the resolution to be much more forceful than it is at present.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission's thoughts are primarily with the families of the victims of the tragedy in Cavalese. The Commission would like to express its deepest sympathy with them and it shares their pain and grief.
The Commission also shares your feelings regarding the conditions under which this accident took place and, like many of you, regarding the questions that remain unanswered.
Like Parliament, the Commission hopes that there will be swift and fair compensation for the families concerned.
Moreover, I note that President Clinton himself has recognized that the United States may have had some responsibility.
An acquittal has just been pronounced by the American Court-Martial.
This is the Court that has authority in this matter, under the provisions of the Treaty of London of 1951, which determines the courts that are empowered to rule on infringements committed by NATO troops abroad.
Any decision to amend this Treaty is the sole responsibility of the members of NATO.
The issue must therefore be dealt with within and by the appropriate institutions.
The Community does not have the authority to rule on issues concerning the security of military flights.
There is a directive, Directive 56 of 24 November 1994, which establishes the basic principles governing enquiries into accidents and incidents in civil aviation.
However, this directive does not apply to military aviation.
It is therefore up to the Member States to adopt any decisions which may be necessary on this matter.
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0234/99 by Mr Moorhouse and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0275/99 by Mrs Berès and Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0279/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs Carrère d'Encausse, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0288/99 by Mrs Schroedter and Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; on support for the peace process in the Caucasus.
Madam President, we can think ourselves lucky that since the cease-fire in the Caucasus in 1994, things have remained relatively quiet, at least as far as the clatter of weapons is concerned.
But things have been far from quiet when it comes to human rights violations.
We have seen in Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Caucasus that human rights and democracy are still not being given a chance, and the negotiations for a peaceful solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have still not produced positive results.
As I said, thank goodness there has been no real outbreak of violence yet.
At the moment the so-called Minsk group - the United States and France - is working to try to achieve something through the OSCE.
Let us hope that this resolution helps to publicise the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh once again.
Madam President, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the region of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan experienced some difficult times.
Fortunately, there has been a cease-fire since 1994 which is opening the way for negotiation, and the Minsk Group is taking charge of this.
Today, we have on the table a proposal from this Group, which the OSCE has entrusted with finding a solution to this long-standing conflict.
I think that we should welcome this, as it respects two principles we all support: the inhabitants' right to self determination and the respect for borders as they are currently laid out.
Nevertheless, we cannot accept changes that would come about as a result of the use of arms.
This is one of the reasons why, once again, we feel that this proposal by the Minsk Group is headed in the right direction, insofar as it proposes a large degree of autonomy within the existing borders, and we feel that this is a fundamental point.
A window of opportunity is therefore opening for us to begin a process that could bring about a solution to this conflict.
We hope that all the parties will be capable of seizing this opportunity to put an end to the conflict and arrive at a situation whereby the people can live together peacefully within the existing borders.
Madam President, the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, which my own eyes have witnessed, is a conflict with innumerable tragedies.
Since 1992 there have been countless refugees, and their children, who have only ever known a state of emergency, have been growing up in tents and covered wagons.
It is not only the hatred that is constantly growing, and the irreconcilability of two peoples who used to live side by side and to intermarry as a matter of course; there are also the diverse interests of various European powers which keep preventing a peaceful solution, as they did again only recently.
Nor has the European Union achieved anything with its partnership and cooperation agreements; it has not taken the opportunity to use them as an instrument in pursuit of a peace settlement.
What we most need to do now is to break down this hatred, because otherwise there can never be peace in the region, and that is why we must not rely entirely on political instruments but must concentrate above all on supporting the key players within society and make them the starting-point for a concerted reconciliation campaign.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as has already been said, even after five years of cease-fire, there is still no sign of a lasting settlement of the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh.
There are still more than a million refugees, most of them living in inhuman conditions.
They have been driven from their native areas and have no prospects, while the continuing absence of a permanent peace settlement for this part of the Caucasus is disrupting the cooperation between Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia that this region so desperately needs, which is ultimately stifling the economic development of the entire region.
The European Parliament supports the untiring efforts of the Minsk Group to find a political solution that will lead to a stable peace in Transcaucasia.
We call on the OSCE to continue its efforts and to set up an observer team which would constantly monitor respect for human rights and democratic development in those countries.
Such a commission of observers would operate as a political early-warning system, so to speak.
For all the progress that has been made in developing democracy and strengthening human rights, there are still some real problems here, of which last year's presidential election is but one example.
The latest arrests in Azerbaijan are also a cause of great concern to us.
The European Union will continue to support the development of democracy in these young states.
In this context, we call on the Council to increase the allocation of economic aid to Transcaucasia but to link it, I need hardly add, to the process of establishing democracy.
There can only be economic stability, however, if the political conditions are right, in other words if Azerbaijan and Armenia make a determined effort to reach a political compromise on the future of Nagorno Karabakh.
Madam President, I am speaking on behalf of our colleague, Mr Francis Decourri&#x010D;re, who drafted one of the motions for a resolution.
We have had several opportunities to discuss the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, in terms of the human problems caused by the war and as regards our desire to help solve the conflict.
Since 1993, the OSCE has been trying to find a solution, to negotiate and to draw up a peace plan, but we all know that these negotiations have encountered many obstacles, and that in November, the peace plan proposed by the Minsk Group was rejected.
In this respect, we want to firmly reiterate our support for the peace process in the Caucasus and also our support for the peace plan presented by the Minsk Group.
The proposals in question are a good basis for negotiation to help find a peaceful solution to this conflict, and it is essential that negotiations are resumed so that an agreement can be reached as quickly as possible.
I would like to point out that, following the recent rejection by the Azerbaijani Government of the peace plan proposed by the Minsk Group, some political leaders in Azerbaijan itself warned the government against such a refusal and asked it to enter into direct negotiations with the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and to propose a political solution that would grant self-government to the area and make it a free zone.
This is a new and positive element.
At the same time, the European Union must continue to make its aid to the region conditional on visible progress in terms of human rights.
During all information and observation missions, the OSCE must also pay special attention to the level of respect for human rights in the area in order to prevent an escalation of violence if any incidents do occur.
To conclude, I would like to say that the European Union must increase its aid and assistance to the NGOs in the area, which, through discussion and political education, are trying to promote mutual understanding of the history of the communities that live in the region.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Caucasus region - and in particular the three Transcaucasian republics - are of considerable importance for the countries of the European Union. It is our duty to monitor closely what is happening in these three republics and do everything we can to bring about peace in the region, which is of a much greater significance than is represented by its population alone.
It is therefore right for the Member States of the European Union to show concern for the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
It is up to us to do everything we can to put an end to this conflict, to establish peace in the region, of course, but also to promote economic development.
Such economic development can only benefit from the resolution of the conflict.
The Delegation for relations with the Transcaucasian republics has had several opportunities to visit the country and it got the impression that both the Armenians and the Azeris sincerely want to see a solution.
This great expectation extends to Europe and to the European Parliament, which could help find a solution, as we have said ourselves.
The Minsk Group was given the task of drawing up a lasting peace plan.
The leaders of the countries involved - Azerbaijan and Armenia - have put forward proposals.
Armenia, in particular, has come up with proposals that are likely to restore peace in the region.
This is precisely the aim of the resolution in support of the peace process in the Caucasus region, which I personally signed on behalf of my group. We want to make a modest contribution to solving a problem which has been going on for several years and which urgently requires a solution.
I would like to add that, clearly, in co-signing this resolution, which relates to both Azerbaijan and Armenia, we are not forgetting the problems that both of these countries are facing.
We could not of course forget the tragedies that Armenia has experienced, nor its repeated demands, in particular, that the tragedy of the Armenian genocide be recognised. Nor are we forgetting that the human rights situation in Azerbaijan leaves a lot to be desired, and that we must make all efforts to improve it.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Union is working to develop regional cooperation in the Caucasus region and it is supporting the efforts of the Minsk Group and of the OSCE, which is the most appropriate body to seek a peaceful solution to the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The peace plan presented by the three co-presidents is a good basis for negotiation to find a solution to this conflict.
In order to contribute to bringing the regional players together, the Union has set up technical assistance programmes through TACIS with the aim of developing cooperation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The presidents of these two Caucasian countries have demonstrated their support for these initiatives.
They are contributing effectively to improving dialogue between the parties, which facilitates the search for common solutions to the regional problems.
In this context, the Armenian Prime Minister, Mr Darbinian, took part in the presidential transport summit which was organised last year in Azerbaijan with the support of the Community.
The Armenian and Azeri Prime Ministers also attended a conference in Brussels in February on the transport of oil and gas.
The Azeri, Armenian and Georgian Presidents have agreed to participate in a summit organised by the German Presidency in Luxembourg on 22 June to mark the entry into force of the partnership and cooperation agreements between the European Union and the Caucasian countries.
The main priority of these agreements is to support democracy and human rights, in line with Parliament's wishes.
Finally, the Commission notes Parliament's desire to strengthen the work of the 'democracy' aspect of the TACIS programme in the region.
However, up until now, it has only received a very limited number of projects from non-governmental organisations.
The Commission therefore believes that the very small number of NGOs established in Armenia and Azerbaijan means that, for the moment at least, it would be premature to increase the resources allocated to this programme.
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
Cuba
B4-0240/99 by Mr Bertens and Mr Gasòliba i Böhm, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0249/99 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0258/99 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-0274/99 by Mr Linkohr and Mr Cabezón Alonso, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0298/99 by Mr Burenstam Linder and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-0308/99 by Mr Sjöstedt and Mrs Pailler, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; on the situation of human rights in Cuba;
Colombia
B4-0237/99 by Mr Bertens and Mrs Larive, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0251/99 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0273/99 by Mrs Miranda de Lage, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0287/99 by Mr Kreissl-Dörfler and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-0292/99 by Mrs Sornosa Martínez and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -B4-0296/99 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; on human rights violations in Colombia;
Indonesia/East Timor
B4-0252/99 by Mr Janssen van Raay, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0264/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0268/99 by Mr Titley, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0306/99 by Mrs McKenna and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; -B4-0307/99 by Mr Ribeiro and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; on the human rights situation in Indonesia, in particular on the Moluccan Islands and on East Timor;
Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights
B4-0238/99 by Mr Cars and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0248/99 by Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group; -B4-0266/99 by Mr Barros Moura, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists; -B4-0281/99 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-0291/99 by Mr Carnero González and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left; -B4-0300/99 by Mrs Lenz and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; -B4-0303/99 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; on the EU's priorities for the 55th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights;
Belarus
B4-0239/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party; -B4-0289/99 by Mrs Schroedter and Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliament; on the situation in Belarus;
Russia
B4-0280/99 by Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance; -B4-0299/99 by Mr Lehne and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party; on respect for human rights in Russia.
Cuba
Madam President, the blessing given by the Pope during his visit has simply made Castro more determined than ever to go on with his evil practices, adopting new penal legislation and reimposing the death penalty.
It reminds me of when I was a little Catholic boy and the religious procession came through the village, all the curtains were open as the image of Christ and its two candles went by and things were absolutely still, you could have heard a pin drop.
Then as soon as it had passed, the curtains were shut again and people went back to drinking and beating their wives and committing all manner of sins until the next year.
Castro - and I should know, I lived there for four years - is no good.
He may be all right as an image of the 'last revolutionary', but we have had quite enough of all that.
I think it is sad and in fact almost pathetic that we are still trying to get along with this caudillo , another word for dictator.
All he is doing is strengthening the American line on the boycott.
So Europe must not change its policy here.
We must carry on providing support for democratisation and renewal, and this is what our programmes must focus on, rather than some image of Che Guevara.
Now he was a real revolutionary, but unfortunately he died young and, as you know, Castro had a hand in that too.
Our programmes and our political dialogue with Cuba must be actively pursued, and we must make it clear to this caudillo that unlike the Pope we are not to be trifled with.
The people of Cuba deserve democracy and the renewal of their country, even the gullible among them.
Madam President, I am very pleased at what Mr Bertens said.
Despite all the human rights violations and the lack of political freedom in Cuba, Parliament - encouraged by the left-wing parties - has unfortunately always turned a blind eye and has thus allowed the situation to become entrenched.
The dissidents who have put up opposition have never once been honoured with the Sakharov Prize in five years. It is enough to make you weep, and I think it is a very serious omission on our part.
What is more, our extremely selective approach has not helped the people of Cuba one little bit.
Now, at long last, we have a resolution, albeit one which adopts an extremely mild tone.
It talks about help for constructive dialogue instead of sanctions, which is fine. But a year or more after the Pope's visit, when there were such great hopes of improvement, the people of Cuba have less freedom than ever.
The opening-up of the economy has not helped the Cuban workers but party officials and a single Italian and Spanish investor.
It all reminds me of the way things went in the Batista era: prostitution, drinking, rich tourists - these are surely not what you would expect to find in a socialist revolutionary administration?
As I see it, today's investors should have to sign contracts with the workers themselves and not with the government, because what happens is that firms investing there hand over all the wages to the government, which then creams off everything it wants and gives a few pence to the workers.
It is scandalous!
No diplomats or journalists were allowed to be present at the trial of the dissidents.
The European Union said it was an oversight, but when the same thing happens in Turkey, the whole of Europe hits the roof.
What I mean is that we take a very selective view.
In the resolution we talk about observing human rights, but really, as Mr Bertens said, a great deal more than that needs to be done.
Never again must Fidel Castro be given the red carpet treatment anywhere in the world.
He should face the same fate as Öcalan or Pinochet: a trial.
Should not the international community be speaking out against the arrival of 300 Cuban troops in Angola and Brazzaville, as reported in the Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias ? They are there to help dictators cling to power and to bring oil and diamond revenue to Cuba.
This House has waited a long time to hold its trial.
The time has now finally come, but from the communication I received from the Cuban ambassador this morning, he clearly thinks it is all nonsense.
I do not.
I hope that our resolution brings hope to those in Cuba who support freedom.
Madam President, last year, just as John Paul II was arriving in Cuba, the radical party was holding a demonstration in Rome against this visit and what it stood for.
Many people criticised this at the time, saying that we needed to have confidence in the process of democratisation, and that the signs of this process were apparently demonstrated by the Pope's visit.
I think that Christmas was celebrated in Cuba, and that is about all.
When we see that this trial is dealing with the terrible and deplorable crime of having had contacts with the foreign press, we realise that this so-called democratisation is very far from being achieved.
From that point of view, this resolution does not go very far.
We should have affirmed more strongly that while human rights are not fully respected, this dialogue - this attempt to take a few small steps - is doomed to failure.
Madam President, this is not a resolution against the Cuban people.
The text that we are debating today, and which I should like to see approved, is a criticism of the corrupt and incomprehensible way in which the Cuban Government interprets freedoms, such as the freedom of expression, the freedom of assembly and the freedom of association.
If there is no acknowledgement of the right to disagree and the right to political dissent, then there is no freedom.
For this reason, we must condemn the detention, arrest and imprisonment of Cuban dissidents and political opponents simply because they think differently to the current regime.
Political dissent is a right, it can never be interpreted and judged as a crime of sedition or as a crime against national security.
In a free regime, such detentions would not have occurred.
Using the North American embargo as an excuse is too simplistic.
We have condemned - and I have condemned - the attitude of the United States administration as being mistaken, amongst other things. But their attitude cannot be used as a reason for detaining, imprisoning and sentencing all those who do not comply with the dictates of the single party, which in Cuba is the Communist Party.
We fully and unreservedly support Vladimiro Roca, Félix Bonne, Marta Beatriz Roque and René Gómez Manzano, who were detained on 16 July 1997 after having written and distributed a text entitled 'The homeland is for us all' which went against official government positions. We feel great solidarity with the Cuban political prisoners who have been imprisoned due to their political beliefs.
I sincerely hope that condemning the Cuban regime in this way will not destroy the fragile framework for dialogue that is still alive between the European Union and Cuba.
The Cuban Government's mistakes are not the mistakes of the people, they are the mistakes of the ruling party.
Its political positions, its defensiveness and its negative attitude towards anything that involves a cultural, political, economic or social opening up cannot destroy all possible dialogue between Cuba and the European Union. These attitudes must not lead to the Cuban population being condemned, as they are the ones who will suffer the consequences if such dialogue is destroyed.
Madam President, the delegation of which I am chairman, the Delegation for relations with Cuba, has made extraordinary efforts to maintain our ability to hold talks with the Cuban authorities and with Cuban society as a whole.
Even without a cooperation agreement, this House has given its full support to Cuban society, and the European Union is the largest donor of humanitarian aid to Cuba in the world. In this way, the Union is demonstrating its awareness of the problems and shortages Cuba is suffering at this point in its history.
In this same spirit, and as Mr Cabezón Alonso said a moment ago, we have spoken out as often as has been necessary to condemn the extraterritorial effects of the Helms-Burton Act.
And now we also have to speak out to defend human rights and democratic freedoms in Cuba because moderation becomes a vice when it means a lack of commitment.
This House has an irrevocable commitment to freedom that is, and must be, our ethical and aesthetic guiding light.
I have already said in this House - quoting an illustrious colleague of mine - that the future cannot be imposed on individuals or peoples without their support and that there can be no individual dignity unless every man and woman is able to play a part in determining their future as a society.
As a result, this House must show its solidarity with those who are suffering and be firm in its inevitable demands for freedom.
Therefore, my group is once again calling for the release of Vladimiro Roca, Félix Bonne, Marta Beatriz Roque, René Gómez Manzano, Jorge Luis García Pérez and all those who, having been deprived of their freedom, fight in Cuba for their freedom and dignity.
Madam President, there are several hundred political prisoners in Cuba.
Under the Cuban Penal Code, it is possible for opposition politicians to be found guilty of so-called crimes such as lack of respect and hostile propaganda.
Opposition politicians are sent into internal exile within the country, and there are many reports of police brutality.
Altogether, restriction of democratic rights and freedom is extensive in Cuba.
This must be unequivocally condemned, which Parliament has done in its resolution.
Cuba is under intense pressure from the USA, through a long-standing economic blockade and other forms of aggression.
The blockade against Cuba must be lifted if the country is to engage in positive development.
However, the US aggression can never be an excuse for deficiencies in democracy and human rights in the country.
There are many progressive elements in Cuban society, for example a level of social justice which for the region is advanced, and endeavours in the field of education and health care.
But clearly none of these things can compensate for any restriction of the democratic rights of the Cuban people.
The Cuban people are fully entitled to choose a socialist model for their society.
The problem is that they are not allowed to choose, because political pluralism and fundamental democratic rights are lacking.
Madam President, as has already been said, our group is naturally in favour of the respect for and promotion of human rights and freedoms, as well as the right of peoples to determine their future.
Therefore, when a nation such as Cuba has been suffering for so many years due to an embargo that is illegal in international terms and to a relentless pursuit by the United States, we begin to understand the suffocating situation of the Cuban Government. We begin to understand the defensive attitude it must adopt to be able to defend itself against these problems and shortages, particularly now with the Helms-Burton Act, which is also illegal in international terms.
However, we believe it is important to help so that a process promoting human rights can resume, and so that democracy and freedom can be re-established, values that are clearly compatible with socialism.
The European Union can end this American siege and promote this alternative path, a path we believe to be satisfactory.
Integrating its economy and its cultural relations could bring normality to cultural and political life in Cuba. This is largely dependent on us as the United States is not prepared to help in this respect.
I therefore believe that now is the time to make a considerable effort to bring Cuba into the framework of economic, political and cultural relations.
Madam President, Cuba, as we know, is not the United States.
In contrast to the United States, Cuba has guaranteed schooling and free health care, as well as all the achievements that have freed it from its former dependence on the United States. So why does the Cuban Government imitate one of the most appallingly undemocratic and totalitarian systems ever invented?
Why on earth do the Cubans not launch a campaign to prove themselves more democratic than the United States by respecting human rights and abolishing the death penalty? The Cuban Government has done the exact opposite.
It has added to its list of capital offences. No democrat or Socialist can approve of that, because it is a gross violation of the most fundamental of all human rights, namely the right to life.
Societies are changing everywhere, and Cuba is no exception.
We should make it unmistakably clear to the Cuban Government and the Cuban people that we are prepared to develop our economic, social and cultural relations with Cuba, and that to this end we need to establish contacts with open-minded, creative and democratic Cubans and their organisations, whether within the ACP framework or on the basis of a bilateral agreement.
In order to accomplish this, we seek dialogue.
We hope that the Cuban leadership will be far-sighted enough to pull together with us in this venture.
Colombia
Madam President, the situation in Colombia is still very worrying, despite the promising reports we received some months ago that President Pastrana had started a new peace offensive.
At the moment, however, it appears that paramilitary groups and as a result the guerrillas too have started carrying out attacks again.
We heard yesterday evening that three Americans have been brutally killed.
When will the warring factions finally realise that there is nothing to be gained from this constant destruction? I think the Union must continue to stand up for human rights, but it must do so in cooperation with President Pastrana.
We cannot be indifferent to the way in which the constitutional state of Colombia is being systematically destroyed.
We must try to persuade the United Nations and our own Union to convince others that peace and human rights go hand in hand.
Madam President, I am going to appeal to the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces and to the insurgent forces because it is neither revolutionary nor heroic to assassinate defenceless voluntary workers, it is neither revolutionary nor heroic to kidnap civilians and it is neither revolutionary nor heroic to demand a ransom for anyone's life.
Any action taken against unarmed people cannot be considered heroic.
The course of history will not be changed by resorting to using violence against the weak.
The insurgent forces still have a chance of going down in Colombia's history as a factor in creating peace.
They have received political recognition - including at international level - but we must ask them to respect international humanitarian law. We must ask them to release all kidnapped civilians, some of whom are ill.
Do not harm yourselves even further with such reprehensible actions.
Do not demand justice whilst being unjust yourselves.
We must also talk about the other form of violence: the terror caused by the paramilitaries.
It is easy to shoot those who are defending human rights, to shoot trade unionists or journalists committed to freedom or to shoot women and unarmed farmers. In short, it is easy to shoot anyone who may seem slightly suspicious because they support democracy.
Paramilitary action represents evil, fascism and all the worst aspects of an intolerant and exclusive sociology. It claims to protect whilst killing and eliminating the best people in society.
There is no room for any form of consideration for paramilitary activity, other than its persecution, dismantling and condemnation.
Peace in Colombia will not be easily achieved but it must be done. The years of violence have affected several generations.
President Pastrana's offer must have our full support and must have sufficient international economic support so that it can meet the social demands that are really at the root of this violence.
War, Madam President, is much more costly than peace.
Madam President, when President Pastrana took office last year, many of us hoped that the protection of human rights in Colombia would greatly improve.
Unfortunately that seems not to have happened, and so far it does not look as though the President has developed any action plan to increase respect for human rights.
Both the paramilitary forces and the guerilla groups continue to commit crimes.
There is systematic elimination of persons and groups campaigning for human rights in Colombia, for example social workers and trade union activists.
Of course we demand that the archives of the state intelligence service should be searched under international supervision.
These archives contain large amounts of information on persons who are actively campaigning for human rights and democracy in the country.
Clearly, this must not be allowed to continue.
Human rights must be defended and we must do all in our power to defend and support those people in Colombia who are campaigning for these rights.
I therefore expect the Council of Ministers to prepare a very forthright declaration on Colombia for the forthcoming UN meeting in Geneva.
Madam President, kidnappings and murders continue to entrench the culture of violence in Colombia, and how often have we had to say that here!
This time we have the cases of three US citizens whose bodies were discovered and a French geologist who died shortly before he was due to be released by his kidnappers.
We have also repeatedly condemned the crimes committed by paramilitaries in addition to these murders and kidnappings, or even in connection with them.
I must say that it is sometimes difficult for us to understand how President Pastrana can continue his peace talks with the guerrilla organisations in the face of these atrocities, how he can go on negotiating with FARC in particular but also with the other main guerrilla organisation, the ELN.
Such an approach may appear contradictory, but I believe it represents the only way forward, and we therefore vigorously support the President in his efforts to continue the peace negotiations and ultimately to conclude an agreement.
Nevertheless, we can only repeat time and again that human rights will not be respected and protected in the long term unless the rule of law is established.
The European Parliament has also repeatedly stressed its endorsement of the demand made by the Colombian office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights that the safety of human rights activists should be guaranteed.
We believe this is an important issue, and we hope that the Council and the Commission will be helping to make that point to the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.
We call on the Colombian Government not to relax its efforts to combat violence but to continue them vigorously, because it is our sincere wish that the Colombian people should be freed at long last from this cycle of corruption, murder and violence, that peace should descend on the country and that these horrifying crimes should cease to be associated with the name of Colombia.
Madam President, this is the third time in four months that this Parliament has held a special debate on Colombia and we will continue until the gross violations of human rights come to an end.
We call upon the UN Commission on Human Rights, when it meets in Geneva, to condemn the Colombian Government's failure both to disband paramilitary groups and to protect human rights defenders, both called for last year.
They have failed; UNHCR must now act accordingly.
Let us never forget the human cost that this failure represents.
Terry Freitas had spent two years helping the Uwa indigenous people defend their territory from oil exploration by Occidental Petroleum.
He had been followed by people he believed to be paramilitaries and had received a message on his answer-phone: 'back off or die!'.
Evidence of complicity by the Colombian armed forces is that the military had forced him to sign a statement absolving them of responsibility for his safety.
Earlier this month, Terry and two colleagues were kidnapped by two hooded men with machine guns and later their bullet-ridden bodies were found dumped across the Venezuelan border - the murder of one 24-year-old who believed in the defence of human rights.
Stop the paramilitaries, end the killings, respect human rights!
Indonesia/East Timor
Madam President, Indonesia is a complex country.
It covers a two-hour time zone and has 13 000 islands, many different races and many different languages.
For 350 years it was governed in a very centralised, colonial way by my country, and even then there were uprisings in Aceh, the Moluccas and Irian Jaya, just as there are now.
After independence, the constitution - the Pancasila - ensured that different races and religions could live freely and safely side by side.
The fall of Suharto and the economic crisis have now, unfortunately, brought all the various differences to the surface, as we are seeing in the clash between Muslims and Christians in the Moluccas.
I very much regret that it should be happening in the Moluccas, because we too abused and repressed the people there, some of whom are now living in the Netherlands.
But Indonesia is on the road to a new era and a new order.
Forty-eight political parties have registered for the elections in June, and they deserve our support.
The resolution calls for a referendum under UN auspices on allowing East Timor the right to self-determination.
Let us hope that this is carried out, and that it goes smoothly.
I would point out that an independent East Timor could well open Pandora's box and encourage other Indonesian races to demand the same, which would present a major risk for the stability of the Asiatic region as a whole.
This too is something we cannot afford to ignore.
Parliament has adopted some harsh resolutions against Indonesia, but I feel that recently there has been greater scope for constructive support for the steps that are being taken towards democracy, and I welcome this approach.
Madam President, Mrs van Bladel said in a nutshell exactly what I wished to say.
Indonesia's complexity and the clashes and explosions - both literal and figurative - in the Moluccas and on the island of Ambon in particular have all shown how difficult things are likely to become if we allow the last pillar of strength that we have at the moment, President Habibie, to fall.
The underlying cause of the unrest in the Moluccas lies in the serious political and economic crisis that the country is going through.
It is extremely important that we should try to ensure that democratic elections are held as soon as possible, and we should certainly support them.
This enormous, great and beautiful country - the 'emerald belt' as it was called in our geography books - must not be allowed to become isolated, and we have to find some way to show it that we are not disowning it but embracing it.
Europe, and in particular the Netherlands, still bears a great responsibility from the past here.
Mr President, this House has repeatedly condemned human rights abuses in many parts of Indonesia over the years and some appalling crimes have taken place in that beautiful country.
This resolution deals firstly with outrages which have been committed more recently on the Moluccan Islands. Over 200 people have been killed there and their homes and those of others have been destroyed.
Nine thousand troops are deployed there and the people are very badly repressed.
This is taking place at the very time when we would have expected, because of the changes that have taken place in Indonesia, a movement in a different direction.
This resolution again recalls the situation in East Timor, where appalling crimes have been committed.
The forthcoming election provides the opportunity for a change, and it is very important that we should give every support to those people in Indonesia who are trying to achieve a new departure.
We must also press very strongly for the referendum which is being talked about to go ahead to provide the people of East Timor with the right of self-determination.
It is quite appalling that those people have been denied that right.
Over the years a third of the population has been killed.
The European Parliament has pressed persistently throughout those years for changes to take place, and that possibility now exists.
It is therefore extremely important that we should maintain our pressure for change at this particular juncture and I hope that once again we will give unanimous support for this motion.
Mr President, we are prepared to support the efforts to establish democracy in Indonesia.
I believe the entire House and the other EU institutions are also willing to lend material support to a peaceful democratisation process.
However, Indonesia will also have to show that it wants a peaceful process and that it is actively encouraging democracy, and in this respect there are two regions that we consider to be very important.
The first of these is East Timor.
The referendum in East Timor must be organised as quickly as possible; in actual fact, the independence of East Timor is historically inevitable.
The repression there has to be ended, and Mr Habibie knows that.
I believe we should act quickly to assist in the transition to independence.
Such assistance might, for example, take the form of training for East Timorese administrators in the European Union, in the Member States, with a view to the creation of an administrative infrastructure that would enable East Timor to manage its own affairs.
The second region is the Moluccas, where we must ensure that an end is put to the conflicts which are raging at the present time and which are apparently being encouraged by the police.
On Ambon, we have a situation in which 85 % of the island's population are Christians.
We must prevent the outbreak of hostilities between religious groups, and in this respect a heavy burden of responsibility falls on the government in Jakarta to demilitarise the population by restraining the police and by using the police force to uphold law and order, rather than to fan the flames of conflict.
If that happens, I believe our only option is to call on the Commission to provide humanitarian aid in these conflict-torn areas and to support the campaign for democracy and the elections, and to do these things as quickly as possible in order to ensure that peace prevails throughout Indonesia.
Applause
UN Commission on human rights
Mr President, some time ago we discussed the Bernard-Reymond report on China.
On that occasion my group, the Liberals, brought up the question of the UN Human Rights Commission.
A majority in the House did not want to discuss this subject and were also against taking it as an urgency.
When will we learn that we need to adopt or discuss resolutions that can genuinely be of some influence in good time?
The UN Commission meeting in Geneva starts in eleven days' time - how can we still hope to influence the Council's priorities in any way now?
A new ice age has started in China, as everyone knows.
Dissidents are being rounded up in large numbers, Internet users arrested, and there is a crackdown on the formation of new political parties such as the Democratic Party.
The Union must behave honourably here.
Human rights dialogue must carry on as normal, but if it is to be effective, we must also be prepared to bring public, international pressure to bear: the carrot and stick approach.
If this process is to be effective, the Council must itself table a resolution on China, lobby for it actively and stop countries from supporting a 'no action on China' motion.
When we see how China is using its influence towards Macedonia and is thus undermining the Contact Group's Balkan policy, I think we are entirely justified in using public pressure on China.
The Chinese will accept this, provided that they are taken seriously.
My group thinks it is a pity that we always have to fight so hard to say what we want to say about China.
But then, money makes the world go round, or at least so we think.
Mr President, I think that the resolution drawn up this time for the UN session is a very good and balanced one.
I think it is very important that we should call for a millennium amnesty for political prisoners and for a ban on the use of children in warfare.
We are right this year not to have a list of countries that are failing to observe human rights, but instead to concentrate solely on China.
In this morning's Herald Tribune , there was a photo of the Dalai Lama in northern India, five years after the invasion of Tibet.
The point has to be made that the day after the China report was adopted in Parliament, dissidents were being rounded up and missiles were being aimed at Taiwan from southern China.
We have to give China a signal. Not for ourselves or just to be a thorn in its side, but to guarantee stability in the region, because peace is, and will always be, important.
Mr President, over recent years the European Parliament has established a record on human rights throughout the world of which we can be very proud.
It is, therefore, highly appropriate that we should put forward our priorities for the forthcoming 55th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Our motion recognises that poverty is a fundamental obstacle to the realisation of human rights.
Freedom of thought, speech, religion and all other political, religious and civic liberties are absolutely vital.
Economic rights and their close links to other rights must not, however, be overlooked, above all at a time when more than a thousand million people in our world are deprived of adequate food, pure water, proper clothing, reasonable shelter, education and health-care.
The motion before this House calls for coordinated action to fight the scourge of racism and discrimination, which has led, even in recent years, to genocide or massacres like that in Rwanda.
The motion also calls for positive action to end the appalling discrimination against, and exploitation of, women and children.
Everywhere we must work for the liberation of prisoners of conscience, the outlawing of torture and the ill-treatment of prisoners and an end to the barbaric institution of capital punishment, which should be seen to be utterly unacceptable in the world and the civilisation of today.
Therefore, we particularly call on the Council and the Commission to pursue issues raised by human rights resolutions in this Parliament and we hope very much that they will be reflected in the work of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
The achievement of full recognition of human rights in every country in the world is a challenge to us in our time.
I believe that by passing this resolution, we shall be reaffirming our intentions of carrying on the struggle to achieve that.
Mr President, I think that this resolution is a good one for two reasons: firstly, because we succeeded in the compromise meeting in eliminating all the demands concerning rights such as the right to housing, the right to work, etcetera, that is, all those rights that cannot be claimed. And we managed to concentrate - quite rightly - on rights that can be claimed by proposing three initiatives to the Council in three different areas.
The first point relates to the universal moratorium on executions.
In this respect, we are calling for this session in Geneva to be the last at which a resolution is passed on the moratorium, and for this year's General Assembly to vote for the universal abolition of the death penalty.
The second point involves taking an initiative in favour of the ratification of the international court for war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Finally, the third point relates to China, which was mentioned by Mr Bertens and Mrs van Bladel.
We do not hold out a great deal of hope.
The policy on the People's Republic of China has been a disastrous policy not only for Mr Brittan, but also for Mr Jospin, Mr Dalema, Mr Schröder and many others.
It is a policy that is slowly edging towards despair.
Mrs van Bladel spoke about Tibet.
On this matter, I am afraid that we must recognise that as in Kosovo, there are limits to the capacity for suffering and acceptance both of the Tibetan people and of all the people of China, and that we will once again arrive too late.
We are obviously calling on the Council quite seriously to reverse this policy and to finally place democracy and human rights at the heart of its concerns.
Mr President, we are debating an extraordinarily detailed resolution and we will vote on it later. I believe that it is perhaps one of the best texts on human rights that we have ever held in our hands in this Parliament.
But I believe that we now have to put to the Council something that is even more important than the very relevant issues in this resolution, such as the 'Millennium Amnesty', promoting the defence of those defending human rights - please forgive the repetition - making the rights of women and children a priority, abolishing the death penalty and pressing for the International Criminal Court to finally become a reality. We must ask that our involvement as the European Union and as member countries in the 55th Session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights serves mainly to defend two principles: the universality and the indivisibility of human rights.
We have just discussed some related issues.
For example, we cannot allow a government such as the Cuban Government to impose certain conditions on the respect for human rights, such as the lifting of the present embargo by the United States. We also cannot allow, for instance, the dictator in Equatorial Guinea to tell us that the human rights tradition in his country is different to the tradition here in Europe.
As a result, I believe that it is vital to defend those principles.
And in this era of globalisation, indivisibility also means linking political rights to social and economic rights.
Mr President, I cannot but endorse the words of my colleagues here.
It is utterly impossible for me to contradict anything that has been said on this subject; what we really need to do today is to make a very forceful appeal to the Commission and the Council, not least in view of this meeting in Geneva.
The fact is that, every year when this meeting comes round, it carries the hopes of people around the globe who want to hear our Member States loudly and clearly denouncing violations of human rights.
We therefore call on the Commission and the Council - especially the Commission, since it also serves as a coordinator for the Member States - to put our message across in no uncertain terms.
A great many countries have featured in the resolutions of the European Parliament in recent months. Some of them have repeatedly been the subject of resolutions.
Colombia, which featured again today, is one example.
But I should also like to list a few others, such as Afghanistan, Algeria, Burma, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Iraq, Kosovo, Rwanda, the Sudan and Turkey, although I am aware that Kosovo is not a country but nevertheless a major problem.
The reason why we have not included this list in the resolution is that the names of far too many other countries occurred to us, and we could not list them all.
China, however, is mentioned. I cannot argue with that.
I should also have liked to see China on the agenda for Geneva, because we know that this touches a raw nerve with the Chinese and elicits a crystal-clear response. We take that response very seriously too.
If the Chinese Government is serious about its dialogue with the European Union, it must not follow up these meetings with more waves of arrests, not to mention its position on the Tibetan question.
Other catchwords we should like to mention include repression and trafficking in women, child soldiers, religious intolerance and the death penalty.
Let me say once again to the Commission and the Council that we earnestly beg you to take firm action and to ensure that our Member States' diplomatic scruples do not cause them to dash the hopes of the watching world.
We have a huge responsibility here, and we want the Commission to make it clear that it demands compliance with democracy and human rights clauses.
Then the European Union would truly be setting an example.
Applause
Mr President, there are numerous indications that the history of human rights has entered a new era.
Immediately after the end of the Second World War, they were essentially a political manifesto.
Now, however, they have become a legal reality, and this, of course, gives rise to an entirely new set of problems.
We are discovering new aspects of human rights, the social dimension, and it has become apparent that the human dignity and human rights of women and children are particularly at risk.
We see the need to abolish the death penalty worldwide, we see the legal reality of human rights in the form of the new international court, and we appeal to the Council and the Commission to do everything in their power to ensure that progress is made in ratifying the constitution of the International Court of Human Rights.
But there is also a great danger that, precisely because human rights are now a legal reality, they will be ground down in the mills of foreign policy interests. What can be done to prevent that?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the European Union has a very, very important role to play in the transformation of foreign and security policy in the traditional sense into a 'peace policy', in other words a coordinated political approach that is governed by the overriding aim of establishing and preserving peace.
You all know how often Members of this House have called for a mechanism through which the European Union can speak with one voice so that this transformation can be effected.
This Parliament can already speak with one voice, as today's debate has shown, and it should use that voice to ensure that respect for human rights, which is now enshrined in international law, is enforced.
I therefore wish to re-emphasise what previous speakers have said and to appeal to the Council and the Commission to assist in promoting the achievement of this aim.
Belarus
Mr President, the situation in Belarus is still very worrying.
President Lukashenko is still a dictator and is blocking any form of normal political and economic development.
The Union must support what opposition parties there are and must try to establish dialogue.
This seems about as likely as snow in summer, but the recent resolution of the 'embassy conflict' could indicate that President Lukashenko is beginning to realise that international isolation is not in his interest, and hopefully this will encourage him to make certain concessions.
If this happens, the Union must be prepared to provide assistance to support the process.
A dogmatic approach is not what is needed here.
We need to do everything we can to solve problems and improve the lives of the people.
We have had a whole series of dictators under review this afternoon, but President Lukashenko is the one nearest to us, and this may be our chance to convince him that he is a dictator and that he needs to change his ways.
Mr President, Belarus will soon be one of our neighbouring countries.
However, the situation there, Mr Bertens, is still marked by the absence of democracy.
Perhaps that does not apply to the embassy, but it applies to the population there, and all attempts by the opposition to re-establish fair interaction among the forces of democracy by peaceful and democratic means have been thwarted by the dictatorial rule of President Lukashenko, who simply keeps issuing decrees that criminalise opposition activities.
But the opposition MPs are not criminals. That is the problem.
By criminalising their activities, Mr Lukashenko is prohibiting fair play, a prohibition that even extends to the forthcoming local elections.
That is why the opposition has refused to take part in these elections - not because it is against democracy, but because it insists that there should at least be a minimum catalogue of fair conditions. One of these is freedom of the press.
It is truly calamitous that the Belarus people do not even have the opportunity to find out about alternatives to President Lukashenko, because he uses the press to such a great extent as an instrument of power, and I know that situation from personal experience.
That is why we must make every effort to ensure that changes are made in Belarus and in particular that freedom of the press is restored, because that is one of the main prerequisites of free elections and the democratic process.
In spite of everything, the Belarus people continue to yearn for democracy and personal freedom, which is why we are called upon to ensure that the agreement between the Council, the Commission and Parliament is upheld, and above all that it is implemented in such a way as to help that nation to satisfy its longing for democracy and does not subordinate this purpose to economic interests.
Mr President, both of the previous speakers have highlighted the critical points. Allow me to add a little to their comments.
We have tabled a joint resolution, and we are reaffirming that we want to welcome Belarus into the democratic world and that it is our wish that Belarus should be part of that world.
But the latest spate of arrests has naturally raised new difficulties and new problems, and as has so often been the case in Belarus, one step forward towards democracy has been followed by two steps back.
The President is now dreaming of a pan-Slavic union, and I can only hope that Russia does not seize upon that dream and that the Ukraine remains aloof and does not jump on the bandwagon either, otherwise the results would be devastating for all of us.
I must say, however, that the argument which is currently raging over the elections announced by the opposition for 16 May 1999 will certainly have devastating effects.
As my colleague Mrs Schroedter has already indicated, the European Union would do well to follow this process very carefully and to lend all the support it possibly can. I am thinking here in particular of the assistance that the OSCE will need.
This also means, Commissioner, that financial support is required.
I know that Ambassador Wiek has approached the Commission to ask for funding so that the proper training can be guaranteed for those involved in the organisation of the forthcoming elections, and I ask you to look at the relevant documentation again and to do everything we in the European Union can to support this process; let us not use bureaucratic difficulties as an excuse for not delivering the necessary funds.
The situation this year is exceptionally critical.
The economic situation is unstable, the political situation is extremely unstable and as future neighbours, as my colleague rightly pointed out, we are called upon to do everything we can to help Belarus to find a decent path that will lead it to democracy.
Mr President, I am delighted to be able to follow Mrs Mann, because her fine words express what I also intended to emphasise.
First of all, it is a fact that the people of Belarus are a very likeable people and also have cultural links with us somewhere along the line.
Secondly, Belarus perhaps offers the best evidence of the destructive nature of the regime which ruled that part of the world for 40 years.
When we criticise President Lukashenko here, we must not forget what school he was trained in and the education he received there.
Somehow we must even find it in ourselves to sympathise to a certain extent with this man, for he was led in this direction, and most of his wrath has so far been vented on foreigners.
I believe that Mrs Mann was right when she said we must do everything we can to assist the Belarus people and guide them slowly but surely to the path that leads to freedom and democracy, the path which I am certain they instinctively wish to follow.
Anyone who knows these people will appreciate that they need to be helped if they are to progress gradually towards those goals.
Kicking them in the shins, so to speak, will not induce them to move in that direction.
On the contrary, we must make every effort to form a peaceable and fruitful relationship with Belarus, quite irrespective of the fact that Belarus will continue to be of vital importance to us in the future, since we shall be sharing a common border.
We need only look at the map to realise how vitally important it will be for all of us, especially our Baltic friends, which is why we must do everything we can to guide Belarus, one step at a time, back into the fold of the civilised and democratic nations.
Russia
Mr President, Russia is never out of the headlines.
These usually tell of economic problems, the effects of which are reverberating through Europe.
Far less loudly heralded but no less intractable are certain other problems we hear about in Russia, problems that do not sit well with a country which has been campaigning very vigorously for membership of the Council of Europe, since they relate to actions which are incompatible with the Council of Europe's Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and with the provisions of the partnership agreement with the European Union.
Only this week, in what might almost be termed a live commentary, a delegation from the Congress of European Jews confirmed some of the facts from this list, for example the gradual resurgence of anti-Semitism, which has some political support, especially from the Communists.
Our resolution covers various other areas under the same heading, areas which cause us grave concern.
These are increased religious intolerance, the treatment of conscientious objectors and the lengthy delays in enacting legislation on this matter and the grim conditions in the armed forces, which led in 1998 to more than 1 000 suicides and unexplained deaths. It is not only courageous mothers in Russia who are providing this information.
All of these, I am sorry to say, are vestiges of the Soviet empire that have not been swept away.
Our resolution should be understood as an expression of concern, a message of concern that we wish to send with our colleagues who are travelling to Moscow in the coming week for talks with representatives of the Duma and the authorities.
We in the European Union are especially anxious that Russia should be a strong partner, a country where democracy and the rule of law prevail.
That is absolutely imperative for this Europe of ours, because it would create solid common foundations for a peaceful and free Europe in the next century.
This is precisely how we want our message to be understood.
It undoubtedly expresses criticism, but it is intended to be constructive and to show the depth of our commitment to helping to improve conditions in Russia.
Mr President, as Mrs Lenz said, this resolution speaks of anti-Semitism, and it does not condemn comments made by just anyone, but the views of Mr Zuganov, who is, in fact, the chairman of the Russian Communist Party, the main party in the Duma.
I think that our delegation that is to visit Moscow shortly should remember this and should ensure that the people there realise that the European Parliament knows about these statements and is fully aware of their seriousness.
Another issue is conscientious objection.
The European Parliament is somewhat concerned about the delays on the part of the Duma, which is again under the control of Mr Zuganov's party, the Communist Party, and which for four years has systematically blocked the adoption of a law on conscientious objection, a law which is nevertheless provided for in the Russian constitution.
Along with colleagues in my party, the Transnational Radical Party, in Russia, we are trying to get past this deadlock by launching a campaign, which I think Parliament should support, to bring an end to military conscription and to establish a professional army in the country, which would be a significant step in the right direction.
Mr President, I believe we are at one in our criticism of the situation in Russia with regard to human rights and anti-Semitism.
On the other hand, Mrs Lenz, I would not oversimplify matters by blaming it all on the Soviet empire.
After all, the Soviet era was not exactly preceded by a Golden Age of democracy and respect for human rights.
Repression, regrettably, has a long tradition in Russia and was to assume appalling and criminal dimensions during the Soviet era, especially under Stalin.
I can subscribe to the criticism of all political forces in Russia, including the Communist Party, which is unfortunately blocking progress on respect for human rights and bears its share of responsibility for the regrettable resurgence of anti-Semitism.
In view of the heinous crimes that have been committed by anti-Semitic regimes, there can be no tolerance on this point.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists therefore backs the delegation in its mission to convey this message in very clear terms during the forthcoming visit to Russia.
Mr President, when we ratified the partnership and cooperation agreement with Russia, we criticised the fact that the human rights situation in Russia did not meet the criteria laid down in the human rights clause of the agreement, to which Commissioner van den Broek replied that the agreement provided an excellent basis for changing that situation.
That, however, was three years ago, and nothing has changed!
Conditions in Russian prisons do not accord with international standards, and nothing is being done to rectify that situation.
No progress is being made in the provision of alternatives to military service.
The maltreatment and humiliation of young people in the Russian army is driving many of them to suicide.
May I therefore ask the Commission to specify where it has intervened on the basis of the agreement. Where has it applied pressure on the basis of the agreement?
When did it intervene during the WTO negotiations to remind the delegates that human rights were a priority issue? I expect answers to those questions now!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to answer point by point, as is the custom with human rights issues.
I will therefore begin with Cuba.
The Commission shares Parliament's concerns regarding the development of the human rights situation in Cuba, and it is concerned about the adoption of a reform of the criminal code which considerably reinforces the repressive nature of the legislation.
The Commission is also worried about the outcome of the trial of four dissidents. In consultation with the Member States, it will very shortly consider what position should be adopted in order to respond to these attacks on human rights.
Nevertheless, the Commission will continue with firm but vigilant dialogue with the Cuban authorities.
The Community cooperation policy, which - I would remind you - is a European policy is governed by the principles established in the common position of 8 December, which, as far as I am aware, is revised with each new presidency.
This policy is aimed at encouraging a peaceful transition to democracy, promoting human rights and supporting the economic development of the island.
In this respect, the activities funded by the Community that are planned for the 1999-2000 period mainly involve food aid, support for economic reforms and the development of civil society.
Finally, at the end of June 1998, the European Union granted Cuba observer status in the negotiations between the European Union and the ACP countries. That is also dialogue.
Full and complete participation in those negotiations, including Cuba's accession to the future convention, depends on it making substantial progress in terms of human rights, the rule of law, what is known as 'good governance' in English, and political freedoms.
With regard to the second issue, Colombia, the Commission entirely shares Parliament's concerns about the development of the situation in the country.
The Commission is particularly concerned about the repeated violations of human rights committed in recent years by the guerillas and paramilitary forces.
Above all, it regrets the breakdown of the peace negotiations between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the FARC.
More than a thousand political murders are committed each year.
Over 300 people have been kidnapped and are still being held, including around 20 foreigners.
With regard to the case of the four members of the Colombian NGO, the IPC, Instituto popular de la capacitación, who were abducted by a paramilitary organisation, the AUC, the European troika approached the Colombian Vice-President and Mr Lemus, who is responsible for human rights, to demand their release, which has since taken place.
The Commission fully shares Parliament's desire to see dialogue swiftly resumed between the guerrillas and Mr Pastrana's government.
The European Union gave its support to the peace process in a declaration on 8 January.
A meeting between the government and the opposing armed movements is planned for 24 April.
Support for actions to promote human rights and help with the implementation of judicial reforms are a priority of the Commission in its work to help Colombia.
I must remind you, or perhaps inform you, of the figures: in 1998, the Commission set aside EUR 17 million for NGOs, along with EUR 2 million for human rights and EUR 12 million for ECHO to help displaced persons.
With regard to Indonesia, the Commission strongly condemns the violent and murderous events that are currently setting Muslims and Christians against each other in some parts of the Moluccan Islands.
The Commission supports the steps that have been taken on behalf of the Union to inform the Indonesian authorities of Europe's concerns about the development of inter-ethnic tension.
In particular, the Union has asked the Indonesian authorities to ensure that the police forces act with greater restraint in Ambon, where there were several deaths in January as a result of repression.
The Commission is monitoring the development of the situation as closely as possible.
The European Community Humanitarian Office, ECHO, sent a representative to the area who is working in close cooperation with the Commission representatives in Jakarta and the NGOs present in the region.
Through ECHO, the Commission is preparing to provide aid of around EUR 1 million for the people of the two communities that are victims of the conflict.
The implementation of this decision will be entrusted to the European NGOs present in Indonesia, in cooperation with the World Food Programme.
This will involve food as well as health and medical aid. It will also provide basic necessities for the displaced people living in shelters.
The fact that elections are being held in June is also an important factor in resolving the current tensions between the communities.
The Commission will support them, while liaising with international organisations and other donors present in the area.
A programme worth EUR 7 million is currently being prepared for this purpose.
With regard to East Timor, which many of you mentioned, the Commission hopes that the discussions that are taking place under the auspices of the Secretariat of the United Nations will allow the people of East Timor to be consulted on the future of the region.
The Commission shares the concerns expressed by Parliament, which have just been repeated here, about the military situation and the arming of civilian militias.
This could endanger a peace process which is still fragile.
The Commission supports the conclusions of the Vienna European Council, which call for the disarmament and dissolution of these militias and which also ask that a United Nations mission be sent to the area in order to ease the tension.
The fourth issue is the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
You are aware that the preparation of work for the Commission on Human Rights is carried out by the Council's 'Human Rights' group.
This group has already met several times for this purpose since the beginning of the year.
During the annual session of the Commission on Human Rights, which, I would remind you, lasts six weeks, experts from the Union meet every day in order to decide on the speeches to made by the presidency, on behalf of the Union, and the motions for resolutions to be presented by the Union.
The Commission participates systematically and actively in the work of the 'Human Rights' group, and in all the meetings of experts in Geneva.
I can reassure Mrs Lenz on this point.
Nevertheless, I have taken careful note of comments that have been made.
I am thinking, in particular, of what Mr Ullman said concerning the Commission's attitude. I can assure you that the Commission is doing everything necessary, and will do all in its power, to convey your views to the Council.
You know, as I do, that it is the Commission's job to take a position on the wishes expressed by Parliament in its motions for resolutions.
More specifically, regarding China, which many of you mentioned, all the Member States of the European Union decided in 1998 not to table a resolution condemning the country.
On 22 March, the Foreign Affairs Council will decide what stance the Union will take in Geneva in 1999.
For this purpose, your resolution will be a useful source of information in those debates.
The fifth issue relates to Belarus.
The Commission is extremely concerned by the recent deterioration of the situation in Belarus.
In economic terms, the population has become poorer, a situation of hyperinflation has developed and serious social tensions have emerged.
In political terms, the disagreement over the application of the constitution has led to a deterioration in terms of fundamental liberties and has resulted in the arrests of several opponents.
The presidential decree adopted in January, which means that the activities of political parties and associations must be authorised by the administration, is undoubtedly a sign that the regime is becoming tougher.
The Commission is sincerely asking the Belarus authorities to establish an open, constructive, public and democratic dialogue with the people and with the opposition with a view to resolving the economic and constitutional problems affecting the country, and to make a real effort to move towards democracy.
In this respect, the Commission fully supports the work of the OSCE towards restoring the democratic operation of the institutions.
The Commission is closely following the development of the situation with regard to human rights and fundamental liberties.
Mr von Habsburg, I can assure you that we aim to support the Belarusian people in this process.
I can also reassure Mrs Erika Mann that we are considering how the Commission can play a useful role in the electoral process.
Finally, the last issue relates to Russia.
The Commission is concerned about the frequent anti-Semitic comments made by certain political figures who are members of the Duma.
On behalf of the European Union, the German Presidency has brought this issue to the attention of the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs and the leaders of the Communist Party and made them aware of its concerns.
The European Union has taken measures to promote tolerance and the advent of a civil society in Russia.
Notably, under the TACIS programme, it is currently involved in work to promote democracy which is aimed at creating an environment that will eradicate such demonstrations of racial hatred.
The Commission will continue to monitor the situation very closely and hopes that these anti-Semitic outbursts from another age on the part of certain members of the Russian Parliament will end.
With regard to human rights, and the death penalty in particular, you know that the Commission shares the European Parliament's concerns on this issue.
In this respect, it has been involved in an approach made to the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs by the troika to express its concerns about the possible re-introduction of the death penalty.
The Minister assured us that Russia intended to comply with the obligations arising from its entry to the Council of Europe, which, I would remind you, includes a moratorium on the death penalty.
Mrs Schroedter mentioned a problem concerning specific examples.
I think that in my perhaps general answer, I have answered these more specific questions.
Mr President, may I say to Commissioner de Silguy that I naturally appreciated that it would be difficult for him to answer specific questions which lay beyond his own area of responsibility.
Let me therefore request, Commissioner, that you submit these questions to Mr van den Broek and ask him to provide me with a written reply to them.
You have my word, I will do it this evening.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following seven motions for resolutions:
B4-0235/99 by Mr Cars, Mr Bertens and Mr Caligaris, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the stabilization force in Macedonia; - B4-0256/99 Mr Dupuis and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the Mr Swoboda, Mr Wiersma, Mr Titley and Mr Roubatis, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the failure to extend the mandate of UNPREDEP; - B4-0278/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the situation in FYROM; - B4-0284/99 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Cohn-Bendit and Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the V Group, on the extension of the UNPREDEP mandate in Macedonia; - B4-0294/99 by Mr Vinci, Mr Seppänen, Mrs Eriksson and Mr Ripa di Meana, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the stabilization force in FYROM; - B4-0297/99 by Mr Oostlander, Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, Mrs Pack, Mr von Habsburg and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the stabilisation force in FYROM.
Mr President, a veto by one of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council has blocked the extension of the mandate of the UN preventive deployment force in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia because that country has entered into diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
That is extremely serious, particularly bearing in mind the institutions to which this House belongs and the nature of the United Nations.
In both cases, in fact, we are dealing with organisations designed to overcome the kind of nationalistic tendencies which underlie the veto by the People's Republic of China.
And yet, the United Nations' force has played an important part in keeping the peace, not least by preventing the threat of the conflict in Kosovo spilling over into Macedonia.
The Community institutions must therefore take resolute action to get the veto lifted.
But at the same time, it is essential that we have, as of now, the ability to make a virtue of a vice: if the United Nations Security Council fails to take a positive decision, the European Union and its Member States would have to shoulder the responsibilities hitherto exercised by UNPREDEP, in conjunction with the other institutions, primarily NATO and the Western European Union.
That could act as an important incentive, albeit in very sad circumstances, encouraging us to put into effect the foreign and security policy that everyone claims to believe in, but which is all too rarely put into practice.
Mr President, I regret the fact that this resolution limits itself to stating the obvious, as it is clear that neither the United States nor the European Union can give in to the veto, to the attempts of the People's Republic of China to blackmail us over the presence of troops to guarantee peace and security in Macedonia.
It is therefore clear that solutions will have to be found.
These are already being considered with a view to replacing, if necessary, the current formula with another formula that will not be met by a Chinese veto.
I also regret the fact that, since everyone is talking about stability in Macedonia, we have not dealt with the real issue of stability in Macedonia, in other words, its economic development, its democratic development and, above all, its swift entry into the European Union.
In this respect, the European Union is absent, which I find absolutely scandalous, and the Commission has set out an incomprehensible policy.
I hope that Mr de Silguy will also be able to mention this matter to his colleague Mr van den Broek this evening.
The Union's funds to Macedonia are being reduced by ECU 3 million.
Given the difficulties that Macedonia is facing, this is truly staggering.
Moreover, everything has been done, and is still being done, to convince the Macedonian authorities that they will only be able to ask to join the European Union after they have ratified the cooperation agreement and the association agreement.
They will therefore have to wait for decades before they can present a request for accession. This is wrong from both a legal and political point of view.
Therefore, we have launched a campaign directed at Mr Georgievski asking him to present a request for accession to the European Union immediately.
Here is a postcard with a lovely picture of the flag of the European Union, and, in the middle of that flag, the Macedonian flag, so that, in the coming months, Macedonia may be an official candidate for membership of the European Union.
Mr President, perhaps not everyone will agree with me when I say that Macedonia, or FYROM, ought surely to have proceeded somewhat more adroitly and made a more judicious choice of tactics in its policy on diplomatic recognition, but that does not in any way justify the Chinese veto in the UN Security Council.
In fact, I cannot recall any recent use of the veto in the Security Council by a major power, be it Russia or, as in many cases, the United States, which was actually justified, but that is another matter, and there is little to be gained by debating it here.
I am entirely in favour of the aim of the resolution that the mandate of UNPREDEP should be extended if at all possible and that provision should be made for military protection of the Macedonian borders, which will not only afford protection to Macedonia itself but will also protect the observers in Kosovo.
As far as our aid to Macedonia is concerned, I should like to make one thing clear: we can probably never help enough, but the crux of the matter is that our aid should be used effectively, that the country itself should have the capacity to absorb the aid, and it is up to the government, of course, to create that capacity.
There have undoubtedly been some missed opportunities in the past.
The new government is doing its best on issues ranging from the Albanian question - on which, I am glad to say, some progress has been made - to the economic and social situation.
But, however much political continuity can be guaranteed, we should not raise any false hopes.
Whether Macedonia manages to find its way to Europe will depend primarily on its own efforts, and the way to Europe in the sense of the European Union will naturally be a long one, whenever the membership application may be submitted.
Mr President, the Green Group also considers China's veto of the extension of UNPREDEP's mandate in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia totally unacceptable, not least because it amounts to a kind of retaliation.
But this also reveals all the limitations of the Security Council in its current form and therefore the need for Europe, as a whole, to seek to change the current UN system.
However, given that the problems of Macedonia are real ones - and we have only to remember what is happening next door to that region, in Kosovo, to appreciate the importance of continuing with the UNPREDEP mandate - it is clear that we Greens also believe that, were it to prove necessary, the European Union should shoulder its own responsibilities.
The Green Group also considers it appropriate to extend the debate on Macedonia to Bosnia-Herzegovina, to deal with the problem of the Brcko corridor, and it has therefore tabled a number of amendments to that effect.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the only republic of the former Yugoslavia to survive the demise of that state more or less without bloodshed and to achieve statehood without warfare was Macedonia.
There is absolutely no doubt that our preventive measures were instrumental in this.
We were there in the territory of the former Yugoslavia to prevent trouble, and we deployed UN forces on the border between Serbia and Macedonia - and now these preventive measures have been scrapped.
It is incomprehensible to me that a Chinese veto in the Security Council should jeopardise the safety of Macedonia.
There is surely something wrong if it is possible to veto preventive measures when they have finally been implemented and, what is more, to take such action for quite transparent reasons which could effectively be described as revenge for poor little Macedonia having had the temerity to recognise Taiwan.
We can all well imagine why it did so.
It hoped that recognition would bring it a great deal of investment and financial aid, which of course it could never obtain from China.
As you know, China and Russia have often used their veto in the Security Council to prevent us from providing military assistance to people and nations that are subject to persecution and aggression, as has been happening for a year and a half in Kosovo, and as was the case in Bosnia for a number of years.
Something is rotten in this UN Charter. It ought to be designed in such a way that preventive measures, at least, cannot be vetoed, and it should naturally allow intervention to thwart the plans of a dictator and criminal, thereby protecting people and nations from such criminals, as in Bosnia and Kosovo.
In view of the crisis in the neighbouring country, in Kosovo, there is a real need to avoid any instability in Macedonia. The UN forces known as UNPREDEP have helped to do that.
They have not only contributed by their presence but have also, as I discovered in my own conversations, helped to bring together the Albanian minority and the Macedonians in special discussion forums on specific subjects in order to promote harmony between the two ethnic communities.
Until the Security Council can finally decide to renew the UNPREDEP mandate, to which end we have included a special appeal to China in our resolution, the NATO forces deployed along the border to protect the OSCE observers in Kosovo will have to perform that function too in order to prevent insecurity from spilling over into Macedonia at the very time when the country is developing fruitful cooperation among the peoples within its territory.
I should also like to endorse the view of Mr Dupuis that we in the European Union should support these extremely promising steps towards fruitful cooperation by forging additional links with Macedonia, including the provision of financial aid.
The Macedonians have earned it.
Mr President, a few days ago, the UNPREDEP forces were actually withdrawn on the basis of a veto by the People's Republic of China.
That has thrust us very suddenly into an extremely dangerous situation, because the situation was relatively stable until then.
I myself have been in Macedonia several times, and I know what these UNPREDEP forces on the border have achieved and how they have enabled the Macedonian Government, which is indeed of high quality, to launch a process of development that would have stood up to close scrutiny.
The Macedonians were criticised because they recognised Taiwan, but there is one thing we must not forget.
The nation we are discussing lives in indescribably wretched conditions, for which the border conflicts, incidentally, must take much of the blame.
And of course we must remember that the Greek blockade in the south and the Serbian blockade in the north have stifled economic growth, since the major trade routes all ran from north to south.
We must also recognise that sizeable loans have now been secured from Taiwan, because none could be expected from other sources.
A government simply cannot be criticised for adopting such a course of action.
That is why we must reflect on how we can guarantee Macedonian security again with forces from Europe, and in that context, I can only recommend that you look at the past.
It is time we began to take our lead from the Organisation of African Unity. They more or less sort out their own affairs.
We always ask the United Nations, instead of simply saying 'Europe for the Europeans!'
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the past, since 1992, in fact, UN forces have played an important role in stabilising the Balkans.
Like all the Members who have just spoken, the Commission therefore sincerely regrets the failure to extend the mandate of UN troops in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Following the recognition of Taiwan by the FYROM, China decided, as you know, to exercise its veto in the Security Council against the extension of the mandate of UNPREDEP.
The presidency of the European Union tried to get the authorities in Peking and Skopje to reach a consensus, but these attempts were unsuccessful.
It is unfortunate that a bilateral disagreement should be behind this Security Council decision.
The Commission believes that an international presence is more necessary than ever in this part of the Balkans, following the withdrawal of UNPREDEP. It is appealing for the participation of the WEU in a Petersberg-type mission in the area.
I apologise to Mr Dupuis for being unable to answer him either with regard to the level of aid or the request for accession.
I had prepared a response to the issue of the breakdown in diplomatic relations, but once again I promise to pass on his question to my colleague Commissioner van den Broek this evening.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following six motions for resolutions:
B4-0241/99 by Mr Frischenschlager, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the disastrous avalanches in the Alps; - B4-0242/99 by Mrs Stenzel, Mrs Grossetête, Mr Ebner, Mr Böge and Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, on behalf of the PPE Group, on disastrous avalanches in Austria, France and Italy; - B4-0255/99 by Mrs Leperre-Verrier, on behalf of the ARE Group, on the Alpine avalanches; - B4-0267/99 by Mr Swoboda and Mr Bösch, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the disastrous avalanches in the Alps; - B4-0277/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the UPE Group, on the avalanches in the Alps; - B4-0304/99 by Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the V Group, on the disastrous avalanches.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, rarely does this House deal with natural disasters, but there is no doubt that the disaster we are discussing today demands all our attention because of its enormity, its unpredictability and its scale.
It also demands our attention because it affects a region, the Alpine region, which should be particularly prized in the process of Community integration.
The Alpine area actually provides a culture that is unitary, broad, clear, specific and in harmony with itself, and which has for centuries been accustomed to being not a barrier but a link between Europe, north and south and east and west.
The national frontiers, which gradually became more rigid during the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century, then sought to some extent to break up the Alpine region; and the same is true of the national legislations which failed to take account of the special nature of the region and the special characteristics of what we might call the culture of the mountains.
That is why the avalanches which have struck various areas of this extremely important part of Europe should serve to draw our attention to these issues, which go far beyond the natural disaster, and stir us into planning for a range of measures - not only short-term and preventive measures, but ones that are designed to tackle this problem and this situation in a comprehensive way.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this resolution on the situation following the avalanche disaster in the Alps is a matter of paramount concern to the Austrian delegation and its leader, Mrs Stenzel.
We are also grateful for the special gesture by the European Parliament in granting our request for a minute's silence in honour of the Galtür victims.
But we do not merely wish to express our general condolences in today's resolution. There is more to it than that.
We have combined our expression of sympathy with a request for concrete financial assistance for the disaster area of Paznauntal in the Tirol and for all the other areas, such as those in Italy and France, which were hit by the avalanches.
We have received support from all the other groups. This is a sign of solidarity that has been extended to us both inside and outside the House.
The regions that have sustained long-term economic damage are particularly grateful for this solidarity.
I therefore appeal to the Commission to associate itself with this gesture and to make every effort to ensure that help can be given to the stricken areas as quickly as possible.
Europe can demonstrate real solidarity here. I earnestly beg you to do that.
Mr President, with regard to these avalanches, we must offer support to the victims and their families and pay tribute to the rescue teams and to the local communities. However, the problem that we are faced with today is that of preventing such disasters from re-occurring.
It is true that we should not underestimate the work being done by the European Union, which, through the Interreg programme, is already funding work on mountain safety in cross-border regions.
I am thinking, in particular, of the experiments that have been carried out in the Mont Blanc massif.
Nevertheless, the European Union should take account of the specific nature of mountain regions and increase its aid to the regions that are affected as well as its involvement in preventive measures.
Although it is difficult to define with any certainty where the avalanches are going to strike, it is clear that the equipment used to detect avalanches has proved to be very effective, and mapping of the risk areas should therefore be refined.
I would also like to highlight other factors involved in the prevention of avalanches.
Firstly, given the deterioration of the mountain ecosystem, we should call on the Member States to be more vigilant when granting building permits.
In the same way, the development of mountain sports - both winter and summer sports - should lead to the organisation of genuine multilingual information campaigns in order to give a sense of responsibility to those participating in such sports.
My group has tabled several amendments on these two points. I hope that you will support them because this is the sine qua non condition to ensure that the mountains are still the area of freedom we love so much, despite the fact that the European Union is not paying enough attention to them.
Mr President, I believe that this debate today is not about political, party-political or personal point-scoring, but rather about a common wish to join together in expressing our solidarity with the victims.
Otherwise, Mr Rübig, we should have to ask why, when this matter is so close to Mrs Stenzel's heart, she is not here in person.
But that is not what this debate is about.
We are debating what we can do to help with resources from the European Union that are available now for the various areas, and we urge the Commission and its staff to do everything in their power to cut through the red tape and ensure that these funds can be injected quickly and used efficiently.
The areas concerned may not be in the poorest regions of this continent, but they are areas which need our solidarity in their present plight.
Of course there is every justification for asking a secondary question: could these disasters have been prevented?
What is the settlement structure and what is the planning policy in these areas where there may be a risk of avalanches? I would not like to claim that building plans and settlement patterns in all our Alpine areas have been designed so as to avoid potential risks.
Many things which are done in the name of tourism or economic interests are not particularly prudent and could certainly have repercussions and lead to disasters, if the worst came to the worst.
Be that as it may, as far as I am aware there is no evidence at all, at least in many of the areas we are discussing today, that human error or political mistakes were at the root of these disasters.
And so it really only remains for me to ask the Commission to cut through the red tape and to help quickly wherever help is needed.
Mr President, firstly, with regard to the distressing subject of avalanches, the Commission wishes to express its distress and to offer its heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims of these events.
In answer to the questions that have just been raised, I would point out that the Union has various tools to help prevent disasters and to deal with their effects.
Firstly, as far as prevention is concerned, the European Union can help the mountain regions, notably through afforestation programmes for agricultural land.
Objective 5b of the ERDF and the Structural Funds also allows us to implement forestry measures.
The Commission's proposals on the 'rural development' aspect of Agenda 2000 will further increase the possibilities for aid for afforestation and forestry improvement, if the Council agrees with the Commission's proposals.
In the context of these proposals, compensatory payments could be made in order to preserve and improve the ecological stability of forests in areas where they have a protective and environmental role that is in the public interest.
Within the framework of the 5b programmes in the Tyrol and Vorarlberg areas, the European Union is cofinancing the improvement of agricultural land, land management measures, planning and advice on the agricultural use of areas that are ecologically sensitive.
In relation to what Mrs Leperre-Verrier just said, the Commission also supports the idea to draw up forestry maps and forestry development plans.
Finally, and still on the issue of mapping, the ERDF can support cartographical studies of the mountainous areas that are at risk within the framework of transnational cooperation programmes.
Initiatives could also be cofinanced by Interreg, especially during its next programming period.
Therefore, the tools do exist, and I can assure you that the Commission will do all in its power and spare no efforts to put those tools to use, especially in areas that are at risk.
Secondly, moving on from prevention to dealing with the effects of avalanches, I would remind you that in 1997, Parliament blocked heading B4-3400, which was precisely aimed at providing emergency aid for the victims of disasters.
The budgetary line B4-3300, which relates to civil protection and environmental emergencies, does not provide for intervention to reconstruct damaged areas through economic aid or emergency aid.
Nevertheless, it is possible to re-focus the existing provisions on measures to re-establish the potential for agricultural and forestry production that was harmed within the existing financial envelopes.
It is also possible to transfer funds between the Länder.
Finally, in the framework of the Community action programme for civil protection, the Commission is prepared to examine - within the limits of its funding capacities - any proposals submitted by national or local authorities to improve their ability to act when disasters occur.
The joint debate is closed
The vote will be taken at 5.30 p.m.
That concludes the topical and urgent debate.
The sitting was suspended at 5.20 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.
VOTES
Mr President, a point of order under Rules 119 and 120 concerning roll-call votes, in which I know you have a special interest.
At this morning's sitting we had any number of roll-call votes.
We are destined to have more again this evening and Members can look forward to a fairly healthy-sized volume of roll-call results in their pigeonholes tomorrow morning.
Rules 119 and 120 referring to roll-call votes state they shall be recorded in the Minutes.
Rule 133 states that the Minutes shall be distributed to the Members.
I wonder whether, in the interests of economy, efficiency, and certainly of modernisation, you could either rule as President or call for an investigation to see whether the word 'distribution' could be interpreted to mean 'distributed electronically', so that those Members who want to access the full list of recorded votes can do so through the computers or a certain number of copies can be made available to those Members, rather than going through the expensive and wasteful procedure of distributing hundreds of pages to everybody.
Thank you very much for that thought, Mr Evans.
I did in fact send a letter to the President of the European Parliament, and this very afternoon the Conference of Presidents debated the matter.
One of the issues I raised in the letter, which of course will be distributed, is the excessively large number of roll-call votes, which often reach 100 or more. This is of course my own opinion, and does not commit anyone else.
Apart from the waste of time, each of these cost the European taxpayer EUR 300 because, as you know, the results of the votes must be published the following day. They also have to be published in the Official Journal of the European Communities, and that costs a great deal of money.
An initial debate has taken place in the Conference of Presidents but I do not think I should expand on that now, since it is neither the time nor the place for a more general debate.
There is a problem and, of course, we note your recommendation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at first sight Mr Evans's proposal to save paper by not distributing the results of the spiralling number of roll-call votes may well appear very tempting.
But let me make another suggestion.
Let us discuss in the relevant committees how we can get back to the original purpose of roll-call voting, which was to enable us to hold a special vote on particular issues of genuine importance.
I believe it is rather pointless to take a roll-call vote on every single phrase.
For that reason, I believe we should be well advised to review this procedure, and then the paper problem would automatically be solved.
Mr Konrad, thank you very much for your comment.
I do not want to broaden the debate.
This is not the time, and we are not prepared for a debate without an opinion.
I think we should stop here so that we can continue with the votes.
Mr President, I should like to draw the attention of the Chair to the fact that under Rule 19 every word spoken by the Chair, even though it might prove superfluous, is nevertheless printed in the full report as well.
That costs paper and trees.
Applause
Mr President, let me take up Mr Konrad's excellent suggestion at this point and ask the PPE Group to agree to this very sound proposal now and withdraw the flood of roll-call votes which they have requested on this report, so that we can indeed put this good idea into effect.
Mr Rehder, I do not want this debate to continue. It should take place in the political groups, since we need to find out if we can do anything more.
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
Mr President, I merely wanted to announce some sad news to the House. The German Federal Minister of Finance, Oskar Lafontaine, has just resigned his posts as finance minister and party chairman.
Applause
Mr President, I wanted to vote in favour of that, but my machine was not working!
Laughter
Mr President, I only wanted to say that it does not really befit the dignity of this House to greet a domestic political decision with applause.
We ought to bear in mind that such a decision is a matter for the Germans, for the German Federal Government. It is not the concern of this House.
Mr Swoboda, I do not want us to continue this discussion, but it goes without saying that the information that was given is of interest to the House, even though Parliament did not ask for it, since Mr Lafontaine is the current President-in-Office of the Council of Finance Ministers.
Mr President, I must nevertheless take the liberty of contradicting Mr Swoboda on that point. Negotiations are about to take place on the tough conditions presented by the Agriculture Council, and we all know that Mr Lafontaine is President-in-Office in the finance policy sector.
So to that extent, his resignation most definitely affects the European Parliament.
Applause
We have decided to abstain from voting on the Adam report on trans-European networks.
Trans-European networks are, on the face of it, a sensible arrangement which improves both security of supply and competition in the energy market.
However, there is another side to the coin which people should be aware of, namely that the various energy providers cannot supply on equal terms.
Small, environmentally friendly, decentralised combined power and heating stations, which are owned and run by local interests, cannot be expected to supply electricity at the same price as nuclear power stations and large, coal-fired power plants.
Renewable sources of energy are also uncompetitive because the external costs of the large plants are not included in their prices.
There is therefore a risk, as things stand at present, that a healthy, environmentally friendly development in the power supply industry could be destroyed by the trans-European networks.
The June Movement actively supports the development of environmentally friendly forms of energy, and believes that the Member States should have the opportunity to promote renewable energy with all the means at their disposal.
The extensive reprioritising and expansion of trans-European energy projects which the Commission is proposing is needed to ensure adaptation to the developments in technology and in the energy sector which have taken place since the guidelines were adopted.
Today the EU has an increased need for natural gas projects in particular, as well as for the widening of sources of supply which needs to be ensured.
The Commission's initiative is therefore to be welcomed.
Robles Piquer report (A4-0085/99)
If nothing is done, then energy requirements will have doubled in twenty years' time.
We can all imagine the disastrous consequences that such an increase in energy requirements would have for the environment if measures were not taken to considerably increase our use of efficient energy resources that are both renewable and less harmful to the biosphere.
We therefore need to meet the objectives set at the Kyoto Conference in December 1997.
In order to do this, it is essential to make practical use of the progress made in the field of renewable energy sources and to perfect those sources that have not yet reached the stage where they can be put on the market.
Strictly from an economic point of view, uncontrolled consumption of non-renewable energy sources in the long term is likely to threaten our security of supply and price stability.
Therefore, we also need to look at the sustainability of economic development when discussing renewable energy sources.
For many of our countries, intensive use of renewable energy sources is also likely to restore equilibrium to our balance of trade, which has been thrown off course by massive imports of traditional energy sources.
Finally, at a time when jobs are in short supply, we cannot ignore the fact that renewable energy sources have an employment potential that is two to five times greater than that of traditional energy sources.
I therefore give my unreserved support to the proposal for a Council decision, as amended.
Bloch von Blottnitz report (A4-0084/99)
In Kyoto, the European Union committed itself to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 8 % compared to 1990 levels before 2012.
Given the fact that energy consumption in the Member States is set to increase by 50 % in the next 20 years, we need to make an extra special effort in terms of energy efficiency.
Sufficient resources should therefore be allocated for this purpose.
Our rapporteur is concerned about 'the low budget allocated to SAVE II' and says that, as a result, 'the programme's potential is being overestimated.'
In its opinion, the Committee on Budgets takes the same line.
It stresses that the Union's dependence on energy imports is increasing and goes on to highlight the importance of the SAVE programme, since its objective of saving energy 'will thus reduce this dependency'.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is of the same opinion. It states the following: 'The Commission proposal on the promotion of energy efficiency is somewhat disappointing.
The measures it contains are far too weak if the targets set at Kyoto are to be anything more than empty words.'
It is unfortunate that the European Union is not providing itself with the resources needed to achieve its objectives.
However, I will support this proposal since, above all, it does at least exist.
But we need the resources to implement the policy. With this in mind, I would like to highlight another of the conclusions reached by the Committee on Budgets: 'Tax policy can also influence the achievement of these objectives and to this end an agreement should be reached on a common energy and CO2 tax at the first opportunity.'
I will be voting in favour of this report today.
The European Union is one of the largest producers of greenhouse gases in the world.
We therefore have a responsibility, not just to ourselves but to the planet as a whole, to encourage greater energy efficiency and cut greenhouse emissions.
We must not fiddle while the earth chokes on our fumes.
The British Labour Government is leading the way.
Britain was instrumental in securing worldwide agreement to cut greenhouse emissions at the Kyoto Environment Conference in 1997.
Indeed, without the chairmanship skills of the Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, the Conference would have produced more hot air than it prevented!
Moreover, yesterday, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, announced new green energy taxes on companies and lower taxes for smaller, more eco-friendly cars.
This is in sharp contrast to the Tories, who always promoted the Great Car Economy rather than greater control of emissions.
Britain is well on the way to meeting the commitments it made at the Kyoto Conference.
Britain, however, cannot tackle a global problem alone.
Other EU Member States, the United States and the rest of the industrialised world must also show similar commitment.
Only then will we be able to enter the 21st century confident that future generations will see the 22nd.
Trakatellis report (A4-0067/99)
I am opposed to any form of subsidy for the tobacco industry.
I believe subsidies of this sort cannot be justified and should be stopped completely.
I have therefore cast my vote in accordance with this principle.
I and other British Labour members voted against this report because it recommends increasing subsidies for growing tobacco, not in poor countries in regions totally dependent on growing tobacco, but in four of the richest countries in the European Union.
Tobacco-growing subsidies should be phased out, not increased, with support for growers in Objective 1 and 5b areas to assist change to other products.
Many thousands of European Union citizens die every year and millions suffer years of ill-health due to smoking-related illnesses, discovering too late that the dangers they were warned about in their teens become apparent when they suffer heart attacks and cancer in their 40s, 50s and 60s.
There is absolutely no justification for continuing to use taxpayers' money to support the growing of tobacco.
Increasing subsidies is completely unacceptable.
Money saved should be diverted into rural development programmes and health promotion programmes.
I am wholly opposed to this report from Mr Trakatellis and the Agriculture Committee, because it wants subsidies for tobacco cultivation to continue in the EU.
I cannot support this, because I do not think that the EU should give money for tobacco cultivation.
On the one hand the support is unreasonably high, and on the other hand tobacco is harmful to health; tens of thousands of people in the EU countries die every year from tobacco smoking.
At the same time, the EU has programmes encouraging smokers to stop smoking.
This contradictory policy must cease.
One cannot give the tobacco growers 10 billion in support at the same time as spending a few hundred million on programmes to encourage people to stop smoking.
I have instead chosen to support the amendments tabled by Mr Collins and others, calling for the EU's tobacco support to be phased out and to be discontinued completely after a few years.
I consider this to be both reasonable and possible.
The entire system of support for tobacco must be abolished.
This must take place over a transitional period, however, so that the growers do not suffer economic problems and so that unemployment is not made even worse.
I am voting in favour of the amendments proposed by the Trakatellis report on the regulation on leaf tobacco.
The amendments reaffirm the need to support European tobacco production which, I would like to point out, only represents 23 % of the volume of leaf tobacco consumed by the European processing industry.
The battle against smoking, which, in my view, is essential, should not involve the reduction or abolition of this production, as some of my colleagues have suggested.
It would be immediately replaced by production from countries outside the European Union, which already account for 95 % of world tobacco production.
Moreover, this report proposes a greater increase in premiums.
This is doubly justified, firstly, because of the losses that resulted from the withdrawal of the green ecu, for which there is no compensation as it is below 1.98 % - which represents a loss of ECU 1 million for French producers - and secondly, because of the losses suffered over the years when subsidies were not increased to account for inflation.
The Members belonging to the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations are aware of the importance of tobacco production for the economy of many rural regions.
This production requires a considerable workforce and allows many jobs to be preserved on relatively small farms.
We are therefore opposed to the amendments proposed by the chairman of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which seek to eventually abolish the aid granted to the tobacco production industry.
We are all aware of the European Union's low level of self-sufficiency: it only provides 20 % of its own needs, which means that any reduction in aid will lead to a decline in European production to the benefit of tobacco imports from third countries, especially the United States.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted in favour of Amendment No 5, which provides for full compensation for producers for the negative effects of currency conversions in the transition from the ecu to the euro.
In France, for example, we know that compensation aid and official prices have fallen by 1.9 % for all farmers in the transition to the euro.
This provision obviously requires additional budgetary resources but it preserves the principle of equality.
We regret that, although their income decreased during the 1997-1998 season, farmers were not treated fairly: the challenge of the single currency was more important to some people.
Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9 aim to transfer the guarantee thresholds from group III (dark tobacco) to group II (Burley) and group I (Virginia).
Although this transfer does not affect the budget, it encourages production to move towards quality tobacco.
The level of nicotine in dark tobacco, in particular, is higher than that of the other types of tobacco which would benefit from the transfer.
To conclude, I would also like to make a stand against the principle of gradually reducing agricultural aid, as proposed by the Commission on the basis of a French initiative.
This phased reduction would represent 3 % per year as from 2002.
Taking account of the depreciation of the currency, that would mean that official prices and compensation aid would decrease by around 5 % every year.
Initially, the lowest performing producers will be forced to stop producing and the level of European production will therefore fall.
A uniform phased reduction of 3 % will primarily penalise the sectors of production which receive the most aid, such as tobacco growing.
It is a mistake to think that our producers' productivity gains could compensate for this decrease in compensation aid.
The Commission proposal fails to take account of the real conditions and requirements of the COM in the tobacco sector, particularly as regards continued Community support for raw tobacco for social and economic reasons, the promotion of better quality tobacco for health and environmental reasons and the use of a flexible quota system.
Moreover, the Commission proposal does not basically provide for premiums for the tobacco varieties to be redefined, thereby confirming the gradual reduction in real producer income as a result of the failure to make adjustments based on inflation levels in the Community.
Therefore, I am calling for an increase in the premiums for all varieties of leaf tobacco for the 1999, 2000 and 2001 harvests.
Finally, I believe that it is necessary to revise the COM in the tobacco sector so as to protect and improve quality production by tailoring it to market requirements; those adjustments should be made in the light of the changes dictated by the reform of the CAP (Agenda 2000) and taking into account the prospects of European enlargement.
For the above reasons, the non-attached Members will be abstaining in the vote on the report, as we do not consider the content of the report to be a sufficient guarantee that the interests of Italian tobacco producers will be protected.
Trade dispute concerning bananas
The European Union must react vigorously and oppose the arrogance of the United States of America, which has unilaterally announced that, as of the beginning of March, it will be imposing sanctions (100 % customs duties) on a whole list of European products, even though the final decision of the WTO's banana panel has yet to be announced.
By already imposing 100 % customs duties on imports, the USA is actively limiting the import of products, threatening the fragile economies of the less favoured countries and regions of the Union. Europe must stop kow-towing to the USA.
We must have a trading policy commensurate with the European Union's importance in the world.
That is why we are calling on the Commission to use every means at its disposal to oblige the USA to comply with WTO rules.
I am voting in favour of the joint motion for a resolution on the US imposition of sanctions against EU companies as a consequence of the banana dispute.
I completely condemn the US's unilateral action and its failure to wait for the decision of the World Trade Organization (WTO) panel on 12 April 1999.
The US action will cost the EU euro 450m. It will throw thousands out of work, devastating and blighting the future of all those families and communities in the interests of American multinationals, who appear to buy their influence through donations to American politicians, who are waging an economic war against some of the poorest communities in the Caribbean.
I ask President Clinton and the US Administration to think again and wait for the WTO to rule.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations supported the joint resolution explicitly asking the European Commission to use all the means at its disposal, within the framework of the WTO, to respond to the sanctions put in place by the United States in answer to the banana dispute, which contravene the rules of the multilateral organisation.
As the World Trade Organisation has just confirmed that these sanctions are illegal, the European Union has an urgent duty to respond resolutely to the American attacks.
It is now essential to make the American leaders understand that the European Union and its Member States have the will and the ability to respond harshly to such a direct attack on their interests and their rights.
The absence of a firm and credible reaction from the European Union in other matters has surely been a deciding factor in Washington's decision to opt for a test of strength.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations regrets Commissioner Brittan's ambiguous and soft language in a context where the United States is testing our strength and where the European Union must therefore convince them now that it has a real capacity to cause trouble.
Yesterday, in this House, while giving the impression that he was adopting a firm position, the Commissioner basically left open the way for negotiations on a fresh modification of our COM for bananas.
This expectation is unfounded and particularly ill-timed.
As our new COM was drawn up in order to comply with WTO requirements, there is no reason for us to envisage any future adjustments.
Will the Commission not place a little trust in the WTO bodies responsible for resolving disputes?
While we support the joint resolution, our group would have liked it to have been more emphatic and, in particular, to have asked the Commission to consider introducing a great European 301: the Americans are retaining their instrument despite the fact that they are members of the WTO. Above all, we would have liked to ask the Commission to freeze all programmes and actions associated with the transatlantic partnership as it is clear that this partnership is currently being flouted through the aggressive and illegal attitude of the United States to the banana issue.
On the eve of the 'millennium round negotiations', it is paramount that the European Union and its Member States learn from this crisis and provide their international trade strategy with a new focus based on greater coherence and a greater determination in rejecting any unfair behaviour on the part of the United States.
Situation in Kosovo
Mr President, I believe the joint resolution has turned out well, even though we should have highlighted more sharply one key aspect which the Council and the Commission regrettably failed to mention, namely the fact that people are being systematically driven from their homes in Kosovo at the present time, especially in the areas near the Macedonian border.
It is not a matter of their fleeing from the fighting; they are actually being systematically driven out, village by village. One village after another is being burned to the ground with the aim of altering, so to speak, the ethnic composition of Kosovo, 90 % of the population of which comprises ethnic Albanians, and to swing the balance there in favour of the Serbian occupiers.
We must protest vigorously against this, and we must also take military action to stop it.
It really is high time we launched air strikes and stopped making empty threats about last chances.
Slobodan Milosevic is laughing his head off at the West, and the so-called ethnic cleansing continues day by day in all its systematic brutality.
Colajanni report (A4-0042/99)
Mr President, given the political balance in this Parliament, Mr Colajanni's report was, in its initial version, undoubtedly the lesser of all the evils that could have come out of Parliament on the subject.
I did not, however, vote in favour of the report, as I think that it has unfortunately been distorted by certain amendments.
This does not make it any less interesting, as it is a very good example of the contradictions of European policy.
On one hand, we give excessive unconditional support to the claim for a new Palestinian state alongside Jordan, while on the other hand, we say that the proclamation of that state would create an explosion situation. Added to this, we state that, in any case, it is too expensive and the administrative structures are not viable.
Undoubtedly, and absurdly, this is what is interesting about the report.
But it is not a reason to adopt it, since it sets out a position which explains why, for a long time to come, Europe will continue to pay without truly being able to make any decisions.
Luigi Colajanni's report contains several strong ideas and we must give them our immediate support.
Following the Wye Plantation agreements and the deadlock in the situation on the ground, the Palestinian authorities have decided to declare the independence of the territories unilaterally on 4 May.
The Israelis have stated that if that happens, they will occupy the territories with military forces.
As it is obvious that there is not enough time left to achieve the considerable progress that is necessary, I believe that the rapporteur is right to ask the two parties to engage immediately in negotiations in order to put back the date of application of the provisional agreement until after 4 May.
I also share his view that the negotiation process must result in the constitution of an independent Palestinian state and that the existence of the State of Israel and its right to security must be recognised by the Arab world.
As I said in this House in 1998, to try to resolve each conflict in the region separately would be to erase all the historical, ethnic, religious and cultural differences and to forget the international strategies that aim to control the raw materials and maintain areas of influence through the military alliances.
The European Union's aim, in fighting every form of extremism and fundamentalism, must be to strengthen its political role in the region and to support a process that establishes security and cooperation between all the countries of the Near and Middle East and benefits all those involved. It must also support any moves towards finding regional solutions.
I hope that the Euro-Mediterranean Conference to held in Stuttgart between 4 and 6 April will enable us to make progress in that direction.
It is in this frame of mind that I will visit Syria next week with a delegation from the Socialist Group. We are now at a stage where Syria and Israel have expressed the will to resume peace negotiations on the basis of regional cooperation founded on the common interests of the countries and the region.
The Wye Plantation agreements, which were concluded with American backing, enabled the Oslo Agreements, which had been completely grounded for 18 months, to be relaunched.
We must welcome this along with the fact that for the first time, all of the main Israeli political forces seem to have accepted the principle of exchanging land for peace.
However, what is much less pleasing to us as Europeans is that we have been in no way associated with the political negotiations, despite the fact that the European Union is the region's main financial backer.
In a way, we are paying, but we do not have anything to say.
There are two main reasons for this.
Firstly, despite a few institutional steps in the right direction, the Union's common foreign and security policy is still largely in its embryonic stages.
Secondly, the considerable sums of money given to the Palestinian Authority were not enough to improve the lot of the Palestinian people; quite the opposite.
To be more specific, I should in fact say that, on the one hand, these funds were used in an inappropriate manner, and on the other hand, their distribution was hindered by the administrative obstacles put up by the Israeli authorities and by the repeated closures of the territories in the wake of attacks.
On this particular point, I would like to express my own personal belief that it is not advisable to link the resumption and continuation of the peace process to a cessation of terrorist activities.
The terrorists' very goal is to block the path to peace, and those who plant the bombs will continue with their terrible acts as long as their crimes serve their political objective: to bury the peace process.
Having said this, like our rapporteur, I would like to stress the need for the European Union to establish a common position as quickly as possible, especially with the prospect of 4 May 1999.
We are voting against this report.
We consider it a very serious matter and very unwise for the European Parliament to intervene in this way and jeopardise the sensitive ongoing peace process between Israel and Palestine.
Sakellariou report (A4-0095/99)
We have voted in favour of the report because, in many parts, it highlights the value of improved cooperation between the EU countries and the states around the Mediterranean.
It also points out how important it is that the peace process in the Middle East should continue and that measures should be taken to ease the situation of Mediterranean countries struggling under the burden of international debt and to cancel debts.
This is positive.
However, the report also contains points which seek to strengthen the EU's common foreign and security policy and to give the Commission increased powers in the foreign policy area, to which we are opposed.
Despite this, we have chosen to vote in favour of the report in the final vote, for the reasons indicated at the beginning.
Along the seaboards of Africa and Europe, the old and new civilisations that have made their way distrustfully, and frequently in conflict with one another, along the paths of history, have established, as a result of the 1995 Barcelona Conference, the bases for a shared future. According to the final declaration, that future is to be based on more extensive political dialogue and the development of economic cooperation.
Not, unfortunately. a political success, the Conference has left us only the euro-partnerships as a tangible sign of what might be achieved.
That being so, it seems to me exaggerated to talk today in terms of a Mediterranean policy of the Union, particularly since, three years on, some Mediterranean countries have still to be invited to take part in the Barcelona process.
However, given the existential problems the Community is facing, the establishment of a well-structured Mediterranean policy which is not abandoned at the conceptual stage, but set at the more appropriate regional policy level, could prove a real litmus test, the first step, at last, towards defining appropriate Community policies.
We share the view of those who are rediscussing the scope of EU foreign policy and consider that it cannot continue to look to the north of the Community and to Central and Eastern Europe, although these are certainly important regions of the old continent, finally restored to democracy and socio-economic progress. We should in fact also be deeply concerned to see the Mediterranean region resume its historical role as a linchpin, a bridge between cultures and human and economic societies.
And the fact is that this region is currently in the grip of extremely difficult problems and tensions, no doubt influenced by a resurgence of fundamentalism. But that could be resolved with the Union's help, as part of the current financial aid measures, through a programme which allows disadvantaged countries gradually to reduce their foreign debt burden, reinvesting those sums in projects for economic reconstruction and defining common rules spanning all the problems of immigration - its objective being aid for socio-economic development throughout the region.
Adam report (A4-0088/99)
Mr President, the idea behind giving aid to improve the safety of nuclear power stations in the applicant countries has always been that they should be shut down completely in the long term.
The trouble is that this has not happened, and there is no sign that it will happen.
Having extended the lifetime of the nuclear power stations with the help of EU aid, the applicant countries now claim that the safety of their nuclear plants has become so good that there is no reason at all to close them down.
The Adam report has not taken this into account.
It does not link aid to the demand for closure in the long term. Nor does it spell out a clear policy for financing the form of energy which will replace the nuclear plants.
On top of that, the nuclear power industry in the West is also having its lifetime extended.
The order book was more or less empty, but with EU money a new and lucrative market has emerged.
The June Movement recognises the right of countries to choose and manage their own forms of energy, including nuclear power.
But under no circumstances will we be party to giving economic aid to maintain nuclear power as an energy source, at the expense of developing more environmentally friendly sources of energy.
The June Movement will indeed vote for a short-term improvement in reactor safety, if it is aimed at phasing out nuclear power.
The Greens' amendments provided for that, but since they were all rejected, we have voted against the Adam report.
Despite the decline of nuclear power in Europe, the EU continues to waste massive resources on promoting, researching and developing it, via the Euratom Treaty.
It was one of the three original treaties of the European Union, and still maintains the 'atoms for peace' lie in a legal constitutional form, so as to 'permit the advancement of the cause of peace' (recital 1) 'by creating the conditions necessary for the speedy establishment and growth of nuclear industries' (Article 1).
While the European Parliament has a major say on the EU Budget, it has, exceptionally, no real control over the activities which take place under the anachronistic and non-transparent Euratom Treaty.
The European nuclear industry, having been badly hit by Chernobyl, has turned that around into a business opportunity.
They have made millions of ecu working on nuclear safety projects in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, funded largely by the EU.
However, EU Court of Auditors Special Report No 25/98 on the PHARE-TACIS nuclear safety programmes recently showed that no real safety improvement has taken place, as we have claimed for years (and was shown in a Parliament STOA study commissioned at the initiative of the Greens), so that over 800 MECU have been largely wasted on producing reports.
And yet, the European Commission is currently considering three safety-related Euratom loans, for the completion of Khmelnitski 2 and Rovno 4 (k2/r4) in Ukraine as part of the Chernobyl closure agreement, for Kallinin unit 3 in Russia and for Kozloduy units 5 & 6 in Bulgaria, all Soviet designed reactors.
These projects neatly illustrate the sort of problems associated with EU enlargement negotiations as far as the safety of nuclear power plants is concerned.
Ukrainian President Kuchma has written that his country originally wanted gas-fired stations as part of the Chernobyl closure deal, but the G7, looking after the interests of their nuclear industries, forced Ukraine to accept the completion of these two VVER 1 000 MW reactors, whose construction had been abandoned after the collapse of the USSR, and which have not been that well preserved in their incomplete state.
The Least Cost Study on this project carried out by a panel led by Prof. John Surrey of SPRU at Sussex University showed that they were far from least cost, and yet the Commission and G7 continue to press the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to fund these reactors (190 MECU), alongside Euratom's 400 MECU, in breach of all rational procedures, technical and financial concerns.
Energy saving is clearly the least cost investment in Ukraine, where energy intensity is an order of magnitude higher than in the EU, a situation common to the former Eastern bloc states.
Kozloduy illustrates another crucial aspect of this problem.
Units 1-4 are of the more dangerous VVER 440-230 type, and should be closed forthwith.
Bulgaria made a closure agreement with the Nuclear Safety Account run by the EBRD for the G24 countries in return for finance, but the conditions attached had to be carried out by Bulgaria, allowing them to legitimately extend the closure dates by not meeting those conditions, which they have now done.
In both cases the interests of the Western nuclear industry takes precedence over everything else, something that must be changed during the rest of the enlargement negotiations - firm dates without escape clauses for the reactors are essential as a pre-condition for entry to the EU.
It is of course worth noting that there are equally dangerous nuclear installations in the EU, such as the UK Magnox reactors, which have no secondary containment, not to mention all of the unstable high-level waste and other dangerous materials associated with the UK and French reprocessing plants (something not found in Eastern Europe).
Nuclear power will leave a heritage of nuclear waste, for tens of thousands of generations to come.
But, a more subtle heritage is to be found in the permanently altered genetic stock of every living thing on the planet.
Atmospheric nuclear weapons testing was the first of many reckless activities to spread radio-isotopes all over the planet, which is why the military scientists made sure that radiations standards were set at an unreasonably high level, so as to avoid consequent claims against the weapons states that they had compromised the health of the human race.
This problem is still with us today, as the science is manipulated, prevented or simply neglected, which shows that despite the reductions in levels, they are still way too high, as was demonstrated in a Parliament workshop initiated by the Greens, the basis of a STOA study published on this matter.
What is worse, the Radiation Standards Directive (Euratom/96/29), which should protect the public and workers as from 2000, actually has features which facilitates the dilution and recycling of radioactive waste, so that consumer products might even contain these materials and no one would know.
A radical revision is urgently needed, before these materials are released.
And the new areas of radiation protection research need to be urgently pursued by the EU, such as Genomic Instability and DNA mini-satellite research, so that we find out the long-term effects of low-level exposure.
Since 1999, nuclear power has been an important issue for the European Union's relations with the Central and Eastern European countries and the new independent states.
It is essential that in the new enlargement process nuclear safety is put at the heart of the negotiations.
Agenda 2000, the European Commission's Framework for the Development of the European Union, states that most of the power stations operating in the applicant countries are still using Soviet technology and do not meet international safety standards.
From an EU perspective, reactors are placed in three categories: reactors of Western design, reactors of Soviet design and unsafe reactors.
The European Commission must agree to an energy strategy for each of these countries under partnership and cooperation agreements in which provision is made for the closure of unsafe nuclear reactors at an agreed date.
While the initial assessment by the European Commission and the Agenda 2000 programme is not sufficiently detailed, the Mochovce plant in Slovakia which is still operating must be singled out for special attention.
If this plant is to meet international safety standards, together with other nuclear installations in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria, modernisation programmes will take at least seven to ten years to ensure that the highest environmental and public health standards are met.
Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia also have to find solutions for the storage of the nuclear waste that they produce.
All these problems are broad in their implications for the European Union and we must ensure that no enlargement of EU takes place until we are sure that the nuclear plants operating in the applicant countries meet the highest international safety standards.
This is not going to be a particularly easy task.
For example, it is now fourteen years since the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
It is hard to believe that this nuclear plant is still a key supplier of energy needs for the people of Ukraine.
It is clear that Western finances will still be needed to close this nuclear plant down once and for all.
The overall cost involved in ensuring that no further environmental or public health affects arise from the plant is estimated at £1.7 billion.
This is designed to ensure that the two reactors which are still functioning at Chernobyl are safely closed down and defused.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development will have a role in this process and I welcome the fact that they have contributed close to $ 200 million last year alone to help the Ukrainian Government to close down the Chernobyl Plant in the near future
There is no doubt that growing numbers of people have a great sense of insecurity as regards nuclear power in the EU countries, in the Central and Eastern European countries and in the New Independent States alike.
Retrogressive nuclear policies are increasingly being abandoned, a process which has led amongst other things to decisions by Sweden and Germany to begin the phasing-out of nuclear power.
It would be more than desirable if the Central and Eastern European countries and the New Independent States did the same.
The report from Mr Adam and the Energy Committee contains several points which, in my opinion, tend in the opposite direction (encouragement instead of the phasing-out of nuclear power).
For example, the nuclear power industry in the EU countries is encouraged to continue its activities in the countries concerned.
I consider on the contrary that the EU must provide economic support to help those countries commit themselves to moving away from nuclear power.
In this context, the economically stronger EU countries must offer help.
I have misgivings with regard to the assistance programmes addressed by the report, in view of the problems which have arisen hitherto in the EU's assistance programmes, on which the Court of Auditors presented a report last year.
The problems seem to be very wide-ranging, and the money which the EU had set aside has not brought about any noticeable improvements.
This is a serious matter, and the EU should consider how support for the phasing-out of nuclear power and support for renewable energy and efficient use of energy should be formulated in order to produce tangible results.
Finally, in the vote I have supported all the amendments which we tabled in the Green Group and which are of great importance for the future.
Improving the safety of and eventually shutting down reactors in nuclear power stations in the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States is a key element in the strategy for enlargement, because it touches on safety and public health in the whole of Europe.
There is an acute need for initiatives in a number of areas, both in terms of improving the safety of existing reactors and the construction of new power stations, as well as introducing safety standards and the monitoring of compliance with such standards by effective supervisory authorities.
I believe that our committee and rapporteur have succeeded in producing a very thorough report on nuclear safety in Central and Eastern Europe.
I am convinced that its conclusions will be able to serve as a significant contribution to the decisions to be made in this area in the years ahead.
Stockmann report (A4-0086/99)
Everyone now agrees that achieving the objectives set in Kyoto with regard to the reduction of greenhouse gases will be beneficial from three angles: the economy, the environment and preserving health.
It is also clear that it will only be possible to achieve the Kyoto objectives if the European Union and the Member States use all the levers available to them in the context of a global strategy. We will be able to judge how effective this strategy is precisely by looking at quantifiable parameters.
With this dual perspective, we welcome the publication of the Commission's White Paper, 'An energy policy for the European Union'.
This document seems to represent a good foundation on which the Commission can build in order to establish the legal tool needed to effectively implement the global strategy.
It is therefore within this general framework that the Member States must clarify their objectives, according to the type of energy and the economic sector, and they must be monitored regularly by the Commission. Particular attention must be paid to the construction and transport sectors, where considerable energy savings can be made.
From this point of view, I think it is appropriate to also give priority to the new methods of transferring information. Developing such methods could possibly help solve the traffic jams that congest our cities and that are so costly, both in financial and economic terms, but also in terms of the environment and public health.
Fourçans report (A4-0102/99)
A natural consequence of the introduction of the euro is that the euro countries will be compelled to follow a uniform economic policy.
There is nothing surprising about that, but it explains, amongst other things, why we believe the euro is a political instrument for closer integration.
Individual Member States should insist on following their own economic policies, including their own policies on tax, VAT and employment.
The heart of state sovereignty is having independent instruments to manage the economy.
With the euro, the states have to give up this right and subordinate themselves to the interests of the Union, thereby undermining what is best for the individual state.
The EU should not meddle with the economic instruments of the Member States.
Monetary union and a central bank will not be able to survive in the long run unless they are controlled by a common government and a common parliament.
Therefore, monetary union must either be followed by a new leap towards political integration or perish.
In principle, we believe that voluntary coordination of economic policies and currency cooperation between the Member States could be an excellent idea, but this report does not prepare the way for voluntary coordination.
On the contrary, it maintains that the Member States should be committed to coordinating fiscal policy (paragraph 43).
The report calls for systematic coordination of the taxation of enterprises, capital and energy.
We do not think the EU should be deciding macro-economic goals and instruments, which are the essence of democracy in the Member States.
We are therefore voting against this report.
However, we do share the report's concerns about the global economic crisis.
We endorse the report's criticism of the EU's inability to fight European unemployment, which has admittedly fallen, but is still very high.
The Commission regards the growth of the European economy over the past year as broadly positive, although it appears rather worried about the repercussions of the international economic and financial crisis. It acknowledges that these repercussions are already visible in the economy of the European Union, and forecasts a slowdown in growth for 1999.
The conclusion it has reached on what should happen is based on the well-known logic of unilateral austerity, further reducing financial deficits and the public debt, and strengthening anti-inflationary policy.
The Commission fails to mention that the stifling restrictions on national budgets will limit the scope for action in the event of the crisis deepening.
It fails to explain why, despite ever-increasing returns on investments, increased profits, reduced labour costs and low interest rates, there has been no stimulation of private investment.
The Commission and the report by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy both call for measures to reverse the downward trend in public investment.
But how will this come about, when the scope for action is extremely restricted as a result of the obligations deriving from the Treaty on European Union and the stability and growth pact? Our fear is that this will lead to a reorganisation of budget infrastructure, resulting in further cuts in social spending.
We are particularly concerned by the attempt to bring about closer links between the procedure for approving general economic measures and the policy on employment.
While admitting that the EU and Member States have failed to tackle unemployment, the Commission is further subjecting wage policy and the other aspects of employment policy to the requirements of the Maastricht criteria and the stability and growth pact.
A typical example of its hypocrisy is that we were initially told that adding a chapter on employment to the Treaty would solve the problem.
Subsequently, we were told that the process to implement the relevant provisions was to begin.
Then we were told about special measures that were to be decided upon at the European Council meeting in Vienna. Now we are being told to wait for the European Employment Pact, but although this is now at the drafting stage, it merely covers the same ground as the German action plan on employment.
It is clear that the idea of greater convergence of the political choices made in terms of the general direction of economic policies and employment policies, as called for by the Commission and by the majority of those in the European Parliament, is resulting in more job opportunities in the sense of an increase in part-time and atypical forms of employment, as well as an undesirable restructuring of the social security system.
Moreover, the two reports that were published by the Commission on structural policies, known as Cardiff I and II, call for greater flexibility and for greater changes to be made in labour relations and in the labour market, which the Commission regards as the extra key ingredient in our macro-economic endeavours.
We are also seeing that almost all new jobs are part time, while the number of full-time jobs is falling.
The Commission has failed to state that it will take decisive initiatives at international level in order to limit the movement of capital for profit and to promote productive investment.
We call on the Commission to include in the next round of multilateral negotiations the problems created for international monetary and financial stability by the unchecked movements of capital, and to promote the adoption of measures such as the Tobin tax.
It is painfully evident to the people of Europe that the policy currently being followed will get us nowhere.
It is clear that there is no future for the deception perpetrated on the people of Europe through insipid debates about employability and entrepreneurship.
With increasing force and coordination, the people of Europe are demanding specific measures in favour of full-time, stable employment, budgets for the redistribution of income in favour of working people, an end to the scandalous impunity enjoyed by multinationals, a totally different policy in Europe, and that the Member States should pave the way for sweeping changes which will promote peace, progress and social prosperity.
That concludes voting time.
EU relations with Central Asia (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on the report by Mr Truscott and the recommendation by Mrs André-Léonard.
Mr President, I would simply like to inform the House that this morning I said that some people had been arrested during the riots on 16 February, including Mrs Akedova, who is one of the leaders of a human rights association.
I have just received a quite alarming telegram informing me that one thousand arrests have been made since then.
As the Uzbek Ambassador is honouring us with his presence in the gallery, I would like him to be our messenger to Mr Karimov and to ask him for clemency for these one thousand people who have been arbitrarily arrested.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the two rapporteurs in this joint debate.
I have been a member of the Central Asian Delegation for the last two years and was privileged to visit Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan with the European Parliament Delegation in May 1997.
This is an exotic destination for Europeans with its image of the 'silk route'.
I was particularly struck by the warmth and friendship for Europeans expressed by the people we met.
We visited the Aral Sea and saw at first hand the environmental problems that exist.
We also learned of the economic problems of those landlocked countries and the difficulties of transition from Soviet domination to independence and the change to a market economy.
I have recently learned from the ambassadors at the last meeting that the problems have increased with the collapse of the Russian rouble.
However, I must point out that there are considerable human rights problems in Central Asia as was vividly expressed by Mr Truscott this morning, although the extent of the problems varies from country to country.
Consequently, although I give the interim agreements a cautious welcome I must ask that the Commission to remain vigilant on human rights and, whenever possible, continue to point out to the respective countries the need to observe human rights properly.
I should like to congratulate Mr Truscott on his excellent work and on the way in which he has accommodated the various opinions which have been delivered.
I had the honour of drafting the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations, and he took full account of the recommendations I made, which can really be summed up in one proposal. The Commission's proposals are very good, but we in the Committee on External Economic Relations would stress that they need to be incorporated into an overall policy, so that the infrastructure work, communications, pipelines, roads - everything that has been planned to help open up the countries of Central Asia and enable them to become part of a modern economy - will be dealt with all together rather than in isolation to create a genuine basis for their development.
This proposal was accepted without amendment.
The rapporteur said he was happy with it and the text before the House therefore takes due account of it.
I think this is an excellent example of cooperation between different committees and rapporteurs, for which I should like to thank Mr Truscott once again.
As chairman of Parliament's delegation for relations with these Central Asian states, I would like to sincerely congratulate the two rapporteurs, Mrs André-Léonard and Mr Truscott, as I have witnessed the excellent and, above all, meticulous work they have carried out.
For my part, I have also seen that in some of these states, or in practically all of them, there is a clear lack of democracy and respect for human rights. If pressed, we can appreciate how difficult the transition to a free regime and a market economy can be.
But I have always defended the theory that the important thing is that these countries did not stop working towards these freedoms, rather they were heading in the right direction to a greater or lesser degree.
It would have been unfair to ask these countries to behave in the same way as our consolidated Western democracies.
There has been a certain lack of understanding and it is clear that the development we wished to see is indeed taking place.
It is perhaps slow, but it is happening nonetheless.
I am therefore delighted to see that, in the text of the recommendation on Uzbekistan, the rapporteur explicitly welcomes the efforts made by the authorities there to strengthen democracy and respect for human rights. I am also pleased that the report by Mr Truscott welcomes the progress that has been made towards establishing a functioning democracy along the terms set out in the CSCE documents.
Moreover, we must not forget that the guarantee of democracy also comes into play as soon as the corresponding partnership and cooperation agreements include a conditional clause linking such cooperation to democratic principles, human rights and the rules of the market economy.
As regards developing these principles, the government of Uzbekistan has stressed that it is willing to make progress in this field. And as proof of this, it cites the fact that offices of the OSCE, Human Rights Watch and the Uzbekistan National Centre for Human Rights have already been opened and that an ombudsman has been appointed.
What is more, an excessive delay in ratifying such an agreement could cause problems during the country's transition to democracy. And the importance of this country for Europe in terms of energy is very clear from a socioeconomic perspective.
Therefore, Mr President, we support the recommendation and the report.
Mr President, partnership agreements such as the ones we are discussing do have conditions attached.
The countries that sign up to them must be prepared to tread the right path towards democracy and human rights.
Ten years ago, no one knew where Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan or Kazakhstan were; perhaps if you had read the book 'The Courier of the Tsar' you might know where Central Asia began, but not where it ended.
This is why I think it is a good thing that now, ten years after the Wall came down and what we called the Russian bear disappeared, we politicians can blithely say 'these countries are going to do this and this'.
I therefore wholeheartedly endorse Mrs André-Léonard's report on the partnership agreement.
We also support the Commission communication on the whole of Central Asia.
The agreement on intensive human rights dialogue will be a way of both encouraging and checking up on the countries in question, which are to be actively monitored and advised.
Should they relapse, we can always suspend the agreement, although I would not recommend this.
We must be patient in view of their history and the ground they need to make up socially, for whatever reason.
Some of us may have known where Uzbekistan was, but I find it a liberating experience to be able to find out about this huge area of our planet in this way.
I should like to thank both rapporteurs.
Mr President, may I say to my colleague Mr Bertens that we should not always judge others by our own standards.
We have an important responsibility, which arose, of course, when the Wall came down, for the East and for ensuring that its difficult transformation process leads to the development of democracy and stability. For that reason, I am inclined to wonder about the real motive behind the interest of the European Union in close relations with the states of the East.
When I examine the Commission documents, the Council statement and even the Truscott report, I begin to doubt whether the issue is really the stable development of these countries or whether it is all about their natural resources. Are we more interested in those countries' natural resources than in the future of their people?
That is why one of the key issues for me concerns the ways in which this partnership and cooperation agreement with Uzbekistan and comparable agreements with other states actually affect stability and the balanced social and economic development of these countries. I have my doubts there as far as the exploitation of natural resources is concerned.
For that reason, I attach paramount importance to the human rights and democracy clause, because democracy is an absolutely categorical imperative if difficulties in the transformation process are to be properly overcome.
The population must be involved; employees must have a say.
For the second time today, I am led to wonder about the value of this human rights clause if there is no way of penalising violations of human rights, if such violations are simply condoned as before, and if the human rights clause cannot be used to guarantee the creation of genuinely democratic and stable structures in the country in question.
So here is the situation: we have no clear division of powers, we have problems with free and fair elections, we have huge problems with freedom of the press, the death penalty is still on the statute book, we have criminal trials against opposition newspapers, against journalists, against interest groups and against demonstrators.
That is the problem.
To my mind, the question we have to ask the Commission once again is whether this agreement is really the answer, or should we not actually be doing far, far more for these countries?
That is why I think it prudent for us, before we ratify this agreement, to reconsider which measures are actually in place to stabilise this region. I should also like to remind the House that we also have an obligation under the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
We must ensure that the requirements of that Convention are satisfied before we can recognise these states as reliable partners.
The same clause is contained in the partnership and cooperation agreement.
We cannot rubber-stamp the agreement before the proper conditions are created.
Mr President, the new states of Central Asia are particularly fragile.
Their populations are not homogenous.
They cannot rely on state traditions as they are emerging states that up until now have only been Empire dependencies.
They are used as a channel by the drug rings, and they have to assert their existence in a highly dangerous international environment.
They are caught between Russia, which is the former dominant power and which still has a considerable interest in the area, Turkey, whose ambition is still to be the leader of a great, Turkish-speaking Central Asia, and Pakistan, which supports a plan for a great, fundamentalist Afghanistan, on the basis of the particularly dangerous tool of militant Islamism, just as Iran does.
We must of course be vigilant with regard to respect for human rights in all regions, but if we judge these countries solely by normal human rights standards, we are in danger of condemning ourselves to powerlessness and ineffectiveness, which other countries such as the United States know how to avoid.
We must be capable of looking beyond the rulers of the Soviet era who are still in place, the powerful mafias and the nomenklatura seeking to go on for ever.
We must also take account of the encouraging fact that, apart from the tragic events in Tajikstan, these countries are not ravaged by civil wars and there is a tradition of secularism which could form a barrier against the spread of Islam.
It is therefore better not to subject the implementation of partnership agreements with these countries to conditions that would deprive us of any form of influence.
We have seen that postponing the agreements is ineffective.
It would be more appropriate to provide ourselves with specific tools for action, which must be closely coordinated, under the auspices of the Council, with the Union's other instruments for external action and with the bilateral policies of the Member States.
That, Mr President, is the price of effectiveness.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, by ratifying the partnership and cooperation agreement between the EU and Uzbekistan, the European Parliament will send an encouraging signal to the Republic of Uzbekistan, which became an independent entity in 1991.
It is a country that is suffering from the effects of the Russian crisis as well as having felt the full impact of the fall in raw material prices, as is rightly noted in this report.
It must be recognised that the government of Uzbekistan has taken some steps to improve the human rights situation by admitting an observer from the OSCE and by appointing an ombudsman.
The continuing existence of the death penalty and the atrocious conditions in the country's prisons, however, show that there is still a huge gap between our expectations and the situation on the ground.
By conferring its approval, the European Parliament is also recognising the will of the government, which has at least been documented for the outside world, to improve the human rights situation in this part of Central Asia.
The fact that the Commission report calls for Parliament to be presented with an annual report on democracy and human rights and for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to be kept informed of developments is a sign that Uzbekistan has a long way to go before it can complete the process of democratisation and stabilisation.
We still have grounds for concern, not only on account of the ethnic tensions that keep flaring up between Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but also because of the Ferghana Valley, which has to be regarded as a potential trouble spot.
The partition of the valley among three states after the collapse of the Soviet Union has fuelled ethnic conflicts.
The region is far from having overcome the destabilisation and general economic depression that resulted from the partition of this valley, which was one of the most fertile and densely populated in the region.
Another cause for concern is the fact that the Ferghana Valley, as well as being a tourist centre, is also a hotbed of drug trafficking and internationally organised crime and a breeding-ground for Islamic fundamentalism.
The brutal bombings on 16 January of this year illustrate how tense the situation remains.
Indeed, it was the most serious act of violence in Central Asia since Uzbekistan became independent.
The way in which it was carried out suggests very thorough organisation, although the Karemov government has been anxious to play down the incident.
We believe that stabilisation can only be achieved if the TACIS programmes are used in pursuit of specific targets and if the ethnic conflicts are defused.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the joint debate today highlights the particular importance that Parliament attaches to the issue of human rights in all the countries of Central Asia and particularly in Uzbekistan.
The Commission welcomes the decision by your rapporteur, Mrs André-Léonard, to ratify the cooperation and partnership agreement with Uzbekistan.
Continuing to veto this agreement would have penalised the country and would have had the involuntary yet negative effect of reducing the level of protection of human rights.
It would also have had a negative effect on the process of transition to democracy, as Mr Camisón Asensio has just pointed out.
Unlike the trade and cooperation agreement and the interim agreement that have been applied up until now to bilateral relations between the Union and Uzbekistan, this new partnership and cooperation agreement will enable us to directly tackle the issue of human rights through political dialogue.
This partnership agreement will provide a structural framework for political dialogue and will also cover economic, commercial and cultural matters.
In answer to your rapporteur, Mrs André-Léonard, I can confirm that Mr van den Broek is committed to discussing the issue of human rights at the various bilateral meetings, and particularly during his next visit to Tashkent at the end of March.
He will report back to you on this, as you requested this morning, Mrs André-Léonard.
Uzbekistan is currently experiencing difficult times, as Mr Rübig reminded us a moment ago.
From an economic point of view, the fall in the price of cotton - which is its main export in terms of raw materials - is largely responsible for the deterioration in its balance of trade.
From a political point of view, the wave of explosive attacks on Tashkent demonstrates the fragility and sensitivity of the situation on the ground.
Mr van den Broek immediately wrote to the President of Uzbekistan to offer his condolences to the families of the victims, but also to remind him that the legitimate search for the perpetrators of the attacks should be carried out with full respect for individual rights.
Mrs André Léonard, a moment ago, you mentioned that the Uzbek Ambassador was here to listen to your debates and I would like to welcome him this evening.
Allow me, on behalf of the Commission, to reiterate the appeal you made to him.
Despite these problems, the Uzbek Government is working to step up the economic reforms and to improve the protection of human rights.
The recent contacts that we have had with the authorities have highlighted their determination to continue along this path.
Secondly, I would like to comment on Mr Truscott's report.
This report relates to the 1995 Commission communication and also focuses on the issue of human rights.
In particular, it draws a comparison between all the Central Asian republics and the Commission shares your rapporteur's concerns.
However, I would like to point out that, as in the case of Uzbekistan, all the partnership and cooperation agreements provide the legal framework and, in my opinion, a basis and an appropriate structure to look at the issue of human rights with the countries concerned.
This is the reason behind the political dialogue, which, for the first time in the Union's bilateral relations with these countries, is officially laid down in each agreement.
Mr van den Broek will keep you closely informed of the development of the situation in the area, as Mr Truscott also requested this morning.
Furthermore, in relation to Uzbekistan, but also in relation to Kazakhstan and Kyrghyzstan, the 1998-1999 national TACIS programmes envisage projects that will facilitate the implementation of these partnership and cooperation agreements.
In this respect, the Commission has made it clear that the priority is to promote democracy within the society, including by helping with the preparation of elections.
Moreover, in the context of these partnership and cooperation agreements, a parliamentary cooperation committee will be set up for each country.
This will allow for direct discussions between the representatives of the parliaments of each of the Central Asian republics and the European Parliament.
In this way, Parliament will itself be able to bring up the issue of the protection of human rights in an appropriate context and increase its control over the bilateral relations between the Union and the Central Asian countries.
Thank you, Mr de Silguy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Community Customs Code
The next item is the report (A4-0080/99) by Mr Paasilinna, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92 establishing the Community Customs Code (COM(98)0226 - C4-0370/98-98/0134(COD)).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Paasilinna.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are here to discuss a Commission proposal to change the basic regulation governing the Community Customs Code.
The Commission's aim has been to simplify and rationalise the customs regulation, which is certainly justified, as it contains a total of 253 articles and innumerable subparagraphs and repeals at least 28 legal instruments in use before the regulation came into force.
This jungle of legislation has sprouted such an impenetrable thicket of clauses and paragraphs that presumably only a few people in the Union have a complete command of its content.
However the proposal still does not manage to any significant extent to fulfill the Commission's objectives to clarify the rules, which is unfortunate.
To keep legislation complicated and abstruse is to wield power: when people are unable to understand laws they must obey, power falls into the hands of those professionally equipped to interpret the law.
As Parliament will not now approve all the proposals, the matter will obviously be dealt with later by the Conciliation Committee, possibly while Finland holds the presidency.
The Customs Code has a significant impact on Community trade policy, especially agricultural policy, where traditional agricultural taxation has in fact become customs duty.
The Code likewise affects indirect taxation, because it is still used to apply VAT to products imported from third countries.
Furthermore, the rules affect Community anti-fraud policy in the context of the transit system, as security factors have now been included in the rules to be applied.
The Code is also a tool for compiling trade statistics, and it therefore affects statistics on foreign trade.
I have amended the Commission's proposal concerning the use of data-processing techniques for making customs declarations.
My amendment has been approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, and I hope that it will also be approved here in the House.
In my own country, as in many other Member States, it is important that the use of electronic customs declarations should be established once and for all, and accompanying documents should also not be submitted in paper form.
Using electronic media will speed up the work of the customs authorities and make it more effective.
One very serious problem in the European Union is that the customs authorities in the different Member States are still not in full, real-time contact with one another.
On the other hand, it would appear that our adversaries, that is to say the criminals, are quite capable of keeping in contact.
I would therefore ask the Commission what stage the computerisation of the customs declaration system has reached, to make it less likely to be breached than is the case today.
With customs clearance, as with electronic commerce, for example, the parallel churning out of hard-copy documentation is harming the electronic system and preventing its development as part of the move towards rationalisation, efficiency and sustainability.
I also did not agree with the Commission's proposal in relation to Article 5 on direct and indirect representation to customs agents.
According to estimates, this would mean that some twenty thousand customs agents would lose their jobs, and, furthermore, there would be less reliability and more fraud, especially in southern Member States.
The committee agreed with me on this.
I would ask you to look especially closely at Amendment No 13.
I still propose the addition of a new Article 1(21a), as supported by my group in my original proposal.
It relates to the ultimate origin of goods in relation to preferential status, and the question of bona fide operations.
In it I propose that if a certificate issued by the authorities of a non-member country proves to be incorrect, no tax penalty should be imposed solely on the importer acting in good faith.
My proposed amendment will make the situation easier for labour-intensive SMEs, especially, and will allow the risk to be distributed.
It was a close result, but the committee voted to grant extremely broad protection to the importer, with the consequence that the Community, to which revenue is due, would have to bear the whole risk rather than it being fairly distributed.
Now I have discovered that Mrs Peijs, who tabled Amendment No 9 which was approved by the committee, is withdrawing it, so we can now support this new article which I have just described and which is, I believe, a sufficiently good compromise between the Commission's proposal and Mrs Peijs's amendment.
If the Community loses resources as a result of criminal activity, it is obviously always the taxpayers in the Member States who will have to make good the shortfall in the end.
For this reason the Community must have the means to intervene in criminal operations or abuse on the part of exporters and the authorities in exporting countries.
Mr President, the Community Customs Code is instrumental in the Union's commercial policy and is an essential tool in completing the internal market and in protecting the EU's financial interests.
There is no doubt that we must continue to revise customs regulations and procedures and to adapt them to the new situations that arise. In this way, we will eliminate possible judicial or procedural gaps.
If there is a new situation that emphasises the need to amend the present Code, then it is without doubt the gradual growth of the Community's trade. This growth is due to the progressive opening up of the markets and developments in the information society.
These are changes that require the Code to be updated with a view to simplifying and streamlining it so that it is more in step with the new realities. Therefore, the Committee on External Economic Relations welcomes the Commission's proposal for amendment as it agrees with its philosophy.
However, its specific content is far removed from the measures proposed. The Commission realises that wanting to improve efficiency is not enough and that a better balance must also be guaranteed between the much-needed simplification and modernisation of procedures it proposes and the fight against fraud.
In fact, in the context of the gradual liberalisation of the markets and taking into account the system of preferences the Union has established with many third countries, and with the ACP countries in particular, it is all the more vital to have legal instruments available to help combat forgery and fraud. And we must also ensure that the rules of origin are applied, particularly where preferential and non-preferential rules are concerned.
At the same time, and in view of the abolition of customs barriers between Member States due to the completion of the internal market, it is all the more essential to establish effective control measures that guarantee the uniform application of customs procedures throughout the Community. In this way, we will avoid any gaps that might encourage fraud and crime.
However, the Commission's text does not contain any proposals that take these aspects into consideration, aspects that could be of the utmost importance.
To fill in the gaps, I have tabled two amendments, Amendment Nos 14 and 15, that include the conclusions of the opinion that the Committee on External Economic Relations approved unanimously. And I should like to bring these amendments to the attention of the House and the Commission and ask you to vote in favour of them.
In fact, what we are discussing here is allowing goods declarations to be submitted in electronic form. Nonetheless, we are still maintaining the obligation - and I do mean the obligation - for all goods declarations that are submitted electronically to be accompanied by the relevant supporting documents, which may also be submitted in electronic form.
In addition, we are discussing the idea that customs authorities must adopt control measures to guarantee the correct and uniform application of Community rules throughout the Union.
It is only in doing this that we will be able to implement genuinely effective control measures to combat all fraud and forgery.
In accepting these amendments, we will not only send out an unmistakeable signal from the Union on the fight against fraud; we will also help improve the competitiveness of businesses and, as a result, promote economic growth and job creation within the Community.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my appreciation of Mr Paasilinna's report and my gratitude for the inclusion of many amendments that were proposed by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In our opinion, the Commission is seeking to transfer too many legislative powers to the committee. It is gratifying that both of our committees want to change that.
Having said that, I should like to focus the remainder of my remarks on one point, a point which, in my view and in the view of the Committee on Budgetary Control, relates to an extremely serious problem.
More than 50 % of all goods imported into the European Union are subject to what are known as preferential tariff arrangements.
Certificates of origin must be presented for all these goods.
There is undoubtedly a temptation to present false certificates with a view to paying as little customs duty as possible.
These manipulations do not only defraud the Union of budgetary resources; they are naturally perpetrated at the expense of honest producers and importers too.
When such manipulations occur, the Community Customs Code provides for the possibility of waiving the liability to customs duty if the exporter has been dealt with in good faith.
Two of the rapporteur's amendments - No 9 and No 13 - relate to this point.
The Committee on Budgetary Control, though grateful for the adoption of several of its own amendments, feels that these two amendments run directly counter to its interests.
They are formulated in excessively lax or generalised terms.
If they were adopted with this wording, all importers or exporters - whether Amendment No 9 only refers to exporters and Amendment No 13 only to importers - would be able to assert that they had acted in good faith.
That is too lax, it is too dangerous, especially since our fraud prevention unit UCLAF has to cover the entire European Union with only a small number of officials to investigate suspicious cases.
The risk of being convicted for a false declaration is too slight.
I would therefore ask the rapporteur to reconsider his Amendments Nos 9 and 13 and to withdraw them if possible, otherwise he will be opening the doors to fraud on an even grander scale.
Besides, we have information that the Council and the Commission are working on a more precise form of wording to define what good faith is and what may not be regarded as good faith.
The future blacklists may also be seen in connection with the certificates of origin.
I therefore strongly recommend that Amendments Nos 9 and 13 should be reconsidered and, if possible, withdrawn.
We cannot subscribe to them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1997 alone, a total of ECU 13.6 million was collected in customs duties.
That corresponds to 86.4 % of the Union's traditional own resources.
It is a well-known fact that customs duties constitute the only real tax revenue in the EU budget.
The current debate on net contributors and recipients underlines the importance of applying the Community customs system effectively and efficiently.
For that reason, we are very favourably disposed to the report before us.
It must also be said, however, that legal stipulations naturally have to apply in equal measure to import checks and export checks. It is surely illogical to make a distinction.
The crux of the matter, however, concerns the liability for erroneous certification of the origin of a product.
The question is whether the European importer or the exporter from outside the EU is liable for the appearance on a certificate of origin of false information resulting from an error by the overseas authorities.
We believe that efforts should be made to introduce the proposed electronic procedures at an early date and to ensure that they are efficient and, above all, easy to set up, because to my mind the current proposal is too complicated.
A distinction should also be made between sensitive goods and normal or mixed cargoes, because detailed checks are most probably impracticable in such cases.
It is conceivable that these mistakes could be caused by errors made by the exporting companies or by the authorities of non-EU states, but they could also be the result of fraudulent transactions.
That is why care should be taken to design forgery-proof documents, to use rubber stamps with various unknown colours of ink, to introduce digital signatures and in particular to ensure that a note is made of the departure time of consignments and their destination, so that customs checks can reveal precisely when the goods left and where they were delivered and so that any discrepancies in the timings can be very efficiently investigated.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, for its part, is proposing that importers should only be held liable if they are found to be personally responsible in whole or in part for the production of false certificates of origin.
If, however, the certificates of origin are falsified as a result of malpractice on the part of the exporter or the foreign authorities, any importer who has observed the rules must be excluded from liability.
If we had a sensible set of rules, we could rid the trading system of an enormous additional burden.
The importer must be able to rely on the authenticity of a certificate.
It is up to the politicians to organise the system accordingly.
It would be unreasonable to require importers to conduct their own investigations, particularly in cases where there is no reason to doubt the authenticity of the certificate.
Mr President, with a proposal that is incomprehensible and totally without foundation, the Commission is seeking to amend Article 5 of the Community Customs Code in a way that we believe will be the death knell for a sector which is already suffering unemployment and underemployment.
It should be noted that in 1993, with the abolition of internal borders, this particular sector suffered job losses in excess of 80 or 85 %.
The Commission is now proposing to abolish the alternative possibility available to each Member State to make its own choice between direct or indirect customs representation, according to its financial needs.
This possibility was established several decades ago, it has stood the test of time, and it has been shown to function smoothly, since it gives each Member State the opportunity to take into account the particular aspects of its own customs area and to promote the proper, responsible, speedy and cost-effective handling of customs operations.
The duties of customs agents demand technical expertise and require an in-depth knowledge of customs legislation to enable customs agents to categorise goods according to their customs classification and to determine the level of duties and taxes.
Because of the criteria for entry into the profession and the personal qualities required - professional ability, reliability and presence of mind - customs agents are now on a par with those who work in the customs authority. They contribute to combating fraud and help to ensure a swift flow of traffic through the timely release of goods.
They also reduce the cost of storage and distribution of goods, to the benefit both of competitiveness and the smooth flow of external trade.
The Commission is invoking the argument of reduced competition and the infringement of the principle of freedom to provide services.
However, this is an unfounded argument, because on the one hand, customs agents are self-employed, they do not have a collective tariff, and they are in competition with each other. On the other hand, the users of customs services can either carry out the necessary formalities with the customs authorities themselves, or they can be represented by a method which, in accordance with national legislation, is not the sole prerogative of customs agents.
The arguments deployed by the Commission are fanciful, untenable and arbitrary.
There is not a single quantitative study to support its curious claims.
The report by Mr Paasilinna, whom I congratulate on his work, convincingly refutes the claims of the Commission.
We shall vote in favour of it.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Paasilinna.
The report shows that the customs union remains at the centre of the political debate: that should come as no surprise, because objectives such as the simplification of formalities, legal certainty for operators and safeguarding the Community's financial interests, on which everyone is agreed in theory, can still be viewed differently when it actually comes to applying them.
I must also say that the debate has in addition been fuelled by a major problem of an institutional nature, one that threatens to deprive the Community, in the immediate future at least, of the drive for reform which is needed in relation to specific policies and, more particularly, the customs union.
The Community Customs Code is one of the pillars - the most important of all - that will help secure uniform administrative action within the limits dictated by the principle of subsidiarity.
Views can differ on this.
As far as the Commission is concerned, achieving uniform administrative measures in relation to customs, to guarantee effectiveness and efficiency, frequently proves difficult, not only because of the limited resources available to the Commission but also, and above all, because the Member States remain sovereign with regard to the application of the Community rules.
That is the result of an excessively rigid and formalistic interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity, as Parliament was able to see for itself in the debates on the Customs 2000 programme.
I must add that, as a result of this situation, the Commission is frequently the butt of criticism, which is understandable but sometimes rather unfair, because it is alleged to be incapable of securing adequate customs controls.
While it is true that expectations often exceed the possibilities open to the Commission, it should also at least be recognised that the Commission itself has to be given the instruments it needs to make the Customs Code into an effective framework, in particular by adopting implementing rules that are clear and effective, albeit in a very limited context.
Only in the light of that framework, Mr President, is it possible to understand some of the differences in opinion that are emerging as we assess what the outcome of the process of amending the Customs Code should be.
Turning now to our position on the amendments, on Amendment No 1, the Commission is able to accept only that the limits set in some Member States for direct representation to be used to meet customs formalities should be compatible with the objectives of a single market.
The Commission does, however, recognise that a period of transition may be needed; however, what I said a few moments ago means that we are unable to take on board Amendment No 11.
Amendment No 2 does not pose any problem, and nor does the first part of Amendment No 3.
However, there is one thing worrying the Commission: if it is left to the discretion of the Member States to decide whether the documents accompanying the customs declaration should be submitted to or merely kept at the disposal of the customs authorities, we may find administrative practice varying from one state to another.
That part of Amendment No 3 is therefore not acceptable; on the other hand, Amendment No 14, which shares the same objective, cannot be accepted because it is irrelevant.
In practice, the first part of that amendment reiterates what is contained in the current text of the code, and the second part is identical to the amendment put forward by the Commission.
Moving on to Amendments Nos 4 to 8 and 12, which are linked to the reform of the economic conditions under the customs regimes, the Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 6 and 12, but cannot set aside its proposal, as required under Amendment No 4.
The Commission can, however, clarify the wording of its initial proposal.
Amendments Nos 5 and 7 are unacceptable because they would prevent the Commission from getting rid of a bureaucratic obstacle when examining the economic conditions.
Amendment No 8 fails to take account of the fact that the Commission has itself proposed deleting another provision: if both were deleted, we would be left with a clear legal vacuum; that amendment is therefore not acceptable.
Amendments Nos 9 and 13 concern the issue of the good faith of the economic operators.
The Commission has followed closely the work of the House in this area and generally agrees with its objective, that is to say to find a solution which helps the importer by apportioning more equitably the risk that a certificate may not be valid.
Amendment No 9 has been withdrawn, and the Commission would not, in any event, have been able to accept it.
However, Amendment No 13 seems to us a better indicator of how to find a more appropriate and balanced solution to the problem of the responsibility of economic operators.
In that sense, Amendment No 13 may be considered a positive contribution and, therefore, the Commission could accept it as the basis for a more extensive revision of Article 220.
We therefore intend presenting, in the revised proposal following the vote in the House, a new version of Article 220 to provide a better balance between the responsibilities of importers, exporters, third country authorities and the Community customs authorities responsible for assessing whether the parties have acted in good faith.
Again in relation to the responsibilities of economic operators, the Commission believes that reducing the period of limitation from three to two years would mark significant progress in enhancing legal certainty for honest operators.
Unfortunately, Amendment No 10 stands in the way of that.
Removal of that section of the Commission proposal is also likely to deprive us of the possibility of taking interim measures.
The Commission therefore feels unable to accept the amendment.
Turning, finally, to Amendment No 15, the Commission considers that the aim of that amendment, that is to say adequate controls, cannot be defined in theoretical terms in the Customs Code, but must be related to specific aspects, good faith for instance, or the risk element.
For that reason, the Commission does not consider the amendment acceptable and believes that it would be more relevant in relation to anti-fraud legislation.
In once again extending my thanks to Mr Paasilinna, I wish to take just a moment to respond to his question concerning the national information systems.
As you will be aware, the Commission has set up the Common Communication Network - Common Systems Interface, known as CCN-CSI, to enable the national systems to communicate with each other and with the systems set up by the Commission itself.
That platform will also be used in the context of the new information transit system which will come into operation at the end of this year between the five partners taking part in it, that is to say Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Let me end by inviting those honourable Members who are interested to take part in a demonstration of the system on 31 March.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I see that we have a large group of young Europeans in the gallery. I should like to welcome them and thank them for coming.
I should also like to say that this is where, from one day to the next, we do our modest work in the hope that, when they are a little older, they will find a Europe of peace, of people living peacefully together and a Europe of social justice.
Once again, welcome to Parliament.
Applause
Protection of inventions by utility model
The next item is the report (A4-0096/99) by Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive approximating the legal arrangements for the protection of inventions by utility model (COM(97)0691 - C4-0676/97-97/0356(COD)).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes.
Mr President, legislation has been adopted in all areas of industrial property in the European Union except in the case of utility models.
The fact that utility models exist allows small technical advances that aid the human race to also benefit their creators, even though the level of invention does not warrant as much protection as under a patent.
The utility model is especially useful for both individual inventors and for small undertakings.
What is more, the existence of an instrument providing an alternative for minor inventions means that the level of invention required can be interpreted more strictly.
The Commission has opted for harmonisation and has put forward a proposal for a directive that valiantly tackles the delicate task of approximating twelve laws with many different points and introducing legislation in three countries that do not have this system.
This proposal adopts three of the classic requirements in the protection of inventions: novelty, level of invention and industrial advantage.
However, the requirement that utility models must include a practical or technical advantage has been overlooked, despite this being an essential and inevitable part of their nature.
This requirement clarifies the distinction between the utility model and the design or trademark with a view to preventing those who might infringe the utility model from sidestepping protection by means of superficial alterations to the designs that would enable them to copy technical innovations from its component parts.
We propose defining the utility model by reference to a structure, a mechanism or a configuration.
This means that the inventor only has to put forward a structure which has an industrial advantage, using a quick and simple procedure with minimum legal certainty.
This would also mean excluding substances and processes from protection, as the Economic and Social Committee has also proposed.
The lower level of legal certainty offered by the utility model compared to the patent is the price that has to be paid for the speed and lower cost of the utility model.
In our report, we suggest a series of measures to add to the Commission's proposal in order to improve the degree of legal certainty of the model without harming the speed and lower cost of obtaining this instrument.
The measures I propose are mainly contained in the amendments. And naturally, they go along the lines that, although the level of invention or the creative input is not the same as for a patent, a mere declaration of the level of invention from the applicant will not suffice.
Therefore, as a first step, we propose that the definition from the European Patents Convention be adopted but in a less strict form than required by the Convention.
Another measure is to introduce the opposition procedure to swiftly settle disputes concerning utility models.
We should also promote those involved to draw up a search report, which is compulsory in the event of legal proceedings being undertaken.
We must improve protection conditions and use them for reference. Further, as a last step, we believe that there should be an additional ground for revocation where the proprietor of the utility model was not entitled to obtain it.
This new ground revokes the registration and not the invention itself, which is valid and can be protected if the inventor or his successor submits the applications.
Therefore, Commissioner, in spite of my aim to add these measures, I agree with the Commission on many fundamental aspects.
We believe that a lower level of invention should be required in comparison to patents and that no formal verification of the substantive requirements should be necessary.
We have readily accepted the amendments by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs but I must also say - as I see my colleague Mrs Oddy is here - that I rejected her amendments, Amendments Nos 34 and 35, in committee. However, they have now also been tabled by another colleague, Mrs Thors, and having studied them in detail, I intend to accept them.
Lastly, I should like to point out that the duration of a utility model is shorter than that of a patent.
We agree with a maximum protection period of ten years, which is the same as most countries. As a result, we propose that no renewal should be granted - if requested by the search report - as a deterrent against an excessive duration and, at the same time, as a way of strengthening legal certainty and improving information.
Mr President, at this time of night we are not here to debate complex issues but I should like to begin at the end.
And I am doing so because the rapporteur has now generously accepted the amendments that were tabled by Mrs Oddy, who is one of my colleagues in the Socialist Group and a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and that are now tabled by the Liberal Members, Mrs Thors and Mrs Riis-Jørgensen. These two amendments refer to games and toys and it is a shame that the visitors who were here earlier have left because this affects them directly.
I say this as I believe that perhaps one of the innovations Parliament could introduce is to also allow games to be utility models and to be protected.
And I am disappointed that our visitors left - I think the President frightened them somewhat - as they would probably be able to help us and submit a utility model. Perhaps, in doing so, they could use the method the rapporteur is now proposing, although we will naturally have to find out what the Commission intends to do in this respect.
We have to find out what one-stop shopping is; it is a term we are used to in Spain but for different reasons. Here, we are talking about a different sort of one-stop shopping, but the idea is that if someone submits a utility model in an EU country, then this model should be recognised throughout the entire Community.
In this respect, the rapporteur is attempting to go slightly further than normal legislative work, because the Commission's Green Paper only talked of three stages: firstly, harmonisation; then mutual recognition by the Member States; and lastly, regulations.
We still have not reached the stage of a uniform Community regulation but we could take another small step towards this stage.
It would be very interesting to know what the Commission thinks of this.
I should like to ask Commissioner Monti if he believes that, in the short term and on the basis of the proposals Parliament is making here, the Commission could establish this one-stop shopping procedure in such a way so as to ensure that if an inventive young person discovers an interesting toy, he can go to one EU country alone and, using this one-stop shopping procedure, be assured that his game will be recognised throughout the Community.
My colleague, Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes, is a colleague in two senses of the word: both as a Member of this House and as a professor of international law.
And it is clear that he has done some extraordinary work and that this is an excellent analytical and well researched report.
At an academic symposium, I would probably argue with him over a few points, because there will always be reasons for disagreement, but I believe that he has done some exceptional analytical work.
For example, he has paid great attention to the definition of invention, and what invention involves.
This is an issue that could lead to a lengthy discussion, as could the definition of the utility model based on a structure or configuration but not on a substance or specific procedure.
However, at this time of night, these issues are probably of little interest to the Members and I only wish to say that the Socialist Group supports the amendments by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights as well as the two amendments tabled by the Liberal Group.
Thank you very much, Mr Medina Ortega.
I do not believe that I frightened our young European visitors with my warm words.
But you may well be right in that young people are very intuitive and they may have guessed that I am a paediatrician, which may be what frightened them off.
In any case, I did not intend to alarm them but to simply give them a warm welcome to this House.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the utility model is a means of protection used in one form or another by most European countries, with the notable exception of Germany and France.
Given that these various certificates exist, it was indeed right to try to harmonise them.
We are therefore entirely in favour of the harmonisation of the legal provisions involved.
The rapporteur's proposal is of a very high standard, as is always the case with Mr Aoveros.
Nevertheless, I have certain questions surrounding what seem to be inaccuracies.
One example of this is Amendment No 10, which proposes a definition of invention that we believe to be somewhat broad and imprecise.
Also, the procedures for the one-stop shop should perhaps be clarified. Is it a solely declarative procedure?
On what elements is mutual recognition based? What linguistic rules will be applied?
The rapporteur envisages a 50 % reduction in taxes for SMEs, individuals and universities.
This is a very good measure, as the utility model must be economical, especially for SMEs.
I think that it would be particularly beneficial if all the taxes were so low that there was no need to reduce them.
Mr President, I welcome this report and congratulate the rapporteur on his work.
This proposed directive introduces the right to register a utility model.
This is a less-developed right than that which would qualify for a patent.
This right does not currently exist in all Member States.
For example, in the United Kingdom - my own country - this concept does not exist and consequently inventors can only register patents.
To register a patent, more research is needed, and higher standards of development.
The advantage of registering a utility model, as opposed to a patent, is that it is a quicker, cheaper and more simple procedure.
It is therefore to be welcomed.
I thank the rapporteur for accepting my amendment, tabled in committee, and now taken up by Mrs Thors, as this will assist the European toy industry and will be of great interest for Europe's younger citizens.
I have received some letters of concern from interested parties that the Commission proposal, as drafted, is a little too lax.
The rapporteur has addressed these concerns by introducing requirements for searches before litigation and before the life of the utility model can be extended beyond six years.
I support these proposals and again thank the rapporteur for his diligent work.
I must congratulate Mr Añoveros Trias de Bes on the quality of his report.
I welcome the fact that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizen's Rights has not queried the Commission approach to this dossier and that the features of utility models, as set out in the proposal for a directive, have been retained. These are: an inventive step lesser than required for trade marks, no preliminary examination of the conditions of merit, and a period of protection limited to ten years.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has adopted 33 amendments, and the Commission is able to accept 24 of them, but five of that number in part only.
We in fact think that these amendments clarify and better define some aspects of the proposal.
I am referring more particularly here to Amendments Nos 4 and 33, which provide for the directive to be monitored by the Commission.
That will allow us to assess the practical operation of the directive and to fill in any gaps three years after the directive has been incorporated by the Member States.
The Commission cannot, however, accept nine amendments, including Amendments Nos 1, 6 in part and 13 concerning the introduction of a one-stop shopping procedure.
I well understand what motivates these amendments, but introducing a procedure of that nature goes beyond the objective of this proposal for a directive, which is to align the national provisions on utility models which have a more direct impact on the operation of the single market.
Moreover, that sort of procedure would raise a number of problems at a legal and a practical level without resolving the problems of transfer, but would not appear to respond to any of the needs voiced by the relevant economic groups.
Amendment No 18, which provides for the introduction of an opposition procedure, also goes beyond the limits of the kind of harmonisation the directive is meant to achieve.
This is a procedural issue that must be left to the assessment of the Member States, in accordance with the principle of proportionality.
Moreover, no such proposal has ever been tabled in the discussions of the groups of experts in the Council.
However, Mr Medina Ortega, as in the case of the earlier amendments, the possibility of introducing an opposition procedure could be considered as part of the monitoring provided for in the directive itself.
Other amendments also raise problems: I am referring here to parts of Amendments Nos 2, 6 and 8 and the whole of Amendments Nos 23 and 24 which relate, directly or indirectly, to the scope of the directive.
These amendments are designed to exclude substances and processes from the scope of the directive.
I would draw your attention to the fact that excluding substances and processes from protection by utility model harks back to a now outdated view.
The consultation set under way with the 1995 Green Paper showed that most of the groups concerned were in favour of including substances and processes.
The three-dimensional requirement, which therefore excludes protection of substances and processes, is a step backwards in Member States' legislation.
Currently, only four Member States regard three-dimensional format as a condition of obtaining protection by utility model.
For those reasons, the Commission is unable to take on board these amendments.
Nor can we accept Amendment No 12, which provides for a reduction in fees for small and medium-sized enterprises.
I absolutely appreciate the concerns reflected in that amendment, but a provision of that nature cannot be included in a harmonising directive, as it would have financial implications for the Member States disproportionate to the aim of the directive.
It might be possible to introduce a recital mirroring the concept which underpins that amendment.
There are other amendments which the Commission is unable to accept: Amendment No 15 which provides, in addition to control a posteriori , control a priori of the exemptions, cannot be accepted because it calls into question the fact that there is no formal examination of the conditions of protection; nor can we accept part of Amendments Nos 6 and 10 or the whole of Amendment No 16, which put forward practical or technical advantage as an additional condition for obtaining protection.
That would introduce a new requirement, whereas technical or practical advantage must be considered as simply justifying inventive activity.
Nor are we able to accept Amendment No 30, which provides that applications for utility models are invalid if the owner was not entitled to the utility model, since the invention could no longer be considered to be new; rather than making it invalid, it would be appropriate to make provision, in cases of that kind, for the right to be transferred to the genuine inventor.
I should like to end by mentioning the amendments tabled during this part-session: the Commission can, in principle, accept Amendments Nos 34 and 35, both of which are designed to allow full and equal legal protection for games and toys by utility models: in particular, by deleting the word 'game' in Article 3(2)(c), Amendment No 34 will place games and toys on an equal footing for the purposes of protection by utility model; Amendment No 35 reflects the same need in its Article 6 which relates to the criteria for defining inventive activity.
But Amendment No 35, although, as I have said, acceptable in principle, needs to be worded differently in the Commission's view.
I think, Mr President, that if, as we had all hoped, our young Europeans had waited until now, they might perhaps have understood that we were discussing games and toys, albeit, I regret to say, in rather complicated technical terms.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Social protection in Europe
The next item is the report (A4-0099/99) by Mr Pronk, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the report from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions: Social protection in Europe (1997) - Executive summary (COM(98)0243 - C4-0375/98).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Pronk.
Mr President, I know that Mr Flynn cannot be here this evening because of an urgent appointment, although the report does, of course, come under his portfolio.
But I am very pleased that Commissioner Monti is here, because I must admit that his work in this field was part of the inspiration for our report.
There are certain parallels between the fields of social security and taxation, firstly because a substantial proportion of social security is paid for out of tax revenue, secondly because people often regard social security contributions as taxes, and thirdly, and most importantly, because under the Amsterdam Treaty both can only be changed by a unanimous decision.
So it is good to see the laborious but constant progress that the Commissioner has made in the field of taxation.
We welcome the Commission's report on social security.
The social security system was a response to the social question that arose at the end of the last century, and now, a century later, we can see that the problems associated with it have still not been resolved.
However, social security has proved to be an important instrument for adapting the 19th century market economy to the needs of social justice.
If we look at the figures we can see that, at 28.5 %, social security and social protection account for a considerable proportion of Europe's GDP.
Millions of people in the European Union depend on unemployment benefits, invalidity benefits, pensions and health-care schemes.
The Union's prosperity has also advanced thanks to this comprehensive system which provides help in times of difficulty, need and crisis.
The Council of Ministers delivered a recommendation in 1992 on the convergence of social protection objectives and policies, and I have therefore included a number of recommendations in my report to promote greater convergence.
I call on the Commission to put forward an action plan which should include the following: the criteria for a benchmarking process in the area of social security; secondly, a code of conduct for avoiding harmful competition via social security systems; thirdly, precise figures for the economic damage arising from the evasion of social security contributions; fourthly, proposals for minimum standards based on the Amsterdam Treaty for certain areas of social protection; and fifth, the determination of a poverty line in order to establish an acceptable minimum income.
There are two points I would like to enlarge on. The first is the benchmarking process.
Following the example of the European employment strategy - another successful element in the European Union's social and economic policy - and the criteria for economic and monetary union, comparisons must be made between the Member States.
Benchmarking can help the Member States to make decisions in order to develop a sound and decent social protection system, particularly now when a number of factors are placing increasing pressure on the system, such as the growth in the number of people of retirement age and the number of one-person households.
Both of these groups tend to be very dependent on the social security system.
The second point I wish to enlarge on is the idea of producing figures on the economic damage arising from the evasion of social security contributions.
In my view, this is something that is often sidelined as unimportant and therefore negligible, and people tend to think that only small sums are involved.
Yet I have never seen any figures to prove this scientifically.
The evasion of contribution payments affects something else on which the European social model stands or falls, and that is solidarity.
Mr President, I do not have much time left, and social security is something we could talk about at length.
I know that there are a number of others who wish to speak in this debate.
I would like to thank everyone for enabling us to reach a consensus, and I hope that this report will be adopted.
Above all, I hope that the Commission will be able to use it to produce a policy for convergence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, allow me at the start of this debate to express my regret at the resignation a few hours ago of the German Finance Minister.
I am saying this in the context of the present discussion, because in Oskar Lafontaine we had found a comrade-in-arms, one of the few European politicians who was far-sighted enough to recognise and defend the European dimension at all times.
You especially, Commissioner Monti, will understand my response to this news, because Mr Lafontaine had begun to implement the proposal you made quite some time ago on the reduction of non-wage labour costs as a means of making labour a less expensive production factor.
Many aspects of social protection in Europe, of course, are still not given nearly enough consideration in terms of their European dimension in many Member States.
Politicians are still far happier to discuss them in the small provincial forum of national politics and fail to realise that the people of our countries, the workforce, have long come to expect European action too in this domain.
The Socialist Group supports Mr Pronk's report, partly because it provides good continuity from the first two reports which we adopted here in the Chamber and for which I had the pleasure of doing the preparatory work and formulating the conclusions.
I also find it right and proper that Mr Pronk has not endorsed everything the Commission has proposed, since there were certainly some points in the report of which we were highly critical in the committee.
I shall only mention one of the proposals which I believe is unacceptable in its present form: in connection with the need to cut health service costs, you have proposed more direct contributions by patients towards the cost of services.
I believe that would be a very one-sided perspective, and we shall naturally be unable to adopt everything as it stands.
Mr Pronk dealt with several areas in detail.
I intend to confine myself to a few points that seem to me to be very important, such as proposals on a flexible transition to retirement and consultation between management and labour on such matters.
In many Member States, employers have been far too ready to discard older workers by means of systematic early retirement.
That will certainly have to be made more flexible.
In addition, we shall have to pay more serious attention than has been given in the past to the need for women to be accorded equal rights within the social security system, and we have supplemented the report in that respect.
I also support Mr Pronk's proposals because, with his Dutch regard for consensus, if I may say that, he has adopted demands that we in the PSE Group made in various areas where we expect specific aims, specific measures and above all directives and action programmes from the Commission.
It is not enough, now that we have the third communication - fine and good and important though it may be - to produce more new communications.
We need quite specific legislative proposals, including proposals based on Articles 13 and 137 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Commission also has our support in the negotiations, in the struggle with the Council of Ministers.
They know that Parliament expects more than communications.
We also expect tangible qualitative progress.
What has been submitted in the framework of the dialogue between European management and labour is not enough for us either, not even the latest results, which still fall far short of the expectations of the European Parliament.
I should like to take up one final point made by Mr Pronk.
At the end of his speech, he referred to solidarity and to the evasion of welfare contributions in our systems.
We must not forget that employers are by far the main culprits when it comes to the evasion of welfare contributions, as any of us who have looked behind the scenes will know.
Public opinion, unfortunately, has a highly distorted view of this situation.
We all know about the economic benefits of the single market, which are becoming increasingly obvious.
But what we lack is social protection at the European level.
Social security is not a relic from the past but the model for the future, a model through which the people of Europe can begin once more to trust and accept the European institutions.
Applause
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by expressing my sincere thanks to the rapporteur for the work he has done.
I emphatically welcome the proposed action plan.
May I say to Mrs Weiler that her contribution has demonstrated the broad cross-party consensus that exists within the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
But I should also like to say that while I do not, of course, entirely share her regret at the resignation of Mr Lafontaine, I do freely admit that there is now a danger that the labour wing of the German Social Democratic Party will face difficult times as well.
There can be no doubt that the preservation of peace within European society crucially depends on social security.
All Member States must launch additional efforts to increase employment.
Besides unemployment, demographic development is also a major burden on the welfare state.
In the face of this pressure, the principle of social solidarity must not be sacrificed under any circumstances.
I fully agree with the rapporteur on that point.
We must try to increase the activity rate. That applies to women, but it also applies to our senior citizens who, as you said, Mrs Weiler, suffer discrimination.
The burden of statutory non-wage labour costs, particularly in the service sector, must be reduced.
At the same time, the reduction process must not lead to distortions of competition.
Atypical forms of work present another problem.
It is high time an appropriate level of social protection was created at European level for those whose work does not fit into the usual pattern.
Without intensive cooperation among the Member States, there will be no progress on social protection and employment.
At the same time, it is especially important to exclude any scope for social dumping.
Pressure must be exerted to obtain further progress towards the equal treatment of men and women.
Gradual convergence of the national welfare systems must be pursued, with due regard for the subsidiarity principle.
The development of supplementary pension schemes, based on the formation of coverage capital, must be subject to strict safeguards to protect employees from fraud and loss of pension rights.
The compulsory systems must not be eroded and put at risk.
Before the European Union is enlarged, the applicant countries must redefine and improve the criteria for the convergence of their welfare systems so as to avoid unforeseen consequences for the entire EU.
The emigration of young, well-qualified specialists could set back the applicant countries' economies by several years, as well as wreaking havoc on the labour markets of the established Member States.
Last, but by no means least, let me say quite emphatically that, within the framework of social solidarity, the European model must come up with sound solutions in terms of the creation of pro-family employment strategies.
At the same time, we must never forget that, in addition to childcare, consideration must also be given to the ever-increasing need for employees to care for elderly parents and other dependent family members.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Pronk report contains a whole raft of measures which we really need to take, and the convergence of social security and taxation is becoming a particularly important issue, partly as a result of the introduction of the euro.
But the actual situation in reality is quite different, with the Member States still creating obstacles to prevent people from working in other countries.
One current example is Germany, where there are tax obstacles that make it very difficult for foreign companies to take work in Germany.
The staff of such companies have to pay regular taxes, which I think is extremely strange, and it is something that Mr Lafontaine has failed to tackle.
My own country, the Netherlands, also knows a bit about this sort of thing.
The review of the taxation agreement between Belgium and the Netherlands places an enormous financial burden on Dutch frontier workers.
As long as we have these huge differences in tax and social security and we still get up to all kinds of tricks when it comes to recognising diplomas and certificates, a great many job opportunities will be lost in border areas, both now and in the future.
Another example is the lack of policy coordination on supplementary pensions, both on the question of deductibility and on tax on the eventual payments.
This is a major obstacle to the free movement of workers, and I am therefore very pleased that Commissioner Monti announced this week that he is to put forward a proposal very shortly to deal with these problems.
I have always welcomed his proposals in this field, and I hope that the Council will act upon them.
This morning in our discussion of the annual economic report for 1999, I called for greater international mobility of labour.
This will become increasingly important over the next few years, since EMU means that unemployment can no longer be tackled with monetary measures alone.
Labour mobility is needed as an adaptation mechanism for tackling regional unemployment in the Member States.
But we must not allow social security discrepancies to prevent this mobility from happening.
We therefore need to work together to achieve convergence in this field, both on social security and on taxation.
Mr President, this morning, a French newspaper ran the headline 'Social Europe stumbles'.
Indeed, it is true that there is still a great deal to be done in the context of the single market and the single currency to ensure that social protection is not the variable used for adjustment to the detriment of workers, and that the Union's companies are not subjected to unfair competition through widespread social dumping.
However, it is true that if social Europe is stumbling, it is because we do not have sufficient legal bases.
This is the reason behind the determination of politicians such as Bartho Pronk, who is making every effort to bring about a social Europe, and his report today is proof of that.
In France, the President of the Republic pointed out in his speech to the national parliament that as well as a European civilisation, there is a European social model, which cannot be separated from European citizenship.
That is why we must constantly defend this European social model.
It is with this in mind that I completely support the rapporteur's objective of establishing a certain degree of social convergence in Europe, not through standardisation, but through increased cooperation between the Member States on social matters.
I also support Bartho Pronk's request for minimum European standards for certain social provisions, as well as a structured process of voluntary consultation at European level on the objectives and policies related to social protection, especially as regards the European employment strategy that was adopted at the Luxembourg summit.
I am convinced that adopting guidelines on social matters would genuinely encourage our governments to seek a productive and essential balance between solidarity and competitiveness.
As we have just celebrated Women's Day, I would like to emphasise an important element for the many women who work, that is, reconciling their family and professional lives.
Obviously, this not only affects women, but also children.
In this respect, the report calls on the Council to include specific objectives in the guidelines on social policy to develop child-care structures as well as facilities for relatives who require a certain level of care.
I would like us to be able to include this dimension of social protection in the social policy that is to be defined by Parliament.
I am aware that certain politicians are not in favour of this.
I would like to quote these words from a German socialist Minister, who was speaking about the Treaty of Amsterdam: 'So many difficult compromises have been hammered out that it is not very glamorous for a Prime Minister to go back home and tell his people that he has managed to negotiate measures on child policy'.
This is an outrageous thing to say, and in my view child policy is also part of the social protection we owe our citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mr Pronk on his report, and also the Committee for Employment and Social Affairs which, through its amendments, has made it a very good one.
A few aspects of social security and a social system founded on solidarity which are important, indeed crucial, to me are stated at the outset, namely that everyone must assume responsibility and contribute in a spirit of solidarity to basic social security.
Even though private supplementary insurance may be both right and important as an element in the adjustment of our social insurance systems, which are suffering under the strain of increasing numbers of elderly people in the population, it must not be allowed to undermine our common responsibility, with the result that we end up with different levels of health care - we hear shocking stories of such situations in countries like the USA.
We must instead safeguard the principle of common responsibility and maintain a social system based on solidarity.
Unemployment costs a great deal of money and puts severe stress on social expenditure.
For that reason, it is important as part of our social security to ensure that more jobs are created.
A factor involved here is the need to bring down tax on labour, which is something that Mr Pronk also takes up.
The internal market has of course increased the need for cooperation and coordination in the field of social security.
There is also a need for a code of conduct on illegal competition with inferior social provisions - what we are accustomed to call social dumping.
There is a need for minimum levels of security of employment, which should include the proliferation of atypical forms of employment which are now appearing.
We must however also remember that, when we speak of social convergence, it is a voluntary adjustment, a coordination of aims and strategies, which is required.
It is to a large extent a question of mutual recognition of social security provisions, employment insurance schemes, pension systems and so on, which is also important in the context of freedom of movement.
With the new proposal which the Commission has put forward, on which I have been asked to draw up Parliament's report, protection is also extended to citizens of third countries, frontier workers, students and so forth, which is entirely the right way to go.
Finally, the report takes up discrimination and social exclusion.
The resolve to devise a coherent plan to tackle this as soon as possible and to reduce the number of socially excluded and poor people in Europe is really something that we in the Green Group support.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a lot of very worthwhile points have been made about the Pronk report, and I agree with the calls for general solidarity and for a realistic and careful approach to a new society in which the concept of care has assumed a whole new dimension.
All of these things must be included in the programme.
These days, the Member States are making very considerable efforts to provide social protection, but because society is changing and ageing, because so many women now have jobs outside the home, because there are one-parent families and so on, there are more and more new things that social protection does not cover.
I would urge that our view of the responsibilities in this field should not be too dogmatic, but that we should at least grant the same social rights which should also be available to those in unpaid work.
Commissioner, it is obvious that we need a European social pillar.
Cooperation between the Member States needs to be stepped up as a result of EMU and the European employment strategy.
There must be a social safety net for everyone.
We do not actually have much time left, because convergence on social protection is urgently needed.
I would call for entirely practical measures to be taken, as Mr Pronk does in his report and the Social Affairs Committee does as well.
The current differences in the cost of social protection distort competition between the Member States and thus threaten employment.
I would like to mention just one example of the many I could quote.
Renault's departure from Flanders has caused great bitterness.
We need minimum standards for social security and pay if we are to have a genuinely social Europe.
But this in itself is not a solution for countries with a very highly developed and expensive social security system based on general solidarity, which has a considerable effect on the cost of labour.
We do not want social security in such countries to disintegrate, but it is clear that an effective employment policy must remain the basis of the system throughout Europe.
There should not be employment in some countries with little social protection and unemployment in countries with a high level of social protection.
No, thank you.
Convergence is what we need, and the sooner the better!
Mr President, perhaps I take a rather different view from the rest of you, not so much on the matter itself as on the place where matters should be dealt with.
Questions of welfare, relationships between children and parents and between the generations, education, social security, and dental and medical care are, first and foremost, national issues.
There is no reason to harmonise them or to regulate them in detail at EU level.
On the other hand, there are sound reasons for the mutual recognition of different systems, so that people who move from one country to another can avail themselves of their social benefits in the new country.
In this area, there are many deficiencies and a great deal to be done.
The most important question at EU level in my view is employment.
But in that area the EU has failed!
When Sweden applied for membership 10 years ago, in 1990, we had unemployment running at 2.3 %.
Today the figure matches the EU average, 10 to 12 %.
There are immigrant areas in Sweden which, ten years ago, had an unemployment rate of 50 %; the current rate is 75 %, perhaps even 90 %.
I am not saying that it is the EU's or anyone else's fault, but I am saying that we have failed to solve the most serious social problem, which is hitting vulnerable groups unable to do much about that reality - children and unemployed people who have nothing to live on - particularly hard.
The EU has paid too much attention to the economy, markets, trade and competition.
It was important to do that, but there was not always the same concern to consider the consequences.
The project that overshadows everything is EMU, which has been very costly in terms of economy plans, cutbacks and increased unemployment.
We now have 18 million unemployed and 50 million people in poverty.
That is far too many!
Apart from unemployment, social questions to which the EU should give priority are the major problems concerning the shaping of public opinion to combat discrimination against groups such as immigrants, women and the unemployed, trafficking in human beings and the fight against drugs.
In this area, there is any amount of work to be done. Here too, the approach should be to give advice, direction and support to the Member States through common guidelines at EU level, but to leave the implementation of decisions to the national level.
EU cooperation in the social field should concentrate on the following four areas: jobs and unemployment, reducing exclusion and poverty, curbing discrimination and social dumping, and strengthening equality.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, throughout the Union, welfare systems and welfare reforms are at the top of the political agenda.
There are good reasons why political action is so obviously required in this area.
The introduction of the euro has undoubtedly had an impact on wage policies and hence on social protection in the various Member States.
At the same time, despite a high level of economic activity, Europe is struggling to cope with a vast army of unemployed.
This means that welfare systems have been subject to increasing demand, while the funds allocated to them have been increasingly restricted.
Our finance ministers, as you all know, have to operate with tight budgets, and increasing taxes would only harm Europe's international standing as a business location.
Against this background, the common aim of all the efforts to reform welfare systems must be to safeguard the effectiveness of the system in the long term, while structuring it in such a way - and let me stress this point - that it promotes economic growth and the creation of new jobs, instead of stifling them.
Let me start by thanking Mr Pronk for his excellent report and for his generous words which I personally welcome for two reasons.
The objective, namely tax coordination to which he made reference, does not aim simply at improving the single market but has also a social objective in making tax systems more labour-friendly.
In the instruments there are indeed striking similarities between what has been devised to fight harmful tax competition and what the rapporteur is proposing in terms of a code of conduct for avoiding harmful competition via social security systems.
Mr Pronk has taken the opportunity arising from the publication of the report on social protection for 1997, presented by the Commission at the initiative and under the guidance of Commissioner Flynn to open up a debate in Parliament on the future challenges facing Europe's social protection systems.
This is valuable and also very timely, for reasons that I will come to.
I can state that the Commission welcomes the resolution that you are debating today.
You are giving the right message at the right time.
Europe is living through a period of change: change in the world of work, change in society and in family structures, technological change and a major demographic change.
All Member States face these changes to a greater or lesser extent.
We need new, innovative approaches if our social protection systems are to continue to perform their traditional and very important roles: income redistribution, building social cohesion, and providing security against social risks as they have done over the last fifty years.
In 1995 the Commission launched a debate on the future of social protection.
The aim was to trigger a process of joint reflection to look together for solutions and to learn from each other.
Not having been an initiator of this - it was Commissioner Flynn - I can say in retrospect, on a personal basis, that this was perhaps one of the very first examples of trying to achieve progress through comparison, through peer review, and similar processes, which I find very helpful.
In 1997 the Commission took stock of this debate in its communication: Modernising and Improving Social Protection.
The Commission's main message throughout this process has been that there is an urgent need to modernise social protection in the European Union.
Modernising means adapting systems to the new social and economic conditions in which they operate.
It does not mean abandoning the high ideals and important objectives which lie behind these systems.
It means changing methods and approaches where necessary in order to ensure that we can continue to give our citizens the high levels of social protection that they want.
At the same time we must ensure that our systems are sustainable.
The important of a high level of social protection was underlined in the reactions to the 1997 communication, in particular the resolution of the European Parliament, prepared by Mrs Weiler, and in the discussions on the European social policy forum.
The process of rapid social, economic and political change goes on.
At European level alone, since we launched our debate on modernising and improving social protection we can take note of the following: the Amsterdam Treaty has been adopted and will shortly come into force, incorporating a new chapter on employment and other relevant developments to do with social exclusion, non-discrimination and public health.
The European employment strategy has been successfully put into place and Member States have made a good start on implementation.
The single currency was introduced in January.
Enlargement negotiations have been launched with five countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
It is important to recognise that these developments will impact on both Member States' social protection systems and our ways of cooperating at European level.
The time is ripe to take the process of joint reflection on the future of our social protection systems a step further.
The proposals made in Parliament's resolution go in the right direction.
You clearly support what is a central theme in this process - the need to work together closely and the great benefits that can flow from doing so.
Social protection policy is a matter for which Member States have responsibility.
There are considerable differences between the systems of the 15 Member States.
Nevertheless we are facing common problems and challenges.
We have common objectives.
All of us have much to gain from a common reflection.
You also send a clear message to the Commission and the Member States to be ambitious in this process.
The Commission will keep these views very much in mind when we come back with our proposals on how to take forward these ideas on social protection.
We will be issuing a new and ambitious communication in the next few months.
Your resolution is a timely input in that regard that we value very much.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Mr Schiedermeier has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, allow me to make a brief comment.
Many of our colleagues will take any opportunity to criticise the conduct of the Commission.
That is why I find it all the more regrettable that there are Members of the House who deliver their contributions to the debate and then immediately leave the Chamber without waiting for the reply from the Commissioner, who has been good enough to stay here until 9 p.m.
May I offer my personal apologies for the conduct of my colleagues.
Thank you, Mr Schiedermeier.
Your comments will be recorded in the Minutes.
With that, ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our agenda.
It has been a longer day than usual, which has meant extra work for all the services of the House, who deserve our particular thanks.
The sitting was closed at 9 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I rise on the comment made by my colleague, Mr Evans, yesterday regarding the quantity of documentation we receive.
I feel he has made a very good point.
Given the amount of paper we have received this morning, if these votes are going to continue, will the President look into the provision of extra trunks for Members in future to allow us to get the results back to our offices in Brussels?
I will ask the services to investigate that matter.
Parliament approved the Minutes
VOTES
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations fully supports this report and the amendments which were adopted in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
The Commission's proposal calls into question the Community Customs Code as defined in the original Regulation (EEC) No 2913/92.
I must stress the importance of the Community Customs Code for third countries, in particular the former CEECs.
This code serves as a reference and a model for many countries in urgent need of operational customs legislation enabling them to integrate into the world of international trade.
In terms of commercial policy, although the customs tariff is losing its importance as an instrument for the protection of certain industries, it is still used to support competition policy.
Anti-dumping and countervailing duties are applied in accordance with the rules and procedures of the Community Customs Code.
With regard to agricultural policy, the code's customs procedures are used to manage the export refund arrangements.
The new WTO rules depend on the code.
In terms of external trade statistics, the Single Administrative Document provided for in the Code Implementing Provisions remains the instrument on which the gathering of statistics is based.
Given this essential role of the Community Customs Code, our group cannot understand the Commission's proposal to eliminate or minimise the role of Member States in the procedure for implementing the Community Customs Code.
As an example, in the current regulation Member States may reserve the right, on their territory, to make customs declarations by direct or indirect representation in order to preserve the role of the customs agent.
In this new proposal, the Commission limits this right to the indirect representation procedure.
If this measure were adopted, the role of the customs agents would be significantly limited and a large number would disappear.
The new provisions therefore seem to favour negative changes with a reduction in customs control by Member States, the elimination of jobs for customs agents and therefore an increase in the opportunities for fraud and a reduction in the Community preference.
As for the customs procedures and the placing of goods under a customs procedure, the Commission is proposing a system of exceptions for all companies making declarations electronically.
The very principle of protection by Member States will be diminished because these electronic documents will eventually be sent directly to the Community institutions.
To conclude, from the two examples which I have just given, you will understand why our group is using its vote to oppose any change to the Community Customs Code which would lead to a reduction in Community preference and in the role of companies and national authorities in the customs process.
I am surprised that, under the pretext of administrative simplification, the Commission is proposing to weaken the principle of Community preference together with a de facto reduction in controls which risk leading to an increase in fraud, particularly on the eve of new negotiations within the World Trade Organisation.
The Paasilinna report makes at least one necessary change to the Commission proposal on the Community Customs Code.
In May 1998, the Council said that there should be limits to the commercial risk borne by importers in the EU, and it instructed the Commission to do something about it.
Strangely enough, the Commission has done nothing about it, or at least this is the impression given by the proposal it has put before Parliament and the Council.
We supported Amendment No 13, which makes what we regard as a very welcome change to Article 220(2).
We should like to see this phrase included in the text, since an importer that has acted 'in good faith' should not be liable for the consequences of fraud or administrative errors committed by the exporter or the customs authorities.
We would urge that this should be considered at a later stage in the decision-making process.
We do not think it is realistic to fear that changes to the Community Customs Code will mean that the European market is flooded with cheap products.
Finally, we feel that the European single market must not be a 'sealed fortress', particularly for less developed countries.
Looking after number one is a morally repugnant maxim to follow in external trade policy, and we must also take account of the problems which the developing countries are currently wrestling with.
Añoveros Trias de Bes report (A4-0096/99)
We voted against the report, because we are opposed to the legislative model which has been used.
We think that Parliament should have opted instead for the principle proposed by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
According to that principle, there would be mutual recognition of national legislation, and harmonisation would only take place when provisions directly interfere with the functioning of the internal market.
André-Léonard recommendation (A4-0071/99)
Mr President, I would like to explain why we abstained in the vote on Mrs André-Léonard's report, which was discussed together with Mr Truscott's report yesterday.
The simple reason is that we have a problem with human rights violations in Uzbekistan, which in our view are not compatible with the clause in the preamble stating that the protection of human rights and democratic principles are prerequisites for the Agreement.
That is why we abstained.
We want a close relationship, but we feel that this P.A. can only become effective if Uzbekistan genuinely succeeds in establishing a stable democracy.
Yesterday the Commission failed to convince us that this could be achieved solely by means of this economic agreement.
It was also at a loss to answer the questions we raised, and as a result we feel that this is not the right time to ratify this Agreement.
A further problem in our eyes, which is still not being taken into account in connection with the important question of whether to recognise Uzbekistan as a safe third country, is that there is no free access to the courts there, hence a basic condition for recognition is lacking.
This is part and parcel of the Agreement, but the basic conditions are not being met.
Therefore we were not able to agree to the ratification procedure at this point.
Truscott report (A4-0069/99)
The discussions which we have just had on the partnership agreements with the new countries of Central Asia illustrate the major disadvantages of artificially separating the various elements of a foreign policy.
Commercial relations and human rights cannot be separated from the other aspects.
The Council must therefore be clearly invested as soon as possible with exclusive responsibility to ensure the coherence of all foreign policy actions of the European Union, whether these involve the CFSP, external commercial policy, human rights or aid.
I also note that we still have no way of assessing the efficiency of actions conducted within the TACIS programme.
A programme cannot be regarded as efficient simply because of a significant level of take-up of its appropriations.
This efficiency can be measured only through an analysis of results for which we are still waiting.
Pronk report (A4-0099/99)
The report deals with a range of social questions which do not fall within the EU's decision-making powers.
We consider that the EU's regulatory system in the social field should concentrate entirely on minimum measures designed to counteract social dumping.
Other aspects of social policy must be handled at national and local level.
This report goes considerably further in the quest for harmonisation and in making proposals in fields such as child care and pensions. We therefore voted against the report.
The unfaltering political choice of the European Union and Member States to further dismantle not only the social security system but also, in more general terms, the system of social protection which has reigned in Europe since the war as a result of the effective struggles of the workers' movement is becoming ever more apparent.
The Commission report on social protection in Europe calls on Member States to strengthen their efforts to promote gainful employment.
It regards the provision of medical and hospital care as a mere commercial commodity and insured people as consumers who must limit their demand. It proposes measures to modernise social protection and to adapt systems of social protection to changing circumstances by means of privatisation of health provision and pension cover.
The report of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, while it contains some positive findings and puts forward relevant measures, accepts in its entirety the new social protection framework. It addresses existing problems of the financing of systems of social protection from the standpoint of their impact on the competitiveness of the European economy, thereby lending support to those who call for a reduction in spending and for partial privatisation of social provision.
Regarding the assessment contained in the report that the strengthening of market mechanisms in the area of medical and hospital care must not result in a two-tier health service, we wish to say that privatising a part of medical and hospital care and strengthening market mechanisms in the sector will lead, de facto , to the creation of a two-tier health service.
Those with high levels of income will have no difficulty in paying high levels of contributions to private, profit-making schemes, while the overwhelming majority of working people will be restricted to minimum, low levels of provision.
The situation in Greece is typical, where we see that the NHS is being consciously downgraded and stripped bare, while the private sector is being shamefully strengthened.
We are categorically opposed to attempts - in the name of cost reduction - to further reduce the level of pension provision from state social security services and to reduce pensions which provide a minimum survival income, which will benefit private profit-making pension schemes to which those people will turn who want to improve on state subsistence pensions.
The recent announcement made by the President of IKA that the setting-up of a new supplementary insurance fund is being studied, which will function along purely private lines and which will be based on the principle of a direct link between the level of contributions and the level of provision, with the possible direct participation of private insurance capital, is giving rise to grave concerns.
We reject the new model of social protection which is being prepared.
We know that these choices are a direct consequence of the unpopular austerity policies imposed by the convergence criteria and the stability and growth pact and which exacerbate the problems of financing the state social security system and will eventually lead to its demise.
We believe that in the short term, the most fundamental way of addressing the problems of the state social protection system is to boost full-time, stable employment by promoting productive investment, especially in labour-intensive sectors. This can be achieved by providing support in terms of financial and tax incentives for SMEs which absorb the greatest share of overall employment, and by reducing working hours without reducing wages.
We also feel that there are solutions - other than the ones put forward - to the immediate financial problems of social security organisations, such as the strict enforcement of existing provisions of social security legislation regarding contributions, combating the evasion of social security contributions and undeclared work, taxing profit-making movements of capital, and the abolition of exemptions in the taxation of income from movable assets and derivatives.
Side by side with the working population, we are fighting to maintain and strengthen the state social security system of social protection, to broaden and improve the quality of provision in order to bring it in line with the objective of a high level of unified state social protection.
This report is right when it says that with the euro, the Member States now have no monetary options for relieving economic pressures, so that competitiveness, even within the European Union, will be focused more than ever on wage costs, taxation and the cost of social protection.
This is just one of the enormous problems that the introduction of the euro has caused, problems that have been swept under the carpet for purely ideological reasons without any proper debate. Nevertheless, I totally reject the idea of harmonising social security at European level.
In Belgium, we know what it means when two nations are required to share the same social security system.
The automatic financing mechanisms produce the very opposite of solidarity, a sort of organised robbery.
This may sound harsh, but it is true.
We are heading in this same direction at European level, only worse, because experience with the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund has taught us that local and national authorities are, by definition, not very careful with 'European' money.
So spare us this pressure for European harmonisation.
We need to understand that the greatest progress and the best forms of social security are achieved within clearly defined limits.
We can always create other forms of Community or extra-Community solidarity, but that is something else entirely.
Maritime cabotage, manning conditions on passenger craft
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mrs McIntosh, who has produced a substantial and important piece of work in this report, unfortunately cannot be here today.
She has therefore asked me to present the report.
I think that the basic consideration which one must focus on when dealing with a matter such as this is that the shipping industry in the EU is currently having a very difficult time.
It is up against increasingly harsh competition from other countries.
The ferry operators, for example, either immediately this summer or in a few years' time in the event of a postponement, are faced with the abolition of duty-free trading and hence the loss of a substantial portion of their revenue.
In its proposal, the Commission emphasises the importance of free access to shipping markets throughout the world, along with the need to raise quality standards and to maintain or increase competition.
The Commission can also show that considerable progress has been made in these areas.
At the same time, however, working conditions for seafarers in the Union have deteriorated and employment is showing a consistently downward trend.
All this is the result of flagging-out, manning reductions and cheaper labour from third countries.
These developments have hitherto hit the freight sector hardest, but could also spread to the passenger sector.
The Commission is concerned to devise a Community policy which will both remove the incentive for flagging-out and harmonise market conditions for seafarers.
Hence the Commission's first proposal under which the regulation on cabotage would be amended to provide for crews from third countries to be placed on an equal footing with seafarers from the Community.
The second proposal concerns the manning of vessels in regular passenger and ferry traffic.
On the matter of working conditions as well, the Commission is seeking equal treatment irrespective of whether the crew members are resident in a Member State or not.
There are grounds for misgivings as to some of the Commission's proposals.
First of all, the question is prompted whether the time is right, having regard to all the problems that shipping is already facing in the EU.
The proposed directives on cabotage have given rise to concern in the industry, since they amount to direct intervention on the labour market, which many see as running directly counter to free trade in goods and services.
One of the aims the Commission seeks to achieve is to create equal conditions for competitors within the EU.
In actual fact, working conditions vary greatly from one Member State to another.
It is therefore also difficult to see the effect of the proposed measures.
The conclusion on this is that it is difficult for the moment to see any acceptable reason why the regulation on passenger traffic should be amended.
The present version expires in the year 2001.
It should be added that the Commission has itself already proposed voluntary changes; that happened, for example, in a report which was presented in 1995.
The rapporteur therefore proposes that we should not make any change in this part before the Commission has examined what effects the liberalisation of passenger and ferry traffic will have.
Amendment No 4 proposes that the economic and social consequences of the liberalisation of cabotage should be reviewed and a report submitted to the Council and Parliament at the latest by 1 January 2001.
On the basis of this report, the Commission should then present proposals on a definitive system.
As regards the directive on manning, efforts should be concentrated on areas other than those the Commission addresses.
If we want to increase the competitiveness of the entire industry, the first concern should be to promote training and know-how in the maritime sector, something the Transport Committee has taken up in other contexts too.
The rapporteur has developed this in Amendment No 8.
Let me conclude by just saying that the rapporteur takes a positive view of all the amendments proposed, with the exception of Amendment No 7.
Mr President, earlier this week Parliament had an in-depth discussion about the future of Europe's railways, and today gives us the opportunity to do the same in regard to intra-European Union shipping.
I thank the rapporteur, Miss McIntosh, for her work.
I am sorry she cannot be with us here today - no doubt it is due to other commitments in another house.
I should also like to say that her initial ideas, based on Conservative Party dogma, were not relevant, nor indeed helpful.
However, she has changed her mind on that and we now have a more balanced, more pro-European report as a result.
This report deals with manning levels on intra-EU services and on cabotage.
I am going to confine my remarks to the manning proposals, as it appears, sadly, that within the Council the cabotage issue is dead and buried.
Firstly, it must be said that these proposals deal with intra-EU and not deep-sea services.
Secondly, my Group believes that action has long been overdue because of the increase in use recently of non-EU seafarers to crew those vessels at wage rates and conditions of service well below accepted EU levels.
In short, EU shipowners have started to introduce flags of convenience in this sector, just as they have done previously on deep-sea operations.
The Commission should be congratulated on taking action early in the sector to ensure that, where third-country nationals are employed on intra-EU services, they are employed on the same conditions as our EU seafarers.
I shall be totally honest with the House this morning.
I should like to see a directive which states that only EU seafarers must be used on intra-EU services.
However, I recognise that this is not possible, which is why our Group supports the principle of having the same conditions of service for those non-EU seafarers.
We cannot let our ferry operators, in particular, become cheap-labour, lower-standard employers.
If we do this, then we sign the final death warrant for European Union seafarers.
That is why this report is important; that is why it is important that the European Union and the European Parliament send a message very clearly and very loudly to European ferry operators: we will not tolerate non-EU seafarers being employed on lower wages and conditions than our own people.
Mr President, the Commission rightly points out that there is a problem in the Community maritime sector as regards the decline of the seafaring profession and unemployment in the sector.
This situation is mainly due to the introduction of flag changes, to austerity measures and to cheaper manpower from third countries.
The cargo services sector seems to have been hit the hardest by these changes, but it seems that passenger services and ferry services may also be affected.
That is why, in the two reports we are debating, a number of measures have been proposed which attempt to address the problem.
The intentions of the Commission are essentially well-meaning, but two objections need to be raised. First of all, given that the directives cover all vessels which belong to the European Union but which are registered outside the Community, and given that there are maritime areas between Member States which are regarded as international waters, many questions arise as to the compatibility of the directive with the international commitments of the European Union and its Member States and with international law and international conventions.
We need to be very careful on this score.
Secondly, although the aim of the directive is to protect employment, it is not at all certain that in the end we will achieve this goal. The difficulties that will be faced by the regular ferry services as a result of the abolition of duty-free cannot be overcome by unified conditions of employment.
The proposal may go some way to putting a stop to the use of cheap labour, but it will not protect the sustainability of the services or employment.
In the end, it may not help our own seafarers, which must be our fundamental objective.
Let us not forget that many shipping companies are companies with a broad popular base, and therefore the motivation behind our reasoning must be to strengthen the competitiveness of these companies, since only in this way will we be able to serve the interests of our seafarers.
Mr President, I should like to begin by saying that although Mr Stenmarck has done an extremely good job of standing in for Mrs McIntosh, it seems a pity that she herself has not been able to present her last report in the House.
I agree with the rapporteur that maritime transport is indeed going through hard times, not just because it faces fierce competition, but also because it is a sector that has really dug its own grave by persisting in its old ways for far too long.
The abolition of duty-free has absolutely nothing to do with it, Mr Stenmarck, let us be quite clear on that point.
It is about time that all the fuss about duty-free stopped and the maritime sector got on with things like everybody else.
Duty-free still exists outside the Community, and that is bad enough.
So what is the problem? The problem is a serious social one.
Contrary to what everyone thinks, ship's captains and officers are not really very well paid, and these days no one wants to spend a long time away from home without a break.
This is why there are no European crews any more, and it also means that the infrastructure is collapsing.
The nautical colleges are disappearing, which is jeopardising maritime safety.
We have seen many examples of this, such as in your own country, Mr President, where the only tug available was manned by Chinese and a Chinese restaurant owner had to be fetched to communicate with them.
Generally there are not enough European crews available and we have to do something about this.
We need to improve the social conditions for the entire crew, and in particular for the officers.
Mr President, on the occasion of the debate on the amendment of Council Regulation No 3577/92, I would like to say that we think it essential to highlight the negative impact that the relaxation of cabotage has had on the employment of maritime workers in the Community.
For countries like Greece in particular, the relaxation of cabotage for passenger, cargo and ferry services in domestic waters is closely associated with sovereign rights and with the ability of the country to defend itself in the particularly sensitive area of the Aegean. It also exacerbates social problems such as procurement, the development of small and peripheral islands, and maintaining island populations.
Moreover, it is giving rise to significant concerns about the new, immediate and extremely serious threat of the prospect of thousands of job losses.
However, the Commission has failed to draw the necessary conclusions from the current implementation of the Council regulation on the relaxation of cabotage. Without first conducting a necessary and substantial impact study, it is proceeding to amend it, thereby further aggravating the situation.
With this proposal, the Commission is aiming to limit the competence of the host state to determining the required proportion of Community nationals in the crew, while all other matters relating to manning will be the responsibility of the flag state.
Vital issues such as the integrated structure and conditions of work and pay are to be decided on the basis of the flag state's legislation.
This will mean segregating the crew into those who are included in the integrated structure by being listed on the ship's register, and those who are not. It will also encourage practices of social dumping and will have a catastrophic impact on employment.
By way of example, in certain European countries hotel staff, chambermaids, cooks and so on are not included in the employment structure, and therefore, in the name of equal conditions of competition, shipowners in Greece are demanding that this should be extended to ships flying the Greek flag.
All issues relating to manning levels must be decided in a uniform manner by the host state.
Against this background, we support the report of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, which is calling for the proposals in question to be rejected.
We also support the request for a study to be carried out into the economic and social impact of the liberalisation of cabotage.
As regards the proposal for a directive on manning conditions, it is clear that all seafarers have a right to equal treatment, regardless of their nationality.
However, we are categorically opposed to the derogations put forward in the report, since these essentially allow for the circumvention of these provisions through the possibility of exemptions and waivers provided for in Article 3, which the report unfortunately accepts.
Moreover, we believe that equal treatment must include not just conditions of employment, but must also cover working and safety conditions, pay and the implementation of collective bargaining agreements for the whole of the crew.
Against this background, therefore, we must put an end to any derogations which are negotiated through bilateral agreements which are often concluded with third countries.
Although the report of the Committee on Transport and Tourism accepts the proposal, it does not call for the amendment of those articles which lead to its circumvention. Its assessment is based on the argument of non-intervention in the labour market, which does not dispel the concern about the trend of using cheap labour from third countries.
Specifying the conditions for the employment of third-country nationals, which must be the same as the conditions applying to residents of the Member State which is the flag state, does not however deal with the problem of undeclared, uninsured work.
The rapporteur has made a very laudable effort, but we cannot agree with her on this point.
Undermining the provisions will lead to undeclared work and to unemployment among Community seafarers.
Mr President, the McIntosh report caused quite a stir in the Committee on Transport. There seem to be substantial interests involved in the proposals.
In the first section on the conditions for cabotage within a Member State, it is proposed that each member of the crew should be paid the same, irrespective of origin.
This is designed to prevent social dumping, sailing with crews that are cheaper to employ than European workers.
However, I do not think this will cost many EU nationals their jobs, since 95 % of the crews on the vessels concerned are EU nationals anyway, mainly doing maritime work, whereas the non-EU nationals on the same vessels are mainly in non-maritime jobs.
So there is hardly any competition between the two groups.
This also means that the increase in costs for the shipowners applies only to a small number of workers.
The increase in labour costs as a result of this measure is almost completely offset by the income from duty-free.
I cannot see why people doing the same job should be paid different wages just because they are a different nationality, so there is every reason to agree with the Commission proposal.
The second proposal on manning conditions for ferry services between Member States extends the scope of these conditions to shipping companies established outside the European Union.
Under the relevant international conventions, only the port state can apply safety measures on board and more especially in the proximity of the vessel.
So as far as I can tell, the Commission proposal goes further than is actually possible at the moment.
In conclusion, I agree with the substance of the rapporteur's Amendment No 4, but I do not think that this directive is the right place to address this issue.
Mr President, the Commission deserves thanks for compiling its report, and thanks also go to the rapporteur for having brought out the importance and significance of the issue from the point of view of both employment and the future of shipping.
Every day an enormous number of people travel on passenger craft and ferries in the EU Member States, and their safety relies on professional expertise in the various tasks that are carried out on board by employees who can be entrusted with serious responsibilities.
An important factor here is that the pay and other working conditions of those employed in navigation should be in line with those of other occupations.
The Commission's proposals tackle that very issue, and the European Parliament today has the opportunity to make its own important contribution to the final decision to be taken.
Using an unskilled and underpaid workforce to gain a competitive edge in shipping is a threat both to EU employment policy and transport safety.
There are, however, calls far and wide to outlaw this improper competitive practice.
The issue now to be discussed shows the European Union's resolve to counter this negative development.
Safeguarding and improving employment is one of the most important obligations the European Union has taken upon itself; many would say it is the most important.
All the institutions have expressed the will to tackle this issue, but often the problem has been that it has been hard to find practical ways of achieving this aim at Union level.
There has been conflict when such great emphasis has been placed on the importance of the employment objectives, yet responsibility for employment is ultimately the responsibility of the Member States.
Now the matter to be resolved is a practical example of employment policy being put into practice at Union level, and, in addition, it includes a sizeable element devoted to the issue of safety.
We must ensure that the EU develops and enlarges as a community in which market forces play the role that befits them, that is, one that is in the service of the people, and not one that dominates everyone and everything.
As markets become globalised, the European Union will perhaps be the main player, able to influence the framework for imposing conditions on the market within the context of the democratic decision-making process.
We must, in our own work, see to it that the Union fulfills that task.
We need a market economy, but not a market dictatorship.
There is reason to hope that the Commission and all the legislative machinery that evolves out of its initiative in the future will create regulations allowing us to live and travel safely in a Europe where our citizens earn their livelihood under the protection of a modern system of collective bargaining.
With regard to that, I wish to emphasise the importance of the trade unions, whose job is especially important now in the maritime sector when it comes to increasing safety standards for the public.
Mr President, we in Finland have a saying that once the ships were made of wood and the sailors of iron, but now the ships are of iron and the sailors are made of wood.
This will be the case if cheap labour is able to be exploited freely in EU shipping.
As the previous speaker said, it is also a matter of safety.
There are very many examples of problems: ships capsize, as for example the Estonia did, in the Baltic Sea, and others catch fire.
In these situations we need staff who have language skills, who are knowledgeable when it comes to local conditions, and who can rescue people from disaster.
This is why we cannot have a situation where the safety of navigation is under threat all because of cheap labour.
All these rules are positive, in the same way as the continuation of duty-free shopping would serve this purpose in the Nordic countries.
Mr President, I welcome Miss McIntosh's report which supports the adoption of the proposal for a Council directive on manning conditions for regular passenger and ferry services operating between Member States.
May I take this opportunity to congratulate the rapporteur, albeit in her absence, for her excellent work on such an important and complex subject.
The Commission can agree to two of the amendments proposed.
It can accept the substance of Amendment No 1, provided that it is put into an appropriate article on definitions, since it is in favour of excluding exclusively cargo services from the scope of the directive.
I would point out here that the Commission is currently carrying out a study of the directive's economic impact, as requested by various delegations in the Council.
The scope of the directive may therefore be defined in greater detail in the light of the results of the study, which will be submitted to the Council in April.
As far as Amendment No 5 is concerned, the Commission can accept it on condition that the deadline for submission of the report is given.
Let us now move on to the amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
Amendment No 2 cannot be accepted as employment contracts are by definition individual contracts and cannot therefore be included in the article in question, where they would be placed alongside universally applicable instruments.
Amendment No 3 cannot be accepted as the right to allow seafarers to reside permanently on board ships, or to prohibit them from so doing, is not a matter which is internationally regulated.
Just because he provides regular ferry services does not give a seafarer the right to reside in a Member State, and the Commission does not intend to interfere in an area which would cause problems regarding residence rights in the European Union.
Of course this is without prejudice to any decisions which may be adopted under the second and third pillars.
Amendment No 4 cannot be accepted as the directive deals exclusively with the treatment of third-country seafarers working on regular passenger and ferry services between Member States, and is therefore not the appropriate context in which to make such a proposal.
In actual fact, the Commission is in the process of drawing up a communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the recruitment and training of seafarers in the European Union, which will assess what actions might be undertaken to encourage young people to enter the maritime professions and to promote quality training.
It will also examine how the education and training of seafarers are funded in the Member States.
As regards the proposal for a Council regulation, I note with regret that the rapporteur has departed from the Commission's proposal and has opted instead for an alternative text requiring the Commission to submit a proposal for a definitive system of manning rules by 1 January 2003.
Such a proposal would have to be based on the report on the economic and social impact of the liberalisation of island cabotage, which is to be submitted to the Council and Parliament by 1 January 2001.
The Commission cannot agree to such amendments.
On 17 June 1997, the Commission adopted a report which among other matters dealt with the economic and social impact of the liberalisation of island cabotage.
The report concluded that in such a labour-intensive sector as passenger and ferry services, a proposal allowing Member States to impose a compulsory quota of Community nationals in crews would be enough to properly safeguard the jobs of European Union seafarers and would also enable the internal market to operate on the basis of Community social provisions.
The report also concluded that in the cargo cabotage sector, which is linked up to international traffic and is less labour-intensive, there are not sufficient grounds to justify continuing to apply the host State's rules, as is the case at present.
In the proposed regulation an extra clause has been added which requires the host State to apply its own provisions on working conditions to third-country seafarers providing such services and employed on board ships flying its flag.
The European Parliament asks for the regulation not to be amended before the assessment of the impact of island cabotage is complete.
We should remember that as far as manning conditions are concerned, the provisions of the flag State normally apply to shipping companies; under the terms of the regulation in its present form, the host Member States can impose all their own rules on manning conditions, including rules on the minimum wage, qualifications required and social security for seafarers, as well as provisions on working time, rest periods, holidays and so on.
This amounts to a major and unjustified restriction of the freedom to provide services, as shipping companies from other Member States have to comply with the various requirements even when just carrying out a single cabotage operation.
Various companies have already written to the Commission voicing their concern about this.
On the basis of the legislation which is currently in force, it seems likely that the impact of liberalisation will be slight indeed.
The Commission feels that its own proposal offers a balanced solution which can effectively guarantee freedom to provide services as well as safeguarding Community seafarers' jobs on passenger services between the Member States of southern Europe, which is a highly labour-intensive sector.
At the same time, it enables the restrictions which would arise from the enforcement of all the host State's rules to be avoided.
In conclusion, I would like to thank Parliament for helping to ensure the swift adoption of the common position on these important measures, which will enable us to get rid of social dumping thanks to the application of Community employment rules to third-country nationals working on regular services, which as we have said are highly labour-intensive.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
In successive votes, Parliament adopted two legislative resolutions
EU - India Enhanced Partnership
The next item item is the report (A4-0066/99) by Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the Communication from the Commission on EU-India Enhanced Partnership (COM(96)0275 - C4-0407/96).
Mr President, 'We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.
The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us'.
These were the words of Nehru to the Constituent Assembly of the Indian Union on 14 August 1947, a few hours before the proclamation of India's independence.
He continued in words which are still relevant today: 'The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity'.
For fifty years India has pursued these objectives with determination.
Although illiteracy, poverty and disease have not been eradicated since independence was proclaimed, enormous progress has been made.
In 1947, three-quarters of the population lived below the poverty line.
Life expectancy at birth was 32 years whereas now this has nearly doubled to 62 years.
Illiteracy affected 84 % of the population whereas now over half of the population can read.
The country depended on external aid for agricultural production whereas now, thanks to the green revolution of the 1960s, India is self-sufficient in terms of food.
The major famines are no more than a bad memory, even though much still remains to be done to save many children from malnutrition.
In terms of population growth, the most pessimistic experts who thought that India could not control this have been proven wrong.
However, the figures reveal a population of 970 million, compared with 350 million in 1947, and the World Bank estimates the number of Indians will reach 1.3 billion by 2025, thus exceeding the population of China.
The population issue must therefore be a social and economic priority.
Since the beginning of this decade, India has embraced liberalisation. It has offered enormous markets and hoped for foreign investors but these have not appeared due to a protectionist commercial policy which imposes hefty customs duties and quantitative restrictions.
Yet economic and commercial reforms have allowed India to increase its participation in the world economy.
Politically, India can be proud that it is the largest parliamentary democracy in the world.
A new government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) emerged from the last elections in March 1998.
On entering office, Prime Minister Attal Vajpayee announced his declared intention to make India a nuclear power.
By conducting several tests in May last year, the Hindu nationalists of the BJP have tried to implement an independent nuclear policy, breaking with the previous policy of not exercising its nuclear option which had been maintained for nearly a quarter of a century.
The people were perhaps surprised but not so the international observers.
These events had the effect of suspending the progress of my report for several months.
The final text calls on India to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
We also consider it essential to restart the dialogue between India and Pakistan in order to come to a peaceful solution on the question of Kashmir. We are also calling for the continuation of dialogue on disarmament in these two countries.
The proposed partnership agreement is part of a new generation of agreements aimed at redefining the external action of the European Union.
India was one of the first countries to establish relations with the Union and since 1973 three agreements have been signed, initially defining commercial relations and then establishing an institutional framework for economic cooperation and development.
The present partnership will go much further. It proposes an intensified political dialogue between the two parties, the abolition of barriers to investment and trade and measures promoting cultural contacts and a permanent dialogue with civil society.
Other elements in the partnership's agenda include the preservation of biodiversity and the fight against drugs and money-laundering.
My report also concentrates on development aid which represents 95 % of the European aid granted to India.
The abolition of child labour is also one of the priorities and, where this cannot be avoided, a voluntary code of conduct for companies is recommended.
As the victims of age-old prejudice, women suffer every form of exploitation.
Furthermore, India is one of the few countries in the world where there are more men than women.
This is why the budget for basic health care has been increased.
Education for girls is of crucial importance since the figures show that educated women are at less risk from maternal and infant mortality.
Too many clichés abound. To associate India with shantytowns, extreme poverty and nothing else is too simplistic.
We hope that the EU-India dialogue will allow India to assume its rightful place on the world stage and that it will allow our Asia strategy to be revised so that it is not solely targeted at China.
Applause
Mr President, along with China, India is one of the biggest and most important states on the Asian continent.
I therefore welcome the fact that the rapporteur has done such an excellent job of promoting stronger partnership with India.
It is a rising economic power attracting private investment, and it is somewhere where my own country, the Netherlands, for example, has a good deal of its administrative work done by local companies because of their technical know-how and because the wage levels are lower.
Nevertheless, India with its large population still needs a great deal of development aid.
The interesting thing about India is that it is a subcontinent with an impressive culture, and it is this culture which, in the context of development cooperation, has prevented it from simply putting itself in the hands of the donor countries, as has happened with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, for example.
India is still in charge of policy in this field, which is a good thing to see.
Unfortunately, this mentality is also something of an obstacle, particularly for the further liberalisation of its trade system.
Strengthening links with India through top-level dialogue, as the Commission is proposing, could encourage movement in the right direction here, enabling this country with its established democracy to play a major role in the WTO.
All things considered, India has suffered less than expected from the economic crisis in Asia.
The Financial Times reported this week that the Indian telephone company has reduced call rates by 10 %, and by even more for international calls.
I think this is remarkable.
However, there are still some rather worrying developments, as the rapporteur said: child labour, increasing religious tensions, partly caused by Hindu nationalists, the conflict in Kashmir and, of course, the developments on the nuclear front.
Developments in neighbouring China are also worrying, but India could one day act as a counterbalance between the ASEAN countries, China and Japan, which would be a good thing.
The recent meeting between India and Pakistan was also a welcome development. All of these issues can be put on the agenda if there is a stronger partnership between India and the EU.
As a former journalist, vice-chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and member of the friendship association with India, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the case of a missing Indian journalist, Ram Singh.
India promised in 1997 to provide information on this man, but up to now we have heard nothing.
I hope that the Indian diplomats here can do so.
My group supports the partnership and we congratulate the rapporteur.
Mr President, in my opinion India is a country which has possibilities for the future.
I am pleased that the EU is willing to continue and strengthen the partnership we have had for a long time and which, let us hope, will continue for a long time to come.
Many think that India is a strange country which is difficult to get to know.
And so it is, if we see it through Western eyes.
But that is not how we should see it; we should look at India from within and with different eyes.
Then we shall discover that India is a unique country.
I for one, on many of my journeys, have experienced incredible sympathy and generosity, which seem to know no bounds.
However, apart from the positive aspects, there are also many development problems in India.
We must of course endeavour to help India in every possible way to take the right road, not because we want to control the country, but because we do not want it to make the same mistakes as many countries in Europe have done.
I would like to comment on a few points here - I will not go through them all since Mrs André-Léonard has already raised many important points, which I of course entirely support.
One of the comments I wish to make concerns regional cooperation in India and with countries around India. Regional cooperation is indeed of very great importance for the entire region, where India as the largest country clearly has a special position.
None of these countries can isolate itself entirely.
If a solution is to be found to many of the problems present in the region, problems with Pakistan and the Kashmir question for example, regional cooperation is of the utmost importance.
I also think that India increasingly realises and understands that.
Increased intergovernmental cooperation is therefore a precondition for the region to achieve positive development in terms of peace, the environment and balancing out economic and social differences in the region.
As regards the nuclear tests, we all had a great shock when we heard that India, immediately followed by Pakistan, had carried out test explosions.
It sounded to me very much like the most stupid thing which India had done for a long time.
This is definitely not the way to secure cooperation and trust. Nor does it square with the picture of India I have acquired and of the country I have got to know over many years.
My group and I of course condemn these nuclear tests.
Clearly we urge India to sign and ratify the nuclear test ban and non-proliferation treaties, and of course also the ban on anti-personnel mines, as soon as possible.
The Kashmir question is also important.
Here we come back to regional cooperation, which I believe can play a major role.
We hope of course that a peaceful solution can be found.
Progress has also been made in recent times.
The Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan recently met in Pakistan to discuss the question.
It was the first time in a great many years that an Indian Prime Minister had set foot in Pakistan.
We have also tabled an amendment to the André-Léonard report on this, which I hope you can support.
We have discussed freedom of religion in Parliament many times, most recently during the February part-session.
Regrettably, a very long list can be compiled of attacks and violence against religious minorities in India.
Unfortunately, there are repeated occurrences, despite the fact that the Indian Constitution guarantees religious freedom.
There are of course also a number of provisions to protect human rights.
When we speak of human rights, we must not forget that India still has the death penalty, which is unworthy of a democracy.
I therefore truly hope that India will abolish this sanction as soon as possible.
India has also still not signed the Convention on torture.
It is of course important too that this should be done as soon as possible.
We get repeated reports, from Amnesty International among others, that torture is going on in India.
Serious cases of torture have also occurred in the police.
I hope that India can sign this convention and that it will endeavour to solve these problems as soon as possible.
We in the Green Group have tabled an amendment precisely on this human rights issue, mainly in regard to the many unsolved cases which have arisen in relation to Kashmir; it is estimated that there have been over 800 unsolved cases since 1990.
Of course this is to impress upon India that it must make progress in resolving this matter.
When it comes to the environment, the problem is that India has nuclear power.
These nuclear power stations were obtained from the Soviet Union, which does not give any guarantee for the future.
I therefore hope that we can have greater cooperation on renewable energy resources so that nuclear power can be phased out in India, just as we want to phase it out in the EU countries.
Renewable energy resources show very great potential in India, especially where wind and solar energy are concerned.
Finally, we in the Green Group will of course support this partnership and will vote for the excellent André-Léonard report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Sir Leon Brittan always tells us that there is no alternative to his policy of kowtowing and exaggerated politeness on the red carpets of Beijing. He claims that there is no alternative to this policy which is based on sacrificing democracy, the rule of law and the freedom of the Tibetans, the Mongols and the inhabitants of Turkestan.
He says that there is no alternative to the negation of human rights and to the Chinese gulags.
Yet we now have an alternative as indicated in this report by Mrs André-Léonard which is heading in the right direction.
For India is the alternative for the European Union and its Asia policy.
A true strategic partnership should be established with this great country of a billion inhabitants, compared with 1.2 billion in China.
India is the largest democracy in the world and a country which, under the government of Mr Vajpayee, has not changed considerably since the government of Mr Rao.
Substantial economic reforms have been initiated and just as substantial economic progress has been made. The country is opening up to the world market, albeit still too slowly, and is strengthening its relations with the rest of the world.
So should we continue to follow Sir Leon when he tell us that there is no alternative? Or should we, the Commission, the Council and this House, make an effort to establish a programme which will allow us to rapidly instigate a strategic relationship with this country?
We still have a long way to go.
The Commission delegation in Delhi is totally inadequate.
This House does not even have an ad hoc delegation with India, although it does have one with the Chinese Communist empire. There is also no annual EU-India summit.
This House, and the Council and the Commission in particular, need a genuine strategy and measures which will allow us to be suitably equipped to meet this major challenge of ensuring India's progress towards increased democracy.
In my opinion, and certain Members have broached this problem, we must not look for excuses or pay attention to the problem of the nuclear tests in India.
India is quite rightly equipping itself with the means to protect itself, just as we did faced with the Soviet empire.
Why should we be so tolerant of the nuclear strike force of the Chinese Communist empire and yet make such a fuss because India, whose problem is not really with Pakistan but with the neighbouring Communist empire, equips itself with a deterrent power.
When the situation changed for us with the collapse of the Soviet empire and the lessening of the threat, we were able to start to disarm.
I believe that India, faced with such a country, has the legitimate right to equip itself with the means to protect itself.
I must congratulate Mrs André-Léonard on her report which contains some positive elements. The ball is now in the Commission's and Council's court to establish a strategic timetable with the Indian Parliament and the Indian Government so that India can become our favoured partner in Asia.
Mr President, with regard to this interesting report by Mrs André-Léonard, I am amazed at the lack of priority which this House tends to give to the issue of our relations with India, the largest democracy in the world. This is particularly true when you compare, for example, the emphasis given to our relations with China.
The refusal to discuss this report at the end of the sitting seems rather cavalier given that this is such an important subject.
This report paints a fairly full picture of India's current situation. This young democratic country has for some years been experiencing a sustained rate of growth and yet, in practice, the democracy seems to be built on extremely inegalitarian social structures.
The persistence of a caste system which the public authorities have not managed to challenge is at the root of an unfair distribution of benefits from the country's growth.
The recent violations of human rights, in particular the violation of religious freedom to the detriment of the Christian communities, as in neighbouring Pakistan, are also worrying and may not have been sufficiently stressed by our rapporteur.
Furthermore, the economic development of India is still based too much on industries which use underpaid and exploited labour, in particular child labour.
The external commercial policy of the European Union must help to correct these problems by providing the instruments needed to promote fair trade.
It must encourage the overall level of production standards in India to be raised and must seek to reduce as much as possible the unscrupulous trade in products which are only competitive because of unacceptable social and health conditions.
A policy restricted to establishing codes of conduct would be doomed to ineffectiveness.
Europe's action within the WTO must pursue the same objectives.
The rapporteur's recommendations on the necessary diversification of our aid programmes, on their decentralisation, on improved capillary action and on the extension of micro-loans seem relevant because they are well suited to the social and geographic structures of India.
If applied, they should help to improve the effectiveness of these structures.
Mr President, India is a country where nearly everything is on such a large scale as to make it a problematic as well as an important and promising partner for the European Union.
This report clearly addresses the priority areas, the acute problems and those that are more deeply rooted.
A great deal has already been said, and quite rightly, about the nuclear tests, but I nevertheless believe that the development of the partnership has to depend upon the decisions made in this area.
It is also important for India to sign the Ottawa Convention banning anti-personnel mines.
I feel it is particularly important for the EU, both in its overall partnership policy and in its relations with India, to be significantly involved in the fight against the exploitation of children.
The contradictions between legislation in this field and the way it is implemented in India are far too great.
It is also quite staggering that such technologically gifted people - I am thinking here of the software sector, for example - allow their children to be socially and sexually exploited to such a dreadful extent.
Campaigns run by the central government have failed due to the resistance of organised crime and corruption and the lack of flanking measures.
The extreme suffering caused to children forced into prostitution, particularly those from Nepal, is quite simply unacceptable.
I therefore feel that the proposal in paragraph 44, based on an initiative taken by President Clinton, is a constructive approach which may give some practical substance to European concern about the exploitation of children.
Firms would have to agree voluntarily to comply with certain minimum criteria in return for a fixed payment or bonus.
Implementing and policing this would certainly require some degree of political will and administrative expenditure, but it would be a definite signal and would hold out the prospect of achieving progress.
Mr President, I want to start by speaking from a specifically British viewpoint on India.
One of the arguments that was always put against British membership of the European Union was that it would mean that we would be turning our backs on the Commonwealth and that Europe was an inward-looking small club of rich nations that did not care about the rest of the world.
I always argued very strongly against that viewpoint in the 60s and 70s and argued that one of the great advantages of British membership of the European Union was precisely that it would bring the Commonwealth countries into a relationship with the rest of Europe, with all the advantages that could bring.
The report that we have before us today is a very good example of what precisely has happened.
Not only has the Commonwealth benefited by being brought into the Lomé Convention but also individual partnerships have been formed, such as the one we are discussing today.
I should like to congratulate Mrs André-Léonard very strongly on her excellent report which sets out very comprehensively the many social and political issues which face India.
We know there are problems.
The subcontinent of India has enormous potential but, as has been pointed out, many problems and tensions to be tackled particularly in its relationships with its immediate neighbours.
The European Union, as has been shown by this particular resolution, can engage very constructively with India, which is the biggest democracy in the world and which, for all its problems, remains a very strong and vibrant democracy after over 50 years of independence.
I would like to thank all the colleagues who have participated in this debate.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs André-Léonard, I too would like to thank you for the very thorough piece of work you have submitted to us.
The rapporteur quite rightly points out that India is an established democracy, and indeed one hardly dares imagine what the whole region would look like without this stabilising factor.
Nonetheless, the report hands out rather too much good advice for my liking.
Of course we should, for instance, condemn the attacks by religious fanatics, but this is what the Indian government does anyway, and we should not forget that leading Indian politicians have fallen victim to such fanatics.
We should therefore and above all look at supporting India in a very positive way.
I would like to make two further points.
Firstly, one of the proposed amendments quite rightly calls for the delegation in India to be reinforced.
That is however just one side of the story.
Cooperation between the Commission and the delegation would also need to improve, as it is not acceptable for aid-workers on the spot to be kept waiting for nine months before they get the first instalment of funding for their projects and to have to borrow money from other projects and other aid organisations until European Union resources are finally made available.
In instances of cofinancing it is particularly difficult to explain to a partner why they should provide their contribution whilst those on the European side drag their feet.
Secondly, I very much welcome the fact that some of the previous speakers also called for improved cooperation in the high-tech sector, for this is indeed the technology of the future for India, but if we do this I think we should nonetheless refrain from asking the Commission to draw up a code of conduct; I feel this is not a job for the Commission but for other organisations to do.
Mr President, we are seeing on a daily basis that India, the largest democracy in the world, is making considerable progress in strengthening its political, economic and social structures.
As documented in our new external strategy from 1995, we in Europe have a vital interest in fostering close relations based on shared values, fair partnership, economic cooperation with direct effects on jobs, and support for human rights.
In meetings I had over there, including in my capacity as vice-chairman of the European Parliament's SAARC Delegation, I was able to see for myself the quality of the reforms.
It is remarkable how stable India has remained in the midst of Asia's economic crisis thanks to its economic strength and innovative capacity.
The restructuring of the banking system and financial services and the expansion of the South Asia free trade area will be further important developments.
Nonetheless, as Mrs André-Léonard has already stated in her well-balanced report, our dialogue should not deal solely with economic matters.
Respect for human rights is an essential basis for all European Union agreements.
The fight against child labour can only be won if state authorities get actively involved, if a minimum income is guaranteed, if parents do their bit to ensure that their children are not reduced to the status of cheap and willing drudges.
Children must be able to attend school to get the education and training that will give them a future.
Village cooperative societies, micro-loans for women and NGO initiatives such as rugmark need our support.
Companies too must make their contribution by means of voluntary agreements to safeguard social standards.
The democracy so close to our hearts means respecting other religious persuasions as well.
There is no room for totalitarian philosophies.
Establishments in which people practise their religion must be protected against physical violence and threat just as ethnic minorities should be.
The words of Prime Minister Vajpayee need to be acted upon further.
The partnership between the largest state of the SAARC community and the European Union should be of high quality, built up through exchanges of young people, information and of course high tech, networks and a whole range of other experiences, involving political parties and parliaments as well.
Applause
Mr President, on behalf of the Commission and in particular of Vice-President Marín, I wish to warmly thank Parliament for having persevered with the work on the Commission's communication of June 1996 on an enhanced partnership with India, despite all the difficulties encountered.
I should like to particularly congratulate Mrs André-Léonard, who never tired in her efforts to bring this project to a positive conclusion.
I also thank her colleagues, Mr Rocard and Mr Malerba and the many honourable Members who have contributed through their questions, contributions in debate, observations and proposals for amendments, to assuring that the final outcome is both comprehensive and of high quality.
We are all aware of the unfortunate events of May last year, when India took the world by surprise and decided to reconduct nuclear tests after almost a quarter of a century.
There was a need for the European Union, especially the European Parliament, to observe closely events as they evolved and incorporate them fully into the analysis of our relations with India.
This has delayed the completion of the report.
In our view, all the institutions of the European Union reacted to these events in a balanced manner.
The message to both India and Pakistan was firm and simple, namely, that for the European Union, the principle of nuclear non-proliferation is non-negotiable.
This is, again, made very clear in the text of the resolution before us.
While emphasising principles, there is no alternative to pursuing the immediate priority objectives: lowering tensions and preventing an arms race on the subcontinent.
In the long term we must make every effort to reintegrate India and Pakistan into the non-proliferation system.
In the case of India in particular there is no alternative to dialogue.
India is the second most populous country on this globe, with a proud and tested democratic tradition.
Democracy has enabled India to preserve its unity, despite an ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity that is even more varied than in our European Union.
Sanctions would likely have fed frustrations, reinforced the radical sectors in Indian society and shut out the country even further from international efforts towards building a global security system.
The report rightly emphasises the legitimacy of India's aspirations to be recognised as a global player.
Few developing, even developed, countries could stand the strain of preserving a comparable democratic routine in the face of challenges as daunting as India's.
The nuclear tests have certainly given India worldwide attention, but for the wrong reasons.
Indeed, they may well have set back India's global aspirations.
On the other hand, there are aspects of global concern which cannot be tackled successfully without a contribution by the giant India.
I will not list them here as they are so clearly identified in the report.
The current level and depths of our political relations with India still do not reflect the fact that the European Union is India's most important and only growing export market, its first source of investment and technology and also its principal aid donor.
However, in high-level meetings, as in our daily contacts with our partners, we are confronted with the fact that the European Union is little understood in India and its role hardly acknowledged.
This applies to all levels of Indian society, including the government.
In order to put our political relationship with India on a footing that reflects not only the importance of our economic relations but also the status of both the EU and India as global players, it is imperative that we work on increasing our visibility in India.
I, therefore, welcome your support towards setting up a press and information unit in the Commission's delegation in New Delhi, as is already the case in other major capitals.
Already we seem to be gaining some ground in this aspect.
Our decision to maintain dialogue following the nuclear tests and to expand dialogue into new areas is contributing to enhancing our profile.
The euro has received, and continues to receive, extensive coverage in the Indian media.
I, therefore, very much welcome the proposal contained in the resolution that the European Parliament take on a more active role in maintaining regular dialogue with its Indian counterpart and that Parliament be given the resources to do so effectively.
India is not only a democracy in name but also a living and vibrant democratic body politic with a free and fiercely competitive press which has the largest combined circulation worldwide.
Indians are proud of their traditions and especially sensitive about their democratic credentials.
We must take into account these sensitivities when adopting declarations, especially when exhorting India on the issue of minority rights and human rights in general.
This does not imply that dialogue with India on matters relating to human rights is not possible.
It is not only possible, but also highly desirable.
The Commission does not, and never has, side-stepped its responsibilities in this field.
The Commission is convinced that dialogue at all levels, including an intensified dialogue between India's civil society and the EU and its respective institutions, which must also include Parliament, is the only way forward.
However, we are not convinced that public declarations would not have the opposite effect; namely, make such dialogue more difficult, at least in the short term.
Last January the 10th EC/India Joint Commission Meeting was held in Brussels.
On this occasion we formally launched the high-level economic dialogue between India and the EU.
We are convinced that this is the way forward to building confidence and trust.
The vote on the House's report on an enhanced EU/India partnership is very timely.
I should like to thank the House for its tremendous effort.
It is reassuring to know that we have the support of Parliament in this extraordinary venture of building our relationship with this great country.
Finally, I was interested in the interventions of those, including Mr Dupuis, who strongly underlined the need to institute an annual EU/India summit.
We believe this proposal deserves serious consideration in a constructive spirit.
I believe this reflection should build on, in particular, two sets of elements: on the one hand, the already existing mechanisms which have been set up including an annual ministerial meeting at Troika-level, senior officials meeting, strategy planners meeting, consultations in the margins of multilateral fora and a series of working groups.
Despite the hiatus imposed by the nuclear tests, we have been working hard to make these mechanisms fully operational.
The second context in which the idea of an annual EU/India summit should be considered is the evolution in the structures concerning common security and foreign policy that the Amsterdam Treaty is about to bring into force very soon.
Applause
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Before we move on to the vote, Mr Wibe has asked for the floor.
Mr President, according to Rule 112(2), at least one third of Members must be present in plenary sitting if there is to be a quorum.
That means 209 Members.
When I look around, I think I can estimate the number of Members present at about 60 to 70.
I doubt whether there are more than 100 Members present in the House.
The rest have gone home.
I have been an MEP for four years. We have never on any Friday fulfilled the conditions for a quorum.
We have before us an important agreement.
I think that we should show to the world's largest democracy, India, the respect that we are at least a quorum when we take a decision on this agreement.
I therefore call for a count to establish whether there are 209 Members in the Chamber or not.
Mr Wibe, in accordance with the same Rule that you mentioned, Rule 112 - of which you only mentioned part - in order to request the President to establish if a quorum is present, you must have the support of at least 29 Members.
The President noted that the request for the quorum to be established did not have the support required by the Rules
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, there will be no discussion on this matter.
This item is now closed.
You may have the floor, but only if it is on a different matter.
Mr President, I should just like to make one comment.
I would point out to Mr Wibe that even yesterday when there were some very important votes to be taken, there were not even 29 members of his group present.
So if you are going to make this kind of comment, you need to be sure that you have some people from your own political family to support you.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, you have shaken my good faith in you, since I had already told you that there would be no discussion on this matter.
The Chair has the last word, and you did not let me have it, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
In any event, we are not going to debate this issue any further.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to join you in congratulating Mrs André-Léonard and in thanking her for her work.
The EU must make every effort to shape its cooperation with India in such a way that the country's nuclear weapons do not come to be used and that there is no proliferation of fissile materials for nuclear power and nuclear arms.
The EU must also impose stringent demands on India to investigate and process the unsolved disappearances which have occurred in Kashmir, and must demand an end to the violation of human rights.
Macro-financial assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina
The next item is the report (A4-0097/99) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing macro-financial assistance to Bosnia and Herzegovina (COM(98)0652 - C4-0704/98-98/0311(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, here in Strasbourg last Wednesday we had the chance to talk to representatives of the various parties in the elected national parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina for the first time in our Delegation for South-East Europe, led by our most energetic chairman Doris Pack.
This political dialogue showed us that we can take it as read that we and the Members of Parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina are determined to work together and that they place a great deal of trust in us as representatives of the European Parliament and the European Union as a whole.
We should do justice to this trust and be guided by it in the work we do in the European Parliament, focusing our policies on peace, reconciliation and reconstruction and continuing to implement them consistently.
Over the last few days Bosnia-Herzegovina has been hitting the international headlines, and not just because the decision about the status of the city of Brcko has finally been taken.
From now on all sections of the population are to be covered by a single municipal and district administration, so as to put a stop to all the conflicts and blockades.
The Office of the High Representative has taken on an important role here, organising cooperation, ensuring that refugees return home and promoting peaceful coexistence in this region of Brcko.
In addition to this, the High Representative has done what was necessary and removed the President of Republika Srpska, Mr Poplasen, from office, thereby preventing the destructive forces associated with Milosevic from holding up the reconstruction work started there.
The international community is therefore utterly determined to continue with the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina and its constituent parts, in other words its entities, and to put a stop to those who oppose the Dayton peace process.
The macro-financial assistance for Bosnia-Herzegovina which we are discussing today is an important element in the European Union's efforts to do its bit for the reconstruction of Bosnia-Herzegovina and to help the country to help itself.
The aim of the financial assistance is to support the economic reform and reconstruction programme for Bosnia-Herzegovina, as agreed with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, by means of firm pledges of financing.
Back in March 1998 the IMF and the World Bank outlined a macro-economic programme for Bosnia-Herzegovina.
After our ECOFIN Council in April 1998 also agreed to this EU financial assistance, the Commission stated at the fourth Donors' Conference - supported by myself as the representative of the European Parliament - that it was in principle willing to provide Bosnia-Herzegovina with macro-financial assistance amounting to around 50 % of that given by the entire international community.
Out of this, EUR 30 million is to be given in loans and EUR 30 million in the form of grants.
With this proposed financial assistance the European Union hopes to support the implementation of an economic reform programme comprising a series of both macro-economic and institutional commitments, concerning both the common institutions of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the institutions of the two entities.
Although lasting peace is gaining ground in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the country's structures are still fragile and still depend on international support.
The most urgently needed structural reforms at this stage are banking reforms, enterprise privatisation and restructuring, reform of the healthcare and pensions system, the introduction of a simplified system of customs tariffs and the liberalisation of foreign currency transactions and trade.
Most importantly of all, Bosnia-Herzegovina must earn revenue of its own, particularly revenue from customs duties.
However, corruption in the tax administration, an upsurge in organised crime and a plethora of cases of fraud mean that the organs of State - government, parliament and the judiciary - and spending controls do not yet work properly.
The amendments proposed by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which I am now tabling, support the Commission in this action and I would ask for your approval of this report.
Mr President, on behalf of the Party of European Socialists I should like to congratulate Mr Schwaiger on his excellent, very clear report.
It sums up very comprehensively the extremely delicate situation which still prevails in Bosnia and Herzegovina and ways in which the European Union can assist in maintaining what is still a very fragile peace and help to move forward towards the creation of democracy and peaceful cooperation between its different ethnic groups, which we all want to see.
The EUR 60 m of aid being discussed here is a comparatively small sum but, as the rapporteur points out, Bosnia and Herzegovina has been receiving very large sums of money in the wake of the disastrous civil war and financial assistance on that scale is unlikely to continue.
It is therefore essential that this money is very carefully targeted and monitored to ensure that it is used to bring about the necessary reforms to enable the country to become self-sustaining.
Better infrastructure, efficiently functioning public administration supporting democratic structures and the continued transition to a market economy are vital to achieve this.
The PES supports all the amendments to the Commission proposals which will serve to strengthen the monitoring of the use of the money in a country where fraud, corruption and organized crime are, sadly, still part of the legacy of the civil war.
All of us in Europe have an interest in helping to improve security, employment and living standards and resettling refugees and displaced persons in a part of our continent.
It is a moral as well as financial imperative to ensure that this macro-financial assistance is targeted as effectively as possible to achieve these aims in partnership with the IMF and the World Bank.
The PES welcomes the full involvement of the European Parliament in this process.
Thank you very much, Mrs Hardstaff.
And now ladies and gentlemen, for five minutes and on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists - I am sorry, I must ask Parliament's services to rectify what I have just said, since although I am sure that Mr von Habsburg could speak on behalf of any of us, in this case, he is in fact speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
Mr von Habsburg, you have the floor for five minutes.
Thank you very much, Mr President, for honouring me by saying that I was a member of your party.
Our friendship is so strong that no party barriers come between us.
Mr President, Mr Schwaiger has once again done some excellent work here and has addressed a great many problems.
Perhaps I could look at what might be termed the political side, since this is, after all, one of the trickiest issues.
By the way, this is the best proof we could have that Friday sittings are worth attending.
Thinking back to all the nonsense that was talked on previous days, I must say that this subject is substantially more important than most of the others that have been discussed.
Let us be clear about one point: the problem of Bosnia is perhaps the most difficult of all for us to deal with, as the crisis there could not be predicted.
It was a sudden event which swept over the country, catching it unawares and directly exposing it to an attack from outside, from Serbia.
There were further difficulties besides, as demonstrated by events in Brcko, where a problem was once again left unresolved.
It is all very well to say that Brcko should be turned into a neutral zone.
However, this is not what had been clearly promised, which was that the wishes of the population would be followed.
In that case Brcko would obviously have joined the Federation of Bosnia rather than becoming neutral territory, although that would still have been better than handing it straight over to the Serbs, since there are scarcely any Serbs in Brcko.
The majority of people there were Muslims and Croats, who certainly had no wish to live under Serbian rule.
We should also consider that even the dismissal of Mr Poplasen from his post as President of Republika Srpska has yet again shown that the clean-up operation so vitally necessary if there is to be cooperation has not yet taken place in Republika Srpska.
The fact that Mr Karadzic's cronies continue in power to a certain extent poisons the whole situation.
Therefore our task, first and foremost, is to help the present, legitimate government.
This also means, of course, helping this legitimate government by setting a good example ourselves.
It was most regrettable that a number of the worst cases of corruption in the Commission were related to this very area, and perhaps not enough has yet been done to clear up these cases.
We are a long way, after all, from putting the Commission's house in order and it is high time, given the situation, for this to be done.
When all is said and done, it has to be acknowledged that many of the problems listed here, such as corruption, fraud and crime, actually stem from Republika Srpska and again and again spill over into the territory of the Federation.
The latter, which I have frequently visited, enjoys quite a high degree of law and order.
It is Republika Srpska which spreads disorder and which is still under totalitarian leadership, whereas the present government in Bosnia, as well as Muslims, Croats and even Serbs, genuinely believe in democracy.
Yes, such a thing is possible!
The problem is that we have never given them enough support.
We could have worked very well with these Serbs, had we decided not to play games over and over again with Karadzic, Vladic and company, whatever their names are.
This is an absolutely fundamental political problem.
We shall have to call upon our Union to pursue a clear and unambivalent policy not just towards Republika Srpska within Bosnia, but also in Serbia itself.
There is one point we must grasp, which is that as long as Milosevic is in power there will be no peace, just as there would never have been peace in Germany had Hitler been allowed to continue in power!
They are after all broadly similar characters.
We must finally resolve to give effective support to those forces existing in Serbia - we have seen them here ourselves on occasion.
Only then will we have peace.
Mr President, I will first pay tribute to the rapporteur for what is a good report.
I do not do that as a matter of routine but only when it is justified, which is the case here.
I readily concur with Mr von Habsburg's description of the political situation in these countries - he knows it much better than I do.
It is thus a question of creating democracy in a country which must now rebuild after war and terror have ravaged its people both physically and socially for so long.
It is a question of creating political reforms for democracy, stability, a market economy and sustainable growth.
It is a question of creating living conditions for the people who live in these areas, and who must both cope with their own everyday lives and deal with displaced persons and returning refugees.
After all the crises we have now had in the Commission, with fraud and mismanagement of resources, which have been discussed in this Chamber many times, not least in connection with matters involving reconstruction programmes, it is immensely important, indeed a condition, that resources for these programmes should actually be used for the intended purpose and that we achieve the results sought by the programme.
This demands proper control of how the money is spent. Since, in the wake of the war, crime and disorder are also rife in the receiving countries, with fraud and corruption as part of everyday life, it is even more important that the money we commit is not subject to mismanagement on the donor's side.
It is immensely important, from the point of view of trust towards us as politicians and parliamentarians, that matters now proceed according to acceptable rules.
It is also important to cooperate with other lenders and funding agencies, such as the IMF and the European Investment Bank, and to involve the new institutions, the banking system, the central bank and so forth in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Reporting on and monitoring of activities is also absolutely crucial, so that we who are now appropriating funds can ascertain what happens and correct any errors.
It is also a good idea to have a clear deadline for when reports and so on are to be presented.
This is a good proposal.
It can also be a good reform - everything depends on how it is set up, implemented and controlled.
Mr President, even in the peaceful states of Central and Eastern Europe we see that economic and financial assistance have no effect without the rule of law and good governance.
But this is particularly the case in a country destroyed by war, where the war may have ended but peace has not yet been achieved.
There is crime and corruption everywhere, even in our own countries, but of course it is far worse in a country whose future is something not many people believe in and who therefore feel that they need to feather their own nests quickly before everything falls apart.
Through statements like those made by Lord Owen, who said that Republika Srpska might be annexed to Serbia after all, we are supporting crime and mismanagement.
This destroys confidence that the country of Bosnia-Herzegovina will continue to exist in the future, and that is dangerous because it could bring all our economic and financial efforts to nothing.
I therefore hold the view that we need political stability, and this primarily involves the return of displaced people and refugees.
I regret that so far the Commission and the Council have not been able to give me any statistics on how many displaced people and refugees have returned to each entity, so that we could make a scientific comparison of how many have returned to the Muslim Croat Federation and how many, or rather how few, have been able to go back to Republika Srpska - virtually none in the latter case.
If we had figures available we would see what the ratio was.
Therefore I urgently request that such data be provided to help us assess the situation.
As far as Brcko is concerned, neutrality is certainly better than annexing it to Serbia against the will of the people, but this neutrality can only be a transitional solution.
It must be internationally guaranteed.
It brings back fateful memories of the Baltic Corridor before the Second World War.
We have to recognise that true peace is still a long way off for this country.
Step by step we must try to bolster stability, but we should also realise that it will take years, maybe even decades, for normal conditions to be restored.
I therefore welcome the Schwaiger report for its practical and critical attitude and also for its endeavours to help people in specific ways and to consolidate administration and the rule of law, without which there will be fresh waves of refugees, and the return of refugees and all the reconstruction work we have done, of which many are justifiably so proud, will immediately come under threat if the highly fragile peace there is destroyed.
Dayton was just a first step, and a thoroughly inadequate agreement at that, and we need to make considerable improvements to it here.
Mr President, the Commission congratulates the rapporteur, Mr Schwaiger, for the excellent report which Parliament is to vote on today, and thanks him for the support he has given to the Commission's proposal.
The Commission is proposing macro-financial assistance for Bosnia-Herzegovina amounting to a total of EUR 60 million, consisting of a loan of up to EUR 30 m and a non-repayable component of up to EUR 30 m.
The granting of a non-repayable component is due to the country's level of development and will require a special decision from the budgetary authority.
To make sure that this assistance is provided in good time, without having to wait for the legal basis to be adopted, the Commission will ask the budgetary authority to consider this decision as a matter of urgency, in line with the strategy pursued by the international donor community and by the European Union in particular after the constitution of the State of Bosnia-Herzegovina following the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in December 1995.
The operation is designed to be a one-off addition to the measures provided for under the PHARE And OBNOVA programmes.
The specific objective of the operation proposed is to support efforts to bring about macro-economic stability and structural reform in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the context of the programme agreed with the International Monetary Fund.
Furthermore, at the last meeting of the Peace Implementation Council, held on 15-16 December in Madrid, ministers recognised that economic reforms, together with the strengthening of the common institutions, are fundamental priorities if the autonomous development of Bosnia-Herzegovina is to be safeguarded.
Since the authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina concluded a stand-by agreement with the IMF in May 1998, some progress has been made on fundamental economic reforms.
A common currency, the convertible marka, has been adopted, a common state budget has been passed, and budgetary spending by both entities has been strictly kept within the constraints of the revenue available.
On 1 January 1999, a single customs code, consistent with European Union rules, came into force, and progress has been made in harmonising the trade regimes of both entities.
In addition, a World Bank programme to improve the management of public finances has been completed.
Nonetheless, a hefty package of work still remains to be done.
Gross domestic product per capita is estimated at well below pre-war levels.
Overall unemployment is estimated at between 35 and 40 %.
Bosnia-Herzegovina's external financial situation is still shaky and not enough progress has been made in fundamental sectors such as privatisation, the reform of the banking and payments system and tax reform.
To conclude, Mr President, I should like to make a number of comments on the rapporteur's proposed amendments.
The Commission supports Amendments Nos 1, 4 and 5.
It also shares the concerns expressed in many of the amendments rejected, but at the same time it considers it important to safeguard the effective implementation of the assistance, the integrity of the aims pursued and the exceptional nature of this financial instrument.
The implementation procedures have proved their worth in many similar operations managed by the Commission.
Making the procedures unduly burdensome could jeopardise the efficacy of the operation.
I would like to emphasise that the Commission intends to guarantee that the macro-financial assistance complements and is entirely consistent with other forms of Community assistance to Bosnia-Herzegovina.
In particular, it intends to make full use of the advice of CAFAO, the Tax and Customs Assistance Office funded by the European Union, and will give priority to the implementation of measures recommended by the Office to combat fraud and corruption.
I would also point out, whilst on this subject, that the macro-financial assistance provided in the form of a non-repayable grant and a loan will be paid into an account at the Central Bank, in order to increase its currency reserves and boost the balance of payments.
It would be extremely difficult for funds to be embezzled or misused under these circumstances, given also that the use of official reserves is subject to constant supervision by the IMF.
The Commission notes Parliament's desire to be informed of the conditions laid down for granting this assistance in good time, and it will therefore forward a report on this as soon as possible, as is provided for in any case in the proposal.
Nevertheless, in order to negotiate these conditions, which are an essential part of the operation, a certain degree of flexibility is needed and we must comply with any confidentiality requirements which the authorities in the country might impose regarding the substance and timetable of the reforms.
The Commission is however prepared to answer any questions Parliament sees fit to ask during the operation and after it has been completed.
In the Commission's eyes it is vital to safeguard the objectives of an operation which is designed to support macro-economic stability and economic reforms, and to this end the implementation of the assistance needs to be well coordinated with the international financial institutions present in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Nevertheless, given the exceptional circumstances prevailing in this area, the Commission will remain in close contact with the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as it already does anyway.
Finally, as in other Community operations of a financial nature, the principles of sound and efficient management and rigorous budgetary control will of course be complied with.
The Commission will support these principles before the Council, to make sure that they are properly applied in the final decision.
Mr President, Commissioner, I take it from what you have said that you will accept and incorporate all the proposals made by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, which are now the European Parliament's proposals.
I just have one question regarding Amendment No 11 to Article 5(1)(new): does this also refer to informing the European Parliament before the second tranche of financial assistance is released? We feel it would make sense to draw up a short interim report and only to proceed further once you have informed us and we have been able to assure you of our further support.
Mr President, as I have already said, the Commission supports Amendments Nos 1, 4 and 5, and I have also stressed that the Commission shares the concerns voiced in many of the amendments which it has rejected but the spirit of which it will bear in mind.
As for the amendment Mr Schwaiger is referring to, that is No 11, the Commission does not feel it can accept it as such but intends to take account of it in a Commission statement to the Council of Ministers, which will of course be made in public.
The reason why we are unwilling to accept the amendment as such is that the procedure proposed could present risks for the efficiency of the operation.
Nonetheless, given the exceptional political and social circumstances prevailing in Bosnia-Herzegovina at the present time, the Commission will keep the competent bodies of both Parliament and the Council regularly informed of developments, including the actual execution of the assistance programme, which I think the honourable Member particularly emphasised.
That is all I can tell you about this matter for the moment.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
The Minutes of today's sitting will be submitted to the House for its approval at the beginning of its next sitting.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are aware of how much I value the fact that you all work with me to help things run smoothly and to carry out the good and fruitful work we do at these Friday morning sittings.
In all seriousness, allow me to say how I feel and to express my gratitude, on behalf of the House, to all those who collaborate with us, since this has been a week of very intense work.
This week we approved the amendments to be made to the Rules of Procedure by a vast majority.
These amendments will not enter into force until all the Member States have approved the amendments made to the Treaties in Amsterdam.
This means that, as we are coming to the end of this parliamentary term, we have almost completely prepared the Rules of Procedure of this House for its next term.
I must say that I felt as if we were planting a tree, that we had stopped concentrating on our day-to-day work for a few moments so that we could also take a responsible look at the future.
I hope - and I am sure, as you all are - that this tree will bear fruit and will shelter the Members who, as representatives of the people of Europe, will hold these seats in the next parliamentary term.
Before I close the sitting, Mr Rübig wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, I just wanted to express my thanks to the French authorities for providing such exemplary cover for the demonstrations by the Kurds and the farmers and for giving full consideration to the security of this House.
Many thanks to the French authorities!
Mr President, I do not wish to thank the French authorities.
I have had two groups of visitors who were subjected to a great deal of extremely annoying red tape.
They were searched and made to pay fines.
What my groups suffered this morning gives a very poor impression of Europe and I believe that the French authorities should respect the Schengen area and not be so overzealous.
They really are working to rule.
I must protest at the way in which groups of visitors who come here to Strasbourg are treated.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would propose that we do not begin a debate on this question.
The speeches by Mr Rübig and Mrs Lulling will be recorded in the Minutes.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 11.35 a.m.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 12 March 1999.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 12 March 1999 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would remind the House of the recent death of Yehudi Menuhin in Berlin on 12 March. Berlin was the scene of his rise to fame and it was to Berlin that he returned in 1945 to promote dialogue with the German people.
He was the first Jewish person to do so.
Yehudi Menuhin made a conscious decision to become a European.
He supported those who fought for freedom in the Soviet Union and was the first to put forward in the Knesset the notion of an Israeli-Palestinian confederation. He conducted the peace concert in Sarajevo, and worked to ensure that culture and the development of culture featured in our Treaties.
He also cooperated with Parliament and with the Commission to develop the MUS-Europe programme. To date, this programme has enabled over 3 000 children from underprivileged and marginalised areas of the European Union to learn music, mime and movement, as part of education for tolerance.
Mr President, I think we owe something to this self-professed European and British citizen. I am not calling for a minute's silence simply because I believe Yehudi Menuhin himself would have wished our debates to continue as planned.
I appreciate that today is a difficult day, but I do feel that the House should pay tribute to the memory of Yehudi Menuhin.
Loud applause
Thank you, Mr Barón.
I think the applause indicates that the House supports your views, and they will be passed on as appropriate.
Mr President, I should like to inform you that a few days ago in the rue Wirtz, a woman was raped and then murdered, and I support your efforts to secure the establishment of a police station, which is urgently needed and would be greatly welcomed by those who live and work in the surrounding area.
Mr Rübig, I have already sent two or three letters to the relevant Belgian authorities, but I will make further representations to them following your request.
Mr President, I refer to the Minutes of the last plenary session in Strasbourg.
On Thursday I asked if we could have some information regarding the ongoing dispute about the interpreters and the payment of their wages.
I understand that today we shall be discussing the wages of other personnel but I think we should be looking into the matter of the interpreters.
Madam Fontaine promised that a note would be circulated explaining the current situation.
Can you advise me if that note is now on its way?
Thank you for reminding me of this issue, Mr Falconer.
It was dealt with at the last meeting of the Bureau, and a note explaining the situation will be distributed to Members immediately.
The Bureau instructed the Secretary-General to act on Parliament's behalf and to bring all possible pressure to bear in the search for a solution to the problem, in the hope that it will be resolved as soon as possible.
The Minutes were approved
Order of business
The draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
Pursuant to Rule 97 of the Rules of Procedure, and in view of the events which took place last week, I propose the following amendments to the agenda for the sittings to be held today and tomorrow.
I should inform the House that these changes have already been included in a corrigendum to the agenda, but they need to be formally adopted.
The President read out the amendments to the agenda
Mr President, you have just mentioned as an item on the agenda, incorporating the corrigendum that we have received, the statement by the Council following the resignation of the Commission.
I do not think that this wording represents what actually happened last week, which was the resignation - albeit collective - of the members of the Commission.
This is what was stated in the letter that Mr Santer sent to Gerhard Schröder, which, I would point out, was signed by all the Commissioners individually.
I think we should not give the public the wrong impression, particularly by leading it to believe that the motion of censure was adopted.
There would indeed have been a collective resignation if the motion of censure which I and 69 of my colleagues tabled had been adopted, but this is not what happened.
The agenda should therefore refer to the individual resignation of the members of the Commission, so as to prevent any misunderstanding among the public.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I do not think there is any problem about saying in the agenda 'the resignation of all the members of the Commission'.
It is not just one or two members who have resigned, but all of them.
They announced this in one single document, which they all signed, so I think we can quite easily call this the resignation of all the members of the Commission.
I cannot see any problem in leaving this item as it stands.
Mr President, tomorrow's agenda includes the De Giovanni report on scrutiny of the exercise of the Commission's powers.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has asked me to recommend to the House that this report be referred back to the Committee on Institutional Affairs, since the Committee on Budgetary Control urgently needs to discuss this matter further, particularly in the light of what is in the Wise Men's report and in terms of access to information and the supply of information.
I would ask you to take a vote on whether this report can be removed from the agenda and referred back to the Institutional Affairs Committee.
I have already spoken to the chairman, and we agree that the events of the last few days have made some additional work necessary.
Mrs Theato, referral back to committee must be requested by a political group or by 29 Members.
Does any group wish to take over this request?
Mr President, you will recall that I asked at the last part-session for the groups and committees to be given another opportunity to peruse this rather insubstantial document and to see whether it represents the best solution.
For that reason, my group is naturally in favour of referring the report back to committee.
Mr President, I should like to speak in favour of this proposal because, under these new circumstances, it makes a good deal of sense to reopen the discussion of an agreement which had its merits but could of course be further improved with the new Commission.
I can therefore say, on behalf of my group, that we are fully behind this idea.
Parliament approved the request for referral back to committee
Mr President, I believe I speak for many other Members as I put the following question, which I hope the Commission can respond to.
Following the resignation of all the members of the Commission, we have repeatedly read that the Commission will continue to deal with current business, but will not for instance take legislative decisions. This is perfectly understandable.
My question is as follows: does the debate on Agenda 2000 count as current business?
According to statements made by President Schröder and others, this will be a key issue at the European Council to be held in Berlin the day after tomorrow. The Commission is very well acquainted with everything involved in this debate and I should like to know if, despite its great significance, the Commission feels it counts as current business.
I suggest that we do not debate this question now.
It would seem best to ask the Council itself to reply when it takes the floor shortly. I can also make available to you a legal report prepared by Parliament covering this very contingency.
Mr President, I have heard that the Commission and the Council Presidency will be here today and tomorrow.
Today, tomorrow, or at the very latest the day after tomorrow, a decision will be taken on a crucial issue, military intervention in Kosovo, the repercussions of which for peace in general and in the Balkans in particular are anyone's guess. Perhaps you could therefore take it upon yourself to ask these two institutions to make a statement informing Parliament what the position of the European Union is and what their own position is, and to hear the opinion of this House.
Mr President, we have a historic duty ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr Ephremidis, this is not the time to hold a debate on Kosovo.
There are other opportunities for that.
It is not possible at the moment.
The order of business was thus established
Statement by the Commission
Mr Santer, you have the floor to make your statement.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are currently going through one of the most difficult periods in the construction of Europe.
These are very distressing times for me and for the other members of the Commission, both professionally and personally.
We assisted the Committee of Independent Experts in its work, and we acted swiftly and without hesitation by resigning as soon as we knew its conclusions.
It was a very painful decision, but it was necessary to preserve the institution of the Commission and the European Union as a whole.
We must now ensure that the right lessons are learnt from this crisis, which must be the catalyst for deep-rooted and permanent reform in the European institutions.
I hope that it will pave the way for a more transparent, responsible and democratic Europe, a Europe that applies the most rigorous ethical standards.
This is what the people and the taxpayers of Europe expect of us.
I have said that the Commission intends to leave office as soon as possible, and this naturally depends on when the Member States and Parliament decide to appoint and approve our successors.
Until then we shall endeavour to provide a smooth transition.
We will not take any new political initiatives, but we will deal with matters already in hand and any urgent business, and we will meet our institutional and legal obligations.
I think it is in the interests of all the institutions that interinstitutional relations should not be affected.
As for the report by the independent experts, I said at the outset that their work had our support and that we would act on their conclusions.
We have kept our word, but I have to say that my colleagues and I were dismayed that such general and sweeping conclusions were drawn from the cases examined.
As many Members of this House have recognised, we have done more than any Commission before us to try to improve the Commission's working methods.
When I took office four years ago, I started work straight away on modernising the administrative tradition at the Commission, and many of these reforms are now in place.
I regret that the turbulence of the last few weeks has prevented greater attention from being focused on the reforms that we had already launched.
Perhaps it is a law of history that crises occur when things are getting better, not when they are getting worse.
We now need to move on and learn from past mistakes.
The experts' report talks at length about 'responsibility', an essential concept for any modern civil service which is responsible to those it serves.
I am convinced that our reforms are starting to bring about change, and the next Commission needs to go even further.
The concept is one that applies equally to all the institutions, and it also implies that the funding the Commission is allocated must be commensurate with the tasks it is given.
No matter what the political pressure, the Commission must not take on any new tasks if it does not have the financial and human resources to carry them out.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I wish my successor, who I hope will be appointed very quickly, every success in his difficult task, and I hope the European Parliament will give him its full support in the greater interest of the Union.
Applause
Thank you, Mr Santer.
Through its applause, the House has shown how much it has appreciated the dignity with which you have acted throughout this period.
Thank you.
Mixed reactions
Council statement following the resignation of the Commission
The next item is the Council statement following the resignation of the Commission, followed by a debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, coming at a time when Europe faces difficult decisions concerning its future development, the resignation of the European Commission is a severe test of our resilience, but it is also perhaps a salutary shock.
First of all, our thanks and recognition are due to the European Parliament.
It has vigorously exercised its parliamentary right of scrutiny, which is only right and fitting.
Without the dedicated work of many of your staff from all the political groups, the beneficial process that is now taking place would never have happened.
The people of our Member States rightly expect the institutions of the European Union to use the revenue from their taxes in a responsible manner.
But let me add in the clearest possible terms that the members of the Commission and their staff also merit our respect and thanks.
They deserve respect for having accepted political responsibility for the circumstances described in the independent experts' report; and the Commission and its staff also deserve our thanks for the work they have done over the last few years to deepen and broaden European union.
Strategic decisions were taken during their tenure, such as the introduction of the euro and the start of the present enlargement process, decisions in which the Commission played a vital part.
Not least among its achievements is Agenda 2000.
The Commission must complete the work it has started on this initiative while it is still in office, which I hope will be done within a few days.
Europe, the presidency and all of us here must be able to depend on a fully operational Commission in the coming days.
The resignation of the Commission has highlighted the slow but steady development of a European public opinion and the strengthening of parliamentary democracy as a component of the Union.
It is my belief that the principles of democracy have stood this test, and I welcome that from the bottom of my heart.
Applause
But the deplorable errors that have now been uncovered must not bring the entire institution into disrepute.
Since the European Communities were founded more than 40 years ago, the Commission has been the key institution in the unceasing advance of European integration.
It has to represent the common good of all 15 Member States in an impartial way and must also continue to be the driving force and initiator of new developments in the realm of European policy.
If we wish to achieve the aims of the Union - and there is surely no doubt of that - we cannot afford to discredit an institution which is unparalleled in the history of our nation states.
The European Union needs a strong Commission with authority to act, and needs it quickly.
What is now required is the total radical reform that President Santer has already initiated.
That too must be explicitly recognised.
The MAP 2000 programme for better organisation and personnel management and the SEM 2000 programme, designed to improve financial control, are steps in the right direction.
The Commission's internal inspectorate, UCLAF, must become an independent control body. Where do we go from here?
It is absolutely crucial that the European Union should demonstrate its effectiveness at this difficult juncture.
As far as the special meeting of the European Council in Berlin is concerned, this means that the German Presidency must do everything it can to broker a political deal on the Agenda 2000 package.
Success in Berlin is now more crucial than ever.
Applause
Let me add that this will be one of the most decisive weeks Europe has faced; not only do we have the Berlin meeting this week, but the crisis in Kosovo has regrettably come to a head. And we have had the resignation of the Commission.
The accumulation of these three crises also shows how much we in Europe - our nations, the Commission, the European Council and Parliament - have to do at the present time; we have a huge burden of responsibility to shoulder if we are to overcome these crises together.
The results of the round of visits undertaken by Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, as well as yesterday's discussions in the General Affairs Council, have convinced us that all the Member States ardently desire success in Berlin.
The resignation of the Commission is neither a political nor a legal obstacle to the achievement of the success to which we all aspire.
In accordance with the Treaty, the Commission will continue to perform its official duties until it is replaced by a new Commission.
That arrangement is an essential means of ensuring a stable transition.
I am confident that Berlin will be a success and that Agenda 2000 can be formally adopted before the end of the present legislative term.
The way has been prepared by regular contacts between the European Parliament, the presidency and the Commission for progress briefings.
The European Council in Berlin will also have to deal, of course, with the consequences of the Commission's resignation.
Without wishing to anticipate the discussions of the Heads of State and Government, which will certainly not be easy, I think we can already say that the decisions which need to be taken to appoint a new Commission will have to be reached in a difficult political and legal context, at a time of transition from the situation created by Maastricht to the new Amsterdam regime with the accompanying constitutional issues, coupled with the fact hat we are dealing with all these matters for the first time.
The Council presidency has a great deal of sympathy with your President's proposal, which is supported by all political groups, that the procedure to nominate a candidate for the office of President of the European Commission should be initiated as soon as possible.
According to that proposal, the European Parliament could approve the nomination of a new Commission President at its part-session in April, and then in May - which is a very ambitious target - it could approve the nomination of the new Commission.
Applause
This in turn raises another specific problem, which concerns the length of time for which the Commission is to be appointed, given the fact that its appointment coincides with the transition from the present Parliament to the one which will be elected this summer and which, I am informed, is due to convene on 20 July.
The sovereign decision of the new Parliament cannot and must not be pre-empted.
The decisions that have to be taken are of enormous political importance.
Let me assure you that it is the concern of the Council presidency to arrive at a speedy and constructive solution in close coordination with the European Parliament, the Member States of the European Union and the Commission which is in office.
In Berlin, the Heads of State and Government will deal in detail with the question of the next steps to be taken and - if possible - may even move on to talk about specific individuals.
The presidency will try to secure a political agreement among the Heads of State and Government on a candidate who could be nominated in time for your part-session in April.
Besides requiring us to resolve the burning issues of the moment, the latest developments also give us cause to devote more thought to the future working methods and composition of the bodies of the Union in general, especially in the light of the forthcoming enlargement of the European Union.
The protocol on the bodies of the Union which is annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, as well as the relevant conclusions of the European Council summits in Luxembourg, Cardiff and Vienna, have established the framework for our reflections.
In preparation for the Cologne meeting of the European Council, the presidency will shortly present proposals as to how and when we should address the institutional questions which were not settled by the Treaty of Amsterdam and which have to be resolved before enlargement takes place.
However, we may have to go even further than that. After all, it is absolutely essential to keep developing the democratic control that this House has exercised so efficiently.
Public confidence in the institution must be fully restored, and that is precisely what the present crisis offers us the opportunity to do.
The developments we have witnessed must never be repeated, otherwise the ideal of European unification would be seriously prejudiced.
In adopting reforms, we must also consider the relative power of the various bodies and their role within the constitutional fabric of the Union.
The Commission, with its exclusive power to initiate legislation, is an important instrument of European lawmaking, for which the Council together with this House are ultimately responsible.
The Commission is also empowered by the Treaty and secondary legislation to perform executive functions.
Greater care must be taken in the forthcoming reform process to ensure that the Commission is not constantly being entrusted with new tasks without being given the material, human and financial resources it requires in order to perform them.
Applause
I hope that all of us will also make this clear to our populations at home during the European election campaign, because in this domain - at least in Germany - I encounter a certain ambivalence between, on the one hand, a proclaimed willingness to transfer more funds to Europe, which is essential for the European Union to go on assuming new responsibilities if it cannot raise its own revenue, and, on the other hand, the domestic discussion which then ensues.
I believe that if we are serious about European unification, the conclusion to be drawn from this crisis is that the new Commission must be given the funds it needs to guarantee the orderly management of our affairs.
Applause
Every future reform must focus on strengthening the democratic control and legitimation of the executive and legislative branches of the European tier of government.
That is not only dictated by the constitutional traditions of all the Member States; it is also an absolute prerequisite for a viable Union.
The present crisis also presents an opportunity to accelerate the reform process and, or so I hope, to make the reforms more incisive than was initially envisaged.
We must, and indeed we can, seize that opportunity together for the sake of Europe.
Applause
Mr President, the events of the past week have revealed, perhaps for the first time ever, an expression of 'pan-European public opinion'.
And if we ever needed a demonstration of the suspicion with which, sadly, the public across virtually all our Member States view the European Union institutions, we saw it in the collective sigh of relief and even, unfortunately, celebration which could be heard after the resignation of the European Commission.
It is important to state at the outset that the resignation of the Commission last Monday was not because the experts had found the twenty Commissioners guilty of personal fraud.
In fact, the opposite was the case.
They explicitly cleared the twenty of such accusations and allegations.
As far as nepotism is concerned, it found only one Commissioner overwhelmingly guilty of favouritism with regard to work which was not within the European remit of the Commissioner.
It criticised certainly two others for poor judgement in employing friends or relatives whilst acknowledging that the correct procedures for recruitment had been followed, and the work they had been engaged in had been of a European nature.
We should also be clear that accusations which were being bandied about in this House in December and January against other Commissioners, were overwhelmingly and largely dismissed.
It is important that this House is grown up enough to recognise that fact.
However, the report was decisive in its conclusions regarding the loss of control of management by this European Commission; and it was right and proper that in the light of the conclusions the College took the decision to resign.
My group now expects the independent group of experts to complete the second part of its report on the structure of the European Commission.
I give notice that I am concerned about voices I hear arguing that the group of experts have now done their job and should stand down.
I want to caution against those voices.
I am suspicious of their motives and their backing.
I believe that it could be very convenient for some if the independent group of experts were to be prevented from delving in the required detail into the workings of different Directorate-Generals.
I therefore ask this House to make sure that the group is given the space to work and that the Secretary-General of the European Commission be asked to ensure that his officials at every level cooperate to the maximum to facilitate the report.
In my group's view the second report must contain a more widely-ranging review of the Commission's culture, practices and procedures.
We want it to deal, amongst other issues, with how financial contracts are awarded and the procedures for contracts for interim or temporary staff to implement programmes, and to follow up allegations of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism involving staff.
The group of experts is not in danger of removing or, in fact, countermanding in some way the powers of this House.
To believe that, is to demonstrate a lack of confidence in our work.
This report and the one which will follow, is about something quite different.
It is a procedure and process that is not unknown in any of our countries, in order to look from time to time at the culture which permeates administrations and executives in each country.
Now is time to look to the future.
The European Commission is not in the habit of resigning.
This is, after all, the first time in our forty-two year history that such a thing has happened.
If we are to demonstrate that the European Union can be different; if we are to respond to the opportunity of this moment, then we must call on the Heads of State and Government meeting in Berlin on Wednesday this week to designate immediately their nominee for President of the Commission.
It is quite unthinkable that the European Commission, having resigned, should quietly continue with 'business as usual' until the end of their mandate.
We want not just the President of the Commission replaced, but a new Commission in place with speed, properly ratified by this Parliament, using the powers which will be given to us in the incoming Amsterdam Treaty.
Given this background, the European Council should put forward an experienced, competent candidate committed to in-depth reform, with a clear vision as to where he or she is going, with a programme to get there and credentials which are beyond reproach.
What is clear, is that the new President of the Commission must assume not just the political responsibility for the Commission, but the political leadership as well.
This Parliament must also recognise the exceptional nature of this moment.
We must not allow ourselves to engage in a constitutional or institutional debate about dry procedures and put up bureaucratic obstruction to change, and rapid change at that.
The impact on European public opinion, if the European Council and the European Parliament were to come together to put in place a new Commission able to demonstrate its commitment to serving the people of Europe, would be instrumental in rejuvenating the vision of Europe.
Colleagues, our responsibility now is to address three principles to the Council.
Firstly, we want immediate action to show we have grasped the moment; and we hope that the Council will accept the opportunity which the European Parliament has provided through the work of the independent group of experts.
The first principle is immediate action.
The second principle must be to insist on the use of the Amsterdam Treaty, whether it is formally in being or not as the way in which this Parliament will use our powers to ratify the new Commission; and our third principle should be for a strong candidate for the European Commission President, for a timetable for the new Commission to be in place and a strong and clear programme of reform.
Those are the principles at which we should be looking in our deliberations over the next two days.
I am sure those are the principles which the people of the European Union want to see as a result of the crisis that currently engulfs us.
If we do that, working together, I believe that we have an opportunity now to demonstrate a new sort of future, a new sort of Europe for the next millennium.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my comments are directed primarily at the President-in-Office of the Council.
It is clear, as you say, that the European Parliament has payed a significant role in this crisis. The Committee of Wise Men recognised that fact as well.
Parliament has been taking vigorous action for over a year now on the basis of the Court of Auditors' reports.
The same cannot be said of the Council.
The report of the Wise Men says in as many words that the Council has been conspicuous by its silence in this whole affair.
It is therefore useful to recap on the facts.
More than a year ago, in March 1998, Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control voted, on the basis of Mr Elles's report, to defer granting a discharge in respect of the 1996 budget and asked the Commission to take the necessary measures towards the middle of September.
In October 1998, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the independence, role and statute of the anti-fraud office which was to succeed UCLAF.
The Commission was not yet able last December to comply with the European Parliament's demands.
The PPE Group then brought forward a programme of action, to be implemented within twelve months, which would modernise the Commission by 1 January 2000.
We called for an independent anti-fraud office, changes to the Staff Regulations and a code of conduct for Commissioners and senior officials, we called for the members of the Commission to be individually politically responsible, and we asked for Commissioners to make a declaration of their interests.
The Socialist Group did not ask these vital questions. They voted in favour of the discharge.
They subsequently tabled a motion of rejection which was in effect a vote of confidence.
Sustained applause from the right
In January 1999, we called on Mrs Cresson to accept her political responsibilities and resign.
This too was rejected, and the Committee of Wise Men was then set up.
I admit that a majority of my group did not vote in favour of that.
But, and please take note, the Committee of Wise Men agreed with the findings of the Committee on Budgetary Control, added to them and vindicated the positions which we as the PPE Group had adopted.
Happily the Commissioners do not stand accused either of fraud or of lining their own pockets, but there is the fateful passage in the Wise Men's report, paragraph 9.9.2..
The Commissioners' argument that they were not aware of problems which were well known and known even at the highest level in their departments is tantamount to an admission that the political executive is no longer in control of the administration it is supposed to head.
Much of the responsibility for this loss of control lies primarily with the Commissioners individually and the Commission as a whole.
Things that had been going on for years unbeknown to many people have now been brought to light by this report of the Committee of Wise Men.
The present Commission is also having to take responsibility for the previous one.
The report of the Wise Men details it all: in 1990, tourism; from 1992 onwards, the programmes for the Mediterranean region, humanitarian aid, training under the Leonardo da Vinci programmes and security.
The Committee of the Wise Men says that the supervisory bodies are a mess, that the procedure takes too long and that staff policy has been a machine running out of control.
I wish to pay tribute publicly here, ladies and gentlemen, to the personal integrity of the Commission President, Jacques Santer.
I wish to acknowledge that the political achievements of this Commission are impressive: the single currency, employment, preparations for enlargement and the preparation of Agenda 2000.
I wish to state that the reforms which Mr Santer has proposed, for instance the codes of conduct, were impressive reforms.
But the main thrust of the Wise Men's report has made praise impossible, which is why we must now express appreciation of the fact that you have accepted the political consequences of this Wise Men's report.
Where do we go from here? For the benefit of Mrs Green, I would say that we are willing to let the Committee of Wise Men continue with their work until April, but on condition that we are able to assess that work at our last part-session in May.
We shall be discussing this shortly in the Conference of Presidents.
Secondly, and here again I address myself to the President-in-Office of the Council, the Commission itself said in a statement of 17 March: 'we urge the Member States to appoint a new Commission without delay'.
We are asking you to appoint the new Commission President in Berlin and to ensure that a new Commission is in any event in place before the European elections.
Whichever Treaty you care to apply, Maastricht or Amsterdam, this Commission will remain in office until the beginning of January 2000.
After that and, I hope, after the European elections, a fresh decision will have to be taken by the conference of the European Union governments.
We want a start to be made on the reforms straight away.
We have no illusions.
These reforms will take years, but we have to start on them right away.
We want to see the new intergovernmental conference you have announced looking also at the question of the individual political responsibility of members of the Commission. And we want the measures we have been calling for since last year and in the discussions chaired by Mrs Theato, with James Elles as rapporteur, to be implemented at last.
It will take time, but the time has come when we have to rebuild confidence.
We need a strong Commission.
It is the guardian of the Treaties.
We need a Commission which is accountable, accountable to Parliament.
We need a Commission which more than ever, as the Treaty says, is independent, transparent and above all pursues the general interest of the Union.
A great many people, even some in this House, keep saying that all this is good for their country.
Who talks about the general interest, the bien commun of the European Union, this European Union which is now in deep crisis?
This crisis can also be a challenge, a challenge not only for the new Commission, but for all of us.
Let us try to make a true challenge out of this crisis and breathe new life into the European Union.
Applause from the PPE Group
Mr President, this has been a week without precedent with the resignation en masse of the European Commission.
That resignation follows the damning report by the Committee of Independent Experts of the Commission as an administration that in too many instances was out of control and a system where too few people were prepared to accept personal accountability and responsibility for their conduct of public affairs.
I believe that Mr Jacques Santer is a decent man.
His Commission included a number of positive and strategic achievements.
The launch of the Euro, the conclusion of the Amsterdam Treaty, the preparation of Agenda 2000, the opening up of enlargement negotiations.
In part, the Santer Commission, ironically, has become a victim of its own willingness to examine fraud and corruption within the Commission.
In part, it has been a victim of the chaotic, undermanaged and sometimes unmanaged growth of responsibilities during the Delors years.
Ultimately, however, this Commission was the author of its own demise.
Over the past twelve months, in relation to the conduct of affairs with this House, Jacques Santer, unerringly if unwittingly, led his Commission to last week's crisis-in-the-making.
At every critical point during that period, he has caused the Commission to offer to this House solutions that, had they been offered at the outset of each stage, might have worked.
In the end, and always at that stage, they proved too little and too late.
For his own political misjudgements, Jacques Santer has paid the ultimate political price and with him his colleagues have resigned.
If this has been a difficult week for the European Commission, it has been a good week for European democracy.
For the Parliament, this entire debate has represented a coming of age, a new maturity in understanding our democratic rights and our capacity and our duty to act in the public interest when we assert them.
The system of governance in the European Union needs to be subject to more democratic control and public accountability.
We believe we have crossed a new and irreversible threshold in that process.
I might add that threshold is one we would never have crossed if we had followed the soft advice of a false sense of confidence commended by some to this House last December.
For its part, the European Parliament will no longer be prepared to be presumed to be the junior partner in European decision-making.
It is not that the Parliament should be first among equals, but from now on it must be an equal among equals.
We find ourselves now in the process of creating a new, minimum and acceptable European norm for the management of public affairs and Community institutions which does not permit cultural exceptionalism.
Hiring one's dentist to do work of dubious, if any, European value is not acceptable.
Now, Mr President, I hope you will allow an English-speaker to talk to you in French to suggest that the language of Molière might be enriched by a new and typically European concept, that of 'berthelisme ', which means having a fictitious job paid for out of European taxpayers' money.
The members of the Académie française could immortalise this word by putting it in the dictionary.
Purists could never accuse it of being franglais, not that I would ever dare to offer such an insult to the members of the Académie .
Last week saw the downfall of a Commission in which some members had already made a start along the road to 'berthelisation ', and in future we will always be ready to condemn any Commission that again succumbs to the Berthelot syndrome.
Berthelisme , of course, Mr President, is not confined to the corridors of power of the European Commission.
The European Parliament must profit from this occasion to clean up its own act.
We are vulnerable on the matter of top staff appointments.
We remain vulnerable on the question of Members' travel allowances until the system is radically overhauled.
We are not yet as transparent as we could be or ought to be on our individual group and collective expenditures financed by public purse.
We cannot demand in this institution, of other institutions, what we would not demand of ourselves.
The creation of new European norms of behaviour in office must apply with no less force and conviction to the European Parliament than they will to any future European Commission.
The ELDR Group notes the implicit criticism of the Council in its role as one of the two arms of the budgetary authority for failing to give due and proper consideration to critical reports prepared by the European Court of Auditors on tourism policy on the MED and the ECHO Programmes.
This failure by the Council to assume political responsibility should caution a certain modesty among those in some of our capital cities who seem prone to see the failings revealed in recent days as almost uniquely the creation of the European Commission.
In this regard, we note with concern the relative ease with which the Council granted discharge for 1996; and we note with profound regret that on the very day of the publication of the expert committee report, the Council granted discharge, prematurely in our view, for 1997.
It is not an inspiring example of responsibility in action.
Where should we go to from here, is now the essential question.
The ELDR believes that the Santer-led caretaker Commission has lost its political and moral authority to act and so it must go immediately and be replaced by an interim Commission for the balance of its unexpired term.
The appointment of the new millennium Commission, due to take place in January next, we believe, properly is a matter for the new Parliament with a new mandate, with new political balances and with new powers under Amsterdam.
The current treaties already provide a way; and if the Council wishes to add to that the spirit of Amsterdam, then we can proceed to an interim Commission appointment through that means.
But let me make it clear that the renomination of Mr Jacques Santer or Madame Edith Cresson or some others to the interim Commission would not be acceptable to the ELDR Group in the light of recent events.
Such nominations would risk provoking even deeper crises.
For our part, the Liberal group has consistently argued the merits of individual accountability within collegiality.
To this end, we do not tar all the outgoing Commission with the same brush.
We are prepared to judge each on his or her individual merit in the belief that not all were personally responsible for the ineptitude or incompetence of some.
Let me say to the President-in-Office that I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of my Group to wish the Berlin Council well, and to say that we hope you will achieve the objectives of Agenda 2000 which are now more essential than ever.
But let me also say in concluding that when we come to appoint an interim and future European Commission, my Group, which has been to the forefront in criticising the current Commission, wishes to make it abundantly clear, that our wish is for a strong, independent political Commission; and any attempt to weaken this in the future is one that we would resist in Parliamentary terms.
The Commission needs reform and Union needs a strong, independent, politically reformed Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the serious problems identified in some areas of management at the Commission and highlighted in the report by the Committee of Independent Experts have led to the collective resignation of the entire Commission in line with the spirit of the Treaties.
It was a responsible and courageous decision.
Although the Santer Commission can be proud of its undeniable success in preparing for the introduction of the single currency and guiding it through on schedule, its unprecedented resignation has created a serious institutional crisis involving far more than just the question marks over certain Commissioners or European civil servants.
Most of the facts which were identified as having led to the completely unjustified failings highlighted in the report originated under the previous Commission administration, which has gone unpunished.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would urge you to reread the chapter in the report on the Security Office, which was set up in 1990 and was directly answerable to the Commission President at the time.
In more general terms, it is regrettable that all - and I mean all - the Union institutions succumbed to a sort of bulimia, which meant that a number of areas of activity were considerably extended: regional structural aid, external actions, the MED, PHARE and TACIS programmes, emergency humanitarian aid, reconstruction programmes for the former Yugoslavia, upgrading of nuclear power stations in Eastern Europe, and so on - I am sorry to say that this list is not exhaustive - without the structures and administrative procedures being adapted to deal with these new responsibilities and without any kind of financial control worthy of the name.
Responsibility for this failure lies not just with the Commission, but also with Parliament and the Council, which not only agreed to the increase in the Commission's activities, but were often the ones that called for them to be increased in the first place.
How can we get out of this institutional crisis? First and foremost, we need to speed up the process of reforming the institutions, a problem that was unfortunately overlooked when the Amsterdam Treaty was negotiated.
These reforms are also a prerequisite for enlargement, and we need to establish a strict timetable and a target date, perhaps 1 January 2002.
Secondly, we must take the opportunity offered by the appointment of a new President and a new Commission to refocus the Commission's work on its main fields of responsibility as defined in the Treaties, while respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
It would also be desirable to arrange for its management responsibilities to be transferred to the Member States and the partner states with which the Union has concluded association agreements, giving the Community bodies greater supervisory powers rather than direct administrative responsibilities.
Finally, the new Commission President must undertake a programme of action to achieve these aims, which he must present for Parliament's approval.
Working at the head of a new team, he must clean up the Commission and put his house in order, cutting out any dead wood and concluding any disciplinary and criminal proceedings arising from the cases of fraud or corruption which have been uncovered.
There are currently 28 directorates-general and offices, not counting the decentralised agencies.
This is far too many, and the number needs to be considerably reduced, since it is nothing more than a feudal system.
What we need to do now is not to create more new European civil service posts, but simply to reorganise the management procedures and make them more efficient.
The root-and-branch reform recommended by the Committee of Experts and the Court of Auditors must be implemented immediately.
Firstly, effective and independent financial controls should be introduced to apply the Financial Regulation strictly, using reliable audit mechanisms.
Secondly, an interinstitutional body - Parliament, the Commission and the Council - should be established to follow up the Court of Auditors' recommendations, which condemn the misuse of Community funding.
Thirdly, a procedure for the award of contracts must be introduced which is totally transparent and is addressed to genuine professionals.
To eliminate the temptation of corruption, which can occur all too often, the staff working in this field must be rotated on a regular basis, contrary to what has happened up to now.
Fourthly, recruitment procedures must be reformed to prevent made-to-measure competitions which make nepotism and cronyism all too easy.
All of these measures should be introduced as quickly as possible.
However, the Treaty of Amsterdam, which is scheduled to come into force on 1 May, changes Parliament's confirmation procedures, so it would be better not to pre-empt matters before then.
It would also be politically preferable for it to be the Parliament elected in June that applied these new powers, so we might need to consider bringing forward the date of the constitutive sitting in July.
Finally, it is up to the Council and Parliament, the Union's two political institutions, to act in close cooperation to ensure that the European Union that emerges from this crisis has stronger structures and greater legitimacy for its activities.
We rely on the governments not to shirk their political responsibility once again, but to reform all the European institutions to make them more democratic and efficient, so that we can meet the challenges of enlargement and globalisation that are currently the main driving force behind the political construction of Europe.
Applause from the UPE Group
Mr President, it is abundantly clear that the European Union is currently experiencing the most serious institutional crisis of its history.
The Commission itself is primarily responsible for the events which have taken place, but the governments of the Member States must bear a share of the blame as they have failed to allocate adequate resources to the Commission since the end of 1994.
The Council should shoulder some responsibility for what happened too. It has been conspicuous by its absence throughout the present crisis.
The Commission failed to meet the objective its President outlined when he assumed office and declared it was important to act less but to do so more effectively.
If this crisis heralds the birth of truly European public opinion and helps to strengthen transparency, it will have served as a step in the right direction - a step towards making the European Union more democratic.
The European Parliament has emerged from the crisis with a greater sense of authority as a body that represents all the people of Europe.
Successive treaties have increased its legislative powers and on this occasion, Parliament has clearly asserted its role as a monitoring body. In so doing, however, it has acquired additional responsibility which it must exercise wisely in the future.
The Committee of Independent Experts has identified some irregularities for which it holds certain Commissioners responsible.
Indeed, politically, the Commission as a whole is deemed responsible. Although we recognise the discrepancy between the objectives and the resources allocated to achieve them, lack of political direction and mismanagement - which had already been brought into the open during the mad cow crisis - can never be justified.
We appreciate the sense of responsibility displayed by the European Commission in resigning.
Those of us who in the past have strongly criticised its handling of affairs must not now whip up public opinion against it. We must respect the individuals involved and the decisions they have taken.
Nevertheless, we need to look to the future.
Public opinion will not tolerate things carrying on in the same old way. If the people of Europe cannot trust the institutions that represent the European venture, they will no longer support it.
The problem cannot be reduced to the search for some kind of superman or outstanding politician.
People are certainly important, but so too are the methods, programme and objectives.
The Commission's role in the European institutional balance is crucial. It defends the common interest, and it must continue to fulfil it.
We therefore need a competent and responsible Commission.
The next Commission must improve its decision-making processes. It should be borne in mind that successful implementation of policies is not merely an administrative task, but very much a political one.
In the eyes of the people, the Commission should embody the values of transparency and responsibility. It must also make available to Parliament all the information it requires to fulfil its monitoring role, and this is a prerequisite for mutual trust and effective cooperation.
I should now like to address the President-in-Office of the Council directly.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left very much hopes that a new Commission will be appointed at the earliest opportunity, in response to the wishes of the people of Europe and to enable us to meet the challenges of the next few months. Chief amongst these is the creation of employment and the promotion of the principle of internal solidarity within the framework of Agenda 2000.
Our group has called for a new Commission to be appointed immediately.
We therefore agree with Mr Fischer that the procedure and timetable for doing so should be decided at the Berlin European Council.
We also call for early approval of a statute for Members of the European Parliament in the interests of transparency for all, not least for ourselves as Members of the European Parliament.
Mr President-in-Office, we trust you will choose wisely.
We shall not approve the nomination of a President without a programme or a Commission without clear objectives.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, for over a year, Parliament has been calling for transparency and above all financial transparency.
For over a year, Parliament has had to fight in order to extract from the Commission the information to which it is entitled under the Treaty.
Our experience was that we got the information in dribs and drabs, too late, and very often it was incomplete.
Looking back over this parliamentary term, it is clear that of all the European institutions it is the European Parliament which has done most to expose real and fundamental problems of mismanagement, fraud and nepotism.
Parliament has been prepared to be confrontational over this, and rightly so.
If we had yielded last December to the Commission's threats or had gone along with the Socialist Group in approving the 1996 accounts, we would not be at the point we have reached today, a point it was absolutely essential that we should reach.
The report of the independent experts fundamentally bears out what the Committee on Budgetary Control had uncovered in a number of reports.
It bears out critical reports by the European Court of Auditors.
And it vindicates Paul Van Buitenen, the official who was immediately suspended by the Commission and subjected to particularly fierce attacks.
Applause from the Green Group
The essence of the problem raised in the report, however, is that there is no real - as opposed to mythical - ' collegiate' responsibility for the actions of the Commission members as a group.
That focal problem must now be addressed.
So I find it unfortunate that the Commission's initial reactions last week were very much ones of defence and denial.
Parliament has had similar experiences in recent years.
We therefore find ourselves in a difficult situation, a time of crisis, but one from which the European institutions may emerge strengthened.
I think I can see the first signs of that.
This is the very first time I have seen a debate surfacing everywhere in the 15 countries of the European Union in which ordinary people are discussing how they view the Commission, how they view Parliament and what they expect of the Council, and this is something which is new and particularly important for the future.
We therefore think it is indeed vital for the Council to name a new Commission President as soon as possible, who can appear before Parliament ahead of the elections with a new team.
The new President must be a strong European figure with vision and managerial qualities, so that reforms can be carried out in what remains of 1999.
We believe those reforms must include the following: a clear body of control mechanisms, a bridging of the deep divide between political control and the actual implementation of programmes, a good set of Staff Regulations giving officials the right to speak out freely, and the development of a culture of open debate amongst the institutions and with the European public.
Lastly, we think it crucial that Mr Van Buitenen should be reinstated. He has played his proper part as a European official.
Mr Cox is of course right in saying that Parliament too must continue cleaning up its own act.
But we must focus here on our remit of exercising scrutiny over the institutions, and in that respect it is our duty to exercise full scrutiny over the executive, the Commission.
Applause from the Green Group
Mr President, my speech is mainly addressed to the President-in-Office of the Council, since he is now the only officer on board - indeed, almost the only officer left - after the resignation of the Commission and the departure of Jacques Santer, to whom I would like to pay tribute.
Unfortunately, Joschka Fischer has already left, pressed for time, no doubt.
I have to say that he is facing an uphill task, since he is going to have to make progress on Agenda 2000 by ensuring that the Berlin summit is a success, while at the same time seeing to the appointment of a new Commission.
On this last point, there is a very clear conflict of interests between Parliament's desire to keep the power vacuum that we have had for the last week to a minimum and our concern, in selecting the new Commission, to follow the highly detailed procedures that allow Parliament to exercise its prerogatives in full, in other words the procedures provided for in the Amsterdam Treaty, which inevitably take a long time.
There is also a conflict between the desire to change all the outgoing Commission in order to make a completely fresh start and the concern to ensure continuity in the main policy areas at a particularly busy and delicate time, which would obviously be easier if some Commissioners could remain in charge of certain issues.
In addition to these conflicts of interest, there are also the very different feelings that we ourselves have about all this.
Our group feels that it is very important that Parliament played its political role, sometimes rather hesitantly, admittedly, but it did so all the same, and it has emerged in a stronger position.
It has been progress for democracy.
At the same time, however, we need strong European institutions and in particular a strong Commission.
So we need to find some sort of middle way between laxity, negligence and wastefulness on the one hand and systematic, destructive criticism on the other.
Reform is needed for this, and all the institutions must make an effort here: the future Commission, of course, the future Parliament, naturally, and the Council of Ministers, because the Council of Ministers bears a great deal of the responsibility for the problems which have been identified.
It was mainly the Council which gave the Commission so many more tasks but without the funding to be able to carry them out, and it has seriously neglected its supervisory responsibilities.
Here again, as the President-in-Office has just said, we are going to have to get round the contradiction of wanting to do more without spending more.
I wish the Presidency-in-Office the best of luck, since it will now have to shoulder the burden of getting the institutions out of the first political crisis to hit the European Union.
Mr President, the Europe of Nations Group would like to thank the Wise Men, because they are not looking for scapegoats but are instead indicting the system.
The problem is the culture of secrecy.
The Wise Men are very precise in their conclusion: they have not found a single person who has shown the slightest sense of accountability.
That is a severe judgement on all the members of the Commission.
None of them should therefore be able to be reappointed now.
We propose a temporary Commission composed of independent persons who are not themselves tainted.
We would like to see an investigation of the charges against the current Commission and the apparatus of officials.
There must be accountability, especially for those who have helped to withhold information.
If it transpires that there are members of the Commission who are on record as having been strongly opposed to the adoption of the accounts and other regrettable decisions, then they could be considered for reappointment in January.
But now, after first deciding to stand shoulder to shoulder and accept collective responsibility, the members of the Commission cannot turn round and say that they no longer share this collective responsibility which they recently took upon themselves.
All of the Commission must go and not come back.
The Wise Men should continue their work and extend it to the other institutions, including Parliament.
There are now 1 000 committees, 10 000 laws - with even more amendments - and 100 000 projects.
The temporary clean-up Commission should examine these committees, rules and projects to see what can be handed back to the Member States.
A new Commission will be no more able to manage what the old one could not manage.
We are all indicted in the Wise Men's report, especially those who have voted in favour of the many new areas of responsibility.
The solution is not new faces, but an extensive clean-up.
Those who have engaged in fraud and covered up fraud will be held to account, and Mr Van Buitenen should return to his job and have his salary paid.
The solution is a leaner form of cooperation with complete openness: a lean and open Europe.
Madam President, if the Commissioners who so badly abused the confidence placed in them had resigned, we would not now be witnessing its members jockeying for position; but probably those Commissioners refrained from resigning at the suggestion of their own coteries.
Indeed, it now seems clear that the Council of Ministers is seeking to discredit the entire Commission rather than to highlight the shortcomings of individuals.
The internal feuding has died down and given way to a common aim: to nominate a new Commission which will remain in office for some six years and to appoint the President of the Commission, thereby depriving the future European Parliament of its new power - conferred on it by the Amsterdam Treaty - of appointing the new Commission President.
An institutional confrontation is taking place.
The Council of Ministers wishes to tie the hands of the Commission; it wishes to strip Parliament of the role so painstakingly acquired over so many years.
The result could be to recreate that democratic deficit which once again seems to suit the governments, in that they are working for their own partisan interests and against political union. We reiterate our protest about this.
We all know that, without political union, economic union will remain wishful thinking, useful only to powerful lobbies but remote from - if not detrimental to - the needs of the European people.
An institutional war is therefore under way, to prevent the Commission and Parliament from cooperating constructively with one another and to place Europe's future in a strait-jacket designed by the Council of Ministers.
But a political war is being waged too: the majority in the next Parliament, which ought to appoint the Commission President, might in fact be different from that in the Council, which represents 13 left-wing governments out of 15.
Alleanza Nazionale resents the fact that this crisis could have been foreseen and avoided; we would draw attention to the potentially negative impact on the turnout at the elections if the appointment of the new Commissioners is not marked by transparency and propriety; and we urge that, if the decision is to nominate a new Commission rather than to extend the mandate of the existing one - replacing the disgraced Commissioners - then its term of office should be limited, expiring on 31 December, since Parliament has political responsibility for appointing the new President.
Any other procedure would deal a blow to democracy and an insult to the European people.
But let us also remember that there was already talk a few months ago of the Council of Ministers wishing to proclaim the new Commission before the elections: even then, therefore, there was a clear intent to deprive Parliament of its powers and steer the elections in a particular political direction.
This is scandalous and undemocratic!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, when several crises coincide, as is happening at the present time, a President of the Council really ought to possess the capacity to be in two places at the same time.
Perhaps we should go ahead and adopt that now as one of our future reforms.
Mr Fischer was unable to stay here with us, because he had to return to Bonn for a special meeting of the Federal Cabinet on the Kosovo crisis. I convey his apologies to you.
The presidency sees the resolution of the Commission crisis in which we are now immersed as a joint responsibility of Parliament, the Council and the Member States.
That is why I am pleased that a broad consensus has emerged in the course of this debate here in the House, as well as a great deal of concurrence between the opinions expressed here and the view of the Council.
We want a quick and convincing solution - a solution that is likely to restore and strengthen public confidence in the European institutions.
That is why we do not seek an interim arrangement; we want to have a clear idea of what awaits us in the coming years.
We have to know now where the good ship Europe is headed and whose hand will be on the wheel.
I agree with all of you who have said we need a Commission that will set about the task of internal reform of our work and our institution with great energy and vigour.
The new Commission will have to meet very high standards.
For that reason, we must take great care to ensure that the proposals which we in the Member States and the Council make are consistent with those standards.
We want to take the first decisions in Berlin.
What I believe we can certainly achieve is a procedural agreement, in other words on what we actually want to decide and when we intend to make those decisions.
The presidency is thinking along the lines of following up the Berlin summit with an informal special summit at which the principal player would be selected.
If more can be achieved in Berlin, so much the better.
But that cannot be guaranteed, because we have to unite 15 Member States behind a common stance.
You know how difficult that is.
Let me emphasise how important it is that the rights of Parliament are properly respected throughout this decision-making process.
This means that, whenever the new Commission President and the new Commission are nominated, the rights of Parliament under the Amsterdam Treaty must be upheld.
Any other solution is unfair to Parliament and, for that matter, to the new President of the Commission, if we are thinking of making a decision now that will last until 2005.
I see a very important message and a valuable token of your support in paragraph 9 of your joint resolution, which categorically states that our present problems must not serve as a excuse for deferring or avoiding important substantive decisions.
The priorities are quite clear: in three days' time, in Berlin on Thursday, we must bring Agenda 2000 to a conclusion, and we must ensure that the Commission crisis is quickly overcome.
We also agree that the reform process in the European Union must include all the institutions.
I have no wish to dismiss the possibility of the Council examining how it can organise its work more effectively and reflecting on the mistakes it might have made.
Indeed, I believe it is necessary for us to do that.
I should like to refer to another point that was discussed here.
One of the reforms we shall have to tackle is the Members' Statute.
This has no direct bearing on the Commission, but it is another very important point under the general heading of institutional reforms.
Let me assure you that the presidency vigorously supports Parliament's aim of adopting the Statute before the end of the present legislative term.
That is the only sensible way forward.
I should like to appeal to you, ladies and gentlemen, to exert influence on the political decision-makers in your own countries so that we can obtain the broad support we require in the Council; unfortunately, we do not yet enjoy that support, but there are signs of progress.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is pleasing to hear what we have just heard from the President-in-Office.
However, I have to say, Mr Verheugen, that well-intentioned statements from the Council are part of the tradition of this House.
You will understand the importance we attach to checking whether such pledges are actually honoured at some time in the future.
But I believe that what you said between the lines, as it were, is correct, and I agree with you there: we should not really be talking in terms of a crisis in the European Union.
In our own countries, when a government loses its majority and the confidence of the national parliament, that is a crisis for the government, but it is not a crisis of state.
It is possible, of course, for government crises to develop into state crises, and the crisis between the institutions here - particularly within the Commission - could develop into a crisis of the European Union, but that is what we all intend to prevent.
What we have heard today from the Council presidency sounds hopeful, in so far as it indicates that nothing in the institutional relationships between Parliament and the Commission and between Parliament and the Council will ever be the same again.
Our relationships will be realigned.
The two other institutions will appreciate our desire to shift the balance in favour of Parliament - not because we are out to sap the strength and usurp the powers of the other institutions, but because Parliament has grown in strength through its own activity.
It has certainly not been easy.
If I think back a few weeks and months - to January, for example - I remember that all the political groups, especially the main ones, were riven from top to bottom over one issue or another.
The fact that this is no longer the case is due to the minimum consensus we reached in January, to the fact that Parliament itself appointed an impartial committee.
I very much hope that, when the committee of five experts has presented its second report and we sit down to deal with it, such an intermediate step will no longer be necessary.
Parliament must be able to do that under its own steam if it takes itself seriously.
But if that is the case, then I believe it is also self-evident that the general institutional reform which needs to be undertaken - since there can be no enlargement before the institutions are reformed - will be carried out as a genuine joint task, just as we must jointly appoint the new Commission.
In particular, the next revision conference on the expansion of the Treaties, especially as regards the reform of the institutions, can no longer be a conventional intergovernmental conference. It will have to be a conference of the European institutions, and above all of Parliament and the Council.
Madam President, this is certainly the first time that the European Union has been in this situation, and I hope it will be the last.
Following the scathing report from the Committee of Wise Men, the resignation of the Commission was a necessity, but it could have come sooner.
We could have had a different outcome if the Commission had taken advantage of the stay of execution we granted it when the budget discharge was deferred.
Had that happened, we should not be in this situation today.
Parliament could also have brought this whole matter - which has been described here as both a crisis and an opportunity - to a head two months earlier if it had made full use of its powers and passed a vote of no confidence.
Secondly, it emerges clearly from the Wise Men's report that the European Parliament and its Committee on Budgetary Control acted correctly. They exercised their powers of scrutiny.
They brought the problems to light.
And now the consequence of this is that we must initiate the action set out in the Elles report. We must look to the future, introducing and implementing appropriate reforms.
A third point I take from the report is that the information Parliament was receiving from the Commission was inadequate; it was misleading and even fraudulent.
This will have to be investigated.
We have a right to information.
We are a controlling body, and it is up to us to determine what we need to inspect and which oral and written information we require for that purpose.
What do we do now? We must look forward, because for us in the European Parliament, elections are looming.
But the public image of Europe is also on the line.
So although we must get to the roots of the present problem, it clearly makes no sense to indulge in a surfeit of retrospection and soul-searching.
The first thing we need is the rapid appointment of a new Commission.
I believe it has to be an interim Commission, one which will take the action that needs to be taken, so that the year 2000 will see the installation of a competent, efficient and trusted Commission.
Fourthly, the institutional gap between the administration and the Commissioners in terms of accountability must be closed as quickly as possible.
This was one of the most damning criticisms of the Commission.
I am not in favour of any further reports by the Wise Men; the real priority now is to implement with all possible haste the programme of work we have drafted, so that by the year 2000 we shall truly have eliminated all the abuses which have come to light here.
It is important to look ahead and to create more democracy.
I believe the citizens of Europe understand that we in the European Parliament have begun to grow into our role as the taxpayers' watchdog and the people's advocate.
That is the path we should continue to follow.
Madam President, it is remarkable how much progress the European Community has made in a couple of months.
What was unthinkable even a few months ago has now been achieved.
Individual responsibility on the part of Commissioners will be a fact in the future and the President-in-Office should be complimented on having recognised this fact.
Of course, we need to continue collective responsibility to the extent that the Commission, as a legislature, should not be under the pressure of individual governments.
But we need individual accountability as many speakers have said.
We are not only at the end of a road, we are at a new beginning.
This requires real vision on the part of the Council, Parliament and the Commission.
We need a new balance.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office a question on this point.
I listened carefully to him when he said that we did not need an interim Commission.
I would draw his attention to the fact that paragraph 7 of our resolution speaks both of a Commission until the year 2000 and a new Commission.
There is a certain ambiguity in the language of the Council.
The President-in-Office says that we need to work with the Treaty of Amsterdam - I hope he speaks on behalf of all 15 Member States - which means that this Parliament will co-decide who is going to be the new President.
I hope it is realised that there cannot simply be one candidate.
Secondly, we want action quickly.
All speakers have emphasised this point.
Can we appoint a new Commission during the first week in May when this Parliament is ending its work? I hope that is the case.
If it is not, we would impinge on the rights of the new Parliament which is sovereign and should give legitimacy to the Commission for the next five years.
How can that be ensured? The President-in-Office needs to reply to that point.
If we do not have a new Commission with the full assent of Parliament, it means that the new Commission will only work until September or maybe October this year.
If that is the case, it will be a total contradiction of what we are saying, namely that we need a new Commission as quickly as possible, and that includes the point made by President Santer.
This fundamental point should be emphasised because the ambiguity may lead to a misunderstanding.
My final point is that we should not look at the form but the substance.
The substance of change, namely putting into action the reform programme of Commissioner Santer, is essential.
He was right to emphasise that many of these things have already started.
It now comes down to the question of implementation and this needs some experienced Commissioners who are already there.
We need a clean-up Commission until the end of this year and I hope the President-in-Office will read carefully the joint resolution by many groups which says that we must have action first and real reform later.
This ambiguity needs clarification.
Otherwise this debate will yield only half a result.
Thank you, Mr Brinkhorst.
I have no doubt that the Council has heard you and will be considering the question you have put to it.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, I come from a country, Portugal, which has always believed in strong men.
I personally have greater faith in strong institutions - strong institutions made up of strong men, of course.
In fact, the problem of a weak country, like a weak Europe, is that it does not have strong institutions.
And the reason they are not strong is the current Zeitgeist : an extreme centre under which everyone is equal, the parties are all stealing each others' clothes, we all speak the same language and there is no ideology to speak of.
An example of this was the motion of censure submitted by the Socialist Group, which was really all things to all men, and of course sowed confusion amongst Members.
In the end a different motion emerged, similar to the one at the time of the BSE debate, and the result was inevitable.
It has been like the dénouement of a bad Aristotelian play, because there has been no deus ex machina , just intrigue leading to the calamity and the final outcome we are now witnessing.
I am of course happy for one crisis to lead to another, as this is the only way strong men will come forward who can decide what Europe needs to do.
Madam President, the Commission is paying the price for having such an untransparent and secretive style of management.
Its resignation is a sign of crisis and indicates the failure of a Europe cut off from its citizens, turning its back on social needs and thumbing its nose at democracy.
The Commission and the Council must learn their lesson from this by radically changing some of their practices.
The Commission has long felt itself to be above any form of control and has refused to give Parliament the explanations it has demanded for the serious irregularities identified over a number of years.
Its behaviour has often been obstinate and arrogant.
It has been obstinate in following an ultra-liberal line which the public has increasingly rejected and in pursuing policies which Parliament and the Council have strongly contested, such as the liberalisation of postal services and trade relations with the USA.
It has been arrogant in the way it has justified these policies and its undemocratic management style, though this is certainly not intended as a criticism of the work of the European civil servants, for whom we have the greatest respect.
The irregularities which have been identified must never happen again, and this means that both the methods and the approach need to be changed.
The Commission and the Council must stop seeing the fight against employment as a matter for discussion rather than action.
The current emphasis on financial profitability and price stability must give way to policies promoting jobs and growth with binding targets, and the task of the ECB must be revised accordingly.
Europe needs a breath of fresh air to bring it greater transparency and democracy.
The relations between the European institutions and their respective responsibilities need to be clarified, and the Council must face up to its responsibilities, which has not always been the case.
I myself think that having a stronger Commission would not solve any of our problems, quite the reverse.
What does need to be stronger is Parliament's monitoring of the Commission and its initiative-taking and evaluating role, in conjunction with the national parliaments.
We also need to have more widespread democratic debates on European issues throughout the Union.
It is high time that the public in the European Union became involved in the building of Europe, so that they can impose transparency, democracy, a spirit of responsibility, ethical standards - all in all, respect for themselves as citizens.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the Commission, rather than the whole of Europe, was embroiled in a profound crisis - of that there is no doubt - and that the crisis had already gone on too long.
To that extent, the resignation of the Commission is only logical; it is a salutary shock that clears the way for the rebirth of credibility.
The soul of Europe is embodied in its people, who rely on their representatives to continue the work of unification democratically and efficiently to the best of their knowledge and judgement - in a word, responsibly.
The Commission that has just resigned, however, had lost the confidence of Parliament and the people.
That is why the first and foremost requirement is the earliest possible appointment of a new Commission, headed by a strong European personality, a Commission that is determined to serve until the year 2004.
The ball is in the Council's court, and it must come up quickly with the necessary proposals.
I believe this has to take place before the elections to demonstrate to the public that we can get things done.
At the same time, I am well aware that, before the elections, parliamentary assent is still governed by the Maastricht rules, but it is the spirit of Amsterdam that will determine the political implications of our assent.
That is why the new President of the Commission must be granted the right to demand the resignation of individual Commissioners who transgress.
But the need for reform applies to every institution.
The constitutional fabric of Europe, the balance between the institutions, the need for greater powers of legal redress for the citizens of the Union - all of these things have been on the agenda since at least the last intergovernmental conference in Amsterdam.
For that reason, Mr Verheugen, I should like to propose that, when you give the starting signal for the next intergovernmental conference under your presidency, you involve the European Parliament from the outset and ensure that we are not left standing outside the gates again when the chips are down.
This crisis is simply crying out for the establishment of a new relationship between the Council and Parliament.
Grasp that opportunity now!
As you know, Madam President, I am a relatively new Member of the House.
When I first came here, I was full of admiration for the Members of the European Parliament and especially the Committee on Budgetary Control, which had carried out very rigorous and very clear analyses of what was going wrong in Parliament.
I admired Parliament and was proud to be a part of it, because it pushed for real action to be taken.
We could, then, have reached a decision back in the autumn.
At the end of the year, we were ready and already felt that a motion of censure was appropriate.
We tabled one, and in the end almost half the Members of Parliament voted in favour of it at the start of this year.
Some Members, a majority, thought that we ought to secure more evidence from a committee of independent experts, and we got it.
The Commission then accepted its responsibilities, and we think that is a good thing.
Throughout all this, however, the Council has remained deaf and blind.
Even after the Commission resigned, it barely troubled to investigate in a number of Member States what the charges were and what the new Commission's remit ought to be.
There is, after all, no question of the present Commission, which has just resigned, staying put.
That is not an option.
In any event, we want the incoming Commission to discharge its responsibilities fully and clean out these Augean stables.
It will need to be a strong Commission.
It is of no great interest to me whether it is a short-term or a long-term Commission.
What matters is that the rights of the European Parliament, in other words the rights of our citizens, should be fully respected, now under the Maastricht Treaty and soon under the Amsterdam Treaty, and not before time.
The main thing is for the Council to appreciate that the Commission must be flanked by a strong and democratically elected Parliament; respect for Parliament must ensure that the Council gives us a Commission which we can fully endorse and with which we can cooperate, so that we never again have a recurrence of what we have seen here in the last few months.
Madam President, it is always tempting to rewrite history, but the facts always tend to remain obstinately the facts, and the fact is that the European Parliament has by no means always played the role it should have done in the events since August which have now led to the resignation of the Commission.
Let me remind you that last December and January it was Mrs Green, on behalf of the Socialist Group, who said that anyone who felt able to tell the public, the Commission and Parliament that they had no confidence in the Commission's financial abilities had no place in this House, and it was Mr Martens, the chairman of the PPE Group, who said that his group still had every confidence in the President of the Commission, and if a majority in Parliament voted against the Commission it would be an out-and-out disaster.
Mr Cox and Mrs Lalumière said that they personally would be voting in favour of granting the discharge.
The report by the Committee of Independent Experts, which is an excellent one, merely repeats what Mrs Wemheuer and Mr De Luca wrote in their report on tourism, what Mr Fabra Vallés wrote in his report on the MED programmes and in his work on ECHO, and what Mr Elles himself said in his report on the discharge.
The Committee has a good deal more to say, a point which it has made itself, and the statements we hear each day from its members would seem to indicate that they should be given further work to do here.
This is why the Committee should be asked to produce a second report, and why it should also give its opinion on how Parliament operates, so that everything is out in the open and no one can say that Parliament too is afraid to confront its own style of management.
We need a temporary committee to implement the remedial measures in the same way that the Committee of Experts diagnosed the problems.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, our colleague Jean-Claude Martinez was the first person to condemn the Commission's mismanagement, serious errors and lies during the BSE scandal in 1990.
We have had to wait another nine years before the Commission was forced to resign.
The report by the Committee of Independent Experts of 15 March, which among other things criticised the Commission for having lost control of the administration it is supposed to manage, was absolutely scathing.
This mafia-style political mismanagement in the Commission, which goes back to the time of Jacques Delors, is partly explained by the fact that it is directly responsible for the management of considerable sums of Community funding, and that civil service work is delegated to external consultants or subcontractors selected on the basis of questionable criteria without any sort of advertising or transparency.
Claude Perry, the director of Perry-Lux, admitted that out of 5 000 or 6 000 external experts working for the Commission, several hundred were in fictitious jobs and were receiving a daily allowance of BFR 2 860, as was the case with Euro-Conseil.
The Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties meant that the Commission took on a great deal more work and Community programmes, all of which threatened to make individuals and businesses alike feel increasingly smothered.
In this Orwellian world with its supranational and totalitarian administration, it became difficult, according to the Committee of Experts, to find anyone with even the slightest sense of responsibility.
This lack of responsibility enabled the Commissioners, and in particular the Socialist Mrs Cresson, to turn a blind eye or to cover up fraud, malpractice and nepotism.
Instead of the heavy punishment that Europe's taxpayers, having seen their money squandered, are entitled to expect, the Commission is proposing to pay the 20 Commissioners in question 60 % of their salary for three years, in other words a minimum of 60 000 francs per month.
The voters and taxpayers are going to love that idea.
This is why there is a justified upsurge of feeling against these anonymous officials who are trying to deprive us of our sovereignty, identity and freedom.
When they vote for my list on 13 June in France, the public will be showing their political maturity and spirit of national resistance.
Madam President, I think it is important to keep things in perspective as we confront the present situation.
The European Commission has resigned following the publication of a report prepared by a Committee of Independent Experts, which both Parliament and the Commission had agreed in advance to abide by.
Clearly, the Committee of Independent Experts is not endowed with divine right but it has drawn up a report and we must respond to its findings. The report did not find individual Commissioners guilty of fraud or misconduct.
It arrived instead at the overall conclusion that the Commission had not been operating satisfactorily, that certain procedures were not appropriate and that the Commission was collectively responsible for this state of affairs.
Accepting collective responsibility, the Commission then resigned.
What should not happen is what we witnessed in the House this afternoon, when certain party leaders or leaders of political groups took advantage of the situation to attack other political groups for purely electoral reasons.
There is no excuse for such behaviour.
To use a biblical reference, I would invite whoever is free from sin to cast the first stone.
As things stand at the moment, the fact is that it has been shown that the Commission was not operating satisfactorily, and as a result we need to appoint a new Commission.
A constitutional procedure must now be embarked upon.
The Treaties do provide for replacement of the Commission, yet Parliament finds itself in a difficult position as its term of office expires in June of this year. Consequently, unless Council nominations are received very soon, this Parliament will be unable to approve the new Commission.
The task would have to be delegated to the new incoming Parliament.
A word of warning is also called for, however. Our eagerness to monitor and scrutinise the Community's public accounts must not be allowed to hinder the Community's executive role.
In other words, if the Committee of Independent Experts continues its work for an indefinite period of time and investigates every aspect of the Commission's activity, Parliament might well become a very powerful institution and a very effective one where monitoring is concerned, but there is a danger that this would hamper the normal running of the Commission.
I believe there is a need for caution in following up the findings of the Committee of Independent Experts.
My feeling is that rather than concentrating on further monitoring, we should come up with fresh ideas to ensure that the new Commission is properly structured.
As previous speakers have already made clear, we hope in any case that the Council will set the course, prepare the programme and indicate what we can do in the few remaining months of our term of office. Parliament will then be in a position to judge whether or not it is in a position to fulfil the constitutional role laid down for it in the Treaties.
Nevertheless, I think we should pay tribute to the former Commission, which is still in place in a caretaker capacity. We should pay tribute to the dignity of its members and to the dignified manner in which the Commission decided to resign, choosing not to continue in office.
Madam President, following on from the views expressed by my colleague, I believe that the public's verdict on how we discharged our responsibilities during the present crisis will soon be made crystal clear at the ballot box.
I am very satisfied with the active - and on occasion decisive - part played by my delegation.
I am also very well aware of the implications for the whole process of putting forward a motion of censure with the contradictory aim of bolstering confidence in the Commission. Further, minutes before its crucial meeting following the publication of the much-heralded report, a de facto motion of censure was threatened, should the entire European Commission not have resigned.
Returning to the present crisis, my view is, firstly, that a solution should be found as quickly as possible.
Secondly, it is vital for the Berlin European Council to set out clearly the timetable and procedure to be followed.
We should trust the wise judgment of the Berlin European Council.
Finally, I feel that we should make all efforts to implement the Treaty of Amsterdam as it seeks to enhance the status of the European Commission.
Above all, we need to maintain a sense of perspective.
What our fellow citizens really want to know is how we are going to tackle unemployment more effectively, how we are going to continue supporting the agricultural sector, how we are going to put our economies back on track, how we are going to promote the development of our infrastructure and how, indeed, we are going to ensure that solidarity remains a pillar of our Union.
These must also be our priorities.
Consequently, every effort should be made to remain focused on what must still be the main objective of the Berlin European Council.
Madam President, firstly may I say that I find it a pity that no one is left from the Commission.
But anyway, after the report it was inevitable that the Commission should resign.
To my mind, it would have been far better for democratic and political developments in Europe if Parliament had had the courage to send the Commission packing in January.
Parliament has really hidden behind the skirts of the Wise Men and has thus let a political opportunity slip.
As regards the report of the Wise Men, I think the conclusion that the Commission has totally failed in its duty is a little too black and white.
This Commission prepared admirably for the euro and for Agenda 2000.
Nor do I like the ease with which accusations are made against individuals and their families, without any proof.
For the man in the street, it is not easy to distinguish between improprieties in Parliament and in the Commission.
That is why clear measures are needed to show people, amongst other things, how the official machinery actually works, for the very specific reason that people have a strong aversion to officials, technocrats and their bureaucracy.
So independent financial scrutiny is required.
I agree with Mr Brinkhorst that action is needed.
But we must not get carried away by the emotions of the crisis and take hasty decisions which we may later regret.
We need a strategic approach to secure democracy in Europe.
I think that only a new Parliament can install a new Commission.
Madam President, as we see it, the Commission's resignation was the only conceivable outcome, particularly in the light of the report by the Committee of Independent Experts, which basically clarified and confirmed the reasons that led many of us to vote for the motion of censure - which some people claimed was a vote of confidence - back in January.
Which means that, one way or another, we have now lost nearly three months.
But the issue we are discussing today is the replacement of the Commissioners, and in that context we consider it essential that the Commission should be replaced as speedily as possible so as to reflect all the political and legal consequences of the Commission's resignation.
Nevertheless, this speed should not prevent very serious reflection about the immediate and fundamental causes underlying this resignation.
It is not enough for us just to change individuals - it is also crucial to change both working methods and policies.
As we see it, these two aspects are the main reason for the Commission's resignation.
On the one hand, there is a lack of transparency, with absurdly secretive management of instruments and public funds, which inevitably leads to irregularities, favouritism and fraud.
But there is also the obvious insularity and remoteness of the Commission from the public because of the misguided policies that have been implemented and in particular because of their impact on our societies.
Because of all this it has become necessary not only to change people, but also to find appropriate ways of changing our working methods and policies.
It will be essential in future to provide for greater and more effective control of the Commission, in view of the concentration of both legislative and executive powers in that body.
Indeed, the issue that we now have to tackle is not whether or not to strengthen the Commission, but above all how to keep a check on its activities.
The next European Council will have to take all these aspects into consideration, and if possible, it will have to draw up a precise and realistic timetable in conjunction with Parliament so that these issues can be analysed and a new Commission appointed without delay.
Lastly, I would like to mention that financial matters also feature on the agenda of the Berlin Council.
It is particularly important for the Council to achieve a satisfactory outcome on both the Commission issue and Agenda 2000 - for it to be a success, the Council cannot accept just any solutions to these two important problems.
This should be its chief concern.
Madam President, those of us who have been taking steps here during the past two months to ensure that the Commission should be held accountable have won our case.
We have demonstrated that we, the elected representatives, will not put up with nepotism and fraud under any circumstances, and so the Commission has at last been forced to resign.
Obviously a new Commission should be appointed as quickly as possible so that work can be resumed.
The guiding principle behind this undertaking must be to 'clean up' inside the Commission and create the conditions for a climate of openness and transparency - more valuable assets than ink and paper.
That is really the whole point of the exercise.
The Committee of Independent Experts, in its report, highlights one aspect in particular: that the Commission has lost control over a large number of projects.
Consequently, this raises the question of whether the Commission has its fingers in too many pies.
Is it not time to apply the subsidiarity principle and delegate competence in some fields to the Member States, for example in terms of cofinancing under the common agricultural policy?
The EU cannot deal with everything and the Commission is unable to fulfil the tasks allotted to it by the Member States, as the last Commission clearly demonstrated.
I am not in favour of a strong Commission, but of a strong parliamentary system of government, which means that the European Parliament should have more influence and the Commission less.
Madam President, the report by the special committee has shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is an urgent need for reform within the Commission.
It has brought to light a culture of complacency towards irregular practices at the very highest level.
This evidence might not have come to light had this Parliament not demanded urgent action in January.
The report and its aftermath gives us an historic opportunity to force a seismic change in the relationship between the Commission and Parliament, to tackle the democratic deficit in the European Union and overhaul the system of scrutiny.
The Commission not only needs to be brought under democratic accountability, I want to see MEPs given tough new powers to tackle mismanagement, fraud and nepotism.
Now that they have resigned there should be no question of some Commissioners returning to their posts.
Having volunteered to accept their collective responsibility and resign it would be incomprehensible to the citizens of Europe if the same individuals were to be reinstated.
This Union's institutions, with Parliament playing a major role, must ensure that a new Commission is put in place soon, charged with the responsibility of ensuring that a complete reassessment of Commission management and structure is initiated and that the new Parliament after June must have its opportunity to judge those who are nominated to the Commission from 2000 onwards.
Madam President, I will start by reminding the Council presidency of what paragraph 9.4.12 of the Committee of Wise Men's report says.
I quote: 'the external auditor (the Court of Auditors) produced reports which were clear and to the point (for example in 1992 and 1996 on tourism and in 1996 on MED and ECHO). However, only one of the two arms of the budgetary authority (Parliament) gave them proper consideration'.
Manifestly, then, the second arm of the budgetary authority - the Council - has been seriously deficient here.
The fact that on the very day the Wise Men's report came out, the ECOFIN Council made its recommendation that Parliament should grant a discharge for 1997 is, in my view, an illustration of how slack the Council is.
The Council will be taking great risks if it seeks to reappoint Commissioners who are currently in office.
We think that the new caretaker Commission should not include any members of the present Commission, because the committee's work is not yet complete.
All manner of new frauds and other irregularities may yet come to light.
Waiting for the committee to complete its findings will take too long.
The new caretaker Commission must take office as soon as possible.
The Council has a heavy responsibility here.
If it does not do its stuff quickly, the present Commission will still be around until the end of 1999.
That is totally unacceptable.
We have to have a caretaker Commission before the elections.
People have to be able to see that something is being done.
Mrs Cresson must go right away.
On this too the Commission has to face up to its responsibilities, and Article 159 of the Treaty states that the Council or the Commission President can apply to the Court of Justice to have members of the Commission compulsorily retired.
Mr Santer too has forfeited too much credibility as Commission President in recent months and weeks to be able to remain in office.
His job must be taken over immediately by the Vice-President.
We agree with what Mr Cox said on that.
Mr Van Buitenen must be reinstated without delay.
Madam President, whatever impression the Commission's dramatic resignation may have given, what is at issue is not the weakness of the men and women involved, but the lack of principle of the institution itself.
There is no doubt that the Commission is unprincipled because it is neither one thing nor the other - half government executive, half administrative commission - and because all it does is to build a gilded cage around people, trapping them with increasingly interfering regulations and directives gilded with subsidies and patronage.
Corruption is not the result of human weakness, it lies at the very heart of the European system, since what the Commission - and the European Parliament, incidentally - mainly does is to transform the wishes of numerous lobbies and interest groups into legislation.
The Commission acts as a screen for the irresponsibility of the Council and the national governments.
This is why, together with Bruno Mégret, the Members from the Front national - mouvement national do not see the point of simply plastering over the cracks, and we call for the Commission to be abolished altogether and replaced by just a secretariat at the Council of Ministers.
Madam President, I should like to begin by taking up something said by Mr Martens, whom I normally hold in high esteem but whose reconstruction of this crisis I find unconvincing.
I would remind him that the last crisis revolved around fraud.
That, in our view, was an insufficiently sound point of departure.
The Wise Men's report has proved us right: the current crisis revolves around structural political problems.
This is what lies behind the crisis in the Commission, and we pro-Europeans believe that this could be a healthy crisis, bringing about a real reform of that institution.
We are a thousand miles away from last time, when the issue was fraud.
Having said that, I believe it is in the interest of Parliament and of all pro-Europeans - I repeat the term - to go into the elections with a new Commission, thereby proving that the European institutions are capable of moving rapidly.
It is therefore very important, now that the Parliament and Commission have acted, that the Council should do likewise.
Our role was to call for swift action, beginning in Berlin, and here I welcome the very clear statement from the Council President, Mr Fischer, who said this afternoon that Parliament could approve a candidate for President in April, and in May the new Commission.
This means that the Heads of State need to reach an agreement before the April part-session of Parliament.
That schedule suits us perfectly.
We hope it can be adhered to, because it should minimise criticism of the European institutions and enable the Commission to confront the burning political issues rapidly.
We wish to see swift action and a strong political solution, in other words a solution lasting more than just a few months. Furthermore, if possible - and we do think it possible, since it is a matter of political will - the Amsterdam procedure should be followed from the outset because, if the Commission is to be a strong one, it must first of all last for a reasonable period of time - not just until the end of the year - and secondly its President must have the enhanced powers conferred on him by the Amsterdam Treaty.
This must happen, and all it takes is political will.
Finally, the presidency must have various tasks: not only to administer the complex structure of the EU Commission, but also to reform it from within.
Parliament has made a number of suggestions in this respect.
My own suggestion to the Council is that it should explore in more depth the proposals on reform of the Commission which have been put forward by Parliament in various forums.
We are convinced that all the European institutions are in need of reform in the run-up to enlargement, and that this crisis has occurred in the Commission because it is the nerve-centre and therefore the body most exposed to the repercussions of past enlargements and the increase in the EU's workload.
But the other institutions, the Council and Parliament, are likewise in need of reform.
I therefore believe that the initial step being taken - reforming the Commission and progressing towards a more democratic European Union - is the start of an important journey for the Union.
Madam President, there is a well-known saying: 'Victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan'.
Everyone is in favour of reform today, outbidding each other.
This was not the case a few months ago.
Most Socialists - apart from some notable exceptions - voted against allegations of mismanagement and the need for urgent reform of the Commission in December.
Let us not try to re-write history.
May history note that the real vanguard for change - as Mr Martens noted earlier - were those who voted in favour of refusing to sign the 1996 discharge.
Without this act of defiance nothing would have happened and we would have gone on as before.
Secondly, the Wise Men's Report has totally vindicated the findings of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Mr Van Buitenen should now be reinstated.
Furthermore, the enthusiasm of some colleagues, particularly Mrs Green, to take the conclusions of outside experts in a report probably drafted by the same people who have drafted our own reports in the Committee on Budgetary Control would seem to indicate that she takes outside experts' opinions more seriously than those of colleagues.
Thirdly, when we come to appoint a new Commission, whatever its make-up may be, its real emphasis must be the reform of the Commission, continuing the programme for codes of conduct, the reform of the statutes and the screening report of the resources which are needed. Lastly, what we are moving to is a discussion between Parliament and the Council.
The real question is: Do we want to have the rule of the few or the rule of the many?
As Pericles, in his funeral oration in the Thucydides version of The Peloponnesian War , said: 'If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; ' At the same time he said: 'Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states.
We are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few.
This is why it is called a democracy.'
Madam President, I am sure we are all aware that the present situation is without precedent in the history of the Union.
Times such as these are a test of the strength of the European Union, and reveal whether it is built on solid foundations or whether it is merely a house of cards.
It is therefore incumbent on us to face this crisis squarely.
Replacing the present Commission with another is not the only problem.
What is on the table at the moment should certainly result in reform of the working methods of a single institution. Crucially however, it should also result in reform of all the institutions themselves, that is, Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
If it does not, we shall have squandered a unique opportunity.
Parliament has every right to be proud of how it has assumed its responsibility and demonstrated its maturity.
The resignation of the Commission ought to serve as a catalyst for the much-needed institutional reform.
It is to be hoped that the Council will now rise to the occasion, give priority to the interests of Europe as a whole, dismiss the vested interests of individual Member States and seek a satisfactory way out of this crisis. We shall then be able to congratulate ourselves on having achieved a more robust, transparent and democratic Europe.
Madam President, first of all, I am disappointed that this House is meeting today and tomorrow, rather than on the scheduled dates.
Our conduct here smacks of submission to the requirements of the national governments.
Although this might happen in national parliaments, it certainly would not in regional parliaments, where the sense of democracy is more pronounced.
Such conduct gives us scant hope that Parliament really will exercise its rightful monitoring role.
Let us acknowledge that, thanks to an initiative taken by a number of us - and then clumsily hijacked by the majority - we managed to expose an affair which reveals that, however well-equipped bureaucracies, technocracies may be, they are often prone to shortcomings which then lead to such improprieties as have now resulted in the individual resignations of several Commissioners.
I think that we shall have to be far more vigilant in future and, most importantly, I take exception to the fact that some invoke the Amsterdam Treaty, seeking, that is, to use a new instrument, prematurely, to handle an old affair, belatedly.
I should never wish to take away any of the new Parliament's powers, and I therefore urge that the new Parliament should be the one to decide on the Commission, so as not to have to live with a Commission on which it has had no say.
Madam President, 'Shakespeare in Love' has won and Europe is ecstatic.
You know the quotation from Hamlet: 'though this is madness, yet there is method in it' - it would be a good idea for Mr Santer to study William Shakespeare.
But this is not madness, it is a revolution for the present and for the future.
It is a revolution for the present because of the three things that brought it about.
First there was the event itself: 16 March 1999 will go down in history as the day on which the Commission resigned.
Then there was the de facto censure imposed by the European Parliament.
In 1979 we had universal suffrage, and in 1999 we faced up to our responsibility.
The construction of democracy is complete.
Then there was the reason that caused the revolution: Parliament's criticism of the general lack of supervision.
There have been no cases of individual fraud, it should be pointed out - we know this for a fact and anyone who says otherwise is lying.
In Brussels, at the eye of the storm, people understood what was going on, but the public was alarmed by the lies they read in the Murdoch press and heard from the French populists, nationalists from all parties and populists in all the media.
We have even heard some of them here today.
People are being taken in just to win readers or votes and to bring Europe down.
It is up to us to tell them the truth.
It is a revolution for the present because of the lesson it has taught us, because Europe has given a lesson in democracy.
In the Member States there are a good many parliaments and governments that should take inspiration from us to break free and to show greater responsibility.
But it is also a lesson for the future and a revolution, in three ways, for tomorrow.
First of all, everyone wants a strong Commission and everyone agrees that we need it, even the UPE Group.
Jacques Chirac and Lionel Jospin agree on it, which is good.
Jospin and Schröder agree on it, which is essential.
Schröder, Jospin and Blair agree on it, which was unhoped for.
Yesterday Major blocked everything, but today Blair together with France, Germany and the other Member States are all calling for Prodi.
What a turn-about for the United Kingdom and for Europe!
The second aspect of the revolution for the future is new controls, new regulations, and new cultures.
We have created the single currency, now we need to create common ethical standards for government in Europe.
The third and final aspect involves elections plus responsibility. Our citizens elect us and we approve the Commission and monitor it.
European democracy has just been born, and it is up to us to ensure that it grows up properly.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, for months we have been issuing warnings to the Commission at meetings and in personal conversations.
They were not heeded, and the result is plain to see.
We must recognise that times have changed, because the European Union now has the democratic strength to put its own house in order.
I believe it is good news for the people of Europe that the system is democratic enough to ensure that an administrative apparatus cannot commit misdemeanours with impunity.
But we must also recognise that this problem is not really about particular individuals.
There were many honourable people in the last Commission, and we must not forget that.
We must realise that this is primarily a structural problem; it is about a lack of efficiency within the European institutions.
Unless we change the structures within the Commission, we shall be back in this same situation two years from now, because replacing the individuals at the top is only part of the answer.
For that reason, we need to adopt certain procedures in connection with the installation of the new Commission.
On the one hand, it is surely the case that the European public needs to see the right signals from us before the elections.
On the other hand, there must be enough time to ensure that the procedure for appointing the Commission affords the opportunity for a radical reorganisation of that institution, and a good new President will use that procedure and the support of Parliament to gain the upper hand over the apparatus.
Since the new Commission will want to remain in office for the next five years, we must also take account of our successors in Parliament, who will have to cohabit with and accept the Commission and who will also have to legitimise that same Commission in the future.
I believe a compromise will take clear shape on this basis, and I think the Council presidency will be able to offer us a time-frame within which both requirements can be satisfied, so that we can manage the reorganisation and thereby create a better Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it was the Wise Men's report that achieved what this Parliament could not achieve, namely to hold the Commission to account.
That is a shameful admission.
All those who did not support the motion of censure have been made to think again by the Wise Men's report.
It is a fact that the 140 pages of the report contain nothing new.
Be that as it may, the Wise Men did produce one pearl of wisdom when they stated that the Commission as a whole had lost control of its finances and its officials; with that statement, they placed the real problem at the door of the Commissioners, thereby revealing the limits of administrative powers.
The resignation of the Commission was no heroic deed, but rather a case of the Commissioners jumping before they were pushed.
The loss of confidence in this Commission is so calamitous that the only option for us is the quickest possible replacement of the entire team, but let me stress that merely replacing individuals is not enough.
Real reforms are needed, not just tinkering.
On the one hand the structures of the Commission must be thoroughly reviewed, and on the other hand there is an urgent need for an extension of the powers of scrutiny vested in this House.
The fact that this debate is taking place is the real achievement of the Committee of Wise Men, because what is ultimately at stake here is the right of citizens to be governed democratically and to scrutinise the actions of those who govern them, and that right must not be allowed to fall by the wayside.
Mr President, even though the Christian Democrats are late converts to the idea of a Committee of Experts which they opposed in January, we in the Socialist Group welcome the fact that they now support the establishment of the Committee of Experts and we look forward to its second report which will be published within the next couple of months.
I want to focus my contribution this afternoon on that report.
However, by way of comment, I would just like to say that the reforms we are looking for in the European Union institutions, as the previous speaker said, do not end with looking at the 20 Commissioners.
That has been the focus for the last few months but what we need to do now is to find the causes of the widespread problems in the Commission and, more importantly, we want the Committee of Experts to recommend remedies.
Therefore, I hope that the Committee of Experts when it meets during the course of the next few weeks and when it conducts its detailed investigations into the operation of the Commission, will look in some detail at the structural problems within the Commission.
This is not just a question of political leadership.
It is associated with the processes for personnel and financial management.
It is about the whole management structure of the Commission; the relationship between the staff and their directors; the relationship between the directors and the directors-general; the relationship between the directors-general and the Commissioners and their cabinets.
So it is extremely important that this second report, which we must now focus upon, looks at the necessary root-and-branch reform.
I hope that at the end of tomorrow's vote, the resolution we pass will set out very clearly that we want the Committee of Experts to bring forward those recommendations.
We do not want a generalised polemic from the Committee of Experts; we want specific recommendations about what it has discovered not only in relation to the last four and a half years but about procedures that, as we know, have gone on in the European Union civil service for many years.
The challenge is how we act upon that.
The critical thing for the Socialist Group is that we want a new President of the Commission in office as quickly as possible and we want that President to take the report of the Committee of Experts and to make sure that every step is implemented, not just in relation to the 20 Commissioners, not just in relation to the culture of the College of Commissioners, but for directors-general, directors and every level of responsibility and management within the Commission.
If we do not do that the whole exercise of the last few months will have been a waste of time and we will have made no further progress in what is after all a major event for the public in the European Union.
Mr President, may I say to Mr Donnelly that the President-in-Office told us we had made use of our democratic right and had done our duty.
Had the Commission been prepared to give us access to all the relevant information when the scandal first broke, we should not have needed the Committee of Wise Men, and we are every bit as capable as the Wise Men of producing the second report if we obtain the necessary information from the Commission.
Let me address a brief remark to the Commission and its President. It is not as if the crisis had already begun when the reforms started to bite.
On the contrary, Leonardo did not appear on the scene until 1998, and the problems surrounding Mrs Cresson have only come to our attention in the last few months. That is why this is so disastrous, as is the fact that all the financial transactions which were undertaken by the Commission and which are now being criticised in the Wise Men's report were given the go-ahead by Financial Control.
Lastly, may I say just a few words on the Wise Men's report and on our activity here in Parliament.
Does it surprise anyone that the Socialist Group gagged those of its members who were against giving a discharge in respect of the 1996 budget?
Does it surprise anyone that the Socialist Group voted against Mr Bösch, the rapporteur on the Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, who is one of their own members, and does it surprise anyone that the coordinator of the Socialist Group in the Committee on Budgetary Control resigned her post in protest at the policy of her group leader? Against this background, it was probably only to be expected that the head of the group would table a motion of censure with the intention of withdrawing it again.
If the Socialist Group had behaved as consistently back in January as they now claim to have done, we might have had a new Commission up and running by now and could have spared ourselves the crisis we have all been discussing today.
Mr President, I am afraid all this is what Shakespeare calls 'much ado about nothing', and so I do not think we have the basis for a new beginning or a clean slate.
The problem of the European Commission, after all, affects all the Community institutions without exception: fraud, nepotism, profligate spending, lack of transparency over subsidies, inflated salaries.
Who in Parliament would dare to claim that the Commission alone suffers or has suffered from these ills?
The fact is that the European institutions without exception, so Parliament as well, are too far removed from their people for normal democratic scrutiny to be possible.
So the scandal over the Commission should above all lead to greater respect for the subsidiarity principle, drastic curtailing of the European policy of subsidies and hand-outs, and above all a greater exercise of scrutiny by the Member States and Member State governments.
Until this happens, I fear that nothing much will improve.
Mr President, I am surprised and saddened at the petty political way in which some colleagues are seeking to profit from what is an extremely serious situation.
We are in fact facing a crisis in the institutions of the European Union, and we must face it head on.
The resignation of the Commission was a demonstration of the political and personal sensitivity of all its members.
However, it also demonstrated that the institutions we have established function and that we need to develop them.
The European Parliament has displayed commendable composure and maturity in the face of this crisis.
But the time has now come for our leaders to take some bold decisions which will work positively towards strengthening the institutions of the European Union.
Some opponents of the European idea may have wanted to use this institutional crisis to strike at the very heart of what has brought us all here today.
Decisions are difficult.
However, vacuums and deadlocks are dangerous.
The Community's Heads of State and Government must make prompt decisions and come up with an unequivocal solution.
The President-in-Office has taken a positive step by declaring that the name of the new Commission President will be put forward by April.
I do not think this is enough.
Swift decisions also need to be taken regarding the other members of the Commission.
Whatever constitutional issues may be outstanding could be settled and, in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty, the Council and the European Parliament could work to implement the necessary reforms.
We have the opportunity to restore the confidence that is needed in the institutions of the European Union.
I think we owe this to the people of Europe, and we owe it to the idea of the European Union.
Mr President, the crisis that is buffeting Europe is both a serious and a healthy one: serious because without a doubt it represents an unprecedentedly difficult moment, but healthy because - as others have said - from now on the topic of institutional reform can no longer be avoided. It must be tackled head on, prior to enlargement, and must open the door to economic governance in the Europe of the euro.
This Europe has given itself institutions such as the European Central Bank to manage monetary policy; now it also requires authoritative political governance, authoritative political institutions.
We are all in favour of autonomy for the Central Bank, but this should mean autonomy vis-à-vis another, much-needed, political body.
This issue can no longer be ducked.
However, what has happened is also healthy because it has at last raised the question of transparency.
Each of us appreciates from our own experience the urgent need for transparency in the activities of the Commission.
Anyone who has had connections with that institution, such as applying to participate in a programme, has experience of inadequate information and inadequately substantiated decisions.
It is likewise healthy in that the Wise Men have established a sort of moral case-law, telling politicians to refrain from doing not just what is forbidden, but also what is inadvisable. This lesson in moral case-law could also usefully be learned by the various countries' national political leaders, if the public is to feel at ease with politics and its institutions.
One must not do what is inadvisable.
I too look forward to a rapid solution to the crisis and an authoritative Commission presidency, and I too would stress that - if the presidency is to be strong and authoritative - it cannot be a short-term one but must have sufficient time to plan its work.
Mr President, no one wanted this crisis yet no one did anything to prevent it. Nevertheless, because of the regenerative and creative effect it will have, it should herald a new era in the life of our institutions and make them fit to serve a more ambitious European Union - a more transparent and democratic Union, and, of course, a more political one.
But it should also be more responsible about the way it operates and controls its affairs, ridding itself of negligence and demagoguery and avoiding a scapegoat culture.
We are experiencing real growing pains, with dwindling institutional resources required to cope with ever greater burdens.
So it is not surprising that there is a sharp dividing line between collective and individual responsibility, and between Community and governmental responsibility.
Nowadays, we cannot even rely on the legal certainty of legislative texts for either the past or the future.
Mr President, that is why the institutions can only find a way out, a direction, a guideline, in political terms.
Which means that it is up to the political powers that be, and in particular the Council and Parliament at present, to act swiftly to resolve this crisis.
But acting swiftly does not mean acting with undue haste. It means that the Council should nominate a candidate to be President of the Commission within a reasonable deadline, and that this President should benefit from the democratic legitimacy bestowed by Parliament, which is absolutely essential for a strong Commission.
And by strong, I also mean stable, and with a political future.
Committees are not the way to achieve the necessary reform of the institutions and to imbue them with a fresh sense of drive.
Parliament will be more than willing to swiftly resolve a crisis which, if it drags on, will only give ammunition to the European Union's enemies and weaken it economically.
To do this, Parliament's demands will have to be heeded, but it is willing to reach political agreement with the Council on a solution.
Mr President, the epicentre of this crisis is not Brussels - its origins lie in every single capital of the fifteen Member States.
It is now incumbent on the Council, and in particular the German Presidency, to put its cards on the table and acknowledge its responsibility.
We will be waiting here to listen to its proposals.
Fortunately, according to what the President-in-Office of the Council has told us today, it seems that the Council is on the right track and is adopting a common sense approach.
Let us hope so!
Mr President, in this debate on the resignation of the Commission and the forthcoming summit in Berlin, I would like to start by thanking the good Commissioners for all the work they have done in recent years.
It is a pity things had to come to such a pass and that a call in January from this Parliament, and from a large proportion of my group's members, to dismiss those Commissioners who were under fire was not acted upon.
If that had happened in January, both the Commission and Parliament would have emerged stronger from this conflict.
Now the good Commissioners have been swept aside together with the bad ones.
That really is a shame.
And I cast a critical glance at our Socialist friends, because if they had helped us in January with that resolution, all the things which have happened would not have done so.
We endorse the departure of the entire Commission as something which is inevitable.
We hope to see a new Commission very soon, starting with a new Commission President.
But we believe it has to be a caretaker Commission, because a truly definitive Commission can only be appointed once the elections are out of the way.
That seems to me to be the normal democratic rule.
In our Member States too we do not appoint governments first and then hold elections; we do it the other way round.
As regards the President, it would actually be nice if Parliament could nominate a candidate.
There are, as I understand it, three of them: Mr Prodi, Mr Solana and Mr Kok.
I would be happy with any of them, but my own personal preference would be for Mr Prodi, the man we know best.
He has my vote.
Anyone who can steer Italy's bureaucracy and its economy along the right track can cope with Brussels.
So as far as I am concerned, Mr Prodi would be a most welcome choice.
One last remark on Agenda 2000, because this too will be discussed in Berlin.
I very much hope that changes will be made to agricultural policy, because the way it is shaping up is not good.
I hope that changes will be made to the Structural Funds.
I hope above all that the Netherlands will score better on Agenda 2000 than it has done so far, because the current Dutch Government can probably prepare itself rather better than it has been doing.
As far as that is concerned, we wait eagerly to see if the results are better than they look like being.
We await the debate on Agenda 2000 and the advent of a new Commission with equal interest.
Mr President, the view of the Dutch members of the Group of the Party of European Socialists is that the Commission's decision to resign was the only one possible in the light of the Committee of Wise Men's report.
So that is rather different from what Mrs Maij-Weggen said just now, from dismissing two Commissioners on grounds of alleged fraud and saying that their resignation had to be seen as the preliminary outcome of a trial.
It is more important for Parliament now to be pulling together to establish a new position vis-à-vis the Council than for her to be claiming which group was the instigator of the trial.
This new position, this new culture, must be reflected in the implementation of the code of conduct, the development of individual responsibility for Commissioners, a revision of the Staff Regulations, and the Members' Statute.
This new attitude from the Commission in its way of working and its dealings with Parliament can be summed up as the end of arrogance.
That is undoubtedly a gain for Parliament, provided it is not replaced by arrogance on the Council's part.
Perhaps the Council will find it hard to work under pressure of time.
But it is of the utmost importance to have a new Commission as soon as possible, in advance of the elections to a new European Parliament.
It will have to draw up an ambitious programme, to be evaluated by the House. The current Parliament can inform the new Commission of the reforms that are required.
A new Commission will have to commit itself to these.
With the heralding of the Commission's new term of office in the year 2000, Parliament can then monitor the Commission's performance as it carries out this programme.
So we want a new Commission for five and a half years, with a six-month probationary period.
A good Commission does not need to fear a review of this kind by Parliament, because in any normal democratic national parliament, ministers are subjected to constant scrutiny.
Mr President, anyone who takes the time to analyse the events of the past year will see that many things have been the subject of debate in this House.
There have without doubt been injustices on an individual level, since many of those who have been forced to resign should not have done so.
Nor is there any doubt that this whole sequence of events was used to further petty political aims in various quarters.
The fact is that these events are now in the past, they are over and done with, and we must now focus our attention on the lessons to be learned from these developments and on how to use them for the good of the European Union and the world in general.
I believe that acknowledging that the European Parliament has a far more important role to play than the other institutional bodies have been willing to accept is a fundamental and crucial point.
From now on, the European Parliament must fulfil the expectations of the people of Europe as regards the ways in which it should tackle these issues.
Others have lessons to learn as well.
The Council of Ministers for instance, was in a great hurry to grant discharge, without examining the real facts.
And if the Commission had acted differently in certain circumstances, we would not have ended up where we are today.
However, the basic lesson we must take away from all this is that we must be responsible towards those who are going to vote for us in the very near future.
Here too, Mr President, the Council of Ministers must take responsibility.
If it does not make the right decision to allow the institutions of the European Union to act properly and in a cooperative way during this crucial period, and if we remain in a state of partial governance for any longer than is necessary, I fear that we will not have learned the lessons we need to have learned from this crisis and all our efforts will have gone to waste.
Madam President, at this stage in the debate, virtually everything has already been said.
Most of those present have observed that while the events of the past week are not something to rejoice over, they served to bring matters to a head and have cleared the air both as regards relations between Parliament and the Commission and in restoring people's confidence in the Union in the long term.
I think we can now clearly see that we needed the time between January and March to prepare the report, which provides us with a quite different basis from the one we had in January for making constructive improvements in the future.
I am impressed by the speed and efficiency with which the committee of experts has carried out its work.
There has been some criticism of the fact that the task was given to outside experts instead of being carried out by Parliament itself.
However, I believe that our situation is too politicised to allow us to carry out such an investigation.
I also honestly believe that there are times when it is appropriate to resort to an outside opinion.
It is a necessary step, albeit a difficult one to take, since it is hard to see how to resolve the problems when one is deeply involved in the work and the procedures.
Let us now hope that this report really does become a blueprint for a thorough-going reform of the Commission's working practices and, perhaps even more importantly, that the call for openness and transparency which has constantly been reiterated over the past few weeks and which has frequently been made by the European Parliament now becomes a reality.
As recently as last January, we came up with a very constructive proposal on this subject.
Mr President, a new era starts here today.
I am tempted to paraphrase the famous words that Goethe said on the night after Valmy: for the European institutions a new era is beginning and a different culture is required.
And that culture is the culture of democracy.
Can we live up to this culture? I think we are all facing a collective challenge here.
First, the Commission, which has long been a rather other-worldly institution supported by a choir of faithful followers.
Now it is to become an ordinary governmental organisation monitored by representatives of the people.
It might be rather annoying for it, but that is the way it is.
Parliament too is facing a challenge.
Parliament has become a major player in the institutional game, but as the French say, 'noblesse oblige ': this new responsibility brings new duties with it.
Can we be a strict partner to the Commission, giving it the strength that is so vital to both our institutions, or will we be interfering usurpers, grasping for power that is not ours? We have to act responsibly.
This new challenge is also something the Council is facing.
First of all it must ensure, as the other arm of the budgetary authority along with ourselves, that the Commission is given the administrative resources with which to act.
We hope to see this in Category 5 of the financial perspective.
It must also abide by all the rules of the democratic processes.
Finally, the challenge also affects the Member States.
The biggest omission from the Amsterdam Treaty was the reform of the Commission.
Now we need to choose a proper Commission that operates according to either the corporate model or a more presidential one.
The timetable must be respected and we must meet these challenges together, or else everyone will be the loser.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the resignation of the Commission was justified and necessary on the basis of the Wise Men's report, and I am pleased to see so many of my honourable colleagues coming out in support of this report and its outcome, even though they originally opposed the appointment of the Committee of Wise Men.
But we all live and learn.
Secondly, the Wise Men's report was hard, but it was not unfair, because I believe that the less say the public have in how their money is spent, the stricter must be the criteria governing the administration of financial transactions.
Thirdly, the European Commission had to resign, because it was too weak in many respects in relation to the Council.
On the other hand, it often made a point of showing its muscle to Parliament.
Fourthly, we need a strong Commission with a strong President.
Only that sort of Commission will be a worthy and fitting partner for Parliament.
But being strong also means being open, transparent and certainly not secretive.
Point five: we need a new balance between the collegiate nature of the Commission and individual responsibility.
The public must be aware of the collective responsibility borne by the whole Commission, but also of every individual Commissioner's accountability.
Point six: some people are talking about the Commission crisis as if it were a crisis of the entire European Union, but the EU must stand the test, and it will, especially if it responds quickly, and I hope that the presidency can impose itself at the Council meeting in Berlin.
Point seven: we need a new team, not just a new President.
The Commission must be visibly renewed with new faces.
Point eight: some people see the incapacity and the mistakes of the Commission as an opportunity and a summons to weaken the Commission and even the EU.
That is the wrong way to react, and I deplore such an attitude.
Point nine: we have achieved a great deal in this Union, and indeed with the Commission that has now resigned, but I believe that a common economic area and a common currency are not enough.
And so point ten is that we must continue on the road leading to environmental and social union, on the road leading to political union, and we need a Commission and a Commission President who will not shirk any of their responsibility for the pursuit of these goals.
Mr President, it is important, as people have already pointed out in this debate, that this is a crisis in the Commission.
It is not a crisis of the European Union.
Therefore, at this time our citizens need the reassurance that can only come from the Council of Ministers and Parliament and the administrative people carrying on with the important tasks that have to be done, such as the completion of Agenda 2000, regulation of the euro and reassuring the citizens of Europe that there is nothing in the present crisis that has not been provided for in the Treaties and that cannot be handled.
There are many people in Parliament who are taking pride and satisfaction in the role that Parliament has played in all this.
However, to my mind, Parliament has stumbled along rather than charted out a very careful strategy in all that has happened.
Firstly, the Committee on Budgetary Control, by a narrow majority, agreed to grant discharge.
Parliament refused discharge but later it voted a motion of confidence in the Commission and its President.
The leader of the Socialist Group voted to give discharge and also voted confidence in the Commission.
Mr Cox, leader of the Liberal Group, voted to grant discharge.
So we should remember that it was not entirely clear from the very start where we were going.
The Committee of Inquiry came up with its findings and it seems that it is these findings, which contained nothing new, which led to the resignation of the Commission.
The Committee of Inquiry made its point clearer than Parliament has ever been able to do, so the public was able to read in a very clear way where the failings were.
I believe that the consequences have been disproportionate to the failure of the Commission as a college.
The failures of the Commission have been there for a long time.
The failures have been obvious in that we gave them too many tasks and we did not give them the resources to discharge these tasks.
I regret that one or two Commissioners did not shoulder their responsibilities but I regret that so many good people, including the President Mr Santer, who have done so much important work and achieved so much success have appeared in the eyes of Europe to be discredited when in fact they are people of honour who have done a good job.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a great deal has been said about the resignation of the Commission being an institutional and political crisis.
I would call it more of a growth crisis.
When Jacques Delors was President of the Commission, it burst strongly onto the political stage in various areas of European policy, most of them incorporated in the Maastricht Treaty: the single market, economic and monetary union and European citizenship.
It had abandoned its traditional role, but we failed to learn any real lessons from this.
Nor did the Member States, which missed the opportunity provided by the Amsterdam Treaty because they were unable to get to grips with the problems of reforming the Union institutions.
Parliament too was sometimes too timid in its approach to the Amsterdam Treaty and failed to keep the required distance.
Finally, and above all, the Commission more than any of the other institutions was in the best position to see just how far its organisation and operation had become completely obsolete in terms of the tasks it was expected to perform, and which it agreed and asked to carry out.
So now the line which the new President and the new Commission have to take is clear.
They must behave in practice, even though they are not yet able to do so by right, as a proper European government, with all the transparency and efficient organisation and management that this implies.
As Mr Bourlanges said, the technocrat culture must give way to a culture of democracy.
I think this is where the Socialist Group is to be congratulated, since it was our patient strategy which lanced the boil that was sapping the institutions.
Instead of going in for politicking, squabbling and settling scores, we pushed Parliament into making a political gesture, and if the European Union emerges the stronger for it, then it will be thanks to the actions of our group.
Mr President, can I first of all make an observation on behalf of many Members about the gross discourtesy of the Commission in not being present for this debate.
To its credit the Council is at least represented by Coreper.
I am probably the least surprised person about the findings of the Committee of Wise Men, because, as many colleagues know, since 1990 I have been pursuing a fraud in DG XXIII.
This has been amplified by the report but there is nothing new in it.
My view is that the report by our colleague Mrs Wemheuer from the Socialist bench who has not spoken tonight and who resigned in protest at the position of the Socialist Group before Christmas from the Committee on Budgetary Control did indeed examine the institutional questions which were supposed to be examined by the Committee of Wise Men.
Paragraph 1 of the resolution passed by the Parliament in January actually required the Committee of Wise Men to examine the way in which the European Commission systematically covers up fraud, mismanagement and corruption; and that is not in the report, especially if I may say so in relation to the saga on tourism.
All we have actually seen is a delay of three months from the report by Mr Elles, which was sent back to ommittee in December despite the Socialist wishes.
That contained a number of reforms which could have been put into place even then.
Mr Van Buitenen's testimony on 9 December was widely circulated in the Parliament and had all the information needed by the Parliament to move to a motion of censure, possibly of individual Commissioners, at the time.
So the crisis that has developed over the last three months must be laid very firmly at the feet of Mrs Green.
I described her as the most confused woman in Europe and still believe that is the best description of her.
So the report we have seen debated this evening is Van Buitenen II.
There is very little new in it, and I would simply say to the Council that the Wise Men's report, if it recommends a fundamental change of the Staff Regulations and the way in which the Commission itself operates, will have achieved something.
May I just point out to the House that at no stage in the last eighteen months has any Member State made any request through Coreper or otherwise for the reform of the institutions.
It is high time they did.
Mr President, the conclusions of the Wise Men's report are quite clear.
The Commission has lost political control of its administration.
That is in fact the most frightening conclusion of the report.
It means that staff in the Commission can just go on in the same way, without any control or overall political guidelines.
In such a climate, corruption, nepotism and irregularities can thrive.
Fortunately, the next Wise Men's report will be a shake-up of the civil service culture at the Commission, and that is where the biggest battles will be fought.
We need a comprehensive staff reform, which in my view should include an end to jobs for life and introduce fixed-term contracts instead.
Of course, there should not be any witch-hunt against officials in the Commission as such.
Many of them work diligently and well, but it should be possible to get rid of the rotten apples.
It will be a tough battle.
The staff organisations will fight tooth and nail when they see their unrivalled privileges disappearing.
The Wise Men's report places a collective responsibility on the Commissioners. They have at last accepted that responsibility and resigned en masse.
We can see that, because they are not here this evening.
Parliament would have dismissed the whole Commission if they had not resigned of their own accord.
The Danish Social Democrat delegation is therefore unanimous in not voting for the restoration of a Commission which is almost identical to the one we have just dismissed.
It is not a question of personalities, although one person tried to make it so.
It is a question of principles, and we would like to call upon our colleagues to set aside national party political considerations.
New blood is what is needed.
Finally, I would like to reprimand the Council.
There must now be an end to the politics of the 15 rubber stamps.
The national governments have shown no responsibility at all in this matter.
Year after year, they have approved the accounts without batting an eyelid, so perhaps we should consider sacking the Council next time round.
And I would like to say to my friend Mr McMillan-Scott that I think it is a common trick to malign Mrs Green when she is not present, but that is typical of what the Conservatives in England stand for. They are a common crew!
Mr President, the crisis which has been brewing for months in the European Commission and which has now culminated in the resignation of the Commissioners has sent out a clearly visible and long overdue signal.
Brussels has its own Watergate, and conclusions now have to be drawn so that the crisis of confidence between the European Parliament and the Commission, between the public and the European Union in general, can be overcome.
The Commission crisis is not confined to that institution alone. On the contrary, it is a crisis of the European Union.
To dispel it, we need short-term measures and lasting reforms.
One of the short-term requirements is the nomination of a new President of the Commission by the Member States, in Berlin if at all possible, and the Commissioners who were explicitly criticised in the Wise Men's report must not be part of a future Commission.
Among the lasting reforms are the earliest possible establishment by the Council of a procedure that will make it possible to call individual Commissioners to account in the event of misconduct, mismanagement and fraud.
The unavoidable tasks facing the European Union are completely divorced from present-day political reality.
The Treaty of Amsterdam already provides for considerable improvements in this respect. These alone, however, will not suffice.
A procedure for calling individual Commissioners to account must be laid down at or before the next intergovernmental conference.
A sustained improvement is also required in the fight against fraud. Eighty per cent of all EU fraud takes place in the individual Member States.
If that scandalous situation is to be remedied, we need more than just an independent Anti-Fraud Office; the European Court of Auditors must also be given wider powers. It must be able to investigate cases of fraud at the scene of the crime, in cooperation with regional and national authorities and supreme courts.
Parliament's right of scrutiny must on no account be diluted.
The Wise Men's report was useful, but it should be completed by 20 April, and above all it should carry out an investigation at the level of officials. It is unacceptable for this Commission to operate on the principle that Commissioners may come and go but mandarins are forever.
Mr President, the European Commission resigned because the Committee of Independent Experts which investigated its activities found that it had been mismanaged.
President Santer made what was absolutely the right decision and accepted full responsibility.
This process has shown that it was immensely important to have set up this independent committee, as it is only because of their work that we have been able to get to grips with the real problems.
Without it we would have merely swept matters under the carpet, as it were, having had two or three token resignations from Commission members.
Reading this report now, it seems unlikely that we would have had sufficient justification for dismissing everyone.
We have to bear in mind, however, that we will need to cooperate extremely closely with the Council in the future.
The new Commission must be appointed quickly, and it was very good to hear the President-in-Office of the Council say that the principles of the Treaty of Amsterdam would be respected in this connection.
Nevertheless, while we ponder these images of power, we must remember that the most important matter on the agenda at the forthcoming Berlin summit is the approval of Agenda 2000, and in the light of the current situation it is vital that Berlin should be a success.
Certain speakers here have proposed that the new Commission might include members of the current one.
I believe this has to be examined on the basis of what we want from the Commission.
The aim must be to improve the Commission's work and management culture, and we must have Commissioners who can do this.
The current situation should be exploited thoroughly.
We need time and energy to bring about reform, and capable people to manage it.
Mr President, Jacques Santer has shown great political courage.
By resigning along with all the rest of the Commission, he has shown that he accepts full responsibility, and I admire his honesty.
However, I also regret the fact that a Commission which has done excellent work throughout its term of office should have been forced to resign.
If Mrs Cresson had resigned of her own accord last January as she should have done, when her dubious practices were already widely known, we would not be in a political crisis in Europe today.
I hope that the kind of national tricks that Mrs Cresson got up to will no longer be possible in the new Commission, a new and strong Commission which I hope will have the endorsement of the newly elected Parliament in June.
I would also like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Jacques Santer and most of his Commission, which has launched some historic projects: the euro, enlargement, Agenda 2000.
He was also determined to carry out fundamental reforms to make the fight against corruption more effective.
It is through the irony of history that the Santer Commission has become the first victim of its own reforms.
Let us hope that the measures it has taken will enable its successor to be more transparent, democratic and effective.
President, I am really appalled at the remark of the Tories and their leader this evening but I am not surprised.
It just confirms what I have always thought about them.
This report, however, gives us an opportunity for a fresh start.
By 'us' I mean all the institutions of the European Union.
Reform of the Commission is the start.
The Council of Ministers and the national governments also need to examine themselves critically and ask if they have always acted in the best interests of our Union.
The Council of Ministers will make very important decisions this week which we know will have a long-lasting effect on the future success and credibility of the European Union.
Let us hope that they make these decisions in the same spirit of openness and accountability and respect for democracy that they rightly demand of the Commission.
The Commission has been found guilty of malpractice.
I would suggest that the way to remedy this would be firstly that all appointments and contracts be openly advertised, decided independently and scrutinised by the Parliament.
The Commission staff should cease empire-building and behave collectively for the good of the Community.
The practice of there being a de facto national quota for senior staff appointments in the Commission must end.
The Commissioners should be entitled to appoint a personal cabinet but this should be done with complete transparency.
Each Commissioner should have to justify the appointments by publishing details of the individual's qualification for the job to an independent assessor.
Each cabinet member should be absolutely required to leave office with the Commissioner.
No more parachuting into important Commission staff positions.
With regard to the role of national governments, these and other reforms are badly needed.
The public must be made aware that it is often the practice of governments and the Council of Ministers to blame the Commission when things go wrong.
As has been pointed out here, most EU funding is actually administered by national governments and there is considerable evidence of fraud and malpractice in this area.
It is the responsibility of governments to address that.
And finally, President, I would say that with regard to the role of the Council of Ministers, we know that they meet in private.
They are one of the few remaining governing bodies anywhere in Europe where decisions are taken behind closed doors, and this must stop.
Mr President, the uncompromising final paragraph of the conclusions of the report is undoubtedly controversial. According to this paragraph, despite the dilution of political responsibility observed during the inquiry, the Commissioners should accept this responsibility as a body.
Faced with this conclusion, the Commission had no alternative but to resign, which it has done with its dignity intact.
This crisis has come at the worst possible time, with the European Union in the final stage of the Agenda 2000 negotiations, the outcome of which will to a large extent determine our collective future, and in particular the future of the cohesion countries, including my own, and of the applicant countries from Eastern Europe and of our farmers.
The frenetic demands made by certain political forces to get rid of this Commission makes me suspect that it would suit them to have a weak Commission, because a weak Commission would in theory be easier to bend to their minimalist views on the future of the European Union.
I believe that it would be more reasonable to keep this Commission on in a caretaker capacity, as it is familiar with the dossiers being negotiated and could therefore guarantee more rapid, effective and well-balanced negotiations.
Nevertheless, we are open to other reasonable solutions.
The important thing is that the pace and the balance of the negotiations on Agenda 2000 should not be affected and that the strategic interests of the Union should not be jeopardised.
I also want to emphasise that I am against a second report by the committee.
We need a strong Commission in which political responsibility outweighs bureaucracy.
We need Parliament to actively pursue its budgetary control functions and we need a body that will fight effectively against fraud.
If what we have now is not adequate, then we need to carry out whatever reforms are necessary.
But we cannot perpetuate exceptional arrangements.
It is time for the institutions to act and to accept their political responsibilities.
Mr President, I should like to begin by paying tribute to my fellow-countryman, Jacques Santer, who is not in my party but whom I respect for the important political work he has done as President of the Commission.
I would like to underline his political successes, but also the circumstances that led to his downfall, for which his own political group, the PPE, bears considerable responsibility.
As everyone here has said, we need the swift appointment of a strong new Commission that can carry out root-and-branch reforms.
However, while I naturally agree with this in principle, I would also stress that we shall be in an entirely new situation.
The new Commission is to be approved by Parliament, which will also vote in the new Commission President on the basis of the Commission's programme.
There is to be a new relationship between Parliament and the Commission, and it will be the Commission and its programme that Parliament will be approving for its term in office.
So in approving the Commission, Parliament will be bound by a sort of contract for the term of office, and it will have to be disciplined and show political maturity.
There will have to be a stable majority if the Commission's proposals are to be implemented, and Parliament will no longer be able to make do with the kind of fluid majorities that expose it to the risk of blackmail, particularly from eurosceptic or anti-European groups.
The parliamentary democracy that is now being introduced in Europe also requires Parliament to be legitimised by its electors, and this is why I do not agree that it should be the old Parliament that approves the new Commission.
It should be the new Parliament elected on 13 June.
Mr President, the Social Democrats must bear a large part of the responsibility for the institutional crisis in which the EU now finds itself.
Last December, they voted not to hold the Commission responsible for its administration.
That decision, together with the attitude it reflected and which preceded the vote, meant that the Commission felt under no obligation to carry out reforms at an early stage, thereby possibly avoiding the present situation.
In January, the Social Democrats also lent support to the Commission by voting against the censure motion.
In our present situation, we need a new Commission whose mandate will last until the year 2000 to take over before the European elections in June.
Any other solution would not be understood by the voters.
The Commission also needs to play a central role in taking initiatives and in ensuring that the Treaty is respected.
With so many important issues on the agenda, it is essential that the policy-making work continues.
Whatever the different governments may say, the new Commission's mandate should last only until the end of the year.
The newly elected European Parliament should approve the appointment of the President of the Commission and the Commissioners for the period 2000 to 2004.
The result of its vote should be respected, in accordance with the Treaty.
Several factors serve to complicate both the process and the timetable: the Commission has to be appointed in two stages; the present Parliament's remaining mandate is so short; and two different Treaties have to be applied.
The importance of the role of the European Parliament in this process stands out clearly.
The Council of Ministers has not instigated any administrative reforms.
However, if what Parliament says is to carry any weight, it is essential that no criticism can be levelled against its own position.
It is fortunate that Parliament, on various occasions, has carried out major changes in its own working practices.
A new proposal for a Statute for Members of the European Parliament has been submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval.
This issue also needs to be settled before the European elections.
Mr President, the resignation of the Commission in the wake of the report published by the Committee of Wise Men was the right decision.
Since March 1998 Parliament's Group of the European People's Party has systematically highlighted failings in the work of the Commission.
The results of the report which led to the resignation simply repeat in black and white the findings of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It would have been reasonable to expect those Commissioners charged with negligence, mismanagement and nepotism to have known when to resign themselves, in the light of information obtained earlier, especially as Parliament does not have the power to dismiss individual Commissioners.
In the future we will need to analyse the make-up of the institution and examine the functions of Commission officials.
Continuing the work of the Committee of Wise Men, is, however, not the solution.
Parliament now has the means to monitor the Commission's activities.
It is Parliament's task to ensure that the positive reforms now under way in the Commission are carried out and that any problems that emerge are promptly dealt with.
The situation is an awkward one at the moment as far as the Union is concerned.
A temporary Commission must therefore be swiftly appointed, so that the Union is capable of operating as soon as the new Parliament commences work after the elections in June.
Naturally, a temporary Commission would only operate until the end of the year, when the new Parliament will carefully consider the choice of Commissioners for the next five-year term.
We do not need a Commission made up of failed politicians or those who have been put on the shelf in their own countries.
In considering the choice of Commissioners we have to take account of the candidates' ability to manage the affairs of the Union and to bear both individual and collective responsibility for their decisions.
Parliament has now brought about a huge change in policy and it must be ready to take the responsibility for seeing the reforms through to the end.
We are now altering the course of the Union, making for a more transparent and democratic people's Europe.
Thank you, Mrs Matikainen-Kallström.
I have received eight motions for resolutions to wind up the debate, pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m.
The sitting was suspended at 8.35 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
EAEC accession to KEDO, EU-DPRK relations
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A4-0104/99) by Mr Tindemans, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the agreement on terms and conditions of the accession of the European Atomic Energy Community to the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) (C4-0483/97); -the oral questions by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, to the Council (B4-0147/99) and the Commission (B4-0148/99), on the European Union's relations with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.As the President said at the beginning of the sitting, the Council has indicated that it is unable to be present because of work connected with the preparations for the European Council meeting in Berlin.
Mr President, as the House will appreciate, we are dealing here with a very serious matter, namely KEDO and relations with North Korea, a country which is totally isolated at present and which is in the grip of acute food shortages.
So this is a most serious debate.
I shall confine myself to three points.
Firstly, KEDO itself.
We have already held one debate in Parliament to discuss an initial tranche of funding.
KEDO came into being as a result of a project to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in North Korea and draw North Korea more closely into the international community.
In 1993, there was a fear that North Korea might obtain nuclear materials from its Soviet-type nuclear facilities, graphite moderator reactors, with a view to putting them to military use.
This fear was further intensified by the North Korean threat to leave the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
An agreement was concluded with the United States whereby North Korea would freeze its nuclear programme and possibly close down its nuclear facilities, in exchange for the building of two light water reactors and in the meantime receiving supplies of heavy fuel oil.
So KEDO was a US initiative, although South Korea and Japan helped to carry it out.
It may seem odd to seek non-proliferation by building two new nuclear facilities.
But these facilities, light water reactors, are not only safer to operate but also harder to use for military purposes.
The European Union was then launching its new strategy for Asia, to develop better relations between Europe and Asia.
Membership of KEDO was therefore consistent with this policy and was intended to improve security in north-east Asia.
It would also show solidarity with our Asian allies and might also bring economic benefits to European industry through the US involvement, since European firms would be eligible for KEDO contracts.
The foreign policy aspects of joining KEDO are therefore significant.
Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee devoted 18 months and lengthy discussions to preparing a report which was as complete and accurate as possible.
It also worked with the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Research.
The other committees directly concerned by this report favour joining KEDO and think that Parliament should do its job and make that accession possible, including in financial terms.
I must take this opportunity of saying straight away that we were able to work extremely well with the Committee on Research and Technology and the Committee on Budgets, with Mr Ford and Mr Brinkhorst.
It was a delight, and often when the three of us consulted, we were all in agreement on the conclusions.
There was one problem.
The Council decided that the accession agreement would be concluded under Euratom.
The treaty on which Euratom is based does not contain any obligation to inform or consult the European Parliament.
The Council and Commission undertook to do that on a voluntary basis.
But European membership of KEDO will mean expenditure using funds from the budget. The three committees and the House as a whole realised this, and so there was a chance that this spending might not be approved unless agreement could be reached to involve Parliament in future international agreements concluded under the Euratom Treaty.
Well, Mr President, thanks to contacts and an exchange of letters, we have already reached agreement on the first tranche which I mentioned.
But now what do we find? We, the three rapporteurs plus an official, visited North Korea from 5 to 14 December.
On 15 December a new agreement was signed by Euratom, that is to say with the involvement of the European institutions, an agreement with Canada.
I am no troublemaker. I do not want to stir things up unnecessarily, but this is totally unacceptable for a directly elected Parliament which has responsibilities and which has to answer to its voters.
We cannot agree to the conclusion of something like this, since we shall be required to pay for it, since we shall have to authorise the expenditure for it.
We cannot accept that unless we are properly informed and consulted.
There has been a flurry of activity over this in the last few days, but I shall not dwell on that.
In the Foreign Affairs Committee, Commissioner Brittan made a statement which gave us the impression that we were moving towards an agreement.
We have now seen a letter this afternoon to the President of Parliament, signed by Sir Leon Brittan, telling us how the Commission plans to handle such matters in the future.
I am pleased to say at this point that we are quite happy with this letter.
We are also reassured by what Sir Leon said in the committee about how some paragraphs are to be interpreted, so we are able today to commend the entire KEDO dossier to the House.
But there is one more point I would like to make.
When we were in North Korea we had some quite fascinating encounters, we three rapporteurs and the official accompanying us.
Clearly we were going ask for meetings with the leading figures, and we got them.
We talked, sometimes at considerable length, with the president of the National Assembly, the foreign minister, the deputy foreign minister, the energy minister, the spokesman-general for the army, and so on.
We got a fair impression of how things are.
As I said, there are acute food shortages in this country. It is totally isolated.
We came to the conclusion that humanitarian aid has to continue and that cooperation with the authorities there must improve, so that the help we offer can be more effective.
We naturally came to the conclusion that we must do everything possible to prevent proliferation, to coax the country out of its isolation and into the family of nations, and that KEDO can help to achieve that.
We think the Koreans would be prepared, if invited by the House, to meet with Members of Parliament here, and with the specialist committees.
We advocate this in the motion for a resolution we have tabled.
And we think that better diplomatic contacts may produce results.
Of the 15 Member States of the European Union, only Sweden has an embassy - just Sweden, none of the others.
Might the Koreans not open a liaison office here?
Might we not strengthen our diplomatic presence there, with the European Union taking an initiative to that end? We advocate both these things.
But I will say no more on that particular subject.
My third point concerns the two questions asked by Mr Spencer.
Perhaps I can just quote them.
They are as follows: in the light of the recent establishment of a political dialogue with North Korea, will the Council state its views on the possibility and desirability of further developing relations between the European Union and its Member States and North Korea? How does the Council assess the current security situation in north-east Asia?
What discussions on this situation have been held, or are likely to be held, with the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States?
His second question was: 'in the light of the recent establishment of a political dialogue with North Korea, will the Commission state its views on the possibility and desirability of further developing relations between the European Union and its Member States and North Korea? How does the Commission assess the current security situation in north-east Asia?
What discussions on this situation have been held, or are likely to be held, with the Republic of Korea, Japan and the United States?
Mr President, I am speaking in two capacities - for the Liberal Group and also for the Committee on Budgets.
It is quite ironic that on the same day that we are debating the consequences of the resignation of the Commission, we should also be discussing the question of KEDO.
The Committee on Budgets, in a sense, has been the auxiliary committee.
For us it was very clear when the Council decided unilaterally at the end of February 1996 that KEDO would be supported by financial resources entered in the budget, that the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, which had not been not consulted, should give its opinion.
That story has taken quite some time and still at the present time there is a reserve in the European Union budget.
The fundamental reason has to do with the debate which we had earlier today.
It has to do with democracy and accountability.
Therefore, it has to do with the question of whether in the future we will have the possibility in this Parliament of discussing the very fundamental question - as all normal national parliaments do.
The Euratom Treaty is 40 years old.
It provides very extensive powers to the Commission and the Council.
It provides no powers to Parliament.
So, when the Commission chose to enter into the agreement, it chose Article 101 of the Euratom Treaty and this Treaty does not provide even for consultation with or information to Parliament.
It is on those grounds - and I say this unabashedly - that the Committee on Budgets decided to put the resources in reserve until the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy were adequately involved.
We have been acting on behalf of these two committees.
In substance it is very clear that it is not the Committee on Budgets that will decide whether or not we should enter into an agreement on energy cooperation with North Korea.
It is against that background that we are pleased to hear that the Commission recognises that the times are changing.
We look forward to hearing Sir Leon Brittan, on behalf of the Commission, reading out the results of the discussions we have had and which I hope will lead to a situation where we will have more accountability on Euratom matters in the future.
It is again very ironic that on a day like this the Council is not even represented at political level and it shows that maybe the next battle for democracy will not be with the Commission but with the Council.
Speaking on behalf of the Liberal Group, we welcome the fact that the European Union has a strategic energy and foreign policy involvement in North-East Asia.
We also welcome the very active involvement of Sir Leon Brittan on behalf of the Commission.
It is against that background that we were deeply disappointed that it was not possible to find an adequate institutional arrangement for this particular point earlier.
The Liberal Group fully supports Mr Tindemanns' view that it is not only with South Korea but also with North Korea that a new relationship should be developed.
I would like to ask one question of Sir Leon.
This morning in the International Herald Tribune there was a strong plea for a new approach to North Korea.
Apparently the Japanese are more reserved than the South Koreans.
We should strongly support the 'sunshine' policy of President Kim Dae Jung who has suffered more than anyone in South Korea from the tensions which have existed for more than 40 years between South and North Korea.
It is against that background that we would like to give our support to a KEDO agreement and also to new relations between Western Europe and North Korea.
Mr President, like Mr Brinkhorst I am also speaking in two capacities, firstly on behalf of the committee, and secondly on behalf of the Socialist Group.
Firstly, I should like to congratulate my two companions in this long endeavour: Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Tindemanns.
We started this process on 21 November 1997.
If I had known I was going to spend so long with them I would have checked with more care who they were going to be.
However, I could not have picked two better companions.
We spent a whole week together in North Korea and ten and a half hours in meetings with the deputy foreign minister.
This would have produced any personality clashes there might have been.
Equally, I should like to thank Sir Leon Brittan for all his efforts to try to reach an agreement between the Commission and the European Parliament.
It has been a long, hard road.
I will not go into the detail because the points have been raised by the two previous speakers.
We now have an agreement that I think Parliament can accept on the basis of the letter which has been sent today.
I am deeply disappointed that the Council of Ministers, which apparently accepted an oral question for debate on relations with the DPRK, has failed to send anybody to participate in the debate.
Perhaps they have been delayed and I should be glad to hear from you, Mr President, if that is the case.
I presume we are expected to work out the Council's view on these matters by some form of telepathy.
KEDO, as you have been told, is a project to build two light water reactors to substitute for Russian design Chernobyl-style reactors that were under construction in the DPRK and which have the ability to produce weapons-grade plutonium.
To try and resolve that problem we have the US-DPRK Framework Agreement of 1995.
The European Union was asked to contribute to that and this is what this comes from.
The Research Committee's view was one of critical support.
We have a series of concerns.
Firstly, a financial hole it still exists.
Japan's contribution of US$1 billion and the Republic of Korea's 60 % and the European Union's US$85m do not make up the full cost of the project.
It is unclear how the gap is going to be bridged.
Secondly, we are concerned about how the United States is delivering the promised heavy fuel oil which is meant to act as a bridge until these two nuclear reactors come on line.
It is being fitfully delivered.
North Korea is a deeply suspicious country.
We in the European Union might understand that the checks and balances of the US constitution mean that President Clinton cannot always clearly deliver on his promises but we can hardly be surprised that the North Koreans take a different view when, in the coldest month of the year and when energy is most needed, there was a failure to deliver heavy fuel oil to the Sonbong oil-fired power plant.
Thirdly, we are concerned about the fact that KEDO is a bat without a ball.
There is no money being put forward to connect the two nuclear power stations into the North Korean grid system.
This is only going to cost $100m or $200m, comparatively small beer compared to what is being spent on the KEDO project as a whole, but, clearly, if you do not have the bat and the ball, you cannot play the game.
Fourthly, we are concerned about the lack of clarity on the allocation of these enormously large contracts and whether European industry is going to get a fair opportunity to bid.
Despite these reservations the Research Committee voted in favour of the programme.
We believe that, overall, it serves our best interests as a Parliament and as a European Union in demonstrating our role in East Asia.
This debate is not only about Mr Tindemann's KEDO report.
It also refers to two oral questions to the Council and the Commission with respect to future relations with the DPRK.
We have been supplying humanitarian aid for some years following a series of natural disasters - flood, drought and tidal waves - that tipped what was a barely sufficient North Korea firmly into the red as far as food production was concerned.
There is severe malnutrition in North Korea.
A recent World Food Programme report indicated that 16 % of children between the ages of 1 and 6 are so badly malnourished that they suffer from permanent brain damage; 45 % of children are so badly nourished that they will be permanently stunted.
So, 300 000 to 400 000 0-6-year olds are permanently brain-damaged and 1 000 000 0-6-year olds are permanently stunted.
Therefore, I welcome the new agreement to supply further food aid of something over ECU 30m and to target children under 12 and lactating mothers.
I welcome the agreement by the North Koreans on monitoring.
After the events of last week it is vital for us in Parliament to be assured that the Commission is spending the money in the appropriate ways.
I welcome also the assistance on agriculture - new techniques and maybe even new crops.
I am disappointed, however, that nothing is being done in the non-nuclear energy sector.
While I was there on the delegation I visited a coalmine and a thermal power station.
Firstly, there was no power so the coalminers had to be evacuated.
No coal would therefore be produced over an eight-hour shift and the power station only had three days' supply.
Both were extremely primitive and I speak as someone whose family were coalminers in the United Kingdom in the 1950s.
Compared to the cost of KEDO, one-tenth of 1 % of the KEDO project would boost productivity in the coalmining industry - it has been estimated - by something like 25 %, and modernise elements of coal-fired power production.
On the political side I welcome the result of the Council's low level political dialogue with the DPRK and support the idea of a second meeting when the time is right.
I welcome the Commission's communication on Korea calling for critical engagement.
All I ask is that we move quickly.
The situation is critical.
We should not miss an opportunity.
I know the North Koreans have asked for a liaison office to be opened in Brussels.
I hope we can agree that can happen, subject to reciprocity in Pyongyang, and that subject to the necessary agreements we can move on to more developed relations.
Finally, I welcome the paragraph in the report that asks for a delegation to come here from the DPRK's Parliament.
We will have hard and difficult negotiations with them but the dialogue has to start somewhere.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, may I say first of all that I am pleased that the general issue regarding Parliament's role in Euratom agreements has been settled and I can assure you that the Commission services will implement the practical arrangements we have arrived at.
Before setting those out, I want to say that I very much agree with what Mr Tindemanns said about the role of KEDO as part of our Asian strategy and being an important contribution to it.
We will come to North Korea in a moment but we have to look at our policy with regard to the region as one which has to be integrated, comprehensive and positive.
As far as the problems we have had with Euratom agreements, I am grateful for what has been said about my own role in resolving them.
I can assure you that I absolutely agree with Mr Brinkhorst that times have changed and we have to reflect that in what we are doing.
The measures the Commission intends to take are set out in a letter that I have sent to the President of the European Parliament today.
That letter states first that at the beginning of each year, the Commission will provide a list of all the relevant Euratom agreements under Article 101(2) which are under negotiation or for which negotiations are to be launched in the coming year.
This list will be regularly updated and forwarded to Parliament under the necessary conditions of confidentiality.
Secondly, the Commission will provide oral information on request to the relevant parliamentary committee on the conduct of the negotiations under the necessary conditions of confidentiality.
Thirdly, the Commission will forward the proposals for conclusion of the relevant Euratom agreements to the Parliament at the same time as they are forwarded to the Council for approval.
That is a significant procedural innovation since it provides a guarantee to Parliament that it will be informed before the Council has taken a position on the conclusion of these agreements.
Thus Parliament will have the opportunity to make its views known before a decision is taken to conclude the agreement in line with the commitments made in our earlier exchange of letters.
I should add that the time it takes for the Council to reach a decision on conclusion is generally fairly lengthy.
That leaves ample time for Parliament to express its view if it so wishes.
In those cases where the Council may wish to take a particularly rapid decision, the Commission will duly inform the Parliament of this possibility.
Fourthly, by way of a letter, information will be provided on the relevant agreements under Article 101(2) Euratom which are currently either under negotiation or for which a decision or conclusion has not yet been taken.
The agreements referred to represent all agreements covered by Article 101(2) Euratom which are under negotiation or for which negotiations are to be launched in the coming year.
Finally, in order to ensure that there is no further misunderstanding between the Commission and Parliament, the Commission will also convey separately to the Parliament all relevant texts and agreements which should have been covered by our understanding during the latter half of last year and the beginning of this year.
That is what the letter says.
With respect to the report on the KEDO Accession Agreement it is a well-presented and interesting document which addresses the fundamental aspects of the KEDO initiative.
The visit of the parliamentary delegation to North Korea was regarded in a very positive way by the international community and I am grateful for the degree of attention Parliament has given to KEDO.
I particularly endorse the conclusion which states that Parliament considers that the European Union should play a role in reducing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, increasing nuclear safety and encouraging the development of better relations between the DPRK and its neighbours and that membership of KEDO will enable it the better to play that role.
We are fully playing that role in the implementation of the Accession Agreement.
We attend all KEDO board meetings and negotiating meetings with North Korea.
The EU has staff in KEDO, including at director level, is following the procurement aspects - and here I can assure Mr Ford that we have every intention of ensuring that Europe gets a fair crack of the whip - and Europe has the chairmanship of the important International Nuclear Safety Advisory Group.
We are paying our financial contribution which helps to ensure that the DPRK respects its non-proliferation pledges and we were pleased to note that the DPRK is now going to allow access to the so-called underground facility so as to allay international concerns.
Security aspects are fundamental to peace and stability on the peninsular and the KEDO project is contributing to reconciliation between the two Korean governments.
Indeed, it is a unique example of South and North Koreans working together.
KEDO itself is a special organisation where we are cooperating actively with our American, Japanese and South Korean partners to help improve security in North-East Asia.
North Korea is also aware of our involvement not only through KEDO but also via the political dialogue which I shall refer to in answer to the question and by the European Union food aid programme.
Indeed, it is the case that the Commission negotiators have recently reached an ad referendum agreement with their DPRK counterparts on conditions for a new EUR30m aid programme for 1999.
So we are contributing to a process of engagement with North Korea, seeking to encourage it to become a more responsible member of the international community.
We have to be realistic.
There is an important, difficult and ongoing task to ensure security in North-East Asia and underpin the global non-proliferation regime.
KEDO is a key part of that task and we will continue to remain in close contact with Parliament in the implementation of our participation in it.
We will have to start preparing soon for the future of our participation in KEDO because the current agreement expires at the end of the year 2000 and we will be in close contact with Parliament following the procedures I referred to earlier.
So I am very gratified to see that Parliament's opinion records approval of the Accession Agreement which will allow the release of the funds for the 1999 financial contribution.
It is true that broader financial problems remain but the first thing we have to do is to play our part.
Turning to the question from Mr Spencer on the broader issue of relations with North Korea, I welcome the visit that was paid by the Members of the European Parliament to North Korea and I am glad that it was a successful bonding exercise.
The negotiations I have had with the Members of the Parliament to deal with the KEDO problem have been a similar bonding exercise and I thank all concerned.
There is no doubt at all, as far as relations with North Korea are concerned, that a crisis in the Korean Peninsular would have far-reaching consequences in North-East Asia and beyond and we have a responsibility, commensurate with our new role in seeking to be involved politically in that part of Asia, to do what we can to avoid it.
President Kim Dae Jung has strongly advocated greater international engagement as a way of handling the problem and I can certainly assure you that we fully support, as Mr Brinkhorst has urged us to do, President Kim's 'sunshine' policy.
America too is conducting a wide-ranging review of its policy under former Defense Secretary Perry.
We have been pursuing a policy of limited engagement illustrated by the food aid and other assistance programmes, as well as by KEDO.
We are currently discussing how that policy may now be taken further forward.
An important factor will of course be the policies which the DPRK itself pursues in key areas such as security issues, relations with neighbouring countries, human rights and so on.
We also have to take account of the need to support our key partners in their dealings with the DPRK.
The EU regularly exchanges views with our dialogue partners, including the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan with regard to the situation on the Korean Peninsular.
The idea that was put forward for further development in the energy sector is certainly one that we want to consider.
Possibilities are being considered, including a study into alternative energy sources and/or the coal sector rehabilitation.
On the political side we obviously have to tread warily but not so warily that we do not make progress.
That is the course we shall pursue and I am grateful to Parliament for its support for it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in his own inimitable way, the Commissioner has not only set out the problems but has also provided us with avenues to explore.
We are grateful to you, Commissioner, for your letter, which - at the last minute, if I may say so - enabled us to reach our decision on the KEDO project.
It might have come a little earlier, but we are pleased that you found the right approach along with our Three Musketeers.
These really are three committed Musketeers, who care about the interests of the people in North Korea and about this issue.
On behalf of my group I should like to offer my sincere thanks to Mr Tindemans, to Mr Brinkhorst and also to Glyn Ford.
Although you, as a practised diplomat, tread warily but with undoubted success along the path of rapprochement and cooperation with other countries, you will permit me, as a Member of Parliament who need not be quite so diplomatic, to point out that the KEDO project, like others, must ultimately be judged by the conduct of the government of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in terms of its military activities and its humanitarian inactivity.
I do believe that the North Korean Government must finally provide conclusive evidence that its military activities do not pose a threat, particularly to its neighbouring states, and that they are not designed to pose a threat.
We call for access by independent inspectors to nuclear facilities, especially the underground facilities.
We also really ought to expect the North Korean Government to declare at long last that it will not undertake any more test launches without giving prior notice.
After all, Japan could not fail to perceive the totally unexpected test launch of a missile over Japanese territory as a threat.
I believe we must surely agree that a country such as North Korea which is looking for support from the international community must naturally conduct itself in such a way that it is not seen to threaten or act in a hostile manner towards other states.
So much for the military aspect.
As far as the humanitarian side is concerned, we are pleased to note, Sir Leon, that you have made progress on the question of providing food supplies for the population.
But to be honest, I distrust any statistics released by the North Korean Government on the extent of the famine in North Korea.
I certainly believe it to be essential that we keep in touch with the aid agencies on the ground, because I do not think that even this project can come anywhere near providing the volume of aid that is needed - and Mr Ford has given us some figures.
The fact that North Korea has money for military actions but no money to buy food for its people is a contradiction that we cannot tolerate if we care at all for the people of North Korea.
In that respect, I believe we should keep a very watchful eye on that situation, and we should expect the North Koreans to tell us the truth here and to assist us in ferrying supplies to the population, especially in the remote parts of the country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you may not be surprised to learn that I cannot see this whole situation in such a rosy glow as it has been presented here, especially by Sir Leon Brittan.
We know each other only too well, of course, from the Committee on External Economic Relations.
The few good points to be found in the KEDO programme, namely the desire to arrive at an alternative form of energy and to make a contribution to North Korea in terms of promoting reconciliation or improving people's living standards, are swamped by a whole series of points which Mr Tindemans presents in detail in his explanatory statement.
Mr Ford has also told us what is really happening over there in North Korea.
I cannot help wondering whether we should not be trying to solve quite different problems there at the present time, rather than helping to build two light water reactors.
How is North Korea ever supposed to repay the debts it is incurring in this domain?
If we reply to this question by claiming that we need to have a foot in the door, economically speaking, and to profit from projects and contracts, then I have to say that this is surely a very mercenary approach; to put it more bluntly, we have taken a policy that is supposed to provide a country with a helping hand in its pursuit of development and have succeeded once again in turning such a policy on its head in spectacular fashion.
We are building a new white elephant under the guise of development aid.
That is surely not designed to provide long-term assistance.
Reactors are to be sited somewhere in the landscape, and there is not even any certainty as to how the energy is to be transmitted from there.
And what about the disposal of the nuclear waste? That, of course, is another question you have yet to resolve.
You may find that amusing, Sir Leon.
But as an aid worker who has worked long enough in the shanty towns of this world, I have to tell you that this sort of solution is certainly not one that springs to my mind.
Let me conclude by stating the obvious, namely that the way Parliament has been treated throughout the period of the KEDO negotiations has been anything but brilliant.
If you are now presenting us with a letter, Sir Leon, the content of which I can certainly endorse - well, I have to say that it may have come late, but at least it has come.
However, we are being given sight of this at a very, very late stage in the proceedings.
I know that you are always keen to inform Parliament and that you do that and come to our meetings.
But in terms of substance - and let me make this very clear - we are usually sold short, because our questions often receive extremely flowery answers.
That is something we very often experience in the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Be that as it may, I have some different ideas of what would help these countries.
For that reason, even though much of the content of the report may be right and proper, I regret that we shall have to vote against it.
Mr President, I have a suggestion to make.
It would be a better idea to announce when the Council is present rather than when it is absent, since this is becoming the exception rather than the rule.
It is also going to make it difficult for Mr Brinkhorst to cross swords with the Council if it is never here.
It is a little late to be realising that instead of crossing swords with the Commission, we should have focused our energies on trying to get the Council out.
But it is too late now, the damage is done.
Another thing: regarding the procedures for the vote tomorrow, I regret that we were not able to table amendments in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and had to table them directly in the plenary.
It is going to add to our workload today, and it is also not in accordance with the Rules.
As for the substance of what has been said, I am absolutely dumbstruck.
This will come as no surprise to someone like Sir Leon Brittan, who is more of a dreamer than a realist.
When I hear people talking here this evening about crises and food shortages, I honestly wonder whether they really appreciate the scale of what is happening in North Korea.
And yet the figures speak for themselves: two to three million people have died over the last four years.
This has nothing to do with food shortages - it is a genuine famine, an out-and-out disaster, and it is not a natural disaster but a structural one caused by an insane, criminal and psychopathic regime which is worse than the worst regime in the Soviet Union or Ceaucescu's Romania.
We are talking here very earnestly about a nuclear programme, and our Green colleagues are right on this, in part: should we really be allocating hundreds of millions of euros to build nuclear power stations over there, even if they are less likely to be used for military purposes, when other solutions could easily be found?
We are not asking for anything in return.
We are providing food aid, and we are not asking for any reforms, although we know perfectly well that the agricultural production system is structurally quite incapable of meeting North Korea's needs.
I find this totally incomprehensible.
This agreement will be supporting a regime that is completely and utterly insane.
Clearly we will be voting against this report, but that is not enough.
Perhaps when Sir Leon Brittan stops being such a dreamer and becomes more realistic he might think about the possibility of investing a few million euros in providing the North Koreans with information, instead of letting them starve to death without any knowledge of what is happening in the rest of the world.
I think there are some fairly obvious things we could be doing instead of sitting back and watching Pyongyang fire off missiles and waste what little energy the country has left on totally insane plans.
It is a mad regime and it must be brought down.
Mr President, I understand the Council is not present.
Is that correct?
I repeat what the President said at the start of the sitting: the Council has announced - albeit with regret - that it is unable to attend because of duties connected with the preparation of the European Council meeting in Berlin.
I understand what you are saying, Mr President but I rise on Rule 40 which says that when questions to the Council have been placed on the agenda in time, that is to say three weeks before - and as far as questions of foreign policy is concerned this time limit does not even apply - they will be answered.
I am speaking here in place of Mr Wijsenbeek who, as we all know, is a recognised expert on the Rules.
We are in a dilemma.
The oral question plus the report are part of a package.
The Council is not present tonight but we are also sitting tomorrow and I move that we suspend this item now so that before we vote tomorrow we have the reply from the Council.
That is the logical thing to do.
This Parliament is by now taken seriously by the Commission but apparently not by the Council.
Could I have a ruling from you on this point, Mr President?
Mr Brinkhorst, we have come to the end of this debate.
I understand your comment, which has been noted, but the discussion is over.
Mr President, you cannot say that the debate is over if one of the two institutions to which we addressed our questions has not even replied.
It seems to me that it should be up to the President to ask the Council to give a reply.
If you rule that we will not suspend the debate until tomorrow morning - and I understand that is implicit in what you are saying, though I would question it - could you a least say that the Council will reply in writing to the specific questions put by Mr Spencer on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and that we will have that reply tomorrow before the vote? It makes nonsense of a debate if there should be two institutions present.
Sir Leon has given a full reply but the President-in-Office of the Council is totally absent.
Can you reply to that point? My group's attitude will be very much determined by your reply.
Mr Brinkhorst, we shall ask the Council for a written reply, but I cannot tell you whether or not we shall have it by tomorrow morning.
I would now ask Sir Leon Brittan whether he wishes to comment further.
Mr President, I just wanted to say a word about some of the points raised by the last three speakers, and I will be brief.
I entirely agree with Mr Jarzembowski that it is essential that North Korean military activity must not present a threat.
He has spoken in a very clear way.
I would agree with and endorse it, and what we are doing is designed to deal with the security issue as much as anything else.
It is indeed put forward explicitly as a way to engage the North Koreans and discourage them from the worst form of military threat that there could be - namely, a nuclear threat.
It has to be seen in that context.
Mr Kreissl-Dörfler suggest that we really should be focussing on other problems.
All I can say is that you have to ask yourself - and I would address this to Mr Dupuis as well - the extent to which we are able to do so with a country like North Korea.
The fact of the matter is that the gravest threat that it presents to its neighbours is a security one and that in preventing that by the KEDO Programme or diminishing the risk of it in the KEDO Programme, we are actually making a contribution without which it would not be possible to think about any other sort of measures; and I would say to Mr Dupuis that the idea that a regime which has the horrific characteristics that he has described is one that is going allow our propaganda to enter, is frankly an unrealistic one.
I will say however to him that the new aid programme, in fact, is conditional.
We have paid particular attention to securing adequate commitments from the DPRK on the monitoring procedures and on a reform policy for agricultural rehabilitation products with increased incentives for farmers, devolution of decision-making, revolving credit facilities and so on.
In those circumstances, I really do think that, faced by what was hitherto regarded as an impenetrable regime, we have made substantial efforts both to engage them in the process of the reform and to reduce the security threat that they would otherwise present to their neighbours and the rest of the world.
Thank you, Sir Leon.
As I have said, we shall ask for a reply from the Council, which is represented by two officials here in the Chamber.
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m.
Emigration from Iraq and neighbouring region
The next item is the report (A4-0079/99) by Mrs Terrón i Cusí, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the influx of migrants from Iraq and the neighbouring region: EU action plan adopted by the Council on 26 January 1998 (5573/98 - C4-0124/98).
Mr President, as you have just stated, tonight we are going to debate an action plan on the influx of immigrants from Iraq and the neighbouring regions.
This report was adopted on 26 June 1998, though Parliament was consulted only a few months ago, when the action plan had already been under way for almost a year.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and I would have welcomed the opportunity to prepare a report on the measures proposed in this action plan at an appropriate time, and we felt that it was somewhat ridiculous to be called on to do so a year after the plan had been implemented.
In my capacity as rapporteur, I therefore wished to take advantage of the opportunity provided by consultation and present a political report on this plan and its implementation. Parliament should not be criticised for failing to put forward its opinion at a more appropriate moment as it was consulted at an impossible time.
As we prepared the report, we put certain questions to the Council which, in our view, were crucial.
We asked the Council how many people were involved and about the extent of the immigration.
We asked about the result of the proposed measures, which had already been in force on the ground for almost a year, and we also enquired about the impact of the action plan on illegal immigration and on the criminal activities of those who traffic in people.
We also wanted to know how many people had sought asylum and been processed since the action plan had been implemented.
I appreciate that such information can be hard to obtain.
Nevertheless, I most earnestly hope that someone somewhere is in possession of it by now, though the Committee on Civil Liberties and Parliament most certainly are not.
We have not managed to find out anything.
No information has been made available to us, and we received no response to the questions we asked.
Notwithstanding this state of affairs, I attempted to analyse all the various aspects of the Council's proposal.
It should be said in the Council's defence that this action plan represents an attempt to adopt a global approach to a problem which Parliament had already highlighted in a resolution on this issue dated 15 January 1998.
Certain aspects of the action plan have given me particular cause for concern.
Firstly, I am unhappy that very different situations are being jumbled up together and dealt with in the same way under the plan.
When we refer euphemistically to 'immigrants from Iraq and the neighbouring regions', we also include a Kurdish area torn apart by a political conflict which has resulted in strong repression.
We are therefore dealing here with a displaced population seeking protection in more peaceful areas.
The action plan refers to this in passing, along with actions aimed at other population groups which are indeed part of the same flow of migrants but for very different reasons.
Mixed in with these we find actions directed against trafficking in people.
We are in favour of measures against trafficking in people, but we believe that each of these specific issues should be tackled with the appropriate measures. A distinction should be made between asylum seekers, those who are fleeing a conflict, and the activities of those who traffic in people.
Although the composition of this flow of migrants is undoubtedly varied, we do not believe that this is a valid excuse for failing to make the necessary distinctions.
In this context, we are also rather concerned about Turkey's part in the action plan.
Given its geographical location, Turkey is bound to be the first country to receive these displaced people.
It is essential, however, that their human dignity be respected.
Turkey should allow the UNHCR to organise the initial reception process, particularly since, for refugees from northern Iraq and especially those from Kurdistan, Turkey is part of the problem and cannot therefore be considered a safe third country for these people.
Respect for human rights and for the rights of minorities in Turkey must take precedence over cooperation and aid in this respect.
Finally, Members of the Council - I trust you are present in the House today, because if you are not, what we are engaged in is fairly pointless - could you please enlighten us as to what exactly an action plan is meant to be? We have no idea.
We know all about joint actions within the framework of the CFSP, we know all about other procedures, but an action plan is something new, and we would like to be informed of the basis on which this decision was taken.
It seems to us that the decision lacked a sound legal basis.
We therefore call on the Commission to present a new proposal in three months' time, and for Parliament to be consulted before the Council takes a decision. We would also like information regarding the budget allocation for all this.
We sincerely hope that such information does exist and that it will be made available to Parliament.
Mr President, once again the Council of Ministers is addressing itself to the European Parliament rather late in the day.
It is requesting Parliament's opinion on an action plan, as the rapporteur has said, after this was adopted by the Council in January 1998 without prior consultation, as required by Article K.6 of the Treaty.
Is the content of the action plan so insignificant that this oversight can be forgiven?
Quite the opposite.
The problem that has to be solved is an enormous, complex and extremely difficult one.
It has arisen in the most sensitive and inflammable region bordering on our continent.
It is a running sore that is getting worse and spreading to many countries where streams of refugees are taking shelter.
It is putting our humanitarianism and our civilisation to the test.
The swarms of refugees and dispossessed persons, be they Kurds from Iraq or, for all kinds of reasons, outcasts from neighbouring countries, are being caught in the nets of those who trade in illegal immigrants and falling into lawlessness and poverty.
Every day we learn of appalling events, the victims of which include women and children.
In her comprehensive and very thorough report, the rapporteur rightly calls for a new proposal to be submitted within three months and for consultations with the European Parliament to take place.
Only in this way can Member States participate in this action according to the letter of the law.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs is unanimously agreed, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has delivered a unanimous opinion.
However, the rapporteur does not fail to point out the weaknesses, the naivety and the omissions that characterise this plan, which has been adopted in fits and starts.
Nor does she deny that illegal immigration must be tackled with great severity, but this severe approach must not be indiscriminately merciless.
It is hypocritical of us to ignore the fact that, in this way, the notion of asylum is discredited, when rejection or repatriation is often tantamount to a death sentence.
The fact that a central, governing role is being entrusted to Turkey, which has just such a past, with its violation of human rights, the state of its penal institutions and, in general terms, its inability to function in a proper judicial way, is simply a joke in very bad taste.
The fact that it is being entrusted with such a role by the Council in respect of a problem which Turkey itself is trying to eliminate through military operations can only be seen as a very poor joke.
Mr President, looking at the European Union's action plan of January last, we see a great many sound measures, but also signs of panic.
Measures were of course needed to cope with the exodus from Kurdistan and so on, but all those measures ought to have been taken much earlier.
One might say that the Council had been fast asleep for years, and by the time it woke up the Kurdish migrants were already in Italy.
My first question is this: what has actually come of all the measures taken under that action plan?
We have no clear picture of them. We think that Parliament really ought to be properly briefed on this.
On the subject of briefing, another sign of panic on the part of the Council last year was that Parliament as a whole was not properly involved in the decision-making process.
The rapporteur, Mrs Terrón, made this point and it is outrageous.
That is tough talk, I know, and I mean it.
We as Parliament should have given our opinion on these matters.
Last week saw the resignation of the Commission, but I think that the Council, in matters falling under the third pillar, has possibly treated Parliament even worse.
So there is work to be done here.
It means, as paragraph 1 of the resolution says, that there must within three months be a good overview and a proper new proposal on which Parliament is consulted.
The European Commission has to provide that.
I trust it will be able to do so.
This is also relevant to relations with Turkey. They continue to be difficult, of course.
The ELDR Group believes that the dialogue with Turkey must continue on issues such as the acceptance of Kurdish migrants in the region and the improving of human rights generally. On these matters too, both the European Commission and the Council must keep Parliament properly informed.
Mr President, at this precise moment, when the subject of the Kurds is very much on the agenda throughout Europe, the measures proposed by the rapporteur, Mrs Terrón i Cusí, are urgent necessities.
Her criticism of the action plan is warranted too.
The European Union can use its policy as a means of ensuring that the people of that region are able to focus their lives on their homeland and to live on their native soil where they feel at home.
As long as we in the European Union cannot eliminate the root causes of these refugee movements, as long as there is no peace in the region and as long as the political repression of minorities is common practice, we need an efficiently administered asylum procedure as proposed by the rapporteur.
My group also supports your proposals on dealing with Turkey as the country of initial reception for refugees from Iraq.
It is very important to us that the organisation and implementation of this initial reception in Turkey should be entrusted to the UNHCR alone.
We also subscribe to Mrs Terrón i Cusí's view that the Commission must present a new proposal, on which the opinion of the European Parliament must be heard, before the Council takes its decision.
That would be an exemplary procedure and would befit the serious nature of the matter under discussion.
Mr President, this action plan shows once again that the mechanisms and procedures of the third pillar are not working and that European policy is reactive, not proactive, and devoid of vision.
It is important to devise a policy for the long term.
The plan designed for large numbers of refugees is largely rendered inappropriate by the decline in the number of refugees.
This may mean that the policy has worked.
But we do not have the information which would allow us to assess its effectiveness.
There is an urgent need for transparency and clarity in the assessment criteria.
Consulting the European Parliament on the action plan was the first step.
This policy must also be viewed in its foreign policy context.
In this region where there is conflict, oppression and a flouting of human rights, we have to be very careful about sending back refugees.
Sending Kurds back to Turkey at present is inappropriate, to say the least.
Nor is Iraq's record one which justifies sending refugees back.
We must be careful not to close our borders before we have conducted thorough analyses.
It is vital for us to look at the deeper causes and resolve the problems on the spot.
Let us hope that we can do so.
Mr President, in her report, Mrs Terrón y Cusí criticises the EU's action plan on the influx of migrants from Iraq and the neighbouring region.
The report is critical both of the contents of the action plan and of the fact that the European Parliament became involved in this plan only after it had been adopted.
On the question of form, I can understand the reason for her criticism.
Parliament should have been able to have its say before such an important document was approved.
At the same time, the implementation of the action plan is now the subject of a review.
As you probably know, the Council has set up a special high-level group to prepare action plans for Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Morocco and Albania and the surrounding area.
In addition, the Council has asked the high-level group to review the implementation of the action plan on Iraq.
The document which the rapporteur has laid before us is therefore extremely valuable.
The task of the high-level group is to formulate proposals as to who should be eligible to take advantage of the possibilities offered by the EU under all three pillars.
The reasons are obvious: the situation differs from one country to another, so our migration policy should be adapted to suit the actual situation in each case.
Naturally, the more political instruments we have at our disposal, the more flexible we can be.
It also means making use of the whole range of possibilities offered by the Union, and Parliament's views are therefore also very welcome.
As regards the financing of the project in Turkey, the Commission still firmly believes that it is only feasible if we receive guarantees that human rights are being respected.
Furthermore, it is also our confirmed opinion that the UNHCR should be involved in any attempt to start up an asylum project in Turkey.
In the report, the Commission is urged to introduce measures to speed up the asylum process.
The House may be pleased to learn that on 3 March the Commission, at my suggestion, approved a working document which includes proposals relating to that very issue.
The purpose of the document is to initiate a wide-ranging discussion with Parliament, the Member States and voluntary organisations on the framing of future asylum procedures in Europe.
It starts by advocating a speeding-up of the asylum process, but without undermining the right of people to have their requests for asylum considered in a thorough and objective way.
I passed this working document on to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on the day it was approved.
The Commission intends to put forward a formal proposal after the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force.
I assume that before then the Commission will be informed of Parliament's views.
In her report, Mrs Terrón y Cusí also mentions the need to help asylum-seekers and refugees to return to their countries of origin.
I should therefore like to recall that, in December 1998, I put forward a proposal to establish a legal basis for a budget line covering asylum provision and repatriation.
Naturally, I am very disappointed that the discussions relating to our proposals for temporary protection and burden-sharing have not made more progress in the Council of Ministers.
I am still convinced that vigorous efforts are required to deal with the widespread smuggling of human beings that is going on all over Europe.
Two protocols to the United Nations Convention on international organised crime are currently under discussion.
The first is intended to step up the campaign against the smuggling of different types of migrants; the second to prevent and punish, above all, the smuggling of women and children.
We have a unique opportunity to reach a common position in the Council of Ministers when the negotiations are resumed.
We should therefore decide quickly on a European set of principles, so that we can defend what we consider to be an effective strategy in that area.
The issue is now under discussion in the Council of Ministers.
For that reason, today's debate is of great interest as regards the further implementation of the action plan.
I gather that the Council is not present and that none of the questions put to it will be answered.
I would ask you, Mr President, to inform the Council that, as rapporteur, I find its attitude unacceptable and humiliating.
I am grateful to Mrs Gradin for the explanations she has provided, and I agree entirely with her.
Mrs Gradin has always adopted a positive attitude towards Parliament and I truly appreciate it.
Her attitude contrasts sharply with that of certain people who have not even deigned to be present today, as we discuss a plan of action that has been in force for a year and three months, and on which we have belatedly been invited to express an opinion.
Mr President, I would ask you once again to convey my personal indignation to the Council and also my hope that answers to the questions put to it may eventually be forthcoming.
Application of Community law
The next item is the report (A4-0092/99) by Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the fifteenth annual report on monitoring the application of Community law (1997) (COM(98)0317 - C4-0377/98).
Mr President, the Commission's annual reports on monitoring the application of Community law have two main functions: to provide information on how the Commission is monitoring the transposition of directives by the Member States; and to provide an account of the use made by the Commission of its discretionary power as guardian of the Treaties to initiate non-compliance procedures.
Concerning the first of these objectives, it has to be said that the Commission has made a significant effort in terms of the transposition of directives, particularly the directives relating to the internal market.
As a result, the number of directives transposed into national law increased in all the Member States in 1997, and the results were particularly significant in some countries, such as Finland, Denmark and Sweden.
Nevertheless, we must also point out that the national transposition measures taken have not always resulted in the correct transposition of the directives into national law. Moreover, the majority of Member States did not adopt the national measures needed to transpose the directives until after the deadline for doing so.
With regard to the second objective concerning non-compliance, considerable progress has been made following the entry into force on 1 January 1997 of a new instrument - the voluntary notification procedure - which seeks to facilitate the swift and uncontentious processing of disputes on the basis of transparency and mutual trust. The introduction of this new procedure coincided with the proposal made by the Commission to the Court of Justice to the effect that once non-compliance has been established, a daily fine should be imposed until compliance is achieved, and this has led to substantial progress.
The threat of such a fine has had a particularly dissuasive effect.
Much still remains to be done, however, as regards the implementation of decisions arrived at.
Delays in their implementation have created a lack of trust in such decisions.
In fact, 87 decisions handed down by the Court in accordance with Article 169 have yet to be implemented. Nevertheless, this represents an improvement on the previous year, as in 1996, 98 decisions were still awaiting implementation.
Moreover, 34 decisions relating to Article 171 have still to be implemented.
Not only do such delays in the implementation of the rulings detract from the credibility of the decisions taken by the Court of Justice, but they also have a deleterious effect on the image of all the institutions, making them appear inefficient.
Turning to other areas, an overall reduction in the number of infringement proceedings in progress has also been recorded, following the reform of the procedure to shorten the period of time between lodging a complaint or recording a case of non-compliance and the first decision on the basis. The number of infringement proceedings initiated concerning environmental issues and discrimination on the grounds of nationality has nevertheless increased in relative terms.
Despite the progress made - which certainly deserves recognition - much remains to be done concerning certain specific features of the procedures, such as the strict observance of the terms of any injunction and of the time allowed to evaluate a complaint or a petition, and giving plaintiffs the opportunity to have access to legal arguments which could affect the final decision on a complaint so as to facilitate possible appeals.
All these issues will have to given serious consideration in the near future, in the interests of legal efficiency and of the transparency of proceedings as well as to guarantee the credibility of non-compliance procedures in the eyes of the public.
To this end also, we will have to encourage more detailed knowledge of Community issues among the legal profession and the general public. Subsidising training programmes and simplifying regulations would help in this respect.
In conclusion, I would simply like to say that it is unfortunate that this annual report has not followed up the recommendations made in the previous report, namely, extending the scope of the report to include new material relating to the implementation of international agreements the Community is party to, petitions and the transposition of social policy directives.
Mr President, this report by Mrs Sierra González is characterised by new proposals and new improvements, involving the simplification of Community law, better transposition of Community law into the national laws of the Member States, and easier access to Community law for the people of Europe.
The fact that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has unanimously approved this text is proof of its more general acceptance, for which the rapporteur deserves our congratulations.
As rapporteur, I monitored the implementation of Community law in 1994, and since then I have not ceased to stress how important I believe it is to familiarise jurists with Community law.
My amendment, which was incorporated into the motion for a resolution, calls once again on Member States and universities to make such study compulsory.
The Schuman action plan to teach Community law to lawyers is an important move in the same general direction.
On the eve of the new enlargement of the European Union, the procedures to successfully incorporate derived law into the national laws of the applicant countries are of almost self-evident importance.
This is the basis of my other amendment, also incorporated into the motion for a resolution, which calls on the Commission to provide all possible technical support.
For the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, there is of course the PHARE programme, but Cyprus and Malta, with which we hope negotiations will begin shortly, are not covered.
The report now before us is the last in this fourth parliamentary term on the annual monitoring of the application of Community law, and it gives us the opportunity to point out the improvements made over those years thanks to the pressure brought to bear by the European Parliament, which has the power of codecision following the Treaty of Maastricht and is therefore a co-legislator.
The progress made in incorporating Community law into national law has been quite spectacular, and the implementation by the Commission of Articles 169 and 171 of the Treaty, with the imposition of penalties, has, as Mrs Sierra González has pointed out, compelled Member States to respect the decisions of the European Court far more than used to be the case.
In a few weeks, the Amsterdam Treaty will enter into force.
The European Parliament will gain significant new powers of codecision, as well as powers in other areas.
I would like to express my firm belief that this change will make a significant contribution to ensuring that European Community law moves closer to the people of Europe, and that there will be more transparency in the decisions of the European Union.
Mr President, I am pleased to see that the rapporteur, in paragraphs 9 to 15, adopts the same approach to Community law as last year's report, as well as the Larive report on business communications.
We should like to see the procedures speeded up, for example by having regular three-monthly Commission meetings on these issues, a six-month time-limit, and so on.
I hope that the new incoming Commission will adhere to any undertakings in this respect so as to ensure that the reforms can be effectively applied.
We were also pleased to hear the rapporteur mention that there should be more rapid access to the reasoned opinions of the Court of Justice; my colleague Mr Wijsenbeek is still waiting for an opinion on his case from the ECJ.
Much attention has also been focused on the clarity of Community law.
We know that Parliament approved the guidelines set out in Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi's proposal for better Community legislation.
Unfortunately, I have to say that the comments of the language experts relating to these guidelines have not been particularly encouraging: no language experts have actually been consulted.
At the same time, we know that the English translation service is forging ahead with its attempt to 'fight the fog'.
The Liberals have tried to focus attention on these efforts, but unfortunately we have still not succeeded in getting everyone to understand that Parliament should put pressure on the other translation services to make them see matters in the same way.
The written language should be made more user-friendly.
It is not we who draft the legislation who have to understand it, but the people who actually apply it.
This would also allow us to make considerable administrative savings.
I hope and firmly believe that the Finnish Presidency will make this a matter of priority in the autumn, thereby enabling us to promote a better understanding of Community law.
Mr President, it is difficult to say anything new when discussing a report such as the one before us today which enjoys such broad consensus. Not only has it been approved unanimously, but it goes forward without a single amendment.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur and express my support for what Mr Anastassopoulos has just said.
However, a moment's reflection is called for.
The Commission's annual report concerns the issue of monitoring the application of Community law.
So, it primarily relates to monitoring and thus the way in which the Commission exercises the monitoring powers entrusted to it in the Treaty as guardian of the Treaties.
These powers - I am referring in particular to Article 169 and Article 171 of the EC Treaty - have been increased and strengthened.
And yet as other speakers have already pointed out, we need to increase the transparency of this procedure, particularly as regards the administrative procedure, which takes place within the Commission behind closed doors.
The Commission is currently under review and amongst other challenges it is being urged to devise a clearer and more transparent procedure with a timetable we are all aware of.
But what is at issue here is monitoring application.
Application means knowledge, knowledge means understanding and understanding means clarity first and foremost.
Community law lacks clarity.
Mr Anastassopoulos referred to a representative from a country in Eastern Europe, and I remember him saying to me: 'Mrs Palacio, you require us to incorporate the acquis communautaire , but you are constantly changing it'.
We have had experience of this recently in the Committee on Legal Affairs.
We were dealing with a matter relating to consolidation.
From the start of the consolidation initiative to the time when Parliament began its report, two directives which should theoretically have been consolidated were amended twice.
This is a typical example of the lack of visibility, the complicated web of rules which has such a negative effect on Community law in general.
This is what Declaration No 19 of the Treaty of Amsterdam relates to.
Another declaration to mention in this respect is Declaration No 39 annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam on the quality of drafting.
Legislation is being drawn up in 11 languages, embodying legal institutions drawn from different legal traditions.
All this needs to be harmonised, so we must make a special effort to ensure that the end product can be understood by everyone, as Mrs Thors says. Crucially, it needs to be understood by the experts.
Initiatives such as the Grotius and Schuman programmes should receive every support, because if Community law is to be correctly applied, the experts, the judges, the lawyers and, more generally, all the courts must to be the first to apply it correctly.
However, I should like to conclude on a positive note.
I believe that as Mr Anastassopoulos has pointed out, this review of the application of Community law, the application of the articles on monitoring in the Treaty and, in general, knowledge of Community law have all improved since 1994.
We must maintain our efforts in this direction as a great deal still remains to be done.
Mr. President, I have to compliment Mrs Sierra González on her admirable report.
Monitoring the application of Community law is an essential part of what we are doing in Europe.
The task of the Commission is to be a guardian of the Treaty.
We have to make sure that the citizens affected enjoy the benefits that Europe provides, and I am grateful for Parliament's support in this difficult, unending task.
The Fifteenth Annual Report for 1997 shows that we have taken several important steps in ensuring respect for Community law; and Mrs Sierra González, in her speech today, has referred to a number of them.
We have substantially improved our working methods.
Good examples are the efforts to speed up the handling of cases and to encourage the transparency of our actions and all that has been done in close cooperation with the Ombudsman.
To enforce effectively Community law, we have used all the instruments that we have.
Cooperation and peer pressures are often an effective tool to increase transposition and correct implementation of Community law.
That is demonstrated by the successes of the single-market action plan and the bilateral meetings on directives with Member States.
I would also agree with Mrs Sierra González that producing simple and clear legislation is one of the best ways to avoid problems later.
Mrs Thors was right to talk about the importance of having user-friendly language.
I also agree with Mr Anastassopoulos and others who spoke about the importance of teaching law so that those who are lawyers understand what the Community law is all about.
That having been said, there are occasions when we have to use our powers under Article 169 of the Treaty to launch infringement proceedings; and we, of course, do so.
We are currently handling more than 3, 200 such cases.
Our reforms have improved the working of the proceedings, and that is very important for citizens who are at the origin of nearly 50 % of the cases.
We are handling cases much faster than a few years ago, and the main reasons for that are that we now decide letters of formal notice, recent opinions and referrals to the Court on a more regular basis.
Cases are now decided on a bi-weekly basis.
In the past, the system was more rigid and did not allow one to come to a decision as soon as the case was ready for action.
Secondly, decisions are implemented more rapidly.
In the past, it could take several months to send a 169 letter.
Today, the formal notice will often reach the Member State a week after the decision.
And finally, we enforce deadlines for reply or compliance much more strictly although, of course, the rights of defence of the Member State have to be respected.
We use all opportunities to solve infringement problems as quickly as possible.
Only 10 % of the cases go to Court, and reference has been made to the penalty system which now exists, and requests from between 7, 000 and 260, 000 euros per day have been put forward by the Commission.
It is all for the benefit of our citizens so it is quite right and normal that we should inform them of all the steps of an infringement proceeding which concerns them.
Here the European Ombudsman as well as the Parliament have played an important and instructive role.
Information on respect of Community law in general must also be more widespread, and I welcome the support of the Parliament to increase transparency in this area still further.
To conclude, respect for Community law is essential to bring Europe closer to its citizens.
We are using all the powers we have to prevent, and if necessary, pursue infringements by Member States.
That is what our citizens are entitled to expect, and that is what they are getting.
Thank you, Sir Leon.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m.
Common system of VAT (standard rate)
The next item is the report (A4-0129/99) by Mr Secchi, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending, with regard to the level of the standard rate, Directive 77/388/EEC on the common system of value added tax (COM(98)0693 - C4-0711/98-98/0331(CNS)).
Mr President, you have given the title of this proposal for a directive, on which the Council has asked Parliament to follow urgent procedure. It involves extending the existing system for the current year and, at the same time, establishing a band - between 15 and 25 % - within which the standard rate must fall.
Colleagues are well aware of the recent developments - significant ones - concerning taxation: there have been various proposals to coordinate the Member States' taxation systems with a view to abolishing harmful fiscal competition and, on the other hand, allowing healthy fiscal competition to take full effect.
However, alongside this much-needed coordination - which, as I said, has already occurred to some extent - other measures, by their very nature, require fully-fledged harmonisation to allow the internal market to operate smoothly.
In the action plan for the single market presented at the Amsterdam European Council almost two years ago, the Commission pointed to the need to work towards a common system of taxation in the area of VAT, which would eventually replace the current transitional system, while at the same time modernising and simplifying it.
A three-stage approach has been agreed: this will involve measures to correct the distortions in the present VAT system, modernising the current system by extending it to new leading-edge services and, of crucial importance, establishing the definitive VAT system by adopting the 'country of origin' principle.
This approach will allow existing procedures to be simplified and will reduce red tape for national administrations and firms, while helping to resolve the serious problem of fraud in the Community.
It should also bring benefits for citizens and consumers, because greater transparency and competition between the systems of the various Member States will bring about convergence towards more acceptable levels of taxation.
But since, as a result of delays, we are still awaiting the definitive system, a directive such as the one now before us is required for the current year, 1999.
Basically, the proposed directive extends the present system for one year and sets a band - between 15 and 25 % - within which the standard rate must fall.
I believe that we are bound to accept this request, even though it is already belated, given that we are now at the end of March.
While coming out in favour of the Commission's proposal, Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs wishes to take this opportunity to emphasise the urgent need to adopt the definitive VAT system.
The committee has put forward an amendment on this point, stressing that in one sense this is the final extension, and at the same time calling for the definitive system to enter into force on 1 January next year.
A second amendment, which I have tabled on behalf of my group, reformulates this concept as a recital, adding that the present system - the one providing the transition to the definitive system, as it were - has a whole series of drawbacks, including the ones briefly listed in my explanatory statement.
I hope that these amendments will be taken up by Parliament and viewed by the Commission as an incentive to proceed towards the definitive system, which is talked about so much but seems to be some kind of remote and increasingly unattainable dream.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with many of the points the rapporteur, Mr Secchi, makes in his well-informed report.
The Commission's proposal which forms the background to his report deals with the harmonisation of value added tax in the Member States and is an attempt to make up for the delay in reform.
This is an important issue, which is being hampered by the fact that Union's decision-making machine is not working.
The rapporteur is quite rightly firm about extending the period of transition currently in force.
The reform of the VAT system must be brought to a conclusion.
The Commission's proposal is largely a technical one, but the subject in itself is mainly political.
The relationship in principle between indirect and direct taxation and the idea of goods and services as a source of indirect taxation are linked to the question of social fairness.
Switching the focus of taxation to indirect taxes hampers progressive taxation, and it is through progressive taxation that the income gap will narrow.
While the Union is involved in the process of harmonising tax policy we should not ignore this important social tool.
However, what we are discussing here is indirect taxation.
At least as far as food is concerned, the harmonisation of VAT in the Union would ease the situation in Finland, for example, where the VAT rate on food is, at 17 %, currently about 10 % higher than the EU average.
Lowering the VAT rate on food would improve prospects for employment through support to the food industry.
Consumers would gradually turn their attention more to processed foods.
It is also a question of social fairness.
The smaller a person's income, the more indirect taxation takes, in relative terms, from that income.
Lightening the tax burden on food would make an immediate difference to how much money people had in their pocket.
Furthermore, the level of VAT in the production of services is one of the key issues of tax policy.
From the point of view of employment, high levels of taxation on services and consumption have hindered growth and, consequently, prospects for employment. It is a sort of phenomenon of suffocation.
We therefore have to lighten the VAT burden on the labour-intensive service industries.
However, a certain degree of harmonisation of the standard VAT rate is inevitable.
We can make a virtue of this inevitability, though, by tying the lightening of the tax burden to policy on employment and growth.
Easing the VAT burden on food and services would therefore lend support to this policy.
Mr President, this is a very late hour and a quite improper one at which to be discussing such a serious matter. But we are not just here to keep Mr Secchi company while he presents his report on the common system of value added tax.
It is not only the hour that is late: this amendment to Directive 77/388 was supposed to come into effect on 1 January this year and to remain in force until the end of the year.
The Council has also been tardy in taking all the decisions necessary for the changeover to the definitive VAT system, which is supposed to come into force as from 1 January 2000.
That is why we are here at this late hour, to support the rapporteur in stressing the urgent need for universal adoption of the country of origin principle, to cut down on red tape, to facilitate commercial activity, to combat tax evasion and to reform indirect taxation with a view to total transparency.
Although the single market is operational, it has still not been completed, and here and in other areas there are signs of distortion of competition.
The introduction of the single currency and the disappearance of exchange rate competition between the various Member States has exacerbated the market disturbances caused by tax competition.
Whether you call it tax coordination or tax harmonisation, there is a set of measures that needs to be jointly adopted for all fifteen tax systems in the EU.
We are talking here today quite simply about defining a band of between 15 % and 25 % as the range for the normal minimum and maximum VAT rates to be applied by Member States.
However, the scope for applying reduced rates will have to be reviewed in the near future, because of the distortions in competition it causes between certain geographical areas and between certain products and services, whether it be between Belgium and Austria or between Portugal and Spain.
VAT, which is an intrinsically neutral tax, has ended up being a factor influencing company locations and trade flows.
This harmonisation of rates and this changeover from the transitional system to the definitive system demands courage and sacrifices of all the Member States if we are to achieve closer alignment of national tax systems, even if this is phased in under a timetable.
Unless we can end fiscal chauvinism, the single market and economic and monetary union themselves will remain weak and incomplete.
Mr President, the question we are discussing today may seem dry and technical, but appearances are deceptive.
This is all about whether the Union can summon up the strength to discuss or regulate properly the conditions of competition in the single market and to eliminate the opportunities for both tax evasion and distortion of competition that exist in the realm of value added tax under the recipient-country principle.
That is indeed a crucial requirement.
I can fully endorse what the previous speakers have said on that point.
This is really the political point of the Secchi report.
I do not think we should labour under the illusion that it will be easy to meet this target of 1 January 2000.
But it is right for us as a Parliament to put this demand on the bargaining table again.
That way, there is a chance that at least the fundamental principle will have been accepted by the target date.
Mr President, there are some perfectly legitimate aims in this report such as the simplification of the VAT system, which is designed to prevent fiscal distortion between Member States and to simplify procedures by adopting the country-of-origin principle.
Anything along those lines is certainly welcome.
However, some of the underlying ideas are much more worrying.
First of all, the determination to constantly regulate and increasingly limit the Member States' scope for independent action is tantamount to reducing the fiscal sovereignty of the various nations that make up the European Union.
In our opinion, this amounts to a body-blow for fiscal democracy, in that decisions taken at the level closest to the public are becoming increasingly subordinated to decisions taken at more remote levels.
Secondly, following the introduction of the euro, we should certainly be concerned about the possibility of short-term asymmetric shocks, since the Member States have fewer and fewer options open to them for regulating their economies.
In the event of inflation, for example, if all taxation is harmonised, each country can no longer have its own monetary policy or apply its own fiscal policy.
All that is left is wages and incomes policy, and that really represents excessive state control.
The choices that have been made keep VAT rates extremely high, with the standard rate planned at 15 to 25 %.
Why not under 15 %? The VAT differential between the European Union, the United States and Japan is still huge, and is probably one of the things that is to blame for Europe's unemployment rate, which is much higher than in the other two countries.
This is why although this report is extremely good in the context of the current approach, we are not happy with it and we reject its recommendations on principle.
Mr President, the European Parliament and the amendments which it has proposed reaffirm its support for the movement towards a new common VAT system.
The Commission entirely supports the stated objectives.
Nevertheless, the adoption of a final VAT system by the Council between now and December 1999, I am afraid, does not appear to be realistic.
Indeed, in its programme the Commission had sketched the broad outline of the VAT system envisaged for the future as well as a timetable based on a gradual approach for the presentation of specific proposals.
This programme proposed three main headings: modernisation, the simplification of the current system and the change of the place of taxation.
The Commission has already submitted several proposals, currently on the Council table, which cover simplification and the modernisation of the current arrangement specifically with a view to meeting operators' immediate expectations, that is to say, the transposition of the recommendations for the Slim II exercise.
These proposals are essential to progress towards the final VAT regime.
Indeed, the passage from non-harmonisation to complete harmonisation, if it is to take place at all, can only be achieved in stages; and the proposal on the standard rate falls within this context.
The Council, however, does not show any readiness to follow the Commission's proposals, preferring to maintain the status quo , which does not go in the desired direction of greater alignment of VAT rates.
Nevertheless, the Commission's view is that general simplification of the current VAT system cannot be achieved without radically amending the current complex rules especially those relating to the place of taxation.
Consequently, the improvements to the current VAT system constitute an essential phase for the passage to a new system which envisages a single place of taxation, the only way of ensuring the radical simplification of the VAT system demanded by European businesses.
I am afraid that at the moment the proposals currently on the table of the Council, with a view to simplifying the system and to ensure more uniform application of the tax, are at an impasse while the European Parliament of course has supported then unconditionally.
I would like to thank you therefore for the support that you have given to this proposal and more particularly, the objective being pursued by the Commission, that of the definitive VAT system.
Thank you, Sir Leon.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 3 p.m.
The sitting was closed at 10.55 p.m.
Liability for defective products
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0068/99), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council (12872/1/98 - C4-0016/99-97/0244(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 85/374/EEC on the approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States concerning liability for defective products (Rapporteur: Mrs Roth-Behrendt).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you have just heard from the President that today we are considering the second reading on product liability.
Let me trace its history. All of us in this Parliament - unanimously, I believe - said here in November 1997, following the BSE affair - and the way it dealt with BSE has been one of Parliament's major successes - that product liability needs to be amended so that in future we can deal with the damage caused by BSE.
Thereupon the Commission made a proposal that integrates and includes primary agricultural products. That was a welcome development.
However, Mr Monti, it was the least you could do.
I have always told you in the past that you pursed your lips but did not whistle! I criticise you for that.
Were you not at present a member of the Commission but still, shall we say, working in a different capacity, then I would say to you today that what you have done seems almost to date from the stone age.
So I will not say it.
In the Committee on the Environment we have now added eight amendments for the second reading of the common position.
Eight amendments is not very many.
As rapporteur, I have tried to be very moderate and have only tabled those amendments that obtained a majority at the first reading and that, in my view, could also bring about a compromise in other parts of the House.
There are of course people in this House and outside it who say: we do not want any amendments. Let us accept this proposal as it stands!
We should accept the Commission proposal, the common position, as it stands. My reply to these people and to the Members who said this at first reading is that Parliament should be consistent.
Given that we said we need changes in connection with BSE, then if we are to be logical we must also cover the case of people who have contracted the new form, the new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
We all know that the incubation period can last from 10 to 20 years.
So, in order to be consistent, the Committee on the Environment has extended the period of enforcement of the rights conferred upon the injured person to 20 years in the case of a hidden defect - which is all we are talking about here - instead of 10 years.
Anyone who contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease would never be able to claim damages because that person or the family may not find out about the disease for more than 10 years after it had been contracted.
We have also raised the amount of the total liability for damage from ECU 70 million to ECU 140 million and have left this up to the Member States.
That is not so very drastic either and it should be possible to reach a compromise on it in this House.
Some of you, including Mr Monti, have said that this legislation is being reviewed in any case. After all, a green paper is due by 1 January 2000.
But even when the Commission was still more able to act than it is now, I doubted whether you could produce that green paper on time.
Now I am convinced and we all know that it cannot be done by 1 January 2000.
You yourself said, on behalf of the Commission, that you would not be embarking on any new projects, which certainly also means no new legislation.
The first thing a new Commission does will not be to produce a green paper.
Even if we got a green paper, it would take two or three, or even four or five years for the legislation to come along.
Surely that cannot be what we want! Nor could we accept it.
Let me now address a few of the Members, and I am looking in particular at the PPE Group, because Mrs Grossetête, who like myself is a member of the Committee on the Environment, said at first reading that people do not want this in the first place and that I would be upsetting all manner of things with this amendment.
In fact it was particularly with the PPE Group in mind that I totally dropped the question of the reversal of the burden of proof, for example, and questions relating to the burden of proof.
So my request to you, Mrs Grossetête, is to reconsider your position on these two amendments on the expiry date and the amount of liability for damage; for let me tell you that people definitely want us to attend to their personal, their very personal welfare, and not just before the European elections but quite generally!
That is what we have tried to do in the Committee on the Environment, which is responsible for consumer protection and health policy.
We have tried to do so by tabling eight amendments, some of which were taken over from the members of the PPE Group and concern the definition and revision of the legislation.
By means of these amendments we have extended the expiry date and changed the amount of liability for damage.
None of this will bankrupt anyone in the European Union.
There will however be potential damage, and not just in the case of contaminated stored blood which can cause AIDS; that is something I am not discussing at all, I am sticking to primary products here.
In cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, we are giving the public security.
I would hope that these amendments will never be needed because nobody will fall ill.
But if that should be the case after all, then the people of the European Union are entitled to expect us to create a proper legal basis for product liability and for their claims to damages.
I think we are doing no more and no less here with these amendments.
I do not believe we are being over-ambitious or over-demanding.
I ask you to support these amendments at second reading so that we can endeavour to achieve a sensible solution in the codecision procedure with the Council.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we very much welcome the fact that the Commission has decided to extend the scope of Directive 85/374/EEC to primary agricultural products, as requested by the European Parliament following the BSE crisis.
However, I must say straightaway to Mrs Roth-Behrendt that we cannot support her proposals because she has taken advantage of this opportunity to amend the content of the directive.
Her proposals not only change the definition given to primary agricultural products, they also introduce the concept of psychological damage, scrap the lower threshold and remove the financial ceiling.
Finally, and this is particularly serious in my view, they extend the period of limitation from 10 to 20 years for damage resulting from a hidden defect.
The fact is that when there is damage as a result of a hidden defect, it is generally discovered at the point when the damage occurs.
I will now turn to the problem of the poor farmers. It has already proved very hard to tell them that their products will fall within the scope of this directive.
Our farmers are very concerned about the future and the CAP reform, yet we are now asking them to accept liability which they cannot do in the manner proposed by Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
In any case, the directive provides for the possibility of the people involved in the production process being jointly and severally liable, so when a problem occurs, such as BSE which Mrs Roth-Behrendt mentioned, liability is already incurred.
If we approve Mrs Roth-Behrendt's proposals, you can just imagine the insurance cover which farmers would have to take out and which could become exorbitant.
You are no doubt wondering where the consumer stands in all this.
My answer is to wait for the Green Paper which the Commission has undertaken to prepare for the year 2000 after consultations with producers, distributors, consumers, farmers and insurers.
The balance of a directive cannot be changed without taking time to carry out a preliminary study, even where consumer protection is involved, and as I have explained, consumers are already protected by the fact that any producer whose product has caused damage bears liability.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt's good intentions are really just pandering to people's prejudices, because her desire to protect consumers without a proper preliminary study means that farmers are going to be overwhelmed and the courts flooded.
This is why, regrettably, we cannot support Mrs Roth-Behrendt's proposals.
Madam President, it is very important for consumers to be able to hold producers liable.
Only with clear legislation and proper information can consumers be full players in the market who decide for themselves which products are sold and which they want to buy.
Liability will ensure that producers are careful about how they produce.
The aim is to preclude all risks to consumer health as a result of product defects.
If the producer has not been careful enough, the consumer is then guaranteed his rights.
BSE played a major part in the genesis of this report.
It acted as a catalyst to ensure that agricultural products are now also covered by the rules on liability for defective products.
Carelessness has led to the deaths of a number of people from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
If there had been clear rules on liability, the chances of that happening would have been far smaller.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt made one emphatic point at first reading.
She wanted all unsafe products covered by the rules.
In principle I agree, and I think that she showed courage at first reading. But I did not support her on it.
I think that such an important and problematic subject calls for a detailed discussion and balanced decisions. I did not think it right to decide on that as an incidental point in a different report.
My group and I wholeheartedly support the amendments which Mrs Roth-Behrendt has tabled now at second reading.
Madam President, it beggars belief that the common position takes no account at all of the views which the European Parliament expressed at first reading.
I do not accept the Commission's excuse that the directive in question needs to be extensively revised in the context of Agenda 2000.
The Council too has failed to take the European Parliament seriously in totally ignoring the proposed amendments.
The rapporteur is quite right in retabling the amendments in question.
The acute nature of the BSE crisis showed that liability for defective products needs to be widened as quickly as possible.
The change should also include the closing of other loopholes which exist at present, so that the work does not have to be done twice.
Parliament's aims do indeed go further than the Commission's.
To my mind, that is not in itself a reason to reject these amendments, especially since the President of Parliament has declared the amendments to be admissible.
I regard the raising of the ceiling from EUR 70 to 140 million as important.
It is not acceptable for a consumer who buys a defective product to be denied compensation because he is not the first, but the umpteenth person to make a claim.
And I find it only fair that if damage or loss sustained as a result of a defective product occurs only after ten years, the deadline for claims should be extended to 20 years.
Madam President, since 1985 we have had a directive regulating compensation for people who have suffered damage from defective products.
With the current proposal, the Commission is intending to increase consumer protection in regard to the safety of food and primary agricultural products.
In this extremely sensitive area, the directive is to be extended so that it also covers agricultural raw materials, which were excluded until now.
Amendments Nos 1 and 2 must certainly be supported, because they ensure that those who produce genetically modified seeds can also be held responsible for any consequences.
Farmers must not be held liable for damage for which the large undertakings are responsible.
Unfortunately, the Commission proposal was also used as an opportunity to table certain amendments that seriously impinge on national civil law and have no real basis.
That is why we cannot endorse the extension of the directive to cover agricultural products.
Madam President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteur for her proposals and for taking the opportunity to put forward proposals by Parliament that go beyond what the Commission proposed.
I believe that even at the time it proposed these legislative changes we could have expected the Commission to make further-reaching proposals, instead of spending years discussing something that should have been done a long time ago.
We are now told we will be getting a green paper next year, but I cannot imagine that we will have completed the legislation before the year 2002.
Let me just point out that so far there has been no follow-up at all to the green paper on the future of food legislation which we voted on a year ago and concerning which everyone fully endorsed Parliament's proposals. That is to say, no law was proposed to implement what we decided at the time.
I do not find it acceptable to let time pass and do nothing in an area that is so important to every citizen of the European Union.
In fact I am very surprised to find that my colleagues on the other side of the House have suddenly forgotten a great many of the things we once decided here unanimously and jointly a year and a half ago in the wake of the BSE decision.
There is another matter to which I would draw attention.
If we include liability for primary agricultural products in the directive on liability, then in my view we really will have to complete the chain.
In fact I tabled an amendment on the subject at first reading, which was accepted.
I do not think we should hold the farmers alone liable, without enabling them to go back to the producers of their primary products.
That is essential.
Perhaps it is not so much a chain as a circle that we have to close here, to ensure that in the end every producer is responsible for what he puts on the market, but that he also assumes this responsibility over a fairly long period of time especially for products which we know can cause illnesses that cannot be detected after one year or even after 10 years.
I really would ask colleagues to consider that if we grasp this opportunity we should be pleased about it.
We are taking speedier action on European legislation this time and we should not hang about and expose ourselves to the criticism that we are leaving the consumers out in the cold!
Madam President, I endorse emphatically what my colleague Mrs Graenitz said, both in congratulating the rapporteur and speaking to those elements in these amendments which seem to me to be profoundly important.
I refer in particular to Amendments Nos 5 and 6.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt, like me, had to listen to much of the evidence about BSE, about the extraordinary nature of this disease and how it finally transferred itself to humankind.
If we are looking now at the terms of liability and the extent of the financial recompense that may be necessary, it is no longer good enough to say that the hidden defects in a particular product, particularly one derived from foodstuffs or medicines, will necessarily appear within ten years.
I have come to this debate today almost directly from a meeting with the relations of people who have lost children to new variant CJD, the human form of BSE.
Not all of them got it from infected foodstuffs by the direct route.
Some got it from growth hormones.
People look back to thalidomide and think that the dangers of a given product emerge very quickly, in birth defects or something of that kind.
We now understand much more clearly that this is not the case and that very often the defects in a particular product begin to manifest themselves over the lifetime of the individual concerned.
Unless we have the opportunity which these amendments provide for action to be taken within the normal processes over a longer period of time, we run the risk that the manufacturers of products may escape liability without expensive legal proceedings intended once again to change the law.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt's amendments also provide for a process of review from the year 2000 onwards and that too is eminently correct.
I would simply congratulate the rapporteur again and apologise for not being here to hear her speech.
Madam President, I fully support Mrs Roth-Behrendt's report. I believe she has carried out very useful work on both the subjective and the objective and circumstantial aspects of the directive.
As regards the subjective aspects, the notions of producer and product have been broadened. The latter now includes products derived from agriculture and cattle breeding as well as manufactured goods.
Intermediate products are covered in addition to end products.
The great importance of precursors has already been mentioned this morning, and genetically modified material which has not been properly inspected ought to be added in the future. It is wise to extend the time period, as symptoms may take more than 10 years to appear in the case of bovine spongiform encephalitis and other known diseases.
I feel it is extremely important to include the mental consequences of these diseases as well as the physical ones. Given our experiences with rape oil and methylated spirit, we in Spain are very conscious of how dreadful the mental consequences can be.
As far as compensation is concerned, the sum of EUR 70 million referred to earlier seems insignificant set against the whole economy of the Union. I feel it is quite right to increase it to at least EUR 140 million.
Finally, I should like Parliament to follow up the good idea of partially reversing the burden of proof in this field.
It should be borne in mind that producers often build up a particular atmosphere or context to make consumption of their product appear natural and normal. In such circumstances, it should not be up to the consumer alone to produce the evidence, when there is general awareness that the disease has resulted from dangerous methods of production.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this report is extremely important in economic terms.
We have very grave reservations, especially concerning Amendment No 4, which drops the retention provision, and Amendment No 5, which extends the expiry date to 20 years.
I wonder whether we should not reconsider them.
The case of Amendments Nos 1 and 2 is different.
They define the raw materials of agricultural and forestry products.
I know that the Council working group discussed whether a definition should not be set out at least in the recitals.
The line then taken was that a producer who genetically modifies seeds would in any case have to be regarded as the producer of a raw material and it was not considered necessary to clarify this further.
I think that is quite wrong. I believe it is absolutely essential to endorse these two amendments.
They would ensure that farmers who use genetically modified products can have recourse to the producers of the genetically modified seeds.
That could not be done under the proposal as it stands now.
Farmers, any small farmer, could be held liable for damage caused by genetically modified products - a quite inconceivable and unthinkable situation! - while those responsible for the genetic modifications, large companies like Monsanto and Novartis, would not be in any way liable.
That cannot be in our interest!
So I urge you most sincerely to endorse these two amendments.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I have been in this Parliament long enough to not really believe that a debate of this kind can actually change people's minds, and yet I will still try to do so; I am not referring to you, Mr Monti, you are no longer our partner.
The Council will be our partner in the codecision procedure, but I am looking to the other side of the House.
I am addressing you, Mrs Grossetête, because we have discussed this matter directly in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and here in the Chamber too.
You said I was amending the content of the directive too much.
You referred to the definition.
That is precisely where I am protecting the farmers, as your colleagues have just said.
Mrs Flemming has just said it again too.
These are amendments that I have taken over and that came from your group and my group and I am assuming that you will have to endorse Amendments Nos 1 and 2, particularly if you want to support the farmers.
Moreover, I would ask you again to look very closely at Amendments Nos 5 and 6, the question of extending the expiry date for hidden defects and of increasing the total liability amount.
With regard to the question of extending the expiry date for hidden defects, in the past few weeks 10 people have contracted the new variant of CJD, 10 people!
These people have been infected with the disease at some point in the last few years, in the last 15, 18 or 20 years, we do not know exactly when.
It was a hidden defect and the people who have been injured have to prove this themselves.
The injured person is responsible for proving it!
You can imagine how often he would succeed in doing so, and yet we want to offer that chance.
I am convinced we must do so.
At the same time, some Members said that increasing the liability amount we allow the Member States from EUR 70 million to EUR 140 million is something we leave up to the Member States and is still not an enormous total amount.
Mrs Grossetête, you said something that worried me a little but to which I would also respond.
You said that farmers fear the future in any case.
But what we are doing is precisely to protect the farmers!
Just consider this: a farmer may buy animal fodder in all good conscience and feed it to his animals in the conviction that it contains no animal protein because it is not labelled as such, these are still not labelled.
Yet it does contain animal protein and his animals contract BSE and damage occurs.
Then it is not he who is responsible but the supplier of the animal fodder!
What we are doing is precisely to protect the farmer with the amendments on hidden defects.
So I would ask you again to take a look at Amendments Nos 5 and 6 and at least to try to support them, in addition to Nos 1 and 2, so that we can perhaps fight together for an even better solution during the conciliation procedure.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, following the European Parliament's recommendations on BSE, or more specifically the recommendation to extend - by the end of September 1997 - the no-fault liability regime provided for in Directive 85/374 to primary agricultural products and game, the Commission presented its proposal on 1 October 1997.
The 1985 directive establishes the right for any victim to be compensated for injury caused by a defective product, without having to prove the fault of the producer.
In extending this right to the agricultural sector, the Commission is reverting to its original proposal of 1976.
At Parliament's first reading, in November 1998, a majority came out in support of this principle.
The Council was likewise in favour of it, adopting the Commission proposal unanimously.
Unfortunately, there is nevertheless a risk that the aim shared by all three institutions - namely to extend the regime to the farm sector - might not be achieved, should Parliament and the Council disagree on the timing of a thorough review of the 1985 basic directive, going beyond the limited aim I have just described.
Indeed, by resubmitting the amendments adopted at first reading, your committee responsible is encouraging you to amend the common position.
As I said, the Council unanimously approved the Commission's text, ruling out any possibility of reviewing the 1985 directive on this occasion.
In the Commission's view, this is an important and very urgent matter.
It is crucial that an agreement should be reached on the basis of the common position, thereby extending the rules on civil liability to the agricultural sector.
Therefore the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 3 to 7, relating to mental injuries, exemption, the time-limit for claims, the maximum amount, and amendment of the directive in the year 2000.
The other three amendments, relating exclusively to primary agricultural products - Amendments Nos 1 and 2 on liability for injury caused by intermediate products and the means of production, and No 8 on the obligation to present an impact study in the year 2000 - are superfluous in view of the interpretation generally given to Articles 2, 3 and 21 of the 1985 directive.
Madam President, as the Commission stated last November, the best time and the best way to engage in a review of the 1985 directive is when discussing the report on the application of the directive, which the Commission must present to Parliament and the Council in 2000.
That report will be preceded by wide-ranging consultations, open to all the sectors concerned, in the form of a green paper to be presented as soon as this proposal has been adopted.
This is the fastest way of producing a proposal for an amendment taking full account of the importance of the directive to the socio-economic fabric and encompassing all the elements relevant to a review of the 1985 directive.
I therefore hope that the European Parliament will support this approach, without altering the Council's common position, thereby not only enabling its own recommendation of 19 February 1997 to be carried out, but also bringing forward the start of consultations leading to the year 2000 report.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
Global governance and UN reform
The next item is the report (A4-0077/99) by Mr De Melo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the challenges of global governance and the reform of the United Nations.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, over the final years of this century we have witnessed an increasing trend towards globalisation in politics, not only on security issues but also on economic and social matters and environmental protection.
If we are to deal with all these issues at global level it is vital to have a world organisation capable of formulating rules governing universal conduct that will be respected and complied with once they have been accepted.
Although the scope of its activities is limited, such an organisation has already existed for so long that it is part of modern history, and the role it has played, its conduct and the actions it has taken deserve general praise.
One slight criticism of this organisation is perhaps that it has failed to widen its range of powers and the scope of its activities, which have virtually become set in stone.
I am, of course, referring to the United Nations Organisation, which is to be applauded for the pivotal role it has played in solving many world conflicts and problems over the last 50 years.
For these reasons, which I think are hard to contest, I am convinced that the United Nations Organisation is the right platform for centralising the efforts of the international community to rise to the challenges of globalisation.
But to do this, the UN needs to have at its disposal the means required for effective management of political issues at world level, starting with the changes needed in the philosophy and logic of international relations.
First, in the field of peace and security the UN needs to be given effective means of action and these actions should be legitimised by a clear right and duty to intervene.
The creation of the International Criminal Court has been a great step forward, in that it establishes the international criminal responsibility of the individual.
The Security Council, whose composition reflects the outcome of the last world war, needs to be reformed to reflect the world's current geopolitical balance.
A parliamentary dimension needs to be introduced into the UN system, so as to give the organisation more weight in its relations with parliaments throughout the world.
Second, economic globalisation and the liberalisation of trade and financial markets have brought about a shift in decision-making centres from the political authorities towards economic power.
This means that in most cases crucial decisions for the world economy are being taken by a small number of globalised companies unrestrained by any democratic scrutiny, often with negative social and environmental consequences.
For this reason it is becoming necessary to steer globalisation on a more controlled course.
Let me say it again: a more controlled course for economic globalisation is needed.
Mutual recognition of cultures, an ethical approach and fairness in international negotiations are essential in restoring a balance between political power and economics.
To ensure international observance of these principles, it would be advisable to create a Global Security Council that would coordinate and monitor not only security issues as such, but also problems of economic development, social justice and environmental protection.
Third, the UN and all its member countries should be obliged to make the principle of the universality of human rights and of duties, freedoms, solidarity and justice an essential condition of any pact between the institutions and the states.
We should also reiterate our support for the creation of the World Environment Agency, and for the reaffirmation and consolidation of environmental protection policy in international relations that this would entail.
For the reasons that I have presented briefly here and have developed at greater length in my report, together with the generally helpful amendments tabled by honourable Members, I ask you to vote for this resolution.
Madam President, the European Parliament must basically answer two questions during today's debate: firstly, is it possible to introduce into a world marked by globalisation strong elements of governance over the most important international processes?
And secondly, is the United Nations Organisation the appropriate forum in which to develop this desire and capacity for governance? We answer both of these questions in the affirmative.
Yes, it is not only necessary but also possible to deal democratically with the major problems and challenges facing humanity: security, poverty, the environment and so on.
Yes, the UN is the principal international forum in which to explore and shape the necessary responses.
The UN should not of course be viewed as a monolithic body. Its tasks must be set out clearly, and the necessary synergies must be developed with the Member States, with regional organisations - first and foremost the European Union - and with other international institutions.
At the same time, the UN is in urgent need of a number of organisational and operational reforms.
Among the ones which we outline, I would stress those relating to the composition and functions of the Security Council, the establishment of a global 'economic security council' and the streamlining of the structures of the specialised agencies.
Matters such as the worldwide challenges of human development and the fight against poverty and marginalisation must receive particular attention at the UN.
To this end, we are convinced that - contrary to what has happened until now - the work of bodies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund must be brought into line with the aims of the United Nations.
The opinion which I have drawn up on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation contains all our detailed proposals in this context.
Much will depend, however, on the EU Member States adopting a coherent approach at the UN over the next few years.
This will be the acid test of an effective European common foreign and security policy.
I should like to end by complimenting the rapporteur, Mr De Melo, on his excellent work on this report.
Madam President, first and foremost I should like to congratulate Mr De Melo on this excellent report which tackles the fundamental issue of wise global governance. His report is certainly timely as the concept of globalisation features prominently in all statements and studies attempting to explain what is going on in the world.
Indeed, globalisation must not be allowed to get out of control as we are currently witnessing, particularly in the financial sector. Instead, faced with a global reality that is increasingly leading to a single entity, it is incumbent upon us to create a framework of appropriate legal and security arrangements.
Hence, a report such as the one before us today is not simply a theoretical study, but is extremely relevant.
It is worth pointing out that there is uncertainty concerning the European Union's responsibility in terms of the future of the UN.
The 15 Member States currently contribute 38 % of the UN's operational budget, and our payments are up to date.
The problem is that we are contributing as 15 individual states and not as a single entity, so our contribution does not carry enough weight.
The same is true of our contribution to all the buffer and peace-keeping troops and to mediation efforts, that is, what are known as the' Petersberg missions' in European jargon. The Member States of the European Union make a vital contribution to these.
Our involvement in development aid should also be highlighted.
Unfortunately, our efforts are not adequately promoted.
This state of affairs is particularly regrettable since the European Union is a regional organisation based on the principles of peace and cooperation. As such, it has an automatic vocation to establish links and to promote the United Nations.
I should like to highlight certain issues that the Socialist Group's amendments focused on.
I think that more work on these issues is called for. We must continue with our efforts as we approach the new legislature, particularly since now that the cold war has ended, when its operations were very much restricted, the UN is being called upon to undertake a wide range of missions and is swamped with requests, though it lacks the resources to deal with them all.
This may put us in mind of a problem we are experiencing much closer to home at the moment.
Clear criteria on the creation of an Economic Security Council are therefore needed, as is a common European position on the composition of such a council. There is currently no consensus or basic agreement on this issue, not even amongst the Member States.
Secondly, our involvement in peace and security missions and in the establishment of the International Criminal Court certainly deserve a mention. So too does the ongoing search for dialogue with the United States, which in my view is fundamental in ensuring the future of the UN.
As things stand at present, we have reached an impasse in our dealings with our main ally.
Sustained efforts are also required to develop the economic order following Bretton Woods. This will mean agreeing on solutions and modifications to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation, thus defining their future role.
Their relationship with the International Labour Office should also be clarified.
Environmental considerations must feature prominently in this process, particularly sustainable development, as it is one of the distinguishing features of the European Union.
Madam President, my group welcomes this excellent and important report and congratulates the rapporteur.
Some two weeks ago I was in New York talking about this report to the secretariat and I was distressed to learn that the whole process of UN reform, which was supposed to culminate in the year 2000 at the Millennial Assembly, is blocked.
The European Union must play its role in unblocking this process of reform with considerable urgency.
Secondly, I want to stress what has already been said by other speakers, that we need to be holistic about the way in which this reorganisation is carried forward.
It is not just the United Nations institutions, it is also the Bretton Woods Institutions which, at a time of financial dislocation and global environmental challenge, all require a consistent policy to be developed so that they interact better with each other.
That became very apparent last week in Geneva at the WTO High Level Seminar on Trade, Environment and Development which was Sir Leon Brittan's initiative.
It became very clear by the conclusion of that seminar that the chances for a successful Millennial Round of the WTO will depend on a parallel reform and enhancement of the other global institutions.
I would like to draw attention to one particular idea in the report which is valuable in terms of the legitimacy of these institutions of global governance.
That legitimacy can only flow from parliamentarians.
I do not believe that the time is yet right for a full Parliamentary Assembly at global level.
We know our own problems in running a Parliament even in a coherent single continent such as our own.
But I endorse the idea of parliamentary Oversight Committees composed of the chairmen of the specialist committees of the planet's parliaments.
Meetings of all the chairmen of the foreign affairs committees, or all the chairmen of the trade committees relating to the World Trade Organisation, or all the chairmen of environment committees relating directly to the World Environment Organisation or to UNEP could be creative.
I conclude by saying that we are facing the critical decade from the year 2000 to 2010 for the survival of our species.
There can be no better way to mark the Millennium than to equip humanity with the global institutions which it needs to pass on its heritage to its children.
Madam President, internationalisation and globalisation are proceeding apace.
Unlike some others my group has no problem with this, but good management of the world order does require an effective world body.
We have that world body in the form of the United Nations.
But the UN is still not being given the resources and procedures and indeed the respect it needs in order to be effective and I am glad that Mr De Melo has spelled that out in his report, for which we thank him.
The loss of credibility which the UN has suffered in matters of peace and security must be remedied quickly.
And what does quickly mean? There has to be an end to decision-making methods which tend to end in deadlock.
In specific terms that means, for example, a rapid reaction force.
The UN must be able to react quickly in the event of a humanitarian disaster.
That can be easy enough.
The process of decision-making simply has to be adjusted in order to make it possible.
There is no place here for vetoes.
And finally, the UN has to be properly financed.
It is scandalous, I am sure you will agree, that the USA has for so long failed to meet its financial obligations, and international pressure must be brought to bear on each and every country which is behind with its contributions to make it pay its dues.
Mr President, the United Nations is an institution that was established in the wake of the catastrophes of the Second World War and, with all its weaknesses and deficiencies, contributed to the extent its powers allowed to bipolarisation and the cold war period. However, it also contributed to security and, if you like, to the avoidance of greater confrontations and conflicts.
But since the 1990s, a fundamental question has arisen: does the United Nations really exist? Does it now play any substantial role in ensuring international security and peace?
This question is becoming an increasingly topical one. In the space of a few minutes, or a few hours, there may be military intervention in Kosovo, in the Republic of Yugoslavia.
Where is the UN?
When did the UN meet?
What has Kofi Annan said? We are hearing from Mr Solana, Madeleine Albright and Mr Holbrooke.
But where is Kofi Annan?
Why does he say nothing? Is it possible for the UN, in a climate of total monopolisation in which the European Union is totally submissive and compliant, to play any special role?
Having said this, I would like to stress that, of course, the proposals from Mr De Melo are very positive and interesting and should be promoted.
However, I do not think we will find an answer simply by putting in place a network of measures, unless the major powers in the world today, such as the European Union above all, abandon their childish dependency, unless they acquire a sense of independence and self-belief, unless they move forward and take on a substantial role and call into question this suffocating monopoly that is being established by the United States.
The UN is absent from Kosovo and from Kurdistan; the UN is closing its eyes to the intervention in Yugoslavia and to the total indifference to the rights of the Kurds. The UN is maintaining this unacceptable policy of two steps forward and one step back, and in this way it is impossible for the UN to move forward.
All this hinges to a great extent on the European Union today.
Madam President, Mr De Melo has produced an excellent report, and I congratulate him on behalf of the Green Group.
At present a sort of global constitution is taking shape, though, unfortunately, it is all happening very undemocratically.
We have often seen cases where national parliaments accept these agreements, and because they take so long to debate, the details can no longer be examined at such a late stage, and so important issues are decided among governments in what are ultimately secret negotiations.
I believe that the European Parliament is one of the best forums for voicing opinions, one where we have had the courage to take a position on these agreements, such as the one on the World Trade Organisation.
Furthermore, I have the impression that national parliaments do not always have the courage to exercise whatever rights they have with regard to their governments, when agreements are being negotiated.
Perhaps the situation would improve if we were to have something like parliamentary meetings for international organisations, like the World Trade Organisation.
These would most certainly have the important task of guaranteeing improvements in communication as well as transparency and openness.
We should be aiming at a sort of global federalism, in which some of the decisions are taken globally as openly and democratically as possible.
Madam President, this excellent report by Mr De Melo needs to be amended in certain areas, particularly with regard to the Security Council issue.
I agree with other Members, such as Mr Barón Crespo, who have suggested that we have taken a step backwards.
Whereas in the previous report we asked for the European Union to be represented on the Security Council, this point does not appear in this report.
In my opinion, the Security Council question is central but for different reasons from those put forward by my friend, Mr Alavanos.
I feel that the Security Council is currently demonstrating the limits of the United Nations.
With regard to Guatemala, we saw how China blocked the peace process because of the veto which it holds on the Security Council.
The same thing recently occurred with regard to Macedonia where, again because of China, the peacekeeping force had to change its mandate.
Now with Kosovo, Russia is bringing strong pressure to bear because of its right of veto.
This has very serious implications for the continuation and possible strengthening of the United Nations system.
We are now increasingly being forced to rely on American leadership and, unfortunately, the absence of European leadership in order to undertake peacekeeping operations outside the United Nations, such as those that are probably about to take place in Kosovo.
This is highly regrettable and demonstrates the need to change the way the Security Council operates.
The veto system leads to a complete stalemate, and I am sorry that Mr De Melo did not stress this point more in his report.
Madam President, I am grateful to Mr De Melo for his excellent work, following on from that of our former colleague Mr Trivelli, who produced an extremely important resolution on the United Nations in 1993.
The debate in this House has reverberated with the echo of a protest, heard throughout the world in recent years, concerning the tragedies in Africa, Bosnia and elsewhere.
Much has been said about the failure, the impotence of the UN, almost as though the United Nations were some kind of club of associates, without assessing the crucial role played by the most important associates, these of course being the United States and certain other countries.
What, then, is the problem? It is, as Mr De Melo quite rightly says in his report, that the reform carried out must be in keeping with the major changes which have occurred in modern times.
We can no longer think of the United Nations in the way we did during the cold war, when the Soviet Union still existed and there were still dictatorships in South Africa and South America.
We must reinvent the UN, and this new UN must play a role in the most significant fields: the historical, traditional one of conflict prevention, the increasingly relevant one of championing human rights, that of preventing economic and financial turbulence, and that of coordinating measures against old and new forms of crime.
In this light the question of reforming the Security Council, already referred to here, is a truly enormous one.
We shall have to be rather more bold.
One of the most important associates of the future must be one which is currently divided into 15: the European Union.
As Mr De Melo suggests in his resolution, we must seek to ensure that this reform of the Security Council is implemented as soon as possible.
Mr President, we find ourselves at a transitional stage in the development of a new world order, first envisaged at the end of the cold war. Progress during this stage appears to consist of taking one step forward and two steps back.
Previous speakers have pointed out that the transition is characterised by two main features. In political terms it is marked by a tendency towards single polarity, and in socio-economic terms - which are also political in their broadest sense - by the acceleration of globalisation.
I agree with my colleague Mr Vecchi that the question here is whether or not we are in a position to control this process of globalisation. In my view, we can, and we should ensure that we do so.
International procedures must be democratised and socialised.
They must be controlled, thus promoting the interests of efficiency as well as the interests of justice.
Greater efficiency will facilitate conflict prevention and better handling of crises.
It should prevent further financial crises like the one we are currently experiencing, and do away with the north-south divide. We must remember that the gap between the rich and poor countries of the world is actually increasing at the moment.
You may wonder how all this could be achieved. I envisage specific courses of action.
First, we must strengthen and develop international law. It does exist in theory but is often ignored.
Suitable instruments are required if international law is to be properly implemented, beginning with the United Nations. I agree with Mr De Melo that despite all the criticism levelled against it, the UN's usefulness cannot be disputed.
Its inefficiency should not be blamed on the UN itself. It is really due to a lack of political will on the part of its members, to a failure to implement and observe its charter, to the fact that it has not been granted genuine decision-making powers or adequate resources, and to the absence of real democracy.
The UN should not be done away with. It must be reformed, strengthened and developed and the European Union has a major role to play in this respect.
European public opinion demands it, because who will take the lead if the European Union fails to do so?
Mr President, to my mind this report on the challenges of global governance and the reform of the United Nations deserves support, and I should also like to offer my congratulations to the rapporteur.
As I see it, his aim is to identify a way of changing direction and establishing some kind of balance between the leading players and civil society.
If global decisions are to have legitimacy, then of course they must be representative.
Consequently, civil society should also participate in laying the foundations that underpin the decisions taken at global level.
If one looks at the financial crises that are occurring all over the world, the widening gap between rich and poor and the growing number of environmental problems, there is good reason to take heed.
It is high time we did so and showed more sympathy towards the establishment of global links between such things as investment and development.
Before an agreement such as the MAI comes into existence, it should be compared with the evaluations which have been made and the decisions which have been taken, as set out at the major UN conferences.
One hundred and fifty Nordic organisations have taken the initiative and said that if talks are to continue on an MAI agreement in the WTO, they must take place under the auspices of the UN in order to give them legitimacy.
I also think that it was appropriate to single out the USA in the report. It is really shameful that this country has not paid its contributions for so long.
Promoting peace and security is, of course, the UN's most important function.
I should just like to add that, in my view, NATO should delay its bombing campaign so as to allow the issue to be discussed by the UN Security Council.
President, speaking on Mr De Melo's excellent report, I commend to you my own amendments from the Development Committee in support of the UN's work in relation to indigenous people, Amendment No 13; the UN High Commission for Refugees, Amendment No 23; and our call to revive the UN Centre for Transnational Corporations, Amendment No 24.
However, I want to restrict my speaking time specifically to support the proposal for the creation of a UN Economic Security Council.
Mr Camdessus, Head of the IMF, is on record as saying that the UN is just one of the four pillars of the world system.
This view sees the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO handling the serious economic business whilst relegating social affairs alone to the UN.
No wonder that the World Bank and IMF have evolved in a way contrary to their founding objectives to reduce poverty.
They have imposed structural adjustment programmes in response to the third world debt crisis of the 1980s, which have actually had the effect of increasing unemployment and eroding social welfare provision for the poor.
The only answer is to integrate the Bretton Woods agencies effectively in the UN system, to make them more directly accountable to all the nations of the world irrespective of ability to pay, to spread the principle of poverty reduction from the UN's development programme into economic decision-making worldwide.
Mr President, the United Nations has been, remains and, we all hope, will continue to be the only framework within which disputes are peacefully resolved and peace maintained.
It has had this role for more than 50 years, since the catastrophe of the Second World War.
Of course it has had - and still has - weaknesses and shortcomings, and it may have more to come.
Let us look for the causes.
There have been powers, in particular the United States and those close to it, and NATO itself, which have undermined its authority, bypassed it, disowned it and taken initiatives that run counter to what the United Nations should have said. We are now moving towards the brink of an explosive situation, with unforeseeable repercussions not just in Yugoslavia and the Balkans.
Consequently, I would have liked the report by Mr De Melo, which correctly recognises the unique nature of the United Nations, to stress the need for the UN to arm itself against these attempts to undermine its authority and to take initiatives, to put forward ideas and proposals, to strengthen itself further so that it can assume its role.
As regards the issue of the veto which applies in the Security Council, I too would be in favour of abandoning it, but this would simply be jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire. If this were to happen, the UN would become, in institutional terms, the puppet of the United States, of a bloc of questionable interests which would manipulate the Security Council for its own benefit and to the disadvantage of the people.
One final point: I am concerned about the role of the International Criminal Court.
I am afraid that, under the slogans of 'terrorism' or 'crimes against humanity' - and I repeat that these are just slogans - it may be used as a tool to suppress and quell what are clearly national liberation movements.
Just look at the way the Kurdish movement is being treated, and the fact that it may even end up being punished before international courts!
Mr President, in discussing the De Melo report, we need to distinguish between two issues: one is reform of the United Nations, which could be a matter of adapting its ageing structures to changed requirements and to geopolitical transformations on the various continents; the other is Europe's continuing inability to speak with one voice and act with the necessary diplomatic force.
Here the UN could be the ideal terrain on which to build an EU common foreign policy to consolidate all of our economic successes to date.
As for the specific reforms required, the UN Security Council needs to be updated along democratic and non-élitist lines; moreover, this subject already appears as item 59 on the agenda of the General Assembly.
Many countries are hoping for such a reform, so much so that, from its original complement of 30 members, the 'Coffee Group' has grown to 49, and even the Durban summit of the 113 non-aligned countries rejected by a large majority the temptation to abandon recourse to Article 108 of the UN Charter, pursuant to which the vote on the reform principles requires a two-thirds majority of the Member States.
Reform is of course a lengthy and complex business which cannot be summarised in a minute and a half.
We now have the single currency; the next step has to be the common foreign policy, and the United Nations could be the basis on which to work towards this important goal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
Guidelines for the draft general budget for 2000
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0109/99 by Mr Bourlanges, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the guidelines for the 2000 budget procedure: Section III - Commission; -A4-0120/99 by Mrs Müller, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the guidelines for the 2000 budget procedure: Section I - European Parliament, Annex: OmbudsmanSection II - CouncilSection IV - Court of JusticeSection V - Court of AuditorsSection VI - Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions and Joint Organisational Structure.
Mr President, we are just now concluding the three-way discussions with the Commission and Council, or at least what remains of them, and I feel as if I am reporting on a state of limbo, as Cardinal de Bernis would say, given the current situation of extreme uncertainty.
On the one hand institutional uncertainty is at a peak given that this Parliament is to be dissolved on 13 June.
From July therefore the budget procedure will continue potentially with a rather different Parliament and speakers who will not necessarily be the same.
Uncertainty has also been created by the resignation of the Commission which will therefore have to prepare its preliminary draft budget in a state of political weightlessness.
I must thank Commissioner Liikanen for respecting his obligations.
As he is here I hope that he will speak, even though he has resigned, because the Commission is still responsible for preparing the preliminary draft budget.
It is therefore right that he should speak.
There is also very great uncertainty about the institutional conditions.
We do not know whether there will be any financial perspectives.
We do not know whether there will be an agreement on Agenda 2000.
We do not know whether there will be an agreement between Parliament and the Council on the overall management of the systems.
In other words, we do not know whether the next budget will be an annual budget based on Article 203 or a budget under the future financial perspectives.
In this context, it is very difficult to establish satisfactory and precise priorities for Parliament.
We have stressed two key issues: rigour and the concentration of priorities.
We want a rigorous budget on several levels and we want a concentrated budget.
In Category 3, which is of particular interest to us, we are stressing the need to concentrate efforts on decentralised information measures, the reception of refugees and the financing of Eurodac.
We want the 'greening' of the budget to be extended to new areas.
We also want the Commission to use this budget to prepare the ground for extending the powers of the European Union in the fields of public health and consumer protection.
Finally, with regard to the research programme, we want a balance to be achieved between the system's funding requirements, the need to keep within the overall budgets agreed and the provision of sufficient margins in the area of internal policies. The Fifth Framework Programme for Research must not dominate all the other spending under Category 3.
In Category 4, we are happy to concentrate aid on the poorest countries, as requested by the committee responsible.
This is our aim in terms of priorities.
However, yet again everything needs to be clarified.
The crux of our message is the rigour which we want to apply.
We consider that considerable efforts need to be made with regard to management.
Firstly, in Category 1, the management of the agricultural appropriations needs to be more rigorous, without ignoring the principle of adequate funding.
In Category 2, it must be possible, by reforming the nomenclature of certain funds, for expenditure to be managed not according to the distribution of administrative services, but according to the objectives of the Structural Funds. We therefore call for the nomenclature to be reformed accordingly.
Above all, effort is required in Category 5.
There is a problem of management here.
We want to see the gradual dismantling of the Technical Assistance Offices.
We also want the staff requirements for the work involved to be reassessed.
In particular, before 30 June, we want the Commission to come clean and clearly indicate how many staff it needs to perform its tasks.
We must have a clear answer here in order to identify the Commission's precise requirements so that the budgetary authority can decide and weigh up, in full possession of the facts, the tasks to be completed and the resources to be provided.
This is the message of rigour and clarification that we want to press home.
Applause
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the attention that has been devoted to the European institutions over the past few weeks perhaps adequately reflects for the first time the political importance now attached to the decisions taken by the EU institutions.
This implies tasks that go far beyond simply seeing new faces take over.
The people - as also the staff of the institutions - now rightly expect us to undertake structural reforms, and in saying 'us' I am specifically including the Council and the European Parliament.
Today the people expect a modern administrative management that makes the public administration as effective as that of the private sector.
The Five Wise Men's Report focuses on the concept of responsibility.
I too believe this is the key to the need for reform.
In future we need first and foremost a clearer attributability of success and responsibility, not just at Commissioner level but indeed also at official level, not just in the Commission but also in the European Parliament.
That is why I, together with my colleague Jean-Louis Bourlanges, suggested looking at experiences gained in the individual Member States or regions in relation to budgeting, or what is called activity-based budgeting, and supporting the Commission in its efforts to that same end.
I am sure that this is also in the interests of colleagues in this House and all the other institutions.
Decentralised and transparent responsibilities produce a stronger motivation, as shown by a variety of experience in the Member States and regions.
The attention currently being paid to our institution in relation to its carrying out its control function reflects another responsibility we have to live up to.
We all know that we still have quite a lot of homework to do.
For instance, if Parliament's budget estimates for the year 2000 provide for a sum of EUR 3.8 million just for setting up a supermarket, that means that here too, as I and the Committee on Budgets are suggesting, we must carry out our control function.
Facilities that are not connected with the institutions' activities should not be financed with subsidies from Parliament's budget but should be self-financing.
Prior to the budget deliberations I had asked the administration to calculate the possible budgetary costs of the European Statute for Members that is still pending before the Council.
This gave figures of EUR 60 million in compulsory expenditure and EUR 45 million in non-compulsory expenditure.
By budgeting for these resources, we should show the Council in the year 2000 that we are serious about the statute; and if I rightly understood Mr Verheugen yesterday, the German Presidency is endeavouring to have this statute adopted before the end of the presidency.
Let me turn now to another sensitive subject, namely the voluntary pension fund for Members of this Parliament.
This is a quasi-private fund and its management decisions, such as fixing the contributions and the benefits, are taken by the Bureau.
In the past, incidentally, that also contributed to the familiar deficit.
Irrespective of my critical attitude to the fund as such, of which you are aware, I would urgently request that you all join the all-group reform alliance and at least allow for the institutional separation of Parliament and the voluntary pension fund, as set out in Amendment No 6.
For the rest, colleagues on the board of the fund take the same view.
Incidentally, on the question of Members' declarations of interests, we should also go on the offensive, or to be more precise, on the Internet.
The Commission collectively accepted responsibility for its omissions because Parliament assumed its control function.
In two months' time the voters will be assuming their control function over us.
So let us do all we can with a view to the 2000 budget to signal that we are building up a modern, efficient, transparent administration in the institutions!
Applause
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in his very good introduction our general rapporteur on the 2000 budget, my friend Jean-Louis Bourlanges, drew attention to the institutional problems, especially in the area that particularly interests me as rapporteur for the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
To put it quite simply, we want to see adherence to the results of the legislative process for the fifth framework programme of research and the full assertion of Parliament's rights.
We fought for that during the conciliation procedure.
The negotiations were tough.
It was a question of what is known as the guillotine clause, which concerns the effects of the financial perspective on the overall financial framework of the fifth framework programme of research.
Here we managed to assert Parliament's rights in full, and of course we will also insist during the coming budgetary deliberations that Parliament is fully involved.
In the field of energy, we are yet again seeking to ensure that the responsibility the European Union has assumed in regard, for instance, to reducing greenhouse gases, is also covered in budgetary terms.
Declarations are one thing, their political implementation, their reflection in budget headings, are another, and that is what we must do.
By adopting a framework energy programme we have created the necessary legal conditions, and of course what we want is for this to be adequately reflected in the budget.
Those, in a few words, are the wishes of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy for the 2000 budget and I hope Members will find their way to supporting them during the further procedure.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Bourlanges has included in his motion for a resolution a number of important principles, in particular the principle that the 2000 budget must safeguard a policy of sustained development and cooperation.
This is actually the very essence of the European Union's identity which has solidarity as its central theme, and it will also help to put the European Union in a stronger position in the world.
The Committee on Development and Cooperation unanimously wishes to point out to the Commission that the prospects of enlargement and the Structural Fund and CAP reforms must on no account be allowed to result in the European Union abandoning or disengaging itself from this field.
The priority given by the Commission to countries geographically close to the Union must not lead to a reduction in appropriations for the ACP countries.
The Development Committee regards the reduction of poverty as a priority, which is why a larger proportion of spending under Category 4 needs to be allocated to the poorest countries.
The aim here is an ambitious one as it involves halving the number of people living in extreme poverty by 2015.
In this respect, we would urge the Member States to comply in full with the United Nations' recommendations to increase their development policy contributions to at least 0.7 % of their GNP.
We therefore reaffirm our desire to see the EDF incorporated into the budget and to see unused appropriations reallocated to low-income countries, for example through the PHARE, TACIS or MEDA programmes.
We want to see adequate humanitarian aid and we will also continue to fight for certain thematic lines such as the environment, tropical forests, equal opportunities, anti-personnel mines, and so on.
With regard to regeneration and reconstruction, the lack of coherence and the scattering of resources caused by allocating appropriations by geographical region should prompt us to reorganise the budget lines.
Finally, we fully support the work of the NGOs and hope that line B7-6000 will be given adequate payment appropriations.
We will seek to ensure that the small NGOs are not penalised in relation to the large NGOs in any new arrangements which the Commission might make.
Finally, I wholeheartedly endorse the comments made by the rapporteur on Category 5 regarding the staff shortages in the Commission in particular.
I must emphasise that the problem is particularly crucial with regard to DG VIII and ECHO.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of our Group on both reports.
First of all, can I turn to Mrs Müller's report and thank her for the work that she has done.
We do not always vote for her text or her amendments; but she knows that like most groups in the Budgets Committee, we are aiming for the same objectives.
We just have different ways of getting there.
Can I say that the rapporteur's sentiments and the sentiments of the committee are summed up in the first paragraph of her report, paragraph 1, where she calls on the institutions and committees - and I stress the words 'institutions' and 'committees' not 'organs' as Mrs Müller's amendment seeks - to produce a strategy to enhance efficiency by improving transparency, motivation, mobility and further training.
That is what we are looking for from guidelines.
Some of the other comments were not necessary, and that is why we voted against quite a few paragraphs within this report.
I have to be critical of the fact that Mrs Müller as rapporteur has tabled eight amendments.
This is not a prerogative of the rapporteur who is the servant of the committee.
She should be presenting the committee's report to Parliament and not tabling amendments in the name of her group.
All the amendments she has tabled fall into two categories.
There are those which have already been defeated in the Budgets Committee which, of course, we will vote against because we voted against them before and there are some entirely new ones.
The fact that we have had no debate on these new ones, once again means that we will vote against them in the plenary.
I would hate to think that these amendments were being tabled just as a political ploy or for a press release, because they call for the citizens of the Quartier Leopold to be able to use the facilities within the Parliament such as the shops.
Now, I would hate to think that we were going to be criticised for not supporting the people who live around here.
Apart from that, they are not guidelines and should not be in this report.
I turn to Mr Bourlanges' report and thank him for the work that he has done.
It is not the text we would have written but we will be voting for it, as he knows.
Paragraph 2, as he said in his speech, sets out Parliament's priorities, especially in relation to job creation.
That has to be at the forefront of all our minds.
But there is also a reference to the 'BATs'.
This is an issue which will not go away and which will be at the forefront of everyone's conversations and strategy for the 2000 Budget and beyond.
But, of course, if we achieve what we are seeking with the elimination of the 'BATs' where the Commission can do the work, then Council and ourselves have to recognise the possible consequences of such a move.
That brings us on to Category 5.
If Category 5 does not grow by 1.5 %, then 4, 000 jobs will be lost between the Year 2000 and 2006.
We still have the problem of 850 unfilled vacancies within the Commission.
That is why the Interinstitutional Agreement is so important and the work of Mr Colom I Naval and the other people on the trialogue which met this morning.
It is so important that we get an agreement.
We vote on this report before Berlin, and we assume that there will be agreement in the Council on Agenda 2000 and between the Council and Parliament on the Interinstitutional Agreement.
If not, then the Recital C and paragraph 1 of the Bourlanges' report will certainly have to be taken note of.
It is not unlike the situation in 1994, I have to say, or for the 1994 Budget, where we went right through to December before we knew what the final situation would be.
Let us hope that we can get this concluded well before December.
Mr President, Terence Wynn has made a few points of criticism about my position and my actions.
So I would like to put him right.
Firstly, all the amendments I am tabling are amendments that were considered in committee.
The new one on public access to a supermarket was not tabled in my name; it was tabled by a member of my group.
Secondly, the press conference I held was given together with Jean-Louis Bourlanges in order to present the report and in the Committee on Budgets we decided the precise amount relating to the supermarket by a majority.
That means I only told the press something that formed the basis of the outcome of the vote in the Committee on Budgets.
That was not a point of order, Mrs Müller.
Mr. President, our rapporteurs have always given us excellent introductions from the Committee on Budgets.
Mr Bourlanges has rightly underlined the uncertainty which we face in this budgetary procedure.
I must admit, having been on the Budgets Committee since 1984, that we have become used to uncertainty in our budgetary matters We reject budgets; we go on to twelfths; we have a whole range of negotiations with the Council, but actually somehow through all this period we managed to keep the show on the rails.
I am certain our rapporteur will do that in these difficult circumstances, particularly as we have never had to be guided without having a European Commission in place.
I welcome the fact that the Commission, although not in office, has taken the trouble to be with us and will no doubt be speaking in this debate.
I have two comments in speaking on behalf of my Group for the European Parliament Budget and then for the Commission Budget.
I would like to say to Mr Wynn that we will be supporting most of the amendments that Mrs Müller has put on the Agenda.
These have been discussed in committee.
We felt that they were reasonable and therefore they deserve our support.
In particular, I regret that the Council is not here today because I would have liked to find out from them the chances of having the statute for Members and for assistants which are mentioned in the report and on which we need decisions by the European Council as soon as possible.
Turning to the budget of the Commission, it is clear that we have once again a rigorous budget in front of us.
The Commission, the Council and ourselves have had rigorous budgets for the last few years.
This will be no exception.
Indeed, the priorities too will be fairly similar to those which have been put in the draft budget of the Commission.
The real issue of this 2000 Budget though will be on the administrative expenditure and the follow-up to the Wise Men's Report. What are the resources which will be needed?
What are the real needs?
What are the programmes that the Commission is going to be running? This is a debate we will no doubt have later in the year, but at this stage I would like to conclude that so far as our Group is concerned, we will be looking at this particular aspect of the budget in a much more critical way than any other.
Mr Chairman we live in the age between the ages as Reinhold Niebuhr said, and other colleagues have made that point very clearly.
It is very welcome that two experienced colleagues like Mr Bourlanges and Mrs Müller will be guiding this Parliament and the next Parliament through the difficult period of the Budget.
I have two specific comments.
First of all, the coming period will be less concentrated on new monies as was the case in the past and more on the management of existing money.
It is, therefore, very important in this period of uncertainty that the Parliament itself indicates that it is fully aware of its central responsibility on this point.
Over the last five years we in Parliament have made enormous progress in the quality of implementation and the involvement of other committees than the Budget Committee.
The other committees' involvement is essential for the future if we are going to meet our responsibilities.
A better institutional balance is, of course, absolutely essential.
It is perhaps again ironic that today, the day before Agenda 2000 is being discussed and also the whole financial structure, the Council is absent.
We must continue, and I hope that the new Parliament will pursue this point.
Essentially, we need an interinstitutional agreement but not at any price.
Therefore, the open situation which Mr Bourlanges indicated - that perhaps we may have a budget according to Article 203 - needs to be underlined.
As far as Mrs Müller's report is concerned, the essential point is the activity-based budgeting, as she indicated.
I welcome that Commissioner Liikanen underlined that earlier.
We must highlight the contradiction in the Council today.
On the one hand the Council wants cuts and, as Mr Wynn has said, this may lead to enormous cuts in personnel.
On the other hand, we see from the Committee of Wise Men, the essential contradiction that if we leave things to BATs we will have problems of management.
That contradiction will be focussed on by the Parliament throughout the coming period.
I hope and trust that Mrs Müller will be a good guide for this process.
Mr Chairman, since it is probably my last budgetary debate here I would like to say how much I hope that the new Parliament will continue to make progress under the good guidance of our two colleagues who have been appointed for the Year 2000.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as the 2000 budget procedure begins, I have to say that I am deeply concerned about the total uncertainty that surrounds the current situation.
We still do not know whether the Interinstitutional Agreement will be renewed and whether new financial perspectives will be established for the 2000-2006 period.
What is more, as has just been made clear, the rapporteur himself does not know the answers to these questions.
To paraphrase Sacha Guitry, I would say that the Council is hesitating, the Commission is dead and the rapporteur does not seem particularly courageous.
What causes me particular concern is the more or less stated aim of the majority of the Council delegations whose primary and perhaps only concern is to pay as little as possible to Europe. This means a budget of zero growth or financial stagnation in Europe.
In the absence of an agreement on the new financial perspectives, it is clear, as the excellent Mr Bourlanges has described in detail, that the financial framework for the 2000 budget must be established by adjusting the ceilings for the various headings, pursuant to Article 25 of the Interinstitutional Agreement of 29 October 1993.
This means that the budgetary authority must comply with the amounts already earmarked for the pilot schemes and preparatory actions.
In other words, the 2000 budget must be another austerity budget, maintaining budgetary discipline while at the same time guaranteeing that the necessary resources will be available to implement the European Union's policies, as pointed out by the rapporteur, in accordance with Article F(3) of the EU Treaty.
Therefore, whatever the current difficulties, it is right and even advisable that the joint budgetary authority should prepare a responsible, rigorous and effective budget for the year 2000 in line with the EU's political commitments and according to the spirit and letter of the Interinstitutional Agreement.
Unfortunately I do not believe that the Council understands this, and if we enthusiastically approve the guidelines defined by Mr Bourlanges, we are just as vigorously denouncing the lack of political responsibility and Community solidarity shown to date by certain Council delegations.
I was particularly shocked by the content of 'La Tribune ', published yesterday in Le Figaro and written by Ms Hewitt, a British junior minister, which was quite simply a call for the CAP to be dismantled through renationalisation.
Although at this stage the Council's priorities for the 2000 budget have not been identified - these particularly depend on the results of the Agenda 2000 negotiations - it seems clear that the aim of most of the delegations is to ensure that Community expenditure does not develop more than national expenditure.
We seem to suffer permanently from the Fontainebleau syndrome.
This concept is clearly out of step with the EU's development plans, and we would be entering a very difficult procedure with an uncertain outcome if we tried to prevent an abstinence budget being imposed which ignored the objective requirements of the EU's policies and was entirely subject to the electoral whims of the finance ministers.
We are realistic and we accept rigour but, unlike the Council, we want to see progress combined with respect for rigour and for the political commitments made by the Heads of State and Government and also for the agreements to which the Council itself has signed up.
To forget all that would be to forget Europe itself.
Finally, with regard to Mrs Müller's excellent report which is less affected by uncertainty, our group will support this as amended in committee.
Since I cannot split myself in two, I now have to give my position on Jean-Louis Bourlanges's report.
The strategic approach to restructuring this budget must focus on internal and foreign policies because they account for a large share of compulsory expenditure and multiannual programmes.
So I very much welcome our joint call for an increase in the share of development policies in the Community budget.
But we must bear in mind that the development impact of each euro must be enhanced with a view to sustainability, and here I mean both ecological and economic sustainability.
More emphasis must now be laid on good governance as a condition for granting any aid that goes beyond emergency aid.
We must look more closely at the macro-economic impact of our food aid and put the interests of the agricultural budget in second place.
I would remind you of our debate on aid for Russia.
And as the World Bank notes in its report on 'Assessing Aid', development aid should where possible be multilateral, which means it should also be shifted from the Member States to the Union.
But if we are to remain credible, we should also say where we are prepared to economise, which in my view should primarily be in relation to the disputed KEDO project.
But we must also radically rethink the export promotion programmes, not just with a view to creating European added value but also against the backdrop of the question of whether this should be an object of common European action in the first place.
How willing are we in fact to be serious about what we have been demanding for days, namely concentration on the essentials? I very much hope that with the dialogue on Jean-Louis Bourlanges's report and priorities we will be able to take a major step forward in regard to development policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate is taking place in a very difficult context, which is at the forefront of all our minds.
From this point of view I wish to compliment the Commissioner, Mr Liikanen, on both his presence and his work.
He has cooperated very constructively with the Committee on Budgets in the past few years, even though we as a Parliament must examine our collective conscience - something we have not done sufficiently, judging by what has happened in recent weeks.
In this sense, the Bourlanges report gives the thumbs down to one of the guiding principles of this House, the Budgets Committee and our whole mind-set in recent years: the belief that the number of measures and activities could continue to rise, while promising public opinion zero growth, and that everything could be constantly improved on the basis of the same statutory internal and personnel resources.
For the first time now, these guidelines do not stress that principle which, in my opinion, was one of the causes - perhaps the main one - of so many negative developments. I therefore welcome a new approach which ought to guide us in future years and which the Council President, Mr Fischer, stressed very responsibly yesterday.
Finally, I would just say one word on the Müller report: in the committee we adopted a well-balanced and coherent report.
This is the line which our group will pursue, by supporting the report as it emerged from the committee.
On the Bourlanges report, Mr President, one of the biggest problems as regards the year 2000 budgetary procedure is the enormous scale of monies still unspent.
To tackle this as quickly as possible, the rapporteur is suggesting that 50 % of the payment appropriations should be included in the budget for 2000.
If we add the expected 'fresh funds', this will give us a budget of EUR 95 billion.
Leaving aside the question of whether the Council is likely to welcome so big a budget, I do not think this is the answer.
How is it, I would ask the rapporteur, that payments can fall so far short of commitments? You mention the restrictive budgetary policy in recent years.
But is that the real reason? In recent years, the budgetary authority has saddled the Commission with a mountain of commitments.
Is it not rather the case that the Commission's services are unable to manage it all? Given the findings of the Committee of Wise Men, I fear that it may be.
So a forced increase in payment appropriations for the year 2000 is not the right way.
It is asking for trouble.
The solution should instead be sought through sensible self-restraint.
The commitment appropriations must be matched to the Commission's capacity for implementing them.
Europe must confine itself to policy areas where acting together as a Union is beneficial.
Programmes which cannot be managed efficiently must be scrapped, and quickly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, either the 2000 budget is the first budget under a new financial perspective or it is based on Article 203 of the Treaty on European Union.
We will find out in the course of tomorrow and the day after.
We had a trilogue this morning and discussed the question of the minimum requirements for the trend of categories 3, 4, 5 and 7 that we will set as the condition for a possible interinstitutional agreement.
In that respect, we must always view what Mr Bourlanges has just said against the background of the 'both-and-also' or 'either/or' alternative.
If we chose the 'either/or' alternative and did not have an institutional agreement, then as we made quite clear in the trilogue this morning, in economic terms we would have more money available than we would if we did conclude an interinstitutional agreement.
The situation is quite clear: only if the national budgets constantly showed a deficit of 0.9 % and growth remained below 1.5 %, only then would we have a situation where the expenditure arising from half the ceiling rate was lower than the expenditure under a financial perspective yet to be agreed.
I am addressing these words more to the Council, which is not here, than to Members, for the Council should know exactly what the financial resources in categories 3, 4 and 5 will look like when it decides the question tomorrow and the day after.
There is another point I want to make in this connection. I believe Mrs Müller has already raised it.
Should what the Council is currently discussing in relation to staff costs and administrative costs become the basis of the budget for 2000 and the following years, the freezing of the budget would mean that the European Union would have to lose 3 880 posts in all.
These would be distributed between Parliament - a loss of 420 posts, the Commission - a loss of 3 000 posts, the Court of Justice - a loss of 182 posts, the Court of Auditors - a loss of 58 posts, and the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee - a loss of another 220 posts.
Just to make it clear: if you talk about freezing the administrative budget, that will cost 3 880 posts.
So we cannot on the one hand say that we want steady growth in these programmes and on the other hand say that we will freeze or even reduce administrative costs.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, I do not mean that we should say that we want to increase the costs and employ more staff; instead, I am saying that freezing money would mean losing jobs rather than creating additional ones.
For this reason Parliament will be called upon to create the corresponding appropriations in this area also.
I also want to say something about the backlog.
The backlog this year is partly because in connection with Community expenditure the public is concentrating increasingly on payments and less on commitments.
But our budget is split into two components, namely the commitments we enter into and the payments which are then graded accordingly.
The reason these resources were not paid out does not lie with the Commission, as the previous speaker said; it is a problem connected with the Member States or the non-Member States, namely the Central and Eastern European countries, for it is they that correct or regulate the flow of resources into the Structural Funds, into research policy or foreign policy programmes through their activities.
Whether intentional or not, a backlog has occurred here accounting for more than 40 billion.
We cannot reduce that simply by saying we will dump it onto the budget, for then - and you are quite right here - we would find ourselves in the situation of having growth rates for the 2000 budget that were beyond good and evil but had nothing to do with the actual trend of expenditure but only with the burdens of the past that we are dragging along behind us and that we now have to slough off.
That is why we are in favour of Mr Bourlanges's proposal to divide this into two parts rather than having it in a single budget, in order to distinguish between growth and the burden of the past that we have to deal with.
Mr President, it is clear that today's debate is taking place during a very critical period for the European Union.
In two days' time, we shall have the debate and the decisions of the European Council on Agenda 2000 and the financial perspective.
I hope these decisions will be taken, because as you know, there has been indecision for quite some time now.
Personally, I am one of those who believe that policy cannot be made without money, but such a view has now sunk to the status of heresy in the European Union.
Be that as it may, speaking as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy on the budget for 2000, I would like to recall the three basic points made by the committee in respect of the new budget.
Firstly, we draw attention to the need to guarantee sufficient payment appropriations, so as to avoid liquidity problems for the programmes being carried out under the Structural Funds, and this should be done in relation to Agenda 2000 and the new structural programmes.
Secondly, we are asking for outstanding commitment appropriations under Category 2 for 1998 to be incorporated into the 2000 budget, so as to comply with the Edinburgh agreements.
Thirdly, the committee calls on the Commission to show some degree of flexibility when extending the programmes being carried out under the Structural Funds, where this is justified, which will allow the Delors 2 package to be implemented effectively and in full.
In the motion for a resolution, there are two paragraphs concerning Category 2, paragraphs 12 and 13, which are extremely important and which raise crucial technical issues. However, we in the Committee on Regional Policy believe that the motion lacks the proper political direction and the necessary political vision that we wish to see for the Structural Funds in 2000.
Mr President, the two rapporteurs have produced reports on the guidelines for next year's budget, both of which form a good basis for further discussion.
I would sincerely like to thank Mrs Müller and Mr Bourlanges accordingly.
I would like to focus on just two questions.
The EU Staff Regulations must be revised and the responsibilities of officials clarified.
The observations which the Committee of Independent Experts, the so-called Committee of Wise Men, made regarding personal lack of responsibility must be taken seriously, and there must be an end to all this hiding behind one another's backs amongst the authorities in the EU.
The increase in the number of staff employed must be strictly controlled, and this is a point on which I disagree with the Committee of Wise Men.
We can achieve much more with staffing levels as they are at present, as long as the Staff Regulations are flexible about the sensible use of resources.
Along with the review of the Staff Regulations we should also clarify how financial administration is monitored.
Administrative responsibility for the justification and approval of expenditure must be delegated.
We have to emphasise the importance of the responsibility for how revenue is used.
Only in this way can the importance of personal responsibility be underlined and payment settlements be speeded up.
As it is, I support strict budget policy, which is in line with government budget policy in the Member States.
Mr President, I must first thank Mr Bourlanges for his work on the guidelines for the budget for 2000.
Parliament generally gives its approval at this time of the year and makes a start on the annual budgetary procedure.
I am sure the House agrees that on this occasion the guidelines are being produced against a background of almost complete uncertainty. Indeed, if the debate could be postponed until Friday we might be in a better position to make specific decisions.
Nevertheless, the guidelines are not usually concerned primarily with figures but rather with setting the priorities of the House with regard to the budget.
I should now like to focus on two specific aspects of the guidelines for the budget for 2000.
To start with, I must draw attention to a matter of grave concern which Mr Samland, the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, has already mentioned, but which is worth highlighting again.
It is nothing new, as it was discussed previously in connection with the budget for 1999, and it involves the relationship between commitments and payment appropriations. This is specifically mentioned in the Interinstitutional Agreement, which refers to an equitable balance between commitments and payment appropriations.
Nevertheless, in recent financial years, as Mr Samland also pointed out, payment appropriations have not been increased in line with commitments in order to ensure that the budget has been strictly controlled, although this has not been the case.
We are now faced with what has become known as 'the burden of the future', that is, the burden acquired during the current year plus, in some cases, a backlog of credit to be cleared. By the end of 1999, this could amount to more than 200 % of the commitments undertaken.
I congratulate the rapporteur on putting forward a proposal to deal with the situation.
Nevertheless, I wish to make it quite clear to the Member States that the time for making false economies is over. This considerable backlog must be at the forefront of our minds as we prepare the budget for 2000.
Secondly, I am sure the House agrees that the budget must be rigorous, Mr Bourlanges. However, I do not agree that rigour is an end in itself, and I never will.
Rather, rigour must be a response to sound and efficient administration, whilst also guaranteeing the resources required to implement the Union's policies, as stated in the Treaty.
Allow me to repeat what I said earlier: the average European expects the Union to find a way of meeting our expectations. It is not merely a case of balancing income and expenditure.
Through the Member States, the people of Europe have transferred certain competences to the Union. They have even surrendered some of their sovereignty to ensure that the Union is in a better position to respond to their needs.
My own view is that the Union's budget is on quite a different level from that of the Member States.
It complements a Member State's budget, but should not be compared to it.
This certainly does not mean that the European Parliament will fail to act and cooperate responsibly during the financial year in order to smooth the path of the euro for the Member States. What it must mean, however, is that the Union's policies respond to the wishes of the people of Europe.
Mr President, before the Commissioner speaks I must quickly clarify two or three points.
Firstly, I totally agree with Mrs Dührkop Dührkop that rigour does not mean austerity.
Rigour indicates a desire to match resources to objectives.
This is not actually the main priority, but when it comes to priorities we should not forget that we are currently discussing a budget in which one third of the legal bases are uncertain.
Secondly, as I did not have time to say this earlier, I too must quickly emphasise the importance of the payment arrears problem.
Several speakers have mentioned this, including the chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
I must also stress the desire of this House to see this issue resolved, but not to the detriment of future commitments and real payments corresponding to real commitments.
My third observation concerns the technical assistance offices, the TAOs.
I only had time to say that we favoured their gradual dismantling, but I must clarify that this does not mean their total dismantling.
We realise that certain TAOs are necessary because they carry out temporary or technical work.
What we do not want are the TAOs which only serve to make up for the Commission's staff shortages.
We therefore want many of the TAOs to be dismantled but not all of them, just those which are not operating correctly.
Thank you, Mr President, for allowing me to clarify these three points.
Mr President, when the Commission resigned it decided to continue to carry out its essential legal functions and obligations.
The budget is a legal obligation for the Commission.
If no Commission is nominated within a certain period then this Commission must present a budget to Parliament.
On that basis, I shall make a few comments on what the rapporteur and some other speakers have said.
Firstly, the Commission is very happy about the rapporteur's idea of bringing the other parliamentary committees closer to the budgetary procedure.
It is very important to increase control of the quality and the sectors in the budget.
So, it is good that the committees responsible for a certain area have direct discussions with the Budgets Committee.
Secondly, the Commission is also happy that Parliament has confirmed its commitment to the procedure of the amending letter on agriculture between institutions.
This has been one of the major innovations during this parliamentary period and it is important that it continues in the future.
Thirdly, the Commission agrees with the preoccupation of the rapporteur as far as the famous RAL, reste à liquider , the backlog, is concerned.
It is very important that it will be directly presented in next year's budget.
It will show what comes out of that budget, what payments have not been made and which are due to commitments in the past.
We will follow in our budgetary presentation the wish of the rapporteur.
Fourthly, on BATs, I was going to say much the same as Mr Bourlanges.
We should not simply say that all technical offices are out.
That would easily lead to a situation that very temporary technical tasks had to be done by the permanent European administration.
That could be very expensive and very impractical.
It is, of course, very clear that the whole review of the budget question, which was started last year when the first decisions of the Commission were taken and where the preparation for the vademecum for BATs continues, is of major importance.
I hope this vademecum can be presented to Parliament by the new Commission as one of its first acts.
We are making the technical preparations.
As to the resources, the broad exercise which the Commission is embarking on should be coming to an end by the spring.
It is continuing in the services and I hope that in the context of the budgetary procedure we can give more information about its results.
On activity-based budgeting, I must say that the profound reform of the budgetary procedure so that we can always treat the operational and administrative requirement at the same time is activity-based budgeting.
This idea was launched by the Commission this year and the Commission decision was taken on the basis that the budget for 2001 will be based on activity-based budgeting.
It will mean transparency.
It will mean a procedure for operations so that all the requirements are attainable.
Finally, as you all know, the Berlin summit is starting tomorrow.
There are big questions to be decided but I will only comment on one of these, which we have already mentioned a few times.
It is the question of administrative expenditure.
The Commission proposal aimed at stabilisation of the staff at the levels of one year ago.
The Council majority position has been the stabilisation of administrative expenditure which would lead to a reduction of 4 000 civil servants in all institutions with 3 000 in the Commission.
We cannot accept this.
The Commission has presented proposals for a reasonable reinforcement of the staff in the financial perspectives.
Every 1 000 officials will cost EUR 100m in the financial perspectives.
We heard yesterday that the presidency was more open than previously to this idea but it is very important that the Commission and Parliament work together to get such an interinstitutional agreement that reasonable but strictly controlled staff increases can be guaranteed for the forthcoming period.
Mr President, I just want to thank Mr Liikanen for his words and for the excellent cooperation we have always had with him.
In my opinion he is a really first-rate Commissioner with whom it has always been a pleasure to work in an atmosphere of warmth and great personal trust.
I felt this should be said.
Thank you, Mr Bourlanges.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
Police cooperation
The next item is the report (A4-0110/99) by Sir Jack Stewart-Clark, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft joint actions:
I.on police cooperation on the verge of the adoption of standards for joint operations (14061/98 - C4-0047/99-99/0908(CNS)); II.with regard to combating international crime with fuller cover of the routes used (14060/98 - C4-0048/99-99/0907(CNS)).
Mr President, firstly let me say that I am disappointed that I do not see the Council here but I am extremely glad to see Mrs Gradin.
The first of these drafts - headed No 130 - looks to the creation of a committee of senior police officers at a senior level within the framework of Article K3 of the Treaty of European Union.
While such a committee is undoubtedly necessary, since there has been virtually no forum until now where such persons can meet, it does not really achieve the objective of real cooperation in the field of law enforcement at operational level.
Consequently, my main amendments to this draft wish to see the creation of a multi-disciplinary group which comprises heads of police, customs and other law enforcement agencies, for example top civil servants in interior ministries.
Secondly, we think it is important that Europol should be given a more specific role.
The text implies a half-hearted involvement of this body.
Consequently, my amendments beef up the role of Europol by calling for its involvement in discussions, planning and implementation measures.
Thirdly, after consultation with, amongst others, the German presidency and the British Home Office, I have been more specific about some of the tasks which this new committee should carry out.
These include establishing mixed inspection operations at the external borders and the setting up of an effective information exchange and early warning system.
The second of these two drafts - No 129 - wishes to see the deployment of large numbers of police on recognised routes.
In this case we have included the vital element of intelligence and changed the text to read 'if necessary the deployment of large numbers'.
Here I just want to say that it really is important that we make use of intelligence resources and not simply put larger numbers of police and customs on the biggest routes.
Large criminal organisations are sufficiently intelligent themselves to know where the police have their resources.
Therefore, we have to counter that by improving our own intelligence resources.
Secondly, we do not like the words 'to ensure maximum possible police success, especially in the form of arrests'. We have substituted the words 'tracking down criminals and their organisations and bringing them to justice'.
Police and customs success should not be measured just by arrests but by success in bringing criminal organisations to justice.
It is my hope that the Council, the Commission and ourselves will be able to get together to make certain that these modifications take place in what are two thoroughly worthwhile initiatives which this Parliament has been able to improve upon.
Mr President, the proposals before the House on closer police cooperation in Europe are good ones.
That applies, firstly, to the idea that when the Council group on police cooperation meets, those who actually do the work must also be involved, namely the police officers.
Secondly, I agree with the proposal that the police should carry out operations on recognised routes.
This approach has already been tested successfully in the cooperation between the Schengen states. It works.
The experience that has been collected - I have spoken to a police officer who is organising something of the kind - justifies introducing this as an instrument of police cooperation in the European Union.
Sir Jack has tabled amendments that we welcome. We also do so because we know these proposals are based on talks with experts.
In particular, we endorse all his proposals concerning the joint action on police cooperation and agree with him that it should cover not just the police but also those working in customs and other relevant authorities.
Mr President, we have a problem with the German translation.
The phrase 'law enforcement agency', whose meaning is clear in English, has been translated into German as 'Vollstreckungsteam ' and 'Vollstreckungseinrichtung '.
They mean something quite different in German.
In German, Vollstreckung relates to the execution of death sentences or orders to pay. It means something quite different.
So we have tabled an amendment to rectify this.
I fear we have a similar problem with Sir Jack's proposal about operations on routes.
The English phrase is 'the best and most sophisticated intelligence'. All I can say is that he is right.
This was translated into German as 'die besten nachrichtendienstlichen Instrumente '. In German that means including the secret services.
There are Member States, including mine, in which the secret service is strictly separate from the police.
So we emphasise that the English version is the authoritative one.
Then we can endorse the proposals.
I offer the remaining seconds of my speaking time to any one of the speakers to follow!
Mr President, Sir Jack Stewart-Clark's report is short, to the point and effective.
If only the authorities entrusted with enforcing the law in a spirit of liberty, security and justice could be as swift, direct and effective in fighting both organised and spontaneous crime, which unfortunately are constantly on the increase. Nevertheless, cooperation between the police and customs authorities has become a key factor in the success of this fight.
We therefore support the rapporteur's recommendation that a European-level multi-disciplinary group should be set up, with the power to make decisions on improving exchanges of information and on harmonising technical communications systems between the various national authorities.
We need to ensure that investigations at the external borders of the EU are effective and to investigate the main routes used for illegal activities.
It is therefore essential to beef up Europol's role, and that is the aim of the amendments we have proposed.
Although Europol has only really existed since October last year, following the protracted process of ratifying the 1995 Europol Convention, the Treaty of Amsterdam gives it a specific role.
It is not a European police force, but an instrument which the police authorities of the Member States must not fail to exploit to the full.
This process of police cooperation has proved its worth through the intergovernmental Schengen agreement, which has acted as a genuine test-bed.
This success obviously owes a great deal to the possibility of deploying large numbers of police officers when necessary, as recommended in the Enfopol no 129 draft, but as the rapporteur has quite rightly said, the success of these cooperative actions on crime should be measured in qualitative terms and not just by the number of arrests made.
Mr President, in bullfighting there is something we call the ' espontâneo' , when someone from outside spontaneously jumps into the bullring to join in.
I could not resist the temptation to jump in myself and give my opinion on Sir Jack Stewart-Clark's report, as what shines through this report is the special attitude of someone who wants not just a police force, but a top-rate force.
In fact, the class of crime itself has risen over the years.
Crimes are no longer committed by men with gold teeth or with only one hand.
They are committed by the sort of people we invite to dinner, who have the same education as us, who went to the same universities, and even by people from excellent families.
Crime has nowadays become more refined, so I believe that the multi-disciplinary force proposed in the report is an extremely commendable idea.
The people who devise crimes have now become so sophisticated that we really need criminal science to beat them.
So it is not just a question of cops and robbers any more, crime has taken on an extra dimension because of the globalisation that has changed the world we live in.
I therefore welcome Sir Jack Stewart-Clark's proposals, as I think that they are in line with what we need to create a sophisticated, multi-disciplinary Europol, with high-calibre people, graduates and so forth.
Mr President, cooperation between the police forces in the different countries, as well as between police and customs, is a welcome development in combating crime.
Much of Europol's work also contributes towards achieving the same end.
On the other hand, it is important to ensure that police cooperation stops short of effectively placing national police forces under EU command or making them subject to supranational decisions.
In the long run, as Europol continues to develop, there is also a risk of duplicating the work of Interpol.
It is essential that Europol should complement Interpol, rather than replace it.
I should like to comment on one particular point in the report, namely Amendment No 11 on the transmission of personal data.
The amendment is commendable in every way and highlights the importance of adhering to the relevant Council of Europe convention.
However, I am doubtful as to whether it goes far enough. In my view, Europol currently has a number of serious shortcomings.
Article 10(1) of the Europol Convention and its implementing provisions allow considerable scope for compiling records on persons convicted or suspected of having committed a crime. It is possible to record a great deal of sensitive personal data.
I therefore believe that it is essential to exert tighter control and that there should be an effective supervisory body when the register comes into operation, so as to avoid similar problems to those experienced with the SIS register under the Schengen Agreement.
In practice, the register should be more strictly controlled and better supervised.
It is already having a detrimental effect both in terms of integration and combating crime.
In my view, it should be a basic requirement that registration applies only to those people who have been convicted or are suspected of having committed a crime.
Mr President, with regard to the first text, Amendment No 4 to Article 2 haphazardly introduces all kinds of multinational inspections which do not correspond to any operational requirements but are rather for purposes of political show.
I therefore believe that this amendment should not be included.
With regard to the second text which concerns fuller monitoring of the routes used by criminals, I am astonished to see just how politically correct and unoriginal the amendments proposed by the rapporteur are.
Amendment No 1 in the French version deletes illegal immigration and Amendment No 4 omits the expression 'police authorities'.
You are living in cloud-cuckoo-land if you think that by deleting these words you can eliminate what is happening in reality.
We must therefore act rationally and reject amendments that spring from a superstitious fear of the aspects of reality which are perhaps distasteful to the rapporteur.
Illegal immigration is a real problem.
Police authorities are a necessity in any civilised society.
I would also add that frank words are a step forward, not a step back.
Mr President, the great challenge for police cooperation in Europe in the future will not be the harmonisation of legislation, but the creation of practical cooperation at grassroots level among all European states.
Without a common approach and shared resources the various early warning systems in place to prevent criminal activity will never function satisfactorily.
Europol must be granted significant powers and a clear role in both the coordination of checks taking place on the Union's external border and in the development of the information exchange and early warning systems used by the authorities.
It is important that, with the aid of Europol, we should be able to establish permanent cooperation in police and customs matters between officials in the Central and Eastern European countries that have applied for EU membership and those in the Union.
One of the greatest concerns and hopes of the citizens of the EU, with regard to the enlargement of the Union, is that the single market should be kept secure with more being done to make the task of combatting international crime more effective.
For this reason, one of the strategies prior to membership should be to focus to a greater degree than is currently the case on training the police and customs authorities in the former Communist bloc.
Applicant countries must forge lasting links with cooperation agencies that operate under the auspices of Europol, such as police and customs officers' work groups, well in advance of EU membership.
The extraordinary summit meeting scheduled to take place in Tampere during the Finnish Presidency will be devoted to the internal security of the Union, including action to combat drug trafficking, which is rife in the single market.
At Tampere there must also be broader debate on the future challenges facing police cooperation in the Union, with special focus on the problems stemming from the enlargement process.
Mr President, Sir Jack Stewart-Clark has compiled an excellent report on these two joint actions.
The presidency intends to strengthen European cooperation and coordination in order to combat organised crime, an aim which the Commission wholeheartedly supports.
For a long time now, we have been aware of the need to improve both the system for exchanging information and the cooperation in passing on intelligence about criminals within the Union.
Schengen cooperation has already set us on the right road, and now it is up to the Union to exploit its achievements fully.
In our view, there is also a need for clearer guidelines for carrying out joint operations, as well as for education and training activities.
We also note with satisfaction that Europol has been given an important role in both joint actions, particularly in relation to the development of strategies to uncover the routes used by smugglers.
We regard this as a very constructive step.
The Commission and the Member States will consider together the most effective ways of implementing the two joint actions.
In particular, I am considering the possibilities for allocating project support through the Oisin and Falcone programmes.
Finally, the Commission is able to support the amendments tabled by the rapporteur and the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
In our view, they help to make the significance of both instruments substantially clearer.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
Leonardo da Vinci programme
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0108/99), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council (13380/2/98 - C4-0001/99-98/0196(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Decision establishing the second phase of the Community vocational training action programme 'Leonardo da Vinci' (Rapporteur: Mrs Waddington).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, the Leonardo Programme has been at the centre of the crisis in the Commission.
It has attracted attention, not because of its aims and purpose to be the flagship for the European Union's vocational training policy, but because it has become associated with mismanagement, fraud, secrecy and nepotism.
My task as rapporteur has been to help prepare a new programme, Leonardo II.
My primary concern has been to ensure the new Leonardo Programme, which is due to begin on 1 January 2000, is of real benefit to the citizens of the European Union; that it makes a contribution to modernising vocational training systems through encouraging mobility, transnational cooperation and dissemination of good practice.
The Leonardo Programme should be a laboratory of innovation that encourages and enables a wide-range of partners and trainees to gain access to new opportunities and new ideas.
So, my main focus has been on the beneficiaries.
It is significant that this Parliament has demonstrated its commitment to its beneficiaries of the programme by continuing to work to investigate, to consult and to propose improvements to Leonardo II despite the crisis in the Commission.
The Commission, or certain parts of it, have let us down and have let the beneficiaries down by not ensuring the efficient and proper administration of the current Leonardo Programme, but I believe that we, as Members of this Parliament, have a mandate to increase opportunity by improving the programmes that are funded by the European Union.
I am therefore recommending two amendments to the Parliament after considering the Audit Report and that of the Wise People.
Neither the Socialist Group nor the PPE on the Social Affairs Committee want to see a system perpetuated which allows a contractor to misuse Community resources and then declare itself bankrupt.
We are therefore calling for the accountable Commission services to undertake the administrative work for Leonardo II.
That is why I have agreed to support Amendment No 34 which could be described as being either Old Labour or New Conservatism or indeed a new third way.
I now turn to the details of the other amendments agreed by the Employment and Social Affairs Committee.
Firstly, I am pleased to say that the Council has agreed to many of Parliament's amendments which were determined at first-reading stage.
In addition, I understand that the presidency are supporting the spirit or the letter of several of the amendments that have been retabled for this second reading by the Social Affairs and Employment Committee.
The amendments which have been retabled cover complementarity between Leonardo II, the European Social Fund and the Employment Guidelines.
They give greater priority to life-long learning as opposed to exclusively concentrating on youth training.
They give greater emphasis to access and systems of access to support those vulnerable to exclusion and discrimination including disabled people, and they extend the range of partners to include nongovernmental organisations and SMEs.
The re-tabled amendments also aim to improve evaluation and monitoring systems and streamline and improve the management and decision-making procedures.
In brief, I am aiming at defining Leonardo II as the programme which is concerned with developing vocational training systems for all, an inclusive approach which helps influence and develop training opportunities across the European Union and will link in with the European Social Fund and the Employment Guidelines.
The aim of these amendments is to prepare for a new programme which is not associated with fraud, but with an increase of opportunity, rigour and transparency.
I am also aware of the importance of agreeing these proposals today to ensure there is proper time for preparation for the new programme, and that it starts on time on 1 January 2000.
This timetable would not be achieved if we waited until the Amsterdam Treaty comes into force in May.
So just as the Leonardo I Programme has been central in illustrating the shortcomings of the Commission structures, this new programme, Leonardo II, and our decisions today will illustrate a new beginning and a determination by this Parliament to continue to work for employment and training opportunities for Europe's citizens.
Mr President, Mrs Waddington, who has done a splendid job with this report, focused in her presentation on the content of Leonardo, and rightly so.
I shall focus on the management of it.
The lack of decent management for Leonardo may be seen as one of the root causes of the crisis in which we find ourselves at the moment.
So it would be foolish not to spend some time on it in today's sitting.
However, it would be wrong to look at the conclusions to be drawn from the work of the technical assistance offices only in terms of what should happen with Leonardo in the future, since technical assistance offices are a general phenomenon seen in all the directorates-general.
So it seems right and proper to me to draw general conclusions.
In effect, those conclusions have already been drawn in the report of the Wise Men, where it says that the Commission should never delegate essential political responsibilities to individuals and that any contracts concluded must contain strict provisions to ensure that the general interest is served at all times and not the interest of the private company.
It also says that the authorities must exercise such tight scrutiny that there can be no question of the external advisors being over-dependent.
Mrs Waddington made that point too.
These are lessons which we think the Commission has to learn, but it would be laughable to talk only of lessons for the Commission.
There are lessons here for the European Parliament and the Council too, because one of the lessons to be clearly learned is that budgetary policy is one of the reasons for the crisis.
Many things have been called for by Parliament, but there are few resources structured into the budget.
I think we have to draw these conclusions clearly in the budget debate and especially in the second reading in September, and that means finding solutions to the problems of the past and it means a bigger budget for recruiting in-house expertise.
That is not to say that I am suggesting a permanent ban on the use of technical assistance offices.
If they meet the criteria, they can certainly help to ease the load temporarily.
Lastly, we find ourselves in a very strange position.
Mrs Waddington has dealt mostly with the Council, since the Commission is not functioning for the moment.
So a special responsibility rests with the Council.
Normally, unanimity is needed in the Council to reject an amendment by Parliament if it is acceptable to the Commission.
That situation does not exist at present.
It means that the Council could overrule the agreement between Mrs Waddington and the German Presidency.
I think that this situation provides grounds for obliging the Council to stand by the agreement it has concluded and thus prevent a unanimous vote in the Council to reject the agreement concluded with Parliament.
That is a particular aspect which I think deserves special attention, not only in connection with this subject of our debate but with subsequent ones as well.
Mr President, since our debate on the second phase of the Leonardo da Vinci programme on 5 November last year, much has changed.
What remains the same is the objective.
We want to supplement Member States' European vocational training actions and achieve complementarity between them.
With a view to making them more effective, we are seeking to network them with other training programmes such as Socrates and Youth, as also with Community initiatives and the Structural Funds.
Vocational training makes an ideal contribution to innovation, to creating new jobs and to achieving long-term competitiveness on world markets.
However, there are two preconditions: firstly, integrated systems and, secondly, adequate funding.
Various key concepts remain topical, such as promoting a higher level of vocational training, integrated in our lifelong learning strategy, equal opportunities for men and women, the removal of all forms of discrimination, qualified access to further training and paying special attention to re-training, to the reintegration of marginalised, disabled and older workers and the constructive dialogue with non-governmental organisations.
It also remains most important substantially to boost the resources for Leonardo, as we have called for.
Nobody would seriously question that need, given the new scope, the new duration and the new, much expanded field of application of the programme.
What has, however, changed drastically, is how the programme is implemented, for one of the reasons for the European Commission's resignation early last week was the mismanagement of Leonardo.
The ad hoc committee of inquiry, which is known as the Committee of Wise Men, confirmed in full the findings of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control.
It found a large number of irregularities which, it said, 'must be considered an incitement to corruption'.
The tender procedures were not evaluated on a neutral basis.
Instead, organisations that had close links with the clients were given preference as contractors or contracting partners.
Think of the times interested parties have complained to us, the responsible Members of the European Parliament, about a number of dubious decisions!
Mrs Cresson omitted to inform the President of the Commission or the European Parliament of them.
As the Wise Men's Report also says, and I quote: 'It is elementary 'common sense' that the Commission should have supported the Parliament's decision-making process.'
Facts were indeed kept from us that could have served as background on how to structure the successor programme.
I call on Sue Waddington, who has once again done an excellent and detailed job, to support the PPE Group's amendments.
We want the Commission, when it implements Leonardo, not to turn to outside bodies but to restructure, Mr Liikanen, and turn to staff from its own ranks.
It must remain responsible, must not leave the right to act to others and must undertake to monitor actions and resources carefully.
The tasks of national administrative authorities - and this is our second amendment - must also be performed by internal staff and not by third parties.
On the basis of these amendments the Commission should manage to create transparency and ensure precise supervision of tasks and expenditure.
This new departure is worth it for the sake of the vocational future of hundreds of thousands of young Europeans!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, technically speaking this is a good programme.
The previous Leonardo programme was technically a good one too, and ten times oversubscribed.
So there is great interest in this programme amongst the people of Europe.
Mrs Waddington has done an excellent job, but that is not the problem.
The problem for me is that we are here today as if nothing had happened, as if there were no Committee of Wise Men's report and as if there were no lessons for us to learn from it.
I do not think it would be a wise move to approve this programme today.
We still do not know what the European Council intends to do about the future of the European Commission, how quickly solutions will be found to the problems which have arisen, so that they can be consigned to the past.
We are again proposing to increase the budget for Leonardo in due course, and I too am in favour of doing that, but on the other hand we still have no guarantee at all that the problems which have arisen will be resolved adequately.
So when it comes to the vote, I shall ask for a postponement until April.
That is perfectly feasible, because Coreper is meeting on 14 April and there will be time to vote before then.
In that event, we shall at least be sure that the European Council takes the crisis seriously and is keen to resolve it.
I am amazed to find that there is little support for this idea amongst other honourable Members.
I cannot understand that, because if we do not vote for a postponement, we shall lose the leverage we have at this time.
And my group will face the difficulty of having to choose whether to vote or not.
I shall then have to look for a list, and I am not all that keen to surrender my chance to vote.
So perhaps we can think of some other means of putting pressure on the Council.
But the preferable course and the best political signal we can give is to postpone the vote.
I would once again urge the House to follow this course.
Otherwise we shall be doing just the same in political terms as we have always done before.
Mr President, I am pleased that the administration of the Leonardo da Vinci programme has come in for very detailed scrutiny.
The most troubling aspect of the findings has been the wasted money which has not been used for training.
We know that the programmes are always the subject of trade-offs or rather tussles between the Council and Parliament over the budgets agreed.
If we start using the money correctly, we will reap the rewards in effectiveness.
The programme has nevertheless been satisfactory.
Its purpose is not in doubt but it needs to change, particularly with regard to its priority target groups.
If Europe is accused of creating unemployment, it must provide solutions such as the Leonardo programme, which is designed to improve the employability of people and create more companies.
The fact remains that the Council and Commission are wrong not to have accepted the amendments giving priority access to this programme for disabled people and allowing special access for the most disadvantaged.
The complementary nature of this programme with regard to the ESF has also not been accepted.
Why seven years for the programme?
Surely this is too long.
What purpose will interim evaluations serve if the programme is fixed for so long? Finally, I am sorry to see that once again the common position does not give much room to the social partners in the administration of the programme.
In Europe, Leonardo da Vinci is the symbol of creativity and ingenuity.
These virtues cannot be said to have inspired the Council and Commission.
This is why our citizens do not believe in the added value of Europe and this is to be regretted.
We must ensure that Parliament provides the stimulus for the Commission and Council to take the people into account.
Mr President, I think we really do now have a classic example of the problems involved in the European programmes.
A good, indeed an essential programme, is simply not a carte blanche for mismanagement.
During the last discussion we also said that in the interests of Leonardo II it was urgently necessary that Mrs Cresson put her house in order.
The situation has turned out to be rather more acute in the meantime, but the house is being put in order. In that respect, we are seeing progress.
Leonardo II has made it possible to create the European dimension of vocational training, to give access to lifelong learning, not just as a slogan for those who lack qualifications but as an opportunity.
Here Parliament has a special responsibility to bring about progress through dialogue with the Council.
Of course we have to consider how we can effectively resolve the question of public accountability for the use of public monies.
We will not be able simply to fall back on old models of public administration.
They are no longer appropriate.
We need modern models that also use the instruments of contract awarding.
But that cannot mean handing over the money to industry or to mafia-like structures and letting them manage it themselves.
That is bound to lead to the results we have seen. We must put an end to that.
We need to return to public accountability.
That is the central task to which the Council and Parliament must now apply themselves together and which the new Commission must resolve.
I hope the caretaker Commission will take supportive action towards this aim.
Mr President, this Leonardo programme is important but has been badly managed.
The mismanagement and irregularities which came to light made me keen to go to the courts, for fear of a cover-up otherwise.
Happily that did not happen.
On the contrary, things came to a head in the crisis and we now know for certain that this Augean stable at any rate is going to be cleaned out.
But we are still not totally reassured, and I would ask the Commission to be especially careful, because there is currently the risk of a real foul-up and people are hiding behind the fact that the cases, the dossiers, have been sealed by the courts.
At present there is no follow-up to the Leonardo programme, and that is not a good thing.
The programme is in danger of grinding to a halt because even the applications are not being processed.
But the situation can be saved if qualified staff from the former TAOs are put on to the job at once.
The argument that the dossiers are sealed does not stand up, since there are duplicates of all files which can be used, provided there is sensible and urgent liaison by the Commission, the trustee and the investigating magistrate.
In future the practice of TAOs must be avoided as far as possible, if not banned altogether, if only to prevent the operation by these TAOs - under the noses of our own Social Affairs Committee - of a staff policy which is totally at odds with any form of social legislation in the Member States.
I would therefore ask the Commission, the Council and Parliament to sit down together and insist that the dossiers are processed, so that a programme which all of us here think is so important can indeed continue in the future.
Mr President, I think that Parliament's position in relation to the Leonardo II programme must be based on two principles:
firstly, the need for prompt, timely and fully prepared implementation of the programme, which means that the procedure must be completed and the programme must start now; -secondly, that in the light of the problems which arose with the Leonardo I programme, this preparation must be comprehensive, proper, and carried out with a view to and on the basis of the priorities which have already been discussed.I am not ignoring the very important issue of the technical assistance offices.
I am not going to mention this matter - not because I underestimate it, but for quite the opposite reason.
I think it is an extremely important issue, because it has a bearing on transparency and proper administration.
I agree with the debate that has already taken place and with the position of the rapporteur.
But I believe that we must not allow this issue to become part of the more general and very important issue which we debated yesterday and which we shall be voting on this afternoon.
I would prefer to focus on the importance of the Leonardo programme, since it is linked to the Socrates and Youth programmes.
On the basis of this principle and the action associated with these programmes, and in the context of the Structural Funds and the Social Fund in particular, we must not lose sight of the priority we are highlighting, which is to promote the message and the means to tackle unemployment through vocational training and to encourage the active and responsible citizen.
All the things that unite us culturally will thereby provide the values that are fundamental to the European Union. I believe that the emphasis must remain where it should be, and that the European Parliament must move forward today and finalise its own contribution.
Mr President, I too agree that this programme is very important, and my sincere thanks to Mrs Waddington for all the hard work she has put in on it.
In a European jobs market, I think it is most important for people to gain experience of working in other Member States, and that is what this programme makes possible.
That is obvious, from the degree to which it is oversubscribed.
I shall touch on the question of the TAOs, because this is what has exercised us most of late. I totally agree with what Wim van Velzen and Thomas Mann said on the subject.
But I think there is something else going on here.
The Commissioner told the Committee on Budgets that anyone opposed to the TAOs was in fact 'old Labour'.
I felt very strongly, as someone whose grandfather in the Netherlands stood on the Malieveld to prevent a socialist revolution from breaking out in the Netherlands, about being described as 'old Labour', when there are major questions to be asked about these TAOs.
I agree with those who say, and also as Wim van Velzen said, that TAOs are all right in certain cases, but in very restricted cases, in my view.
In general, we have a problem with what might be called the core business of government.
That was the problem here.
When a firm goes under, you then realise the difficulties we face.
Everything stops, because a Belgian judge has to decide on something which is in fact a European case.
I do not think that is right.
How would people feel if, for example, the whole administration of Finland's social security system was contracted out to Sweden, and the Swedish firm then went bust?
I think it might create a few problems in Finland.
I believe we should be mindful of this.
In creating a TAO we are exceeding the Union's legal powers, so if a business fails you have to consider how far the Union's interests may be harmed.
Another point which is of course very relevant is the question of social security contributions.
In ten or so cases, these have either been underpaid or not paid at all.
The Commission has not exercised adequate scrutiny here.
Vis-à-vis the Belgian authorities, TAOs often claim to be part of the EU apparatus, which is not the case because they are subject to Belgian law.
That gives rise to a very disagreeable situation.
So I think that in this programme certainly, which spawned the whole concept of the TAO, we must not allow TAOs.
We cannot afford to.
The Council cannot afford to, at least not if it really is intent on cleaning up its act.
We cannot afford it, and we must find budgetary solutions to remedy the situation, otherwise things will be impossible. We cannot allow just one TAO to remain.
If we do, we lose all credibility, and for that reason we have tabled an amendment.
That amendment resolves the matter, I would say, and this TAO will then in any event be reduced to what it is. In this case, the TAO is NBG - it is a bad thing, and we must not forget that.
Madam President, this is a praiseworthy report which should promote access to education, employment and experience, combat discrimination and enhance equality of opportunity and the integration of handicapped people into the labour market and working life.
It has particular significance for small and medium-sized businesses and industrial and manufacturing enterprises.
It is essential that the labour market partners are included in the cooperation process from the outset in order to reinforce employability, since the whole point of education is to have a job at the end.
Together we must each play our part in reducing unemployment and increasing employment opportunities in Europe.
It is one of our major tasks.
However, a totally different system of control and evaluation and of keeping Parliament regularly informed needs to be introduced, as well as openness and transparency, in order to improve the programme's credibility.
I think that in reality it would be somewhat challenging to deal on the same day with both the departure of the Commission and the Leonardo da Vinci programme, which was in fact one of the main reasons for its resignation because of the fraud, nepotism and mismanagement associated with the programme.
It would seem sensible to postpone a vote until the problems arising from the financial mismanagement of previous projects has been investigated.
I hope that others will also realise that this is important, not least in terms of the way in which our work in Parliament is perceived.
In any event, our group will stress this aspect before a decision is taken.
Madam President, I am here in exceptional circumstances so I will be very brief.
Firstly, the Commission can accept 30 of the 33 amendments tabled to the Waddington report.
The amendments which the Commission cannot accept are Nos 12 and 21.
With regard to Amendment No 26, which is the major amendment concerning the technical assistance offices, I will set out the Commission's reservations in written form.
We had discussions earlier in this Chamber on that very point when we talked about budgetary priorities for the year 2000.
The position of the rapporteur then was that one should not on principle abolish all technical assistance offices but should guarantee that they do not exercise public sector tasks.
We have been working on the general rules of that area and I would just like to say that it is clear that the ways the technical assistance offices have been used have been too vague and they have exercised two different tasks.
We need to arrive at a situation where the task given to the technical assistance offices could be clearly defined: the rules for unprofessional conduct, the rules on the correct management of funds and - last, but not least, the very important important made by Mr Pronk - that there should be an external authorised auditor on every technical assistance office to guarantee that all national legislation is being fulfilled.
This would create a different basis for their function.
But I do not want to go into detail on this discussions.
We must come back to that in other contexts.
However, it is clear that in the short and medium-term we need some solutions for those tasks which are temporary and short-term and which must be done quickly.
For the European public administration we must transfer those which have the element of decision-making, where political power, so to speak, is being held.
I will give the details on that position to Mrs Waddington later.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 3 p.m.
The sitting was suspended at 12.10 p.m. and resumed at 3.05 p.m.
Welcome
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to welcome the recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature, Mr José Saramago, who is present with us in the official gallery.
Loud applause
Mr President, on a point of order.
I know that we all complain of a lack of interest in the work of Parliament but that is partly our own responsibility.
At 8 50 p.m. last night a member of the Japanese mission attempted to gain entry to Parliament to listen to the debate on Mr Tindemans' report on KEDO.
He was told by our security staff that the session was over.
As I was here between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. with a large number of Members of Parliament, maybe we could give our security staff not only a calendar of part-sessions but also a timetable.
We will immediately look into that and take the necessary measures to avoid a similar situation occurring in the future.
Mr President, I have just learnt from Reuters that weapons have been seized in Brussels from a car belonging to Mr Le Pen. To be exact, a pump-action shotgun, tear-gas grenades and a handgun were found in his car.
I should like to know what the Chair can do in order to ensure that the prestige of Parliament is not damaged by events of this gravity.
Applause
Mr Duhamel, I believe that Mr Martinez is going to explain why these weapons were there, assuming that this is true.
Mr President, you are right to say 'assuming that this is true'.
On a previous occasion Mr Duhamel informed you that a president of the Chilean Senate who was a Pinochet supporter was present, to which you replied that he was not representing Pinochet.
The same applies today.
The weapon in question is a spray-type tear-gas grenade which can be bought in any supermarket.
This is Mr Duhamel's 'riot gun' or whatever he called it.
So what is the situation? I gave you a letter about this at about 11.30 this morning, Mr President.
Our colleague and group chairman, Mr Le Pen, enjoys official protection provided by the French Ministry of the Interior.
This protection stops at the Franco-Belgian border, since there still is a Franco-Belgian border, which means that the official agents of the French Socialist Ministry of the Interior cannot continue on to Brussels.
For the journey from the border to Brussels, Mr Le Pen has his own official bodyguard and a chauffeur to protect him.
The official bodyguard is officially permitted to carry firearms just like all bodyguards.
And that is what this is all about.
There were no rockets, missile launchers, booby-trapped cars or any trafficking of Serbian or Albanian weapons.
It was simply a small tear-gas grenade and the firearms carried by an official bodyguard.
This being the case, the arrival of spring together with the climate changes must have affected Mr Duhamel's brain, unless he has been eating British beef.
This was all it was, Mr President, that Mr Duhamel got so worked up about.
Applause, calls of approval, beating on tables by Members
As there are no terrorists, no weapons and no rockets, there is no crime.
My letter to you, Mr President, basically asks you to ensure that the immunities enjoyed by MEPs are respected.
Very well, I think everyone has got the message.
Anyone wanting more details can ask me for a copy of your letter.
The matter is therefore closed, and I will not allow anyone else to speak on this.
We should not be discussing questions in this House which are a matter of Belgian law and order.
There will be no personal statements.
Mr President, I am not going to talk about arms, but another kind of terrorism.
We have had a splendid building constructed here, the Parliament building, with smoking and non-smoking areas clearly demarcated.
I am not against smokers: they may smoke in peace to their hearts' content, but I wish they would respect those who do not smoke and keep well clear of the non-smoking areas, allowing us to enjoy a smokeless environment.
Applause
I hope the President will bring this to people's attention in the corridors, coffee shops and restaurants.
In principle, these measures already exist. One should expect 'no smoking' notices to be complied with, but reminders will be issued if necessary.
VOTES
In the absence of written opposition, the resolution contained in this report is deemed adopted and will be published in the Minutes of today's sitting.
Mr President, I am wondering whether our own amendment is admissible.
The French version already contains the words I wish to add: 'the members of the Commission'.
Is the French text or the English text the authentic one? If it is the English text, I maintain the amendment, because I do not think it includes this reference.
Otherwise, I think the amendment should be withdrawn.
It is the English version, and we shall put your amendment to the vote.
Before the vote on Amendment No 14
Mr President, I feel that Amendment No 3, which appears in the voting list after paragraph 9, serves the same purpose but goes further.
I think it should be put to the vote before Amendment No 14.
Your amendment is included in the vote, but later on.
This one comes after paragraph 2 and the other after paragraph 9, I believe.
So I shall put it to the vote afterwards.
Mr President, in this case Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is right.
It deals with the case of Mr Van Buitenen.
Amendment No 3 goes further.
It should be voted first.
I have no objection if that is the case.
Before the vote on Amendment No 19
Just a word, Mr President, about Amendment No 19.
This is a very important amendment which simply requests that the Committee of Experts, of which we quite rightly have such a high opinion, should consider Parliament's administrative and financial operation.
At a time when the public at large is watching what is going on ...
The President cut the speaker off
On Amendment No 12
Mr President, I would like to withdraw the first part of my amendment, paragraph 5a, since I see that this aspect of the Commissioners' individual accountability is also covered by Article 5; but I will maintain paragraph 5b, demanding of the Council that a procedure be laid down as soon as possible which enables individual Commissioners to be called to account.
The author of an amendment can withdraw it and, if no one takes it over, it stands withdrawn.
The first part of Amendment No 12, paragraph 5a, has therefore been withdrawn.
We shall now vote on paragraph 5b of Amendment No 12.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy has the floor.
Mr President, I wished to say that I was taking over this amendment but proposing a modified oral version to the House.
This version is extremely simple and reads as follows: 'insists that members of the Commission who have resigned under no circumstances be allowed to be members of the new Commission'.
An oral amendment can only be put to the vote if there is no opposition from the House.
I think there is clearly opposition to this vote, so I cannot accept the amendment.
Are there 12 Members who are opposed to this oral amendment by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy being put to the vote?
That is the case, so I cannot put it to the vote.
Will you take over the amendment as it stands, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy?
I have seen what has happened in public and before the whole Parliament, and I am quite happy.
On Amendment No 1
Mr President, with regard to the next amendment - Amendment No 1 - could I ask Mr Cox if he is prepared to accept an oral amendment.
I have no problem with the principle he is trying to introduce, namely that we should have a new Commission by the end of this Parliament.
However, I think that allows us a bit longer than 5 May, should we need it.
I would be obliged, if he were willing to accept as an oral amendment: 'for a vote of approval by 5 May or at the latest by the end of the life of this Parliament'.
This would allow us a bit more flexibility.
Mr President, this is like a TV quiz show - I am getting different advice from each side.
I am happy as long as we indicate a preference in timing while being realistic enough to realise that we do not control all the possibilities.
We would like the Council to assist us with the earliest possible time but if they fail to approve the Commission by 5 May, then at least we should have as a fallback that we can approve the Commission within the life of the Parliament.
I would like to keep the date and I can accept the fallback as an addition to the text, if that meets with the approval of the House.
More than 12 Members were opposed to the oral addition to Amendment No 1
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Ladies and gentlemen, the text of the resolution we have just adopted will be available this afternoon in all the languages.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have just adopted the resolution calling for the summit to appoint a new Commission.
We are now being asked to vote on what should happen about the Leonardo report, a report by Mrs Waddington which in itself has nothing wrong with it.
Mrs Waddington has done an excellent job, but my group thinks that voting on this report at the present time sends out a very bad signal, as if nothing were amiss, when we do not know if the Council is going to shoulder its responsibilities and come up with the right proposals at the forthcoming summit.
It is technically possible to postpone this vote until April.
My group very much favours doing that, and commends that course of action to the House.
Mrs Boogerd-Quaak, if I have understood correctly, you are asking for this vote to be postponed pursuant to Rule 131.
I shall therefore call one speaker in favour and one against, but first give the floor to the rapporteur.
Mr President, I would like to say that I am opposed to the proposal from Mrs Boogerd-Quaak to refer this back.
There are no matters for us to consider within the committee and we want to send a strong message today to the Council and the Commission for the new programme.
It is vital that both the Council and the Commission have the time to introduce the new programme on 1 January 2000.
Preparations must be carried out now and since there are no disagreements amongst us, we believe that the vote should be taken this afternoon.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must learn to distinguish between European programmes and their poor management by the Commission.
Mrs Cresson did not have carte blanche to do what she did and say: it is a good programme so I can do what I want.
But conversely, we must not now jeopardise a good programme by postponing it because of poor management.
We should really distinguish between the two, which is why we should vote today.
Applause
(Parliament rejected the request)
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Ladies and gentlemen, the Foreign Affairs Committee has tabled three amendments to its own motion for a resolution, in order to take account of what Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan said here yesterday evening in the debate about the European Parliament's involvement in international agreements concluded under the Euratom Treaty.
The Foreign Affairs Committee is tabling three amendments and has decided to delete paragraphs 4 and 5 of the draft text which proposed blocking funds for KEDO.
As rapporteur, and in agreement with the draftsmen for the Committees on Research and Budgets, I would therefore ask the House to adopt Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 and reject paragraphs 4 and 5.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Last night during the debate on the oral question the Council was absent.
I asked on behalf of those present whether the presidency could reply to the question before the vote today.
Has the Council replied?
I am told that we have in fact received a reply, Mr Brinkhorst, so your intervention has produced results.
Mr President, could you please have that circulated to Members?
We shall obviously circulate this reply, if it has indeed been received.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to say a word or two about the amendments tabled by the Group of the European Radical Alliance to the motion for a resolution on relations between the European Union and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
We were unaware of these amendments yesterday evening when we debated this, so I was not able to give any verdict or comments then.
The motion for a resolution on which we have to vote in a moment was introduced by the Foreign Affairs Committee as a complement to its report on KEDO and with the express aim of making a justified attempt to dispel suspicion in this most isolated state of North Korea and to bring it closer into the international community.
The three rapporteurs for the Committees on Foreign Affairs, Budgets and Research were involved in this.
We were eager for contacts and meetings and to see how these might be brought about, how we might find ways of perhaps creating mutual trust, including contacts between our two parliaments.
We had to forge links which would make dialogue possible.
As convinced democrats, we naturally found many things to criticise, and the amendments tabled by the ARE Group are clearly based on criticism.
But I have to say that the motion for a resolution did not set out primarily to be critical.
We were very much aware that if we could not establish better links with North Korea, if we could not persuade North Korea to join the international community, we would have to expect a humanitarian and perhaps even a security disaster of enormous proportions.
The motion for a resolution was drawn up very carefully by the Foreign Affairs Committee and with input too from the draftsmen, Mr Ford and Mr Brinkhorst.
So I would urge you not to adopt the amendments tabled by the ARE Group and to maintain the motion for a resolution tabled by the Foreign Affairs Committee unchanged and in its entirety.
Mr President, as far as the procedure is concerned, I must say that it would really be the last straw if we could not vote on these amendments.
We were not able to table amendments in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and it seems we cannot table amendments in the plenary either.
I think this is really too much.
In substance, Mr Tindemans is advocating trust.
We hold the opposite view, since no trust can be placed in a psychopathic regime.
This regime needs to be placed under international supervision, and this should be done straight away!
Thank you, Mr Dupuis.
In any event, I would confirm that these amendments will be put to the vote.
There is no problem with the procedure.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Mr President, I simply wish to say that I would like to withdraw the ends of two of the amendments tabled by my own group, in the interests of preserving the consensus that prevailed throughout the drafting of this report.
From Amendment No 1, I should like to delete the end, after 'draws attention to Turkish incursions into the area'.
And from Amendment No 4, I also wish to delete the end, that is, the part following the sentence: 'Calls on the Member States, the Council and the Commission to renew their efforts to formulate a common foreign policy, in view of the challenge posed by the repression of the Kurdish people'.
I would like this revised wording to go forward to the vote.
In addition, I should like to join my colleague Mr Brinkhorst in regretting the Council's absence during yesterday's debate on this report.
This is a Council document which was only referred to the Committee on Civil Liberties for consultation a year after it had been approved.
Moreover, the fact that we do not even know at this stage whether or not the Council has acknowledged receipt of this report seems quite unacceptable.
I should also like to know if the protest I made yesterday and my request for a response have been forwarded to the Council.
Thank you, Mrs Terrón i Cusí.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Mr President, I regretfully had to abstain in this vote and I would like to explain why.
Basically I was very much in favour, but there were two points I could not accept.
The first is that this resolution leaves the road open for this so-called Committee of Experts, which has indeed done well here, to go on working for ever.
It is quite simply a mistake on the part of Parliament to bring in outsiders instead of assigning these tasks to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
That is the first reason.
The second is that I find the resolution far too weak.
We could have taken a much more vigorous and definite approach since this was after all an affair in which Parliament has finally shown a bit of muscle, which could have been reflected more strongly in this resolution.
Mr President, as I was not given the floor yesterday in the debate, I would like first of all to say how very much I regret that, following the Committee of Independent Experts' report with its rather arbitrary conclusions and the ill-considered and irresponsible reactions of some people in this Parliament, some of the public have been led to believe that the process of European construction is just a sordid business of fraud, waste and irresponsibility.
Fortunately, this is not the case, and I very much want to pay tribute to the four years of work done by the Santer Commission, which carried out all of the political programme that Mr Santer presented to Parliament.
Moreover, we cannot deny that it was Mr Santer's Commission that took decisions and measures designed to clean up the Delors heritage of administrative and other anomalies.
The Santer Commission does not deserve to be described by the independent experts as irresponsible when it comes to supervising its own administration.
I particularly regret that it was a female Commissioner who failed to act as a decent politician and face the consequences of her actions and her evident favouritism in time by resigning.
She has set a bad example which is detrimental to all women involved in politics in Europe.
Finally, I did not vote against the resolution.
I abstained, because it does salvage something by calling for a reasonable timetable for appointing a new Commission.
Nonetheless, I was not able to vote in favour because there is a lack of balance in paragraph 2 with its overly positive assessment of the extremely arbitrary conclusions reached by the Committee of Experts, which unfortunately has been asked to continue its work.
Mr President, I too voted for the resolution.
Nevertheless, I do not think Parliament has exactly covered itself with glory.
It would have been better had we had the courage in January to call on Parliament to take matters further towards their logical conclusion.
I believe that in future we must not just call for the restructuring of the Commission but also become more self-confident vis-à-vis the Commission ourselves.
Let me give an example: in my opinion the way in which the Commission fobs us off with our written questions is quite appalling!
Some of what it puts in its answers is ridiculous and I really wish that the President of the Commission, but also the Bureau of Parliament, would make it clear to the Commission that we expect proper answers and indeed answers which stand up in law against the Commission.
We do not want information we already know!
Secondly, I would really like to see a rigorous investigation into whether there really was any indirect party funding.
I hope these reports will be made public before the European elections so that we can give the taxpayers the opportunity to make it clear who they are choosing.
In short, I believe that Parliament should not just accept the way it is treated by the Commission, which is why I emphatically ask the Bureau to seek to ensure that in future questions to the Commission are answered in more precise and exact terms.
Mr President, the title of the resolution should be amended to take account of Amendment No 16, which was adopted.
It should refer to the resignation of the members of the Commission.
As to the substance, I would point out that most Members of Parliament have failed to learn the lessons of recent events both in relation to the replacement of members of the Commission and the Committee of Experts.
Concerning the replacement of the members of the Commission, it was a mistake to reject our Amendment No 20, which recommended that none of the Commissioners should be reappointed.
The Committee of Experts' report is actually very clear.
It condemned the collective responsibility of the Commissioners themselves and also of the Commission as an institution, both the present Commission and the preceding one.
By adopting paragraph 7 of the resolution, most Members of Parliament have shown that they have not learned from this report and, above all, from the many statements made by the experts since then.
Things should have been sorted out once and for all, and a special interim Commission brought in, made up of management experts, with the task of providing a remedy, just as the independent experts provided a diagnosis.
With regard to the Committee of Experts, it was wrong to give it until 1 September to produce a report.
We have tied down the next term of office; we have refused to let the committee look into the way Parliament works.
Once again, the powers of the European Parliament have been whittled away.
Mr President, I abstained in the vote on this resolution, largely for one reason: I too consider it a bad thing that this resolution virtually extends the mandate of the Committee of Independent Experts.
It has indeed done good work, but I voted against this Committee of Experts at the last vote too because I am convinced that there is no legal basis for that committee.
This has been confirmed by various opinions, for instance that of Siegbert Alber, a former Member of Parliament who is now Advocate-General at the Court of Justice.
He too took a clear stance and said there is no legal basis for this so-called Committee of Wise Men.
That is why I could not vote in favour.
But I must also say that there were some very good things in this resolution, not just that it calls on the Council to lay down a procedure which enables individual Commissioners to be called to account but also the fact that it reproaches the Council for failing to assume its responsibilities to some extent, for it should already have taken a position on several occasions, which it did not do; in the end it was mainly thanks to the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control and this Parliament that we saw any movement at all here.
Mr President, this is the first time I have given an oral explanation of vote, so I hope I am doing it correctly.
As regards this resolution, I decided to abstain in the individual votes and to vote in favour of the resolution at the end, since pressure of time has made it hard for me to keep abreast of the numerous changes.
So I decided to abstain in the individual votes, but obviously I believe that issues such as protection for informants, openness and so on, which are included in the resolution, are important.
Consequently, I decided to vote in favour in the final vote.
Thank you, Mrs Palm.
You can see that you have done it very well.
I have always believed that a strong Commission was vital in protecting the interests of smaller countries.
It is important for the future of the European Union that we have a strong Commission at the centre of our political life.
The history of the past 25 years has amply demonstrated that Irish interests have been supported both fairly and generously by successive Commissions.
Notwithstanding the events of the recent past I still believe this.
Inevitably the interim Commission will be perceived as a lame duck - but sometimes lame ducks can surprise us.
We expect the Berlin Council to appoint a new President so that a new Commission can be established as soon as possible.
Many governments will decide to reappoint the sitting Commissioners for pragmatic reasons.
The interim Commission must make reform of the Institutions a top priority.
It is equally important that we recognise that the really serious evidence of fraud is confined to the individual Member States and a large share of it is specifically in the administration of the common agricultural policy, as the Beef Tribunal in Dublin has clearly established.
In future we must have a strong, reformed and independent Commission capable of preventing fraud and giving Europe the political impulsion it clearly needs.
We did not vote for Parliament's resolution following the Commission's resignation, as we felt that it was rather hypocritical: on the one hand, it calls for the accountability of the Commission and the democratic dimension of the Union to be strengthened (paragraph 4), yet on the other hand it requests that the independent experts' second report on fraud should not be submitted until September 1999.
The idea is to avoid embarrassing issues being displayed for all to see during the campaign for the European elections.
Is this really the democratic behaviour called for in the resolution?
In any event, we challenge the majority position of this House, which claims that the solution to the crisis lies in giving the European Parliament greater powers.
This is nothing but a political hijacking exercise orchestrated by the federalists.
In substance, this supposed remedy would not cure anything; in fact it would do quite the opposite.
Before clamouring for increased power for Brussels, we should first ask why fraud has occurred. We would then see that European federalism, which is all of a sudden being proposed as a cure-all, has from its earliest days been the very cause of the wrong we are condemning.
In reality, fraud has developed because an ivory tower has been built in Brussels, cut off from the people, with vast sums of money passing through it and with direct supervision by the Member States still not allowed.
Of course, according to the Treaties, the European Parliament does have control over the Community budget.
But despite all the obvious irregularities this had never really worked.
Now it has at least been put into practice once, thanks to the diligence of the Europe of Nations Group.
So much the better.
But this welcome development proves neither that the European Parliament is the best instrument of budgetary control, nor (in fact, even less so) that it fulfils the fundamental conditions for becoming the high assembly of a federal Europe, sweeping away the main powers of the national parliaments at a stroke.
This Parliament is not the best instrument of budgetary control because in fact it is hand in glove with the institution it is supposed to supervise, namely the Commission.
The European Parliament dreams only of extending its power, and to achieve this dream, it knows that it needs to extend the sphere of Community activity, which is what the Commission spends most of its time doing as well.
The two institutions are hence allies pursuing the same goal.
And throughout its whole existence, the European Parliament has never condemned the most flagrant irregularities committed by the Commission, including recently - just a few months before the current scandal blew up - the commitment of expenditure without any legal basis at all.
It eventually took the tireless work since last January of a few MEPs, unintentionally put at an advantage by the blunders of the federalist group chairmen, to trigger an event which Parliament for the most part did not actually want to happen at all: the Commission's resignation.
We now know very well that because of their very structure the European Parliament and the Commission play into each other's hands, and that control can only come from outside, from the Council and the national parliaments, whose powers should be increased.
It seems hard to believe that France pays an annual contribution to the Union, yet its MPs do not have the right to say 'no' when the budget is put to the vote or to check for themselves what becomes of taxpayers' money.
Until these obvious points are understood, all that will happen is that spurious controls will be introduced in Brussels and wrongdoing will continue.
Furthermore, the European Parliament does not fulfil any of the conditions required for it to become the high assembly of a federal Europe.
We should not lose sight of the fact that Europe is not a nation, but an association of nations, and that this essential character provided the justification for its unique institutions, where national sovereignties play a pivotal role and must continue to do so.
In particular, the European Parliament, a specialised assembly, may be of use in carrying out specialised tasks, but never in the general exercise of sovereignty.
It does not represent a European people.
In practical terms, in budgetary matters for example, we cannot see the French agreeing that their taxes should be decided by a majority of Germans and Spaniards.
Nonetheless, these are supposed to be the 'European people', the vital bedrock of 'European democracy'.
Therefore, if we wish to put a stop to fraud and mismanagement in the European institutions, we should not hide our heads in the clouds.
We should not make the even greater mistake of suggesting that extra powers be transferred to Brussels in the guise of democracy, an artificial democracy which would soon bring renewed disillusionment.
The 'off-the-peg' federalist ideas which have blocked all proper solutions over the past few years should not be allowed to get a new lease of life in a different form, after the collapse of the Commission.
On the contrary, during the campaign for the forthcoming European elections, we should advocate the only effective solutions: reestablishing the Member States' control over Brussels, subordinating the Commission to the Council and giving the national parliaments the right to see how their citizens' money is being spent.
We broadly support the joint resolution on the events surrounding the Commission's resignation, and we voted in favour of it.
We too take the view that a caretaker Commission must be appointed as quickly as possible for the remainder of the outgoing Commission's term.
We cannot have this Commission which has resigned remaining in office for a further nine months.
That would do nothing for the Union's authority and credibility.
However, we would have liked to see a number of points in the joint resolution which were not in fact there.
For that reason, we tabled a resolution of our own and did not put our names to the joint motion.
A major aspect which is not dealt with is whether or not members of the outgoing Commission should be appointed to the caretaker Commission.
We do not think that the new caretaker Commission should include any members of the present Commission, because the work of the committee of experts is not yet finished.
All kinds of new cases of fraud may yet come to light.
If the committee's further investigations show that certain Commissioners are free of all blame, we have no objection to them returning to office in the next Commission term from 2000 to 2005.
Another aspect not clearly spelled out in the joint resolution is the remit of the caretaker Commission.
The next nine months must be dominated by a radical clean-up of the administrative and financial systems and the improving and modernising of the financial management.
The caretaker Commission must do no more than that.
There is no need at all for it to implement all manner of lofty plans for the further building of Europe, accompanied by a further extension of the Commission's remit, and certainly not in the next few months.
Recital D and paragraph 4 of the resolution call for a strong Commission, which is paradoxical given the malfunctioning noted by the Committee of Independent Experts that led to the resignation of the Commission.
It was precisely because the Commission felt strong, in fact too strong, that it allowed itself to make major management errors, even going so far as to withhold 'important documents from Parliament', according to recital B of the resolution.
Because of an error stemming from the Treaties establishing the European Union, the Commission has far too great a role to play.
This institution, which through the very way in which it is appointed is the least democratic in the Union, should go back to playing the role which is normally given to an administration: carrying out the orders of the highest political authority, the European Council.
The founding fathers of Europe created the Commission following the model of the ECSC's High Authority, because they did not have faith in democracy.
We should turn the current crisis to our benefit and let good sense prevail.
In a democratic system, the Commission must be the Council's executive and nothing more than that.
The Treaties should be revised to this end.
The pressure of circumstances is certain to force us to do this in the future.
In accepting its political responsibility and offering its collective resignation, the Commission has made a gesture we should appreciate. We should also express our appreciation of the political work undertaken by the Commission during its term of office.
It now falls to the Council to accept its political responsibility, as Parliament did in December by refusing to grant discharge for 1996, and appointing a Committee of Independent Experts to investigate irregularities which had come to light.
It is essential for the Council to resolve the institutional crisis resulting from the resignation as quickly as possible.
The potential dangers of the crisis do not lie in the resignation itself, nor even in the reasons for it, but in what could follow, depending on how the Council chooses to deal with the situation.
On the pretext of the mismanagement and lack of financial control revealed in the report by the Committee of Experts, the Council could be tempted to put forward a President lacking in political standing. It could also use this opportunity to weaken the Commission and restrict its competence.
If the Council does react like this, nothing will have been gained from the crisis and it will have negative consequences for the future of the European Union, which would be particularly unfortunate given the crucial stage we are currently at. That is why I voted in favour of the resolution on the resignation of the Commission.
The resolution sets out the course the Council should follow as it seeks to appoint a new Commission. It also clearly expresses Parliament's conviction that this crisis must serve to strengthen the political and democratic nature of the European Union.
And this calls for a stronger Commission.
A strong and effective Commission is most certainly needed and it must be appointed according to the provisions laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, that is to say, it must enjoy democratic credibility. Only then will the new Commission be able to assume the role of guarantor of the common interest of the European Union allocated to it in the Treaties, and become the driving force behind the European integration, taking us closer to the global Europe we are striving for.
I voted in favour of the joint resolution on the resignation of the Commission since I agreed with it in its entirety, especially paragraph 8 calling for an ambitious and thoroughgoing programme of radical reform, which obviously presupposes an authoritative Commission, beginning with its President.
Paragraph 7 should be interpreted in this light too, from the perspective of a Parliament which, while recalling the need to respect the Treaties scrupulously, calls at the same time for a rapid decision and a convincing solution.
I therefore hope that the Council of Ministers in Berlin, taking up these suggestions, will reach agreement on the designation of a Commission President who will measure up to the task of providing a competent and representative government for the Union, so as to find a lasting solution which will guarantee a period of stability and reform.
The Commission must now consider carefully what administrative reform, as insisted on by the European Parliament, really means in practice.
The Treaty of Amsterdam requires the Commission to draft a new regulation concerning public accessibility to European Union documents.
This must not be left to one side; indeed, in the light of the events of recent weeks, it is even more important that the Commission should produce its proposal promptly.
The regulation must carry guarantees that the people of the European Union should be entitled to the maximum possible access to the documentation of all the institutions of the Union.
On a recommendation by the Green Group, the European Parliament today resolved that there should be a substantially larger number of women members in the new Commission.
At present a quarter of the members of the Commission are women, which cannot be regarded as satisfactory if we consider the new provisions in the Treaty of Amsterdam that emphasise the importance of equality.
It is important that the new Parliament in June should have a real chance to participate in the appointments process for the Commission, and that it should have a free hand in helping to choose a Commission that it favours for the next five-year term.
In view of the contents of the experts' report and the findings of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Court of Auditors, the resignation of the Commission was inevitable.
The question now is what conclusions we should draw.
In our opinion, the Commission has failed on two counts: it has been found guilty of nepotism and of mismanagement.
On the grounds of nepotism, the Commission had no alternative but to resign, and in the light of the mismanagement, the Commission's future role needs to be reviewed.
In future, the number of tasks assigned to the Commission should be reduced.
Part of the Commission's present work could be carried out more effectively by the Member States themselves.
The Commission should not concern itself with detailed regulation in areas where it lacks the necessary national authority.
Consequently, we do not support the resolution when it calls for a strong Commission for the European Union.
In spite of this, however, we have decided to vote in favour of the resolution.
From 1989 to 1996, for years, in full knowledge of the facts, the Commission allowed the movement of contaminated meal and cattle infected with a terrible disease which may be transmissible to man: bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
This negligence, which endangered the health and lives of millions of Europeans, has not been punished.
The European Commission has not been censured.
On the other hand, today, a report by five people representing no-one but themselves, yet nonetheless elevated to the status of 'wise men', led to the resignation of the European Commission on 15 March 1999.
The reasons are well known and have been known to everyone for years: nepotism, serious irregularities, 'fraud', 'lack of control of the bureaucratic administration' and other oligarchical excesses, which have been condemned here by Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National members for the last three legislative periods.
The lessons of this resignation are as follows:
Firstly, Parliament has now confirmed, after years of fighting in the budgetary arena to establish its power, that it is becoming the main institution of European integration.
Secondly, as they have been toppled by a report by five experts appointed by the dozen members of the European Parliament's Conference of Presidents, it would seem that the twenty members of the Commission have come up against a structure even more oligarchical than their own.
It is certainly true that in cases of government by the few, there is always a smaller inner circle of decision-makers.
Furthermore, it has been made clear that sovereign tasks, such as aid to Eastern Europe or the southern Mediterranean, cannot be entrusted to private companies and profit-making agencies, which is unfortunately what the Commission has been doing since the days of Jacques Delors.
The ultra-liberals, always quick to demand the dismantling of nation states and their public administrations, have provided proof here that the State in the French tradition offers far more guarantees of morality than the private American-style administration.
The two most heavily implicated Commissioners were Socialists, which simply confirms at Community level the iniquities of González, Mitterand, Craxi, Roland Dumas, Augusta's Belgian Socialists and other corrupt forms of socialism seen in social democrat governments at national level.
Finally, today's resignation, and above all the reasons for it, confirms the fact that the European Commission cannot be the government of Europe.
It is a high-level administrative secretariat which should be brought back within the strict limits laid down in the Treaties.
European power should be wielded by the intergovernmental structure formed by the Council of Ministers, supervised by Parliament as the representative of the people.
Lehne report (A4-0112/99)
We voted against the Lehne report.
The EU is coming increasingly to regard refugees and asylum-seekers as a threat to national security.
In general terms, the number of countries whose citizens are required to have visas to visit the EU is growing.
In addition, more vigorous action is being taken against asylum-seekers with false identity papers.
We are increasingly turning away refugees on those grounds alone.
'Shedding' one's identity is not a simple matter, but something one is forced to do when different escape routes are being blocked.
We voted against the Evans report on a European Student Card.
In Sweden we have a student identity pass which works very well and is issued, free of charge, to all high school and university students.
The card is self-financed and is distributed by local student unions.
Cards are also available from international non-profit-making organisations, such as the ISIC pass.
The Left Party fails to see why a common university pass would be any better than the existing European and international student cards, and would stress the importance of ensuring that the EU does not curb the vitality and enterprise of the student movement and other non-profit-making organisations.
One of the issues raised in the report is how to make it easier for students to avail themselves of student discounts.
The rapporteur believes that the Commission should carry out a feasibility study into whether this can best be achieved by introducing a common student card or by a European logo on existing cards.
We agree with the content of the report and its conclusions.
Regardless of the method chosen, we nevertheless feel that it is important to extend the system to students outside the Member States.
Furthermore, we would point out that we do not support some of the reasons given for introducing a student card in the future.
The report states that a student card might turn out to be a good way of creating a common identity for European students.
Basically, we are sceptical of any policy that aims to create an identity for people.
Mr. President, I am voting in favour of this report today.
One of the major triumphs of European cooperation since the 1950s has been the opportunities it has created for young people to travel, work and study anywhere in the EU.
Travel to Manchester airport on any day and you will see hundreds of young people putting the free movement of people into practice.
The excellent University of Salford in my own constituency has also taken full advantage of the opportunities offered by Europe by developing exchange programmes with partner institutions across the EU.
A European Student Card would make it even easier for students from the North West to forge ever closer unions of their own with their continental colleagues.
The Labour Government is determined to ensure that student cards will be needed by as many people as possible in the future.
If Britain is to become a high-skill, high-wage economy, then higher education must be opened up to as broad a cross-section of society as possible.
That is why the Labour Government has created the University for Industry, which plans to offer 1 million courses a year by 2004.
This high-tech university will promote life-long learning and make higher education accessible to those who might not normally have the opportunity.
This is all in stark contrast to the Tories, who always preferred to put tax-payers' money into private schools for the few rather than universities for the many.
Roth-Behrendt recommendation (A4-0068/99)
Out of consideration for consumers, the June Movement is voting in favour of the Committee on the Environment's amendments aimed at protecting consumers in the area of product liability.
However, we do not wish to hide the fact that we have grave misgivings about the approach which has been adopted.
The June Movement does not want the right of initiative to be transferred from the Commission to the European Parliament, but would instead like to see it vested in the national parliaments.
Waddington recommendation (A4-0108/99)
Mr President, let me too begin by saying that I sometimes find the voting goes too fast.
I did ask for the floor during the vote, but unfortunately the President did not notice.
That is why I want to say right away that I mistakenly voted against Amendment No 19 by the I-EDN Group on the joint resolution on the resignation of the Commission and the appointment of a new Commission, although I had in fact intended to vote for it.
But let me turn now to my oral explanation of vote.
Even at first reading of this report, we voted for the new Leonardo II programme.
We did so because the principle of lifelong learning must of course be supported and must be implemented by means of practical measures.
A particularly positive aspect of this report are the amendments to the accompanying measures.
The introduction of concrete spheres of responsibility and the possibility of employing temporary staff are first steps in the right direction.
We firmly support these amendments, and this is also why we voted for this report.
The report contains many admirable proposals for increasing access to education, experience and employment in Europe, combating discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity.
Against a background of fraud and mismanagement in the Leonardo da Vinci programme, which were decisive factors in the resignation of the Commission, it would indeed be a challenging task to take a decision on the second phase before the problems caused by financial mismanagement have been tackled.
Immediate efforts are required to step up controls, evaluation exercises and reporting procedures, as well as openness and transparency.
In the meantime, a decision on the programme should be postponed.
Stewart-Clark report (A4-0110/99)
The operational implementation of the third pillar, to combat all forms of international organised crime, is vital if public opinion is to support European integration, of which the single market is one of the essential elements.
The single market means the free movement of people, goods and services.
Under no circumstances can it mean the free movement of traffickers and criminals.
It is clear that our fellow citizens will reject the idea of Europe if, rightly or wrongly, they hold the single market responsible for what they experience as growing insecurity.
Moreover, I fully agree with the rapporteur that in addition to setting up a committee of senior police officers we should also establish a multi-disciplinary group made up of heads of police, customs and other law enforcement authorities so as to bring about genuine operational cooperation as swiftly as possible.
Of course, a member of Europol should be invited to the meetings of this multi-disciplinary group and should play an active role in it.
Furthermore, I also endorse what the rapporteur says when he points out that police performance should not be measured in numbers of arrests but in success in bringing criminal organisations to justice.
While I therefore lend my support to the draft joint action as amended, I would stress that inspection operations carried out by mixed teams should not be limited to the Union's external borders (including ports and airports) but should also take place right inside the territory as often as is necessary.
The report contains many commendable proposals for the introduction of an effective system for exchanging information and an early warning system for identifying criminal activities.
However, police forces should not be placed under a common EU command.
Cooperation with Interpol should be strengthened in order to prevent any duplication of activities.
Only people who have been convicted or suspected of committing a crime should be entered in the personal data register, in order to prevent a 'register breakdown' and any possible loss of integrity, as happened in the case of Schengen's SIS register.
We are deeply critical of the common European police union known as Europol.
Europol's expansion has taken place in secret and has not been subject to any kind of democratic control.
This is most alarming, particularly since it will undoubtedly be given executive powers.
For instance, proposals have been put forward aimed at giving Europol a leading role in cross-border investigations.
A secret register of wanted persons in which criminals, victims of crime and witnesses will be registered and which will include information about political views, race, sexual tendencies and religious affiliation is to be set up.
Groundless rumours and pure gossip about people who are not even suspected of a crime may be recorded, which constitutes a threat to personal integrity and diminishes the legal rights of individuals.
In our view, Interpol and its 171 member countries are perfectly capable of coordinating international policing activities.
It is absolutely vital for these to be under democratic control.
Bourlanges report (A4-0109/99)
I have two comments on the procedure and two on the substance, Mr President.
On the procedural side, apart from the fact that we are discussing this report here in Brussels rather than in Strasbourg, where budgetary matters should be discussed, I would point out that in recital B of the report adopted by a majority in Parliament, we welcome the conclusions of the informal European Council in Berlin, which actually takes place tomorrow and the day after.
I am afraid this reflects not just a straightforward timetabling error but also the fact that very often we pre-empt what goes on between the institutions.
This proves that the way the European Union works leaves something to be desired.
On the substance, I am astounded by what is said in paragraph 2 of the report, on the one hand, and then in paragraph 3, on the other.
In paragraph 2, we say that the budget for the year 2000 should safeguard the prerogatives of the European Parliament.
This is an unfortunate illustration of the fact that very often most of the Members of the European Parliament think in terms of conflicts of competences and powers, far more than they consider straightforward budgetary arguments or the interests of the taxpayers in Member States.
Nor are these interests taken into account when we point out in paragraph 3 that the European Parliament has observed budgetary discipline over the last three years, because it adopted a budget below the level of the preliminary draft budget.
And when we say that we have, together with the Council, recognised the need for rigour, we are forgetting that on each occasion we have increased the Council's budget.
The rigour is not, therefore, equally distributed between the two institutions.
It would be advisable, for example, not to carry over unused appropriations which, as indicated in paragraph 10, amount to 243 %, 142 % and 110 % of commitments.
Genuine rigour should be exercised in the European Union - an effort required of the Member States as well.
There is an obvious need for a coordinated asylum policy, particularly in conflict areas and where decisions about UN refugee quotas and their distribution are being taken.
However, we think it is important to point out that we do not approve of areas of national competence, such as asylum and immigration policy, being surreptitiously transferred to Community level by claiming that some of them now come under the third pillar.
We are highly critical of the whole of paragraph 15, and consequently the reference to the implementation of the Eurodac system.
Tindemans report (A4-0104/99)
Mr President, it was in fact with great regret that I voted against some of the amendments tabled by my friends in the ARE Group because in principle they were certainly right.
In justification I would therefore say that we studied this question at length in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
For we are in fact looking at two things here. On the one hand we are looking at external security, for which we must now be prepared to give something.
For if we leave the North Koreans to get on alone with their nuclear development, something dreadful will come out of it.
So we have to try to become involved here and exert control.
As for the second point, there is something we must realise: there is unimaginable misery in North Korea.
Mr Tindemans has just been there and has reported back to us.
It is quite atrocious, almost worse than ever seen before.
We must find ways of providing humanitarian assistance.
I believe that is necessary in spite of all our reservations and in spite of our abhorrence of the North Korean regime.
We should be prepared to help a little and see if we can alleviate even to some small extent the dreadful misery of what are in other respects really very decent people.
On the Tindemans report, like Mr von Habsburg, I should like to point out that North Korea is suffering from a serious food shortage.
I am pleased that this is mentioned in the report, even if that is not where the emphasis lies.
One has to ask oneself if we have got our priorities right when we choose one-sidedly to support energy development and do not at the same time at least help the starving people of North Korea.
Not so very long ago, the Union decided to provide food aid for Russia.
We supported that as well.
An official request from North Korea for the same kind of help has been pending before the Commission since the summer of 1997.
Hitherto, the Commission has said that surplus stocks of beef and veal were not earmarked for food aid and that it is not the right kind of aid from a nutritional point of view.
However, I must say that I find it totally incomprehensible that we are investing huge sums of money through Euratom for power supplies while leaving meat to sit and rot in surplus stores, when we could in fact be helping starving people in North Korea.
In our view, there is absolutely no reason for the EU to be party to an agreement with the Korean Peninsular Energy Development Organisation (KEDO) which includes, amongst other things, the construction of two light water reactors and the supply of heavy fuel oil and coal in and to North Korea.
There is an imminent risk of North Korea continuing its nuclear weapons programme at an underground facility at Kumchagri where they have the technology and knowledge to separate plutonium from the new light water reactors.
There is also a strong possibility that they are continuing to develop rocket technology, as has happened in the past, with sales to third countries and the launching of missiles.
Considering the serious economic situation and the food crisis in North Korea, the focus of assistance should obviously be humanitarian support and building up the resources to meet, amongst other things, their basic energy requirements.
In this context, it is clear that their antiquated and centralised nuclear power capability is a totally unsuitable future energy source.
If we are to help them, then it must be in the development of renewable sources of energy on a decentralised basis.
There is a risk that the KEDO Agreement will lead to nuclear proliferation. The European Parliament should therefore not be party to the agreement.
Consequently, we voted against the report in the final vote.
Terrón i Cusí report (A4-0079/99)
In the light of the massive inflows of migrants from Iraq and the neighbouring region, we believe that the situation demands attention, and we therefore welcome Mrs Terrón I Cusí's report.
However, in this explanation of vote we should like to make a point which we regard as important.
The wording in paragraph 16 to the effect that refugees should be 'looked after in a culturally similar country as far as possible' is unfortunate, as it might be taken to mean that refugees are not welcome in other countries with different cultures.
In our view, refugees should clearly have the same opportunities to seek asylum, regardless of their own or another country's specific cultural orientation.
The refugee situation in Iran, Iraq and Turkey is both large-scale and disturbing in the extreme.
At recurrent intervals, the Kurds living in Baghdad have been ordered to leave and forced to flee to Iran, and these are mostly women and children.
Many of the men have been imprisoned by Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.
In Turkey, the government and army are waging a war of aggression against the Kurds in the south-eastern part of the country.
Imprisonments, disappearances, executions and torture are an everyday feature of Turkish warfare, with thousands of villages burned down and millions of refugees made homeless.
The EU has a special responsibility because of the customs union it has signed with Turkey, whereby the Turkish Government gave its word that it would strengthen democracy and respect freedom of expression and human rights. This it has not done.
On the contrary, the situation has deteriorated and the flow of refugees increased.
A solution must be found to end the appalling crisis that mainly affects the Kurds in Iran, Iraq and Turkey.
The Council of Ministers should organise an international peace conference, to be attended by representatives of the UN, the OSCE, the EU, the USA, the governments of the countries concerned and the Kurdish parties and organisations.
A major goal of the conference should be to secure greater Kurdish regional autonomy in the area, guarantees of democratic rights for Kurdish people, and the recognition of their Kurdish identity and culture.
De Melo report (A4-0077/99)
The globalisation of trade and the resulting internationalisation of large and ever stronger companies, ceaselessly striving for greater competitiveness and constantly increasing profits, leads to a considerable transfer of power away from legitimate governments to major economic, and to an even greater extent financial, decision-makers.
Although this phenomenon was previously restricted to what we used to call, not without contempt, banana republics, over the last twenty years or so it has tended to spread to our own Member States.
It is therefore urgently necessary to establish an international political counterweight in order to restore a proper balance of power between economics and politics, a balance which today is heavily weighted in favour of the former.
An in-depth reform of the United Nations system would really make sense here, without affecting the primary duty of the Security Council, which is still to keep the peace between nations.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that, like the European Union, the Security Council lacks a head and an arm.
On an economic and social level everyone agrees that we need a mechanism for coordinating the international institutions.
In the same vein, it would be desirable to set up a global agency for the environment and sustainable development, bringing together the various United Nations agencies which deal with these issues that are so vital for the future of mankind.
In all cases, the activities of the international institutions should be made more transparent and legitimate.
This is why I particularly support the idea of introducing a parliamentary dimension into the United Nations system.
The report we are voting on today is ambitious.
It is just as ambitious as the founding fathers of the European Union were when they reached the conclusion that there was no other solution but to unite the peoples of Europe if they wanted to stop them waging war on each other.
The United Nations is the principal body for promoting peace and security in the world.
It is also unique in that it has an almost universal membership - virtually every country in the world belongs to it.
In our view, the UN should have effective diplomatic instruments at its disposal and be capable of exercising preventive diplomacy and giving early warnings in respect of potential conflicts.
On the other hand, we do not think the UN should have at its disposal a rapid action force with military capability, and so we cannot support paragraph 8 and Amendment No 3.
We also have reservations concerning paragraph 29, which contains a proposal to amend the UN's Charter so as to enable it to intervene in national conflicts.
Thank you.
Parliament has now come to the end of its agenda.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 4.40 p.m.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Tuesday, 23 March 1999.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, a terrible fire broke out in the Mont Blanc tunnel on 24 March killing at least 40 people, some of whom have yet to be identified.
The scale of this tragedy caused great dismay not only in France and Italy, but throughout the European Union.
Although it occurred some weeks ago, I am sure I am speaking for all of us in expressing our sorrow at these deaths and our sympathy for the victims' families.
We hope that the investigations being carried out will prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future.
Agenda
At the request of Mrs Bonino, who has to return to Brussels to prepare for humanitarian measures relating to Kosovo, I am proposing that we take the report by Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt on the BSE follow-up before the report by Mr Herman on the functioning of the institutions.
If this debate is not concluded before Question Time, it will be continued immediately afterwards, before the suspension of the sitting.
If there are no objections, we shall take that to be approved.
Are there any comments?
Parliament approved the proposal
The Group of the Party of European Socialists is asking for the report by Mrs Myller, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, on accession strategies for environment, to be brought forward from Friday to Wednesday and included in the joint debate on the seven reports by the Foreign Affairs Committee on accession applications.
Mrs Green has the floor to present this request.
Mr President, it seems entirely logical that this report, which is dealing with the enlargement of the European Union, should be taken with the pre-accession reports on Wednesday.
We would ask that it is brought forward and taken at the same time
Thank you, Mrs Green.
Does anyone wish to speak in favour of or against this request? That does not seem to be the case.
I put to the vote the request by the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
Parliament approved the request
Thursday:
The Group of the European People's Party is asking for the joint debate on financial services - the reports by Mr Crowley on collective investment in transferable securities and Mr Fayot on a framework for action for financial services - to be brought forward from Friday to Thursday morning.
I would remind the House that the first item on Thursday morning is the joint debate on the two annual reports by the Committee on Petitions, in which the European Ombudsman will be taking part.
The reports by Mr Crowley and Mr Fayot can in any event only be taken after that debate.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten has the floor to present this request on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
Mr President, I have just been able to have a word with the rapporteur, and as I understand it, we shall be very happy if the Crowley report and the Fayot report can be voted on in May.
So we have no changes to make to the agenda, assuming we can agree on that.
Our services tell me that there is no difficulty with that.
The agenda for Thursday therefore remains unchanged, and the request by the Group of the European People's Party is withdrawn.
Friday: no changes
The order of business was adopted thus amended
Mr Ephremidis has the floor.
Mr President, as you have now come to the end of the amendments to the agenda, I am struck by the fact - and I think it will come as some surprise to the public that is following the debates of this Parliament - that, though the issues on the agenda are important and interesting, we are nevertheless facing a war in Yugoslavia!
This is a war which threatens to spread to the whole of the Balkans and goodness knows where else.
Perhaps therefore, on your own initiative and on that of this Parliament, we should debate this issue in the presence of the Council and the Commission, since it concerns the present and the future of the people in the Balkans and in Europe.
War!
Has the penny not dropped that people are being slaughtered, that a major disaster is unfolding? I am not concerned about where the responsibility lies.
We will find this out in due course and we will discuss it in good faith.
What are we going to do to stop this threat against the people of the Balkans and of Europe?
Mr President, I feel very strongly about this issue, because people of my age have lived through such events. But I also feel strongly because of the position the country I represent finds itself in.
Mr Ephremidis, we all enjoy your speeches but what you are requesting is already included in the agenda.
On Wednesday afternoon, a debate will be held on the situation in Kosovo, following the statements by the Council and the Commission on this issue.
This will naturally incorporate the corresponding resolutions, which are to be tabled this afternoon.
Parliament has therefore already taken the situation into consideration.
Civil liberties
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A4-0133/99) by Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft action plan of the Council and Commission on how best to implement the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam on an area of freedom, security and justice (13844/98 - C4-0692/98-98/0923(CNS)); -the proposal for a recommendation (A4-0064/99) by Mr Nassauer, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on Europol: reinforcing parliamentary controls and extending powers; -the report (A4-0091/99) by Mr Wiebenga, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on criminal procedures in the European Union (Corpus Juris); -the report (A4-0141/99) by Mr Schmid, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft joint action, adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, to combat child pornography on the Internet (10850/5/98 - C4-0674/98-98/0917(CNS)); -the report (A4-0185/99) by Mrs d'Ancona, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the report, including key elements of a post-1999 EU drugs strategy, from the Council to the European Council on activities on drugs and drugs-related issues under the UK Presidency (7930/2/98 - C4-0409/98).The rapporteurs will have the floor in the order in which their reports have been announced.
Mr Bontempi is therefore the first speaker.
Mr President, today's sitting is an important one, not only for our committee, which has been working on these matters for months, but above all - I hope - for the European people.
This thorough groundwork - resulting in the reports which I hope the House will adopt - for the extraordinary meeting of the European Council in Tampere, which is to lay down the guidelines for future EU policy on security and justice, is a most important contribution.
Everyone realises that the greatest innovation of the Amsterdam Treaty - due to enter into force a few days from now, on 1 May - is the 'area of freedom, security and justice', a brand new concept which constitutes a major step forward for the Union, following the establishment of a single currency and the attempts to launch a policy on employment.
Indeed, to involve the Union in fulfilling such fundamental requirements as freedom, security and justice is, firstly, to recognise the close linkage between these three requirements, none of which can be fulfilled without the other two - after all, freedom is only meaningful in a secure environment, based on a reliable legal system - and, secondly, to regard the Union as the appropriate framework for the protection and furtherance of such values, irrespective of individual legal traditions or practices.
The other merit of this new and innovative part of the Treaty is that it is fundamentally, explicitly and clearly based on protection, promotion and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms.
By expressly recalling these principles and, what is more, setting out a procedure for calling to order Member States which fail to respect them, the Fifteen have finally laid the foundations for a European public order, for which the European Convention on Human Rights is the handbook and the area of freedom, security and justice the most obvious expression.
Therefore, we really are facing a significant turning-point in the life of the Union. Our concern, owing to the pitfalls dotted throughout the Treaty itself in the numerous clauses and the usual complex structure, is that in order to achieve the anticipated results in this field, all the institutions will have to engage in a fully-fledged war, or perhaps battle.
I say this because our task is complicated by the surviving distinction between the first and third pillars and of unanimous voting within the Council, plus the weakness of parliamentary control both nationally and in the EU.
This report has already been discussed at a conference with the national parliaments, with representatives of governments and of European civil society, and a broad measure of consensus has, I believe, been achieved.
The report is the result of intense cooperation among the political groups; I should especially like to draw attention to the amendments on which we shall be voting tomorrow, almost all of them making significant improvements, put forward by Mrs Palacio on behalf of the PPE Group.
I think we were right to work together in this way, since much is expected of us and we must uphold certain principles: solidarity - the Member States must cooperate in this field, since only by doing so and by overcoming national apathy and egoism will we achieve our aim; a commitment to transparency, which must apply to the conduct of all parties, including the Council; and, in a clear break with tradition, a commitment to full participation in the decision-making process. Only recently, Parliament's role - a key role in the democratic process but also a factor of efficiency - was still being ignored.
I would say in conclusion that this report represents a call for guarantees and effectiveness.
The Council has to understand that, when it comes to sensitive matters concerning citizenship and legality, unless there is ample cooperation not only with the European Parliament but also with national parliaments and civil society, it will be hard to make our existing array of virtual laws comprehensible and meaningful to the people.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europol will finally begin its work on 1 July, by which time approximately four years will have passed since the legal basis for a European Police Office was laid down in the Maastricht Treaty.
For Europol these have been four difficult years during which its establishment has been delayed and obstructed, not least because of so-called national sovereignty.
And I fear that these four years of national sovereignty have served no purpose whatsoever.
The fact that Europol could not begin its work, however, has undoubtedly given organised crime in Europe a further advantage.
For this reason we want Europol not only to be able to begin work on 1 July but also to be able to work effectively from this date.
The European Parliament supports the work that is due to begin on 1 July.
Even in its first report the European Parliament was cautiously in favour of extending Europol's powers.
We proposed considering giving it operational powers.
This does not mean a European FBI that could take responsibility for prosecution, nor does it mean armed and uniformed Europol officers arresting criminals.
None of this is part of Europol's tasks.
What we mean is that Europol should have the power to coordinate cross-border investigations responsibly and the accompanying right to issue instructions to national police authorities.
This is the cautious path that the European Parliament has chosen.
We are calling for this not because we are blindly demanding policing rights for Europe but because these demands are in line with policing needs.
If organised crime is planned, organised and carried out centrally, it makes sense that we should equip ourselves with a prosecution authority that also plans and acts centrally.
This is why we need Europol.
Any police authorities which have the right to encroach on citizens' rights need parliamentary controls.
Europol is currently a purely intergovernmental organisation, and as a result the European Parliament has no powers of supervision.
Under the Treaty we are to be given only occasional and limited information, but we cannot exercise controls.
Monitoring Europol is therefore clearly the task of the national parliaments, and I can only call upon our counterparts in the national parliaments to do their duty here.
This is also appropriate as things stand at present.
In the area of data processing Europol has only very limited rights of intervention, but there are now almost universal demands that Europol's rights be extended.
The Treaty of Amsterdam, which will enter into force in only a matter of days, points in this direction.
The President-in-Office surprised us here only a few weeks ago when he called for Europol to have operational powers to take action.
If that is the case we must certainly review the issue of parliamentary control.
The idea of Europol being controlled by 15 national parliaments in The Hague is totally unrealistic.
We also do not want some parliament to be constantly looking over Europol's shoulder in The Hague to see what it is doing, as this would also be nonsense.
However, parliamentary control means that this police unit must be placed under the responsibility of a political body that in turn must be answerable to parliament.
This is what parliamentary control means.
So if Europol acquires new powers - as we hope - we need a Commissioner who is responsible for Europol, and the task of monitoring this body must be transferred to the European Parliament.
Only on this condition, rather than in any event, do we call for new rights for Europol.
In other words, we call for these rights only if parliamentary control is possible.
That is what we are insisting on in this report.
Applause
Mr President, the Tampere summit on European justice policy in October 1999 cannot afford to fail.
The people of Europe want to feel safe, in their European Union which has open borders.
The Union must give a sign that the problem of major crime is now being tackled.
Things have to change.
Since the Maastricht Treaty came into force - in November 1993, that is to say five years ago - those five years have been almost totally wasted.
Europol, as we have heard, is not yet powerful enough.
It is a weak instrument of judicial cooperation.
The fight against fraud is not being won, and so on.
In short, Europe needs to grasp the nettle of major crime in Tampere.
It is time for us to get back to work.
We have to have a single European area of justice, and that may take shape, for example, through a network for legal actions brought by national authorities.
A network for the courts, too, by strengthening Europol.
My report likewise describes a part of this European area of justice.
It looks at two issues which are important above all for the future.
The first point is the need for a number of penalties to be harmonised.
These are the penalties applied to organised crime such as drugs trafficking, trafficking in human beings, terrorism, fraud, corruption and the like.
We need to harmonise these penalties, this limited number of criminal acts.
Just compare the work done by Europol, which is responsible specifically for detection work in these areas.
If justice is to be done here, the Member States must apply the same penalties Europe-wide.
But at the same time I should say that we do not of course want a European penal code.
Criminal law must remain primarily a part of Member States' own policy, but a limited number of international, cross-border crimes must, as I say, be harmonised.
The second part of my report concerns the creation of a European public prosecutor's office.
This would coordinate the prosecution of the crimes I have just mentioned.
You cannot say that police forces must cooperate, through Europol for example, and then say that the forces of justice should not do so.
Prosecution of these international crimes has to be coordinated as well.
A second task which a European public prosecutor's office might perform in the distant future must be the exercise of judicial scrutiny over Europol.
There is none, indeed there is no democratic scrutiny, as has become apparent.
The same will apply when OLAF replaces UCLAF as an independent anti-fraud body: judicial scrutiny will be needed there, and this can be performed by the European public prosecutor's office.
In connection with these serious crimes, I would also like to say a word about Mrs d'Ancona's related report on drugs policy.
This contains an interesting paragraph 10 which suggests that the drugs debate in Europe should be 'de-ideologised'.
Member States are unmistakeably growing closer together here along the lines of a policy on drugs, prevention of drug use, combating drugs trafficking and treating drug dependency.
Taking the ideology out of the drugs debate means that we must stop talking about decriminalising drugs.
We must press on steadily for more and more harmonisation in drugs policy.
If Mrs d'Ancona is ready to go down this road, we shall have achieved a great deal at this part-session.
There has to be a radical change in the way the European Council works and thinks.
After Tampere, we must have total democracy.
All proposed measures in the justice field must be brought before the European Parliament.
There has to be more openness and transparency.
The national parliaments must be involved in European justice policy and lastly, and I say this from the Liberal point of view, we need to have a European Commissioner with responsibility for this area, and one who has muscle.
If we get all this, Tampere will have been a success.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for many people the Internet has allowed access to a wealth of stored information.
In social terms it could almost be described as a revolution, one in which participation in knowledge is made generally accessible.
The Internet is therefore something positive and cannot be blamed simply because, like other instruments of communication, it is misused for the purpose of criminal activities.
No one would dream of saying that the telephone is something bad just because criminals also use it.
One of the criminal activities found on the Internet is the trade in and exchange of child pornography material.
The alarming thing about child pornography is not the fact that it is pornography, in other words that it involves images of naked people involved in sexual acts.
When this takes place among adults it is not a criminal offence.
I find it disgusting but there are people who do like it.
The reason child pornography has been made a criminal offence is that it involves the portrayal of real live children being sexually abused.
That is what is disturbing about it.
In the interest of children, therefore, prosecution must continue to be possible.
Of course trading and exchanging child pornography material existed in the past, before the Internet was introduced.
It is nothing new.
But it was difficult for individuals to find a supplier since things that are against the law cannot be advertised publicly.
What is new is the possibility, via the Internet, to supply and trade worldwide, and to do so under conditions that make prosecution considerably more difficult.
It is therefore right that the Member States have proposed joint action, on the basis of Article K.3 of the Maastricht Treaty, to combat child pornography on the Internet more effectively.
However, the proposal is full of phrases talking about having to look into things or referring to possible courses of action.
Hardly any concrete or binding decisions are taken.
This reminds me of the remark attributed to the Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, who is believed to have once said 'Gentlemen, something must be done, but nothing must be changed!'
This is a good description of the present Council proposal.
The Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has therefore tried, by means of amendments, to make the non-binding phrases in the text binding so that there is some point to all of this.
Secondly, there are two places where we are trying to make it possible to prosecute such acts on the Internet.
Two problems arise in dealing with the prosecution of child pornography.
The first is that there is no uniform protective age for children, which makes it incredibly difficult in the case of cross-border investigations.
The second is that such material is very often put on the Internet using anonymous electronic mail, so that the image that appears in a news group cannot be traced back to the individual responsible.
We are therefore calling for anonymous e-mail to be prohibited or at least largely restricted.
A few comments, Mr President, to add to my report on the Council report on a post-1999 European Union drugs strategy.
I will start on a positive note.
For the first time, we have seen the Committee on Civil Liberties able to approve a report on drugs virtually unanimously - it was unanimous really, but for one abstention.
That says something about the fact that, by virtue of having listened to one another over the years, we have at least made a start on taking ideology out of the debate on drugs.
I think that is a good thing.
In this instance it was rather easier, because as rapporteur I did not have to talk about a completely new drugs policy, but was able simply to give a verdict on the strategy first mooted under the UK Presidency.
My committee was unanimous in agreeing with that verdict.
To start with, we thought that under Article K.6 of the EU Treaty and given the codecision procedure, we should have been consulted beforehand.
We thought too that the Council should have drawn on Parliament's various pronouncements on dugs.
We have already adopted so many reports on drugs over the years that the Council should have looked at them.
There is not really any sign that they did so.
We thought too that account should have been taken of the findings of an evaluation study, because we now have the excellent monitoring centre for drugs.
How can you draw up a new strategy if you have no idea what the effects were of the old strategy followed between 1995 and 1999? So we were highly critical on that count.
Stranger still is the fact that the Commission will be unveiling its 2000-2005 action plan on drugs any day now, when we in Parliament do not know exactly what the relationship is between the Council's plan and that of the Commission.
From what I have heard, the Commission plan is in any event more ambitious than that of the Council.
I hope that will prove to be the case; it is the impression I have formed from one thing and another.
These criticisms have of course prompted us to make a number of recommendations.
We think there has to be better coordination of policy on drugs, and our committee has adopted an amendment to the effect that in the near future we want to see a Commissioner given responsibility for coordinating drugs policy within the Commission.
I think the current Commissioner will also have had a hard time of it, given that the responsibility was spread so widely.
Both for us and the Commission, it would have been better if just one Commissioner, Mrs Gradin for example, had been the Commissioner responsible for coordinating policy on drugs.
A second recommendation I would mention is that we feel strongly that better use should be made of the European monitoring centre.
I find it absurd that the Council does not draw on research findings.
And it would be a good idea, now that the Council and the Commission - perhaps both of them - are drawing up a new and coordinated strategy, if meanwhile we were to build in fixed reference points, reference points which will allow us to see later whether the strategy has worked well, in which respects it did not work well or worked poorly.
We have also advocated better and more intelligent use of the UNDCP in providing substitute crops, not by destroying drug harvests in third world countries, but by adopting an integrated approach to development which offers a real alternative to poor people in those countries.
There are some good examples of this.
Lastly, we have done our best, myself as rapporteur but above all the committee as a whole, to strike a balance between prevention and information, reducing the risks to health and the opportunities provided by a coordinated approach on justice.
In accepting amendments, I am keen to preserve that balance.
So I shall not comment on whether or not I like some of the amendments.
I think the balance we have struck needs to be preserved in the plenary too - a balance which will be established in practice if the Member States can pool their practical experience as far as possible.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the rapporteur, Mr Bontempi, talked today about weak points in the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam which affect the implementation of the Schengen Agreement.
The Committee on Institutional Affairs, on whose behalf I am speaking here today, sees these as much more than weak points. In fact, it sees them as critical developments for civil rights, the rule of law and the role of Parliament in the area of internal security.
I believe it is important to draw the attention of the House to this today.
Our criticism applies even to the way in which Parliament is being consulted, which is unfortunately nothing new.
The Commission shows little intention of involving Parliament in any serious way in this vital issue.
In a letter of 9 December 1998 we were asked to deliver an opinion, but the Council of Justice Ministers had already adopted the action plan on 3 December.
Here consultation becomes a farce, and the inclusion of Parliament nothing other than a pretence.
Our second criticism concerns the Treaty of Amsterdam itself, which says little or nothing about the institutional framework in which the freedom of movement for persons is to be realised.
On the implementation of the Schengen Agreement there is merely a protocol.
The crucial question of whether the Schengen acquis should be incorporated in the first or third pillar, in accordance with Article 4 or Article 6, has not been settled.
This has serious implications for the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and for Parliament's right of codecision after five years, and there are also serious implications for the budget.
The whole question of the legal status of Schengen has not even been settled yet.
As the preparations show today, the Council seems to have no desire to choose the democratic, constitutional method, with the full involvement of the Court of Justice and the European Parliament.
I believe these are not weak points but truly dangerous developments for the rule of law and for democracy.
Mr President, my colleague Luigi Florio was to speak as the draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights but as he is not here, I shall speak instead.
I am going to be somewhat more positive than my colleague Mr Voggenhuber and I am also going to mention a point that was raised by Mr Bontempi. Indeed, I would like to thank Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, for his cooperation, and in a moment I will also have the opportunity of thanking him on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
Mr Bontempi said that what we are dealing with is a very complex structure.
What this actually means is that we have to incorporate Title IV on visas, asylum and the free movement of persons; a substantial part of what remains under the third pillar; the Schengen acquis through the relevant protocol; and the special protocols.
It could not be any more complex.
This is the major challenge we must face if - as Mr Bontempi also pointed out - we want the European Union to change for the better and become a Union that represents guarantees and efficiency, citizenship and lawfulness.
We are ready to meet that challenge.
The Committee on Legal Affairs stressed the importance of the following issues, which are also covered in Mr Bontempi's report: the right to a fair trial with all assurances, the guarantee of access to justice - which should include granting aid where those involved cannot afford to go to court - and the presumption of innocence as a fundamental principle of European law.
The Committee on Legal Affairs also highlighted an issue that has been mentioned in other reports: the need to monitor jurisdiction.
It is possible that during this very complex process, we may pay less attention to monitoring jurisdiction. We must therefore ensure that such a measure is taken and we must also demand that Parliament be given the right to exercise democratic control.
If we do not exercise democratic control and monitor jurisdiction, we will never get past the stage where Europe is simply a market and we will be unable to rise to the challenge we are now facing.
Mr President, we have a group of five reports and I should like to congratulate all the rapporteurs.
They have all done a very good job in producing reports which make an important contribution to this issue.
I should like first of all to focus on the justice and home affairs area which is covered by Mr Bontempi's and Mr Wiebenga's reports.
They make a valuable contribution by stressing the need for the European Union to achieve a greater degree of harmonisation and of cooperation in this area.
It is an area that has been sadly neglected compared with the great strides which the Union has made in harmonisation in the fields of economic and financial policy, agriculture, transport, the environment, etc.
This area of justice and home affairs and freedom has lagged far behind.
It is not that we want every country to adopt the same legal and judicial system - that would be absurd.
Indeed, even within certain regions of existing Member States there are long-standing differences in the way that the law is administered and operated.
We need much greater cooperation.
We are facing a situation where we have a proliferation of organised crime on an international basis.
The criminals do not worry about issues of subsidiarity and frontier controls and whether the niceties of national law versus European law are properly abided by - they operate in whatever way makes them the biggest profit and achieves their objectives.
Unless we are able to establish a proper system of international cooperation in this area then we will not be able to deal effectively with these issues.
This is also important in order to protect the rights of individuals.
There is a tremendous disparity in criminal and indeed in civil law.
There are many activities which are criminal in some countries but not in others.
Sentencing policy varies widely.
This is becoming more and more important as greater numbers of our citizens and residents of the European Union are working, living and carrying out their activities in other Member States.
It is unacceptable that somebody should have fewer legal rights if they are charged with an offence in a country other than their own than they would in their own country.
Furthermore, problems have arisen of people being held for long periods without trial because of bureaucratic delays caused by translation problems and because of the lack of proper legal aid.
These matters must be tackled and resolved, and the reports suggest some very important and useful ways in which that can be done.
Mr Nassauer's report on Europol has the balance right.
We must have effective collaboration between national police forces, and the Europol Convention provides for the proper and effective exchange of information to enable the police forces of our Member States to cooperate and to act more effectively by proper interchange of information, ideas and practices.
Without this, police forces operating in the sphere of law and order will be working with one hand tied behind their backs compared with the criminal organisations.
One thing Parliament has always stressed from the very inception of Europol is that any international police organisation - perhaps in the course of time with operational powers, however limited they may be - can only be allowed to exist if there is a proper system of democratic control and accountability - just as we would expect proper democratic accountability by our own national police forces.
We must respect the principle that policing can take place only with the consent of the communities being served.
Police forces that see themselves as some kind of external force coming in to impose rules and operations which are not acceptable to the community at large will fail.
We need good effective policing with the consent of the communities.
Finally, Mrs d'Ancona's report on the complex and vexed area of drugs balances very difficult issues: the question of not condoning the use of dangerous drugs but, at the same time, recognising that a purely punitive approach to this issue will never succeed and that there must be proper emphasis on education, health matters and so on.
It is a good balanced approach to this issue.
Mr President, I should like to begin by touching briefly on Mr Wiebenga's report on criminal procedures (Corpus Juris).
It is an excellent report which deals with a particularly sensitive and neglected area.
The report should be seen as a step on the road towards increased coordination of criminal law in the EU, which is something that is desirable.
At the same time, certain differences in the Member States' legal systems must be respected in any coordination process.
It is emphasised in the report that national legal traditions should be respected, thereby enabling the Corpus Juris project to proceed on a realistic basis.
This debate also includes Mr Bontempi's report concerning an action plan on an area of freedom, security and justice, and I have nothing but good to say about it.
It includes all our main prerequisites from a legal point of view.
I should now like to move on to Mrs d'Ancona's more controversial report on the EU's strategies in the battle against drugs.
I am pleased that we have succeeded in persuading the Social Democrats to agree that the drugs issue is sufficiently important to be discussed in plenary, so that our citizens are kept informed.
The report specifically reflects the idea that it really is a battle against drugs - and that means all drugs.
Such an approach ought to underlie the strategy which the Commission is drawing up.
The very long drawn-out and intensive discussions on drugs which have taken place during the present term have shown where the boundaries of cooperation lie in this area.
The committee has scored a notable success in that the report makes no further mention of prescribing heroin as a means of combating drug abuse.
But nor is prescribing methadone for drug addicts a satisfactory way of helping them to overcome their dependency.
We therefore regard the development of less addictive alternatives to methadone as a hopeful sign which should resolve the remaining political difficulties in terms of the way in which the majority in the House views the drugs issue.
The ultimate objective is, of course, the total eradication of all dependency on drugs and pharmaceutical preparations.
The approach of the PPE Group has been successful.
Mrs d'Ancona, the rapporteur, has been very willing to cooperate and listen to our point of view. I should therefore like to praise, in particular, her perceptiveness as regards the appropriate approach to take in the area of drugs.
The report before us today is significantly more balanced than previous proposals.
The debate in Parliament has played an important role.
To begin with, we adopted a very different position from everyone else, but now we have arrived at a common European approach.
Those of us who come from the Nordic countries have succeeded in gaining sympathy for some of the basic common principles we apply in combating drugs-related problems in our countries.
The report conveys a clear message about the actions required to reduce supply and demand.
My long-term goal is a drugs-free society, and I believe that the fight against drugs in Europe in the future will be underpinned by the same three basic elements that we in Sweden have for so long held to be essential in the battle against drugs, namely prevention, repression and rehabilitation.
Mr President, firstly we must thank all the rapporteurs for their work, as these reports deal with an area at the very heart of European values, namely the principle of the rule of law.
I believe it is very important that we remind ourselves that social mobility and the integration of the people of Europe must be accompanied by harmonisation of the law.
In my opinion, therefore, it is not a disadvantage but in fact important that we should bring our civil law and in particular our criminal law into line in response to the fact that we in Europe are living increasingly close together.
I also consider it important that we place great emphasis on legal culture not being lost in practice.
This applies in particular to future members in Central and Eastern Europe.
We are already seeing in the accession talks and preparations that it is very difficult there to identify, support or promote a legal culture that allows people to live together in a common economic and legal framework and in an area of freedom and democracy.
With regard to fundamental rights, I would say the following.
Mr Nassauer referred to Europol.
It is very important for us to have effective policing instruments, but they must be accompanied by judicial and parliamentary monitoring instruments.
In my view it is not enough that only the national parliaments should fulfil this role.
The European Court of Justice and in future also the European Parliament should have a very crucial monitoring function here.
My last point concerns the right of asylum. It is very important for Europe to be open and we must ensure that asylum does not fall by the wayside.
We must also ensure that the burden is shared fairly within the European Community.
The right of asylum must be considered as a sacred European value.
We will not tolerate anything less.
Mr President, today's debate is timely as the 50th Eurobarometer report which has just been published clearly shows that concerns about unemployment are only just higher than the citizens' desire for action against drugs and crime.
I want to say straight away that I do not support the resolution calling for the appointment of an independent European public prosecutor.
However, it must be safe for European citizens to walk in their neighbourhoods.
It must be safe to do business in Europe without fear of financial fraud.
It must be safe for children to attend school without fear of being lured into drugs.
It must be safe for children to use the information highway and not be abused by deviants using the Internet for pornographic purposes.
Paedophilia on the Internet must be prosecuted.
The European Union, in line with the commitment entered into in the Amsterdam Treaty, must become an area of freedom, security and justice where citizens enjoy a high level of safety.
Next October governments will hold a special meeting to consider the establishment of a European area of freedom, security and justice.
They must put forward a common strategy which recognises and responds to the clearly established demands of our European citizens for action against drugs and crime.
Organised crime operates at a professional level.
It has enormous resources and access to the latest technology, which it can use to subvert democracy and for the purposes of money laundering and fraud.
It is essential that police cooperation in connection with Europol be extended to new areas such as counterfeiting Euro notes and coins.
I believe that convicted drug barons should be given a minimum forty-year jail sentence in view of the fact that the European Union does not have the death penalty.
The European Union must be equally professional and use all its combined forces to tackle these crime barons throughout the European Union.
As far as possible serious crime must carry penalties which result in long jail terms.
In my own constituency in Dublin only this weekend I have seen a family who have lost two young women during the last year as a result of drug abuse.
It must be one of the priorities of the European Union to tackle drugs.
There is no point in people coming into this House and talking about liberal proposals when you look around and see young people dying from drug abuse, while the people who import and sell these drugs are getting away scot-free.
We must give every cooperation to Europol and do everything we can to prevent this drug abuse.
Mr President, as the rapporteur, Mr Nassauer, has already said, parliamentary supervision of Europol's police activities of is one of the most important tasks of this House, particularly for us as politicians concerned with home affairs.
For this reason we in the Green Group in the European Parliament consider it to be very important that Europol, as an intergovernmental organisation, does not acquire any additional powers that would be inconceivable for our national police authorities and that violate the rights of EU citizens.
An example is the Protocol on the privileges and immunities of Europol.
Of course we are in favour of Europol as a European authority that is necessary for the internal security of the European Union and plays a crucial role in cooperation between national police authorities.
But we are in favour of a European authority that can be democratically controlled.
Police activity needs to be supervised above all in areas where it interferes with civil rights, especially fundamental rights.
For this reason we are not satisfied with the current supervision of Europol that is supposedly carried out by the national parliaments.
Mr Nassauer has made some good proposals, which we welcome.
But they are not sufficient.
In our opinion it is very important that parliamentary supervision of Europol's police activities should be carried out by the European Parliament, but there are unfortunately still no proposals that would allow us to exercise genuine control.
Mr President, Commissioner, we naturally support the majority of the points made in each of these reports, that is, the reports by Mr Wiebenga, Mr Nassauer and Mr Schmid.
I would like to take a moment to look at the report by Mr Bontempi as, in my view, it is extremely important and it covers almost all the areas that still require work in this process of European integration.
Firstly, as regards the communitarisation of judicial and police cooperation, all the points highlighted are of fundamental importance. These include reducing the length of asylum procedures, establishing conditions and procedures for issuing visas, moving towards a uniform visa, defining a statute for legal immigrants, and effectively combating illegal immigration.
We are also very much in favour of the free movement of legal immigrants between the Member States.
We will finally be able to guarantee that all decisions are taken impartially and, above all, that those most directly affected can have complete peace of mind.
As far as police cooperation is concerned, the development of Europol and the use of databases are vital. It is also essential to eventually incorporate the Schengen information system into Europol's activities.
However, many countries are still reluctant to allow the judicial authorities of one Member State to operate in the territory of another Member State.
We need to resolve this issue and move towards a general harmonisation of our laws on most offences and crimes.
In terms of creating an area of freedom, security and justice, we believe that freedom is the most important aspect, and we will have to integrate the Schengen acquis into our own operations.
Two key objectives must be retained.
The first will involve dealing with the crisis we are experiencing in Europe today, that is, the incidences of mass immigration, by collectively offering temporary protection on a large scale to those who are the victims of persecution.
In any event, the right of asylum must be based, now and in the future, on the fundamental legislation we already have, in other words the Geneva Convention and the other protocols.
Finally, as far as security is concerned, we need to combat organised crime and eradicate the living conditions that have given rise to violence in our cities and hooliganism.
I would like to say a brief word about the report by Mrs d'Ancona on the use of illegal substances.
It is interesting to note that it in no way calls into question the policy pursued up to now in relation to the use of these substances, which has yet to produce any convincing results, and that is the least we might say about it.
The collective progress made have not been taken into account and no consideration given to the assessment of the experiments currently under way.
A certain degree of caution and a conservative attitude were adopted and resulted in an agreement on the lowest common denominator.
Realism has, however, now prevailed in favour of a multisectoral approach.
Mr President, the report by our colleague Mr Schmid raises some very valid points and puts forward some excellent ideas, particularly the proposal to prohibit the sending of anonymous e-mail.
However, in my opinion, this report has one fundamental flaw: it makes a distinction between pornography that is supposed to be acceptable and child pornography, which is the only type that is supposed to be reprehensible.
I refuse to accept this.
First of all, it claims that the problem of identifying the age of a child is extremely delicate and that there is no solution. However, ladies and gentlemen, it is pornography itself - just like racism and other evils we quite rightly condemn - that must be looked on as an attack on human dignity and respect, which form one of the cornerstones of our democracies.
Otherwise, how are we going to arrest those involved in child pornography who are so unbalanced as to end up actually committing the act because of having constantly watched pornographic tapes involving adults? There is a certain lack of realism here and I have great difficulty in making any sense of it.
As regards the report by our colleague Mrs d'Ancona, again I am not going to look at this matter in terms of its many economic problems and the distinction between the crackdown on traffickers, which must be ruthless, and the approach focusing basically on young people, since it is a very delicate issue as far as they are concerned.
Instead, I will look at an aspect that, to my mind, is vital and that does not receive enough attention.
We are told that we must look at the issue from the supply side and this is certainly true. But why do young people use drugs?
How have we failed?
Adults throughout Europe must examine their consciences, be they parents, teachers, social leaders or, in fact, any adults that come into contact with young people, in other words all of us. We must ask ourselves why we have not managed to provide our young people with reasons to live, with the desire to live, and with the moral strength to face the difficulties we all encounter throughout our lives.
Life on earth has always been very difficult.
There is a basic problem here that should lead us to work together and on that level. In conclusion, I would like to draw your attention to a particular point: we are constantly talking about language teaching, but from an increasingly utilitarian point of view.
Instead, if we made literature, the great literature of all our European countries, accessible to young people once again, it would perhaps set them on the right track and prevent them from getting involved in drugs and other such behaviour.
Mr President, the prospect of Europol as an effective instrument to combat organised crime has been held out for longer than I have been in this House.
Yet it has still not been set up.
The preparatory work has not yet progressed far enough to allow it to become fully operational in The Hague.
Of course we are all interested in a functional Europol as an appropriate weapon against organised crime.
It is generally recognised that we need an effective instrument in the fight against crime that is increasing particularly in qualitative terms.
However, instead of vehemently demanding that the preparatory work be concluded, today we are discussing a development that goes too far and, in our opinion, in the wrong direction.
The security aspect does not require Europol officers to be given the right to issue instructions to national officers, not does it require the setting-up of a central European body.
For these reasons we reject the report.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party and I think that at this stage we need to take a clear look at the situation.
The European conscience is clearly experiencing a significant and undoubtedly serious crisis at the moment.
Public opinion has developed in our Member States to the point where people now want much more than the plan that limited European integration to the completion of the single market.
I do not think there is any doubt today that the people of Europe hope and believe that rather than being just a common market, Europe is a project for civilization.
I did not want to have to mention the recent situation in Kosovo and the need for Europe to assert itself on the international stage, but I think that it is unavoidable.
However, for Europe to assert itself in this way, we must ensure that Europe is clearly defined and consolidated internally: it cannot be just a market.
The democratic process in the Member States is extremely demanding and we, as representatives of the people, must be aware that through our work, with this Bontempi report and with the four reports that are also being debated today, we must take the Treaty of Amsterdam to its legal limit.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is clearly our legal framework, but we must take it as far as we can in terms of the legal scope it offers. And, where this is not sufficient, we must make a clear commitment to change the Treaty in order to meet what has become an obvious demand from the people.
The Tampere summit is therefore very important, since the Member States are going to tackle all these issues at the very highest level.
The report by Mr Bontempi is significant because it defines what we are actually hoping for in terms of the area of freedom, security and justice that is currently proposed by the Treaty.
The Tampere summit is going to put this all into practice, and the Bontempi report sets out certain fundamental ideas here.
I would naturally like to thank Mr Bontempi for his kind words about me.
I must say that I had the benefit of the fullest cooperation during my work on this document and I am as proud as he is of the final result, which I hope will receive the support of the majority of the House tomorrow.
We believe that we must clearly define the fundamental rights we want to have and determine at what legal level we want them to be established.
We want to put an end to discrimination and we hope that a sense of European citizenship can be developed.
We also feel that issues such as the free movement of persons, visas and immigration - and I am not going to go back over the events that are taking place at the moment - all need to be resolved as soon as possible if we want to make any progress on the objective set out in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Further, we must improve the public's access to justice.
They must feel that they are protected by all the legal systems throughout Europe, rather than believing that, as far as justice is concerned, there is no difference between being involved in a legal dispute with a French citizen than with a citizen of any other country in the world, as someone in Spain once said to me.
Finally, we must change our working methods and the way in which the institutions cooperate.
These are the main issues covered in the Bontempi report.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the rapporteurs of the other reports, which relate to the three cornerstones of freedom, security and justice, and I would stress how important they are.
Mr President, there is something unusual about this joint debate on several reports.
The very way in which the reports are divided gives the impression that the challenges we face are fragmented. Yet there is no doubt that we are dealing with the very crux of European integration and the European project to build a community of citizens.
Mr Bontempi's report leaves me with the impression of a form of European citizenship that evolves progressively, almost in stages, through the positive step of establishing a number of freedoms, but also - and we have already seen this in the progress made on the free movement of persons - by creating a new category: the Community citizen who is no longer a complete foreigner in any of our countries.
The idea of fragmentation is heightened when we see that certain concepts are ignored, particularly the concept of secularism. This is at the heart of European citizenship as defined by the Treaty of Amsterdam through fundamental rights that transcend any division into categories, beliefs, dogmas, ethnic groups or religions.
In Europe, we are building an area of freedom and citizenship which goes further than that and which is much more important.
That is precisely what the founding fathers of republican secularism hoped to do: they wanted to tear our people away from concentrating on their separate identities and to instead focus their attention on the universal nature of rights.
In conclusion, I would just like to say that it is unfortunate that this basic dimension of secularism is not dealt with in detail in such an important debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am scared.
Where is all this leading? According to the reports we are debating, the EU should extend its legal competence to include, amongst other things, an EU statute which would legitimise its activities and create a European identity.
The powers of the Court of Justice should be increased.
There should be greater harmonisation of civil and criminal law and in defining criminal activities.
Europol is a European police force and, as such, should be given operational powers and the ability to issue instructions to national police authorities.
The establishment of a European public prosecutor is also seen as desirable, and the reports go further still.
I should like to say that these sensitive issues, which concern the very essence of each Member State - in other words national sovereignty - and which are the subject of constitutional law in the different countries, have not been debated properly by the people.
It would create havoc if one were to ride roughshod in this way over both the people and national parliaments.
Why have we not got the courage here in Parliament to speak plainly, to hold debates, to send out signals that a majority in this House would like to create a 'United States of Europe' and then to debate the issue with the people and the national parliaments - even though I myself am naturally against such a development.
As regards Mrs d'Ancona's report on drugs, from a Swedish viewpoint it is a slight improvement on many of the others we have discussed.
Nevertheless, I have tabled four amendments which I hope the House and the Commission will support, in particular Amendment No 2.
Mr President, the purpose of these reports is to give an interpretation of how cooperation in the European Union between police and justice authorities ought to function.
Mr Nassauer rightly points to Europol's lack of accountability.
I believe the answer to this lies with the national parliaments and the Council.
Broadening Europol and giving it police powers amongst other things seems to me a very bad idea, in view of the problems we have at present with scrutiny and accountability.
Turning to Mr Wiebenga's very clear report, the creation of an open Europe without internal borders has indeed prompted the need for partial harmonisation of our criminal laws.
The report itself rightly says that we do not want a European penal code.
Less logically, however, the rapporteur advocates a European public prosecutor's office.
A solution which goes as far as that is not at all necessary.
I can be brief as regards the Schmid report: I wholeheartedly endorse it.
I have a good deal of difficulty, however, with the report by Mr Bontempi. In a torrent of words, he covers all manner of widely divergent issues.
He stridently asserts that public opinion is outraged by the absence of European legislation in all manner of areas and the supposed dismantling of national legal systems.
The fact that he quotes this as a cause of organised crime and social problems is truly appalling.
There is no pressing public demand for something like European citizenship.
For freedom, security and justice, yes.
The way that is achieved is of little interest to most people.
To say that it can only be achieved through European policy is simply daft.
Another example is a Union charter of human rights.
The point of this completely escapes me, unless you want a European constitution as the first step towards a European state.
There is much more I could mention, but suffice it to say that I shall not be voting for this text, which is one-sided, in some parts strident and in any case muddled.
Mr President, the Austrian Emperor's remark quoted by Mr Schmid is a very appropriate description of the draft joint action by the Council to combat child pornography.
The amendments tabled are therefore a significant improvement.
The increasing and totally unrestricted distribution of contemptible paedophile images and activities via the Internet is turning modern information technology from a blessing for humanity into a curse.
Professional crime in the area of child abuse and misuse of the Internet can only be combated successfully if the EU takes joint action and if the Member States in particular cooperate more closely with each other and with third countries.
However, for this is it necessary to harmonise certain concepts in criminal law such as age limits, otherwise totally absurd situations can arise.
For example, a German national sentenced in Belgium to five years in prison for child abuse is currently living freely in Germany and cannot be extradited because the crime he committed in Belgium is not an offence in Germany because the age limits in the two countries are different.
Mr President, what we are really doing today is holding a security debate in two blocks.
In the first block I would like to look at the problem of drugs. There is a simple reason for this: currently more than 5 million young people in the European Union are taking synthetic drugs.
Overall, it is clear from all the reports that drug consumption and the trade in drugs are unfortunately increasing spectacularly.
We need effective anti-drugs strategies in the European Union, but our problem here is that because we try to do so many different things as part of our strategies people do not always really know what is going on.
The anti-drugs strategies come under three pillars; we have several action plans and a variety of reports on the drugs problem.
We urgently need to adopt a single position and recognisable strategies.
I would like to address a number of points which I believe are essential.
Firstly, we should send out a signal by trying where possible not to talk about drugs strategies but about anti-drugs strategies.
This also applies to all reports on the subject.
Secondly, we must support what we have decided here in the long term, in other words in future there must still be no liberalisation or legalisation of the production, sale or consumption of drugs.
The future of the European Union must not be one where hashish is sold in tobacconists and heroin is given on prescription.
This must never become a reality for us.
Thirdly, we must remove ideology from our drugs debate.
We need pragmatic, effective solutions ranging from prevention through repression to support for addicts. However, I think that we should concentrate our prevention efforts on schools, because there we can reach all the young people of the European Union.
I would propose yet again that we should promote voluntary measures, and the Commissioner has also kindly promised support here.
So schools in Europe should be declared drug-free zones on a voluntary basis.
Cooperation with the chemicals industry, for example in combating precursors, should be improved and increased.
With regard to repression, the aim must be to extend Europol, support the police, promote judicial cooperation and generally to introduce help for addicts.
Finally, Europe must be seen in all its strategies to be a Community of security.
I have no fears in this respect when I look at reports such as those by Mr Nassauer and Mr Wiebenga.
These call for strong measures and I am hoping for further strong measures at the Tampere summit.
Mr President, this can be said quite simply.
The idea of introducing a common European public prosecutor should be scrapped.
We should not have a common European criminal law or public prosecutor.
We can fight crime just as effectively with the existing instruments, including Europol and the convention on extradition and mutual judicial assistance.
We can easily strengthen cooperation between Member States on investigations and the pursuit of justice, without necessarily having completely uniform rules and a European public prosecutor.
We should not harmonise for the sake of harmonising, and in fact the differences between the criminal laws of the Member States are not so great that they cannot be overcome by using existing intergovernmental instruments.
We can easily ensure effective investigations without handing them over to supranational authorities.
Europol is a good example of the fact that this is possible, and Europol should remain intergovernmental.
It must not develop into a European police authority with operational powers.
The Nassauer report proposes that Europol should be put under the direction and control of the Commission, with strengthened supervisory powers for the European Parliament.
That is a very bad idea.
Formally speaking, parliamentary supervision of Europol is well placed in the hands of the national parliaments, although one might doubt that they themselves are aware of it, so it is perhaps a good idea to also report to the European Parliament, which takes its supervisory role seriously.
Control of personal information is well placed with the national registration authorities.
Europol is a form of intergovernmental cooperation and, fortunately, the Amsterdam Treaty excludes any proposal to make police cooperation supranational.
Mr President, we all agree that supervision by Parliament of what takes place under the third pillar is important.
I only know that this has been very difficult to achieve, especially when we only have 'soft' rights to exercise control.
I have often been extremely irritated by the fact that we look at recommendations which have been dealt with by a Council working group, but it turns out that our first chance to discover what they really mean comes at the implementation stage.
I feel that the same issues will come up again in relation to telephone tapping.
In this respect, the Council's attitude is very important; our rights should be respected, and we should be given enough time to be able to have our say.
One such recommendation, which is now on the point of being implemented, concerns reversing the burden of proof in respect of the seizure of property that has been criminally appropriated.
I am concerned that the rules which apply here are rather 'soft' and can be used in a way that infringes people's rights.
Even in my own country, Finland, the recommendation is in the process of being implemented.
Mr Bontempi, the rapporteur, would also like us to explore the possibility of having a European 'Charter' on human rights, to be drawn up by the Union.
The German Presidency has also mentioned such a possibility.
I would say to you: let us investigate this by all means, but we should proceed with caution.
I do not believe we need any new instruments, but instead should implement those we have more effectively.
I should like to see the European Social Charter become part of the acquis communautaire , as well as the existence of effective mechanisms for following up on this.
Finally, like everyone else here, I hope that the extraordinary summit in Tampere in Finland is a success and that we come up with concrete decisions.
We do not need lengthy action programmes, but we do need concrete and balanced measures that will be of benefit to ordinary decent people.
Mr President, when the Treaty of Amsterdam becomes effective next month the Union will have a lot more scope than at present to act to ensure the single market can work effectively.
This is a good thing, but the problem is that the Member States have not up till now had a clear enough vision of how cooperation under the third pillar might be more effectively developed.
For example, there is an inexcusably wide difference in standards among the Member States when it comes to surveillance of the Union's external borders.
The problems that are rife in the single market, such as drug trafficking, the growing availability of illegal drugs and trafficking in human beings, and the contributory cause of all such problems, which is the less than perfect way surveillance is carried out on the Union's external borders, all call for Europol to play an even greater role in the future than is provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Europol cannot be allowed to remain just a bureaucratic central agency.
If cooperation between the police and the customs authorities cannot be made closer, the future is hardly rosy for the single market, especially as the Union's future enlargement to the east will in any case mean extra pressures and totally new challenges with regard to the surveillance of the Union's external borders and our efforts to combat organised crime.
Mr President, tonight's debate has shown how much still remains to be done in the area of justice and home affairs.
The new Treaty will soon enter into force, providing us with an ambitious goal to work towards, namely to preserve and at the same time to develop Europe as an area of freedom, security and justice.
The combined concepts of freedom, security and justice provide a clear and simple indication of the direction for our future work.
Cooperation should relate to the conditions governing people's everyday lives.
At the same time, there is the difficulty that so many different spheres of activity are involved.
Our goals therefore have to be tailor-made to fit each individual area of cooperation.
It is a delicate task which I hope will be one of the main topics for debate at the Tampere summit in the autumn.
The Bontempi report makes an important contribution here.
It serves to confirm that we have to become accustomed to thinking of Europe as a common judicial area.
In particular, I welcome the fact that Mr Bontempi, in his report, has stressed the rights of the individual.
The new Treaty brings advantages in a number of different areas.
Schengen, for instance, becomes one of the Union's areas of cooperation, hopefully making the free movement of persons a complete reality at last for the people of Europe.
Freedom within Europe cannot be reserved exclusively for European citizens.
It must extend to absolutely everyone who lives in or lawfully visits our countries.
This is an important message with potentially far-reaching implications for all future cooperation.
I hope that Parliament takes the same view.
Furthermore, freedom implies more than just being able to move around freely.
Freedom also means being entitled to live in a society where there is effective intervention against those who consider themselves to be above the law.
The European idea therefore continues to be that all the Member States should have confidence in each other's ability to deal effectively with serious organised crime, for example.
That is largely what Europol is about.
Its mandate is a broad one, and we have created the long-awaited instruments for combating organised crime.
Mr Nassauer, in his report, points out that Europol's operational powers need to be extended, and quickly.
I agree that in the long term, Europol should be given powers that would make collaboration between police and customs authorities in the Member States as effective as possible.
The Amsterdam Treaty offers precisely this possibility.
Hitherto, it has been a question of Europol exploiting its current mandate to the full.
The organisation's credibility depends to a large extent on the added value which the police and customs authorities in the Member States see in their cooperation activities.
The benefit derived from Europol stands in direct proportion to the number of crimes solved, in which context it can be said that the support provided by Europol has taken the work forward.
Another issue concerns how the organisation is to be supervised in the future, and in this respect the different Member States have different experiences.
When a new Treaty comes to be drawn up, this aspect should without doubt be one of the main issues.
When we talk about fighting crime, we are also talking about judicial cooperation.
When the work of the police and customs has been completed, it is time for the prosecution services, the lawyers and the courts to play their part and the differences in criminal law in the various Member States then become relevant.
What is regarded as a criminal offence in one country is not necessarily regarded as such in another.
For instance, there are variations in what constitutes organised crime, or in the definition of a child in terms of sexual exploitation.
Moreover, there is not enough cooperation between the courts.
Among numerous examples, fraud is an important area in which the situation has been exploited by those engaged in organised crime.
I therefore agree with Mr Wiebenga that we must find a solution to the problem.
Quite simply, we have to plug all the loopholes that exist.
In my view, we should first of all try to agree on the types of crime that should be regarded as the most serious in all the Member States.
Corruption, trafficking in persons, drugs smuggling, rape, the sexual exploitation of children and terrorism are examples of crimes which should carry uniformly harsh penalties.
In this respect, the Amsterdam Treaty provides a chance to agree at least on a set of minimum rules.
It is also essential that these rules operate in an internationally organised judicial environment.
It is a question of ensuring that our judicial authorities work effectively together, in spite of the differences that exist.
This would make legal systems more genuinely accessible to people, irrespective of which Member State they happen to be in.
The Wiebenga report on criminal procedures (Corpus Juris) puts forward a model that would enable the different judicial systems within the European Union to work together more effectively.
Central to the report is the protection of the Community's financial interests.
The report proposes, amongst other things, a far-reaching harmonisation of criminal law in this area. It also contains a proposal for the establishment of a European public prosecutor to deal with crimes affecting Community financial interests.
The Corpus Juris model is certainly ambitious, and many would say unrealistic.
For my part, however, I think it is too early to dismiss Corpus Juris.
Instead, we should await the results of the follow-up study.
I agree with the rapporteur that in any event there is good reason to strengthen cooperation between the prosecution services and examining magistrates within the Union.
In the last few months, we have been shocked by the number of instances of child pornography on the Internet.
Boys as well as girls have been subject to exploitation of the most heinous kind.
Our concern for these children should lead us to take forceful action against such crimes.
It is also, however, a question of cleaning up the Internet.
We must as far as possible rid this unique communication and information network of all child pornography.
The Schmid report describes the difficulties involved.
It is not enough simply to increase resources and step up police cooperation.
There also has to be cooperation at a deeper level between the authorities and the information services industry.
What is required is the rapid dissemination of experiences and technical knowledge to enable the child porn homepages to be filtered out.
The joint action put forward in the autumn of 1998 deals precisely with improving this type of cooperation, and stresses in particular the importance of working with the industry and the public authorities.
Furthermore, the Member States agree to review what special requirements the Internet service providers should be obliged to meet.
We should also be seeking to ensure that Community programmes such as STOP and the action plan on Internet abuse are properly used to increase cooperation as part of our common efforts.
I agree with Mr Schmid when he says we could go further.
In the first place, I think that trading in child pornography should be made a criminal offence in all the Member States and that there should be a Union-wide age definition of a 'child', although I am aware that this is easier said than done.
At the same time, I also know that there is a sense of justice throughout Europe which demands vigorous action to end all aspects of child exploitation.
The present climate should be highly conducive to moving the boundaries here.
Finally, I should like to say a word about the d'Ancona report and the battle against drugs.
The Union's current action plan on drugs comes to an end this year. The European Council has therefore asked the Commission to prepare a new action plan.
The work was begun during the winter and is now more or less complete.
In spite of the present circumstances, I hope to be able to bring forward the proposal.
In her report, Mrs d'Ancona places particular emphasis on the importance of preventive measures.
The same aspect is also one of the main themes of the Commission's proposal. It is also wholly in keeping with the guidelines approved during the UN's special session on drugs last summer.
We also attach considerable importance to what we call an integrated and global strategy.
Isolated efforts are not enough, no matter how well executed they are.
Everything that is done in this area must hang together and form a coherent whole.
For instance, the ground must be prepared by preliminary work so that legal action can be taken against drugs-related crime and drug abuse.
A repressive approach should always be accompanied by a strong social commitment.
It is therefore clear that measures adopted at national level should take account of the possible effects which they may have on the global community as a whole.
Drugs-related issues have become a priority.
People also expect clear signals from the Union as to how we plan to meet the challenges that lie ahead of us.
It is therefore vital that there should be a wholehearted commitment on the part of Europe and all its institutions.
I know that Mrs d'Ancona is also satisfied with the interinstitutional cooperation which has been established during the past year between Parliament, the Commission and the Council in the battle against drugs.
In her report, she also highlights the need for effective cooperation, as well as coordinated measures.
I am wholly in agreement, and I sincerely hope that the cooperation which we have succeeded in establishing will be further developed during the coming years.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Migration, right of asylum and integration of refugees
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0143/99 by Mrs Reding, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the strategy paper on the European Union's migration and asylum policy (9809/2/98 - C4-0051/99-99/0905(CNS)); -A4-0138/99 by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, onI.the proposal for a Council Act drawing up a Protocol to the Convention concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints of applicants for asylumII.the draft Protocol, drawn up on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union, to the Convention concerning the establishment of 'Eurodac' for the comparison of fingerprints of applicants for asylum (12298/98 - C4-0673/98-98/0916(CNS)); -A4-0115/99 by Mrs Zimmermann, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, onI.the proposal for a Council Decision establishing a Community action programme to promote the integration of refugees (COM(98)0731 - C4-0049/99-98/0356(CNS))II.the proposal for a Council Decision on a joint action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union establishing measures to provide practical support in relation to the reception and the voluntary repatriation of refugees, displaced persons and asylum applicants (COM(98)0733 - C4-0050/99-98/0357(CNS)); -A4-0118/99 by Mrs Terrón i Cusí, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on the draft joint action adopted by the Council on the basis of Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union on the creation of an early warning system for the transmission of information on illegal immigration and facilitator networks (5001/99 - C4-0046/99-99/0909(CNS)).
Mr President, these past few weeks have surely opened the eyes of those who did not understand before.
The tragedy of hundreds of thousands of people being forced to flee Kosovo has clearly shown that migration policy in general - and asylum policy in particular - can no longer be tackled by countries on their own.
Europeans will only be able to confront this serious problem by working together.
However, it is not enough to make erudite and solemn declarations.
These must be backed up by actions and specific political measures.
And that is where the shoe pinches.
As far as the Maastricht Treaty is concerned, which has only been slightly modified by the Treaty of Amsterdam, political initiatives concerning migration and asylum policy are the responsibility of the various governments.
Yet this intergovernmental policy does not work.
More than twenty conventions or joint actions have been adopted but they have yet to be ratified.
They are thus ineffective and of little use.
What is even more serious is that the Council has still not reached any agreement on the text that would have greatly assisted us in the Kosovan crisis, in other words the 'joint action on the temporary protection of persons displaced by conflicts'.
Politics will not be able to work effectively in Europe if we continue in this way.
With regard to migration and asylum policy, the main obstacle is Europe's inability to take decisions at Community level with a qualified majority.
I therefore welcome the fact that the Austrian Presidency reopened this debate by presenting a strategic document on the Union's migration and asylum policy.
It is in the light of this future policy - which we hope will win support at the extraordinary summit in Tampere - that Parliament is setting out its ideas on this issue.
To begin with, we do not want migration and asylum to be confused.
The right to request political asylum is a fundamental right based on the Geneva Convention; it cannot be violated.
Instead, we must harmonise reception conditions, streamline and speed up the procedures for processing applications, and increase solidarity between the Member States in terms of sharing refugees and the burden imposed by the massive numbers arriving.
Nonetheless, irrespective of what we do, the right to request political asylum is a fundamental human right that cannot under any circumstances be violated.
As regards migration for the purposes of seeking employment, we must support all efforts aimed at ensuring that legal immigrants are fully integrated into our society, to which they make a positive contribution.
However, illegal immigration is a completely different matter and must be combated effectively, particularly where criminal activities are involved.
Illegal immigration networks and trafficking in human beings are new areas where serious organised crime is taking hold.
European countries will only be able to prevent this most inhumane form of crime by pooling the resources they have to combat this phenomenon effectively.
Ladies and gentlemen, the migration and asylum policy is an issue for the future.
If we do not tackle the problem together and propose effective solutions, we may well fail.
The European Parliament does not want to see any such failure.
It is therefore proposing an effective and workable action plan and it expects the governments to take action and put it into practice.
Mr President, Commissioner, my report deals with the 'Eurodac' system, which is designed to enable us to take the fingerprints of applicants for asylum and to compare them.
The aims are threefold. Firstly, it should put us in a position to combat abuse effectively.
We have established that there is an increasing number of multiple applications.
What is taking place here is social abuse.
We have also established that more and more criminals are applying for asylum in order to avoid the effects of legislation relating to aliens.
What we have also discovered is that more and more illegal immigrants apply for asylum if they are apprehended after entering a country illegally.
The second aim, after combating abuse, is to achieve an indirect sharing of the burden.
It is in line with the Dublin Convention that people who are seeking refuge apply for asylum in the first country they have entered, and these countries are then required to examine the application for asylum.
The third, very important, aim is that the true refugees, the real victims of persecution, must be granted maximum assistance as quickly as possible by ensuring fewer applications for asylum, faster processing of asylum procedures and effective use of the money available for the real asylum seekers.
What led to the drafting of this report? The first document was the Eurodac Convention.
As we know, the document was complete and there was agreement in the Council, but it was not signed and as a result of course it has not been ratified.
Despite this we have racked our brains over how to extend the system to include taking the fingerprints of illegal immigrants who are apprehended at the border or in the country, to compare them and to establish whether an application for asylum has already been made; this would also allow us to effectively implement the Dublin Convention.
The Protocol and the Convention have resulted in Parliament being asked to deliver an opinion in a relatively short period of time, even though they were not ratified and even though it was established in the Council that once the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force the Commission and the Council are expecting to come up with a new regulation anyway.
Parliament discussed this in committee and unanimously decided that it should nevertheless deliver an opinion, quite simply so that the Commission could also include Parliament's ideas in its proposal under the Amsterdam Treaty.
The report which I subsequently presented has been debated twice, and when it was put to the vote on 16 March, the situation changed as a result of a U-turn by the PSE, the Greens and others.
Suddenly a report was no longer needed and the draft was rejected.
As rapporteur, I note the result in committee, even if I do not share its view, since my opinion is what was previously agreed unanimously by the entire committee, namely that Eurodac is necessary to combat current problems.
I should like - not as rapporteur but as a Member of this House and of the Group of the European People's Party - to make a brief comment about this.
What happened here at the end of the debate was a pathetic spectacle because the Socialist Group and others on the left simply caved in. They were not prepared to send out a signal that asylum abuse must be combated at all costs and that Parliament must exercise its authority to put forward proposals to the Commission that strengthen our position in the areas of asylum applications, the proper processing of applications and combating abuse.
Finally, I would appeal to the common sense of the House to support the Council proposal at tomorrow's vote and to send out a strong signal in favour of an indirect sharing of the burden and combating abuse.
Mr President, I am speaking as rapporteur and as draftsman of an opinion, but in relation to two different reports.
I would first of all like to talk about the Council's draft Joint Action on the creation of an early warning system for the transmission of information on illegal immigration and facilitator networks.
In our view, this basically consists of extending to the 'enlargement countries' the decision taken in 1992 on the creation of the Centre for Information, Discussion and Exchange on the Crossing of Frontiers and Immigration and concentrating its activities on rapidly detecting cases of supposedly massive immigration.
Parliament criticised the creation of this Centre for Information in 1992.
It was decided at that stage that CIREFI was to be involved in the issues of illegal immigration and the smuggling of humans.
This proposal requires the 'enlargement countries' to cooperate where possible. However, in my view, it also raises quite a few doubts, just as the creation of the Centre did at the time.
Firstly, it is difficult to understand why the Commission is not involved in this work, particularly as we approach the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This new communication also raises doubts in that respect, yet that is not the only thing that leads me to question its effectiveness and its purpose.
First of all, what kind of information do we hope to gather and how do we hope to gather it?
Are we not aware of what is going on around us? I would be surprised if that were the case.
In my view, nothing was as easy to foresee as the humanitarian crisis we are seeing on our television screens; nothing was as easy to foresee as the crisis that Europe is now experiencing in Kosovo.
Equally, few things are as easy to foresee as the fact that in the months ahead, the Straits of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean will once again claim many people who, taking advantage of the good weather, will try to get across in tiny boats and vessels that are in terrible condition. We do not need warnings to advise us of that.
In any event, we know that illegal immigration causes great concern and Parliament hopes to act responsibly. As I said before, we are surprised at the lack of cooperation with the Commission.
The Commission has the help of Eurostat and in the near future will be able to rely on the Schengen information system or the European information system. In my opinion, these elements would be perfectly adequate and we should not duplicate remits, duties or structures.
Because of all these doubts surrounding the future of this draft action and the Centre itself, I seriously considered rejecting this proposal.
However, as was mentioned earlier, we are aware of the dramatic problems that the illegal trafficking of persons generates in Europe.
We are therefore calling on the Council to put forward a new proposal for a regulation, in the light of the Treaty of Amsterdam, within the next year. We are also asking it to include the Mediterranean region and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe as an area for action under the scope of this new proposed regulation.
I will now go on to look at the opinion I drew up and the report presented by Mrs Reding on the strategy paper on migration and asylum policy.
I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur very sincerely for her work and her ability to move such a controversial report forward in such a short time.
I am sure all the Members of this House would like to thank her for enabling us to give our opinion on this issue at such an appropriate time and before we complete our work here.
I welcome the Council's document, particularly as it gives fresh impetus to a fundamental debate within the European institutions and between our institutions and the people of the Union.
On behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, I would like to point out that our immigration policy and the treatment of 'legal' immigrants in the European Union are going to become increasingly vital issues in our relations with third countries.
An example of this is the talks we are currently holding with the Mediterranean countries on the conclusion of association agreements.
I therefore believe that we should manage migratory flows not only on the basis of our internal policy, but also by taking account of the Union's actions in other areas, such as the common foreign policy or our development policies.
In my view, dialogue with third countries, combined with measures aimed at development, is the most important element here. Indeed, such measures involve immigrants as they send a large proportion of their income to their families and this constitutes a significant amount of aid for both the families and the countries themselves.
I must stress that dialogue is more important than joint action and more important than repressive measures or measures imposing our requirements on other countries. Dialogue is essential, a fact which is highlighted in the document.
There were certain elements that I was less satisfied with, and I am speaking now more on behalf of my group than on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Firstly, although we are pleased with this document, we would have been much happier - as I said in relation to the previous issue - if the Council had provided a strong impetus by approving the documents already on the table, which were presented by the Commission in recent months, not to mention years.
I am referring here to the convention for the protection of displaced persons, which was mentioned earlier and which we desperately need.
I am also referring to the convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals.
We would have preferred to receive a clear signal of support and approval for these measure, rather than an analysis of the issues, despite the fact that this in itself is to be welcomed.
As we are seeing, we need an asylum policy and we need an immigration policy.
I would like to take the few moments I have left to ask the Group of the European People's Party to act in line with the House's vote on the convention on rules for the admission of third-country nationals, and, in relation to the debate initiated here by the Council, to vote in favour of the amendment calling for the rights of third-country nationals residing legally in the Union to be regulated.
To my mind, this issue is of vital importance.
Mr President, as rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights my task was to deal with the legal issues raised by the additional protocol to the Eurodac Convention.
The first difficulty here was that we do not know the Council's reaction to the opinion delivered by the European Parliament on this Convention.
After all, the extensive data protection measures that we called for are at least as important for the additional protocol.
In my opinion the second problem continues to be whether solely illegal entry or solely illegal residence is sufficient to justify such an encroachment on a person's individual rights.
On this point my view is quite different from that of Mr Pirker, who spoke earlier.
After all, the person's fingerprints are not just taken and compared but also stored for years to come.
Is this really necessary? In any event, the Committee on Legal Affairs cannot decide this because in my view it is a moral question.
On the whole, it must be said that the Council has made significant efforts to draft a text that guarantees that stored fingerprints should be used to enforce the Dublin Convention, although in my opinion it has not gone far enough.
We must clearly vote against an extension of the Eurodac database, as called for by the rapporteur.
That is why we voted against it in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and spoke out against the adoption of this report.
We did not 'cave in', as the rapporteur said; however, we did express our opinion that we are not convinced that we can just treat people in this way.
In my view a Europe in which all the data relating to a particular person can be retrieved at any time is not our Europe, nor does it correspond to my vision of Europe.
Mr President, I have three comments to make on the reports on asylum policy which feature on our agenda for the plenary this evening.
Firstly, in recent years the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs has highlighted time and time again the need for a harmonised approach to matters of asylum and migration.
Resolutions were drawn up by Mr Wiebenga, by myself and by Mrs Lindeperg prior to the reports on our agenda now by Anna Terrón, Mrs Zimmermann, Mr Pirker and Mrs Reding.
Mrs Reding's report is a really good one, if I may say so.
The European Parliament also decided last year to set up a fund for refugees.
In stark contrast to that, and this is my second point, we see the inability of the Council to be effective: inability to agree on how to admit refugees at the appropriate time and how to share the burdens; inability to agree a definition of what constitutes a refugee; inability to set up a common fund to pay for the reception, integration or return of those whose cases have been processed.
It beggars belief that even in the terrible circumstances we are witnessing today, there is no will to work together.
This brings me to my third point, which is really a question.
How can it be that the Council is working on a kind of negative accompanying policy which seems to suggest that harmonisation does in fact exist? Asylum seekers are not allowed to apply for asylum in more than one Member State, it was decided in Dublin.
Hence a system called Eurodac, which enables this to be verified using asylum seekers' fingerprints.
Parliament produced a consultation paper on this with a great deal of difficulty, because we really thought that it went much too far.
But the Council's intention to extend this system to illegals really is too much.
We do not want police state operations, and nor do we want attacks of this kind on people's physical integrity.
And I agree with what Mrs Zimmermann has already said.
We want just one thing: an approach to European asylum policy which is at all times fast, efficient and humane.
It is unfortunate that there are perforce no Commission initiatives in this area at present.
I believe, and I wish to make the point, that Commissioner Gradin has done an extremely good job here.
We are feeling the lack of a president because the Council is taking its time in putting together a new Commission, and I have to say that in this regard there is just one thing we need, namely a decision by the Council so that the matter can be addressed properly at last.
Mr President, in this joint debate, the Community action programme to promote the integration of refugees - for which Mrs Zimmermann is rapporteur - has assumed particular importance in view of the current situation.
The European Parliament had the foresight in 1997 to create a number of new lines in the budget which give the European Union the scope to implement specific measures in this area.
It is important to highlight the fact that the action plan will help us to coordinate Community initiatives and those of the Member States.
In my view, this coordination is vital for the successful development of the action plan and we must therefore ensure that the various administrations involved collaborate in a clear and effective manner.
The way the Commission has organised the pilot projects carried out in the last two years has not been particularly satisfactory, since the Member States have not been properly informed about the development of the projects and nothing has been done to help them to participate.
Therefore, Commissioner, we must rectify these mistakes and try to make the most of the results of the measures taken earlier.
In this respect, it might be useful to assess the results achieved through the earlier projects with a view to preventing any similar mistakes in the future.
Moreover, given that the programme also aims to promote transnational cooperation, raise public awareness, and so on, it is important when trying to make the most of future actions to take other EU initiatives into account, such as those that come under the European Social Fund, the action plan to combat racism, or other programmes such as 'Youth for Europe', which could also have repercussions on issues concerning refugees.
We will thus be able to avoid a duplication and therefore dilution of any efforts made.
As regards the joint action on voluntary repatriation, it is important to ensure that the aid is not used for this purpose alone, but is also used to improve the refugee reception centres in the Member States. In addition to improving the buildings, we must also allocate funds to train those working in the centres so that they can properly receive the refugees and provide them with the help they need for their future integration.
On another matter, and without going into an in-depth analysis of the legal basis for the approval of the action plan - Article 235 - I simply want to point out that it might possibly have been better to wait until the Treaty of Amsterdam comes into force and to adopt these measures under the framework of Community action to promote social integration, in accordance with the new Article 137 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Nevertheless, Mr President, Commissioner, we are very much in favour of the adoption of these proposals and we hope that they can be implemented as soon as possible.
Mr President, this debate is overshadowed by the war in Kosovo.
For two years, the European Parliament and the Commission had been pressing the Council of Ministers for decisions on how to cope with refugees and how the financial burden should be shared in the event of major human disasters of the kind now happening in Kosovo.
The European Union ought to have learned from its experience with the half a million refugees from Bosnia.
The relevant legislative proposal, a form of joint action, was accepted last year by the European Parliament, but the Council of Ministers has done nothing about it.
We have no system for the acceptance of refugees, although we do have a very small refugee fund of EUR 15 million or so.
But on the other hand, virtually no financial provision has been made for emergency aid.
All this is a sorry state of affairs.
Last week's decision of the Council of Justice Ministers about what to do with displaced persons from Kosovo said essentially that they should be taken in, in other words accepted in the Balkan region.
That is in itself a good decision.
I refer you, for example, to paragraph 26 of Mrs Reding's excellent report.
We must endeavour to make it possible for these people to go back to Kosovo as soon as possible, to their own homes, because ethnic cleansing cannot be accepted as a fait accompli .
The Austrian Presidency's strategy paper is a good starting-point for a new European policy on migration and asylum.
But it should be the last paper.
What we need now is legislation.
Mrs d'Ancona has said this already.
The previous paper, and it was not a Council one but a European Commission one - Commissioner Flynn issued it in 1994 - was virtually ignored.
The debates on it, if I can mention merely one example, talked of the migration monitoring centre.
This was a monitoring centre, a unit of the European Union, which was to have the remit of monitoring conditions in refugees' countries of origin.
Nothing has come of it.
And now, and I am looking here at Mrs Terrón i Cusí's report, we are talking about an early warning system for illegal immigration, controlled by the Council of Ministers.
That is not a good idea, because a monitoring centre for migration of the kind discussed earlier ought to come under the responsibility of the Commission, and should have a broader remit.
We need a European policy on asylum for the future, and we need it fast.
The Tampere summit will be too late to help the Kosovars.
But the Heads of Government should seize the chance to break the years of deadlock over the devising of a policy such as this, a uniform European policy on asylum, just as they did last year over monetary policy and as they did recently in Berlin over financial policy.
Mr President, it is difficult not to be shocked and moved by the flood of Kosovar refugees fleeing the barbaric acts of the Serbian militias. Yet it is also difficult to ignore the hesitation and ambiguity of the Member States about accepting these refugees and their catastrophic inability to predict these obvious expulsions.
They are hesitant to commit and share out the funds needed to accept the refugees, yet the high cost of the weapons used has never been challenged. They are ambiguous about the status of these refugees since certain Member States are only proposing to grant them territorial asylum with reduced rights, rather than strictly applying the Geneva Convention.
Such ambiguity is also evident in the presidency's strategic document on immigration and asylum.
The initial document from the Austrian Presidency created such an outcry that the German Presidency modified it.
It clearly removed or watered down the most controversial aspects, but retained its fundamental approach, emphasising repressive action as well as the methods of preventing migratory flows into the European Union.
Unfortunately, this document sticks very closely to the policy that is currently being followed in many Member States, a policy that is increasingly restrictive and repressive towards immigrants.
The immigration policy is considered first of all from a security viewpoint, with the construction of what amounts to a judicial and police barricade prohibiting access to the European area.
Immigration is all too often wrongly linked to the rise in unemployment, a notion that has unfortunately been repeated here in the House.
During a recent debate on a draft convention from the Commission, this House justified applying the Community preference - which is terrible in itself - and national preference in the field of employment.
My group strongly condemns such moves and also opposes quotas on immigration.
These quotas are based on neocolonial attitudes and their only aim is to select immigrants according to the European economy's needs, both intellectually and in terms of manpower.
I will continue to stress, here and elsewhere, that there is no correlation between immigration and the rate of unemployment, and studies by the OECD have demonstrated this.
We must put an end to this strategy of finding scapegoats and rid ourselves of our obsession with security.
The process of regulating the status of illegal immigrants that is applied in certain Member States does exactly the opposite of this strategy, but we must not stop there.
That is why my group is proposing in an amendment that the Member States should regulate the status of illegal immigrants, while respecting human rights and the relevant international conventions.
I would call on our governments to ratify and implement all the international conventions, particularly the United Nations International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and their Families and the 1992 Council of Europe Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life at Local Level.
The provisions of these conventions should be included in the future Community policy on immigration and asylum provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam, instead of this arsenal of administrative controls that simply increase in the number of files to be dealt with.
In recent times, the right of asylum has become more and more restricted.
In fact, in France, in 1997, 83 % of applications for asylum were rejected. These included applications from Algerian victims of terrorism and from Kurds who were the victims of oppression that was as severe as that now experienced by the people of Kosovo.
The presidency's strategic document does nothing to alter this trend.
Along with other Members of this House, I have therefore signed the appeal backed by the High Commissioner for Refugees stating that it is unacceptable to allow Europe to enjoy the benefits of its economic and financial environment yet ignore the distress beyond its borders.
In conclusion, I would like to mention the analysis by the president of the European Union Migrants Forum, as it is also an appeal to all elected representatives and governments.
In his view, those seeking asylum, refugees and migrants all form part of European society both now and in the future.
Treating them as possible aggressors to be discouraged from approaching our prosperous Europe means that only the well-off will be allowed into this very private club.
And as far as the poor are concerned, be they nationals or those from other countries who have already arrived, all they have to do is wait and their turn will come.
Indeed, in his opinion, they will soon be looked on more as intruders who should not have any rights and who deserve only hand-outs.
Our struggle is therefore a struggle on behalf of our entire democratic society.
We are not only fighting for ourselves and for all those who have had the misfortune to be born with the wrong papers; we are also fighting to strengthen the democratic foundations of our societies.
Mr President, this report takes on an even wider significance following the tragic events in Yugoslavia and Kosovo, right in the heart of Europe.
I wish to refer in particular to the proposals on the fingerprinting of illegal immigrants.
This is the thin edge of the wedge.
It is Orwellian in its theory and probably, if it is ever put into practice, something even George Orwell would not have thought of.
Instead of tattooing them, the modern-day Europe is going to identify those who make us feel uncomfortable by fingerprinting.
After immigrants, we take on the gypsies, then citizens we do not like the look of.
Immigrants and those we feel uncomfortable with in society are branded, as criminals are today.
I strongly oppose this proposal.
I admit there is no easy solution.
If there was, it would have been found by now.
Issues of high politics are caught up in issues of human rights.
There is an overwhelming and immediate need to protect and care for the victims of war, to stop the genocide and to find a solution acceptable to all sides, including respect for and understanding of the needs of neighbouring countries.
Top priority continues to be the need to protect and to care for the refugees.
Families have been separated and sent to different countries.
Refugees have died in holding pens in modern-day Europe, without sanitation or proper services.
The UNHCR has been very slow to react, to say the very least.
We have to act, as the interior ministers did last week, when they suggested that long-term admission of Kosovars to countries outside the region would consolidate their displacement from their homes.
We have to be certain that the wrong signals are not sent to the Serbian regime, that it is possible for the Kosovars to return home eventually to safety.
We welcomed the launching of the general debate last year on a consistent approach to the questions of migration and asylum.
The strategy paper, which has been under consideration in the Council, has enabled a serious analysis of the many aspects of migration and asylum to be undertaken so that constructive solutions can be found.
In the light of the present crisis we also welcome the fact that the strategy paper developed last year examined the possibility of making a single member of the Commission responsible for all matters relating to migration policy.
This could be a significant advance given that at present several members of the outgoing Commission are responsible for different areas, which range from the legal aspects of migration, humanitarian aid and the free movement of persons to the foreign policy aspects of migration.
A number of the points set out in today's reports overlap as, for example, the services and reception facilities to be provided for asylum seekers and refugees.
Finally, I wish to pay tribute to the Commissioner.
It may be my last opportunity to do so publicly.
She has been a great asset to the Community and a great source of support on issues that have very often been discussed in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
I wish to pay tribute to Mrs Gradin and wish her every success, whether she comes back or not.
Mr President, my group supports the reports by Mrs Zimmermann and Mrs Reding.
Even in the last few days it has become clear once again how urgently we need a European policy on refugees and immigration.
The atrocities, the expulsion and the genocide in Kosovo and the sometimes unpleasant way in which some Member States are dealing with the displaced persons who need our support illustrate once again that we need a harmonised policy on refugees and asylum, but one that must be humane in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
The harmonised minimum level for certain services and reception facilities must apply to all EU Member States.
We cannot have a situation in which some countries, like my country, Germany, bear a far heavier burden than others.
This also applies to the area of migrant labour.
Mrs Reding's report contains some very welcome demands for a differentiated approach involving three groups: refugees, migrant labour and the victims of smuggling networks.
I would like to thank Mrs Reding on behalf of my group for presenting such a differentiated report.
With regard to what Mr Pirker said, it is not true that we did not or do not want a report on Eurodac.
We wanted a report but not the one that Mr Pirker has given us.
We would have liked to have discussed and adopted a critical report, which is what our voters elected us to do and expect of us.
When it comes to civil rights and avoiding the same old arguments we have a huge responsibility, even here in the House.
That is why we rejected his report: because it was not appropriate for this House.
Mr President, the report by Mrs Reding is both courageous and intelligent and I am pleased to pay tribute to her today.
I must point out that it follows on from the strategic document presented by the Austrian Presidency.
This initially led to some controversy but it also opened a debate that has proved to be quite fruitful.
The report analyses four key problems.
The first relates to the right of asylum, its unique characteristics and all the other rights that correspond to it.
The second involves immigrant labour and the mobility of the labour force.
The third point highlights the problem of the illegal immigration networks, whilst the fourth deals with the statute for legal immigrants.
Until now, a certain vagueness surrounded all these concepts, a sense of confusion, which, helped along by ideology - even passion - and demagogy, led to very serious problems.
I need look no further for proof of this than the words of our colleague Mr Pirker, who just accused the left of caving in to its own supporters.
I must point out to him that the immigrant supporters are not necessarily the best we can find.
Secondly, as far as the right of asylum is concerned, it is important to stress that everyone has the right to request asylum and that the Geneva Conventions - the conventions themselves and the additional protocols - which are the founding texts, represent a frame of reference that cannot be violated.
We need to think very carefully about the proposed replacements, which the report very clearly rejects.
The report also stresses that there should be minimum standards for the services and reception facilities to which asylum seekers are entitled. It highlights, too, that we need to respect the conventions, speed up procedures and, above all, guarantee the rights of those seeking asylum until a final decision has been taken by the judicial authorities to proceed with deportation.
Finally, we should pay tribute to the genuine efforts being made to reconcile the judicial proceedings and regulations involved with the human dimension.
After the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Commission will be able to take legislative initiatives.
If the Commission continues along the same path it has followed until now - and perhaps we should pay tribute to the Commission today, particularly as we do not do so very often at the moment - it should be aware that it will find in Parliament, be it this Parliament or its successor, a reliable and faithful ally.
Mr President, Parliament previously expressed its support for the Eurodac Convention. We were told at the time that it was designed to make it easier to apply the Dublin Convention by offering security both to those seeking asylum, who would be assured that they could apply for asylum in a Member State, and also to the countries themselves, since the system enabled us to prevent multiple applications.
However, the reasons given by the Council today, to which the rapporteur has just given his support, for extending Eurodac to include certain categories of illegal immigrants through a protocol are far from convincing. We feel that the risk of abuse here is quite considerable.
Our group therefore hopes that the protocol will be rejected, just as the entire committee hoped that it would be rejected.
Unfortunately, I do not have time to talk about the excellent reports by Mrs Terrón and Mrs Zimmermann, but I would like to take a moment to look at the report by Mrs Reding.
I must congratulate her because, although dealing with a very sensitive and controversial subject, she has succeeded in finding compromises on most issues and they are likely to be supported by the vast majority here. At the same time, she has also managed to maintain the fundamental points and principles that I and my group fully supported and that she herself has just explained very clearly.
We were somewhat concerned about certain aspects of the strategic document presented by the Austrian Presidency and, in our view, it was vital that the report should set out these concerns very clearly.
The first of these relates to the necessary distinction between the problem of asylum and that of immigration.
The implications of this are very important, particularly as regards access to the territory of Europe and, thus, access to the procedure put in place for the many people applying for asylum who, for reasons that are very easy to understand, do not have the relevant documents.
We must not liken these people to illegal immigrants; that would be like riding roughshod over the principle that asylum seekers should not be expelled or returned.
I am also pleased that the report is very clear on the fact that we must ensure the full and complete application of the Geneva Convention and refuse to accept any attempt to renegotiate it.
The gaps in the Convention need to be filled, particularly through the creation of a statute on complementary protection, but under no circumstances must we replace the Convention itself. Furthermore, we strongly oppose a policy based on an 'institutional offer' at the discretion of each Member State.
Another important point is our request for a broad interpretation of the Geneva Convention, particularly as regards taking account of persecution by third parties.
Parliament has often expressed its view on this issue, yet there has not been the slightest shift in the Council's position or in the measures taken by the Member States.
Finally, the tragic events we are currently witnessing prove that it was vital to express our disapproval of the fact that the joint actions proposed by the Commission on the temporary protection of displaced persons have been blocked in the Council, and many of the speakers here have mentioned this.
Commissioner Gradin had hoped to learn from the experience of the Bosnian tragedy, and quite rightly so.
Unfortunately, the Council's procrastination has meant that the system she is proposing cannot be implemented to help tackle the tragedy in Kosovo, and this does Europe no credit.
Although the refugees from Kosovo are apparently covered by the Geneva Convention, such massive immigration flows clearly prevent us from considering each case individually in a short period of time and using the normal processes. Temporary protection would undoubtedly be the appropriate instrument in such cases, but without permanently ruling out the possibility of invoking the Geneva Convention.
I therefore welcome the report by Mrs Reding. However, I would point out that, despite its merits, we are unfortunately left to wonder how effective it will be, as until now the Council has not paid a great deal of attention to the very many consistent recommendations Parliament has made.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is increasingly apparent that the Austrian strategy paper on asylum and immigration in Europe has become the basis for an extremely productive and, above all, necessary discussion.
It is necessary because asylum and immigration will be communitised with the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Even if they are dependent on unanimous Council decisions for the next five years, they will still be removed from the jurisdiction of the Member States and transferred to the Community.
This means that in the areas of asylum and immigration we must force ourselves to think in Community terms, and that is the task of this Parliament.
I would like to focus on one point here. I believe that we in Europe and here in the European Parliament must answer one question very clearly, a question that is fundamental to this whole discussion: generally speaking, do we in Europe want to take in immigrants or not?
And here I am not talking about political refugees.
There is absolutely no question that these are to be taken in, a point which cannot seriously be disputed by anyone.
I am not talking either about civil war refugees, other quota refugees or family reunification. I am discussing only the basic issue of whether we in Europe wish to take in immigrants, as we are occasionally asked to do.
Here I would say, ladies and gentlemen, that Europe is not an immigration area like the United States was in the last century and possibly still is today, or like Australia, New Zealand, Canada or any other countries which desperately sought people to fill up their space.
We are not in that situation: on the contrary, we have 20 million unemployed.
As a result of this we have no choice but to restrict immigration.
I would like to emphasise once again that I am not talking about asylum and related issues but only about immigration, and particularly illegal immigration.
In my view it is irresponsible to reject the Eurodac Convention when we consider that 80 % of illegal immigrants are victims of trafficking networks that cynically exploit the misery and suffering of these people.
One of the things that is needed in order to put a stop to their activities is the signing of the Eurodac Convention.
Those who reject is are playing straight into the hands of the smuggling networks by voting against it.
Please consider this.
On the subject of asylum we are essentially in agreement.
Everyone here is in favour of granting asylum to the victims of political persecution.
We now need to settle the matter of the procedure.
Should all asylum seekers in Europe have an individual procedure or must we resign ourselves to considering institutional guarantees? I believe that speedy processing is particularly in the interest of applicants for asylum.
For this reason we must open up this second possibility.
Mr President, Commissioner, I took great pleasure in listening to Mrs Reding presenting her report.
I must say that there is nothing I would have put differently, especially when I have in my hand two pages of conclusions reached during the meeting of justice and foreign affairs ministers in Luxembourg last week.
One might ask oneself whether this is really the outcome of a conference attended by 15 ministers: an expression of thanks to Albania and a statement to the effect that we are prepared to provide protection for refugees from the Kosovo region.
Is this the level of solidarity we are able to display in Europe?
We are capable of action when 2 000 Kurds are knocking at our doors, but not when hundreds of thousands of people are suffering.
We have a collective responsibility for the tens of thousands of people who have vanished and for those who will probably die of starvation.
It is now up to all those countries that have talked about a European identity and the importance of solidarity to do something in the present situation.
I also have to say that today I am ashamed of being Finnish.
We have a prime minister who might very well not have seen on television over Easter or even be aware of the anxiety and suffering in Kosovo.
I apologise for being Finnish, but I am nevertheless pleased that our government has at last done something, since that is what people want.
Our solidarity is being put to the test.
We must hold our ground in the European Parliament. In particular, we must stand firm over the proposal relating to a European fund for refugees and for increased Community resources directed at those in need.
Mr President, so far the EU's policy on refugees has consisted solely of restrictive measures.
The Dublin Convention and Eurodac should also be viewed in the same light.
In practical terms, moreover, the Schengen Agreement has played a major role in generally making it more difficult for asylum seekers to persuade the EU authorities to look into their reasons for requesting asylum.
EU policy bears the stamp of repression and police involvement, which in turn explains - or very largely explains - the growing influx of illegal immigrants and refugees.
What is required instead is, above all, a shared responsibility throughout the whole of Europe, and not just in the EU, for those who need protection.
We also need rules based on the UN Convention on the status of refugees to ensure that they are well treated.
In addition, there should be a means of guaranteeing the rights of those who are legally resident within the EU, for example their right to be able to move around freely within the Union.
Eurodac is central to the system devised under the Dublin Convention for applying the principle of the first country of asylum.
This principle has numerous shortcomings, as does Eurodac itself.
The principle of the first country of asylum is currently being applied, in spite of the fact that the Member States acknowledge that differences exist between asylum seekers.
The principle is irrational and may well lead to arbitrary decisions being made.
Secondly, there is also an obvious danger of the Eurodac register expanding and being abused.
And thirdly, fingerprinting infringes the integrity of the person and should only be done where it is genuinely necessary.
Today's proposal on Eurodac should therefore be rejected in its present form.
I should also like to say a few words about the Reding report concerning the strategy paper on migration and asylum policy.
Last year, the Austrian Presidency put forward an exceptionally cynical proposal regarding the EU's future asylum policy.
It constituted what amounts to a frontal attack on the foundations of a humane asylum policy.
Consequently, I welcome the fact that, on a number of important points, Mrs Reding disagrees with the proposal, particularly in her defence of the Geneva Convention and the role of the UNHCR.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the increasingly restrictive measures that we have been discussing and unfortunately adopting for years are always claimed by the Right in this House not to be restricting refugee policy but merely combating abuse.
It was against this background that we created a regulation concerning third countries which is clearly contrary to the Geneva Convention but also does not do anything to combat abuse.
It was against this background that we removed persecution by non-state violence from the grounds for recognising refugee status.
It was against this background that the Austrian Presidency's strategy paper on refugees ultimately came into being, which represents a clear attack on the Geneva Convention.
But even if these Members really were only concerned with abuse and not, as Mr Nassauer said, with the actual refugees, then today we have come to the moment of truth, Mr Pirker, Mr Nassauer: today 200 000 people are fleeing Kosovo, and they are being denied refugee status in violation of the Geneva Convention.
Why do you not stand up and demand that the Geneva Convention, which clearly provides protection for people who are persecuted for ethnic reasons, be observed? Then stand up and demand that the Geneva Convention be observed and that these people be granted refugee status!
Mr President, I too must compliment Viviane Reding on a particularly humane and balanced report, but I am sure she will not take it amiss if I say here that it is particularly cynical for the European Parliament to be discussing today a strategy paper from the presidency on asylum and migration policy, at a time when hundreds of thousands of people are being driven out of Kosovo, deported, are stuck in the mud in refugee camps, locked up even, or being driven back into Kosovo.
It is cynical to be talking of a strategy which should result in a common approach of the Union at the autumn summit in Tampere, when the Council meeting in Luxembourg could not even agree a joint strategy for the admission of refugees in one of the biggest humanitarian disasters which Europe has even seen.
I find it shameful that the European Union, which is wealthy and prosperous, merely salves its conscience by giving a few tens of millions of euros in aid to the region.
In all honesty, Commissioner, I cannot understand either the stance expressed by Mrs Bonino on behalf of the Commission that she was against settling refugees in the European Union.
Of course it is good to keep people in their own area, always provided it can be done in decent conditions.
But the television pictures and the reports from humanitarian organisations have shown us clearly that this is not possible, that the countries bordering on Kosovo are, moreover, too poor and too unstable to be able to cope with this influx appropriately.
The political reluctance shown by some Member States of the Union is disgraceful too.
Nevertheless, this strategy document says quite clearly that the European Commission's proposals for acceptance of refugees, which have been on the table for two years already, as Mr Wiebenga rightly pointed out, must be approved as speedily as possible.
So I think this debate should prompt us to urge the Council once again - and forcefully - to conclude an agreement without delay on collective action on refugees and on a statute giving them guaranteed rights and protection.
If the 15 cannot manage this, Commissioner, I am convinced that those Member States which do wish to cooperate will have to conclude an agreement on how to deal with refugees - a kind of humanitarian Schengen, if I can call it that.
I am not at all pro-Schengen, but in this case it seems to me to be absolutely the right course.
Finally, I should like to raise another point which is terribly important both in Mrs Reding's report and in the crisis in Kosovo.
I refer to the reuniting of families.
Every day on television we see the tragedy of families which have become separated, of children, men and women who cannot find each other.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives everyone the right to live in a family.
That right must be upheld for refugees and displaced persons too.
That right must be guaranteed by the Union for refugees from Kosovo and for any other asylum seeker or refugee.
I think we urgently need to revise and add to the Dublin agreement on this point.
The yawning gap which divides the few good proposals contained in the strategy paper and European dithering in this area - I have no other word for it - shows that it will really take a miracle if we are to achieve anything specific at Tampere.
I hope the Commission will show perseverance and I hope Parliament will continue to be involved in preparing policy, because the Council gives the impression of having to protect Europe against the refugees, rather than wanting to protect the refugees themselves.
Mr President, Viviane Reding has drawn up an excellent report and we must point out that she was particularly sensitive with those of us who participated in the debate and very receptive to all our contributions.
When talking about immigration, in my view, there are two key elements: solidarity and the human dimension of the problem.
Solidarity is important because every human being, irrespective of nationality, sex or religion, has the right to a decent life and to sufficient resources to enable him to survive.
We cannot understand immigration if we are only concerned about our own borders, our own welfare or our own geostrategic interests.
The human dimension also requires considerable efforts on the part of the Member States if it is to be reconciled with the legislation needed to regulate the entry and exit of third-country nationals or a period of residence in our countries by those who are seeking work, refuge or asylum from persecution in their own countries. We must finally introduce a common policy to regulate the administrative and judicial procedures involved.
This policy must allow us to pursue and sentence those who exploit human beings. It must also help us to ensure that the most fundamental rights of any immigrants in our countries, be they legal or illegal, will be respected, even in instances where they have to be expelled or returned to their country of origin.
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that this is not only the responsibility of the European Union.
It is also up to the countries from which the immigrants come to strive to make the most of the human and material resources they have available, that is, both their own resources and those provided by the European Union in the form of assistance. They must also become more democratic and guarantee respect for their citizens' rights.
Mr President, the dramatic events we are living through pose two equally dramatic questions.
Can the European Union be regarded as a place of freedom, security and justice? Can it follow a progressive policy on asylum and refugees?
Two very recent traumatic experiences probably provide a negative answer.
Firstly, the barbarous bombardments by NATO of Yugoslavia, which are creating hundreds of thousands of refugees and threatening to destabilise the whole of the Balkans. Secondly, the three-month-long wanderings of Mr Öcalan throughout Europe, who not only did not find asylum but was essentially handed over to his persecutors with the help of procedures that were suspect and illegal.
We cannot debate in the European Parliament as if these things had not happened.
The policy of the European Union towards the major migration crisis we are witnessing is a policy of containment. It is a policy of war and one which, as the presidency's strategy paper on migration and asylum policy points out, calls for actions that could have a good chance of success, but only if they are not carried out exclusively on a political level and only if they comprise as broad a spectrum of actions as possible, which may even include war, as indeed we are witnessing at the moment.
This policy even goes so far as to call into question the Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees, regarding it as outdated, and calls for a complementary system of protection which, to all intents and purposes, will be based on mechanisms such as Schengen and Europol.
In other words, what we have is the logic of militarism and of the police state.
Mr President, we denounce this policy as inhuman and hypocritical, as a policy which in the end will not protect the paradise that is Europe, but which, sooner or later, will lead it into adventures that will damage not only the people of Europe and democracy but, above all, peace in Europe and throughout the world.
Mr President, first let me congratulate the four rapporteurs involved in this joint debate on migration, asylum and refugees: Mrs Zimmermann, Mrs Terrón i Cusi, Mrs Reding and Mr Pirker.
It is impossible for me in three minutes to discuss adequately the details of these four complex reports, ranging from early warning systems for illegal immigration to integration of refugees, from migration policy to fingerprinting applicants for asylum.
Instead I will try to touch on a number of principles which I believe should be the basis for the policy that we pursue in all of these areas.
First let me say that the European Union must have the ability to make choices as to the immigration policy it wishes to pursue.
With a borderless Europe these choices can only be made together, rather than separately.
Our current policy limits immigration to a few cases of family reunion, plus some German and Greeks from the former Soviet Union who are entering their own countries.
Provided that, in the future, such policies are arrived at in a non-racist way, by open and democratic debate, then I can support them.
Secondly, we need to make it clear that asylum seekers and refugees are not immigrants.
Sometimes this is an issue that is confused.
Our responsibility with regard to their applications for asylum or for refugee status go further than with respect to immigration.
It is inhuman for us to send people back to face torture, physical abuse and death.
Of course some individuals will try to abuse the system - just like Members of the European Parliament! - I do not see that refugees and asylum seekers are any different.
I have no problem, therefore, in supporting measures to prevent multiple applications.
My problem is a different one: I will not repeat my colleagues' comments, particularly those from the Socialist Group, on what is happening in Kosovo but I will reiterate a point I made in an earlier debate.
Some years ago Member States of the European Union were refusing applications for asylum from those courageous individuals in Serbia who had refused to be conscripted to join in ethnic cleansing.
That crime may well have contributed to the larger crimes being carried out against the Kosovo Albanians while we speak.
The refusal rate is not a measure of need, but a measure of failure of will and courage by Member States who are refusing to recognise that the level of valid applications may well be substantially above the level of those currently granted either permanent or temporary leave to remain.
Thirdly and finally, within the Union we have four million black Europeans and 12 to 14 million third country nationals.
We have a responsibility to ensure not only that all citizens have the same rights and same duties within the European Union but so do all residents.
It is only then that we can build the kind of Europe that I would like to see.
Mr President, it is not easy to round off this debate as the most important issues have already been discussed repeatedly.
In the previous debate, I said that we are at a stage where European public opinion is very much aware that it wants Europe to be more than just a market; it wants Europe to be a project for civilization.
And the best way of seeing exactly what we want Europe to be is by looking at how we present ourselves, how we present our internal environment to those who knock on our door, be they immigrants, those seeking asylum or refuge, or displaced persons.
That is why today's reports are so important.
I would like to stress one aspect that has already been mentioned, but that, in my view, has perhaps not received the attention it deserves, namely, the legal framework.
Parliament often tends to be proactive here.
I believe that the legal framework is our safeguard and our responsibility. It represents the defence of the weakest, in other words those who, in this case, are seeking asylum.
It is Parliament's responsibility to defend it as far as possible.
As I said before, we must interpret the Treaty of Amsterdam as broadly and as boldly as we can, yet we must not go beyond its framework. If that is not sufficient, then we must hold an intergovernmental conference to revise the Treaty.
What we do not want to see in this process of European integration that we all desire is a violation of the Treaty, through the back door and by means of concrete measures.
Two specific questions remain in relation to the reports.
As far as the Eurodac report is concerned, we are now waiting to see what approach the Commission regulation takes under the new legal bases. We must also recognise that at this stage the political focus of the document is incomplete.
It does not contain all of Parliament's beliefs and wishes, nor, I am sure, does it include all that the Commission hopes for.
This must be resolved so that it does not appear as if this is our position on Eurodac.
As regards Mrs Reding's report, which is very important, extremely interesting and comprehensive, I would merely like to take these last 30 seconds to highlight the issue of respect for the legal framework, which I have already mentioned.
Mrs Reding has reached an interesting compromise between our desire to stretch the Treaty to its limits and ensuring that we do not go too far and allow it to snap.
Mr President, I find the debate unrealistic and rather hypocritical.
What is real is the challenge presented by hundreds of thousands of refugees from Kosovo.
What is real, Madam Commissioner, is the scandalous meeting held by the Council of Ministers, at which it recently decided not to bear the costs of relieving the refugees' suffering, and to place the burden on neighbouring countries. However, these countries are unable to assume this burden, either economically, politically or socially.
The destabilisation of these countries is beginning to unfold, and when this happens the Council and, I imagine, the Commission too, will not have the legal basis to help there either.
They told us hypocritically that they want the refugees to stay in the area, so as not to send the wrong political message to Mr Milosevic.
Just hark at that!
In other words, the messages sent by the missiles and the bombs are not enough? Will the refugees become messages too?
Shame!
Or are our leaders anticipating a swift solution to the crisis? Judging by the credibility of their forecasts thus far...
What can I say!
Dark vistas are opening up for the refugees and for the neighbouring countries!
This debate, Madam Commissioner, could become less unrealistic if both Parliament and the Commission found a way to call on the Council urgently on whatever legal basis to immediately re-examine its position, which is unacceptable and befitting of Pontius Pilate.
As for the rest, dealing with this at intergovernmental level and within the Community, and all the things that have been quite correctly said here, we can examine them in the future.
The present is here and it is posing a multitude of threats.
Mr President, one of last year's most important initiatives was the Austrian proposal concerning immigration and asylum policy, which triggered a much-needed debate both in the Council of Ministers and in this House.
Mrs Reding also attaches great importance to the initiative in her report.
I share her view that immigration and asylum should be treated as separate issues and, furthermore, this was one of the aspects I raised when the Austrian Presidency submitted its first draft.
I also agree with the rapporteur that immigration should not be regarded as a problem; it can be an asset, and is a natural part of the life of the international community.
It is something we must learn to understand, accept and deal with.
At the present time, the rules on immigration vary from one country to another.
The Commission has therefore submitted a proposal for closer approximation of the rules.
Amongst other things, we have raised the issue of the fundamental rights of immigrants, particularly as regards their access to the European labour market.
Naturally, I am hoping for strong support from the Council of Ministers, as well as from Parliament.
For my own part, the situation of immigrants in the community is the most crucial element.
As Mr Ford has said, this concerns the living conditions of some ten million people who have been residing legally in our Member States for many years.
Some clear political signals are therefore required.
In addition, the battle against illegal immigration must be stepped up.
So long as immigration is subject to regulation, people will try to circumvent the mechanisms of control.
This has led to the existence of a large-scale market in the smuggling of human beings.
It also lies behind the proposal for a system for rapidly exchanging information on illegal immigration, which Mrs Terrón i Cusí deals with in her report.
I regard this proposal as an important part of our efforts to effectively tackle the cynical practice of trafficking in women for sexual purposes which is taking place throughout Europe.
It is especially important that such a system should also include all the Central and Eastern European countries.
During the past year, we have seen far too many women from those countries, who are being exploited in this way, on the streets and in the brothels of our capital cities.
Ever since I first arrived in Brussels, I have been striving to get this issue onto the EU's agenda.
The problem is that we have only a limited knowledge of the details of people smuggling, and in particular of what is actually taking place in the countries of origin.
A system for exchanging information such as that described in the resolution would represent a considerable step forward.
We need to be able to find out more quickly, for example, when new illegal smuggling organisations are discovered in the countries of origin. Our knowledge of smuggling tactics and methods, as well as the routes used, also needs to be improved.
From the report, it is clear that Mrs Terrón i Cusí would prefer the Commission to be responsible for managing an information system of this kind.
I appreciate her confidence.
The Commission's role in the area of migration policy will be increased in the next few years with the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In the short term, however, it is essential to ensure that the work continues as quickly as possible.
The 1951 Geneva Convention provides a sound basis for a common refugee policy.
At the same time, the convention will soon be celebrating its half century.
The world has changed in the intervening years, and the refugee situation with it.
Many of those who need protection today do not fulfil the criteria established during the cold war era.
Moreover, we are increasingly being confronted by refugee crises on a massive scale which flare up quickly.
Other, supplementary instruments are therefore now required.
The need for protection should always take precedence over formal rules.
The refugee crisis which we are now witnessing in Kosovo is merely the latest tragic example.
On countless occasions during the past four and a half years, I have called in vain for Europe to equip itself with new asylum instruments to supplement the Geneva Convention in precisely this kind of situation.
Moreover, I have launched several initiatives to bring such instruments into existence: one on temporary protection, another on burden sharing, and a third that would increase the effectiveness of the asylum process.
I appreciate the support which I have had from this House for the last initiative.
On the other hand, the Council of Ministers withdrew its support when the members saw its actual implications.
Nor have we made much progress on temporary shelter or burden sharing.
I am convinced that Europe will continue to shoulder its responsibilities as regards the crisis in Kosovo.
Last week's special ministerial meeting also gave a clear indication in this respect.
Already, a massive effort is under way to help the whole region to cope with the hundreds of thousands of refugees who now find themselves in Albania, FYROM and Montenegro.
Moreover, further help is on the way, both from the Member States and the Commission.
The Member States have also, in different ways, expressed their willingness to receive refugees in their own countries if no other alternative is available.
At the same time, it is worrying that we have not learned anything from our costly experiences in the war in Bosnia.
The war in Kosovo has shown yet again that Europe must equip itself with a coordinated refugee policy.
Another important aspect concerns the integration of refugees into the community.
Mrs Zimmermann, in her report, lays great stress on an integrated approach.
I totally agree with that.
The Commission has submitted two separate proposals: one to encourage the reception and repatriation of asylum seekers and refugees and another on integration.
The rapporteur questions this approach.
I share her basic viewpoint, but since the Amsterdam Treaty has not yet entered into force, there was no practicable alternative.
I might also mention that the German Presidency, in its conclusions resulting from last week's ministerial meeting, decided that the Commission should revise the section relating to the reception and repatriation of asylum seekers and refugees in order to make use of the EU's release of EUR 15 million for the refugee crisis in Kosovo.
I have already approved the original proposal, and I have the support of my colleagues for tomorrow's meeting of the Commission.
I also assume that I have the support of the Council of Ministers, as well as of this House.
We should also hold a joint discussion, at the earliest opportunity, on whether this amount is in fact proportionate to the level of need.
For the rest, I note that as regards the proceedings of the committee, Mrs Zimmermann takes the view that they should be as simple as possible.
I wholeheartedly agree with that.
Finally, let me say a few words about the Pirker report and Eurodac, the European system for the comparison of fingerprints.
It is very important to have such a system in place.
It is a precondition for the application, as envisaged, of the principle of the first country of asylum and the provisions of the Dublin Convention.
As you know, the Council of Ministers has now finalised the wording of Eurodac and asked the Commission to revise the proposal so that it is in accordance with the terms of the new Treaty.
The intention is therefore to wait until the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force, and in this way to strengthen both the democratic and legislative control.
All the issues we deal with in the area of justice and home affairs affect European citizens in their daily lives.
In a sense, it is paradoxical that internal European cooperation, which has the greatest impact on people's lives, is something they know least about.
The introduction of more openness and transparency in our working methods would be a way of changing this.
Another way would be to ensure that we can arrive at some concrete decisions on certain key migration issues.
People should be able to see that what we are doing is having some effect.
A good deal of political will is also needed if we are to make the right decisions during the coming year.
I therefore regret that the requirement for unanimity will continue for the next five years.
It is certainly true that cooperation in this area is still a sensitive issue, particularly with regard to immigration policy.
Therefore, a very important task for the coming years is to ensure that there is sufficient confidence in the EU's efforts in that area to allow the introduction of qualified majority voting to become a possibility.
Furthermore, we must give the concepts of freedom, security and justice enshrined in the Amsterdam Treaty a clear and precise meaning.
The Tampere summit in the autumn will therefore be a milestone.
Parliament also has a very important mission to perform.
Clear signals must be given on the direction which European immigration and asylum policy needs to take.
I also think that the two debates we have had tonight have been valuable in illustrating how important that is.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA)
The next item is the joint debate on the following two recommendations for second reading, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy:
A4-0131/99, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision on a series of guidelines, including the identification of projects of common interest, for trans-European networks for the electronic interchange of data between administrations (IDA) (13490/2/98 - C4-0017/99-97/0340(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Read) and-A4-0130/99, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Decision adopting a series of actions and measures in order to ensure interoperability of and access to trans-European networks for the electronic Interchange of Data between Administrations (IDA) (13491/2/98 - C4-0012/99-97/0341(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Read).
Mr President, this piece of work has a very long title for a project which is about the benefits of electronic transmission of data between administrations within the European Union.
It really is a success story, showing the citizens of the European Union how decisions taken on their behalf and the implementation of those decisions can be made much more transparent and readily identifiable.
Two or three projects are always quoted and are worth repeating: one is the work of the Medicines Evaluation Agency in London; another is the project about helping people in the European Union find information about job vacancies right the way across the European Union; and the third is a scheme concerning early contra-indications of toxic substances and drugs that can be dangerous to young people in particular.
The projects had their early teething troubles.
At this stage I wish to pay tribute to the work of the Commission officials with whom I have had many discussions; between us we have put a great deal of effort into addressing many of these problems.
However, the work I am presenting to you here this evening is about ensuring that some of the early difficulties and the unnecessary duplication of efforts and compatibility problems are well on the way to solution.
There are also some issues concerning implementation.
I wish to stress that it is very important not only that each particular scheme has the benefit of electronic means of exchange of data but also that the methodology involved in each project can be transferred in its turn to other projects and is not just a one-off.
I hope that the comparatively small number of amendments from the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy will meet with your approval.
I have no hesitation in commending both reports to you.
I should also like to draw attention to the updates in the reports produced by the IDA team, which provide a very valuable reference base of examples of how the work of the European Union institutions is bringing real benefits to the citizens of the European Union.
We have an unusual problem this evening in that we are running very much ahead of ourselves.
Mrs Peijs is not here yet.
The Commissioner due to respond was Mr Monti who, I understand, is still somewhere above the earth in an aeroplane.
However, Mrs Gradin is going to manfully stand in.
Mr President, I shall try to be Commissioner Monti for a few minutes.
In December 1997 the Commission presented its proposals for a second phase of the IDA programme.
Those two proposals have the objective to establish interoperable telematic networks in support of interinstitutional communication and the implementation of Community policies and activities.
In this second phase of the IDA programme, the Commission proposes to shift the focus from building infrastructure to coordination and support, with special regard to improving cost efficiency.
Thus, for instance, IDA projects will now benefit from generic telematic services acquired from the market.
These ideas have been fully endorsed by both the European Parliament and the Council in the first reading.
The Commission has already expressed its satisfaction that the Council has incorporated a majority of Parliament's amendments in the first reading.
Moreover, the Commission accepted both common positions and recommended their rapid adoption.
In this second reading the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy proposes two amendments to the decision on guidelines and one amendment to the decision on interoperability measures.
These are based on amendments that the Council declined in the first reading.
However, the Commission believes that the formulation now proposed by the European Parliament not only would refine the political priorities of the IDA programme and increase its transparency but also could be expected to remove the objections raised by the Council in the first reading.
I am therefore pleased to announce that the Commission accepts all three amendments proposed by the European Parliament in the second reading.
Let me thank you once again and in particular the rapporteur, Mrs Read, for the constructive attitude with which Parliament has received these proposals of the Commission.
I am confident that, with your support, political agreement with the Council will soon be achieved and we will be able to resume this important task without delay.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
The sitting was suspended from 8.30 p.m. until 9.15 p.m.
Liability for payment of VAT
I should first like to inform the House that Mr Monti has probably already landed and is likely to arrive at any moment.
We have resumed an extra 15 minutes later to enable him to take part in the debate.
The next item is the report (A4-0174/99) by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards the determination of the person liable for payment of value added tax (COM(98)0660 - C4-0705/98-98/0312(CNS)).
Madam President, the purpose of the Commission proposal to amend the 1997 Directive determining the person liable for payment of VAT is to simplify the current very complicated system.
It is raised under the SLIM proposals, whose object is to make access to the single European market easier, especially for SMEs.
The underlying principle guiding the Commission proposal is to identify the person responsible for VAT, where companies are operating in more than one EU state, as the person who performs the taxable transaction, irrespective of whether he or she is established within the country where the transaction takes place.
It should further be noted that the proposal is interim in nature.
The Commission still fully intends to move to a definitive system of VAT collection and liability based on the principle of a single place of taxation.
Also, attached to this proposal, is the separate, but very welcome, idea of tackling the problem of VAT tax avoidance related to the supply of continuous products like gas or electricity.
Here it is proposed that tax should be charged on an annual basis where there are no pre-established successive statements of account.
So far, so good, but this is where the problems begin.
This delay of the definitive VAT regime is regrettable in itself but even more frustrating for the SMEs, which we want to be active participants in the single market, is the introduction of an interim system which seems as confusing as its predecessor.
That is why I have asked the Commission, to no avail, to quantify the problem and, in addition, to set out a strategy and timetable for this interim regime before the definitive system is introduced.
Why is the Commission so reluctant to do this?
Secondly, as rapporteur, I am alarmed to learn from the Commission details of their consultation with the small business community on the proposal.
Why, for instance, did the Commission consult SMEs from only seven Member States? Furthermore, was the Commission not concerned to learn that one in three SMEs thought the present proposal might lengthen, not slash, VAT red tape.
Perhaps the Commission might reply to these points this evening, if it arrives on time.
Thirdly, the reverse charges system which keeps intact the principle of fraction payments should not in itself be over-used or abused.
Nevertheless, the abundance of exceptions allowed seems to deny the principle of simplifying, not complicating, the interim system.
Incidentally, I have still not received an explanation from the Commission why lawyers, consultancy bureaus and agents concerned with the transport of goods qualify as exceptions able to use the reverse charges system.
Why these and not others? I think we should be told.
Fourthly, the mutual assistance facility provided to SMEs to help them pole-vault over some of the recognised barriers to the market has itself been found to be unused and hence ineffective. What has the Commission to say about this?
Fifthly, I should like the Commission to clarify its position vis-à-vis NGOs which persistently lose valuable income because they are penalised by a system that frequently leaves them high and dry with irrecoverable VAT.
Finally, is the Commission prepared to deal with the outrageous practice whereby SMEs operating in Belgium and in other Member States are obliged in fulfilling current requirements for identifying their VAT tax responsibilities, to lodge financial guarantees with local banks, thereby absorbing valuable resources which cause mortal cash flow problems and which inhibit many such SMEs from entering the market
I would like to pause here and thank my colleague Mr Rübig for his two amendments which I accept.
They are aimed at helping the SME sector although I realise that we are adding to the exceptions I have already talked about.
This Commission proposal seeks to help business succeed in the single market.
Its aspiration is fine but its application is suspect.
I hope the Commission can reassure Parliament on all the concerns I have raised tonight in my report and I hope the Commissioner who has been unable to listen to the arguments I have set out - it seems rather purposeless when he is not here - will be able to respond to those specific points.
Madam President, I should like to begin by saying that our group broadly shares the arguments put forward by the rapporteur, to whom we are grateful for his work in this important field.
We particularly welcome all the measures which facilitate the work of SMEs, in keeping with the SLIM exercise which lies behind some of the proposals now before us.
We also welcome the pressure being brought to bear for a re-examination of the question of NGOs, so as to devise rules better suited to their activities, rather than imposing on them a seemingly unjustifiable fiscal regime subjecting them to irrecoverable VAT.
Our group came out against Amendment No 7, and I should now like to explain why.
In our opinion, the wording of this amendment is somewhat complicated: it covers various bodies, such as NGOs, which should have been handled separately. We also have our doubts about the call for a general strategy to improve the present transitional VAT regime while awaiting the definitive system.
In other words, we are afraid that - although several references are made to the definitive system, which we wish to see introduced as soon as possible - to lay down rules facilitating the transition without establishing a precise timetable is in fact a kind of pretext for postponing again and again a decision which should be taken as soon as possible.
The House, and Mr Harrison in particular, will recall that my own report on this subject called for a specific deadline: admittedly it was a little over-ambitious, but it was at least specific.
Unfortunately, the House rejected that proposal by just a few votes, most notably those of Mr Harrison and his group.
In conclusion, our group will vote in favour of all the amendments, albeit with two recommendations: firstly, that the Commission should take up our line of reasoning, Amendment No 7 in particular, so as to streamline and clarify the text; secondly, that our request for a swift transition to the definitive VAT system should be reflected somehow, by setting a deadline or by giving strong arguments for the continued postponement.
Amendments Nos 8 and 9, with which we agree - because there could be simpler ways of providing guarantees than those envisaged - would, for instance, become redundant if the definitive system were introduced.
Finally, we can endorse all Mr Harrison's arguments during this interim phase; let us vow to move ahead as rapidly as possible, and then many of these problems will cease to exist.
Madam President, I want to congratulate Mr Harrison on the presentation of his report.
The present system of VAT is so designed that the tax receipt is directly collected by the Member States on whose territory the consumption of the goods or services sold is deemed to take place.
In order to ensure this direct allocation of the tax, complex rules have been laid down.
Traders who wish to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the advent of the single market on 1 January 1993 usually perceive the need to fulfil tax obligations in several Member States as a barrier to the free movement of goods and services.
The internal market could not operate in a productive manner unless more user-friendly rules were implemented at national and European level in the area of tax collection.
In May 1997 the Commission proposed that VAT collection be included in the second phase of the SLIM programme.
Following this recommendation the Commission undertook to introduce legislation to simplify tax representation.
A panel of experts was also employed to advise the European Union on these various tax matters.
I welcome the efforts being made by the Union to simplify the tax regime in the area of VAT.
The Sixth VAT Directive allows traders who carry out taxable transactions in a given country to be the person liable to pay tax to the appropriate authorities.
However, the main features of the present legislation, as regards the determination of the persons liable for the payment of tax, are extremely complex and there is a wide difference in its actual proposed applications due to the many different tax options which are available to the Member States in addressing this issue.
In conclusion, I support the broad thrust of these measures but there is clearly more work to be done in simplifying the area of tax across the Union.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that this report by Mr Harrison is an important step that will allow us to further simplify VAT legislation by means of the rules governing the legislation on VAT representation and on mutual assistance on recovery.
I feel that these points are of particular importance for small and medium-sized enterprises.
We already know that the VAT system has many different legal bases in the European Union.
In my opinion Amendment No 6 is a typical example of how the system can be simplified, for instance in the case of goods installed, so that simplifications can also be made in this area.
Unfortunately, Mr Monti has not yet arrived.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Taxation of energy products
The next item is the second report (A4-0171/99) by Mr Cox, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive on restructuring the Community framework for the taxation of energy products (COM(97)0030 - C4-0155/97-97/0111(CNS)).
Madam President, I regret that Commissioner Monti is not here, not because I want to make a pedantic point about his absence, but rather because I would have liked to say this to him personally and have it put on the record in the House.
But even in his absence I am happy to do so.
He is one of a number of Commissioners in the present caretaker college whose resignation because of circumstances not to do with himself I deeply regret.
He has performed his European public function commendably and I would like to put that on the record.
I do not know whether in the future he is likely to be renominated or redesignated but in any event he is one of the many innocent victims of the fall-out of recent events and I would like to record that on my own behalf.
For those colleagues who are here I have little to add to what I said several weeks ago.
In substance the report before us is based on the Commission's proposal, which is itself a useful proposal.
In terms of Parliament's approach to it I hope we vote 'yes' to new taxes, but 'no' to more taxes.
In other words we want to see the tax base expand through the energy tax, but we want to state clearly and politically to the Commission and to the Council that we would like to see offsets of this new expanded energy tax base being recycled into lowering the tax wedge, the tax cost and labour.
That is the reason we support this; it is not the only reason but a major reason.
To those who look at structural unemployment problems in the European Union and who condemn the high levels of unemployment but who refuse to contemplate, through their votes in this House, a broadening of the tax base in areas such as energy, I would say: could they please tell us on the record where will we find the alternative resources to address the tax crisis in a number of states to do with structural problems and unemployment.
My second general point: this proposal should not be exaggerated.
It is modest but useful.
However, in my opinion and in the opinion of the majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs it is riddled with too many exceptions.
We support the Monti proposal but we want a greener Monti proposal.
We support some exceptions but we want the emphasis on green exceptions.
With regard to tax rates, as before we propose not a complex system of coming back on the question every so many years, but an accelerator principle to be subject to review potentially every five years.
We recognise that in some firms and sectors the energy cost may be very high as a proportion of total cost and for such firms and such sectors we need a mechanism to recognise and address the competitive handicap.
We believe that competitive handicap can be addressed by allowing Member States some degree of discretion, but in my view it should be subject to Commission review.
There is an amendment tomorrow to that effect, specifying how the Commission might review requests from sectors and Member States who plead a special case, and that amendment should be adopted, because this should not be used as a carte blanche simply to ignore the tax.
In summary, we support a new energy and eco-tax system but we do not support more taxes per se .
In other words, we demand fiscal neutrality.
We insist that the price of introducing this is that we lower labour taxes.
We want a simpler and more certain tax- based definition.
We want a more predictable base-deepening formula through an accelerator principle to determine the evolution of tax rates, given the new tax base.
We want competitive handicap to be recognised and addressed but only where that is genuine and not simply a carte blanche to ignore the tax altogether.
If that happens - and I hope it will happen in the vote - then I will recommend to colleagues that this is a report worth supporting.
Last time out, Madam President, we narrowly missed getting a majority.
That arose partly through a misunderstanding of some of the detail.
I hope there will be no misunderstandings tomorrow and indeed that some of the sceptics might re-read the report in substance and realise it is the way of the future.
I therefore commend the report to the House.
Mr Monti has just arrived.
I can only tell you, Commissioner, that Mr Cox has just had some very kind words to say about you, but perhaps you will be able to read them afterwards in our verbatim report of proceedings!
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy, I would like to say that, in general, we agree with the three objectives put forward by the Commission in this directive: harmonising taxes, reducing emissions by increasing costs, and using this revenue to reduce social charges.
However, this is not very well planned, Mr Cox.
Do you know what kind of a reduction we would see in the emission of pollutants, particularly CO2 , if we were to increase prices, as you propose? We would not even see a reduction of 1 %.
We are making too great a fuss over something that will provide very few results.
Furthermore, we are currently trying to lower the price of electricity and gas through the liberalisation of the markets because energy in Europe is expensive and it is very difficult for us to compete with Japan and the United States.
We are trying to do everything at once but this is not the time for that.
We must do one thing at a time.
In any case, the amendments you are proposing will produce an increase in charges.
Nevertheless, according to the economic studies carried out by the Commission's advisers, 150 000 jobs would be created and a 1 % reduction in CO2 emissions achieved.
It is true that the macroeconomic effects would be minor - neither inflation nor the deficit would rise a great deal - but at the moment our countries are all committed to their stability programmes.
In other words, I do not believe that your report is very timely, although this does not mean that I do not think that it is a good report.
I do not feel that this is the right time for it, nor is it the right time for the Commission's proposal.
I am sorry to say that our group will not be supporting your amendments, Mr Cox.
Indeed, if this report is voted through, it will be quite unrealistic since it achieves very little.
In any event, you and I can be assured that progress will be made in this area in the future. But perhaps this is not the right time for it or the right time to introduce new taxes.
You say 'no new taxes' and you are right.
But this should also apply to energy, since it is already very highly taxed in Europe.
Madam President, Mr Cox's report was good and is now better.
It deserves our support, as does Commissioner Monti.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Cox, as we said before when discussing this report, our position has not altered since Mr Cox's position has not altered in his report.
At the time, we put forward our analysis of the Commission's proposal, which indicated that it was perhaps overly ambitious.
It hopes to achieve three objectives through a single set of rules, and we all know that the effectiveness of a set of rules is normally inversely proportional to the number of objectives it has.
As Mrs Estevan Bolea pointed out, the three objectives are quite ambitious and Mr Cox's report tries to help us understand the exceptions and how they will be applied. This is difficult to achieve with a set of fiscal rules that are actually designed to extend the scope of the tax.
In cases where new scope is defined for fiscal rules, such as VAT, there are many very detailed exceptions.
We are talking here about rules proposed by the Commission that increase the excise duty on oil products and increase taxation on energy products.
These are complicated rules and they also seek to meet environmental objectives that are difficult to achieve or that entail massive marginal costs, as Mrs Estevan Bolea explained.
Moreover, there is no certainty as to the fiscal neutrality of the rules, or at least we have not been able to find it anywhere.
We therefore have no guarantees that the rules will be fiscally neutral.
We believe that Mr Cox has tried to simplify the exceptions, but we do not agree with this as we believe that it would be very difficult for the Commission to manage.
We are back to the famous method of giving the Commission, via the Member States, countless individual cases and authorisations to deal with according to the level of energy consumption, and so on.
Nonetheless, we do believe that there have to be some rules.
And, as Mrs Estevan Bolea mentioned, we will eventually have to do something.
Perhaps we will have to divide up the objectives into various sets of rules and simplify the application of the ones we are discussing. Their objectives are commendable, but we believe that it would be extremely difficult to work towards them at this present moment in time.
As a result, Mr Cox, we will maintain the same position tomorrow as we did a few weeks ago, since, as far as we can see, the substance of your report has not changed in any way and, therefore, the Commission proposal has not been altered.
Madam President, Mr Cox has collaborated in producing a report which creates a sound basis for a review of energy taxation, for which I thank him sincerely.
Obviously, our group supports its chairman's report.
Energy taxation is one of the best and most effective controls which society can use to reduce emissions and try to protect and improve the environment.
The main argument in the report is that Member States should be left some leeway when it comes to applying taxation, so long as the single market is not affected.
This has to be regarded as only right, as does the principle that renewable energy sources should not come within the scope of the directive.
The argument that there should be continued support for the production of combined electricity and heating is extremely important and most welcome.
The rapporteur, Patrick Cox, has already simplified and clarified the Commission's proposal, but in my opinion it could have been simplified still further.
The minimum levels of taxation mentioned in Articles 7 and 8 could even be harmonised.
Levels of taxation for fuels used for production and those used for heating are now so close to one another that they could be harmonised.
I would like to emphasise the importance of two details here.
Firstly, peat should in future become recognised incontrovertibly as a renewable biomass.
A marsh will produce roughly the same amount of peat in a year as a forest does wood pulp per unit area.
Thus, peat is unquestionably a renewable source of energy.
It is important to make this point, as peat is and will be of tremendous importance in the Nordic countries and Ireland too, for example.
The second point is this.
The tax on aircraft fuel should be left for individual countries to decide themselves.
There are big differences in air traffic density among the Member States.
Internal air traffic in small countries is insignificant, but in the large Member States, such as Finland, it is extremely important.
For this reason, a harmonised taxation system would not treat different Member States fairly.
Taking these observations into account, I believe the report is excellent and I give it my wholehearted support.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome this report as a small step in the right direction.
It is clear to all of us that a great deal still remains to be done before we can finally achieve a breakthrough in the area of energy taxation.
But it is essential for us that the second stage of ecological tax reform in Germany is not slowed down by Brussels and that in the medium-term we can finally reach a stage where there are pioneer states that can lead the way in the European Union.
We are particularly pleased that there are exceptions that are 'green' and that involve not only energy-intensive operations but also - and this must be clear to everyone - environmentally friendly renewable energies that can be exempted from energy taxation.
The fact that nuclear energy is also to be taxed pleases us greatly, as otherwise we would have an imbalance in the energy taxation proposal.
We are pleased that our amendment received a majority in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy because it is crucial for us that local public transport can be exempted.
For there is one thing that we must not forget: this energy taxation has a purpose, which is to help the environment and help to meet the commitment that we undertook to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
This is what all these various possibilities are designed to do.
What we need now is for the Council of Ministers to reach agreement as soon as possible.
In this context I am pleased to inform you that the German Minister for the Environment, Mr Trittin, is endeavouring, during his visits to the Member States, to ensure that we reach agreement on this issue as soon as possible.
Madam President, it is most regrettable that the Cox report is only now coming before the plenary again after being postponed for two months.
On the other hand, I am glad that Mr Cox's report has not lost too much of its force in the intervening period. It still offers a clear alternative to the hybrid Commission proposal.
A large number of counter-productive derogations have been scrapped, and I shall be glad to support the Cox report.
The Council must now make up its mind.
Either it sticks to the international agreements on limiting CO2 emissions and reducing environmental pollution or it opts for the unclear situation of the status quo, with further damage to our climate system as a result.
I am in favour of abolishing the exemption from tax for civil aviation fuel.
If the European Union unilaterally introduced a tax, however, this might lead to considerable distortion of aircraft movements.
I think an excellent alternative would be an overflying tax as advocated earlier, in conjunction with air traffic control services.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in international competition we need a sensible form of energy taxation.
In my opinion there are several reasons why the issue of energy taxation is one of the most forward-looking debates in the European Union and beyond.
Positively speaking, it mainly involves a system of incentives to encourage an economical and efficient use of our resources.
But we must proceed with restraint to ensure that the baby - and therefore the economy - is not thrown out with the bathwater.
After all, we are not against the introduction of harmonised energy taxation in principle.
However, with it we must guarantee a level playing field in terms of competition.
My country, for example, has taken a leading role in this area.
Accordingly, the general introduction of upper limits on taxation for energy-intensive firms, as provided in Article 15 of the Commission proposal, makes a great deal of sense.
We should not forget that such firms have already in the past updated their technical equipment and brought their energy consumption closer to minimum levels.
In this case higher energy tax cannot achieve any further saving.
We can prevent the increased costs that this would entail and thus support the competitiveness of our companies and of Europe as a location for business.
For this reason we should also think about discontinuing the optional exemption of energy products that are not used as fuel and of energy products that are used to produce electricity and heat, as provided in Article 13.
In any case, those Member States whose energy taxation rates are above the minimum level should at least be given the opportunity to adjust their taxation levels accordingly.
A flexible system of upper limits could make it possible to find reasonable solutions.
I should like, first of all, to present my apologies to you, Madam President, as well as to all Members of Parliament in the Chamber at this time, in particular to Mr Harrison and Mr Cox, the two rapporteurs.
Although I had planned my flight with plenty of time to spare, that proved insufficient.
I apologise for this.
I would like to thank Mr Cox for what I understand have been very generous words on his part.
I would also like to thank Mr Spencer.
Mr Cox, the report you have drafted and the conclusions you have drawn are extremely interesting and important.
I am very pleased that you support the reasoning behind this proposal and the manner in which that reasoning is translated into action.
The Commission has put a proposal to the Council, the main thrust of which is the need to modernise the Community system for the taxation of mineral oils and to extend its scope to all energy products.
This is necessary to improve the functioning of the single market by reducing the tax-induced distortions that exist at present.
The Commission has also used the proposal to meet its obligation to review minimum rates of taxation on mineral oils and, at the same time, to respond to the ECOFIN Council request to come forward with new proposals following the deadlock in the negotiations on the CO2 energy tax.
I need hardly add that in this context there is growing concern about the environmental effects of the combustion of fossil fuels.
This has been highlighted by the recent adoption by the Council of emission targets for the Union in response to the Kyoto Protocol.
The achievement of these targets will not be easy and fiscal measures are one of the concrete tools which can be utilised to assist in the task.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2, 3, 11, 12, 13, 23, 32, 33 and parts of Amendment No 25.
However, the suggestion that we should move straight to the second stage of minimum rates from January 2000 and increase these annually by the rate of inflation plus 2 % for five years cannot be accepted.
So far as deletion of the initial stage of the minimum levels of taxation is concerned, it is true that the operative date of 1 January 1998 belongs to the past.
However, discussions in the Council have shown that even the proposed minimum levels are causing difficulties for a number of Member States.
Any increase in these levels is therefore not acceptable.
The same applies to the suggestion that minimum tax levels should be increased annually by inflation plus 2 % for a period of five years.
The Commission proposal restricts the increase to the rate of inflation in order to assist Member States who would be required to impose substantial increases in tax simply to attain the proposed minimum levels.
To require them in addition to impose further increases in excess of inflation is unacceptable.
The removal of most of the proposed compulsory and optional exemptions and reductions relating to products which are not currently taxed cannot be accepted.
These exemptions and reductions have been formulated for a number of reasons.
Some exist in current legislation; others are necessary to reflect Community obligations under international agreements and a further group is considered necessary to protect the competitiveness of Community enterprises.
Finally, I should just add a word or two on Mr Harrison's report.
This exercise in simplification, which recently led the Commission to present a proposal for a directive on the right to deduct, is a top priority for us.
This proposed directive constitutes one more step in that direction; in essence, its aim is to prevent national administrations in future from obliging non-resident traders to appoint a tax representative.
I am pleased to note that Mr Harrison's report backs this approach and welcomes the Commission's proposal.
However, the amendments do not strike me as acceptable; but I assure you that the Commission shares the rapporteur's view that the adoption of the definitive system will constitute the final and most important simplification for traders.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Heating systems for passenger compartments
The next item is the report (A4-0170/99) by Mrs Billingham, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 78/548/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to heating systems for the passenger compartment of motor vehicles (COM(98)0526 - C4-0552/98-98/0277(COD)).
Since the rapporteur is not present, Mr Rübig is the first speaker.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, you will all remember the discussion that we have had several times in this Chamber in the course of the last year.
Parliament developed a completely new approach to technical legislation in the context of the debates on the EU bus construction directive and the Murphy report.
The European legislator would draw up the political framework, then the users and experts, particularly from the field of standardisation, would sort out the details in working groups.
In this way we would achieve a greater degree of agreement and acceptance among those concerned.
We take the key concept of simplifying legislation very seriously.
The present proposal could also be implemented using this system.
The text might then read as follows: 'Interior heating systems for cars must be such that they can be operated safely; they must be covered sufficiently to prevent passengers from being burned, and finally they should emit few harmful chemicals'.
A technical working group could then have developed the details from these principles.
In this context I am keenly awaiting the Council's common position on the bus directive, as I am sure that through codecision we will not only find a solution to this dossier but we will be able to set the course for the future.
With regard to Parliament's report it remains to be said that we fully support Mrs Billingham's amendments.
Moreover, we consider efficiency tests for heaters to be both necessary and important as the quality of fitted heaters must be quantifiable, for example whether the engine coolant can be brought to operating temperature before the engine is started.
Amendment No 10 also deals with the passenger safety aspect.
If the heater is to be installed in the passenger compartment it should be securely compartmented off.
We do not wish to restrict ourselves to a single type of design for this, however, and for this reason, in Amendment No 12, we advocate a general heat-resistant material.
I would like to express my thanks for the cooperation that was achieved with the experts and the rapporteur, and I look forward with anticipation to tomorrow's vote.
Madam President, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Billingham, for her in-depth examination of our proposal and her excellent report.
The aim of the proposal amending Council Directive 78/548/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to heating systems for the passenger compartment of motor vehicles is to broaden the scope of the directive, extending it from cars alone to all vehicle categories.
Furthermore it contains new provisions on combustion heaters, to ensure that such systems comply with strict safety and environmental protection standards compatible with modern technology.
The Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1 to 6 and Nos 8, 9 and 11.
Amendments Nos 1 to 3 and Nos 5, 6 and 8 basically clarify the original proposal, whereas Nos 4, 9 and 11 relate to specific safety aspects of combustion heaters.
The Commission too is keen to lay down adequate safety provisions and therefore welcomes these amendments.
However, the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 7, 10 and 12.
No 7 commits the Commission to drawing up proposals for testing the efficiency of combustion heaters by 1 October 2001.
The Commission believes that it will be market operators who guarantee a high level of efficiency in this field, and that legislative action is therefore unnecessary.
What is more, the conformity of combustion heaters with the provisions of the directive will ensure that high levels of safety and environmental protection are maintained, in line with modern technology.
If any specific problems or technological innovations change this situation in the future, the Commission will be informed by the national type-approval authorities in the appropriate working groups and will adopt the necessary measures.
Moreover, as regards the date of entry into force, 1 October 2001 seems a somewhat unrealistic deadline for new legislative initiatives.
Amendments Nos 10 and 12 offer an alternative to the positioning of combustion heaters in the passenger compartment of coaches and minibuses.
The Commission proposal permits the installation of heating systems in the passenger compartment as long as a hermetically sealed casing is used which is fireproof even if it overheats.
The wording of these amendments guarantees a level of safety which is equivalent to, if not lower than, that envisaged in the directive; in particular, they do not explicitly guarantee the same safety level in relation to the risk of fire.
In conclusion, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1 to 6 and Nos 8, 9 and 11, but is obliged to reject Amendments Nos 7, 10 and 12.
The Commission intends to pursue its useful dialogue with the European Parliament in the conviction that a constructive solution can be found.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
The sitting was closed at 10.04 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, my attendance is not recorded even though, as you know, I was here because I sat in the Bureau with you for two hours.
That will be corrected, Mr Balfe.
The Minutes were approved
Mr President, I want to draw to your attention the fact that the agriculture debates will be starting in a few minutes. The amendments to two of the reports are still not available in English.
I asked for the amendments yesterday evening.
One set had appeared by this morning - to the Fantuzzi report - but there are still no copies in English of the amendments to the Jové Peres and Happart reports.
It really is not good enough to expect us to debate when we do not have the amendments in our own language.
Mrs Hardstaff, I have been informed by my services that there was a technical problem.
The translations will be circulated as soon as possible.
Mr President, I merely wish to refer to the problems concerning the accessibility of the airports around Strasbourg.
Along with many other Members, I am often unable to arrive on time at the start of a sitting. This is because although the city of Strasbourg provides us with a free transfer service, the operators try to make up large groups of passengers, and at times we have had to wait one and a half or two hours for a sufficient number of travellers to arrive.
I am grateful to the city of Strasbourg for the service it provides for us free of charge but I do feel, however, that the previous arrangements should be reinstated to ensure a more flexible service.
We have been informed of budget cuts, and I appreciate that cost is an important consideration. Nevertheless, if we are truly serious about saving money, we should only come to Strasbourg once or twice a year and meet in Brussels the rest of the time as it is much cheaper.
We all enjoy coming to Strasbourg, but we would like to see a return to the previous standard of services.
Thank you very much.
I think we are all mindful of what you have just told us.
We will continue our representations to the French authorities and we shall see if there is some way in which we can improve things, since I am aware of the problems that you face.
Mr President, yesterday morning I left home at 8.10.
Having arrived at the airport and boarded the plane, I was told my flight had been cancelled.
We arrived here last night at 10.40. That is 14 hours of travelling to get to this place.
Quite frankly, if Air France cannot provide a better service to Strasbourg airport then a lot of British Members are just not going to turn up in Strasbourg.
Mr Corrie, I would not be adding very much if I said that you have all our sympathy, but that does not change anything.
Yesterday evening, we heard a similar story in the Bureau from Mr Collins, a Vice-President.
Unfortunately, there are problems.
However, I do not want to continue this discussion now.
Mr President, I would like the European Parliament to take note of the fact that last night a missile fired by NATO hit a passenger train in Yugoslavia, claiming dozens of victims, both dead and wounded.
It is not yet certain - at least I do not know - whether there were Greek journalists on that train who were travelling within Yugoslavia.
I believe that this catastrophic act perpetrated against the people of Yugoslavia and against a civilian means of transport is a clear violation of human rights and may even be regarded as a crime against humanity. I think that the European Parliament must denounce these actions and this disaster that is taking place in Europe.
Mr Theonas, a debate will take place tomorrow in the presence of the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo and all these problems.
Mr President, I want to raise a point of order.
Although the preceding points of order may all seem rather disparate, in actual fact they are not.
With regard to the transport problems, I must remind you that we are allies and so, in this case, Air France should not be criticised because the problems are due to air traffic having been disrupted by the military flights over Serbia and Kosovo.
Those who like criticising France may gain satisfaction from doing so but they are quite simply mistaken.
Thank you very much for those explanations, Mr Duhamel. I think we have dealt with enough problems that are outside the agenda, and we must now proceed with our agenda.
Agriculture
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am today presenting my final report to this House as I will be standing down at the elections on 13 June.
I will be returning to southern Belgium to continue my work of promoting European construction in other ways.
We need Europe and our children even more so.
Before the 1992 reform of the common agricultural policy, the report on agricultural prices was one of the most sought-after and most prestigious reports.
Although this has now lost its attraction, the prices for agricultural products still form the bulk of farmers' income, providing between 60 % and 80 % depending on the types of product.
My intention with these proposals to adjust agricultural prices is to send a clear message to the European farming community. I want to assure them that this House intends to defend their legitimate interests at a particularly difficult time when doubt is creeping in among farmers, particularly the younger ones.
We are increasingly telling our farmers about the necessary enlargement of the European Union and they are not against this.
Some have already set up in the new areas, mainly in Poland.
However, they do not want the farming community to have to foot the bill for this enlargement.
They are prepared to make the necessary effort and sacrifices as citizens of Europe, like everyone else, but only to a fair and equal degree.
This is why I am talking about adjustment and not increase. Is it a crime to compensate for the loss of 1.9 % due to the changeover from the green ecu to the euro?
Is it a crime to include farmers when compensating for the inflation rate of 1.9 % given that other European workers are justifiably benefiting from this compensation? For example, I am very happy for the German steel workers who have obtained a 4 % wage increase.
The European Parliament must ignore the Council of Ministers and the national governments which only want to recover the unspent amounts in order to help balance their domestic budgets. In addition, the richest of these governments want this money in order to partially renationalise their agriculture, with blatant disregard for farmers in the poorest Member States.
If the Council had at least had the courage to refinance the Structural Funds by transferring the budget allocations, farmers could have been bailed out.
What hope can we give and what jobs can we offer for the future to the 200 000 farmers leaving the profession every year in Europe? Between 500 and 600 farmers are leaving farming every day, with this figure reaching over 3 000 per week in certain areas.
The desertification of the countryside due to the farmers' exodus is killing the rural environment.
If we cannot save the rural society of the poorest regions today, what will we do tomorrow when the USA, having imposed on us its dollar bananas and hormonised meat, forces us to abandon these areas in the name of the World Trade Organisation?
I do not want a society 'made in the USA' for my children, where money is more important than people.
I want the opposite.
If we do not adjust these prices and provide the necessary refinancing of the Structural Funds, we will destroy the individuality of European agriculture where diversity goes hand in hand with quality.
Mr President, the Commission's proposal amounts to minor modifications of the COM in fresh fruit and vegetables and the processing of citrus fruits.
Where fresh fruit and vegetables are concerned, it is proposed to meet the cost of selecting and packing products to be distributed free of charge from the Community budget.
Clearly, if what is involved is providing an alternative to the withdrawal and distribution of products, free distribution should not become burdensome to the producer organisations.
In addition, the Commission has proposed authorising members of producer organisations to sell part of their produce outside the commercial circuits of the producer organisation to which they belong.
As a result of the 1996 reform, most of the instruments designed to regulate the market were replaced by producer organisations' operating funds.
The producer organisations play a central role in the COM and it is essential to avoid any modification of the regulations which might weaken them.
The Commission has proposed making it easier for members of recognised producer organisations to sell a limited part of their produce direct to the consumer.
We might wonder how a producer organisation can regard as a right the abandonment of its main purpose - marketing its members' produce.
To date, direct sales have been severely restricted and can only take place on the producer's farm.
This approach could have a negative effect on the main role of producer organisations - marketing their members' produce.
Although current regulations ought to be sufficiently flexible to adapt to local situations, there is no justification for jeopardising the general system in order to comply with local practice which is far removed from areas where the bulk of the Community's production of fruit and vegetables is concentrated.
In such cases, it would seem wiser to resort to subsidiarity and to allow each Member State to regulate local practice as appropriate.
However, to avoid undermining the main purpose of producer organisations, any exemption should be accompanied by a tightening of the limits on the amount of its members' produce that can be marketed outside the producer organisation so as to offset the producer organisation's loss of marketable production.
Concerning the production of citrus fruits for processing, the present system leads to serious delays in the receipt of aid. In the case of citrus fruits processed at the start of the season, aid sometimes arrives twelve months later.
The anticipatory scheme only partly compensates for these delays and some producer organisations are likely to be tempted to stop handing over their production for processing and to opt instead for the withdrawal arrangements.
The Commission has come up with an appropriate proposal to resolve this problem.
Aid has been granted for the processing of citrus fruits since 1976, and in the intervening period it has proved necessary to correct and prevent interference between the withdrawal scheme and the processing scheme.
Great care should be taken when setting the conditions for aid to processing in order to prevent withdrawal from becoming a more attractive option than processing.
The Commission's proposal does not resolve the imbalance between the thresholds set for the processing of citrus fruits and production reality.
This situation could result in the processing of citrus fruits becoming less profitable than withdrawal.
An increase in withdrawals would have a negative effect on the environment and public opinion would be much more strongly opposed to it than it would be to aid to processing.
The lack of balance between the commitment appropriations and the actual payments highlights the imbalance between the instruments for the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables.
Following reform of the COM in fruit and vegetables, a surplus in commitment appropriations of ECU 400 million over payments was recorded.
Yet the thresholds set for processed citrus fruits have resulted in chronic inadequacies in budget allocations.
It is therefore proposed to increase the threshold to the average quantities processed in the last four years. An additional expenditure of ECU 64 million would be involved.
This figure falls well within the financial margin of expenditure not incurred for withdrawals.
Another cause of destabilisation of the system is the lack of a penalty limit.
A 20 % limit on penalties should be set. In this connection, it is worth remembering that such a system existed in the past and is indeed still applied to other regulated produce subject to thresholds.
Mr President, I wholeheartedly welcome this proposal for a regulation on measures to promote agricultural products in third countries.
It is a sign that, despite all the difficulties and uncertainties over reform of the CAP following the agreements reached in Berlin, some important and innovative moves are afoot.
It is also a sign that agricultural products are in need nowadays not so much of policies to defend and protect them but of aggressive, innovative policies to promote them judiciously on third countries' markets.
All too often - not least in this House - we have heard talk of globalisation as though it merely meant net losses for European agriculture.
This initiative puts us back on the right track: globalisation also offers unique opportunities for European agriculture.
After all, there is growing demand in the world for high-quality farm produce and food, and the EU has the highest standards of food, safety and quality in the world.
Therefore we should not stand on the sidelines hoping for the best, but should equip ourselves with the appropriate instruments and strategies to be competitive and to make the most of this growth in demand around the world for high-quality agri-food products.
Flooding world markets with low added-value commodities is the wrong approach, since it will be increasingly difficult to compete on such commodities with countries whose costs are lower than our own; furthermore, as we are aware, the WTO has placed both volume and value-based ceilings on export refunds; and lastly, we know that the new Millennium Round talks are to begin soon and should not have too many illusions.
What is more, Commissioner, we might get into hot water over these issues and make our presence felt rather late in the day.
I see from the budget of the US Department of Agriculture that, in the three years from 1996 to 1999, over USD 150 million per year was spent on policies to support the internationalisation of agriculture.
Of course, some promotional work has already been done in the EU - geared likewise to non-European countries - in the general context of promotion activities, the most outstanding in recent years being support for the IOOC initiative to promote olive oil on world markets.
I should like to conclude with four points.
The first is that this should be an opportunity to bring together and integrate all the promotional measures, not just those geared to external markets, but also those relating to the European internal market.
Too many fragmentary initiatives have been devised with different motives, timing and procedures, and this opportunity should be taken to put them all into some kind of order.
The second is that a budget increase is required.
If this initiative is to be a serious one, it cannot be restricted to EUR 15 million - a derisory sum - and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development has proposed that, for 2000 to 2003, the funding should be boosted from EUR 30 m to 50 m.
By the same token, the funding for all the promotional activities scheduled under Agenda 2000, limited to EUR 100 m from now until 2006, may be inadequate.
My third point is that a more long-term view is needed.
It is no accident that we have proposed extending from two to three years the period for revising the list of products to fall under the promotional measures and the duration of the programmes, in order to lend greater certainty and effectiveness to the measures.
My fourth and final point is that the basic principle behind this regulation should be adhered to, namely subsidiarity and complementarity, in order that initiatives are not imposed from Brussels in a clean sweep but that they complement, blend with and in turn stimulate similar measures devised by the national authorities and by producers' associations, so that all the players involved in European agriculture and in its future challenges are following the same approach.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the explanatory statement of the opinion I am privileged to present to you today, the REX Committee has indicated that, in its view, the Commission's proposal is very important and represents a great opportunity.
The reform of the common agricultural policy in the framework of Agenda 2000 ought indeed to include a package of external measures providing for the development of actions to promote and provide information on agricultural products in third countries.
Such actions must be aimed at increasing the competitiveness of European products on the world markets, and to this end, it is essential to promote their image.
Information and publicity ought to result in good outlets for quality Community products with regulated designations of origin, particularly when countries with stringent quality requirements are targeted. These countries usually have high purchasing power.
The present initiative is particularly timely as the results of the campaign to promote olive oil and fibre flax, to which Mr Fantuzzi also referred, are already available. Sales of these products outside the Community have increased thanks to ad hoc methods of promotion.
The proposal, which has been amended by the Committee on Agriculture, lists a whole range of possible actions. Nevertheless, the best publicity will always be the quality, safety, hygiene, labelling and respect for the environment that are characteristic of Community products.
The REX Committee is certainly in favour of this proposal and believes that it merits consideration.
Nevertheless, as Mr Fantuzzi also pointed out, there are some grounds for concern as to whether such an ambitious project can be adequately financed through the annual sum of only EUR 15 million allocated to it until the year 2003.
In view of the large sums allocated to the CAP, there could well be scope for an increase in funding. If wisely managed, this would enable our exports to grow in an increasingly globalised international trading environment.
I shall conclude, Mr President, by reiterating that the REX Committee supports this proposal. The committee is particularly in favour of the principle on which the proposal is based, namely, strengthening the Union's commercial policy through the promotion of agricultural products in third countries.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I should like to put an oral question concerning the present state of the market for garlic.
This is certainly not a new situation. It is a recurring problem, but I feel it is important to draw attention to it, particularly as unofficial imports of garlic from third countries are directly responsible for the collapse of the garlic market.
I should reiterate that this is not a new situation, and the reason for putting this question now is that in accordance with Regulation No 1137/98 of 29 May, the period in which import licences may be granted for a maximum of 12 000 tonnes of garlic from China is due to expire on 31 May.
According to the figures I have available, total imports for 1998 total approximately 50 000 tonnes, though average imports for the European Union in the period 1990-1997 were only of the order of 40 000 tonnes.
It is surprising to find references to countries such as Malaysia - which did not export any garlic to the European Union in 1993 - Jordan and India suddenly appearing. The figures of 7 300 tonnes, 6 167 tonnes and almost 1 000 tonnes respectively for 1998 are quoted, over and above the nominal 12 000 tonnes from China.
This immediately gives rise to suspicions that triangular operations may be taking place involving garlic of Chinese origin which arrives here following deals with third countries.
As a result, the quota and safeguard procedures are becoming meaningless. The situation has been further aggravated by the failure to insist on certificates of origin for imported garlic and by the failure to apply the appropriate tariff codes correctly to differentiate between green garlic with undeveloped cloves and garlic to be sold dried or partly dried.
It seems that the Commission needs to be reminded that this particular crop is of great social significance in certain areas: it is produced mainly in regions with structural problems - Objective 1 regions. It should also be borne in mind that in addition to adopting the set of measures applied to date, there is a need for further measures, and the possibility of aid to rural development could be floated.
What is at issue is a fall in production in areas such as Castile-La Mancha, Castile-Leon and Andalusia, which are all Objective 1 regions. Their economic activity revolves around this product as it represents the only means of making a living in these areas.
Documents produced by the Commission reveal that it is aware of the problem. For instance, Regulation No 1197 states that, since 1993, the Commission has noted a significant increase in imports of garlic from China relative to previous years.
As far as I am aware, the cost of producing garlic in the European Union is of the order of 220 pesetas per kilo whereas Chinese garlic is priced at around 135 pesetas per kilo. Clearly, the ensuing fall in the price of garlic could cause a significant upheaval in the Community market.
Indeed, this is already happening.
In Regulation No 544, the Commission states that following the introduction of a safeguard clause relating to the import of garlic from China, a significant increase in imports of garlic from certain third countries with no tradition of exporting garlic to the Community has suddenly taken place over the last few years.
The Commission itself has suggested that this raises doubts as to the true origin of the garlic imported from these third countries.
Imports of garlic of dubious origin have continued to increase.
In the light of this data provided by the Commission itself and since the market is collapsing, it is essential to put pressure on the Commission to take action to remedy the situation.
Given that the Commission is aware of the situation and that it is also aware that the measures taken so far are inadequate - as the state of the market proves - it is simply not acceptable that no further measures are being taken.
The garlic producers have raised the possibility of setting a maximum world trading quota, and of even setting a deterrent tariff barrier for quantities above this maximum world trading quota.
I realise that these issues will be dealt with during future negotiations.
We would, however, urge the Commission to remain vigilant and to introduce appropriate measures to prevent the annual drop in producers' incomes. I should emphasise once again that their income has been falling year on year since 1993.
Finally, I should like to take advantage of this opportunity to express my support for the reports by Mr Jové and Mr Fantuzzi, particularly as regards the processing of citrus fruits and aid for the promotion of agricultural products in third countries.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would ask you to bear with me if what I have to say takes some time, but I do now have to comment on four different reports.
I should like to start straight away with the price proposals for the 1999/2000 marketing year.
The proposals which the Commission has made are in line with the same stability policy which has already been pursued in preceding price packages.
They are primarily intended to guarantee the rollover which is necessary for legal reasons.
The reform will in any case mean that in future, far fewer market management parameters will need to be set on an annual basis.
Under these circumstances, the Commission is proposing not to increase the amounts.
I believe that we should confine ourselves strictly to measures which do not run counter to the overall strategy agreed in Berlin.
At this point, I should also like to thank Mr Happart very much for his report, along with the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the members of the other committees who were actively involved in the preparatory work for this report.
With your permission, I will now turn to the amendments.
I will begin with those which seek to increase all the prices and aids so as to take account of the inflation rate of 1.9 % and the introduction of the euro.
This concerns the following groups of amendments: firstly, Amendments Nos 13, 16, 23, 33, 38 and 42 on the rate of inflation; then Amendments Nos 14, 17, 24, 34 and 39 on the introduction of the euro; and finally, Amendments Nos 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 27 to 31, 36 and 41 on raising prices.
The Commission cannot agree to these amendments, because they would run directly counter to the need to improve the competitiveness of Community produce, both in the internal market and on the world markets.
Secondly, this would involve additional expenditure of EUR 463 million for the year 2000.
If that is applied to the forthcoming financial framework from 2000 to 2006, the additional costs come to over EUR 3 billion.
Finally, this would also mean that we would be unable to honour our international commitments in full, that is those on reducing internal support.
Incidentally, Council Regulation No 2799/98 on the new agri-monetary arrangements provides in any case that if there is proven loss of income as a result of the introduction of the euro, then compensatory payments may be granted, provided that the conditions specified are met.
On Amendment No 1 on compulsory set-aside, which amounts to keeping the set-aside rate as it currently stands for the coming years, I should like to point out that part of the Berlin compromise is that a basic set-aside rate of 10 % should apply for the whole of the period from 2000 to 2006.
Amendment No 2 concerns flax and hemp and aims to promote the use of these agricultural products for non-food purposes.
I understand the reasons behind this amendment.
But I cannot agree to it, because this issue needs to be considered in a wider context.
It will also need to be taken into account when the future set-aside rate and the options for rural development measures are discussed.
Amendments Nos 4 and 5 seek to introduce new measures to manage pigmeat production.
I should simply like to draw your attention here to the fact that subsidising the pig sector at the present time will only compound the problem, because farmers will be less willing to reduce the size of their herds.
Implementing a proposal of this kind would also be very costly.
Incidentally, I might also point out here that in the management committee we have repeatedly invited the Member States to make structural proposals.
We have discussed all the variants which have been mentioned here.
The Member States did not find a single one of these attractive, and stated on the contrary that appropriate market management was a sufficient measure.
I now come to the amendments relating to the wine sector.
Amendments Nos 3 and 32 on the granting of permanent abandonment premiums in respect of wine-growing areas and extending the deadline for submitting applications for premiums for the 1999/2000 marketing year from 31 December 1999 to 31 March 2000 do not cause any difficulties.
However, the Commission is unable to accept the remaining amendments on the wine sector for the following reasons.
Firstly, this will either pre-empt the reform - which has been agreed at political level - or might even go against it.
Secondly, as regards the ban on planting new areas under vines, I might point out that this was extended in the last price package until 31 August 2000, and that in 1998 an additional 10 000 hectares of planting rights had to be granted for both the 1998/99 and 1999/2000 marketing years.
The Commission cannot agree to the other Amendments Nos 26 and 31 on the monthly reimbursement of storage costs for sugar, simply because the proposed reduction is indisputably due to the fall in interest rates.
In the light of the new timetable for the reform of the common organisation of the markets in the milk sector, Amendment No 35 is unjustified.
Finally, as regards the three amendments on the beef and veal sector, Amendments Nos 37, 40 and 41, I would point out that they are unnecessary in view of the proposals to reform this sector.
In conclusion, I would ask you to bear in mind that while we are waiting for Agenda 2000 to be implemented, we should on no account lose sight of the fact that underlying these price proposals are efforts to achieve greater simplification and stability which are reinforced by the broad consensus in this debate.
Since the report Mr Happart has presented today is his last, I wish to thank him very much and, Mr Happart, you can take this assurance with you for your continued political career: for as long as I work here, I will not allow the Americans to dominate European agriculture, but like you will fight for us to retain our independence in Europe!
I now turn to the report on a number of adjustments to the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables.
As you know, this is only the second marketing year that this new market organisation has been in force, and you also know that in any case it is intended to carry out a general review of the way this market organisation is operating next year.
This being the case, I think it is too early for us to make more far-reaching changes than the ones proposed at this stage.
During the recent negotiations on the price package, however, the Commission did agree to make a few minor adjustments so as to improve the way in which the market organisation operates.
That alone is therefore the aim of these proposals.
I should like to thank Mr Jové Peres for his report, in which he also registers a large degree of support for the Commission's proposals.
Like him, I too believe that it is necessary to strengthen the producer organisations, on which the major burden of market management clearly falls.
Mr Peres also refers to a number of problems which we will have to deal with during the forthcoming review.
The Commission therefore believes that many of the proposed amendments are premature and would not appear to be feasible without a detailed analysis.
This applies to Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4 and 6 to 9.
I can assure Parliament, however, that the Commission will pay careful attention to these points when it reviews the market organisation next year.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 2 and 5, because the producer organisations need to have the financial and technical capability to monitor their products appropriately.
That brings me to Mr Fantuzzi's report.
Here too, my particular thanks go to the rapporteur, but also to the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the other committees which have given their opinions on this proposal.
I am glad that the proposal has met with broad support.
The aim of the proposal is to create an operational instrument which will increase the international competitiveness of European agricultural products.
We must certainly not - and here I agree with Mr Fantuzzi - stand by and watch while our most important competitors in the new markets - such as those in south-east Asia and Latin America - pursue an active policy of export promotion, when we have nothing even remotely equivalent to set against it.
We will therefore have to make considerable efforts in this field in the future and develop a wide range of information and promotional measures so as to consolidate our position in these markets, particularly because European products are as a rule highly processed and that can only mean that jobs are also at stake here.
The Commission will observe the principles of subsidiarity and complementarity and will essentially confine itself to acting as a link or as a catalyst and ensuring European added value.
Of course, we can only take action within our limited budget, and we should also make use of the best available know-how from outside.
This approach therefore requires the Member States - both the private and the public sector - to be heavily involved in terms of making cofinancing available and providing the necessary support for managing and monitoring the measures.
I should like to say the following on the proposed amendments: firstly, as far as the criteria for selecting the eligible products are concerned - this concerns Amendments Nos 1, 5, 6 and 9 - we believe that these amendments are superfluous because the Commission proposal already covers these points in a more general way.
According to the Commission proposal, the products which can be selected are those which are intended for direct consumption or processing.
In just the same way, organic products or products made using other specific production methods may be selected, as can processed foodstuffs, provided that the information and promotional measures are of sufficient benefit and are in the European interest.
As regards the nature and content of the measures to be supported, I can accept Amendment No 7.
The more precise statement of the target groups at which the measures should be directed, analysed in Amendment No 8, does not, however, seem to me to be necessary.
As far as your proposed adjustments to the procedure for drawing up the list of products and the question of how long this should remain valid are concerned - this relates to Amendments Nos 10, 11 and 14 - this might pose problems if we still want our policy to be sufficiently flexible and if we also want to keep it up to date at all times.
I actually think it would be better to consult the Standing Group on the Promotion of Agricultural Products - as it is called - from the very outset, if time allows, and also for the lists we draw up to remain valid for no longer than two years.
Introducing such rigid rules, as proposed in the amendments, could prevent our policy from having the best possible effect.
Your proposal only to work with those organisations which represent exclusively the Member States of the European Union or to which at least two Member States belong is not one I can accept, because we also attach great importance to working with international organisations, which of course have to show an appropriate European dimension.
You only have to think of the work of the Olive Oil Council.
As regards the obligation to consult the relevant management committee rather than simply to inform it, I am willing to examine this proposal in more detail.
I have to reject the remaining points, however, because our experience has shown that programmes should not run for longer than three years, and because when we implement this scheme we want to adopt a bottom-up approach.
In addition, the professional organisations have to obtain the prior agreement of the national authorities before they submit their proposals to the Commission.
Obviously, the proposer organisations may also appoint bodies to be responsible for implementing the planned measures.
It must be clear, however, that these bodies must be selected on the basis of an invitation to tender at Community level.
I cannot accept Amendments Nos 3, 4, 15, 19 and 24 on the tendering procedure, because the Commission believes that external support facilities must be selected on the basis of an invitation to tender, so as to ensure maximum transparency of Community interests.
We also think that the Member States should have sole responsibility for monitoring and making payments, in so far as measures are to be prefinanced by them.
On your request to show more flexibility when determining the part of the funding to be paid by the Member States and in certain cases not to require any financial contribution at all - this is expressed in Amendments Nos 22 and 21 - I should like to say that I think that the Commission proposal is more balanced here in terms of the financial contributions of the three parties involved, namely the Community, the Member State and the proposer organisation.
On the proposal to increase the appropriations, as contained in Amendment No 22, I should like to say that a substantial increase would not be acceptable at the present time because the sums spent on export refunds are in no way linked to the promotion policy, since the proposal we are discussing primarily concerns quality products and products displaying high added value.
But obviously here the ultimate decision rests with the budgetary authority.
I now turn to the comments made by Mr Colino Salamanca concerning imports of garlic from third countries.
The Commission is currently investigating the possibilities open to it within the WTO for resolving the problems in the garlic sector and is also preparing to introduce a new system which provides for an appropriately high rate of duty on all garlic imports, with the exception of imports falling within the proposed tariff quotas.
In accordance with GATT rules, quotas would have to be set on the basis of average imports from third countries over a previous three-year period and allow for an appropriate annual increase.
A draft recommendation for a Council decision authorising the Commission to hold negotiations with the third countries concerned about this change in the bound rate of duty is currently being prepared.
In the meantime, as an initial measure, the safeguard clause, which exists in principle and which we have applied in recent years, is being further extended.
Proposals have already been made on this.
I discussed both these possibilities in detail with representatives of the garlic industry a few weeks ago, and in principle they also gave the green light here and signalled their agreement.
Applause
Mr Fischler, I have to say that I let you speak for 22 minutes. However, I believe this is justified when Commissioners have to reply to a number of reports which deal with many aspects of a subject, and because many important events have taken place in this area in recent times, not least in view of the interim agreement reached by the ministers and the decisions taken at the summit.
I would like to ask the House to let me depart from the standard practice of the Chair, so as to add my comments to what Mr Fischler has said on the departure of Mr Happart. For many years, Mr Happart has been one of the more lively elements in the European Parliament.
Those of us who have followed his activities will feel very sad that he will not be with us next time.
We wish him every success in his career and in his new political endeavours.
Mr President, if I may, Commissioner, I will echo your words of farewell to Mr Happart.
The fact is - and this is one of our colleague's attributes - that those who swim against the tide sometimes introduce rather more oxygen into the water.
That is what Mr Happart has done throughout his long and successful career here.
Ladies and gentlemen, where expenditure is concerned, soundness, financial stability and continuity are of great importance, and in recent years - we can almost go back to the beginning of the European Union - they have not always been valued as much as we in the European Parliament, as representatives of the taxpayer, would have liked.
One of the major successes of the Berlin summit was, for the first time in fact, to move this self-evident truth to centre stage. That is a success.
However, there is another side, a darker side, to almost every success, and in this case the politicians in the Member States are not yet aware of it.
To be cautious about this, I should like to express it as follows: alongside this stability, social justice and solidarity with the weaker members of society must of course also be key features of this policy, not only at European level but also right down to each individual locality.
One of the things which disappoints my group and me personally is that at the present time there is still no instrument - and this could have been decided on in Berlin - through which greater justice and a higher degree of solidarity with smaller and weaker farmers might be achieved.
It is painful to observe that there is currently no instrument to prevent the old principle from applying whereby price increases mean that more is given to the rich, while all that remains for the poor are the crumbs which fall from the table.
In fact, it is not so much pricing as extending the second pillar of the integrated policy in rural areas which can be one of the ways of really providing help, and not least an opportunity of moving into a different sector for those who are evidently exposed to risk as businessmen and farmers.
This opportunity must also be open to their successors.
That is our social democratic creed; that is what we believe to be essential.
Although you also complimented Mr Jové Peres, Commissioner, I do have to say that his proposals are somewhat premature.
Of course, Parliament often points the way ahead and some people - yourself excluded perhaps - then go down that road rather hesitantly.
I hope, however, that the ideas which Mr Jové Peres has presented here today will actually also be translated into practical policy in the future.
What this is really about - and in this respect all these reports belong together - is gradually dismantling this rigid market segment, this regulation down to every last detail, and going back to a free social market economy in the European Union.
That is why it is obviously necessary to use our common sense to refocus the marketing initiatives undertaken very successfully by many producer groups in many countries of the European Union and to make it possible for them to sell anything they have that still needs to be sold.
Only here too there is another side to the coin: it will not do for farmers to sell potatoes to the producer group when times are hard, and for them to distribute the potatoes on the open market when times are good and they can obtain a good price.
That would mark the end of this help, this effective help of marketing.
Of course this is also about marketing.
Mr Fantuzzi's report also contains proposals to give greater support to marketing in the European Union.
It is quite astonishing that when it comes to marketing, the economic giant of the European Union is still in its infancy and is faced with the task of trying, with a very small budget, to emulate the marketing pioneers and giants.
We need a robust marketing campaign here.
Unfortunately, good things cost money.
We need to build on what we have at regional level.
The economic giant, the EU, has to be a marketing giant as well!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to talk about the CAP reform negotiated in Berlin until tomorrow, in the debate on the summit's conclusions.
I just want to say that I share the Commission's disappointment about this reform, expressed at its first plenary meeting after the Berlin summit.
As mentioned at this meeting, the annual price packages were in the past the main instrument for defining agricultural policy.
It is since the 1992 reform that the price packages have gradually ceased to be this policy-defining instrument. This is due to Commissioner Fischler who, since the start of his term of office, has consistently advocated the desirability of the common agricultural policy being increasingly defined by medium-term horizons.
We now have this reform for 1999 before us in which, once again, agricultural policy is defined according to a medium-term horizon, in this case of seven years.
However, in the future the price packages will basically be used to adjust agricultural policy measures during the medium-term horizon.
With regard to this 1999-2000 price package, it is clear to everyone that this has no role to play in defining agricultural policy. It is only a bridge between the past and the future, a transitional measure preserving the status quo until the new CAP is applied at the beginning of next year.
If we are to have any sense of responsibility, there is therefore no point in proposing new measures, in particular price increases, when the Agriculture Council has just unanimously reduced these same prices within Agenda 2000.
If the European Parliament were now to approve these measures, quite frankly it would lose its credibility.
The PPE Group cannot therefore support the amendments tabled by Mr Happart nor those tabled by other Members in this respect.
However, I must congratulate Mr Happart on some of his analyses which are apposite, particularly with regard to the pigmeat sector.
I also want to thank him for all his work and cooperation with us during his time in this House. I wish him every personal and political success in the future.
Mr President, first of all I should like to join in thanking Mr Happart.
I think he has been a good friend to agriculture and the countryside and many others share my view, even if I do not always see eye to eye with him.
Instead, I support the Liberals on this issue, in other words the Commission's proposal for the most part rather than the amendments.
Since the Berlin summit, the immediate future for farmers in terms of agricultural policy looks brighter than the Commission had previously envisaged.
However, there are a few points I should like to raise.
In making savings, agriculture should not be the target of any economies that are required as a condition for eastward enlargement.
The countryside, agriculture and other neglected areas should never have to pay for enlargement; it should fall to those sectors which can best afford it.
For the same reason, there should be no renationalisation of agriculture.
Until there is a fully functioning global market, the CAP needs to be safeguarded.
And there is a strong likelihood that it will be some time before the market functions reliably.
I also agree with Mr Fischler's comments to the effect that European agriculture should not become Americanised.
However, we should be aware that in the slightly longer term, the significance of the market and competition will increase. As a result, European agriculture will have to become more efficient in terms of quantity and possibly even more so as regards quality.
In this context, I should like to say that what emerges from Mr Fantuzzi's report about endeavouring to increase sales is constructive.
Agriculture should be something that Europe can rely on, and we should be able to feel confident about its capacity to provide food products that will be profitable in the long run.
Finally, we must give the right signals to farmers.
We should lose no time in initiating a discussion on a more far-reaching reform of our agriculture and rural policies, not on the grounds of enlargement, but because it is needed.
It is time to make changes which will last well beyond the year 2006.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our debate on the agricultural reports and the question for oral answer cannot be kept separate from the conclusions of the Berlin agreement on CAP reform and from our assessment of this agreement.
In one sense this agreement is positive as, due to the mobilisation of farmers and the rural world, the Heads of State and Government refused to apply the extreme ultraliberal measures prepared by the Commission.
However, on the whole, the European leaders did not abandon the logic of allowing agricultural prices to fall, as imposed by the major European and international economic and financial operators.
This logic can be seen in the Commission's regulation on prices for agricultural products. This regulation does not even guarantee that prices will be maintained in line with inflation or will compensate for the abandonment of the green ecu.
It also does not correct the imbalances occurring between products and between producers. This logic of allowing prices to fall can also be seen in the lack of determination and means to defend products such as garlic which is the victim of practices which contravene our regulations.
Yet this is a vital product for employment in the European production areas.
We therefore need a policy to promote our agricultural products, provided that this has adequate financial resources, unlike the current proposals.
It does not take a genius to predict that the logic of allowing agricultural prices to fall, as adopted in Berlin, will perpetuate a system of production which destroys employment, food quality and the environment.
However, the introduction of some negative measures in the CAP reform is to be staggered, which gives farmers, rural dwellers and the people of Europe time to demand that the CAP be genuinely reoriented in the direction defined by this House.
This is even more of a possibility as we move towards the European elections which will give the people the chance to take part in the debate and decisions.
I believe there is still work to be done on the CAP reform and the content of this policy can and must be reformed.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Happart's stance is perfectly normal. He has always defended production and naturally does not always submit to the limitations imposed by financial policy.
Obviously, this view of general stability may seem outrageous and blasphemous but I understand and support it.
There is no doubt that the 1992 reform, which was based on historical production rates, created a sharp difference in aid throughout Europe, particularly between rich Europe and poor Europe.
There is no doubt that the 'compensation aid', which will now be called 'direct aid', does not compensate for the fall in prices.
There is no doubt that farmers are earning less, except in the case of industrialised agriculture.
I do not therefore feel that Mr Happart's proposal is so outrageous or so blasphemous.
It is a normal proposal from someone who is trying to defend producers as well as consumers.
My group therefore supports the proposal.
What Mr Jové Peres says in his report is extremely important. It is particularly essential to maintain the balance between producer organisations and producers and to guarantee that the latter can remain faithful to their organisations without this constituting a kind of controlled economy in which they are forced, like slaves, to sell to poorly managed organisations.
The main problem facing us is how to ensure the proper management of these organisations and, at the same time, meet the needs of producers.
I cannot agree more on the subject of withdrawal.
This often provides a large profit because it is frequently implemented fraudulently in that payment is made for products to be withdrawn which are then sold on external markets.
I have seen this happen!
The promotion of products as indicated in the Fantuzzi report is extremely important.
We have been asking for this for ages and it clearly seems ridiculous that Europe has not taken a more aggressive stance given the gradual loss of our international markets.
For example, Portugal has lost the olive oil market in Brazil to products of terrible quality against which we can easily compete.
Finally, garlic is a normal problem.
We believe that, in view of the organised crime and laundering which the Commission has allowed in recent years, in this case strict control would solve the problem.
There is a desire to control what we import.
Mr President, I have a question for Commissioner Fischler: you said to Mr Happart that his proposals would run counter to the Berlin strategy.
Are you paying him a compliment, or can it be that you are happy with Berlin? I am becoming rather confused, because in his report Mr Happart did in fact pin his hopes on Agenda 2000 being implemented.
It seems to me that the hopes which Mr Happart expressed in his report have not been realised. In this report on prices, he is still referring to the 1992 reform, and you are well aware - and have said so yourself in your documents and reports on Agenda 2000 - that the 1992 reform led to cases of severe injustice and showed a serious failure to take due account of employment and the environment.
You know that most of the money goes to well-situated production areas and not to less-favoured areas.
You know that most of the money goes to larger holdings and that some large holdings have the premiums paid straight into a time deposit account, because the prices and their advanced stage of rationalisation mean that they can manage without them.
You know that there are premiums in the maize sector which have no environmental conditions attached.
You know that pasture land is also one of the economically marginalised areas.
None of this was rectified in Berlin.
That is why I really must take it as a compliment when you say that it runs counter to Berlin.
We should actually start work straight away on developing a new strategy for safeguarding agriculture, not least on the regional market.
Time does not allow me to say any more on this, but you are familiar with my views.
I should also like to comment on sales promotion.
Here I believe, Commissioner Fischler, that we must not allow sales promotion to become export subsidies by the back door; this must be genuine sales promotion.
I think that the internal market should also be taken into account here, which means making money available on both sides.
You said that you were against regulating the pig market, Mr Fischler.
I fully agree with you that we should not intervene here, but if intervention is not wanted here, then why are we keeping it in the other markets?
If it works so well there, then we should have it in the pig market too. I see that you are not pleased.
That makes me very happy.
Mr President, I must also congratulate Mr Happart. His work has always been efficient and consistent and he has also sometimes acted as a necessary irritant to this House.
With regard to his report, the Commission's proposal to leave agricultural prices unchanged for the next season has come at a time when agricultural income has fallen considerably in certain Member States, which the Commission acknowledges.
We therefore clearly understand the rapporteur's amendments which aim to adjust prices in line with the rate of inflation and in particular to compensate for the negative effects of a new agri-monetary system resulting from the changeover to the euro.
I fully understood the Commissioner's position just now.
However, we will support the rapporteur's proposal on two express conditions.
Firstly, the price adjustment must apply to all agricultural products and not just cereals, sugar and beet, butter and skimmed-milk powder and adult bovine animals.
Secondly, the increase resulting from this proposal must benefit the 80 % of farmers who are the most disadvantaged.
This is the aim of my amendment to the recitals which I have tabled on behalf of my group.
With regard to Mr Fantuzzi's report, this proposal is much more important than it seems at first sight.
In view of the changes in the world agricultural trade, it is clearly imperative that the European Union implements a common action policy to promote and provide information on its products in third countries.
In order to sell our products, and to sell them well, as shown by the specific case of olive oil, Europe must be united and must develop its own model of agriculture. Its products must focus on quality, the protection of the environment and the maintenance of land and farmers.
Given that our main commercial competitor - the United States of America - spends approximately EUR 140 million per year on promotion, not to mention indirect aid, the Commission's proposal to allocate EUR 15 million to the promotion of agricultural products is derisory.
This is why we support the rapporteur's proposal to increase this figure to EUR 50 million between now and 2003.
In line with the positions which I have always defended with my group and with other Members in order to make our European model of agriculture consistent and real, it is vital that the amendments are supported as they are intended, first of all, to make the professional organisations and the Commission jointly responsible for implementing this promotion policy. Secondly, they are intended to monitor the use of funds by providing for post-evaluation audits of spending in relation to objectives in order to judge their effectiveness and to reorient these funds if necessary.
Thirdly and finally, they aim to include within this approach aid for the promotion of quality products, for example those originating from organic farming.
Finally, our group supports the report by Mr Jové Peres.
Mr President, Commissioner, a few days ago the Agriculture Committee decided that Mr Happart's draft report on agricultural prices could not be adopted as it was.
A few moments ago, Commissioner Fischler rejected outright all the amendments which could potentially alter the Berlin agreements. It should be remembered that these agreements were reached without the European Parliament giving an opinion on them.
There is therefore nothing left for me to do but congratulate Mr Happart on having been willing and courageous enough to realistically attempt to defend the profitability of agricultural holdings.
This is why, on behalf of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, I participated in the tabling of amendments on an across-the-board increase in institutional prices and aid of 1.9 %. The aim of these amendments is to compensate for the effects of inflation and of the green ecu being abolished from 1 January 1999.
I did in fact table these amendments last year when I was rapporteur on the price package.
Like Mr Happart, I thought that the dual effect of inflation and the abolition of the green ecu would cause an unacceptable fall in prices for farmers given that we were also imposing constraints on them in terms of the environment, animal welfare, traceability and so on.
The fall in prices and in agricultural compensation will end up forcing farmers towards greater intensification when all they want to do is balance their budgets.
In addition to these two sets of amendments, I have tabled amendments with Mr Chesa on wine-growing.
In anticipation of a future reform of COM 1, it is essential to set up the mechanisms specified in this in order to prevent any breakdown.
These amendments involve extending the duration of planting rights, allowing planting in advance and providing for new planting rights in order to respond to market changes.
I deeply regret this situation which will unfortunately prevent a balance being achieved in European agriculture and between each Member State.
Mr President, as everyone else has already congratulated Mr Happart, I will refrain from doing so as well.
Rather than concentrating on the issue of prices, on which we all agree with Mr Happart's struggle, I wish to focus on an issue which I feel is symbolic in this joint discussion.
This issue is garlic. It is symbolic not just because it is a product like olive oil or wine which is subject to replanting rights and not just because it is representative of an era of civilisation, but also because it serves to demonstrate, like honey and other products, what European construction is really about.
This is a well-known issue.
We produce garlic in Europe, in the Cuenca region of Castile in Spain and in the Drôme and Gers regions of France. This is quality garlic whose cultivation is ecological in two respects.
Firstly it requires little water and secondly it can be grown in problem areas thereby helping to ensure that people remain in these areas.
Our producers should therefore be protected by customs duties and controls.
However, in addition to traditional imports from Egypt, Argentina and the United States, we also receive imports from China which has a quota of twelve thousand tonnes.
Yet in reality thirty thousand tonnes are imported from China via countries involved in garlic fraud such as, dare I say, Malaysia - which sends us hundreds of tonnes without growing any itself - India, Jordan and a whole range of other third countries.
Both the official and illegal Chinese garlic leaves China at 10 centimes per kilo. It arrives in Europe at 4.50 francs per kilo which is 0.70 euro, whereas our producers can only produce it for 10 francs per kilo which is approximately 1.5 euro.
This garlic is then offered to consumers at 3 euro or 20 francs per kilo. In other words, our producers are facing unfair competition from garlic produced at half the cost, quite obviously by prisoners in labour camps.
What is the Commission doing while all this is going on? It is considering referring the matter to the World Trade Organisation following on from its success in the banana dispute.
No controls are being applied at the frontiers even though the Italians have shown that these can intercept the immigrant or, dare I say it, fraudulent garlic.
The Netherlands and the United Kingdom, who are involved in these illegal imports, are being allowed to continue. Customs duties are not being imposed whereas the United States applies 376 % customs duties to imported garlic.
Like the honey adulterated with sugar cane, beet or corn syrups and many other imports, we are allowing adulterated garlic to be imported which can be up to two years old, thus leading to germination problems.
We are allowing our producers to be destroyed, as with the banana producers in Guadeloupe, the Canary Islands, Martinique and Madeira and our wine producers.
Prices are falling and inflation is being ignored.
This is what European construction is really about, Mr President and Commissioner.
Once again, the circle of stars on the European Union flag is blinding us to a world trade involving leniency and fraud. This really is internationalism.
Mr President, I would like to begin by expressing my disappointment at the outcome of the Berlin summit.
It is difficult to discuss these matters without also seeing them in the light of what actually happened in Berlin.
Compared with the Commission's proposal, which we supported, Berlin was in fact a disaster for European agriculture.
Things we have been working on for a number of years were not completed, and prices were not cut sufficiently.
I am unhappy about that.
I agree with those who have expressed regret that Mr Happart will no longer be here, but I would also like to tell Mr Happart that unfortunately I disagree with him - as he is well aware - about this price proposal.
It is clear that the idea behind the report was to ensure the best possible terms for farmers.
But I believe we have to recognise the fact that we should have brought our agricultural prices down to a level which reflects the world market price, and so we will have to find other methods to compensate for the social distortion which may result.
Next I would like to say a few words about Mr Fantuzzi's report on measures to promote our agricultural products in third countries.
This is an important area in connection with both Agenda 2000 and the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
We are sympathetic towards the Commission's move, but we believe that the favouritism shown to the olive oil sector is untenable in relation to all the other products which we would also like to sell on the world market.
To use 40 % of the budget on this sector is perhaps a little excessive.
However, we cannot endorse the proposal on national cofinancing.
I do not in fact consider it appropriate to have national cofinancing, because it entails a risk of differential treatment between countries and increases the trend towards a repatriation of common policies.
That is why I believe that general promotional measures should be financed in full by the Union, and far more funding should be allocated for this than has been proposed by the Commission.
We also support the rapporteur on this point. It is important for us to have an effective instrument to promote exports and react to US measures in this area.
A fact which has also been pointed out by others in this debate is that the USA spends far more money on promoting exports than the Commission is planning to do here.
However, where more specific sales promotions are concerned, I think that the private companies and producer organisations involved should also participate in the financing.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to congratulate Mr Jové. True to his record, he has once again presented us with a report which is not only technically accurate and thorough but also well balanced from a political point of view.
The changes to Regulation No 2200/96 establishing the COM of the fruit and vegetable sector may initially appear minor, yet certain aspects of them do give cause for concern.
A central feature of the COM as it was set up in 1996 was the key role of the producer organisations in terms of both marketing their members' produce and regulating the markets financing withdrawal operations.
The Commission is now proposing to allow members of producer organisations to sell part of their produce outside the commercial circuits of the producer organisations to which they belong.
We agree with the rapporteur that such authorisation - doubtless intended to ensure the survival of traditional practices - should not have a negative effect on the operation of the producer organisations. This is particularly critical when allowing direct sales both on the farm and elsewhere.
Producers can directly access commercial circuits outside those of the producer organisation.
Parliament does not object to a certain amount of flexibility, but we must ensure that the main role of the producer organisations is not eroded.
I therefore welcome the differentiated quantitative limits set by the rapporteur depending on whether the sales take place on the farm or elsewhere.
I feel that these measures will ensure that the bulk of production continues to be marketed through the producer organisations. Exceptions will remain exceptions and will not become a general rule that weakens the system.
As regards the modifications to Regulation No 2202/96 providing for aid to citrus fruit producers, the measures introduced by the Commission are indeed sorely needed to compensate for the delay in the receipt of aid. The Commission is therefore to be congratulated on dealing with the situation.
Unfortunately, the Commission has failed to address the major shortcoming of the COM: the imbalance between the thresholds set for the processing of citrus fruits and production reality. This has resulted in significant increases in withdrawals given the heavy penalties incurred for exceeding the thresholds.
The rapporteur has suggested increasing the thresholds to the average amount processed during recent years.
The financial implications are reasonable and could be covered under the COM's financial statement.
He has also suggested setting a 20 % limit on penalties. This could help to stabilise the future of the processing industry by preventing the producers from breaking their contracts and directing their produce to withdrawal which would naturally have a negative effect on the environment and the common dimension of the COM.
Commissioner, if Mr Jové's proposals prove to be reasonable and well balanced, and if there are no technical objections, there is no sense in waiting for an eventual reform of the COM. Instead, the proposals should be implemented immediately, taking advantage of the fact that these regulations are currently being reviewed.
In my view, what is important is not where ideas come from but whether they are fundamentally sound. On this occasion, Mr Jové has presented us with significant alternatives which could easily be implemented in view of their low cost and sound technical basis.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the average income of farmers in Portugal has continually and systematically shrunk in recent years, particularly between 1996 and 1998.
The official statistics prove that farmers now earn just over half of what they earned three years ago.
This is the concrete and dramatic effect of the famous 1992 CAP reform on the weakest farming sector in the European Union.
This situation should have been corrected by the European Council in Berlin but unfortunately was not, with the incredible acquiescence and even approval of the Portuguese Government.
As a result of the Berlin agreement, prices will continue to fall, the weakest Mediterranean products and farmers will continue to be discriminated against and the smallest farmers in Portugal will continue to receive the scraps of the financial transfers allocated to Portugal.
This means that less than 10 % of the cake will continue to be distributed to more than 90 % of those actually working the land.
As a result of the Berlin agreement, the big food industries, the large European farmers and the main cereal crops will continue to be favoured and to receive the lion's share of the Community's agriculture budget.
The Berlin agreement is simply continuing the 1992 CAP reform which was not altered at the end of March when it should have been.
In this context, the Commission is trying to bring forward the Berlin decisions and is proposing further price reductions for next season.
We therefore feel it is useful to support the attempt by the rapporteur - who we congratulate - to block these reduction proposals, although we consider that the fair and across-the-board increase which he is proposing, despite applying to all sectors, will still not solve the existing discriminations.
I must briefly mention the pigmeat sector.
It is clear that one of the reasons for the grave crisis which has affected and which is continuing to affect this sector has been the Commission's refusal to establish market regulation and intervention mechanisms. These would over time have prevented the accumulation of such large surpluses.
The Commission should draw the respective and requisite conclusions from this and accordingly not insist on, or even abandon, its proposals to abolish market intervention mechanisms in other agricultural sectors.
Commissioner, the price package for 1999/2000 is being fixed at a decisive time for the future of European agriculture when farmers' income is continuing to shrink.
In 1997 and 1998, their income fell by 6.5 % overall.
The fall in market prices which began in 1998 is continuing in 1999 and the prospects on the world market remain uncertain in some sectors.
The abolition of the green rates and the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999 have resulted in a fall of 1 % to 2 % in the agricultural conversion rates in each Member State.
It is now clear that the Commission's proposal on the price package is still paltry and gives farmers little room for manoeuvre.
We must clearly reaffirm the benefits of agriculture in terms of the economy, self-sufficiency in food production, which is its primary function, and occupation of the land.
We must maintain a prosperous and successful agricultural sector and, in particular, we must prevent the disappearance of certain categories of farmers due to falling income.
We must not allow agriculture to be taken over by bureaucracy due to an increase in public aid as this would restrict farmers' freedom of action.
Dare we say that European agriculture has a cost which cannot be reduced any further without calling into question our model of agriculture.
Furthermore, European consumers benefit from this model because they are assured of quality products and a regular market supply.
We have also been able to develop the products from our land and the products from organic farming.
Our agri-food industry also represents a high value added.
In twenty years, the price of a metric quintal of wheat has fallen by 40 % whereas production costs have increased by 20 % and more in certain sectors.
It is therefore not difficult to understand why European farmers are worried about their futures.
The European Union's role is not to sacrifice its agriculture on the altar of enlargement or Americanisation but to allow our farmers to carry out their work and to have a standard of living equal to the average in Europe.
This is why I will support Mr Happart's amendments. I also wish him every success in his new work.
Mr President, I welcome this opportunity this morning to speak on the situation regarding agriculture within the European Union and the effects of present policy and of the recent decisions at the Berlin Summit.
To some extent prices have very little effect on the farmer's actual future, because while we sit and talk about prices and say there will be no inflationary aspects, in the final analysis it is the actual income to the farmer that is important.
If we look at statistics throughout Europe over the last two to three years, we can see that actual income to the farmer on the ground has dramatically dropped. Every year the income drops.
The question we have to ask ourselves is how long can this continue? How long can agriculture sustain itself in this position?
The other question we have to ask is: will there be any future for the industry if young people do not continue to enter agriculture?
That is the long-term challenge.
If we do not have young people coming into agriculture - young farmers beginning at the bottom of the ladder to work their way up - then in the longer term agriculture has no future, long-term or short-term.
To some extent what we are involved in at the moment in Europe is short-term policies that have no long-term vision. We require long-term vision for the future, for the future of agriculture.
There are also areas within European agriculture that are not covered by any regime, such as the situation in the pig industry and the situation in the poultry industry.
We are allowing imports to come from third countries outside the European Union; we are allowing food to be imported into Europe that would not come near European standards.
At the same time we are laying down standards, we are telling our farmers how they should produce food.
We are tying farmers' hands behind their backs.
Frozen chickens are being imported from Brazil and from the Far East.
I challenge the Commission here today to tell us whether these chickens are being examined and whether they meet the same standards as we have?
Our processors are being put at risk.
This is why there is high unemployment. Our processors are being put out of business.
I challenge the Commission here today. Let us look at ourselves, let us not ask our farmers in Europe to produce food to a standard that others in the rest of the world cannot match.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the difficulties facing European agriculture are sufficiently well known.
They are of course being discussed at this very moment. Small-scale farmers have problems competing directly with factory farms overseas.
I am favourably disposed towards the idea of selling more quality products from European agriculture on the world markets by means of the measures proposed in the Fantuzzi report.
However, as with all support policies, two points need to be taken into account here.
Firstly, we must ensure that no new bureaucratic bodies are created.
There is already a proliferation of forums and committees.
I am therefore critical of the proposal to arrange our own trade visits.
It begs the question of whether associations already in existence might not be able to perform this task.
Secondly, the financial burden and the risk must not be borne predominantly by the public sector.
Only if the operators also bear a considerable proportion of the costs will sensible projects be implemented without public money being wasted.
That is why the amendment stating that the Community should pay 60 % of the costs in each case rather than a maximum of 50 % is not acceptable.
Overall, I believe that the measures will unlock new sales potential for our farmers.
I therefore support the Commission proposal.
Mr President, I should like to start by saying that 15 minutes ago there were still no amendments in English to two of the reports despite your assurances at 9 o'clock that there would be some within a couple of minutes.
I turn now to the price package.
I am afraid I cannot support the rapporteur's amendments calling for price increases across the board.
Yes, many farmers are struggling at the moment, but large, richer farmers, though profits are down, are very far from the breadline.
The extra expenditure is not justified overall and these amendments go against the whole thrust of the CAP reforms agreed in Berlin.
More appropriate would be temporary special measures to assist particular sectors to survive through short-term difficulties.
Mr Fantuzzi's report on the marketing of EU produce to third countries, mirroring similar schemes within the EU, is one such instance which could assist.
I wish to welcome the proposals on fruit and vegetables, in particular the move to allow up to 20 % of produce to be sold directly to consumers at the farm gate or through farmers' markets.
In the UK in particular, the large supermarket chains are gaining ever greater control of producers, insisting from a semi-monopoly position that their suppliers conform exactly to their requirements. There has been a reaction against this.
We have seen the growth of farmers' markets and the demand from consumers for less standardised fruit and vegetables in terms of size, seeking rather flavour and freshness at prices which provide a good deal for both producer and consumer.
I therefore particularly welcome this proposal.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, ever since agricultural policy was converted into a price support system in the agricultural reform of 1992 to 1994, agricultural debates have in fact lost much of their charm.
That is why I should like to focus on the future.
Mr Jové Peres's excellent report also talks about controlled and integrated cultivation.
I have a very clear request to make to the Commission here: this method of agricultural production is a very good one and deserves to be supported because it takes account of the environment and heeds consumers' wishes. However, its impact and the form it takes vary across the Member States.
Integrated cultivation is not the same thing in each Member State, and that is why we need uniform directives on the integrated and controlled cultivation of fruit and vegetables to be transposed in the Member States.
However, I should now like to turn to the rural development programme - the second pillar of the new agricultural policy - and say the following: the remarkable feature of this programme is the variety of measures for farmers and rural areas.
Nevertheless, I do have a question for the Commissioner.
The risk here is cofinancing.
How can we guarantee that it will be possible to bring these programmes - which are really good for rural areas - to the people, when governments are refusing to proceed with cofinancing? Early retirement for farmers, the setting-up premium for young farmers and modernising agricultural holdings to reduce production costs, for example, are extremely important measures, and I should like to welcome the fact that they are presented here in a separate rural development pillar.
But there is still the risk that if cofinancing is not guaranteed by the Member States, then how are the people who live in areas of this kind going to benefit from these programmes, which are undoubtedly valuable, but which cannot be implemented if they are not taken up by the Member States?
I have one final question for you: in Germany, can the Bundesländer also act as treaty partners, so that the programmes can at least be implemented in those Länder which are prepared to provide cofinancing?
The debate is suspended at this point; it will be resumed this afternoon.
We shall now hear a statement by the nominee for President of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi.
Statement by Mr Prodi, nominee for President of the Commission
The next item is the statement by Mr Prodi, nominee for President of the Commission, followed by a debate between the political groups, without a final resolution.
I therefore give the floor to the nominee for President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, whom I would also welcome to the House.
Mr Prodi, you have the floor.
Loud applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when I decided personally to force the pace of Italian politics so as to participate from the outset in the building of European monetary union, I was conscious of my country's long-standing commitment and contribution to the European venture during the previous decades.
But I was even more conscious that solid links with Europe were the only means of guaranteeing every individual country and every individual citizen a future of peace and progress in the world of globalisation.
For this reason, I staked on that objective all the political capital which I had so far accumulated.
Today I am happy to be here before you, not only to assure you that I intend to apply the same determination to this new phase of the European venture, but also to assure you of my personal commitment and that of the future Commission to guiding Europe towards a great age of reform and change; I repeat, a great age of reform and change.
Applause
The European institutions - all the institutions - are in need of renewal and reform, both externally in respect of their policies and internally as regards their forms and methods of organisation.
It is an age of reform which, as I have said, must affect all the European institutions: the Commission first and foremost, but also the Council and even Parliament.
I am not here to conserve but to reform.
Today's challenge, on which the credibility of the entire European undertaking now turns, is to prevent the recent economic and political differences from stalling our process of integration.
I not only fear delays, as such, in the realisation of our project; above all, I fear missing the opportunity to make a vital contribution to solving the grave problems afflicting neighbouring countries.
Therefore, even at this very early stage of my relationship with the European Union, and at my very first encounter with Parliament in plenary sitting, it is legitimate that I should set out my vision of the European venture.
In the economic sphere, the single market in goods and factors of production was the theme of the 1980s; the single currency that of the 1990s.
We must now face the difficult task of moving towards a single economy and political unity.
Despite the diverse models of social organisation adopted by our countries, they have all taken pains to lay the foundations for coexistence in fairness and solidarity.
This tradition must be upheld, but reformed to bring it into line with the new international circumstances; the welfare state model so far constructed by the countries of Western Europe, bringing about a high degree of social cohesion, is in great need of reform.
The individual Member States will be the main players in this process of reform, but Parliament and the Commission must play a driving and coordinating role to ensure that national reforms lead to a more efficiently organised labour market which promotes social mobility and mobility between Europe's large regional areas.
Even though competition is not the sole objective of the new Europe, I am nevertheless aware that a high degree of competition is a necessary tool to reduce our excessive pockets of inefficiency.
The incentive to act along these lines comes from the fact that Europe, the largest area in the world, must be the first to tackle the problem of population ageing.
Population ageing not only has social policy implications; it also calls for a response in terms of productivity of the entire economic system, so as to fulfil the difficult pact between the different generations with less social conflict.
The establishment of a broad-based, efficient European market in venture capital is a necessary condition for achieving higher levels of productivity.
Such a market is also the instrument through which we can reposition ourselves to manufacture more highly developed, innovative products.
More direct action is needed from the governments and the Commission to promote investment in research and development, especially in the new electronic, information and communication technologies, but also in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and more generally in the life sciences.
The future of our continent, not only that of its industry and finance but of European society as a whole, depends on high-tech, research-intensive, knowledge-based industries.
One need only think of a simple fact: the Internet can change the very way in which production is organised.
One need only think of the reduction in stocks or the dematerialisation of products.
Direct access to information by the people must therefore be developed further.
We still have much ground to cover to catch up with the United States; a good deal of my work will focus on reducing this gap.
I have a plan which I should like to see converted into a commitment for the Commission, Parliament and Europe's governments: my plan is that, five years from now, young Europeans finishing their secondary education will be as capable as the best of their contemporaries, throughout the world, of using the technologies of the information society.
Europe has a great cultural tradition; it has a great wealth of scientific knowledge stored in its universities and research centres.
Where Europe falls down is in the ability to convert this tradition, this knowledge, into opportunities for growth, above all by improving the links between the academic world and the world of production.
Turning to macro-economic policy, the abandonment of monetary sovereignty has increased the significance of fiscal policies.
These must be better coordinated in order, on the one hand, to play an effective role of stabilisation in response to events or situations occurring in the different countries - the dangerous asymmetric shocks which could occur in Europe - and, on the other, in the longer term, to achieve real harmonisation of our national economies.
Economic policy coordination is rendered all the more necessary by the possibility that regional economic divergences could emerge.
Shocks of international origin, arising in Asia, Russia and Brazil, have prevented European monetary union from unleashing all the growth potential generated in the second half of the 1980s by the prospect of the single market and which the establishment of the single currency prepared for the end of this century.
Confidence in the future on the part of businesses and households appears to have been dented, and unfortunately this effect is being compounded by the events of the war in Yugoslavia.
This analysis, now shared by all the relevant bodies, has led the European Central Bank to assume with a great sense of responsibility its task of managing monetary policy.
Better coordination between national budgetary authorities is now needed so that, within the bounds of the Maastricht Treaty and the stability and growth pact, everything possible is done to underpin the growth of Europe's economies.
It will fall to the Commission to endeavour to implement as rapidly as possible the agreements reached in Berlin on Agenda 2000 and, within the limits of the budget, to launch high-profile European schemes which not only boost internal demand in Europe but make the Union's actions visible to the people.
By the same token, it will also be up to the Commission to seek to defuse tension in international trade between Europe and the United States, thereby reassuring our producers.
Growth is the necessary condition for Europe's economic policy to help reduce unemployment.
But there is no guarantee that growth will be sufficient; therefore the Commission should make itself the driving force for early action to review the rules governing the labour market and the occupations, so as to lower the barriers to entry and increase the possibilities of individualised working practices - all with the aim of making employment more responsive to economic growth.
The new financial and monetary stability introduced through the establishment of the single currency can help to address this urgent requirement with success.
We must be all the more determined to pursue this aim, because high unemployment is the main cause of the anxiety which seems to be spreading among the European people.
Demographic decline, mass emigration and doubts as to whether the European model of social protection can be preserved intact are the other major fears casting shadows over the continent's future.
Unless they are handled properly, not least on a continental scale, the links between the various generations and the various population groups will begin to unravel bit by bit.
A new phase of more intense economic growth is needed to achieve this aim.
But that will only come about if the presence of public administrations is made more lightweight and the micro-economic reforms to which I referred a moment ago are introduced.
On a political level, the Union has never had greater potential in the international arena.
From EU enlargement to the universal affirmation of the principles of freedom and democracy, I feel a moral and political duty to interpret the desire for Europe and its presence.
Europe can therefore stand as a model of development and social cohesion, internally, and it has a growing presence on the international stage.
I shall therefore do my utmost to bring the enlargement process to a successful conclusion, for which the terms and exact timetable must be established swiftly.
In view of the war in the Balkans, the completion of enlargement becomes a top political priority because of the message it can send to those peoples by preparing them for closer ties with Europe.
Within the confines of its specific responsibilities in this field, the new Commission must strive for rapid implementation of the process.
The European Union's growing responsibilities in the world derive in fact from the strength it has now achieved, its tradition of safeguarding peace and human rights, and its concern to see a stable international environment for its commercial activities and its political presence.
To this end, on the basis of the Maastricht and Amsterdam principles, the European Union must equip itself with an independent defence capability whilst at the same time rationalising, as of now, its use of industrial resources and military infrastructure.
By strengthening the link between economic prosperity and trade, on the one hand, and political stability on the other, the European Union must continue along the road of multinational liberalisation under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation.
We must reject all attempts at protectionism, not least so as to allow developing regions access to markets, such access being the greatest possible contribution to their growth.
Finally, Europe must pursue its policy of partnership and cooperation with the countries of the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, above all those bordering on the Mediterranean, so as to create a large area of stability and a free market in which the European Union can prosper and invest.
For all of us - not just for me, a man of the Mediterranean, but for all of us, and not only in the southern part of our continent - the Mediterranean must be the other face of Europe: naturally not as a balance to enlargement, but to create an area of peace and development in the most difficult and high-risk region that exists on Europe's borders, or rather - if I may say so - the most difficult and high-risk region in the world.
Indeed, our future life will be determined by our relations with the Islamic world.
It is a choice which requires intelligence, political initiative and great confidence in our strengths and in the prospects for peaceful coexistence among peoples.
I do not believe that these relations can be built by a single country in isolation; no European country can do that: either such relations exist at European level or they will be unable to generate hope and change.
The Union has grown a good deal and must grow still more.
Its new mission necessitates stronger, more cohesive institutions, closer dialogue and a more democratic environment.
In the affairs of the Union and in its institutional philosophy, the three main institutions must achieve close harmonisation: a stronger leading, guiding role for Parliament and the Council; a Commission which is increasingly capable of spearheading EU growth.
An equally dominant role must fall to the individual national governments and, within them, to the bodies and institutions representing the local authorities, which have thus far been badly neglected in the building of Europe.
It is difficult to speak of subsidiarity without also speaking of the bodies which are its most tangible expression.
The united Europe will be strong only if the independence of its component parts is strong.
To this end, the Commission has a twofold task ahead of it: the first is to assist in planning the future; the second is to ensure that the Union as a whole has an efficient administrative apparatus.
I have already had occasion to state that the Commission must be the guardian of the Treaties, but only if relations between the Commission, Parliament and Council are productive, honest and transparent will Europe grow ever closer to the people.
The highly ambitious tasks which I have outlined for Europe in the future certainly cannot be pursued with the existing Community institutions, which the Amsterdam Treaty has only begun to reform.
Moreover, enlargement in itself makes reform vital, given that institutions designed for six Member States and which are already now proving inadequate are definitely not suited to managing a Union of 20 or 25 countries.
For this purpose the Commission must be thoroughly overhauled, reorganising the portfolios according to the main new political priorities and the changes in its tasks.
However, the democratic legitimacy of increasingly important European institutions and the effectiveness of EU policies create the need for a more ambitious blueprint, based on a strengthening of Parliament's powers of codecision, greater use of majority voting in the Council and proper implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty in respect of the Commission President's role in selecting the Commissioners and sharing out responsibilities among them.
I am likewise well aware of the fact that not only this House, but also the national governments and more generally European public opinion as a whole, have very great expectations concerning the reforms I am to make to the internal workings of the Commission.
These reforms, which will be a cornerstone of the new Commission's programme, will require the implementation of at least three principles: greater efficiency, absolute transparency and full responsibility, or what is usually defined as accountability.
I can assure Parliament as of now that I will not tolerate corruption in any form, that I will ensure increasing transparency and account for my work without reserve, and that both the College and the individual Commissioners will take full responsibility for our work.
Applause
Relations between the Member States and the European Union as a whole have grown tremendously, in quality and quantity, to such an extent that the interests of the individual countries depend, to a not insignificant degree, on the smooth running of Europe's supranational institutions.
I shall not forget this, acting first and foremost as a good administrator of collective resources.
Yet I realise that, for the commitment on which I am about to embark, it is not enough to be a good administrator; I am about to devote myself to an immense political commitment, bringing to it a background ranging from my personal education to my experience at the head of a government utterly dedicated to European reform.
On the subject of this commitment, I wish to clarify here and now a matter which has drawn attention from many of you as well as from the media in the past few days: I am referring to my possible candidature at the forthcoming European elections.
I shall be involved in these elections, championing the ideas to which I have always committed myself and supporting the women and men with whom I have been working, but I have decided not to stand myself.
Applause
From a legal point of view, there is nothing to prevent me from standing; indeed, my candidature could and would represent a step towards that resolutely democratic Europe in which the members of Europe's government will also be subject to popular scrutiny.
I hope that this will soon happen, and I believe that the battle of principle which I have waged will serve this purpose.
At this current stage of European politics, however, I acknowledge that my candidature could constitute not a stimulus but a cause of division.
And I am not here to divide, I am here to unite.
Applause
I have stated on several occasions that, in one sense, the search for a European soul appears increasingly to be the dominant problem for the future of our continent.
It is without doubt a sign of weakness to believe that Europe's institutions will have a future - a strengthened Parliament, the right of veto confined to exceptional cases, a reorganisation of the Commission and its powers - unless common European feelings can gradually be fostered.
There is no dominant culture in Europe, and I believe this to be a good thing: Europe would not have been what it was in the past or be what it is now if its individual, diverse and great national cultures had not flourished down the centuries and were not flourishing today.
But - and this strikes me as less positive - nor are there any contemporary philosophers, thinkers or opinion-formers with a resonance throughout our continent.
The risk therefore is that what is happening on the financial markets could happen to our culture and values: the euro is bringing together many diverse forces into a single market, but in these first few months this unifying function is mainly being performed by American commercial banks and investment funds.
The strength of American culture, in the broad sense of the term, is symbolically expressed through the mass media; indeed, some go so far as to deem it the single reference-point for a Europe in search of its soul.
There is nothing outrageous about this hypothesis, not least because the world's equilibrium will in future depend on ever closer cooperation between Europe and the United States in the fields of politics, economics and defence, which presupposes a certain degree of affinity regarding basic models of society.
I nevertheless believe that Europe can draw on a great historical heritage, the richest store of culture and knowledge ever accumulated by humanity.
Unfortunately, there is no ready solution or quick fix to help us achieve our aims; all we can do is start from the confusion of today and attempt to overcome the dispersion of knowledge and culture, to conquer the Babel of languages in search of a common tongue and an ever more necessary dialogue.
We cannot remain in the past; the remedies found in the last century are not enough.
Europe gives us an ideal opportunity to revisit this past, to compare it with the experience of others and to cast off once and for all the legacy of the past which should have united us but instead divided us.
No ruler, no people can single-handedly cast off the past and build the future; but the European peoples and governments can do so by working all together.
That is why we need Europe: as individuals we cannot find the new road; as individuals we are unable to tackle even the most straightforward problems of the present, beginning with the greatest one, namely our relations with the peoples of surrounding countries who are looking to us to build their political and economic future. No single country can respond to them; only Europe can do so.
Just as our economic goals are suffering interference from international shocks, so too could Europe's political venture be jeopardised by the serious events of the war in Yugoslavia.
The pace of this venture must now be stepped up if it is to survive.
The tragedy of Kosovo makes it tragically obvious that the European Union has a duty to assume an increasingly important role in guaranteeing security and democracy in areas crucial to our future.
This future must be built by us, with the power of our institutions, creating the common defence and foreign policy structures which the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties have promised to the European people.
The Commission will assume to the full its responsibility for letting the EU citizens know what reforms are needed to achieve this future.
Such an initiative can, however, only be successful with active, enthusiastic support from Parliament.
Loud applause
Thank you, Mr Prodi.
I give the floor to Mrs Green.
Mr President, on behalf of my Group, I wish to welcome Mr Prodi here today.
His nomination by the European Council came swiftly and decisively in the wake of the resignation of the present Commission, and my Group welcomed the speed with which the Council responded.
We had urged the Heads of Government in Berlin to act quickly to end the uncertainty and confusion which followed the unprecedented resignation of the 20 present Commissioners.
We welcomed the Council's clear understanding of the political nature of the moment and of the opportunity it offered to create a new relationship between the European Union institutions and its citizens.
It could not have acted more quickly and, it has to be said, that it acted with uncharacteristic speed.
Mr Prodi's statement to us here this morning is the beginning of our ratification process of the new Commission.
My Group wants the new European Commission to come into office as soon as possible.
It must be said that the timetable which the European Council has set us is not an easy one.
Given the European elections in June, given the imminent introduction of the Amsterdam Treaty and given the convergence of general elections in two of our Member States on the same day as the European elections, the timetable presents us with a logistic headache of monumental proportions.
However, we must find a way around the problems.
All of us in this House want to see the present Commission leave office as soon as possible.
To be fair to them, they too have expressed a desire to leave as soon as possible.
They remain in office only as a caretaker Commission, as the Treaty obliges them to do.
It is a situation unloved by them and grossly unsatisfactory to us.
To carry out our role now with regard to the next Commission, we may have to put our own parliamentary calendar and personal diaries under considerable strain.
So be it.
The conclusions of the Berlin Summit asked this Parliament to deal with the nomination of Mr Prodi and the new Parliament to deal with the ratification of the entire new Commission.
We insist, however, that the ratification of the next President of the Commission must be done rigorously, seriously and properly by this Parliament.
I welcome very much Mr Prodi's consent to come here today and begin that process in that spirit.
The role of this Parliament in recent events has been fundamental.
It is important that we now demonstrate our maturity and see the process through to its conclusion.
My Group believes that now, together with the Council and a reforming Commission, we can set up a structure and decision-making process which is more appropriate, more in tune with modern governance.
First and foremost, we want a strong Commission.
The new Commission must have clear direction, a firm political leadership which is open, it must practise genuine transparency and partnership with the European Parliament and not just pay lip-service to those values.
None of us here underestimate the problems and challenges of creating such a European Commission.
However, I want to make clear to Mr Prodi today, on behalf of my Group, that if the next Commission makes a genuine attempt to reform with the courage and vigour which he has expressed this morning, then it will receive the support of my Group.
My Group will not play toy-town politics with this process.
We would not do it in January of this year and we will not do it now.
Mixed reactions
Some in this House welcomed Mr Prodi to Parliament; some in this House seem determined to play solely national electoral politics with this issue, ignoring the importance of the moment for Europe, for its policies and for its people.
Mixed reactions
Those concerned for the evolution of this House as the real democratic voice of Europe's people will work together to enhance its role and its rights, which is what our citizens are waiting and watching for.
My experience during the last few weeks campaigning in Britain has been that, for the first time ever, people know that the European Parliament exists as a force to be reckoned with - not just the subject of myths about curly cucumbers and curved bananas - but a body which has delivered objective evidence through the report of the Committee of Independent Experts and then acted on it.
My Group takes considerable pride in our role over recent months.
Mixed reactions
We believe that we have acted in the best traditions of parliamentarians: responsible, exercising leadership and acting with integrity.
Mixed reactions
Mr Prodi, you have come to this House today as the Council's designated candidate.
You come with excellent credentials as a good European and a proven track record of personal integrity, the authority of having held the highest office of the land in one of the largest Member States of the European Union and one of the founding states at that.
You have demonstrated your ability to put together a reforming government and develop a consensus with all sectors of Italian society, to ensure that Italy was able and ready to enter the first wave of the single currency.
In this you have confounded the sceptics.
Hopes in this Parliament of just what you could achieve with those formidable skills as President of the European Commission are high.
I believe, therefore, that when you come to this Parliament next month, we would like to hear some clear idea of the direction you will take on two fronts.
It must be said that you began that statement in a very clear and very strong way here this morning, and we very much welcome that.
Firstly, given the trauma which led to the collapse of the present Commission, we expect to hear a clear commitment - not just to implementing the programme of reforms already agreed by this Parliament and the current Commission in January and the subsequent agreement on the independent investigatory body OLAF - but to further and deeper reforms of substance, in particular (and I was glad to hear you mention it) with regard to the acceptance of political and personal responsibility for work done by officials at whatever level in the European Commission.
We also expect that you will give due account to the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts and work with us in Parliament to examine, assess and implement the necessary reforms.
Secondly, for my Group, the real substance of the programme of the European Commission is political.
We understand that, if your appointment is ratified, you will not be able to present a full political programme until you have negotiated with the governments on their nominations to the Commission under the new rights given to the President of the Commission by the Amsterdam Treaty.
We understand from various interviews which you have given, that you intend to use those rights to the full. We would not only support you in doing so but would also encourage you to do so.
The new Commission must act like a college and not like 20 fiefdoms and the moulding of such a Commission will lie in the hands of the new President of the Commission.
However, for my Group the political content of the programme which will be produced by the new Commission is crucial.
Last week when you visited my Group, I presented you with our objectives for the next five years in the form of our manifesto for the European elections.
From this you will see that our agenda is for jobs, training for jobs, protection of the environment, the fight against social exclusion, the need to protect the health and safety of our citizens in a world now having to deal with issues like BSE and genetically modified foods, the struggle against cross-border crime, working together for a stronger Europe in the world and carrying out the necessary reforms to ensure that we can enlarge the Union at the earliest possible moment.
We will judge the European Commission to be established in the coming weeks on both its political programme and its programme for reform.
I for one welcome your human and intelligent development of your thinking here this morning - economic, cultural, social, based on peace. I think all of us here very much welcome that.
Finally, I wish to touch on the issue you raised at the end of your speech.
Many in my Group feel a strong democratic affinity with the proposals of Jacques Delors that we move in the future to a position where the President of the European Commission should derive his or her credibility from the electoral process.
For this to happen there has to be agreement between the Council and Parliament on the process.
The sensitive balance between Member States and the institutions of the Union cannot be jeopardised by precipitous action which could damage the process of European integration, in which respect for differing political cultures and democratic practices are paramount.
In this respect, you, Mr Prodi, have already been unanimously nominated for the office of President of the European Commission by all the Heads of State and Government in the European Union. You do not come to this nomination through any defining electoral process.
However, one of your great strengths is that you bring with you a great experience of success at consensus building.
It is in that context that my Group very much welcomes the statement you made today that, whilst, of course, you will engage with those with whom you are politically aligned - as we and the Commissioners have always done - we welcome your clear statement this morning that you will not stand as a candidate to this House.
We might have expected that, with just over three weeks of the life of this Parliament left to go, we might be on the gentle slope towards an election.
Usually parliaments ease their way out or drift away as legislation peters out and parliamentary life comes to an end.
In the last week of the last parliamentary term, in 1994, we had to mobilise all outgoing Members to vote on the enlargement of the Union.
On this occasion not only do we have Agenda 2000 but also we have to face the consequences of a resigned Commission and a new President of the European Commission.
This is a serious process.
Mr Prodi, the programme you develop after this debate and your discussion tomorrow evening with the European Council represent an important step in the development of European democracy.
Applause
Mr President, president-designate Romano Prodi was nominated by the European Union Heads of Government just as NATO began its bombing of Yugoslavia.
Because of the very complicated timetable, it will be months before the European Union gets a new executive.
This is why Parliament has pressed for it to happen as speedily as possible, and we shall support any measure which expedites the process.
Mr Prodi, we are very pleased by your appointment as new president of the European Commission.
After your investiture by Parliament in May you will, in the parlance of the House, be the formateur , the co-formateur , of the new Commission.
We are strongly and unequivocally in favour of your candidacy and, I should add, we attach no political strings.
We are convinced that you possess the political and professional skills to overcome the deep crisis in which the Commission finds itself.
And this crisis must prompt us to carry out some historic reforms.
You must reform the Commission and its services.
As the present Commission too has said, there has to be a new European political and administrative culture.
The problems began ten years ago, as the report of the independent experts shows us, with chapter and verse - from 1990 onwards tourism, from 1992 onwards the programmes for the Mediterranean area, humanitarian aid, the security services.
The Wise Men tell us that the supervisory bodies within the Commission are a mess and that procedures take too long.
Staff policy is a machine running out of control.
More than a year ago, in March 1998, our colleagues in the Committee on Budgetary Control, at the instigation of James Elles, called for measures to be taken by the middle of September 1998.
In October 1998, Parliament called for an independent anti-fraud office to succeed UCLAF.
We did not obtain satisfaction in December last year.
Our group put forward an action programme to modernise the Commission by 1 January 2000, with codes of conduct for Commissioners, on relations between Commissioners and their private offices and services, and codes of conduct for officials, with a reform of the Staff Regulations involving transparency and good faith in the recruitment of officials and clear rules and restrictions on outside appointments.
Clear rules too for budgetary management, more specifically regarding technical assistance offices, and reform of the Financial Regulation.
All this awaits you, especially once the second report by the Wise Men comes out this September.
But numerous political challenges also await you, very clearly formulated in documents of this Parliament, reports by our colleagues Mr Herman and Mr Brok.
Fernand Herman's report will be debated this week.
It concerns institutional reforms, not least in the Commission, which can be carried out without amending the Treaty: reducing the number of portfolios and a rational make-up of the Commission, a proper balance between collective and individual responsibility.
As you know, this is a central problem.
Mrs Cresson, who was not prepared to accept her own personal political responsibility, dragged the entire Commission down with her.
Applause
The PPE and we as the PPE Group have said that we can no longer work with her.
My question to you is this: where do you stand on this relationship between collective and individual responsibility?
We are in favour of interinstitutional cooperation.
In 1994, I took the initiative as PPE Group president to call for reform of the modus vivendi governing the relationship between the Commission and the European Parliament.
This modus vivendi needs to be revised and expanded again.
New agreements have been reached and it needs, I think, to be approved and accepted before the new Commission takes up its duties.
Mr Brok spoke in his report, with the resolution that was adopted on 13 January, of the consequences of the Commission President's investiture and the independence of members of the Commission.
This report is particularly instructive and informative, not least on the subject of the procedure to be followed now for the investiture of the Commission under the Amsterdam Treaty.
It advocates independence for the members of the Commission, and that the European Commission must remain the guardian of the Treaties and work for the general interest.
The report also calls for a political balance in the membership of the Commission.
I would add: a new Commission comprising both men and women.
This report urges, and I too urge, that this new Commission should have the support of a clear majority of the new Parliament, because one of the lessons of recent events and the recent crisis is that if the Commission does not have the backing of a large majority of the new Parliament, we are in for a period of guerrilla warfare. And that is the last thing we need between Commission and Parliament.
But you, Mr Prodi, will be able to demonstrate your political leadership once your appointment has been ratified by Parliament, in the appointment of the new Commissioners.
I hope that your legitimate authority as president will be a factor in their approval, in the giving of your agreement.
Once you have approved the new Commissioners, on the basis of your legitimate authority as president, duly ratified by Parliament, then and only then will hearings be held here in Parliament.
We may wish to speed up the procedure, but it is not acceptable for the Member State governments to have three months in which to nominate their Commissioners and for Parliament to have just three days in which to hold the hearings.
Applause
Mr Prodi, we are very impressed by what you have said.
You have said in your statements to the press, but to Parliament too, that you want to impart new momentum to the European Union, that political union is a major objective of yours.
Above all, you have said that you attach importance to further democratisation and transparency and to cooperation with the European Parliament.
I think that once the period of bureaucracy is over, not to mention fraud or nepotism, a very important new task and new responsibility will be to ensure that the Commissioners put in an appearance in this House and in our committees.
Like Michel Rocard and many others, I am a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
How often have we been able to hold a political debate in this committee? How often have we had to make do with talks with officials?
There has to be someone with political responsibility there. Happily there were exceptions to the rule even in the present Commission, Commissioners who cooperated actively, but this has to be the norm for the whole of the new Commission and then we can impart a new momentum to the institutions, to your new Commission and to Parliament.
This is the hope I express on behalf of my group, given the prospects you have offered for a new momentum.
Not just for the Europe of markets, of banks, but for Europe with its cultural and spiritual dimension.
This is what you advocate.
We are convinced that you will realise these prospects and this is why we were so positive in welcoming your nomination by the Member States' Heads of Government.
I am one of the people who, as prime minister, took part in the negotiations on the single market and the Maastricht Treaty.
We laid the foundations at that time for a new relationship between the institutions.
We hoped to achieve a true government which would be answerable and accountable to Parliament, and would work together with Parliament.
I venture to hope that you will bring this about, with your new Commission, with people who are aware of this aim and eager to play this pre-eminently political role.
Applause
Mr President, as I listened to Mrs Green's speech I felt the need to apply a brief reality check to it and to the procedures of this House.
Is this the Pauline Green who, in December, recommended that we vote confidence without even thinking?
Applause
Is this the Pauline Green who, in January, defended collegiality?
Is this the Pauline Green today who promotes individual accountability? I salute her for being one of the few genuine revolutionaries in this House since, on this issue, she has never stopped spinning.
Sustained applause
I should like to say to Mr Prodi how welcome he is here today.
He is a European of the first rank. The ELDR Group looks forward to deepening our engagement and dialogue with him, and to a very productive period for the future.
But is not for this Parliament, in this mandate, to appoint the president of the Millennium Commission.
That is the moral, political and legal responsibility of the next mandate.
Recent events have established, through the work of this House, the need to establish ethical and normative rules for the conduct of European affairs.
But this is also representative of a significant maturing in the European democratic process, with major institutional and constitutional implications.
This House will no longer be the junior partner.
We do not need to be first among equals, but we assert the right to be treated as an equal among equals.
That is why I welcome the presence of Mr Prodi at this early stage and the dialogue we start.
I should like to say to you, Mr Prodi, directly on behalf of my group, not as advice nor as an instruction but as a suggestion that you might like to think about, that you should seek in the coming days - and especially tomorrow in your dialogue with the European Council - to assert your own independence, not just of the needs of this House, but of some of the parameters of the Council itself.
I believe you are your own man. You should assert that from the outset.
I believe you should explain to the Council that it is not appropriate that we should, in a procedure in May, elect you as the legitimate head of what would be an illegitimate Commission.
I believe you should not launch your project in such a sea of political and institutional ambiguity.
I would like to think that in May we could give you a political mandate to act as formateur, to go from this House in May to begin to explore in substance, as formateur with a political mandate, what you might do.
It would be most unfortunate if you should start in a procedure where you are legitimate in the context of a Commission as college - I speak not of individuals but of a college - which itself is discredited.
In the context of being your own man it is also correct that you should consider getting your project right rather than getting it early.
What you are dealing with is vitally important for all of us.
I note your political discretion in saying you will step down from running in the European Parliament election. That discretion is your choice and I respect it.
But I would say to you: be engaged in that election; maintain your political conviction; and fight the cause with those colleagues whose list you will not now head.
In doing that you will establish that you, Romano Prodi, come to us not as a bureaucrat, not as a technician, but as someone dedicated to European politics, as a politician, and that as a politician you will lead a strong, independent political Commission.
If you decide to be your own man, to be political, then you will do us all a great favour.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are today beginning the process, itself completely new, of appointing a new Commission. This will have the task of completing the term of office of the previous Commission which was forced to resign en masse in order to avoid a motion of censure.
There are two consequences of this unusual situation.
Firstly, a new College must be established as quickly as possible. This is because it is detrimental to leave in office for too long a weakened body which under the Treaties can only deal with current business, the limits of which are rather vague.
The various governments must appoint their Commissioners as quickly as possible so that the European Parliament can, in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty, confirm the appointment of the new College. This could take place, in the best-case scenario, during an extension of the constitutive sitting after the June elections.
Secondly, it would not be right for the process to appoint the new Commission, whose term of office will end at the end of the year, to overlap with the process initiated to establish the Commission which must be appointed to complete a normal term of five years from the year 2000.
This overlap would have the major disadvantage of obscuring the deep-seated reasons currently prompting us to establish a new team, namely the need for large-scale and profound internal reform of the structures, procedures and working methods of the Commission.
This is perhaps not an exciting task for the nominee for President but it meets an immediate and unavoidable need.
The actions of the European Parliament which led to the resignation of the Santer team would seem senseless if this priority of sorting out the Commission institution was not fully understood by the new College.
This matter requires in-depth examination.
The Commission must refocus solely on those powers expressly conferred on it by the Treaties, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity reaffirmed by the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Commission must once again become what it was originally, namely an administration with a mission, responsible for making proposals to the political authorities of the Council and Parliament and for explaining their choices. It must not represent the beginning of a European government invested with many poorly fulfilled management tasks.
The management of common policies must be extensively decentralised. This requires both substantial reinforcement of the control bodies and the establishment of a central anti-fraud office which is independent and has the resources needed to fulfil its mission.
In light of the conclusions to be announced by the Committee of Independent Experts, which should be available in September, the Commission must establish real internal financial control. It must also introduce professional and totally transparent procedures for awarding public contracts together with procedures for recruiting and managing staff which finally put an end to the nepotism and favouritism which recently have unfairly stained the reputation of an administration whose powers and availability are otherwise acknowledged.
Finally, a shake-up is required together with the pruning of any dead wood following the disciplinary and legal proceedings which are now in progress.
This is what we expect from you, Mr Prodi, in the coming months.
Your vision of the future of European construction is all very interesting but you must, as a priority, return to working order the institution for which you will be required to assume responsibility when your appointment has been confirmed by the European Parliament.
Applause
Mr President, our group - the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left - would like to thank Mr Romano Prodi for his presence in the House today.
In our view, the political implications are clear.
Mr Prodi does not wish to be simply the Council's nominee for President or the governments' President. Rather, he wishes to become the President of the people of Europe through a close relationship with the European Parliament.
The new President will be appointed at a critical stage in the construction of Europe.
Over and above the institutional crisis, we are faced with a crisis in the wider Europe.
As Mr Prodi himself pointed out, war has come to Yugoslavia 42 years after the signing of the Treaty of Rome and 10 years after the end of the cold war. Human rights are being infringed in the Balkans, most particularly in Kosovo.
NATO has initiated military intervention. Yet the European institutions and a sense of European identity have been absent.
Could we ever envisage managing the euro if the European Central Bank were not fully operational? How then can we expect European policies to operate effectively under what is merely a caretaker Commission and with Parliament almost at the end of its fourth term since 1979?
There is plenty of scope for debate on whether we should be aiming at more Europe or less Europe.
Personally, I am in favour of more Europe.
However, I think we all agree that we would like the existing European powers to be imbued with greater democracy, and hope that the sectoral policies will be managed more efficiently.
That is our message to the nominee and I am sure there is consensus on this.
As far as we are concerned, this new era in the history of the European Commission must be defined by four conditions or characteristics: a sound democratic basis, transparency, the Commissioners' individual and collective political responsibility to Parliament, and effectiveness in fulfilling objectives.
In this respect, I am referring to political responsibility to a Parliament that has come of age, and this should be made abundantly clear. Parliament is now a mature institution and will soon be embarking on its fifth term.
It certainly has not transferred its powers and responsibilities to any committee of experts. It simply asked for a report to be prepared to clarify certain situations.
I do not intend to concentrate on the responsible attitude my group has shown throughout this crisis. After all, as the old Latin saying goes, excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta .
I would merely remind the House of the events and our response to them.
In conclusion, I should like to make it clear to Mr Prodi that we are keeping an open mind on his investiture.
We are of course already aware of his record in Italian and European politics, and we shall doubtless learn more about it. Nevertheless, our vote will be based on the programmes and objectives he presents at the investiture sitting, on the credibility of his desire for change and of the necessary proposals for reform, and on his political strategy for dealing with the difficult challenges facing European society.
We are concerned about the timetable for his appointment and the appointment of the Commission, and would like to set out our position on two issues.
Our group hopes for a swift procedure and a clear presentation of the Commissioners in line with the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We are no longer concerned about Mr Prodi's possible candidature in the Italian elections.
He has clarified the situation very well and in a responsible manner.
Mr President, I shall finish by pointing out that in view of the serious problems concerning enlargement and our social and economic policies, our group feels that what we need is not just a President of the institutions, but a President of all the people of Europe.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, your achievements in Italy unquestionably make you a most worthy candidate, because you have done things there which no one thought possible and in the European Union you will face tasks which are every bit as difficult, if not more so.
Vaclav Havel once said 'what use are the most beautiful of buildings if they serve no purpose?'
You have made statements in recent weeks to the effect that the European Union needs a purpose.
But what does that mean exactly?
We think that what matters most is that you should make the Union, which is currently so remote from its people and has fallen into such disrepute as a result of mismanagement and fraud, into a democratic and transparent Union which demonstrates that it can take responsibility and is willing to answer to the people and to the elected Parliament.
Your appointment has been swift, and that is a good thing.
But the problem is that the whole of the outgoing Commission, which no longer has the confidence of Parliament and which has truly been discredited, will be staying put until September.
This, ladies and gentlemen, gives rise to a situation which is politically untenable for us and unworthy of the European Parliament.
At a time when the Union needs to be forceful, when we have a major political catastrophe in Yugoslavia and beyond, we have a lame-duck Commission.
So we are urging you, Mr Prodi, to make every effort to come before Parliament with a capable and forceful Commission as swiftly as possible.
We consider it most important that you should put forward sound proposals for reform of the European Commission which will enable it to exercise collective responsibility in a real and proper way and will also determine the individual responsibility of Commissioners and the responsibility of directors-general, because things have to change in this respect as well.
We should have liked to hear in your statement a reference to the need for radical adjustments to the European Union's economic policy, because belief in unqualified growth ignores the absolute need to restructure our economies to take account of environmental imperatives.
We trust you will take on board Parliament's proposal that more women should be appointed as European Commissioners, that they should be able to play their proper part in developing further something which is a part of our acquis communautaire in this context.
Lastly, we find it splendid that you have said here today that you will not be standing in the elections.
This is a political decision, worthy of a good European.
In conclusion, we would say that we are looking for a strong Commission, but a strong Commission which is happy to be accountable to a strong Parliament.
Only then can we have a new basis for trust.
Mr President, Mr President-designate, your presence here today is a very positive sign in the spirit of the Amsterdam Treaty which will shortly enter into force. Our group thanks you for coming here.
During your meetings with the Members of this House, you must have realised the expectations and I would say the high hopes resting on the new Commission, in terms of both the interim Commission and, later on, the permanent Commission to be established in January 2000.
Naturally, these hopes primarily concern the new Commission President whose role will be absolutely vital.
We are hoping for and indeed we demand a strong Commission. This firstly requires a strong President.
The current crisis and the resignation of the outgoing Commission under pressure from Parliament have primarily been caused by the Commission's gradual loss of authority.
Even though important work has been achieved over the last five years, for example with the single currency, this loss of authority is serious because the European Union needs a politically strong Commission.
The Commission must be strong faced with the national governments, all the more so if the number of countries increases following enlargement. It must be strong faced with Parliament, as one of the elements of this strength is precisely its political responsibility before this House.
It must be strong faced with public opinion because the Commission, whether it likes it or not, is the very personification of the European Union.
Although this political strength is our main demand for the future Commission, we also have other demands, particularly regarding the internal working of this Commission.
Even though there are other deep-rooted causes for this situation, as I have just mentioned, the immediate cause of the crisis which prompted the outgoing Commission to resign was the problems in the organisation and working of the College of Commissioners and also in the organisation and working of the services under the authority of the Commissioners.
Questions must also be asked about the increasing number of powers entrusted to the Commission.
This increase in the number of tasks seems paradoxically to have weakened its prestige and certainly has not helped, which speaks volumes.
Mr President-designate, your work, I should say your mission, will be immense. You have already shown in Italy that you are capable of taking it on.
I have also noted everything you have just said in your introductory speech and your concern that the democratic link between the members of the Commission and universal suffrage should be reinforced.
On behalf of my group, I hope that you will be courageous and enjoy every success!
Applause
Mr President, the Europe of Nations Group would also like to congratulate Mr Prodi on his nomination.
We regard you, Mr Prodi, as a centralist and super-federalist in favour of a United States of Europe, and we are therefore going to vote against your appointment.
We regard you as Jacques Delors the Second.
The Europe of Nations Group promises you critical and constructive opposition.
We shall be critical every time you propose a step in the direction of more Union.
We shall be constructive every time there is even the slightest chance of having greater openness in the corridors of the Commission.
What we need now is not a new Commission, but a spring clean by independent individuals who can dispense with any Commission work which is not transnational in nature and introduce complete openness for what remains.
We need a modern law on public administration, with decentralised responsibility and consequences for those who do not fulfil their responsibilities.
There should be an end to 50 years of secrecy and privilege.
Officials who came to Parliament with revelations of fraud should be reinstated on full pay, and those who obstruct investigations should be fired.
It is scandalous that the current Commission, after its resignation, has decided that Mr Van Buitenen is not allowed to help the Belgian police to investigate any of the matters which led to the Commission's downfall.
Officials at the Commission should be servants of democracy in our countries and not new overlords.
To personal friendship and political enmity: 'Benvenuto, Signor Prodi! '
Mr President, Mr Prodi, Alleanza Nazionale endorses the formal commitments which you are to make concerning institutional reform in the Union - which the Amsterdam Treaty unfortunately deals with in insufficient detail - and the launch of political union.
If ever proof were needed, the tragic events in Kosovo and NATO's military intervention there demonstrate the pressing need for the European Union to adopt a common foreign and defence policy, without which it is as though Europe did not exist.
Developments over the past few days have confirmed the absence of Europe as an independent entity.
What we are experiencing now proves conclusively, as never before, the urgent need for a European political identity and a recognisable presence on the international stage, with due regard for the alliances to which we belong.
The European Council stated a long time ago that it would nominate the new Commission President before the elections.
What displeases us is that your decisions on the Italian front might have been influenced by the European left, which is seeking, somewhat surreptitiously, to prevent you from standing at the elections.
But in our opinion - turning now to Europe - a sound democratic foundation for the next Commission should enable the political groups to propose to the European Parliament their candidates for Commission President, rather than always having to react to proposals from the governments.
Therefore, Mr Prodi, we look forward to the 'age of reform and change' which you announced in your speech, but the reforms should be real ones and not just vague proposals: a political union to reinforce the economic union, so as to have a foreign policy, to address ourselves to the Mediterranean, as you said, but also to deal with immigration and crime, as well as humanitarian aid - and here I include the agricultural products which Europe is still throwing away or not producing, to the great detriment of our economy.
GATT must be overhauled too, since despite our good relations with the United States, we cannot be held to ransom over the safeguarding of our manufactured products and our production system, while being compelled to import - duty-free - products from third countries which obviously result from dumping practices.
So, Mr Prodi, one aspect of planning the future is to demand explicit social clauses of the countries to which the EU gives aid: third countries, or indeed fourth countries, including the republics of the former Soviet Union. In this way, enlargement will not just mean a rise in poverty and unemployment, but will be based on a revival of Europe's economy driven by quality production; obviously, since we cannot compete on price, we must do so on quality.
The idea, then, is that the Commission and Parliament should plan the future together, reminding the Council that it cannot take all the decisions; otherwise the European people will feel that they count for nothing.
That is how to begin planning the future!
Mr President-designate, you expressed a wish for a strong Europe. I fear that your attitude will only contribute to the ultimate disappearance of the European Union.
You start by accepting that the provisions of the Treaty are not being correctly applied.
Article 159 requires new Commissioners to be appointed as quickly as possible. It also requires the European Parliament to approve one Commission, which will be in place for six months, before a new Parliament approves another Commission which will remain in office for five years.
You are also preparing yourself to take on the responsibilities of the Commission President without learning the lessons from what has just happened.
The Commission - and you are surrounded by outgoing Commissioners - was challenged initially by a majority in this House which refused to grant discharge for 1996.
The accounts for 1996 have therefore not been closed.
Whatever Mrs Green may say about 'toy-town politics' - and actually this is just what she has been playing at throughout this year - the whole College of Commissioners, and not just one particular Commissioner, was censured by 232 votes.
The Committee of Experts was extremely severe in its report and comments, stating that none of the Commissioners should be reappointed.
If you really want a strong Europe, you must therefore be responsible for ensuring that a new Commission is established very quickly. This Commission must implement a shake-up, it must provide a cure as far-reaching as the diagnosis and it must permanently change its working methods, without which the whole European Union will die.
Mr President, we may hear flights of rhetoric, but they can also turn into futile debates. And now there are also flights of bombers, carrying your lethal weapons.
I must formally protest about the policy of war being conducted in Europe, supported by the European Union on the orders of the Americans!
Exclamations
This criminal policy of aggression against Serbia and its small heroic population is a violation of the UN Charter and also of the NATO Treaty. It is also a violation by France of its Constitution!
The continued bombardment of economic targets and civilian populations is one of the most cowardly and unpardonable acts in 50 years!
May God ensure that you do not turn out to be the sorcerer's apprentices allowing a third world war to break out!
Mixed reactions
I give the floor to Mrs Green under Rule 108.
I would remind her that she has the floor to rebut any remarks that have been made about her person in the course of the debate or opinions that have been attributed to her, or to correcting observations that she herself has made.
Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement as my name has been mentioned.
I want to say that for a British parliamentarian the cut and thrust of party politics which we heard here this morning is actually like manna from heaven and say to those who are shouting at me I actually thrive on it.
I note that the level of personal abuse towards me from the right of this House has risen as the right's political fortunes have fallen all across the European Union.
Mixed reactions
I can accept that, and the European public are aware that it was the European People's Party which split from top to bottom in March on the motion of censure in this House, with a majority voting the Socialist position.
Mixed reactions
Their shouting and abuse is designed to obscure that fact.
Mr Martens is fond of telling us in this House that in March his party asked for the resignation of Mrs Cresson. He forgets to tell the House that he, and his party, also asked for the resignation of other Commissioners who were found not to be guilty by the Independent Group of Experts.
Finally, may I say to Mr Cox that his statement was in line with the cheap opportunism for which his political family is famous.
Mixed reactions
I shall give the floor to Mr Martens on the same basis, but I would ask for an end to these constant personal references, which will turn this into a never-ending issue.
You have the same right, Mr Martens, and you have the floor.
Mr President, Mrs Green has the unfortunate habit of turning a political remark into a personal one.
Applause
I would just add that in January of this year she tabled a motion of no confidence, saying that the Socialist Group would vote against.
That was the start of the crisis, and if she is criticised for that political misjudgement she should not take it as a personal comment.
Applause
As was previously agreed, Mr Prodi will reply to all these speeches during the forthcoming investiture debate.
I do not think we should interrupt the sitting.
We ought really to move straight on to the votes, because as things stand at the moment, we are due to deal with 200 votes today, a further 300 tomorrow, and we are already running a quarter of an hour late.
VOTES
Parliament approved the Commission proposal
We have just completed the vote on one of the Kittelmann reports.
I am told they are available in all languages and as the House has voted to give this matter urgency I have to move to the vote.
Recommendation: Kittelmann (A4-0126/99): Proposal for a Council Decision on the position of the European Community on the draft Regulation of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe concerning uniform provisions for the approval of tank vehicles of categories N and O with regard to roll-over stability(12832/98 - COM(98)0564 - C4-0098/99-98/0292(AVC))Committee on External Economic Relations
(Parliament adopted the decision) - Recommendation for second reading: Damião (A4-0152/99): Common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Directive amending for the second time Directive 90/394/EEC on the protection of workers from the risks related to exposure to carcinogens at work and extending it to mutagens(13835/1/98 - C4-0002/99-98/0093(SYN))Committee on Employment and Social Affairs
(The President declared the common position approved as amended) - Report: Weber (A4-0134/99): Proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement amending the Agreement for Scientific and Technological Cooperation between the European Community and Canada(COM(98)0664 - C4-0703/98-98/0316(CNS))Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) - Report: Plooij-van Gorsel (A4-0142/99): Proposal for a Council Regulation on implementation by the Commission of a programme of specific measures and actions to improve access of EU goods and cross-border services to Japan(COM(95)0188 - COM(98)0722 - C4-0062/99-95/0116(CNS))Committee on External Economic Relations
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) - Report: Flemming (A4-0127/99): Proposal for a Council Decision on the approval, on behalf of the Community, of the amendment of Annex I and the adoption of new Annexes VIII and IX to the Convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal (Basel Convention), as laid down in Decision IV/9 of the Conference of the Parties
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution) - Report: Langen (A4-0144/99): Third report from the Commission concerning negotiations regarding access to third country public procurement markets in the fields covered by Directive 93/38(the Utilities Directive) (COM(98)0203 - C4-0457/98)Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy
(Parliament adopted the resolution) - Report: Kestelijn-Sierens (A4-0172/99): Communication from the Commission to the Council 'Fostering Entrepreneurship in Europe: Priorities for the Future' (COM(98)0222 - C4-0557/98)Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy
(Parliament adopted the resolution) - Report: Kenneth D. Collins (A4-0147/99): Proposal for a Council Decision on reference laboratories for monitoring bacteriological and viral contamination of bivalve molluscus (rectification of legal basis)(9594/97 - C4-0014/99-97/0182(CNS))Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection
(Parliament adopted the resolution) - Report: Fraga Estévez (A4-0179/99): Proposal for a Council Decision amending Council Decision 93/383/EEC of 14 June 1993 on reference laboratories for the monitoring of marine biotoxins (rectification of legal basis) (10339/96 - C4-0013/99-96/0234(CNS))Committee on Fisheries
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I would like to speak to Amendment No 12.
However, before I do that, I would like to apologise to the House. Last night my report was called and I was not here.
I set off yesterday mid-afternoon from London City Airport. Seventeen hours later I arrived here.
To add insult to injury my suitcase was lost.
So I was deprived of my opportunity to speak to this worthwhile report which makes motoring safer for all citizens of Europe.
I am very much aware of Mr Rübig's amendment, I approve of it and I recommend to the House that we vote in favour.
It is an improvement on the amendment voted through EMAC.
Applause
I must say you are looking very glamorous this morning.
One would not have known your suitcase had not arrived.
Laughter
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
A word or two if I may, Mr President.
We noted here at yesterday's sitting that it was the first time, in point of fact, that a report on drugs had been able to command broad support, but also that the balance should not be disturbed.
I myself have tabled an amendment, and it transpired in the debate that this might give rise to difficulties.
I would ask you to remove the word 'uncontrolled' from the last line of Amendment No 9, or to agree to a split vote in which people can vote for or against this word.
But I would prefer you to delete the word 'uncontrolled'.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Mr President, we have received a document today from the services telling us what Members should do to prepare themselves for the move to the new IPE IV building.
The majority of Members have never seen the inside of the IPE IV building, though I am told that lots of people who are not Members have been taken around.
I wonder whether during the next plenary part-session arrangements could be made for those Members who would like to have a preview of the building, to be able to do so?
I do not see any difficulty with that.
I suggest that you contact the security service if you wish to be escorted round the building.
The problem until now is that work has been continuing in the building.
I would also suggest that perhaps we could organise groups of Members to go round.
The objective of the IDA programme is to enable and to encourage administrations to exchange data electronically throughout the European Union.
Under the first IDA decision, several sectorial projects were implemented or initiated.
However, some compatibility problems remain.
The new proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision on a series of guidelines, including the identification of projects of common interest, for trans-European networks for the electronic Interchange of Data between Administrations (A4-0131/99) and on adopting a series of actions and measures in order to ensure interoperability of and access to trans-European networks for the electronic Interchange of Data between Administrations (A4-0130/99) focus on the sharing of common concepts, tools and generic services among the different networks and applications.
The common position of the Council endorses in full or in principle most of the EP's amendments from first reading.
The only remaining controversial points have been tabled again by the rapporteur, Mrs Read.
These ask for establishing as the aim of the Directive to 'provide benefits to the persons of the European Union' (instead of citizens in the common position) and to present not only to the Council, but also to the Parliament the Commission's evaluation of telematics.
I congratulate Mrs Read once again on the constant high quality of the work she has been doing in the field of defining a new regulatory framework for the most important aspects of the information society which we have the common task to share now and in the immediate future.
Bontempi report (A-0133/99)
Mr President, the action plan on an area of freedom, security and justice, presented by the Austrian Presidency and adopted by the Vienna European Council in December 1998, is quite a rigorous text. Its clear aim is to ensure that the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty are implemented in a realistic way.
The same cannot be said for the European Parliament report on this subject which has just been adopted by the House today. As usual, it seeks to put the federalist obsession before the real needs of the people.
For example, the European Council's action plan declares from the outset that although freedom of movement is a fundamental objective of the Treaty, this must generally be assessed bearing in mind the security requirements.
According to this text, freedom involves more than the free movement of people as 'it is also freedom to live in a law-abiding environment'.
On the subject of immigration and asylum policies, the Council text then adds that 'particular priority needs to be attached to combating illegal immigration'.
However, the tone changes completely in the European Parliament report.
The main priority becomes, and I quote, 'a more positive definition of fundamental rights and European citizenship'. It is as if the Member States used to be part of a semi-barbaric state where the rights of the individual were constantly being violated and where we had waited for centuries for the Eurocrats to appear and finally impose the rule of law.
Clearly, we are all being taken for half-wits.
Under these conditions, it is no surprise to see that, on matters involving the movement of people, the European Parliament regards freedom of movement as the primary Community right, whereas combating illegal immigration is buried in the middle of a list of other objectives.
Our position is obviously closer to the Council's although we would stipulate that each Member State must retain sovereign control over its territory.
The development of the EU into an area of freedom, security and justice is extremely important for the people of Europe, and we therefore welcome the Bontempi report.
However, we believe that the proposals it contains to give Europol operational powers and to establish a European public prosecutor are incompatible with what has already been laid down in this area.
Europol should merely complement and assist national police forces and not be able to take direct action against our citizens.
As regards the establishment of a European public prosecutor, we are opposed to such a move because there is no supranational cooperation on matters of criminal law.
Cooperation in this area should continue to be intergovernmental.
The Danish Social Democrats have abstained from voting on the Bontempi report.
The report is a broad survey of the various instruments aimed at ensuring the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice.
The Danish Social Democrats are in favour of ensuring the basic rights for people living in the EU.
However, there are several demands in the report which we oppose. These include the introduction of a 'Corpus Juris', harmonising the basic provisions of procedural law in the Member States and operational powers for Europol.
We have therefore abstained from voting on the report as a whole.
I welcome this report with great satisfaction. It provides a fair analysis of the action plan of the Council and Commission on implementing an area of freedom, security and justice.
This plan responds to the demand of the Cardiff European Council and is part of a clear and ambitious approach to engage the Union in reforms which will bring it closer to the people of Europe.
An area of this kind clearly can only be constructed gradually.
The Schengen Agreement, the Maastricht Treaty and, of course, the Amsterdam Treaty have been important steps in this construction process.
I am also pleased to see that a new Title headed 'Visas, asylum, immigration and other policies related to free movement of persons' has been inserted in the Treaty establishing the European Community. This will allow consistency to be increased in the key areas directly affecting the people of Europe.
However, I must indicate my disagreement with the retention of the exemption clause benefiting the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland.
Everyone is well aware of the exorbitant cost in terms of consistency of an overly flexible Europe.
The challenges of creating such an area are extremely great. The rapporteur rightly asserts that this area must be one of the Union's priorities.
I support this idea because we must meet the expectations of our people who aspire to live securely within the borders of the European Union.
The response to this legitimate demand requires improved border controls and the prevention of crime.
Being secure also implies knowing that you can assert your rights by having recourse to justice.
We all know, myself in particular, that cross-border disputes sometime pose inextricable problems.
We must therefore act to simplify access to the courts and to facilitate cooperation between the judicial authorities of each Member State.
Finally, one of the basic points is to draw up a Charter of fundamental rights. Such a text will clearly identify the rights which the people may assert within the European Union.
This will ensure that the famous concept of European citizenship, which for many remains an empty shell, will finally take shape.
The level of these rights must be as high as possible. The Court of Justice of the European Communities must act as guarantor of these rights.
It is absolutely unacceptable that the latter's jurisdiction is limited on such matters.
I hope that the debate which will take place on this subject in October 1999 in Finland will be productive because there are still gaps despite the positive advances.
The role of the European Parliament must go beyond simple consultation and the unanimity rule must be replaced by the qualified majority rule.
We are voting against Mr Bontempi's report on the provisions on establishing an area of freedom, security and justice, because we believe the report puts the European federal state at the top of the EU's list of priorities.
The report emphasises its support for the so-called 'Corpus Juris' proposal, which is aimed at introducing a European public prosecutor who would be in charge of legal proceedings. At the same time, it stresses that minimum rules should be established for what constitutes a criminal offence and what penalties should be applied.
If these efforts come to fruition, it would mean the establishment not only of a political area but also a judicial area in the EU, where Member States would be obliged to harmonise their different legal traditions and different moral views about what constitutes a criminal offence.
In doing so, we believe that EU cooperation is taking a major step towards the establishment of a federal state.
No one knows what implications the proposals in the report carry with them, but it is clear that the proposed encroachment on national sovereignty is in conflict with the derogations provided for individual Member States with regard to the police and the judiciary, for example.
The EU's efforts to establish an area of freedom, security and justice are aimed at safeguarding the legal rights of individuals.
We do not believe that legal rights and public confidence in the judicial and political systems will be strengthened by undermining the various judicial cultures of individual Member States and by transferring competence to a system which does not have substantial support among the peoples of the Member States.
The provisions in the field of justice and home affairs should therefore be a matter for national governments.
For several reasons, we are unable to vote in favour of this report.
According to the rapporteur, the combating of crime should be addressed at EU level and Europol should be given operational powers.
First and foremost, we believe it is unnecessary to set up another organisation when Interpol, incorporating as it does some 150 member countries, exists and functions very well.
Moreover, the structure of Europol is undemocratic and it is our firm belief that, as a result, people's personal integrity will be threatened and their right to legal security replaced by a lack of judicial protection.
In our view, harmonisation of the Member States' policies in the area of visa, immigration and asylum policy is undesirable.
Furthermore, as long as people actually seek asylum in specific countries, any such harmonisation is very hard to justify.
The rapporteur would like to see a harmonisation of international private law.
That would be undesirable, since judgments, particularly in family law, currently vary so widely in the individual Member States.
Moreover, it is unnecessary when the most important aspect from a commercial point of view, namely the provisions of international private law which govern contracts, are already regulated by the Rome Convention.
The same also applies to the report's stated aim of facilitating recognition by the courts.
Many of the points are already regulated by the Brussels and Lugano Conventions respectively, as well as another convention on family law that is in the process of being drawn up.
We have come to the conclusion that the rapporteur seems to favour harmonisation purely for its own sake.
As regards the harmonisation of legal procedures, the functioning of the courts is an important part of the national legal culture which also differs markedly from one Member State to another.
In the area of criminal law, it is worth noting that the crimes which are to be targeted for harmonisation are very broadly defined.
It is worth recalling that in Germany and France, for example, it is an offence to deny so-called historical truths, something which is in direct conflict with Sweden's right to freedom of expression.
Criminal law is the State's ultimate instrument of enforcement, and it is most important that decisions on what it should include and how it should be practised are genuinely democratic.
It is not worth taking the risk of forcing countries to redefine criminal law solely on the grounds that it will be possible to punish some types of crime more effectively.
Finally, there is an express wish to abolish the dual criminality requirement for extradition, in other words that extradition can only take place if the offence committed is punishable in both countries.
This requirement exists in order to guard against a particular view being taken of what actually constitutes an offence.
In view of the major differences that exist between the Member States in this respect, the requirement should remain.
Schmid report (A-0141/99)
We think this is an excellent report. On one point, however, we see things somewhat differently.
We believe that the definition of a child as laid down in the international conventions, namely anyone under the age of 18, should be adhered to.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a joint action to combat child pornography on the Internet.
The fight against crime on the Internet is transnational by nature, and there is therefore a need for international and European cooperation in this area.
So this joint action, including practical cooperation which also involves Internet service providers, should begin as soon as possible.
However, we do not support the call for harmonisation of the age of consent in the Member States.
Setting the age of consent is the responsibility of the Member States.
No further proof is required of the urgent need to start relentlessly combating the child pornography networks which are invading the Internet.
This is why I support Mr Schmid's report.
Although Internet users and service providers clearly have a role to play in this fight for human dignity, we cannot rely on them alone.
I therefore believe that certain individual or collective initiatives must be welcomed.
Thanks to this cooperation with the competent authorities, many examples of these abhorrent dealings have been stopped from causing harm.
However, in my opinion it is essential to pool our human and material resources through Europol in order to make the fight against these crimes more effective.
In this respect, I share the rapporteur's opinion about the description of this child pornography as this is indeed a crime against which the Member States must act accordingly.
However, although the European Union is taking an important step in this fight, it is essential that we establish a strong initiative with regard to third countries so that these networks cannot gain a foothold in any other countries.
Finally, it is imperative to include the site 'hosts' so that the effect of the actions undertaken in this area can be increased, while ensuring that the main feature of the world wide web, namely freedom, is maintained. Yet this freedom cannot under any circumstances become synonymous with irresponsibility and anonymity.
I will be supporting this report.
Some argue that the Internet should be completely uncensored. I disagree.
Although I take a permissive view of what should be allowed, certain images and demands are beyond the pale.
Paedophilia is one limit; others, for example, are incitement to racial hatred and so-called 'snuff' movies which show real examples of torture and killing.
It has been argued that control of Internet content is very difficult. That may be true, but so is preventing murder and we make that illegal.
More recently Parliament's Scientific and Technological Options Assessment (STOA) unit prepared a report on technical aspects of Internet control which revealed that it may be simpler than originally thought.
For example a feature of paedophilia and pornography is large areas of flesh tone.
We may therefore have the means. All that is lacking may be to find the will.
I will vote for the Schmid report as I believe one of the most disturbing consequences of the development of the Internet is the apparent freedom it gives to distributors of child pornography.
Tackling child pornography requires the cooperation of Internet users who should be encouraged to inform law enforcement authorities if they discover or suspect that an Internet site is being used for the distribution of child pornography.
As the Internet is no respecter of national frontiers cooperation between Member States to tackle this reprehensible practice is vital.
In every Member State the production, processing, supply, distribution and possession of child pornography must be made a criminal offence and Europol should immediately be informed of cases of child pornography.
This is a welcome step in the right direction of improved European cooperation aimed at stamping out this disturbing trade.
I wholeheartedly support this report and will be voting in favour.
While the Internet is a wondrous tool of huge potential benefit to mankind, it also has its darker side.
The freedom and easy access offered by the Internet, that make it of such great use in business and education, also make it the ideal tool for those who wish to disseminate horrific material such as child pornography.
The Labour Government is determined to do all in its power to stamp out this vile trade.
We will build upon the work of the 1996 Stockholm Conference and the 1999 UNESCO Conference on the sexual exploitation of children.
We will also support this report's recommendations and strive for closer cooperation between national police forces, including exchanging information 24 hours a day.
In addition, we will cooperate with our European partners to develop Internet filters to stem the distribution of child pornography.
The Labour Government will not rest until the perpetrators of this evil business are stopped and brought to justice.
Reding report (A-0143/99)
Mr President, the CDU and the CSU were obliged to vote against the Reding report, because it was rendered unacceptable by amendments from the left.
We regret that the important issues of asylum seekers and refugees from civil war are linked time and again to various ideological demands: see Amendment No 12 on voting rights and so forth.
This makes it more difficult for us to help in real emergencies.
The hypocrisy of those who vote in favour of amendments of this kind is intolerable, since it is precisely they who are then not prepared in cases such as that of the Kosovo refugees and displaced persons to take in their share of displaced persons.
Take France, for example: Mr Jospin has not taken in anyone from Kosovo. In Bavaria, we have already created the capacity for 7 000 people.
This is about us providing real and practical help and not continuing to overburden this important subject with our own ideological and unrealistic desires.
If this continues to happen and there is a real emergency, we will remain inflexible, we will not be able to help, and we will provoke unwelcome public opinion.
That is why I call on the left of the House finally to reach a consensus on these issues.
The strategy paper presented by the Austrian Presidency on the European Union's migration and asylum policy provides a worrying assessment.
It states that 'Neither the potential will to emigrate nor actual emigration from the main regions of origin has decreased in the past five years (rather the opposite). Furthermore, neither the control activities at the external borders of Schengen and the Union nor the Member States' laws on aliens and asylum stop illegal migration.'
The paper also very rightly notes the changes which have occurred in the types of migratory movement. In previous decades, these movements largely resulted from the bipolarity between the Western and Communist worlds whereas they are now mainly caused by conflicts between ethnic groups, which are followed by exoduses, or the precarious living conditions in many countries.
As a result, the Council's strategy paper calls for a review of objectives and the 'Europeanisation' of instruments.
In particular it makes the following proposals: reduction of migratory pressure at source by intervening in the main countries of origin of immigrants; reduction of illegal immigration by reinforcing controls and stepping up the fight against illegal immigration networks; definition of an overall concept of control of legal entry to the Member States, specifically in the country of departure, in the transit states and in the country of final destination, and finally, greater recourse to quantitative control methods (quotas) for new immigration, including the reunification of families.
In view of these objectives, we can only be concerned about the proposal for a new refugee protection system which in many cases risks forming an additional magnet.
Unfortunately, in the Reding report the European Parliament has tried to reduce or completely alter the force of these proposals. This clearly demonstrates the problems which we would face if an attempt was made to establish a somewhat restrictive immigration policy in codecision with Parliament.
It is specifically in the second chapter, involving the institutional instruments of the policies to be conducted, that the Austrian Presidency's document seems most lacking.
It goes without saying that the migration problem is affecting all the European countries and that it would be preferable to define a European response.
However, this response would only make sense if it was more stringent than the current policy.
Specifically, the European institutional system, as provided for by the Amsterdam Treaty, with the Commission's monopoly on initiative and the codecision of the European Parliament, risks producing a laxer response.
We are therefore overwhelmed with contradictions.
In addition, the definition of a European policy should not mean abolishing all national independence in decision-making. Otherwise, we risk removing responsibility from the Member States and once again achieving a result which is contrary to that intended.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations therefore believes that this policy must be maintained in a context where decisions are taken unanimously, with a safeguard clause to be used at the discretion of the Member States thus allowing rapid corrections if necessary.
We voted in favour of the report, because it sets out a number of basic humane principles which should be incorporated in any refugee policy.
This is particularly important, since the Council's strategy is still heavily marked by repression and a reluctance to accept responsibility.
The report also calls for a degree of harmonisation and supranationalism which we have voted against.
Pirker report (A-0138/99)
Mr President, what has been proposed here is a very dangerous situation in which immigrants and asylum seekers are being treated like criminals in that they are to be fingerprinted.
In normal circumstances it is only criminals or suspected criminals that are fingerprinted.
The idea that people as young as 14 are to be fingerprinted is completely unacceptable. It just goes to show the attitude that the EU has towards asylum seekers and refugees: automatically the first thing they are classified as is criminals.
This whole thing has been pushed through in the guise of protecting asylum seekers and refugees, but it clearly is not.
It is just going to endanger them, threaten them much further and put them in an extremely vulnerable situation.
At the end of the day, they are being treated like criminals. We cannot accept that.
We have to look at how we treat asylum seekers and refugees, especially in the current situation where there is a lot of anxiety about what is happening in the former Yugoslavia and the number of refugees there.
Are we going to treat people who are unfortunate enough to be seeking asylum or fleeing persecution as criminals? I do not think we should.
Zimmermann report (A-0115/99)
Mr President, Europe cannot take all the misery of the world on its shoulders. This is what the former French Prime Minister, Mr Rocard, once said about France.
All the world's refugees cannot come to Europe.
If they must be accommodated somewhere, they should be placed in countries with which they have the closest ethnic, cultural or religious links.
If the Kosovar Albanians have to be accommodated, they should go to Albania or Turkey. They should not be placed in western Europe whose economic and social advantages attract anyone and everyone, thus leading to migratory influxes which are as harmful to the host country as to the country of origin.
The European nature of the Union must be preserved in terms of its people, its culture and its religion. To achieve this, we must fix and adhere to an objective of zero immigration.
This debate today is unfortunately very topical.
Even as I am speaking, thousands of Kosovars are being brutally deported from their country, having been hounded from their homes, and are now packed into emergency refugee camps waiting to possibly return to their country.
Some of them, particularly those in Macedonia, are being forced to board planes for unknown destinations.
We, the Member States of the European Union, must welcome these refugees as required. This means that we must allow them every dignity and subsequently do everything in our power to ensure that they can quickly return to their country.
It is in this context that we are discussing the proposed Joint Action today.
I fully support its objectives which are to improve reception conditions for displaced persons and asylum seekers and to facilitate the voluntary return of refugees.
We must improve the reception conditions in material terms but also in human terms because these people are more often than not in a state of utter psychological turmoil.
I do not need to say any more for you have all seen the terrible pictures broadcast constantly on television screens around the world, except on Serbian television of course!
Reception is only the first stage.
We must also facilitate the return of these people to their country and ensure their reintegration.
However, I must point out a shortcoming, the gravity of which is underlined by the events in the Balkans.
The Commission has omitted to include an essential aspect which the European Parliament put forward, namely emergency aid in cases of sudden influxes of refugees from a region affected by a severe crisis.
Finally, I must highlight Parliament's commitment to refugees and its ability to anticipate events.
For the 1999 financial year, this House proposed creating a European Refugee Fund. From the year 2000 this Fund should finance the whole refugee policy.
And also from this date these matters will come under the competence of the Community, which can only be welcomed.
With the Kosovo crisis raging a new urgency is given to the two Council proposals to deal with the situation of refugees.
These two proposals are being made under the 'third pillar' and will need to be revisited when the Treaty of Amsterdam is in force.
The first measure is intended to support and develop existing measures at local, regional, national and EU levels to make refugees independent and prevent them from becoming socially marginalised.
The second measure is a proposal for joint action supporting the reception and voluntary repatriation of refugees, displaced persons and asylum applicants.
The action aims to improve reception conditions for asylum seekers and displaced persons and to facilitate their voluntary return and reintegration in their countries of origin.
The amendments suggested by Mrs Zimmerman are welcome and on the whole strengthen the proposals.
In particular, the establishment of a European Refugee Fund and support for reception centres in Member States are important initiatives.
We think this report provides a constructive basis for a rational discussion of the problems experienced by the Member States in their respective asylum policies.
Nevertheless, we should like to point out that we are highly critical of the common asylum policy as outlined in the report.
In our view, asylum policy should be a national responsibility as long as asylum is sought in individual countries, which it probably will be for some time to come.
As a result, we are also doubtful about the common fund described in the report.
Obviously the Union should assist countries with heavy economic burdens, but we do not approve when it says that 'all aspects of refugee policy' should be financed out of the European refugee fund.
Harrison report (A-0174/99)
This report certainly contains an interesting argument on the subject of VAT and how it can be applied, but we do not think that this is the right place for such a discussion.
Taxation, including VAT, is a matter of national competence.
Second Cox report (A-0171/99)
In general, we support the use of environmental taxes as a means of bringing about improvements in the environment.
However, we only support a common EU environmental tax as long as it focuses on the environment and as long as the proceeds are returned to the Member States.
We cannot support the EU regulating these national economic instruments solely in order to promote trade and the internal market.
We have therefore voted for individual parts of the report, but have abstained from voting on the report as a whole.
We are voting in favour of the Cox report because these ecotaxes are a logical political measure which make sense under certain conditions.
However, some important steps first need to be taken:
a fundamental tax reform with a general reduction in overall tax revenue; - targeted measures; - a clear promotion of renewable sources of energy.The ecotaxes, conceived as a policy instrument, should under no circumstances degenerate into a means of tapping new sources of revenue.
That is also why we reject Amendment No 6.
The proposal for a Directive on the taxation of energy products has returned before this House and I must again congratulate Mr Cox on the further simplification and rationalisation which he has tried to achieve. However, I must reiterate the concerns expressed previously and incorporated into the amendments for which I was jointly responsible.
The rejection of these amendments is the reason why I and my group voted against this report.
Regardless of the fact that a tax which alters the production functions cannot be regarded as neutral, it is important in terms of this neutrality to ask whether this is just one attainable objective or the ultimate objective to be attained.
It is actually more important to achieve a more prosperous economy offering employment opportunities.
This is a priority objective and we must determine whether this will be damaged by excessive taxation of energy.
In any case, as one of the primary concerns must be not to distort competition between production sectors and means of transport, we must avoid unjustifiably penalising some and not others.
The labour costs of each one must of course be taken into account but this cannot be the only circumstance considered, in case we unfairly let off other sectors and methods of transport which are equally noisy and polluting.
Finally, you will understand if I again express unanswered concerns about social justice and economic cohesion.
It is not acceptable to aggravate the situations of families with more modest resources who must spend higher percentages of their incomes on energy. Also, the situation of peripheral countries must not be worsened by forcing these to incur higher transport costs, particularly where this involves means of transport which are necessarily large energy consumers - as in the case of road transport - for which realistic alternatives cannot immediately be found.
The proposals before us are partly a response to the requirement to review the minimum rates of excise duty on hydrocarbons laid down in Article 10 of Directive 92/82/EEC. They are also a result of the Council's request, following the deadlock in negotiations on the CO2 /energy tax, to put forward new proposals in the field of taxation of energy products.
The aim of any tax should be that it is simple to understand, easy to collect, predictable and difficult to evade.
This is why we are in favour of the polluter pays principle.
However, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations shares with all sectors of economic activity a deep concern at the introduction of new taxes on energy products or the increase of the present taxes.
We consider that the establishment of a Community framework for the taxation of energy products, with the Member States having the opportunity to act in a flexible manner in their application of indirect taxes, may provide an appropriate escape route from the dilemma into which the failure of the CO2 /energy tax has led the Union. This may also be a way of achieving the internal energy market and may provide a necessary response to the undertakings given in Kyoto.
Taxation actually partly determines the price of energy products. It may therefore act as an incentive to optimise energy consumption by increasing energy efficiency and by reducing the emission of pollutants into the air and the overall generation of waste.
We consider that a comprehensive ecologically-based tax reform may provide a real weapon for combating unemployment in the Member States, provided that an environmental clause is introduced into the WTO rules as we expressly requested during the last GATT negotiations.
Otherwise, we will end up creating discriminatory measures which penalise our own companies.
The increase in tax yield from energy consumption, if correctly compensated for by a reduction in labour costs on companies, may have a positive effect on employment. This of course depends on production tools in the industrial energy-consuming sectors not being relocated, as was seen for example in France during the 1970s in the horticulture sector.
This is why our group voted in favour of the amendments promoting simple taxation, including the various dispensation principles, but rejected all the amendments which would systematically increase the taxation of energy products.
Some amendments actually envisaged introducing a systematic coefficient of increase for all energy products, without taking into account the international constraints applicable within the WTO.
Mr President, the European Police Office or Europol was set up with a purely intergovernmental status and under the control of the national parliaments. Its purpose is to gather information on international crime and exchange this between the Member States of the European Union.
This is an extremely important task which deserves to be pursued very energetically, with the sole concern being its effectiveness in practice.
However, the European Parliament is clearly not satisfied with this.
As is apparent from the Nassauer report which we have just discussed, this House wants to take Europol and make it into an example of a supranational administration.
This House is essentially asking for Europol to be converted into a European police unit with operational powers in the Member States and powers of command over the national police forces.
Would this federal super-police force actually contribute anything more to the fight against crime?
The Nassauer report does not demonstrate this and indeed does not even consider this question.
You would almost think that this was of no importance. The report's main objective is instead to advance the federalist cause.
We therefore gradually learn that the supranational Europol should take orders from a European public prosecutor's office, itself under the responsibility of the European Commission, which would be accountable in this respect only to the European Parliament.
This is all very well in theory.
However, in practice it is clear that once again serious work and the progress which really could be achieved will be sacrificed to totally futile ideological quarrels. These will end up blocking all progress as the countries and parties square up to each other.
We witnessed this during the many years of preparation of the Europol Convention.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations prefers serious work.
We want Europol to develop within the intergovernmental framework because it will be more effective to rely on the national authorities to improve the exchange of information.
We also want to really make the system democratic by placing it under the control of an interparliamentary monitoring committee. This would consist of representatives from the national parliaments who would be responsible for reporting to their respective houses.
The development of the EU into an area of freedom, security and justice is extremely important for the people of Europe, and we therefore welcome the Nassauer report.
However, we believe that the proposals it contains to give Europol operational powers and to establish a European public prosecutor are incompatible with what has already been laid down in this area.
Europol should merely complement and assist national police forces and not be able to take direct action against our citizens.
As regards the establishment of a European public prosecutor, we are opposed to such a move because there is no supranational cooperation on matters of criminal law.
Cooperation in this area should continue to be intergovernmental.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted against an extension of Europol's powers.
We do not support turning Europol into a supranational institution.
We are not in favour of developing Europol in the direction of a European police force with operational powers. Nor are we in favour of setting up a European judicial authority to direct Europol.
Europol should not develop into a European police authority, but should continue to be a form of intergovernmental cooperation.
The report by our colleague follows on logically from our work on the fight against crime.
As an elected representative of a cross-border region, I read Mr Nassauer's report with great interest.
In view of the development of criminal networks, we must rapidly adapt our weapons against these. This is why Europol must be able to adapt accordingly.
However, it has a credibility problem with the people.
Like the rapporteur, I hope that Europol can become a genuine police force with cross-border operational powers.
There are many cases which should prompt us to consider and accelerate this development in order to establish a unit which is capable of actively combating this scourge.
In this respect, the European Union must have jurisdiction in order to conduct the investigations needed to combat crime.
This House has already given its opinion on these matters on many occasions.
It is now up to the Commission and our governments to take steps to ensure that crime is fought effectively.
We have no time to lose on this.
As the aim of bringing Europe closer to the people seems to be the stated desire of an increasing number of politicians, this must now be put into practice.
By this means, I wished to emphasise once again that I clearly see that the lack of parliamentary supervision of Europol is a problem, and that any steps to resolve this have my full support.
I have of course also voted in favour of these points.
However, I think that the approach adopted in the report, of putting Europol under the supervision of a Commissioner and thus under the supervision of the European Parliament, is the wrong one.
I certainly cannot agree to Europol having higher status than national officers either: this is unacceptable.
For these reasons, I voted against the report in the final vote.
More extensive parliamentary controls over Europol, with frequent reporting, a greater obligation to keep Parliament informed and the incorporation of Europol's budget into the Community budget will reinforce democratic control over Europol.
Turning Europol into a European police unit with operational powers goes altogether too far along the road towards a supranational EU police force.
Cross-border police cooperation should take place through collaboration and the exchange of information between national police authorities, as well as through Interpol.
There is no need for another parallel organisation when Interpol exists already.
Wiebenga report (A-0091/99)
Mr President, the whole idea of corpus juris is something that has not been discussed in public.
There have been no public discussions on it; there have been no discussions in national parliaments.
This has all taken place in secret, behind closed doors.
What is most amazing is the silence of the British Members of this House.
For Britain and Ireland the whole legal system is under serious threat.
The proposal is to harmonise the EU criminal legal system on the continental inquisitorial model.
The British and Irish systems are very different. I cannot understand why no British Member in this House has raised the question of what is going on here.
The British and Irish systems are very much based on the presumption of innocence, trial by one's peers, as in the Magna Carta .
The issue of habeas corpus is also in danger here - the guarantee of safety while somebody is in custody.
My main point is the whole lack of debate on this issue, the fact that all this is taking place in secret.
It has been pushed through behind closed doors so that Members of this Parliament are not even aware of what are the real consequences of corpus juris .
They should look at what is going on.
The British Members should look at whether they want to get rid of their own system and bring in this EU criminal legal system which will be based on the continental inquisitorial model.
I do not think the British or Irish public want this kind of system. If they do, at the very least people should have the right to discuss what kind of system is being brought in.
Going back to what the last speaker said, there is a major rush on here to harmonise everything within Europe, to actually set up a European police force.
The next thing will be a European army.
We are harmonising the legal systems, whether for better or worse, without proper public debate, without public accountability.
This whole institution lacks any kind of democratic control or democratic accountability.
The people of Europe have had no say whatsoever in the direction Europe is taking.
Something has to be done about it.
People in the Member States have to know the decisions that have been taken on their behalf which may not, in the long-term, be in their interests.
The development of the EU into an area of freedom, security and justice is extremely important for the people of Europe, and we therefore welcome the Wiebenga report.
However, we believe that the proposals it contains to give Europol operational powers and to establish a European public prosecutor are incompatible with what has already been laid down in this area.
Europol should merely complement and assist national police forces and not be able to take direct action against our citizens.
As regards the establishment of a European public prosecutor, we are opposed to such a move because there is no supranational cooperation on matters of criminal law.
Cooperation in this area should continue to be intergovernmental.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted against the introduction of a common European public prosecutor.
We should not have a common European criminal law or public prosecutor.
We can fight crime just as effectively with the existing instruments, including Europol and the conventions on extradition and mutual judicial assistance.
We should not harmonise for the sake of harmonising. And in fact the differences between the criminal laws of the Member States are not so great that they cannot be overcome by using existing intergovernmental instruments.
Efforts to successfully combat international crime are right and proper.
Any obstruction of effective prosecution by an individual Member State must be prevented, so that public safety can be guaranteed.
However, this does not justify the creation of a supranational authority which would intrude heavily on the authority of the individual Member States and thus flagrantly impair their sovereignty.
Effective prosecution can only be guaranteed by the authorities on the spot.
For these reasons, although I voted in favour of the report, I voted against the proposed appointment of a European public prosecutor in the final vote.
Cooperation to combat organised crime is an important task for the EU.
The areas involved are smuggling, terrorism, trafficking in persons, offences against children, drug trafficking and money laundering, as well as arms trafficking, crimes against the environment and crimes committed via the Internet and e-mail.
Cooperation should, however, be intergovernmental.
No good reason exists for seeking to establish a new Corpus Juris to integrate criminal and civil law at Community level, as proposed in the report.
On the contrary, it might well be detrimental to respect for the national legal systems which have become established over the centuries.
The latter have grown and matured in the course of a continuing dialogue with the people, something which could not happen at EU level.
The report contains a proposal for a European public prosecutor with the power to open investigations at EU level.
However, the ability to tackle organised crime does not depend on the existence of common EU legislation.
Information, coordination and knowledge of each other's activities are aspects which should be given priority instead.
On the basis of the above, I voted against this report.
d'Ancona report (A-0185/99)
The report from the Council to the European Council on activities on drugs and drugs-related issues under the UK Presidency is, generally speaking, a constructive one.
The contents of the report reveal that the proponents of decriminalisation are now on the defensive.
The drugs debate is now being conducted in an objective way here in Parliament, in spite of the differences that exist between the approaches taken by Members from countries which have different drugs policies.
We think we have contributed towards achieving this progress.
It means that in future the EU will be able to work in a more constructive manner. This is a vital achievement, since the problems posed by drugs are still enormous both in Europe and the world in general.
I can certainly endorse some of Mrs d'Ancona's criticisms of the Council document on the post-1999 EU drugs strategy.
I definitely share the rapporteur's demand that Commission and Council forces should be joined in a single document so that there is greater clarity and, above all, better coordination leading to more effective and rational action on drugs.
I also endorse her criticism of the Council's attitude to Parliament: consultation did indeed take place at a very late stage.
Finally, I can also go along with her comments concerning the need to promote prevention and information activities, to contribute to crop substitution and to ensure more effective coordination between the police and customs to combat drug trafficking.
However, I certainly cannot endorse Mrs d'Ancona's habitual pragmatic approach to the problem of drugs.
This pragmatic approach consists of resigning oneself to the fact that drug abuse is a social phenomenon which is virtually impossible to eradicate: according to the rapporteur, it can be contained and fought only by means of a damage-limitation exercise; in plain language, through the legalisation of soft drugs and the controlled administration of hard drugs.
To the rapporteur, this is the only way of de-ideologising the drugs debate.
I cannot share her reasoning: ideology and politics have nothing to do with a drugs strategy; all that really does count is the value of and respect for life.
For these reasons, since I am convinced that a drugs strategy cannot ultimately be based on the approach set out by Mrs d'Ancona, I am voting against the motion.
Voting on a report by Mrs d'Ancona on drugs and drug addiction has become something of an institution in this House.
However, all the texts which she has presented through a unanimous Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs have had an inexorable tendency to be devoid of any proposals. They are simply mediums for general requests.
However, by their very existence and the enterprise of those supporting them, these reports are still a constant means of pressure in favour of more libertarian measures.
Mrs d'Ancona would like to ensure 'a de-ideologising of the drugs debate in Europe'.
But what is the ideology of those who maintain that respect for human dignity requires us to ban anything which may harm us or of those who believe it is enough to control the use of drugs to limit their potential risks to health?
It is certainly essential to allow and develop cooperation between all those who, in one way or another, through either prevention or repression, are involved in the fight against this scourge of our societies. However, cooperation must also especially be encouraged with those who are victims of drugs and with their families.
In this general context, it is not right to trivialise drug addiction as an insignificant activity of no consequence.
At a time when restrictions on smoking are rightly increasing and when authorised alcohol levels for driving are being reduced, is it appropriate to provide a contrary example of irresponsible liberalisation, particularly when drug addiction causes greater harm to people?
We voted against this report and not just because, in the words of the supporters of decriminalisation, it contains nothing of interest. We feel it constitutes another step in this policy of gradual rather than rapid progress which has been rejected by a glimmer of common sense among a majority in this House.
That concludes Voting Time.
The sitting was suspended at 1.42 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Agriculture (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on agriculture.
Mr Jové Peres has the floor.
Mr President, I will try to be very brief and will confine myself to the oral question to the Commission on imports of garlic.
The Commission's response on imports of garlic is quite a surprise, ladies and gentlemen.
The problem does not lie in differences of analysis.
For once, everyone seems to be in agreement.
The problem is one of pace.
The problem itself was identified as far back as 1993, but the solution was inadequate.
Clearly, when the safeguard clause was applied to garlic from China, it was already possible to predict that a number of traders would set up triangular arrangements, nationalising the Chinese garlic in Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam, Iran, Malaysia, Jordan, India, or any other country.
Such a system is easy to conceive and is also viable, given how slack certain Member States usually are when it comes to carrying out customs checks.
Triangular trade has therefore continued to expand, and garlic production in the Community is moving ever closer to extinction.
In Spain alone, 15 000 farms and more than three and a half million direct jobs are at risk.
Furthermore, production is highly concentrated in certain geographical areas. The social and economic consequences of the present situation will therefore be very serious.
Can this state of affairs really be due to administrative slowness?
Can rural development measures really compensate for such shortcomings? It is therefore surprising that the Commission has stated that there is no time to implement an effective system this season because the procedure to establish a global quota and change tariffs in the World Trade Organisation has not been initiated.
There has, in fact, been ample time to initiate it and if it has not yet been set up then emergency action must be taken until it is. Such action must involve applying retaliatory measures to countries taking part in the triangular trade and compensating Community producers for loss of income.
Mr President, I shall confine myself to the Fantuzzi report.
The promotion fund for agricultural products is seen by many as a substitute for export refunds.
Now these refunds have been cut, we have to look to promotional activities, so the reasoning goes.
This reasoning conceals a major risk, because it seems the Union is going to conduct its export policy along the same lines.
This was an export policy which was certainly advantageous to Europe's farmers, but which had numerous disadvantages as well.
It was a policy whereby the European Union dumped its internal market surpluses on the world market at the expense of the developing countries.
We must abandon this export policy driven by quantity.
There must be information campaigns to promote a clear emphasis on quality.
Only products which pay proper attention to food safety, animal welfare and the environment should be considered for subsidy.
Developing countries must be given the chance to develop their own agricultural potential.
Subsidising the export of European products to these countries would seriously hamper that process, and I am against it.
Nor must we equate promotional activities with export subsidies in terms of financing.
The aim of export subsidies is to keep agricultural prices high throughout the Union. That works to the advantage of all Europe's farmers.
So it is obvious that Europe should finance that.
The same logic does not apply to sales promotion.
Advertising is only effective if it goes together with a speciality or trademark.
If the products concerned are made principally responsible for financing, that creates a new link between costs and benefits.
European subsidies should at most play a supplementary role.
Mr President, I should like to make a few brief, general points on the debate which began this morning and is continuing this afternoon, and which will perhaps be - if not the last - then one of the last on general agricultural matters to be held in the Commissioner's presence.
The policy on prices has become well established over recent years.
Let us hope that future crises and our commitments to the CEECs will not oblige us to downsize even further, and that other events do not compound two negative trends which have been noticeable in the past few years: not only the falling incomes of European farmers, but above all the drop in their numbers. Thirty years ago, farmers represented some 25 % of the workforce in Europe; now they have shrunk to around 5 %.
What particularly concerns us, moreover, is that full-time farmers are steadily being replaced by part-timers, who cannot guarantee proper levels of professionalism.
I am referring here to Mr Fantuzzi's report on quality: clearly, non-professional farmers cannot guarantee top quality, and this will have an effect on product promotion strategies both within the Union and in third countries.
I agree with the offensive strategy proposed by the rapporteur.
We should not wait for a disaster like BSE before promoting the consumption of European beef - safe beef, naturally - just as we should not have waited for globalisation, and hence the influx onto the EU market of wines from around the world, before deciding to promote European wine and explain to everyone that it is not harmful, especially as long as one does not over-indulge.
What is more, as with all of life's pleasures - 'wine, tobacco and women are a man's downfall', as the Italian proverb goes - everything should be done in moderation.
And so it is a matter of educating consumers: moderation, quality and teaching people how to drink - and, above all, how much to drink.
Finally, I agree that the funding is excessively limited, ludicrously so, for a promotion campaign such as this, given the present cost of advertising.
Mr President, I certainly hope that it will not be the last time that I am speaking here on agriculture to Mr Fischler as a member of the Commission, because over the years he has done an extremely good job.
I very much agree with the price package that has come out of the Commission - it is very similar to a lot of the proposals I put forward two years ago when I was the rapporteur on that particular price package.
I am concerned that we are making a singular mistake today if we think that the price package and the Berlin Summit are not intertwined.
Agriculture is not about a short-term gain and short-term positions: it means planning for five or ten years.
I work on a ten-year rotation; plans have to be made far further ahead than for any short-term positions.
I totally disagree with Mr Rehder when he said that the Berlin Summit had been a great success.
It has been a total disaster for agriculture!
It was a total misconception, it was done in a hurry, without thinking about the future of agriculture.
That is why it is very important that we keep the discussions flowing and work for the benefit of agriculture.
I wish to come back to a point the Commissioner made in his speech.
He said very poignantly that we were not going to allow the Americans to dominate European agriculture. I was delighted to hear it.
However, we are signatories to the WTO. Are we going to accept WTO regulations, even though it may mean somewhat expensive payments or having to take imports which we do not want?
Perhaps the Commissioner could clarify that.
Finally, Mr Funk mentioned co-financing.
I hope that co-financing is forgotten about forever.
Mr President, Commissioner, given the time, I should like to confine my comments to the Peres report.
Amending and correcting the regulation on the common organisation of the market in fruit and vegetables is extremely important.
In my view, serious questions need to be asked about the waiver from the obligation to supply producer organisations for products which are marketed directly by the producer.
This method of selling by means of direct marketing has traditionally had a very special status in Germany, which I myself have strongly supported for many years.
You said this morning, Commissioner, that this is the second marketing year that the new regime for fruit and vegetables has been in force.
Unfortunately, however, I have discovered that the Commission only takes the waiver in the market organisation to mean sales on the producer's holding.
What is the position for sales in the field, at the roadside or at the weekly market? This extremely restrictive interpretation is the result of a letter from Mr Legrand of the Commission.
You are nodding; it seems then that there have been more recent developments.
That would certainly be welcome.
The proportion of goods permitted to be marketed directly is supposed to remain unchanged at 20 % of the produce of each Member State.
In this context, one of the issues we discussed in the Agriculture Committee was how it is proposed to check up on this.
Is it not the case that implementing this system in agricultural holdings will actually be extremely difficult? If you consider agricultural practice, for example at asparagus or strawberry time, you might be forgiven for thinking that a certain amount of idealism is at work here.
I do not believe that the rule of the game should be direct sales when demand is high and the producer organisation when demand is slack.
But the monitoring of the whole scheme seems to me to have been too theoretically conceived.
Mr President, Commissioner, I will confine my comments to the Fantuzzi report. We should not forget that it was under the Luxembourg Presidency in December 1997 that the Council acknowledged the need to continue developing the current model of European agriculture while strengthening its competitiveness, particularly on the markets of third countries.
The proposal now before us is a result of that desire and also of the wishes of the Agriculture Ministers.
This proposal is laudable and should therefore be approved. However, it is unfortunately too timid and too paltry, if I may say so, in terms of the financial resources of EUR 15 million.
Moreover, the promotional instrument proposed should be simplified and rationalised. This instrument really must take advantage of the experience and know-how of the existing professional structures in order to encourage and implement promotional and publicity measures on agricultural products and processed products which can be exported or sold through new outlets in third countries.
With regard to the financing, I agree with our rapporteur who has rightly pointed out that the United States annually devotes nearly ten times more than the modest appropriations indicated by the Commission for promotion on the markets of third countries.
The Community should also be able to fully finance measures such as participation at events, fairs, exhibitions and so on.
The financial participation of the Commission should also be rather more substantial, as we have proposed.
In view of the problems which may arise when, on the basis of an open or restricted invitation to tender, the Commission chooses the body responsible for implementing the promotional measures, it would be safer and more transparent for the organisation proposing the programmes and measures to be responsible for implementing these and for choosing the necessary service providers.
I proposed amendments to this end which were approved by the Agriculture Committee and which I hope the Commission will accept.
Finally, I must insist on the strengthening of the consultation procedures of the Management Committees and the Standing Group on the Promotion of Agricultural Products.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you are all aware, garlic production in the European Union is concentrated in specific regions where this crop has great social and economic importance. It involves more than 15 000 farms and some three and a half million direct jobs.
Garlic is being imported on a massive scale from Asian and Middle Eastern countries, some of which do not even produce it.
The amounts involved exceed the maximum overall quota of 33 600 tonnes. Moreover, imported garlic appears in European Union markets after crossing borders at which officials are not always conscientious as regards properly enforcing the correct procedures relating to quotas and quality.
This amounts to a clear departure from the arrangements for commercial traffic envisaged in Article 115 of the Treaty.
We therefore call on the Member States to provide the customs entry points with the human and material resources needed to undertake correct tariff classification, carry out phytosanitary inspections and check the origin of products. Further, we urge the Commission to demand that Member States be conscientious over border formalities.
We also call on the European Commission to broaden the scope of Regulation No 544/97 introducing certificates of origin for garlic imported from certain third countries, and to apply retaliatory trade measures to those countries involved in fraudulent deals. According to Article 115 of the Treaty, such measures aim to prevent distortion in the movement of goods under the framework of the common commercial policy.
In addition, a dissuasive customs tariff for imports over and above the set limit should be put in place. Measures to compensate garlic producers for loss of income should also be considered in order to tide them over until the other measures previously requested come into effect.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have already had the opportunity today to explain the Commission's position in some detail.
There is therefore no need for me to repeat myself now.
I should simply like to thank very much all those who spoke in the debate for their constructive contributions and to respond briefly to three specific questions which have been asked in the meantime.
Firstly, as far as garlic is concerned, I said that we want to work on two fronts here.
We want to make use of the existing safeguard clause again, and to activate this for a further period.
In this respect, I was asked how this will be monitored.
It is quite clear that the task of monitoring falls on the Member States.
We have already alerted the Member States several times to the fact that their customs authorities, in particular, must make it known that there is a risk of garlic being imported illegally from certain countries.
The countries are also sufficiently well known. In addition, we have introduced our own certificates to make monitoring easier.
We are aware, however, that these measures - at least in the way they have been implemented so far - are not sufficient to achieve satisfactory results.
That is precisely why we are also prepared to go a step further.
We will be tabling a proposal for a negotiating mandate so that we can negotiate a suitable mechanism for fixing quotas in the WTO.
On the second question - raised by Mr Sturdy - about the WTO, Europe's position and how it proposes to act, all I can say to you today is the following: although this Commission is only an acting Commission at the present time, I believe that it is necessary and important - and I have therefore issued instructions to this effect to the services responsible - for us to develop a negotiating strategy based on the agreements reached as part of Agenda 2000 as soon as possible, so that we will then be in a position in the second half of the year to liaise with other countries about this forthcoming WTO round.
You can safely assume that part of our strategy will be to take measures to strengthen Europe's position.
I can reassure Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert: the object of our proposal for an amendment is precisely no longer to include only sales on the producer's holding - when they take place on the holding - but to treat sales at weekly markets and all the other direct sales measures you mentioned in just the same way as direct sales on the producer's holding, that is to say as an exception and thus as part of the 25 % rule.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I have received three motions for resolutions to wind up the debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Informing and consulting employees
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the information, consultation and participation of workers has been a key subject of debate in Europe ever since the first social action programme was adopted by the Council in 1974.
Since then the Commission has launched several initiatives, but these have often met with resistance.
In a context of continuous change, the adaptability of employees is of crucial importance and forms an integral part of the employment strategy adopted by the Luxembourg European Council.
Almost all the EU Member States have a legal framework - be it statutory or contractual - to ensure that employees are informed and consulted.
It has to be said, however, that the current state of affairs - with its limitations and flaws - has proved not to give workers sufficient information and opportunities to be consulted on issues that really matter for the decisions of the undertaking.
Consequently, the purpose of this initiative is to complete the existing national and Community framework, thereby helping - by improving the legislation - to prepare for change, ensure that restructuring takes place under reasonable circumstances and give employment the priority it now deserves.
The proposed framework is therefore aimed at remedying the gaps and countering the shortcomings of the existing national and Community legislation currently in force.
The objectives are: to ensure the existence of the right to regular information and consultation of employees on economic and strategic developments in the undertaking and on the decisions which affect them; to consolidate the social dialogue and relations of trust within the undertaking in order to assist risk anticipation, develop the flexibility of work organisation within a framework of security, enhance employees' awareness of the need to adapt and encourage them to participate in measures and operations designed to boost their employability; to include the situation and anticipated development of employment within the undertaking among the subjects of information and consultation; to ensure that workers are informed and consulted prior to decisions which are likely to lead to substantial changes in work organisation or in contractual relations; and to ensure the effectiveness of these procedures by introducing specific penalties for those who seriously violate their obligations in this field.
I should like to congratulate the Commission on its initiative.
There is no doubt that, with a single currency and a large single market, with increasingly interdependent economies and fiscal policies which, albeit belatedly, are starting to be coordinated, social policies are bound to become increasingly supranational in scale, so as to preserve and further promote our social model, which is recognised by a large number of authoritative sources as one of the decisive factors in our competitiveness.
In particular, this proposal will ensure minimum standards for information and consultation to be applied throughout the Community, by harmonising the fundamental rights of employees and helping to strengthen the European social dimension.
It is therefore deplorable that the negotiations between the social partners at European level for an agreement in accordance with Article 4(2) of the Social Protocol have failed, in particular because of one side's total unwillingness to negotiate.
The Commission was quite right to fully exercise its right of initiative as sanctioned by the Treaty.
The European Parliament, through my report, is proposing certain amendments.
Here I wish to thank all those colleagues who have tabled amendments, thereby contributing significantly to the committee's work.
Our amendments - on which we must hear the views of the Commission and which I hope the Council, in adopting its position, will regard as the European Parliament's firm wishes - are designed in particular to specify the means of implementing and defining information and consultation, especially as regards the point in time when information must be communicated, in other words planning, so as to enable employees to anticipate change, extending the content of information and consultation to other subjects which directly involve the rights of employees and their future; to extend the scope of this directive, proposing that it should include the public sector, and that the Member States should consider the possibility of including SMEs; and to ensure that minimum requirements are laid down at Community level from which it is not possible to derogate except to the benefit of employees.
In conclusion, I am absolutely convinced that if the period of profound change which we are currently experiencing is to have a positive outcome, both in terms of increased competitiveness on the part of undertakings and of greater civil and social harmony, a major readiness for dialogue is required.
This proposal, improved and strengthened by the report now under discussion, is an innovative means of promoting social dialogue, by informing and consulting employees, so as to guarantee stability and respect for the laws of the Europe we are striving to build.
Mr President, Mrs Ghilardotti has done some excellent work on an important subject.
This is a plank in the Commission's overall plan, to have information and consultation of workers and should be considered along with the directives on consultation in collective redundancies, consultation in transfer of undertakings, the European Company Statute and the European Works Council directives.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has supported me and we have put forward a number of amendments.
There are concerns in some quarters that there is a problem with subsidiarity in this draft proposal but I believe that the reports I have already mentioned show that it is entirely appropriate for the Commission to act in this area.
More particularly it fills a gap in employment legislation which was vividly exposed by the closure of the Renault plant at Vilvoorde and I congratulate the Commission - I should say acting Commission - for plugging this serious gap.
My own country has some misgivings about the need for this legislation, but I would suggest that Her Majesty's Government visit some of the factories in my own constituency.
All the factories that I have visited in the last few years in the West Midlands have information boards where they show productivity levels, productivity targets, health and safety information, etc.
All sensible employers I know see informing and consulting workers as a top priority for increasing productivity.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should first like to thank Mrs Ghilardotti for her report, which we support in every respect.
I should, however, also like to thank the Commission for presenting a report here which has made it very easy for us to endorse its conclusions on this issue.
This directive constitutes a further building block in a social Europe, coming after our adoption of the European works councils and - I hope - shortly before the European Company and worker participation legislation is adopted.
However, it also constitutes a counterweight to capital in Europe.
I believe that this is very important and sensible, particularly at the present time, so that the public realise that Europe does not adopt laws in a vacuum.
I agree with Ms Oddy's assertion that of course this will not lead to national rules being abandoned.
Those Member States which believe that employee involvement gives them increased and more extensive consultation rights will obviously keep their own rules.
If you take a closer look, however, you will see that in many countries - including Germany - there are sectors in which employees are still unable to participate in decision making.
The specific issue which I should like to address here is the size of the company.
There is inadequate provision for small and medium-sized enterprises, including in Germany.
That is why we would have preferred the company size threshold to have been set at 20 employees.
I am mentioning this here quite specifically and hope that the PPE Group can, after all, decide to go along with our proposals.
Similarly, I also hope that you, Mr Menrad, and the other members of the PPE Group will vote against excluding certain media companies and charitable organisations from the information and consultation obligations in connection with the provision on the protection of certain interests, and will endorse our proposal.
The view expressed by one media company in a letter to us - that the human rights and fundamental rights associated with the freedom of the press will be violated if we do not vote for it - is one which I find absolutely absurd.
In my opinion, there is a pressing need for there also to be worker involvement in media companies.
I do not share Mrs Ghilardotti's misgivings about UNICE.
I think that perhaps it is even a good thing that UNICE declined to negotiate.
As a result, we have a reasonable proposal from the Commission which, particularly in terms of sanctions, contains much more far-reaching measures which we all support and which would certainly not have emerged from a social dialogue.
Finally, I should like to express my hope and voice my request that the German Presidency and the Council as a whole should support this important building block in a social Europe as soon as possible.
Commissioner, a central tenet of Christian social doctrine and of the PPE Group's statement of principles is partnership; that includes participation and joint decision making, as well as informing and consulting employees.
It was on this basis that our group made an important contribution here in Parliament in 1994 to the directive on European works councils, which was adopted almost unanimously.
Since then, it is true to say that European works councils have been a real success story and that with the agreement of employers, employees and unions they are increasingly widespread.
One of the aims of the EWC is to pass on information received from central management to the local employees' representatives in good time - across borders - so that they can do their job.
The system only works if national laws give the local employees' representatives adequate rights.
Amongst other things, this directive seeks to ensure that this is the case by setting minimum standards - minimum standards for information and consultation, not for participation in decision making.
Mrs Ghilardotti has produced a good and very thorough report, on which I would congratulate her.
In the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, she accepted a compromise solution on thresholds of 50 employees. That is acceptable, Mrs Weiler, and it is what the Commission and the Legal Affairs Committee had in mind.
We are against total deletion of the provision on the protection of certain interest groups, as the report demands.
However, in our amendments we propose a solution along the same lines as the works councils directive, which provides for this protection but severely restricts it.
Quite simply, this is also about gaining broader support.
It is particularly important - especially for small and medium-sized companies - for the Member States to provide for waivers if passing on information does considerable damage to the company.
A release from these responsibilities must not be arbitrary, however, and that is why objective criteria need to be laid down and provision made if necessary for the granting of official or judicial authorisation.
A framework for national rules on information and consultation which is structured in this way and which respects subsidiarity, Mrs Ghilardotti, is something we want to vote for.
It is an important step towards building the social dimension and towards creating a proper partnership in the European Union and - you are right - it also has economic advantages.
It is precisely at a time of rapid change and in a global economy that a lack of information engenders mistrust and ultimately fear, leading to a breakdown in relations.
Information means transparency, which creates trust and avoids losses in European companies due to friction.
Employers and employees are equal winners here.
Mr President, on behalf of a considerable majority of my group, I welcome the Commission's proposals.
I would remind you of the debates we had here on Vilvoorde and the Renault affair, for example, when we found that our rules on information and codetermination were not strong enough, and certainly not as far as penalties were concerned.
This proposal is a major step forward in terms of informing and consulting employees at European level.
The majority of my group will be voting for the compromise reached, namely that the legislation should apply to firms employing more than 50 people.
I must reiterate how important it is to have information and consultation.
Many firms which do this well take great care over how they treat their workers.
And it makes for a level playing field that consultation and codetermination requirements of this kind should apply Europe-wide.
It is, furthermore, a sign of the times. The rapporteur speaks tellingly in her report of the need to strengthen the social dialogue and promote mutual trust.
And I think it can be seen as an example to the rest of the world, because we know that Japan and the USA lag behind us on this.
From my own experience in the Netherlands, I know that works councils have often acquitted themselves better, when firms close down, than the management which was accountable to investors.
I think we need to realise - certainly those who are still reluctant, and I am looking at my colleagues in my own group here - that this is an area which offers great opportunities for modern-day entrepreneurship.
So I think we should wholeheartedly endorse this proposal, together with some of the amendments.
Mr President, this issue of the framework for informing and consulting employees is controversial.
It would be even more controversial if participation in the decision-making process, which this House has already asserted in various resolutions as being the right of employees, were added to information and consultation.
In accordance with its well-established practice, the Commission was in favour of the social partners establishing these rules themselves.
However, UNICE, the employers' organisation at Community level, believes this issue falls within the principle of subsidiarity.
There were therefore no negotiations because the Commission was forced to present its proposal for a directive outside the social dialogue.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy was charged with drawing up an opinion on this report.
This task fell to me and my intention was to help make real progress in the direction previously taken by the European Parliament.
Most members of this committee did not believe this to be the way forward and actually adopted UNICE's position.
No opinion was approved and the procedural page of the report states that the committee 'decided not to deliver an opinion'.
This is to be regretted because this opinion would have contributed to the resolution which Parliament is going to adopt, whether my formulation was used or another one subject to more general agreement.
This is why I congratulate Mrs Ghilardotti on her work and her report.
If you will allow me, Mr President, I must say something briefly on another report on this area which came before this House today and which, due to Rule 52, was not debated or voted on.
I am referring to the report on the organisation of work which must be regarded as a minor issue as it was rushed through Parliament.
How our priorities are distorted!
We voted on the monitoring of marine biotoxins and roll-over stability, which are technical reports whose importance I do not deny, but we passed over the report on 'modernising the organisation of work - a positive approach to change'.
Yet there are those who want the information, consultation and participation of employees to come under the principle of subsidiarity.
And then we complain about the public's lack of interest in the European Parliament!
Mr President, there is a gap in the EWC directive; that became only too clear during the strike at Vilvoorde, as previous speakers have already pointed out.
Clarification is needed on what information requirements actually exist.
This is provided in the important and very fine piece of work produced by Mrs Ghilardotti.
Of course compromises have had to be made. We particularly regret one of them: it is absurd enough as it is to bring company size into play where obligations to provide information are concerned, and then on top of that, 50 is far too high a figure.
We have therefore given Parliament another opportunity to go further and have tabled an amendment proposing 20 as the threshold, well aware that actually this figure is absurd as well.
As far as the protection of certain interest groups is concerned, we really have to say once again that this is a problem in any case because, for example, the freedom of the press is not the freedom of the newspaper owner, but the freedom of journalists.
In churches too, church members have freedoms and these also need to be protected.
But when it comes to information rights, this cannot have anything to do with the protection of certain interest groups.
In German law, protection is provided for certain interest groups in joint decision making.
There is some confusion here.
If UNICE is now complaining that it is being ignored, then it ought to have cooperated constructively!
Mr President, I agree with Mrs Ghilardotti that there is a need for increased information and greater involvement of employees within companies, especially medium and large-sized ones, not least so as to avoid outright social injustices such as in the case of Renault.
Allow me nevertheless to make one or two points.
I believe in particular that it is only right to try to reconcile this legitimate expectation of information and consultation with the actual requirements of companies, above all small ones.
In an economic climate as difficult and unstable as that of Europe at the moment, it would be inadvisable to burden companies with further legal and administrative obligations.
I would point out that, at least in Italy's case, it is only large companies which, when experiencing a crisis, quite rightly and properly receive support from the State, whereas small firms, although they too are a precious resource for the Union, do not enjoy any such privilege.
All too often, the heads of small firms have to face the uncertainties of the market all alone, shouldering all the risks without any protection or public assistance.
I would therefore point out that prior consultation of employees would be meaningful only if it were one aspect of a genuine system of participation.
What I mean is that, in a company which practises forms of participation - profit sharing or share ownership - prior consultation on company decisions is conceivable.
In this case, there is a give-and-take relationship between employer and employees: joint decision making but also joint risk taking; the profits are shared but so are the responsibilities.
To conclude, this proposal for a Council directive, and Mrs Ghilardotti's position in particular, introduces further elements of rigidity which the labour market - above all with regard to small businesses and micro-firms - can well do without, in my opinion. Such elements of rigidity would certainly not encourage job creation.
Mr President, this report and the directive itself represent a very significant point in the progress of industrial relations.
However, they are still less than the participation measures recommended some time ago, in particular by the studies of the European Foundation. This body carried out a major survey in 1991 and defined the following three models of participation: participation as a productive force, participation as a democratic force and participation as a set of positive forces.
Participation is actually the main objective which we must pursue but it is just one point which Mrs Ghilardotti has made more effective, broader and more efficient.
I must draw the Commission's attention to the fact that, in countries such as Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece, only 5 % of managers allow consultation and information on subjects which are not exclusively related to health and safety in the workplace.
We are therefore a long way from the European citizenship and democracy which we want for everyone.
Political democracy is currently kept outside the company walls.
We must hope that we can successfully implement this Commission initiative and the report which are intended to give people more freedom and make companies more productive while ensuring a greater human quality.
Mr President, I am not against minimum requirements and a common framework for informing and consulting workers. I think that Mrs Ghilardotti has made a good effort in this direction, but I feel that, carried away by her - albeit very good - intentions, she has gone somewhat over the top.
I think that if we adopt the report as it is at the moment we may end up achieving the opposite to what we all want, which is the protection of workers.
Discouraging enterprises from making investments will, in the end, be detrimental to workers.
I hold this view because we have different legislative approaches in the various Member States. Whilst in some Member States, such as Germany and Austria, what is being stipulated here is more or less already incorporated into their law, in other Member States a sudden change in legislation and a change of standards may have an adverse effect on the economy and on the labour market.
Indeed, a positive step was taken when the original idea to implement the directive in enterprises with 20 workers was abandoned and 50 was introduced as the threshold.
Nevertheless, there are still some things in the report I regard as negative and I would like to highlight a few as illustrative examples.
Firstly, the Commission proposal provides for derogations, for example for certain specific organisations with religious and charitable aims.
Amendment No 15 rescinds Article 2(2), which permits such derogations.
I feel this is a mistake. These are specific cases and therefore special provisions are required to guarantee information and consultation and the proper functioning of these organisations.
Secondly, Amendment No 24 (new) provides for final decisions to be postponed to allow consultations to continue so as to avoid adverse consequences for workers.
In this way, companies will be unable to take decisions, possibly for long periods of time, and thus their survival may be compromised.
Thirdly, Amendment No 26 offers workers the possibility of requesting the assistance of experts.
Experts should not take part in information and consultation meetings, since they may disclose important information to third parties, and the protection provided in Article 5 is inadequate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I personally am going to vote against this report.
The proposal is a blatant example of a lack of respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
Firstly, there are no cross-border aspects to the proposal and, secondly, the matter is already regulated in most Member States, including my own country, Denmark, through cooperation agreements.
This question should be regulated nationally and between the social partners.
This would take account of both the principle of subsidiarity and the national differences and traditions in Europe.
There is therefore no need for more EU rules in this area.
It should be up to individual countries to establish national rules or set up agreements, as we have done in my own country.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for what is an excellent report.
I should also like to thank the Commission for its proposal.
There can be no doubt that this directive is needed, as developments during recent years have shown.
I think it is obvious that employees should be regarded as a resource. It is therefore essential that they should have a right to consultation and information.
However, I do not think the proposal goes far enough.
In my view, 50 employees is far too high a figure - even 20 is too high.
I believe that every single employee should have the right to consultation and information.
However, I shall vote in favour of the proposal, since it establishes minimum rules.
Countries which already have better systems - like my own country, Sweden - should be able to retain them.
Therefore, all things considered, I regard this proposal as a successful step in a process whereby all employees will have the right to consultation and information in the future.
Mr President, unfortunately, the principle that if you wait for long enough the outcome will be good does not always apply in European social policy.
Many important decisions certainly take a long time, but then are not as good as we social affairs politicians would like them to be.
The question of informing, consulting and participating has been under discussion at European level since 1974.
All the Commission initiatives were defeated in the Council, because until the Maastricht Treaty came into force, unanimity was necessary for them to be adopted.
The framework directive on the working environment was the first to include the field of information and consultation.
Then in 1994, it became possible to adopt the EWC.
Nevertheless, constant change and increased cross-border activities mean that there is an urgent need for action to be taken on this issue.
As a result of limitations and shortcomings, workers have not been given sufficient information and opportunities to be consulted on issues that really matter for undertakings.
Admittedly - and this is true - legislation does exist at national level. Unfortunately, this is increasingly ineffective in cases involving cross-border activities.
That is why a minimum social standard is absolutely essential in this case too. This is nothing more than that.
In this way, subsidiarity is fully guaranteed.
After lengthy discussions in the committee, we agreed on the threshold of 50 employees.
In smaller companies, business developments are clearer and information harder to conceal.
The protection of certain interest groups has remained an open question.
The PPE Group supports it here as it did in the case of the EWC, and we are still hoping for the PSE Group's agreement.
However, we all agree that the minimum requirements must be adhered to, as must be the case for all minimum social standards.
The right to have expert support must definitely be guaranteed, in the context of subsidiarity, because without it workers could be taken for a ride.
After 25 years, I am looking forward to this directive for the benefit of workers finally being adopted.
The idea behind this directive is also that European companies are different from American and Japanese ones, and work best if a consensus is achieved between the companies and their employees by means of information and consultation.
Mr President, I could have done without this proposal for a directive.
Unfortunately, this point of view has not gained much support in Parliament.
In Denmark, both employers and workers believe the proposal could be a time bomb under the special Danish negotiating model whereby information and consultation are regulated in agreements on works councils between the social partners.
During the committee procedure, I proposed an amendment which would have allowed Member States to refrain from implementing the directive if the social partners agreed that adequate schemes already existed.
Unfortunately, it was not adopted.
I would not like Member States which do not have adequate schemes for informing and consulting workers to be able to evade the directive. That is why it is needed.
On the contrary, I am in favour of solidarity among workers in the EU, but at the same time I want a Member State such as Denmark - where over a period of more than 100 years the social partners have developed a successful model for information and consultation through collective agreements, in a spirit of cooperation and dialogue - to be allowed to retain such a system.
Conversely, we should not prevent others from being raised to the level that we enjoy.
Mr President, I should like to see the European Parliament reject this report.
We should demonstrate that we respect the subsidiarity principle.
To incorporate the contents into European legislation might run directly counter to our desired objectives.
The proposal for a directive is at odds with the different traditions that exist in the Member States.
It is an old-fashioned idea that the unions should acquire more influence through the EU.
This should be replaced by a modern approach - which obviously means influence and participation on the part of workers - in every organisation that wishes to be competitive and dynamic.
The necessary frameworks are best devised within individual workplaces and would only be hindered by the bureaucratic superstructure of a labour market policy, for which some people would now like to use European cooperation.
Our role in a Europe in which human resources are being misused through high unemployment should be to create the right conditions for new jobs.
The introduction of more rules and restrictions would mean fewer new jobs and less growth, development and prosperity. In other words, there would be many fewer workplaces in which there was consultation and information.
I should not like to be a party to that, and I am glad that many of those present in the House today have said the same thing.
Mr President, ever since the Community institutions first became involved in building Europe, especially social Europe, the information and consultation of employees has been a topic of substance, dating right back to the first Council documents in 1974.
Today we are dealing once again, perhaps in an almost final version, with this fundamental matter of how to involve the basic elements of companies - in other words those who work in them, those who invest their labour to help them grow and remain competitive on the market.
Many important considerations are set out in the rapporteur's text, for which we thank her.
In particular, it is vital to include the public sector, provided of course that the Member States create mechanisms to encourage social dialogue.
Clearly, social dialogue is especially desirable for SMEs, which appear to be excluded from this document, although - as we all know - they account for 90 % of companies in the Community.
Therefore, in agreement with the Member States - and this is crucial - we must ensure the maximum involvement of employees in small firms, or rather micro-firms, those with up to ten employees, which currently form a majority in certain economic sectors and offer the greatest potential.
The report has of course amended the initial proposal by ruling out a number of derogations on non-profit-making companies.
We agree on this aspect, as long as it is properly applied within the Member States.
In conclusion, in this age of globalisation, it would be unthinkable not to step up - and indeed to maximise - the involvement of employees in Community undertakings, because obviously business success or failure ultimately depends on them.
Mr President, I wish to begin by thanking Mrs Ghilardotti and all the other rapporteurs for their work on this particular Commission proposal.
I also wish to thank those Members who have taken the time to make valuable contributions to this debate.
I should like to express my personal satisfaction and gratitude for your support for this very important initiative of the Commission.
It is, in our view, an important proposal, which, once adopted, could add an indispensable missing element to Community European labour law.
Having listened to what has been said here - and I have read the draft opinion - I believe you are willing and ready to play a decisive role in the negotiations leading up to the adoption of this proposed directive.
Once adopted, it will complete and make more coherent the acquis communautaire in the field of employee involvement and make a decisive contribution to building the social dimension of the internal market.
In a way Ms Oddy is right: it will fill a gap that needs to be filled in European labour law.
Nevertheless, it is a controversial proposal, which is illustrated by the reservations which employers and some Member States have expressed.
We are aware of the difficulty of the debate and that is another reason why I am particularly pleased with your position of clear support for the initiative, while having to be prudent about the caretaker Commission at the moment and what it can do with this proposal just at this time.
So while the Council has not even started discussions on the text, and taking into account the absolute need to preserve the political viability of the proposal - notably within the Council - it is wiser at this time, and particularly at this stage, to act with some caution.
I fully understand all of your requests at this time.
Most, if not all, of the issues they raise were the subject of intense debate within the Commission in the period leading up to the adoption of the proposal.
In the end the Commission reached a delicate balance between the different points of view and divergent interests on what is regarded as a very sensitive issue.
It would be inappropriate to depart from this balance at this stage, at least as regards the proposed amendments relating to the four main sensitive issues of the proposal: the thresholds, the definitions of information and consultation, the extent to which the social partners may derogate from the directive's provisions and the question of sanctions.
I am sure that all your proposals on these central issues are going to be very much at stake in the discussions between the European Parliament and the Council leading up to the adoption of the proposal.
The Commission will play the role attributed to it by the Treaty in the course of the codecision procedure while facilitating the approximation of the positions of both parties and, in the end, ensuring consensus.
So you will understand my caution when reacting today to some of your amendments, even if some of them could certainly be envisaged by the Commission in the future, in the light of the developments that will take place in the Council.
In spite of my caution, I should like to be as positive as possible today.
Some proposed amendments can clearly be accepted by the Commission immediately, and they certainly improve the text.
This is the case for Amendments Nos 1, 17, 8, 10, the first and the third elements of Amendment No 13, and Nos 19 and 35.
A second category of amendments concern more substantial issues.
Nevertheless, I believe I can express my support for them as they are reasonable and do not seem to affect the delicate balance of the text.
This is the case of Amendments Nos 4 and 15, Nos 6 and 32 - they are related to the non-aggression clause - No 16 on the level of information and consultation, No 22 - the illustrative list of issues subject to information and consultation - and the first part of No 33, concerning the application of the principle of the directive to the public sector, which is referred to, although the proposed formula needs to be reworked somewhat.
While Amendment No 34 is wholly consistent with our approach of involving the social partners, we could not envisage that change to the basic formula used for the implementation of Community legislation.
I could, however, accept a recital based on this amendment.
As for the other amendments, in the light of the circumstances I have mentioned, the Commission feels it will be difficult to accept them.
In any case, as I have mentioned before, they will be very much present in the future institutional debates on this important proposal and so the debate on these central issues is far from being closed.
I must say to Mrs Weiler that it really is about minimum standards. It is very important for the European social model.
As Mrs Ghilardotti said, in a way, it is all about mutual confidence between employers and employees.
I regard this particular proposal as a key piece of European labour law.
Even though I shall be watching it from afar, I will be extremely interested in the adoption of this particular piece of European legislation. It will do an amazing amount of good for employers and employees in the development of the European social model.
I thank you for your support.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Working time
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0184/99 by Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time to cover sectors and activities excluded from that Directive (COM(98)0662 - C4-0715/98-98/0318(SYN)); -A4-0187/99 by Mr McMahon, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, onI.the proposal for a Council Directive concerning the organisation of working time for mobile workers performing road transport activities and for self-employed drivers (COM(98)0662 - C4-0716/98-98/0319(SYN))II.the proposal for a Council Directive concerning the enforcement of seafarers' hours of work on board ships using Community ports (COM(98)0662 - C4-0717/98-98/0321(SYN))III.the proposal for a Council Directive concerning the Agreement on the organisation of working time of seafarers concluded by the European Community Shipowners' Association (ECSA) and the Federation of Transport Workers' Unions in the European Union (FST) (COM(98)0662 - C4-0718/98).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is perhaps useful to start by saying that European legislation on working time is a matter of safety and health at work, and as such it is a right to which workers are entitled.
It was enshrined in a directive in 1993 and upheld in 1996 by the European Court of Justice.
But a number of sectors and activities have so far not been covered by this directive, namely a number of transport sectors, sea fishing and other activities at sea, and doctors in training.
We are required today to look at the legislative proposals to bring these excluded sectors within the scope of the directive.
The Commission has opted for a twin-track approach, on the one hand amending the existing horizontal directive and on the other hand putting forward three specific vertical directives for the transport sector, EU seafarers and seafarers aboard vessels entering EU ports.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has followed this dual approach, with Mr McMahon's report on sectoral legislation and my own report on adaptation of the existing directive.
Broadly speaking, the committee favours bringing all the excluded sectors and activities within the scope of the directive.
That will require, amongst other things, a revision of Article 17 on derogations so that better account can be taken of the specific features of each of these sectors and activities.
For these reasons, I stand by my original proposal that the exclusion of seafarers should be reversed.
Like transport workers, seafarers can make use of the derogations provided for in the directive.
And maritime transport, like road transport, can have recourse to a separate directive.
There is in any case a European agreement between shipowners and unions.
So why exclude them further? That is not defensible in either legal or political terms.
One may even wonder if it is still defensible to single out another occupational group, the armed forces in peacetime.
I think, Commissioner, that we need answers to these questions when the directive is revised in the near future.
The second point of debate was Sunday as a day of rest.
The 1993 directive provided for this, but the 1996 judgment of the Court of Justice declared it invalid.
It is not Sunday as a day of rest as such which is being abandoned, but Sunday rest as an element of worker health and safety protection.
So Sunday as a day of rest ought not really to be abandoned.
What we need is a different legal basis to justify Sunday as a day of rest.
The European Parliament adopted a position on this in its resolution of 12 December 1996.
That resolution calls on the Member States and the social partners too to acknowledge the special character of Sunday as a day of rest.
You backed that resolution, Commissioner, and you also confirmed it in a letter to me dated 8 January 1999.
In seeking a solution, I would point to the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty and in particular Article 151(4), which together with Article 128(1) of the Maastricht Treaty provides a suitable legal basis.
A few words now on doctors in training.
I think one of the most important merits of this legislation we are now enacting is that it brings to an end the inhuman working conditions, and various abuses, which a junior doctor has to endure.
It is most important to patients too, since it has often become apparent that junior doctors who have been on duty or gone without sleep for 60, 70 or 80 hours on the trot are often not best placed to make the right judgements when emergency intervention is required.
The European Commission's suggestion is to allow a temporary exemption, making the limit not 48 but 54 hours, for a period of seven years.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs arrived at a compromise, to accept the extension from 48 to 54 hours but for just four years, not seven.
As we know, the United Kingdom would like to go further than that, with a derogation for 15 years, but that takes us well into the 21st century, and I think we might ask whether members of the British Government would be happy to be treated in those conditions or not.
They might prefer to go to a different hospital.
In other words, we have to discuss and vote on all these things today and tomorrow.
I believe that this, together with the Ghilardotti report, is one of the most significant pieces of social legislation we shall have produced by the end of this parliamentary term.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating the Commission on bringing forward legislation for the excluded sector.
We have in front of us today a comprehensive package of proposals to protect about five million workers in road, rail and sea transport, as well as junior hospital doctors in training and offshore oil workers who are not covered under the original working time directive.
The debate today is the first step in this Parliament, following the new Amsterdam Treaty, to ensure that minimum standards of working time are established for all workers throughout Europe.
This is not an easy task.
To match minimum health and safety standards and at the same time to have some operational flexibility, which may be necessary in certain circumstances given the nature of these sectors, is not going to be easy.
We can be encouraged by the fact that the social partners reached an agreement in the rail industry and in maritime transport.
I particularly welcome the seafarers agreement, given that it was a European social model, which formed the basis of our own wider agreement in the ILO Convention 180.
Unfortunately, when we come to the road sector, the social partners were unable to reach an agreement.
But they held important negotiations and they have learned valuable lessons.
In drafting my report, which deals with the various transport sectors, my paramount concern has been the need to protect workers against the adverse effects on their health and safety of working excessively long hours.
The report is also about ensuring safe and competitive transport systems in the interests of the general public.
If we fail to deal with the regulation of working time in the transport sector, we run the risk not only of endangering the health and safety of the workers but at the same time of distorting competition within the internal market.
This is particularly true in the road transport sector, where 78 % of transport companies are small businesses operating with less than five vehicles.
It therefore makes sense to adopt European-wide rules on working time, which will operate alongside a tachograph and will ensure a level playing-field in road transport.
I fully support, therefore, the Commission's proposal to extend the working time rules to all mobile workers in road transport, including self-employed drivers.
These rules would protect road haulage workers, who are subcontracted out and end up becoming self-employed without any choice and without any health and safety protection.
Not only will the Commission's legislation protect workers in the transport industry but it will improve road safety in the interests of road users and passenger safety.
Up to 45 000 people are killed each year on the roads within the European Union and 18 % of all these fatal accidents involve either trucks or coaches, often as a result of driver fatigue.
Only by providing adequate rest breaks, restrictions on hours and working patterns for mobile workers can safety be ensured.
I have consistently argued in this report that too many derogations to the maximum working week, to rest periods or night work for mobile workers, would endanger health and safety standards.
I am inclined to argue that the possibility to derogate from the 48-hour working week up to a maximum of 60 hours is, in itself, a substantial derogation and that no further derogations beyond that should be allowed.
However, following a compromise we reached in committee, I have agreed that derogations can exist for weekly working time and rest periods, provided that this is negotiated and agreed by the social partners and the workers are offered compensatory rest.
I would like briefly to address the situation of taxi drivers under these proposals.
I fully support the Commission's proposal that taxi drivers should come under the scope of this proposed legislation in the interests of health and safety and fair competition.
The Commission has been rather unfairly attacked on this.
I do not believe that by introducing special categories of workers, we can fulfil our aims of providing basic level protection for all workers in the transport industry.
Turning very briefly to Mr Chanterie's report I would like to congratulate him on his work and thank him for the discussions that we have had.
I am particularly concerned about two areas.
One is the offshore oil industry, which he has touched upon, where there are traditionally very hazardous hours for health and safety - we saw what happened with Piper Alpha.
Some arguments have been put forward for the oil industry to annualise working time.
Obviously this will have to be as a result of negotiation.
Finally, on the question of share-fishermen. I welcome a clearer definition of what is a share-fisherman.
I look forward to the Commission's proposals for a forthcoming directive on the whole issue of working time and fishermen.
This is another area where there are very serious dangers and risks.
Mr President, I should like to say at the outset how happy I am to be speaking on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism on this report as it is the transport sector that this legislation will have the greatest impact upon.
Back in 1993 the working time directive excluded some six million workers. Over 80 % of these were in transport jobs.
We said at the time that in particular the exclusion of these non-mobile workers was unfair and illogical.
We are pleased now that this anomaly will be put right with this proposal.
The European Parliament has always appreciated the problems that existed within the various mobile sectors, but it has always been a priority for the Transport Committee to ensure that a way forward is found to eventually bring them under the scope of the directive.
We are delighted, on the whole, that the social partners, working with the Commission, have managed to come up with proposals that will put an end to excessively long hours that are dangerous to the health and safety of the workers themselves and to the travelling public as a whole.
As far as the Transport Committee is concerned, our bottom line is safety.
Safety has always been our guiding principle.
In the rail and maritime sector, agreement was reached. We welcome those agreements.
Unfortunately in the road sector there was no agreement between the social partners.
We congratulate the Commission on taking an initiative to bring forward legislative proposals.
I would also welcome here the trade unions' readiness to negotiate on working time for flight crews in civil aviation, within the joint civil aviation authority.
I really hope that an agreement can be reached there.
This issue is very dear to our hearts.
It is the implementation and the monitoring of the legislation that now becomes important.
It is all very well having good legislation, but making sure that it is adhered to is key.
We want to see proper controls and all sections of public transport involved and included.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Transport Committee I would like to thank Mr McMahon for his cooperation and say that this has been a very good example of cross-committee joint work on legislation that will make a very great deal of difference to the health and safety of our citizens.
Mr President, my group is naturally delighted that we are able today to look at two reports which in effect deal with cornerstones of social policy.
It is remarkable too that all this is possible in the final months of the term of office of Messrs Chanterie, McMahon, van Velzen and Flynn.
In my opinion, they will be sorely missed in future.
But what pleases us most is that we now have an end to the situation in which whole sectors are arbitrarily excluded altogether from normal directives, whereby it is claimed that workers in those sectors are so special that they can be expected to work extremely long hours and with particularly short or ridiculous rest periods.
I do accept that there are sectors in which exceptional circumstances obtain.
We said to begin with that these were so special that they had to be excluded, but now we are saying that they must in principle be included and that if an exemption is granted, it can be granted only on the basis of an agreement between the social partners in the sector concerned.
And that sits very well with Fiorella Ghilardotti's report.
We have had people lobbying us, because take it from me, a great many lobbyists have been very busy.
People have lobbied us saying that this will not work, because they do not have a social dialogue.
We see the requirement that an agreement can only be accepted if it is based on social dialogue as a kind of incentive for people in those particular Member States to revive the social dialogue.
Lastly, I think that after this debate we ought to have a further discussion, involving amongst others the Socialists and Christian Democrats, because there are a number of amendments which I think are very risky, in that grey area between self-employed and employed taxi drivers, for example.
I am particularly afraid that there may be no parallelism between the circumstances of employers and employees, so that employees are forced into 'sham' self-employment.
I would like a little more debate on that, because to my mind some of the PPE Group's amendments present a dangerous opening.
Mr President, first of all I should like to thank the two rapporteurs. This is a difficult subject and they have both done a fine job.
So thank you very much, Mr Chanterie and Mr McMahon!
I can only agree with Mr van Velzen.
We cannot exclude sectors from legislation of this kind just because they are problematic.
One reason for this is the health of the workers.
When I consider the demanding jobs done by mobile workers and self-employed drivers, I cannot see any difference between employees and self-employed drivers in terms of danger to health.
I believe that protection needs to be provided for both groups.
Of course this also applies to seafarers on board ships, offshore workers and in particular doctors, who certainly do not have an easy job.
That is one reason, the workers' health.
The other is of course safety, and unfortunately this also affects those who do not work in these sectors.
You see, if an overtired lorry driver runs into my car, although I am driving properly, that is certainly not exactly good for me.
If a ship carrying oil - and this is something we have experienced - runs aground because the master is asleep, this puts the whole environment at risk.
It is therefore very easy to see the wider implications of the safety issue.
I think that for this reason alone, this is very, very important.
Mr van Velzen, I think that we should actually make renewed efforts within the two large groups - and perhaps with all the others who are willing to cooperate - to reach compromises on the amendments.
I would see this as particularly important in these two areas.
I also hope that we find a reasonable solution to the Sunday rest issue, one which the Commission is also able to endorse, without the European Court of Justice raising difficulties once again.
Mr President, we are dealing here with sectors which have been excluded for a long time.
The occupational groups concerned have in recent years asked us on many occasions, as Members of the European Parliament, to bring about a solution to their situation.
I am thinking for example of aircrews, seafarers and doctors too, as mentioned by Mr Chanterie.
My group will be supporting an overwhelming majority of the proposals and also some of the amendments.
Our main concern here will be on the one hand the safety and protection of the personnel in question, but on the other hand the safety of society, which is also a factor here.
Some speakers have already referred to this.
From that point of view, I have also argued in my group that you cannot make a distinction between the self-employed - people who work for themselves - and the rest, because if he is overtired, a payroll employee is no less of a danger than a self-employed person.
In virtually all the sectors we are dealing with here, there are two sides to the coin: not only the safety of the personnel in question, because otherwise you could say that employers should look after safety themselves, but also the safety of the rest of society, because there are always going to be sectors in which damage can be caused to the rest of society.
So for us that is good reason to have the same legislation applying to both categories of people and to support that element.
Let me add a brief remark on the subject of doctors in the United Kingdom.
I find it bizarre that the United Kingdom continues to squabble over this, and given that we have so many UK Socialists in the House, I should like to ask whether, now that the colour of the government has paled somewhat, its position might not change?
Mr President, firstly I must underline the importance of the working time issue for the excluded sectors, in particular road transport, as this involves both social justice and road safety.
In view of the dramatic accident in the Mont Blanc tunnel which has plunged both France and Italy into mourning, we need more than ever to develop sustainable means of transport, offering maximum safety guarantees and fully respecting the environment. These means include rail, inland waterway and sea transport.
Everyone here agrees on this need which must be translated into acts containing provisions to improve road safety in particular.
This would specifically involve combating the social dumping practised by the road transport sector whereby drivers have to work shocking hours under conditions which are outrageous in the present day.
This should be the main aim of the reports presented today.
The inclusion of self-employed drivers and a better definition of working time are steps in the right direction, as also is the assertion by Mr Chanterie of the importance of Sunday rest.
But that is not all that is needed.
Accepting a 48-hour working week when 35 hours is being considered in many countries is a major departure and we must not go beyond this.
Allowing the possibility of a working week of 60 hours, provided that the average of 48 hours is respected over a four-month reference period, constitutes a blank cheque for all kinds of abuse.
Remember that accidents increase after 55 hours' work.
On the subject of night work, the two-month reference period is also too long.
For effective control, the reference period should not exceed one month for day work and one week for night work.
The trade unions are firm in their demands for this.
My amendments specify these requirements and they also demand a break after four and a half hours' work. Why not when the highway code recommends that car drivers should take a break every two hours?
Finally, I must mention something which is purely linguistic.
It concerns the translation into French of the term 'standby'.
This is given in the report as 'période d'attente '. I propose that this should be replaced by 'période de grande interruption ' which corresponds more accurately to the spirit of the proposal.
To conclude, we are dealing here with an issue which is of great significance.
We must firmly establish the objective of a labour-oriented Europe which can really improve the situation of the employees concerned.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate the two rapporteurs on their work and also the draftsmen from the various committees for their assistance on what is a very difficult area to legislate on.
While I welcome the general commitment towards ensuring the health and safety of workers and also guaranteeing that there is cohesion across the Member States with regard to the minimum protection that will be available, I fear for certain sectors.
In particular, when we mention imposing similar restrictions on self-employed people we are in danger of becoming too much of a nanny state where we try to control everything and regulate what everyone does.
Allowance should be made for the self-employed running their own businesses, who should not be confined in the same way as other people.
However, be that as it may, the matter of transport in particular impacts very much on the general public.
Because of the dangers which are present because of lack of proper controls and rest periods for people involved in the transport sector, it is essential that we have common regulation across the European Union.
The only criticism I have of that section of the reports is that I do not feel there is enough flexibility built in to ensure that the so-called standby or waiting period is taken into consideration.
Having read the report and the amendments I am still not fully convinced that the distinction is clear enough between the standby duties and the waiting time.
Secondly, with regard to the question of junior doctors in training, it was unfortunate that when the original working time directive was proposed by the Commission, this sector was excluded.
Junior doctors play a critical role in patient care.
There are instances where junior doctors in training are working 120 hours a week.
Some of them are working straight shifts of 36 and 37 hours without any rest period or sleep.
It is impossible for any human being to perform properly under those circumstances but, more importantly, it is more difficult for a doctor to make proper clinical judgments with regard to the treatment of patients while working under those conditions.
So I welcome the proposals put forward by Mr Chanterie to try to bring some regulation and flexibility into that sector.
Finally, I should like to pay tribute to the Commissioner himself.
It may be the last opportunity I have to do this in this House.
When he started off in this job many years ago, he came forward with many legislative proposals which many people in this Parliament said were pie in the sky and would never be achieved.
I hope this Parliament, the media and the public will recognise his tremendous record in not only completing his legislative programme but bringing Parliament along in support when people said it could not be done.
Mr President, I think that we should start with the concept of flexibility.
It is true that in a complex situation, we need rules which vary slightly and which are adaptable.
But at the same time, we need clear minimum standards which ensure that the quality of the work, the safety of third parties and also the safety of the employees themselves are not at risk.
I do not think that there should be room for any flexibility here, and nor do I see how anyone, regardless of the type of contract they have - whether they are a franchise-holder or an independent trader or whatever - can suddenly be exempted from these minimum requirements, which concern their own and other people's safety.
Having said that, I must also welcome the compromise reached here, because it is a first step towards bringing these sectors - whose exclusion, when we have an internal market and when these very activities are expanding, was unjustified from the outset - back into a system of statutory regulation.
They are complex, and therefore need rules which vary slightly.
In this context, we need to give much more recognition to the role played by the social partners in terms of implementation, and I think that experience shows that all those who are involved in the practicalities of implementing rules of this kind on the ground - which means experts, which means the two sides of industry, as the British call them - should be given a tangible role in the implementation process.
Basically, this is what has happened. In this respect, I think that the two reports are on the right track.
I have one further comment on Sunday rest: I do not see why it should not be possible - in our modern flexible world of production - for us to agree on a time of rest.
That too is an important part of social cohesion and communication and ought to be attainable.
Mr President, the main principles underlying the directive on working time are important and are indeed worthy of this Parliament's support.
The stated objectives are fairness to all workers in their conditions of employment, as well as recognising issues of health and safety that are able to be addressed by at least some of the Commission's proposals and some of the rapporteur's opinions.
However, measures designed to achieve desirable objectives, I would contend, must be practical and be capable of recognising the special nature of certain sectors and the unique working conditions and practices therein.
I represent, for example, offshore workers in two very different industries: in fishing and in oil.
On the one hand share-fishermen, who work for themselves, resent the possible imposition of yet more restrictions on their working practices.
Yet, on the other hand, I know from many letters from constituents on this subject that hundreds of offshore workers in the North Sea oil and gas industry would welcome being brought under the working time directive.
However, I am concerned that, as things stand, its implementation may not have much direct and positive impact on those it is really designed to target.
For example, I am concerned that many offshore contract labourers would still not be entitled to paid annual leave because of the shift rotas which they work.
It would be an irony if the working time directive was imposed upon fishermen who do not need or want it but fails to benefit oil workers who do.
We must make sure that our policy is flexible enough to target the real problems.
We must ensure that our proposals are workable and acceptable to those most directly affected by them.
I am aware that Mrs Bonino's officials are exploring possible ways of taking account of the special needs of the fishing industry.
I certainly hope that a satisfactory solution to that will be found with the support, I hope, of Mr Flynn.
Here in Parliament we have a chance to show that we are responsive to the real needs of sectors such as offshore workers and to prove that we are not a remote and inflexible bureaucracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission proposal now before us is based on the 1993 working time directive and concerns the sectors and activities which were excluded from it.
We know from the background to the process of adopting that directive that it met with considerable resistance in the Council.
This change is intended to bring the sectors which were excluded - some of them without good reason - within the scope of the directive.
Of course, like previous speakers, I am concerned about protecting the health and safety of both employees and the others who are affected.
At the same time, this begs the question of whether having extended and all-embracing rules at European level is compatible with the principle of subsidiarity.
This week we shall also be discussing the need to modernise the organisation of work.
Working time is an essential part of this.
We know from statistics how much working time varies across our European countries, and that it is dependent on factors such as production technology and particular cultural features.
European legislation applying to all sectors and to the whole of Europe should not stand in the way of these traditions.
I also have a comment on Sunday rest: in my opinion, Sunday rest is particularly important in today's restless world, especially for family life, social occasions, keeping up traditions and for clubs and organisations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur for an excellent and well-informed report.
There are many objectives behind the regulation of working time, and recently a lot has been said about the effect on employment of reduced working time.
The subject is also linked to the idea of promoting health and safety, as has been mentioned here, and in many Member States we have seen that it is this area that has been affected most by experiments in reducing working time, in spite of the fact that the purpose was often to increase employment.
The need to promote workers' mental and physical capacity for work through the regulation of working time still exists.
Seen from this viewpoint too, Mr McMahon is largely right to support the Commission's directives, as he does in his report.
There are good reasons for extending the health and safety protection accorded to employees to include self-employed drivers, not just for the sake of the drivers in question, but for the sake of the other drivers on the road.
I myself dozed off at the wheel of a lorry in Finnish Lapland.
Finland is the size of Germany and is Europe's most sparsely populated country, and a long road, a tired driver, and the fact that it was dark was a disastrous combination as far as I was concerned.
Conditions are different among the Member States of the Union, and we also need to take account of the problem of night work. In Finland, for example, which is a big country, good, efficient services depend on a long-distance transport network.
I therefore propose a qualification, but otherwise I am happy to endorse the report.
Mr President, first of all my compliments to the rapporteurs, Mr McMahon and Mr Chanterie, for all the hard work they have put in on this directive.
The working time directive is one of the most complex, but also one of the most important directives in the area of safety and health.
Nothing is more of a factor in stress and poor performance than excessively long hours of work.
The 1993 directive on the organisation of working time was therefore a major achievement.
The UK Government got nowhere when it claimed that working time was not a health and safety issue.
That position was rejected by both the Court and the Council.
What was strange was that so many sectors were taken out of the scope of the 1993 directive.
We in Parliament accepted that, but we did insist that equivalent systems should be introduced in the sectors that were excluded.
In some sectors, the social partners have concluded agreements. These we can accept and transpose into legislation.
In a number of other sectors, the Commission has had to resolve impasses, for example over doctors in training.
Problems arose over these, to which satisfactory solutions have been found in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Two problems still remain.
One concerns off-shore operations, and the other Sunday working, which was mentioned in the old directive.
The Court has declared the sentence on Sunday working in the current text to be inapplicable.
The sentence read as follows: 'The (minimum) rest period referred to in the first subparagraph shall in principle include Sunday'.
This sentence relates to the principle that it is possible to limit Sunday working.
That is an important value in our in some respects totally unregulated society. The Commission is totally ignoring this.
It wants quite simply to delete the sentence, although the Court judgment does not inherently indicate that this is necessary.
The Commission would do well to reconsider.
This is a very important question of principle which has to be resolved in the light of the Amsterdam Treaty.
We do not want to discard the article but reshape it.
Consequently, we are not in favour of Article 1(b) of the Commission's proposal and will request a separate vote on it.
Mr President, this working time directive concerns employees' working conditions, which is an important issue.
A directive of this type should be based on agreements between the social partners as to what constitute reasonable working conditions, both for employees and firms.
If it is to be applied in the right way, it is vital that it should have strong support from the social partners.
With particular reference to my own country, Sweden, we make a point of ensuring that such support exists, so that rules of this kind have some meaning.
The directive also concerns other important issues, namely protection of workers' health and safety, as well as of the surrounding environment; it is important to ensure that transport does not endanger either people or the environment.
In this respect, the directive is of value.
Its scope has now been extended to cover a further five to six million people, which means that it is even more important to ensure that the rules are both practical and constructive.
There are one or two points that I should like to emphasise.
Firstly, that it really is a question of minimum standards.
Every Member State should therefore have the right to draw up tougher rules in the interests of both the environment and safety: that much is crucial.
Secondly, regulation should be on the conservative side, rather than too detailed.
Instead, those with practical experience should be allowed to interpret the minor details, in order to avoid being hemmed in by petty restrictions.
Having made these few comments, I would in general support the proposal.
In my view, it is a step along the road to a safer and healthier Europe.
Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr McMahon on the presentation of a very fine report.
I will confine my remarks to the fishing and maritime sector.
The fishing industry in my country and in Europe generally is not like any other commercial and economic activity.
It is a peculiar industry with its own special characteristics and needs and European legislation should be tailored at national level to suit the unique circumstances.
I have represented the fishing industry's interests in Ireland, both at local and national level, for many years and at European level for the past five years.
While I support the broad thrust of the working time directive for many sectors of social and economic life, I believe that more specific legislation is needed so as to guarantee the exemption of the fishing industry from the demands of this working time directive.
I fully agree with the rapporteur when he states that the specific derogation for share-fishermen's needs to be adequately defined.
I agree with this proposition, but the European Union must at all times take cognisance of the special nature of the industry and of fishing villages throughout the length and breadth of the Union.
The proposals in the maritime sector also include the European Commission's recommendation on the ratification of the ILO Convention on seafarers' hours of work and the manning of ships.
The agreement reached between the social partners largely reflects the content of the Convention with regard to the minimum hours of rest, as well as introducing new provisions on health assessments and annual leave.
With regard to the verification of working hours, the European Commission has annexed a model format regarding hours of work and rest for seafarers and has suggested that the Member States should harmonise their legislation in this manner.
Any changes which are going to be brought about in this regard can only be done in agreement with the fishing industry in Ireland and in Europe.
In conclusion I wish to congratulate Commissioner Flynn on his persistence in having the original directive accepted despite the many obstacles at Member State level.
I would now ask him to begin to consider Parliament's view, the Committee on Fisheries' view, in relation to the unique circumstances of the fishing industry.
Mr President, Directive 93/104/EC establishing the general rules on working time excluded several sectors including the transport sector. In this sector, the rights of employees are more often than not disregarded.
It was under pressure from Parliament and also to plug this gap that the Commission adopted a White Paper on excluded sectors and activities.
In its opinion on this report, the Committee on Transport and Tourism advocated extending the directive to non-mobile workers and including other aspects such as annual leave and rest periods for mobile workers.
The reference period for these workers is quite naturally the whole year and I do believe that our discussions must remain within this framework. This is because this is a very specific sector which carries serious risks in terms of both working conditions and health and safety.
For this reason, I believe that talking about annualising working time should not be regarded as outrageous, as long as this provides a clearer view of the real situation in this profession and provided that we can perhaps tackle its shortcomings more effectively.
Working time could be reduced by taking the average weekly working time, calculated over the year, and prohibiting anything over 48 hours per week.
However, on a more general level, by this I mean taking into account mobile and non-mobile workers, the basic question is as follows: has the directive changed the life and work organisation of European employees?
Clearly the current answer is no.
Once again we have a fairly vague framework which does not define strict enough limits.
As a result, our labour-oriented Europe solely consists of a minimum framework and although harmonisation favours a limited number of European citizens, it represents a backward step for the majority.
While Europe as a force for labour remains restricted by this framework, it will never become sufficiently visible to the public, just like the monetary side of Europe today.
Mr President, like Mr Sainjon I believe both that this directive is long overdue and that its content does not match the hopes of employees in this sector.
It is overdue because the road transport market in the Community was fully deregulated over a year ago and the social dumping which was already very apparent in this sector is simply increasing.
It is inadequate because it does not provide any significant progress overall in terms of either public safety or the working conditions of employees or self-employed workers in this sector.
The figure of 48 hours proposed as the maximum working week is more than what was specified in Regulation 3820/85 establishing the organisation of road transport.
In order to be consistent with this regulation we would have to consider a maximum working week of 46 hours.
Yet it is clear that this figure of 46 hours is well in excess of the target of 35 hours and is by no means a massive reduction in working time, which seems to be one of the main areas of progress to be prepared and achieved in this century; this will also leave gaps in terms of public safety.
Even worse are the exceptions, or rather the exception, provided for by the directive and involving the maximum working week of 60 hours.
You can imagine the effect that this will have on public safety and the living conditions of drivers. This exception is not acceptable.
However, in order to improve the directive, even though we condemn the principle behind this exception, I would ask you to support Mrs Moreau's proposals.
She believes that this time should be less than 60 hours - I would remind you that the authorised driving time is 56 hours - and in particular that this should be calculated over a period limited to 28 days. This corresponds to the time which can be monitored and appears more reasonable than a period of four months during which abuses will be easy to perpetrate.
To conclude, this directive is inadequate despite the small hesitant steps which I must welcome, specifically the similar treatment of self-employed workers and employees. Although this is a start, it largely does not match the hopes of this Parliament and of employees in this sector.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have not always been able to take it for granted that Parliament and the Commission would regard rules on working time as part of protecting health and safety in all sectors. Thanks to the two reports we are debating today, this does at least seem to be clear now.
I should therefore like to thank both the Commission and the two rapporteurs for their work, and in addition express my hope that the same opinion will prevail in the Council.
I am speaking here on behalf of the PPE members of the Committee on Transport when I say that it is good that road transport - a sector with over five million employees - is not going to be excluded any longer; in my view, it is simply obvious that this should be the case.
In road transport in particular, there is a direct correlation between working time and the numbers of accidents.
I should like to stress once again how important it is for this to be implemented quickly, but also for compliance with all the measures to be enforced in all the Member States.
Even though there is strong competition in the transport sector, it should not come at the expense of health or public safety.
The two directives are being dealt with and adopted in parallel.
This shows that we intend to be consistent. It seems to me that it is important - as the rapporteurs also emphasise - for these directives to establish minimum requirements, and thus for certain countries which might have stricter criteria on safety not to interpret the directives as a licence to dismantle them.
Although these directives certainly resolve the working time problem to a large extent, let me nevertheless draw your attention to a particular problem, that of local transport.
Local transport covers the carriage of passengers by both road and rail.
To my mind, given that many countries already have appropriate rules in this sector, the derogation in Article 7 of Directive 98/319 ought to be maintained, or this sector should quite simply be incorporated into the 1993 directive.
I believe that this is what both the Commission and the employees and employers in this sector would wish to see.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs and in particular Mr McMahon, to whose report my remarks are particularly addressed.
I welcome the attempt to provide greater regulation and I regret that agreement could not be found with the social partners on road transport.
However, I think there is a problem with the Commission proposals to which the rapporteur pays insufficient attention.
That is that coach and bus drivers are effectively being categorised as road hauliers though they carry out very different tasks, requiring very different working hours. This leads to problems in two areas.
The first is safety.
These proposals are designed to ensure a high level of social protection for workers as well as a high degree of safety for passengers.
No one would disagree with that.
But the Commission statistics are slightly misleading.
They tell us that 18 % of fatal accidents involve trucks or coaches and yet buses and coaches are actually one of the safer forms of road transport.
Indeed, in the United Kingdom, only 2.2 % of fatal road accidents involve buses or coaches.
It seems to me that the extra costs that these proposals will put on small businesses - in particular small coach companies - will lead to reduction of investment in safer and newer vehicles, which will hit the industry and perhaps undermine passenger safety.
My second point concerns service.
I am sure that Mr McMahon, like myself, regrets the destruction of the UK railways by the Conservative Governments and the way in which the road industry therefore developed.
But the fact is that in rural areas, such as the one I represent, bus services are becoming increasingly rare.
People rely on buses and coaches and the extra costs and lack of flexibility in using existing staff which these proposals would bring will have a knock-on effect which will lead to cutbacks in services.
In conclusion, I propose that we ought to be looking at classifying road passenger transport with rail transport for the purposes of such regulation.
This would allow services to be enhanced with no cost in terms of passenger safety.
Mr President, earlier today Mrs Green, the Socialist Group leader, said that our agenda is for jobs - really? If that is true, then we wait to see the Socialist vote against these two reports because these proposals would cost jobs.
My own group has put down some very helpful amendments to them, but, as amended by our rapporteurs, these show old-style, old-Labour, Euro-social-engineering at its worst: inflexible, authoritarian and unrealistic.
Everyone knows that the sectors originally excluded from the working time directive were left out because of the difficulty of including the workers they cover.
Nevertheless, the Commission has put the proposals forward.
In my view, Parliament's contribution might have been to try to help find a way of combining protection of workers with a flexibility that enables Europe to retain its competitiveness.
The contribution of our two rapporteurs is to make things worse.
Mr Chanterie confirms that he wants to include share-fishermen in the working time directive, cutting their working week, their ability to work as they wish and ultimately cutting their opportunity of making a likelihood.
What sort of message is that to the fishermen in the south-west of England who are having a hard time making any living at the moment?
Mr McMahon hammers the taxi drivers of Europe by insisting in his amendment that the 48-hour week they are compelled to work within must include standby time, that is, time when they are not earning anything.
He also insists that all self-employed drivers must have a tachograph.
Mr McMahon and Mr Chanterie should listen to the words of a taxi driver - Mrs Wendy Smith - who has written to me from Sidmouth in Devon.
She says: this directive would destroy private hire completely and I am afraid no-one is going to work under these conditions; there is a lot to consider before destroying the taxi service, but perhaps they are only interested in dictatorship.
How embarrassing it must be for Britain's Labour Government to read the McMahon report!
We have asked in vain what the British Government thinks about it.
Here, at last, they are faced with the consequences of Mr Blair's handiwork in signing up to European social policy and whatever he may say, such laws will be adopted by qualified majority.
Get out of that Mr Blair!
I urge colleagues to vote against these damaging reports.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating the two rapporteurs on two excellent reports.
The Commission and Parliament have been working together for over six years now to ensure that workers currently excluded from the working time directive have appropriate protection.
I shall begin with Mr Chanterie's report.
There is complete agreement between the rapporteur and the Commission on the objectives to be achieved.
There are, however, a considerable number of amendments which have been tabled by the rapporteurs and other Members.
Most of these are acceptable to the Commission.
They are Amendments Nos 1 to 8, 10, 11, 13 and 16.
In particular, I welcome Amendment No 11, which provides a useful definition of share-fishermen.
I also welcome the support from the rapporteur for the Commission's proposal in respect of the annual leave as far as share-fishermen are concerned.
I have much sympathy with the arguments put forward in favour of most of the other amendments but none of them represent a fundamental opposition to the Commission's approach but rather a difference of emphasis in certain ways.
I completely agree, for example, that no sector or activity should be excluded from Community legislation on working time.
The only difference between the Commission and the rapporteur in relation to seafarers is the way in which this is to be achieved.
The Commission proposed, at the express wish of the social partners in the maritime sector, that only the directive implementing the agreement between the social partners should apply to the workers concerned, but only these workers are excluded from the general directive.
There can be no gaps here.
In the case of Sunday rest, the situation is rather different.
The provision in the working time directive that the weekly rest period should in principle include Sunday was deleted by the European Court of Justice.
The Commission's proposal merely recognises that, it does not seek to alter it.
I know that the rapporteur would like to reinsert that provision, and I understand his reasons for doing so.
However, whatever the merits of the case, I suggest that this is not the time to do it.
The sole purpose of this proposal is to protect workers in the sectors and activities currently excluded and it has taken over five years to get this far.
I do not want to open up the debate on other issues as we would then lose sight of our prime objective.
I cannot, therefore, accept this part of Amendment No 9.
The most controversial area is the issue of doctors in training.
Here the Commission proposed a transitional period of seven years for the application of the maximum of 48 hours on average, under certain conditions.
In the Council a number of Member States are seeking longer limits on the basis of the time needed to provide basic university education to sufficient numbers of would-be doctors.
While I would dearly love to support Parliament's Amendment No 15 on this point, I believe that the Commission's proposal is more realistic.
While the health of doctors and patients is paramount, we must take into account the effect of a radical change on the provision of health-care services.
Another issue in this report concerns the annual limit on working time.
Again I can understand the amendment proposed but our proposal seeks to establish minimum provisions which can be applied right across the board.
In certain circumstances, in particular in the sea-fishing and transport industries, the calculation of the limit on an annual basis is justified and Amendments Nos 17 and 20 are too restrictive, while Amendment No 18 does not really add value to the proposal.
Finally, Amendment No 19, which seeks to expand the definition of mobile workers to include rail workers, is not acceptable.
I turn now to Mr McMahon, our other rapporteur.
I should like to mention first of all the maritime proposals.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur accepts the Commission's proposals, subject to the two directives being implemented simultaneously, with the ratification of ILO Convention 180 and the Protocol of Convention 147.
This is entirely consistent with the Commission's approach.
On road transport, I welcome the broad support in the report for the initiative on working time in this sector and, in particular, for the inclusion of the self-employed.
Clearly this is not just a health and safety issue for road-transport workers, it is also a matter of public safety, as Mr Crowley said.
In addition, there is an obvious need to combat distortions in competition in a highly competitive sector, which Mr McMahon referred to.
I am very happy to say that the Commission can accept those amendments which clarify the text.
They are Amendments Nos 4 to 7, 11, 14 and 15 and the first half of Nos 1 and 16 and the second half of No 8.
The Commission accepts in principle the need to insert a definition of a self-employed driver, as proposed in Amendment No 10, but intends to cover a wider scope in its definition.
In order to maintain the integrity of our proposal, we must reject Amendment No 25, which seeks to exclude urban passenger transport from the scope of the directive.
As regards the derogations, we are prepared to accept part of the compromise Amendment No 12, which relates to Article 7(2) of our proposal.
We have found a general lack of support for the existing proposed derogation of up to 12 months, not only in the Council but also in the industry itself.
As a result, we are prepared to delete this derogation.
There are elements that the Commission cannot accept.
Parliament is aware that the Commission's stance on derogation is generally to maintain a balance between flexibility in work organisation and a minimum level of social protection.
It was on this very issue that the original negotiations foundered.
While I appreciate the emphasis given by Parliament to collective agreements or derogations in Amendment No 12, nevertheless the Commission considers that Member States should be offered the opportunity to provide clear rules through national legislation as in the general working time directive.
This amendment is therefore not acceptable.
In addition, the Commission is still convinced that, to facilitate the organisation of work in the urban transport sector in general, the derogation offered in Article 7(3) should be retained and so we cannot agree with Amendment No 13.
The same argument obliges us to reject Amendments Nos 22, 24 and 27 to 30.
There are other amendments which the Commission cannot accept as they fall outside the remit of the proposal, thus Amendment No 19 and the regulation of contracts between transport agencies relate to contract law.
As to Amendment No 18, on establishing a common range of penalties, it is difficult to see how Member States acting individually can establish a common range while detailed prescription by the Community in this sensitive area would be inappropriate.
Similarly, we must reject the second half of Amendment No 16 which is over-prescriptive.
Certain other amendments would not clarify the text.
Amendment No 17 adds a non-regression clause which is already in Article 11(3) and the Commission text reflects what is set out in the general working time directive.
Amendments Nos 21 and 23 would potentially cause some confusion.
As the rapporteur has accepted the Commission position on the location of the maximum weekly working time provision, in Article 3, the part of our Amendment No 1 which proposes to change recital 16 should also be deleted.
Amendments Nos 2 and 20 include a clarification on emergency mobile workers and as the primary function of these workers is not road transport, the Commission considers that they come under the general working time directive and therefore we cannot accept these amendments.
Amendment No 3 and the first part of amendment No 8 include standby duty within the definition of working time for the self-employed.
The Commission considers that standby duty, as defined in the proposal, is purely an aspect of an employee's duties.
Finally, as regards Amendment No 9 on night work, in recognition of the diversity of geographical locations and legislative arrangements within the Member States, the Commission considers the proportion of annual working time which determines whether workers may be classified as night workers should be left to the Member States in consultation with the social partners rather than applying a rigid 48 days.
That is to say, the amendment would conflict with the general working time directive.
I hope I have clarified the Commission's position on this difficult proposal.
I am grateful to Parliament for the broad support it has given to the Commission proposals and for the speed with which it has dealt with them.
I know that this view is shared by my colleague Mr Kinnock and that as a result the Council, under the German presidency, will be able to adopt the directive putting into effect the seafarers' agreement and to reach a common position on the other three points.
Finally, I should like to say to Mr Hudghton that share-fishermen are covered except for paid holidays.
To Pat the Cope Gallagher I would say that the Committee on Fisheries agreed to all these matters and we are pleased to have that support.
The question about the 48 hours, the reference period of one year, the holidays - unless we are dealing with share-fishermen - the question of medical assessment and adequate rest will be defined in a further directive which has been promised.
My final word is to Mr Crowley.
I thank you for your kind words.
I would suggest to you and to the House that the social agenda has advanced quite a lot over the past number of years.
That has been achieved by a lot of determination by certain individuals, the support of good people in cabinet services and the great support I received here from the European Parliament.
I am grateful for your comments.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Democracy, rule of law, human rights and fundamental rights
The next item is the joint debate on:
the recommendation for second reading (A4-0135/99), on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the common position adopted by the Council (5240/1/99 - C4-0036/99-97/0191(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Regulation laying down the requirements for the implementation of development cooperation operations which contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms (Rapporteur: Mr Torres Couto); -the report (A4-0153/99) by Mr Galeote Quecedo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) laying down the requirements for the implementation of Community operations, other than those of development cooperation, which, within the framework of Community cooperation policy, contribute to the general objective of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and to that of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms in third countries (9582/98 - C4-0508/98-98/0813(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are today debating an extremely important subject for cooperation and development at European level. This debate concerns a recommendation for second reading, which I am presenting, on the general objectives of developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and of respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms in developing countries.
The report by Mr Galeote Quecedo on the same subject but applying to third countries is also being considered in this debate.
With regard to the Council's common position, I must mention the following issues.
The Council's common position does incorporate - sometimes only in part or with changes - a number of the amendments made by Parliament at first reading on the basis of the report by its Committee on Development and Cooperation.
However, I note with regret that the majority of the most important amendments proposed by Parliament have not at this stage been adopted by the Council.
This applies in particular to the amendments relating to budgetary aspects, those linked to comitology - which, it must be stressed, are of key importance for Parliament - and those seeking to strengthen the procedures for informing Parliament and to give the draft regulation an unlimited duration.
Just as important as the amendments promoting democracy, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms are those aimed at extending the scope and objectives of the draft regulation to cooperation operations for promoting the proper management of public affairs.
This is a vital aspect which has nevertheless not been accepted by the Council, and Parliament should take a determined stance on this because it is fundamental for development and healthy cooperation with developing countries.
Regrettably, without any controls we must acknowledge that aid from the European Union is frequently lost due to corruption, warmongering and inappropriate management of the resources which we provide to developing countries.
Our cooperation has to be aimed at eradicating the hunger, poverty, misery and illness which are increasing at an alarming rate in most developing countries.
This aid must not be used for more armoured cars, more weapons of destruction, more mines and more potential wars which simply decimate the defenceless civilian populations, thereby constantly attacking the human rights which we are trying to defend.
Consequently, this premise must form a cornerstone of the EU's policy for cooperation and development with the developing countries.
I must also underline that the reasons which led the Committee on Development and Cooperation and the European Parliament to table their amendments at first reading are still as relevant and topical.
In these circumstances, I take the view that all the amendments not accepted by the Council should be retabled at second reading.
I must also draw your attention to the importance of an amendment which I am tabling together with Mr Galeote Quecedo and Mrs van Bladel. This concerns the adoption by the Commission of measures needed to establish a code of conduct for partners involved in actions governed by this regulation.
I must also make a final political point on the following issue. The Community action for promoting human rights and democratic principles must respect the principle of the universality and indivisibility of human rights as these form the key elements of the international system for protecting human rights and the basis of European construction.
In this respect, the European Union cannot have different levels of action and different measures according to whether the context is Kosovo, Africa or East Timor.
We must end the hypocrisy which is rife and the idea that the economic interests at stake must prevail.
I would highlight and strongly protest at the position of the German Presidency which is heavily involved in the military action in Kosovo. When international public opinion is told about the Indonesian Government which is carrying out terrible massacres in East Timor and is continuing to attack the basic rights of the Timorese population, it should also be told that the German Presidency, which is fighting Milosevic in Kosovo, is in favour of President Habibie in Indonesia.
The German Presidency is stressing and supporting what it calls good governance and the process of democratisation which is being implemented in Indonesia.
It is this type of duplicitous position and these double standards which frequently discredit the Union and ensure that international public opinion does not always understand the value of our measures and policies.
Mr President, today sees the culmination of a procedure which turned out to be longer and more complex than expected, due to the need to break down the Commission's initial proposal into two texts according to the various geographical areas where Community cooperation action regarding human rights and the development of the rule of law and democracy might be called for.
Nevertheless, in our capacity as rapporteurs for the two reports we set ourselves the task of processing both texts in as coordinated a manner as possible. In this way, we hoped to achieve one of Parliament's key aims since the beginning: ensuring that when the two regulations were presented to the House, they would prove identical in content and would have the same aims and objectives, despite being officially divided into two separate regulatory texts.
In this connection, it is important to mention that the texts we are considering today are the result of a broad consensus.
Taken as a whole, the operations we are studying today already have obvious quantitative significance.
Since 1991, Parliament has been attempting to make this more evident by grouping together all the articles of the Communities' budget referring to the promotion of human rights and democratic principles in a single budget line, B7-70.
These operations are much more significant from a political point of view, however. They involve a genuine European philosophy of support for the development and consolidation of the rule of law, the defence of democratic values and respect for the rights and freedoms of all people.
Our main aim has been to strengthen a range of principles and criteria that are considered to be of fundamental importance for the promotion of a coherent, systematic and effective policy in this area. In brief, we have sought to guarantee appropriate planning and programming of operations to establish the Community's priorities in these matters.
We have also sought to strengthen the identity and visibility of Community actions, to establish well-regulated, clear and uniform procedures for all those involved, and to ensure that the actions have a real and sustainable impact on the societies in which they are undertaken. Further, we have worked to facilitate better monitoring, to guarantee that the best possible use is made of the resources devoted to this end, and to ensure that our actions are coordinated as closely as possible with the Member States' policies and initiatives in these areas.
There is no need to dwell on the details of the significant procedural components of the regulation.
It is suffice to say that every effort has been made to ensure that the procedures are as transparent and effective as possible and that they are adequately monitored.
I do however think that special attention should be paid to the changes proposed in order to introduce coordination instruments at all levels. In particular, I believe that the suggestions included in the proposal concerning cooperation with the Member States of the Union are most relevant.
Lastly, I would like to refer specifically to the various proposals contained in the reports that have been approved in committee and that relate to the European Parliaments's role in the development of programmes concerning human rights and democracy. In my view, Parliament's role as outlined in the initial version of the proposal is clearly inadequate.
Of course, the proposal I am discussing today includes a range of significant amendments designed to ensure a valid role for Parliament in those procedures.
To this end, specific measures have been introduced, including the plan to set deadlines for the Commission to complete its assessments and submit the results to Parliament.
Commission communications are to be forwarded to the European Parliament, not just to the Member States.
The Commission is to present an annual report to Parliament and this must include details of the implementation of the programmes for the previous financial year and of the programming and selection of the programmes for the current year. It must be submitted to Parliament in good time to allow Parliament to hold a full annual debate during the first half of the year and before it considers the relevant budget item in the general debate on the annual budget.
If these measures are incorporated into the text, they will provide for a substantial increase in Parliament's control. Nevertheless, administration will not be affected and will remain the exclusive responsibility of the European Commission.
Ladies and gentlemen, I trust that all these proposals and suggestions enabled us to attain the objectives we set ourselves, not only in terms of studying and debating this particular regulation but also as regards the long-term aim of this House, which, for years, has been striving to enhance and regulate Community cooperation aimed at promoting human rights and political freedoms.
I trust, too, that these arrangements, as presented to us today, will help us to establish new and more effective channels of cooperation with those who are engaged in a daily struggle to this end.
Finally, I hope that all this will eventually result in the improvement of the Community's procedures for managing and making use of resources.
Mr President, Mr Galeote Quecedo has produced an excellent report on the proposal for a Council regulation concerning strengthening the legal base for aid to promote democracy, the rule of law, and the reinforcement of human rights.
The report relates to a Commission initiative which the Council divided into two some time ago.
The other proposal for a regulation is on the agenda for second reading under the cooperation procedure and is the subject of a report by Mr Torres Couto.
Mr Torres Couto's report mainly concerns developing countries, and this report by Mr Galeote Quecedo relates to other countries.
The Committee on Budgets drafted similar opinions for both reports, with comments on funding frameworks, technical support and comitology.
When the budget for 1998 was being debated, Parliament agreed that an advisory working party on human rights should be set up.
Its purpose was to coordinate action annually, and it would comprise MEPs and representatives of the Commission and Council.
We have had good results with a similar working party, inter alia within the framework of the MEDA programme.
This working party would be treated in the same way as committees made up of Member States' representatives.
The establishment of the working party was already proposed in Parliament's opinion as set out in Mr Torres Couto's report, but this was rejected by the Council, so the rapporteur is now proposing it again, and I support this.
Unfortunately, the report we are now discussing by Mr Galeote Quecedo does not include these provisions concerning the working party, so Amendments 38 and 39 have been tabled on behalf of the Committee on Budgets.
I support these amendments and I hope Parliament will adopt them, as they are consistent with the position Parliament has so often adopted in the past.
Mr President, thanks to the generosity of your predecessor I had five and a half minutes to present my proposal for second reading on this subject. So that my time now is not wasted, I will reiterate some points which I aimed to stress in my draft opinion on this matter and which, in essence, Mr Galeote Quecedo has already highlighted extremely well in his speech.
Due to the coordination between the two committees and between the two rapporteurs, with all the political groups participating extensively in the work of the two committees - I had personal experience of this in the Committee on Development and Cooperation - it was actually possible to determine a whole range of proposals. These aim to reinforce the coordination, efficiency, transparency, rigour and control of the implementation of an instrument which is fundamental to the future development of the countries with which the European Union is aiming to strengthen its links, namely the developing countries and third countries.
This work therefore resulted in a combined effort and was carried out with a great sense of responsibility. We were even able to accept a range of very important proposals put forward by other political groups.
For example, I must highlight the importance of the proposals put forward by Mr Telkämper on behalf of the Green Group involving measures to combat racism, xenophobia and sexism. I must also emphasise the proposals submitted by Members from the Group of the European People's Party supporting initiatives to abolish the death penalty.
Mention should also be made of the important role assigned by both documents to reinforcing the participation of new partners who may be able to act constructively in this area. In particular this participation of new partners will not be subject to any discrimination and in fact, on the contrary, will respect full and total pluralism in political, religious and social terms.
After a long process of negotiation on this subject, both in Council and in Parliament, I therefore believe that we have arrived at a final text which is highly encouraging for this House.
Saying this, I must once again take the opportunity to congratulate Mr Galeote Quecedo on his excellent work. In particular he has made himself available so that we could work together constantly in order to combine our efforts and produce a document which would merit not only the widest approval of this House but also the acceptance of the Commission and Council.
I must thank the political groups, in particular the Group of the European People's Party, the UPE Group and the Green Group, which have all contributed in a decisive manner to the vast improvement of these documents.
Congratulations, Mr Galeote Quecedo.
Mr President, I have here the text of the speech I made on this report by Mr Torres Couto in December of last year.
It would not be very sensible of me to read out again what I said at the time, but believe me when I say that it would be highly relevant to what we are discussing today.
This is actually a good example of how the heavy burden of procedures prevents our parliamentary work from being as versatile and flexible as we would like.
I certainly hope that today's debate will be the last on this important matter. It is worth remembering that this is the fourth occasion on which we have debated the issue in scarcely four months, that is, since last December.
Mr Torres Couto's report has been debated at first and second reading. Mr Galeote's report has been debated too.
A further debate on my own report on the same issue took place in January. As was only to be expected, all the speakers tended to rehearse the same or similar arguments.
I should point out that I did not discuss this previously prepared speech with Mr Galeote. However, in his own recent speech, Mr Galeote quite justifiably expressed his regret at the duplication of effort involved in a dual processing procedure for what ought really to be a single regulation for Community actions to finance cooperation and actions promoting human rights and democratic values in third countries and in developing countries.
Mr Torres Couto has also said today how much he regrets having to table exactly the same amendments today. The Commission had already stated that it accepted and supported these amendments, but in the end it was not prepared to include them in the regulation.
Most of these amendments are also identical to those tabled by Mr Galeote.
However, we are continuing to call for a new framework for the Union's relations with the countries we are cooperating with. We wish to facilitate more effective and transparent actions in support of the rule of law and human rights which aim to prevent corruption and to enable civil society to play a greater role in the countries benefiting from European funds allocated to development and cooperation.
I am convinced that this is not a good example of how to carry out a task efficiently.
My parliamentary group has been active within the Committee on Development and Cooperation and has tabled amendments.
We supported Mr Torres Couto's report and I should like to reiterate my group's support for it today. Nevertheless, I am most unhappy with the procedural arrangements.
I am particularly concerned because, in actual fact, this does nothing to enhance our reputation.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the opinion of the Liberal Group, Mr Torres Couto has without doubt taken great pains in his report to sum up relations between the EU and the developing countries in respect of human rights, consolidation of the rule of law and the close links which must exist between development cooperation on the one hand and, on the other, development which is not merely economic but also - and perhaps above all - human, cultural, ethical and civil.
This is why the work done so far by Mr Torres Couto and the Committee on Development and Cooperation is so important.
I should also like to speak in support of the amendments tabled, which restate the position of the European Parliament.
Development cooperation must not only be geared to introducing that often general but important formula - the rule of law.
Something more, something better is needed: a good administration, a fair legal order and proper judicial authorities - as referred to in the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, drawn up by the Council of Europe in whose building we are meeting - so that the general aim of assisting in the establishment of human rights does not amount to a rhetorical exercise.
Europe's great merit is to have turned principles into reality.
This must apply likewise to the developing countries.
Mr President, I can return Mr Torres Couto's compliment.
I think that a fine report has been produced here, thanks to some good cooperation in Parliament.
For our group, in any event, it was very gratifying to see how well we worked together.
This is an important report.
It is about upholding or actually creating fundamental freedoms and democracy in order to promote respect for human rights.
We can see how important this is in Europe at the moment: once again a war is being waged here.
I think that a democratic state with the participation of the people is the only way in which peace can be created in the long term, as we have seen over the last 50 years in Europe.
In the southern hemisphere, authoritarian regimes abound, as do aristocracies and regimes in which the people play no part.
In this respect, it is right and necessary for us to support efforts to encourage a transition to democracy and respect for human rights there.
That is why we can support this report more or less in full.
We have not gone along with you on one point, Amendment No 1, the reason being that we did not want 'proper management of public affairs' to be included - not because we are against it, but because the funding for this whole programme is so minimal that we need to focus our efforts.
We need to focus on respect for human rights and promoting fundamental freedoms.
Three other amendments which you accepted were important to us, the first of which is to Article 2.
Until now, the phrase on everyone's lips has been combating racism.
Fifty per cent of the world's work is done by women. Women are particularly oppressed in these countries.
The inclusion of the phrase on opposing a policy of sexism is important, and the Council really should accept it too, as it should accept this whole Parliament report.
Finally, I have two further points: it is important to support smaller non-governmental organisations and smaller state-run bodies, because they are the ones which have a multiplier effect.
My last point is that supplies and payments in kind from the countries to ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, I believe that these reports are very important.
We would be well-advised to ensure that they are adopted quickly, indeed very quickly, so that we finally have a regulation on the human rights policy.
This policy is one of the most important conducted by the Union over the years but its bases have unfortunately been rather shaky. This, it should be said, has been due to the accumulated delays in regulating this issue, caused particularly by the Council.
We must now seize this opportunity to reinitiate this policy on solid bases.
We are currently well aware of the problems of many NGOs and of many people fighting for this cause and the EU would therefore be honoured to contribute to their financing.
However, we can also see the difficulties posed in implementing these projects, particularly due to all the problems of which we are well aware.
In this respect, I listened closely to Mr Virrankoski's speech. I have been assessing for some months and even years this idea of involving Parliament in administration or, in any case, in decision-making on projects.
Thankfully, we are sparing ourselves this prospect.
This House has a duty which it has fulfilled more than ever in recent months. In particular it has complained about all the structures, all the TAOs and all the artificial creations which could hinder the action of the Commission in order to ensure that one body implements, a parliament scrutinises and a court of auditors or another institution audits and so on.
We must not mix these tasks up but should keep them as they are.
I am against the two amendments. I hope that my colleagues will follow the rapporteur's opinion.
I believe that what matters is being sensible and respecting the work of others.
Mr President, the two very thorough - and fortunately also well coordinated - reports by Mr Galeote Quecedo and Mr Torres Couto are an attempt by the European Parliament to adopt a position on the measures which are so important to us and which are intended, within the framework of Community policy, to contribute to developing and consolidating democracy and the rule of law and to respecting human rights and fundamental freedoms.
When this was first discussed, we said that we would have liked the measures on developing countries and third countries to be adopted on the same basis, so that the same article of the Treaty could be used as a legal base.
But the Council insisted on different procedures: Article 130w for developing countries and Article 235 for third countries.
Of course, this has more to do with the balance of power between the institutions than with a rational consideration of legal bases.
This is comparable with the way in which portfolios are distributed in the Commission, which is illogical as far as human rights are concerned and is done instead on the basis of Commissioners' responsibilities.
The cooperation which is urgently needed in these areas in both cases ultimately needs a solid foundation, however.
That is why we also support this.
This policy is becoming an increasingly significant part of Community policies - that has already been said here - and needs legal protection, as we know of course from the unfortunate experiences of recent months.
However, promoting the rule of law, democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms is a need which we have already made a prerequisite - or wish to do so in the future - in the democracy programmes under PHARE, TACIS and MEDA, and also when granting financial aid to developing countries.
We have introduced this into many cooperation agreements in the form of so-called democracy and human rights clauses.
Our definition of human rights has not been dictated by Europe, but is based on conventions and definitions as they appear in texts ranging from the UN Charter to European Conventions.
It is therefore not something which we have invented.
It has helped us to have a period of stability and peace in the European Union, and this is what we want other countries to have as well.
We also wish to have a solid basis for cooperation with the NGOs.
The many examples mentioned in the report are precisely what we want to support.
We therefore very much support the proposal to set up an advisory committee. We have already requested this in Parliament on more than one occasion.
Certainly, there must be a clear division of responsibilities, but of course advising does not necessarily mean deciding.
The Council has rejected a whole series of amendments.
The European Parliament should insist on these amendments if it wishes to strengthen its own role in the future.
It is and remains the spokesperson for its own message and for the people who are hoping to see this become a dimension of their own countries' policies.
I am pleased to note once again that our views are so similar where human rights, the principles of democracy and the rule of law are concerned.
Mr President, the general principles in these two reports are broadly accepted by this House.
They quite rightly encourage the Union to link these cooperation and development agreements with the improvement of respect for human rights, the consolidation of democracy and the proper management of public affairs by our partners.
I must stress this last point. Furthermore, I agree with the rapporteurs who are again proposing amendments which extend the draft regulations to measures to promote the proper management of public affairs.
These amendments, previously adopted at first reading by Parliament, were not incorporated into the Council's common position. This is to be regretted.
Having said this, the Union must demonstrate humility and caution in these matters.
Our partners may from time to time ask us for explanations about how judgments are passed on the internal situation of a particular country.
The Union cannot give the impression that it preaches at everyone else but is not itself always irreproachable.
The development in the right direction of the internal situation of certain countries is, in my opinion, more important than the excellence of a situation at a given moment.
I therefore feel that, when passing judgment, we must take account of each country's history right from its beginnings, rather than simply noting the situation at the specific time when we make these judgments.
After all, true democracy has only recently been achieved in some European countries.
I can cite two examples in this respect.
The first one relates to Togo.
In my opinion, the intellectual and political development of this country must be assisted by the Union which should, in order to do this properly and appropriately, resume in full its cooperation with this country. You will remember that this cooperation was suspended some years ago.
My second example is Cuba which we discussed a few weeks ago with Mr Galeote Quecedo. This country has been accepted within the ACP countries as an observer.
The current developments in Cuba seem to me to be problematic and must be subject to the utmost rigour on our part.
First of all, I should like to say that my colleague, Mr van den Broek, cannot be with us today.
He is with the presidency on a troika mission to Kiev and he sends his regrets to the House.
I would like to thank Parliament for its considerable efforts as regards both the time taken and the quality of its work in the process of adopting the future legal basis for the appropriations of the European initiative for democracy and human rights, an initiative launched in 1994 at your instigation.
In particular I would like to thank the two committees and the rapporteurs.
The amendments that were discussed in December are logically enough retained in the reports that are before us today.
Please excuse me, therefore, for having to repeat some of the comments made at that time, even though the scope of the debate has broadened to include programmes for countries outside the developing world.
The Commission is ready to accept most of the amendments as long as they do not call into question institutional roles.
It supports proposals that are in harmony with its initial proposal dealing with the setting up of an advisory committee, doing away with the restrictions on the duration of the regulation's application and the abolition of the financial reference amount.
The Commission also shares the rapporteur's concern about the need to make provision to keep Parliament informed of the work of the committee and about emergency operations.
However the Commission is hesitant about the idea of publicising the committee's discussions as it does not take account of the need for confidentiality inherent in project selection.
The Commission's position is also qualified when it comes to the series of amendments calling for clarifications or adjustments, especially on the subject of strengthening of programmes, annual evaluations and the relative importance accorded to recipients' experience.
The Commission cannot support the references made to the interinstitutional working party.
This would directly infringe on its management and implementation powers and could well render the regulations inoperable.
Looking ahead, Parliament will have to decide on the committee structure by which it will take account of the human rights issues.
I know there has been much heartsearching as to the best way to handle these issues.
Whatever solution is adopted you can rest assured that the Commission will continue to look to Parliament as a key interlocutor, not only in its formal role as a Community institution, but also because of its wealth of experience in this field and the deep personal commitment that has been exemplified by so many of its Members.
This cooperation will give ample opportunity for the representatives of civil society to be heard too, for the Commission appreciates that policy in this field cannot be made in the absence of a true dialogue with civil society as a whole.
I should like to touch on two further issues specifically related to management of the European initiative for democracy and human rights.
Firstly, in November, Commissioner van den Broek discussed with this Parliament the need for technical assistance to help in managing the budget headings covered by the European initiative for democracy and human rights.
Since then the 1999 budget has been adopted with specific provision for the financing of such assistance from within these budget headings, unlike 1998 when it was not possible to conclude a contract.
This will now be possible in 1999.
The preparatory work for the conclusion of the contract has been finalised, though the Commission has yet to take a formal decision.
It has been decided that there should be a contract to cover the services related to the budget headings managed by DG IA, including the needs of the RELEX common services and DG IA itself, and those related to the running of an enhanced programme of micro-projects led by the delegations.
As soon as a Commission decision is taken a contract will be concluded, thus ending this gap in support for the initiative.
Secondly, the initiative for democracy and human rights will operate this year through two main windows, apart from activities such as joint programmes with the Council of Europe which are concluded directly by the Commission.
The first main window is the micro-projects programme which has been extended to cover each of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, former Yugoslavia, and the former Soviet Union and Mongolia.
This window provides for extensive support to local NGOs and is to be managed at a local level without need to refer to Brussels for each financing decision.
This scheme has already been praised in the past and its extension in 1999 is the cornerstone of a strategy of keeping NGOs closely involved in the democratisation programme despite the limitations on managerial programme support which have militated in favour of larger projects.
The second window is a call for proposals to be issued any day now which will cover not only all the budget headings managed by DG IA but also those concerning ACP countries, including special programmes for Nigeria and for Southern Africa.
The decision to run the budget headings together is part of an ongoing process of unifying the approach to human rights support right across the world.
The call for proposals has already elicited the interest of NGOs which look to these budget headings as an important source of support for their activities.
I should like to make one comment to the rapporteur, Mr Torres Couto, concerning a remark, which I may have misunderstood, as I cannot accept a criticism that you may have made.
There is evidence, both from the Court of Auditors' reports and from the independent evaluation of PHARE and TACIS democracy, that there is no mismanagement and fraud in this programme.
The funds made available by this budget sometimes have been spent more slowly that we would have wanted.
That is your point as well.
But they were, in fact, well spent. This is an important thing that, on behalf of the Commission, I should say to the House.
To sum up, we are at the closing stages and soon we can look forward to the legal and financial framework that puts an end to the uncertainty that has surrounded this particular initiative.
I should like to thank Parliament and the rapporteurs once again for their hard work in bringing about the adoption of these two very necessary regulations.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Pollution from large combustion plants
I would now propose, contrary to our usual practice, that we begin with the opinion drawn up by Mrs Estevan Bolea, to whom I now give the floor for two minutes, during which our rapporteur will no doubt join us.
Mr President, this directive is very significant because there are so many large combustion plants in Europe, and particularly since hundreds of thousands of additional megawatts will be generated between now and the year 2010, according to the statistics compiled by the Commission and the electricity companies.
The investment will therefore be substantial.
We do agree in principle that we must continue to reduce emissions and improve air quality.
Nevertheless, Commissioner, we must also bear in mind the proportionality principle and the Batneec concept: the use of best available technology not entailing excessive cost.
Commissioner, I do believe we should take measures which are genuinely necessary, but only those which are necessary at the moment. Others could perhaps be taken later.
The gas and electricity markets have been liberalised.
Great efforts are being made by all the companies involved.
The directive now under review came into force ten years ago.
Much good work has been done on desulphurisation and denitrification and improved technology has been introduced.
The levels proposed by Parliament's Committee on the Environment are particularly demanding. It might be possible to attain them where natural gas is used, but it will be very difficult to do so in the case of coal and residual fuel.
The point I would like to emphasise, however, is that it does not make sense to set these levels because there is no need to do so.
The problem of acidification needs to be dealt with, but not all countries are affected.
The Spanish delegation will therefore oppose most of these amendments, given that gradual progress will be made in the future.
At present, these amendments do not make much sense.
The wisest course of action might be for the Commission to issue a directive or a recommendation on negotiable permitted emission limits or to apply the 'bubble' concept used in the United States. The Commission could also introduce negotiated agreements which can work and not just insist on setting strict levels which are not met, as you must certainly be aware, Commissioner.
For as a result, all environmental legislation does for Europe is to generate intense frustration.
Mr President, the purpose of revising the directive we are looking at today is to cut the level of emissions from large combustion plants.
The measures proposed form part of a European strategy for combating acidification.
It remains unclear as yet when work will begin on a directive on national emission limit values for sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, ammonia and volatile organic compounds.
The large combustion plants directive is directly relevant to the question of emission levels.
The forthcoming emission limit values will be a policy package allowing Member States the freedom to decide for themselves how they achieve the required cuts in emission levels.
I really agree with everyone else that things ought to have been done in a different order - first the limit values and then this directive.
But in any event, given that there is still a good deal of wrangling going on over the other directive and because we set a period of ten years in the 1988 directive, we now have to do something.
And I know a little about this directive on large combustion plants.
In the mid-1980s, as a member of the Dutch Parliament, I asked our environment minister to take action in the Netherlands and in Europe in the light of the proposed rules on them.
I have the feeling that if I were now to show this Commission proposal to Japanese and American industry, it would produce the reaction 'no wonder you will never manage to establish a proper industry for the environment.'
I would point out that the requirements for new plants, and indeed also for old plants, which can remain operational up to the year 2014, are considerably tighter in a number of Member States than those which the Commission is now proposing to us.
As rapporteur, with the backing of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, I therefore amended those requirements.
When I was called this morning by a spokesman for Scottish industry, for example, asking if this directive had implications for Scotland, I told him yes, not only for Scotland but for the whole of the United Kingdom and Spain as well.
I am confident that the United Kingdom will not wish to go on living in the stone age, but that there too something will have to be done for the environment, for the natural world and indeed for human health.
I am confident that the British too will wish to act, and the transitional period I am proposing will be the best way of tackling the problem of existing combustion plants.
When I look at what goes on in Germany with brown coal, for example, and knowing that mines producing brown coal are essentially far dirtier than ordinary coal mines, I have the feeling - and I say this for my Spanish colleague's benefit - that requirements for these could and should be far stricter than those now being proposed.
I do not understand it.
The Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy asked me if I had considered carefully the technical basis of my proposal.
Yes, I did.
As we were drafting this directive, I came across the Dutch Government's 1997 order which contains requirements for large combustion plants which are considerably stricter than the ones before us today.
So I had a frame of reference, a yardstick.
The new Dutch requirements, those in Germany, in some of the Scandinavian countries and in Austria too are far stricter.
I wonder why we should not have the same.
I would add one more element and that is liberalisation.
I am all in favour of liberalising electricity supply markets.
I always have been, but in that case you have to be confident, when setting the price per kilowatt hour, that differences in environmental quality will not be so great that pollution limits in one Member State and pollution tolerance in another Member State are ultimately a barrier to liberalisation.
So from the point of view of liberalisation as well, I think we have to seek requirements which are as far as possible the same. I would urge my Spanish colleagues to think again.
My colleagues from the Socialist Group have tabled amendments to the effect that the requirements which I propose to apply in respect of existing plants by the year 2005 should be postponed to the year 2010. I most strongly advise against that course.
Why? Because it would further weaken our negotiating position vis-à-vis the Council.
I am familiar with David Bowe's argument, who urges the rapporteur and Parliament to be careful not to be too tough, because then the Council might attack us and might change the legal base.
In response to these colleagues, I would say that if the Council wants to act and wants to change this result of codecision, it has to do that by unanimity, and unanimity means that Parliament and the European Court of Justice also have to have their say.
Mr President, I should first of all like to welcome the work done by the rapporteur and her report.
It is certainly a very impressive report and it is one which the Socialists will be happy to support for the most part.
It will bring about substantial improvements in the emissions from very large combustion plants, usually burning coal or oil, which make such a substantial contribution to the amounts of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides that go into the air, which cause acid rain and which have health effects upon human beings, such as asthma.
This is not just a question of controlling these plants by one particular means - there are other means to controls these plants as well.
There is pollution control - and I was the rapporteur some years ago, on measures which are now being implemented to control emissions.
There are also the negotiations on the national emissions ceilings limits which we are expecting the Commission to bring forward as quickly as possible.
These two together will exert an effective and proper control.
Parliament's report and the amendments tabled tend to extend the scope of the directive and make the limits with which both existing and future plants must comply more stringent.
I do not think it is a particular problem for new plants to comply with these regulations though I recognise that there are problems for some of the older plants.
It is therefore our suggestion that a little more time is given to them, a reasonable timescale in which the necessary investment can be made so that these plants can comply.
As regards extensions to the scope elsewhere, I would draw the Commissioner's attention to the deletion of some of the exemptions, with regard to offshore plant and with regard to some of the large gas turbines used in mobile machinery etc. where, again, the emissions are significant and need to be addressed, recognising of course the particular circumstances that exist in those cases.
I am very conscious of the issue already mentioned by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, that if we try too hard to set very tight limits, many Member States fear that we will be dictating their energy policy to them, which, of course, is not our right as a Parliament.
For that reason we have to recognise that and recognise that we have to give a degree of flexibility within this proposal. Coupling this proposal with the national emissions ceilings limits and with IPPC we can do that.
The whole thing has to be taken in that context.
Finally, I believe that we will get a result, after second reading, where we have substantial improvements in emissions from these plants, where we have substantial improvements in the environment and in the air quality around these plants.
I recommend this proposal to the House.
One last comment.
I have visited large combustion plants in two or three different states in the Union, particularly in my own, the UK.
I have not seen anything that is stone-age and I would invite Mrs Oomen-Ruijten to visit, perhaps, the Drax power station in Yorkshire. She will see that it is her knowledge of the industry which is prehistoric and not the plant that is operating.
Mr President, first of all I should like to congratulate Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on an excellent report.
Some time ago, Parliament approved another report concerning future strategies for dealing with the acidification of soil and water.
One of its objectives was to resolve the problem of acidification by 2015, when emissions were to have reached a level that nature could accommodate.
The Commission agreed with the line taken by Parliament.
To achieve that objective, however, we have to tighten up the requirements, for example as regards combustion.
This report, with the stricter measures proposed by Parliament, is a step in the right direction.
Furthermore, the Commission has carried out extensive studies into the effects of combustion emissions. Of course, it is not just their effect on the environment that is a major cause for concern; people's health is also at risk.
A comparative study of coal combustion with flue gas cleaning and nuclear power, carried out over a ten-year period, shows that 20 000 lives have been saved as a result of reduced emission levels achieved by using nuclear power in the EU.
The proposal concerning the premature phasing-out of nuclear power therefore has some very serious implications for both the environment and people's health.
I am also convinced that the use of economic instruments, for example taxes on sulphur and nitrogen emissions, could serve to improve developments and in practice tighten up our existing requirements.
Taxes of this kind have been a great success in Sweden.
Trading of emission rights might also be worth investigating, since this practice can have a beneficial effect on the environment at a low cost.
The burning of fossil fuels also produces large amounts of carbon dioxide which contributes to the greenhouse effect - possibly the most serious problem.
In any event, it is a sign that we should cut back on the burning of fossil fuels as much as possible.
This is also an area in which the trading of emission rights provides a means of achieving some stability in our efforts to reach the requirements laid down in the Kyoto Protocol.
Mr President, acidification still presents a serious threat to Europe's forests.
In Germany, 67 % of the forests are exposed to acid emissions containing sulphur dioxide and nitrogen compounds which exceed the critical level.
In France, 22 % of forest areas are affected.
There are of course other countries whose forests are relatively unaffected, for example Spain, where the corresponding figure is only 1 %.
But at the same time, emissions from Spain contribute to the acidification of an area five times the size of its own forest areas.
Moreover, nine EU countries are net contributors to the acidification of areas outside their own borders, while five countries - Germany, France, Austria, Sweden and Finland - contaminate in this way an area smaller than that of their own forests.
These figures show that emissions from large combustion plants create a problem which should be a priority for common, supranational regulation.
It is therefore a good thing that the Commission has submitted this directive, even though it is not nearly strict enough.
Parliament's proposal on the other hand, in the shape of the Oomen-Ruijten report, comes significantly closer to what is required from both an objective and an environmental point of view.
For the most part, the Greens can therefore endorse the Oomen-Ruijten report.
I really must take the floor because Mr Gahrton has made a number of unfounded statements in the short time he had available.
The problem of emissions does not affect Spain, as one third of its energy is hydroelectric and another third nuclear.
I would advise you to do some research, Mr Gahrton, and not to talk any more nonsense.
Mr President, large combustion plants account in total for 63 % of sulphur dioxide and 21 % of nitrogen oxide emissions in the European Union.
SO2 and NOx are the principal causes of acid rain and they are hazardous to health.
So it is very important that emissions of these substances should be reduced as a result of this proposal.
I am therefore pleased that the European Commission is also applying the directive to gas turbines.
However, there must not be derogations for off-shore platforms.
Given that existing technology allows SO2 emissions to be cut to 100 mg per cubic metre, a general emission limit value of 200 mg per cubic metre certainly warrants support from Parliament.
Standards for NOx emissions can also be tightened up.
An essential point made in the report is that existing large combustion plants too must ultimately comply with the emission limits, since these plants as a whole are responsible for much of the pollutant emissions.
Otherwise, the measures will not have any substantially discernible effects in terms of cleaner and healthier air.
Lastly, very dirty fuels must not be given an advantage in the form of higher emission limits.
Rigorous standards apply to waste incinerators, but the emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels may also impair air quality, and consequently public health.
This proposal represents a major advance, and I am grateful to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten for her hard work.
Mr President, on the way here, most people presumably came along the corridor where an exhibition of pictures from my home region is on display.
One can see images of nature with water, animals and snow.
It looks clean and healthy.
Unfortunately, most of what you see is pretty much dead as a result of acidification and pollution imported from afar - from countries and regions which shall be nameless, but which are certainly very much aware of the fact that within their borders they have large combustion plants which are making these beautiful images virtually lifeless, in spite of appearances.
The Oomen-Ruijten report is therefore particularly relevant for my home region, for the survival of both animals and plants, as well as for the streams and everything else that is touched by acidification.
I am therefore pleased to note that the majority in the Environment Committee has actually had the good sense to support the rapporteur's proposals to tighten up the requirements contained in the directive.
I would refer in particular to the proposal that the directive should be extended to cover existing plants, an aspect which the Council obviously has not been able to tackle adequately.
The existing plants are responsible for a considerable proportion of the emissions.
Should the Oomen-Ruijten proposal be adopted, it would mean a reduction in sulphur dioxide emissions of 1 to 1.5 million tonnes a year.
That is equivalent to between 10 and 15 times Sweden's total output of sulphur emissions. By comparison, the United Kingdom spews out 2 million tonnes every year.
It would therefore be virtual madness to wait for a further five years until these combustion plants stop of their own accord.
Of course there are objections: the proposal would cost money - but the technology is there.
We know that it would be expensive for all of us, because we all have these plants. But the benefits would be incalculable.
I only hope that more people in the House can be persuaded to think about saving more lives.
Mr President, when we recommend new limit values for combustion plant emissions, we have to examine emissions as a whole, and pay special attention to the impact of regulations on the generation of greenhouse gases.
There is a proposal in Amendment 19 for longer time limits when abatement equipment malfunctions or breaks down.
The twenty-four hours proposed by the Commission is by no means enough for equipment to cool down, to discover what the problem is, for the repairs to be carried out, and for the equipment to be started up again. This is especially true if problems happen to arise at a time when the plant is being manned by fewer people than is normal, such as at night, on public holidays or at the weekend.
If the time limit is not changed an efficient, modern power plant will have to be closed down temporarily virtually whenever there is a problem, and replaced with plant that cannot match it in terms of its ability to protect air quality.
This cannot be in the spirit of the proposal for a directive.
At Community level we want to promote both the increased use of biofuels and combined heat and power production, to minimise greenhouse emissions.
To attain these goals higher emission limits should be permitted for biofuels, as the proposal prescribes, and the air protection requirements for small combustion plants must be technically and economically reasonable.
Mr President, many speakers here have said that we still have a lot to do before our air quality objectives are achieved, although they are objectives we are committed to both as a Community and individually as Member States.
We therefore have to do everything we possibly can, and one indication that we can do more than the Commission has been prepared to is this report on large combustion plants which has been produced by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I believe the most important aspect of the report is that it includes old plants - those which came into use before 1987 - in its provisions concerning harmonised legislation and limit values.
Without this, this directive would be fairly hollow, as these plants have a long lifespan, and if we did not extend the directive to include old plants, the effects on emissions into the air would be nil.
I therefore wholeheartedly support the proposal that old plants should be included.
But we also have to make sure that these rules are extended to the applicant countries, as we cannot allow any sort of freeloading in this area.
Obviously, resources have to be allocated to achieve this goal.
I also believe we must improve methods for exploiting biofuels and for combined heat and power production, but, as far as biofuels are concerned, I believe it is essential that they should be subject to the same limit values as apply to other fuels.
Mr President, a technical directive being is amended and there are many aspects being addressed by different speakers.
Problems concerning older plants obviously depend on which energy source is used by which Member State, and these vary enormously.
We know that existing large combustion plants are responsible for about two-thirds of the EU sulphur dioxide pollution and nearly a quarter of nitrogen oxides, and these have very serious effects on health and the environment.
Therefore this revision is urgently needed.
I very much favour trying to move to more cogeneration, as other Members have mentioned.
However, as rapporteur on air quality, I wish to concentrate on two main aspects.
The first is covered in Amendment No 1 which links what has been done in this directive to the still-awaited long-term ozone strategy.
The aim of this must be to bring harmful emissions from these plants in line and to below the level of critical loads.
If we fail in this, we are doubly failing, both in protecting the environment and in protecting public health.
Although we do not yet have the ozone strategy because of the paralysis in the Commission, we know that sooner or later the emissions limit values will have to come in line with it.
We need to make it plain to the new Commission, when it is sworn in, that the ozone strategy and the national emissions ceiling, that Mr Bowe mentioned, are urgently needed.
My second point relates to Amendment No 15, which argues for greater public information.
This is the same approach we took in the daughter directives on air pollution.
Some people do not seem to like public information very much but the people who live near these large combustion plants need to be fully aware of whether their health is at risk from increased air pollution.
I commend them to the House and trust that they will have the support both of the Commission and, more importantly, of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to thank the rapporteur, and not least for the courage she has shown here to withstand conflict, because of course we do have conflicts on this question.
It is certainly true that because of the liberalisation of the internal electricity market we also need to harmonise environmental legislation.
That is an important step forward. Hopefully it will be the first of many!
Paradoxically, however, harmonisation in turn results in distortion of competition.
I will explain this using the example of NOx emissions.
Let us assume that NOx emissions are equal to 200 mg/m3 .
In the case of large plants, technological improvements can definitely be made. I understand that.
But for coal, and in particular lignite, this means an increase in the price of electricity of between one and two German pfennigs. That is not a negligible amount.
These producers might well be forced out of the market as a result. This will mean the end of the competitive advantage - or the fair terms of competition - which they have enjoyed hitherto.
Incidentally, producers of nuclear energy will be pleased about this, since nuclear energy will not be affected and will thus be relatively cheaper.
Anyone who advocates it will certainly be pleased.
If we want to have fair terms of competition, however, we must at least bear this in mind.
In Germany, the rule is 200 mg/m3 .
When it was introduced, it required considerable investment; it was fairly expensive.
People can live with that.
If we now want to bring it down to 100 - and from a technical point of view, this is no problem for gas - it will mean a corresponding increase in price. In terms of competition, this means being forced out of the market.
What will happen then? Then the regions concerned will receive regional aid from the European Union or the nation state.
The taxpayer will pay for it in the form of regional aid. That cannot be the intention!
I believe, therefore, that we need to strike a balance here.
I do not say this lightly, because of course I know that clean air is always better than dirtier air.
But 200 mg/m3 is, I believe, a perfectly appropriate value, and we should stick to it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to express my particular thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, a member of my group, for presenting the report and for her careful work.
For many Members, including some in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, the limit values put forward by the rapporteur for reducing emissions of certain pollutants from large combustion plants up to the year 2005 went too far.
We are hearing similar arguments in the discussion on car exhaust gases.
It is my impression that the technology is available to achieve these values.
Of course, it requires a considerable financial effort.
That is also why it is so important for us to promote, through the LIFE programme, the development of and scope for using modern technology which is able to achieve these aims and these limit values.
Who else, if not the European Parliament, would already be fighting to push through ambitious targets to reduce air pollution? Up to now, it has been thanks entirely to the European Parliament that values and aims have been achieved which were frequently presented as being unattainable in the time available.
Mr Linkohr, you are familiar with the car debate.
Ladies and gentlemen, please do not forget that the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force on 1 May 1999.
Then we will also be consulted on this proposal under the codecision procedure, and will therefore have the possibility of pushing through not only what are admittedly quite ambitious demands for limit values for both sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, but also demands to include old plants, which have hitherto been ignored and which present a particularly urgent problem.
I would ask you to bear in mind that this is the first reading.
We shall then see how the Council responds, and in the second reading we will have to discuss where we go from there.
In my view, we should already be making proposals which are technically feasible, and then later we will have to calculate what goals we can achieve.
There is one comment which I cannot leave hanging in the air, Mr President.
I have to repudiate the caricature which Mr Linkohr made of my proposal concerning NOx , on the basis of solid information which he too might perhaps obtain from RWE in Germany, because RWE checked my NOx figures and what I wrote down are figures ...
I am sorry, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, but I have to cut you off.
I interrupted Mrs Estevan Bolea just now for the same reason: these are neither points of order nor questions to the Commission.
I can only allow Members to speak to make personal statements, and provided they are such, which I doubt to be the case.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking in particular the Committee on the Environment and the rapporteur, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, for the very detailed consideration the proposal has received, in spite of the fact that we are discussing a very technical proposal.
As many speakers have emphasised here this evening, large combustion plants account for a substantial proportion of the emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides in the EU.
Precisely because of the extent of these emissions, and because they are transnational, it is necessary to have solutions at EU level, and it is also vital to ensure that EU legislation is brought up to date.
That is why this proposal was one of the elements of the Community's pollution strategy, which several speakers have also referred to.
In many areas, the Commission is able to support what are constructive amendments.
The European Parliament is right to refer to the aim of the Community's pollution strategy, so the Commission is able to accept Amendment No 1.
I share the view expressed by both Mr Bowe and Mrs Pollack that we need the two proposals which were ready to be presented and which will now have to wait until a new Commission has reached a decision on them.
The Commission understands very well the European Parliament's interest in allowing economic instruments to be considered as a means of reducing emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxides, as expressed in Amendment No 3.
We shall be able to consider the possible use of such instruments against the background of the development of the proposal for energy taxes, so I shall not say any more on that subject.
We have discussed it several times.
The Commission supports the European Parliament's wish that technological development should continue to have an impact on large combustion plants, and is able to accept Amendment No 5 in principle.
How the committee's aims can best be met in this respect must be considered against the background of how the directive on integrated pollution prevention and control is implemented in this sector.
The Commission also agrees that information about the environmental impact of large combustion plants should be readily available.
From this point of view, the Commission is able to accept Amendment No 15, which Mrs Pollack in particular referred to, in so far as it can be achieved through the register of polluting emissions which is under development.
The Commission is still working on a proposal for a directive on national emission ceilings, which I mentioned before.
It is a vital part of the Commission's strategy for combating acidification and tropospheric ozone and for the protection of human health.
This will set national limits for emissions of a number of pollutants.
They will be cost-effective at EU level, and will be determined on the basis of the relationship between the emissions and their environmental impact.
This will give Member States the opportunity to achieve the required reductions in emissions in the most cost-effective way, while at the same time the EU's environmental targets will be met.
Consequently, the current proposal only covers new plants which receive operating licences after 1 January 2000.
Against this background, the Commission does not consider it appropriate to extend the scope of the proposal to also cover existing plants. This affects a number of amendments, and I shall list the ones we cannot accept.
These are Amendments Nos 8, 10, 12, 14, 16 to 18, 20 and 21.
The proposed emission limit values are intended as ambitious minimum requirements to be met throughout the Community, which is something Mrs Oomen-Ruijten and Mr Bowe touched on in their speeches.
We have therefore chosen to set what are ambitious minimum requirements which must be met throughout the Community.
They are approximately twice as tough as the requirements contained in existing EU legislation.
Even tougher emission limit values can be used if they are justified by local circumstances or are necessary to meet national emission ceilings.
Therefore, the Commission does not consider it appropriate to accept Amendments Nos 7, 9, 11 and 13, although it has noted the European Parliament's wish to see tougher minimum requirements at EU level.
I am quite sure this is a question we will return to later in the procedure.
Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6, 19, 22 and 23 cannot be accepted for technical and other reasons.
In conclusion, I would like to express my satisfaction with the report.
The European Parliament has shown a very constructive approach which can form a sound basis for discussions as the legislative procedure progresses.
We are convinced that through its attitude, the European Parliament will help to bring us closer to the goals we are all aiming for, which are to combat acidification and tropospheric ozone and to improve public health.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Waste incineration
The next item is the report (A4-0183/99) by Mr Blokland, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the incineration of waste (COM(98)0558 - C4-0668/98-98/0289(SYN)).
Mr President, the report now before us deals with the directive on waste incineration and is important for two reasons: firstly for the health of people living close to waste incinerators, electricity generating plants and cement kilns; and secondly for air quality in the European Union as a whole.
The main culprits are the pollutant substances sulphur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, small particulates, dioxins and furans.
When fully implemented, the European Commission proposal will cut dioxin emissions from 2 400 g to 10 g per year.
The new Commission proposal is a good one, but can be improved in one or two respects.
The Commission's proposal for the incineration of municipal waste covers both hazardous and non-hazardous waste.
Given that there is still a Commission proposal pending to amend the directive on the incineration of hazardous waste, it makes sense to combine the two directives.
The clear advantage is consistent emission standards, because the distinction between hazardous and non-hazardous waste is based primarily on criteria applying to the collection, storage, transportation, management and processing of waste materials prior to incineration.
During incineration, 'non-hazardous' waste may be transformed into hazardous substances which pollute the air.
By and large, these are the same compounds as those generated during the incineration of hazardous waste, in other words what goes out of the plant is more important than what goes in.
Clear rules are needed for what goes out, in the form of emission limits.
Combining the two directives will not lead to a different regime for incineration from what we have at present.
It will not be the case that hazardous waste previously incinerated only in specialist plants can suddenly be incinerated in just any plant.
Certain hazardous wastes have to be incinerated at a temperature of 1 100ºC to prevent the formation of dioxins.
Keeping these directives separate will be of no benefit at all to the environment.
On the contrary, if we do not combine the directives, this may lead to less rigorous standards for hazardous wastes than for municipal waste.
Amendments Nos 7, 9, 15, 18, 19, 56 and 61 are needed to make the new directive applicable to hazardous waste as well.
These amendments are derived from Directive 94/67/EC on the incineration of hazardous waste.
The Environment Committee urges the European Commission to do its utmost to persuade the Council to adopt the common position on a single directive in June.
Care must also be taken over emissions where waste is co-incinerated.
Ultimately, the same emission standards must apply to any plant which burns waste.
The committee takes the view that electricity generating plants and cement kilns should be able to co-incinerate waste, provided they meet the relevant emission standards.
The new Commission proposal lays down sound rules for the co-incineration of municipal waste in cement kilns.
The same rules must apply to hazardous waste burned in them.
This means that cement kilns will for a time be subject to standards which are less strict.
The necessary investment for cement kiln fume cleaning can be funded by the large profit generated by taking in hazardous waste and savings on fuel costs.
Given that NOx emissions must be kept as low as possible, many plants will need a NOx reduction unit. These units use ammonia to remove the NOx .
This process needs to be tightly controlled to prevent ammonia being released into the atmosphere.
The Environment Committee is therefore proposing a standard for ammonia in Amendments Nos 24, 36, 38 and 41.
Lastly, I hear reports that there are still a lot of incinerators which do not comply with the 1989 directives, particularly French combustion plants.
These plants thus need to invest in order to meet the new requirements of this directive.
One advantage is that these plants only need to make the investment once, in other words it can all be done at one fell swoop.
I would urge the Commission and the European Environment Agency to be strict in monitoring compliance with the current and future directives.
To sum up, Mr President, Commissioner, in order to ensure better health for people living close to incineration plants and also to ensure better air quality throughout the European Union, it is necessary to have one directive for the incineration of hazardous and municipal waste, which provides tighter rules on co-incineration and applies realistic standards to the emission of pollutant substances.
Mr President, waste is not an aim of production, although the amount of waste produced might well give that impression.
We dump waste and we incinerate it, neither of which is good for the environment.
I would like to thank Mr Blokland for the excellent work he has done on the report and the firm stance he has taken for the good of the environment.
It is clear that pollution has a great effect on human health.
One example is dioxins, which are a typical emission from incineration.
Many women in Europe have high concentrations of dioxins in their breast milk.
There is also some concern that dioxins interfere with hormones.
This proposal on incineration brings the hope of a higher level of protection through a fall in dioxin emissions.
The report by the Committee on the Environment combines two directives - on incineration of municipal waste and incineration of hazardous waste.
The idea of combining these directives is that the incineration of waste can create a pollution problem regardless of the type of waste being incinerated.
In addition, there was a risk that Europe could have had tougher limit values for the incineration of municipal waste than for hazardous waste, if we had allowed the Commission's division of the areas to continue as presented to us.
There could perhaps also be a risk of cheating in the classification of waste.
The Commission's proposal on municipal waste mentions kinds of waste which to the best of my belief are hazardous, such as waste oil and hospital waste.
Emissions from waste incineration, such as sulphur, nitrous oxides, dioxins and soot, should be treated in the same way, regardless of what is being incinerated.
There has been a great deal of concern about co-incineration and the cement industry, and as a compromise we have chosen to maintain the three categories: dedicated incinerators, co-incineration and cement kilns.
But the point is that they should all comply with tighter emission standards.
We will not allow a loophole for a kind of waste tourism which could undermine the economy of the dedicated incinerators.
So co-incineration, including in the cement industry, must comply with the requirements for tough emission values.
Let me stress that we are still in favour of treating different kinds of waste differently.
That is why critics who say that the combining of these two directives will lead to less protection for the environment are mistaken.
You only have to read the text to see that different demands are made within the framework of the directive.
The Commission should also follow up the waste strategy which has been adopted, where we stress the importance of recycling and reuse.
If there was a requirement for the pre-sorting of waste through waste management plans, we could save raw materials and have less air pollution.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I wish to thank the rapporteur for his dedicated work.
In 1994, I had the good fortune to be rapporteur for the directive on the incineration of hazardous waste.
At that time, we proposed some extremely strict limit values, as I still believe we should be doing today.
Results now show that of the 15 Member States of the European Union, 13 have not incorporated the strict values decided upon at that time into national law.
Two countries have transposed them, with the result that these countries and these companies have invested a great deal of money and will probably have to do so once again if we reach different conclusions today.
I therefore believe that it is absolutely right to set strict values, but that we have to do this seriously, and that obviously the concerns about health, which I fully share, must also be taken into account.
I do not, however, consider it to be a particularly good thing that some countries and therefore some incineration plant operators abide by the rules and obey the laws in Europe and have spent a great deal of money, for example in France, but in my own country too - and I would be happy to show you this, Mr Blokland, after all you do not live so far away - while others have done nothing at all, and I do not see why, with these new values, some of which you want to halve, these others should now be able to save themselves the cost of the first investment.
That is a competition policy which I cannot support.
I therefore believe that we should adopt a cautious but strict approach here.
That is why I am very much in favour of the best available technology being used.
But Mr Blokland should please define the 'best available technology' in Europe for me.
It will not do for some to define it in one way, and others in a different way.
That is also why I have criticised the issue of measuring methods.
If we prescribe figures here, then we must also prescribe how we measure, when we measure and where we measure.
Here too, there are enormous differences in Europe.
Co-incineration is a good thing, if it is carried out properly - I support it.
But different values must apply here, because there are two combustion components: on the one hand the combustion of oil or waste, and on the other hand that of ores.
There must be a rule for this.
The old mixed formula was not too bad.
The present Commission proposal is more stringent, and I support it because it makes sense.
If we go along with Mr Blokland's proposals, I believe that in the long term the sensible process of co-incineration in cement kilns will be banned, and that does not make any sense at all, precisely from the point of view of environment policy, because they will still have to use gas or coal, and you want to ban that too.
Proper co-incineration in accordance with strict standards is therefore the right way forward.
In this context, I would like to see not only standards but also measuring procedures, because we do not have any of these in Europe.
In this respect, we are back in a federalist system where everyone does what they want.
That is precisely the point which I should like you to bear in mind, Mr Blokland, and which I would ask you to reconsider.
Mr President, the prediction is that in the year 2000 we shall burn 50 million tonnes of waste.
That is of course an enormous quantity.
So we shall need a lot more incineration plants.
Incineration must not be the ultimate aim.
As we all know, the priorities are first to prevent waste and then reprocess or recycle it, and only then to incinerate it.
But the bottom line is that we shall have 50 million tonnes of waste to deal with in the year 2000.
I think the Commission proposal makes sense, but above all, we as Liberals welcome Mr Blokland's proposals to tighten things up.
I have two comments to make.
I agree with the rapporteur that the two incineration directives should be combined, that is to say non-hazardous waste and waste which may be hazardous must be combined, but only of course on condition that Amendments Nos 7, 15 and 18 are adopted, and I hope the European Commission will respond positively to those amendments.
If they are adopted, existing legal loopholes will be closed once these two directives are combined.
Lastly, I turn to the cement industry.
Everyone has been talking about the cement industry. Everyone has been busy visiting cement kilns.
At the moment, the cement industry processes a lot of waste, hazardous waste.
It is highly profitable for cement kilns to co-incinerate waste.
And I agree with Mr Blokland that this additional income and the savings on fuel costs can be put to good use to fund cleaner working methods.
The cement industry too must comply with the strict emission standards.
I do not think derogations are appropriate, especially in view of the fact which Mr Florenz mentioned just now, that this standard of 500 mg NOx per cubic metre is already met in the Netherlands, Austria and Germany.
Why not encourage the other countries to emulate these three countries which have already met the standard?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the incineration of waste has already been the subject of various European directives, the most recent of which is Directive 94/67/EC, which deals in particular with the incineration of hazardous waste.
The proposal for a Council directive concerns the incineration of waste that is not covered by this directive, that is, non-hazardous waste, such as urban waste and certain other types of hazardous waste that are excluded from the scope of the previous directive.
We shall not dwell at length on the numerous amendments that were tabled, but we would like to protest strongly against those tabled by the rapporteur which seek to merge the two directives on hazardous and non-hazardous waste into one.
The rapporteur bases this proposal on two arguments.
The first of these is the desire to ensure an administrative simplification of the texts, and therefore have one directive instead of two.
As Mr Florenz said, the directive on hazardous waste has not yet actually been transposed into the legislation of all the Member States, and in amending it, by merging it to some extent, we would ensure more confusion rather than simplification.
The second argument put forward is that the limit values, the quantities of emissions from residues, are very similar.
In actual fact, it is not just the limit values that are important.
The handling, management and treatment of both categories of waste - hazardous and non-hazardous waste - vary a great deal.
A genuine waste treatment policy requires selective sorting and treatment, rather than an anachronistic and anarchic mixing of waste.
If waste were to be mixed in this way, it would result in hazardous waste being incinerated in incinerators used for household refuse.
This is all the more likely since some Member States have equipped themselves with oversized incinerators for household refuse, and they would be tempted to make use of this extra capacity by filling the incinerators with hazardous waste.
Such a course of action would be unacceptable, because it would represent a serious risk to the health of the people living in the vicinity and to the area that surrounds the incinerators.
The text presented by the rapporteur is quite vague about the need for and the specific nature of the controls for incoming waste, as well as the specific nature of its reception and storage, staff training, and so on. This is to say nothing of the difficulties for manufacturers of monitoring the treatment of their waste and clarifying their responsibilities.
I should like to finish by saying that the proposal to merge the directives on hazardous and non-hazardous products contained in the rapporteur's text seems to be completely unreasonable and a source of grave danger.
We should also like to point out that if we fail to distinguish between the specific nature of co-incineration plants, co-incineration would be banned, which would be catastrophic for the industries involved and the fossil fuels saved as a result of using this waste as fuel.
Finally, we are against certain amendments that call for controls that are too stringent with regard to emission standards.
These measures would require significant and costly investments but would not have any real benefits for the environment.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to thank the rapporteur who has produced an excellent piece of work.
We have complete respect for the political line he is proposing with regard to both co-incineration and linking the two directives.
However, we believe that some of our amendments that have been rejected by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are essential and I should like to say a few words about them.
Firstly, I would like to mention the problem of discharges into the aquatic environment. It is abnormal not to demand zero discharges into the aquatic environment.
The European Commission already proposed such a measure in its draft directive on the incineration of hazardous waste in 1992.
That being the case, we might wonder about the reasons for a backwards step in this area and the fact that the main political groups in this House have not supported our proposal.
In fact, all the evidence points to the need for such a stringent measure.
I would point out in particular that when Mr White's report on the framework directive on water was adopted a few months ago, we agreed to eventually - and by 2020 at the latest - make a zero rate the requirement for discharges of any dangerous substance into the aquatic environment.
An initial step would consist of adopting a measure to that effect for plants which cause as much concern as incineration plants.
The second aspect I should like to mention is the problem of dioxin.
We know that dioxins represent the main problem posed by incinerators, whether they are used for hazardous waste or household waste.
Less than a year ago, the WHO published new recommendations on the acceptable daily limit values of substances that can be ingested by human beings. This means that 10 picograms per kilo of body weight would be reduced to a minimum of 1 picogram - that is, ten times less - and a maximum of 4 picograms.
I would point out that in many European countries, and particularly in my own country, Belgium, these limits have already been exceeded.
We therefore take the view that for new plants we must aim from the outset for dioxin emission limits that are below the detection limit.
Naturally, this requires some improvements to be made to the older plants, but we need to set ourselves a target of zero dioxin emissions.
Mr President, it is clear that incineration capacity requirements are constantly increasing, but it is wrong to automatically present the burial of waste as an anti-ecological concept.
In fact, there is no such thing as beneficial incineration and harmful discharges.
Incineration which is not controlled properly is just as dangerous - and even more so - for our health and for the environment as the random dumping of waste.
An example of this is PVC, which is completely inert when it is buried, but which releases highly toxic by-products of chlorine when it is burned.
It also contains dioxins and a long list of molecules whose effects on the human body we are not even fully aware of.
Finally, one thing is clear.
By its very nature and for reasons of profitability, incineration conflicts with recycling.
In order to function properly, whether it be technically or financially, it needs to burn more and more fuel.
This is obviously not the way to combat the use of excess packaging or save raw materials.
Conversely, technical burial is entirely in keeping with a genuine recycling policy, all the more so because there are not many possible sites and they can therefore only be used for a limited period of time.
On the other hand, we do not look on energy recovered from incineration as recycled energy.
It is a matter of making the end waste products viable, and nothing more than that.
For example, the energy conserved when recycling a plastic bottle is ten times greater than the energy saved when incinerating the same plastic bottle.
Mr Blokland's report is an excellent piece of work, and we shall be voting in favour of it, but incineration must remain first and foremost a method of processing final waste, once all the possible operations for sorting and recycling it have been carried out.
We shall suspend the debate at this point. It will be resumed at 9 p.m.
The sitting was suspended at 7 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
Waste incineration (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0183/99) by Mr Blokland, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the incineration of waste (COM(98)0558 - C4-0668/98-98/0289(SYN)).
Madam President, I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Blokland that the incineration of waste should be carried out in such a way that emission levels generally correspond to those we deem acceptable in the burning of biofuels and fossil fuels.
If incineration can be carried out with strict emission requirements and the efficient use of energy, then the incineration of waste represents a satisfactory means of disposal.
We are using a resource that is virtually comparable with a biofuel, and thereby helping to combat global warming.
And compared with the dumping of waste, we can also help to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gas methane.
As is pointed out in the report, it is obviously very much better to sort and recycle or reuse waste.
However, it is important for there to be careful studies of what is best for the environment, since research of this kind often shows that, in spite of everything, incineration can be the best alternative.
In Sweden, the manufacture of pulp has traditionally used wood residues for burning in the manufacturing process.
In my opinion, this particular use should be exempted from the rules governing the incineration of waste.
It forms part of an industrial process for which such rules are not really appropriate.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly my compliments to Mr Blokland on his excellent report.
I have just one minute's speaking time, so I will confine myself to one specific point, namely the requirements which a new incineration plant has to meet.
I think it is important that new incineration plants must be kept a minimum distance away from densely populated areas, and I have tabled an amendment suggesting a minimum of two kilometres.
In my own country we face the proposed plant at Drogenbos near Brussels.
The limits for particulates and cadmium have already been exceeded, and still the government has given the green light to construction of what will be a new source of pollution.
The Commission has already brought an action against Belgium for infringement of the directive on environmental impact assessment.
My country's policy on incineration plants is anything but exemplary.
Proceedings are also under way on irregularities in the implementation of existing directives on incinerators.
I would like to use this debate as an opportunity of asking the Commissioner firstly how these infringements are being dealt with, but above all how things stand with the complaints about Drogenbos.
I should be grateful if the Commissioner could provide some answers to these questions today or, failing that, as swiftly as possible.
Madam President, I do not support the integration of the two directives - namely on municipal waste, waste oil, solvents and clinical waste, as well as other non-hazardous waste - into one composite European piece of legislation.
Agreeing to the integration of the two directives would amount to allowing hazardous waste to be burnt in plants intended for household waste, and vice versa.
For more than 20 years European policy in respect of waste management has been based on the principle of treating hazardous industrial waste and household and similar waste in a different way.
Each category of waste should be subject to treatment which is specific to it.
From an Irish perspective, we generate over 42 million tonnes of waste each year.
In the light of Ireland's strong economic growth, we must ensure that resources are invested in alternative waste-management schemes.
The future of waste disposal must not and cannot lie in the continued search for more landfill up and down the length and breadth of our country.
Investment in a clean environment in my country will in the medium to long term justify any additional expenditure incurred and the European Union will support any innovative measures in this regard.
The Irish Government is presently putting together a national development plan outlining our economic and social investment priorities for the seven-year period post-1999.
Included in this plan must be a comprehensive and integrated proposal that deals with the issue of eliminating the use of landfill sites in Ireland in the medium to long term.
The facts speak for themselves in this regard: only 8 % of all municipal waste is recycled in my country. This figure is simply too low.
The cost of disposal of this waste would drain the resources of our local authorities in terms of landfill sites, transport and manpower, and there is also the loss to the economy of the valuable materials which were dumped.
For example, it is estimated that over 70 million polyester bottles are sold in Ireland each year and the improper disposal of even a very small proportion of these could make a significant contribution to environmental litter.
Recycling rates for polyester bottles of up to 70 % have been achieved in Germany and the Netherlands to date.
Recycling saves on energy, raw materials, waste-disposal costs, import bills and the need for landfill sites.
As a people we need to develop a recycling mentality, which is now commonplace in all the European Union Member States.
Madam President, it is very regrettable that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has voted to allow even higher levels of dioxins than the Commission had proposed, when you consider that dioxins are one of the most toxic substances known to man.
In a number of cases, women who live near incinerators were told not to breast-feed their babies because of the amount of dioxins in their breast milk.
It is an extremely dangerous situation that we have here.
The Greens want to see a lot of improvement on this report before it is accepted.
The last speaker is a member of a political party in Ireland that is in government.
They have done nothing about the waste problem in Ireland.
Until now they have landfilled massive amounts of waste; basically, pushed it away so that it would not be seen.
Now they are talking about incineration.
It is clear that incineration of waste is not the solution.
They are not coming up with ways of reducing the amount of waste: separating, reusing, recycling.
Incineration means you have to encourage waste production to make it viable.
It does not mean that you get rid of waste.
You are incinerating it but it does not vanish into thin air without any consequences.
You have serious dioxin emissions. You also have extremely toxic ash left afterwards.
The Irish Government really needs to get its act together.
Incineration is not the way to deal with our waste, as landfill was not the way in the past.
We have to look at the real options of dealing with waste: reduction, reuse, recycle.
Unless the Irish Government does that it is only going to encourage more production of waste to keep the incinerators viable. That is not acceptable to the public in Ireland.
Madam President, the discussion about the incineration of waste and hazardous waste has shown once again how far our society still is from recognising the principle that the polluter should pay for environmental damage.
On the one hand, we have endless discussions about the competitive disadvantages that result for industry, particularly for the disposal industry. On the other hand, it is exceptionally difficult to revise the limit values for highly toxic substances downwards.
Yet some countries, including Austria, have proved that it can be done.
Mr Blokland's excellent report is certainly a corrective to the Commission's draft.
In future, however, we will have no choice but to get involved in the basic discussion on the design of all production processes from the manufacture of a product to its final disposal.
The closest attention must be paid to ensuring that any products and resulting compounds whose disposal can have serious consequences, particularly illnesses, cannot be produced or put on the market in the first place.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am actually against waste incineration because I believe that it does not solve the problem, it merely shifts it elsewhere, and in the end the volume of waste may be reduced a little but does not disappear.
I would nevertheless like to congratulate Mr Blokland on his report and particularly on the patience he has shown, given that both these reports were in committee for a long time.
I also believe that we still need waste incineration plants because we are still a long way from a circulation economy in which everything that is produced can be recycled or buried underground.
If we need such plants we must ensure that they affect our health as little as possible and that they protect the environment as much as possible.
For this reason I also believe that it is necessary to have more stringent limit values for emissions and to bring the limit values for the various types of incineration closer into line with each other.
I do not believe that we can expect someone living near a co-incineration plant to put up with different air quality than someone living near a municipal incineration plant or someone who does not live near an incineration plant.
So we must look to improve the values here.
I tried in committee to take a step in this direction by means of a number of amendments.
I would also like to comment on the combining of the two directives, which I believe is right and for which I would like to express my support.
In my view the fact that the same limit values apply for the incineration of hazardous and non-hazardous waste is not a step backwards in environmental terms; on the contrary, I believe that it makes the values for municipal waste incineration plants more stringent.
I also believe that it may make it possible to change the way in which hazardous waste is transported in small countries such as mine, where waste from Bregenz, which is closer to Paris than to Vienna, has to be brought to Vienna.
I would welcome that.
Madam President, the initiative now before us concerns a subject which raises particular passions in Portugal. We have with reason seen a very negative reaction in our country to the attempt by the Portuguese Government to allow two major national cement companies to co-incinerate toxic waste.
No one can be unaware of the need to solve the current problem.
However, this cannot be solved at any price as it is essential to have a process which is 100 % safe and correct, both technically and legally.
To a certain extent which the rapporteur, Mr Blokland, is trying to determine, we must aim first of all to prevent, reuse and recycle waste, as other Members have said.
The problem is that some waste still needs to be incinerated and the use of existing installations is only permitted if there is an absolute guarantee that human health is not at risk.
This safeguard must be particularly borne in mind in the case of cement kilns.
This is why we are fully supporting Amendment No 36 which rightly requires more than the Commission's proposal in Annex II.1.1.
It is also not acceptable, as underlined by the rapporteur, that some countries have less stringent regulations and therefore attract waste from other countries.
This is currently the situation with the cement works in Belgium which attract waste from Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany.
This would have been the case with Portugal in relation to Spain if the Portuguese Government's initiative to encourage the national cement works to also burn the waste of their neighbouring country had gone ahead.
The following amendments, for example, must also be applauded: Amendment No 25 which deletes the provision that continuous measuring may be authorised instead of periodic measurements, and Amendment No 30 which specifies a more stringent requirement in Article 12 on the provision of information to the public on possible damage.
However, having said this, we must be particularly careful to ensure compliance with competition rules, perhaps by using rules with this specific aim, so that highly profitable contracts are not awarded without the necessary transparency, as has happened before.
If there is any doubt about the danger of co-incineration - its effects are difficult to identify and only perhaps become apparent in the long term - we must ensure that the waste is incinerated in special incinerators, away from any population centres, as has just been said.
Although these incinerators are expensive, their price is justified. They could be set up as joint ventures between neighbouring countries in order to share the costs.
This must happen in the Iberian Peninsula, in view of the scope provided by Portugal and Spain.
Madam President, the French Socialists are completely in favour of making standards more stringent and, in particular, of substantially improving the standards provided for in both directives to combat dioxin levels.
But we are totally opposed to merging the directives on hazardous waste and household refuse. This is a matter of principle.
The protection of the environment is based on the precautionary principle.
However, mixing the two categories of waste creates great confusion, prevents hazardous waste from being traceable, and makes it very difficult to monitor and carry out controls, and we know that the processes for certain types of hazardous waste are highly specialised. In addition, it leads to serious risks for the quality of the environment and safety.
Indeed, in Europe we have already witnessed the catastrophic effects of mixing hazardous waste and household refuse in this way.
The second reason why we are against merging these two directives is that we do not believe that the protection of the environment has been the prevailing concern, but rather an economic interest.
The overcapacity of the kilns for household refuse in some countries tends to encourage these countries to allow household refuse to be mixed with hazardous waste.
We might therefore end up in a situation where hazardous waste will be processed as cheaply as possible, under conditions where it is not properly controlled, and where the transfer of waste within the European Union increases with all the risks that this entails.
To sum up, it seems to me that this is a step backwards in relation to the precautionary principle and the Union's environmental practice.
While we congratulate Mr Blokland on persevering in his efforts to convince Members, we cannot agree to the merger of the two directives.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we must thank Mr Blokland particularly for the enormous work he has done, as we have now been working on the issue of waste incineration for one and a half years in committee to ensure that it is dealt with carefully.
I believe we all agree that there must be stringent guidelines for limit values for waste incineration.
However, a number of amendments pursue very ambitious objectives that I cannot support, as we must realise that they involve huge costs.
That would in turn create a new incentive - with record cases of avoidance and criminal offences - because waste disposal would then be extremely expensive.
I would like to comment further on the issue of the different types of waste.
In this area too we have witnessed significant abuse in the past because we did not have a uniform definition of waste, and because of the different definitions we were constantly faced with cases of avoidance.
In this respect I must say that in my view the idea of combining the two directives into one is not bad because it is much easier to work with one law than to have to comply with two different laws, and because it different rules and different interpretations.
In other words, I am in favour of a single directive but I am not in favour of all the strict guidelines that have been suggested, as these are not feasible.
On the other hand, it is high time that we had a clear policy on waste disposal, and I believe that we have created a good basis for this.
I am keen to see the outcome of tomorrow's vote, and I am also interested to know the Commissioner's views on the various amendments.
Madam President, I strongly support Mr Blokland's report.
I have just one observation to make. Parliament has, quite rightly, presented its own addition to the Commission's proposal, stating that the directive should seek to impact on the common aim and hierarchical structure for European policy on waste: waste prevention, recycling and reuse, and its exploitation as an energy source.
However, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has approved the suggestion that untreated wood should not come within the scope of this directive, from which people might get the idea that it is only 'virgin' wood that is being referred to, but we would not even be able to burn or exploit sawdust or chips.
In my opinion, however, this is good quality biofuel, and there should be no sort of restriction on its use.
Madam President, let me be clear: I support new regulation on incinerators tonight, not simply to protect people living nearby from suffering from the cancers and the birth defects which British and Japanese research have demonstrated, but to shift the economic balance towards recycling and reuse.
In Basildon, Braintree, Chelmsford, Colchester, Epping Forest and Rochford, our county council in Essex currently plans eight new major waste facilities, including incinerators, over-providing by some six times local waste generated, according to Friends of the Earth.
This is lunacy!
It consigns Essex to remain the waste-tip for London, it underestimates the potential for recycling by half, it threatens areas of natural beauty close to people's homes and to schools and sites of historic interest.
It is predicated on landfill at full capacity in ten years, whereas district councils project some thirty.
Like every major incinerator proposal it sends up in smoke not just the waste but the prospect of small recycling centres and the jobs with which they are associated.
In France the Ministry of Environment surveyed incinerator emissions last year and closed a number of its facilities.
Denmark too is switching from incineration to recycling.
America estimates that the greenhouse effect of a one per cent increase in recycling is equivalent to taking one million cars off the road.
Europe can and should follow suit.
Tonight's resolution, by regulating the incinerator, relegates it to the option of last resort, and gives hope to 10 000 individual people who have submitted objections in Essex.
Madam President, I very much welcome the report and thank Mr Blokland for the work he has done.
I have been quite amazed by the amount of time this Parliament has spent over the years on the issue of waste incineration.
I go back to the times when we looked at this directive in the first place.
But in the end we have come up with something which is equitable, sensible and just.
We are going to impose tighter Commission limits on municipal waste because we recognise that when it is burned it is as dangerous as hazardous waste.
We are going to continue to ensure that there are additional requirements upon dangerous or hazardous waste disposal because it poses risks over and above that posed by municipal waste in terms of handling and other controls.
We must also take care to ensure that where co-incineration is proposed, it is used correctly and not abused or used covertly.
We must accept that there are some forms of hazardous waste that can be well disposed of in cement kilns and that is where it should go, but under the strictest of controls.
We must ensure that co-incineration does not undermine the economics of the industry and essentially stop the working, or close down the working, of dedicated hazardous waste incinerators whose use is absolutely essential for some forms of waste.
I would again like to thank Mr Blokland for the work he has done.
The Socialist Group will be supporting the vast majority of his amendments.
The combination of the two texts make sense.
We look forward to a successful second reading in Parliament after the elections.
Madam President, as a Socialist and Frenchman, I should just like to mention the great interest we have taken in the study of waste incineration and in the need to improve the standards in this area.
We also believe that it would be worthwhile if Europe provided more assistance to the countries or local authorities that have been making great efforts over the last few years to reduce the dangerous nature of incineration.
For this reason, we cannot support the co-incineration of household and hazardous or industrial waste.
We feel that there are still too many uncertainties and that we must continue to carry out studies in this area. Otherwise, some of our local authorities might end up with catastrophes if household and industrial waste are mixed in incinerators destined solely for household waste.
Madam President, the Commission would like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on the Environment and in particular its rapporteur, Mr Blokland, for the efforts they have made and for the attention to detail with which the committee, and especially the rapporteur, have dealt with this very technical proposal.
The Commission has worked hard to be able to present a balanced proposal which can achieve a high level of protection for the environment and human health, while at the same time taking into account the special needs of incineration plants and co-incineration.
The combining of the two directives on incineration has been a very important point in the debate here this evening, and the report also quite rightly focuses on that.
From the Commission's point of view, the combining is a good thing because it satisfies the general demand for streamlined EU legislation.
I can therefore also say that I do not agree with the comments made by Mr Cabrol and Mrs Lienemann here today.
Neither the Commission's proposal nor Directive 94/67 contains any provision which prevents co-incineration of hazardous and non-hazardous waste.
We are therefore able to accept the amendments which Mr Blokland and Mr Eisma in particular underlined as important for their positions.
These are Amendments Nos 7, 9, 15, 18, 19, 24, 50, 56, 60 and 61, which we accept either in part, in principle or in full.
In addition to what the report says about the combining of Directive 94/67 and the Commission's proposal, we consider it necessary to introduce a transition period for existing plants for the incineration of hazardous waste, in accordance with Article 14 of Directive 94/67.
Parliament's Amendments Nos 8, 14, 23 and 55, which are aimed at including certain questions of waste management, are unacceptable on grounds of principle.
The aim of the Commission's proposal is to set emission limit values and operating conditions for all waste which is incinerated or co-incinerated, and not to interfere with the rules on waste management.
However, it is important that the recitals draw attention to the fact that incineration is only one of the ways in which waste can be treated.
The same applies to some of the comments which have been made here this evening, in other words that the Community has both specific and general rules for waste treatment.
We are therefore unable to accept Amendment No 1 for reasons of principle.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 12, 16, 17, 21 and 22, which seek to introduce provisions on quality standards for air and water.
For this we already have legislation either in existence or under preparation, such as the IPPC directive or the proposal for a framework directive on water.
The proposed amendments would simply duplicate or encroach on these documents.
Then there are Amendments Nos 36, 37 and 43, which are aimed at changing the emission limit values which the Commission has proposed for co-incineration.
This is unacceptable, because the values the Commission has proposed are based on cost-benefit analyses and take into account the special characteristics of the various processes.
The Commission believes that the Member States and the operators concerned should have a certain amount of flexibility with regard to the recovery of heat.
It would not be realistic to demand that the heat produced by incineration should always be recovered.
This would be impossible for incineration plants in remote areas, for example.
Therefore we do not accept Amendments Nos 13 and 20.
We can accept in part, in principle or in full Amendments Nos 4, 10, 19, 24, 28, 33, 35, 56, 59 and 64, which we think clarify the Commission's intentions and otherwise improve the quality of the document.
For technical reasons, we have to reject a number of other amendments, including Amendments Nos 3, 6, 11, 25, 26, 30, 31, 32, 34, 38 to 41, 44 to 49, 51 to 54, 57, 58, 62, 63 and 65 to 71.
I received a specific question from Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens about Drogenbos.
I can say that three months ago we sent a letter of formal notice concerning the EIA directive. We have sought a reply to this letter and in the course of this week, during which the matter will be discussed in the Commission, we shall be proposing an additional letter of formal notice because the Flemish authorities issued planning permission after we had sent our letter.
Let me therefore conclude by saying that the Commission thinks that the proposal being dealt with here today, strengthened by the inclusion of those of Parliament's amendments which I have said that we accept, forms an effective and balanced basis for the control of incineration plants and co-incineration.
I am very pleased with the role which Parliament and the rapporteur, Mr Blokland, have played by taking the initiative to propose that certain existing legal requirements should be integrated into the Commission's proposal, thereby taking account of the general need for more streamlined legislation.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Financial instrument for the environment
The next item is the report (A4-0180/99) by Mrs Lienemann, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) concerning the financial instrument for the environment (LIFE) (COM(98)0720 - C4-0074/99-98/0336(SYN)).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, LIFE is the only financial instrument the European Union has to intervene directly in the field of the environment.
LIFE has been extremely successful because it is one of the Community programmes which give rise to many projects. In fact, there are many more projects than can be supported by the payment appropriations, and 98 % - even 100 % - of the appropriations are used.
This instrument is original in that it benefits the guiding principles of environmental policy.
The programme comprises three main components: LIFE-Nature, LIFE-Environment, and LIFE-Third Countries. The breakdown of the appropriations is as follows: 47 % for LIFE-Nature, 47 % for LIFE-Environment, and 6 % for LIFE-Third Countries.
LIFE-Nature mainly accompanies the Community policies that are connected with the protection of the biotope, the conservation of wild species, the implementation of European directives - particularly the directive which protects migratory birds - or the Natura 2000 directive, and the protection of the natural habitats of different species of fauna and flora.
LIFE-Environment is geared more towards what could be termed urban ecology and industrial practices, particularly practices and technologies which are said to be 'clean'.
The actions implemented within this framework cover a wide range of areas from water policy to air pollution control.
LIFE-Third Countries provided an opportunity for applicant countries, enabling them to prepare to implement European environmental standards.
This new programme encompasses various objectives.
It is not a matter of radically changing its content; it is a matter of revising the corresponding regulation. The analysis of these programmes is very positive with regard to their impact and importance.
Yet, along with the conclusions of the experts, it reveals that we need to give more consideration to the results, make greater use of the programme as an accompanying instrument when drawing up our rules and European policies, and, more generally, increase the total appropriations allocated to accompanying measures. These would include increasing awareness of the instrument and good practices, exchanging information and experience, and producing a summary report.
That is why, generally speaking, the regulation states that the appropriations set aside for accompanying measures should be increased from 3 % to 5 %.
The regulation itself seeks to redefine the priorities, bring them together and make them clearer for those involved.
As a result, LIFE's broad guidelines in each of the sectors have been somewhat tightened up.
However, it has been proposed that guidelines should be introduced to help the authors of the projects make the specific priorities in each of the areas clearer.
LIFE is being implemented by the Commission's services with the help of a management committee made up of Council representatives and with the help of experts.
Given the numerous debates Parliament has had on the implementation of the budget for European programmes, I would stress that no technical assistance office was invoked in connection with this programme.
These are technical experts who support the Commission's services, and I think we all should be very pleased with the methodical and rigorous approach adopted by the Commission in this respect.
In short, our report and the proposals by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection to some extent accompany the Commission's broad guidelines.
I hope that our amendments will be supported by the Commissioner and I should perhaps emphasise two points.
The first is the hope that a more explicit reference will be made to sustainable development, and not just environmental policy.
This is clearly an important change of concept, since it introduces a social dimension, that of human development.
Secondly, we would like to see special attention paid to the issue of job creation.
We sincerely hope that the new environmental practices and technologies will help generate employment.
We would like LIFE to give greater consideration to the social impact involved, and to employment in particular.
Finally, as regards budget allocations, which is a sensitive issue and always leads to heated debate, Mrs Marinucci, the rapporteur for LIFE II, had proposed to the House a sum of ECU 800 million over a period of four years, and we supported her on this.
I am more modest than she was, since I am suggesting a sum of ECU 850 million over five years, which is a little less than what she wanted for each year, but a little more than what the Council had granted the programme.
I therefore hope that Parliament will support this proposal. Some people will think it is a little modest, since more is required for certain amendments, and others will perhaps think it is too ambitious in view of the Union's budgetary requirements.
However, I feel that it is a happy medium which could earn the broad support of Parliament.
Madam President, to start with I must compliment the Commission on the way in which it has drawn on the outside evaluation of the LIFE-II programme in drawing up this proposal for LIFE-III.
The result is obvious: a high-quality proposal.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on External Economic Relations, I have limited my opinion to the external effects of the LIFE programme.
The committee would have liked to see a slight shift in favour of the non-Union countries taking part in this programme.
Unfortunately, the rapporteur Mrs Lienemann was not prepared to agree to that in the Environment Committee. In any case, I hope that the budget for third countries will be spent in full.
Our committee also asked for due account to be taken of cross-border aspects.
I see that reflected in a variety of amendments, mainly by the rapporteur.
I am in favour of guarantees to protect the natural environment, because I have seen the destructive effects of other cross-border projects.
There is one such project in the Dutch province of Limburg.
The cross-border consideration must not be an overriding criterion.
LIFE must be first and foremost an instrument of funding for the environment.
I would like to add a footnote to one or two amendments tabled by the rapporteur for the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I do not think that the resources will be used in the best way possible if all her amendments are adopted.
I am surprised that the Environment Committee has agreed to some additions which seek to use this instrument to create jobs.
I also have my doubts about the concept of sustainable development.
At first sight this seems a very environmentally friendly concept, but it is being used here as a means of achieving economic advantage through LIFE on the sly.
That is wrong.
The purpose of LIFE is and continues to be the conservation of the environment and the natural world.
If the economy and the environment are fighting for priority, nature and the environment have to come out on top.
I would therefore urge the House to vote against the 'economic' amendments such as Amendments Nos 1, 4, 8, 15 and 25.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the environment programme 'LIFE' is the European Union's most important instrument for the financing of environmental projects.
It is thanks only to the action of the European Parliament that we now have access to considerable funding from the European budget, at any rate ECU 613 million for the next five years.
Important though the goals are that were proposed by the European Commission for LIFE-Environment, I feel that it is urgently necessary, in view of the problems that exist and the priorities repeatedly called for by the European Parliament, to mention the objectives of air and water pollution too.
If these were not included the result would be that projects based on these objectives would receive practically no funding over the next five years.
In the light of the discussion in the House on climatic disasters and water pollution, this must not be the case.
There is a link here with a request which our group made as early as five years ago, that only those projects that are really new in terms of the current state of technological progress should be assisted, the problem being that currently, in certain regions of the Community, projects can be funded that are at a level of technological development already commonplace in other regions. This should not become common practice in future in view of the scarce resources available.
My group considers all projects funded by LIFE to be extremely important, of course, but we also fully support the objectives proposed by the Commission, such as the 'starter' and 'co-op' measures. However, I also considered it important in this context to promote measures for the targeted conversion and development of areas and their land use, which are necessary to protect species and biotopes.
These are the subject of another four amendments tabled by our group, and I would be grateful if they could be supported.
Madam President, I did not agree with Mrs Lienemann's comments on the Blokland report, but I do entirely agree with what she says as rapporteur on LIFE-III.
Shortly, in the year 2000, we shall have a LIFE-III. That will give Europe the chance to present itself with a new face as regards the environment and nature, but it will come at a price.
Mrs Lienemann quoted a sum of EUR 850 million over five years.
We are happy with that, but as a minimum.
We shall certainly not be prepared to agree to anything less, because the current figure of EUR 450 m is decidedly inadequate.
If you think about enlargement, we shall need a very great deal more money for LIFE-III if the new Member States are to take part as well.
Just compare that sum with all the billions we spend on agriculture and structural policy. It makes this financial instrument for the environment look very meagre indeed.
I also find it a great pity that my own country, the Netherlands, is quite progressive on environmental matters generally, but wants to cut the amount of money spent on LIFE-III.
Certainly if we consider that Natura 2000 already needs three to five billion euros a year, this sum of EUR 50 or 60 million a year which is currently available would appear to be well below the sum required.
If Europe truly wishes to look kindly on nature and the environment, it must be prepared to pay for it. I therefore appeal not only to the Dutch Government but also to the Council.
Sadly the Council representative is not here with us. I nevertheless call on the Council to agree to an increase in the budget for LIFE-III.
Madam President, the rapporteur and other speakers have reminded us that LIFE is the only instrument devoted exclusively to the environment.
As stated in one of the amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, it should contribute to sustainable development and to the inclusion of environmental policies in other Union policies. It should also facilitate the updating and implementation of environmental legislation.
In addition, LIFE needs special funding.
The Committee on Budgets welcomes the fact that no specific proposal has been put forward concerning the LIFE programme.
Although it recognises that the programmes are effective, it is pleased that no specific proposal has been made.
We have tabled and supported a number of amendments aimed at a specific financial proposal, bearing the Environment Agency's second report very much in mind. As the rapporteur has rightly pointed out, this report warns us of the recent reduction in biodiversity within Europe.
We also agree wholeheartedly with the Committee on the Environment's view that priority should be given to cross-border projects, to innovative projects and to projects generating employment.
We believe that the LIFE instrument can contribute to job creation in the field of the environment.
Reports on the LIFE I, LIFE II and LIFE III projects should be presented in 2002 as this will give the necessary impetus to a future LIFE IV.
Although the rapporteur does suggest changes, the distribution of funds across the three thematic components, LIFE-Nature, LIFE-Environment and LIFE-Third Countries is of secondary importance.
What is crucial is to have an appropriate sum available to enable a start to be made.
Madam President, in principle the LIFE programme is extremely welcome from an environmental point of view.
The most important prerequisite for success is sufficient funding.
But we have just seen from the case of Altener II that environmental programmes are the first to come under threat where cuts are made in funding.
Almost every type of environmental initiative also creates jobs.
The involvement of the applicant countries in the LIFE programme is of enormous importance.
But we must not forget that these countries do not always have the necessary determination to improve the overall environmental situation.
The European Union should therefore signal to these countries that their own efforts in the whole area of environmental protection are an essential condition for closer relations and, finally, accession to the European Union.
In these countries there is the danger that environmental dumping is practised both in industry and in energy production.
The improvement in the dissemination of information on LIFE projects and the associated increase in budget appropriations from 3 % to 5 % are also to be welcomed.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the LIFE programme is the Union's main financial instrument for promoting action in the environmental sector.
It was launched by the Commission in 1992 and will reach the end of its second implementation phase on 31 December of this year.
The regulation under discussion will cover the administration of the third phase of the programme for the next five-year period 2000-2004, and funding of EUR 613 million has been made available.
LIFE consists of three thematic components, as the rapporteur has reminded us: LIFE-Nature on the conservation of natural habitats, flora and fauna, helping to activate the Nature 2000 Network; LIFE-Environment for the incorporation of environmental considerations into other policies and to implement and update environmental policy locally; and LIFE-Third Countries for technical assistance to the Mediterranean and Baltic countries, to create the necessary administrative structures and draw up environmental policies and action programmes.
This new proposal for a Council regulation is important because it focuses on priorities such as: firstly, helping local authorities to integrate environmental considerations into land-use planning; secondly, promoting sustainable development and incorporating environmental aspects into industrial activities; and thirdly, distributing financial resources for the protection of nature, for other actions and for actions in regions bordering on the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas.
As far as third countries are concerned, it is particularly important to pay greater attention to the means and funds at their disposal, given that - as we all know - programmes drawn up by us, here in Europe, cannot be put into practice unless other countries' governments are able to cofinance them.
I nevertheless believe that the third phase of the LIFE programme should be extended from five to seven years, with a proportionate increase in funding.
Madam President, I would first of all like to thank the Committee on the Environment and its rapporteur, Mrs Lienemann, for the attention they have given to the proposal concerning a third phase of the financial instrument for the environment, LIFE.
The report and the comments which have been presented here this evening are in line with the Commission's primary objectives, and many of the amendments emphasise the most important features of LIFE.
I should also like to express my thanks for the comments made on the administration of the scheme in DG XI, and I am grateful to Mr van Dam for what he said concerning the evaluation which lies behind the proposal we are discussing here this evening.
Between 1992 and 1998, LIFE had considerable success in NGOs, businesses, local authorities and third countries.
8 500 proposals were received, of which almost a third met the requirements.
Around 1 300 projects have been cofinanced, with a total EC contribution of EUR 643 million.
I would like to take this opportunity to stress that in budgetary terms, LIFE has proved to be an extremely effective tool.
All the available resources have been used on valuable projects.
As mentioned in the Commission's report pursuant to Article 7(3), LIFE could use more resources, up to and even above the reference amount which is indicated for LIFE II.
It is therefore important for us to do everything possible to ensure adequate funding for the LIFE scheme.
It is also important that LIFE is not penalised if financial restrictions should become necessary in future, as many of the speakers have mentioned here this evening.
It is of course tempting to go into various details of the proposal, but I shall refrain from doing so and instead content myself with saying that I am pleased that the views of the Committee on the Environment and the proposed amendments are largely in line with the objectives.
The Commission can therefore also accept 31 of the 47 amendments either in principle, in part or in full.
I am interested to see that the Committee on the Environment is in favour of increasing the LIFE budget even beyond the amount the Commission has included in the financial statement for the proposed regulation.
But as you know, the Commission does not accept the inclusion of reference budgets in the actual texts of regulations relating to financial programmes.
Amendments Nos 33, 46 and 47 are therefore unacceptable.
And the Commission is also unable to accept Amendment No 12 on a supplementary budget for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
As such, this question concerns all the Community instruments which are available to applicant countries, and can only be dealt with in the context of Association Agreements.
As far as the committee procedure is concerned, for the time being the Commission is keeping to the 1987 decision.
Changes can be made at a later stage, when a final decision has been reached about the new comitology proposal, and we are therefore rejecting Amendment No 37.
Some of the amendments are aimed at extending the scope of LIFE-Nature and LIFE-Environment.
This would run counter to the wish to concentrate the proposals on those areas where LIFE has the greatest added value.
For this reason, we are rejecting Amendments Nos 39, 40 and 41.
Amendment No 42 would entail a radical change in the purpose of preparatory projects, which is to develop new measures in the area of the environment, so we do not accept this amendment.
Then there are a number of amendments requiring various reports to be submitted to Parliament.
The Commission is prepared to give Parliament all the information necessary for the effective supervision of the programme, but this should not entail a large increase in the number of reports which have to be submitted to Parliament.
That would in fact entail a further burden on the limited human resources.
So we do not agree with Amendments Nos 31, 19 and 32.
I would like to stress that the human resources for the administration of the LIFE scheme are limited.
The administration of projects in third countries could become difficult in the coming years unless more resources are made available, and we would of course see it as an advantage if more resources were to be provided. We expect increasing participation by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in LIFE-Nature and LIFE-Environment.
If we were to take on additional administrative tasks, it would mean that we would have to limit the resources that are needed for proper administration of the scheme, and the Commission cannot accept that, particularly not at this time when we have had so many discussions with Parliament about precisely this problem.
For technical reasons, we therefore do not accept Amendments Nos 13, 14, 36 and 45.
Finally, I would like to stress that I am pleased with Mrs Lienemann's report.
Most of the amendments help to strengthen the LIFE strategy.
I am convinced that the Community has benefited from the LIFE projects already carried out, and with the new regulation this potential will be able to be realised in full in the years from 2000 to 2004.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Community Eco-Management and audit scheme
The next item is the report (A4-0139/99) by Mr Valverde López, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Regulation allowing voluntary participation by organisations in a Community eco-management and audit scheme (COM(98)0622 - C4-0683/98-98/0303(SYN)).
Madam President, I must first congratulate the European Commission on its proposal for revision of the regulation governing the environmental audit, first approved in 1993. This reflects satisfactory progress in terms of the Commission's work.
This new proposal has been made after five years of working with these arrangements and assessing their effectiveness in the various Member States. In my role as rapporteur, I support the broad principles of the proposal.
I should like to take this opportunity of conveying to Mrs Graenitz, rapporteur for the Socialist Group, how much I appreciated her determination to work together and reach a joint position on many amendments.
She has also tabled interesting amendments that I have been very pleased to support.
The amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment relate mainly to deepening and broadening the scope for implementation.
This is certainly necessary and it was provided for in the previous regulation.
Pilot projects undertaken in various Member States in non-industrial fields have proved very successful. Here, I could mention, for example, the pilot project carried out in the field of tourism in Spain, or to those carried out by certain public administrations in the field of transport, the universities and so on.
Some amendments are aimed at making the reports on environmental audits more attractive to organisations, while others are intended to avoid overlap with ISO standards.
Our regulation must be more advanced and far-reaching than international standards, despite being based along largely the same principles.
An attempt has also been made to provide greater facilities for small organisations, along the lines of the European Commission's proposals.
In addition, we propose greater decentralisation of the system at regional level and even at local level.
In another context, we stress the need to standardise the public assessment report that organisations have to produce, and to ensure that its content and transparency are improved. This is something we already referred to in the 1993 report.
We would also like to see the auditor's role strengthened.
In this connection, we have come up against a problem. It involves an issue of interpretation which has surprised us.
We felt that according to the spirit and the letter of the regulation, environmental auditors had to be natural persons.
This involves certain requirements as far as training and experience are concerned, and calls of course for professional people with the relevant qualifications who are accustomed to discharging the responsibilities associated with the liberal professions in relation to penal, civil, administrative and professional matters.
To our great surprise, however, it appears that some Member States have a different interpretation of the concept of an auditor, applying it to legal entities.
I believe that this would be to misinterpret the report.
I further urge you to investigate the application of this report by the various Member States and ascertain if any departure from the spirit of the report has taken place.
We should also be sending out two political messages, Madam President.
According to the Commission's assessment report, certain countries have not yet managed to get their verification structure up and running. The countries in question may as well be named: they are Greece and Portugal.
I feel that a direct approach to the authorities in these countries is called for, offering them support if necessary. The aim must be to ensure that the regulation concerning assessment of the environmental impact of organisations is applied in all Member States.
In other countries, very few organisations have become involved. The most notable examples are Belgium, France and Italy.
It is surprising that so few organisations have taken advantage of this regulation.
In my view, actions aimed at promotion, cooperation, and encouragement are called for, and more information should perhaps be made available to organisations.
I am sure you will agree with me, Commissioner, as to the nature of the second political message which needs to be sent out at the moment. In the course of the enlargement negotiations with the countries of Eastern Europe, we must bear in mind the transitional aid to be provided to those countries to enable them to take advantage of this opportunity and to carry out self assessment.
Thank you for your patience, Madam President.
Madam President, I would firstly like to reciprocate the thanks and praise expressed by the rapporteur.
It was very pleasant working with him, and I hope that we can be very pleased with the result.
I also hope, Commissioner, that you will be able to accept a number of amendments agreed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and that Parliament will also vote for these amendments tomorrow.
The Treaty of Amsterdam requires that environmental policy should be incorporated into all areas and that sustainable development should genuinely be achieved in the European Union, and I believe that we need a lot of instruments to be able to implement this.
The improved version of EMAS is one of those instruments which puts companies in particular in a 'win situation', allowing them to protect the environment and reduce costs.
In my view we must publicise this opportunity much more.
My small country has the highest percentage of EMAS-certified organisations.
I have inspected some of these and was really able to see the enthusiasm with which the staff, the managers and the owners or shareholders support EMAS, as it is not only the environment that it benefits.
The changes mentioned by Mr Valverde López will certainly make the programme more attractive.
Member States will have to recognise the input already made by the companies which led the way in environmental legislation, and opportunities may have to be created in awarding public contracts.
However, there was one point on which I did not agree with the rapporteur, but which my group considers to be very important along with worker participation, and that is the point about best available technology.
This Parliament has defined best available technology very precisely for industry and has also - rightly, in my opinion - excluded SMEs from this.
But if we want EMAS to become widespread and other sectors to become EMAS-certified as industrial companies or very large institutions, we must apply best available technology differently.
Why do we always think only of industry? A hotel business has best available technology for sewage.
A transport company has best available technology for its logistics.
In order to achieve the goals of sustainable development and the Kyoto objectives, I think we need to make further progress in this area.
I very much hope that this amendment by my group - requesting that we include best available technology in this EMAS law - will be adopted.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I felt rather helpless as I had dropped my glasses.
The aim of European environmental policy to guarantee sustainable development with a high level of environmental protection should be achieved not only with the conventional instruments of regulatory law.
The statement in the fifth environmental action programme that industry is not just part of the environmental problem but must also be part of the solution to the problem, continues to be relevant today, and an alternative to environmental regulatory law is the environmental audit scheme that we are now discussing.
The voluntary implementation - I emphasise this particularly - of eco-management and audit schemes allows companies to meet the requirements of environmental protection in a flexible way.
As we have already heard several times today, the current regulation has proved itself, in particular in industrial firms, and we have also established - here I must contradict you slightly - that 75 % of companies participating in the environmental audit are from Germany.
I too have visited the firms - a Commission list - and I can tell you that I too have seen the efforts that the people there have made, but under the simple conditions presently contained in the environmental audit scheme.
If we now include services I find this very positive.
But I think we must also recognise another problem, which is that we have to motivate small and medium-sized enterprises to agree to implement these requirements.
In doing so we must ensure that the demands we make are not beyond the capabilities of small and medium-sized enterprises, otherwise there is the danger that - as SMEs have always told me - they will then not participate in the environmental audit programme, they will implement only ISO 14001, and they will not have an environmental audit.
So once again we would have adopted an excellent decision here in Parliament but it would not actually be put into practice.
I believe the debate in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection showed this too.
I have seen how our desire to involve interested parties is put into practice, in a company that produces environmental technology.
When we say that the available technology should apply, in my view this is a concept which has no place whatsoever in legislation, Mrs Graenitz, as it changes every week and would have to be constantly redefined.
It cannot be defined once and for all.
There is no end to technology.
It continues to develop and it is not necessary the best thing.
I appeal to you once again: let us try to change these proposals a little more, as we need widespread participation.
We will not achieve this with the current version, I warn you!
Madam President, I would like to thank Mr López for an excellent report on a very complicated subject.
I think it is important, as Mr Schnellhardt also emphasised, for us to ensure that EMAS is a useful tool for our businesses here in Europe.
We should make sure that good environmental intentions do not make EMAS indigestible for small and medium-sized businesses.
It must be understood that participation in the EMAS scheme is voluntary.
It should not be misused in an attempt to impose tougher environmental legislation on businesses.
It is important that this scheme is as flexible and unbureaucratic as possible.
Otherwise we will not be able to persuade small and medium-sized businesses to participate in it under any circumstances.
Now, if I may, I would like to comment on some amendments.
To begin with, there are Amendments Nos 24, 28 and 29.
I hope very much that my colleagues - and the Commission too - will welcome them.
I would also like to draw attention to Amendment No 23.
We in the Liberal Group are opposed to this proposal, because it would allow the use of the EMAS logo on products and packaging.
I think that this would undermine the work we have done in the past and are in the process of doing in the area of labelling, and would be of no benefit to consumers or business.
I heard my Austrian colleague talk about best available technology, or BAT.
We in the Liberal Group have asked for split votes on the amendments dealing with this concept, because we cannot support the inclusion of BAT in EMAS.
If BAT is included in this legislation, it will only make the scheme even more unacceptable for businesses.
At the moment, the Commission is only preparing BAT advice for those businesses and sectors which will have statutory IPPC approval, and even this advice will not be ready before 2004, so we are opposed to this.
Madam President, we support Mr Valverde López's proposal concerning revision of the regulation allowing voluntary participation by organisations in this eco-management and audit scheme.
Unfortunately, the scheme is not yet sufficiently widespread. We also support his proposal to broaden the objectives as regards using cleaner technology, avoiding environmental pollution by organisations, preventing environmental accidents and replacing substances, products or means of transport which cause pollution.
As part of the process of drawing up an environmental declaration like this, we feel that information should be made available to everyone, and that worker participation should be facilitated.
In our view, the proposal concerning the future participation of consumers and clients in the work of companies who adopt these measures is of fundamental importance. So, too, is the need to make the results of the assessments widely available together with information on the organisations participating in these projects.
As the rapporteur suggests, it would also be helpful to introduce tax concessions for these organisations, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises for whom the use of the best technologies can be a problem. In addition, these small and medium-sized enterprises should have preferential access to finance.
After all, according to Eurostat, most of the jobs in Europe - more than 85 % - are generated by small and medium-sized enterprises.
We feel very strongly that if we encourage small and medium-sized enterprises to participate in the scheme, we shall also be encouraging job creation.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the present amendment aims to make the eco-audit, which is voluntary and will also remain voluntary in future, more attractive to businesses.
I believe we all agree with this objective.
After initially grave reservations, the eco-audit has now become a real hit with industry in those areas where it is used, and I can say on behalf of Germany that the figures speak for themselves: in absolute terms, Germany has the highest number of participating companies, even if it is only 1 % of all companies.
Austria is in first place per capita of population, but then Austria is smaller, which is perhaps what has caused the misunderstanding referred to earlier.
Denmark and Sweden are next, with considerably lower figures.
However, there are a number of Member States in which the eco-audit is almost non-existent, as the rapporteur pointed out.
It is therefore very important to provide incentives to encourage an increasing number of companies, particularly the many small and medium-sized firms, to introduce the eco-audit; I think we all agree on this.
This is particularly important because, as Mr Schnellhardt already said, the international ISO standard 14001 means a certain level of competition which could be undermined as a result.
A number of our amendments, also tabled by our group, were accepted by a majority in committee.
I must say, however, that a number of amendments were also accepted in committee which in our view run counter to the objectives and are indeed at odds with the whole purpose of the exercise.
If we now suddenly lay down standards it is no longer a voluntary system but one in which the companies are to be given incentives to achieve more in the relevant areas than the legislation requires.
That is the incentive.
But if I now lay down fixed standards, then it is no longer a voluntary eco-audit but one that is difficult for some companies to achieve.
I must say quite honestly, on behalf of a number of colleagues and myself, that if the amendments that run counter to the objectives are adopted, we cannot vote for the report.
We want the audit to remain voluntary and incentives to be increased; we also want the administration to be reduced, in other words no further conditions to be imposed but instead to improve management.
I come from Bavaria and I can say that German companies have carried out most eco-audits because the incentives have really worked here.
I wish this were also the case in other Member States too.
Madam President, I should like to tell the Commissioner that the regulation has been greatly improved, as Mr Valverde has already said.
This second version is very much better, particularly Annex VII which is new and which concerns the initial assessment.
In the light of my considerable experience in this sector, I feel that the initial assessment is the key to setting up a management system successfully.
I would say it stands for 80 %, yet it in the past it did not exist.
Nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, I think you have failed to take into account how industry actually operates.
Hundreds of organisations have adopted ISO standard 14001, along with others the world over, and they have been registered.
A few - a very few - are registered with the EMAS scheme. But why so few?
Even the 2 000 registered in Germany represent only a tiny percentage of the large organisations. This is because the system is terribly complex.
In my opinion, Commissioner, the entire verification procedure should be simplified.
Why are there many verifiers in Germany? The reason is that they are natural persons.
As Mr Valverde has said, what happens in a great many other countries is that the accrediting bodies will only accredit insurance companies or standardisation companies and that makes the complex procedure even more difficult.
I trust the new version will help to improve this situation.
Nevertheless, I suspect that most organisations will continue to be certificated under ISO 14001, and environmental audits under ISO 14010 and 14011, because it is so much more practical and useful to do so. In fact, it comes to the same, because ISO 14001 constitutes 80 % of the EMAS scheme.
The remainder is made up by the verification the Commissioner is called upon to simplify.
Madam President, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on the Environment and especially its rapporteur, Mr Valverde López, for the effort which has been made to ensure the rapid progress of this proposal revising the existing EMAS scheme.
We are talking - as has been emphasised - about a voluntary market instrument aimed at improving the contribution which businesses make to the environment.
But I shall not repeat the proposal.
There have been many excellent speeches about it, so instead I will concentrate on the 65 amendments which have been tabled.
The Commission finds 20 of these amendments acceptable in full or in part.
We are able to accept Amendment No 1, the first part of No 4 and the second part of No 26, because we believe they help make the Commission's proposal more attractive to business.
Then there is the second part of Amendments No 18 and Amendment No 51, which also strengthen the credibility of EMAS and can therefore be supported.
The comparability and conformity of the scheme between Member States is also of great importance, and for that reason Amendments Nos 34 and 43, which demonstrate Parliament's support, can be accepted.
Other key principles in the proposal are intelligibility, clarity, transparency and subsidiarity.
The rapporteur, Mr Valverde López, touched on the problem of making the scheme sufficiently well known, and intelligibility, clarity, transparency and subsidiarity are all important in this respect.
The Commission can therefore support Amendments Nos 5, 8, 11, 20, 21, 24, 27, 42, 45, 48 and 61 in principle, because in the main we think that they reinforce these aspects.
We are unable to accept the other amendments.
As far as the most important of these are concerned, I shall now discuss some of the reasons why the Commission cannot accept them. Because EMAS is a voluntary instrument, it is important for it to have a logical structure and to be intelligible.
For this reason, we cannot accept Amendments Nos 7, 12, 13, 14, 36, 41, 44, 53, 54, 59, 64 and 65 because they repeat elements which are already covered by the text, especially in Annex I A. Support and incentives for organisations taking part in EMAS are included in the proposal and improved by the amendments we are accepting, as I have just mentioned.
Amendments which lower the requirements for SMEs are not acceptable.
The proposal has been framed in such a way that it can be applied by businesses of any size.
The attitude of SMEs themselves is that they do not want a lower level scheme because they fear it would be of less value in the market-place.
For this reason, we do not support Amendments Nos 2, 52 and 56.
The added value for the environment of the EMAS scheme compared with ISO 14001 is an important aspect of the proposal, as has also been mentioned in the debate.
The Commission therefore does not support Amendments Nos 16, 17, 52 and 63, because they weaken the transparency and control of information concerning environmental outcomes by reducing the validation frequency.
An important element of the proposal is that it extends the scope of the EMAS scheme to cover all business sectors.
The Commission is therefore unable to accept amendments relating only to a single sector, such as Amendments Nos 7, 12 and 25, which require organisations to apply best available technology, and I can understand why opinions have been divided on this in Parliament.
As the directives on public tendering now stand, the first part of Amendment No 26 and Amendment No 30 are not acceptable.
However, I personally have some sympathy for the thinking behind these amendments, and future developments in this area could lead us to take the matter up again.
The Commission is convinced that in its improved version, with the addition of those amendments from Parliament which have been accepted today, this document provides an effective and balanced instrument for improving the environmental impact of economic activities throughout the Union, and with those comments, Madam President, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Valverde López, and the Committee on the Environment for their work.
Thank you, Mrs Bjerregaard.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11.30 a.m.
Pollution-related illnesses
The next item is the report (A4-0167/99) by Mr Cabrol, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (1999-2001) (3603/99 - C4-0125/99-97/0153(COD)).
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to begin by briefly outlining the background to this matter.
During its sitting of 11 March 1998, Parliament delivered its opinion at first reading on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on pollution-related illnesses.
I would point out that the purpose of this programme is not to take direct action to combat the emission of pollutants, but to review existing knowledge by collecting all available data on pollution-related diseases and to list the pollutants concerned with a view to planning preventive action.
The programme is aimed at the Member States, which must collect the data, and at the people of the European Union so as to enable them to protect themselves as well as they can from pollution.
At the end of first reading, Parliament tabled a number of amendments which the Council considered before presenting a common position.
The President of Parliament announced that he had received this at the sitting of 18 June 1998 and, on the whole, the Council's common position seemed satisfactory.
Nevertheless, Parliament adopted 14 amendments to that text.
By letter of 18 December 1998, the Council announced that it could not approve all of Parliament's amendments.
Therefore, the President of the Council, in agreement with the President of Parliament, convened a meeting of the Conciliation Committee to be held on 4 February 1999.
The conciliation procedure was relatively difficult because the Council did not show any particular interest in the programme.
Nevertheless, following three sets of tripartite talks with the Austrian and German Presidencies, Parliament's delegation was satisfied with many of its amendments, which we shall group together according to their objectives.
As regards the three amendments on strengthening the follow-up of the programme, two were accepted, guaranteeing the programme's continual assessment, the drawing-up of a Commission report during the final year of the programme, along with actions being planned for the future.
The extension of the scope of the programme through a policy of prevention and increasing awareness of the risks was also accepted, as was the issue of complementarity with other health programmes, and an annual report on this subject must be provided by the Commission.
Moreover, the Council approved the principle of public information, admittedly by means of professionals, but it included some very important points, such as the risk of pollution on foodstuffs.
The conduct of epidemiological studies was approved and, finally, certain parts of the Council's text which were incomprehensible were clarified.
As regards comitology, a compromise made the recital more acceptable and easier to understand.
Unfortunately, a number of amendments were not accepted, in particular, the amendment on the prevention programme for pollution-related allergies. More importantly, Parliament's delegation noted that the Council was unwilling to give way on the budget for the programme.
We had asked for ECU 7 million instead of ECU 3.9 million.
It became evident that, in view of the negotiations on Agenda 2000, several Council delegations had been instructed not to make any concessions on the budget.
Whilst regretting this situation, Parliament's delegation accepted the amount specified in the common position, subject to a joint declaration by the three institutions relating to the Commission proposal for the adoption of a new framework programme in the field of public health after the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The declaration reads as follows: 'The European Parliament, the Council and the Commission declare that, among the priority issues to be addressed within the framework of the future programme on public health, they will pay particular attention to rare diseases and pollution-related diseases and will duly take account of the budgetary implications.'
In conclusion, our delegation welcomes the outcome of the conciliation procedure on this programme, which, along with that on rare diseases, is the latest in a series of public health programmes.
As a result, we recommend that Parliament adopt the legislative decision in accordance with the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like, also on behalf of my group, to express my thanks and appreciation to the rapporteur, Mr Cabrol, for leading the negotiations.
I believe this subject - the link between pollution and health - is an important one.
It is also an issue which greatly concerns the people of Europe, and I do not believe that it is simply a question of exaggerated fears.
Pollution has repercussions for health, and we must focus more closely on this.
This programme can make only a modest contribution, however.
It cannot solve the problem of pollution-related illnesses; it can merely develop strategies or help to develop strategies.
For this reason, our group, unlike the Commission and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, agreed from the beginning that we immediately need an integrated programme that includes all aspects of public health and also this programme.
At first reading we were therefore against a five-year period and in favour of a three-year period.
However, we did not agree that funds should be cut in the way that was unfortunately proposed and ultimately implemented by the Council of Ministers, as with slightly greater resources we could have done more in the first three years, including preparing for a comprehensive health programme.
I regret especially that the specific measures such as in the area of allergies were deleted from the annex, and my group and I regret in particular the fact that self-help groups were no longer expressly mentioned, as I believe that we would have genuine added value if the European Union supported self-help groups and exchanges between them, but this is unfortunately no longer referred to in the programme.
However, I would call upon the Commission, within the scope offered by the programme, to support those self-help groups which are committed to pollution-related illnesses and to combating these illnesses.
It is very important to me and to my group that this programme should not merely produce figures that are put to one side and forgotten, as it is all very well to collate data at European level but none of this is of any use if we do not take concrete action.
The Commission and the Council of Ministers have in the past been too hesitant.
For example, in terms of car exhaust emissions Parliament had to force through the introduction of strict standards and ensure that the ozone problem was really approached effectively in Europe.
I believe that we must also take health aspects into account as part of the CO2 question, as illnesses that have to date existed only in the tropics will appear in Europe as a result of global warming, and there will also be other problems.
We must also take concrete action in the area of consumer health protection if this programme is to serve any purpose.
We must include the recommendations that are developed from this in our legislation in other areas too.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Rare diseases
The next item is the report (A4-0166/99) by Mr Viceconte, on behalf of Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action on rare diseases in the context of the framework for action in the field of public health (1999-2003) (3602/99 - C4-0124/99-97/0146(COD)).
I give the floor to Mr Parodi, who is deputising for the rapporteur, Mr Viceconte.
Mr President, in the Conciliation Committee on 4 February, Parliament and the Council reached an agreement on the programme of action relating to rare diseases, for which Mr Viceconte is rapporteur and which the European Parliament discussed at first reading on 11 March last year and at second reading on 8 October.
It is a five-year Community programme, running from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2003, and its main aim is to improve information on rare diseases which affect fewer than five in 10 000 people in the EU but are all the more dangerous for this very reason.
Parliament and the Council reached an agreement in the Conciliation Committee on 4 February, especially in respect of the establishment of a European database on rare diseases and access to it, encouragement and support for professionals with a view to improving the early diagnosis, identification and prevention of rare diseases, transnational cooperation among voluntary bodies, networking of groups of people directly or indirectly concerned and coordination at Community level, EU support for the monitoring of rare diseases in the Member States, training and refresher courses for professionals, and the promotion of networks of experts interested in a rapid response to the phenomenon of clusters.
Allow me to stress certain key points.
The first is that the action programme has to do with information, in particular the establishment of a coherent and complementary European information network on rare diseases and access to it through existing databases.
The establishment of a European network is vital.
Early diagnosis is of the essence, and there is currently no Europe-wide database; only France, with its Orphanet system, has a database on rare diseases.
A second priority measure is training and refresher courses for professionals so as to improve early diagnosis, identification, intervention and prevention.
Another element is the promotion of transnational cooperation and the networking of groups of people directly or indirectly affected by these rare diseases or groups of volunteers and health professionals, as well as coordination at Community level to ensure continuity and transnational cooperation.
Another significant point concerns Community support for the monitoring of rare diseases in the Member States and early warning systems relating to clusters, as well as networking and training for experts involved in handling these diseases and in responding rapidly.
This programme, along with the one on pollution-related diseases, for which Mr Cabrol is rapporteur and which is likewise to be put to the vote tomorrow, forms part of the Community's activities in the public health sector: a sector in need of expansion - as we have been stressing for some time - bearing in mind that we are not targeting major health scourges here but the few sufferers who are dying because no one pays them any attention.
We therefore believe that it is only right to implement these measures.
Unfortunately, the funding of EUR 6.5 million approved for the five-year period 1999-2003 is quite insufficient.
One need only think that the National Organization for Rare Diseases, in the United States, has earmarked a substantial USD 3.2 million over the past three years, and that France alone has spent FRF 3 million on the primary operating system for the Orphanet database.
Nevertheless, this is one step on the way to a more incisive and effective Community health policy, which the new provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty should help us to achieve.
This report leads to a conclusion.
Allow me to say, even if I am slightly overrunning my allotted time - but after 15 years, this might perhaps be the last time I speak in this House, which is of great significance to me - that health must not be included in other sectors.
The European Parliament must have the courage of its convictions and discuss health as a sector in its own right, because it is not true that diseases are on the decline.
I believe that we are facing a very difficult future; only if all 15 countries sing in harmony can we safeguard health, which is the prime asset of each and every one of us.
Without health, we cannot even engage in politics.
Mr President, I too think that to conclude the European Parliament's activities on health policy with two programmes - this one on rare diseases and the one on pollution-related diseases - demonstrates the importance we attach to health policy.
We must highlight the problem of rare diseases in particular, because it is a typical issue which can only be tackled on an international and transnational scale.
EU-wide cooperation is therefore crucial, and that is why we consider this programme so significant.
We were therefore satisfied to note, at conciliation, that there was agreement on most of Parliament's amendments.
We nevertheless regret the fact that the funding for the programme remains greatly inadequate, and we hope that the joint statement by Parliament, the Council and the Commission - indicating that this programme and the one on pollution-related diseases must be given more scope, including in budgetary terms - will be followed up properly by the next Parliament and the next Commission.
First of all I should like to thank all those who have contributed: Professor Cabrol, Mr Parodi, Mr Liese and Mr Tamino.
I thank them for their contributions and their continued support for the development of public health in the Union.
I welcome the joint texts adopted by the Conciliation Committee on 4 February 1999 on the rare diseases and pollution-related diseases programmes.
The points of difference between Parliament and the Council have now finally, as Professor Cabrol has indicated, been ironed out.
I hope that the role played by my services and the action that I myself took in assisting with these compromise texts was useful and that we have finally brought matters to a conclusion.
I know that Parliament has not been very happy that the budgetary resources for both programmes were so limited.
In the context of the current budgetary perspectives it would, however, have been difficult to achieve much more in this respect.
Nevertheless, on the basis of the proposed joint declaration of Parliament, the Council and the Commission, we are now in a position where it is possible to anticipate that these issues can be more fully addressed in the context of a new framework programme on public health.
I hope that the joint texts and the common declaration will be confirmed here today.
I can confirm the commitment of the Commission to the declarations agreed at conciliation.
Let me emphasise from the Commission's side that we attach very great importance to both these programmes even if, in their duration and scope, they essentially constitute really just a first step in the right direction.
I very much hope that the European Parliament can approve both programmes here today and that we can move quickly to put them into effect.
Mr Liese made two points: one was concerning the self-help groups.
I would like to assure him that it is our intention that in the future framework of understanding we hope to be in a better position and have a real capacity to do something to assist the self-help groups.
I would also like to indicate that Article 152 of the Amsterdam Treaty puts an obligation on us to take account of other Community policies in the development of our health programmes.
Finally, to you, Mr Parodi.
It may be your last contribution to the development of our public health programmes, but you have made a significant contribution.
The point you made about the United States being ahead of us in these matters is well taken.
But I would like you to agree with me that perhaps we now have here the possibility of a first good step to try and catch up.
When the new framework is put in place it will bring us on-line.
I would hope that in your retirement you will recognise that you have made a considerable contribution to the development of these programmes.
I would like to say a special word of thanks to Professor Cabrol for his continued dedication and commitment to these matters throughout my time here with the European Parliament.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
The sitting was closed at 10.50 p.m.
Agenda
Mr President, on a point of order under Rule 41 and Annex II of the Rules of Procedure.
I received a letter yesterday saying that my Question No 41, concerning the plight of a Kosovan refugee, would not be taken at Question Time to the Council tonight as it is dealt with under Item 144 on the agenda.
I think this is a genuine error.
The question concerns the specific immigration status of a specific Kosovan refugee and the failure to provide visas for him from embassies in other EU states.
Clearly this will not be dealt with in a general discussion about Kosovo.
I would ask your services to look at this and ensure that this question at least receives a written answer so that this man does not have his job threatened and is not forced to go back to Kosovo where he would be in danger of losing his life.
Mr Howitt, you know that paragraph 2 of Annex II (A) - Guidelines - says 'A question shall be inadmissible if the agenda already provides for the subject to be discussed with the participation of the institution concerned'.
It is precisely not to have a general discussion disturbed by particular points by another channel.
In any case, you can put that question next time or in any other form.
I can admit it today when we have a general debate on Kosovo where any of the groups can take up your question.
It is cannot be treated separately in Question Time.
I am sorry, I cannot offer any other solution.
Outcome of extraordinary European Council in Berlin of 24/25 March 1999
The next item is the report of the European Council and the statement by the Commission on the results of the extraordinary European Council meeting of 24 and 25 March 1999 in Berlin.
I should like to welcome Chancellor Schröder, on what is his first visit to the House.
I have received seven motions for resolutions to wind up this debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, three weeks ago today, at about this time, the European Council held its extraordinary meeting in Berlin.
Even as we arrived in Berlin, there were growing fears that it would not prove possible to find a peaceful solution to the conflict in Kosovo.
During the days before the Berlin Council, the attacks by the Serbian security forces ...
Mixed reactions
... against the Albanian ethnic majority had increased massively.
President Milosevic used the weeks after Rambouillet and Paris to embark on the systematic expulsion of Albanians from Kosovo.
The community of states could not just stand by and watch.
Loud applause
The Kosovar Albanians quite rightly expect human rights, the rights to freedom, to their homeland and to inviolability, to apply unconditionally to them too.
The European community of values would become an empty phrase if we Europeans allowed the principles on which the European Union is founded to be trampled underfoot in a place just one hour's flight away from here, that is to say, in the middle of our continent.
Applause
These principles are democracy, justice and the rule of law, freedom and solidarity with the weaker members of society.
Since the evening of 24 March, the allied air force has been attacking targets in Yugoslavia.
That same evening the European Council in Berlin gave its unanimous support to the actions of the North Atlantic Alliance.
To put it quite plainly: anyone who violates human rights as brutally as President Milosevic has done must expect a resolute response from us.
Applause
Anyone who with cold-blooded calculation bases his rule on the misery, the persecution and the murder of part of an ethnic minority must know that the western community of values is prepared to take the ultimate step to prevent an even worse scenario and also to enforce the fundamental values that are its values.
It was not with a light heart but only after real and careful consideration of all the arguments that we decided to use military force.
I am firmly convinced that there was no alternative to this decision in view of the increasingly tense situation in Kosovo.
The combination of the Kosovo crisis, the resignation of the Commission and Agenda 2000 probably represent the biggest challenges any European Council has ever had to tackle.
Each of these tasks in itself would have taken up an entire European summit under normal circumstances.
In Berlin we managed to tackle all three challenges at the same time.
Berlin - and this must be emphasised - demonstrated more impressively perhaps than any European Council meeting before it that the European Union is capable of action.
We are convinced that is the message of the Berlin summit.
Europe is without any question living up to its responsibilities.
The European Union will not be divided. The signal of the Berlin summit is this: we Europeans speak with one voice.
We managed to adopt Agenda 2000 on the summit morning of 26 March.
With the Berlin package we have found a compromise under which all parties concerned have to make concessions.
It is a compromise that is sensible and that we can all live with.
That is why it is, in my view, a good and fair agreement.
In Berlin, we nominated Mr Romano Prodi for the office of President of the Commission.
With your assent, ladies and gentlemen, by the summer we will again have a fully functioning Commission under undisputedly competent leadership.
I am also happy to be able to confirm to you that Berlin has finally paved the way for a trade and cooperation agreement with South Africa.
Applause
I know that many Members of this House are very committed in their support for the new South Africa.
I personally was also very pleased that after all these years of negotiations we finally achieved this breakthrough towards the end of President Mandela's term of office.
The Berlin package on Agenda 2000 creates a viable foundation for European Union action in the coming years and sends out a clear signal to the people of Europe, to the markets, and also to the applicant countries.
It signals that the Member States of the European Union were prepared to put their common responsibility above their own national interests.
I need not, at this point, discuss the Berlin agreement in detail once more.
But let me emphasise that two principles did and still do take precedence: stability of expenditure on the one hand and solidarity with the weaker on the other.
We agreed in Berlin that we would also exercise stringent budgetary discipline in Europe in future.
At the same time we want to and will maintain cohesion between the Member States, as provided in the Treaty.
You all know that the Member States' original positions on many aspects of Agenda 2000 still diverged very widely up to the time of the summit.
I will remember that night in Berlin as one of the most difficult and lengthiest negotiations I have ever had to conduct.
As German Chancellor, I left no doubt in Berlin that my country would be prepared to subordinate its rightful national interests to a reasonable overall solution.
This approach based on European responsibility paved the way to an adequate solution.
In the end all the partners were more interested in achieving European added value than in asserting their potential own interests in individual cases.
This made it possible to reach a compromise that paves the European Union's way into the 21st century.
The European Parliament - that is to say, you - were closely and constructively involved in the preliminary work on Agenda 2000 up to the summit, sometimes under great pressure of deadlines.
I would like to express my very real gratitude to you for this commitment and the accompanying flexibility and willingness to seek joint solutions, and at the same time to ask you: please do all you can to bring the ongoing legislative procedures to a speedy conclusion as quickly as possible.
The implementation of the Berlin package is not just the condition for further steps in the enlargement process.
The uninterrupted continuation of structural aid after the end of the year would also be at risk if we did not cooperate rapidly.
Against this background, I hope it will prove possible to adopt the necessary legal acts quickly.
Our citizens, the people of Europe, want integration.
Our common Europe has long since become a reality in terms of good neighbourliness, of countless cultural, economic and social links.
At the same time the people of Europe are rightly urging us to make the European institutions capable of action now and in the future.
They have no sympathy for any inefficiency in transposing Community policies and expect all concerned to show the highest personal integrity.
Following the mass resignation of the Commission under Mr Jacques Santer, the European Union risked facing a serious institutional crisis.
By rapidly nominating Mr Romano Prodi on the very first morning of the Berlin summit, the European Council made an important contribution to preventing the looming crisis.
That too is a major and lasting success of the Berlin summit.
While I was still in Berlin, I informed the President of the European Parliament of this nomination, in my capacity of President of the European Council.
I also took that opportunity to point out that he must certainly be appointed under the procedure provided to that effect in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Today I would ask you to deliver your vote on the future President of the Commission in good time, so that the entire Commission can be appointed before the end of this summer following the selection of members of the college by the President-designate and the Member State governments.
The European Parliament has clearly gained in stature over the past months.
I am confident that the people of Europe will reward this by a high level of participation in the elections on 10-13 June.
This afternoon, the EU Heads of State and Government will be holding an informal meeting in Brussels.
It will begin with an in-depth discussion of current progress on the Kosovo issue.
I will be returning to that at the end of my statement.
During the second part of the meeting, we will start discussing the Commission's future working procedures with Mr Romano Prodi.
We are firmly convinced that the European Union needs a strong Commission that really can live up to the requirements of efficiency, transparency and - quite crucially - closeness to the people.
That is why we will ask Mr Prodi, the Commission President-designate, to draw up a programme, on the basis also of discussions with the European Parliament and the Member States, which clearly defines the Commission's changed working procedures.
Some of the improvements here will require a revision of the Treaty.
To that end we should use the opportunity of the intergovernmental conference that is in any case scheduled to resolve the institutional questions that remained outstanding in Amsterdam.
I will suggest to my colleagues that they should adopt the timetable for this intergovernmental conference, which if possible should take place by next year, at the European Council in Cologne.
Applause
Ladies and gentlemen, in retrospect the last few years will prove to have been good years for the European Union, for European policy.
The introduction of the euro was a major step towards integration.
Applause
The countries involved took a sovereign political decision to pass on a national responsibility for a central aspect of their economic policy to a European institution.
Among other things, the Amsterdam Treaty laid the foundation stone for a common justice and home affairs policy and for a common and viable foreign and security policy for the Union.
The European Parliament acquired much-improved codecision rights.
The enlargement process was set in motion and we have opened accession negotiations with the best-prepared applicants, in the awareness also that European integration can succeed only if Europe does not stop at the borders of what used to be the iron curtain.
All of this, as also the adoption of Agenda 2000 in Berlin, was also achieved thanks to the outgoing Commission under Mr Jacques Santer.
Applause
Whatever criticism there has been, and however well-founded it may have been, I want to repeat my warm thanks to Mr Jacques Santer and the college at this point!
Applause
Once again we are facing major tasks. They can only be mastered by a strong Commission that is able to act.
In the person of Mr Romano Prodi the Heads of State and Government have appointed a candidate for the office of President of the Commission who, I am firmly convinced, fulfils all the requirements for mastering these tasks together with us and with you.
Even before the Kosovo situation began to worsen, we knew that the EU's common foreign and security policy needs to be further strengthened.
The Amsterdam Treaty that will enter into force on 1 May brings definite improvements in that direction.
At the European Council in Cologne we intend to appoint the future high representative for the common foreign and security policy.
We need to definitely intensify cooperation in the field of security and defence policy.
With the adoption of a cross-pillar common strategy on Russia, we want to send out an unmistakeable signal that the European Union wants to further expand its relations with Russia and will do so.
Applause
We have achieved a quality of cooperation with Russia which we for our part will certainly not call in question again.
We welcome the Russian endeavours, in the current crisis, to exert a positive influence on Belgrade.
I am in close contact with President Yeltsin and Prime Minister Primakov.
Russia - I am convinced - is a central factor of stability in Europe and we must ensure that it is and remains in a position to advance along the road to reform on which it has embarked.
Here the European Union remains prepared to cooperate. Indeed, where at all possible, it would like to intensify this cooperation.
As I have learned from talks I have held, this is also recognised in Russia itself.
Ladies and gentlemen, we need tangible improvements in EU cooperation in the field of justice and home affairs.
Here too the Amsterdam Treaty opens up new opportunities and potential, which we want to grasp courageously.
A first test of this will be whether we manage to treat the Kosovar refugees who come into the European Union generously and on a basis of solidarity.
Applause
Combating mass unemployment has to be a central concern of the European Union.
We must find ways of maintaining social cohesion and the European social model even under the conditions of the global competition of the 21st century.
Important work was done in preparation for the launch of the euro in the field of economic policy.
But we should not focus on a one-sided, purely doctrinal stability policy. In the long term we would not be able to convey it to our citizens in political terms.
In Cologne we therefore want to supplement the stability and growth pact, which we continue to uphold, with a European employment pact.
Applause
One important task for the future remains enlarging the European Union to the east and the south.
Unless the Union is open to new Member States, in the long term European integration would remain a half-baked project and would fail for lack of a political rationale.
But, ladies and gentlemen, there is also a lesson to be learnt from the Kosovo crisis in relation to the applicant countries.
Some of them have now found stability in their external and security policy within NATO.
But what they want and what they need is for this stability also to be backed up by economic stability.
That is the reason they want to join the EU, and quite sensibly so.
In relation to the existing Member States, it should be said that they too have a very real interest in enlargement.
The lesson of Yugoslavia is that peace on this continent is only possible if economic and social development can and does advance throughout Europe.
Applause
Under the German Presidency we have made headway with the ongoing accession negotiations.
The European Council in Berlin sent out a message to the applicant countries once again confirming that the enlargement process will resolutely go ahead.
With the adoption of Agenda 2000 we have created a further condition for achieving that.
The aim of the intergovernmental conference on key institutional questions, to which I referred earlier, is to ensure that the European Union definitively removes the last possible barrier to the accession of new Member States.
Then it will be up to the applicant states to fulfil the requirements of the acquis communautaire . We will continue in future to support them in this with all our strength.
I want to put it clearly on the record that the progress made so far by the applicant countries is impressive and really does give grounds for hope.
To conclude what I have to say, let me come back again to the situation in Kosovo.
You will be discussing the development of the conflict today, which I very much welcome.
Europe must speak with a strong voice in times such as this and the words must be spoken not just by members of the governments and national parliaments.
As an expression of the new Europe, Parliament too must take a definite position, in favour of peace, stability and respect for human rights in Yugoslavia.
The dreadful developments in Kosovo are not an internal Yugoslav problem.
They affect us all!
Good neighbourliness and justice do not end at national frontiers.
We bear common responsibility for our continent. There cannot and must not be any excuse whatsoever for a cynical policy of driving out, indeed of deporting hundreds of thousands of people.
Applause
One million people have had to leave their houses and homes or were driven out by Serbian security forces, 500 000 of them since March alone.
There are more than 300 000 refugees from Kosovo in Albania.
The small country of Macedonia is also in an extremely difficult position.
That is why the EU Member States launched a large-scale aid operation jointly with other states.
We want to alleviate the plight of the refugees and we want to show solidarity with the neighbouring states.
That is why the Council decided last Thursday to earmark EUR 150 million for humanitarian aid to the refugees.
We will support the main host countries, Albania and Macedonia, together with the Yugoslav Republic of Montenegro, with another EUR 100 million.
Heckling: So will we!
Very good!
The Council has also requested the Commission to submit proposals on further tightening the European Union's relations with Macedonia, looking even to a potential association agreement.
The extremist Belgrade leadership bears sole responsibility for the situation that has arisen.
The decision to put a lasting and verifiable end to the operations of the military and security forces and to allow the refugees to return is in its hands.
Mere cease-fire declarations, which are not meant seriously and which we know from the wars in Croatia and in Bosnia-Herzegovina to be lies, are not enough.
Belgrade must immediately take verifiable steps to resolve the conflict.
In addition to a genuine cease-fire, that means the withdrawal of all Yugoslav forces from Kosovo, including the infamous bands of paramilitaries, the return of the refugees and the deployment of international troops to protect the refugees and the population.
Applause
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who will be a guest at the informal meeting of Heads of State and Government this evening in Brussels, also supports this demand.
It is now up to the Yugoslav side to accept the demands of the international community unconditionally and to implement them at once.
That and that alone would open the way to a political settlement of the conflict.
The western alliance is not just fighting in the Balkans to prevent suffering and to secure justice and the rule of law in the Balkans.
The credibility and validity of the European model of civilisation are also at stake.
The Belgrade regime is waging war against its own population.
That is why the democratic and constitutional societies of Europe had to oppose the totalitarian regime in Belgrade.
The 'European integration' model of the future is confronted with a hermetic concept of ethnic nationalism, which leaves no room for minorities and different opinions.
You could say, if you like, that the 21st century is confronting the 19th century.
Thinking further ahead, there can therefore only be one future for the states and peoples of the region.
If we want to help democracy to become established there on a lasting basis and win over the people of the region - and here I definitely include the people of Yugoslavia - for the European model, we have to offer them a European prospect.
Applause
By that I do not mean early accession to the European Union, which would in any case place too heavy a burden on these countries.
I am thinking far more of a comprehensive regional strategy, of a kind of stability pact for the Balkan region.
The aim of that kind of strategy is to pave the way to establishing links with the European Union, with the single market and with the European community of values.
The German Presidency has submitted a proposal to that effect.
It is our task to determine, through resolute action, under what auspices Europe will end this bloody century of national egoism and inflated ideology.
It is our duty to bring about the definitive, irreversible advance of democracy, human rights and cross-frontier cooperation throughout Europe.
Wherever the plight of the people in this region requires it, we will be generous and give real proof of our solidarity with the weak.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us tackle this task together, in the name of Europe, in the name of its people and in the name of its values!
Many thanks for your attention!
Sustained applause
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, on 14 July 1997, I presented Agenda 2000 to this House, one of the largest packages of reforms in the history of the Union.
On that occasion, I stated that it represented an historic opportunity to strengthen the Union and prepare for enlargement.
Today, I am extremely pleased that the Berlin European Council was able to successfully meet this challenge.
This outcome would not have been possible without strong independent institutions that are capable of taking action.
Of course, the negotiations on Agenda 2000 have been complex and difficult.
We had to continue with the agricultural reforms launched in 1992 and maintain the essential elements of economic and social cohesion, whilst taking enlargement and the financial constraints into account.
A year ago, negotiations began on the basis of legislative proposals put forward by the Commission, and these negotiations developed satisfactorily under the British and Austrian Presidencies. The negotiations were completed in Berlin thanks to the German Chancellor and I should like to pay tribute to him on behalf of the Commission.
Of course, the work is not yet finished.
There is still some legislative work to be completed before the end of your parliamentary term.
We must also negotiate the interinstitutional agreement, to which you quite rightly attach so much importance.
But the Berlin agreement has created the political bases needed to complete a package of measures that I would describe as 'ambitious'.
I am well aware that there will be disappointment over some points here and there but, overall, there is every reason to welcome an agreement that falls within the guidelines followed by the Commission since 1997.
As far as agriculture is concerned, we needed to preserve competitiveness and the exporting role of this increasingly multifunctional sector while developing rural areas.
It is common knowledge that the Commission would have liked to have gone a little further down the path of reform.
Nonetheless, I believe that Agenda 2000 was a real step forward.
As regards the common organisation of markets, the idea of price reductions with partial compensation has been upheld.
Our proposals for rural development have been adopted as they stand.
The issue here is to adjust the scale of such development.
These reforms will allow us to strengthen agriculture whilst remaining within a rigorous financial framework for the whole of the new period.
They will also smooth the way for enlargement and for an agreement within the World Trade Organisation.
As regards the second major category of expenditure, namely structural operations, our objective was to preserve economic and social cohesion whilst achieving greater concentration of available resources.
The Commission felt it was crucial to maintain the levels of aid that were achieved in 1999 for the most affected regions and social groups.
We succeeded in doing this.
Secondly, we had to resolve certain specific problems.
Rather than distorting the objective criteria for allocating resources, the European Council decided to set aside a small proportion of the budget within the overall budget to deal with such cases in the appropriate manner.
The main principles behind the proposed reforms were therefore also maintained, although this has indeed led to a somewhat tedious listing of ad hoc solutions.
Thirdly, the Agenda 2000 communication, proposed by the Commission, set out to provide the Union with the means it needed to create the appropriate conditions for lasting growth that generated employment.
To this end, the Commission wished to strengthen heading 3 on internal policies.
The amount decided on in Berlin is at the bottom end of the bracket proposed by the presidency.
I have often drawn the Council's attention to the importance this House attaches to heading 3, and I am sure that you will succeed in raising our ambitions during the negotiations on the interinstitutional agreement.
The last element as far as expenditure is concerned is administrative expenditure.
In Agenda 2000, the Commission had already begun to consider its own reform.
In this context, the issue of balancing political objectives and administrative resources is of the utmost importance.
As far as heading 5 is concerned, even though the amounts decided on in Berlin are at the top end of the bracket proposed by the presidency, they will barely allow staffing levels in the institutions to remain constant.
This is unsatisfactory.
Here, again, the negotiations on the interinstitutional agreement will allow Parliament to try to change this approach.
Mr President, the Union will not continue to develop with the current 15 Member States alone.
Intensive preparations are underway to enlarge the Union to include our friends and neighbours.
In Agenda 2000, the Commission had suggested setting aside a considerable part of the financial package for the pre-accession process and future enlargement.
I see that our proposals, the equivalent of a real Marshall Plan, have been adopted in their entirety in this package, and we are talking here of a sum of EUR 80 billion.
We had to combine the two objectives of deepening and widening the Union within a strict, efficient and equitable financial framework.
The Berlin agreement must now lead to an interinstitutional agreement that will help guarantee budgetary discipline within ceilings established by rigorous but realistic financial perspectives.
As far as the Union is concerned, commitments will stabilise in 2006 at a level lower than that forecast for the year 2000, and this will involve considerable efforts to reduce expenditure.
By stabilising the expenditure for 15 countries, we will create the necessary margins within the own resources ceilings that will allow us to welcome new members between 2000 and 2006.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is also solidarity.
We have finally been able to reach an agreement on own resources that will lead to a more equitable system.
Partially replacing the VAT resource with the GNP-based resource will ensure that Member State's contributions are more in line with their ability to contribute.
The change in the financing of the British rebate will remove some of the burden from the countries with the greatest budgetary imbalances, without introducing new corrective mechanisms.
Before the end of the new financial perspective, the Commission will have the opportunity to once again examine the own resources system, including the effects of enlargement and the question of new autonomous own resources, something that is close to Parliament's heart.
Mr President, the agreement reached in Berlin on Agenda 2000 is a success and it is a success for the Union.
I am counting on Parliament to provide the few corrections needed.
Once again, the Union has shown that it can find solutions to enable Europe to progress.
I am not hiding my personal satisfaction at having been able to contribute, along with my colleagues in the Commission, to such a positive outcome.
We have thus come to the end of the cycle of important deadlines that I presented to you on 17 January 1995.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office has just described the situation in Kosovo in detail so I will only add a few words.
We are clearly very worried about the events in Kosovo.
I will not go back over the origins of this situation except to point out that it is entirely the product of the Belgrade government's refusal to accept any negotiated settlement.
The representatives of the international community, and of Europe in particular, stepped up their efforts to find a peaceful and just solution for Kosovo, a solution that was just for all, for those of Albanian origin and for the Serb nation.
Those efforts failed and the current military action hopes to use force to ensure that the principles and values forming Europe's raison d'être are respected.
To take no action would be to accept this situation and Europe and its partners will not accept murders, will not accept deportations and will not accept terror and hatred amongst peoples.
Europe and its partners, allied in this difficult military action, have clearly laid down their demands.
The international community is now taking action to make the leaders in Belgrade put an end to the suppression, allow the return of refugees and accept the presence of an international force.
In time, stability in the Balkans will have to be the subject of a far-reaching initiative, which was already outlined by the presidency at the last General Affairs Council.
The Commission will fully support such an initiative.
For the time being, Europe is faced with a humanitarian crisis of tragic proportions.
The neighbouring regions of Montenegro, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania are affected most.
We must also give consideration to the displaced persons within Kosovo.
The Commission immediately attempted to make use of Community resources to respond to the most pressing needs.
As always, we are working in close cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Furthermore, you will be aware that, during a special meeting, the Commission adopted two far-reaching initiatives which it has forwarded to the European Parliament and to the Council.
The first requirement was to prepare to mobilise additional resources for humanitarian aid.
A request has been passed on to the budgetary authority for EUR 150 million to be transferred from the emergency reserve in the ECHO budget line.
With these EUR 150 million, the Community will have released EUR 180 million from the 1999 budget for humanitarian aid for the refugees in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro.
In addition, the Commission believes that we should provide assistance to the neighbouring regions of Kosovo that are taking in refugees. These regions are, first and foremost, Albania, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Montenegro, but other areas could also be eligible if they take in a high number of refugees.
We are fully aware that massive flows of refugees into a country places heavy demands on its budget.
The Commission therefore plans to allocate up to EUR 100 million to help finance costs directly involved in taking in refugees: providing security for them, administrative costs, additional transport costs, electricity, water supplies, and so on.
A mission from the Commission is currently in the region to analyse what is needed.
I must point out that this aid will only be granted if the beneficiaries fulfil the international obligations incumbent upon them, particularly under the Geneva Convention.
This specific aid to third countries is fully in line with the decision taken to provide particular assistance for the refugees entering Kosovo's neighbouring regions on a temporary basis.
However, in this respect, I must mention that there is the possibility that the Member States may decide to take in refugees on a temporary basis, in response to appeals from the UNHCR.
To enable the Community budget to support these Member States, the Commission has amended its proposal for a joint action to allow us to make use of the European Refugee Fund. This will allow us to draw on the European Refugee Fund, a fund which, I would remind you, holds EUR 15 million.
This amendment takes account of the new situation created by the war in Kosovo.
Parliament has supported it and we are now waiting for the Council to give its opinion.
For all of these operations, we need Parliament's full cooperation.
As far as humanitarian aid is concerned, there are no difficulties in using the emergency reserve.
As regards the aid of EUR 100 million designed to finance the cost of taking in refugees in Kosovo's neighbouring regions, the situation has proved to be rather more complex.
The Commission's main aim in this case is to rapidly mobilise these funds.
I should also like to draw your attention to another important point that I must mention, namely, the additional staff the Commission will require for these new operations.
I believe that Parliament is well aware that the Commission must have the necessary resources to perform its tasks under favourable conditions.
We can no longer continue to say that the cavalry is coming.
The Commission will need additional personnel in Brussels and in its delegations to deal with these new operations and with the subsequent restructuring needs.
What is more, it will need technical and administrative assistance on site.
As a result, in the very short term, the Commission will have to continue to redeploy its staff, but that will not be enough.
We will need extra staff in the next financial year, for both this sector and others.
The current situation once again highlights the fact that the Commission must have additional staff to perform the tasks required of it.
The communication that was forwarded to you last week mentions this lack of financial and human resources, and I am counting on Parliament and on the Council to take these constraints into consideration.
Each institution must contribute and help Europe respond to this crisis in an efficient and responsible manner.
I believe that your debates on these two central issues - financial requirements and human resources - must reach the obvious conclusion.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, let me begin on a personal note.
I am happy to be the first speaker for my group to welcome the German Chancellor as President-in-Office of the European Council to the European Parliament; everyone will understand that as a Social Democrat I am particularly glad to do so, especially following the statement you have just made, Mr President-in-Office of the Council!
Applause
Rarely has a presidency of the Council had to take such important decisions as you have in the first three months of this presidency's term of office, and whatever people may think of particular aspects of the decisions, one thing has become clear: our European Union has proved its ability to act, for which we thank you.
Under your presidency the European Council nominated a candidate for the post of President of the Commission in the space of one hour, a process that dragged on over more than two summit conferences five years ago.
That is certainly worth something in this Union. We will now ensure that we approve Mr Prodi's appointment during this electoral term of Parliament - i.e. in May - and that we vote on the entire Commission by early September at the latest.
I think that tallies with your timetable.
For the rest, the resignation of the Commission was not an institutional crisis, quite the contrary.
I see it as a step towards European normality.
Surely it is normal for Parliament to control and sanction, and surely it is and will remain normal in future too for the EU bodies to assume political responsibility for inadequacies and mistakes.
Applause
The fact that this has now happened for the first time also deserves our respect.
What we need now is a radical reform of the administrative structure and the administrative culture in Brussels, and that is not a task just for the new Commission but also for you in the Council and for us in Parliament.
We want not a weaker but a stronger Commission. The new Commission must be able to become what it must become, namely a European government.
It we transfer tasks to the Commission, we must also ensure that it is given the funds for the staff it needs in order to fulfil these tasks.
Looking at the financial agreement reached in Berlin, I do not have the impression that the Council has fully realised that yet.
In fact we here in Parliament have not fully realised yet either that the Commission has to be given the funds to enable it actually to assume the responsibilities we are transferring to it.
Applause
The Berlin decisions on Agenda 2000 are a compromise, which is only normal, yet in some respects it is a difficult one to accept because some of the compromises that were and had to be reached between national interests will in fact be to the detriment and at the expense of Europe.
Over the next few weeks Parliament will subject them to critical and detailed analysis and you may be sure that we will find quite a few things to quibble about in these compromises.
I will not go into that in detail now.
Let me just say this: the agricultural reform was watered down. You will have to improve on it in a very short time, not just because the reform does not go far enough to cope with enlargement but also in view of the next round of WTO negotiations.
Secondly, a new financial perspective requires an interinstitutional agreement.
We do not want to undo the Berlin financial package, but we want to organise some parts of it in such a way as to make them more consistent with our demands and priorities, e.g. the measures to combat long-term unemployment and support an active labour market.
We want an interinstitutional agreement on the financial perspective, we really do want it, but not at any price.
After all, this is an agreement, not a dictate.
Nevertheless and overall, with Agenda 2000 you have set in motion the greatest reform of EU policies that the EU has ever undertaken.
Mr President-in-Office of the European Council: we will do our utmost to obtain the necessary majorities for Agenda 2000 in Parliament and to adopt it before the end of this electoral term.
We know that it makes up only a part of the reforms needed to make the EU fit for enlargement, which is why I welcome your announcement today that you will determine the timetable for the necessary institutional reforms in Cologne in June.
We firmly support you in your intention to conclude this reform process before the first Eastern European country joins the European Union.
There is something else we expect of your presidency of the Council.
The European Union managed to conclude a pact on stabilising the common currency, which was a good thing.
But now it must also manage to conclude a pact on employment, which is an equally good thing.
That is why we support your intentions for the Cologne summit.
Applause
Turning to Kosovo: this is a difficult subject for all of us, particularly in my group.
We welcome the united support shown by the European Council in Berlin for NATO's military action.
That was another test of the common foreign and security policy, for it showed that Europe is a community of values, not just an economic community.
A large majority of my group supports the Member States' position on military action.
We regard this action as inevitable, but over and above the limits and necessity of military action, I would like to highlight two or three points. It is true that we have to restrain the criminal Milosevic and his bands of soldiers and murderers.
At the end of this bloody century, nationalism and racism must no longer be given a chance in Europe, not anywhere in Europe!
International law builds on national sovereignty and territorial integrity.
These are important values, but no state in Europe may take national sovereignty and territorial integrity as a licence to oppress, displace or commit genocide.
Applause
That is why, over and above the military action that has now become necessary, we need to develop international law further, and we invite you to play your part in doing so.
The people of the Balkans will only find peace within a European perspective.
We welcome your initiative in calling for a Balkan conference to discuss political, economic and social reconstruction in this stricken region.
We firmly support the proposals you made here today.
Let me also say here: we thank the troops from the Member States committed to NATO.
We thank them for risking their lives to put an end to the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Applause
We also thank the men and women from non-governmental organisations who are endeavouring, again at the price of great sacrifices, to make the situation of the refugees and displaced persons in this region a little more bearable.
They too deserve our thanks.
Applause
Mr President-in-Office of the European Council, you took over the presidency during one of the most difficult times the European Union has ever had to go through.
We wish you success, because that is also our success, the success of our European Union.
In the difficult task still ahead of you, we, the European Parliament, and in particular my group, will always be a critical, sometimes perhaps even a highly critical, but always a reliable partner.
Many thanks.
Applause
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I am convinced that my group too supports you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in the pursuit of human rights and in the action to protect the people in Kosovo.
We know what a heavy responsibility has to be shouldered at a time such as this.
And here we certainly must be in a position really to define the aim of the war and to bring the operation to a conclusion.
Mrs Doris Pack will be discussing that in more detail.
But I believe this should also be a warning to us that we must at last embark on a viable European foreign, security and defence policy.
Applause
During the remainder of your term of office until the end of June, it is your task, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to implement the appropriate provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam in relation to key issues.
It should not be left to the technocrats. Instead, this potential should be put to real political use, so as to give us a greater ability to act and enable us in future to pursue the kind of foreign policy that will not allow a situation such as that in Kosovo to arise in the first place, that will not mean having to resort to armed force.
Applause
On Berlin, I believe that a number of mistakes were made not in Berlin but before Berlin.
I agree with you that the choice of Mr Romano Prodi was a good choice.
But if the presidency of the Council had cooperated with Parliament on this matter earlier on, in January this year, then we might not have got into this situation at all.
Applause
When I think back to some of the statements made in December last year I am tempted to measure the outcome of the negotiations on Agenda 2000 against what you yourself considered necessary at the time from a German perspective.
However, I speak here not as a German representative but on behalf of my group.
That is something else you had to learn as President-in-Office of the Council: that these are two different things!
Laughter
I agree that we should not undo the Agenda 2000 package.
But the European Parliament attaches great value to obtaining margins of manoeuvre in relation to other policies, margins of manoeuvre in foreign and security policy, margins of manoeuvre that would, for instance, also relate to enlargement.
After all, the uncertainty in relation to agricultural policy has given rise to new concerns among the applicant countries about time-scales.
We should make it clear that these uncertainties inherent in Agenda 2000 will not mean any delays in enlargement.
Kosovo teaches us that we should use every means available to push enlargement ahead as quickly as possible.
I believe it is our political responsibility to do so.
Applause
You will have to prepare the Cologne summit. This concerns the intergovernmental conference.
We eagerly wait to see what kind of mandate is defined and in what way the European Parliament will be involved in that intergovernmental conference.
We would like to be involved in the same way as the Commission.
For the rest, it would have been a good step in that direction if the President of the European Parliament had also taken part in today's informal summit. He was not invited!
Applause
I also think it would be a good idea to make use of the possibilities offered by the Amsterdam Treaty in relation to justice and home affairs.
In the light of Kosovo, we should move rapidly towards the possibility of majority decisions on questions of asylum and immigration policy.
That could be achieved by a simple Council decision and it should be done in order to create a genuine ability to act in this area.
I think it is right for the Cologne summit to attach great importance to employment policy.
But we should ensure that the discussions are substantive.
We should make it clear who really can actively pursue employment policy in Europe.
If an employment pact is concluded that has no real substance but that gives the impression that Europe can resolve this problem, and if it then turns out that it cannot resolve the problem because it does not have the necessary instruments, that will damage Europe.
European employment policy must not be used as an alibi for the failure of national employment policies!
We will put great emphasis on that when we evaluate the Cologne summit.
Loud applause
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, today you will meet the newly nominated President, Mr Romano Prodi.
We hope that you will confirm what you said earlier, that we need a strong European Commission.
Of course there should be a new administrative and new political culture, but we need a strong Commission.
I would like to thank President Santer, despite all the difficulties we have had, for what he has done in the past couple of years.
The European Parliament also needs to be fully involved, in the coming period.
We have certain queries about the intermediate period.
It cannot be that the Council takes three months, while Parliament only has two or three days to play its part in the nomination of the President.
The Agenda 2000 package has, as you have indicated, been agreed under extraordinarily difficult circumstances: bombardments by NATO as a result of the crisis in Kosovo, resignation of the Commission.
We welcome the fact that you have kept the European Union together in a very difficult phase.
The alternative would have been the hopelessness and helplessness of the European Union.
That is not an acceptable alternative.
But at the same time, we know that the price of the package which has been agreed has been very high.
We have seen the presence of eleven individual Member States of the European Union rather than the presence of the European Union as a whole.
That price has been an unacceptable reduction of the financial margins in areas which are essential for the innovation and renewal of the European Union.
As Mr Prodi said here yesterday, we need a start in a new direction.
The financial basis for the European Union to do so has been significantly eroded.
As others have said, the European Parliament wants an interinstitutional agreement, but not at any price.
In this respect I would like to underline that Parliament, in the last few years, has been a very efficient and useful partner.
But you need to understand that it is essential that we achieve flexibility in the margins for the future.
It is against that background that I make a personal appeal to you, Mr President, to seek some elements of innovation so that we have flexibility and some margins.
Otherwise, Parliament will remain a rubber stamp, in budgetary terms, for the next seven years.
Let me give you two examples.
One is what you said about Kosovo.
Yes, indeed, Parliament's Committee on Budgets agreed yesterday on the EUR 250m.
At the same time it means that we have exhausted the total margin that you decided in Berlin for external affairs.
This shows, therefore, that the financial structure of the Union is still not right.
It is against that background that we would like to move in the direction of a draft budget which gives the Commission the opportunity to move towards more positive financial gains.
I hope that you will find room for more flexibility than is the case at the present time.
Mr President, the Berlin summit was held against the difficult backdrop of a profound institutional crisis in the European Union, with the Commission's resignation, and a serious crisis in the Balkans.
As regards Agenda 2000, in spite of the agreement reached in the early hours of 26 March, the image portrayed by the Heads of State and Government was one of confrontation and a lack of vision for the future.
In Berlin, each of them stubbornly defended their own interests, but no one furthered the common interest of the Union.
The European Council has still not provided the resources needed.
We cannot consider major objectives with a budget that, in the best case scenario, will only represent 1.27 % of the Community gross domestic product.
If the budget is not increased, we cannot coordinate economic policies, stimulate job creation or strengthen solidarity.
We are disappointed with some of the Berlin conclusions.
The allocations for structural policies and for internal policies break with the upwards trend that began in 1988 and that was reinforced in 1993.
In addition, the resources needed for the enlargement of the European Union are not guaranteed, and enlargement is now in danger of being postponed.
In quantitative terms, the EUR 240 000 million proposed in Agenda 2000 for structural policies has been reduced to EUR 213 000. There is also a gradual decrease in the percentage of GDP set aside for cohesion policies, from 0.46 % at the moment to 0.42 % in 2006.
As far as the common agricultural policy is concerned, the compromise reached in Berlin continues with the 1992 reform. One of the consequences of this reform was the disappearance of many farms and the subsequent loss of jobs.
Corrective mechanisms should have been introduced in Berlin but this did not happen.
We are especially concerned for small family farms, as the fall in prices, which is only partially compensated for by income aid, will mainly affect small and medium-sized farms.
We are also very disappointed that a fair modulation system to provide greater benefits for small producers was not adopted. This could have helped rectify the current situation, where 80 % of aid goes to 20 % of the farmers.
As regards the institutional crisis, we welcome the rapid nomination of Mr Romano Prodi as a candidate for President of the Commission, in accordance with the Amsterdam Treaty. However, we note that there was no dialogue or agreement with the European Parliament on establishing a timetable of investiture for the new Commission, which would allow us, as a matter of urgency, to resolve this temporary situation and, at the same time, strengthen the democratic legitimacy of this institution.
As regards the war in the Balkans, which we will discuss later, I should like to point out, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, that the 15 Member States only approved the NATO military intervention in Yugoslavia once it had already begun.
It is clear that the underlying reasons for NATO's intervention are the Milosevic Government's constant suppression of the Kosovar Albanian population, after having taken away Kosovo's autonomy, its disregard for human rights and its refusal to commit to an agreement in Rambouillet.
But this harsh and sustained military intervention, which has no mandate from the United Nations, sets a disturbing precedent for the biased use of discretion in international law. Moreover, this military action is now having the opposite effect to its stated objectives: the Serb people are showing greater support for Milosevic as a reaction to the NATO bombings and to the innocent civilian victims it leaves in its wake.
The bombings are destroying the country's infrastructures and, at the same time, having a negative effect on the situation of the Kosovar Albanians, who are being expelled from their country in an unprecedented example of ethnic cleansing. There is also the serious problem of relations with the Russian Federation becoming increasingly tense and the danger of widespread destabilisation in the Balkans.
Mr President-in-Office, I regret that I have to end this speech, but I would like to conclude by stating that it is very unfortunate that the European Union and its institutions have become subordinate to the decisions of a military organisation and relinquished their political responsibility in Europe for so many years.
If we do not wish to have to act this way in the future, we must try to prevent such situations.
Mr President, I want to offer my warmest welcome to Chancellor Schroeder who is here on behalf of the German presidency.
I thank him very sincerely for what I consider to be one of the finest statements I have heard in Parliament from a President-in-Office for a considerable period of time.
I thank him for what he said in relation to the crisis in Kosovo.
Parliament, by its applause, has shown its satisfaction with that statement.
I would also sincerely thank him for the Berlin Resolution in this area.
I know the President-in-Office is having a meeting this afternoon with Heads of State and Government and it is important that during this discussion he convey to his colleagues that it is of the utmost urgency that the relief effort to help Kosovar Albanians continues and that the European Union play a leading role in the humanitarian aid mission.
Financial resources must be made available to ensure that the relief programmes continue and that appropriate medicinal and food supplies reach the refugees in need.
We would have hoped that as this millennium ends we would have left the spectre of war in Europe behind us.
Sadly, the totalitarian despot, Mr Milosevic, is fuelling the flames of genocide and compounding the misery of the Kosovar Albanians.
I very much hold the view that there should be no escape for Mr Milosevic and that at some stage he must face the charges of war crimes in a court of law.
I have one negative point to say to Chancellor Schroeder.
I believe that you are genuine in your expression of appreciation of the role of the European Parliament.
But your credibility is somewhat questioned by the fact that our President, Mr Gil-Robles, is not invited to the meeting this afternoon.
I regret that.
It is a mistake that has happened somewhere along the line and even at this late stage I feel you should reconsider it.
It is a bad mistake and gives a wrong signal.
I would like to say a special word of thanks and appreciation to Mr Santer for the magnificent work he has done for the European Union for the last four-and-a-half years.
I thank him very sincerely for what he has contributed, and also his colleagues in the Commission.
I very much regret that he is the victim of circumstances at this particular time.
You have my full respect, President Santer, and my appreciation for what you have done for Europe during your term of office.
The Berlin Summit of 25 March was a good summit.
It achieved a lot in terms of finalising the overall financial parameters for spending within the EU for the seven-year period after 1999.
Ever since the Agenda 2000 proposals for reform of the Union policies were first published in March 1998 it was always felt in some quarters that it would be difficult to find an agreement that was balanced and even-handed across all the territories of the European Union.
The German presidency can take solace from the fact that the spending parameters for the budget for the Union for the period 2000-2006 commands the confidence and the good will of all the Member States of the European Union.
The budget totals of £506bn will put in place various programmes to lay the foundation for the impending enlargement of the European Union itself.
Equally, it will ensure that the common agricultural policy will be properly financed and that many social and regional aid schemes will continue for the poorer Member States of the Union after 1999.
I should like to deal with some aspects of the common agricultural policy for the moment.
It was suggested in a document entitled 'The future financing of the European Union', issued by the Commission before Christmas, that possibly 25 % of the CAP should be financed by the national exchequers of individual Member States.
This would have been a regressive step for the European Union to have taken.
It would have been a very divisive move because one of the successful aspects of the CAP is the fact that it is administered in a uniform manner across all the territories of the European Union.
Renationalising part of the CAP could only have led to the ultimate disintegration and fragmentation of the common agricultural policy itself.
Finally, I should like to say to Chancellor Schroeder: you got off to a reasonably weak start in your presidency; you have made tremendous progress in recent times.
There are still a lot of important items on the agenda for completion by the end of your presidency.
I congratulate you on the progress you are making to date.
You are two-thirds of the way to the winning post.
We want to see you put in greater effort between now and the end of June.
Mr President, Mr President-in Office of the Council, the war in Kosovo puts everything that is happening in Europe, including the Berlin summit, in relative terms.
Suddenly every peaceful compromise is worth more than was originally assumed.
But every peaceful compromise is only worth what it brings us in terms of security in the next seven years of the reform and enlargement of the European Union.
From that point of view, the Berlin summit with all its decisions was a total success.
I would like to make three comments from a budgetary point of view.
One: the financial package is to be welcomed because you managed to reserve the appropriations for the applicant countries on a definitive basis. My group was particularly concerned about that.
The EU of 15 has cut back, especially in the structural field, which meant that Berlin sent out a clear and reliable signal to the applicants for accession.
Two: I criticise the financial package because in my view it unfortunately failed to take the decisive step towards redirecting agricultural policy.
This is a heavy burden and calls for a review earlier than planned.
The Franco-German engine simply does not run on milk. We all know that.
After the elections and under the new Commission, this subject must undoubtedly come back on the agenda.
Three: from Parliament's point of view the financial package is not acceptable where it relates to internal and external policy, to administrative expenditure and to the flexibility we want to see.
The terrible events in Kosovo show us that foreign policy tasks in particular will increase over the next few years, that we need more than fine words here if we are to organise a genuine common foreign and security policy initiative in Europe.
But I am assuming that we will be able to use the margin for manoeuvre that is still available during the trilogue, and I ask you to support us here.
At the same time I join Mr Collins in asking you to reconsider your decision, so that Mr Gil-Robles can after all take part in the special meeting this afternoon as representative of the European Parliament.
Applause
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, the extraordinary summit in Berlin was, in fact, extraordinary in more than one respect.
The summit took place with the dreadful tragedy of Kosovo as a backdrop.
It followed on from the first political crisis in the European Union with the Commission's resignation. It also had to take decisions on Agenda 2000's major guidelines, particularly the budget guidelines, for the beginning of the new millennium.
You succeeded, Chancellor, in obtaining results on all the points you had to address.
What is more, Germany was able to look above and beyond its own interests and surpassed itself in playing its role as president of the whole Union.
Being firm believers in Europe, we sincerely thank you for this.
It is good for Germany's image and good for the whole of Europe.
Of course, the final compromise is not completely satisfactory.
As regards budgetary issues, we are still concerned about the capping of resources as, with enlargement and the aid to Kosovo, expenditure is bound to increase.
We would at least have liked to have seen the introduction of an automatic review clause for the financial perspectives on the occasion of each enlargement.
As regards the common agricultural policy, we fear that the timid compromise that was eventually adopted barely equips us to face the future WTO negotiations.
As far as the Structural Funds are concerned, it would have been better if the Union's measures on economic and social cohesion had been more in line with the Commission's more generous proposals.
However, despite these reservations, we are, in fact, pleased that the Berlin summit was able to make progress on the main issues.
You acted very quickly in terms of nominating the President of the Commission.
We hope that the rest of the process will be carried out in an efficient manner and without rushing; the main concern must be to rapidly provide the European Union with a new, reformed Commission that can play a true political role.
This leaves Kosovo, the most important issue.
The Berlin summit obviously could not resolve this tragedy, but what was said in Berlin, and what you have just said this morning, is along the right lines.
I am thinking here, in particular, of the political role that Russia could, and should, play.
I am thinking of the fact that you have called on our countries to immediately take in displaced people and refugees, albeit on a temporary basis.
I am also thinking of the idea of some form of stability pact for the Balkans to help relieve the people of their misery and their isolation.
Your idea is a good one.
And when you tell us that Europe should speak with a louder voice and that Europe must respect the values that form the cornerstone of European integration, Mr President-in-Office, we can but approve your ideas and hope that everyone will listen to you.
Mr President, Chancellor Schröder, Shakespeare said: 'To be, or not to be - that is the question'.
The Council is now saying that the Commission can both be and not be at the same time.
The Europe of Nations Group and the June Movement demand that the Commission should actually resign and be replaced by a clean-up team, which can carry out a clear-out and clean-up operation before a new Commission is selected.
We urge the national parliaments themselves to select the person who is to represent their country in the European Commission.
It should not be Prodi or a majority in this Chamber that decides who should be the Danish member within the Commission.
The Danish member should not be the EU's agent with regard to the Danes, but the Danish electorate's representative in the EU, and besides: 1 000 committees, 10 000 different laws and 100 000 projects are far too much to be controlled from Brussels.
Cut away the fat!
Put the EU on a diet, and give greater freedom to democracy in our countries!
Mr President-in-Office, the Italian democratic right, Alleanza Nazionale, hopes that the President of this House can attend the meeting you have convened for this afternoon and expresses its full support for NATO initiatives in the former Yugoslavia.
May we just point out that had NATO strategists studied the odd history book over the last ten years they would have discovered that ethnic cleansing is habitual practice for some populations in the Balkans, to which 350 thousand Italians fell victim fifty-five years ago when they were expelled at gunpoint from the Adriatic coast where they had always lived.
Agenda 2000 might have seemed a catalogue of pipe dreams when it made its appearance on the European stage, even though it was tough in tackling the thorniest problems facing the Community.
Now that it has been rewritten by the heads of government in Berlin, it looks to us more like a catalogue of disappointments, as it is marked by so many uncertainties and contradictions, reflecting even more than before the uncertainties and contradictions of individual States, which, led for the most part by left-wing governments, have transferred into Agenda 2000 their now painfully obvious lack of ideas.
Attempts to strike a balance on the agriculture front produced a series of settlements reminiscent of a collection for charity which, once again, penalise a massive sector of the agricultural economy in the south of Europe.
Agenda 2000 lacks the courage to tackle the pressing problem of unemployment with decisive measures, given the continued failure to appreciate properly the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises as well as the acute problem of the entire European Union's technological backwardness compared to the United States.
The fact that Agenda 2000 does not put forward an enlightened and strategically valid vision of enlargement is shown, a posteriori, by the failure of the European Union itself to come up with a foreign policy on the Balkans region, whose history and future are wholly European, leaving aside the madness of the Communist - I repeat, Communist - Milosevic.
And the lack of ideas on the part of the mainly left-wing governments in Europe is proven by the fact that their leaders, meeting in Milan recently, decided to take up Clinton's proposals on jobs and the economy, thereby demonstrating a worrying degree of scientific, ideological and cultural subservience.
If we continue down this road, the day will come when the news will arrive from the United States that a fellow called Christopher Columbus, having left the Hudson Bay with three caravels, has discovered Europe.
Madam President, I should first like to congratulate the President-in-Office for the tremendous work carried out at the Berlin summit.
In my previous speeches, I said to the President-in-Office that he had a difficult task, but the German Presidency has truly shown its mettle and demonstrated its ability to see this task through to the end.
In doing so, however, it is natural that Parliament should have some reservations about the content of the budget agreements.
There has been a considerable reduction in the resources available from the European Community.
I realise that this was one of the objectives of the German Presidency, but it conflicts with the European Parliament's objectives. And as the President of the Commission pointed out, it is clear that a new interinstitutional agreement will be needed as the Berlin agreements are developed, an agreement that takes account of Parliament's opinions.
These opinions refer to certain aspects that have been pointed out, for example, the flexibility we need.
What will happen when a crisis develops that calls for additional budgetary resources, such as the crisis that has recently unfolded in Kosovo?
There is a significant reduction of the chapters that can be used in the fight against unemployment.
There are also reductions in internal policies, external actions and the Community's own administration.
If we work on the premise that there is currently a shortfall in the Community administration, precisely because the Commission was not given the resources it needed, we must ask ourselves if the resources now available for administration are sufficient to allow the Commission to function.
But there are also other sectors; specifically, there is no provision for a review clause relating to enlargement.
We are aware that the Central and Eastern European countries have enormous needs, and we must think about whether or not we can cover these needs with our current resources.
Indeed, I believe that we will need additional resources for enlargement if we wish it to be completed before the end of the new financial perspective, that is to say, before 2006.
In the agricultural field, we have not yet concluded a far-reaching reform that will help us to maintain the competitiveness of our agriculture and allow us to improve the quality of life in rural areas. Nor will it be possible to complete such a reform as it does not address the fact that those who live in the countryside are still ranked as second class citizens.
But perhaps the area where the biggest cuts have been made is that of structural policies.
The Commission - and Commissioner Wulf-Mathies is here now - had made very strict provision for structural policies. These policies have been reduced on the basis of criteria that can perhaps be explained but that will make it more difficult to pursue cohesion policies within the European Union.
In other words, there are a range of regions and countries which have a lower level of development, which have to compete under very difficult conditions to meet the objectives of the stability pact and which will experience problems doing so.
One amendment that could be very damaging is the plan to do away with the exemption for outermost regions from the 75 % requirement for Objective 1 status.
If this exemption disappears, the outermost regions will presumably be treated in the same way as mainland regions, irrespective of the enormous difficulties they face.
On a different matter, Madam President, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I should like to thank the German Presidency, the Council, and the governments of the Member States for the decisive action they have taken on the Kosovo crisis.
We are applying new international humanitarian law, international humanitarian law that was born in 1945 with the United Nations Charter and with the Nuremberg trials.
We clearly cannot allow a Head of State and Government to inflict suffering on a population like the suffering Mr Milosevic is forcing upon a section of the Yugoslav population, the Kosovar Albanians.
I believe that, at the moment, the Member States of the European Union are acting as representatives of the whole of humanity, within the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
And we in the European Parliament, or at least in the Socialist Group, support such measures and hope that they can bring about a prompt solution to the problem, perhaps by means of an initiative similar to the one recently taken by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. This solution should mean the withdrawal of Milosevic's troops from Kosovo, the Kosovar population should be allowed to return to the area under international protection and, eventually, reconstruction and economic recovery should begin in the region.
It is true that there is little time left for the German Presidency, but the European Parliament hopes that the presidency will continue to support NATO's peacemaking efforts and support the Kosovar Albanian population.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Union that you are currently leading, Mr President-in-Office, had set itself the ambitious objective - that was too ambitious perhaps - of redefining the Community budget for the next six years. This had to be done with the prospect of an enlarged Europe on the horizon and in an extremely unsettled global context.
The spirit of the European Union could have been broken by a barrier of national interests. Failure would have spelt political disaster only three months after the launch of the euro and two months before the European elections.
But, above all, it would have spelt disaster had it occurred in the midst of the Kosovo tragedy. There will only be a positive outcome to this tragedy if there are no rifts in the solidarity uniting the 15 Member States.
We now see that the Community's main interest won through.
As you said, Europe was able to speak with a single voice. Europe demonstrated its ability to take action, the essential elements have been preserved and we must congratulate you on this.
This is important as the strength of the Union resides in its ability to unite to manage the overall balances needed to make the market function, since the aims of the market are not purely economic ones but also social and even humanist ones.
Since I chaired our negotiating delegation with the Council on the Structural Funds, I should like to speak on that specific point this morning.
Throughout our meetings, we appreciated Minister Verheugen's frankness, warmth and ability to listen.
Today, we feel that, on the whole, our opinions were listened to.
The Berlin agreement incorporates part of the guidelines that Parliament held dear and we support the three main themes adopted by the Council in this field: concentration, simplification and effectiveness.
However, there are a number of issues that have not been fully resolved.
My colleagues, Mr Arias Cañete, our rapporteurs and, earlier on, Mr Medina Ortega, spoke on these issues. We must continue the dialogue with the Council so that together we can successfully resolve these issues before the end of the present parliamentary term.
However, to achieve this, the negotiations on the financial perspective and on the new interinstitutional agreement must lead to compromises that Parliament can accept.
Rest assured, Mr President-in-Office, that the European Parliament will be flexible, but it also expects the Council to fully recognise the democratic role played by our institution.
That is why we are in favour of the plan to allow the President of the European Parliament to attend the informal Council meeting that will take place this afternoon.
The Heads of State and Government were able to make a unanimous decision to nominate Mr Prodi as President of the new Commission and, I hope, are awaiting Parliament's approval. I have no doubt that this will be an important factor in the success of this reform, which is essential for the success of the Union, a Union that views enlargement as an absolute political necessity.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, my group and I applauded the statements of the Council President, Chancellor Schröder, because we wholeheartedly endorse his impassioned insistence that we should fight to overcome national egoism, resolutely preach and uphold the European model of culture and civilisation and reject all forms of ethnic nationalism.
And we can appreciate that the Chancellor is very pleased with the outcome of the Berlin summit.
Agreements were reached there on some difficult and sensitive issues.
The substance of those agreements, regrettably, does not match up to the high-flown rhetoric which the Council President employs.
Let me give you just one example. The Council President tells us that it has been decided to release a sum of EUR 150 million for the refugees from Kosovo.
We welcome that.
But how starkly that contrasts with conclusion 45 of the Berlin summit, which is that under the heading 'Particular situations (2000-2006)', EUR 5 200 million and more are to be dished out to the Member States themselves to cover events of this kind.
More than EUR 5 200 million for the governments to distribute to their people, whilst a mere 150 million are available for the refugees, when the Council was unable last week to agree a unanimous position on how to accept refugees, and when in the financial perspective the amount of appropriations for the emergency aid reserve has been cut to virtually nothing for the whole of the period 2000-2006.
The harsh reality of the mathematical exercises in Berlin gives the lie to the fine words spoken there.
Discrepancies of this kind are likely to make Europe's people lose all faith in the Union.
As regards the European Commission and its president-designate, my group likewise believes that the Council has not fully discharged its responsibilities.
We welcome the agreement to designate Romano Prodi as president-in-waiting.
But we also note that the Council, by not making any changes to the membership of the Commission, is placing Parliament before a major dilemma.
We cannot agree to Mrs Cresson continuing to serve as a Commissioner.
My group will not work with her, and we advise her not to show her face here again.
We regard Romano Prodi - whom we respect and of whom we expect much - as the formateur of the new Commission, and Parliament will be required to give its views on that new Commission after the elections.
Any other interpretation would, after all, lead to constitutional difficulties.
I should be glad to know if the Council shares this view.
Madam President, the people of Europe, who have suffered so much themselves as a result of war, are extremely worried about the events in Kosovo.
As the air strikes are only making matters worse, we must pull out all the stops to find a political solution that, alone, is capable of bringing an end to the atrocities of the Milosevic regime and to the suffering of the Kosovar people, and that will also combat nationalism.
As regards the Berlin conclusions, you mentioned, Chancellor, that the Berlin Council had reached a good compromise.
My feelings are slightly more mixed.
Even though it allowed us to make some progress, the agreement contains some shortfalls and presents risks for the future.
Of course, the harshest options were rejected, but nothing has been settled for the future.
Consequently, in agricultural matters, the price reductions were not as severe as the Commission had requested, but they are nonetheless significant and, more importantly, they are only partially compensated for.
These cuts will have a negative impact on agricultural incomes, particularly for small and medium-sized farmers as the idea of putting a ceiling on assistance has been rejected.
What is more, the agreement does not put us in the best position to resist American pressure in the next round of WTO negotiations.
I am delighted that the principle of financial solidarity has been retained and that the idea of cofinancing has been rejected. I am also delighted that we are moving towards a fairer financing system.
However, in spite of some options put forward, by the Commission in particular, the Council has avoided the issue of seeking new own resources.
Why not introduce taxation on financial transactions? This would guarantee greater justice since those who benefit most from the single market would also help finance European integration.
Lastly, to conclude, I welcome the positive political signals from the Council on South Africa and Palestine.
Ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office, Chancellor Schröder, has today explained his position to us. However, he has failed to understand that the entity he should be representing - Europe - unfortunately does not exist.
In place of the Europe of our dreams, we now have a protectorate of the United States.
This is the harsh, unpleasant and galling truth.
He said that there were three main issues of concern.
Firstly, as regards the crisis in the Commission, the selection of Mr Prodi as its President is a very positive step.
However, Mr Prodi must understand that he cannot be President of the Commission and, at the same time, a party leader in Italy.
Secondly, Chancellor, Agenda 2000 will sink without trace before it sets off on its maiden voyage if its budget remains frozen at 1.27 %.
Thirdly, we cannot enlarge the European family, combat unemployment, and implement a policy for growth through words alone.
I was surprised to hear you say, with reference to Kosovo, that European civilisation has made it necessary to bomb Yugoslavia.
Do you really believe that you are bombing Mr Milosevic, at whose door lie so many mistakes? Unfortunately, Mr Milosevic has gained strength because of the bombing.
However, churches, cemeteries, civilian trains and hospitals are being bombed, and these attacks have absolutely nothing to do with European civilisation and history.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the Berlin summit is a text-book example of how dangerous it is for the Community when national interests take precedence and joint progress takes second place.
But this time things still went well.
The summit did not produce a reform but at least it produced a package which will allow the Union to get through the next few years.
The summit did in fact produce one important signal for the future of Europe.
It fixed a binding, early date for enlargement.
That sent out a necessary signal to the applicant countries and their people.
It spurred them on in their reform process.
Peace is an expensive asset.
That is why I can only repeat that Europe's future lies in overcoming attempts to draw new frontiers and the domination of national interests.
But at the same time the Berlin summit drew up a timetable for institutional reform, so that the Union can become capable of enlargement in the first place.
I hope the Council will then recognise that Parliament has equal rights and finally accord it more powers and the right of initiative.
That is the precondition for overcoming the blockage of unanimous decisions.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, just imagine if you had to hand out 20 or 25 presents to ensure that everyone agreed.
More rights for Parliament means closeness to the people and democracy for the European Union.
That is the future: a Europe that is all of a piece, that is social, ecological and democratic.
That is what we want and that is what we must achieve!
Madam President, if I had to sum up the Berlin agreement in one sentence as far as Agenda 2000 is concerned, I would say that the Berlin summit has been a victory for those who want less Europe as the outcome of the summit indeed means that we will have less Europe.
The agreement reached by the European Council is the result of negotiations that concentrated on the defence of national interests rather than on the defence of the process of European integration.
Our government advocated a speculative, short-term policy in Berlin and this House must now make all efforts to change this approach and return to a more pro-European one.
The spirit of the Berlin summit will not help us meet the challenges we now have to face.
Enlargement of the Union, reform of the institutions and cohesion and solidarity policies will remain mere ideas unless they are backed up by an appropriate budgetary policy and federalist spirit. This spirit is what has allowed the European Union to progress in the past but it was completely lacking in Berlin.
Madam President, the Berlin European Council only appeared to reach an agreement on the Union's financial framework for the 2000-2006 period.
In truth, this is a superficial compromise, which probably only hopes to survive the European elections without any hitches, and to wait until the real problems emerge in the future.
As far as the Structural Funds are concerned, the plan to maintain the overall levels of allocations and cohesion expenditure will undoubtedly soon lead to a sharp drop in the share awarded to countries such as France. This will become apparent when the details of how this works in practice come to light.
Similarly, maintaining the appropriations for agriculture is a purely aesthetic step, as this will only be achieved if the EAGGF-Guidance Section is transferred to the agricultural guideline. In reality, other expenditure will decrease sharply in the context of a reduction in the Community preference system.
These guidelines have not yet been clearly understood by the public nor, indeed, by many French national elected representatives.
Yet they are not even enough to guarantee a sustainable balance in terms of the financial perspective.
Moreover, only earlier today, the President of the Commission was already calling for additional administrative appropriations.
The Council is so aware of this that, in its conclusions, it calls on the Commission to undertake a general review of the own resources system and to include the question of creating new autonomous own resources. In other words, if we are being frank, the Council is talking of creating European taxes.
It seems clear that the European Union is preparing to fill the holes by creating new compulsory levies.
We would be most interested to know whether the French Liberals approve of the Berlin conclusions in this respect.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the Berlin summit took place under difficult institutional and international conditions, which meant that less time could be devoted to the Agenda 2000 reform package than would have been generally necessary.
Against the background of the Kosovo conflict, every other policy area simply becomes relatively less urgent.
On Agenda 2000: expenditure was stabilised in the structural field, although this meant fairly major shifts in the definition of financial priorities within the structural measures, such as the increase of cohesion resources by as much as EUR 3 billion.
At any rate, for the new Objective 2, which is intended among other things to promote rural development, the support has been cut by 5 %.
I cannot help thinking that the support could have been concentrated on the neediest regions, considering that more than EUR 4 bn of financial treats were distributed all over Europe.
Yet the Berlin conclusions do represent a response to the further financing of the existing Community of 15 and of an enlarged Europe.
On the one hand the Council calls on the Commission to take energetic action to create new, autonomous own resources. Elsewhere it equally clearly lays down that the financial perspective needs to be adjusted, incidentally by a qualified Council majority.
That also explains the statements by your colleague Mr Wemheuer and by President Santer of the Commission, who both said that the current agreement would soon have be followed by another reform.
So I do not share the view of some Members of this House that the adoption of Agenda 2000 really is a great success.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Members of the Commission, a war is going on in Kosovo and between NATO and Yugoslavia.
Whatever our view of its legality, it is a fact.
War is not normally the time for taking a nuanced view, for heightened sensibilities, for a sensible mixture of reason and emotion.
Yet that is what we must do today, for even in times of war we must not only think of peace but also work to achieve it.
In that sense I welcome what you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, said here, because you have expressed that same feeling.
Military action became necessary.
I am not happy about it, many of us are not happy about it, but we would be even less happy if we had to watch the massacres continue without trying to put a stop to them.
Many of us would have preferred to see this action take place under the umbrella of the United Nations.
But unfortunately the attitude of Russia and China prevented that.
Yet I want to state clearly on behalf of my group: we still believe that on principle such actions must be carried out by the United Nations and we must do all we can to reform the United Nations in such a way as to make that possible in future.
But that also means that as you said, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, sovereignty must give way to the principle of respect for human rights.
We know that sovereignty has been an important objective over the course of history.
But our experience in Europe has shown us that there are higher values than total and absolute respect for national sovereignty.
We must get that message across.
Applause
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the military action has clear humanitarian objectives and we very strongly urge you to adhere to those objectives.
It is not a people that we want to defeat, it is the regime, it is Milosevic and his bands of soldiers, as Mr Hänsch called them.
Unfortunately - and that is an inevitable consequence - at the moment the situation is that the Serbs have closed ranks even more.
Even the opposition, the few who were opposed, and above all the intellectual opposition and the critics in Serbia, do not understand NATO's action and are actually rallying round Milosevic.
We must do all in our power to make it clear that we are differentiating between a regime that has brought disaster upon its own people, and a people we want to have in Europe like all the other peoples of this continent and all the other peoples of the Balkans.
We must do our utmost to ensure that there are as few civilian victims as possible in the wake of the military actions.
That has to be our aim, and not just for reasons of humanity but precisely in order to differentiate between the regime and the people.
Much has already been done for the refugees.
Perhaps some of it was done rather too late, but there is no sense in lamenting that now.
We will have to do all we can to help the refugees and to support the great, indeed the immense willingness of the people of Europe and of many non-governmental organisations to provide aid.
We may say that people today are hard-hearted, but Kosovo and the reaction of the people in Europe show that many also have a very soft, humanitarian heart, and we have to turn that to good use.
I am especially grateful to Mrs Bonino for her very vigorous support here.
Let me say quite plainly that first and foremost we should provide assistance in situ .
We must not grant Milosevic the great victory of finally emptying Kosovo of all Albanians and preventing the Albanian inhabitants who are scattered throughout Europe from returning home again.
We must prevent him from achieving that aim, but above all we must also help the neighbouring countries who are doing outstanding work in a situation that is not easy, for the situation is not easy for Albania, or for Macedonia or for Rome.
We must help them to pursue a humanitarian refugee policy.
One final point, Mr President-in-Office of the Council: you clearly pointed the way into the future, whether in the form of a Balkan conference or whatever we call it.
We must begin with a kind of Marshall Plan or stability pact.
That costs money.
But the war and the crises and unrest cost more money and above all they also cost many human lives.
You also said that we must contrast the 21st century with the 19th century.
I agree with you.
The 19th century was a century in which not only did the Balkan peoples come to grief over their nationalism, it was a century when the European powers exploited the Balkan peoples in order to assert their own interests.
Now it is not a question of playing off one Balkan country, i.e. the people of one country, against another one.
What we must do is bring the people closer together, laboriously bring them together and also show them that it is possible to coexist, as we do in western Europe despite the wars we have had.
Even if many people say that the Kosovar Albanians will never be able to coexist with the Serbs - they must coexist, they must coexist on the same continent, in the same region, and it is up to Europe to learn from its own mistakes in the past, to make up for its own past mistakes and lead the people of the Balkans into a peaceful, a non-nationalistic Europe.
Applause
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, on behalf of my group I want to express our full support for the joint action by the EU and NATO states, whose sole purpose is to put a stop to the genocide in Kosovo.
The plight of the Kosovar Albanians finally sunk in last year.
Finally, every political means was applied, but they had no prospect of succeeding against the Belgrade butcher.
Bosnia could have taught us that.
I do understand, however, that democracies are finding it hard to use military force, since they were not constantly updated on Milosevic's reign of terror in Kosovo.
Milosevic has no interest whatsoever in the people living in his own country.
He has no respect for mankind!
That is shown by the mass graves in Croatia and Bosnia.
It is shown by the deportations in Kosovo, by the countless acts of rape and the cruel murder of many Albanians.
Over all the years of the apartheid regime, Milosevic's governors had already committed countless murders and acts of torture.
I myself found evidence of many of these atrocities in Kosovo between 1991 and 1998 and repeatedly denounced them, at a time when all the western politicians were simply looking the other way.
Milosevic does not care about the welfare of his Serbian citizens either, who have been the economic and psychological victims of his policy for many years.
Unfortunately, however, the bomb attacks on Serbia have led a good number of Serbian citizens to mistakenly rally round Milosevic.
Milosevic has always used nationalism as a means of maintaining himself in power.
But nationalism dumbs people down and leads them astray, as we have seen on several occasions during this century.
Milosevic did not in fact set in motion his devilish machinery to wipe out a whole people at the moment when NATO started bombing.
Unfortunately these bombing raids were the only logical response to his atrocities.
Continued inaction would have made the west more guilty before history than this targeted bombing which, we hope, has a definite political aim.
But the political solution must on no account be the partition of Kosovo.
If we accepted that we would ourselves be creating a potential flashpoint there for the next hundred years.
Since 1990 I have been trying in vain here to make the Council and the Commission aware of Milosevic's planned strategy.
The sanu memorandum of 1985 drawn up by the Serbian Academy of Sciences spells out that strategy.
It also states that Kosovo will be partitioned if he cannot be contained, a partition into the wealthy north with its rich mineral resources, what is known as 'the cradle of the Serbians', and the poor south, whose existence would sooner or later destroy the state of Macedonia and thus create serious difficulties throughout the region.
In my view, the only solution at this point is an autonomous Kosovo, in which the citizens are returned home under the protection of international troops.
The further political future of Kosovo depends very much on a change in the Belgrade regime and the democratisation of Serbia.
The leading figures round Milosevic and Milosevic himself must also be brought before the Hague tribunal.
On behalf of my group I support all the diplomatic efforts made by the presidency of the Council.
But there is one other thing I would ask of you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
I beseech you to make even greater efforts to enable Mr Ibrahim Rugova, our Sakharov prize-winner, and his family, to leave the country.
Applause
After abandoning him for years by its pacifist tolerance of the apartheid regime, the west now owes it to him to at least ensure that he and his family receive exit visas.
I cordially ask you to do this for humanitarian reasons!
Loud applause
Madam President, I agree with Mrs Pack.
I would like to say something about the Commission and the problems there have been, and about the criticism that has been levelled.
I would like to emphasise that the Council itself bears a huge responsibility for the fact that things went so wrong.
It is the Council which, time after time, has approved accounts which should not have been approved.
It was the Council which, only this March, disregarded Parliament and approved the accounts for 1997, on the very day when the report from the five experts made it clear that the accounts should not have been approved and that Parliament was right.
It is incomprehensible that the Council was unwilling to learn from Parliament's persistent criticism, which was so often voiced here in this Chamber by my party colleague, Eva Kjer Hansen, amongst others.
It is the Council which is now largely responsible for the profoundly obsolete and rigid Staff Regulations.
It is the Council which failed to give its backing when Commissioner Liikanen's much-needed proposals on staff reforms were stopped by obdurate trade unions a year ago.
It is the Council which now has the opportunity to insist that these proposals are carried out to the letter, together with the SEM 2000 and MAP 2000 reform plans, which are sorely needed.
It is the Council which must now insist on flexibility, delegation, more fixed-term posts and easier ways to get rid of substandard employees.
It is only the Council which can abolish the national and geographic quotas in the recruitment policy, so that in future we can recruit the best candidate in every situation.
It is the Council which has buried the Commission in far too many large and small programmes with no way of controlling them.
It is the Council which must ensure that the principle of subsidiarity becomes more than just idle talk.
It is the Council which must implement cost-cutting and streamlining measures to facilitate enlargement to include Central and Eastern Europe, while keeping expenditure under the 1.25 % ceiling.
Instead of this, unfortunately, the Council ended up diluting the sorely needed agricultural reforms, on which there had usually been a consensus at ministerial level.
Mr President-in-Office, I hope that you take all this along with you to your - hopefully fruitful - meeting this afternoon with the new President of the Commission.
In conclusion, I would like to thank you for your resolute stance on the question of Kosovo.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, the speech made yesterday in Berlin by the Commission President designate seemed to confirm that there is no intention of changing the neo-liberal course set for building Europe.
It is a fact that the Berlin Council accepted the constraints imposed by the Stability Pact and did not alter them, and that the resources it approved were an inadequate response to Community policies and to the challenges of cohesion and of future enlargement.
The Berlin Council maintained unacceptable exceptions to the own resources system, yet at the same time failed to agree on any penalty for speculative movements of capital.
The rejection of agricultural cofinancing cannot blind us to the fact that imbalances and privileges for richer and more powerful countries have been preserved in the CAP.
As for regional policy, the overall reduction in the Cohesion Fund will mean a cut of at least 18 billion escudos per annum for Portugal, which is incidentally one of the cohesion countries.
And if this reduction leads to more restrictive conditions, structural resources could be even more limited.
In contrast to the pompous declarations and triumphs announced in Berlin concerning internal consumption, the lack of solidarity and the indifference towards cohesion confirmed in Berlin will lead to greater stagnation, higher unemployment, and poorer jobs and social welfare in the European Union.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, may I say that in my view you made a respectable statement which was fine-tuned and showed great courteousness towards Parliament.
Yet I am still not entirely satisfied with the Berlin conclusions.
Agricultural policy is not necessarily your political field, but what you produced in this respect was not a huge success.
You said in your statement that a clear signal must be sent out to the markets.
That signal is being sent out in the wrong direction.
Adherence to intervention signals to the Central and Eastern European states that they should abandon their markets and aim at intervention.
That is the wrong direction to take.
You also spoke, in a different connection, about solidarity with the weak.
But there are weak groups in agriculture too, and the absence of a degressive system and the graduated system have done nothing for the smaller farmers; instead the smaller undertakings will now suffer from the price reduction and the fact that they are not fully compensated.
I do not want to hear any more from you, the Chancellor, about how efficient the large undertakings are, for it is into the large, rationalised undertakings that EU funds are flowing, which makes it easy for them to operate.
The smaller undertakings have adjusted to the market.
That is where the real achievement lies, and they should have been supported.
I admit that provision is made for this under the second pillar.
That is the only glimmer of light in the agricultural field.
Thirdly, on budgetary discipline: to save is not in itself a quality.
I hope you agree with me there.
There should have been a more definite restructuring here, the kind of modulation of agricultural funding proposed by the Commission.
In fact I would like to praise Mr Fischler here.
What the Commission proposed would also have sent out a signal to the smaller undertakings, who adjust to the market.
That institution must now remain able to act.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, please urge the intergovernmental conference to include agricultural policy in the codecision procedure.
It is urgently necessary for Parliament to obtain the right to specific and substantive codecision powers in this area too.
Madam President, recent events in Kosovo and concerning the Commission meant that the agenda for the Berlin summit was not as originally planned.
But it did include the long-scheduled items on Agenda 2000.
It is a good thing that decisions have been taken, at any rate, although it has to be said that the Council is storing up a good deal of trouble for itself.
Hence it is a bad thing that reforms in the milk products sector are not to take effect until 2005.
This means that the Union will certainly not be ready, in respect of this sector, to allow new Member States to join from Central and Eastern Europe.
The Council did, however, manage to agree a thrifty budget covering several years for the immediate future.
These financial perspectives offer hopes of an interinstitutional agreement between the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
The speed with which the Council has chosen Mr Prodi as president-designate of the European Commission has our approval.
But it is just the first step.
I therefore repeat my insistence, for the benefit of the Council, that the new European Commission must be able to get down to work as quickly as possible and before the European elections.
I cannot understand what was said about the Middle East.
Mr Arafat's announced intention to declare a Palestinian state looked more like a means of political pressure than a realistic plan.
European support for that Palestinian state could mean the wrong kind of pressure being exerted on the peace talks.
What exactly is the intention here with this Palestinian state?
NATO intervention in Kosovo was and is inevitable.
The Dutch Members in my group unreservedly support the EU position on Kosovo.
Madam President, Chancellor, Mr Santer, I must say that we are delighted to see you once again, Mr Santer.
We were harsh on you because, given the honesty we demanded of your Commission, none of the governments of the 15 Member States should remain in office. As regards the corruption you were accused of, it was probably the quiet Socialist corruption of the 1980s.
We saw examples of this in Mr González's government, Mr Craxi's government and Mr Mitterrand's governments, with the exception, perhaps, of the government of our colleague Mr Rocard. We also saw examples of this in Belgium with Mr van den Broek, head of the Socialist Party, who will head the list in Flanders despite the Agusta affair.
Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, Mrs Cresson's shoes did not cost EUR 2 000.
Perhaps your biggest mistake was to take on the legacy of your predecessor, Mr Jacques Delors, in the BSE affair. Mr Delors is a democrat who, throughout his whole political career, has never stood as a candidate in a single election, except in a local election in Clichy.
Chancellor, in Berlin, a symbolic town whose name nonetheless makes one shiver and brings to mind certain images, it was decided that for the first time Mr Cohn-Bendit's army would return to the scenes where there are still some survivors who remember previous wars.
In Serbia, six streets in Belgrade carry the name of French generals from the First and Second World Wars, when the Serbs fought heroically against the Axis powers. This was at a time when there were real deportees and camps that, I believe, were called concentration camps.
In Serbia, as in Iraq, Europe is missing its chance to establish an independent foreign policy.
If we want to become a major power, with a single currency and a euro that must compete with the dollar, if we want our GDP to rocket, we should sort out the European family affairs in Serbia, in the bosom of the European family, without bringing in a sheriff from outside, and without creating, in particular, as a finishing touch, an Islamic crescent that encompasses Kosovo, Albania, and perhaps Bosnia.
In Berlin, Mr Prodi was nominated: he is the leader of the Olive Tree Coalition and it is somewhat ironic to think of the olive tree at a time when we are starting a war.
Mr Schröder, you combine German traits with British humour.
Incidentally, we also discussed technical issues in Berlin. We first discussed the CAP and reached a modest little compromise, especially at France's expense.
Expenditure is being frozen and prices cut by 20 % instead of 30 % for meat, and by 15 % instead of 20 % for cereals. These reductions are only compensated for in part and, above all, we are preparing to fall into line with the United States in the world trade negotiations, as we did in 1992.
Europe is a continent for those who fall into line and it is only natural that we should bomb Yugoslavia, a country which symbolises non-alignment.
Germany also lost out over the Structural Funds...
Exclamations from various quarters
There was also financial arbitration in Berlin.
Mr Schröder, you are too well briefed not to know that we will be forced to create a European tax ...
The President urged the speaker to conclude
Madam President, I have been constantly interrupted.
We will be forced to create a European income tax or corporation tax unless the Greens force us to adopt a tax on CO2 , due to all the pollution caused by bombing refineries.
Madam President, in the appalling human catastrophe that is Kosovo, and especially with the refugee situation as desperate as it is, the European Union must be able to relieve the situation of the refugees, or rather those who have been driven out of their country.
Furthermore, when other options fail relocation of the refugees outside the region and within the EU area must be an option on humanitarian grounds.
The EU must adopt a position where it can actively encourage the start of talks for a just peace settlement, and we must also try to involve Russia in the negotiations.
Everything that can be done must be done to alleviate this human suffering.
The extraordinary European Council at Berlin was held, at least to some extent, in very special circumstances.
The Community lacked clear leadership as a result of the resignation of the Commission the previous month.
The Member States, and above all Germany as the holder of the presidency, are to be congratulated on getting decisions through at Berlin, despite the difficulties.
This is because there was real effort to reach decisions: nothing was left to chance.
The basic attitude was that the talks should be conducted well, before any solutions were found.
However, many of us have problems in approving the substance of Agenda 2000, or at least we have comments to make.
The agricultural solution that pleased many Member States has simply swept serious problems under the carpet.
In any case, it has to be said, especially as far as agriculture is concerned, that new solutions still need to be found before enlargement takes place, and the WTO talks are not succeeding either, with the present brief.
One thing we welcome in the agricultural solution is the better integration of issues relating to the environment, and in that regard the Commission was very successful in laying the groundwork for further action.
Good too was the fact that at long last agricultural conditions in the Nordic countries were taken into account to a reasonable extent, and that at least some success was achieved in limiting the seemingly unstoppable flow of money spent on agriculture.
However, we fared better, in broad terms, on regional and structural policy.
What is most important is that the scheme should be simplified and made more efficient.
Now Parliament has to ensure that the problems which are still on the table are discussed in cooperation so that Parliament can debate the whole of Agenda 2000 as one package in May.
This will be a special challenge for the success of enlargement and for the European Union to be able to continue working effectively.
If I had to pick out some of the problems with regional and structural policy, one disappointment is obviously the fact that Objective 3, the employment initiative, is lagging behind the others, while we here in Parliament have always maintained that solving the problems of employment is a priority task for the European Union.
Now we must focus our attention on highlighting the issue of unemployment in Objectives 2 and 3 to a much greater and more significant extent than is the case now.
The timetable for appointing the Commission must be established without delay, but at the same time we must ensure that we adhere to the objectives Parliament has for reforming it.
I wish the German Presidency luck as it draws to an end.
I hope that the developments launched so successfully in Berlin will manage to stay the course.
Once more I would like to congratulate everyone on the fact that the Agenda 2000 package was approved at Berlin.
This will offer plenty of scope for the future Finnish Presidency to succeed in the face of its immense challenges.
The Finnish Government may have already been elected as I speak.
Madam President, in the last ten years, Milosevic's regime has been guilty of large-scale repression and a series of wars.
The latest and worst is the current crisis in Kosovo, but it does not end there.
Attempts to destabilise Macedonia and Montenegro are already under way, and Albania has meantime come under fire.
The expulsion of ethnic minorities and the mass killings in Kosovo show the contempt in which the Milosevic regime holds human values - a contempt which some are emphasising by provocatively toying with a target, something that merely illustrates their disdain for the humanitarian values of the NATO governments, which as we know are seeking to get as many civilian victims as possible out of harm's way.
You cannot really talk to a regime like that any more.
It does not share the values of which the Council President, the Federal Chancellor, spoke just now.
This regime needs to be replaced, as a wise Serbian bishop of the orthodox church said here in this building a few months ago: there will never be a solution in Serbia and Kosovo unless Serbia becomes a state governed by the rule of law.
If it does, you may be sure that minority rights and human rights will be upheld.
Meanwhile, almost a million refugees are wandering around in Kosovo and the adjoining countries.
Help is urgently needed, and we therefore agree with the Commission's policy of giving urgent assistance to Albania and Macedonia.
The efforts being made by various Member States are of course laudable and vital, but Parliament would really prefer a policy for the European Union as a whole.
Good European Union facilities for accepting refugees as close as possible to their original homes can make it easier to coordinate aid and avoid problems over how the cost should be shared.
That will also protect the Union against the futile attitude of financial nitpicking shown by a number of governments in Berlin.
The Commission certainly needs enough qualified personnel to do all this.
We agree with Mr Santer's call for them.
It is right and proper, and our belief, that extra resources should be found for Macedonia, a country of which we have already been asking too much for too long.
Political support for Montenegro is also appropriate, since it is inhabited by Serbs who retain a policy of openness towards Europe.
We should be mindful of that.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say to the President-in-Office that his success in Berlin relates mainly to Agenda 2000, as this is what was on your agenda.
The success of the Berlin summit is the result of compromise between Member States that allowed us to reform the Union's common policies.
We welcome this, even if, relatively speaking, we are far from achieving the ambitious objective originally declared by Mr Jacques Santer.
We have put the Union back on its feet but we have not necessarily given it all the assets it needs to conclude the enlargement negotiations.
And we are all aware that there will be other dates to set.
Your success is due to the fact that you rejected non-Community measures that would have transformed the European Union into an à la carte free-for-all.
You have avoided this by rejecting cofinancing. Cofinancing would have sent out a bad signal as it would mean dismantling the Union's only real integrated policy at the very moment when the enlargement negotiations are underway.
Your success is also due to the fact that you rejected a system of levelling-down which would have been at odds with all the mechanisms aimed at ensuring Community solidarity.
Perhaps more could have been done as regards the existing measures aimed at ensuring a fair return.
I will only say one thing about agriculture, and that is that it is unfortunate that the phased reduction of aid was not as well accepted in the agreement. I feel that this would have contributed to more balanced, more equitable agriculture where we provide greater assistance to those in greatest need.
Mr President-in-Office, you mentioned the issue of institutional reform.
With the appointment of Mr Prodi, the reforming of the Commission is now under way, and we welcome that.
This Commission must practise greater collective responsibility in performing its duties.
It cannot operate using feudal systems, baronies and reserved domains.
We must also coordinate the Union's external actions.
How can we implement a common foreign and security policy when five separate Commissioners are responsible for these areas?
These are matters of great urgency.
But the whole package of institutional reforms is also a matter of great urgency, because the Union is in need of such reforms and because it is a precondition to the next enlargements, as you quite rightly emphasised this morning.
We support this.
And then there is Kosovo.
In this crisis, in this war, the Union's voice must be strong because it is vital in Europe.
We all agree on our objective, namely the end of ethnic cleansing.
Non-discrimination is enshrined in our Treaties and in our laws.
We must ensure that it is respected within our borders, but also outside them.
To put it simply, we know that peace will not be obtained at any cost.
We have committed our troops.
We had to do so.
Now we must also work on involving the United Nations and Russia in the search for a solution.
We need a protected humanitarian area, complete with intervention forces.
We need a conference of the Balkans leading to a European Union of the Balkans and your stability pact must contribute to this.
We also need to think about the consequences of a European defence identity and strong proposals to reform the United Nations.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, I believe that the majority of our colleagues feel that the European Council worked hard in Berlin.
You had a busy agenda in front of you and you cleared the ground.
First of all, you made a start on solving the institutional problem posed by the Commission's resignation by appointing Mr Prodi.
You left the common agricultural policy intact, rather than reforming it.
You took significant decisions on the Kosovo crisis and you began work on the financial perspective, outlining choices that, on the whole, we approve.
I therefore believe that the European Council has done its job and we must thank you for this, Chancellor.
I should like to say a few words on the financial perspective, as I believe it poses a problem.
In Berlin, the European Council made two choices.
It chose rigour, which we approve of, and it rejected flexibility, which worries us.
You chose rigour and we understand why, even though such rigour may sometimes be deceptive.
For example, as regards agriculture, the overall budget is less than the total specific commitments that were agreed on.
Also, category 5 does not allow us to meet the requirements for further staff, which were becoming increasingly apparent, as the President of the Commission, Mr Santer, quite rightly highlighted.
This House accepts that you have opted for budgetary rigour and we have always supported this approach, but above all, and in spite of everything, you rejected flexibility and that is important.
Without flexibility, we cannot be rigorous, because if we look at category 4, we see that expenditure on Kosovo will far exceed the amount under this heading.
Without wishing to take an aggressive stance, we must remember, Chancellor, that Parliament has the legal and institutional resources to re-establish the margin of flexibility we believe is necessary. And we will do so if, in the next few days, you do not take some steps towards giving us the flexibility that we believe is extremely valuable, as valuable as you believe rigour to be.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this debate on the German Presidency is taking place at a tragic time, as has already been said.
Once again in Europe, we are seeing the terrible consequences which fanatical nationalism, racism and fascism can lead to.
History is repeating itself.
Mr President-in-Office, the German Presidency commands respect in this difficult period.
However, you have to cope with the most important problem in the functioning of the European institutions, namely the unanimity required for making decisions in crucial areas.
This applies not only to the common foreign and security policy; it applies also to the foreign ministers, who were actually unable, shamefully, to come up with a humanitarian response last week in the tragic circumstances we are witnessing today.
As regards the Berlin summit itself, Mr President-in-Office, you deserve praise for unquestionably securing an overall agreement.
In some respects, you secured a good agreement. In other respects, we believe it was a bad one.
You secured a good agreement concerning Commission President Prodi, who already showed us in the House yesterday that he is made of the right stuff.
You secured a bad agreement, in our view, on Europe's budget.
On the one hand as regards revenues: the decision, the compromise on own resources to my mind means giving in to the Member States who have for years argued for the principle of the juste retour .
We have called in Parliament for greater transparency and fewer rebates.
We have got less transparency and more rebates.
That is most regrettable.
Nor have we obtained any satisfaction on the interinstitutional agreement, either in qualitative or quantitative terms.
Parliament's rapporteur, Mr Colom i Naval, is always a moderate man.
He said very sharply last week that the proposals currently on the table for an interinstitutional agreement are a kind of provocation.
So I think it will take a great deal of hard work to reach an agreement.
Mr President-in-Office, I cannot deny that your statement this morning impressed me greatly.
We fully support your resolute approach to the Cologne summit.
We hope you will secure a clear timetable there for new institutional 'deepening', which is vital if Europe is to have credibility.
We hope too that you will be successful in achieving a European Employment Pact with which we can persuade people to have renewed faith in the future of Europe.
In other words, Cologne has to produce more of substance than Berlin. We are confident that you will work energetically to ensure that it does.
Mr President-in-Office, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, after analysing the conclusions of the Berlin European Council, and given the objective difficulties involved in concluding Agenda 2000, we must congratulate the German Presidency on having been able to reach an agreement that many felt was little short of impossible.
But our congratulations must also be extended to the whole college of Commissioners for their excellent preparatory work on Agenda 2000 and for their sincere dedication throughout the whole procedure.
From the point of view of regional policy, the European Parliament has stated quite clearly that the Union should set aside a minimum of 0.46 % of Community GDP for cohesion policies. It must be set at this level if we wish to have sufficient critical mass available to reduce regional disparities at a satisfactory pace, as highlighted in both the triannual report and the sixth periodic report on the social and economic situation and development of the regions of the European Union.
The regrettable debate on net budget balances and excessive contributions to the Community budget has led to substantial financial reductions in the Commission's proposals for cohesion policies, which were already modest in themselves. This debate ignores the fact that the balanced development of the whole Community territory leads to extremely favourable trade balances for the wealthiest Member States.
But it is fair to say that, although expenditure is being reduced, the principle of concentration was left intact. By allocating more than two thirds of the Structural Funds to Objective 1 regions, work on cohesion will remain at levels that are the same as or higher than those of the previous programming period.
We must also welcome the fact that Objective 3 now has a horizontal character and the fact that the Cohesion Fund has been maintained, thereby ending a fruitless and meaningless debate.
But in this respect, as Mr Bourlanges claimed, we are concerned that we have still to establish the financial perspectives needed to provide a multiannual financial framework for long-term policies such as regional polices.
If the Council were to show a certain degree of flexibility, this would add the finishing touch to the Berlin agreement and would enable us to conclude the interinstitutional agreement. This agreement is vital if we are to guarantee the stability of Community finances in the coming century.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, first, of course, thank you very much for your praise of our work.
It is a pleasure not just to be criticised for hard work but occasionally - in this Parliament at least - also to hear words of praise.
Naturally I shall begin by responding to the critical comments that have been made. And I am happy to do so.
But let me say at the outset that I am pleased there has been agreement on the Kosovo issue here in Parliament, barring a very few critical voices.
I have taken careful note of Parliament's strong reactions to the human rights violations in Kosovo and of its resolute support - or at least the support of a very large majority of Members - for the western position.
In evaluating the situation, let me go back to what one Member of your Parliament, Mrs Pack, had to say.
In my view she gave a very accurate analysis and accurate description of the risks that could arise if the international community does not continue to take resolute action with a view to reaching a political solution to the Kosovo crisis through a mixture of military measures and, of course, political activities.
It must be clear to all that we must not confuse cause and effect.
The cause of the conflict is Milosevic's criminal policy and the sole purpose of the effect we want to achieve by, for example, the military measures, is to protect the people in Kosovo and to reach a political solution.
Let me emphatically underline what was said here.
Our intention is not to punish anyone but to achieve the designated objective of bringing an end to a humanitarian disaster that is expanding and accelerating, so as to prevent even more people from dying.
Applause
I am glad to be able to say that the Council and Parliament are entirely at one on this!
Secondly, regarding the critical comments on the Berlin results, I fully understand what Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for instance, said about agricultural policy and the fact that we did not manage to achieve all our objectives, not even those which, looked at in isolation, can be regarded as extremely sensible, such as stabilising smaller undertakings even more than proved possible.
That is partly because the different Member States have different interests and want to assert them.
Of course the agricultural part, like the part relating to the Structural and Cohesion Funds and like the financing part, is in fact a compromise, with all the strengths but also the weaknesses of any compromise.
To reassure you, let me say to you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, that if I had been able to act on my own, I would have responded more closely to your wishes!
But that was not possible, as everyone will easily understand - nor indeed was it at all desirable.
Laughter
Secondly, regarding the Structural and Cohesion Funds, I noted that we did not match up to some of your expectations.
Nor could we, for some Member States are mainly contributors to these funds - and I do not just mean Germany, do not misunderstand me here - while others profit from both funds.
That quite naturally creates opposing interests, that can only be reconciled through compromise.
I believe that in regard to the size and shape of the two funds, it has become clear that all in all we have found a sensible compromise.
As far as Parliament's interests are concerned, there will after all still be negotiations about flexibility and other similar demands that have been made.
I believe these negotiations will be conducted in an equally determined and purposeful manner. At any rate, that is what the Council wants, as in the case of the negotiations that have now been concluded on preparing for the necessary legal acts.
Here I am optimistic that we will manage to achieve the sensible measure of flexibility that Parliament wants.
Applause
I can only underline what has been said about further-reaching aims.
Of course what we must now do is to get the institutional reform underway, and not least because besides the financial architecture, institutional reform is one of the real conditions for the success of the enlargement process.
Only if we manage really to achieve the institutional reforms in parallel with the accession negotiations will we be able to keep to the scheduled timetable for accession.
Without institutional reforms, the greater Europe, one that does not stop at the eastern border of Germany, would become ungovernable.
I believe that the Members of this Parliament know that, but the Council knows it too. This is indeed one of the very major tasks, and although it cannot be achieved during our presidency we can at least get it underway.
On the two other major objectives referred to in this debate, namely to draw up the common foreign and security policy, to safeguard it institutionally and to appoint a genuinely important and significant personality to represent and conduct this common foreign policy, in Cologne we want to decide on the person to be appointed and of course make progress in substantive terms.
Here too we feel we are being held accountable to Parliament, and quite rightly so.
We really do want to work on this.
It must be equally clear - and here I am especially addressing the critics of European employment policy - that European employment policy, the employment pact we want to forge, must not be seen as a substitute for national employment policies.
It would be quite wrong to perceive it as such; rather, it should be seen as usefully supplementing national policies.
That is the aim we are pursuing.
If we could manage to direct the Member States' considerable resources more towards this objective through coordinated national budgetary policies, and if, on top of that, we could also manage to direct European resources towards this objective, then I believe we really would be doing something to combat unemployment, especially youth unemployment, in Europe.
We would also be making an immense contribution towards anchoring the idea of Europe more firmly in the minds of our young people than some of us may have managed in the past.
That is what we want to discuss and set in motion in Cologne.
On the question of relations with Parliament, let me offer a concluding remark.
Like any head of government controlled and elected by Parliament, I naturally respect the Members of Parliament.
But as a government we are self-assured enough to indeed accept and recognize the rights of the MEPs but also to point out that it is still up to us to legitimise policies, such as expenditure policy, so long as there are no radical changes.
We have to explain to people why and how much they are to pay out and what for.
That form of legitimation also gives us a certain self-assurance.
I look forward to a constructive dialogue with Members of Parliament, with Parliament itself, in which no-one gives any special treatment to anyone else but both sides know that Europe can prosper only if the institutions are able and become even more able to work together.
In this regard I have one more point to make.
It is a question of the ceterum censeo that has been mentioned in many statements, the ceterum censeo about inviting the President to today's informal meeting.
We have on occasion issued such an invitation, and we will do so again.
The reason for our decision today is quite simple.
Firstly, I will be seeing the President and talking to him very soon, and secondly we really convened this informal summit in order to talk with Mr Prodi.
Parliament has already had talks with Mr Prodi, so an invitation did not seem necessary.
Moreover, it was clear that against the background of developments, in this situation the Heads of State and Government cannot meet without discussing Kosovo.
We have exactly an hour and a half for this.
That is the reason why we did not invite the President of your Parliament, it is not because of any reservations about the President and even less about Parliament - and we will certainly not make a habit of this.
Even if indeed you cannot agree, at least I would ask you to understand and to believe me when I say it was neither a question of disrespect nor of rudeness, but simply a question of time.
I hope I have managed to answer some of the objections.
I thank the Members of this Parliament and the President for giving me an opportunity to speak here.
It was an honour. And I also thank you for letting me reply to your statements.
I wish you much success in your work and much success for all of us who are in and for Europe.
Applause
Thank you for what you have said today, Mr President-in-Office.
I wish you success in the negotiations at the informal summit meeting this afternoon.
Madam President, it is well known that before the Berlin agreement on Agenda 2000 was concluded, there was a great deal of indecision, indecison which has dogged the European Union since Maastricht.
In my view, this is because euroscepticism has given way to europhobia among our political leaders.
The result is that the European Union is not equipping itself with the necessary political and economic resources to achieve its aims, on paper at least.
This indecision has been borne out by the crisis in Kosovo, where the ineffectual implementation of the common foreign and security policy has been unable to prevent the crisis from escalating and has once again allowed the United States to become the major force in our region.
On issues relating to Agenda 2000, there were also discrepancies between our words and our actions.
Of course, we are glad that some form of compromise was reached.
However, that compromise led to an economic package that is substantially smaller than that proposed by the Commission and Parliament.
As far as the Structural Funds are concerned, we welcome the fact that the solutions that were chosen - which relate to the partnership principle, the performance efficiency reserve, and so on - do not differ from the proposals put forward by Parliament.
As regards the economic support given to the four poorest countries, it was decided that it would be best to maintain per capita expenditure at 1999 levels.
This may satisfy Spain, Portugal and Ireland.
However, I cannot understand why this solution satisfied my country, Greece, when it is well known that it is the poorest country and the only country which comes under Objective 1 in its entirety. Nor can I understand why it accepted the increase from 55 % to 62 % in Spain's share of the Cohesion Fund, and the reduction of its own share from 18 % to 17 %.
But, as Kipling would say, that is another story.
Madam President, Berlin was worth the journey, as we have heard here today several times.
But it will take a lot more work before the objectives set out by the Berlin European Council have an impact on the ground.
That applies in particular to the important issue for the future, 'enlargement', which has rightly been addressed repeatedly here today.
The slogan here runs: rather than drawing away in fear we must move towards one another.
In an exemplary joint effort, the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament have made the Interreg Community initiative stand as a signal for cooperation beyond the existing external border of the EU.
Many thanks, Commissioner!
Now we must ensure that European legal texts and European aid money lead to constructive cooperation between the people on either side of the EU border.
In my own country, Austria, as also in other Member States bordering on the applicant countries, we have an opportunity to turn the idea of European cooperation into reality with concrete projects.
Let us do so!
We also have this kind of very concrete cooperation between the European institutions and the European people in my own country at present, on a different European issue, the question of the refugees in and from Kosovo.
In Austria the people themselves, vigorously supported by the media, by radio, TV and the press, have sent out their own very personal European signal in the form of an exemplary action called 'Neighbour in Need'.
In the space of a few days the people - first and foremost it is the ordinary people, who find it hard enough to live on their incomes as it is - have already donated more than 100 million Austrian schillings.
That is tangible proof of the European solidarity that we, the political office-holders in Europe, all too often call for in word alone.
We, the Council and Parliament as the European budgetary authority, should take a leaf from their book.
Applause
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement reached in Berlin on Agenda 2000 guarantees that the European Union will function in the short term, but it does not secure its long- and medium-term future.
The first reason for this is that the courage needed to alter the status quo of Community policies and their distributive effects was lacking.
The second is that financing the enlargement of the Union means there will be no growth in structural and cohesion policies and there will be delay in financial and agricultural reforms.
Thirdly, no provision has been made for any special mechanism to assist the adjustment of weaker and more vulnerable economies to enlargement - my own country, for example.
Fourthly, the status quo has essentially been maintained for the CAP, which means that it will continue to treat the farmers of the European Union unequally. Furthermore, the CAP will not facilitate negotiations at the next WTO round in three years' time, at which we will come under enormous external pressure to make further reforms.
Lastly, with respect to Portugal, I feel that the agreement on the Structural Funds would not have been a bad one were we not in the process of enlarging the European Union.
As Portugal is the country which has most to lose from enlargement and we have been offered no compensation whatsoever, it was a bad agreement.
And the reform of the CAP was even worse, as the most backward agricultural economy in the European Union has not even been granted the right to increase its area of irrigated land, not just to accommodate the major Alqueva project but also more generally.
It is impossible to carry out any modernisation in a region like ours without increasing irrigation.
Madam President, the basic agreement reached in Berlin about the agricultural part of Agenda 2000 contradicts the statement by the Commission that it wants to make European agriculture more competitive and therefore viable.
The partial adoption by the Council of the Commission's price cutting proposals in the milk, cereals and beef and veal sector will bring these prices closer to the world market level, but the proposed compensatory payments go no way near to covering the income losses.
Now we are told the milk market reform is only to begin in the year 2005, in three phases, and that the quota system is to expire in 2008.
We welcome the idea of optional set-aside.
That is something we called for.
In the case of cereals too, the agreements will initially run only until the year 2002, when adjustments are to be made if necessary.
Further price cuts of 5 % are under discussion, but on the basis that then the compensation could be raised again from EUR 63 to EUR 66 a tonne.
But obviously nobody noticed that this hit the oilseed farmers particularly hard.
After the compromise reached by the agriculture ministers, they were sure of obtaining EUR 66, but now it will only be 63.
On the other hand we welcome the fact that set-aside is still fixed at 10 % until the year 2006.
In regard to beef and veal, the Agenda decisions resolve neither the surplus nor the income problem.
The mother-cow breeders have won, the traditional bull-fatteners have lost.
That is the simple outcome of the Agenda, my dear President-in-Office of the Council!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, this resolution and, on a general level, the strategy chosen by the Committee on Budgets is an irresponsible course of action that is in danger of leading to real budgetary conflict.
The financial agreement concluded in Berlin is today an important success that could not be repeated under the present circumstances. For this reason, some of us fully support it despite the fact that, although it is a good agreement, it does not fully satisfy everyone.
In order to fulfill a legitimate wish, some of us are also prepared to oppose an increase in the budgetary powers of this House if it means jeopardising the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
The political message in this resolution threatens rejection of the Berlin financial perspective. It also leads to a risky annual budgetary procedure that does not guarantee allocations for the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
In financial terms, our opinion differs from that of the Council by only 0.38 % of the total approved in Berlin for the next seven years.
As President Santer pointed out, an agreement is around the corner and must be reached without any further delay and by June at the latest.
The real problem is that there is a political trend in this House that favours an annual budgetary procedure without financial categories and, consequently, without fixed year on year amounts for structural policy.
We can begin to understand this way of thinking even though we are against it, but we cannot understand how those who opt for this path are those who have a duty to defend a European model of economic and social cohesion.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 noon.
VOTES
Proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2597/97 laying down supplementary rules for the common organisation of the markets in the milk and milk products sector with regard to milk for human consumption (COM(99)0063 - C4-0175/99-99/0048(CNS)) (Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development)
ECB recommendation for a Council Regulation concerning the limits and conditions for capital increases of the European Central Bank (BCE(98)0011 - C4-0103/99-99/0802(CNS)) (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of the Czech Republic to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0115/99-99/0040(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Estonia to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0116/99-99/0041(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Hungary to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0117/99-99/0042(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Latvia to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0118/99-99/0043(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Lithuania to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0119/99-99/0044(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Poland to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0120/99-99/0045(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of Slovenia to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0046 - C4-0121/99-99/0046(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Additional Protocol to the EEC/Cyprus Association Agreement to associate Cyprus to the Fifth Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) (COM(99)0057 - C4-0140/99-99/0049(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of the Republic of Bulgaria to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0084 - C4-0143/99-99/0060(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of the Republic of Romania to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training activities (1998-2002) (COM(99)0084 - C4-0144/99-99/0061(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concerning the Community position within the Association Council on the association of the Slovak Republic to Community programmes in the field of research, technological development and demonstration (1998-2002) and to programmes for research and training (1998-2002) (COM(99)0084 - C4-0145/99-99/0062(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement amending the Agreement for Scientific and Technical Cooperation between the European Community and Australia (COM(99)0024 - C4-0142/99-99/0009(CNS)) (Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy)
Proposal for a Council Regulation on the common organisation of the markets in the sugar sector (codified version) (COM(98)0794 - C4-0147/99-98/0370(CNS)) (Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights)
Proposal for a Council Decision on the conclusion of the protocol on specially protected areas and biological diversity in the Mediterranean, and on accepting the annexes to the said protocol (Barcelona Convention) (COM(99)0030 - C4-0166/99-99/0019(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection)
Proposal for a Council Decision on the acceptance of amendments to the Convention for the protection of the Mediterranean sea against pollution and the protocol for the prevention of pollution by dumping from ships and aircraft (Barcelona Convention) (COM(99)0029 - C4-0170/99-99/0023(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection)
Proposal for a Council Decision on accepting the amendments to the protocol for the protection of the Mediterranean sea against pollution from land-based sources (Barcelona Convention) (COM(99)0028 - C4-0173/99-99/0021(CNS)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection)
In successive votes, Parliament approved the various Commission proposals
We shall send an usher straight away if this gentleman does not hear what we are saying.
I see that he has heard, and I can assure you that we shall check on his credentials.
Madam President, may I draw attention to the fact that the photographer is still sitting up there.
A hussier went to him but he has refused to move.
I would ask that he be removed and identified and that consideration be given to withdrawing or at least doing something with the pass.
It is not acceptable for telephoto-lens photographers to be sitting up there refusing to move.
Applause
That had not escaped me, Mr Balfe.
I was keeping an eye on the gallery, and I had the same concerns as you.
I would ask this gentleman to leave.
Madam President, I just wanted to propose that we should congratulate the President of the sitting for beating all the speed records for the votes.
I think that along with Mr Martin you are in pole position, but the competition is open to anyone.
Applause
Madam President, I voted against the resolution on the Berlin European Council due to the adoption of an amendment which bore absolutely no relation to the Berlin summit and its results, stating that Parliament would refuse to cooperate with a Commissioner, in this case Mrs Cresson.
I think that we have had many opportunities in the House to discuss, comment on and vote on texts concerning issues such as the Committee of Independent Experts and the Commission's resignation.
However, tabling an amendment at the last minute, whether on the Berlin European Council, agricultural prices or any other subject, discredits our institution; it does not reflect well on us and I feel it is an unjustified attitude that was badly thought out and was not called for.
I repeat: I voted against the resolution, and I am proud of it.
The Commission has resigned and we have given a political judgement on the issue, at all levels.
I think that the approach that I have condemned is damaging to the image that Parliament had projected in the last few months.
Madam President, all the implications of the Berlin European Council of 24 and 25 March have undoubtedly not yet been perceived by the people of the Union, who, as usual, will gradually discover the consequences of these agreements.
Let us take the case of agricultural policy: Commissioner Fischler described the measures that were adopted as the most radical reform in the entire history of the CAP, one that is so major that it surpasses the in-depth changes that took place in 1992.
This radical reform, that is to say integration into the global market and the reduction of farmer's incomes, is in reality a collection of specific technical measures, and for someone who is not an expert it is difficult to grasp its general thrust.
We think that this lack of clarity is all the more serious given the fact that the decisions that were taken are going to be used in order to determine many subsequent policy guidelines.
For example, the Council mentions in its conclusions that - and I quote - ' the decisions adopted regarding the reform of the CAP within the framework of Agenda 2000 will constitute essential elements in defining the Commission's negotiating mandate for the future multilateral trade negotiations at the WTO.'
Therefore, without realising it, we seem to have already decided on the European Union's negotiating position for future international negotiations.
This procedure, which is certainly the norm in Brussels, is quite unbelievable compared with the usual methods adopted by democratic countries, to the extent that - and I would like to highlight this point - national parliaments have so far not been invited to ratify these agreements at all.
The irony of history seems even greater when we know that a short time before the Berlin European Council, a public hearing organised by this House had concluded that there was a lack of debate and democratic control with regard to multilateral trade negotiations.
This is exactly the situation that the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has been condemning for a long time, and which led to disastrous results at the Uruguay Round.
It is essential that the same method is not used again in the future.
This is why we demand that the Berlin conclusions should be rejected on this point, and that the Council's and the Commission's mandate for the next WTO negotiations should be the subject of an in-depth public debate and a formal vote in the national parliaments.
Madam President, I can tell that the PPE is in the middle of a campaign, including when it comes to the interests of this House!
When Mr Martens said yesterday that the resignation of Edith Cresson alone would have solved the crisis, I think he was evidently campaigning.
Parliament is making a legal mistake by adopting the amendment on the Berlin European Council resolution.
We have accepted something which is absurd.
The Commission has resigned, collectively, because it is collectively responsible.
Politically, however, this is significant.
Mr Martens prefers not to see what is happening or to read the report from the Committee of Independent Experts, according to which there was clearly collective responsibility for the errors that were made.
I think that we ourselves have demonstrated the maturity of this Parliament and helped bring the truth to light, and that we have enabled the Commission to regain its credibility and allowed democracy to progress.
I welcome this, but I deplore the way that Parliament has voted, which does not do it credit.
Madam President, to add to the excellent reasons set out by my colleague Georges Berthu that encouraged us to vote against the Berlin summit resolution, I would like to put forward a few points regarding paragraph 2, that is the appointment of the new Commission.
What a contradiction on the part of Parliament, which, once again, is openly surrendering before even giving battle.
I remember those people who asked for the immediate replacement of the Commission that had resigned.
These are the same people who are now satisfied with a Commission that would be put in place from January 2000, and on whose appointment the European Parliament may be consulted.
In the same sitting, we voted for Amendment No 2, which is disgraceful and was tabled at the last minute by the PPE Group and the ELDR Group, objecting to Mrs Cresson retaining her post and declaring that we will not cooperate with her as long as she remains in office. Meanwhile, we rejected Amendments Nos 16 and 17, which demanded that the Commission be replaced and asked that the Commissioners should not be candidates at the European elections.
Parliament did not take anything that was said in the report from the Committee of Independent Experts to implicate the Commission as a collegiate body.
Unemployment in Europe cannot be brought down using the methods of the Swedish Labour Board at EU level. We therefore voted against paragraph 4 of the resolution.
We would rather see deregulation of the labour market and lower taxes on labour; not more of the kind of active labour market policy that has failed to deliver results in Sweden.
There is certainly no reason to centralise an expanded Swedish-style approach at supranational level.
Circumstances vary from one Member State to another and, where there is a desire for a labour market policy approach, individual countries should ideally decide for themselves.
Another reason for voting against paragraph 4 was that it violates the subsidiarity principle.
We need to be seen to be exercising major restraint on the expenditure front; it is therefore to be welcomed that the agreements reached in the Council of Ministers are based on prudential management of taxpayers' money.
Any additional resources that can be then be released should be mobilised to facilitate the EU's eastward enlargement.
New growth markets are developing in the applicant countries; these will create new and worthwhile job opportunities for the Union's current members. Fostering such markets will contribute much more to the employment situation than could ever be achieved through an active labour market policy.
I have voted in favour of the Berlin Summit resolution to give my support in particular to the German presidency's achievement in getting agreement for the structural fund package in Agenda 2000.
I am pleased that the Council has taken on board several recommendations made in my report on the general framework regulation.
A key achievement was the follow-up commitment to the Cardiff Summit to continue to support the Northern Ireland peace process with the Special Peace Initiative.
One outstanding issue remains to be solved with the Council in conciliation before assent is given, namely Parliament's request for additional Community initiatives, URBAN and Crisis.
Parliament is, of course, willing to seek a compromise in this area, but is must reflect Parliament's priorities in the Community initiative field.
Let me again underline our intention to achieve our political priorities, to fulfil our responsibilities to communities in our regions.
I regret that the European Council did not accede to Parliament's request to reinstate the URBAN initiative.
This initiative has proved to be a useful weapon in tackling urban deprivation.
The retention of LEADER for promoting rural development should be counterbalanced by the retention of URBAN.
The retention of URBAN would be especially important for cities like my own - Dublin - which is likely to see a considerable reduction in the Structural Funds available because of its loss of Objective 1 status.
I had been campaigning for retention of URBAN as it could provide the basic funding for my proposal that there be a fund specifically ringfenced for the development of deprived urban areas.
These areas are both absolutely and relatively disadvantaged as they are side by side with areas of considerable affluence.
I hope that tonight's conciliation results in URBAN being reinstated.
I want to ensure that the general Structural Funds are used to a significant extent to address the problem of urban deprivation.
I would ask that the rules governing ESF and ERDF be changed in order to direct more of these funds to areas of acute deprivation and I would also ask that the regional aid guidelines be amended to allow for state aids to be paid at a higher rate to those urban areas which are suffering acute disadvantages.
I will be voting for the joint resolution on the Berlin Summit as I welcome the European Council's prompt nomination and recommendation for President-Designate of the European Commission.
The result achieved in Berlin with regard to the structural funds has demonstrated the importance that the European Council has attached to both the continuation and reform of economic and social assistance within the Union.
Most welcome is the 300 million euros in funding guaranteed for use within the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
The Highlands and Islands have made good use of the funds provided under the existing Objective 1 programme but continue to be disadvantaged by peripheral and sparsity of population.
The continuation of funding will help the region overcome these disadvantages.
The only disappointing aspect of the summit was the limited reform of the common agricultural policy.
Far more radical reform is required.
The reform of the Structural Funds, as it stands following the Berlin summit, does not provide any solution to the inadequacies of regional policy.
It will not help to improve economic and social cohesion.
It is going to result in a particularly damaging breakdown in regional policy, notably to the detriment of several rural areas of France.
The only cause for satisfaction is fisheries.
Thanks to our intervention as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries, we were able to obtain the resources to fund structural measures for fisheries (restructuring the fleets, and so on) in regions located outside the scope of Objective 1, whether or not the beneficiaries belong to regions eligible for Objective 2.
In total, 0.39 % of the structural budget, that is ECU 875 million, is reserved for the FIFG.
Such a political outcome was not a foregone conclusion, as the Commission was so resolutely hostile to it at the start.
We are by no means as satisfied with regard to regional policy.
In this sector, the Berlin European Council further increased funding: ECU 195 billion for structural policy, ECU 18 billion for the Cohesion Fund and ECU 49 billion for the pre-accession instruments.
The Objective 1 regions get the lion's share, with 69.7 % of structural funding, to the detriment of Objective 2 (11.5 %).
Everyone is competing to be the most eloquent in demanding more funding, but no one is questioning the effectiveness of the money that has been spent.
What is there to say about a budgetary approach which consists of fixing a spending objective rather than a ceiling for spending, seeking out projects at all costs in order to spend all of the funds that have been approved, rather than allocating funds to existing projects? Spending is becoming an end in itself and the measure of a programme's success.
However, statistics published by the European Commission demonstrate, to anyone who will take the time to analyse them, the limits of the policy that has been followed:
The richest regions of the European Union increased in strength between 1986 and 1996, which bears witness to the concentration of wealth and activity in certain areas: Hamburg, Brussels, Antwerp, Luxembourg, Ile-de-France, Darmstadt, Upper Bavaria, Bremen, Vienna... and to a lesser extent, Karlsruhe and Emilia-Romagna.-The implementation of economic and monetary union is sure to aggravate the depopulation of the most outlying, most rural and least populated regions, to the benefit of the central area of the Union (Benelux, north-west Germany, northern Italy, Ile-de-France, etc.).-The poorest regions are gradually making up for their delayed development.
The average of the 10 poorest regions was 41 % of Community GNP in 1986.
In 1996 it was 50 %.
This development is particularly marked in Portugal and Ireland.-In actual fact, while the rich are growing ever richer and the very poor are becoming less poor, it seems that the average regions, those which receive funds from Objective 2, are experiencing a sometimes considerable reduction in their GNP and a worsening of the employment situation.
This is particularly evident in France: the Pays-de-Loire has seen its GNP fall from 95 % to 91 % of the Community average, that of Poitou-Charentes has dropped from 91 % to 83 %, and that of the Centre, from 103 % to 92 %.
This is a general trend which spares neither Rhône-Alpes nor Alsace.
It has been confirmed in Sweden and Finland, countries where unemployment has also increased in worrying proportions during recent years, as well as in several regions of the United Kingdom.It may therefore seem strange that during the negotiations Objective 2, which is dedicated to industrial and rural regions undergoing economic restructuring, should have been sacrificed to the benefit of Objectives 1 and 3: its budgetary envelope will be ECU 22.5 billion for the period 1999-2006, which is more or less the same figure as for the period 1994-1999.
The rural regions eligible for Objective 5b will be among the main victims of this situation: in France, one third of the population eligible under this Objective will no longer receive structural funding after the transition period.
This is not the only anomaly in the reform of the Structural Funds.
Many regions are benefiting from special treatment as a result of political bargaining that has enabled them to escape the rigour of joint decisions.
Only three countries are excluded from this: Luxembourg, Finland... and France.
The case of the Belgian Hainaut region is significant.
It is receiving an additional allocation of ECU 15 million in order to compensate for the loss of its eligibility for Objective 1, while the French Hainaut, which borders on it, is receiving nothing. This discrimination is not justified either by GNP or by the level of unemployment in the two regions.
This example is quite a good illustration of France's position at the end of the negotiations.
Having been weakened by Germany with regard to agricultural issues, France's position on regional policy has not been respected and it has also been unable to maintain the position that it had within the CAP.
In this sector, as in many others, the Berlin summit has been a failure: a failure for France and a failure for Europe.
Happart report (A4-0168/99)
Madam President, I rise to speak on the Happart report.
We agree with the price proposals in the report because for legal reasons they are vital to protecting farm incomes.
But I want to point out that the package is not sufficient to protect farmers' ability to survive, as agricultural prices are staying the same, while the general price level is rising constantly as a result of inflation.
That brings down farm incomes - in Austria it brought them down by 1.7 % in 1997 - while raising incomes in, for example, industry.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the report because I believe that we basically still need another discussion about agricultural policy in this House.
I would like to see more market.
When you think that according to OECD statistics, one third of all farm revenue in industrialised countries comes not from the market but from state support for agriculture and in the European Union as much as 40 % of farm revenue comes from the taxpayer's pocket, from state support, then in my view that means we must urgently review this sector.
That also applies to price supports and subsidies, such as for sugar, where we pay twice if not three times the world market price and then regulate matters again with quotas for individual undertakings.
I believe we need more market in farming. I would have liked to see that reflected here.
We take it that the agreements reached by the Council of Ministers in Berlin on the common agricultural policy form the basis for the implementation work now being carried out by the Commission.
There is consequently no need in our view for Parliament to complicate the situation further by coming forward with proposals for joint action.
Under these circumstances, we decided to support our group's position, even though we still maintain our previous criticism of the CAP.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the Happart report because it paves the way for a rise in the prices of agricultural products.
We cannot support price increases at a time when a reform package has only just been adopted which lowers the prices.
This simply does not make sense.
We should instead be reducing the prices, especially in the sugar and sugar beet sector, where there is no common organisation of the market.
The artificially high prices of our agricultural goods must gradually be reduced so that they reach the same level as the world market prices.
This is an essential prerequisite for the enlargement process.
The text we are holding in our hands is the negative summation and dangerous outcome of what was forecast in Agenda 2000 and what is already being implemented through the specific regulations governing most agricultural products. These regulations establish strict prices and quotas, which cannot be changed if the regulations themselves are not changed.
All the rest is just a veneer of negotiations and debates; what we are actually talking about is simply the timing of a death that has already been prophesied.
The Commission proposals simply apply the term 'reduction' across the board for all agricultural products.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development examined these proposals and rejected all the amendments that called for price increases. What we are left with are dangerous proposals, without any balance between the human factor, production and the land, and without any link between prices and products.
These proposals aim to further reduce the agricultural population and to bring down prices and production costs in the interests of competition. Not only will they give rise to new imbalances in production; they will also directly threaten the quality of products, the environmental balance, agricultural employment, the social balance and social cohesion.
As the rapporteur himself points out, the 1992 review of the common agricultural policy led to a decline in the markets and to a reduction in farmers' incomes. It even managed to wipe out small and medium-sized family farms, chiefly in the Mediterranean regions of the Community.
This resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of farms and in the level of jobs in agriculture, thereby increasing unemployment in agricultural regions and dangerously accelerating the depopulation of the countryside. The average income resulting from agricultural activity throughout the EU fell by 3.9 % in relation to 1997.
Your aim is to reduce it even further, hence the new proposals for agricultural prices, true to the spirit and letter of Agenda 2000. These proposals not only prolong the current situation by means of 'technical adjustments', and address the problem of farmers' incomes in a technocratic way; they also push ahead with the further decreases in incomes with the avowed ulterior objective of reducing the agricultural workforce and driving farmers out of the farming profession.
The measures implemented in this sector prove that the declarations of interest in protecting and promoting the countryside are sanctimonious and hypocritical.
Prices and subsidies have been frozen or drastically reduced for the eleventh successive year.
Institutionalised intervention is being cut back or abolished, leaving the small and medium-sized farmers at the mercy of commercial middlemen and multinationals.
In addition, subsidies are vanishing into thin air to pay crippling co-responsibility fines.
The unconcealed injustice that is being perpetrated against small and medium-sized family producers is continuing and even increasing. Moreover, large farms, which absorb 80 % of Community support, are still being subsidised in a provocative and even more intensified manner.
And finally, the policies being implemented serve the God of large-scale interests. These declarations of interest in the protecting and promoting the countryside are exactly on a par with those made on humanitarian aid and on the protection of the Kosovar Albanians under the hailstorm of murderous bombs.
Step by step, a new feudalism is appearing with new tenant farmers. The feudal method is being revived through co-responsibility fines, so-called co-resourcing, and so on.
This debate has the wrong title.
It is not about establishing prices but about detailing disgraceful acts against small and medium-sized farmers, against producers in the south, against consumers and against the fabric of society and environmental stability.
You say you are bombing Yugoslavia for 'humanitarian reasons'.
Are you exterminating farmers for 'environmental reasons'? It appears that their sweat and toil are polluting the 'healthy environment' of 'globalisation' and of 'competition', and that you want to return them to the purgatory of the 'new order of things'.
But the farmers have demonstrated that they do not intend to accept, much less serve, such designs. They have proved this through their struggles, through their rallies, through the mass pan-European rally that was recently held in Brussels with the participation of the 15 Member States, and through the rallies in the enlargement countries, such as Poland.
You will reap what you sow.
You will be forced to defend yourselves at a people's Nuremberg on account of your anti-farming and peace-shattering policy.
The report by our colleague Mr Happart is the last report on the agricultural prices of the current CAP.
Once again, the majority of Parliament has voted against the amendments requesting that depreciation of the currency be taken into account when establishing price levels and compensatory aid.
Farmers' income is penalised by this depreciation of the currency.
What social group would accept a stabilisation of its income, meaning a decrease in real terms?
The launch of the euro on 1 January of this year also had negative effects on European farmers' incomes due to the pure and simple abolition of the green ecu.
The combined effect of inflation and the abolition of the green ecu is going to give rise to a drop of around 4 % in institutional prices and compensatory aid in the next marketing year.
When we are discussing agriculture in general we hear a great many calls for rural development, the traceability and health and safety of products, respect for the environment and animal welfare, etcetera.
Now, when we are voting on the economic factors that enable us to fix farmers' income, all we do is regularly reduce it.
Faced with the problem of the reduction in aid and prices, the only option available to our farmers is to turn to intensification, either by expanding their farms, or by setting up off-land production.
How can we fail to see that it is contradictory to set high environmental, health or animal welfare standards, while at the same time regularly reducing the principle of Community preference? In order to have European production costs and European constraints, we must have European prices.
This should be the plan of action for professional and political leaders who want to safeguard European agriculture.
I will be voting today in favour of fair agricultural prices from the country market to the supermarket.
This has always been the policy of the Labour Government.
At the recent Berlin EU summit, for example, Labour secured reforms of the common agricultural policy that will eventually save British consumers around 1 billion pounds a year, while protecting farm incomes.
The Labour Government also won Britain a fairer share of EU regional aid at the Berlin summit.
Labour not only made sure that Merseyside kept its Structural Funds, but secured new Structural Funds for South Yorkshire, West Wales and Cornwall.
Furthermore, Labour also successfully negotiated special funds for the Scottish Highlands and Northern Ireland.
All this was achieved while at the same time stabilising the EU budget.
The Labour Government successfully defended Britain's EU budget rebate.
Labour also ensured that the EU budget will remain within its cap of 1.27 % of GNP well into the next century.
The Tories always made a pig's ear of EU summits, most famously when they demanded Jacques Santer be elected President of the European Commission.
Labour, by contrast, can be trusted to bring home the bacon.
Jové Peres report (A4-0164/99)
Madam President, I voted against all three agricultural reports. My position regarding the Happart report also applies to the Jové Peres report.
Fantuzzi report (A4-0173/99)
Madam President, I welcome the intention to introduce measures to promote and provide information on agricultural products in third countries because I consider these instruments absolutely necessary if we want to continue to withstand international competition.
The EU must pursue an active export policy that goes beyond the use of export refunds and can have a positive impact on the sales of agricultural products over and above the existing export refunds.
Given the importance of this regulation, let me point out that the funding allocated and the financing procedures must be adequate.
There should be a special budget to ensure that this export policy instrument has a real impact.
Since I consider it important to ensure that the measures can be applied in practice, I have vehemently opposed the introduction of a new management committee.
It is regrettable that the Commission should have waited more than two years before presenting the proposal for a regulation on measures to promote and provide information on agricultural products in third countries.
The Agriculture Council had been asking the Commission since the beginning of 1997 to examine the possibility of setting up a horizontal framework for the assistance of promotion activities for the export of agricultural products.
I would first of all like to highlight the extremely small size of the budget proposed by the Commission, which only amounts to EUR 15 million per year.
I would like to make a comparison with the free trade agreement concluded with South Africa.
In order to compensate for not using European designation of origin terms (port, sherry, etcetera), the Commission has agreed in its negotiations with the South African authorities to provide funding of EUR 15 million in order to allow South African wine products to enter the European market.
With regard to the measures covered by this promotion fund, we did of course support the amendment aimed at abolishing the eligibility of 'high-level visits by Community representatives.'
Why should European funds be used to finance trips taken by Commissioners or directors-general of the Commission to third countries? Personally, I do not think that the role of a Commissioner is identical to that of a sales representative.
Finally, our group voted against Amendment No 23, which was unfortunately adopted by the majority of the House.
This amendment specifies that the Commission shall carry out a study into the possibility of abolishing export refunds and making part of the funds released available for promotion measures.
Once again, through a text that could be positive for European agriculture, the defenders of globalisation of the agricultural markets are eroding the principle of Community preference.
Viceconte report (A4-0166/99)
I am pleased to see that Parliament's determination has borne fruit.
Since the start of the discussion on the Commission proposal on serious diseases, that is to say about a year ago, Parliament has stood firm in its position.
This led to the meeting of a Conciliation Committee, in which the main amendments proposed by Parliament were eventually approved by the Council.
This is why I am very satisfied.
There has recently been a heightening of awareness about rare diseases, which have long been ignored by doctors, researchers and society, and they are finally becoming a real public health concern.
This must become a priority in public health policy in the European Union.
This is the aim of the programme of action proposed by the Commission, which is based on the view that if impetus is not given at European level, work in this field will never progress.
Indeed, as these diseases are rare, the cost of developing and marketing drugs aimed at preventing or treating them would not be covered by sales of the drugs.
These drugs, which are therefore called orphan medicinal products, are also the subject of a proposal for a regulation that I would like to see adopted as soon as possible.
With the aim of treating all diseases equally, we therefore need to put in place all the necessary measures to facilitate and encourage the work carried out by researchers and to ensure the appropriate remedies are put on the market.
It seems clear that this can be done most effectively at Community level.
Only transnational cooperation will enable us to use the appropriate measures and knowledge in a coordinated manner, and to rationalise spending.
This is why the European Parliament has demanded and obtained measures concerned with setting up a European information network, establishing cooperation between voluntary organisations from the various Member States, training professionals and promoting networks among experts.
However, it was not possible to alter the Council's position with regard to the size of the budgetary envelope, which the European Parliament wanted to see doubled.
This is obviously very disappointing.
Nevertheless, a joint declaration on the Commission proposal aimed at defining a new framework programme in the field of public health states that it will be necessary to 'duly take account of the budgetary implications.'
This is a compromise.
The European Parliament will ensure that it is respected.
Ghilardotti report (A4-0186/99)
We applaud this report on the proposal for a Council Directive establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Community.
Thanks to the directive, one of the most significant employee rights will be consolidated. This is vital both for strengthening the social dialogue and for increasing mutual trust within companies.
As to the scope of the directive, we would have preferred not to see a requirement for 'at least 50 employees'.
There are no grounds, in our view, for any such threshold; instead, emphasis should be placed on the right of all employees to be informed and consulted.
As the directive does no more than set minimum standards, however, we feel that we can go along with the proposed threshold. Member States remain free to apply provisions that they believe would suit them better.
The Danish Social Democrats have abstained from voting on the proposal for a directive on information and consultation.
We cannot vote in favour of the proposal because there is a danger that, in its present form, it will interfere with Denmark's special bargaining model, whereby information and consultation are regulated in agreements on cooperation committees concluded between the social partners.
We have not voted against, however, because the question of informing and consulting employees is part of the EU's social dimension, which must not be opposed in the interests of solidarity with those workers in the EU and the new Member States who do not yet have efficient systems for informing and consulting employees.
We therefore hope that the Council will find a solution which satisfies both the need of workers for a high level of information and consultation throughout the EU and the need for Member States to be able to maintain systems which are already functioning efficiently.
I voted against this report in the final vote because I believe that responsibility for the issues it covers lies with the Member States. It is the subsidiarity principle which should apply here.
I must express my very great satisfaction with regard to the proposal for a Council directive and Mrs Ghilardotti's report.
What is at the heart of this proposal are workers' legitimate rights to be informed and particularly to be consulted with regard to decisions on the management and organisation of the firm for which they are working.
The discrepancy between this right and reality is actually very great, and workers are too often treated as mere pawns who can be used as the economic climate dictates.
Nevertheless, in Europe there is a real will among workers to make their voice heard and to have a role to play in the running of their firm.
This is a characteristic of our European social model, and we must protect it at all costs.
Legislative measures must reflect workers' demands.
The Commission proposal aims to do this.
Its objective is to ensure minimum standards of consultation and information.
Even if it is only the 'union minimum', as in the French expression, we need to see it as only a first stage in a more long-term strategy of strengthening the role of workers.
Competitiveness and social dialogue are not in conflict with each other - quite the contrary!
I fully subscribe to the opinion that the necessary restructuring will be much better received, even if it involves job losses or retraining, if management have been able to explain their approach and to listen to comments from employees.
These measures must be applied in as many firms as possible.
The threshold of at least 50 employees is satisfactory.
Nevertheless, this should not exempt small businesses from taking into account the opinions of their staff.
We will have to work on defining incentive mechanisms in order to promote this type of dialogue.
It is obvious that with this aim of extending the scope of these measures, we cannot accept the derogations proposed by the Commission for companies that pursue political, ideological or religious aims.
We obviously need to define appropriate penalties so that these measures can be correctly applied.
Along the same line of thinking, Mrs Ghilardotti rightly reaffirmed that we would no longer tolerate employee representatives being penalised as a result of their duties, and I will not disagree with her.
If we want to prevent Europe from remaining simply an unidentified social object for workers, we must arm ourselves with the means of guaranteeing their basic rights.
We are voting against the report on informing and consulting employees in national enterprises.
The proposal is a striking example of lack of respect for the principle of subsidiarity.
In the first place, there is no cross-border aspect to the proposal and, secondly, this matter has already been regulated in the majority of Member States, including Denmark, through cooperation agreements.
This matter must be regulated nationally and between the social partners.
Such an approach will take into account the subsidiarity principle and the national differences and traditions within the EU.
The number of companies closing down operations or relocating has increased.
Sweden has lost businesses because EU aid has been delivered in more advantageous ways in other countries.
That is not how EU support was intended to function.
Shutdowns and relocation have an impact on companies' workforces.
It is important that individuals affected by such decisions can be informed at an early stage.
Such matters are dealt with under collective agreements and legislation in the various Member States. In Sweden, we have the Co-determination at Work Act.
The proposed directive seeks to introduce a consultation framework under which management can inform labour of major changes in company strategy.
There are grounds for asking whether this is an area which the EU should be regulating. As the directive is designed to bring in minimum requirements, however, the Member States - or the two sides of industry - are free to maintain or introduce rules which call for more extensive provision of information.
I voted against the report because the legal basis conflicts with it.
Report as a whole: against.
Any proposal or measure that strengthens the information, control and role of workers within a company will have our full support, despite the fact that we are aware of the limitations of such legislative interventions in the day-to-day reality of the system in which we live.
From this standpoint, we agree that we need to establish an obligatory and effective legislative instrument that will provide for the swiftest and broadest possible information and consultation of employees on issues relating to the progress and prospects of the company, employment, labour relations and, more generally, all the issues and planned decisions that directly affect the interests of workers and, consequently, their lives and prosperity.
However, we are categorically opposed to the direction these procedures are taking within the Commission. It regards information and consultation as tools to make it easier to ensure the compliance of workers, or, as mentioned in the explanatory statement of the proposal for a directive, as a prerequisite for the success of procedures to restructure companies and adapt them to the new conditions created by the globalisation of the economy, especially through the development of new ways of organising work.
In our view, the process of informing, consulting and involving workers must be considered as one of the ways in which they can strengthen their role and influence, with a view to effectively promoting and supporting their interests. Naturally, they should not become merely participants in decisions that are taken in their absence.
The way in which these mechanisms are developed will clearly depend on the workers themselves and, to a large extent, the orientation and quality of their representatives.
Furthermore, employers are strongly opposed to the text proposed by the Commission - which is somewhat unambitious and limited - and also to the many amendments tabled in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and here in the House with a view to rendering it devoid of content. This is proof that, if they function correctly, these mechanisms may contribute effectively to defending workers' interests.
We do not believe that this directive will be effective if it only covers 3 % of companies, as the Commission itself admits.
In our view, the implementation threshold for this directive must be lowered to five employees so that it will cover small SMEs, which form the overwhelming majority of companies. This is something that has already entered into force in some national legislations under pressure from the labour movement.
The limitations that are being proposed in the name of the confidential character of information and the protection of privacy are unacceptable. If enforced, such limitations will lead to a substantial infringement of the right to be informed and consulted.
The provisions for the timing and extent of the information and consultation process must be especially stringent. This process must take place in good time, before a decision is taken, so that there is sufficient time for workers to act, and it must include any changes that may affect their labour and security rights.
We are referring, in particular, to plans for reorganisation, amalgamation and cooperation, investments, relocation, closures of all or part of a company or establishment, and changes in labour relations, as well as more general issues, such as the strategy, position and development of the company.
It is constructive that the report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs attempts to make significant improvements to the Commission text.
These improvements hope to extend the scope of the directive, the content of information and the degree of consultation. They also hope to prevent Member States from restricting the scope of the directive to large companies, that is, those employing more than 100 workers, and to increase the protection of workers' representatives.
However, above and beyond this, it is extremely important to retain the provision in the Commission proposal that relates to the lack of legal consequences of the decisions taken by an employer in violation of the obligation to inform and consult. Therefore, we must not adopt the amendments which seek to do away with this provision.
Otherwise, the directive would become devoid of content.
Nonetheless, this matter of the lack of legal consequences must relate to the entire decision that is taken where the obligation to inform and consult is not met, and not just to the section involving labour relations and agreements. This would help us to prevent any violations of the directive.
I felt unable to support this report in the final vote. The directive cuts fundamentally into national systems for informing workers; yet we have not had sufficient evidence of the need for a supranational regulatory approach.
In the absence of proper discussion of the effects of the measures advocated, the consequences for industrial relations could be dire.
That is why I could not endorse the proposal - although it contains many good ideas.
I certainly see a need for better provision of information to workers in the public sector.
Ghilardotti and Chanterie reports (A4-0186/99 and A4-0184/99)
Madam President, I would like to give an explanation of vote on the Ghilardotti and Chanterie reports on aspects of social policy.
I believe we all need to reconsider as a matter of principle to what extent we want to deal with certain policy areas at European level.
I voted against both reports because in my view we should not create a kind of social union within the European Union. We should not be aiming at a tax union.
We need state influence at national level; but we do not need it at European level at the same time.
Labour market policy should be organised at national level.
According to both reports, the labour market should be regulated Europe-wide by means of consultation rights being granted Europe-wide and working time rules applying Europe-wide, as proposed in the Chanterie report.
I believe we should keep to national rules in this area.
We do not have to regulate everything at European level.
We do not need to imitate the nation-state at European level.
That is why I am against these two 'social policy' reports.
Chanterie report (A4-0184/99)
The principal merit of these reports, presented by our colleagues Mr Chanterie and Mr McMahon, is that they bring the issue of reducing working hours back into our field of discussion, even though we are not concerned today with debating the benefits of this approach in the battle against unemployment.
This being the case, the proposals presented to us are entirely aimed at considerably improving the situation for those professions that have so far been excluded from the various measures that already exist.
From this point of view, I agree with Raphaël Chanterie's proposal that the period necessary for the Member States to conform to the new provisions of the directive should be limited to four years.
Also, like Hugh McMahon, I must support the idea of including self-employed drivers in the directive on working time for road transport.
Too many examples demonstrate that excessive periods at the wheel dramatically increase the risk of road accidents.
I also note with satisfaction that the report takes into account the considerable growth in subcontracting, which allows too much freedom with regard to the legislation in force.
Finally, I dare to hope that the demands made concerning the monitoring of working and driving hours will be effectively implemented by the Member States, but I have some concerns in this respect.
I have regularly questioned the Commissioners on working time in the road transport sector and on the employment conditions of certain shipping companies.
So in future I will see to it that these new directives are effectively applied.
The economic Europe is on the way to becoming a reality.
While our fellow citizens have understood that there are certain obligations linked to this stage, the time has now come to build a citizens' Europe in which social matters must have an important place.
Without this, the very idea of Europe will be questioned!
As evidence of support for social protection in the EU, the Commission is putting forward its proposal on extending the working time directive to cover sectors and activities which were excluded and which concern approximately six million workers, chiefly in the transport sectors.
Unfortunately, however, we are unable to agree with the Commission: on the one hand, the 1993 directive did not go far enough and fell far short of most national legislations, and on the other, the proposal is part of a more general package, which is characterised by the segregation of workers and by indefensible derogations and exceptions.
First and foremost, we are opposed to any segregation of workers into mobile and non-mobile workers.
It is true that mobile workers have certain special features according to the sector in which they are employed, but this can be resolved by relevant special regulations, which must not, under any circumstances, entail a reduction in the level of protection afforded to them.
Evidence of the arbitrary nature of the regulations lies in the fact that the Commission itself is proposing that the directive should cover all non-mobile workers in the sectors which are currently excluded, as well as mobile workers in the rail sector.
It would seem that mobile workers in other sectors who are not subject to the general working time directive will be covered by other special regulations which lay down more oppressive terms and conditions.
A typical example is the proposal for a directive relating to the working time of mobile workers in road transport, which permits working times of up to 60 hours per week.
The Commission's current position clearly bears the same hallmarks as the approach governing the general working time directive that is already in force and that is characterised by the flexibility of the working week: it allowed the Greek Government to adopt a bill on working time arrangements which allows for a working week of up to 48 hours. In last year's White Paper on this subject and in its current proposal, the Commission stresses the need for action to allow adequate business flexibility for companies and prevent unjustified burdens on companies, as it so elegantly describes the protective provisions of this labour legislation.
We fear that by extending the scope of the directive, the way is being prepared for the directive to be amended as a whole. This would be unfortunate as it would provide even greater opportunities to manipulate working time.
A typical example of the problem is the provision to extend the reference period for the calculation of the average weekly working time from the four months generally in force to twelve months for mobile workers and workers chiefly undertaking work on the open seas.
Moreover, it is laid down categorically that mobile workers will be exempt from the provisions of articles relating to the daily rest period - that is, working hours - even though the directive still allows for 13-hour days. They will also be exempt from articles relating to breaks and weekly rest periods - with the result that seven-day working works are still permitted - and the article relating to the duration of night work, which firmly states that this must not exceed eight hours.
At the same time, there is no specific provision setting out any quantitative limit.
Incidentally, the provision establishing Sunday as a day of rest is being abolished.
In our opinion, we obviously cannot talk either of extending the level of protection, or of legal protection against the disruption of working relations and working time. This is particularly evident in the transport sector in the context of the completion of procedures to liberalise the markets and greater competition.
The report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs has come up with some constructive amendments that mainly limit permissible derogations. Yet it retains the basic exceptions in relation to mobile workers.
It also accepts the view that, by means of collective agreements, we can have derogations to the reference period for the working week, even though it limits the scope of the relevant provisions.
However, collective agreements - at whatever level they are concluded - must not be allowed to undermine the position of workers and infringe fundamental provisions of labour legislation, such as those relating to the calculation of working time and those of a necessarily traditional nature.
Moreover, one of the basic principles governing the law of collective agreements is that they must either be brought into line with the overlying legislative provision or their content must be more favourable to workers.
Against this background, it is clear that such legislative intervention will not solve most of the problems it is supposed to try to solve. Indeed, under the guise of the specific characteristics of the various sectors, it puts the segregation of workers on an official footing and prepares the ground for a more general amendment of the working time directive that will be to our detriment.
We have denounced the 1993 directive from the outset and we ask that it be amended to promote the 35-hour working week without reducing incomes, safeguard the 5-day working week and the 7-hour working day, drastically limit overtime, and abolish overwork. We also want it to place stringent limitations on night work and restrict derogations to the permissible minimum subject to stringent conditions, taking account of the special features of the respective sectors.
In each case, the central objective of the legislation on working time must be to protect the health and safety of workers and the population as a whole, to reduce unemployment, to promote the aim of full employment, to make use of the opportunities provided by modern technology to the benefit of humankind, and to prevent it being contravened by means of contracts such as those related to tied labour.
McMahon report (A4-0187/99)
Everyone is aware that road transport is one of the sectors in which the social Europe does not exist.
In the absence of an agreement between employers and workers, it is therefore positive for that social Europe that the Commission has taken on its responsibilities and proposed the directive that we are discussing today.
Along with workers' unions, the rapporteur and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs have approved the main principles of the Commission text and improved it with regard to certain social aspects:
the 48-hour week will be the minimum standard for all drivers in the EU, - working time can be up to 60 hours as long as the average of 48 hours remains the reference period, - the directive will also cover self-employed drivers and working time will be the same for employees and for self-employed drivers.Other provisions clarify and categorise road transport work, for example by giving a more restrictive definition of night work.
In general, we should hope that the Transport Council will reach an agreement so that road safety and the social welfare of drivers will be guaranteed and social dumping will finally be fought effectively in a sector in which the social Europe has been only too slow in arriving.
This report sets out to extend the 1993 working time directive to include further groups of employees.
The principles behind the 1993 directive and the present proposal are the same.
The 1993 directive has caused many problems for the Danish trade union movement.
In the first place, the EU directive does not, in general terms, contain any improvement in the legal position of Danish workers compared with the agreements that exist at present.
Moreover, the Danish authorities have required that the directive should be implemented by incorporating it into the agreements.
In our opinion, this is absurd and this kind of thing - coupled with other (increasing) instances of EU interference in Danish agreements - has the effect of undermining free negotiations.
We fully appreciate that the proposal can, in some respects, be regarded as progress in those EU countries whose trade unions lack the strength to demand improvements through agreements.
But based on our experiences in Denmark - and because the EU must respect free negotiations - we cannot vote in favour of this proposal to extend the EU's regulatory power.
We voted against Hugh McMahon's report on working time in the transport industry, as we cannot accept the notion that self-employed drivers should be included in the proposal for the regulation of working time.
This would mean an immensely awkward reworking of arrangements in the case of Finland, and would seriously affect the feasibility of small business transport systems.
For the same reason we cannot accept the restrictions contained in the report on night work.
At long last the European Parliament has now had the opportunity to discuss a Council directive regulating the organisation of the driving and working time of professional drivers and to adopt it with a few proposals for improvements.
I hope that this directive, which has been overdue since at least 1993, is finally nearing the end of the road and it remains to be hoped that it will survive the deliberations still to come in the Council without changes.
In 1993 all the transport sectors were excluded from Directive 93/104, which laid down the general working time rules.
This directive is designed to make up for what was omitted at the time.
I wonder how many people today remember the vehemence of the discussions about Directive 3820/85, which the unions believed did not go far enough, while the employers believed it interfered far too much in working life.
Today we can say that even if Directive 3820/85 did not regulate everything as might have been expected, it was a good thing that it existed at all and tried to bring order into a profession in which labour law conditions had not progressed since the time of Emile Zola's book 'Germinal '.
However, today we may well ask how the mobile workers, meaning everyone employed in transport, could possibly have remained excluded from the general social rules on working time, periods of rest and driving time.
After the negotiations with the employers on collectively agreed rules failed again, the Commission now found itself forced to decide on a legal initiative.
So the weekly working time of all professional drivers has now been fixed at 48 hours.
However, this can be extended to 60 hours a week provided the average weekly working time over a period of four months remains 48 hours.
There was in fact an amendment calling for the four-month reference period to be reduced to one month but, although appealing, it was rejected by a majority.
It is also a pity that in fixing night-work time, the formula of 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. that is usual in all other occupational sectors was not retained.
One might indeed ask why night work for transport workers is now to be calculated from midnight to 5 a.m. even though many of them work right through the night.
This means that long-distance drivers and taxi drivers who work at night are deprived of well-deserved bonuses.
The greatest improvement introduced by the new directive is in driving and working time.
Here the Commission has finally realised that replacing the concept of driving time by that of working time would improve road safety, improve the drivers' working conditions and help harmonise competition between undertakings.
In the past driving time was the sole criterion, but now the criterion for professional drivers is the period from the beginning to the end of their work, thus including all the activities involved, such as driving, loading and unloading, technical standby duty, the time spent on customs formalities, and so on.
However, the practical problems relating to controls and to monitoring compliance with social rules on road transport need to be resolved.
A first means of ensuring this is the new tachograph that will apply from the year 2000. It not only automatically checks the time worked over a period of four months but also shows the hours worked over a one-year period.
Perhaps it can even be used as evidence that professional drivers work far longer hours than any other workers and therefore also have a right to retirement at age 55 as called for by the unions.
Be that as it may, the entry into force of the new directive, if it is respected, will bring major improvements with it, even though much will still remain to be done.
Blokland report (A4-0183/99)
Madam President, we voted for the report because the integration of the two directives on incinerating hazardous and non-hazardous waste is to be welcomed.
However, we very much regretted that Parliament did not adopt the Greens' amendment aimed at a zero-emission limit value for dioxin in water.
We know that dioxin is the most dangerous chemical mankind has ever produced.
Following new scientific findings, the WHO has also drawn attention to this problem of the maximum permissible level for humans and reduced its limit values.
So I cannot understand why Parliament has not followed an early Commission proposal.
I regard this high level of dioxin pollution as a kind of Waterloo in health terms.
I think it is totally irresponsible for Parliament not to accept these proposals, for this in fact means it has bowed to the pressure from industry.
In the case of a substance as dangerous as the Seveso poison dioxin, I find that difficult to understand.
It would have been important for Parliament, which accepted the reduction of dioxin emissions into the air and the reduction of the values, to also agree to the values for water.
It is quite incomprehensible why the values accepted for dioxin in water are five times as high as those for the air.
After all, water is the most essential means of survival and it is not impossible for drainage water to enter the ground water and for the emissions in the air to precipitate into the water.
That is why I very much regret that Parliament did not agree to halve the emissions of hazardous substances into the water or even opt for a zero emission level.
We had suggested a late date, namely the year 2020.
This would have been feasible in technical terms.
Unfortunately we did not manage to give priority to consumer protection.
I must express my surprise concerning the strategy defended by Mr Blokland and by the European Commission, which aims to fuse the Commission's proposal for a directive on the incineration of non-hazardous waste and Directive 94/67/EC on the incineration of so-called hazardous waste.
This plan to integrate the directives is worrying from several points of view.
First and foremost, Directive 94/67/EC, in accordance with Articles 13 and 18 of this directive, will be applied to existing incineration facilities for hazardous waste from 1 July 2000.
This means that those sites have planned investments with the aim of fully complying with the standards set out in the text by that date at the latest.
Those standards now have to be considered as obsolete, just when they are about to be applied throughout the Community.
Let us be serious: economic operators need a minimum degree of consistency and legal security.
Secondly, this fusion, on the legitimate pretext of simplifying Community legislation and making it clearer, actually ends up reducing the level of environmental protection by encouraging the mixing of hazardous and non-hazardous waste in the same facility.
This would undoubtedly mean that the incinerators that are currently under-supplied in some Member States could be used to their full capacity.
However, investment errors should not be corrected at the cost of reducing the security standards on hazardous waste.
It is essential that we maintain a very clear distinction between these two types of waste, as the fact that they are so different in nature and in their level of toxicity means that we need to define their specific technical characteristics.
This should be taken into account at each stage of waste management: when it is being collected, received, handled in the facilities and treated, and when disposing of residues and so on.
In fact, if we respect the principle of treating different types of waste separately, the proposed aim of simplifying legislation loses much of its interest.
However, we must support the idea of reducing the economic distortions that result from the differences between the standards for emissions into the atmosphere and discharges into water, but that should not be done to the detriment of the progress that had been made as a result of Directive 94/67/EC on hazardous waste.
Parliament adopted the integration of the directives, and I therefore voted against the modified proposal.
We voted against all the amendments that involved merging Directive 94/67/EC on hazardous waste and the proposal for a directive on non-hazardous waste.
The approach proposed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection presents several risks.
There is a danger that the rules that apply to the incineration of hazardous waste will be relaxed by implicitly allowing it to be incinerated in facilities intended for non-hazardous waste.
With regard to the application of the directive on non-hazardous waste, merging these two texts runs the risk of causing a delay in the adoption of new emission limit values as defined in Directive 94/67/EC.
With regard to monitoring, there may be a fear that the preliminary monitoring procedures specific to the incineration or co-incineration of hazardous waste will be removed.
Even if fully applied by producers of special waste, these monitoring procedures cannot be incorporated into the procedures that are carried out when receiving non-hazardous waste at non-hazardous waste incineration facilities.
With regard to the balance of incineration lines, this integration of the two directives threatens to favour certain incineration lines to the detriment of others, through ill-adapted limit values, whereas we need to pursue all four incineration lines: the specialised incineration of non-hazardous waste, the specialised incineration of hazardous waste, co-incineration (incineration in a cement kiln) and incineration by adapted combustion plants.
We must take care not to give priority to one incineration line over another, given that the environmental and energy balance responds to recognised needs.
Last but by no means least, there is a risk of an excessive rise in treatment costs, bringing no significant environmental benefit, with limit values being fixed for pollutants that are not specific to the waste being incinerated (sulphur dioxide or nitrogen oxide for example), which should be adapted both according to the type of facility and to its capacity.
This proposal substantially supplements the existing Directive 94/67/EC - replacing Article 8 - on a crucial environmental point: determining the specific limits for the concentration of pollutants in treated liquid waste resulting from the cleaning of exhaust gases and determining specific controls and monitoring procedures.
The principle that is being adopted is a sound one.
We cannot allow pollution to be transferred from one environmental medium (air in this case) to another (water and soil in this case).
In other words, we cannot on the one hand lay down strict limits on concentrations of pollutants in gas emissions from an incineration plant (and as a result, through the cleaning of the combustion gases, extract large quantities of pollutants) while, on the other hand, allowing a large part of these pollutants (through the defective treatment of the cleaned air) to lead to permissible quantities of (defectively) treated discharges.
It is worthwhile noting the following:
1.The philosophy and thinking behind the proposal brings to the forefront, from another viewpoint, the internal contradiction of incineration as a method of treating hazardous - although not only hazardous - waste.
In other words, the more we try to reduce atmospheric pollution by retaining greater amounts of toxic substances by cleaning the combustion gases, the greater the problems we are faced with when protecting the other two environmental mediums - water and air - from pollution and, of course, the greater the financial resources needed for this purpose.2.This method of incineration is unreliable in terms of protecting the environment and public health due to the uncertainty that still exists with regard to the danger of pollutants in treated combustion gases resulting from the operation of incineration plants. Characteristic of this uncertainty are the enormous discrepancies in the explanatory statement concerning the upper emission limits that have been established by developed countries.
These limits are up to a thousand times higher or lower according to the country or plant involved.3.Based on the above, therefore, the opinion of a large section of the scientific community and all NGOs on the limitations and shortcomings of the incineration of hazardous waste is borne out. As a result, the priority of the precautionary principle, that is, the non-production or the limited production of hazardous waste, is confirmed.4.All the above applies in full to the incineration of non-hazardous solid waste.
In other words, we are calling for corresponding regulations. And these problems are further exacerbated by the fact that: a) The incineration units have much greater capacity, resulting in a much greater production of combustion gases.b) In this case, we have the production (due to incineration) of toxic substances 'from scratch', since non-hazardous waste, including household waste and associated waste, contains zero or negligible amounts of toxic substances, whilst their incineration gives rise to all the problems mentioned above, such as the production of dioxins, furans, heavy metals, slag, bottom ashes, and so on.- Lienemann report (A4-0180/99)
In order to be coherent and effective, any environmental strategy must be carried out by means of a legislative approach combined with economic and fiscal instruments, and must be supported by adequate financial instruments.
LIFE is the only Community financial instrument aimed entirely at supporting an environmental policy covering the whole of the European Union and including environmental cooperation with neighbouring countries.
Due to the type of projects that it funds, LIFE is distinguished from the other instruments for research and development and support of structural investments that also contribute to protecting the environment.
The proposal for a regulation that we are to vote on today presents the third phase of LIFE, incorporating three thematic components:
LIFE-Nature, which is based on the cofinancing of nature protection projects that can contribute to preserving and regenerating natural habitats and species (budget heading B4-3200).
LIFE-Environment, which is based on the cofinancing of new environmental measures, demonstration projects and preparatory projects aimed at integrating an environmental dimension into land-use development and planning projects and industrial production activities, with a view to improving waste management and reducing the effects that products have on the environment (budget heading B4-3201).
LIFE-Third Countries, which is based on the cofinancing of technical assistance programmes focused on creating capacity for the administrative structures that are required in the environmental sector and that are necessary for developing an environmental policy, and action programmes in neighbouring third countries other than countries that are candidates for accession (budget heading B7-810).
The members of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations voted for the amendments that favour the setting up and application of the LIFE programme.
However, we wish to stress that measures undertaken with the support of LIFE must take account of Community environment policy.
We therefore voted against the amendment which made the development of this policy conditional on the results of the LIFE programme.
If this was the case, the financial resources that are envisaged in the programme would be entirely insufficient, particularly with regard to the enlargement of the European Union to include the CEECs.
The sitting was suspended at 1.50 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Situation in Kosovo
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Kosovo.
Mr President, since Kosovo is daily and nightly on our minds, I do not mind being taken by surprise in having to make some introductory remarks, bearing in mind that this morning the German presidency and the President of the Commission also devoted time to this very important issue.
I am sure it goes for both the Council and the Commission when I say that we are very much aware of the seriousness of the situation, of the human tragedy that is developing, and that nothing must hinder us from examining and thinking continuously how to bring this appalling situation to a politically satisfactory solution.
Obviously that is not an easy thing to do.
We should be pleased that the Western Alliance, including the European Union - and Russia to a large extent - have managed to maintain a common attitude towards what is seen as a barbarism which should no longer belong on our continent.
It is therefore of the utmost importance that this Union is preserved.
The Commission, for its part, has supported the presidency in every effort and initiative, trying to show that while it is not our opinion that military solutions should be used to resolve this tragedy, they are at least preventing President Milosevic from imposing a military solution and exploiting his military might against the Albanians in Kosovo.
That will not be accepted.
In the past weeks the German presidency has been working very hard with the other European, American and Russian partners to try to see how the military track on the one hand could be accompanied by political initiatives on the other.
The House will be aware that there was an important meeting in Oslo yesterday between Secretary-of-State Albright and the Russian Foreign Minister Ivanov, in an attempt to reach an agreement on a plan that is also being discussed today by our Heads of Government with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
This provides for an attempt to achieve unity on a Security Council resolution which would make clear to Mr Milosevic that what is expected from him in the first place is to take measures to allow the safe return of refugees - we should perhaps speak of deportees - to Kosovo.
This would be achieved by him withdrawing his troops and paramilitary services, to give the necessary guarantees for the security of these people, based on his acceptance of an international military presence on the ground.
Mrs Bonino and I have been trying to give active support to those countries which neighbour Kosovo and which are the most heavily affected by the massive influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees.
Therefore, we were very pleased to note the concerted support from the Council of Foreign Ministers who on Monday pledged EUR 250m to those countries.
EUR 150m would come from ECHO, to be spent mostly as usual through non-governmental organisations where obviously UNHCR plays an important role.
The other EUR 100m would enable the governments which are mainly dealing with the refugee problem to take certain measures to prevent destabilisation in their countries as a result of this unexpected massive influx.
We are thinking of Albania in the first place but also of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and we are also trying to reach those in Montenegro who are dealing with the massive influx of tens of thousands of displaced persons.
I hope we will be able to present final proposals to Parliament soon.
I have already been in touch with the chairman of the Committee on Budgets to try to arrange for the allocation of 100 million, which has to be found in the budget without damaging other important on-going programmes that, in fact, often benefit the same countries that we want to help with the additional EUR 100m.
This will not be the last time that we discuss this issue: it is an on-going process.
I can only conclude my introductory remarks by saying that we all hope very much that Milosevic will come to his senses.
It is not the outside world that is imposing a military solution on him, it is the outside world that is heavily and, we feel convincingly, protesting against the atrocities, the ethnic cleansing and the deportations that are taking place against the people of Kosovo.
Where we can alleviate their plight, we will spare no effort.
As Mrs Bonino is here, I take it that she will comment more particularly on the humanitarian efforts.
These are my introductory remarks.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to what Chancellor Schröder has already said today as President-in-Office of the European Council, I would like to stress that in the current serious crisis in and around Kosovo the European Union has demonstrated a high level of solidarity and ability to act.
It has shown solidarity in terms of its political evaluation of what is happening there - which, as you all know, has not always been the case - and an ability to act in relation to the aid that has to be provided for the people concerned, to the stabilisation measures that must be taken for the countries in the region and to consolidating the principle of the primacy of politics over war.
After all, when weapons speak we must not simply put politics to one side; instead we must always continue to pursue the road of politics.
We must be clear that political initiatives can contribute to putting an end to the use of arms.
Mrs Bonino and I were in Tirana and in Skopje exactly two weeks ago.
Mrs Bonino will no doubt be reporting on that later.
I just want to say that for both of us this journey was something totally outside the normal political routine.
I for my part - and I am quite sure this goes for Mrs Bonino too - was shaken to the core by what I witnessed there, and I have seen many such things in the past - the victims of torture in South Africa, the victims of famine in Somalia, the victims of expulsion in Africa - but I have never seen such a massive, such a brutal, such a systematic violation of human rights as there, and this is happening in the middle of Europe, on our doorstep!
So I believe it is essential that we adhere to the aim of putting a stop to this inhuman action.
It can no longer be tolerated in Europe at the end of this century!
Applause
At the same time, we have to exercise our political imagination to seek a solution to the problem.
The German Presidency is putting all its energy into endeavouring to do so at this time.
I am very happy to be able to tell you that broad international agreement is emerging on a process that looks something like this: the Yugoslav Government will be offered a 24-hour ceasefire as soon as it begins to withdraw its troops and paramilitary units.
That ceasefire will be extended if this withdrawal continues; and once the withdrawal is complete and the other conditions have been met, we can begin to implement a peace settlement, one that is still on the basis of what was negotiated in Rambouillet.
But that only answers the immediate question of what we will do when the shooting stops. The longer-term question is this: how can we develop a policy that guarantees stability and peace for the entire region in the long term?
Here we have put forward for discussion the idea of a stability pact for the entire region.
This must certainly be looked at as a medium and long-term process, at the end of which we do not envisage a new order in the sense of re-drawing borders or even persuading people to leave their home; at the end of it we want to see a political strategy that enables the peoples of the region to cooperate and to co-exist peacefully.
In the present situation it is crucial that the European Union and the international community leave no doubt about their resolve.
That is why we must adhere to the conditions we set for ending the military action.
These conditions are such that Milosevic can quite easily fulfil them.
It is up to him and him alone to ensure that his country is not destroyed even further and that the lives of the people of his country are not put at risk.
Let me also state again quite firmly: the international community is not at war with Serbia or with the Serbian people.
It is not a question of gaining territory, ruling over people, obtaining spheres of influence.
Nor is it a question of raw materials or oil or anything of the kind; it is a matter of fundamental human rights and nothing else!
It is a matter of ensuring that the declaration of human rights is not a hollow phrase in Europe but that ...
Heckling
There is no point in you interrupting because I do not understand you.
I do not understand your language.
There is no point.
I do not understand it!
It is a matter of making it clear that we are also prepared to make sacrifices for the sake of our common convictions and to most resolutely oppose the activities of those who are trying by criminal means to destroy all the progress we have achieved in European civilisation!
Applause
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
Mr President, yesterday was Holocaust Day in Israel.
That anniversary is a stark reminder of our commitment to the principle of 'never again!', which was the founding principle of the European Union.
We must never again turn a blind eye to genocide, we must never again tolerate ethnic cleansing, we must never again appease a brutal dictatorship.
The message has to go from this Chamber and from the international community that the Milosevic campaign of ethnic hatred, which began ten years ago, must end where it began - in Kosovo!
We must say to him that on the verge of the next millennium he cannot use events which took place in 1389 to justify mass murder today.
We will not let him drag us back to the barbarity of the Middle Ages.
Heckling
I congratulate the German presidency on the firmness of its resolve and leadership in this conflict.
We all know the immense difficulties this has presented for Germany, and I recognise and pay tribute to the courage of the German Chancellor and Foreign Minister in particular.
I also congratulate the Commission on the speed of its response to the humanitarian crisis, despite the difficulties it is having to face at the moment.
The Socialist Group has consistently argued that military action was a last resort because of the very dangers of military action which we are seeing at the moment.
However, once every possible opportunity for negotiation was exhausted - and every possible opportunity was exhausted - then military action was inevitable and should be supported by this House.
That military action must continue until Kosovar Albanians are able to return to their homes in peace.
We must not give Milosevic any sort of victory or allow him to play any more games with the international community.
We must increase our resolve to deal with the displaced people.
They are not refugees: they have been driven from their homes.
We must also learn our lessons from these events.
It is quite clear that we need to have a European defence identity and, therefore, the St Malo initiative must be followed up rapidly.
It is equally clear that Europe does not have the resources for a European defence identity: we cannot mount a campaign without American and NATO support.
So if we really believe in peace-making and peace-keeping, Member States must be prepared to have a defence budget commensurate with our ambitions.
It is not enough to talk!
We have to put our money where our mouths are!
The final lesson we must learn: a lot of attention is focused on the importance of Russia and America.
This whole tragedy has underlined the importance of one other country in Europe, and that is Turkey.
Turkey is clearly crucial to the peace and stability of this continent.
It is beholden on the European Union to take seriously its responsibilities for Turkey and ensure that Turkey feels part of the European family.
Mr President, it will take a long time to correctly assess the position taken by Europe in the tragedy of Kosovo, and it will not be done before the deafening bombing and the lamentations of the refugees have stopped ringing in our ears.
The warmongers will continue to shadow-box to ensure the effectiveness of aerial attacks, which have been going on with catastrophic ferocity for three weeks.
Ordinary people, however, are questioning the major role once again given to the Americans by Europe through NATO.
We must not forget that entire decades passed before Mr McNamara acknowledged that the massive intervention in Vietnam was a criminal error.
Nor should we forget that, more recently, just as Mr Milosevic is now being called 'the butcher of Kosovo', Saddam Hussein was called 'the butcher of Baghdad'. Despite the massive operation in the Gulf, he is still alive and continues to rule, whilst children in Iraq are dying of hunger and disease.
Now that the standoffs and dramas have reached a climax, there is no room for dispassionate responses.
There is, however, grave concern about the disastrous dangerous consequences that the failure to come up with a political solution might have.
There is concern that the whole of the Balkans risks becoming destabilised if ground operations are initiated, and unless the inviolability of existing borders is guaranteed. There is concern about a resurgence of cold war tensions and about the fact that the role of the United Nations as the guardian of peace and international legitimacy is in danger of being undermined.
Mr President, let us hope that this afternoon the Brussels Council will assume its real responsibilities, albeit belatedly, and that it will safeguard not the credibility of NATO, but peace in Europe and cooperation among all its peoples.
Mr President, I just wanted to say that I respect Mr Lambrias's opinion. But he did not express the opinion of the Group of the European People's Party.
I expressed it this morning in the presence of the President-in-Office of the Council.
Applause
I want to make that clear. And it must be recorded in the Minutes!
I already guessed what you were going to say, Mrs Pack, but this is a problem which should have been resolved earlier, within the group.
Mr Lambrias asked to speak on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party.
This is not the President's problem; this particular case is an issue for the political group.
Mr President, during this year many of us have met Mr Ibrahim Rugova.
On his frequent visits to European capitals and to Brussels, Mr Rugova told us several times, and with growing anguish, that a tragedy was unfolding in Kosovo and that Milosevic's violence would push the Kosovar population, and especially its young people, to armed struggle.
Unfortunately we did not take heed of those dire warnings.
Perhaps we wanted to, but we did not succeed.
The time required to reach intergovernmental agreements - the UN is a case in point but so are European mechanisms - is very long, which means that our decisions are dictated by procedures instead of by the true necessities of history and by the facts.
NATO's intervention was long overdue and I congratulate our colleagues from the EPP Group for clearly rejecting this statement, which I cannot imagine represents the opinion of our colleagues.
NATO's intervention did not cause ethnic cleansing.
It simply revealed its extent.
It did not provoke Mr Milosevic.
It has simply shown that Milosevic is a war criminal.
We respect the voices of those who would honestly not like to see weapons used.
We respect the voice of Catholic leaders such as the Pope; but if we do not use force against Milosevic, violence will continue and spread.
We need a union of minds and determination.
This is the reason why the ELDR Group would have preferred the European Parliament to have considered the utilisation of ground troops if needed.
For the rest, we fully agree with the joint statement and with what Chancellor Schroeder said this morning.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the crisis in Kosovo, which is completely dominating European current affairs, to the extent that it makes the other subjects being debated seem absurd, should be looked at from three points of view: the military aspect, the humanitarian aspect and the political and diplomatic aspect.
The political and diplomatic failure of the Rambouillet Conference, which did not succeed in obtaining the agreement of all the parties in the conflict, unfortunately reversed the order of priorities, and it is now the outcome of the military phase that will dictate what will happen next.
This outcome obviously depends solely on the behaviour of Slobodan Milosevic, who should not for one moment be in any doubt as to the determination of the NATO allies; they will only put an end to military action when the safety of all the inhabitants of Kosovo is guaranteed within the borders of the Federation of Yugoslavia, and when all the refugees, who are victims of ethnic cleansing, can return to their country.
This non-negotiable demand has just been pointed out in a most timely manner by the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.
It is supported by the large majority of public opinion in Europe.
By blindly refusing to face this reality, the dictator, a former Yugoslav communist, is adopting a suicidal attitude with regard to both himself and the entire Serbian population, whose sincere patriotism, which commands respect, is being abused.
While continuing their military pressure, NATO and the allies have to deal with an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.
The flood of refugees is overwhelming the capacity of Kosovo's neighbouring countries to accept them, and threatens to politically destabilise them.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is entangled in its own bureaucracy and perhaps paralysed by its inability to quickly mobilise the necessary resources, has proved to be inadequate, but the mobilisation of NGOs and the International Red Cross has been entirely remarkable.
In the face of the immense scale and the urgency of need, it is essential that humanitarian intervention is coordinated.
It seems that the issue of accepting the most vulnerable refugees - women, children and the sick - in Europe and across the Atlantic, is being dealt with in a much calmer manner than was initially the case.
This should not of course be interpreted as a de facto acceptance of the ethnic cleansing that Slobodan Milosevic has planned for Kosovo, but it is undoubtedly necessary in order to relieve the pressure on Albania, as it is obvious that the completely safe return of those who have been expelled from Kosovo cannot take place immediately.
The definitive end to the crisis has to come through a political and diplomatic solution.
Russia appears to be an essential partner in seeking this lasting solution to the crisis in Kosovo.
It has already made considerable diplomatic efforts to make the Yugoslav dictator listen to reason, and will have an essential role to play in negotiating and guaranteeing peace, particularly by participating in a peace-keeping force which will act under a United Nations mandate.
Within Kosovo, Ibrahim Rugova, to whom the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize a few months ago, has an essential role to play.
In order to ensure that he is not used as a tool by the Yugoslav dictator - who is currently holding him hostage - we must demand that he regain his freedom of movement so that he can meet with the authorities directly affected by the conflict, and Parliament should take the initiative to invite him to come and speak to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
It is essential that the European Union, which has been unable to prevent conflict, either in Kosovo or in Bosnia - despite the fact that these conflicts were clearly predictable - should draw all the lessons that it can from these failures, and should finally provide itself with a truly credible common foreign and security policy.
While the European Union has enabled the enemies of the past to be reconciled, in the future it should serve as a model for the Balkans and we should affirm loud and clear that there is plenty of room for a democratic and peaceful Serbia, which includes Kosovo, in a united Europe.
This is the message of hope that we must convey to our Serbian friends, who are currently being abused by a shameless dictator who is leading their nation towards a collective suicide, and not towards the glorious destiny with which he has dazzled them in order to serve his personal criminal ambitions.
Mr President, in my view it is right and also encouraging that Europeans are mobilising in their millions in response to the humanitarian tragedy that has been forced on the Kosovars.
Europe must bring aid to the refugees, offer asylum to those who request it, affirm their right to return, work to reestablish them and ensure their safety by means of a European peace-keeping force. We must also demand substantial autonomy for Kosovo and convene a European conference for peace, security and reconstruction in the Balkans.
These are our proposals, some of which date back a long time.
I would like to express here today my complete condemnation of Milosevic's policy.
I think that the ethnic cleansing and the forced exodus of the people is an abomination and a crime.
Whether the Serbs are the perpetrators, as in Bosnia in the past and now in Kosovo, or whether they are the victims, as in the recent case of the people of Krajina in Croatia, I am among those who believe that sovereignty is a very important element in international relations, but that it does not mean that a power can do absolutely anything to its people or to a minority.
That is not what we disagree on.
The source of our disagreement lies in making war the habitual means of resolving problems, with no regard for the severe humanitarian, material and political consequences.
It lies in the refusal to see that the bombing has entirely the opposite effect to the objectives that were officially laid down for it.
It lies in the acceptance of the dubious and irresponsible game that some western countries are playing with the KLA.
It lies in the rejection of the UN and the cavalier exclusion of partners such as Russia, all of which we can now see are essential for ending this crisis.
All these strategical errors bear a mark, the mark of NATO and the American leaders, on the eve of the Washington summit that is aimed at fixing their hegemony over Europe in the post cold war period.
This is why I am convinced that Europe has allowed itself to be caught up in this affair, and that it is in its interests to do everything possible to free itself from this tragic deadlock.
In this respect, I am following the current European diplomatic initiatives with a great deal of interest and attention.
That is the way forward.
We should be aware that all of the organisations in Yugoslavian civil society that are fighting courageously for human rights, for autonomy for Kosovo and against the power of Milosevic, have recently launched a joint appeal which says that NATO's military intervention has undermined all the results that they had achieved and has endangered the very survival of civil society in their country.
We should also be capable of listening to the voices that are being raised, from the Christian Democrat vice-president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE to Monsignor Botazzi, from Helmut Schmidt to Mario Soares, from top political leaders in Sweden, Austria, Germany, Italy and France, to many figures from European progressive movements, calling for the bombing to be stopped and for a full-scale political battle to be undertaken in order to achieve a fair and lasting peace at the heart of our continent.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, in times of war, the dominant reality is one of fronts, organised and maintained as coherent blocs.
Any dissonant noises are treachery and have to be silenced.
The room for debate contracts, and in wartime too, the absence of debate is very dangerous.
We should not delude ourselves that all the valid and humane arguments are contained in a single analysis and a single approach.
Who can claim here that the NATO raids, without a mandate from the UN, do not give rise to problems as far as international law and international relations are concerned? Who can say that shutting out the UN here does not create a vacuum, because the UN has not given the green light to action but nor has it condemned the raids?
Often in a vacuum of this kind, nothing happens for a long time or another factor intervenes, in this case NATO, with both humanitarian and military strategy objectives.
I recommend that everyone should read Mr Brzezinski in today's Süddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , who sets out these ideas very clearly.
Who can be sure that the criminal treatment meted out to the Kosovo population, which started long before the NATO bombings of course, will suddenly and miraculously stop?
But who can deny that the raids have dramatically increased the persecution and deportation of the Kosovars?
Above all, who can forget that the scale of this mass exodus and expulsion has been totally underestimated and that the measures to cope with the refugees have been badly organised? Who can fail to see that if the destructive bombing continues, this will in the long term affect not only the regime but also and primarily the population and their day-to-day living conditions?
But most important of all is what we should do now, namely concentrate on political initiatives.
We must move away from military targets and look to political objectives.
The Greens are therefore happy that the German Presidency and Joschka Fischer are working so hard to secure a peace plan.
It is our firm conviction that a lasting political solution cannot be found without involving the UN and Russia.
We believe that the Council must create the conditions in which a limited halt to the bombing can open the way to preparation of a cease-fire, naturally with conditions attached, conditions which Kofi Annan has indicated.
I am eternally grateful to Europe's citizens for their generous readiness to take in Kosovar refugees.
Their decision, born of high moral standards, is a clear signal to their government leaders that the EU governments should emulate those same standards, rather than falling woefully short of them.
Mr President, I think that in the past few days we can finally say that the spirit of Munich is not quite so heavy in the air in this House.
That was not the case a month ago.
Finally, following developments that have taken place, we are facing up to the situation and we are not, as Mrs Alvoet said, pretending not to see that the problem with the UN was not created by Kosovo and that it existed before that situation arose.
We are aware of the power of veto within the Security Council, and we know that some countries are constantly using it in order to block any initiative on the part of the international community.
There was no alternative, Mrs Alvoet, to NATO intervention.
I agree that it is unfortunate, but that is how it is.
I would like to say to Mr Pasty that I find him very optimistic.
To say that Mr Milosevic is suicidal is to give him too much credit and it is a refusal to understand that his policy is a scientific one, which he is continuing to carry out and for which is entirely responsible.
I have a lot of doubts and am very sceptical about the German plan.
It will be used by Mr Milosevic to gradually withdraw his troops as far as he pleases, resulting in a situation that we have been rejecting since August: the partitioning of Kosovo. It will be a partitioning in which he will be the winner, and which will enable him to annex 40 % or 50 % of Kosovan territory, where there happen to be a few monasteries, but more importantly where there are much richer areas, such as mines.
He will annex this section, and from that moment on he will refuse to withdraw, and the international community, tired from long weeks of intervention, will sign up to Milosevic's victory, as it did at Dayton.
Just as he was given 50 % of Bosnian territory at Dayton, this will give him 50 % of Kosovan territory, obviously completely cleared of any Kosovar presence.
This is the danger that we are facing.
I think that it should be very much on our minds.
We are aware of Mr Milosevic's intellectual and criminal resources.
We know that he is capable of anything.
He has proved this once again.
There was no need for him to prove it again for me, but I think that it was necessary for some of my colleagues in order to make them finally open their eyes.
I think that we should continue to keep our eyes wide open and, while we are waiting, work to ensure that he is found guilty before the Tribunal in The Hague, because he has long ceased to be a person with whom political negotiations are possible.
It is high time that the international community realised that.
Applause
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, NATO has launched, on its own authority and bypassing the United Nations, military action aimed at putting an end to an unacceptable policy of ethnic cleansing.
What we are now seeing is that this action has undoubtedly contributed to accelerating and magnifying the ethnic cleansing.
We are seeing that the initial strikes, which according to Mr Vedrine and Mr Cook were only to last a few days, have rapidly become a full-scale war against a European nation whose economic infrastructure we are systematically seeking to destroy, and whose civilian population is inevitably being bombed. Meanwhile, we have no idea where this escalating situation should lead if the Yugoslav authorities do not give in to force.
The initial objective that was given for the bombing was to obtain by force what we had felt we were unable to achieve through negotiation: the implementation of the Rambouillet plan, a substantial degree of autonomy for Kosovo, with respect for Yugoslav sovereignty and monitored by a substantial NATO force.
The antagonism between the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians has now reached a level where it is almost beyond remedy, which means that the future coexistence of these people within the framework set out in the Rambouillet plan no longer seems to be a realistic prospect.
In the face of these shifts and this deadlock, we all now feel that there is no solution to the escalating military situation and that we should not listen to the irresponsible warmongers who are calling for a ground operation and/or the arming of KLA militias.
We all feel that bypassing the UN and excluding Russia were mistakes and that we urgently need to bring them both back into play.
We are all aware of the need to take each and every opportunity to reopen dialogue with a view to finding a political solution.
We now need to give priority to everything that will enable us to move from the process of war to that of peace, everything that will enable the refugees to return to their land in safety as soon as possible.
We will have to rebuild what has been destroyed.
The peace plan drawn up by the current presidency, which you have just presented to us, Mr President, finally and happily breaks away from the mounting military action.
It shows us a course that will not under any circumstances be that of increasing military action, which is something we should make every effort to resist.
Mr President, before resentment builds up which could create a deep divide in Europe, we now need to put as much of our energy into seeking peace as we did into starting the war.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1991, here in this House and in front of Mr Delors and Mr Mitterrand, who were supporters of Milosevic's Communist Yugoslavia, I defended the Croatians' and the Slovenians' right to independence.
At the time, Milosevic's red army was shelling Dubrovnic and massacring at Vukovar, while this House remained indifferent.
For five years, with the Chrétienté-Solidarité movement I helped more than 300 Croatian children in Bosnia to be kept alive.
I am even more ready to express my total and equal solidarity with the Serbian children who have been subjected to the ultimate in technological barbarity.
Kosovo is not Croatia.
For the Serbs, it is not only a province, but the birthplace of their nation.
NATO is not bombing Milosevic's regime, but the entire land, all the people, the entire future of an ancient European and Christian nation.
One day historians will have to explain why, up until now, NATO has only engaged in this war.
NATO, which was formed in 1949 to protect Europe from Soviet imperialism, did not intervene on behalf of the people of Berlin in 1953, the Hungarians in 1956 or the Czechs in 1968.
NATO is in fact solely the tool of the United States, which did not mobilise against the genocide in Tibet or Cambodia, or against the massacres in Lebanon.
Today the genocide of Christians in Timor and Sudan is continuing with complete impunity.
And NATO cares little about the situation of the Kurds in Turkey or the Kabyles in Algeria, where the habitual slaughter of women and children by the National Liberation Front is continuing.
So why this war against Serbia?
For the Kosovars?
Come on! They are also the victims of Clinton's folly in supporting the KLA, which, we should not forget, is a Communist and terrorist organisation like the Kurdish PKK.
NATO intervention is not a cure that is worse than the disease, it is a disease that is much worse than the disease.
By bombing Serbia, in contempt of its sovereignty and of the rules of the UN, NATO is establishing the law of the jungle.
By using the most obscene tricks of misinforming and brainwashing our people, it is also violating the rules of war.
We are waging war against the Serbs, but we are denying them the moral right to defend themselves, and to take prisoners.
It has even been said that, in the interests of democracy, they should have to put their television and radio at the disposal of their aggressors.
Such claims and such contempt for the enemy have never before been seen throughout history.
That does not give credit to our era.
The Serbs are the baddies.
The Serbs have the audacity not to recognise that the bombing is good for them, as the strikes are only a form of surgery.
We want to cure them, and the swines are protesting!
The Serbs are wicked, all of them. NATO has the enamelled whiteness of the teeth and clear conscience of Clinton the humanist.
However, enough of the sarcasm: Clinton, the cold-blooded murderer of hundreds of thousands of children in Iraq, is once again a criminal.
His crimes are crimes against humanity.
Let us hope that his war, which you are slavishly supporting, will not lead, through a tragic chain of events, to the third world war and the end of mankind.
Applause
Mrs Müller, can you tell under which Rule you are asking for the floor?
I refer to the Rule in the Rules of Procedure under which you must call to order a Member of this House who calls the President of the United States a murderer.
Ladies and gentlemen, you will not achieve your aims by shouting while another Member is speaking.
When some colleagues were speaking a short time ago, Mr Le Pen made some comments on what was said by the President-in-Office and Commissioner van den Broek.
I reprimanded him, but I think that it was wrong to do this, just as it is wrong for others to raise their voices while Mr Antony takes the floor.
There is no point whatsoever in doing this.
We know what kind of ideas are expressed in this House.
Let us respect them, even if we do not agree with them at all.
Mr President, I should like to begin by paying tribute to a Serbian democrat, the journalist Slavko Curuvija, who paid for the defence of democracy with his life last Sunday.
He was assassinated after having stated publicly that Milosevic could not guarantee peace but could only generate a crisis.
We also have a duty to pay tribute to the Serbs who are fighting for peace and freedom in their own country and who are risking their lives to do so.
Having said this, Mr President, I am only going to say two things at this stage.
Firstly, this morning, Chancellor Schröder quite rightly said that the European Union must be a community of values and not simply an economic community and market.
And the values that we are defending now are the values of respect for human rights and respect for life - the most fundamental value - that are being systematically violated in Kosovo as we speak. This is something that we have seen repeatedly in the tragic process of the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, for years in Slavonia and Bosnia and now in Kosovo.
And perhaps we will see it tomorrow in Montenegro.
This is indeed something that Europeans cannot tolerate.
We must therefore strongly support our Commission - particularly at the moment - as it is doing a good job.
We must also emphasise that not only is military action underway but we are also seriously suggesting that a global solution for the Balkan problem be drawn up, as Chancellor Schröder mentioned again today. This would allow us to incorporate the process that has enabled Western Europeans to overcome so many centuries of barbarity and confrontation.
As a result, Mr President, it is vital that we support this plan, and that we give it our full support so that those who have been expelled can return home.
This cannot be achieved through resolutions alone; it requires intervention forces.
I should also like to point out that, at a time when the Amsterdam Treaty is about to enter into force, these missions are defined as Union missions under the so-called 'Petersberg missions'.
We must put them into practice.
Just this once I thank you, Mrs Bonino and Mr van den Broek, for your prompt intervention.
I would just like to point out that four months ago, a man wearing a funny scarf was here among us receiving the Sakharov Prize for freedom of spirit.
We owe protection to this man, because otherwise there will be no point in awarding this prize, which is a sort of Nobel Prize for spirit, each December.
I must highlight here today the peculiar situation that this man is in.
He is considered to be a pacifist.
He has fired no shots.
He has not mounted an uprising, something for which some of his compatriots might even resent him.
Mr Milosevic, who has protested his sincerity through some of our colleagues present here today, and is unable to accuse him of anything, says that he is now protecting him in Pristina from Serbs that may make attempts on his life.
The European Parliament must intervene.
First of all, as I proposed in the resolution, we must invite Mr Rugova to come back to speak to us in Brussels or Strasbourg and tell us what has been happening to him, mainly because he feels bitter.
As Mrs Renata Flottau said, he is having trouble understanding the silence of all those who have paid court to him over the years, awarded him their prizes, been photographed with him in order to attract media attention, and are now powerlessly watching as the Serb dictator humiliates him.
I am afraid that he will be thinking of us, and I would like to make a proposal.
It is true that our regulations are strict.
The European Parliament has not declared war.
It is free, and Members are free to speak.
A few days ago I wrote to the Serbian chargé d'affaires in Brussels to tell him that in my capacity as chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, but for the moment without authorisation, I am prepared, along with other colleagues, to go to Belgrade or Pristina.
The European Parliament must consider sending a delegation - which can be quickly arranged - to go and meet Mr Rugova in Pristina and to bring him back here.
I would like to say the following to Mr Milosevic: 'As you can accuse him of nothing, here is the symbolic opportunity to show that you are preparing to return to peace.
Hand Rugova over to us.'
Mr President, I agree with what Mr Soulier has just said.
But I rise on a different point of order, to ask if you can tell us what has happened to the German presidency.
I would have thought that in a continent at war the least courtesy the presidency could have shown us would be to stay here until the end of the debate.
I am unable to answer your question, Mr Spencer.
According to my information, the Council presidency was going to attend the debate until the end.
Mr President, I agree with what the Council President has said today about Kosovo, and also with what the Commissioner said.
But let us be honest.
The West is now paying for its half-hearted attitude in the early 1990s over the need for a military response to the atrocities in the Balkans.
Recognising the independent states, with the exception of Bosnia, was in itself to some extent an acceptance of the ethnic discrimination which at the same time we find so repugnant.
In Kosovo, it is about to happen all over again.
Little has been learned from the disintegration of Yugoslavia.
Little has been done for the Serbian opposition, and little has been done for Mr Rugova.
We awarded Rugova the Sakharov Prize, but part of Parliament was busy giving encouragement to the KLA.
I am a fervent supporter of NATO.
But the cynically technological NATO briefings hide the fact that we have become locked into a process whose consequences we cannot fully predict. Hence these questions of mine.
How can we stop Milosevic from dragging down Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania to destruction with him? How can NATO extricate itself without using ground forces?
The genie of an independent Kosovo has escaped from the bottle.
The unilateral agreements reached at Rambouillet have been overtaken by events. How is the Council going to prevent the formation of a greater Albania?
These questions are important. In the meantime, our duty is to take in the refugees and to be generous in making good the damage, including damage to Serbia once Milosevic has gone.
Lastly, I totally agree with Mr Soulier.
I hope that Russian diplomacy will help us to resolve the difficulties and bring Rugova here, so that we can discuss his strategy with him face to face and incorporate it into the stability pact which the Council has drawn up.
Mr President, it both saddens and angers me to have to say that, as of today, the European Parliament has become just as guilty as all those inhuman and hypocritical leaders in the United States and Europe who are using war in an attempt to salvage their lost credibility.
The joint resolution we have before us brings shame on the European Parliament simply by having been tabled.
If we vote in favour of it, it will be a disgrace for years to come.
If the European Parliament wants to play its part, it should simply cry out in agony on behalf of the people of Europe: stop the war now!
Respect peace!
Leave the leaders of Yugoslavia and the legitimate leaders of the Kosovar Albanians to solve their own problems.
They have demonstrated that they can.
Get out of their way!
Otherwise, why not call on the Turkish army, as Mr Titley suggested, to interrupt its 'charitable' work slaughtering Kurds in Kurdistan to go to Kosovo and salvage the human rights that you are defending.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when someone says that he does not want war, I believe everyone applauds him.
When someone says that he hates war, everyone applauds him.
But when someone does not say that he hates ethnic cleansing, that he rejects ethnic cleansing, then there is a problem.
Some people say that the Serbs and the Kosovars should sort out their own problems; well, Milosevic has been dealing with the Kosovars' problems for ten years, and has been saying what he wants to do for ten years.
In his speech in 1989 at the Field of Blackbirds, he explained everything.
When I was young I was taught that I should read books.
We have read what Hitler wrote, and he did what he had written.
We have read and heard what Milosevic wrote at the Field of Blackbirds: he did what he had said and what he had written.
He wanted to purify Kosovo so that the Serbs could regain it, and that is the current situation.
In that situation, there have been attempts at negotiation, and there have been mistakes.
Everyone has made mistakes.
Rugova has led a peaceful resistance, and we awarded him a prize.
That did not work.
It is an awful situation, and the bombing has not heightened the ethnic cleansing: it was going on before the bombing started.
I am now proud of the German Government.
I am proud of the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is currently trying to find a diplomatic and political solution to this conflict.
However, a political and diplomatic solution and an end to the war must never mean the continuation of ethnic cleansing.
We did not build Europe on the ashes of the Second World War to experience the tragedy of war now - and it is an unbelievable tragedy; I would never have thought that my son would see another war in Europe.
We do not have the right to sit back and allow ethnic cleansing out of cowardice.
Selection and deportation were Hitler's weapons.
We want the Serbs and Serbia to join Europe and stay in it, but not with ethnic cleansing.
Mr Spencer, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to inform you that the President-in-Office is engaged in an informal trilogue with our Vice-President Mrs Fontaine on the subject of the Structural Funds, and will be back here at 5.30 p.m. to answer questions.
Mr President, so far the NATO bombing has unfortunately not stopped the ethnic cleansing, quite the contrary.
Kosovars have been driven out of their country in dramatic circumstances or are actually refugees within it.
They are the victims of a totalitarian, ethnocentric nationalism which we deplore.
But at the same time, I cannot condemn the NATO action, because I am aware that Europe stood by impotently for ten years, as Mr Cohn-Bendit has just said, whilst the former Yugoslavia fell apart, and when Milosevic revoked Kosovo's status as an autonomous region ten years ago, those familiar with the area predicted what would happen in the next few years.
We did nothing at that time.
But we must go back to a political framework, an acceptable international legal framework, which therefore has to involve the United Nations, the OSCE and the Russians too.
We want the Kosovars to be able to return to Kosovo quickly, but without a political solution this will have to be done under military protection, as advocated in our joint resolution.
But we should be sorry if this were to be military protection under NATO rules alone.
We agree with those who advocate a European perspective for the peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe, so that respect for human rights and international law can stand together in peace and development.
Mr President, we hope that the next Commission and the next Parliament, working more closely together, will remind the Council, whose absence today is justified, that it is just one of three Community institutions and not the most important one either.
The Members of this House are not, I believe, right-wingers or left-wingers, warmongers or pacifists; we are, I very much hope, just men and women seeking to point out that international law does not exist if human rights are not respected first.
And therefore we cannot but be divided into two categories: those who are in good faith and those who are in bad faith, with those who fight for principles realising that force sometimes needs to be used to defend them, since force or war are not good or evil in themselves but necessary attitudes and decisions when it comes to fighting for human lives and dignity.
In any case we should note how Rambouillet has once again demonstrated the lack of European political union.
If political union had been achieved a few years back, perhaps we would not have ended up with the tragedy we are witnessing today.
If Europe had not just been represented at Rambouillet by four powerful nations but had been present as a political union, and if, prior to Rambouillet and at least since '92, Europe as a political union had sent a strong message - a strong and clear message - to Milosevic, maybe we would not have experienced all the wars, destruction and tragedy that we have seen.
But things carried on as they did because of the choices made by certain governments and political forces: European union does not exist and all we can do is wait for NATO to represent what we ourselves are not in a position to represent.
Let us hope that in the future Europe is able to achieve a political content and work towards a stability pact for the Balkans, that it is able to provide the deportees with the certainty they require in order to return home, in other words hope for the future, and that it is able to show solidarity with those who are hard at work - for example in neighbouring regions such as Puglia - in practical terms as well as in words.
We should give a vote of thanks to Commissioner Bonino and the Arcobaleno organisation, together with a clear message from ancient Rome: 'Parcere victis, debellare superbos '.
And Milosevic must be defeated, otherwise the warmongers and the arrogant will continue to trample on the rights of those acting in good faith and defenceless citizens.
Could I conclude with a request, Mr President: if this Parliament were to convene an extraordinary sitting so that we could all meet at the border between Albania and Kosovo, this might be a good signal to send out at the end of a parliamentary term which has not brought political union but at least has established, between ourselves as Members of Parliament, a common will to be close to the people.
Thank you for your suggestion, but I would like to add that we should go there unarmed, otherwise we would run the risk of becoming involved in the conflict ourselves.
Mr President, what we have been witnessing in Kosovo over the past few weeks is the greatest tragedy to cast a bloody shadow over Europe since the end of the Second World War.
In this desperate and devastating situation for the Balkans it is more vital than ever before for politics to start playing its full role once again, or at least to try to do so.
In the meeting of the European Council taking place over the next few hours it may be confirmed that both the European Union and the United Nations are to return to the political arena.
The fact that the heads of government of the Member States are meeting with the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, seems to be a prelude to a European initiative - as was moreover announced here by the Council - which might, if there are positive signs from the Yugoslav side, enable a return to be made to the negotiating table.
However, there is no doubt that the fundamental condition for any suspension of the Allied bombing of Serbia is an immediate cessation of all military activity in Kosovo by the Yugoslav side, the withdrawal of Serb forces from the region and an end to the repression and expulsion of the Kosovar population.
And on these issues and principles all European countries must maintain the strongest and firmest possible unity.
In the hours to come we shall see the details of the proposals put forward by Europe and by the United Nations.
Everything will depend, quite clearly, on the Yugoslav response.
It is important to stress that whilst a strong and united front among the European countries and NATO is vital, the option of a political solution should remain open.
The NATO military initiatives in themselves are not a solution to the problem: they have been and still are the only way to try and stop activities which to all intents and purposes are now genocide as far as the Albanian-speaking population of Kosovo is concerned.
It is clear from the events of the past few days that the process of creating an effective European common foreign and security policy needs to move much more swiftly and that the Union should avail itself of all the political and practical instruments it needs to defend peace, security and respect for human rights, both on its own borders and in other parts of the world.
In order to outline a solution to the complex problem of the Balkans it is furthermore vital for the Union to work out a strategy, a plan, to build up a long-term political and economic stabilisation process for the region, including through stronger relations with the Union itself.
Perhaps today we are all paying the price for not having held out prospects of European integration for the region of the Balkans as well.
At the same time there is an even clearer and more pressing need for the whole of Europe, including Russia, to work together across the board, as it were, in order to build a future of peace, progress and stability throughout the continent
Alongside the political and diplomatic initiatives, humanitarian assistance for the refugees and the victims of Yugoslav repression needs to be coordinated and reinforced.
There is a considerable awareness of this need throughout Europe.
The Arcobaleno mission launched by the Italian Government has met with the approval and active support of most of the public and civil society in our country, which is springing into action in a remarkable way.
We believe that - above and beyond what has been done up until now, and this is already a great deal - the Council, the Commission, the Member States' governments and the whole of the international community should step up and fine-tune their efforts to help the people of the region.
Today this is the acid test for the present and future construction of Europe.
Mr President, there is no question here of our determination in the struggle against Milosevic, which of course must remain undiminished - since we know that any weakness may be exploited by the Serbian dictator - but the problem facing us is how to deal with a situation of military intervention which seems to have no way out, as the bombing cannot go on for ever, nor can it be the last word in an action that is intended to lead to peace.
The reasons for the intervention, to defeat the madness of a dictator who has come up with a barbarous and inhuman plan, are justifiable, but if the bombs do not resolve the matter, I feel that - unless Mr Dupuis is suggesting sending in ground forces, which up to now has been ruled out - political logic calls for negotiations, since we want to avoid the option of a war which is won or lost.
As Mr Verheugen said, we did not intend to wage war on Serbia, all we have in mind is to return people to the land from which they have been expelled.
We must therefore make every effort to ensure that Kofi Annan and the UN are successful in their endeavours, that Russia is involved and that Rugova can become a partner in the discussions.
May I now make one final point, Mr President.
We are defending those who run the risk of becoming a wandering and dispossessed people.
There are urgent needs, and while we should be grateful to Commissioner Bonino and Commissioner van den Broek for the work they have done, this is just a drop in the ocean and the situation is explosive.
In Italy, as Mr Vecchi told us, LIT 30 billion have been collected from the public and EUR 150 million is available: we would like to know what is the precise extent of the existing needs.
What also interests us, and this was accepted by the Council, by the current presidency in fact, is the request made in the other Assembly for a stability pact.
This is the objective to follow, because rather than winning a war, we want to make peace win the day.
Mr President, as Members of Parliament, we have a duty to promote and defend international law as the best means of defending human rights.
As a result, I am wondering why no cases against Milosevic were brought before the Criminal Court in The Hague prior to 24 March.
The United Left brought a case against Pinochet, which is currently being examined, and if we had documents and witnesses, we would also bring one against Milosevic.
According to Articles 1, 3, and 5 of UN Resolution 3314/29 of 14 December 1974, NATO's attacks and Solana's decision can be considered a war crime.
The best humanitarian aid we can provide for the Kosovar Albanians we are defending is to finally bring peace.
The European Union must raise the voice of dialogue, of negotiation and of politics in the face of American violence.
Consequently, we must promote peace alongside the UN and the OSCE.
Mr President, war has returned to our continent for the first time in fifty years and we do not know how long it will last or how it will end, but wars always come to an end.
Given the time that I have, I will not talk about the causes, aims or responsibilities of war.
I would simply like to take a look into the future, beyond the war, at the European landscape that will be the framework for the peace that is built, and at the aims of peace.
That part of the continent in which the war is taking place has fallen prey to demons that we thought no longer existed.
The Pandora's box from which they come reveals some terrible contents.
First of all there is the suffering of all those affected by the war: the Albanians who have been driven from their homes, but also the Serbs, who we should be careful not to confuse with Milosevic; they tremble at the bombs and watch in terror as their country's economy is destroyed.
Another demon is that of the division of Europe.
It is back.
Hopes for a united continent are dying.
They have given way to the old situation, with on the one side a strong and united Europe - our Europe - which is capable of deciding its own fate, and on the other side another Europe that has to suffer a fate that it is not yet able to choose.
There are many signs of this division.
The Ukraine has decided to become a nuclear power once again.
The plan for a union between Russia, Belarus and Yugoslavia, even though it is a plan that has no future, sends a clear message.
In the face of the Europe of the Fifteen, Slavonic Europe is seeking to organise itself.
What a defeat for us all!
Yet another demon is nationalism, which is never really dead, but which is gaining new impetus and spreading.
Let us not forget that not long ago, the majority of Serbs saw Milosevic as a dictator.
Now those same Serbs are rallying around him, purely as a result of a nationalist reflex.
The resurgence of nationalism is also reflected in a new attachment to ethnic and religious differences.
What a regression!
However, after the war, the Serbs and the Albanians will have to learn to live together again and, with time, forget their hatred.
No peace-keeping force will achieve this result.
The people will be the ones to decide.
In the East, a very serious consequence of this war is that those who were part of the totalitarian system have regained their prestige, to the detriment of those who wanted democracy and reform.
Courage will be needed now in Russia, to curb this tendency, and in Belarus, to continue to oppose Lukashenko.
There are other examples too.
Ultimately, it is not only Serbia which has been destabilised, but the entire Balkan region, where there is increasing doubt amongst public opinion about the legitimacy of the borders and the possibility of living in peace with different peoples.
There needs to be an immediate response to this unstable situation in Europe, which is the framework for future peace.
First of all, we urgently need to move back towards political solutions.
War is never an end in itself.
It is a tool used in exceptional circumstances for political relations between states.
Secondly, we must not delay in bringing back into the debate two entities that have been wrongly excluded: the United Nations, a symbol of law, and Russia, which still has a great deal of influence in the Balkans and indeed in other countries in the region that could be useful in providing troops for a peace-keeping force that Milosevic would find harder to reject than he does NATO.
Have we tried that?
Finally, the Europe of the Fifteen must take the initiative, on its continent, to find a channel for negotiation and to curb the general destabilisation of the Balkans.
The future of our Europe, that of the continent and of the people who live in it, depends on it.
Time is marching on: we must hurry!
Mr President, some parties to this debate are claiming that the peace movement, in calling for a cessation of the bombing, is effectively playing Milosevic's game; we are allegedly advocating Munich-style appeasement and are bereft of alternative strategies.
That is quite incorrect.
We totally condemn the criminal policy of ethnic cleansing being pursued by the Yugoslav regime and believe that Milosevic should stand trial before the courts.
The world community has a duty to intervene in defence of human rights.
The solution to this situation should be based on the right of the Kosovo Albanians to return home to an undivided and autonomous Kosovo under UN or OSCE protection, as part of a stability pact for southern Europe.
Our view is that the NATO bombardments are wrong and have visibly failed.
Room must therefore be made for non-violent alternatives. Finding these will take time and demand patience.
Nelson Mandela negotiated for years.
The Dalai Lama - after 40 years in exile - calls not for aerial bombing, but for the possibility to negotiate with a regime which this Parliament has condemned for its breaches of human rights.
Why did we abandon the pacifist Rugova in order to support a guerrilla movement about which we know precious little? I fully agree with Mr Soulier on this.
Let us look at what NATO has on offer.
Three weeks into the bombing, it is proposing to deploy 300 new warplanes, mobilise reservists and persist with the military campaign.
That is what NATO has on offer. According to the International Peace Bureau, NATO 'has so far done nothing but accelerate the repression, unite the Serbian nation around Milosevic and alienate the Russians'.
What is more, the UN has been made to look foolish.
I quote from The Guardian of 2 April, in which Sweden's former prime minister, Ingvar Carlsson - in an article written jointly with his co-chairman on the UN's Commission on Global Governance, Shridath Ramphal - asked: 'What if in a virtuous rage China invades Taiwan?'
Dangerous precedents have been set and it behoves us all to be aware.
But let us imagine for one moment that NATO is serious in its intent; that all the allegations of cynicism are misguided; and that people mean what they say when they wax lyrical about peace.
Surely it would still make sense to acknowledge that the outcome in the field demonstrates that thebombing has failed and must be stopped - unless the idea is to prove that the operation was a success, even though the patient died.
Mr President, 'war', it says today in a German daily, 'is always the result of a policy that has not achieved its aim'.
That is why the generals should only intervene after the politicians have failed.
But what does a military leadership do if it has been instructed to win a war without waging a war? At present the necessary military action by NATO has been taken on the responsibility of a group of politicians who once upon a time loudly proclaimed themselves pacifists and opponents of war in the peace movements and are now ordering a war without wanting to dirty their hands.
There is clearly a wide gap between instructions and means here.
If peace is to be achieved by political means then the military have to withdraw.
If it is to be achieved by military means the politicians must withdraw.
At present the two areas of responsibility are being confused in an unprofessional manner and two half-measures certainly do not make a whole.
In addition to the aggressor, those who are incapable of intervening at the right moment with the right methods also bear responsibility for the plight of the people.
Mr President, I speak on behalf of my group and I will begin with what is most important.
We endorse the NATO action on Kosovo.
Military action was sadly unavoidable in the light of Milosevic's response.
That action is necessary if the Albanians are to have any future in Kosovo.
The European Parliament must leave no room at all for doubt today about where it stands on this.
Of course, the starting-point remains the search for a political solution, but it has to be on the basis of Rambouillet, with an international military presence on the ground and the refugees able to return to an autonomous and democratic Kosovo.
Given all that has happened since Rambouillet, that looks very much like an international protectorate.
So be it, then. But that means troops.
To my mind, these should as far as possible be European, including the Russians.
The conflict is after all a European one.
Essential requirements will be a robust mandate and an effective command structure.
The EU is not NATO.
As far as military operations go, the EU is a minor player, and a degree of modesty is appropriate.
All efforts to forge a European security policy have so far remained wishful thinking.
For the second time, the European Union is playing a subordinate role, despite the Amsterdam Treaty.
But that is not to say that the EU has no role.
The EU is politically behind the NATO action, as the German Chancellor has reaffirmed this morning.
The EU must give a lead in accepting refugees, in the region to begin with and later outside it.
Albania and Macedonia need help.
The EU must take on the responsibility for rebuilding Kosovo, as it did in Bosnia.
The EU must be forward-looking and not allow a third Balkan conflict to happen, because there is still a good deal of material for conflict, even after Kosovo.
Stability in the region must not be seen purely as a military concern.
Investment in cooperation, socio-economic development and the quality of democratic society are equally important.
This, ideally, is the substance of a stability pact for the southern Balkans, in which the European Union, under the Amsterdam Treaty, should give a lead, for example by the pursuit of a common strategy.
An approach or stability pact of this kind must also hold out the prospect of increasing close cooperation with the EU, because that kind of cooperation, of integration, is and remains the best instrument for peace which Europe has to offer.
Mr President, I have listened very carefully indeed to this discussion. People keep saying things that no longer bear any relation to reality.
They say we must return to the negotiating table.
Think how long we went on negotiating, without any result except that the situation became ever worse.
We must finally look at the situation realistically and realise that if we want to be credible we have to take a credible democratic stance.
That means realising that people are not there for countries, but countries for people.
So if we expect the Kosovars to return under the rule of those who drove them out of their homes and murdered their families, we are asking something humanly impossible.
We should finally be totally realistic and pragmatic.
People keep saying that ground troops could perhaps be deployed.
I think that is a big mistake because European ground troops have often failed in their aims in this region.
But the Kosovars are in their home country.
I myself saw in Croatia - and I was often in Croatia during the time of the war - that the Croats were successful when they had more or less the same weapons as the Serbs.
They chased them out, for people who are defending their own territory are far stronger than the aggressors who always come with a bad conscience.
Finally, let me say something encouraging. People keeping asking what will then become of the Serbs.
First of all, Milosevic is not Serbia.
The Serbs are not Milosevic, just as the Germans were not Hitler.
But we must finally realise that we cannot make peace with Milosevic because he will only start to commit his crimes all over again.
Secondly, we must do our utmost to ensure that the policy pursued here is based on realism and not on illusion.
Mr President, I would like to devote a minute of my speaking time to a minute's silence for the 10 victims from the train that was bombed by NATO planes. Some of them were children and all of them were innocent Serbs, killed during the Orthodox Easter.
The House observed a minute's silence
Mr President, if the Germany presidency were present I would say to it that horror in this situation is not enough.
We need to learn the lessons of the last few months.
Some four months ago in this Chamber I said that Europe would fight and that Europe would be right and that the key thing was to persuade Mr Milosevic of our intentions that we would fight.
And fight not just in the air.
That is the cosmetic dishonesty of limited involvement.
That is the arrogant assumption that you can have victory without risk, or power without bodybags.
By telling Mr Milosevic that we would not fight on the ground, we invited the vicious and predicted Serbian response on the killing ground of Kosovo.
One million people are this week paying the price for the hard lesson which has to be learnt by all of us and primarily by Third Way governments - whether in this continent or in America - who have to learn the lesson that in the case of peace and war there is no Third Way.
It is no good Mr Bianco saying this is not a war to the Serbs.
It certainly feels like a war to the Serbs.
So I say to the Council that if you want Mr Milosevic to negotiate the peaceful admission of international troops; you will first have to persuade him that, in the last analysis, we are prepared to use troops to enter Kosovo aggressively.
You cannot have one without the other when you are dealing with Mr Milosevic.
Rambouillet is dead.
In the long term we will have to look at an independent Kosovo, but that will have to be an independent Kosovo, in a new Balkans, in a new Europe that incorporates a democratic Serbia.
That is the thinking you have only just begun to take on board at the Council.
I beg you to accelerate that process.
It has been claimed, Mr President, that the war in Kosovo is a just war, and the principle of humanitarian intervention has been invoked.
To ensure that this principle, which is still somewhat hazy today, does not lead to an arbitrary and selective act of force, it should be incorporated into international law and should depend upon one institution: the United Nations.
However, the principle has been used by a military alliance, an expression of brute force.
After three weeks of war, the humanitarian situation has deteriorated appallingly in Kosovo, where apart from the ethnic cleansing pursued by Milosevic, there has been a constant hail of NATO's depleted uranium missiles, DUs.
When they return, the Kosovar people will have to protect themselves from the land's radioactivity for centuries.
So much for setting a civilised example, Chancellor Schröder!
Ethical war is born of the ethical State.
Europe should stop and think!
Europe has been the cradle of law throughout history, and it should jettison the military option, an aberration which flouts international law and its governing principle of national sovereignty, before all this leads to a backlash against our own states.
Mr President, there can be no equivocation: ethnic cleansing and enormous injustice against the Albanian population are totally unacceptable.
Nor should there be any doubt as to the EU's desire to take responsibility in both humanitarian and economic terms for the huge outpouring of refugees. And it goes without saying that the standards the world has set for human rights must hold sway over the claims of nation states to sovereignty.
The demands of international law cannot, however, be put aside.
If such laws are wrong, they need to be changed, not broken.
What is so worrying is that Europe has stumbled into a war which has produced a million refugees, yet there is no evidence of any policy to extricate ourselves from the crisis.
A colonel who has been witnessing the collapse of Yugoslavia over many years made the following point: 'Either people were plain stupid when they decided to launch this war, or they were extraodinarily cynical in believing that the flood of refugees and the attendant human tragedy were a price worth paying.'
The prime task for the EU now is to work for a political solution; to put a end to ethnic cleansing; to support the refugees; to stop the bloodbath; and to create real opportunities for the refugees to return.
It is not enough for the EU to be welcoming Kofi Annan's offer to mediate and bring an end to this conflict; it should be giving him its active support.
The EU has a duty to establish the UN as the paramount body for overseeing the rule of law in the international community.
The EU must now call for a peace-keeping force under UN auspices, involving Russian peace-keeping troops, so that ethnic Albanians can return to their homeland.
The EU must see to it that the UN special tribunal on Yugoslavia swiftly undertakes investigations into war crimes that have been committed. Equally, countries need to be encouraged to ratify the agreement setting up the International Criminal Court, so that we have an instrument to deal with war crimes in the future.
It cannot be the EU's task to sanction NATO's military initiative.
The Union's task is to devise constructive solutions - politically, diplomatically and economically - to this and other conflicts.
Mr President, of course the main responsibility for this conflict lies with the Serbian Government.
There is no excuse for the campaign of terror being waged against the Albanian population of Kosovo, Milosevic has led his country from catastrophe to catastrophe.
However, this does not mean that NATO's bombardments are a solution, or are likely to herald a positive outcome.
NATO has manifestly succeeded in starting a war which it does not know how to end.
What more graphic illustration could we have than the hesitation over sending in ground troops?
Existing levels of ethnic cleansing were, moreover, stepped up when NATO began to bomb, not to mention the fact that NATO's bombardments play into the hands of the most insalubrious political forces - not only in Serbia, but to some extent in Russia too.
If we want a solution, there is one option only. The UN must be brought in, and there must be a cease-fire, followed by negotiations and a political solution.
Mr President, I should like to use these two minutes to talk about an issue linked exclusively to the crisis in Kosovo: the humanitarian crisis suffered by hundreds of refugees in the area today.
Firstly, I should like to express my gratitude to the Commission, to Mrs Bonino, to the NGOs and to the humanitarian aid associations, and I would like to acknowledge the important work they are doing.
But at the same time, I ask myself one question: how long will the European Union continue to see this type of situation as an emergency, as something that has just happened without us knowing why, as if there had been an earthquake?
Nothing was more predictable than the humanitarian crisis in the Balkans, yet we continue to act and react as if a hurricane had lashed the area or as if an earthquake had destroyed the heart of one of our countries.
I believe that this is a very serious problem
Yesterday, the House held a debate on new reports on justice and home affairs; one of them involved the integration of refugees and another related to the strategic paper on the European Union's migration and asylum policy.
I remember past debates, much older debates, on a Commission proposal for a joint action concerning the temporary protection of displaced persons.
It dates back to 1997 and was presented by Mrs Gradin.
It was not adopted and this instrument is not available to us, an instrument that would today allow us to deal with this situation in a very different way.
Why have we not ratified the Amsterdam Treaty? We have a very solid argument to put to our people: ladies and gentlemen, we do not have a legal instrument and we do not have the budgetary instruments we need to handle this situation because the Amsterdam Treaty will not be adopted until May.
I hope that this will make us think, I hope that these measures will be implemented and I hope that the next time we realise that we will have to face a situation such as this, we will be in better shape to deal with it than we are now.
Mr President, like everyone else I am very concerned about the media reports today in particular that General Mladic and various other people have now been given free rein to impose further terror on Kosovo.
For many years these people have moved freely in Bosnia, despite the presence of SFOR troops and have remained free, despite the serious allegations made against them.
What must also concern us is the escalation of the conflict beyond Kosovo and into Albania.
The Serbs must stop their incursions into Albania now.
I was particularly struck by the sincerity of the presentation made to us by the German presidency, and indeed by Commissioner van den Broek.
I welcome the three-phase peace plan proposed here.
The involvement of the United Nations in the conflict would be a welcome step forward.
I look forward to further details of this plan and hope that it can form the basis for meaningful negotiations.
We are all very concerned by media reports coming from Kosovo, especially of rape being used as a weapon of war.
It is a despicable repeat of the most heinous crimes committed during previous conflicts this decade in Yugoslavia.
President Milosevic has a ten-year record of terror and manipulation.
He has shown repeatedly that he can play on ethnic fears and has presided over an expansionary regime based on terror.
The solution to this horrific 20-day bombing campaign will obviously involve negotiation.
We cannot ignore the reports of great human rights abuses.
We want peace - yes, but not at any cost.
I will give the rest of my time to silence, as indeed did my colleague beside me.
Mr President, the appalling treatment meted out to the Albanian population of Kosovo must be totally denounced and implacably opposed, but withdrawal of the peace monitors and the launching of the NATO bombing offensive was not the way to do this.
Bombing has not stopped the killing, but increased it.
It has not put an end to the catastrophic humanitarian situation, but intensified it.
It has not advanced a political solution, but retarded it.
It has consolidated Serb opinion behind Milosevic and weakened the opposition.
The idea that NATO bombing was justified outside the United Nations because two permanent members of the Security Council would have blocked it is a body blow to the UN and a most dangerous precedent.
The bombing needs to be stopped.
The proposals put forward for a settlement on the basis of the United Nations Security Council resolutions including a United Nations peacekeeping force with Russians should be wholeheartedly supported.
Above all, an immediate cease-fire is required, to concentrate on the terrible plight of those displaced and their return home.
Mr President, the abiding images of the systematic ethnic cleansing in Kosovo are yet more sad proof of the fact that we are living in the bloodiest century in world history.
During the peace talks in Rambouillet on the outskirts of Paris, it gradually became absolutely clear that the people representing Yugoslavia's President Milosevic at the negotiating table were only there for show.
At the same time they were able, under cover of the peace talks, to continue with the cleansing of the Kosovar Albanians.
The cleansing continued during the negotiations in Rambouillet.
At that time 60 000 Kosovar Albanians were in flight, and over the past year several hundred thousand have already been forced to flee.
NATO therefore answered Milosevic by employing the means that we had said would be used if the talks did not produce a result, namely military force.
Milosevic was not unaware that this could be the consequence.
He simply did not believe that the West would use the means that we are now using to tell him that talks have taken place - and plenty of talks have taken place, but Milosevic would not negotiate.
Now he should negotiate, but the bombing will continue until he comes to the negotiating table.
Mr President, the example of Bosnia has shown that there is no peace- keeping without peace enforcement.
This is a simple fact of life.
This means, in concrete terms, that we must have military personnel, guns, artillery and other equipment in Kosovo - and for a long time - as in Bosnia.
No SFOR military personnel have been killed in Bosnia in combat, only in traffic accidents: the threat of using arms has been sufficient.
The whole concept of peace-keeping has to be changed and reformulated.
This is the lesson learnt from an operation that was ill-conceived from the beginning but which eventually will end in giving Kosovo freedom under the threat of arms.
No other action is possible in these sad circumstances.
Mr President, in this most serious of debates about the war in Kosovo, I thank you for having exceptionally allowed me to speak out in favour of one single refugee, resident in my constituency in Essex, who fears he will be forced to return home to the midst of the conflict.
This man has legal immigration status in Britain but has helped himself by attaining a job, one which itself involves foreign travel in other EU States.
Yet the delays in issuing the necessary visas from the Member State embassies in London currently threaten his employment on which, in turn, his immigration status depends.
When the whole of Europe is turning its eyes to the hundreds of thousands of refugees on the borders of Kosovo, it may seem strange to raise this one case.
But our humanitarian concern must extend to each and every individual refugee as long as their safety is threatened, wherever they may be.
Given that my parliamentary question is referred to this debate, will Mrs Bonino in her reply, and the representative from the Council taking note, commit themselves to investigate this individual case and the anomalies in European immigration procedures between Member States which threaten his status. Do not send this man back to a war or to possible death.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that this debate has shown that with the exception of one political group, this House is unanimous in condemning the method of mass deportation used - and not just recently either - by Milosevic.
I also feel that views have differed slightly about what should be done.
We all want peace, except perhaps Milosevic.
And this is something we should keep in mind: if there is anyone who has pursued an ultra-nationalistic plan for ten years, which history shows to be a losing battle but which is bloody and cruel and has cost the lives of millions of Croats and Bosnians, that person is Milosevic, who has pursued, caused and used war for ten years.
So, we want peace but he does not, and it is important to say so.
The problem is how to force this man to accept a solution, a reasonable solution, after ten years have gone by.
I believe that after ten years the use of force was the only option.
And I say this as a person who believes in non-violence as well as in my capacity as a Member of the Commission.
But there is more to it than that.
For ten years now - I repeat, ten years - there have been negotiations with Milosevic, plus conferences, counter-conferences, partial agreements and full agreements, but they have never led anywhere; each agreement has just prepared us for the next massacre.
I believe that we are seeing a sort of collective amnesia in our countries.
Is it possible that names such as Osiev, Vukovar, Srebrenica, Bihac or Sarajevo no longer mean anything to anyone?
Applause
Could it be that all this never happened?
Or that we have forgotten all about it? Am I mistaken or were you not the very people who wanted to face up to the disgrace of Sarajevo, saying, 'Never again should we witness the cowardice and shameful behaviour which allowed the events of Sarajevo to happen'?
For once, ladies and gentlemen, what is at stake is not oil, or diamonds, or even territorial conquests, for once what is at stake is the right of an entire people to live in their homes, in peace and dignity, and for once when force is used we discover all of a sudden that this is not acceptable. What is the point?
Yet another Rambouillet? This is the question I think we should ask, and above all the answer that should be given.
I hope that we can end up with a serious conference, a situation in which commitments entered into will not just be taken seriously but be verified and verifiable as well.
I do not want us to fall into the umpteenth trap of a half-way agreement, which might even prepare the ground for a massacre in Montenegro.
Applause
There is one point I wish to stress during this debate, and that is that today we are witnessing the break-up and annihilation of Kosovo and of an entire people.
And all this did not start on 24 March, ladies and gentlemen; back in August - perhaps we were all on holiday, or had our minds on other things at the time - there were already 400 000 displaced persons in Kosovo, forced to wander across the mountains. It was these people who were then being kept inside the country and whom in the last few weeks Milosevic has fired off like human bombs at Albania and Macedonia.
Let us hope he does not decide to fire them off at Montenegro.
I would also like to stress that, even from a humanitarian angle, there is no aid organisation with the remit, the resources and sufficient preparation to deal with a human bomb of 500 000 people in a few days.
I should like particularly to emphasise that the Commission may have resigned, it may be corrupt or whatever else you care to say about it, but perhaps you should try to understand the unusual institutional situation in which we have had to work, and I think we have nonetheless faced up to this situation and done what it was in our power to do.
Let me repeat that at present there is no aid agency which could deal with 500 000 people in just a few days.
There are two further concerns of a humanitarian nature that I should like to voice. First of all, what in happening inside Kosovo, where the Kosovar population is without assistance, without protection and without witnesses either?
The second concern relates to Montenegro. If a hundred thousand deportees are forced into Montenegro, this will clearly lead to disastrous instability there as well.
Could I very briefly mention three points on the humanitarian front.
In the first place, this crisis shows us that in complex situations such as Hurricane Mitch in Central America it is sometimes impossible for aid workers to cope without the assistance of military structures.
Of course, it would have been more appropriate to use the WEU.
Fair enough, but for the moment it seems to me that the WEU is more of a virtual organisation than anything else, so I understand why Mrs Ogata wrote to NATO asking for technical resources at least to help with transport and setting up the camps and so on.
We should bear this point in mind because, as in the case of Hurricane Mitch, in this situation there are times when it is absolutely vital to use military structures for civilian purposes, even if just for logistical reasons.
Secondly, my colleague Mr van den Broek has already spoken of the need to give support to the countries receiving this enormous influx of refugees.
We will of course ask Mrs Gradin to monitor the individual case that was mentioned.
Finally, could I make one last exhortation: I do hope that all the efforts to show solidarity, including activities involving the general public, are made in a disciplined and coordinated way.
There is a risk of bottlenecks developing and of the limited port and airport facilities getting clogged up.
Furthermore, it is better to purchase supplies on the spot, hence money is better than food parcels.
This is a very important message which we hope you will pass on.
Lastly, I would like to thank the Member States, starting with Italy which reacted swiftly and immediately, but not forgetting the other Member States which are making absolutely tremendous efforts to help.
As you know, the part of the budget containing the available reserves amounts to EUR 150 million; bilateral cooperation and donations from Member States now amount to EUR 170 million.
We should make sure that these sums are used in a coordinated and complementary manner.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope above all else that this institution is able to stand firm, to withstand the test of time and to get across a sense of leadership to the public, so that a distinction is made between the attackers and the attacked, the aggressors and the innocent victims, including Serbs.
I would like to point out that humanitarian assistance is also being provided to the Serbs, via the Red Cross; there is no discrimination as far as we are concerned.
I trust that together we will be able to face this tough and complex battle, fought so that national sovereignty should not mean ownership and so that the rights of the individual may be advanced.
Mr President, we have heard that depleted uranium weapons munitions are being used in the conflict.
Depleted uranium is radioactive and highly toxic.
Of course, it knows no frontiers when the wind decides to blow.
Could we have a report from the Commission rather urgently, as well as from the Council of Ministers, of an investigation into whether or not we are using depleted uranium bombs. At the end of the day there is no time limit on the contamination of the environment.
Thank you, Mrs Bonino.
I have received eight motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Second bi-annual BSE follow-up report
The next item is the report (A4-0083/99) by Mr Böge, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions 'Second bi-annual BSE follow-up report' (COM(98)0598 - C4-0686/98).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about BSE, three letters which in the past, before the European Parliament reappraised the matter, stood for a bizarre mixture of mismanagement, misjudgement and sloppiness both in the Commission and in several Member States.
In the light of new and disturbing figures in some Member States, we could almost regard this as a never-ending story.
But let us not panic!
Many of the problems we have still not dealt with today are in fact a burden from the past, from the time before 1996.
With all that we are discussing today, we must not forget that we have achieved a great deal in recent years thanks to the work done in the Committee of Inquiry into BSE and in the Follow-up Committee, in that a large number of the European Parliament's recommendations put forward by the Committee of Inquiry into BSE were implemented.
I firmly believe that the course we embarked on jointly with the Commission and its departments was successful.
On the one hand, it restored confidence in the ability of the European institutions to cooperate internally; on the other hand, it gave the European consumer new confidence in the European institutions' ability to act.
In this connection I would like to give warm thanks to the Commissioner, Mrs Bonino, as also to Mr Reichenbach, Director-General, and to the Deputy Director-General from DG VI, Mr Heine, for what they managed to achieve, building on a situation that had arisen as a result of past mistakes.
I believe they have all made a major contribution to creating new confidence in this area of European activity.
In the final analysis we have achieved positive results for the future and improved the quality of preventive consumer protection, over and above the BSE issue.
We now have a new quality to the case-law of the European Court of Justice.
I believe that the restructuring of the Commission services, the new legislative initiatives and also the discussion concerning the transparency of the scientific debate are important measures that need to be put into effect in future not only in the European Union but also at international level.
I am thinking here of the hormone or BST debate.
One of our headaches remains that some Member States are not always willing and able to transpose Community law.
Further-reaching initiatives are needed here from the next intergovernmental conference, to ensure that if Member States delay and infringe the Treaties the Commission can take more rapid action, can initiate infringement proceedings more rapidly and can also impose sanctions more rapidly where there is a danger of this happening.
That is of the utmost importance!
Let me also say a few final words in regard to the discussion about the tests.
I believe that the current evaluation of the tests under discussion today is such that as things stand at present they can offer no absolute guarantee of the certain presence or absence of BSE.
So we must take a considered approach here too and must not be tempted to overreact.
In short I believe we have pointed the way to firmly establishing preventive consumer protection in the European Union.
The Commission has done its homework very well. Let us all take the BSE crisis as a warning for the future!
Thank you, Mr Böge.
Mr President, we have been discussing this subject here in Parliament for roughly two and a half years. We are now nearing the completion of the work.
Of course some questions and problems remain unresolved, but I do not want to go into that in my statement today at the close of the debate. I think it is important to ask what lessons should be drawn from the BSE crisis and what lessons should be drawn for the European Union's future policy.
How can we prevent this kind of thing from ever happening again? I would be interested to know: can this kind of disaster happen again, yes or no?
That is what we really need to know today.
Has our perception - by which I mean the perception of Parliament, of this Commission and of a new Commission - and has the style of our policy now changed radically in relation to what they were three, five or even 15 years ago? Of course absolute transparency is important here.
For instance, scientific advice, scientific checks, tests, inspections and controls must be carried out and accepted as a matter of course, even if the results may be inconvenient.
It is also important, as Mr Böge just said, to make preventive consumer protection and the precautionary principle the first principle in all other policy areas.
That may often be inconvenient, as indeed it was in the past.
It may be inconvenient for agricultural policy.
It may also be inconvenient for economic policy or foreign trade; it creates an enormous disturbance in these policy areas!
But only if the Commission and the European Parliament uphold and opt for the precautionary principle in cases of doubt will we prevent something like BSE from happening again.
In relation to the negotiations with the World Trade Organisation that logically means giving precedence to the precautionary principle over the smooth running of world trade.
We will very soon be facing the acid test here, with the question of whether we will in future allow growth hormones in meat from the United States in the European Union.
Will the Commission go on taking a tough line here, be hard as nails?
It remains to be seen! During the work on BSE Mrs Bonino took a very steadfast and positive approach.
We appreciated that, and Mr Böge has just acknowledged it too.
For me as also for my group, the criterion for a new Commission must be whether consumer protection and preventive health protection are given precedence over the smooth running of trade policy.
I am convinced that only then can we give a vote of confidence to a new Commission for only then can we hope never to experience another disaster like BSE.
We will find out in the next few months whether that will be the case.
We will see what names are put forward for the new Commission and what approach the president-designate of the Commission takes.
In his statement to the European Parliament yesterday Mr Prodi never once used the words consumer protection, precautionary principle or anything of that kind.
We hope they are on his mind if not on his lips!
But we do not know. We will find out in the future.
But I am convinced that we ourselves here in the European Parliament would all be making a mistake if we supported him or a new Commission that did not say very plainly whether in a situation where there is reason for doubt it will decide in favour of trade or in favour of agriculture.
We too must carry out our tasks, which is why we have always questioned the Commission.
Our task in future will be carefully to examine and question this new Commission which - whoever its members are - will not yet be in office. We must ask it how it will decide in a given situation.
If we are being serious here, we must only give this Commission a vote of confidence if the answers are satisfactory.
Then perhaps we will have some slight hope that preventive consumer protection will really play an important part in the Commission's discussions, to ensure that nothing like BSE ever happens again.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the joint rapporteurs, commend this report and incidentally say that I believe it is a justification for the contact committee which we maintained for a period of time, as well as the two main committees which endorse what has been said by the rapporteurs.
BSE was a tragedy for Britain and also for Europe. It remains so.
After suffering as we have, in our country, we are alarmed to see the disease still rampant in some other European countries.
We have had 2.5 million cattle slaughtered in Britain; we have had to submit about 2 000 pages of documentation on how the disease has been combated, although not yet eradicated, in our country.
We live daily with the problem of the victims of new variant CJD, to which the rapporteurs refer.
And yet we now have a situation in which, as they say, 13 Member States are facing infringement procedures by the Commission.
This is a scandalous state of affairs.
It is incumbent upon Parliament to make certain that the safety precautions which we have been forced to take are now common practice throughout the European Union as a whole.
Parliament needs to be backing the Commission in putting pressure on the Council in this regard.
The attitude of the Council over the last two years has not been satisfactory.
Danger for one is danger for all.
Safety for all depends on danger for none.
When we look at the situation in Europe at the moment it is simply not satisfactory.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt said that the precautionary principle has to be the right approach.
I agree.
The precautionary principle is no frivolous luxury; it is an absolute necessity.
Parliament should say so, loud and clear, to the Council of Ministers.
Mr President, this report is a continuation of Parliament's attempt to implement its recommendations in the wake of BSE.
Our work also involves monitoring the situation that is unfolding in the European Union as a result of public health protection policy.
We recognise, of course, that a certain amount of progress has been made in implementing measures to restructure and staff the Commission services, and to separate the legislative work from the operation of the advisory, scientific and supervisory committees and services.
In this way, the independence of the scientific committees has been strengthened, a better assessment of the facts has been achieved, and the transparency of the work on BSE has been maximised.
Many Member States have been slow to carry out checks and inspections, and we believe that these checks must be stepped up.
At the same time, cooperation and the exchange of information between the Commission and the Member States must be strengthened.
It is absolutely crucial that a legislative framework be set up to control animal feed and to combat epizootic diseases. We also need a more rational analysis of the use of antibiotics and growth promoters in animal feedingstuffs.
We must point out that there has been considerable delay in terms of the incorporation of Community provisions into the Member States' legislation. Moreover, in addition to specific responsibilities and acts of negligence, this matter of epizootics has revealed institutional gaps in the functioning of the European institutions, particularly the fact that Parliament cannot have complete control.
This is why we are asking for the codecision procedure to be introduced throughout the entire agricultural policy.
Through the Amsterdam Treaty, animal and plant health measures have already been put in place, and we are asking for them to be extended to the agricultural policy as a whole.
Mr President, I believe that health is one of the greatest gifts of human life. Protecting the health of the European public is one of the highest priorities of the European Union, and it must therefore play a vital role in the development of Europe.
I would like to thank the two rapporteurs, Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, for the excellent work they have done.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to thank the two rapporteurs, who have produced a well-balanced report which provides an excellent description of the situation.
They say that 'it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good', and this also applies here, because BSE was in fact the reason why we had the clear-out in the Commission.
BSE was the reason why we managed to expose some major shortcomings within the Commission and became aware that the Commission was not fulfilling its obligations.
I feel that we have achieved remarkable results, and I would like to thank the Commission for having followed the committee's recommendations.
The allocation of responsibility within the Commission was not satisfactory, but it has improved.
We have also succeeded in reaching a consensus about the need to keep the Scientific Committee separate from other bodies.
This, I feel, is extremely important.
We have succeeded in making the Scientific Committee more independent, even of parliamentary control.
A scientific committee must be detached, so that the scientists are not exposed to political pressure when they are asked to deliver opinions.
It is extremely important that the scientific basis should be in order, so that the right decisions can be reached.
Finally, I would like to say that BSE is, fortunately, on the way out.
We are fairly clear about when it will disappear completely.
There will continue to be a few cases.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is also on the way out, I believe.
So what can we learn from all this? The steps that have been taken appear to be effective, and I therefore believe that we can avoid getting into such a situation again.
We now have an apparatus which works.
We can, in my opinion, be reasonably satisfied.
We cannot give consumers a 100 per cent guarantee. But we are now better equipped to deal with such problems than we have been in the past.
Mr President, I would like to thank the draftsmen of this report as well as the Commission and in particular Commissioner Bonino for the excellent cooperation we have managed to establish in this area, since thanks to Parliament's action and the constructive rather than destructive response to it we have identified the problem and tried over the years to resolve it in the best possible way.
We have separated out the sectors and made major progress.
Today we acknowledge - and we are right to make a point of this - that the action the Commission is taking has not yet managed to overcome the resistance of the Member States.
The fact that 13 out of 15 countries are not fully implementing the recommendations which they should implement goes to show that we need to carry on working with the Commission to achieve this objective, so that respecting and safeguarding consumers really does become Union policy.
Mr President, if we consider the negligence of some people, this was a difficult task, as the eradication that everyone wanted is far from being achieved in certain Member States, and consumers and breeders are concerned, even if they do not say so explicitly.
For this reason I wish to congratulate my colleagues Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mr Böge on the quality of their recommendation and to explain to them the content of the main amendments that I have tabled.
With regard to paragraph 24, we think that it is important that we specify that the precautionary principle should also be applied to dealing with carcasses, animals and health-related seizures in abattoirs.
The European Parliament needs to make a statement on this point in order to guarantee health and safety, both for cattle and also, in short, for the consumer.
Concerning paragraph 26 on the Green Paper 'The General Principles of Food Law in the European Union', this problem needs to be dealt with on a general level, particularly by taking an interest in other fields such as animal and human food and also plant protection.
All decisions should be made on the basis of scientific evidence, but also following risk assessment, at Community level.
The principle of health and safety for the European consumer is a general one and is not restricted to particular sectors.
We should not forget this.
Finally, with regard to paragraph 29 on the use of antibiotics in meat production, it is true that this can lead to increased resistance to antibiotics in consumers.
Resistance to antibiotics is not solely linked to their use in meat production.
We welcome the withdrawal of authorisation for four antibiotics as animal feed additives, but I hope that in order to effectively protect public health, additional measures will be taken in the light of the results of the studies.
Mr President, I too want to join in the thanks to the two rapporteurs, Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, and to Mrs Bonino and her staff.
Thanks to the work of the Committee of Inquiry into BSE and the restructuring and changes made by the Commission, we have now anticipated what will soon enter into force under the Treaty of Amsterdam, namely preventive health and consumer protection. That is a very important foundation on which to build sustainable development of the Union.
I believe that we must continue to follow up the question of the precautionary principle which we have now anchored in our legislation and that we will also have to incorporate the principles of transparency and of separation of powers, which we now have in the Union, in international treaties and agreements too.
In that way we can achieve preventive health and consumer protection not only for the people in our Union but also in relation to products from other countries that end up in the Union.
I think Parliament must call on the Commission to show this same transparency in the preparations for the negotiations on these international treaties.
So we need more information: what is the nature of these preparations, who is making them, what are the ultimate objectives, how can they be achieved or have they already been realised?
There is a further point I find most regrettable. As rapporteur for the Green Paper on the future of food legislation I had also expected a stronger thrust in that direction.
I hope we will still manage to achieve modern food legislation prior to enlargement of the Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today I want to give very special thanks to Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt for their truly thorough work in the Committee of Inquiry into BSE and afterwards too.
The BSE scandal plunged the entire European Union into a deep crisis.
It was demonstrated to us quite plainly that even for the people of today, there are limits that have to be respected.
Nature has its laws and it is only within that framework that we can and may proceed if we want to make progress for the benefit of mankind.
Unfortunately we have still not come to the end of the crisis into which that irresponsible behaviour plunged us, and it will probably take decades before we know its true scale.
Today I will not fail to express my respect for the Commission under President Jacques Santer for having the courage and the staying-power to uncover, in the face of resistance in the Member States, the scandalous abuses whose origins after all reach back to the mid-1980s.
Even though the scandal has long since been exposed and has now almost disappeared from the media, I would nevertheless point out that we must not forget the BSE tragedy.
So it will be most important to ensure that the next Commission constantly presents its activities before Parliament.
Especially when public health is at issue, we must not take any risks.
As elected representatives it is our duty to stand up for the people.
Let me say very frankly, Commissioner, that I am deeply disturbed because I believe that we can still not gauge today how many new cases of BSE and also of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease we will encounter in the coming years.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate both rapporteurs.
From the beginning of the BSE crisis they have both been extremely constructive in the way they have brought forward their reports and in their analysis of the problem.
BSE, unfortunately, is still with us and we must recognise this.
We must also recognise that grave damage has been done to consumer confidence and that must be restored.
We are well on the way to doing so but we must continue to work at it.
Throughout the whole Union we must face up to the reality that if we had been feeding our animals in the right and proper way the BSE crisis would never have occurred in the first place.
In my own constituency of Northern Ireland we have now imposed extremely strict controls.
These are expensive and have had to be paid for by the hard-pressed beef farmers in my constituency and, to be perfectly honest, they question some of these controls.
However, at the end of the day, they are prepared to live with them because they know they are restoring confidence.
While we have strict controls within the European Union, these controls do not apply to the food that is entering the European Union from other countries whether from the United States or anywhere else.
Until we tackle that problem and meet it head on, I have to say to the Commissioner that the farmers of Europe will not have confidence in the European Union to meet the challenge that is facing us now.
It is the next challenge we have to face up to and we must do it.
An inspection is taking place in the United Kingdom at the moment and I hope it will result in a data-based scheme.
In winding up, Mr Böge said that we had been given a warning for the future.
Let all of us in this House today remember what we have come through in the last few years with regard to BSE and let us take his warning on board and act on it.
Mr President, the debate here in Parliament on the BSE crisis, which is still troubling Europe, has been a good example of how Parliament has been unquestionably capable of tackling an issue that is worrying the citizens of Europe.
The rapporteur deserves thanks for a lively report, as has been mentioned several times.
As soon as Parliament became aware of the crisis, a temporary committee of enquiry was set up, and as a result of its findings, the Commission was obliged to thoroughly re-examine Community policy on food production with reference to food safety and consumer protection.
It is important that the European Parliament continues to take an active part in monitoring the effects of decisions taken, as well as ensuring that Member States are implementing them correctly.
I believe, however, we should distinguish between those Member States in which there is no apparent risk with regard to the disease, and those in which there is.
Measures in countries in which there is no risk should be less drastic than in those countries where the risk exists.
Mr President, in its agricultural policy, the European Union emphasises the importance of environmentally friendly production methods and better quality of produce.
The Agenda 2000 package, however, does not give sufficient weight to environmental considerations.
The BSE crisis, cases of swine fever, and resistant strains of salmonella indicate all too alarmingly that the basis for a Union agricultural policy is breaking up.
We have to pay far more attention to matters of agricultural production and food production.
Consumers must have greater certainty that products are safe.
We cannot afford to be arrogant here.
There is still precious little scientific knowledge about BSE.
Research into its long-term effects has been arduous and slow.
We cannot jump to hasty conclusions one way or the other.
Mad cow disease was in the headlines about five years ago.
One wonders whether more could have been achieved in the area of research at that time.
Have the resources set aside for the control of BSE been used in the best possible way?
Ignorance as to what causes BSE and its effects on humans is costing the EU dear.
Overall, the BSE crisis has cost the Union many billions of euros.
It is still not clear what action it is wise and necessary to take, and the extent to which that action should be targeted.
We must be able to impose different measures in different countries relating to high risk items such as cattle and sheep brains and meat on the bone.
The BSE crisis has not yet been beaten, and we need to ensure there is consumer confidence in European agricultural produce.
The Commission has implemented many of the recommendations made with regard to BSE in order to promote consumer health and protection.
The present situation is hardly satisfactory, however.
Too many new cases have once again emerged this spring.
Mr President, Commissioner, as I am speaking on this issue probably for the last time during the term of this Parliament, I shall not hide from you that I have a vague feeling of disquiet.
I feel almost as if I am abandoning a child who has not yet fully recovered from an illness in the middle of the street and wondering who will take care of him from now on.
Will the next Parliament, as I very much hope, contain two real heavyweights like Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt to replace the two of them? Mrs Roth-Behrendt is not here, but I trust the term 'heavyweight' does not offend her.
They are two heavyweights who have stood firm even when the issue in question was no longer quite so topical and it would have been easier to let it drop rather than carry on attending countless meetings.
I am wondering about this because even though the two committees, the Committee of Inquiry and the Follow-up Committee, have provided answers to many of the queries we raised, there are still further questions which remain.
For example, I wonder who will from now on bring the required pressure to bear on researchers and on the world of science, which still has to provide many answers to our queries.
Furthermore, will controls and inspections continue in the United Kingdom, both on the epidemiological front and in the ports where some not entirely healthy foodstuffs may still be found? Even though the guide for consumers has been corrected and revised in the latest edition, I am wondering whether it will be adequate to help the target readership to understand what they should be doing.
I would like to put one further question to the House and to the spectres who will fill it during the next parliamentary term. Who will still protect the consumers?
Will others be as resolute as ourselves in defending their rights? The families affected by new variant Creutzfeld-Jacob's disease have received some compensation, but we should not forget the dire prediction of one professor, who said, 'Take care, the incubation period lasts for 15 years!'
So we should not let the matter drop in this respect either.
Finally, the second bi-annual report states that almost everything has been done.
Among the points missing is the follow-up to the Green Paper on food law. One more question, who will take the lead here?
I wish them the best of luck!
Mr President, I also thank the rapporteurs.
I must declare an interest in this debate as I am a beef and sheep farmer in Scotland.
As most of my income used to come from exporting live pedigree cattle, I have a financial interest in the lifting of the export ban on beef from the United Kingdom.
As a farmer I have watched the devastation BSE has caused, not just to British farmers but also to all the ancillary industries, such as transport, auction marts, abattoirs and downstream industries.
British agriculture is now experiencing a crisis in all sectors.
While I welcome the report in that it gives us a chance to review the situation, there are a number of points I wish to comment on.
Firstly, it is a great tragedy that BSE was treated as a British, and not a European, problem from the start.
As tens of thousands of tonnes of contaminated feed were exported to mainland Europe, there was bound to be a European-wide problem.
I am delighted the Commission is taking such a tough line on food safety throughout the beef industry in Europe as a whole, as this is the only way to protect public confidence.
It is a pity that some nation states do not feel as strongly.
Being closely involved in the industry, I can assure Members that a huge effort has been made to make British beef safe.
While we still have a few cases of BSE in some herds - mostly dairy - due to consumption of contaminated feed, most beef herds have never had any cases - and that includes my own - yet we all suffer.
The paperwork and record-keeping is now in place to give complete traceability from birth to the finished cut of meat in the shops.
It is a huge burden of extra work for farmers, but well worth it to get the market opened up.
The market and abattoirs are weighed down with inspectors at every level and the cost of inspections is now about 75 % of total costs to ensure that the rules are followed.
The British ban on meat on the bone is stupid and unnecessary and should be lifted.
However, I welcome this report.
On behalf of the President, I would like to thank Mrs Roth-Behrendt for giving up her speaking time to allow us more time to finish the debate.
Commissioner Bonino now has the floor.
Mr President, I will give a very short and rather more political answer.
First of all, I would like to thank the rapporteurs, and then I would point out that this is sort of our last debate, the last debate for this Parliament and perhaps also for this Commission, and in a way I shall miss it.
I shall miss it because above and beyond what we have achieved together - and the report sets this out clearly - I believe we have developed a working method (although this has not been easy for you, I imagine, nor for me either, I am sure you will grant me that) which makes each side's responsibility clear, thereby avoiding institutional confusion and seeking cooperation despite our differences.
Leaving aside specific points, I think this is the most important thing that we have learned together.
And I believe that the future Parliament and the future Commission should safeguard this method they have inherited in relations between the two institutions, with regard both to transparency and to scientific excellence.
Some dossiers - apart from BSE where problems remain to be resolved as Mr Santini and Mr Imbeni pointed out - deal with complex subjects such as hormones for example, which Mrs Roth-Behrendt mentioned, or genetically modified products: in short, on the food safety front there are complex dossiers for whoever comes along.
The last point I should like to stress is the precautionary principle.
I believe that first and foremost it is important to get this established at European level and then to promote it later at international level.
We hope to get a consensus on 19 April for the precautionary principle to be included in the procedural manual for the Codex Alimentarius.
If we succeed I think this will not just be an important milestone for the Union but will help in asserting this principle at international level.
This is the legacy, one might say, that you are leaving for the future Parliament and that we are leaving for the future Commission.
I do sincerely hope that whatever specific problems there may be, this working method becomes a shared resource.
Perhaps just for once I may do something I never do and thank the Commission departments and my own office which, with you, have shown great patience and also, I believe, considerable tenacity.
Many thanks, Mrs Bonino.
I would also like to say, on behalf of the President, that we have always followed what you have said at the rostrum with great interest.
We would like to reciprocate your kind words about the European Parliament and to offer you our best wishes in your personal political career and to wish you every happiness in the future.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0157/99).
Let me welcome the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Verheugen, and I should also like to point out from the start that Mr Verheugen has to leave the House at 6.50 p.m. to make his journey back.
It would therefore be a good idea if we were to focus our questions so that we can ask as many as possible and so that Mr Verheugen can answer them.
In any event, we have already agreed that at the next part-session there will be ten extra minutes to make up for the ten minutes we shall miss today because he has to leave at 6.50 p.m. for reasons outside his control.
I have now informed the House of this fact.
Question No 1 by Patricia McKenna (H-0222/99)
Subject: European central banking and monetary system Can the Council indicate how it is proposed that new 'Euro' currency will be regularly issued after the Member State currencies are replaced, and whether it will be by 'Euro' bond issues to the commercial banks only, in effect incurring new debt in the system, or as free issue 'Euro' currency, incurring no debt, or some combination of both, especially as a major declared intent of the system and associated convergence criteria and Stability Pact is debt reduction?
Can the Council inform Parliament as to which EU Member State central banks are fully privately owned, which ones are partly so, and which are fully publicly owned? Can it say if it regards it as proper that either party or fully privately owned central banks should be constituent parts of the European System of Central Banks, and even part owners of the European Central Bank, both established by the European Union Treaties, giving private financial interests some measure of control over the European monetary system, something potentially not conducive to the declared aim of monetary stability?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs McKenna's question.
Mr President, according to the recommendations of the Madrid European Council in December 1995, as from 1 January 1999 the participant states issue new, negotiable public debts in euros.
At the same time they convert the major part of their outstanding public debts into euros, pursuant to Council Regulation No 974/98 of 3 May 1998.
During the transitional period from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2001, private issuers can convert outstanding bonds into euros in accordance with that Council regulation.
They can issue new bonds in euros.
At the end of the transitional period, all new bonds issued by public and private issuers will be issued in euros or in foreign currencies.
All outstanding debts issued in national currencies that then no longer exist can only be serviced and paid in euros from the year 2002.
Pursuant to Council Decision 317/98 of 3 May 1998, the central bank legislations of those Member States participating in European monetary union must comply with the EU Treaty provisions and ensure that the central banks of those Member States that take part in European monetary union are totally independent.
When we talk about the whole question of issuing currency without debt, the argument that has been given is basically that it causes inflation.
Commercial banks multiply the money supply issued by at least 10 to 15 times, and this is the reason that states get into debt, i.e. so that banks can make these huge profits.
Considering that this whole project was supposed to ensure a reduction or elimination of debt, I do not think that is going to do it - do you agree?
Mr President, Mrs McKenna, I do not agree.
The level of private debt and the level of public debt are two entirely different indicators of economic development.
The level of public debt tends to be a more critical indicator while the level of private debt can reflect increasing investment activity.
You must clearly distinguish between the two.
But what we must concern ourselves with in this context is quite simply the question of from when these bonds will be issued in euros. I have answered that question.
I have a supplementary question. As you know, I come from Sweden.
The Council is probably aware of the current debate as to whether we should join the single currency. I frequently find myself at all kinds of meetings where this issue is discussed.
One question keeps on coming up - and it is one I cannot answer.
Perhaps you can assist.
There is always someone who wants to know what happens if a country wishes to abandon the single currency.
If a feeling develops that the social and economic impact is proving negative, is there any legal possibility of leaving the single currency and reinstating a country's national currency and central bank?
Mr Sjöstedt, that is an interesting question.
I will answer it in political rather than legal terms.
What you suggest in your question is not possible. There is no provision for it in the Treaty.
Anyone who has joined the common currency cannot get out.
Question No 2 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0224/99)
Subject: Implementation of the Philoxenia programme Parliament, the Commission and the Economic and Social Committee have already approved the adoption of the multiannual programme to promote European tourism entitled 'Philoxenia'.
Given the importance of tourism for job creation and the dissemination of European culture and in view of the fact that the Council of Ministers for Tourism is constantly deferring adoption of the programme, will the Council say when the final adoption of the programme can be expected? Can it assure Parliament and the Commission that it will be possible to implement the programme as soon as possible and will it say whether there are any problems within the Council in connection with its final adoption?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Alavanos's question.
Unfortunately I have to tell you that this subject has been discussed on a number of occasions within the Council and that unfortunately the fundamental differences of opinion could not be resolved, although the Austrian Presidency went to great trouble to do so.
Some delegations expressed reservations even though the presidency had proposed reducing the programme's long-term budget.
Regrettably, I cannot even foresee at this moment whether or when the Council can adopt the Commission proposal.
The President-in-Office has disappointed me with his answer, since he said in his reply that he could not think when the debate on the report would take place.
I would like to ask him the following questions.
Firstly, is there still a possibility that this endorsement will be given during the German Presidency?
Secondly, with regard to the topical issue of tourism, has the Council considered the impact the Yugoslavian crisis in Kosovo will have on tourism in many regions of the Balkans, possibly including Northern Greece, if this crisis is not resolved soon? Has the Council considered the possibility of introducing measures to support the tourist industry?
Mr Alavanos, I understand your disappointment, but all the presidency can tell you is what the Member States are prepared to do and in this case the situation is that a number of Member States have very fundamental reservations about this programme to promote European tourism; they do not want it at all.
There are other Member States which do not want it in this form.
No consensus is emerging on this issue in the Council, which is why I am very sorry indeed to have to tell you that I do not see the slightest chance of this matter being concluded during the German Presidency, at least not with a positive outcome.
Question No 3 by Nikitas Kaklamanis (H-0227/99)
Subject: Statements by Ecevit following the arrest of Öcalan The Turkish Prime Minister, Mr B. Ecevit (who in 1974 gave the order to attack the Republic of Cyprus, a UN Member State currently applying for membership of the EU) announced to Turkish and foreign journalists immediately after the arrest of the PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, that Turkey would not accept advice from any European country in connection with the trial of Öcalan.
What is the EU Presidency's position on this statement by the Prime Minister of a country which continues to ban the Kurdish Democratic Party from taking part in elections and is responsible for unprecedented crimes against the peoples living on its territory?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Kaklamanis's question.
Mr Kaklamanis, in its statement of 22 February this year, the European Union took note of the Turkish Government's assurance that Abdullah Öcalan would be given a fair trial.
The European Union expects that to mean fair and correct treatment and also a public and constitutional trial before an independent court, access to the legal adviser of his choice and admission of international observers to the trial.
The European Union once again emphasises its firm rejection of the death penalty.
At the same time the European Union reaffirms its condemnation of all forms of terrorism.
The legitimate fight against terrorism must be conducted on a basis of full respect for human rights, the rule of law and democratic standards.
Regarding the exclusion of the Kurdish Democratic Party from the elections, I am sure the honourable Member is aware that on 8 March 1999 the Turkish Constitutional Court unanimously rejected the public prosecutor's application for a temporary injunction to ban this party from participating.
Mr President-in-Office, this morning I heard Chancellor Schröder say that NATO's attacks were being carried out in the name of human rights and on behalf of the Albanian minority in Yugoslavia. You cannot allow human rights to be served up on an ad hoc basis or 'à la carte '.
Yesterday, the Turkish newspapers wrote that international observers have not been allowed, and will not be allowed, to attend the trial of Mr Öcalan. I would therefore like you to answer the following questions.
If this is in fact the case, what will the Council do in relation to Turkey, which is linked by an association agreement with the European Union? Secondly, I am surprised that you are not aware that there is a more recent decision which forbids the ADEP Party from taking part in the elections, thereby depriving 20 million Kurds of their human right to express themselves politically in the elections.
What does the Council intend to do about this?
Mr Kaklamanis, the Council is employing every political and diplomatic means to make it clear to the Turkish Government what European human rights standards mean and that it expects Turkey to observe European human rights standards in every individual case and in every situation.
I would like to put a couple of questions to the President-in-Office.
Firstly, with the experience both he and Parliament have, does he seriously believe that the current regime in Turkey will hold a fair trial based on the principles of the rule of law? If so, on what does he base this confidence?
Secondly, why does he immediately 'latch on' to the terrorist issue, regardless of whether this exists or not?
Perhaps this is a way out for Turkey, a pretext for Turkey to treat Mr Öcalan as it wishes, or whoever else it arrests? Is he setting himself up as the counsel for the defence of the Turkish authorities and providing it with just such an alibi?
Mr Kaklamanis, it is not a question of what I believe. Nor is it a question of what the Council believes the Turkish Government will do.
It is a question of us using our powers of influence to attain our common goal, in this case a fair and constitutional trial.
I have already told you that we are using these powers of influence, almost on a daily basis.
Question No 4 by Maj Theorin (H-0228/99)
Subject: Western Sahara Like other colonised nations, the people of Western Sahara are entitled to self-determination and independence, but Morocco, which for nearly 24 years has occupied Western Sahara in breach of the UN Charter and international law, stands in the way.
It has hampered, delayed and blocked the UN peace plan.
Nevertheless, the EU is giving Morocco substantial economic aid.
How does the Council reconcile EU aid to Morocco with the latter's occupation of Western Sahara? How does the Council intend to further the implementation of the UN peace plan?
I give the floor to the President-in-Office to answer Mrs Theorin's question.
Mrs Theorin, the Council is already closely involved in the United Nations' ongoing activities relating to the referendum on self-determination for the region of Western Sahara in the years 1999 and 2000.
Developments have been followed closely by the Member States and through the activities in the United Nations.
In the framework of the common foreign and security policy, the initiatives of the UN Secretary-General have been considered repeatedly and on a regular basis, in particular in the CFSP working group responsible.
On 29 December 1998 the presidency made a statement on behalf of the European Union, unreservedly supporting the United Nations' efforts to find a fair and lasting solution.
That is why the European Union noted with great interest the following decisions by the Moroccan Government. Firstly, it decided to formalise the status of the UNHCR in the region concerned.
That should now make it possible to resume the pre-registration activities in the Tindouf camps.
We hope discussions will now begin with the UNHCR on the draft protocol on the return of the refugees.
Secondly, the agreement on the status of the MINURSO troops is to be signed.
This decision will permit the orderly and prompt deployment of the forces needed to implement the planned solution while at the same time simplifying the everyday implementation of MINURSO operations.
From the European Union's point of view there is therefore no reason to reconsider the EU aid to Morocco because of developments in Western Sahara.
Thank you very much for that answer.
Negotiations between the UN and Morocco actually began yesterday, I believe.
It would be interesting to hear whether the Council has any information on what has been happening on that front.
The fundamental point to bear in mind is the length of time we have all been waiting for this referendum to get off the ground; the pressure on Morocco has been kept up for a long time now.
Even though we are providing financial assistance, it would be interesting to hear whether the EU Council of Ministers is ready to lean on the Moroccan Government in an effort to prevent it from once again taking a decision on a referendum, only to postpone implementation.
Around 160 000 people are living in various refugee camps, with almost as many soldiers to guard them.
It therefore makes sense to ensure that this process is initiated in a right and proper way.
I am keen to hear what the Council is willing to undertake.
Mrs Theorin, the Council entirely agrees with the political intentions you have just expressed.
We too want to see this conflict finally resolved by means of the referendum, followed by free elections.
To this end the Council has itself embarked on a number of activities and has supported others. And it will continue to do so.
We will continue to exert the necessary political pressure in order to achieve our common objective, and we will always examine developments in the light of new decisions.
So if new developments force us to change our position and to take new decisions, we shall do so.
Mr President, I think that we are going to have to ask the Council to draw up a treaty explaining its diplomatic influence, its intentions and its means of exerting pressure, whether it is regarding Turkey or Morocco, as none of this seems very clear.
The original question made some clear requests.
Economic aid is a means of exerting pressure that we can understand, if you tell us that you want to use it, but you say that you do not.
So what other means of pressure do you propose?
Also, after all this vagueness - we are now seeing it with regard to Kosovo - the Council tells us that everything has been tried from a diplomatic point of view.
We have a few reasons to doubt this.
What is your influence? We would really like to know.
It is like the situation with Turkey: how do you manage to gain assurances and influence, by what means? We think that economic means are appropriate, but if there are other means you could explain them to us.
After all, they are not state secrets.
I hope I have misunderstood the honourable Member.
But I almost had the feeling she wanted to have me say that military means could be used against Morocco in order to achieve the desired objective.
I hope that was a misunderstanding and that she did not mean to insinuate that.
After all, the situation is quite different.
We have a number of means of exerting pressure on Morocco, and we are doing so.
Morocco is involved in processes of dialogue and consultation on a regular basis.
Morocco has associate status, Morocco is part of the Barcelona process.
Indeed tomorrow the Mediterranean Conference, Barcelona II, is opening in Stuttgart, and of course these questions will be on the agenda.
As I said, we are employing every political and diplomatic means available to us.
The Council does not currently consider that the use of other instruments is appropriate.
I have already said that.
Mr President-in-Office, we may perhaps be tiresome in demonstrating so much concern for one of our unresolved problems, but you must understand that there have been cases in the past where it was better to be safe than sorry.
As you are well aware, Mr Baker's special envoy mediated between the Sahrawi people and the Moroccans with some success, although it is a shame that an American acted as mediator rather than a European.
Nonetheless, we have been informed that Mr Charles Dunbar, Mr Baker's special representative, has thrown in the towel. He has stated that he cannot tolerate the fact that Morocco constantly opposes the United Nation's proposals to speed up the referendum on Western Sahara's autonomy and to guarantee a fair referendum.
And to stress the question, do you not believe that it would be better if, rather than just supporting the referendum, the European Union were to make use of its positive influence on Morocco and call for a fair referendum - which the Sahrawi people are anxiously awaiting - in the next six months, which will be a crucial period? It is a shame that we have to labour this point, but it would be far worse if, in December, we had to regret the European Union's lack of influence.
Mrs González, I too am sorry that I have to insist that you keep to the time laid down.
You have exceeded the 30 seconds of time I allocated to you.
I would therefore ask that you all try to keep to time; this will benefit us, as we will be able to get through more questions.
Mr Verheugen, you have the floor to answer the question by Mrs González Álvarez.
Mrs González Álvarez, you are certainly not being a nuisance.
Believe me, I take this problem just as seriously as you do.
But you now want to hold a political debate with me.
I cannot hold a political debate with you because I can only present the Council's current position. I have already done so.
Let me repeat: we agree on the objectives to be achieved, the operational implementation comes under the United Nations.
The European Union is supporting these objectives by the means available to it and if developments show that the political instruments employed to date are inadequate, we will have to discuss other instruments.
But at the moment the Council sees no need for this.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 5 to 8 will be taken together.
Question No 5 by Francisca Bennasar Tous (H-0235/99)
Subject: Island regions in the new context of the Amsterdam Treaty Article 158 of the Amsterdam Treaty sets out the Community's aim of reducing the backwardness of the least favoured regions or islands, and Declaration 30 annexed to the said Treaty recognises that 'island regions suffer from structural handicaps linked to their island status, the permanence of which impairs their economic and social development'.
Bearing in mind that the additional costs involved in transporting people, goods and energy constitute one of the basic reasons for which island regions are unable to compete on the single market on an equal footing, and that Article 154 (ex Article 129B) refers explicitly to the need to link island regions with the central regions of the Community, what specific measures does the Council intend to take in order to ensure that island regions are properly integrated into the internal market on an equal footing?
Question No 6 by Roy Perry (H-0241/99)
Subject: Interreg for islandsDoes the Council intend to support calls for a specific strand on inter-island cooperation being included in the Interreg programme as requested by Parliament amendments at first reading to the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report on the European Regional Development Fund?
Question No 7 by Vincenzo Viola (H-0246/99)
Subject: Integrated programme for EU island regionsIn the light of Articles 154 and 158 of the EC Treaty as amended by the Treaty of Amsterdam, and Declaration 30 annexed to the latter Treaty, Commission DG XVII has drawn up a communication on the use of renewable energy in the EU's island regions.
At an earlier stage, DG XII commissioned a study on research and technological development in island regions, and DG XI drafted a code of practice for island waste management.
To date, and in spite of the explicit call by the EP, the plans concerned have not found practical expression in an integrated programme to aid the EU's island regions, home to 14 million citizens of 12 Member States, to enable them to compete on equal terms with mainland regions, which do not start out with the same intrinsic geographical handicap.
What measures will the Council take, not least in connection with Structural Fund reform and the Interreg Community initiative, with a view to giving effect to the provisions which it has itself laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam?
Question No 8 by Konstantinos Hatzidakis (H-0260/99)
Subject: Measures in support of the island regions of the UnionArticle 158 of the Amsterdam Treaty states that one of the Union's commitments is to take measures to reduce the backwardness of the least favoured regions or islands.
Furthermore, Declaration No. 30 annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty recognises that the islands suffer from structural handicaps arising from their particular status as islands and calls on the Union to take account of those handicaps and, where necessary, to take specific measures in order to integrate those regions better into the internal market on fair conditions.
Will the Council, therefore, say what preparatory measures it has taken to translate the provisions of Article 158 and Declaration No. 30 into practical projects and programmes once the Amsterdam Treaty has entered into force?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer these four questions.
Let me tell the honourable Members that the Council is aware of the particular problems facing the islands and has always attached special importance to political strategies to promote the integration of the islands into the common market.
One of the main aims of the reform of the Structural and Cohesion Funds in the framework of Agenda 2000 is to concentrate aid on the particularly needy and the poorest regions.
In this regard the Council recognises that the task of regional policy is to develop all the existing potential in order to make up for structural imbalances and backwardness and to speed up economic and social change in the disadvantaged regions, including the islands.
So we will continue to support the island regions in the next aid programme period too.
Negotiations are currently still underway with the European Parliament on the exact formulation of the regulation on the European Regional Fund, which is especially important here, in the framework of the informal conciliation and legislative procedure.
I have just come from a conciliation procedure on the subject and can describe the situation as it evolved just three-quarters of an hour ago.
It looks as though agreement could be reached relatively quickly between Parliament and the Council on the outstanding questions.
Let me also point out that the Commission recently stated that special attention must also be given to including the island regions in the measures under the Interreg C Community initiative.
Without prejudice to the further procedure, I think that too seems useful.
This is the first time that we have been able to discuss island regions with the Council.
Article 158 of the Amsterdam Treaty, which forms the basis of the cohesion policy, was wrongly translated in some of the Union's official languages.
The only logical meaning of this article, thanks to the addenda introduced by the Amsterdam Council, is to consider all island regions of the Union as least favoured regions due to their geographical handicap, which is the reason for additional costs in the transport or energy sectors, for example.
However, the Council has interpreted this article restrictively in its regulation on the ERDF by talking of least favoured islands. This definition is unclear.
Is it based on criteria linked to economics, geography and remoteness?
And, first and foremost, I should like to say that it is an erroneous definition as it is at odds with Declaration 30 that is annexed to the Treaty and also goes against common sense itself.
Why should a reference to least favoured islands have been included in the Amsterdam Treaty when, in fact, they were already included among the least favoured regions in the former article? Would it perhaps be because the Council wishes to add a new category of regions, namely all the island regions, to the least-favoured regions of the European Union?
In the new regulations for the Structural Funds, why does the Council now not wish to adopt the position it held in Amsterdam in defence of the island regions?
Mrs Bennasar Tous, the Council firmly rejects your interpretation of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It takes a different view, and it will adhere to that view.
Its policy is that the criterion of need must of course be applied in evaluating whether island regions are eligible for aid.
I should like to press the President-in-Office on that point.
The Commission guidelines for Interreg definitely state that particular attention needs to be paid to ultra-peripheral and insular regions.
I represent the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England, undoubtedly a border region, and it has a GDP of 64 % of the European average.
Can I go back to the Isle of Wight and tell the people that the new Interreg proposals will help islands like theirs?
Mr Perry, I am grateful for that information and will pass it on to the Commission.
It is not my job nor is it the Council's job to decide what regions of Europe receive aid under what criteria.
That is up to the Commission.
But let me point out to you that a region that attains less than 75 % of the average level of prosperity in Europe is eligible for aid from the Structural Funds, indeed under Objective 1.
Please discuss that with the Commission as it is not in the Council's remit.
Mr President-in-Office, we were discussing this a short while ago in private, but now we must say the same, or similar, things in public.
As you are not an islander, I feel I must point out that islands are not just places for holidays, with sunshine and the sea.
They are regions which, especially in winter, face special problems of isolation.
This is a constant disadvantage for islands and affects them in many ways.
The point I want to make is that there are many Members in this Parliament who are concerned about these issues. You previously heard the debate in the advisory committee where I expressed the views of the European Parliament.
Particular attention must be paid to islands, and what was decided in Amsterdam must be translated into practical action.
Interreg is the first opportunity we have had to promote the interests of ultra-peripheral and insular regions, and we would therefore like a commitment on the part of the Council.
Mr President, I would like to finish by asking the President-in-Office if a specific strategy for islands is being prepared in the Council.
I imagine that the answer will be a negative one but I hope that something will be done in the future.
Mr Hatzidakis, what the Berlin Council decided in relation to Agenda 2000 applies.
Agenda 2000 takes account - excellently, in my view - of the interests and needs of the island regions.
Indeed, at the moment we are jointly involved in transposing the Berlin decisions into regulations and it is the Council's view that this takes full account of the needs arising for the island regions.
Mr President-in-Office, my question refers to a special type of island, that is, those included amongst the outermost regions covered by paragraph 2 of Article 299 of the new Amsterdam Treaty, which have been granted special status.
However, it is a question that Mr Verheugen will probably not even have to consult his notes to answer as I believe that he was present at the evening session of the Berlin European Council.
In Agenda 2000, the Commission of the European Communities stated that these outermost regions were to remain exempt from the condition that the per capita GDP must be less than 75 % of the Community average to warrant Objective 1 status.
On the same night, the President of the Spanish Government confirmed that this objective had been achieved, but then, on checking the text, we see that this is not the case.
I would like to know if the President-in-Office remembers what agreement was actually reached that night and what the situation of the outermost regions is following the agreement by the Berlin European Council, in other words, if they are included as Objective 1 regions.
Mr Medina Ortega, you overestimate my powers of recall.
I do not want to tell you anything that is untrue.
I will have to take a look at the Berlin Protocol, for I have no recollection at all of the discussion to which you have just referred.
All I can tell you is that what I said also applies to the ultra-peripheral regions, as these are all islands of course.
If they fulfil the criterion of need, they will receive aid.
Question No 9 by Roberto Speciale (H-0236/99)
Subject: Trade in human beings in Sudan Recent reports in an Italian national daily newspaper have highlighted the existence of trade in human beings in Sudan, especially in the south of the country, including minors from the Dinka and Nuba tribes in particular.
Is the Council aware of this situation?
If so, has it contacted the Sudanese authorities to verify these reports and express the European Union's total opposition to such practices?
What reprisals mights the European Community take in order to end this trade (beginning with the suspension of all aid and cooperation programmes)?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Speciale's question.
Mr President, the Council is aware that abductions, cases of slavery, slave trading and other serious human rights violations of the kind take place in Sudan.
As early as 14 April 1998, the European Council made a statement on the human rights situation in Sudan, pointing out that serious human rights violations are still being committed there.
The EU calls for unconditional respect for human rights in all parts of Sudan and urges that human rights observers be stationed in Sudan.
Moreover, the EU calls for international observers to be given unrestricted access to regions in which abductions, cases of slavery, slave trading or similar human rights violations are reported.
The European Union submitted a draft resolution to the 55th Human Rights Commission in Geneva which specifically refers to the problem of slavery.
The EU will continue in future to raise human rights questions with the Sudanese Government with the aim of changing the Sudanese Government's attitude to slavery too.
The European Union has already suspended its economic cooperation with Sudan, with the exception of humanitarian aid.
The suspension of humanitarian aid would only harm the civilian population and is therefore not being considered as a possible means of exerting pressure on the Sudanese Government.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Verheugen for his reply, with which I am satisfied.
I am very glad that the Council is aware of the situation and wants to intervene.
I hope that there will be definite results and a change of attitude on the part of Sudan's government, but I do of course understand that this is not in our hands, though to some extent it may depend on our determination.
I know that peace negotiations on the internal situation in Sudan should be getting under way in Nairobi in the next few days, and I am wondering, Mr President- in-Office, if this issue could not be raised at these negotiations as well, so that Sudan feels the pressure brought to bear by the international community.
In any case I would like to thank you for your answer.
Mr Speciale, I note that we agree entirely on the political objective.
As to your specific question whether human rights issues can be included in the discussions due to begin in Nairobi, I cannot answer it off the cuff.
Please understand that first I will have to find out about the substance of these negotiations, and then I will be happy to give you a written answer.
Question No 10 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0238/99)
Subject: Amsterdam Treaty In the Council's estimation, when will it be possible for the Amsterdam Treaty to enter into force? What are the remaining obstacles?
In what way will the association of Norway and Iceland with the Schengen agreement be affected by the Amsterdam Treaty?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Sjöstedt's question.
The final instrument of ratification was deposited on 30 March 1999 and the Amsterdam Treaty will therefore enter into force on 1 May 1999 pursuant to Article 14.
Pursuant to Article 6 of the Protocol integrating the Schengen acquis into the framework of the European Union, the Republic of Iceland and the Kingdom of Norway shall be associated with the implementation of the Schengen acquis and its further development on the basis of the agreement signed in Luxembourg on 19 December 1996.
Appropriate procedures shall be agreed to that effect in an agreement to be concluded with Norway and Sweden by the Council, acting by the unanimity of the 13 members mentioned in Article 1 of the Schengen Protocol.
Together with the Commission, the Presidency-in-Office of the Council conducted negotiations with Norway and Iceland on the basis of the guidelines adopted by the Council.
The Council was informed of the outcome of the negotiations; the association agreement is to be concluded as soon as possible after the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
I should first of all like to thank the Council for its answer, and then I have a supplementary question.
There is a protocol attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam dealing with the incorporation of the Schengen acquis into EU law. In it is a provision stating that the Council is to decide on the legal basis for the various parts of Schengen.
I was wondering how much progress has been made.
Is there any deadline by which this work should be completed? And is it possible to comment as of now on what the basis in EU law will be for the various parts of the Schengen acquis ?
Subject to checking the matter, because of course there is no way I can have this information, let me tell you that the work is far from completion.
The problem is that, as you perhaps know, one Member State has strong reservations on principle about this whole question. We are currently making very serious efforts to persuade this Member State to withdraw its reservations.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
As you know, this morning Chancellor Schröder announced a new intergovernmental conference, which is to end again next year.
I just want to ask whether this intergovernmental conference is to be given a mandate even before the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force and which specific parts of the Amsterdam Treaty will be renegotiable there.
No, the mandate will be given at the meeting in Cologne in the first week of June and no parts of the Amsterdam Treaty are open to renegotiation. One of the topics that will be discussed there is the famous left-overs of Amsterdam, but this is only one of the subjects, as others are also on the agenda.
I simply have a question on the agreement due to be reached with Norway and Iceland in the run-up to Schengen's incorporation into the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Will Parliament be consulted on this agreement?
The rules of the Amsterdam Treaty apply here.
Question No 11 by Peter Truscott (H-0242/99)
Subject: The situation in Jammu and Kashmir Can the Council comment on future prospects for peace in Jammu and Kashmir? Does the Council have any plans to offer its good offices to act as an intermediary between India and Pakistan to help resolve the Jammu and Kashmir issue?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to reply to Mr Truscott.
For some time now the European Union has been concerned about the tense situation in Kashmir, which is a threat to peace and stability in the region.
For this reason it is observing developments there with particular attention.
The EU takes the view that the dialogue between India and Pakistan is the key to resolving the Kashmir conflict that is so seriously affecting relations between the two countries.
The Union has therefore repeatedly appealed to both parties to do their utmost to seek a negotiated settlement of all outstanding issues between the two countries, and in particular the Jammu and Kashmir issues.
The summit meeting that was recently held in Lahore between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan gives reason to hope that both sides are seriously endeavouring to establish good-neighbourly relations, which could also improve the prospects for peace in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Council will be aware that on 11 April India test-fired a medium- range ballistic missile, the Agni 2, which has a range of 2, 000 km and is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead.
In view of this serious development and the possibility of creating further instability in the region, will the Council redouble its diplomatic efforts to bring about a settlement in Jammu and Kashmir?
I can answer this question in the affirmative.
The Council is extremely concerned about the arms build-up in the region and the question you have just addressed will be discussed in the Political Committee in the very near future.
As the author is not present, Question No 12 lapses.
Question No 13 by Ulla Sandbæk (H-0243/99)
Subject: The euro and Mr Joschka Fischer's remarks of 12 January 1999 The President of the Council told Parliament that the introduction of the euro entailed great opportunities and equally great risks.
The risk would arise if this bold step were not followed up by the EU, as a logical consequence, with further equally bold steps towards complete integration.
Will the President of the Council give details of the further steps towards integration he considers to be necessary, and why?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Sandbæk's question.
The conclusions reached by the European Council in its meeting in Vienna in December 1998 emphasise, inter alia , that the euro will strengthen Europe's ability to promote employment, growth and stability and that the introduction of the single currency will increase the need for economic coordination.
The European Council stressed in particular that economic policy coordination needs to be deepened and strengthened in order to ensure the success of economic and monetary union and to support sustainable, employment-promoting growth.
It took the view that the existing economic challenges demand an effective and coordinated response that encompasses budgetary, monetary and structural policy.
Finally, the European Council requested the ECOFIN Council to report to it in Helsinki on the functioning of economic policy coordination in the third stage of economic and monetary union.
The basic principles of the economic policy of the Member States and the Community for 1998/99 underline in a similar manner that the Member States' economic policies, especially their financial and their monetary policy which now comes under the sole responsibility of the Community, together with the structural reforms, should be consistent with each other and mutually supportive. The aim here is to achieve low inflation, accompanied by sustainable and employment-promoting growth.
You have explained that it is the financial policy and the monetary policy that must be coordinated, but can you specify the particular areas of economic policy in which it is planned to promote integration in connection with EMU?
The Council believes in the need for closer coordination in all macroeconomic fields, which means financial, budgetary and fiscal policy, together with economic policy in the narrower sense.
I am sure the President-in-Office is correct in saying that a single currency requires the deepening of our economic cooperation.
However, would he agree with me that the United States is clearly a single market and has a single currency but it has not found it necessary to harmonise taxes? So, to make a success of the euro, it is not necessary to harmonise direct or indirect taxation.
I take note of that and would point out that I did not refer to 'harmonisation' of taxes but to 'coordination'.
Thank you for that semantic clarification, Mr Verheugen.
This question came up at the trilogue today.
It is a question that is discussed at almost every trilogue between the Council, Parliament and the Commission, and the result is always the same.
The decision on the possible participation of Members of the European Parliament in the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean, due to be held in Rio de Janeiro at the end of June 1999, will be guided by the procedure the Council decided on 30 October 1998.
The Austrian Presidency explained this procedure to the European Parliament in the trilogue on 16 December 1998 and, as I said, it was also discussed at today's trilogue.
This procedure dates back to the discussion of the question during the Strasbourg trilogue on 17 July 1998 between representatives of Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Accordingly, the Council will examine the request addressed to it by the President of the European Parliament on 11 March 1999, in other words it will consider whether Members of the European Parliament can participate on an individual basis.
Clearly, when I drew up this written question, I could not have known that it was to be discussed in this morning's tripartite dialogue.
This is now a recurring question as I put it to the presidency's representative at the Conference of Delegation Chairmen. However, I should like to know if the German Presidency supports the idea of Parliament attending the summit since its feelings on the role Parliament should play in the process of European integration appear to differ from those expressed by Chancellor Schröder this morning.
Parliament has already attended the Rio and San José Group Conferences and I should like to know if the Council believes that Parliament should have an active role, as is only natural. This is an important matter; we cannot be sure that no budget decisions that affect, or may affect, Parliament's responsibilities will be taken during the forthcoming summit.
What does the presidency think? Would it support Parliament's active presence at the summit?
As I said, the question of the European Parliament's participation in the Rio Conference will be considered on the basis of the principles decided by the Council.
The presidency cannot do otherwise; it has to adhere to the principles decided by the Council. It cannot give any undertakings beyond that.
It does not have the power to do so.
If anyone wants to go beyond that, then this question will have to be addressed during the process of institutional reform that is about to get underway.
But let me say on behalf of the presidency that as a matter of principle we should be very careful not to confuse the different tasks, responsibilities and levels within the European Union.
It must always remain clear which European Union institution is acting on the basis of which responsibility, so as to ensure the necessary transparency vis--vis the people.
The Council is against anything that would tend to confuse or blur the different responsibilities.
Question No 15 by Robin Teverson (H-0248/99)
Subject: Voting rights in Gibraltar The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that residents of Gibraltar must have the right to vote in the European elections.
In order to bring this about, there will have to be a unanimous agreement in Council, and ratification by Member States, to amend the current law under which United Kingdom residents, but not Gibraltarians, have the right to vote in European elections.
Given this ruling, what plans does the Council have to amend the Treaty to allow the people of Gibraltar to vote?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Teverson's question.
This a very sensitive issue.
The Council would be very pleased if both states finally managed to reach agreement on it.
The Council has not yet considered the possible consequences of that ruling.
It attaches the utmost importance to the right to vote in elections to the European Parliament and, in this respect, to the implementation of the principle of elections by direct universal suffrage laid down in Article 138 of the EC Treaty.
Any change to the act introducing the election by direct universal suffrage of the Members of the European Parliament would mean that the Council had to decide the appropriate provisions unanimously, with the assent of the European Parliament, and recommend to the Member States that they adopt them in line with their constitutional rules.
The Council would be most interested to hear the European Parliament's position on the subject.
Mr President, I would not disagree at all that this is a sensitive issue.
But it is also one of principle, not just of theoretical principle but of one that has been tested in the European Court of Human Rights, as my question points out.
It was a judgment made, not by a small majority of judges in that body, but by a vote of 15 to 2, a very large majority, in favour of the principle that in terms of human rights, citizens of Gibraltar should be able to vote in European elections.
So although I am disappointed that the President-in-Office of the Council looks for agreement between the two Member States, surely this is an area where the Council, out of concern for human rights and following the ruling of an institution not in the EU, but one which it respects and is included in part of the Amsterdam Treaty, should take positive steps?
Will the Council take those positive steps to correct this lack of human rights?
Mr Teverson, in view of the problems connected with all questions relating to Gibraltar, I am not in a position to give you the Council's position in response to supplementary questions.
Each individual case and the subject of each supplementary question has to be discussed with the Member States.
I will have to answer this question in writing.
The same applies to any other supplementaries, because I am not authorised simply to express opinions here.
I will have to answer any further questions in writing because they call for intensive consultations with the countries concerned.
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen, this is the first time the question about this ruling has been raised and it is also the first time it has been considered.
If you were asking whether you can draw my attention to a certain situation, then my answer is yes, you may.
We are not going to give the problem of Gibraltar all the in-depth attention it deserves here and now. Gibraltar is a colony belonging to a Member State but is within the boundaries of another fellow Member State of the European Union.
This is something of an anachronism at the dawn of the 21st century.
But I should like to ask a very specific question that does not refer to a philosophical idea but simply to whether or not the presidency considers the European Community to be a Community of law. Are the legal rules, in this case the Treaties, only seen as valid rules because we are forced to abide by them?
And if the Treaties state that progress on this subject must be on the basis of a unanimous decision, the Council will have to uphold the legal rules we have drawn up for ourselves and which the Council has set out in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Does the Council believe that the legal rules in the Treaties are only valid because we must abide by them?
Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, you have raised such a major question of principle that I really must answer it.
Of course the Council takes the view that the European Union is a community based on law and that it must adhere strictly to its own standards and values.
As the author is not present, Question No 16 lapses.
Question No 17 by Vassilis Ephremidis (H-0254/99)
Subject: Subject-matter of informal Council meeting of EU Internal Affairs Ministers According to journalist sources, immediately after the secret service abduction of Öcalan, an informal extraordinary meeting of EU Internal Affairs Ministers was held in unprecedented secrecy close to the German capital, with the participation of the Swiss Internal Affairs Minister, the aim of which was to coordinate action to break up the PKK's logistical set-up, to establish codes for cooperation and the reciprocal provision of information between the secret services and to 'combat' the Kurds' communications network in Europe, mainly through the MED-TV television channel and the newspaper 'Özgür Politika'.
What were the reasons for convening this extraordinary informal meeting?
Why the secrecy, what were the conclusions and what decisions were taken?
What role is Europol to play and what other national, international or European enforcement agencies are involved in implementing those decisions? Do those decisions concern Kurdish organisations only or other organisations and movements operating in EU Member States?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Ephremidis's question.
Because of the incidents following the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan, the German Minister for the Interior convened a conference on 23 February 1999 in which the internal affairs ministers of several Member States of the European Union and of Switzerland as well as representatives from the Commission and the Council Secretariat took part.
The purpose of that meeting, of which the media were informed, was to evaluate these incidents in the participating states.
In particular, the exchange of information covered the nature of the rallies organised by the PKK and the number of people who took part in the demonstrations in the various countries.
No decisions were taken, since this was not a meeting of the Council of the European Union.
It was simply agreed to improve the exchange of information with a view to any future such incidents.
Why all the secrecy?
Why was this meeting of the Ministers for the Interior kept secret?
Where is the transparency that is supposed to be pervading the European Union 'grazing'? Why must this be hidden from the people of the European Union, from the people it wants to get close to?
Mr President, there is no answer to this.
What did they decide?
What did they discuss?
Were the discussions only about the PKK?
Did they put it on trial, did they pass sentence on it and did they place it under special supervision?
Or were the discussions about other organisations that are active within the European Union? Are we perhaps at the beginning of, or already witnessing, the same measures that Hitler and the Gestapo implemented against the Communists, the Jews, followed by the Social Democrats and finally all Democrats?
Is the European Union perhaps being submerged by a wave of McCarthyism?
Is that why you are hiding all this from us, so that you can take decisions in secret, and so that you can outlaw demonstrations against the war and other demonstrations, just as the Belgian Government did in Brussels recently?
Mr President, I should like an answer.
Perhaps the President-in-Office is once again demonstrating his powerlessness. If that is the case, we are extremely dissatisfied that a President-in-Office who is incapable of giving an answer is appearing before us.
I must say that I am more than a little astonished at this statement - for it was not a question - by the honourable Member.
It is the case in all Member States of the European Union and in all constitutional states that those responsible for internal security naturally do not hold sensitive talks, relating for instance to intelligence gathering, in public.
There would be no point at all in this kind of meeting if the details were made public.
I do not believe the situation is any different in any Member State of the European Union.
But I am happy to respond to your call for transparency and mention at least one point that was discussed and where there is no particular need for confidentiality.
It is that the conference expressed regret that Greece did not immediately inform its European Union partners when Öcalan was arrested by Kenyan security forces and taken to Turkey.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, indeed we know that the MED-TV channel and the newspaper Özgür Politika provide very in-depth information.
And we know the subject matter. Does the Council in fact plan also to use these channels to provide information to the Kurds who live in our countries?
My second question is this: what means are currently being applied to integrate the Kurds in Europe?
Mr Rübig, I cannot see the connection between your question and the original question so I will have to answer your question in writing.
Thank you very much, Mr Verheugen.
Ladies and gentlemen, this will be our last question.
I have already informed you that, because of his travelling arrangements, Mr Verheugen has to leave us at 6.50 p.m.
We have two minutes left.
I therefore hope that we can deal with this question in these two minutes, with Mr Verheugen's customary brevity and Mrs Eriksson's help. Mrs Eriksson has taken this question over from Mr Seppänen, in accordance with the Rules.
Question No 18 by Esko Seppänen, which has been taken over by Mrs Eriksson (H-0256/99)
Subject: EU Staff Regulations What is the Council's view on the question whether the same person may legally receive both a salary and a pension from an EU institution? If this should prove to be illegal, what does the Council propose to do pursuant to Article 232 of the Treaty in the event of such a case arising?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Question No 18.
Mr President, the Council is not aware of any such case of receiving two types of income, nor has the Commission presented any proposal to the Council with a view to changing the ban on cumulating benefits as laid down in the Staff Regulations.
This is a matter Mr Seppänen has raised with the Council before.
We are talking here about a senior figure in the Central Bank being allowed to retire on a hefty pension while still being paid a salary. From the point of view of ordinary Finns, the person in question would be in receipt of an unacceptably large amount of money.
Hence our curiosity as to whether the intention is to go along with the situation and authorise such an exception to the rules in the case of this particular individual.
Mrs Eriksson, I thought I knew what this was about; in a sense this subject is like an old acquaintance. May I point out that this question was dealt with in depth during a recent Question Time and that I answered in detail in relation to the particular case you have in mind.
My assessment at that time of the situation and the legal position remains unchanged.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Since we have now come to the end of the time set aside for questions to the Council, Questions Nos 19 to 44 will receive written answers.
Our thanks again to Mr Verheugen for attending.
That concludes questions to the Council.
Mr Ephremidis has the floor on a point of order.
Mr Ephremidis, let us see if we understand one another.
We have reached the end of Question Time and I have said goodbye to Mr Verheugen. Now, as you have asked for the floor on a point of order, you must address the President, since it the President who deals with such matters.
You have the floor for a point of order.
As a send-off to the departing representative of the Council, I would like to say that he has committed an act of parliamentary cowardice.
He has accused my country of being responsible for the capture of Mr Öcalan.
He can discuss this issue in the Council with representatives of the Greek Government.
However, he cannot come here and level such a despicable accusation.
I repeat: it is an act of parliamentary and political cowardice, and I doubt whether Parliament can accept such heinous acts from representatives of the Council.
That is why I asked you to let me speak, and not so that I could speak for a second time on the same issue.
I am very well aware of the Rules of Procedure and I also learned from you just now that I cannot table a second supplementary question.
Let the President-in-Office take up with the competent ministers the issue of Mr Öcalan and the role his country played in delivering him into the hands of the Turkish executioners.
Thank you, Mr Ephremidis.
Your words are on record and have therefore already been noted.
Mr Papayannakis, is this on a point of order? Well then, go ahead, let us have it!
Mr President, as you are aware, Rule 42 of the Rules of Procedure makes provision for priority questions, which must be answered within three weeks.
I know the Rule by heart and you know it better than I do.
I am holding in my hands a written priority question which I tabled on 7 January 1999.
It was tabled properly and in accordance with all the Rules, but I have not received an answer.
I want to lodge a complaint.
It is a question to the Council - naturally the Council, which is here, is not listening to us - but I should have received an answer.
Who must I go to in order to get justice, as we say in Greece? I would like an answer, Mr President, because if I do not get one I will also complain in writing to the President.
Mr Papayannakis, if you have not received an answer, you should do what you have done and ask here in the House why your question was not answered.
Following your request, I will immediately look into the reasons why you did not receive an answer within the time specified in the Rules.
You have therefore taken the steps you need to take and asked the President in the House why your question was not answered. In turn, the President must give you an answer on what has happened to your question.
Consequently, I should be grateful if you would remind me exactly which question it was, what it was about and the date on which it was submitted, so that I can investigate accordingly.
Mr Rübig has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I just want to warmly welcome to the European Parliament the Upper Austrian visitors from the union of private sector employees.
Thank you for your understanding.
You have done that, and it will be noted in the Minutes.
The sitting was suspended at 6.55 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
Functioning of institutions
The next item is the report (A4-0158/99) by Mr Herman, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on improvements in the functioning of the institutions without modification of the Treaty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the last report I will be presenting to Parliament no doubt comes at a very unfortunate time of day, but at a very good time of the year. Why?
Because it was just yesterday that Mr Prodi who - on this point at least - seems to have the backing of just about everyone, said that the European institutions must be thoroughly reformed.
Well, so that Mr Prodi will not be alone in proposing these reforms, we have decided to help him and to submit to him a few ideas and guidelines which, thanks to the broad consensus within our committee, we have been able to propose to you.
It is not always necessary to amend the Treaties in order to improve the operation of the institutions.
Experience shows that in the past we succeeded in perfecting and improving the operation of our institutions by means of institutional agreements or internal reforms.
But as a rule each institution looks to its own affairs.
We have rather broken this taboo by agreeing on this occasion to look at other institutions than our own.
As we know, there is scope for Parliament to improve its operation too, and in fact it has a lot of work to do in this respect. However, in the light of recent developments we must look particularly closely at the workings of the Commission.
Mr Bourlanges has already produced a report on the Council, adopted by the House not very long ago, which includes a series of suggestions designed to improve its functioning.
So we will not come back to this, but will concern ourselves solely with the Commission and Parliament.
As far as the Commission is concerned, there is nothing new about the malfunctionings which have recently come to light.
Their causes are both long-standing and deep-rooted.
In particular, anything to do with staff recruitment, promotion and motivation has been affected by a growing renationalisation and politicisation which have produced an adverse effect on the functioning of a civil service that must be impartial and neutral.
This phenomenon is well-attested and has given rise to the present difficulties.
As we know, the Commission was initially conceived primarily in order to set up a legislative framework with a view to achieving harmonisation and not to manage programmes.
The Commission's culture, structure and tradition were therefore somewhat ill-suited to the tasks with which it was subsequently charged and for which it was not granted the necessary resources, either by the Council or - if I may say so - by Parliament.
I also believe the Commission made the mistake of accepting these missions.
This is one of the reasons for the malfunctionings.
The other is of course the role of the cabinets, which has become important.
The increasing role of the cabinets no doubt explains why, as the wise men confirmed, certain Commissioners - I am not saying all of them - lost control over their administrations.
As regards the Commission's internal structure, the number of directorates-general has been increased in order to give employment to a growing number of Commissioners. If we continue in this direction, as the number of Commissioners is to increase from 20 to 30, we will again be creating the same number of directorates-general.
This increase is not in the interests of internal coherence or homogeneous responsibilities and will produce disastrous results. We have already seen this with external relations, which are the responsibility of four directorates-general.
As far as Parliament is concerned, our proposals are clearly rather more delicate, as they are competing with those of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure and require a consensus within this House, which is not always easy to obtain.
But most of our proposals concern the Commission and take into account the diagnosis I have just offered, which I believe to be widely shared.
Mr President, I am speaking here as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
We limited ourselves to just one subject about which we feel very strongly, namely the agencies.
I must first extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteur for the way in which he also looked at these agencies in his report.
They are a subject that is sometimes overlooked, but both the committees of experts dealing with them and the Committee on Budgets have often expressed their amazement at what goes on.
What is happening with these agencies? As the rapporteur says, they fulfil an important role.
They are neatly shared out among the various states.
As the rapporteur rightly says, there are no current Member States which do not have agencies and we are convinced that new agencies will be found for the new Member States.
A second problem with the agencies is, I believe, that they are always able to obtain more staff than the Commission itself. What is the reason for this?
The Committee on Budgets, Parliament the Council and the Commission itself like to give the impression that the agencies are not taking on extra staff.
But the host countries want their agencies to be rather more extensive than was initially planned, so they want them to have extra staff.
This means that the agencies can take on certain tasks that the Commission is no longer able deal with.
How can this be solved? By as much uniformity as possible - not total uniformity, as we stated in our report and as the rapporteur accepted, but in any event enough uniformity to meet the same criteria.
These agencies must be closely monitored because if present trends continue we will reach the point where more people paid by the Union are employed by the agencies than by the Commission itself.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur has sought to act on our report in this way.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, never before in the history of European integration have so many important decisions been made and so many dramatic events taken place in such a short time as since 1 January.
They range from the successful launch of the single currency and the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam to the resignation of the Commission and the ongoing accession process for 10 countries.
All this has now been overshadowed by the armed conflict in Kosovo, in which the European Union and its Member States are involved.
Never before has the EU been faced with greater challenges to its capacity for action and enlargement.
That is why the Herman report contains both criticisms of the Commission's structures and self-criticism of our own procedures.
The most important points are these: within the Commission there need to be clear portfolios and Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners, similar to Ministers and Ministers of State in national governments.
We need to strike a balance in this way between the principle of collective responsibility and the particular responsibilities of individual members of the Commission.
After all, transparency is of paramount importance.
The new Commission headed by Romano Prodi as its President will take a giant step towards European government, and it is vital that it should.
Second, the European Parliament must concentrate on its prime tasks, which are legislation, legislation, and legislation again, together with the selection and scrutiny of the Commission and decision-making on the budget.
It should be possible to present and explain all these activities to the public.
Today, we are learning from our past mistakes and preparing ourselves for new activities.
That is the yardstick the public will apply, and public opinion should be our own yardstick.
At this point, because this is Mr Herman's last report, I would like to thank him on behalf of the Socialist Group for his twenty years of work, and in particular for his commitment, for his creativity and for everything he has achieved in the institutional field.
The House is today considering the last report of - if I may take the liberty - a great European.
We do not belong to the same political family, but we essentially have the same aims and the same principles, and I believe that we also have many of the same dreams.
On behalf of my group, I would to express my esteem for Fernand Herman's life's work.
Applause
Mr President, Mr Herman, I should first of all like to congratulate you on your excellent report and on the way you have been receptive to suggestions from your colleagues.
Your experience as a rapporteur and your very remarkable contribution to the European Union's progress mean that this report will be an essential discussion document for the next Committee on Institutional Affairs.
As Mr Schäfer has just pointed out, throughout your career you have indeed made a genuine contribution to the progress of the European Union.
The ELDR Group's first amendment is designed to strengthen paragraph 32 of the text by allowing the European Parliament to exercise its supervisory role to the full.
As a result - and this is perhaps one of the things on which we were not in agreement, Mr Herman - it would no longer be necessary to refer to committees of wise men, one of the members of which has in any case shown little wisdom by making political statements which are scarcely in keeping with his position.
The second amendment, tabled in committee by Mr Corbett but not accepted by either the PSE or the PPE and subsequently rejected in committee, is designed to give the Commission President the power to replace a Commissioner when circumstances justify it.
We believe this proposal to be in keeping with Declaration No 32, annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, and that the President would be granted this responsibility in circumstances such as the present, thereby avoiding a great deal of trouble.
For the rest, Mr Herman - and as you yourself pointed out - your conclusions are fortunately very much in line with what Mr Prodi said yesterday about his plans for the Commission when he talked about strengthening the role of the President, efficiency, transparency and individual and collective responsibility.
I too would urge the European Parliament to take a long hard look at itself and to get down as soon as possible to the task of studying how it can become a more transparent organisation with, for example, fewer hegemonic pacts between the two major groups to the detriment of the openness we all advocate.
Applause
Mr President, there is a wonderful saying in Dutch that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I hope that this will be borne in mind by all those who believe the democratic deficit, the lack of supervision, the careless management and, last but not least, the rumoured profiteering at European level can be reduced by pumping in more powers and more resources.
I believe the opposite must be the case.
Experience teaches us that political administrations can only be effectively controlled and, more importantly, can only exercise effective self-control when they are as close as possible to the people.
In my opinion this must be the first application of the principle of subsidiarity which everyone here supports, or at least pays lip service to.
If we really want to improve the workings of the European Union and of all the European institutions we must apply the principle of subsidiarity in all areas both actively and consistently.
In short, we can improve Europe through less Eurocratic powers and meddling, less Eurocratic red tape and less bureaucracy.
That, at least in my opinion, is the basic way to cure institutions which are all, without exception - and it would be laughable for Parliament now to point the finger solely at the Commission - tainted with the image of being interfering, money guzzling and unproductive institutions, and I fear to a large extent justifiably so.
The report we now have before us contains many interesting proposals, but is nevertheless a typical example of the most blind Eurofederalist thinking, since it is concerned solely with treating the symptoms.
To end with another saying, the proposed measures amount to no more than putting sticking plaster over the wounds.
Mr President, please allow me to first congratulate, if he is listening, my colleague and friend Mr Herman on all his work and, in particular, on what I believe to be a very important report, most of whose proposals I endorse.
Mr President, this report demonstrates that it is possible, if the political will exists, and without modifying the existing Treaty, to reform the way the Commission functions so as to make it a genuine vehicle for political impetus in building Europe and an institution independent of governments and vested interests. We can also change the way the European Parliament operates so as to make it the centre of political life in the European Union, in its role as a body directly elected by the public.
I believe that this is the general and positive thrust of all these proposals.
However, I have some reservations about certain particular aspects.
I believe it is necessary to identify real portfolios for Commissioners, but I cannot understand why they should be reduced just when the Commission's powers are being widened.
Above all, I cannot accept the notion of creating two categories, that is senior and junior Commissioners on the model of full Ministers and Ministers of State, just when people are saying that the distribution of portfolios between Commissioners should not be a way of drawing a hierarchical distinction between small and large states.
I am delighted that the rapporteur has accepted my proposal on that latter point, as this is an aspect I disagree with.
On the other hand, I feel that Mr Herman, perhaps because he is Belgian, is too centralist, or rather that he wants to concentrate the departments in Brussels and seems to rather distrust the EU agencies.
I take the opposite view and believe that the agencies, which should be rationalised, are an effective way of bringing the public and the European Union closer together.
Lastly, let me say this: the European Parliament will only reform itself - and I am at liberty to say this because I am not standing for re-election either - if it does away with the absurd practice of voting in the plenary instead of discussing policy, which is what people expect from their elected representatives.
It is my belief that Mr Herman's proposals go in the right direction, as long as our successors have the political will to put a stop to this paralysing rotation between the two main groups and are capable of holding a political debate, or in other words to give a voice to the citizens of the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to pay tribute to our colleague Fernand Herman, because this is the last report he will be presenting and it is one which reflects his commitment to European thinking and the European ideal.
He has given the very best of himself to the European Union and I should like to expressly thank him for this.
Mr President, the resolution on improving the functioning of the institutions without amending the Treaty is one of the building blocks which the European Parliament is putting into place in order to equip the European Union for the future.
As has been said, it relates to the Commission, the agencies and Parliament itself.
Both Mr Prodi, the candidate for Commission President, and the Council presidency will be able to put it to good use in preparing for the next intergovernmental conference which was announced this morning.
I hope that the Commission's Secretariat-General and directors-general will act on the recommendations, but I am not so sure that this will be the case, as their decision not to reappoint Mr Van Buitenen to his former position makes us fear the worst.
For its part, Parliament has responded to Mr Herman's requests by approving the changes to the rules on voting and amendments. It will also be deciding on reducing the number of committees during this part-session.
If in future Parliament is more careful about assigning more and more tasks to the Commission, then it will be functioning in the spirit of Mr Herman's proposal, to whom I should like to once again pay tribute.
Mr President, this brilliant report by Mr Herman has been drawn up with great rigour, clarity and courage; it responds to our aim to improve the functioning of the institutions.
I believe that this report should form the foundation on which any subsequent work is based.
The timetable ahead of us is unavoidable and it does not help the situation as the crisis in the Commission is still revealing serious problems and deficiencies requiring solutions.
The new Treaty will enter into force in the next few weeks and the second report by the Group of Experts will not be completed for some months.
Therefore, this report clearly cannot include every last detail of the improvements that will be required.
But it has certainly tackled one issue: the serious problem facing the Commission in terms of the imbalance between, on the one hand, its responsibilities, its duties and the management of the programmes it is entrusted with, and on the other hand the resources it has available.
This very serious problem had not been highlighted in any parliamentary report. But Mr Herman has tackled it very well and has put forward possible solutions.
He may not have included all of the solutions required, but the ones he has mentioned will undoubtedly be necessary and they represent a very effective basis for the future.
In my view, Mr Herman, the paragraphs relating to the need to simplify Parliament's voting procedures are extremely important.
I hope that they will be taken into account for everyone's benefit.
Thank you very much, and congratulations to Mr Herman.
Applause
Mr President, I too have a minute this evening to tell our friend and colleague Fernand Herman, as is so often the case when he makes proposals about the European institutions, that I very largely agree with him and his ideas.
We do indeed need more transparency, democracy and rigour for all our European institutions.
For the Commission, first of all, about which a great deal is being said and a great many promises being made.
All I will say is that I will wait until I see the merchandise before I pass judgement.
But also for Parliament, which needs to concentrate more on getting to the heart of problems and stop trying to be all things to all men, which can sometimes look like pretend democracy.
Finally and most importantly, we need transparency, democracy and rigour for the Council if one day it hopes to become a real government. But here I am perhaps straying beyond the Herman report and even the Bourlanges report and entering the realms of the future intergovernmental conference which I believe I heard announced this morning by the President-in-Office.
If that is the case and it is confirmed, I very much welcome it.
Once again, congratulations to Mr Herman, and our best wishes go with you.
Mr President, may I for my part congratulate Mr Herman on behalf of the Commission on his detailed and very creative report on what has most certainly become a crucial problem, namely the functioning of the institutions.
Evidently the Commission need not comment further on this report and indeed may not comment on it as this is the task of the new President of a new Commission who will undoubtedly be very pleased to draw on the wealth of experience on which it is based. I am referring here to the experience of Mr Herman, who I believe is bidding farewell to the European Parliament with this report and this political testament.
May I take this opportunity to thank him very sincerely on behalf of the Commission for his exceptionally energetic and creative work, including in cooperation with the Commission.
We have always been very pleased with the way we have been able to cooperate closely and constructively with him.
I believe that, as a rule, it is always a good thing to keep a keen eye on the functioning of the institutions, and especially when there are changes to the Treaty, as is now the case with Amsterdam.
In these exceptional circumstances, following the crisis which the institutions in general and the Commission in particular have experienced, it is of the utmost importance for the Commission's management function to be once again thoroughly scrutinised.
I am speaking here from my own experience, but I am also very pleased to be able to refer to what this Commission - my colleagues and President Santer in particular - have set in train in order to improve that very area of the Commission's functioning.
I should also like to express the hope that the reforms within the Commission will strengthen rather than change, let alone upset, the existing institutional balance.
I also hope that in future the Commission will continue to be the driving force it has traditionally sought to be, particularly for promoting further integration within the European Union.
Mr Herman will also approve when I take this opportunity today to wish the incoming president and his new team every success in reinvigorating the European Commission and restoring it to the sort of role that the people of the European Union also expect it to have.
I would also add that even the present Commission clearly realises that the current crisis may also have its positive side in terms of strengthening the quality and substance of democracy in our institutions.
So in this sense we can also accept the positive side to this crisis.
I should like to end here, Mr President, as, I repeat, in the present exceptional political circumstances it is unrealistic for the Commission to comment on this report.
But I can say to Mr Herman that I have read the report and recognise in it a great deal which we at the Commission have also been getting to grips with in recent years.
I am convinced that the new Commission will benefit from many of these recommendations.
Mr President, I really must take this opportunity to express my thanks for the tributes and compliments I have received.
We in this House are the most fervent defenders of the Commission's role and it is because we want to defend this role that we are critical in some respects when it appears to stray from the right path.
I should like to say to all my colleagues how much I have been moved by their expressions of esteem and appreciation for my report. I would also immediately add that the report is the result of a joint effort and does not just reflect my concerns alone.
I have been fortunate, in the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, in having many people who have supported me and made it possible for me to do this work.
I should like now to return their expressions of thanks and say how deeply moved I have been by them.
Applause
Thank you, Mr Herman, for the valuable report which you have presented to us which I am sure will be appreciated by all your colleagues.
I would also like to say a word of thanks and appreciation to Commissioner van den Broek and express a personal view that if there were more people like him in the Commission we would have a far better Commission.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Applications for EU membership
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0149/99 by Mr Donner, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Estonia's progress towards accession (COM(98)0705 - C4-0110/99); -A4-0154/99 by Mr von Habsburg, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Hungary's progress towards accession (COM(98)0700 - C4-0113/99); -A4-0151/99 by Mr Speciale, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Slovenia's progress towards accession (COM(98)0709 - C4-0112/99); -A4-0157/99 by Mr Carnero González, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on the Czech Republic's progress towards accession (COM(98)0708 - C4-0111/99); -A4-0148/99 by Mrs Hoff, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Poland's progress towards accession (COM(98)0701 - C4-0109/99); -A4-0159/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the regular report from the Commission on Cyprus's progress towards accession (COM(98)0710 - C4-0108/99); -A4-0165/99 by Mrs Malone, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the report updating the Commission's opinion on Malta's application for membership (COM(99)0069 - C4-0163/99); -A4-0123/99 by Mrs Myller, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the Candidate Countries in Central and Eastern Europe on Accession Strategies for Environment: Meeting the Challenge of Englargement with the Candidate Countries in Central and Eastern Europe (COM(98)0294 - C4-0380/98).
Mr President, as this is probably the last time that I will address Parliament, I will use my mother tongue, which is Swedish.
Mr President, Estonia has progressed well along the road to membership.
No precise date or even year can be established for accession, since several countries - among them Latvia and Lithuania - will most probably be included in the process this year. In practice, this will mean a new intergovernmental conference.
My own guess is that we are looking at 2004 or 2005.
The problem is that an unduly long negotiating process could have a negative impact on public opinion in the applicant countries, and hence in Estonia.
The undoubted progress made by Estonia must not be allowed to obscure the lingering legacy, so difficult to overcome, of war and Soviet occupation.
Sooner or later - sooner better than later - the country should be capable of solving its minority problems and creating a society where all people, regardless of the language they speak, subscribe loyally to the principles of democracy and the rule of law.
Loyalty is not built on citizenship alone, but also on common values.
The majority of foreign citizens and stateless individuals in Estonia were born there and, more likely than not, have no intention to leave.
Despite legislative improvements, particularly with regard to children born in and after 1992, Estonia's political 'establishment' appears to be maintaining what in my view is a conservative stance on citizenship.
But Estonia is destined to become - and to remain - a multicultural and multilingual society.
Last year, foreign investment in Estonia reached higher levels, particularly in the banking sector.
Nonetheless the balance of trade is still negative, although the economy in the capital, Tallinn, is largely based on tourists from Finland.
Subsidised food imports from the EU have increased the difficulties faced by Estonian farmers.
There is a very big economic gap between rich and poor, and between Tallinn and the provinces.
Social transfers - to the unemployed, for example - are minimal.
Once there are open borders and an open labour market, a number of Estonians will seek work in nearby EU countries.
However, this whole process is necessary if there is to be any reduction in the gap between rich and poor people, and between rich and poor countries.
Let me now comment briefly on the security problems faced by Estonia as a neighbour of Russia.
People in my country, Finland, felt in 1995 that membership of the European Union would - by definition - tie us in to a community capable of providing and guaranteeing security.
NATO's role and military capacity were not underestimated, but there was no express call for membership.
Estonia has followed a different path in seeking also to join NATO.
The country is in the grip of an illusion, in my view.
Given the current situation in the Balkans, would Estonia or Finland - both sharing land borders with Russia - have gained from being members of NATO, a NATO which thus far has failed to come forward with any kind of convincing policy on the Kosovo tragedy?
As part of the EU debate on the Northern Dimension, it is perfectly feasible to devise a comprehensive and realistic programme encompassing the applicant Baltic countries, as well as parts of Russia, Scandinavia and the Arctic region.
Apart from EU membership, the best guarantee for Estonia's future is peaceful cooperation with Russia. One day, Russia will perhaps overcome its enormous economic difficulties and appreciate that good neighbourly relations benefit all sides.
Interpreted in this way, Estonia's considerable progress since it regained its freedom is to Russia's advantage too.
And an enlarged Union, taking in the Baltic countries, will be a source of strength, as the German Presidency has understood.
Mr President, again and again, discussions on enlargement involve references to all manner of things which quite simply do not reflect the real world.
Over the last few years I have travelled a great deal around Central and Eastern Europe, virtually once a month.
So I know that one thing is fundamentally important: progress can only be achieved if peace is guaranteed.
In other words, guaranteed peace and political stability are essential for progress.
Economic progress will then follow automatically.
In these countries it is evident that priority has to be given to political affairs and to security, and only then can progress in other fields be tackled.
This point is particularly important at a time when the countries lined up for enlargement are having to contend with a conflagration at their borders - the war in Kosovo.
So we should always remember that in politics we must always be prepared for the worst.
If it does not happen, we can offer up thanks.
But at least we are prepared, whereas things are bound to go amiss if we are taken by surprise.
So in these dangerous times enlargement is one of our best guarantees of peace, if not to say the only guarantee of peace which in the long run will give these peoples what they want.
Above all, if you travel through these countries - and I do not think that Mr Donner will contradict me here - and if you learn to understand their peoples, you cannot fail to see that peace is their first priority.
But peace cannot be achieved by simply praying for it; it requires decisions and a clear policy.
Of course, people here have various reservations.
For example, people sometimes tell us that the cost of enlargement is too high.
The fact is that the only person who really understands the finances of the European Union, the President of the Court of Auditors, Mr Friedmann, recently attended a meeting of our pan-European working party here in the European Parliament, and during his presentation he told us that the cost of enlargement is greatly overestimated, because no one ever takes account of the cost of non-enlargement.
But that is enormous too. People also tell us - and there are enough demagogues around, including some present in this House - that millions of job-seekers would flood in after enlargement.
These people have no experience.
The advantage in being 85 years old - excuse me, 86 - is that you can say that you have seen everything and the opposite of everything!
I remember very well how much whingeing there was at the time Spain was granted membership. The Spanish were going to come pouring in.
And then two years later someone said to me: 'For heaven's sake, what has happened to all our Spanish workers?'. The answer was, of course, that once Spain's economy took off, they preferred to work in the sun in Andalusia than in the foggy Ruhr!
We should never lose sight of this experience.
An important point is that we should not tar everyone with the same brush.
We have to judge each of these states according to its own particular characteristics and its own developments.
It is also fair to assume that whoever takes the lead will carry the others along it its wake.
But if we always set our sights according to the slowest, we will not make much progress.
That applies to every country these days.
As the rapporteur for Hungary, I shall take the liberty of saying that Hungary is one of the really important countries.
It is the leading country today because it has always made progress on two fronts: first, the wonderful thing about the Hungarian Parliament is that when it comes to making a decision about the country itself, there are no party politicians - just patriots.
They put on a united front. Second, they understand that when they are abroad they have to represent their country.
They can squabble afterwards - and we can be grateful that in Hungary we have a language that no one else understands, so no one knows what is being said there anyway!
The same applies to the other countries on the list.
I would particularly like to say something about the Baltic states in this context: it is wonderful that Estonia is to be granted membership, but we should not forget about Latvia and Lithuania in the process.
They form a whole. I would especially like to stress that we should not forget that at the time of the Second World War, because of one country - Germany, of course - Europe abandoned these Baltic peoples to their fate.
So we have a moral obligation to accept the Baltic states as soon as possible.
The same also applies to the other applicant countries at the front of the pack, and it also applies to those straggling behind, who are vital for our security.
I have in mind Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria and last but not least Croatia, as Croatia is one of the countries that has developed most quickly.
It is working the hardest, even though it receives practically no help at all from us, and so we must support it.
All the peoples of Europe have a right to join Europe, even the Serbs, who we have talked so much about.
I am firmly in favour of the Serbs being granted membership once they have got rid of Milosevic and have a democratic government.
In any case, we should be acting in the interests of all these peoples for one good reason: European integration is the only concrete idea for achieving peace and prosperity.
This has to be at the heart of our future policy.
Therefore, Mr President, I have one last request: we need to make haste!
We should not delay because historic opportunities can pass by all too quickly.
Applause
Mr President, I should like to talk about the subject of my report, which is Slovenia.
Slovenia, as is well known, is a country with a sound economy and fulfils the political and democratic criteria laid down.
Perhaps, out of all the countries which have asked to join, it is starting off on the best footing, even when its size is taken into account.
The European Commission, however, has expressed a critical view of this first stage, considering that progress, particularly in transposing Community legislation, has been slower and more uncertain than it should have been.
The Slovene authorities have accepted this critical assessment and have indicated that they intend to react positively to it.
To this end, over the last few weeks, the government has submitted a national programme for the adoption of the acquis communautaire and a raft of very important legislation on VAT, excise duties and the right to purchase property.
The entry into force of the Europe Agreement may now provide a solid basis for the ongoing negotiations.
This new commitment on the part of the Slovene authorities requires continuity and momentum - I think this is the crucial factor - so that a more positive stage can begin and negotiations proceed more swiftly.
There are of course many issues which are as yet unresolved, in this country as in the others, starting with changes to the administrative and judicial structures and the reforms required to put commitments into practice.
The Commission and the European Parliament should encourage and assist Slovenia in its efforts in a spirit of friendship and therefore with a critical and attentive eye.
This is the role we should play, rather than acting as lawyers.
Although the vast majority of the political movements in Slovenia still claim to be in favour of joining the European Union, this does not always mean that any joint momentum is achieved: the people do not seem to be fully involved in working towards this aim, as is shown by the information campaign, which gives the impression - rather significantly, I feel - that it has just got off the ground and is a touch feeble.
We were absolutely stunned when the head of the campaign told us that its aim was not actually to convince people that joining the European Union was basically a positive development for Slovenia.
One does wonder in that case what aim the campaign is pursuing and what the point of it is. We should therefore not be surprised to see that in the opinion polls the percentage of those in favour of accession to the European Union is declining, though still a majority.
In a situation like this, misgivings, distrust and isolationist tendencies may increase rather than diminish, and may also have a bearing on conflicts between parties and political representatives, creating a sense of detachment and a degree of insecurity.
This situation has been reflected recently by a number of events which have led to a certain amount of concern even in the Slovenian press.
In what I feel to be an anomalous and controversial legal case, the Constitutional Court decided to suspend local elections in the municipality of Koper, that is Capodistria.
The mayor of the city appealed to the Court of Human Rights, thus highlighting a very sensitive issue.
I only recently found out from the newspapers that for criticising this decision in the EU-Slovenia Joint Parliamentary Committee a sitting MP has been the subject of a procedure which is wholly incompatible with parliamentary and democratic traditions.
In short, I am not voicing these concerns in order to stress them unduly.
I think that these episodes are merely temporary aberrations which can be put right by the political forces and the authorities in Slovenia.
I believe that Slovenia enjoys all the right conditions and has the capacity to do very well.
I think that the positive facts continue to outweigh the negative ones, and it is precisely because of this that we should ask a lot of the government and the parliament.
In Slovenia there are major political forces, a civil society, and human, cultural and economic resources which are more than sufficient to turn this country into an example for many.
I have tried to do my job as your rapporteur with all this in mind and to this end the work of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy has been very useful to me, as have the amendments which were tabled.
In conclusion, Mr President, although Slovenia is a small country, it occupies a very important and sensitive geographical position, between the north and south and the east and west of Europe.
In cultural and political terms Slovenia can enrich the European Union and be enriched by it as well.
If this is what it wants, it has to be determined about it.
Throughout the region of the Balkans there is a need for stability, development and processes of integration which transcend national identity, and Slovenia can make a significant contribution here.
I think that the next Parliament should continue to consider accession and enlargement of the European Union as priority objectives and if possible not just have evening debates on the subject.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to say that the people of the Czech Republic support their country's application for membership of the European Union almost unanimously.
Indeed, despite the recent political and institutional changes in the Czech Republic, there has never been any discussion between the politicians there about this key objective.
Moreover, the authorities in Prague have demonstrated great tenacity and conviction in their efforts to become a member of the Atlantic Alliance and this is further proof, if any were needed, of the country's political determination to form part of the different continental structures, whatever they may be.
It is also extremely important to stress that the values that form the basis of the community of Europe have been clearly and perfectly assimilated by the Czech Republic.
This community of Europe clearly does not only represent an economic process; it also hopes to become a political area where the interests of all the different people of Europe can develop in harmony.
It is important to emphasise the fact that Prague has accepted the principles on which the common foreign and security policy is based. In fact, it was the Czech Government that took the initiative of strengthening political cooperation between all the applicant countries.
There is no doubt that the process of accession is a long and gradual process of adapting to the acquis communautaire .
And, as is the case with many of the applicant countries, the Czech Republic still has a great deal to do, as the Commission's regular report rightly points out.
This 'screening' document cannot be looked upon as a set of grades and marks; instead, it should be seen as an incentive to ensure that the correct measures are taken to benefit the Czech Republic and its application for membership of the European Union.
I would like to mention one concern I have had since the beginning of my work as rapporteur, which is the situation of the Roma minority in the Czech Republic.
It is true that the Prague Government has restructured the Interministerial Commission on the Affairs of the Roma Community and appointed Mr Petr Uhl as the government representative for human rights issues.
However, the problem of the social and cultural integration of the Roma ethnic minority has yet to be resolved.
This is undoubtedly an issue that will require a global solution and it is therefore vital to improve cultural relations throughout Czech society. But it is up to the Prague Government to take the necessary legislative measures to promote this integration.
The authorities cannot renounce their responsibility and society will naturally expect the authorities to face up to it.
Another important element is the rise in unemployment in the Czech Republic. According to the Commission this is due, for the most part, to a slowdown in economic activity and the effects of the process of industrial and economic restructuring in the country.
The European Commission must continue to help the Czech Government to minimise the social impact of adapting to the acquis communautaire , if possible.
I fully support the German Presidency's initiative to extend the PHARE programme to include support for the social dimension of the applicant countries' economies.
I do not want to end without making two remarks.
We all share the aim of enabling the applicant countries to join the European Union, but to do this properly we must also be consistent ourselves.
To that end, I would point out once again that institutional reform is essential to prepare the Union for enlargement and, secondly, that it is vital for the Union to have the resources required to face the challenge of enlargement.
I believe that, on this last issue, the Berlin summit did not exactly set the best example as regards the decisions that should have been taken. Nonetheless, we do, in fact, still have some time left to remedy the situation.
Mr President, Commissioner, this afternoon's debate on the conflict in Serbia and the expulsions in Kosovo has made it even clearer why enlarging the European Union to include the Central and Eastern European countries is, apart from any other considerations, the most important means of guaranteeing peace and must remain so in future.
We Europeans can only ensure lasting peace in Europe and in the world by working together with our neighbours to the east.
I say this in the knowledge that Poland has been a member of NATO since mid-March.
As the largest central European applicant country, Poland is making good progress with the accession process at a technical level, and we can therefore reasonably assume that by the end of this year a complete overview of the entire accession process situation will be available.
As I see it, that would probably then be the right time to discuss and perhaps reach agreement on a possible timetable for the rest of the run-up to accession.
The Polish Government - the Sejm and the Senate - are anxious to achieve this, and we should not close our minds to this possibility, indeed we should call on the Commission to prepare an appropriate draft with the Polish authorities.
In the Commission's progress report published in November 1998, Poland is described as a country that is enjoying stable social and political conditions and making progress in developing an efficient market economy.
According to the economic data, and if you accept the economic forecasts, Poland is still one of the strongest economies amongst the central European countries, with growth rates over 5 %, unemployment and inflation below 10 % and income increasing by 4.5 %.
Government debt is 48 % and the budget deficit in 1997 was 2.7 %.
These are in line with the Maastricht criteria.
As only 6.4 % of foreign trade is carried on with the Russian Federation, as opposed to 64 % with the European Union, Poland has remained relatively untouched by the latest Russian crisis.
Nevertheless, despite this positive economic development there will be problems in the sectors in need of restructuring, that is the coal and steel industry; about 210 000 employees are affected by this restructuring.
The environmental pollution associated with these industries will also give rise to problems.
Although the extent of environmental pollution would be reduced by the restructuring of the coal and steel industry and reductions in capacity, substantial investment will still be required.
At present Poland is channelling about 1.7 % of its gross domestic product into improving the quality of its natural resources. The environment currently accounts for 10 % of all corporate investment.
Another area in which great efforts are needed is agriculture.
As you know, one wage-earner in four works in this sector, which nevertheless generates just 6 % of gross domestic product.
However, most farms produce for their own needs rather than for the market.
The agricultural sector, comprising over two million farms, each covering an average area of no more than eight hectares, will therefore represent a serious social and regional problem.
Coal, steel and farming are therefore areas in which great efforts will have to be made in the future.
But there are also areas where there have already been successful reforms: the reform of central, regional and local government, in which the number of voivodeships has been reduced, health care reform to introduce medical insurance, and reform of the pension system.
The reform of the educational system is due to take effect in September of this year.
Overall, this is a positive Commission report, which shows that Poland is developing well.
Allow me to return briefly to the point I made at the beginning.
Ten years after the historical changes of 1989 we must do everything in our power to make this crucial progress with the accession process.
This applies to both sides: the European Union and the applicant countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
We must build on Agenda 2000 to make enlargement feasible, and the applicants must become fit for accession.
We cannot risk the enthusiasm for membership in the CEECs being allowed to wane.
The fifth direct elections to the European Parliament in mid-June and an information campaign planned by the Polish Government provide a good opportunity to enlighten the public about the significance and the aims of the forthcoming EU enlargement and of membership.
In addition to the major social and economic impact, we need more than ever to highlight the overarching factor of securing peace throughout Europe.
This will enable the existing and future EU Member States to make a significant contribution to the goals of political union.
Applause
Mr President, Commissioner, last week Cyprus was in the news in connection with the violence in Kosovo in a rather peculiar way.
Mr Denktash, the leader of Northern Cyprus, offered Muslim refugees 100 000 homes in the ghost town of Magusta.
Nicosia reacted by sending Mr Kyprianou to Milosevic in order to try, as he said, to obtain the release of three US soldiers by invoking centuries-old relations.
The reason I am saying this is so that people can see how Cyprus could move just as easily in the direction of chaos as order.
We know that the lingering conflict began a quarter of a century ago, and that it has certain things in common with what is now taking place in the Balkans.
We see reminders every day of where this can lead.
After all the diplomatic efforts by the United Nations, the United States and the European Union, I honestly have to say that it seems unlikely to me that we will see the stability and security on the island of Cyprus which Mr Habsburg predicts.
Membership of the European Union may perhaps lead to a solution to the division of Cyprus, or its occupation as I prefer to describe it.
Unfortunately, accession negotiations between Cyprus and the Union have so far not exactly proved successful.
The latest condition laid down by Mr Denktash is that his republic must be recognised while, rather more strangely, Nicosia must immediately abandon its European aspirations.
Mr President, the negotiations between the two communities are going wrong.
For a while I thought that something was actually going right, when the President of Cyprus, Mr Clerides, said that he would not be deploying S 300 missiles, which I understand had come second-hand from Russia.
The security situation on Cyprus might well have justified their deployment, but it would also have had the effect of jeopardising security still further.
I have not seen any gesture at all from Northern Cyprus of course, nor from Turkey either.
A solution is not made any more likely by a number of Member States including my own country, the Netherlands, coming out with statements more or less opposing membership for Cyprus as long as partition remains.
This removes the catalyst effect of the accession process and gives Turkey what amounts to a veto on the Union's decision to include Cyprus as a member.
This is certainly not going to encourage Turkey to withdraw from Cyprus after a quarter of a century, especially as now, according to the Commission's progress report, Cyprus is doing well.
Telecommunications and information technology are the only areas in which Cyprus is requesting transition periods.
There are scarcely any problems with the other main areas which have been screened to date.
The figures for the Republic of Cyprus are 50 % higher than the economic and financial indicators for Northern Cyprus.
Relations between Cyprus and the European Union are drawing closer and within a few years the 1973 association agreement will become a customs union.
Yet the process still needs to be speeded up, and we might consider some kind of PHARE fund action for Cyprus.
Mr President, as a final point I should like to ask the Commission to allocate the remaining EUR 17 million under the present protocol to the pre-accession strategy.
A financial injection may bring accession nearer and, as I have endeavoured to explain, accession will increase stability in the region.
I will end, Mr President, on a very simple domestic point.
In the Dutch text there is a very unfortunate mistake or printing error.
The last reference in paragraph 2 on the substantial progress achieved in adopting the acquis communautaire is 'justitie en buitenlandse zaken '.
I have seen in the English and French texts that the reference is clearly to 'internal affairs'.
The Dutch text should therefore read 'binnenlandse zaken '.
Mr President, I am really delighted, in this plenary part- session of Parliament, to again be addressing you on the subject of Malta's accession to the European Union.
Everyone here will be familiar with the history of this particular application.
When it last came before us, in my report in 1995, Parliament gave a very favourable recommendation.
Since then there has been a change of government in 1996 and the decision was taken to suspend the application and to look instead for a strengthened association agreement.
The situation changed again in September 1998 with the elections and change of government, so the application has been reactivated and is before us again this evening.
Although the application remained frozen for those two years, Malta remains in a very strong position.
It has stable democratic structures and the economic indicators are quite close to our Community average.
Although the Maltese authorities have introduced VAT, much new legislation is still required to bring Maltese law into line with the EU situation.
These reservations aside, I am very glad to be able to say that on this occasion also I recommend a very positive assessment of the Maltese application.
In particular I welcome the fact that the Commission has recommended that the screening of Maltese legislation should begin as soon as possible, with a view to starting negotiations at the end of this year.
I do, however, regret that the Council and the Commission were quite slow in making progress here.
Especially, I found, there was reticence on the part of the Council, in that it asked the Commission for a new opinion, an update of the 1993 opinion. It said it wanted to measure this again against the Copenhagen criteria.
So there was much delay there but we did eventually receive that opinion from the Commission, in February of this year, at the stage when the negotiations were well under way with the first wave countries.
I regret that delay.
With regard to the various amendments that we have received, on Amendment No 1 I will be looking tomorrow for a split vote.
I can certainly recommend to the House that the application must take Maltese opinion fully into account.
Indeed anybody who follows the Maltese media will know that it is the intention of the Maltese Government to hold a referendum on the issue.
So I would agree with that particular section of Amendment No 1.
However, I could not take on board the second part because to me it would be an undue interference in the internal affairs of the Maltese people.
I can certainly recommend Amendment No 2 and I will leave it to the judgment of the House as to how we should vote on Amendment No 3.
I feel, however, that we should be consistent here with other accession reports.
Finally, I call on the Cologne European Council to take the decision to begin negotiations on Malta's accession by the end of this year.
The Commission should draw up an accession partnership and provide for a programme of financial assistance for the pre-accession period to help the Maltese authorities to bridge the economic gap that remains between Malta and the European Union.
Mr President, I am delighted that my report on the environmental effects of enlargement was included in this Parliamentary debate dealing with the subject of applications for EU membership.
It confirms the importance of one of the main themes of my report, namely that environmental issues must be a priority in negotiations for membership and that environmental questions must, in accordance with the principle of transparency, be an integral part of the whole negotiations process.
The forthcoming round of negotiations on accession will be very different from the previous one in terms of the emphasis given to environmental matters.
The last countries to join the European Union were Austria, Sweden and Finland, at the beginning of 1995.
Environmental legislation in these countries was in many ways even further developed than the legislation in the EU.
The situation is now quite different, and the lack of environmental legislation in the applicant countries is one of the biggest barriers to accession.
Under the Treaty of Amsterdam we all now have obligations, furthermore, to integrate environmental policy into all areas of EU decision-making, and Member States' compliance with these obligations is to be examined at future EU summits.
As the accession talks proceed we must take stock of what progress the applicant countries are also making in this area.
There are enormous environmental problems in the ten applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and there are only meagre resources available to deal with them.
However, the condition of the environment has been steadily improving since 1989, and there are large areas, for example, of unspoiled nature in these countries.
As far as the diversity of the natural environment is concerned, too, the situation in these countries is either first-rate or at least a considerable improvement on that in many of the current Member States.
Accelerated economic growth on the one hand creates scope for improving the environment, but, on the other, will pollute the environment at an ever greater rate unless environmental legislation is tightened up at the same time.
Furthermore, new investment in production must take account of the latest technology and should be undertaken now while these countries are negotiating their membership.
In fact the greatest efforts to improve the environment must be made prior to accession.
At the same time we must ensure that the resources made available for the applicant countries, inter alia under Agenda 2000, are put to best use in these countries.
However, the responsibility for the EU budget is not equally shared: the greatest financial responsibility lies with the applicant countries themselves.
EU funding through ISPA and PHARE can at best only act as a catalyst.
The aim must be for these schemes to generate two to four times the funding set aside for investment in the environment.
The environmental problems in the applicant countries arise from long-standing shortcomings and neglect, particularly in the areas of water and waste management as well as emissions into the atmosphere from industry, energy production, and the present rapid growth in traffic.
They also all face major problems in the areas of nuclear safety and the storage of nuclear waste.
Solving this problem will also require a huge financial input, and the international investment banks also need to be involved here.
On the whole, however, it has to be said that eastward enlargement will have a positive impact on the environment of Europe, when accession results in the tightening up of environmental standards in the applicant countries, economic growth is placed on a sustainable footing, and the countries concerned are able to comply with international agreements on environmental issues.
In order for this to be achieved, we must negotiate with each applicant country a realistic timetable based on the individual situation of the country in question, and the focal point of that timetable should be prior to accession.
Transitional periods in respect of environmental legislation may be permitted only in exceptional circumstances and if the applicant countries themselves request it and also commit to a timetable for implementation.
Nevertheless, transitional periods must not be allowed to exceed five years.
Mr President, if you were to look down from space at our continent you would not see the European Union, applicant states and non-applicant states. All you would see is one crowded, complex, interdependent Cape of Eurasia.
That is a salutary thought for all of us as we contemplate the challenges of enlargement.
Our pollution is a common heritage which we all have.
I am particularly struck if you look at Europe in terms of its river systems rather than its political structures.
I recall vividly the impact on myself of learning, during a floating symposium on the Black Sea last year, that a very high percentage of the pollution which is killing the Black Sea stems not from the riparian states but from run-off from Austria and Germany of nitrogen and agricultural chemicals, pushed on to the land in the heart of Europe as a consequence of some of our malfunctioning environmental policies in the common agricultural policy and having a consequence hundreds and hundreds of miles away across the continent.
As we examine the environmental consequences and challenges of enlargement, we will not seek to enforce on those states which seek to join us in the applicant process the same kind of environmentally disastrous projects which we have often adopted in our own ignorance inside the Union over the last 40 years.
I would like to make just one other point.
Despite my concern about the environment, I am an optimist and along with the author of the report I believe that much can be achieved in the environment in the process of enlargement.
I am suspicious of those who would use the challenges of environment as an argument for delay in enlargement.
In my view there is much that can be done.
This is a solvable problem but we have to do it conscious that we do it as one continent linked environmentally and ecologically.
Mr President, enlargement is of course a huge challenge for the European Union. A major and pressing task lies ahead of us.
Enlargement requires comprehensive change; this applies to the applicant countries - in this case Hungary - and to the European Union.
Among other measures, we need a fundamental overhaul of the EU's agricultural policy, which currently absorbs half its budget.
The applicant countries too will have to make adjustments in order to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria.
Democracy and human rights must be consolidated, for example. In the case of a country such as Hungary, attention to its minorities - and their protection - will be important.
The quicker the process unfolds the better, of course, but we can hardly set a date for the conclusion of negotiations.
All applicant countries, including Hungary, need to strengthen their anti-corruption strategies.
It is vital that both the Commission and the Hungarian Government take account of the social costs of the economic and financial restructuring process.
The price of getting fit for EU accession should not be paid by the least advantaged, with increased unemployment, a growing divide between people or the marginalisation of various ethnic groups.
The negotiating process leading to EU accession needs to embrace the whole of society.
It is therefore essential for the Hungarian Government to maintain an ongoing dialogue with both the opposition and the two sides of industry.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party and also very much on my own behalf I would like to express the very sincere respect, esteem and gratitude that we owe to Otto von Habsburg.
His speech here today is typical of the speeches he has made in the European Parliament over the last 20 years, since 1979.
I remember very clearly when he talked of the former Soviet Union as being the last colonial empire on earth, with its annexation of the three Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Mr von Habsburg, many people smiled when you said that, but I was always convinced that you were right.
You had a vision that these states should be liberated, and today that vision is becoming a reality.
They are now free to join the European Union, and you are an example of the fact that is visionaries who are the true realists.
We are discussing Estonia, Hungary, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Cyprus and Malta.
But, as Otto von Habsburg has said, we should cast our net wider, towards Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia, and also towards Bulgaria and Romania.
We in the PPE Group see the accession and negotiation as a single process, and we are convinced that we have to prove ourselves, and that the accession of all these countries associated with us by Europe agreements must soon become a reality.
Of course, certain requirements have to be met.
These countries need to speed up their reforms and actively pursue them.
We are delighted to see that they are making great progress.
We need to encourage these countries and should not give them any discouraging signals.
Because if we did discourage them, the reform process and the momentum in these countries would founder, which would be bad both for these countries and for the European Union.
That is why we are telling these countries that they are welcome, that the people of these countries are welcome in the European Union, because they want to join our community and adopt its set of values.
That is why we are calling for the Helsinki Council at the end of this year to start accession negotiations with Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, and of course also, as we are requesting, with Malta.
The Baltic states have suffered a great deal of pain in the course of this century, as Otto von Habsburg has already mentioned.
As they have not been admitted to NATO yet, they are seeking security within the European Union.
If we look at Kosovo today, we cannot fail to recognise that it is our duty to admit in particular the Baltic states into the European Union as quickly as possible.
We need to make headway with the internal reform of the European Union.
There is clearly a need for institutional reform if we want to remain effective.
We also need to take certain practical steps.
We have proposed for example that MPs from the applicant countries could attend meetings of our parliamentary committees as observers when accession issues are on the agenda.
But in turn, we also have our own requirements.
For example, we are calling on the Czech Republic to repeal laws and decrees still in force from 1945 and 1946 in cases where they refer to the expulsion of individual ethnic groups from the former Czechoslovakia.
We are faced with a great challenge.
Back in 1989, we would not have dared to dream that we could be discussing such problems in 1999.
But we are discussing them, and that is why we must now do whatever is necessary to ensure that this vision, which is edging closer to fulfilment, actually does become a reality in the foreseeable future, so that we can welcome the people of central Europe into the European Union and the European Parliament.
Ladies and gentlemen, I too would like to support Otto von Habsburg, who said that we should make haste if we are not to miss a historic opportunity.
And I believe that this is very important.
When I visit the applicant counties, I am struck by their failure to understand our hesitation.
For example, they cannot grasp why we are not full of enthusiasm once a date has been set for possible accession, 2002 in the case of Hungary.
Of course, it is evident that meeting the criteria is essential for accession.
And it is clear that they are making good progress in many areas, the economy for example, and also with the democratic and political criteria.
Amazingly enough, the same cannot be said of other areas, such as administrative reform and above all legal reform.
Sometimes it is not easy to explain to them that to have an effective legal culture prevailing within the judicial system and in the courts is simply essential for a properly functioning internal market, just as democracy is of course a requirement for political union.
We must use great powers of persuasion here.
On the other hand, we need to be extraordinarily careful about the kind of criticisms we make, so that they do not have the opposite of the desired effect.
As it is, we often have the impression that not only do they not want to hear such criticism at all - and who does? - but that it even wounds their national pride and is counterproductive.
However, there is no doubt at all about one point: we have to make it perfectly clear that we have every interest in these accessions taking place as quickly as possible once the criteria have been met.
We should not transfer our difficulties to them and behave as if we were afraid of their economy and their people.
That is the heart of the matter, and that is why we must make sure that these accessions happen as soon as possible once the criteria have been fulfilled. We need to make that crystal clear in all our discussions.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I rise to make some general comments on enlarging the Union to include new countries with which we are conducting membership negotiations.
I am certainly in favour of enlargement to include these new countries.
However, I am afraid that given the financial outlook and the fact that these countries are less wealthy than the existing members of the Union, there is a danger that certain regions, such as Galicia and Portugal, will become even more peripheral and marginalised because of reductions in the Structural Funds. This will make it difficult to achieve the economic and social cohesion Europe needs.
During the last parliamentary term I voted in favour of EU enlargement to include three rich countries - Austria, Finland and Sweden.
The less wealthy countries now knocking at our door certainly deserve to belong to our community of economic and social interests.
We should therefore cooperate in their development so that we can continue along the path of eastward enlargement, extending the route to Santiago de Compostela onward to Moscow and the Urals, a dream that could come true in 20 or 30 years' time.
I am also sure that these countries will be a perfect bridge for developing our relations with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Generally speaking, the various rapporteurs from the Committee on Foreign Affairs have emphasised the difficulties that have to be overcome, have expressed their pleasure at the progress already made, and have insisted that reforms should be supported by accompanying measures designed to mitigate their consequences.
It is for this reason that in countries like Poland there will be a particular need for thoroughgoing social, administrative and health reforms.
Reforms of this kind will certainly have a special impact on more vulnerable people, especially pensioners.
With particular reference to Malta, I am pleased at the Commission's recommendation that a critical examination of Maltese legislation should start immediately, so that negotiations with this country can begin before the end of this year.
Mr President, I should like to use these two minutes to underline the importance of the Myller report, which deals with the environment and the kind of environmental strategy required in the context of enlargement.
Mrs Myller's report is excellent; her commitment to the issues is visible in every line.
The environmental dimension is one of the main challenges of enlargement.
Perhaps I might draw particular attention to two elements.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe seeking to join the Union are a true learning resource from our point of view.
They certainly have an ecological head start in the agricultural sector. Their economic situation has meant that they have adopted farming practices somewhat different from those that we are used to in the EU.
And I feel that we should be doing our utmost to support the most environmentally friendly forms of agriculture possible.
Secondly, rather than promoting the private car, we should be backing the well-established and extensive public transport systems which exist in many of the CEECs.
We should also remember that it is not simply a matter of legislating from on high; local organisations need to be involved in what is going on. I am thinking of both the voluntary sector and bodies such as Urban Forum.
The latter is active within the Union and needs to extend its outreach into Central and Eastern Europe.
Thank you, Mrs Hulthén.
You had been allocated speaking time of a minute and a half, but I signalled to you that you could continue with your speech.
Mr President, after the excellent introductory remarks on the problem of enlargement by our colleague Otto von Habsburg, I should simply like to make a few points in connection with Slovenia further to the excellent report by Mr Speciale.
We can all too easily forget that Slovenia used to belong to the Yugoslav Federation.
Like Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, it broke free and now would like very much to join the European Union.
It has become a sovereign state and is, to use a Dutch expression, small but tough.
Psychologically the country would not appear to have any difficulty in becoming a part of the European landscape.
Of all the applicant countries, Slovenia comes closest to fulfilling the conditions for full European Union membership.
It will therefore be of great symbolic value if an agreement can be reached on this quite quickly.
It could also serve as an example for the other candidates. What more must they do?
Yet this report already refers to the next annual report.
So it looks as if it will be some time yet before we can talk of positive results.
If I remember correctly, the conditions for entry were the acquis communautaire , Maastricht and the desire to promote the further development of Europe, a market economy and human rights.
My question is this: In the negotiations, what are we asking applicants to do about the common foreign and security policy? I believe that we now have an excellent opportunity for the Fifteen to decide a number of basic principles on this subject which consequently must also be accepted by newcomers.
Now or never it must become clear just how serious we are about this common policy.
And how is the problem of solidarity discussed?
What does convergence of opinions mean in the context of the negotiations?
What is Slovenia's position?
I would also add: How do they view subsidiarity? Should we not be helping them to combat inflation, including by practical measures, and thereby boost the economy as quickly as possible?
Mr President, the European Union's enlargement to the east will be an enormous challenge from the point of view of our common environment.
If successful, enlargement will place countries that have sought membership on a strong footing for economic growth based on sustainable development.
This, however, will not come about automatically: we will have to get to grips with enormous problems in trying to achieve as much as possible with relatively few resources for development.
For that reason we need to establish priorities, exploit the applicant countries' own resources, and implement tailor-made solutions.
It will be a process that requires capacity for change and adaptability according to circumstances.
I would like to express my full support for the ideas set out by Mrs Myller, which reveal a sound and realistic grasp of the problem.
A list should be drawn up of the most important points to focus on in environmental legislation, and the implementation of those points would serve as objective indicators.
I would like to emphasise the importance of how investment in sustainable development is implemented in practice and monitored.
Introducing environmental legislation into the administrations of the applicant countries will be an immense challenge, and for that reason the EU must provide the necessary support through training programmes and exchanges of information.
Mr President, before I begin I beg your indulgence to join with Mr Poettering in paying tribute to the work of Mr von Habsburg in this House.
As coordinator of the Socialist Group I should like to thank him for his help and advice over the time I have been coordinator, and for the quality of his work in committee.
I am the last speaker of the Socialists and my job, therefore, is not to speak about individual countries, but to sum up the general debates.
However, I would like to begin by quoting directly from the Czech application to the European Union.
In the preamble to that application the Czechs say: 'The construction of Europe has always been a matter of enlightened imagination, political courage, assiduous work, criticism, sober realism, solidarity and the art of cooperation, accommodation and compromise'.
I do not think we could find a better commentary on the process that we are currently undergoing.
We should be clear that if the challenge of the 1980s for the European Union was the creation of a single market, and the challenge of the 1990s was the creation of a single currency, the challenge for the opening years of the next millennium will be to enlarge the European Union so as to deepen it and also to create a zone of stability throughout the continent.
This is our opportunity to reunite Europe, to build a whole continent built on the principles of peace, stability and prosperity.
If we doubt the value of those characteristics we only have to look at the former Yugoslavia.
Indeed the dream that should drive us is the dream of reuniting Europe.
The nightmare that should spur our actions is what is happening in former Yugoslavia.
Those are the alternatives which confront us.
To go back to the Czech application, they talk of sober realism.
That has to be, without a doubt, a major motivating force.
It is a difficult process.
Let us not in any way underestimate the difficulties.
We have our own difficulties which have already been outlined in the debate today about Agenda 2000.
But the applicant countries themselves must go through a process of economic reform and keep that process on course.
In particular we must ensure that there is effective competition policy in all the applicant countries and that there is proper respect for intellectual property which will underpin inward investment, which is so important for them all.
We have to ensure that their administrations are modernised.
As I have said many times in these debates, in my view the biggest weakness of these countries is the administration and the judicial system and the lack of modernisation and investment.
They must all take action against corruption because, as we know ourselves, corruption will undermine the political process.
There can be no fudges whatsoever during that process.
We have to be honest and realistic.
We have to show solidarity and understanding for the difficulties these countries are going through.
We have to ensure that we can take care of the social consequences of those reforms.
But the applicant countries must also understand that none of them is as yet in the European Union.
They will all be judged on their own merits.
They must continue the processes which they have been going through and show patience whilst they are going through the negotiations.
What is also needed, as the Czechs pointed out, is enlightened imagination and political courage.
All problems can be resolved in politics if the will is there.
Let us show that imagination and courage so that we can enlarge the European Union before the next European elections in 2004.
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs.
However, despite my strong commitment to the process of enlargement, I acknowledge that we face real dilemmas during the process.
On the one hand we have a political and, indeed, a moral obligation to honour the Treaty by admitting new members in accordance with it. On the other hand, we must be careful that the arrival of new members is not detrimental to the future workings of the Treaties.
The jargon of the Union sums up the problem.
Is it to be deepening before widening or widening before deepening?
We took a risk at the last enlargement by admitting three new members before any significant institutional reforms were in place to deal with the consequences of expanded membership.
That risk was heightened by the presence in two of those countries of very significant anti-EU minorities which, if they became majorities, could, under our present inadequate institutional arrangements, have stifled the very workings of the Communities.
That risk, which I hope has disappeared, cannot be taken again even if it means postponing enlargement.
An enlarged unreformed community has a permanently increased exposure to disagreements which could stultify progress to our ultimate goal of a United States of Europe.
As an aside, I venture to suggest that this is the secret ambition of some of the supporters of early enlargement.
There is now a new reason for hastening slowly on enlargement.
The euro has had a successful birth and is established as a world currency but it is still an infant.
Its continued health is an essential prerequisite, not just for the economic health of the Union and the Member States but to their economic viability.
There can be no enlargement unless the applicant states are fit to join the single currency, posing no threat to its integrity and status, and are willing to join so as to avoid making the present two-tier Union even worse.
Hopefully, all existing Member States will have seen the light and be participants in the single currency before enlargement so that the applicants will have no choice on this issue.
Enlargement in the right circumstances will guarantee the benefits of the Treaties for new members.
Enlargement in the wrong circumstances will certainly halt progress and will probably reverse it.
We must get it right and I am confident that we can.
Mr President, I shall confine myself to expressing the simple wish that we can make up for lost time and that Malta can join the European Union soon.
This is therefore an appeal to overcome all the hesitations and uncertainties which up to now have characterised the attitude of the Council and the Commission.
Above and beyond the size of the country, which is of course limited in terms of territory and population, Malta's importance lies in the fact that it can help us launch and consolidate our policy in the Mediterranean area, which is one of the fronts on which tomorrow's Europe will compete.
We should bear in mind that new scenarios do arise and that overcoming the negative attitude, so to speak, on the part of Libya is a major factor in consolidating the situation.
Therefore, from the forthcoming Cologne Council onwards, Malta should be considered in a positive light.
I think all the right factors are there: the attitudes of the previous labour government have been overtaken by the determination of the current one, and the main macroeconomic indicators are good, as was acknowledged by the rapporteur herself, Mrs Malone.
I hope things will move quickly, Commissioner.
Mr President, as Mr Donner has indicated, many positive things can be said about Estonia's progress and the pace of reform there. The same applies to Latvia and Lithuania.
I was delighted at the result of the Estonian elections on 7 March.
The winning parties were those who are most unequivocally working for EU membership and they have now formed a government.
It is particularly gratifying that Mart Laar has been appointed as the new prime minister.
Over the period between 1992 and 1994, he led the government which steered Estonia along what has proved to be such a successful course of reform.
25 March this year was the 50th anniversary of the day on which 20 000 Estonian citizens were subjected to mass deportation from Estonia by Soviet occupation forces.
That tragedy was not played out on our TV screens as happens with today's atrocities, so there is all the more reason for us to remember those people.
Even before enlargement takes place, the current Member States of the Union are benefiting considerably from the reforms and efforts undertaken by the applicant countries to meet the requirements which have been laid down.
And we should be reminding voters of that when the elections take place in June.
The switch-over to a market economy in these countries has created new markets and jobs for us, and a high level of stability has enabled them to weather the Russian crisis better than might otherwise have been the case. As a result, we have been spared the need to intervene with a programme of assistance.
First and foremost, however, their commitment to conflict-resolution and human rights has meant that we have not had to endure 'Kosovo crises' on our doorstep. This is the new dimension of the EU as a peace-promoting enterprise.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the enlargement of the European Union is, without doubt, the most important challenge facing the European Union as it moves into the twenty-first century.
One of the essential prerequisites for its success is maintaining a geographical balance when admitting applicant countries.
Seen in this light, the accession of Cyprus takes on special significance.
The fact that accession negotiations in this particular case have begun and are progressing normally is to be welcomed.
These negotiations must continue until they have been successfully concluded.
Impeding the negotiations, and linking their outcome to a resolution of the political and military issues that have afflicted the island for 25 years, as certain Member States of the European Union have unfortunately attempted to do, are diplomatic errors which go against the philosophy of the European Union and enlargement and jeopardise its successful completion.
The report by Mr Bertens, whom I congratulate on his excellent work, is a major step in the right direction and we must therefore vote in favour of it.
Mr President, Mrs Myller has produced a sound and interesting report on the environmental strategies to be implemented in the run-up to the accession of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
This is an important text, which fits in well with the commitment the European Parliament has consistently demonstrated towards environmental issues.
The report does, however, contain a number of points which I cannot support.
It is stated, for example, that the ongoing privatisation processes in the applicant countries could jeopardise the status of conservation areas and the future of biological diversity.
My view is quite the opposite.
I believe that this privatisation thrust is essential to the interests of sound environmental policy.
The countries of Central and Eastern Europe have a sorry history of totalitarianism, which left them with a legacy of severe environmental problems.
It is now up to individual countries and the EU to embark on joint efforts in the interests of a better environment.
People care for the things they own.
It is therefore paramount that legislation should safeguard the right of ownership.
If someone pollutes my land, then I must have an incontrovertible right to claim compensation of some kind from the polluter.
That is what the hallowed 'polluter pays' principle is all about.
Mrs Myller also says in her report that increasingly intensive farming and forestry endanger the environment, as does road building.
I disagree with her analysis.
All human activity brings with it alterations to the environment. Such change need not necessarily be damaging, although human endeavour does sometimes impact negatively on the world around us.
That is precisely why we need to set clear boundaries, but it does not mean that we should categorically condemn certain things.
Normal agricultural and forestry activity does not in itself jeopardise the environment.
It is therefore inappropriate to urge the applicant countries to abstain from the kind of farming and forestry practices that we view as normal.
But it is essential that they comply with the environmental legislation we ourselves have agreed upon.
By way of conclusion, let me highlight the huge environmental policy benefits associated with enlargement; the result will be a better environment for the whole of Europe.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to say a few words about Malta.
First, I would like to thank everyone who has helped to ensure that Malta is once again being considered alongside the other applicant countries, as envisaged at the Corfu and Essen Councils.
I would also like to thank you in particular, Commissioner van den Broek, for the firm support you have offered ever since the present Maltese Government reactivated their country's application for membership.
However, I have a few questions for the Commission on this.
My first question is about the Task Force for the Accession Negotiations, which includes a special unit for each country.
When will the unit responsible for Malta start work?
My second question is about the fourth financial protocol.
According to this protocol the 1999 budget provides EUR 5 million each for Malta and Cyprus.
But with the help of the Commission and before the recent elections in Malta, it had been agreed that the financial protocol for Malta would be extended by a further year.
Now, several million euros are not available, because they were not included in the budget.
Do you see any chance, perhaps by using the Notenboom procedure or some other method, of implementing this extended financial protocol now?
My third comment is on the report before us. I am very sorry that the rapporteur did not consider it necessary to be present for this debate.
I am referring to the amendments tabled on the report.
It seems to me that Amendment No 1, which takes the Maltese authorities and administration up on their promise to respect the vote in favour of membership of the European Union, is aimed at the wrong people.
After all, with Norway we saw that it was ultimately the public who decided what would happen, without anyone making the authorities responsible beforehand.
Overall, I am very grateful that we have had this debate here today.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteurs and others who have spoken this evening on the important subject of European Union enlargement.
May I begin by again stressing, and this goes for all those responsible for preparing for enlargement within the Commission, that we are very much aware of the European Union's historic and unique opportunity to extend peace and stability to large areas of this continent.
I therefore fully agree with Mr von Habsburg and all those who have reiterated his message this evening that precisely during these weeks and months of conflict in Kosovo we are particularly aware of what it means to be able to live in peace and freedom and without repression within this community of values.
We must therefore help all those who aspire to join this community during the difficult and complex integration process.
I am therefore grateful to have the opportunity today to reflect on the state of progress in this process, which by the very nature of things cannot be completed overnight.
In any event I want to reassure all the honourable Members, as I have the applicant countries themselves, that as far as we are concerned the current so-called institutional crisis, which naturally affects the Commission's work, must not and shall not result in any delay in the enlargement process.
All the preparations and our work on them will continue undiminished, as will the negotiations with the individual countries.
Last December we discussed at length the situation in the applicant countries with which formal negotiations have not yet begun.
Today we turn our attention to the other six.
I should like to begin by saying that we are using all the pre-accession instruments at our disposal in order to help these applicant countries with their preparations.
The Commission will be drawing up further progress reports in the autumn, but we also intend to adapt, or rather adjust, the accession partnerships on the basis of the recorded progress and development in October this year, in other words before the Helsinki summit.
At this point we can already report that all 10 Europe Agreements have entered into force and that the pre-accession support agreed at the European Council in Berlin will double the financial aid granted to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Under the PHARE twinnings programme we expect around 100 experts from the current EU Member States to be in place in these applicant countries by the end of the year, and as far as we are concerned this figure of 100 needs to be doubled in the year 2000.
These experts will be expected to transfer their knowledge about implementing the acquis communautaire to the main ministries in the applicant countries.
Officials will then be seconded for longer periods in the field of agriculture, justice, home affairs, finance and the environment.
Every applicant country has also approved a national programme for the adoption of the acquis communautaire which specifies the required personnel, budget and institutional resources.
These countries are also being asked to make further adjustments to their programmes by the early summer in order to bring them into line with the latest developments.
Before I say anything about each of the six countries individually, I should perhaps say a word about Malta, which clearly finds itself in a rather special position as a result of the interruption in its membership application.
Last December I was able to inform you that Malta's application had been reactivated.
As a result, the Council asked us to revise its 1993 opinion and we announced this on 17 February.
The conclusion reached in this opinion was essentially that while there were no problems in respect to the political criteria for Malta, additional or structural economic reforms were still needed, while the two-year break in Malta's membership preparations had resulted in a delay in adopting the acquis communautaire .
The Commission believes the recommended screening should begin as soon as possible, as indeed will be the case, so that, as we say in the report, accession negotiations can begin at the end of this year. This may, as I hope, provide an impetus for the Helsinki summit in December.
But at the end of the day it is the summit itself which must decide when to start negotiations.
In any event, we are fully prepared.
I can also reassure Mrs Günther that we have already taken steps to ensure that the task force negotiations can be enlarged at any time should the formal negotiations with Malta actually begin.
I can also tell Mr Bertens, and on this occasion Mrs Malone too, that we will also be considering to what extent, for Cyprus as well as Malta, the present financial protocol can be converted into a financial instrument which is comparable to that for the other applicant countries.
We are working on this at the moment and will return to it as quickly as possible.
The negotiations are a complicated process in themselves, but I am delighted to be able to report that at the end of last year seven out of a total of 31 negotiating chapters had already been addressed.
Faced with the need to determine their negotiating positions, the applicant countries succeeded in dramatically improving their internal organisation and coordination in a relatively short period of time.
The questions we put to them about their ability to adopt the acquis communautaire provided an extra stimulus for their preparations in this crucial area.
I am saying this in reply to Mr Titley who made a comment about this.
The Commission for one also certainly plans to keep up the pace at which these chapters are addressed, which means that it should be possible to address another eight by the summer.
The German Presidency itself has also announced this.
This means that by around the middle of this year half of all the negotiating chapters will have been addressed, and if the pace can be maintained around three quarters will have been addressed by the end of the year.
This says a great deal about the efforts made by both the applicant countries and the Commission presidency.
This is a pace we want to sustain.
You know that the issues involved here are political criteria, economic criteria, the acquis communautaire and administrative capacity.
Before I comment on individual countries I should like to make a number of general points about these four important criteria which, as you know, were agreed in Copenhagen in 1993.
Our evaluations set out in last year's November reports were based on an in-depth investigation of how democracy in these applicant countries works in practice.
It was with great pleasure, not to say enthusiasm, that we were able to conclude that all things considered these are now well-established democracies.
There are still a number of important aspects concerning the rule of law and democracy which still need attention and where further progress is necessary.
I am thinking here of minorities, a particularly pertinent subject at this time, and also the need to strengthen the judiciary for example.
In many countries, not only the applicant countries but in Member States too, there are major delays in the judicial process, usually because of staff shortages in the judiciary.
Now for a general comment on the economic criteria.
All the countries with which we are negotiating have made considerable progress in moving towards a market economy, with particularly marked economic progress in countries such as Estonia, Hungary and Poland, which have made constant efforts to implement reforms since the opinions were published.
In the report we also made no secret of the fact that Slovenia and the Czech Republic had made less progress and that they really needed to speed up the process.
We told these countries this, which they accepted and they are now taking the necessary measures.
Next to the matter of the pace of adapting to the acquis communautaire .
The question is not only whether the countries are able to adopt the legislation but also whether they are able to implement it in practice?
In this respect I believe the performance of the applicant countries remains very varied.
In November we concluded that Hungary and Estonia had generally maintained a good adaptation rate, and that Poland had made major progress in a number of areas while falling behind in others.
On this point too we had to conclude that the Czech Republic and Slovenia were lagging somewhat behind.
In the interests of the mutual trust which is also vital for European Union membership, it is crucially important for applicant countries to have the necessary administrative and judicial capacity.
They cannot afford to neglect this area in their negotiations.
This is also why we have devoted so much effort to the twinning operation under which experts from the Member States can be made available to the governments of applicant countries for longer periods.
I will now quickly comment on each of the six countries individually.
Poland, for example, has achieved excellent results in meeting the political criteria by introducing a new Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure and by appointing a commissioner for the protection of civil rights.
On the economic front, I would also inform Mrs Hoff that Poland achieved high annual growth over the past year, coupled with falling unemployment and inflation, a strong currency and an increase in direct foreign investments.
A major effort was also made for the economic restructuring of the social security system, the iron and steel sector and the coal sector.
Less progress was made in adapting to the acquis communautaire , particularly in the environmental field, and the legislative work needs to be speeded up together with efforts to attract investment to the environment sector.
There have been delays in passing important laws on certification and conformity assessment, which has created problems - which is why I mention it - in terms of access to the Polish market.
As for Poland's most noted sector, namely agriculture, which Mrs Hoff also mentioned, I fully agree with her analysis that it is necessary to continue with reforms, especially in the field of rural development and improving veterinary and plant health facilities.
On the other hand, I would praise Poland for the enormous work that has gone into the restructuring programme for the iron and steel industry.
Nevertheless, greater efforts must be made in order to further clarify the entire privatisation strategy of the two largest companies and to set a clear timetable for privatisation and restructuring.
I agree with Mrs Hoff's recommendation to continue with PHARE support for social measures to accompany restructuring in the iron and steel sector.
This will therefore also be taken into account in this year's PHARE programme.
There is a huge employment problem involved here.
Next the Czech Republic, which I talked about earlier.
Only limited progress has been made in the overall process of adaptation and the implementation of the short-term priorities for the accession partnership.
Mr Carnero Gonzalez's report lists a number of priority areas in which the Czech Republic must step up its pre-accession measures, such as adapting its legislation to the acquis communautaire in general, as well as reforming the apparatus of government and the judicial system, privatising state banks, policy on state support, protecting the environment and the further integration of the gypsy minority, the latter a point raised by Mr Gonzalez.
The new government's programme includes many priorities which do indeed correspond to the accession partnership, but we hope that the government will also succeed in transforming these priorities into concrete results.
I can be quite brief on the subject of Hungary.
There has been major progress in a number of areas, in particular the approval of a general reform package for the judicial system and the completion of the structural economic reforms.
Another very favourable development is the strengthening of Hungary's government apparatus by increasing the number of staff - something the Commission is naturally very jealous of - and organising training programmes for the medium term.
In some areas, such as environmental protection, the process of harmonising legislation is rather slow and regional development planning is also only in its earliest stages.
Additional efforts are needed in setting up an effective service for controlling state aid, an important subject in itself.
I will now turn to Estonia, where there has been clear progress.
This is a real front-runner, with developments in the area of citizenship legislation particularly welcome.
We know the political efforts this has required.
We also hope, and I make no secret of the fact that I have some concerns about this, that Estonia will reexamine the language law and the law on parliamentary and local council elections which were passed following the publication of our last report. Our first impressions are that these laws could be at odds with international standards in this area.
The Commission would be happy to work with Estonia to find solutions to this and shares Mr Donner's view that more measures are required to ensure the integration of non-Estonian speakers.
Although it is no exception in this respect, Estonia must also make more effort to strengthen its administrative capacity.
Now Slovenia, which stands second to last in the line of negotiating countries.
November's progress report made it clear that Slovenia had not made sufficient progress on harmonisation in general.
We discussed this at length with the Slovenian Government during a visit to Ljubljana, and I am confident that efforts will be made to catch up, as I agree with those who spoke about Slovenia, Mr Tindemans among others, that this is a country that has everything it takes for rapid and smooth integration.
In this sense Slovenia's performance has been disappointing, at least as things stood in November.
But I repeat, I hope the government will be able to catch up.
Slovenia knows exactly what is needed and what must be done, and we now need to give it the political encouragement to achieve this.
Finally, last but not least, Cyprus.
Let me begin by saying that we much appreciate, and in a sense were reassured by - I say this to Mr Bertens - the fact that President Clerides had the wisdom to avoid creating tension on the island by reconsidering the decision to deploy defensive missiles.
This certainly helped the island's stability.
I should also like to take this opportunity to express the hope that we will see new political initiatives which will restart the UN process on the island's partition and dialogue between President Clerides and Mr Denktash.
As I told Mr Dimitrakopoulos, I believe that in the meantime preparations for Cyprus to join the Union should continue unabated.
President Clerides has made a generous offer to the Turkish Cypriot community to participate in the delegation to the accession negotiations.
We also hope for better times in this respect.
I should like to say the following on the subject of economic developments. Since the 1993 opinion on Cyprus it still remains to be confirmed that the economy has the basic capacity to adapt to the challenges of enlargement.
In this respect more attention needs to be paid to restructuring the internal financial sector to enable it to stand up to the pressure of competition as a result of the liberalisation of capital movements.
The necessary progress has been made in adopting the acquis communautaire , particularly in the context of the customs union, but considerable further efforts are required in the area of the internal market and more particularly in the area of tax and finance.
Maritime transport, telecommunications, justice and home affairs are also points which require particular attention in the case of Cyprus.
As regards Mr Bertens' request that we should come up with a proposal for a financial mechanism, I repeat what I said earlier on the subject of Malta, namely that we are working on replacing the financial protocol.
This is a subject to which we will be returning.
Mr President, I will end here.
I would, however, just like to say a few words about Mrs Myller's interesting and well thought-out report.
In May 1998 the Commission adopted a communication on accession strategy in the environmental field.
The need for such a strategy stems directly from the Agenda 2000 proposals in which it is recognised that adopting the environmental acquis will be a huge task for the CEECs and one which can only be achieved in the longer term and at a very high cost. There was talk at the time of figures between EUR 100 and 120 billion.
The communication looks at some of the practical questions which are relevant for drawing up national strategies allowing the CEECs to adopt the acquis communautaire without allocating funds from the pre-accession instruments.
Two of the main points in the communication concern the efforts the CEECs must make, which are both considerable and expensive.
It is, however, important to recognise that they not only serve environmental interests, but are also justifiable on economic grounds.
The Union's financial assistance provides just a very small part of the necessary resources, which is why a targeted, effective and strategic approach to the accession process is absolutely essential.
Mr President, I have attempted to sketch, although perhaps at too great a length, the current state of affairs, as this Commission, or at least this college of Commissioners, will probably no longer be responsible for producing the next report.
In any event I should like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank Parliament, and in particular the rapporteurs and all those who showed great interest in or were involved in the debate on the enlargement process, for the encouragement they have always given the Commission to take new initiatives in order to maintain the tempo of the enlargement process.
I should like to end by saying to the enlargement countries themselves that our philosophy was and still is that each of the enlargement countries should be considered on its own merits and progress, even if this can result in a certain differentiation.
It is therefore extremely important to make it clear that the enlargement family remains a family, even if at any given moment one may have made more progress than another.
All-inclusiveness is a basic principle and point of departure for all those involved in this enlargement process and will remain so.
Thank you for that interesting and highly detailed statement, Mr van den Broek.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Agreements and concerted practices
The next item is the report (A4-0137/99) by Mrs Thyssen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on
I.the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation No 19/65/EEC on the application of Article 85(3) of the Treaty to certain categories of agreements and concerted practices (COM(98)0546 - C4-0627/98-98/0287(CNS))II.the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation No 17: First Regulation implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty (COM(98)0546 - C4-0628/98-98/0288(CNS)).The first speaker is the rapporteur, Mrs Thyssen.
Mr President, the report I am about to present was approved by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy by just one vote short of unanimity.
It concerns competition policy and two proposals in connection with vertical agreements.
One proposal for an amendment concerns the first Council regulation on the application of Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty.
This is the famous Regulation No 17/62 which empowers the Commission to grant individual exemptions.
The other concerns an amendment to Regulation No 19/65 which determines the Commission's powers to grant block exemptions.
It seems that the system of block exemptions, which the Commission has used for more than 30 years, is no longer flexible enough to meet the needs of rapidly changing distribution structures.
There is also increasing recognition of the risk that agreements between undertakings with a dominant market position, even if they comply with the legal conditions for block exemption, may still have a distorting effect on competition.
In 1997 the Commission set out these and other findings and published a Green Paper on vertical agreements.
Parliament also took the opportunity to give its opinion on this occasion.
While we recognised the need for a change of policy we did not unconditionally share the Commission's view that market share should be an essential differentiating criterion.
With the current proposals, the Commission is introducing an initial specific amendment phase.
The Commission wishes in future to introduce a single block exemption regulation for all categories of agreements on the resale of goods and services, intermediate goods and industrial property rights.
For this, the scope of Regulation No 19/65 must first be extended.
The Commission also wants to drop the excessively strict legal conditions in the area of contractual content.
Furthermore, it wants to grant the national competition authorities the power to withdraw the benefit of block exemption in their territory.
If all this is to be achieved within a consistent legal framework, the scope of Regulation No 17/62 also needs to be adapted, which the Commission also proposes to do. Finally, the Commission wants it to be possible for agreements which are not individually notified, but which nevertheless qualify for exemption, to be exempt with retroactive effect from the date on which they were concluded.
These then are the proposals.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is in broad agreement with the Commission when it says that the proposed amendments will bring competition policy more in line with economic reality in future.
But we also have certain objections.
First of all, I must say that, contrary to what the Commission maintains, not all economic sectors welcome the proposed policy change.
This is certainly true of the brewing sector and of filling station contracts.
These are sectors with special rules which have shown their practical value. The beer supply contracts, for example, are currently perfectly satisfactory for the catering sector, large and small breweries, wholesalers and also the consumer.
Yet the Commission claims that there are insufficient economic and legal arguments for maintaining special rules for them.
My first question to the Commission is therefore: What compelling reasons does the Commission have for replacing an effective system which everyone is pleased with in this sector and which does not distort competition?
Secondly, I should like to hear from the Commission how the general block exemption will relate to the duration of contracts and in particular whether contracts linked to long-term investments will be able to run for periods as long as at present?
Thirdly, I have a question about the transitional period for current agreements and wonder whether agreements made under the present system can be fully implemented under this system or whether the new system applies to them and, if so, from when?
Fourthly, I should like public confirmation of the Commission's undertaking to inform Parliament and to give it the time to draw up a report on the planned block exemption regulation and guidelines before the Commission makes any final decision.
Finally, Mr President, I am curious to know what the Commission's position is on Amendment No 9 relating to the professional secrecy of in-house counsel and what position it intends to take on the automobile distribution sector when the block exemption regulation for this sector expires in 2002.
I thank the Commissioner in advance for a clear reply on this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are today debating one part of the overall package of reforms in European competition law.
Mirroring the trend in the United States since the end of the last century, the European Union's anti-trust authority has become the spearhead of the EU.
We need rules to safeguard the free market and to provide protection against monopolistic situations.
Only competition can guarantee the lowest possible price for the consumer, quality, free access to the market, and, of course, innovation and jobs.
Commissioner, you quite rightly referred several times to the support which Parliament has offered up to now in its contacts with the relevant departments.
The Commission can also count on Parliament playing a constructive part in future work on the reform of competition law.
This of course includes a detailed analysis of the present communication which deals with vertical restraints on distribution.
As a matter of principle, it is of course right to frame practical block exemption regulations. Let me say it again, practical.
It is probably easier to assess the internal market situation by judging the impact of vertical agreements than by applying strict formal criteria, particularly as small economic operators would then benefit from simplified formalities.
And we would be well advised to convince all sectors of the need for such a reform.
The rapporteur, Marianne Thyssen, quite rightly points out that there is absolutely no obstacle either to exceptions being made or to sector-specific approaches being adopted for those sectors in which the existing arrangements work to the total satisfaction of economic operators.
Some distributional restraints reflect an economic requirement, for example because of the scale of investment or the consequent rate of return.
At any rate, changes in sensitive areas should involve appropriate transitional periods.
In my country alone, assets measurable in billions are dependent on this approach.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is certainly laudable that the Commission, and above all the Commissioner responsible, Mr Van Miert - who is not with us today but to whom I should like to say that he for one clearly cannot be accused of having lost control of his administration - is seeking to ensure that the Treaty is properly applied in order to avoid any distortion of competition in the single market.
Nevertheless, we must guard against being over-zealous by questioning something that has been shown to work effectively, especially if this review of competition policy on vertical restrictions threatens to jeopardise a whole sector which, thanks to its exclusive distribution contracts, and beer contracts in particular, has functioned perfectly well thus far, to the satisfaction of the breweries on the one hand and the cafés, restaurants and hotels on the other.
As our rapporteur, Mrs Thyssen, very clearly highlighted, the breweries invest in the buildings and equipment of their clients safe in the knowledge that they can then sell their perishable products there.
The owners of cafés, restaurants and hotels benefit from these investments which they are unable to finance or finance in advance themselves.
What is the harm in that?
The Commission must understand, and give us the assurance, that any reform must ensure that a brewery operator can conclude beer delivery contracts for at least 10 years, given the considerable volume of investments in this sector and the relatively long period before they yield a return.
In sectors such as beer, and also hydrocarbons, where the present approach is satisfactory to economic operators, either an exception must be made to the general rule or a sector-specific approach adopted.
There can be no question of giving the Commission carte blanche in this field.
This is why we want to hear from the Commission that it will accept Parliament's argument and review its position.
In a small country such as mine, Mr President, a new regulation on market thresholds could simply drive our breweries out of business.
This must not be allowed to happen and the Commission must understand this.
The approval of the Green Paper in January 1997 marked the start of the Commission's review of its competition policy in relation to distribution agreements.
Since then we have received support for this review in the course of what has been a very open dialogue with Parliament.
This support for one of the most important European competition policy reforms is clearly of great importance.
The two proposals for Council regulations on the agenda today represent a second step in this process and should make it possible for the Commission to adopt new measures with regard to distribution agreements.
I thank the rapporteur, Mrs Thyssen, for the support she has given the Commission's proposals in her report.
Once the Council has approved the Council regulation, the Commission will draw up a proposal for a block regulation covering all vertical agreements below a certain market threshold.
At the same time it will propose draft directives for those agreements not covered by the block exemption.
The European Parliament will be informed of both proposals before the Commission adopts the final texts.
The Commission supports a number of the amendments that have been tabled.
Let me tell you which amendments the Commission has difficulty with and cannot support.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 2 on Regulation No 19/65 or Amendment No 1 on Regulation No 17.
It is not the case that small and medium-sized enterprises in the beer and petrol sector may suffer adverse effects as a result of the policy review.
SMEs in all sectors will benefit from the deregulation while the use of market share thresholds will ensure that dominant companies are unable to block off the market to new entrants.
This is why a number of breweries and beer wholesalers support the policy review whereas some dominant players are opposed.
There are a number of beer markets where market dominance seems to be a problem, which only highlights the need to treat this sector just like any other.
However, the directives will take into account the specific situation of long-term investments in these and other sectors.
For the same reason the Commission is unable to support Amendment No 3 on Regulation No 19/65.
There should also be no need to stress that sector-specific regulations remain possible as these are always possible.
The Commission also has objections to Amendments Nos 3 and 4 concerning the principle of legal privilege for in-house counsel.
The law protects the confidentiality of written communication between an independent counsel and a company, therefore rendering it impossible for the Commission to use such documents as proof in applying European rules of competition.
This protection is usually known as legal privilege.
On the other hand, documents received or written by in-house counsel for the enterprise for which he works are not protected.
The proposed amendments propose extending the principle of legal privilege to include in-house counsel.
The Commission recognises the importance of this question but is unable to support the amendments, for three main reasons.
First of all, this question lies beyond the scope of the present policy review which is concerned with competition policy as it relates to vertical agreements.
The Commission's wide-ranging consultation in connection with its Green Paper did not include the question of legal privilege for in-house counsel.
Accepting these amendments would mean changing the subject of the present legislative procedure and would result in a decision without prior consultation with all the parties involved.
Secondly, we are at present busy considering an extensive reform of Regulation No 17, including a review of the Commission's powers of investigation.
If any changes need to be made to the principle of legal privilege, it should be done in this framework.
Thirdly, we do not believe that now is the time to resolve the question of legal privilege for in-house counsel.
The proposed extension of this principle requires a new European status for in-house counsel, based on comparable rules on professional ethics and discipline.
It will take some time to do this.
Mr President, Mrs Thyssen has now supplemented her report with five or six questions, the first of which I propose to answer now, but I would ask Mrs Thyssen if she would be prepared to accept a written reply to the other questions tomorrow.
I have noted them down here but in order to save time I should like to give a written reply.
As to Mrs Lulling's question about the compelling reasons for changing the rules for the beer sector, the answer is that the present block exemption authorises market monopoly.
No distinction is made as to whether a brewery controls 5 %, 30 % or 90 % of the cafés.
That is not good policy as it does not protect competition.
The present block exemption is also unnecessarily detailed in its formal requirements, resulting in unnecessary legal uncertainty.
A good example of this is the British market.
If there is no market monopoly then people have no reason to fear new regulations.
This concludes my reply.
Mr President, I have one more question, or rather a request for clarification. I would have been interested to know, and this has already been touched upon, how geographical catchment areas are to be defined for economic operators.
How do you define local, regional, national and pan-European?
It seems to me that this is an essential criterion for exemption, so perhaps we could have a written answer.
I should also like to give a written reply to this question.
Mr President, I do not agree with the Commissioner's reply either, but I know that Mr van den Broek is not responsible, but Mr Van Miert.
It is not possible to set thresholds in a small country such as mine where a small brewery can dominate, but in a very limited market, whereas a major brewery such as 'Bitburger', which is just next door to us and which is in a much stronger position and has a much bigger turnover, is not considered to be dominant because Germany is huge in comparison with the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
It will be the death of our breweries, and this must not be allowed to happen.
We will also discuss this with Mr Van Miert.
I do not want to attack Mr van den Broek.
It is not his sector, but we cannot accept answers like that.
It is not being responsible.
Mr President, I will be brief.
Of course I am prepared to accept written answers to my questions, but there is one question to which I should have liked to receive an oral reply because I believe it is important for this to be given in public.
The question is whether the Commission will give an undertaking that its services responsible for competition policy will come to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy before the general block exemption regulation is finally adopted and before the guidelines are decided, and whether the Commission is ready to present the proposals to Parliament and we will have the chance to draw up another report on this.
I feel that this is important if we are to consider the specific points raised by my colleagues in greater detail.
On what Mrs Lulling said, it does indeed seem advisable, as she herself suggested, to take this point up with Commissioner Van Miert.
I would of course like to give her a satisfactory answer now, but she has recognised that at the present time this is not really expected of me.
In reply to Mrs Thyssen, I would say that I thought I had answered her first question in my speech.
From what I have gathered here, this block exemption is under a certain time pressure at the moment, so any consultation must take place within a very short period.
The present block exemptions expire at the end of the year.
Finally, I should like to say that where Mrs Thyssen talks about consultation, if I heard correctly, I myself thought Mr Van Miert was thinking more about providing information, though of course information can also lead to an exchange of views.
This is simply how I see it.
Mr President, this is simply to say that in any event we plan to work very hard and fast during the coming parliamentary term with those Members of Parliament who are returned, or who very much hope to return.
But we would very much like the opportunity to have an exchange of views on this issue before any final decision is taken.
It was in this spirit that I drew up my report.
In faithful cooperation with the Commission's services I limited myself to the legal aspects on the agenda, precisely because we had received an undertaking that we would be able to return to the details later.
Thank you, Mrs Thyssen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.30 a.m.
Mr van den Broek has asked for the floor.
I have a somewhat unusual request to do with the subject of enlargement which preceded the present item on the agenda.
It was Mr Speciale, the rapporteur on Slovenia, who drew my attention to my mistake.
I referred to a number of areas in which Slovenia had fallen behind in preparations for accession, but I failed to mention the following positive points which I would like to be added to the report on the previous subject if this is possible.
The words are as follows: since the publication of the interim report, however, more progress has been made, in other words more progress in the preparations for enlargement.
A number of important laws have been passed, including in the areas of VAT, excise, company law and the bank act. A government programme has also been approved for 82 priority laws in connection with the acquis communautaire which will be enacted before the end of this year by means of shortened parliamentary procedures.
Mr President, I would very much appreciate it if the rapporteur can be borne out on that point, and I also offer my apologies to Mr Speciale for this omission.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
Your comments will be noted in the Minutes.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now come to the end of our agenda for this night sitting, and I should like to thank the House's services for their invaluable assistance during what has been a long and busy day.
The sitting was closed at 11.50 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
On Rules 2, 5 and 119 of the Rules of Procedure.
I am here, but I refuse to take part in the roll-call votes in protest at the fact that the Quaestors have failed to take a decision for the appeal proceedings before the Court in Luxembourg, which I requested in writing last August, on Mr Chamier's decision unlawfully to reduce my general parliamentary allowances.
Your comments will be included in the Minutes of the sitting.
Mr President, yesterday the war in Yugoslavia claimed its greatest number of victims.
Seventy innocent Albanian-speaking citizens of Yugoslavia, among them women and children, were killed by NATO bombs.
I do not know if we should pay our respects to them.
You can decide.
It seems to me that the House has extended and is daily extending its sympathy to the victims - to all the victims - of the conflict.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I have a rather mundane and minor point.
Could my name be added to those who were present? You will see that I was present because I voted in all of the roll-call votes, but I am not on the list.
It will be done, Mr Balfe.
Mr President, I have a rather mundane point as well.
Yesterday, during the vote on my report and Mr Chanterie's report, Mr Collins reported to the House that there was a photographer in the balcony photographing individual Members' papers and voting lists.
I would like to know what the outcome of these investigations were, particularly given the amount of lobbying which I received concerning my report.
I wonder whether representatives of the oil companies or the bus companies are trying to get a squint at what the Socialist voting lists were.
Could the Bureau let us know the outcome of their investigations into this please?
As you know, Mr McMahon, after Mr Collins pointed out what was happening, Parliament's officials ejected the photographer.
We are of course able to provide the information you asked for and you can even have it in writing if you like.
Mr President, yesterday morning, during the vote on the resolution on the Berlin summit, Parliament adopted two amendments: Amendments Nos 18 and 19.
I would like to ask that, before they are approved and forwarded to the institutions to which they are addressed, you have the competent services check that there is in fact a link between a resolution on the Berlin summit and Amendments Nos 18 and 19 which the House adopted.
I imagine that you mean Parliament's legal service.
I shall do as you request.
Mr President, on my return to Parliament I have noted that it is particularly difficult to move through the corridors, especially when voting is about to take place.
Of course, I am not suggesting that a one-way system be introduced or that Members walk about with a bell, but I do think that the great many visitors to this Parliament should let Members through who obviously wish to get to the Hemicycle on time.
You are right that this is a problem.
We need to strike a balance between the old days when we had to ask people to come and visit us and the current situation where we have so many visitors because the European Parliament has grown in importance, including as a result of our own work.
Mr President, I was given to understand that the President was going to be in the chair this morning at this time and I hope he is not unavoidably detained.
I do not know what problems you can be referring to, Mr Chichester; at any rate, it has long been scheduled that I would be in the Chair at the start of this sitting.
I do not know where you have your information from.
I had an appointment to see the President this morning at 9.30.
He advised me that he was unable to keep that appointment because he was going to be taking the chair at that time.
So I was just expressing anxiety and concern that he is not able to be here in the chair.
Well, look at that: you mentioned the President and here he is!
Mr President, the Quaestors have informed Members that we shall be in our offices for the last time in May before the removal takes place.
Now I have just discovered this morning that groups of visitors are already being shown round the new buildings.
As a Member of Parliament, I must say that I have the distinct feeling that we have been left in the dark here, because we have had no opportunity for a preview of the new buildings, let alone examples of our offices.
I regard that as a great mistake, and I ask that we find a means of rectifying that situation as quickly as possible.
I think I may prove you wrong on that point, Mr Konrad.
All the groups have had the chance to let individual Members visit the new building: they did this at different times and in different ways, but the opportunity was provided.
As you know, there are some problems with the completion of the building and the timing of our move.
Mr President, I should like to raise a slightly different matter.
Rumour has it that there is every likelihood that the Statute for Members will be adopted by Parliament at the next part-session.
Now I think that, if that does indeed happen, it would be the last opportunity and could create difficulties if the Members' Statute were not respected in the individual countries.
It might perhaps be helpful if the President were to send a note to the various national governments and parliaments, pointing out the problem that could arise, in other words a discrepancy between the decisions of the European Parliament and any decisions on incompatibility which might be different from the ones which we have taken.
As you know, this is an issue that is being looked at carefully by the President-in-Office of the Council.
I am sure that the President of Parliament will provide all honourable Members with up-to-date information on it, and that will also enable us to consider the possible implications which you mention.
The Minutes were approved
1998 annual reports
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0119/99 by Mrs De Esteban Martín, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the annual report on the activities of the European Ombudsman in 1998 (C4-0138/99); -A4-0117/99 by Mr Newman, on behalf of the Committee on Petitions, on the deliberations of the Committee on Petitions during the parliamentary year 1998-1999.Before we embark on this joint debate, the European Ombudsman - whom I once again welcome to the House - will present his annual activity report and also his special report.
I give the floor to Mr Söderman, the European Ombudsman.
Mr President, let me begin by saying how grateful I am for the opportunity to address the European Parliament concerning my annual report for 1998.
This is the fourth annual report of the European Ombudsman and the last to be presented during this legislature.
When the annual report for 1997 was dealt with by Parliament, some critical voices suggested that the Ombudsman had success in only a small number of cases.
This view was reached on the basis of all the complaints received, including those which were outside the mandate.
I do not believe that this way of judging the results of an Ombudsman is really fair.
There is not much to be done about a complaint which is outside the mandate other than to advise the complainant or transfer the complaint to a competent body.
We have done that in almost 80 % of such cases so that citizens do not usually leave us empty-handed.
In many cases these complaints could be dealt with effectively by an Ombudsman or a similar body at national level.
We therefore try consistently to promote the idea that these non-judicial bodies be encouraged and assisted in dealing with complaints from European citizens concerning Community law.
Although there have been calls to broaden the mandate of the European Ombudsman to deal also with complaints against national authorities, especially in cases concerning freedom of movement, I still believe it is preferable to create an effective system of cooperation with the national ombudsmen and similar bodies.
During 1998 the Ombudsman's office received 1372 new complaints, compared with 1181 in 1997 and 842 in 1996.
We also closed 185 enquiries with a reasoned decision as compared to 101 in 1997.
In 45 % of these cases the institution settled the matter, a friendly solution was found or the case was closed with a critical remark.
In 1997 and 1996 the figures were 40 % and 35 %.
During 1998 no maladministration was found in 52 % of the cases in which an inquiry was carried out.
A finding of no maladministration is not always a negative result for the complainant.
The institution or body has to explain its behaviour to the complainant and, in some cases, even manages to convince the complainant that it has acted correctly.
Today is the right moment to try to summarise what we have achieved together so far in cooperation with the Committee on Petitions and the European Parliament.
Firstly, we have achieved a practice of cooperation in dealing with complaints and petitions which has been described in the annual reports of both bodies.
Furthermore, we have developed a fruitful dialogue through the committee's reports on the annual reports of the Ombudsman, beginning with the first report by Mrs Ahern, through the reports of Mr Papakyriazis, Mr Newman and, this year, Mrs De Esteban Martín.
For example, the call in the Papakyriazis report for a clear definition of the term 'maladministration' led me to offer a definition in the annual report for 1997.
Following Mr Newman's report, the European Parliament adopted a resolution welcoming the definition.
The practice of smooth and efficient dealings with the Ombudsman's reports in the European Parliament has now been properly and formally established by bringing Parliament's Rules of Procedure in line with the Statute of the Ombudsman and by expressly providing for the competent committee - the Committee on Petitions - to deal with both the Ombudsman's annual and possible special reports.
Secondly, an own-initiative inquiry into public access to documents, supported by the committee through the report by Mrs Thors and by the European Parliament, has led all the Community institutions and bodies concerned to adopt rules on public access to documents, except for the Court of Justice.
We have recently written to the European Central Bank to enquire if it has already adopted rules on public access to documents.
Thirdly, I should like to refer to the idea of a code of good administrative behaviour, which was first mentioned in the Perry report on the Committee on Petitions' own activities for 1996-1997 and supported in the Newman report on the Ombudsman's annual report for 1997.
It appears likely that such a code will soon become a reality, as the European Commission has adopted the draft in its first reading before the Commissioners resigned.
The new Commission may of course even improve the draft before adopting it.
Fourthly, we have managed to improve the administrative procedure the European Commission uses in its role as the guardian of the Treaty when dealing with complaints or petitions from European citizens.
The procedure has become more open and effective as a result.
I should also like to say a few words about the recent revelations and accusations about fraud and corruption in the European administration, in particular within the European Commission.
An open administration makes most cases of fraud and corruption very difficult to carry out and extremely easy to detect.
A closed administration, on the other hand, that conducts its business through secret meetings and the holding of secret files and documents creates precisely the murky circumstances that enable fraud and corruption to flourish.
So openness is an effective tool in preventing and fighting fraud and corruption.
In the present administrative practice, there is still an old-fashioned principle of exaggerated hierarchy.
This principle, when applied, leads to a lack of motivation amongst those staff who really interact with the citizens.
It makes all kinds of malpractice easier because the properly-acting staff cannot speak about their concerns over the activities of the institution.
If civil servants cannot speak and write about their daily work without the consent of their superiors, this does not encourage a motivated and sound atmosphere in the workplace.
So more transparency and less old-fashioned hierarchy would give more motivation to the staff and spare the EU administration many of its troubles.
In improving transparency, it is essential that the new regulation on public access to documents under the Amsterdam Treaty be adopted as soon as it is possible to do so.
It must contain modern and comprehensive principles in this domain.
It is also essential that the Statute of the European Ombudsman contain a clear provision to give the Ombudsman the right to inspect all necessary files and documents, if unnecessary and time-consuming disputes with the institutions are to be avoided.
I am pleased that the Committee on Petitions supports my initiative in this respect in the De Esteban report.
I hope that this position will be confirmed by the European Parliament.
I should like to use this opportunity to thank all the Community institutions and bodies for another year of constructive cooperation.
I wish especially to address the Commission and its member responsible, Mrs Gradin, and thank her for her commitment to an open administration.
My thanks are due also to the chairman of the Committee on Petitions, Mr Fontana, and all the members of the committee for their supportive attitude in their contacts with the Ombudsman's office.
Special thanks go to Mrs De Esteban for her professional and competent work in drafting the report now before you.
Thank you for your attention.
Applause
Thank you, Mr Söderman.
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mrs De Esteban Martín.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to congratulate the Ombudsman's office and its services on the transparency and speed with which it has provided details of its activities not only to Parliament and the Committee on Petitions but also directly to citizens and associations in the Member States.
This House has always defended the institution of the Ombudsman as guarantor of the protection of citizens' rights in cases of possible maladministration on the part of Community institutions and bodies. It has also always defended the need to enhance the relations between these institutions and the public.
However, protecting the rights of Community citizens would not be enough if closer collaboration and cooperation were not fostered between Parliament, through the Committee on Petitions, as the committee responsible, and the Ombudsman.
It is no coincidence that the defence of citizens' rights is the chief aim of both institutions. This collaboration should therefore continue to guarantee these rights and the democratic work carried out by the Union in order to enhance the credibility of our administration.
The institution of the Ombudsman constitutes one of the most important elements for European citizenship. It is also important in improving the democratic control of the Community administration, democratic control that can be seen as the task of this House, as the body which directly represents the people of this Community.
Turning to the annual report presented by the Ombudsman, we must highlight the rise in the number of complaints submitted, a development the Ombudsman himself mentioned.
A total of 1 372 complaints were lodged this year, 191 more than last year, which goes to show how important the Ombudsman is in the eyes of the public in terms of rectifying the alleged irregularities that may occur in the administration of the European Union.
Over the years, Parliament has noted the increasing interest the public has taken in the European institutions and how the decisions taken here affect their daily lives.
Making administration more transparent and accessible to the public is one of the main aims of all the national administrations in the Member States.
Therefore, the Community administration should not aim at anything less and should endeavor to make such accessibility a reality.
This House has adopted various reports on the transparency and simplification of Community law which have brought us closer to achieving this aim.
An important step that needs to be taken to create harmony between the Community institutions and our citizens is to actually draw up a code of good administrative behaviour to increase the level of trust between officials and the public and to ensure that the code is accessible and easily understood by all.
However, we must be aware that this code should not overlook the specific nature of each of the Community institutions.
For example, I believe that within the European Parliament, given the nature of the institution, such a code should be negotiated with all the political groups.
With this same aim of promoting collaboration between the institutions and the public, it is important to highlight the involvement of citizens in the preliminary infringement proceedings provided for in Article 169 of the Treaty.
Similarly, I think that it is vital for the Ombudsman's work to ensure that his statute is amended, as I mention in the report, in order to allow him as effective access as possible to the documents related to the inquiries he is involved in.
I believe that the work carried out by the Ombudsman in the field of information and communication serves as a good example for other European institutions, especially as regards the use of new communication technologies, for example, the use of the Internet to make the institution more accessible to the public.
However, and this is something that the report also refers to, we need to make greater efforts to provide citizens with proper information on their rights so that no one is prevented from exercising his rights through ignorance of how to proceed.
This information should be provided by the Community institutions through the press and the audiovisual media. In this way, we would avoid, among other things, a situation whereby more than 69 % of the complaints submitted to the Ombudsman in recent years have been beyond his remit, for example, the many complaints every year about restrictions on the freedom of movement.
In this connection, I should like to acknowledge the efforts of the Ombudsman in his relations with national and regional ombudsmen.
Such collaboration will clearly enhance the role played by these authorities and might lead to a system whereby those matters that one authority is not empowered to deal with may be passed on to the relevant body elsewhere, which will be able to resolve them more effectively.
In order to achieve all of the aims that we have outlined, the office of the European Ombudsman must respond effectively to our citizens, which is why the report congratulates Mr Söderman on the commitment he has shown in trying to ensure that his secretariat functions properly.
Although his efforts are appreciated, it is clear that for the secretariat to function properly, we must firstly have sufficient financial resources and we must also draw up a statute for the officials that work for the Ombudsman.
Applause
Mr Newman, I am sure all colleagues would want to thank you for the work you have done in this Parliament and, in particular, I am well aware of the vast amount of work you have done in the Committee on Petitions.
The first time I came to this Parliament I had the opportunity to meet with you in that committee and we had the opportunity to work together for our citizens, which has always been your main interest.
This House thanks you for your work.
Mr President, I heartily endorse your words of gratitude to Mr Newman.
As he told us, he has been a member of the Committee on Petitions since it was created in January 1987.
I entered Parliament in March of the same year, and ever since then I have been a member of the Committee on Petitions, where I have been able to observe his efforts and his achievements on behalf of the European people.
I should like to express my sincere thanks to him for that and for this annual report. May I also thank Mrs De Esteban Martín for her report on the Ombudsman's annual report.
Both of them, like Mr Söderman himself, have presented reports which show very comprehensively that dialogue with the people is an indispensable element of European democracy and will remain so.
What this means for us is that the Committee on Petitions is the interface between the European people and their Parliament when it comes to enforcing Community law.
Regrettably, that fact is all too often disregarded by national, regional and local authorities, whether out of unawareness or because of a combination of bureaucratic power and national self-seeking.
By acting as that link, we have been able to assist in some cases, for example in securing recognition of academic or professional qualifications and provision of welfare benefits, as well as in solving petitioners' specific problems.
So that this direct contact with the citizens of the Union continues to be guaranteed in future, we in the committee are unanimous in advocating the preservation of a separate Committee on Petitions.
In order to overcome the general information deficit among the people of Europe as regards their rights, we call on the relevant administrative departments of Parliament and the Commission to establish telephone advice centres in the Member States, and in particular to go on developing the whole sphere of information and communication technology with all the opportunities it offers.
Our cooperation with the Ombudsman has always been extremely fruitful.
For that I should like to reiterate my sincere thanks to Mr Söderman who, in his wrangling with European administrative bodies, has never been deterred by the initial placatory answers he has received from administrators but has insisted on a satisfactory response.
His initiatives and enquiries have brought greater transparency and openness to the European bureaucracy.
Indeed, the draft code of conduct for good administrative practice which the Commission presented in January was developed as a result of his own initiative, together with that of Mr Perry.
We therefore call for the Ombudsman to be given access to all documentation in the pursuit of his enquiries and for all civil servants to provide him with the information he needs, rather than having to refer him to their superiors; these measures must be implemented so that the Ombudsman can work without unnecessary obstacles.
I am convinced that cooperation between the Committee on Petitions, with its scope for intervention, and the Ombudsman, with his wide remit, will become an increasingly important factor in the promotion of democracy and the enforcement of citizens' rights in the European Union.
Mr President, Parliament this week has been debating very many important issues, such as war and peace in Kosovo.
We have heard speeches from the Commission President-designate, Mr Prodi, and a speech from the President-in-Office of the Council of Ministers, the German Chancellor Mr Schroeder.
This morning's debate may well seem insignificant alongside those great events of the week - but it is not.
All parliaments have four roles: to legislate, to control finance, to control the administration and to represent the citizen; but the greatest of those roles is the last of them.
Our supreme responsibility is to represent and protect the rights of the 370 million European citizens.
No committee of this Parliament performs that role more directly for the citizen than the Committee on Petitions and no European office-holder has the interests of the individual citizen higher on his list of responsibilities than the European Ombudsman.
Given the value of the right to petition for the individual citizen I fully endorse the recommendations of the Newman report.
As has already been said this morning, Mr Newman has worked very hard for the Committee on Petitions.
He and I come from different political traditions, but we share a similar belief in the importance of protecting the rights of citizens.
My group would like to thank him for the work he has done in the Committee on Petitions over many years.
I will use this speech to stress just one section of that report.
It is paragraph 8, where we regret, as did Mr Newman, the continued absence of any representative of the Council of Ministers attending the Committee on Petitions.
In recent years, British, German, Austrian presidencies have boycotted this committee.
I hope that the Finnish presidency, coming from the Scandinavian democratic tradition, will set a better example.
However, given that the Secretary-General of this Parliament himself at one stage was proposing the abolition of the Committee on Petitions - and as I understand it some of the big groups have only at the last minute backed away from proposals to abolish the Committee on Petitions - perhaps we can understand why the Council of Ministers adopts that attitude.
But we in the European People's Party have never waivered in our determination to keep the Committee on Petitions.
Like the Newman report, I support the report by Mrs De Esteban on the Ombudsman.
I did not vote for Mr Jacob Söderman to become the Ombudsman in Europe.
I was wrong.
There is one word in that report that stands out, and that is the word 'irreproachable' used to describe cooperation between the Ombudsman and Parliament.
Irreproachable is not a word that is often used dealing with European institutions, but I am happy to see it and it was rightly used in describing the work of the Ombudsman and his relations with this Parliament.
I support him in his call for greater transparency.
That is certainly necessary.
I thank him for continuing the bid I made to see that we should have a code of good administrative behaviour.
I would say to this Parliament: if we want the Ombudsman to work well, we must make sure he has the powers and the resources to do that job.
We should give him our fullest support in achieving it.
Mr President, Mr Ombudsman, it is a pleasure to be able to agree with everyone today in saying that the office of the European Ombudsman has so far proved to be a very important feature of EU life. Having an Ombudsman facilitates openness and transparency in the Union.
Perhaps I might mention a few of the many successful initiatives taken.
First of all, we had the own-initiative report on public access to documents; as a result, virtually all the institutions now have some kind of code of conduct.
Secondly, the Central Bank has been approached with a request for access to its documents.
Thirdly, Council of Ministers documents will in future be deemed to include presidency papers.
Fourthly, the absence of an inventory of documents within the Commission has been branded maladministration.
And fifth, the Council has now drawn up a list of measures adopted under the third pillar.
Once a functioning Commission is in place, we should soon see a new regulation on public access to documents. Some very significant parameters have already been established by the measures and initiatives to which I have referred.
It is unfortunate that the whole process of the Commission's resignation has noticeably slowed down this work.
It is also a pity that the decisions taken so far by the Council on public access to third pillar documents have proved relatively insignificant in their impact.
What are we, the public, set to gain from learning about regulatory texts that have already been adopted and are available over the Internet? We also need to know about future plans.
Over recent days, much attention has rightly been focused on the 'Enfopoldo' document. This comprises a draft version of a text designed to regulate the interception of communications via the new media, together with a draft convention on mutual assistance between the Member States in respect of criminal cases.
The whole exercise has been shrouded in secrecy; the Council's new pledges have been of scant value in this particular instance.
It is not enough to keep us informed of when third pillar meetings are being held and what measures have actually been taken.
We also need access to information on matters pending, and we should be given details of initiatives coming from the working groups, the presidency and the Member States.
The debate on the Austrian 'strategy document' also pinpointed shortcomings in the Council's arrangements for transparency.
As for police and judicial cooperation under the third pillar, many measures touch on the fundamental rights of ordinary citizens.
I therefore look forward to the time when, with the backing of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Ombudsman will be able to envisage overseeing a body such as Europol.
We were told yesterday that the German Presidency intends to come forward soon with a timetable for the intergovernmental conference.
This will be an opportunity for reviewing the status of the Ombudsman. His role must be strengthened in the manner called for in the De Esteban Martín report.
Equally, we need to ensure continuation of the good cooperation observed in the past between the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman. The latter will need to forge cooperation with ombudsmen or equivalent bodies in the Member States, in this way facilitating the fight against breaches of civil liberties in the actual application of Community law.
Finally, let me say a few words about the vote that will be taking place today on the future of the Committee on Petitions.
This committee must be allowed to continue its work, but I hope that the Commission will be able to provide comparable assurances on the processing of petitions to those it has given with regard to complaints under Article 169 of the Treaty.
I am particularly gratified that Commissioner Monti - who takes a special interest in this article - is with us today and has undertaken to speed up the procedures governing complaints.
Sadly, it would appear that the Commission has been listening to the Member States and is slowing down the processing of complaints within the Commission.
I also feel strongly that the newly constituted Committee on Petitions should exercise scrutiny over internal administration, although I concede that the current committee worked very hard indeed to speed up the handling of petitions. But it still takes far too long for a complaint to reach the Committee on Petitions at the moment.
In conclusion, may I join the chorus of speakers who have expressed their heartfelt thanks to our former chairman, Mr Newman. He has done an excellent job in demonstrating the importance of this committee.
And as he pointed out, 10 million citizens have availed themselves of its existence during the life of this Parliament.
Mr President, Ombudsman, Commissioner, it seldom happens that the quality of a rapporteur's work is quite so pleasing as the content of this report.
The European Ombudsman's annual report for 1998 shows that his institution has now become one of the best-functioning and most effective in the European Union.
This applies particularly in terms of closeness to the people, which as we all know is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union.
Mrs De Esteban Martín highlights this point so convincingly in her report that one can only hope it will be very widely read, particularly by those who would be responsible for fulfilling Professor Söderman's requests for his office to have its own budget and for the change of status he has suggested, developments that would enable him to continue his work.
Against the background of the Commission's resignation, the call made by the Ombudsman for a code of good administrative practice to which citizens would have recourse is extremely topical.
Foremost among the responsible parties I referred to is the European Parliament, since the European Ombudsman is commissioned by Parliament.
One of the duties of the Committee on Petitions is to discharge that responsibility.
How can it do that if it is not adequately equipped for its work? The Committee on Petitions has already approached the parliamentary administration on this point, although its plea did not elicit much of a response.
Every Member of this House should look at the annexes to Mr Newman's report in particular, which bring home the absurdity of the proposition that the work of the Committee on Petitions could be divided up among other committees.
I am sorry to say that I must close by asking certain bodies in this House how they feel about the rights of their constituents when they seek to diminish the status of the basic right of petition by abolishing the Committee on Petitions, or when they try to change the name of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and call it the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumers' Rights.
The people of the Union are citizens first and foremost, then consumers, and any rights they have as consumers surely only exist by virtue of their civil rights.
Allow me, Mr President, to thank Mr Newman, not only for his instructive and authoritative report but also for the work he has done in this important committee.
I was only on that committee for a short time, but I was able to experience at first hand all those things for which my honourable colleagues have been expressing their gratitude.
Thank you, Mr Newman.
Mr President, we too would like to congratulate the Ombudsman and the chairman of the Committee on Petitions, of which I am a member and which I value most highly because it deals with citizens' rights.
We are here to protect those rights because we act on the public's behalf, and it is becoming increasingly necessary for us to be able to hear what they themselves have to say.
The institution of the Ombudsman is answerable to Parliament, which I think is a good thing because it helps him to be independent, a position which he exploits to the full, as we have seen from the report he has presented to Parliament today.
I welcome the fact that he called so strongly for an open administration, and I could not help thinking that officials in various Member States have the right to speak, but this still seems to be taboo here in the European institutions, as we have seen with Mr Van Buitenen.
The facts have borne this man out, yet the Commission still feels it necessary to continue with disciplinary proceedings against him, and he has been removed from his post in the financial control department where he had done some excellent work.
It was precisely as a result of his work that we in Parliament were able to act and, together with the Committee on Budgetary Control and later the Committee of Independent Experts, arrived at such damning conclusions.
I would therefore strongly urge that we should use all our influence to ensure that Mr Van Buitenen is reinstated.
I think the Ombudsman certainly made his point in calling for openness and information, and I would like to conclude by urging a change of direction, so that Europe comes to stand not for a bureaucracy behind closed doors, but for democracy and transparency.
Mr President, Ombudsman, as is the case every year, the debate on the reports concerning the work of the Committee on Petitions and of the Ombudsman is an opportunity to remind people of how important these two bodies are in terms of establishing trust between the Community institutions and the people of the Member States.
Recent experience has highlighted, as well as reminding those who had forgotten, that remoteness and a lack of transparency lead to irresponsible behaviour and fraud.
The common good needs to be constantly enhanced by daily realities.
Without this, it risks becoming the confused expression of individual interests.
By their very nature, the Community institutions are the furthest removed from daily life.
Officials who are lost in the interminable corridors of their offices in Brussels try to draw up uniform rules in all areas that are to be applied to all the different national traditions.
In the worst cases, these texts merely add rules with no European dimension to existing national legislation.
It is therefore not surprising that the implementation of all these absurd Community rules might generate an increasing number of difficulties that form the basis of the appeals lodged to the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman. Both bodies should certainly be granted the necessary resources to function properly.
However, is it not more urgent to reform the process of European integration so as to prevent these drifts and the complaints they generate? Artificial empires always end up collapsing because all too often they forget about the people that are involved.
Despite their good points, in the future, the Committee on Petitions and the Ombudsman will not be enough to offset the lack of consistency and excesses of a technocratic machine. This machine will inevitably lead to a rise in the number of problems and complaints from the citizens, who might find it hard to understand why these rules are not useful, realistic or applicable.
Mr President, speaking here today, just 58 days away from the elections, and in the dying days of this European Parliament, I feel that the joint debate on the Committee on Petitions and on the European Ombudsman is of special significance and, as a review of the entire five-year term, will serve as a de facto pointer towards the coming elections.
This joint debate will also pass on a heritage to the next European Parliament as it takes over from the current one.
I therefore believe that it is a special honour for us all to take part in today's debate.
It is a joint debate because the Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman function jointly.
The operation of these bodies is joint yet distinct, complementary but without their powers overlapping and becoming confused, and with absolute respect for the independence of the European Ombudsman.
I would like to thank our rapporteurs, Mrs De Esteban Martín and Mr Newman, for their reports which, as always in this committee, are the end product of the collective contribution and work of all its members.
Mrs De Esteban Martín, I would like to make just one small parenthesis here and thank Mr Newman warmly for the help he has given to all of us through his example, but especially for the help he has given to ensure the smooth operation of this committee, and not just for the 15 years he has served the European Parliament.
I am very glad that today - and it is perhaps not a coincidence - we will soon be called upon to vote on the continuation of the work of the Committee on Petitions.
I have the feeling that the Committee on Petitions has come out of this period of questioning rebaptised, and precisely because the European Parliament has realised the extent of its contribution.
Mr Söderman, Mr Perry has referred to your appointment and I will add to what he said by saying that I had the pleasure and the good fortune to vote for you as Ombudsman.
I am delighted that my choice has been vindicated.
I think that Mr Söderman, as someone who has represented the institution, has offered a new creation, a new body, to Europe and to the European Union.
Mr President, I propose to speak about the annex to Mr Newman's report on my work as President's mediator for transnationally abducted children.
But first of all I would like to pay tribute to Mr Newman.
He has been a veritable 'British bulldog' in that committee, continually raising his voice in the name of the citizens of the Community.
We will definitely miss you Eddy.
I had also hoped that I would have a chance to personally thank President Gil-Robles because he has been a continual support to me in my work as mediator for abducted children, and also to thank Mr Söderman for his excellent work as European Ombudsman.
You will note in the report that in the past year I have dealt with 29 petitions as mediator.
When we receive a petition about abducted children we immediately make contact with the petitioner.
Abducted children are always an emergency and have to be dealt with as such.
They cannot wait to go through the long process of administration.
Good law exists to deal with the problem of transnationally abducted children.
But it is not always implemented in a proper way.
Because of that, I have had an increasingly heavy work load in relation to this issue.
The Council of Ministers should make a point of discussing this as soon as possible so that we can establish some kind of ground rules to respond to the problem.
It is an increasing problem.
The Hague Convention is meant to do one thing, and one thing only.
It is not a custody hearing on children.
It is a piece of legislation that requires children to be returned to the country where they habitually reside, for discussions and decisions about their custody to be worked out.
There is considerable international ignorance about family law and what happens in the event of marital breakdown and children being taken back to a country where they do not normally live.
We continue to have very serious problems with countries that have not signed the Hague Convention and where there are still a number of abduction cases.
Our big problem lies primarily with countries that have religious courts - but not exclusively.
Many European states do not implement the Hague Convention either in spirit or, indeed, in law.
We have recently had a very significant success concerning a French mother and a German father.
We are very happy with the decision by the German courts. But all too often these cases are heard in front of judges who are either ignorant of or badly informed about the law relating to child abduction.
We need special courts that will deal with these issues as quickly as possible to prevent the inevitable trauma, particularly to the children, but also to both parents.
Most of these cases are dealt with by national central authorities.
Inevitably I get the cases that have not worked out that way.
All our countries need the Hague Convention.
In addition to my work in the committee I have also participated, on behalf of Parliament, in a great many international conferences.
An increasing amount of concern is being expressed in all the Member States about the increase in the incidence of child abduction.
I would like to thank Parliament for its assistance in this matter.
Madam President, I should like to say a few words about the annual report by the Ombudsman and the report by Mrs De Esteban Martín, although I need say very little about the latter. It is a good report and, overall, I agree with everything it says.
The office of the Ombudsman is manifestly playing an increasingly important role. The Ombudsman has a very positive effect on the whole EU system.
I myself have been in contact with him and have met many other people who have approached his office.
They generally seemed happy with the arrangements and their reception, including the manner in which their concerns were dealt with and the speed of response.
Top marks must surely go to a structure which manages to make people feel that they and their complaints have been taken seriously and that they can now take matters forward.
Bearing in mind that quite a number of people experience a sense of powerlessness in the face of the EU institutions, the way in which they are treated matters. And now they have a place to which they can turn.
The Ombudsman's prime merit is - and has always been - to promote greater openness and transparency in the Union as a whole. Let us not underestimate that.
Turning to the crisis within the Commission, several factors come into play. The situation has in fact been developing for quite some time.
The nub of the problem - and the reason why the Commission had to resign - was of course mismanagement of the Union's finances. There was also a partial loss of control over expenditure.
Yet there is another element which should not be discounted, namely the lack of openness and the particular administrative culture which have predominated hitherto in the Commission.
Many ordinary citizens feel the Commission to be a powerful institution, but one which is closed, insensitive - and sometimes simply arrogant.
When they approach the institution directly, people find it hard to obtain answers and information.
This perception - justified or otherwise - helps to explain attitudes towards the Commission.
An institution which leaves such an impression on people is no longer up to date; change is required.
The idea of a code of good administrative practice is therefore to be welcomed. This initiative should go some way towards remedying and improving the situation.
The Staff Regulations also need amendment, that much is clear.
EU staff should not need to fear reprisals for drawing attention to mismanagement or exercising criticism. They must be able to have their say - publicly, where necessary.
Otherwise they are operating in a very unsavoury environment.
A change of culture, accompanied by new rules on openness and public access to documents, should bring about a real transformation in the way the administration is run.
Top of the agenda now should be a strengthening of the office of the Ombudsman.
Two aspects require particular attention, beginning with the financial parameters.
If the office is to be able to handle properly all the complaints that are coming in, it needs long-term planning and an adequately resourced budget.
Secondly, it is self-evident that the Ombudsman must have access to all the documents he needs.
This is essential if a good job of work is to be done.
An immediate increase in resources is therefore necessary.
As an MEP, I myself am critical of much of what goes on in the EU.
In the case of the Ombudsman, however, I have no criticism to make whatsoever. Instead, I should like to thank Jacob Söderman and his team for the excellent work they do.
Madam President, Mr Ombudsman, Commissioner, I am one of those who feel that the Ombudsman is the European Union's best institution.
He has certainly been responsible for positive developments in the Union's institutional structures, and it is important that he should be given greater powers.
The report mentions freedom of movement. I myself recently met an Irish dentist who had problems practising in Greece.
All such questions should be raised when discussing the Ombudsman's powers.
The situation regarding public access to documents has improved in the European Union mainly as a result of the efforts of the Ombudsman and the courts.
The legislative bodies have not done very much on the subject as yet, and I fear the Commission's work on the future regulation on transparency has slowed down somewhat.
I should like to ask Commissioner Monti how work is proceeding on the transparency regulation based on the Treaty of Amsterdam, because that will also be an absolutely essential ingredient in solving the institutional crisis caused by the resignation of the Commission.
Good administration will be essential in solving this crisis.
I have noted to my satisfaction the Ombudsman's positive attitude towards civil servants' freedom to write and say what they wish.
It is vital that the Staff Regulations are interpreted accurately, and changed so that civil servants have a real obligation to highlight any shortcomings they identify in the work of an institution or in their own department.
Furthermore, producing document registers for all institutions is a very important innovation.
I would point out that the European Parliament must also be a part of this programme of revision and embark on a course of good administration itself.
Madam President, I completely agree with Mr Söderman that if the EU had had a culture of open administration, whereby the public could inspect the files of its officials once they have been finalised, we would be able to avoid a great deal of fraud and many irregularities.
Officials who know that their files may be scrutinised by the public at any time are sure to be more inclined to administer them correctly.
The EU does not have such a culture of openness, and this is also reflected in the Ombudsman's annual report, which incidentally is well set out, clear and meticulous.
This is gratifying, since we are after all talking about consolidating an institution which is still very new, but already well known and valued.
Nevertheless, there has been insufficient political will to give the Ombudsman proper working conditions.
Incredible as it may sound, it is evident from the annual report that even he, who is supposed to be the public's guarantor with regard to the EU administration, simply does not have full access to Commission and Council documents.
It is therefore clearly necessary to amend Article 3(2) of the Ombudsman's Statute, so that he has full and unimpeded access to all the relevant documents.
To have a provision whereby the Community institutions can refuse to give the Ombudsman access to documents either by pleading duly substantiated grounds of secrecy, or because officials and other employees are speaking on behalf of and in accordance with instructions from their administrations, is not just unnecessary, it is extremely inappropriate.
It is high time for a revision of the legal basis which underlies the Ombudsman's work.
Otherwise, the institution is giving the people of the EU a completely false sense of the guarantee of due process of law.
It is therefore particularly important to support paragraph 6 in Mrs De Esteban's motion for a resolution.
Thank you, Mr Monti, and my thanks also to the mediator, Mrs Banotti.
I think the House is very appreciative of what you have just said about Mrs Banotti, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Customs 2000
The next item is the report (A4-0136/99) by Mrs Peijs, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision amending the Decision of 19 December 1996 adopting an action programme for customs in the Community (Customs 2000) (COM(98)0644 - C4-0639/98-98/0314(COD)).
The common customs tariff is one of the most concrete signs of the common identity of the European Union.
There are about 120 000 officials in the Member States' administrations.
The European Commission has about 120 - one thousandth of that figure - which once again shows how ludicrous it is to claim that we are working with an over-centralised bureaucracy in Brussels.
Against that background the Customs 2000 programme is absolutely essential to demonstrate that we are more than simply a group of individual countries working in a general area.
Failing a common administration, Customs 2000 is an extremely important management tool for harmonised rules, automation and so on.
It is significant that Member States sometimes find it difficult to improve on the Customs 2000 programme's efficiency.
I refer to the transit inquiry which has given it a boost.
Speaking on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I am very pleased with the cooperation with Mrs Peijs, the rapporteur, and very pleased that she has taken over our amendments.
These amendments try to improve the action against fraud and she has pointed to the most important one, the question of how to relate collection costs to performance criteria.
Indeed, after the European Council, 25 % is going back into the pockets of the Member States.
But the idea of common performance criteria remains absolutely essential and it is against that background I would ask the Commissioner what impact he believes the European Council has on the attitude of the common customs authorities and whether they will now become even more relaxed than before.
It is also against that background that the Committee on Budgets' amendments to harmonise the Common Customs Committee, to have one overall committee to operate the common customs tariff, have been adopted.
We must simplify, we must harmonise.
This is the direction that has been taken by Commissioner Monti, whom I welcome here again today, carrying out what I suppose will be one of his last official duties, because he has supported this idea and I am very happy that he will also be able to defend it before the Council.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Member States truly dug deep into the pockets of the European Union at the Berlin summit, helping themselves to customs revenue.
With effect from the year 2001, they want to hold back 25 % of this revenue rather than 10 % as at present, even though these are traditionally the EU's own resources.
I consider that unwarranted, especially since the Member States are not contributing much to the creation of a Community customs service.
But we need the common customs tariff and the rest to lay the foundations of such a service.
Even though Parliament, in the conciliation procedure, may have dropped its earlier demand for the development of a common customs administration, that nevertheless remains our goal.
During the discussions, the recurring question was whether the Member States even merit the 10 % they retain for administrative expenditure, in other words whether the figure of 10 % is at all justifiable.
Today we have to consider an amendment based on the firm belief that this percentage is too high.
Moreover, an amendment has also been tabled which calls on the Commission to submit performance criteria that can be used to monitor the levying of customs duties by the Member States.
From the conciliation proceedings on the first Customs 2000 proposal, this lack of commitment on the part of the Member States has been plain to see.
The Commission was not exactly able to record much progress either in its interim report of July 1998.
Coordination with the Member States and development of the risk-assessment system remain inadequate.
Although the Commission praised itself in the report, a contrasting picture had emerged from the Court of Auditors' report of 1997.
It does have to be said that, coming six years after the entry into force of the single market and 29 years after the entry into force of the customs union, this is hugely disappointing.
The Committee on Budgetary Control is not satisfied with this state of affairs.
However, we have refrained from tabling any further amendments so that some long overdue progress can be achieved.
The adverse effects of irregularities, delays and fraud in this field are considerable and have made a very noticeable difference to revenue levels.
This is certainly not a time when the Member States of the European Union could afford to make such sizeable concessions in terms of their own resources.
Madam President, we cannot achieve an internal market with wide-ranging freedom of movement and fair competition between economic agents within the territory of the European Union if we still have 15 inconsistent and disconnected customs systems.
How can we hope to combat tax fraud and organised crime or to protect the financial and budgetary interests of the EU if there is still no link between the various customs computer systems, despite the possibilities offered by the Customs 2000 programme or the IDA programme for computerisation of customs activities?
Six years after completing the single market, we have to agree that the results are disappointing.
There is a lack of cooperation between Member States.
The customs authorities in many countries are still in the age of paper and manual processing, having totally failed to make the technological transition to the demands of modern society.
The rapporteur's acquiescence in proposing that finalising computerisation of the Transit system should be delayed until 30 June 2003 reflects very badly on the apparent value of the results obtained up to now in this area.
These delays sit ill alongside the explosion in trade that the world will see in coming years, with a risk that the Union's resources will be badly hit because they have been robbed of a significant part of their most important own resources: customs duties and agricultural levies.
How can we explain the lack of effective and consistent training of officials in the different customs administrations, although the Matthaeus programme came into force over six years ago? When we talk about customs processing what comes to mind is a negative image of red tape, inefficiency and unnecessary duplication.
So we cannot support the Commission's proposal to set up yet another committee, which would overlap with the work of the Customs Policy Committee.
We have had enough duplication already!
Madam President, I am very grateful to the rapporteur, Mrs Peijs, for her contribution to and support for this Commission proposal amending the Customs 2000 programme.
The rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Bardong, among others, have explained very clearly the scope and importance of the proposal, and I shall therefore leave it at that and simply set out the Commission's position on the amendments.
Let me first say that the Commission is able to accept a substantial number of amendments - namely Amendments Nos 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, 12 to 17 and 19 - and I shall say no more about them.
As far as Amendment No 1 is concerned, the Commission takes the view that a general provision, in the form of a code of conduct, exists already.
The proposal does not therefore seem to be the proper place for that provision.
Turning to Amendment No 3, the first part of the text is acceptable, except for the final sentence reading: 'whereas this will result in a four-year delay compared to the initial target date'.
Not only does the Commission fully understand Parliament's concern about the delay in applying the computerised transit system, it has already had occasion to explain what it is doing in practical terms to bring the project rapidly to completion, and I am grateful to Mrs Peijs, Mr Kellett-Bowman and Mr Herman, who did us the honour of attending an initial practical demonstration of the system on 31 March.
The last sentence of Amendment No 3 is, however, inappropriate in a legal text.
Nevertheless, I can assure you that both I and my staff are making constant efforts to ensure that the work is done as quickly as possible.
Amendment No 5 refers to Amendment No 16.
The final part of the text, which concerns the performance of the Member States, the performance criteria, is acceptable, and I regard it as very important.
Although the Commission understands the reason for the change, the first part of the text, which takes up a broader issue concerning own resources, would fit better within the framework of the legislation on own resources than in this proposal.
Moreover, the text goes beyond the scope of the article to which it refers, Amendment No 16.
We are able to accept the substance of Amendment No 8 to the extent that the committee in question takes over the work of the Customs Policy Committee, and I shall return to that in a moment.
Amendment No 9 is acceptable on the point of transparency in relation to Parliament and the customs authorities.
However, it goes without saying that there has to be a degree of confidentiality in regard to economic operators, particularly for legal reasons bound up with combating fraud.
Amendment No 11 is in principle acceptable to the Commission, provided that the committee that is set up to administer the Customs 2000 programme takes over the current responsibilities of the Customs Policy Committee.
That committee was in fact set up on the basis of Article 3 of the initial version of the Customs 2000 programme as an instrument of partnership between the Commission and the Member States.
This amendment has also to be viewed in connection with Amendment No 18, and here the Commission believes it can accept the first paragraph, but it must be inserted where it most makes sense, in the text of Article 3 of the initial Customs 2000 proposal.
Article 3, to which Amendment No 11 relates, concerns the application of the programme and the partnership between the Commission and the Member States.
We therefore think it appropriate to combine the two proposed texts.
We cannot accept the second paragraph of Amendment No 18.
As far as the first sentence of the text goes, given the wide range of issues up for discussion in the context of Customs 2000, the Commission prefers to leave it to the Member States to decide whether to take part with more than one representative, so as to be able to discuss specific issues.
That, moreover, is the approach consistently taken in relation to comitology, which cannot require Member States with different administrative practices to adopt a single organisational model.
In any event, as far as expenditure is concerned, Community funding will be provided for a single delegate.
The Commission is unable to accept the second part of the text, because the current rules relating to comitology do not allow the applicant countries to attend the meetings.
That point should, however, be viewed in the context of Article 19 of the new proposal which provides for the Customs 2000 programme to be opened up to the applicant states generally.
The specific rules governing the opening-up of the programme will be adopted within the framework of the relevant association councils, and those decisions will also cover participation in the meetings by the applicant countries.
The final paragraph of Amendment No 18 is not acceptable: as I said earlier, the confidential nature of some of the issues to be discussed means that the Commission cannot agree to the committee's meetings being held in public.
Finally, the second paragraph of Amendment No 20 is not compatible with the general principles adopted by the Commission, the Council and Parliament in their declaration of 6 March 1995 on including financial provisions in legal instruments, and the paragraph cannot therefore be taken on board.
That, Madam President, summarises the Commission's view at this stage in the legislative procedure.
Let me once again thank the committees, the rapporteurs and Parliament in general for the substantial and constructive work that has been done in this very specific area, which is extremely important, both symbolically and practically, to the operation of the European Union.
We would be prepared to accept some of the objections raised by the Commissioner were it not for the fact that we are to take the vote in ten minutes and it is physically impossible to make any changes.
We have already had very detailed discussions on this issue and I think we can manage without a conciliation procedure, because some of the objections are so minor that I hardly think my colleagues in the House will argue against them.
We will take them into account in the hope of producing something that is generally acceptable apart from one or two basic points, and those will keep.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Transport infrastructure charging
The next item is the report (A4-0111/99) by Mrs Schmidbauer, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the Commission White Paper entitled 'Fair Payment for Infrastructure Use: A phased approach to a common transport infrastructure charging framework in the EU' (COM(98)0466 - C4-0514/98).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, last September the Commission presented us with a White Paper with the rather unwieldy title 'Fair payment for infrastructure use: a phased approach to a common transport infrastructure charging framework in the EU'.
Behind that cumbersome title, however, is a proposed new European transport system in which mileage travelled would be charged with the aid of electronic data transfer, a system that would guarantee sustainable mobility.
The subject is not new.
Back in 1997, we voted on the report relating to the Commission Green Paper on this same matter; I was the rapporteur on that occasion too.
And now it is time to develop specific legal mechanisms.
One reason why the European transport system is threatened with collapse is that we have the fundamental problem of distortions of competition in the transport markets.
The cost of a journey is not met by the party who causes the journey to be made, but by the general public.
Distortions of competition between modes of transport and between individual EU Member States are the result.
At the present time there are nine different charging systems in Europe for the use of the rail infrastructure, with subsidisation ranging between zero and 100 %.
Road tax and road-pricing systems vary enormously.
There are differences of up to EUR 3 000 a year between national rates of road tax, for example.
Moreover, charges are seldom levied as and when they are incurred.
They generally bear no relation to the environmental costs or to other external costs.
At the moment, therefore, users have no incentive to alter their transport habits in any way.
In the White Paper, the Commission proposes that the user should pay all the internal and external costs that he or she incurs.
Charges are to be levied on the same basis in every Member State, namely on the basis of so-called marginal social cost.
The marginal social cost comprises the average variable infrastructure costs plus the external costs.
My report endorses the Commission approach.
We must move in the proposed direction if we want to achieve a better distribution of the volume of traffic among the various modes of transport.
The target date of 2004 and the establishment of committees containing government experts makes the implementation of this approach appear realistic, especially since it does not involve grafting a ready-made system onto any national structure but rather the joint development of solutions with the 15 Member States.
In my report, I also suggest the possibility of reinforcing the charging system based on marginal social cost with measures in the realm of transport-related taxes, by which I mean coordinating these taxes on a European scale, lowering them where necessary.
That would give us an acceptable graduated pricing system.
In its White Paper, the Commission only took account of commercial transport and did not include private cars in the charging system.
I believe, however, that the 'user pays' principle can only be effectively applied to transport if all those who contribute to the problems are expected to contribute to their solution.
Traffic jams, accidents and environmental pollution, of course, are caused just as much by private cars as by commercial vehicles.
In this context I should like the Commission to examine, as a matter of urgency, whether private cars could not perhaps be included in the charging framework.
At the same time, it is important to conduct information campaigns to make it clear to the public that this is all about introducing an environmentally friendly and sustainable transport system and is not another scheme designed to fleece motorists.
Heckling
No, that is not the case.
That is why it is quite unhelpful when the public are deliberately misled, even by Members of this Parliament.
At the beginning of this week, Mr Ferber issued a press statement with the heading 'Pure highway robbery!'
I consider that sort of thing to be irresponsible, because either that statement was a deliberate distortion of the truth or Mr Ferber has read neither the White Paper nor the report on which we voted in committee.
Let me close by saying that we cannot accept the amendments tabled by the PPE Group through Mr Jarzembowski, because they are virtually tantamount to total rejection of the White Paper.
The other groups cooperated very constructively in the preparation of this report, and I should like to thank them for that.
Our cooperation with Commissioner Kinnock and Directorate-General VII was also very fruitful.
I am grateful for that, and at the same time I would ask the Commission to make a determined effort to implement the White Paper, so that this approach, which my group and I support, can be put into practice, for I am firmly convinced that this White Paper will pave the way for sustainable mobility in Europe.
Madam President, firstly I should like to congratulate our rapporteur Mrs Schmidbauer on her important report.
I know she has worked very hard over many months on this difficult subject.
Whilst this report is not legislative, it is, in transport policy terms, the culmination of much work covering many aspects and will without doubt give the green light to a legislative proposal in the future.
Mrs Schmidbauer's report is to be welcomed because it deals with developing a phased approach towards a common transport infrastructure charging framework within the European Union, as well as a gradual harmonisation of charging principles in all major transport modes.
My group also welcomes the principles outlined by Mrs Schmidbauer that users of infrastructure should pay the cost, including environmental, and the cost of other external impacts imposed at the point of use.
This is a complex issue, especially where the subject of road pricing is concerned.
But Members would do well to remember that many Member States already have road pricing schemes in place and others are looking to introduce them.
Therefore, there is a need to try to bring some structure and harmonisation to the whole system.
The rapporteur has not only worked hard on this report but she has also recognised the complexity of the issue, the sensitivities that exist around this subject, and has produced a very carefully worded report that deserves the support of the whole of the House.
Madam President, I shall follow the lead of my honourable colleague Brian Simpson and thank Mrs Schmidbauer for her cooperative approach to the preparation of this report.
Regrettably she has arrived at the wrong conclusions, as I must now explain on behalf of my group.
We in the Group of the European People's Party must reject the Commission's strategy of introducing a uniform system of charging for all modes of transport on the basis of so-called marginal social cost.
The fact is that the system of marginal social cost proposed by Neil Kinnock, the Socialist Commissioner for Transport, clearly emerged as an objectively unsuitable method of infrastructure charging when the Committee on Transport and Tourism consulted with scientists and transport specialists on 17 February 1999. On the one hand it takes insufficient account of the construction, capital and maintenance costs for the transport infrastructure, while on the other hand it indiscriminately imposes a blanket charge to cover so-called external costs such as the cost of environmental pollution, traffic jams and accidents.
We are prepared to discuss external costs.
That is why we in Parliament called on the Commission back in January 1997 to provide us with scientifically demonstrable assessments of external costs and how they can best be recouped; these assessments were to be presented for each individual mode of transport.
The Commission, however, chose to shirk that responsibility.
It has not substantiated the external costs or outlined any procedures to us, but has come up with a new magic formula and now wants to do everything on the basis of marginal social cost.
But this magic formula, as the hearing with the scientists and experts showed, is unsuitable.
In other words, this whole approach is built on sand.
A second reason why the Commission approach should be rejected is that it is designed to be quite systematically devised and implemented in three steps, thereby deliberately preserving the distortions of competition between modes of transport and between companies in the various Member States.
This means that existing distortions will not be eliminated, even though they actually ought to have disappeared by 1 January 1993, the date when the single market was supposed to take effect.
In practice, however, we still have completely different oil duties, road taxes and so forth.
That distorts competition, and the aim of the Commission's approach is to preserve this disparity for several years to come.
We reject that.
The recommendation of the Red and Green majority in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, Mrs Schmidbauer, is nothing short of reckless, going further than even the Commission has ever gone by calling for the inclusion of private cars in this new special system on the basis of Community law and not, as is customary in such cases, on the basis of national legislation.
Mrs Schmidbauer, my colleague Mr Ferber was absolutely right.
This system, if you think it through to its logical conclusion, means purely and simply that private cars would also be liable for road tolls in Germany.
I do not believe the Austrian system is worth copying.
In my opinion, on the basis of all the studies that have been conducted in this field, it is crystal clear that private motorists, through the excise duty on their petrol and through road tax, are already paying the tolls with which it is intended to burden them.
By broadening this system, Mrs Schmidbauer, we should quite simply be giving Member States the opportunity to impose even higher charges on private motorists.
It also says in your report that, besides private cars being incorporated into the new charging system, an even heavier financial burden should be placed on motorists in sensitive areas - these include mountainous regions, but they also include all the major cities, such as Paris, Hamburg and Frankfurt.
Your approach cannot work; if it were implemented, it would only induce many Member States, as Mr Ferber said, simply to fleece the motorist once again.
We reject that.
Applause from the PPE Group
Madam President, I am hearing a lot of electioneering here from both sides, both from Mrs Schmidbauer and from Mr Jarzembowski.
It is quite clear that this White Paper is vitally important for the creation of an internal market and a system in which costs are switched from fixed costs to variable costs.
This is something we are all in favour of.
Mrs Schmidbauer rightly said that we must be careful that this does not lead to another separate cost increase.
I put this down in an amendment, so I can only agree with her.
She is absolutely right when she says that we need to involve private cars in some way.
Of course we must.
Traffic congestion is reaching critical levels, so it is extremely important that we should treat the little room left on the roads as a market commodity.
That is the best way to go about it.
There can be no objection to this from a Liberal point of view, although all sorts of people are taking a stand on the issue in my country.
If there is no alternative, so they would have us believe, you must not charge extra for using the roads.
But that is not true.
You should make a charge.
On the other hand, we should not make a charge if it is not necessary.
Finally, it is extremely important that we should make this a European system, which is currently by no means the case.
Each Member State is busy reinventing the wheel.
I would point out in passing that the example of Norway, which many people have mentioned because of the excellent way in which it has organised access to Oslo, Trondheim and Bergen, is not really all that good.
There is a lot of abuse and fraud and the situation is extremely chaotic, so it is exactly the sort of bad example we should not follow.
We must not sit back and wait for the compatibility that I described in a working document for the Transport Committee to be achieved, because it would take us at least ten years and this could be used as an excuse to charge what it actually costs to use the roads.
I very much welcome Mrs Schmidbauer's report.
We in the Liberal Group would like to make just one further improvement, which is really no more than dotting the I's and confirming what the rapporteur has already said.
We agree with her that if the PPE Group's amendments are approved they would destroy the whole purpose of the report. However, this is not to say that there are not some extremely good elements in those amendments, which we will be happy to accept.
We shall suspend the debate at this point for voting time.
It will be resumed at 3 p.m.
I would like to speak on a point of order, Mr President.
At the moment there is a group of more than 100 visitors blocking the corridors of Parliament.
I do not think that this is in line with our Rules of Procedure.
I should like to add that this group has been singing religious songs on the ground floor for quite a while, which has somewhat shocked the layman in me.
Mr Caudron, I shall ask the services immediately to make it easier for Members to enter the Chamber.
VOTES
Mr President, in this list that we have here, some committees are not included, although we know that they all have to do with the budget. What we are essentially proposing is that no selection of committees should take place and that instead, with your permission and the cooperation of the House, we could perhaps move an oral amendment to include all committees that have anything to do with the budget.
I believe this would be only fair to the committees that are not listed here.
Can we agree on that?
As there is no objection, Amendment No 40 will be put to the vote, with the clarifications provided by Mr Hänsch.
After the vote on Amendment No 5
Mr President, I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that to amend such allocations an absolute majority was needed.
You are generally one of the experts on the practices of the House, Mr Herman, but on this occasion I am afraid you are mistaken.
A simple majority is sufficient.
Before the vote on Amendment No 1
Mr President, I would like to table a minor oral amendment. Overall responsibility for the new anti-discrimination Article 13 is to remain with the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, but as the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs also has jurisdiction here, I wish to table an oral amendment stating that, from the point of view of the Committee on Women's Rights, a small change of focus, in other words an addition, is required: measures etc other than those mentioned in VIII and XVI.
I trust the chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Mr Hughes, will have no objection.
Are there any objections to us considering the amendment proposed by Mrs Hautala?
More than 13 Members rose to express their opposition
After the vote on Amendment No 11
Mr President, I think you were somewhat hasty in answering the question that our colleague Mr Herman posed earlier.
I should indeed like to believe that our practice leads to the annex being adopted by a single majority, but I do not think that this complies with the Rules.
Rule 135 states that the powers of committees are to be recorded in an annex, but it does not in any way rule out the use of an absolute majority. What is more, as this text defines the powers of the parliamentary committees, it would be something of a paradox if, as has recently been the case, the composition of a relevant committee in a key area - in this case immunities - were to be determined by a difference of just a few votes.
I would therefore like us to look at this matter more closely, as it seems to me that an absolute majority is needed, given that it relates to an amendment of a core element of our Rules of Procedure.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, I have listened very carefully to your comments.
It is a view to which we can give due consideration. However, I have to tell you that I answered very quickly in order to gain time, and also because I had looked into this question before entering the Chamber.
Besides this Rule, there is also the tradition in this House that such questions are always decided in the way we currently decide them.
If you think there is another issue, we can look at that.
However, at this time, I have no reason to change this practice and the way we implement this Rule.
Mr President, you are completely right and, in my view, you are applying the Rules of Procedure correctly.
I should like to point out to Mr Fabre-Aubrespy that he has a strange way of interpreting the Rules of Procedure.
In cases where an absolute majority suits him but a simple majority would suffice, he protests; then, where the Rules of Procedure provide for an absolute majority, as in the case of the discharge, he wants a simple majority.
We cannot evidently have Rules of Procedure to suit everyone, according to their particular interests.
On Amendment No 74
Mr President, I should like to move that in paragraph 1(c) of Amendment No 74, after the reference to 'humanitarian aid, emergency aid and food aid', we add the words 'in developing countries', so that the text would then read '... humanitarian aid, emergency aid and food aid in developing countries'.
Mrs Günther, I can see no objection from the House and so I will put the amendment to the vote with that addendum.
Before the vote on Amendment No 9
Mr President, Mrs Hautala, who chairs the Committee on Women's Rights, was trying to move an oral amendment to Amendments Nos 1 and 2 in order to specify which forms of sex discrimination fell within the remit of committees I and VIII.
It goes without saying that these committees cannot be responsible for those forms of discrimination that are a matter for the Committee on Women's Rights.
Unfortunately, a number of colleagues have intervened to prevent the adoption of this reasonable motion.
I believe that my honourable colleagues were unable to grasp what was at stake here.
Laughter
You did not see me, although I was asking to speak in order to make that clear to you before you all took the floor.
Since we are now voting about the Committee on Women's Rights, let me spell out that Amendments Nos 1 and 2, which relate to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs and to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, naturally cannot and do not in any way imply that these committees should be responsible for the forms of sex discrimination that fall within the remit of the Committee on Women's Rights.
Mrs Lulling, the House did not agree to putting Mrs Hautala's amendment to the vote.
If you wish to table another amendment rather than criticise the Members for not accepting Mrs Hautala's amendment, you have every right to do so.
Before the vote on Amendments Nos 23 and 24
Mr President, as a former chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy and an active member of that committee, allow me to draw your attention to this amendment.
As you are all aware, it is not a matter of making radical changes, rather, as we understand it, of putting things in their place.
In other words, according to the initial proposal, this committee would be called the 'Committee on Transport, Regional Policy and Tourism'.
We propose - and this seems quite natural - that it firstly be called the 'Committee on Regional Policy', without detracting from the importance of the other two areas.
This gives it a more global dimension, which is why I am asking you to vote in favour of this amendment.
Mr President, I am the first signatory to this amendment.
I simply want to say that one of the main aims of the Union is to promote economic and social progress by strengthening economic and social cohesion, among other policies.
In this respect, we recently voted in favour of bringing Community regional policy and economic and social cohesion under the remit of this committee.
Here we are dealing with a horizontal policy as opposed to a sectoral policy and, what is more, one of the tasks recently assigned to this committee is 'relations with regional and local authorities and with the Committee of the Regions'. Parliament, in my opinion, needs to demonstrate the priority it gives to relations with regional and local authorities, which represent the intermediate levels of any power and any institutional political structure.
In short, we share our elective nature them. I am therefore calling on the House to vote in favour of keeping the Committee on Regional Policy as the first name of this committee.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is not a question of whether we are in favour of social cohesion.
We are all in favour of social cohesion.
It is a matter of the Rules of Procedure and what they prescribe.
We have just unanimously adopted the catalogue of responsibilities: number one is transport, and number two is regional policy.
It makes no sense to reverse that decision ten minutes after taking it.
What is even more important is the fact that the wise ladies and gentlemen of this House have justified the amalgamation of the committees by saying that no major legislation would be necessary in the field of regional policy for the next two years.
All of this substantiates the case for leaving things in the proposed order: transport, regional policy and tourism.
Applause
Mr President, given this debate - and it is clearly a very important one - maybe a compromise would be to put tourism first.
Laughter
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to make a brief remark.
As usual, when a debate becomes so intense, the great principles put forward to fuel such debate actually have nothing to do with the basic reason for it.
Here we have two committees, one for regional action and one for transport, which are due to merge. As a consequence, each is seeking to impose the name of the original committee.
There is nothing else at stake in this debate.
That said, I should simply like to draw the attention of the House to the fact that, following the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty, almost all our powers relating to transport will come under the codecision procedure, which seems reason enough to retain the name of the 'Committee on Transport' as the first name.
Parliament adopted the decision
Mr President, I should just like to ask you to submit the question I posed earlier to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
I simply wanted to point out that my question was not motivated by personal interest.
There are some amendments that were adopted without an absolute majority that I favoured.
My question relates solely to Article 142 of the Treaty that states that 'the European Parliament shall adopt its Rules of Procedure, acting by a majority of its Members'.
I therefore think that given this vital issue, it would be appropriate to refer this matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, so that it can decide whether or not the annex relating to the powers of the committees can be adopted with a single majority.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, you have already asked that question and I have told you that I will look into it.
You do not need to ask it again.
Mr President, everybody who has been engaged in this whole issue over the last year understands the enormous pressure under which we have put the services of Parliament in the last few days.
Personally, on behalf of my Group, I should like to extend our thanks to your services for the enormous help they have given us in ensuring that this vote went as smoothly as it did.
Applause
I endorse what Mrs Green said about Parliament's services.
On the subject of the majority required, however, I think it is essential that Parliament should know what majority it needs to take decisions.
I think you were right, Mr President: this was not about rules but about powers, so I think a simple majority was enough here.
First of all, Mr President, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy is quite right, it is a majority of Members that is required to amend the Rules of Procedure.
Secondly, I do not entirely agree with Mrs Green that this vote has gone smoothly.
We have now spent more than an hour on just one report, and there are another 19 to go.
This means we will need another 19 hours.
Would you perhaps allow someone to replace you so that we can get on a little more quickly?
Mr President, I should firstly like to congratulate you on the way in which you confidently chair these votes and I hope you continue to do so.
As the chairman, Mr Martens, said, we have been discussing this issue for some time.
Annexes are annexes and the Rules of Procedure are the Rules of Procedure.
I therefore believe that you are acting appropriately.
We do not need the Committee on the Rules of Procedure to tell us that the annex is not part of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, on the subject of the job description of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, I see that we have only voted on paragraph 1 and the amendments tabled before and after it.
Does this mean that the committee's job description is limited to paragraph 1 and the rest of the proposed text is deleted?
All the microphones have stopped working.
I shall suspend the sitting for a few moments so that they can be repaired.
The sitting was suspended at 12.45 p.m. and resumed at 1 p.m.
Because of the time, I would like to propose to the House that, following on from the report by Mr Valverde López, we proceed to the vote on Kosovo, so that the House can express its opinion on this very important issue.
Parliament agreed to this proposal
Mr President, with all due respect, we cannot call for a check to be made every time the PPE Group is in a minority of 50 or 100 votes.
I have noted your comment, Mr Duhamel, but you have to bear in mind that if Members ask for an electronic check, the President is obliged to take one, whoever asks for it.
Mr President, I would like you to take account of the fact that there are many Members who will have to leave for an early flight.
The technical breakdown in the system should not be held against them when it comes to counting time spent voting in this House.
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
Mr President, 80 refugees have just been killed as the result of an indiscriminate air attack by NATO.
We must stop these strikes that are no more surgical than they were in Iraq.
I think it is high time we reconsidered our policy on the former Yugoslavia.
We are not going to start a debate now, Mr Pinel.
Mr President, I just wanted to say that although I shall remain in the Chamber, I shall be taking part in the final vote on the resolution only and will give an explanation of vote in accordance with Rule 122.
On Amendment No 7
On Amendment No 7, Mr President, I should like to point out that there was a mistake in the Dutch translation, among others.
It is very badly translated.
The original text was in English, but the French translation is very clear, which is why I am referring to it here.
The French text reads: 'exhorte le Conseil à ne ménager aucun effort pour créer les conditions propices à une brève interruption des bombardements '.
When we talk of creating conditions in this way, it means that we expect Mr Milosevic to react before the campaign can be suspended.
That is why we are tabling this amendment, and we hope that everyone is aware of this.
On paragraph 5
Mr President, I should very much like to support paragraph 5 with a view to protecting the refugees.
But may I ask the groups that have tabled this motion to explain what can be done to ensure that the creation of militarily protected humanitarian corridors to Albania and Macedonia does not usher in the partition of Kosovo.
That is the problem I have with paragraph 5.
Mrs Müller, I think you are not the only one who has problems with this paragraph, and with others.
But we are not in the habit of solving such problems here at this time.
On paragraph 14
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is not a further oral amendment but was agreed during the coordinators' negotiations.
It relates to no less a person than Dr Ibrahim Rugova, who holds the Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament.
That must be added.
We really did forget that.
It is not an oral amendment that we are free to reject, but was actually agreed by all those who were present.
Mr President, I should like to remind Parliament that Mr Demaçi was also awarded the Sakharov Prize, so we should invite them both and mention them both; otherwise, it is not worth doing.
At this precise moment we are speaking about Ibrahim Rugova, who is in serious danger and to whom our prize was awarded four months ago, and not about Mr Demaçi!
Loud applause
Mr President, I should like to make it absolutely clear that in our discussions on the compromise resolution we spoke specifically about Mr Rugova as the Sakharov laureate and about no one else.
That was the agreement.
Applause
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I voted in favour of the proposal but would certainly have preferred if the committee now named 'Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities' had been named 'Committee on Mainstreaming and Gender Equality'.
Although I voted in favour of most of the individual provisions, I should like to take this opportunity to make it clear that I do not really approve in general terms of redistributing the responsibilities of our committees.
Fundamentally different matters should continue to be dealt with by separate committees.
When it came to the final vote, I therefore voted against the proposal tabled by the Conference of Presidents.
d'Aboville report (A4-0181/99)
The Greens voted against the proposed fisheries agreement with the Seychelles, as we have voted against other fisheries agreements, not because we are opposed to fisheries agreements in principle, but because we feel that the approach of the EU needs to be reformed.
Agreements must be negotiated on a more equitable basis, so that both the EU and the third country derive equivalent benefits.
Among the improvements which are needed is a regional approach to fisheries management, which would involve all the coastal states and distant water fishing nations which fish for tuna in the Indian Ocean.
The recently-created Indian Ocean Tuna Commission is a step in the right direction but has not yet begun to assume its management role.
The UN Fish Stocks Agreement, which will apply to the tuna and other highly migratory fish stocks, sets out other conditions, including a detailed description of the precautionary approach.
This is completely lacking in the Seychelles agreement (we also urge the Member States to speedily ratify this convention - thus far only Italy has done so).
The EU must also assume greater responsibility for the activities of its vessels.
While this agreement will involve a satellite monitoring system, which is a welcome improvement, such systems by themselves are no guarantee that fishermen will respect the rules.
There are important questions of access to the resulting data in real time by the Seychelles.
Finally, tuna fishing can involve considerable incidental catch of non-target fish species, and the EU needs to develop techniques of tuna fishing which do not result in so much discarding.
Concerning the Liberal amendment, which would serve to eliminate the effective subsidy that these agreements provided to fishermen, the Greens supported it as we feel that distant water fleets should not be so heavily subsidised, especially when there are so many problems with the terms of the agreements under which they operate.
Valverde López report (A4-0139/99)
Mr President, with the Valverde López report on the Commission proposal, Parliament is essentially aiming for a more practicable eco-management and audit scheme.
Many of the amendments are designed to improve the scheme.
There are, however, nine amendments which run directly counter to this aim, and they have been endorsed by a majority of this Parliament.
It was because of those amendments that I and the other members of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, as well as a number of other Members, did not vote for the report.
I merely wanted to put that on record.
Joint resolution on Kosovo
Mr President, I voted against this resolution because I feel Parliament is extremely reluctant to criticise NATO and NATO's actions.
I believe that NATO has basically ignored international law in the action it has taken and that proper efforts were not made to find a peaceful solution.
This is not a humanitarian effort, especially when you see what happened last night, when civilians were killed as a result of NATO activity.
Also, Parliament was reluctant to address the fact that NATO is hitting civilian targets in Yugoslavia and the fact that it is using cluster-bombs and depleted uranium in its ammunition.
These issues have to be raised.
We have to look at respect for all human life.
All human life is valuable.
We cannot put one human life above another.
Today in Parliament we voted against supporting the German peace proposal that has been put forward.
I also think the British are blocking this proposal.
If we can find a peaceful solution, nobody should be pushing for the right to war and to bomb.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
Parliament has a duty to express its discontent at some of the actions of NATO, in particular the bombing of civilian targets and the use of weapons that are considered by some people as weapons of mass destruction.
Mr President, there are many extremely good points in this resolution.
Nevertheless, I abstained because of the adoption of the Greens' amendment which sought to tie us down to a solution whereby Kosovo would be autonomous within the Yugoslav borders.
Several weeks and months ago, such formulas could certainly have provided a basis for discussion.
But they have now been overtaken by developments.
Unless the Milosevic regime is removed, such a solution can never be an option.
And even if it were removed, the prospects for such a solution would still be slim.
It is impossible to force people to live in the same place, in the same state, as the murderers of their families.
That is why I believe that this approach is totally divorced from reality.
We should not have committed ourselves to a specific solution.
What is good is that the House has unreservedly supported the military action by NATO, which is necessary, appropriate and justified, as well as the aim of bolstering Serbia's neighbours.
One thing, however, seems to be missing from the resolution: it is high time we also sent a strong signal to Croatia, which is a major stabilising factor in the region but has been the victim of what amounts to blinkered disregard on our part.
I earnestly appeal for the conclusion of a trade and cooperation agreement with Croatia.
Mr President, as a member of the Greens who supported the compromise motion today, I merely wanted to express my respect for all the members of NATO currently engaged in the fight for human rights in the states bordering on Kosovo.
We, the MEPs of PASOK, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement of Greece, are voting against the European Parliament resolution on Kosovo because we feel it has nothing positive to offer towards finding a solution to the problem.
We denounce in the strongest possible terms the policy of ethnic cleansing and the violation of human rights that is being carried out by the Milosevic regime.
We express our solidarity, without exception, with all the populations of the region who are suffering the trials and tribulations of a senseless war.
However, we are equally opposed to the logic of the continued and increased use of violence, which not only will not lead to a solution but, on the contrary, stands in the way of resolving the problem.
Furthermore, it is clear that not only have the bombardments not prevented ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, they have helped to create a huge wave of refugees and have contributed to the overall destabilisation of the area.
It is doubtful whether the military action has thus far had any positive outcome, and it is therefore imperative that a political solution to the problem should be found as quickly as possible.
The leading role in this effort must be assumed by the European Union which, together with the United Nations Secretary-General and the United Nations Security Council, must take the necessary actions to resolve the deadlock.
We also believe that a basic condition to finding a solution to the problem is to respect existing borders and the territorial integrity of the states in the region. Only in this way can we prevent a new Balkan crisis.
In addition to finding a political solution to the problem, we regard it as expedient that a new political, economic and humanitarian initiative should be undertaken immediately in relation to the Balkans.
Finally, in the present tragic circumstances, it is imperative that an international conference should be convened for the purpose of improving the coordination of humanitarian aid.
The MEPs of PASOK represent a country which is suffering the direct consequences of the war and which, from the outset of the crisis, has steadfastly come to the aid of the Kosovar Albanians who have been forced to abandon their homes.
We believe that, as the new century dawns, we, as Europeans, must not allow this tragic situation to continue.
The time has come for Europe to take specific initiatives to find a political solution to the problem for the good of all the people in the area.
Milosevic is an intolerable national-communist dictator, which is a particular form of fascism that has grown out of the fall of communism without the emergence of a sustainable democracy.
His policy of repression, separation, persecution and ethnic cleansing is contrary to all the humanitarian principles, ethical conditions and fundamental liberties which underpin democracy in Europe.
The EU's highly regrettable inability to present a united front, using its own resources, including military resources, is demonstrated by the antecedents of the present conflict: the break-up of the former Yugoslavia; unilateral recognition of Croatia and Slovenia; 'ethnic cleansing' and atrocities by Serbs against Croats and Bosnians and then by Croats against Serbs and so forth; and Milosevic's success in staying in power.
But this intervention by NATO, which was decided without full UN backing and has inadequate means to achieve the declared objectives of neutralising the Serbian military's capacity to continue with so-called 'ethnic cleansing', has not only failed to resolve the issue, it has also aggravated all the problems.
Furthermore, the doctrine of the 'right to humanitarian intervention' - which is making headway but has not been recognised by the United Nations - cannot be imposed by force by a powerful and sophisticated military machine destroying not only military targets but also all the economic infrastructure of a country.
At the same time, the creation of a new international legal order with appropriate means for 'humanitarian intervention' is coming up against the implacable opposition of the major powers, including the United States, with regard to reforming the UN, and the opposition of the United States, Russia, France and China to the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
At the same time, the NATO offensive, instead of isolating the dictator Milosevic and his regime, is in fact having the undesirable effect of building up nationalist unity around him against foreign intervention.
To make things worse, this is also having the effect of humiliating Russia, which is a dangerous mistake.
If the public felt sure that there would only be missile and air-based attacks, but no ground-based military forces involving the risk of casualties, it would be able to support the bombing for a certain period as a means of condemning Milosevic's unjust and abominable regime and his atrocities against the Kosovars.
However, even leaving aside the question of dual standards - why not intervene in Turkey, Indonesia, Chechnya, and so on? - this is not the right approach to solving problems of this kind.
Apart from extricating ourselves from this situation without damaging the authority of NATO and the EU, and without condoning the atrocities committed by Milosevic, which call for a diplomatic solution involving the UN and Russia, we above all need to stabilise the entire region.
That is why I have to say that - as has already been demonstrated - the solution was not to enlarge NATO eastwards, but rather to enlarge the EU and adopt a policy of association and economic support which would promote economic and political integration and combat irredentist nationalism.
What is the logic of fighting ETA, Corsican terrorists and the IRA and then supporting the KLA? The EU needs to be able to apply to the Balkans, and to the CEECs in general, the same approach that within its borders has prevented war between Germany and France and has guaranteed peace for over half a century: economic and political integration.
That is the issue.
In addition, but no less important, the decision to launch military attacks with predominantly American forces simply highlights the United States' hegemony and the subordinate role of the EU, which if it continues down this road will never have a common foreign and security policy or common defence.
Accepting this US hegemony represents a serious attack on the European Union, the consolidation of the euro, and the possibility of the EU being on an equal footing with the US within the World Trade Organisation, as demonstrated by the 'banana war' at present.
Instead of this foolish policy, what we need is to lay the foundations for a partnership of equals with the US, which implies the EU being politically autonomous in its dealings with the US.
For all these reasons, I voted against the compromise resolution adopted on Kosovo, and in particular against the immensely hypocritical recital H - which blames the UN for the fact that NATO violated the United Nations Charter - and against paragraph 2, which tries to legitimise the bombing by pretending that it has nothing to do with us.
I did this although I approve of the specific points condemning the Milosevic regime and those on aid for refugees and measures designed to stabilise the region. I also voted against despite several positive amendments tabled by the Greens and by Mrs Theorin.
I did not vote in favour of the European Parliament's resolution on Kosovo because it reflects a sense of self-satisfaction and complete failure to question our actions, which, in my view, does not reflect the seriousness of the situation.
Without going over the past, to see who started what, I should personally like to take four lessons from the situation for tomorrow's Europe.
First, I do not know whether the idea of a multi-ethnic Kosovo ever had any basis in reality, but I am sure that any such idea is dead today, wiped out by NATO's bombing campaign.
It is difficult to imagine how the Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo will be able to live together in the near future.
I do not therefore see how it will be possible to prevent the province from being divided. After all, this will only make us resort to the oldest solution in the world for restoring peace: placing borders between peoples.
Second, tomorrow's Europe must show respect for national sovereignty.
Some may indeed claim that as a system sovereignty is flawed, but the fact is that throughout history it has proved the only system capable of preventing chaos and arbitrary power that are even greater than those that can be attributed, where possible, to a particular form of sovereignty.
Europe, which has a tendency to forget such things, will rediscover this with some bitterness.
Incidentally, we will remember that the Serb regime, however much it might be criticised, had never attacked any of its neighbours or any of our allies, unlike the Iraqi regime.
Third, if Europe wants to impose the rule of law, it must respect it too.
Let us not forget that NATO intervened in the situation without a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, and that the French Parliament was presented with a fait accompli. These procedures may prove too tedious for some but they would undoubtedly have slowed the process down and enabled more dialogue to take place.
They would have also made people realise that in this case the bombings were a simplistic response. They were also a costly response in moral, human and financial terms as well as in terms of the collateral damage that we ourselves will suffer - on top of everything else - without even having come up with a viable solution.
Lastly, we must express our doubts concerning the very principle of a European defence which would involve institutionalising, in military terms, all the operations involving all the Member States. In fact, this is what has just happened to a certain extent with the intervention in Yugoslavia.
Have the results of this intervention been so successful that we feel that this approach should become the rule?
I do not think so. Rather, each people must retain its free will out of respect for the sovereignty and rule of law that I referred to earlier.
If Europe is attacked, then a collective response will take place automatically.
However, if it is not attacked, why should countries allow themselves to become recruited in advance into battles they would not have chosen?
We need to forge alliances and foster cooperation that will generate a joint defence but certainly not a united common defence.
I have abstained on the joint resolution on Kosovo because I have from the outset been opposed to the decision on NATO military intervention, which I believe to be a mistake that could have been avoided.
At Rambouillet in fact, according for example to what was said by a number of influential participants, the kind of political circumstances were established that would have allowed other, in my view effective measures which could have prevented the deaths of so many innocent people and the distressing deportation of hundreds of thousands of Kosovars, the victims of Milosevic's crazed nationalism.
I fully understand that there is a political duty and a duty on the institutions to intervene as matters now stand, and for that reason, while confirming my own position on the conflict, I now support any initiative designed to seek a positive solution from a political, moral and legal standpoint, focusing particularly on the role that the UN, the EU, NATO and Russia can and must fulfil.
I am not and never have been a lover of war and possess nothing of a warmonger in me.
For me, war always represents a failure of the spirit, of human spirit and intelligence.
However, I know, and should like to point out, that we have to know how to wage war when the 'interlocutor/enemy' only understands force and especially if we want to quickly provide diplomacy with the greatest possibility of succeeding.
Let us never forget that diplomacy actually means using dialogue to persuade one of the sides in a conflict to agree to give up some its initial aims, demands and even rights.
The side concerned will only agree to do so if it thinks it might be the target of an attack in the event of a negotiated refusal of this agreement on its part.
This is why, in the case of Serbia and Kosovo, after 10 years of negotiations that were punctuated by human rights violations, rapes, massacres, destruction and deportation - which were always instigated by Milosevic - there was unfortunately no alternative to the use of force to put an end to these crimes.
As a consequence, I approve of NATO's military action.
I also approve of the governmental, non-governmental and European humanitarian activities.
I naturally hope that a European diplomatic solution can be found with the support of the United States and Russia, but it must not allow the principles of democracy and human rights to be abandoned.
It is in this way, and this way alone, that we will be able to guarantee a lasting and just peace.
I should like to end by congratulating the German Presidency on the action it has taken in this crisis, and finally, I should also like to congratulate Emma Bonino, the European Commissioner, on her personal and courageous commitment and her humanitarian passion.
The speech she gave at the end of the debate on Wednesday afternoon was one of the high points of the day.
In the light of such intolerable and inhuman acts, our resolution covers the most essential points.
However, it should not prevent us from questioning the absence of a genuine 'common foreign and security policy' (CFSP) in Europe, which is becoming more regrettable by the day. Nor should it stop us from questioning, in particular, our inability to support the democrats who fought against the barbarous policies of Radovan Karadzic in the past and who are fighting against those of Slobodan Milosevic today.
In spite of all of its promises, Europe did not provide financial and moral support for the democrats in Belgrade when they most needed it, when they were fighting against Milosevic's domestic and foreign policy, and today they are forced to remain silent and hidden.
I am very dismayed to see that at a time when all political parties, with the exception of the extreme right, recognise the new virtues of international law in Pinochet's arrest, we have continued to hold talks with Milosevic, who has more blood on his hands and more 'crimes against humanity' on his conscience.
It is understandable why the International Criminal Court set up in The Hague is unable to judge all the crimes committed in our time after the event has taken place.
But was it necessary to overlook Milosevic's crimes so soon when the Dayton agreements on Bosnia were signed in 1995?
Can we negotiate with Milosevic today when the International Criminal Court has itself just accused him - although not publicly - of crimes against humanity? It is because the Hague Court is dealing with the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia that Karadzic is out of the running and forced into hiding.
I was shocked by the publicity-grabbing handshakes between Mr Primakov and Mgr Tauron, the Vatican envoy, with the criminal Milosevic, while thousands of Kosovars were being expelled from their homes and expatriated by force.
Our resolution makes five or six references to Milosevic, but does not say a single word about Ibrahim Rugova, the head of the Democratic League of Kosovo, winner of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 1998 and one of the Rambouillet negotiators.
On three occasions Yugoslav television cameras have shown him in the process of 'negotiating' with Milosevic.
On seeing these pictures, everyone wondered what freedom Rugova enjoyed, while 'protected' by the Serb police, in a country that has been emptied of its inhabitants.
I should like to have seen our resolution invite Rugova to Brussels or Berlin so that he could freely put across his point of view on the present situation and the solutions he envisages.
I am also concerned about the situation which, through our inaction, is developing on the border between Albania and Kosovo, where the KLA and the Serb army are engaged in repeated clashes which risk spilling over into the countries surrounding Kosovo and eventually into the entire Balkan region.
Can NATO retain its credibility if, on the one hand, it bombs Serb military and economic infrastructures, and on the other hand, lets one of the sides in the conflict recruit freely? NATO cannot play a leading role in the conflict and, according to Le Monde newspaper, be a partner to the KLA, which supplies it with information concerning the Serb positions to be destroyed, be a new international police force with a duty to intervene, and be a humanitarian body.
It needs to decides what it wants to be and stick to that decision.
We should like to voice our indignation today in light of the agony, the misfortune and the suffering of the people of Kosovo, who are victims of the criminal acts that have been planned by the Milosevic regime for some time.
Of course, we did not seize the opportunity offered by the fall of the Berlin Wall to begin to build a wider political and democratic Europe.
Of course, we must regret the failures of the diplomatic efforts made in Rambouillet and in Paris.
However, with the best will in the world, we cannot change the past.
We support the values on which the intervention was based.
We support the rights of humans against the rights of a barbaric and totalitarian state which is forcing a terrorised population into exile, destroying houses, and threatening and killing women and children.
We support freedom and hope that the criminals will be punished. That is why we give our unreserved support to the courageous decision taken by the European Heads of State and Government.
We nonetheless regret that a European presence on the ground was not planned at the same time as the air offensive and that large-scale humanitarian action was not envisaged to cope with the floods of destitute refugees thrown out onto the streets.
It is now vital to implement measures to support Albania, to devise the best way of contributing to the reconstruction of Kosovo, and to provide more general development aid for the rest of the Balkans.
I voted against the motion for a resolution on the situation in Kosovo because it negates international law, and that is both an historical blunder and a serious political error.
Never has a state that is a signatory to the United Nations Charter experienced an act of aggression by the international community such as the one perpetrated for eight years against Yugoslavia at the instigation of the United States and Germany.
A flood of unprecedented media propaganda has undeniably created a completely false impression of the Balkan crisis.
Instead of integrating the former Yugoslavia into the Union and thus promoting its process of political democratisation and economic progress, the European Union, with the European Parliament leading the way, has encouraged its break-up and created - at least indirectly - the conditions for the wars in Croatia and Bosnia in the past and in Serbia today.
We have made Bosnia's borders sacred and prevented the Bosnian Serbs from establishing links once again with Serbia.
Now we are waging war on Serbia to allow the Kosovar Albanians to establish links once again with Albania.
Make of this what you will.
We wanted international society to be subject to the rule of law, and now, in the most humiliating fashion, we are giving our consent to a strike by the Americans who have received no mandate from the United Nations.
By playing with international borders - Yugoslavia's since 1991, and Macedonia's and Albania's in the future - by disregarding the lessons of the past, by pretending to ignore Russia's role in the region, by seeking a military knock-out instead of a political solution, and by trying, in particular, to cut the Serbian people off from Europe, which they have done so much for, we will undoubtedly provoke the very conflagration we claim we want to avoid.
When the time comes, those who are consciously involved in this undertaking will have to face up to their responsibilities.
A majority of Members of the House seem to have little interest in the fact that the NATO bombing and military offensive in Yugoslavia are continuing, causing the destruction of a country and the death of an indiscriminate number of people, both Serbs and Kosovars, men and women, young and old, as was the case when more then a hundred refugees perished. They simply express regret at the loss of human life and the 'collateral damage'.
This majority does not seem to be interested in re-establishing peace to pave the way for political negotiations or an immediate end to military aggression against a sovereign state.
No, this majority prefers to justify NATO's intervention, the subservience of the EU and its Member States in the face of American strategic interests and a lack of respect for order, for international rights and for the United Nations Charter. These Members prefer to defend the escalation of the war and the approval of a political approach which is bound to jeopardise negotiated solutions and the resolution of key issues concerning autonomous regions and their ethnic minorities.
This majority seems to be blind to the fact that NATO's military aggression is the cause of the dramatic deterioration in the humanitarian situation in the Balkans, that it is putting the political future of that region at risk and seriously endangering world peace. They prefer to insist on agreements which have never been accepted by the negotiators, but have simply been imposed by NATO and are jeopardising sovereignty, borders and ancestral facts.
The resolution adopted by Parliament today will go down in the political history of this House as the centrepiece of a total failure of political memory, typical of the political hysteria now being generated by media manipulation in the interests of those who gain from war and aggression, and ignoring the values of peace, justice and the sovereignty of nations.
We intended to vote in favour of Amendment No 19 - we were in fact among those who tabled it - and to abstain on paragraph 5.
I will not be voting in favour of the motion, which is being put forward as a compromise and which is essentially a one-sided and, on a good many points, an inaccurate analysis of the situation. The opinions and proposals it contains do very little to help find a peaceful, political and viable solution to the crisis or even to the particularly tragic problem of refugees.
Furthermore, the motion for a resolution claims that the UN and the Security Council 'could not' (!) be involved in the NATO decision to carry out aerial sorties, whilst it is clear that this decision was taken in violation of the principles of the UN which, in this case, was irreparably shamed and humiliated.
The claim that this treatment of the UN occurred because two Members of the Security Council blocked NATO activities (as they have the right to do under the UN charter) is a monument to high-handedness and a dangerous example of a totalitarian notion: that the UN is useful only when it agrees with NATO.
Given this background, any reference to the idea of an 'international community' is superfluous and unacceptable. Reference to an Atlantic community suffices.
It is verging on the ridiculous for the motion for a resolution (paragraph 3) to call for the implementation of UN resolutions or (paragraph 4) to welcome the 'initiative taken by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan', without making a single reference to the content of this initiative!
The motion for a resolution calls for priority to be given to human rights over national sovereignty concerns.
Who will interpret this just principle and who will implement it? Will it be NATO, with the same lack of credibility and the same self-interest with which it interpreted and 'implemented' the principles of the UN?
Perhaps it will be done by each state according to its own intermittent needs and aspirations? These are the dangerous posturings of hair-brained advisors who, in drafting the motion for a resolution, have trivialised any serious effort to construct a real international order and community that is capable of implementing such principles in a credible and viable way, without selective interventions and the irrational use of violence.
For NATO interventions and the preferences of the authors of the motion for a resolution are indeed selective. If they were not, upon reading the motion for a resolution, fear and terror would have enveloped Turkey, Indonesia, Latin America and Africa.
I am voting against the resolution of the majority in the European Parliament who support the war in Yugoslavia.
Taking a terrifyingly superficial approach and showing a lack of historical understanding and disregard for detail, the European Union governments have taken our countries into this war from which we cannot now withdraw.
It is most distressing that, dancing to the tune of the national governments, the European Parliament too should be acquiescing in this highly dangerous enterprise.
The war unleashed by NATO cannot rely on justification.
There is no legal justification for it.
International rules have been ignored and the international institutions have been sidelined.
And so this is ethical warfare.
If the intention was to invent the principle of selective humanitarian intervention, why strike at Milosevic for ethnic cleansing but ignore the Kurdish question in Turkey and open the door to disturbing scenarios in Europe's trouble spots: Corsica, Ireland and the Basque country?
We now have a 'humanitarian' war, the effect of which has simply been to achieve anti-humanitarian objectives by encouraging the campaign of ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of defenceless civilians in Serbia and Kosovo.
' Collateral damage' - that is the language NATO uses to describe the loss of civilian life: for centuries to come, the Balkans will have to endure this so-called collateral damage, given that the depleted uranium contained in NATO weapons has already contaminated Yugoslav territory, thereby automatically preventing the Kosovars from returning to their country unless they want to risk sickness, deformity and death from radioactive contamination.
From that point of view, no European country is safe: if the wind gets up, the ultra-fine uranium powder will be transported to Italy, Germany, Hungary and the whole of Europe, with the same deadly effects that occurred in Saudi Arabia as a result of the pollution caused in Iraq during the Gulf War.
The war that NATO is waging against Serbia is a failure.
Some claim that it amounts to a failure on the part of 'Europe' and it would certainly appear that unleashing a war under NATO command suggests an 'absence of Europe'.
These people solely lay the blame for the situation on 'American imperialism' which they believe has forced the allies into action and is set to keep them under its iron rule.
Indeed, US military intervention is not without its ulterior motives.
We are well aware of Washington's desire to establish the Alliance's credibility following the disappearance of the common enemy that gave rise to it.
What is more, the way in which the Americans behaved at the Rambouillet talks gives the impression that they did not do everything possible to help the parties reach an agreement.
However, to merely focus on this issue would be to forget the fact that NATO's military action against Yugoslavia is first of all the result of a unanimous European will, which was apparent at the Berlin summit and which was welcomed and hailed by federalists as the veritable birth of the CFSP.
Waging war under the guise of NATO does not therefore reveal an absence of European policy, but rather a flawed European policy.
It is not an isolated action.
This political error is entrenched in a rationale that goes back to the choices made by an entire generation of European leaders following the fall of the Berlin Wall.
They chose a small western Europe that is rigid and inaccessible, and whose characteristics were defined by the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties. They rejected the idea of a wider, flexible and welcoming Europe that could hope to include all those countries in Central and Eastern Europe that had just regained their sovereignty after decades of totalitarianism.
Instead of inventing a Europe with variable geometry that offered new opportunities to all of the continent's states to coexist through cooperation, these European leaders stubbornly pursued the Monnet method, with its established dogma, without realising that it was no longer the most appropriate way of uniting the very diverse countries of the new European continent.
As regards the Union, there has been considerable reluctance to admit that we needed to seriously reconsider the objectives and methods of European integration.
The 'Monnet method' has been adhered to in the belief that our economies must be united in order to allow us to imperceptibly abandon our political sovereignty.
When applied to the countries of Eastern Europe, this boils down to postponing indefinitely their membership of the club.
All we have done is merely offer the countries of Central and Eastern Europe a waiting room and a timetable for admission which is constantly pushed further into the distance like a mirage, leading to exclusion, discrimination, frustration and humiliation.
The promotion of this outmoded notion of Europe has discouraged, weakened and marginalised the leaders in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, who have emerged as a result of dissidence, and the reformers who now look to us for answers. It has also restored prestige in men who have emerged from totalitarian regimes, of which Milosevic is the archetype.
The failure to create the permanent forum for a wider Europe, that would have enabled us to immediately engage in open cooperation with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe on such key issues as security and foreign policy, shows that our continent is once again becoming divided.
The war in Yugoslavia is the tragic symbol of this new division in Europe: it embodies it and accentuates it.
We are actually seeing a Slavonic Europe seeking to organise itself without us, a Ukraine that has decided to become a nuclear power after it initially decided against doing so, and a Yugoslavia that has adopted a draft Slavonic union with Russia and Belarus.
We are also seeing Serbs rallying round Milosevic in the name of their violated homeland - in spite of the fact that most of them once rejected him - and the manifestation of an orthodox sense of solidarity in their disapproval of the Atlantic military action.
Today the fruits of NATO's military intervention are particularly bitter.
The Slavonic and orthodox worlds are moving further away, whereas they should constitute a vital component of the continental Europe we must build today.
The legitimacy of borders is being called into question.
The Balkans are at each other's throats and we are seeing two Europes re-emerge.
We must put an end to this spiral of destabilisation at all costs and as quickly as possible.
This does not simply mean stopping the bombs that give rise to hatred; we also have to develop a new concept of Europe, one that is applicable to the whole of the continent.
This should involve a family of nations called on to live side by side in a spirit of trust, with their identities restored and recognised, and with mutual respect.
This vital redefinition of our concept of Europe will be the best possible preventive policy.
Despite containing a number of useful recommendations, the motion for a resolution tabled by various groups does not look at the situation in this context, although it is essential.
Indeed, by proposing in recital J to weaken and exclude the notion of national sovereignty which, however flawed it may be, still constitutes the fundamental regulatory principle of our international community, it introduces an element that would only have extremely destabilising and disturbing consequences for international life.
That is why we were unable to vote in favour of the resolution.
I supported Amendment No 3 and believe that there is a strong case for deploying ground troops to protect Kosovo.
I believe it is also necessary to consider establishing an independent Kosovo.
However, although I have supported firm action against the Milosevic government for more than seven years, I am concerned that innocent casualties should be kept to a minimum.
I therefore voted for Amendment No 10, expressing concern about the use by NATO of weapons with depleted uranium.
These continue to have horrific consequences in Iraq, with some reports suggesting a 70 % increase in Iraq's rate of cancer and malignant births.
Paragraph 13 calls on the EU 'to step up efforts to provide information as to the populations of Serbia and Montenegro'.
If more efforts had been made in this direction when Milosevic first started his aggressive policies, the Serbian opposition to Milosevic would have been strengthened and many lives might have been saved.
I wish to stress the urgent need for NATO intervention in the region, to safeguard the fundamental rights of the people of Kosovo, and to point out that this tragedy could have been avoided had the European Union long since been a genuine united political entity as well as an economic and monetary union.
If at the beginning of the Balkans crisis, dating back to the early 1990s, Europe had acted with common accord and with the courage to take unequivocal decisions as Yugoslavia began to break up, if even recently Europe had presented a unified and united front at the recent Rambouillet summit, we would not perhaps have witnessed the massacres and ethnic cleansing currently under way.
I would further ask for the European Parliament to sponsor an initiative to show solidarity, including financial solidarity, with the people of Apulia, who have not only generously taken in and continue taking in tens of thousands of Albanian and Kosovar refugees, but are paying the high price of the war given the logistical difficulties they face as a result of the closure of the region's airports and the impact on the whole of Apulia's tourist industry as tourists cancel their reservations and decide not to visit the region.
That concludes voting time.
The remaining votes will take place after the votes on topical and urgent subjects.
The sitting was suspended at 1.45 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Transport infrastructure charging (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the report (A4-0111/99) by Mrs Schmidbauer, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the White Paper on fair payment for infrastructure use: a phased approach to a common transport infrastructure charging framework in the EU (COM(98)0466 - C4-0514/98).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, no one will deny that the development of transport has a considerable impact on the environment.
All countries are faced with the problems of nuisance, pollution or even congestion in city centres, so the desire to internalise the external costs incurred by the various forms of transport is perfectly justified.
That is why we support the Commission's document. However, since it deals with a key issue that has potentially far-reaching consequences, it needs to be approached carefully and pragmatically.
We are all aware of the importance of transport, particularly in terms of economic development.
Yet we must also guard against any excesses in this area.
I would like to state that we disagree with two points in Mrs Schmidbauer's report, namely, the proposal to include car traffic in the charging system and the taxation of kerosene.
As to the first point, I am not convinced of the relevance of this proposal, at least in terms of the charging system that is suggested in the Commission document.
I do not believe that the problems caused by car traffic relate to the White Paper, as it focuses more specifically on public transport, be it passenger or goods transport.
I also think that it would be better to deal with car traffic in a specific context.
As far as my second point is concerned, I believe that we should not be too hasty in legislating on the taxation of kerosene.
Instead, we should wait until the international agreement on air transport has been concluded so that it can be taken into consideration in all future legislation.
I feel that it would be best to leave things at that for now and to keep to the Commission's proposals.
Mr President, I generally refrain from using my precious time to congratulate the rapporteur because this has really just become a habit, but I should like to do so on this occasion, despite the fact that she has unfortunately left the Chamber, because I am extremely pleased with her report.
In my view this is an extremely important proposal from the Commission, and Mrs Schmidbauer has written a very good report on it.
There are two important points here as far as my group is concerned.
First, the principle.
As everyone knows, the Greens have for many years been strongly in favour of passing on the costs of using infrastructure to the consumers, because transport is currently too cheap and places too great a burden on the environment.
There are also practical reasons why I am pleased to see this proposal, despite the fact that, as Mrs Schmidbauer's report points out, there is clearly too little money being invested in infrastructure.
Overall spending is falling precisely when more money is needed, particularly in our view for investment in rail infrastructure.
This is why it is only right and proper that the users of the existing infrastructure should help to pay for extending it.
Of course, there are all sorts of practical problems involved and there is naturally opposition to the idea, as we have seen in the Netherlands, especially if it is not made clear that the investment and charges are needed to keep densely populated areas livable and accessible.
We have two other minor comments on this report.
The first concerns paragraph 15, which states that private car traffic must be involved in the proposals as far as possible.
In my view this is too weak, since it is actually absolutely necessary.
Private car traffic is responsible for a good deal of the marginal costs involved, and I think it is unfair that goods transport alone should be made to pay the price.
Finally, paragraph 10 of the report proposes to offset the costs involved by reducing other taxes on transport. I do not think this is the right approach.
I still think that transport is too cheap and that hauling goods backwards and forwards across Europe is still made too attractive.
We should be trying to make a fresh start here by doing more than just passing on the capital costs of infrastructure, for example, even in the future.
Mr President, in economic dealings, the customer usually has to pay a price for the goods or services he obtains.
There is nothing wrong with this, and it is a rule that I think the whole of society accepts.
But when it comes to using infrastructure, the link is often not obvious enough.
The total costs of transport and the prices charged in many cases bear no relation to each other, and the Commission proposal is a laudable attempt to improve this situation.
However, it is very questionable whether the proposed method of charging - the marginal social costs - will cover all the costs involved.
The Commission is obviously trying to be fairly straightforward here.
A number of Members have stressed that the introduction of a system of charges must not be allowed to lead to higher costs for the transport user.
I would not go as far as this.
The 'user pays' principle must come first, even if this means increasing prices.
We must ensure that the costs are borne by the transport end-users, not just by the operators.
If certain users are excluded from the system of charges, this will inevitably mean that the total costs cannot be completely covered.
I therefore entirely agree with Amendment No 7 by Mr Lagendijk.
The proposed charging method must produce a situation where the forms of transport that are least harmful to the environment have a greater share of the whole transport market, and it must therefore be possible to apply an amended version of the 'user pays' principle.
Mr President, it is an acknowledged fact that external costs are increasing dramatically in the transport sector.
Apportioning these costs to the respective transport modes therefore makes good sense.
Most relevant in this regard are the costs of accidents, where we have seen steep rises within the different modes over recent decades.
A variety of costs can be identified when considering the causes of environmental deterioration.
We need to assess the impact of noise, for example, and of ground, air and water pollution.
The problems are growing in these areas.
Difficulties begin in earnest when it comes to evaluating such costs.
Major differences exist at present between the EU Member States; both the White Paper and the report highlight this.
Vehicle tax can be as high as EUR 3 000 per annum, for example. There are nine different charging systems for rail transport, with the level of cost coverage ranging from zero to 100 %.
Not least for reasons of competition, it would be desirable for the Union to have a common approach to cost coverage for all the different modes of transport.
Everyone would surely agree on the need to seek a fair basis for calculating Eurovignette charges, motorway tolls and so on.
What is more, in the light of developments over recent years, we now have greater scope to introduce uniform technical systems - applicable in all the Member States - for example using telematics.
Such possibilities were simply not available on the same scale in the past.
This all sounds very positive, of course.
And there is undoubtedly good reason to try to harmonise rules and provisions within the transport sector, not least in order to ensure that the single market operates better in future than it does today.
We need to strive for fair competition between all modes of transport, with a level playing field in terms of competition between the Member States.
The EU can see to some of this, but a great deal - possibly the major part - lies in the hands of the Member States themselves.
Some countries - my own included - levy considerably higher taxes and charges than others in several areas.
Until people take this fact on board, we are never going to have fair conditions of competition.
The proposal endorsed by a majority of the Committee on Transport and Tourism could well trigger a further increase in the costs affecting the transport sector.
Private cars could lose out badly, and certainly will do if the rapporteur's line is followed. This is quite unacceptable.
The PPE Group has tabled a number of amendments to counter such effects, but so far we have received no support.
Unless such support is forthcoming today, I can see no way of backing the committee's proposal as it has been presented.
Mr President, my colleague Manuel Porto could not be here this afternoon and I wish to speak on his behalf.
We welcome this further initiative by the Commission and Barbara Schmidbauer's report on sharing the costs of transport infrastructure.
This is a field where there is clearly no doubt about the jurisdiction of the European Union, particularly in relation to the distortions that occur when different criteria are applied from one country to another, no matter whether this happens close to or far from borders, as in some countries users pay for infrastructure through fuel taxes and tolls, and in others it is financed from the public purse.
It is hard to find fault with the philosophy of also recovering external transport costs.
As these are very high for road transport, including noise, atmospheric pollution and accidents, as demonstrated in the diagrams presented by the rapporteur, there is every justification for making users pay more. In fact this amounts to extending existing practice, whereby road users - via fuel and vehicle taxes and tolls - pay twice the amount spent on roads, whereas railway users pay 56 % and users of inland waterways pay 18 % of the relevant expenditure.
Apart from this being fair, it also meets the desirable objective of providing an incentive for shifting demand towards modes of transport with lower external cost factors.
However, to avoid the risk of the public being unfairly penalised, it is essential to encourage immediate improvements in such types of transport. In my country, for example, this applies to tracks for high-speed trains within the country and links to other European countries.
Furthermore, it is important to ensure proper distribution of the costs of each mode of transport and route, in a way that is fair and does not distort competition.
So we totally support the rapporteur's call for private car use to be properly taken into account when distributing the costs of road transport.
It is also important not to end up with the same situation as in my country, where virtually identical motorways and bridges are subject to widely varying tolls - or none at all - depending on the political clout of the region they serve.
In this context it is particularly shocking that as a result tolls are being scrapped in metropolitan areas populated by people with higher incomes and where it should be important to discourage the use of private vehicles, whilst they are being maintained in less privileged areas, where there are no demonstrations or electoral backlash, and are raised every year.
Automatic charging systems like the one on the 'Via Verde ' in Portugal avoid potential problems with tailbacks.
Another point is that for perfectly understandable social reasons, it would be possible to set an upper limit on monthly payments for anyone who needs to use this infrastructure on a daily basis.
Mr President, on behalf of Mr Neil Kinnock I am pleased to react to this report and start by welcoming the support offered in the report and also acknowledging the concerns expressed.
I feel certain that we will be able to address these concerns as we implement the principles and develop concrete proposals.
On behalf of Mr Kinnock I should like to thank wholeheartedly Mrs Schmidbauer for her very constructive report and her support for the Commission's approach in the White Paper.
Let me make a few comments about the points of concern.
Firstly, yes, the timetable for implementation is ambitious but we are well on the way, with the Eurovignette agreement near conclusion, railway directives before the Council, the port-cost survey with Member States, airport-charging proposals, aviation charges under review, the Committee of Government Experts having met and commissioned the high-level group to report on cost-estimation methods.
Indeed, we are almost ahead of schedule!
Whilst we are still using more specific directives, the Commission will, of course, ensure that no inconsistencies or perverse effects result from this approach.
The White Paper also stresses the need for balanced implementation, in particular between road and rail sectors.
It is for this reason that the railway package provides explicitly for subsidies to railways where there are unpaid external costs in competing modes, such as roads.
It is a good example of how the Commission is avoiding inconsistencies in the implementation process by clearly identifying a problem and offering a practical solution.
The White Paper addressed equity and distributional issues as well as the problems faced in peripheral areas.
Much of this discussion applies equally to enlargement issues and candidate countries, and I feel sure that we will be able to consider these aspects when we further develop our proposals.
Member States are encouraged to incorporate the principles of the White Paper within their own charging schemes for private car transport in harmony with any EU-wide developments.
Whilst some Community legislation applies to private car users - such as fuel duties, excise duties, VAT - our current approach to charging is focused on commercial traffic, because that is a problem which can be addressed successfully only by a Community regulatory framework, safeguarding the functioning of the internal transport market while, at the same time, fully integrating environmental objectives.
Private car use raises a host of regional and local issues which, in accordance with the subsidiarity principle, call for a somewhat different type of approach, which we have been developing primarily through the action programme for the citizens' network.
I am convinced that at this stage of Community policy-making the differentiated approach will be both the most effective and will rightly respect the legitimate roles of transport policy-makers at other political levels.
Finally, I should like to thank you for the support the report offers.
We all know that this area, pricing issues - be they in road, rail, aviation or maritime sectors - is fraught with obstacles and progress, especially at the political level, can be painfully slow.
To have the support of Parliament on such subjects is therefore particularly welcome.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken this evening at 5.30 p.m.
Maximum authorised dimensions and weights in international traffic
The next item is the second report (A4-0114/99) by Mr van Dam, on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Council Directive 96/53/EC, laying down for certain road vehicles circulating within the Community the maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and the maximum authorised weights in international traffic (COM(98)0414 - C4-0486/98-98/0227(SYN)).
Mr President, Commissioner, on the way here this morning, various colleagues said to me 'this is your big day'.
Normally it is indeed a pleasure when you have a report on the agenda, but no rapporteur likes to have the mixed feelings that I am experiencing at the moment because of the annoying stalemate in which we find ourselves.
Two months ago, we had another debate on combined transport here in the Chamber.
The vote which followed confirmed that the European Parliament could not agree to the Commission's proposal to exempt combined transport from the generally accepted 40-tonne weight limit. As a result, the proposal was referred back to the Committee on Transport.
Shortly afterwards there were consultations between members of the Transport Committee and representatives of the Commission, and after a subsequent discussion in the committee I concluded that the majority were still in favour of maintaining the position adopted two months ago.
Formally speaking this is the correct line to take, since the Commission has not come up with any new or amended proposals since Parliament rejected its original one.
So in formal terms, there is no reason for Parliament to revise its position of two months ago.
However, as rapporteur I can tell you that the Commission has not just been sitting on its hands.
Both in its consultations with Parliament's representatives and at the Transport Committee meeting, it indicated that it was prepared to re-examine those sections on which Parliament had insurmountable objections.
Because of the limited time available, it has not been able to produce any proposals on paper, but it has become clear that the Commission is favourably disposed and appears prepared to take Parliament's objections on board and amend the current proposal accordingly.
According to my information, there is also almost unanimous support in the Council for increasing the maximum weight.
Only the United Kingdom appears to oppose this, but if there is an exemption for islands it should be able to benefit from this in view of its island status.
Given the present circumstances, it is difficult for me to vote for or against the resolution by the Transport Committee.
I would not vote against because the situation has changed since two months ago, but I also would not vote in favour because the Commission's approach deserves a better response than for Parliament simply to dig in its heels.
I have to say, therefore, that I find it difficult to understand the hard line that some of my colleagues are pursuing.
In my view, there is no doubt that we can find a way out of this impasse through negotiation, but as rapporteur I had no choice but to represent the view of the majority in the Committee on Transport.
I would urge them to keep an open mind on the Council's position and the Commission's amendments, and I am confident that this issue can be brought to a successful conclusion which is acceptable to all parties at the start of the new parliamentary term.
Mr President, first of all, I believe we have to thank Mr van Dam for stepping into the breach here and taking on the thankless task of continuing this report.
Unfortunately, I believe - and I am not the first to say this - that we have the classic case here in which a principle that we welcome and support, namely combined transport, in other words the effort to shift traffic away from the roads and onto the railways and waterways, has been dealt a severe blow by a single inappropriate measure.
That was the criticism last time and, sad to say, nothing has changed.
I do not think it makes any sense to create a rule which virtually makes every ban on Sunday and night haulage negotiable.
Nor does it make any more sense to allow a 44-tonne weight limit without any other restrictions at all.
We have criticised this several times. We rejected it here in Parliament.
The Council, for its part, did not take up Parliament's proposal on the inclusion of tax incentives to promote combined transport.
The fact is that we rejected this on the last occasion.
The Commission has had the opportunity to make changes, as Mr van Dam rightly said, because it is after all the initiator of the legislative process and can revise its own proposals.
We in Parliament made our position perfectly clear. We said we rejected this blanket solution and asked the Commission to come back with concrete proposals involving tighter rules.
And I have to say to the Commissioner, even if he is not here at the moment, that sending a letter to the committee is not a proposal.
It is not enough!
I shall make no bones about this: a letter does not suffice as notice of intent.
That is why we await a more concrete set of proposals from the Commission.
I believe Parliament is disposed to support the principle of combined transport. But if no proposals are forthcoming, we can do nothing.
For that reason, we can only endorse the concluding words of the report: '... rejects the Commission proposal and calls on the Commission to withdraw its proposal'.
That is the position. There is nothing else we can do at the present time.
The Commission may be slightly incapacitated because of the current situation, but we hope that it will be able, as soon as possible after the start of the next legislative term, to present some reasonable proposals that we can discuss.
That would enable us to see this business through quite quickly, and there will be no need for us to make full use of our speaking time, because this issue practically generates its own momentum.
Mr President, the van Dam report, previously the Wijsenbeek report, is running the risk of becoming another Tolman report on isoglucose, in other words an institutional first.
First of all, Parliament and the Commission originally had diametrically opposite views on this issue, and I have to say that when I was rapporteur, I entirely agreed with the Commission.
Now we have to find a solution.
If it is held over until after the elections, it will come under the codecision procedure.
But what is doubly remarkable is that under a heading which does not exist in the Treaties, a current affairs issue on which Parliament and the Commission have opposing views, Mr Kinnock, should have come before the Council unamended.
If it were not for the fact that there was no question at all of unanimity in the Council, not even unanimity minus one, then the Council might well have agreed with the Commission and might have accepted the decision, despite Parliament's very different views.
I therefore feel it is time to try to find some common solutions calmly, quietly and through consultation.
As Mr Piecyk said, we agree that combined transport needs to be promoted and that greater use must be made of the inland waterways and railways.
It seems that all we disagree on are those few tonnes, although we all know how much discussion there has been on excess weight and how many exceptions have been agreed over the weekend.
We have to find a middle ground here.
Mr President, I am by no means an expert on road transport, but I have to say that I agree with the previous speaker, Mr Wijsenbeek, because I have heard some terrible complaints from people who are not just professionally involved with road transport but work with it every day.
How can Europe claim to champion the free movement of goods when the axle weights of lorries are different in the Netherlands, Belgium and France? The permitted weight per axle is different again, so that a lorry travelling through three European countries will either be breaking the law somewhere or else running itself into the ground financially.
Moreover, if it has unloaded half its load, it will no longer be complying with the requirements that it met when it started out. Not to mention the rules on Sunday and holiday driving, which are also completely different.
I live in a country where the volume of freight transport is extremely heavy. I know that lorries are allowed to drive around quite happily in Belgium, for example, whereas the same might not be true in neighbouring countries.
I ask you, is this what Europe is all about?
Is this all we have to show for our much-vaunted cooperation and coordination? I have to say that European hauliers have quite enough to worry about when you think that, for example, Portuguese haulage companies drive goods round our countries at prices that are far below the average which our hauliers have to pay their workers.
The same could be said of British haulage companies.
So as you will gather, I support all calls for genuine coordination and I will find it hard to justify myself to voters in the forthcoming elections who confront me with issues such as this to which I cannot give a proper answer.
Even though, the political circumstances being what they are, the present Commission is only supposed to be dealing with current affairs, in this particular case I am dealing with something 'in transit' on behalf of Mr Kinnock.
The discussions that have taken place with the rapporteur and other Members since the debate on the van Dam report, previously the Wijsenbeek report, at the February part-session have convinced me, or rather Mr Kinnock, that we all agree on the need to make combined transport more attractive and competitive.
We want to encourage a shift from road transport to other forms of transport that are more sustainable, safer and more energy-efficient, while at the same time giving transport users more choice.
As an important element of these joint efforts, the Commission is proposing to enable transport operators in the Community to use a maximum lorry weight of 44 tonnes, but only for road transport which forms part of a combined transport operation and only for the relatively short road legs of the combined transport journey.
Of course, this is not the only way to make this potentially important transport sector more competitive, but I want to make a significant contribution by improving the conditions under which the road legs of combined transport journeys are carried out, not least by reducing the often unreasonably high costs involved.
If we could reduce the costs by 10 % for heavy goods transport, it would be an important incentive for potential combined transport users.
Experience in a number of Member States has shown this to be the case.
Seven of the Member States already allow a weight of 44 tonnes or more for all road transport, while others allow 44 tonnes for part of a combined transport operation.
As honourable Members are undoubtedly aware, the Member States can prescribe a maximum weight of 44 tonnes for three-axle vehicles forming part of a five- or six-axle combination to prevent such vehicles from causing too much damage to the roads.
Clearly, this proposal is not intended to give road transport an unfair advantage, quite the reverse.
It is specifically designed to influence the behaviour of road transport operators by persuading them to use other forms of transport. The net result will be that a greater volume of goods will be transported by rail, inland waterway and short-haul transport.
As Mr Kinnock pointed out to Mr van Dam in his letter of 11 March, he genuinely believes that we need to translate the consensus we have achieved on the need to promote combined transport into specific, practical measures.
In our view we need at this stage, as someone said earlier, to consider more restrictive weight rules for island Member States than those originally proposed by the Commission, for the obvious reason that their links with the rest of the market are not just by road.
In addition, it also makes sense to examine ways of determining whether a road journey genuinely forms part of a combined transport operation.
On behalf of Mr Kinnock let me say - including to Mr Wijsenbeek - that I hope we can find universally acceptable solutions on the basis of compromise proposals.
Finally, I should like to thank the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the rapporteur, Mr van Dam, for all their efforts on this very complicated subject.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken this evening at 5.30 p.m.
Electronic money and its use
The next item is the report (A4-0156/99) by Mrs Thors, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on theI.
Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the taking up, the pursuit and the prudential supervision of the business of electronic money institutions (COM(98)0461 - C4-0531/98-98/0252(COD)); II. Proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 77/780/EEC on the co-ordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the taking up and pursuit of business of credit institutions (COM(98)0461 - C4-0532/98-98/0253(COD))Draftsman (Hughes Procedure): Torres Marques (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this report deals as you know with electronic money.
Obviously, it is not easy for us to tell today how much this type of money will be used in the future.
Today we basically have two ways of paying electronically: using 'smart' cards, onto which we can 'load' money; or by 'loading' money onto our computers via various programs and systems which enable us to pay over the Internet.
It is worth pointing out that these two methods of payment have failed to take off in the manner predicted a few years ago.
I hope that we will soon be bold enough to make the necessary great leap forward.
Along with many others, I believe that the euro will open up fantastic prospects once it actually exists in physical form.
And using the methods I have been describing, we can in practice already make use of the euro now. From the point of view of ordinary people, this lends reality to the new currency.
Of course, European legislation will be required in this area.
Harmonisation is necessary in view of the single market and the fact that, to a large extent, we live in a common currency area.
There is no contradiction here with the subsidiarity principle.
The apple of discord when discussing this directive has been whether the holding and issuing of electronic money should be limited to banks.
We know that certain Member States sought such a restriction, whereas others did not want there to be any rules at all.
I am pleased to see that a large majority in Parliaments Committee on Legal Affairs does not wish to see a restriction on the right to issue.
That is the correct approach, in my view; in this way, we can promote the development of new means of payment.
Many operators - among them telecommunications companies - are currently bringing new means of payment onto the market.
This will mean new possibilities for consumers, and the resulting competition should benefit everyone.
This directive deals mainly with how the issuers of electronic money are to be supervised and how we can ensure that they are fully viable and liquid.
The Committee on Legal Affairs does not have many amendments to put forward here.
We did however note with disappointment that the consumer aspects have not been covered in this directive.
Parliament has observed on many occasions that consumer concerns have been ignored when the Commission has submitted proposals on financial services.
We would seriously urge the Commission actively to monitor the situation with regard to consumer protection and to keep an eye on how the recommendations on the security and reliability of such means of payment are being followed. As soon as possible, we need to see the appropriate measures put in place to protect consumers.
It is unfortunately likely to be necessary to introduce further rules governing liability in respect of abuse and breaches of the law in connection with electronic money.
A horizontal directive, focusing on more general gaps in regulation in the sector, should be able to remedy the situation, .
The Committee on Legal Affairs was broadly united in supporting the proposal that consumers should be entitled to redeem electronic money. I hope that the Commission can go along with this.
If such money is to become a feature of our everyday lives, we must of course be able to spend it.
One way of achieving this is by ensuring that different payment devices and systems can handle all the various cards and programs.
That is what is meant by the high-sounding term 'interoperability'. This can only be achieved if sound business conditions are applied.
I myself remain convinced that the sector itself will soon launch a series of measures of its own. The duty of the public authorities is to guarantee the creation of open systems.
The Commission can exercise oversight here under its competition powers. We also want the Commission to make sure that any standards produced for this sector do not exclude certain operators.
My group cannot, however, support the proposals in Amendments Nos 12 and 13, which call for separate directives in order to safeguard interoperability.
May I also point out that we have tabled a number of technical amendments which we hope will clarify the scope of the directive, making it easier in future to amend the legislation.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would first like to say that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy is pleased with the two directives that have been presented to us, as we believe that extending the provisions to non-bank issuers of electronic money is a good way of stimulating competition in this area whilst improving the quality of service offered and the prices charged to consumers.
I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Thors, on her report and to welcome the fact that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has taken on board nearly all the proposals of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in its report.
This means that I do not have to repeat many of the points the committee made, as they have already been dealt with, and I will therefore use my speaking time to stress some of the problems we face, which are a matter of great concern to us.
Firstly, there is the problem of interoperability.
We think it is extremely important to have an interoperable system of using electronic money between different countries, but this interoperability involves having a card that everyone accepts.
Mrs Thors and I have been informed that the CIP very recently reached agreement on a card, but we were also told, during a hearing that we organised, that it could take 18 months before this type of card comes into use.
Well, Commissioner, we on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs think that the various forms of electronic money are of vital importance for implementing the euro as quickly as possible before the coins and notes come into circulation. This could be either in the form of virtual money stored on computers for electronic commerce or in the form of interoperable cards.
This 18 month lead-time will yet again delay an opportunity for the public to use the euro, which seems rather worrying to us.
We also find it rather worrying that each country has its own inter-bank system so that there is no internal market in banking systems. Similarly, we are concerned that payments effected within the internal market are treated as international payments, with all the costs that implies.
We have therefore made some proposals on this subject, namely Amendments Nos 12 and 13, which Mrs Thors has already referred to.
We have tabled these amendments because we consider it essential, Commissioner, for the Commission to bring forward draft directives on this subject, so that there is a set of regulations which everyone recognises and which provides a guarantee for every citizen in Europe.
Mr President, I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Thors, for her excellent report on an important subject.
This report should be seen in conjuction with Mr Ullmann's report on electronic signatures and my own report, which will come up next month, on electronic commerce.
The Internet and methods of working electronically are a way forward for the world and the European Union.
This is a growth area and should create a large number of jobs.
At a briefing yesterday, Commissioner Flynn said there were around 100 000 job vacancies in the European Union in this area.
It is important that we get sensible rules that will encourage growth of the Internet and electronic commerce.
Electronic money is not used very much at present, but I am sure that it will become very important in the future.
The basis of Mrs Thors' report will encourage this growth.
We need to ensure that we establish rules at European level that encourage the use of computers and do not stifle economic development.
I thank the rapporteur.
I shall be supporting her report.
Mr President, this issue always seems to create confusion.
Because the electronic world is unfamiliar, we imagine that this is all about some sort of virtual money.
There is no such thing.
What we are really dealing with here is a new way of undertaking and recording credit transactions.
Like the assignat in revolutionary France, which marked the introduction of credit money, electronic money has brought new forms of fraud and new ways for governments to circumvent budgetary restrictions.
We really must find common rules.
It is perhaps important to point out that this must not be taken as a pretext for returning to a type of situation in which private trading houses control the money supply.
In the high middle ages, one of the main instruments that was used to promote economic development throughout Europe and to overcome the problems connected with private money was the introduction of silver coinage, guaranteed by the monarch.
By the same token, I believe there are three demands to be made, and indeed they are made in the report: universality must mean interoperability, redeemability and free use.
Money can be made from the related financial services.
All of this must be organised in the euro framework; it must not be based on the harsh terrain within which the banking and financial services sector still operates.
If that condition is met, important avenues will open up here, and they must be pursued.
But we do need to cast off the Klondike mentality which sees electronic operations as the key to a great financial boom, just as the assignat was expected to be.
The outward token of credit is not a collateral loan. Merely promising to honour a loan is not honouring the promise, which is something that has to take place in the future.
That is why the whole area of the prudential supervision of issuing companies is actually a key element without which the realm of electronic money cannot develop in an accountable way.
I should also like to remind the House of our urgent need to act in the field of banking supervision too.
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mrs Thors on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and Mr Torres Marques on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
They have made an extremely valuable contribution to the review of these proposals.
I must stress that the issuance of electronic money is just one element in the far broader context of electronic commerce systems and, within those systems, electronic payments themselves.
The Commission thinks it right to tackle the horizontal issues common to this broader context with horizontal instruments and measures, rather than applying restricted solutions limited to just one service.
The proposals for directives that we are discussing in fact relate to a specific aspect which has its own special features, requiring a targeted legislative response.
By this I mean the problem - and it alone is the problem - of the minimum prudential rules which, by ensuring that electronic currency institutions are stable and sound, will open the way to mutual recognition of authorisations and controls, and hence genuine free movement of operators and services.
You will know that traditional credit institutions are already themselves authorised to issue electronic money, in accordance with the whole array of banking directives, and this new service of theirs may therefore make use of the European passport.
These two proposals are designed to open up to other operators, within a neutral competitive framework, the new market for the issuance of electronic money, taking into account both the concern to see proper competition develop in the sector and the situation as it currently exists in a number of Member States.
The report from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is largely positive in its assessment of the two proposals and includes amendments which improve their clarity.
It is a view that I welcome and for which I am grateful.
But I do not think that two other different issues - which I consider to be extremely sensitive - can usefully be tackled in this directive, namely the concerns voiced in the report in relation to interoperability and redemption of the stored money.
As I have said, the Commission is already looking at these important issues within a broader framework and has undertaken to deal with them appropriately, including, among other things, all the expectations relating to bearer protection.
And so although we are today unable to accept the amendments in this area, this is only because the Commission does not consider the two proposals under discussion to be the appropriate context.
Nonetheless, we agree with the analyses of the problems that will have to be resolved in the appropriate context and manner.
Let me mention briefly the individual amendments.
The Commission is able to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 14, 20, 21 and 22 to the proposal for a directive on the electronic money institutions.
Amendment No 3 asks the Commission to draw up a specific directive on the contractual relationship between issuers and bearers of electronic money.
As the House will be aware, in 1997 the Commission adopted a recommendation in this regard and we are now looking at its application: it would therefore be premature to undertake to adopt a proposal for a directive at this juncture, as the situation cannot be properly assessed until the current review is completed.
That is why we are unable to accept the amendment.
Amendments Nos 4 to 13, with the exception of Amendment No 10, concern the problems linked to the payments system, in particular the existence and administration of inter-bank systems, interoperability and access to them.
As I have said, these issues are being dealt with horizontally, within a more comprehensive framework, as part of other work in which the Commission is engaged, and we therefore cannot agree to these amendments.
Similar considerations apply to Amendments Nos 10, 18 and 19 to the proposal for a directive on the electronic money institutions, and Amendments Nos 1 and 2 to the other directive.
They relate to the problem of redeeming stored electronic money.
This problem is also being tackled as part of the review of the application of the recommendation on the relationship between issuers and bearers.
Furthermore, the Commission has already undertaken to monitor consistently all the problems concerning bearer protection in relation to electronic money, and these problems naturally extend further than the issue of redemption alone.
I must repeat that the Commission is very sensitive to these aspects and open to many of the solutions set out in the amendments, but we do not believe the approach and the legislative instrument used to be appropriate, and therefore feel that we cannot accept these amendments.
The Commission also agrees with what is proposed in Amendment No 15, but has to enter a reservation with regard to its exact wording and the order of the individual paragraphs.
Amendment No 16 is also acceptable, but it is helpful to place the adverb 'only' before 'references', so as to avoid creating confusion with references contained in other instruments.
That, I believe is the intention of the author of the amendment.
Clearly, the Commission accepts Amendment No 17 in that same perspective.
It also accepts Amendment No 23, except for the second paragraph; this cannot technically be deleted because in the event of derogation from the first and second banking directives, neither the competent authorities nor the own funds would any longer be defined.
Let me conclude, Mr President, by again expressing my sincere thanks for the broadly favourable report that has been presented and for having been given this opportunity of explaining the Commission's views on the amendments which we are unable to accept but which it will, I hope, be possible to reconsider in the light of what I have said.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Financial services framework for action
The next item is the report (A4-0175/99) by Mr Fayot, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the communication from the Commission 'Financial services: building a framework for action' (COM(98)0625 - C4-0688/98).
Mr President, Commissioner, Europe is working towards the creation of a single market in financial services.
It is a process that was given political impetus by the Heads of State and Government at the Cardiff and Vienna summits and which should lead, at the Cologne summit, to a report detailing the measures needed to implement a single financial market.
I hope that Commissioner Monti will continue to participate in this process for the remainder of the Commission's term of office as he has the authority and know-how to see it through.
He has headed a high-level group of representatives of the finance ministers which assisted the Commission's deliberations on the matter and which has just completed its work.
We hope that this method will bear fruit at Member State level.
Thanks to Parliament's report, together with the consultations the Commission held with experts, Mr Monti is in a position to put forward a series of measures at the Cologne summit.
In spite of the restrictions the resigning Commission has imposed in terms of new legislative initiatives, I feel that the work undertaken in this area over quite some time now should be brought to a conclusion at this European Council.
The present Commission communication is entitled 'Building a framework for action' and it is extremely useful for examining all the issues relating to financial services.
I should like to begin by saying a few words on the theoretical background to the communication.
The document states that a financial market, a genuinely single financial market, would automatically mean better optimisation of resources leading to lower cost capital for industry.
Such increased efficiency would appear to lead to stronger growth and therefore to the creation of jobs.
However, I remain somewhat sceptical about all of this.
Mergers and economies of scale in this sector, the trend for the creation of mega banks and conglomerates, technological developments that lead to improved productivity, and the consequent pressures on employment or on the actors working at a regional level all have their own particular logic which is not necessarily akin to the general interest or the employment objectives.
The communication outlines the measures that are needed in the area of the single market and financial services.
If we really want to make progress, we must establish political priorities, though it is clearly not easy to make clear choices.
So, for example, I believe that we need to rebalance the current strategy that places the emphasis on the supply side, through a strategy that has a more demand-driven approach.
In fact, consumer organisations have shown, for instance, that existing European legislation in this field concentrates on the supply side, whereas demand, which benefits consumers and small businesses, plays a minor role.
It is striking to note in this connection that, contrary to all expectations, the advent of the euro has not improved the supply of transnational financial services, but has instead made it more expensive.
Whereas trade and cross-border consumption are on the increase, the general feeling is that this increase has not been mirrored in the area of financial services. Nor have these services adapted to the new context.
They either remain entrenched behind their national and sectoral logic, or appear to consider the sector of little interest. What is more, this logic may simply be the logic of easy profit, rather than one that takes account of the nature of the services in the general interest that the bank should provide for a range of consumers.
The retail market undoubtedly merits special attention.
Instead of enabling consumers to benefit from competition, the present situation is marked by huge price differences in credit cards, mortgages and other services and the communication contains detailed information on this.
However, the wholesale market needs as much impetus and supervision from the Community as the retail market. Pension funds and risk capital markets are good examples of this.
In its report, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs highlights the importance of liquid and efficient European venture capital markets for start-ups and innovative companies in the high-technology industries.
Nonetheless, at the moment, almost all the Member States are trying to develop their own venture capital markets, yet none of them have achieved the necessary critical mass to allow such markets to really take off.
We would also stress the need to create a single market in pension funds.
Whatever the attitude towards this type of social security, it is true that the aging of the population creates considerable demand that financial services will have to meet.
And this sector will only be able to evolve within a large internal market.
To achieve this, the funds collected must be invested in diversified and internationalised portfolios, the principle of freedom of choice must be respected and we must also prevent all types of discrimination on a national level, be it of a fiscal or procedural nature.
More generally speaking, the Commission is proposing eight points for action concerning the wholesale markets.
These initiatives will form a major legislative body of new legislation and revisions of existing outdated legislation or ineffective regulatory apparatus.
It would be interesting to learn what the high-level group thought on this issue.
Are we, for example, to replace the 11 banking directives, the eight directives on investment services, the 21 directives on insurance as well as the interpretive texts, and if so, what are we to replace them with? Are we heading towards the creation of a single body of legislation for financial services, or are we going to continue, as we have done in the past, to pile essential texts on top of one another, according to developments in the market and in financial services?
One of the very sensitive issues in this sector relates to supervision and prudential supervision, which is still currently based on the frontiers of a country and the home-rule.
The debate on supervision in home countries as opposed to supervision in host countries has, until now, prevented any major shift towards either European supervisory systems or a European body for supervision.
However, the increasing pace of electronic banking, distance selling and electronic commerce will render the differences between home and host rules obsolete.
At present, the speed with which capital movements take place defies the ability of national authorities to supervise them.
We must therefore think in terms of new form of international cooperation and therefore consider, for example, defining a European Union rule and making it the basis of the new rules and new prudential supervision within the Union.
I am well aware, Mr President, that, given the present situation, this presents some prospects for the medium, and even the long, term.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is very concerned about the high levels of consumer protection that exist in relation to the retail market.
This is why we are proposing to study the appointment of a European Union ombudsman for financial services provided in the retail markets, independent of any Community or national institution and of any particular interests.
There are many arguments in favour of the creation of such an institution.
No genuine cross-border appeal and redress procedure currently exists.
Pan-European products are going to be developed.
National appeal and redress procedures are very varied and are often difficult to understand.
I should just like to add that there is a need for legislation on financial middlemen in the area of consumer and housing credit and insurance in order to protect consumers in cross-border markets.
I regret that the committee did not support me on this point which is, in my view, a very precise and important requirement of European consumers.
Mr President, our political task is clear. The Commission must present an action plan on financial services to the ECOFIN Council, which must then submit this plan to the approval of the Cologne European Council.
I might add that, once their blessing has been given at the highest level, the Commission and the Council will have to act promptly.
I can assure you that Parliament will not delay the decisions needed to set up this single market in financial services, which, to a greater or lesser degree, we all hope will become a reality.
Mr President, we broadly agree with what the rapporteur has just said.
First, we believe that a Commission, even a resigning Commission, must continue the work it has undertaken since such work forms an integral part of the management of daily business.
This might seem quite daring in relation to some of the definitions in national public law, but bearing in mind both the urgency and the pressure applied by the Council to complete the work within the deadlines - we have timetables to adhere to - we must see it through to completion.
We are therefore particularly pleased with the request put forward in this respect since we have here in the House a Commissioner who has shown himself to be an expert in these matters and who has demonstrated his ability to listen to Parliament's requests. Moreover, he is someone who holds considerable sway with the governments and with the ECOFIN Council in particular.
I therefore think that the conditions are right for this work to continue, and if I might add a personal wish, I hope that Mr Prodi will include Mr Monti in his new team; both the Commission and Parliament would benefit from this.
Let us look at several retail problems.
I do not exactly share Mr Fayot's doubts as regards the significance of the single market, though it is true that it is not providing us with much proof of its purpose at present.
This is simply because there is still great diversity in terms of the various national legislation and very little harmonisation.
For example, we have 38 different securities markets.
In my view, the key element in all of this is prudential supervision.
Much can be said and done in this respect at European level because securitisation has completely changed the nature of prudential supervision.
Before, there were only banks, where it was easy to find the appropriate recommendation, sanction, etcetera.
But it is a different story when it comes to securities that can travel across the world, because this creates systematic risks that our current organisation does not allow us to compensate for.
This is all the more reason, therefore, for creating a form of European prudential supervision that is more effective than our own systems.
Mr President, I in turn would once again like to thank the Commissioner for carrying on with the work he had already embarked upon in this extremely important area of the drafting and renewal of financial services legislation.
I am especially pleased that, despite the shock waves that have reverberated through the Commission recently - even though the Commissioner himself is above suspicion in this affair - he has not stopped promoting this extremely useful work in the area of financial services.
I also want to agree for once with what Mr Hermann said on the subject of the usefulness of the major stock exchanges. One of the things we are expecting from the single currency is the unification of the securities market in Europe.
This will put it on a par with the American money market. In this way we will be able to draw from it the necessary investment to increase the activity of the European economy and to create jobs.
Of course, there are some very real dangers associated with the major stock exchanges, some of which have quite rightly been pointed out by our rapporteur, whom I would like to commend on his work.
We should add to these the danger of systemic shock, which is caused by excessive 'leveraging' and may even lead to the collapse of the stock exchanges.
Mr President, I would like to end by announcing in this part-session that last week a historic event took place in this area.
The Canadian Parliament, the first in the world to do so, took the decision to introduce a tax on speculative capital, the famous Tobin tax.
I think that this is something we must begin to address in the fullness of time.
Mr President, I must begin by congratulating the rapporteur, Mr Fayot, for the extraordinary work he has done in this complex report.
I am also grateful to Mr Fayot, Mr Herman and Mr Katiforis for their kind words: needless to say, I am greatly touched by them.
The Commission welcomes the fact that the report expresses general support for the framework for action. It sets out what we believe needs to be done.
The Fayot report largely mirrors our own views and I am grateful for the support that has been expressed, particularly in relation to the urgent need to fill a number of existing gaps in the law, for example in relation to integrated pension schemes.
The Commission is in complete agreement with the rapporteur that, despite the substantial progress which has been made towards the completion of the single market in financial services, cross-border sales of financial products on a retail basis to individual consumers remain the exception rather than the rule within the European Union, and there are still large variations in price between the Member States.
I take a slightly different line from Mr Fayot, in terms of explaining the situation at least, in that I believe that we have to look here both at the economy of supply and the economy of demand, which are closely linked.
In any event, I believe that the concerns he voices have to be fully shared.
Union policy ought to be based on a pragmatic approach tailored to three key sectors: firstly, it is essential that those who purchase financial services are provided with clear and comprehensible information; and secondly, the appeal procedures are vital to consumer confidence.
In that context, the rapporteur suggests that we consider the arguments in favour of setting up an EU ombudsman for financial services; I would suggest that we go further along that path and consider more widely the forms of redress which are currently available to users of financial services throughout the Union.
Thirdly, harmonisation and mutual recognition are intrinsically linked.
If all the Member States have the same basic level of protection, it will become easier to accept and grant mutual recognition for protection accorded in other states.
The rapporteur suggests setting up a system of integrated retail payments.
There is already in operation a fully effective and integrated infrastructure for wholesale and inter-bank transactions, but developments in the infrastructures for small-scale cross-border payments have not kept pace with this.
I agree with the rapporteur that it is absolutely necessary to reinforce the efforts being made by the financial institutions and the national administrations to overcome these obstacles.
But it is not possible to create by statute a single retail financial area in which basic banking transactions are economic and effective, as in the national systems; however, the framework for action illustrates how progress can be achieved in that process.
As far as the prudential rules are concerned, and the rapporteur suggests that the Commission should submit a report on the effectiveness of those currently in force, I believe that the recent upheaval and the way in which the European Union has, on the whole, coped with it, demonstrate that the prudential rules are basically effective.
I therefore prefer to focus on how to integrate and improve them, rather than on what I might describe as a backward-looking report.
The pace of change in the markets and the financial intermediaries has revealed the possible limits of a sectoral approach, and that tendency becomes more marked with the process of global financial integration.
I agree with the rapporteur that, as far as the regulatory and supervisory authorities are concerned, these developments represent new challenges that can be met through effective cooperation and coordination between the regulatory and supervisory authorities, with a clear division of supervisory responsibilities and sound financial regulations to manage the global institutional and system risk.
I would stress that, as far as the possibility of better supervision of financial services at European Union level is concerned, our attention ought to focus on the large financial groupings.
Finally, how can the Commission, Parliament and the Council take forward this process?
The framework for action is addressed to the European Parliament, which will have a key role in the process of modernising the financial services sector, on the basis of the results obtained by the group in which the representatives of the finance ministries are taking part and Parliament's own report.
We are now working towards the ECOFIN Council of 25 May, and I have to say that your words have given us great and valuable encouragement to press on with this work.
I wish finally to say that as regards the amendments tabled at the end by Mr Fayot, I am in agreement, with three exceptions, namely Amendments Nos 2, 5 and 7.
I have already explained to the rapporteur why I have some doubts about them.
I will also add a word of explanation about Amendment No 11.
I should like to end by making the point that, as regards the large number of directives in the sector - and Mr Fayot is right about that - the bulk of the existing directives are in fact directives amending earlier directives, so that rather than there being 22 banking directives in force, there are actually only six.
But we are working to codify those six directives into a single directive and, to give you an idea, to reduce the mass of banking legislation in the European Union from 360 to 80 pages.
We are trying to do the same in relation to insurance and securities.
Finally, I must agree with the point made by Mr Herman, to whom I once again extend my thanks, about ensuring security, a view which I share.
We shall be tabling proposals that reflect the broader aspect of the capital markets, and following closely the work under way in Basle.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The Daphne programme
The next item is the report (A4-0188/99) by Mrs Bennasar Tous, on behalf of the Committee on Women's Rights, on the amended proposal for a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action (the Daphne programme) (2000-2004) on measures aimed to prevent violence against children, young persons and women (COM(99)0082 - C4-0099/99-98/0192(COD)).
I give the floor to Mrs Colombo Svevo, who is deputising for Mrs Bennasar Tous.
Mr President, Commissioner, let me first apologise on behalf of the rapporteur, Mrs Bennasar Tous, who is unable to take part in the debate on this report, which she drafted, as are many colleagues who took part in the discussion in committee and are currently otherwise engaged, attending an international conference in Paris.
I am sorry that Mrs Bennasar Tous is unable to be here because we should have liked - or at least I personally should have liked - to have sincerely thanked her in person for the work she has done: she has managed to win support for the programme by maintaining a balance - and this is no easy matter - between the spirit and political significance of the programme and the constraints imposed by a legal base which we, unfortunately, regard as very restrictive in terms of the objectives of the programme itself.
The report that is being presented today is one in which the members of the Committee on Women's Rights take some pride, because it is based on broad consensus and cooperation between all its members.
Of course, the change the Council made to the legal base - at a time when the first draft of the report was actually ready - has significantly complicated our work, from both a procedural and a substantive point of view.
That was a source of concern, because you have to bear in mind that after three years' work, on the one hand, the Daphne programme required a strong and secure legal base before 1 January 2000, but we could not let the legal base proposed to us undermine the political approach on which the programme had been based.
The report that we have drawn up and the amendments that we are putting to you reflect the debate following which the House adopted, in March of this year, a resolution on violence against women.
We therefore consider the amendments to be an integral part of the programme itself.
Most importantly, we have the concept of public health, to which we have given a broad interpretation in line with the World Health Organisation - health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being - and in accordance also with the case-law of the Court of Justice.
And then we have the actual concept of violence, which specifically covers the elements cited: violence is not only violence against the mental and physical integrity of those on whom it is inflicted, it is also a serious social ill that is damaging to all - the victim, the aggressor and the public.
That is the second point.
Still within the ambit of that legal base - which, as I keep saying, seems to us excessively rigid and strict - violence is above all, and we are resolute on this, a violation of human rights, and that is why action to deter violence must be based on a multi-disciplinary approach.
We cannot therefore leave aside some rights, we cannot permit abuse and violence within the family but not trafficking, and our amendments seek to include violence in all its forms.
The Daphne programme has proved a source of great added value in combating these problems, particularly because it has successfully involved the NGOs, getting them to work with the institutions.
We must stress that there has to be linkage and coordination between the different programmes that relate to these issues, particularly the STOP and Daphne programmes.
As you see, we have tried to devise a broad strategy because a Europe that is able to create a single market and a single currency must be able to find ways and means of jointly tackling a problem of this magnitude.
We have a five-year programme, and we therefore have the opportunity - and this is also a challenge - to assess the most effective methods and to prepare medium- and long-term measures.
This is the aim of Daphne: to seek to obtain cooperation between all the parties involved, from the communications media to the local, regional and national authorities and the international organisations.
We take some comfort from the fact that the programme will come into being under the auspices of the Treaty of Amsterdam, and that the new Article 152 on public health will enable the European Community to take wider-ranging and more dynamic action and, we hope, action that has greater synergy in preventing and combating disease, but also in preventing violence.
The statistics given in the report make us shudder.
I must stress that we have to be resolute in asking the Commission and the Council to accept the substance of the amendments in order to ensure that the spirit of the programme is maintained.
My thanks, in particular, to the Commissioner who is here with us and to Commissioner Gradin for their help and for the initiative which they have shown on this matter.
Thank you very much, Mrs Colombo Svevo.
Ladies and gentlemen, I should just like to correct a piece of information which I gave you earlier. I had a note regarding Mr Fayot's report which said that the vote would take place this afternoon, but I have since been informed that it will take place at the May part-session.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mrs Zimmermann who is unfortunately not able to be with us today.
I should like to begin by thanking the deputy rapporteur, Mrs Colombo Svevo, for all her hard work and for her willingness to accept the amendments and suggestions put forward by the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
For many years now, Parliament has played a prominent role in combating violence, through the various reports it has produced and its initiative to launch a campaign to combat violence against women, as well as through special budget lines which enable us to support some very useful initiatives by the many NGOs working in this field.
We were therefore delighted to see that the Commission is now planning a multiannual programme called Daphne.
However, I have to say, Commissioner, that the change in the legal basis made by the Council working party, which we have been forced to accept rather reluctantly and with a great deal of scepticism, has dampened much of our enthusiasm and threatens to undermine Daphne's chances of success, because as Mrs Colombo Svevo just said, violence against children and women is not just a health risk, it is an out-and-out violation of their basic human rights.
It is an obstacle to equality, to development and to peace, and it cannot just be tackled by looking after the victims.
It must also be prevented and combated among those who inflict it.
Combating violence is a particularly complex issue, requiring cooperation with the police and judicial authorities, possible changes to legislation, and information and awareness-raising not just among the public, but also among the official services involved.
Women's refuges are needed, and special facilities to provide help for the victims. There are so many things involved that a multidisciplinary approach is absolutely essential.
This was the thinking behind the amendments that our committee tabled, and we would like to thank the rapporteur once again for accepting so many of them.
The only advantage, if I might say so, of the new legal basis is the fact that Parliament decides under the codecision procedure.
I hope that the Council will take our message on board and accommodate our wishes as much as possible.
Thank you, Mrs Van Lancker.
We shall suspend the debate on the report by Mrs Bennasar Tous at this point, since it is time for the topical and urgent debate.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0380/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0381/99 by Mr Wijsenbeek and Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0396/99 by Mr Florio and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0401/99 by Mr Simpson, Mr Cot and Mr Bontempi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0406/99 by Mrs Moreau and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0414/99 by Mrs Leperre-Verrier and Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0417/99 by Mr Cohn-Bendit and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the Mont Blanc tunnel accident.
Mr President, with one minute to speak on the Mont Blanc tragedy, I shall not mention the human errors, which are a matter for the courts.
Instead, I want to talk about political responsibility, because that concerns all of us.
There has been a tenfold increase in traffic through the road tunnels under the Alps over the last fifteen years.
That traffic is good business.
The operating companies have made a fortune out of it without necessarily investing in safety, or even in elementary staff training.
The local authorities and finance ministers have encouraged that tendency, only too happy to collect extra takings on the cheap.
Of course, there were alternative solutions, such as the Lyons-Turin piggyback project, which was one of the Delors plan's infrastructure projects.
That stated priority which we are rediscovering today was never a real priority at top level.
More spectacular, more symbolic projects, near here, were preferred.
But most of all, the road lobby was on the alert, even opposing the safety measures the French Minister for Transport has taken recently, because they would have lost articulated lorries precious hours on the London-Milan or Amsterdam-Milan route, and we all know time is money.
Safety has no price.
Yes, it has a price, but obviously it is too high - until tragedy strikes.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, I want to express our horror at the extent of the disaster in the Mont Blanc tunnel which has taken the lives of 41 people.
I want to send our condolences to the victims and their families and pay tribute to the courage of the rescue services.
But in a parliament, we have to do more than bear witness to disaster. We must help find answers.
How could it have happened? How might such a tragedy have been prevented?
The figures are revealing.
In the last thirty years, the heavy goods traffic through the Mont Blanc tunnel has grown eight times as fast as private car traffic.
One sixth of Italian exports go through that tunnel. And there is a Commission report which predicts that the traffic between Italy and France will double in the next ten years.
Has anyone really thought about the safety consequences of this staggering increase? Is safety one of the Commission's priorities when it puts pressure on countries like Switzerland to dismantle their road transport restrictions, or when it imposes competition and liberalisation to the detriment of rail transport, even though it is safer and more environmentally friendly?
On the contrary, in my view, the tragedy in the Mont Blanc tunnel calls for two types of measures.
Safety diagnostic equipment must be installed in all tunnels immediately, safety measures must be introduced and the level of HGV traffic limited while waiting for the conclusions of the inquiry.
But in the medium and long term, will the Commission propose firm measures to increase safety by acting on the conditions and modes of transport of goods, as proposed in the joint resolution?
Beyond that resolution, I want to stress four points.
The first is the maintenance of restrictions on HGV traffic and their harmonisation on the basis of the most widespread current restrictions.
The second is the more vigorous action to reduce working and driving time for HGV drivers. Thirdly, we must give priority to freight transport by rail in mountain areas and high-risk areas, and fourthly, we need determined action for cooperation between rail companies to harmonise standards, materials and staff training.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are right to express our sorrow today, but it must lead to specific regulations for greater transport safety.
Mr President, it has taken forty deaths in the Mont Blanc tunnel in horrific circumstances for the European authorities to recognise the consequences of the uncontrolled development of road transport in mountain areas.
That has not been for lack of pointing them out though, including in this House, but sometimes it is hard for reason to prevail where Alpine transit is involved.
A rapid and effective response is needed immediately to compensate the families of the victims and give them moral and material support. Moreover, the flow of traffic now converging on the Fréjus tunnel as a result of the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel must be channelled.
The issue must also be looked at as a whole. Obviously, the results of the inquiry will clarify the circumstances of the tragedy and the French Government deserves to be congratulated for having acted promptly and made the initial results of the inquiry public.
All the same, it is essential to identify responsibilities and strengthen safety measures in all road tunnels, not just the Fréjus tunnel.
But we must go further because, whether we like it or not, sending columns of forty-tonners up to heights of over 1 200 metres is an aberration.
Piggyback is the obvious answer to the unavoidable need to cross the Alps. It is clearly an expensive answer, but it is justified by its human and environmental benefits.
Local representatives and associations for the protection of the area and its inhabitants did not wait for disaster to strike to promote cross-border cooperation and sound the alarm.
We should have listened to them sooner.
Many victims would have been spared.
Mr President, as conveyed in the joint resolution, the Green Group wishes to express its sincere condolences to the families of the victims.
We firmly believe that this is not the time to draw conclusions, given that investigations are under way, but there are certainly a number of points which can be made.
The first is that the tunnel did not have a lateral safety tunnel and therefore did not meet the necessary safety standards for people travelling through it.
We can also say that the rescue systems were not adequate, and warnings to that effect had already been given, at the beginning of this year, by the Haute-Savoie fire service.
My third point is that, in the context of the original decision to build the tunnel to guarantee transit through the Alps, the huge increase in the number of heavy goods vehicles using the tunnel means that the structure does not have sufficient capacity.
Consequently, we have to point out once again that the priority for European Union transport policy has to be to move the bulk of heavy goods from road to rail.
Only in that context will it be appropriate to identify safety criteria, for both road and rail tunnels.
We have seen that rail tunnels have safety problems too.
The Channel Tunnel has on several occasions run into great difficulty, despite being extremely modern.
I believe that general policy on long tunnels has to be reviewed.
Our whole approach to safety needs to be reviewed.
It has to be a priority of the European Union to invest adequately to guarantee road safety.
In that context, we believe that policy on tunnels must be properly reviewed.
Mr President, my group fully concurs with this document drawn up in conjunction with honourable Members from all political groups.
I wish to stress that, amongst other things, the document calls on the Commission to draw up European legislation - currently sadly lacking - to guarantee high safety standards in road and rail tunnels, and on the Council to adopt without further delay a directive on the control of commercial vehicles.
It also worth pointing out that the resolution further calls for closer cross-border cooperation between the civil protection units; points to cooperation with the Swiss authorities as the best way of tackling, in the short term, the problems caused by the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel; and calls upon all the Member States to assess the need to equip with a safety tunnel, allowing rapid evacuation in the event of an accident, those tunnels which currently do not have one, as was tragically the case in this incident.
But I wish also to stress, ladies and gentlemen, that the Commission needs to make available a programme of aid for the Italian and French people who are bound to suffer greatly as a result of the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel, both as a result of excessive traffic on other roads which are really going to be overloaded and as a result of a decline in traffic and tourism as a result of the tunnel's closure.
I also think it important that Commissioner Kinnock should carry out an on-the-spot inspection, both at Mont Blanc and in Fréjus, to see for himself the gravity of the situation.
It is in any event crucial that, provided safety conditions have been met, the tunnel should reopen as soon as possible.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, I should like to express our deep regret at what happened and extend our sympathies to the victims.
However, I have to say that I was extremely saddened by what the previous two speakers said.
Everyone is calling for us to get traffic off the roads and onto the railways, and what happens? Nothing.
Italy and Austria in particular are creating nothing but obstacles and have not lifted a finger to do any of the work that needs to be done.
This means that far too many heavy-goods lorries are having to go by road and through the tunnels.
Now we are asking Switzerland to help.
It has already started work on the Lutschberg project and the Gotthard tunnel, and now we are going to have to accept its charity.
But we should have started the work ourselves.
You cannot say that we have to get the traffic off the roads and then simply do nothing, opposing any new infrastructure and any liberalisation of the railways.
This is no way for the Greens to go into the elections.
Mr President, I must first extend my condolences to the victims of the accident and express my admiration for the courage of the rescue services. I want then to make a point which complements what Mr Florio has already said, and is again at the centre of the concerns of the local institutions and economic operators in the regions of Savoie and Valle d'Aosta.
In particular, the Valle d'Aosta is experiencing a huge rise in the number of hotel bookings cancelled since the closure of the tunnel, and so there is also an economic factor, linked to the tourism which is extremely important for the region and which needs to be taken into account.
I expect representatives of the affected regions to meet in the coming weeks to assess, not least in the light of our debate, what new measures can be taken both to bring traffic back on to the roads and as regards the issue of tourism.
I should like to ask the Commission to consider, in relation to those aspects which fall within its jurisdiction of course, the issues linked to tourism which is vital to the region.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in addition to what has already been said, the Mont Blanc tragedy means that we have to clarify the implementation of European Union programmes.
The European Union came into being on the basis of the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital.
The free movement of goods must, specifically because it is free movement, also and above all be safe.
We therefore have to take all necessary, useful and appropriate measures, and we deplore that this was not done.
Similarly, we so often speak of transfrontier areas, we have programmes for frontier zones and we are concerned to create a Europe of the regions.
Plainly, we cannot tolerate accidents of this kind, which are totally incompatible with the approach being taken by the European Union.
By liberalising the movement of persons, the European Union has allowed them to move more frequently; the European Union must implement and secure the implementation of programmes to ensure that movement is both free and, I repeat, safe.
Mr President, we must first pay our respects to the victims and extend our condolences to their families.
The publication of an initial expert report on the tragedy of the Mont Blanc tunnel has added an element of farce to a tragedy which has cost more than 40 people their lives - and more bodies may yet be recovered - and which has inflamed the debate on the responsibilities that the French and Italian authorities are trying to offload on one another, making absurd and pretentious excuses.
So far, no one has been able to tell us what has happened to the video cassettes which record movement through the tunnel and which have yet to be found.
No one has been able to tell us whether it is true that the lorry that entered the tunnel from the French side was already on fire as it entered the tunnel, and we waste time trying to establish a tiny difference of a minute or two between the time it took the French and Italians to intervene.
We read that the Italian authorities had calculated that the wind was that day blowing from Italy in the direction of France and therefore prevented cold air intake.
We read that the French authorities are condemning the dearth of Italian rescue services at the entry to the tunnel and the fact that, in the event of an accident, the rescue services actually had to come from Aosta.
We say, enough is enough!.
We repeat that safety in the transport sector has to be a priority of European transport policy and we are therefore asking, as in a question put to the Commission, that the Commission itself should soon - indeed as a matter of urgency - provide for a directive on compulsory safety systems for road tunnels. We would further stress that it is similarly important to have a directive laying down roadside procedures and inspections of roadworthiness for commercial vehicles circulating on Europe's roads.
Mr President, some tragedies are avoidable and the Mont Blanc tunnel tragedy was surely one of them.
The courts will naturally determine the causes.
As well as sympathising with the families of the victims, I want to express my support for the local councillors of the Chamonix valley and the Mayor of Chamonix who, sadly, has witnessed several tragedies in the last few months.
I know that councillors in the Chamonix valley have repeatedly spoken out against the thousands of lorries that travel through that narrow valley and that tunnel, which evidently was not built for such heavy traffic.
We must learn the lessons of this avoidable tragedy and we must put pressure not only on you, Commissioner, but on the Council too, in order to ensure that a proper road-rail policy is at last developed for goods transport, for both difficult sectors and all national territory.
Mr President, although I am the last to speak, I too wish to express my sympathy with the families and, of course, the hope that an inquiry will shed light on where responsibility for this accident lies.
But we need to look to the future, and I have two, or in fact three proposals to put forward.
My first proposal calls for the application of the rules on the transport of hazardous goods, the subject of debate on more than one occasion during the life of this parliament, in the Committee on Transport and Tourism.
My second proposal is to further encourage the shift of hazardous goods from road to rail - hackneyed words, but this approach has never been adequately implemented - and therefore to provide new incentives for combined transport.
Switzerland has been mentioned.
We all agree that we should ask Switzerland for a provisional agreement to try to resolve these problems of the Alpine passes, but we must also bear in mind the characteristics of the Swiss road system, a veritable Gruyère with the 17 kilometre long St Gotthard pass which is three metres narrower than the Mont Blanc tunnel.
We hope that this solution too will secure adequate safety conditions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, like previous speakers, and on behalf of the UPE Group, I want to express my sorrow, compassion and solidarity to the families of the victims of the Mont Blanc tragedy.
I would also like to salute the courage and commitment of the rescue services who had to work in particularly difficult circumstances.
The accident of 24 March was a cruel reminder of the problem of transport safety.
The issue is one of the European Union's priorities, and we must welcome that fact.
But in light of the conclusions of the inquiry the French authorities have initiated, we will have to implement certain specific measures, particularly those measures involving the safety of major transport equipment and transport infrastructures.
That is why we are asking the Commission to draw up a report based on the committee of inquiry's conclusions, together with proposals aimed, in particular, at harmonising safety equipment.
This tragedy is another illustration, if one were needed, of the vital need to control the flow of road traffic - especially heavy goods vehicles - promote rail transport and establish operating rules to ensure maximum safety within a properly diversified European transport market.
Mr President, I too should like to begin by offering my sincere sympathies to the families of the victims of this terrible accident and expressing my admiration and praise for the courage shown by the emergency services afterwards. They too lost colleagues in the fire.
Until we know exactly what happened and what the causes of the accident were, there would appear to be little point in talking about how we can prevent such a disaster from happening again in the future.
The Commission therefore intends to wait for the results of the investigation and then to consider what measures could be taken at European level to improve safety in tunnels.
However, I should like to take this opportunity to bring the European Parliament up to date on what the Commission is currently doing to help to limit hazards in tunnels more generally.
As part of its programme of legislation on EU type-approval for motor vehicles, the Commission has launched extensive legislation on vehicle standards, including minimum requirements for vehicle flammability.
The directorate-general for transport, DG VII, is also currently cofunding a study with the OECD on the risks of transporting dangerous substances by road through tunnels.
We had already decided to organise research into tunnel safety under the fifth framework programme of research and development, and we had specifically planned to fund improvements to the Mont Blanc tunnel as part of the trans-European networks.
The project, totalling EUR 3.7 million, was to improve the accident signalling equipment in the Mont Blanc tunnel and the control room.
The closure of this important artery will naturally cause a certain amount of disruption and congestion, but the impact will not be the same for car drivers and lorry drivers, since lorry drivers are bound to be more seriously affected.
Around 700 000 lorries passed through the Mont Blanc tunnel every year, and alternative routes or alternative forms of transport are now going to have to be found.
The natural alternative to the Mont Blanc tunnel is the Fréjus tunnel to the south.
Despite new restrictions to increase safety, the Commission expects the Fréjus tunnel to be able to take most of the freight traffic from the Mont Blanc tunnel.
Lorries can also use the border crossings between France and Italy which are situated further south, while lorries under 28 tonnes have unlimited possibilities for travelling through Switzerland.
Those are the road alternatives.
Another alternative would be to use a different form of transport for freight.
Rail and combined transport must use the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel as an opportunity to show what they are made of.
Rail transport must now show what it can do with its existing rolling stock and infrastructure.
At the moment, it is not clear what extra freight capacity the railways can offer on the Alpine routes, but the Commission expects them to take advantage of the commercial opportunities.
Finally, the Commission acknowledges that lessons must be learnt from this disaster in order to minimise the risks of anything similar happening in future.
However, we will not be bounced into taking hasty decisions which are supposed to make transport safer.
As far as the effects of the closure of the Mont Blanc tunnel are concerned, we will do everything it is in our limited power to do to try to ensure that traffic is not too severely disrupted.
We feel it is too early to start predicting traffic chaos, and we would urge everyone to keep calm and to monitor the situation to see whether road and rail transport cannot solve the problems themselves.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0383/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0395/99 by Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0397/99 by Mr Barros Moura and Mr Marinho, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0405/99 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0413/99 by Mr Dupuis and Mrs Maes, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0415/99 by Mrs Hautala, Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the situation in Indonesia and East Timor.
Mr President, Commissioner, just when everyone has finally realised where East Timor is, the largest Islamic country in the world, Indonesia, is falling apart - we only need to think of Ambon, Madura, Aceh and Kalimantan.
The state of Indonesia is about to become one huge battlefield.
The forthcoming elections in June/July are of vital importance, and I think that if they are organised properly, they could form the basis for a different sort of federal Indonesia, all being well.
This is why I think the European Union and, of course, the United Nations must do everything they can to help in the only way they can, to ensure that the elections are indeed democratic.
All it will cost is a little money and effort.
For goodness' sake, do not let this huge country, the 'emerald belt' as we call it in Dutch, become just a patch of rust in the Pacific.
Mr President, the situation in Indonesia is getting worse from week to week, which is not a good omen for the elections on 7 June.
Although the problems are concentrated in the Moluccan Archipelago and East Timor, there is also unrest in other regions like Irian Jaya, Kalimantan and North Sumatra.
The Indonesian Government's approach in recent years of distributing the inhabitants of Java over the whole of Indonesia as a sort of dominant group now appears to be having disastrous effects.
The Javanese people are not to blame for this, of course, but they have become pawns in a project with a dual agenda: combating poverty among the Javanese and weakening the identity of certain island groups.
In the midst of all this, there are also the enormous problems in Timor, which are getting worse again and have even led to massacres in Liquiça.
This is extremely disappointing, because agreements had been reached on improving the situation there.
We call on the Commission to bring pressure to bear on Indonesia to ensure that the situation does improve, and we would strongly urge the Commission to help to ensure that the elections there run smoothly and that the minority groups on the smaller islands are also treated fairly in those elections.
Indonesia deserves this.
As Mr Bertens said, it is a huge and beautiful country, and it would indeed be a shame if it fell apart completely and if human rights and democracy came to be discredited once and for all there.
Mr President, we are all greatly concerned about the situation in Indonesia and its effects, especially on East Timor.
As the elections set for 7 June draw nearer, and as we move towards a critical stage in the negotiations on the future of East Timor being held between the governments of Indonesia and Portugal under the aegis of the United Nations, we are seeing attacks on supporters of the Nobel Peace Prize winner D. Ximenes Belo, and on civilians praying in a church.
We are witnessing attacks on the entire population, which is experiencing an enormous wave of panic because of a proliferation of military brigades doing nothing to defend them and instead attacking them.
All this is happening at a time when Xanana Gusmão has still not been given complete freedom, which this House has repeatedly demanded.
For all these reasons, we urge the European Parliament to approve a resolution drawing the attention of the Indonesian authorities to the need to restore legality, to the need to halt these massacres, to the need for the armed forces to defend rather than attack the public, to the need to free Xanana Gusmão, and to the need for the United Nations to continue to support Portugal's efforts to restore peace in East Timor and throughout Indonesia.
This is a pivotal area for world stability and I therefore believe that we should vote in favour of a resolution which once again sends a message of support from the European Parliament to the people of East Timor, who have suffered so much from genocide.
Mr President, apart from Indonesia's complicated geographical structure, it is also struggling with the economic crisis, its debt burden, inflation and falling exports, all at a time when the country is preparing for the elections.
I would not go so far as to say, like Mr Bertens, that the country is threatening to fall apart, but the risk is there.
The situation appears to be calm on Java, while on Aceh the government and the army have restored order and, importantly, have punished those responsible.
Unfortunately, there are still occasional confrontations between the people there.
The most recent developments on Timor are extremely regrettable, but there is perhaps also some evidence of progress, with attempts now being made to set up a commission involving all of Timor's leaders - even Xanana Gusmão has been invited.
Of course, the militias on the island must be made to hand over their weapons and the negotiations between Portugal and Indonesia must continue. There must also be an investigation into the massacre.
Forty-eight political parties are now preparing for the elections, and most of them include political tendencies with the following characteristics: Islamic, nationalist, liberal, supporters of central planning, maintainers of the status quo.
It is an extremely complicated country where simple black-and-white solutions do not work.
Fortunately, if my information is correct, the electoral commission has adopted an independent position.
I know that the Commission and the Council have already earmarked a great deal of money to support the elections, but I am amazed that, although Parliament has been calling year in year out for democracy in Indonesia and the opposition groups there are now asking for Parliament to send observers, the Bureau has decided against doing so.
Mr President, would you urge Parliament and the Bureau to reverse this decision?
I think it is incomprehensible, and it undermines the credibility of this debate here in the House.
I agree with the previous speakers. We too signed up to this resolution because we think that at this particular point, we need to remind people of the importance of negotiation as a way of finding a solution to the problems in East Timor.
With the increasing bloodshed there, the negotiations are threatening to be swept away by a tide of military and paramilitary violence.
The Indonesian Government must be urged to end support for the paramilitary organisations, to limit the military presence, to restore the rule of law and to bring those responsible to justice and ensure that they are punished.
We think that Indonesia is right to be proud of its self-determination, but in view of the diversity of the people living in this archipelago, we should also expect the same respect to be afforded to all those living in and around Indonesia and in particular to East Timor, which Indonesia has always unlawfully occupied.
I would specifically like to support Mrs van Bladel's request that we should send observers.
We have often seen violence increase before elections, and we have also seen that the presence of foreign observers can help to calm the situation.
It is not too late for us to do something about it.
Mr President, sadly, as previous speakers have said, the events which have taken place on East Timor are no accident.
There are plenty of other places in Indonesia where fighting has flared up and irregularities have occurred, often or almost always along ethnic or religious divides, unfortunately.
Last week, I happened to talk to someone who had just come back from Ambon.
The story he told was sadly all too familiar: systematic human rights violations, terrible murders and large numbers of displaced people.
And precisely because this is a worldwide phenomenon as we reach the end of the 20th century, with small-scale, interethnic, interreligious conflicts in Europe, Asia and Africa, we need to keep on putting this subject on our agenda here in the European Parliament, however frustrating, however often it may be and however little it may help in the short term.
Fortunately the European Union can do more, and here I would like to add my voice to those of Mrs van Bladel and Mrs Maes.
I understood that the EU had made money available to send some 60 observers to the Indonesian elections.
What I would like to know is what kind of observers they will be and whether the Indonesian Government has already agreed to have them, since it has already shown that it does not think much of observers, wherever they are from.
If not, what does the European Union plan to do to ensure that these observers, who I would stress are extremely important, are there for the elections in June?
Mr President, the Liquiçá massacre is just the latest bloody episode in which the victims are the people of East Timor.
On 6 and 7 April, 25 civilian victims of the armed militia known as the 'Meraputi' were killed with the active connivance of the mobile brigade of Indonesia's elite police squad.
We are demanding an international inquiry.
We are demanding that those responsible for these criminal acts should be held to account. We cannot accept that this violence should be used as a pretext for postponing the meetings between Portugal and Indonesia under the aegis of the UN to draw up a text giving this territory autonomous status.
The UN cannot turn its back, it must have a force on the ground to guarantee peace and to ensure that these discussions take place.
We denounce the cynicism of the Indonesian regime, which while pledging that it is defending human rights is simultaneously arming the militias which are slaughtering the people.
We are accordingly sending a message of solidarity to Xanana Gusmão, the man who in 1992 was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment. Although he is at present under house arrest, he is being threatened with a return to prison, to total incarceration, simply because he called on the people of East Timor to defend themselves.
We are accordingly sending a message which expresses our indignation at these events, a message of solidarity with Xanana Gusmão and with the people of East Timor, and we call upon the UN and other international bodies to intervene.
Mr President, I am glad Parliament is looking at the situation in East Timor, a Portuguese territory which was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and unilaterally annexed by that country in 1979.
Personally, I agree with the joint resolution on the whole, and I shall vote for it.
But there is no point in pretending that a resolution from our Parliament, however forceful and well-intentioned, is going to improve the fate of the Timorese.
This small Catholic people is the target of an actual attempt at genocide by the Indonesian Government.
Tragically, the massacre of 25 worshippers in a Liquiça church is only a drop in the ocean of blood from the atrocities committed.
Over 24 years, 200 000 Timorese, or a third of the population, have already been exterminated.
Jakarta seems to want to wipe this small, courageous Catholic people off the map for resisting being engulfed by an Indonesia of 150 million Muslims.
Like the Turkish Government in Cyprus, the Indonesian Government is also trying to replace the Catholics with a Muslim population by sending in tens of thousands of colonists.
Just as in other countries where a government asserts that it is Islamic - Sudan, Turkey, Syrian-occupied Lebanon - Christians are persecuted, marginalised, treated as second-class citizens, or even massacred.
But the fact is, East Timor holds no interest, beyond good intentions, for the powers that govern us from Washington and Brussels.
Indonesia can violate the sovereignty of Portugal and the right of peoples to self-determination, and perpetuate a kind of genocide, yet apparently all that arouses is purely verbal indignation.
Disregarding the principle of sovereignty, and at the risk of starting a third world war, the powers that be prefer to bomb the Serbs, who are trying to save their national and religious identity in their own province of Kosovo, the cradle of their nation.
This is clearly a question of double standards.
We are indignant at this so-called new world order imposing the law of the jungle: weak towards the powerful and ruthless towards the weak.
Mr President, the Commission agrees with the honourable Member that the situation in Indonesia has certainly deteriorated in terms of the interethnic and interreligious conflicts that were mentioned.
In its statement of 7 April on the subject, the Council added that the Indonesian Government has taken a number of clearly very welcome steps to do with the elections, new laws on the political parties and certain economic measures that have been announced to stabilise the economic situation. A number of social programmes have also been set up to deal with the current crisis, and announcements have been made about improving the human rights situation in Indonesia.
All of this is set out in the Council's statement of 7 April.
At the same time, the Commission also decided on 31 March that it should make available EUR 7 million for the forthcoming elections in Indonesia.
Of that sum, EUR 5 million are to be spent through the NGOs on election training and information, and EUR 2 million on sending 60 observers from the Member States for two weeks as part of a broader election observation programme organised by the United Nations.
The United Nations itself is to send 30 observers for a longer period of two months, and Indonesia has already agreed that they should be present.
With regard to East Timor, the Commission shares the House's concern at the recent increase in violence and we support the statement of 12 April by the presidency.
We also support the Member States' initiative to set up a peace and reconciliation committee to help to restore calm on East Timor.
We feel that the recent series of incidents clearly calls for a United Nations presence in the area, and we would therefore strongly urge that the International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations should be given free access to East Timor.
The Commission welcomes the Indonesian Government's new policy of recognising that direct elections need to be held on Timor in order to determine how far the conditions for independence currently being discussed in New York are acceptable.
We would point out that the efforts of the United Nations Secretary-General to find a just, comprehensive and internationally acceptable solution must also be given international support.
The Commission reiterates that, needless to say, it supports the current discussions on East Timor, which we also feel offer the only opportunity of finding a peaceful, just and lasting solution that takes account of the East Timorese people's right to self-determination and the interests of all the parties concerned.
Thank you, Mr van den Broek.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0375/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0384/99 by Mrs Maij-Weggen, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0389/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0399/99 by Mr Colajanni, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0410/99 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0416/99 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton Burma;
B4-0374/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, and Mr Bourlanges and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0390/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0400/99 by Mr Harrison, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0407/99 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0422/99 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton Cambodia;
B4-0382/99 by Mr Fassa and Mrs André-Léonard, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0394/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0409/99 by Mr Hory and Mr Castagnède, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0420/99 by Mrs Aelvoet and Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton Niger;
B4-0391/99 by Mrs Banotti and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0398/99 by Mrs Malone, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0421/99 by Mrs McKenna and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the murder of Rosemary Nelson.
Burma
Mr President, it is frustrating to see how the authorities in Burma miss every chance they have to show good will.
Their refusal to grant an entry visa to Michael Aris, the terminally ill husband of Aung San Suu Kyi, showed their lack of respect, and the completely unnecessary suffering that this caused Aung San is typical of the way the government behaves.
If it carries on like this, there is no prospect of an end to Burma's isolation - on the contrary, it can only get worse.
Unfortunately, we are once again having to call on the Burmese Government to respect the basic rights of the Burmese people in general, and we are again having to condemn the forced displacement of whole villages and the use of forced labour.
No crisis gives any government the right to violate the rights of its people, and the Burmese Government must understand that its leaders will be held personally responsible for the suffering that they cause.
The international community does not forget, and at some point Burma's present leaders are going to have to stand trial for the crimes they are currently committing.
The application of international criminal law in practice will ensure that everyone's basic rights are protected.
Mr President, this is the umpteenth time that we have had Burma on our agenda - I think this is the eighth resolution on the subject, and its people are still suffering under the conditions that the military government has imposed on them.
This time it has hit the headlines by refusing to allow Aung San Suu Kyi's husband, who was seriously ill, to come to Burma.
It goes without saying that Aung San Suu Kyi herself could not go to England, because she would not then have been allowed to return.
But it is disgraceful that a couple who have been married for 25 years should be refused the chance to be together at a time when one of them is dying.
In addition, the Karen villages along the border are once again coming under attack.
I was in Thailand last year to visit some of the refugee camps, and now I hear that large numbers of people are again coming over the border to these camps, which are already overflowing.
Some positive steps are also being taken. A group of 285 MPs has been formed which hopes to convene the Burmese Parliament itself.
Would it not be a good idea for the European Union to lend its support, so that the parliament, which is currently dissolved, is able to work through different channels on a constitution that could finally bring about a fundamental change in Burma's situation?
It is a situation that we have been forced to sit and watch for years now. It is one of the most badly governed countries in the world.
The European Union needs to adopt a much harder line than it does at present, and I would urge the Commission to do so.
Mr President, in recent weeks, the Burmese regime has committed yet another appalling act: the Sakharov laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been denied freedom of movement, was not even able to see her own husband before his death.
She and the whole of her country have for many years now been deprived of every fundamental freedom, respect for the most basic of human rights and any glimpse of democracy.
We also know that any opposition is severely repressed and that repression is particularly severe in relation to the ethnic minorities.
Forced labour and indeed slavery are widespread in the country.
The problem is that the military clique in power has so far been unmoved by and insensitive to any internal or international pressure.
I have to say that, if we talk of defence and promotion of human rights as a fundamental element in the European identity and its international image, then Burma today is certainly one of the key litmus tests, and I believe that one of the best ways in which we can extend our sincere condolences to Aung San Suu Kyi is principally by adding to the initiatives we are taking against the Burmese regime, increasing its international isolation at both a political and diplomatic and an economic and commercial level.
Furthermore, so long as human rights are not guaranteed and the democratic process that the majority of the Burmese people want is not resumed, it will be impossible to have normal or indeed any kind of relations with that country.
At the same time I believe that, in relation to Burma, we shall have to establish, alongside the measures to isolate it, a political strategy, a strategy to promote change, the kind of change the Burmese people also long for.
We must therefore move beyond fine words and adopt a specific strategy that is shared and applied by all the countries of the Union.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I am not going to hold forth about the regime in Burma - which I think we all agree on - as Mr Bertens, Mrs Maij-Weggen and Mr Vecchi have just described it.
The Union has held a very clear position on Burma, with the Commission - especially Commissioner Marín - the Council, rather exceptionally, and obviously our Parliament, all in agreement. So I think what we need to discuss is the question raised by Mr Vecchi.
Is Burma really isolated? I do not think so, because if it really were isolated, the sanctions we have put in place would have had some effect.
The truth is that Burma is getting very strong backing. In particular - and I am sorry Commissioner Brittan is not here - Burma is strongly supported by China, on both an economic and a military level, and that is why it is able to continue with the repression and prevent any democratic development.
So we must do the same for Burma as for North Korea, another country which finds favour with Commissioner Brittan, by putting pressure on China to urge the Burmese and North Korean Governments to bring about change at last.
Further support for Burma comes from our worldwide prohibitionist approach to drugs.
We know that Burma is one of the major producers of drugs and it has the resources to be able to do without the support of Western countries because it has money - plenty of money - from the drugs trade.
Mr President, as in recent motions for resolutions and debates, all we can do again this time is to condemn once again the continued violations of the human rights of various sections of the population in Burma.
All we can really do is repeat ourselves.
Regrettably, an already grim situation has been made even worse by the sad news of the death of Dr Michael Aris, the husband of Aung San Suu Kyi. The couple were forced to live apart, because she was unable to visit him and he was not permitted to visit her.
I believe their private grief is a microcosmic illustration of the repression and cruelty practised by the Burmese regime.
We must encourage the Commission to use its influence, particularly with Burma's neighbours, to isolate Burma with a view to securing the resignation of the present government and halting the maltreatment of villagers, who are taken away for forced labour or whose entire villages are resettled.
We must encourage and exhort the Council to discontinue any cooperation with the ASEAN states in which Burma is involved, not to integrate Burma into any cooperative ventures in the region and to prevail upon Germany, as the holder of the Council presidency, not to issue any entry visas.
We have imposed a ban here, and all the Member States of the Union should enforce it.
Mr President, the previous speakers have already dealt in sufficient detail with the entirely unacceptable circumstances surrounding the refusal of the Burmese Government to let Dr Michael Aris enter the country before he died, and they have also spoken about China's support for that barbaric regime.
For this reason, I should like to focus your attention more sharply on the ethnic cleansing that is taking place in Burma.
The fact that we have adopted a resolution on Kosovo this very day lends special significance to this point, in my opinion.
In our resolution we are especially critical of conditions in the Karen villages this time.
But at the same time we must not overlook the fact that this is all part of a larger plan, as Amnesty International, for example, exposed very graphically in London last year.
We showed how, in the previous two years, some 300 000 members of the Shan people had been forcibly resettled and how the Mon, Akha and Lahu peoples were being driven out into neighbouring countries.
In the light of this fact, it is only right and proper for us to rethink our policy on visas, as proposed in paragraph 9, and to ban Burma from attending EU-ASEAN and ASEM meetings until genuine improvements are observed in the human rights situation.
Cambodia
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, last summer I myself saw just how deeply traumatised the people of Cambodia still are.
As King Sihanouk told me, 'mon peuple est toujours très malade '.
The tragedy continues, 20 years on, because there has been no investigation or trial whatsoever.
The Cambodian Government could not carry out such an investigation or trial even if it wanted to.
In August 1998, work was still being done on drawing up a civil code and a penal code, and the American and European experts were still arguing with each other and amongst themselves in an attempt to impose their views on these various forms of law.
There is a complete absence of any judicial apparatus in Cambodia, and this is why my group wants an international UN tribunal to investigate the genocide and punish those responsible.
We want the European Union to help Cambodia to become a constitutional state.
Mr President, the term 'killing fields' immediately makes you think of Cambodia and the genocide which took place there from 1975 onwards.
It is sad to see that a quarter of a century later they are only just beginning to try to obtain justice for the victims, and even this is threatening to fail because the present political leaders want to hide their involvement in the genocide.
I myself would prefer to see the country taking its own responsibility for sorting out its terrible past, but now that it seems that the facts are about to be swept under the carpet, my group feels that an ad hoc tribunal on the genocide in Cambodia would offer a better guarantee of justice for the Cambodians.
Mr President, the failure to prosecute Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok before an independent international tribunal is extremely worrying but also instructive.
Worrying, because a domestic trial in Cambodia is unlikely to bring out the full facts of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in the years of the killing fields in the late 1970s.
Worrying too, lest Hun Sen unwarrantedly uses international aid for domestic treason law to move against some of his current political opponents.
Instructive, however, in clarifying the need for the international community to set up a permanent international criminal tribunal which can deal with the all-too-frequent acts of genocide which besmirch us all.
But a tribunal which will also act as an inhibition to practitioners of evil, whether they manifest themselves in Indo-China or in former Yugoslavia.
The rule of law is a paramount strut of a civil society.
Sadly, in nearby Malaysia the jailing this week of Anwar Ibrahim illustrates how far we still have to go to ensure that the law is used to enshrine and support the concept of human rights.
Anwar Ibrahim's black eye on arrest is a reproach to the rule of law in Malaysia and to all of us who cherish the primacy of human rights in the conduct of human affairs.
Anwar Ibrahim should be released immediately if Mahathir's failing Malaysia is to be restored to health and prosperity in the eyes of the watching world community.
Mr President, I call upon you to issue a note of protest to Dr Mahathir concerning the flawed political trial practised on Anwar Ibrahim, a note of protest in accordance with the many critical resolutions passed by this Parliament concerning Malaysia.
I hope you are able to do that on behalf of this Parliament.
Mr President, this Parliament, like all democratic institutions, must send out a signal and a warning to the international community that violations of human rights are unacceptable and that history does not forget them.
The massacre in Cambodia must not be consigned to history, and its perpetrators must be called to account.
That is why it is right to set up an international ad hoc tribunal here. It is right because Cambodia itself is apparently unable to set up a tribunal, since the Cambodian State does not possess the necessary structures.
The establishment of a framework of civil law is a challenge to the Commission to show how it can help.
We have issued that challenge on several occasions, and I believe Europe has a considerable amount of assistance to lend.
That also applies in the context of our work with all the nations of ASEAN. It also applies to Malaysia.
The previous speaker dealt in some detail with the case of Anwar Ibrahim.
We cannot tolerate unlawful detention in that case either, and we call on the Commission and the Council to make the appropriate approaches in Malaysia. Otherwise we should have to take measures to freeze our diplomatic relations.
Mr President, it is inconceivable that the most serious crimes against humanity since the Second World War should not be the subject of appropriate criminal sanctions.
That is why Parliament must make three demands. First, there must be a tribunal, because a culture of political indignation and exploitation can hardly be expected to end just where required by considerations of political opportunism.
Secondly, the tribunal must be international, not just because at one time, before he rejected the idea, Mr Hun Sen demanded that, but because we cannot allow the Khmer Rouge trial to become entangled in political and legal score-settling in a country where democracy is still being established.
Thirdly, it is essential that it should not be Ta Mok alone, but all the leaders of the death organisation, Angkar, who are brought to book.
We cannot allow one scapegoat to pay on behalf of everyone, even if that scapegoat is a butcher.
Mr President, anyone who has read a book on the recent history of Cambodia or who has had the good fortune, in inverted commas, to travel round the country must find it incredible that there is still no sign whatsoever of an international tribunal to try the perpetrators of the 'killing fields' and the slaughter that Mr Bourlanges rightly called one of the worst crimes since the Second World War. Nor is there any sign even of an investigation into it all.
I am seriously concerned about the impasse that has been reached here.
The present Cambodian Government must not allow the Khmer Rouge leaders to go unpunished for whatever reasons it may have - patriotism, perhaps.
I also think that an international Cambodia tribunal might still be able to bring some influence to bear and could send a signal to the government in Burma and other governments in South-East Asia.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the case of Ta Mok confronts us with a legal problem that is both fascinating and tragic.
We would be deluding ourselves if we were to think that a Cambodian court could give an unprejudiced ruling on the crimes he committed against humanity or, more generally, the crimes committed by the Khmer Rouge.
It is desirable that an ad hoc tribunal should be set up, but there will always be the suspicion that this is a special court that has already predetermined, so to speak, the tenor of its judgment and has not given the accused the guarantees that even a defendant like Ta Mok deserves.
Consequently, there is only one solution: a permanent international court, a natural court with jurisdiction to try all crimes against humanity, regardless of who commits them, or where and when they are committed.
Niger
Mr President, the resolution on Niger, which all the groups are tabling jointly in this House, has the air - I regret to say - of a kind of routine resolution.
Here we have yet another coup, yet another failure to observe the principles of the constitutional state, the assumption by a military junta of legislative and executive authority with no popular support, against a background made worse by the recent annulment by the Constitutional Court of the results of administrative elections which should in theory have completed the process of a return to democracy and were, strange to say, won by the opposition.
The European Union must therefore be resolute in its response.
In particular, the Commission must suspend development cooperation under the Lomé Convention and simply maintain humanitarian aid and direct assistance by the NGOs to the most vulnerable sections of the population.
Mr President, on 6 April 1994, the shooting down of President Habyarimana's plane marked the start of the terrible genocide in Rwanda.
Now yet another president who had come to power through a coup d'état has been assassinated, murdered by his own military bodyguard who then himself seized power.
The parliament has been dissolved and the army has seized almost total power for itself.
Naturally, we need to keep a very close eye on this situation, which was why I mentioned the events of five years ago in Rwanda.
Yet again a country which already had enormous problems has been thrown into turmoil.
In these circumstances, it would be irresponsible to enter into any form of cooperation with those in power.
If we want to provide humanitarian aid, we must send it through reliable NGOs and hope that our intentions are carried out.
Mr President, what a terrible shame that, once again, conflict in an African country has been resolved in the worst possible way.
Niger is now in a very tense situation in the wake of the coup d'état and the murder of its President on 9 April.
The results of the recently held local and regional elections have been declared invalid and, following the dissolution of the National Assembly, the military have taken over legislative and executive authority.
Let us trust that this is not the end of the process of evolution towards more democracy.
Some hope still remains, since the opposition has stated that it will allow the military nine months to hand back power to a civilian government.
All we as Members of the European Parliament can do is to call upon the Commission to cease cooperation under the Lomé Convention and to implore Niger's self-appointed leadership to abide by the constitution, return power to a civilian government, and respect human rights and civil liberties. That is the one and only road to freedom and stability in the country.
Mr President, the coup d'état in Niger and the assassination of President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara has plunged another African state into the abyss of a military coup and blocked an albeit partial process of institutional reconstruction.
Admittedly, the system of countries such as Niger is barely compatible with the fragile processes of democratisation, and this has been demonstrated in recent months with the annulment of the regional, provincial and local elections in which the opposition held the day.
The military cliques which have perpetrated the coup and are wielding power arbitrarily must be stopped.
What now has to be done is to restore the institutions and set in train a genuine process to bring democracy to the country and, to that end, we too agree that official cooperation under the Lomé Convention must be blocked until the process of establishing democracy has been resumed.
But this situation also shows that there has to be a qualitative improvement in the policy adopted towards the African countries, so that the promotion of human rights, democratisation and conflict prevention - the only conditions that will ensure development - become essential elements of cooperation.
Mr President, I think all of us are entirely in agreement in our analysis of the events which have just taken place in Niger and the need to restore the rule of law and a functioning democracy to that country as quickly as possible, after the coup d'état and the assassination of President Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara.
Having said that, Mr President, I have to announce that my group will not be voting for the four amendments to this resolution, not because we do not share their concerns or agree with the content, but because we think another time should be found to express in a general manner Parliament's feelings on the issues raised.
We want to see today's resolution concentrate exclusively on the problem of Niger.
That is important. These are very recent events and we want to respond to them by dealing only with this one issue in the resolution.
So I repeat, we will not be voting for the amendments.
Murder of Rosemary Nelson
Mr President, one of the saddest things I have seen in recent times was Rosemary Nelson's children following the hearse to the graveyard last month after this human-rights lawyer was brutally murdered in Northern Ireland.
I want to echo the concerns of many people in Ireland and the international community about the circumstances surrounding this murder.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the International Commission of Jurists and, last night, US Congressmen have all expressed their worries over the case.
If we in the European Union are to be taken seriously in promoting high standards of human rights in the world, we must make sure that our own house is in order.
We have to ensure that lawyers, who are an essential part of any effective and credible system of justice, are allowed to conduct their professional duties without any hindrances or fear of intimidation or worse.
The murder of Rosemary Nelson, and the earlier killing of Patrick Finucane, provide clear evidence that this minimum requirement for justice is not guaranteed in Northern Ireland.
I would draw your attention in particular to recitals D and F of the resolution - which time does not allow me to read out - and I would ask you to read them carefully.
In these circumstances I think an investigation by the RUC would lack credibility.
Indeed, the RUC has more or less admitted so much by asking British and American police officials to supervise the investigation.
It would be better all round if the investigations were to be conducted in a completely independent manner so that it could be seen to be objective and impartial by all sections of the community.
I would ask Members to support the resolution and our call for a full, independent, international judicial inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding this case.
Mr President, the murder of Rosemary Nelson sent a shiver through the whole of Ireland.
The only merciful thing was that neither her husband nor her children were in the car when it blew up savagely within sight and sound of her own home and the school where her little daughter was playing in the playground.
Regrettably, in many parts of the world, but also in Northern Ireland, the lawyers and judges have found themselves in the front line where the trouble is most intense and the murder of Rosemary Nelson brings home to us once again the danger that many of these professionals put themselves into when defending one of their clients' most basic human rights.
The call for an independent inquiry circles around the fact that there is considerable belief that an inquiry by the RUC into the death of Mrs Nelson will not be as rigorous as it should be because of the evidence that suggested that she feared very much for her life and for quite a long time believed that her life was in serious danger.
Tragically, she was proved right.
I hope that colleagues will support this resolution and vote with us on it.
Mr Chairman, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of my group, and in particular of my two Irish party colleagues, I wish to express our twofold sense of shock.
First of all we are shocked by the cold-blooded murder of a woman who was personally and professionally devoted to the defence of human rights, and secondly we are shocked by the fact that particular elements, not in a distant part of the world but in the heart of a country of the European Union, are using terrorist violence to undermine an emergent peace process.
But our task here is not only to express our shock but also to state our unequivocal demands.
Firstly, we demand an enquiry by the prosecuting authorities into the background to this murder.
In addition, like those who have spoken before me, I call for an international enquiry by the competent staff of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Mr President, like many colleagues who have already spoken, I utterly condemn the murder of Rosemary Nelson.
Like many Members of this House I also witnessed the scenes of the wreckage of her car and of her family at the funeral.
I can assure you that we utterly condemn the acts of violence that brought about those scenes and no effort will be spared in bringing the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice.
However, I believe there is an effective and credible investigation taking place.
Mr Port who is in charge of the investigation has been given a total and unlimited remit and the freedom to add resources or change resources as he so desires.
Mr Port has worked with the UN in Yugoslavia and in Rwanda as an investigation coordinator and Director of Investigations in the UN Tribunal for Rwanda.
If he so desires he may use independent investigators.
The FBI Legal Attaché has said that in their professional judgment the best chance of detecting those responsible lies in RUC involvement in the investigation because of its knowledge on the ground and local intelligence.
Without the involvement of the RUC any investigation would be severely hampered.
It is necessary for us to cooperate in order to identify and prosecute those responsible for this crime.
As the ongoing investigation into Mrs Nelson is still under way it would be unhelpful to prejudice that investigation by calling at this stage for any new inquiry.
I hope colleagues in Parliament today will appreciate the delicate and sensitive nature of this investigation and the fact that the ongoing peace process must not be jeopardised.
Let the investigation finish its work before looking to additional or further inquiries which at this stage can only complicate matters.
The signal that has to go out from this Chamber, however, is that no matter what political colour you are you cannot get away with these acts of violence.
Mr President, the murder of Rosemary Nelson was a brutal and cowardly deed.
It was an attack on the justice system, it was an attack on democracy and it was a deliberate attempt to undermine the Good Friday Agreement.
It is regrettable, but it must be said that there are legitimate concerns about the role of the security forces.
Those that enforce the rule of law must always operate within the law.
But let me say this: this resolution should not be misconstrued as a blanket condemnation of the RUC.
The people of Northern Ireland have a lot to thank the RUC for.
They have given their lives to buy time for politicians to solve the political problems of Northern Ireland.
They have been at the coalface of terrorism from both Loyalist and Republican thugs.
The overwhelming majority of its members are fine men trying to impartially enforce the rule of law.
When we condemn this particular action we should remember that there are Loyalist and Republican thugs who are deliberately attempting to undermine an agreement which was overwhelmingly endorsed by the people of Ireland, both north and south, and we will not let them do that.
Mr President, before we come to the end of the debate on human rights, allow me to express my delight at the decision taken by the British Home Secretary to go ahead with the extradition proceedings against General Pinochet, in line with the wishes of the European Parliament.
Mr President, the Commission is entirely in agreement with the House on the continuing serious human rights violations in Burma, which are to be on the agenda for the forthcoming General Affairs Council on 26 April.
A decision will probably be taken to extend the existing measures against Burma, including visa restrictions, for a further six months.
As you know, the initial decision on this was taken a year ago; it was extended six months ago and is now to be extended again, for the simple reason that the situation has not improved.
Secondly, discussions are currently taking place in the United Nations Human Rights Commission on drawing up a new resolution against Burma.
Thirdly, I would point out that, in addition to the fact that the Council regularly devotes attention to the Burma problem, the EU-ASEAN conference in Berlin which was scheduled for a month or six weeks ago had to be cancelled, because agreement could not be reached on whether Burma should participate and because ASEAN rejected the special arrangement proposed by the Council in order to be able to discuss the human rights issue with the Burmese.
We will have to see how we can continue to demonstrate our rejection of the human rights situation in Burma and help to bring about improvements there, without allowing the situation to blight our entire relationship with ASEAN.
Moving on briefly to Cambodia, the EU troika has made diplomatic approaches to the prime minister, who has said that he personally accepts the basic principle that the Khmer Rouge leaders must take genuine responsibility for the crimes they committed.
The Commission therefore welcomed the recent statement by Prime Minister Hun Sen in which he agreed to allow foreign judges and prosecutors to play a central role in the trial of the imprisoned Khmer Rouge leader Ta Mok in Cambodia in order to guarantee that the trial meets international standards.
With regard to Niger, it goes without saying that we strongly condemn the recent coup d'état there, and the Commission is pressing the military authorities to restore the rule of law as quickly as possible.
The Commission is currently considering what measures to take following recent events, as the House suggested, and one possibility is that we will propose to the Council that development cooperation should be partially suspended in accordance with Article 366a of the Lomé Convention, with which you are familiar.
At this early stage, the Commission still intends to suspend all new projects and programmes that are currently in preparation, together with existing projects, until the country is returned to lawful rule.
Humanitarian aid and measures to help the poorest sections of the population are naturally not included here.
Finally, like this House, the Commission was horrified to learn of the cowardly murder of Rosemary Nelson.
On behalf of the Commission, I should like to take this opportunity to express our deepest sympathies to her family.
We feel that the most important thing we can do is to honour her memory, to continue to support the peace process and to refuse to allow terrorism to gain the upper hand in Northern Ireland.
We also hope that those guilty of this cowardly murder will be tracked down and brought to justice.
Mr President, it is good to see Indonesia and East Timor on the agenda.
But I wonder whether the Commission could prevail upon the British Government not to supply arms to the Indonesian Government, or arms-related materials.
The joint debate is closed.
I am sure the Commissioner will have taken note of the question raised by Mr Morris.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
VOTES (continuation)
The impressive number of transit operations taking place annually in the European Union and the size of the sums involved are in themselves sufficient to demonstrate the urgency of computerising the Community transit procedure and at the same time ensuring maximum transparency throughout the European customs policy.
But this important issue is not just about the proper functioning of the internal market or the distribution of resources between the Member States and the Community. We are concerned with combating international fraud and organised crime as effectively as possible.
From this point of view, the four-year delay in finalising computerisation is very worrying, because it comes on top of other delays, which can be ascribed fundamentally to the intergovernmental nature of the third pillar.
Once again we are forced to recognise that Parliament's ambitious aim has met with opposition from the Member States, some of which insist on rejecting the logical consequences of the advent of the single market.
Nonetheless, everyone would gain from optimising the Commission's action, which would allow us to rationalise the instruments and resources involved.
From this point of view, I firmly support their incorporation into a single decision-making centre and a single budget line.
Similarly, as the rapporteur says, it is imperative for the computerisation of Community transit to come into full operation by 2003.
So on that basis, I shall vote for the proposal for a decision as amended.
We voted against this report for the following reasons:
1.Customs services are a fundamental part of the legal system of a country.
Direction of customs administrations by the EU would violate national sovereignty and must never be allowed to happen.2.Previous EU decisions have weakened border controls between the Member States in such a way as to encourage lawbreaking and the movement of smuggled goods.
This demonstrates the importance of making nationally based appraisals of the strength of customs authorities.3.The report is an insult to the Member States, since it seeks to establish practices which have been rejected by the Council.4.It is perfectly feasible for cooperation between customs administrations in different countries to be organised on an intergovernmental basis.- van Dam report (A4-0114/99)
I support the position of the Committee on Transport and Tourism on the proposal to permit a maximum vehicle weight of 44 tonnes for heavy goods vehicles.
I want to back that conviction with three arguments.
First, like Rijk van Dam, I do not think that the existing infrastructures in many EU countries are ready to cope with such an increase in loads.
The result would be major additional highway maintenance costs, which local communities would have to bear, while all they would get in return would be a few jobs.
The weakness of our infrastructures is very real and risks deteriorating with enlargement.
We know that the cost of enlargement will have to include the modernisation of transport links.
Secondly, I reject the proposal on road safety grounds, even at the risk of shocking certain professionals in the field.
The involvement of heavy goods vehicles in the most lethal accidents is undeniable, because, in addition to excessively difficult working conditions, weight is also an aggravating factor, all the more so as it is often combined with excessive speed.
Allowing heavy goods vehicles of up to 44 tonnes on the roads would actually increase the risks.
Thirdly and finally, if such vehicles are authorised, emissions of pollutants will be increased because extra power will be needed to pull these trailers. That contradicts the express wishes of both our governments and Parliament in terms of environmental policy.
Ladies and gentlemen, those are the reasons for my hostility towards this authorisation and why I voted against the Commission's proposals.
Thors report (A4-0156/99)
We have abstained because we feel that the report is inadequate and unclear on a number of counts.
The right to issue electronic money should be restricted to banks only, with supervision by national auditors.
Funds must be protected in the event of bankruptcy or similar occurrences, and customers' rights should be enshrined in a special statute.
Thyssen report (A4-0137/99)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the Thyssen report, because it is detrimental in many respects to certain business sectors and of course to people starting up in business.
Examples of these disadvantages are that an agreement with a brewery could no longer consist of the brewery financing the establishment of a restaurant or public house, subject to the proprietor signing a ten-year supply contract.
This, I believe, is a blow to people starting up in the licensed trade and to the trade itself, because these supply arrangements have been standard practice and have served as a stepping-stone to success.
The same applies to the oil industry, which builds service stations and at the same time concludes supply agreements with the service station operators for ten years or more.
On the basis of this report, all such arrangements will become more difficult or impossible in future.
That is why I voted against it.
I believe it is inconsistent with our aim of promoting business start-ups and the creation of jobs.
We voted against this report, since we believe the Commission's standpoint to be correct.
Mr President, I naturally voted for the Thyssen report, but I must express my disappointment at the opinion delivered by the Commission on our amendments just before midnight last night, when three of us were still here.
Admittedly, Commissioner van den Broek, who is not himself responsible for competition policy, could only read out what the Commission services, or more precisely Mr Van Miert's department, had written for him.
I must therefore strongly warn the Commission against rejecting our Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3 to both of the draft regulations.
These amendments are a sign of our political will to ensure that small breweries such as those in my country are not driven to the wall because they are no longer allowed to conclude the sort of supply contracts that exist at the present time.
These contracts have been operating to the satisfaction of the breweries on the one hand and of landlords, restaurateurs and hoteliers on the other.
For this sector, as for service stations, there must be either an exception to the general rule or a sector-by-sector approach within the general regulatory framework.
It is also unacceptable that in smaller markets, such as the Luxembourg market, breweries exceeding a market share of, say, 40 % would be ineligible for such exemptions.
Since the Luxembourg breweries can quickly reach that sort of threshold in our small market, such a rule would lead to the crazy situation in which a major German brewery, such as Bitburger, which produces vastly greater quantities of beer than the largest brewery in Luxembourg, could still conclude contracts for the supply of beer to public houses in Luxembourg, because the total amount it supplied would be well within the limit of 40 % of the huge German beer market to which Bitburger would be subject. The Luxembourg brewery, however, could no longer do that, which would spell the end for it.
That must be avoided at all costs.
If there must be reference markets, they cannot be restricted to mini-markets such as Luxembourg but must be defined on a regional or European scale.
I hope that the Commission, and Mr Van Miert in particular, will rethink this matter very thoroughly.
Resolution on imports of garlic
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against the motion on tightening up the regulations governing garlic imports from third countries.
The motion paves the way for comprehensive protection of European garlic producers.
Amongst other things, it is proposed to introduce a deterrent tariff and to revise the rates of duty if quantities are imported which exceed the established quota, which it is proposed should be reduced.
We in the EU have entered into trade agreements with China and other countries on garlic imports, and the motion will be detrimental to our trading partners in third countries.
We are embarking on a liberalisation of our trade in agricultural products, and we should therefore be seeking to open up trade rather than restricting it.
For this reason, we are unable to support the motion.
Herman report (A4-0158/99)
Mr Herman's report on improvements in the functioning of the institutions without modification of the Treaties complements another report we passed last year on practical action to reduce the democratic deficit in running economic and monetary union.
In reality, as a little hindsight makes clear, that was just empty posturing to get people to accept a monetary system with very little democracy to recommend it.
This second part, which the European Parliament has just voted on today, is essentially about reforming the Commission.
The timing is doubly bad.
It is bad first of all because, as stated in the explanatory statement, it concentrates on the aim of reinforcing the independence of the Commission, when recent experience, with the resignation of that institution for maladministration, suggests that, on the contrary, its independence should be reduced and the controls over it strengthened.
The timing of the report is also bad because, by definition, it is only proposing reforms that can be implemented without modifying the Treaty, whereas Chancellor Schröder explained to us yesterday that there can be no remedy for the crisis unless the Treaty is modified.
That is certainly our opinion and we were happy to hear that the new intergovernmental conference, to be launched at the Cologne Council in June, will have that mission included in its mandate.
There will clearly be different views about the necessary reforms.
The view of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations is that the first thing to do is to stop thinking of the Commission as a superior body, as the guardian of the European public interest.
It must become merely the executive arm of the Council.
We must also stop manufacturing a European civil service cut off from the nations and virtually endogamous, both literally and figuratively.
It should be much more open to national civil services and should be based on exchanges of personnel with the Member States.
That kind of permanent interaction will be very fruitful in bringing Europe closer to the people. We must stop thinking that the European public interest is something imposed on the nations from on high.
On the contrary, it is the result of the free expression of their needs and open dialogue between their representatives.
After a report by the same rapporteur on the policies of the European Union in May 1998, we adopted a resolution on improving the functioning of the European institutions.
In a way, this text represents the balance not dealt with earlier, either in the first report or in the reports by Mr Brok, Mrs Lööw and Mr Bourlanges.
As regards the European Parliament, I support the rapporteur in asking for our work to concentrate on the essential tasks, for greater professionalism on the part of Members and for improved information to the public.
We should pay particular attention to this last point.
Improving the way we welcome visitors, who will be coming in increasing numbers, and improving access to documents are two measures that speak for themselves.
I especially like the idea of an open centre, easily accessible and without security controls, where those interested would find documents, audio-visual materials, CD-ROMS, and so on.
Perhaps an extension of the Bureau pour la Belgique could be envisaged.
I also hope a formula can be found whereby the people of the Quartier Léopold , who are fighting to prevent their environment becoming a bureaucratic desert, can have a special relationship with Parliament and feel at home.
It will be a big step forward when the area between Parliament and the station, the famous 'dalle ', is finally landscaped in a more welcoming and friendly way.
That means releasing the necessary resources, which will require closer cooperation between the Espace Léopold society, Parliament - in its moral role - and the relevant Belgian authorities.
A few years ago, I told a journalist that I was astonished not to see more of his colleagues covering Parliament's important work.
He replied that they go where the power is - the Council first and foremost.
Fortunately, the Treaty of Amsterdam, which enters into force on 1 May, will increase our power a little, notably as regards the investiture of the Commission.
I hope that we will become more visible.
But it is up to us to become more transparent.
The importance of this debate needs no emphasis.
Despite some progress, the Treaty of Amsterdam has basically failed to come up to the expectations of all those who hoped that the European Union was something other than a huge market.
The rapporteur is right to emphasise, in line with the Commission, that another intergovernmental conference is necessary and urgent to provide acceptable solutions to the various institutional problems which have existed for a fair number of years now.
But we cannot stand idly by, waiting for another IGC to start. Events remind us every day of the political holes in the construction of Europe and the Union's inability to tackle alone most of the great challenges it faces.
So, as of now, we must make maximum use of the opportunities provided by the Treaty of Amsterdam to deepen European integration and reform the Union's institutions.
In the present context, I want to stress that, whichever way you look at it, the workforce has hardly expanded in terms of a European civil service - I am referring in particular to the Commission - and has not followed the exponential curve of the tasks that have been entrusted to it since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Here, it is worth thinking about the role of the Council and its pursuit of objectives that are sometimes contradictory.
At the same time, there are grounds for concern about the possible harmful consequences of widespread use by the Commission of temporary staff seconded from national civil services or from industry.
I am in no way casting doubt on the competence of these temporary workers, or suggesting that they may not be good Europeans.
And I can appreciate the desire for flexibility and acquiring new methods and skills.
But, like our rapporteur, I am afraid that there might be conflicts of loyalty between the vital independence of the Commission and national and sectoral interests which may lead to ambiguity in terms of a worker's status.
The Commission has resigned, a new treaty is about to come into force and there will be European elections in due course - things are happening in Europe.
It is time for a clear-out.
Too much has been allowed to go on for too long.
This applies to the blurring of the lines of responsibility within the Commission, an out-of-date staff policy and a European Parliament which was not taken seriously because it was lacking in real power.
At present, the public's confidence in the EU is at a low ebb. That is logical in the wake of recent events.
The debate which we are about to have should, in my view, be used constructively to improve the cooperation between the institutions.
And there is a great deal that can be improved.
We shall insist on the staff policy being one of the key priorities in the clear-out.
But I must emphasise that interest also needs to be shown by the Council in order to carry this through.
If we can get the cooperation between our institutions to function properly, then the public will also gain greater confidence in us.
The Amsterdam Treaty gives the European Parliament the opportunity to acquire greater supervisory powers than it has had in the past.
This will find expression in relation to the environment, amongst other areas.
But not within agriculture.
This is unfortunate, because what is it that makes it unnecessary to monitor agriculture, especially when one considers that more than 40 % of the budget is spent on it? We must insist that the European Parliament's stance on agricultural matters is taken more seriously.
If control is not exercised by Parliament, then there is no control.
The events of last month have set an extremely important process in motion, which will reinforce the cooperation between the institutions.
Through the Amsterdam Treaty, the European Parliament is acquiring even more influence.
We must now also be even better at using that influence.
This report covers many of the problems currently afflicting the EU institutions.
The report by the Committee of Independent Experts on shortcomings in the way the Commission operates reaches two main conclusions: there is too much power and too little supervision.
Space could have been found in this report to address that state of affairs, without departing from the original remit.
Too much power, poor levels of supervision and transparency, the absence of an inventory of documents received - these are some of the deficiencies in the EU institutions today, and this is especially true from the perspective of the general public.
The Council's deliberations on new legislation - legal texts - should be accessible to the public, as is the case with legislation before national parliaments.
Both the Commission's proposals and the Council's decisions should be public and available to all.
Another element in the necessary reform process is greater decentralisation, with the EU concentrating on major issues and liberating itself from a welter of detailed business.
We also need increased cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments; together, they could jointly exercise a greater degree of supervision. This is a dimension that should have been dealt with more extensively in the report.
Böge and Roth-Behrendt report (A4-0083/99)
I do not need to remind you of the decisive role that Parliament played in the mad cow crisis.
It was Parliament that raised the alarm in 1996 by setting up a temporary committee of inquiry which revealed the deficiencies in the way the Commission and certain Member States were handling the problem.
Progress has been made since then, as the report we are voting on today shows.
Like the rapporteurs, I am glad the Commission has implemented most of the European Parliament's recommendations.
The transformation of the scientific committees represents very significant progress.
In fact, the experts are guaranteed increased independence and greater transparency in their work.
Moreover, the European Commission and the Food and Veterinary Office have markedly improved the effectiveness of the inspections and controls.
The initiation of infringement proceedings against Member States for inadequate application or non-application of Community legislation has accelerated.
So there has been real progress, and that message must be loud and clear.
But we cannot start celebrating yet.
The disease has far from disappeared, as shown by the increase in cases in Portugal.
And we must not lose sight of the fact that there is a long incubation period for CJD.
So caution is essential.
Parliament must continue to monitor the situation and put pressure on the European Commission.
There are still differences, as mentioned in the report by Mr Böge and Mrs Roth-Behrendt, and they mainly relate to the two key elements of the right to compensation and sanctions.
The Member States must shoulder their responsibilities.
It is absolutely intolerable to find that some of them have refused to cooperate with European Commission staff.
It is all the more unacceptable because human lives are at risk.
The precautionary principle must be applied everywhere because it is one of the most effective ways of protecting consumers.
This concerns each and every one of us.
Analysis of this report shows that the crisis goes beyond the BSE issue.
Everything comes back to the institutional crisis we have just experienced, with the resignation of the European Commission.
In fact, the various reports by the temporary committees of inquiry underlined not only the Commission's lack of transparency and coordination, but also the shortage of human resources.
These deficiencies were further highlighted in the report by the Group of Independent Experts which led to the present situation.
All this must be brought to an end at the next IGC and we must no longer shrink from reforms which are indispensable to the smooth running of the European Union.
Since the BSE follow-up committee was stood down, deaths from CJD have continued to accelerate alarmingly, with ten recorded in the last quarter of 1998. Deaths are still being recorded in the United Kingdom and, with an incubation period of 5 to 30 years, many cases of new variant CJD caused by BSE have still to emerge.
The European Parliament and the Commission still differ strongly on certain points, including financial compensation and counselling for the victims and their families.
To this day, the disciplinary measures called for by the follow-up committee, that is, the administrative measures against the British Government for non-appearance, have remained without effect.
I am also very concerned about the significant increase in cases of BSE in Belgium, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
Finally, the financial assistance to victims of CJD is, in my view, utterly inadequate, not to mention insulting.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has tabled six amendments relating specifically to the precautionary principle, extending the principle of food safety to genetically modified organisms, phytosanitary products and growth hormones, and banning the use of meat taken from abattoirs or cattle carcasses for the manufacture of animal meal.
While the BSE crisis has certainly made it possible to change decision-making procedures within the Commission, my group wants those procedures to go further than the mad cow affair, so that the precautionary principle is managed as well as possible and so that the scientific committees cannot be subjected to political or economic pressure through the Commission's experts.
European breeders have made remarkable efforts to improve product traceability and restore consumer confidence in the quality of the products they eat.
Our farmers simply cannot understand why imports from third countries of genetically modified agricultural products to be used for animal feed are allowed, when we are unsure of the long-term effects of GMOs on the quality of meat.
Why has the Commission accepted imports of genetically modified maize or soya?
The United States is threatening the European Union with a WTO panel on 13 May because we refuse to import meat treated with hormones. What position will the European Union take in the WTO negotiations due to start at the end of this year?
Personally, listening to Mr Prodi, I am worried. He seems more concerned about signing up to the Commission's traditional power bulimia, than about clarifying how the Commission will apply the precautionary principle and the principle of fair trade - on which the next President of the Commission is silent - when it represent the interests of the Member States in those crucial trade negotiations.
The European Union must approach these negotiations with real determination to defend the precautionary principle and the social, environmental and animal welfare standards necessary for healthy and lasting trade which respects all our economies and all our consumers.
Donner report (A4-0149/99)
We have today voted in favour of the Donner report on Estonia.
First of all, we wish to express our support for enlargement and, secondly, we share the concern that has been expressed about the large Russian minority in this country.
We welcome the amendments to the Citizenship Act.
However, we find it hard to be enthusiastic at the so-called 'progress' which has been made in transposing Community legislation, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
The report states that there is concern that the support for accession will be weakened if the process is not maintained.
We are convinced that balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership should be freely available to all Estonian citizens, and we likewise hope that a referendum will be held to decide on the country's membership of the EU.
von Habsburg report (A4-0154/99)
Mr President, I was basically happy to accept everything in the report, along with the amendments.
However, I should like to comment on one point which goes somewhat beyond the Hungarian question.
When we talk to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, we are all too inclined to assume a schoolmasterly pose and lecture them about things that we should do better to put right in our own backyard.
It is exceedingly hypocritical of us to reproach them continually about corruption, for example, when our own Community is notoriously plagued by recurrent widespread corruption on a grand scale.
These countries undoubtedly have serious problems, since they have emerged, after all, from foreign occupation and dictatorship, which has invariably led to a certain breakdown of a nation's moral fibre; under these circumstances, I believe it is absolutely hypocritical of us to wag our finger at them.
All I wished to say was that I have voted in favour, because I am keen to see these countries' early accession to the Union.
The point I have made is for future reference, so to speak.
We have today voted in favour of the von Habsburg report on Hungary.
First of all, we wish to express our support for enlargement and, secondly, we appreciate the steps that have been taken to improve the circumstances of the gypsies.
However, we find it hard to be enthusiastic at the so-called 'progress' which has been made in transposing Community legislation, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
The report urges the government to continue the regular dialogue with the opposition and the social partners in order to create a favourable political climate for Hungary's integration into the EU.
We are convinced that balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership should be freely available to all Hungarian citizens, and we likewise hope that a referendum will be held to decide on the country's membership of the EU.
Speciale report (A4-0151/99)
We have today voted in favour of the Speciale report on Slovenia, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
However, we find it hard to regret that little 'progress' has been made in transposing Community law, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
The report calls for the implementation of an appropriate information campaign to enable the public to understand what accession really means and play their part accordingly, thereby helping to overcoming certain misgivings about accession.
We are convinced that balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership should be freely available to all the citizens of Slovenia, and we likewise hope that a referendum will be held to decide on the country's membership of the EU.
Carnero González report (A4-0157/99)
Mr President, I gladly voted for Mr Carnero González's report.
One reason is that he himself has adopted a very sound approach, focusing very sharply on the rule of law, the legal system and minority questions.
But I am also very pleased about the adoption of Amendment No 8 - the Nassauer and Poettering amendment - in which the European Parliament calls unequivocally for the repeal of the so-called Benes Decrees.
I have no doubt that we want to forge ahead with enlargement.
But if we wish to extend our legal community, we must insist emphatically on the preservation of its character as a community in which the rule of law prevails.
When unlawful decrees are brought into such a community, it is like introducing a virus into a computer system.
It endangers the whole system.
That is why unlawful decrees must be repealed prior to accession.
We have taken a major step in that direction today.
We have today voted in favour of the Carnero González report on the Czech Republic, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
We hope that the Czech Republic will improve the circumstances of the country's gypsies as quickly as possible.
However, we find it hard to regret the lack of 'progress' in transposing Community law, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
The report stresses the importance of a national consensus on the question of EU membership.
However, we believe that balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership should be freely available to all Czech citizens, and we likewise hope that a referendum will be held to decide on the country's membership of the EU.
Hoff report (A4-0148/99)
We have today voted in favour of the Hoff report on Poland, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
However, we find it hard to welcome the rapid 'progress' which has been made in transposing Community law, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
Furthermore, the report welcomes the government's planned information campaign about EU membership, and the hope is expressed that it will be possible to communicate a pro-European attitude to the public.
It is also evident from the report that not all Poles are enthusiastic about the EU - witness the demonstrations by farmers.
We would like to urge the government to make balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership freely available to all Polish citizens, and we likewise hope that it will keep its promise to hold a referendum on the country's membership of the EU.
Of all the applicant countries, Poland is perhaps the one with the fewest problems.
It is the largest and most populous of the applicant countries and expressed its legitimate wish to join the European Union in 1994, although negotiations did not really begin until four years later.
Since then, and especially since 1997, when parliamentary elections were held and the new constitution came into force, Poland has demonstrated its commitment to reform.
The government has constantly expressed, in word and deed, its intention to create the conditions for membership of the European Union in its country by 2002.
It is on the right path and that is to be welcomed.
Politically, the country satisfies the criteria for a democratic state.
Its institutions are solidly established and guarantee the rule of law, respect for human rights and respect for and protection of minorities.
That is an essential factor, but it has to be combined with other criteria, notably the economic dimension.
Economically, Poland has one of the strongest economies in Central and Eastern Europe.
Its growth rate is over 5 %, inflation and unemployment are falling, and the budget deficit and government debt are in line with the Maastricht criteria.
However, despite the positive economic trend and significant structural reforms - reform of the administration, the health service, the pension system - there are still backlogs to be compensated for in various areas: the internal market, the lack of a system to oversee state aid, and the privatisation of the major public companies.
Agriculture and the environment present particular problems and thorough reforms are essential.
Mrs Hoff advocates global structural change.
I support the idea that agriculture should be seen as part of a rural development strategy.
The changes should create jobs and respect the environment and to achieve this, Poland must increase investment in these areas.
We are making demands on the Polish people, but we also have duties towards them.
The restructuring that must precede membership has a social cost which we must bear in mind.
The European Community must ensure that accompanying measures minimise the impact of these reforms on people's living conditions.
I will end on a positive note, by reaffirming my view that it is perfectly natural for Poland to join the European Union, just as it was natural for it to join NATO last month.
Bertens report (A4-0159/99)
We have today voted in favour of the Bertens report on Cyprus, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
We also share the report's views about the partition of the island.
However, we find it hard to approve of the rapid 'progress' which has been made in transposing Community law, and in particular we feel that the lack of flexibility that has been shown by the EU is beneath contempt.
We would like to urge the government to make balanced information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership freely available to all Cypriot citizens, and we likewise hope that it will hold a referendum on the country's membership of the EU.
Malone report (A4-0165/99)
We have today voted in favour of the Malone report on Malta, since we wish to express our full support for enlargement.
We welcome the Maltese Government's pledge to hold a referendum once the negotiations have been concluded.
We hope that the government will ensure that the planned information campaign is balanced, so that we get information about both the advantages and the disadvantages of membership which is freely available to all Maltese citizens.
Myller report (A4-0123/99)
I shall be voting in favour of the recommendations in the report on the effects of enlargement of the European Union on the environment.
The present environmental problems in the applicant countries are a result of high emissions into the atmosphere from industrial activities, energy production and traffic as well as under-funding and neglect of water and waste management.
To prevent the present Member States being affected by this, environmental issues must play an important role in preparing the Central and Eastern European countries for membership of the Union.
Before joining they must be able to demonstrate that they are able to abide by both EU environmental legislation and international treaties.
The EU must also ensure that it does not encourage the further decimation of the large expanses of untouched environmental beauty in the applicant countries.
Whilst funding should of course be made available to modernise and attract industry to this region, it should not be at the expense of the environment of either applicant or present Member States.
However, there shall be environmental benefits as a result of a successful application by these countries.
The large areas of sparsely populated land so characteristic of many of these nations shall undoubtedly bring new areas of environmental beauty and diversity into the Union and these should be promoted and developed through financial assistance from the EU.
At all times it should be remembered that the Amsterdam Treaty lays down that environmental protection requirements must play a part in the definition and implementation of Community policies.
De Esteban Martín report (A4-0119/99)
I share the rapporteur's satisfaction with Mr Söderman's work over the past year and the outstanding clarity and conciseness of his report.
I think the Ombudsman has recognised the importance of his role in a European Union that hopes to move closer to the people.
How can European citizenship be envisaged if the Community institutions can act in a discretionary or even arbitrary way towards the people they administer and not be held to account? That unacceptable situation only ended in 1995 with the appointment of the European Ombudsman.
At last the complaints from European citizens about maladministration by the Community institutions would be heard.
At last there would be a minimum of dialogue and transparency in the functioning of what is often regarded as the 'Brussels bureaucracy'.
Successive annual reports, and especially the 1998 report, have illustrated the progress made.
First, there has been progress as regards the amount of cases dealt with.
The number of complaints is up by 200 on the previous year.
This means that people are becoming more aware of the Ombudsman and no longer hesitate to express their concerns and indeed their anger.
They want to make themselves heard and have their rights respected.
And we must welcome that.
But honesty and realism force me to put a damper on this.
There are 370 million people in Europe and there were only 1 372 complaints in 1998.
We therefore need an information campaign.
There is no lack of new forms of communication.
On similar lines, I support the Ombudsman's suggestion that all remedies open to individuals should be clearly mentioned in the EC Treaty, including the right to complain to their national ombudsmen.
And here the excellent cooperation developed between the latter and the European Ombudsman should be highlighted.
Cooperation is also a watchword of the relations between the European Parliament's Committee on Petitions and the European Ombudsman.
Their networking will definitely result in effectiveness.
And this will all benefit the people of Europe.
While the balance sheet is largely positive, improvements still need to be made, in particular as regards the status of the Ombudsman in terms of his investigative role.
It really is vital for him to have access to all the relevant documents he needs, which is not the case today.
The adoption of a code of good administrative behaviour for the European institutions would also provide a guarantee for the public, who would be able to consult it freely.
More generally, what emerges from the European Ombudsman's report is that the confidence of Europeans depends on transparency, dialogue and clear legal rules allowing them to defend their rights.
These are the necessary conditions for developing a sense of belonging to a project which often seems remote.
The increase in complaints lodged with the European Ombudsman about alleged cases of maladministration by the institutions or bodies of the European Union can be interpreted in two ways.
One is pessimistic.
As a recent news report saw it, the whole of the European civil service is stigmatised by the extent of malfunction that was disclosed.
The other is optimistic.
We can draw a positive conclusion from the growing number of complaints.
It can be seen as proof that the public is taking a new interest in the construction of Europe.
This paradoxical approach - drawing a positive conclusion from a decidedly negative fact - must clearly not deter us from taking an interest in the cases of maladministration condemned by the Ombudsman and his response to appeals from the European public.
Everyone will agree that it is not enough for European citizens to recognise the increased role played by the European Union in their daily lives; they also need to experience it and analyse it as something positive.
So I am delighted to hear our rapporteur applaud the quality of the work done by the European Ombudsman.
Transparency will also build lasting support on the part of the European public for European integration.
That is why the rapporteur has my full support when she defends the general principle of access to all the documents needed to examine a case.
Nonetheless, I agree that confidentiality is sometimes indispensable.
But secrecy should be the exception, not the rule.
Newman report (A4-0117/99)
The Committee on Petitions does remarkable work, from both a quantitative and a qualitative point of view.
There have been 6 500 petitions with 10 million signatures during this parliamentary term, which works out at an average of almost four petitions and 5 000 signatures every twenty-four hours, including Sundays and holidays.
Those figures surely make us wonder.
They are bound to make us ask questions, as elected representatives, about the real nature of our relations and the relations of the European institutions with the public.
It is certainly true that, apart from the specific questions it raises about the relationship between the elected and the electors as this century draws to a close, the right of petition is one of the best ways for Parliament to exercise control over the Commission and the Council - as well as the Member States - on behalf of the people of Europe.
The right of petition is therefore one way to make our fellow citizens more firmly and deeply attached to the construction of Europe.
Perhaps that explains the Commission's excellent cooperation with the Committee on Petitions, and the Council's persistent reluctance to participate in the joint effort.
We must clearly condemn the Council's obvious lack of response to public opinion, and ensure that everyone faces up to their responsibilities.
To conclude, in view of the enormous volume of work involved in dealing with the petitions received, I fully support a thorough review of the Committee on Petitions' working methods, because it is easy to understand why it is puzzling over how best to fulfil its role.
Schmidbauer report (A4-0111/99)
Our rapporteur, Mrs Barbara Schmidbauer, has not shrunk from her task in this pre-election period, when criticising road transport and its cost does not appeal to all voters.
I congratulate her on that, just as I congratulate her on having established that the measures suggested by the Commission should not make transport more expensive, but should permit more effective use of infrastructures and greater respect for the environment.
But I want to add 'safer use' to that 'effective use', thinking of the current increase in the number of road and rail tunnels and the serious accidents that have occurred in the last few years.
The accident in the Channel Tunnel - where there is a modern alarm system - could have caused heavy loss of life.
It was pure chance that the burning carriage stopped near an access door to the second tunnel, so the people were able to escape.
The Mont Blanc accident has cost the lives of forty people and nobody knows when the tunnel will be open to traffic again.
We must take on board all the conclusions of the inquiries in progress and take the necessary decisions.
But I feel that one principle should be adopted right away, covering all safety aspects in tunnels.
The service responsible for safety must be genuinely independent of the company operating the tunnel and the company must apply all the recommendations made by the safety service.
This principle will have financial implications, but safety, in other words, the lives of those who use the tunnels, naturally comes at a price.
In the final analysis, perhaps the authority to control safety should be exclusively a matter for the government.
I have one final comment.
Of the 35 million tonnes of goods that travel between Italy and France each year, 10 million tonnes are carried by rail.
The Chamonix valley is a notorious HGV corridor with traffic growing exponentially, along with the nuisance and the risks this entails.
That is the measure of the absurdity of an 'all by road' policy based on profit at any price.
I have therefore paid tribute to the courage of the rapporteur who, despite the infrastructure costs, firmly stresses the advantages of the rail alternative in terms of safety and the environment.
We support the principle of creating fair competition between different modes of transport.
The main point is of course to ensure that lorries and passenger cars pay all the costs involved, including environmental ones. Air transport also needs to be taxed more heavily.
This is necessary if we are to encourage the use of environmentally friendly modes of transport; currently, these are at a disadvantage.
We are, however, opposed to a number of the proposals in both the Commission's White Paper and the report.
Of prime concern to us are the proposals on a uniform system of charging for the whole of the EU.
Bearing in mind the subsidiarity principle, we feel strongly and unequivocally that the EU should not go beyond setting minimum charges; it is up to the Member State concerned to manage its own rates.
The Union should on no account be granted the right to levy taxes.
We firmly reject any kind of detailed regulation by the EU.
Mrs Schmidbauer has invested a great deal of work in her report. Indeed, it is even fair to say that, as far as the Commission White Paper is concerned, it is a good report.
And, to be perfectly honest, even I have to recognise that the White Paper provides some interesting food for thought.
I too am all for fair competition between individual modes of transport and for fair and efficient pricing of transport services.
I too am in favour of shifting more transport operations from the roads to the railways and waterways, but I am opposed to making cars, lorries and buses the sole scapegoats for every possible problem and even for some impossible ones.
And that is the thrust of the White Paper and, I am sorry to say, of the parliamentary report as well.
When we speak of fair competition, we cannot ignore the fact that railway wages are higher and jobs are virtually guaranteed for life - conditions that will probably never obtain in the private sector.
Given the present craze for liberalisation, are there plans to change this and, if so, in what way?
The White Paper is talking facts when it says that external costs throughout the EU are assessed by the Commission at an annual figure of EUR 250 billion.
There is talk of marginal social cost, although we never quite discover precisely what is meant by that, of taxes on diesel and of uniform charging systems being introduced throughout Europe with the aid of electronic data transfer.
However, the rapporteur goes too far when she calls for the inclusion of private non-commercial vehicles in the charging system as a means of distributing the costs among all users of the road network.
Is this designed to ensure that in future only the rich will be able to drive cars and that the bulk of the population will stay at home?
To the rapporteur's credit, however, she insists that the proposed measures must not result in more expensive transport and that, if price rises are inevitable, the burden on road users should be reduced in some other way.
In this context, it would have been interesting to learn from the Commission how much each Member State collects in road tax and in excise duty on petrol, diesel and so on, and how much of that is systematically ploughed back into the construction and maintenance of the road network.
Even if every possible and impossible means is already being used to master the perennially increasing volume of traffic, care must be taken to avoid burdening users and operators of rail, road, air and water transport with a procession of new taxes, and that is the bottom line.
We would do well to remember how great the outcry was in Germany when there was talk of increasing the price of a litre of petrol to the equivalent of 100 Belgian francs.
I have the impression that the policy set out in the White Paper is designed to achieve that same objective by a different route.
Europe needs a good transport system and so does the business world, and at the end of the day, someone will always have to pay.
And that someone just happens to be the citizen.
I also note that the Commission is acting as though it were unaware that a great deal of environmental innovation has taken place in the field of transport.
European transport companies, whether they operate trains, road vehicles, aircraft or ships, are the most modern in the world.
To keep burdening them with new taxes would drive them to the brink of unprofitability.
At one of the hearings on the White Paper, I could scarcely believe my ears when one of the invited experts said we should have to think about taxing aviation fuel at four ecus per litre for the sake of the environment: Concorde prices as the everyday norm, but who is supposed to pay them?
I shall be voting against Mrs Schmidbauer's report.
That concludes voting time.
The Daphne programme (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A4-0188/99) by Mrs Bennasar Tous on the Daphne programme.
Madam President, I should like to congratulate, in her absence, the rapporteur, Mrs Bennasar Tous, on her report.
I wish to extend those congratulations to all the members of the Committee on Women's Rights and all Members who have contributed to the formulation of the programme and the plan of action to combat violence against women and children.
I warmly thank the two Commissioners, Mrs Gradin and Mr Flynn, for their support and persistence.
Now we have a legal base for the programme, a budget and a plan for a European awareness campaign against violence against women.
After all the struggles, delays and financial and legal barriers placed in our way by those who did not see the significance of this issue, we are now on a fairly firm footing and I hope we can begin to address this very serious issue.
The new legal base, which was not really what we wanted, relies on the European Union's competence on health and it must not restrict the scope of the Daphne programme.
Violence against women and children occurs in many different public and private situations and has many causes and effects.
Trafficking, domestic violence, sexual abuse and mutilation, rape, sexual harassment at work: all are forms of gender-based violence.
The Daphne programme is designed to give added value to the work of NGOs dealing with prevention, supporting the victims, reintegrating the survivors and dealing with the perpetrators.
All these fields of work will benefit from better research and dissemination, which the Daphne programme can fund.
Part of the Daphne report contains information about the European campaign to raise awareness of the issue of violence against women, and this was launched in Cologne under the German presidency last month.
That conference attracted a large number of non-governmental organisations and stimulated a great deal of creative thinking.
Mrs Bennasar's amendments, which were supported by the Committee on Women's Rights, give more weight to the involvement of NGOs in the execution of the Daphne programme.
The Commission should welcome this, and I look forward to hearing its response to those proposals.
The Commission should also welcome the great involvement of Members of this Parliament, which she proposes.
I have examined very closely the current guidelines for the applicants for Daphne funding.
I can see a real need for improvement: they are complex and confusing.
The NGOs and MEPs could, indeed would, suggest a far clearer approach - a more user-friendly set of guidelines - which would therefore be far more relevant and effective in meeting the objectives.
This is a small programme and a small campaign in budgetary terms.
However, the violence it aims to combat is a major problem in Europe and beyond.
Our research has already indicated that one woman in four experiences violence during her lifetime and 90 % of the perpetrators are men.
At least 50 % of these acts of violence are carried out by the victim's husband or partner.
There is a real need to challenge this culture and to make violence against women unacceptable.
Such violence cannot be seen as an act of love: it is an act of dominance and intimidation.
We are working towards equality between men and women and respect for human rights, both within Europe and beyond it.
The level of violence the research has already illustrated demonstrates that we still have a very long way to go.
We believe that the Daphne programme is very badly needed and trust that it will shortly be provided with more resources and a more open and democratic system for decision-making.
Madam President, Commissioner, the Daphne programme, which is designed to combat violence against children, young people and women, addresses an urgent problem, and it therefore deserves all our support and the proper scope for action.
It is difficult to understand why some Member States want to limit the scope of the programme, making it hard to take proper account of its multi-dimensional nature.
Violence in all its forms, but especially violence against children, is a gross infringement of human rights, and not just a matter of public health.
The aim of the programme must therefore remain the prevention of all kinds of violence and the protection of the victims of violence, which includes cases of sexual abuse and abandonment.
Of course, the most important thing would be to get to a position where we can to take preventive action and work as effectively as possible.
We need training, education and advice facilities, as well as broad networks of support to cope with risk situations.
Advertising campaigns, information exchange programmes, and, obviously, research into violence will be important tools in reducing the incidence of violence.
We must have derived benefit from the Daphne initiative, as a new year five-year programme is being put together which will promote cooperation among voluntary organisations and the local authorities.
The organisations need support to set up various networks, to improve the dissemination of information, to forge partnerships, and to promote reciprocal information exchange.
I would especially like to stress the importance of the Daphne programme for defending the rights of children and protecting them from sexual exploitation in particular.
For this we need the simultaneous efforts of parents, teachers and the whole immediate community to work towards preventive child protection.
I believe it is also very important to extend this programme gradually to other countries, especially the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as violence in its various forms has a transnational dimension, for example in the sex trade and child pornography on the Internet.
Cooperation to safeguard fundamental human rights, and thus also the rights of children, is vital, and has to work effectively between the applicant countries and the current Member States.
The law in these applicant countries also has to ensure that basic rights are safeguarded in a way that is clear to all and which makes it possible to deal effectively with infringements of human rights in the form of violence.
Otherwise, I would hope that issues of children's rights will be one of the priorities on the EU agenda, as only then will we be able to protect our future and status as a community of civilised states.
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate Mrs Bennasar Tous, albeit in her absence, and I would also like to congratulate Mrs Colombo Svevo who so capably presented the issue here this morning. Chiefly, however, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this extremely important contribution to the Commission proposal on the Daphne programme, and on the way she has handled such an important issue.
As has already been said, we have discussed it at some length in the Committee on Women's Rights and there has been general agreement on its proposals.
The rapporteur welcomes the proposal put forward by the Commission, but she has tabled major amendments, with which - and I would like to stress this - my group concurs.
In particular, we agree with the reservations she has expressed on the change of the legal base of the action programme.
The use of Article 235 of the Treaty instead of Article 129 may lead to the exclusion from the Daphne programme of all issues relating to violence, sexual exploitation and the trade in women and children, on the grounds that these issues do not have a bearing on public health.
We are glad that there is some form of legal base but we have some problems with this particular legal base.
We also agree with the rapporteur asking the Commission to place the plans that are adopted into some order of priority, with a view to using the available resources in the most effective way possible.
Here we are talking about plans of prevention, programmes for the rehabilitation of children, young people and women who are in danger, and provisions relating to the perpetrators of these criminal acts, especially the young.
Attention must also be focused on legitimate practices and on the means of protecting the interests of children, young people and women who have fallen victim to violence.
We support the request for the presence, on the advisory committee, of a representative of the European Parliament and a representative of the NGOs. We also support the request for the submission of an annual rather than a triennial report on the progress that has been made.
We also agree that we must call on the applicant countries to take part in the programme, and that there must be better dissemination of information, especially to the media and to the public at whom the programme is directed.
Finally, I would like to stress that we too are asking for a new report to be submitted to take into account the above amendments, and also that all forms of violence and sexual exploitation perpetrated against women and children continue to be covered, including trafficking in slaves.
Madam President, I am delighted that there is going to be this Daphne programme and I hope that we will be able to put it to good use, because violence against women and children is one of the unacceptable sides of our society and it is constantly on the increase.
My arrival at the European Parliament coincided with a conference which Parliament organised on violence against children and child abuse, and I resolved to investigate this issue in depth here in the House.
In particular, I would urge you to consider ways of supporting those trying to combat paedophile and prostitution networks on the Internet.
Madam President, Commissioner, we are dealing here with a problem that is going from bad to worse.
This week in Parliament, we voted on what I thought was a very good report on Internet crime.
But let me tell you how things are in reality.
In reality, there is an awful lot to think about.
In each case, the children concerned have been the victims of a real crime.
The number of victims is increasing, as is the number of potential criminals, because unfortunately victims themselves sometimes go on to commit crimes if they are unable to find ways of dealing with their trauma.
One of the main problems - and one which the police also share - is that the NGOs working on combating the pornography and paedophile networks on the Internet often have to search among thousands and thousands of pieces of data.
The report therefore rightly calls for help to be given to projects that are designed to track down victims, such as those who have been abducted and forced into prostitution, and who may be identified from the photographs offered for sale on the Internet by certain criminals.
This is why I would urge that considerable scope should be offered to the NGOs working in these areas, but we must also not forget the scant resources that our judicial authorities often have to work with, not to mention the lack of European-level coordination.
I therefore think that the report is right to ask whether Europol should be given the resources to play an effective role in combating this sort of violence. What I said about children also applies to combating violence against women, because young refugees are also often forced into prostitution and become the victims of the same kind of violence.
Madam President, Commissioner, on International Women's Day, Commissioner Gradin issued a challenge to men to do something about violence against women by saying that violence against women was a men's problem.
I find it striking that her words have found little support here in this debate.
If the Commissioner meant that men are responsible for a considerable proportion of the violence against women, I have to agree.
Saying that the two sexes are like chalk and cheese, however, is a distortion of reality.
I certainly do not mean to deny that the problem exists.
My main objection to the proposal is the level at which it is tackled.
Violence is a problem that occurs in small groups, so a national or local approach is needed.
I firmly believe that the Bible has a great deal to teach us about interpersonal relationships, and feel I have to point out that mankind, both men and women, is made in God's image.
This belief can do much to help harmonious human relations, and anyone who is violent to those around him is simply denying this biblical truth.
Mr President, the idea of adopting a programme designed to prevent violence against children, adolescents and women is a generous and noble idea which everyone can of course support.
This programme, which takes its name from the Greek myth of Daphne, provides for a number of administrative actions and procedures that we approve of.
But the rapporteur does not really seem to have investigated the causes and the sources of violence in European societies today.
That violence is growing steadily.
In France, for example, the number of crimes and offences rose from 200 000 in 1948 to 4 200 000 in 1998.
Of course, not all these crimes and offences are against women and children, but there is undeniably a general upward trend in violence in that area too.
That trend coincides with the collapse of the traditional framework in which people's lives were once rooted.
In fact, for 50 years, society has become more urban, the family framework has been crumbling, and moral and religious landmarks have very often collapsed.
Emancipated from such civilising frameworks, the individual who thinks he is free may be tempted to use violence against others with complete impunity.
An administrative and financial programme like the one presented to us here, while not without merit, is not going to resolve this problem, which is in fact the challenge of a new barbarism.
That is all the more true because, by always insisting on rights and never on duties, the ideology of human rights produces the opposite of its intentions - justification for excesses of all kinds.
Ancient wisdom recognised that man was always tempted by excesses resulting in violence.
For example, Plato demonstrated that the human spirit has three components: the rational, the emotional and the instinctive.
If education fails to achieve an alliance between reason and emotion to keep instincts in check, they are unleashed and the door is opened to all kinds of violence.
That ancient teaching is still valid.
That is why mere palliatives cannot be enough.
We must also combat the deep-rooted causes of the rise in violence in general, and in violence towards women and children in particular.
This presupposes that the media will cease to cultivate violence systematically and that moral education will once again become a major requirement.
Under the Third Republic in France, there was a consensus about this civic and moral education.
This was broken down by the incursion of lax ideas on education.
Man is not naturally good, he needs to feel the weight of civilising disciplines.
As illustrated by the great Greek dramatist, Aeschylus, in the tragedy 'The Eumenides', a society which fails to punish crime will open the door to growing criminality.
We need better teaching of ethics and more repressive courts, but people also need to be able to put down roots in small communities rather than in sprawling cities.
Modern techniques mean that planning can allow people to live in human-sized districts and villages where everyone knows each other.
There would then be spontaneous social control, which is more effective than repression through the courts or administrative support to victims.
We should be aiming towards such a policy of re-rooting people in human-sized communities.
Some of the sources of violence could then be eradicated.
Madam President, when I presented the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on behalf of my colleague Mrs Zimmermann, I said that Parliament was delighted with this initiative by the Commission, and I would ask Commissioner Liikanen to pass on our thanks to his two colleagues.
However, I also made it clear that we are extremely concerned about the change in the legal basis, which as I said at the time is certainly going to make things difficult and has considerably dampened our enthusiasm, because violence against women and children, Commissioner, is not just a health risk.
It is a fundamental attack on human rights.
Combating violence is a very complex problem.
It is not just about helping the victims, but also about preventing and combating violence among those who inflict it.
It also requires cooperation between the judicial authorities and the police.
It is therefore by definition multidisciplinary.
What I am trying to say is that it would be completely unacceptable if the change in the legal basis meant that we only ended up with some new health programme for women and children rather than structural measures.
I also wholeheartedly support the attempts by the Committees on Women's Rights and Internal Affairs to make various adjustments to the Commission's amended proposal.
I would like to draw attention to a number of points which I think are important here.
First there is the World Health Organisation's definition of health, which is very important in that it goes further than just risk prevention.
It refers to people's quality of life, making the challenge even broader: equal opportunities for different people and different groups in society, and above all the right to life, the right to dignity, the right to freedom and integrity that everyone should enjoy.
This is a clear reference to human rights, which is an area where this programme could be a little broader and where it should reinstate some of its original proposals.
I would therefore like to appeal to the Commission and to my fellow Members to continue to urge the Council representatives to adopt a broad interpretation and a broad scope for the Daphne programme.
I would like to hear what the Commissioner thinks about this.
Commissioner, the signals coming out of the Council still show that it is obstinately refusing to take this message on board.
In particular, its plan to allocate Daphne only a mini-budget, even less than Parliament had proposed and the Commission had agreed to, makes me very anxious about what the Council really intends for this programme.
I suspect that the Council is really planning to use it only for micro-projects - a bit of awareness-raising and a few information campaigns - which stands in stark contrast to the very clearly stated ambitions that we have for it.
If we do not broaden the scope and provide Daphne with the money it needs, it will remain a white elephant.
Yet the public has enormous expectations here.
So the European Parliament, as the co-legislator in a codecision procedure, cannot accept this, and I hope the Council will listen to what we are saying.
Madam President, violence is a dominant feature of contemporary society and an enigma of our open society, a society that has lost its values and is taking on new idols and new symbols, confounding those traditional values which have always formed the basis of our civil life.
And so we should not be surprised when television and other means of communication transmit to us images of violence and when our children feed on these images and base their world and ideals on them.
We who are responsible for their education and, as politicians, have to be the most reliable interpreters of what it is that our people want, are under an obligation to condemn the sources of this violence and identify the most effective ways of combating it.
In point of fact, this Community of ours is committed to combating violence, by stressing the principle of the right to life, to security, to freedom and to physical and mental integrity through a whole array of programmes, not least those which we are today trying to bring to completion. The Daphne programme combats violence against women, minors and children; it is a programme which has combated violence within the family, through ill-treatment and sexual abuse of children and partners, and the kind of violence we see in daily life, in the form of rape, sexual violence and molestation, harassment at the workplace and so on, a true battle of values and civilisation.
This programme does not shy away from the truth, does not provide simple solutions, but incorporates a number of interacting factors: education, custom, issues of economic independence and employment, legal and jurisdictional issues, services to help victims, and health matters.
But the regulation, the legal definition of the means of redress, as defined in Article 52 of the Treaty of Amsterdam - which is the legal basis of the programme - is restricted to combating violence.
Therefore, an area to which we believe it would have been more consistent to have applied Article 235 of the Treaty has been encompassed under the heading of 'public health', even though in the final analysis Article 235 allows for powers of action that are not specifically provided for, where Community action proves necessary to achieve one of the Community's objectives.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is sadly true that many aspects of the world in which we live are far from perfect; one of its sordid aspects is that of violence against women, children and young people, and this is a problem we have to tackle relentlessly.
For that reason, the German Presidency has made the problem one of its priority issues.
A meeting on the subject has already taken place.
The Bundesrat , the chamber of the German Parliament in which the federal states are represented, has expressed its regret that 1999 was not declared to be an official year of action on violence against women, which would have been an important means of reinforcing this message.
Violence-prevention strategies must incorporate different approaches, depending on whether the violence in question is domestic or non-domestic.
That distinction is not adequately covered in the Commission proposal, and so it is essential to add amendments that refer explicitly to sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and traffic in human beings and to support all the other amendments on the table.
These additions are necessary for two reasons: firstly, it must be made clear that the definition of violence goes beyond the use of physical force.
Sexual abuse, for instance, does not always entail the use of physical force, especially when the victims are young children, but can involve all sorts of intimidation and threats which leave no physical trace.
This does not make its effects any less drastic; on the contrary, they are often far, far worse.
One of the most humiliating experiences of sexually abused women and children is not to be believed unless they can furnish proof in the form of physical injuries.
Sexual exploitation is one of the most despicable manifestations of the sex industry, about which a word should be said at this point.
More money is now made from trafficking in women than from drug trafficking.
Traffickers in women run a far lower risk of prosecution than dealers in drugs or weapons, because there is often a lack of evidence that would stand up in court.
Traffic in women is a 'growth industry', not least because of the more open borders with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, from where most of the victims in our Member States are drawn.
The desperate economic situation in their own countries forces many women to clutch at any straw, which makes them easy prey for the traffickers.
The fact that the enormity of this affront to humanity is no longer a taboo subject, but is being discussed more and more openly and has even been the subject of official action programmes is to be warmly welcomed.
These efforts have our unreserved support, and in that context we surely owe a debt of gratitude to Commissioner Anita Gradin as well.
I need only remind you of the conference which was held in Vienna and attracted widespread public attention.
We need comprehensive measures to prevent trafficking, to educate the public and to protect the victims, as well as cooperation and coordination with the judiciary, the police, the competent authorities and, last but not least, with the non-governmental organisations that operate in this field; this cooperation and coordination must take place within each Member State, between the Member States and with the relevant countries outside the European Union.
The suitability of the chosen legal basis, which has rightly attracted severe criticism here, is open to question.
But there is no disputing the fact that violence against women, children and young people ultimately damages their health and - very importantly - their psychological constitution.
Reducing the problem to a mere health issue would amount to an intolerable trivialisation.
Let it be clearly understood that violence against women, children and young people must be outlawed and punished as serious violations of human rights, with no ifs or buts.
Madam President, The Commission would like to thank Mrs Bennasar Tous and the Committee on Women's Rights for the report.
It gives strong support to the Commission's initiative and underlines in an admirable way the need and urgency for the Daphne programme to be adopted well before the end of the year.
The Commission also appreciates the important role the European Parliament plays in putting the fight against violence on the agenda of the European Union.
The main objective of the proposed five-year Daphne programme is to support and encourage NGOs and voluntary organisations to work together to protect children, young persons and women from all kinds of violence.
This is to be achieved through the setting up of networks, exchange of information and best practices and the raising of public awareness.
Preventive action, including how to prevent violent behaviour by men towards women, will be among the priorities.
The programme is building on the experiences of the Daphne initiative which has been running since 1997.
The Commission shares the report's assessment of the programme.
It is an important tool in the fight against violence.
The multiannual character of the programme will allow for the planning of initiatives on a longer-term basis.
The progressive extension to the acceding countries, as has been mentioned by a number of parliamentarians, and the EFTA countries, is vital, given the trans-national dimension of many forms of violence.
The programme will also help to develop the NGOs' potential in a number of fields.
Mrs Bennasar Tous proposes a number of constructive amendments and additions to the Commission's proposal.
The Commission is happy to accept most of them.
The Commission also agrees on the need for a careful choice of projects.
One objective should be to ensure a balance between different areas and target groups.
The proposed advisory committee will play an important role in assisting the Commission in this respect.
The rapporteur and a number of honourable Members deplore the fact that the Commission decided to change the legal base for the proposal from Article 235 to Article 129.
It was a difficult decision for the Commission.
Nobody should doubt that the Commission would have preferred to stick to the original proposal but there was a considerable risk of blockage in the Council.
Several Member States were openly opposed to the use of Article 235 and we have to bear in mind that there is no value in an unacceptable Daphne programme.
A question was also raised about the extension of the programme.
The Commission assumes that a change to Article 129, public health, will not limit the scope of the programme.
The context in which we work to combat violence and in which women and children suffer is indeed in the whole context of human rights.
However, the impact of violence amounts to injury, or risk of injury, to the victim's physical, mental and psychological health.
Furthermore, the Daphne programme is, as the rapporteur underlines, victim-based.
Its aim is to prevent all forms of violence and to protect all victims and potential victims of violence, irrespective of whether the violence takes the form of trafficking, sexual abuse, the abandonment of children or any other form.
When the Daphne programme is adopted it will provide a new impetus for the fight against violence.
It is now important to have it adopted swiftly and, at any rate, well before the end of the year.
The Commission appreciates the European Parliament's strong support for this objective.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
Madam President, I wish to make just one comment.
First of all, I should like to thank the Commission because, if I have understood properly, it agrees with our proposals.
Does that then mean that most or all of the amendments have the Commission's approval?
The Commission is prepared to accept 16 of the amendments, 10 with some rewording and cannot accept 10 of the amendments.
If you want me to specify which one by one I can do it today or tomorrow as you wish.
Commissioner, our amendments follow a gradual progression: some raise problems of subsidiarity, others procedural problems - and on that, I think, we will be able to reach agreement - but there are also some fundamental amendments.
I would like to remind you of them, and you will then be able to give your assessment.
I am thinking, for instance, of Amendments Nos 7, 27, 29 and 35, third indent, which we regard as part of the essential substance of the programme and which I believe the Commission ought also to accept.
I think the Commissioner has already said which amendments are being accepted.
No, that is clearly not the case.
Can you tell us which amendments are being accepted by the Commission?
The Commission is prepared to accept - with rewording - Amendment Nos 29 and 35 but it is not able to accept Amendment No 7.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 7.45 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, page 9 of the Minutes refers to three consecutive speeches: those made by myself, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy and Mr Wijsenbeek on the important decision to vote by simple majority on the amendments to the responsibilities of the parliamentary committees.
However, the responsibilities of these committees are part of the Rules of Procedure, and any amendment to the Rules requires an absolute majority.
I am aware that there is a precedent to this, and that it is on the basis of this that the President decided to dismiss the matter.
However, I should like to point out that - so as not to continue with any bad habits - the Committee on the Rules of Procedure should at least be given the opportunity to discuss the matter. In my view, it would be improper - or would at least be a biased interpretation - to allow a simple majority to amend the responsibilities of the parliamentary committees, or for that matter to remove the essence of those committees where this relative majority would not assume the Chair.
It is therefore possible that we are acting in an improper manner here, and the Rules are made to protect minorities.
Therefore, I believe that it would be worth referring the matter to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, rather than simply dismissing this objection which I believe to be fundamental.
Mr Herman, you know that one of my criteria has always been that in the event of a discussion on the substance of a matter, the Chair must take a decision on the immediate situation and then, if necessary, refer it to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure.
I shall therefore refer this matter, which has been raised by yourself and other Members, to the committee.
Mr President, we voted yesterday on my report concerning the Commission White Paper on infrastructure charges.
I see that the parliamentary services, probably for stylistic reasons, have changed the text on which we voted in paragraph 1.
In my report, which was adopted by the committee without any amendment to paragraph 1, I called for the introduction of a uniform charging system for all modes of transport, 'based inter alia on marginal social cost'.
The wording represented a deliberate attempt to keep open the option of incorporating other factors.
Now some language freak has changed this into 'on the basis of marginal social cost', which conveys an entirely different message.
I must insist that the original wording be put back into the report, both in the German version and in any translations that have been altered.
Thank you, Mrs Schmidbauer.
Parliament's services will check on that and we shall keep the original translation that was adopted, since that is the will of the House.
The Minutes were approved
Statement by the President
In the vote held yesterday morning on the proposal for a decision on the number, powers and responsibilities of parliamentary committees, Parliament adopted two contradictory amendments relating to the responsibility for the legal protection of consumers, namely Amendment No 31 by the Group of the Party of European Socialists and Amendment No 60 by the Group of the European People's Party.
The Rules do not allow two committees to be responsible for the same matter.
Therefore, in order to ensure that the text approved is consistent, responsibility for the legal protection of consumers should be given to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
I have consequently given the necessary instructions to the relevant services.
Yesterday I received a motion of censure on the Commission, which resigned collectively on 16 March 1999.
If approved, the motion would require the Commission to resign as a body, pursuant to Article 144, second paragraph, of the EC Treaty.
However, in accordance with the legal principles 'nulla quia absurdum ' and 'ad impossibilia nemo tenetur ', I cannot admit a motion of censure on a body which has already resigned.
I have therefore declared the motion inadmissible.
Applause
Mr President, I do not know how you can take such decisions.
I must admit that I am surprised at the way in which we automatically look for legal arguments in order to oppose a particular group of Members.
In this case, a tenth of the Members of Parliament are involved, that is, 66 Members from all the political groups: 5 from the PSE Group, 8 from the PPE Group, 4 from the ELDR Group, 6 from the UPE Group, 6 from the GUE/NGL Group, 9 from the Green Group, 3 from the ARE Group, 15 from the I-EDN Group, and 10 Non-attached Members.
This is therefore not something that has been initiated by any particular Member, but by a tenth of the Members of Parliament.
This matter had been referred to the Legal Service on 6 April.
In a memorandum of 7 April, which was sent to Mr Priestley, our legal expert concluded that a motion of censure against the Commission could be declared admissible in order to clarify the Commission's legal situation and to further limit its powers, despite the fact that this would provide very little added value in legal terms.
The resigning Commission will remain in office until at least the end of September or the start of October.
It retains all its powers because it has resigned in the context of Article 159.
Thus, Mrs Bonino, a resigning Commissioner, visited the headquarters of NATO, an international organisation, to meet its Secretary-General for the first time.
Was such a decision taken in the context of a Commission which is dealing with current business?
We cannot therefore accept a situation where the Commission retains all its powers for more than six months following its resignation but yet you yourself are unable to exercise your fundamental right to assert control over it, particularly through the motion of censure.
This is why I feel that the decision you are taking, Mr President, is extremely serious in light of the present situation - although that is not so serious - and in terms of its implications for the future of this House and the future of democracy in Europe.
Mr President, I think Mr Fabre-Aubrespy misunderstands the whole issue because the fact is that, even if his motion of censure were to be passed by this House, the same Commission would continue, as it is legally obliged to under the Treaty, until we replace it.
Mr President, you are acting absolutely properly in maintaining the dignity of this House.
I, like you, believe that this is the right decision and as far as I am concerned I do not believe in mutilating dead bodies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think that we need to look at this question in the context of the Treaty.
We have the opinion of Parliament's legal adviser, amongst other things on the matter of current affairs, and that opinion contains some important points on the question now at issue.
The legal adviser says of the Commission's current position:
'It appears that a collective resignation of all the Members of the Commission because they no longer have the confidence of Parliament is best provided for in Article 144 of the Treaty, which relates to a motion of censure tabled by Parliament.
The motion of censure is an expression of the principle of parliamentary confidence. This was strengthened in the Maastricht Treaty through rules ensuring that the parliamentary term and the Commission's period in office run in parallel, and by allowing Parliament to approve the appointment of the Commission and its President.
That being the case, even if a direct comparison with the motion of censure does not appear to be indicated, the desire to seek solutions that are in keeping with this principle of parliamentary confidence seems to conform to the spirit of the Treaty.
It follows that the Commission's situation at present is similar to that referred to in Article 144 of the Treaty.'
So your decision, Mr President, is absolutely correct and entirely in accordance with the Treaty. The motion of censure is therefore inadmissible.
I am going to give the floor to Mr Kerr, who also signed the motion of censure, and we shall then take the final decision.
Mr President, it may well be that your lawyers have found a way round the political obligations of this Parliament.
But the point surely is a moral one.
This Commission resigned more than two months ago, yet it is still in office, it is still drawing its salaries, it is still making decisions and it is still not making decisions.
Europe is in a crisis, and this Parliament has an obligation to say to them: get an interim Commission appointed quickly.
It they do not, I recommend all Members to reject Mr Prodi in May as a sign of objection to this situation.
We are going to hold elections in two months time.
The citizens of Europe do not understand why a Commission, which resigned two months ago, is going to continue for another nine months.
It is a disgrace and we should say so!
Thank you, Mr Kerr.
I think that we have had enough debate on this issue and I would like to tell those responsible for the motion of censure that I consider it to be inadmissible.
The reports by the Legal Service must be studied carefully, but they are not binding on the President in terms of how the Rules are to be interpreted.
The President is responsible for all interpretations of the Rules of Procedure and only the Committee on the Rules of Procedure can alter any interpretation by the President.
I can assure you that, in taking this decision, I have given every consideration to my responsibilities now and for the future.
The aim of the motion of censure, under parliamentary law, is to demonstrate that an executive has lost the confidence of the majority of Parliament or, if the motion is rejected, that it still has that confidence.
It is clear that in this case the possible rejection of a motion of censure could in no way have the effect of restoring confidence in the executive, and it would serve no purpose.
This procedure therefore seems somewhat ridiculous, and we must always reject any form of ridiculous interpretation concerning one of our Rules, particularly in the case of a motion of censure, which is a highly political instrument.
I respect all the signatories to the motion, as I respect all the Members of this House, but it is our responsibility to use the appropriate channels in this matter, that is the Court of Justice or the relevant resolutions, since the Rules allow us to express our wishes in many forms.
A motion of censure is not the appropriate channel, and this House is not responsible for the fact that the Commission is going to continue in office for many months.
We have offered to cooperate with the Council in order to replace the Commission as soon as possible.
We could not have done anything further, and it is not our responsibility if the Council has decided that for various reasons it still cannot appoint a new Commission.
We have done what we can until now, and indeed we must continue to acknowledge our responsibilities.
The matter is therefore settled.
Applause
Mr President, you have raised the subject of the text we adopted and Amendments Nos 60 and 61, which you now say are contradictory.
I do not think they are.
In any case, our group specifically tabled an amendment to relieve the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights of its responsibility for the legal protection of consumers.
So I think on that point I cannot agree with your interpretation, Mr President.
Mr President, . I have two roles: firstly as the original author of the document which sought to change committee structures and, secondly, as chairman of the committee responsible at the moment for consumer policy.
At the end of the Conference of Presidents' meeting yesterday, I spoke with Mr Rømer and other officials.
The position is that the legal protection of consumers will be the responsibility of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights.
However, consumer rights as such, and consumer policy in so far as it affects, for example, food safety and the like, will continue to be the responsibility of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
That is the clarified explanation and, as far as I am aware, that is the situation that was accepted by senior officials in Parliament.
I think that is perfectly reasonable.
The point is that we really had to adopt Annex VI, to avoid the conflicts of competence which have sometimes caused so much trouble in the last five or ten years, and the explanation I have just given avoids such conflicts.
Amendment No 60 states that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection is responsible for consumers' rights, which remains, and their legal protection, which must be deleted. Why?
Because Amendment No 31 states that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is responsible for consumers' legal protection.
There is a clear contradiction.
The legal protection of consumers' rights should remain the responsibility of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and consumers' rights should remain the responsibility of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, as Mr Collins has just explained.
Mr President, I cannot follow the sequence of events here.
I also have the impression that I was mistranslated into English.
What was the first vote on yesterday? The first vote was on the responsibilities of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
Then our amendment was adopted making the Committee on Consumer Protection responsible for the legal protection of consumers.
If this is the case, then the interpretation you have given us is wrong.
We deliberately chose to transfer responsibility for the legal protection of consumers to the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
Mr President, I think you need to find out what we voted on first.
Mr President, I believe our honourable colleague Mrs Oomen-Ruijten is mistaken this time.
Although she rightly reports that our group adopted an amendment, I must point out that the same amendment was rejected here in the Chamber yesterday.
This means that the President's interpretation is correct.
I am going to ask Parliament's services to check which vote was taken first.
As far as I am aware, the amendment by the Group of the Party of European Socialists was voted on initially.
The PPE Group's amendment could therefore not have been adopted, as it would have contradicted the result of a previous amendment.
The system we use allows us to clarify the matter, with the result that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection will continue to have the responsibilities that correspond to it, just as the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights will continue to have the responsibilities it ought to have.
In my view, therefore, this is the only possible outcome, given what has happened.
We have no option but to keep things as they are.
This matter is thus settled.
Mr President, I did try to raise this earlier on the Minutes, but my request was apparently not spotted.
I only wish to draw attention to the two amendments tabled by our group on the question of carry-overs, where the texts are incompatible in their present form.
They were rejected.
These amendments are based on the current Rules of Procedure, and we have now adopted a resolution that is at odds with the existing Rules of Procedure, according to which the Committee on Budgets is responsible for transfers of appropriations from the reserve, while all other carry-overs - and I am generalising somewhat here - are the responsibility of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
May I ask you to check that, because we undoubtedly have a contradiction here.
That is why I tabled these amendments on behalf of my group.
I cannot tell you the numbers of the two amendments offhand, but that can easily be checked.
Thank you, Mrs Theato.
I did not give you the floor because I did not wish to confuse two different issues.
Parliament's services will check this, and we shall then take the relevant decision in the light of their findings.
Mr President, I would like to refer back to the matter of the responsibilities of committees.
It is very important that Parliament is clear about the different responsibilities of committees.
Otherwise, the general public's understanding of the European Community will become more confused.
They will see the Parliament adopt different positions in different committees.
Therefore, clarification of responsibilities is vital.
I respect the decision you have made and I understand very clearly what Mr Collins said.
But in the future we have to make sure that this Parliament, if it is going to change the responsibilities of a committee, does it by a clear majority.
If there is no provision for this at present, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities should look at it, as Mr Herman has already suggested.
There should be a clear majority in the House for a change of responsibilities, not just a small margin, especially when, as at present, we have said two different things in two different amendments.
I urge the House to recommend to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure that an overall majority is needed to change the responsibilities of committees.
Mr Provan, as I said, I am going to forward the question immediately to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
It is important that more time is taken with future changes.
This confusion has arisen because our services have to work to a very short timetable, political needs often taking precedence over proper preparation for the part-session, and this leads to difficult working conditions.
Mr President, I was not in the Chair at the time.
However, I must admit that I do not fully understand what we have been discussing for some time now, because I see that Amendment No 31 was adopted and Amendment No 60 was rejected.
So how can there be a contradiction? There is no contradiction.
Perhaps there is a mistake in the Minutes, although it says that Amendments Nos 60 and 61 were rejected and Amendment No 31 by the Socialist Group was adopted.
There is therefore no contradiction because Amendment No 31 was adopted and Amendment No 60 was rejected.
I have the impression that this discussion is futile, though no harm has been done as it was interesting nonetheless.
Thank you.
That backs up the decision we have taken.
I will however check, because if Amendment No 60 was rejected, there should be no confusion.
I am acting on the basis of the information received from DG II.
Of course, a mistake may have been made after the vote was held, and I am extremely grateful to you for having pointed this out.
Mr President, I can confirm what Mrs Fontaine has just said.
I myself raised a point of order yesterday after the second vote to say that we should have declared that amendment null and void, and that it should not have been put to the vote since it contradicted the first amendment.
The President of the sitting said to me at the time that that was of no importance since the amendment had just been rejected.
Therefore, I can confirm - and I am also surprised - that no reference is made in the Minutes to the point of order I raised.
I had not realised this, but you will be able to check it with the tape.
The situation is becoming more and more surreal.
Laughter
We shall check the Minutes and proceed accordingly.
Mr President, I wish to return to the question of the motion of censure.
You terminated discussion of the matter before all the facts were presented.
Protests
There have been two speakers in favour and two against on a subject which is, ultimately, the sole responsibility of the President.
The discussion is now closed.
I cannot give the floor to any further speakers on this question.
Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest we move on from this surrealism and return to the relaxed state of mind we usually enjoy on Fridays.
So let us all relax as we move on to the vote on the Bennasar Tous report.
VOTES
I would congratulate Mrs Bennasar Tous and ask Mrs Colombo Svevo, who deputised for her in yesterday's debate, to pass on our compliments to the rapporteur.
The European Commission amended its first proposal so that it could have as a basis Article 129 of the EC Treaty - public health and the codecision procedure - instead of Article 235.
The amended proposal now includes some of the amendments by the Committee on Women's Rights that appeared in the initial report.
Moreover, Mrs Anita Gradin, a Member of the Commission, said in the House that choosing Article 129 would not limit the scope of the programme.
I am pleased about that, because this is a serious and urgent matter.
It is urgent, in particular, because violence affects one in five women across Europe and 50 % of women that are murdered are killed by their husband or partner.
Violence in general, and this type of violence in particular, is unacceptable and is a violation of human rights.
Europe must move quickly in this area.
The UN Commission on the Status of Women included this issue in its agenda for March 1999.
I had personally informed the Belgian representative in that Commission of the European programme, Daphne, and of the work carried out by our Committee on Women's Rights.
She reminded me that at a preparatory conference held in Vienna in 1998, the UN Commission on the Status of Women had listened, in particular, to European women talking about the pain, suffering, abuse and coercion they were subjected to during the tragic nationalist conflict in the former Yugoslavia.
The European Parliament must continue its work on the Daphne programme and, in fact, it introduced a specific line of credit for the programme's launch.
Above all, it must ensure that the problem of violence against children, young persons and women is not reduced to a mere health problem.
At the end of the 20th century, the various forms of violence against children, young persons and women have increasingly become a matter of concern.
No one denies this any more.
And at least we are starting to show our outrage about it.
From this perspective, I agree with the draftsman of the opinion that it is important to pay close attention to this particular form of violence, that is, sexual abuse and exploitation of these members of society.
Moreover, it is imperative that the necessary measures to support and reintegrate victims are complemented by other measures that aim specifically to prevent crime, including actions aimed at offenders.
Public information on the criminal nature of these offences and strict criminal proceedings must replace the silence and leniency that all too often still accompany such crimes in our nonetheless developed societies.
More generally, I should like to say that all the measures proposed in this Community action programme can and must be supported in order to combat this genuine scourge of violence in all its forms.
However, I should like to point out once again that they will not be enough to stamp it out singlehandedly.
I would like to remind you that insecurity and impoverishment form a particularly good breeding ground for all types of violence.
It is therefore vital for this Community action programme to fit into a general context which also maintains a strong social security system and allows for economic growth that creates sustainable employment.
Given these considerations, I support the action programme as amended.
I will be voting for the Bennasar Tous report - Daphne - as I believe that violence against women, young persons and children, is an important issue that needs to be addressed.
Throughout all the Member State this is an issue that affects one in four women but is often overlooked or viewed as a taboo.
Often projects addressing this issue only receive short-term funding.
However, in order to achieve objectives and to ensure an impact is made, a long-term funding programme is required.
The European programme draws its inspiration from the 'Zero Tolerance' campaign that Edinburgh Council ran in my constituency in the mid-1990s.
The 1997 Daphne programme was heavily oversubscribed with less than 10 % of applications receiving funding.
Since then the budget has been increased but still falls short of the amount needed.
Therefore, I consider this report to be a welcome step towards reducing violence against women and children.
Senior citizens in the 21st century
The next item is the report (A4-0160/99) by Mr McMahon and Mr Schiedermeier, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on senior citizens in the 21st century - a new lease of life.
Mr President, this is a joint report by my colleague, Mr Schiedermeier, and myself.
Indeed, on the subject of Italy, which we will be discussing, I remember a few years ago we went to Italy with the Social Affairs Committee.
The Secretariat did not know who was doyen d'age , the oldest Member.
They thought it was Mr Schiedermeier because he had white hair.
In actual fact, when they checked the records, I was a few weeks older than him, so it should have been me.
So it was quite interesting that we were both approaching our 60th year.
This report is the result of the conference which we held on the elderly in October.
It put forward the views of the elderly citizens of the Community, what they might like to see for the future, and what kind of recommendations we would make for the United Nations Year of the Elderly.
The elderly - senior citizens, or 'grey panthers', as they are called in the United States; 'grey power' in the UK - represent a very important part of the Community.
I see many of the 'golden oldies' or 'grey oldies' around me this morning: on my left, Mr Schiedermeier, on my right Mr Falconer.
They have changed their usual political positions.
The conference came up with some recommendations which we have put to the Commission.
The Commission is bringing forward a communication on problems of the elderly.
We are not just talking about people beyond the age of retirement, we are talking about people from 60 years of age to 75.
There are 75 million people over the age of 60 in the European Union.
This will increase.
Demographic trends are going to create a time-bomb for the decision-makers of the future.
We must be able to respond to this.
Ageing is high on the EU's political agenda.
I am quite sure that in the next few weeks, when our colleagues go to the hustings, they will be besieged by many of the Community's senior citizens, asking what the European Parliament is going to do for them.
Over 42 % of voters in the EU are over 50 years of age.
So, if we have 75 million people over the age of 60 and 42 % of the voters are over 50 years of age, obviously the issues of senior citizens and the elderly are going to be important in campaigning.
The over-50s represent 33 % of the whole population of the EU; one-third of the EU is over 50.
Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty outlaws discrimination on the grounds of age, sex, gender, disability, sexual orientation, etc.
It now gives the Commission a legal peg to introduce measures for the elderly and senior citizens.
At the moment the Commission is constrained by the existing legal bases.
But the Amsterdam Treaty now gives the Commission the opportunity to deal with discrimination on the grounds of race or age.
We look forward to seeing what will come out of the employment guidelines which the Commission agreed at the conference in Luxembourg and some of the discussions about the European Social Fund and older workers.
There are tremendous possibilities there.
Fifty-one percent of all men seeking work are in the 50-64 age group.
There will probably be some Members, like myself, who are in a similar position after 13 June.
The percentage for women is the same: 51 % of women who are seeking work are in the 50-64 age group.
Employment is a very serious issue for this age group.
It is time that we, in the institutions, put our own house in order and deal with the ageism that we practice in some of our recruitment policies.
So what can we do about this, now having stated the problem? The Amsterdam Treaty is one area where we can do something.
Health is another area.
I would hope that the Commission will bring forward an action programme on health for elderly people and for the whole Community under Article 137.
The elderly are not a homogeneous group.
We must not treat them just as elderly and lock them away in a cupboard or parcel them off and say 'that is elderly'.
We must try to pull the Union and its citizens together and have genuine solidarity.
We must not just limit our measures to older people themselves.
So these are some of the measures we are putting forward.
I would like to thank Mr Schiedermeier for his cooperation.
I thank the staff of the Committee on Social Affairs and Employment.
As this is my swan song as rapporteur for this mandate, I must say I have enjoyed my experience this year.
Loud applause
Mr McMahon, I am quite sure that 'Loud applause ' will appear in the verbatim report of proceedings following your speech, since this report has earned many fans.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will now give the floor to Mr Schiedermeier as joint rapporteur, and since Mr McMahon said that you are a few months older than him, you will have five and a half minutes instead of five minutes.
The history of the conference on the elderly and their prospects for the 21st century demonstrates the gulf between words and action where senior citizens are concerned.
On the one hand there is the catalogue - one and a half pages long - of previous findings, meetings, resolutions, petitions and reports, and on the other hand it took almost a year between the decision to hold a conference, which was adopted on 16 October 1997, and the conference itself on 1 and 2 October 1998.
We rapporteurs faced many initial difficulties.
The President of the European Parliament, for example, refused us the use of the plenary chamber, so that we had to squeeze into our group meeting rooms.
Moreover, interpreting facilities were originally offered for only three target languages, to name only one of many other obstacles.
The European Senior Citizens' Parliament that was held in Luxembourg, Mrs Lulling, from 22 to 24 November 1993 was attended by 508 senior citizens as well as 50 Members of the European Parliament and 15 representatives of institutions.
Our senior citizens' conference was authorised for 131 participants and two MEPs, namely the rapporteurs.
The report is being presented and discussed here today - on a Friday, which is known to be the day with the lowest turnout of Members.
In the face of all this evidence, who still dares to speak of the growing recognition accorded to senior citizens? Not I, to be sure!
Everyone talks about demographic development.
As Mr McMahon said, 75 million people in the European Union are over 60 years of age.
That represents more than 20 % of the population, and this is tending to rise because of the steady increase in life expectancy.
Unfortunately, few observers are aware of the heterogeneous nature of the community of senior citizens.
There are huge differences in terms of prosperity, social status and physical capacity.
Many people, thank God, reach retirement age in full possession of their mental and physical faculties today and remain fit up to a ripe old age.
Let me turn to the obvious problems.
Unemployment has already been mentioned. It affects a disproportionately large number of older people.
What is more, the unemployment statistics do not include those who have taken early retirement or who, for some other reason, are not counted among the active population. In other words, unemployment among the older age groups is far higher than the figures would suggest.
And then there is the ostracism and victimisation that occur in workplaces. Attempts are made to root out older colleagues from the group or company boardroom and the shop floor.
Add to these the regular discrimination which is a fact of everyday life.
It is astonishing that society does not really recognise its own failure to harness the experience and potential of older generations.
Far more importance should be attached to making room for senior citizens, especially in the voluntary sector but also in the workplace. On the basis of their own experience, they could impart a great deal of useful information and advice to junior staff.
As far as material wealth is concerned, the fact that poverty is still rife among the elderly, and especially among elderly women, is undisputed.
There is still a great deal to be done here.
But there are smart people out there, especially younger people, who are now saying that they want to terminate their social contract with the older generation.
I asked some of them, 'So do you also want to renounce the benefits that the elderly have obtained for you? Do you intend never to use a motorway again?
Are you willing to give up free university study? Do you intend to stop using the hospitals and clinics we have provided?'
That silenced them.
Additional voluntary pensions must not diminish the existing solidarity pact between the generations.
That is very important to me.
Management and labour, government bodies, the Member States and the European Union must adopt the appropriate countermeasures in their respective areas of responsibility; in other words, they must not seek to centralise their responsibilities in this sector but must pursue a coordinated and, where appropriate, a cooperative policy on senior citizens in the EU.
First and foremost, there is a need to initiate and encourage a new approach to the elderly within society, and I consider it very important that this approach should serve to prevent discrimination against older employees and the elderly in general.
Unless society changes its thinking, not even legally enforceable rights will do any good.
In our report we have presented a long list of instruments through which our aims for senior citizens can be achieved.
A number of useful points emerged from the preparatory phase before the conference when the Group of the European People's Party, the Senior Citizens' Union and numerous experts in the field shared their experiences.
I should like to thank my group, especially my colleagues Ria Oomen-Ruijten and Bartho Pronk, my assistant Mrs Stein and the staff of the group delegation in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as well as the group secretariat.
All of their efforts in this matter went far beyond the call of duty.
Finally, let me express my sincere thanks to Mr McMahon of the Group of the Party of European Socialists for our close and harmonious cooperation over the past year and a half, during which we became friends.
A sorrow shared is a sorrow halved.
The sad thing we both learned was that performance and experience in senior citizens count for nothing.
Our parties, especially the heads of our parties, have blocked our bids to stand for re-election, and so we share the same fate.
For all that may be said to the contrary, fulsome praise and discrimination are never far apart for the elderly, in politics as elsewhere.
There is still much to be done for senior citizens.
Please let us set about it.
This was also my last report to the House, Mr President, and I thank you for your patience.
Applause
Mr President, let me begin by thanking the two rapporteurs for this excellent and very comprehensive report.
I shall not spend any time enumerating the really good initiatives and options it contains, because we can all read that for ourselves.
The title 'Senior citizens in the 21st century' strikes me as being very ambitious as well as presenting an obligation.
It challenges us in Parliament, along with the Commission and the Council, to develop a far-sighted policy for the over-60s in the European Union, of whom there are already 75 million.
Most people over the age of 60 are in full possession of their mental and physical powers.
I would go along with Mr Schiedermeier and Mr McMahon on that.
There is still a huge amount of discrimination everywhere, and I believe these people have no desire to be treated as basket cases; all they rightly ask of policymakers and society is a level playing field and a social safety net.
Now that we have the Treaty of Amsterdam and its Article 13 on the suppression of discrimination, including age discrimination, we have a legal basis for common European action.
We did adopt a senior citizens' programme a few years ago, but it was blocked in the Council by the Conservative Governments of Britain and Germany on the flimsy grounds that there was no reliable legal basis and that it was ultimately a matter for national governments to pursue such a policy.
But this meant that there was no accompanying activity of any description at European level, and that the information links which were already established between senior citizens' organisations in the European Union were no longer financed, which resulted in some of them fading into oblivion.
We could truly have made more progress by now, and I hope that we shall advance in future on the basis of this report.
My wish for all the people of Europe is that both the senior and the junior citizens of the Union will be able to live together in solidarity.
Mr President, since I am no longer the youngest of 626 Members, as I was when I first entered the House in October 1965, this report on the outlook for senior citizens in the 21st century is of particular interest to me, not least in my capacity as president of a national and a major European women's organisation in which the older members are the most active and which, like many other organisations, would no longer be viable without the voluntary work of their older members, since the younger ones are so overburdened with professional and family commitments that it is well-nigh impossible to recruit them for voluntary activities.
What our two rapporteurs have proposed in the 30 paragraphs of the resolution and in the introductory recitals is naturally music to our ears.
It is sheer balm on the wounds of many elderly people, especially women, to discover that their special problems have not been forgotten, and my heartfelt thanks go to the rapporteurs for that.
You are so right to emphasise that the older people in our countries possess a rich treasury of experience, knowledge, education and values that we cannot afford to cast aside, that a general rethinking of conventional attitudes and stereotypes is necessary, and that society must adopt a new approach with a view to combating the many different forms of discrimination and social exclusion to which older people are subjected both at work and in the social arena.
They call for research and better practice in the care of age-related diseases.
In this connection, I should not like to miss the opportunity to point out the urgent need for better information regarding the fact that moderate and regular consumption of wine is the best way of preventing age-related diseases such as Alzheimer's, for which we now have scientific evidence.
Applause
It would, however, be necessary for the northern Member States such as your own, Commissioner Liikanen, to reduce their unduly high excise duties on wine so as to enable all citizens of the Union, be they young or old, to enjoy that particular form of preventive medicine.
With regard to the pension rights of the elderly, and especially of women, I should like to refer to two initiatives I have taken here, both of which resulted in unanimously adopted parliamentary reports.
The first relates to the splitting of pension rights acquired during married life in favour of women who have given up their careers to look after their families and who, in the event of divorce after 20 or more years of marriage, are particularly liable to fall below the poverty line.
We also called for a Commission initiative in this area, but nothing has happened.
The second initiative related to the social security of those who assist their self-employed spouses.
Here too, we called for an improvement of the 1986 directive on the equal treatment of self-employed persons and their assisting spouses.
Once again, nothing has happened.
Mr President, allow me to say one more thing.
I should like to refer to a paragraph in the resolution, the one concerning the participation of older people in decision-making processes, including the political process, since there are naturally those elements who take pride in presenting the list of candidates with the lowest average age.
It is surely ironic that our two rapporteurs have fallen victim to that very tendency and have not been selected as candidates in the forthcoming elections.
What makes that all the more regrettable in my eyes is the high regard we have had for their work here, since it is undoubtedly discrimination against the ever-increasing number of elderly people to omit such competent and sprightly colleagues from the party lists.
That was just something I felt I had to say here, Mr President.
Although I should be delighted if I were re-elected to the European Parliament, I should find it most regrettable if I were to be returned as the oldest Member!
Laughter and applause
Thank you, Mrs Lulling. After the sitting, when I see you in the corridor, I will have to ask you to tell me how much wine you drink each day, what kind of wine you drink, and in particular how much it costs, including tax.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the two rapporteurs, who have illustrated the point that 'you are as young as you feel'.
The situation today is different from what it was 20 or 30 years ago, in that many older people in society are now in better health.
We therefore need to galvanise public opinion so as to ensure that people's later years are seen as a pleasant phase of life, and this means providing information and support, as well as consolidating national legislation.
We see discrimination against senior citizens; older people have problems with their sight and hearing; they can find themselves more affected by unemployment than other groups; and they run the risk of social exclusion. All this illustrates the need to work ceaselessly to mobilise public awareness in a bid to prevent certain groups in society from being marginalised.
My view is that policy for senior citizens should be dealt with primarily at national level; it is to national legislation that we should turn.
In Sweden, the Swedish Parliament sets the general parameters, but responsibility for social and health care for the elderly lies further down the line, with the regional and local bodies operating at the grass roots.
We need to ensure that this continues to be the case.
There is no need for actual legislation at EU level, although benefit could be drawn from information, consultation and exchanges of experience, as well as from practical work, research and the sharing of results into Alzheimer's disease or other health problems which affect senior citizens.
Social legislation is perhaps the most important instrument available to a country, since its effects are felt by people in their everyday lives.
We cannot therefore afford to make concessions in this area; the whole issue must continue to be dealt with at regional and local level.
I am not too happy about the manner in which the report calls on the Member States to implement measures affecting areas such as pensions, health care, housing and jobs.
The points made are not incorrect, but it is in reality up to the national authorities, not the EU, to take decisions on these matters.
We in the European Parliament are quite entitled to our views, but rather than 'calling' for action, we would perhaps be better advised to 'recommend' or 'suggest'.
There is however one area where we do have considerable scope for improving the lives of senior citizens in very practical ways, and I am thinking here of how we can use the machinery of European cooperation to ensure mutual recognition of acquired social rights such as sickness pay and pensions.
Senior citizens often have entitlements of this kind and we are in a position to exercise considerable influence here, given that there are major shortcomings in the system when people move from one country to another.
Let me end by reiterating my fundamental point.
It is all very well to encourage public awareness, to hold conferences on issues affecting senior citizens and to run campaigns focusing on their concerns. When it comes to legislation and its implementation, however, action must be taken nationally, regionally and locally.
Thank you, Mr Lindqvist.
Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now give the floor to Mrs Ilivitzky, who will speak on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left for a maximum of six minutes.
Mrs Ilivitzky has replaced Mrs Ojala, and this will be the first time she has spoken in the House.
Let me therefore welcome her here on behalf of you all.
Tervetuloa rouva Ilivitzky .
Mr President, thank you for welcoming me in Finnish.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is indeed the first speech I have made in Parliament, and I am very happy to have the opportunity to speak on such an important matter.
The extent and seriousness of the problems facing older people have up till now been paid too little attention in the European Union.
Our rapporteur, Hugh McMahon, and Edgar Schiedermeier have worked hard, not only in producing this report, but also in organising a conference on the elderly, the outcome of which forms the main basis for this report.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on their success in taking all the essential aspects of this matter into account: the status of older people on the labour market, their special training needs, and questions of income and services.
In addition, I think their basic position is the right one.
Senior citizens are to be seen as a resource that society should exploit more and not as a problem we have to solve at minimum expense.
As the average age of the European labour force rises all the time, it is vital that people should be able to work until they are of pensionable age.
This will require changes at work both in attitudes and in the organisation of work.
Work must adapt to people's skills and abilities, rather than insisting that people adapt to the demands of work.
Older people have much of the sort of knowledge and skill which could be put to better use, as long as they are willing to participate.
However, it is more difficult for them than it is for young people to adapt to a very fast pace of working.
In many workplaces problems have been caused by pressure, when an attempt is made to achieve the same results with a reduced workforce of lower-paid employees.
In my opinion, the public sector should set an example to employers and be capable of thinking in the longer term.
It is of no benefit to society if older workers are forced into early retirement, when they might still be able to work if conditions were more suitable.
One of the greatest problems older people have on the labour market is their poor level of training.
In all European countries those over the age of 45 have clearly received poorer levels of training than those below that age.
The difference in my country, Finland, is the greatest among all the OECD countries.
Unless older workers can be trained up for new jobs, we face the threat of age discrimination on the labour market while many sectors are suffering from labour shortages.
Training for older people has to be tailored to their needs.
It has to take account of their poor basic levels of training, which in turn often give rise to poor motivation when it comes to training.
For that reason, training must be closely linked with practical work.
Ageing, as with many human phenomena, affects men and women in different ways: it is by no means a gender-neutral phenomenon.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur took account of the special problems of older women.
Age discrimination on the labour market affects women quite a lot earlier than it does men.
A woman of 40 is often too old, in the opinion of the employer.
The financial inequality that exists between men and women becomes even more noticeable when the age of retirement is reached.
In all countries women's pensions are substantially smaller than men's.
This is a result of both women's lower rates of pay, which thus cause them to suffer doubly, and the fact that women's careers are often short and fragmented as a result of family care obligations.
For this reason, it is very important for women that all people of pensionable age be guaranteed an adequate basic pension, supplemented by an employer's pension scheme.
Although retirement schemes naturally differ from country to country, I believe there should be a statutory minimum income at Union level, which Member States should guarantee citizens who are unable to work or for whom there is no work available.
Numerous voluntary organisations have proposed that, next time the Treaty is revised, it should incorporate a list of citizens' basic rights, including their right to a basic income.
Thank you for allowing me to speak here, and I can see that you have listened very attentively to me.
I would like to thank you all for that too!
Mr President, the title of this report sounds very promising, but I think the biggest setback for senior citizens at the moment - and I count myself as one of them - has been the resignation of the Commission, which has meant that Commissioner Monti's plans for a directive to liberalise the European market in pension funds has had to be shelved for the time being.
Much as I admire the rapporteurs, in my view the report focuses too much on the idea of a dependent older generation, which I find a rather patronising attitude. I know people in their 80s and 90s who have lived through two world wars and are still completely independent.
Of course I also realise that there is a category of older people who are more needy, but they are a national responsibility.
The rapporteurs refer three times in their report to discrimination against older women.
This is rather too much, and is undoubtedly the result of pressure from Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights, as well as being a bit of a nod in the direction of the substantial numbers of women voters.
I am a senior citizen, an older woman, and there are many like me who do not need patronising.
We want to be free to take our pensions with us to other countries, and we want no age discrimination.
We also want to be protected against tax disadvantages if we continue to work after our pension has started, both in our own countries and in all the Member States of the Union.
The report also fails to consider the potential wealth of knowledge that those over 65 possess and the trend on the labour market to keep more and more people in this category involved in the employment process. In some countries, the underlying aim is for these people to continue to pay contributions so that there is enough money to pay pensions to the growing numbers of older people.
Seventy-five million people over the age of 60 do not just want a sense of belonging to society, they also particularly want realistic legislation within the EU single market.
I am not saying that this report is pointless, but it concentrates too much on the welfare side and certainly does not live up to the title of 'Senior citizens in the 21st century: a new lease of life'.
That aspect is not covered at all.
Mr President, we have heard how the segment of society comprising senior citizens is growing fast in the EU and in Europe as a whole.
Seventy-five million people alive today are 60 years old or more, and that is one fifth of the total population.
In the year 2000, over 20 million people will be in their eighties.
That truly is a demographic revolution.
This report is therefore very timely and I would congratulate the two rapporteurs.
I also very much appreciated the conference held in Brussels in October and entitled 'Senior citizens in the 21st century - a new lease of life'.
I personally found this one of the most rewarding events I have attended during my time as a Member of the European Parliament. Some very exciting issues were raised.
And - as one who has crossed the threshold into her fifties - it gave me fresh hope to meet all those stimulating and inspired older people.
My guests from Sweden were also full of praise for the conference.
From my point of view, the most important elements in this text are contained in recitals D and E. Here the point is made that, just because a person has reached pensionable age, he or she does not have to stop leading an active life.
On the contrary, many people take on new commitments and projects after retirement, not to mention all those who only manage to fulfil their working dreams after they stop work proper.
We need to review our traditional attitudes towards senior citizens and rethink the roles we expect them to play in society.
This applies particularly to the world of work.
Paragraph 7 contains a series of ideas as to how our vision of the labour market and senior citizens can be rendered more flexible and up to date. There is a reference to promoting innovative forms of transition between work and retirement, for example a whole new model of part-time working for older persons.
The notion of a flexible retirement age is fundamental.
Senior citizens organisations in Sweden have been calling for this, as has my own party, the Greens. Many people simply cannot carry on working until they are 65, whilst others can continue until they are 70 or more, and are happy to do so.
What is required, therefore, is a flexible retirement age and a new attitude towards older people.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, both rapporteurs are of course right to emphasise the importance of a policy for senior citizens in Europe, especially in view of the development of the population pyramid.
They address economic and social issues in their report and, in particular, the problem of access to the labour market.
I believe that this particular issue could remain in the realms of wishful thinking: present growth rates will continue and the already high level of unemployment - which affects the younger generations in particular - will persist in the future.
We would therefore require economic conditions that are very different from those that exist today to enable older people to have access to the labour market, in addition to abolishing discriminatory legislation in this respect.
The cultural issues were not neglected by the rapporteurs and rightly so.
Paragraph 28, in particular, stresses the need to project a better image of the elderly in our society. In this connection, I must say that we have regressed somewhat in comparison with ancient societies.
Ancient Greece, to which we owe the best part of our civilisation, rightly valued the experience and wisdom of the elderly. We therefore have to tackle a genuine ideology of underestimating the value of the past.
This ideology of underestimating the value of the past and thus the value of older people too, basically dates back to the Romanticism of the last century, and it is a cultural obstacle that we will have to overcome.
Nowadays, we think that everything new is therefore better.
This is of course perfectly true in terms of science and technology, where knowledge is cumulative.
But it is not necessarily the case with regard to ethics, aesthetics, human beings, in general terms, and institutions.
In the past, Solon, the great Greek lawmaker, who did not hesitate to innovate in his field either, always used to say: 'A man when he grows old may learn many things - for he can no more learn much than he can run much; youth is the time for extraordinary toil'.
There is no doubt that, depending on the areas we are dealing with, being new is not necessarily always best, and in that respect, there is probably a significant cultural change to be made within our ancient European societies.
Finally, it is unfortunate that the report makes no reference to the demographic aspects, despite the fact that the rapporteurs discuss this right at the start of their report. Nothing will be possible, particularly on a financial level, if we do not correct the population pyramid in Europe, which reveals a real tragedy.
If we look at this pyramid and our low birth rate we can see that there are more deaths than births.
If we want to guarantee pensions, it is particularly vital to implement a broad family policy, which is not an issue here. I would possibly go so far as to say that we should adopt a pro-birth policy, even if this term is looked down on nowadays.
Therefore, and in spite of all these omissions, I support the analyses carried out by our two rapporteurs.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Staudinger, one of our mayors from Upper Austria, once made a remark to the effect that senior citizens are an important political factor with a bright future.
I believe that sums up this issue very neatly.
One in four of the European population is directly involved, and it is our concern to focus on the self-esteem of this section of the population, so that they can assume their role and their responsibility in society as we would wish them to do.
When it comes to the working world, I believe we must ensure that we find models of best practice, that we ask ourselves how we can help to integrate older people into the labour force and help them to feel comfortable in their working environment.
There are many models in Europe that are worth considering. We also favour flexible working hours to take account of the needs of older employees in particular.
We in Parliament have been staunch advocates of the European Bus and have expressed the view that getting on and off public transport must be made easier, or indeed possible, for elderly people.
Too little attention is paid to that, and we shall press hard for this demand from Parliament to be met.
One of our aims in the field of research policy is to ensure that increased biotechnological research is conducted with a view to improving the health of all people, including the very elderly.
The European Parliament has managed to ensure that an extra billion euros will henceforth be earmarked for research.
I believe that is something to be proud of, something that will benefit our older citizens too.
Mr President, I am speaking here from a unique position as the only Member of this House who was born before the First World War and who, moreover, was elected to this Parliament long after reaching pensionable age; since then I have enjoyed 20 wonderful years of life and work here.
Applause
It is from that perspective that I should like to say just a few words. There can be no doubt that far too little is said in our countries about the problem of older people and that there is sometimes an excessively strong inclination to indulge in a certain glorification of youth.
That is certainly warranted as a means of helping younger people to break through into public life.
But we build and maintain structures that make it well-nigh impossible for youth to have its head. The electoral system in our democracies is organised in such a way that young people find it extremely difficult to assert themselves.
If there were a system whereby we really voted for candidates in small constituencies rather than parties - and such a system, I regret to say, has even been abandoned in Britain now - young people, and old people too, could assert themselves.
That would be real democracy.
What is being established today is not genuine democracy but rather a 'partiocracy', in which party officials, through their power of selection, effectively have the right to decide where democracy begins and ends.
In this connection, I should like to point out that one of our key demands is that the elderly should finally be given the greater freedom to which they have long aspired.
In the economic sector we are always talking about the free market, and rightly so.
But for the elderly there is no such thing.
Although people's pension rights are recognised when they reach retirement age, at which point they are 'brought down a peg' in terms of social status, there is no recognition of the other rights they have acquired at earlier points in their lives.
Surely people cannot be compelled to consent to the loss of these rights in order to avoid having to give up what they want to do.
There happen to be elderly people who are very glad that they can go on working.
In such cases we hear talk of keeping young people out of a job.
That is not true.
In my opinion there is only one country where this has been properly understood, namely Switzerland, strange as it may seem.
In Switzerland, in the Swiss Parliament for example, there are many pensioners who bring the benefits of a lifetime of experience to their work.
That is something on which we should insist, namely genuine freedom of choice for the elderly.
Such freedom of choice would also help us to achieve some degree of control over the demographic pyramid to which some speakers have rightly referred, for the pyramid needs a broader base, and the breadth of that base is also restricted in our part of the world.
The main thing is to safeguard the freedom of the elderly.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a child born today will have an average life expectancy of 100 years or more.
While it was still commonplace a hundred years ago for people to die at the age of 40, we are now averaging a life span of 80 years.
A child born today is likely to reach 100 or more.
One of the dreams of mankind has thus been fulfilled.
We can live a second life, as people have always wanted to do, and it fills me with anger and rage when I read or hear talk of the ageing or indeed the senilisation of Europe.
To the honourable lady from the Green Group, may I say that you have cut me to the quick.
You used that very word, or at least that is how it was translated. When it comes to people who grow old because God has given them the genes to do so, let us please beware of speaking in terms of the onset of European senility.
And there is something else that angers me.
There is such a thing as human rights, of which this House is a vigorous advocate.
So how do we reconcile that stance with a situation in which people at the age of 60 or 65, and sometimes even 55, are forced to give up their occupations, to stop working. Work is a very, very important aspect of human existence.
There will undoubtedly be people who are weary of their work or who have performed demanding and strenuous work over the years and want to retire, but surely the law cannot say to a person 'Thou shalt not work' merely because he or she has reached the age of 60, 65 and sometimes only 55.
I see that as a violation of human rights, and Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam will be a good basis for the discussion of this issue.
I very much regret that Mr Schiedermeier and Mr McMahon have to leave us.
Had they produced their report sooner, they would most probably have made it impossible for their parties to force them out.
Applause
My party and Austria are very progressive.
I have been selected to stand again for election to this Parliament because I am an old woman, because I am in my 66th year, and I look forward to being granted the privilege of spending the next few years here.
Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteurs, Mr McMahon and Mr Schiedermeier, for an excellent report, and the honourable Members too, for a very enthusiastic debate.
The report is clearly the result of much hard work.
In October Parliament organised a conference that was attended by more than a hundred representatives from senior citizens' organisations in all the Member States.
In addition to the discussions that were held at the conference, there were written proposals from many organisations, all having an impact on the subject matter of this report.
I am pleased that the Commission was able to work with Parliament in arranging the conference and to participate in the debate that took place there.
With this sort of cooperation it is not at all surprising that the ideas expressed in the report are very much in tune with those of the Commission.
It is highly satisfactory that the report emphasises the enormous potential that older people offer and the need to put this potential to good use.
As we know, the citizens of Europe are now living long, healthy and active lives, which is of enormous benefit to European societies.
We now face the challenge of adapting our society in such a way that, as our citizens age, we preserve a decent standard of living and quality of life for everyone in an active and healthy society.
This can be achieved, but, as the report's title suggests, we need to look at the issue from a new angle.
The report makes particular mention of the number of unemployed older people, and employment is a most important area to work on.
I agree with the rapporteurs that the European Employment Strategy and the European Social Fund provide a great deal of scope.
The report mentions the importance of continuing training, and greater attention must be paid to the needs of older workers in relation to the principle of lifelong training, as contained in the European Employment Strategy and set out in the Commission's proposal.
I also agree with the points made in the report regarding equality.
One deals with the question of guaranteeing an adequate level of income for elderly people.
Older women are often considerably worse off than men.
The Commission has started examining how social security systems can be adapted to demographic developments in European societies, and the income levels of older people are also being discussed.
Another important subject relating to social security which is raised in the report is the effect of an ageing society on healthcare.
On this point I can tell you that the Commission is already funding a study on this very issue, which we hope will be completed within the year.
I see the report calls for the Commission to present its Communication on Ageing in the first half of 1999.
I can assure Parliament that the communication has already been drafted.
We are doing our utmost, in the present circumstances, to ensure that it is presented as soon as possible.
The report also proposes that the Commission should be called upon to submit proposals in connection with the new provisions in the Treaty of Amsterdam on combating discrimination and social marginalisation.
The report also calls for improved health protection for older people, both in a general sense and with regard to Alzheimer's disease.
These are obviously important issues, and I am certain that the new Commission will take account of this report when drafting proposals in these areas.
I should like once more to thank Parliament for this report.
It is an import contribution from Parliament in 1999, the year that has been proclaimed the UN International Year of Older Persons.
It will also help to preserve a model of European society for the current generation and for generations to come.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Ladies and gentlemen, I should like to congratulate Mr Schiedermeier and Mr McMahon - or Mr McMahon and Mr Schiedermeier - on their excellent work, not only on this report but throughout this parliamentary term.
We did not vote in favour of this report.
We see no need to develop a common policy for senior citizens at EU level.
Such issues should be dealt with primarily at national and regional level.
The report's coordination proposals go much too far for our liking on several counts.
However, we do believe that the EU has an important role to play in making it possible for pensions to be transferred and recognised across national borders.
Starch
The next item is the oral question with debate (B4-0155/99) by Mr Colino Salamanca and Mr Garot, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, to the Commission, on vegetable protein supplies and the situation in the European starch industry.
Mr President, Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development intends to refer to the Commission the matter of the European Union's deficit in vegetable proteins added to animal feedingstuffs and what is at stake strategically for biotechnologies in the European Union as a result of this situation.
Several of my colleagues are due to take the floor after me this morning and will clarify the subject.
I must point out right away that it is estimated that the European Union fails to provide around 70 % of its internal consumption of these proteins. This therefore means that we are very dependent on US imports.
I would remind you that this situation is the result of the concession made to the United States when the Treaty of Rome was signed on duty-free soya imports into the Community.
The situation has deteriorated with the Blair House agreement, which sets a quota for the production of oleaginous protein crops in Europe, and it could become even worse during the 2000-2006 period.
On the one hand, the provisions of Agenda 2000 will probably lead farmers to reduce their production of oleaginous protein crops in favour of cereals unless, of course, wise steps are taken to promote crops in the non-food agricultural production sector. On the other hand, production capacities for amino acids, particularly synthetic lysine, are decreasing in Europe.
In fact, we should be aware that European manufacturers are increasingly choosing to invest in the United States.
I should like to emphasise this point, because the synthetic lysine produced in Europe is important in that it enables us to use the maximum amount of cereals in feedingstuffs, whilst working towards reducing our own protein deficit.
However, we have to recognise in this connection that the redistribution of the cards between Europe and the United States with regard to lysine production is a matter of concern.
For example, the cover rate of the US market has increased from 0 % to about 165 %, whereas the cover rate of the European lysine market decreased from 84 % in 1991 to 54 % in 1997, and is predicted to fall to around 38 % in 2002 if present trends continue.
However, since it is likely that the maize used for starch production will continue to be sold in the United States at a lower price than that of Community cereals, it seems logical not only to preserve the present system of refunds which compensates for the disadvantage in relation to the United States, but to greatly reinforce the system.
That is why the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development would like the Commission to answer the following questions. How will the European Union reduce its dependence on protein imports and use the agricultural potential available in the 15 Member States?
How will the present level of refunds be adjusted to take account of the use of cereal derivatives and the relaunch of intra-Community lysine production? How does the Commission intend to promote on a more global level the expansion of the starch and biotechnology industries that could open up agriculture to new markets?
The answers to these questions are of particular importance for us at the moment since the WTO negotiations are soon to begin.
Mr President, the Commission maintains an active policy to reduce the Community's dependence on imports of vegetable proteins and to increase the use of grain in cattle fodder.
The Community agricultural policy reform, begun in 1992, has led to a substantial annual increase in the consumption of grain in cattle fodder of around 20 million tonnes and a significant reduction in the importation of cattle fodder and, in particular, vegetable proteins.
In Agenda 2000 the Commission proposed to extend the 1992 reform for the specific purpose of boosting Europe's agricultural competitiveness both in the single market and in external markets.
The 15 % drop in the price of grain and the additional direct aid for protein crops should do much to achieve this aim.
The Commission has always been keen to ensure that the starch and starch-processing industries in Europe, and especially the biotechnology sector that uses starch and its derivatives as raw materials, remain competitive.
Generally speaking, starch-based industries have maintained a healthy position and have developed steadily.
Protection from imports is assured with the application of appropriate customs duties.
Exports, meanwhile, are enhanced by means of export subsidies, which make it possible to export a diverse range of products in their original state, or sometimes as highly processed starch products.
Within the Community, sales of starch and its derivatives are promoted by means of production subsidies when such products are used in the sectors of industry which have no protection from imports, such as the chemical and pharmaceutical industry and the paper industry.
These systems of aid mean that a significant and constantly increasing volume of products emanating from the starch industry and the starch processing industry reach markets in countries outside the Community as well.
With the Agenda 2000 programme, the Commission will continue to use tools to control these markets as long as there remains a significant difference between the global market price and that prevailing in the Union's single market.
These measures should guarantee that industries that use starch, and the biotechnology sector in particular, will remain competitive in the global markets.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
Before we continue with the debate, I would inform the House that I have received five motions for resolutions to wind up the debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the ink has scarcely dried on the documents recording the results of the Agenda 2000 discussions in Berlin, and already we have to start examining the impact of this Agenda 2000 on all areas of activity.
I believe that the examination of the impact on this industry, occupying what might still be called a small niche in the market, is rather important, which is why we owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Garot for putting his finger on the wound straight away and calling on the Commission to take the lead and do something positive.
The Commissioner has just spoken of deepening and strengthening.
The nature of his address, though complimentary in tone, was that of a declamatory statement of intent.
We naturally want more than verbal declarations of deepening commitment; we also want assistance on a massive scale, which is why it is gratifying that the Commissioner responsible for financial policy is sitting in our midst.
This massive assistance, of course, must include financial resources; however, the Socialists in the European Parliament do not place all their trust in public funding, but naturally rely on the free and socially controlled market too.
That is why it is necessary that this market niche, this environmentally acceptable niche, should be established at long last as another supporting leg, as an additional source of income, for the agricultural sector.
This additional supporting leg also has the merit of not entailing any further surplus production, but actually creates a means of promoting our market policies by replacing surplus production with alternative crops which may also serve as a substitute for mineral oil, for example.
What we want to do in the European Union is to take this product out of its niche as a set-aside option, to increase production and to place starch on an even footing with other agricultural products.
But since we are part of a world market, we also have an interest in ensuring that, at the WTO negotiations which are due to begin in Seattle on 30 November, barriers to free trade are properly removed and that the European Union obtains the same sort of level playing field on which to operate in this market as it does in the other major markets.
That demands a great deal of work, Commissioner.
Not only do we need money; we need decisive action too.
I know that our tasks at the WTO negotiations have been made far more complex and numerous by the results of the agricultural talks at the Berlin summit, some of which were far from satisfactory, but I assume that the Commission and the other representatives of the European Union are capable of robust defence of our interests in this area as well.
Mr President, this oral question deals with the links between a number of important EU agricultural products, the high-tech sector that uses them and the supply of vegetable protein fodder.
The Blair House agreement also covered protein-rich fodder in the form of processed oilseed extract, and was so restrictive that it held back the further development of the oilseed crop sector in the EU.
In Agenda 2000, the Commission tried to overcome this problem by giving oilseed the same hectare premium as grain, a decision confirmed at the Berlin summit.
This meant that the premiums have been decoupled for an entire group of agricultural crops: grain and oilseed.
I would like to ask the Commission whether we can now tell the United States - entirely in keeping with our current method of transatlantic communication on agricultural matters - that this aid has now been decoupled just as it has in the US, and that therefore the one million tonne oilseed extract restriction no longer applies. I am assuming that we do not need to wait for a full WTO millennium round agreement to regulate this.
However, will the cure not be worse than the disease for the future of the EU oilseed sector, and will the lower hectare premium not prove a strong disincentive to grow oilseed? Now that the Berlin summit has confirmed that a non-food agricultural policy is to be pursued more energetically in future, does the Commission plan to do more to promote the use of biodiesel and biolubricants?
Next there is the issue of the relative price of cereals in the EU compared with the price on the world market. The EU starch industry is complaining that its products are becoming increasingly expensive in the EU compared with competitors who obtain their supplies of cereals on the world market.
Will the industry's position be helped by a further 15 % reduction in the price of cereals?
When it proposed this price reduction, the Commission claimed that it would improve the EU's competitive position, and this should also, and perhaps in particular, apply to the starch sector.
Or will the sector simply have to learn to live with a price difference between cereals on the world market and in the EU because the EU currently has a shortage? In any event, the EU's starch consumers are calling for an incentive to be given to secure the use of EU starch in future.
On the subject of the price of cereals on the world market, I would like to ask the Commission whether prices for this product do not tend to be forced up by the application of marketing payments as in the United States.
In the European Union's recent study of US agricultural support policy, very little was said about this, whereas the current American farm bill has used marketing payments for almost all agricultural products as a very efficient way of increasing competitiveness.
Are we not overlooking a very important support instrument here?
I would also just like to mention the balance between potato starch and cereal starch.
I assume that the agreement reached in Berlin on this is being ratified, and I would like to ask the Commission whether the implementing regulation has been drawn up, because I think it is extremely important for the existing balance between the potato starch and cereal starch regimes to continue by maintaining the existing system of balancing premiums for the potato starch sector.
Mr President, I should like to begin where Mr Sonneveld left off.
My group too feels that is it particularly important for the balancing premium between potato starch and cereal starch to be maintained.
It is vital that potato production should be maintained in various parts of Europe, and particularly in the north of the Netherlands, otherwise there would be a huge economic slump which would cost us even more money to resolve.
So it certainly needs to be maintained.
I would also like to express my support for the industrial use of agricultural products for non-food purposes.
I am pleased that Commissioner Liikanen is here at the moment, because I would like to make a suggestion that will cost nothing at all, which I am sure he will be delighted to hear.
What if we made it compulsory in certain ecologically sensitive areas, for example in Finnish waters, to use products that can be made from agricultural products, such as plastics that can be made from starch and biolubricants that can be made from protein-rich products in the south of Europe?
This would create an enormous new market for these products and we would probably need to spend less on subsidies.
I admit that these products might be a little dearer than the conventional ones, but the environmental benefits are so great that I think the Commission should come up with some definite proposals to give these products greater access to the European market.
I also wanted to ask something about the situation after Berlin.
We all know that the Blair House agreement was not very advantageous for us.
How confident is the Commission that the current proposals are compatible, in other words that we can grow as much as we want and the Blair House restriction no longer applies? Or are we going to have another trade dispute with the US in the WTO?
I hope not, and I would like to hear what the Commission has to say on this point.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the development of the European chemical industry that uses carbohydrates derived from agriculture - particularly starch - has been taking place for a few years against the background of a particularly difficult economic situation.
The origins of this delicate situation lie in the significant differences between the European Union and the world market in terms of the conditions of supply of agricultural raw materials.
However, along with the starch industry in particular, the industry's use of non-food agricultural products in the cereals balance is very significant. Moreover, the industry is one of the cornerstones of the future development of biotechnology industries.
Admittedly, compensation in the form of a production refund was introduced in 1986 - as Commissioner Liikanen mentioned earlier - in order to remedy the situation.
However, when this system is applied, it unfortunately only partially compensates for the disadvantage, thereby weakening the position of European industry not only on the world market, but on our own market as well.
The disparities in glucose production costs for industry between the US and the European Union can frequently amount to between 30 % and 100 % of the cost price. It is impossible to overcome this through technological advances or greater productivity, particularly since the majority of European manufacturers are also at a disadvantage because of their size.
This situation raises the burning issue of European industry's durability.
In the last few years, several production units have closed their doors in Germany and Italy.
In order to respond to greater demand, capacity is currently increasing but mainly outside the European Union, whether it be in the United States or in the newly industrialised countries, such as China, India or Brazil.
The European market is increasingly supplied from industrial areas outside the European Union.
You only have to look at Eurostat's statistics to see this.
The depreciation of world prices means that the European Union can no longer maintain its trading position on the world market.
These converging trends demonstrate how unattractive Europe is. The main cause of this is the cost of starch raw materials and this comes on top of the other disadvantages affecting the industry, which I just mentioned.
We must therefore make two demands at European level.
The first is that the production refunds should be calculated on the basis of world maize prices, and not wheat prices, since the starch industry is based on the maize industry. Secondly, as our colleagues Mr Sonneveld and Mr Mulder just mentioned, we must also ensure that we maintain a certain balance between potato starch and the starch produced from cereals.
Above all, we want the European Union to demonstrate an aggressive attitude at the international conferences in Vienna on the WTO.
If we make some concessions to the Americans - as we now apparently should - particularly on the issue of wheat gluten, which is a sector where they are attacking us, and where we have not yet referred the matter to the WTO, we can harbour legitimate concerns.
This battle must be won at the future WTO negotiations; it is essential for the future of our biotechnology industries.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, following the recent conclusions on Agenda 2000, it is possible to think that the balance of the European budget always bends under the weight of excessive agricultural subsidies. These are linked, in particular, to the production of surpluses that have to be taken off the market, put into storage and processed.
In short, agriculture and its surpluses are to blame for all evils.
Yet when we analyse Eurostat's statistical data and the annual situation of European agriculture, we see that - contrary to all expectations - the European Union is not self-sufficient with regard to certain types of agricultural products.
This is the case for sheepmeat, which is the only resource of many dry regions in the south of Europe.
We only provide 80 % of our consumption requirements.
We are still short of tobacco, wood, non-processed citrus fruits and certain types of fruit and vegetables.
But most importantly, as a recent study by the Directorate-General for Research revealed, we only produce 30 % of the protein-rich products required to produce feedingstuffs, mainly for pigs and poultry.
Imagine what will happen if there is an American embargo, like the once we witnessed in 1973.
This would prove to be catastrophic for the European Union within a few weeks.
Cereal stocks would continue to provide energy feedingstuffs, but we would soon have a shortage of vegetable proteins, which have been essential since the BSE crisis.
Yet at the same time, the starch industry, which is the basis for the production of numerous industrial compounds, including amino acids such as lysine, is being penalised by overly high prices in Europe for these raw materials.
It is now time for the Commission to go beyond making speeches and to deal specifically with these issues.
For a start, we must maintain and improve the current system of refunds for the use of cereal derivatives.
But we must also implement a genuine policy on non-food agricultural production in order to produce the raw materials required for the organic compound and biofuel industries, particularly by promoting the use of set-aside land.
Moreover, we simply need to make use of the possibilities that exist in the regulations on cereals and oleaginous protein products in order to make our livestock production sector self-sufficient in feedingstuffs once again.
Furthermore, we strongly urge the Commission to include all aspects of the problem - which was very well presented by Mr Garot - in the preparatory work for the WTO negotiations. We do have some weapons we can use, provided that there is the political will to use them.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I should like to express my sincere thanks to Mr Garot for taking this initiative and enabling us to deal with this resolution here and now.
I believe this resolution has to address four problem areas and that each of them is actually very important in its own right.
First of all there is the question of the competitiveness of the European starch industry, and then there are the Berlin decisions on oilseeds and protein plants, which as we now know are entirely inadequate and completely incapable of overcoming the prevailing deficit in these markets and therefore of little use to us in their present form.
Thirdly, it is crucial that the Commission should pursue and develop a more active policy in the realm of non-food crops, because we have simply ground to a halt somewhere along the line.
We have conducted a great many experiments.
We have developed organic oils for use in protected water-collection areas, at places such as Lake Constance and other popular tourist destinations where the use of conventional mineral oils would cause severe pollution.
But progress is not being made.
The process of introducing these products into the market is stagnating.
Our policies have been based on the principle of pushing forward a little and then retreating a little.
That will have to change, otherwise nothing good will come of our efforts.
Lastly, it is also about competition between grain and potato starch production, for they each have different production costs, which means that harmonisation is required.
In short, Commissioner, the issue is this: instead of financing surpluses, we must invest in markets that still operate efficiently.
The work on the Agenda 2000 decisions must begin now.
They provide a rough framework that cannot give us any cause for satisfaction.
But of course it is ultimately the responsibility of Parliament and the Commission to develop that framework and above all to grasp the opportunities that these markets still offer, opportunities that are no longer available in the realm of mass production, where we have lost the initiative.
We must look for our opportunities in areas where we can help the environment, and we are not doing nearly enough in that respect.
That is why it is imperative to take this action.
Mr President, I have just three comments to make on this debate.
Firstly, there is no doubt that industries producing specific products, such as lysine, are confronted with increased imports, particularly from the United States where production capacity is expanding more rapidly.
This situation, and the investments possibly made outside Europe, is not to be attributed to the common agricultural policy.
The system of export and production refunds compensates for the difference in the price of the raw material on the world market and the EU market.
Other factors, external to agriculture, are involved, such as labour and energy costs, regulations on the environment, the proximity of markets, and so on.
Economy of scale can also bring comparative advantages, and this can be seen clearly in the United States, which has very large manufacturing units that are sometimes integrated into the starch industry.
Further, several comments have implied that the level of aid is not sufficient.
The Commission cannot allow levels that are insufficient.
The present refund rate - effective since the Management Committee's decision yesterday - is ECU 60 per tonne, that is, approximately 30 % of the value of the raw material.
This means that the difference between the world price and the Community price is compensated for.
Finally, many general questions have been raised in connection with the common agricultural policy, as well as in connection with the WTO negotiations.
I shall refer these questions to my colleagues, Mr Fischler and Mr Brittan, who will thus provide you with answers to them.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Joint motion for a resolution on vegetable protein supplies and the situation in the European starch industry
Parliament adopted the resolution
We voted against this resolution, since it seeks to backtrack on sections of the CAP reform package which has been agreed.
Venice
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B4-0156/99 by Mrs Estevan Bolea, Mr Malerba, Mr Ligabue, Mr Danesin and Mr Castagnetti, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0158/99 by Mr Ripa di Meana, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0160/99 by Mr Dell'Alba, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Allianceon the crisis situation in Venice.
Mr President, last November, a group of Members from Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy visited Venice.
As usual, we were fascinated by the city's immense beauty, but we were also very concerned - and still are - about its enormous and ever-increasing problems.
Venice is an artificial environment created by man in the middle of a lagoon, yet it suffers from flooding due to 'high water'. This problem is becoming more and more serious and is essentially what has led to an exodus from Venice.
This is what concerned me most, because a city that is truly losing its population will end up as a beautiful but dead museum, a still life.
In 1951, Venice had a population of 171 000; today, it has less than 60 000 inhabitants, and a large proportion of these - 25 % - are elderly people.
Moreover, there are over 10 000 empty dwellings, which are not cared for and which are falling down.
Therefore, something will have to be done to keep Venice as it should be.
Venice is a part of man's heritage.
It belongs first of all to the people of Venice, to those living in the Veneto region, and to all of Italy, which is such an artistic country.
It would be hard to imagine the world's museums without the Italian artists who have filled them with such beautiful works of art.
And that is exactly what Venice is.
However, it is also true that very special measures are required.
Technological measures, that is, the measures for which the necessary technology exists, are the ones that have essentially caught the attention of Parliament's Committee on Research, Technological Development and Energy.
We must put an end to the floods that occur in Venice as a result of the growing phenomenon of 'high water'.
We cannot prevent 'high water' - it is a natural phenomenon - but we do have the ability to introduce mobile dikes and build an underground subway, and this has all been looked at.
The vaporetto is the only form of transport in Venice and it creates serious problems for the environment.
As a result, we are asking the European Union, the Commission and, in particular, the Italian Government to take several measures.
Firstly, we ask that resources be set aside for an intensive renovation of Venice under Objective 2 of the Structural Funds so that people can continue to live there.
If this does not happen, Venice will disappear.
Without people, there is nothing to protect and nothing to do.
Secondly, we ask that tax concessions be granted to those companies that are brave enough to continue operating and producing in Venice at higher costs than other businesses. We also want the Commission to put an end to the sanctions it has imposed because the Italian Government has granted such concessions.
Venezia vuole vivere e deve vivere!
Madam President, at the end of January, the Italian authorities submitted to the Commission a series of observations containing a formal position on the initiation of a procedure, under the reference C 81/97, following a notice published in the Official Journal of the European Communities on 18 February 1998.
This procedure concerned state aid granted in the form of relief on social security contributions.
In December last year, the Italian authorities asked in a letter from the Italian Permanent Representative that the deadline stipulated for their reply should be extended to 15 January 1999.
The Vuole Vivere group, made up of businesses in Venice and Chioggia, submitted its observations, which were communicated to the Italian Government.
These are now being examined by the Commission's services and will be taken into account in its final decision.
We intend to make a decision on this issue by the end of May.
With regard to Venice being included in the scope of derogations under Article 92(3)(c), I would point out that it is up to a Member State to indicate those areas which the state wishes to include in its regional list.
The Commission then investigates the proposals.
The Italian authorities, however, only proposed a part of Venice as an area to come under Article 92(3)(c).
By a decision taken by the Commission on 30 June 1997, it was agreed that this area qualified for aid.
As for Venice's inclusion in Objective 2, it might be pointed out that a Commission proposal on the implementation of the new Structural Fund Objective 2 over the period 2000-2006 provides for shared responsibility between the Commission and the Member States in determining which areas qualify for aid.
As the Council has approved the regulation containing the general rules on Structural Funds, it is incumbent on each Member State to inform the Commission of those areas it regards as being in difficult circumstances, as long as they meet the requirements laid down in the regulations concerned.
The Commission confirms those areas that qualify for inclusion in Objective 2 on the basis of these proposals and in close cooperation with the Member State in question.
The problem of high water - acqua alta - in Venice calls for solutions that take account of the special features of the lagoon ecosystem.
It is the task of the Italian authorities to find a suitable solution to this problem.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
I have received five motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The vote will take place at the end of the debate.
Madam President, as Mrs Estevan Bolea has said, Venice is an artistic and cultural heritage site which belongs to the world: this is known to all of us and has been officially recognised by UNESCO.
I am sure that all Members are familiar with Venice and that some never tire of visiting it.
As we are all aware, the Venice lagoon represents a very particular hydrogeological environment: its equilibrium is fragile and was damaged in the 1960s and 1970s by industrial development along the coast.
The phenomenon of 'high water' which, when it occurs, floods the historic centre to a depth of roughly half a metre, is now happening about ten times a year and causing growing inconvenience to the inhabitants and, even more so, to the economic activities of Venezia Laguna, the island part of the city.
Venice is dying, it is said, not so much because it is sinking into the water - fortunately a very slow phenomenon - but because the population is declining, a very rapid phenomenon.
Businesses which are not linked to tourism and produce high added value employment are relocating to the mainland to avoid the further inconvenience of Venice's severe transport problems.
Yet Venezia Laguna did - and to a certain extent still does - have a tradition of non-pollutant, high-tech industry and services.
Unfortunately, it is clear that the only way to keep these businesses where they are is by granting direct fiscal and economic incentives to firms operating in Venezia Laguna.
This policy has been pursued by the Italian Government, with varying degrees of success, but it now appears that this approach is coming in for criticism from the Commission.
I was pleased to hear that Mr Liikanen allows the Member State to have the last word, as it were, concerning this policy, but I fear the axe of DG IV - responsible for competition - which is normally reserved for state aid.
The city authorities discussed this with us when our delegation visited them.
I do not think we should become involved in the experts' debate on specific ways of solving the high water problem, but I do believe that Venice should be thought of as an area with particular problems, in need of aid and assistance to preserve a viable economic existence.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it seems odd in a way that this House should be debating something as obvious as protecting the city of Venice.
As many others have said, the city is a world heritage site located at the heart of an extremely fragile man-made ecosystem.
I should like to dwell for just a moment on this first point.
The rulers of Venice in former times succeeded in creating a virtually unique model of development.
They devoted incredible energy, hundreds of years ago, to protecting an unstable ecosystem.
They began by developing trade, and then they transformed the city of Venice into a major international cultural centre which saw the inception of the modern publishing industry, for example, and always enjoyed far greater civil and political liberties than the neighbouring countries.
The fact that Europe's political leaders should now be addressing themselves to this issue, and considering how to overcome obstacles in this area, is therefore quite disconcerting in some ways.
Community rules are designed to assist development, not to curb it.
Community rules must not be applied unthinkingly across the board, as though the European Union were synonymous with uniformity.
It is glaringly obvious that state aid granted to Venice is unlike state aid granted to any other EU region: it serves to safeguard our heritage, which we did not create but inherited. And because we inherited it, we are duty-bound to hand it down to future generations.
Mistakes have been made, not least in terms of industrial development, partly by the Italian Government: the Porto Marghera petrochemical plant has almost certainly destabilised the delicate equilibrium of the lagoon. But as the Commission President-designate, Mr Prodi, said here, we want Europe to be at the leading edge of business development.
If this is so, we must ensure that Venice is one of the centres driving this new entrepreneurship.
Applause
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the magnificent heritage that Venice represents is struggling with depopulation and mass tourism and is regularly under threat from flooding.
The entire lagoon is heavily polluted, and the industrial hinterland on the mainland is mainly made up of huge chemical works which place an enormous burden on the environment.
The Greens feel that a coordinated approach is needed to tackle these problems, both at national and international levels.
We need to promote economic development that spares the lagoon and the historic buildings.
This is why we are in favour of converting the petrochemical plants in Marghera to be more environmentally friendly, and we also wholeheartedly support the Italian Government's decision to review the MOSE project for a sort of mobile protection for the city.
I should like to draw attention here to an amendment by Mr Dell'Alba calling for the Italian Government to review this decision.
That would be sending out a completely negative signal and would simply be maintaining an approach which does not come anywhere near the heart of the problem.
I would therefore urge you most strongly not to support this amendment.
We want Venice to become a place of innovative and sustainable urban development, and the Commission has come up with some good proposals for measures to promote sustainable urban development in the EU.
The main elements here are tax incentives for housing restoration, with special conditions for highly sensitive locations such as Venice, of course; tax incentives for small and medium-sized firms providing employment without polluting the environment; sustainable tourism models, perhaps with rules on limiting access in certain peak periods; and measures to support the local economy based on the sustainable use of natural resources and the city's historic heritage.
Madam President, many foreign colleagues from various countries are concerned about Venice and trying to help.
This is the most telling proof of the fact that, as confirmed by UNESCO, Venice is a world heritage site.
Venice clearly does belong to humanity as a whole, since when wandering through its streets and over its bridges, eight out of every ten people one comes across are tourists, and seven of those eight are foreigners.
Well, these tourists make Venice their own, using its services and damaging its structures, often for just a single day, meaning that the Venetians themselves gain precious little.
It is only right, therefore, that this tide of humanity should begin to concern itself with protecting these assets and with the associated costs. What can be done, apart from levying indirect taxes on a few day-to-day consumer goods?
At least three measures would be feasible at Community level - if I may put forward some concrete ideas - and it would be up to the Commission and the Member State, Italy, to devise the appropriate legal and economic instruments.
First of all, an ad hoc project could be included in the LIFE budget line for the high water problem; the problem is not a new one but is causing increasing damage to Venice.
Secondly, Venice should be placed squarely within the future Objective 2, which deals with urban decline.
Thirdly, in agreement with the Italian Government, a derogation should be allowed under Article 92 of the Treaty, referring to state aid, so as to grant tax concessions and incentives to all businesses which start up - or plan to do so in the future - and to keep alive initiatives liable to guarantee employment, but above all to safeguard the life and soul of Venice.
I have heard talk of schemes to transform Venice into a new model of residential settlement: there is no need.
It is simply a matter of refurbishing the 10 000 abandoned dwellings which are crumbling into the lagoon.
That should provide work for everyone!
Thank you, Mr Santini.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Joint motion for a resolution on the crisis in Venice
Madam President, I just wanted to say that my group had intended to vote in favour, but because of Mr Dell'Alba's amendment which we specifically objected to, we naturally felt obliged to vote against in the end.
Parliament adopted the resolution
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 11.20 a.m.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 16 April 1999.
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to have to tell you that our former colleague and Vice-President Hans Peters died last week.
Along with many other Members present here today, I remember his sterling work on Parliament's Committee on Social Affairs. This was just one of the ways in which he expressed his strong commitment to social and trade union affairs which led him to become a Member of this House.
Many of us will also recall the special interest he took in matters concerning premises as a member of the specialist group of Parliament's Bureau.
He gave his all to the House for many years. In accordance with our tradition, therefore, I feel it is appropriate to ask you to observe a minute's silence in memory of our colleague.
Parliament observed a minute's silence
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 16 April 1999 have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
) Mr President, as we begin this part-session, I wish to protest at the fact that I was not allowed to organise a seminar on the peace process in the Basque country to which all parties which signed the Lizzara declaration were invited.
I and all those invited were banished to the visitors' centre.
I think the President of Parliament, who did everything possible to keep this seminar from being held on our premises, has not acted as a president of Parliament here, but as a party-political ally of Mr Aznar, and I deplore that.
Mrs Maes, a room was made available for you to meet with the people you decided to invite.
It was a visitors' room, and this arrangement was made precisely because you anticipated a large number of visitors and had informed our services accordingly.
All that happened was that the usual arrangements for meetings of this nature were made.
Nobody prevented you from meeting together, and you did in fact hold a press conference with the visitors who attended. You were treated like any other Member in a similar situation.
Mr President, today is the first day on which you will be applying our new Rules of Procedure.
I hope that this will facilitate and indeed speed up the work of the House, notably during voting time.
However, one of the new Rules is less important within the House than outside it.
I refer to Rule 9(3), which concerns former Members of this House.
Up to now we have had two categories of former Member: simple former Members and honorary Members.
Some of those so-called honorary Members have used that title in a way that leads the public to believe that they are still Members of this House.
That is why this rule was amended: to abolish this distinction between different categories of former Member.
In other words, the system of honorary Members will no longer exist.
As this is particularly important before an election campaign, in which some honorary Members are deliberately using the title in order to create the impression that they are still Members of this House, I would urge you to write as soon as possible to all those who still have this title to inform them of the new rule and the new situation.
You know, as you are one of the authors of the new Rules, that Rule 9(3) states that questions concerning the rights and privileges of former Members are to be laid down by decision of the Bureau.
That is the only option.
Neither the Bureau nor the text of the Rules mention whether it is necessary to abolish the status of honorary Members.
The Bureau decided some years ago that no more honorary Members would be created.
Anyone who has been a Member of this House - honorary or not - has the same rights and privileges as have been laid down by the Bureau.
In practice, it would be impossible to write to all honorary Members to inform them that they are no longer honorary Members.
That is not in the Rules and the Bureau has not taken that decision.
If you want the Bureau to consider the matter again, I will take note and put it on the Bureau's agenda so that it can take a decision.
Mr President, on Friday of last week a bomb exploded in a crowded part of central London.
Three people were killed and many more have horrendous injuries which, in many cases, will leave them scarred and disabled for the rest of their lives.
This attack was the third such attack in recent weeks.
Vicious nailbombs were deliberately planted in crowded areas frequented and populated by London's minority communities, people who can normally live quite contentedly and happily within the vibrant, mixed, multicultural city that is London.
I am sure all colleagues will join me in condemning this sort of outrageous attack, whether it be perpetrated by racists, the far right, or whoever, and that we will all campaign for an end to such indiscriminate violence, especially in the weeks ahead leading up to the European elections.
Furthermore, Mr President, I would be glad if you could send a message of sympathy to the injured and the bereaved on behalf of the European Parliament.
Applause
I will do that and I will note that the House has unanimously supported your words.
This terrible case demonstrates that racism and xenophobia must be fought continuously.
It is not enough to designate one year to fight it.
It recurs year after year.
Mr President, we have just found out about the Council of Ministers' decision to allow staff of the Schengen group working in the Council to become European public officials.
Such a decision, as you are aware, has repercussions for Parliament since, according to the principles behind the Interinstitutional Agreement, a European official who works for the Council can, at one time or another, become a parliamentary official.
I also think that it is outrageous that officials can be recruited without first having sat a competition, as is common practice.
You know how sensitive the public is as far as the rules are concerned, and with reason.
I would therefore like to know, Mr President, how you intend to make the Council reverse its decision and ensure that these and other officials abide by the correct rules regarding recruitment.
What I can do, Mrs Lienemann, is first of all to obtain some information and ask the Council what has actually happened and what are the reasons for this decision.
Whatever the case, it will be up to the groups in this Parliament, the new Parliament, to take any steps that are necessary to ensure that the rules are respected.
In the meantime, what I shall do is to ask the Council exactly what decisions have been taken, and for what reasons.
Mr President, I should like to add something to what you said before we began to discuss the Minutes, namely that we must fight against racism and discrimination of all kinds every moment of every day, and not just now and again.
Here in the House, we nearly always adopt a pro-human rights position precisely against discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, religion or sexual orientation.
Against this background, I should like to request an extremely good explanation - and I really do mean a very good explanation - from the President and the College of Quaestors as to why on Wednesday a decision was taken not to go ahead with the exhibition which I had earlier arranged to be held here, and which had previously been given the green light.
This concerns the Swedish exhibition, Ecce homo , which is about sexual orientation and the discrimination to which it can give rise.
Mrs Eriksson, you will appreciate that exhibitions held in this House cannot run counter to the feelings of groups within the House.
The artistic committee felt that in the circumstances the exhibition should not take place, and the Quaestors took the decision not to authorise it.
That therefore is the relevant decision.
Respecting the rights of minorities is one thing. Allowing minorities to impose their feelings or their attitudes on other people who may or may not be in a minority but who do not share their views is quite another.
What is at issue is respect for freedom, which has nothing to do with respecting the rights of minorities.
Mr President, as you and the other Members in this House may have heard, among the many accidents that have occurred in the terrible war in the Balkans, a missile destroyed a bus killing sixty people including fifteen children.
I think the least we can do is send our condolences to their relatives and condemn these actions.
Forgive my outburst of emotion, but missiles have also fallen on Bulgaria ... there have been many mistakes and we cannot simply say we are sorry.
Let us at least behave as we behave towards all victims.
Applause
Mrs Kokkola, Kosovo is in fact included on the agenda.
The topical and urgent debate is the best context for any remarks a majority of the House believes to be necessary.
I think that is the only way to proceed.
Mr President, as we are about to adopt the Minutes, I should like to say that in my view we should reject Part II as it appears on page 6.
You in fact declared inadmissible a motion of censure tabled by 66 Members from all the political groups and in so doing you have called into question one of their basic rights.
It seems to me that the decision was based on an incorrect legal basis and on the pretext of a political argument - that is, the possible rejection of the motion of censure - whereas the notion of inadmissibility is only of course applied on the basis of legal considerations.
The decision was taken and, as everyone knows, the Commission is continuing about its business as though nothing has happened since 14 January.
What is more, it is a particularly risky decision to have taken as regards the future because it means that any Commission threatened with a motion of censure could resign in order to take the initiative and, as a consequence, prevent such a motion from having any effect.
It is because of these three factors that I am opposed to this part of the Minutes since it is such an important issue for the future.
I should like this particular part to be put to the vote.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the process of approving the Minutes is designed to establish whether or not the Minutes are an accurate reflection of what took place.
It is not a means of going back over the decisions which were taken, especially a decision which was not put to the vote, even if it was supported by a large majority in the House.
However, this decision was not put to the vote because it was not necessary.
It is quite clear that if it were possible to go back over decisions by changing the Minutes, we should no longer be respecting the Rules of Procedure.
You will appreciate that I am not going to put this decision to the vote.
Exclamation of 'Bravo, Mr President'
Mr President, taking up your reply to Mrs Eriksson, in which you explained the reason for not showing the exhibition Ecce homo here in Parliament, I now wonder how it came about that there was room for an exhibition by the Italian lobby group which preaches against abortion and against a woman's right to have an abortion? Was that not a way of offending a very large group of people?
Let me make it clear that it was possible for the other exhibition to be held because it complied with the rules of the House.
When the Quaestors say that an exhibition cannot be held because it deals with a contentious subject, there are two possible courses of action: the Bureau can be asked to change the rules on exhibitions, or it can be asked not to do so.
As long as the rules in question remain in force, they must be observed.
The Quaestors have interpreted them correctly.
This does not justify reversing their decision.
The Minutes were approved
Membership of political groups
I would inform the House that Mr Charles de Gaulle has been dismissed from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations and that from 19 April 1999 he has been sitting with the non-attached Members.
I would like to make a point of order, Mr President, regarding order in the House.
Can the European Parliament not call for 'de Gaulle' to change names out of respect for the honour of Europe?
That is not a point of order, Mr Duhamel, and your comments are not in keeping with the dignity of the House.
The political decisions of each Member are a matter for himself, his conscience and his electors.
On a point of order, Mr President, concerning Rules 2, 5 and 119.
At the eleventh hour, the Quaestors have taken an appealable decision in response to my letter of August last year.
I am now lodging an appeal before the Court of First Instance in Luxembourg on the question of principle, namely who is it who determines the distribution of work of the elected Members of this Parliament: we ourselves or the Bureau, with all manner of financial penalties? If I win, and I shall win, fellow Members of the House will get back the fines they have wrongfully been charged.
As for the Kai Islands, I shall come back to those tomorrow.
They will no doubt appreciate that, Mr Janssen van Raay.
Mr Bru Púron has asked for the floor.
Mr President, a group of former members of the militia who fought for the Republic during the Spanish Civil War are present in the gallery today.
They have travelled to Strasbourg despite their age and I think they deserve a welcome.
Loud applause
Agenda
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 95 of the Rules of Procedure has been distributed.
I would inform the House that following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, certain legislative reports on the agenda for this part-session are affected by changes in procedure.
The details concerning these reports will be included in the Minutes of today's sitting.
The President read out the changes to the agenda for Monday and Tuesday
Wednesday:
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has asked for the report by Mrs Miranda de Lage on the cooperation agreement between the European Community and the United Mexican States to be withdrawn from the agenda.
Mr van Dam has the floor to present this request.
Mr President, The last item on the final draft agenda for Wednesday is Mrs Miranda de Lage's recommendation on the partnership agreement with Mexico.
I propose that we remove this item from the agenda, since the agreement in question is still being negotiated.
When it approved the interim agreement with Mexico exactly a year ago, Parliament expressly stipulated that the general agreement could not be approved until the results of the negotiations with Mexico were forthcoming.
Well, these negotiations are still under way.
Considerable progress is still needed in a number of areas, such as human rights and nature conservation.
So if we approve the partnership agreement now, we shall be giving a blank cheque to the negotiators and abnegating the responsibilities of Parliament.
It is in any case less than clear why we need to deal with the agreement during this parliamentary term.
Parliament will be able to reach a far more balanced verdict on it in the next one.
I therefore propose to the House that we do not deal with the agreement with Mexico this week.
Mr President, I should like to make three brief points against postponement.
First of all, there is a very strong case against agreeing to the EU/Mexico agreement on human rights grounds.
However, there is an even stronger argument in favour of voting in favour.
The House should hear and debate that argument and actually take a decision on it.
Postponing the argument achieves nothing whatsoever.
This has been under negotiation for five years.
We gain nothing by delay.
It is a responsibility which I would like to see this Parliament discharge.
If it is postponed, the matter will be left over to a newly-elected Parliament which will be relatively unfamiliar with the subject.
The second point is: I understand that many Members of this Parliament, including myself, are under pressure from non-governmental organisations to postpone this.
Let me say as a friend, admirer and respecter of many NGOs - and I rely greatly on their advice - that were we to postpone, we would in fact be handing to NGOs the right of eventual affirmation or veto of this agreement.
Nothing new will come out.
That would be an abrogation of our responsibilities.
We stood for elections and we won elections.
It is for us to decide politically whether this should go ahead or not.
My final point is in answer to Mr van Dam's contention that it is a blank cheque.
It is not a blank cheque.
If we agree to the Miranda report - and I am arguing in favour of agreeing as well as not postponing - that will set up the very framework in which human rights issues can be mentioned.
It will set up the political dialogue which will allow us to judge human rights and that dialogue must - I repeat - be decided at the political level, and so should the vote.
Therefore I am not in favour of postponing this vote any further.
I put to the vote the request from the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations.
Parliament rejected the request
Mr President, if I understand correctly, it has just been announced that the resolution on the Cologne summit is to be postponed.
So I have a problem.
We have a problem.
We have received the resolutions from all the groups.
We have also set a time for discussing them, tomorrow at 11 a.m.
I do not know why this proposal has been made all of a sudden.
I know the Socialist Group has tabled a very brief text with just a few paragraphs and perhaps the other texts may prompt a few changes to that, but I really do not see why something we should have got done last week is now being put off all of a sudden until Tuesday.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, the only thing which has been done is to extend the deadline for tabling amendments until tomorrow, Tuesday, at 12 noon.
We have not changed the decision or the voting.
All that has been done is to extend the deadline for tabling amendments, something on which there is normally a consensus in favour, although that may not always be the case.
The President read out the changes to the agenda for Thursday
(The order of business was adopted thus amended)
Request for waiver of immunity (Mr Féret)
The next item is the report (A4-0210/99) by Mr Wijsenbeek, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for the waiver of Mr Féret's parliamentary immunity.
Mr President, this is the last report I am presenting at my last part-session after 15 years in the House.
It is the ninth report of this parliamentary term, but I shall not bore you with statistics; sadly, it is not a very agreeable task, and I am concerned here not with legislation or promoting European unity, but with a question of parliamentary immunity.
Nevertheless, there are one or two general remarks to be made on this.
But let me start with the specific case in question.
It concerns one of our colleagues who is accused of failing to meet his obligations under Belgium's far too complicated social security laws, specifically with regard to his assistant.
All members of the House must, of course, comply with statutory obligations in respect of their assistants who are employed in Belgium.
But the Member concerned rejects the charge and has even proved to us that he wrote letters to the Belgian social security administration confirming his intent to meet those obligations, but without ever receiving a reply.
The events took place in 1995, and only in 1999 is the Kingdom of Belgium asking us to waive the Member's parliamentary immunity.
Those are the facts.
We should add the remarkable fact that in Belgium, someone who is the subject of litigation cannot take part in elections, and that gave us pause for thought, especially as we had ourselves had sight of the proof supplied by the Member concerned.
We subsequently asked the Kingdom of Belgium for further information and simply got a confirmation of the request for a waiver of immunity that was received in the first instance; more significantly, it later became clear to us that this was merely a request aimed at ensuring that the statute of limitations could not apply.
As a result, Mr President, in accordance with our case-law, in accordance with our fixed rule that parliamentary immunity protects not just the individual Member but the whole of this House and Parliament, we believe that the right course of action is to ask you not to waive parliamentary immunity in this case - and all the more so in that we believe, to quote my illustrious predecessors Georges Donnez and Jean Defraigne, that there may be a hint of fumus persecutionis here.
I will end this contribution with a comment of a general nature. Very soon, a uniform statute for all Members of this House will be coming into force.
But that uniform statute is missing one thing, and this concerns parliamentary immunity.
There are still nationality-based differences as a result of the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities, and that contravenes Article 6 of the Treaty.
The fact is that all our Members enjoy immunity in their own countries on the terms enjoyed by members of their national parliaments, whereas we ought to be treated the same and to have a uniform statute.
To give you an example: for French Members, the rule is that all political activities are covered by immunity, including those taking place outside Parliament.
For the British and Dutch, there is no immunity at all in their own countries, except for what is said at plenary sessions of Parliament.
It is high time our successors and the next committee responsible for the Rules of Procedure put forward a proposal to amend the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities so that all of us in this House are exactly the same.
That is something I have striven to achieve over the years, and I do so again in this case.
Thank you very much, Mr Wijsenbeek.
Parliament as a whole can testify to the time and effort you have devoted to the House for so many years. We also admire your total dedication to your work.
It falls to me, as President, to thank you on behalf of the House for the dedication, effort and good judgement you have shown throughout your work among us. I am not saying this as a formality, but with genuine appreciation.
Applause
Mr President, I should like to echo your remarks in saying that we will miss Mr Wijsenbeek.
Some of it will be a good miss, but most of it will be a bad miss in that Mr Wijsenbeek was one of the more interesting Members of this House.
On behalf of the Socialist Group I should like to say that we will be supporting the Wijsenbeek report on the waiver of immunity of Mr Daniel Féret.
In doing that we express our disappointment about the Belgian authorities who, after making serious allegations about one of our colleagues, and the conduct of his office and the payment of his assistant, failed, in my view at least, to supply adequate documentation.
Mr Féret and I have sharply different political opinions.
Frankly I hope he is defeated in the Belgian elections but I cannot allow him to be banned from standing on the basis of these allegations against him which have not, as yet, been substantiated.
On that basis we will be supporting the report to maintain his immunity and in consequence to allow him to stand for election.
Thank you, Mr Ford.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Request for waiver of immunity (Mr Moniz)
The next item is the report (A4-0262/99) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the request for the waiver of Mr Moniz's parliamentary immunity.
Mr President, I shall carry on from where Mr Wijsenbeek left off. I would also like to reiterate what previous speakers have already said: Mr Wijsenbeek will be sorely missed in this House.
The issues raised by the waiver of immunity we are concerned with today are actually only part of a more general problem: the fact that this House still does not have a single statute for its Members.
This shortcoming is a historical legacy and does not make sense nowadays.
The arrangements relating to privileges and immunities date from 1965 and therefore go back to a time when this Parliament was simply a parliamentary assembly. Its role as a representative of citizens of Europe was then only a dream.
But that is no longer the case. At this stage, it simply does not make sense that there are so many differences between the various representatives.
The fact is that, following the Maastricht Treaty and, in particular, the Treaty of Amsterdam, the people of Europe are beginning to forge a distinctive identity and to ask that their representatives be governed by common arrangements in every aspect of their work. This is particularly true of course where the waiver of parliamentary immunity is concerned.
The second point to be borne in mind concerns immunity. Immunity is not a privilege.
It is there to safeguard the House and is therefore a matter of public order.
In the particular case of Mr Moniz which I am dealing with today, Mr Moniz specifically requested that his parliamentary immunity be waived.
This was taken into consideration in the resolution by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure. The committee voted unanimously for immunity to be waived, not because Mr Moniz wished to appear before the judicial authorities, but because all the necessary conditions had been met.
In this instance, the conditions take us back to the 1976 Act, to the provision made for privileges and immunities in primary legislation and from there to the Portuguese constitution and indeed to Portuguese procedural law.
In this case, waiving parliamentary immunity does not present any difficulties as the allegations against Mr Moniz have nothing to do with his parliamentary activities. It should also be pointed out that proceedings now under way prove that there is no doubt whatsoever as to the validity of the allegations.
However, the fact that the allegations are well-founded does not of course mean that Mr Moniz is guilty; that is for the courts to decide.
Like the rest of us, Mr Moniz must realise that representing the people of Europe means being in the same position as any ordinary citizen as far as responsibilities are concerned. Only when the role of representative is itself at issue is there a need for certain provisions to guard against possible abuse of the legal proceedings which would be to the detriment of the institution, of Parliament and of the people.
Consequently, the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities voted unanimously this afternoon to waive Mr Moniz's immunity. He will now be able to appear before the judicial authorities as was his wish.
Turning to other matters, Mr President, it might seem to make little sense for the House to rule on waiving the immunity of a colleague when he has already told us that he did not intend to stand in the elections and when the House is in the last few weeks of its term.
But I must speak as the spokesperson for the resolution by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure and say that this is in line with the message the committee has been reiterating down through the years, namely that this Parliament is not dissolving. From the first to the last day of its term, Parliament must continue to rule on any issues that arise and to deal with any problems.
That is why we have approved this resolution.
Thank you, Mrs Palacio.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Annex V of the Rules of Procedure
The next item is the report (A4-0216/99) by Mr Fayot, on behalf of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, on the modification of Annex V of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament.
Mr President, as this is the last report to be drawn up by the now defunct Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, I should like to say a few words.
I should also naturally like to take this opportunity to thank my colleagues, especially all those who have been members of this committee for a long time and in this respect, special mention must of course be made of Mr Wijsenbeek.
I should also like to thank the committee's secretariat for the excellent work it has continuously carried out to ensure that the Rules of Procedure meet the needs of Parliament's work.
From the next parliamentary term, the work of this Committee, of this defunct Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, will be divided between the two larger committees of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
In other words, the work it has carried out is clearly of some considerable importance as from now on it will be dealt with by two committees of greater standing.
The present report, Mr President, centres on Annex V of the Rules of Procedure and, in particular, the discharge procedure.
You will be aware that it was a letter from Mrs Theato, the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, that prompted the committee to consider Annex V. The letter inquired as to whether Article 5 of Annex V, which states that an absolute majority must refuse discharge, complied with the provisions of the Treaty.
Last December we had lengthy discussions on the matter as well as on the issue of whether or not the proposal for a decision could be amended.
At that time we adopted an interpretation, which was also adopted in the House, and also stated our intention to reconsider the whole of Annex V.
This is what we have done within the framework of this report and I should like to point out that it is the result of close collaboration with the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I should particularly like to thank its chairman, Mrs Theato, who unfortunately cannot be with us today. I should also of course like to thank the draftsman of the opinion of the committee, Mrs Kjer Hansen, and all the members of the committee, who did some excellent work, because this directly involved the way in which their procedures are carried out.
Many amendments were tabled to my draft report, although all of them were along the same lines.
There was no fundamental disagreement as to which procedure to adopt.
The key point was to do away with Article 5 and the absolute majority, to put the refusal to grant discharge on an equal footing with the granting of discharge, and to set out the procedure to be followed in cases where the decision was postponed.
I should therefore like to highlight the fact that the new Article 3, the procedure for refusing or granting discharge, is the subject of three proposals.
First, there is a proposal for a decision concerning the granting or refusal of discharge by, of course, a simple majority.
There is a second proposal for a decision that provides for the closure of accounts.
This is an important new element which would allow us to separate, on the one hand, the closure of accounts - a type of simple technical procedure, if you like, to check whether the accounts have been kept as they should - and on the other hand, the discussion or opinion of Parliament on the Commission's management of the budget.
Lastly, there is a third proposal, a motion for a resolution, in which Parliament sets out its observations regarding the Commission's budgetary management.
Only this motion for a resolution can be amended, according to the Rules of Procedure, if it is accepted by the House, as we are proposing.
Finally, we have also set out a very specific procedure to be followed in the event of the decision being postponed, in order to highlight the need to develop the procedure further rather than simply leaving it as it is.
A final article provides for its consideration by the House.
The two amendments that have been tabled do not therefore significantly change the as set out by the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, and, as a result, they do not alter the general philosophy behind it.
Mr President, I hope that this new annex will facilitate the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control and Parliament.
In my view, relations between Parliament and the Commission as regards budgetary management will be developed and enhanced as a consequence and I hope that the new Rules of Procedure will further enhance Parliament's work in monitoring the Commission's budgetary management.
Madam President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mr Fayot on not just his report but also his chairmanship of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities over these last few years.
It has been a truly excellent chairmanship.
I should like to reassure him that the committee is not being taken over by the Committee on Institutional Affairs: it is merging with that committee to create a new constitutional committee, which will be a very important committee in this House.
The issue we have before us arises because the Treaties themselves are not clear on what should happen if Parliament does not give discharge.
We ourselves, as a parliament, interpreted the right to give discharge to mean that we also had a right to refuse discharge.
That interpretation is shared by the other institutions and has been the practice for a number of years.
However, the Treaty is silent on what should happen if Parliament refuses discharge.
We as a parliament for many years interpreted the situation to be such that if Parliament were to refuse discharge, then the Commission concerned, if it was still in office, should take the necessary consequences and resign - it should have to go.
In other words, refusal of discharge was tantamount in itself to a sort of motion of censure on the Commission.
The Commission itself, through Commissioner Tugendhat, when he was budget Commissioner, appeared to accept that interpretation.
That is why we have put in Annex V of our Rules that we needed not just a simple majority but also a special majority of Members of the House - an absolute majority - to refuse discharge, because otherwise the refusal of discharge could have been a backdoor way to censure the Commission by a smaller majority than that normally required under the Treaty.
It was therefore to protect the Treaty that we put this special majority requirement in our Rules.
All this, however, was undermined by the events of last December, when some Members of this House - some Groups indeed - wished to refuse discharge but keep the Commission.
That was contradictory, and Parliament was obliged to address the issue through a separate motion of censure on the Commission, thereby destroying the direct link between refusal of discharge and the consequence of the departure of the Commission.
A further problem appeared in that at that time there was probably neither a majority in the House to grant discharge nor an absolute majority to refuse discharge, and Parliament was therefore a prisoner between these two differing majority requirements in its Rules of Procedure.
It is for that reason that it was necessary then to review the Rules.
The Rules Committee has done that; we have based ourselves largely on the opinion given by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Where we have not done that, my Group has tabled two amendments which will rectify that situation and, indeed, get rid of a contradiction which we believe exists in the report at present.
This will therefore revert us to a simple majority both to grant and to refuse discharge.
The consequence though is that refusal to grant discharge from now on is simply a reprimand on the Commission, not a way of censuring the Commission.
If Parliament were to refuse discharge, it would then have to debate separately what the consequences should be if the Commission itself did not draw any consequences.
Madam President, the Rules of Procedure are intended to enable decisions on issues of substance to be made and if possible to make this process easier, not to make it more difficult or even obstruct it.
Unfortunately, this has not always been the case, and both the chairman of the Rules Committee, Mr Fayot, and Mr Corbett specifically referred just now to the particular circumstances in this instance.
We remember that in the 1996 discharge procedure, inconsistencies and provisions which were contrary to the Treaty came to light; this was because Annex V laid down a larger majority for not granting discharge than the Treaty itself prescribes in Article 141 of the EC Treaty.
That was the main problem!
Mr Corbett has in fact pointed out that there was support in Parliament for making something more of this relatively clear provision in the Treaty than it actually stated and still does state.
That also contributed to the problems we experienced during the 1996 discharge which have already been mentioned.
As a result of this situation, the chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, acting on the instructions of the committee, made a request in this House on 15 January 1999 for the Rules Committee to clarify precisely what the Treaty itself provides for, that is to say for the direct link between refusal of discharge and a possible censure procedure to be removed.
That has now happened.
We ought - and here I fully agree with Mr Corbett - to thank very much the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, Mr Fayot, for dealing with the matter brought to his committee by the Committee on Budgetary Control very swiftly and for being so willing to cooperate.
We should also like to thank Mr Fayot for his work in the committee as a whole, and the fact that this committee will cease to exist in its current form - and this is the final point on which I agree with Mr Corbett - should not be seen as reflecting an unfavourable assessment of the work of the committee and especially not the work of its chairman; this is actually happening because in future we want important matters which relate to each other to be dealt with together.
Seen in this light, a considerable amount of the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control will be in good hands in the future Constitutional Affairs Committee.
Madam President, this report does not solve the problem of what consequences there should be for the Commission if Parliament does not give a discharge.
That question is one to be dealt with under the Treaty, but we are getting some clear internal guidelines about what procedures we can use in Parliament.
I am pleased that we shall no longer spend hours and hours discussing the procedural options, but are now getting some clear rules.
I would therefore like to thank my colleagues, and especially Mr Fayot, for their very constructive cooperation in connection with the amendment of the Rules of Procedure, and I would especially like to express my gratitude for the understanding and sympathy shown to the views I have presented.
It is important that we now have agreement between the Rules of Procedure, the Treaty and the Financial Regulation.
I think it is crucial that it is clearly stated that we have three options.
We can choose to give a discharge, we can choose not to give a discharge, or we can postpone reaching a decision on the matter.
The rules will now also include a very important distinction between a technical postponement and a political postponement, where the reason must be clearly stated, as well as a clear distinction between the technical closing of the accounts and a political decision on whether or not we can adopt the accounts.
One thing which is clear is that in December we chose to activate the rules concerning Parliament's role as the discharging authority.
And as a follow-up to the extensive discussions which accompanied that, it is crucial that we now have some clear rules on how we should act in a similar situation to the one we saw before.
I therefore think the Fayot report is a good proposal for what our rules should be.
Madam President, when the most elementary rules of logic are disregarded in politics, it is rarely out of ignorance of these rules but because there is some interest in doing so.
That is why the question I am asking myself today is this: why was it in Parliament's interests to block its own supervisory powers? Might it not be the case that in the past - and I hope only in the past - it was more in the interests of the large groups in this House to protect the Commission than to call it to account and strengthen their own Parliament?
According to the Treaties, Parliament takes the decision on discharge by a simple majority.
However, Parliament divided this decision into two procedures.
Accordingly, the vote to grant discharge was by a simple majority, but the vote to refuse discharge was by an absolute majority.
Hence the comical and completely absurd situation of a majority of this Parliament not voting in favour of granting discharge to the Commission, and the same Commission still not being refused discharge.
This is an absolutely ridiculous state of affairs, which I can only put down to huge self-interest, and I hope that the large coalitions which put protecting the Commission before Parliament's right of control have learnt from the events of the past months and will be more loyal to Parliament than their Commissioners in the future.
Madam President, as the chairman, Mr Fayot, mentioned earlier, this report was the result of excellent collaboration between the Commission on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities and the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The final text contains some positive points, but several other points leave us feeling somewhat dissatisfied.
With regard to the more positive points, I should like to highlight the fact that we did not make a limited ad hoc amendment within the framework of the 1996 financial year; instead we set out a reform that will be valid for years to come.
I should also like to point out that we have kept to our decision to refuse discharge, contrary to what had been expected. Any other decision would have been paradoxical to say the least in view of everything that has happened since December.
We have the option of refusing discharge outright.
Such refusal does not necessarily lead to a motion of censure, although it should logically lead Parliament to look at the need for one. What is more, we have done away with the anomaly in the Rules of Procedure whereby a refusal must be voted for by an absolute majority of the Members of Parliament.
We do not entirely agree with some of the points adopted, for example, the fact that the President can inform the Commission of the reasons behind a refusal of discharge simply by letter, as this seems a rather secretive way of going about things.
However, it would of course be necessary to eventually set out the reasons why Parliament might refuse to grant discharge.
Our second point of contention relates to the role played by the Committee on Budgetary Control, which is in the process of losing the option it has had until now of giving its opinion on the amendments before they are put to the vote in the House.
In my view, this responsibility was a positive element and I regret that it has been amended.
Similarly, instead of saying that the amendments are inadmissible, the report should be referred back to the committee responsible if they are adopted.
These are the points in the report on which we disagree.
Madam President, the Commission has no intention whatsoever of interfering in Parliament's internal rules.
However, on the basis of the opinion of its Legal Service, the Commission should just like to make a comment of a legal and institutional nature.
The discharge procedure is governed by Article 206 of the Treaty and the decision to grant discharge was designed as a means of support to the initial financial nature based on the report by the Court of Auditors, despite the fact that over the years this has taken on a political dimension.
The decision to grant discharge is a single act that cannot be divided up into a political decision on the discharge and a decision to close the accounts, which is to be taken at the same time.
Such a division would change the institutional balance and require the Treaties to be revised.
However, if discharge is refused, the accounts for that financial year need to be closed.
This would therefore entail Parliament taking a decision to close the accounts, by default, and would mean that the actual procedures followed for the budget for 1982, 1992 and 1996 would be laid down formally.
The Commission, for its part, will consider the legal feasibility of including such an option within the framework of the reform of the financial regulation.
Thank you, Mr Liikanen.
Madam President, please excuse me.
The screens in the offices were in fact showing 'Wijsenbeek report' with me speaking on that report, a mistake I tried to put right.
I realise my error and I shall insert a statement in the Minutes.
I just wanted to say that I missed the debate on the Fayot report because it was wrongly indicated that another debate was taking place.
I shall submit an explanation of vote.
Thank you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
General economic policy guidelines - European Employment Pact
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A4-0222/99 by Mr Fourçans, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the Commission recommendation for the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States and the Community (drawn up pursuant to Article 103(2) of the Treaty establishing the European Community) (COM(99)0143 - C4-0208/99); -A4-0239/99 by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the European Parliament's contribution on the European Employment Pact and on the Commission's communication on Community policies in support of employment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report I am presenting this afternoon follows on from the Annual Economic Report we adopted on 11 March.
Today's report on the BEPG (broad economic policy guidelines) places greater emphasis on the economic strategy and the structural reforms needed according to the specific situation in each Member State.
Commissioner, our text comprises two main sections, in line with the Commission's proposals: the macro-economic section and the structural section.
First, I would like to look at the macro-economic section.
Although a slow-down in growth has been predicted for 1999, we are not talking about a recession, which means that there is no reason to change the overall economic strategy in Europe.
In other words, we need to develop our strategy along the lines of a good policy mix where salary increases correspond to productivity gains with a view to promoting growth and employment.
More specifically, budget deficits must continue to decrease and the necessary adjustments must be introduced according to the speed with which this reduction occurs.
This means that automatic stabilisers should have a part to play, but I would stress that they must not jeopardise any reduction achieved in public deficits which is absolutely vital for growth and employment today and, above all, in the future.
If this is to be achieved, such a reduction should be mirrored, where possible, by a reduction in taxes and other levies, or at least by their stabilisation.
This approach requires greater control over state expenditure and improved effectiveness and quality in terms of public expenditure.
As regards monetary policy, we should of course like to emphasise the importance of the ECB's independence, which is essential for it to best fulfil its role in the area of price stability and guarantee the conditions that encourage growth and employment.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, it should indeed be independent, but not at the expense of the vital democratic accountability that we in the European Parliament must vigilantly ensure.
The second section of our proposal relates to structural reform.
If unemployment is to be significantly and permanently reduced, growth is undoubtedly important, but it will only be achieved by way of thorough, consistent reforms that are adapted to suit the specific characteristics of each of our Member States, as advocated by the Commission.
What is more, such reforms need to be carried out over a period of time in a consistent and determined manner.
What do these reforms involve? I shall not go into details here but I would simply like to tell you about the general ideas.
Improving the workings of the single market and the European markets in general is one of the key aspects.
In order to achieve this, Commissioners, there needs to be greater integration in terms of the financial markets.
Moreover, the markets in goods and services also need to be opened up as they provide the greatest number of jobs.
The level of participation in the labour markets must also be increased and we must render them more flexible by adapting the social welfare systems and reducing labour costs, particularly for workers with less skills.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, we must continue to liberalise the telecommunications, energy and transport sectors and guarantee better financing for SMEs. We also need to reform the social welfare and tax systems as well as the education and professional training systems.
So, ladies and gentlemen, this is the direction in which European economic policy should be moving.
No doubt you will say that it is an ambitious programme, and I agree.
But the public must be told the truth, especially in this pre-election period. They should be made aware that this type of reform is needed if unemployment is to be genuinely tackled and that the sooner it is implemented, the sooner we can begin to reap the fruits of our labour.
Madam President, this report from the Employment Committee was originally supposed to deal mainly with a Commission communication on Article 127 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, that is to say with the mainstreaming of employment policies at Community level.
The committee decided also to include the European Employment Pact planned for the Cologne summit. This became the main subject of the committee's report when publication of the communication was delayed by the Commission's resignation.
The communication did subsequently appear, however, on the very day after the vote on my draft report had been taken in the Social Affairs Committee.
It is now sensible to include it in Parliament's report together with several amendments, such as Amendments Nos 1, 2, 5 and 6.
We were also under pressure of time with our opinion on the Fourçans report on the Commission's recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines, which it is also my task to deliver.
We should like to thank Mr Fourçans for his very fine work and also for the fact that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has taken on board some important points made in the opinion of the Social Affairs Committee.
His report explains how the recommendation is exceptional in two respects.
Firstly, these are the first broad economic policy guidelines since the introduction of the euro on 1 January 1999.
And secondly, for the first time, job creation is seen as the most important aim of economic policy.
We recommend the adoption of the Fourçans report.
Now let us return to the Employment Pact.
The comment made by the chairman of the special summit on employment held in Luxembourg in 1997, Jean-Claude Juncker, also applies to the Cologne summit: it must not be a literary convention.
He was referring to the many declarations made at previous summits which were not binding.
In fact, a whole series of worthwhile, practical initiatives were decided on in Luxembourg and that is why we do not, thankfully, need to start from scratch.
We believe that the European Council in Cologne has to make a tangible improvement on Luxembourg.
To sustain a high level of employment, a longer-term strategy for tapping society's potential in terms of creativity, innovation, pioneering spirit and willingness to invest and perform needs to be developed, in accordance with the employment guidelines.
Institutional reforms to promote dynamic competition and flexibility have to be coordinated with the need to maintain - but also to modernise - social security systems.
Specifically, the Employment Committee's report calls for the following: an increase in the number of unemployed people to benefit from an active support measure such as vocational training or job-creation measures, compared with the proposals in the guidelines; the autonomy of the European Central Bank and the two sides of industry; and further efforts to consolidate public finances.
We specifically declare our support for the stability pact; respecting it makes it possible for interest rates to be lowered and thus to stimulate investment.
From this point of view, we recommend a wage policy geared to productivity.
If profits and investment in new jobs are increased as a result of wage restraint, then it is not enough to fob the employees off with a simple thank you for that restraint.
The Social Affairs Committee believes that there should be voluntary schemes allowing them to participate in both profits and capital.
In return for a moderate wage agreement, employers might also increase their investment in human capital or recruit more workers and trainees.
In addition, we call for intelligent working models and the reduction of overtime, for flexibility instead of a unilateral reduction in working time with full pay, an easing of the tax burden on labour, the convergence of corporate taxes to prevent the relocation of undertakings solely on tax grounds, and finally regular meetings of the political decision-makers with the two sides of industry and the European Central Bank so that common strategies can be agreed.
In the committee, we also discussed the issue of whether special employment programmes for specific groups - such as young people or the long-term unemployed - ought to be implemented and financed at European level, on top of the national action plans and measures carried out by the Member States under the Structural Funds.
This would be wrong. Subsidised employment programmes costing billions would be completely wrong - they are neither the right response to structural unemployment nor should they be financed at European level.
On the other hand, greater cooperation when formulating national policies - through rigorous application of the employment policy guidelines and action plans and improved monitoring - means European added value, which, together with the stabilising effect of a hard common currency in the European internal market, will in the medium term also contribute to there being more jobs and less jobless, which is an important precondition for the social dimension of the European Union.
With this in mind, I ask you to vote in favour of this report.
I will close by telling you that colleagues from all the groups supported me in the committee by making constructive criticism and tabling constructive amendments.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Fourçans report is important not only because it fully endorses the Commission's recommendations, but also because it plays a clear part in the political debate that has caused a great stir among European circles, including within this Parliament. The debate focuses on whether or not the introduction of the euro has given rise to the need to relax the budgetary and monetary discipline that led to the historic decision of May 1998, with a view to promoting a more tentative form of economic activity.
The position adopted by the Commission and by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy in this connection is qualified: while price stability is guaranteed and maintained, we can be more flexible as regards monetary policy, provided of course that budgetary discipline is maintained and continued. In fact, productive private investment has deliberately had to slow down for years precisely because of the enormous debt accumulated and the substantial sums given to finance both this debt and our deficits.
One of the advantages of this report is that it has prevented us from giving in to the temptation that entraps many a politician on the eve of an election, namely giving into the people's demands.
However, the people are calling for fewer sacrifices and more handouts, which is naturally incompatible with the demands of budgetary discipline.
Placing the emphasis on macro-economic resources is much more attractive.
Changing interest rates and extending public deficits are far more popular initiatives than the unwelcome measures of restoring the balance of social security, increasing the flexibility of the labour market and reducing labour costs for the least skilled.
We should therefore welcome the fact that on the eve of the elections, Parliament, like the Commission, has been able to tackle the demands of the economy and managed quite honourably to resist the pressures of public opinion, the media and other pressure groups.
This is why, Madam President, we welcome this report and will vote for it enthusiastically.
Madam President, my compliments to Mr Fourçans on his lucid report, which looks like receiving broad support in the House.
In recent months, we have on occasions had a robust discussion on which way to go: should we have an expansive policy as advocated by the Social Democrat group, along the lines of what Mr Lafontaine would like, or should we stick to the rules that we agreed? I think it is a good thing - and it is presented in a balanced way in the report - that we have opted for that line, namely to stick to the rules.
A measure of support is now developing among the Social Democrats too for implementing these kinds of structural measures, which are so important for ensuring the internal stability of the euro: low inflation, which brings lower costs and which also enables more jobs to be created through the structural measures.
That is important not only for getting people into work, but also for those who are drawing their pensions.
We shall have to guarantee this stability in future, and on the other hand we must ensure that there is greater flexibility.
If we can stabilise our financial position - which is up to the Member States, and in that regard I am extremely happy with the Commission's response here, which Mr Fourçans emphasises in his report - in such a way that more jobs can also be created in the future, then we shall amongst other things strengthen our competitive position vis-à-vis the United States.
In short, then: let us have more people in work in the Union and better provision for those taking part in the work process in these Member States.
Madam President, the recent events that led to the Commission's resignation scarcely instilled it with the modesty they should have done, to say the least.
In fact, the Commission's arrogance has once again manifested itself in its recommendations on the broad economic policy guidelines.
How can we simply stand by and watch the Commission once again lecture the governments of the Member States in as diverse areas as public finance, social welfare and the labour market? Each country has received a good dressing-down.
Some are accused of budgetary relaxation, some are being clearly encouraged to reform their pension, health and welfare systems, while others have been told off for the lack of flexibility and adaptability of their labour markets or for being too slow in liberalising their public markets.
Such an authoritative approach is all the more intolerable since these problems are a result of the guidelines that have been in place for years and that have led to the high unemployment rates and poverty experienced by the majority of our countries.
These guidelines are based on the reduction of labour costs and they hamper growth.
I welcome the fact that certain governments have expressed their support for relaxing budgetary constraints, and the Central Bank itself has had to take account of the risks of a slow-down in growth by cutting interest rates.
However, budgetary relaxation alone will not be enough: the straitjacket of the stability pact must be replaced by a genuine growth and employment pact.
This is why, in our view, the Cologne European Council must put an end to the grand and noble declarations on employment and commit itself to actually implementing effective measures.
Our group has proposed several initiatives in this respect: boosting public investment through the release of additional resources, including at Community level; continuing to cut interest rates, using a more selective approach, with a view to encouraging projects that create jobs; reducing working hours without reducing salaries or flexibility; and establishing minimum wages.
These employment policies should be integrated into all Community policies and be accompanied by quantified objectives that are binding and that can be monitored.
Unemployment will only decrease significantly if such measures are adopted.
Madam President, if the euro is a complete success it will improve competitiveness in the European Union, but, on the other hand, I would point out that structural unemployment threatens this competitiveness.
This is very much a question of the simplest jobs having disappeared in our society, with differences in pay growing so enormous that some people are paid huge amounts of money for what they do, while others would in fact be more productive, in the traditional sense of the word, if they were not in the labour market at all. But that is in no way an acceptable state of affairs, either for society or from the human dignity point of view.
Member States should make low incomes free of tax and lower the rate of taxation across the board since at present, for example, it is deterring people from even accepting temporary employment.
Part-time workers and those engaged in atypical work should qualify for welfare and a pension if we wish to take responsibility for people who have to resort to atypical employment more and more.
Madam President, I have a few comments on Mr Fourçans' excellent report.
Budgetary discipline remains a good idea in all the Member States.
Without good budgetary planning, it is very tempting to resort to a broad monetary policy to ease the pain.
Popular support in the Member States for a tight financial and economic policy is an unpredictable factor.
It is worrying that in some Member States, EMU discipline rests on one-off measures and not on structural change.
The analysis commissioned from the Netherlands Economic Institute makes it clear that the main problem-cases in terms of EMU, and the ones which need more careful attention, are Portugal, Italy and France.
Can the Commission and the Council guarantee that they will receive it?
In future, most countries will face a funding problem due to the fact of an ageing population.
By no means all the Member States have yet begun to address this problem.
Systems for financing retirement benefits, pensions and health care will need to be radically revised.
Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Spain are Member States which remain sensitive to fluctuations in the rate of interest on their national debt.
These countries need to modify the scheduling of their national debt and make sound progress on reducing their budget deficit.
Madam President, Commissioner, it is good that the European Parliament's report on the broad economic policy guidelines in the Community and the Member States strongly emphasises how essential it is to coordinate economic policies, and that it goes even further than the Commission proposal by also demanding practical initiatives.
The fact is that structural measures and labour market policy are only part of the answer to the unemployment problem, which we are all concerned about.
What is decisive is whether we can achieve growth rates in excess of 3 % in Europe and in the Member States.
For this to be the case, economic policy must fulfil its responsibilities in terms of employment policy and ensure that there is a balanced and appropriate policy mix in the European Union with instruments geared towards supply and demand.
We need economic policies to be coordinated so that we can engineer and guarantee higher, sustainable growth.
You see, monetary policy is no longer responsible only for price stability, financial policy only for a sound public budget, and wage policy only for pay trends.
If the Central Bank, the State and the two sides of industry can work as a team - while fully respecting the independence of the individual parties - they will be able to exert a decisive influence on investment, growth and employment.
All three players must therefore in any case be placed under an obligation to contribute to a balanced and appropriate policy mix in the Community.
An essential part of this is a financial policy which will help in particular to increase investment and which will not try to consolidate without considering the economy.
We need an incomes policy which will help to increase households' purchasing power without triggering increases in labour costs which exceed increases in productivity - which means that pay trends must be compatible with productivity gains, but should not fall below them either - and we need a monetary policy which will contribute to economic growth by delivering price stability.
That is why the ECB's decision to cut interest rates was the right decision and an important step forward.
The ECB has finally made its contribution to growth and employment in accordance with the Treaty.
In this way, the Member States will also have more scope for investment in their budgets, even though consolidation is still an important goal.
It should be borne in mind, however, that fiscal measures are one way of responding to cyclical or local blips in demand and that their effects vary from country to country.
Establishing a strict deficit ceiling can definitely have an adverse effect, and greater account needs to be taken of individual situations.
Apart from this, where are the proposals for how the Member States can stimulate public sector investment while still respecting the 3 % ceiling? The guidelines need to give pointers here.
Europe still underestimates the significance of cross-border infrastructure projects, and here - five years after the Delors White Paper was discussed at the European summit - the Council of European Finance Ministers is requested finally to produce European added value in the fields of transport infrastructure and information and communication structures, to push through modernisation schemes and here also to make offensive use of the European Investment Bank, so that in view of the sluggish economy, an upturn will be stimulated more than it has been hitherto by European public sector investment, if possible in partnership with private investors.
Economic and employment policy complement and support each other.
The Employment Pact must play a special role.
It can only do so if the broad economic policy guidelines and the employment policy guidelines are drawn up at the same time, so that both sets of guidelines apply when both national budgets and the European budget are established.
If fighting mass unemployment is the number one challenge for the future of Europe, then it is not only necessary for those involved to agree; the context in which action should be taken, as well as what it should consist of and the timetable, must be laid down.
I think that this is how economic and employment policy can actually be linked together and if, in addition to this, tax policy also makes a contribution, for example through a reduced VAT rate being applied on labour-intensive services, then Europe will be able to make considerable progress.
Madam President, this report contains a number of interesting admissions, for example, recital F states that there is a constant growth differential with the United States and in recital J, I read that fiscal pressure is generally high in the Member States, which is scarcely favourable to consumption, growth or employment. In paragraph 4, the rapporteur rightly acknowledges the modest performance of the European Union in terms of growth and employment and in paragraph 16 he notes that public investment is not always given the priority it should enjoy compared to operation expenditure.
In paragraph 23, the rapporteur states that vigilance is required in view of the prospects of possible deflation.
This is all well and good, but these observations do not lead the rapporteur to question any of the dogmas on which European economic integration is based.
Let us take the example of the euro.
The introduction of the euro prevents Member States from implementing monetary policies to regulate their situation.
In the event of an asymmetric shock, which the report does not mention, those states that would be most affected, for example, by inflation, would no longer be able to fight it through a differential monetary policy.
However, fiscal policy could naturally still be used, while wage policy or the unemployment rate could always be used as adjustment variables.
However, calls for tax coordination, which is unfortunately advocated by the rapporteur in paragraph 34, mean that this second means of adjustment would no longer be open to the Member States.
So unemployment is left as a regulatory instrument or pressure on wages, and why not indeed?
The problem however is that, quite frankly, no one is prepared to acknowledge this for obvious electoral reasons, as this would make the euro and its creators unpopular.
The rapporteur, speaking on behalf of a committee dominated by the PSE Group and the PPE Group, could not of course express any point of view other than that of those two groups, and so could not denounce the fact that the Socialist policies implemented in 13 of the 15 Member States would put Europe at a competitive disadvantage in the global market.
The combination of the global free trade movement and the increase in social and fiscal burdens, which are a result of these Socialist policies, partly explains Europe's low growth rate, particularly in comparison to the United States.
There can be no social progress without economic growth, but there can be no growth where the spirit of enterprise is scorned by egalitarianism and bureaucratisation.
Socialism is thus backfiring on the people because of its poor economic management and its dogmatic cosmopolitanism.
The broad guidelines of a European policy should move away from state control and cosmopolitanism as these are the two things that essentially benefit the dominant American economy.
Moreover, I regret the fact that the rapporteur did not consider it appropriate to mention the effects of the United States domination of the European economy.
Lastly, it is unfortunate that the self-censorship that has prevailed in this report - which was unavoidable as there was undoubtedly no alternative - forced the rapporteur to limit his work to purely technical aspects, although it was often very thorough, without tackling the fundamental political issues facing our economies, which will one day have to be tackled before our people.
Madam President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I have to say that we are especially glad, at this late stage, to be able to give our views and have a discussion on the European Employment Pact.
Whilst Amsterdam and Luxembourg placed jobs fair and square on the European agenda, it is obvious that the Luxembourg process alone will not be enough to bring about a drastic reduction in unemployment in Europe.
What we really lack is a strategy, a macro-economic European strategy and a structural employment policy which hang together, enabling us to focus our full attention on the right goals.
We therefore welcome the German Presidency's proposal to make headway on a European Employment Pact.
Indeed, the European Parliament itself has always insisted that a pact on employment is required, since the stability pact urgently needs something to counterbalance it.
But in all honesty, the provisional version of this Employment Pact looks a touch anaemic.
It will not be an umpteenth rehash of fine words as a policy mix or a revamp of social security, served up with a dash of Luxembourg sauce, that gives the European Union a decent policy on jobs.
And quite frankly, the economic guidelines now before us simply continue to swear by an increasingly tight policy of cutbacks for many Member States, and the belief that flexible wage structures, a deregulated labour market and reductions in social protection will create jobs is definitely not my idea of what a European Employment Pact ought to be.
It is more of an American-style cocktail which does nothing new to stimulate growth and merely makes for more social inequality and more uncertainty.
Europe's Socialists and Social Democrats, inspired by Antoni Gutiérres, made proposals of their own for a pact on jobs at a congress in Milan, and I am delighted to see that both Martine Aubry and Dominique Strauss-Kahn have adopted large parts of these.
The message is very clear, Commissioner.
Certainly the European Pact must not be an empty vessel, but nor must it be a neo-liberal recipe book.
It must contain concrete measures and must get all those involved to make clear commitments - the European Central Bank, the social partners, the ECOFIN Council and the Social Affairs Council.
The key elements which we believe must feature in a pact of this kind include first and foremost a European strategy for growth.
The current growth forecast of 2 % looks set to create even more unemployment.
The special action programme agreed in Amsterdam was a good decision, but far too modest.
So the European Investment Bank and the Fund must free up new resources and the Member States must also be enabled, through their own budgetary policies, to give their economies a shot in the arm, not by making the stability pact more rigorous but by interpreting it more flexibly.
Secondly, we need a fiscal policy which is an incentive, rather than a disincentive, to employment.
The decision on VAT on labour-intensive services is all very well, but in the meantime we still have the Monti proposals, the Primarolo proposals as our staple fare, if I can put it like that.
This log-jam urgently needs to be cleared; we have to revive our European fiscal agenda.
Thirdly, the guidelines on employment must be strengthened and given specific shape.
One specific commitment might be this: if all the Member States did as well on jobs as the top three scorers, we could get not 150 million but 180 million people into work.
And in any event, we urgently need to restore the link between work and social protection.
Lastly, we need more coordination, more coordination between the guidelines on employment and the economic guidelines, not so much as regards timing but as regards substance.
We cannot go on having economic guidelines which preach budgetary discipline and at the same time guidelines on employment which are subordinate to them.
We shall never get a serious strategy for growth that way.
It is this that the Cologne summit needs to understand, and I hope that somebody will listen.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we have heard Mrs Van Lancker say that she does not want a neo-liberal recipe book; in response, I can only say that nor do we want the employment policy guidelines to become a Socialist book of fairytales.
I should like to thank Mr Fourçans and Commissioner de Silguy very much for explaining their economic policy guidelines so clearly both here and in the documents.
I know that they have been the subject of much controversy for many years.
Today we have the euro, and today no one is disputing the fact that their proposals are right nor that Mr Menrad's report, which covers the employment policy side, is a very good report, which can be debated here alongside the Fourçans report.
Listening to Mrs Randzio-Plath, I do wonder whether she has actually already given up on the stability and growth pact.
After all, she has repeatedly stressed these points in the committee as well.
I think it is absolutely essential for the three most important aspects to be respected, that is the stability and growth pact, a wage policy geared to productivity, and the need for structural reform.
In recent weeks and months, we have discussed what economic and financial strategy is right for the euro zone time and again.
Article 105 of the EU Treaty leaves no room for ambiguity here.
As far as the European Central Bank's tasks are concerned, economic policy is clearly secondary to price stability.
Should we step up coordination of economic policy? Yes, that is also laid down in the Treaty.
Should a conventional interventionist economic policy à la Keynes be pursued to control the economy? No!
Chronic unemployment in Europe will not be eliminated by means of a European employment programme or by the Member States in the European economic and monetary union having a uniform economic policy, but by means of structural reform.
There can be no doubt that the stability pact was right, is right and will continue to be right.
I see that Mr Diller, Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Finance, is with us.
Your former boss, Mr Lafontaine, came up against a brick wall in Europe with his ideas on this subject, did he not? Basically, he failed.
It is true that monetary policy should not be obstructive to economic and financial policy.
Of course it is also true that if there are stable interest rates, stable prices and low interest rates, Member States will have considerably more scope to eliminate chronic unemployment than they had before.
It is therefore necessary not to ease budgetary discipline; to do so would not be prudent, as Mr Herman has emphasised.
On the reform measures, several colleagues have mentioned flexible labour markets.
Mrs Van Lancker spoke about the pension system.
I think that Germany, which has a pension system funded by contributions, will actually experience serious difficulties in the long term, and that in one generation it will simply not be possible to build up a fund system to run alongside the contributions system.
Very wide-ranging structural reforms are therefore required, which must prevent problems also being caused by the State placing too great a burden on GNP, unduly high taxes and social and benefits policies making excessive demands.
If coordinating economic policy triggers a process of learning and competition, with people asking 'How do the other countries actually go about this?' then this will achieve more than illusionary spending programmes.
Competition between the countries in the euro zone will call many traditional systems into question. I believe that this is right and proper!
Madam President, we have two good reports here, but what counts most for us is a strong economy which really does something for jobs.
We have the internal market and we have EMU, but Europe needs more.
I should like to focus today on unrestricted fiscal competition.
With help from the Commissioner, we have achieved some progress here, but the Council is not doing enough.
It is the Council which is dragging its feet on a number of very important issues, for example switching labour costs into environmental and energy taxes, and now it seems that this dossier too is being blocked.
It is precisely these areas which offer great opportunities.
At my instigation, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs produced a report on production levies and green taxes, and this shows that the introduction of this kind of taxation at European level could have a major impact on jobs.
I would urge the Commission to read this report by Parliament's research departments.
Worker mobility continues to be hampered by the fact that earned income is taxed twice by virtue of the different treatment given to allowances and taxation in the Member States.
I therefore think that with regard to social security and pensions, it is very important to pursue convergence between the Member States.
I am not advocating the imposition of European legislation 'from the top down', but efforts towards convergence can certainly be made 'from the bottom up', and that will most definitely be needed if we are to secure the financial future of our ageing populations.
I would make the point once again that a huge demographic shock awaits us, and that the European Union needs to coordinate its policy for coping with this.
Mr President, the Commission report on current general trends is a qualitative improvement and places special emphasis on employment by stressing the need for real structural changes.
Furthermore, in addition to these general trends, it mentions each specific country in turn - acknowledging that each country has its own peculiarities - addresses the issue of the growth of its economy and puts forward the necessary reforms.
This change was necessary, and I would like to point out that it is in keeping with the flexible interpretation and orientation of the criteria contained in the Treaty and which I have time and again supported.
The very existence of economic and monetary union demonstrates that this is not just a formality. On the contrary, it addresses economic and monetary issues in a dynamic way and calls for the coordination not only of the monetary but also the economic and social policies of the Member States of the European Union.
We must bear in mind that this flexibility must also extend to the structural framework.
If general economic policies are not coordinated, monetary policy will be ineffective and will not have the desired validity to enable the currency of the European Union to play its true role.
In these circumstances, therefore, we must avoid any potential split within the European Union and we must aim to incorporate all Member States into EMU as quickly as possible.
Only in this way will it be possible to achieve the more effective, comprehensive, coordinated reforms that the Commission is calling for.
And only in this way will we be able to have real economic and monetary union, as envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty.
I therefore welcome the statement made by the Commission on this issue, which seems to open the way for a more rational and more effective economic approach, the main characteristics of which are quite rightly highlighted, discussed and enhanced by our rapporteur, Mr Fourçans in his excellent piece of work.
Mr President, this joint debate on the broad economic policy guidelines and the European Employment Pact is to be welcomed.
You could say that this represents progress towards examining or at least debating the view that unemployment can only be combated with economic policies aimed at job creation.
Well, you could say that.
But this afternoon's debate will not only pass by virtually unnoticed, it will be regarded as the unprepared introduction to a week full of events which would engulf any debate, let alone one on economic guidelines and employment.
We expect something to come out of Cologne.
There must be a joint debate on economics and unemployment. In particular, the summit participants must be receptive to the marches which will take place against mass unemployment, precarious employment, social exclusion and the other forms referred to in the Menrad report.
They must not dodge this issue.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, a sound economic policy, which gives companies breathing space, is the best way to create more jobs.
Last year it was possible to bring unemployment down to 10 %.
This pleasing, though by no means adequate trend cannot, however, as claimed in many quarters, be attributed to the employment policy measures taken by the Union.
The realisation that the efforts made by the Union hitherto, including the NAPs, have been insufficient and have had little success is another reason why this Employment Pact is necessary.
If we wish to take a positive view of these reports, then we can say that we have recognised the problems and have ideas about how to tackle them.
But ideas and an awareness of the problem alone will not create a single job.
The will and the ideas are there, but there is a big gap when it comes to implementing the measures.
There are only limited ways in which the Union itself can create jobs.
This is the task of the nation states and companies, in particular the SMEs on which we must focus all our attention.
Creating one new job costs around ATS 1 million in my national currency.
Since 1989, therefore, the appropriations in the Structural Funds alone could have created six million jobs!
But these jobs are nowhere to be seen, declared the President of the Court of Auditors, Mr Friedmann.
The Employment Pact ...
The President cut the speaker off
Ladies and gentlemen, it is astonishing - or perhaps it is not - that today's debate is in fact being used as a platform for expounding different views on both economic policy and social and employment policy.
It may not be quite so astonishing, because unfortunately the election campaign has of course already started; were this not the case, then perhaps the speeches would have turned out somewhat differently.
Mr Menrad has tabled a good and reasonable report which my group can also support, provided our amendments are accepted.
He is right that we do not need to start from scratch with everything.
We have experience at national level in a few Member States, but at European level, formulating the Employment Pact and implementing it is new territory.
The national action plans were also new territory, and unlike the previous speaker, I strongly believe that the Luxembourg guidelines and the national action plans have contributed to the fall in unemployment.
Of course more needs to be done; no one is disputing that, and it is mentioned in both reports.
Although I am largely in agreement with you, Mr Menrad, I should like to mention a few further points on which our views differ, and nor do I think that the German Government has such a narrow view on this as you described, Mr Langen.
We obviously welcomed the stability pact, but an additional stability policy which strangles public budgets, robbing them of all political room for manoeuvre and making it impossible for them to create the necessary basic conditions in education, research and training, is no good to anyone.
That is not the kind of stability pact that we had in mind.
Nor is it sufficient - and Mrs Van Lancker is right here - for the ESF to be our only source of funding for employment policy; in any event, that is another matter which will have to be dealt with in the next parliamentary term.
Finally, I should like to give the German Presidency, which will be presenting the Employment Pact in Cologne, something to think about: please bear in mind that as a parliament, we obviously expect to be involved in this.
Mr President, I have said before in this House that inequality and injustice in Europe divide those who have work from those who stand no chance of feeling any sense of participation, earning their own living or developing their potential.
We are now discussing reports by three of my colleagues in the PPE Group.
I should like to congratulate them on a constructive outcome.
We should allow Mr Fourçans' prescription for a sound economic policy to form the basis of the medicine the European labour market needs.
Mrs Thyssen's contribution, which concentrates on labour-intensive services, is unfortunately still required.
There is clear proof that high taxes are discouraging an above-board, expanded market in services.
The information, white collar and services sectors are underdeveloped in Europe compared with the USA, for example.
In point of fact, this is the area in which tomorrow's jobs lie, which we cannot afford to tax out of existence.
Consequently, extensive structural reforms are also needed in the different European markets.
The common market should be realised and exploited to its full potential.
Monetary union increases pressure on competition but, properly handled, it can also increase European competitiveness and prosperity.
My thanks also go to the Commission, in particular to the present Commissioners, who have tirelessly focused on the lack of dynamism, the need for change and, in particular, on the role of national governments and parliaments in undertaking measures to reduce fiscal pressure, stabilise public finances and improve the labour market and training methods in the different Member States.
Let us use the European Union to create the right conditions for entrepreneurship, growth and new jobs - not to regulate the jobs we need out of existence or to sit here and believe that we can redistribute and 'talk up' the new jobs and tomorrow's opportunities in this Europe of ours.
Mr President, both the Commission's recommendation and Mr Fourçans' report are based on an essentially fallacious idea, namely that of a uniform economic policy.
We all know that the structure of the economy differs widely in the various Member States.
When countries have such different structures, as is the case in the Union, imposing the same economic principles results in disagreement and conflict.
If one wishes to achieve harmonisation, however, the policy should instead take account of national differences and be adapted to the national structures.
The Union should finally stop allowing itself to be guided by abstract theories on harmonisation which bear no relation at all to hard and fast reality!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it is somewhat surprising that the European Union, on the one hand, is engaged in a well organised debate on the broad economic policy guidelines, with all the known constraints and a rigorous stability pact, and on the other hand, has an employment policy with only vaguely defined guidelines. And this is in spite of constant assertions that employment is the biggest issue facing Europe and Europeans.
We should firstly like to see the European institutions fall into step and bring the two facets of economic policy and employment policy together.
However, it is clear that if we do not get out of the rut we are in, there will not be sufficient growth to reduce unemployment.
The European memorandum proposed by the French and Italian Ministers for Employment explicitly urges the European Union to set itself a 3 % growth limit for the next few years.
However, this will not be possible without tough decisions.
So what type of decisions can we expect?
First, we will need a policy to boost major initiatives as advocated by Jacques Delors.
Frequent reference is made to this type of proposal but no specific financial and operational commitments are ever really made.
Second, if growth is to receive a boost, internal demand must be supported.
I should like to remind you that growth in the United States is heavily reliant on internal demand.
There is certainly no miracle for achieving this: if internal demand is to recover, wages firstly need to be supported.
Therefore, the policy of wage moderation, which has all too often prevailed, needs to be reversed.
Furthermore, productivity gains and wage increases must go hand in hand.
Consumer tax must be reduced, and we believe that VAT should also be lowered, particularly in those sectors that create a high number of jobs.
Lastly, public investment must be given a fresh impetus, for example, in the major initiatives mentioned earlier and also in research.
These grand declarations that welcome the reduction in state aid to companies still give cause for concern because there is an unwillingness to accept at the same time that the majority of these large privatised companies no longer invest in vital research or in research and development and as a consequence stunt our technological development.
To conclude, the issue of employment does not boil down to the issue of growth, however essential it might be.
Since the dawn of civilisation we have worked less to produce more and I do not see why this secular movement should stop.
It is time for a new stage in terms of a reduction in working time, which should provide the opportunity to better distribute the wealth produced.
Europe may indeed suffer from high unemployment, but it has never been as wealthy.
The problem is that this wealth is poorly distributed.
We therefore need to create a fairer tax system, as harmonisation is not enough. There should be greater tax on capital and less tax on labour.
We need to invest in the future through public investment in major initiatives and research.
Working time must be reduced and alongside this reduction we must train our workforce.
The national employment plans are very positive from this point of view.
Our opinion, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, is that it we have not achieved the right balance.
Today we have 13 Socialist-led governments whose electorates, like the peoples of Europe, expect them to implement a policy that not only helps employment but also creates a social model that is not based on insecurity.
Mr President, the advent of the euro has also changed the general guidelines for economic policy.
Independence is no longer an option, now that eleven countries of the European Union form one monetary zone with a single central bank and a single monetary policy.
The economic policy mix urgently needs to be decided now at European level.
And it will be.
The question is simply whether or not political considerations will play a sufficiently active part in that.
Against the background of the need for an active European policy mix, I am perplexed by the Commission's proposal for general economic policy guidelines.
Instead of moving us forward, the Commission is pushing us back.
Why?
Whilst the European policy mix has hitherto consisted of recommendations for national budgetary policy, the monetary policy of central banks and the wage policy operated by the social partners, the birth of the euro has evidently prompted the Commission to stop giving monetary policy any active role in the overall European policy mix. It is as if governments and the social partners could determine economic policy on their own and as if the ECB did not also have a role in supporting economic policy.
There is a history to this debate, and I put it to you that the Commission is setting itself up here as a kind of secretariat for conservative forces within the ECB which argue that the ECB's second duty under Article 105 of the Treaty, namely to support economic policy - without prejudice to the maintenance of price stability - can be discharged simply by maintaining a sufficient degree of price stability.
I would refer you to the policy strategy outlined in the ECB's first monthly report.
Happily, however, ECB President Duisenberg made it clear at last Monday's latest parliamentary hearing that the interest cut of 8 April was precisely an attempt to help kick-start the Union economy, in other words he acknowledged in so many words that monetary policy too has an economic function.
So I think it is a big mistake - fortunately identified as such in the Fourçans report - to reduce the policy mix to nothing more than tasks to be performed by government and the social partners.
No, that is not on.
You have to return, Commissioner de Silguy, to a policy mix in which monetary policy also plays its part in influencing economic policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should firstly like to point out that I intend to focus on issues relating to the broad economic policy guidelines, or BEPG, and Mr Mario Monti will deal with the other report, that is, the Menrad report on the European Employment Pact.
I should firstly like to congratulate Mr Fourçans on his excellent report and on the excellent work he has accomplished within such a short space of time, something I should also like to congratulate you on.
The BEPG constitute both a vital and key instrument for the effective coordination of economic policies in Europe. This, Mrs Lienemann, certainly puts employment at the top of the priorities of the European governments, but it is also high among the priorities of the Commission and, of course, this House.
The Ecofin Council will examine the BEPG on 10 May, before they are ratified by the Heads of State and Government in Cologne at the beginning of June.
Mr Metten, I have already given a detailed presentation of the Commission's recommendation to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy and, bearing in mind the limited time available this evening, I should like to concentrate my speech on responding to your rapporteur's questions and comments and to the other points that have been raised this evening.
To make things easier, my comments shall focus on two areas: the present economic situation and the implementation of the broad economic policy guidelines.
First, the economic situation in Europe is improving, albeit slowly.
In spite of the uncertainties recently reflected in public opinion polls, the present outlook is favourable and the economic essentials of the European Union are becoming healthier.
Proof of this lies in the positive outlook for consumption and household confidence.
The slow-down in world growth only has a limited and temporary impact on growth in Europe.
Growth in Europe is set to speed up during the year to reach an annual rate of between 2.5 % and 3 % by the end of 1999.
Recent monetary developments, Mr Metten, are boosting the confidence of economic agents and should have positive repercussions, particularly for private investment. However, as you are well aware, I never comment on the decisions taken by the European Central Bank, so as to avoid being accused of undermining the sacrosanct principle of independence.
The employment situation is improving, although it is certainly not improving fast enough, Mrs Moreau.
I listened carefully to what you said, Mrs Van Lancker, and looking at the figures, I see that employment is set to increase by 0.8 % in 1999 and by 0.8 % in the year 2000.
It increased by 1.1 % in 1998.
The projected increase is very small, but it is proof that Europe's unemployment curve has been reversed and that our growth is generating more jobs.
Of course, this is still not enough and that is precisely why the broad economic policy guidelines have been presented: they enable us to put forward an economic strategy that has been pursued for several years and that has been adapted, and as your rapporteur pointed out, there is no reason why we should change the present economic strategy. Instead, we should follow the same course and step up the action taken to support growth and combat unemployment.
The Commission welcomes the support that your rapporteur has given to the strategy advocated in the recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines for 1999.
I shall not go back over this.
There is just one point regarding structural reform that I should like to highlight so as to demonstrate the Commission's willingness to assess the liberalisation of the telecommunications, transport and energy sectors.
An analysis of these network industries will soon be published and the Commission has no objection to the use of best practices in national legislation where company rules are concerned.
My second set of comments relates to the implementation of the broad economic policy guidelines.
Mr Metten, far from being a mere secretariat of the Council, the Commission this year put forward recommendations for each country.
In doing so, it aims to ensure that the broad guidelines are a sufficient test to demonstrate Member States' willingness to specifically coordinate economic policies, Mrs Lienemann, by using the instruments they have established for this purpose.
I should like to add, for Mr Christodoulou's benefit, that the broad guidelines apply to all 15 Member States, even though some of the provisions of the Treaty are limited specifically to the euro zone.
In my view, this coordination mainly involves two aspects.
Although Mrs Boogerd-Quaak brought up another issue, that of the ageing of the population, I should just like to mention two aspects very briefly.
The first of these is the budgetary policy.
I would like to know whether or not the Member States are prepared to accept the specific country-by-country objectives laid down by the Commission.
In other words, I want to know if some of them are prepared to take regulatory measures to face up to the current developments highlighted by the Commission's recent forecasts.
These are the real issues the Member States must debate because they lie at the very heart of the process of strengthening budgetary coordination.
The second issue of concern is employment.
The Commission's recommendation on the broad guidelines sets out national objectives for structural reform for each Member State. This is something that, as I remember, was mentioned by both Mrs Moreau and Mrs Randzio-Plath, whether in relation to the labour market or a more active employment policy.
Are the Member States prepared to accept the objectives recommended by the Commission without toning them down? Here again I ask the question.
In Dresden, the finance ministers were responsible for drawing up a European Employment Pact.
Mr Mario Monti will answer you on that point and I shall not go into it any further.
I just wanted to emphasise the fact that following the example of your rapporteur, the German Presidency suggested in this regard that we should promote macro-economic dialogue among all the elements of the policy mix.
This is why the Commission is proposing that the social partners present a common position to the Cologne European Council and is also recommending that in the future an annual meeting be held with the social partners before the spring European Council which adopts the broad economic policy guidelines.
Furthermore, within the framework of improving the integration of employment in the economic policy, your rapporteur suggests that we should do away with the present separation of the broad guidelines and the guidelines for employment.
I think you are right and it is worth asking whether it would not be better in fact to guarantee greater complementarity between the two elements, including in terms of the timetables involved. This is something the Commission is considering.
I shall end by saying that, in relation to the implementation of the broad economic policy guidelines, the Commission sincerely hopes that, contrary to what happened last year, Member States are able, in this first year of the euro, to agree on a specific, limited content for these guidelines, which is operational and which is not toned down, particularly as regards the recommendations for each country in the area of employment policy.
To conclude, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to stress that the Commission gladly supports your proposal to systematically carry out an annual assessment of the way in which the broad guidelines are implemented by the Member States from spring 2000, on the basis of these country-by-country recommendations.
This would undoubtedly help us to strengthen a genuine European economic policy.
Mr President, on behalf of my colleague Mr Flynn, I would like to start by congratulating Mr Menrad for his report and by thanking the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs for its rapid work on the draft resolution.
We fully share the views expressed on the European Employment Pact.
In addition, Mr Menrad has stressed the need to mainstream employment in Community policies.
This is fully in line with the communication adopted by the Commission on this subject on 21 April.
By reiterating Parliament's support for the Luxembourg process and correctly insisting on the support which the European Social Fund must give to the European employment strategy, the report and resolution have given timely messages.
Let us be clear about what we are seeking from the European Employment Pact.
As requested by the Vienna European Council such a pact should establish a dialogue involving all the actors with responsibility for designing policies which impact on economic growth and employment creation.
This dialogue should fully respect the autonomy of the various actors and take place at different levels as suggested in the draft resolution before Parliament today.
As regards macro-economic policy, there should be an exchange of views between the relevant actors on each element in the macro-economic policy mix, fiscal policy, wage trends and monetary policy, so that each can fully support the growth and employment process.
As the Amsterdam Treaty and its Article 127 enter into force, there should be an assessment of the impact of all relevant policies on employment.
In our recent communication on this issue, the Commission outlined how a range of policies can promote a high level of employment and how policies are increasingly being directed towards this objective.
The Communication deals, for example, with ways of encouraging and supporting investment in capital and human resources in order to strengthen the European Union economy.
It examines how structural reforms can make markets work better and thus help achieve sustainable growth and employment.
It refers to the modernisation of social protection and of taxation systems in order to improve work incentives and opportunities for entering or returning to the labour market.
We are pleased to find that all these points are referred to in the draft resolution.
Further practical steps will be needed to assess how the various Community policies can contribute more to the employment objective and, where necessary, be refocused to ensure that they do just that.
It is vital that the Employment Pact should consolidate the key role of the Luxembourg process.
What is important now is to strengthen the employment guidelines so that they deliver their full potential as a powerful instrument for labour market reform.
We have the right to expect that the national action plans presently being drafted by the Member States will be more ambitious than last year.
And as we come to evaluate the impact of the national action plans later this year, two years after Luxembourg, we will be in a better position to assess whether the strategy is working or whether more effort is required in certain areas.
You are right to stress that the European Social Fund must play a key role in support of the European employment strategy.
We understand therefore very well why the draft resolution suggests a return to the Commission's proposal for the funding of Objective 3 activities in 2000-2006.
However, we cannot forget the broader budgetary context.
We are not unhappy with the way in which the European Social Fund and the employment strategy have been treated in the Berlin settlement.
Let me now turn to your discussion on the link between the employment guidelines and the broad economic policy guidelines.
In Vienna the European Council called for greater synergy between the two processes and the Commission responded to this request with its latest broad economic policy guidelines and its Article 127 communication.
However, do not forget that the Luxembourg process is still very new.
The Member States have created new working arrangements to implement their national action plans and to report on them.
We are learning together to work a process of peer pressure and open evaluation.
It should be allowed to gain momentum: a change in timetable at this early stage could be disruptive.
It is clear that our approach to employment must cover macro-economic, as well as micro-economic, policies and must address problems which arise not just in labour markets but also in the product and capital markets.
The creation of such a comprehensive approach and a dialogue between all the actors involved is the core of the proposed employment pact.
These are issues of substance not timetabling.
We hope the pact will be a step towards a better integration of macro-economic, employment and structural policies.
I should like to conclude with two or three remarks on points which I found particularly interesting in the course of the debate.
Several speakers - such as Mr Blokland and Mr Langen - drew attention to the ageing population problem.
Under Commissioner Flynn's initiatives, the Commission has looked into the problem of the future of social security and, I am glad to say that, at the further and recent instigation of both the German presidency and the European Parliament, we will come forward very soon with a communication on pension funds, drawing the conclusions from the Green Paper exercise.
A number of speakers - including Mrs Randzio-Plath, Mrs Boogerd-Quaak and Mrs Van Lancker - touched upon the taxation aspects.
Let me simply say that in spite of the inevitable difficulties due to the unanimity rule, it is undeniable that now, under the strong urging of the German presidency and with the support of this Parliament, progress is being made in the implementation of the strategy against harmful tax competition and a number of objectives have been set for the Helsinki European Council.
As far as the more specific proposal, dear to many of you, about the reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive services is concerned, I am glad to note that today under the German presidency the first meeting of a Council working group on this subject took place, and later this evening we shall be debating the Thyssen report on this very topic.
Lastly, Mr Blot, I do not share your fear that fiscal coordination, following monetary union, might eliminate one of the two remaining options for implementing a policy against the famous asymmetric shocks.
I think you can rest assured since the notion of fiscal harmonisation, as proposed by the Commission and unanimously adopted by the Ecofin Council and as supported, among others, by the rapporteur, Mr Fourçans, is certainly not an advanced notion of harmonisation.
I would instead call on you to consider the problem in the following terms: if there were no coordination of fiscal policies, given the present level of market integration, the Member States would increasingly lose their sovereignty to anonymous markets and they would therefore have less and less opportunities to implement an effective fiscal policy.
Mr President, it is interesting that the Commission is speaking through the mouths of two Commissioners.
It is a pity that they contradict each other.
Commission de Silguy defended monetary policy not being an element of the policy mix, while Commissioner Monti referred to monetary policy as an important element of the policy mix.
Can I have an explanation from the Commission?
In my view, there is no contradiction.
The Commission only has one position regarding the broad economic policy guidelines, which it set out in a recommendation that it adopted unanimously.
I should like to remind you that this recommendation on the policy mix defends a balance of budgetary policy, wage increases and structural policy.
With regard to monetary policy, if this year's presentation seems different compared to last year's, it is due to the fact that, unlike last year, we now have an independent European Central Bank and the Commission does not think it appropriate to interfere in this principle of independence.
Having said that, the Commission reserves the right, both this year and next, to carry out all the analyses and make all the comments it deems necessary to guarantee that the policy mix is as balanced and relevant as possible in order to ensure sustainable growth that does not cause inflation and that creates jobs in Europe.
Mr Metten, I would simply like to confirm exactly what Commissioner de Silguy said.
In the text that I read out on behalf of Commissioner Flynn I see no contradiction whatsoever with the position expressed by the Commissioner responsible.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Fraud Investigation Office
The next item is the report (A4-0240/99) by Mr Bösch, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the amended proposal for a Council Regulation concerning investigations conducted by the Fraud Prevention Office (COM(99)0140 - C4-0180/99-98/0329(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have always been convinced that in the end the European Union and its institutions would emerge from the crisis of the past weeks and months stronger.
By setting up OLAF, the new European Fraud Investigation Office, we shall make a visible contribution to this.
I think it is a good sign that the legal base for OLAF will be one of the first texts to be adopted under the new procedures of the Amsterdam Treaty.
This would certainly not have been possible had not all those involved - the Council, Parliament and, after initial hesitations, the Commission - collaborated on this project in a very constructive spirit.
My thanks therefore go to all those who have been and still are members of the high-level group of representatives of our three institutions at both technical and political level.
In my capacity as Parliament's rapporteur, I should like to mention three of the participants by name and express my sincere thanks to them: my committee chairman, Mrs Theato; a courageous friend from my group, Mrs Wemheuer; and my tireless assistant, Mr Schönberger.
I now turn to the proposal itself. We have put together a package consisting of three components.
The first component is the Commission decision to establish OLAF, an office which, although located organisationally within the Commission, is guaranteed to be independent of the Commission and to be free to take its own decisions when conducting investigations and enquiries.
The Commission adopted this decision last week.
The second component is the Council and Parliament regulation laying down how the investigations are to be conducted and what should happen with the results.
This regulation is the centrepiece of the package. It covers external investigations in the Member States and internal investigations within all the EU institutions.
Briefly, these are the most important points which we wish to incorporate in it: firstly, the Director of OLAF has a free hand in the investigative work.
In this context, he may not accept instructions from any party.
He may open investigations at the request of a Member State or an institution, but may also do so on his own initiative, and he has the right to lodge complaints with the European Court of Justice if he finds that his independence is compromised.
We included this point on the express recommendation of the Court of Auditors, whose opinion has incidentally been of great assistance to us in eliminating any remaining inconsistencies from the texts.
Secondly, the Director is under a specific obligation to inform and call in the competent national judicial authorities if Office staff working on internal investigations come across facts which might relate to matters open to criminal charges.
OLAF is not therefore about replacing or circumventing national public prosecutors and judges. Nor is OLAF a way of setting up an EU police force by the back door.
What it is about is carrying out administrative investigations - if you like, preliminary investigations - which should allow the police and public prosecutor to do their job.
Thirdly, OLAF will be subject to monitoring by independent, external experts.
The German version of the text rather unfortunately still refers to a scrutiny committee.
The English version captures the meaning much better. It uses the term supervisory committee.
Here we particularly have in mind experienced experts in criminal law or high-ranking civil servants from the relevant bodies in the Member States such as the Guardia di finanza or the British Serious Fraud Office.
It is not intended that this committee should interfere in the Director's everyday work, but that it should ensure, by carrying out ex post controls, that no mistakes are made.
All of this and more - on which I cannot enter into detail in the short time available - is therefore part of the regulation.
I now turn to the third component, the institutional agreement between the Council, Parliament and the Commission on internal investigations.
This is the subject of another report, which was adopted by the Committee on Budgetary Control today, shortly before the beginning of this debate, and which will be put to the vote along with the report on the regulation this Thursday.
All of the other Union bodies, institutions and agencies are specifically invited and requested also to enter into this agreement.
This is necessary for OLAF to be able to conduct investigations within them.
In addition, it is stipulated that officials and other EU employees are obliged to inform their superiors - and, if they think it necessary, OLAF - directly and without delay of any facts which might allow cases of fraud, corruption or similar crimes to be closed.
It is not only the staff but also the members of the institutions and bodies who will cooperate fully with OLAF.
At this stage there can be no exceptions, as this would cause us to lose credibility.
However, neither can our independence as Members of Parliament be threatened.
It is precisely with our parliamentary immunity in mind that a number of sensitive issues remain to be clarified.
This was not part of the negotiations and nor could it be.
It is no longer possible for this Parliament to make any over-hasty decisions on this either; it will be a matter for the newly elected Members.
Finally there are several points which, although they are also to be decided by the newly elected Parliament, are matters on which we ought to make progress in the high-level group over the next few weeks, and if possible by the ECOFIN Council on 25 May.
We need a proposal for the five members of the supervisory committee to which everyone can agree; we need a job description for the Director of OLAF so that the job advertisement can be published; and, as our colleagues in the Committee on Budgets have already recommended in their opinion, we need an establishment plan for OLAF so that a supplementary budget can be agreed on that basis.
This has to happen very quickly, and it is also the decisive test of our credibility.
OLAF must actually be up and running by the end of the year.
Mr President, most of us are growing rather tired of hearing about corruption and fraud involving EU funds.
Hopefully, the forthcoming election campaign will also deal with other important political issues, but the battle over the major reforms should be fought now, while the political will is still present.
We have succeeded in reaching an agreement on OLAF, and would like to take this opportunity to commend the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, for his outstanding work in the negotiations with the Council and the Commission.
We have achieved a really good result.
The new proposal is far better than the original.
The Office will now be located in the Commission for organisational purposes, but it will be entirely independent as far as carrying out investigations is concerned.
Its independence will be guaranteed by the fact that the Commission will not have powers to direct the Office.
The Office will also have powers to investigate irregularities and fraud in other EU institutions.
The Commission is not the only place where there are problems.
The Office will have full access to all relevant information, and it will be able to carry out investigations on its own initiative.
With this proposal, we will hopefully get the best of all worlds.
We will get an Office which is independent, and at the same time gain an extra benefit by locating the Office within the Commission.
If the Office is part of the Commission, we will have access to confidential information which it would otherwise not have been possible to obtain.
We will not have an Office which is hoodwinked, as we have been in Parliament for years.
If we had instead chosen a solution which involved setting up an entirely new Office outside the Commission, it would have required a change in the Treaty.
We cannot wait for that.
It is vital that we have the Office now, and not in two years' time or never.
By adopting this proposal, we will set up the legal framework.
But that is far from enough.
Money must now be made available in the budget for staff.
We in Parliament have asked for a staff of 300, which is definitely not too many.
The Office must have the resources to operate effectively.
Otherwise we would reproduce the problems which result from leaving such an important task to the Commission without allocating the necessary resources.
When Parliament meets again in the autumn, we shall ensure that sufficient funds are earmarked in the budget.
We have a huge task here.
The whole question of what the Office needs cannot be left to the Commission.
The tripartite committee should be involved in the discussion, and I would therefore like to propose a meeting of the tripartite committee after 25 May, when the proposal will also have been adopted by the Council.
We can then quickly discuss the appointment of the Supervisory Committee, and then we can elect a Director.
Then we can get the Office up and running as quick as possible.
That is what we need.
Mr President, it will be remembered that one of the touchstones for being able to grant discharge to the Commission for 1996 was the creation of an operationally independent fraud prevention office.
Parliament laid down some important ground rules for an office of this kind when it adopted the report of the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Bösch report, by a large majority in October 1998 and requested a proposal for a regulation along those lines from the Commission.
As I see it - and I am not exaggerating - if the Commission had made a reasonable proposal to improve fraud prevention at the beginning of December, then it might have been spared the refusal of discharge shortly before Christmas and thus all that followed.
Unfortunately, it was the middle of March before an amended Commission proposal which met Parliament's demands was tabled.
Happily, in this proposal the Commission abandoned the unreasonable idea of entrusting the responsibility for irregularities and fraud to an external agency with, would you believe it, 48 officials, that is one official to protect an average of EUR 2 billion.
Since then, progress has been extremely quick.
If Parliament, the Council and the Commission continue to cooperate as well as they have done in recent weeks, then we will even be able to adopt all the legislation for an independent fraud prevention office before the European elections.
I should particularly like to highlight the constructive role played by Commissioners Anita Gradin, Karel Van Miert and Mario Monti, but I also wish specifically to commend the Council presidency, our rapporteur Mr Bösch and the secretariats of the three institutions for the huge amount of work which they have done.
The Committee on Budgetary Control has done its homework; it has unanimously reached a common position in agreement with the German Presidency, and has just this minute approved the accompanying interinstitutional agreement.
If Parliament and the Council keep to this line, then OLAF will be able to enter into force in June.
The rapporteur has already described its responsibilities.
I should just like to emphasise its operational independence once again - from an institutional point of view, the responsibility still lies with the Commission; we had to do this to find a speedy solution.
It is also important that the Director has access to the judicial authorities in the case of matters which may be open to criminal charges.
However, there is another snag here.
Our experiences with the national judicial authorities have not been very encouraging up until now.
To my knowledge, for example, final verdicts have not so far been reached in any of the 27 internal cases of fraud which UCLAF has investigated since 1994.
In conclusion, I think that our aims in creating OLAF are to make a constructive contribution to better protecting the interests of the EU against abuse, to make prevention a priority, and to recover money which has gone missing.
Mr President, the new UCLAF - OLAF - is intended to put an end to irregularities, nepotism, corruption and fraud in the EU.
As far as I am concerned, it is therefore vital that the new Office is free to investigate any matter it wishes and that it has complete independence in deciding whether or not the matter should subsequently be handed over to the judicial authorities, the national courts.
I think it is crucial for us now to have an investigation office which can investigate circumstances in all the EU institutions.
That should certainly give it enough to do.
When I say all the EU institutions, that should also include the European Investment Bank, for example. With the accusations which have recently been made, I would expect the Bank itself to have an interest in uncovering everything that is going on there.
But the European Parliament should also offer its assistance, and there may be examples of tasks which it would be interesting to have investigated, such as the problems surrounding our premises, where there are still a large number of unanswered questions.
I therefore believe, Mr President, that the new office, OLAF, is a significant improvement of the situation in the EU.
It gives us a good chance to clear things up and to ensure openness and transparency in all the institutions.
Mr President, Commissioner, looking at the West's crisis of values, clearly all that was needed for many fraud-related problems to be eliminated was for the Christian commandment of 'thou shalt not steal' to be observed.
Fraud and theft are now a way of life and are turning into a scientific study. Organised crime is now a fashionable and studied crime, occurring in the best circles, and its sole goal is theft.
Organisations must therefore be created which are fully prepared and independent.
They must have the necessary financial and human resources and be able to act independently. But is acting independently actually the ideal given that the legal systems of many Member States are in crisis?
For it is frequently the legal system itself, influenced by the executive - since Montesquieu's separation of powers is fast disappearing - which fails to condemn totally blatant cases of fraud in which billions are at stake. Anyone, like us, who participated in the Action Committee on BSE and the Committee of Inquiry into Community Transit can say that the ideal of a Europe without borders has indeed been created, but without borders and without control.
It is clear that this is a temptation and a paradise for organised crime.
I hope that the solutions put forward by Mr Bösch are supported by the political will which is needed to ensure their total success.
However, the cooperation of the Member States is fundamental because they are as guilty as the Commission and we should not forget this.
Mr President, for all of us who have worked to put things in order and find out how taxpayers' money is being spent, it is a step forward to see the emergence of OLAF.
Its predecessor, UCLAF, has not been in existence for very long, but the major shortcoming of this has already become apparent, namely that in political terms it is under the control of the Commission.
It is of the utmost importance that OLAF really is independent and has the task of investigating all the European institutions, which is quite an extensive mandate but one which I believe we in Parliament will ensure it actually carries out.
It is naturally also important for there to be unrestricted access to all material, so that a proper investigation can be conducted. This is necessary in order to combat the fraudulent use of the EU's own resources.
I should like to thank Mr Bösch for working so assiduously on this report, as well as the Commission for withdrawing its first blueprint for OLAF and making a constructive contribution to finding the solution we shall be dealing with this week.
Mr President, I would like to begin by adding my voice in praise of the effort to establish OLAF, and I have to say that today's sitting is something of a celebration, since those of us who worked on the Committee on Budgetary Control are witnessing the accomplishment of an undertaking on which so much time and effort has been spent, and in which so many issues hung in the balance.
I must first of all pay tribute to the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, who managed to stick to his guns, despite the opposition from within his own group, the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
In the same vein, I have to say that the Group of the European People's Party, as represented on the Committee on Budgetary Control, was fully behind the rapporteur, put up a good fight, and came away victorious.
Furthermore, what took place, such as our refusal to grant discharge, may be the crowning achievement of the efforts of this Parliament, whose term comes to an end this week.
We will all be remembered for the effort we made to clean up the economy of the Community, and the establishment of OLAF will have a prominent place at the heart of this endeavour.
Having said that, I in turn hope that this office will prosper, and for this to happen the old confrontations between the Commission, Parliament and the Council are of no import. But we must all tend this plant which is just beginning to take root, so that it can bear fruit for the good of the European Union, its economic and, above all, its fiscal policies.
Mr President, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, I should have spoken earlier but as I was otherwise engaged I would like to thank the Presidency for giving me the opportunity to take the floor now.
In my brief comments I am particularly keen to highlight the important role played by Mr Bösch who - even at times when it was not all that easy to make any headway with this idea - has always been very consistent in maintaining the need for an independent body, given the serious nature of the events which have occurred and the difficulties of tackling them.
I would also like to draw your attention to the many years of work done by the committee and by Mr Theato in order to establish a role for Parliament enabling legality and transparency to be improved.
The cooperation provided by the Committee on Civil Liberties and the reports we have produced have also played a part here.
On this report too, although we only played a minor role, we wanted to draw up an opinion which was consistent and in harmony with all the work done over the years.
We set out a short to medium-term solution, but we also - on the basis of Article 280 - mentioned a possible later development.
In fact I believe that the political legacy we have acquired - the independence of the Office - is one which should first be put into practice and then adapted and improved later.
We know that only an Office which is independent in its internal and external investigations can allow us adequately to combat the developments which have threatened to overwhelm our institutions.
I would add, however, that it is also highly important to monitor the Office's organisational capacity.
Woe betide us if a bureaucratic mentality were to destroy what should be a fresh new development: it is a new departure in institutional terms and this should also be the case when it comes to getting results.
May I conclude, Mr President, by giving my particular congratulations to the colleagues to whom we are most indebted for this work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 15 March 1999, under my chairmanship, the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers adopted a clear position: no leniency, zero tolerance of fraud and corruption in the Community.
Abuse of the money which belongs to the people of the Union damages the Community's reputation; headlines about it weaken public support for integration and push the Union's successes into the background.
That is why the creation of the new Fraud Investigation Office is a great opportunity for the Community and an important objective of our presidency.
The Council, Parliament and the Commission can hereby demonstrate their will and ability to protect Community resources effectively.
If we succeed in setting up the Office by 1 June this year, as planned, then this will be an important sign, and the fact that this is just a few days before the European Parliament elections will lend it a particular significance.
I believe that we have managed - in close cooperation with the European Parliament - to produce a workable blueprint.
I should like to single out three aspects of this.
Firstly, the proposal you have before you ensures that the Office will take effective action wherever the interests of the Community are at stake.
The Office has not only been tasked with external control - and this is undoubtedly important, because it is the Member States which administer around 80 % of Community aid - it will also be an independent guardian of Community interests within the bodies and institutions of the Community.
Many speakers have already pointed out the significance of this.
Secondly, even though the Office is being set up within the Commission, its operational independence is guaranteed.
The Director of the Office may not seek or accept instructions from anyone.
Decisions on opening, conducting and evaluating investigations are his personal responsibility.
The Commission can only appoint the Director in agreement with the European Parliament and the Council.
A committee of external, independent individuals will supervise and protect the Director's autonomous running of the Office.
Thirdly, although public interest is currently focused on uncovering suspected irregularities, prevention is of not inconsiderable importance.
That is another reason why the blueprint for OLAF is a good start, because the Office is called upon to collaborate on the overall strategy for fraud prevention and will also make its experience available for preventive initiatives.
With your permission, I will also say a few words on the timetable. The Office is meant to be created by 1 June.
Adoption by ECOFIN is planned for 25 May.
Afterwards the regulation will be signed by both the President of the European Parliament and the President-in-Office of the Council.
The accompanying agreement will be signed by the Presidents of the three bodies - Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
The other bodies and institutions are requested to enter into the agreement.
Finally, I should like to highlight the trusting and constructive cooperation we have enjoyed with the European Parliament delegation, in particular Mrs Theato and the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, and with Commissioner Gradin.
For all those who have worked on OLAF this has been an encouraging experience, which also bodes well for future cooperation.
Mr President, Mr Bösch's report and the Commission decision to establish a European fraud prevention office marks the end of a long process starting back in 1995.
Since then, we have come a long way when it comes to strengthening the tools in the fight against irregularities, fraud and corruption.
The European tax-payer has every right to expect us to protect their money and to administer it in an efficient way.
I am fully committed to meet this demand.
To me it is also a matter of credibility of our institutions.
I believe that the establishment of the OLAF responds to both these objectives.
The decision to establish this office is built on a constructive political dialogue between our two institutions and the Council.
Before I comment on Mr Bösch's report, I want to put the fight against fraud into its right perspective.
When I took office in 1995 the staff working in the anti-fraud area were still spread around several services of the Commission, with only around sixty staff working in UCLAF.
Since then, UCLAF's operational capacity has been considerably strengthened and the staff put under one roof.
Today, UCLAF has 141 staff to deal with around 1000 cases where there is suspicion of irregularities, fraud and corruption.
The number of cases under investigation has risen continuously.
This is, of course, regrettable but it is also a sign that we are getting better in our work to fight fraud.
During the course of last year much attention focused on the 27 internal investigations in the Commission.
It is often forgotten that the great majority of UCLAF investigations relate to external cases in the Member States.
I do not mention this to diminish the internal problem in the Commission: just one single internal case is one too many.
UCLAF works in close cooperation with Member States.
For instance, in the course of 1998 the total number of cases dealt with by the Member States and UCLAF was almost 5000 cases covering around EUR 1 billion.
This cooperation is particularly important since there is a growing number of fraud cases that cut across borders, as well as growing involvement of international organised crime.
The strengthening of UCLAF and its capacity to fight fraud stems from a number of internal Commission decisions.
As long ago as 1995 I took the initiative to bring together all the anti-fraud activities under the UCLAF umbrella.
This was followed up in 1997 with a decision to strengthen the independence of UCLAF by, among other things, giving the director the same status as the independent financial controller.
A new decision in 1998 transformed the office into a taskforce.
At the same time, units were added to UCLAF to deal with fraud in third countries, corruption inside the institutions, and the legal and judicial cooperation with Member States.
In July 1998 the Commission decided to further clarify, strengthen and make more transparent the UCLAF mandate.
The primary aims were to underline the obligations of staff to cooperate in investigations and at the same time to protect the rights of the individual.
Initiatives have also been taken to improve information about the work of UCLAF.
In early 1998 the Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, and I, agreed on a procedure to inform the committee in camera on ongoing UCLAF investigations as well as internal audit reports from the financial controller.
It is in fact UCLAF who brought information as regards suspicion of fraud to the committee's attention and not, as is often believed, journalists having conducted their own investigations.
One could therefore say that we, too, have been whistle-blowers.
Despite all these efforts it became increasingly clear during 1998 that one further step was necessary.
This is why I responded positively in July last year in the Committee on Budgetary Control to further increase UCLAF's independence.
As a consequence the Commission put forward a proposal to externalise UCLAF's investigation functions.
One of several important aspects to me was that this would avoid the situation where colleagues would investigate colleagues.
However, the proposal to externalise UCLAF was not acceptable to the Council and the European Parliament.
To find a solution a high-level working group was set up at the political level, with participation from Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Commissioners van Miert, Monti and I participated as the Commission representatives.
In this context I wish to stress that I found this interinstitutional way to find a compromise very constructive.
The Commission moved quickly to approve the first result of the work in the high-level group in March.
I shall not venture into a detailed account of how work progressed.
It is sufficient to note that the Commission has a adopted a decision to establish OLAF.
I wish to remind you that the establishment of the new office with the Commission will require resources, as Mr Blak also said.
The Office will need extra staff and expenditure is bound to increase in light of the broadened scope of operations.
A request for these additional resources must therefore be expected in the rectifying letter to the budget to be presented later this year to the new Parliament.
I trust that the budget authorities will receive this request positively.
Last Wednesday the Commission also took note of the amendments proposed by Parliament in the Bösch report.
I am very pleased to inform you that the Commission can accept all the amendments in this report.
The Commission has also approved the draft interinstitutional agreement which will enable the office to conduct internal administrative investigations in Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
I would very much like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Bösch, and other Members of the high-level group: Mrs Theato, Lord Tomlinson, Mr Blak and Mr Grosch.
My thanks also include the Council presidency which has participated in the group with the same positive spirit.
I believe that this joint process has proven highly effective.
It could set an example for the way our institutions could work together in other areas in the future.
I hope that Parliament, in its vote on the Bösch report on Thursday will recognise the important efforts made and the added possibility the OLAF will bring to the joint fight against fraud.
This would clear the way for the ECOFIN Council on 25 May to take the necessary decisions for OLAF to come into force on 1 June 1999.
I have always had the interests of the tax-payers foremost in mind.
With this initiative we are sending a clear signal that all three institutions share this concern.
With a new OLAF we will have a tool in place that will strengthen our fight against fraud and corruption considerably.
It is a great achievement for the Union and its citizens.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
Discharge
Mr President, so that the Minutes are correct, I should like to point out that the last letter of my name is an 'r' and not an 'n'.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you know, I have already had the opportunity of presenting the Council's views on the 1997 discharge procedure to your Budgetary Control Committee on 19 April.
The Council recommendation to give discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the 1997 budget is being made in spite of the fact that the Commission has already resigned.
As we know, the immediate cause of its resignation was the report of the Committee of Independent Experts on the responsibility of the Commission and individual members of the Commission for cases of fraud, mismanagement and nepotism which had occurred over a number of years.
I should like to state explicitly before Parliament that combating fraud is a matter of great concern to the Council.
The comments accompanying our recommendation to give discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the 1997 budget make this crystal clear and leave no room for doubt.
In Vienna, the European Council reaffirmed that it attaches great importance to the efficient fight against fraud, corruption and other criminal activity affecting the European Union's financial interests.
It expressed the wish that the Council - together with the other institutions - should successfully complete its examination of the proposals on the table before the Cologne European Council in June.
I should like to confirm that our presidency is trying to have the so-called OLAF regulation - which we have in fact just been debating - adopted by the ECOFIN Council on 25 May, and is doing so in extremely close cooperation with you, the Parliament.
This cooperation - and this has been highlighted by all the speakers - has further intensified in recent weeks because this is a problem of which the general public is aware and it needs to be resolved swiftly.
There is no doubt that the Council, like Parliament and the Commission, is making every effort to combat fraud, including in particular outside the context of the discharge procedure.
If I may, I will now return to the actual reason for my being here, the discharge for 1997.
It is true that the Court of Auditors' report contains a whole host of negative comments on the implementation of the budget - some of which I will be addressing shortly - but it would be over-simplistic to lay the entire blame for the shortcomings which have arisen at the door of the Commission.
They are partly the result of structural deficiencies to which the Member States have also contributed.
In making our recommendation, however, we also wish to acknowledge the efforts which the Commission has made so successfully in many sectors to tighten up financial management.
In the midst of all the criticism, this should not be forgotten.
Nevertheless, I should like to address a few points where there are particular grounds for criticism.
Firstly, I should like to stress how important it is to ensure that the internal organisation of the Commission is conducive to the efficient management of programmes.
For this to be the case, clear objectives need to be set which allow the efficiency of Community actions to be assessed accurately.
The Council is also very concerned about the fact that appropriations for general information measures and measures to provide the public with information about the European Union are still being utilised without a legal base.
In addition, the Council is unhappy that there are still numerous irregularities associated with payments made under the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund and for structural measures.
Nor is it justifiable that, contrary to the Financial Regulation - and I stress, contrary to the Financial Regulation - it is common practice in the field of research in particular to pay advances before the number of participants or the costs of the activities concerned are known.
Finally, it is regrettable that only a small proportion of the payment appropriations for external aid - and in particular for the priority programmes - has been used.
As far as the statement of assurance is concerned, the Council is deeply concerned that the Court of Auditors still has not been able to make a statement of this kind because a large number of mistakes are still being made with the implementation of payments.
Hardly any improvements can be noted on the previous financial year.
Having made these criticisms, I should also like to make a few more positive remarks.
The amendments made to the Financial Regulation in November 1998 have enabled financial control to be modernised, in particular as far as the release of unutilised appropriations is concerned.
But like the European Court of Justice - and probably also Parliament - the Council attaches great importance to the Financial Regulation being thoroughly modernised and completely recast.
We urgently request the Commission to table proposals to this effect.
I should also like to draw attention to the measures taken under the SEM 2000 initiative, thanks to which it has been possible to tighten up financial management considerably.
As the rapporteur for the 1997 discharge procedure, Mr Brinkhorst, emphasises, administrative cooperation both between the Commission and the Member States and among the Member States themselves needs to be stepped up further, given that a large proportion of the budget is implemented by the Member States.
Of course, this does not alter the fact that the Commission bears the responsibility for implementing the budget.
When it examined the 1997 annual report of the Court of Auditors, the Council also took into consideration all 25 special reports drawn up during 1998.
On some of them it jointly adopted specific conclusions, which have been included in the recommendation.
Finally, I should like to emphasise that the budgetary authority and the Member States need to ensure that taxpayers' money is not only accounted for properly but also used as efficiently as possible.
The Council is firmly resolved to work towards further improving the financial management of the Community.
This is a long-term task for all those who are responsible for managing Community funds.
In conclusion, I should like to mention a few points which played a part in the discussion with your Budgetary Control Committee, Mrs Theato.
It was suggested that we should hold a trilogue, or at least a dialogue, with you before the Council adopts its recommendation to grant discharge.
I am sorry, but we are rather hesitant about this suggestion.
We believe that the Council should first carry out the task which it is assigned in the Treaty of scrutinising the documents, and that only afterwards should we discuss the results with you.
We do agree with you, however, that the questions which have been raised need to be taken into account during the forthcoming reform of the Financial Regulation.
Your suggestion to further step up cooperation between national financial experts and between them and the Commission is something which we view favourably.
I am sure that further suggestions will now be made in the debate which I will then be able to pass on to the Council. Thank you for your attention.
Mr President, I rise to conclude what has been a historic discharge process where nothing has gone according to plan.
I hope that we will be able to conclude our deliberations on this report this week.
In doing so, I should like to make a few procedural and substantive points and then some concluding remarks.
On procedure, I would like to thank those colleagues in the Committee on Budget Control who have contributed towards this whole discharge process.
This discharge is, after all, one of many, and I happen to be the general rapporteur.
In December last year the majority of this House refused to grant discharge and it was referred back because there were problems in procedure which have now been sorted out by changing our rules to be in line with those of the Treaty.
We should now therefore move to a decision on this item.
We have seen during this process that some people have disapproved of having a discharge which was a political process.
I understand that particular problem.
I understand less those who have caused problems in this discharge process because it has been dealing with problems of substance.
Most of us now realise that it was the right time for this Parliament to refuse to grant discharge because that triggered all the rest of the events which happened in the months afterwards.
Yet today we see an amendment by the Socialist Group refusing to follow this definitive decision to grant discharge because it still seems to want to continue this process.
Have they learned nothing from this whole procedure? We should close it down today.
Moving to substantive items in the report which I submitted and which should now be an annex to this resolution, there were three major items which we highlighted, all of which have been confirmed by the report of the Committee of the Wise Men.
Firstly, lack of democratic accountability and access to information.
Secondly, real concern - and it is interesting to read it now after these months have past - about irregularities with Commissioners, and one in particular who, by her inability to resign, caused the resignation of all.
Perhaps the central feature was the weakness in management structure which was made very clear in paragraph 19 of this attached document which says: 'Weakness in management organisation led to operational distortions in implementing policies'.
Who knows, perhaps acting President Santer could have saved the Commission if earlier he had stopped running programmes for which he did not have staff.
Let me look also at one other substantive item in the original report of the 1996 discharge: the reform programme, which the acting President Santer took on board on 11 January in his reform programme of the Commission.
What has happened to these items now: the codes of conduct we asked for, the revision of the Statute, the nomination of A1 and A2 posts so as to make sure we have high quality at the top of the Commission and the screening report? All these things seem to have come into some murky area somewhere because one or two of the resolutions we have passed recently have failed to be specific on the requests we are putting to the Commission.
I would like to see these things at least clarified, perhaps by the Commissioner, so that the new Parliament will be able to dispose of these documents.
Looking ahead, there are two conclusions I would draw from this.
Firstly, so far as the Commission is concerned, we have a number of ideas which have been part of this reform process.
Fortunately, in the report on the 1997 discharge, which my friend and colleague, Mr Brinkhorst, will be introducing shortly, we shall see a number of those ideas presented.
Secondly, I hope that this document will be available to the new Parliament and the acting Commission, and its new President designate, Mr Prodi, so that parliamentarians in a new Parliament have the information they need to ensure the nomination of commissioners is done effectively.
We do not want to leave the feeling in the Commission with this whole 1996 discharge that we do not rate highly the vast majority of the Commission officials.
I used to be one myself.
I am perfectly well aware of the high quality of people there, but we want to make sure that it is always high quality.
We should not condemn the whole system just because of one bad apple.
Lastly, it has actually been Parliament above all who has campaigned on this process. It is not, I am afraid, the Council.
It granted discharges. It was Parliament coming of age, and it will have to be proven in the new Parliament that we are capable of meeting our responsibilities.
Mr President, it is clear that the conclusions of this report for 1997 are very specific and very clear, namely, a postponement of discharge on institutional grounds.
I should like to thank all colleagues.
The Committee on Budgetary Control wanted to go further.
It did not want - in terms of the 1996 discharge - to waste time.
This is not possible.
We should go beyond that.
And it is against that background that the Budget Control Committee voted the document which you find as an annex.
In a sense it is the history after 1996.
It is also the political nature of this report to put the discharge procedure in a broader perspective.
As the President-in-Office of the Council just indicated, there are a number of novel features which should be taken into account in future.
We should not just criticise the past, we should look to the future.
That is the significance of this particular annex, on the discharge procedure itself, on the information to be given in future.
There are comments on what has led to the situation just described by my colleague, Mr Elles, a new staffing policy, questions on the BATs, the Committee of Experts' report and also some guidelines for the Commission reform.
That is why the report consists of more than simply the statement that we should refuse a discharge at this particular time.
I am very pleased with the comment of the President-in-Office of the Council because part of this report is also oriented towards the new partnership between the Commission and the Member States as well as the cooperation between the Member States themselves.
I welcome the statement by the Council that it will not fall on deaf ears.
As the Council executes about 95 % of the budget it is necessary that more action should be taken.
I hope the time will come when, like in the Committee on Budgets, we will work much more closely together with the Council on budget control.
We find some specific recommendations on that particular point.
The Annex basically has three purposes.
Our purpose is to state from the point of view of Parliament where we stand at the present time.
It is also an account of what happened after the 1996 procedure.
Secondly, as Mr Elles has already said, it provides an indication - though we should never seek to govern beyond our grave, certainly not a rapporteur who is leaving this Parliament - to the new Parliament about the kind of issues which can be used to judge the new Commission during the hearings.
That is an important point in itself.
It is not binding but it is an indication.
For that reason it is a contribution from the Committee on Budgetary Control and will not be voted by Parliament as such.
Thirdly, we want to be a constructive Parliament.
As Parliament acquires more responsibility and power it should also be a partner, not only in criticising, but also in helping the Commission to carry out its tasks independently but with accountability.
It is therefore also an element of the work programme for the future Commission which we hope will be taken on board.
Let me clear up one misunderstanding.
I had the opportunity of discussing this with Commissioner Liikanen at an earlier stage but I would also like to say it in public.
It cannot be the role of the Court of Auditors to replace the Commission, nor Parliament.
Some requests to the Court of Auditors to participate in certain studies should not be seen as taking away the responsibility of action by the Commission or by Parliament.
But the Court of Auditors has played a very important and useful role in this process between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
It is against that background that I would like finally to say that it would be useful if the Council itself reviewed its procedures as regards interaction between the Court of Auditors and the national bodies.
I hear too often that national courts of auditors have a different role, that they cannot fulfil a function within the Community system.
As we move into a new phase, a new situation where it is not the Commission or the Member States, but the Commission and the Member States, I would call on the President of the Council to study this particular issue of activities between the Court of Auditors and the national auditing bodies in future.
Mr President, we shall now move on to the discharge of the so-called 'other sections', starting with the first section: Parliament and the Ombudsman.
In respect of Parliament and the document before us, the large number of cancelled appropriations is striking.
I should like to make it clear that the reason for this was the delay affecting the D-3 building in Brussels and IPE 4 in Strasbourg.
Since we are reviewing 1997, which is in the past, I should like to emphasise for everyone's peace of mind that there was a steady improvement in the number of appropriations cancelled in subsequent years.
As regards aid to democratically elected parliaments in Central and Eastern Europe, 30 % of initial appropriations were not used.
This, too, may seem surprising, but the reasons for this state of affairs and possible improvements are clear.
We would like to take the opportunity provided by the 1997 discharge document to draw attention to the fact that the necessary resources should be made available to the Committee on Budgetary Control to allow it to monitor the appropriations granted to the political groups and the expenses incurred by the secretarial services.
In addition, it is worth emphasising that we are continuing to call for a regulation on the legal status of the political parties in Europe.
Nevertheless, we request that discharge for 1997 be granted where Parliament is concerned.
Moving on to the Ombudsman, the 82.1 % implementation rate is of note. I do not wish to imply that this is due to a shortage of staff.
The department in question is constantly requesting additional staff, but it is certainly worth emphasising that this is a new institution; after all, we are still referring to 1997. It is clear that the budget allocated to the Ombudsman is being used more and more effectively as the years go on.
Discharge should also be granted in the case of the Ombudsman.
In the case of the Court of Justice, it is important to mention the advantages resulting from the leasing arrangements concerning the annexes to the Palais.
As regards the earlier payments of ECU 50 million, I would like to remind you of a concern we had at the time in relation to the commitments made to Parliament by the Luxembourg Government.
Back in 1997, we were not certain if these commitments would be fulfilled.
We really did not know what problems could arise. However, in the light of events in 1997 and later, we must now thank the Luxembourg Government for the excellent work it carried out.
We propose that discharge also be granted to the Court of Justice.
Turning to the Court of Auditors, I would simply like to say that in 1997 the usual problems of budgetary inadequacy were satisfactorily resolved, and almost without effort. This was due to the favourable movement in the conversion rate between the euro - then the ecu - and Luxembourg's currency.
Similarly, we are in favour of granting discharge to the Court of Auditors.
As far as the Committee of the Regions is concerned, it should be pointed out that budgetary forecasting needs to be improved. In particular, the haphazard programming of activities should be tackled because it means we are constantly being called on to make significant transfers.
Nevertheless, we are in favour of granting discharge to the Committee of the Regions.
Finally, there is the Economic and Social Committee, the only area where we do have a problem.
As you are aware, discharge for the Economic and Social Committee is still pending, awaiting a report by UCLAF.
Discharge for the Economic and Social Committee is therefore conditional on the findings of the report on its activities which UCLAF - the fraud prevention unit - is due to present.
We therefore propose that discharge for the Economic and Social Committee be postponed.
Since this is a joint debate, I do not wish to conclude without stating that my delegation - my delegation and I myself - have already made our position on the 1996 budget discharge quite clear. Further, the resignation of the Commission cannot now be used as an excuse to disregard the commitments made by Mr Santer.
These commitments should be honoured by the incoming President, Mr Prodi.
Mr President, I am going to talk about the ECSC accounts, and I would like to say that this has developed into a success story.
When I took over the accounts, we had a mass of problems.
We were swamped with the usual stories.
Everything was in chaos.
Who can forget the interest subsidy which ran for ten years, and which we could not end because of foot-dragging? There was a mass of corruption.
There was the case of the purchase of apartments when the Commission moved into fine premises in Paris.
In brief, there was a great deal of confusion, and there was disorder and chaos.
Then we took matters in hand and we sorted them out. I am glad to say that we in the committee have decided today that we are pleased to give a discharge in this area.
When I look back I think of how, for example, we stood on the verge of possibly losing billions in connection with the Channel Tunnel.
This appears to have been resolved, and now it is a success story.
In Denmark, we had a case concerning the Great Belt bridge, where the loan was rather too large.
There were a few billion to play with, but that case too was sorted out.
All this is thanks to positive cooperation, and because we were able to obtain information and because we could talk with an excellent Commissioner.
I would like to commend Mr Liikanen.
It was possible to talk to him.
Every time there was a problem, we went to him and we always got the problem solved.
So there has been good cooperation in connection with the accounts of the European Coal and Steel Community.
But there have been problems in another area, the granting and uptake of loans in Europe, which I have been concerned with as part of Mr Brinkhorst's report.
Here we see some obstinate people who talk down to us - I shall refrain from mentioning the name of the President of the European Investment Bank.
Year after year, we have pointed out that we have a right to come and inspect the Bank.
'It is not your concern', he says. 'We have some small private shareholders, and out of consideration for them you cannot enter, and in any case everything is going well with us.'
In my capacity as rapporteur, I have received a piece of paper which says that the Bank has in fact lost billions on failed investments and that the money is hidden in the accounts or has been offset.
That is unacceptable. It led to me recommending that we should not give a discharge for the 1997 accounts.
We are sick and tired of lies from people who sit and hide things from Europe's taxpayers.
We will simply not put up with it.
Last year, we had problems with the accounts and I refused to give a discharge.
The committee supported me.
Then we reached an agreement whereby the Commission intervened and made it possible for us to reach a sensible solution, enabling us to monitor the taxpayers' money.
More than 80 % of the funds in the various institutions in the European Investment Fund is our money.
So what did they do when we gave a discharge? They short-changed us, so to speak, and backed out of the agreement, in spite of the fact that we had goodness knows how many meetings and spent goodness knows how much time setting it up.
That cannot be allowed to go on.
Let us give a clear signal from this House to Sir Brian Unwin: we are no longer prepared to listen to lies about how everything is perfect.
This is going to be cleared up now.
We want to know how DKK 4 to 5 billion can disappear in the accounts.
It is quite simply an outrageous scandal.
It may well be as they say that the money is not lost because it may return, because they have not sold bonds.
We do not want to hear such stories.
We simply have to say quite bluntly that it is over.
They cannot have the accounts approved if there is no audit whereby we can go in and check up on the Community's money. So let us end our cooperation with them.
It cannot be right that we have to pay for everything which they sit and play with, and that they can then play with the profits afterwards.
We have no wish to see examples of how bond purchases, amongst many other things, are placed with various friends in various places for far less than can be got back.
This is a real scandal.
If the Commission can be brought down for as little as it was, these people should have been thrown out long ago so that they never have any chance of returning.
So here we need to have a powerful Commission which can really go in and check, and we need some people who are willing to cooperate, as Mr Liikanen has cooperated with us, so that we can get this cleared up.
I would also like to say that I was moved to tears when I heard the Council speak about all the things they would like to do. But why do you rubber-stamp the accounts every single year and say that you are making recommendations?
You have never applied the brakes. I think the Council should take a look at this area, and the new Commission should get to grips with these things.
There really is something to get to grips with here.
Mr President, this is the fifteenth time I have moved the discharges, first for Dublin and Berlin, and now Thessaloniki.
I have to admit that not all the debates have been as exciting and as exhilarating as this one.
However, these two first-generation agencies are a good example of how control can be exerted by Parliament.
The Committee on Budgetary Control is very much helped by the European Court of Auditors - and I should like to thank them for their two special reports on these two agencies.
I should also like to thank the Council which has latterly - and I emphasise latterly because in the early years this did not happen - been putting forward considered recommendations to Parliament to grant discharge.
One also has to admit that these agencies are small and therefore easier to control, but the cooperation on control really does work.
Far from resenting control, the agencies welcome the European Parliament's involvement.
It would help, though, if the second-generation agencies could be treated in the same way.
Again, I appeal to the Council because Parliament, together with the Commission, has put forward considered amendments to the statutes which would make the situation of the new agencies the same as the old.
The reports are not long because there is no point in finding fault where faults do not exist.
The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions had a memorandum of understanding with the Agency for Health and Safety to avoid overlapping, because one of the things Parliament insists upon is that the work of these agencies should not overlap.
I welcome their attempts to reduce mission expenditure.
It is rather funny because if you look back a year or two you will find that the Court of Auditors was criticising officials from Dublin who used the weekend as part of their mission - obviously people like to have a trip home at the same time.
But now they want the members of the agency to use the special pex tickets which are only available over weekends because a Saturday night has to be involved.
It is just a change of opinion within the Court.
I am very happy to recommend discharge for the European Foundation in Dublin.
I now turn to CEDEFOP which has finally got over that tragic move from Berlin to Thessaloniki.
I am not attacking Thessaloniki in any way; the fact is that if the Council look up the minutes, they will find it was a mistake to consign CEDEFOP to Thessaloniki in the first place, and the poor Commission and Parliament have been trying to pick up the pieces.
However, the new building should be ready for occupation in July.
I wish them well in their new building.
I can see that the various staffing arrangements are now properly in place and I understand that out of all the staffing of the centre only two A grades remain to be filled.
I have no hesitation at all in recommending discharge also for CEDEFOP.
Mr President, I look forward to the day - and I do not think it will be long ahead - when the Court of Auditors is able to give these two agencies a certificate of assurance for 'keeping their noses clean' so to speak and for getting good reports from the Court.
Mr President, this Parliament will go down in history not so much as the Parliament which brought about the collective resignation of the Commission, but as the Parliament which brought about structural changes, which are already underway, to the organisation and operation of the Commission, the foremost institution charged with pushing forward European integration.
Appended to the motion for a resolution which you will be invited to vote on tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, is a working document which enumerates the points that need to be clarified by the Commission, to enable the Parliament that will be voted in following the June elections to grant the discharge for 1997.
This working document is being held in trust by Parliament to be handed on to the new Parliament.
I would like to raise one of the points mentioned in this working document, which concerns the famous Regulation 3245/81. This was a joke regulation in the sense that it was adopted, it entered into force, was published in the Official Journal of the European Communities, but it was never implemented in practice.
This regulation provides for the establishment of a European Association for Cooperation to take on the work of a Belgian private law foundation.
It was never implemented but, despite this, for a number of years it was referred to in Community budgets as the legal base for capital to be made available from the Community budget to fund the activities of this Belgian private law foundation.
As a result, I hope and I believe - or rather, I am sure - that the structural changes that are currently being made to the organisation and operation of the Commission will make it easy for the next Parliament, which will have the backing of the Commission and will not have to put up with what we have had to put up with over the last three years, to provide explanations and come up with solutions.
I wish it all the best.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, although the Committee on Development and Cooperation has to grant discharge for the European Development Fund each year, it does not have any influence on how this fund is used because it has not so far been integrated into the budget.
Governments have repeatedly signalled, before taking up the Council presidency, that they might be able to support integrating it into the budget.
Later, however, numerous reasons have been found for postponing this decision after all.
One of the committee's specific criticisms of the 1997 budget is that large amounts are transferred from one Development Fund to the next.
The suggestion is therefore being made to simplify the management of appropriations.
With regard to the appropriations for cofinancing, the committee also criticises the fact that individual projects take too long to complete and that the supply of funds in particular often causes huge problems for the non-governmental organisations.
The Court of Auditors and the Development Committee are waiting rather anxiously to see whether the new structures which the Commission is now introducing will prove to be effective here.
That is why the Committee on Development and Cooperation requests that a report should be submitted to it next March on experiences with the new structures.
The committee also takes the view that the response to the procedural shortcomings criticised by the Court of Auditors should be for a minimum degree of competition to be required, in particular in the tendering and award procedures.
Nevertheless, the committee agrees with granting discharge for the 1997 Development Fund.
Development cooperation is not one of the areas which voters immediately see as an essential part of European policy.
We are therefore all the more dependent on financial resources being used transparently and in a way which people can understand.
Mr President, speaking as the coordinator for the Socialist Group, I want to address my remarks to three of the reports before us today.
I shall begin with discharge 1996.
My Group can see no reason not to grant discharge for the 1996 budget.
In the course of the discharge proceedings and in the light of the Court of Auditors' report, we asked a series of very searching questions of the Commission.
I am sure that colleagues here are aware that the Commission came back with a series of responses to those questions which, to my Group, were satisfactory enough for us to grant discharge.
The five questions put down were answered.
It must be said that from our side we believe that the rapporteur is playing petty party politics with the whole question of discharge for 1996.
It has taken a great deal of effort to persuade the rapporteur to bring forward a report closing the accounts for 1996 so that we can proceed with the 1997 discharge.
We do not agree with the wording in paragraph 1, and we wish to delete the word 'definitive' from that paragraph because no vote was ever taken in Parliament on the question of the 1996 discharge, which was recommended by the Committee on Budgetary Control to this House.
The report was withdrawn and referred back to committee in the light of other events.
If no vote was taken, we cannot have a definitive report.
If one good thing has come out of the 1996 report, it has been the access which the Committee on Budgetary Control has had to persons and papers.
If we are to continue to be an effective Budgetary Control Committee, this must continue in an unfettered way.
On a more pleasing note, let me move on to my second set of remarks on the 1997 budget.
My Group will support the report put forward by Mr Brinkhorst, the rapporteur, to postpone discharge.
We agree entirely with the reasons for postponement; that is there is no Commission in place to receive that discharge.
In the committee, we have had a long series of discussions on the substantive questions we want both the DGs and the new Commission to address.
These are reflected in the working document.
I should like to commend Mr Brinkhorst on the detailed work he has put into this.
I hope that when the Commission comes back to us in the new Parliament it will take on board and use as a blueprint those questions which are asked in the working document, especially on staffing policies, TAOs, Leonardo and the way in which PHARE and TACIS is operated.
This is so critical for us to function as a parliament.
On the comment that Mr Brinkhorst makes on the question of the decentralised agencies - which Mr Kellett-Bowman has picked up - it is essential that the Council address that question, which both Parliament and the Commission have agreement on.
This brings me to the report by Mr Kellett-Bowman.
Again, my friend, and I should like to say colleague, has produced two excellent reports on Dublin and Thessalonika.
He says he has drawn up 15 reports in his time.
This may well be the last report that Mr Kellett-Bowman draws up on the decentralised agencies.
I wish to put on public record the high esteem in which I hold him as co-rapporteur on the Committee on Budgets for the satellite agencies.
He has taught me and has been an excellent colleague, very thoughtful, critical and precise.
As a lasting memorial to his work, I should like to see the Council now, in recognition of the work he has done, agree to the changes in the statutes for the second generation agencies - changes on the own-resources question, changes on financial control and changes on discharge that will allow Parliament to carry out its responsibilities properly.
Let that be a lasting testament to his work.
Mr President, this evening we have a veritable marathon of a debate to complete on discharge reports.
Six reports are on the agenda.
I will not comment on all of them, but will turn to the first, Mr Elles's report, which is not actually a discharge report because it proposes closing the accounts for 1996, and I believe that this is right.
We need to find a way to bring this process to an end, although I do believe that discharge was not given here, because if we look at the result of December's vote, it is clear that the points made previously in support of the decision, the positive decision put forward by the Committee on Budgetary Control, were rejected by the plenary.
That means that no discharge was granted.
Our Rules of Procedure were awry.
Now they have been amended, and there is no need for these matters to arise again.
We have a precedent for not granting discharge, the 1982 budget, for which the accounts were subsequently closed in 1985.
That is how we should proceed here; we should, however, also bear in mind all the consequences which this has had politically.
That is why it does not make any sense from a political point of view to grant discharge at this stage, because we do not have a Commission in office any more.
It has resigned.
Nevertheless, there will be no need for us to condemn everything that the Commission has done and neither do we wish to do so.
Nor have we ever implied that Commissioners were guilty of being directly involved in criminal activities.
No, but we have established that there is a need for restructuring and that new areas need to undergo a series of reforms which will make us in the European Union fit for the next millennium.
In this respect, this crisis, which began with the discharge or refusal of discharge for 1996 and the continuation for 1997 - for which we are not recommending discharge either this week, but postponement of discharge - was a necessary crisis, if we think of the positive lessons which we have learnt from it, and which we would have liked to pass on to this Commission, Mr Liikanen.
But that is not how it has turned out.
We all know what has happened.
In both reports, Mr Elles's report, and here I am also bringing in our rapporteur for 1997, Mr Brinkhorst, two points really do need to be emphasised: we have not voted on conditions for giving discharge; we have annexed working documents.
This is an unusual procedure, but I believe that it was the right approach to take, and these documents contain the suggestions - and indeed the demands - which we are passing on to the future Commission.
I hope that the new Parliament and the new Commission will make use of them.
With your permission, I will just add a word to our rapporteur, Mr Fabra Vallés. He has produced a very accurate report for the other institutions.
I do think, however, and here I also have the support of the rapporteur, that we must carry out the same controls here and apply standards in our own House which are just as tough as the ones we have imposed on the Commission.
That is why the Council and the Commission, but also Parliament, must abide by the decisions we adopted in the Tsatsos report, for example on party financing, and we must also act properly where filling posts and promotions are concerned.
We owe this to everyone.
Thank you, Mr President, for giving me the floor once more, and I should also like to thank all the other rapporteurs, whose reports should go through smoothly.
Mr President, we are now discussing six reports dealing with the subject of the discharge.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their excellent work.
Four reports propose that the discharge should be granted, one that it should be postponed, and one that it should be refused.
The discharge process for the budget this year has become an immense political task.
So it was too last autumn and winter, in connection with the 1996 budget, which led to the Commission's resignation.
Although the process has led to many improvements and positive settlements and solutions, there is a danger that the assessment and discharge process will become inappropriately broad in scope, since the EU's instruments state that Parliament must give a discharge in respect of the implementation of the budget.
The wording stipulates that giving discharge is the aim, with any obstacles being removed beforehand.
Discharge is thus the object of the exercise.
Discharge as a vote of confidence in the Commission is, however, too broad an interpretation, in my opinion, and there are two reasons for avoiding this.
Although discharge, as it reflects the rules on accounting, is required be granted, Parliament must always be able to intervene in the work of the Commission if it so wishes.
Giving discharge cannot be allowed to act as a barrier to intervention.
Furthermore, in the present situation we can see a backlog starting to build up, with the discharge processes relating to several separate years remaining uncompleted.
Good administration needs to be clear and systematic, and that applies to Parliament also.
The decision on discharge must not be too ponderous or broad in scope, and it should not lead to a situation in which no one dares to give discharge.
With these observations I wish to say that the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party supports Mr Brinkhorst's report as it stands and without amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in examining the report by our colleague Mr Brinkhorst on the postponement of discharge for the 1997 financial year, we are not aiming to dwell on the serious grievances that have swamped the Commission in recent years and forced it to resign.
We are now at the end of a very eventful and stormy period during which the Commission tarnished its image and lost its credibility.
And yet we must continue, and to continue means to look to the future and take stock of the task in hand so that where there has been defeat, failure and negativity, tomorrow there will be success, transparency and confidence.
Contrary to what the Council has done lightly and thoughtlessly, we will not grant discharge to the Commission today since, as Laurens Jan Brinkhorst so well explained, discharge will not be granted to a resigning Commission that can no longer advise the European Parliament on future guidelines.
Postponement is therefore the most appropriate solution technically speaking and in political terms it constitutes something of a peace gesture towards the new Commission. However, it does not dismiss the need for us to remain as vigilant as possible or the need to act with a certain resolve.
The future message we should like to give to the new Commission involves what we no longer want at any cost and what we do want at all costs. We no longer want a weak Commission that is non-existent politically speaking and that is incapable of controlling and managing its administration.
We do not want a Commission where the Commissioners are transformed into shepherds that follow their flocks. We do not want a Commission where some officials, who perhaps head an agency with a particular status, turn out to be true petty tyrants of the organisation, imposing their wishes and desires on their Commissioner, who then admits his ignorance of and lack of interest in the issue even when it concerns an amendment to the Community budget adopted by the European Parliament whose implementation does not present any budgetary difficulties or problems relating to the legal basis.
We had the misfortune to experience such a Commission and it is precisely what we do not want to see repeated.
I have reread President Santer's speech and I remember that during his investiture in January 1995 he committed himself, in front of this very House, to a genuine culture of financial management.
In the light of recent events, it is all too easy to see the irony in that today.
It is clear that nothing has been done.
The Commission's only reaction has been to take several subsequent measures aimed at filling in the gaps and appeasing Parliament, but nothing has been drawn up or thought out and no ideas have been formed.
There have been no reforms; the Commission has simply limited itself to promises, preferring rhetoric over action.
The truth is that the Commission was able to identify the problem of the financial mismanagement of European Union policies, but it was unable to come up with any solutions that it could turn into specific actions.
The example of SEM 2000 and the installation of the new ROLEX system to manage all external contracts are good examples of this.
Another example of inefficiency, this time in the area of Community transport, is the computerisation of transit procedures which has met with many delays.
A final example is that of the technical assistance offices which, as everyone knows, have caused many problems in recent years.
However, in spite of the European Parliament's insistence, the Commission still appears to be continuing to entrust the TAOs with the preparation of invitations to tender and the lists of projects to be retained.
The Commission is not to decide on the projects to be retained, but is to ratify the list drawn up by the private consultants, which, in my view, is unacceptable.
So, in short, this is what we do not wish to see repeated.
On the other hand, we do want a Commission that takes full responsibility for its actions and choices, that is transparent in its institutional dialogue and that takes on the role of monitoring the operational policies that the services are responsible for implementing.
Since the Court of Auditors has been drawing up the Statement of Assurance concerning activities financed from the general budget of the European Union, the statement has been negative.
However, we hope that a new Commission that is politically consistent and responsible will enable the Court of Auditors to finally draw up a positive Statement of Assurance for the first time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as everyone knows, we must not be too quick to criticise those who are coming to our aid.
Let us hope that the new Commission will be able to learn from recent events so that it can successfully complete its mandate and so that today's failure opens the way to tomorrow's success.
We are eagerly awaiting Mr Romano Prodi's arrival in the hope that something good will come of something bad.
Mr President, I have two brief comments to make. The first one concerns the granting of discharge for 1997 for the Commission and for the Economic and Social Committee.
It does seem natural to me that this be carried over to the next parliamentary term. However, as rapporteur on the discharge for the Economic and Social Committee for the 1996 financial year, I must stress that discharge cannot be granted until UCLAF has delivered its conclusions on the irregularities detected.
There is no doubt that efforts have been made to correct these irregularities, even to the extent of altering certain working methods, but this does not justify ruling out UCLAF's intervention.
Parliament considered at the time that this intervention was essential for granting the discharge and the Council itself has also recently repeated that this is necessary.
The failure to complete the 1996 discharge clearly means that the 1997 discharge is being delayed.
I will not go into the discharge procedure for 1996 and the Commission, as I feel that the facts of the matter and the responsibilities assumed speak for themselves.
Moreover, parliamentary history will do the rest.
However, I do want to underline my dissatisfaction with the final solution which some are insisting on recommending in order to complete the procedure. It seems to me that this is completely at odds with the facts and the incomparable importance this procedure has assumed.
Mr President, I should like to concentrate on the Elles report concerning the accounts for 1996.
From our group's point of view, it is clear that we cannot close the Commission's accounts, since there are still some unresolved cases concerning which the Greens have tabled three amendments.
It is of course still the case that a sum of nearly EUR 40 000 was paid to a visiting scholar in breach of the Commission's conditions, and this must naturally be looked into.
Certain unclear points in the Commission's accounts therefore have to be explained before the accounts can be closed.
We have thus tabled Amendment No 1, in which we give the alternative wording: 'takes note of the following data established by the Commission in order to close the accounts for the financial year 1996'.
However, we cannot close the accounts.
I am surprised to see that the Socialists are tabling an amendment which would do away with paragraph 1 of the Elles report, which is the vital one, stating that we recall our definitive decision not to grant discharge to the Commission in respect of the 1996 financial year.
It should be clear to everyone that this paragraph must remain.
As regards the Brinkhorst report, the same thing applies, namely that discharge cannot be given until a great deal of missing information is supplied by the Commission.
The Greens have tabled a number of amendments relating to this report as well.
Mr President, since the post-war years an insidious practice has grown up in Italy, resulting in even illustrious lawyers justifying the distinction that is made between the constitution as written and the constitution as applied in practice.
Following a philosophy which can be traced back in particular to the culture of the Communist Party and to an idea of the sociology-inspired left, it is said that, although written texts exist, they can be amended if so desired by the majority or by a dominant group in politics or public opinion.
This is still considered acceptable: written texts can hence be spirited away because at the end of the day theory takes second place to practice.
In countries with an Anglo-Saxon legal system, where there is no constitution, it seems to me that the rule of law is the cardinal principle which governs these countries, and indeed governs them much better and has protected them from the type of vision which at any point allows the majority to decide whatever it likes: there are laws, there are texts but that does not matter, you can say something completely different as long as this is what the majority wants.
And this is indeed the principle which in many countries has led to totalitarianism, intolerance and 'people's democracies'.
Liberals, who have always taken the rule of law as the cornerstone of their political action, have always based their arguments on the principle that there can be no objection to the texts themselves.
Now, in our regulatory texts, leaving aside the amendment of the regulation we will be voting on tomorrow, the way in which the budget discharge procedure is regulated is set out in black and white for all to see; one may disagree with it but that is the way it is: if a text is tabled in this House and the proposal to which it refers is rejected, the proposal is referred back to the committee responsible.
It is extremely serious that this Parliament's final act should be to vote on a text which says something erroneous, or rather states - and in a forum which one might expect to respect the rule of law - that after referring back to committee, in other words rejecting, the proposal by Mr Elles, the rapporteur on the 1996 discharge procedure, that discharge should be granted to the Commission - actually meaning that the European Parliament would not grant discharge - we are today voting on a text which says something entirely wrong.
On a political level, there may have been the resignations and there may therefore be a majority as far as the form is concerned but that is an entirely separate argument.
I will fight and vote against asserting something which quite simply is not the case.
Mr President, the latest Elles report marks the end of an eventful discharge procedure, a procedure that needs to be transparent so that the order of events is not forgotten.
More than a year ago, on 31 March 1998, the European Parliament decided to postpone the decision to grant the Commission discharge for the financial year 1996.
We must not forget that following on from this, at the beginning of December, the Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Committee on Budgetary Control decided nevertheless to recommend to the House that it grant discharge for the Commission.
On 17 December 1998, the majority of the House fortunately allowed common sense to prevail and refused to grant discharge.
Given the seriousness of the irregularities and the examples of mismanagement, we immediately sought to take appropriate action and proposed that a motion of censure should be tabled.
The motion was then tabled on 11 January by 70 Members from all the political groups, who at that time were heavily criticised with no right of reply, and I am thinking, in particular, of the chairman of the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
However, 232 Members decided to match their words with actions by supporting the motion of censure against the Commission.
Then, a committee of 'wise men' was set up as part of a manoeuvre that was designed to overturn their decision.
This committee naturally confirmed what the majority of Members had suspected.
We welcome today's calls by our colleague James Elles for the situation to be clarified once and for all and for the discharge to be refused outright while the accounts are adopted.
We expect Parliament to support him and to do so openly.
Mr President, I should like to say a few words on the postponement of the discharge for 1997, not least in view of what we have just been discussing, namely that where OLAF is concerned, we have actually found a basis on which the institutions can work together, which is obviously also a good indication of the political will to cooperate that exists.
We have of course also drawn up a number of special documents on this discharge, in other words on Mr Brinkhorst's report, and I have to say that I am rather irritated that we have not received any response at all from the current Commission to documents which will soon be three months old.
I know that this Commission has only been an acting Commission for some time.
However, I am assuming that individual Commissioners might perhaps also wish to belong to the next Commission.
I think that precisely from the point of view of political understanding, it is very important to realise that Parliament cannot be treated like this!
Of course, we do not always expect results of investigations down to the last detail, but we do still have unfinished business to complete.
The chairman of the Budgetary Control Committee, Mrs Theato, has already referred today, for example, to the fact that we still have to accept that the cases which were submitted to us of officials being involved in instances of fraud have not yet been presented in a form which we can understand.
As far as the ECHO case is concerned, we have to take it that this affair could assume even greater proportions, but there is not even any information available on the events relating to 1997 - and it is the 1997 financial year that we are dealing with here.
The same applies to the points which we have touched on concerning agriculture which various other colleagues are also working on.
We have made a great deal of effort with the new anti-fraud authority.
Of course this has involved the application of a little friendly pressure, in particular on the part of the Council presidency and our own House, to make the Commission finally understand that it cannot simply deny facts which are on the table.
Otherwise we will have to deal with these matters in another forum, and that would be before the European public.
I do not wish to threaten anyone, but we have to state clearly what we as a Parliament expect of the Commission in terms of accountability, in particular if any of its Members also wish to be in the next Commission!
Mr President, the 1996 and 1997 discharge procedures changed the way the institutions work together in the field of budgetary control - before, we only had cooperation of this sort with the budget.
I said in the debate on the 1996 discharge back in December that I was actually disappointed by our arrogance - as reflected in the Treaties - in not even allowing for the possibility of discharge being refused.
Mrs Theato pointed this out, and the Rules Committee of this House has now rectified the situation at last.
Now, of course, I should also like to invite the Council to continue its work, so that it too will finally meet the conditions.
Our group has been consistent in its position; it is also thanks to the stubborn and tough stance deliberately adopted by our rapporteur, Mr Elles, that ultimately the whole House has gone along with this approach, and today we have a success for which we in principle have only one person to thank, the rapporteur, Mr Elles, with his report on the 1996 budget discharge.
Discharge will not be granted for 1996, the accounts will be closed, and discharge can only be given for 1997 if - as you have just quite rightly said, Mr Bösch - the deficiencies are ironed out; the fact that they have not been has of course just been criticised by us both.
A working paper and work programme have already been included in the Elles report; no one has yet reacted to them.
There was a report from the Committee of Wise Men, and this in fact only confirmed what we had already established ourselves.
Now we are in a state of uncertainty which will drag on until September if the Committee of Wise Men presents a second report, and I do not believe that anyone in this House is happy about being in limbo in this way.
But to avoid overburdening the 1998 discharge procedure with these problems as well, the 1997 discharge procedure has to be brought to a conclusion.
If it is not, we shall never be finished with this matter and I will probably be affected by this personally in the 1998 budgetary procedure.
That is why I wish to invite the Commission - whoever wishes to take the responsibility for this - finally to take the measures which we have demanded.
I am already worried, Mrs Cresson; your work with Leonardo concerned the 1998 financial year.
At the time, we were accused of confusing 1996 and 1998.
No, the problem is that this came to light in 1998, and I should like to ask you, Mr Liikanen, to tell your colleagues that at that time, in the summer, we sat upstairs on the seventh floor - things were really pleasant and friendly then - and made you an offer: be open, admit your mistakes, show us where the faults lie, and we will be prepared to compromise.
That did not happen, and now you will have to find a way of dealing with the severity with which you are now being treated.
But this is also significant for the 1997 and 1998 discharges.
I now turn to the House itself.
Since the very member of the Socialist Group who has been the most cooperative towards us is sitting here, I will actually avoid criticising the Socialist Group; otherwise I would have said that the dilemma facing us today is in fact the fault of the Socialist Group.
Mr President, it has been a difficult task for the rapporteur, Mr Brinkhorst, and for the Committee on Budgetary Control to work on the 1997 discharge, because there has been no 'proper' Commission with which to discuss the discharge for 1997.
Let me say that it is deplorable that the Member States did not appoint a new operational Commission long ago, because the acting Commission is in a state of paralysis and has chosen to be unwilling to take any kind of initiative to rectify errors or omissions.
Obviously, in such a situation we cannot give a discharge.
But even more important are the real political problems which remain unresolved.
There has still been no reform of staff policy and still no improvement has been made in the administration of the various programmes.
Especially in connection with the Central and Eastern European countries, with which I have worked a great deal, it is disastrous that people are incapable of turning the budgeted amounts into concrete projects, that the rules on open tendering and on concluding contracts are not being observed, and that no results can be shown in connection with the programme for the safety of nuclear power stations, to mention but a few specific examples.
We need a better structure, a better administration and greater transparency.
That is the crucial message to the Commission as a condition for even considering approving the accounts for 1997.
Mr President, I have closely examined the report by the Committee of Wise Men which suggests that both the Members of the Commission and its officials lack a sense of accountability.
A sense of accountability, according to the report, is a pre-condition of democracy.
The report states how abuse was not investigated in the Commission, or, if it was, it was investigated too late and too long.
Furthermore, the penalties were too lenient.
The same is true of the conclusions on the matter now in hand, which was the basis for refusing discharge.
The Commission resigned, but from the point of view of the Commission this resignation was very obviously an advantageous decision.
I read in the 'European Voice' that on their resignation, the Commissioners would receive a three year severance package.
If they had been dismissed such an arrangement would not have been made.
Commissioner Van Miert had thus suggested that they should resign as one body, thus guaranteeing the implementation of the severance package.
In my opinion, it is wrong and unfair that they should be rewarded so well for the work they have done so badly.
Mr President, I realise that our rapporteur, Mr Wynn, was not here to present the reports on the discharge for 1996 and 1997.
The reports were adopted in committee without any amendments.
They were finalised in committee and can therefore also be put on the agenda for tomorrow's vote.
I should like to mention this here for the sake of the procedure, because an opinion was delivered on the subject by Mrs Günther which likewise dealt with the development budget for 1996 and 1997.
According to the procedure, we therefore ought to include this on the voting list for tomorrow.
I should like to ask you to see to this, because as I have said, the rapporteur was not present.
Thank you, Mrs Theato.
Mr President, I am sorry I am late, but there are other meetings taking place at the same time and it simply is not possible to be in two places at once!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, throughout the debate about reforming the Commission, I have supported clear principles, and today these same principles once again form the basis of the amendments I have tabled to the Elles, Brinkhorst and Fabra Vallés reports.
Firstly, responsibility must be seen to be accepted.
That is why the accounts for the 1996 financial year cannot be closed straight away, for example while there has been no reimbursement in areas where nepotism has been established.
Secondly, the greater the transparency, the less need there is for controls.
As long as the Commission still does not respect Parliament's right to have access to information, the institutions cannot trust each other, and nor will they win the increased trust of the general public.
That also applies to a Commission which has resigned.
Thirdly, Parliament's criticism of the Commission will only be credible in the eyes of the general public if it adopts the same critical attitude towards itself.
As long as documents in connection with proceedings against SEL are withheld from me and the Committee on Budgetary Control, discharge should not be granted for Parliament either.
I hope I have made it clear that where discharge is concerned, my group is guided by its own principles, which indeed apply to both the Commission and Parliament.
Mr President, firstly I should like to reply to Mr Elles' questions concerning the preparation of the different documents which were based on the programme which Mr Santer presented in January and which was referred to in many of the discharge reports.
The preparatory work on the code was very far advanced by mid-March.
The code of conduct for officials was ready in the Commission but it went to negotiations with the staff organisations.
It is available from the Commission.
Also, the first drafts of the code of conduct between the cabinets and services have been drawn up and, as far as the nominations are concerned, that was under way.
At the same time, the Commission has taken a decision to freeze all nominations of A1 and A2 level until the new Commission is in place.
A decision was taken to freeze all the nominations until the code of conduct was accepted.
Secondly, as far as the Staff Regulations reform is concerned, there was the famous David Williamson report which was presented last autumn.
The technical consensus-seeking negotiations with the staff organisation have started and also the first political consensus-seeking sessions have taken place.
The position of the Commission was that the Williamson reform serves as a good basis except in one area.
The Commission would like to have more open options for disciplinary procedures.
There was a clear opinion that more independent disciplinary procedures should be envisaged.
At the moment disciplinary procedures are always internal.
They are based on joint opinions.
There has also been a strong opinion that outside, independent, experienced people with experience in judicial procedures should be involved.
That part has been most open.
All this work has been done and now it is for the next Commission to take the political initiatives.
It will help the new Commission that this preparatory work has been done and the new Commission can make a political choice on the codes of conduct.
If the Committee on Budgetary Control in the meetings in June wants to hear about these preparations I will be available on a personal basis.
It has been understood by the Commission that to take clear and strictly political decisions which tie the hands of the new Commission at a time when the Commission has resigned is a question which must be considered on a case-by-case basis.
For the rest, the Commission takes note that the discharge procedure for 1996 is about to reach its conclusion on the institutional legal side which is being discussed here today.
I refer to discussions which we had earlier here on the basis of the Fayot report.
As to the discharge reports for 1997, the Commission takes note of the fact that the Committee on Budgetary Control has proposed postponement of the discharge on institutional grounds connected with the Commission's resignation.
On the guidelines contained in the working document annexed to the motion for resolution, it will therefore be for the next Commission to take the appropriate initiatives.
Mr Bösch put a question here but the Commission has replied to those issues.
I am sure that Mr Brinkhorst can confirm that we have had a great number of discussions and meetings.
We have also sent documents to the Committee on Budgetary Control even though it is difficult for the Commission to make a political commitment for the next Commission.
That is excluded.
However, if you want to clarify things, I am available as are other Commissioners as along as we are in office.
Our responsibility is to work, but undertaking a commitment to changes of a political character is for the next Commission.
I would also stress that the guidelines presented by the rapporteur are part of a major reform movement.
The Commission has started reforms of SEM 2000, sound financial management.
I disagree to an extent with Mr Giansily.
There have been achievements as well as failures.
It is very important to analyse what went well and what went badly in order to progress further with reforms.
In the area of the structural funds the new regulations are clearer.
The eligibilities for different funds have been agreed.
The possibility to use financial correction is there.
There have been issues where Parliament and Commission have agreed and there has been progress.
But there has been a problem, I can admit that when we have taken decisions at political level which are clear and in the right direction, the ability of the Commission to implement the decisions in all its services in the same way has been weak.
They have been implemented in some services but not in all.
That is the issue the new Commission must pay a lot of attention to.
It is important to take the right decisions but it is equally important to have a system to guarantee that all will be implemented to the very end.
In the MAP 2000 area there have been improvements in decentralisation towards the separate DGs and cutting down the red tape so that all the officials could be directly responsible.
Much remains to be done.
And the design of the Commission for tomorrow is being prepared for the next Commission.
It is very important that the new President has all the elements on the table when he takes his decisions on the portfolios and, in that context, on the structure of the services.
I agree with three major conclusions of the rapporteur.
One is that there must be an improved partnership/management of Community actions.
It is very important that the Commission and Member States act together and that the rules and responsibilities are clear and are shared and that we know how to correct things if they go badly.
We have already made an effort and I am sure we can continue.
I was happy to note that the rapporteurs of the Committee on Budgetary Control were at the sessions with the Member States last time.
Both sides found it very useful.
Secondly, the issue of decentralisation and devolution of Commission action especially in the field of external programmes is extremely important but we need very strict rules for the delegation of the management of Community policies and that must always be actively pursued.
In that context there has been an area where the problems were bigger than expected.
For those who came into this House in 1995, I am referring to the area of the external offices which were performing many tasks for the Union.
Thanks to cooperation with Parliament we have been able to agree now the budgetary framework so that there must always be budgetary commentary.
As you know we have drafted a vademecum on the issues which can be given to external sources and on what rules must be respected.
But it is very clear that this work must continue.
That has also been discussed in the reports by Mr Elles, Mr Brinkhorst and Mr Bourlanges.
The third area which is very important is the global reform of financial regulations.
There also the first communication has been done.
Mr Dell'Alba was the rapporteur.
Discussion continues.
We are waiting for the financial decision of the Court of Auditors.
It is extremely important to try to put all these small reforms in one clear global financial regulation where the roles and responsibilities of each player in the implementation of the budget within the Commission, namely the authorising officer, the financial controller and the accounting officer, will be clearly defined.
That is extremely important.
Finally, it has been a painful year and obviously this will be the last time we have an open debate on the issue.
It is extremely important that all of us who care about the future of the Union, care about the good execution of the Community budget, care about the value of the taxpayers' money try to utilise all this to achieve deeper reform which has clear objectives and a strong capacity of implementation which can lead to results.
I say that only because I know that in the House there are also people who are very worried and rather disconcerted because of this public debate.
It is not the fault of any of us but we must take that into account.
We hope that the painful experience of this Commission can be used by the next Commission so that it will strengthen and not weaken the process for reform.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Mr Elles has a brief comment.
Mr President, I would like to clarify one point in the Commissioner's response to this debate.
I thank him for the information he gave us on a number of these codes of conduct.
However, there is one report which I referred to in my speech which relates to paragraph 7 of the January resolution.
In the absence of any Socialist member of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I think I should do it on everyone's behalf.
It says: 'Looks forward to the report of the President of the Commission preparing for the Cologne Summit of the internal reform of the Commission.
We plan to hold a major debate in this May session'.
Could I ask the Commissioner to provide this report when it is available to the new Parliament so that we will have all the information at our disposal.
I know that a lot of work has been done, in these exceptional circumstances, by the services and the Cabinet of the President.
I will talk to him about the issue.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
List of legislative proposals pending
The next item is the report (A4-0255/99) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the implications of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam (list of legislative proposals pending as at 1 May 1999, indicating new legal bases and any changes in legislative procedure following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam) (C4-0134/99 - SEC(99)0581 - C4-0219/99).
Mr President, Commissioner, I was just thinking that this is the last report I shall give as rapporteur in this parliamentary term.
I was also thinking that few parliamentarians can have been lucky enough to cut their political teeth on the directive on voting rights for citizens of the Union resident in a Member State other than their own, and to draw their career to a close with this report on the implications of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam for legislative proposals pending. Indeed, the start of my parliamentary career was also the first time I appeared in an institutionalised political forum.
That said, and with a certain nostalgia for the other reports I have presented and the many times I have spoken in the House over the years, I shall move on to the issue we are concerned with today.
Commissioner, I must first say on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs that we have taken note of the document you have presented to us. I hope Parliament will confirm this tomorrow but we accept, share and understand its content, despite the pressures of time imposed by the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is an excellent working document and I naturally agree with the philosophy behind it, which is clear and which specifies the essential details.
Nevertheless, Mr President, Commissioner, Parliament can go no further.
It will be for the incoming Parliament to consider the validity of the legal bases in each case, pursuant to our Rules of Procedure.
This report goes beyond merely listing the changes the Commission has noted and which it suggests other institutions consider, though these should be borne in mind.
Procedural changes affecting more than a hundred acts are noted. Eighty of these involve transfers from the cooperation procedure to the codecision procedure in areas such as transport, the environment and social affairs.
Changes in the legal bases are also recorded, notably concerning matters covered under the old Article 43 - agriculture - and which now come under the title covering public health.
Finally, there are very significant changes concerning the policy, content, aim, inspiration and underlying political principles behind issues moving from the third to the first pillar in the area of justice and home affairs. The integration of the social protocol into the Treaty itself constitutes another important change.
Faced with what is undoubtedly a complex situation, one thing is clear: there is no transitional law, there are no transitional provisions within the Treaty of Amsterdam. We are therefore called upon to come up with an integrated and constructive interpretation based on the principles underlying the Treaty.
As far as Parliament is concerned, this interpretation is based on three points.
We must exercise our responsibility towards the people preserving the powers granted to Parliament under the Treaty, and we must guard these powers, just as we should when they are granted to other institutions. The new consultations relating to the Committee of the Regions or the Economic and Social Committee are good examples of this.
In this connection, Parliament will not bow to any other institution's interpretation of procedural matters. Such matters must be considered - as the Commission's report rightly points out - on the basis that the act adopted will be adopted in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam, and that this is the procedure that must be followed.
Moving on from here, we are bound by another important principle which is also related to the responsibility we have to the people and which I mentioned earlier.
I am referring to the principle of preserving the acts, the principle of being as effective as possible and of providing the best and fastest response to the people.
Therefore, whenever possible, we shall confirm and ratify procedural arrangements to ensure that each act is adopted and comes into effect at the earliest opportunity.
Consequently, as a general principle, Mr President, we should be unyielding on general principles but as flexible as possible on specific applications.
In conclusion, what we are confronted with is a change that summarises Parliament's philosophy very well indeed. As Commissioner Oreja is on record as saying, this is a change which from 1 May will equip the European Union with a more efficient instrument, one which is more open to dialogue with the people, more democratic and more outward-looking.
I believe that this report responds to these ideas.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I must congratulate Mrs Ana de Palacio.
She herself referred to her first and last speeches, but I would like to emphasise that between them Mrs Palacio has applied herself to her work intelligently, competently and with great energy. All of us as individuals and all the institutions have most certainly benefited from her contribution over the last five years.
Turning to the report before us today, the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam did of course mean that we had to resolve a number of procedural issues concerning legislative proceedings pending.
Matters have not been helped by the fact that the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam coincided with the final part-session of this Parliament. Nevertheless, we are convinced that the loyal cooperation between the institutions will enable us to find a solution to any problems which may arise.
As you are all aware, on 1 May the Commission forwarded to Parliament and the Council a communication detailing the consequences of the entry into force of the Treaty for all proposals already submitted and not yet adopted.
Eighty proposals previously subject to the cooperation procedure will now have to be considered and adopted under the codecision procedure.
For some 20 proposals, Parliament's involvement changes from a simple ruling to codecision. Further, the legal bases of 27 proposals have been modified.
Parliament has already made its views on a number of these proposals clear, and the Commission has incorporated some or all of these into its amended proposals.
We believe it is very important to ensure that the people of Europe do not feel that the Community's decision-making powers have been constrained as a result of the entry into force of the Treaty or because of the parliamentary elections.
It is therefore essential to carry on with the legislative work as usual.
Mrs Palacio's report suggests a procedure confirming the one that was chosen by the European Parliament after Maastricht. It involves Parliament's confirmation of the legislative procedures already under way whose legal bases or procedures have been amended pursuant to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is worth mentioning that some cases call for swift action, particularly the three concerning approval of the conclusions of the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
I certainly appreciate the goodwill Parliament has shown in dealing with all urgent pending matters - especially those relating to Agenda 2000 - at this part-session despite the pressures of time.
Finally, I should like to refer to the proposals pending concerning justice and home affairs and affected by the fact that under the Treaty of Amsterdam such matters have now become a responsibility of the Community.
In these cases, the Commission will formally table new proposals. The content of these will naturally be retained, but the most appropriate legal instrument will be used, be it a regulation or a directive.
As for the two agreements on the forwarding of acts and the recognition of decisions in marital matters and parental responsibility, these will be forwarded to the Council and to Parliament immediately. They are due to be adopted by the Commission tomorrow in accordance with the Treaty.
In conclusion, I should like to emphasise that in view of the institutional calendar and the political circumstances which have resulted in the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam coinciding with the advent of a new Parliament and a new Commission, it will be for the incoming members of both these institutions to pursue dialogue on this issue with the Council.
Thank you very much and congratulations once again, Mrs Palacio.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Dispute between the EU and the USA
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the WTO dispute settlement procedure for the dispute between the European Union and the United States.
I should like to welcome the Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan.
Commissioner Brittan, once again you have made the position very clear, and indeed you have also dealt with the various trade disputes in which we have been engaged with the United States for quite a number of months, if not for years in some cases.
Several points give me cause for some concern.
Without further ado, I should like to turn to the first of these.
All these cases, these trade disputes, in which we are at present engaged with the United States or with Canada, are in principle test cases, in which the boundaries set by the World Trade Organisation are being scrutinised to see how much independence and autonomy countries actually have to determine their own policies in particular fields, whether it is consumer protection, whether it is health care, whether it is a question of how policies with respect to developing countries can be implemented - as in the banana case - or whether it is about standards.
These are all key questions, and we have a World Trade Organisation which has marked out a framework within which we have to act as a trading partner.
In principle and by and large we are happy, but we know that there are definite borderline situations and cases which are being tested out by means of complaints or rulings.
This is the situation in which we find ourselves.
My second concern is that there are two conflicting models here, and the hormones case illustrates this perfectly: the famous American model, if I may call it that, with a different system of health care, and the European model, in which welfare is given greater prominence.
What bothers me is how we are going to be able to work together in the future and how in the new trade round we are going to be able on the one hand to agree on more common standards, while on the other hand guaranteeing a greater degree of independence and autonomy in the self-determination of regions and countries.
That will not be very easy; indeed we have already discussed in the committee several times how this is to be achieved.
This hormone case will be the test case for the European Union.
This will far surpass everything we experienced in the banana dispute, because here consumers will of course be very sensitive, and they want policies which guarantee the highest possible standards of health care and health protection.
At the moment, I am very unsure of how we can react in the light of the answer which you have given.
On no account should we rule out any option, and on no account - this is my group's opinion and other colleagues will also be mentioning this - should we make any concessions at this stage.
On no account should we make a political statement committing ourselves to anything before we have the final results of the scientific investigations.
Only then should we reopen discussions - involving Parliament, the Council and the Commission - on what our next move ought to be.
At the present time, I would consider a statement of any kind to be premature.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, at a time of great agitation, whether the source of this is the Kosovo conflict or a different conflict altogether, we are again obliged to debate a subject in the European Parliament which has already occupied all of us for too long, the trade dispute with the USA.
The United States is insisting on one point of view, firstly with bananas - an issue which has most likely been resolved in its favour - and now with hormones, where it is extremely difficult to draw the picture in such a way that it will attract the sympathy of those outside the European Union, because the trade disputes we are talking about here only involve 2 % of our joint trade.
But it is precisely because of this that I should like, on this occasion, to make a clear appeal to the United States.
Although we know about the need for innovation, what really matters to us Europeans is not neglecting our traditional roots.
I am thinking here, for example, of banana growing in some Member States and protecting our consumers, to whom we are accountable as elected Members, and we need to further consolidate that level of protection.
In doing so, we also take the liberty of setting different priorities from those of our American colleagues in Congress.
However, I do think it is essential also to appeal to the Commission and the Council.
Sir Leon, our experience of working with you over the last few years has been extremely positive, because during the transatlantic trade disputes you have worked very closely with the European Parliament.
I should like to thank you very much for that, but you alone are not the Commission and the Council.
I should therefore, on behalf of my group, also like to ask that any efforts to resolve the trade disputes by extending the procedure before the WTO, so as to delay the result, should be vigorously opposed.
I must remind all of us of what we have done frequently in the past.
The European Union and the United States, Canada, New Zealand and Australia each have one vote in the WTO, but hundreds of developing countries, who are waiting in the WTO and hoping that their interests will also be taken into consideration, must not be sidelined by ongoing disputes between the European Union and the USA, because there are other fundamental problems too.
I also ask that we Europeans do not only think about playing for time in order to delay the process of rectifying the underlying injustices.
As the general rapporteur of the European Parliament, I should also like to warn that behaviour of this kind - playing with WTO rules mainly for political motives - might weaken the standing of the WTO both in the eyes of the USA and in the eyes of our own voters.
I should also like to call on the Socialist Group to support the PPE Group's line on this issue.
We are all experiencing all kinds of political difficulties as a result of the banana ruling and the hormone case.
Nevertheless, in spite of these difficulties, we should not lose sight of the essential features of the legal solution, which is actually a workable one.
The WTO banana ruling requires us to produce a clear regime for our own producers and ACP producers, as far as providing adequate market access for all third countries is concerned.
I would also plead for a solution to be found as quickly as possible, because the legitimate imposition of punitive tariffs by the USA has put other sectors of the economy under considerable pressure and jobs are at risk in Europe as a result.
As regards assessing and authorising hormone-treated beef from the USA, I would ask you to bear in mind that the reason we set up a multilateral legal framework was precisely to protect weaker states.
Thanks to the WTO and because we are not giving in to market power, we have a legal procedure for raising legitimate concerns.
But if no hard scientific evidence can be produced, then obviously no import ban can be imposed.
The first in a series of reports assessing the health risks of hormone-treated meat has, however, come out today.
The first point to emerge from this is that it is not completely safe to consume this meat.
But we should avoid having a transatlantic - or indeed a European - philosophical war about individual reports and should wait calmly for the final verdict of the scientific community.
It is noticeable that comments made in the interim are based more on emotion than on the facts.
Today we have tried to combine the various opinions held in the European Parliament in one joint motion, to allow Europe to speak with one voice on this important matter.
I would therefore ask you to vote in favour of this motion for a resolution.
Mr President, the main point for my group is that we have concluded an agreement under the terms of the WTO and must abide by the legal rulings which have been given.
I agree with what the Commissioner said about the consequences to be drawn.
Far more problematic is the question of animal hormones.
In the first place, I think it has to be absolutely certain that there is no threat to human health.
The second point I would raise is that of consideration for animals.
Can these hormones be fed to animals without doing them harm? I think European views on this are very different from those in the United States, and this too is something we must raise in the forthcoming talks.
The second question I would ask of the Commissioner is this: what happens if we permit US meat containing hormones, provided it is labelled? Can we then legitimately forbid European producers to use animal hormones?
What will the upshot of that be?
Lastly, Parliament has made numerous pronouncements already on the whole question of policy regarding the quality of farm products.
Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution last October which broadly sets out what a policy of quality for European farm products might comprise.
I suggest that this be taken into consideration in future discussions.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the recent disputes with the United States lead me to two conclusions.
The first is the need to foster dialogue with the Americans, as well as with other regions of the world, because we need now, and will need in the future, to form new alliances. The second is the need for greater vigilance on the part of the European Union in the WTO negotiations, bearing in mind their growing importance.
This is of course a collective problem that also involves the European Parliament.
In my view, in the banana affair, which you dealt with so well, the European Union must pursue its action against unilateral legislation before the WTO.
With regard to hormone-treated beef, there are fundamental issues at stake, such as food safety and the choice of agricultural model.
The interim report and the concerns voiced in the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue considerably consolidate our position on the matter and, as Erika Mann mentioned, it is important not to make any concessions at this stage.
If there is any compensation, it must be of a temporary nature.
And as regards labelling, any change in approach would, at present, seriously weaken our position.
Above all, Commissioner, bearing in mind the problems posed by the old WTO agreements on these types of products, I should like to know if you would consider reopening the WTO file on two counts. First, we need a better definition of the precautionary principle with, in particular, a reversal of the need to furnish proof where doubts arise.
Second, we need a better definition of expertise, because the Codex Alimentarius cannot be considered to be an unequivocal legitimate reference.
Thank you Mr President. With all due respect, Sir Leon, we have to discuss this now, and when you say that there is no reason for consumers to panic because we have the ban, then I have to say that we are on the brink of lifting the ban and, as Mrs Mann said, this is undoubtedly about the different ways of life in America and Europe.
However, it is also about the huge interests of hormone producers and users here in Europe, Mr Kittelmann, as is apparent from your speech and the softly-softly manner in which it was made.
In fact, we now have exactly what you wanted: no emotion, but the scientific proof - and, as requested, this is qualitative not quantitative - that the use of hormones is harmful, that they pose a risk to health, that they are carcinogenic and that they cause puberty to begin prematurely in girls; I am just translating what it says here.
This is what we have repeatedly stated and pointed out in the past: the use of sex hormones disturbs the hormonal balance in children at this particularly sensitive time.
Sir Leon, consumer protection must take priority here, and this is not a legal issue; the legal issue should take second place to consumer protection and preventing the public from harm.
Neither, Mr Mulder, is it about not complying with WTO rules and negotiated agreements.
We want very much to comply with them, but we need to have some input into them and we need to develop them further where dispute settlement is concerned, as well as in the social and environmental fields and in the fields of health and culture.
Sir Leon, we have seen that when dubious substances of this kind are used, the floodgates are opened, including for illegal use.
In fact we can see it now with the samples which the Commission has taken that banned hormones are being used in the USA, and that it is not true that the meat which comes here is hormone-free.
That means that if we were to lift this hormone ban, we would have to authorise the use of hormones here, with all their adverse consequences.
Side-effects might be acceptable where medicines are concerned, Sir Leon, but with food there should be no such side-effects, and here the burden of proof needs to be reversed so that those who wish to produce and use these substances have to prove that they are harmless.
That is what we should say in the WTO negotiations, and we should raise the issue of our European way of life and ensure that we are able to keep it.
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, in this trade war concerning bananas and hormones there is a sting in the tail which, as we all know, affects European businesses and economic sectors which have nothing to do with the sectors involved in the dispute.
This is part of the American philosophy of taking the offensive, to which it would be a good idea to respond, using the same instruments of course, but we cannot continue to ignore the price being paid as a result by some economic sectors and I would also point out, Sir Leon, by some countries more than others.
I have never been an ardent nationalist but there is no doubt that if we look at the statistics - and you must know them better than we do - we can see that Italy and some of Italy's economic sectors have been hardest hit by the punitive duties imposed as part of the American retaliation.
For example, the battery and accumulator industry is incurring extremely heavy losses, amounting to millions and millions of dollars, as a result of the 100 % duty rates imposed under the terms of this war.
The proposal we would therefore make, and I know that this is being studied by DG I, is to set up a compensation fund, to propose to the budget authority that in order to give you and our common trade policy some weapons with which to fight, it should put into the budget a fund, a reserve which could provide compensation for European businesses that are the innocent victims of this fair and necessary common trade policy.
This is the suggestion which I should like the House to approve, but at the same time I would like to support the studies you are carrying out with a view to making a practical proposal, so that the new financial perspective and the new budget also contain a pm entry, a specific reference to this extra weapon for our common trade policy.
Madam President, Commissioner - for the moment - I listened carefully to what you had to say.
Your speech surprised me; no, actually it did not surprise me.
But in fact it did surprise me, because there are only two explanations for it.
Either you cannot read, or you had a preconceived opinion and wanted this opinion to be confirmed, and that is why you do not like the scientific reports.
Let us consider where we stand today.
You said that it was a legal and economic issue. Is it a legal issue?
The WTO Appellate Body has told us to prove that there is a health risk. Has it not been proven?
The danger is proven, so where does that leave us today? Mrs Mann said that we were not actually sure how we should react, and Mr Kittelmann said that any action we took had to be legal and actually workable.
Mr Kittelmann, I look forward with great interest to seeing how you explain to your voters at the elections to the parliament in Berlin what is legal and actually workable.
It was 20 years ago, Sir Leon, when colleagues of yours did this in your country, the United Kingdom, and look where that got us with BSE.
You are well on the way to continuing that process with the government of the United Kingdom, should you believe that you have their support.
Let us just consider where we are.
We have six hormones.
The scientific reports say that all of them pose a risk to health and that one of them both causes cancer and aggravates it, and you dare to say in all seriousness, Sir Leon, that now there should be greater transparency.
Is that what you have in your Directorate-General and in your private office?
I would love to know. There should be greater transparency, we need new analyses: which ones then?
Ones which support and match what you actually want? And you say that we need new scientific data.
Which data would that be, Sir Leon? I know that really you were in favour of the labelling option.
Anyone who can read, see and hear knows that.
But you also know what the labelling option means.
A piece of meat can perhaps be labelled, but nothing which derives from it can be, not minced meat and nothing, nothing, nothing more!
You, the Commission, repeatedly told us this, did you not, when we were in favour of comprehensive labelling and wanted that in Parliament.
Anyone who is in favour of labelling now is saying loud and clear: we actually accept health risks, we do not take any notice of them, and we accept that people will be at risk, including children who have not reached puberty - Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf made that point.
Mr Kittelmann, go out onto the streets in Berlin and say: 'but it does say on the label that it is highly dangerous for children during puberty and for everyone else as well; and if people already have cancer it encourages more tumours to form, and in addition it can be carcinogenic'.
Go on, why not?
I could not hope for more in the election campaign!
Now just tell me one thing, Sir Leon.
You will not be in office for much longer, and that is why I do not actually need to hold too intensive a discussion with you. Whom are you actually representing here?
Are you representing the USA, or are you representing the European Union?
If so, whom in the European Union? Certainly not consumers, because if so you would be aware that one of the basic principles of European Union legislation is that only safe, completely harmless products are allowed onto the market, and even then they are labelled.
You see, a label is not a warning notice, Sir Leon; a label provides consumers with information, but the assumption is that the products are safe.
That is not the case here, and what you are doing at the moment is what I would normally describe as reckless, but it is irresponsible, and I will make it clear in public what the Christian Democrats here in this House stand for!
Madam President, I shall concentrate on the crisis triggered by the banana sector, particularly because it seems logical for this sector to be the one most affected by the crisis.
What does not seem as logical is that yet again the textile sector - among many others - is suffering the consequences of a crisis that has nothing to do with it. Indeed, following the decision by the WTO arbitration body, export tariffs for this sector will be increased by 100 %.
Cotton bed linen and cashmere goods are particularly badly hit, as are other sectors, specifically those on the list that accompanies the World Trade Organisations's ruling. For the companies involved, the consequences will be very serious indeed.
As you are aware, Commissioner, the textile sector is going through a particularly difficult time as it is being forced to compete with massive imports of cheap goods from Turkey and Asia. As a result, its plight is causing great concern.
Furthermore, not all the Member States of the European Union are affected by the measures mentioned. This constitutes a serious distortion of the rules of competition within the single market and it will lead to even further negative consequences for those companies affected by the high tariffs the United States is imposing in its sanctions.
Consequently, for these sectors which are now the victims of the banana war, it is essential to settle the dispute as soon as possible.
I have therefore been very encouraged by what you said, and by the details of the initiatives and actions you mentioned that are aimed at finding a solution at the earliest opportunity. In addition, I am in favour of setting up a compensation fund to assist companies affected by the sanctions.
Without assistance, many of these companies will soon be in a critical situation and could even fold. The resulting job losses would be particularly unfortunate at a time when the Union is trying to promote policies designed to increase employment opportunities.
Madam President, there is a high level of awareness among consumers.
This means that we cannot simply decide anything we like.
It also means that consumers expect food to be of decent quality, but above all, consumers expect and demand that food should not be damaging to health.
The situation may not be all that good here, but it is still better than in many other places.
What we are seeing today is a dispute between two continents.
As has already been said, this dispute concerns, amongst other things, meat treated with hormones, and in this case it is quite clear, as has been emphasised here, that we should put consumer interests first.
Labelling is not an option at all, because it is not the job of consumers to act as guinea pigs for industry's new ideas. You must not gamble with people's health.
I therefore also regret the fact that labelling is one of the options the Commission has mentioned in its statement.
The problem is that it is very difficult to turn the WTO into the champion of consumer interests.
But it is also true that faith in free trade has proved to be misguided.
There is no reason to expect free trade to solve every problem.
Free trade cannot be the driving force for the environment and consumer interests, quite simply because the two areas require a political consideration which the market cannot give.
We therefore need to get some more politics into the WTO.
And the EU will be among those insisting on the right to defend public health against the free market.
In the long term we will also have to require the Commission, when negotiating these WTO agreements, to put consumer interests and environmental considerations before concern for the sacred free market.
You need to understand that in the Commission. It is not good enough to consider only the free market, because then consumers lose out, as we have seen in this case.
Things cannot be left to the market alone.
Before I give the floor to Sir Leon, Mr Kittelmann has asked to speak on a point of order or to make a personal statement.
Madam President, on a point of order, I should like it to be noted that what I actually said, word for word, which provoked Mrs Roth-Behrendt's attack was: 'we should avoid having a transatlantic - or indeed a European - philosophical war about individual reports and should wait calmly for the final verdict of the scientific community before we act.'
Your speech was emotional, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, above all the personal attacks on Sir Leon Brittan, which were melodramatic and unjustified; they were beneath you, and more in keeping with an election campaign which you wished to fight in Berlin.
That was indeed not a point of order, but a personal statement.
Madam President, if Mr Kittelmann is finding it difficult to understand his own statements and remarks, perhaps I should make my speech again.
Otherwise, I fear he will not know my point of view.
Madam President, I will do my best.
Let me begin with the banana issue, which is of great importance to a number of people.
I listened with great interest to what was said, for example by Mr Dell'Alba and Mrs Ferrer.
We are trying to resolve the question by coming up, after consultation with all the people who have a legitimate interest in it, with proposals, which we hope will be acceptable to all, to deal with the problem by amending our regime.
If that happens, by definition the sanctions will end and that is the quickest way of getting them to end.
But people cannot be forced to reach agreement and, therefore, we have to envisage the possibility of not reaching a comprehensive agreement.
We then have to do our best, after having heard what everybody has to say, to make changes which meet the rules and satisfy as many people as possible, if not everybody.
That of course we can do.
But in those circumstances we will be able to say to the United States that the sanctions are not justified.
The only way of compelling the United States to remove the sanctions is through the WTO and, therefore, I can assure Mr Herzog that we will continue with the 301 case in the WTO as well.
As for the question of compensation, there are considerable difficulties as to whether it is possible to give it and there are certain disadvantages which, if mentioned, would only give aid and succour to our opponents on this issue.
I would not wish to do that publicly but I can well understand the deep concern.
This morning in Brussels, before coming here, I held a meeting with representatives of the European textile industry and I understand exactly how serious the situation is for them and for other people who are at the receiving end.
Therefore, we will continue very hard and are committed to putting four proposals to the Council by the end of the month, with agreement or in the absence of agreement from our trading partners.
Let me now turn to hormones.
I must admit that I thought Mrs Roth-Behrendt got the wrong end of the stick in her comments as far as I was concerned, as well as what she said about Mr Kittelmann, which was without justification.
As far as I am concerned, there is no question at all, as her tone if not her words suggested, of ignoring the interests of the consumer or wishing to put people's health at risk.
I fear that her interpretation to the contrary bore a whiff of the electoral campaign rather than the exercise of pure reason, because the point I made was a very simple one: as long as the ban exists, there can be no risk to health because meat with hormones is not allowed into the European Union. As nobody at the moment has a proposal to lift the ban - you certainly did not hear any such proposal from me.
There is absolutely nothing more which anybody can do to protect European health than to stop something coming in.
You cannot do more than that; you cannot have a double ban.
So what are now faced with is how best to handle the situation we have as a result of these reports.
At this point I should like to comment on some of the broader questions which Mrs Mann and Mr Kittelmann raised.
We have to ask ourselves: is there a fundamental conflict, as Mr Iversen seemed to suggest, between trade and consumer protection? The answer is no!
It is absolutely clear that the WTO rules permit you to ban dangerous products.
They do not permit you to ban products because you say they are dangerous, you must have a reason.
It goes further than that: you do not have to be able to prove that the products are dangerous, you must have respectable evidence, even if it does not necessarily represent the majority or dominant view of the scientific community.
When the WTO looked at our hormone ban - which of course existed long before the WTO came into existence - it came to the conclusion that the process by which we had arrived at that ban was not a risk assessment which met the standards that could reasonably be asked for before a ban was put in place.
It is exactly for that reason that we have begun a new risk assessment, and we have the interim results of it, which, as I understand it, are partly derived from the re-examination of published literature on the basis of the criteria set out by the appellate body and partly derived from the interim conclusions of some of the seventeen new studies we have commissioned.
It is an interim report: the final report comes at the end of the year.
The question we have to ask ourselves is: how do we handle this situation as far as the WTO is concerned? It is no use saying that we have our report and that proves it, because it does not remove the threat of sanctions.
You have heard the people from the countries affected by the banana sanctions.
I can tell you that the possibility of sanctions from the United States on this is much more serious, and therefore it is acting very much in the interests of European consumers, European individuals and European employment to say that it is sensible that these findings should be put into the public domain as fully as possible.
It has not happened yet.
I hope it will happen more fully very soon.
There should be serious discussion amongst scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, because I do not believe that the United States is careless about the health of its citizens: it is as yet unpersuaded that there is a risk and, if we have evidence, it is right to put it to the United States as well as to everybody else.
The question then is: at what point do we do this and how do we handle it? That is something which bears further consideration.
There is no fundamental conflict between consumer protection and trade.
The WTO as it stands allows for that balance in a proper way.
I am not saying that it is perfect - I would not say that to Mrs Mann and Mr Kittelmann at all.
We have to consider exactly in the coming trade round how to improve the rules and make them clearer.
I agree with Mr Herzog that one of the things we have to do is to produce a better definition of what the precautionary principle really means.
I hope that it is possible for Parliament then to consider these issues on the basis of what has happened, knowing that there is no question of any precipitate action which could conceivably endanger the health of the European citizen.
The debate is closed.
I have received eight motions for resolutions to wind up this debate.
The vote on these will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Reduction of VAT on labour-intensive services
The next item is the report (A4-0207/99) by Mrs Thyssen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, on the proposal for a Council Directive amending Directive 77/388/EEC as regards the possibility of applying on an experimental basis a reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive services (COM(99)0062 - C4-0169/99-99/0056(CNS)).
Madam President, Commissioner, the report which it is my privilege to present this evening concerns the Commission proposal to amend the sixth VAT directive in order to allow Member States, by way of an experiment, to apply a reduced rate of VAT to labour-intensive services.
The proposal has a long history.
As long ago as 1991, we and Parliament first asked for labour-intensive services, or at least some of them, to be included in Annex H to this directive.
Regrettably, the Commission never shared our enthusiasm.
It took us quite a few hours of negotiations to persuade the Commission to have a study conducted on the impact on jobs which a measure of this kind might produce.
In the end, we had to wait for an edict from the European Council in Vienna before the Commission came up with a concrete proposal.
The question now is what Parliament thinks of the proposal currently before us.
Well, Commissioner, we endorse your proposal.
Some professional bodies admittedly regret the fact that this is just an experiment of limited duration and not a definitive measure.
We understand their disappointment, but we say that half a loaf is better than no bread, and if we cannot convince people with arguments then we will do it with figures, which this experiment will undoubtedly supply.
Precisely because this was an experiment, the majority of the Economic Affairs Committee was happy to accept the general criteria and the fact that the scope of the experiment would not be limited to closely defined sectors.
Naturally, we are all happy to say where our priorities lie, especially in the run-up to the elections.
We can focus on the environment, services to families, parts of sectors we include within the social economy, and so on.
All these things are laudable initiatives, but it is better not to make any choices here for the moment.
That way, the Member States can tailor their experiments to those sectors where they expect to reap the most benefit.
The broader the scope of the experiment, the more results it will yield and the greater the chances of sound final measures which will create more jobs on a sustainable basis.
That, ultimately, was what we were after.
We have adopted seven amendments in the Economic Affairs Committee, Commissioner.
We are sure that they clarify and improve the proposal.
There are no great questions of principle, except in one respect, that of the authorisation procedure.
Neither the Social Affairs Committee nor the Economic Affairs Committee can see why the Commission should not authorise Member States to launch an experiment.
The Commission is after all the executive. Perhaps the Council wants to keep hold of the reins itself, and it still has the final say on fiscal matters.
So we conceded that, but it is too much for us to accept that the Council can only grant authorisation on the basis of unanimity.
That makes the procedure unnecessarily cumbersome. It will inhibit the ease with which the measure can be implemented.
It may lead to use of the veto and obstructionist tactics.
We find that unacceptable, hence our Amendment No 4.
If the Council wishes to act itself, then very well, but let it be by a qualified majority.
There are no legal arguments why this should not be acceptable.
I should be glad to hear what you think about this, Commissioner, and what the timescale for it might be in the Council.
Lastly, I should like to take the opportunity of this, my last report of the current parliamentary term, to thank you for the willing cooperation we have always received from you.
Madam President, I do not think I have ever spoken in Parliament as late as this.
I am happy to say it is the very last time!
It takes the shine off things a little to have to deal with a proposal which I have always strongly advocated in these kinds of circumstances, and in a 'like it or lump it' situation. We are so glad to have it at last that one is wary of being overcritical of it.
But some criticisms do need to be voiced, not least about the length of time it took to get this proposal.
In fact, one might best describe the speed of the process as that of a snail hitting the brakes just before a bend in the road.
The approach of both the Commission and the Council was one of extreme caution.
I think this was mainly so in the Council, where there seemed to be an exaggerated fear of competition but also that the measure might succeed.
It happened to me several times in discussions, especially with German representatives, that they said: 'Imagine, if this works in the Netherlands, we shall of course be forced by social pressure at home to implement it there as well.
Just think what may happen. If it is successful in creating jobs, it may cause a problem in Germany.'
I never understood that, and I do not feel at all guilty about it.
What irritates me most is that it was precisely those Member States which are always harping on about subsidiarity which placed most difficulties in the way of other Member States which said 'look here, it is not the only way, but it is one we want to try in order to create more jobs'.
When I put forward the proposal for a 'social' rate of VAT, as part of preparations for the Luxembourg summit - and I was not the first to do so, because an option had already been put to Members of the House previously - I believed that I was acting in the spirit of the Delors White Paper, which had already pointed out that we in Europe had saddled ourselves with a system which made labour extremely expensive, very expensive in connection with our profligate use of energy, raw materials and the totally free movement of capital.
To my mind, that is still the central theme and problem in the Union.
And I would say, as we address this subject, that Member States have still not done anywhere near enough here.
'Social' VAT is certainly not the complete answer.
It is just a small part of the answer.
But it may offer a solution in the area of services at local and regional level.
The Commission once produced an interesting 'employment rate report' in which it compared the rate of employment in the Union with that of the USA.
One of the surprising conclusions was that we did not really lag behind the USA in any area except one, and that was services, services from the lowest to the highest level.
I believe that a reduction in VAT precisely in the service sector at local and regional level could be beneficial, and at any rate increase the employment rate. Supply and demand can be matched here.
Care of the elderly, jobs for the handicapped, environmental projects and so on - I do not want to impose my choices here any more than Mrs Thyssen, and I leave it to Member States to choose the opportunities offered by the proposal to see what suits their needs and capabilities best.
Like Mrs Thyssen, I too have a few comments on the amendments we have tabled.
Like her, I find it totally unacceptable that the Council should have to decide by unanimity on specific authorisation to a Member State to apply this reduced rate of VAT.
It means that those Member States which have been obstructive right from the start will be given the ultimate means of being obstructive all over again.
I think the Commission has to be consistent here and say that a qualified majority is the only logical legal principle to be applied in approving the system.
I am keen to hear the Commissioner's response.
Lastly, I was surprised and disappointed to see that the Commission has not kept the machinery for evaluation under its own control, but is in fact transferring this to the Member States and with it the initiative for new proposals.
I think - and I appreciate the difficult position it is in at the moment - that the Commission is not really functioning properly here vis-à-vis recalcitrant Member States, but it will have to be very careful for the future.
If the Commission surrenders the initiative for making new proposals, as it is doing in this proposal, it really is destroying its whole raison d'être , destroying a guiding principle in the Union, namely the right of initiative.
That right rests not with the Council but with the Commission, and that is how it should remain.
Madam President, things on the employment front in the European Union are looking a little better.
The rate of unemployment recently dipped below 10 %, but naturally we are not dancing in the streets because it is still far too high.
Parliament had to put pressure on the Council and the Commission for a long time to get where we are today.
But I am glad that we are now able to debate a specific proposal here in the House.
We have not yet, however, got as far as approving the proposal.
As Mr van Velzen and Mrs Thyssen said, there is a major obstacle.
That is the rule that Member State proposals to apply a reduced rate of VAT are required to have the unanimous assent of the Council, even though VAT is no longer the basis for Member States' contributions to the European Union, so the argument always put forward previously that that basis would be weakened is no longer valid.
That makes no sense these days.
I can imagine that one might ask a neighbouring country: 'Is it a problem for you if my shoe repairer is subject to a reduced rate of VAT?' But why should Finland be able to stop shoe repairers in the Netherlands from being granted a reduced rate of VAT?
I really cannot see any sense in that. I cannot imagine anyone taking his shoes from the Netherlands to Finland to be mended.
So I really think this is a reversal of everything which Parliament has worked to secure.
I think we shall soon see all the Member States opposing every specific proposal, and I find that very disappointing.
Some Member States have already put forward little lists of demands, the Netherlands amongst them.
Can the Commissioner say to what extent there is agreement on some of the specific proposals in these lists?
For example, the renovation of buildings and shops and certain urban areas is being mentioned. I think a reduced rate of VAT might prevent whole urban areas from falling into decay.
Renovation is not mentioned on the Dutch list.
Is there any consistency in all these proposals, or is it just up to each Member State to say what it wants?
I wholeheartedly endorse the rapporteur's approach.
Take for example her ideas on evaluating the experiments.
The rapporteur wants the specific results of the scheme to be evaluated, including prices, for instance.
What we do not want, of course, is to see a reduced rate of VAT bringing not greater demand and more jobs, but simply higher profit margins.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for the excellent cooperation we have enjoyed in recent years.
I hope he will show a little flexibility over the amendments this evening. Some of them are very important.
He will have another chance to make his point in the Commission on the subject of the Member States. That would be a fine way of rounding off the last five years.
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I welcome this Commission proposal.
Various speakers have already pointed this evening to the number of times we have pressed here in the House for VAT on labour-intensive services to be reduced.
We realise it is not the instrument of choice for creating jobs.
But reducing the rate of VAT will make these services less expensive and enable them to be taken out of the black economy.
Whilst the Commission is not convinced that the measure will or may create jobs, research carried out by the Netherlands Economic and Social Institute for SMEs found that it could possibly create 66 000 jobs. That is no mean number!
I hope the experiment being launched here will prove helpful in creating jobs.
We must not be afraid of negative repercussions on the budget, because look at what a lowering of VAT did for the ornamental plant growers: in my country, sales rose, earning an extra 340 million for the Treasury.
But if we are to create jobs, the Member States must above all take structural measures; we have to reduce labour costs, make employment more flexible and encourage part-time working, and in these respects we see that there is still a long way to go.
Madam President, it is good to see the Council, after what has been a protracted debate, now allowing the experimental application of a reduced rate of VAT to labour-intensive locally based services.
In the Netherlands, for example, the number of shoe repairers was decimated between 1992 and 1998 as a result of the high rate of VAT on their work.
Because it was so expensive to mend shoes, consumers tended to throw them away and buy new ones.
The extra burden associated with this on the environment may perhaps be reduced if the VAT directive is amended. The number of jobs in this sector may also increase again.
I am grateful to the rapporteur for spelling out these effects in Amendments Nos 1 and 2.
It is also a good thing to reduce incentives to the 'black economy'.
In evaluating this experiment, due consideration must be given to these aspects.
I support the amendments which have been tabled, and I hope that the Council and the Commission will do so too.
Madam President, first and foremost I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Thyssen, and express my own words of appreciation for the cooperation we have enjoyed over the years.
In making this proposal, the Commission is responding to a request made by the European Council in Vienna in December 1998.
It is certainly true that Parliament had for a long time been asking the Commission to move in this direction.
But the Commission did not just get down to work in February 1999: we should recall that back in September 1997 it drew up a communication for the European Employment Council in Luxembourg in which this idea was put forward.
It is nonetheless true that Parliament, much earlier on, had been asking us to do this.
Why didn't we do it before? For a political reason of substance: we wanted to avoid short-cuts in tax policy subsidising employment.
Mr van Velzen is right in saying that this idea of a reduced VAT rate may be one instrument but is not the main instrument.
Various Members have pointed out that the best ways of using taxation to boost employment are the energy tax and tax coordination enabling capital taxation to be increased slightly and labour taxes to be reduced slightly.
Why did the Commission take until September 1997 to come up with this idea of a reduced VAT rate, which Parliament had been requesting for so long? Because only in September 1997 did we become convinced that quite good progress was being made in key areas.
The package of measures against harmful fiscal competition was very close to completion, and was signed by the Member States in December 1997; discussions on the proposal on the taxation of energy products were well under way.
At this point we were sure that this proposal for a reduced rate of VAT would be a useful extra factor and not a short-cut enabling Member States to dodge their prime obligation.
That was just to explain to you why we acted rather later than you had hoped but nonetheless in line, I believe, with the overall requirement.
I will not spend a long time describing the proposal; I am glad that as a whole it has been appreciated and supported.
I can assure you that the Commission, following these reports and on the basis of available data, will make an overall assessment and if necessary submit appropriate follow-up proposals after the trial period.
I note with satisfaction that the Thyssen report broadly supports the approach proposed by the Commission.
In substance, the main amendments tabled aim to do the following: stress the directive's favourable effect on the employment of unskilled or semi-skilled workers, the environment and also the reduction of undeclared work; stipulate that the Council, acting by a qualified majority, may decide whether to authorise the application of a reduced rate; and require the Commission to draw up an overall evaluation report, accompanied if necessary by appropriate proposals.
I can assure you that the Commission would for the most part endorse these objectives.
However, it is my duty to draw your attention to the fact that authorisation to apply a reduced rate is a measure concerning harmonisation of legislation on value added tax, which is covered by Article 93 of the Amsterdam Treaty, the former Article 99.
Under these circumstances I feel it is impossible to depart from the rule that the decision should be taken by the Council acting unanimously.
Apart from that, it is obvious that the Commission hopes that the measure will have the positive effects mentioned.
Finally, I should emphasise that if, as I assume, we all want this proposal to be adopted soon by the Council so as to keep to the timetable called for by Mrs Thyssen, involving entry into force on 1 January 2000, I am unable to accept the amendments proposed.
Mrs Peijs encouraged me to be flexible.
In this case in point, I take flexibility to mean achieving results as quickly as possible and therefore, paradoxically, I shall take her request to mean that I should not accept the amendments, which would just slow the procedure down.
I should also like to inform you that, thanks to the German Presidency, today in the Council the working party examining this proposal met for the first time and I think there are grounds for reasonable optimism.
Finally, Madam President, this proposal, which I hope will prove very good for jobs, will also help to dispel certain doubts about the tax coordination work done by the Commission and the European Union.
Here we have a situation in which Brussels does not want to claim more powers but to restore powers to the Member States, letting them make the decisions; here we have a case in which coordination of taxation does not mean higher taxes but lower ones, and in which the primary aim is employment.
I hope that the Member States will want to use this subsidiarity we are granting them, without hiding, as Mr van Velzen fears, behind an obstacle conveniently put in their way by the European Union in order not to be exposed to the full weight of decisions made under their own responsibility.
Thank you for the support you have given us this evening.
Madam President, I too would like to thank Parliament and the Members who have taken the floor this evening for the staunch support they are giving to our endeavours to coordinate taxation.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The rapporteur wishes to speak, and I now give her the floor.
Madam President, I am grateful to the Commissioner for answering our questions.
I gather from your reply that you do not share our view and do not accept the amendment in which we are seeking to have the authorisation procedure dealt with by a majority in the Council, rather than by unanimity.
But unfortunately I have to say that your legal arguments have not convinced me.
I assume that there are political reasons involved here, but there are no legal reasons.
This is an implementing measure, and not a general measure.
Legislation must of course be approved unanimously by the Council, under the terms of the Treaty.
But I am afraid that is not so when it comes to implementing specific measures.
There is a great difference between the two things.
If that is the opinion of your legal service, and that is what the Commission officials told our Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, then we are not at all convinced, and it might be no bad thing to look at this again from the legal standpoint.
Thank you, Mrs Thyssen.
Before Commissioner Monti replies, I should like to give the floor to Mr van Velzen, so that Mr Monti can answer both speakers together.
To begin with, I entirely share Mrs Thyssen's opinion that the legal basis for that argument is completely flawed.
And then I have a specific question for the Commissioner. Can he be sure that those countries which have been difficult from the outset will not use their ability to block matters within the Council if unanimity is required in order to give permission to a particular Member State?
Madam President, I do indeed appreciate the point raised by Mrs Thyssen and Mr van Velzen.
In our view, had we not provided for unanimity we would have had difficulties of principle much greater than those we will have anyway in getting this proposal through the Council.
I would point out that, for example, even the derogations under Article 27, which are basically implementing measures rather than new legislation, require unanimity; I would point out the major difficulties we are encountering with the VAT Committee, whose whole purpose is to deal with implementing provisions and yet the Member States are holding out against a rule being passed by a qualified majority.
To some extent therefore I can of course share your hope, which is my hope as well, of political realism being applied to an issue which affects employment, a matter of considerable urgency.
I had to make a sacrifice when deciding to follow the path we have taken.
Thank you, Mr Monti.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
The next sitting will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 11.20 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
One last word on the Minutes, concerning the Kai Islands, the eastern part of the Moluccan archipelago, Ambon itself, Ujung Pandang on Sulawesi, where Christian minorities have little or no protection against armed gangs.
The Moluccans urgently need help.
The case I am bringing, which you my colleagues endorsed in the run-up to Luxembourg, concerns financial penalties and roll-call voting.
My main point is that it is for Members, not the administration, to decide Parliament's priorities.
If I win my case, then all the fines wrongfully collected will have to be refunded, and you wished my colleagues luck with that yesterday, Mr President, for which I am grateful.
We take note of that and it will be checked.
Mr President, under Item 19 of the Minutes on the discharge, it mentions that I had a report on the EDF but when you look at the speakers' list you will see that I did not speak.
Trying to be in two places at the same time is not an easy job.
As coordinator for the Socialist Group I was still in the Committee on Budgets discussing the interinstitutional agreement.
Therefore, I would like to apologise to Parliament for not being here to present my report and also to thank Mrs Theato for moving it during the debate.
Mr President, I have just got here only to find that my voting card is missing from the machine.
I would point out that I am in the right place, as ever.
I think you will be able to obtain a replacement card without delay, Mr Tindemans.
In any event, we shall check whether there is anyone voting with a card in your name.
Mr President, Item 18 of the Minutes - the debate on the European Fraud Investigation Office - is mentioned only very briefly; neither the Council president nor the Members who spoke are mentioned.
This is really not normal practice.
It only says that Members spoke, but it might be quite helpful if we knew who.
Perhaps this can be added.
We shall check that and put it right.
Mr President, I also have a point to make concerning the Minutes.
In Item 8 (Documents received), point (ab) mentions a draft decision by the European Parliament on the Members' Statute; it also gives a C-number.
I would like to ask what this actually refers to.
I do not remember this draft being presented yesterday.
Does it refer to Parliament's decision in December or does it refer to this Council paper that has no legal value? I would like an answer here.
Applause
Mr Lehne, the services have explained that this is a technical error which only affects certain language versions. For instance, it does not appear in the English text.
So no Council text exists.
All we have is a draft document for negotiation drawn up prior to the entry into force of the Treaty. It is therefore obvious that no official Council text exists, and nothing has been sent anywhere at all.
What we are due to discuss is Mr Rothley's report on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs.
The technical error will be corrected.
Mr President, I would like to make a correction to the Minutes, as they have not been worded correctly.
First of all, I did not talk about the missile which hit the bus yesterday. I did not know about that when I spoke.
I was speaking about the missile which killed sixty people. The main point, however, is that I only talked about extending our condolences and sympathy to the relatives, in other words the humanitarian aspect.
It says in the Minutes that I asked for an official complaint to be made to NATO.
I asked no such thing. I would like that to be corrected.
Of course errors have to be corrected, Mrs Kokkola.
The text will be checked.
It seems that bombing errors can even affect the Minutes.
The Minutes were approved
Decision on urgent procedure
Mr Colino has the floor to give the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture, which is the committee responsible.
Mr President, this issue was dealt with at the latest meeting of the Committee on Agriculture.
It is indeed linked to Agenda 2000 but in our view the Council's request for urgent procedure is not justified, as the system is only due to come into force in the year 2000. There will therefore be plenty of time for the new Parliament to consider it.
Thank you, Mr Colino.
Does anyone wish to speak in favour of the Council's proposal? Mr Mulder has the floor.
Mr President, I would prefer us to deal with this proposal now, firstly because we shall be covering all the other proposals under Agenda 2000 this week, so we might as well deal with this one as well. Secondly, the proposal is neutral in budgetary terms - it has no financial implications.
So I think we would be better to cover everything to do with Agenda 2000 this week, and I shall therefore be voting in favour of that.
Thank you, Mr Mulder.
As no one else wishes to speak, I put the request for urgent procedure to the vote.
Parliament agreed to urgent procedure
Since urgent procedure has been approved, this item will be entered on the agenda for Friday, and the deadline for tabling amendments is tomorrow, Wednesday, at 10 a.m.
Statement by Mr Prodi, nominee for President of the Commission
The next item is the statement by Mr Prodi, nominee for President of the Commission.
I give the floor to Mr Prodi.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the appointment of a new European Commission has always been an act of great consequence in European politics.
This time, however, the process is taking place under particularly unusual conditions.
Firstly, following the resignation of the previous Commission, we need to remedy negative developments and irregularities and regain the confidence that has been lost.
Secondly, we need to act quickly to put an end to the crisis and return to normality.
Thirdly, for the first time since it entered into force a few days ago on 1 May, the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam are now applicable.
The opportunities for deep-seated reform that are presented by this new beginning can only be exploited fully if the three institutions involved - the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission - work closely together on a basis of trust.
The conditions for this are in place, as we will see today.
The nomination procedure is underway and could be concluded before the summer break.
The nomination of Romano Prodi at the extraordinary European Council in Berlin was the first step, and in doing so the Heads of State and Government showed the European Union's ability to act and its determination to resolve the crisis quickly and convincingly.
They agreed on a figure who meets the requirements of this difficult office as almost no other could.
Romano Prodi is a European of conviction, a proven and successful economic and political reformer, and an experienced politician in administrative matters.
He also brings to the post the necessary close relationship with the people and, after hearing his speech, I would say that he is a candidate who combines vision, a sense of reality, pragmatism and a clear awareness of what is needed.
He is also a candidate who should live up to the expectations of this House.
If you, the Members of the European Parliament, follow the proposal of the Heads of State and Government and vote in favour of Mr Prodi's appointment in Thursday's vote, the next step will be for the governments to name, in agreement with the President-designate, the people they intend to nominate as members of the Commission.
The resulting proposal for the whole College will then be presented to the newly-elected Parliament as soon as it assembles.
It is important to the German Presidency that all Member States apply the very strictest standards when it comes to forming the new Commission.
We want a reforming Commission, a Commission made up of Europeans of conviction and convincing Europeans; we want a Commission made up of men and women who are distinguished by their ability, experience, leadership skills and personal integrity.
I am sure that we all hope the necessary hearings can be concluded in time for us to secure Parliament's approval in July and proceed with the formal appointment.
All those involved - Parliament, Council and Commission - have a common interest in ensuring that the new Commission is formed and the appointments confirmed quickly.
For this reason I firmly believe that, if we wish to do so, we can keep to the timetable that I have outlined.
The people of Europe expect this of us.
It was intended from the outset - and this was confirmed by the Heads of State and Government in Berlin - that the new provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam would be applied to the appointment procedure.
The Treaty has now entered into force and this means above all that the future Commission President and the European Parliament have a greater role in the appointment of the Commission.
The intention was to strengthen the overall position of the Commission President and to underline this by giving Parliament a separate vote on the appointment.
The current situation underlines the importance of the reforms introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam, which make the whole procedure more transparent and legitimate.
We should not lose sight of this aspect in applying the provisions.
The formation of the new Commission gives us the opportunity now to tackle the problems which played a part in the crisis and ultimately the resignation of the current Commission.
The first priority will be the internal reforms which the Commission must undertake and - there are already very specific documents on this - rapidly implement by itself.
Romano Prodi presented some of his own ideas to the Heads of State and Government at their informal meeting in Brussels on 14 April, and this exchange of views is to be continued at the European Council in Cologne on 3 and 4 June.
In this context the programme of reform presented by President Santer - ' The Commission of Tomorrow', including the components MAP 2000 and SEM 2000 - is of particular importance.
These proposals aim to modernise administration and personnel policy, solve the problems in the area of the budget, financial control and fraud prevention, and also to reform financial management by means of more efficient financial control.
All in all, we need to establish clear political priorities, to bring Commission structures into line with future tasks, and we need greater decentralisation, including in terms of the administration of appropriations.
We also need to rationalise and improve the efficiency of the Commission's work, and I believe that this should include adopting codes of conduct for Commissioners and officials.
The Council and the European Parliament must also help to remedy negative developments and irregularities.
If we want a Commission that has strength, the ability to act and integrity, we must also provide it with the resources it needs to deal with its new tasks, for example in the area of enlargement or humanitarian missions.
Applause
We must also think about the reforms we would need in order to amend the Treaties.
The EC Treaty provides only for the possibility of a collective motion of censure against the Commission by the European Parliament.
Our most recent experiences have shown us that the possibility of dismissing individual Commissioners - whether on the initiative of the Commission President, Parliament or the Council - should certainly now be examined in cooperation with the other institutions.
Applause
National regulations could serve as a basis here.
The events surrounding the resignation of the Commission have shown that a truly European public is beginning to develop.
The people of Europe have a new-found need to know what is happening in Brussels and here in Strasbourg, and certainly to follow it more closely.
The public is now paying greater attention to all things European, things which were hitherto regarded as being the preserve of experts on Europe. I consider this to be a positive development.
In this context more questions are being asked about the democratic legitimacy and control of the European institutions. There are various reasons for this.
The EU has gradually grown in importance and its spheres of activity have expanded; furthermore, many more decisions are being made which directly affect the public and their lives.
These decisions increasingly involve majority voting, so that individual Member States can be bound against their will.
However, some of the decision-making procedures are very complicated and difficult to understand.
The institutional balance between Parliament, Council and Commission that is provided for in the Treaties has in practice shifted to some degree.
So the question is how we can strengthen democratic control in practice, guarantee legitimacy and increase transparency.
I have already mentioned the reforms that could and must be carried out in the Commission.
As far as the European Parliament is concerned, its supervisory rights are increased by the Treaty of Amsterdam. It is granted important new rights and powers in the areas of legislation, CFSP financing and the appointment of the Commission.
However, the European Parliament still needs to be strengthened further.
Applause
The more capable of action the Union becomes, the stronger the democratic legitimacy of its actions and decisions must be.
Applause
This means that whenever the Council passes legislation by a majority vote - and we want to make majority voting the rule - the European Parliament must have an equal say and equal weight in the decision-making.
Applause
The European Union is currently facing some enormous challenges: the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, enlargement negotiations, the expansion of the euro zone, the WTO round of negotiations, improvement of common policy in the field of justice and home affairs, and in particular strengthening the Union's profile in foreign affairs.
In order to cope with these tasks we need a strong Commission that is capable of action and has integrity; we must now work together to ensure that the conditions for this are in place.
Applause
Mr President, I and the House have listened extremely carefully this morning to Mr Prodi's opening statement.
I thank him very much for the thoughtful and intelligent approach he took to the opening of this debate.
That we are here today looking at the ratification of a new President of the Commission, six months before it was due according to the timetable, is a reflection of the changing roles and expectations of the European Union.
We have seen the EU dealing in areas and working on issues which now affect the lives of the citizens of the European Union in a very direct way: the launching of the euro, soon not to be just a tool for banks and institutions but also the coins and notes in the pockets of our citizens and, this week, the coming into being of the Amsterdam Treaty with its changing emphasis towards policies that affect people and in particular job creation.
When you are talking about jobs and the money in people's pockets, you are talking about issues that very clearly affect the lives of every citizen of the European Union.
It is no coincidence therefore that there has been a greater concentration on the systems of governance in the European Union.
These systems were found wanting and they have failed in the last few weeks.
We need to see demonstrable change.
The next Commission must reflect a new approach to structure and responsibility, not for the sake of form.
We are not just looking for a Commission that looks different or pays lip service to difference.
We want a European Commission that is different and will deliver policies for people.
We expect that Commission to be different, to reflect the real work to be done.
If I may say so, we do not want a Commission with structures and portfolios that simply reflect a division of the spoils between twenty Commissioners for whom the President must find a role and must find a job in order to make them look as if they are all important.
We want a serious attempt to create a dynamic approach to delivering policies for the people of the Union.
After today, Mr Prodi, you and what you will do will be scrutinised as never before.
What appointments you make to your office, the multinational nature or flavour or otherwise of your staff, the gender balance, all these will assume an importance quite disproportionate to their actual significance.
Your ability to demonstrate that you have had a role that befits the President of the Commission in deciding who should be in your Commission and what their portfolios should be - all these things will give your presidency and your Commission its opening strengths and, indeed, could well give them its opening weaknesses.
I was glad that today you concentrated very much on the broader approach to your political thinking and programme for the European Union.
In your last intervention in this House - which we all recognised was a very preliminary one, indeed you said so yourself - you made a largely economic presentation.
Today you have looked at a much broader scope of policies with which you will be seeking to deal.
We have had a flavour of some of your ideas, for instance on foreign and security policy, on home and justice affairs. I very much welcome your thinking in these areas.
Your emphasis on the competence of Commissioners and their ability and willingness to act as a team is very much to be welcomed.
Your emphasis on structuring the portfolios on the basis of delivering policies and your undertaking on transparency and openness are also very welcome.
Of course I do not need to say that we have had such commitments before but we take you at your word that you are serious about these.
I have a criticism and I would appreciate your comments in your concluding statement.
Your speech today talked very little of people.
You mentioned employment but you did not talk much about the need for the fight against social exclusion, the struggle for a fair and just Europe for all our citizens, the need to support Member States in the eradication of poverty, in particular amongst the young and the old in our societies, the need for equal opportunities for men and women, for black and white citizens of the European Union.
Mr Prodi, your humanity was clear in your speech. Your commitment to peace on this continent is to be commended.
I would have liked to hear a bit more about your belief in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Europe. I hope you can reassure us of this in your conclusion.
By way of conclusion, for me, as a Londoner, this weekend the importance of support for a Europe of fairness and justice for all our citizens, the need for us to be committed to the fight against intolerance, racism and hatred, against those concepts, was brought very graphically and tragically to our minds.
This European Union is about a vision for the future.
The big issue for our continent, for our economy, is also about people.
If you are able to combine these elements successfully with a new Commission structure and ethos, you will have our support.
Applause
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Prodi, on behalf of our group I should like to reiterate what I said on 13 April.
We strongly and unequivocally endorse your candidacy for President of the Commission.
We are convinced that you possess the political and professional skills to overcome the deep crisis in which the Commission finds itself.
And this crisis must prompt us to carry out historic reforms.
You have to reform the Commission, its cabinets and its administration.
The problems started ten years ago, so the report of the Wise Men tells us.
So as the present Commission has said, a new European political and administrative culture is required.
But political reforms are needed too, which have been very clearly set out in a number of reports and documents of this Parliament.
For example, the Herman report on institutional reforms which can be carried out without amendment of the Treaty mentions reducing the number of portfolios and sharing them out rationally within the Commission, and striking the correct balance between the collective and individual responsibility of the Commission members.
I should be glad to hear your comments on that in your reply.
Our group is very much in favour of interinstitutional cooperation.
In 1994 as group chairman, I took the initiative in favour of changing the modus vivendi between the Commission and the European Parliament. Mr Oreja gave us vigorous support on that.
I think this modus vivendi needs to be revised and expanded once again.
New agreements have been concluded, and the new arrangement should be adopted under optimum conditions and approved before the new Commission takes up its duties.
In another report, by Elmar Brok, Parliament argues that members of the Commission should possess appropriate expertise and above all be independent.
The Commission must remain the guardian of the Treaties and serve the common interest.
Our group wants to see a politically balanced Commission, with men and women, which enjoys broad majority support in Parliament.
After your ratification by Parliament, Mr Prodi, you will be able to demonstrate your political leadership in the appointment of the new Commissioners.
We hope that your legitimate authority as President will be a factor in securing their approval.
President Prodi, we are impressed by what you have said.
You wish to give new momentum to the European Union.
Political union is one of your major objectives, together with further democratisation, transparency and cooperation with Parliament.
But I think that since we have the new Commission President here with us, we also need to talk about a number of fundamental avenues of policy which you will also have to confront and where you too will be required to shoulder your responsibilities.
We cannot ignore the role and responsibility which the European Union should undertake in helping to end the European tragedy going on in Kosovo, where the most basic of values are being denied - basic values, human values with which we are so quick to identify.
A logic of war is being created there, based on discrimination, on crimes against humanity, on the desire for vengeance, on intolerance.
It is an important fact, Mr Prodi, that where Europe - as embodied in the European Union, in European countries and regions - is not present, where there is no solidarity within the European Union, war in Europe is still possible.
So we need more Europe, and a European policy which produces tangible benefits throughout the European continent.
We must make it clear to people in the Balkans that peace and reconstruction are only possible in the context of the European Union.
The spirit of Community solidarity made it possible for Europe to have states based on the rule of law, dialogue, democratic institutions and recognition for minorities, and that spirit may also put an end to a conflict which has plagued the peoples of south-eastern Europe for decades.
How can these peoples, so desperately hard hit by the war, regain hope and trust? We must show vision and generosity to lay the foundation for reconstruction and development in the Balkans in the spirit of the Marshall Plan, which in 1947 gave our countries the strength to reorganise themselves and recover.
The second major area in which you have to deliver is the Union's ability to pursue a true foreign and security policy.
Naturally the Council has supreme responsibility here, and when I think back to Maastricht, Mr President-in-Office, it has shown supreme negligence. What has been achieved in the last seven years?
The Council will of course take an important decision in Cologne when it appoints Mr or Mrs CFSP.
But the lessons we have to learn from current events go much further than that.
There is an imbalance of power between the USA and Europe when it comes to the strategic decisions taken by NATO.
But the recent NATO summit opened up a new prospect.
The Amsterdam Treaty confirmed the longer-term objective of a European defence arrangement.
Regrettably, it has to be said that we are still a long way from that reality.
We do not have any common weapons manufacturing capability. We have no sharing of operational duties.
We have no integrated fighting forces and command structure.
In short, we do not have the military capability of the USA.
Where is the European peace corps in the Kosovo conflict?
What is the Western European Union doing?
Where are our spy satellites to provide the requisite intelligence? The answer to these questions is a resounding silence.
There is a European vacuum.
And nature, as we learned at school, abhors a vacuum.
There is a third major policy direction which you will have to address, and you referred to it just now.
The future construction of Europe: now that we have the euro, you want to give political union a chance.
In this House there have been majority or consensus votes in favour of a constitution establishing clear relationships between the Union, the Member States and the rights of European citizens.
I think the institutional dynamic also has to be revived, these clear lines have to be drawn, if an enlarged Union is to be workable. Will you revive the institutional dynamic, will you create that new chance?
Are you amenable to suggestions from Parliament and its Committee on Institutional Affairs for shaping a Community approach rather than a purely intergovernmental one, which has made its limitations obvious? Parliament has suggested that the Commission, in consultation with the European Parliament and, for example, on the basis of opinions prepared by leading experts and in consultation with the national parliaments, might make it possible to revive this institutional dynamic.
In your first address on 13 April and again now, you have argued for a Europe not just of markets and banks, but a Europe which includes its cultural and spiritual dimension.
Hearing you just now listing the various programmes for employment, training, consumers and the environment, I think there is a wide range of areas being addressed.
Mr Prodi, are you - I am sure you are - in favour of the European Union as a social market economy? You also spoke of those people, to whom Mrs Green referred, who are being excluded.
Equal opportunities for men and women, for black and white, for people of any colour on the basis of the human dignity of each individual - that is the distinguishing feature of the European Union, its human face.
You are undoubtedly in favour of that, and you will undoubtedly seek with your new Commission to further that, just as you will undoubtedly bring about political union and give Europe the means, the capacity, to play a proper role in Europe and the world through its common foreign and defence policy.
That will make you a great President of a great Commission, working together with a new Parliament which will undoubtedly be keen to work with you towards achieving those ends.
Applause
I should like first of all to thank Mr Prodi for elaborating today at much greater length on a number of the priorities which he wishes to emphasise for the next Commission.
The full definition of the Prodi project properly should await the new parliamentary mandate and the nomination of the new Commission.
I wish however today to make some remarks on the policy side arising from what Mr Prodi has said.
I take note of that fact that as he talked about Europe's profile in the world he referred to enlargement and mentioned that enlargement will move the epicentre of the European Union towards the east.
I would like, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Group, to place a somewhat greater emphasis on the urgency of achieving as early as possible an enlargement towards the east.
May I say to Mr Prodi that some weeks ago at a Liberal International Congress in Brussels we were addressed by the Hungarian Prime Minister, Mr Viktor Orban. He reminded us of the words of another politician from Eastern Europe, saying that since 1989 they have been told in Central and Eastern Europe that enlargement is always just five years away.
We must draw a line under that and we must make sure that during the lifetime of the next Parliament and during the mandate of the Prodi Commission we actually bring about the reality of the first enlargement to the East.
For my group that would be a serious and significant priority.
To do that of course requires greater urgency in modernising the democracy of the Union.
That greater urgency has been recognised in the Council suggestion that we should have an intergovernmental conference beginning next year, something which we subscribe to.
I would like to say to Mr Prodi that we, in our group, believe that as part of his European vocation for a new millennium and for the new enlarged Europe - he should perhaps reflect on the desirability of introducing into the debate the concept of a constitution for Europe.
The aim here is not to finalise a project which is always evolving, but to help clarify for citizens in a meaningful way the whole complex of the documents we have produced in treaty form, the kinds of priorities that we have for the Union and the limits - because some of course also worry about the excesses of the Union.
I certainly would commend to you that you examine the question of bringing forward as part of your project a constitution for Europe in the new millennium.
In respect of the formation of the Commission itself, I should say that you have my group's full support.
As you leave this House to go to the various capitals and form the Commission, we have a number of priorities we would like to see in respect of balance.
It has been mentioned before that we expect to see gender balance.
I would also emphasise that we expect to see political balance, that is a balance of political philosophies and views and also a certain balance that reflects the role of the main political forces in this Parliament.
This is important.
You said here today that you intend to have more team work. That is essential.
One of your chosen mechanisms to achieve enhanced coordination will be through the Commission Vice-Presidents.You have not said how many vice-presidents you anticipate.
Perhaps you could be more specific or perhaps that is premature, but I would say this to you, the greater the number of vice-presidents, the greater the onus to ensure for the sake of balance that some would come from smaller States.
I do not wish, Mr Prodi, to anticipate the hearings of Parliament but I do have a question: in the event that Parliament decided that one ro more of the nominee Commissioners was not acceptable, what would you propose to do, given the powers you have under the Treaty of Amsterdam?
We urge you, both in choice of your Commissioners and in such an eventuality, to use your fullest powers under that Treaty and to demonstrate that indeed you are your own man.
In the time that remains to me I should like to turn to Mr Verheugen and to the Council.
If I understood correctly, Mr Verheugen, you urged us to complete this procedure of nominating and putting in place the new Commission by the end of July.
I respect politically why you say that but it shows scant regard and little understanding for the due process in this Parliament.
I want to treat this with urgency but also with due gravity and it would turn this House into a rubber stamp and nothing more if we were rushed into it prematurely by the end of July.
Worse than that, if we got it wrong in July, we might want a second bite of the cherry next January and act more vigorously then than need be.
Let us get right rather than get it early.
If there is a problem now with an interim Commission that has lost its moral and political authority to act, the problem arises, in my view, because of the failure of the Council to listen to Parliament and to appoint an effective interim Commission.
That is not a failure of this House. It is a failure of the Council.
Mr President, in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam, Parliament is now able to exercise the great responsibility of voting to approve the appointment of the President of the Commission for the first time.
In this vote, Members will vote as representatives of the people of Europe, free from any pressure from national governments. The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left will make its decision on the basis of the commitments made by the candidate regarding his general political outlook and a clear programme of reform for the Commission itself.
The recent institutional crisis and the verdicts reached by Parliament itself or through the Group of Independent Experts must still be fresh in our minds.
We need to move forward to a completely new stage characterised by transparency and efficiency in the work of the Commission and in its relations with Parliament. Collective responsibility must not override the Commissioners' individual responsibility.
The incoming President's role in the appointment of the Commission is therefore crucial.
Our group calls on him to play his part in the selection of Commissioners to the full so as to ensure substantial renewal of the College of Commissioners. We need men and women whose career has equipped them to cope with the major political challenges facing the Union and with reforming the Commission itself.
As far as the broad outlines of the candidate's programme are concerned, we feel bound to express the anxieties raised within our group by some of the statements he made today and on 13 April.
We are concerned about the emphasis he placed on competitiveness and the flexibility of labour to the detriment of policies fostering economic and social cohesion.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left urges the incoming President to set out and develop economic and social policies aimed at creating employment. We also urge him to combat social exclusion and poverty by promoting public services across the European Union.
I realise that in the present climate it is quite unfashionable to speak up for public services, but we on the left feel it is essential to do so.
In our view, this should be accompanied by a gradual reduction in working time without a reduction in salary. Action against social dumping and financial speculation is also needed.
To sum up, monetarist ideology must not be allowed to dominate to the detriment of our citizens' social and political rights.
In our view, other key features of a progressive policy are the integration of environmental protection into all Community policies and the review of the ceiling for own resources in the Agenda 2000 financial perspective. Preservation of the Union's internal solidarity through its Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund should also be part of such a policy.
Finally, we also believe that the Commission must make a great effort to prepare an Intergovernmental Conference to achieve the institutional reforms required prior to enlargement.
In this connection, the Commission and its President must, with Parliament's support, boost the Council's scant political will to define a common foreign and security policy for Europe which is not subservient to the United States. It must serve to guarantee human rights in the Balkans and the world over, and ensure that international law is adhered to.
In the few seconds remaining, I feel obliged to express my amazement at the reference made to the definition of a constitution for Europe. I have been a member of the Committee on Institutional Affairs for eight years.
A draft constitution for Europe was withdrawn during the previous term, before the elections.
It was only a draft or an outline and was never made public. There were absolutely no further developments for the next five years.
Throughout those five years the subject of a constitution for Europe was taboo. Yet now the spokespersons for the major groups are referring to the drafting of such a document as a key part of the Commission's work.
Actions speak louder than words.
I urge you all to take responsibility for your statements in the House today in favour of a constitution for Europe before European public opinion. The people need to be aware of their rights and responsibilities over and above the squabbling and the vested interests of the Member States.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-designate, we are delighted to welcome you for a second time to this House. However, you are only just at the beginning of a series of hurdles which must be overcome in the next eight months.
You will have to demonstrate great stamina and skill to stay the course.
Although the confirmation of your appointment tomorrow by the European Parliament is not in question, and will doubtless be approved by a very large majority, you will have to face a much more difficult test in September. This is when, in front of a largely new Parliament, you will have to present all your Commissioners and an action plan for which not just you personally but the new Commission collectively must take responsibility.
The whole process will then begin again at the end of the year as, having completed the term of office of the outgoing Commission, you will again have to ask for the confidence of the European Council and the European Parliament for a five-year term. Of course, this term may be interrupted at any time by a motion of censure vote which is clearly now no longer just a theoretical concept.
Suffice it to say that your task will not be particularly easy.
To avoid tripping over the successive hurdles which you will have to overcome, you must bear in mind that your legitimacy as President of the Commission is delegated and will be exercised under the constant political scrutiny of the Council and Parliament, themselves directly and politically responsible to the people of Europe.
From now on, the institutional balance between the Commission, Parliament and the Council is of prime importance and the function and role of each institution must be clearly specified.
Your main task, Mr Prodi, will be to ensure that the Commission exercises all the powers conferred on it by the Treaties, but does not encroach on the decision-making powers of Parliament and the Council.
In particular, you must resist the pressures which may come from the Council or Parliament to extend your field of action to areas not specifically indicated by the Treaties and which, as has recently been observed, you do not have the administrative or financial resources to tackle.
You will be responsible for ensuring that the work of the College is restricted to the powers granted by the Treaties, which are already quite considerable.
Together with the Court of Justice, the Commission is actually the guardian of the Treaties. However, this function would be better served if its definition were improved in respect of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, which are not currently sufficiently clear or definite.
The same applies for the monopoly of initiative.
This point will have to be clarified during the institutional reform which must take place before any further enlargement.
The Commission's implementing powers, particularly in the area of competition and state aid, are considerable and must be exercised independently but also with absolute transparency.
In terms of commercial or financial negotiations, it is essential that the European Union speaks with one voice.
But this voice must be authorised. The aims of the negotiation must be clearly specified in the negotiating mandate given by the Council, with the agreement of Parliament, whose representatives must be kept well informed of the progress of these negotiations, as is the case with the members of the US Congress.
If our partners realise that the European Union is expressing the will of the people of Europe, this can only serve to strengthen the EU's negotiating position.
This has not always been the case in the past and the trade dispute on banana imports from ACP countries has left a bitter taste in our mouths.
Mr President-designate, your success will be measured by your ability to ensure that the Commission reassumes the role assigned to it by the founders of the European Union.
It should be an independent body whose task is to find the largest common denominator - and not the smallest - to ensure that European unification advances only in those areas where it is necessary and essential. In this respect, the institutional balance must be preserved: decision-making powers must remain with the Council and Parliament, which alone are politically responsible to the people.
The UPE Group wishes you every success in this difficult task, Mr Prodi.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, the resignation of the outgoing Commission showed above all that a more democratic balance of power was needed between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Without a strong Commission, Parliament cannot hope for any major reform of the institutions, which has been put off for years.
The Greens are confident, Mr Prodi, of receiving your pledge here that you will make every effort at the intergovernmental conference to ensure that Parliament evolves into a true parliament with full powers of legislative codecision which extend to agriculture and compulsory expenditure, and with full powers of scrutiny over the implementation of policy.
We are poised at a historic crossroads.
Either Parliament continues to grow and the building of Europe becomes a true democratic project, or it remains a collection of bureaucratic nuts and bolts with no legitimacy, and that would be fatal.
It is not just a question of more power for Parliament; our peoples have to be involved more actively in this process and must know and feel themselves to be citizens of the Union.
As you know, Mr Prodi, Parliament wants a convincing reform of the Commission.
We need a transparent Commission, with ready public access to documents, and that requires swift implementation of Article 255 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
The individual responsibility of Commissioners remains a central factor in the relationship between the Commission and Parliament.
The Amsterdam Treaty gives you the opportunity to intervene if there are problems with the work of individual Commissioners.
We also expect you to put together the right Commission, so that through you we too can have an influence if there are problems with the performance of individual Commissioners.
What you said about the need for the big countries to have a Commissioner from the majority as well as from the opposition is being misused in Germany, for example, in order to sideline the Green partner in the coalition.
If the new Commission only includes representatives of the largest partner in the government and the largest opposition partner, there will be little political innovation in the Commission.
We want you, Mr Prodi, to argue for political diversity in the new Commission.
The Greens have listened carefully to your speech today, which sits well with the letter you sent us and which says more about sustainable development, the environment and consumer protection than your first speech did. We shall hold you to all of that.
In April, you distanced yourself clearly from the American model and came out in favour of the European one, but you said very little about what that meant in practice.
For us, it should emphatically mean that not everything is governed by the logic of the market.
If you seek to liberalise services without securing a universal service, that may give rise to problems.
In the past, investment aid has been provided for purposes of rationalisation.
We believe that innovation should be the focus of future aid, for example for SMEs, with a view to preserving and creating jobs.
Lastly, it is our fervent hope that, given the necessary weight, you will urgently work for an initiative on the Balkans and see that the timetable for enlargement is politically reassessed in the light of what is going on there at present.
In this spirit and in the expectation that you will take our concerns on board, my group is planning to support your candidacy.
Mr President-designate, listening to you just now made me think of the very high hopes resting on your appointment.
This is taking place at a very special moment, namely the final part-session of the Parliament elected in 1994.
This coincidence, which was not planned, is giving this debate and the subsequent vote a rather dramatic nature as, to a certain extent, it represents the political legacy of the first European Parliament that had the ability to apply enough pressure on the outgoing Commission to force it to resign.
Our expectations of you are high, Mr Prodi, and they involve so many and such a variety of issues that you will no doubt find us very demanding, although your introductory speeches have already highlighted many of these points.
As the recent crisis has revealed the problems within the Commission, your first task will be to put your house in order. This is the work of a leader.
You will therefore undoubtedly have to improve the coordination of the Commissioners' responsibilities, redefine the tasks to be accomplished by eliminating some and developing others, and reform the management methods, the procedures for awarding contracts, the use of consultants and so on.
This is a long way from high politics, which is not possible, however, without a good administration.
There is no doubt that in the past the Commission has too easily forgotten this sound principle.
In particular, Mr Prodi, in terms of practical politics, Parliament expects enough vision and inspiration from you to meet the challenges facing Europe.
In saying this, I am not just thinking of the programmes planned for future years, such as the implementation of Agenda 2000 or the institutional reforms the Union needs in order to complete the Amsterdam Treaty, but also the problems which go beyond these elements.
Now more than ever the Union needs to rediscover and reaffirm the meaning of its very existence and its true priorities.
Employment is therefore not a run-of-the-mill requirement but a major priority which must take precedence over others.
I am pleased that you yourself recently proposed that the central banks should depart from their customary financial practices and draw on their reserves to revive the economy at all costs.
We must find a new balance between the social and political Europe and the economic and monetary Europe, and we must counterbalance liberalism to some degree.
Similarly, in view of the war in Kosovo and the fragility of Europe revealed by this war, we firmly hope that the European Union can stop considering the future of our continent - including Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the Mediterranean - in such a cautious manner to the extent that this approach becomes constrained and ultimately foolhardy.
This combination of nationalism and violence will form the backdrop to your actions in the next five years.
In view of these threats, we would ask you to reaffirm the fundamental values of Europe and to give the EU a clear foreign and security policy and firm social priorities. In short, we need inspiration born of justice and fairness.
Mr President, the Europe of Nations Group cautions against appointing Mr Prodi as President of the Commission. We have no need of a new President at present.
What we do need is a clear-out by strong personalities who do not have ambitions to continue when the clear-out has been completed.
Firstly, we should remove the present Commission, because the Commissioners have been deemed to be collectively irresponsible.
They themselves rejected individual accountability and asked to be held collectively to account. That is what the Committee of Experts did.
Now they must step down, and Parliament should ensure that before they do so, they do not extend contracts with their friends or have certain people promoted or move employees from their own cabinets to the administration.
Secondly, we should call the officials responsible to account.
The Committee of Experts should name everyone who has helped to obstruct the uncovering of dubious deals.
Those who have contributed to corruption and fraud must be subjected to disciplinary proceedings.
Those who have covered things up must be suspended, because it has to be worse to cover up corruption than to provide information about corruption, as Mr van Buitenen did, with suspension and salary deductions as a result.
We must then adopt a modern law on public administration and openness.
All appointments should be made on the basis of applications and qualifications, not as political appointments.
All employees should know that future promotion is a question of effort, not of friendships and contacts.
The best person for the job should be promoted.
Anyone who occupies a managerial position must be more capable than those beneath him.
We cannot have a situation where the more capable are passed over for promotion and then lose motivation and console themselves with privileges.
The Commission should be decentralised, so that the staff are given responsibility and authority to live up to.
Let us put an end to the concentration of power in the hands of a few, without any possibility of them taking responsibility.
Let us put an end to complicated procedures where a decision has to be endorsed twenty times and it is impossible afterwards to say who is really responsible.
There should also be a reform for officials, including fixed-term contracts and the introduction of ordinary northern European civil service salaries for new recruits.
Privileges can be phased out.
The first step could be to remove the automatic cost of living adjustment.
It will not be popular, but who is going to defend the fact that the first consequence of moving a task to Brussels is that those who are going to carry it out will receive a trebled salary, diplomatic status with freedom from prosecution, access to business lunches and duty-free spirits? The salaries of Commissioners should also be reduced before appointments are made.
A Commissioner should be paid the same as a minister in the country he represents, and should pay tax so that at least in that respect he loses his status as an expatriate eurocrat.
Removal costs should be reimbursed on the basis of invoices, not in the form of two months' extra salary.
It should be possible for Parliament to inspect the travel and entertainment budget.
The three years of redundancy pay with a subsequent pension should only be paid if the Commissioner does not obtain other employment.
We must at last have a reform that produces openness, whereby documents in the Commission will at least also be available to Parliament as soon as the Commission has delivered them to a committee, an undertaking, a country, a journalist or another external party.
We have drawn up a proposal on openness which we look forward to discussing with Mr Prodi at our public group meeting this evening at 7 p.m. in meeting room 2 here in the Palais building.
Like every modern business, the Union must focus on what it can do better than others, or in other words leave alone tasks which others can do better or more cheaply, concentrate on cross-border cooperation and allow other matters to return to the Member States.
This rationalisation must be carried out before the appointment of the new Commission, so there are many general reasons for postponing the approval of Mr Prodi, but my group also has a political reason: Mr Prodi wishes to see a United States of Europe.
We would rather unite Europe in a Europe of the democracies.
Mr Prodi, we regret that your timely speech comes at a moment of what I might call procedural confusion in both this House and the Council of Ministers.
I welcome this morning's offer by the Council to cooperate with the Commission and Parliament.
We would have appreciated an equally cooperative spirit in recent months, for example when it was a matter of the Members' Statute or the technical and procedural aspects of electing the Commission President.
But if the Council has finally realised that it is one of the three components of Europe and must show due respect to the Parliament and Commission, we are pleased with this new discovery and hope that our future work will benefit.
We, for our part, are convinced that the Commission President must have a strong Commission - as Professor Prodi stated this morning - a Commission whose relations with Parliament are transparent and based on timetables which are always respected, enabling us to work and make progress together, rather than engaging in confrontation.
At the next part-session in July, therefore, Mr Prodi must present us with a schedule of the commitments to which he has so appropriately referred this morning; otherwise enlargement, which is now on the horizon, would prove impossible.
You touched on many important points, Mr President, but allow me to recall that - in the opinion of Alleanza Nazionale - more attention should perhaps be paid to Mediterranean policy, especially since you yourself have stated that a Europe looking to the east obviously cannot pay sufficient attention to the serious problems of the Mediterranean. That goes without saying.
You referred to the euro. Although you are an economist and this must sound very familiar to you, I would point out that if, before creating a common monetary policy, we had had the intelligence to create an economic policy, then perhaps the euro would not now be weaker than the dollar on markets around the world.
If we had created an economic policy, we would have laid down the foundations, or guidelines, for Europe's economic future and might have reduced unemployment by a few percentage points, thereby restoring the confidence which the people are beginning to lose.
In conclusion, Mr President, we are enthusiastic about your proposals and prepared to work with you, as a Parliament and as a political group, as long as your commitments are not only clear but also clearly timetabled, and as long as they are not merely declarations of intent at the start of your term of office but a definite path for us to follow together.
Mr President, I welcome the Council President's announcement that the final vote on the entire Commission is to be brought forward.
This is without doubt an important matter: as Parliament has stressed several times, the Commission must be in a position to address itself to the outstanding issues as soon as possible.
In contrast with previous occasions, I also welcome the preparatory work done by Mr Prodi, the nominee for President, with regard to reform of the Commission.
He has indicated important changes in respect of teamwork, responsibility and transparency, with a view to tackling and solving satisfactorily the crisis affecting the Commission.
I would stress that, irrespective of the crisis in recent months, there has been a blurring of the Commission's political role over the past few years.
Indeed, the crisis of the past few months could make us forget that the EU needs a politically strong Commission. This, Mr Prodi, is what the European Parliament expects you to achieve.
You can be sure that, if you embark on this road, you will receive strong support from the European Parliament.
We are opposed to any reduction in the Commission's political role, and we regard the political balance between Commission, Parliament and Council as a cornerstone of European democracy. Naturally, this attempt to redefine the European Union's overall prospects also affects the responsibilities of Parliament and the Council - and we shall discuss this point among others with the new Commission.
As far as you yourself are concerned, it is a matter of political leadership to make the Commission a strong partner in dialogue on the major unanswered questions determining the EU's development and identity. These political matters are also of great institutional relevance, as was stressed for example by Mr Martens, who pointed out that the reform of the relationship between the institutions will be a key theme in the years ahead.
This is not an abstract issue; it relates to the way in which we tackle the main items on our agenda, such as enlargement, institutional reform as such, and the creation of a common foreign policy and defence structure which - as shown by the events in Kosovo - Europe desperately needs, since it is proving incapable of tackling independently crises such as the one under way in that region.
Then there is the important matter of efforts to galvanise Europe's economy - you made several references to this in your speech - and to introduce a new but vital element of balance: a social dimension.
Parliament, the Commission and the Council have been debating this matter for years.
Attempts have sometimes been made to strike a balance between these two aspects: for example, the Delors White Paper sought to bring them together, to balance them.
Perhaps much of this is no longer topical, but the problem of harmonising these two elements is one of the main political problems confronting not only the Commission but also Parliament and the EU in the years to come.
I do not wish to dwell on this.
The Commission will of course have its own political opinions here and will compare notes with Parliament and the Council.
There have in the past been differences over strategy, which have subsequently been settled and have enriched the political debate between our institutions.
This also applies to the Balkans.
Mr President, I welcome your determination to put together rapidly the elements of an overall proposal for that region, so as to create a stable relationship offering a way out of existing and potential conflicts which - as you say - can be averted and resolved in the context of a close relationship with the European Union.
This also applies to the Serbian people, who will free themselves of Milosevic as soon as they are offered the alternative of relations with Europe.
Mr Prodi, there is broad-based satisfaction in this House over your nomination.
You will realise from this morning's debate that we also expect a good deal of you, since we know you to be a man of great initiatives and ideals, but one who is at the same time extremely practical.
Both of these attributes are needed to head the European Commission.
These expectations are further fuelled by the boldness of your pro-European spirit and philosophy, which have emerged from your two speeches before this House. I hope - and I am quite sure - that they will be satisfied.
We expect you to be proactive in exercising your prerogatives as President of the Commission, not only as guardian of the Treaties and of the acquis communautaire , but we also expect a bold initiative to carry forward the completion of the institutional structure, so as to give the Europe of the euro a real personality, identity and strength.
One obvious item of unfinished institutional and political business, which is a challenge for the next parliamentary term and might well be proposed to our successors, is an undertaking to complete the building of Europe.
The constitutional dialectic between the EU and its Member States over the next five years will probably be dominated by this challenge.
The President of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, has said repeatedly: 'You have entrusted me with the task of safeguarding the value of the euro and guaranteeing price stability.
If you leave me alone to pursue these objectives, I assure you that the consequence will be an increase in unemployment in Europe, because the instruments available to me will undoubtedly lead to new social problems.
Hurry up and equip yourselves with institutions to run the economy: the European Central Bank on its own cannot tackle problems which are not of its making.'
We have taken the first tentative steps towards harmonising our economic policies: Mr Monti's blueprint for fiscal policy harmonisation has yet to be approved; the subject of a European employment pact is to come up at the forthcoming European Council in Cologne.
Specific conclusions are required here too, after Mr Junker's initiative at the Luxembourg European Council, and after the Aznar and Blair proposals relying on labour market flexibility.
Mr Strauss-Kahn made an interesting proposal just the other day.
It is interesting because he is a Socialist and because he is French: he is a Socialist, and asserts that the problem of unemployment can only be addressed by setting a 3 % growth target; he is French, and asserts that we must begin to regard the Euro 11 Council as the first step towards a European economic government.
Economic policy must be harmonised at European level.
'The impossible status quo' was the title of the document of the Florence Group.
Well, Europe cannot stand still; if it stood still, it could go into reverse.
Although we now have the euro, much remains to be done and we must press on.
If the markets notice that the pace of politics is slackening, they will adapt by relaxing their sense of responsibility.
This is already happening - it is what has happened since the introduction of the euro: we sense a slowdown in political responsibility and initiative.
We are now feeling the effects on Europe's economic equilibrium of the economic slowdown in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, countries which account for 80 % of our GDP.
Unfortunately, everything is a matter of urgency for the EU.
Another major challenge is the war in Kosovo.
This morning we have at last heard some encouraging news from the United States, after the meeting between Mr Chernomyrdin and Mr Clinton: there now appears to be a glimmer of hope.
Europe, as such, has played no role whatsoever in this affair and is also demonstrating severe limitations in assisting the refugees, that is for sure.
Not only NATO but also many countries, as well as Europe - which previously had always excelled at providing humanitarian aid - are incapable of meeting the challenges resulting from this war.
Europe has still not activated the analysis unit for active conflict prevention policies - even though this House approved a proposal to that effect - and must regain its dignity, ambition and responsibility by taking an initiative.
We detected such ambition in your speech, Mr President.
Agenda 2000 undoubtedly goes in the right direction: that of integrating countries which have been knocking at Europe's door for ten years.
But if Yugoslavia is both the reality and the metaphor illustrating the difficulty - even now - of ensuring the coexistence of different ethnic groups, then we must acknowledge - as you have done - that true coexistence can only be achieved in the bosom of Europe, and not by creating small statelets which are increasingly inward-looking and ethnically homogeneous.
Therefore, confronted as we are by an international crisis which calls into question our certainty at the end of the Second World War - that war would never again be possible in Europe - we must set ourselves new, inevitably ambitious political aims if we really do wish to rediscover the soul of Europe to which you have often referred.
Mr Prodi, you were nominated by the European Council within hours of NATO attacking Yugoslavia on the instructions of not only the United States President but also many EU heads of government - your electorate.
Many of us had therefore been hoping that - not least to dispel the dark and unjust initial coincidence affecting your new term of office - after 40 days of war in Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Voivodina, you would have found the right words today to appeal for an immediate cease-fire and some words of solidarity for all the innocent victims, on all sides, and then made some practical proposals for the reconstruction of the areas destroyed and for an early return of the refugees: the search for a European soul, Mr Prodi, as you once put it in this House.
You chose a different option, however: you chose to define the war as 'painful but necessary'.
As to the future, you merely referred to a general and - at present - vague international conference on the Balkans, skirting the pressing and highly urgent problems, and even evoking the unfortunate image of the 'common sword of Europe', an expression loathed by Jacques Delors.
On environmental issues, you stated that the harmonisation of ecological taxes and of the Member States' environmental rules and regulations would be a priority.
I would remind you that, according to the report from the European Environmental Agency a few months ago, eleven of the top twelve environmental problems have either worsened or remained the same within the European Union since 1995.
It is not enough to mention the environmental troubles of Europe's cities, as you have done, without tackling the underlying cause: the disproportionate increase in private transport, partly fuelled by incentives to the car industry, and the simultaneous decline of public transport.
Finally, Mr Prodi, I would ask you to clarify the disturbing passage in your speech of 13 April where you called for investment in research and development in the 'life sciences'.
What do you mean by this: to push forward genetic engineering on an industrial scale, thereby bringing about eugenics? I would very much appreciate a clear answer.
Mr President, at the outset I want to congratulate Mr Prodi on his appointment by the European Council as President-designate of the Commission, and I am quite certain that recommendation will be ratified overwhelmingly by the European Parliament this week.
I want to take the opportunity of wishing Mr Prodi well in his new and, indeed, highly responsible position.
You, Mr Prodi, will be assuming the presidency of the Commission at a very challenging time for the European Union.
Tough decisions and policy directions will have to be worked out by the Commission and this must be done in consultation with the European Parliament and the European Council.
I would say at the outset that Parliament must recognise that if the European Commission is to oversee its duties in an effective manner, that may require more staffing resources in the future.
We have to be assured that, as the process for the enlargement of the Union takes place, the Commission is appropriately staffed to deal with the challenges that lie ahead for it and, indeed, the European Union.
The Union is built on a consensual approach. That has been the main foundation for the success of the European Economic Community and now the European Union over the last 40 years.
It is important when tough decisions are taken that all 15 Member States of the Union are fully involved in such a process.
It has been clearly proven that there is complete consensus across the length and breadth of Europe that balanced political programmes should be put in place.
The Single Act, which heralded the need to complete the internal market where there would be free movement of goods, persons, services and capital, has been a notable success.
The Maastricht Treaty put in place the European currency and has also proved to be an innovative act of political foresight on behalf of the Union itself.
It is very clear that, as EMU takes a hold within the Union, the reduced cost of doing business and the elimination of transaction costs will ensure that European Union businesses become more competitive.
This leads me to my next point: as the internal market and EMU become established, it is imperative that the poor regions of the Union secure appropriate regional, social, agricultural, fishery and cohesion funds so as to guarantee that they can compete on a level playing field with all other Member States of the Union.
We do not and cannot afford to put in place a two-tier European Union where wealthier Member States are put in one bracket and poorer Member States in another.
We need to upgrade the standard of living in many parts of the Union.
My own constituency of Connacht-Ulster in the west of Ireland and the border counties has a strong case for long-term regional and social funds during the next Community support framework and thereafter.
Long-term strategies must be put in place to ensure that the poorer and peripheral regions of my country are helped to become competitive in terms of the attraction of business, as well as the improvement of their respective transport and water-treatment services.
It is also clear that a framework must be put in place to permit new Member States from Eastern and Central Europe to join the European Union.
It is important that these countries endeavour to comply with as much of the European body of law in the form of directives and regulations as possible.
This is known as the implementation of the EU acquis and is also important in the context of giving opportunities to Irish and European businesses to start up their operations in these countries.
In conclusion, the addition of an extra 70 million people to the Union must be viewed positively.
This is good news for the broadening of the trade relations with all Member States of the Union itself.
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, speaking as the chairman of Parliament's Committee on Women's Rights, I would like to remind you of the statement that was made on 23 March, in which Parliament said that there should be a considerably higher proportion of women in the Commission than is the case at present.
However, you have not made any significant comment with regard to this request.
Now you have the opportunity to do so, as not only is the European Parliament in its entirety here today, but also many of its political groups, which have discussed this important issue on a previous occasion.
As the Treaty of Amsterdam has now entered into force it is incumbent on all the institutions to ensure that the issue of equality between men and women is an integral part of their programme.
This must also be visible inter alia in the composition of the Commission.
It has come to my attention that there is in existence an unofficial list of candidates for membership of the Commission, and that on this list there are only three women. This is a completely unacceptable state of affairs.
There are five women in the present Commission, and it would certainly be a massive leap backwards if we were not to aim for a larger number of female Members of the Commission.
I would like to point out that the Member States with small populations do not have any kind of prerogative in this matter, but we must insist that small Member States, with just one Commission Member, should recognise that women too are experienced and qualified, and that there are female candidates to be found.
Mr Prodi, you are required to discuss this issue with the Member States, and I would ask you now whether or not you intend to raise the matter with the Heads of State and Government?
Mrs Hautala, could you also let us see the unofficial list which is in your possession? In that way we could perhaps join you in worrying about it!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Prodi, yours is a difficult task, but at the same time you have it easy: it is difficult because of the challenges with which the European Union will be faced in the next five years, and easy because Parliament, the Council and the European public have never before shown such strong support for a new beginning in the Commission.
You want to bring the administration under political control, and you have our support for this.
But please let your administration know that the balance has shifted between Parliament and the administration in Brussels, and that the administration must act accordingly in future.
In the eyes of the European public the new Commission will be a European government.
Perhaps the Treaty does not quite say so, but you need to want to be a sort of European government.
In your statement you mentioned almost all the key words for the next five years: agriculture and towns, competition and social affairs, youth, the elderly, public limited companies, small and medium-sized enterprises, consumer protection and liberalisation, enlargement and relations with the USA.
However, Mr Prodi, I would have liked to see rather less pointillism and rather more constructivism in the picture you painted of the new Commission's work.
Finally, Mr Prodi, in tomorrow's vote we shall be endorsing both yourself as an individual and your political work to date.
This will strengthen your future political authority.
We expect you to use this political authority in forming the new Commission and in your political leadership of the new Commission over the next five years.
Tomorrow you will be given a preliminary vote of confidence - including from my group - but you should not be under the impression that you can rely on this confidence for five years.
You will have to build this trust yourself through your work.
We are prepared to help you because we believe it will serve Europe.
We wish you every success.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the candidate designated by the European Council for the office of Commission President, Mr Prodi, will come into office in a situation unknown to any of his predecessors.
No one has been nominated Commission President in a crisis of this kind, and no one before him became Commission President with direct democratic legitimation from a directly-elected Parliament.
I believe that both these factors will enable him to meet the considerable challenges which he and the future Commission will face.
Like Klaus Hänsch, I too would like to say that as a result of your great achievements, Mr Prodi, you will have our vote of confidence and our hopes will rest on you.
During your period of office you will have to achieve two things at the same time.
You will have to ensure the consolidation of the European Union, whose tasks and size have increased dramatically in recent years and decades and, where necessary, you will have to put the Union's house in order to ensure that it is viable and able to function even if nothing new is added.
At the same time you are expected to have vision.
These are two things that are seldom compatible but because of the historical situation they must both be achieved: consolidation and vision.
I believe that in the knowledge of what happened with the former Commission you will undertake the necessary institutional reforms; furthermore, you will tackle the issues of personal accountability, internal controls and financial control, increased efficiency and the related right of control of the European Parliament over the Commission.
In the coming weeks and months we will certainly have to devise ways to organise the interaction between the Commission and Parliament as its supervisory body, with the relevant reporting and the provision of information to Parliament's committees.
However, it is not only the radical structural reform of the Commission, for which Parliament has put forward concrete proposals, that is at issue; we also have to recognise that the European Parliament must be reorganised in the same way in order to do justice to its tasks.
We too still have work to do if we are to deal properly with our new rights and the extra rights that Mr Verheugen rightly called for the European Parliament to be given.
We are also all aware that because of its lack of transparency the third main institution, the Council, is a significant obstacle to acceptance among the public.
We will only be able to promote the European Union in the eyes of the people if it proves itself to be efficient, transparent and democratic at the same time.
These three factors are required if we are to be accepted by the public.
Mr Prodi, as I listened closely to your comments on economic policy, I heard a name that is not often mentioned by politicians and economists these days: Ludwig Erhard.
You focused on the market and said that its opportunities must be used to the full because this is the best way to achieve growth and employment. However, you also talked about the fair framework conditions and rules that are necessary because the market cannot achieve this itself.
You also said that because of this certain basic conditions must be created in the area of environmental policy, social policy, consumer policy, and safeguarding competition through controls on competition and on financial aid, so that the single market can function as a single market for the whole of Europe and not in small sections.
But I have another particular problem with this, and in my view we need to solve a legitimation issue here.
We have to acknowledge that economic and monetary union is a Community operation.
Yet when I see how the finance ministers deal with it and in particular when I look at the role of the 'Euro 11', I realise that decisions are increasingly slipping into the intergovernmental sphere and that there is little democratic legitimation there for important decisions concerning economic and monetary policy which run parallel to the independence of the European Central Bank.
I believe that there is a lot of work yet to be done in institutional terms between Council, Commission and Parliament to prevent this from slipping out of the Community sphere, with the result that the finance ministers become the new masters of Europe.
As regards vision, you commented on the need for foreign representation and on our ability to use enlargement to extend the peace that we have achieved within the Union to the whole of Europe, including the Balkans, for example.
The enlargement of the European Union is certainly one of the fundamental tasks that you will be faced with during your period of office, but an institutional round table is needed on this. In my view it should be organised very quickly and it must set the scene for enlargement, for example by extending majority voting and later - but not too late, and quickly - not as a condition for enlargement but in the progression towards the goal of a constitution and a constitutional treaty.
Mr Prodi, you demonstrate the fact that we are, in my view, returning to a Europe of values.
The European Union must not be seen by the people only as a single market, it must be a Europe of common values and a common culture.
Our culture gives us more in common than it does to divide us, but all our talk at the moment is about what divides us.
We should talk about what we have in common!
What distinguishes us in our values and our cultures is not something divisive but a plus, a diversity and an additional wealth.
If in this discussion of the fundamental issue of values we can present the kind of Europe once called for in this House by Václav Havel, then we will once again be in a position to find favour with our citizens, who want more than just a single market.
Mr President, I welcome Mr Prodi's commitment, in his speeches both last month and today, to carrying out the necessary reforms so as to renew and strengthen the European institutions, in particular his commitment to an increasingly transparent, collegial and efficient Commission, as well as to a greater role for Parliament and to an extension of majority voting in the Council.
However, Mr Prodi, I remain confused about your approach to the economy and the environment.
Your words convey the idea that development amounts to continuous growth, without any attention to the natural limits of resources. Infinite growth is a dangerous utopia believed in by economists, which cannot be borne out in reality.
Admittedly, you have today called for an ecological tax to confront challenges such as climate change - and I am very glad - and you have spoken of sustainable growth, but is there not an obvious contradiction between these assertions and your excessive confidence in the results to be achieved from complete trade liberalisation under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation? Rather than bringing about liberalisation, these agreements have concentrated the market in the hands of a few multinationals which have imposed a system of monopolistic control; the clauses on environmental, health and ethical safeguards as well as protection for the weakest peoples in the world have not been implemented since the GATT agreements.
One need only think of the confrontation between the United States and Europe over trade in the furs of animals captured by cruel methods, over trade in bananas and hormone-treated meat, and above all over genetically modified organisms, particularly since the collapse of the Cartagena summit on bio-security due to US intransigence.
Finally, although I welcome your proposal for stability in south-east Europe and an international conference on the Balkans to bring about peace in Europe, I must say that armed intervention has never led to peace; at the very most, it has stopped the fighting but without removing the causes.
This is where Europe has failed.
In the past it failed to act, but in acting now it has failed to prevent the conflict; and I cannot forget that one of the Italian Government's last decisions when you were Prime Minister, on 12 October 1998, was to make Italian airbases available to NATO in the event of a war in Kosovo.
I nevertheless wish you all the best for your work. I hope that you will manage to meet the challenges of building Europe whilst taking account of issues such as the environment, health and peace, to which the European people are fully entitled.
Mr President, every decade has its visions.
In the 1980s Europe's vision was the completion of the internal market, in the 1990s it is monetary union.
The forthcoming phase must be geared towards consolidation and improving and strengthening what has been achieved; it must be a period of root and branch and reform, as Tony Blair put it.
The root refers to the Commissioners; you are personally involved in their selection and in their quality and success, and you are responsible for them.
Renewing the structures, making the procedures more efficient and introducing transparent controls will be difficult enough.
The new Commission must be genuinely new in terms of people, thinking and action.
You and we owe this to the people of Europe.
The branches refer to the organisation as a whole.
It must be clear who is in charge of the administration.
The report by the Committee of Independent Experts should help you in this, and Parliament's assistance is assured.
It is not enough to try to make the overburdened bureaucracy more efficient.
New approaches are needed by increasingly involving the Member States; subsidiarity also relieves the burden on Brussels in implementing European tasks and increases everyone's sense of responsibility - a sense of responsibility that has hitherto not existed.
In your first statement you asked not to be judged on your past but on the visions and ideas that you bring to Europe.
We will hold you to that.
Mr President, I was very impressed by Mr Prodi's statement. In my view, he certainly possesses the qualities needed to become a great President of the Commission.
As far as Parliament is concerned, I am sure Mr Prodi will pass with distinction.
Nevertheless, this Parliament represents the people of Europe. I myself speak for the Spanish Socialist delegation in the European Parliament.
Those of us who hail from the south of Europe hope that under Mr Prodi, more account will be taken of certain issues which tended to be sidelined by the previous Commission, that is, those issues concerning relations with the southern flank of Europe. Europe has certainly shifted northwards and eastwards in recent years.
This followed the fall of the Berlin wall and enlargement to include countries in central and northern Europe. Plans for further enlargement towards the countries of Central and Eastern Europe are now under way.
There is more to Europe than a single direction however, and we also need to bear in mind the concerns felt along the southern shores of the Mediterranean.
The major conflict we are confronted with at the moment is of course in the Balkans, which are at the crossroads between Central and Eastern Europe and southern Europe.
They represent a fault line running across Europe which may well give rise to further problems.
We must therefore also give consideration to Mediterranean Europe, along with Europe's involvement in the Maghreb and the Mashreq, the Middle East and even those countries in southern Africa awaiting our cooperation, the ACP countries and the countries of Latin America.
Focusing on a different aspect, I feel that the results of the Berlin European Council have been unduly influenced by economic and technocratic considerations to the detriment perhaps of more fundamental political considerations. In particular, no progress has been made towards improving conditions in rural areas and the agricultural policy is still beset by difficulties.
The lack of a European policy for social and economic cohesion is certainly causing problems too. Furthermore, the present relationship between the more developed and the less developed countries and regions has to change.
If it does not, there is a risk that we shall find ourselves in a two-speed Europe with regard to economic and social conditions. As Professor Prodi is well aware, the more developed countries and regions seem to be consolidating their economic progress whereas the less developed areas seem destined to remain firmly fixed in their disadvantaged position.
As I see it, the economic and technocratic considerations which dominated at the Berlin European Council must be counterbalanced by a Community economic policy which takes into account all the interests of each and every one of the regions and countries of the European Union.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, May 1999 will go down in history as one of Europe's best and worst months politically speaking.
It is one of the worst because of the awful events of this spring with the war in Kosovo, the crimes, the deportations and the political weaknesses of our Union which neither we nor you must forget.
Fortunately, France and Europe are leading the humanitarian action to remedy and alleviate the worst effects, having failed to avoid these.
It is one of the best because your appointment, Mr Prodi, gives us hope and a renewed determination. Clearly this is because of who you are, as many of us have already said and written, but also and particularly because of the conditions of your arrival.
You are fortunate in that you will be the first Commission President to be appointed as a result of the principle of responsibility.
Modern democracy aims to be like a temple with foundations of human rights and two pillars of universal suffrage and the principle of responsibility.
I am pleased to have heard the word responsibility said so many times this morning.
And just look at our Europe. It is celebrating fifty years of the Council of Europe whose foundations are so dear to so many of us.
Look at our European Community celebrating twenty years of its Parliament being elected by the people.
Look at our European Union celebrating the birth of political responsibility, which has come about in rather a strange way as we all know.
Thanks to this Parliament, and within it the European Socialists led by Mrs Green, the previous Commission was overturned.
Some of its Members did their work well while others did not, but overall it failed politically.
Parliament told it so and it resigned.
That was the revolution in mid-March.
The embryonic European public opinion then called you, Mr Prodi, into its emerging arena and the Heads of State and Government listened to that opinion.
This can be regarded as progress.
You will allow me as a man of the left to remind you that these Heads of State and Government are also from the left and that the first duty of a left-wing democrat is to listen to the people.
Your speech this morning on full economic liberalisation offends us as Socialists. But we realise that it stems from your need for consensus and that that is the situation we are in.
We will therefore vote in favour of your appointment.
In mid-June the electors will vote in another election for a new Parliament, a new majority and a new Commission.
European democracy is moving forward. This is why in welcoming you, Mr Prodi, it is our democracy which we are honouring, but without forgetting our responsibilities.
Antonio Gramsci spoke of pessimism of the mind and optimism of the heart when he was faced with fascism.
You could and you must repeat this phrase today so that our confidence in you will be renewed and our Europe will be renewed.
Then we can build that democratic temple and be true to our ideal.
I am grateful to Mr Duhamel for his kindness in quoting an Italian who, in turn, took that quotation from a great French man of letters.
Mr President, Mr President-designate, at the last full part-session of the European Parliament, we are facing a worried electorate in a continent at war. You will be facing a more assertive and more confident European Parliament which has expectations of you.
It has expectations of your managerial ability, your communication skills, your strength and your integrity.
On managerial skills, you have to inculcate a culture of reform to thousands of people.
You have to make reality the codes of conduct which have appeared very late.
You have to lead a team of Commissioners and you have to master details of administration.
We want from you management by walking about.
We want you to do spot checks and to be responsive to detailed criticisms.
We need from you communication of a vision and clarity of ideas, but they have to be acceptable ideas.
Tax harmonisation is not an acceptable idea for example to my delegation so you cannot promulgate ideas which are not politically acceptable.
We need you to be able to communicate with us and with the citizens of the European Union.
Above all, we require of you strength and integrity.
You have to be able to give adequate answers to the sort of hostile newspaper articles which are in the United Kingdom's press today, for example.
That we expect of you.
In return we will support you as critical friends.
We have decided to change our rules to make it clear to everyone that we will monitor expenditure in every spending committee.
The price of your failure would be awful. It would be the destruction of the European ideal.
But the reward for your success, which is what we expect and what we will help you with, will be a new confirmation of the wisdom of working together in international cooperation in the European Union.
Mr President, the new Commission's policy cannot be all things to all men.
It cannot be excessively liberal and yet be social and ecological at the same time.
You are therefore being called upon to produce a new outline in order to create a new European social and ecological model.
Europe is currently receiving bad press among workers.
Public services are being dismantled and universal service is not a remedy.
Many workers are unemployed due to liberalisation and globalisation.
Although wealth is constantly increasing, poverty and exclusion, unemployment and precarious employment are growing.
You will be required, Mr Prodi, to put an end to this scandal and see to it that the European Union becomes a Europe for all.
The reformist approach you are setting out will require a majority in favour of progress.
You will no doubt obtain a very large majority within this House and I hope that this majority will remain stable after the elections.
In this respect, I must remind this House and the Commission of the fact that the Amsterdam Treaty gives the European Parliament new rights and also new duties. In my opinion, one of these is the duty of stability.
I believe that the vote for Mr Prodi and the vote for the new College will establish a pact of confidence between Parliament and the Commission that should last for five years.
Parliament, which cannot be sanctioned in this institutional system, cannot constantly change the majority or use the motion of censure, except in cases of extreme political danger.
In addition, a pact of confidence commits the Commission to being serious-minded about political planning.
Each year, in order to establish the budget and work programme, we must examine the state of progress of the political programme which we will approve with the new College.
To conclude, Parliament and the Commission must commit themselves to achieving a new level of quality in their political work.
Mr President-delegate, your appointment will be one of the crowning moments in the institutional relationship between the European Parliament and the Commission.
The Greek Socialist MEPs hope you will be appointed.
However, the appointment of the President of the Commission is not just a passing event.
It creates a relationship of mutual trust and cooperation between the Commission and those who represent the people of Europe.
Mr President, the people of Europe have unfortunately become mistrustful.
Past wrongdoings have undermined the credibility of the European Union.
Democracy's response to this has been to institute transparency.
But transparency will never function simply because it is written into the Treaties.
It will function if the Commission wants it to and if Parliament permanently demands it.
Strict monitoring by Parliament is not an act of aggression, it is an act to safeguard the good reputation of the institutions.
I hope with all my heart and, following your speech today, we believe that a new, valuable and constructive period is opening up in the relations between the Commission and Parliament.
Once Parliament has confirmed your appointment and endorsed your Commission, we hope that this period will be one of transparency, democracy, human rights and, above all, a time of peace.
On the subject of peace, Mr President, I think we all need to understand that, on whatever battlefield the dead may fall, they are all equal.
Mr Prodi, you are the second President of the Commission I will be involved in selecting.
That gives me some experience.
I must admit that after the first two meetings we had together, I was not entirely happy, but now I can say that I was very pleased with the speech you gave here in Parliament today.
I am glad that the environment, consumers and employment were included in your speech.
I am glad that you stress the fact that it can be beneficial to cooperate.
However, there is one thing I am not happy with, and that is the high priority given to the liberalisation of trade within the WTO.
I agree, Mr Prodi, that we should strengthen the role of the Commission within the WTO, but I would warn against jeopardising the social dimension and against holding consumers and the environment to ransom.
It is extremely important for us also to consider the third world, the poor countries, and to make the WTO work in that context.
The other thing I would like to mention today is your task of reforming the Commission's work and working methods - the new business culture.
I am happy with what we have heard today.
I hope that the institutions, in other words the Council, Parliament and the Commission, can cooperate on this in future.
I have one question: do you share my view that a new start is synonymous with having new Commissioners in all positions?
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Prodi for saying so early in his introductory address that he is going to devote a great deal of thought to the issue of transparency and openness.
I should like to stress that in point of fact Parliament has taken many concrete decisions on what the concept of openness and transparency involves. I am firmly convinced that Parliament will not retreat from the position it has already adopted.
In my view, it is to some extent a question of turning the principle of possibly being open when forced to be so into one of seeking to be as open as possible from the start.
Moreover, it is not just a matter of providing information about the institutions' own situation, but of supplying documents and answering the questions which people ask.
I believe that it will require a much sturdier framework and more rigorous staff training.
Consequently, it will demand a great deal of effort; it is not enough simply to say that we would like greater openness.
However, I am holding fast to Mr Prodi's commitment in this respect and I also hope that he understands that a great deal of effort will be needed as well, in order to achieve results.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, you have been given an almost incredible amount of praise and recognition, and I am sure you not take it amiss if I introduce a negative note to this whole affair.
I will say first of all that the Austrian Social Democrats will also support you.
But I will say quite openly that this is not out of total conviction but on the basis of your achievements to date and as an initial vote of confidence.
It is obvious that you could not provide answers to several questions at this stage.
What bothers me a little - and this is the point I would like to focus on - is the fact that you placed too much emphasis on the market and too little on the social aspects.
As a tribute to our President, I would like to deal with this using Gramsci terminology.
Hegemony - in this case the hegemony of the market - disturbs me both as an economist and as a supporter of the market economy, as we in Europe have developed a model of the social market economy that is concerned particularly with reducing and preventing unemployment.
I admit, Mr Prodi, that you have stated clearly today for the first time, as far as I know, that you also want to combat and prevent the causes and sources of unemployment.
But that is still a little too weak for me - it still lacks substance.
I will say it clearly once again: we must strengthen market forces.
But we must also be aware that the market can only function in our model if there is as little unemployment as possible and as few social weaknesses as possible in our society, as otherwise the people of Europe will not come along with us.
In this respect I welcome you now as our new Commission President and hope that you will be able to restore this balance.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, I agree with Mr Swoboda's negative outlook and I want to emphasise it somewhat.
I have listened to you three times today, each time with as much pleasure, but I noted on all three occasions that you did not mention once the concept of Europe as a social union. This concerns me.
You naturally spoke about employment but you said nothing about European social dialogue. Nor did you mention the need to establish the basic range of fundamental social rights, without which we will see relocations through fiscal dumping.
And although you again announced that the Commission would be developing the liberalisation of the market in goods and services, I heard nothing about public services and the services of general economic interest which now clearly appear in Article 7d of the Amsterdam Treaty.
You really must reassure us in this respect if you want your Commission to be in full working order.
Do not forget your left wing.
Mr Prodi, you say that you are a man of conviction, with which we agree, and that your beliefs are based on European integration.
Like you, we are also proud of the enormous effort which was needed to bring certain countries, in particular yours and mine, into the leading group of the European Union and into the euro.
However, the subject today is the future.
You mentioned this, particularly with regard to your plans for a new, transparent and efficient Commission organisation.
I am not sure if it is positive or negative that you spoke more about the practical side than the theoretical side. This contrasted with the rest of your speech which was more philosophical, emphatic and profound than pragmatic.
I must therefore ask you to clarify certain points.
Do you consider that the current institutional framework in which the Commission lies, formed by the principle of parity and equality between Member States, is an essential and historic principle of the Union or do you adhere to the more contemporary arguments which press for prompt and urgent reform? Specifically, should the institutional reform of the Commission, particularly with regard to the number of Commissioners, be carried out in the context of the Treaty in force or are you in favour of an early revision?
This is an issue which cannot be avoided even though it is very delicate. The impression you gave us is that you did not want to talk about it, which is a shame because clarity in these matters is essential to allow us to accept the rest of your commendable reform proposals.
It is not just a question of 'putting the house in order'; it is also absolutely essential to reinforce its foundations.
Mr President, I wish to address just one issue.
It is an important matter from the point of view of Parliament that you, Mr President-designate of the Commission, should, in the performance of your duties, make a credible commitment to the reforms that Parliament has called for from the next Commission, and that when you are involved in the selection process with governments, you insist on commitment to those reforms on the part of every Member of the Commission, both separately and jointly.
I believe it should also be mentioned that those Members of the present Commission who have performed their duties well, and who are committed to the reforms, will also be needed in the next Commission, as, otherwise, the reforms will not be introduced sufficiently promptly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am extremely grateful to you for this debate, which has been thorough and wide-ranging. As has been pointed out, you have expressed your confidence in me and your expectations of me, which I very much appreciate and for which I feel very responsible.
The debate has also quite rightly revealed that your confidence is conditional, based on my word, because that is all I can offer for the time being.
Therefore, all that remains for me to say here and now is that I am, quite frankly, very aware of how difficult a time this is and how great your confidence in me is, but also of the fact that I am being put to the test by you and will be even more so by the next Parliament, before which I shall have to return with the full Commission team. On behalf of the Commission team, I shall have to give a hard and fast guarantee of the promises and commitments which I have made during the debates on 13 April and today.
Obviously, an act of government is embodied in a government; it cannot simply be summarised in a programme.
I therefore just wish to tell you that I feel responsible for the major tasks which you have outlined for the Commission: I fully share your desire that the Commission should return to, or rather should finally assume, its role as stipulated in the Treaties - that of taking initiatives and making policy proposals - and should do so with great clarity.
Clarity has always been an issue.
I would remind you that clarity depends on a definition of responsibilities, and I undertake to work hard in this area, which was one of the main causes of the recent crisis: clarity concerning the Commission's collective political responsibility, but also that of the individual Commissioners who are in charge of portfolios and responsible for managing them, as well as the key administrative responsibility for running the Directorates-General.
This is a problem of fundamental importance, which I wished to tackle head-on by defining the function of the Cabinets - one of the difficulties which has led in the past to tension and misunderstanding.
Next, I am grateful to you for having reminded me of the delicate relationship which will exist between the Commission and the Council, on the one hand, and between the Commission and Parliament on the other.
It is a much stronger Parliament, a Parliament which has acquired strength, as happens at times of major institutional growth.
I shall therefore have to be transparent, clear and absolutely beyond reproach in my dealings with Parliament; I realise this.
There has also been some difficulty concerning the timing of the investiture.
Mr Verheugen, on behalf of the Council, has stressed the need for a rapid investiture procedure. Mr Cox, however, has stressed that a high-profile parliamentary debate should be held to endorse the new Commission.
I believe that both these demands are of great importance; all I can say is that I shall be ready with the entire new team of Commissioners on the day when the new Parliament takes office.
I can - and must - make this undertaking to you, so as not to hold up the investiture by a single hour.
Naturally, I hope that this will take place rapidly. I repeat, however, that I realise the debate will have to be detailed and thorough in every respect.
Today's debate has raised another considerable, deep-rooted problem to which I believe we shall have to return in coming years.
I have been accused of having too much confidence in the market and too little in social Europe.
Let us be quite clear: if we put these two terms in contradiction with each other, we shall ruin commercial Europe as well as social Europe.
Let us remember that, if we are to give hope to the third world, for which we bear enormous responsibility - indeed, we cannot forget that Europe is the largest economic body in the world; I repeat, the largest economic body in the world - then clearly we must also guarantee a world economic order.
The opening-up of trade over the past few years has led to growth in certain countries which were totally outside the world economy before, and has consequently led - I understand this, and it has emerged in the debate - to serious problems in certain European sectors and certain European countries.
But let us not forget that, if we fail to meet this challenge, we will badly disappoint the third world and will fail in our duty to this earth, which has become so complex.
This, I assure you, does not detract from - indeed it enhances - the importance of the social dialogue: it becomes all the more important to look after those who are marginalised, the poorest members of society.
But we cannot discuss these matters behind closed doors, or as a continent which erects borders, albeit one that has been enlarged. We must do so by meeting the challenge which, in this case, is also a responsibility.
You may think I am saying this to receive your endorsement or backing.
That is not true!
I, for my part, am firmly convinced in economic terms that the European edifice must be supported by twin pillars.
If we really do close our doors, then from the point of view of both peace and development in this world of ours, we shall cause the most serious problems.
I am well aware that this opening-up means that change must be much faster than it was in the past, and that change leads to disruption.
The task of the Commission and Parliament, together with the Council, is to move forward in this direction, to assume responsibility for change, because there could obviously be a strong temptation now to close our doors and fall back on conservative positions.
That is why we have all devoted ourselves to this major task of introducing progressive reforms.
I have outlined a few points here; I have referred to transparency, organisational change, changed relations between the Commission and Parliament, and a change in the structure of administrative relations.
Obviously this is a gradual process.
Anyone who reproaches me for not having come here with a complete edifice is absolutely right.
The type of procedure, the type of work which we are building is progressive.
Apart from anything else, even though the responsibility will be mine, I shall have to take account of the second report of the Wise Men, to be published in September, just as I have taken account in my thinking so far of their first report, although I repeat that I shall be responsible for the decisions.
These documents are vital in shaping our ideas, in organising our thoughts.
That is why our working relations must be continuous, well balanced and strong; that is why, as I have often said, the composition of the Commission must be well balanced, not only politically but also between men and women.
I wish to say in this respect that there is no list of Commissioners, not even a provisional one.
I have said clearly to the Heads of State and Government, with whom I am establishing an ongoing dialogue to put together a fine Commission: 'let us not name any names until after the elections!'
First of all out of respect for certain countries which have their own internal acceptance procedures; secondly, because we must begin by setting out our work programmes and intentions, and then we can build the Commission.
I think it would be utterly wrong to proceed in the opposite fashion.
Therefore we shall name names after the elections; all those already mentioned are mere rumours, which count for nothing.
That is why, as I have said, I am preparing the ground now: once election-time comes the government will be formed, in time to be presented to Parliament at its first sitting.
That is my plan.
I should like to touch on a few more points, ones which I think you raised with particular emphasis and passion during the debate.
I shall not speak about defence.
Some of you took what I said negatively, as though I were attaching priority to the sword rather than to the budget or the currency.
The facts, though, are very plain: it is difficult to build a new, serviceable edifice without giving it a defensive structure.
It will take time: I am aware of the Commission's limitations, I am aware of its powers. I am aware of all of this, but we must make it an objective on a par with foreign policy.
Finally, the fight against poverty and marginalisation and the problem of growth. Once again, let us not try to build the future using outdated economic concepts.
It is absolutely untrue that the new model of growth will inevitably be harmful to sustainable development and the environment.
New growth is totally different from that of the past.
The fact is that Europe has not been able to embark with sufficient speed on the road to new growth, which involves above all the following new sectors: software, telecommunications and also, harking back to my last speech, what I referred to as the 'life sciences'.
These encompass major sectors, ranging from pharmaceuticals to fine chemistry to health appliances: sectors in which Europe is extremely weak and has huge scope for job creation and for harnessing intelligence.
I would however recall that, in this field more than any other, ethical problems must never come second to economic ones.
Let that be clear!
This applies not only here; we must make a total, general commitment to this effect because it is part of our overall objectives.
Lastly, I referred a moment ago to our obligations to the outside world.
I have not spoken of these this morning because I did so last time; I regard the two speeches as twin episodes in a single chapter which we must write together.
That is why I did not specifically go into the problem of the Mediterranean this morning, but dwelt above all on the Balkans.
I would however stress that our responsibility towards the Mediterranean countries is immense.
It is immense because the situation confronting us is becoming increasingly difficult and almost untenable socially, economically and especially in regard to the organisation of government structures.
No one else can perform this role, and we cannot possibly refuse it now.
I merely wished to recall these points over and above what I said in my previous speech, in view of your objections and suggestions, for which I am most grateful.
I wish to close with another very brief remark concerning Kosovo.
Our task here is increasingly enormous.
Let us remember that the political, social and economic reconstruction of the Balkans will to a large extent, if not exclusively, fall to Europe.
Let us remember that we must provide an institutional framework enabling these peoples to feel secure and allowing them not only to maintain their own structures but also to step up their relations with Europe, so as to have their own prospects for the future.
To conclude, I thank you and I hope that our discussions will continue to be constructive.
Applause
Mr President, I asked a question about whether by a 'new start', Mr Prodi meant that there should also be an entirely new Commission, in other words that there should be no reappointment of any of the old Commissioners. I did not receive an answer to my question.
If I have understood correctly, I am being asked whether or not the new Commission will include any Commissioners from the old one.
There is nothing to prevent that; it depends on the capability and the ethical and professional conduct of a Commissioner.
I see no reason for any prohibition here.
Thank you, Mr Prodi.
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 32.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Mr Ephremidis would like to speak on the Balkans, but the debate on Kosovo is to take place this afternoon; I think he will have an opportunity to comment then.
We shall now proceed to the votes.
Mr Ephremidis, you have been in this House long enough to know that Members are not allowed to speak if the President does not give them the floor.
Mr Imbeni did not give you the floor.
VOTES
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall now proceed to a long list of votes which contains a new element.
These are the first votes that will take place under the new Rules of Procedure which we adopted during the last part-session.
I have to say that a study we carried out today of the votes that will take place showed that the modifications introduced by Richard Corbett, Ana Palacio and Vice-President Gutiérrez Díaz are important and change a good many things.
I think that voting has been simplified considerably.
Many old ways of doing things have also been changed, and I would like to ask you for your support and understanding.
I would point out to the House that, as a departure from our usual procedure, if the report by Mr Fayot is adopted, it will come into force immediately and not from the next part-session, so that it can be implemented for the next proposals that will be put to the vote.
For it to be adopted, it requires an absolute majority of 314 votes.
Parliament adopted the decision
Mr President, could you please explain why in the last part-session a simple majority was sufficient to amend the annexes, whereas today an absolute majority is needed to amend an annex?
Mr Herman, there is a difference between the provisions in the annex to the Rules of Procedure which refer to discharge and those in the annex to the Rules of Procedure which relate to other votes.
The former require a reinforced majority whereas the latter do not.
Mr President, I had asked to speak before this amendment was put to the vote as I am not sure that it was admissible.
We have just adopted an amendment to Article 5 of Annex V to the Rules of Procedure which states, with regard to both the granting and refusal of discharge, that the proposal for a decision on granting discharge may not be the subject of amendments. You said that this would take effect immediately.
However, this amendment actually concerned the paragraph on the proposal for a decision.
I must therefore say that when we are rushing through texts, we should at least take a minimum amount of care to ensure that they are respected.
You have raised a point that we shall consider afterwards, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
In any event, the amendment was not adopted.
We shall look at it again.
We are not infallible - only the Pope is infallible, not us.
But since the amendment was not adopted, there is no problem.
Parliament adopted the resolution
We have voted in favour of the Council regulation, because the European Parliament's amendments on the subject have been incorporated into the text. This applies in particular to the deletion of the annex which allowed the sale for consumption of animals which had received experimental medicines.
We would like to take this opportunity to stress that we do not want residues of medicinal products in meat at all.
That is a good principle.
Improved measuring methods should not be an argument for setting limit values in the future. On the contrary, it should be a reason for continuing to work with a zero limit for medicinal product residues in meat.
Teverson report (A4-0192/99)
Without tackling in any way the question of penalties, their harmonisation or fairness in their application, the Commission is proposing a list of serious infringements of the common fisheries policy based, in effect, on the rules defined in the context of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation (NAFO).
The list accordingly sets out the types of behaviour considered unacceptable: obstruction of fisheries inspectors; falsifying or destroying evidence; fishing without a licence or with a false licence; falsifying, deleting or concealing the name, registration or markings of a fishing vessel; using prohibited fishing gear or fishing methods; and fishing for prohibited species or in a closed zone. Other unacceptable behaviour includes the failure to comply with the rules on holding or preserving fishery products on board, the failure to comply with the rules and procedures on transhipment, falsifying catch data, tampering with the satellite-tracking system and the deliberate failure to comply with the rules on remote transmission of the movements of fishing vessels.
The list also refers to failure by the master of a fishing vessel of a third country or his representative to comply with the rules on the procedure for landing or transhipping catches, and finally, landing, putting on sale and transporting fishery products which do not meet the marketing standards in force and those relating to minimum sizes.
Given that control is one of the essential pillars in applying the common fisheries policy, we can only support the establishment of this list.
However, in the opinion I drafted on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries on the amendments to Regulation No 2847/93 establishing a control system applicable to the common fisheries policy, I had tabled amendments which were adopted by the European Parliament. These emphasised that, in order to be fair and to be perceived as such, similar penalties should be imposed throughout the Community for similar infringements of the common fisheries policy.
I therefore regret that the Commission has not availed itself of this opportunity and include these proposals by Parliament which, if adopted, could have been regarded by fishermen as progress towards equal treatment.
While each Member State must remain responsible for its own control bodies, the Commission must be responsible for coordinating the application of the controls.
At a time when the common fisheries policy is the subject of increasingly vocal criticism from fishermen, the fairness of the application of its rules should at least be beyond reproach.
This is not currently the case.
There is a widespread perception of grave injustice built into the system.
This will undermine the willingness of fishermen to cooperate fully with conservation measures when they believe that others are indulging in illegal behaviour and escaping any punishment.
Without the cooperation of fishermen, most conservation measures will remain ineffective.
For these reasons, the Commission must put forward a proposal on comparable penalties for comparable offences.
The urgency of the problem dictates that action should be taken very swiftly, specifically before the amendment of the common fisheries policy planned for 2002.
Tatarella report (A4-0197/99)
I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for a fine report.
Of particular significance is the call for a transition to a new political order in East Timor.
In any discussion of democracy and Indonesia, it is important to remember that Indonesia still occupies another country, namely Irian Jaya.
This region was handed over to Indonesia in 1963, with the stipulation that a referendum on the country's future was to be held by 1969 at the latest.
A kind of referendum was indeed held, but it could hardly be called democratic, since only the tribal chiefs were allowed to participate.
Furthermore, it was reported to have been carried out using undemocratic methods.
In any case, Irian Jaya has no cultural attachment to Indonesia.
More than 100 000 people are estimated to have died in clashes between the indigenous population, mainly armed with bows and spears, and the Indonesian army with its modern equipment.
There have been reports of political prisoners, bombed villages and the use of chemical weapons.
Thousands of Irian Jayans have moved to nearby Papua New Guinea.
It is scandalous that the international community has not reacted more strongly against the continuing genocide in Irian Jaya.
The manipulated referendum results should be declared invalid, and the people of Irian Jaya should decide on their future at the earliest opportunity.
Read report (A4-0205/99)
Mr President, I deeply regretted the haste with which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection voted for compromise amendments to Mr Lannoye's report on the proposal for a directive on honey. This simply weakened the report.
These compromise amendments will not have the effect we are seeking, which is to limit the negative consequences on consumers and European honey producers of a directive which does not adequately protect the quality of good European honeys against imported honeys. Moreover, this situation is an open invitation to fraud.
Unfortunately, it was no longer possible to amend these compromise amendments as I would have liked. Therefore, as I cannot resign myself to voting for texts which do not guarantee that the consumer will be able to easily distinguish between imported honey and quality honey produced in the Community, I abstained.
The remainder of the report is not bad, although mixtures of honeys where part originates from outside the Community should also be marked 'imported honey'.
Finally, I must state that in order to improve honey production and marketing, as referred to in my report on an ad hoc regulation and for which we have obtained EUR 15 million per year - although I had asked for EUR 65 million - stringent requirements are needed on the quality, control and labelling of honey.
I regret that the Commission and the Council did not follow Parliament's lead as it unanimously approved my two reports on European apiculture and the improvement of honey production and marketing.
I am hopeful that during the next parliamentary term we will be heard, as my struggle on behalf of honey producers and their high-quality products in Europe and the Community will continue inside or outside Parliament.
Mrs Lulling, I gave you twice the time to which you were entitled since this is one of our last sittings. I am bound to give some small privileges - and they are of no great consequence - to colleagues who have been conspicuous by their presence in the Chamber!
We regret that this directive, which aims to bring in common rules on ingredients, will involve serious disadvantages for the Swedish jam market.
Sweden has traditionally followed a different jam-making process from the European one, using more fruit and less sugar.
The proposal that has now been approved means that jam with a much higher sugar content will dominate the Swedish market, which is regrettable.
We have therefore decided not to participate in the decision.
Moreover, we take the view that decisions on products such as these should be taken in a different context, rather than by the generally hard-pressed European Parliament.
Since I do not think it is necessary to have a uniform EU definition of jam and marmalade, I do not feel that I should vote for the Lannoye report.
We are sorry to note that the report does not stipulate that it should be possible to trace the origin of honey by means of the container, and that the rules on the origins of honey are unsatisfactory.
We hope that we can remedy this shortcoming when the food legislation is adjusted horizontally.
Wijsenbeek report (A4-0210/99)
This is one of those Belgian jokes which is not funny. It is actually just another in a long list of what the Belgian authorities demurely call 'legal problems', ranging from the slaughters in Walloon Brabant and the assassination of a Socialist minister to the poorly conducted investigations into the disappearance of Julie, Mélissa, An and Efje and the non-existent investigations for Lubna Benaïssa, a victim of the incompetence of Benoît Dejemeppe, the Brussels public prosecutor.
In January 1995, one of my parliamentary assistants, whose contract I refused to renew, made a complaint against me for infringement of social legislation. This complaint will never be investigated.
A simple administrative inquiry would have shown that not only was I in order with the social security authorities but that the first payment of an amount in excess of BEF 200 000 has never been entered into the accounts of this body and must be returned to me.
Over four years after this complaint was made, the Brussels public prosecutor's office, which is fighting me, now wants to bring criminal proceedings against me just when the Agusta-Dassault trial is beginning and right in the middle of an election campaign.
The desire to harm me has not escaped the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, which has not hesitated to express 'serious doubts as to the reasons behind the proposed proceedings' and which has condemned the 'fumus persecutionis ' of which I am the victim.
Once again, Belgium has been humiliated due to the heavy-handed and compulsive obstinacy of the Brussels public prosecutor. I will be calling for his resignation, which has actually already been requested by a committee of inquiry of the Belgian Federal Parliament.
Fayot report (A4-0216/99)
Mr President, I abstained during the final vote on Mr Fayot's report on the amendment of Annex V to the Rules of Procedure.
In my opinion, the provisions adopted respond to a particular situation. They aim to solve the problem relating to the 1996 financial year, and it is never advisable to amend general texts to solve a particular problem.
However, I also have two formal comments to make.
The first follows on from the comments made earlier by Mr Herman in relation to the fact that you decided that the amendments to Annex V to the Rules of Procedure would be adopted by an absolute majority.
You were right in that respect since this is in accordance with the Treaty, which specifies that the Rules of Procedure shall be adopted by an absolute majority of the Members of Parliament.
You - and by you I really mean the President's office in general - should actually have applied the same conditions to the adoption of the amendment to the other annex in the last part-session concerning the responsibilities of the parliamentary committees.
There is no difference in the nature of these annexes.
It is solely for the sake of convenience that these texts have been made into annexes to the Rules of Procedure because they would take up too much room in the main body of the Rules.
However, in both cases the provisions are important and must be adopted under the same conditions as the main text itself.
My second comment concerns the immediate entry into force of the Rules.
We decided on this even though the committee's amendments were not adopted.
We therefore voted on the Elles report without knowing exactly what we were voting on.
In future, if we want to apply something quickly, we should allow at least one day in order to obtain the final adopted text. We should not vote without knowing exactly what we are voting on.
The Rules of Procedure allow quicker application than that normally anticipated, namely in the part-session following their adoption, but immediate entry into force does not seem appropriate.
Let me give you my opinion, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy.
I informed the House twice that, if it so decided, these new provisions would take effect immediately.
I think that having been told this twice, our colleagues are sufficiently attentive to understand the result of their vote.
As regards your other comment, you should in my view have raised this point before the clarifications introduced by the new Rules, which make things very much clearer.
But that can be discussed.
Thyssen report (A4-0207/99)
My reason for rejecting Amendment No 4 was that I could accept it if it read as follows:
' The Council may unanimously decide exceptionally to authorise a qualified majority decision by which a Member State, acting on a proposal from the Commission ...'
Further to the Vienna European Council of 11 and 12 December 1998, the Commission has just forwarded to Parliament a proposal to amend Directive 77/388/EEC as regards the possibility of applying on an experimental basis a reduced VAT rate on labour-intensive services.
In this proposal, the Commission is seeking to add a new paragraph 6 to Article 28 of the directive. This paragraph provides for a procedure enabling the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the Commission, to authorise any Member State to apply a reduced rate for the period from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2002 to certain local labour-intensive services that meet specific requirements.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations has indicated on several occasions that it believes that there is a direct link between a lower VAT rate and higher employment.
This proposal to amend the directive is therefore heading in the right direction by offering Member States a positive option, which they will certainly use in a fairly general manner.
However, the I-EDN Group voted against Amendment No 4 by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which was adopted by 423 votes to 61.
This amendment specifies that the Council should act by qualified majority and not unanimously.
Yet according to the Treaty, all tax provisions governed by Community law must be adopted by the Council acting unanimously.
Once again the supporters of a federal Europe are trying to go one step further by removing one of the Council's prerogatives to the benefit of the Commission.
If qualified majority voting were adopted for taxation, as desired by the vast majority of Members, a whole chunk of national sovereignty would be swept away. This would seriously impinge on the right of each Member State to fix and collect tax.
We all know that Parliament has frequently indicated its backing for the introduction of a European tax. In this case, with its shrewd support for a text allowing Member States to reduce VAT, it is trying to alter the legal basis of the Treaties by changing the procedure in the Council for adopting the Commission's tax proposals.
Mr President, I must apologise for referring at such a late stage to the Minutes of yesterday's sitting. I have actually only just discovered that I was marked as absent whereas I was definitely here.
Not having voted using the electronic system, I cannot prove this formally.
However, I did move a motion for a resolution, and its inclusion in the list of topical and urgent subjects was opposed.
I asked to speak in support of this motion and that was noted by Mr von Wogau and Mr Priestley.
Unfortunately, the President at the time could not give me the floor but I was definitely here.
Very well, that will be noted.
Mr President, a shadow not predicted by the official experts is being cast over the broad economic policy guidelines for the coming year: a slow-down in European growth of approximately 2 % combined with a continued high level of unemployment of approximately 10 % on average throughout Europe. By contrast, the United States of America is growing twice as fast and its unemployment rate is half the European level.
At the same time, and fairly logically, the euro has been falling against the dollar since it was launched at the beginning of the year.
This situation quite clearly contrasts with the promise accompanying monetary unification that a new era of growth and employment would begin in Europe.
Of course, you could say that the euro has only really been in use for four months and that it is therefore too early to come to any definite conclusions about this.
However, this statement is not actually true because the bilateral parities between the European currencies were fixed just over a year ago, on 1 May 1998, and the objective of rigidly pegging the currencies to each other has prevailed for several years.
Neither the euro nor the European management in general can therefore be easily exonerated of all responsibility.
We are particularly conscious that growth is weaker in the countries at the centre of the euro system which contribute to the Structural Funds and stronger in the more peripheral countries or those which benefit from European aid.
In essence, the question is whether or not the decline in the centre of the Union is weighing on Europe as a whole and whether or not European growth, which has thus been weakened by the Brussels management, is wreaking revenge by weakening the euro.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations wants the recovery of European growth to be assisted, firstly by reducing the compulsory levies for the Structural Funds, and secondly by relaxing the rigid management of the euro.
We believe that a certain amount of currency flexibility must be restored and that the euro must be adapted to the specific situation in each country. This could be achieved by allowing the national currencies to remain, together with the euro, after 1 January 2002, with the euro then becoming a simple common currency.
I will vote for the Fourçans report on the broad guidelines of the economic policies of the Member States and the Community.
The report is right to emphasise the need to establish closer coordination between broad economic policy guidelines and the employment policy guidelines, taking into account the need for a coherent strategy for employment, growth, stability and economic reforms and for improved procedure with regard to their content, their timing and the relationship between the Council committees involved.
The rapporteur also has my support in calling for public/private investment to obtain a modern transport and communications infrastructure in the Union and I support his call to the Commission and the Council to find the appropriate financing mechanism - such as an expanded role for the EIB.
We voted against the report for the following reasons:
1.The idea of a common economic policy is flawed in principle.
The Member States' individual economic structures make it necessary to have a policy which takes account of national differences. Real convergence requires different policies.
Formal convergence, on the other hand, results in conflicting policy outcomes.2.A common economic policy, controlled by the Union, constitutes a serious breach of national independence and encroaches on the role of national parliaments, whose prerogative in terms of economic policy is an essential part of democracy.3.In the report and the accompanying statement, the policy which is advocated represents biased theoretical ideas and a particular brand of political theory. It runs counter to many of the approaches and observations endorsed by modern economic science.
We must put the situation into perspective.
The forecasts for economic growth in the Union made last winter were revised downwards in the spring.
But there is no reason to panic or to turn into eurosceptics.
This is not a crisis or an economic recession but just a slow-down in growth.
As Wim Duisenberg said a few days ago, the current exchange rate between the euro and the dollar is due to a strong dollar and not a weak euro.
This factor essentially explains the difference in economic growth between the euro zone and the United States of America.
The latter is experiencing an exceptional period of nine consecutive years of economic expansion, sustained by the dynamics of consumption, private investment and the capital market.
But the signs are there of a slow-down in the second quarter because private consumption is too dependent on the stock market, the trade balance deficit is increasing rapidly and monetary policy is more restrictive, as demonstrated by the recent fall in long-term interest rates.
Conversely, Europe's economy is heading towards a recovery in the second half of 1999.
The relative depreciation of the euro has increased external demand and the departure of Lafontaine has increased the confidence of the German business sector.
The fact is that the euro's introduction is creating the basic conditions for the economy to grow. This is due to the disappearance of exchange rate risks for companies, the lowest interest rates this century, an increase in trade within the Community and greater coordination of economic and monetary policies between the Member States.
The main challenge now facing Europe is to develop a new policy mix which firmly links the creation of stable jobs with lasting and sustainable economic growth.
This will require a European stability and growth pact to be established which fully involves the social partners and a strong political will on the part of the Member States to introduce the necessary structural reforms, to move towards a European information society and to remain determined in striving for greater tax harmonisation.
In this respect, we have a reservation about a point made in the explanatory statement of the Fourçans report which states that, 'it must be said that the countries with the lowest unemployment are those which undertook these reforms many years ago'.
This is not true.
Look at the case of Portugal which has one of the lowest levels of unemployment in Europe yet has not so far had the political courage to implement any structural reforms in health, education, social security or taxation.
There is no innovation or risk capital market, as pointed out by the Commission's recommendation.
The stability and growth pact put forward, as with that of other countries, is based on unrealistic and overly optimistic assumptions and will not enable progress to be made towards the aim of rectifying the budget deficits, which is vital to a healthy system of public finances.
Menrad report (A4-0239/99)
The Menrad report - and it is appropriate here that Mr Berthu has just spoken about the economic situation - is attempting to revisit the issue of European employment policy in the run-up to the European Employment Pact which is sure to be concluded in Cologne.
The great disaster, however, is that it now seems unlikely that the content of the Pact will really be any different under this new spirit of cooperation, since the employment guidelines are still those agreed in Luxembourg in all their ambiguity.
The essential features of economic policy are this time extremely vague and unclear, with the result that for the time being we have no choice but to carry on as we are, which is extremely difficult in view of the number of problems we face.
The market reforms that are to form the third component consist of a mixture - not yet clearly defined - of deregulation ideas and necessary framework definitions for fair competition in the internal market.
So much as we welcome the fact that the European Union is preparing to create the conditions for a European 'polder' model in economic and employment policy, we must nevertheless warn against it if the structure is not also linked to the content. The aim must be to change the direction of economic policy and move to a policy that actually gives priority to long-term, sustainable employment, a policy that returns to the idea of the redistribution of labour, a policy that places the need to develop sustainability, meet the Rio commitments and achieve solidarity in dealing with and stabilising the European environment back at the forefront of European economic policy instead of regarding it as a type of aggregate micro-policy imposed by the large companies.
This is what has happened in the last twenty years, with the all-too-familiar negative results that the whole of Europe is suffering from today.
The European Council in Vienna recommended a policy geared to growth and employment, integrating the macro-economic and economic policy dimensions.
We believe that the current high level of unemployment constitutes a threat to the European welfare model.
The fact that, year after year, millions of people are out of work is detrimental to the credibility of both society and democracy.
The Menrad report on the European Parliament's contribution to the European Employment Pact is an important contribution to the strengthening of employment in Europe.
We therefore welcome the report, with certain reservations.
The report recommends exploring the possibility of an agreement between the labour market partners on a basic wage.
In our view, this is not the right way to combat such things as social dumping. We believe that the focus should be on other measures instead, for example minimum standards in the area covered by employment law.
The report also puts forward further demands, such as a relieving of the tax burden on companies' incomes and investments and a reduction in payroll taxes.
In principle, we are opposed to such measures.
We think it is extremely important to promote a climate in which companies can flourish, but that this is a national responsibility and one on which each Member State should adopt its own position.
The Danish Social Democrats have today voted in favour of a report on the European Employment Pact.
We are very positive towards giving priority to employment issues in economic policy, and therefore warmly welcome the Employment Pact.
However, there are some paragraphs in the report which we cannot support.
It calls, amongst other things, for the introduction of an agreement-based basic wage at European level.
That is a bad idea. Wages are not a European concern.
It also calls for a convergence of corporate taxes.
We do not support the harmonisation of corporate taxes.
However, we are strong supporters of the introduction of a minimum level of corporate tax at European level.
Solving unemployment is the greatest challenge facing the European Union today.
It cannot be accepted that 18 million Europeans are unable to find work.
The European Employment Pact will not of itself solve this problem but it can make a contribution and it is a welcome recognition by the Member States that more can be achieved through cooperation than by individual countries acting alone.
I particularly welcome the rapporteur's call for priority to be given to SMEs, strengthening R&D, encouraging environmental protection, the involvement of the third sector, improvements in education and training and the promotion of social inclusion.
While the rapporteur is realistic in stating that 'special employment programmes for specific groups (young people, women, long-term unemployed, the disabled) cannot be predominantly financed at the EU level', I hope, nevertheless, that the Union will make a commitment to supporting these groups.
I will vote for this report and trust the Cologne Council will give its contents serious consideration.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party believes that the following paragraphs in the above report are a matter of subsidiarity and, therefore, cannot support them:
Paragraph 13 - European-wide minimum wage; -Paragraph 14 - Convergence of corporation tax.
The celebrations surrounding the special chapter on employment, which was added to the Amsterdam Treaty, and the scheduling of the so-called Luxembourg procedure, which was supposed to lead to a reduction in unemployment, remained just that: celebrations. By promoting the adoption of a European Employment Pact, it is already being admitted that these measures have substantially failed.
Of course the European Union and Member States have not drawn any useful conclusions from the policy they are currently pursuing, both at a macro-economic and a social level.
An assessment of the socio-economic situation confirms that not only has overall employment increased, and not only has unemployment not fallen, but the distribution of unemployment has officially become the main objective of the policies pursued.
It is not by chance that the countries that are to be 'congratulated' in this regard by the European Union are those countries which were the first to move towards general reforms in this direction in the labour market, increasing in particular part-time and other forms of flexible employment.
As a result, we have every reason to be especially concerned when we hear that new initiatives are being promoted, still within the framework of the same policy.
The plans that have been published regarding the contents of the European Employment Pact leave us in no doubt that the same policy is being pursued, but with greater demands being made.
The objective of full employment has been abandoned.
Closer association between the procedure regarding general economic trends and that regarding guidelines on employment promotes the further subjection of wage and, more generally, social policy measures to the stifling restrictions of the convergence criteria and the stability pact.
Legally enforcing and attempting to strengthen 'multilateral surveillance' within social policy sets out to remove any possibility national governments have to take measures which are different from those imposed by Brussels.
Briefly, we are actually overstepping the terms of these Treaties, whilst wage policy and social policy as a whole is subject to control and the threat of sanctions from Brussels.
Our only option is to underscore our opposition to the plans that are being promoted.
We refuse to regard as 'social dialogue', in the substantive sense of the term, the attempt to subjugate the trade union movement by restricting its activity within predetermined budgetary and, more generally, macro-economic choices which stem from the stability pact.
Such a development would alter the nature of collective negotiations, ignore the role of the interrelation of forces in determining the contents of collective agreements and, finally, transform trade unions into mere enforcers of government decisions.
We want to express our concern because, the more measures are taken to reduce the income and the rights of workers, the more pressures for further reforms increase.
Workers have got to the point where they even have doubts about the hard core of labour law.
They understand from experience that they have nothing to gain from such approaches.
They see that the planned European Employment Pact, together with the central policy of the European Union, as sign-posted by the Commission reports on so-called 'economic reform' and by the large amount of literature on the subject produced by government representatives, aim to further promote the flexibility of working time, the continuing process to dismantle the social security system, increased tax burdens on workers, together with reduced social security contributions to the benefit of employers.
Workers know that an economic and monetary policy which aims to promote the affluence of the masses and to reduce public expenditure at all costs needs the backing of workers who are 'employable, adaptable and flexible'.
They know that the process to dismantle their rights has no bounds.
The only brake on this process may be their determined struggle for a different policy, underpinned by the objective of full and steady employment, which will increase rather than reduce their rights. Such a policy will have people and their needs at its core and will promote growth and investment in production, for the benefit of the world of work and production.
The report by the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs adopts the guidelines to make the labour market more flexible and to promote the reforms that have been announced. It calls for the abolition of inflexible regulations within the labour market, the reduction of contributions and indirect labour costs, and supports flexible working times.
For these reasons we will vote against it.
Elles report (A4-0196/99)
Mr President, I must firstly congratulate the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations on being the group with the most representatives in the House at the moment.
This being the case, they will be able to hear me - because I am actually partly in agreement with my friend Hervé Fabre-Aubrespy - when I say that this has occurred previously in the House. However, the immediate entry into force in the next minute of an act which has yet to be recorded in the Minutes is something completely new and is in accordance with the spirit in which we voted on the Elles report.
I made a speech yesterday which I must reiterate today and I am pleased to have a small French audience for this.
Actually though, I use the word small, but I should say large as you are the largest number to listen to me.
My colleagues will remember a French left-wing politician saying that you are legally wrong because you are politically in a minority.
This was actually said by one of our colleagues.
With your approval, Mr Elles has slipped through the idea that when there is a majority, the rules, regulations and so on can be easily disregarded.
We have therefore approved a text against which I fought as hard as I could.
And I will continue to fight against this and I undertake to do so everywhere, both inside and outside this House and before the Court of Justice. This is because I cannot accept being a member of a parliament which votes for what is wrong and which therefore, in terms of the law, is making, passing and using laws which are wrong.
The text which we have approved is totally wrong.
We had said that we would not grant discharge to the Commission but this was not true.
However, I have made this my undertaking and it explains why I voted against the text. I will try in every possible way to ensure that the rule of law remains our standard, despite Mr Elles and despite others.
I will try to ensure that these concepts promoted by a faded left are not imposed on others.
In my opinion, the rule of law cannot be separated from democracy.
You will of course appreciate, as we do, that the House decides in all its wisdom. I cannot call that into question.
The House decides in its wisdom on every occasion, and that is all there is to say.
Mr President, I do not intend to continue the dialogue which you initiated just now on my speech. Instead I am going to give the expected explanation of vote on the Elles report.
We approved this report particularly because of its first paragraph - please stay Mr Dell'Alba, just for a few more moments - and although I agree that this paragraph is not entirely realistic, its political significance is very clear in our opinion.
For the first time, a majority of the Members of this House said very clearly that discharge could not be granted to the Commission in respect of the 1996 financial year.
For the first time, it was clear that we would refuse to grant discharge when, on 17 December, we rejected a motion in favour of granting discharge tabled by the Socialist Group which had been adopted in extremis by a very small majority in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
We have also adopted and annexed to our report the reasons for the decision of 17 December 1998. These reasons involved a condemnation of the Commission and should have led at the time to a majority in Parliament censuring the Commission, as we ourselves proposed.
Today we have witnessed not only some flights of fancy on the subject of paragraph 1 but also an extraordinary amendment by the Socialist Group attempting to delete this paragraph.
I believe that this amendment tabled by the Socialist Group demonstrates the hypocrisy which some have been attempting to lead us towards since 17 December.
The Socialist Group proposed that we should not say that we had refused discharge and it proposed that we should not annex to our report the comments of 17 December.
If we had adopted the Socialist Group's amendment, as 212 of our colleagues unfortunately did, there would have been no mention of the refusal of discharge and these comments which, I must repeat, condemned the Commission, would have had no legal value.
This is why I welcome the adoption of the Elles report.
The political consequences of the debate surrounding Parliament's refusal to grant discharge to the Commission in respect of the 1996 financial year are widely known.
For the first time in its existence, the Commission has had to resign en bloc due to the overwhelming evidence of its mismanagement.
Much more could still be said or repeated on this issue.
But to a certain extent, the Council and Parliament must also accept some responsibility for this crisis.
Faced with the new challenges caused, in particular, by the collapse of the Berlin wall and the globalisation of the economy, neither the Council nor Parliament stopped to consider all the logical consequences, particularly in terms of hiring staff, before increasing the Commission's workload.
The new Parliament and the new Commission will have to take over where we have left off in order to identify at a more leisurely pace, and hopefully in close cooperation, all the necessary conclusions and consequences.
Having said this, I agree with the rapporteur that it is technically important for the time being to note the accounts of the EC budget for the 1996 financial year in order to proceed with work on the accounts of later years.
We must once again bring to the attention of the public that this simple noting of the accounts cannot in any way be regarded as calling into question Parliament's refusal to grant discharge to the Commission for the 1996 accounts.
I rejected this report because Amendments Nos 2 and 3 did not obtain a majority.
Brinkhorst report (A4-0201/99)
I voted in favour of the Brinkhorst report postponing the discharge.
It would be paradoxical for Parliament to approve this discharge before the end of its term when not all the information is available, when the second report by the Committee of Independent Experts is expected in the autumn and when the conditions for us to definitively approve this discharge are not therefore satisfied.
However, I must underline the extraordinary nature of the vote in this House.
Three amendments - Amendments Nos 2, 3 and 7 - tabled not by us but by the Green Group were rejected by a very large majority, with roughly 400 against and 115 for.
Amendment No 2 recalled that, under Article 276 of the Treaty, the Commission must submit any necessary information to the European Parliament at its request.
This amendment was rejected as the House considered that this duty of information required the Commission to submit to Parliament in full all the documents it deemed necessary to exercise this responsibility. So this amendment was rejected.
Amendment No 3 recalled what happened with the ECHO dossier. Amendment No 7 simply recalled what happened with regard to the external staff hired by different companies.
The 112 or 115 Members who voted in favour of these amendments are a credit to this House because they were expressing the belief that Parliament is entitled to scrutinise both the Commission and its implementation of the Community budget. They were also stating that the Commission must respect the Treaties by submitting the necessary information to Parliament.
Those who voted against these amendments have not enhanced Parliament's image. They have clearly shown the hypocrisy of our situation over the last six months.
If there had not been five independent people, appointed by Parliament, to deliver their very clear judgment on the workings of the Commission, we would still have the same Commission which would not have resigned and would not have been censured.
The Commission's resignation following the stormy debates on the discharge for the general budget for the 1996 financial year, and the publication due next September of a second report by the Committee of Independent Experts must logically lead to the postponement of discharge for the 1997 financial year. This is because the 1997 budget was implemented by the same Commission which fell due to its mismanagement of the 1996 budget.
I must agree with the rapporteur that discharge necessarily constitutes a political act expressing the confidence of the principal in its agent.
How could Parliament place its confidence again in a Commission which has resigned without contradicting itself? This is particularly true given that it is difficult not to examine the implementation of the general budget for the 1997 financial year from the direct perspective of the previous budget.
The two are now inextricably linked by the same disgrace and it is by examining their failings in depth that the necessary reforms will be identified, particularly in terms of making the Commissioners individually responsible.
I am pleased that Parliament's obstinacy in demanding that light be shed on the management of the EU's budget has revealed the unacceptable problems within the institution which is supposed to be the guardian of the Treaties.
However, I regret that collective responsibility was applied, with the justified resignation of some and the departure of others whose management cannot be reproached, as things stand.
This is why I believe that the examination of the discharge for the 1997 financial year by a newly elected Parliament, in cooperation with a Commission free of the errors and faults of the past, will ensure a less stormy atmosphere in which to determine the real responsibilities of each of the outgoing Commissioners.
Fabra Vallés report (A4-0199/99)
We did not vote in favour of what the Elles report proposed because it fails to mention many issues regarding Parliament's budget.
I intend to talk about the amendments which were not adopted, in particular Amendment No 3 and Amendment No 7.
In Amendment No 3 we asked the Secretary-General to provide the Committee on Budgetary Control with a report on the reasons and circumstances which led to the decision to divide up the Directorate-General for Personnel, the Budget and Finance, on the effects of this decision and on the efficiency of the budget management and staff policy.
This amendment was tabled by the Green Group.
In Amendment No 7, the same group noted that Parliament had withdrawn a complaint on the financial claims and it wanted to know the consequences of this.
Amendment No 9 recalled the conditions which should have led us to postpone the granting of discharge.
Around 100 Members voted for these amendments.
Just as Parliament must monitor the correct implementation of the Community budget, it must also check that its own budget is correctly implemented by the Secretary-General and all the officials whose honesty and qualities are not in question.
It must therefore check that everything has been correctly implemented.
Clearly we have questions about the 1997 financial year.
We should have postponed our decision and I regret that we did not.
This is why we could not vote for the report by our colleague Mr Fabra Vallés.
Clearly the storm which swept away the Commission in the first part of this year has worried many people.
It would be even more damaging to the credibility of the European institutions if such a storm were to affect Parliament.
This just shows the importance we must place on examining the accounts of this House.
In this period of deep doubt among the public, we must be even more careful not to allow room for the suspicions which are always so quick to appear and multiply.
The Court of Auditors can and must help us in this task. It is, to a certain extent, the external guarantor of our institution's credibility.
This is why, like the rapporteur, I wish to stress that the Court of Auditors may at any time investigate the extent to which Parliament's use of its appropriations from the budget conforms with the rules in force.
The rapporteur has also highlighted certain failures that must be corrected immediately, particularly in terms of staff management and the commitment of investment appropriations.
On a more general note, I support the rapporteur in all his conclusions, including the need to postpone the decision to grant discharge to the Economic and Social Committee for the 1997 financial year.
Given the seriousness of the conclusions of the Court of Auditors' annual report on the previous financial year, it is not acceptable that the Economic and Social Committee has considered it inappropriate to refer the matter to UCLAF, as demanded insistently by Parliament, in order to enable the extent of any administrative involvement or responsibility to be fully determined.
I did not vote in favour of granting discharge for the implementation of Section I because Amendment No 9, which in my view is essential, did not obtain a majority.
Kellett-Bowman report (A4-0163/99)
Together with the rapporteur, we welcome the progress made in setting up new budgetary and accounting tools which will ensure greater transparency within the Dublin Foundation. We also welcome the signature of a cooperation agreement between this Foundation and the European Agency for Health and Safety in Bilbao in order to prevent needless waste and overlap while developing all possible cooperation.
In this case, it seems that the combined attention of our rapporteur and the Court of Auditors is finding a real will within the Foundation to respond to the remarks made.
We are therefore hopeful that the Foundation will endeavour to respond as positively as our rapporteur seems to suggest to the remaining questions and to those which have just been raised on mission expenses and study contracts during the examination of the discharge procedure for the 1997 financial year.
With regard to Cedefop, we are pleased to hear from the rapporteur that the difficulties connected with the move from Berlin to Thessaloniki seem to have come to an end.
It goes without saying in this respect that inexperience in a new environment could not justify for very long the failure to comply with normal tendering and selection procedures.
In any case, we welcome the fact that the generally optimistic conclusions of our rapporteur at the very least allow us to hope that there will be further progress for the next financial year in the management of both the Foundation and Cedefop.
That concludes voting time.
The sitting was suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Situation in Kosovo
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the situation in Kosovo.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, from a humanitarian point of view the situation in Kosovo is still, in our opinion, an out-and-out disaster.
Estimates of the number of displaced persons within Kosovo are now up to 850 000, according to NATO.
Interviews with displaced persons by the OSCE's KVM representatives and the United Nations, and also national interviews such as by the German armed forces in the camps, paint a shocking picture of mass executions, rape, plundering and the systematic destruction of Kosovar Albanian houses and property.
This weekend saw a new round of expulsions on a large scale, particularly from Prizren, where there is a danger of the whole town being expelled under threat of the most horrific acts of violence.
With regard to the situation in Albania and Macedonia, it is quite obvious that the expulsion of the Kosovar Albanian population by means of the most brutal violence in order to dictate the ethnic and demographic composition of the population of Kosovo is not only a criminal war objective but also pursues a second criminal aim: that of destabilising the neighbouring countries and thus the entire region.
According to UNHCR figures, a total of 670 000 displaced persons from Kosovo are now in the countries bordering on it; of these approximately 400 000 are now in Albania, 200 000 in Macedonia, and approximately 60 000 in Montenegro.
On Saturday a further influx of over 10 000 people arrived in Albania and a slightly smaller number arrived in Macedonia.
Above all, the situation is particularly unstable in political terms.
Macedonia is a multi-ethnic state in which the composition of the population has direct political consequences.
EU aid, both bilateral and Community aid, plays an important role in coping with the refugee crisis.
What is important here is not just material assistance but also the reception of refugees by the Member States.
We now have such a disastrous situation in Albania and Macedonia that there is no longer any question about whether the people should remain in the region or be taken in by third countries.
In view of the humanitarian disaster triggered by Milosevic and his inhumane policies, both are needed.
I would therefore appeal to you, the European Parliament, Members of this House, to call upon your countries either to start taking refugees or to increase their quotas where possible.
Macedonia in particular needs urgent help here.
We also have a political interest in ensuring that Macedonia remains stable.
We must not allow Milosevic's strategy of destabilising neighbouring countries to succeed.
As for the further political process, we are actively pursuing the strategy of maintaining pressure on Belgrade, pressure that should ensure the implementation of the five point plan which the European Union was the first international organisation to agree, and which was subsequently adopted by NATO and also by the UN Secretary-General as a basis for his own position.
These points are: the return of all displaced persons, the return of all refugees, acceptance of an international peace-keeping force to ensure a secure environment for the return of refugees, on the basis of a UN Chapter VII resolution with a NATO core and a high level of NATO participation, but also with the participation of Russia, Ukraine and neutral countries, and the simultaneous withdrawal of military and paramilitary forces and of the special police force of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Serbia.
This forms the core of what NATO and the Western allies are currently fighting for.
Any agreement that did not include the return of displaced persons would mean that Milosevic had imposed his will.
The displaced persons will not return as long as the murderers in the region are still in charge.
That is absolutely certain. For this reason it will be up to an international peace-keeping force to ensure their safe return.
It is also clear that it is very much in the interest of all the countries bordering on Kosovo, of all neighbouring countries, whether directly or indirectly affected, that lasting stability should be restored in the southern Balkans.
This is why, in contrast to what we did after Dayton when a cease-fire had already been achieved, we must make urgent preparations for a conference to find solutions in order to achieve a stability pact for the southern Balkans.
We - the West, the European Union - must use this stability pact to bring this region of Europe closer to our Europe of integration.
We must not forget that this is a part of Europe that will pose huge security problems for the future of Europe if we do not take this bold step.
The war in Kosovo makes one thing clear, and here I would like to quote the last speech made by François Mitterrand in this House: nationalism means war, that is Europe's experience.
The idea of a Europe of integration was formed to fight this nationalist Europe with its dreadful experiences.
I cannot emphasise this too strongly, and this is why we must give a long-term commitment to bring this region of the southern Balkans closer to our Europe of integration.
All neighbouring countries, all countries bordering on Kosovo, with the exception of Milosevic, want three things: they want internal democracy, and they want to secure this by means of external security within NATO and by means of economic development within the European Union.
We must try to meet these expectations by developing a type of stability pact incorporating three elements.
The most important will be to guarantee the inviolability of borders.
I would also like at this stage to make a preliminary remark: rather than making abstract academic decisions about where borders should be, who can and cannot live with whom, it is more important that we implement rules - under the rule of law - and reject the rule of violence and weapons.
These rules must be guaranteed at international level.
They include the inviolability of borders by means of violence, the guarantee of security and of autonomy for minorities, not only on paper but in reality. They also include the security of all states in the region, the same security for all under international guarantee.
This is the first element: stability and security in the region.
The second is economic development.
The first element will be guaranteed principally by NATO, the second by the European Union.
The third element is democracy, the development of civil society and democratic institutions, and here the OSCE and the United Nations will be called upon.
In general, therefore, we want to reach a lasting solution after a cease-fire has been achieved; but this means that we are not fighting against Serbia. We are not fighting against the legitimate interests of the Serbian people.
Instead, what we want, on the basis of democracy and on the basis of the legitimate rights of the Serbian people, is for Serbia to return to Europe and then to develop towards our Europe of integration.
We consider this to be a long-term solution and a self-evident basis for it.
In our view Serbia is part of it.
I say this as someone who, in German domestic politics, particularly in the period 1991-1992, regretted the collapse of Yugoslavia, in which Mr Milosevic played an essential part and considered himself to be a friend of Serbia.
In my view the tragic thing about this - if we look at it from the point of view of Serbia's history and Serbian interests - is that Milosevic is going to destroy Serbia.
He will go down in the history of his people as the destroyer of Serbia, and he is only finding out what others in the past found out who put the term 'greater' in front of the name of their nation.
As soon as nationalism is associated with the term 'greater', it becomes bloody and aggressive, and at this point it generally leads to the self-destruction of the nation if it is allowed to proceed.
From the point of view of Serbia's legitimate interests, he will be seen as the destroyer of Serbian interests.
He will not create a Greater Serbia but a rump Serbia, if he is allowed to proceed.
This is yet another reason why we need to stand up to him.
The five points formulated by the European Union, NATO and the UN Secretary-General do not mean all-out war against Serbia; instead they allow security and stability for everyone in Kosovo while at the same time guaranteeing security and stability in the region and allowing these to blossom.
These five points must represent a minimum guarantee. They are not five points that endanger Serbia's legitimate interests.
The political process has taken on new momentum following the NATO summit.
It is also clear that the notion that NATO - be it only for a limited area, but one that goes beyond Europe - could be an alternative to the United Nations has proved to be a fallacy, as I always believed.
On the contrary, it is clear that as a regional security organisation NATO is ideally suited to preventing wars in Europe.
NATO must continue in future to regard this as its primary task, although this must also involve a strengthening of the European pillar, which is something we will have to discuss later.
The war in Kosovo makes one thing clear to all of us, and I would like here to come back to François Mitterrand, but I could also quote Helmut Kohl, who said: Europe is about war and peace, it is not just about the economy, market regulations and intervention prices, important though all these may be.
It is ultimately about war and peace. Strengthening Europe's individual responsibility will be one of the consequences that we all have to face.
Applause
But at the same time it shows how important it is that Europe and its partners understand the need for closer cooperation.
Yet this also means that Europe itself must take joint action, and it was difficult enough to enforce the necessary sanctions in the European Union.
I would like to emphasise this once again, and I am pleased that we have finally succeeded not only in stepping up EU sanctions against Yugoslavia but in upholding the EU oil embargo.
As I said, the political process took on new momentum after Washington as a result of the strength of the Western alliance.
Russia has become more involved, which we very much welcome.
The UN Secretary-General was invited to the special summit of Heads of State and Government, and he too has become increasingly involved, which we also welcome emphatically, and I am delighted to be able to give you the latest news that following yesterday's meeting of the Political Directors of the G8 in Bonn, who were able to agree on a common basis, we will now be holding a G8 ministerial meeting on Kosovo in Bonn on Thursday.
I see this as an important step towards drafting a Chapter VII resolution in the Security Council, and I would like to take this opportunity to call upon the permanent members of the Security Council to take on an active role in drafting such a resolution.
Involving Russia means above all that Russia will stop blocking decisions in the Security Council so that we can arrive at a Chapter VII resolution clearly based on international law and a decision of the Security Council as the sole holder of power in the international political system.
I think that on this basis there will be considerable movement, particularly in Belgrade.
Many issues remain open.
The crucial point, I must emphasise once again, is still the international peace-keeping force.
Any cease-fire solution that does not settle this beyond doubt will not in my opinion be capable of bringing about an actual cease-fire, because the return of refugees must be linked to a robust peace-keeping force with a strong NATO involvement, but also including Russia, neutral countries and others.
Without this security guarantee the refugees and displaced persons will not return, and the result would be that Milosevic had won and that we would live in a Europe that was no longer our Europe, a Europe which this Parliament - the Parliament of a Europe of integration - really represents.
This, let me stress once again, was really the crucial point which also caused Rambouillet to fail, and it is the crucial point for future negotiations.
Once this is settled, of course, everything will then head in the direction of a stability pact, and I have already discussed the rest.
What we will need here is therefore a strong UN mandate with a substantial NATO component. This is absolutely vital.
I hope that we will be able to achieve a substantial breakthrough in the course of this month.
I believe that the G8 meeting on Thursday may represent a crucial step forward.
Applause
Mr President, the deportation and ethnic cleansing mean that the exodus continues.
This crime against humanity requires a determined and unified response. We owe that not only to the victims but also to ourselves if we want to stand for a Europe with full respect for basic values.
We also regret the unintended civilian casualties of the air strikes, but we feel morally obliged to continue to support the objective of stopping the greater evil, that is, the racist policy of Milosevic and those around him.
We are grateful for the multiple diplomatic efforts by the EU, its presidency, the United States and also Russia.
We hope Russia will agree with the need for a credible international peacekeeping force in Kosovo within the framework of a political settlement.
I fully subscribe to what Minister Fischer said about the essence of agreeing to that, while drawing on the lessons learnt in Bosnia and the Kosovo verification mission.
If that agreement could be reached with Russia, it would considerably increase the pressure on Milosevic, possibly through a United Nations Security Council resolution.
In the meantime, the Commission remains active in helping to alleviate the consequences of the tragedy by different means. Firstly, of course, by humanitarian assistance for the refugees and the international organisations that take care of them.
At the end of this debate Mrs Bonino will make the necessary comments.
Furthermore, by assisting the governments of the countries of the region most affected by the massive influx of refugees. Also by planning, together with the World Bank, the acceleration of assistance to the neighbouring countries which are bearing a heavy economic burden because of the crisis.
By preparing for rehabilitation and reconstruction after a political and diplomatic situation has been achieved, which would also include participation by the EU in a temporary administration of Kosovo, pending final definition of its status.
Last but not least, in trying to prepare for the upgrading of the EU's political and economic relations with all the countries in the western Balkans via stabilisation and association agreements, as an important element and pillar of the stability pact of which the presidency has spoken, aiming at security, democracy and economic development, with, at the same time, the further perspective of joining the European and Euro-Atlantic structures.
All of this means a comprehensive, massive and costly effort, in addition to the military one borne by our Member States, in order to provide the billions of euros which will be needed to fund all these efforts by the international community.
The price for a durable and just peace and stability in the Balkans will be high but, at the same time, is imperative both in terms of finance and human resources.
That is why I take this opportunity, on behalf of the Commission, to call on Parliament and the Council to provide the Commission in due course with the instruments and funds needed to meet our share of this tremendous challenge which we will have to face together.
We look forward to the discussions in the General Affairs Council, scheduled for the end of this month, to fill in certain elements of these big projects which are aimed at contributing substantially to a more durable and stable western Balkans in the next century.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I have written time and time again to the significant people, that is, the President of the European Parliament, the President of the Commission, NATO and Mr Clinton.
I have written to Mr Blair asking one very clear question.
None of them have even acknowledged any of my correspondence.
My question is: are depleted uranium weapons being used in Kosovo? Are the weapons we are using spreading uranium oxide in that area?
Mr Morris, I regret to say that is not a point of order.
You have every opportunity of participating through your group in the normal way.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, Mr Morris certainly deserves an answer to his question.
But allow me first of all, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, to express my group's full support for the line you have taken here today.
My group firmly believes that the United Nations must be involved or brought back into the process.
I was also very pleased, Mr President-in-Office, to hear the remarks you made concerning the fundamental relationship between NATO and the UN.
Some people believe that NATO could become the new world or regional police force, and perhaps see a basis for this in the text of NATO's Washington declaration.
We believe, however, that only the United Nations can play the role of world police and we must do everything we can to reform the United Nations - since reforms are needed - so that it can really play this role well.
Secondly, as already mentioned, the United Nations must play a crucial role in the peace process that now needs to begin.
I support you on this point too, Mr President-in-Office.
It must and can only play this role if it can act effectively.
For this reason Milosevic's 'offer' to admit an unarmed United Nations force must of course be rejected.
We have already had the experience of sending armed troops into Bosnia, where Milosevic or certain Serbian troops managed to make the United Nations look ridiculous because they had to stand by and watch massacres taking place.
We need the United Nations forces to be deployed effectively.
Furthermore, even in this House some people have said that we could maintain or achieve peace in Europe without Russia, perhaps even if Russia were snubbed.
This is not possible, nor would it make sense.
I therefore agree fully with the view which you expressed, Mr President-in-Office, and also the Commissioner.
We must bring Russia back on board and we must succeed in persuading Russia to return to a cooperative approach.
This is absolutely crucial, not just in the Balkans but in general for the peace process in Europe.
The third point concerns the refugees. Winter comes more quickly than we think.
If the expulsions continue there will be a massive problem.
I do not know whether everyone is well prepared, whether coordination between the individual institutions functions properly.
But if we do not want to have another disaster - with the accommodation of refugees next winter - we must do everything you said and we must further improve coordination.
I am pleased that Germany has increased its quota.
It may be necessary to further increase the quotas for all countries, although the principle must continue to be to help the refugees in the region if possible.
However, the burden with which particularly Macedonia (FYROM) and to some extent Albania have to cope should not be disproportionate.
My final point concerns the regional approach.
I believe that the regional approach we have been taking is no longer sufficient, and we must find a new one.
Development in Croatia is linked to that in Bosnia, Bosnia to Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia to Albania, Albania to Macedonia.
They must all - in my opinion at least - be brought together in a type of Balkan federation, but this can only work if the European Union offers strong political and economic incentives.
These can only work if Slovenia is also involved, and Slovenia has already requested privileges in its economic relations with these countries.
Bulgaria and Greece in particular should also be invited to help to implement this regional approach.
I believe in the regional approach, but ours was too weak, with too few positive incentives for these countries to cooperate.
This must change, and it must do so in the direction described by the Commissioner.
Clear support is required from this House.
Mr President-in-Office, you quoted Mitterrand as saying 'Nationalism is war!'.
Our reply must be: 'Europe is peace!'.
Mr President, I have received a letter from your office which states that the question I addressed to the Council, which was to be discussed tomorrow, will not be discussed. The reason given was that today there would be a debate on Kosovo, during which this question, which relates to the environment in Kosovo, which has effectively been destroyed, would be brought up.
I did not recognise, in the issues dealt with by the honourable President-in-Office, anything vaguely relating to this question.
Perhaps the questions will be discussed ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr Trakatellis, that is not a point of order.
There is a clearly organised way of participating in debates of this nature.
You go through your group the same as every other Member and you get speaking time if you want to participate.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, we cannot go into detail on all the issues that concern us in every debate on Kosovo.
We have been discussing Kosovo constantly in this House since 1989.
Unlike all the governments, we in this Parliament correctly assessed the explosive nature of the Kosovo conflict from the beginning.
Now we are having to use military means to solve the problem.
What annoys me about the whole story is that we are only now talking about economic sanctions and possibly implementing them.
Surely it is not possible that 15 states could reach agreement on military means before agreeing on sanctions affecting the economy.
I find this truly regrettable.
Of course it is also very difficult for our citizens to understand why, with all our military efforts, we have not been able to stop the expulsions carried out by Milosevic.
It is also regrettable that we too, with our bombing, are killing people in this war.
Yet we in the European People's Party take the view that NATO must undertake further military attacks in order to make the aggressor give way.
Time will tell whether this will succeed.
We welcome all diplomatic measures attempting, alongside the bombing, to bring about a political solution.
We welcome the fact that Russia is coming on board.
We welcome all UN measures and we call upon the President-in-Office, following our experiences in Bosnia and in Kosovo, to take steps to finally update the 1949 UN Charter in line with current circumstances.
Unfortunately, thousands of new refugees are being driven into neighbouring countries every day by Milosevic's henchmen, having been displaced within Kosovo itself, and women are being raped and men executed.
Assistance for refugees in the region must be much better coordinated than hitherto so that care is not duplicated for some while people in some areas receive no assistance.
It is important to have well-organised reception facilities for refugees in the region, but unfortunately it will also be necessary for a while to accommodate refugees outside the region.
I believe that this House should appeal for a fair sharing of the burden in the EU states.
It is not acceptable that Germany, for example, should once again take in the highest number and is now even preparing to take in more.
I welcome this of course, but it sends the wrong signal to your colleagues in the other states who are refusing to take in refugees, under the flimsy pretext that it would be better to provide care for them in their own region.
We are in favour of as much as possible being done in the region, but there are constraints after all, and therefore I appeal to the President-in-Office, along with the German Minister for the Interior, to ensure greater justice and more burden sharing.
I would like to take this opportunity to point out once again that dividing up Kosovo will not solve this problem.
The problem can only be solved if Kosovo is preserved and Macedonia and Albania are not further destabilised by it, as Milosevic wishes to do.
We support everything the President-in-Office said in this context. You have our full support if you continue to work towards stabilising the region.
Mr President, the EU and NATO have agreed on some of the basic requirements for a political solution to the Kosovo crisis.
The vast majority of the European Parliament has given its wholehearted support to those conditions.
But there is growing uncertainty about whether the objectives can be achieved by continued bombing alone.
Those of us who are concerned about this hope that we are wrong.
But if we accept that neither further bombing nor economic sanctions will produce results, what will the EU and NATO do then? Will we come to accept - possibly on the basis of Russian mediation - a peace which does not fulfil the stated requirements, does not guarantee Kosovo's borders and territorial integrity, does not make it possible for Kosovar refugees and displaced persons to return in safety to Kosovo, and which enables Milosevic to present himself to the Serbs as a victor?
What other alternative is there? Well, there is an alternative, namely to force Milosevic out of Kosovo through the deployment of ground troops.
The Liberals would like to see the EU and NATO preparing for such an action.
A realistic expectation as to the likelihood of such an action taking place might in itself be sufficient.
To refuse to even prepare is to give Milosevic hope that there is, or may be, a better alternative for him.
Let us deprive him of that hope!
As regards a long-term solution for Kosovo, we must have a clear answer to the question: to whom do we owe more?
Is it to those who have oppressed, driven out, raped and murdered the Kosovar people, or to those who have suffered all of this? For the Liberal Group, the answer to this question is quite clear.
The requirements which we are entitled to impose on the Kosovars are that they should respect the Serbs who live or would like to live in Kosovo.
We also have a right to demand that Kosovo never acts in a way which constitutes a threat to the security and territorial integrity of Macedonia, Montenegro or Bosnia.
Our long-term objective must be - through the rapid development of cooperation with the Balkan countries and an open door to the EU - to achieve in the Balkans what we have achieved in the European Union, namely to safeguard democracy, to build an economy which gives the people prosperity, and to bridge the borders between the countries in a way that diminishes the significance of national identity, so that when it comes to our opportunities in life, it is not so important whether we are German, Portuguese, Greek, Dutch or Swedish.
Peace and tranquillity in the Balkans is a precondition for entry into Europe, and for the Balkan people too to have the chance to acquire a European identity.
Mr President, our previous debate on Kosovo on 14 April clarified the positions of the political groups on this tragedy.
There was a broad and comprehensive condemnation of the criminal practices, referred to as 'ethnic cleansing', for which Mr Milosevic's government is responsible. We expressed solidarity with the refugees and confirmed their right to return to their country and the need to ensure that this right was respected through the presence of an international force in a truly autonomous Kosovo.
Finally, there was also broad agreement on the idea of a conference on the Balkans. However, we were opposed to the use of bombing as the means to resolve this terrible crisis.
Three long weeks have passed since then.
The humanitarian tragedy which the military intervention was intended to prevent is at its peak.
The operations which were to be short-lived are increasing day by day.
The strikes which were intended to hit only strategic targets are killing more and more innocent civilians, traumatising the ordinary people and destroying the economic and cultural foundations of a whole society.
The destabilisation of the region which NATO's plans were intended to prevent is now becoming a reality in Montenegro, Macedonia and Albania, while concern is increasing in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and beyond.
Old splits in Europe which we were trying to close are getting wider before our very eyes.
Under these conditions, the only military victory possible would risk being a Pyrrhic victory, far removed from the fair and lasting peace we are currently seeking.
I therefore believe that we must warn the European leaders against two things. Firstly, the end cannot justify the means as the one contradicts the other.
Secondly, the intended objectives must remain the same as those set out at the beginning. From this point of view, the serious revelations about the military aspect of Rambouillet are worrying.
These require clear explanations which I would ask the President-in-Office to provide. We should leave Mr Brzezinski and his kind to think that the stakes in this war infinitely exceed Kosovo and actually affect the credibility of NATO and the American leadership.
On the other hand, we should pay attention to the increasingly numerous, louder and weightier voices in Europe, ranging from Oskar Lafontaine to the 180 members of the Italian Parliament of the Democratic Left-Christian Democrat majority, whose vision of Europe means that, like us, they are also calling for the bombing to stop.
Opportunities are arising now to begin a process to find political solutions.
The G8 and the Security Council meeting that Mr Joschka Fischer has just mentioned is perhaps an example of these opportunities.
I urgently call on Europe to seize these opportunities and face up to its responsibilities.
With increasing sophistication, Mr President, the ultimate video game of the 21st century is being played in the skies above the Balkans.
It is a war in the skies which has bombed the people on the ground back into the 1930s.
On day 40 of the bombing, the idea that a few bombs would bring Milosevic to his knees looks to be a non-starter.
NATO has lost sight of the proportions involved; the means are no longer proportionate to the end, and too many civilian targets are being hit.
But I think it is nonsense to say that the United States has dragged us into this venture.
No member country of the Alliance is being forced to take part: all the NATO partners share the responsibility.
NATO may lose this war, which would be a disaster for unity within the EU.
At the same time, however, it is precisely this war which has currently revived the ideal of political unity amongst the greater European family.
To sum up, the bombing is not achieving its aim.
To my mind, the EU embargo will not do very much.
It is a paper tiger.
Milosevic is playing for time.
Serbian leaders such as Draskovic and Djindjic are openly looking for the route to the EU.
We need to be practical in the immediate future. We should support the Chernomyrdin initiative, spare Montenegro from the bombing to some extent where possible, preserve the demographic balance in Macedonia by taking in Kosovar refugees in the EU, so that the conflict cannot escalate further in the region, and block arms supplies to the KLA, as Italy has done.
As for the longer term, the Council President has put forward an ambitious scenario for the region this afternoon, centred on democracy, security and stabilisation.
The EU will have to play a greater part in this in due course; we have at the very least a moral duty to do that.
When the bombing and the shooting stops, people will have to go on living together in the Balkans, and it will take well-armed ground forces - and I repeat, because my country has some experience of this - it will take well-armed ground troops to guarantee the peace in Kosovo.
On the eve of the European elections in June, a particularly difficult task awaits us as parliamentarians. We must prepare our voters for those ground troops to be sent to Kosovo and to remain in the region for a long time.
But we must do it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are currently experiencing two wars which do not entirely coincide.
In one war we have terrible pictures, even if they are mostly only pictures from Serbian television, of destruction, of a war conducted by air and with bombs.
But there is a second war in Kosovo, and of this we have no pictures.
We have refugees, deportees, turning up in Albania and Macedonia, but we do not see, we do not know what is happening in Kosovo.
It is a black hole.
The problem that we all have is that we want everything at once, in the longstanding tradition of some of our groups.
We want the war in Kosovo to end immediately, and we want the bombing to stop.
But there are some things we do not know. We are putting our faith in Russia, which is right.
We are putting our faith in Kofi Annan, which is right. We do not know how we can end these two wars together, in other words how to stop the massacres and the deportation in Kosovo so that the bombing of Serbia can stop.
The worst thing is the helplessness that we are trying to overcome diplomatically by means of the policy of peace that the EU and by the German Presidency are trying to pursue, a policy that is good.
How can we put up a struggle for these people, how do we gain the time to end these two wars together? We all have good advice.
We all know how it should be done, so much so that hardly any Members are present for this debate.
We MEPs are always the best at giving good moral advice, but when it comes to seriously looking into a problem we have other things to do.
This is a situation that should certainly give us cause for thought.
I believe there is no alternative to the military intervention, and I say this because I know how terrible it is.
But I also believe that we must seize every opportunity to create diplomatic opportunities to bring the war in Kosovo to an end.
Otherwise, we have to say that there can be no solution that not does not involve allowing refugees and deportees from Kosovo to return to their country, with military support if necessary.
Mr President, Mr Fischer, I do not believe that we have got there; what is lacking, in my view, is a real political offensive against the Milosevic regime, and there is no action on that front.
As called for by this House, I think that we have first of all to set about bombarding the Serb people with information and radio and television broadcasts, so that we finally bring home to them the true nature of the Yugoslav regime.
My second point - and the House finally approved this at its last part-session - is that Milosevic should be indicted as a war criminal.
We must set about explaining to Mrs Arbour - and this is something the Council should be doing - that if Hitler had not been indicted, on the grounds that it was impossible to establish who had responsibility for any given concentration camp, it would not have been possible to demonstrate the chain of command linking Berlin and Auschwitz.
That, I think, would have been unacceptable to everyone.
Today, even though a million people have been deported, there are apparently no grounds for indicting Milosevic. That is a complete disgrace.
I believe that the Council, the Commission and the Parliament should exert increased pressure on Mrs Arbour, who has said that come June she may be sitting on the Canadian supreme court.
That, I think, is quite unacceptable.
There is a third point concerning the physical integrity of the dictator Milosevic.
That is a problem that we must tackle immediately: we cannot wait to see his corpse before we begin discussing what ought to have been done.
We have to know where Milosevic has been getting his support throughout this whole period; who has been helping him in the United States and Europe; who are the people who have been helping him for ten years, enabling him to prosecute this dreadful and criminal policy first in Bosnia and Croatia and now in Kosovo.
We have to draw up charges against Milosevic, and so great pressure must be put on Mrs Arbour to persuade her finally to explain what she intends to do at the first opportunity; there has to be a huge information campaign, and Yugoslavia must be brought into Europe, something that we have been calling for for more than 20 years, Mr Fischer, bearing in mind that in 1981 Marco Pannella called in this House for the then Yugoslavia to be integrated into the European Union.
We must now recover lost ground and integrate all of the countries into the European Union immediately, using an ad hoc formula, but immediately.
Mr President, everyone is deeply affected by the suffering of the Kosovar Albanians.
However, we must not hide from the growing disquiet among the public about the systematic bombardment of a European country and its capital and about the growing number of civilian victims our bombs have every day.
We must not now add to the initial errors of judgement which led to the Rambouillet process being interrupted prematurely, the Security Council being bypassed, Russia being marginalised and the effect of the bombing on the Serbian people being misjudged.
We therefore believe that the military action and the simplistic propaganda must come to an end as quickly as possible. All our energy must be devoted to returning to the search for a political solution.
We must not ignore any serious opportunity to do this in order to achieve lasting and therefore realistic solutions which take account of all the causes of the conflict.
To achieve this stability pact for the Balkans, whose positive prospects you have outlined Mr Fischer, Europe must have the courage to stop the escalation of military action if it is truly concerned about and has a sense of independence.
Mr President, the offensive currently being conducted against Serbia is quite clearly contrary to international law and is also politically reprehensible.
It is flouting with impunity the human rights which those who initiated this attack are constantly talking about and it may degenerate to the detriment of European and perhaps world security.
This offensive is clearly contrary to international law.
To start with, conventional international law states that a war can be engaged only after having been declared. This was not the case here.
From now on the United States Government will not show us the archive footage of the Roosevelt speech after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbour.
You must remember the quotation - ' a date which will live in infamy' - and all because the American Secretary of State, who knew perfectly well what was happening, hung about for a few hours in the anteroom of the Japanese Ambassador who had just informed him of the declaration of war. His sole purpose in doing this, in American and international public opinion, was to profit from the resulting indignation.
The American Government is today reserving this indignation for itself.
There have been many other infamies and many have been committed on the initiative of the US Government.
This offensive is also clearly contrary to the United Nations Charter which explicitly states that the use of force, except in the case of legitimate defence, is subject to the authorisation of the Security Council. This requirement was cast aside with incredible cynicism and in defiance of this basic international law.
The Security Council's authorisation was not requested because we knew that it would not have been granted.
This offensive is also contrary to the NATO Charter, that is, the North Atlantic Treaty. NATO was a purely defensive alliance to begin with and has been converted for this particular conflict into an offensive alliance which is intervening outside its geographical sphere of action, since Yugoslavia has never fallen within the ambit of NATO.
These are the violations of the laws involved.
But political morality is under attack too.
By encouraging the secession of the Kosovar Albanians, who have not always been innocent themselves of violent acts, we are consequently justifying just what we are condemning and in particular the actions of Milosevic's government. If the Albanian claims to Kosovo are founded on the basis of the rights of an ethnic majority, then Milosevic had good grounds in claiming for Serbia the annexation of Croatian Krajina, populated in the main by Serbs, or the annexation of part of Bosnia, also partly populated by Serbs.
We have to choose one way or the other.
If ethnic rights are to form the basis, then clearly everyone must have their share of the cake and an international conference will be needed to redefine the borders. On the other hand, and this is my opinion, if we insist on respect for the international borders as a fundamental principle of security in international relations, then this principle cannot be just cast aside.
Finally, in terms of human rights, we are right to feel sorry for the fate of the unfortunate refugees but the number of refugees has increased massively since the intervention and the comprehensive bombing, or if their numbers were as high as was claimed before the NATO intervention, how is it that no plans were made to accommodate them?
We are clearly being brainwashed.
This issue is being dominated by lies and one-sided propaganda, as we have seen in other cases.
The US Government is really imposing its protectorate on Europe.
No doubt Mr Clinton is also using this bloody video game to make people forget about the sexual shenanigans in the White House.
As a man, a politician and an officer, I am ashamed today to be European.
Mr President, in view of the last speech it is worth reminding this House that ethnic cleansing has gone on in Kosovo for ten years and that refugees were being driven out of their homes long before the NATO bombing.
It seems to me the worst sort of appeasement to say that if the international community has not acted in one case it should not act in any other.
I would begin by once again congratulating the President-in-Office for his firmness over this issue of Kosovo and the clarity with which he has led the European Union during his time in office.
I have been a Member of this Chamber for ten years and we seem to have spent most of those ten years debating events in former Yugoslavia.
We have had endless resolutions, endless debates, all of which have been trying to hide our helplessness in confronting what was going on in Yugoslavia.
What we have to be firm on is that we are not going to spend the next ten years debating the same.
It has to stop now.
The 10th anniversary of the beginning of it all, with the removal of autonomy from Kosovo, has to be the year in which it finishes.
Some veterans from the Spanish Civil War were in the public gallery yesterday. That reminded me of the slogan of the Spanish Civil War, the defence of Madrid: no pasarán - they shall not pass.
And that must be the message that comes from this House in this debate and from the European Union.
Whether they are living in London or Pristina, minorities must not have to live in fear of their lives or fear of random violence which seeks to destroy their homes and their livelihoods.
We must be absolutely clear on that.
We must stand firm against the sort of sick minds who feed on fear and hatred of minorities, whether they are planting nail bombs in London or engaging in mass murder in Kosovo.
There should be absolutely no ambiguity about our message.
We must not let Milosevic win. That means that we must have a proper enforceable peace.
The Socialist Group has always made it clear that we believe that Russia should be fully involved and I fully support its latest peace mission.
But we must not mistake a waved piece of paper for a proper peace. We have made that mistake in the past.
There must be no more games from Milosevic.
There must be an enforceable peace based on an international force which has NATO as its core. There should be no retreat from that position whatsoever.
We must in future learn from what has happened in Bosnia where there is still no peace but only an absence of war.
We must learn from the mistakes we have made to ensure that we can get effective international cooperation in putting the whole of the region back together again.
The greatest fear has to be long-term destabilisation, not just in Montenegro, not just in Macedonia, but further abroad, including the effect on Greece and Italy for example.
There has to be a long-term plan but I would remind the Council that the stability pact was something Parliament called for two years ago.
I would hope that in light of the Amsterdam Treaty coming into effect, the Council and the Commission start listening a bit more carefully to Parliament.
On many of the issues about former Yugoslavia we have led the Council and the Commission.
So it is time to start listening to us.
Mr President, the killings and ethnic cleansing are continuing in Kosovo.
As we know, the operation is a protracted one and has been thoroughly prepared.
Those ultimately responsible can no longer be negotiated with.
If we are to apply the classic criteria for a just war, then only the removal of Milosevic's racist dictatorship will do.
Only then will the means used be proportionate to the improvement of the situation in the Balkans which is to be achieved.
It will have to be in this way, perhaps with a security pact of the kind the minister referred to, that the conditions are created throughout the Balkans for the rule of law and democracy to be established and for all sources of aggression of the kind currently embodied by the Milosevic regime to be eradicated.
In the meantime, the states bordering on Yugoslavia - Albania, Macedonia, but also Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia - must be helped to survive the damage they have suffered through the actions of Serbia.
They are expected to uphold the boycott and embargoes. The EU itself has not suffered much as a result of these, but these other poor countries certainly have done.
We welcome the financial and macro-economic aid given by the World Bank and the IMF, but the EU will have to change its own economic and trade policy, because humanitarian aid can never make up for the loss of export opportunities and the blocking of transport links with the Union.
The European Union needs to look very quickly at how far it can provide an alternative market for its friends in the Balkans, and act accordingly.
In this context, we welcome the proposals to conclude a special kind of association agreement with the two countries most affected, Albania and Macedonia.
The Union must also offer help in upgrading the communications infrastructure in the countries concerned to create good alternatives to transit through Serbia.
I should like wholeheartedly to endorse the excellent words of Mr Fischer, because I think we have to send a very clear message here in terms of the Council's attitude.
Mr President, anyone who visits Belgrade is overcome by feelings of rage and indignation at the destruction and death caused by NATO bombardments. Yet at the same time they are filled with wonder at the strength and courage of the Serbian people and they are moved by the form and content of the demonstrations carried out by the people, who have turned themselves into a human shield in order to protect the bridges of Belgrade.
Firstly, the fact that logic has been turned on its head by NATO propaganda cannot cover up the crimes against humanity that are being committed in the name of this war.
This war is aggressive and illegal.
Secondly, the destruction of the infrastructure of the Yugoslavian economy is an act of genocide.
Bridges, water, electricity, the basics of human life, are being destroyed.
The use of the technology of war is a crime against public health and the environment, and is causing an ecological disaster.
Mr President, there is a just political solution.
Follow it!
You can follow it and provide a real solution.
Stop this dirty war!
Mr President, it is now six weeks since NATO's aerial bombardment of Yugoslavia was begun, with the aim of saving the Kosovo Albanians from the barbaric treatment inflicted on them by the Milosevic regime.
The outflow of refugees is continuing.
In Kosovo, hundreds of thousands of Albanians are being held hostage, abused and raped by Serb soldiers.
In the words of the Albanian writer, Ismaïl Kadaré, in today's Le Monde , the situation is on the point of becoming 'Le triomphe du crime ' - a victory for crime.
Is it possible to imagine a greater fiasco in terms of a rescue mission, however well-intentioned it was in the beginning?
Many people are now beginning to despair, and some are clutching at the idea of using ground troops as a last resort.
In this case, I think they should read the interview given in Die Zeit by General Eisele, the German UN general, in which he says that it is not simply that this could turn into a long drawn-out war, but that it will drag on for four or five months before the first rescue force is able to intervene in Kosovo.
One has to understand that military means have their limitations.
Perhaps it is as the Hungarian writer György Konrád wrote the other day in the Frankfurter Allgemeine , that Europeans have learned from history, but they have learned the wrong things.
They have learned absolutely nothing from the 1989 lesson in non-violence.
Dictators fall sooner or later. The most effective way is not necessarily to start a war against them.
Milosevic will also fall - there is no doubt about that.
There is a Serbian opposition which is making itself visible today in an article in Libération .
We must try non-violent methods, we must stop the war, and we must not allow it to result in the militarisation of the EU.
Instead, let us turn the recommendation on a civil peace corps - as proposed by the Greens and recently approved by Parliament - into a reality.
That would be a constructive contribution by the EU to establishing peace in Kosovo.
Mr President, there clearly could be no question of our taking refuge behind conventions of international law or purely formal issues, faced with this terrible tragedy in which the whole population of Kosovo have literally been massacred and uprooted from their country as a result of the appalling ethnic cleansing carried out by the tyrant Milosevic, and NATO has consequently had to intervene - of necessity, though nobody likes it and nobody wanted it.
The Kosovar people were being massacred and we had to intervene.
As a civilised society, the European Union could not shirk that obligation or avoid that need.
In the circumstances, however, we have to point to the inadequacy of the measures taken and the precarious nature of political intervention by the European Union in the past.
That perhaps is the source of this sense of great bitterness.
Nonetheless, we must now look to the future and identify the solutions that will bring an end to this war, but it will not end unless an area of security and peace is created in Kosovo.
I was in Tirana from 21 to 23 April, and I realised there the need to make the presence of the European Parliament felt, as we do not so far appear to have arranged for an official presence in the region, although that would have been the right thing to do.
I met many political representatives of the government and the opposition: the President of the Parliament, Mr Ginuisynis, the Minister for European Integration, Mr Lakori, who is calling for an association between Albania and the European Union, and the opposition leader, Mr Berisha.
All of them, both government and opposition, are calling for NATO to put in ground troops, because they understand - and this may be the realistic view - that Albania will not long be able to withstand the pressure, the presence of 350 000 refugees, equivalent to six million refugees arriving in Italy from one day to the next.
The situation is extremely serious and only armed intervention - unless Milosevic gives way beforehand on the conditions laid down by NATO and the European Union - can in some way relieve the situation and create a safe area, paving the way to the zone of peace and security we have talked about.
I would also take this opportunity to remind the House that normal conditions of democracy have yet to be established in Albania itself.
The European Parliament must act immediately to restore the kind of democratic conditions that apply in our countries, because representatives and militants of the opposition party are still in prison and some members of the Albanian Parliament have been deprived of their parliamentary immunity.
Mr President, let me begin by warmly complimenting the President-in-Office, Mr Fischer, on the speech he has made here this afternoon.
I think the breadth but also the substance of what he said gives room for hope in a situation which is nevertheless rather sombre, and I hope that he will continue in what remains of the German Presidency to act in accordance with those principles and those ideas, especially in the crisis over Kosovo. There is still no solution in sight to the Kosovo conflict.
Intensive diplomatic activity has not yet produced results.
But it is important - as others have already said - and welcome that Russia is playing an important part in the diplomacy, and time remains of the essence.
This conflict must not go on for too long, because the damage done increases with every day that passes.
Milosevic shows no sign of making the one important concession of allowing peacekeeping troops into Kosovo so as to enable the refugees to return.
I entirely share Mr Fischer's view that these people, refugees who have been driven out of their country, will need military protection of this kind, on psychological grounds alone.
Until Milosevic genuinely gives way, there is no reason to stop the NATO action, however welcome such a pause might be.
I am very concerned about stability in the surrounding countries.
Public opinion there seems to have little sympathy with the NATO action.
We know how things stand in Macedonia, but in Bulgaria too, the tension is mounting.
A lively debate is under way there today in the parliament about whether Bulgarian airspace should be made available for the NATO action.
People are deeply divided about the NATO bombing in Bulgaria, and the economic effects of the war in Kosovo are becoming increasingly apparent, as Mr Oostlander also mentioned.
The cost is already put at some 70 million dollars per month.
We know how poor the country is, and what an enormous cost this is.
And people do not understand why their poor country should have to meet that cost.
I would urge the Council and the Commission to look at whether this country too might be given extra economic aid in the short term.
That would do much for stability in Bulgaria, but would also make the Bulgarians better disposed towards the EU and NATO.
That good relationship has taken something of a knock.
Bulgaria cannot wait for a stability pact, a plan for the Balkans, it needs help now.
But what is true of Bulgaria is also true of other countries in the Balkans.
NATO is and was prepared to fight for human rights by military means, but the European Union must as soon as possible invest money, know-how and energy in developing the region. Otherwise, we can just sit back and wait for the next conflict.
Today, 4 May, is a day on which the Netherlands commemorates the victims of World War Two. Tomorrow we celebrate the liberation.
The celebrations will be somewhat muted this year. And you know why: because today too, in Kosovo and Serbia, people are having to die for the sake of freedom.
Mr President, I think that in relation to the war in Kosovo, the time has come to turn to reason and for cool-headed reflection.
Reason is not always convenient - indeed, it is inconvenient - but anyone willing to disregard it does so at his peril.
Reason would have dictated, for example, that when this whole business started - and perhaps we can say this with hindsight - there would have been an assessment made of the relationship between the political objectives and the political effects of the air strikes and the entirely worthy goal we set ourselves of putting an end to ethnic cleansing.
Unfortunately, the scenario today is an unpalatable one.
A perceptive journalist wrote this morning in an Italian newspaper that NATO is in a bad way and Milosevic in a worse one.
We have arrived at a turning-point in this situation where there has to be a change of tactics.
Something new is needed, because the air strikes are no longer having an effect: either the attacks continue against the same targets that have been attacked up to now, or attacks are launched on the cities.
Out-and-out war is not an option, it simply does not exist: above all, the United States Congress will not accept it.
So what else can we do? Milosevic is in an ugly predicament as well, but he has the backing of his own people's nationalism.
Now let us be quite clear about this: in the days of fascism, the Italian people were not all anti-fascists either.
Nationalism did exist, and it was a powerful force.
Hence the need to take account of it in the current situation.
What needs to be done? We need to see what cards Milosevic has in his hand, and for that to be achievable, the air strikes have to be suspended.
The stronger, the more reasonable party must act to suspend the air attacks to let us see what cards each side holds, to get negotiation back on track and to reach a solution to the problem, naturally taking account of the rights of the refugees, guaranteed by a military force, to return to Kosovo.
Mr President, forty days after NATO violated international law, the consequences are clear.
The human drama has developed into a disaster, the victims of the hypocritical collateral accidents are increasing, the Rambouillet pretext has disappeared and the autonomy of Kosovo and ethnic rights have not been reestablished. This means that none of the arguments put forward by NATO for this offensive have been validated and none of its initial objectives have been achieved.
Around the world, and despite its widespread manipulation, public opinion is making itself heard and is calling for UN intervention and a political solution allowing the return of the refugees and respect for the current borders.
However, the Americans and the subordinate European governments are talking about ground offensives and responding with the so-called 'total war' in which everything is regarded as a strategic target. They are also supporting and rearming a movement which everyone regarded as a terrorist and fundamentalist organisation until recently.
European integration, the origins of which also lie in war in Europe, as I well remember, is now in a situation where Community institutions are defending and excusing NATO and its armed interventions.
Meanwhile, this same NATO is altering its strategic basis in order to turn itself into a world police force, without the governments showing any willingness to explain this to the public and without this House being able to discuss this.
Basically, ladies and gentlemen, this is regrettable and sad.
Mr President, my message is simply this: speaking of the military dictator, General Pinochet, Allende said that Pinochet had might but not right on his side.
It may well be that ten years from now, Milosevic's view of us will be that we were right but we lacked the might.
We have in fact decided to combine might and right, but we took the decision ten years too late.
Had we in Europe had this discussion on the integration of the Balkans ten years ago, we might not have had on our conscience the 200 000 dead of the war in Bosnia and Milosevic's war against Croatia and so on.
And we have made a mistake, because in the whole of the argument he puts forward - with which I do not for a moment agree - Mr Gollnisch makes just one point that is true.
We should have catered for the dreadful tragedy of the exodus and deportation, but at the moment we are floundering in the dark, with no coordination, with a great deal of goodwill, certainly, but with no scientific approach to humanitarian intervention.
We were slow to react and we failed to react in the right way, and the issue facing us today - and Mr Dupuis said as much - is that we must realise that the time has come to mount a huge information campaign directed at the Serb population, so that they too understand that right and might are on our side and not on the side of Milosevic.
The Serb people have to believe that too, otherwise our initiative will fail.
Right and might are on our side then, and I therefore say to you, Mr Fischer, that we can and must be far-sighted in our strategy and more flexible in our tactics.
If I may make a point which is intended in a friendly and not an antagonistic way, we Europeans are a little more skilful than the Americans in that we take a more far-sighted strategic approach and a more flexible tactical approach.
So we ought to be able to turn this vision of ours to good account, and then what you said earlier - that 'May could be a month of hope' - could also provide a more reassuring message for our future and, above all, for the future of peace and justice in the Balkans.
Mr President, I would like particularly to express my warmest thanks to Mr Fischer for his clear words and his clear stance in what is a very difficult situation.
I should like to look in greater detail at two points which unfortunately were not given much attention in the discussion but are in my view essential.
We are constantly talking about having to send ground troops into Kosovo.
This is a reasonable idea in itself, but it is not appropriate for this region.
We already know from experience - and I am perhaps old enough to have been involved in these experiences - that foreign troops simply do not succeed.
On the other hand, I have witnessed the liberation of Krajina in Croatia, for example.
There the Croats had weapons and were able to sweep the Serbs aside immediately.
It has been proved again and again that people who are defending their own land are superior to the aggressors.
We must recognise this.
There is the KLA, there are the Albanian forces, and we must give them weapons so that they can meet the mobs coming out of Serbia on an equal footing.
We will be astonished at how quickly the ground fighting will come to an end.
The second point is that at the beginning we made a huge psychological error by repeatedly saying that the Kosovars must remain with Serbia, must remain in Yugoslavia.
Ladies and gentlemen, we keep forgetting the fact that the state is there for the people, the people are not there for the state.
So the people should have the right to self-determination, and we should grant this right to the inhabitants of Kosovo, who for decades have undergone indescribable suffering at the hands of the Serbian Government in Belgrade.
Milosevic is only the product of an old policy that goes back to before the Second World War.
Mr President, it is clear that the offensive against Yugoslavia has not succeeded in halting the deportations or preventing the exodus of Kosovar Albanians. Nor has it made Mr Milosevic relent.
But it has succeeded in causing great concern by endangering the whole of the region, and in humiliating the UN and, of course, the political unity of Europe. It is clear that this was one of the intentions of American nationalism, while our leaders in Europe connive out of regional fears or aspirations, brushing aside the opportunity to proceed collectively and autonomously.
Mr President, these offensives will destroy Serbia and will severely harm the Serbian people, killing and wounding many of them. Could the presidency give us an account of the victims?
It appears that the Kosovar Albanians, together with the Serbs and those living in neighbouring countries, will be the first victims of the pollution caused by the depleted uranium contained in the war-heads that are being used in the region. Could the presidency comment on the use of this substance, on the pollution that is envisaged as a result, and on how long this pollution will last?
How can the presidency guarantee the return of the refugees to a land that is so polluted? Or perhaps it has already tacitly ruled out the return of the refugees?
Mr President, Europe finds itself embroiled in war: a war into which it stumbled without having any real exit strategy; a war with an obvious risk of spreading; a war which it was planned to win in a couple of days, but which after five weeks has not abated; a war which was launched to rescue people suffering ethnic cleansing and which has resulted in a million refugees; a war which has turned resistance to Milosevic into support for him.
It is time to ask ourselves whether it was a good way to attain our objective.
Ethnic cleansing and injustice can never be tolerated.
It is time to put an end to Milosevic's reign of terror, but it is also time to put an end to the NATO bombing.
It is time to put forward a political solution to what is a political problem.
As a former prime minister of Sweden, Olof Palme, once said: 'One cannot establish democracy by bombing the villages one should be preserving'.
The EU has political, diplomatic and economic means at its disposal, and it should make use of them in the Balkans.
It is time for the EU to make an active contribution to establishing the right conditions for a political solution to the war in Kosovo.
It is time for the UN to resume its rightful role and for the EU to call for a UN peacekeeping force in Kosovo, so that the refugees can return in safety.
The EU countries should draw up a large-scale Marshall plan for the Balkan region, to rebuild the devastated communities and to counteract the hatred, which will otherwise provide a breeding-ground for future conflicts for generations to come.
The war has taught us that the EU needs to develop without delay an instrument for conflict resolution, peacekeeping, mediation, reconciliation and confidence building.
If we cannot find methods for resolving conflicts peacefully, without being forced to use military means, then the whole idea behind the EU will crumble away.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I can certainly endorse much of what has been said here this afternoon, but by no means all of it. Who among us is not following these events with growing concern?
Have we not for years defended human rights in every sitting here in the European Parliament? I will do the same here today for the last time.
We have been fairly vocal in defending human rights, sometimes for small groups of people.
Here we are concerned with hundreds of thousands of people whose rights are being repeatedly violated - I do not need to give all the details again here - and this is happening in a part of Europe that was formerly very popular among tourists.
In my view there are two very different aspects to the NATO response.
For the first time a regional alliance of nations is emerging to defend these people's human rights, to restore stability to a part of Europe that has for eight years seen one set of violations lead to another, and always for the same reasons.
The UN, however, failed completely as it was not able to apply either its Charter or international law in practice; instead, a lot of what it said remained merely empty words, and it did not manage to prevent the conflicts for which it was actually created.
Anyone who lived through the Second World War, as I did, knows what it is like to experience bombs and see burning houses and victims of war at close quarters.
We would not wish it on anyone, and certainly not on the Serbian people and Serbian children whose leader's madness has driven them to ruin in the same way as it has hundreds of thousands of others.
No one has anything against the Serbian people. Each one of us would protect Serbian children in the same way as we would Kosovar or Albanian children.
We must at long last speak out to condemn this madness.
We must realise that we cannot only summon the UN when we need it.
Parliament will make every effort to ensure that this region is rebuilt when the time comes, and I also see this commitment in Emma Bonino, in Mr van den Broek and in others with whom we have worked for a long time.
Every opportunity for negotiation must be used, but only when the madness has been ended and we really can provide these people with a home, protection and peace.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioners, I will spare you the high-flown sentiments and I also hope to spare you any naivety.
Faced with the monstrous nature of the crime committed by Milosevic, which is already ethnocide and may also be genocide, I agree with those who firmly believe that we had to do something.
I support the majority in this Parliament which has warmly approved the military intervention.
Similarly, I do not believe for one moment that Mr Milosevic's brutal nature could allow him to be receptive to a measure such as a unilateral halt to our action in order to restart political talks.
I feel it is dangerous even to consider this.
However, the result of our action is worrying.
Serbia is certainly being weakened, but not really Milosevic.
The ethnic cleansing in Kosovo is getting worse.
Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro have become weaker and the prospects are not good.
Now that this war has been started, we must win it.
I am not going to talk about the future. Many opinions have been expressed here today, some of which I agree with, but not all.
What interests me is 'how'.
Minister, Mr President-in-Office, how was this offensive prepared? Was the European Union, or at least the Member States involved, consulted about the plan of attack?
Did the EU comment on the chances of success of this plan and on the existence or otherwise of any other plan? Did the Council you are presiding over discuss the option of supplementing the air strikes with a ground offensive, which anyone can see is essential strategically?
Did the Council of Ministers at that point seek to develop the means to establish a common strategic debate so that the elements of this action specific to Europe could be proposed to the Alliance Council? And finally Mr Fischer, at this point in time, can you tell us if the Council is aware of the urgent need to develop within the Alliance a capacity for analysis and defence specific to Europe?
Mr President, for too long the international community has allowed Milosevic to do as he pleases, without trying all possible sanctions such as an oil embargo.
Even in the early 1990s we heard reports of the use of mass rape as a weapon of war in Croatia and in the war in Bosnia.
Today we are once again hearing from international aid organisations that women are being deliberately picked out of groups of refugees and dragged off by force, to be returned next morning half dead and highly traumatised or never to be seen again.
This violence against women, this wave of torture and rape motivated by nationalism, intensifies the spiral of violence, hatred and revenge that is destroying all hope of a peaceful multi-ethnic Kosovo.
Women are falling victim to war criminals because they are women, and the EU must recognise this as grounds for asylum.
In my view, however, it is the height of cynicism that in this situation the Vatican allows women to use contraception but labels abortion as murder.
Some of our Heads of State and Government and, Mr Fischer, your colleagues should blush with shame when we see where refugees have been taken in and where they have not.
Four EU Member States have not taken in any refugees.
The Union must increase humanitarian aid and immediately review the NATO strategy.
We must stop the bombing and we must, with Russian involvement, return to the negotiating table with a negotiating position.
Mr President, I should like to devote my speaking time to an aspect which is relevant to the work of my committee, namely refugee policy.
Mrs Gröner spoke of this earlier.
But calling it a policy is going a little too far.
Of the more than 600 000 Kosovars who have fled and been driven out of house and home, fewer than 18 000 have so far been taken in by the Member States of the Union. Of these, Germany has taken nearly 10 000, which means that the rest of the Member States between them have not yet managed even 8 000 Kosovars.
Just imagine, in the space of a few weeks in the poorest areas in Europe, 600 000 people have had to be housed in camps, and even private homes as well. That figure of 600 000 is twice the number of people that we in our wealthy countries consider each year for asylum, because asylum seekers number only 300 000 or so a year.
We all share the responsibility for this flood of refugees.
In the course of the last few weeks, out of solidarity and humanity, we should have devised a policy for absorbing these refugees and dividing them up fairly between the Member States.
I see it as proof of the Council's impotence that it was unable to take a decision of that kind, and to some extent I see this as a refusal to put your money where your mouth is.
At any rate, this House must galvanise the Council into action.
The problem of refugees and human misery cannot be solved by throwing ECU 250 million at it.
What we want to see is a temporary haven for substantial numbers of them in our Member States, together with every possible material assistance to the countries in the region, not least after the crisis is over.
Mr President, this is I think the second or third time we have discussed this issue.
Let me begin with you, Mr Rocard.
I do not know what level of information the Member States of the Union or those who sit on the North Atlantic Council have.
What I can say is that, at a humanitarian level at least, the Commission, like all the humanitarian agencies, was not given information by those Member States which belong to both the European Union and the North Atlantic Council.
No one was briefed or informed of any plans or given any information.
I actually believe that, from the humanitarian point of view, the problem is one of coordination.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is right and proper that individuals, including the individual Member States, should be generous, but this does make coordination more or less impossible.
It is very difficult, even for the UNHCR, successfully to organise hundreds of NGOs, funded by private donations, as well as the structures of the 15 Member States that have quite rightly been spurred into action, besides the other donors from the United States, together with the Canadians, the Norwegians, the Japanese and so on.
It is, I can assure you, easy to talk about the role of coordination, but more difficult to carry it out, and one reason for this is that, understandably, everyone feels the need for a visible political presence, and we can all agree on that.
In the final analysis, there is clearly some divergence of interests.
How then are we to avoid duplicating aid when practically no one knows what the Member States are doing? How can we avoid the kind of mistakes that arise when generosity is not matched by experience?
It is, for example, difficult to inform, warn or prevent someone from setting up camps where they are not able to be maintained because, in the rush, nobody consults.
What I am trying to convey to you here is that there has not to this day been any limitation on funding or on humanitarian projects.
There has been a serious lack of coordination, of discipline, and a failure to set priorities. And so it seems to me that the task of the UNHCR - our task therefore - is not of the easiest.
A second question that has been put to me, and this is something on which we are working, is the more important issue of providing shelter.
It is true that what we mostly see are the camps with their dreadful conditions, but honourable Members should realise that the great majority of the deportees have been taken in by extremely poor Albanian or Macedonian families, as we all know, and that one of the major efforts we are making is to provide aid to those families, specifically to prevent social tensions and to ensure that the refugees do not find themselves on the street after enjoying a month's generous hospitality, thereby creating social problems.
Another activity in which we are very much involved is, more particularly, preparing for the worst-case scenario, namely the advent of winter.
For some of the refugees at least, we are restoring brick-built housing and community centres to enable us to evacuate as soon as possible the vast majority of deportees who are living under canvas and to provide them with more acceptable health and sanitary conditions, or at least better climatic conditions.
I must also draw your attention to three other risk factors that have to be borne in mind: the first is Macedonia, because of the political problem there.
However, although I appreciate the political problem which the Macedonian Government has, I do not think its attitude to the deportees at the frontier is acceptable - and nor would it be acceptable in any circumstances.
While I understand its difficulties, it is not acceptable that anyone should violate the humanitarian conventions.
The second issue is that of Montenegro.
The House should not forget that there are in Montenegro 70 000 deportees who are human time bombs.
These are not the kind of refugees we are used to, they are actually deportees, human time bombs to be used if, when and where Milosevic so decides.
And if he decides to dispatch a human time bomb made up of a hundred thousand people against Montenegro, we will really see a problem of political destabilisation.
Another point that we should keep in mind concerns Bosnia, which was already in a difficult situation and has taken in 50 000 refugees, in this case Serbs.
The third issue on which we are working relates to the Serb evacuees on Serbian territory, for whom we have made provision by taking specific measures.
I shall be returning to the region in the next few days, but I would ask for your help in conveying this message: the crucial element now in humanitarian aid is to set priorities and to be disciplined and coordinated; failing that, I am afraid that, despite the great generosity coming from all sides, the result will be total disarray.
There are two further, perhaps rather more political points that I would make.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that when our forebears opted for the European Community, they did so for two reasons: that there should never again be war between us, and that there should never be another Auschwitz.
Today we have to choose between those two eventualities, because it has not been possible to rule out both.
We hear the call for a political solution.
But what have we been doing with Milosevic over the past ten years if not seeking a political solution? In my humble opinion, we have gone too far: from one conference to the next, from one diplomatic meeting to the next, from one meeting in Geneva to the next.
But I would venture to say better late than never.
It probably is late - too late, I agree - but just think of the case-file from Osiek to Vukovar, Srebrenica to Sarajevo, Bihac to Tuzla and so many other shameful crimes, to which we failed to respond.
We simply cannot say that since we do not intervene everywhere, we should not intervene in our own backyard either.
I think it is quite clear where the responsibilities lie here, at least as regards the European Union, for resolving not so much problems far afield as those in our own backyard.
If we do not even have the courage for that, if we believe that Europe means having a single currency, a bit of agriculture and - why not? - a spot of fishing, but do not share these principles, and by that I mean the rejection of ethnic cleansing in Europe at least, then it becomes meaningless to call ourselves Europeans.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to pick up where Commissioner Bonino left off.
If we look at the debate - and in this respect it resembles all the other debates we have heard in recent weeks - we can see that there are a lot of good individual arguments that we have all thought of from time to time.
But if we try to find an alternative way of looking at things we find that we have not heard an alternative. a political solution has been called for.
Yes, but a political solution is not an end in itself.
The question should be: what must a political solution achieve? a political solution must achieve an end to violence.
Applause
a political solution must bring about the return of those who have been displaced and it must in particular ensure that we do not have another ten years of nationalist madness in the Balkans with hundreds of thousands of more deaths.
Applause
a political solution is not an end in itself, so we must talk about the substance of our policy.
The only thing I can add there is to offer Mr Milosevic a peace corps.
He would like that.
He would immediately support that, particularly now.
And why? Because then he would have what he wanted.
Mr Milosevic is not the man to be influenced by a peace corps.
I am very strongly in favour of a peace corps, I am very much in favour of a Europe in which violence has no place.
But how are we to respond to someone who has used the most merciless violence not just once, not twice, not three times, but for ten years?
Applause
In my view this is not just a moral issue.
It is a question of European security and of the future of Europe.
I would accept the criticism if we had acted rashly in resorting to force, but there are at least 200 000 people lying in mass graves because we acted too late.
Think of Bosnia!
Are our memories so short? Mr Karadzic was in Geneva and signed treaties that just an hour later were no longer valid in Bosnia.
This did not happen once, or ten times, it happened umpteen times.
What must it take? This is a question we must ask ourselves.
Of course we all ask ourselves this question constantly - I can at least say this for the German Government, but surely all the governments involved feel the same - when it is our responsibility.
But some statements I have heard have confused cause and effect.
Applause
We must not confuse cause and effect here!
The cause is Milosevic's policy. He is not a nationalist but a cynic.
His aim is to obtain power.
This is why he is using the aggressive tactics of Serb nationalism.
He has unleashed the tiger and is trying to ride it, and if we allow him to continue he will not only bring disaster to an entire region of Europe, but he will also cost more innocent lives.
The brutal expulsion and exodus we are now witnessing are on a scale that we would not have thought possible.
Emma Bonino rightly said that these are human bombs, in other words the expulsion is being used doubly cynically as brutal tactics against neighbouring countries.
Europe cannot accept this. a political solution that involved accepting this would be completely wrong. It would be the opposite of what we want.
Applause
We are trying to implement a political solution that uses force on the basis of respect for human rights, common security and the return of all refugees, on the basis of the international community.
This is the type of political solution we are trying to achieve.
But this presupposes firstly that Belgrade is left in no doubt about the resolve of the international community, and secondly that it understands that a military solution holds no prospects for Serbia and also none for Milosevic personally.
I consider it imperative that we achieve a political solution and a cease-fire on this basis.
I consider it to be not only necessary but crucial that we develop proposals that can be discussed or considered and that have a clear content that can be implemented.
On the other hand, it must be clear that cause and effect cannot be confused, and I would like to emphasise this.
Milosevic is responsible for this war, which I hope will be the last round of violence.
If we do not put a halt to his actions Montenegro will follow, then Sandjak will follow, then Vojvodina and then sooner or later we will have the same war again in a new round, this time in Macedonia.
I have no doubts on this score.
Therefore, of all the good arguments I have heard, the only possible alternative is a political solution that renounces the use of force, respects human rights and ensures the return of refugees.
Belgrade must take this on board.
Milosevic must take this step.
Applause
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office.
I have received seven motions for resolutions tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 a.m.
CFSP
The next item is the joint debate on:
the report (A4-0242/99) by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the role of the Union in the world: implementation of the common foreign and security policy for 1998; -the report (A4-0219/99) by Mr Spencer, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, containing a proposal for a European Parliament recommendation to the Council on the common strategy towards the Russian Federation; -the statement by the Council on the appointment of the High Representative for the common foreign and security policy.
Mr President, I hope that the President-in-Office is going to announce the decision to appoint the High Representative at the Council meeting in Cologne.
Under our Rules of Procedure we will invite the successful candidate to speak to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy on 21 June so that we may put a recommendation of approval to the July plenary.
We take the view that the High Representative must be a figure of substance, not a creature of Council in-fighting.
The relationship which the successful candidate forms with Parliament and the Commission is, in our view, central to the coherence of foreign policy.
The year 1998 was the year when our hopes of coherence in foreign policy were tested by reality.
The last twelve months have seen the establishment of the euro and we deserve a foreign policy that matches the expectations in the rest of the world raised by our new monetary union.
1998 was the year of the pregnancy of our new foreign policy structures under the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We deserve a foreign policy structure that provides the telephone number that Henry Kissinger asked for a generation ago.
1998 was the year in which we first engaged with the reality of Europe's defence.
We deserve a foreign policy that is backed by clarity and coherence in our defence structure, most particularly as regards the Western European Union.
My report details the use of the Union's instruments around the world.
It is a story familiar from recent years; a story of imperfect institutions struggling to grapple with an unstable world.
We want to see a strong High Representative, a strong policy planning and early warning unit, a strong Commission structure with a coherent team of Commissioners dealing with external relations.
We want a CFSP that is adequately financed, that is academically and intellectually credible, using to the full the successful crisis prevention network.
Europe is a power in the world. It must find a common voice; a common voice for use not just in our near abroad.
Our embarrassed silences on Iran, Iraq or the Indian sub-continent are products of black spots in our vision, reflecting fifty years of building Europe brick by domestic brick rather than according to a global vision of our place in the world of diplomacy.
Our foreign policy has human rights and dignity at its core.
How could it be otherwise with our own shared heritage of horror and civil war? Painful though it may be to contemplate, there is no other explanation for a Union that is prepared to wage war, not for oil, not for power, but to oppose the evil of ethnic cleansing in the heart of Europe.
Of all the instruments at our disposal the common strategies should be the most powerful. From the highest level they are supposed to guide Europe's footsteps in the world.
Rightly we set out to define our relationship with Russia, our neighbour in the common European house, as a first step.
To forge a new instrument in the heat of a crisis with our most important neighbour is perhaps excessively courageous.
I am not convinced that the text that the Council is currently considering is yet good enough.
To prepare it in a hurry without the help of the High Representative and without either the reality or the structure of consultation with Parliament is, in my view, hubris.
It is the folly of the magic circle of national diplomats in Brussels who continue to believe that yesterday's working methods are adequate for tomorrow's challenges.
Far from seeking to send a negative message to Moscow by proposing in paragraph 4 that the Council delay the adoption of the common strategy until the Helsinki Summit, we were seeking to ensure that the urgent did not drive out the important.
It is exactly because we want a strong document that we offered the suggestion of delay.
I accept however that there are those in Russia, outside the government, who are not committed to a positive relationship and who might deliberately misinterpret our motives.
I am therefore happy to recommend to the House the adoption of Amendment No 2 from the Socialist Group.
War shines a harsh light on all our evasions, on all our half-truths, on all our institutional improvisations.
Europe and our relations with Russia and with America will not be the same after the war.
If that harsh light challenges us to define our views of the world, it does the same for America.
My report has severe things to say about the conduct of American foreign policy, not least its co-option by commercial interests.
Washington, it seems to me, is currently torn between a view of itself as the centre of a unipolar world of American hegemony and the more realistic recognition that it is a super-power that operates most effectively when it exercises its power in tandem with Europe.
Nowhere, Mr President, are the new realities more apparent than in the Balkans.
It is in the Balkans that Europe will be tested in the next five years.
It is central to our relationship with Russia, it is central to NATO's credibility, it is central to Europe's role inside NATO.
In recent weeks I have twice been in Europe's south-east. And beyond the horror of stories from the refugee camps I retain a clear sense of the suspicion with which our activities are viewed in the Balkans.
This suspicion is not just the product of an understandable fear of proximity to war with a dangerous and unpredictable local bully.
It is not only a justifiable fear about the economic consequences of a war which isolates and disrupts.
It is a deeper fear of betrayal and deceit from the West.
I believe passionately that we need a coherent European initiative in the Balkans using all our instruments.
I cheerfully admit to rechristening the Centre for European Policy Studies' proposals 'the Prodi plan', a plan for reconstruction, openness, development and integration with Europe.
I salute Professor Prodi's foresight in saying weeks ago that Europe's relations with the Balkans should be seen as part of the enlargement of the Union, rather than as foreign policy.
But to succeed, such a plan will require a sea change in our mutual relations.
We must stop seeing the Balkans as the repository of all that we are most frightened of in ourselves. They must learn to trust the Union and to trust themselves as fully European.
Much is made of the difference of the Balkans and particularly of the differences of religious heritage with the Orthodox Church.
We have to make a real effort to understand our joint destiny as Europeans.
It is a commonplace of European rhetoric that we are formed by our inheritance from Greece and Rome.
But it is an accident of Western European educational history that we define this in terms of Ancient Greece and Imperial Rome.
The western intellectual tradition often forgets that there were two Romes.
We forget at our peril that Constantinople was, for centuries, the original European city of culture when the ancestors of today's Council of Ministers were camping in the ruins of a former glory.
Surely the time has now come to declare Diocletian's division of the empire redundant and to accept that Sofia, Skopje and Sarajevo, that Budapest, Bucharest and Belgrade are all heir to the same civilisation.
If an apology needs to be made about Western Europe's behaviour in the Crusades, it should relate not to the conquest of Jerusalem, but to the sacking of Constantinople by Frankish knights.
The lack of trust in Western Europe goes that far back into our history and it urgently needs to be remedied.
The Danube in my view must become a symbol of our unity rather than a blocked artery in the body of Europe.
I commend to this House, and to the President-in-Office, the initiative of His All Holiness the Patriarch of Constantinople in mounting the religion, science and environment symposium in September, in which representatives of all five of the great religions of the region - Orthodox and Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim will sail from Regensberg to the Black Sea in the interests both of environment and of reconciliation.
There is a role here, both for Pope and Patriarch.
The war with Serbia must be the last of Europe's civil wars.
The cocktail of religious bigotry and nationalism must be put aside on the Danube, as it was 50 years ago on the Rhine.
These weeks, however dangerous, are rich with possibility.
This is the moment when Europe grows up in its external relations.
These are the weeks when we have to accept that Europe's role requires responsibilities as well as rhetoric, that we are charged with the difficult, as well as the detailed.
These are the weeks when we have to learn to be ourselves, rather than merely an element in other people's strategy.
These are the weeks when we assert that we are Europe, all of Europe.
Mr President, I commend my reports to the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what progress has been made in the four months of the German Presidency and the four months since the introduction of the euro?
Four days ago the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force. Of course it will not bring about a revolution, but it does represent an important step along the path to greater integration, politics for the people and democracy.
We should therefore not make light of the Treaty.
It strengthens the role of Parliament in particular within the European institutions, and this is a crucial step forward.
It also gives the Union the opportunity to make its common foreign and security policy more efficient, coherent and effective by improving its foreign policy instruments.
The German Presidency has therefore made every effort to ensure that the Treaty can be applied in full from the first day.
We must now use the new instruments for the common foreign and security policy as extensively as possible, beginning by defining a comprehensive and coherent policy towards our neighbouring regions.
This is the aim of the common strategies.
The first of these will concern Russia, and further strategies concerning the Ukraine, the western Balkans and the Mediterranean region will follow as soon as possible.
In recent months we have been able to reach a considerable degree of agreement on the substance and structure of our strategy on Russia.
I am therefore confident and take a different view from the previous speaker, because although I fully understand some of your arguments, particularly concerning the procedure and the interests of the committee and of Parliament, in the present circumstances postponing this strategy on Russia would have a negative knock-on effect.
So I can only advise against postponing the strategy until the Helsinki summit, particularly in the current situation.
Bear in mind that this is not just about Kosovo but Russia's overall economic and social instability.
Europe's change of direction towards Russia is of crucial importance, and I would add that this also applies to our strategy on Ukraine, where I believe we are dealing with a similar problem.
For this reason I am confident that the strategy can be adopted in Cologne.
The aim of the Russia strategy is to help to promote democracy and the rule of law and to integrate this important neighbour into the European Economic and Social Area; it is also to strengthen relations in general and to establish a basis for future relations.
The Kosovo crisis shows only too clearly how urgently we need Russia's constructive cooperation for peace in Europe.
One of the West's priority tasks is to ensure that the barbaric war in Kosovo does not also lead to any sort of reversal in our relations with Russia, but that we continue to build on our partnership.
Our close cooperation with Moscow in the search for a political solution in Kosovo shows that Russia takes the same view.
Russia must become a close partner of the new Europe, and we must devote all our energies to working towards this.
The experience gained through the Russia strategy must subsequently be put to use as quickly as possible in working out the other strategies.
It is important that in doing so we ensure a careful balance between the regions, as stability to the south is just as important for Europe as stability to the east.
As President-in-Office of the Council I would add that in the six months that I have been Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Federal Republic of Germany and, since 1 January, President of the European Council, one point has become absolutely clear: European foreign policy can no longer look to the East or to the South; these are both areas of conflict, problem areas which affect us equally, whether it is the south-east, the southern Balkans with the Kosovo war and the crisis that must be resolved there, whether it is the Mediterranean Conference in Stuttgart, where we suddenly found ourselves physically in the middle of the Middle East conflict, with the Israelis to the right and the Palestinians to the left - we were suddenly in the midst of a negotiation process and we succeeded in keeping both sides in the conference, which was not a foregone conclusion from what we expected and in view of the political situation, particularly with the elections in Israel - or whether it is the current negotiations with Russia or with Ukraine.
All of this shows clearly that Europe's foreign policy must be based on a European approach and must not pit the east against the south.
This offers zero prospects and would simply set Europe back.
We have therefore placed an important emphasis on the south with the third Mediterranean Conference in Stuttgart, particularly with the successful agreement on the basic components of the forward-looking Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Peace and Stability.
Europe's defence of the Kosovars' rights is a significant signal for the coexistence of Christians and Muslims in our future world, as it shows that Europeans form a community of values that goes beyond religion.
Mr Spencer, you dealt with this aspect in great detail in your speech.
It is also very important, in the current difficult phase of the Middle East peace process, that Europeans should continue to pull in the same direction and that they spoke with one voice in the Middle East declaration of the Heads of State and Government on 25 March.
The Oslo interim agreement expires today.
We welcome the Palestinians' wise decision to take no unilateral action and we hope that serious negotiations can be resumed as soon as possible.
During the German Presidency the EU's relations with other regions of the world have been accorded considerable importance.
The Berlin ASEAN meeting further strengthened dialogue and cooperation with our Asian partners.
We are hoping that the first Europe - Latin America summit to be held in Rio de Janeiro will improve our political, economic and cultural relations.
The EU-US summit in Cologne should also give strong impetus to the future of the transatlantic partnership and at the same time bring current areas of conflict, such as bananas, hormone-treated meat, hushkits and other, at least onto a constructive course leading to a solution.
The High Representative for the CFSP, provided for in the Treaty of Amsterdam, is to be appointed at the Cologne European Council.
The German Presidency believes that this should be a man or woman who carries considerable political weight and is able to assert himself or herself.
He or she must be given a powerful role in order to be able to promote a European foreign policy that is as operational as possible and to serve as a point of progression in foreign policy but also in domestic relations.
The High Representative should therefore ideally play an active role as adviser in internal consensus-building.
A further important topic in this six-month period is European security and defence policy.
The Kosovo conflict has illustrated once again that the collaboration and presence of the USA remain indispensable for the defence of our fundamental values of peace, human rights and democracy in Europe.
However, the USA's predominance in both the military and political handling of the Kosovo conflict has also shown how urgent it is that we in Europe strengthen our ability to act in foreign and security policy if we ourselves are to be capable of effective crisis management in future.
Tony Blair's initiative in Pörtschach and the Franco-British meeting in St Malo have provided us with a good model, and it has been a vital concern of the German Presidency to use this new dynamism.
We secured the unreserved support of NATO at its Washington summit for the development of the European security and defence policy.
The importance of future partnership between the EU and NATO also became clear here.
The presidency is preparing a report for the European Council in Cologne which will establish the basic consensus that is emerging for the guidelines we presented and a decision on the integration of the WEU into the EU in accordance with Article 17 of the EU Treaty, including a target date in the foreseeable future.
If we were to reach agreement on this the conditions would be in place for Europe to take unified action.
In my statement of 12 January I highlighted the prospects for the further development of European integration, and I would like to do this today for the CFSP.
I would like to emphasise four points.
Firstly, the European Union, as a global political actor, must take account of the increased importance of human rights through a committed human rights policy.
For the first time, therefore, on a German-British initiative it is to draw up its own human rights report this year, which should increase the transparency of EU human rights policy and deal with both subject-related and country-related issues.
For Europe it has been a fundamental experience to discover how important the work of human rights groups was in the former Warsaw Pact area and how crucial Part 3 of the Helsinki Agreement was for the end of Communist dictatorship in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
This parallel nature of political dialogue, economic openness and defence of human rights is a legacy for Europe that must inform its human rights policy in other regions of the world too.
In this respect we must tirelessly continue to support democrats and human rights proponents wherever they are oppressed.
For this reason the EU clearly expressed its criticism of the human rights situation in China to the Geneva-based Commission on Human Rights on several occasions, most recently in the EU declaration on the Chinese no-action motion.
We condemn in particular the action taken against political dissidents, for example the imposition of the death penalty on a scale unprecedented in international terms, and the treatment of minorities, especially in Tibet.
The EU strongly urges the Chinese Government to ensure progress in the human rights situation in practice, with respect for democracy and the rule of law.
The EU must also, within its own borders, show greater support for the observance of human rights.
Human rights, democracy and the rule of law are stated clearly in the Treaty of Amsterdam as conditions of membership, and if they are not observed membership rights may be restricted.
We hope that the EU will lay the foundations at the European Council in Cologne for the drafting of a European charter of fundamental rights to reinforce the rights of its citizens.
Such a charter could later become a constitutive element of a European constitution.
Enshrining civil rights may also serve as a model in the enlargement of the Union.
Secondly, the EU must offer the states of south-eastern Europe a political and economic perspective that goes beyond the Kosovo crisis, a far-sighted vision and all-embracing concept for peace and integration.
The stability pact for south-eastern Europe was roundly welcomed in the previous debate.
Thirdly, we also want to achieve the following. The greater the Union's ability to act, particularly in the CFSP, the greater the democratic control and legitimacy of European policy must be.
The German Presidency therefore wants to include the extension of the European Parliament's rights on the agenda for the next intergovernmental conference on institutional reform, for which we intend to draw up a timetable in Cologne in June.
Fourthly, in the long term we will only be able to strengthen the common foreign and security policy by presenting a united front in the G8, in international financial institutions and particularly in the United Nations, and by extending the use of majority voting.
Yet in the forthcoming phase the common foreign and security policy is not concerned with further institutional reform but with maximising joint action and the intensive application of the new instruments.
We must learn increasingly to change our thought patterns and to place our national interests after the greater interests of Europe.
During the German Presidency we have succeeded in maintaining or even increasing the EU's unity and ability to act in many difficult foreign policy issues in relation to Kosovo, China, the Middle East and many other areas.
This is a success for all of us, and we must continue down this road.
We must succeed in the next few years in realising a Europe that is capable of political action, as it is only in this way that the European Union will be able to defend its interests and values adequately in the multipolar world of the 21st century.
Mr President, I should like to begin by taking the opportunity of wishing Mr Spencer well in the future and expressing the hope that his considerable abilities can be put to good use.
It has certainly been interesting working with him for the last two and a half years, if only because I never knew what he would be getting up to next.
To return to the debate, I have to say that there have been times in the last few years when I have felt that the initials CFSP have not stood for common foreign and security policy but for coreless, fudge and sclerotic posturing.
There has been a lack of direction and decision quite frequently.
Some of that is understandable: we are operating in the most sensitive area of national sovereignty; it has been difficult to bring together nation states with different interests and practices and clearly we have had to walk before we could run.
As Mr Spencer said, if we can achieve the euro, we ought to be able to achieve a genuine foreign and security policy.
Certainly Kosovo has shown the inadequateness of our response and we need to use that as an example to spur us on further.
We have been, in many ways, guilty of complacency: we say often that the justification of the European Union is to get rid of wars within Europe's borders and forget what is happening just outside Europe's borders and our responsibility for that.
Clearly we must change.
The policy planning unit is going to be very important, but it must link in with other organisations, like the conflict prevention network, which Parliament was instrumental in setting up.
We need coherent long-term thinking that will allow foreign policy issues to run through both pillar 1 and pillar 2 issues.
I should like to see us focus on the longer-term strategic questions, such as the role of water supply in conflict prevention.
Obviously the High Representative will be very important but what is crucial is that this appointment should not be a fudge and that we appoint somebody who we know can do the job and whom the Council is prepared to allow to do the job.
That High Representative must work with the other institutions, the Commission and Parliament.
Indeed, I would like to see these institutions working much closer together throughout the CFSP.
As I said in the previous debate, in particular I should like to see the Council listening more to Parliament.
We have put together some coherent and important positions, particularly in our recommendations. We should like to believe that the Council is listening and responding to them.
Parliament, for its part, must stop demanding the impossible.
We cannot take action in every area of the world: we have to prioritise.
There can be no morality without practicality.
We must remember the greatest contribution we can make to peace and stability is the enlargement of the European Union. That should be our main focus in the next parliament.
Clearly we also need a European defence identity but we should remember that the fifteen Member States spend two-thirds of what the Americans spend on equipment and yet we have a fraction of the equipment they use.
We must have more coordination on not only defence policy but also defence procurement and we must look to restructure our defence industries.
We must have military thinking which reflects the new realities, as has happened in the United Kingdom with the defence review.
We must have clarification of the position of the WEU and the role it is going to take in the European defence identity, and that must happen in Cologne.
Finally, we must consider whether or not we need to increase defence expenditure if we are to meet our ambitions for the CFSP.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mr Spencer on his excellent report and to say that this report comes at a very important moment in the history of the European Union.
At least three crises - those of Kosovo, Russia and the Middle East - demonstrate that the superpower that is Europe could have handled these issues much better.
The Spencer report goes some way to answering the major question that is tormenting all of us: 'why did this happen?' By way of an answer it proposes, in essence, what should happen, that is, to redefine the parameters within which European foreign policy is conceived and implemented.
This is both a conceptual and an institutional undertaking, which does not stop with the establishment of institutions, or the appointment of 'foreign policy' representatives.
It is an issue relating to the conditions under which the foreign policy representatives, or those mediators who are appointed by the European Union, will work.
Mr President-in-Office, I address you in the light of the Council summit meeting in Cologne, and I say to you that, in Cologne, you will have in your hands a historic opportunity to establish the conditions and the prerequisites to enable the new Intergovernmental Conference to do for foreign policy what the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam did for the economy; a European foreign policy which, as you more than anyone else are aware of because of your background, cannot stop at diplomatic processes, but must contain answers to challenges such as the economy, the environment and culture.
Mr President, as the previous speaker said, our annual debate on the Union's role in the world is taking place at a special point in time.
A war is raging in Europe, a war with military input from the Member States. And a few days ago, the Amsterdam Treaty entered into force.
That may perhaps give a new impetus to foreign policy.
So I shall not concentrate so much on looking back at our common policy over the past year, but will try to look forward.
One of the biggest changes in foreign policy will be the new instrument of common strategies.
At first sight, the plan does not look all that remarkable, but it is a first step towards real majority voting in this area in the Council.
The effect of this majority decision making will be to reduce the power of national parliaments, and that must be counterbalanced by an increase in influence for the European Parliament.
Only Union actions which draw their democratic legitimacy from the common foreign and security policy will be able to count on support from the people of Europe.
For these reasons, a future High Representative will need to appear before Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy to seek its endorsement.
Only in this way, I believe, can a close link be forged between this representative and the European Parliament.
A word or two now on Europe's identity in the field of security.
The current war in Kosovo has shown once again the desperate need for the EU to have its own capability for military crisis management, as so often advocated in this House.
In this area too, the Union must be able to act more independently of the USA if need be.
So the WEU really must be merged into the Union without further delay.
Finally, Mr President, this is my last speech to the House on a report, and I am especially pleased that it is a report by my friend and colleague Tom Spencer.
My thanks to him for the leadership he has sought to give, and has given, to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy.
My compliments and good wishes.
Mr President, we are living in difficult times in Europe.
The Social Democrats and Greens in Germany, which holds the Presidency of the Council, are bombing the Yugoslavians, that is to say, the Slavs, with no formal declaration of war.
There are still more Slavs in Russia.
In the prevailing circumstances, Mr Spencer's report is well-balanced and carefully thought out, serving the cause of peace and cooperation, and serving also to maintain talks among the parties involved.
It touches on some issues that have been largely overlooked.
It is by no means self-evident that Russia must be helped.
The EUR 400 million in food aid granted by the EU is a big mistake, as it is counterproductive and destroying markets.
In addition, no decision has been taken on the basis on which debts are to be waived, and it what way this should be dealt with.
The IMF is not rescuing Russia, but American and German banks, and it is therefore responsible for yet more disorder in Russia.
Its country's central bank cannot receive currency loans; its own reserves are located in Jersey.
Thus I welcome Mr Spencer's report, as it avoids setting out the sort of political conditions that Parliament usually does, but approaches the issue in a balanced way.
Mr President, I should like to welcome the President-in-Office. Ladies and gentlemen, reconciliation with Russia is the most crucial peace strategy for our continent.
In this respect the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia without a UN mandate represents the most criminal violation of this principle.
The Western community has cast aside the peace principle in view of the massive human rights violations and ethnic expulsions in Kosovo.
However, in my opinion it is a mistake whose consequences will set us back for a long time in our attempt to develop a common security strategy in Europe.
The end never justifies the means as the results for our continent cannot yet be predicted.
I would like to touch on a few of these.
Firstly, every bomb makes the return to the negotiating table more difficult.
I see only one way out: Russia must be given an increasingly central role in the political solution.
Attempts have been made, but Russia's offers to negotiate have to date been rejected and in the end it has not been given this role after all.
Secondly, the Washington option of taking military action without a UN mandate and against international practice forces Russia to define its own zones of influence and to assert its right to do the same here.
We need think only of the many conflicts in North Caucasia and Transcaucasia and the dangers that have re-emerged there too.
Thirdly, the ABM Treaty and the ratification of START 2 are likely to be indefinitely postponed, and with them goes our desire for worldwide disarmament which ties up so many financial and material resources.
Therefore it is important that we develop a common strategy, and that we do so as the first act under the new opportunities offered by a common foreign and security policy.
But it must not be used as an alibi.
I would also say that unless there is interinstitutional change in terms of involving the European Parliament's democratic right of control, then we will have less power of influence over foreign policy than we have had up to now.
This is why we need interinstitutional change.
Mr President, out of friendship for Mr Spencer I will say that Mr Fischer's speech confirms that this House is now being more cautious than the Council in its proposals to reform the common foreign and security policy.
I believe that the Kosovo crisis is evidence for those who refused to acknowledge it of our need for a ministry and minister for foreign affairs and a ministry and minister for defence and security. It is high time for Europe to equip itself with the necessary tools to achieve this objective within ten or fifteen years, as it was able to do ten or fifteen years ago with economic and monetary union.
It is time to work, to start working, as Emma Bonino said, towards defining a diplomatic and military union.
Unfortunately, the amendments tabled by my group in this respect were not accepted by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and I hope that they may be accepted in the House.
I believe that one tool which we urgently need is a European peacekeeping and peacemaking corps. Again Kosovo is evidence of this.
We need to start considering foreign policy from a Community perspective.
Why not do this with regard to thirty or forty countries in the Pacific or in certain parts of Asia where no Member States are present?
Another important issue which is very similar to Kosovo and which Mrs Schroedter mentioned very briefly is Transcaucasia.
I believe that Georgia is a central point for the EU and provides a door to Central Asia.
The process allowing Georgia to become a member of the European Union must be accelerated.
The cooperation agreement must be signed immediately and an association agreement must be rapidly concluded.
As highlighted again by Kosovo, we must equip ourselves with an information tool for all the people living under dictatorial regimes, in the manner of the American 'Voice of America'.
We must have a 'Voice of Europe' to fight against dictators before these tragedies occur, as in Kosovo.
I hope that later my colleagues will fully endorse Mr Spencer's report, which is an excellent text.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mr Spencer for his report and also in general for his work in committee.
As I come from a town on the Danube I would like to thank him for his statement today and for emphasising the importance of this strip of Europe that has very often been an area of crisis and war but could also be an area of peace and cooperation, linking western and central Europe with the Balkans and also with Russia, Ukraine and finally also Turkey, as he mentioned.
It is on the one hand a positive sign for Europe that the crises and political conflicts are not inside but on the edge of the European Union.
But this is no cause for satisfaction, as we need to devote extra-special attention to achieving peace on our borders.
The President-in-Office was the first in today's debate to ask what has happened to the political solutions. I would like to ask the further question: where were the crisis prevention measures in recent years?
Crisis prevention is not a miracle weapon, if I can use the term 'weapon' here.
But bombs are not a miracle weapon either!
Nor are ground troops, as we know.
We must bear all these instruments in mind, but if we are building a common foreign and security policy here I would urge that we begin primarily where we should begin, which is with crisis prevention.
This is an important task which we must bear in mind particularly in the near future, and to which this Parliament must also contribute accordingly.
One final comment, again about the work done by Mr Spencer over the last few years.
Being an enthusiastic parliamentarian he has often brought us into confrontation with the Commission and the Council, whether we wanted to or not.
What is important is that he lent weight to Parliament and its Members.
I would ask the Commission and the Council to take note of the fact that we parliamentarians are capable of more than simply holding debates such as these, which are not always very interesting or exciting, and that the Council and the Commission should in future involve Parliament more in the drafting and also in the implementation of policy.
Then the policies of the European Union are sure to be even more efficient than they will be under the new High Representative.
Mr President, the shameful war in Yugoslavia and the cataclysmic turmoil in the Balkans lend dramatic currency to the report by Mr Spencer.
With composure our rapporteur has attempted to elaborate a strategy for our relations with the former world super power, Russia, and he has succeeded.
However, in my opinion it is essential that, in the pain and confusion that surrounds us, we send a clear message and that we acknowledge the role that Russia can and must play without delay in order to avert the visible dangers: the military entanglements; the broader destabilisation of the region; the revival of cold-war rivalries.
Unfortunately, however, while the relentless bombardments continue, disinformation on both sides is rife and self-criticism is in short supply.
Even the call for a political solution, which Kofi Annan sought following his meeting with President Yeltsin, is scoffed at by those who fear that the military credibility of NATO will be compromised and that the Clinton policy on Kosovo will be discredited, if logic is brought to bear on self-sustaining acts of stupidity.
The stance taken by Mr Prodi this morning, and what the President-in-Office has said just now concerning the importance that the Russian Federation will have in the immediate future for the success of the major policies of the European Union, such as enlargement and the CFSP, are encouraging.
However, we must not wait for the new President to assume his or her duties before we call for immediate and feasible solutions to the explosive problems of today.
Mr President, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy considered two very important and closely related reports at the same time. One was by Mrs Piha, on the Union's northern dimension, and the other was Mr Spencer's report on the Union's strategy with respect to Russia.
The committee was unable to create a link between the two reports, since the one on the strategy with respect to Russia only mentions the northern dimension in passing.
The report on the northern dimension declines, for its part, to take a position on Russia, as that was seen to be more relevant to the report on Russia.
The northern dimension must be seen as an essential part of both the EU's external relations and the decision-making process that impacts on its internal development.
In external relations the northern dimension will be responsible for the creation of a separate common strategy, in which relations with Russia will have a key position.
In developing the Russian strategy further the aim will be for the instruments already available to the Union, and especially the TACIS programme, to effectively implement jointly established goals.
In its EU policy, Russia must also be able to broaden its pan-European network of contacts.
The EU has to develop its institutions so that it can broaden its scope to cover the whole of Europe.
This will require internal differentiation on the part of the Union, and its development as a confederation of states, rather than as a federation.
The Union, in principle, must also be open to Russian membership, although this seems a long way off at present.
The Liberal Group approves the report on the strategy with respect to Russia as it stands, but we wish to remove the proposal to postpone decisions on it.
The strategy must be put into effect without delay, and its implementation has to get under way in as effective a way as possible.
My congratulations go to Mr Spencer for an excellent report.
Mr President, the Russian Federation is struggling with enormous social, economic and political problems.
The standard of living of its people has continued to fall, insecurity and the influence of various mafias have increased alarmingly and the country is heading towards disintegration.
For these reasons and also because we must continue to improve our relations with Russia in light of the serious crisis in Kosovo, we support the decision taken on 26 April by the Council to adopt a proposal for a common strategy towards Russia.
This common strategy sets out the need for democracy, the rule of law in public institutions and the integration of Russia into a European social and economic area as well as the common challenges which are facing the European continent.
However, it will be necessary to improve the judicial system, the public administration, the police forces and the regional authorities through training, support for reforms, the reinforcement of relations between the European and Russian political systems and support for the NGOs and for an independent press.
On a social and economic level, there are various areas of action: restructuring businesses, public finances, the banking system or access to international financial markets, standards and certification, competition policy, access to the market, cooperation on technology and the development of agricultural reform and social dialogue.
The reforms of the PHARE and TACIS programmes should be aimed at making the best use of the impetus for cooperation with European business sectors.
In terms of stability and security, joint initiatives must be proposed to Russia on foreign policy, through contacts made by the High Representative for the CFSP, and on increasing Russian participation when the EU uses the Western European Union for operations commonly known as 'Petersberg tasks'. Also, joint initiatives are needed to strengthen cooperation in order to prevent and resolve conflicts within the OSCE and United Nations and also in respect of disarmament control.
Other challenges include the protection of the environment, nuclear safety and the fight against organised crime through regional or transborder actions.
We feel that a stable, democratic and prosperous Russia, firmly anchored in a united Europe, is essential for ensuring lasting peace on the European continent.
Our support for the current and future democratically elected Russian authorities must continue.
We also believe that this common strategy towards Russia must be adopted at the next meeting of the European Council in Cologne.
We will therefore vote in favour of this and will not support any postponement.
Thank you, Mr President.
I very much welcome the fact that the Council firstly wants to adopt a common strategy with Russia.
According to the Treaty of Amsterdam a common strategy requires the consultation of the European Parliament.
In view of Parliament's schedule the Council feels that consultation is not possible if the common strategy is to be decided at the June summit, as the final draft of the document will not be available until 17 May.
It is therefore particularly important that we make it clear to the Council that the procedure of a report with recommendations to the Council on a common strategy is a one-off solution because of the elections.
In all future common strategies Parliament will insist on being consulted by the Council.
I should like to look at a few issues of substance, although it is difficult to make recommendations about a text that we do not have before us.
I would like to emphasise one point in particular: I would oppose the rapporteur's endeavours to postpone the common strategy on our relations with Russia, which is of the utmost importance at this present juncture, as the strategy goes far beyond bilateral relations with this country.
Both the Member States and the Commission have stated clearly that any delay in adopting the strategy could be misinterpreted by the Russians, and I believe that it is in all our interests to avoid any increase in tension between the European Union and Russia in the current complicated international situation.
Russia's efforts to solve the conflict in the Balkans serve only to further underline the importance of this country for Europe's security structure, and I very much support the President-in-Office's desire to adopt this strategy as quickly as possible.
The European Union's policy towards the Russian Federation has not always been exemplary to date, but I would hope that the combination of a comprehensive strategy and the new TACIS regulation that is due to enter into force in the year 2000 will lead to a significant improvement in decision-making and implementation in the European Union's policy on Russia.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to endorse what Mrs Krehl said.
I too consider it to be a mistake to postpone the issue of our relations with Russia and what form the strategy should take.
I believe in fact that, particularly in view of current events, it is absolutely essential that we not only maintain the line of communication with Moscow but develop it further.
It has been said several times today in the various debates that without Russia a European security structure and a flourishing Europe would be inconceivable.
It is also the case that on visits to Russia and in talks with Russian colleagues we are repeatedly asked about the European Union's strategy towards Russia.
In fact - at least this is the impression I get - this strategy has up to now been inadequate.
We have had the partnership agreement, but what should come after that and how it should be developed are questions that have so far not been given sufficient attention.
I believe these questions must be answered so that we can tackle the issue methodically and in accordance with our objectives.
When we are in Moscow our Russian partners often end up by asking whether we can imagine Russia perhaps one day even becoming a member of the European Union. I always reply that I cannot imagine it today but that I cannot say whether I might be able to imagine it in 30, 40 or 50 years' time.
Our strategy need not go this far but I believe that at least the framework conditions for the development of this thriving cooperation must certainly be established immediately so that the Russians also know where they stand.
In addition, the work from the partnership agreement must also be developed further, of course.
Russia itself continues to have a great many serious problems.
I can only say that it is also our duty as the European Union and as a party in negotiation with them to do our best to make it easier for them to tackle and resolve many of these home-made problems.
Wherever we can lend support we should do so.
Mr President, it is highly significant that the whole foreign policy discussion has centred around Russia.
Russia is indeed the most important problem in our foreign policy.
But this has been the case for a long time in our history.
Unfortunately, I sometimes have the impression that many of our leading politicians who talk about this have not read history or, if they have read it, have not understood it.
We need a realistic relationship with Russia that should not be determined by fear but a policy that knows what the facts are and takes them on board.
Enrico Berlinguer once made a very true comment, which was that we should take what the Russians tell us seriously.
We do not take it seriously.
We have not taken on board that this is an imperialistic power with whom we have to coexist, but we must recognise that it is an imperialistic power and that attempts to make the poacher turn gamekeeper, as it were, sometimes go astray.
We must pursue a realistic policy that is based to a large extent on the fact that Russia today, at a time of worldwide decolonisation, is the last great colonial empire on earth.
Russia will join Europe one day, but I am convinced that this will only be possible when it has been decolonised, since we do not want to be dragged into any new colonial wars with the countries of the Far East, which is a very real danger.
Anyone who has dealt with China - and I would hope that our politicians will devote more attention to China - knows what its plans are.
China is a power that also has commitments in Siberia; every day 5 000 Chinese cross the Amur border illegally.
These are the things we need to think about.
I am grateful to Mr Spencer for his report; I would only ask that we keep to the situation in reality.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the CFSP must be strengthened, particularly in the areas of early warning, conflict prevention and the development of the European security and defence identity.
The recent Washington Summit and the future Cologne Council have further focused attention on how we can promote human rights and secure peace in Europe in the next millennium.
Ever closer partnership with the Russian Federation will be essential to achieve these aims.
May I say at this point that the central conclusion of Mr Spencer's report on Russia, namely that we must postpone agreement on a common strategy beyond the Cologne Summit in June, is - and I think many agree here - diplomatic lunacy.
What sort of signal would this give Russia at a time when we look to Moscow to play a positive role in assisting with peace talks on Kosovo.
Such a delay in fostering closer political and economic ties with Russia would merely be a gift to anti-western, communist and nationalist forces in Russia, as has been mentioned during the debate.
But the rapporteur is correct in calling for the common strategy to have real substance and the means for implementing it.
The economic, environmental and social situation in Russia is dire, but Russia must also do more to help itself by reforming the economy and banking sector, collecting taxes and overhauling the legal system.
The European Union and international financial institutions should play their part in assisting an effective reform programme. But there must be political will on the Russian side to eliminate the 'robber baron' style of capitalism which has developed since 1991.
With the resurgence of nationalism in Russia and the growing social deprivation of the majority of the Russian people, it is both our duty and in our interest for Europe to work with Russia to enhance democracy, security and prosperity for all our citizens.
Mr President, 1 May was the day on which the Amsterdam Treaty and the common foreign and security policy became a reality.
It is my belief that if we had had this foreign policy in place several years ago, we would not have experienced the crises in Bosnia and Croatia - far less the war in Serbia.
The prevention of crises is, as our colleagues have mentioned, extremely important.
I therefore believe that we should be careful not to put the cart before the horse, talking more about technical options such as bombs and armed conflict than about crisis resolution.
So I say: crisis prevention first, military hardware second.
It is vitally important that we achieve agreement as far as the analysis is concerned, and that those in charge of the common foreign and security policy cooperate closely with the Member States.
The new institution, 'Mr or Mrs Foreign Policy, ' should be primarily preventative and cooperate with the OSCE, the UN and so on.
It may be regrettable that it did not succeed in the Balkans and that intervention was necessary, but that is something we must be prepared for when human rights are so grossly violated.
Mr President, it is good that the issues of the northern dimension are seen in the report as being an essential part of policy on Russia.
The northern dimension, however, should have been accorded greater substance, such as the creation of free trade zones for northwestern Russia, which would help it to develop.
However, the report talks about an economic and social crisis as if that were the heart of the matter. It is merely the result of a political crisis.
That is the core issue.
That is why the world's richest country, in terms of natural resources, has become poverty-stricken.
First and foremost, Russia needs a credible, stable political system.
Shameless, large-scale corruption on the part of politicians and dubious businessmen has destroyed the credibility of the administration in the eyes of its own nation.
Furthermore, loans from the west have been transferred to private tax havens, which must not be tolerated.
Prime Minister Primakov has vowed to address the problem of fraud.
We are waiting for the Russian Government to ask Interpol for help in sorting out accounts and finance.
Loans from western financial institutions must be made conditional on the eradication of corruption at high levels.
Besides, it does not cost anything, or at least no extra loans are required.
In fact, corruption rots the whole system from top to bottom, and it stifles many of the reforms.
That is a lot more important than adhering to every detail in the budget.
The report also rather passes over the fact that the nation has descended into poverty because a small elite has been clinging onto the nation's wealth.
This has had the unfortunate result that life expectancy has fallen by ten years in ten years.
We need a strategy that will tackle the essential issues.
In addition, the banking system and the criminal chains associated with it must be changed, reformed and straightened out.
We should nevertheless bear in mind that Russia has an educated population and a splendid culture which will challenge the individualism and materialism of the west.
Mr President, I should like to comment on the review of foreign policy presented by Mr Spencer, the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy. I feel that this review underlines the extent to which the Union's foreign interests depend on its internal strength and are closely linked to it.
It is not enough therefore for us to wring our hands and regret that we have not yet consolidated our common foreign and security policy. Instead, we need to use all the means at our disposal to ensure that this foreign and security policy - and also our defence policy - is in line with our interests and responsibilities.
I should like to draw attention to two important considerations.
The first relates to the speech made by Mr Fischer, the President-in-Office of the Council. We are entering a new stage that will be characterised by the Council's appointment of the High Representative for the CFSP.
Only this morning we heard Mr Prodi, the President-designate of the Commission, talk about reorganising the Commission and suggest that it would be useful to appoint Vice-Presidents and restructure departments.
In my view, we need to do more than simply appoint a High Representative for the CFSP.
As things stand at the moment in the Commission, five Commissioners are involved with issues of this nature and rationalisation would certainly be helpful. It should also be borne in mind that we need to move forwards towards a defence policy.
Personally, I am very much in favour of integrating the WEU into the European Union. Such a common defence policy would enable us to cope with the challenges we are currently faced with.
Mr President, first of all my thanks to Mr Spencer for his balanced report, which rounds off what has been for him, I believe, a successful parliamentary term.
I wish to take this opportunity of offering my personal thanks to him in particular, and to all the members of the Foreign Affairs Committee, for the very intensive and for me extremely stimulating discussions I have been privileged to have with the committee during the past term.
I should like to look both back a little and forward a little.
Back, because I note that since I became Dutch foreign minister in 1982 - when we were still talking at European level about European Political Cooperation, although the Tindemans report was already eight years old and gave an extremely visionary description of the kind of common foreign and security policy a Union would need - since that time, since the Tindemans report and in the course of the last 15 to 17 years, quite a lot has been achieved in this respect.
I say that because we tend to allow our achievements in the area of common external policy to be overshadowed by what we have failed to achieve, with Bosnia and the Bosnia issue probably marking the low point as regards the lack of effectiveness on the part of what is now the European Union.
Before I come to the points of criticism, let me recapitulate - not in detail, but just a quick tour.
Mention has been made of it today, and the project of the enlargement of the European Union is certainly a major undertaking, or will be so, but it is also a serious step in terms of preparing the foreign policy of the European Union.
The same can be said of the contractual and therefore structural ties, including political dialogues, which we have developed with Russia, Ukraine and in fact with all the countries of the former Soviet Union. I am thinking of the broader and deeper transatlantic ties which the Union has developed.
I am thinking of the Barcelona process. I am thinking too of the broad consensus which has evolved over the years on the very sensitive issue of Middle Eastern policy.
And, last but not least, I am thinking of the policy and ties we have developed with so many countries in the third world, developing countries, as part of the ACP process.
As I said, I shall not go into detail, but all these things are positive achievements.
Where we have underperformed is in the area of crisis management.
I think we are all agreed on one thing.
We have not really had enough instruments for preventing and resolving crises.
The Kosovo crisis on the one hand and the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on the other, which gives us a number of new instruments which may further improve our capacity for crisis management, are two events which to my mind represent a dramatic coinciding of circumstances.
We were far too late in reacting to Kosovo because, while we had no warning of Bosnia, we could have seen Kosovo coming.
At the same time, though, we did not wait for countless people to die in Kosovo before collectively resorting to the ultimate weapon in an attempt to stop the barbarities happening in the Balkans.
We did not wait until more than 200 000 people had died, as we did in Bosnia; after one and a half years of intense diplomacy, using all our resources to try to reach a political solution by these traditional means, including economic sanctions, we did not shrink in the end from collectively using the ultimate instrument of military force in an effort to bring Milosevic to his senses, difficult though that choice was.
The new instruments of the Amsterdam Treaty can never replace the political will of the Member States, of course.
But I think there is some cause for optimism and, saddened as we are by the tragedy of Kosovo, Kosovo has given a boost to the political will of the Member States to make a collective stand against reprehensible political actions in our continent.
I hope that this trend will be reinforced by the appointment of the High Representative, by the creation of a planning and early warning unit, and by the instrument of common strategies now being deployed.
As an outgoing Commissioner, I would venture to say - and not because the Council President has now left - that according to my interpretation of the Amsterdam Treaty, the devising of a common strategy, with all the opportunities for action which this affords the Union, is something that warrants prior discussion with Parliament.
As I understand the text, Parliament has to be consulted on the truly fundamental issues of foreign policy, and on matters of implementation it must also be regularly briefed and kept informed.
In the course of the last parliamentary term, I have done my best to further that process.
I am very much in favour of the common strategy towards Russia, which the President-in-Office mentioned.
It would be sending out entirely the wrong signal - certainly in the present circumstances - if we sought for whatever reason to put off finalising that common strategy on Russia.
I hope the Heads of Government will reach agreement on that in Cologne.
And I would add the express hope that the newly elected Parliament - because this Parliament has now run its course - will be prepared in the context of this common strategy towards Russia to give a measure of priority to the very important instrument we need in order to carry out that action, namely the new TACIS regulation.
The Amsterdam Treaty also offers us the chance to move closer towards an integrated foreign policy combining political, economic and financial instruments with military instruments as well, in a new troika made up of the presidency, the High Representative and a Vice-President - rather than five Commissioners - and presenting a new face of continuity, visibility and as a result, to my mind, greater effectiveness too in the European Union's foreign policy.
Also partly as a result of Kosovo, the pace of the debate on a European security and defence identity is steadily quickening.
There are interesting echoes of this in the Washington communiqué following the events to commemorate 50 years of NATO.
Clear progress has been achieved here.
I agree with Mr Titley that a common foreign and security policy is not really feasible unless we also have closer cooperation in the defence industry.
This is a subject which has been raised many a time in this House, and I have the feeling that while some progress has been achieved among the Member States, you would like to see more.
If the Commission can do more to help - once again, I should say, because in the past it has already done so two or three times in a number of communications - I am confident that the new Commission will be more than happy to do that.
I will leave it there, Mr President. Once again, my compliments to Mr Tom Spencer on his report and my thanks to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, but also to the other honourable Members with whom I have been privileged to hold such thorough-going debates over the last parliamentary term on matters of foreign and security policy generally, though I am mindful too of the role which Parliament has played over this past term in promoting policy on human rights.
Parliament's voice is one which, it is fair to say, is heard by a very wide audience around the world.
I hope the new Parliament will make that voice heard more loudly and more often, because the tragedy currently unfolding in the Balkans is proof enough that there can never be too many words of warning and incitements to action, not least on the part of a democratically elected forum like the European Parliament.
Mr President, I am aware of the bad parliamentary habit of writing one's speeches in advance and then making them without listening to the rest of the debate. Indeed I have even been guilty of that myself on occasion.
So could I say very gently to Mr Truscott and other colleagues that if they had listened to my speech at the beginning, by accepting Amendment No 2 on the Russian recommendation - which is a Socialist Group amendment - it deletes the reference to 'delay' in the adoption of the common strategy with Russia and replaces it with what I feel is a very valid statement of what that recommendation should contain.
I want to make it absolutely clear to the House that I am completely comfortable with my report on the recommendation as I trust it will be amended tomorrow.
As I am on my feet I should like to thank colleagues for their overly generous remarks towards me.
I return the compliment to the Commissioner.
Commissioner van den Broek comes from a country with a powerful parliamentary tradition which he has embodied.
He did the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy of Parliament the courtesy of engaging in intelligent debate. It is that intelligent debate which is the lifeblood of properly formulated foreign policy.
I hope that in the next and all future Parliaments the Council will learn from his example.
The High Representatives may be part of the mouthpiece of the Council but it is good debate between all three institutions which holds out the best hope for the future.
Thank you very much indeed, Commissioner.
Mr President, I did indeed listen to Mr Spencer's speech from my office. I would like to congratulate him for his U-turn on Russia during the course of the debate.
I am glad to see that Mr Spencer is upholding the fine traditions of ideological inconsistency which we see all too often in the Conservative Party in Britain today.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Statute for MEPs
The next item is the report (A4-0267/99) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the draft European Parliament Decision regarding a Statute for Members of the European Parliament (7528/2/99 - C4-0217/99-00/0823(COS)).
I give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Rothley.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 3 December the European Parliament adopted by a qualified majority a draft Statute that was moderate, balanced, clearly reasonable, simple and practical and certainly also had a certain intellectual charm.
By a qualified majority!
To date we have not had any response from the Council to the draft.
The Council can accept or reject it, but if it rejects it it must give its reasons so that we can verify whether they are legitimate.
Instead the Council has put forward its own draft which is not acceptable to Parliament.
For example, it has established a permanent inequality by giving Member States the right to subject the incomes of Members of Parliament to national taxation.
The three Scandinavian Member States and the United Kingdom have now made use of this option, and France may do the same.
It may no longer be on the agenda for the German Presidency, however, as it can no longer approve it.
Now we not only have the new draft from the Council, but attempts are also being made in this House to adopt a different text tomorrow, with a motion from the Liberal Group.
How politically stupid does one have to be to change a text that Parliament has adopted by a qualified majority before we have even negotiated with the Council on it?
The Council will probably say: if we wait for another three or four months Parliament might adopt another new text and another one again another three months after that.
I have to say that the potential for self-destruction in this Parliament is enormous!
Every new text is simply weakening Parliament's position.
Furthermore, how can you expect your colleagues to vote on a constitution that is supposed to solve all their existential problems without having had the chance to discuss them in committee and without the groups even having had the chance to discuss them!
Do you expect us to be able to vote on such a text? That is ridiculous.
Mr Wijsenbeek, we discussed my original text in this House very thoroughly and in great detail, and the result was a qualified majority.
This was a huge step forward, and now you want to turn it around!
I do not know what your reasons are, but they are not very important.
The European Parliament should not decide on a constitutional text in haste. And Parliament would be well advised only to adopt such a text if there is a broad consensus on it in the House.
Furthermore, there will be no Statute this week.
The Council is not aware of any forthcoming negotiations.
When are they to take place?
They will never take place! How can we expect governments that have already said that they will use the opt-out clause to agree tomorrow to allow us equality?
This is nonsense. We really are clutching at straws here.
There will be no Statute this week.
It is as simple as that.
I therefore believe that it makes more sense to follow the recommendation of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and to say that we confirm Parliament's resolution of 3 December 1998.
We are of course prepared to negotiate with the Council, and we should have concluded the negotiations by the end of October.
The Statute can enter into force on 1 November, 1 December or 1 January.
So why not? There is absolutely no problem with this.
But today - and I will conclude here - we must say a clear no to all attempts to change Parliament's text of 3 December 1998.
Applause
Mr President, a great many accusations could be levelled against Members of the European Parliament, but they could never be accused of putting their own interests first, because on the occasion of a debate on their own rights, privileges, interests and immunities, the House is practically deserted, as you can see.
Our own interests are clearly not a matter of great priority for us as Members of the European Parliament.
I have to say however that I do not share the apocalyptic vision presented by my colleague and good friend Willi Rothley on what has happened to relations between Parliament and the Council.
According to Article 190(5) of the Treaty, 'the European Parliament shall, after seeking an opinion from the Commission and with the approval of the Council acting unanimously, lay down the regulations and general conditions governing the performance of the duties of its Members'.
I believe that the Council - and the governments - have demonstrated their goodwill towards Parliament. Firstly, they agreed to something we felt it would be difficult to achieve: the inclusion of this very article in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
We in Parliament had requested it, but we expected the Council - or the governments - to disagree. Secondly, Parliament's proposal on the matter received a prompt reply.
In other words, the Council studied the matter very quickly and presented us with its opinion.
The adoption procedure referred to in Article 190 is not the assent procedure.
The assent procedure is used in connection with international treaties, because once the text of the treaty has been agreed, it cannot be changed by Parliament.
Parliament cannot amend an international treaty, and that is why we have the assent procedure.
What we are dealing with here is an adoption procedure.
The Council has to give its unanimous approval to what Parliament presents.
Parliament then makes the final decision.
I do feel however that the Council has shown goodwill in this case. The Council has put forward an alternative text which it would be prepared to accept.
In so doing, the Council has suggested a way of ensuring unanimity amongst its members.
In addition, we have the impression that the Council is not totally entrenched in its position.
Some of the proposals in the Council's text are unreasonable, such as the references to national taxation.
It would obviously be incompatible with Community rules for Member States to obtain additional funds by taxing Members of the European Parliament. It would amount to a kind of additional Cohesion Fund.
Nevertheless, the Liberal Group have tabled an amendment that many Members are prepared to support.
It is based on the text presented by the Council with the opposite aim in mind. In our view, the text of the amendment stands a good chance of being approved by the Council.
In essence, what is at issue is a principle established by the case-law of the Court of Justice: the principle of loyal collaboration between the institutions.
Parliament makes a proposal which requires Council authorisation. The Council lays down the conditions for authorisation and Parliament has the chance to study and discuss them again.
There is therefore no need to overreact. I believe that the stability and definition of the legal basis are of great importance for Parliament and its Members.
Parliament and the Council should therefore continue to work together to this end. We should not entertain the thought of confrontation without any compromise solution.
Mr President, Parliament and the Council are of one mind.
We agree that uniform arrangements for Members of the European Parliament are necessary, that they must be in place soon and that they must be suitable, although we do have certain reservations as to their suitability.
Nevertheless, I share Mr Medina Ortega's view that it should be possible to resolve our difficulties in the near future.
In the first place, I should like to make it quite clear that there is no difference of opinion in Parliament regarding the basic salary for Members of the European Parliament, a matter which has provoked much interest amongst the general public.
Parliament and the Council are agreed on this.
Where we differ is on the interpretation of the Treaty, on how we understand European law. I shall quote a few examples.
Firstly, we cannot accept different arrangements for Members from different Member States. Parliament is no longer simply an assembly composed of representatives from national governments without any power to act for itself.
This change must be appreciated by everyone, and the Statute appreciates it.
Parliament has been representing the people of Europe for a good many years now. We are therefore seeking a uniform statute which takes account of the present situation, as provided for in the Treaty.
Mr Medina referred to the law of treaties.
Reserve is a standard cutting tool used in public international law. Reserve is also the tool chosen by the Council to rush through what amounts to de-communitarisation, differentiation and discrimination between Members of the European Parliament.
We are fundamentally opposed to the method chosen. Clearly, we are required to reach an agreement, so if the method has to be retained, it should be subject to a time restriction and covered by transitional arrangements with a clearly defined time limit.
This is the only way to a solution, because I think this is the most important point.
Of course we would like to see a statute in place but not if that meant sacrificing its very essence: equal treatment for all Members of the European Parliament.
We must also uphold Parliament's rights. It is not a case of defending them against attack, but of upholding them for the benefit of all, because the Treaty requires a particular interinstitutional balance and none other.
Given that the Treaty lays down an extremely unusual procedure insofar as it is for Parliament to devise a text and for the Council to approve it, we ought not suddenly and surreptitiously to disrupt that balance.
Let us agree to start with what we have before us, discuss matters and reach an agreement as soon as possible.
Nevertheless, it is essential for each party to be quite clear as to its role under the Treaty.
This is not the only difficulty we have at present. There are areas where the actual role of Member of Parliament is unacceptable to us.
I could quote the clear example of the pension scheme, which is neither logical nor acceptable. Parliament has now come of age and the Statute should therefore allow it room for manoeuvre on clearly defined issues such as its own rights.
This is the idea behind the basic text and the annexes. Provision would therefore be made for all the necessary arrangements relating to the implementation of this Statute in a different way from that laid down in Article 190(5).
This article is cumbersome and calls for unanimity in the Council.
It could almost be said that a number of mechanisms are unreasonable and lacking in proportion. Greater flexibility is called for so that specific points can be changed to suit the real situation.
Mr President, I have every confidence that a solution will soon be found.
As I conclude my final speech of this parliamentary term, replying to Mr Rothley on behalf of the European People's Party, I am put in mind of a splendid speech made in the Spanish constituent assembly which drafted our 1812 constitution. One member of that assembly said to another that he would defend his own arguments steadfastly and passionately whilst remaining loyal to his opponent.
Mr Rothley is worthy of the same treatment. Thank you, Mr Rothley, for your work on this report and on all the others for which you have been rapporteur before this House.
Mr President, I have to say that Mr Rothley has been consistent.
Throughout the whole procedure, he has endeavoured to put a stop to it.
If the Liberals had not forced the pace of the discussions in the Legal Affairs Committee, there would have been no report on 3 December.
Mr Rothley did not think there would be.
If we had not driven it home in all the capital cities of the Member States that we should speed up the deliberations in the Council, then I do not think this would have materialised.
But the position adopted by Mr Rothley has been consistent.
I am quite sure that if we do not reach a decision now, reform will be brushed aside in the future, and we shall not achieve what we would like to do, namely to get rid of the lack of clarity surrounding pay and allowances before the June elections.
My sense of legal justice is deeply offended by the way in which the law is being used as a shield by so many people against what they do not want to face, or in order to avoid saying what is really at issue.
There is an old expression: the end justifies the means.
I think it is rather strange that after many rounds of negotiations with the Council, it is then suddenly announced, just before the finishing post, that it is not possible to alter Parliament's position.
That is illogical and we cannot accept it.
We Liberals have been prepared to accept, for the most part, the position of the Council.
My view is that we would then have a unique legitimacy.
Unlike many other parliaments, we would have rules governing our salaries which are laid down in conjunction with another democratic body.
We would be able to combine the best of the Member States' traditions.
It is vital that we now have a system where the rules governing what is acceptable in terms of expenses are clear, and we must have greater transparency when dealing with resources.
It is true that the Liberals are the first to have tabled an amendment which aims to ensure a compromise, and which I hope can be adopted by the House tomorrow and accepted by the Council.
Most of the points in the amendment refer to aspects that have already been approved by Parliament.
Finally, I should like to put a question to the rapporteur: what is there in our compromise proposal that he is unable to approve?
Mr President, it is difficult to contain certain feelings of indignation when discussing the Statute for Members and all it involves. This indignation is due to the atmosphere in which the debates have been held, under pressure from the claims made by some in the media which resulted in the debate becoming rather unbalanced.
As we are all aware, these circumstances combined to create unnecessary tension. This was not at all helpful as we sought to achieve our aim: establishing a unified legal status for all Members.
At this juncture we find that the pressures which had a negative influence on discussion of the report have been considerably aggravated by the imminence of the elections.
Nevertheless, we must keep two points very much in mind.
The first is formal in nature: as the rapporteur stated, the Council has infringed Article 190(5) of the Treaty.
Secondly, the Statute must be adopted during this parliamentary term. Further, its adoption must entail collaboration between both institutions, Parliament and the Council.
It is certainly not acceptable for the Council to present a proposal to Parliament expecting it to be approved.
Such an approach calls Parliament's independence into question.
Nevertheless, Parliament and the Council must find a way of cooperating with a view to adopting the Statute.
Outright rejection of the Council's proposal does not seem wise if we are to move ahead with the Statute according to the agreed timetable.
Therefore, although I agree with the rapporteur's criticisms of the form and content of the proposal, I am in favour of urgent collaboration and negotiation between Parliament and the Council so that work on the Statute can be concluded and the Statute adopted.
Mr President, the Council has put forward its own proposal and the European Parliament is now about to get on its high horse over it.
Why? The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights is saying that the Council must not put forward its own proposal and has to support Parliament's proposal.
But how is it possible, I would then ask Mr Rothley, that you have spent three months negotiating with this selfsame Council in the knowledge that the Council, which has to reach a decision by unanimity, would very probably put forward amendments?
I find that a particularly feeble argument.
The gist of what those opposed to this are saying is really that Parliament should defy the Council and not allow it to walk all over us.
You know my group.
We are usually in favour, but not now, not on this matter.
The danger is that Parliament will lose sight of everything except procedural mistakes and problems over the implementation of certain parts. Those exist, it is true.
But supporting the Rothley report will mean that the European Parliament shows itself to be both touchy and short-sighted.
There is no solution which pleases everyone completely, but I think that we should settle for half a loaf rather than no bread.
That means giving and taking. My group is willing to do that.
Together with the Liberal Group, we have tabled an amendment which makes changes to the Council proposal.
It contains things which I do not agree with, in all honesty - and that goes for the majority of my group as well.
But we are very keen to do absolutely everything possible to reach a solution this week and to adopt a statute this week.
If we do not manage it, if we do not get a statute this week or in the very near future, I wish all Members of the House good luck as they confront a public opinion which will justifiably wonder whether there is anyone at all in the European Parliament who has the slightest sense of responsibility.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in Italy we have a saying that the hunter should beware lest he himself ends up the hunted.
And that is exactly what happened to the European Parliament when it gave responsibility for this issue to Mr Rothley, whose intellectual honesty I would never question but whose strategy - as you know - I find very unsound.
We wanted to have our voice heard and we are now in fact having to square up to a Council which, needless to say, within the space of 48 hours, is presenting us with its own version, the way it, the Council, wants to deal with Members of this House, including allowances, mission expenses and so on.
Before we know where we are, the Council will also be deciding on the level of pay to which we are entitled, whether or not we should sign up and at what level.
And that is all because this suicidal - and I do mean suicidal - strategy of seeking to fit in with the Council's approach was adopted.
We ought to have demanded the right to give ourselves a statute - that ought to have been the strategy! - a statute with a capital 'S', covering incompatibility, Members' privileges and status, but not our financial arrangements, which are an internal matter.
But we went for a different strategy: we decided that the Rothley line was the one to follow, and here we are today with Mr Rothley himself complaining that the whole thing is unacceptable.
But the damage has been done and clearly, yet again, the Council has us cornered.
All of us, from the Greens to the Liberals and the rest, fretting over three newspaper articles, will tomorrow be compelled to accept the Council text.
I hope that we do not accept it; I hope, ladies and gentlemen, that although we all want a statute, we reiterate tomorrow what we said on 3 December.
I do not see why what was acceptable on 3 December, when some of those principles were affirmed, should not be voted for tomorrow.
Let us perhaps proceed to the vote, but let us give the text on the Members' Statute real substance, or the opportunity will be lost to us.
Mr President, at the meeting of the Conference of Presidents this afternoon, we agreed to try to arrange the voting so that there was a clear vote showing who wanted to clean things up and who did not.
The secretaries-general will now meet tomorrow morning to organise the voting.
My starting-point in the Europe of Nations group is that we will vote in favour of the Council's draft Statute, even though in principle we are strong opponents of turning Members of Parliament into EU officials.
A common statute turns us into the EU's representatives in the Member States instead of the countries' representatives in the EU.
In principle, we want to be paid the same as members of the national parliaments and to pay tax like the members of the public who vote for us.
If we nonetheless feel able to vote for the Council's proposal, it is because in practice a majority of those here in Parliament want to continue claiming EUR 1 000 for a journey costing EUR 400, for example, and we give higher priority to cleaning up travel payments than to our objection in principle to common salaries and conditions of employment, and here we would particularly emphasise the fact there will be the possibility of taxing EU salaries nationally.
In the circumstances, the proposal which the Council has arrived at is a good one, and we recommend the Council to reach corresponding rules for the appointment of the new Commission and new civil servants in the institutions.
The counter-argument that there should be equal pay for equal work is not feasible when it comes to international cooperation.
The Council's members would then have the same salary, staff at the EU countries' embassies would have a uniform salary and experts would have the same, regardless of whether they represent agricultural organisations from a poor or a rich country.
Equal pay is a nice principle, but the countries are not yet the same, and at the moment it is more important to get rid of Parliament's wastefulness.
Mr President, Mr Rothley's report rightly points to a number of shortcomings, imperfections and even errors in the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament which the Council of Ministers has put before us.
I agree with some of the rapporteur's criticisms. But nevertheless, we shall be throwing the baby out with the bath water if we approve this report tomorrow.
We must after all have the courage to speak the truth.
The imperfect Statute which the Council has submitted, and it can certainly be improved, is at any rate better, a great deal better, than what we have at present.
More to the point, it is precisely because Parliament has never succeeded in putting its own house in order that we were firstly, and rightly, held to account by public opinion and secondly, equally rightly, that we are being treated like children by the Council of Ministers.
It is totally inappropriate to invoke the subsidiarity principle in this report for our own ends, when we never apply that same subsidiarity principle when the interests of the people in our Member States are at stake.
In short, I entirely agree with the minority opinion of Mr Fabre-Aubrespy which is appended to the report.
I would add that I am against the Europeanisation of our mandate, because I am in this Chamber to represent Flanders and not some kind of European superstate, because I am opposed to the tax advantages inherent in that Euro-statute, and I therefore remain in favour of a national tax regime which taxes us in exactly the same way as our voters.
There is still a good deal wrong with this Statute, I believe.
Unless the amendments make major and fundamental changes to the Rothley report, we shall in principle be voting against tomorrow.
Mr President, there are four basic reasons why the text as adjusted by the Council is not acceptable, in my view.
In the first place, it seriously prejudices and curtails Parliament's autonomy, just when the Treaty of Amsterdam accords us prime responsibility - albeit within the framework of an appropriate interinstitutional agreement in which the Commission and the Council participate in full - for drawing up our Members' Statute, along with clear rules governing their material conditions of work.
What we have here is not the kind of cooperation the Treaty requires, not comments on the text, but a whole new text, and we are being asked to take it or leave it.
Secondly, the text does not achieve the fundamental objective of equal treatment based on what are effectively equivalent allowances: the possibility of double taxation, at European and national level, is an outrage.
Thirdly, it rigidly determines a range of figures, rejecting a system of equal, flexible and evolving parameters, thereby penalising future Members of this House in particular.
Fourthly and lastly, it lays down in detail administrative procedures which cover even secretarial expenditure, and the effect is to create detailed and unduly bureaucratic rules; this impinges on Parliament's own area of responsibility for adopting measures which the House should be drawing up independently, through its own internal bodies.
I therefore agree with the position taken by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights that the discussion should be continued in a constructive way and a text rapidly established which is satisfactory to all.
We all agree on the objectives that we wish to achieve.
But it would be absurd to approve, in the form of a miracle amendment, a statute that has neither been properly discussed nor examined in great enough detail.
I would remind the House that, along with the Statute, there are other crucial issues on the agenda.
Ineligibility and incompatibility, for instance, the limit on the number of times Members may stand for re-election, reducing the number of Members and resolving conflicts of interest.
We have to take a stand against attempts to conceal what is effectively lobbyism, against the growing trend towards professional parliamentarians which is increasingly detracting from the function of democratic representation.
Max Weber pointed out in a classic of its kind many years ago that even independent people will in general want to live for politics, stressing that, were this not the case, all parliaments would be left with no more than paid party officials representing specific interests.
I hope that, however we may vote, we each have a proper sense of our own dignity and take pride in the fact that a statute will be helpful and useful if it enables every representative of the people to enjoy real independence and freedom.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what the Council has presented us with in the last week is in my view a double distortion of the content of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Article 190(5) states quite clearly that Parliament lays down a statute and the Council approves it.
If a codecision procedure in the sense of Article 189(b) had been intended, the founding fathers of the Amsterdam Treaty would have written that the Article 189(b) procedure applied.
But they did not do so.
They expressly stated, with good reason, that the Article 190(5) procedure applies, in which Parliament lays down a specific text and the Council approves it.
But what the Council has now done is to present us with a completely new text.
The only element that is the same is Article 1(1).
The other 14 pages are different.
With the best will in the world this cannot be described as an assent procedure.
Added to this is the fact that the Council has doubly violated the spirit and meaning of the Treaty because it has violated the Treaty's intention to establish equal treatment of MEPs by introducing a special tax to align MEPs' incomes with the national parliaments, and it restores this inequality by the back door, as it were.
This is a double violation of the provisions of the Treaty.
In my opinion we cannot as a result approve the Council's proposal.
Furthermore, I consider it unacceptable for a freely elected Member of Parliament, a freely elected Parliament, to be treated like an employee of the Council and to have to engage in collective bargaining with it.
This is particularly unacceptable as we adopted a very even and well-balanced paper on this in the December part-session, making MEPs' parliamentary allowances in future lower than those of the Members of Parliament of the three largest EU Member States in terms of population.
For the Germans this means giving up almost DM 1 500 per month, to put it in concrete terms.
I consider this to be very balanced.
Moreover, many of the provisions in the Council draft are impractical and unusable.
Without going into detail, as time is short, I shall say quite bluntly that I feel some of the points, particularly those on medical cover and the calculation of pension rights, are malicious.
The text presented here by the Liberals as an amendment is in my view already inadmissible because it changes the whole text and therefore contravenes Rule 125 of the Rules of Procedure.
The Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force on 1 May, and Parliament has gained significantly more power as a result.
If we were to approve the Council proposal and the Liberal amendment and not the paper drafted in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights under Mr Rothley, then we would be depriving ourselves of power again on a crucial issue that affects us directly.
I cannot imagine that the House will do this at tomorrow's vote.
Therefore we support the Rothley report.
Applause
Mr President, I would like to say to both the rapporteur and the Council of Ministers: settle your differences now, and stop being so self-important!
It is now or never.
Either we adopt a modified version of the Council's proposal or we will still be squabbling about this in five years' time.
That does not bear thinking about.
It would destroy Parliament's reputation and spoil the pleasure of our work.
To my protesting colleagues in the large groups, I would say: you have held this up for long enough with all your explanations and legal hair-splitting, which I have sat on two committees and listened to.
Now try to be a bit constructive!
To the Council of Ministers, I would say: stop wasting time on trivialities.
The proposal which the Council of Ministers put forward was far too concerned with wanting to 'make it better'.
We Liberals are able to accept the Council's proposal, but we are proposing some modifications so that we can achieve majority support for it here in Parliament.
If it still goes wrong, the voters will have to give their verdict in June.
Finally, in spite of everything I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, for accepting my proposal to allow countries with high rates of income tax to impose an additional tax on top of the EU tax.
I wish he had shown the same consideration and flexibility with regard to the wishes of other countries.
Mr President, instead of this process having come to an end, Parliament now finds itself at a dead end.
This is because some people were more concerned about responding to pressure from the press than about moving towards greater transparency regardless of external pressures, some of which hardly seem appropriate.
I must firstly set the scene.
Following the extensive internal debate in April 1997, we indicated at a press conference the need to reform the allowance system and to have a common approach guaranteeing maximum transparency and greater control of all expenses.
We said that in some cases travel allowances should be used to compensate for other expenses and that only journeys actually made should be reimbursed, with an amount corresponding to what these really cost.
The distance and time of journeys were to be taken into account using a scale for the subsistence allowance applied through a new and appropriate instrument. Members were not to have equal remuneration but this would be linked to the salaries of members of parliament in their Member States of origin.
These guidelines were defined by Mr Miranda in the Péry group and by myself in the Martin group, in which we participated in the best spirit of cooperation and in which at least some, if not all, of these guidelines were accepted.
And now we have reached this point.
The Council document is a compromise which, on the one hand contains unacceptable basic conditions, and on the other hand concentrates on inappropriate details which are contradictory and also unacceptable.
How can we escape from this impasse? If Parliament, on the eve of the elections, does not accept the Council's proposal, some will say that we rejected a laboriously constructed statute which had a moralising aim.
However, if we accept this, other people - and sometimes the same ones - will say that we approved a statute from which we will gain huge benefits.
As the saying goes, you are 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'.
More than representing merely a step towards federalism with a single salary, a Community tax, Members being treated in the same way as officials and other agents of the Community and a pension fund, I would say as a Quaestor that the Council's proposal is at the very least alarming.
To make this compulsory would result in an excessively controlling bureaucracy of which Article 9(6) is an almost ridiculous example.
Our only regret is that we have come to this point and so, as we would do in any case, we will vote in line with the position we accepted previously.
Is Parliament prepared to cultivate its own garden, Mr President? There was a majority in favour of that last December, and the Council has taken things forward on that basis.
That is not to say that I welcome the Council's proposal.
Getting rid of the once-only chance to choose for Members who are re-elected may perhaps make for greater clarity, but it seriously undermines the basis of the system.
The possibility of national taxation on top of European tax is a logical consequence of subsidiarity.
But the European tax of up to 40 % does not allow the offsetting of items such as relief on mortgage interest.
The average of the 15 current Member States is a socially acceptable level of remuneration.
The fact that many European officials receive more suggests above all that the pay scales for officials should be reviewed. Unfortunately, the rules on the end-of-service allowance are not at all generous.
For example, a Member who has served two full terms will cease to receive any income after ten months.
The Member States are responsible for providing an adequate transitional arrangement.
To sum up, the Council proposal deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Parliament would be showing itself in a very poor light if it rejected this chance of a serious and responsible system of remuneration.
Mr President, I am speaking on my own behalf, like Mr Medina Ortega, as we will not form a group opinion until this evening.
I do not wish to dwell on details as we will discuss these in any case in due course.
Today we are concerned with the fundamental issues.
We are concerned with the European Parliament and the self-image of the only legitimate, freely and directly elected body of the European Union.
The Members of this Parliament are subject only to their consciences and to the will of the people of Europe.
We do not need anyone to tell us what to do, not a group chairman, nor a Conference of Presidents, and certainly not the Council.
The people of Europe are concerned with much more urgent problems than a statute for MEPs.
If we are to be able to solve the really significant problems as a Parliament we must not allow ourselves to become puppets on such a minor issue as this Statute. This is exactly what the Council is trying to do.
It is simply not fulfilling its Treaty obligations and is ignoring the decision approved by Parliament on 3 December 1998 by an overwhelming majority.
Instead of this we are being given a mass of detailed rules that are incomplete, inconsistent, amateurish and highly dangerous for democracy.
I have to say that I am extremely concerned about this.
We must not allowed ourselves to be restricted by financial dependency or to be given a binding mandate.
If we do not succeed in safeguarding individual MEPs' freedom of decision we cannot claim to be able to accomplish anything for the people of Europe.
So let us continue along the right path that has been outlined for us by our rapporteur Willy Rothley, a path which Parliament has already agreed on.
It is only by doing this that we can retain our standing with the electorate and continue to hope for their trust.
Mr President, I do not agree with Mr Rothley, because to start with it is completely incorrect - as he well knows - to say that we can adopt a statute in October or November.
Time is pressing.
We shall not be part of it, neither he nor myself, but Parliament is about to face the electorate and you simply cannot afford to say: 'ah yes, this Statute which has taken so much work, that can wait a while, the voters will trust us'.
Mr Rothley is wrong to say that there is no need to talk about this any further this week.
He knows full well that Coreper is meeting again tomorrow.
If we do not take this chance of reversing an illegal situation of discrimination on grounds of nationality, which is at odds with Article 6 of the Treaty and which we ourselves have allowed to persist here for years, we shall not get the chance again, but we can discuss it here openly and honestly with the Council.
Consequently, the Liberal Group has put forward a proposal on the basis of Mr Rothley's proposals, brought into line in some respects with the Council's proposal, and I hope that we shall get a majority vote in favour of it tomorrow.
Mr President, Mr Rothley, ladies and gentlemen, I would be happy to believe the rapporteur, if some of his supporters were not a little suspect.
Because the fact is that I am struck by one thing, Mr Rothley, namely that when we voted on your text, some people were completely and utterly opposed to it.
Today, they are in favour of putting it on ice.
So I think we must not be naive here.
It may be that your legal reasons and arguments are valid, but I have the feeling that some of your supporters have a hidden agenda and do not really want some of these privileges to be called into question, because so many strange arguments are being used.
They say that what the Council is suggesting creates inequality.
Let us be honest, we have inequality here today.
Today there are MEPs who are earning four times more or four times less.
Even our European Parliament text contained inequalities, because we worked out a transitional arrangement for the salary for a parliamentary term, and we worked out the same thing for the supplementary pension.
There too, there were two systems.
So the question is this: is the Council proposal a fair basis on which to negotiate in the immediate future and reach agreement before the new term starts, or is it not?
There are some in the Socialist Group who think it is, and that we should negotiate on that basis: not just because of the media, not just because of public opinion, not just because of the voters, but because we need to set things to rights in our own House and to prove, when we speak for the peoples of Europe, for our democratic voters, that we do have some small degree of affinity with ordinary people and that we are putting a stop to a number of practices as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I believe that we must insist today that there has to be a common statute for MEPs, and that this issue must be addressed this week.
It is an issue that can no longer be pushed aside.
Regretfully, it has to be said that the Council was slow in dealing with this matter.
Parliament approved it more than six months ago, and the criticism voiced here that Parliament has had too little time to become acquainted with the document that the Council drafted, is to some extent justified.
But it is vital that the Statute should be approved before the new Parliament commences its term of office.
We need to have talks with the Council, and I agree that these talks will be worthwhile in order to achieve results and settle a few fairly minor details that are seen as problematic.
The agreement, however, should contain a solution for harmonised rates of pay and scope for national taxation, so that the extra tax generated can benefit each Member State.
We should also abandon the system of flat rate travel expenses and adhere to one of bona fide costs incurred, but one that includes expenses incurred through travel in one's home country.
I believe this is also a matter of fairness.
MEPs must also be prepared to have their overheads and office costs expense claims checked to ensure that resources have been used according to what has been agreed, as the Council proposes.
In any case. I cannot approve the position that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has adopted, as it only means postponing the issue.
A solution has to be reached now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I have followed this afternoon's debate in the House with great interest. For my part I shall merely stress the importance of reaching agreement on the Statute for Members at the earliest opportunity.
As you are aware, we have participated in the relevant procedures agreed at the Vienna European Council last December.
In March, we provisionally issued the ruling called for in Article 190(5) of the Treaty.
The ruling was formally confirmed by the Commission and forwarded to Parliament when the Treaty came into force.
We appreciate that a number of exceptions or a transitional period may prove unavoidable for reasons of political expediency.
We are prepared to accept these in the interests of an agreement provided that the number of exceptions is kept as low as possible and that they serve to pave the way to a single and uniform statute. Above all, they must lead to the implementation of a system of equal payment for all Members of the European Parliament as soon as possible.
What we are certainly opposed to is any solution involving a review of the European Communities' protocol on privileges and immunities.
This issue has been taken into account.
We have also made every effort to guarantee that the cost to the Community budget of implementation of the Statute is taken into consideration in the financial perspective.
I believe that the text of the Interinstitutional Agreement reflects the progress made in this direction.
We trust that a solution acceptable to Parliament and to the Council will be reached in the near future. Nevertheless, we understand that Parliament has to decide if the Council's present position is acceptable in full or in part and we hope agreement will soon be possible.
Before concluding I must convey to Mr Rothley how much I have valued his work over the years.
I have no wish to express an opinion on Mr Rothley's views on the issue before us today. I do however want to say that as a Commissioner and in previous years as a Member of this House, I have always valued the power of his arguments and the strength of his convictions, whether or not I have agreed with them.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
The sitting was suspended at 7.02 p.m. and resumed at 8 p.m.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, I first have an announcement to make. In the votes this afternoon, Parliament confirmed its opinions given on Commission proposals subject to a change of procedure following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
In this context, the Council has informed me that the following common positions which it had adopted on these proposals remain unchanged.
This concerns: Agenda 2000 - European Social Fund; Agenda 2000 - Community support for trans-European networks; Agenda 2000 - European Regional Development Fund; protection of workers in explosive atmospheres; and finally, charging of heavy goods vehicles.
Budget estimates for the European Parliament and the European Ombudsman for 2000
The next item is the report (A4-0227/99) by Mrs Müller, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the estimates of revenue and expenditure of Parliament and the estimates of revenue and expenditure of the Ombudsman for the financial year 2000.
Madam President, I would like to ask for your help.
I can see nobody at all here from Parliament's administration, and Mr Wynn and Mr Samland are already all too familiar with what I have to say.
In view of this, I am really not prepared to speak here.
Perhaps you could advise me what to do.
I could hand in my speech in writing, and then we would save five minutes and you could move straight on.
But I do not think this is the right way to proceed.
Of course everyone is in group meetings discussing the Statute, and that is where I should be now too.
So please tell me what I should do.
However, I feel that it would be beneath my dignity - and this is of course not intended as a criticism of those who are present - to complete the procedure in this way.
I can quite appreciate what you say, and this is something that unfortunately happens to us very often.
We had just finished in the groups, and then we quickly came running along here.
I hope our colleagues will also be with us soon.
We shall try to get them here without delay.
I would ask you not to submit your speech in writing, since we do have Mr Wynn, Mr Samland and others with us in the Chamber.
I should like to hear your speech, Mrs Müller, I really would.
So please do make it!
I am very fond of you all, but perhaps you could request once again that somebody from Parliament's administration should be present, because what I have to say is of course primarily aimed at them.
Having my target audience absent really makes this rather difficult.
So, I shall just grind out my speech, like it or not.
Madam President, acting Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday evening and this morning we discussed the reforms that a new Commission needs to tackle as a matter of urgency.
We formulated conditions that both individual Commissioners and the Commission collectively should fulfil, not just in terms of substance, but also as regards procedure.
I hope and indeed I am confident that the vitality of this debate will also infect this House.
The European Parliament's preliminary draft estimates for the year 2000 provide us with an opportunity to do this, and as rapporteur I would like to make a brief introduction to the debate - assuming there will be one, that is.
I believe that the influence wielded by political institutions is not just a matter of legal clauses and treaty articles.
As parliamentarians we are particularly aware that political subject matter is only as good as the scope for communicating it through the process of public debate.
So we will have to ensure that the new powers conferred on us by the Treaty of Amsterdam a few days ago are underpinned by our collective credibility.
That is our true political capital.
The first of the two central themes that I would like to see governing the future administrative development of the House is therefore 'greater trust based on greater transparency'.
I am firmly convinced that adopting the Statute for Members of the European Parliament would be a crucial step in this direction.
In the expectation that a decision to this effect will be taken this year, the Budgets Committee has therefore included an amount of EUR 60 million in the reserve and has created a staff reserve to cover the additional administrative requirements expected.
This means we can finally dispense with special pots of money such as the two special pension funds for Members, which have repeatedly been the subject of public criticism of Parliament.
Furthermore, it is worth remembering at this point that the amount originally earmarked for setting up a supermarket, EUR 3.8 million, is no longer included in the preliminary estimates.
Another relevant point in this context is that the repayment period for the new buildings has now been definitively set at 10 years instead of 15, so that the interest burden over the whole period has been reduced by some EUR 60 million, thus avoiding the need for a hidden loan from future budgets.
I feel that this sends the right signals if we are to regain the confidence of the electorate.
The target of not spending more than 20 % of the entire administrative expenditure category for the Parliament is one which we ourselves have observed for years, and the Budgets Committee believes, as do I, that this target must definitely be respected.
A one-off overshoot is only tolerable if the Statute for Members is budgetised, but it should be partly reduced towards the previous level in the coming year and return to that level in 2001.
At the same time, improvements in Parliament's administrative efficiency are both necessary and achievable.
If we are to exploit the scope for greater efficiency, we need less bureaucracy and more decentralisation - in short an improvement in motivation by delegating more responsibility, including to those at middle management level.
So it is now a question of actively implementing - both in the House and within the groups - the budgetisation system on which the Budgets Committee has already held a hearing.
I am delighted that the administration has assured us that the additional tasks it will have to take on because of the Amsterdam Treaty coming into force and preparations for enlargement will be totally covered by the existing staff complement.
We can do this only in cooperation with the staff, and we would not want it any other way.
That is why the Budgets Committee has fundamentally signed up to the new staff policy, the centrepiece of which is promotion on the basis of sustained merit, with an average promotion cycle of five years.
For the coming budget year, this means that the decision taken to completely clear the promotion backlog will lead to upgradings for 26.5 % of staff with scope for promotion.
Furthermore, this system will help to put a stop to the practice of party-political or nationally motivated promotions through several grades at a time.
I would like to conclude by addressing several systemic problems that I have encountered under the budget procedure to date.
A problem that I have come across in relation to ad personam promotions is that I as rapporteur am supposed to approve individual promotions which I assume are justified, but for which I cannot really take responsibility.
I therefore propose that there should be a system for ad personam promotions, for example by means of an annual budget including all long-term costs.
Another problem, as I see it, is that the short period which rapporteurs have to acquaint themselves with the subject matter is scarcely adequate to grasp the complex interrelated issues within the administration.
From a purely informational point of view, the annual reporting process is too weak in relation to the administration.
And one last point: I am firmly convinced - and I have to say that my views have moved on in this respect - that we need more efficient simultaneous self-regulation by the House itself, particularly in relation to the Bureau.
This includes both budgetary and staff policy debates and a new system of Bureau rulings and political control of this.
But the golden rule for Parliament is still 'greater trust leads to greater transparency'.
Madam President, I thank Mrs Müller for her contribution. I am glad she did not just put it in writing.
As the Socialist coordinator let me say that the group will be supporting the report as it stands with the amendment from the Committee on Budgets which was voted on last night concerning the extra upgradings for the ad personams .
Having said that, I have discharged my duty as the coordinator.
As there are so few people here and whilst very few people are concerned about the debate, I shall concentrate on two points on which I will speak in a personal capacity.
The first is on paragraph 1 where we mention the need for a Members' statute and an assistants' statute.
Our group wants a Members' statute and an assistants' statute.
I want a Members' statute.
I am fed up with everybody thinking I am some sort of crook.
I want the clarification to be such that my expenses are paid from Parliament, are audited, are accounted and that no one can point the finger at me.
Because I have that attitude when we look at what is being called for, nothing will happen until we get the statutes.
It is pretty obvious from the discussions I have heard over the last two days that the Members' Statute will be an ongoing discussion for the next few weeks, if not the next few months.
Having said that, we could actually take two courses of action which would help us considerably and would be a sign of good faith to the Council to show that we are serious.
There is nothing to stop this Parliament as from 20 July having assistants paid directly by Parliament, rather than being paid by the Members.
We could do that.
We could have the safeguards on redundancy payments and we could have the safeguards on pension contributions from Parliament rather than Members being responsible for it.
On the other proposal which the Council has been asking for, namely the audits of our general office allowances, there is no reason why on 20 July, if we do not have an agreement on the Members' Statute we should not say there will be an annual audit of the general office allowance which must be submitted to Parliament, carried out by bona fide auditors and must be submitted to Parliament for Members to receive their annual allowance.
We could do those two things without the Members' Statute.
On the final paragraphs where we talk about the cost of the buildings and the total budgetary amounts, we are almost up to EUR 1 billion for Parliament's budget.
If you look at those figures that works out at about EUR 1.5m for each Member.
When the press sees that figure I am sure it will make a lot of it.
But of course we cannot be compared to national parliaments. They do not have interpretation and translation costs.
National parliaments do not work in three places of work. National parliaments are not buying their buildings like we are or renting a variety of buildings.
So that figure can be somewhat misleading.
The one thing about these figures is that we have to look for prudence.
We cannot just call on the other institutions to tighten their belts.
We have to look at every available opportunity to save money.
One of my pet hobby-horses is the two sessions we are now bound to have in October in Strasbourg.
Much as I love Strasbourg, coming here twice in October for two five-day sessions is a waste of our time and energy.
There is no reason why we could not have two sessions in Strasbourg - one being of three days and one of two days within the same week.
If we did that we would save a considerable amount of money.
Madam President, I should like to thank Edith Müller who, despite the low turnout, personally presented her report.
It is a good report in my view and its content is entirely relevant. Reports are always better received if they are presented by the rapporteurs themselves, and even more so in Edith's case.
As I said, Madam President, this is a good document which I shall broadly support. What is more, the report's content seems entirely logical, given that a Parliament that intends to take on bigger responsibilities certainly needs to grow in terms of telecommunications, computing and personnel.
At present, only the Council seems to believe it is possible to broaden and deepen the European Union by making budget cuts.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of the report is the issue of promotions, particularly since it talks about 490 promotions when in recent years there have been an average of 150.
However, what we need to do here is to listen, just as we have listened, to the administration and to look at how it has changed and how staff policy will change further still, that is, how staff are managed in this House.
I therefore think that this new system of promotions based on sustained merit and not solely on the availability of a particular job will be of benefit to Parliament.
I therefore fully support this idea.
With regard to promotions, and more specifically paragraph 2, which contains a reference to them, Mr Filippi and myself intend to table an amendment which, further to accepting the 490 promotions, also supports those permanent and temporary jobs that have already been accepted, as well as the three ad personam promotions.
Madam President, Mrs Müller has produced an excellent report as a basis for next year's budget, and I would like to thank her sincerely.
I would just like to raise one issue, which relates to the European Ombudsman's budget.
This is a new institution, which was created only in 1995.
However, it has proved to be both a much-needed and viable arrangement.
The problem is simply a lack of resources.
The number of staff employed in this office, in proportion to the number of cases they have to deal with, is considerably smaller than that in their counterparts in the Member States.
The problem is made even worse by the fact that the staff required need to be exceptionally well qualified, and for that reason they are difficult to recruit.
Up till now, Parliament has reacted reasonably favourably to the proposals of the Ombudsman, Jacob Söderman, for addressing the most urgent staffing problems.
This has to be acknowledged, although our reactions have been helped along by the fact that the funding required has not been on a very large scale.
However, improvements should be allowed to continue.
Now that the new interinstitutional agreement has been reached, financial resources are quite limited, but nevertheless the number of staff working in this institution should be increased.
I hope that there can be a systematic increase in resources made available to the European Ombudsman in the budget proper, as that is the way we can best promote the public's confidence in the work of the EU generally.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, well, those of you who are still here, I think that as we are amongst experts, there are only a few key points to make about the budget for Parliament for the year 2000.
First, we are deciding on a budget which takes us into the next millennium.
This will be the first year of the new millennium, and a new Parliament will of course have to implement this budget.
We will also have a new Commission. And this budget may also be based on a new interinstitutional agreement.
That brings us to the first and most important point.
If we do not accept the interinstitutional agreement this Thursday, that is if we cannot summon up 314 votes for it, then the additional EUR 155 million provided for Category 5 will not be available.
That would mean that the additional 20 % which would in turn be available to the European Parliament from the EUR 155 million would not after all be available. As a consequence, with continuing expenditure we would exceed the 20 % ceiling.
In other words, we would not be able to keep expenditure within the 20 % limit.
This is simply one more argument for Members to vote in favour on Thursday, if we do not want also to cut back our activities.
Second, we have taken a very major step in staff policy.
The Secretary-General is sitting next to you, Madam President, and my comments now are addressed to him.
The decision we have taken in committee and recommended to Parliament involves promoting around 20 % of all staff with scope for promotion.
This is an enormous step, and as I said at the beginning of this debate, I cannot help feeling - as we were in a situation of deadlock - that there is always a wave of promotions in the year when one Parliament steps down and the next is elected.
During the discussion that we had with him during the conciliation procedure and also in the committee itself, the Secretary-General assured us that this was the start of a new staff policy, under which quality and not the passport you hold would be the key to promotion.
I have no way of monitoring this, but I would urge those Members who return to the House to watch very carefully that the measure that we have agreed to as a concession continues to be observed over the next few years.
I am confident that the Secretary-General will continue to adhere to the undertaking he has given us in future, with the new Parliament.
I particularly welcome the fact that by virtue of a Bureau decision we have upgraded the 60 posts for ushers, including those here in the Chamber, from Category D to Category C, in four stages. This follows on consistently from the steps we have already taken in recent years.
I would also like to be very explicit about the buildings - these comments are addressed to you, Madam President, and to the Bureau.
We have expressed our willingness to retrospectively implement the ad personam promotions resulting from Mrs Müller's amendment, on condition that the Bureau respects its undertaking to finance the buildings within a ten-year period.
The corrected Berlin decision means that all the prerequisites for this are in place.
I am asking you too to respect this promise - just as we have done one our side - by honouring the ad personam promotions.
I would like to make one final and very personal comment.
I believe that a parliament that wishes to be equal to the tasks demanded of it, and this applies all the more so following the Treaty of Amsterdam, needs to have an employment structure for assistants that allows it to do full justice to these tasks.
Over the last ten years, since 1989, I have been one of the people who have secured a more than 100 % increase in the flat-rate allowance for assistants.
I stand by this, as I believe that good and well qualified academic assistants are essential if a Member who takes his work seriously is to carry out his duties to the full.
I would therefore recommend that the new Parliament should return to this subject, as things have been at a standstill for two years now while we have been dealing with other issues, but we must come back to this point if our assistants are to work well.
Madam President, firstly I would like to thank Mrs Müller for an excellent report, the contents of which I entirely endorse.
Considering that the European Parliament aspires to purge the European Union of abuses as a responsible wielder of budgetary power, I personally have problems with the fact that the European Parliament is promoting 490 of its officials in the year 2000.
That number is three times what it was for this year, for example.
It would be easy to put things in black and white and state that I cannot approve of these promotions.
When, however, I listened to the report of Mr Priestley, Secretary-General of the European Parliament, in the Committee on Budgets, I had to admit that things were the same as ever: knowledge breeds problems.
I myself know that over the period 1995-1996, when I worked here in Parliament, the practice and bases for promotion were not always fair.
For that reason, I believe that we have to be able to correct distortions in staff promotion, especially as Mr Priestley has assured us that this will be a one-off occasion used to correct distortions and that in the future we will follow established practice and fully comply with the rules that promotion is to be based solely on qualifications and ability, rules which maintain the principle of transparency.
Our role in the European Parliament is to keep to a tight budget for ourselves as well.
Our role is to ensure that there is transparency.
I hope that Mr Priestley will find a way to keep MEPs informed about progress made in positive administrative reforms.
Thank you, Mrs Laurila.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 noon.
Preliminary draft general budget - year 2000
The next item is the presentation by the Commission of the preliminary draft general budget for the financial year 2000.
I am in a bit of a difficult position because the audience is more limited here today than it was in the Committee on Budgets yesterday and all the people that are here listened to me yesterday on the same item.
So I will be brief.
With the adoption of the preliminary draft budget for the year 2000 the Commission has launched the budget procedure for the budget authority.
But as the question of the new interinstitutional agreement is as yet undecided: it is to be discussed tomorrow and voted on Thursday, and the preliminary draft budget will have to be completed in the autumn. This can be done by means of an amending letter.
As the chairman of the Budget Committee mentioned yesterday, in the Budget Committee there is a problem with timing: how to guarantee that both arms of the budget authority can deal properly with the amending letter.
That must be discussed in this Commission and with the new President, to find a convenient way.
The Commission envisages a budget for the year 2000 which will require, overall, less commitment of appropriations than the 1999 budget. This is mainly due to a slight decline in agricultural spending and because of the new financial framework for structural funds.
The payment rates will, however, grow substantially due to the backlog, in particular for structural funds but also for research and external relations.
For agriculture, if the interinstitutional agreement is accepted, it means that the new budget structure makes it possible to distinguish clearly between, on the one hand, the traditional market expenditure on income support which will be obligatory and, on the other hand, the new rural development expenditure which would be non-obligatory expenditure.
We must say today that, on the basis of the current estimates, the ceiling on market expenditure adopted in Berlin provides a new and immediately effective element of budget discipline.
With regard to structural expenditure, BDP for the year 2000 is based on the decisions of Berlin. We understand that with certain modifications Parliament is about to follow them.
At first glance the budget appears to indicate a radical reduction - 16 % - in commitments from 1999.
But the fact is that rebudgeting in 1999 and the transfer of rural structural expenditure to Category I distorts the picture.
All things considered, the reduction of structural commitments is more modest, closer to 6 %.
At the moment BDP does not provide for the Community initiative URBAN, but the decisions on this matter will be incorporated into the budget proposal at a later stage in the procedure.
The margin for manoeuvre for internal policies is more limited than Agenda 2000 had hoped for but if the interinstitutional agreement is accepted, it will provide a welcome extra breathing space.
The Commission has proposed continuing the efforts of recent years to focus the internal policies on growth and employment-related expenditure, in particular research and technical development, trans-European networks, education and training, and on the small- and medium-sized enterprises, which has been a parliamentary initiative.
The budget proposal for 2000 has been prepared in full application of the 1998 agreement on the legal bases.
It distinguishes autonomous pilot and preparatory actions and thus provides a reliable base for the decisions of the budgetary authority and for uncontested execution of the 2000 budget.
As to the external expenditure, there is a marked increase in the total amounts because of the new and reinforced pre-accession assistance.
We must note that the situation in the Balkans may require a substantial addition of financial resources from the Community budget.
The institutions have already, for that reason, agreed to review the situation in the light of developments.
If necessary there is the possibility of revising the financial perspectives, and that has been declared by the Council also.
Finally, administrative expenditure, which was discussed for Parliament a while ago: given the growth in pension expenditure the ceiling set in Berlin is just about sufficient to finance the status quo in terms of personnel.
This has always been made clear by the Commission.
The preliminary draft budget therefore had to postpone the question of possible new staff and its pre-allocation until the margins which will possibly become available under the new institutional agreement have become clear and until the new Commission has had a chance to define its requirements.
Of course all the necessary preparatory work will be done by this Commission.
But we find it appropriate that, after the vote of confidence, the new Commission should allocate resources.
The question of staff policy will be a key question in the autumn.
I agree that the Community institutions require adequate human resources to be able to execute their new tasks properly.
There are certainly bottlenecks, in particular in financial management, which will be overcome most quickly with new posts.
But still, let us not forget that human resources will always be scarce and measures of redeployment, retraining and flexibility will lose none of their importance for the future.
Further work is required by Parliament, particularly as it debates and votes on Agenda 2000, and by the next Commission and Parliament to complete the Community budget for the year 2000.
But today's BDP already gives the first hint that the new financial framework will work for the Union, that a balance has been found between the rigour prevailing throughout Europe and the financial requirements for the key policies of the Union.
But very much depends on decisions this week.
Madam President, Commissioner, we have listened to you very carefully.
Your PDB reflects what you have been able to achieve; it is not entirely to our satisfaction, but we shall not make things difficult for you.
The exercise is in effect an academic one.
You are making a proposal in a context which there is no reason to suppose will be the right one.
You quite logically acted on the conclusions reached in Berlin.
So if there is an interinstitutional agreement you will have additional margins, and if not, the position will be entirely different.
So we have here a text which is more or less academic. You have not sought to hide the fact from us, and we appreciate that.
Regarding Category 1 expenditure, the funds are in fact adequate overall, although you are already a little short on sub-ceiling 1 'Organisation of the markets', and you are counting on all this being dealt with by some kind of favourable outturn.
But our resources are already limited.
As regards Category 2, there are a number of things which cause us some concern.
The reduction in commitments, which you mentioned, seems to us to make sense and we are not worried by that.
There is in fact a rebudgeting of earlier commitments which will not happen, since we are at the end of the programme.
There will, however, be massive appropriations for payment which we shall have to find.
Efforts will be needed to limit, address and settle what we call in French the 'RAL ', the balance to be cleared.
When it comes to Category 3, internal policies, we are quite frankly unhappy.
The proposals you put forward are broadly negative, and we simply see that whatever the scenario adopted, we shall have additional margins.
The figures for Category 4 are, as you say, totally unrealistic since this is a draft budget which takes no account of Kosovo.
And Kosovo will be a factor in our finances.
The same applies to Category 5.
You cannot plan ahead meaningfully, you have neither the means nor the willingness to do so. You cannot anticipate the administrative reforms which will be carried out in the months ahead.
In other words, this is a starting-point which will need a good deal of work on our part and yours before it becomes a true budget.
Madam President, I rise to make just one point, but an important one. It relates to an issue that the Commissioner touched upon rather tangentially.
I have in mind the issue of adjusting expenditure in line with a decision that may be taken this week.
If we accept the interinstitutional agreement on Thursday, Parliament is then free on the basis of that agreement to implement appropriations from Category 1 to Category 4 at first reading.
However, we cannot do this for Category 5, where we need a letter of amendment from the Commission.
As I indicated during the discussion with Mr Prodi this afternoon, the present timetable Parliament has set for appointing the new Commission, which involves the Commission being appointed by the earliest in mid-September, means that there are only two weeks left to submit this letter of amendment.
Whatever happens, we ought to have it before the European Parliament's first reading, as otherwise we will be at the mercy of the Council when it comes to making additional appropriations available in Category 5, because if the letter is not submitted until after Parliament's first reading, an amendment will only be permissible if both parts of the budget authority, that is the Council and the Parliament, agree to it.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner and the officials responsible for this to start work on the preparatory process now. Mr Prodi also gave an undertaking to this effect in the meeting with the committee chairman, so that an appropriate letter of amendment can be presented within this time frame, allowing Parliament to take it at first reading.
Thank you for that comment, Mr Samland.
I think the Commissioner has taken it on board, and the Bureau will ensure that the point is passed on once again.
The debate is closed.
Charging of heavy goods vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0245/99), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (13651/3/98 - C4-0037/99-96/0182(COD)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures (Rapporteur: Mr Jarzembowski).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I beg for your attention on certain legal and factual issues.
Perhaps the Secretary-General could remain with us - we need a lawyer.
Mr Secretary-General, I would be grateful if you just stay here for a minute, because this is important.
Madam President, I believe that a vote tomorrow on my report would be erroneous in law, illegal and impossible.
I would like to give my reasons for this statement and to call on Parliament and the Bureau to use their authority to postpone tomorrow's vote on my report.
My justification for this is as follows. We considered these issues in the Committee on Transport and Tourism last week, but the situation has changed now that the Treaty of Amsterdam has come into force.
This morning we quite rightly resumed the procedure during first reading and we repeated Parliament's position from the previous first reading.
The committee services have now published a report numbered A-0000, which is a corrected version of my report A-0245, which is on the agenda.
So this is a new report which I have not even been able to read properly yet, because the procedural page includes explanations in French, and I assume that you should be able to read your own report in your own language.
And what does the procedural page say, as far as I can make out? It says that the Council has confirmed its common position.
First of all, I consider that to be illegal, because according to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Council should have consulted the Committee of the Regions.
I do not know how it did that in just a few seconds, because we only had the first reading at 12.00 noon and I think this is a result of earlier this morning, before we had the first reading.
That is the first legal error!
Secondly, in the procedural page of a report that I have never signed, it says that today, during the sitting on 4 May, the President of the European Parliament has confirmed the common position and has referred the common position to the Committee on Transport and Tourism as the committee responsible.
However, the Committee on Transport has not met since 12.00 noon today, nor is a meeting scheduled for tomorrow morning.
So I do not know how it is possible to complete the second reading of a report in the Committee on Transport in a procedurally correct manner, if this report is to be voted on tomorrow at 12.00 noon.
Madam President, the report on the agenda is not therefore valid, as it is has been drawn up in accordance with Maastricht.
The report that I have now been given has a zero number instead of an agenda number, it is not even in my own language, and it refers the report, the common position that is, to the Committee on Transport, which is not meeting.
The explanation given by some administrative services to the effect that we knew this last week and anticipated it, and that we considered last week what we wished to do, may be all very interesting from a legal theory point of view, but it is not acceptable for us to have a first reading today, for a report to be referred to the Committee on Transport when it is not meeting, and for the administration to amend my report from last week and to say that it is a second reading report.
Well, you clever lawyers, I informed the Sittings Service about this yesterday, so that they could consider it in good time. In my opinion, the report cannot be voted on tomorrow and it must be officially deleted from the agenda.
I attach particularly great importance to this because we are looking at a report on road user charges, and the European Court of Justice declared the first directive to be void because of a legal error, namely inadequate consultation of Parliament, and declared that it would only remain in effect until the renewed decision-making process had been completed.
I would regard it as being highly inappropriate if Parliament were tomorrow to adopt a proposal for a directive that was once again defective because of a legal error.
I call upon the administration to check this very carefully, and I must insist that, as is quite right, it should be Parliament, its Members and committees that decide, and not some officials who take it upon themselves to do this by altering the procedural page.
I do take this very seriously, Madam President, and I hope that your staff, when they examine this objectively, will come to the conclusion tomorrow that the report - whatever report that is, whatever number it has, I mean report A-0245, which is on the agenda and has a definite subject matter - well, I would consider it as highly questionable for a report to be rewritten by officials and suddenly put on the agenda.
That cannot be right!
In my view the Council common position, as the President has said, and no matter how defective it may be because of failure to consult the committee, is now with the Committee on Transport, and that committee is not meeting this week.
Now let me turn to the actual content of the report, as we must after all say something about that.
I regard the decision taken by the majority last week to approve the common position as being a crass error.
I would like to illustrate this with one or two arguments.
In my second reading report, we simply reiterated the reservations we had at the first reading.
These were swept aside by the Socialists, because Austrian Members and their Swiss friends want to sew up the EU/Switzerland convention come what may, and have therefore brushed aside any reservations.
That is simply not acceptable, and I shall give you two reasons why.
I think it is highly questionable for the Commission to declare, in a political agreement, if the common position gets through, that we should withdraw our complaint against Austria regarding excessive toll charges as a matter of political agreement.
I still believe that the current Commission and Neil Kinnock are subject to the law, and that if the Commission has justifiably made a complaint, this complaint cannot be withdrawn as a result of political chicanery and by way of a political deal. I say that because I believe that the Commission should be bound by the law and not by political trickery.
Secondly, I believe that the level of toll charges agreed by the Council is quite simply intolerably low.
I have never understood the Socialists, who are calling for a great hike in road user charges in principle, but whose demands fall short of the level Parliament judged to be correct by a large majority in 1997, which was higher than the Council has proposed now.
I regard this as grovelling before the Council, which has effectively said 'you can like it or lump it!'.
According to Maastricht we have the right of codecision and of approving the common position in this case.
As Christian Democrats, we cannot consent to withdrawing from the codecision procedure at the expense of our road haulage companies and at the expense of the environment.
So I hope that we can still achieve a reasonable form of consultation at second reading.
Madam President, Commissioner, I am sorry that our last transport policy debate before the elections is taking place in such unsatisfactory circumstances. But, Mr Jarzembowski, this is pure cynicism on your part.
You have consistently tried everything to prevent a system being adopted and have done everything to prevent external costs, for example, being included in toll charges or road user charges. And now you, of all people, are suddenly pretending that this agreement would be far too low and would not help the environmental situation.
Secondly, there are the legal arguments.
Although I am a trained lawyer, I am not a European Parliament lawyer.
I would not be so presumptuous.
Nevertheless, Mr Jarzembowski, it was your proposal - your specific proposal at the last meeting of the committee - that we should vote on the second reading, and that we should confirm the first reading again for formal reasons so that we could take a decision on this subject today.
You yourself, Mr Jarzembowski, said that we should take a decision and proposed this procedure.
You have said today that parliamentarians should take this decision, and not officials.
It was the parliamentarians who made it!
Even if the officials have perhaps made incorrect allocations here and there, it is the parliamentarians who have made the decision here, on the basis of your proposal.
But let me get to the heart of the matter, because that is what I am really interested in.
The central issue is that in recent years transport policy proposals have been blocked, for two reasons.
First, because we have been unable to reach a solution on the Eurovignette, because of opposition from members of your party, not because they argued that the result would be too low, but because they were fundamentally opposed to it, as they were against making progress on European Union transport policy.
The second reason was that Switzerland opted for a solution which although it might be understandable from its own point of view, was not a solution that sat well alongside European integration.
That is why it was right that there have been negotiations on this, and with negotiations you always find that you cannot achieve the ideal solution, as otherwise there would be no compromise and no consensus, but at least you reach a consensus, even if not all interests are reconciled.
However, in this case we have managed to achieve a consensus with Switzerland which opens up that country and which fits in well with European integration, including transport policy issues, and which at the same time makes it clear that the principles of an environmentally friendly transport policy can be realised with the introduction of the Eurovignette and by diverting transport from road to rail.
Madam President, I would particularly like to think Commissioner Kinnock very sincerely for all his understanding and patience when taking part in negotiations here and in always keeping to the law.
But he has also got a good political head on his shoulders, thank goodness, because we need Commissioners who can think in political terms, whilst respecting the law, and who want to make progress.
Commissioner Kinnock has achieved progress, and on behalf of my group I would particularly like to thank him on the occasion of this last transport policy debate.
We do not know if he will continue to be the Commissioner for transport policy.
He has some splendid achievements to his credit in recent years, in this field as well as in others, and that should not go unrecorded.
We have complained enough about Commissioners here, but we can also give praise where praise is due.
Mr Jarzembowski, I have a word of advice for you.
It is a Danish proverb which I hope can be translated. It says: 'people who ride oxen get there too'.
By this, I mean that what we are in the process of doing will still turn out well in the end.
You are very concerned about certain principles in this matter. I can understand that.
On the other hand, there is always room for improvements.
You should not feel victimised by the Socialists in this case.
On the contrary, there is cooperation here, but the important point is to get something on the table and to make it stick, so that it has real meaning.
From that point, we can take things further.
Even this proposal can be improved.
In fact, I do not understand the squabbling we have had which Mr Swoboda touched on.
It is irritating that we should be talking about it on the last evening, during the debate on the last transport item.
We have been through many good items together, such as the 'port state' and 'short-sea' issues, so I would urge you to support this decision.
We are working towards environmentally friendly transport, and it can still be improved.
That is why I have asked for speaking time this evening. It is in order to appeal to you personally, because I believe we have misunderstood each other on this matter.
Madam President, may I also be permitted to thank Mr Kinnock, and I am sure we shall see him for many years to come in this House.
Madam President, I wish to begin by thanking Members of this honourable House for the kind things they have said, and also to say to Mr Jarzembowski that he will know that I completely respect the thoroughness and effectiveness of his work even when, on odd occasions, I am not in total agreement with his conclusions.
Tonight we have in the House three very fastidious, excellent Members of Parliament and even though Members will know my political pedigree, and it diverges from that of Mr Jarzembowski, nothing could take away the affection and respect I have for him and his work.
On the procedural points, which he makes with force and sincerity, I know he will forgive me if I do not get engaged in these arguments because the expertise and, indeed, the responsibility for dealing with the issues lies elsewhere.
I should like, therefore, to concentrate on the substance of this issue, which, as both Mr Sindal and Mr Swoboda have said, is a matter of critical importance, so far as I am concerned, and so far as the development of the common transport policy is concerned.
As Mr Jarzembowski reminded us, it is nearly four years since the European Court annulled the first and only directive on road charging. It is nearly three years since the Commission submitted its proposal to replace that annulled directive, and nearly two years since Mr Jarzembowski's first report was debated here at first reading.
We have grown old together with this measure.
In the time since then, a great deal of work has been put into trying to achieve the present state of progress in all the Community institutions.
I am very grateful for the commitment that has been shown in dealing with the second reading of the Eurovignette proposal, particularly in this Parliament.
This new piece of legislation is both necessary and significant.
It will fulfil the Community's legal obligation to adopt a new directive to replace the annulled directive and, most important as far as I am concerned, it is a vital step towards a common framework for differentiated charging systems in the whole of the European Union.
Naturally the legislation, as Mr Swoboda says, is the product of a compromise that reconciles a variety of concerns and interests.
Honourable Members may take some satisfaction from the fact that, whilst it differs in a number of points from the Commission's original proposal, the directive, as it turns out, is closer to the opinion of Parliament in several respects.
For example, the compromise does not contain an explicit provision to include external costs in existing charges, although it allows, and in some cases requires, differentiation of existing charges in order to reflect environmental and other effects.
I know there is not unanimous enthusiasm for that principle but it is certainly one that I would seek to uphold.
The Commission feels that this directive as it now exists represents a useful first move towards fair and efficient pricing in road truck haulage, and we welcome the willingness of Parliament and the Council to make that advance while, at the same time, we continue to emphasise the need for further work on quantifying external costs for all modes.
As honourable Members will recall, that was also specified in Mrs Schmidbauer's very good report on the Commission's White Paper on fair payment for infrastructure use, and we are currently embarked on that task of quantifying the externalities with the help, obviously, of an expert group.
When the results of that work are available, they will provide another component for use in the ongoing consideration of the internalisation of external costs, which will, I know, be an increasingly important subject of attention in the next Parliament.
Meanwhile, as the House will know, the main features of the common position reached on the current directive are the setting of minimum vehicle tax rates at the levels of the existing directive and without differentiation according to Euroclass, the maintenance of certain transitional measures on vehicle taxes, the establishment of maximum rates of user charges with a differentiated structure as proposed by the Council, the provision for an enabling power so that toll rates can be differentiated according to the emission class of the vehicle and the time of day when the road is used, provision for Austria to apply an infrastructure cost-related toll on the motorway section between Kufstein and Brenner, and provision for a 50 % reduction in user charges for vehicles registered in Greece.
As the House will know, the Commission proposed Article 75 as the legal base for this measure since we maintain that it is appropriate for developing the common transport policy even when legislation contains some elements relating to fiscal provisions.
The Council disagreed and it added Article 99 of the Treaty as a legal base as a result of ministers' view that the provisions on annual vehicle taxes in Chapter 2 make it a substantial fiscal measure.
I am sure this will bring the citizens of Europe cheering out on to the streets.
The Council's common position is an acceptable balance between what is needed and what is feasible.
It maintains progress in the common transport policy and it is consistent with the purposes pursued by at least the substantial majority in this House over several years.
All of us have some cause to be encouraged by the fact that a long and sometimes arduous legislative process has been concluded successfully.
I want to express particular thanks to Members from all parts of the House, especially in the Committee on Transport and Tourism, for the valuable contributions that they and Parliament in general have made to achieving that success.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, my dear Neil, it is a great honour for me, as we reach the conclusion of the transport debates over recent years, once again to express my group's appreciation for the excellent cooperation we have achieved.
We may have different political views, but we have always had trust in each other.
I believe that it is important for there to be trust between the institutions and for each to recognise the competence of the others.
We have always done that.
I would therefore like to thank you once again, and to say farewell, whatever office you may hold next time.
The debate is closed.
The vote is scheduled for tomorrow. We shall establish beforehand whether it takes place at 12 noon.
You commented on this at the beginning of the debate.
I shall ensure that we decide on the basis of legal advice whether we vote tomorrow.
If so, the vote will take place at 12 noon.
Distance marketing of financial services
The next item is the report (A4-0190/99) by Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the distance marketing of consumer financial services and amending Council Directive 90/619/EEC and Directives 97/7/EC and 98/27/EC (COM(98)0468 - C4-0647/98-98/0245(COD)).
Madam President, it is quite some time ago that I was rapporteur on the general directive, the parent directive if you like, on distance selling to consumers.
Financial services were a subject for distance marketing then as well.
But the objections voiced at the time by the financial sector meant that we did not in the end get any uniform rules for the distance marketing of financial services.
If I worked in financial services, I might now scratch my head and wonder if it might not have been better then to lobby in a different direction.
After lengthy pressure from Parliament, the Commission has now come up with an amendment to the general directive of 1997.
I would acknowledge that the proposal now before us contains a number of provisions which take particular account of the specific nature of financial services.
I should like to make one or two comments on this proposal, and I have to say that your rapporteur is not happy with the way in which the vote on the proposal went in the Legal Affairs Committee and in the Committee on Consumer Protection.
It would be unprecedented for the rapporteur to refrain from expressing a point of view.
I am happy, however, with the amendments tabled by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, for which Mrs Kestelijn was draftsman. Let us consider the proposal.
In it, the Commission is opting for a maximum of harmonisation.
Right from the start, I fully endorsed this idea of maximum harmonisation.
If we want the single market to work as well as it possibly can, then in the fast-developing area of new media like the Internet and e-mail, all consumers must be entitled to the same high level of protection in every Member State, irrespective of where a purchase is made.
To my mind, the often cross-border nature of financial provision means that this is absolutely essential.
For these reasons, a number of amendments were adopted in the Committee on the Environment which cause me considerable difficulty.
I will also look at one or two other points, for example the question of the reflection period.
When I drafted my report, I had numerous discussions with the financial services sector and with consumer organisations.
I very quickly realised that the so-called reflection period, Article 3 of the proposal, was not at all welcomed.
If the provider has to hold a price for 14 days, that means unacceptably high financial risks which are certainly not in the consumer's interest either.
So the sector is very much in favour of scrapping the reflection period.
The amendments now place the emphasis on providing information, and that too is consistent with the parent directive.
A number of amendments have been tabled, and overall my view as rapporteur is that Amendment No 47, tabled by my group, is actually the best one.
The right of withdrawal, Article 4 of the Commission proposal, is subject to a number of very complicated conditions.
In the interests of consumer protection and legal soundness, I think it is necessary to have a general right of withdrawal.
But in order not to disadvantage the financial sector too much, the duration of that right must not be too long.
The period of 14 days which I see the PPE Group is suggesting seems to me to get the balance right.
A third point is the derogation proposed for notaries public.
The Commission proposal also seeks to protect the consumer against entering too hastily into agreements concluded by distance marketing.
But if a notary assists in the conclusion of an agreement, I do not think you can claim that the consumer is being steamrollered here.
So I do think that agreements concluded with the assistance of a notary can be exempted.
Then there is the problem of unsolicited communications. Communications to the consumer which he has not requested have to be controlled.
The Commission does not really make a choice here.
I am making a choice, and I favour the so-called 'opt-out' system.
Looking at the whole thing, I am bound to say that this should work.
When we looked at the parent directive, I was all for having financial services included at any cost, but now I think that this has to be done in a proper manner.
I hope that if things are not looking too good after the first reading, then in the second reading at least the consistent logic of your rapporteur will win the day in the plenary.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, a key theme in the debates in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has of course been whether we should go for the principle of maximum harmonisation proposed by the Commission or whether we should stick to minimum harmonisation for the time being.
In the end, a majority was in favour of the minimum harmonisation approach.
We agreed that it might be sensible to switch to maximum harmonisation in the foreseeable future.
However, the starting point for this principle should not be the financial services directive itself. Instead, the directive on distance marketing of goods should be included in this right from the beginning.
There is an urgent need to bring the two distance marketing directives into line with the directive on electronic commerce, as soon as we know what form it will finally take.
Despite the need for such adjustments in the future, we should point the way now towards the healthy development of distance marketing of financial services in Europe - healthy for service providers and healthy for consumers.
I therefore welcome the fact that the committee responsible shares my view that we should not have a reflection period, which is an absurdity in legal and practical terms, but that a general right of withdrawal should be introduced instead.
However, what I do not agree with is the length of the withdrawal period, which is now 30 days in the committee's report.
I feel that this is far too long and will above all make financial services more expensive for consumers.
I think that 14 days as from the time when the customer has full knowledge of the contractual terms and conditions is adequate.
Furthermore, the list of exceptions to the right of withdrawal still needs to be added to. In particular, it should take account of mortgages and the contracts already mentioned by the rapporteur, 'contracts which have come into being with full notarial advice given to the consumer'.
Nor do I share the scepticism and anxiety about electronic communication which is evident in some amendments.
A consumer who does not want to make use of it will not have to, and can continue to have personal contact with his bank and insurance company.
But we should not make things too difficult for those people who do want to use these new facilities, by demanding that everything is duplicated on paper, for example.
That is not the way to develop the enormous potential of distance marketing of financial services for business and for the consumer.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, I should first of all like to point to the numerous advantages which the distance marketing of financial services can offer.
Using the Internet, the provider can offer his services to clients across national borders without extra cost, and the consumer, without moving from his chair, can compare the services of different providers in both his own country and in others.
Convinced of these benefits of distance selling, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs voted by 42 to 2 in favour of the following position.
Above all, we are in favour of total harmonisation.
If we want a real single market for financial services, consumers and providers must be guaranteed the same rights everywhere in the Union.
We feel that a formal cooling-off period puts unnecessary pressure on the consumer to make a decision within 14 days. It is enough for the provider to state clearly how long his offer will remain open.
The committee also favours a conditional period of 14 days during which the contract may be cancelled.
And lastly, we believe that the consumer should be provided, at the time of the negotiation, with all the information he needs to evaluate the offer.
We do not think it is a good thing to hand over the completed contract at this stage.
This position closely reflects the original, balanced report of Mrs Oomen, who has indeed done an excellent job.
While the Environment Committee has approved a number of proposals aimed at significantly tightening up consumer protection, I do not believe that this goal will be achieved with a minimum directive, a 30-day cancellation period and the exchange at the time of negotiation of a full and legally complex contract plus a summary.
Proposals of this kind will merely discourage people from buying and selling services via the Internet, by fax and by post.
Moreover, we wish to ensure that the consumer who makes a bank transfer or concludes a contract of insurance face to face and not by remote methods is not at any time less protected.
On behalf of my group, I am therefore retabling a number of proposals by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, in a slightly amended form, and I would commend these to the House.
Mr President, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which Mrs Kestelijn-Sierens has just referred to, stressed very strongly the need for consumer protection.
In the great debate that occupies us tonight between minimum and maximum harmonisation, those who are arguing, as the Environment Committee did, for minimum harmonisation, are doing so not because they wish to stall the proceedings of the Internet but because they do not want to see in individual Member States consumer protection significantly diminished, as it might be, by the levels of information provided in the directive as it stands.
It seems to me, therefore, that the onus is on those who wish to see maximum harmonisation to put this case not merely in terms of what is good for the market and the single market but in terms of how the levels of information and protection can be raised in the subsequent stages of discussion of this proposed directive before it comes back for second reading.
We are all open to persuasion on that issue but we simply do not believe at the moment that the case has been made. I have to say that to my own Member State government and to others who have taken that view.
We believe that consumer protection is critical.
It is not some ancillary add-on element in this.
I would say to those who argue on behalf of the expanded single market and its dynamism, look at the facts.
A recent survey in the UK showed that 81 % of those surveyed never intended to use the Internet at all for commercial transactions.
50 % of those surveyed believed that they would be defrauded if they used the Internet.
When you have that level of suspicion you have to address the point.
I believe that the amendments tabled by the Environment Committee have done precisely that.
We have seen that the stress lies not with the reflection period - and it is right to scrap that - but with an unconditional right of withdrawal.
We have tried to set terms and conditions within which that right of withdrawal is to be exercised.
We have said not to the whiz kid consumer but to the marginal consumer who is nervous of the Internet that they can have a valid copy of the contract provided to them in a medium they can understand and which appears to them to have a measure of permanence.
Most of all, we have said that where some other elements have come in, they have to be addressed and recognised, and the way to do this is to do it piecemeal.
To look at the problems that are raised, for example, by the distant selling of car insurance.
Having listened to those who sell car insurance over the telephone, Amendment No 38 takes into account the fact that such a transaction must take place before the formal exchange of the durable contract. We accept that.
We accept that there may be a problem with mortgages. But that is not to say that mortgages should be excluded from the directive, merely that one has to look at this problem again and see how it can be embraced within the overall context of the directive.
Mrs Oomen-Ruitjen talked about notaries. They may, in translation, be a rather more solid profession than lawyers are in my country.
It is said that one of the three great lies in the language is the phrase: 'I am a lawyer and I am here to help you'.
The idea that in all circumstances the fact that you have a lawyer sitting by you guarantees you the normal minimum of consumer protection does not seem to be a satisfactory point to raise.
Once again we want to go here as far as we can for the absolute in consumer protection and information. We do that essentially because we accept that the Internet is an amazingly exciting form of bringing about new transactions - expanding commerce, industry and jobs within the Community - but never at the expense of individual consumers in any Member State in the Union and as far as possible protecting those not merely within the boundaries of the Union but beyond it as well.
Mr President, monetary union will provide new opportunities for increased cross-border trade, which should definitely be encouraged.
New technologies also contribute towards increasing consumer choice.
Similarly, accessibility stimulates competition, thereby making our markets more efficient.
This report is an important one, since it reinforces the internal market in financial services.
Unfortunately, the proposal now before us means that the directive is more regulatory and creates more difficulties, rather than making matters simpler for the market players.
We in the PPE Group therefore wish to reject the amendments tabled by the committee responsible.
Instead, I would endorse the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, which is based on the Commission's original proposal.
It is important to protect consumers, but the legislators should not be allowed to forget altogether that unduly complex legislation raises prices for consumers and hinders trade between people in the market.
The extra costs which this directive may create, if it becomes too complex and bureaucratic, will in the end always be imposed on the consumer.
Consequently, I wish that the Environment Committee had listened more attentively to Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, who - as usual where these issues are concerned - has weighed up the implications very carefully.
As regards electronic commerce, I believe that the new technologies which offer us new sales and distribution channels really will revolutionise the markets. So we cannot afford to be cautious, even to the point of being hostile towards the new technologies.
Instead, we should do everything possible to make it easy for them, since there really could be a consumer revolution that would drive down prices and provide alternatives.
I therefore despair when I see the niggardly attitude displayed by some people towards the new ways of doing business.
In my view, it is precisely in this sector that the European Union should be strengthening its competitiveness by accepting the new methods rather than obstructing them.
Mr President, the aim of the proposal is to facilitate the sale by telephone, fax and Internet of financial services such as banking, insurance, investment and mortgages while at the same time protecting the consumer from fraud, high-pressure salesmanship and certain unsolicited sales communications.
I support the main thrust of this directive as we must strike a balance between promoting commercial enterprise and protecting European consumers at all times.
I have no hesitation in saying that promotional campaigns by banks and other lending agencies are contributing in a major way to inflationary house prices, thus putting housing outside the affordability of young people wishing to set up their first home.
This is something which the European Central Bank, in cooperation with the central bank in each Member State, should urgently examine.
The main provisions of this directive include the following: the consumer will have a 14-day period before concluding a contract which will give that person time to compare various proposals and study the contract in detail before giving a final agreement; the consumer will have a 14-day withdrawal period, 30 days for mortgage loans, life insurance and pensions, to renounce the contract without penalties and without giving reasons.
This right may be exercised in only two cases: if the contract was signed before the consumer knew the contractual terms and conditions and if he was subject to unfair pressure during the reflection period.
There is also a limitation of the suppliers' rights to payment if the consumer decides to withdraw after the beginning of the service payment.
There will also be the implementation of an out-of-court complaints and redress procedure to settle disputes between the consumer and the supplier.
There will be a ban on enforced sales, that is, the distant supply of unsolicited services.
I certainly agree with some of the amendments tabled by the rapporteur, including the need for setting a deadline of seven working days for the supplier to return monies that have been received from the consumer.
I believe that if this directive is to be effective it must be implemented sooner rather than later.
An amendment has been tabled calling for the directive to be transposed into national law by 13 June 2001, instead of the Commission's own proposal of 2002.
I support this as a policy objective because one of the criticisms of European legislation in general is that it is just not implemented in time.
Greater effort must be made by the European Commission, Parliament and the Council to implement European Union directives and regulations in as streamlined a manner as possible.
In conclusion, I also welcome the fact that the Amsterdam Treaty was enacted three days ago and the European Commission has been given enhanced powers to bring forward legislation in the field of consumer affairs with particular emphasis on the protection of human health.
I look forward to working closely with the Commission in ensuring that more EU regulations and directives on this subject are implemented in the near future.
Mr President, thanks to the single market and new electronic communications, it has become somewhat easier to buy and sell things in Europe using remote methods.
For the consumer, sound guarantees and clearly agreed withdrawal rights are extremely important here.
In some Member States, consumer safeguards are very good. In others, there is greater reliance on self-regulation by the market.
The subsidiarity principle requires us to see how these two approaches can best be combined.
We can do that by setting minimum European standards and protecting the consumer in such a way that he is perfectly happy to buy financial services using remote methods.
The radical metamorphosis which the Oomen-Ruijten report underwent in the Environment Committee is therefore quite proper.
The maximum harmonisation presented initially by the rapporteur is not consistent with previous legislative proposals of the European Union.
Directive 97/1 on general distance selling opts for minimum harmonisation.
Under that directive, Member States are free to go further in safeguarding the consumer.
If we now opt for maximum harmonisation, we shall be creating contradictory legislation.
Lastly, I should like to point out a small inaccuracy in Amendment No 18.
Directive 97/1 does not deal with the selling of financial services, but with distance selling.
Perhaps we can check which directive is in fact being referred to in Amendment No 18.
Mr President, I support the report by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, even though our admired rapporteur does not fully agree with its content. However, I also have a number of comments to make regarding several of the points raised because everything is open to debate and can be improved upon.
I shall refer to three amendments.
I shall firstly refer to Amendment No 21 to Article 3.
The right of reflection in my view should be abolished where there is sufficient information. What is more, the reference to the principle of good faith in commercial transactions is a timely one that can be related to the oldest and most unique example of good faith in civil law.
However, the article contains a somewhat bland, if not dangerous, reference to minors. This is because minors are obviously protected by civil law not only in the part of the transaction based on honesty and good faith, but also because in civil law any transaction will be declared null and void if minors are not old enough according to the category of goods and transactions in question.
With regard to the other amendment, the famous Amendment No 22 to Article 4 on the right of withdrawal, I am also in favour of extending the 30-day withdrawal period for some contracts, for instance the high-risk contracts such as life insurance and pensions.
The reference to mortgage contracts must also be qualified because, here again, we must bear in mind that 11 or 12 of the Member States give better mortgage credit protection through deeds and registration at a land registry, so it must be stressed that this text refers to a precontractual phase.
According to the majority of Member States' legislation, there can be no contract without deeds and registration.
Therefore, given that here the form is ad substantiam , it is not possible to talk in terms of mortgages, contracts or even credit.
Lastly, I welcome the reference made to credit cards, because they have certainly been the subject of widespread abuse.
In my view, the amendment relating to them, Amendment No 25, should be stringently applied since they are commonly abused through the use of the card number alone without a signature. We must therefore be very strict on this point.
Mr President, since it is difficult to introduce new ideas at this stage of the debate, perhaps the best thing would be to sum up what has been said so far.
Market globalisation and the spread of new communication and information technologies have undoubtedly given rise to the economic and social changes that are revolutionising the way in which markets serve consumers; they have also transformed the consumers' expectations.
We therefore need to urgently adapt our Community policies to these changes, particularly those changes that affect marketing methods. It is true that we should make greater use of the methods on offer through the Internet for carrying out commercial transactions and accessing financial services, a sector where consumers are currently proving to be more reluctant.
Mr Whitehead provided us with some interesting figures, and there is no doubt that the use of the Internet in this type of transaction should become even more widespread. What is more, Mr Whitehead, the expression 'never, never, never at the expense of the consumer' certainly rings true.
Here, however, I should like to tell the Commission about a recent piece of work that refers to the future policies and that is quite excellent. It states that in order for consumers to play their new role in Community policies to the full, they must understand the interdependency of their interests and other interests that also need to be protected.
In other words, in making people aware of their rights, they must also acknowledge their responsibilities.
This stems from the fact that we live in a Community of law in which Community responsibilities are conferred.
As a result, we would be doing the consumer a disservice if, through a sectoral directive, we began to disrupt the balance of the highly complex relations between Community law and the Member States' law, and the principle of subsidiarity has been mentioned in this respect.
Mr Bru Purón referred to something that he knows a great deal about as a notary, namely mortgage credit.
To follow on from what he said, it seems to me that we must bear in mind that the European Union currently has several systems of legal traffic concerning property and registration, or advertising registration it might be said.
However, without doubt, one of the characteristics that must be maintained, for example in Spain, is the binding nature of the constitution and mortgage registration which cannot be subject to any right of withdrawal.
We must remember, however, that the rules governing mortgage credit are subject to the power of the courts where the asset is located. In this connection, we must give consideration to Article 16(1) of the 1998 Brussels Convention, which Community law must clearly respect, and indeed, this is something Mr Whitehead should respect for the benefit of consumers' interests.
Here, I must digress a little as you seem deeply mistrustful of lawyers, and I disagree entirely with you.
I would therefore like to stress that the European building is a legal structure, a structure in law, and if we do not rely on lawyers and, in general, those who work with the law to bridge the gap between the rules and social reality, European integration will fail.
In short, Mr President, Community law must be respected.
I personally would prefer a medium degree of harmonisation, or even basic ideas on harmonisation, which will improve and be complemented with time, rather than maximum harmonisation.
Mr President, from listening to the rapporteur and all the speakers I have seen how important this directive is.
This is very positive, because we have come a long way and, as you will all remember, not everybody was convinced that there was a need for a directive on financial services.
The people who are concerned with the consumers' interests will remember the distance selling debate in this House and whatever divisions still exist - and there is still time and room to find some convergence - we have made good progress in establishing some basic rights for consumers.
I just wish to refer briefly to the three main points I noted during the debate.
Firstly, the most controversial one: the level of harmonisation.
There are amendments which introduce an approach of limited harmonisation of the provision introduced by this directive, leaving Member States scope for maintaining or introducing more stringent provisions.
So there are amendments which call for minimum harmonisation.
The Commission has proposed that the provisions of the directive should be fully harmonised. This is set out clearly in recital 9 so, from this point of view, Amendment No 57 can be considered superfluous but, nevertheless, it reiterates the point.
The reasoning was that financial services, due to their immaterial character - there is nothing to wrap up in paper - are perfectly suited for distance marketing.
Adding to this the cross-border perspective of the introduction of the euro, it seemed particularly important to establish a common framework for marketing through these techniques. This would be to the benefit of both business and consumers.
I repeat the principle: we strongly believe that the right of consumers must be seen in perspective in relation to the rights of other sectors.
But our proposal seems to us to be to the benefit of both business and consumers because both parties would know which rules apply and both parties can be confident that the same marketing rules apply, no matter where the services come from.
That is a very important point for confidence-building, which can be profitable for both consumers and business.
In view of this argument, the Commission has concluded that at this stage it will maintain its proposal for full harmonisation.
I shall just refer to two other points which have been raised in the debate.
One is information in advance and the other the general right of withdrawal.
As far as information in advance is concerned, the amendments concern information to consumers in advance of concluding a contract and the amendments reject the concept of a right of reflection based on a draft contract as introduced by the proposal for a directive.
The Commission can accept the principle established in Amendment No 21 of providing to the consumers in advance of the conclusion of a contract additional or summarising information as a cover of the full contractual terms and conditions.
However, this principle must take into account the interaction between this horizontal directive and the vertical directives on financial services that include provision of information.
Consequently, the Commission cannot simply take over the amendments as drafted.
In particular, we must stress that the principle of information in advance must be applied so that information offered provides added value to the information provision already foreseen in the vertical directives. Otherwise it is useless.
Secondly it must avoid overlaps with the existing information provision and, finally, it must be clear beyond doubt which provisions apply or prevail in case of similarities between provisions in this directive and provisions in the vertical directive.
So Amendment No 61, which introduces a right to waive the right to obtain information in advance means the Commission, must reject Article 11 as it establishes that consumers may not waive the rights conferred on them by the directive.
Finally, on the general right of withdrawal. If we reject the right of reflection, that leads naturally to putting the emphasis on a general right of withdrawal as provided for in these amendments.
The guiding principle of this amendment is to align this proposal with the rules of the general directive.
Again, the Commission accepts the principle but it needs to review the implementation.
I just wish to mention two questions which remain open at this stage: the duration as well as the scope and extent of any exemption.
I will not elaborate in detail.
I have already spoken too much about the amendments.
At this stage the Commission wanted to give some ideas and reflection on the three major items you have been debating and certainly we will be looking forward to the final result of the vote on this.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees
The next item is the report (A4-0224/99) by Mrs Kuhn, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Comittee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees (C4-0042/99 - C4-0171/99-96/0161(COD)).
Mr President, I would like to thank both the presidency and Mrs Bonino and her colleagues very sincerely for the fact that we reached an agreement in the trialogue that was accepted by both the Council and by Parliament's delegation.
On 17 December 1998 Parliament adopted 14 amendments to the common position of the Council.
During the conciliation procedure, 12 amendments were adopted verbatim or in a form close to the original, which I regard as a positive result.
In line with the compromise achieved, the deadline for transposition of the directive into national law is now to be 1 January 2002 at the latest, rather than in three year's time.
It was particularly important for Parliament's delegation that this amendment was accepted, as it will be at that point that the majority of the EU public will handling the euro as cash for the first time, and it is likely that price transparency will lead to more cross-border purchases within the internal market.
Minimum harmonisation of the law on guarantees will save the consumer unnecessary aggravation.
It was also accepted that a product produced or manufactured in accordance with a purchaser's requirements, and for which the purchaser supplied the necessary materials, comes under the directive. An exception to this is when any lack of conformity that arises is due to the materials supplied.
If a consumer instals a product himself and a lack of conformity arises as a result of incorrect installation instructions intended for the consumer, this is also covered by the law on guarantees.
The guarantee directive will be included in the list of actions for restraint to protect the interest of the consumers, and in order to make purchases within the internal market simpler for the consumer, a recommendation will be made to manufacturers whose goods are sold in several Member States that they should provide consumers with a list including at least one contact address in each country where the goods are marketed.
This is only a recommendation, as to my regret Parliament did not want to go any further, but perhaps many manufacturers of consumer durables will in time see this as an opportunity giving them better prospects for marketing their products throughout the internal market.
In order to avoid difficulties of interpretation to the detriment of consumers, it was once again made clear in the result of the conciliation that if a product is restored free of charge to the contractually stipulated condition, any costs incurred, such as delivery, labour and materials costs, will be borne by the seller.
That gives you a brief overview of the most important results of the Conciliation Committee.
If you vote in favour of this conciliation result, and I presume that you will, consumers in many Member States will be given better legal guarantees for consumer goods, and you can rely on it that this guarantee will ensure a minimum level of protection in each Member State.
It applies to all consumer goods whether new or second-hand; the legal guarantee is valid for two years, but for second-hand goods, it is up to Member States to decide whether purchasers and sellers can agree on a guarantee period of one year.
However, in order to avoid misunderstandings, it should at least be made clear to the public that a product is only considered to be non-conforming if the lack of conformity was present at the time of purchase.
The burden of proof is reversed within the first six months after purchase, which means that it is assumed that a lack of conformity was already present on delivery, unless the seller can prove damage by the consumer or unless the type of product or lack of conformity rules out such an assumption.
Parliament has supplemented the term 'lack of conformity' in a helpful way.
A defective product is defined as being non-conforming, and published statements by the manufacturers or distributors in advertising or on the label are included in this definition.
We welcome this definition, because it is often advertising that leads purchasers to buy.
The first remedy in the case of non-conforming goods is the right to repair without charge or a replacement product, as far as this is economically viable and feasible.
If a repair or a replacement product are out of the question as a remedy, the purchaser still has the option of an appropriate price reduction or the termination of the contract.
By virtue of this hierarchy of remedy options, Parliament has struck a reasonable balance between the interests of consumers and sellers.
The directive provides for clear conditions, which is also important for commercial guarantees, that is to say guarantees voluntarily provided by manufacturers or sellers.
In order to ensure that consumers are not misled, guarantees must contain precise and transparent information, including a statement that a given guarantee does not affect the statutory rights of the consumer.
Unfortunately, I believe that the directive has at least one weak point.
The common position allows Member States to introduce a two-month time limit for lodging a complaint, in other words the consumer must report the lack of conformity within two months of discovery.
Even if only one Member State were to introduce this time limit, this would run counter to the philosophy of the directive, which is to achieve minimum harmonisation.
Unfortunately, at second reading Parliament could not achieve the majority needed to delete this provision.
Nevertheless, as we stand at the end of the end of this Parliament's legislative term, we have once again succeeded in giving Europe's citizens more rights as consumers, and I would like to thank all the Members of Parliament, the Commission and the Council for achieving this.
Mr President, it may be appropriate in my few minutes to pay tribute to the rapporteur and with her to the Commissioner who is also with us in this last but one consumer debate of this Parliament, and, indeed, to the processes of co-decision, which we have implemented and which have perhaps meant more in this field than almost any other.
This has been a significant success for Parliament and also for both the Commission and the Member States in Council.
I wish I could say that these procedures always go so swiftly but in this case we have a model where many of the reservations that were stated at the outset, many of the fears of commercial interests, many of the fears of parliamentarians, were set at rest by the way in which these procedures went.
As a result we now have a situation in which there is adequate protection for the consumer both when dealing with the issue of goods that may turn out to be faulty even if those are in part manufactured by the consumers themselves.
We have successfully addressed the issue of second-hand goods which many feared could not effectively come into this directive.
We have shown that 'where there's a will, there's a way'.
You can show that although second-hand goods are, by definition, different from those that are purchased new, a different period of reflection and remedy suffices.
The whole mechanism of the hierarchy of remedies can and will work effectively and beautifully here.
So I am very pleased with this. I should like to thank Commissioner Bonino for all here help, not just in this but in many other ways in this five years.
My last words should be to Mrs Kuhn.
This is her last report in her last Parliament.
In my opinion she has been a model comrade and a model colleague, diligent, direct, dedicated.
I wish we had more like here and I wish those outside knew the work that really goes on in the interstices of this Parliament.
Mr President, like Mr Whitehead, I am pleased to arise in support of Mrs Kuhn.
This is a very good consumers' report.
It is as well to remember that in June 1996 the Commission submitted a proposal for a directive of guarantees for consumer goods and after-sales services.
The intention of the proposal was to create minimum harmonisation of a statutory provision within individual Member States concerning the need for legal guarantees, all of which Mr Whitehead so eloquently referred to.
The simple aim of the proposal is to ensure that wherever consumers shop in the European Union, they will enjoy minium levels of guarantees and will be able to seek redress in their home countries.
The directive ensures that Member States must transpose international law by January 2002 and this will create a common set of minimum rules entitling the consumer to redress.
These are free repairs, replacement, price reduction or the cancellation of the contract in the event of defective purchases.
At the insistence of this Parliament, free repairs or replacements will also include postage, labour and materials.
This is excellent work done by this Parliament.
We have also ensured that compensation for the incorrect installation of goods, for example wardrobes will also apply for the protection of consumers who have been misled by faulty instructions.
It will be recommended to the producers of consumer goods to attach to their product a list giving at least one contact address in every Member State where the product is marketed. The idea is that cross-border shoppers can contact this address if they have problems.
Member States will be able to create mediation bodies to handle consumer complaints irrespective of whether they are national or cross-border.
There is also a strong recommendation to provide consumers with manufacturers' contact addresses where goods are sold in several Member States.
This is important because so many people travel not only across Europe but across the world.
So, as a member of the Consumer Protection Committee, I have at all times, along with Mrs Kuhn and Mr Whitehead, supported measures that will ensure that the needs and concerns of consumers are given real and appropriate protection by means of European legislation.
In conclusion, the four-year consumer protection programme for 1999-2003 is worth over £91m and if requests are made for further increases in this budget, I am confident that Parliament would support such recommendations in the future.
I would like to be associated with Mr Whitehead's remarks in relation to Mrs Kuhn.
I compliment her on her dedication and commitment in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection down the years and I wish her every joy and good health in the future.
Mr President, I do not take the floor to repeat the content of this piece of legislation but to commend the good work of Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
If we look at the timing I am particularly pleased that I am speaking on the final point of this directive at the last part-session of our Parliament - which for me is also the last session, at least on consumer matters.
The Commission introduced this piece of legislation in June 1996. It was transmitted to Parliament in August 1996.
In the meantime some points have changed.
However, at the end of the day we managed to come forward with a good piece of legislation which will produce better protection for consumers.
So, as I said, I will not repeat the points of the legislation but I will congratulate in particular the work of Mrs Kuhn and all other colleagues in Parliament.
For once I will also praise the work of the Commission service.
When I introduced this directive I told them it would never be approved.
In fact, in the three years we have been able to work together in such a way that finally this directive is approved.
This is a good legacy for the next Parliament and the next Commission.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Civil protection
The next item is the report (A4-0124/99) by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing a Community action programme in the field of civil protection (COM(98)0768 - C4-0072/99-98/0354(CNS)).
Since there are no colleagues taking part in the debate, the Chair would like to congratulate you on your report and say that the lack of interest is probably due to a consensus rather than any dislike of the subject.
Mr President, I agree entirely with your remarks. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and especially its rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, for the work which has been done and also for the interest she has shown during the consideration of this proposal.
As you know, and as has also been mentioned, the purpose of this proposal is to ensure the continuation of the current action programme in the field of civil protection, which is based on the Council Decision of 1998 which expires on 31 December 1999.
I also think that this programme, which is aimed at supporting and supplementing the efforts of the Member States in the area of civil protection, is an important one, and it is important to make it as effective as possible.
Twenty-three amendments have been tabled, of which the Commission is able to accept 14. We believe that they help to improve the text and also to clarify it.
Some of the amendments emphasise the gaining of experience, which forms part of the basic principles of the programme. Some call for greater involvement of the public and NGOs, and then there are some which strengthen the environmental aspects.
We are therefore able to accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 18 and 22.
Finally there is Amendment No 23, which is acceptable in part, and Amendment No 19, which is acceptable in principle.
Amendment No 19 and parts of Amendment No 23 are aimed at increasing the involvement of NGOs in civil protection, which is something I naturally agree with, and so I also accept this in principle because it gives NGOs the opportunity to participate in the exchange of expertise.
Then there are a number of amendments which we are not so happy with.
These are Amendments Nos 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 16, 17, 20, 21 and 24.
I recognise that some of them attempt to improve cooperation with countries participating in the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes.
That is of course an objective which commands a great deal of sympathy, but where civil protection is concerned, such cooperation is organised outside our action programme.
At the moment, two projects are being carried out under PHARE and MEDA, and a third, which may be financed through TACIS, is in preparation.
I would also like to draw attention to the second part of Amendment No 20, because there it says that, if isolated regions are involved, the maximum financial contribution for pilot projects should be up to 100 %, instead of the 50 % proposed by the Commission.
It is our firm belief that responsible budget management also requires joint financial responsibility on the part of the participants in the project, and so we cannot accept the amendment.
Mrs González Álvarez also mentioned the question of the comments by the Committee on Budgets on the proportion of administrative costs in relation to the total operating budget, and Mrs González Álvarez made some very sensible remarks on that.
In my department, we are currently in the process of examining this question, and it is of course important to ensure that these administrative costs are kept to a minimum when the programme is implemented.
Finally, I hope that through its cooperation, Parliament will help to ensure that the proposal now before the House is adopted quickly, so as to ensure continuity between the Community's current action programme and the proposed programme, which is due to enter into force on 1 January 2000.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Pollution by agricultural tractors
The next item is the report (A4-0128/99) by Mr Fitzsimons, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on action to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants by engines intended to power agricultural or forestry tractors and amending Council Directive 74/150/EEC (COM(98)0472 - C4-0512/98-98/0247(COD)).
Mr President, in the interests of brevity, and because of the heavy volume of plenary business we have dealt with this evening and the lateness of the hour, I propose to confine myself to a few pertinent remarks on my report, which was drawn up on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
It basically deals with agriculture and forestry pollution by agricultural and forestry tractors.
As we all know to our cost, road traffic is increasing and with it air pollution.
On a daily basis a potentially lethal cocktail of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and particulates assault our nostrils and our respiratory systems.
So the European Union has come up with measures to curb road vehicle emissions.
These are being refined and added to as technical and scientific knowledge advances.
However, further studies have emerged which establish very clearly that emissions generated by off-road mobile machinery and by agricultural or forestry tractors also add significantly to air pollution.
So this proposal for a directive on action to be taken against pollutants from engines for tractors follows the lines of the 1997 directive on emissions from engines in off-road mobile machinery.
The proposed directive aims to help both the industry and the user, so it is certainly not anti-user or anti-farmer in any way.
It seeks to offer a compromise between having uniform requirements on the one hand and facilitating European Union access to world markets by aligning European Union industrial specifications to the broader requirements set out in the 1995 United Nations Regulation of the Economic Committee for Europe.
I would ask you to support this report. It basically endorses the Commission's position in the draft proposals.
I apologise to the Commissioners for bringing them in at this late hour of the night.
I should like to thank the members of the Environment Committee for the support they have already given to my report in committee.
As ever their comments were constructive and helpful.
The Environment Committee has made its presence felt in the increasingly important area of environmental legislation and I know we will continue to do so.
I hope my report on pollution by agricultural and forestry tractors, with Parliament's support, will make a further positive contribution to a cleaner and safer environment.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, traffic is still an important source of air pollution.
There are already European regulations with limit values for gaseous and particulate pollutants and corresponding test requirements and type-approval procedures for private motor vehicles, heavy goods vehicles and off-road mobile machinery.
Nevertheless, since 1996 the European Parliament has also been calling for legal specifications for agricultural and forestry tractors.
It certainly amounts to a success that we are discussing this today, as this regime will make an important contribution to environmental protection, and will also facilitate trade in tractors between the EU Member States, as well as making it easier for European manufacturers to access third country markets because of the equivalence that will be achieved between Community legislation and the technical requirements of UN/ECE Regulation No 96.
Our group wishes to thank Mr Fitzsimons for his report on this very complicated and technical proposal and supports the amendments he has tabled.
Finally, I have a question for the officiating Commissioner, as Council Directive 77/537 relating to emissions from agricultural and forestry tractors remains in force.
This, however, uses a different reference fuel for emissions testing than the directive before us.
Could you therefore confirm that this discrepancy still exists and above all whether it is not in fact necessary to bring the 1977 directive into line with the new legislation on fuel quality?
Mr President, I would first like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Fitzsimons, not only for his work on the report itself but also for the very precise presentation he has made this evening.
We set limit values for emissions from the engines of mobile machinery and equipment in general back in March 1998, and our objective now is to lay down limit values for agricultural tractors as well.
This would apply by extension to the test requirements for reducing emissions, enabling us to achieve equivalence with other legislation already in force.
Parliament has tabled five amendments.
We can accept Amendments Nos 1 and 3, but not Amendment No 2, which suggests that the Commission should present a further proposal in 2002 tightening the limit values.
We regard that as both unnecessary and unacceptable, as the limit values enshrined in this directive would only just have been transposed by the Member States at that point.
It should also be borne in mind that the timetable for implementing the limit values in this directive is intended to run parallel with the timetable for the directive on mobile machinery and equipment, that is in 2004.
Furthermore, if we are to tighten up limit values, we must take account of available technology and above all of the cost/benefit principle recognised by Parliament, which forms part of all our proposals for environmental measures.
That means that we cannot just pluck a statement out of thin air and say that we will tighten these up further.
Amendment No 4 is also unacceptable.
It concerns bringing requirements into line with technical progress under Framework Directive 74/150. That directive is at present being totally reworked.
I do not therefore feel that it is right now to make and accept proposals for amendments in individual directives.
Amendment No 5 is also unacceptable to us.
Nor does it make sense any more, as the present Commission proposal very precisely adopts both Stage 1 and Stage 2 of Directive 97/68 on emissions from the engines of mobile machinery and equipment.
So this amendment has really become superfluous.
As to the question that Mrs Schleicher asked, I do not know who it was directed at, but I am here as an acting Commissioner.
I am not an officiating Commissioner, that is quite wrong!
Since its resignation the Commission has continued to be fully active in all its rights and duties, and that applies to me also.
So I am not sure if your question was meant for me, but I will assume it is.
There are two sides to this question: first, the issue of type-approval, concerning what such regulations on fuels apply to, and second, the issue of checking whether these regulations are observed in practice.
We consider that the Member States have applied type-approval in accordance with good practice up to now, and we will have to find a reasonable system of checking practice in future.
Of course we may also have to take other fuels into account, as these fuel values are applied in practice.
Type-approval may mean coming up with other fuel values.
You will see from all this that the Commission is not officiating, but that it is very much present in spirit.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
Foodstuffs for particular nutritional uses
The next item is the report (A4-0225/99) by Mrs Sandbæk, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses (3607/99 - C4-0154/99-94/0076(COD)).
Mr President, as you know, the European Council meeting in Edinburgh called for a simplification of EU legislation. That has only happened to a very small extent.
But it is at any rate welcome that the Council has reduced the original list of nine categories of foodstuffs intended for particular nutritional uses to five specific directives.
The list should have been just four, because in its opinion at first reading, Parliament quite rightly found that there were no grounds for drawing up a specific directive on foods for sportsmen.
For us to be able to define a food as intended for a particular nutritional use, it should fulfil particular nutritional needs for certain categories of persons who cannot eat ordinary food, either because there is something wrong with their digestion or metabolism, or because in a particular physiological condition they can derive particular benefit from the controlled intake of certain substances in their food.
Infants and young children are one category, but sportsmen hardly fit into this definition.
And there is a fear that ordinary foods with special characteristics which are particularly suitable for sportsmen, such as pasta and various drinks, will be brought into the specific directive. This would create confusion for consumers and directly work against the simplification of rules which the directive is intended to encourage.
The interests of industry appear to have weighed more heavily than those of consumers when the Council insisted on this entirely superfluous directive.
The opposite should of course have been the case, so that consideration for consumers was the decisive factor.
In this respect, I am pleased that the Council has put on hold the question of a specific directive on foods for diabetics.
My colleagues in Parliament wanted this directive, but I think that in this case we should listen to the diabetics' organisations, which have expressed the unanimous opinion that the marketing of and easy access to diabetic products creates a false demand among diabetics.
In fact, diabetic products have no place in the modern treatment of diabetes.
They contain a high level of harmful fats, have inadequate labelling and typically cost up to 400 % more than ordinary foods, which is a completely unnecessary and unreasonable burden to put on diabetics.
What is needed is sensible information and a proper and, most importantly, individually worked-out diet.
The result of the Council's compromise, which is to obtain an opinion from the Scientific Committee for Food, will hopefully be that no directive is drawn up.
And so to the specific directive on baby foods, which is the reason why the adoption of the framework directive is taking so long.
I would first and foremost like to congratulate Mrs Breyer for proposing and insisting on the amendment requiring baby food products to be pesticide-free in order to be covered by the directive.
I must admit that at the second reading of the framework directive, I agreed with the Council that the framework directive was not the right place for the specific directive's provisions on pesticide levels in baby food, although I of course agreed entirely with Mrs Breyer that baby food should be pesticide-free.
Nonetheless, thanks to Mrs Breyer's amendment, Parliament has succeeded in putting pressure on both the Commission and the Food Committee.
The long conciliation procedure we have been through has had a decisive influence on the fact that the maximum level for pesticides in baby food has been set at 0.01 mg/kg, which means in practice pesticide-free baby food, because it is not possible to measure any lower levels.
In practice, if the provisions of the directive are to be met, it will only be possible to use organic products in baby food.
Hopefully, the next step will be for the EU therefore also to improve the opportunities for organic farmers to produce the necessary products in a competitive way, which is something Agenda 2000 unfortunately does not do.
The handling of some of the specific directives which have already been issued has been rather problematic.
The directive on baby food is a welcome exception.
It should lead us in Parliament to realise that directives of a technical nature may also have a political content which cannot be left to a committee of experts.
I hope that on Thursday, Parliament will adopt the Aglietta report on the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission, so that the baby food success story can be followed by many others.
In any event, adopting this directive in accordance with the Conciliation Committee's joint text will be a good start.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there remain a great many important issues to be discussed this week in Parliament: the nomination of the new Commission President, Mr Prodi, Agenda 2000 and many more besides.
The framework directive on dietetic foods does not appear to be the most important issue here, as is evident, moreover, by the number of Members present.
However, I believe that there are some important points which need to be addressed here. Mrs Sandbæk has already addressed the particularly contentious issue of pesticides in baby foods; this issue concerns the health of babies and small children.
I believe that the public would not understand it if Europe agreed to reduce this issue to its lowest common denominator; what is important here is the precautionary principle.
As Members of Parliament, we have always insisted on this precautionary principle and stated that pesticides have no business being in baby foods, and we have also made this clear by means of an amendment.
I am very satisfied with the outcome of the conciliation procedure - as is my group - since this principle was adopted in the course of the conciliation procedure, obviously not as part of the conciliation procedure, but politically as part of the negotiations.
I should like to reiterate clearly that as Members of Parliament we have relied on scientific opinion whatever the issue, such as the opinions expressed by ESPEGAM, for example, which has clearly stated that as long as there is no ADI for infants, an extremely strict value of virtually zero needs to be set.
I should like to thank the Commission which - I want to get this right - has resigned, but which is still in office.
It has not been an easy time.
I think that, exceptionally, Mr Bangemann can also be singled out on this issue for having supported the campaign for consumer protection.
I regret the fact that he initially experienced so much resistance within the Commission, particularly from Mrs Bonino, who should in fact have supported consumer protection.
However, a happy outcome is worth waiting for.
We have obtained a good result, and we shall be able to give our assent tomorrow.
Mr President, we shall also be giving our assent tomorrow.
I was very pleased that Mrs Sandbæk also reiterated that it was the amendment tabled by the Greens which provided that baby foods should in future be pesticide-free.
I think that this is a great victory for consumer protection, and it contributes in a significant way to making agricultural policy more environmentally friendly.
We have proved with this decision that we can succeed in making the highest standards, namely the no-trace limit value already in force in Germany - a standard for the whole of the EU.
We can now only hope that the manufacturers of baby foods in the EU make the necessary adjustments quickly, since it is clear that baby foods must be free of all poisonous substances.
Harmonisation in this area really cannot be reduced to the lowest common denominator; instead, we must demonstrate the highest degree of precaution and duty of care towards the youngest members of our society.
However, we hope that this will now also be the starting point for an initiative against the ADI concept for all foodstuffs, particularly those for school children and young people, since it in fact refers to the recommended intake of pesticides for an adult.
It is not only babies who absorb on average much more per kilo of body weight, but also school children and young people.
I now think that we must start to reconsider the whole ADI concept, and we must build on this success in an attempt to extend it in future to school children and young people, since it has been proven that even the minutest quantities of pesticide can result in serious illness, particularly among children.
Mr President, I should firstly also like to express my thanks to the rapporteur.
We had been instructed by the European Council to reduce the number of acts governing dietetic foods.
We have not managed to do this now because we have two more, but at least we have achieved a certain degree of clarification.
I am being quite frank with you when I say - and you already know this from previous debates - that I would have preferred it if we could at least have done without the directive on foods for sportsmen; this is more likely to result in misinformation in any case, especially as it will be very difficult to obtain clear provisions for the different types of sport because the foodstuffs that can be recommended or are important for a certain type of sport vary considerably from sport to sport.
But I do not believe that it would be right to reject the outcome of conciliation on this issue or on account of this issue.
On the question of pesticide residues in baby foods, the Commission has taken a very clear position which corresponds exactly to the one we eventually adopted on this.
The only difference was whether this should be laid down in the specific directive or the framework directive.
Nonetheless, we agreed on the general and practical issues.
Admittedly, there was discussion within the Commission, but such discussions take place often anyway.
After all, it is also a fact that not all Commissioners can be of the same opinion from the start.
However, we managed to agree that special consideration of the precautionary principle is appropriate for babies and toddlers.
That is to say, the very low level of pesticide residues will apply - this has been proposed by us, and will be adopted - even though the results of scientific research are not available yet in all cases or for all pesticides.
We have therefore abandoned our usual position on this point, although we will still keep to it in the future, unless really strong grounds exist for proceeding only on the basis of the precautionary principle without scientific findings.
This means that we will still aim to base our legislative measures on scientific findings. I still consider this to be the correct approach; otherwise, we would be in a state of confusion which would not be helpful to consumers either, since it results in arbitrary action which is also not the way to help consumers.
I should therefore like to reiterate - this holds true for the present Commission and I hope it will also hold true for the next one - that if we cease to base our decisions on the results of scientific research, then we will open the floodgates to all types of decisions being taken, and we will basically no longer be able to explain why a decision has been taken.
The precautionary principle, whereby the results of scientific research can be ignored, or results can be achieved without them, is clearly an exception to the rule in this case. The Commission has also supported this, but we cannot make it the norm.
I would point this out to Mrs Breyer.
She is starting now with school children. Then come those reaching the age of puberty, for whom it is particularly important not to be exposed to any danger whatsoever.
Then come those in their twenties who suffer from not being able to go to discos any more, and then those up to the age of forty.
Then, for those aged over forty, the dilemma is the same as for babies.
They have to be protected against everything.
Mrs Breyer, the Commission will not support you on this.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
New codecision procedure
The next item is the report (A4-0206/99) by Mr Manzella, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the joint declaration on practical arrangements for the new codecision procedure (Article 251 EC).
Mr President, I wish to begin by presenting the apologies of the rapporteur who could not be with us tonight.
It is quite well known now that the Amsterdam Treaty extends the codecision procedure from some 15 articles to 38 articles under the Treaty, so that most non-agricultural legislation will be subject to codecision.
This actually changes the legislative authority of the European Union into a real bicameral legislative authority.
The Treaty of Amsterdam also changes the procedure itself, and that is less well known, to provide for absolute equality between Parliament and the Council throughout the procedure.
Something that was first thought of by yourself, Mr President, when you worked on the Martin reports.
I had the privilege of working with you in those days on that.
The first drafts were made of a possible future codecision procedure, always envisaging equality between Parliament and the Council.
Now we have that for most legislation. That is very important.
It means that to be adopted European legislation now has to pass two hurdles, two tests as to the quality and the acceptability of such legislation.
It must be acceptable to a majority of the elected governments sitting in the Council and a majority of the directly elected MEPs in Parliament.
Parliament brings greater diversity to the examination of European legislation.
After all, in Parliament you have not just government ministers coming from their national capitals but also elected representatives from all the regions of all the Member States, from governing and opposition parties in their full diversity and plurality.
Imagine for one moment the European system without the European Parliament.
It would be totally dominated by diplomats, technocrats and bureaucrats, with ministers occasionally flying into Brussels to try and keep track of what is happening.
The fact that you have at the heart of the decision-taking system a body of full-time representatives in that full diversity that they represent, knocking on doors, making phone calls, asking awkward questions, probing, questioning, going through matters in detail and going back to their regions to talk about it with interest groups, trade unions, employers, consumer groups and local governments in their regions. That is what brings full pluralism, diversity, openness and democracy to the European system.
Recognising that now by giving Parliament equal status with the Council in the codecision procedure, is a tremendous step forward for the European Union.
The changes which were made to the old procedure are threefold: the elimination of the so-called negative version of the third reading, whereby if there was no agreement in conciliation the Council could go ahead and adopt its own text and challenge Parliament to reject that by an absolute majority within six weeks.
That unbalanced the procedure in favour of the Council, even if it was rarely used - the Council only tried it once, we rejected it and the Council never tried it again.
Nonetheless, it was an unhealthy part of the procedure.
That goes with Amsterdam - full equality, therefore.
Simple rejection by Parliament when we are opposed to a text instead of a two-phased rejection is now possible under the Amsterdam Treaty - simpler, easier and puts Parliament in a stronger position.
Thirdly, the possibility for first-reading agreements.
These changes, as I said, put us in a position of equality but they also necessitated a revision of the 1993 agreement on the operation of the procedure.
I am very pleased - and I must congratulate Vice-Presidents Imbeni, Fontaine and Verde, Ken Collins, De Giovanni and the rapporteur whom I am replacing, on the text they have negotiated with the other institutions.
It is a good text: practical and flexible.
It goes beyond the 1993 text, which was limited to conciliation: it covers the whole codecision procedure in full.
Let us not forget that most codecisions result in agreement without needing the Conciliation Committee, so it is very important that has been brought into the text.
It recognises the practice that the negotiations do not take place 15 plus 15 but in a smaller group: the committee chair and rapporteur with the Council President and the Commission, then reporting back to the full Conciliation Committee.
It allows for first-reading agreements and it tries to draw the Council into a dialogue with us in the first reading, as we have recently done in our new Rules of Procedure as well to encourage that sort of dialogue at an early stage.
Finally, but above all, right the way through the text it recognises the equality of Parliament and the Council: the committee is to be chaired jointly; it will meet alternately on Council premises and on Parliament premises; texts have to be signed jointly by the two chairmen; letters have to be signed by the two chairmen; even the juridical linguistic review by the staff will now be jointly between Parliament and the Council.
All this recognises the equality of the two institutions and, as I said earlier, sets up this new era where we are two parts of a bicameral legislative authority at European level.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Corbett is not only due credit for having done such an excellent job in taking over from the original rapporteur; he has also described in great detail the practical developments and progress made on the codecision procedure, which forms the basis of this report.
I do not want to go into this now, though I would like to take the opportunity to point out one thing: however much we have progressed as a result of Amsterdam on the practical aspects of parliamentarianism, we must nevertheless not overlook the fact that important elements which constitute genuine parliamentary government are still absent in the European Union.
I am thinking of the third pillar, which is particularly important for human rights and the nation state, and on which there is admittedly a timetable due to the Treaty, but the political discussion about giving Parliament greater powers in the third pillar is in fact lacking.
Moreover, it should be mentioned that our Member States still consider it unreasonable to subject agricultural policy to a decision by Parliament, particularly in the area of the budget, and our power of codecision is still very much underdeveloped when it comes to amending the Treaty.
I just wanted to mention these points because they are important to me.
We want a strong European Union with a strong Commission and Parliament, since this is what guarantees a democratic European Union.
A powerful European Union can only be a democratic one, and we must therefore continue our efforts to give Parliament greater powers in the European Union and not give up on this.
This should also be mentioned briefly on this occasion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think it is fortunate, as Mr Corbett pointed out earlier, that this sitting is being chaired by Mr Martin as he is a great expert on institutional issues.
All of us that have worked with him over the years have benefited from his experience and I personally have benefited from that wonderful report he presented during the parliamentary term that began in 1989. This is why I should like to pay homage to him now.
I should also like to congratulate Mr Manzella and Mr Corbett as well as the negotiators from the three institutions on their excellent work and on having been able to strike a balance between a dynamic application of the provisions and the obligation to fully respect the Treaty.
The working methods formally approved and adopted by the Commission seem particularly useful for several reasons.
First, they offer the institutions the opportunity to conclude any legislative codecision procedure at first reading, as provided for in the Treaty, provided they have reached an agreement, as is only logical.
It is precisely during this first stage that the institutions can fully exercise their powers.
Second, the Commission participates fully throughout the procedure and, in particular, can play an important role as mediator during the conciliation phase.
In my view, its responsibility in this area should be enhanced in the future.
And lastly, I believe that the key to success in developing the legislative procedure lies in close and flexible interinstitutional cooperation.
Moreover, with the application of the new Treaty, this agreement marks the end of what could be termed a test or trial period for the codecision procedure and Parliament's role as a co-legislator.
The success of the codecision procedure in the first years of its application was a clear signal to the last Intergovernmental Conference that it should be extended to cover almost all the main legislative activities.
Codecision has now become the general rule and Parliament's role as a co-legislator has been consolidated.
I think we should be pleased in this respect because democracy has, in fact, been strengthened as a result.
As regards the codecision procedure in the Amsterdam Treaty, we should firstly look at the possibility of concluding the legislative procedure at first reading in a positive light.
This should speed up legislative decision-making and, as a consequence, enable us to advance along the road mapped out by the institutions following the Single European Act.
In spite of the exceptions which still exist, the duration of the Union's legislative procedures is quite reasonable, generally speaking, particularly if we compare it to national procedures.
Sometimes the European Parliament works even faster.
Secondly, as regards conciliation, it is important to emphasise that the procedures have been streamlined.
Should Parliament and the Council fail to reach agreement, the draft lapses.
This confirms the European Parliament's responsibility and prevents totally futile disputes between the two institutions.
Furthermore, in practice we can see that the clause that provided the Council with a last attempt to overcome the European Parliament's opposition has never been seriously used.
In this way, we also wanted to put an end to the lack of confidence surrounding the European Parliament's decision-making abilities, which centred mainly on bureaucracy.
Finally, the end of small-scale conciliation is absolutely vital to the process of simplification.
Similarly, the possibility of inviting the European Parliament to hold a debate before finally rejecting a proposal is no longer essential given that the political debate among the political groups and the institutions can begin at first reading.
I nonetheless believe that a key element of the reform is the extension of the range of issues that come under the codecision procedure.
I do not know if such an extension is sufficient or incomplete, and I feel it may be necessary to go further in certain areas.
What is vital in my view is to accept the Commission's proposal that states that no legislative act can be adopted in the Community without the European Parliament's approval.
The new Treaty confirms that, in principle, the areas in which codecision is not the general rule are exceptions to the system.
So the future Parliament is faced with a legislative task that entails greater responsibility.
At the same time, the political debate is being stepped up and this should increase the public's confidence in the institutions, which is essential at this moment in time.
The Commission approved the text of the joint declaration in its meeting of 9 March and the Council approved it last week. It is now Parliament's turn to add its support so as to enable the three Presidents to confirm the agreement of their institutions in a joint declaration at a signing ceremony this week.
Therefore, on behalf of the Commission, I would ask you to agree to this declaration.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I must say that the symmetry of the committee chairman, the rapporteur and the secretariat all being involved ten years later in this debate has a certain appeal to me.
On behalf of the House I should like to place on record my thanks to you for the work you have done both as a Member of this House and as Commissioner.
It has been much appreciated.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 12 noon.
The sitting was closed at 11.44 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to make a point regarding a letter I received from the President's office on 20 April in response to a request for information on the procedures followed in relation to the petition forwarded by the spokesman for the Areeta residents' united platform in the province of Álava. I was born there and still live there, which is why I am very interested in this matter.
This document was included in the European Parliament's list of documents received on 12 April and I was informed that it was to be officially announced at the beginning of Parliament's sitting on 3 May, that is, the day before yesterday.
I have checked the Minutes from Monday and Tuesday, but this document does not appear in either of them.
Some might say that this is not an important issue, but such matters are very sensitive in communities that are undergoing restructuring. The town involved has spent the last four years campaigning to have the area's sewage treatment plant moved two or three kilometres away in order to get rid of the bad smell.
It is a sensitive petition and I feel that the correct procedures should have been followed.
I would ask the President to kindly ensure that this reasonable and just petition is advanced as soon as possible.
Thank you, Mr Valdivielso.
We shall check on all the details of the matter you have raised.
Mr President, I received a letter from your office which said that, as there was to be a debate on Kosovo yesterday afternoon, the questions to the Council that I and other colleagues had tabled for this afternoon would not be discussed.
Firstly, we did not manage to get speaking time from our group to present the question during yesterday's debate.-Secondly, as you will see from the Minutes, the issues we were asking about were not covered during yesterday's debate either by the Foreign Minister, Mr Fischer, or by Commissioner van den Broek.Our question concerned the environmental impact, and the impact on public health, of the bombardments taking place in Kosovo. I would be very grateful if my question and the questions of my colleagues, which are of course related, could be discussed this afternoon in the Council, as originally planned.
Thank you very much, Mr President. I hope my request will be granted.
Mr Trakatellis, according to paragraph 2 of Annex II, Part A, a question shall be inadmissible if the agenda already provides for the subject to be discussed with the participation of the institution concerned, in this case the Council.
The issue of Kosovo is included as one of the subjects in the topical and urgent debate. As a result, we cannot accept any questions relating to Kosovo during this sitting, as has been the case in other sittings, for the simple reason that the Rules do not allow it.
Mr President, as you know, Members of this Parliament have, over the years, been extremely critical of any kind of censorship, in particular cultural censorship.
They have also been very strongly supportive of gay rights.
I should like to know why an exhibition by a lesbian artist was banned from this Parliament.
This is a very crude form of censorship, there is no justification for it and I should like to know what part you played in banning this exhibition.
At the end of the 20th century to ban an exhibition by a gay artist is completely unacceptable and no Member of this Parliament should endorse that.
Mrs McKenna, I already explained to you on Monday that this decision was taken by the Quaestors, who followed the recommendation of the services responsible.
The decision had nothing to do with whether or not the artist was a lesbian - I do not know if she is or not - but with the fact that it was felt that the content of the exhibition would have been offensive to some Members and some of the people passing through Parliament.
That is why we refused to host it.
Mr President, going back to the same question regarding the possible use of depleted uranium in Serbia and Kosovo, a specific question was asked to go on the agenda of Question Time, a specific question, not a general point as we had yesterday from the President-in-Office of the Council.
The question regarding the use of depleted uranium oxide in Kosovo or Serbia was not addressed.
Therefore, can you reassure us that we will be given the opportunity to receive some answer on this very vital question?
You know perfectly well that these have to be written questions.
What I can do is have an oral question in this session because we have the subject of Kosovo on the agenda.
You could have asked the Members who spoke in the name of your group to raise the question.
If they do not deem it necessary to do so I cannot make any other arrangements.
The Minutes were approved
Statement by the President of the European Parliament on the occasionof the conclusion of Parliament's fourth term of office
Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, this week's part-session is the last in our term of office and my last as President of this House.
It is therefore time to give credit where it is due: to you, ladies and gentlemen, and, through you, to all the people of the European Union whom I have endeavoured to serve during the last two and a half years.
In the letter I sent to you in December 1996 asking for your vote, I spoke of five challenges the Union, and therefore its Parliament, would have to face: five major challenges to be met in two and a half years.
The first was the conclusion of the Intergovernmental Conference, which was underway at the time and from which Parliament emerged a winner, with greater powers and in a stronger position to serve the people of Europe better.
Secondly, we had to begin the negotiations on enlargement.
Parliament has promoted these negotiations energetically and is continuing to pay careful attention to them. We hope to ensure that all the applicant countries are included in the process, with the only differences arising from the rate at which each country adapts.
Our third aim was to launch the euro.
We participated actively and constructively in this process, ensuring that the transition to the new currency did not take place at the expense of consumers. We also wanted to guarantee that the new directives for the European Central Bank were given the necessary preparation and independence, and that this House, which represents all Europeans, received adequate information on monetary policy.
Fourthly, the financial perspectives and Agenda 2000 had to be reviewed.
We contributed to this decisively through proposals and amendments aimed at maintaining and improving our common acquis . In my view, the coordination of the work of the many committees involved and the cooperation with the Council and the Commission have been of the highest order.
Our final objective was to prepare our institution for the coming European elections. These elections are not a matter of electing the poor relative of the Community institutions but of electing a Parliament that the people see for the first time as a Parliament that has great power and the ability to exercise that power.
The balance between the European institutions has, in fact, changed to become what was intended in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties: the appointment of the Commission and its political activities are no longer dependent on the confidence of the Council alone, they also depend - and this is crucial - on the confidence of Parliament.
This confidence is not something that can be earned once and for all. The Commission must maintain this confidence right through its term of office and it must answer to Parliament when necessary, providing - without any reservations or reluctance - all the information the House needs to enable it to carry out its supervisory role.
For years, there have been calls for more democratic European institutions.
We must not lose our nerve or seek a return to the previous balance between the institutions: that is of no use any longer.
Democracy means having to be the channel for the European public's growing demand for information, and to welcome or condemn what is being done in each case.
This, rather than anything else, is what Parliament has done.
In my letter of nomination, I also talked about internal reforms and the uniform Statute for Members.
Many reforms have been adopted in the last few years in relation to the way in which our House works:
we have improved our standards and financial organisation; -we have completely changed the top levels of Parliament's administration and introduced new systems of promotion and mobility at all levels; -we have increased the number of women in senior posts, although we have not yet reached the levels I would have liked; -we have regulated the transparency of administrative decisions, at the request of the Ombudsman; -we have brought together and clarified the existing rules so that, from now on, both Members and officials will be aware of their rights and obligations, according to clear rules that prevent arbitrary behaviour or favouritism.We also managed to find a satisfactory solution to the technical and financial problems surrounding our buildings in Brussels, thereby completing the efforts of my predecessors to provide Members with more functional and compact facilities.
I hope that the same can happen with the building in Strasbourg and that work on that can begin during the next term of office.
This recent stability in terms of real estate policy has allowed us to provide Members with new computer programmes and resources that make it easier for them to have direct contact with the people.
As regards the Statute for Members, I want to make it very clear that this is an ambition of Parliament and is in no way a discipline imposed by the Council, as some people claim. That is why I wanted to remind you that it was included in my letter.
It was Parliament that asked for the legal basis for the Statute to be included in the Treaty of Amsterdam, and this request was met. It was also Parliament that presented the Council with a very comprehensive text, even before the Treaty entered into force, covering all the aspects of our situation as transparently as possible, even those aspects where it has always been our responsibility to take decisions.
We must welcome the fact that the Council has joined in with this movement - which is in my view unstoppable - and has made great efforts to reach a consensus among its members. But some parts of the text proposed need to be corrected in terms of their form or substance so as to ensure that fundamental principles are not violated.
I am thinking here of the principle of fiscal equality among all Members: temporary exceptions may be permitted but never permanent ones. I am also thinking of the respect for Members' pension rights in relation to the years they have worked both within and outside Parliament and of other points of detail that I do not need to go into now.
In any event, it is clear that we will continue to call for a uniform statute, we have gone ahead and adopted measures to control our allowances and travelling expenses and significantly reduce them without waiting for the Statute to be introduced.
Few institutions or bodies - national or otherwise - within this Union are capable of taking such decisions on their own initiative, as we have done.
The basic aim of all these reforms was, and is - and the people should be aware of this - to increase the efficiency and transparency of Parliament. We hope to pass on to the incoming Members a House that is ready to face up to its institutional role and the challenge presented by greater awareness on the part of our fellow citizens.
All in all, the results over the last two and a half years have been positive.
However, there have been both successes and failures along the way.
It would be remiss of me to overlook our most distressing failure: our inability to ensure that our repeated warnings about the approaching tragedy in Kosovo were heeded.
Now we are having to watch with horror as the black clouds of hatred we warned of rain down persecution, blood and violence.
We are having to watch how the absence of adequate instruments to implement peace there has left us powerless to prevent an act of genocide.
We can, however, throw ourselves into helping the victims.
This is what we are doing and we will have to continue our humanitarian work for a very long time.
But it is not enough.
We must now begin to pave the way for peace and to collaborate with the countries in the region to build a stable system of cooperation between them and promote development so that they can join our Union as soon as possible, a Union that is based on respect for differences and on the integration of its wealth and its cultural and human diversity.
It is a Union where there can be no room for exclusive attitudes or racism and xenophobia. These evils always have a tendency to sprout new shoots, and we can never let up in the fight against them because, given the slightest opportunity, they can so easily turn into violence, suffering and death.
Parliament has been - and will undoubtedly continue to be - one of the most active participants in this struggle.
Ladies and gentlemen, I began with a personal assessment and have ended up with a collective assessment of achievements that have come about as a result of your work, your determination and your sound judgement, as well as the active and loyal cooperation of all the staff of the Secretariat who provide the House with their services, the freelance workers, the parliamentary assistants and everyone else involved.
I would ask you to give them a round of applause to express our recognition of their work and our gratitude.
Applause
I think that we should give special recognition to our colleagues who are now moving on to new pastures in their political or personal lives.
This House owes a great deal to their dedication and intelligence.
They have helped build a more democratic Europe that is closer to the people and we should thank them for that.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have had the privilege of presiding over the work of this House in the firm belief that the best way of reducing the democratic deficit in the Union is by promoting this Parliament and raising awareness of it among the people of Europe.
There can be no real democracy where there is no real parliament, nor can there be a real parliament if it does not cause the executive a certain amount of anxiety and inconvenience.
As a result, there have been many moments of tension and many difficult negotiations throughout the last two and a half years.
I have tried to face these with determination and with total dedication and effort, and without flinching when it has been necessary to defend Parliament's decisions and actions.
On no occasion did I wonder whether or not other institutions would be pleased with the way I was defending Parliament; I simply looked on it as my duty.
When I was young, I was taught that that was the only way to act in politics with dignity, and I have tried not to forget that.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will finish as I began over two years ago, by thanking you for your support and also for your criticism.
I consider myself to be a democrat and I therefore take such criticism as it is meant: as help rather than an insult.
In my view, it is wise to listen to critics and ignore flatterers.
I have been moved by the passion of Europe, which has allowed the utopia of fifty years ago to become, for the most part, a reality.
We must continue to develop Europe with this same passion and increasing unity, prosperity, freedom and solidarity.
Thank you very much.
Loud applause
Mr President, I should like to thank you for this assessment which you have presented to Parliament.
I believe we can safely say, as you emphasised, that in the course of this term the House has developed into a genuine Parliament.
The major achievement of your presidency is undoubtedly the Treaty of Amsterdam.
It is thanks to your efforts, perseverance and credible convictions, coupled with the efforts of many Members, that Parliament won the right to genuine codecision in the legislative process.
Everyone in this House knows that this would never have been achieved without your efforts.
The European Parliament, our Parliament, has developed into a political institution whose voice within the European Union cannot be ignored and which has exercised its political and budgetary control with great authority and great independence.
I consider this to be an exceptionally important development which also constitutes a democratic counterbalance to the European Union's other two political institutions.
You carried through the parliamentary reforms which were initiated by your predecessor Klaus Hänsch, encountering many difficulties in the process.
In many ways this was not an easy task, especially as the Council did not always fully understand the importance and complexity of the reforms and because - I believe - it was not sufficiently aware, particularly in the most recent period, that we could not allow certain principles of a free Parliament to be violated.
The reforms have not actually been completed, which must have caused you some disappointment.
But much more importantly than all of this I believe that you have acted out of your genuine belief in Europe rather than any kind of pragmatic Realpolitik.
The European enterprise to bring peace, reconciliation and solidarity to the people of Europe is more than an ideal for you: it is your life's work.
I should also like to add a personal element here.
This conviction has been passed on from father to son.
I shall never forget the time when, in the early 1970s, as the young chairman of my party, I attended a meeting with your father in a cinema in Madrid.
Few people were present and the circumstances were not easy, but under your father's leadership we were even then able to clearly communicate the ideals and conviction of our beliefs, of the Christian Democratic values and principles and above all our belief in a federal Europe.
You also embody these same principles.
Ladies and gentlemen, there have been two Presidents during this parliamentary term, neither of whom, I believe, have held government office, but who worked and grew in stature here in Parliament.
These two figures represented us with credibility and force before the Council.
As prime minister of my country I noticed how the Presidents of Parliament were sometimes only allowed to attend the European Council for a few minutes.
Fortunately this is no longer the case.
Both of you, Klaus Hänsch and José Maria Gil-Robles, represented and defended our Parliament in a very credible manner and achieved some outstanding results.
I should therefore like to thank you both personally.
We remain true to the ideal.
We will continue to work towards it, albeit in very different circumstances.
My sincere thanks for all you have achieved.
Applause
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I should like to join with Mr Martens in paying tribute to your work, to your profile and to your commitment as President of this Parliament over the last two and a half years.
You have presided over one of the most extraordinary periods in the history of the European Union and the life of this Parliament, as you yourself said in your speech: going from the intergovernmental conference, through the introduction of the euro and indeed through the unexpected ratification process of the new Commission - that though we had not quite timetabled or expected it - has also been dealt with.
The last six months have been the most tumultuous six months of the life of this Parliament.
You, Mr President, have ensured that Parliament's role in this entire period has been clear and has been effective.
I want to pay, in just a few words, particular tribute to your sensitivity and your human qualities, if I may.
You have been accessible to Members of this Parliament.
You opened your doors in a new and innovative way to backbenchers, as President of the House.
That has been very much welcomed and respected by Members here.
You have always been accessible, certainly to me, as leader of my group, when I have needed to talk or to see you, your door, or indeed your telephone, has always been accessible to me.
I thank you personally for that.
It has helped on occasion, as you know, to sort out or to ease certain issues and events through the life of this Parliament.
I thank you on behalf of my group for that.
You are leaving the presidency at the end of what I have already described as a tumultuous six months.
Parliament's prestige is enhanced at the end of this period.
It is a coincidence, but perhaps a fortunate one, that this very week when we are in the last week of the life of this House, we are also in the first week of the life of the Amsterdam Treaty.
It is fitting that it should be like that and we will notice the change to the rules that were made to bring in the Amsterdam Treaty.
Yesterday, for instance, during the vote, 39 reports were dealt with in one and a half hours which is probably something of a record.
I thank you, Mr President, for your role and the work you have done and would just like to join Mr Martens in saying that you are indeed a thoughtful, deeply committed and heartfelt European.
Applause
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR Group I too want to be associated with the words of thanks to you for your term of office.
It has been - indeed, even as we finish it - and remains an extraordinary and eventful term.
It represents a term when European democracy itself, when parliamentary democracy has reached a new level of maturity.
In some ways, as we enter, in terms of direct mandates, our twenty-first year we have now achieved this new age of maturity.
I believe, with your help, particularly when we have dealt with many of the sensitive political controversies of recent months and the Conference of Presidents, we have been able to hold together, with the stresses and strains and points of emphasis that groups may wish to bring to debates, a coherent parliamentary view.
That is in no small measure a result of your role in the Chair.
I am aware also, of the extent to which, in your many years of service in this House, you personally were committed to issues of institutional reform.
Therefore it must be an issue of great personal satisfaction that, having given so much of your particular attention to institutional matters, you should preside over this last session under the new Treaty of Amsterdam.
I can confirm in the several months that I have had the privilege of leading my own group the courtesy which you have shown to me - which I acknowledge here today - and also confirm the extraordinary openness with which you do your business.
You are a frank and decent man to deal with.
I deeply appreciate the openness you have shown to me when I have needed your advice and assistance.
May your future go well.
Applause
Mr President, I am very pleased to be able to speak at the end of our term of office, which is beginning to seem like the end of the academic year, when students finish their university classes and pleasantly say goodbye to each other, remembering certain students and teachers, and there is a generally friendly atmosphere.
I am glad there are days like this when the heart rules.
I must admit that I completely forgot about this formal sitting. As a result, what I am saying to the House on a personal level has not gone through any political filter, and at the moment I have to say that I would vote for both you and Mr Hänsch again.
This does not always happen.
My group asked for a political assessment and, despite all the criticisms we have made, the work of the various political groups throughout this term of office has been very valuable.
I would like to stress three aspects of your work.
The first is your efficiency, which meant that you had to make yourself available at all times.
The second aspect is your complete independence from possible pressure from governments and parties, and this is vital.
You gave priority to your role as President of Parliament.
Undoubtedly, there were ups and downs, but I will not go into them here.
However, it is not easy to fulfill the institutional role to which you were elected with complete independence every day, Mr President, and I thank you for this.
I am a member of a medium-sized group - it is certainly not small, since 34 Members constitute a medium to large group - and I have to say that we have never noticed any discrimination.
You have treated all the groups in exactly the same way, according, of course, to our degree of support among the people.
As far as Parliament is concerned, I think it is fair to say that the dominant feature of our term of office has been that we have left behind our short trousers. Being a man I am using the example of short trousers, though of course I do not mean to be in any way sexist.
We are now an adult Parliament.
We no longer need to set out Parliament's responsibilities over and over again.
The public are aware that this is a Parliament of truth.
They are more aware of that than they are of the Treaty of Amsterdam, since, as a Spanish journalist said, the Treaty is colourless, odourless and bland.
The Treaty of Amsterdam does not attract much attention, although we are very much aware of it in Parliament because of our legislative work.
The fact that we have now become a mature and adult Parliament is very important for democracy, as democracy cannot work on the basis of good intentions or personal contributions alone, as we all know. It requires institutions that go further than human beings, that ensure that the work of Members who are not returning will be continued by other Members.
That is the greatest merit of the institutions of democracy.
Parliament has often been critical of and hard on the Commission.
Mr Santer is here today and I would like to express my own personal gratitude to him.
We must thank Mr Santer for accepting Parliament's role.
And here I am also thinking about the future, when one day the Council too - the omnipotent Council - will have to come before Parliament to face up to its political responsibilities and account for certain decisions.
When that happens, Parliament will have fully come of age to the benefit of the people of Europe.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again I will have to represent our group because I am the only coordinator here present.
And I am happy to do so.
But let me say in advance that I come from Schleswig-Holstein and am also a Green, both of which make it difficult for me - unlike Mr Puerta who is so extremely good at it - to utter the usual words of praise.
It is not the custom where I come from, nor is it the custom in my party!
Mr President, I think I can assure you that we all have great respect for you.
We really have been most impressed by your composure, your ability to handle differences and opposed views, and I personally have learnt to value not just your sense of fairness but also your awareness of the growing tasks facing this House, for during this legislative term this House has grown at least a head taller.
And perhaps we have got over the problem of the short trousers - you know an incident occurred during the Conference of Presidents, at which I appeared in short trousers.
Everyone survived that with great composure too - after all, it was very hot!
Parliament really has gained in stature and weight now.
We have achieved that under your presidency, Mr Gil-Robles.
Heckling
I have not gained weight!
That is a misinterpretation.
Laughter
We have gained in political weight.
I do not think anyone here in the House can mistake that.
You, Mr President, have been active in your office and really stood up for the equal rights of all Members; you took active and successful steps to ensure that we now obtain a common European statute instead of a medley of national statutes.
One instead of 15, surely that is a qualitative step forward!
In that regard, and I do not think it is only my group that believes this, your term of office really was successful and you have done this Parliament great services.
Muchas gracias, Señor Presidente !
Applause
Mr President, it is with the utmost pleasure, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, that I say a very sincere word of thanks to you for the very able leadership which you have given Parliament over the last two-and-a-half years.
I do not wish to repeat what has been said by colleagues who have already spoken but it has been a very great two-and-a-half years.
We will always remember Amsterdam; we will always remember the European single currency.
We will also recognise and appreciate in the future the stronger and greater links that you have established with the applicant countries, helping to foster democratic and parliamentary values there.
We will always remember you as a person who has shown very great leadership at all times and someone who was open, friendly and accessible to Members of Parliament.
That is important.
But above and beyond that it is recognised that you are a man of strong conviction with many natural human qualities; a person of great energy and determination and a person who has always been positive and even-handed; a person who is encouraging and indeed, a person who can be very firm and authoritative when that sort of authority needs to be shown, as we have witnessed on occasion.
As well, we will always remember you as a person with a good sense of humour.
That has helped on occasions, particularly at meetings of the Bureau when we were getting bogged down on sensitive matters and you never failed to see the wood for the trees.
You always got us out at the end of the day.
I thank you very sincerely for what you did in relation to bringing a greater degree of openness and transparency to the workings of this Parliament.
This was essential.
There was no way out of it; we had to face reality.
You certainly played your part, following on from the very fine work done by your predecessor Mr Hänsch in ensuring that we could, at this particular time, be in a position to face the electorate in a way that we could withstand the criticisms and cynicisms that were going to be directed at us.
I hope we can continue down that path despite the one or two problems that are there.
In this regard I would say a special word of thanks and appreciation to the German presidency for the great work they did on the Statute and bringing us to where we are today.
But for you, Mr President, for the presidency and Parliament helping, we would not be where we are.
We still have that last furlong to travel.
I hope that we get there.
I believe you had a very successful term of office, Mr President.
I thank you for it.
You put tremendous effort into it.
Parliament has responded to your leadership.
Parliament is undoubtedly becoming more and more, as a result of your leadership, meaningful to the ordinary citizens of the Member States.
That is something we must continue to achieve right up to the end.
Mr President, I want to make a point of order that is a matter of form and will take only a moment.
I have not been a Member long enough to know what Rule allows the French Socialists to join in the praise for your work on behalf of us all.
But I felt I should do so, on the basis of whatever Rule Mr Fabre-Aubrespy would have found had he been here.
Thank you, Mr Duhamel.
Thank you to everyone for these kind words, which I truly appreciate.
I shall continue to work in Parliament as a Member, and I can assure you that I shall continue to do so gladly with all of you, in the same spirit.
Mr President, a word of thanks is most certainly also due from your ever-devoted, critical and constructive opposition.
I too would like to say Gracias, Presidente on behalf of the Europe of Nations Group, and to acknowledge the fact that something happens to our Presidents when they are first elected.
They suddenly change from being political opponents into cooperative, humorous, agreeable and impartial colleagues, and we really do have a very good, cooperative community within the bodies that control Parliament.
And you are no exception in this respect.
You have continued the work of Mr Hänsch, and I would very much like to thank you for that.
I suppose that I can now be counted as one of the veterans of the House, and I can recall how at one time the political group chairmen would lead the way when it came to wasting expenses and being driven around in limousines with chauffeurs paid for by Parliament, while in the meantime travel refunds were being drawn from the Members' cash office for the same trips.
That was not so many years ago, but now we have the opportunity to take stock, as it were, and to thank you for having helped, together with Mr Hänsch, to clean up this kind of waste.
Since 1994, the President of Parliament has been at the forefront of the clean-up operation.
We must thank Mr Hänsch, because he set this work in motion, and Mr Gil-Robles, since he continued it.
But there was also a time when this House was a 'Mickey Mouse parliament' which acted most irresponsibly in financial matters.
Thirty-eight times we have tabled a motion proposing that travel expenses should be based on receipts submitted.
Hopefully this will now happen, but we must first get through an exercise this afternoon.
Now all of the group chairmen are leading the way in the battle against abuse, whereas previously they were the leading abusers.
So in this area at least, a change has taken place, but unfortunately the political group chairmen are still in the minority in this House.
We shall see evidence of that this afternoon.
Hopefully, the chairmen will get a majority behind them in the Parliament that emerges after 10 June, so that a clean-up can finally take place with regard to travel expenses, because we are certainly not there yet.
The proposal which has been adopted in the Bureau means that for my journey from Copenhagen to Strasbourg, I get EUR 450 more in travel expenses than I received before the cost-cutting measures were set in motion.
So there is still some way to go.
And so, Mr President, I would very much like to thank you for having also played a part in the campaign for greater openness within the EU.
Over the past five years, a consensus has been created within Parliament with a view to working towards greater openness.
And Parliament has decided by a large majority that all documents must be public unless we decide by a two thirds majority to prohibit access to them.
There is a consensus on this stance in Parliament, but unfortunately this is not yet the case within the Commission and the Council.
Under the Amsterdam Treaty, we are now contending with Commission proposals which do not mean a greater degree of openness, but perhaps if anything less openness.
Finally, I would like to thank Mr Santer and Mr Oreja, because after 20 years' work we have succeeded in getting the Commission's internal telephone directory officially issued, with a covering letter stating that within a few months everyone else will also be able to get hold of it, once the prototype has become a real telephone directory.
And so, after 45 years with a secret telephone directory, it will in a few months also be possible for the general public to track down the person in the Commission who, for example, is responsible for issuing telephone directories.
Thank you, Mr President, for your helpful collaboration.
Mr President, you began with a personal account and then you went on to a collective overview.
Please allow me to make a point of order. I hope you will indulge me because of my age and also because I am coming to the end of my term of office and will not return.
In your collective overview which, in my view, was given in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, which you have always strictly abided by and respected, thereby setting us an example to follow, you should have included the fact that this Parliament is coming to the end of its term of office and that it was unable to prevent war taking place on European soil.
In the debate that took place yesterday Parliament was unable to put a stop to the many war crimes and crimes against humanity that are taking place. Instead, the resolutions, the debate and the reports by the Council and the Commission turned the debate into a whitewash of these crimes!
This is not a good precedent for the next Parliament.
European Council of 3/4 June in Cologne - Institutional reform
The next item is the joint debate on:
the statements by the Council and the Commission on the preparation of the European Council meeting in Cologne on 3 and 4 June; -the oral questions to the Council (B4-0334/99) and the Commission (B4-0335/99) by Mr De Giovanni, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the forthcoming institutional reform.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I too want to begin by thanking you, Mr President, on behalf of the Council.
It is, of course, a little difficult for the Council to thank the President of Parliament; for if it praises him too much, that is supposed to mean it has done something wrong, which is why I would like to say that you are the Council's partner, an uncomfortable partner, conciliating on real issues but quite unyielding when it comes to representing Parliament's rights.
But we have cooperated well and successfully, for which I give you very warm thanks.
Let me also say quite specifically on behalf of the Council that this Parliament took a qualitative leap forward during this term of office.
That is thanks to you, Mr President, and to your predecessor, my friend and political companion Klaus Hänsch.
After all, it is not just that Parliament has acquired more rights and is asserting them.
More importantly, it has become much more firmly anchored in European public opinion than any previous European Parliament, and that is the crucial difference.
This Parliament is seen as a genuine parliament, and from the Council's point of view I can only say that it is taken seriously as such, indeed more and more so.
Mr President, I wish you all the best, both personally and politically.
I now come to the matter in hand.
The phase of European development ahead of us is determined by the fact that once again we have to set a number of important signals.
In Berlin we wanted to secure the financial bases of the Union up to the year 2006 with Agenda 2000, with particular reference to the tasks relating to enlargement.
Here I want to give particular thanks to Parliament for its constructive approach to this question over the past weeks.
After Berlin sought to protect the Union's financial ability to act, the Cologne summit will now endeavour also to protect and strengthen its political ability to act in the long term.
The Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force a few days ago, a historic breakthrough.
The Treaty provides the European Union with a wider range of instruments but at the same time raises new questions to which we shall have to find answers in Cologne.
However, our activities are overshadowed by an issue that dominates all others, the conflict in Kosovo and the accompanying human tragedies.
That was debated here in depth yesterday afternoon, so I need not go into it again in detail.
I just want to establish again that against the background of developments in the Balkans, over the past weeks the European Union has demonstrated its unity and resolve, from the joint declaration by the Heads of State and Government of 24 March to the General Affairs Council's decision last week to toughen the sanctions.
The Council continues to maintain that on the threshold of the 21st century Europe cannot allow the numerically largest ethnic group in Kosovo to be collectively deprived of its rights and subjected to severe, systematic human rights violations.
We must ensure that hundreds of thousands of refugees and displaced persons can return to their homes.
No ruler should be able to claim that persecution and murder are a matter of internal policy.
That is the lesson of the 20th century.
We must also repeat that for us this Kosovo conflict is not just a matter of humanitarian objectives and humanitarian questions. It is also a matter of the general European perspective of our policy of integration and of the long-term security and stability of Europe as a whole.
If Milosevic achieves his aim of a Kosovo no longer inhabited by Albanians, that will create a source of crisis in a region that is in any case not very stable and could lead to numerous new conflicts.
The aim of stabilising south-eastern Europe will become remote and there will be no prospect at all of integrating that part of Europe. Europe would remain incomplete.
That is why it was so important to look beyond the military objective and set out a political plan for pacifying the entire region.
The German Presidency of the Council took the initiative and made the necessary proposals.
The Heads of State and Government supported the German proposals at their meeting on 14 April in Brussels.
Last week the Council decided to begin preparing a stability pact for south-eastern Europe, an initiative that the entire international community now firmly welcomes.
Together with the international organisations and the neighbouring states concerned, we will hold the first working meeting on 27 May and will hold the first conference of foreign ministers on 11 June.
It is against this backdrop that the European Council will be meeting in Cologne on 3 and 4 June.
While the Council will have to take a serious look at current developments in Kosovo, it must not ignore the other central issues relating to its political ability to act.
Cologne will look at the following major issues: firstly, the European Employment Pact; secondly, the timetable for the forthcoming institutional reform; thirdly, the European charter of basic rights; fourthly, the common strategy towards Russia; and fifthly, the further development of the European security and defence policy.
Let me say a few words on these points.
Unemployment is the most urgent social problem of the present time.
Thanks to the Employment Pact, which we hope to adopt in Cologne, we want to give the people of Europe a sign that the European Union is looking at their concerns.
The pact is to become the expression of an active labour market policy that seeks more than before to avoid unemployment, in other words that looks above all at reducing youth and long-term unemployment and at ending the discrimination against women on the labour market.
We want to interlink the national and European level measures to promote employment more closely and link them to a coordinated monetary, financial and wages policy as also to economic structural changes.
A working paper submitted by the German Presidency was discussed for the first time and positively received at the informal ECOFIN Council in Dresden in mid-April.
The idea of also involving the social partners and the European Central Bank in the future dialogue on fiscal, wages and monetary policy found strong support.
Another important item on the Cologne agenda will be institutional reforms.
In accordance with the request of the Vienna European Council, it will have to be decided in Cologne how and when to tackle the institutional questions not resolved by the Amsterdam Treaty and that have to be resolved prior to enlargement.
The Presidency of the Council will shortly be submitting concrete proposals on the subject with a view to Cologne.
At present we are still at the stage of intensive consultations with the Member States.
Insofar as Treaty changes are required to resolve these questions, they will have to be agreed in the framework of a conference of Member State government representatives.
Pursuant to the provisions of the Treaty, a formal hearing of the European Parliament will also be necessary before such a conference is convened.
But initially Cologne will be concerned only with the further procedural steps, with laying down the procedures, the timetable and the agenda for the intergovernmental conference.
The Amsterdam protocol on the institutions with a view to enlargement of the European Union, together with the declarations on the subject, provide the framework for the intergovernmental conference, but we might indeed have to go further.
The developments early this year that led to the resignation of the Commission and to a discussion about reforms certainly give reason to examine the relations between the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission in this regard.
I think it is most important to build on the democratic control that the House has exercised so effectively here.
We must fully restore confidence in the institutions; we must not have a repeat of the institutional crisis we have just gone through.
In the view of the presidency, it is essential to further strengthen the European Parliament.
The more able the European Union becomes to act, the more its actions and decisions must have democratic legitimacy.
That also means, for instance, that in all cases where the Council adopts legislative acts by majority vote - and we want to make majority decisions the rule - the European Parliament must have equal codecision powers on an equal footing.
The careful preparation of the intergovernmental conference will be vital to its successful conclusion.
Here we will be able to draw on the comprehensive preliminary work that was carried out during the intergovernmental conference on the Amsterdam Treaty.
Given this time-frame, the intergovernmental conference could be convened as early as the beginning of next year and brought to a conclusion in the course of the year 2000.
That is an ambitious aim, but I believe that a short and clearly circumscribed intergovernmental conference could send out an important signal about the European Union's ability to enlarge and about the effectiveness of its institutions.
Irrespective of whether the institutional questions left over from Amsterdam are resolved, we will have to look in the medium or long term at the question of the constitution of Europe.
The German Foreign Minister, Mr Fischler, pointed out here in Parliament that following Maastricht and Amsterdam the question of a European constitution is now more serious than it once was.
We know that the Amsterdam Treaty only entered into force a few days ago and we must begin by gathering experience from it, because even now the comprehensive debate on the future development and form of the European Union is showing more and more clearly that in addition to the European Parliament the national parliaments and the broadest possible spectrum of social groups must also be involved.
The German proposal to draw up a European charter of basic rights also belongs in this context.
Our initial aim for Cologne is to be asked to draw up a charter of this kind.
At the given moment we will have to consider whether and how this kind of European charter of basic rights can take precedence over the European treaties.
We need to tell the people of Europe that their basic rights apply in the same way at European level as at national level.
The first talks on this charter of basic rights have now begun and I am sure that we will manage to agree on the further procedure in Cologne.
Formulating this kind of charter of basic rights would be a typical task for Members of Parliament - they are best able to do so and it is what they must do - and we will certainly take account of that aspect in our proposal concerning the practical form that charter of basic rights should assume.
The Amsterdam Treaty has markedly enhanced the Union's ability to act in foreign policy.
Even if the Union is already demonstrating great solidarity now - as in the Kosovo crisis -we still need to develop the common foreign and security policy further.
If ever there was a need for a common European foreign and security policy, then it must be now, and it is time for all doubting Thomases to hold their tongue.
We need it; Europe can no longer accept the fact that it has become an economic world power and yet does not even have the political power to resolve its regional problems.
One way of achieving this is through the CFSP High Representative to be appointed in Cologne, as provided by the Amsterdam Treaty.
Another is the common strategy towards Russia that we want to adopt for the first time in Cologne and which we will be able to implement on the basis of majority decisions.
This common strategy towards Russia is a pilot project; it will very much determine the face of future common strategies.
Work has already begun on further common strategies, but they will not yet be ready for decision-taking by the time of Cologne.
We also need a European security and defence policy if we are to implement a common foreign and security policy.
Here it is clear that collective defence in Europe will remain the task of NATO; but the European Union must also develop its own military crisis-management capability for cases where the European Union or WEU believes there is a need for action but in which our North American partners do not wish to or cannot be involved.
Tony Blair's initiative in Pörtschach and the Franco-British meeting in St Malo gave fresh impetus to this question.
After the creation of the single market and economic and monetary union, the formulation of a European security and defence identity has now become central to the European integration process.
Without it that process would remain incomplete.
During our dual presidency of the EU and WEU, we are resolutely endeavouring to make use of this new dynamic.
We intend to draw up a report on means of further developing the European security and defence identity by the time of the Cologne European Council.
That report will form the basis of a new European Council decision in Cologne that concretely defines the further procedure in this important policy area.
Among others it will cover the question of possibly integrating the WEU in the EU, pursuant to Article 17 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
As you can see, even without the additional challenges facing the Union as a result of the crisis in Kosovo and the resignation of the Commission, there is a wide range of tasks to be dealt with in Cologne.
As you know, however, situations of crisis can also release forces and produce their own dynamism; the German Presidency remains confident that it can match up to its responsibility to develop the European Union into a pan-European and at the same time global community that has the ability to act.
It hopes that here it can continue to count on the support of the European Parliament.
Thank you for your attention.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Cologne European Council comes at a decisive moment for the European Union.
The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May marks a further step forward.
A newly elected Parliament will take up office in a few weeks' time. There is also to be a new Commission.
Later this morning you will be voting on the appointment of the future President, Romano Prodi.
The new President will need the support of the European Parliament to make a success of his term of office.
All these factors need to be capitalised on to give European integration a fresh boost.
Lessons need to be drawn from the past with a view to preparing for the future.
Now is the time to prepare the ground for the institutional changes ahead.
Before discussing this and replying to Mr De Giovanni, I would first like to briefly run through the other issues due to come up for discussion at the Cologne European Council in a month's time.
The situation in Kosovo will of course be discussed.
The European Union will obviously be called upon to play a major role here. First, there will be the reconstruction phase where the Commission will have a coordinating role alongside the World Bank, for which it will need adequate support and resources.
The Union will then have to devote itself to defining a genuine strategy for stability in the Balkans, and Cologne will be an important step along the way.
Cologne is also where the first common strategy under the Amsterdam Treaty is due to be adopted. As you are aware, this common strategy concerns Russia.
This is no easy task, if only because the Council and the Commission do not, in the end, have all that much time available, but we are making good progress.
This is all the more significant in the context of the Kosovo crisis.
It is more important than ever to maintain and develop constructive and close political, economic and commercial dialogue with Russia.
The Kosovo crisis is also a stark reminder of the need for a proper European defence identity.
Following the progress made at the Atlantic Alliance summit in Washington, the European Union will need to adopt a solid stance.
As regards the economy, the prospects for growth in 1999 are not looking quite so good. But there are some positive signs.
Consumer confidence, which has remained high, is gradually taking a hold on businesses, whilst the drop in the European Central Bank's key interest rates is also grounds for optimism.
It is nonetheless clear that alongside the requisite budget consolidation, Europe will also need to speed up the structural reforms of the employment, goods, services and capital markets.
It was with this in mind that the Commission recently adopted its recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines.
This comprises specific country-by-country recommendations, including economic reform issues. I hope these recommendations will be discussed openly and thoroughly this year.
The coordination of economic policies should not just be left on the drawing board.
The Commission will also be reporting on the development of the trans-European networks and hopes that the European Investment Bank will make its contribution, as it did at the Amsterdam European Council in 1997.
Moreover, the European Council will discuss a report by the Ministers of Finance on the structure of international finance.
The crises in Asia and Russia highlighted the need for reforms in this area.
Progress was made during the discussions at the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund in Washington just over a week ago. However, I would have liked to have seen Europe genuinely speaking with a single voice.
Let us consider, for example, debt relief for the poorest nations: why should each of the European G7 countries have to come up with its own relief plan?
Why should we leave it to our partners, in particular the Americans, to organise the Community's external representation for the euro, rather than acting on the decision taken at the Vienna European Council?
Cologne is set to be interesting from the employment point of view.
The Luxembourg process has taken root and is starting to produce results in terms of national employment policies that are more systematic, integrated and far-reaching. At the instigation of the German Presidency, we will be taking a further step towards the European Employment Pact which I called for back in January 1996.
To help the discussions, the Commission will be sending the European Council a communication on the best way of integrating the objective of higher employment into the formulation and implementation of Community policies and measures.
Cologne will also see the forthcoming institutional reform begin to take shape.
It is not, of course, for me to speculate what submissions Romano Prodi and the new Commission will want to make to prepare the ground for institutional reform, or what they will wish the reform to involve.
I would, however, remind you that even when it was putting Agenda 2000 together, the Commission called for the questions first raised at Amsterdam to be settled and said that a more far-reaching reform should follow.
Any delay in strengthening the institutions and the way they operate can only jeopardise the actual enlargement of the Union. The new reform must prepare the institutions for enlargement.
But it must also supply solutions to certain problems in the working of the institutions which have come to light in the last few months. So the institutions need overhauling, that much is certain.
But the overhaul must focus on the priorities, rather than just drawing up shopping lists, knowing, as we do, that we must not project the alarming image of Europe as a building site which is never completed.
There is no doubt that the job needs to be done in stages; but we certainly cannot have a state of never-ending construction work.
I would add that there is no point in dreaming up new reforms if the political will to implement what already exists is lacking.
We must build on what we have already achieved. I am thinking, for instance, of the justice and home affairs section of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
And I would call on the public and the institutions to take a close look at how intentions are converted into procedures and working methods.
Looking beyond the institutional reforms which must be put in place, I would like to plead for a consistent approach.
We cannot call for new European programmes, condemn the use of technical assistance offices and refuse to provide more human resources all at the same time.
We cannot make high-sounding declarations about the principle of subsidiarity on the one hand, and constantly demand fresh initiatives from the Commission on the other.
We cannot expect the Commission to act as a strong political driving force and at the same time give the impression of wanting to turn it into a mere secretariat for the Council or the European Parliament.
Applause from certain quarters
Some issues have already been identified: weighting the votes in the Council and reducing the number of Members of the Commission.
But we will have to go further than that if we are to carry out a thorough reform of the Treaty provisions that govern the composition of the institutions and the way they work.
Whatever happens, such a reform must include bringing in qualified majority voting as standard practice, as the President-in-Office just mentioned.
Thought also needs to be given to extending the codecision procedure.
Should we go further? Certainly.
For example, the thorny matter of collective responsibility and the individual accountability of Commissioners needs to be addressed.
The principle that policy decisions are taken collectively is, it seems to me, as vital now as it ever was, for the very legitimacy of the Commission and the European institutional system. But that should not lead to a failure of individual accountability in certain situations where decisions are not and cannot be taken collectively.
This contradiction - which is only apparent - will be resolved by the judicious exercise of the new powers enjoyed by the President of the Commission.
The Cologne European Council will therefore have to take stands on some major issues.
Be it employment, Kosovo, enlargement or the working of the institutions, the European Union must learn to speak with one voice: one voice for the 15 Member States and one voice for the institutions, too.
This does not mean that they must always follow the same line. It means that they must work together, that a constructive approach must be taken to enhancing and strengthening the Europe of the future in the eyes of our fellow citizens and to giving it the place it deserves in the international arena.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, first, as chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, starting my last public speech, I too would like to thank the President of our Parliament very much for the work we have been able to do together. I sincerely want to pay tribute to him for that, and now I will go straight on to the issue of institutional reform.
Institutional reform is on the table again and that is greatly to the credit of the German Presidency, I have to say, right from the President-in-Office's speech to Parliament in January.
Two fundamental issues have been raised: the need to hold an intergovernmental conference very early in the year 2000, with a method and timetable to be discussed, and the issue of the constitution, which Mr Verheugen has taken up, as I was delighted to discover this morning. Why do I consider it important, indeed essential, for institutional negotiations to reopen?
Because there is a need for more Europe, there is a need for Europe to have a role in the world. The historical and political context demonstrates that, and without reformed institutions and a strong political will the need for Europe cannot actually be met.
And then, as the President-in-Office said this morning, the institutional balances are out of kilter and need to be redefined.
The Council did well to appoint Romano Prodi as President so quickly, but we all know - and now President Santer has said so - there is still the problem of defining a stronger political role for the Commission.
In short, there are institutional balances to be restored.
The agenda for the intergovernmental conference must certainly cover 'the Amsterdam triangle' as it is called in Community jargon. It must certainly include qualified majority voting, which is not in fact a technical issue, as we all know, but a highly political issue calling into question the sovereignty of the nation states.
And the agenda must certainly touch on the composition of the Commission and the way the votes are weighted.
We know all that. But we need something else as well, because, as people have highlighted, the background to the intergovernmental conference in 2000 will be complex and difficult, so foreign policy and, above all, the area of freedom, security and justice are issues which must be raised again.
In our resolution we raise the problem of the method.
We do not introduce fundamental points like Article N, naturally, but we say that changes need to be made at the preparatory stage, because the intergovernmental method has proved inadequate, which is why we need to prepare differently if the intergovernmental conference is to be a success.
We are pressing, as we did before in the November 1997 Méndez de Vigo and Tsatsos resolution, for a Commission document to underpin interinstitutional coordination involving civil society and national and regional parliaments.
To put it as briefly as I can, what we need is a highly authoritative document on the intergovernmental conference table, because preparing for the intergovernmental conference in a different way may guarantee safer results in terms of reform.
That is the point!
We do not include Article N in the discussion, we do not discuss the need for final unanimity, but we do say we must prepare for this conference in a different way. Why?
Because Europe demands it, because Europe needs strong institutions!
Let me make one final reference to the issue of the constitution.
I am, I repeat, delighted that the President-in-Office returned to this subject this morning.
We know the problem today is not to write a constitution, as we have done in the past and as we have demonstrated that we are capable of doing. We know there are two problems today.
First, there is the need to simplify the principles in the Treaty to present clear rules, principles and values to the public, so that they know what we mean when we talk about Europe and Europe's constitution. Secondly, there is the area of freedom, security and justice, where flesh and blood people live and move.
Those people need legal and jurisdictional guarantees. That is why we talk about including fundamental rights in the Treaty - Mr Verheugen reminded us of that again this morning - and I believe we can build a political Europe and a people's Europe at the same time on that basis because the two either move forward together or do not move forward at all.
Thank you, Mr De Giovanni.
Given that this is your last speech, I would like to thank you, on behalf of Parliament, for all the work you have done and for your dedication and determination.
Mr President, I would like thank you for letting me speak and ask if these statements by the Council and the Commission are to be followed by motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37 of our Rules of Procedure.
Yes indeed, and they will be put to the vote tomorrow.
So they shall be put to the vote tomorrow.
This means that a special decision was taken as an exception to Rule 37(4), which states that they should normally be put to the vote on the same day.
I just wanted to verify that point.
Yes, that has been decided.
Mr President, before I begin, I would like to add my voice to the statements already made by some of my colleagues, on behalf of the political groups, congratulating you on your work.
In this case, because of the personal relationship I have had with the President for a long time, I would also like to congratulate him on having carried out his work so successfully.
I also wanted to take this opportunity to say goodbye to Mr Santer as President of the Commission, as I believe that this is the last debate he is going to attend.
I would congratulate him, too, on his work while in office.
The German Presidency has done a great deal of work since it took over.
Contrary to expectations it managed to conclude the Agenda 2000 package, which seemed extremely difficult, and now it has just informed us about the fairly ambitious programme for the Cologne European Council, on which I must congratulate it.
In his speech, the President of the Commission set out five very clear points that represent genuine requirements of the Union.
The first requirement is the European Employment Pact.
The German Presidency is right to give priority to this proposal as, in spite of other issues, there is no doubt that the main everyday problem for Europeans is employment.
The only question mark is whether or not the European Union will have sufficient resources in the years ahead to implement an employment policy of its own given that the financial perspective for the 2000-2006 period has been reduced and practically all Community policies have had to face cutbacks.
We are naturally very pleased with the specific reference to an intergovernmental conference in the year 2000, which my colleague Mr De Giovanni has already mentioned.
The question of institutional reform was clearly left unresolved at Amsterdam. If it is not resolved, enlargement will be impossible.
Allowing all the countries applying for membership of the Union to join under the present conditions would require significant changes to the structure of the EU.
This intergovernmental conference will face a difficult task, but I would still like to thank the German Presidency for having addressed the issue so clearly.
Of course, the European Union's Achilles' heel is still the common foreign and security policy, and the German Presidency has stressed the need to develop Article 17 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The first step towards creating a European defence identity - which is proving essential - is to incorporate the Western European Union into the EU system.
Another important element is the appointment of a prominent figure to be responsible for implementing this policy, in other words the CFSP High Representative.
We must point out that, from Parliament's point of view, it would have been better to leave this in the hands of the Commission, rather than trying to turn the Commission into a form of secretariat for the Council, as President Santer mentioned.
Finally, I would like to end by congratulating the German Presidency - and Mr Verheugen in particular - on the excellent work that has been done since the beginning of the year.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, we have been given an introduction here to the difficult questions facing the Cologne summit, which have to be resolved in our common interest. I am particularly grateful for the fact that so much emphasis has been put on the concept of the common foreign, security and defence policy, for Kosovo shows us how necessary it is that we achieve results in terms both of prevention and of the EU's ability to act.
If the German Presidency intends to make appropriate use of its dual presidency of the European Union and of the WEU, that is to be welcomed.
But it is also important to use the potential offered by the Treaty of Amsterdam in regard to implementing the common foreign and security policy for the genuine good of the Community and not to continue following the old methods.
Belatedly, although not too late, Russia is also being brought into the process again.
A common Russia strategy, which would establish a balance on this continent and help bring about solutions, is welcome.
But here we must not forget that in view of the many disputes we are currently facing in, for example, the field of trade, we should also improve relations with the United States.
Mr Verheugen, I would therefore cordially request you to ensure that the US-EU summit in Bonn on 19 June is also used to strengthen the partnership and cooperation between the USA and Europe, to improve its shape and also to involve the parliaments in the appropriate way.
Given the problems of unemployment, the Employment Pact is a most important subject.
However, we will be looking very carefully at the outcome of the summit and examine the distribution of tasks in terms of the role of the national states in employment policy and the European role, so as to avoid giving the mistaken impression that Europe is responsible in the wrong area.
We will also make sure we do not have a repeat at European level of the Lafontaine policy mix between monetary, financial and wage policy.
I do not know what you meant by saying the European Central Bank should be involved here like the social partners and I hope I misunderstood you.
The European Central Bank must play an entirely independent role and cannot be a component of a strategy put together by the governments.
Let me make a final remark.
Mr Méndez de Vigo will have more to say about this.
The institutional reform must be achieved in cooperation with the European Parliament, which must certainly have a better role to play at the intergovernmental conference than it did in Amsterdam, where it remained rather on the sidelines.
I hope the German Presidency of the Council will manage to ensure that.
We must make the European Union capable of enlargement by extending majority decision-making.
If in a second stage constitutional and other such questions are discussed, then it must be made clear that this will not delay the enlargement timetable.
But we should keep these questions on the agenda and I can only congratulate you on the idea that we should formulate a strategy for drawing up a charter of basic rights.
If that could be achieved in cooperation with the European Parliament and the national parliaments, it would do a great deal for the people and for the identity of the European Union.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, during the 1998 congress in The Hague, the European Movement expressed its regret that the Union now seems condemned to progress in a vast conceptual vacuum and appears to lack any political perspective at a time when it is setting off on the two greatest adventures of its history: the launch of the single currency and enlargement.
Since 1998, another major challenge has appeared: the war in Kosovo.
We must oppose all attacks on people's rights at the borders of Europe.
But I must remind you that it is not the European idea that is at issue here.
In his speech yesterday morning, Mr Prodi explained to us the fundamental values on which that is based.
What is at issue, and what should be looked at seriously by the Cologne Council, is the fact that the political leaders of certain Member States have, for far too long now, tended to hang on to the outdated remains of their national sovereignty, particularly in terms of foreign policy.
The tragedy in Kosovo, which has been on the cards for almost ten years, is a terrible illustration of this.
As a result, the European Parliament's compromise text stresses the importance of appointing the High Representative for the CFSP in Cologne. It also stresses that this High Representative must be supported by the policy planning and early warning unit and must also have the ability, through his or her personality, to play an important role.
The Liberal Group is particularly pleased that emphasis has been placed on the urgent need to strengthen institutional relations with the Western European Union, which should eventually have its own defence and prevention force.
I would now like to congratulate the chairman, Mr De Giovanni, on the text of his resolution, which, I am convinced, will serve as a reference point for the next Parliament. I must say that it was a great privilege to work with him.
To my mind, there are two key issues that should be considered in Cologne. The first of these is the timetable.
The timetable approved by the Committee on Institutional Affairs puts emphasis on the conclusion of the work of the next IGC before the first enlargement.
Only a requirement such as this will allow the applicant countries to embark on a political project, in full knowledge of the facts, where the acquis communautaire cannot be called into question.
The second issue is the method.
The method used to prepare the ground for the Treaty of Amsterdam proved to have various weaknesses.
We will therefore have to change our method. In other words, we will have to give the Commission the role it deserves, that of the driving force behind the next reform.
Mr Prodi's ambition in relation to the political authority he plans to exercise, along with his colleagues and the European Parliament, augurs well for the future; he is a committed European and we wish him every success. We would also like to thank Mr Santer for the work he has done during his time in office.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I have very carefully read and listened to the motion for a resolution tabled by Mr De Giovanni. I must take this opportunity to congratulate and thank him for his impartiality, conscientiousness and fairmindedness both in general and also as chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, in which I have participated in recent years.
I wish to highlight a few of the most important aspects of this motion and the corresponding discussions. These relate to the idea which has prevailed and which still prevails of a European constitution, the establishment of or the desire to establish a specific constituent authority at Community level and a certain and perhaps corrective interpretation of the former Article N of the Treaty.
I have read, listened and reflected.
I always taught my pupils that the law and politics must respond to the concerns of the people.
At this point in time, it is apparent to me that the people of the European Union are concerned about war, misery, social exclusion, unemployment, drug trafficking and crime in general.
As far as I have heard, they are not calling for a European constitution, unless they believe that a European constitution will solve everyone's problems.
However, I do not share this belief.
For me, a European constitution enshrining rights and duties which are not in themselves feasible and cannot be complied with is of little help with the problems currently on the minds of the people of Europe.
I also have my doubts about the European specific constituent authority.
I too believe that the constituent authority comes from the people but I also believe and would argue at the moment that we do not have a European people.
This does not mean, however, that this will not develop in the future and perhaps this should develop. Our borders are therefore not currently defined.
So I consider, or I at least share the belief, that institutional reforms must be implemented.
However, these must not assume the form of a constant building site. In particular, they must take account of the people, respond to their concerns and always include them.
To conclude, if the people are not included, the building may collapse at any moment.
And what I do not want to see, because I am a firm believer in Europe, is Europe collapsing due to any of these pitfalls.
Madam President, in the light of the structural unemployment in Europe, it is easy to understand the importance of the Cologne European Council.
To govern is to make choices, and there are various choices available.
My group feels that, given the choices set out in, for instance, the manifesto of the British and Spanish Prime Ministers, Tony Blair and José María Aznar, advocating further deregulation and greater flexibility, we would opt instead for a Franco-Italian proposal, based on relaunching active employment policies and public investment.
The Cologne European Council must be more than just a combination of good intentions, a catalogue of unconnected actions or the sum of the national employment policies.
The public would not accept this, nor would it be credible.
As far as the institutional timetable is concerned, we fully agree that institutional reform is now vital and that we must define the stages leading up to an intergovernmental conference. We can also tell the Council that Parliament has worked for many years to establish a genuine inventory of fundamental rights.
We are in the best position to help.
As regards the war in Yugoslavia, in the Balkans, and particularly in Kosovo, we must state loudly and clearly that we totally condemn the activities of the Milosevic regime in Kosovo and that it is time to consider a political solution.
In Yugoslavia or in Serbia, there are a million innocent people, a million good people who can help us stop the bombing, the widespread destruction of infrastructure and the collateral damage, and help us find a political solution in the wake of the punishment meted out not only to the Milosevic regime, but also to the population in general. The German Presidency should be particularly sensitive to this.
I would never blame the German people for the sins of the regime it had to suffer under Hitler's dictatorship, and I feel that the same should apply in Yugoslavia.
In this way, I hope that we can overcome the problems we face and come to an agreement on achieving peace for Europe.
Madam President, Presidents, ladies and gentlemen, as we have learned here in Parliament, in the alternation of presidencies what is important is not so much which country is in office or the abilities of its leading representatives as the underlying dynamic of the state of the Union.
And I really must say at this solemn moment that there is great cause for concern here.
Every person of sense now knows that the neo-liberal counter-reform has failed.
And yet we go on here as though nothing had happened and at best we keep setting up new corporative consultation mechanisms.
That is a good thing, but it is not the change of course that we need and without that change of course we will not satisfy the expectations of the peoples of Europe, who after all have been voting out the representatives of the neo-liberal counter-reform since 1995/96.
Why do we not have the courage, the strength and the imagination to bring about this change of course? In this context, as a member of the Greens I particularly regret the resignation of my old friend Oskar Lafontaine.
Instead of seeing a clear change of course in European policy in year one of the euro and a move towards a new type of economic development that can also resolve the problem of mass unemployment, we are given a European employment pact that falls far short of what the Santer initiative once contained, that falls far short of what the original proposals that came from the presidency's German Ministry of Finance contained.
It is not a question of whether the bottle is half full or half empty; it is a question of whether there will be a bottle at all or whether all that is fashioned in Cologne is a paper bottle that cannot be filled with anything.
This is a fight we will now have to engage in, to ensure that we have a bottle that we can then fill.
So I ask colleagues for their solidarity and openly welcome the European marches against mass unemployment which will bring these demands into the open again in Cologne; I hope that will help jolt the summit into action.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Cologne summit has some very important work to do and also has the important task of appointing the High Representative for the CFSP.
From that perspective, it is unfortunate - and I am continuing to stress this point - that it is still being held on the dates it was originally planned for.
If we had not had the crisis that shook the Commission, we would have found ourselves in a situation where, in spite of Parliament's requests, the European Council would have taken all the decisions without giving any consideration to the views of the voters who will be going to the polls between 10 and 13 June.
I have two requests to put to the Council.
In relation to our foreign policy and our policy towards the United Nations, the European Union must make progress and speak out on two key issues: the ratification of the Statute of the permanent Criminal Court and the moratorium on capital executions, which was requested through a vote by the United Nations Commission in Geneva.
If the Union and the presidency were to highlight these two issues in the European Council to indicate the path to be followed and the choice to be made by the Union in the months ahead, we would be making a firm commitment in two areas which, in my view, will be critical as the third millennium approaches.
As far as institutional reform is concerned, I must thank Biagio De Giovanni, the chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, for his proposals. These are to be taken into account during the next parliamentary term and by the current and future presidency.
The Group of the European Radical Alliance added an amendment which I hope will be voted through so as to add an official and formal note to the European Parliament's right to ratify any proposal for reform.
I hope that this amendment will be accepted during the vote, which is to be held shortly.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office, the European Union is currently facing an institutional crisis following the collective resignation of the Commission. Yet the lesson the Council seems to want to draw from all this is that we should actually move towards more federalism, more of a superstate and more power for the Commission.
The Heads of State and Government have already sought to appoint a more political President of the Commission, who will be responsible for exploiting all the federalist opportunities provided by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The President-designate, Mr Romano Prodi, seems to have decided, in fact, to make this a very political role.
In his speech yesterday, he spoke of his political responsibility, of the Commissioners' ability to provide political direction, of his role of political guidance and of the need for him to take an important political initiative.
In short, the nominated President of the Commission is already tending to take the position of a head of state, with an extra dose of ultra-liberal and free trade attitudes that should worry even the traditional Liberals.
The European Parliament will naturally encourage this development of government, initially through the resolution it is undoubtedly about to adopt, which hopes to make the Commission the driving force behind institutional reforms.
However, before taking any decisions, it would be wiser to wait for the second report by the Committee of Experts, which will no doubt give us an interesting insight into the workings of the institutions. The European Parliament has cautiously postponed the publication of this report until after the European elections.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations feels that the real lesson to be learned from all this is that we should restore the primacy of national democracies with a view to bringing Europe closer to the people.
In this respect, the draft Statute for Members of the European Parliament - which the Council has just approved - sends out a signal in the wrong direction.
In our view, it is totally unacceptable for the Members of this House to be paid out of the Community budget rather than by their own countries.
An elected representative must be paid by those he represents and no one else. Otherwise, we would be institutionalising a dangerous mechanism against the people; it would represent - if I may say so, Madam President - an insidious coup d'état .
Madam President, the Treaty of Amsterdam, which can be dubbed the treaty of lost opportunity, only came into force a few days ago and already it needs to have chapters on the institutional issues not resolved in Amsterdam incorporated into it to complete it.
The European Council in Cologne must remedy these omissions and do the groundwork for the reform of the Commission, the extension of qualified majority voting and the reweighting of the votes within the Council.
We are against any solution which reduces the powers of the Commission.
It must retain its independence and its power to make proposals.
These are both indispensable conditions for the fulfilment of its autonomous functions, in the general interest of the European Union.
The exercise of these prerogatives prevents the Commission from becoming a sort of Council secretariat and hence dwindling to a level inappropriate to the political role it ought to play.
It would also be improper and inappropriate for that role to dwindle into a bureaucratic one, without taking account of the need to extend the principle of subsidiarity whenever the opportunity arises.
But even if all these concerns were addressed in preparation for the summit of Heads of State and Government, that would not represent an adequate response to the gravity of the Kosovo crisis and would not make up for the notable absence of Europe from that particular trouble spot in the current affairs of the continent.
If it wants to be equal to the role it ought to be playing, Europe has got to make up its mind finally to endow itself with a means of determining its own common foreign and security policy.
A signal along those lines must go out from Cologne.
A decision must be taken to make a start on political union.
Our determination to take that route must be made clear, and it must be made clear that the European Union is going to be an active player in international relations and in dealing with crises, because it intends to equip itself with all the instruments it needs to guarantee its sovereignty and autonomy.
We need a new Treaty now and, more importantly, we need to give the starting signal and define the exact ground to be covered, and these signals must come from Cologne, especially as, with the unfortunate experience of Kosovo, public opinion is proving more sensitive than before to the role Europe can play.
Another unresolved issue, which affects the Union's ability to take action, is the lack of a common economic policy.
The single market is prey to tensions and repercussions.
A strong employment policy linked to development requires a coherent economic policy.
There must be a definite signal marking the start of an irreversible stage which will lead to the solution the Union needs to operate effectively.
The real economy of our countries needs new impetus to expand.
That impetus will not come from stock exchange indicators.
At worst, they disproportionately swell the financial bubble which dominates real economies like an incubus.
Here too Cologne must give the signal in order to define an economic policy which finally sets out the objectives to be achieved, such as a different relationship with the global market organisation, the relaunch of quality as the hallmark of the European product, and lower taxes on businesses.
We must ensure that Amsterdam is remembered as an opportunity regained rather than lost.
Madam President, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council about Cologne is, as always with presidencies of the Council - and especially the German Presidency - very ambitious.
But it is not enough just to wish the presidency of the Council and the Council as a whole good luck in achieving the objectives of the Cologne summit.
Parliament should also make it clear that we have our own ideas on the central subjects of that summit and that we want the intended measures to produce a successful outcome.
So I want to concentrate on two points.
The first is the institutional reforms and the preparations for the intergovernmental conference.
It will not surprise you, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, if I do not take the same line as my colleague Mr Elmar Brok.
If the institutions are to cooperate successfully but also if we are to secure what is eventually achieved in the intergovernmental conference for the long term and implement it successfully, then the European Parliament must be involved more closely in this conference than it was in past conferences - and I am deliberately not using the term intergovernmental conference, however much that has become common parlance - in this conference of the Member States.
I know the will is there.
And it is not just a matter of form either, nor of our wish for recognition.
It is simply a question of normal procedures among democratic institutions of which more account should be taken in future.
When you discuss the institutional reforms do remember that it is not just a question of figures but also of ensuring that the matter of Parliament's lack of power in relation to cooperation with the Council and the Commission - here I am addressing the inadequate codecision procedures - really is included in the agenda of this conference.
In addressing this, I am also addressing in very concrete terms an area which greatly concerns this Parliament, the Council and the Commission and which continues to account for nearly half the entire EU budget.
I am referring specifically to the common agricultural policy.
We cannot accept that Parliament has no codecision right in this sector that accounts for half the budget.
We really must fill this democratic gap.
That is a most important point!
My second point concerns the common foreign and security policy.
We urgently need it.
It is clear to see and everybody will understand that Parliament is not very happy with the creation of a Mr or Mrs CFSP because this does not really fit into the kind of structures we have all built up in our Member States.
But I do not want to quarrel about that now.
I would like to see progress made in the common foreign and security policy.
And that is also the view of my group.
So we say: 'OK, do it, and do it quickly!'
For sadly there is a bitter lesson we have had to learn: one cause of all that has already happened in the Balkans and that is also happening now lies in the absence of a really effective EU common foreign and security policy.
Applause
Mr President-in-Office, in the speech by President Santer - which was an excellent speech and I would like to congratulate him on it - and the speeches by my other colleagues in the House, you will find a rare unanimity.
Parliament is in favour of institutional reform and supports the presidency in its efforts to that end.
We need it for the simple reason that it was not tackled in Amsterdam.
We also need it because Parliament is in favour of enlargement and we do not want enlargement to be delayed any further because the institutions have not been reformed.
We are therefore going to support all the initiatives the German Presidency takes to implement this reform as soon as possible.
My colleague Mr Brok has already spoken about the content and I would like to speak about the method.
I believe that, through the resolution last November which Mr De Giovanni mentioned, Parliament proposed something that is as original as it is simple: the idea of using the Community method, the method we are accustomed to, in order to prepare the reform of the institutions.
We certainly do not wish to take the place of the governments, who will have to take the decisions.
What we want to do is to help make things easier for them. So, with the approval in due course of President Santer - for which I would like to pay tribute to him - we believe that one good possibility would be for the European Commission to prepare a draft, to discuss it with Parliament and to also include the national parliaments in the discussion - for a discussion is all it would be.
Eventually, we would be able to present the governments with a proposal, which we hope would receive as much support as possible.
In my view, if the Commission is in agreement, if the European Parliament is in agreement and if the national parliaments have been involved, this document would have tremendous legitimacy, and the governments and any President-in-Office would be able to accept a discussion paper.
I would point out once again that you would have the last word.
I think that this is a good possibility, Mr President-in-Office, and I would ask you to give it your consideration in Cologne.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Mr President of the Commission, you told us, Mr Santer, that Cologne would be interesting from an employment point of view and that we would be another step closer to the European Employment Pact.
This is what we hope to see.
When it was announced, our group welcomed the new approach set out in Luxembourg and in Pörtschach.
These summits were actually marked by a change of tone and confirmed that our priority was the fight against unemployment.
However, our hopes were not to be fulfilled with the subsequent Vienna summit.
We had to content ourselves with statements; no specific measures were adopted.
We hope that the Cologne summit will come up to the expectations of the people of Europe and will result in specific actions.
In light of the preparatory work, we are hopeful, since certain governments are proposing active employment policies and measures to relaunch investment.
However, the statements by Mr Prodi and other governments, which advocate competition, liberalisation, and the flexibility of work, are also casting a shadow over this hope.
As the Secretary-General of the ESC recently pointed out, we must do away with a certain dogmatism and use stability to foster growth and employment.
Our group is putting forward innovative proposals to support this growth and generate employment.
We propose to replace the stability pact with a genuine growth pact. Its main priorities would be to relaunch profitable investment, to continue lowering interest rates selectively to promote employment, to work to reduce working hours without cutting wages, to put a stop to the process of liberalisation and deregulation, and to establish a minimum wage in every Member State.
The German Presidency has rightly emphasised fiscal policy and its interaction with our economic and budget policies.
In this area too, we must be innovative by combating fiscal dumping and taxing financial transactions.
The social movement is becoming increasingly important at European level, and together with this movement we will work to ensure that these proposals contribute to a social and democratic Europe.
Mr President, NATO's war against Yugoslavia has failed in its declared objective.
It has not managed to put an end to the crimes against the people of Kosovo but instead has dramatically worsened their plight.
But this failed NATO objective, the humanitarian crisis, was the only justification for violating international law and conducting this war of aggression.
No end justifies the means.
That realisation is one of the foundations of our civilisation.
The ultima ratio has proved irrational.
All those who do not now restore the rule of law and end this war bear responsibility for the terrible violence, for the civilian victims, for the destruction of the basic means of livelihood and civilian infrastructure in Serbia, for the use of forbidden weapons.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I want to address two points: employment policy and the announced intergovernmental conference.
Let me first take this opportunity to thank both the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission for constantly bringing up and resolutely following up the question of employment policy, even though the Santer plan was not followed up to the same extent and came to nought in the Council.
So I welcome the proposal once again to conclude a European employment pact in Cologne, especially after the preliminary discussions during the Austrian Presidency.
For I think it would be very dangerous if the grave crises of today - such as Kosovo - led us to forget that we have a social crisis within the European Union.
The President-in-Office of the Council rightly said that unemployment is the most urgent social problem of our time.
I was painfully aware that the candidate for the presidency of the EU Commission failed to address this problem in equally clear and unambiguous terms yesterday.
Let me also emphasise strongly that we need closer cooperation between the European countries and between monetary, financial and wage policy.
It is an illusion to think - and I do not think anyone would pretend it was possible - that national or regional employment policy could be replaced by an EU-wide policy.
What approach the European Central Bank takes, what kind of interest-rate and monetary policy it formulates, what kind of infrastructure is built up, whether it would not finally be possible to strengthen the European infrastructure in particular, all these things have a major impact on competitiveness, on unemployment and on the employment situation in Europe.
In my view we must not desist here but must make greater efforts to coordinate these policies.
Let me make a brief comment on the second point, the intergovernmental conference.
I want to say quite openly and plainly that I am sceptical about the notion that the European Union can be reformed simply by holding a kind of intergovernmental conference.
What the President-in-Office of the Council said here today in fact backs up this scepticism, for he said that far more comprehensive reforms will have to be undertaken.
But can the representatives of governments whose powers, means of action and influence are being taken away and transferred to the European level put together a genuine reform package by themselves? After all Amsterdam did not just fail because of the ill will of individuals, it also failed for structural reasons, because of the way these matters are approached.
I believe we need a parliamentary constituent assembly in which this Parliament and the national parliaments cooperate at least as equal partners, as a complement to the intergovernmental conference, otherwise we will end up with another failed intergovernmental conference.
I think it is essential also to involve this Parliament more closely in this process.
Mr President, holding a European summit so soon before the European elections brings both dangers and opportunities.
The biggest danger is that once again not one important decision will be taken and the people of Europe will turn away in despair from the spectacle of European cooperation within Europe, which is all too frequently hesitant and deficient.
The biggest opportunity is that a number of issues will be resolved and confidence in European cooperation restored and strengthened.
A breakthrough would be both useful and necessary on three points.
The common defence and foreign policy has always been a non-starter, partly because a number of Member States have sought to retain primacy.
The drama in Kosovo and the moral and military response to it have brought the Union together for the first time in this field.
It would bring us nothing but credit if we could sustain this unity and defend this European cooperation on the basis of values such as democracy and human and minority rights.
I would strongly urge the Council to do this.
It is also just as urgent to get rid of the destructive unanimity requirement in the Council.
A second step forward should be to establish better standards and values for a social Europe.
We want a Europe which not only embraces economic and monetary cooperation but which is also concerned about unemployment, combating poverty and caring for the disabled and the elderly. In short, a Europe that seeks not only to earn money but also to be of service to a society in which humane standards carry weight.
A third breakthrough is necessary in the field of the internal democracy and transparency of the European institutions.
After the European summit in Cologne we must choose once and for all to have a Europe in which the European Parliament exercises control over all legislation and the entire budget and in which the European Commission is required to guarantee maximum transparency and management which is free from fraud.
The loopholes in the Treaty of Amsterdam in this field must be closed as soon as possible.
That is the kind of Europe we want, Mr President, a safe, social and democratic Europe which is free from fraud.
If the Cologne summit can provide an impetus for this then as far as I am concerned it will have been a success.
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, employment issues have been accorded the importance they deserve in European Union policy, and at the Cologne summit Germany will be making efforts to push through the European employment agreement.
In this regard the Amsterdam Treaty articles concerning employment can be said to be gaining substance.
In pushing through the European strategy on employment it is vital to get to grips with measures that can provide added value for national efforts.
It is especially important to ensure that Europe is competitive while still complying with agreements that have been made.
The superiority of European labour market practice must be made plainly visible through our ability to maintain growth and levels of employment by means of a system of open dialogue among the labour market organisations.
The people of Europe have been concerned, alarmed and puzzled that another war seems to be developing in the Balkans, where small children and the elderly are the ones who are suffering.
The Cologne summit must succeed in creating a credible single foreign and security policy.
High level representation alone is not enough; adequate tools for action are needed.
The European Union must take more overall responsibility in order to ensure that the situation in the Balkans grows more stable and allows different groups to coexist.
We must also immediately embark on an active programme of cooperation with Russia, just as Germany, as holder of the presidency, has done to its credit.
The present and future holders of the presidency must create an agenda for advancing the strategy on Russia.
One important ingredient in this programme is the approval and practical application of the recommended measures to be taken within the context of the northern dimension.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to devote my last speech in the European Parliament to the common foreign and security policy.
EU enlargement and the events in central Europe oblige us to make a realistic assessment of the possibilities that such a policy offers.
There is clearly movement within the European Union: Pörtschach, Saint Malo, Bremen, Berlin.
Cologne could be a historic summit.
Both Chancellor Schröder and Minister Verheugen have made optimistic statements.
There is a new awareness of the principles which must form the basis of global policy.
Europe must now determine its future responsibilities.
The principle of equal partnership with the United States must be better defined.
Strategies must be agreed.
There is a lot that can be decided now, without having to amend the Treaties.
A different timetable must be adopted than the one proposed by the Committee on Institutional Affairs.
The Western European Union should be fully integrated into the European Union in 2002, for example.
In the meantime, someone can already be appointed to be responsible for the common foreign and security policy, together with his or her deputy.
The Defence Ministers must be granted a responsible role, and we must determine the proper role for the Political Committee.
We must make it easier to increase cooperation in the field of foreign policy and security.
Self-planning and analysis can start immediately.
In the light of Pörtschach it is very important to determine exactly what the 'European pillar' involves.
It is now time to give real substance to the European defence identity. My hope is that the European Council will understand what is now at stake and make Cologne a success.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, it is a very good thing that the German Presidency is to give the starting signal for another intergovernmental conference at the EU summit in Cologne.
We must make progress with the democratisation of the EU.
The core elements of this are as follows: majority voting as the rule, a new weighting of votes in the Council, structural changes in the Commission and the European Parliament's right of assent on all treaty changes.
The distinction between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure could also be done away with.
But if our end is to be democratisation, it must also be the means.
That is why we have to apply the Community method to future reforms, which means that the Commission must make the first proposals; it is essential, I repeat essential, for the European Parliament to be distinctly more involved!
With the Amsterdam Treaty, Agenda 2000 and the euro, the EU has acquired a new quality; with the military operations in Kosovo its face has changed.
All this also brings us up against the question of the constitution we now have and the constitution that we need.
It is clear that however much we appreciate the presidents and grandees who presided over the beginning of European integration and the Community treaties, today we must give priority to basic rights and declare confidently that we, the citizens of Europe, are building a Europe of freedom, peace and solidarity.
Human dignity, justice and the social welfare state are both the means and the end.
The Biagio De Giovanni resolution sets out a guideline for the years to come.
The German Government deserves our support for its commitment.
Mr President, the next few years will determine the new strategy, the new shape of the map of Europe.
The question is whether we succeed in having a policy which includes the whole continent or whether, through possibly unenlightened choices, we stir up old divisions, create new clashes and open up a kind of trench across the heart of Europe.
Mr President, the Balkan question must be dealt with, that is certain.
But to do that it is vital to get Russia firmly involved in the right way.
Finally that has been understood.
We ourselves cannot settle these sorts of separation issues.
The response must be loud and clear.
I support the programme you have presented: the European constitution and the new Charter that it must include.
The problems of unemployment must be confronted with renewed vigour.
I think it is very important that we have spoken with one voice.
It is vital for European policy that we speak with one voice.
But we also need to speak with the right voice.
And the right voice cannot be just the voice of war, it must be a diplomatic voice and a political voice too, capable of finding the space to resolve the problems.
We are not at war with Serbia, but we are trying to make Serbia respect fundamental human rights, and we need to be able to take advantage of every means available to us.
There is an opening at the moment.
The European Union must keep talking and move things even further forward.
Mr President, I support the proposal for peace and stability.
Its aims coincide with our established position.
I want to thank President Santer because, if Parliament is to grow strong, it must also be responsible.
Too much presumption can sometimes lead to conflicts which cause imbalances.
That is why we need a European constitution and that is why we need a high level response, which should come from the Cologne summit.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my feeling is that, in addition to enlargement, the European Union is now needs to give specific political responses to a series of problems on which our future really depends. These responses must be understood by the people or, to put it another way, they must be 'user-friendly' for the men and women of Europe.
At the top of the list is the need for effective coordination of economic policies and for an employment pact. This requires the political will to use the opportunities created by the euro for this purpose.
We need a security and justice policy which meets the expectations and requirements to defend the freedoms of the people.
In particular, in view of the Balkan issue, we clearly need, but are genuinely lacking, a common foreign and security policy.
I agree with those who have said that if the political will existed, the current Treaties could allow us to achieve a great deal.
The political will to use the current Treaties in this way has been lacking and I fear that when the 'cold war' ends, there are some who may lose the desire for political integration which is at the root of our achievements and of peace in Europe.
I congratulate the German Presidency of the Council for its decision to hold the Intergovernmental Conference although it may find that this should take place using a Community procedure.
The institutional reforms or the desire to limit the IGC to the three reforms from Amsterdam, including the weighting of votes and the number of Commissioners, are restrictive.
I fear that this is hiding the idea of a return to an intergovernmental Europe with a 'governing body' consisting of the large Member States.
I am saying this straight out as I feel that this is the essence of many speeches.
I believe that if we can bring to the fore the idea of a constitutional and citizenship pact, this must primarily imply a reinforced political will for political integration to overcome nationalism. Note that I am saying this at a time when war has reignited in the Balkans.
Our way forward must be through integration because, as Mitterrand said here in this House, 'nationalism is war'.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your contributions to this debate, which I regard as on the whole giving strong encouragement to the German Presidency's programme for the Cologne summit which I have presented.
Let me very briefly give my position on four questions that many Members have raised here.
The first is the question of the basic perspective, the basic strategy.
Quite contrary to some fears expressed here, it would seem that Europe is coming closer together in face of the crisis and that the processes of integration are acquiring a new dynamic, both internally and in terms of the area covered, quite simply because, as I have said once before in this Parliament, the European alternatives are becoming clearer than ever before in this time of crisis, namely the alternative represented by this Parliament, which is an integrated Europe, a Europe based on peace, stability and prosperity, and on the other side the old picture of Europe that we see in the Balkan wars: nationalism resulting in war, expulsion and misery.
When we look at these alternatives we see that there is a very distinct trend throughout Europe towards European integration.
We must exploit and strengthen that trend.
Let me give a small example. The fact that last week the Council called on the Commission urgently to submit a proposal to conclude association negotiations with Albania and Macedonia means that we are actually 10 to 20 years ahead of time, for under normal circumstances this could not have been envisaged until at least ten years' hence.
It is the political circumstances that are forcing us to rethink our strategy and really make use of the dynamic that has now been created.
The second question concerns the Employment Pact.
Let me say that in terms of substance it is not an employment policy action plan.
That remains within the remit of the responsible national leaders.
The Federal Republic of Germany, for instance, has already submitted its national plan and is trying to implement it; it has earmarked DM 2 billion for a special plan to create 100 000 training places and jobs for unemployed young people.
That is what we expect of the Member States.
What the European Employment Pact can achieve is a commitment to ends and also to means, and above all macro-economic coordination. We should not underestimate the importance of that coordination, for it did not work adequately in the past.
In this context, the macro-economic dialogue between the institutions on the one hand and with the social partners and the European Central Bank on the other represents a new and important element.
It is not a question of in any way diminishing the Central Bank's independence, but it obviously must be included in any dialogue on macro-economic coordination.
After all, it has very crucial instruments available to it and surely it is better for people to sit down together and talk to each other - and the European Central Bank can evaluate the real expectations in Europe - than to engage in public quarrels and battles that cannot produce any practical results.
My second point in this connection is that of course we must optimise the financial resources and instruments available to the European Union and in particular to the Commission with a view to creating employment.
As I understood President Santer, the report he intends to submit is aimed at achieving precisely that objective.
My third point concerns the institutional reforms.
I would not like to see any misunderstanding arise here.
What the German Presidency is envisaging is the beginning of a medium and long-term process whose end we cannot even foresee, just as we cannot even foresee its scale.
Embedded within this process are concrete steps that we can see clearly and that we should take as soon as possible, rather than embarking on some huge reform project that encompasses everything, an intergovernmental conference on a scale never seen before; that would lead to the kind of failure never seen before either.
The rational course is to decide step by step what can be decided, while always remembering that we are engaged in a more broadly-based process that will basically be a process of social discussion, a process of parliamentary discussion.
The first two steps are, therefore, as I have said: firstly, to tackle the famous leftovers of Amsterdam and examine the question whether our present situation as regards relations between the institutions will force us to make further changes to the Treaty, and secondly, the charter of basic rights, which, as I said, will have to be formulated by the parliaments.
My last point goes back to what Mr Tindemans and others have said.
I am extremely grateful to Mr Tindemans for speaking so plainly, for his urgent appeal that we finally do what we should have done long ago.
The German Presidency has undertaken to do a great deal here.
It wants Europe to do more than just speak, but to act, to take a real leap forward now, to actually use the instruments at our disposal, for in the end they are all there.
They are all there in the Amsterdam Treaty.
They are all there in the various institutions concerned with security in Europe.
We just have to put it all together and fashion it into a meaningful whole.
It is a question of political will and nothing else.
It is not a question of not having the necessary means or legal bases.
It is simply a question of political will.
I cannot foresee today whether the Heads of State and Government will muster this strong political will to take the necessary step and open up the new dimension of integration that we urgently need. But I promise you that we will make every effort to achieve this.
And all in all I am optimistic, because the situation we now find ourselves in truly does force us to draw the conclusions that should have been drawn a long time ago.
I have received eight motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) and Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure on the European Council meeting in Cologne and the oral questions on institutional reform.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Agenda 2000
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
Report (A4-0264/99) by Ms McCarthy and Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation laying down general provisions on the Structural Funds (6959/99 - C4-0189/99-98/0090(AVC));
Recommendation G. Collins (A4-0218/99) - Proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1164/94 establishing a Cohesion Fund(6958/1/99 - C4-0195/99-98/0104(AVC)) Committee on Regional Policy;
Report (A4-0228/99) by Mr G. Collins, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Annex II to Regulation (EC) No 1164/94 establishing a Cohesion Fund (COM(98)0130 - C4-0312/98-98/0118(CNS));
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0246/99), on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on the European Regional Development Fund (6405/01/99 - C4-0182/99-98/0114(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna); Procedure modified following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0250/99), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a Council Regulation on the European Social Fund (6406/1/99 - C4-0183/99-98/0115(SYN)) (Rapporteur: Mrs Jöns); Procedure modified following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam
Second report (A4-0244/99) by Mr Arias Cañete, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposals for: I. a Council Regulation (EC) on structural assistance in the fisheries sector(COM(98)0728 - C4-0101/99-98/0347(CNS))II. a Council Regulation laying down the detailed rules and arrangements regarding Community structural assistance in the fisheries sector(COM(98)0728 - C4-0101/99-98/0347(CNS));
Second report (A4-0191/99) by Mr Barón Crespo, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on coordinating aid to the applicant countries in the framework of the pre-accession strategy (COM(98)0551 - C4-0606/98-98/0094(CNS));
Second report (A4-0214/99) by Mr Sonneveld, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) for Community support for pre-accession measures for agriculture and rural development in the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the pre-accession period (COM(98)0153 - C4-0244/98-98/0100(CNS));
Second report (A4-0238/99) by Mr Walter, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing an instrument for structural policies for pre-accession (COM(98)0138 - C4-0301/98-98/0091(CNS));
Supplementary report (A4-0146/99) by Lord Tomlinson, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) amending Regulation No 2728/94 establishing a Guarantee Fund for external actions (COM(98)0168 - C4-0302/98-98/0117(CNS));
Second report (A4-0229/99) by Mr Görlach, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund (EAGGF) (COM(98)0158 - C4-0297/98-98/0102(CNS));
Second report (A4-0213/99) by Mr Mulder, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the financing of the common agricultural policy (COM(98)0158 - C4-0298/98-98/0112(CNS));
Second report (A4-0231/99) by Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation establishing common rules for direct support schemes under the common agricultural policy (COM(98)0158 - C4-0299/98-98/0113(CNS));
Second report (A4-0212/99) by Mr Garot, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the common organisation of the market in beef and veal (COM(98)0158 - C4-0294/98-98/0109(CNS));
Second report (A4-0232/99) by Mr Goepel, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on: I. the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on the common organisation of the market in the milk and milk products sector(COM(98)0158 - C4-0295/98-98/0110(CNS))II. the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) No. 3950/92 establishing an additional levy in the milk and milk products sector(COM(98)0158 - C4-0296/98-98/0111(CNS));
Second report (A4-0215/99) by Mr Fantuzzi, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on: I. the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1766/92 establishing a support mechanism for producers of certain arable crops(COM(98)0158 - C4-0293/98-98/0108(CNS))II. the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No. 1766/92 on the common organisation of the market in cereals and repealing Regulation (EEC) No. 2731/75 fixing standard qualities for common wheat, rye, barley, maize and durum wheat(COM(98)0158 - C4-0292/98-98/0107(CNS));
Second report (A4-0223/99) by Mr P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on the common organization of the market in wine (COM(98)0370 - C4-0497/98-98/0126(CNS));
Report (A4-0230/99) by Mr Colom i Naval, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on: - the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on the establishment of new financial perspective for the period 2000-2006 (COM(98)0164 - C4-0304/98), and- the report on the implementation of the interinstitutional agreement of 29 October 1993 on budgetary discipline and improving the budgetary procedure - proposals for renewal (COM(98)0165 - C4-0305/98);
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0265/99) by Mr Kellett-Bowman, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the common position adopted by the Council on the adoption of the Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2236/95 laying down general rules for the granting of Community financial aid in the field of trans-European networks (C4-0006/99-98/0101(COD)).Procedure modified following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam
Mr President, I would like to make a point of order.
Parliament's services have informed us that this joint debate on Agenda 2000 will begin with statements by the Council and the Commission, which will then be followed first by the speeches by the groups rather than the speeches by the rapporteurs.
I would like to know if this is correct, and if so, can you tell me on what basis this decision was taken, as it is a totally abnormal procedure?
In fact, in my 14 years in this House, I cannot remember a time when the groups spoke before the rapporteurs on any budget report.
I would like to know if my information is correct and what procedure we are going to follow.
The decision on this matter was taken at the Conference of Presidents and it is binding on us so we will proceed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Berlin Agenda 2000 package, which accounts for a volume of more than EUR 680 billion, probably contains the most comprehensive reform of EU policies in the history of the Union.
It includes a solid financial framework up to the year 2006, substantial reforms to the common agricultural policy and to structural policy, as well as changes to the own resources decision that take greater account of the Member States' financial situation and help distribute the burden more fairly.
Agenda 2000 was concluded in accordance with the timetable fixed by the European Council in Cardiff, which demonstrated that the European Union is able to act under increasingly difficult conditions.
This prompt agreement paves the way to enlargement eastward.
It is also an important precondition for the seamless continuation of structural policy as from 1 January 2000.
Let me briefly repeat the key elements of the reform.
On the common agricultural policy: the Berlin package contains the widest-reaching reform ever of the common agricultural policy.
The gradual approximation of support prices to the world market price level, flanked by direct payments, prepares our undertakings for the further liberalisation of world trade that is taking place now.
Among the key elements of the reform package are the further development of the rural development policy, including improved support for environmentally compatible farming methods.
On structural policy: the distinct tightening up of structural policy through internal concentration, which means fewer objectives and fewer Community initiatives, and through concentrating the range of supports will increase efficiency.
The structural resources will be concentrated on the genuinely needy regions, especially by giving clear priority to Objective 1 regions and by continuing the Cohesion Fund.
An additional priority will be to combat unemployment. To that end, the Objective 3 funds, intended to support employment measures, will be increased substantially.
For the years 2000 to 2006, a total of EUR 24 billion will be made available.
On the financing system: the European Council has recognised that there are still budgetary imbalances in the financing of the Union and has provided for changes to the existing own resources system in order to take more account of the Member States' ability to pay and thus make their contributions fairer.
In the Council's view, it is particularly important that in spite of these comprehensive reforms it proved possible to stabilise expenditure.
The ceiling of EU expenditure remains 1.27 % of the European Union's gross national product, and we will continue to remain below this ceiling.
In the year 2006, expenditure will account for 1.13 % of the EU's gross national product.
That is equivalent to the 1999 value.
The resources allocated to enlargement up to the year 2006 are included in this figure, in this 1.13 %.
The expenditure for the EU of 15 members is to be EUR 686 billion up to 2006 and will be kept constant in real terms, which means that for the first time we will now also be achieving at European level what the Member States have already achieved, namely strict budgetary discipline, strict expenditure discipline and keeping budgetary increases in line with economic requirements.
In real terms, agricultural expenditure will be restricted to an average of EUR 40.5 billion a year for market measures plus about EUR 13 billion for rural development over the period 2000 to 2006.
That means that agricultural expenditure will be stabilised at the 1999 level.
The Agenda 2000 reform package represents a major step towards enlargement.
In agricultural policy, by placing more emphasis on the world market and the environment, we will now be giving agriculture in the accession countries a good basis for agricultural policy planning.
That will make it easier for them to integrate in the European single market.
A sum of about EUR 22 billion is being made available for pre-accession aid, together with a further EUR 58 billion for enlargement-related expenditure, which means that over the financing period a total of EUR 80 billion is available for enlargement, although it can only be spent if enlargement actually takes place.
These resources cannot be transferred for other purposes.
As regards financial precautions, as I have already pointed out we are still below the own resources ceiling, which means we have a quite considerable financial margin of 0.14 % of the EU gross national product to provide for unforeseen expenditure.
What is crucial now is for the political decisions to be implemented rapidly by the adoption of the necessary legal acts, i.e. the prompt conclusion of the legislative procedure.
I want to stress that we are all responsible for the success of this historic reform package.
It is now up to the European Parliament to decide on Agenda 2000.
Let me point out that the conciliation procedure agreed between the Austrian Presidency and Parliament has proved to be extremely successful and useful.
Parliament was kept fully informed on a regular basis of the progress of work on Agenda 2000 and the Commission and the Council took account of Parliament's views in their deliberations.
There was not just an exchange of ideas but a genuine process of mutual influence, which I felt was extremely important and which also went a very long way to meet Parliament's view of itself as an institution with a genuine say.
So I am confident that the European Parliament will take a responsible approach in exercising its rights to participate in the decisions on the regulations on the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
Let me point out again that the presidency has made considerable efforts to achieve a result that pleases and satisfies all parties concerned, not just Parliament but the Member States too.
If you will allow me, I will make a personal comment now - after all this is probably also my last appearance in the European Parliament. It is interesting to note that an agenda such as Agenda 2000 is of course also a fight between the Member States for the money available for distribution.
Indeed a very large sum of money has to be distributed.
That is why it was not really surprising to find that prior to the Cologne summit there was criticism from various sides about the presidency's strategy, about the way the negotiations were conducted; but since the Berlin summit, the situation has been assessed quite differently.
All the European capitals have voiced unanimous praise and agreement, which shows that we have achieved what we wanted to achieve.
Nobody won in Berlin, and nobody lost either.
Everyone made their contribution to the compromise and everyone gained something from this compromise.
In that respect I think I am entitled to say that it was a successful summit.
I would like to thank all the committee members, the chairmen of the committees involved and Parliament's rapporteurs for their good cooperation over the past months.
I do not think I need at this point give a detailed list of the many amendments proposed by Parliament and which the Council accepted.
You know all that.
But I would like to mention the most recent example of the Council's willingness to compromise with Parliament, namely the fact that the URBAN Community initiative is now being continued thanks to Parliament's pressure.
We also managed to find a compromise solution on the question of the financing of URBAN.
Moreover, the Council stated that it was prepared to negotiate at a given time about making up to EUR 200 million available from the budget's flexibility reserve to offset the cost of innovative measures.
That is a good example of the successful cooperation between the Council and Parliament.
I also had a strong personal commitment to the success of this agenda, which is why I appeal to you to approve the package before you.
I believe that both sides, the Council and Parliament, have done as much as they could.
There are still some wishes that have not been satisfied, nobody disputes that.
We, I, the presidency, still have some wishes that were not satisfied.
But we must never forget that this kind of negotiated result simply represents what 15 Member States can do together at a given time, and given that we were 15, we could do no more.
We could perhaps have achieved more had we been 14, or 13 or 12, but not with 15 Member States.
What we have before us is what the 15 can achieve at this point in time.
Parliament can do more, I know that, but when you take your decision please do not forget that the Member States are firmly convinced that they have reached the limits of what they can do.
It is also necessary in the interest of the people, of the citizens of Europe, for the necessary regulations to be adopted and for there to be no delays.
Many European regions have to adjust to the changes resulting from Agenda 2000.
We should not ask them to accept a period of insecurity and uncertainty.
Thank you for your attention!
Applause
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, Agenda 2000 is being adopted against the background of the Kosovo crisis.
Nothing could make it clearer how important it is to safeguard and deepen European integration.
As European history has shown, it takes far more than the absence of war for societies to develop peacefully in the long term.
Democracy, respect for human rights, tolerance, security and economic and social stability form the basis of the success of the EU and the personal welfare of each individual.
The humanitarian disaster in Kosovo makes enlargement eastward and the democratic and economic stabilisation of the Balkans even more urgent, in the interests not only of the people in Central and Eastern Europe but also of our own security.
Against this background, we cannot overestimate the importance of financially safeguarding the enlargement process through Agenda 2000 and of the positive signal the Community is thereby giving the states applying for accession.
But we must do more than this, which is why it is right and necessary that over and above Agenda 2000 the Council has also declared itself willing to cover the additional resources needed for the Balkans by, if necessary, reviewing the financial perspective.
So far Europe has been able to develop a social system that broadly guarantees democracy, cultural diversity, competitiveness and solidarity.
The various pillars - the single market, economic and monetary union and promoting economic and social cohesion - have helped achieve that.
Agenda 2000 safeguards these pillars and allows us to further develop the European system for the future.
The adoption by the European Parliament of Agenda 2000 will conclude a two-year process of intensive discussions and negotiations.
By in a sense anticipating Amsterdam, if I may put it that way, the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament have proved through a process of increasingly close coordination and positive give and take that it is possible to achieve results that will help the EU as a whole to make progress.
It makes no difference that this is a genuine compromise, meaning that not everyone could obtain all they wanted, and that it is a compromise that produces more satisfactory results in some areas than in others.
Let me thank the presidencies involved, and in particular the presidency of the Council and Chancellor Schröder, for the fact that they managed, by persevering with the negotiations, to bring about agreement between the Member States.
That was a success for Europe during a difficult time.
And let me thank Parliament not just for the numerous improvements to the original proposals but above all for its constructive approach and the great flexibility it displayed, which made it possible to reach agreement so quickly.
I have already said that not everything has been resolved in an equally satisfactory manner.
Mr Fischler will talk about this in detail later in relation to agricultural policy.
The Commission regrets that it did not prove possible in Berlin to adopt at least those reforms that the agriculture ministers had already decided.
The watering down of the reforms in the cereals and milk sector raises a number of questions.
The review clause in the cereals sector shows that the Heads of State and Government have not even excluded the possibility, perhaps indeed the necessity, of further improvements.
With the postponement of the milk reform to the end of the 2000-2006 period, the costs of the reform were merely postponed to the next financing period, without removing the market imbalances.
But one positive aspect I would like to emphasise is that the Council has adopted the Commission's proposals on the second pillar, on the consolidation of rural development policy, almost unchanged.
That not only underpins sustainable development in the rural regions but also gives the European Parliament a new power of codecision on agricultural matters, for in future this expenditure will be shown as non-compulsory.
So that too satisfies a major demand by Parliament.
The division of the traditional agricultural guideline into two sub-headings that this calls for will in fact require stricter budgetary discipline in the organisations of the markets.
But overall, the agricultural reform is an important step towards a competitive agriculture in Europe.
The second major pillar of Agenda 2000 is the reform of regional and cohesion policy.
It is a sign of the close cooperation between all concerned that this reform strengthens the policy of social and economic cohesion in the European Union.
Even if the financial resources for the next funding period remain a little below what the Commission originally proposed, one major success is that the level of Community solidarity with the poorest and structurally weakest regions of the Union is being maintained without any cutbacks and that the Cohesion Fund is being continued.
In this context I think it is important to point out that the Structural Funds, with their declining expenditure profile, make an important contribution to consolidating the budget, although Community solidarity with the structurally weakest regions remains fixed at the highest level of the last funding period, namely at the level of 1999.
That was only possible because this time the principle of concentration really could be applied successfully.
The structurally weakest Objective 1 regions will receive not just two thirds but this time as much as 70 % of all Structural Funds resources.
The criteria relating to eligibility for aid and to the level of that aid are not just objective and transparent, they are also being observed strictly and without exception and I believe that is an important point which will also be significant for the future.
In regard to implementation and management, we will in future look to decentralisation, a clear distribution of tasks and responsibilities, building up partnership at all levels and substantially improving monitoring, control and evaluation.
Since the European Court of Auditors and Parliament's Committee on Budgets have taken a very positive view of these aspects of the Commission's proposal, I am confident that this has created the conditions for better control in future than in the past by the Commission, the European Parliament and the Court of Auditors of the financial settlement and efficiency of the resources allocated.
But above all, the principle of concentration means concentration on the Union's political priorities.
So all the Structural Funds will now concentrate on creating secure jobs for the future, which means employment-intensive growth, strengthening the competitiveness and innovative power of the regions, sustainable development and promoting skills and equal opportunities.
That applies in particular to the European Social Fund, which Mr Flynn will be discussing in more detail later on.
As an instrument of labour market policy and of the development of human resources, it will also form the core of the European employment strategy, an active labour market policy.
Equal access to the employment market for all, lifelong learning, the adaptability of workers and undertakings and positive actions in favour of women are key elements here.
We cannot have an effective structural policy unless we establish closer partnership.
Here the Commission fully agrees with the European Parliament and I am sure that Parliament will ensure in future too that adequate attention is paid to this in the everyday implementation of the Structural Funds reform.
Partnership between the Commission and Parliament also includes the code of conduct that we have agreed.
Parliament has also succeeded in its call for all the structural measures for fisheries to be brought together under Category 2 and for unified horizontal planning.
At the last minute, as Mr Verheugen pointed out, it even proved possible to strengthen the urban dimension of the Structural Funds through the fourth Community initiative, URBAN, called for by Parliament.
Agenda 2000 is also the necessary condition for the enlargement process.
With its pre-accession aid and the gradual inclusion of the Central and Eastern European countries, the agenda is mobilising a package of EUR 80 billion for economic development in Central and Eastern Europe.
Here it is drawing on proven instruments to reduce infrastructure weaknesses in transport and the environment and it will try to ensure that these instruments are effectively linked to the existing PHARE and Interreg instruments.
It is important to the implementation of the Agenda 2000 package for the new interinstitutional agreement to establish a solid, seven-year financial framework.
Agreement was reached on the following points during the negotiations. By limiting expenditure, the EU is contributing to budgetary consolidation on a Europe-wide basis.
At the same time, the financing of Community policy is guaranteed in the medium term.
Moreover, the financial distribution system is fairer.
I know that not all Members are convinced of the merits of the proposed interinstitutional agreement.
That is why I would stress that it is also in Parliament's interest that the implementation of Agenda 2000 is not jeopardised by annual budgetary conflicts.
Mr Liikanen will be confirming this when he gives his views later.
At any rate the Commission believes that it is very much thanks to the European Parliament that the necessary budgetary discipline will not create a burden for the poorest members of the Community, that at the same time this expenditure discipline enables us to tie up an important enlargement package and that we have achieved additional margins for manoeuvre in internal policy areas and in regard to administrative tasks, which will enable us on the one hand to underpin the emerging economic and employment upswing and on the other to put the administration in a position really to shoulder the additional new tasks.
In light of the debates we have had here in past months, I believe that is an important common aim.
The Agenda 2000 reforms encompass EU policy areas that directly concern the people of Europe.
These proposals open up new personal prospects for many people.
It is your privilege, by the adoption of the legislative proposals on Agenda 2000, to lay an important foundation stone not just for fulfilling the expectations of our people but also for the Europe of the future.
That is why I hope they will find broad support and on behalf of the entire Commission let me say that I am grateful for the excellent cooperation with the European Parliament on the Agenda 2000 package.
Applause
Thank you Commissioner Wulf-Mathies.
The debate will be resumed at 3 p.m. this afternoon.
Mr Skinner has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, yesterday the Council's representatives agreed to an effective ban across the European Union on white asbestos and yet there are some concerns that there will be unnecessary delays in the signature of this particular document, which Parliament has played a very positive role in bringing to the fore.
Could we use your good offices to ensure that we encourage the Commission to take the steps needed to avoid any unnecessary delays?
Thank you very much.
I will do that.
VOTES
My congratulations to the President-designate.
Standing ovation
Welcome
At the request of Mr Cox, I should like to welcome Mr Dedaj, chairman of the Liberal Party of Kosovo and Vice-President of the Kosovo Parliament, who is present with us in the official gallery.
Loud and sustained applause
VOTES (continuation)
Mr President, I do not think you can suspect me of wanting to prevent us from having a statute for Members by using procedural tricks.
However, as chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities, I would like to say that I do not consider Amendments Nos 2 and 25 to be admissible, pursuant to Rule 125 of our Rules of Procedure.
In my view, these two amendments aim to replace at least two, if not three, paragraphs of the resolution presented to us and, as a result, I do not believe that they are admissible.
I would also like to say that Parliament is not doing itself any great favours by seeking to push its Rules of Procedure to their limits in order to fulfil political objectives.
Having said that, I am completely in favour of a statute for Members of the European Parliament and believe that it should be introduced as soon as possible, but not by means of a violation of Parliament's procedures and of our Rules of Procedure.
Applause
Yes, Mr Fayot, we have examined these amendments very carefully.
They do not replace the text in its entirety, but only part of the text.
Mixed reactions
That is why, after consulting the services responsible, we decided that they were admissible.
Moreover, the Legal Affairs Committee, which had some doubts, held a vote in a very similar case on one of the proposed texts, which was rejected.
Mr President, I agree with Mr Fayot: it is irresponsible to adopt a text for a statute that could not be examined in the committees!
Applause
I also want to raise another point of order.
I have the official voting list at hand.
I see that on paragraph 1 you want to begin with Amendment No 2.
Let me point out that my group tabled an Amendment No 27 to delete paragraph 1.
There can hardly be an amendment that departs further from the text than one that deletes a paragraph.
So I would ask you to begin by voting on Amendment No 27.
Applause
Mr Rothley, although the services responsible inform me that the other amendments depart further from the text, I agree with you that an amendment seeking to delete a paragraph is always the one that departs furthest from the text.
So everyone will naturally know what they will have to vote on later.
This is not a matter of judging votes in advance; we are trying to comply with the Rules of Procedure.
And in my view, an amendment that seeks to delete a paragraph always departs further from the text than an amendment that seeks to replace it.
As a result, as the rapporteur said, we will vote firstly on Amendment No 27, which seeks to delete the paragraph from the rapporteur's resolution.
I am very sorry, but I must comply with the Rules.
We are therefore going to begin with the vote on Amendment No 27.
Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, we have a very long vote ahead of us and we must get through it peacefully.
We are not going to open a debate on the Rules now.
Once again, I am sorry, but we must proceed with the vote.
Mr President, I would simply like to make a point of order pursuant to Rules 4 and 125.
The French Members from the National Front are present in the House.
However, we will not take part in the vote on the amendments for a fundamental legal reason: we are national Members representing 15 different nations, not a single European nation.
Moreover, to accept a statute for Members of the European Parliament would be to change our status from being a matter of international law to being a matter of internal constitutional law.
We do not want that, which is why we will not take part in the vote.
Mixed reactions
Very well, that is your right.
We note the fact that you are present, but not taking part in the vote.
Mr President, I am somewhat surprised that Members are forced to act as if they are in a fairground to be able to speak in Parliament. However, apart from that, I would simply like to say that this is the first time that I have seen in a House such as ours a situation where two opposing views are set out, one by the services responsible and the other by the chairman of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure - who is elected by his peers - and where that of the relevant services has prevailed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, after the votes on the Rothley report on the Statute for Members, I can only confirm that the opinion delivered by the Commission pursuant to Article 190(5) of the Amsterdam Treaty stands unchanged.
Applause
Madam President, after 10 years the circle is complete.
My first report in this House concerned the basis of Europe's development policy towards Asia and Latin America.
In that report, or in the Commission's proposal, there was no mention of women, displaced persons and certainly not the environment.
None of this was there.
The words simply did not appear in the text.
Today they lie at the very heart of Europe's development policy.
We have just voted on my latest report in which we introduce a budget heading for environmental policy in the context of development policy.
I should like to thank all my colleagues for the way we have been able to work together over the past 10 years.
I have an announcement to make.
Those Members who are obliged to leave the sitting are asked to leave their card in the appropriate voting terminal.
Since I have to make this announcement and this is the last voting time over which I shall preside, I should like to take the opportunity to say how much I have appreciated your cooperation, and to give my best wishes to the House.
The House rose to applaud Mrs Fontaine
Madam President, perhaps we will have to invite Mr Romano Prodi to attend our explanations of vote, but I imagine that this situation will not arise again during the next Parliament.
I simply want to tell him, on behalf of the French Socialists, that we voted in favour of his appointment today by a large majority.
However, I would like to remind him that we are committed to a Europe of the heart, a Europe of solidarity, and not a Europe of markets alone.
We have already experimented with the formulas of a lesser role for the state and the blind belief that the rules of competition or liberalisation generate employment.
We no longer believe in them.
We know that to create jobs again we will need further growth and growth that will actually generate employment.
And we would call on Mr Prodi to present us with proposals in that direction.
Equally, in terms of a social Europe, our people would not understand why no progress was being made.
I would like to make one final comment, Madam President.
At a time when a war is breaking out in our continent, we do not understand how religious diversity is not respected.
As far as we are concerned, the principle of secularism is a founding principle of our Union.
Non-discrimination as regards religion has been enshrined in our Treaty.
We will judge Mr Prodi on his respect for this commitment.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I voted against the appointment of Mr Romano Prodi.
His speech before Parliament was marked by the most traditional form of liberalism; it was dull and lacking in any vision for the future.
There is nothing in his statements that refers clearly to the need to defend and update the European social model.
There is nothing about the need for a new pact that balances the forces of labour and the holders of capital.
There is nothing about the redistribution of wealth.
The social Europe does not concern him.
But it does concern millions of Europeans.
He is not proposing any serious strategy to promote employment, preferring to suggest that we simply follow the same monetarist macro-economic policy we have been following for years, a policy that has proved ineffective in terms of establishing sustainable growth and significantly reducing unemployment.
He made a long plea regarding the need to continue with deregulation and the liberalisation of all sectors of the economy.
I did not hear him defending general interest services or public services.
In short, his commitments have very little to do with the hopes and expectations of the people, who have demonstrated their desire for change and elected Socialist or Social Democrat governments in most of our countries.
Mr Prodi is telling them that tomorrow will be just like yesterday.
We cannot accept that.
I was also surprised to see Mr Prodi making an explicit reference to Christian values as a form of heritage that should be defended in Europe.
Of course, I am not raising any objections to these values, nor am I denying Mr Prodi his freedom of conscience, but I support the principle of secularism - which rightly guarantees this fundamental liberty everywhere and for everyone - and I therefore expect a President of the Commission to uphold this principle. But I have my doubts about that.
Mr Prodi has the right to be a Christian Democrat, but I expect the European Union, where most of the governments are left-wing, to be led by someone who is likely to embody these ideals and these policies.
That does not seem to be the case.
Madam President, I have no confidence in President-designate Romano Prodi because he has justified NATO's war by calling it 'necessary'. This is a war in Europe initiated and conducted in violation of every principle of international law, in contempt of the United Nations.
The Treaty establishing the Atlantic Alliance states that it is a defensive organisation, but NATO's war in Yugoslavia actually perverts the nature of that vocation.
So a dark and bloody conflict has broken out on our continent, and now no one is in any position to predict the outcome or calculate the consequences for the future of our European peoples.
By calling for an the immediate end to the ethnic massacres and the bombing, in the name of the 'European soul', President-designate Romano Prodi could have taken an influential and balanced role, decisive for the future work of the Commission.
He did not do so, he identified himself with the interventionists, and lost a precious and long-awaited opportunity.
Applause from the left
I voted in favour of the nominee for President this time round, whereas in July 1994 I voted against Mr Santer.
Unfortunately, I was not mistaken then, as events have now demonstrated.
I hope that the political will indicated by Mr Prodi to reestablish the balance between the institutions will bear fruit so that the Commission can reassume its essential political driving role as a body independent of the national governments and private interests.
To do this, the European Parliament must also fulfil its role in order to avoid the return to an intergovernmental Europe with a 'governing body' consisting of the large Member States.
However, I must indicate my extreme surprise and condemnation of the way in which Mr Prodi, on page 11 of the verbatim report of proceedings, characterised the European consciousness, which is at the root of the integration achieved in the last 50 years. He described this as being exclusively 'erede della cultura umanística e della cultura cristiana ' meaning that it has its origins in humanism and Christianity.
This characterisation diminishes the origins of European civilisation by specifically disregarding the contribution of the Jewish and Muslim cultures.
The use of the term 'cristiana ' or 'Christian' is not only an unacceptable falsification of history but also, given the current events in Europe, an unpardonable political error.
Our House is today giving its opinion on the appointment of Mr Prodi as President of the European Commission.
I must vote against this appointment and withhold my vote of confidence.
Mr Prodi, you appeared as the saviour of a foundering institution, as the person who could provide the charisma needed for the job.
But your obviously strong personality cannot be separated from the objective of your politics.
Moreover, having listened to your comments and to your programme, I am extremely concerned.
Since the beginning of my term in office, I have fought to change the prevailing philosophy within the Brussels executive.
I have fought to ensure that the liberal Europe, the Europe of markets, gave way to a social Europe.
After listening to you yesterday, I am disappointed that not a single reference was made to the social Europe.
There was not a word about the concept of public services; instead, we listened to a eulogy to economic liberalism.
Mr Prodi, you refuse to distinguish between the market-based Europe and the social Europe.
But you must be aware that our people cannot support the European idea if the only option available is a market where the role of the individual is obsolete.
You will have the difficult task of establishing Europe in a new millennium, and I cannot get used to the idea that the twenty-first century might represent a negation of the social Europe.
You succeeded in the formidable task of enabling your country to join the euro.
I hoped that, with your appointment, you would establish the proper social dimension that Europe requires.
I did not hear this in your speech and you have disappointed me.
I therefore cannot give you a free hand to carry out this role.
I have today voted against the approval of Romano Prodi as the new President of the Commission.
Mr Prodi has not been sufficiently convincing in his acknowledgement of the need for a social Europe.
All we have heard is that tired old tune about full liberalisation and more growth being the solution to Europe's problems.
He has not voiced the desire to make active use of the new provisions in the Amsterdam Treaty with regard to the environment or employment.
Mr Prodi's future plans for the development of Europe also go too far in a federal direction.
Amongst other things, he is seeking to extend European cooperation in the fields of defence and foreign affairs.
His ambitions in the sphere of equal opportunities have unfortunately also been non-existent.
Mr Prodi has not outlined any plans for greater equality between men and women either within the college of Commissioners or in the Directorates-General.
Romano Prodi's ambitions in the human and social sectors are therefore too slight to persuade me to vote in favour of his nomination.
At the time, I voted in favour of the appointment of Jacques Santer as President of the Commission, in the knowledge that he had been prime minister of a small country, like my own, but one that had been much less affected by extra-European immigration, by unemployment and by taxation. I warned him about accepting the best and the worst in terms of the heads of the various departments; unfortunately, the worst prevailed.
Mr Prodi's speech could not have been more disappointing.
He talked to us for a long time about the Europe of money.
He did not say a word about the Europe of people.
He did not provide us with any hope that we might be able to put an end to the new world order imposed by the Yankees.
There was no condemnation, or even regret, in relation to the unacceptable military attack against a European nation by a NATO that is blindly killing women and children.
I cannot in all conscience put my trust in a politician who has joined the camp of the enemies of Europe.
I abstained in the election of the President of the Commission, as I could not see how I could give my support to Mr Prodi.
His appearance in the European Parliament was not enough to reassure me that he would be the right person to lead the Commission during the next five-year term.
Mr Prodi's bottom line is the formation of a Federal Europe, which is difficult for me to accept.
Most worrying of all when Mr Prodi was here in Parliament were his ideas on employment, the regulation of the labour market and the public sector.
He repeatedly stressed the need to deregulate the labour market and to increase the practice of bilateral agreements between employers and workers.
He considered the public sector to be too large in scale and called for rationalisation and cost-cutting measures.
Meanwhile, he had nothing more than pious messages of hope for increased employment.
Mr Prodi sets great store by a common defence policy for Europe.
He failed to give adequate guarantees that non-aligned EU Member States would be able to remain outside the military alliance.
Nevertheless, I did not consider I could vote against his appointment, as that would mean a serious delay in appointing the new Commission.
With the situation as it is, it is important that the new Commission should begin work as soon as possible.
Mr Prodi did not at first sight seem to have all the qualities required for a necessarily strong and active leadership of the European Union.
Due to their style and beliefs, other people were better qualified to preside over the Commission.
However, his experience in Italian politics, his acknowledged personal and political integrity and his capacity for establishing dialogue and unity are basic virtues which can breathe life into the European project.
Through his speeches in Parliament, he has gradually outlined his beliefs on Europe.
These contain many positive aspects, particularly the desire to guarantee the independence of the Commission and to carry out a root-and-branch reform of its administrative practices.
We would also highlight the importance which Mr Prodi has placed on Mediterranean policies, which he regards as being just as important as enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, his will to help make the European economy more dynamic and reduce unemployment and, essentially for us, the defence of economic and social cohesion.
We note, however, that the social side was virtually totally absent from his speeches, which is worrying.
Overall, there are reasons why we have high expectations of the new Commission President and this is why we are voting in favour of his appointment.
We now hope that our expectations can be reinforced and that Mr Prodi can be the President the Commission needs following the period of weakness we have seen with Mr Santer.
The Portuguese Socialists support a strong Commission which is capable of mobilising the will of the European people and which respects these people and their legitimate interests, particularly in small countries such as Portugal.
We also demand an independent Commission which, within the structure of the Community institutions, can contribute to achieving a balance between all the Member States, whether small or large and whether in the south or north of Europe.
I had decided to vote in favour of the appointment of Mr Prodi as President of the European Commission. I was satisfied with both the speed and efficiency with which the Council had taken its decision and with the standing in European terms of a man who, with great panache and know-how, had led a left-wing Italian Government under difficult conditions and had led Italy into EMU.
However, his speech yesterday worried me and I have now decided to abstain. Parliament, and in particular my group, the Socialist Group, has often highlighted the need to balance the economic and monetary pillar with a social pillar and a firm commitment to a political Europe.
What I listened to yesterday was a liberal credo that leads me to fear greatly that this new balance is not on the agenda of the next Commission.
Moreover, my secular view of public life was shattered.
That is why I am abstaining. I hope that my fears will not be justified and, in any event, that the vigilance of the next Parliament and its commitment to a social Europe will ensure that they are unfounded.
We have voted against the appointment of Romano Prodi as President of the Commission for the following reasons.
Romano Prodi has indicated that he is in favour of the EU developing on federal lines into a kind of United States of Europe.
He has repeatedly stressed the need for a common defence and hence the militarisation of the EU.
In his address and in answers to questions, it is noticeable that he has often compared the EU to the USA, with a view to establishing a 'balance over the Atlantic'.
We are opposed to the development of an 'EU state' and believe that European cooperation should, for the most part, be based on intergovernmental cooperation between independent nations.
The appointment of the President of the Commission and the Commission provides us with a good opportunity to carry out reforms which would reinforce democracy in Europe.
The EU should have a modern administration and transparent legislation along the lines of the Nordic model. This would mean open Council meetings and public access to official records, whereby everyone would be entitled to examine public documents and records in all the EU institutions and to speak out freely, in other words to be able to inform the media and those outside the EU institutions about mistakes and wrong-doing in the administration.
Moreover, reforms to increase openness should be extended to the system of appointments in the EU institutions.
An appointment should only be made following an application and on the basis of qualifications, not political patronage.
All employees should be aware that proficiency and merit, not friendship and connections, are the requirements for being appointed.
The Commission should be decentralised in order to allow staff to exercise responsibility and authority.
The concentration of responsibility in the hands of a minority should be broken.
Staff reforms should be carried out in order to weed out EU privileges.
It is indefensible that an employee in the EU earns three times as much for doing the same job as he or she would in a Member State, and enjoys diplomatic status with immunity from punishment and other fringe benefits.
The salary of the President of the Commission should also have been reduced before an appointment was made.
Commissioners should receive the same salary as ministers in the country which they represent.
Moving expenses should be paid on the basis of an estimate and not in the form of two months' additional salary of around SEK 360 000.
The EU should concentrate on the big issues, distinguish between what is trivial and what is important, and carry out genuine decentralising reforms which would result in matters that should not be dealt with at EU level being handed back to the Member States.
All these reform proposals should be implemented, but no such promise has been given.
Our vision is one of free European people in a democratic and diverse Europe.
We do not want a United States of Europe, but a Europe of nations.
After listening to Mr Prodi's speech before Parliament, we cannot have any doubts as to his desire to clean up and improve the functioning of the Commission, but equally, we do not have any doubts as to his desire to continue to build a liberal Europe where no consideration is given to the role of workers. He did not say a word about social dialogue, about public services or about the need to establish the core of fundamental social rights we require to prevent relocations through fiscal dumping.
The fact that Mr Prodi was actually nominated by 11 Socialist or Social Democrat governments proves that the social Europe is not the priority and that the liberal approach has not been discarded.
Nonetheless, I am convinced that the rights of the people of Europe will only improve if we build a strong, political Europe based on the principle of secularism.
To achieve this, we must reopen the divide between the right and the left, turn Parliament into a truly political body and stop looking for consensus, as the governments did when nominating Mr Prodi.
That is why I am opposed to his nomination as head of the Commission.
I was foolish enough to believe that the future President of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, would send us an ambitious message to enable us to emerge from the institutional and political crisis that led to the resignation of the Commission, against the backdrop of the war in Kosovo.
Unfortunately, apart from some general statements and the promise of rigorous and transparent management, his speech gave me greater cause for concern than for anything else.
After Jacques Delors and the very liberal Commissioner, Mr Bangemann, he in turn is conforming to the myth of the overriding power of the Internet and information highways and is promising us paradise through the fact that 'we can bridge the gap between us and the United States'.
To respond to these global challenges, we must inevitably 'reform the welfare model' and 'review ... the rules governing labour markets and professional markets to lower the barriers preventing access and ... make the employment situation more responsive to economic growth'.
Naturally, as Mr Prodi goes on to tell us, this will only happen if we can 'make public administrations lighter of touch'.
In spite of the first stinging failure of the MAI, Mr Prodi himself is taking up Commissioner Brittan's ideology: 'The EU should continue along the path of multilateral liberalisation within the World Trade Organisation.
Our aim is to prevent all attempts at protectionism ...'.
Following the example of the United States, will the future Commission look on our social and environmental clauses as protectionist? It is vital to include them in our trade mechanisms to ensure that globalisation is based on cooperation and solidarity with the poorest regions and countries.
But the final blow to a progressive European project is perhaps his idea of European culture: he seems to consider this in terms of the past and believes it to be our only heritage.
For the future, he turns to 'the power of American culture', which 'in the broad sense and as expressed in symbolic form by the media is actually believed by some to be capable of acting as a single point of reference for a Europe in quest of its soul.
There is nothing discreditable about such a supposition ...'
In other words, just a few months before the WTO negotiations, Mr Prodi's Europe is surrendering before having even waged the political war.
The liberal European hymn sung by Romano Prodi is based on the flexibility and adaptability of work, mistrust of public services and allegiance to American culture.
As a result, I voted against his appointment as President of the Commission.
The European Parliament's endorsement of Mr Prodi as President of the Commission, which I was very happy to vote in favour of, opens up a new era for the European Union at what is a turning point for Europe and the world as a whole.
In conjunction with the European elections on 13 June 1999, the European Union needs to confirm its unswerving dedication to the principles of democracy, solidarity, justice, transparency, stability and peace.
The people of Europe - of the 15 Member States and the applicant countries of Eastern Europe and Cyprus - hope and demand that the European Union becomes a real political and social union, with the required authority and validity to play a leading world role as we approach the millennium.
I voted to approve Mr Prodi's nomination, but with reservations.
The overriding priority of the incoming Commission President should be to ensure good management and financial control within the Commission. It should not be to increase European integration or to build a federal Europe.
To coin a phrase, the European Union should do less, better.
Although I voted for Mr Prodi as President of the Commission, I do not accept the strongly federalist views regarding a common defence and a common system of taxation that were put forward by Mr Prodi in his policy statement.
Sweden joined on the basis of intergovernmental cooperation, it did not join a federation.
In my view, Mr Prodi does not represent traditional social democratic policy either, which I would have preferred.
Parliament can have no objection to the general content of the speech by Mr Prodi on his intentions.
Nonetheless, some general ideas need to be explained in detail so as to avoid ambiguities in the institutions' interpretation of them.
I fully agree that we need to define the political and administrative responsibilities of the European Commission.
The Commission should review its files, where it would find questions and motions for resolutions that I tabled proposing that rules for legislative procedures and for administrative justice be drawn up in order to define responsibilities and provide our citizens with legal certainty.
In the doctrinal tradition of national democracies, the responsibilities of the government and the administration are clearly defined.
Another fundamental issue is that of preserving the overall responsibility of the College of Commissioners.
The individual responsibilities of the Commissioners can and must be defined, yet we must not entirely discard the principle of collective responsibility.
To accept the individual condemnation of a Commissioner would mean the death of the independence of the European Commission.
I have also on various occasions defended the need for the Commissioners to meticulously respect their ethical commitment to maintain the necessary independence from their governments.
The Commissioners must oversee the EU's common interest; they must not use their post first and foremost to defend their country of origin.
Nationalist statements by Commissioners should be dealt with by the President, who should ask them to leave the Commission.
In the same way, the Commissioners' private offices must have a supranational structure, as I have maintained for years.
The Commission must also resist the destructive urge to try to represent the main political trend in the European Parliament, even though some prominent figures may promote it.
This would disrupt the nature of the institutions.
The European Parliament has no reason to support the European Commission because of its political stance.
Compared to national parliaments, the great asset and advantage of the European Parliament is that we are all part of the opposition here.
No political group is obliged to keep the Commission in office.
The legislative arm must have complete freedom to monitor the executive arm.
In addition to this, the Commission should not in any way relinquish its power to initiate legislation.
Mr Prodi, I am a committed federalist, and I have every confidence that your future activities will continue to enhance the unique nature of the EU institutions and prevent it from being interfered with.
Rothley report (A4-0267/99)
Madam President, obviously in this House we are parliamentarians and democrats.
As a democrat I have to accept the result of the vote on the Rothley report even if I do not agree with it.
As a parliamentarian I have to accept that we use procedures sometimes as a way of either promoting or shielding ourselves from particular votes.
I want to express my deep sense of disappointment that yesterday, at an early stage, when my group presented to other group presidents the possibility of trying to find a reasonable way forward, whereby the Council would meet tonight and then, tomorrow, we could decide on the issue in a more definitive way, some colleagues used procedures in this House to block that possibility.
I express in particular my grave disappointment at Amendment No 27 in the name of Mrs Green and Mr Cot, who removed Article 1 from the Rothley report and ipso facto removed from it the possibility of the Liberal amendment.
That amendment genuinely sought to address many of the fears that Members had expressed as deficiencies in the Council's response.
For example, it put MEPs on an equal footing with national parliamentary representatives in the matter of various allowances and expenses.
It included clauses on the acquired rights, the so-called 'grandfather clause'.
It included options for early retirement, which many Members said they wanted.
It included the full protection of the acquired pension rights, the existing pension rights of Members, and other elements as well.
In all of that it was a genuine attempt to recognise that the Rothley report simpliciter of last December clearly will not win unanimous approval of the Council; that the Council's text of last week clearly will not win the support of this House.
And this via media which we sought to bring forward - and as democrats we have to accept the win or loss - was blown out of the water by a procedure which disgusts me.
Madam President, clearly, as Mr Cox has mentioned, the amendment tabled in my name on behalf of the Socialist Group was tabled by the Socialist Group.
As the leader, I had my name on it, but for the record, I voted against it.
Madam President, I was not aware of that.
I thank Mrs Green for that explanation.
Personally, I had understood that was her position.
I thank her for clarifying it.
I still remain disgusted by the procedure but I would wish, at least, to place on the record my appreciation of what Mrs Green has just said.
Madam President, I should like to put on record my disgust as well at what has happened.
Madam President, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations did not agree with the draft uniform Statute for Members of the European Parliament adopted by our House on 3 December 1998.
We believed at the time, and we still believe, that the Members of the European Parliament represent their respective nations and that they should continue to have the status of national representatives.
Since 3 December, the Council has examined Parliament's draft and has unfortunately approved its key principles.
In its view, the Members of the European Parliament should from now on be paid out of the Community budget and not by their countries of origin.
Moreover, they should pay income tax to the Communities, under the same conditions as those that apply to European officials.
Only a temporary derogation is provided for to maintain the national system of taxation for those countries which request it explicitly.
This amended draft is equally unacceptable.
It is totally incredible that the Members of the European Parliament might be paid by someone other than the people they represent.
It is equally incredible that they might be subject to a tax system that is different from that of their fellow citizens, particularly if this is also a less severe tax system, as would be the case here.
This reform is obviously designed to draw Members away from defending their people in order to encourage them to defend the supranational system that will support them.
It is somewhat difficult to understand the deep-rooted motives of the Council when it accepts a text that is so opposed to the interests of the Member States, unless it, too, agrees tacitly to the establishment of a European superstate.
This interpretation unfortunately seems to be correct, as it is backed up by many other indications.
Once again, we see that the governments are playing a double game and establishing - by indirect methods - a system that the people would not accept if they were consulted in full knowledge of the facts.
Madam President, I wish to make a personal statement.
I voted against Mr Rothley's proposal because I am sorry we did not accept the Council document, which meant that we missed a major opportunity finally to obtain a statute at the end of this legislative term.
You all know how difficult it will be to make progress on a statute during the new term.
It will be wellnigh impossible.
I fear that Parliament's action has merely relegated the Statute to a kind of shunting yard.
I thought it was right for us finally to get some movement into the Statute, and the words 'equal pay for all' apply just as much to the Council; its members also do the same work but have different salaries.
There are hundreds of journalists who do the same work for different pay.
I regarded the compromise as viable even if - which is not, of course, a good thing - it would have meant that Swedish, Danish and British Members were taxed under their national rules.
But I got the impression that was not the issue at all; rather it was to go on relegating the Statute for Members to the shunting yard.
I very much regretted that.
That is why I voted against Mr Rothley's proposal and would have liked to vote for the Council proposal.
Madam President, like Mrs Breyer, I would like to say this is a missed opportunity.
Although many people have expressed their disgust, I do not know how we are going to go back to the electorate and justify that basically things are remaining the same.
The Liberal and Green amendment was deliberately sabotaged by people who do not want to see the system changed.
Although I would have had major problems with the idea of an EU tax system - it is not something I could support - or that our salaries would be increased, we need to deal with the way in which expenses are dished out in this Parliament. What is wrong with having a system whereby you have to account for what you spend?
We now have to go out in June to look for votes from the electorate. The one thing that everybody is focused on is how the repayment system works in this Parliament.
We have to look for change.
Today was a prime opportunity.
We missed that because of political manoeuvring within Parliament.
It is going to very difficult for us to justify our position.
That is why I voted against the Rothley report.
I would have had major problems with a salary increase or with the idea of an EU-wide tax system.
That is the thin edge of the wedge.
I do not agree with a harmonised tax system or with - as Mr Berthu said - many of the harmonisations that are going on within the EU.
I voted against Prodi basically because he is a complete federalist and also in favour of the militarising of the EU which I do not approve of.
That is why I had to vote against him.
Madam President, I do not normally give explanations of vote but on this occasion I shall, because this may have been one of the last actions in this present Parliament, and I want to avoid any possible misunderstanding about what is perhaps an ambiguous vote.
I did vote against the Rothley report because I take the view that, with all its faults, we should have accepted the proposed Statute for Members that came from the Council.
I take that view with some regret because Mr Rothley is a very distinguished Member of this Parliament who has contributed a great deal to its work.
In general I am always very sympathetic to the idea that Parliament should defend its rights and its position vis-à-vis other institutions.
But on this occasion, particularly in view of the coming election, I took the view that it was better for us to get this matter behind us.
I have always taken the view that Parliament must rigorously and ruthlessly defend its constitutional and legal rights.
When, however, it is a question of its own personal rights, the rights of its Members - particularly the financial rights of its Members - Parliament would be well advised to tread more softly. There is a difference between the two.
If I had to be asked what Parliament needs, I do not think it is more formal powers, I think it is to come closer to the minds, hearts and spirits of the electorate.
I am afraid the postponement of the Statute may stand in the way of that.
I know that you, Madam President, have a different view.
I am sorry, on this last occasion, to have to differ.
I have always had great respect, both political and personal, for you.
But unlike many who voted against the Rothley report I did so because I believe the European Parliament should be more powerful, more influential, should play a larger role in the European Union.
It was my view that by voting against the Rothley report I could serve that political goal.
Madam President, as far as procedure is concerned, I would like to inform Mr Cox and Mrs Green - although they have left - that on 3 December, I had tabled an amendment similar to the global amendments, which have been the subject of long debate, and that that amendment had been declared inadmissible at the time, perhaps because I had tabled it.
On a personal note, regarding the Rothley report, I would like to say that the truth has been revealed.
The majority of Members of this House - 376 Members - have shown that in actual fact they did not want the system for reimbursing travel expenses to be changed.
That is what is at issue here.
The resolution adopted on 3 December stated that thanks to the Treaty of Amsterdam, for the first time in its history the European Parliament was in a position to adopt itself a single statute for Members, and that this statute should enter into force as soon as the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam provided a legal basis for its adoption. This gave the impression that we were prepared to adopt a statute.
However, given the rejection today of our Amendment No 18, which stated that we would do our utmost to ensure that this statute entered into force at the beginning of the next parliamentary term, Parliament is showing its true colours, and on the very day and in the very week when a new system for the reimbursement of travel expenses is being adopted, a system which is supposedly based on expenses actually incurred but is actually somewhat similar to a lump-sum system.
That is why we voted against the Rothley report.
Parliament does not want to be open and transparent about the way in which its Members are paid, and that is particularly scandalous in terms of public opinion.
The current system of reimbursement is absurd, particularly with regard to travel expenses.
We need to bring about a change and find a solution in order to deal with the absurdity of the situation, but also because there are other important issues, besides the salaries of its own Members, which the European Parliament ought to be concentrating on.
We support the compromise which the Council reached in April.
We should like to have a uniform statute giving all Members the same salary, but with the possibility of taxation at national level.
The Danish Social Democrats support the Council's amended draft Statute for Members, because the European Parliament needs to put its own house in order before the elections.
It is not possible to wait and negotiate with the Council.
We have endorsed a proposed compromise which brings us slightly nearer to our objective, in the hope of at least avoiding the whole matter being rejected outright.
The European Parliamentary Labour Party has pushed for reform of all the EU's institutions.
We have pressed for more transparency in the Council.
We have been at the forefront of the work to ensure openness and better management in the Commission and we now come to put our own house - Parliament - in order.
The EPLP has consistently campaigned for a coherent and transparent system in which MEPs could operate.
We have voted this morning to try to ensure that concrete measures are put in place as quickly as possible.
We have been at the forefront of reform and believe that we have to reach a conclusion on this matter and start the new mandate with a statute in place.
We have pressed for a transparent system of payments for travel expenses, an equal salary for MEPs from all countries, and a proper method of direct payments for staff.
The Council has said that it will look at the detail of implementation of the Statute alongside Parliament and we look forward to playing an active role in those further negotiations over the new few weeks.
I abstained from all the votes because I will be leaving the European Parliament and do not wish to decide on the Statute for future Members.
The Portuguese Socialist Members voted against the motion for a resolution approved today in the European Parliament because this motion prevents the entry into force of the Statute for Members proposed by the Council of Ministers which represents an important reinforcement of Parliament's credibility.
The continuation of the current set of rules postpones a long-standing desire of the European Parliament to finally achieve the principle of equality between all Members.
The new Statute was characterised by strictness and transparency in the rights and duties of all the Members and would have done away, once and for all, with the vagaries and speculation which are the preferred recourse of all those who thereby aim to undermine the value of political action.
The European Parliament has missed an unparalleled opportunity to resolve an issue which is fundamental to its good image and dignity, especially at a time when transparency and efficiency in the workings of all the Community institutions are being discussed and demanded in Europe.
The outcome of today's vote, which saw a majority of our House give its support to the Rothley report, is a defeat as far as we are concerned.
This majority, which invoked all sorts of legal arguments, was concerned first and foremost with maintaining our salaries and privileges at all costs.
For a long time, a majority in this Parliament has been hiding behind the lack of initiative from the Council in this matter in order to excuse its unwillingness to conclude a statute for Members of the European Parliament.
After several years of work, a proposal had been drawn up that was, in general, satisfactory, and the Council had indicated that it was willing to negotiate with Parliament, following the result of today's vote, with a view to finding a compromise.
The response of the majority in this House today does not match up to its commitments to its own voters or to the expectations of public opinion.
Following the Commission's resignation and the problems of fraud and poor financial management, how can the majority in this Parliament justify the fact that our House is incapable of reforming anything that affects our allowances and the financial management of our institution?
My group is going to continue fighting the battle we began a long time ago.
But each of our colleagues who voted in favour of the Rothley report will have to shoulder their responsibilities in terms of public opinion and the postponement of the uniform Statute for Members of the European Parliament.
The vicissitudes surrounding the establishment of a statute for Members of the European Parliament have been many and complex.
As the only Swedish member of the committee, I was closely involved, over a six-month period, in following and contributing to the discussions, in particular through the tabling of an amendment reflecting the Greens' viewpoint. This expressed our opposition to the detachment of MEPs from their own voters and Member States by such things as the introduction of EU salaries, EU taxes, EU pensions and so on.
I do not think, therefore, that it is desirable to have a statute which regulates these matters.
However, we need to tackle the excessively generous allowances, for example those covering travel and office expenses, and to introduce a system whereby only the costs actually incurred are reimbursed.
Under the Rules of Procedure, this can be done at any time and without the introduction of a statute.
It is therefore unacceptable that Parliament has hitherto done nothing about it, since it would have been a simple matter - had the will existed.
In view of these considerations, I voted against the report.
We are absolutely convinced that Members of the European Parliament are elected by the people of the Member States to represent the voters' interest in the EU.
The remuneration and taxation of MEPs is therefore a national affair.
We are consequently opposed to a uniform European statute on Members' remuneration.
We advocate that the current remuneration and reimbursement system should be discontinued, since it means that Members of this Parliament are paid large sums in expenses which have not been incurred.
It is therefore necessary to establish a new system of remuneration and reimbursement, whereby the reimbursement of expenses must be accompanied by a bill, and payment is dependent on the Member signing a declaration that the expenses have actually been incurred in connection with the exercise of their mandate.
On 26 April 1999, the Council drew up a draft Statute based on the European Parliament's text.
In this draft, the Council sets out a series of proposals regarding the Statute, stating amongst other things that the payment of reimbursements will be based on vouchers, and proposals are also made regarding the establishment of conditions of employment for assistants.
We believe that the Council's text is a distinct improvement on the European Parliament's draft Statute, which was adopted on 3 December 1998.
We shall therefore support those parts of the draft which tighten up the current arrangements for reimbursement and lay down proper conditions of employment for assistants.
We wish to emphasise, however, that Members' salaries must be taxed at national level, and the revenues must therefore go to the Member States.
We are opposed to an EU tax system, and we therefore cannot support the Council's 'should' clause in Article 8(6), which states that the revenues should be paid back into the EU's budget.
We believe that the adoption of the Statute is yet another step towards a United States of Europe, with the European Parliament as a co-legislator.
Mr Rothley's draft report shows this quite plainly, and it is a clear example of how far removed the European Parliament has become from the interests of the people.
The only reason why we can support parts of the draft for the new Statute is that we believe that it is a vital step towards remedying the European Parliament's long-standing squandering of our taxpayers' money.
The Treaty of Amsterdam provides for a statute for Members of the European Parliament.
Article 190(5) of the Treaty establishing the European Community gives Parliament the power to 'lay down' this statute.
Some of our Spanish, Portuguese and other colleagues are in favour of this, not only for ideological reasons, but also perhaps for the sake of convenience.
In fact, on the basis of national statutes, there was discrimination between the German Members, whose thriving economy allowed them to receive substantial allowances, and our Portuguese colleagues, whose moderate economy meant that they only received moderate allowances.
The Members of the National Front in the European Parliament are opposed to this European Statute for legal reasons which serve to nullify it.
Members of the Parliament in Strasbourg are, in fact, the representatives of 15 different nations; they are not the elected representatives of a European nation.
They represent the 15 national sovereignties and not a European sovereignty.
Furthermore, the European Parliament's legal basis originates in an international treaty and not in an internal legislative text.
It is an intergovernmental institution and organisation, not an institution that is based on a constitution.
Our legal status is therefore international rather than constitutional.
That is why the Statute for Members is a political strike against the legal texts on which Parliament is based.
It is the first element of a European federal constitution and it is being introduced in a surreptitious and clandestine manner.
And that is the last straw as far as a parliament is concerned.
A parliament represents the people.
Yet here the European Parliament is progressively imposing on them a federal constitution within its powers while the people's backs are turned.
This is all the more serious since if national Members were paid out of the European budget from now on and paid taxes into that budget, they would no longer have any financial or fiscal links with their people.
How then would the Members of the European Parliament be able to represent their country of origin when their links with it are being gradually weakened?
Today we have the Statute for Members of the European Parliament, we already have the European currency, and tomorrow it will be the European state.
We voted in favour of the amendment by the Liberal Group with regard to Parliament's system of pay and expenses, as it was the only way to bring into effect a reform that has taken a long time to prepare, and one that many had called for.
We do not believe the matter can be postponed any longer, but feel that this vital reform should be introduced before the start of the new Parliament.
We believe that the central issues of the reform are the standardisation of pay for Members, national taxation and bona fide travel expenses.
From the very beginning I have asked for a special travel card to be introduced, like the one used in the Swedish Parliament.
As parliamentarians, we should be reimbursed the travel costs actually incurred.
We need to establish a statute for Members of the European Parliament in order to change the unsatisfactory system which exists at present.
A basic requirement, which the Swedish Government has also pressed for in the Council, is that national tax should be deducted instead of EU tax.
I share that view.
I have stated on many occasions that, in my opinion, our salaries should be the same as those of Swedish Members of Parliament.
We now need to come up with a proposal without delay.
The Conservative and Socialist groups in Parliament, through their action today, have jeopardised the credibility of the European Parliament by rejecting the proposal for a Members' statute put forward by the Liberal Group.
Legal chicanery and trickery have played a significant part in this.
Had the Liberal Group's proposal been approved, we should have been able to go to the polls with our flag flying high and showing that we had not only cleaned up the European Commission, but inside our own house as well.
The Liberal Group's proposal was a realistic one, and would have made it possible to reach an agreement with the Council of Ministers before Parliament rose for the elections.
The political groups which backed the rejection of the proposals from both the Liberal Group and the Council of Ministers are responsible for the fact that we have got nowhere with reform. Instead, we are left with a dubious proposal on travel expenses.
In the course of our work, the Liberals have consistently pressed for an accelerated timetable of reforms.
The fact that some groups, so close to the finishing post, have been intransigent and in no hurry for reform, also leaves one feeling bitter.
The draft Statute contains many worthwhile points: a uniform salary, but with the possibility of imposing national tax in those countries which wish to do so; clear rules governing the declaration of Members' interests; and transparency in expenses and travel allowances, on the basis of actual costs.
The European Parliament would also have been able to reinforce its legitimacy by not having the sole right of approval of its own salaries, like other parliaments.
I abstained from voting on the Rothley report because I feel that this is not the time to approve this statute, as so many wanted.
The lists of candidates are now ready and the rules would have been changed without the potential new Members being able to participate in the vote.
However, I consider that it will be imperative to approve the Statute for Members of the European Parliament as soon as possible after Parliament reopens in July.
I voted against the resolution on the Statute for Members of Parliament.
My fundamental reason for doing so is perfectly simple.
As a Member of the European Parliament I am fed up with being constantly criticised and attacked about our allowances, travel expenses and other such matters.
The Statute on which the Council has reached a compromise is not perfect and I understand the Members who criticise it.
For me, however, these shortcomings are far outweighed by my desire to be able to begin the next parliamentary term with a totally clean slate and with the prospect of no longer having to devote our time to decisions about our own statute.
This is why I was prepared to adopt the Council's text.
Furthermore, it is a law of physics that when the pendulum swings too far to one side, it then swings back further in the opposite direction.
Dignity also means working on credibility.
Kuhn report (A4-0224/99)
Madam President, naturally we fought for the Kuhn report.
We would have liked to see the guarantee extended for up to five years; that would have meant that the principle of sustainability was finally also introduced de facto .
It would have meant that producers would have tried to produce long-life products.
What I very much regret about the compromise is the fact that when the directives are implemented it will now be possible for the Member States to introduce a two-month complaint period.
And I will be calling on the German Government not to make use of this; indeed it has already announced that.
It would be a bitter setback for consumer protection.
For how can it be that someone from France, for instance, goes shopping in Germany, relies on a two-year guarantee but then finds that because he bought the goods in Germany he should have lodged a complaint within two months?
I do not believe that is what we were aiming at with this report.
Indeed Mrs Kuhn is just as sorry about this provision.
Yet the report is a small step in the right direction.
I only hope that many Member States will not make use of the possibility that has now been established of a two-month complaint period. If they do not, the report will be a step in the right direction because it will mean that consumers can have the guarantee extended to two years.
I believe it is very positive that we have also managed for the first time to establish a one-year guarantee for second-hand goods; that is a step towards greater sustainability and greater consumer protection.
However, I hope that also means that we do not apply this two-month complaint period, because in the case of many goods defects are only found after two months have elapsed.
Then consumers would get little out of this two-year guarantee.
So I can only appeal for this not to be applied.
I do not support the common position on this directive.
I believe that a directive on the subject can be justified if it brings real benefits to consumers who buy goods across borders - but this directive does not do so.
I believe that the directive fails to deal satisfactorily with the situation where a consumer buys goods in one country, then goes home and finds that they are defective.
In that situation he or she still has to return them to the place where the original purchase took place in order to obtain a refund, repair etc.
It would have been far better - and have brought real benefits to consumers - if the consumer had the right to negotiate such compensation/repair etc with a representative of the company - where one exists - in his country of residence.
As it is, the directive deals with this problem only through the hope, expressed in preamble 13, that producers of consumer goods marketed in several Member States will attach contact addresses in those states; there is also the prospect of future revision of the directive held out in preamble 20.
The directive may well therefore raise hopes of cross-border consumer rights that it does not fulfil.
Another problem with the directive is the way that it deals with second-hand goods.
Article 1, paragraph 3, allows Member States to exempt second-hand goods sold at auction where consumers have the opportunity of attending the sale in person.
But preamble paragraph 16 is very confusing: it says that the nature of second-hand goods makes it generally impossible to replace them, so that the consumer's right of replacement is generally not available for these goods.
It goes on to say that for such goods Member States 'may enable the parties to agree to a shortened period of liability', that is shorter than 2 years.
I take this to mean that second-hand goods, except those sold at auction, are covered by the directive, and that some form of consumer guarantee will have to apply to them although Member States may make it last for less than 2 years. I wonder whether the Council has appreciated the impact of this on the second-hand market?
What haggles will now take place over the 'shortened period of liability'?
Will this kind of haggle add a new dimension to car boot sales (which are not auctions) with lawyers setting up their tables at such sales in order to resolve disputes? If the consumer's right to repair etc is not 'generally available' in relation to second-hand goods, will each Member State specify where it is available?
If so, we will see 15 different systems springing up.
I await these developments with interest, but cannot give the directive my support as it stands and have therefore abstained in the final vote approving the text.
I will be voting today in favour of greater rights for consumers across the European Union.
One of the major achievements of the European Union has been the creation of a single market in Europe encompassing over 370 million people.
As a result, businesses, employees and consumers from my own constituency in the North West benefit from a market over eight times larger than the UK alone.
A bigger market generates more business and more business generates more jobs.
Consumers benefit from more choice and more price competition.
However, I want to ensure that when my constituents take advantage of the single market and buy abroad, they enjoy the same level of consumer protection as they have in Britain.
I want them to have the same right to repair, replacement, reduction or refund in Milan as they have in Manchester.
In short, I want to make cross-border shoppers contented border shoppers.
The Labour Government has long been committed to more information for consumers, so that they can make informed choices about the products they buy, and the right to redress in case anything goes wrong.
Under the British presidency, for example, we pushed through a long-awaited agreement on consumer guarantees establishing rights for consumers when they buy goods anywhere in the single market.
This is in stark contrast to the Tories, who, during the BSE crisis, brought the EU to a halt rather than provide proper protection for consumers.
Oomen-Ruijten report (A4-0190/99)
Distance marketing of financial services via the Internet, fax and telephone is on the increase.
The Commission has submitted a proposal to improve consumer protection in relation to this distance marketing.
The Commission's proposal lays down firm rules from which the Member States will not be able to depart.
A substantial minority in the committee supported this line.
However, it would be disastrous for Sweden and other Member States. It would mean that higher standards of consumer protection could not be retained.
Instead, the proposal should be based on minimum standards that would allow the Member States to retain stricter rules and to tighten up the rules if they wished to do so.
Sandbæk report (A4-0225/99)
Here the Green Group is of course very pleased that we have now managed to make pesticide-free foods for babies and young children a binding requirement throughout the European Union.
That is not just a great success for consumer protection but also a major contribution towards a more ecological agricultural policy.
Of course it was also a major success on balance for our group, since the Greens' amendment was the only one to obtain an absolute majority and therefore led the Commission as also the Council to shift their position.
The decision to establish the precautionary principle here is groundbreaking and in our view it would now be sensible to extend it to cover schoolchildren and young people.
It also means that we have to radically rethink the concept of the average individual, for this principle is based on the assumption that harmful substances are measured against an average human being weighing 80 kg.
That certainly cannot protect the health of children, the frail and the old.
We are particularly glad that we have now managed for the first time to lay down the highest standard in the European Union in a binding way for all EU Member States, namely the zero detectability level, which de facto means organic farming, as laid down in Germany.
We have shown that we do not have to dumb down harmonisation to the lowest common denominator but that it is quite possible to set a binding highest standard for all the EU Member States.
We must take particular care of the youngest members of society.
Here we have managed to establish the precautionary principle and we hope this will prove possible in other areas too.
I see on my right my colleague Mrs Irene Soltwedel-Schäfer, who was visited on this very day by people affected by the BSE scandal.
I can only urge that if we make the precautionary principle a binding one - as we have managed here - we should also take it as our yardstick in many other areas.
EU/US trade disputes
Madam President, the World Trade Organisation has set 13 May as the deadline for Europeans to lift the embargo they have imposed on imports of American meat that has been treated with hormones, and particularly BST.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations urges the European leaders to maintain this embargo on BST. This hormone is produced from genetically modified bacteria; it certainly has a damaging effect on the health of cattle and very probably also on the health of humans who consume the meat.
We must apply the precautionary principle here, just as we should apply it to all the genetically modified organisms whose import into Europe has unwisely been authorised by the Commission.
But we must go even further. We must determine where the responsibilities lie in the present context and put forward proposals to correct the situation.
It is important to note that the rules of international trade that are applied by the WTO and that prevent us from making proper use of the precautionary principle were ratified in the agreements concluded at the Uruguay Round by Europeans themselves; they were led astray by poor advisers, such as the European Commission, which undoubtedly was overly influenced by foreign interests.
That must be corrected first and foremost by way of institutional reform and at the next international negotiations.
But I was truly alarmed by the fact that during the debate on Monday evening, Commissioner Brittan did not show any sign of regret and indicated that he considers the laws of free trade to be almost like divine laws, superior to all.
What is even more alarming is that the President-designate of the next Commission, Romano Prodi, stated yesterday morning in this Hemicycle that the next international negotiations should open, and I quote, 'a further round of liberalisation'.
These people have not really understood anything.
With them, we are heading towards a catastrophe.
Instead, what we need to do now is to establish in international trade the free choice of the people and the primacy of national sovereignty, as expressed in a democratic manner.
Madam President, of course we too are pleased that the EU has spoken out quite clearly in favour of maintaining the ban on hormone-treated meat.
I personally find it most regrettable that the Commission commissioned this study so late.
We have known for years that there is at least one hormone that is suspected of being carcinogenic and that the other hormones have particularly adverse effects on young people during puberty.
We know, and that is the crucial point, that consumers do not want hormone-treated meat.
Consumers want healthy, natural food.
That is why this is a very positive decision, for it would have been a retrograde step to have simply introduced labelling, as we have sadly done in the case of novel foods even though the consumers have objected to genetically modified foods.
The Commission is also planning to extend the moratorium on genetically manufactured bovine growth hormones.
Here too it would be high time to issue a ban, as Canada has already done.
All the studies conducted by the Scientific Committee show the dangerous and explosive effects of treating animals with hormones.
There are many other indications to support these findings and we must also finally get away from the situation where the WTO only addresses the question of residues, for when they decide to buy goods, consumers also have the right to object to a certain kind of production.
So it is most welcome that the Commission has taken this decision; however, we should have already indicated the health hazards much more clearly and plainly in the past.
Madam President, let me first say how happy I am to be able to give an explanation of vote during your last part-session as president.
I was most impressed by the strength of feeling Parliament has expressed towards you.
What also pleases me is the fact that this House has demanded unanimously by 525 votes - which is indeed rare - for the ban on hormone-treated meat to be maintained.
We in the Committee on Agriculture have succeeded in turning a proposal that tended towards giving preference to labelling into maintenance of the ban instead.
Now the scientific findings have confirmed our fears.
The outcome of the decision by 525 votes will impress the Council and make it now maintain this ban on hormone-treated meat and resume the discussions in the WTO panel, so as to make it clear that we are not in the mood to burden our people with this highly dangerous hormone-treated meat.
Many thanks and I wish you all the best!
Thank you for those kind words, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
In recent years we have noted that the succession of World Trade Organisation positions on matters involving trade in agricultural and food products has strangely coincided with the interests and pressure of the United States.
In the cases of hormone-treated meat and the sale of seeds produced genetically - known as genetically modified organisms or GMOs - the European Union is not being allowed to respect the concerns of its consumers.
Clearly this type of argument is sometimes used to conceal protectionist commercial practices.
However, this is not the case with the European Union at this juncture given that BSE has severely shaken consumer confidence.
This means that the European authorities are taking precautions to respect these concerns, which are more profound in Europe than in other parts of the world.
Indications exist of the harmful effects on health of consuming hormone-treated meat, together with suspicions that some scientific results are being concealed from European decision-makers.
The EU must therefore remain firm in its position that all scientific data must be provided.
The insensitivity of the WTO in this respect confirms to us that the WTO rules on sanitary and phytosanitary protection (SPS Agreement) do not serve this purpose and must be amended at the next round of negotiations.
In the case of bananas, the EU is not being permitted to grant a trade concession to small countries which used to be its colonies - the ACP countries - where bananas represent the mainstay of their economies.
This is particularly serious as this EU policy is included in the spirit of the Lomé Agreements which date from 1963 and which therefore significantly predate the current Multilateral Trade Agreement resulting from the Marrakesh Agreement of 1994.
What is this all about? Is it because the US is a banana producer?
Of course not. It is simply because the US wants to defend its companies which have a monopoly over the banana trade with their dollar bananas and which are in competition with the ACP countries.
Furthermore, if the WTO were to force the EU into completely liberalising the banana trade, there is absolutely no doubt that sooner or later the support system for Community banana producers would come to an end.
I would call on the Commission to remain firm in defence of our interests and not to be afraid to stand up to international pressures.
It must take due note of all these cases in order to take the necessary precautions in the next round of WTO negotiations.
Ladies and gentlemen, we got the EU Commission's first scientific findings on hormone-treated meat in the USA 'just in time'.
Now we have it in black and white. The hormones used on bovine animals are extremely harmful to man, especially to children.
There is open talk of carcinogenic effects, of premature puberty, of immunological damage.
Our only answer to that must be to maintain the ban on hormone-treated meat from the USA.
Any further speculation about labelling, about compensation payments, any ideas about coming to an arrangement with the WTO rules, are simply obsolete.
That is also the answer I expected from Sir Leon Brittan.
But I found that he did not utter a single plain word on the subject of hormones in his statement. And his view that this is primarily a legal and economic question rather than one of public health is quite outrageous and irresponsible.
On the contrary, the legal situation is clear, as are the economic interests.
And in the interest of public health we should really call on the US Government to introduce a ban on hormone-treated meat in the USA.
After bananas, hormone-treated meat is the second source of major dispute between the USA and the EU.
In the case of bananas too I emphatically ask for an end to the surrender to free-marketeering.
We must not just give in on bananas simply so as not to annoy the US Administration.
We cannot take yet another step back from our development policy principles.
We must use the need to change our common organisation of the banana market in order to give special support to a means of production that is socially, ecologically and developmentally friendly - in every possible area.
During the coming WTO round these reforms, including the reform of the GATT which is also implicated in the banana dispute, must come at the top of the agenda.
But we must not just wait for the outcome of that round.
Here and now we must continue the EU panel against the USA's extra-territorial legislation, against Section 301, and under no circumstances must we break it off.
And we must take vigorous steps against the measures taken by the USA, which has de facto been imposing punitive tariffs since 3 March even though the panel's ruling did not come until much later.
It is the Commission's task here not to protect free trade but to protect those who suffer in the name of free trade.
We Greens hope that you will support the amendments to that effect that we tabled to the compromise resolution, so that we can vote for the compromise.
Europe must be firm with the United States in the context of the transatlantic partnership.
We must break away from the current thinking behind the liberalisation of trade, which does not give any consideration to social or environmental rules. We must also block the political, economic and monetary hegemony of the US, which is actually imposing the interests of American companies as if they are in the general interest.
The issue of hormone-treated meat proves that health and consumer protection requirements are not being taken into account and that the precautionary principle holds little sway in the face of prevailing economic interests.
Europe must continue to uphold its ban. Furthermore, the dispute over aircraft noise is evidence of their refusal to take account of our higher environmental standards.
The social aspect is less evident in the trade disputes. Yet unfortunately, the dominant logic today of opening up the markets, where social and environmental rules are disregarded, is systematically damaging this social aspect.
The banana issue reveals that the interests of multinational firms are a thousand times more important than the development of nations; the market is prevailing over the solidarity that needs to be developed within a political community.
It is also evident that the US agricultural trusts are making enormous profits by growing bananas in Latin America, while the people in those countries are not seeing any improvement in their situation.
The time has come to base the necessary international trade and liberalisation of the markets on new principles and a framework other than that decreed by the WTO, the GATT or the new transatlantic partnership.
The three disputes the European Union is currently involved in with the United States in relation to the World Trade Organisation involve the banana sector, hormone-treated meat and aircraft noise during takeoff and landing.
Although these three disputes only relate to a small percentage of the trade between the United States and the European Union, they are very good examples of its economic, political and social consequences.
In fact, as far as the banana dispute is concerned, the Member States of the European Union are losing their ability to conduct a specific and privileged policy towards certain developing countries with which we had historical links, all in the name of liberalism and the globalisation of trade.
This has very significant social repercussions in some of those countries: the Member States of the European Union are following the WTO and progressively losing their sphere of influence, particularly in terms of the African continent. This is to the benefit of South America, whose agricultural resources are exploited or developed mainly by companies dominated by American capital.
As far as the marketing of hormone-treated meat is concerned, there are undoubtedly repercussions that we can determine in terms of imbalances of production in an agricultural sector which, following the BSE crisis, has a structural surplus and has become much weaker. However, the consumption of hormone-treated meat clearly has significant effects on human health, although we are not aware of their full extent.
We know, for instance, that the consumption of hormone-treated meat is damaging to the development of adolescents during puberty.
The World Trade Organisation, whose rules were negotiated by the Commission and imposed on the Member States, scorns the precautionary principle and the principle of health and safety that each Member State must be able to preserve in order to protect the health of its people.
These two examples prove that the GATT agreements that led to the World Trade Organisation harm the interests of the people of the Member States of the European Union.
I am calling for a complete reorganisation of the way in which the WTO operates, and this should take place in the context of the new round of negotiations due to begin at the end of the year.
We must establish the principle of fair trade between the European Union and third countries and restore the precautionary principle.
After the dispute over hormone-treated meat, we all know that the United States will attack the European Union over genetically modified organisms.
Spencer report (A4-0242/99)
Madam President, I voted against the Spencer report on the common foreign and security policy.
It is just further evidence of the tendency towards militarising the European Union.
This report talks about supporting the Franco-British Declaration at St. Malo and also of the speedy integration of the Western European Union into the EU.
It is quite clear the Western European Union is a military alliance.
It believes in nuclear weapons and is committed to the nuclear deterrent.
You would think that at the end of the 20th century we should be trying to get rid of these military blocs because they are not relevant, as far as I can see.
We are breathing new life into the Western European Union, which should have actually been defunct last year.
In my own country we have been reassured over and over again that the European Union is not being militarised, yet many reports which have gone through this Parliament in the five years I have been here clearly indicate that is the direction it is going in.
I do not believe that any kind of militarising of the EU is in the interests of the people at large, either within Europe or within the world as a whole.
We are only setting up a new military bloc, which I do not believe is a good idea.
Governments throughout the EU should be honest with their electorate, especially in neutral countries like my own, and say: 'This is really what is going on here. Are you in favour of it or are you against it?'
It is quite clear that if something is not done now, at this stage, we are going to have a defence aspect to the EU.
Helmut Kohl said he believed that at the end of the line to European Union lay a European army and European police force. The public has not been told this.
It should be.
I am fundamentally opposed to any kind of European army or European police force or to a European defence identity within the EU.
The CFSP, which was first launched by the Maastricht Treaty, has found it hard to make its mark.
For too long, it was practically nonexistent and Europe has looked like a political dwarf in the international arena by adopting minimalist positions.
Mr Spencer's reports show that the European Union is beginning to assert itself as a political power, and they clearly express the European Parliament's desire to contribute in this area.
Although the European Union's political action is obviously still inadequate - and this is particularly evident in terms of security and defence - we must qualify this statement in light of the recent events in Kosovo.
The European Union has shown that it can take initiatives, for example by organising the Rambouillet Conference.
It can make its voice heard and is not playing a supporting role to the United States.
The Treaty of Amsterdam will enable us to give fresh impetus to the CFSP.
The appointment of a High Representative for the CFSP will render this policy more visible and more effective.
I support the rapporteur's suggestion that we should organise a hearing within the Committee on Foreign Affairs before this High Representative takes up office.
Moreover, the new instrument of common strategies allows us to provide the CFSP with fundamental guidelines.
The General Affairs Council should adopt such a strategy with regard to the Russian Federation and submit it to the Cologne European Council.
I am completely in favour of this timetable, and because this issue is so urgent, we must not postpone its adoption.
The crisis the Russian Federation is currently experiencing, in institutional terms and also in economic and social terms, means that there can be no delays.
The events in Kosovo should spur us on to establish intensive dialogue with the Russian Federation.
It plays an essential role in the European defence structure, and this is a key element for stability in the continent of Europe.
The European Parliament should be consulted on the content of this strategy.
Since this is not provided for in the Treaty on European Union, I hope, like the rapporteur, that an interinstitutional agreement will be drawn up to provide for this consultation.
I share his indignation as regards the assessment of Parliament's powers in this matter.
The amendments introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam do not change anything in that respect: with the exception of the financing of the CFSP, Parliament's role is confined to information and consultation.
The presidency failed to present in time to Parliament its annual report on the main aspects and basic choices of the CFSP.
That is sufficient evidence that there is no desire to involve Parliament in this policy.
The EU's common foreign and security policy has been wrecked: the United Kingdom and the USA have followed their own line more than once over Iraq, and the EU has been unable to resolve the conflicts in Bosnia, Kosovo and Turkey (over Kurdistan).
The EU should tone down its common foreign and security policy and instead concentrate all its energies on preventing conflict in the EU and the neighbouring regions.
The CFSP should never have been established. It is misguided.
The EU is not a state, and should not become one.
In my view, the EU should be built on intergovernmental cooperation.
Such cooperation excludes a common defence.
Consequently, there should be cross-border cooperation to prevent conflicts.
Conflicts are something that humankind will have to live with - the problem is how to deal with them.
Conflicts have their origins in social, ethnic and religious differences; they cannot be resolved by military power, but call for political, economic and diplomatic means instead.
Security can only be achieved through cooperation; everyone should enjoy the same security, which should be based on principles of equality and justice.
Cooperation, openness and disarmament give us greater security, but real security must also include security from the threat of hunger, disease and oppression.
Spencer report (A4-0219/99)
This report contains many good intentions and for that reason it deserves our support.
However, its purpose seems somewhat pathetic.
The following symbolic passage is sufficient proof of this: 'The common strategy towards Russia is being considered against a political backdrop that has changed with NATO's military action against the Yugoslav Federation.
There is also the question of the United States Congress's decision to develop under certain conditions an anti-missile defence system that, from the Russian point of view, challenges the ABM Treaty'.
What does our rapporteur have to say in the face of these two harmful actions by the United States? As far as he is concerned, 'all these developments support the case for intensive dialogue between the European Union and the Russian Federation'.
So on the American side, we have actions.
And on the European side, we have words.
There could be no clearer proof of Europe's powerlessness in the face of the American superpower.
The United States benefited so much from the division of Europe after 1945 that it seems to be doing its utmost to create the conditions for a new division, this time between Western Europe on the one hand, and Orthodox Europe on the other.
There have been countless hostile acts against the Orthodox civilisation in Europe - contempt, accusations of chauvinism, total ignorance of a different culture - and the bombing of Serbia is symptomatic of this attitude.
The aim is to create a new division within Europe that we would not be able to deal with in any other way.
The countries of Europe must reject this logic, with the mutual support and cooperation of the Russian Federation, in the interests of peace and prosperity for all.
We abstained in the final vote on this report.
We support the line that all the EU Member States should develop and reinforce their political and economic relations with the Russian Federation, since development in Russia is important for Europe as a whole.
Contributing to the improvement of democracy in Russia is central to such a strategy.
However, we believe that the neo-liberal policies encouraged by the West have played a part in creating serious social problems in Russia, such as unemployment and increasing class conflict.
The fostering of relations with Russia should therefore be based on a policy which helps to strengthen democracy and reduce social inequality in that country.
The main theme underlying this report is that the EU should strengthen the common foreign and security policy, something we are opposed to.
In our view, such a development would amongst other things lead to the non-aligned countries - such as Sweden - becoming more dependent and having fewer opportunities to act autonomously, which would be a drawback in terms of common security in Europe and the rest of the world.
On the basis of the above arguments, we decided to abstain in the final vote.
Müller report (A4-0227/99)
Mrs Müller has drawn up an excellent report on the budget estimates for 2000.
We are happy to adopt many of its recommendations and therefore voted in favour of it.
The rapporteur is right to go for a strict budgetary policy.
It must only be possible to take on extra staff in specifically justified cases.
The buildings must be paid off over the shortest possible period of time in order to keep interest payments to a minimum.
The rapporteur also rejects direct subsidies out of the EU budget for setting up and operating a supermarket and the catering services in the Parliament buildings.
These are all recommendations which we firmly support.
I would, however, like to raise a number of questions.
We support the move to a new personnel policy under which promotion would be performance based.
This encourages motivation.
But the big question here is who judges this performance?
Can we guarantee that the appraisal will be objective? We must do away with favouritism and political appointments based on personal preference.
The Santer Commission came to grief as a result of cronyism.
Let this serve as an example to others.
Finally, I should like to say a word about the salaries of Community officials.
If a statute is accepted for Members of Parliament, there will be a huge discrepancy between the salary levels of MEPs and officials.
Not that we as MEPs should be dissatisfied.
But it does indicate that the salaries paid to officials are excessive.
This is something we need to debate.
The sitting was suspended at 1.48 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Agenda 2000 (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the joint debate on Agenda 2000.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is and has been the wish of the Council, the Commission and Parliament to achieve three objectives by means of Agenda 2000. The first is to make the Union fit for enlargement eastwards.
The second is to reform its own policies, especially its agricultural and Structural Funds policies, in a sense to bring a breath of fresh air into our policies. The third is to safeguard the financing of these policies over the next seven years.
The master plan presented by the Commission to this end did not come through the more than two years of discussions in Parliament and the Council unchanged, and I admit that this was not advantageous in every respect.
It will become apparent that we have not entirely achieved the objectives I have just listed.
But it is also true that we have come very, very close to doing so.
The result of Berlin is a compromise.
That it came into being at all is also thanks to the German Presidency of the Council, and in particular to the German Chancellor.
Every compromise, including of course the Berlin compromise, has some more and some less satisfactory aspects.
Perhaps in the European Union maximum satisfaction can be achieved only if the dissatisfaction is equally distributed.
Here too the German Presidency can boast some success.
But so can Parliament!
Never before has the European Parliament been so closely involved in the decision-making on a reform project of this scale.
From the time of the first reading of the reports in the European Parliament up to the Berlin European Council at the end of March, Parliament influenced and modified the results in the course of intensive discussions, and in intensive negotiations after Berlin.
This result is certainly not quite what we had hoped and wanted.
However, we are also aware that for the first time the European Parliament has managed to change important aspects of a European Council decision.
We succeeded in ensuring the implementation and funding of a fourth URBAN Community initiative, so as to promote the economic and social regeneration of cities and urban neighbourhoods.
I want to take this opportunity to particularly thank the Commissioner, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, for supporting the European Parliament's position on these questions, as also on a range of others.
We would not have carried off this success without having her on our side.
It will be thanks to us if more attention is paid in future to land-use planning, to remote regions and islands.
It will be thanks to us that more support is to be given to education and training, and above all it is thanks to us that the flexibility instrument can be increased.
Also to our credit is the review clause for the financing of future policies, especially in the external policy area and in relation to aid for the reconstruction of the afflicted Balkan regions.
It is thanks to us that codecision has been introduced at least in some areas of agricultural policy.
I think the future President of the Commission has us to thank that this Commission will have considerably more staff available for carrying out new tasks than the old Commission ever had.
The large majority of my group will approve the interinstitutional agreement on medium-term financial planning and we will of course give our assent to those parts of Agenda 2000 that require such assent.
As we declared back in November 1998: we, the Parliament, will do all we can to ensure that the Agenda 2000 package is adopted before Parliament is re-elected and we want to get this Agenda 2000 under way now.
It makes a vital contribution to the Union's ability to act during a difficult period.
With our decisions on Agenda 2000 we will make the European Union more able to move into the future.
Mr President, in an era when the dogma that you can implement policies, especially social policies, without money is increasingly gaining ground, I continue to insist on the need for a substantive policy of economic and social cohesion within the framework of the European Union.
Social and economic cohesion is one of the fundamental principles of the Treaty on European Union and I think that all the institutions of the European Union must remain firmly committed to this fundamental principle.
I have to say that, within this framework, the Commission proposals on Agenda 2000 were a step in the right direction. I would like, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, to congratulate Mrs Wulf-Mathies, Mr Fischler and Mr Flynn on their position throughout the negotiations.
As we all know, the European Parliament formalised its proposals as far back as November, and I believe that it went much further than the Commission proposals.
What it set out to do was to bring together two objectives: on the one hand to have effective fund management and, on the other, to place the emphasis where it was needed.
This is why we asked from the outset that three quarters of the funds went to Objective 1 regions, which are the poorest.
Taking this a step further, Mr President, negotiations took place and then we had the European Council meeting in Berlin, until which time there had been a certain indecisiveness.
Fortunately, however, the European Council in Berlin reached a compromise, which was followed by negotiations between Parliament, the Council and, of course, the Commission. This brought about three constructive changes: the first change concerned the Community initiative, URBAN; the second was the European Regional Development Fund relating to actions for culture and tourism, and the third concerned the special emphasis given, again under the European Regional Development Fund, to islands.
As with all compromises, the compromise reached at Berlin does not give cause for celebration, even less so for my country - and I must speak as a Greek - since the Greek Government accepted reforms which place us in the same category as Spain, Ireland and Portugal, countries which are less poor than ours and which are already participating in the euro.
Nevertheless, if Parliament were to reject this compromise, all our efforts would go up in smoke, and it would prevent the timely onset of programmes within the third Community support framework on 1 January 2000.
I move therefore that the regulation be adopted, especially now that most of the opinions expressed by Parliament as far back as November have been accepted, and that we achieved positive changes during the negotiations we had with the Council last month.
I would also like to say a few words about the pre-accession funds.
It is sad that Cyprus has been excluded by the Council.
Cyprus is the only applicant country that has been excluded from pre-accession funding.
I hope that Mr van den Broek will fulfil his commitment to examine the possibility of a special budget line to fund Cyprus, as we cannot have double standards.
Such exclusions give rise to doubts as to whether there is indeed the will to admit Cyprus into the European Union, and these doubts must be dispelled as quickly as possible.
Mr President, when the European Council in Berlin reached an agreement, the most important thing was that there was a political agreement.
At that time it was unacceptable for Parliament.
But at this historic moment we will hopefully agree to an interinstitutional agreement.
It is historic in that never before has the European Council position been changed by Parliament and it reflects our new position.
We see in front of us three of the resigning Commissioners, and I should like to say on this point that the original proposals on Agenda 2000 showed courage and vision on the part of the Commission.
The results of the European Council were not satisfactory.
We have achieved major results.
Above all, for the first time we now have new rights in terms of non-compulsory expenditure on agriculture.
That must surely be something positive for Commissioner Fischler.
We have received new guarantees of new flexibility.
We are not very satisfied by the fact that the Council has cut down enormously in an area where this Parliament has major rights - Category 3.
At least we have achieved within the current constraints the possibility of a further adjustment by Parliament.
In Category 4 - external policy - there is an agreement that we will have the possibility of review.
The hypocrisy of the European Council can best be demonstrated by the fact that no less than EUR 250 m had to be decided within two weeks on Kosovo, thereby taking more than three-fifths of the overall basis for seven years.
It shows therefore that Berlin is already outdated.
But voting against an interinstitutional agreement at this moment would be a major mistake.
It is on that basis that the Liberal Group will vote for the interinstitutional agreement because it will achieve not simply more money but more rights and more parity.
It is on that basis that the European Community can move forwards.
If we vote against it, with all the other difficulties, we would throw the European Union into a major phase of uncertainty at the time that the challenges for the new century are about to come.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, all the islanders of the European Union were pleased to see on the evening of 2 October 1997 that the Treaty of Amsterdam signed by the 15 Member States contained the first explicit references officially recognising the permanent and structural handicaps suffered by the island regions and the need to remedy this situation.
Unfortunately, less than two years later and with the Treaty having entered into force last Saturday, it is important to note that the reform of the Structural Funds for the 2000-2006 period does not follow the same logic as the new Treaty.
Although a solid legal basis allowed us to implement a truly integrated policy to help the island regions, particularly by means of the Structural Funds, the Council and the Commission decided otherwise, paying no heed to the European Parliament's recommendations in this matter.
The island regions saw all the possibilities of special, specific treatment being categorically and methodically rejected.
Even the modest request for a special section for cooperation with and between the islands in the Interreg III programme was rejected.
On reading the regulations that will be adopted tomorrow, it would seem that the cause of the island regions will not have made any significant advances with this reform of the Structural Funds. Moreover, it is worrying to note that, from the year 2000, very few islands will be considered to be in need of support as a result of their slow development.
Does this mean that the Council and the Commission believe that the Union's island regions have experienced enough economic development to call into question the political will - set out a year and a half earlier at the Amsterdam Council - to give real consideration to the islands' problems?
Does this mean that the permanent and structural handicaps that were expressly recognised have disappeared as if by magic in only 18 months? Only the regulation concerning the ERDF refers to the need to help certain islands, and even then it only contains a very vague reference.
Nevertheless, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Varela, and the members of the Committee on Regional Policy for their understanding and their support throughout this parliamentary term.
Faced with such an inadequate outcome for the cause of the islands, there is no doubt that all efforts must now be made to ensure that the specific characteristics of the Union's island regions are considered not only in theoretical terms, but also in practical terms.
But I trust that the European Parliament will continue along the path it has followed for several years.
The Council and the Commission will not be able to pretend for ever that they do not hear us.
Mr President, the framework for the financial perspective agreed in Berlin is not likely to raise much enthusiasm.
This is probably not due so much to the amounts earmarked for or requested from each of our countries, but more to the generally restrictive solution adopted and its precariousness.
Nevertheless, all the countries and governments declared that they were winners after the summit. But we should be objective.
With such a financial framework, there will be no enlargement until 2006. In order to achieve this before then, the perspective will have to be extensively reweighted, as well as the respective amounts.
This medium-term financial framework does not respond to such important issues as the consolidation of the euro and, in particular, any asymmetric shocks or other shocks which may result from the next WTO negotiations.
In this context, although we are happy to unconditionally support and encourage the new interinstitutional agreement as a matter of principle and in order to guarantee stability and allow planning, the resulting compromise of the financial framework adopted with these characteristics gives us cause for concern.
This will increase even more due to the absence of an in-depth reform of the CAP, which we recommend, and due to the undeniably restrictive content of the rules which will govern some of the cohesion-related instruments.
However, other members of my group will talk about these aspects.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first let me turn to the positive aspects.
It is vitally important to economic and social cohesion and therefore to the very core of the European social model that the new regulation was adopted in good time, before the end of the European Parliament's electoral term.
That guarantees the continuation of the funding.
However, the price is very high.
The regions will now have to compensate for the financial cuts at the very heart of European integration by putting forward more intelligent plans.
In this regard I call on the Commission to apply its control function really seriously and genuinely to pursue in its programmes the objectives formulated in the new regulation - sustainable development, promotion of employment, promotion of equal opportunities for women and men, environmental improvement, support for small and medium-sized undertakings - and not to shy away from them again in face of the Member States.
The result of Berlin, as has already been said today, is not quite the reform we hoped for.
After Parliament increased the rights of the people of Europe by incorporating a comprehensive principle of participation in the draft regulation - and this is the only basis for sustainable planning - the Council is now leaving this common concern to the discretion of the Member States.
I regard that as the main problem with the new regulation.
When the funds are used for integrated development plans, the traditional way of thinking in terms of resources must be overcome.
The regulation does offer possibilities, but I have since become aware of the resistance at Member State level.
What this means is that local development initiatives must obtain ESF and ERDF funds if they really are to be able to combat unemployment.
Under the new Structural Funds regulation it has proved possible to continue the cohesion policy.
But that is not a reform!
Efficiency, administrative simplification and concentration have fallen by the wayside.
They were sacrificed to the confessional procedure and the favours handed out there.
I conclude from this that if we do not finally manage to place the European interest above national interests we will not manage to achieve a genuinely progressive economic and social cohesion policy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a consensus within Parliament as regards the enlargement of the EU to include the CEECs and the need to reform the CAP, and I would like to look at this aspect of Agenda 2000.
Parliament, which represents the people of Europe, stated that it was in favour of the European agricultural model, greater equity, balanced rural development, improved quality and the protection of the environment. This was highlighted in the Cunha report.
This political position is clear and it totally opposes the ever-increasing standardisation, the ever-increasing homogenisation, and the ever-increasing relentless competition, which pushes farmers' prices and incomes down. This is the ultra-liberal position of the Cairns Group and the United States.
Thanks to Parliament's firm stance, which has meant that the Commission has had to take up a less intransigent position, and thanks to the perseverance and persistence of certain Member States, we have a satisfactory compromise for the short-term in terms of abandoning cofinancing, in terms of a more moderate fall than expected in guaranteed agricultural prices and in terms of the status quo on quotas.
But what will happen in the future?
Does the reform enable us to respond to the Commission's plans for sustainable agriculture, which contradict its amended proposal on the agricultural section of Agenda 2000?
Is cooperation between the European Union and the ACP countries enhanced?
Has rural development, which involves 80 % of the Union's territory, been given the role it deserves?
Is it promoted in the island regions and allocated greater resources in the budget?
Are the issues of the obvious social and environmental imbalances in the CAP and the division of agriculture into two categories truly resolved? Is aid to agriculture better distributed and does it better protect the environment?
No, no, no and no.
By moving away from the policy of supporting agriculture through prices, by shrinking into ourselves and encouraging nationalisation, by undermining this sector through a further increase in direct income aid, Europe is moving further and further away from its mission and the founding principles of the common agricultural market.
What is even more serious is that it is eroding the foundations of its culture, its countryside, its gastronomy, and therefore a major part of its identity.
How will the agricultural Europe, reformed in this way, be able to defend its political project for agriculture and rural development in the future WTO negotiations?
This gives rise to great concern.
Those negotiating on behalf of Europe in the WTO will have to prepare for battle and put our minds at rest: the European Union must never have a political agricultural objective of bringing the Community's regulations into line with the rules of play of the global market.
For the time being, since it is the present we must deal with, my group will vote in favour of the current compromise, but it urges the Commission to defend the European agricultural model at the next WTO negotiations.
Mr President, it is on the strength of our convictions rather than any desire to put up opposition that we will not vote for the legislative resolutions on Agenda 2000, with the exception of the resolution on the COM in wine, as we do not support the positions of the Commission and the Council that emerged as a result of the Berlin compromise.
How could we be pleased with an agreement that leads to a significant reduction in European farmers' incomes, through a partially compensated reduction in prices, before totally eliminating them to satisfy the requirements of the WTO?
You will be aware, Mr President, that certain agricultural products are essential for the environmental balance and for the utilisation of EU territory.
Unfortunately, a serious decline will be experienced as far as certain products are concerned.
I am thinking, in particular, of oil protein crops, which, I would remind you, are ideal rotation crops to produce quality cereals, something we are increasingly trying to do.
When I drafted the two opinions of the Committee on Agriculture on Agenda 2000, I warned all my colleagues about the budget difficulties we would encounter.
In this connection, I am for the most part satisfied with the Berlin agreement with respect to its aim to support, if need be, the agricultural guideline as and when the successive enlargements take place, taking into consideration an automatic annual technical adjustment in the financial perspective to account for inflation.
We only hope that the principle of compulsory expenditure will not be called into question.
Apart from its repercussions on farmers' incomes, this agreement in no way prepares for the next WTO negotiations, or perhaps, without saying so, it prepares for them too well.
All the proposed reforms will be given a pounding.
The only acquis that our partners will accept is the reduction of prices.
Clearly, our partners are also going to try to dismantle compensation aid.
We all know that the motto in these types of negotiations is that everything that has been established has been established while the rest is up for negotiation.
European agriculture must not disappear.
Besides the economic and financial role that farmers play, they also have a social, cultural and environmental role that must be given top priority.
On listening to Mr Prodi's speeches, I noticed that he plans to use his position to enhance the role of the European Union in urban areas.
So allow me to ask one question: in this context, where does the future of the countryside lie with the development of the Structural Funds to benefit urban areas, with the new WTO negotiations and with a CAP that contradicts our European identity?
That concludes the political group spokemen's contribution.
We now come to the contributions of the rapporteurs.
Mr President, above all we need to be aware here today of our responsibilities in Parliament's final part-session, not only our legislative function but our commitment to deliver this new round of European funds for our regions and local communities in a timely manner.
As rapporteur I would like to tell you why I am recommending that Parliament gives a resounding 'Yes' vote to the Council regulation on structural funds as amended.
Our objective has been to emphasise Parliament's priorities in the reform process through a succession of informal contacts.
This informal procedure is an ongoing exchange of information, a fruitful dialogue which has resulted in Parliament's priorities being incorporated into the final Berlin text while some demands remain to be negotiated in post-Berlin meetings.
We can be satisfied that key priorities have been met.
Parliament requested that concentration must ensure that Objective 1 regions, the poorest in the Union, continue to receive priority assistance.
This is the case in areas such as my own in Merseyside with a GDP of less than 75 % of the EU average which will continue to receive priority funds.
I have to say that even if some financial special cases were made alongside Objective 1, this was of course the price to pay for a package and financial deal.
We have to have the realism and pragmatism in this Parliament to recognise that consensus and compromise are the lifeblood of European politics.
New Objective 2 regions will continue to benefit from a sustained European commitment and sustained investment.
Again, if I look to my own region of the North-West, it has benefited from European funding.
There is still a lot to do and we are glad to see the flexibility of a six-year potential phasing-out programme rather than four years in the Commission's original proposal.
I would like to invite the Commission at the end of our mandate to take up the offer from Manchester City Council to come and see how European funds are making a difference to local communities there.
We supported a safety net proposal.
This we believe was a success.
In addition, Parliament very much welcomes the request, that was met, for the Union to play an active role in promoting lasting peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland.
This was met with a special peace package.
We would have liked to have gone further on partnership but we hope that Member States will have the vision to ensure wide and deeper partnership in the drafting of programmes and in the implementing of those programmes.
Most importantly, for me personally, the jewel in the crown achieved as a result of informal post-Berlin negotiations in Strasbourg was that the Council agreed to the European Parliament's request to modify the Berlin Summit decision to add a new URBAN initiative with 0.35 % of funds added to the Community pot.
I hope Mr Flynn does not think we are plundering Article 10 because we will be using those funds for social and employment initiatives as well.
URBAN has been popular with the public in some of our most deprived neighbourhoods and I believe we can help those communities on the path to regeneration.
The rapporteurs therefore recommend that we now see a balance of interest between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
I would warn any political group that is thinking of playing party politics with this vote that blocking these proposals would mean a newly elected Parliament would be unable to vote until autumn, and this would put at risk over 200 billion of resources and involve interminable delays to local communities and projects.
But let us be clear about what we are voting for today.
This is not just a 112-page document of Eurospeak and technical details, although you can find plenty of Eurojargon in it.
It is a package of funding to launch our regions into the new millennium, seven years of support for our most marginalised communities and areas who need our European commitment and solidarity, for the young, the long-term unemployed and women returners: people who want to play an active role and part in economic regeneration in Europe.
This is a European Union package for jobs, for regeneration.
It is an employment and regeneration pact and it is a product of a consensus and compromise between the Member States.
As I have said, we believe we have made very positive improvements with the addition of a fourth Community initiative, a new URBAN initiative, which Parliament supported and campaigned for.
For all the above reasons I urge members today to use their vote to give a unanimous 'Yes' vote to this funding package.
Let us give our EU citizens the visible sign that we are backing the solidarity and support needed for the jobs and regeneration programmes for the new millennium
Mr President, it gives me pleasure to present the recommendation and the report on the Cohesion Fund, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy.
When I presented this report for a first reading last November I spoke about the need for social and economic cohesion to remain one of the central pillars of the Community.
The Cohesion Fund has been one of the clearest examples of this solidarity and action and what it can achieve.
In approving this report on that occasion this House endorsed that view of the Community.
In recent months, and indeed up to the Berlin Summit, there have been a number of meetings with the Council on the future of the Cohesion Fund.
I was adamant to negotiate the retention of the Cohesion Fund and that it be maintained in its current form.
The final agreement at Berlin upheld Parliament's views in relation to the Fund and points raised during the informal conciliation period were taken on board.
Parliament's priorities in relation to the Cohesion Fund were easily identifiable.
The first priority was to ensure the continuation of the Fund and the Council was able to agree with Parliament's view that the basic objectives of the Cohesion Fund are as relevant today as they were in 1992.
Therefore the eligibility criterion of 90 % of the Union average wealth had to remain unchanged, allowing Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece to continue to qualify for the fund.
The view shared by Parliament and the Commission that the four current cohesion countries should continue to be eligible was agreed to by Council.
The countries concerned need to continue the convergence process, and the continuation of the Fund is a vital ingredient in this process.
The retention of the fund under the same conditions means that the infrastructure gap between the four cohesion countries and the rest of the Community can gradually be closed.
It is vital that the current imbalance in this area be redressed so as to allow for a harmonised level of economic development across the EU.
A second point on which Parliament's views were taken on board, relates to the amount of an advance for projects and Parliament believed that the 10 % on account proposed by the Commission was insufficient.
It would have exerted too heavy a burden on less-favoured regions trying to get a project off the ground, and the 20 % agreed at Berlin, I believe, recognised this fact.
A further issue which Parliament had deemed unsatisfactory was the application of the 'polluter pays' principle.
While we naturally supported the idea, the Commission proposal remained unclear as to what was meant by 'a project's capacity to generate revenue'.
Clear guidelines were needed as to the practical implementation of the principle.
In this respect I welcome the Commission's declaration attached to the Berlin conclusions that the implementation would have to take account of national, social sensitivities.
In terms of what Parliament set out to achieve for the Cohesion Fund from 2000 to 2006, the Berlin agreement is highly satisfactory.
For this reason I believe there is no need for any further adjustments.
I will just outline some of the main features of the Cohesion Fund as it will be under the amended regulation from the year 2000.
There will be an overall amount of EUR 18 billion available to the four cohesion countries for the seven year period.
The allocation of the total resources between the four countries was made on the basis of precise and objective criteria, principally population size and GNP per capita.
Account was taken of the improvement and national prosperity attained over the previous period as well as of surface area.
Other factors, such as deficiencies and transport infrastructure were also considered.
And halfway through the funding period a review of progress will take place to see which countries will continue to qualify on the basis of continuing to meet the 90 % criterion.
As I have already mentioned, the 'polluter pays' principle is included in the amended regulation and other environmental considerations also feature.
In this way Parliament's view that infrastructure development must take serious account of environmental obligations is clearly evident.
Colleagues, we all took a very close interest in the Berlin Summit and are all well aware that the final agreement did not come easily.
The question of the Cohesion Fund was frequently controversial and, against this background, Parliament can be satisfied that it was taken seriously by the other institutions and that our recommendations were taken on board.
I welcome the final text of the regulation as one that reflects very clearly Parliament's views and I recommend that colleagues give this report their assent.
This will consolidate many months of dedicated effort from Parliament's side to secure the best deal possible for the balanced development of our regions and the furthering of economic and social cohesion of the European Union.
Parliament's assent will mean that the funding timetable can be adhered to in vital projects in Spain, Ireland, Greece and Portugal, enabling them to call down the necessary funding.
These projects will make a real and tangible difference to the lives of millions of our citizens living in the Community's more remote and under-developed regions.
But the Cohesion Fund is more than this.
Its benefits are not limited to four Member States.
In building the Union into a more cohesive, economic Union we are consolidating the single market and reinforcing the euro.
We are allowing the Union to face up to not only these current projects but also the future ambition of enlargement.
It is true that the Cohesion Fund is limited as to its sectors of operation, geographical focus and indeed amounts.
However, it has proven to be an excellently focused instrument recording excellent expenditure levels and results which are of benefit to all.
In conclusion, Mr President, on a personal note, I should like to sincerely thank Commissioner Wulf-Mathies for her very positive role in this area.
She has always been most open at all times to discussion and debate, always understanding, always courteous to Parliament's members of the Committee on Regional Policy.
Her commitment to the European Union and to her area of responsibility is an inspiration to us all.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur, I am very pleased for two reasons.
Firstly, Parliament has the chance to approve tomorrow in the House our recommendation at second reading concerning the ERDF.
This has important legal and political implications since, following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the ERDF now comes under the codecision procedure.
We have had the novel experience of negotiating with the Council and the Commission in order to find a consensus between Parliament's position, that of the 15 Member States and the Commission's proposal.
One slip by Parliament, or simply one occasion where we do not exercise our powers responsibly, could result in us approving certain amendments that might prevent us from concluding this important regulation tomorrow, thereby preventing the regions of Europe from planning their activities for 1 January 2000.
I am also very pleased as rapporteur because of the content of the document we have drawn up.
It was not easy to fully explain our colleagues' ideas, but through four compromise amendments we succeeded in obtaining the agreement of the majority to withdraw other amendments, while also managing to preserve the spirit of our committee's proposal.
The first of these four amendments refers to the inclusion of the concept of land-use planning in the ERDF, which is something Parliament has been fighting for for quite some time.
We need to link regional development with spatial development.
Or, if you prefer, we need to unite economic and social cohesion with the territorial cohesion of Europe.
Our second compromise amendment is very closely related to land-use planning and calls on the ERDF to help establish the necessary links with regions suffering from permanent, geographical disadvantages because of their peripheral or insular status. The aim here is to promote exchanges between Europe's peripheral areas and the Community's central regions.
In its three-yearly report on cohesion, the Commission has highlighted the fact that this situation is one of the main reasons for the backwardness of these regions and a factor in any eventual recovery.
Our third compromise amendment specifically brings tourism and culture under the scope of the ERDF.
Not long ago, just before he unfortunately passed away, the artist and humanist Yehudi Menuhin wondered publicly what would happen to the European Union's culture.
Strangely, although 80 % of the Union's spending on culture comes from the Structural Funds, only 3 % of its appropriations are allocated to cultural projects.
Our report hopes to provide a response to these questions and we would ask that culture be given a greater presence in the Structural Funds, including our cultural and natural heritage.
Finally, in line with the report on the general regulation, we would ask that the URBAN initiative should be maintained alongside the Community's Interreg initiative.
I would like to end by referring to a very special issue in which the European Parliament has played a very significant role: the structural aspects of fisheries.
In my speech to the House at first reading, I called on the Commission to amend its proposal and put fisheries on an equal footing with agriculture.
I am pleased to see today that our position - which was so strongly defended by our rapporteur, Mr Arias Cañete, under the firm and constant guidance of the Committee on Fisheries - has reached a satisfactory conclusion.
The amendments Parliament had requested have been introduced and we have managed to end up with a report that is a significant improvement on the Commission's proposal.
I would therefore like to thank the Commission, the Council and all our colleagues who have supported us.
Mr President, Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, it seems hard to believe: the Social Fund is our only labour market policy instrument at European level!
It has very successfully introduced new labour market policy measures in the Member States.
Yet in Berlin it was not provided with anything near the funding that this House and the Commission rightly called for.
Precisely in the case of the Social Fund, which has repeatedly produced European added value, whether in regard to the policy for the handicapped, in regard to preventive labour market policy or, for instance, to promoting equal opportunities for women, much remained in dispute up the last minute.
Surely that is a rather topsy-turvy world!
It was not our fault.
We did not call for anything revolutionary.
Basically we were concerned with five key points to effectively flank the common employment strategy.
Right at the top of the list was a preventive labour market policy and specific measures for women.
Preventing unemployment has to be the more humane approach and is also considerably cheaper.
Surely it is not acceptable that people now speak of the feminisation of poverty Union-wide!
Nor is it acceptable that EU-wide women only occupy 3 % of top jobs, and the rate is declining.
Women still make up the majority of the population. And here, gentlemen of the Council, mainstreaming alone is not enough!
We were also concerned with doing more to combat social marginalisation, for in the long term it will pay off if these people can manage to support themselves again.
We also wanted to make the positive experiences gained from the PEACE initiative accessible throughout the Union; under this initiative, NGOs provided small grants that did not involve any great administrative outlay to help people for whom access to public sector jobs represents an impossible threshold to cross.
Our fifth concern was to make the Member States more aware of the need to cover all the Social Fund intervention areas rather than just picking out their favourites again.
And let me say again to the Council: you have been aware of these demands since the beginning of the year.
But that did not stop you from deciding your common position with quite stubborn disregard for this.
We may well ask ourselves in this House, what is the point then of these informal conciliation meetings?
The fact that we now have compromises acceptable to both sides is thanks to us and us alone, because we openly came towards you with compromise proposals to prevent your stubborn attitude from driving us to the Conciliation Committee; for that would have meant having to stall many projects because the money would not have come from Brussels in time.
That would have been irresponsible, which, I hope, is something nobody here in this House wants!
In the end you got round to it after all.
Even if the percentages of the funding have not been fixed, we have agreed on a more preventive labour market policy and on more specific measures for women.
Suddenly it did prove possible to enshrine in the regulation the objective of social integration in the labour market.
In the end we even managed to reach a compromise on global subsidies, which now actually makes it possible to provide up to 100 % support for NGOs.
The amendments we have now agreed with the Council are Amendments Nos 1, 8, 9 and 10.
I would ask all Members to support these amendments so that the results of our negotiations are also reflected in the Social Fund regulation.
There has been very little shift in the Council's position on the five intervention areas.
We will have to learn to live with that.
But on no issue was the Council as inflexible and stubborn as on mainstreaming.
So it is now up to the Commission to ensure that mainstreaming is incorporated in the national programmes.
I hope we will also see a few women in the Council in seven years' time.
It would certainly be a service to the cause!
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, in the first report I presented to the House on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries on the Council Regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector, Parliament expressed its support for three basic ideas.
The first was the need to guarantee sufficient resources in the Community budget to cover the sector's needs in the context of the structural policy for the fisheries sector.
The second was the need for a single legal framework, in the form of a horizontal regulation, that would bring together the various regulations.
The third was the need for national programmes, and not only regional programmes, to guarantee that the structural policy was consistent with the fleets' multi-annual guidance programmes.
On the basis of this strategy, at first reading Parliament brought together in a single regulation both the proposal for a Council Regulation on structural measures in the fisheries sector, which is included in Agenda 2000, and the proposal for a Council Regulation laying down the detailed rules and arrangements regarding Community structural assistance in the fisheries sector.
The vote in the House entirely endorsed the positions supported by the Committee on Fisheries. Subsequently, our committee, and particularly its chairman, Carmen Fraga, contacted the Council, the national administrations and the professional organisations to organise a public hearing, which confirmed that Parliament's political position was widely supported.
With such support, Parliament held various informal meetings with the Council presidency which, I am very pleased to say, has agreed to most of what we wanted, and, since the Berlin European Council, a new proposal for a regulation has even been drawn up, which is at last known as the 'Regulation on the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance'.
From now on, we will have a single structural basis for fisheries and will not have to finance structural measures under the EAGGF Guarantee Section.
Equally, we will have horizontal programming in non-Objective 1 regions.
We will also have a full list of all the actions and measures involved, and on the basis of these concessions from the Council, the Committee on Fisheries has accepted that there will two separate regulations.
I would like to congratulate the Council and the Commission on the flexibility they demonstrated in reviewing the initial ideas we considered to be mistaken and looking for a satisfactory compromise.
I would also like to point out that we have made significant changes to the regulation on implementing measures: we have removed the additional 30 % requirement for capacity withdrawn and the arrangements linking joint enterprises to the fisheries agreements.
I would like to end with a general reference to the Structural Funds pillar of Agenda 2000. In my view, given the backdrop of budgetary rigour, the Council and the Commission have shown good sense in concentrating aid on Objective 1 regions.
This will allow us to maintain the current levels of support in terms of per capita aid and to maintain the Cohesion Fund. Together, these elements will help us to speed up the structural recovery of the less prosperous countries.
There is no doubt that our structural policy lacks vital weight to overcome the regional imbalances in the short term. By the same token, however, there is no doubt that the European Union is continuing to preserve some extremely important solidarity mechanisms.
Perhaps, against this backdrop of budgetary rigour, we can see the importance of the requirement set out in the Treaty that all Community policies - not only structural policies - must be considered from the perspective of economic and social cohesion.
It may be that in a situation where the debate on net balances determines the solutions, it is somewhat utopian to demand that all Community policies should be aimed at achieving greater economic and social cohesion.
But in the near future, when we tackle the question of enlargement, we will have to look at this idea in greater detail if we do not want to end up with an enlarged Europe with even greater regional disparities that put the entire system at risk.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I will try to help the President by speaking slowly, if possible, and without a text in front of me.
Up until now, we have talked about how we are going to put our common house - the Union - in order.
It is now time to look at enlargement.
This report of mine which is now at second reading discusses the coordination of pre-accession aid for enlargement.
I feel that I should remind you briefly of the historical task and role of enlargement, not only in terms of Agenda 2000 but also for the European Union. The people of Central and Eastern Europe and of the Mediterranean, the majority of whom have only recently regained their freedom, want to take part in our common historic adventure.
Since the beginning, Parliament has stated that, in its view, there should be a general process of negotiation involving inclusive criteria, without the creation of new barriers and new discriminations and with the possibility of a fairly competitive environment.
In other words, we hoped that each and every one of these countries could make the collective effort to restore democracy, restructure their economies and learn to live in harmony with their neighbours that should enable them to participate fully in our future.
I have drawn up this report on behalf of Parliament and in close cooperation with my colleagues Mr Walter and Mr Sonneveld, and my aim has been to coordinate the aid and to also include Parliament's criteria.
I must say, Mr President, that we have succeeded in a series of important objectives in this area.
Firstly, the Commission itself mended its own ways: it amended its initial draft and even changed the title of the regulation as we had requested.
Moreover, between the two readings, we held a series of meetings with the Council presidency which, in my view, were quite positive and enabled us to develop the criteria relating to the implementation of the PHARE programme, which is vitally important for organising and strengthening the institutions in these countries and including political criteria relating to democracy and strengthening civil society. In short, it is fundamental for helping to strengthen these societies.
This is the first objective which, in my opinion, we have managed to modify and improve compared with the initial proposal.
We have also made significant progress in other areas, such as respect for the existing comitology rules. We wanted to ensure that these rules were not changed by any underhand methods.
Furthermore, we made progress in terms of Parliament's participation, as there is now the possibility that we might be able to review this process every year. Overall, I feel that the solution is satisfactory.
Naturally, there are some issues that have yet to be resolved and I believe they should be mentioned.
One of these, which relates to the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, is my belief - which did not receive the support of the House, but now that the Treaty of Amsterdam has entered into force it is assuming great importance - that we should look at this entire process as an overall strategy for the Union that should lead to joint measures.
In my view, this would also allow us to integrate the policy that we need to develop in this area into our legal and constitutional framework.
There is another issue that should be mentioned, which it was not officially included but was incorporated in the procedures involving each of the countries.
It relates to the importance we attach to social dialogue in relation to strengthening the system of production and industrial relations in these countries.
I would like to mention two other aspects of our approach that have yet to be resolved, although the Council confirms that they are being considered.
One of these is the importance of restructuring the nuclear industry in most of the countries concerned.
This is an extremely sensitive issue for most of the Union's citizens.
And the final aspect - which we hope will also be integrated in the future under the new Commission - relates to the behavioural criteria and the code of conduct that must follow.
I hope that these two issues can be resolved as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I am going to speak about pre-accession measures for agriculture.
In our first report we included a fundamental point concerning the conditions which the Commission proposed applicant countries should fulfill in order to qualify for EU farming subsidies.
I am referring here to the condition that applicant countries must have drawn up a seven-year rural development plan by 1 January 2000.
The European Parliament amended this requirement, considering it much too demanding, and proposed a more practical procedure.
The Council, however, decided to follow the Commission proposal.
This point was repeatedly on the agenda at the subsequent trialogue meetings, and the Council presidency in particular expressed understanding for the European Parliament's objections.
Nevertheless, we did not succeed in convincing the Commission and Council that this condition would place an excessive administrative burden on the applicant countries.
The Council was prepared, however, to abandon the date of 1 January, while maintaining the year 2000. As a result, the difference of opinion in principle with the European Parliament remained unchanged.
The European Parliament believes it is impossible for the applicant countries to develop a full seven-year integrated rural development programme in a democratic manner within such a short space of time.
The European Parliament raised the possibility of setting up a small group of experts on the acquis communautaire and the economic development problems facing the former Communist bloc countries, who would act in an advisory capacity in selecting measures and projects.
At the same time work could continue on drawing up a rural development plan which would consequently be more realistic and of better quality.
In the meantime, it was decided following the Berlin summit to set up a separate budget category for accession, Category 7, which will also cover the SAPARD support and under which stricter financial rules will apply for prefinancing and financial management and responsibility than would have been the case if Category 1, in other words agriculture, measures continued to apply as the Commission had proposed, or with Category 2, which would have applied if these countries had actually become members.
It seems that a country in the pre-accession phase must already meet very stringent administrative demands in order to benefit from the SAPARD pre-accession support for agriculture.
My conclusion is that all the EU bodies have the same desire to achieve successful accessions as soon as possible.
But in my opinion the European Parliament has better grasped what the EU conditions mean in practice for political life in these countries.
The other institutions are more focused on accountability and cost management.
Time for further discussion is running out, however.
This is why the European Parliament is today formally delivering its opinion, while at the same time expressing its concern at the demanding procedure.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur on ISPA, the pre-accession instrument for the applicant countries, and a constant monitor of the general reform of the Structural Funds I am really glad that Parliament is bringing the negotiations on Agenda 2000 to a successful conclusion this week.
That will send out an important signal, both to the people of the Union and to the Central and Eastern European countries that are seeking EU membership.
Europe is able to act!
The fact that we can now take the definitive vote on Agenda 2000 is not just a matter of course.
So I want to take this opportunity to specifically congratulate the presidencies of the Council and particularly the German Presidency of the Council on managing to establish a workable run-up to the final spurt.
In relation to the structural pre-accession instrument ISPA, the Commission, the Council and Parliament broadly followed the same track.
Through constructive negotiations we have, in my view, achieved a successful overall result that sends out a clear signal of our solidarity with the applicant countries.
The funding is limited, especially when you look at the immense need for adjustment in the applicant countries.
That makes it all the more right to concentrate ISPA on supporting projects in the environmental and transport sectors, which are central to economic development, and to interlink this aid closely with other forms of pre-accession aid, in the framework also of PHARE.
But like the Structural Funds as a whole, and Parliament sees this as a key point, ISPA must make a lasting contribution to job creation.
We also believe it is important that the recipient countries use this instrument as a means of becoming familiar with and learning to apply the rules and mechanisms of structural policy, which will make integration all the easier later on.
So it is of the utmost importance for local and regional players to be involved wherever possible.
Let me also take this opportunity to say something about the EU's future structural policy as a whole.
We have no cause to jump for joy about the Structural Funds reform.
However, we have found a workable compromise here that ensures that in future too we do more than just pay lip-service to European solidarity.
On the contrary!
With the new Objectives 1, 2 and 3 and the Community initiatives Interreg, Leader, EQUAL and URBAN we now have powerful instruments at hand which allow us to make a major contribution to making the regions more competitive and creating jobs.
In concentrating on the most important aspects, it is of course inevitable that some regions will lose Objective 1 and 2 status in the medium term.
So it is all the more important - and that too is a success achieved by Parliament - that we introduce generous transitional rules to ensure that the regions do not face an unreasonable and painful loss of support but have six years to adjust to the changes.
I am also pleased and rather proud that the European Parliament managed through tough negotiations with the Commission and the Council to carry through a fourth Community initiative.
It may be called URBAN but it is something more than the previous URBAN initiative, for in future it will also benefit smaller cities and urban neighbourhoods and will take a broader approach to social and economic regeneration.
That also largely covers what Parliament aimed to achieve with the fifth Community initiative which we demanded last year in plenary, which means that these possibilities can also be used.
With this initiative we now have an important additional job-creating instrument.
Solidarity within the European Union and with the pre-accession states, the concentrated use of resources, job creation, less bureaucracy and preparations for enlargement eastward have been the aims of the Structural Funds reform from the outset.
We are now taking a decisive step forward.
I thank all who have helped ensure this, whether in the Council or in the Commission - and quite particularly in the Commission - and who have given us such solid support over the past weeks, months and years.
I thank them warmly.
Europe may not be taking giant steps forward, but every step forward is a good step, and I think we are moving forward here.
Mr President, the report that I introduce is a technical but important part of the Agenda 2000 proposals.
It is amending the regulation establishing the guarantee fund for external actions.
Members will recall that this was in fact presented to the House and in November 1998 referred back to committee.
As a result of it being referred back to committee we now have a situation in which we are today inviting the House to approve the Commission proposal in the form on which political agreement has already been reached in the Council.
That political agreement was reached at the Vienna Summit and was annexed to the Vienna Summit decisions.
Essentially, the amendments which have been put by Parliament, through its Committee on Budgets, to the original Commission proposal have been accepted.
Our Amendment No 2 sought to oblige the Commission to review the parameters of the guarantee fund in its annual reports and now, following the political decision, the Commission must review the parameters of the guarantee fund at the time of each accession.
Each one of our amendments of that type of technical nature has therefore been agreed and incorporated in the Vienna Council decision.
The Council also decided to depart from the Commission's original proposal by increasing the target amount to 9 % instead of 8 %, as the Commission had proposed, for the ratio of the fund to the Community's total outstanding liabilities.
The provisioning rate of the fund was thereby reduced to 9 % for each loan operation, down from the previous 14 %, but still higher than the rate of 6 % that the Commission itself had proposed.
In total, we have a situation which I feel satisfies all the requirements of Parliament and on that basis I commend it to the House.
However, in the wider context, it is important to say today that despite all the misgivings there are about some of the details of the interinstitutional arrangement and the financial perspective, it is better to have something which is slightly inadequate in the view of some but is nevertheless agreed, than to go forward seeking perfection and actually get nothing.
However there is a salutary lesson in this process for Parliament.
Parliament today has managed to gather less than 5 % of its Members.
We have become a Parliament in which we merely deliver speeches to each other and there are precious few people here to listen.
I really think this is a salutary lesson at the end of this Parliament, and the next Parliament has to take it seriously if it expects public opinion to take its debate seriously.
This Parliament has got to start taking its debates seriously itself.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, the new regulation on the policy to support rural development is without question a major step forward in the reform of the common agricultural policy. That is not just because nine separate regulations have been turned into one clear regulation, which is good for transparency and certainly also has an impact on the management of resources, but because it represents the move to a new policy.
Of course the picture painted by the Commission, of two strong pillars side by side, is a little over-optimistic.
One of the pillars is not as strong as the other yet, as you know, Commissioner Fischler; but there is still time.
We must continue to seek, in future too, to make agricultural policy for rural areas a little more flexible, for the Member States and also for the regions.
Let me remind you of what Commissioner Fischler once said: this policy is so important because we always have to put the question: what will the brother and sister of a young farmer who takes over a farm do on the labour market?
This is where it becomes quite clear what we will have to do for the rural areas in future.
That is why we are still rather attached to our earlier demand that in future of course Parliament must have codecision power over the entire spectrum of the common agricultural policy.
That is still lacking.
As I said on another occasion this morning: it is a necessary part of perfecting parliamentary democracy in Europe.
So you will understand why we agricultural politicians are strongly in favour of supporting the interinstitutional agreement.
For if it becomes possible to include the accompanying measures, the expenditure on rural areas, under non-compulsory expenditure - which obviously does not mean we do not feel obliged to spend it, but which would give Parliament more say over this increasingly important policy - you will understand our view.
For the rest, it would have the advantage of allowing for transfers in the case of multiannual expenditure.
We will have teething problems with this new policy in its early years.
It would be a pity to lose money because of those teething troubles by not being able to transfer it.
Overall this is a good start.
We have not grown a real tree yet, but this little sapling that we have planted together can - if the Commission and the Council nurture it just as carefully - grow into a strong and healthy tree to support rural development policy.
Applause
Mr President, as rapporteur for agricultural policy funding under Agenda 2000, I should like to begin by expressing my appreciation to the German Presidency for the opportunities granted by the German Government for a trialogue on agricultural policy.
There are obviously a number of differences between the original proposal of Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, which was adopted in January, and the outcome of the Berlin summit.
This was bound to be the case.
I do not believe anyone can ever be 100 % right in these complex negotiations.
What we welcome is the fact that for the first time rural policy is a clear component of European agricultural policy, as Mr Görlach also said.
We also believe it important - and this is also in line with my report - that the Berlin conclusions clearly state that Europe must pay more attention to European food quality, safety, environmental protection, animal welfare, and the rest.
This must be developed further, and it must also be given emphasis at the WTO negotiations.
As many people have already said, it is also to be welcomed that rural expenditure and accompanying measures are non-compulsory expenditure.
As guarantee expenditure is fixed, I should like to ask Mr Fischler whether this means that money will be refunded to the Member States if there is a surplus for a particular year? There was some discussion in my committee about whether or not a reserve fund should be set up.
There was no mention of this in Berlin, and I therefore assume that it cannot go through.
Could he confirm whether my assumption is correct that the EUR 200 million and 0.03 % flexibility it includes applies to all categories including Category 1, in other words guarantee expenditure for agriculture?
The second question concerns accompanying measures and rural development, where different rules apply.
If the money is not all used in one year my assumption is that it can be carried over to the next year.
Would it be possible for the Commission to give a clear statement on how these funds can be used?
Little has been said about monitoring agricultural expenditure.
In its January report Parliament paid particular attention to monitoring, combating fraud and that type of thing.
Although this is not mentioned in the conclusions of the Berlin summit, I can assure you that Parliament will keep a very close eye on such matters.
One last question Commissioner Fischler: in our parliamentary resolution we also asked for the hectare subsidies, all income subsidies, to be paid before 31 October of each year.
Is this possible?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur on the horizontal measures I cannot give you a positive assessment.
We had a Commission proposal seeking to establish social and environmental criteria for a sliding scale of premium payments.
Little remains of those criteria.
Parliament had made proposals that were more distinct; the Commission checked the figures and decided they could ensure that the premiums were distributed sensibly.
Now none of that is left and I will tell you some of the results.
Firstly, Mr Fischler, we have not reduced the over-compensation from 1992.
As in the past, 4 % of holdings will receive 40 % of the premiums, or 20 % of holdings 80 % of the premiums.
Second point: we have not fully offset the Agenda 2000 price reductions through the premium payments.
For rationalised holdings, that means full price compensation.
But smaller farms will suffer from this lower compensation.
Third point: we are concerned here not with money in the sense of fairness or unfairness or envy but with the fact that the price pressure exerted by holdings that continue to draw on high premium payments through over-compensation will hit the smaller farms and put their survival at risk.
That takes me to the fourth point. The money that will now flow from Brussels and from the national treasuries into the large-scale rationalised holdings will be used by them for further rationalisation and growth.
In these farms, that means job cuts, but it also means jobs losses because of the further destruction of farms in the EU.
Five: we have sent out wrong signals in this respect, namely that we will continue to concentrate on intervention, in the Central and Eastern European states too, instead of educating them for the market, possibly also for the world market, Mr Fischler!
Anyone who wants to produce for the world market is free to do so, but should not then receive public funding.
Here again we did not take the bold step we should have taken.
Six: we have maintained the support for maize but not managed to obtain support for pasture land.
So premiums are being paid for basic fodder production, which is already favoured by natural conditions, and the maintenance of pasture land that is so urgently needed for the ecological survival of entire regions is not eligible for any support or any premium.
Seven: in reallocating the funds which, in your view too, we are to do from the EAGGF Guarantee section into the second pillar, only a small amount of the funds that would have been available if we had applied the degressive scale have gone to this second pillar.
The 14 billion that were earmarked for the second pillar in Berlin are not in the funding proposal either.
On the whole, this is a negative assessment, as it must also be for the Commission, for otherwise you would retrospectively have to revise all the documents you have written to justify Agenda 2000.
Basically all I have done is quote from them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the reform of the COM in beef and veal was one of the delicate aspects of the new CAP for the 2000-2006 period due to the structural imbalances of this market, the effects of the mad cow phenomenon on consumers and the role of livestock farming in land use.
As rapporteur for this issue, I must point out that in its initial proposal, the Commission had favoured a reform based on a substantial reduction in prices with the aim of increasing our share of the export market in the context of the restrictions imposed by the WTO.
In January, Parliament supported the proposal in my report: it rejected the Commission's recommendation and voted in favour of limiting the reduction in prices to 15 % rather than the 30 % advocated by the Commission.
The Council of Ministers finally opted for a reduction of 20 % in three stages.
The Commission had also recommended granting livestock farmers partial financial compensation for this new reduction in prices.
Contrary to my recommendations, Parliament did not vote in favour of a substantial increase in the premiums for herds of suckler cows, which actually have a positive effect on our land.
But the Council has done so and it is duly noted.
Finally, as regards the management of the market, Parliament voted to maintain public intervention and increase controls over production. This was contrary to the Commission's wishes, since it proposed to balance the markets through the reduction in production prices and the introduction of private storage in 2002.
The Council agreed with the Commission's reasoning but it retained the concept of ad hoc public intervention where necessary and the plan to introduce a 'security net' of EUR 1 560 per tonne.
It is on this point that I am proposing that Parliament vote in favour of an additional amendment to my report which has the support of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
In fact, the Council's position on market intervention needs to be clarified because, on the one hand, it accepts the option of private storage, yet on the other, it is in favour of maintaining ad hoc public intervention.
What exactly does this mean? I do not actually believe in the virtues of private storage for managing production with a structural surplus.
For proof of this, we need look no further than the results this system has produced in the pigmeat sector.
Furthermore, since I believe that it is equally vital to reach a compromise with the Council and the Commission, I simply proposed a compromise amendment to Parliament's Committee on Agriculture - which it accepted - that involved strengthening the 'security net' by increasing it from EUR 1 560 per tonne to EUR 2 000 per tonne.
In this way, we could continue along the same lines as our vote in Parliament in January and, at the same time, ensure greater security for our livestock farmers, that is, if the Council and the Commission have the good sense to support us.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioners, the effects of the basic agreement on the Agenda 2000 agricultural reform on agriculture in the European Union and on farm incomes are less negative than the original Commission proposals since the price reductions are lower for cereals, beef and veal. You know that.
With the introduction of rural development measures and the strengthening of the accompanying measures that have existed since the 1992 reform, we have taken a further step towards a global agricultural policy for rural areas.
In my view the following aspects of this agricultural reform give rise to considerable doubts. The European agricultural model sketched out at the Cork conference has only been implemented in fragmentary form.
While the measures relating to market organisations, price reductions and so forth are to be applied on a strictly central basis, the implementation of most rural development measures will be left to the discretion of the Member States.
Or if you like, it will be a purely political decision. Why?
The rural development measures are financed as non-compulsory expenditure under Category 1.
The ceiling of EUR 4.3 billion a year can be regarded on the one hand as safeguarding rural development appropriations but on the other hand there is the risk that because the Member States would have to cofinance these measures they will not apply them or will do so only to a limited extent.
Here I am thinking, for instance, of measure 2078, concerning environmentally compatible farming.
The direct compensation payments intended to offset the price reductions are not sufficient to make up for income losses.
The additional expenditure for rural development measures is discretionary in terms of amount and use and is no substitute for the loss of purchasing power resulting from the price reductions.
The Commission was requested to submit an interim report on most of the market organisation regulations in the year 2002.
We will see how things turn out.
We greet the postponement of the reduction in milk prices to the year 2005, primarily for reasons of economy, with a certain joy.
But it will not be nearly enough and we will still have a quota up to the year 2008.
That is something that we can in fact live with quite easily and which at least enables us to offer our farmers some security, production security, in this area.
I believe that in addition to optional set-aside, that is the key result we in Parliament have managed to achieve.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of Mr Fantuzzi.
I would like to express my support for his report, and particularly the proposal that aid to the sunflower sector be staggered in line with the amendment approved by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We have today come to the end of our debate on the Agenda 2000 agricultural reform, a reform which, in my view, has partially lost its common European focus and been distorted by the plans of various Member States.
I would even go so far as to say that, in handling these proposed reforms, the European Commission - which is the driving force for action in the European Union - has given the impression that it was not very sure where it was heading.
Faced with some initial radical proposals aimed at encouraging European agriculture to give greater consideration to market indications and international references, it was finally agreed that the terms involved should be clarified and even that some of the sectors to be reformed should be excluded, such as the milk products sector. Its reform is being postponed until 2005 and there is no doubt that in the meantime the imbalances it suffers will become more marked.
Faced with the initial proposals to strengthen the link between agriculture and the environment in order to put an end to certain problems that have emerged, such as soil and water deterioration, attacks on biodiversity and so on, the Commission is proposing in the horizontal regulation that it should be the Member States who define the compulsory and general environmental standards and determine the penalties to be applied, thereby avoiding any Community focus.
Faced with the criteria for shaping an agricultural policy that focuses more on the structural nature of certain problems through a rural development policy that is capable of resolving some of the problems facing the countryside - the need for diversification, the need to provide the people with new opportunities and the need to prevent the constant depopulation - a minimal rural development policy has instead been chosen that lacks any real weight.
Faced with a situation where the agricultural policy must also respond to the principles of economic and social cohesion and correct certain excesses, such as the concentration of aid in the hands of a few, the Commission's response is to say that the Member States will be responsible for reducing imports, thereby rejecting an essential Community focus and the inclusion of general principles.
Commissioner, you recently stated in Madrid that we might have to start talking about a new reform in 2003.
I think that this message is dangerous for two reasons. Firstly, coming from the lips of the very author of the reform, it highlights the fact that the current measures will not be effective enough, and this is even before we apply them.
Secondly, it is impossible for European farmers and stockbreeders to continue to work and plan their future without even a basic stable framework.
We cannot add uncertainties resulting from political decisions to the uncertainties that already exist because of the climate.
In short, the agreement may satisfy one or more of the Member States, but I do not believe that it rises to the challenges set out in Agenda 2000, including even that of enlargement.
And to those of my fellow countrymen who are enthusiastic about what has been decided, I would simply suggest that they should do their sums not only in absolute but also in relative terms.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the common organisation of the market in wine is undoubtedly the most complex of all the COMs.
Apart from the aspects involved in regulating the vineyards and the conditions for producing grapes, we also need to take account of all the rules on oenological practices, that is, the processing of wine, as well as the rules on labelling.
Wine-growing in Europe is indeed very specific.
Every region has its own characteristics.
Every vineyard is different in terms of its product and its quality. This clearly demonstrates that wine is an agricultural product rather than an industrial product and that it must be treated as such.
The land is also different and this diversity must be respected.
My report focused on this aspect.
That is what those involved in the industry wanted and it is what we voted for.
I am pleased that, after several meetings and discussions, our proposals now reflect the Council's position on many different aspects. At a structural level, the principle of the right of expansion has been accepted.
Vineyards with a developing market will be able to obtain additional planting rights and the duration of these planting rights has been extended so as to allow for the rest period needed by the land between plantings.
Moreover, structural measures have been introduced to support the renewal of vineyards, and we have managed to obtain support for this aspect.
Few changes have been made in relation to the producer organisations, apart from an agreement allowing us to do away with the measures on the extension of their powers and to preserve, for their members alone, the tasks they are entrusted with.
In terms of the recognition of interbranch organisations, these organisations have been granted a specific legal status in Community law in order to prevent them from being challenged by non-producing Member States.
As regards oenological practices, the preservation of traditional methods has been recognised, while as regards labelling, a direct labelling system has been adopted.
Finally, Parliament was satisfied with the measures approved by the Council in relation to musts imported from third countries.
As you can see, the Council's compromise very closely reflects Parliament's proposals and we welcome that.
However, it is not completely perfect.
Some new decisions by the Council are of great concern and, in my view, are inadmissible, particularly the desire to include in the wine-growing zone new Member States that are not traditionally wine-producing nations, that is, Ireland, Denmark and Sweden.
If this decision were implemented, it would undermine the content of our compromise and the spirit in which we reached agreement, that is, in the belief that our European wines were recognised as agricultural rather than industrial products, grown in traditional regions and produced using traditional methods. This decision would go against that spirit since we might eventually see in these new wine-producing countries a shift towards using grape musts from third countries.
Therefore, in order to stave off this threat, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development voted in favour of an amendment that excludes the possibility of extending the wine-growing zone to include any Member State other than those set out in the amendment.
Finally, the members of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development believe that it is vital to establish an action and information programme to make consumers aware, in particular, of the positive effects of vine products on their health.
As a result, we are tabling an amendment to this end, which I will refer to as 'vine products and health'.
Do not forget, Commissioner, that wine-growing plays an important role in Europe, it costs very little and it has a high return.
Mr President, the aim of my report is to provide the European Union with the financial and budgetary framework it needs to enable it to meet the challenges of the next few years.
This is the question we considered and I will admit that there is no easy answer to it; note the use of present tense here.
We have been thinking about and working on this for a long time: the Committee on Budgets spent many hours debating, 22 working documents were discussed and a resolution was drawn up, which was approved by the House a few months ago.
I would like to take this opportunity to mention the excellent work of the secretariat of the Committee on Budgets, which was always available to help me, and to thank my colleagues for their contributions and their patience.
I was involved in establishing the method for the financial perspective at the time of the 1987-1988 budgetary crisis, which led to the so-called 'Delors I package'. I was also Parliament's rapporteur for the 1993 Agreement.
As a result, I am very aware of the difference between dealing with a budget with a financial perspective and without a financial perspective.
The Interinstitutional Agreements and their financial perspectives have represented an important step forward for the Community. They have enabled us to develop the European budget in a calm and organised fashion and to fulfill a broad range of political objectives.
For example, we have been able to control the unchecked increase in agricultural expenditure, consolidate and develop the cohesion policy, which is essential for economic convergence and political solidarity, integrate events such as the reunification of Germany into the Community budget, and make progress in reducing the Council's powers in the area of compulsory expenditure.
Therefore, faced with the challenges of the launch of the euro, enlargement to include the CEECs, and the essential reforms of the CAP and the structural policies, I recommended at the time that we should try to conclude a new interinstitutional agreement, even if it was against a backdrop of even greater austerity, if possible.
In any event, I would remind you that between 1988 and 1999, we approved and implemented Community budgets totalling just under EUR 110 000 million below the own resources ceiling.
Given the restrictive financial perspective proposed by the now caretaker Commission, Parliament's offer was clear and logical: flexibility and political progress.
This was summed up in the resolution we approved in Brussels on 4 December 1997.
To achieve this, we stepped up our contacts with the Commission and the Council, organised more tripartite talks and even held an informal seminar in Vienna with the presidency and the Commission to look at the issue of flexibility.
We also decided in December that we wanted to withdraw the so-called 'strategic amendments' to the 1999 budget, and just before the Berlin European Council, our chairman, Mr Samland, sent a letter to the 15 Finance Ministers informing them of the figures the European Parliament considered to be the absolute minimum requirements, the so-called 'minima minimorum '.
The results can be presented in many ways, Mr President-in-Office.
In its resolution of 14 April, the European Parliament did not share the idyllic version set out by the Council this morning.
Any expectations we had of cuts were surpassed in Berlin.
Agricultural spending was frozen, the structural policy was cut by 20 %, and internal policies were cut by 54 %, if we exclude the framework programme for research.
We were then given a mandate to negotiate.
We did not touch the figures for Categories 1 and 2 as we took over those from the committees responsible for the relevant legislation.
Although it was stated that the agreements reached in Berlin could not be changed, we have managed to obtain a further EUR 1 480 million for Category 3, which would remain - so to speak - at the 1999 level in terms of constant prices, and a further EUR 1.1 billion for administrative expenditure.
The allocations for the flexibility instrument agreed on in Berlin have increased sevenfold.
As far as political progress is concerned, I would like to mention some of the more important and innovative advances.
A series of preexisting detailed agreements were consolidated. A permanent solution is being proposed for the dispute over the classification of compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure, which goes back to 1982.
Moreover, part of the CAP expenditure is being transferred to non-compulsory expenditure. Perhaps the final say still rests with the Council, which approves the regulations, but this is an extremely symbolic step and it opens a door to the future.
This is a brief summary of the basic points that convinced the Committee on Budgets to change its mind on Monday night about rejecting the Interinstitutional Agreement and to call on the House to accept it along with the corresponding financial perspective.
And this is also the position of the Socialist Group, which I am now representing, as I have changed hats.
You will have noticed that my three minutes' speaking time as rapporteur has run out.
Up until now, I have fulfilled my institutional role.
Now, if you will allow me, I should like to briefly set out my own personal view.
I would like to thank my group, and particularly my colleague Mr Samland, who has allowed me to use his speaking time in the knowledge that I am going to speak against the majority position.
In my opinion, each of our governments went to Berlin to see what was in it for them, and very few, if any, looked to see what was in it for Europe.
As far as I am concerned, that was a step backwards for European integration.
I would like to know what Mr Prodi honestly thinks of all this.
Does he believe that he will be able to do what he announced yesterday in this very House with these appropriations?
The Council told us this morning, for example, about a possible method for combating unemployment, yet it is cutting the budgetary framework for such measures.
I want an agreement, but not just any agreement.
And as far as I can see, this agreement would be of less use to us than the strict application of Article 272 of the Treaty.
Moreover, when push comes to shove any flexibility we achieve is made rigid and open to criticism by the Council.
Between the 1.27 % - which we criticised in December 1997 - and the 0.97 % agreed in Berlin, there was enough room for manoeuvre to reach an agreement which would have been rigorous yet better for Europe.
I am prepared to accept a figure of 1.13 % if we add enlargement, although who knows when enlargement will take place.
I would like to remind you that the two previous Interinstitutional Agreements entered into force five and seven months respectively after the budget period being planned.
There are no funds in this package for essential policies. We are freezing Category 3.
In Category 4, there is only a statement in case the crisis in Kosovo calls for a review of the financial perspective. And we are told that the Council would be prepared to accept such a review before the entry into force of the financial perspective it wants us to adopt today.
When Spain and Portugal joined the Community, Parliament raised the ceilings for budgetary increases that were established in the MRI.
But now the applicant countries from Central and Eastern Europe are being offered a pittance and told that, if they join, they will be treated with kid gloves.
We talk about powers yet, in my view, we are only looking at things in terms of their face value.
With this Interinstitutional Agreement, the Council would de facto approve the budget for seven years.
Parliament has no political leeway.
Therefore, since I am in favour of more Europe, although with the same budget - and I do not believe we can achieve it with any less - I cannot in all conscience recommend that the House approve this agreement.
Mr President, I should like first to speak on the Committee on Budgets' opinion for the second reading of Mr Arias Cañete's report: arrangements and conditions for structural assistance in the fisheries sector.
His report already includes budget amendments on technical assistance.
However, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I must ask the House not to support Amendments 5, 53 and 54, which do not follow the principles of the regulation.
Turning to my second reading recommendation for Community financial aid in the field of trans-European networks, this work is being carried out under the old Treaty and now recognises the coming into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.
There have been many meetings and the Commission and Council have moved a long way to converge around the European Parliament's position.
I would like to thank the Commission and the hard-working German presidency of the Council for their cooperation in this codecision-type procedure.
The Committee on Budgets have supported the proposal to involve private capital in financing network projects and has raised the possibility of increasing this from 1 % to 2 %.
We have supported Galileo, the proposed European global positioning technology, and we have supported the Committee on Transport in its wish to have 55 % of the funding ring-fenced for railways and a maximum of 25 % for roads.
I believe this report strengthens Community involvement in the construction of networks.
The funding is a contribution to the projects.
It will act as an economic multiplier and provide many jobs.
Peripheral regions will benefit and business will have reduced costs in the global markets.
However, the total amount has been in doubt.
The figure in the first reading, which the House voted yesterday, was EUR 5.5 billion.
Following Dresden, Berlin and intensive negotiations I am recommending that the figure be EUR 4.6 billion.
Unfortunately, the Council is unable to rise as far as this.
Its sticking-point was EUR 4.5 billion, and it was starting from a very low base of 3.2.
It was up to the Council to agree our figure or start the whole process of codecision once again.
I am delighted to report to the House that the Council agreed to 4.6 billion at its meeting this morning.
Mr President, I commend this report and its 21 amendments to the House.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when the Commission submitted its proposals on the reform of the Structural Funds in March 1998, there was some doubt as to whether a genuine reform could be achieved and whether the regulations could be adopted early enough to enable the new programmes to begin according to plan early in 2000.
Today I most particularly thank the rapporteurs Mrs McCarthy, Mr Hatzidakis, Mr Collins, Mr Walter, Mr Barón Crespo and Mr Arias Cañete, in his capacity also as Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy.
I believe that together with Council we have managed actually to achieve what many people considered unlikely.
Earlier on I set out the basic principles of the Structural Funds reform, so I will not bore you now with my specific position on each amendment, because according to my understanding of all your contributions to the discussion, you want to follow the procedure we agreed.
Certainly you would have liked to see better results in one or other respect, as we would too, but it is our joint understanding that we have now gone as far as we could and really do want to transpose this into concrete legislative acts.
So I just want to go into a few very specific questions.
On the subject of islands: I have noted during many of our discussions in this Chamber how many islanders belong to this Parliament, and I am indeed all in favour of that.
But I think that islanders also agree with the broad majority of Parliament and the Commission that the principle of economic and social cohesion primarily applies to the poorest and structurally weakest regions, which is indeed why we want to allocate 70 % of all funding to these regions, regardless of whether their inhabitants live on the mainland or on an island.
If we are honest with each other we know that there is no point in making insularity as such a criterion for support, for as it says in the Treaty, structural aid is granted to compensate for the disadvantages of certain regions and social groups, and in their interests we should adhere to that principle.
For if we do not, we will end up harming precisely those whom we all want to help most.
Incidentally, the same applies to a number of other requests for Structural Funds aid. These funds are not a pot of money that people can freely dip into if they need more money for something; they are the means to a quite specific end, namely to promote the economic and social cohesion of this Union and to give practical application to the principle that solidarity is one of the vital foundations of the continued existence of the European Union.
And that is why we do not have a cultural fund as such either but finance cultural measures in exactly the same way as tourism measures if, firstly, they serve to create jobs and, secondly, they promote regional development; but we are not an institute of culture pure and simple.
As for the transitional rules discussed here, or the fact that some assistance has to be phased out, we are not trying to be mean but are taking account of the fact that some regions have made progress and that we always care for the poorest first and cannot give further support to the rich, who will then slowly move closer to the average.
Mrs Schroedter brought up the famous list of favours again.
I think it is important to note that in all this accounts for no more than 2 % of total funding and that one could say it has no influence at all on the structural decisions of the Funds.
I also want to point out quite clearly that such important initiatives as the PEACE initiative also come under it.
To prevent any misunderstanding, let me say to Mr Arias Cañete in regard to the fisheries measures that there are some amendments that the Commission does not accept because they relate to measures that require a Council decision which we cannot simply anticipate at this point.
Moreover, we want to see the measures relating to the fishing fleet reformed and do not agree with your proposals in this regard.
Otherwise I think it is clear that on the whole Parliament has been most successful.
I thank you all for your very close and trusting cooperation.
I forgot to thank the rapporteurs Mr Varela and Mrs Jöns so let me do so now.
I am glad that with the new code of conduct, which adjusts past procedures to the new legal situation, this close cooperation will continue in future too and I hope that it will also be carried over to the new Parliament.
I would like to say a few words about the Social Fund.
Here in particular Parliament has codecision, and your concerns are clearly evident in the new text.
In fact Parliament's support for and contribution to the reform has been crucial.
I would like particularly to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Jöns, for her excellent work here.
We can be proud of the results in four particular areas: the universal agreement on the overarching priority of employment and the Social Fund's mission to underpin the European employment strategy; secondly, the confirmation of the thematic structure of the funds regulation and the scope of the five policy fields, extending from active labour market policies, through social inclusion, lifelong learning and adaptability, to positive action for women; thirdly, we have maintained and strengthened the commitment to support non-governmental organisations and the combating of social exclusion - we share the view that the regulation must oblige Member States to provide for small grants with special access arrangements for non-governmental organisations and local partnerships: fourthly, again with the support of Parliament, we have strengthened the equal opportunities provisions and the mainstreaming principle of the regulation.
Today's plenary session provides the opportunity for Parliament to influence the final shape of the regulation, now as co-legislator.
The Commission would be very happy to recommend the compromise amendments put forward by the rapporteur, Mrs Jöns, covering: the addition of social integration into the labour market to Article 1, namely Amendment No 1; the new wording on the social economy third system in Article 2, namely Amendment No 8; the importance which both the Commission and Parliament feel needs to be attached to the principles of equal opportunity and adaptability, namely Amendment No 9; and the better arrangements that you are proposing for the operation of small grants with special access arrangements for non-governmental organisations, namely Amendment No 10.
As regards the mainstreaming amendment I agree that the principle is essential but it is already covered both in the general regulation and in Article 2 of the regulation itself.
So given the problems which it might cause in the Council I would incline, as the rapporteur does, to agree, and to argue against acceptance.
Once the structural funds regulations for the new period are in place the Social Fund will enjoy a new lease of life in view of the increased emphasis given to the employment dimension in all Community policies and in the Structural Funds in particular.
We would all be proud of the ongoing success of the European employment strategy, which is the European Union's chief response to the need for more and better jobs.
We have intentionally defined the scope of the fund to allow it to respond to developments in the economy and the labour market over the next seven years, always with a view to encouraging and enabling more people to participate actively in the labour market.
To do this we must focus more strongly than ever on activation instruments which help people to become more employable, rather than passive policies.
At the same time we should make every effort to strengthen the element of prevention to stop people becoming unemployed in the first place, a point very effectively made by the rapporteur.
It is only through this flexible, forward-looking and, above all, inclusive approach that Europe will be able to meet the economic and social challenges of the new millennium.
The Social Fund is the one Structural Fund directed exclusively at the individual person.
It is about enabling individuals to progress into the new millennium; about letting people themselves make that progress through training and education, by increasing their chances of getting a job, about helping them to move forward over time to a better job and to a better standard of living.
This is why the Social Fund, acting alongside the employment strategy, is so important for the future of Europe.
Employment still largely defines a person's standard of life and weighs heavily on their expectations of what they can contribute to society and what society can offer to them.
Increasing people's chances of keeping their jobs, getting a job or a better job is what we can do with the support of the European Social Fund.
I believe that as a result of the work that has taken place between the institutions and taking on the amendments that I mentioned earlier, we have made the text as good as it can be got at this time.
I commend it to you and ask you to support it and to support the rapporteur in her proposals too.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there has of course been a great deal of discussion about the Berlin decisions in the agriculture sector over the last few weeks.
Very different views have also been expressed in today's debate.
Let me make my position clear.
The reform certainly does not go quite as far as we had hoped, which gives rise to a degree of uncertainty as also of risk.
But at the same time we should not underestimate what we have achieved.
The Berlin agreement, following the Agriculture Council's compromise, provides for a reduction of only 15 % in cereal prices and the approximation of oilseed aid to the reduced cereal aid, and provides that the reform of the milk sector will not begin until the year 2000.
Nevertheless this remains without doubt the most far-reaching reform the Union has ever undertaken in the agriculture sector.
This is all the more true in that even in the run-up to it the tobacco and olive oil sector were also reformed.
But above all there is one thing we should not forget, namely that the Heads of State and Government decided these reforms unanimously and that the direction agricultural policy was to follow in the coming years was therefore determined unanimously.
That gives us a distinctly stronger position in the coming international discussions and negotiations.
Let me briefly outline the main reasons for the reform and the central elements of the overall agreement reached.
In the cereal sector and the beef and veal sector in particular, the analyses carried out by the Commission showed that there is a serious risk of production surpluses increasing again soon after the year 2000.
In view of that situation, in principle we were faced with the choice of two courses: either we could choose the increasingly rigid control of supply and make that the core of the common agricultural policy, or we could adjust our policy in such a way as to enable us to sell to new, additional markets.
It was decided in Berlin that in the longer term we want to choose the second course, which means we have to make European agriculture more competitive.
We must also take greater account of justified consumer concerns.
This stronger market orientation will be counterbalanced by higher direct payments and additional opportunities to open up new income sources within and outside farming.
In Berlin we also made significant progress towards sustainable agriculture by managing to incorporate environmental concerns more firmly than before in market policy and rural development policy.
Moreover, the Agenda decisions created a second pillar of the common agricultural policy.
It is true that this second pillar is still a little less solid than the first.
But we have laid the foundation stone for it and in principle that pillar now exists.
In future we shall probably have to consider how to consolidate it.
In the budget, we will in future have two sub-ceilings for agricultural expenditure.
This subdivision into compulsory expenditure and non-compulsory expenditure was decided in Berlin and confirmed here in Parliament.
It means we now have one upper limit for traditional guarantee expenditure and a second upper limit for rural development.
That will of course make everything rather more rigid, and also to some extent less flexible.
I can understand why Parliament insists on this aspect, in its capacity as budgetary authority, and I hope that budgetary discipline does not mean inflexibility.
For that would tend to weaken this second pillar, the more innovative part of the policy.
Overall, the reform that was agreed in Berlin represents an important step forward.
Yet certain risks and imponderables remain.
In particular, nobody can tell today whether the lower price guarantee reductions agreed in the final compromise will be enough to really achieve market balance.
In the preparations for the new WTO negotiations and the enlargement negotiations we will have to take due account of these constraints, as we will do when we implement the organisation of the market in coming years.
But there are certainly also some grounds for confidence.
We will enter into the WTO negotiations with very clear ideas about the kind of agriculture we want in Europe: a competitive and sustainable agriculture that supplies the consumer with high-quality products.
And that is also the agricultural model that we want to offer our partners in Eastern Europe, together with the new, second CAP pillar.
Let me conclude with a few comments on the amendments.
First, I do agree that we should strengthen rural development policy, but to strengthen the measures for the disadvantaged regions without increasing the funding would mean having to divert these funds from other rural development measures.
Secondly, in the Commission's view intervention buying at higher prices in the beef and veal sector would lead to new, unmarketable surpluses and exert considerable pressure on the budget, as also on our market prices.
If the cuts in oilseed payments were extended over a four-year period that would postpone the lifting of the Blair House restrictions by another year and also require more budget funds that are not covered.
Turning to Mr Mulder's question about transferability: I too think we should discuss this matter further.
I consider it most important that, over and above the time span, we manage to develop enough flexibility in relation to that part of rural development to make it possible actually to use the available resources.
As for the payment deadline of 31 October, I am prepared to give further consideration to this question, though with the reservation that this must not lead to any shift in the financial year for compulsory expenditure.
In reply to Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf I would point out that the new agricultural policy certainly will bring about a shift in this 80: 20 ratio and that under the reform the smaller farmers will in fact have distinctly greater opportunities than they used to.
For the rest I would also point out that the Commission never proposed aiming at full price equalisation.
We never spoke of anything more than income equalisation, which does not automatically mean the same thing.
Finally, let me give warm thanks to all the rapporteurs for their constructive cooperation.
My special thanks today go to the long-standing chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Colino Salamanca.
Applause
This is the last debate on the future of the common agricultural policy in which you will be taking part in this House.
I thank you on behalf of the Commission, but also very much on my own behalf, for the important work you have done for the benefit of European agriculture. I also wish you all the best for the future!
Applause
Mr President, I would like to ask Commissioner Fischler a supplementary question. Can I assume that the Commission accepts those amendments in the second report, such as those on the milk sector, which you did not mention?
Mr Goepel, I did not go into that question because it did not come up in the statement made by the rapporteur on the milk sector during the debate.
But I can tell you this much: we are prepared to return to the earlier formula and review the milk market in the year 2003. Of course the Commission is also prepared to consider the question of the superlevy in the framework of that review.
The financial perspectives for 2000-2006 and the interinstitutional agreement on budgetary discipline and improving the budgetary procedure are an integral part of the package of Agenda 2000.
I understand from the reports and intervention of Mr Colom i Naval that there are different views in the European Parliament on this item.
Let me for that reason point out some of the principal reasons why the Commission supports the agreement.
It is true that the conclusions of the European Council of Berlin with regard to the financial perspectives for 2000-2006 remain below the Commission proposal.
But the subsequent negotiations, under pressure from the European Parliament delegation, achieved substantial improvements.
For internal policies the proposal in front of you exceeds the conclusions of Berlin by EUR 1.5 billion.
These will permit the financing of the multiannual priority programmes, for example, trans-European networks.
And it safeguards a significant margin for new policy initiatives.
For external actions there is a clear commitment from the Council to finance additional needs arising from the situation in the Balkans, if necessary, by means of a revision of the financial perspectives.
With regard to administrative expenditure, the agreement would permit the financing of some 1000 new posts for the Community institutions and also finance the new Statute of the Members of the European Parliament, even though a solution on that issue is not yet clear as you know.
The new interinstitutional agreement also marks significant progress on key questions of the budget procedure.
The agreement clarifies the classification of expenditure which defines the budgetary powers of Council and Parliament.
This removes a perpetual source of conflict.
In the process, Parliament has widened its budgetary powers in the field of agriculture expenditure.
Furthermore, the agreement provides for full cooperation between both branches of the budgetary authority on all parts of the budget, which Parliament has long fought for.
Mr President, without the agreement these procedural gains would be lost.
There would be a high risk of an annual budget confrontation.
This would not be in the interests of the Union and its policies.
Secondly, I want to reply to Lord Tomlinson on his report.
Firstly, the Commission is pleased with the agreement by the Council because that takes into account the major part of the preoccupations of the European Parliament.
On the amendments proposed in Lord Tomlinson's report, the Commission is ready to accept Amendments 1 and 2.
As far as Amendments 3 and 4 are concerned, the Commission has accepted a joint declaration in the regulation according to which the Commission will give all oral information to the Council and Parliament on the economic situation of the beneficiary countries which are receiving loans and on the risks which I have explained when the annual report is presented.
For that reason the Commission does not find it necessary to introduce these Amendments 3 and 4 into the regulation of the Guarantee Fund.
Mr President, I would like to repeat a question I asked earlier and the answer can be just 'yes' or 'no'.
My question was whether the flexibility of 200 million and 0.03 % applies to all the categories of the budget, including category 1.
'Yes'.
Laughter
I should like to begin by welcoming the agreement between the Council and Parliament on the trans-European networks financial regulation.
This vital component of the Agenda 2000 package has the twin distinctions of being the first legal text arising from Agenda 2000 that achieved a common position in the Council and yet the last to be agreed by the Council and the European Parliament.
It also is one of the first legal acts to be adopted under the codecision procedure set down in the Amsterdam Treaty.
I hope that the amicable and productive precedent shown here will be followed on many other occasions.
It may be that I am displaying an excess of optimism in my old age!
Much of the credit for achieving the agreement goes to the rapporteur, Mr Kellett-Bowman, whom I am glad to see in the House.
He has shown a real understanding of the financing requirements of the trans-European networks and a determination to put in place a stable long-term framework for the financing of major TENs projects.
His colleagues like Mr Samland and others - whom I am also glad to see in the House - have helped produce a very productive and effective package.
Clearly the most important issue is the overall financial envelope of EUR 4.6 bn over the 2000-2006 period.
That sum is more modest than the Commission's opening bid.
But I am glad to say that it represents a real increase of around 10 % and is fully consistent with the lower ceiling for internal policies that was agreed at the Berlin Summit.
Apart from the useful increase in funding, the new financial regulation is a major step forward as an appropriate instrument for providing long-term finance for long-term projects because it includes multiannual programming, which means that project promoters will be able to plan with unprecedented certainty about the finance they can expect from the trans-European networks budget.
That is particularly important for the development and encouragement of public/private partnerships.
Other important elements of the revised regulation include, first, a truly new facility for the investment of TENs money in risk capital funds with the aim of gaining access to the potentially very large resources of long-term funding available from insurance companies and pension funds for the financing of public infrastructure projects.
Second, the regulation provides for the possibility of financing up to 20 % of the Galileo satellite navigation project - around EUR 500 m - and doing so from the TENs budget.
That component is essential in order to demonstrate that this vital project can be financed and also to ensure that it develops as a genuinely European project.
I hope that any discussion of European Union finance for innovative TENs projects at the current European Council will confirm the importance of Galileo for European producers and for European users.
With the news today, from COREPER that the Council can accept the compromise reflected in the amendments before us today.
I can also confirm full support from the Commission for Parliament's position.
I therefore look forward to early adoption of the revised regulation in good time for the implementation of multiannual programming that will commence in the year 2000.
I express gratitude - not just from the Commission but much more widely from the general public in the Community and from industry - for the foresight and the commitment demonstrated by Parliament on this issue.
Mr President, let me just say to the Commissioners here present that our joy at the conclusion of the trans-European networks and of the already concluded fifth framework programme of research is still slightly clouded.
I will add another drop of water so that you do not open the champagne too soon.
Both questions were explicitly tied to a new financial perspective.
If Parliament does not agree tomorrow to give its assent to a new interinstitutional agreement, then we will not have the financial framework which we have just discussed and on the basis of which the two agreements, on the fifth framework programme of research and on the trans-European networks, were concluded.
I just wanted to say this now, as a reservation, before the champagne starts to flow.
I have been under the distinct impression for four and a half years that Mr Samland could turn water into wine.
I am looking to great things!
Laughter
That would be a new kind of magic.
We shall now move on to the general debate.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to focus on the European Social Fund.
We have perhaps come to the end of a long task which started with an own-initiative report by the European Parliament on the European Social Fund.
We must acknowledge the fact that the Commission has accepted the European Parliament's position on objectives and priorities, as well as on procedures.
Here I want to stress an important point: the close link between the European Social Fund priorities and the employment guidelines.
The European Social Fund is certainly the basic Community instrument for applying the four pillars, especially employability, and the regulation we are discussing today is consistent with the objectives of social integration and non-discrimination.
Considering work as both an economic opportunity and a way of achieving one's potential means more and better education lifelong.
It means combatting material inequalities and the modern inequalities which affect an individual's ability to plan his own future freely.
All that makes the European Social Fund a fundamental instrument, and likewise makes it fundamentally important for the NGOs and the third sector to be involved right from the planning stage, principally through a policy of practical integration.
That will certainly be the responsibility of the Member States, but it will also be up to the Commission to monitor and control it.
I would like to conclude by taking up a point already mentioned by Mrs Jöns: the Council's unwillingness to become explicitly involved in gender mainstreaming, one of the four pillars of European employment strategy, is incomprehensible - and it is especially incomprehensible now the Treaty of Amsterdam has come into force, enshrining equal opportunities as a fundamental principle of the Union.
I hope the Council will be willing to accept the amendments from the European Parliament to complete this journey in rapid time and to the satisfaction of all the European institutions.
Mr President, I too am going to talk about the European Social Fund but in relation to external economic relations. This is because I was the draftsman of the opinion on this for the Committee on External Economic Relations.
Social promotion is naturally determined in the first instance by meeting the basic needs of our citizens and there is clearly much to do in this area.
Yet this must be achieved if we are to maintain the European social model we can be proud of. However, we must remember that this must be a realistic model where the improvement in working conditions reflects the improvement in productivity.
This is where Agenda 2000 has to come in, by providing the resources which are essential for the continuation of this model together with the infrastructures cofinanced by the ERDF, the EAGGF Guidance Section or the Cohesion Fund.
It must also provide training or reassign the workforce with the support of the Social Fund.
Given the current state of globalisation, it would be unacceptable to aim to compete with less-developed countries by reducing wages or allowing a deterioration in working conditions in our continent.
However, we also cannot accept a protectionist approach such as the strategy where we were digging our own grave and running away from our responsibilities towards the rest of the world, particularly the less-developed areas.
In everyone's interest, we must move towards a strategy of openness in which we and others clearly respect the rules of traditional trade.
In this way, Europe surely has an important role to play through competition conditions which depend largely on the training of individuals.
Mr President, Commissioner, we have come to the end of this debate on Agenda 2000, and tomorrow the House will surely approve these regulations, with which I believe we have managed to improve one of the Union's fundamental objectives: economic and social cohesion and better territorial cohesion.
This improved economic and social cohesion should bring with it the creation of jobs and thereby attack the European Union's main problem: unemployment.
In my view, Commissioner, an excellent and positive reform of the Structural Funds has been concluded, with projects aimed at concentration and simplification and with an effective partnership as a result of the contribution of regional and local authorities, which may lead to increased efficiency in the actual implementation of the Structural Funds.
We have also taken an important step with the reduction of Community initiatives, and you have been particularly keen to ensure that only the Community initiatives with a European dimension are accepted.
A final decision by the Council, at the request of Parliament, has included a fourth Community initiative which will also have very specific advantages for certain sections of the European Union's population, although it does not have the Community dimension that the other three initiatives have.
We regret that the Berlin European Council agreed to significantly reduce the funding to be allocated both to the Structural Funds and to the Cohesion Fund, but we understand that these will be implemented in a positive manner over the next seven years.
We also need to take account of the fact that the Structural Funds are practically the last to apply to the 15 Member States, since the prospect of enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe will change the regional action policies for years to come.
I would finally like to thank the Commissioner for the efficient work she has done, which will ensure that the new regional policy for the 2000-2007 period will always be linked to her because of the enormous importance of her contribution.
Mr President, after months of arduous debate and complicated negotiations, the time has come for the European Parliament to say yes or no to Agenda 2000.
Personally, I am not going to say yes to Agenda 2000.
My impression is that the agreement that has been reached is an agreement based not on the Union's needs but on the negotiation of national interests.
That is the only explanation for the fact that the Commission's initial proposal was further diminished through the final agreement reached at the Berlin European Council, despite the fact that it already involved reducing the Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund below their existing levels.
For those of us who believe in a federal Europe based on social and economic cohesion, a golden opportunity has been lost to increase equality between the various regions of Europe.
Furthermore, if we are getting involved in this idea of defending territorial interests, as the Berlin European Council did, I would still not be able to vote in favour of Agenda 2000. I was elected by the people of a specific European region - the region of Aragon - and this agreement would put the people I represent at a serious disadvantage compared with their current situation.
Finally, I would point out that the agreement contains serious contradictions.
To give you an example, Commissioner, one single problem - that of depopulation - is dealt with in three different ways in Agenda 2000. Firstly, the underpopulated regions of Northern Europe are granted Objective 1 status, that is, they have access to the main Structural Funds.
Secondly, the Scottish Highlands are only granted special funding in the form of compensation. Finally - and this is the third way in which depopulation is tackled - other regions that suffer from the same problem, such as Aragon, are excluded from this aid altogether.
A single problem cannot be dealt with in three different ways if we want Europe's structural policy to be consistent.
As a result, I must say once again that I am not going to vote in favour of Agenda 2000.
Thank you, Mr Escolá.
Following that speech by Mr Escolá, ladies and gentlemen, we shall suspend the debate on Agenda 2000. It will be resumed this evening at 9 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B4-0337/99).
As the author is not present, Question No 1 lapses.
Question No 2 by Alexandros Alavanos (H-0324/99)
Subject: A fair trial for Öcalan In their statements on the Öcalan affair, all the European Union institutions have been unanimous in calling for a fair, open trial, in line with the conception prevailing in the legal systems of modern, civilized societies.
However, the Turkish Government has so far rejected, in both words and deeds (obstructing the defence counsel, refusing requests for observers to attend the trial, etc.), all attempts to bring about a fair and open trial. Can the Council therefore state what steps it intends to take to ensure that the Kurdish leader does not suffer mental or physical harm and is guaranteed the right to defence, to which any person facing judicial charges in civilised societies is entitled as a matter of course?
I should like to welcome the President-in-Office and ask him to reply to Mr Alavanos's question.
Mr President, let me answer this question as follows. The Council expects Turkey, like any other contracting party, to fully and entirely fulfil the obligations arising from the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Furthermore, the Council is assuming that Turkey will respect the right of any person facing judicial proceedings in Turkey, which therefore includes Mr Öcalan, to a fair trial and their right to defence, both of which are indeed also enshrined in the Turkish constitution.
In its statement of 22 February 1999, the European Union took note of the Turkish Government's assurances to that effect.
Mr President, the German Presidency has taken us somewhat by surprise, and I am ashamed at what I have just heard from the President-in-Office.
At a time when Yugoslavia is being bombed we are indulging in 'savoir vivre ' with the Turkish Government, and the German Presidency is telling us that it has received assurances.
All the Members here today have received an announcement from Amnesty International which states that Mr Öcalan's lawyers, Nyadji Bulgan and Irfan Didar, and others, have been tortured, and were attacked inside the court. Following that they were rounded up outside the court and beaten by the police.
And the President-in-Office is indulging in 'savoir vivre ' with Turkey.
I ask once again: are the European Union and indeed the German Presidency interested in human rights? If so, how can the German Presidency not do anything, how can it remain silent and say such things as what it said in its answer about these despicable events taking place at the trial of Mr Öcalan?
Mr Alavanos, I reject quite categorically your attack on the presidency.
You know the rules here.
What I have to present is the common position that 15 Member States have formulated on your question.
I cannot inform you of the German position as it is totally irrelevant.
It is not a question here of the presidency's view but of what the Council says.
That is what I have told you and I will repeat it: the Council expects and requires Turkey to comply with its national and international obligations, which arise from its own constitution and its accession to international conventions.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Ladies and gentlemen, in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, Questions Nos 3 to 11 will not be taken because they refer to subjects which are included on the agenda for this part-session.
Mr Morris has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, my point of order is quite clear.
As I have repeatedly said for many months now, and certainly this week, there is one issue the Council has refused to answer: whether or not depleted uranium munitions are being used in Serbia, Kosovo, what we previously knew as Yugoslavia.
Mr Morris, please, just a moment.
Mr Morris, under the Rules of Procedure questions on issues that are dealt with at another stage in the House are not included in Question Time.
So I cannot give you the floor for that question.
Mr Dimitrakopoulos wishes to speak, but I would like to know, Mr Dimitrakopoulos, which Rule you are invoking for your point of order.
Mr President, I am sorry but I do not have the Rules of Procedure in front of me. However, as far as my point of order is concerned, I would simply like to know if we have abandoned the practice we were using up until now in Question Time whereby, following a Member's question and the Council's subsequent response, other Members had the right to put what is known in English as a 'follow up'.
No.
If you want to put a supplementary question to the question by Mr Alavanos, you have every right to do so.
So let us return to Mr Alavanos' question.
I have listened to the reply given by the President-in-Office. I have listened to the common position expressed by the 15 Member States, which is that the European Union expects Turkey to abide by the regulations in force concerning such serious issues.
My question is this: if Turkey does not abide by them, what action is the European Union going to take?
Mr Dimitrakopoulos, it has been made clear to Turkey on many very recent occasions that its conduct in the Öcalan case, namely the guarantee of a constitutional trial, will affect the development of relations between the European Union and Turkey.
If the Council concludes that Turkey is not fulfilling its obligations, it will take the appropriate steps.
I cannot predict them today.
But you can imagine what they would be.
Question No 12 by Aline Pailler (H-0328/99)
Subject: Free movement of persons in the EU To prevent them from taking part in an (authorised) demonstration in Paris on Saturday, 27 March 1999, the French authorities closed the border to 3 000 Italians on the evening of 26 March, committing a serious abuse that infringed the right to demonstrate and freedom of movement within the Union.
What steps will the Council take to avert similar actions in the future and guarantee that citizens may move freely within the EU?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mrs Pailler's question.
Mrs Pailler, I am sorry to have to tell you that it is not within the Council's competence to judge how the Member States apply Community law; that is up to the Commission and the Member States concerned.
At the time of the incident you describe in your question, the Schengen acquis had not yet been integrated into the framework of the European Union.
Since it is a question here of relations between two Schengen partners, the admissibility of internal border controls comes under the Schengen implementing convention. Article 2(2) of that agreement provides that internal border controls can be carried out for a limited period purely for the maintenance of law and order and the safeguarding of internal security.
The state that orders these controls decides whether this may apply here.
The entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty does not change this situation.
Mr President-in-Office, each time we put questions to you here, you take refuge in regulatory issues, which I fully understand.
Clearly, after two months, the Schengen provisions were not fully applied, but I feel that the Council's role is a political one.
At a time when Europe is looking for its soul and the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, is telling us that we will find it in American culture, I wonder if we might not be able to generate a little enthusiasm among the people of Europe by allowing them to do something exciting that forms part of their culture, in other words, demonstrate solidarity in fighting for human rights across borders.
I am therefore seeking a political response from you, Mr President-in-Office, given that you are a minister. And I would like to know if, in the Council of Ministers, when discussing immigrants, you talk not only about security problems - which you naturally discuss in great detail, as demonstrated on a daily basis by the Austrian and German Presidencies - but also about the fact that people, along with capital, have the right to free movement.
Mrs Pailler, I have to tell you too that it is not a question of my personal view nor of the presidency's view.
I can only give you an answer agreed by the two states concerned, which you mention in your question.
Surely you can imagine the answer you would be given by the government concerned if you put the question to it in your national parliament.
I cannot go any further than that.
The Council is not competent in regard to your question.
The Commission is responsible for compliance with Community law.
I must ask you to put this question to the Commission.
As for the matter of principle addressed in your question, I can tell you that the Council is looking closely at the problem of how Europe can be brought closer to our people, how they can be made more aware of the advantages Europe offers them and also how we can increase these advantages, especially in the field of internal and judicial policy which we are just discussing.
Indeed we are already preparing a summit to be held in Finland in the autumn, which will be concerned with the further development of the People's Europe.
But let me say again: individual cases such as this one do not come within the Council's remit.
And the individual states would not tolerate any interference from the Council in the way they apply national or European law.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen, but I must ask you to remain with this question as I have received requests for two supplementary questions.
The first is by Mr Ripa di Meana, who has the floor for one minute.
Mr President-in-Office, three thousand Italian citizens are being held up, under the pretext of various orders by the French police, at the frontier between Italy and France to stop them reaching a public, political and European meeting in Paris.
The seriousness of this de facto suspension of the agreements on free movement of persons will naturally not escape you, but your prudence in matters of institutional powers - which I can understand - does not mean you can avoid a political response. Can the European Union tolerate three thousand citizens being prevented on alleged police grounds from exercising their full rights as European citizens?
I put that to you as a political question and I expect a political answer.
Mr Ripa di Meana, I have to disappoint you too, however much you expect me as a politician to give a political answer.
You know the rules of Question Time.
I cannot give you a political answer off the cuff.
I will have to discuss it first with the French and Italian Governments and with all the other 13 governments.
After that you can have your political answer.
All I can do here is point out to you that the French Government is basing its decision on Article 2(2) of the Schengen implementing convention.
Naturally the French Republic, like any other member of Schengen, may carry out internal border controls for reasons of public law and order.
Whether or not that was justified in this particular case is something I as a politician have a very definite view on.
But I am not allowed to express it here.
I have a question for the President-in-Office concerning Regulation No 1408/71.
It is true that the European Union is in a difficult situation, since the Commission has been put out of action, so to speak, but clarification is needed of the proposal which has been put forward by the Commission regarding the amendment of Regulation No 1408.
I would like to ask directly how the President-in-Office views the Danish early retirement benefit in relation to Regulation No 1408.
Hitherto, the Danish early retirement benefit scheme has been kept out of the regulation, since it has been said not to be a social scheme, but an employment scheme.
The fact is that the Danish Government has been given until the end of April to respond, and I would very much like to know when this question will come up in the Council.
Mrs Jensen, I am rather at a loss.
This was a supplementary to Mrs Pailler's question.
That question referred to the fact that on the evening of 26 March the French authorities refused 3 000 Italian nationals entry into France.
With the best will in the world I cannot see what bearing your question has on that incident.
But I am quite prepared to answer it in writing.
Question No 13 by Otto von Habsburg (H-0329/99)
Subject: Humanitarian aid to the needy in Ukraine It is reported by reliable sources that, in accordance with the so-called 'law on the protection of domestic commodity production', small packets containing food products, clothing or even medicines are being designated as 'agricultural products' and returned to senders.
This impacts very harshly on the poorest people in the country, in particular those on old-age pensions, many of whom have to live on the equivalent of 37 to 50 German marks a month.
Is the Council prepared to make representations to the Ukrainian government with a view to getting this policy reversed by reason of the humanitarian nature of these mailings?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr von Habsburg's question.
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg, it is true that there were private initiatives until July/August last year to support needy Ukrainians by sending them parcels mainly containing food, medicines and clothing.
Under presidential decree 738/98 of 4 July 1998 on imports of humanitarian aid from abroad, since that date only legal entities whose charitable status is established by law are recognised as recipients of duty-free imports of humanitarian aid, but not private individuals.
Since then, packages of aid addressed to private individuals have been returned to the sender by the Ukrainian customs authorities, pursuant to Law 468/97 on the state regulation of imports of agricultural products into Ukraine.
That law has been in force since 15 June 1998 and the presidency knows from own experience that this in fact also involves high costs for the senders of the packages.
In the framework of bilateral talks, the German Government as the presidency has on numerous occasions urged, in fact insistently urged the Ukrainian Government to change these rules for humanitarian reasons, but unfortunately Ukraine has not responded at all to these efforts.
The presidency will raise this matter in Brussels, at the second EU-Ukraine Cooperation Committee scheduled for July, after coordinating with its partners, especially Finland, and will make it an official subject of discussion between the EU and Ukraine.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Minister, I sincerely thank you for this clear, detailed and satisfactory answer to my question.
It is a pleasure to see that this can sometimes happen during Question Time.
Let me specifically ask you to make every effort in this matter.
I receive a great many letters from Ukrainian pensioners who are in a really bad way and need help.
If at all possible, I would ask you, Minister, to take very energetic steps to help them.
After all they are our partners and will one day become our partners in the European Union.
I would be most grateful if you could repeat and emphasise this need again.
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg.
I believe that this is your last question in Parliament and I must therefore thank you once again for your excellent speeches here during Question Time, and for your admirable brevity and respect for the time you are allocated.
Mr President, Mr von Habsburg, I take what you have just said not so much as a question but more as words of encouragement, which I am happy to accept.
I can assure you that we are keeping up constant pressure on Ukraine in relation to this matter.
One reason I was able to answer the question was that I know from my own practical political experience that there are cases, especially the cases I am sure you know too, where it is possible to get round this law and what that costs those concerned.
It really is hard to understand why someone who provides aid on an individual basis should incur costs that are many times higher than the value of the aid itself.
Here I agree entirely with you and we will keep up the pressure on Ukraine in this respect.
As the author is not present, Question No 14 lapses.
Question No 15 by Manuel Medina Ortega (H-0339/99)
Subject: Development of Article 299(2) In view of the imminent entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, what initiatives is the Council preparing for the development of Article 299(2) on the status of the outermost regions?
Mr President, Mr Medina Ortega, I really must admit that you are wasting no time in putting forward the interests of these regions here in Parliament, given that the Treaty has only been in force for four or five days.
But basically that already answers your question, for pursuant to Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam the Commission must first make a proposal to that effect.
Only when that proposal has been made can the Council take action and discuss specific measures for the outermost regions.
But to date the Commission has made no such proposal.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his rapid and efficient response.
In actual fact the Commission had said that it was going to draw up initial proposals this spring. Then, because of its resignation, it said that it was not going to do so until the autumn.
However, from the point of view of a Member who, although representing all of Spain, represents the interests of the outermost regions in particular, it is important that the Council should take steps to enable the new Commission to consider this issue from the beginning, since the special scheme requires further development.
Mr President, Mr Medina Ortega, it is with good reason that the rules of the European Union give the right of initiative to the Commission.
The Commission is not here at the moment, but it will certainly defend that right tooth and nail.
I would advise you to proceed as follows. A government with a particular interest in this matter could easily urge the Commission to submit a proposal to the Council as soon as possible and then I could assure you that the Council would consider the matter without any delay.
Question No 16 by Hans Lindqvist (H-0341/99)
Subject: Safe food National campaigns on food safety and health are being conducted in all 15 Member States during the winter and spring.
The original initiative was launched by the Commission's Directorate-General for consumer policy, DG XXIV, which is also financing the campaign. The EU has made some SEK 1.3 million available for the campaign.
We in Sweden have recently had to fight hard to avoid the EU practice of regularly using antibiotics as additives in animal feed.
Hitherto, Sweden has had strict rules on colouring in sweets, exacting standards of food quality control and stringent rules on crop spraying. Many EU rules are now forcing us to allow certain types of sweets despite their containing colouring that was previously banned in Sweden on public health grounds.
Does public health not always take priority? Should it not be the individual Member State's prerogative to decide what should be classified as safe or unsafe food?
I give the floor to Mr Verheugen to answer Mr Lindqvist's question.
Mr Lindqvist, the Council attaches great importance to food safety, especially in relation to protecting the health of the consumer.
The Luxembourg European Council expressed this same concern in its statement on food safety.
In that statement it stresses that the production and marketing of safe food must be one of the European Union's priorities and that a high level of health protection must be ensured.
As I just said in reply to your Spanish colleague's question, it is up to the Commission to submit proposals to the Council for initiatives in this area.
For the rest let me say that if the Member States consider it necessary to maintain or introduce more stringent consumer protection measures than those that exist at Community level, they may do so pursuant to Article 129a of the EC Treaty - new Article 153 of the Amsterdam Treaty - provided such measures are compatible with the other provisions of this Treaty.
If a Member State takes further-reaching measures of this kind, it must notify the Commission thereof.
There are no further restrictions.
I have tabled this question because my own country, Sweden, has quite strict food safety standards, both as regards home-produced and imported products.
A number of decisions have now been taken in the EU which run counter to our interests.
For instance, Sweden has been forced to follow the rules that apply to the Belgian Blue and to allow the species to be developed and also sold in Sweden.
We have been forced to accept certain colouring agents in sweets and candies and in food products which could induce cancer and allergies, especially in children.
Furthermore, meat contaminated with salmonella is crossing the border into Sweden.
The question I should like to put to the Council is this: should it not be obvious that every Member State should be entitled, in the interests of protecting people's health, to draw up rules which apply not just to home-produced products but also to those which are imported? If it is a question of changing the provisions of the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties, then are we prepared to do that in order to reinforce our environmental safeguards?
Of course I can confirm that, Mr Lindqvist.
And I have already answered that question by pointing out that a Member State has the right to maintain or introduce more stringent consumer protection measures than those that exist at Community level.
Naturally that includes measures such as those you mentioned.
However, this must not create any barriers to trade or distortion of competition.
Hence the rule that the Commission must be notified of any such measures so that it can examine that question.
I am happy to read out the relevant passage from the Amsterdam Treaty again.
It is the fifth paragraph of Article 153, former Article 129a, and it reads: 'Measures adopted pursuant to paragraph 4 shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or introducing more stringent protective measures.
Such measures must be compatible with this Treaty. The Commission shall be notified of them.'
That is what I just explained to you.
Compatibility with the Treaty relates to the question of barriers to trade and freedom of competition.
With due respect, Mr President-in-Office, there really is something which you do not mention in your reply.
It is true that a Member State can make use of a safeguard clause.
This gives it six months in which to produce scientific evidence in order to maintain the more stringent basis which it requires in its own country.
It is stated that this must not be a technical barrier to trade.
You actually said that yourself in your reply.
If it cannot be proved that there are grounds for the more stringent rules, then it will be regarded as a technical barrier to trade, and it is now expressly stated in the new environmental guarantee that if it can be proved that the tougher rule which is being sought at national level is actually in the consumers' interests, then the EU must adopt the regime. It is therefore not possible to maintain stricter rules unless evidence can be produced that they are necessary.
In fact, Commissioner Bangemann also said this yesterday when we were discussing baby food.
In some countries, things have been permitted because it has not been proved that a very small amount of pesticides in baby food is harmful, whereas other countries do not tolerate any pesticide residues at all.
But Mr Bangemann stated categorically that he would not accept trade barriers.
There should be clear scientific evidence on the table so that the Member States can maintain stricter rules.
Mrs Sandbæk, we have a problem here.
This is another question which seems out of context.
I was asked about food safety and I did not say a word about the six-month period you cite.
I know nothing about this six-month period; what I referred to was the Treaty provision on consumer protection.
Your question relates to an environmental matter.
That was not in the original question nor did I answer on the subject.
If you have a question on the subject, I am sorry to say we did not receive it so I can only answer it in writing.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
I am sure that Mrs Sandbæk hopes you will fulfil your promise to answer her question in writing.
Question No 17 by Arthur Newens (H-0343/99)
Subject: The EU/US banana dispute Would the Council make a statement about the latest information from the WTO Disputes Panel investigating the EU banana regime and about the response that it will make to the Panel's conclusions?
Mr Newens, first let me say that I hope this seemingly endless business is finally nearing its end now.
At its meeting of 26 April 1999 the General Affairs Council emphasised that the European Union intends fully to respect the latest WTO ruling in the banana dispute and to amend the EU banana regime accordingly and without further ado.
The Council therefore called on the Commission, in the light of further contacts with the USA and the other parties concerned, to submit proposals to amend the banana regime by the end of May 1999.
Since we are not yet at the end of May, I am not in a position to tell you what form these proposals will take.
Whilst thanking the President-in-Office for that reply, may I ask if it is envisaged that access for bananas from Lomé countries and the Canary Islands can still be adequately safeguarded, despite changes to bring the European Union's banana regime into conformity with the WTO ruling.
Will the Council do everything possible to ensure this? - because it is crucial. Will not bananas otherwise constitute a precedent for other products of other less-developed countries to lose their outlets, and will that not raise, in the long term, the issue of amendments to the world trade system to protect the poor against the multinationals?
Mr Newens, with that question you have very accurately described the problem we are facing and that we have not managed to resolve so far.
On the one hand we want to protect the banana producers with whom we have very close links; on the other hand, however, we have to respect the WTO rules.
This dispute has now been going on for years and at some point one has to admit losing a dispute.
The European Union has lost.
It did not manage to win through here.
The costs are quite considerable in any case, if you think of the punitive tariffs that have been imposed.
Yet I am inclined to say that it is some satisfaction that the WTO has now markedly reduced the level of the punitive tariffs the USA may impose against the European Union.
We are now paying 191.4 million dollars instead of the 520 million dollars the USA had originally fixed by unilateral procedure.
We have to wait for the Commission proposal to see how the Commission manages to reconcile the two requirements you mentioned: protection of the producer, especially the poorer producer, and conformity with the WTO rules.
I really cannot predict that today.
Question No 18 by Anna Karamanou (H-0345/99)
Subject: Rising death toll and appalling living conditions in Iraq The President of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Mrs Sue Wareham, recently claimed that between 4 500 and 6 000 children are dying every month in Iraq of hunger and disease owing to the terrible shortage of food and medicines.
The doctors stress that most deaths are caused by infections of the gastrointestinal and respiratory systems which, under normal circumstances, would be completely curable.
Food and medicines are officially exempt from the sanctions imposed on Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait but the bureaucratic structure of the procurement system and the country's limited earnings from the legal sale of oil restrict imports. At the same time, the regime is exploiting the distress of the population as a weapon to have sanctions lifted completely with no concessions on its part.
In what way will the Council intervene to ensure the effective protection of human rights in Iraq, in particular in the light of the UN Security Council's debate on the lifting of economic sanctions?
Mrs Karamanou, this is an extremely serious question and the Council is grateful to you for giving it an opportunity to address this issue in the European Parliament.
The European Union is aware of the effects of the sanctions on the food situation and on health care in Iraq.
The Council has for a long time been deeply concerned about the situation of the civilian population in Iraq and especially the children.
That is why the Council has always supported the Security Council's offer, which Iraq initially turned down, to permit the sale of oil in return for humanitarian imports.
Ever since the 'oil for food' programme was implemented in late 1996, the Member States of the European Union have chaired the Security Council's committee on sanctions against Iraq and always sought the flexible application and continual improvement of the programme.
The European Union and its Member States are also playing their part in trying to improve the humanitarian situation in Iraq.
But the crucial point of reference is and remains the 'oil for food' programme.
At the 55th meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva from 22 to 30 April this year the European Union took the initiative in drafting a resolution on the human rights situation; this calls inter alia on the Iraqi leadership to cooperate further in carrying out the 'oil for food' programme and to ensure the fair distribution of the humanitarian imports.
The Union also continues to support any initiatives to further improve the operation of the 'oil for food' programme and in this respect refers specifically to the proposals submitted by the UN Security Council panel on 30 March 1999 on the humanitarian situation in Iraq.
While most of the initial administrative difficulties of the 'oil for food' programme have been ironed out, the main problem with the programme is now Iraq's poor export capacity and the distribution of the medical aid.
Iraq's export capacity is now being improved under a sub-programme of the 'oil for food' programme, but it will not take full effect until spring 2000 because of the planning and delivery schedules; here, as you know, oil prices are a factor of uncertainty in both directions.
According to information from the United Nations, medical aid to the value of 275 million dollars is currently blocked in Iraqi warehouses although it is urgently needed by the population.
Responsibility for this lies with the Iraqi Government.
That illustrates the point made in Mrs Karamanou's question that the Saddam Hussein regime is exploiting the distress of the population as a weapon to have sanctions lifted without fulfilling the cease-fire requirements of Resolution 687 of 1991.
That means the Iraqi leadership is responsible for the inadequate implementation of the 'oil for food' programme, just as it is responsible for the fact that the sanctions still cannot be lifted after running for over eight years.
Let me remind you that in 1991 all the experts could and did assume that Iraq could have complied with Resolution 687 on a basis of full cooperation within the space of a few months.
We are dealing here with a conflict between the humanitarian principle and the principle of national sovereignty, both of which are enshrined in the United Nations Charter, which restricts our means of action.
But let me leave you in no doubt that we can only condemn the conduct of the Iraqi state leadership as utterly inhumane.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for your information.
I would also like to congratulate the European Union on the initiatives it has taken and on the recent Geneva summit.
However, I think we need to accept that America must change its Middle East policy. I would like you to tell me, Mr President-in-Office, whether the Council considers that the achievement of political and military objectives can ignore the cost in terms of human lives.
I would also like your opinion on whether, in the case of Iraq, the Vienna Convention, which prohibits the starvation of citizens as an instrument of war, is not being violated?
Do you consider that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child are not being violated? Six thousand innocent children are dying each month because of the embargo, and it is my conviction that no political objective can be placed above human lives.
Because I believe that we are, quite rightly, in favour of protecting human rights, I would like to ask you whether the innocent population of Iraq does not come under the heading of people to whom protection of human rights applies.
Finally, do you believe that this policy has weakened or, conversely, strengthened the position of Saddam Hussein, by analogy with what is happening in Kosovo and Serbia with regard to Mr Milosevic?
Mrs Karamanou, you are of course right to draw a parallel with the equally dreadful human rights situation in Kosovo, but in both cases we must after all look at cause and effect.
In the case of Iraq it is clear that the sanctions were imposed on the basis of UN Security Council decisions.
These sanctions were imposed because Iraq did not fulfil the necessary obligations for ensuring the security and stability of the region.
But the programme I have described was permitted and was set in motion to ensure that these sanctions do not have the effect you described.
I have also described the particular efforts being made by the European Union to ensure that this programme is effective.
If it is not effective in certain areas, particularly in the area of medical care, the responsibility lies entirely with the Iraqi Government which has acted out of what are truly contemptible and base motives.
Let me repeat: the Iraqi leadership wants to exploit this situation in order that the sanctions, which have a quite different political purpose, may be lifted.
We must call on Iraq to fulfil its responsibility towards its own people.
Does the President-in-Office accept that the 'oil for food' programme, while commendable, has many bureaucratic shortcomings and accompanying sanctions which still stop the needs of children from being met, while their parents can do very little to get rid of the inhuman dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
In these circumstances it really is not acceptable to justify the actions taken by the West by putting the blame just on Saddam Hussein - we all accept that.
Something still has to be done and more has to be done to meet the needs of these children.
Mr Newens, you are making a political statement here and all I can do is to respectfully take note of your opinion and to bring it up at the next Council meeting on the situation in Iraq.
I take a different view from you, but that is not the point here.
Your question made one point I want to address, the question of possible bureaucratic obstacles to implementing the humanitarian programme.
I agree: they did exist, which is why we have begun to streamline this programme, although this has not produced satisfactory results to date.
Question No 19 by María Izquierdo Rojo (H-0349/99)
Subject: Presidential elections in Algeria What political assessment does the Council make of the Algerian presidential elections of 15 April 1999?
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, the European Union followed the presidential elections in Algeria with great attention and made a statement on them.
It goes as follows. The election campaign raised considerable hope in Algeria and among its partners in the international community.
By taking an active part in the election campaign, Algeria's citizens showed the store they set by a free, open, pluralist poll, as promised by the Algerian authorities.
The European Union has noted the decision by six of the seven candidates to withdraw from the election and the reasons given by them for their decision.
The European Union has supported and encouraged the democratisation process embarked upon in Algeria since 1995.
The Union believes that it is by promoting democracy and the rule of law and by continuing with economic and social reforms that Algeria will be able to emerge from the crisis in which it has been embroiled for a number of years.
The European Union will attach the greatest importance to initiatives along these lines by the new President-elect, Mr Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
The European Union confirms its readiness to support the reform process in Algeria, particularly by way of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, and to continue the political dialogue entered into with the Algerian authorities.
Mr President-in-Office, using the same constructive approach that seems to underlie your response, could you tell me what exactly the European Union will do to help put an end to the violence and what measures it will adopt to help combat corruption in Algeria?
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, first of all I am glad that we obviously agree on the need to continue with the policy we have already begun vis-à-vis Algeria, regardless of what we think of what happened before the presidential election there.
By saying regardless I mean that we must endeavour to support a process of democratisation in Algeria and after all the preconditions there for the democratisation process are better than in many other countries suffering from a democratic deficit.
There are strong democratic forces in Algeria and there is also a very free press there, and one which indeed makes use of that freedom.
We must also say that up to the time when the six candidates withdrew, the electoral campaign had actually suggested that Algeria was moving towards democracy.
It was in fact the case that all the candidates could put forward their programme freely and without restraint and that the political debate in Algeria took place in the kind of constructive atmosphere not seen for a long time.
We also took particular note of the fact that one of the key issues of this Algerian electoral campaign was national reconciliation.
So we now conclude that in spite of the problem of which we are both aware, the movement towards a civil society in Algeria that began in the 1990s has in fact been boosted by the electoral campaign.
I therefore think that we should do all we can in the form of political dialogue and political contacts to give further support to that process.
In particular that means keeping in contact with the democratic forces in Algeria and supporting these forces, for instance by inviting them to the Member States of the European Union and to the European Parliament.
It is important to demonstrate international protection and international support for the democratic forces in Algeria.
Question No 20 by Eva Kjer Hansen (H-0351/99)
Subject: Appointment of officials without holding a competition In its answer to my question about the plans to appoint staff from the Schengen Secretariat, the Council stated that, under Article 7 of the Schengen Protocol annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty, it is obliged to take on the staff of the Schengen Secretariat since the Protocol has to be regarded as part of the Treaty and hence as part of primary Community law.
However, Article 7 of the Schengen Protocol stipulates only that the Council must adopt the detailed arrangements for the integration of the Schengen Secretariat into the General Secretariat of the Council, i.e. the functions of the Schengen Secretariat and not necessarily its staff.
To the extent that it is possible to envisage appointing existing Schengen Secretariat staff to the EU institutions, the provision in Article 7 of the Schengen Protocol in no way prevents the Council from appointing any staff interested in conformity with the existing rules of the Staff Regulations or from resorting to the alternative appointment procedure based on Article 24 of the Merger Treaty.
This being so, can the Council explain why it in this case still considers it legitimate both to flout the current Staff Regulations and to ignore the Commission's right of initiative laid down in Article 24 of the Merger Treaty?
Mr President, pursuant to Article 7 of the Protocol annexed to the Amsterdam Treaty which integrates the Schengen acquis into the European Union, the Council decides by a qualified majority on the detailed arrangements for the integration of the Schengen Secretariat into the General Secretariat of the Council.
On 1 May the Council took a decision laying down the details of the integration of the Schengen Secretariat into the General Secretariat on the basis of that Article 7.
According to my information, this legal case will in fact very soon be brought before the European Court of Justice, which is why this is all I can say by way of an answer.
I will not become involved in a legal debate because that is a matter reserved to the appropriate Community jurisdiction.
This question is now purely a matter for the Court of Justice to decide.
Let me however repeat that the Council's view is that the rules that have been adopted make every provision for guaranteeing the skills and competence of the individuals appointed.
Given this situation and in view also of press reports that have also appeared today, let me point out that it is not the Secretary-General of the Council who is responsible for the tensions we are currently seeing in the General Secretariat, but that the only reason for these tensions is a political decision by the Council that is covered by the Treaty.
To hold the Secretary-General responsible for that is, in my view, quite unfair and inappropriate in this situation.
I would like to thank you for your reply, but I do not understand why the terms of the Staff Regulations are being disregarded, since there is after all nothing to prevent us from respecting the Council's existing rules during the integration process.
There is no reason for us now to be recruiting large numbers of staff without them having to sit the recruitment tests, so I have still had no answer to my question as to why the existing rules are being disregarded.
As far as I can see, this all smacks more of what one might call national nepotism, in other words that there are a number of Member States that wish to have some staff placed somewhere in particular, and the other Member States are therefore nodding this through.
Can the President-in-Office tell me what justification there is for us now suddenly to start recruiting more staff than the 58 people who were originally deemed necessary?
It seems to me highly reprehensible that the Council is venturing to disregard the existing rules.
Is it not the case, Mr President-in-Office, that there is a need to analyse the situation within the Council with a view to cleaning things up and clearly documenting what requirements - and what resources - there are for ensuring that we get more openness and more transparency with regard to what takes place within the Council, just as we are demanding within the Commission?
Mr President, Mrs Kjer Hansen, nothing is happening behind the scenes here; we are talking about an entirely open and public process.
The Treaty provides that the Schengen Secretariat will be integrated into the General Secretariat of the Council and that the Council will decide the detailed arrangements.
That is what the Council has done!
I have to say again that the political intention of the Treaty was to integrate the existing Schengen Secretariat - without any new appointments being made or any selection procedures being initiated - into the existing General Secretariat because surely there would be no point in the integration of one secretariat with another secretariat meaning that we appointed 80 new staff according to the rules that apply to the General Secretariat and kicked out the 80 people who used to work for the Schengen Secretariat.
I cannot imagine that the questioner would agree to such an inhuman and unsocial solution.
Nothing is being done behind the scenes here; it is a very normal, open procedure. And I must say in all honesty that the Council cannot understand the resistance the General Secretariat staff is showing here.
Question No 21 by Pat Gallagher (H-0354/99)
Subject: Fishing fraud in southern Europe Is the Council aware of the Auditors' report criticising the Commission for failing to take adequate precautions to prevent fraud involving EU funds for modernising fishing vessels, most of which are located in southern Europe? Is it aware that funds were given to renovate vessels that had already sunk or which would never be put in service again and that verification visits were minimal?
Will the Council now make a clear commitment that every effort will be made to recover or, if necessary, to impose severe penalties for proven embezzlement?
Mr President, I can only answer this question in the affirmative.
The Council received the Court of Auditors' report on the formation of joint enterprises in the fisheries sector on 9 December 1998.
The Council discussed the content of this report during the deliberations on the Commission proposal laying down detailed arrangements and conditions for Community structural assistance in the fisheries sector.
This Commission proposal contains various provisions aimed at removing the abuses listed in the Court of Auditors' report on the management of joint enterprises.
The presidency intends to take a final decision on this proposal at the Council of Fisheries Ministers in June, provided that Parliament has given its opinion by that date.
Looking at the agenda, it would seem that Parliament will be discussing that proposal this week.
I was deeply disappointed to learn from the Auditors' report that millions of pounds of taxpayers' money seem to have been siphoned off by boat owners in southern Europe.
It appears that the Commission has failed to take the necessary precautions to prevent the alleged fraud.
I understand that the missing funds were part of a EUR 280 million programme to modernise almost 200 fishing vessels.
Grants were provided to refurbish and modernise boats which were expected to fish outside the Union.
It is alleged that grants were paid to renovate vessels which were already sunk - grants were paid to renovate vessels that had little chance of going into active service.
Indeed I understand that a grant was paid in respect of a fishing vessel that was submerged in the Atlantic off the coast of Portugal.
Vessels were sunk under mysterious circumstances and rather than use the wide brush approach it is suggested that these were in Italy, Spain and Portugal.
I want to raise this point with the Commissioner, while he is awaiting specific provisions to address the problems both at management and operational level.
I presume I can accept that the presidency condemns such actions.
I take no pleasure in raising this.
All of us have to take some responsibility because if it is necessary to provide additional staff Parliament must approve additional monies.
All of us are involved in this and if you require additional monies to overcome this problem then we must vote for them.
Mr Gallagher, I have already told you that the Council has drawn the necessary political and organisational conclusions in the light of the findings of the Court of Auditors' report that you describe in such graphic detail.
That is the Council's job and it has done it.
The Council has to ensure that if problems of this kind arise measures are taken to prevent their recurrence.
On the concrete question of what is being done to minimise in some way the damage that has occurred and of the European Union possibly also taking legal action, that is a question for the Commission and not the Council.
I am of course assuming that the Commission will take these very serious criticisms in the Court of Auditors' report as grounds to pursue the European Union's interests as vigorously as possible.
As the authors are not present, Questions Nos 22 and 23 lapse.
Mr President, is it possible for Mr Fitzsimons and Mr Andrews, who are attending another meeting, to have written replies?
No, Mr Gallagher, they must be here themselves.
If they had notified me in writing that you or another Member of the House were to act as a substitute for the questions, pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, then that would have been in order. However, in this case, the Rules limit answers in writing to those questions that we have not been able to cover during the hour and a half set aside for Question Time.
Question No 24 by Liam Hyland (H-0360/99)
Subject: Backing a new LEADER III programme Will the Council outline its present policy with regard to the development of a fully integrated rural policy at EU level and will it give assurances that, as a part of such a policy, it will continue to support a new LEADER programme (III) and the retention of its name which is synonymous with empowerment and self-help and a positive image of the European Union? Furthermore, will it ensure a consistent approach to rural development by maintaining the same Local Action Groups, thereby helping to avoid long lead-in times which can cause serious setbacks in development momentum?
Mr Hyland, the aim of the proposal in the agriculture section of Agenda 2000 for a regulation on rural development is to regenerate the rural areas and simplify the agriculture rules.
The reform of the Structural Funds, which includes the agreed reduction of the number of Objectives from six to three, will make it easier to achieve this aim.
This has already been discussed in depth here today.
On that basis rural development policy can gradually establish itself as the second pillar of the common agricultural policy.
In that context, the Leader Community initiative will be continued in the form of Leader III.
Leader III aims to make rural development more dynamic overall by supporting the programme of innovative projects by local groups.
Overlaps between Leader and measures under the rural development regulation will be prevented by the fact that the rural development regulation concerns national or regional support measures, but not local measures.
Leader projects, by contrast, remain reserved to local action groups.
Let me also point out that this question is a subject of the debate we have interrupted with Question Time.
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his reply.
But I have to ask a supplementary question.
Will LEADER retain its identity and independence as a Community initiative with a high level of voluntary Community participation? Will the President-in-Office take steps to ensure that it is not absorbed into national or regional statutory structures but is seen by those agencies as an important but independent development programme?
A very important part of my question concerns the continuity of LEADER.
We are anxious to ensure that there will be no delay between the ending of the present LEADER II and the beginning of LEADER III.
Otherwise a lot of very professional staff who have been recruited over the years will be lost to the programme. This would be a very serious mistake to make.
Mr Hyland, let me herewith give you the assurances you want in relation to all three parts of your supplementary.
Question No 25 by Gerard Collins (H-0364/99)
Subject: Kuwaiti prisoners of war in Iraq Although nine years have passed since the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, the 598 Kuwaiti men and 7 women who were deported remain in Iraqi prisons.
UN Security Council Resolution 687 called on Iraq to cooperate with the International Committee of the Red Cross in order to release these prisoners of war.
Iraq has persistently obstructed the work of the ICRC by withholding information, failing to attend meetings and preventing the ICRC from inspecting Iraqi prisons.
What steps has the Council taken to-date to alleviate the plight of the 605 Kuwaiti POWs and what intervention with the Iraqi authorities or other measures does it propose to take to address this humanitarian issue?
Mr Collins, the Council shares your concern about the problem of the disappeared persons, including the prisoners of war, who fell victim to the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait.
At the 55th meeting of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva from 22 March to 30 April 1999, the European Union submitted a draft resolution calling on Iraq to cooperate with the appropriate international organisations and to provide information on the whereabouts or fate of the remaining disappeared persons.
We called for compensation to be paid to the families of those who have died in Iraqi prisons or have disappeared.
All Kuwaitis or other nationals who are still in prison must be released at once.
Families must be notified of the whereabouts of prisoners. We also call on Iraq to provide information on death sentences carried out on prisoners of war or civilian prisoners, including the death certificates of prisoners of war or civilian prisoners who have died.
I do not think more can be done in this matter.
You know as well as I that unfortunately we are not in a position to force Iraq to comply with these demands.
Mr President, I wish to thank the President-in-Office for the information he has given.
It all boils down to the fact that other than putting forward a draft resolution at the 55th human rights meeting in Geneva, where we stated our position, we have done nothing else since because we have no information whatsoever with regard to the 598 Kuwaiti men and seven women who were sent to Iraqi prisons.
Is there any further pressure that the Council and the European Union would consider putting on the Iraqi authorities in an effort at least to get information as to how many of these people are alive, who they are, what is the state of their health, when they are going to be released and, indeed, how many have died. Can we do anything in a positive way at this particular time nine years later?
Mr Collins, I will not conceal from you that I am very pessimistic about this.
Efforts have been going on for a long time now and the European Union has stepped them up.
In my answer I did not even list all the initiatives we have already taken.
There are a number of others.
There is also a new initiative by the United Nations Security Council.
The situation remains unchanged and I cannot see what other means of pressure we can apply against a country on which we have already imposed the most far-reaching sanctions at our disposal.
Question No 26 by Per Gahrton (H-0365/99)
Subject: Interpretation in Council The TT news agency reported on 30 March 1999 that, in three cases out of four, Swedish representatives in the Council are compelled to negotiate in a foreign language during Council meetings.
According to the report, interpretation in English, German and French is almost standard.
To express oneself in a language other than one's mother tongue must be regarded as a distinct disadvantage in negotiations.
Can the Council, therefore, confirm or deny these reports and say whether it will take measures to ensure that Swedish is treated in the same way as the major languages in the EU and that Swedish representatives are able to express themselves in Swedish and rely on being interpreted in the future?
Mr President, Mr Gahrton, the Council is aware of the news agency report you quote.
Unfortunately that report about Council meetings and Swedish interpreters is undated and provides no further details.
Given the almost countless number of Council bodies that have met on such countless occasions recently, with the best will in the world the presidency has been unable to find out which Council meetings and which dates are being referred to.
So we have not been able to look into the actual incidents in question.
In regard to interpretation from Swedish in principle, let me say that a Council programme exists, and has also been forwarded to the Swedish Government, on the appointment and training of interpreters in the Swedish language and that this programme is now under way.
Thank you for your reply, even though it was not really much of an answer.
I mentioned in my question that the report had come from the Swedish news agency, TT, on 30 March this year.
I assume that what they refer to must have taken place a relatively short time before.
However, the question was not about a particular occurrence, but a generally held view that all too often no provision is made for the Swedish language when Swedish representatives are taking part in Council meetings.
It is therefore extraordinary that the Council should not be more aware of a situation which has provoked quite an intense debate in Sweden.
Indeed, I think one might have been better informed before coming here to answer questions.
In any event, for one of the Member States it is a most important question.
Suspicion is already rife that there are plans to do away with the minority languages altogether in the EU context.
It would therefore be helpful if the Council could give a more positive assurance that, in its own work, it is not the case that it is systematically endeavouring to screen out the minority languages and taking advantage of the fact that some of the Swedish representatives are probably able to express themselves in another language.
Mr President, Mr Gahrton, all I can tell you is that I myself have never attended a Council meeting at which Swedish was not interpreted from start to finish.
If you have information to the effect that this is not the case, I would be grateful if you could pass it on to me.
The presidency of the Council does not have such information and we did look into the press report you cite but were unable to find out when and where this is supposed to have happened.
Nor does the presidency have any kind of complaint before it from Sweden that its language is neglected at Council meetings.
May I perhaps advise you not necessarily to rely on an anonymous press agency report but to accept the official statement the Council presidency is giving you here.
So if you do have information, I would be grateful if you could pass it on and then we would look into the matter.
The principle of course applies that no Member State may be placed at a disadvantage by negotiations not being interpreted in its language.
As the author is not present, Question No 27 lapses.
Question No 28 by Marianne Eriksson (H-0368/99)
Subject: Commissioner for equality In accordance with Articles 2, 3 137(1) and 141 of the Amsterdam Treaty, the EU is to take up equality between the sexes as an extremely serious issue.
There are many, in fact, who say that this matter should be given top priority.
In the light of these considerations, will the Council say how it envisages achieving an even distribution of the sexes among the future Commissioners and what its views are on appointing a Commissioner solely responsible for equality?
Mrs Eriksson, let me first emphasise that the Council attaches very great importance to measures to promote equal opportunities for men and women and to the practical implementation of the appropriate provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, which applies to all the bodies, organs and institutions we have in Europe, from the European Parliament to the Commission and to the Council itself. But I am sorry to have to point out that the Member States are solely responsible for proposing the members of the European Commission pursuant to the provisions of the Treaties and that the distribution of tasks within the Commission is in fact an internal Commission matter.
The Council has no part whatsoever to play in this connection, and I am not even saying: 'unfortunately no part whatsoever'.
The Commission's sovereign right to organise its own affairs is an important aspect of integration policy in the Union and we should not jeopardise it by prescribing to the Commission from the outside how it should organise itself.
In spite of everything, I find it rather depressing, at this last part-session of Parliament, to have to witness such a passive approach to coordination, something which the Council is otherwise glad to recommend.
I am definitely not satisfied with the answer.
In my view, after all the criticism which has been levelled at the lack of progress in promoting equality of opportunity between men and women, the Council should be more active in initiating discussions and ensuring that there are more than the three, or possibly four, women candidates currently rumoured to be in the running.
It is a frightening thought, given that we are about to enter the new millennium, which everyone says should herald something genuinely new, that we are still being confronted with something old.
I also expected to hear whether there had been any discussion of what should now be done to give genuinely active encouragement to equality of opportunity following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty, Article 13 of which covers all groups, including women, in terms of anti-discrimination.
Mrs Eriksson, I quite understand your strong feelings and your comment, but the Council will not be tempted even by Members of the European Parliament to infringe the Treaties.
The Treaties are quite unambiguous here.
The Council does not have the right to exert any influence on this question.
Mr President, the State Secretary, Mr Verheugen, is behaving like a true diplomat: he avoids the issue that the President-in-Office is clearly in a position to negotiate with Member States on the matter of the balanced appointment of male and female candidates to the Commission.
Mr Verheugen, you may have noticed that on 23 March the European Parliament indicated its desire for a substantially greater proportion of women Members of the next Commission than there is at present.
I would like to ask you this: will you in no way take responsibility for this? You are perfectly capable of promoting this aim in negotiations with the Member States.
The Commission's new President, Mr Prodi, has already discovered that we in the House are quite serious about this.
Today, in a press conference, he stated he was giving this issue his attention.
You could work in cooperation with him.
But is it your intention to negotiate with the Member States?
Mrs Hautala, you must have misunderstood me if you say my answer was diplomatic.
It was meant to be anything but diplomatic.
I wanted to make it clear that however noble and right a political concern may be, the Council cannot assume powers that it does not have.
The same applies to the presidency.
The situation is not what you think.
The presidency does not have the power to negotiate with the Member States about who they send to Brussels as a member of the Commission.
The President of the Commission whose appointment you confirmed today has that power, and that President of the Commission, who was also selected on the basis of whether he can effectively assert the rights that he has, is pursuing the aim to which you referred.
The presidency also has great sympathy for that aim, but unfortunately there is nothing at all it can do about it.
Since the office of presidency is filled by a country that can appoint two Commissioners, it can only ensure that the principle you called for is observed by its own country.
But unfortunately I have no means of doing the same for Sweden because Sweden only appoints one Commissioner, which means it is rather difficult to apply the quota system in this case.
Question No 29 by Jonas Sjöstedt (H-0369/99)
Subject: Protection of persons providing information Before the Commission resigned, Paul van Buitenen, the internal auditor, was suspended from duty on half pay.
Since then, he has obtained a new post in another Commission department.
This and similar cases raise the question of the need to allow Commission staff the freedom to provide information, which in Sweden, for example, is a right enshrined in the constitution.
Does the Council consider that the right of Commission staff to provide information should now be a matter for debate in the light of events prior to the Commission's resignation?
I am a little confused, Mr President.
Are we talking about Mr van Buitenen? Is that the question?
This is Question No 29 on protection of persons providing information.
But yes indeed, Mr Sjöstedt is referring to Mr Paul van Buitenen.
In reply to Mr Sjöstedt's question, let me emphasise that the internal organisation of the Commission is the affair of that institution alone.
As for the Council, it has never had call to act in the kind of situation addressed by the questioner.
On the contrary, in what are fortunately rare cases, the Council's administration has felt obliged to take strong action against officials who have not respected the necessary professional rules of conduct in the course of their duties.
I should like to thank the Council for its answer.
To my mind, the right of officials to denounce and publicly criticise irregularities is not an internal matter of staff regulations and so on, but is in fact a fundamental question of openness.
There is soon to be a new intergovernmental conference which will provide opportunities for further strengthening openness within the Union, a process that has already begun with the formulation of rules on access to documents.
One such possibility would of course be to strengthen the right of employees to denounce irregularities and express criticism without being silenced or actively penalised, as was the case in the Commission.
I should be glad to hear the Council's views on this, in other words whether openness can be further developed in the European Union.
The Council cannot make any statement about the internal organisation of the Commission.
That is the Commission's own business.
The Council could give its view if this incident had concerned its own staff.
But that is not the case.
No such problem has arisen within the Council.
Nor can I make any judgment because obviously the personal files or disciplinary measures relating to Commission staff are not available to the Council.
It is quite impossible for me to judge what actually happened in this case.
You will have to address this question to the Commission.
And indeed you can easily do so.
The Council cannot make any comment.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
I hope that Parliament and the Council are now back on the same wavelength, since I would now invite you to reply to Question No 30.
Question No 30 by Bernd Posselt (H-0372/99)
Subject: Agreement with Croatia Given that Croatia's economy and tourist industry have been substantially damaged by the military activity in the vicinity and that the country has also been militarily threatened, the conclusion of a trade and cooperation agreement with Croatia would considerably help to stabilise the entire area.
What is the current position as regards granting a negotiating mandate to the Commission?
Mr President, regarding the possible upgrading of contractual relations between the European Union and Croatia, I believe the honourable Member is aware that this comes under the EU's regional approach, as set out in the General Affairs Council's conclusions of 29 April 1997.
Twice a year the Council examines whether the requirements set in that respect have been fulfilled.
After its last examination on the basis of the conditions set on 9 November 1998, the Council decided that Croatia should continue to be granted autonomous trade preferences but that the conditions for assistance under the PHARE programme had not been met and that it was also too soon to negotiate a trade and cooperation agreement.
Any improvement in relations, including possible future negotiations on a trade and cooperation agreement, will depend on whether Croatia makes further progress towards meeting the required conditions.
At this moment I cannot foresee when the fulfilment of these conditions will next be checked.
In regard to your broader question about the general stability of the region, on 26/27 April 1999 the Council agreed to begin preparing a stability pact for south-eastern Europe.
The EU is vigorously pursuing this task.
It is doing so in cooperation with the appropriate international organisations and regional initiatives and in particular with the states of that region, with the initial aim of holding a conference on the stability pact for south-eastern Europe at senior official level; this will be convened by the presidency of the European Union in Bonn on 27 May 1999.
The stability pact will offer all the Balkan states a concrete prospect of stability and integration into the Euro-Atlantic structures.
I myself will be in Croatia next week as the representative of the presidency to discuss the development of relations between the EU and Croatia with the Croatian Government, the Croatian Parliament and Croatian political parties.
Thank you, Mr President-in-Office, for that very detailed and informative reply.
Yet I do have a supplementary.
You said that a decision was taken on 9 November during the bi-annual consideration of the question.
If my calculations are right, six months have elapsed since then but you said you could not foresee when the next six-monthly check would take place.
So I just wanted to ask: have I misunderstood something or has the timetable changed in some way?
I also wanted to ask another question. Serious events have occurred since 9 November, namely the war in Kosovo, which after all has radically changed things.
I do agree that Croatia must fulfil certain conditions - and indeed it has already fulfilled many of them, while there are others that it has not - but I see no reason to place Croatia in a worse contractual position than, for instance, Albania or Macedonia, which are also politically very unstable and problematic countries, while Croatia is after all an emerging democracy.
That is my view but my actual question is this: when will the next decisions be taken?
Mr Posselt, in reply to your supplementary I have to say that the Commission is indeed running late.
I shall take your question as an opportunity to urge the Commission to keep to the six-monthly date.
On your second question, the purpose of my trip to Croatia is precisely to find out whether what you say is true.
I am quite prepared to notify you of the results of the talks in Zagreb directly and in confidence.
As the author is not present, Question No 31 lapses.
I should now like to appeal to your generosity, Mr President-in-Office.
At the last part-session, you asked if we could finish ten minutes early.
I would now ask you to finish one minute late, and to give your last answer for today and for this German Presidency to Question No 32.
Question No 32 by Brian Crowley (H-0377/99)
Subject: Earmarking 1 % of the ESF for a social capital fund In the context of the reform of the Structural Funds, will the Council give assurances that the Commission's proposal to earmark 1 % of the ESF for a social capital fund will be maintained given its importance in providing fast-track access to ESF support for NGOs and taking into account also the positive experience of this type of scheme under the 'Peace and Reconciliation Programme' in Northern Ireland?
Mr President, we have had the same problem all evening.
I have totally different numbers from you. That is what makes matters so difficult.
But I have now found the question, because Mr Brian Crowley's name is on it.
Mr Crowley, in reply to your question, let me refer you to the Council's common position as adopted on 14 April and forwarded to the European Parliament that same day.
In it, the Council stated that it was against earmarking a minimum amount of 1 % of ESF resources for fairly small subsidies to non-governmental organisations.
The Council regarded the Commission proposal to that effect as too inflexible and replaced the 1 % by what it referred to as an appropriate amount.
However, the Council intends to amend its common position and to provide for a possible 100 % cofinancing of these subsidies.
That would create an incentive for using European Social Fund appropriations for subsidies to non-governmental organisations.
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-in-Office for his response.
However it is with some concern that I see that they have changed the common position in particular.
The reason why we looked for the 1 % of the ESF to be ringfenced for these kind of actions is that we were afraid that if it were left for the Council to decide, no money would be made available to the NGOs and for these other actions.
We are working exclusively from the experience which we already have from the peace and reconciliation programme in Northern Ireland, also from some of the environmental programmes which have been so successful where the NGOs have taken the lead and been given assistance from European Union funding.
We are afraid that these monies will be denied to them in the future.
Could we have a guarantee from the President-in-Office that, whilst they may not agree with the ringfencing of 1 %, they will give a definite commitment that there will be a percentage available when the new ESF operation comes into being?
Mr Crowley, obviously I cannot give you that commitment.
And you know that, because it would mean suspending the existing Council decision.
I am quite prepared to put your arguments to the Council again and to reconsider them.
But let me tell you that I do not agree with your assessment of the matter.
I think the formula the Council has opted for tends to increase rather than reduce the possibilities of the funding you call for.
Thank you, Mr Verheugen.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have now reached the end of the time set aside for questions to the Council.
Questions Nos 33 to 39 will receive written answers.
Those are the last questions to the Council for this parliamentary term, and to Mr Verheugen, whom we thank for his cooperation.
Despite our occasional lack of coordination, there has always been a willingness to work together.
We give him our best wishes.
That concludes Question Time.
The sitting was suspended at 7.07 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.
Agenda 2000 (continuation)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, I am pleased to be taking part this evening in the final debate of this House on the Agenda 2000 reform project.
Both the rapporteurs and the Commissioner delivered their opinions this afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, you will continue the debate this evening with a general discussion.
The European Parliament's political discussions on Agenda 2000 will then come to a close with tomorrow's vote.
The conclusion will be, as it were, a tailor-made one because by approving the Agenda 2000 proposals the European Parliament is laying the foundations, during the final part-session of both this parliamentary term and the German Presidency, for the future development of the European Union and not least the future common agricultural policy.
However, this decision will also bring to an end a discussion which has occupied both politicians and professional groups in all the Member States for two years.
Since the Commission presented its statement entitled 'Agenda 2000 - a stronger and wider Union' in spring 1997, an all-out effort has been made to change the direction of the common agricultural policy.
I should like to point out in particular that the European Parliament has made its position on this absolutely clear from the outset.
It has claimed a constructive role in the process through the resolutions it has adopted and, in particular, by taking up positions of substance.
When you deliver your opinion tomorrow on the decisions of both the agricultural ministers and the Heads of State and Government, you will be adopting a reform which clearly bears the European Parliament's mark as well.
Even though many people would have wished for more far-reaching decisions in one area or another, we should perhaps accept that this reform meets the demands made on it.
I will mention four main areas.
A maximum of EUR 297 billion will be made available for the agricultural budget during the period 2000-2006.
Agricultural expenditure in real terms will therefore still be limited to the present level.
The reform of the common agricultural policy and pre-accession aid also prepare the Community for enlargement eastward in the agricultural sector.
The common agricultural policy's stronger orientation towards the market and the environment will equip the Community with an offensive negotiating strategy at the forthcoming round of WTO negotiations.
It can also use this to defend the European model of agriculture with its high standards of quality, safety and protection.
Measures to promote rural development have been extended considerably and can now be developed into a second pillar of the common agricultural policy.
In view of the complexity of the subject matter and the obvious conflicts of interest in this area between the Member States as well, I think it was not to be taken for granted that the negotiations on the agricultural part of Agenda 2000 would be concluded successfully.
It is the result of hard work, but I think it is first and foremost the result of the exemplary form of cooperation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council which was based on trust and was always constructive. It has also been a matter of concern for me from the outset to promote the dialogue between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Perhaps you will agree with me that in the informal conciliation procedure we have developed an instrument which in the past few months has proved to be exemplary.
In addition to the procedure laid down in the Treaty, information has been exchanged on a regular basis, allowing you, ladies and gentlemen, to be kept up to date on the Council's views.
The agricultural ministers have also been kept fully informed of your opinions.
In particular, I would add that, as President-in-Office of the Council, the position of the European Parliament was always a very useful trump card when seeking solutions during the negotiations.
We have reached the end of a long and - we should not conceal this fact - sometimes difficult journey.
I believe that we have taken a decision to the best of our knowledge and beliefs which should be of use to Europe and its citizens.
This is definitely a joint project, and I hope very much that it will also be a joint success.
May I thank you all for your support and trust in me.
I am thinking particularly of Mr Fischler here, and the contribution he made during the negotiations.
I should like to stress this point. This kind of cooperation based on trust has been most gratifying, even though it took up a great deal of our time, sometimes into the night.
I also thank all those who participated.
In spite of all the controversy which we dealt with, it was always clear that there was a joint effort to make decisions.
In particular, the way in which we argued with each other in order to make these decisions speaks for itself.
I think it was described by everyone as appropriate and friendly. I sensed this from the reactions of various people who participated in the project too.
It is not for the Chair to make comments on the substance of what you have said, but I believe that the Chair has a duty to thank you and your colleagues in the German Presidency. You have always shown respect and a willingness to cooperate, and your presence in this Chamber has always left a strong impression.
We acknowledge this, and would like to thank you for all you have done.
Mr President, the implementation of the Berlin agreements will mean that the process of farms disappearing and jobs being destroyed, which already started with the 1992 reform, will become more pronounced.
In addition, this process will largely affect small and medium-sized farms, as they will be only partially compensated through income aid.
Furthermore - and this is the worst element, in my group's view - no means of correcting the existing imbalances between continental and Mediterranean production and between small and large farms has been introduced.
The financial allocations for continental production are being increased again, while those for Mediterranean production remain frozen.
The scheme approved in Berlin will also have a severe negative impact on the social fabric of the countryside.
Do the Commission and the Council really expect the timid rural development measures to compensate for that impact? The rural development measures proposed are going to be implemented to give preferential treatment to the richer Member States that have a smaller percentage of farmers.
In addition, the Commission's proposal will exclude fruit and vegetable growers from the benefits of the rural development measures.
I am absolutely astonished that Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development rejected an amendment tabled by my group to correct this situation and that the amendment was declared inadmissible in the House pursuant to Rule 60 of the Rules of Procedure.
It is just as well that, in this case, the Berlin European Council did intend to correct that point, highlighting the paradox of what happened in Parliament's Committee on Agriculture.
There have been CAP reforms since 1992 intended, presumably, to correct the uneven economic support granted to small and large farms.
In the wake of the Commission's timid proposal, the Berlin agreements are a step backwards in terms of limiting aid to large farms and increasing support to small and medium-sized farms.
The Committee on Agriculture's position represents no progress in that direction either, and I must say once again that it is unfortunate that an amendment by my group on modifications to the aid was declared inadmissible.
As a result, my political group, the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left, will not support a reform of the CAP which will actually mean that its main imbalances will become more marked.
Mr President, this concluding debate on Agenda 2000 should be limited to the main thrust of the reforms.
If we now try to bring controversial amendments we risk bringing down the whole Berlin package like a house of cards.
I am thinking, for example, of the amendment in the Görlach report to increase setting-up aid from EUR 25 000 to EUR 35 000.
A number of Member States simply cannot accept such cost-increasing proposals.
The central question today is: do we accept the financial basis of Agenda 2000 and are we going to confirm this in an interinstitutional agreement?
My answer is a straightforward 'Yes'. If the Union wants to give applicant countries the real prospect of accession we must look at how this is to be financed.
The financial perspective agreed in Berlin is essential for this.
The Council has succeeded in drawing up an efficient multiannual budget, thus creating the financial scope for enlargement.
I do, however, have great difficulty with certain elements of the package, such as the Council's unfortunate insistence that the ceiling on structural expenditure must also be a target.
But all things considered, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
I do not believe that recourse to Article 203 of the Treaty, which is what many Members of Parliament were calling for, is the right way forward, since it would result in an increase in the Union's expenditure which net contributors in particular would find unacceptable.
My principal objection to the use of Article 203 is, however, that it would effectively mean making the financing of enlargement dependent upon the uncertain outcomes of the annual budgetary conflicts between the Council and European Parliament.
This is completely unacceptable.
Mr President, before this Parliament is dissolved it will have succeeded in expressing its opinion on the launch of the Structural Funds reform.
It will have succeeded in moving forward from positions which threatened to produce yet another trial of strength between the European institutions.
After repeated misunderstandings with the Commission on the progress of the work, which threatened to discredit the efforts being made, we are finally together not only on the texts of the new regulations but on a starting point for active collaboration in the management of the Funds through the code of conduct between the Commission and Parliament on the implementation of the structural policies.
Parliament has had an important voice in defining the guidelines for this reform, but it must have an even more important one throughout the programming period.
We are glad the Council accepted Parliament's request to restore URBAN as one of the Community initiatives, albeit at the end of the negotiations.
That was not obstinacy on our part as Members of Parliament, it was simply recognising the key role of urban areas in regional development.
The balanced and complementary development of urban and rural areas is essential for economic and regional development.
This means intensifying cooperation at all levels with the regional and local authorities and socio-economic operators closest to the evolving situation in the region.
Greater competitiveness between regions must take account of the risks of imbalance caused by the differences in levels of employment and human resources, in infrastructure quality, in the natural environment and in development, especially in the delicate phase we are now entering with the identification of regions eligible for Objective 2.
We are in favour of reform, generally speaking, but we do have certain reservations about grey areas not yet examined in depth - for example, the impact on the regions whose development process will be put on hold for the sake of the principle of concentration.
The people of these areas will be penalised, and that hardly helps to demonstrate that the European Union is working for the development of the less-favoured regions.
Actually my own country, Italy, is likely to be seriously penalised by the calculation of the Objective 2 ceiling: added to the guaranteed maximum reduction of 33 % there is the reduction caused by the inclusion of the regions coming out of Objective 1.
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying how concerned I am that it looks as if major efforts are being made to ensure that the financial perspective can be approved tomorrow by Parliament without a qualified majority.
I hope that that does not prove to be the case because it would be an inadequate end to a subject as important as the one we are debating this evening.
The problem is that we are debating 'how' and 'how much' at the same time.
And we may agree on 'how' but not on 'how much'.
Yet tonight we have to decide on both aspects at once.
I want to refer specifically to the Structural Funds, the Cohesion Fund and the cohesion policies. I agree with the 'how', exactly as planned by the Commissioner, and I would also like to take this opportunity once again to congratulate the Commissioner and DG XVI.
We have worked closely with her and she has helped us immensely in moving cohesion forward during these past five years and, I believe, also for the years ahead.
I agree with the report by Mr Hatzidakis and Mrs McCarthy in relation to Objective 1, coordination and partnership projects, and so on. So Mrs Wulf-Mathies and Mr Eneko Landaburu have not only the support, but also the appreciation of the parliamentary committee that has worked with them on these issues.
But we are entering an era where the European Union has more powers.
It has a codecision procedure, a single currency and a single market, and we want improved cohesion and a worthy enlargement.
We want social policies, policies on employment, on rural development and on trans-European networks.
And what does the Council offer us in its Berlin negotiations? It offers us a move from that mythical figure of 1.27 % - which was so difficult to get past - to 0.97 %.
It offers us a reduction and a de facto renationalisation of the funds the European Union needs, and I have to say that quite a few Members will say 'no' to the Council tomorrow, precisely on the issue of the financial perspective.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, in Parliament's view the decision-making procedure for Agenda 2000 deserves to be praised and to be met with approval.
In view of the timetable for ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty, the Council and the Commission have already agreed that as far as possible, the European Parliament should be granted those rights to which it has only formally been entitled since 1 May this year, particularly in the area of structural reform.
As the European Parliament and perhaps also as representatives of the Member States, we can agree under these circumstances, and with a clear conscience, to the results of Agenda 2000 and the decision-making procedure regarding this.
The most important objectives which the Commission had already envisaged are entirely reasonable.
Concentrating on the real problems and problem areas, less bureaucratic structures, and greater efficiency and transparency generally make good sense.
If other important practical, national and regional concerns have been dealt with in addition to this, the matter is a really coherent one.
In this respect, as a representative of my country, I welcome the special consideration given to rural development under the new Objective 2.
I also approve of the new phasing-out regulation for former Objective 1, 2 and 5b regions where regeneration has almost been achieved but a little bit more is needed.
I welcome the new Interreg regulation in particular, because we have worked long and hard on it, and I hope in particular that the regions bordering with the applicant countries at the EU's external borders will take advantage of the time and money available.
At any rate, for Austria this amounts to ATS 5 billion over the next seven years.
My enthusiasm for Agenda 2000 is limited on one decisive issue.
Is it really justifiable to celebrate the fact that we all want Europe to cost us less in the future as one of the most successful conclusions of Berlin at a time when we are all rightly calling for more European integration in employment, structural reform in general, the EU enlargement process, and solidarity for the wider Europe? Is 1 % of Europe's gross domestic product really too much for the Member States to pay when national quotas are 40 % or more?
I do not think so!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should first like to express my appreciation for the fact that so many Commissioners are still present at this late hour.
I see this as a sign of esteem for the European Parliament, as also is the presence of German Minister Funke.
This too should be acknowledged.
It shows that you are ready to listen, at whatever hour Parliament calls its speakers.
Mr Flynn, you naturally called for support for the proposals to reform the European Social Fund.
My group will certainly be doing so, and will also be supporting Mrs Jöns's proposals.
When it comes to employment and job creation we must all join together to do the best we can.
But at the same time we cannot deny that a large group in society is in need of special attention, and by this I mean people in a disadvantaged position, such as women and minorities.
This is expressed in Parliament's amendments, and it was particularly the Council that was not too keen on it.
I hope that we can work together to achieve further progress in this area.
This brings me to something which is very close to my heart: the European Social Fund and also, Mr Fischler, the new budget for rural development.
I very much welcome them both.
I believe the European Social Fund is a means of giving impetus to job creation in Europe, just as the fund for rural development is something which should facilitate the major changes which large sections of the farming sector have to make.
Of course it is also the case that the resources for rural development are insufficient.
My fear, Mr Funke, is that when it comes to implementation the Member States will look primarily to their own interests.
I very much fear that alongside these very welcome budgetary headings that we have agreed a number of other things will creep in which we most certainly do not want to encourage.
The first thing that could creep in is that Member States will seek to use European money to solve their own problems.
If that happens, the people will rightly say that we are just dishing out money.
The second thing we must carefully guard against is the consultancies and other intermediaries walking away with the funds made available to introduce these changes.
I believe European-level management and monitoring in this area to be one of the most important tasks for the future.
We will have no credibility in the eyes of the people of Europe if on the one hand we say we want to exercise control over a number of problems and will make money available to do it, and then allow that money to disappear into the pockets of organisations and individuals who are not entitled to it.
This may be my last speech as although I am eligible for re-election my party is not doing so well.
My final appeal to the Commission is therefore to pay careful attention to this, and if I am not re-elected I hope that I can read in the newspaper that you have received the message.
If I am re-elected, I will most certainly ensure that this happens.
Mr President, I really must like farming and be used to the sacrifices it demands of us to come here at this hour to speak for just two minutes.
But it is a great pleasure for me to do this, given that we are talking about an important measure, that is Agenda 2000, which deals with some extremely complex aspects of the European farming world.
I do not know exactly what the European agricultural model is, nor does anyone else, but we intend to defend this model come what may, as it keeps farmers on the land and stops the countryside from becoming deserted.
In any case, the common agricultural policy will of course continue to represent an uneven playing field given that, as it is based on the idea of historical productivity, richer countries come off distinctly better than poorer countries, much as I dislike distinguishing between rich and poor countries.
It is obvious that if some allowance were made for the difference between richer and poorer regions in Europe, the poorer ones would certainly not need so-called 'rural development', a rather vague and underfunded concept which we all know tends to mean that you only get out what you put in in the first place.
The fact of the matter is that there will not be a budget for this 'rural development', which would in practice be a way of re-establishing the balance between the more- and less-favoured regions.
Even in the sectors where we are undeniably more competitive - such as wine-making - there will not be any money for re-establishing old vineyards.
On the other hand, the European Union still considers wool to be a non-agricultural product.
It is to be hoped that with the promotion we have been promised for our products, and despite the limited funding we have been allocated, we can still be competitive in the war which is increasingly being waged at world level.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the financial framework agreed in Berlin is a totally inadequate response to the requirements and objectives of cohesion, which should be the guiding star for the construction of Europe and its present and future ambitions.
So it is not surprising that despite earlier hopes that it would be maintained, the Cohesion Fund has emerged from Berlin with reduced resources, which will result in cuts for some cohesion countries, including my own, Portugal.
Nor is it acceptable that, contrary to what Parliament approved in November 1998, the conditionality of the Cohesion Fund in relation to the stability pact is to be maintained, and that, for example, the Committee on Regional Policy should now be presenting an opinion in favour of the proposal for a regulation which envisages exactly this type of conditionality.
Without affecting the cheques distributed by the various countries, regulating the Structural Funds, especially by means of intermediate assessments of the efficiency reserve and by a general lowering of cofinancing levels, will in practice result in appropriations being 'expenditure limits', whereas they were previously 'expenditure targets'.
There will certainly be a big difference between what was announced in Berlin and what will actually happen.
And these are not positive points like maintaining the URBAN Community initiative, which in fact runs counter to opinion in Berlin. This could make a difference to the considerable doubt concerning the soundness and the efficiency of the regulation of the Structural Funds in future.
One last point about the common agricultural policy and the reform agreed upon in Berlin, or rather the non-reform.
Berlin neither restored a balance to nor promoted a reversal of the present discrimination between types of production and farmers.
A few one-off increases in financing distributed between a few countries will do nothing to change internal imbalances, and may if anything accentuate them, even within apparently more favoured countries.
Mr President, I am speaking basically on the Arias Cañete report.
We are going to vote against, as we did in committee.
It is very important to stress that this is not because we do not agree with structural funds for fisheries.
On the contrary.
A fund is important to accomplish many necessary structural changes.
But what we disagree with in this report is the way that it has emerged from the committee.
Basically what Mr Arias Cañete wants to do is continue with the existing system which rejects changes and improvements proposed by the Commission.
Two examples: last year the Court of Auditors examined in detail the funding for joint enterprises and made several critical comments.
The Commission's proposal attempted to incorporate changes to improve the system. These were not taken up in the Arias Cañete report.
The other thing is that the Commission does not want to fund the transfer of vessels to flags of convenience which flout international management regulations.
But again this was not taken up by the committee or by the Arias Cañete report.
As well as that we have two major problems with the Commission's proposal.
The Commission has very little control over how money is spent and has publicly admitted as much.
Too much is left up to the Member States.
Not enough consideration has been given to criteria for granting aid.
Vessels differ in their environmental and social impact and preference should be given to funding the withdrawal of damaging units and the creation of less destructive units.
In committee we forwarded an amendment on transparency which was not accepted by the committee.
Not only was it not accepted by the committee, but the rapporteur himself did not support it.
This is unfortunate - plus the fact that the Rules of Procedure have left it impossible for us to submit this amendment again, which means that we cannot get a registered roll-call vote on the fact that Members are failing to adhere to the whole issue of transparency.
That is why we are voting against this report.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, this is the last major debate in this parliamentary term and it is an excellent debate on a highly symbolic issue: Agenda 2000, as discussed in Berlin, in fact, with the German Chancellor, the rediscovered Reichstag, the rediscovered eagle and even a war.
Obviously this makes a change from the rather puerile debates we have sometimes had over the last five years, such as those concerning lesbians, footballers' transfers or generic medicines.
And Agenda 2000 raises important issues: the European agricultural strategy, the future of our food supplies, the structural policy and the financing of Europe, not to mention the opening up to the East.
On agriculture, Commissioner, we are still on line 92, the McSharry line, the Steichen line, the Blair House line.
Prices are being reduced - 20 %, 15 %, 30 % - with a small compromise in Berlin, partial compensation and some illusions.
There are illusions because by playing around on the world market and lowering prices, we will certainly never be able to catch up with Argentina, for example, in terms of the meat trade.
And it is certainly dangerous to play around on the world market and overlap free trade areas. This is illustrated by what Mr Martin said earlier in relation to winegrowers, with Sweden and Ireland being designated winegrowing areas so that they can obtain concentrated musts and perhaps manufacture industrial wines.
And what good is an agreement in Berlin when in six months' time the world trade negotiations will begin and, just as in 1992, we are starting to make concessions even before those negotiations have started? That raises the problem of our agricultural model.
Mr Rosado Fernandes and many others spoke about it, just as you did, Commissioner. We talk about the European agricultural model.
It is a model that stands for quality and welfare. It is a model that stands against the American model of intensive agriculture.
Perhaps you have a third model, which I would call the Austrian agricultural model, because, alongside the Wagnerian American production, this would be light-hearted farming, with farmers looking after the countryside, nature and the environment, so that Sissi could go for a country walk at the weekend.
No doubt that is what you call the environmental section of the CAP.
Farmers would manage the countryside and eventually be included under the regional funds.
That brings me to the Structural Funds.
There, too, Berlin has hidden part of the truth.
Apparently there are compromises.
The Spanish wanted EUR 240 billion, the Dutch wanted EUR 193 billion and EUR 213 billion was agreed on.
But in reality, the winners keep winning - Spain still gets the Christmas tree with EUR 9 billion and Great Britain still gets its cheque - while the losers keep losing.
France has even lost out on Objective 1 and farmers are going to lose out on Objective 2 because they are now lumped in with the suburbs.
Moreover, the Eastern European countries are soon to arrive and the planned funding is quite modest: EUR 3 billion a year for the pre-accession period, which is clearly inadequate. So what will we do then?
We will have to either share out the poverty between the farmers coming in and those who are already here, or we will have to create a new resource.
And that is the third problem: funding.
We are aware of this problem.
Germany does not want to pay more, and it is quite right. It loses EUR 11 billion every year.
France loses between EUR 1 billion and EUR 4 billion.
So unless expenditure is reduced there is only one solution: resources must be found.
Because of your foolishness in terms of constantly reducing customs duties, particularly as regards the GSPs, they no longer amount to anything: they account for only 14 % of resources.
The share of VAT is falling.
We obviously still have the GNP resource, but that is not a federal resource, it is the traditional contribution to an international organisation, a state's contribution.
Berlin clearly sought to increase the share of the GNP contribution.
But that is not enough: by moving to 20, 21 or 25 Member States, and putting a ceiling of 1.27 % of GNP on the budget envelope, we will not even last a few years. We need other resources.
They cannot seriously come from the CO2 tax as Mr Ripa di Meana and the Greens believe, because nobody has ever seen carbon dioxide produce taxes, otherwise Pinatubo would probably be spitting euros. So there is only one resource left: a European income tax.
And that is exactly where Berlin did not tell the truth.
Just like the Europe of free trade, the Europe of the great single market lied; it did not tell us it was the Europe of 20 million unemployed and 50 million excluded.
The ultra-liberal Europe is lying now and it is not saying that in 2006 it will be the Europe of taxation and the Europe of a European income tax.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioners, that is why, on 14 June, we want to come back and we will come back to change Europe.
Mr President, following the charming address given by Mr Martinez, I fear my position will appear very banal. I in fact believe that, although it contains certain weaknesses, the agreement that was reached at Berlin on Agenda 2000 is a success that can be attributed to the German Presidency.
The prophets of doom were proved wrong, and confirmation was given to both the priority that the European Union places on the policy of economic and social cohesion and the admirable and particularly effective cooperation between the main political Community institutions.
Coming, as I do, from a cohesion country, Greece, I want to express my satisfaction with the provisions laid down in the three major chapters of the agreement.
Firstly, as regards agriculture, I am satisfied with the preservation of the Community nature of agricultural policy, in spite of intense pressure to establish cofinancing measures.-Secondly, in respect of structural actions, I am satisfied with the preservation of increased per capita funding of the cohesion countries from the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund, and also with the emphasis placed on combating unemployment.-Thirdly, with regard to the chapter on own resources, I am satisfied with the adoption of a more just system which favours less-developed countries.
My position, however, is that the system on own resources needs to be changed, which will inevitably lead to an increase in the Community budget so that needs can be met and the ambitious aims of the European Union can be fulfilled.-Finally, I would like to congratulate all those who contributed to this historic Berlin agreement, especially Commissioner Wulf-Mathies for her tireless effort and my colleagues for the quality of their opinions.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, I shall now change the subject.
I am speaking on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I should like to sincerely thank the rapporteur, Mr Colom i Naval, because he has incorporated the amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgetary Control in his report on the financial perspective and the interinstitutional agreement.
I should like at the same time to refer to the most important, but also the most logical of these amendments. We have jointly agreed with the Council in the text that before the European Union's budget is adopted, an additional trialogue meeting will always be held at which the Council, the Commission and Parliament will agree on how possible additional requirements - last year there was the matter of aid for Russia - can be covered by the appropriations not utilised in the current financial year, or how new requirements in the next financial year should be dealt with and how full agreement can be reached on this before the budget is adopted.
I think that this procedure comes very close to what the Member States want, but also what Europe's citizens want, which is that a rigorous and efficient budget be adopted each year.
I should also like to mention another amendment which the rapporteur has included, and which is connected with the discussion that took place on Monday evening in plenary: the 1996/97 discharge procedure.
We now have a procedure whereby new regulations are very often adopted by the Council without the old regulation having been evaluated.
We have made a suggestion in this regard, and the Council has been prepared at least up to now to accept that if possible, a new regulation should not be adopted by the Council before an evaluation of the old one has been completed.
If this could be carried through, we would achieve a real success because it makes no sense to establish during the procedure for a new regulation that the old regulation was in fact not acceptable and the new one reveals the same shortcomings.
I would therefore invite the Council to establish its position once more on this matter in detail, because Parliament has done so.
Mr President, I would like to present the main points of two reports I produced on the subject of the applicant countries for the Committee on Regional Policy.
When EU aid is being allocated and prioritised, it is important to pay particular attention to matters of the environment and health.
In order for the single market to function, including, inter alia, a free trade policy in food, it is extremely important that applicant countries comply with the relevant health and hygiene regulations imposed by the EU.
The EU cannot make compromises on these issues within the framework of a period of transition.
Instead, some degree of flexibility is required when allocating EU aid.
In the Committee on Regional Policy we wish to stress the importance of three issues, in addition to that of flexibility.
Firstly, we would like to emphasise the importance of cross-border cooperation while preparations are being made for membership.
This is especially important in developing networks linking government, businesses and organisations.
Secondly, we would like to stress the importance of nuclear safety, and, for that reason, EU resources granted for purposes of nuclear safety must be concentrated within the context of PHARE.
Thirdly, we want to stress the importance of training people to promote the structural changes that are now under way in the applicant countries.
All in all, prioritisation is important, but it has to be achieved through viable cooperation with the applicant countries.
For that reason, the administration process must not be allowed to become too ponderous, especially when we consider how relatively meagre the resources are.
I am also in favour of allowing the Commission a certain amount of licence in order to achieve maximum effectiveness in the area of aid.
Mr President, I am going to speak on the Arias Cañete report on the structural policies for fisheries which is, of course, part of the Agenda 2000 debate.
In our opinion, many aspects of Agenda 2000 are worthy of criticism and ought to be criticised, and some Members have done that this evening and in the course of the day.
But that does not apply to the fisheries policy.
The outcome in terms of the rules for assistance in the fisheries sector can be considered satisfactory thanks to the attitude of the Committee on Fisheries which opposed the Commission's original plan from the start.
It opposed this original plan because it destroyed the horizontal nature of the intervention measures and established a financing system charged to the EAGGF Guarantee Section, which made the planning of this intervention enormously difficult.
These aspects of the initial proposal were changed after Parliament voted against them a few months ago and the final proposal establishes a unitary instrument for intervention in the fisheries sector.
Although there are still two regulations, there is only one fund, which means that structural intervention can be properly dealt with in the fisheries sector.
I have nearly finished, Mr President, but I do not want to end without mentioning an important fact: modernising the fishing fleet is certainly important, structural intervention is very important, but the future of fishing, for our fleet, depends largely on the existence of international agreements with third countries to provide fishing grounds for that fleet.
There are grounds for concern here, at least in some parts of the European Union.
In my specific case, coming from Andalusia, I must point out that the Moroccan Government has just confirmed that it does not intend to extend the current agreement, which raises serious problems for tens of thousands of fishermen in my region, Andalusia, and also in Galicia.
And although I know that this is not exactly what we are discussing today, I do not want to end without drawing attention to this very important problem.
Mr President, as a politician representing a very rural constituency highly dependent on agriculture, I want to say that the outcome of the Berlin Summit of Agenda 2000 was not as disappointing to myself or my constituency as we first thought.
The Fischler proposals cast a great shadow over rural Europe to begin with, but at the end of the day we have to appreciate that the outcome, while not totally satisfactory, certainly is not disastrous by any means.
The fact that we are projecting to spend more money on rural Europe, together with the fact that the number of people involved in agriculture is decreasing, ensures that for the next seven years there is a minimum standard of living guaranteed to people involved in agriculture.
I hope it will be made clear to everybody at all times that the concessions expected from us in the World Trade Organisation negotiations have been made and that we will not offer the prospect of any more concessions to the farmers of Europe until the present seven years have expired.
We have had the MacSharry reform, another tranche of it now.
Farmers have been traumatised by the fall in their income so I hope that is the end of it.
I would like to say to Mr Fischler that while his message was not an easy one to sell he made a great effort to explain it to the farmers of Europe.
His efforts are much appreciated, his efforts to educate and inform and bring public opinion along were commendable.
I was not as happy with the outcome of the issue of regional policy.
We are winding down regional policy.
The region to which I belong retained its Objective 1 status but nevertheless it is only really Objective 1 in transition, because the amount of money received under the new Objective 1 is actually much reduced from the amount per capita under the last programme.
In any case we, too, appreciate the efforts that were made by the outgoing Commissioner.
She worked extremely hard, not only in visiting the depressed areas of the Union, but particularly in relation to Northern Ireland and all the cross-border schemes.
Her presence was much appreciated and her total commitment to the whole issue of regional development is accepted.
Finally, there is only one person in the room tonight who will have a vote in my election: Commissioner Flynn will have the opportunity to vote for me.
I should like to say we much appreciate all the hard work he has also done, and indeed all the Commissioners.
Mr President, I represent the EU's north-eastern periphery area, Northern Finland.
I am currently examining the effects of the Agenda 2000 package on this region, which is one that is dependent on agriculture, although production conditions are much poorer than in the farming regions of Central Europe.
The report on the Union's northern dimension states that the issue of the northern dimension must figure in all decision-making connected with the Union's internal development, in accordance with the resolutions of the Vienna European Council.
In addition, a decision was taken at the Luxembourg summit that the future of agriculture must be safeguarded everywhere in the EU area.
How did Agenda 2000 take these views into account? Through negotiation the EU's northernmost farming regions, which are also the world's northernmost farming regions, gained a few important concessions to compensate for the costs incurred because of natural problems.
The grain drying premium and forage aid are the right tools: they should simply be on a more adequate scale.
Structural measures are important, but they are not enough in themselves to solve economic problems in the northern regions.
The fields are covered in snow in April, whether they are thirty or two hundred hectares in size.
It was still nearly ten degrees below zero in my home region just this morning.
The logic behind paying aid by the hectare is very hard to explain to farm workers in northern Finland.
Why should those who reap the best harvests receive many times more in aid payments than those whose harvests are small because of the natural conditions? Hopefully, this trend will change, as Parliament has already agreed, and the differences in payments of aid by the hectare will be reduced.
Mr President, as the French so wisely say, 'tout est bien qui finit bien '.
We are at the end of a long haul, and we have got here in pretty good shape.
The results are not perfect, but despite the inadequate budgets and the faint- hearted reform of the common agricultural policy, and the continuing injustices and imbalances that it preserves, we have nevertheless avoided a serious crisis in the European Union and it is fair to say that over the next few years the European Union will forge ahead with confidence and stability.
This process has reached a satisfactory conclusion, and it has had a happy ending for the cohesion countries and for the poorer regions in which structural assistance is to be concentrated from now on.
I cannot resist saying that it has come to a satisfactory conclusion for my country, which will receive structural support at an annual average level slightly higher than the annual average between 1994 and 1999.
So Portugal and the other cohesion countries will be in a position to maintain their development and modernisation and converge with the European average, and this is actually happening, especially in my country.
For this reason, we welcome the financial perspectives, the interinstitutional agreement and the structural policies.
We wish to congratulate the German Presidency on the work it has done in the face of the scepticism which has beset this presidency.
And I can tell Commissioner Wulf-Mathies - if I may paraphrase the words of a previous speaker - that if she were a candidate for election to the European Parliament in Portugal, the Portuguese would vote for her in droves.
Mr Lage, I am bound to say that you have created a problem for us. If all the Members speak for twice as long as their given time, we shall be here until 4 a.m.
I can quite understand those colleagues who, unfortunately, have only been given one minute for their speech, but those are the economics of the debate.
I will stay because I have to, but the parliamentary services cannot stay here until 4 a.m.
I would ask you not to exceed your allotted time.
I understand - what can you say in one minute? But it is not my fault.
Ask the political groups to give you a little more time.
It is all going to come to a head this evening: 30 speakers with one minute each!
How will I be able to stop them? I feel terrible about this.
But on the other hand, if one minute turns into two, we shall be here until 3 a.m.
Mr President, I would say that the great achievement of the Committee on Fisheries was that, when presented with the Agenda 2000 proposals a year ago, it very quickly recognised the serious errors in the proposals on fisheries structural policy and immediately drew up a strategy which was stoutly defended by all the draftsmen of the opinions and, of course, by Mr Arias Cañete, the rapporteur.
I should also mention that this strategy was agreed on in our committee after three public hearings with representatives of the fisheries sector and each and every one of the national fisheries departments.
The result was the excellent report by Mr Arias Cañete, which has served as a basis for the negotiations with the Council.
In my view, this report has led to an excellent compromise, which I welcome. Above all, I appreciate the fruitful collaboration that was displayed between Parliament and the Council.
I include in my thanks all the staff who helped us reach a compromise that includes three of Parliament's principal objectives: a horizontal legal instrument, a single financial instrument, the FIFG, and a basic regulation finally covering all the financial structural measures.
I think this has been one of Parliament's major successes, but we cannot rest on our laurels because we still need to ensure the continuity of certain measures with regard to the implementing regulation, and this is dealt with in the second part of the Arias report. In my opinion, without that continuity, the fisheries structural policy loses much of its meaning.
For instance, we need continuity of measures to maintain a modern, safe and competitive fleet or measures that have proved to be extremely effective instruments of fisheries policy, such as joint enterprises with third countries. These are drained of content by the Commission's proposal, when they could be an excellent formula for cooperation with third countries, as will surely be demonstrated in the future in the case of Morocco.
These demands are perfectly reflected in the report by Mr Arias Cañete, his final task for the European Parliament, and he leaves us with one of the finest and most comprehensive fisheries documents we have ever had the opportunity to consider.
I therefore call on Parliament to vote in favour of this report.
Mr President, coming as I do from northern Sweden, I should like to say a little about developments there.
The situation is very serious up in the north of the country. Part of the problem is that activity in large segments of the state sector - and the private sector too - is either ceasing altogether, or being curtailed.
In two thirds of Sweden's municipalities, the population has been on the decrease for several years now.
And let us not forget that population densities were already very low beforehand, with three or four inhabitants per square kilometre.
Many jobs in the interior are disappearing and local authority finances are extremely stretched.
Regional policy is not proving very effective at all; in fact, it is rather ineffective.
As part of the package Sweden negotiated when joining the EU, Norrland's interior was granted special Objective 6 status.
Objective 6 is now to be merged with Objective 1.
Equally, Objective 5b - which covers rural and island areas - is to be absorbed into Objective 2.
We hope that the new Objectives 1 and 2 will prove beneficial for the areas affected, so that the northern parts of Sweden - and of other EU countries - are spared still further depopulation and migration.
There has been a call for Objectives 1 and 2 to be granted an adequate share of overall resources; we trust that there will be something positive in the package for the development of northern Sweden.
Mr President, Ireland has the European Parliament to thank for ensuring extra funding for neighbourhoods in crisis.
This decision is particularly important for Dublin.
I cannot be repeated often enough: in an otherwise very successful city there are pockets of enormous deprivation.
The URBAN initiative will allow for projects to be undertaken in these areas to tackle the ingrained problems of long-term unemployment and urban decay.
The Council, including the Irish Government, actually failed to reinstate this project.
But we in Parliament had it reinstated.
We succeeded there. This proves again how relevant Parliament is to ordinary people.
This is my valedictory speech, Mr President.
I want to thank you and all the Members and say what a pleasure it was to work here in this Parliament over the last five years.
My colleague has spoken about the end; the end is nigh.
I hope I will be back.
We have a democracy in Ireland, a funny type of democracy: it decides who will be elected and who will not.
We do not have a list system.
Commissioner Flynn will appreciate that.
I want to place on record my thanks to the outgoing Commission because in all the heated debates we have had nobody has stopped to thank those members of the Commission who have worked very hard for the people of Europe, the people we all here tried to represent.
We have a very good line-up of hard working Commissioners tonight.
Mr President, when we see what stage we have reached in the enlargement process it is perfectly clear that the views of Parliament have had a great deal of influence.
Political considerations have taken precedence over economic ones, including in the way we have formulated and implemented our strategy in regard to the applicant countries.
We are delighted that pre-accession aid has been principally focused on strengthening the administrative and institutional capacities of the relevant countries, including social dialogue, which is an important aspect of society in these countries.
Democracy and states based on the rule of law form the basis of the European Union.
They lie at its very heart and consist of much more than the acquis communautaire .
There is a place for countries which seek to become based on the rule of law, but not for those that do not.
This clear stance has been a major force for good.
In Slovakia, Romania and the Baltic states it has been taken very seriously, even if it is not always easy to apply political criteria in practice.
A good example of this is the position of the Russian minorities in Estonia and Latvia.
Decentralisation as an objective belongs among the political and administrative criteria and the EU must keep to this.
I therefore welcome the fact that the reports have specifically referred to this point.
Where possible management must be transferred to the governments of the applicant countries, which are already involved through cofinancing.
It is good that the European Union is sticking with the PHARE priorities in all of this, making them its own strategy.
Part of this is also the attempt to get the applicant countries involved in European political union, which is gaining a higher profile because of the emphasis on political criteria.
There are great differences between the applicant countries, Mr President.
This is why the guidelines and multiannual programmes must be drawn up for each country and for each sector.
It is each country's own merits that count.
However, it is not fair to constantly impose extra demands on applicants on the basis of our own national interests.
I have in mind, for example, the resolution on the Temelin nuclear power station in the Czech Republic, which is on the agenda this morning.
Nuclear safety is important, but we cannot simply demand or pressurise countries to close down nuclear power stations as part of the accession process.
The accession conditions cannot be used in order to settle bilateral scores.
Mr President, in two years of negotiation for seven years of European regional aid, of course there are areas where we would have wished to go further: clearer commitments, the partnership by local and regional authorities, even further guarantees that payments will be made on time to those delivering projects, a specific figure for social risk capital for the smaller voluntary organisations to benefit.
Nevertheless, our intentions are clear.
I want to underline two parliamentary achievements in particular.
First, not only have we ensured that urban poverty and neglect are dealt with directly for the first time, but against all expectations we have retained an urban community initiative too, which can target the small- and medium-sized towns which currently receive less than 10 % of the funding.
Second, whilst retaining a 5 % eligible population for poor rural areas, we have also succeeded in redirecting some CAP support from within Heading 1, off-farm, and Heading 2, rural development.
My own region, Essex, in the east of England, has 18 urban wards in the 25 % most deprived in the UK.
In the Cambridgeshire Fens, which have been part of the £50m 5-B Programme across East Anglia, but where 73 % of villages have no food shops, 74 % no daily bus service and not one a bank, these decisions offer hope.
But for Europe as a whole, it ensures that the needs of severe pockets of poverty and deprivation can be tackled alongside help to large regions suffering industrial decline.
It is an agreement which we can welcome.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, this debate represents the end of a long discussion and decision-making process on the reform of regional and structural policy. Opinions may differ slightly on the individual points, but one aspect is clearly of overriding significance.
The fact that we have kept to the timetable is an enormous advantage. It means that the review of the Structural Funds will be able to take effect in good time, in contrast to 1994, and that we will not be faced with a repeat of the dilemma we had five years ago.
My group has from the outset declared itself in favour of reforming structural and regional aid, so that the financial resources available are concentrated on the regions in greatest need of development, but also so that greater individual responsibility is assigned to the Member States, particularly where entire regions are not eligible for EU structural aid.
We welcome the fact that the new Objective 1 regions receive 70 % of resources.
This means that it is now possible to target support at specific regions.
However, we regret not having managed to introduce a separate objective for rural development which we have been openly in favour of the whole time.
We also regret that with regard to the possibilities for national involvement, the Member States will not be allowed to select Objective 2 regions which do not meet the strict criteria, but will still be limited by criteria and the Commission's reserving the right to grant authorisation.
We have always urged that a regional GDP per capita of less than 75 % of the Community average be strictly applied as the criteria for the selection of future Objective 1 regions.
This has been successful on the whole, even though in the meantime there has repeatedly been the danger of speaking out in favour of flexibility on this matter.
Opinion is divided within my group as far as the Cohesion Fund is concerned.
Some of my colleagues - particularly those from the southern European countries - support the Commission's and Council's proposal to continue with the Cohesion Fund in its present form.
Others believe that for the countries which are taking part in monetary union, the Cohesion Fund has achieved its objective and has made a fundamental contribution to nominal convergence.
There is therefore no reason for it to continue to exist in its present form.
Obviously, not all dreams can come true.
Wishes still remain to be fulfilled.
However, the compromise as a whole is a step in the right direction for the next planning period.
Mr President, the last few weeks have been successful ones for the European Parliament in terms of our powers under the Amsterdam Treaty, the issue of discharge to have better control of Commission management and also, and not least, the vote on the Statute we took today to defer it to avoid some Council agreement being imposed on us.
But what then of the financial perspectives?
There has been great progress and I would thank the German presidency for what it has done to add on to the financial perspectives vis-à-vis the Berlin Summit.
We have made considerable progress, not least in classification and the way in which we can have conciliation across the whole of the budget.
But for me, and many of my group, there remain some gaps in relation to the financial perspectives as they currently stand.
The first refers to the rigour - not in categories 1 and 2, but 3, 4 and 5 where there is ambiguity in some of the declarations, in some of the phraseology, which needs to be clarified.
Secondly, in terms of flexibility, we have indeed lined up for rigour in the financial perspective, but where we see that there is very little scope for flexibility, where some of it has been absorbed by URBAN initiative under category 2 and where we have no means of being able to use what parliamentary powers we would have under Article 203, then that means for me that a rigid corset has been set for financial discipline which is inappropriate for the years ahead.
Lastly, in this context, there is no general review clause of this financial perspective which is heading off for the next seven years with no fixed date for revision and so no possibility of this Parliament or the new Commission collectively reviewing it at a particular date, irrespective of enlargement.
Last, but not least, there is a problem which I notice has just arisen.
It comes from our own President.
Mr President I should be grateful if you would investigate this because our President seems to be paying more attention to influences outside this House than to parliamentary rights, claiming that the vote on the financial perspective should be a simple majority, rather than a qualified majority, though the chairman of the Committee on Budgets actually said it should be done by a qualified majority.
I would appreciate it if this could be clarified tomorrow, otherwise there will be vigorous opposition in this House to what will be apparently imposed upon it by the President.
Lastly, may I say that in terms of Parliament itself, I believe that we risk being without better flexibility and having this - what I would call - bureaucrat's dream of being able to spend money without having effective parliamentary control over a long period of time.
We should continue to negotiate and come to a good deal with the Council as soon as we can, probably in the early autumn, alongside the agreements on the Statute.
That way we will make sure that parliamentary rights are properly preserved and yet have continuity as we should in the budgetary process.
Mr President, this agreement means that the Spanish countryside will lose 100 000 million pesetas a year and there will be a reduction of 5 % in agricultural incomes.
It damages the interests of small farmers, who will have to compete with large multinationals in a totally unfair situation.
Income from herbaceous crops will fall by 40 000 million pesetas, of which 23 000 million pesetas will correspond to cereals.
Loyola de Palacio concealed the fact that the extra 550 000 tonnes for the milk quota does not attract a premium, and for bovine animals the increases will not make up for the agreed reduction of 20 % in prices, thereby producing a fall in incomes in this sector of some 30 000 million pesetas.
Mr President, this is a bad agreement for the Spanish countryside, for Spain and for Europe and we will therefore be voting against it.
Mr President, so as not to come under pressure of time, allow me to begin by doing something which I would not normally do until the end of my speech. That is to say, I should like to sincerely thank Mrs Wulf-Mathies for her positive cooperation with the Committee on Regional Policy.
By now everything has already been said at least once in the House on the subject which we are dealing with today.
I would ask Mr Langen not to be tempted to heckle.
However, one point has not been made, a point that in my opinion should be made, namely that we should rediscover the market economy if we want the people and the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe to one day fulfil the criteria for EU membership.
If we are really showing or want to show solidarity, then it is not sufficient to hand out money.
I know what I am talking about, since I come from a part of Germany which receives a considerable amount of funds from the European Union and western Germany.
However, this alone is not sufficient.
The principle of the market economy must be embraced wholeheartedly.
If we really want to show solidarity, we must help the people of Central and Eastern Europe to rediscover this instrument.
However, this means that we in the European Union first of all have to begin to actually embrace the market economy again ourselves.
I am sure that you will not mind if I do not quite use up all of my two minutes' speaking time.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, Agenda 2000 has preoccupied us for months and in my opinion it required all those concerned to be deeply committed to it.
I should therefore like to begin by sincerely thanking Parliament, the Commission and the Council for the work that they have done.
Countless negotiating rounds had to be held in order to achieve an acceptable compromise.
Parliament was actively involved throughout the entire process and was able to influence the discussion.
We have always declared our support for the further development of the common agricultural policy and of rural development policy.
A radical course has been set for shaping the future European agricultural policy.
This involves strengthening rural development policy as the second pillar of agricultural policy.
A series of important environmental measures can still be pursued by means of this.
Environmental measures for farmers can be safeguarded in the long term, and hill farmers and farmers in disadvantaged regions can be given greater support.
I welcome the fact that the individual Member States have the opportunity to take part in the decision making.
Certainly, the lowering of intervention prices for beef and cereals could not have been avoided, but it is due among other things to the commitment of the European Parliament that these were not reduced on the scale originally proposed by the Commission.
I regret that agreement was not reached on the reforms in the milk sector.
However, in terms of promoting disadvantaged regions, the decision to continue with the milk quota system, even beyond 2008, is of prime importance as far as I am concerned.
With regard to matters which apply across the board, I certainly cannot agree to a degressive model of direct payments.
In principle, I should like to say that the compromise already worked out by the Commission, the Council and Parliament has produced satisfactory results as far as I can see.
On no account, however, should the outcome be jeopardised by the final vote which Parliament has yet to hold.
It is now up to the individual Member States to use their room for manoeuvre as nation states as far as possible, and there are a number of possibilities for examining national peculiarities.
These should also be taken into account for the benefit of our farmers, thereby creating and securing more jobs in rural areas.
Europe's farmers and thus our European cultural landscape must not be sacrificed in favour of the world market; instead, we are demanding fair conditions for European agriculture, and this also applies to future WTO negotiations.
I should also like to add my thanks to the Commission, to the Commissioners present, and all the others who have worked so hard during the period I have been in this Parliament.
My group, the EPP group, can only note the result of the Berlin Summit and while it is a significant improvement on the original Commission proposal it falls far short of what is needed by producers.
The promise of full compensation for price cuts given in 1992 has not been honoured in Agenda 2000 decisions, and while farmers suffer much lower prices, the cost of the common agricultural policy continues to rise.
More importantly, consumers continue to pay more and more for their food.
I fully realise the absolute requirement to make way for enlargement of the Union to the east and to ensure a satisfactory outcome to the forthcoming WTO round.
However, it is not acceptable that so many farmers are given no alternative but to withdraw from farming because of the impossibility of making a reasonable income.
Rural depopulation is rife, in spite of all the rural development measures.
As I have repeatedly said, without the core business of farming most rural development projects cannot be successful, because they cannot stand alone.
I realise it is difficult for colleagues from other Member States to realise how low farm incomes have fallen in my country, Ireland, mainly due to the fact that Ireland is heavily dependent on export markets, both in the EU and in third countries.
Ninety per cent of our total beef production and 80 % of our milk production is exported.
The BSE crisis in the UK has almost ruined our export markets.
As consumption falls sharply and other countries rely on their own production without importing, the collapse of the Russian economy has further weakened a fragile market.
The proposals on agricultural reform, while an improvement on the original Commission proposals, are not a long-term solution.
If we are serious about protecting the European model of agriculture, with all its constraints and additional costs, and if we are serious about maintaining the rural countryside we must return to prices which are in some way based on, or linked to, the cost of production.
Do we want a vibrant, living, well-maintained countryside or do we want a giant national park without people - and especially without young people? I believe that is where Agenda 2000 proposals will take us unless we make changes without delay.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to depart from the subject of agriculture in order to discuss another important area with you, that of social policy.
At Parliament's first reading on the European Social Fund, I recognised that the orientation of the programme will have a great effect on the objectives and regions in question. Nearly all the amendments we tabled have been included by the rapporteur.
The ESF is still basically orientated towards labour market policies, and the PPE has placed special emphasis on this.
Fund support only makes sense if the results of the projects are sustainable and they actually reach the target populations as well.
The PPE agrees with the common position on the ESF.
We would like to see the new ESF swiftly and smoothly implemented within the next year, without further loss of time and guaranteeing prompt and reliable planning for those responsible for the projects and for the Member States.
For this reason, we absolutely reject a third reading and will be voting against all the amendments which would result in this.
As shadow rapporteur, I would be able to support the amendments which have arisen as a compromise from the negotiations within the Council if the Council and the Commission confirmed that the amendments in question would in fact be adopted and the danger of a third reading therefore did not arise.
The people of Europe expect us to support development in their regions, and to do so by means of speedy and practical measures which are not bureaucratic.
We are placing a fund into the hands of the Member States in question, and they should not encumber or hinder it by laying down additional rules; instead, they can use it in a way which is genuinely in line with the objectives.
Mr President, we keep changing the subject in this debate.
It is not really appropriate, but I will now move on to the subject of the organisation of the market in wine.
We have heard that there are certainly many things to find fault with in the part of the Agenda 2000 package that deals with agricultural policy.
We must praise the Commission, the Council presidency, Mr Funke, and also Parliament for the progress made in one area; Mr Fischler, you took a long time to put forward such a good proposal, and you refused to withdraw the old one for a long time.
Together we have managed to reform the organisation of the market in wine reasonably well, and I believe that after holding a debate like this one, we should not only voice criticism, but we should also give praise.
It is sad that there is no wine here for those attending the last evening sitting of this parliamentary term.
Mr Funke was certainly present when the former Federal Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, announced his watchword for the future wine-growing policy on German National Wine Day: we must drink more.
A quotation from the past!
However, I should like to get back to the point.
We have pushed through Parliament's demands in this reform of the wine market, and I can only emphasise here once again that it would be a good thing if Parliament were able to take part in the decision-making in the future, since we have mastered horse-trading in this House just as well as the Council.
What has come out of the organisation of the market in wine is in any case praiseworthy.
Corrections have been made to the regulations on distillation and the rights for planting new vines.
The Member States have greater individual responsibility.
It is now possible to set up inter-branch organisations throughout the whole of Europe.
The reform includes programmes financed by the EU for restructuring, switching to different varieties, and modernisation of production techniques.
The Council retains its powers.
After all, we do not want to give the Commission too many powers, for instance over regulations on labelling and oenological practices.
We must therefore preserve the traditional growing methods in Europe.
Mr Fischler has also recognised and actively supported this.
We are therefore satisfied with the reform, and I think that the broad agreement on the organisation of the market in wine has been a great achievement for Parliament.
Only those who know of the dispute that has taken place in the last five years within Parliament over the issue of the organisation of the market in wine are in a position to appreciate how much progress has been made.
I should like to thank you all, and I hope that we will have the opportunity to drink to this outcome with a glass of wine in the next parliamentary term, if not this evening.
Mr President, regional policy is central to the equitable development of the European Union.
The Union's structural policy plays an important role in supplementing development at national level.
Just as important as how much aid the Union can afford to give is the question of how aid is used.
The Member States have the ultimate responsibility for acting wisely.
Regional policy administered according to the principle of transparency will also boost the confidence of the public in the work of the Union and how achievable results can be.
EU structural policy resources must be targeted on investment in the creation of genuine jobs.
The bottom line must be safeguarding employment and welfare in different parts of the continent.
Regional development policy has to be all-embracing, motivating, and it must promote enterprise.
The final decision on Agenda 2000 is a good European compromise.
The fact that talks led to results in a situation in which the Commission had already resigned is proof of the viability of the Union.
The Union can congratulate itself on the introduction of a package of reforms.
Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, like all compromises, the one reached in Berlin has its good and bad sides. Let us leave aside the many positive aspects.
As I believe that it is always possible to mitigate negative factors, let me highlight three of them. First, the reform of the common agricultural policy, which I regard as being a poor reflection of the concept of rural development, as in the end both the winners and the losers will be the same as before.
Secondly, the reduction in public participation in private revenue-generating projects, which, as it penalises companies, will also have an adverse effect on jobs. And thirdly, the concentration of funding under the next Community support framework in the earlier years, which, taken together with the normal flow of funds, will make accessing the Structural Funds a complex business, whilst funds that are not taken up will be lost.
In addition to these general factors, there is another which I consider to be of crucial importance, namely the absence of practical recognition for the ultra-peripheral regions.
After years of work to have them included in the Treaty of Amsterdam, it makes me very bitter to see that they have been ignored in Agenda 2000.
Mr President, you may well say that we are reforming the Structural Funds at the very last moment.
For here we are at a quarter to eleven in the evening, with Parliament still in full session and even the Council still present, on which I congratulate you, Mr President-in-Office, as I have never before seen the Council remain in Parliament until a quarter to eleven in the evening.
We have now been busy for more than a year with the reform of the Structural Funds for the next term.
It is now high time to give our final verdict, as otherwise the projects are not going to be able to start on time and I strongly oppose any postponement.
I am therefore pleased to learn, as I did earlier today, that the Council and Parliament have reached agreement on a number of amendments to the European Social Fund which were threatening to lead to postponement.
In November I argued for the Community's URBAN initiative to be continued, as the small and medium-sized towns which lie outside the objective areas, areas which are weak and ailing, also have their problems.
I also argued for a new Community initiative designed to provide a flexible response to unexpected serious economic crises.
In the Euroland era we need such a device, if you compare it to what you find in the United States.
Parliament supported both initiatives, but the Council wanted just three and we already had three.
So there were two too many.
However, the Treaty amendments from the Amsterdam summit made it compulsory to take clear account of Parliament's views and we fortunately reached a compromise.
URBAN and RESTRUCT were combined to form the new URBAN.
The European Regional Fund will in future help solve the economic and social problems of towns and neighbourhoods in a state of crisis with a view to promoting sustainable development.
I am pleased about this, and it would be a welcome development if the Commission could now find a little more money somewhere to spend on this initiative.
I have already heard details of the new allocation, Commissioner, and thank you for giving the innovative measures greater scope.
Mr President, perhaps I could make just one final comment to the Commissioner.
As rapporteur for the 1997 Structural Funds discharge I should like to draw your attention to the fact that a country such as the Netherlands constantly comes out badly in the reports of the Court of Auditors, precisely because it adopts a more exact manner of reporting than all the other countries.
Could you not take a look at these systems, so that this does not always come across so badly in the news coverage?
Mr President, for five years I have listened and learned in the Committee on Budgets that the only way to prepare a good budget and take advantage of all its possibilities is to conclude an interinstitutional agreement that guarantees the financial perspective for seven years.
Today we are listening to proposals to make us condemn the interinstitutional agreement, thus leaving us without a financial perspective.
Mr President, taking account of the latest negotiations and the flexibility accepted by the Council, I do not feel that the budget cut agreed on in Berlin justifies seriously endangering the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
Unless there are final agreements between the Council, the Commission and Parliament, I am afraid that the only thing we are doing is promoting euroscepticism.
Mr President, the European fisheries sector is in a difficult situation, and this is largely taken into account in the future structural policy.
I will concede this, Mr Funke, but the fishing industry is a relatively weak sector of the European economy and requires special treatment, especially as there are mostly no alternative forms of employment in the regions dependent on fishing.
Even our original demand for a separate Objective 4 for rural development with separate treatment for the regions dependent on fishing did not gain acceptance.
From now on, therefore, the same measures will be funded by different sources in the different Objective 1, 2 and 5b regions, with Objective 1 regions clearly being in a better position.
As a result, there is the threat of companies in the new Objective 2 regions moving into the Objective 1 regions solely because they will find better conditions and support there.
Where I live in Cuxhaven-Bremerhaven, there is the threat of just this kind of sword of Damocles; such distortion of competition must not be the result of European structural policy.
Mr Funke, Mrs Wulf-Mathies, I think there are still some important things we need to do here.
I should like to finish by thanking all those who helped to ensure that we continue to have an independent Committee on Fisheries in the European Parliament.
For this reason I am looking forward to the new parliamentary term.
Mr President, Commissioners, Mr President-in-Office, I should like to briefly refer to Mr Barón Crespo's report again and to point out that we are preparing ourselves for an enlargement which stands out due to the fact that we now have a number of countries requesting EU membership that we would not have thought possible ten years ago.
In the past, dictatorships were always given preferential treatment in terms of accession to the European Union if they were able to make their governmental structure a democratic one and found a way of doing this.
If this was the case in the past, then it should certainly remain so in the future.
Mr Hatzidakis pointed out in his speech that along with the transition countries of Central and Eastern Europe we also have an island in the Mediterranean. He was talking about Cyprus, which is also thinking of joining the EU.
I should like to include a further Mediterranean island in the discussion, namely Malta.
Neither of these islands comes under the preparatory pre-accession measures which apply to the other countries. However, like Cyprus, Malta is important geographically, and it has a stable democracy.
It is true that both countries have been granted an extension of one year for the fourth financial protocol, but the structures are not in place for a pre-accession phase.
If we are thinking of a kind of mini PHARE, then I would urge the Commission at some point in the near future to demonstrate to the applicant countries the perspectives under which they can approach their pre-accession phase, so that they obtain the same degree of specific planning criteria as the others, since those of us from the large EU Member States in particular should feel responsible for the small applicant countries.
Mr President, Commissioners, Mr President-in-Office, we have been discussing and arguing about Agenda 2000 for a long time.
We can now see the results of this.
In my view the winners are: the Member States in the Cohesion Fund, in particular the three which we believe should in fact no longer have been eligible; the Objective 1 regions that receive an even greater amount of funds than has so far been the case in the urban areas covered by the new Objective 2, which still even receive funds from the Community initiative URBAN; and the applicant countries which I only hope will not become a market economy, as Mr Schröder said, but a social market economy.
Applause
The losers are definitely the rural areas and especially the regions bordering with third countries.
When I look at the Commissioners sitting there at the front, it is clear to me why the regions bordering with third countries were not particularly taken into account.
They do not come from these areas.
Heckling
Three kilometres from the border regions, I have been told!
Commissioner, the unemployment criterion, which we argued about for a long time, still accounts for 50 %.
Soft criteria are only 50 %.
The problem with this is that the number of unemployed might not be very high, but the infrastructure and the number of skilled jobs might not be adequate either, and young people who are well qualified then move away from the area or commute.
This is not everything.
Capping agricultural expenditure - Mr Fischler referred to this himself today - is obviously an important issue that has to be viewed as negative.
This will naturally result in even less money being made available in rural areas in the future, particularly in the areas where it is urgently needed.
Commissioner, I have no wish to conceal how positive it is that we now have a safety net in the former Objective 5b regions, as well time-limits for transitional periods - it was not certain we would have them - and that the Community initiatives, Interreg and Leader, are better provided for than before.
We must be fair and admit this.
I think that we will also benefit from EQUAL.
This is the last speech I will be making in the European Parliament.
Thank you for your constructive cooperation. I should also like to sincerely thank those I have worked with and particularly the interpreters, who have no doubt had difficulty understanding my Bavarian dialect on occasion!
Applause
Mr Schiedermeier, you have put me in a difficult position.
I was thinking about you and other Members whose regular presence in this Chamber was possibly coming full circle this evening, and we should give them the credit they deserve.
In any event, you have made the announcement and I think that the Chair must acknowledge your extremely regular presence in this Chamber and your entire activity here, as well as the activity of other Members who can claim the same share of the credit.
Mr President, I shall take ten seconds of my precious time to thank the Commissioners and the President for their stoicism in being with us at this hour of the night.
With regard to the financial perspectives, I feel that it is crucial for the European Parliament to approve the framework defined in Berlin.
If not, we will be responsible for enormous confusion and instability in the management of Community policies and we could even distort the fundamental options under Agenda 2000.
With regard to the CAP, I must stress that the final agreement reached in Berlin was far better than the Brussels agreement. Nevertheless, the Berlin agreement was still a long way removed from the position adopted by the European Parliament.
It failed to restore a proper balance to the CAP in terms of fairness and cohesion, and the less-favoured and peripheral regions are still threatened by depopulation and desertification. It also failed to create practical conditions for applying the European farming model and to establish the prerequisites for the European Union to go on the offensive in the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
As far as Portugal is concerned, I deeply regret that some of my country's key specific problems were not taken into consideration.
First, the effects of enlargement were not considered, although it is well known that the Portuguese economy is by far the most vulnerable to competition from our future partners.
Second, the specific nature of Portuguese agriculture was not recognised, and the various kinds of production quotas were not extended, although Portugal is the country with the greatest deficit in the European Union, nor was any consideration given to increasing irrigation quotas, which would be invaluable given that in Portugal, which has the most backward agricultural sector in the European Union, irrigation has an essential part to play in modernising agriculture.
Mr President, I want to confine my remarks to the report by Mr Arias Cañete on structural measures in the fisheries sector.
In devising structural measures in this sector for the new millennium the overriding objective should be to keep them as simple and as cohesive as possible, to ensure that they are flexible enough to respond to the specific regional needs of fisheries and areas dependent on fisheries or where there are significant fishing communities.
The original proposals of the Commission on structural measures were, to say the least, complex and in some places certainly could not be considered cohesive.
For example, a proposal for the same measure to be financed from the FIFG for Objective 1 and 2 regions but from the EAGGF Guarantee Section for other regions could only encourage 'fund chasing', whereby fishing enterprises might relocate within the Community just simply to avail of funds for their particular project.
If ever there was a recipe for regional dislocation and discrimination against traditional local industries likely to create unnecessary unemployment in the fishing sector, this was it.
Contradictions in the Commission proposals for the restructuring of the fleet which is subject to the rules of the MAGP, which require national programming, compared to Objective 2 regions, which are subject to regional programming, would only serve to confuse other matters.
The less favourable redefinition of coastal areas in Objective 2 from areas depending on fishing and in Objective 1 which would eliminate areas distant from the coast requiring structural funds to support aquaculture and processing has to be resisted and changed, as this is clearly discriminatory.
I must welcome the Commission's decision to reverse its proposal to require fishermen to purchase an additional 30 % tonnage, which, if it had gone ahead, could only have been described as a penal law, designed to hinder the urgent need for modernisation and renewal of the fleet.
The case to drop this proposal was forcibly pressed by Parliament's Committee on Fisheries and the unanimous view played no small part in reversing this decision.
I wish to place on record my support for the Union's fishery sector to have a single cohesive structural policy.
It is essential to guarantee that all regions with fishing communities continue to have improved access to fishery structural funds without any attempt to reduce the levels of funding or restrict or exclude access through increasing complexity.
Mr President, there is no doubt that Agenda 2000 will bring tremendous change to the European Union, be it in agriculture or be it in regional policy.
On regional policy I have to admit that I am extremely disappointed that Northern Ireland does not retain Objective I. But I want to pay tribute to the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly for their support for me, and to the Council and Commission because I believe we have achieved a deal that we can live with and will be good for Northern Ireland in the long term.
I am content with that.
It is a compromise - a compromise that was a good one for my region.
But I feel there is a real need to refocus, to relocate and reconsider and attain objectives that we have not been able to attain before: that is to ensure that we have not only got value for money but we also leave something positive behind where European money has been concerned.
On agriculture the proposals will not improve the position of my farmers.
It is a very difficult position that agriculture faces at the moment, not only in my own region but right throughout the whole of Europe.
Low income has been a tremendous problem.
But we in Europe must defend the principle of the family farm and must not allow others in the rest of the world to import into our area food that does not meet our standards.
This is my last contribution in this Parliament, but I have every hope of returning to a future Parliament.
I want to thank you, Mr President, the Parliament services and the Commissioners.
I understand that on Friday I am going to have the great pleasure of welcoming Commissioner Kinnock to Northern Ireland.
I understand I am going to have the great pleasure of welcoming Commissioner Wulf-Mathies to Northern Ireland before the election period is over.
I am sorry I am not going to be able to welcome Commissioner Fischler to Northern Ireland before the election is over, but if he wants to change his mind he would be very welcome.
It has been a great pleasure not only to be a Member of this Parliament, but over the past ten year I have found that Parliament has done tremendous work.
And I say to you, Mr President, thank you very much indeed.
While at times you get criticism - we all get criticism, so what!
You have been a good President.
Thank you Mr Nicholson for your kind words.
We have arrived at the end of a marathon debate on Agenda 2000.
More than 80 colleagues spoke, even if for a very short time.
I had every sympathy.
Although I tried to be a bit hard because of the lack of time, we are still half-an-hour behind schedule, which means that we are going to go well over midnight.
I would like to thank all the participants, firstly the President-in-Office of the Council.
A colleague remarked earlier that it is rather rare that a President-in-Office sits so late at night to listen exhaustedly to an exhaustive debate.
Naturally the Commissioners have been more accustomed to sit with us until very late.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 11 am.
Procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission
The next item is the report (A4-0169/99) by Mrs Aglietta, on behalf of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission (COM(98)0380 - C4-0501/98-98/0219(CNS)).
I give the floor to Mr De Giovanni, chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, who is deputising for Mrs Aglietta.
Mr President, as you mentioned, I am deputising for Mrs Aglietta who cannot be with us tonight, and the first thing I want to do in starting my report on comitology is thank Adelaide Aglietta and acknowledge the serious and important nature of her work.
She has produced a very competent, subtle, acute and effective report, ably assisted by the entire secretariat of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, in particular Patrizia Prode, and with constant back-up from Monica Frassoni.
I wanted to mention that for one very simple reason: as we all know, comitology is hell.
It seems like a technical problem but in reality it is a profoundly political problem, because then there is the problem of responsibility for monitoring implementation.
This has always been a very serious problem and the European Parliament has tended to be diffident about it, partly because it has not always been clear who is responsible or how the European Parliament could carry out any monitoring or get any information.
It has to be said that the absence of a monitoring and information system has become increasingly less acceptable as codecision has progressed.
In my opinion we must always bear in mind the close relationship between codecision and comitology and now, after Amsterdam, with the power of codecision extended, it is all the more necessary for implementation to be monitored closely and effectively.
That is why the European Parliament has sometimes had to take a firm stand, even to the point of blocking the decision-making process for financing committees from the Community budget.
I must point out, especially as I went along with Jean-Louis Bourlanges, that it all had to do with the modus vivendi , and the modus vivendi is also an interesting point sometimes.
It has helped us make progress, but actually it has rarely been applied, and then badly.
What it has clearly demonstrated is that there is no way of resolving the comitology problem merely through more information, exchanges of letters, and documents from the Commission.
They are important, but they are not enough!
We are at a different stage now. We have before us a Commission decision and this report - hence its importance - sets out the opinion of the European Parliament after many months of negotiation with the Commission and with the Council.
At the end of these negotiations we can feel partially satisfied, but I would say very partially, because there is still a great deal to be done.
So I want to clarify the European Parliament's real priorities, because I realise - and I want to stress this - that those priorities will have to be made increasingly clear, otherwise there will still be the risk of an interinstitutional conflict.
Parliament has four priorities. The first relates to information, and on this point the European Parliament has obtained a great deal, in fact almost everything it asked for.
Of course, we will need to make sure this agreement in principle is satisfactorily transferred into the final text of the decision. We need to prevent any legislative act being adopted by the Commission and the committees assisting it outside the regular codecision procedure, and to guarantee the European Parliament the right to intervene within a limited time-frame to challenge the legitimacy and content of an implementing measure, a point on which the negotiations produced partial satisfaction.
And we need genuine simplification which goes further than merely abolishing the committee variants arising from the 1987 decision. Of course, I am referring, as everyone knows, to the great question of the regulatory committee, a question which remains open even after these initial negotiations.
We are naturally hoping for greater satisfaction on this point in the future, because the European Parliament's attitude to the issue of monitoring is sure to become increasingly radical and clear-cut.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not want to go into the complex issue of comitology again now, but I should like to inform you about the opinion I have helped to prepare as rapporteur for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, which it has adopted.
Our aim was to make sense of what is really a labyrinth of delegated powers and create something that in fact concerns all of us, namely transparency, clear separation of legislative and executive powers, and democratic control.
It is not at all my intention to dispute the fact that committees which stand by the side of the Commission are helpful in principle.
However, I must make a serious point of criticism here.
Community trade policy is one of the European Union's most important projects, but in this area Parliament is given hardly any opportunity for involvement in decision-making.
During the present parliamentary term, we were not included once in codecision.
The main committee active in this area, the 113 Committee, is completely outside our control.
This is in fact not compatible with a genuine democratic institutional structure.
There is therefore an urgent need for reform.
Our aim was also to prevent the powers from being slowly renationalised.
Surely there can be no question of civil servants from the Member States evading decisions that have been taken a long time ago - for instance, PHARE, TACIS or MED - by having to give their approval once again for major funding projects within a regulatory committee, or by being able to set them aside.
This gives them quasi-legislative functions, and the regulatory committee as an institution should therefore be done away with altogether.
Finally, on the subject of information, we do not think much of the vagueness of the wording which states that the EP shall be kept informed on a regular basis.
We need to have precise and full information, agendas, the composition of committees and calendars.
In terms of keeping the general public informed, this should not be a problem in this day and age with e-mail.
I hope that the proposals of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights find sympathetic listeners within the Commission as well.
Mr President, all parliamentary systems delegate implementing measures to the executive.
They do not immerse themselves in too much detail.
But what is peculiar about the European Union's system is that during all those years when the Council alone acted as the legislative authority, it was willing to delegate implementing measures to the Commission only on condition that a committee of national civil servants would work with the Commission.
We had three objections to such a system.
Firstly, there were so many committees set up with so many different procedures with nobody quite sure who sat on which that there was a major problem of transparency.
Secondly, these committees set up by the Council or the Member States had the right to block an implementing measure from the Commission and refer them back, but Parliament had no such right.
This was only possible for Council committees, not Parliament's.
Thirdly, if a measure was blocked and referred back to the legislative authority, it was referred to Council alone, not Parliament and Council jointly, even though they jointly constitute the legislative authority.
That we have found unacceptable.
With codecision, though, it is now Parliament and Council jointly and equally which will decide on what measures to confer upon the Commission and what procedures will be adopted.
We will use that power, Mr President - and I warn the Council that we are determined to use that power - to ensure firstly that there is openness and transparency (and I welcome the progress that has been made in that respect in the Council working group), but secondly to ensure that there is equality between Parliament and Council.
In other words, if Council committees have the right to block the Commission and refer a measure back then Parliament should also have that right.
And if a measure is referred back to the legislative authority it should be referred to both branches of the legislative authority, not just to one branch.
There are some who claim that Parliament wishes to immerse itself in the detail of implementing measures.
That is far from being the case: this is in the nature of a safeguard, the right to blow the whistle occasionally where you think that things may be going wrong.
That is a right that exists in many national parliaments, - not in all of them, national systems differ on this, but it is one that should apply at the European Union level.
If you look at the way we have used this power in the informal procedures that already exist, it is actually very unusual for parliaments to intervene and to blow the whistle.
We have done it occasionally - infant formulae milk is a notable example.
We blew the whistle, the Commission entered into a dialogue with us, changed its proposal and that was ultimately what was adopted.
It worked. But it is very unusual.
We do not want to do it very often, but we want the right to intervene when necessary.
If we have that right then we will be much more willing to delegate more measures, knowing that we have that safeguard in place.
But if we do not have that right, then we will be very reticent to adopt far-going implementing provisions.
We will want to hold it back in the legislative procedures.
We will not want to delegate.
I warn the Council that although it has made progress on transparency, if the working group continues to be so restrictive on Parliament's rights to intervene, then there will be no agreement and we will continue in legislative procedure after legislative procedure to block the comitology measures and resist the adoption of such restrictive measures and we will be very restrictive on voting the budgets and the credits to allow comitology-type committees to continue to meet.
We are not seeking to take powers to ourselves to intervene in the detail but we are seeking to have the safeguard.
That safeguard is very important.
It is the principle on which we will insist and unless agreement is reached in this matter I can tell Council that codecision procedure after codecision procedure will have to go all the way to conciliation and time after time there will be difficulty on this problem.
I invite Council to take the last few steps to reach an agreement with us on this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of comitology is literally poisoning relations between Parliament and the Council.
Indeed, it goes even further: it serves as a screen against public opinion, because the complexity of this comitology mechanism has succeeded in making the opaque fog around decision-making even thicker in the eyes of the public.
It is therefore a public service to clarify this obscure process and make it slightly more transparent.
When the European Parliament was granted the power of codecision, it might have been assumed that the two arms of the legislature were going to be treated equally.
But this was far from the case.
Was it treachery, bad faith, incompetence, negligence or ignorance? I have no idea and I am not going to guess.
Article 145 of the Treaty on the delegation of implementing powers has still not been amended whereas lawyers generally consider that it should have been.
Because it has not been amended, these powers remain with the Council alone, while it ought to be shared equally by the two arms of the legislature.
When the case came before the Court of Justice, it departed from its traditional integrationist case-law - which lasted until the number of members increased beyond nine - and kept to a strictly formal interpretation of the texts, against all logic and against the fundamental principles of consistent legal interpretation.
In fact, it is not normal for the body - a binary one, in this case - that decides on the law to be different from the one taking decisions on the delegation of its implementation.
There is an error of logic in that situation which has only been possible because the lawyers were negligent when they drafted or amended the Treaties.
This matter could have been corrected in the Maastricht Treaty.
It was not, and that is because, yet again, neither Parliament nor the Commission made much effort to clarify the situation.
The Commission was extremely timid, not to say cowardly, about it.
So now we are trying to repair this mistake through an institutional agreement.
We might have expected the Commission and the Council to acknowledge, finally, in this agreement that Parliament's claims were well-founded.
But this was far from the case.
Concessions have been made, and there has been a little progress. It is a little less complex, a little more transparent, but that is about all.
Of course, we are going to take what is on offer.
We accept any progress, but at the same time we must express our dissatisfaction, and also our hope that next time the Treaty is amended, this error will not be repeated.
Mr President, it is after all three obligatory and two non-obligatory committees which play a role within the framework of comitology and the Common Fisheries Policy.
The committees have a vital role to play, for example, in the preparation of TACs and quotas, and in the implementation of the Multiannual Guidance Programme for the Community Fishing Fleet.
The relations between the Committee on Fisheries and the comitology committees just mentioned have two main aspects: firstly, the reception by the Committee on Fisheries of information on the activities of the committees and, secondly, the possibility for members of the Committee on Fisheries to participate in meetings of the relevant committees as observers.
However, the information sent is insufficient and often arrives late. The current procedure for sending observers is also very unsatisfactory and is in fact even inappropriate.
Unfortunately, any amendments proposed to date have been rejected.
Mrs Aglietta describes three objectives, or three good reasons why there should be a new comitology decision; these are simplification, democratisation and transparency.
The Committee on Fisheries shares the view that improvements in these areas are urgent and absolutely necessary.
Mr President, forgive me for requesting to speak once again, but there has apparently been - or there may have been - a translation error.
I do not want the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights to be abolished; I was referring to the regulatory committee.
I think it is quite important to mention this, in case Mr Kinnock has been informed otherwise.
Apparently, it was translated differently in Italian.
So it is the regulatory committee that I should like to be abolished.
I am grateful for Mr Kreissl-Dörfler's contribution.
It was not so long ago that there were people in this House who wanted to abolish the Commission, so I am much relieved by his news.
I begin by offering my warmest thanks to Mrs Aglietta, the rapporteur, who has done an excellent job in clarifying the so-called comitology issue which, in terms of the procedures of the European Union really is rocket science.
I admire, on a personal basis, the honourable Member's tenacity in pursuing this dossier over difficult months.
I regret that other obligations prevent her from being with us in order to discuss her report tonight.
We did, however, have a distinguished replacement, Mr De Giovanni, who showed his customary fluency and, above all, his very considerable technical insight when he described comitology as pure hell.
Five years ago I thought comitology might be an inflammation of the bowel or a trapping of the sciatic nerve.
Now I know much better and I share that in common with this House.
It really has been an advance in my general knowledge.
The system, obviously, as has been said in the debate, facilitates an important link between the Commission and the representatives of the national authorities who sit on the committees and assist the Commission in its executive role.
But as we have also heard, the number and complexity of both the functions and the types of committees raise concern about the transparency of the whole system.
I am sometimes amused by popular descriptions of Parliament, and indeed of the Commission, as being institutions which clog the progress of the European Union.
If only the general reporting press knew about comitology and the accumulating habits of Member States, it might bring them a revelation.
In addition, with the introduction into force of the Maastricht Treaty and the codecision procedure, this Parliament naturally and, in my view rightly, insisted that all implementing decisions should be subject to some form of control by the legislature.
The resulting modus vivendi that was adopted in December 1994 went some way towards achieving that objective.
But as we heard from Mr De Giovanni, it was clear even then that the issue had not been definitively resolved.
In June 1998, therefore, in accordance with the Declaration annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, the Commission presented a proposal to revise the 1987 comitology decision and we did so with the aim of making the procedure less complex, less opaque and more open to Parliamentary control.
Honourable Members will, I know, be familiar with the major elements so I will not detain the House with a description.
Suffice it to say that as a result of the discussions under the Austrian presidency and the German presidency which has made strong and commendable efforts to get an agreement in the Council before the end of June, and with significant parliamentary input in last September's resolution and now in the Aglietta report, we have reached a stage of negotiations which is likely, hopefully, to be conclusive.
Naturally Parliament's requests have been at the centre of the discussion.
I would like to make just a few responses to the more salient issues raised.
As far as the right of scrutiny is concerned, Article 7(a) as proposed in Mrs Aglietta's amendment goes in the direction that the Commission wanted.
It takes on full legal value and it makes a political dialogue with the Commission possible on the occasions when Parliament believes that a proposed measure would provide excessive implementing powers at the expense of the legislature, a point forcibly made by Mr Corbett.
An interinstitutional agreement could subsequently be concluded to clarify how this provision would actually operate in practice.
As for the informing of Parliament, the Commission is confident that the requests made in the report we are discussing for extensive transmission will be agreed in Council.
In order to achieve that the Commission is willing to establish the most modern means of communication so that Parliament will be able to exercise its scrutiny continually and through up-to-date facilities.
We also agree with the idea of having greater clarity about the scope of executive measures set out in the basic legislation itself.
In that context it is clear that for us, as in the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice, any adapting or updating of legal acts cannot entail modifications of essential elements of the original legal act.
Last, but not least, on the regulatory procedure, it is unfortunate, in our view, that the discussions within the Council have ruled out the Commission's proposal of a return to the legislature and often to the co-legislators when the committee does not give a favourable opinion.
However the current formulas devised by the negotiators would be acceptable to the Commission provided that there is no double safety net or contrefilet which would give the Council the means of rejecting a proposed executive measure.
The reason for such a stipulation is very obvious.
If there was some form of double safety net it would quickly become impenetrable and the Community would be prevented from taking any decision at all.
In the interests of the Union, the Member States and indeed the institutions therefore, we think it essential to support the relevant amendments to the legislative solution submitted by Mrs Aglietta.
We have now reached a significant point in the process of simplifying the system of comitology and making it more democratic.
After thorough examination and many informal contacts at all levels Parliament should now be in a position to give its opinion on the proposal so that the Council can pursue its work with a crystal clear view of the wishes of this House.
Naturally the Commission will continue to contribute actively to this work in the hope that by the end of the German Presidency we can reach an agreement that will satisfy all three institutions and consequently benefit the interests of the citizens of the Union whom we exist to serve and millions of whom are doubtlessly still awake tonight, awaiting the outcome of this debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Fixed-term contracts
The next item is the report (A4-0261/99) by Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Directive concerning the framework agreement on fixed-term work concluded by UNICE, CEEP and the ETUC (COM(99)0203 - C4-0220/99).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we have obtained codecision in social policy by means of the Amsterdam Treaty.
However, whether or not we agree tomorrow to the social partners' framework agreement on fixed-term work comes down to exactly the same thing in the end.
This will be the case more and more from now on, since the incorporation of the social protocol into the Amsterdam Treaty will mean that the social partners will always be consulted first.
The ball will only be in our court again if they fail to achieve a result.
Amsterdam does not even require us to deliver an opinion at any point during this procedure.
The fact that we are now able to deliver an opinion is solely because the German Presidency insisted upon it.
The Commission only forwarded the draft directive to Parliament on Monday.
We are therefore now seeing, barely one month before the European elections, that the Amsterdam Treaty in fact limits our rights quite considerably in the area of social policy.
This does not make it any easier to explain in the European election campaign why it is so important for our citizens to vote in the June elections.
Surely it is unacceptable for European laws to be made in this area without the European Parliament having any kind of formal involvement in this.
Not only did Amsterdam fail to remove the democratic deficit in social policy by including the social protocol in the Treaty virtually unchanged, but it even increased it.
This kind of atavism needs to be eliminated at once.
I therefore strongly urge the Council and the future Commission to conclude with us as soon as possible - by the next revision of the Treaty - an interinstitutional agreement which also does justice to Parliament's direct democratic legitimation.
That we are rejecting the current procedure does not however mean that we would therefore automatically be against all the outcomes of the social dialogue.
I am merely thinking of our unanimous agreement in favour of parental leave.
However, social partners' agreements do not relieve us of the duty to examine them critically, as we did with the agreement on part-time work.
Allow me to come straight to the point: more and more people have fixed-term employment contracts.
In the European Union, the number of employees in fixed-term employment has increased from 14 million to 17.5 million in the last three years alone.
However, long-term employment relationships are still regarded as the sole guiding principle for both social insurance and conditions of employment.
This in turn involves various forms of discrimination for fixed-term employees, as we all know.
The fact that the social partners have now agreed on a principle of non-discrimination for fixed-term employees is to be welcomed all the more.
But unfortunately the same does not hold true for mandatory social security, although the social partners could have extended the non-discrimination principle to this as well.
This was already possible under Maastricht.
The only progress achieved on the highly controversial part-time agreement is that the exceptions from the principle of non-discrimination are cited more clearly.
However, I absolutely cannot comprehend why the provisions combating abuse of fixed-term contracts do not relate to the first contract, but only to successive contracts.
What is more, the Member States can even choose from three options here. They either define objective reasons or a maximum duration, or the maximum number of extensions is defined.
This agreement does not set a single uniform minimum standard.
The provisions, which are uniform for everyone, stipulate only that one of the three possible provisions must be chosen.
In future, we must - and I think this is essential - make it perfectly clear once and for all what we understand by uniform minimum social standards, but I still urge you to agree to this agreement, because otherwise we will be left with nothing at all.
Mr President, Member States have committed themselves to the European employment strategy and to the four pillars of the employment guidelines, including the pillar on adaptability.
They have also called upon the social partners to engage in negotiation with a view to reaching agreement at every level to promote adaptability by balancing flexibility for workplaces with security for workers.
The Commission has done the same in its Green Paper on a partnership for the future organisation of work and in its subsequent communication.
The social partners are therefore to be congratulated for adding this new agreement on fixed-term contracts to their earlier agreement on part-time work and I hope they will soon pursue a fresh agreement on workers placed by temporary employment agencies.
But that, Commissioner, still leaves the difficulty of social security provisions for atypical workers, part of the original atypical work directive.
It is clear that cannot be tackled by the social partners and it is something that the Commission is going to have to tackle urgently.
It is an outstanding matter that we need to address very quickly.
Like any agreement under the social dialogue provisions of the social chapter this agreement illustrates a new facet of the democratic deficit, as the rapporteur has just explained.
We, the Parliament, have no formal rule in relation to agreements like this.
That also needs to be tackled urgently by Treaty amendments and in the meantime by interinstitutional agreement.
The final point I want to make is this Mr President: I am hearing rumours that one or more Member States might be interested in creating difficulties for this agreement in Council.
I hope those rumours are not true, but if they are, I want those involved to think very carefully.
Do they want to be responsible for killing social dialogue at European Union level and these important steps to promote adaptability? That would be the result.
I hope that rather than obstructing they will endorse this agreement as quickly as possible.
Mr President, I am pleased that we can still discuss the Jöns report today.
I believe the rapporteur should be congratulated on having been able to get this item on the agenda at this final part-session of the parliamentary term.
I continue to believe that social dialogue is important and that we must also discuss the consequences of social dialogue.
I do not believe the Commission has any cause for complaint.
We wanted to discuss this at this final part-session and the Commission simply followed the traditional line, and if this had not been the final part-session it would have been on the agenda next month.
So I do not believe the Commission has any reason to complain.
I do not believe the Council played much of a role at all.
If the Council had wanted to play a role, it should have adopted an interinstitutional agreement which would have put an end to the unacceptable situation that the European Parliament is not, formally speaking, sufficiently involved in the results of social dialogue.
There is also the matter of social security.
I do not believe it is possible to ask the social partners to deal with the social security consequences of their agreement.
The Council disagrees with this, which means that it takes just one Member State to insist on this position and nothing happens.
But I should like to repeat my request for the Commission finally to draw up a directive in the field of social security, so that the Council can no longer take refuge behind the excuses it has been using to date and we will have genuine Council debate on a social security directive.
I think these are the principal points.
Finally, we nevertheless find the rapporteur's report to be much too critical of the work of the social partners.
It seems as if the Socialist Group actually lacks confidence in the social partners, while at the same time giving the appearance of having so much faith in them.
That rankles, Mr President.
We have seen it during this debate.
The PPE has confidence in the social partners, is ready to let them take on the job, which is why we also want to accept this, we want to improve the procedure, but that is as far as it should go.
We do not need to study everything agreed by the social partners in minute detail.
Mr President, Mrs Jöns' report, I believe, is a good one, since although she too urges the Council to approve the agreement negotiated by the social partners, she at the same time strongly criticises that agreement.
The agreement is really nothing more than a very small and modest step towards improving the status of those engaged in atypical work.
The new Commission should embark without delay on a programme of action to find a solution to these as yet unsolved problems.
The most important is the issue of extending legislation to cover other forms of atypical work, such as homeworking and hired labour, which have become much more common of late.
The other task to address is the guarantee of social insurance for all employees, irrespective of the form of their contract.
There are considerably more women than men with atypical contracts of employment.
Thus discrimination against those undertaking atypical work is at the same time a form of gender discrimination on the labour market.
Ending this should be a priority task for the Union.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking the rapporteur for her report.
I welcome this agreement between the social partners.
The social dialogue has a significance of its own, leading as it does to agreements at European level between management and labour.
This particular accord is the third of its kind and I would like to see more, covering such things as people working for temporary employment agencies and distance workers.
A balance does need to be struck, however, between agreements as such and legislation, and I shall be coming back to this.
Agreements always involve compromise between the social partners. This one is no exception.
Its two most important features are that contracts of an indefinite duration are the rule, and that those with fixed-term contracts will not suffer discrimination.
Social security is not covered, as the social partners did not see any scope for successful negotiation here.
We have consequently urged the Commission to submit proposals in this equally important field.
Let us hope that action will be forthcoming in the not too distant future.
This framework agreement is a sound one, in my opinion.
If - as Mr Hughes says - some Member States are creating difficulties over legislative adoption in the Council, then that is extremely serious.
We have here an important agreement between management and labour.
Any blocking in the Council would be very damaging for the social dialogue.
Mr President, I should first like to thank those who have contributed and particularly you, Mrs Jöns, for the speed of the response to the social partners agreement on fixed-term work.
The Commission only adopted the proposal for a directive last Wednesday.
I know it is a short time span but it is a very important initiative both in principle and in effect.
For the third time the interprofessional social partners have concluded a major agreement at European level in the framework of the social dialogue process.
The agreement applies the principle of non-discrimination to fixed-term workers and it also establishes a framework to prevent abuse arising from the use of successive fixed-term employment contracts or relationships.
The Commission welcomes the agreement.
It welcomes it as a significant advance in terms of non-standard forms of employment and as the most comprehensive and refined agreement the social partners have produced so far.
At the request of the social partners the Commission has now adopted my proposal for a directive to make the provisions of the agreement binding in the Member States.
By giving your opinion so quickly you will make it easy for the Council to proceed with adoption of the directive at the end of this month, in time for the Cologne Summit.
The agreement comes at an important point in the development of our shared agenda.
Not only has the Amsterdam Treaty just entered into force but we are at a key point in the implementation of the Union's employment strategy.
These events confer real opportunities and of course serious responsibilities, too, upon the European social partners.
The confirmation which this agreement offers of their commitment and their capacity to contribute to laying down social rights is an important and welcome message.
It is important because the agenda on working conditions and employment must now be one of the social partnership for the modernisation of work.
It is important because we need to find a new balance of workplace flexibility and of course worker security, especially as new technologies, competition and the new demographic profile of the work force change the conditions for companies and for workers and indeed for public policy too.
This social partnership requires a culture of adaptation and anticipation of change.
That demands trust and cooperation on the basis of informed choice.
That cannot happen without practical steps, like the proposal you have before you today.
Although the European Parliament has not been given a formal role in the procedures under which this directive will be adopted, I have worked closely with you up till now to make sure that the Council has the full benefits of your views and to ensure that Parliament has the broadest role possible within the limits of the Treaty.
For me this has been a worthwhile effort.
I want to thank you for the way in which you have continued to work on the agreement and the proposal for a directive in spite of the difficult timescale that has applied here.
When you think back to 1990 when we made the first proposal dealing with atypical work, there were three strands to that: nothing happened.
The Council blocked everything, it was impossible to make any progress and here we have two collective agreements that have been achieved in the meantime.
So I am satisfied that we are making progress here.
As regards the question about the interinstitutional agreement: I regard that as necessary.
Documents have been prepared to advance that.
Unfortunately it cannot be concluded just now but certainly it is an important matter that should be attended to as a high priority with the next Parliament and Commission.
I regard it as a good proposal and I would like to agree with the rapporteur, Mrs Jöns.
It has been requested, as you quite rightly said, by both the presidency and by the European Parliament as a matter of urgency.
One has to thank Parliament for being so generous in allowing this to happen.
It is a good example, as Mr Hughes has said, of the social dialogue at work, in action, and we can look forward hopefully to a success in May.
I hear rumours, too, but perhaps there is sufficient good will in the Council, recognising that the social dialogue is a fundamental matter and that this is a 'deal done', an agreement between the social partners.
How could they turn their backs on it? I will be looking forward to that kind of good result in May.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Protection of workers from the risks of explosive atmospheres
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A4-0155/99), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position adopted by the Council (13836/4/98 - C4-0003/99-95/0235(COD)) with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive on minimum requirements for improving the safety and health protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres (Rapporteur: Mr Pronk).
Mr President, this is the second reading of the common position on the health protection of workers who may be exposed to risks from explosive atmospheres.
It is a second reading and what we have tried to do is look at the Council's common position compared to the Commission's original proposal, and compared to its development following the amendments brought by Parliament, although not by me as rapporteur, as I took this on somewhat later. On the basis of all this we concluded, again in cooperation with the European Commission, that we had to formulate a number of amendments.
At that time we did not of course yet know that this would be one of the first reports in the social field to come under the codecision procedure.
Since 1 May, just a few days ago, when the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force, health and safety has come under the codecision procedure.
I believe that this marks a significant new departure.
It means that the Commission's role remains unchanged but becomes somewhat easier as it is no longer faced with the united front of the Member States saying that they want to go back to the common position agreed earlier.
The Commission is then always faced with the problem of whether it should stand its ground and defend Parliament's amendments to the bitter end or bring the matter to a close.
All this has now been made easier. If there is no agreement the matter simply comes back to the European Parliament and then we must all discuss it and vote on it.
I think that the Council in particular, which when it comes to social policy has not proved exactly progressive in its relations with Parliament, still has to get used to this.
I look forward to being able to discuss this with the Council in the future.
Mr President, I have one question, which arose after we had completed the amendments.
It concerns the position of LPG in the directive.
I should like clarification from you on this point.
Article 1 includes an exception, but there is a difference in interpretation between myself and your services on the one hand, and the English authorities on the other. The latter seem to give a different and somewhat broader interpretation.
I should like to hear the last word from you on this point, so that the Minutes will be there to help the subsequent legislative process.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Pronk for the work he has done, following Mr Mather, who dealt with it at first reading.
On the second reading of this report he has been quite right to re-present Parliament's amendments which were not accepted by the Council and also to include part of the Commission's text deleted by the Council.
We in the Socialist Group will be supporting the amendments he has tabled.
There are certain concerns about some of the amendments.
I have seen a number of briefings, for example, about Amendment No 7.
Mr Skinner will speak about this in a moment.
I have read and reread the text several times and have also had contact with the Commission services.
I cannot see how Amendment No 7 can be interpreted as meaning that all the equipment has to be replaced; adapted, yes, but that is a totally different prospect.
Such adaptation seems very important to me for workers' health and safety.
It is on that understanding of the meaning of the amendment that we will support Amendment No 7 as well as the others.
Perhaps it is just as well that this proposal will now be subject to codecision.
Conciliation might give us an opportunity to reach some understanding on these matters with the Council.
In closing what will be my final speech in this Chamber for this mandate as chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs I would like to thank all of the Members of this House for their cooperation in moving forward the number of dossiers we have in this area of work in the last five years; and you too, Commissioner, for your valued cooperation.
The progress that has been made will stand as a testament to your commitment to European employment and social policy.
Mr President, I should like to add my heartfelt thanks to the rapporteur, whom we have seen on many an occasion take on the mantle of health and safety, to you, Commissioner, and your services for expediting much of the legislation which has been necessary in this field, and for your assistance both formally and informally in helping Parliament to understand what can and cannot be done.
Indeed now, as Mr Hughes has just said, we move into the difficult area of codecision which can help us.
In this particular directive we can seek further clarification from the Council.
Mr Pronk and I have managed to find a compromise on Amendment No 2, which has led to a better text.
I look forward to the Commission and the Council accepting that text.
But Amendment No 7, where disagreement lies, certainly requires a large amount of clarification.
Until we get that it is not one that I am going to be fond of supporting.
However, codecision is going to be about sensible discussion.
I hope the Council will respond to what Parliament votes tomorrow.
I too would like to say that I have enjoyed working in health and safety.
I spent some time working on a lot of these reports.
I must commend Mr Hughes, the chairman of the committee.
The intensity of this discussion on health and safety has been led through that chair.
I wish him the very best and hope that maybe, when we both come back in July, we will continue some of that particular discussion.
Nonetheless I would like to hear from the Commission as to what we can do about Amendment No 7.
Mr President, let me first of all thank you, Mr Pronk.
You have done a remarkably good job on what is regarded as a very technical matter.
The Commission is prepared to accept all of the proposed amendments.
The Commission considers in fact the Council's common position as a step forward towards achieving better protection for the health and safety of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres where fatal accidents occur every day.
Nevertheless, you know that the Commission has maintained some reserves as regards the common position, for example on appropriate supervision and on the deletion of items in Annex 2 covering additional risks resulting from power failure and the need to provide for manual override where automatic processes deviate from intended operating conditions and the need to be able quickly to dissipate or isolate accumulated energy in the event of an emergency shutdown.
The text of the common position in these areas is considered by the Commission to be weaker than the amended proposal.
The Commission therefore considers that the amendments proposed by the European Parliament are essential for the establishment of a strong, coherent prevention strategy against the risks arising from explosive atmospheres.
As regards the amendments on the establishment of the vademecum and on the requirements for provision of information to undertakings, particularly SMEs.
I share your view that a simple statement in the Council's minutes is not a sufficient guarantee of follow-up.
Finally, the rapporteur's approach to bringing the proposed safety sign into line with the international CEN ISO standard is a good approach.
As far as LPG is concerned, of course, the situation is that road traffic regulations cover the question of, say, tankers of LPG being delivered to a filling station.
LPG in a plant is covered, but in a filling station the end user, a car, for instance, is not covered under Article 118a or 137.
I would like to say as well that we have no difficulty with Amendment No 7 as it is our understanding as well that equipment is to be adapted, not replaced.
That is an understanding I can give to the House.
If I may, Mr President, this is probably our last meeting together on some very important broad issues that deal with working people.
I would like to finish by recording my personal pleasure and satisfaction with what we have achieved together on the development of employment policy and social policy agenda for the European Union.
I would like to record my appreciation for the important contribution that you have made to achieving our shared objectives.
When the history of the development of social policy and employment policy comes to be written subsequent to my leaving the Commission, the period 1993-1999 will be recorded as quite a remarkable period for change, for advanced thinking and for Treaty change support.
For those of you who will not be returning I want to congratulate you on the contribution you have made to social policy advances over these last few years.
They are quite significant and they will make a real difference to European citizens.
For those who will be back in July your responsibility to build on this base that we have started together will be quite immense.
I believe it will be made easier because of the work and the cooperation that we have had these last few years.
I want to say to you, Stephen Hughes, as the chairman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, it has been my personal pleasure to work with you, not just as a good parliamentarian, but as a gentleman of credibility and integrity.
You deserve your place in this House and I know that you will be back with your friends here to continue the good work.
It has been a personal pleasure for me these years and I have gained enormously from the experience.
I am full of expectation for the good things that will be achieved in the coming years for the citizens of Europe.
It has been my pleasure to have been part of that advance.
Applause
I must say that it may not be very original but still, it does provoke emotion.
It appears that this is an evening when we are reminded of Shakespeare who urged us to 'bring garlands'.
We are distributing garlands tonight.
But it is justified after years of hard work.
It has been difficult sometimes but we have also had satisfying cooperation.
On the part of the presidency of Parliament I must thank Commissioner Flynn for having been very pleasant here - sometimes a bit long in his explanations, but otherwise trying hard.
Mr President, I am very glad that the Commissioner has accepted all seven amendments.
Seven is a holy number which expresses a certain fullness and that is very good.
I would like to thank you for all the cooperation with our group, Parliament, and Mr Hughes, who has been an excellent chairman in this connection.
You have been a 'stayer'.
In skating terms that is someone who may start a bit slowly but goes on and achieves an awful lot in the end.
That is what it is all about in politics. I thank you very much for that.
We have achieved a lot on social policy.
We can now go to the electorate with those results, partly or indeed mainly thanks to you.
There is a little plaque hanging in my office.
It is a quotation from Abraham Lincoln, who was President of the United States from 1861 to 1865.
It has been my political motto all my life.
As I leave you I would like to quote it for you: 'I do the very best I know how, the very best I can, and I intend to do it till the very end.
If in the end I am proved right then all the things that people have written against me will count for nothing.
If in the end I am proved wrong then angels swearing that I was right all the time will do me no good.'
I am sorry to depart from this rather poetic atmosphere but we still have some work to do.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 11 am.
EC-Mexico Partnership Agreement
The next item is the recommendation (A4-0220/99) by Mrs Miranda de Lage, on behalf of the Committee on External Economic Relations, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the United Mexican States, of the other part (COM(97)527-11618/97 + 11620/97 + COR 1 - C4-0023/98-97/0289(AVC)).
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, the debate I am opening on the now famous global agreement with Mexico ends a five-year cycle during which Parliament has worked actively with the European Commission to renew and strengthen relations with the Latin American countries, including Mexico.
The Commission's communication on Mexico provided the opportunity for us to draw up a first report in 1995.
The conclusions reflected Parliament's priorities and, as a sine qua non for adopting a future agreement with that country, the conditionality or human rights clause, political dialogue and parliamentary dialogue were priorities, as well as regional development, social development, assistance to women at risk and a long list of other points.
Of course, in addition to the objective of liberalising trade, we also wanted the agreement to include guarantees for environmental protection and respect for the basic labour standards of the International Labour Organisation.
Parliament's demands have been adequately reflected in the articles.
The agreement includes the trade objectives of the interim agreement, but also incorporates a social philosophy, a range of possibilities for cooperation in areas such as professional training, regional development or support for cultural diversity.
Recital 7 relates to the social and environmental issues.
I am highlighting this because I want to express my appreciation for the constructive position of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions on this agreement.
As a result, I would suggest that we look for some formula which makes it possible to incorporate recital 7 into the bilateral political dialogue, giving a clear signal that any requirements, including the basic standards of the ILO, commit the 15 Member States and Mexico equally, and not just Mexico alone.
A calm and impartial analysis of the text leads to the conclusion that Parliament's influence has been considerable.
But I must point out that this influence was possible thanks to the excellent attitude of the Commission, and I am grateful for its collaboration throughout this process.
In other respects, everything is not rosy, and I have to come down hard on the Mexican Government.
It should take careful note that the Committee on External Economic Relations categorically rejects the tariff increase announced by Mexico on 1 January this year.
That decision was inappropriate and arbitrary as well as being discriminatory because it does not apply erga omnes .
I must adamantly insist that this measure be abolished as soon as possible.
The decision is unfortunate because it accelerates the increasingly evident deterioration in trade flows. These have been affected for five years by the dynamism of NAFTA, and thus our share of the Mexican market has fallen from 11 % to a modest 6 % over that period.
The Committee on External Economic Relations had already drawn attention to this deterioration in Mr De Vries's report in 1990.
NAFTA's arrival has had negative consequences on our interests and I must stress that point.
Approval of the report we are debating will strengthen our political position and allow us to use this instrument to follow up the negotiations on political, social and economic issues, including, most particularly, the paragraph on democracy and human rights.
We need to talk about those issues.
The legal provisions to improve them and defend them have substantially increased in Mexico, and it is only fair to recognise that.
The opinions by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Development and Cooperation stress the need to broaden and improve the conditions for development. The Committee on External Economic Relations shares this view and emphasises it in a paragraph in this report.
We are offering faithful cooperation and we also support the search for a permanent solution to the Chiapas conflict.
Mexico is a developed, dynamic country, and a member of the OECD, playing an increasingly active role in relations within North and South America and with Europe.
Our association with Mexico is more than a market, and more than a facility for getting access to NAFTA. It is a political commitment of profound significance.
The adoption of this recommendation will send a good signal to the Americas at a time when doubts are growing about our will to increase European efforts in the region.
The Union faces a number of challenges: its peace obligations and commitments and the dilemma of enlargement.
Now is the time to send a positive signal to the upcoming first summit of Heads of State and Government, that is, the 15 plus 33.
The philosophy of this agreement includes important development policies.
Like any compromise, it may be unsatisfactory in some areas, but nobody can deny that it opens the door to wide and meaningful possibilities for collaboration.
And nobody can deny that, precisely because of its content, it has generated a considerable level of debate.
Mr President, this may be my last speech in this Parliament, and I want to take this opportunity to thank Commissioner Marín very sincerely for the hard work he has done on cooperation with Latin America.
I also want to thank everyone who has cooperated in this endeavour throughout the years and - obviously - all the members of the secretariat of the Committee on External Economic Relations who have worked towards these objectives, as well as all those who have believed in the advantages of cooperation with Latin America.
Finally, in view of the late hour, I would also like to thank the interpreters for their patience.
Mr President, my group recommends that we give our assent to the global agreement with Mexico for four fundamental reasons, and two of them are based on the pure logic of democracy.
Firstly, all the parliamentary committees involved, the Committee on External Economic Relations, the Committee on Development and Cooperation and the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, have clearly requested it.
Secondly, the main political forces and the leading political groups in Mexico have also requested it, and it has been called for and approved by all the Member States of the European Union.
In my view, it is not legitimate that the course of the interim agreement, to which Parliament gave its assent at the time, should be confused with and affected by the course of the global agreement
And finally, I feel that it is perfectly true that when defending human rights - which certainly leave much to be desired in Mexico - it is much better to defend them with an agreement which includes a clause on democracy - as this global agreement does - than with the existing agreement which does not contain such a clause.
I would like to take advantage of this debate to make two points which I consider important. First, I want to reiterate Mrs Miranda de Lage's comment that the Mexican Government must promise to withdraw the unilateral increase in tariffs before the end of this financial year.
Secondly, the European Commission must undertake to keep Parliament informed on the outcome of the trade negotiations before they are concluded.
Finally, Mr President, for all the reasons I have mentioned, my group urges the European Parliament to give its assent as decisively and firmly as we condemned the human rights violations that had occurred in that country at a stage.
Mr President, at this stage it is difficult to find anything new to say, especially with regard to Mrs Miranda de Lage's report, which could not be more complete, and given what my colleague Ignacio Salafranca has just added.
In actual fact, there are many reasons to start saying that Mexico does not have the proper reference point, the proper democratic credentials, and so on.
But I think Mexico, democracy and the agreement with the European Union will be best served by giving our assent.
Insisting on perfection often means that all we do is stand in the way of progress.
And there is so much that is positive about this agreement, so in this case the best thing we can do is support it.
We know that Mexico has a democratic deficit, but the best thing we can do to help Mexico establish a democratic structure is approve this agreement with the European Union.
I would also like to highlight some points within the agreement which, as I understand it, are rather original, such as the inclusion of the democracy clause as an essential element of the agreement.
This will promote respect for human rights in this Latin American country and it will produce better results in this field than possibly delaying the vote, which would make political and social cooperation difficult.
As has already been mentioned, we also hope that the new agreement will serve to revitalise trade between both partners - the European Union and Mexico.
Only 9 % of all Mexican exports to the European Union are agricultural and there is considerable complementarity in the trade flow. This should facilitate the rapid negotiation and entry into force of this agreement.
In short, I want to reiterate what the previous speakers have said and I feel that this agreement is extremely positive for Mexico, the European Union and, as a result, the progress of democracy in the Western world.
Mr President, I wish to speak in favour of the Mexico partnership agreement and to congratulate the rapporteur on her work and thank Mr Marín for his contribution.
I most certainly am not a supporter of neo-liberal policies but the removal of trade barriers is a fact of life and the coming into force of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement has increased Mexican dependence on trade with the United States of America.
The EU-Mexico agreement is therefore urgently needed to help restore the balance and to foster political and cultural, as well as economic, links between Mexico and Europe in the interests of both sides.
I have long been deeply critical of human rights abuses in Mexico and have been associated with urgency motions passed by this Parliament and other manifestations of our profound concern.
I believe, however, that the conclusion of this agreement will facilitate the continuing dialogue on these issues which will give the European Parliament far more leverage than if the agreement did not go ahead.
I am, however, most deeply anxious that the Commission should monitor the situation and we should not hesitate to speak out.
I am disturbed that there is concern in Mexico that full information has not been provided, that civil society is being excluded and that multinationals and private capital interests have carried too much sway.
These are matters on which Mexican representatives have every right to raise their voices and I, for one, would hope that they would meet with a sympathetic response in Europe.
However, the postponement of the decision on this accord at this point at the end of this Parliament would not, in my view, be in the long-term interest of the Mexicans or of Europeans.
Many of us have fought hard to build links and create solidarity between Europe and Latin America as a whole and the casual postponement of this accord could be very damaging.
I believe that we should all vote for this agreement to go ahead because, among other things, it will help to achieve a better human rights and democratic rights record in Mexico over the course of future years.
Mr President, I think the first thing that needs to be said, because it is the general feeling in Parliament today, is that we are all in agreement - I do not think there is anyone who is not - that we must strengthen our commercial and political relations with Mexico and with Latin America in general.
It is a pity that Mexico's trade with the United States is increasing so much, under a trade agreement which does not actually contain a democracy clause or other clauses that are included in this one, and that its trade with Europe is decreasing.
Having made it clear that we do want an agreement with Mexico, we cannot ignore the many questions raised by quite a number of significant non-governmental organisations, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International League for Human Rights and Intermón .
In other words, many groups have expressed their concern to us and we share their concerns.
First, the negotiations are not over yet. Secondly, there has been a lack of transparency, a lack of participation and a lack of information.
And lastly, there is no mechanism for monitoring the environmental and social clauses or the democracy clause.
There is no clear monitoring mechanism.
I want to end by saying that we are a pluralist group and we will perhaps be voting in different ways.
I proposed abstention, active abstention, and my good friend Ludivina García Arias, who has a great affection for Mexico, asked me what active abstention meant.
Mr President, active abstention means no more and no less than that we are not washing our hands of the agreement with Mexico, that we want an agreement, but we want a good one.
That is why we are suggesting active abstention, and we are going to work for an agreement which, in the end, will satisfy both Mexicans and Europeans.
Mr President, the Amsterdam Treaty has been in force for just a few days.
It finally gives the European Parliament more rights with which to carry out one of the most important duties of a parliament, namely involvement in decision-making and controlling the other institutions.
It was precisely this which justified our decision a year ago to agree to just the Interim Agreement with Mexico, and to give our assent to the Global Agreement only once negotiations on all parts of the Treaty had come to a close.
We did not want to give the Commission carte blanche . Incidentally, these were the words used by our rapporteur, Mrs Miranda de Lage, to justify the decision.
The Mexican Parliament also only approved the agreement on the condition that it will be consulted again once the negotiations have come to a close.
It is therefore not fair to claim that the Mexicans accepted the agreement a long time ago.
There has been no change in the situation since.
There has been no new Commission paper on which we could make a decision.
The negotiations will last for a long time yet, and civil society in Mexico is extremely dissatisfied with this.
Various parties, such as the PRD, which has also written to us, and the Greens in the Mexican Parliament do not agree with the way the negotiations are taking place.
They insist on the need for a fundamental change in direction and strongly urge us not to give our assent yet.
In my view, it would therefore be completely irresponsible towards European citizens, but also towards our Mexican partners, to hand over control now.
Why are we agreeing now to something that does not yet exist in its entirety? It makes no difference whatsoever for the Commission to be able to continue negotiations.
But I am standing up for the rights of a parliament to take a vote on something which must in principle exist as a whole.
How could we justify to the public the fact that we are campaigning for more rights for Parliament, although we are saying that we do not want to make any decisions, and instead want simply to give carte blanche ? It is precisely this which I do not understand.
I must say one more thing on this matter; it is after all the last round of speeches this evening.
Obviously I am in favour of an agreement with Mexico, and this applies to the entire Green Group.
I hold my colleague, Mrs Miranda de Lage, in high esteem and I also have the highest regard for her work.
However, this problem of how a parliament makes a decision is of fundamental importance for me.
It is just about this and nothing else.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement submitted today for ratification by Parliament represents an essential stage in the ambitious voyage we set out on four years ago to establish a new relationship with Mexico that would fulfill our hopes.
The revitalised situation in Mexico led Europe to seek a framework of strategic relationships with that country based on reciprocity and partnership and built on mutual interests.
We were motivated by the importance of helping to build an international community based on democratic principles, the rule of law and full respect for human rights.
We were also motivated by the importance of reaffirming, within the international debate, that it is possible to conclude bilateral trade agreements that are compatible with the World Trade Organisation. Finally, we were motivated by the importance of giving a boost to our economies, thus promoting the growth of world trade, and by the importance of consolidating our respective presence in interdependent geographical areas.
That is how Parliament saw it back in 1995, when Mrs Miranda's report provided the political impetus needed to move towards more ambitious objectives.
And that is how Parliament saw it in May 1998, when it gave its assent to the interim agreement.
And I would like to take this opportunity - as I have mentioned Mrs Miranda - to thank her and her predecessor, Mr Newens, for their hard work, together with others who have been involved in this area and participated in the process, such as Mr Salafranca, Mrs González Álvarez and, in general, even those who have always been critical or have opted for a much more critical approach to our relations with Latin America as a whole.
Today you have before you the global agreement that establishes the legal framework for our future long-term relationship.
Like the interim agreement, this new agreement puts special emphasis on what has been one of the main demands of the European Parliament, to which the Commission and the Council have given maximum priority: the clause on respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights, an essential element and foundation of this relationship.
There are three main elements to the agreement.
The first is to institutionalise political dialogue at the highest level. The second is to extend and deepen our cooperation, and here, for the first time, there is explicit provision for cooperation on human rights and democracy, and important areas such as social development, the fight against poverty, environmental protection and consumer protection are included.
I can confirm what most of you have said: if we want to make progress on the issues I have just mentioned, political dialogue makes much better progress with an agreement than without an agreement.
And finally, the third element, the economic element, is very important too, establishing a free trade area between the European Union and Mexico covering both goods and services.
Now let me tell you about the progress achieved to date in the trade negotiations.
Four rounds of negotiations have now been completed, and there have been substantial advances on the main goods and services issues, with excellent progress on investment, public contracts, competition and intellectual property.
While there are still certainly some points of disagreement, that is more an indication of the high and intense level at which the negotiations have taken place than of fundamental obstacles.
We share the great concern expressed by Parliament about the tariff increases imposed by Mexico and we will inform the Mexican authorities of it.
We hope that Mexico will respond by eliminating these increases as rapidly as it can.
We trust that we will be able to achieve substantial results for the Rio summit in June so that this exercise can be concluded in the second half of the year.
Obviously, Parliament's assent to the agreement will contribute significantly to providing important political impetus to allow us to conclude the process.
I want to assure you that the Commission formally undertakes to keep Parliament informed at all times - as is already the case - on the progress of these negotiations as well as the final outcome, before submitting the agreement to the whole Council.
And, of course, the Commission will consult Parliament on that outcome, in accordance with the procedures laid down in the Treaty.
So I cannot see that the Commission is being given a blank cheque.
That is impossible, because Parliament will always have the last word when the negotiations are concluded.
Finally, the Commission hopes that Parliament will see fit to give its assent so that the agreement can enter into force, and we thank you again for the great support we have always received from this Parliament, not only with regard to strengthening relations with Mexico, but also with regard to establishing a real alliance between Europe and Latin America, which is gradually being forged.
Mr President, I would not want this debate to end without expressing, on behalf of my group, our recognition of the work Commissioner Marín has done as the Commissioner responsible for relations with Latin America.
I also want to express our satisfaction because, in my opinion, as draftsman, the explanations and clarifications Mr Marín has given tonight entirely meet the Committee on Foreign Affairs' demand that Parliament should be informed of the development of the negotiations before their conclusion.
So many thanks, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, for the information you have given and for your response to Parliament's proposals.
I in turn would like to thank Vice-President Marín for his period of cooperation with the European Parliament.
It has fallen to me to preside over many debates in which he has taken part, and I have always been struck by the attention he has paid to the views of Parliament and by his willingness to cooperate fully.
This evening has unfortunately turned into a marathon session.
I have been in the Chair for more than three and a half hours. It has been a very tiring day, but we had to complete our examination of all these issues because we have no time left, even though there are very few Members remaining - which is only natural at this late hour.
Unfortunately, there are no reporters anywhere to observe just how much work goes on in this Parliament.
They arrive at midday simply to write about scandals, but beyond that they do not pay much attention to what goes on and do not see some people at least working very late and very hard.
Before I bring this evening to a close, I would like to personally thank all Members of all political affiliations for their work and cooperation during this parliamentary term.
You all know that it is not in my nature to solicit applause, but I very much appreciate the respect and the positive attitude I believe I have had from all Members, and I thank you all very much.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 0.35 a.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, we received the news overnight that Ibrahim Rugova is now in Rome, and I wonder whether you could ask the President if he would, on behalf of this Parliament, convey our best wishes to Mr Rugova and to his family. You will recall that in the April plenary we passed a resolution in this House inviting Mr Rugova to address the Foreign Affairs Committee.
It is proposed that we hold a Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on 21-22 June for the purpose of a hearing with the High Representative.
However, it would seem to me at the very least appropriate that we should invite Mr Rugova also to address that committee.
What are your comments on that suggestion, and could you convey that idea to the President?
Thank you for that suggestion, Mr Spencer.
We have all heard that Mr Rugova has arrived in Rome, happily with his family, and I think it is natural for him to come here to Parliament.
I shall pass on your proposal to the President, and I do not think there is any obstacle to inviting him to come to Parliament on 21 June.
Mr President, in all the confusion during the vote on the Rothley report yesterday I mistakenly voted in favour in the final vote, when I actually meant to vote against.
I would ask you to amend the Minutes to show this.
It would not change the outcome of the vote, ladies and gentlemen, but it really was all very confusing.
I would specifically request that this should be done if at all possible.
I would also ask you to note that I did vote on Amendment No 18 by Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, but my vote is not shown in the Minutes.
I actually voted in favour.
We have noted that, Mrs Maes, and it will be recorded in the Minutes.
Mr President, on page 8 of the Minutes, under the heading 'Approval of the President-designate of the Commission', there is a record of Parliament's vote approving the designation of Mr Prodi by the Heads of State and Government.
It says that the President congratulated the elected President.
I think that the wrong terms are used here.
In order for there to be an election there needs to be several candidates and a democratic process.
I think that it is the designation of the President that has been ratified or approved by Parliament, but I do not think that insisting on talking about an elected President, when the President has been designated, is in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I can inform you, Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, that the wording used is in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, but we shall of course double-check that, I can assure you.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that it would be useful to briefly add to what was very rightly said by our colleague Mr Spencer concerning the particular request that Parliament has made with regard to someone who was under its protection, Dr Ibrahim Rugova.
I would like to say that above and beyond all the comments that are naturally going to be prompted by his visit to Rome, our main objective should be the return of all of his compatriots to their country.
I welcome the suggestion that Dr Ibrahim Rugova, who was awarded the Sakharov Prize by this House, should come and address us in June for as long as is necessary.
We asked to go to Pristina.
The Serbian authorities refused, saying that they could not guarantee our safety, and we had to give in to them.
It is good that now all roads lead once more to Rome.
Mr Rugova should come, and we should find out what has been happening to him.
The important thing is to restore peace to the Balkans and for those people to return to their territory.
I think a very broad majority of the House could endorse that, Mr Soulier.
I also think it is important, if the President accepts Mr Spencer's proposal - as I am sure he will - that it is then announced publicly that the new Parliament is going to receive Mr Rugova as one of its first actions.
Mr President, my name was not included in the list of people who were present at yesterday's sitting.
I would like my name to be added to the attendance register.
We have noted that, Mr Sarlis.
Mr President, in our debate last night on the Colom i Naval report on the financial perspectives 2000-2006, it was drawn to my attention that the indicative list of vote for this morning at 11 a.m. is recommending that this interinstitutional agreement should be approved by a simple majority.
The Committee on Budgets has written to the President advising this should be done by qualified majority because we are handing over a number of powers if we approve this agreement.
It will have to be done by qualified majority.
I insist, on behalf of many colleagues, that the President circulate a note arguing why he is recommending this should be done on a simple majority.
This should be headed off before 11 a.m. otherwise we could find a repetition of the kinds of problems we had with the Rothley vote yesterday.
I can assure you that the President of Parliament is well aware that a decision has to be taken, Mr Elles, and he will be chairing the sitting himself at 11 a.m.
I will pass on what you have said, so that he understands your views.
He will then take a decision, as I say.
Mr President, I would like to join in with Mr Spencer and Mr Soulier in expressing my satisfaction.
But I would also like to make another suggestion, not just that Dr Rugova should be invited to visit us as soon as possible.
As today is our second-last working day, I would like to ask our President, Mr Gil-Robles, together with the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy, to see whether it would also be possible to send a small European Parliament delegation to meet Dr Rugova in Rome, where he is at present, because I do not know what will happen within the next month, month and a half or two months.
There is an opportunity for a quick meeting; Mr Spencer and Mr Soulier themselves, together with Mrs Pack, chairman of the Delegation for Relations with South-East Europe, could be given the task of organising this meeting, which could take place in the next few days.
I will forward both your proposal and that by Mr Spencer to the President, Mr Imbeni, so that he can decide - if possible by tomorrow - how we should respond to the situation, now that Mr Rugova and his family have arrived in Rome.
I wish to second that, and I should also like to thank Renzo Imbeni for his proposal.
I spoke to Mr Rugova on the phone last night.
I would ask that we be given the opportunity to see him even before the committee meeting in June, because he will be in demand over the next few weeks and, I fear, will be misused by some people.
For that reason, I believe it is important that we should grasp the opportunity to speak to him very soon.
If you can find a way of making that point to the President, it would certainly suit our purposes.
I should be willing to sacrifice a few slots on my electioneering schedule to that end.
Thank you for your support for the proposals by Mr Spencer and Mr Imbeni, Mrs Pack.
Mr President, I had asked for the floor in order to support Mr Imbeni's proposal, but Mrs Pack has already spoken now and I agree with her.
That is all.
Mr President, I should simply like to remind some of our colleagues, and Mr Elles in particular, that the way the institutions take decisions, in accordance with the well consolidated case-law of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg, is not something we can tamper with. It is a question of law and order and is enshrined in the Treaties.
And as far as the Treaties are concerned, unless it is expressly stated, this House takes decisions by simple majority. In addition, there is ample case-law stating that the acts are what they are and not what any interpretation may make of them.
This also applies to the effects such acts may have, no matter how sensibly they may be interpreted.
Finally, Mr Elles is well aware that the Committee on Budgets, a well respected and very competent committee, is in no way an internal body with the powers to dictate which majority should be used to take decisions in this House.
I will likewise refer your comments to the President of Parliament, Mrs Palacio, who is coming to chair the sitting and the vote at 11 a.m.
The Minutes were approved
Schengen
The next item is the oral question (B4-0336/99) by Mr Voggenhuber and Mr Andersson, on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, to the Council, on Schengen.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the representative of the Council presidency has not been welcomed by name, so I do not know whom I should be addressing at this moment.
But I do hope that a representative is here.
Mr President, in the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, on behalf of which I speak here, there have been serious concerns that the Council might not manage to arrive at decisions in time to incorporate the Schengen Agreement into the European Union and that the relevant legal instruments would then automatically become part of the third pillar.
That is why the fact that this agreement has been reached and that the decisions have indeed been taken has been greeted with a degree of relief.
That is the good news I am able to give the presidency.
The bad news is that the way in which these decisions and stipulations were made has drawn heavy criticism and even protests from the overwhelming majority of our committee, and I hope that the House will share our indignation, because this is a very important matter in terms of parliamentary control and codetermination in the field of internal security.
The Amsterdam Treaty itself dealt with the incorporation of the Schengen agreement, the institutional issues, the distribution of powers and the procedural arrangements in an extremely questionable and vague manner, namely by relegating these matters to an additional protocol.
I do believe we must dwell on the significance of this line of approach in order to appreciate fully the nature of the criticism voiced by the committee and by Parliament.
The incorporation of the Schengen Agreement into the European Union is surely the most important and the most complex transformation of international law into the law of the European Union.
It lays the foundations on which the freedom of the individual can be enshrined in EU law, it is the means by which the Union can become an area in which freedom, justice and security are guaranteed, and it is certainly the most significant increase of powers in the field of internal security.
It is a transfer of power that will have a massive impact on fundamental rights and civil liberties.
Let me ask the presidency of the Council at this point how the European institutions, and particularly the elected representatives of the European people, are to explain to the public that such a project can be implemented without involving Parliament, without informing or consulting Parliament. How are we supposed to explain that this Parliament has not even been accorded the right to deliver an opinion, that we have not even received detailed documentation and information about this scheme, and that we now have to discuss it without actually having been briefed on its details?
Allow me to voice the view of the absolute majority of the committee by saying that this is not only a matter of the rights of Parliament, important though they may be; one of the roles in which this Parliament has always seen itself is as the advocate of fundamental rights, of civil liberties, of personal rights in the European Union, and it is difficult to serve as the advocate of the European people if we are excluded in this way from Council projects, an exclusion which we believe is contrary to the letter of the Treaty; no doubt we shall have to agree to differ once again on that point, but in any event our exclusion is entirely contrary to the spirit of the Treaties.
Perhaps I should also point out that the Council's approach once more raises the question of whether the theory of the Council's indirect legitimacy as a legislative authority stands up to scrutiny in the light of such occurrences, because the European Parliament is not the only legitimate representative body discussing these matters without the aid of documentation and being excluded from the Council's decisions and preparations; as we know, our national parliaments have been informed inadequately and at the last possible moment.
In other words, we can no longer speak of genuine parliamentary control in the field of internal security, of police and judicial cooperation.
That is the particular protest, the vehement protest, of the committee that I bring to your attention today, and it is not only on behalf of our committee that I call on the presidency of the Council to develop an entirely new culture of cooperation with Parliament in this extremely sensitive area of government authority and power in the domain of civil liberties and fundamental rights.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on 1 May the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force, and on that date the Schengen system was incorporated into the European Union framework.
The German Presidency has always regarded it as one of our foremost tasks to brief the European Parliament on the progress of the preparations for the integration of the Schengen cooperation arrangements, and I am pleased to have another opportunity to do so today, since the question of information and the form in which it is imparted has been such a crucial issue.
Mr Voggenhuber, I shall also deal in detail with your comments on the subject.
First of all, I should like to say a few words on the definition of the fruits of Schengen and their place in the EU framework.
The discussions that are being held with a view to defining the substance of the Schengen cooperation arrangements and incorporating it into the legal bases of the EC Treaty and the Treaty on European Union have made good progress and are now very close to completion.
The relevant draft Council decisions were noted and frozen by the General Affairs Council at its meeting of 26 April.
Following yesterday's final deliberations in the Permanent Representatives Committee, the presidency is seeking the adoption of the decisions at the meeting of the ECOFIN Council on 10 May.
I make no secret of our pride in the fact that the German Presidency has succeeded, in collaboration with its partners, in answering most of the questions relating to the place of the Schengen provisions, questions which remained thorny until the very end and which were affected by a vast range of diverse political considerations.
The way is clear now for an extensive examination of the substance of Schengen, which is precisely what the Treaty of Amsterdam requires.
It has not been possible, however, to reach an agreement on the place of the provisions relating to the Schengen information system.
While a group of Member States has been pressing for the integration of these provisions into both the first and third pillars, a number of others favour incorporation into the third pillar only.
A compromise position, which the presidency supports, proposes recourse to the third pillar as far as the establishment and operation of the Schengen information system and most of the notification categories are concerned, whereas notices of refusal of entry visas and the rules on system-related data protection would also have legal bases in the first pillar.
Despite the best efforts of the presidency, a consensus on this point has proved impossible and there is no prospect of such an agreement on the horizon.
In this area - and only in this area - the legal fiction in the Schengen Protocol, which provides for the third pillar to serve as the legal basis until further notice, will apply.
This, incidentally, will not prejudice the adoption of the decision determining how the legal bases are to be split.
I believe that this outcome, which has yet to be finally confirmed by the Council, is acceptable.
For key parts of the substance of Schengen, it will prevent innumerable disputes regarding the legal bases on which future developments are to be founded.
I should be exceeding my terms of reference if I were to deal with the legal bases of each of the Schengen provisions.
But I must point out that, about a week ago, I sent you the drafts of the Council decisions, the aims of which are firstly to define the substance of the Schengen rules and secondly to examine that substance in detail.
May I ask you to refer to those two documents for detailed information.
Let me now briefly answer the question on the associated status of Iceland and Norway.
The association of those countries with the implementation and development of the Schengen provisions will take place on the basis of an association agreement, which is due to be signed quite soon.
Now that the Executive Committee of the parties to the Schengen Agreement has had its last meeting, held last week on 28 April, which means that the fruits of Schengen can be defined conclusively, it is also possible to identify the areas in which cooperation with Norway and Iceland should take place in the future.
The discussions on this question are almost completed.
The presidency expects that the Council will approve the agreement at its meeting on 17 and 18 May and that the agreement can be signed as part of the EEA Council meeting which is being held at the same time.
At the heart of the association agreement is the creation, at all levels of the hierarchy of EU authorities, of a joint committee through which Norway and Iceland will play their part in the shaping of decisions.
In the Schengen framework, these two countries have been directly involved in the work of the authorities, with the right to express their views but without formal voting rights.
A direct transfer of this form of cooperation into the EU framework is not possible.
The basic rule is that participation in the work of EU bodies is the sole prerogative of Member States.
Other forms of involvement, such as observer status, would not have satisfied Iceland's and Norway's legitimate need to keep contributing to the discussion process on the subjects covered by the Schengen Agreement.
This is why the two countries and the Member States have agreed on the creation of a special system of committees, the main aim of which will be to serve as a platform for the discussion with Norway and Iceland of proposals and initiatives for further developing the fruits of the Schengen process.
The joint committee will only have very limited decision-making powers.
These will be confined to procedural matters affecting the joint committee itself and its activities.
Substantive decisions on the development of the fruits of Schengen, decisions which Iceland and Norway will have helped to shape, will be taken exclusively by EU bodies, namely the Council and, where appropriate, the Permanent Representatives Committee.
In addition to the association agreement I have just described, the draft of which I recently sent to you, the Schengen Protocol provides for the conclusion of another agreement on the legal relationship between Norway and Iceland on the one hand and the United Kingdom and Ireland on the other hand in matters relating to their recourse to the benefits of Schengen.
The negotiations on this have begun.
I expect that they can be completed within a short space of time.
Allow me to say a few words on the integration of the Schengen Secretariat.
On 1 May 1999 the Council, acting in accordance with the written consultation procedure, decided to integrate the staff of the Schengen Secretariat into the Secretariat-General of the Council, and I hope that a line can now be drawn under the recent debates on this subject and that the presidency, the Member States and the staff of the Council Secretariat can turn their full attention once again to the substantive work that confronts us in the remaining two months of the German Presidency.
In the course of the decision-making process, it emerged that some of the Council Secretariat staff are virtually taking to the barricades in opposition to the absorption of the Schengen staff, who have not gone through the customary selection procedure.
I have no sympathy with that position, because the incorporation of former members of the Schengen Secretariat has nothing to do with nepotism or favouritism.
On the contrary, it serves to safeguard the subsistence of a group of people who have shown great commitment over the years to the Schengen cooperation process and who must not suffer from the integration of Schengen into the EU framework.
Moreover, the Union will also benefit from the specialised knowledge and skills of the trained Schengen staff.
Let me finish by dealing with the consultation of the European Parliament on the transfer of the Schengen cooperation arrangements into the EU framework.
The German Presidency recognises unreservedly that the transfer of the Schengen arrangements into the EU framework is of enormous importance to the future work of the European Parliament, and that Parliament has a legitimate interest in the various steps that have to be taken on the way to integration.
Germany has always respected that interest by providing detailed information on developments in the process.
Interior Minister Otto Schily, staff of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and I myself have briefed Parliament and its Internal Affairs Committee on several occasions.
I might remind you that Mr Schily addressed the House on 14 January and that he spoke to the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs on 19 November and again on 30 March; I myself was at the meeting of the Internal Affairs Committee on 23 November, and Mr Eisel, who heads the other competent directorate in our department, has also briefed the committee twice during the past week.
So I believe we have done all we could to keep Parliament and its committee informed.
Nevertheless, I should also point out that we have no statutory obligation to engage in formal consultation on matters concerning the integration of the Schengen cooperation arrangements into the EU framework.
The sole basis for the incorporation of Schengen is the Schengen Protocol, which makes no provision for formal consultation.
The consultation requirements laid down in the Amsterdam and Maastricht Treaties do not apply to the transfer of the Schengen system.
Let me assure you once again, however, that the presidency will continue to keep the European Parliament fully briefed on the state of the integration process.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the agreement the Council has reached on incorporating the Schengen acquis into the Treaty is yet another of the sort of agreements that Parliament regards with extremely mixed feelings.
Of course, it is wonderful that an agreement has been reached, which none of us dared hope would be achieved under the German Presidency.
On 14 January this year, we adopted a resolution expressing our concern at the absence of an agreement, which would have meant that the whole of the acquis would have come under the third pillar.
So the fact that an agreement has been reached is quite a feat, and I congratulate the German Presidency on it.
The agreement also ensures that a considerable number of the provisions of the Schengen acquis , those dealing with the free movement of persons, asylum, immigration and border controls, are now mainly Community issues, which means that Parliament and the Court of Justice will be involved in policy in these fields in future.
This too is to be welcomed.
However, there are certain elements here that we find very hard to swallow because they are completely contrary to the recommendations that Parliament made in January.
First and foremost yet again, Mr President-in-Office, there is the role that Parliament has played.
It is true that the German Presidency held various discussions with Parliament and that we were kept informed throughout the period of the negotiations, for which we are grateful to the presidency.
But you cannot deny that the final documents only reached Parliament on Monday, that Monday was the first chance we had to discuss the final outcome of the negotiations, and that the consultation of Parliament is really just a joke because everything has already been decided.
A political agreement has been reached and simply needs to be confirmed by the Council on 10 May.
You are quite right.
Formally speaking you do not need to consult Parliament, but politically speaking this would not be advisable, since the choice of legal basis when incorporating Schengen into the Treaty will determine how the future acquis is to be developed and what the roles of the Commission, Parliament and the Court of Justice will be.
So it is a crucial decision that directly affects Parliament's rights, which was why we felt we ought to be consulted, and consulted seriously.
We even said in our resolution of 14 January that if this did not happen, Parliament would have to consider bringing a case before the Court of Justice, and I still think that the next Parliament should consider doing this.
Mr President-in-Office, this is not a matter of injured pride.
This is all about democratic control, because Parliament has a number of comments to make on the substance of the agreement too.
First, the President-in-Office has himself admitted that there is no agreement on the Schengen information system.
No agreement is better than just dumping everything under the third pillar, which would have been disastrous, but for the time being the Schengen information system is to remain under the third pillar, and this is a great mistake because the SIS contains a lot of data about immigration, asylum and visas, all of which are areas where enormous problems occur on a daily basis.
So I would like to ask the Council what it can do to get us out of this impasse.
Incidentally, the protection of personal data is a particularly important issue with the Schengen information system, and we should not forget that the Joint Supervisory Authority produced a highly critical report here.
I would therefore urge that a proposal be put forward on the basis of Article 286 providing for an efficient supervisory body to be set up, together with a proposal for the protection of personal data under the third pillar, where there is as yet no such guarantee.
Finally, I would also draw your attention to the Commission's right of initiative now on the whole of the Schengen acquis .
The Commission could provide considerable impetus here, but the Council in its wisdom has decided to keep the standing committee on Schengen implementation.
This might have been justified if Schengen was to be extended, but it is unacceptable that this committee should be entrusted with monitoring the implementation of Schengen.
I would therefore like to ask the Council for clearer information on this.
It seems to be something of a curate's egg.
All in all, I hope that this agreement will mean that both Parliament and the next Commission will be more closely involved in the policy areas that previously came under Schengen.
Mr President, let me begin by expressing my delight over the incorporation of Schengen into the Treaty.
The Treaty of Amsterdam secures free movement of persons throughout Europe, but we naturally want to avoid creating a free-for-all for those intent on crime.
Priority must be given to protecting the public.
With Schengen as part of the Treaty, more effective safeguards will be offered.
Finding the appropriate technical solutions has nevertheless proved a very tough task.
We in the European Parliament are understandably dissatisfied with the lack of parliamentary involvement in some areas.
The Nordic countries have enjoyed free movement for a long time, and it has facilitated our relations with one another. Schengen will perform a similar service for the EU as a whole.
It is therefore fortunate that the Nordic passport union will be protected. The Nordic group of countries is very vigilant when it comes to common Nordic legislation, the existence of which has meant so much to us.
If Nordic and EU legislation were to clash in any particular area - and there are differing views as to the likelihood of this - then we would naturally need to ensure coordination.
Iceland and Norway have been granted much greater authority in respect of border controls; they now share in the overall responsibility for monitoring the Union's external frontiers.
Effective operation of the system is essential, which means ensuring that Norway and Iceland perform to the same standards as the EU countries on border controls and combating crime.
The presidency has maintained a good dialogue with this committee on Schengen issues, keeping us informed of events.
I nonetheless wish to draw attention to the provisions in the Treaty which state that Parliament must not be sidelined in the consultation process.
As representatives of the people of Europe, we deserve to be much more involved than we have been to date in these matters.
The role of the European Parliament has been too weak. And we have been given far too little time for deliberation.
Translations of texts were sometimes missing, meaning that people could barely follow the proceedings in committee.
This is no way to approach such issues.
I therefore hope that the Council will today endorse the view that, in future, sufficient time must be set aside for proper consideration of these matters. We are dealing with sensitive questions and need to ensure that a real exchange takes place between Parliament and the Council.
Mr President, this is the last debate we shall be having on European justice policy in this parliamentary term.
When we started in July 1994, the Maastricht Treaty had just entered into force.
We in the Liberal Group hoped that the Council of Ministers would be vigorous in tackling its responsibilities here, because combating large-scale international crime and fleshing out Europe's asylum and immigration policy are matters of considerable importance.
When we now look back over this parliamentary term, we are forced to conclude - I am sorry to say - that the Council has made little progress.
What has been achieved in these five years? There are 500 000 displaced people in Kosovo, but does Europe have an asylum policy?
No. The Commission recently came to grief over allegations of fraud.
Are the five fraud agreements in force yet? Again, no.
None of this is the European Parliament's fault.
Here again we have often not been kept informed.
When we were, we carried out our legislative duties as quickly as possible, only to find that the Council took not the slightest notice of what we said.
I would say to the ministers and also to the officials - although I know that this is unusual - that they really need to change their attitude and their approach.
Take Parliament seriously and stop rejecting everything so high-handedly.
If we are honest, the Commission could also have played a more active role in this field.
Some good progress has been made, but more could have been done.
Schengen has now finally become firmly rooted in the European Union, which we have to admit is a positive development, even though Parliament was not adequately consulted.
We will now want to take a closer look for ourselves at the decisions which have been taken.
Finally, I regret to say that I cannot thank the Council on behalf of the Liberal Group for the work it has done during this period, because as I just said the results are far from satisfactory.
However, I would like to thank Commissioner Gradin, who is unfortunately not here, and her officials, and I would like above all to call on the Council and the new Commission to make sure that the Tampere summit is a success.
Mr President, the Group of the European Radical Alliance is very particular about issues of freedom.
Schengen therefore remains one of our major concerns, both with regard to the freedom of movement of EU nationals and also with regard to freedom being indivisible for third country nationals who reside legally in one of the countries of the Union.
In this respect, I think that we could perhaps ask the Ministers in the Council to insist that France ceases to abuse derogating clauses, particularly with regard to border controls between Belgium and France.
To come back to my main point, I think that the Schengen Executive Committee has therefore been replaced by the Council.
The Council presidency, proud of its newfound glory, has defined, regulated and established legal bases.
It has established terms of association in splendid isolation, without consulting, and sometimes without even informing, the people's representatives, at least with regard to definitive texts.
Parliament is clearly not satisfied with this attitude.
We are once again in the position of having to request, no, demand, that the Treaty be respected. It is high time that the new presidency conformed to this fresh request.
It is high time that we had a clear definition of police and judicial cooperation, and that we knew precisely who does what and in what context.
The new Commission will have a lot of work to do in order to present a coherent plan at Tampere, and so that Schengen can bring about the area of freedom, security and justice that everyone desires.
I have only one or two comments to make.
It is a well-known fact that the People's Movement against the EU, which I represent, is opposed to the Schengen system, as I am myself, mainly for reasons of public security.
I have no faith in claims that the construction of a supranational system of supervisory powers will benefit democracy in Europe.
I presume that we all more or less wholeheartedly share the objective of establishing a humane refugee policy, but I take the view that democracy is best placed, as the Danes say, 'in the pockets of the citizens'.
Schengen has been included in the Amsterdam Treaty and the opportunity has been taken to sneak Norway and Iceland into the system, whose people have voted against the European Union.
By virtue of association agreements, they have something which in reality is equivalent to two thirds membership of the European Union without any influence.
This is an absurdity.
But now that the Schengen system has been created, I would far rather that it were kept under the third pillar, and for once I find myself in the situation of being able to praise the presidency for the exceptional lack of efficiency that is inherent in the administration of these rules.
I would like to add that this Parliament is naturally interested in ensuring the maximum possible openness with regard to these decisions, a wish I fully support.
The conduct of the Council in this respect leaves a great deal to be desired, whether the Treaty is interpreted one way or the other.
Mr President, may I begin by saying 'well done' to the presidency. Schengen has now been successfully incorporated into the Treaty and we have a sensible balance between the first and third pillars.
So the presidency certainly deserves our congratulations as far as the substance is concerned.
Few people believed matters would be taken forward so fast.
However, there is ample room for criticism with regard to the provision of information to the European Parliament and the inadequate use made of the expertise of this directly elected assembly.
Clearly - as a previous speaker said - we need to distinguish between the formal and the political levels.
Possibly the Council did in fact follow the existing consultation procedures.
Probably this was the case, although we still need to cross-check.
On such important political items as the incorporation of the Schengen acquis and the signing of an association agreement with two very special countries, I still believe that Council should have consulted Parliament and taken on board its views.
That is where I feel the ministers slipped up.
They came along to the committee and we talked. But Parliament could have been consulted; the Council would then have been able to receive our opinions in the form of reports.
That is where the Council has missed out.
I do not wish to dwell further on issues connected with the first and third pillars; instead, let me concentrate on the association arrangements with Iceland and Norway.
I was surprised to hear what the previous speaker had to say.
I happen to know that he lives in Helsingør; I come from Helsingborg, four kilometres away.
We both grew up on free movement.
The benefits of such freedom, together with the existence of the Nordic passport union, have certainly had a marked influence on my life.
I am delighted that we are now set to enjoy similar free movement with other countries too.
The system has worked well for the Nordic area, and I am confident that it will work well for the European Union.
And I am pleased that Norway and Iceland can also be associated in the agreement.
It is somewhat rich that people should be criticising these two countries, when they are the ones behaving democratically and allowing their parliaments to decide.
As far as I am aware, there will be a large parliamentary majority in favour - but no one's hand is being forced.
It is up to the democratic institutions to take the decision on whether to participate in this cooperation process.
Once the procedures have been completed, I am sure that Norway and Iceland will make the necessary legislative adjustments to bring themselves in line with the system.
There should be no major problem here, nor with the Joint Supervisory Authority. The countries concerned will be able to make their voice heard, even though they will not have any formal decision-taking rights.
Mr President, since I came to this House in 1994, Parliament has been very clear about the fact that the future of the European Union is at stake here, in this area bordering the third pillar, in this area of rights and freedoms.
Since I came to Parliament, we have worked hard to broaden the extremely narrow limits of Article K.6 of the Maastricht Treaty.
And we must acknowledge that, without doubt, these limits have been transcended, not only by including many of the issues that used to be under the third pillar in the EC Treaty, in other words, in the first pillar, but also by way of the relative progress made with Article 39.
I must say that Parliament has played an important role in these advances.
I believe that we must highlight the good and bad aspects of this issue.
And I believe that we must be consistent and faithful and exploit this principle of faithful cooperation between the institutions. As a result, we must acknowledge what the Council has done and particularly the German Presidency.
I naturally appreciate the work involved in drawing up a list of the Schengen acquis, as we all know that the Schengen acquis was a web of rules and a web of international public law, which complicated matters even further.
Also, the presentation of this document on the legal bases of the Schengen acquis , which I have still not had time to study in detail, is clearly important.
And together with the progress made, we must acknowledge and be aware of the difficulties inherent in integrating the Schengen Agreement into the framework of the European Union. It represents a closed world that is also being built beyond the limits of the European Union so that it can function.
And we must also bear in mind that this is how it was born.
Having said all this, Mr President, Parliament cannot remain motionless, for the reasons that have already been outlined.
We have a duty to our people and it is extremely important where rights and freedoms are at stake. When the Schengen Agreement is incorporated into the Treaty on European Union, we must clearly give our opinion.
It is true that, legally speaking, we have no rights, and on some occasions, not within this House but in committee, some speakers have suggested that this be taken to the Court of Justice.
We have no formal rights; we are not protected by the Treaty. Yet, politically speaking, there is no doubt that we must be here, we must be informed and we should have been consulted on these decisions.
That was not the case.
It is not enough for the German Presidency to merely tell us what they have tried to do, and this must be very clear.
To conclude, I should like to mention two aspects that the German Presidency has agreed will come under the first pillar: the protection of personal data and the issuing of visas.
You are all undoubtedly aware that we must be especially vigilant on these issues.
We also hope that the initiatives being taken, particularly by the Commission, will outline some clear future guidelines that will allow us to make progress at the next summit in Tampere.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as chairman of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs I am naturally pleased, along with all the other Members who have spoken, that there has been a successful outcome and that the presidency has been able to tell us that the Schengen agreement has now been integrated into the Treaty on European Union.
However, we are still in the dark about the details.
It seems that considerable sections of the Schengen acquis have been transferred to the first pillar, but the exact extent is difficult to determine at the moment.
The Council is to blame for this lack of information, which is making it difficult for us to make any sort of assessment.
The President-in-Office said that the Council had put in a lot of appearances here.
This is true, we did see you quite often, but that is not the same thing as providing us with information or involving us in the decision making.
None of that happened; despite what the presidency promised in March 1998, Parliament was not even kept informed.
Parliament nevertheless has to do its duty and produce a legal and political assessment of the decisions the Council has now taken. I would like to ask you a few questions.
What is the legal status of the section that has been transferred to the first pillar?
Does it take the form of directives or regulations? We need to be clear about this if we are to avoid problems with any cases that may come before the Court.
It unfortunately seems that none of the problems with the Schengen information system have been resolved. It has been put under the third pillar temporarily, but how long is 'temporary'?
The lack of clarity on this point is extremely regrettable, because if we agree to it we will be landed with an entirely unwelcome responsibility. Who is to monitor the operation of the system?
Who is to supervise it? The Commission or the Schengen Executive Committee?
My final point is something Mr Wiebenga also mentioned.
A great deal of decisiveness is still needed and there is still a large amount of work to be done.
Commissioner Monti is to come up with a new proposal on visas as soon as possible after the Amsterdam Treaty enters into force.
We are keenly awaiting an active asylum policy and the development of a series of instruments for determining violations of basic rights.
The application of Article 286 of the Treaty is a good indicator here.
Personal data are to be protected, along with the people to whom the data refer, naturally, and the European institutions are also going to have to comply with this.
In short, we are happy with this outcome, which is better than nothing.
But there is still an incredible amount to be done, hopefully in cooperation with Parliament once it has been properly informed.
Mr President, on the involvement of Parliament and the transmission of documents, let me say again that the political agreement was reached on 26 April, and I hope you will appreciate that the documents could not be sent before then.
As you know, we had to work right up to the last minute before managing to secure that agreement.
We shall naturally continue our endeavours to reach an agreement on the place of the Schengen information system in the EU framework, but I am not very sure that this aim will be achieved before the end of the German Presidency.
However, I should like to point out that, because of the automatic nature of the procedures laid down in the Schengen Protocol, the legal basis of the Schengen information system lies entirely within the third pillar.
But this naturally means that the joint controlling body which has been monitoring compliance with the Schengen Agreement will continue to operate and will continue to ensure that data are being properly protected within the Schengen information system.
As for certain provisions being assignable to the first pillar, Mrs d'Ancona, these are, of course, covered by individual provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty and have thus become integral parts of the Treaty.
This, to my mind, is one quite palpable result that has actually been achieved.
I should like to reiterate in general terms that, for all the importance of the results that have now been achieved, the real political decision consisted in the adoption of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
What has now taken place is the implementation of that decision.
It is pleasing that this has been achieved with a fair degree of success.
Thank you, Mr Schapper.
I have received a motion for a resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
Legal aspects of electronic trading
The next item is the report (A4-0248/99) by Mrs Oddy, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive on certain legal aspects of electronic commerce in the internal market (COM(98)0586 - C4-0020/99-98/0325(COD)).
Draftsmen (Hughes procedure): Mr Hoppenstedt, Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial PolicyMr Whitehead, Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights for the sterling effort they have made.
I have put the staff and my colleagues under tremendous pressure to get this through in the May part-session.
I would particularly like to thank the staff members who have had to work exceptionally hard.
I would also like to say that my colleagues have been remarkably good-natured and entered into the discussion in a spirit of cooperation and good will.
Because of that we have managed to complete the work on time.
This is a very important area.
Electronic commerce is a growth area.
It should produce a lot more prosperity for the European Union.
It is helpful to consumers and companies alike.
Consumers benefit by being able to shop on the Internet in the comfort of their own home and enjoy home deliveries.
It is quicker, simpler and consumers can do research on the market for the goods they want, much more simply.
Companies benefit also by having contracts of major importance.
It opens up the market across borders and gives consumers much more choice because it is easier to get goods - if you are British for instance - from France, Germany or Greece.
But there are some snags.
We need to ensure that the law we establish is clear, simple and that problems can be rectified easily.
We need to ensure that consumers can be confident that they are not dealing with rogue companies and that when they enter their credit card number into the computer they will actually receive the goods and not find that the company has disappeared.
In the vote in committee we put great emphasis on codes for regulating industry and for greater consumer cooperation.
I feel this is important.
Looking at the detail of the proposal, when you are trying to harmonise what is effectively contract law over 15 countries, that is difficult.
The Commission was keen to ensure that it was clear when a contract was completed with a third click.
The Legal Affairs Committee is concerned about that because is seems unduly onerous and it is more likely that mistakes might occur.
On the issue of conflict of law, which is a horrendously difficult legal subject, we need to ensure that the rules are clear.
I like the Commission's idea of having the certainty of home country law applying.
This gives the advantage of simplicity and clarity.
But again, we have to be aware that consumers need protection.
A lot of the debate has turned on the subject of copyright and illegal material.
We have to get a balance here between civil liberties, freedom of expression, people's freedom to put on the Internet what they want, no more official snooping on the Internet than there would be on the post or telephone, and balance the other argument that companies should not have people infringing copyright, infringing their logo, and pretending to be a company that they are not.
It is a really big problem for well-known companies that other companies steal their designs and ideas.
I feel we have just about achieved the right balance in the Legal Affairs Committee.
Again, that is because of the good-natured discussion of my colleagues trying to reach a satisfactory, simple solution.
The last point I want to flag-up is 'spamming', unsolicited e-mail.
I do not believe that those consumers who want to ban all unsolicited e-mails are correct.
I personally, as a consumer, like getting some on my interest areas like details of what is on at the theatre.
I do not want it banned totally.
I want the opt-out.
Mr President, I should like to pay a very warm tribute to my colleague, Ms Oddy, for this report which characteristically she has taken through in the last days of the Parliament in a committee where there were other preoccupations and where there were immense legal and technical complications.
It is not an easy subject and some of us feel that to bring this forward in the last few months of the Parliament when it needed considerable reflection and study was a little premature.
Nevertheless, we have offered an opinion and I believe that Parliament's committees jointly have attempted to make sense of this difficult matter.
I agree with Ms Oddy on two of the key areas she raised today.
Firstly, the issue of country of origin.
This makes common sense.
I know some of the consumer movements disagree with me but the only rational way to trace out responsibility is to do it along this line.
The second area where I agree with her is that in the issue of opting in or opting out we have to give the consumer the right to opt out, but to prescribe what may, or may not, be put on the Net is so to restrict the expansion of this traffic that we would have a harmful effect within the single market itself.
We also have to be very careful that we strike a correct balance between liberty, on the one hand, and licence, on the other, between the world of private rights and the world of public obligations.
The only area where I, and the Committee on the Environment, whose opinion I presented, differ from our friends and colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs, is on the issue of whether we have gone the right way in terms of consumer protection.
In my opinion in some areas we have not.
I do not believe that the amendment that seeks to bring broadcasting regulations into what is, essentially, a one-to-one transaction between individuals is right.
We should vote down that amendment.
We have also gone far too far to bring in some of the issues of copyright into this debate, where they have no place whatsoever.
In my opinion, it would be far better to go straight down the line with the proposals that originally came from the Commission in this area.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, electronic trade, e-commerce, is sweeping the world.
The United States, Europe, Japan and even China are examining the realities of electronic commerce as well as focusing some of their attention on what, at the present time, remain mere visions.
These visions are expected to become reality in two to three years' time, which, if the figures can be believed, would mean that by the year 2001 some 110 million PCS will be used for electronic commerce, generating a trading volume of 200 billion dollars - an enormous sum.
It is easy enough to say that, but numerous questions remain unanswered.
A great many of these are answered in the Commission proposal and in the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and I believe that both of those bodies have done an excellent job.
Allow me, however, to add in all modesty that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy also recognises its own opinion, delivered under the Hughes procedure, in parts of this report.
The Group of the European People's Party and large sections of the Legal Affairs Committee therefore support the Commission draft.
But we have had to agonise over some of the amendments, including those on the liability of intermediary providers.
Three or four amendments from Mr Barzanti and one from Mr Glante fall into this category.
I believe that these amendments undermine the structure and the logic of this entire report.
For that reason, our group will be voting against them.
One very important and very dangerous element is Amendment No 63, in which Mr Glante proposes reopening the question of exempting activities definable as broadcasting.
In Article 1 of the television directive, we said very clearly what new services mean and how new services are to be defined.
We also made a clear statement by saying that we want these new services to develop and that we shall discuss frameworks for the revision of the television directive again in the year 2002.
It goes without saying that we in Parliament naturally expect the Commission to honour its pledge to hold a large-scale discussion of the implications for audiovisual services.
That was one of the pledges which were made.
When they will be honoured is not known.
But I believe this ought to be mentioned here, since it was one of the balancing acts that were performed to secure our support for Article 1.
The majority of our group will vote against this amendment, because they believe, as I do, that it is out of place here.
The fact that the German federal states are pressurising the German Government to have services comparable to broadcasting, as they are called here, exempted from the rules governing electronic commerce derives from the internal situation in Germany.
I believe that the public broadcasting system, which is certainly a staunch advocate of this amendment, really ought to trust the Commission and ourselves to continue the discussion of this matter.
I have a request, which I have made in our amendment, that Annex 2 should be put to the vote in the form adopted by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, because it is my view that the common market, the internal market, can develop better with this Annex 2 as we formulated it in the Economic Affairs Committee.
That, of course, is consumer protection too.
We can help by ensuring that benefits for consumers develop from the great struggle between conventional trade and the electronic networks.
The shopping experience must be reshaped, and I believe we are progressing in that direction.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive is essentially a good means of creating a minimalist regulatory regime in the field of electronic commerce.
Ms Oddy's report also sets out a clear line of approach which accords with the spirit of the Commission draft.
May I also express my sincere thanks to her for adopting the proposals made by the Committee on Culture.
I should like to refer to one or two of these proposals.
It is essential to guarantee freedom of expression in the new information services. The more open the networks, the greater will be the cultural diversity we can enjoy.
At the same time, in the areas in which Community action is appropriate, the directive has to provide strong safeguards, especially as regards the protection of young people and of human dignity.
The people of the Union will use the facility of electronic commerce to the extent that it proves useful in satisfying their everyday requirements in the real world.
However, the Internet must be accessible to everyone.
By ensuring that children learn how to use these new forms of technology at an early age and that training opportunities are provided for adults, we must prevent the exclusion of European citizens from the benefits of information technology.
The connection between electronic commerce and medicines is a point I wish to address as a pharmacist and as a member of the Committee on Culture.
For more than 30 years, medicines have been subject to a complex system of rules, which serves primarily to protect patients and consumers.
Strict controls on the marketing, advertising and sale of medicinal products are in place at both the national and European levels.
The Internet could invalidate some of these rules.
There are misgivings about safety, the conduct of transactions, payment, the treatment of confidential information, the possible misuse of personal data, the quality of the products and the absence of expert advice.
In order to protect patients, who are the consumers in this case - and I am thinking especially of our young people here - we must guarantee the application of Council Directive 92/28/EEC on the advertising of medicinal products for human use to electronic commerce in medicinal products.
Mr President, this long-awaited directive enriches the European Union's impressive body of legal texts establishing rules for many aspects of the information society.
This text certainly deals with one of the most sensitive matters; as clarified, completed and corrected by the Legal Committee, the directive definitely appears useful and acceptable.
The point is not to overburden service providers with undue and unusual costs and unreasonable monitoring responsibilities.
The limitations on liability provided for make up a simplified legal framework, while still recognising the serious problems which arise.
I should stress that the list of liability limitations should be exhaustive, because this is the only way in which the directive really will lead to harmonisation.
If, ladies and gentlemen, we wish to combat the rise in illegal activities, those offering on-line services need to be able to provide all the information required to trace and identify illegal content providers, whilst of course still complying with the provisions of Community law on the protection of personal data.
We need to give those entitled the means to carry out surveillance, we need strategies to combat unlawful conduct, and we need to use notification and deletion procedures by means of appropriate electronic instruments.
The directive does not aim - nor would it be able - to call into question what has already been achieved by the legislation on copyright and related rights, which was voted on a short time ago, nor - and might I point this out to Mr Hoppenstedt - is it intended either to apply to what is already covered and harmonised by the Television Without Frontiers Directive or to revise the definitions consolidated in the latter.
The scope of this directive is separate and distinct; I do not think that anyone wishes to cause untimely confusion here.
There is a fundamental distinction to be made between technologies, technical management of networks and the protection and promotion of contents and works.
This is the major conclusion to be drawn from the long and intensive debate on the convergence of technologies and means of disseminating messages which has been on-going for some time.
As I have said on previous occasions and will repeat once again, cyberspace is not a no man's land.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this my last speech as a Member of the European Parliament I mentioned the Television Without Frontiers Directive.
This was the subject of my first ever report, back in 1988.
If I were to seek a leitmotiv running through my modest yet steadfast and devoted work over the fifteen years I have been here, I think I would find it in my determination to help provide Europe, our beloved Europe, with effective instruments to guarantee pluralism of information, protection of creativity, support for the dissemination of European works and new momentum in audiovisual production, making the most out of irrevocable differences between cultures and transforming an apparent weakness into a strength.
I would like to thank all those whose cooperation has allowed me to enjoy such a productive and unforgettable experience, and I do hope that these subjects will be given the time and attention they deserve and benefit from our Parliament's universally acknowledged determination and consistency.
Mr President, I am taking the floor for the last time on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party to reply to Mr Barzanti, who has just spoken on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists. I feel that I can but sum up, in one single sentence, what I believe many of us are feeling: we will miss you a great deal.
I believe this institution as a whole will miss you a great deal as, of course, will all of us who have had the honour of working with you.
We will miss you here although we hope that we will be able to continue to rely on your knowledge and your advice.
Mr President, to move on to the substance of this directive, I believe that some of the more important problems it raises have already been discussed.
This is a proposal for a directive that seeks to establish a difficult balance, a balance between service providers and those who provide the content, a balance between consumers and suppliers. In short, it seeks a balance between interests competing in the market, and all these interested parties deserve protection.
Taking this as a starting point, I believe we must acknowledge the major task achieved by the European Commission.
This involved knowing where to stop, as this directive is special in that it does not attempt to regulate everything, but what it does regulate, it regulates sensibly and with an underlying idea, one that guides and directs it. I believe that Parliament would be making a mistake if it were to alter these balances.
It would be making a mistake to attempt to modify such a delicate situation where, in my humble opinion, has been dealt with very well.
As my colleague Mr Hoppenstedt has spoken on particular amendments in detail and because the PPE Group is well coordinated, all I can say as spokesperson for the group is that I agree with everything he said. I would just like to add a few clarifications, particularly on the subject of liability.
The Group of the European People's Party will vote against some of the amendments by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on the issue of liability, particularly Amendments Nos 45, 46, 47, 48 and 50 to 54. We will vote against them as we feel they upset this balance.
Despite what Mr Barzanti said, which is a philosophy we fully agree with, I believe that they are of no benefit to content providers or authors in general terms. And in response to Mr Whitehead, there is little protection for consumers if we act in an arbitrary fashion when legislating.
Therefore, and more specifically, it is meaningless to impose limits on service providers' liability for specific policies or specific activities. It is also nonsense to expect that they will, for example, be notified of this by the relevant authorities.
To sum up, Mr President, the Group of the European People's Party supports the report by the Committee on Legal Affairs to a very large degree. It also supports some of the amendments tabled by the Liberal Group and, on the whole, except for the amendments mentioned by Mr Hoppenstedt and myself, we will vote in favour of these amendments in general.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as Ms Oddy said, this report, which is the last of many on the information society, is the most important one of all.
Contrary to what happened with the directive on copyright in the information society, we have managed - in just a short period of time - to conduct a more informative debate.
Passion and zeal, rather than the search for new knowledge, tended to dominate those copyright discussions.
I should like to thank Ms Oddy for her work.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights will miss her open-minded approach. She is very much her own person, and a creative one at that - even if we occasionally disagreed over my use of her mother tongue, English!
I do, however, endorse what has been said by those speakers who found the Commission's proposal more balanced.
I certainly feel that to be the case with regard to the duty of surveillance, the question of technology, and neutrality in terms of different standards.
My group will therefore be voting against many of the amendments on these points.
However, I would like to ask for support from the other groups on the matter of a technology-neutral solution for signing up to agreements and contracts.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has improved the proposal considerably here, but there is still one noticeable shortcoming from my point of view. We are currently too obsessed with 'clicking' on buttons.
There have to be other ways of concluding electronic commerce agreements.
I now have an afterthought, a little late in the day.
I suspect that, when we use the words 'electronic commerce', many people do not know what we mean.
A better term must be found, since more than straight 'commerce' is at stake here. We are talking about issues of liability and the ground rules which will apply to the whole information society.
Sadly, I have to note that even one's fellows forsake one from time to time.
The proposal put forward in the Legal Affairs Committee on 'spamming' came from me, yet my group will be voting for an alternative proposal.
The discussion so far nevertheless suggests that my idea stands a good chance of getting through.
I honestly think that we would be making life far too easy for certain telecoms companies if we decided to adopt the amendment which has been tabled.
I am sorry that it has come to this.
Mr President, International Consumers' Day was celebrated in March, with the theme of electronic commerce and consumer protection.
Commerce on the Internet does not in itself raise new problems of consumer policy, but since we are talking about a new medium, there is a need to establish security and confidence.
Commerce using digital networks should be at least as secure and safe as commerce in the physical world.
It is therefore unacceptable that the Commission's proposal should seek to put Danish consumers in a worse position in relation to commerce using digital networks than is the case for commerce in the physical world.
One of the major problems with the directive is that it is the rules of the country of origin that apply.
This will mean that countries with a high level of protection may risk being overrun with advertisements and marketing from firms and from countries which have a lower level of protection.
The level of protection in the Nordic countries is generally higher than in other countries, especially as far as marketing in relation to children is concerned.
This could result in distortion of competition, whereby foreign firms are able to use methods which Danish firms are not permitted to use under the Danish Marketing Practices Act.
The background to the principle of using the rules of the country of origin is that it is too difficult for trade and industry to be familiar with every Member State's legislation in this area.
But the consequence is that this burden is simply placed on the shoulders of the consumers.
For the consumer, commerce on the Internet thus virtually takes on the character of Russian roulette.
What rules apply, and what rights do we have if something goes wrong?
I support the amendments, which improve the directive, but I cannot support the text as a whole - and the June Movement cannot support the text as a whole - because it still takes the country of origin principle as its starting-point.
Mr President, the need to ensure that European business remains competitive is one reason why the creation of a uniform legal framework for electronic commerce is indispensable.
In this particular field, common rules are one of the main prerequisites for efficient commercial transactions.
At the same time, due consideration must be given to the safety aspect and to protection from illegal activities and health hazards.
Regular commercial abuse of the Internet is one of the unfortunate realities of cyberspace that cannot be ignored.
Effective control mechanisms are therefore essential.
On the one hand, the development of software for the recognition of illegal content must be supported with a view to ensuring that these controls are more than a token gesture.
We must therefore forge ahead with the promotion of the necessary research projects.
On the other hand, however, I believe we should also consider whether the only type of control that is likely to be effective, namely control by the provider, cannot be effected in future in a technically and economically expedient way.
Public access to the information made available by providers would be appropriate in the light of the special responsibility borne by providers of online services.
Let me conclude by dealing with a very specific problem.
Among the possibilities opened up by the draft directive is the purchase of medicinal products without expert advice, which, as Mrs Heinisch said, creates a potential health risk that must not be underestimated.
Moreover, the Internet offers opportunities for large-scale fraud at the expense of patients, as the WHO, along with other bodies, has repeatedly stressed.
These things have to be borne in mind.
Although the draft directive, when all is said and done, is a step in the direction of an Internet that would serve the best interests of society, there is still a long way to go before that aim can be achieved.
Mr President, it is fortunate that we have you as President of the sitting in this House at the moment because this is one of the last reports, if not the very last, by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and you were a very efficient member of that committee for many years.
At the moment, today's sitting has a rather nostalgic feel to it because we are reaching the end of this parliamentary term and some of our colleagues will not return. Others may perhaps return but, in short, the current Parliament is dissolving and at the moment there is a certain amount of nostalgia, a hint of twilight to this sitting.
I should like to take this opportunity to point out that the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights has always been known for the great deal of internal work it does and for the high level of coordination within the committee. Above all, I should like to point out that our rapporteur, Mrs Christine Oddy, with her usual skill, has helped, and will always help, make our work easier within the committee.
At the moment we are debating a directive on certain legal aspects of electronic commerce in the internal market. This directive attempts to harmonise certain aspects of the Member States' legislation, aspects which, in truth, are aspects of private law.
I would say that we are dealing with an area where Member States seem rather small. This area covers the whole electronic commerce sector, the electronic activities sector covering everything from intellectual property to digital signatures and everything related to information services in general, including intellectual property issues.
And not only do the Member States and the European Union seem small but also the world in general as, at a speed of three hundred thousand kilometres per second, borders have no real significance.
If the European Union did not exist, we would have had to have invented it simply for this.
With the fifteen or twenty or so Member States that will eventually make up the European Union, we cannot maintain different legal systems; rather, we must establish a full, specific and correct code. And, of course, I believe that, by definition, the principle of subsidiarity cannot be invoked at all in this field.
When it comes to electronic issues, it is true that the beginnings of legislation are beginning to take shape precisely because of the major violation of privacy bringing computers into our homes may entail. On the screen, our children, our friends and our families may be exposed to a flood of information, which may well be unsolicited.
I feel that we are currently exaggerating the cultural elements that set us apart within the European Union.
In the European Union today, for better or for worse and despite national cultural traditions, the basic principles, the principles of law and order and the principles of the protection of morals, rights and minors still apply. I therefore believe that, at the moment, a directive such as this will make it easier to integrate our national legislations through the defence of certain principles that are common to all the Member States.
Therefore, as a member of the Socialist Group, I should like to express my support for the proposal for a directive as proposed by Mrs Oddy.
Mr President, in common with many other people, this is positively my last performance in this House.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur who I know has worked very hard on this proposal.
It is a very detailed dossier, a heavily lobbied dossier, as I know to my cost.
As always, when you have a heavily lobbied dossier one of the problems is that the lobbies cancel each other out, which demonstrates how Members of the European Parliament have to be able to cope with lobbyists, like they have to be able to cope with journalists.
We must not forget, however, that this is a proposal from the Commission.
I would like to congratulate the Commission on having produced a very practical text.
Indeed so practical was it that I withdrew all of my amendments to some of the controversial Articles 12, 13, 14 and 15 and made a suggestion - which I was surprised they rejected - that colleagues like Mr Barzanti and others should withdraw their amendments as well.
But as they did not the EPP will be voting against a number of amendments which were passed in committee.
One in particular which I feel very strongly about is Amendment No 45, which was originally put in committee by Mr Barzanti, which would allow means of surveillance to be rendered operational on the basis of legislation or codes of conduct.
I am very unhappy about that.
Mr Barzanti told us that in his ten years here he has concentrated on European culture and protecting it.
Fine.
In 15 years here I have been dedicated to Europe being open to world trade and particularly to liberalisation.
The Commission has put forward a liberalising proposal.
It would be very unfortunate if the European Parliament were to appear to be less liberal than the Commission, bearing in mind that we are talking of a very high technology, fast-moving area where Europe is in very grave danger of falling further and further behind the United States.
Mr President, I would like to talk about junk mail or 'spamming'.
Junk mail through the post is an inconvenience but junk mail received electronically or by fax is actually charged to the telephone bill of the recipient.
That is why it must be legislated for separately.
I have received 42 pieces of junk e-mail in the last week alone and I can tell you it is a bloody nuisance.
I have not personally received anything offensive but I know a number of my constituents have and 10 % of unsolicited e-mail is now pornographic.
There are programmes available through which companies can harvest names from the Web and send out vast amounts of e-mail to companies.
A report last year from Novell showed that junk e-mail has cost British and Irish businesses £5b a year.
It also jams up the networks.
We have legal cases pursued by Virgin Net in the UK and Bibliotech in the US, taking the fight against spammers to the courts.
Last month 23 000 signatures on a petition were presented to the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights of this House.
They call for junk e-mail to be banned.
The opt-out does not work.
There is one in the United States.
It has proved to be unworkable.
I disagree with Ms Oddy.
I believe it ill behoves us as legislators to legitimise a practice which allows advertisers to invite themselves to use other people's telephone bills and to use Internet provider infrastructure to pay for their marketing.
There is every reason why an opt-in would work.
It gives the consumers the opportunity to request marketing information that they want; it gives advertisers the possibility to target their messages to those who wish to receive them; it gives the Internet providers, who provide access to the Net, the possibility to continue to provide fast, effective and safe electronic e-mail.
That is why my group is calling for support for Amendment No 70 to this report.
Mr President, now that we can expect electronic trading to become increasingly important, a solid legal framework is needed which offers consumers adequate protection.
This is the only way to make people confident enough to get involved in this form of commerce.
At the same time, consumers must be able to protect themselves effectively against unsolicited e-mail.
I also feel it is extremely important to protect those who are under age and to protect human dignity.
It is also important to combat illegal activities on the Internet.
I would like to ask Commissioner Liikanen whether the way in which the Committee on Legal Affairs has formulated this in Amendment No 48 is acceptable.
Will this not be making Internet service providers into censors? I have nothing against censorship, but it should be carried out by the police and the courts.
Finally, I have to say that reading the amendments filled me with enormous respect for the Committee on Legal Affairs.
Take for example Amendment No 23 on recital 22, which has an 88-word sentence that left me completely baffled.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this is an important directive, and will play its part in building the information society.
Christine Oddy's report is, in my opinion, a well-informed, skilful and excellent one.
It is also important for us to ensure that, in enacting legislation, we do not create bottlenecks for businesses in this fast-growing sector.
I believe, however, that the big problem with the Internet is the protection and freedom of the individual.
The scale of the problem has not yet revealed itself.
This is a historical stage in the process, one in which the global surveillance of people has become possible, and it is the first time civil rights have not been protected by international borders, as they used to be.
In this respect we have entered a new era, and it must therefore be possible to opt out or opt in.
I have also received junk mail, even in a language I do not understand.
For some reason, a lot of it comes in Spanish from one particular sender.
We must be able to put a stop to this.
I cannot see how the police can take action, although that is what should be the case.
I think the European Union needs to take action to create an effective, sound civil rights and protection movement in respect of the Internet. I would ask the Commissioner whether such a suggestion has been discussed.
It would involve encouraging civil participation at European level, and protecting people's rights, in order to prevent this adverse trend from getting out of control.
As a trading place it must be safe, because that is also in the interest of business.
We must be able to locate criminal material, which should not have to be a job for the police.
The post office, for example, looks out for a bomb, if one is suspected.
The same should go for the Internet.
When a third party sends information, that party can obviously be made liable for the bill, and liability should extend also to cases where a crime has been committed.
Mr President, my colleague Mr Hoppenstedt has already done a very good job of explaining my group's position on Mrs Oddy's report. I thank Mrs Oddy for her report, but in the very heated debate that has developed on the subject of electronic commerce in Europe and the thorny issue of on-line content, its origin, its destination and its legality, I think I am justified in stressing that there must be room for freedom of expression on public networks such as the Internet.
I would like to concentrate on an aspect which particularly concerns satellite providers.
With regard to the responsibility of the on-line network service providers, the initial proposal from the European Commission distinguishes the responsibility of the various players according to what they actually do, without denying the problems of illegal content.
In my opinion there is no point in amending this.
In the transfer of information by satellite, cable or any other means, the network service providers, who are the intermediaries, are not the authors of the content.
They may have to accept responsibility a posteriori for the information that they supply and they may also ensure that there is a priori monitoring at the request of national authorities, but in very specific cases.
However, they cannot ensure permanent a priori monitoring of all the information - freely available on the Internet - to which they want to offer access.
The network service providers are suppliers of technical services and do not have editorial responsibility.
In a way, they play the role of the printers, which does not mean that they can print whatever they like, but their responsibility is not unlimited.
The Web is an excellent tool for any firm or individual that wishes to make itself known, a tool that should be developed and not censored.
Like my group, I will not vote for Amendments Nos 45, 46, 48 and 51, which have absolutely nothing to do with the issue and which would result in an impractical degree of censorship.
Mr President, I too would like to address my remarks primarily to Commissioner Liikanen. Ladies and gentlemen, electronic commerce could be a tremendous boost to the economy and create a great many new jobs, jobs that Europe desperately needs.
The proposed directive now before us will remove many obstacles and uncertainties and provide legal certainty and security for all those involved, particularly consumers.
However, as well as the problem of 'spamming' which Graham Watson described, there is another problem too.
Section 4, Articles 12 and 13 of the directive provide that where a service provider is only passing on information passively, it is not liable for the content of that information.
So it is only operating as an intermediary.
The same applies to the temporary storage of information on the Internet, known as 'caching'.
Indeed, it appears from the explanatory statement to the Commission proposal that the restricted liability actually applies to all illegal on-line activities by third parties, such as unfair competition, misleading advertising and the pirating of copyright material.
However, two months ago Parliament adopted an amendment to Article 5(1) of the copyright directive specifically bringing caching within the scope of the directive, so that it would be covered by copyright protection, yet caching as such does not involve any individual use of the information supplied.
There is a contradiction here.
I would like to ask the Commissioner something.
These provisions contradict each other ...
The President cut the speaker off
I am sorry, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I have to cut you off because we are constrained by speaking time.
I am very sorry.
Mr President, I too should like to sing a form of swan song.
For many years - although at different stages - I have been part of this House and I am now saying goodbye to it, not as far as my heart is concerned, as it will always be remembered there, but as far as my usual attendance here is concerned.
I remember many moments in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and, among them, those shared with Mrs Oddy where we always reached similar conclusions on new technology issues that we began debating in the previous term with respect to their incompatibility with copyright.
I should like to congratulate Mrs Oddy and also my colleagues who have tabled amendments, for example, Amendment No 45, that my dear colleague Mr Cassidy is criticising.
Mr Cassidy, I believe in freedom for men and women.
We must be careful with devastating mechanical technologies that have no consideration for human nature.
There is no reason why the network should eliminate the need for a certain degree of control, which is needed both for our children and for ourselves.
Octavio Paz said that we are not made for a society whose aim is to produce to consume and to consume to produce.
The fact that messages are sent to create artificial consumption is often distressing to a person, as pornography and other such things are.
I believe that all this rubbish should be controlled.
And I therefore feel that it is a good idea to have a certain degree of control at the centre of this network so that the consumer - which is first and foremost a human being - can tell where the problem comes from.
If we control the network, we create a place for the law, and the law must, of course, be above mere technology.
Mr President, forecasts suggest that, within just a few years, 500 million people will be on the Internet.
A whole new market has opened up, as Mr Hoppenstedt has so eloquently argued.
We have here a potential springboard for European growth, but we must avoid taking the kind of political decisions that might force Internet providers to locate outside the Union.
In Amendment No 36, it is suggested that 'information society service providers must keep all information necessary for the purpose of tracing and identifying providers of illegal content.' This is a crime prevention issue, however, and responsibility for criminal matters lies with the country concerned.
That is the approach taken by our competitor, the United States, and the same principle should apply here.
The State bears the cost of crime prevention and takes the necessary decisions where there is suspicion of serious criminal activity. Very strict regulations and technical provisions may need to be put in place.
If the proposal in Amendment No 36 were to be implemented, some Internet service providers would be forced to establish themselves outside the Union, which would not be the best way of utilising the growth potential of the new Internet economy.
The net result would be a typical political fudge, based on a misguided attempt to reconcile various societal interests. Such an approach is born, in my view, of insufficient knowledge of the sector.
The nominee for the office of Commission President, Mr Prodi, spoke on Tuesday of the importance of leading-edge technology for Europe's advancement.
And he was right. It is essential that we build up, rather than undermine, the conditions for growth within the IT industry, particularly from the point of view of small and medium-sized companies, which need to be shielded from storage costs.
Respect for the integrity of companies is also paramount, especially when they are small.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the development of electronic commerce will have a considerable impact on the whole of society.
It promises to create added value, and therefore jobs.
It is also a world-wide, global phenomenon, and it is unthinkable that we should be left out, as if Europe could be run as an island in the middle of the ocean.
I therefore do not think that we should impose rules and constraints on ourselves that would mean placing ourselves on the fringe of this extremely rich field of development.
However, I am well aware of the risks that it involves and they must be eliminated or contained.
Having said that, I felt that in this respect the Commission's proposal was very well balanced.
With all that I am hearing, seeing and observing, I am now wondering whether the amendments from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights have upset this necessary balance.
As most of the speakers from my group have pointed out, I do not think that in order to protect consumers - a concern which is nevertheless quite legitimate - we should at the same time deprive them of all the advantages and all the benefits that this development can bring, both in employment terms and in economic terms.
This is why I feel it is very important that we take great care to maintain this balance.
This is why, along with my colleagues, I will vote in favour of certain amendments which aim to improve the situation, while on the other hand I will vote against others which I feel have upset the balance.
Mr President, those who have been speaking in this Chamber for five years now should no longer feel emotional, but the thought that today is almost the last day of this parliamentary term does move me a little, to say the least.
And since, as a famous writer from my country said, 'there is no certainty in the morrow', I shall take this opportunity to say good-bye and thank you to all the colleagues, officials and interpreters with whom I have shared these five years which have been so important for European integration.
It has been an honour for me to work with many of you.
The issue being discussed now is one of the most important of all in economic and social terms, both because it particularly relates to young people and because it can lead to many jobs being created.
Yesterday Parliament voted on my report on the White Paper on commerce, which looks at length and in favourable terms at electronic commerce as well.
I would also like to thank the Commission, which kept its pledge to produce the Green Paper and the White Paper on commerce within the same term of office, making sure that this sector was tackled comprehensively by the institutions.
In the White Paper we managed to get the Commission to undertake measures to support enterprises and at the same time to protect end-users.
The legal aspects analysed today are a vital foundation for regulating and harmonising electronic contracts and future use and developments, on condition that the Internet is accessible to all, accessible but regulated, so as to defend the groups at greatest risk, particularly children, to protect people from unlawful electronic acts and cable intrusion, but to encourage anything which can create jobs and help our culture to grow and flourish.
There can be no Europe without culture, as the great President Delors reminded us.
Even though much remains to be done in the new Community market, we have shown that it is possible to protect the interests of entrepreneurs and traders, particularly in small and medium-sized enterprises, and at the same time to defend the public in their role as consumers, who are the target and focus of the work of enterprises, both public and private.
Let us continue along this road!
Mr President, Commissioner, we live in the information age, and new channels of communication are constantly opening up.
If we use them properly, they will present us with a vast range of opportunities which have to be grasped and which will enhance the competitiveness of European business.
But we do need a uniform legal framework here.
Internet users are bombarded with a barrage of online information.
The Member States cannot rely on their national legislation, since there are no national restrictions on electronic commerce.
For the sake of consumer protection, the Member States and the Commission must press for the development of codes of conduct.
One very important point concerns unsolicited commercial communications.
'Spam' must be clearly recognisable as such to recipients, who must also have a means of refusing it, especially in view of the costs they might incur by opening or downloading such messages.
Greater transparency must be achieved in this area.
Clear labelling of incoming messages is essential so that users are free to decide whether to avail themselves of the services being offered.
Mr President, the Commission is glad to know that Ms Oddy's report, which is very thorough, shares the approach and the main lines of the Commission's proposal.
It is particularly important as regards the unanimous backing of the internal market principles underlying the proposal.
The majority of the amendments in Ms Oddy's report clarify and improve the original proposal and I am happy to indicate that the Commission will accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 4, 6 - the latter in the English version only, 7, 12, 13, 16-20, 22, 24, 32-34, 37, 40, 41, 43, 55-57, 62, 65-67.
Subject to redrafting the Commission is also in a position to accept Amendments Nos 3, 5, 11, 15, 25, 29 and 35 and part of amendments 9, 14, 38, 51, 69 and 73.
There are, however, a number of amendments the Commission is not in a position to accept for one of the following four reasons.
Firstly, because their objective and formulation is not sufficiently clear, which could lead to legal insecurity.
This is the case of Amendments Nos 8, 24, 26, 30, 39, 58, 59, 60, 64 and 72.
Amendment No 42 cannot be accepted as such.
However, the Commission recognises that Article 11(1) concerning the moment at which on-line contracts are concluded needs to be reviewed.
The Commission accepts the objective of Parliament's amendment to simplify the process of contracting and will address the question in the amended proposal.
Secondly, because there would not be consistency with other Community directives or with Community law.
This is the case of amendments which could be interpreted as being in conflict with the rules on the protection of personal data or with principles of Community law: Amendments Nos 10, 28, 36, 70 and 76.
It is also the case of amendments trying to modify the scope of application of the directive in a manner which is not consistent with other information society service directives (Amendments Nos 27 and 63), and of Amendment No 31 changing the proposed definition of commercial communications.
Thirdly, because they would upset the balance of interests on a number of issues that has been achieved in the original proposal.
Amendment No 48 belongs to this group; there was a question on that.
This is the case as regards the amendments on the issue of liability of intermediaries from 44 to 54 and 75.
It is a very important sensitive area where particular effort was made in the original proposal to achieve a reasonable compromise solution that takes account of all interests at stake.
It is also the case as regards Amendment No 71 narrowing down the list of contracts established in Article 9 of the proposal.
Fourthly, because they would be too ambitious at this stage given the level of Community integration.
This is the case of amendments aimed at narrowing down the derogations in Annex 2 of the proposal (Amendments Nos 21, 68 and 74), and Amendment No 61 concerning court actions, although on this last issue the Commission recognises that there is a need to improve the possibilities of redress, especially in cross-border contracts.
I would like to finish by again thanking Parliament for its work on, and its support for, the proposal.
It will be of fundamental importance for Europe and its citizens to fully reap the benefits of electronic commerce and to strengthen the European position in the global context.
I agree with Mr Paasilinna that all non-governmental activities are welcome in this context.
The debate is closed.
Since it is the season for goodbyes, I shall now say my own.
In particular, I should like to tell my colleagues in the Legal Affairs Committee how much I have appreciated the work we have done over the last five years, and to wish the committee every success in the next parliamentary term.
Mrs Gebhardt has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I should like to take this opportunity to express my annoyance, and annoyance is too mild a word, because I think it is outrageous that a report which was scheduled for this morning - at least that is what I was given to understand when we voted on the agenda on Monday - should now be postponed.
The report by a conciliation committee concerning the recognition of young people's vocational qualifications is a very important matter.
As I discovered quite by accident this morning, the report is not to be debated until six o'clock this evening and the vote will take place tomorrow morning; this is not the sort of treatment that such a report merits, because it is about people, about young people.
We in Parliament have said that this is one of our European policy priorities.
I wanted to say that I do not accept the treatment meted out to this report, which is the product of extremely difficult negotiations in the conciliation committee and during the conciliation procedure with the Council.
Mrs Gebhardt, Fridays are as valid as any other day of the part-session and as long as this is the case you should not assume the contrary.
This matter was included on Friday's agenda by the Conference of Presidents a few part-sessions ago and has never been planned for any other time.
You should have spoken to the chairman of your group to see if it were possible to schedule it for another time.
In any case, on Friday mornings there is no special quorum requirement and we can vote on this matter quite calmly as no amendments have been tabled either.
It is simply a matter of checking that there is consensus. Fridays are therefore just as valid and as important as any other day.
Mr President, I should like to speak on a point of order.
More specifically, I am referring to the order of voting for today.
Reports that require a qualified majority are usually voted on first.
More specifically, the McCarthy/Hatzidakis report on the general provisions on the Structural Funds should be voted on before the implementing reports, particularly before the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report and the other implementing reports relating to the framework report on the Structural Funds.
So, Mr Medina Ortega, what you are suggesting is that we proceed as usual and vote on the reports that require a qualified majority, in this case Mr Pronk's report, before voting on the group of reports on Agenda 2000.
Mr President, I am referring to the group of reports including the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, Jöns, Kellett-Bowman, Colom i Naval and McCarthy/Hatzidakis reports.
The McCarthy/Hatzidakis report is the general report for these four reports and should therefore be put to the vote after the report by Mr Bösch and before the Varela Suanzes-Carpegna report.
This is a simple question of the order of voting as this is the general report and the other four reports are the implementing reports.
No, the usual order has been followed for these reports: first readings, second readings, assent procedures and consultation procedures.
If we go into which report is the general report, it will all become extremely complicated.
The order has already been established and changing it now would only complicate matters.
Mr President, I am in the same embarrassing position as Mrs Gebhardt.
I know that Friday is basically a day like any other: I am always here on Fridays.
But you are setting a dangerous precedent, as Parliament needs to be given the opportunity to reject the results of a conciliation by 314 votes.
That will not be possible.
We have already done this once for the Rothley report.
There had been a conciliation procedure, and we had agreed on the joint text, but Parliament rejected it.
Tomorrow, Parliament will not be able to do that.
I therefore protest, as we should have dealt with the conciliation reports this morning in order to be able to vote on them today.
I am sorry, Mrs Lulling, but the vote on your report requires a simple majority and not a qualified one, otherwise it would have been included in the voting times today.
That is why it can perfectly well be put to the vote tomorrow.
Mr President, I was not aware that conciliations could be treated differently according to their subject.
I do not think that this is the case.
No, there is no question of treating them differently according to the subject.
Also, the Rothley report was rejected by a simple majority.
One needs to be properly informed before making comparisons.
Mr President, let me come back to a point we discussed at nine o'clock this morning.
As you will all have heard, Dr Ibrahim Rugova, the winner of our Sakharov Prize, has returned from Kosovo and is with his family in Italy.
This morning, in your absence, we asked that the President and the Bureau should authorise a delegation from this Parliament to visit Dr Rugova in Rome at some time in the next few days.
We suggested this morning that the chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, Vice-President Renzo Imbeni and the head of the Delegation for relations with south-east Europe should travel to see him in order to find out from him how the situation looks in Kosovo, what has been done to him, and where things should go from here.
We ask you to authorise this visit very soon so that we can make our travel plans today.
Mrs Pack, as you and all your colleagues are aware, the Conference of Presidents is responsible for authorising this journey.
The Conference of Presidents is meeting this afternoon and I will put this request to them and recommend that it be approved.
The competent body will therefore take a decision this very afternoon.
Mr Falconer wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, on a point of order.
Can you advise me as to whether those people who have telematic lenses have the Bureau's permission to take pictures from the gallery? Have they been granted permission to take these pictures?
This point was raised at the last part-session and those people were removed from the gallery, as is only proper and right.
Mr Falconer, Parliament's services tell me that the photographer who is taking photos has been expressly authorised to do so and is therefore wearing a badge that shows he has been granted permission.
Therefore, if our relevant services have authorised this, it is because it is permitted in the normal run of things.
Mr President, I do not agree with your interpretation of how we take the vote on the structural fund programme, because the general regulation is actually the regulation governing every other aspect of the implementing regulations.
If this House does not give assent to the general regulation, there can be no agreement for the regulations that follow on from it.
In terms of legislative logic you need to take the general regulation first, even though that involves only assent, and take the regulations thereafter.
All you need to do is swop McCarthy and Hatzidakis with Varela Suanzes-Carpegna and then we can follow on logically.
Mrs McCarthy, I do not see that there is any difference, but so that we do not waste any more time, we are going to vote as you requested. This will stop us using up any more time in a meaningless discussion.
VOTES
Mr President, I should simply like to clarify a technical detail.
One of the amendments we are to vote, Amendment No 4, is part of the compromise we reached with the Council.
It involves amending the first paragraph of Article 3 of the Regulation by adding a new initiative: the URBAN Community initiative.
If Amendment No 4 is adopted, I would ask that the necessary steps be taken to enable Parliament's services to carry out the technical adjustments needed to adapt the corresponding recital.
If the amendment is adopted, that will be done.
Before we proceed to the vote and pursuant to Rule 72(5), I would ask the Commission to make known its position on the amendments.
Mr President, the amendments agreed by the Council, the Commission and your representative, Mr Varela, will be adopted.
Mr President, the Council also accepts the amendments as agreed.
The President declared the common position approved as amended
The answer is the same as before.
What was jointly agreed and what was stated yesterday in the debate by Mrs Jöns has the emphatic support of the Commission.
Mr President, my position is identical to that of the Commissioner.
The President declared the common position approved as amended
Mr President, I should like to draw the attention of the House to a necessary addition.
During the conciliation process and the trialogue, we agreed that the text of Amendment No 2 on Article 1(2) must henceforth read: 'this limit may be increased up to 2 %'.
The same agreement applies to Amendment No 1, relating to recital 4.
In the text before us, however, the word 'up' has only been inserted once.
May I ask you, once we have voted, to make that adjustment, so that the word 'up' is also inserted into Amendment No 1.
That is what was agreed between the Commission and the Council.
Does the rapporteur agree? Very well.
I would then ask the Commission and the Council to make known their position on the amendments.
Mr Liikanen has the floor for the Commission.
That is correct, what Mr Samland said.
The Commission agrees.
And the Council also accepts the amendments?
The Council is also in agreement, Mr President, as established at the trialogue.
The President declared the common position approved as amended
Mr President, prior to the vote on this subject, there were discussions in the House on the question of the majorities that would be necessary for us to adopt the new interinstitutional agreement and the associated financial perspective.
I know that you also enlisted the aid of the legal services to try and clear up the situation.
On behalf of the members of the Committee on Budgets, I should like to make the following statement. Until the present time, the standard practice of this House has been to decide on interinstitutional agreements by a qualified majority.
This means that we reach an agreement on the basis of the last sentence of Article 203(9) of the EC Treaty, which states, in connection with the maximum rate of increase, that 'another rate may be fixed by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, and the European Parliament, acting by a majority of its members and three-fifths of the votes cast'.
You know as well as I do that neither the Treaty nor our Rules of Procedure - not even the new Rules - regulate the question of voting on interinstitutional agreements.
In this interinstitutional agreement and in the financial perspective, however, we are fixing the maximum rate of increase for the next seven years.
We are thus indirectly taking a decision for which the Treaty explicitly prescribes an absolute majority.
Not only for that reason, but also because of the political need for such a decision to be utterly binding on the Council and the Commission and on Parliament too, I would therefore ask that we proceed on the assumption that this vote requires a qualified majority.
May I ask you to confirm that?
Thank you very much, Mr Samland.
I cannot confirm what you are saying.
I have in fact examined the report by the Committee on Budgets in great detail and I have asked the Legal Service to give its opinion.
As mentioned in the note your committee sent - which I have examined in great detail - and as you have indeed said, it is not stated either in the Treaties or in the Rules that interinstitutional agreements require an absolute majority.
What is more, as you are all aware, a past ruling by the Court of Justice from 23 July 1988 states that the majorities required for a decision cannot be stipulated by each institution.
This was what forced us to replace in our own Rules the absolute majority, which was used to grant discharge, with a simple majority instead. We came to the conclusion that it was not possible to maintain an absolute majority system when it was not enshrined in the Treaties.
This would be an appropriate argument in this instance.
Along with the Legal Service, I have also examined the argument you have put forward on whether or not this decision in itself covers budget decisions, in other words, whether or not it covers budget decisions which, according to Article 272, require a qualified majority.
I agree with the Legal Service's conclusion that it does not cover budget decisions because the agreement is neither a rule nor a budget decision in itself.
Each year, when the budget is adopted, the President must verify that a sufficient majority has been achieved and has been taken into account.
Then, when the annual budget is adopted, the decision is taken with these majorities.
And you may take a decision that is theoretically contradictory not to reduce certain lines, even though the institutions may have adopted the agreement among themselves. This agreement does not have the force of law and is below the law.
However, it is an agreement that is based on the goodwill of the institutions and it has no regulatory value.
As a result, we cannot demand a qualified majority if the agreement has no legislative or budgetary value.
And there are rulings by the Court of Justice that confirm this point, which are also quoted in the Legal Service's report which I will make available to you.
Therefore, taking all these factors into account and to avoid making a mistake that might mean we could be brought before the Court of Justice and then lose - as has already occurred on a previous occasion - there is no other solution but to adhere to the Legal Service's criterion, which states that this vote requires a simple majority. It will therefore be decided by a simple majority only.
Mr President, I naturally agree with those arguments since, on the basis of my own examination, I expressed them this morning and yesterday in the Group of the European People's Party.
I would like to remind Mr Samland, who used a political rather than a legal argument, that this House has often called on the Council to do away with unanimous and qualified majority voting and to adopt agreements by a majority.
It is a strange political move to ask the Council to do something that we apparently do not wish to respect. This goes against the Treaties, our own Rules of Procedure, the case-law of the Court of Justice and even common sense, which tells us that, in legal terms, an act is an act and only has the value of that formal act.
It does not have the value of its consequences, which do indeed exist but which will eventually have an appropriate legal form, with the majorities required by the Treaty.
I will not go into political criteria.
The President must act in strict accordance with legal and regulatory criteria.
Mr President, first of all thank you for that clarification: we must deal with things on the basis of the law and from a legal point of view.
We have to be very careful, because if we act on the basis of political considerations, we change everything, we can keep contradicting ourselves.
We have already seen that this week.
I think that we need to take this fact into consideration: interinstitutional agreements alter budget annuality, by agreement of the institutions, and they are an integral part of a vision of the budget that we have accepted by mutual agreement.
In the Colom i Naval report, one paragraph and also Amendment No 27 directly relate to Article 12 of the interinstitutional agreement, an article which alters the maximum rate of increase for the duration of the seven year period.
This is an extremely significant and extremely strong act on the part of this institution.
Paragraphs 8 and 9 of Article 3 in Annex IV of our Rules of Procedure require an absolute majority of Members.
I think that Mr Samland's objection is well founded.
We are protecting ourselves from the Council by demanding that there should be an absolute majority.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to endorse the line of argument advanced by Detlev Samland and to add the following comment: the case-law you have quoted, Mr President, derives from a judgment which states that the institutions may not relax the provisions on required majorities which have been adopted in the Treaty.
This does not, however, mean that the institutions are not autonomous enough to decide to increase the required majority in a particular situation, for example in order to enhance the binding effect ascribed to the maximum rate of increase in Article 203.
This is a further argument in favour of the position taken by the Committee on Budgets.
We are making a change here and are fixing the maximum rate of increase for the next seven years.
The House would do well to ensure that this decision carries the support of a qualified majority.
Mr President, I should firstly like to note that, according to what you are saying, the Legal Service and the President made a mistake in 1988 and 1993 because, by following the Legal Service's report at the time, it was understood on both occasions that a qualified majority was required and it was put to the vote in that way.
But what concerns me now, as I would of course be prepared to correct the error, is your own interpretation of the issue, Mr President.
This is because the agreement we are voting on, as it stands at the moment, provides for the revision of the financial perspectives themselves by qualified majority.
According to the opinion you have expressed, this act would be null and void and would be at odds with the 1988 decision you mentioned.
Therefore, we could not adopt an act which, from what you are saying, is invalid according to the July 1988 decision.
Mr President, I would first of all like to pay tribute to Mr Samland, who we know is in favour of the interinstitutional agreement, and who puts concern for the law and for the political authority of interinstitutional agreements before any other consideration.
Mr President, if your interpretation is correct, the interinstitutional agreement is inadmissible because it contains a whole series of provisions which require a qualified majority.
If the Treaty really does have to specifically require a qualified majority on every occasion, and limit the cases in which the qualified majority can be extended, then this interinstitutional agreement is inadmissible, as Mr Colom i Naval has just said.
It is void, and you must withdraw it.
On a more fundamental level, I think that the main issue in this matter is that this Parliament, on its last day, intends to bind its successor and its successor's successor to a fundamental limitation of the budgetary powers laid down in the Treaty, budgetary powers which this Parliament mainly exercises by qualified majority.
It is totally unreasonable and contrary to the Treaty to make a decision by simple majority, as the Treaty states that we have budgetary powers and that we exercise those powers by qualified majority.
We cannot constrain the next Parliament and prevent it from exercising its budgetary powers by a simple majority agreement.
I would like to add that this agreement follows on from the institutional agreement of 1993, which was agreed by qualified majority and which explicitly states that it can only be revoked by qualified majority.
This new agreement implies the former agreement being revoked and replaced and it must therefore be passed by qualified majority.
In short, Mr President, at the meeting point of the political and the legal, I think that you are grossly under-estimating the significance of the emergence of interinstitutional agreements in our system.
In ruling after ruling, the Court of Justice, which you cited, is increasingly recognising interinstitutional agreements as fundamental rules.
What you are doing - if you pass this law by simple majority - will mean that, tomorrow, on a misty Friday morning, with a majority of 48 votes to 47, a makeshift Parliament will be able to abolish and destroy not only the financial perspectives, but the entire structure of interinstitutional cooperation that has been put in place over the last twenty months.
Applause
You do not have the right, Mr President, to wipe out in this manner something that is one of the foundations of sound interinstitutional operation, namely these agreements which have been drawn up gradually and confidently by the institutions.
We must vote by qualified majority.
Loyal cooperation between the institutions is at stake, as laid down in the Treaty and recognised by the Court.
Loud applause
I have many requests for the floor but I do not believe that we are here to hold an academic debate; we are here to vote. Someone must decide, and this responsibility falls on my shoulders.
I have studied the matter in detail and I am terribly sorry, Mrs Müller, but our case-law states exactly the opposite of what you are saying: it states that we cannot increase majorities.
It is not that we cannot reduce them but we cannot increase them.
And therefore, where there are none, we cannot establish any.
This is unfortunately how it stands, despite the fact that Parliament is sometimes under the illusion that it may be otherwise.
On the basis of this decision, I have no other alternative but to stick to the criterion that had been reached.
And we are going to vote by simple majority.
Let us consider the motion for a resolution.
No, Mr Elles, this issue has been dealt with.
I am terribly sorry.
If anyone asks me in writing, I will pass this matter on to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure for future reference. But at this moment in time, someone must decide.
It is my responsibility and I have decided. There will be no vote on this issue.
Mr President, before we come to the vote on the revised Amendment No 27, I would like to question its admissibility.
As this amendment establishes the adoption, in the form of an annex, of a draft interinstitutional agreement, I do not think that it corresponds - either legally or in practice - to what is expected in that context.
When we have had to vote on interinstitutional agreements, we have had a report and we have had the approval of the interinstitutional agreement, which was proposed in the report.
I am not arguing about issues of majority. I expressed my position concerning the interinstitutional agreement on the CFSP, and my position has not changed.
However, we are talking about adopting the text of an agreement - one which considerably alters several parts of the report, albeit only a few paragraphs apart from the explanatory statement - by means of an amendment, following a report which has a different title: I do not think that this amendment is admissible.
Moreover, you took this position in a relatively similar context concerning an amendment that I had tabled myself.
Mr President, at its meeting on Monday, which was authorised by you and was properly convened, the Committee on Budgets took its basic decision on the adoption or rejection of the interinstitutional agreement.
A majority of the committee voted for adoption. Since we could not vote before Monday on the resulting amendments and since you had specially authorised us to meet then, because the trialogue at which we negotiated the outcome with the Council only took place last week, the committee adopted the relevant amendments immediately after voting for the agreement.
These amendments were properly adopted and were presented to the House within the prescribed time-limit.
In that respect, the House is behaving absolutely correctly by proceeding to the final vote now.
Mr Fabre-Aubrespy, the truth is that I see no precept in the Rules of Procedure that prevents us from proceeding in this way, just as we have done so many times.
In other words, we can include a related text with an amendment.
Therefore, I will now put Amendment No 27 to the vote.
Mr President, forgive me for taking the floor again, but before the final vote and pursuant to Rule 129 of the Rules of Procedure, I would like to propose that the Colom i Naval report be referred back to committee.
I think that the discussion that has just taken place, the arguments that were put forward and the conditions in which the vote took place are all arguments in favour of a referral back to committee.
We would therefore be able to leave the next Parliament to decide, immediately after it has been elected, what is going to happen in the next seven years.
Meanwhile, we will have the opportunity to broach the legal question raised by several speakers, which Jean-Louis Bourlanges explained brilliantly a moment ago.
I therefore propose to the House to vote for the Colom i Naval report to be referred back to committee.
Very well, we shall discuss that with one speaker in favour and one against.
You were in favour. Mr Samland is against, I think.
Mr President, for two years we have been discussing this report in committee - yes, for two years!
We have presented more than twenty working papers on it.
At Monday's meeting of the Committee on Budgets we had another four-hour debate, in which Mr Fabre-Aubrespy chose not to participate.
Yesterday we discussed this report comprehensively here in Parliament.
So with all due respect, we can support the report or oppose it, but any move to refer it back would truly be a slap in the face for the rapporteur and the House after all the work they have done.
I move that we proceed to the vote.
Mr President, we heard yesterday evening in the debate on this report that our rapporteur himself is not in favour of this particular report.
We have had votes this morning, under the new Amsterdam procedure, in which we have not been able to take individual amendments like Amendment No 28 which would call for a review clause for this perspective which extends - as some speakers have already said this morning - over seven years without any review.
There will be no possibility for a new Parliament and a new Commission to have their say on the matter.
I therefore support the suggestion of Mr Fabre-Aubrespy to send it back to committee.
We are in the process of negotiating.
We can clarify what is in Parliament's interests.
I fear that if we take this final decision now, Mr President, you will be left with a kind of feeling that you have been acting on behalf of interests outside this House and not the interests of Members themselves.
Murmurs of dissent
We are going to vote, Mr Elles.
I am the only interpreter of my own sentiments.
You have no knowledge of them.
Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I move that the vote be postponed until tomorrow morning at the earliest, but preferably until September, because the draft still contains two legal defects.
Firstly, it remains unclear whether the Committee of the Regions has been given a role to play.
I personally find it hard to comprehend that the Council should be presenting us with its amended position before it has consulted with the Committee of the Regions to clarify the role it intends to assign to the Committee.
That is an unacceptable error of law.
Secondly, this morning it was still impossible to obtain the correct version of my report from the distribution counter.
The version that was available there this morning for the second reading still indicated the wrong legal basis, namely the Maastricht Treaty.
May I ask you, Mr President, to postpone the consideration of this report until tomorrow at the earliest and to instruct your legal services, which have already been working on this since Monday, to check that the text on which we are to vote contains no errors of law and that it is available tomorrow from the distribution counter.
Mr President, I have great admiration for Mr Jarzembowski, and in particular I admire the tenacity he shows in pursuit of his objectives.
Having failed to achieve them through the content, because we rejected all his amendments by a large majority in committee, he is naturally trying the legal route, and I certainly have no problems with that.
The only thing is that the legal situation has been unequivocally clarified, by your legal services for example.
We have also proceeded in the manner advised, recommended and urged by Mr Jarzembowski himself in the committee, and even confirmed the first reading in committee.
These matters have been thoroughly discussed, Mr President; I consider it right and proper that we should vote on this today as you proposed.
I would ask you to stand by your view and take this vote today.
Mr President, I support Mr Jarzembowski's motion for referral back to committee, not only because of his legal argument, which is correct, but also so that the next committee can come up with something better than Mr Jarzembowski managed this time!
Laughter
One possibility would be to adopt the report now and postpone the vote on the communication to the Council until the Committee of the Regions decides whether or not it will give its opinion on the matter. Another possibility would be to postpone the vote until tomorrow as it seems that the Committee of the Regions may give a favourable opinion tomorrow.
Mr President, I was in the Chair on Wednesday evening when this debate took place, and I arranged on Wednesday evening for a check on whether the vote would be held today or not.
There has been enough time to establish that, and so I believe that we should vote today.
To avoid the possibility of our vote being declared invalid, since we do not yet have the opinion of the Committee of the Regions, I suggest that we postpone the vote until tomorrow.
Parliament agreed to this proposal
Mr President, we looked at this report yesterday evening, and Mr Flynn, the Commissioner responsible, told us that the Commission accepted all the amendments.
This is in yesterday's Minutes.
So the problem has been solved.
I do not think the Council needs to approve them, because we will be coming back to them later.
The rapporteur's position is a very sensible one.
We shall proceed to the vote.
The President declared the common position approved as amended
Mr President, this amendment seeks to protect citizens from unsolicited e-mail which they have to pay for in the form of telephone charges.
At the end of the debate this morning Commissioner Liikanen told us that the Commission would not accept this amendment even if it is adopted by this Assembly.
I wish to put on record that many of us in this House find it unacceptable that the Commission refuses to accept, for technical reasons, an amendment which is a clear expression of the political will of Parliament.
We must not allow advertisers ...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr Watson, that is not correct.
We are not having a debate now.
I could give you the floor on a point of order but not to make this kind of speech.
Parliament adopted the legislative resolution
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, things are livening up again, and so they should!
I am afraid I have to invoke Rule 129 and request that the report be referred back to committee.
It is not a matter of having no agreement with Mexico, but rather of our perception of our role as a parliament.
A year ago, we decided to approve an interim agreement so that the overall agreement could be negotiated, and at the time we explicitly said that we would not approve the overall agreement until all of its component parts had been negotiated.
And that is precisely what has not yet been done.
If we want to exercise our powers of control, not least on behalf of the European people, we should have absolutely no qualms about putting this agreement on hold and voting on it when all the pieces are in place.
The Mexican Parliament approved the agreement on the proviso that the government would consult it again at the end when the whole agreement was completed.
That is how we see our function here in Parliament, and that is why I would ask you to endorse my motion.
I put to the vote the request for referral back to committee.
Parliament rejected the request
We shall thus move on to the vote.
Parliament adopted the decision
Mr President, a few moments ago, when I requested, as was my right under Rule 129, that the Colom i Naval report be referred back to committee, Mr Samland felt the need to criticise me for my absence from the meeting of the Committee on Budgets on Monday evening.
That argument is somewhat insubstantial, even more so than the jacket that the chairman is wearing today.
I just wanted to say that I am obviously very pleased that my absence was noticed, as that proves that something gets done when I am there.
However, on Monday evening there were several important meetings, including that of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, and it was due to the fact that I was sitting on the Committee on Legal Affairs that I was absent from the Committee on Budgets.
I would also like to add that I had attended the previous meeting on 29 April, the one that is mentioned in the report, and that I voted against the Colom i Naval report, which was not altered very much during the committee's meeting on Monday night.
I will be voting today in favour of zero tolerance towards all forms of fraud, as myself and my Labour colleagues have done consistently whenever such issues have come before us.
Cases of maladministration, dishonesty, corruption - whatever you wish to call them - may be rare.
The cost, however, does not just come out of my own, my constituents' and others' pockets - bad enough though that is.
The ultimate cost is borne by the European Union as a whole, which is tainted and labelled a cosy club of crooks in the public imagination.
The Labour Government lost no time in setting tough new standards in public life in Britain when it came to power two years ago.
By then, 18 years of Tory sleaze had weakened the very fabric of public trust underpinning British democracy.
As a part of this process, the Labour Government also began devolving power from Westminster and bringing it closer to the people.
Indeed, today voters will elect the first Parliament in Scotland for nearly 300 years and the first all-Wales Assembly ever.
In my own region, the new North West Regional Assembly could one day form the basis of regional government for the people of the North West - if they so desire it.
Labour will not flinch from pushing for the highest possible standards in public life, whether in London, Brussels, Edinburgh or Manchester.
Labour will also continue to argue that decisions are taken as close to the people as possible, whether in Britain or Europe.
McCarthy and Hatzidakis recommendation (A4-0264/99)
On 28 April the European Commission adopted the preliminary draft budget of the European Union for the 2000 financial year, the first year for the new financial perspectives.
The commitment appropriations proposed for structural measures are in accordance with the European Council decision: EUR 32.678 billion shared between the Structural Funds (EUR 30 billion) and the Cohesion Fund (EUR 2.6 billion), which represents a 7 % decrease compared with 1999, in other words, a large decrease, and to a certain extent, one that is TOO LARGE.
In order to compensate for this reduction in the budget, we need to increase the efficiency of the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.
This is the aim of the draft regulations that we are discussing today.
The Cohesion Fund is a separate consideration, because it is based on funding by project and not by programme. It may be separate, but it has a determining role in that its aim is economic and social cohesion, one of the missions of the European Union.
This is why there was a need to revise its basic regulations, notably by redefining the key terms and in particular the actual concept of the project, as the Commission's proposal suggests.
I also support the idea of simplifying financial management, and I feel that it is essential to ensure that the Member States take responsibility for the Fund, and to monitor the use that is made of the subsidies granted from it, as otherwise the risk of fraud will be increased.
With regard to the Structural Funds in general, the Council regulation only envisaged three Community initiatives (Interreg, Leader and EQUAL).
The European Parliament managed to reach a compromise with the Council concerning the inclusion of a fourth initiative, URBAN.
I welcome this.
This initiative, which began life several years ago, has demonstrated how essential it was in urban areas in crisis.
More specifically, concerning the ERDF, the rapporteur opted for the reasonable solution by not altering our first reading of the Council proposal.
For your information, following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the extension of the codecision procedure, the European Parliament intends to change its position on 49 first readings under the cooperation procedure and on 15 texts adopted at first reading under the cooperation procedure.
The European Parliament only intends to uphold its opinion on three regulations resulting from Agenda 2000, including the one that we are debating today.
In this case this is due to the need to move this forward rapidly.
With the same aim, the rapporteur has proposed compromise amendments to prevent the reform from being blocked.
I think that these amendments (measures in favour of island regions, expanding the ERDF's scope of research, support from the ERDF for the URBAN and Interreg Community initiatives) are appropriate, and I support them.
I hope that the Council will ratify them quickly, as we cannot afford any more delays.
I did not vote in favour of the final resolutions on the reform of the CAP for the following reasons: 1. it does not guarantee restoration of the internal balance between the different components of the CAP or greater fairness between farmers, types of production and regions; 2. it does not help to further economic and social cohesion in European rural areas; mechanisms for weighting productivity in such a way as to benefit farmers with lower yields have not been created, despite the European Parliament's approval of such mechanisms; 3. there are no special support measures for small farmers, who are most vulnerable and run the greatest risk of abandonment; 4. it does not adequately reinforce rural development policy, as it does not ensure practical application of the European agricultural model and the multifunctionality associated with it; 5. it does not defend European agriculture in the face of the negotiations in the new round of the World Trade Organisation; 6. it does not take into account solutions for the main problems faced by Portuguese farmers: strategic quotas such as irrigation or beef cattle and sheep have not been increased; it has not achieved an increase in productivity in relation to cereals and oilseed; it has not secured Community financing for restructuring the dairy sector; 7. lastly, because this has been a reform of the status quo, lacking in political courage and quite incapable of preparing European farming for the increased challenges of globalisation, and geared chiefly towards more efficient farmers and agricultural sectors.
In other words, it has been a reform very much at odds with the general principles for reform approved by the European Parliament in its general report of June 1998.
The determination and perseverance of the members of the European Parliament's Committee on Regional Policy and of our two rapporteurs have finally paid off.
I welcome this and I thank our colleagues for their persuasive efforts.
Following the conclusions of the Berlin European Council, our Committee on Regional Policy had to fight on an important issue for all the people of Europe: establishing a fourth Community initiative, URBAN, which is aimed at the economic and social regeneration of cities and urban neighbourhoods in crisis with a view to promoting sustainable development.
This was one of the priorities for the Group of the Party of European Socialists. We managed to have it adopted by the plenary session in Strasbourg on 19 November 1998, and we had to get it accepted by the Commission and the Council.
Parliament's credibility and our commitment to our constituents were at stake.
The Union needed to also help those who would not be included in a 'zone' or a regional 'Objective'.
Our duty of solidarity was at stake, and our concept of Europe was being put to the test.
It has been recognised that our point of view is correct.
This is why I will vote in favour of this report and all of the reports that are part of the Agenda 2000 package.
The 2000-2006 perspectives can now be launched.
Parliament is therefore ending this legislature by tying up this issue, one which is paramount for the future of Europe and of enlargement.
It has been a long, arduous and difficult battle, sometimes strewn with obstacles, but it has always been an exciting one, and I am pleased to have been a part of it.
The reform of the Structural Funds does nothing to make up for the shortcomings of regional policy.
It will not help to improve economic and social cohesion.
It will result in a particularly damaging breakdown of regional policy, notably to the detriment of several rural areas of France.
We will not waste any time on considering and weighing up each of the measures, which are more or less welcome, that are contained in the general regulation.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations intends to question the supposed benefits of costly Structural Funds, which are tools used by the Commission to gain political favour in order to serve a centralist Europe.
In this respect, the reform of the Structural Funds has resulted in another increase in funding: ECU 195 billion for structural policy, ECU 18 billion for the Cohesion Fund and ECU 49 billion for the pre-accession instruments.
The Objective 1 regions get the lion's share, with 69.7 % of structural funding, compared with 11.5 % for Objective 2.
Everyone is competing to be the most eloquent in demanding more funding, but no one is questioning the effectiveness of the money spent.
What is there to say about a budgetary approach which consists of fixing a spending objective rather than a ceiling for spending, seeking out projects at all costs in order to spend all of the funds that have been approved, rather than allocating funds to existing projects? Spending is becoming an end in itself and the measure of the programme's success.
It may also seem strange that during the negotiations Objective 2, which is dedicated to industrial and rural regions undergoing economic restructuring, should have been sacrificed, to the benefit of Objectives 1 and 3: its budgetary envelope will be ECU 22.5 billion for the 1999-2006 period, which is more or less the same figure as for the 1994-1999 period.
Rural regions eligible for Objective 5b will be among the main victims of this situation: in France, one third of the population eligible under this Objective will no longer receive structural funding after the transition period.
The future of rural areas seems to be all the more uncertain given that the Commission and Parliament, always concerned with seizing new fields of competence for themselves, plan to develop an integrated urban policy, in contempt of the principle of subsidiarity.
The Orlando report, which was hastily adopted on Tuesday without even being put to the vote, echoes President Prodi's investiture speech in calling for this European policy for cities.
Once again, the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations would like to reiterate its desire to see the European Union concentrate its efforts on the existing common policies (the CAP, the CFP, etcetera) rather than spreading itself across an ever greater number of sectors, with a danger of worsening the inevitably inefficient scattering of public funds and encouraging an increase in public spending, which is always harmful.
This is not the only anomaly in the reform of the Structural Funds.
Many regions are benefiting from special treatment, as a result of political bargaining that has enabled them to escape the rigour of joint decisions.
Only three countries are left out of this: Luxembourg, Finland ... and France.
The case of the Belgian Hainaut is significant.
It is receiving an additional allocation of ECU 15 billion in order to compensate for the loss of its eligibility for Objective 1, while the French Hainaut, which borders on it, is receiving nothing; this discrimination is not justified either by the GNP or by the level of unemployment in the two regions.
This example is quite a good illustration of France's position at the end of the negotiations on Agenda 2000.
Having been undermined by Germany with regard to agricultural issues, France's position on regional policy has been manipulated, while it is also unable to maintain the position that it had within the CAP.
The reform of the Structural Funds is a failure: a failure for Europe and a failure for France.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations therefore had no choice but to reject the McCarthy-Hatzidakis report.
Structural policy has now developed into one of the main elements of Community policy.
About a third of the Community budget is spent on structural support measures.
We all agree that European structural support cannot be spread evenly across all the regions of Europe.
This implies a reduction in the number of regions considered worthy of support, and hence in the target areas for assistance from the Structural Funds.
It is a good thing that we have created a phasing-out period for regions, such as many of the Objective 2 areas, which are set to lose their eligibility for support; this will prevent the abrupt termination of programmes that have started well.
However, the support for rural areas for which we had campaigned was not introduced.
We do have the Leader initiative, but that is only a drop in the ocean.
Measuring rural areas in Europe against areas with high population densities is the wrong approach.
The measures of hardship in rural areas are the absence of particular infrastructural facilities and the disadvantages deriving from the economic and social structure.
These shortcomings create a vicious circle, because a lack of infrastructure means a lack of jobs.
People cannot escape from this vicious circle by their own devices alone.
We have been discussing programmes such as Restruct or Recover, and URBAN is set to become the fourth Community initiative.
Smaller and medium-sized towns are measured against towns with populations in excess of 50 000.
This is another way in which smaller structures in Europe, including rural structures, are being sidelined.
We want to help the poorest regions in Europe to reduce the gap between themselves and the richest regions.
In our efforts to do this, please do not let us allow the structurally weak rural areas to slip through the safety net.
The decision-making process which led to the establishment of new Structural Funds regulations has been followed attentively by the European Parliament.
The final result, although it did not include absolutely all of Parliament's requests, was very much influenced by the latter through the work of the Committee on Regional Policy, the rapporteurs and the group which conducted the negotiations.
Having participated actively in the entire process, I must say that I am particularly pleased with the decision to renew the URBAN programme.
This result is particularly important for cities, since it reinforces and boosts the credibility of the Action Plan for sustainable cities submitted by the Commission last November in Vienna, and because it reinforces the instruments already contained in Objectives 1 and 2 of the Structural Funds for urban areas.
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteurs on the framework regulation for their willingness to tackle the problem of an Italian region particularly close to our hearts.
This is the Abruzzi region, which was removed from Objective 1 of the Structural Funds in 1994.
It is the only region in Europe which has not been able to benefit from any flanking measure provided for under the new regulations for former Objective 1 regions.
The Berlin European Council mentioned this as one of the 'special cases' which are listed as an annex to the report which we are about to approve.
Nonetheless, paragraph 44 of the Council conclusions does not detail what is meant by the special attention which the Council quite rightly intends to pay to this region.
I hope that Parliament's requests will lead both the Council and the Commission to quantify the funding and/or population size allowed and clarify the possibility of granting state aid by way of exception to the competition rules under the terms of Article 92(3)(c) of the Treaty, as has been done in other so-called 'special cases'.
I voted for the report.
The European Parliament has significantly improved the Commission proposal.
The changes will primarily benefit the people in the regions of Europe.
Their participatory rights have been decisively strengthened.
It is a great pity that the Council has been reluctant to adopt these wide-ranging rules.
I will be voting enthusiastically in favour of this report today.
Building on the work of Labour MEPs, Tony Blair gained a great deal for Britain - and the North-West in particular - at the Berlin Summit.
As a result, European funds will continue to flow into the North-West to help tackle unemployment, social exclusion and environmental pollution.
This is just another example of Labour's positive approach to Europe delivering concrete results to the people of Britain.
Euro funds have already made a lasting improvement to the lives of the people of the North-West.
In my own part of the world in Manchester, the EU has pumped 13 million pounds into the Metrolink light rail network.
The EU also helped build the Trafford Park industrial estate, creating over 15, 000 jobs.
Euro money was a key element in transforming the old Manchester docks at Salford Quays into a vibrant commercial centre, creating over 4, 000 jobs.
EU funds also helped transform Manchester into a major cultural and tourism centre, by helping build the G Mex Exhibition Centre, the Bridgewater Concert Hall, The Manchester Museum of Science and Industry and the Imperial War Museum (North).
The Euro-rabid Tories - the ones led by William Hague, that is - would have us believe that the EU brings us nothing but bureaucracy and interference.
With a positive approach, however, the EU can make a real contribution to the lives of ordinary people in the North-West.
While the Tories are taking time off trying to heal their splits, Labour is hard at work making Brussels work for Britain.
On behalf of Alleanza Nazionale I would like to say how glad I am that before being dissolved Parliament has commented on the reform of the Structural Funds.
Misunderstandings by the Commission and the Council threatened to undermine the result of painstaking work, with the risk of reducing negotiations to a trial of strength between the institutions.
We are delighted to have established, together with the texts of the new regulations, a starting point enabling us to be actively involved in the management of the funds, which is also facilitated by the code of conduct drawn up between the Commission and Parliament on the implementation of the structural policies.
This will allow Parliament to play an active role in the reform, including in the implementation stage and throughout the programming period.
The fact that URBAN is to be included once again amongst the Community initiatives is a victory for all European citizens.
The key role of urban and metropolitan areas in regional development must be acknowledged.
The importance of balanced and complementary growth in urban and rural areas is essential for economic and regional development.
To this end it is necessary at all levels to enhance cooperation between regional and local authorities and socio-economic operators, those closest to the changing world of the regions; it is also necessary, however, to take account of the competitive differences between regions because of the different levels of employment, quality of infrastructures, the natural environment and development, in particular during the sensitive stage that is just starting with the selection of regions which are eligible under Objective 2.
In general terms we are in favour of reform, but we have a few reservations about aspects which have not yet been explored in sufficient detail, such as, for example, the impact on regions which, for the sake of the principle of concentration, run the risk of seeing their development process come to a standstill.
People living in these regions will be penalised and that will not help show that the European Union assists the development of less favoured regions.
Italy too runs the risk of being penalised by the calculation of the financial resources ceiling for the new Objective 2.
Regions in industrial or rural decline (former Objectives 2 and 5b) will have their share of funding reduced compared to the previous programming period, with a guaranteed maximum reduction of 33 % of the population concerned; to this percentage, however, would be added the figure accounted for by the inclusion of former Objective 1 regions, causing these regions to be doubly penalised; and this is leaving aside the case of Abruzzi - the only region removed from Objective 1 before the end of the current programming period - which, hovering somewhere between transitional support and inclusion in Objective 2, runs the risk of not being fairly included in this reform framework.
Colom i Naval report (A4-0230/99)
Mr President, we are all aware of the conditions in which the vote took place on Mr Colom i Naval's report.
Although it did not have my support, I would like to say that, as budget rapporteur - if I am to continue in this role in the future, something which only God and the electorate know - my group and I are fully prepared to be as loyal as possible in the spirit of interinstitutional cooperation.
Our contempt for the agreement was not a reflection of a contempt for cooperation.
It reflected our contempt for a risky and excessively restrictive seven-year financial programme.
I repeat what I said a moment ago: I simply regret the fact that the vote took place under circumstances which mean that this agreement is tainted with uncertainty and which mean that it is at the mercy of any occasional vote from Parliament.
I still say, Mr President, that on this point you did not help the cause of interinstitutional cooperation by favouring the voting rule that you chose.
Mr President, I voted against the Colom i Naval report, in particular for the procedural reasons that were mentioned at the time of the vote and which I mentioned myself.
It is not acceptable for the report as presented by the Committee on Budgets to include an amendment that goes a great deal further than the object of the report itself. This is true to the extent that it has now been placed in an totally ambiguous situation, given that at the time when we considered the report in the Committee on Budgets on 29 April, there was no question of approving the text of the agreement.
I would like to add to what Mr Bourlanges said a moment ago, that institutional agreements cannot be considered separately.
It is the entire procedure that is wrong.
It is wrong, firstly because there is not an absolute majority, something which you yourself insisted on for the interinstitutional agreement of 17 July 1998 on the common foreign and security policy, an agreement that I fought along with my group. Secondly, it is wrong because the national parliaments have not ratified texts which add to, alter and refine the Treaties, sometimes to a considerable degree.
What Mr Bourlanges has just said concerning the budgetary aspect is therefore particularly true, but he should have extended his comments to all interinstitutional agreements.
We welcome the idea of a new interinstitutional agreement on budgetary discipline for the next seven years.
Experience with the financial perspective over the period 1988 to 1999 has shown that annual budgets can perfectly well be implemented without conflict.
It was also possible to adopt budgets which fell well below the revenue-based ceiling of own-resources.
We believe in financial parameters for the annual budgetary procedure, particularly given the pre-accession arrangements and the measures required in that context.
It is important for the EU to ensure that it has the financial resources necessary for admitting the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as Cyprus.
We support this proposal for a lower financial ceiling than that established in the CAP guidelines.
The EU spends far too much money on an over-regulated system of agriculture which is not sufficiently adjusted to today's environmental requirements.
Reform of the CAP must be pursued.
We also believe that the best way of funding European policy is by concentrating on those measures that are absolutely vital, rather then creating mini-budgets which swallow up large amounts of the Member States' money.
We therefore support the Council's endeavour to produce a tight budget covering the whole period.
Since we seek budgetary restraint as far as the EU is concerned and advocate a lean financial perspective with well-founded priorities, we oppose the suggested increases in the EU's budget for the coming years. We voted in favour of referral back to committee.
Financial perspectives extending over seven years, with no scope for adaptations in between, make no structural sense; the economy could at any time require alternative parameters.
Mr President, allow me to ask you just one question concerning the McCarthy report.
A moment ago, you postponed a report because we did not have the opinion of the Committee on the Regions.
I think that the same argument is valid for the McCarthy report. Could you confirm this for me?
If this is the case, why was the vote not postponed? I do not think that we have the opinion of the Committee on the Regions yet on these general provisions concerning the Structural Funds.
The services tell me that the opinion of the Committee of the Regions on this report was not necessary, and no one requested this opinion during the procedure, as had been the case with the other report you mentioned.
Now that the vote has taken place, it is rather late to ask whether this opinion was necessary or not.
The question should have been raised beforehand.
The Collins report proposes the continuation of the Cohesion Fund for the four beneficiary Member States: Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland.
The Cohesion Fund was set up in order to encourage certain Member States to join the single currency: Community funds were allocated in order to enable them to cope with the budgetary tightening that was imposed by the Maastricht criteria.
To ease the burden caused by the four Member States that benefit from the Cohesion Fund, payments were also made to other Member States, including France, to cover the cost of the convergence criteria.
I could add that the Cohesion Fund contributed to the conjuring trick that made some Member States into miracles of monetary union.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, which fought against the very principle of the single currency, must consequently have reservations about the Fund and the use that is being made of it.
The policy of redistribution, when taken to such extremes, has overwhelming repercussions for the economy, as it weighs down private initiative with the burden of obligatory deductions.
Moreover, there are serious faults in the Cohesion Fund: in particular, its efficiency is questionable and there are financial irregularities in the way that funds are used.
In addition, it is a tool for federalist redistribution, whose aim is more to gain support for the Commission among the beneficiary Member States and their people rather than to enable them to overcome their difficulties.
The only merit of the Cohesion Fund is that it is allocated to Member States and not to their regions, as is the case with the Structural Funds.
The launch of the single currency is in danger of worsening the imbalances between Member States and causing an increase in relocations, either towards states or regions that are more competitive than others, or away from regions that are in difficulty towards the dominant economic centres that we are already seeing emerge (north-west Germany, the Benelux countries, Ile-de-France, northern Italy).
In this context, the Cohesion Fund will perhaps enable us to limit the damage done by EMU, but it will nevertheless fall very far short of what is needed.
This is why the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations could not vote in favour of the Collins report.
The Green Group votes against the recommendation on the Cohesion Fund Regulation because most of the innovative requests expressed by the European Parliament in the first reading aiming to strengthen and integrate the role of the Cohesion Fund within the European structural policy have not been taken into serious consideration in the new regulation.
Parliament actually: - opposed the conditionality of the Cohesion Fund vis-à-vis the stability pact, because it believes that the Cohesion Fund must be considered in full terms a structural instrument; - considered that the Cohesion Fund should be subject to the same partnership rules applying for the Structural Funds, and that its operations are planned within an integrated framework together with the structural operations, involving regional and local authorities; Parliament also wished that mainstreaming horizontal themes such as employment and equal opportunities should be taken into account in the Cohesion Fund in the same way as in the Structural Funds; - asked that Cohesion Fund resources in the fields of transport and mobility are used to fund projects which improve regional and interregional cohesion, interoperability and intermodality, and in the field of the environment are also used to fund projects to maintain and restore biodiversity and preserve natural reserves; - stressed the importance of being able to group together small projects into a bigger entity and demanded therefore that some 5 % of the total fund endowment be made available for projects of this kind.
The Green Group considers those requirements fundamental and therefore is not content with the agreement reached in the Council to maintain the Cohesion Fund without deeply reforming it.
Considering that the text of the regulation agreed in the Council of Ministers did not take into account all these points, we cannot give our assent to the launch of the Cohesion Fund.
Görlach second report (A4-0229/99)
For several years, the people of the European Union have been demonstrating more and more clearly their rejection of ultra-liberal policies and the damaging effects that they have on employment, incomes, social protection systems and public services, the environment and land use.
They want quite the opposite: a shift towards European policies whose aims and methods are social and democratic progress and the establishment of mutually advantageous international cooperation.
These demands are being expressed through campaigns and demonstrations at national and European level.
They have met with a response, even in Berlin, where the Commission's most ultra-liberal plans were rejected.
Nevertheless, the interests that are best defended are those of the major economic and financial players at European and international level.
However, this debate is also an open one, as the European Parliament elections take it to the level of all of the people of Europe.
It is now up to them to have their say on the reform of European policies and integration.
By voting against the ultra-liberal regulations of Agenda 2000, I want to give those people every opportunity to intervene.
Görlach, Mulder, Graefe zu Baringdorf, Garot, Goepel, Fantuzzi and P. Martin second reports (A4-0229/99, A4-0213/99, A4-0231/99, A4-0212/99, A4-0232/99, A4-0215/99 and A4-0223/99)
The debate on Agenda 2000 has lasted more than a year, and has taken up the bulk of the work of Parliament's Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
At the end of my mandate, in May 1999, my political positions on social issues such as agriculture, food, rural development and the environment remain the same.
The reform of the CAP was necessary, but not in the form proposed in Agenda 2000 by the European Commission.
In our debates we have demonstrated a certain level of consensus on what we now call the 'European agricultural model', which on many points is at odds with the ultra-liberal aims of the countries of the Cairns Group and of the United States.
I therefore voted against the reports which had not been sufficiently amended by Parliament and which therefore lose their meaning and substance. What is more, some rapporteurs share my position.
1.The Görlach report as it stands, with a budgetary allocation that is far too small, does not allow the implementation of a real policy of rural development, which is more necessary than ever in order to guarantee a worthy and lasting future for the rural areas of the EU (80 % of EU territory).2.The Mulder report mentions in a recital the possibility of cofinancing, which we opposed because in the long term it would mean the destruction of the CAP and of the objectives of the Treaty.3.The Graefe zu Baringdorf report did not allow for a coherent mechanism to reorganise and limit agricultural aid according to social and environmental criteria, and following the amendments adopted in committee, the rapporteur himself will probably not recognise an amended text which is too far removed from his original text.4.With regard to the Goepel report on milk, it did ensure the maintenance of some sort of status quo, but it envisaged the possibility of abolishing milk quotas.However, I voted for the reports in which Parliament's firm position had significantly altered the uncompromising or inadequate nature of the Commission's proposals:
5.The Garot report, in which the skill and determination of the rapporteur meant that the beef sector could be partly protected, particularly suckler herds, which maintain the countryside, give structure to rural production, guarantee income for quality production without hormones, and safeguard the environment.6.The Martin report, the text of which my colleagues and I have altered considerably in a manner that favours all of the wine-producing industry - some parts of the industry have already said so - particularly with regard to the definition of wine, the ban on producing European wines with must imported from third countries and the preservation of traditional oenological practices and therefore of the quality that underlies our European cultural identity.7.The Fantuzzi report on COPs, even though the treatment of oil proteins is still far from satisfactory.I am convinced that European farmers and consumers will therefore understand the way in which I have voted and will be aware of the battles that still have to be fought in order that European construction may have a future in this field.
We abstained in the votes on the Görlach, Graefe zu Baringdorf, Garot, Goepel, Fantuzzi and Martin reports, since we believe that the entire EU agricultural policy should be wound up.
Responsibility for efficient, ecological farm policy must be returned to the Member States.
Graefe zu Baringdorf second report (A4-0231/99)
As a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and coordinator of the Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations, I voted against all of the amendments tabled by our rapporteur, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, as his proposals were completely incoherent with regard to the economic situation of European agriculture.
I was pleased to see that the majority of my colleagues in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development came to the same conclusions as I did.
This is why no amendments to the Commission's proposal were adopted in the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
All of the French members of the Europe of Nations Group voted against the legislative resolution, bearing out the Berlin agreement on this point.
European agriculture is in a very bad situation.
The price of agricultural products is falling steadily, as the principle of Community preference gradually disappears.
The globalisation of trade in agricultural products is not an empty word, but a reality that our farmers are experiencing.
The forthcoming negotiations in the World Trade Organisation lead me to fear the worst for the years to come.
Did Commissioner Fischler not say yesterday in this House that he envisaged a fresh reform of the common agricultural policy in 2003?
The fact that the date given in that statement coincides with the end of the negotiations in 2003 is surely not a coincidence.
Direct support for farmers is necessary, and it is essential for some sectors of agriculture.
For example, the sector that currently receives the most aid is sheep farming.
It is completely absurd, given farmers' level of income, to try to put a ceiling on aid and to reduce it steadily.
In France, sheep farmers have the lowest income among farmers.
A direct and across-the board reduction in compensatory aid will therefore upset the balance in European agriculture.
The only European producers that will survive will be those who are most competitive at world level.
The environmental balance and the balance of land use and use of agricultural land will be completely upset in the years to come if the policy of destroying the CAP continues as it was launched in 1992.
P. Martin second report (A4-0223/99)
Politics, as we all know, is the art of the possible.
This being the case, I suppose I shall have to bring myself to give my approval in the end to the reports on the reform of the common agricultural policy in the framework of Agenda 2000, and thereby to give the green light for the political decision of the agriculture ministers and the Berlin summit to be adopted in legislative form by the Council.
Needless to say, I cannot be enthusiastic about the results of Berlin summit in terms of the common organisation of the markets in milk, beef and cereals.
But these are the lesser of two evils when compared with the Commission proposals and are even an improvement on the outcome of the Agriculture Council discussions.
Whether this compromise will be enough to save the European agricultural model is, unfortunately, a matter for conjecture.
As far as the reform of the common organisation of the wine market is concerned, I can live with that, but I should feel more comfortable with it if the compromises proposed in the second Martin report were taken on board by the Council.
Surely it is unacceptable that wine-growing areas should suddenly appear in Ireland, Denmark and Sweden, thereby raising the spectre of wine being produced there in future with imported grape juice and being marketed as a product of the Community.
It is also a pity that the splendid chapter on vinicultural products and health which we had included in our report was not retained.
We have reintroduced it into the second Martin report, because we cannot give up our hope of contributing to public health in the European Union by extolling the benefits of moderate wine consumption to the peoples of our countries who are unaware that wine is actually the best and most pleasant preventive medicine for Alzheimer's, cancer and senility, to name but a few malignant and debilitating diseases.
Pronk recommendation for second reading (A4-0155/99)
The European Parliamentary Labour Party is in opposition to Amendment No 7 of the report because it has unnecessary repetition of existing EU legislation and lack of specific clarity on the issue of adaptation of machinery or replacement of all machinery whether or not it was practical to do so.
Oddy report (A4-0248/99)
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of a proposal on electronic commerce which will safeguard consumers' interests on the Internet and at the same time remove barriers for service providers that are established in the EU.
We have voted in favour of a large number of practical requirements aimed at improving the protection of consumers' interests.
The principle that the rules of the country of origin will apply with regard to Internet commerce has both advantages and disadvantages.
It is an advantage for the Internet industry that they are subject to regulations in their home country, since they then know the rules.
Conversely, it may be a problem that the consumers do not know the rules.
We have therefore voted in favour of increasing the rights of the consumer, including a requirement that the Member States must take measures to ensure that consumers can have themselves entered in an opt-out register, which the service provider must then check regularly.
As a general principle, the Danish Social Democrats are working to ensure the strictest possible EU minimum requirements with regard to marketing on the Internet.
If common rules are ultimately adopted which raise the level of consumer protection in every country, it will become less important whether it is the rules of the country of origin or those of the recipient country that apply.
Miranda de Lage recommendation (A4-0220/99)
Several factors have been instrumental in our refraining from voting in favour of Mrs Miranda de Lage's report on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning the conclusion of the Economic Partnership, Political Coordination and Cooperation Agreement between the European Community and its Member States, on the one part, and the United Mexican States, on the other part.
The negotiations between the parties to the agreement will not be concluded until late in the year.
To accept the Commission's proposal regarding the content of the agreement at this point will therefore be tantamount to giving the Council and the Commission a blank cheque for the negotiations.
We wish to see the final result before we reach a decision on the extent to which we can support it.
The Commission's proposal for the agreement is a distinct improvement on the present framework agreement on cooperation, dating from 1991, which it is to replace.
In particular, the democracy clause (Article 1) is an important step forward.
What is lacking, however, is a clear specification of the mechanisms that are to be used to monitor the extent to which the parties are respecting human rights.
Without such mechanisms, the clause is essentially useless.
Bearing in mind Mexico's continual infringements of human rights, this is wholly unacceptable.
Moreover, the proposal does not contain any indications as to how the involvement of civil society can be promoted and how respect for workers' rights can be ensured.
Whilst congratulating and supporting the rapporteur and my esteemed colleague, Mrs Miranda de Lage in relation to her work on Mexico, as for Latin America as a whole, I have to record my personal reasons for voting against ratification of this agreement.
It is less than a year since Parliament ratified the Interim Agreement on the basis that the human rights clause it contained would be a test of the Mexican Government's seriousness in ensuring human rights cooperation was central to relations with the EU.
We also expected that human rights issues would play a central role in negotiations between the Mexicans and the European Commission.
Meanwhile the human rights crisis in Chiapas, southern Mexico, continues to deteriorate, and we have no evidence that the negotiations for clear mechanisms for the application and monitoring of the democracy and human rights clause have been included in the negotiations.
Our sister party, the PRD in Mexico and human rights NGOs believe it is premature for this Parliament to ratify the full agreement.
I share their view.
The way this whole Mexico report has been handled has been deeply disappointing.
By dealing with the proposal now, the European Parliament has not kept to what it said earlier.
In its report of April 1998, Parliament said that it would not approve the overall agreement until it was clear exactly what it contained.
At the moment, the European Union is in the middle of negotiations with Mexico, and the substance of a number of provisions in the overall agreement will not be established until the end of this year.
We feel that Parliament has acted irresponsibly by voting on the report now, as this will simply be signing a blank cheque and we will have no further influence in the matter.
Apart from these procedural objections, there were also aspects of the substance of the report that led us to vote against the agreement with Mexico.
The rapporteur has seriously misrepresented the human rights situation in Mexico.
She talks about recent progress in the field of human rights and lists all kinds of formal measures that Mexico has taken.
But in practice the protection of human rights in Mexico is still far from perfect, as we can see from the unlawful executions and the continuing gang warfare in Chiapas.
The overall agreement contains no mechanisms for enforcing compliance with human rights.
Our second objection concerns Mexico's environmental policy, which the rapporteur does not even mention, although we and others provided her with information about it.
The planned construction of an enormous new salt production plant threatens not just a Unesco-protected nature reserve but also various species including the grey whale, which comes to these waters to calve.
If Mexico persists with these dangerous plans, then despite the trade agreement we must keep the option open of imposing a trade boycott in the form of an import ban on Mexican salt.
Aglietta report (A4-0169/99)
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations did not vote for the Aglietta report on the implementing powers conferred on the Commission, mainly because the European Parliament is seeking to distort the meaning of certain new provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam in order to alter the institutional balance to its benefit.
Although the Treaty of Amsterdam extended the scope of codecision between the Council and the European Parliament, it certainly did not make it the general rule.
Above all, it did not modify Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union, which gives the European Council (and thus the hierarchy of the different Councils) the role of instigating EU policies, nor did it modify Article 202 of the EC Treaty, which gives the Council the sole responsibility for determining the implementing powers that will be conferred on the Commission.
This being the case, even if Parliament increases its influence, it is clear that the Treaties still place the Council at the centre of the institutional system.
We therefore think that the Aglietta report, which claims for the European Parliament the right to interfere in implementing measures, particularly through the granting of the right to revoke a decision, contradicts the philosophy of the current institutions of the Union.
Moreover, it is questionable whether it is actually in the interests of the European Parliament to claim such a right.
Due to the lack of distinction between a law and a regulation at European level, the European Parliament is already forced to spend a considerable amount of time on trivial issues.
If it also had to take part in implementing powers, the situation would be even worse.
I must first of all congratulate Mrs Aglietta on the quality of her work and the results that she has achieved in ensuring that the various committees involved in the process of adopting implementing powers are forced to be transparent.
The battle that I have been fighting since I was first given a mandate is finally bearing fruit, thanks to the perseverance of a rapporteur who has always been willing to listen and with whom I have had great pleasure in working.
The amendments made to the Commission proposal that the Council is prepared to accept considerably improve access to information on the Community decision procedures; these procedures are too secretive, whether they concern the work of the committees, the documents submitted, the agendas, the list of participants or the committees' work schedule.
I also attach particular importance to the rule of adhering to the principle of making everything public, with confidentiality being the exception (Amendment No 31).
I hope that once this principle has been laid down, it will not be reduced to nothing by a lack of serious motivation to determine the degree of confidentiality.
However, there are some criticisms to be made of other aspects of the report.
They are the aspects that extend ad infinitum the scope of Community regulation, and which now call for a simplification of the existing procedures, following the bureaucratic and administrative obstructions that they have caused.
We should remember this lesson when the Treaties are next revised and come to an agreement once and for all on the scope of Community powers.
Respect for the principle of subsidiarity would be a first step, but that does not feature in the report.
On the contrary, this supposed simplification is a pretext for reinforcing the supranational dimension of the European Union.
The Commission, which already has a monopoly on initiative, would thus seize executive power in Europe to become the government of the European Union, with the Council being reduced to the role of a second parliamentary chamber, making decisions by majority.
It is a step forward for the committees to be working in an open and transparent manner, but to cut them off from national concerns in carrying out their duties in order to put them under the power of the Commission is a mistake which I reject.
Resolution on Kosovo
Mr President, like many people from France and other European countries, we are appalled by the increase in the exodus of Albanians from Kosovo and by the parallel escalation in NATO bombing.
This disastrous development of events, which is contrary to all the assurances that we were given at the start of the war, and contrary to the humanitarian objectives of the war itself, can only reinforce the doubts that we had expressed from the start concerning the strategy being used.
We feel that Europe is adding another error to this initial one, an error that has very serious consequences for the future.
Both from listening to the speeches made by Members during the debate that has taken place in this House, and from listening to the speeches made by the President of France, I am struck by the fact that analyses of the deterioration of events only implicate Slobodan Milosevic personally, his family and his inner circle.
Although their responsibility is undeniable, we cannot restrict the causes of the conflict to those people alone.
On the contrary, it is clear that the conflict was born out of very ancient disagreements that are deeply ingrained in the various peoples that are involved.
What is even more serious is that this error of judgement is in danger of guiding us towards the wrong solutions.
Implicating solely Slobodan Milosevic and his entourage insinuates that it would be enough to overthrow them in order for everything to be put right, for the Kosovar Albanians to return to their homes and for everyone to live in harmony in a multi-ethnic Kosovo.
In our opinion, this would be delusive, or at least it would take a long time and a great deal of effort to achieve it.
However, if we are willing to recognise that there are deep-seated quarrels involving the people themselves, and that these are difficult to eradicate in a short space of time, we will realise that we need to also consider other solutions, certainly including, for example, the partition of Kosovo.
We therefore call on the Heads of State and Government of the countries of Europe to rethink their strategy and to stop falling into line with the United States.
Mr President, I voted against.
This war is governed by lies, unilateral propaganda, cover-ups and omissions.
To start with, there is the semantic confusion: the air war against the whole of Yugoslavia is described as the 'situation in Kosovo'.
The NATO aerial bombing of civilian targets - power stations, television headquarters, schools and buses - is defined as an 'involuntary error' or 'collateral damage'.
The reciprocal ethnic atrocities are always attributed to just one side and not to the others.
In the documents approved by the majority in this House, there is no mention of the terrorist activity of the KLA, armed, financed, trained and politically adopted by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
And thus, although in the last few days some opportunities for negotiation seem to be emerging, with Ibrahim Rugova travelling freely to Rome and the three American soldiers being released, this Parliament, in its last few hours of work, opts to be led down the humiliating path of NATO propaganda with this vote on Kosovo, and fails in its political role.
I voted against this resolution because it contains no contribution from the European Parliament to help us get out of an avoidable, terrible, and to cap it all, ineffective war.
The resolution makes no reference to the glimmers of hope for a negotiated solution which have been appearing in the last few hours.
There is no assessment of the absolutely trifling role played by Europe.
Finally, the resolution does not include the call for a targeted suspension of the bombing which emerged from the debate here in the House.
Our party strongly repudiates the Milosevic regime's practice of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
Milosevic bears a formidable responsibility for the persecution of the Kosovo Albanians.
NATO's bombardments, however, have merely worsened and aggravated the situation.
We believe that the bombing must stop immediately, in parallel with a Serb withdrawal from Kosovo.
All refugees must be granted the right to return home under the protection of UN forces, comprising troops from neutral states and operating on the basis of a peacemaking mandate.
Subsequently, an international conference on the Balkans will need to be convened under the auspices of the UN and the OSCE, the aim being to stabilise the situation in the region and to guarantee Kosovo a high degree of autonomy within existing borders.
In the light of our principled stance on this issue, we decided to vote against the resolution, which does not correspond to our position on a number of important counts.
I shall be voting against the motion for a resolution on Kosovo because I believe that it offers no help whatsoever in our quest to find a political solution and in putting an end to this senseless war, especially now when, after 45 days, there are the glimmerings of hope of breaking out of this tragic impasse.
Furthermore, my position is underpinned by the following:
1.My question to the Council H-0387/22-4-99 was considered, correctly and from a strictly procedural viewpoint, to belong to the general debate on Kosovo.
However, this question remains unanswered and it is: -Is the Council aware of the allegations and reports in the international media that NATO bombing and the war in Yugoslavia have destroyed or irreparably damaged monuments forming part of the European cultural heritage, including Christian Orthodox monasteries and churches?-If these reports prove to be true: a)what does the Council propose to do to stop this irredeemable loss andb)what does it propose to do to repair the damage, as far as that is possible?This question relates in particular to a 'cultural war crime' which is being committed in Europe, in Yugoslavia, where an 'environmental war crime' is also being committed.
The war in Yugoslavia, which is hypocritically and euphemistically referred to as a 'humanitarian war'(!!!), has caused major civilian losses and has exacerbated the tragedy of the refugees. This, of course, is the main issue and the main reason for demanding the immediate cessation of the bombing and the quest for a political solution.
2.The same holds in respect of the draft motion for a resolution of 24 April 1999, which is: The European Parliament:
1.Unequivocally denounces and condemns the destructive bombardment of Belgrade Television (22 April 1999).2.Expresses its shock and sadness at the heavy human casualties (ten dead and dozens wounded) among the workers in the News department.3.Regards this as a barbaric attack against fundamental human rights, freedom of speech and expression, and freedom of the press.4.Believes that, in this light, any appeal to 'military' or 'humanitarian' expediency is unacceptable.5.Calls on the President to forward this resolution to the Council, the governments of the Member States, the Yugoslavian Government, the International Reporters' Union and NATO.- Resolution on the European Council meeting in Cologne
I wish to use this brief explanation of vote to state that I cannot support the integration of the WEU into the EU; nor do I want to see the Schengen acquis become part of the third pillar.
Resolution on institutional reform (B4-0428/99)
Mr President, in our opinion, the resolution that the European Parliament has just adopted on the method that should be used to reform the European institutions following the Treaty of Amsterdam does not make any improvements on the past and, as usual, will result in reforms from the top with no initiative or input from the people of Europe.
The principal idea of this resolution is to give the Commission the role of driving force so that it can, and I quote, 'ensure the consistency of the European political project - a role which it alone can play, '.
That is a bad start.
It is a typical reaction from technocrats to think that if they do not intervene, everything is going to dissolve into chaos.
They do not consider the idea that there could be any other type of consistency than their bureaucratic consistency, for example, democratic consistency.
On this false basis, the European Parliament's resolution, which is concerned above all with the preparatory work for future reform, proposes that the Commission should launch, and then steer, the process, and that, without relinquishing its supposed political responsibility, it should entrust the task of drawing up an initial document to a group of experts, a formula that was previously used in preparing for Maastricht.
We are absolutely opposed to this solution.
These experts, described in the resolution as 'independent', are, as usual, going to be chosen in such a way that their conclusions will inevitably be oriented towards federalism. In any case, the very method of recourse to a group of experts, whether they are federalist or not, is to be criticised, because the document that they have prepared will serve as a basis for the discussions and those who wish to oppose it will be put at an immediate disadvantage.
The Group of Independents for a Europe of Nations believes that the approach should be fully reversed and that the people should be given a say right from the preparation stage of the reform.
For a start, the national parliaments should all be consulted and all of their proposals together should form the basic document to be discussed by the Member States during the subsequent negotiations.
The Commission, the supposed experts, and the European Parliament, who will all be colluding from the start in order to strip the national democratic authorities of a little more of their power, have no place in that process.
Mr Biagio De Giovanni, chairman of the Committee on Institutional Affairs, has succeeded in covering in a few paragraphs the main points that need to be made concerning the forthcoming institutional reform.
I congratulate him on this achievement, as he did not sacrifice the content in order to achieve the desired level of conciseness.
I particularly welcome the fact that he starts by pointing out the importance of the investiture of the President of the Commission.
Between Maastricht and Amsterdam, there have been significant modifications to the Treaties, and Parliament must take as much account of these as possible in order to ensure that their consequences are fully realised.
During previous debates I had noticed that some of our colleagues had not yet registered Parliament's new role in this investiture.
This was also the case for a number of members of the national parliaments.
Fortunately, there has been a gradual raising of awareness during the debates and through contacts.
This is why I am pleased that the main points are once again being set out here.
The new role of the President-designate in constituting the College of Commissioners is close to that of what we in Belgium call a 'formateur ': his point of view will count alongside that of the Member States.
Also, the need for the President-designate to present his political plans to the European Parliament - what Mr Romano Prodi rightly called his 'programme of government' - means that he must achieve a majority in Parliament on which he will base his actions.
These new practices bring us closer to the situation that operates in our countries, and will be perceived by the people as a move towards democracy.
With regard to the forthcoming institutional reform, it is highly desirable that Parliament's voice should be better heard, and that, in contrast to the former method, which was extremely inadequate, reform should be based on real interinstitutional dialogue, something which is perfectly expressed in paragraphs 8 and 12 of our resolution.
It is important that the opinions of the two legislative institutions of the Union should have equal weight, and consequently that the centre of gravity for decision making should be at an equal distance from the Council and from the European Parliament.
The EU should in my view operate on the basis of intergovernmental cooperation.
This report advocates giving a strong boost to the supranational dimension.
It therefore runs counter to my convictions and does not have my backing.
Mrs Oddy has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I wish to make a personal statement.
As you know I have just presented my report which Parliament kindly voted on this morning.
This evening I will speak on the Malangré report as Socialist Group shadow.
After the vote, when I returned to my office I found a fax from my Coventry office.
This was a letter posted yesterday by the General Secretary of the Labour Party informing me that I had been suspended from my party.
I am totally astonished by this, do not know what the reasons are and do not understand what I am supposed to have done wrong.
Consequently I need urgent clarification as to my rights and obligations as a Member of this House from the President.
I wish to reassure the President that, in my view, my first duty is to Parliament and to my constituents and I shall carry on doing that to the best of my ability.
Applause
Mrs Oddy, as you are well aware, Members' duties are individual duties.
The problems that may exist in each group, or within each group with the parties Members were elected to represent, are not related to the workings of Parliament itself.
Therefore, I must tell you that your duties here are clearly as an individual and that you will remain in office, as long as you are not considering resigning.
I must clarify this point as it is established in our Rules of Procedure, Mrs Oddy.
Mrs Pailler wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, as our debate on topical, urgent and highly important matters is going to be largely dealing with human rights issues, I would like to inform the House about a relatively serious event which took place in Morocco involving a French national, Mrs Danze-Serfaty.
The events took place after the official deadline for tabling resolutions on urgent subjects, which is why I am informing you of it today.
Mrs Danze-Serfaty is the wife of Mr Abraham Serfaty, who was imprisoned for 17 years in Tazmamart as a political prisoner, and who was received most honourably here following his release, notably thanks to Parliament's intervention and resolutions; however, Mr Serfaty can no longer return to Morocco, even though he is no longer accused of anything.
Mrs Danze-Serfaty went to Morocco to request that the authorities allow her husband to return to his country and spend the rest of his days there.
She was refused entry as soon as she arrived at the airport.
I ask the President of Parliament to address the Moroccan authorities in order to protest against this refusal to grant entry to a French citizen and to demand that Abraham Serfaty be allowed to return.
Mrs Pailler, as you know, there are certain deadlines established for the topical and urgent debate.
For obvious reasons, you were unable to meet these deadlines.
What you have said will appear in the Minutes, but I cannot take the matter any further at this stage.
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0459/99 by Mr Newens and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0467/99 by Mrs Maes and Mr Dupuis, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0470/99 by Mr Pasty and others, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0474/99 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0478/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0494/99 by Mr Cunha and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0510/99 by Mrs Hautala and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the situation in East Timor.
Although there were high hopes in the aftermath of the resignation of President Suharto that the way would at last be open to a peaceful resolution of the problems of East Timor, after a quarter of a century of bloodshed in which a third of the population has died as a consequence of the Indonesian invasion of 1975, those hopes have not been fulfilled.
Anti-independence militias armed by the Indonesian military have created havoc and killed large numbers of people in a desperate bid to frustrate the demand for self rule.
Far from being a safeguard against violence, the presence of the Indonesian army has continued to be a cause of the problem.
If the result of the referendum on autonomy for East Timor, planned for 8 August with United Nations backing is to be accepted, the ballot must be held in fair and free conditions which Indonesian forces cannot be relied upon to guarantee.
Sadly, violence seems to be rising throughout the region and reports of yet another massacre this week by the Indonesian army confirm once again its reputation for ruthless violence.
An independent United Nations backed force is required to ensure that voting in the East Timor referendum takes place in conditions free from violence and intimidation.
Political prisoners still have not been released, Mr Xanana Gusmão, one the leaders of the independence movement still under house arrest, should be granted full and unconditional freedom.
The right of the people of East Timor to reject autonomy and demand full independence must be fully ensured.
In the European Parliament we have over the years consistently denounced the oppression imposed on the people of East Timor and their suffering at the hands of the Indonesian regime.
At the end of this Parliament it is important that we should reaffirm our support for these people and their rights and I am proud that in my last speech here I shall be doing precisely this.
Thank you very much, Mr Newens.
We are sure that, even though this is your last speech here, your work will continue to be as positive as it has been throughout this parliamentary term, as I have witnessed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that Parliament can be proud of the role it has played during this parliamentary term and of its important part in finding a solution to the problems of East Timor.
This issue has been addressed here many times during this parliamentary term and it has perhaps been one of the international policy and human rights issues most frequently raised in Parliament.
I believe that Parliament has done itself credit and has aided the Timorese cause.
And it is strange that it should be right now, during the final days of this parliamentary term, that a solution for East Timor seems to be appearing at the end of the tunnel.
The agreement concluded between Portugal and Indonesia yesterday in New York, under the auspices of the United Nations, is a ray of hope for a solution of this martyrised people's problems.
However, although it has for the first time become clear in this agreement - and Indonesia is to be congratulated on this - that Timor's right to self-determination and independence is recognised, I would like to emphasise, and someone must stress this point because it represents an important change of policy regarding East Timor which I sincerely welcome, that we also need to bear in mind the rather hypocritical behaviour already mentioned here.
I say hypocritical behaviour because at the same time as this political stance is being adopted, the Indonesian army and the militias and security forces are continuing to arm men who are trying at all costs to prevent self-determination.
If leaders continue to be killed, if the population has to flee to the mountains and is afraid of voting, if the thousands of pro-Indonesian people who were transferred to Timor last year are to have the right to vote, and if leaders like Xanana Gusmão are still to be kept under arrest, then I believe that it is impossible to hold a free and fair referendum for East Timor.
And that is the great challenge for the international community.
In the agreement signed yesterday, Indonesia undertook that the safety of the people and the security of the referendum would be guaranteed by Indonesia itself. I have my doubts.
Indonesia's recent behaviour does not give us great cause for hope here.
I believe, Commissioner, that the United Nations and the European Union have an important role to play in ensuring that the Timorese problem is resolved justly.
Mr President, the European Union has unequivocally supported the cause of the Timorese people and their inalienable right to self-determination and independence, and has from the outset made a significant contribution to ensuring that their struggle did not go unnoticed.
We can therefore take some pleasure in the fact that we are concluding this parliamentary term by adopting positions which suggest this may actually happen.
It is particularly felicitous that this is taking place at a critical point in the process, with the signing of the agreement reached under the auspices of the United Nations, which embraces the possibility of the Timorese people being able to freely determine their own future.
We welcome this victory for the Timorese people and we are delighted that our modest but insistent and solid contribution, which some people have signed up to only recently - be it opportunely or opportunistically - has been of some assistance.
We are leaving this Parliament with a feeling that in this case at least we have done our duty as elected representatives.
The cause of the Timorese people demonstrates that it is worthwhile fighting, that it is worthwhile to resist.
Nevertheless, our satisfaction is somewhat diminished by our lack of confidence in Indonesia's policy and by the alarm it is causing.
We must not lower our guard. And we must not forget that the referendum is not so much a happy ending as one more step - an important one - on the long road which will enable the people of East Timor finally to be masters of their own destiny, after centuries of Portuguese colonisation and a quarter century of brutal occupation by Indonesia.
We must carry on demanding that the Indonesian authorities match this diplomatic decision with consistent practical measures.
The process of disarming and dissolving the pro-integration militias must be started immediately, and it is essential that Indonesia should demilitarise the territory so that the referendum can take place freely and democratically, and the referendum should be monitored and given credibility by the United Nations.
We should also demand that all members of the Timorese resistance movement under arrest should be freed, in particular Xanana Gusmão, and that their participation in this process should be guaranteed, as should the safe return of those who have been exiled.
We must also reiterate our condemnation of those countries which hypocritically hail human rights but do not hesitate to carry on selling arms to a regime guilty of genocide.
That is what we have pledged to do within this Parliament and outside it.
Mr President, not so long ago we discussed the subject of Indonesia here in the House, and I said that we were very concerned not just about East Timor, but also about various other areas of what is the largest Islamic country in the world.
I hope that the European Union and the United Nations will lend a helping hand to whatever government is in power in Indonesia.
East Timor is, of course, in a very special position because of its past, and the situation there is explosive, but the concern that we felt has possibly been slightly alleviated by the New York agreement between Portugal and Indonesia that various people have mentioned.
The referendum on 8 August is vitally important, and both the European Union and the UN must do everything in their power to ensure that it is fairly and properly organised.
It would appear to be absolutely vital to send in a UN policing force immediately.
This would not just bring stability to East Timor, it could also have a positive influence on the entire region, or at least the immediate region of the Sunda islands, of which East Timor forms part.
Mr President, the signing of the agreement between Portugal and Indonesia yesterday in New York under the auspices of the United Nations, an agreement on holding a referendum in East Timor with a view to self-determination for the Timorese people, is a historic moment that we should welcome.
This agreement is the culmination of fifteen years of diplomatic efforts and comes 23 years after the forced annexation of this former Portuguese colony where hundreds of thousands of people have died as victims of the civil war and of the brutal repression of the Indonesian army.
Nevertheless, world history is littered with agreements and treaties that were not respected and led to nothing.
Because of the obstinate refusal of the Indonesian government, issues relating to security and the achievement of a climate of peace in which the people are free from coercion have not been properly safeguarded.
The contingent of 600 UN representatives who are to organise and observe the referendum process consists of unarmed civilians, possibly supplemented by 250 police, also unarmed, without any means of defending anyone - including themselves - in the face of the activity of the pro-integrationist militias who are spreading terror in Dili and the rest of the territory with impunity.
The natural leader of East Timor, Xanana Gusmão, has not hesitated to denounce as a historical aberration the suggestion that the Indonesian armed forces can be considered an impartial force.
All the independent observers are unanimous in accusing the Indonesian army of conniving with the pro-Indonesian armed militias and of being their main source of inspiration and supplier of arms and munitions.
If an impartial military force cannot be guaranteed in Timor, the real choice in the referendum will not be between autonomy and independence, but between integration and staying alive.
Furthermore, the intimidatory election campaign has already started: Indonesian flags have recently been flooding into houses in East Timor, and the inhabitants are being forced to wear badges bearing the Indonesian colours and to sign pro-integrationist declarations.
There is not much choice when you have a pistol pointing at your head.
The United Nations, the European Union and the international community in general must maintain pressure on Indonesia so as to force it to accept a military presence to guarantee the neutrality of the referendum and to stop this turning into a sham with fairly predictable and bloody consequences.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this has been my 150th speech in the plenary, and it will also be my last.
So, in saying farewell, I would like to wish all those of you who, like myself, will not be continuing to sit in the hemicycle of the European Parliament, every personal, professional and political success in the future.
And to all of you who will be continuing, I hope that you will be in the fortunate position next September of celebrating a great victory for the Timorese people, as a result of their freedom of expression in deciding their own future in a referendum which will take place on 8 August.
Thank you very much, Mr Mendes Bota. I am sure that we all hope to be able to celebrate in September what you highlighted in the last part of your speech.
And as you have said that this will be your last speech in this Hemicycle, allow me to wish you the very best for the future. I also hope that we will continue to have a good relationship so that, wherever we may be, we can cooperate as far as possible in the fight to complete the process of European integration and in our solidarity with all those who need our support.
I wish you the very best of luck, Mr Mendes Bota.
Mr President, there has been a clear breakthrough, in international terms, in the situation in East Timor this year.
It is quite correct, as my colleagues have stated here, that resolve on the part of the European Parliament has had its effect on this outcome.
However, today, it has to be said, the situation is perhaps more explosive than it has been for a long time, as paramilitary activity has jeopardised the forthcoming referendum.
We would all certainly call on the Commission to do all it can to defuse the situation in East Timor, so that the referendum on 8 August can be held in a peaceful atmosphere.
For this to happen, the European Union should participate in an international effort to guarantee an international presence in East Timor.
Australia has made significant proposals to the UN about this, and pledged to provide funding.
Our task now is to consider what this presence would consist of - police forces operating under UN supervision, or perhaps peace-keeping forces - and I would be very interested to hear the Commissioner's views on this.
The other important issue is that there are soon to be parliamentary elections in Indonesia, and preparations for the East Timor referendum are under way.
We also surely need to send observers to monitor these events, not only official observers, but also representatives of voluntary organisations.
I would like to hear if the Commission has made any preparations for this.
Finally, I would like to say that there has been a seamless bond of cooperation among the Members of the European Parliament on the question of East Timor. Hopefully, that will continue during the next term, and let us hope, meanwhile, that East Timor achieves independence.
Mr President, East Timor is a typical example of an area where human rights are under threat, and there is daily evidence that the lack of international law and of genuine recognition of the right to self-determination is producing some very dramatic situations.
I hope that the new agreement will be a breakthrough, but at the same time I would join the previous speaker in urging that practical steps should be taken, including by the European Union, to ensure that appropriate pressure really is brought to bear.
It is important to send observers, but it is also important for the UN to have a presence operating under appropriate instructions, because this is something else that is lacking and is creating increasing disillusionment.
I hope that after so many years of suffering, law and order can finally be restored, that the right to self-determination will finally become a reality, and that the forthcoming referendum will give genuine democracy a chance instead of the increasing violence we are currently seeing in so many areas of Indonesia.
I do not know whether this will be my last term of office and whether this will be my last speech, but wherever I am, I shall continue to work with all those fighting for the right to self-determination and human rights, because East Timor is only one of the many countries where war has been impossible to prevent.
I hope that East Timor will prove to be an exception and will win its independence.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we should first of all welcome the agreement reached in New York yesterday between the Portuguese Government and Indonesia concerning East Timor.
This is very much the culmination of a long process in which Parliament and the European Union have played their part, and in which the struggle of the people of East Timor has certainly played a key role, but at the same time we must pay tribute here to the importance of the diplomatic triumph achieved by the Portuguese Government yesterday in New York.
This agreement and its implementation should provide us with a basis for achieving the desired results, that is to say enabling the Timorese people to freely exercise their right to self-determination and independence.
This is why it is essential - despite what some Members might say - for us to recognise the importance of the commitment entered into yesterday that the referendum on 8 August should be held under the auspices of the United Nations and its Security Council. And that is also why in addition to the police force already mentioned here it should be possible to secure the presence of a security force.
I consider that this case once again confirms the diplomatic force of an argument which has recently arisen on the international political scene, namely that the international community cannot apply double standards.
If the international community demands that human rights should be respected in Kosovo, then it has to be consistent and demand that they should also be respected in other parts of the world.
I know that the Portuguese Government has deployed this argument very effectively and that it will continue to do so, just as we should carry on using it to persuade the European Union to use its full political powers and its scope for financial support to ensure that the process in East Timor goes smoothly.
This is the umpteenth time that we have discussed the issue of East Timor in the European Parliament.
However, I feel that today our discussion is taking place in a climate of special political importance, because we are not just talking about a mere question of human rights but about a political issue.
I would like to thank my colleague from the Socialist Group, Stanley Newens, whose persistence enabled us to get this point included on today's agenda.
Mr President, I have to contradict Mr Barros Moura.
The UN agreement that has been concluded does not talk about security forces, but only a civilian police force.
The referendum on East Timor on 8 August will be held under a new government, and if people reject autonomy and integration it will bring the prospect of independence closer.
Xanana Gusmo would like to see this, as would everyone else, and he has already said that he is going to need a great deal of help.
I wonder who from - perhaps Australia, which is already stripping the territorial waters of minerals.
It remains to be seen whether this is in the best interests of the Timorese in the long run.
If it becomes independent, it seems obvious that it will go back to the situation before 1975, with Portugal resuming responsibility for this island which it abandoned to its fate and offering East Timor the status of an overseas territory like Guadeloupe or Martinique.
Timor could then benefit indirectly from EU assistance.
There are a number of general points I would like to make.
After the collapse of Yugoslavia, the aspirations of the Kurds and the distinct revival of minorities and races, we should not be under any illusion about what East Timor's independence will mean for the Indonesian archipelago and the Asiatic region.
If the new Indonesian Government does not succeed in holding the islands together, there is bound to be instability, with China emerging as the dominant factor in the region and other countries building up their stocks of weapons.
In short, an independent Timor sounds all very romantic, and I also think that we need to be fair to the people of Timor, but in geopolitical strategic terms it would cause an imbalance.
Do not forget that the largest Allied cemetery from the Second World War is in Indonesia, on Dili, which only goes to show just how strategically important the island is.
I too believe that the people must have justice, and above all I think that Parliament must send observers after all the resolutions we have adopted.
Mr President, thank you for refreshing my memory about the relevant part of the Rules of Procedure.
Mrs van Bladel did indeed refer to a point in my speech about the kind of force that the United Nations is to send to this territory.
It is indeed a police force.
But I wish to emphasise that placing the entire referendum process under the aegis of the United Nations Security Council will inevitably make it necessary for the appropriate security forces to intervene if Indonesia does not comply with its duty to disarm the militias and to ensure this process takes place without interference from armed terrorist groups.
That is exactly why I see the agreement that has been signed in such a positive light - as I think we all should - and I wanted to explain that to Mrs van Bladel.
Mr President, the Commission naturally welcomes the fact that in the final round of tripartite negotiations held under the auspices of the United Nations in New York, historic progress was made by the Portuguese and Indonesian Governments on resolving the longstanding, delicate and tragic problem of East Timor.
The Commission applauds the signing of the agreement in the early hours of this morning, as indeed you all do. This agreement establishes the framework for the territory's autonomy, the methods and organisation of the referendum and also security provisions.
In this respect, the Commission believes that the decision by President Habibie of Indonesia to approve the presence of United Nations observers is a step forward. These observers will supervise the referendum organised by the Indonesian authorities in East Timor.
The Commission trusts that their presence will ensure that the referendum is held in a climate of peace, impartiality, freedom and security.
The Commission also believes that the establishment of a trust fund for this referendum by the United Nations is a positive step. And, in relation to this, I must report that this very week, and probably tomorrow, the European Union's financial contribution to this fund will be approved.
This will provide a sum of EUR 1 million that will be aimed specifically at studying how the European Union can become involved in the process.
You asked whether or not the European Parliament would participate as an observer during the referendum, as it usually does. In principle, this issue will have to be resolved by the Council of Ministers, which will determine how we should participate under the framework of the United Nations and with respect for the terms of the agreement between Indonesia and Portugal.
In any event, the European Union's financial contribution to the trust fund is guaranteed.
Also, Mr Mendes Bota - as you and other Members highlighted, particularly Mr Newens - we do of course share your concern over the continued presence of armed militias. These militias are obviously interfering in the political process that is to lead to the referendum.
As one speaker said, we will have to see how this matter can be resolved, although I would stress that within the agreement itself there are specific provisions on how to ensure and increase security.
This is the United Nation's responsibility and I imagine that, through dialogue, organisation and the actual political implementation of the agreement, it will be possible to determine how to participate with security.
But how will this happen? One of the commitments in the United Nations agreement is to disarm the militias, as Mr Barros Moura pointed out.
Disarming the militias is a promise that must be kept for the sake of security.
We are convinced that Indonesia will have to make every possible effort to disarm the militias and, clearly, depending on how these efforts are received internationally, we will then be able to decide if corrective measures need to be taken, if there are sufficient police forces or whether more are needed and if we must send more international missions.
At the end of the day, it is difficult at this stage to predict how the agreement signed in New York in the early hours of this morning will develop between now and 8 August.
In any event, as far as the European Union is concerned, I have already told you that provisions have already been made and I can tell you that more are to follow.
More specifically, at the request of the Portuguese Government, we have already begun work on the need to step up cooperation with the region, irrespective of the outcome, whilst naturally respecting the will of the people.
Thank you, Mr Marín.
Mrs Maes has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, I wanted to ask Commissioner Marín whether he made those comments about the budget with a view to possible preparations for independence, if the majority of the people vote in favour of it.
Mrs Maes, I must tell you that this is not a point of order.
It is a supplementary question.
I hope that Mr Marín will respond to your question, since we all know how courteous he is, and I, in turn, will be courteous and allow a point of order to become a supplementary question.
Mr Marín, I would ask you to respond to Mrs Maes.
Mr President, I would give up my life for this House.
Laughter
I do not mind.
There are two decisions. The first relates to the trust fund set up by Kofi Annan to carry out the whole referendum process, on the basis of the agreement between Indonesia and Portugal.
The Council of Ministers asked the Commission to draw up an emergency contribution.
This emergency contribution has been set at EUR 1 million and will be presented next week so that it can be operational immediately.
I would imagine that there will also be donations from other countries: from the Member States, from the United States and from Japan.
This trust fund must be used to guarantee security, organise the referendum, prepare the electoral colleges, and allow for international observation.
If the United Nations believes that European observers are needed, this will be possible thanks to this trust fund.
However, over the past two years, a programme for humanitarian aid and emergency rehabilitation was established, based on the Council of Ministers' common position. It was carried out through Caritas, because of the importance of the Catholic Church in East Timor and, in particular, of the Nobel Prize winner, Archbishop Belo.
This was a programme used only for humanitarian aid for emergency rehabilitation.
Irrespective of the outcome on 8 August, the Commission is already considering a plan that could in theory become a cooperation programme that would enhance our involvement.
Thank you, Mr Marín, for being as generous as usual.
Mr Marín, I am very well aware that you are prepared to give up your life for Parliament, but you are not in danger of losing your life; you are in danger of being skinned alive.
There are parliaments that can sometimes tear a person to shreds.
Therefore, with my extensive experience, I must warn you to be careful, Mr Marín.
Be careful.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0460/99 by Mr Colajanni and Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0479/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0486/99 by Mr Pasty, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0488/99 by Mr Wurtz and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0495/99 by Mr von Habsburg and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0503/99 by Mr Gahrton and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the Middle East peace process and the 4 May 1999 deadline.
Mr President, Commissioner Marín, above all I would like to pay tribute to the Palestinian National Council, which has postponed the date of the unilateral declaration of independence scheduled for 4 May.
It has made a gesture of political far-sightedness and unilateral generosity towards the peace process, it has avoided a period of upheaval and a negative influence on the elections in Israel and a serious crisis in the peace process, with the danger of military conflict flaring up again.
This is what the European Parliament called for in its resolution of 11 March, in which, while recognising the fundamental right of the Palestinian people to found their own State, it considered it essential for the international guarantors of the Oslo agreements solemnly to reaffirm their commitment to achieving all the objectives of the peace process, thereby giving the Palestinian National Authority the support required to justify an extension of the period of application of the provisional agreement beyond the date of 4 May 1999.
And this is what the Palestinian National Council has done. It did so because - apart from the request made by this House - there was a commitment made by the European Council in Berlin.
Let me quote what we say in the resolution, that Parliament 'welcomes the statement issued by the Berlin European Council on the peace process, particularly the Palestinians' unconditional right to self-determination, including the right to create a State, which the European Union is prepared to consider recognising in due course, and the undertakings given by the European Union concerning the future settlement of the conflict.'
I feel that all this is important; I believe that these commitments are binding and we should remember them.
We must be faithful to them, and they will require a strong initiative to be taken by the European Union and the United States after the Israeli elections.
Mr President, the Palestinian authorities are to be praised for their decision to accept an extension of the transitional period beyond 4 May.
By agreeing to this, they have shown that they still believe in the Oslo accords and the Wye Plantation agreement, and they have also shown their desire to prevent the peace process from becoming bogged down.
Without it, an escalation in the conflict would have been very likely, but now the Palestinian decision may increase the mutual trust that is needed for a lasting peace.
We are also pleased with the statement made by the Berlin European Council, as Mr Colajanni said, and these sorts of clear political signals could give the Union greater influence in the Middle East.
Internal divisions in the past have meant that the Union's political influence has always been too weak.
It has always been the biggest provider of funds, but giving money is obviously much easier than agreeing a common political line.
It was significant that the agreement of 23 October 1998 showed that constant external pressure is needed to keep the peace process going.
Since that interim agreement, there have been too many wrong signals from both sides, most of them from Israel, I have to say, including granting approval for the construction of more houses in Har Homa and Hebron.
In conclusion, I should like to ask the Commission, and in this case Commissioner Marín, what the situation is with the hospital in Gaza that is being built with European funding.
During an earlier debate, the Commission told us that a management team had been sent to open the hospital at long last.
I was just there, Commissioner, but I saw little evidence of it.
Mr President, I too should like to know what Mr Bertens asked about the hospital, because I have also been there and it has been standing empty for far too long with no one using it.
This is something we would find hard to justify to our voters.
I am pleased that the Palestinians have allowed common sense to prevail by refraining from declaring an independent state on 4 May.
Generally speaking, there has been little violence in the region in recent weeks, and certainly none of the bomb attacks that Hamas was probably responsible for.
It would appear that the escalating violence in the Balkans has brought the two sides in the Middle East up short, since everyone knows that this kind of escalation can lead to unpredictable situations.
So for the time being, people on both sides are using their common sense.
However, the Palestinian position calls for an immediate and positive continuation of the negotiations with the Israelis after the elections.
I also still think that a final positive outcome can only be achieved after agreements have been concluded with Syria and Lebanon.
I submitted a written question this week calling for an amnesty for 250 people illegally detained on Palestinian territory, but I have heard from your office that my question is not to be answered or published.
I only hope that the Palestinian representative in the public gallery has heard my appeal, and that these people will be given access to the judicial process.
In recent times, we have paid frequent visits to the Palestinian territories under the leadership of Mr Colajanni.
Progress has been made, but sadly not enough.
A further initiative must be launched immediately after the elections to move everyone forward.
Mr President, like my colleagues, I would like to say that, in order to protect the peace process, the Palestinians have demonstrated their good will by agreeing to postpone the date for the declaration of the Palestinian State, which the Oslo Agreement had set for 4 May.
Meanwhile, the Israeli Government is continuing to violate its commitments and is increasing its provocation of the Palestinians by deciding to close Orient House in east Jerusalem and openly encouraging settlement, particularly in the West Bank.
Was it not the Minister for Foreign Affairs himself, Ariel Sharon, who called on the settlers to take the hills in order to establish faits accomplis ? His call was heard, as new settlements are constantly being established.
Knowingly violating the Wye Plantation agreement of October 1998, which forbids any unilateral measures that could complicate negotiations on the final status of the territories, the Israeli Government is pursuing a deliberate strategy of draining the future negotiations of all substance and removing any possibility of the West Bank continuing as a territory, with the aim of preventing a future Palestinian state from being viable.
The European Union cannot remain indifferent to this situation.
Along with my colleagues, I welcome the fact that the Berlin European Council recognised the Palestinian people's right of self-determination and their right to establish a state.
However, we need to go further than this and use all the political, economic and commercial means at our disposal to put pressure on Israel and to force the government to respect its commitments so that the two states can finally live in peace.
Mr President, I speak here above all as someone who believes himself to be a true friend of the State of Israel.
A European who experienced the Second World War and Hitlerism will always have profound sympathy for the persecuted Jews - the more so in my case, because so many of my friends lost their lives in that catastrophe.
On the other hand, however, I have to say that my political thinking is governed by the principle that there must never be another war in the Middle East; a lasting settlement will never be achieved by force.
So we must do everything in our power to bring about reconciliation between the Jews and Arabs.
That is by no means impossible, for there are many Arab states, such as Morocco, where there is perfect understanding between Jews and Arabs.
I have seen at first hand how the numerous Moroccan Jews in Israel are providing the most reliable bridge between Israel and the Islamic country of Morocco.
It therefore makes good sense for us to table this sort of resolution at the present time.
There has been a great deal of talk about the fact that the Palestinian State was to be proclaimed on 4 May, and I am pleased that Mr Arafat, who has shown great statesmanship in this situation, declared his willingness to postpone the proclamation.
On the other hand, we must not forget that elections are looming in Israel, elections that will be crucially important to the future of the region.
There are Israeli statesmen who clearly recognise that Israel cannot live without the friendship of the Arabs, that failure to cultivate that friendship will result sooner or later in the destruction of Israel.
There are those such as Shimon Peres or some of his colleagues in the Labour Party who really do follow a clear political line in that respect, and that is why we should now express the hope that the Israeli side will declare unequivocally that it desires peace and that it will now halt the various repressive measures which have been taking place with regrettable regularity since the seizure of power and since the appointment of Mr Netanyahu as Prime Minister will now stop.
We hope that the people who come to power in Israel will be totally committed to turning the present situation around and working for reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians, since therein lies the future of the region.
I believe that anyone who knows the Middle East will be aware that successful reconciliation will enable the region to flourish, and the various tensions that exist at the present time will then be no more than a sad memory of past intransigence.
Applause
Mr President, the Palestinians have demonstrated admirable forbearance in not now doing what they have every right in the world to do, namely proclaiming a Palestinian state in accordance with the agreements which have been signed.
Fifty years have passed since they were subjected to a similar fate to that afflicting the Kosovo Albanians today. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out of their country, never to be allowed to return.
The UN decided in 1947 that they should have their own state alongside the Jewish State of Israel, but they never got it.
For many decades, the Palestinians lived in the illusion that liberation would come either through intervention by foreign armies, or in the wake of their own sustained military struggle.
This was not to be.
Not until the Palestinians switched to non-military methods, to civil disobedience through the intifada , to patient negotiations with an enemy perceived by them as fascist and racist - not until this happened did they begin to see signs of success. Now there is a peace process under way and, as a result, much of the world is willing to back their justified claims for an independent state.
I think that it behoves us to remember these lessons of the past, and I hope that the liberation of small peoples will in future come about according to the Palestinian method. I trust that this will be the norm, and that the Kosovo method will remain a deplorable exception in the history of the world.
I am a critic of the EU, but the Palestinian question is one which I think that the Union has handled in a constructive and positive fashion.
I note with satisfaction the statement in principle that a future Palestinian state will be granted recognition.
I hope that this actually happens once the Palestinians themselves decide to proclaim the State of Palestine.
Mr President, the Palestinians have taken a courageous decision, and it is my wish that the Israeli Government - the present one and, I hope, its successor too - will take similarly courageous decisions, because we need a sovereign Palestinian State, we need the utmost respect for the sovereignty of Lebanon and Syria and, of course, for the sovereignty and security of Israel on the basis of a reconciliation process, as we heard from Otto von Habsburg, with whom I do not always entirely agree, but I am one hundred per cent behind him today.
However, the reason I asked leave to speak was to thank, on behalf of my group, two men in this Chamber who have campaigned tirelessly for the rights of the Palestinians in that same spirit.
The first is Vice-President Marín, whom we in this House have not always given an easy life - and nor has the Council, for that matter.
Nevertheless, he has taken his decisions clearly and has pursued his aims, and for that I should like to express our very, very sincere thanks.
I should also like to give our special thanks to Luigi Colajanni, who has done a great deal on behalf of our group for the Palestinians and whom we shall miss, particularly for his commitment to the Palestinian cause. On behalf of my group, I wish him all the very best for his future work.
Applause
Mr President, I welcome this decision as an extremely positive one, just as I welcome the decision taken by the Palestinian Government not to unilaterally declare the creation of a state at the beginning of May.
I believe that this would have seriously interfered in the electoral process taking place in Israel.
I hope that a democratic government like the one country has had until now will emerge as a result of this process so that the negotiations will continue and arrive at a positive outcome for this peace process.
I am convinced that the decision by the Berlin European Council on this matter was very positive and that it will help maintain the European Union's influence in this area.
But elections will also need to be held in Palestine in the very near future. The European Union itself was present at the 1996 elections and soon a period of four years will have elapsed since then.
Only once elections have taken place will we be able to genuinely talk about real dialogue between democratic states.
Mr President, the European Commission also believes that the Palestinian leaders have taken the right decision in the interests of the Palestinian people by postponing the 4 May date for proclaiming a state.
Better still, the Commission believes that this positive move was possible in part due to the courage displayed by the European Council in adopting the so-called Berlin Declaration on the Middle East.
Our common foreign and security policy has worked properly in this instance as this declaration was important in guaranteeing the peaceful and constructive continuation of the peace process in spite of the fact that the first transitional period established by the Oslo Agreements had come to an end.
As you know, the Commission already called for an increased political and economic role for the Union in the Middle East in its communication of January 1998.
Nonetheless, it is clear that the tacit extension of the transitional period does not provide a long-term solution.
In this respect, the European Union has expressed its belief that the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state that is democratic, viable and peaceful, created on the basis of the existing agreements and through negotiation would be the best guarantee of security for Israel and the best guarantee of success in the region. The European Union has stated that, in due course, it is prepared to recognise a Palestinian state established in this way.
In the short term - as is also stated in the Berlin declaration - the European Union is still concerned about the stalemate in the peace process and, in this respect, it is vital that after the elections in Israel, the parties urgently turn their attention to fully applying the respective commitments made in the Wye Plantation memorandum.
This would allow accelerated negotiations on issues relating to the region's permanent status to begin at the same time, with a view to concluding these negotiations within the set period of one year.
Assuming that the parties involved show the political will needed to make progress, the European Union will continue to help them by facilitating the resolution of all outstanding matters.
We must take all steps to ensure that the Wye Plantation Agreement does not become another Israeli or Palestinian agreement that is not applied.
In this context, there should be no attempts to introduce new conditions.
What is more, we agree with the United States that the Palestinian authorities have fulfilled, and are continuing to fulfil, the majority of their commitments.
Consequently, we are keenly awaiting the next stages of withdrawals from the West Bank as well as the release of many prisoners.
In addition, we still recommend that Israel should be flexible over fundamental issues such as safety on the roads between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and the development, opening and completion of the port of Gaza itself, as these are issues that have been postponed for a long time.
In this respect, the Commission is still working closely with Mr Moratinos, the European Union's special envoy responsible for common dialogue.
We believe that the revitalisation of the Israeli-Palestinian aspect of the peace process would also facilitate the long awaited resumption of multilateral negotiations.
And although the European Union is aware that this is extremely difficult, it will continue to try to revitalise and initiate cooperation.
This means that we would also be very interested to see the Syrian and Lebanese parties becoming involved in the peace process.
As regards the question by Mr Bertens and Mrs van Bladel concerning the hospital, the Gaza hospital is an UNRWA hospital. It is not a European Commission hospital nor is was it built by the European Commission; it is an UNRWA hospital.
Nonetheless, in the guerrilla warfare of recent months, all the bad things taking place in the world are being blamed on the European Commission.
The hospital was built by the UNRWA and it has received a contribution from the Community budget.
Furthermore, there are other contributions from the Danish, German, Austrian, Spanish, Swedish and Belgian national budgets.
So what happened? There was a twelve-month delay in opening the hospital.
The problem is now resolved, and as I sure you are informed about what you ask of the Commission, you must remember that we decided not to pay any more running costs.
The European Commission must do what it can do well.
The European Commission is not a hospital agent and it cannot run a large hospital thousands of kilometres away.
Consequently, technical assistance has been given to the Palestinian Authority in the form of an international team that is going to work with the Palestinian authorities for two years. The aim of this is to ensure that the Palestinian Authority takes responsibility for managing the hospital.
Fortunately, this issue has now been resolved.
Thank you, Mr Marín.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0461/99 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0473/99 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0475/99 by Mr Manisco, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0480/99 by Mr Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0496/99 by Mrs Lenz, Mr Soulier and Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0502/99 by Mrs Aglietta and Mr Orlando, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the issue of the death penalty and a universal moratorium on capital punishment;
B4-0465/99 by Mr Swoboda, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0481/99 by Mr Bertens, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0490/99 by Mr Vinci and others, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0493/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0509/99 by Mrs Aelvoet, Mr Tamino and Mr Ceyhun, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the trial of Mr Öcalan and the future of the Kurdish question in Turkey;
B4-0462/99 by Mr Harrison and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0491/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0506/99 by Mr Telkämper, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the political misuse of trials in politics in Malaysia;
B4-0463/99 by Mrs Berès and Mr Vecchi, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0468/99 by Mr Pradier and Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0477/99 by Mr Wurtz, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0482/99 by Mr Fassa, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0497/99 by Mr Lehideux, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0504/99 by Mr Telkämper and Mrs Aelvoet, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the human rights situation in Djibouti;
B4-0466/99 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0469/99 by Mr Dupuis and others, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0476/99 by Mrs Sierra González, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0483/99 by Mr Cars, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0492/99 by Mr Pasty and Mrs van Bladel, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0498/99 by Mr Oostlander and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0501/99 by Mrs Aglietta and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the ratification of the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Death penalty
Mr President, a few days ago I received a letter from a committee set up in support of a campaign to save the life of Greg Sommer, one of so many people condemned to death and awaiting execution.
Of course I, like many of my colleagues too, I imagine, would respond positively in this case, as in the cases of other people condemned to death in China, Iran and in many other countries as well as the United States.
But we feel the time has now come to do something out of the ordinary: we would like to use this famous year 2000 - a year of great symbolic value for all the countries of the world, not just those with a particular tradition, history or religion - to make an exceptional gesture.
If the year 2000 does have great symbolic value, let us seriously and genuinely use it to send out this universal message: let us have a moratorium on all cases where a death sentence has already been handed down, in other words let us suspend capital punishment.
This is the request we are making in this resolution, which I think will meet with the approval of all the groups in Parliament.
Our group fully supports it in any case.
We therefore want to send a clear message to the Cologne Council: the German Presidency should ask for this issue to be put on the agenda for the forthcoming United Nations General Assembly and the Finnish Presidency should be given the task of following this decision through so that, by August, this item is on the United Nations' agenda and can actually be discussed at the next General Assembly.
If this decision on a moratorium were actually to be taken at the next United Nations General Assembly, I think we would have sent out a positive message to all the countries of the world and we would also have raised a problem in those countries which refuse to tackle this subject in a decisive way.
The death penalty is not justice but vengeance!
This needs to be realised once and for all in all the countries of the world.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I think that our colleague Mr Imbeni has summarised the aim of this resolution very well.
It should be pointed out that the United Nations Commission on Human Rights approved three such resolutions in succession: in 1997, 1998 and 1999.
As Mr Imbeni has just said, the time has come to use the year 2000 to take that qualitative leap and to present a proposal to the United Nations General Assembly for a universal moratorium.
There is a majority of 101 countries, out of the total of 190 in the international community, who are in favour of a universal moratorium, and the Treaties that have been adopted and the constitutional changes that have been made by many countries show that it is not simply a theoretical majority.
The conditions are therefore in place for launching an offensive that will undoubtedly not be the final step, but which could be a decisive move towards the definitive abolition of the death penalty in the world.
I urge the Council and the Commission to work towards this.
Allow me to point out an error - which is of a formal rather than a political nature - in the text of the resolution.
I apologise for this and I will table an oral amendment to delete from recital E the words 'unlike the resolutions already adopted by the Commission on Human Rights, ' because this is not strictly correct.
If my colleagues have no objection, I will table an oral amendment shortly, when it is put to the vote.
Mr President, I see it as a great feat of civilisation that the European continent is now virtually rid of capital punishment.
Such an advance would not have been possible without the unequivocal stance adopted by the European Union, and the world should be aware of that.
This is a message that Europe can be proud to proclaim.
There are positive developments outside Europe too, particularly in Latin America.
In countries where democracy does not exist, however - in China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq - the death penalty is often applied.
Yet we still have one large democracy where ever more people are being executed, ever more people put to death.
This is a serious issue in itself, and it brings with it certain consequences. China and the other countries I mentioned can say that 'as long as America continues to execute its citizens, why should we care what Europe thinks?'
Europeans shy away from criticising America.
We have our good reasons; yet capital punishment must be combated.
Let us make our voice heard; let us defend our position more forcefully and powerfully. Not in a spirit of moral superiority - that is not what I mean at all - but because we worry and care as fellow human beings.
Mr President, on this Thursday, during this afternoon's topical and urgent debate, many of us here will obviously be delivering our final speeches on the subject of human rights.
We have been making these speeches for 20 years, and our cooperation has been fruitful.
It is perhaps slightly gratifying, if I may endorse what my colleagues have said, that we have seen some more progress on this very issue of the death penalty.
It may be that we have played some part in ensuring that a third call is now being made in Geneva for a worldwide moratorium on executions.
It is the sincere wish of our group, and of others too, that the Council should sponsor a motion to that effect at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
That may be the only way to make those countries that Mr Cars has just mentioned realise that the death penalty is truly the worst means of restoring people's human dignity, for every person should have the opportunity to atone for the wrong that he or she has done. With the death penalty, that opportunity is irretrievably lost - quite apart from the fact that the death penalty is flagrantly abused in some cases.
If we in the European Parliament have helped to broaden awareness of that, not only through Mr Dupuis reminding us to include the death penalty on every agenda but also simply by highlighting a number of facts time and again in the name of our Parliament, then perhaps we have contributed in some small way to the protection of human rights.
In conclusion, Mr President, let me say that I fervently wish - and you will see whether this happens - that the next Parliament will continue this discussion, that it will not allow human rights to be squeezed out by economic issues, by the issues relating to enlargement, important though they may be, but that it will regard human rights as a political priority that must be pursued through the policies of the European Union, through its foreign policy and its enlargement policy.
Abolition of the death penalty is part of that priority. There are many others, and I sincerely hope that they will all receive due consideration.
Applause
Thank you very much, Mrs Lenz, for that statement.
I would also like to thank you on behalf of our colleagues for the commitment and competence with which you have chaired the Subcommittee on Human Rights in the past and have continued to make a major contribution to it.
I genuinely believe that your experience will be of use to us in all our future work.
Thank you, Mrs Lenz.
Mr President, our goal evidently has to be abolition of the death penalty.
No nation in the world should employ capital punishment.
We all need to castigate the USA, China and many other countries which so blatantly violate human dignity by persisting in allowing the death penalty to be imposed.
Many of the EU Member States have an important role to play here.
We have all been pioneers in fighting for the abolition of capital punishment.
It would certainly be a step in the right direction if a universal moratorium, heralding an end to this practice, were to be proclaimed
I call upon the Council to make provision for this issue to be taken up during the next session of the United Nations General Assembly.
Action will be required from both the German and the Finnish Presidencies to ensure that this actually happens, and that we can say goodbye once and for all to capital punishment.
Mr President, I am delighted to make this last speech while you are presiding, and on this subject, as you have also helped us a great deal.
We must be conscious of the great deal of work that remains to be done in order to civilise mankind, given that in 1999 we are still asking for a universal moratorium on capital punishment.
I would like to discuss America, that vast country that claims to be the policeman of the world and the model of democracy, freedom and modernity.
On 21 April, a fortnight ago, I became the first Member of the European Parliament to ever enter death row, in order to meet Mumia Abu Jamal, a political prisoner who has been sentenced to death, and on whose behalf Parliament has passed many resolutions.
Something of me stayed in that prison in Greene, where 111 prisoners out of 600 were awaiting execution.
Parts of me stayed in prison.
It is not an image, it is a very physical experience. It hurts.
I find the idea of his execution unbearable, as I do the execution of thousands who are sentenced to death, some of whom I saw behind Mumia Abu Jamal, wearing their white and blue prison clothes.
Mumia Abu Jamal talked to me first of all about the tragedy in Denver, which had happened the day before, about Kosovo, and about the culture of death that is consuming American society.
So today I would like to put a question to America.
Your children are now killing your children.
Are you going to educate them by putting them in the electric chair?
No. This violence is in fact the response to your state violence, which takes the form of the death penalty, but also the racist justice and class justice which Mumia condemned.
In order to convince the Council and all of my colleagues to never give up on this issue, allow me to tell you a short anecdote.
In the morning, before I arrived at the prison and death row, I gave a press conference.
A journalist stood up and said to me that it had just been announced that three names had been given for the death warrants for May.
He asked me if I took that as a response to what I was doing at the time in America.
My first reaction was to shed tears, then I recovered myself, but it was unbearable to think about that.
The reason I am telling you this today is to tell you that although the tears may not return, that emotion will stay with me until we have succeeded in obtaining this moratorium, in abandoning the ways of the past, the barbarity, and moving forward on the path of the future and of civilisation.
I will finish this last speech, this last cry from the voice of those who have no voice, with the rallying cry of the black people, who are campaigning in large numbers against the death penalty in the United States, along with whites, Indians, Amerindians and Latinos, saying 'On the move!'
Kurdish question
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are speaking in this House about Turkey, and once again we do so with mixed feelings, because there are bad signs and there are a few good signs, and we are not sure of the direction in which Turkey is heading.
First of all, the Öcalan case has come before the courts.
We do not really have the impression that this is a fair, open and transparent trial.
We have a feeling of unease, stemming from the fact that the death penalty is once again being made popular and respectable in Turkey, notably through the Öcalan trial.
Secondly, we are deeply concerned that an extremely nationalistic party experienced a very strong upsurge in support at the last elections and that its manifesto does not call for conciliation with the Kurdish population, but rather the opposite.
Thirdly, the HADEP party did well in the elections, especially in the Kurdish area, and there are now 41 HADEP members in charge of local administrations.
We doubt whether these 41 mayors will be allowed to exercise their democratic rights as elected representatives of the people.
There are already numerous indications that the government would really prefer to deprive the mayors of that right.
We know that many, many dozens and indeed hundreds of people are still locked up in prisons, some of them officials of that selfsame party, without due process, without trial, without conviction. What about them?
When will they finally be released?
When will they stand trial before a court of law?
Why do the authorities hesitate to institute proceedings against these people? There is probably no real evidence against them.
Fourthly, there is Akin Birdal, whom I was able to visit in Ankara a few days after the attempt on his life and whom all, or at least many of us know as a staunch campaigner for human rights.
He seems to have recovered enough to be put in prison, and he is to be taken into custody in the next few days.
We know, however, that the care and treatment and the therapy he needs if he is really to be restored to full health will scarcely be possible in a Turkish prison.
A serious question mark hangs over this case.
Fifthly, perhaps the most encouraging feature of the whole situation is that there is a President of the Constitutional Court who said clearly and plainly only a few days ago that many legal provisions in Turkey would have to be amended because they were contrary to human rights, because they were incompatible with the rights that should exist in a democratic state.
I hope that this school of thought can gradually gain the upper hand.
It is a hard struggle, and I hope, Commissioner, Mr Vice-President, that you will speak out clearly on behalf of the Commission and the European Union in order to help that school of thought to prevail, because at the moment Turkey is turning away from Europe rather than moving in our direction.
If we in this House and in this European Union do something to help the Kurds, we shall actually be doing something for Turkey and helping to bring it closer to the rest of Europe.
Mr President, on 24 February we held a debate in Brussels following the arrest of Mr Öcalan, and I criticised the PKK terrorist organisation and Mr Öcalan himself.
We have never tried to put a positive spin on his activities or his aims, and we only hope that the Turkish Government will ensure that his trial is open and fair, although we do not feel exactly optimistic about this.
His lawyers have scarcely been given access to him, the national security court hardly seems the most appropriate place to be holding the trial, and no international observers are to be admitted.
I hope that the new government in Turkey realises that if it wants to be rid of the Kurdish problem, Öcalan must certainly be given a fair trial.
Mr President, this is a day - indeed a whole week - of goodbyes, but unfortunately we cannot say goodbye to the problems and issues that we have discussed in the topical and urgent debates.
I also hope that we will not be saying goodbye to the debates themselves, because in the ten years I have been in Parliament I have heard it said almost every month that this would be the last time we would be having such a debate.
I can tell you that I have done my calculations and I reckon that I have spoken some 428 times in the topical and urgent debates.
I do not know whether it has ever achieved anything, but my successors - and your successor and the Commissioner's successor - should all bear in mind that this is the only channel the European Parliament has to show that we also care about people outside this House and outside Europe, and that we care about other things than just our salaries and pensions.
Thank you and goodbye.
That is all I wished to say.
Applause
Mr Bertens, you are normally very calm and composed when you take the floor, even when commenting on the most sensitive of matters.
I feel I share your state of mind and can understand the reasons why you raised your voice a little in making a demand which I am sure is endorsed by all colleagues, or at least those who are present in the Chamber at the moment.
Mr President, Mr Öcalan will not have the open and fair trial we call for in our resolutions.
I have here the press release of the public prosecutor's office of the Ankara State Security Court, signed by the public prosecutor, Tjerdet Volkan, which rules out the participation in the trial of 'observers from any institution or organisation whatsoever'. It provides for the participation of the general public, insofar as the capacity of the court room allows, with the authorisation of the special office of the Court and then not for all the days of the trial.
Of course, Mr President, Turkey has not been put under any serious pressure - and I do not mean the outrageous bombing that others are suffering - to comply with the standards of a modern European rule of law, for reasons which the Council, so sensitive and so rigorous in other circumstances, has not managed to explain!
This weakness does not simply concern Mr Öcalan, but the more important issue of the human rights of all Turks and, more especially, the large Kurdish minority in Turkey, whose identity, language, education and political expression is not recognised.
The HADEP Party is savagely persecuted, Leyla Zana, the recipient of the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for the defence of human rights is in prison, and we do nothing.
Could the Council, as it does in other circumstances, perhaps express its condemnation of this suppression of the political and cultural rights of the Kurds? How does the Council - and, what is more, the Commission - plan to exert its influence to reform and improve the regime that is being enforced against the Kurds?
The bottom line is that Turkey and its people, of whatever national and linguistic origin, belong to the European horizon, and the 'humanitarian' and 'liberal' declarations which most governments in the European Union - also members of NATO - allegedly want to implement within a wider Europe relate to them.
Is there anyone in the Council or the Commission who has something convincing to say on these matters, Mr President?
Mr President, this morning Mr Öcalan's lawyers told the House that they are totally unable to work and that they have even come under threat.
Parliament is right to continue to call for Mr Öcalan to be given a fair trial.
But we must not forget that we have pushed this man from one country to another because we ourselves were unable to try him - and there was a warrant out for his arrest - under our own legal systems.
In addition to this, however, if we look at the situation since we concluded the Customs Union with Turkey, it has actually turned its back on us, and the recent elections showed that it is turning inwards and becoming increasingly nationalistic, and with the events nearby in the Balkans there will be little scope for the fundamental aspirations and rights of the Kurds.
Or perhaps there will be.
Perhaps there is a sensible man in Ankara who thinks the time to negotiate with the Kurds and to forge a new relationship with them is now or never.
But this would require an international confidence-building plan with a fixed timetable, and there is still no mention of that.
I hope there is a politician or perhaps a former Commissioner somewhere who could draw up such a plan so that, having left office, he can help to bring the Turks and the Kurds closer together.
But it would have to be a plan with a fixed timetable that can restore confidence, because having to receive Kurds every day in your office is no joke, believe me. I am perfectly happy to do it, but it is not helping them.
Mr President, this is not only about Mr Öcalan or about whether or not he is to be put on trial.
I come from Germany, and in my country Mr Öcalan would have received a trial.
This is about the fact that we rightly expect Turkey to ensure in the next few days or months that the procedure and outcome of this trial are in accordance with the rule of law.
That is what Europe legitimately expects of Turkey, a country with a great interest in becoming a member of the European Union.
If Turkey really does want to become a member of the European Union, it must show us how the rule of law applies to the treatment of a defendant in its trials.
That is the substance of this motion which we are discussing today and which we shall probably adopt tomorrow.
This expectation of ours must not be misinterpreted in Turkey.
The Turkish judicial authorities and the other Turkish authorities involved in this trial ultimately have a very important task.
If they genuinely want to bring about a peaceful settlement of the Kurdish problem, they must now treat Mr Öcalan properly as a defendant.
There can be no talk of his being guilty before the prosecution has proved its case in court.
He must be treated fairly at all costs, and his lawyers must not suffer harassment because they are representing him.
If Turkey maintains it is a European country, a country fit for the European Union, these European values, these Western standards, must be applied there.
We want no more than that, which is why we ask Turkey not to misunderstand these efforts that the European Parliament is making.
Malaysia
Mr President, the justice system in Malaysia is clearly rotten to the core.
No self-respecting democracy would allow the flagrant infringements of human rights that are occurring there.
Malaysia claims to be democratic; yet it arrests and imprisons individuals who seek peacefully to express political or religious views, denying them due legal process. This is no way to behave.
It is incumbent upon us to take these matters up with the Malaysian authorities and make them understand.
The treatment of homosexuals in the country is another issue which needs to be raised.
It is disgraceful - and a crime against fundamental human rights - that people can be sentenced to up to 20 years in gaol for having engaged in homosexual relations.
Provided two individuals have consented to have such contact, there are no grounds for condemning them.
We must continue to argue along these lines in order to ensure that homosexuals are not treated in such a way.
Against this background, it is a pity that we did not demonstrate greater understanding of homosexuality by showing the renowned exhibition entitled Ecce homo in Parliament's premises.
Mr President, speaking on behalf of the Socialist Group in support of the joint resolution on the political misuse of trials in Malaysia, I have to say to the Malaysian authorities that it is very difficult for any of us to have any sympathy with their recent actions.
Firstly they continue to maintain their internal security act which, against any normal conception of human rights, allows those peacefully expressing both religious and political opinions at odds with those of the government to be arrested, denied proper legal representation or even a fair trial.
Secondly, they have a penal code which - as Mr Holm said earlier - condemns homosexual acts between consenting adults with a punishment of whipping and up to 20 years' imprisonment.
Thirdly, all the evidence is that the trials of both Anwar Ibrahim and Lim Guan Eng were politically motivated.
We know that Anwar Ibrahim was physically abused prior to his trial.
He received six years in jail for corruption, following what most outside observers considered to be farcical proceedings which were a travesty of any notion of justice.
And yet they continue to pursue him with threats of yet more trials.
In conclusion, we have to urge the Malaysian authorities to recognise that the development of further political and economic cooperation between the European Union and Malaysia will largely depend on the opening of a serious dialogue that will lead to moves in Malaysia for the observation of basic human rights in that country.
Djibouti
Mr President, as in December 1997, unfortunately we are again having to turn our attention to human rights violations in Djibouti and in particular to the situation of political prisoners, who are not only subjected to unlawful imprisonment, which is unacceptable in our eyes, but also to every kind of ill-treatment, which in some cases has caused the deaths of some of them.
Unfortunately this is just one aspect of the ethnic and political oppression which has deprived most of this country's people of their basic rights.
Through our resolution we therefore intend to call upon the authorities of Djibouti, and first and foremost President Guelleh, to rectify this unacceptable situation.
I would point out that the Horn of Africa is devastated by conflicts of every type; it is up to the Djibouti authorities to decide whether to let their country plunge into violence, instability and lawlessness or, on the other hand, to rebuild the conditions necessary for coexistence on new foundations.
We feel that this partly depends on the revival of a peace and stability process for the entire region.
Therefore we urge that there should be a stop to all ill-treatment of political prisoners, and that they should be given access to any care and treatment required, allowed a fair trial and be released.
Respect for human rights must also be restored and guaranteed for all and, above all, any discrimination based on ethnic origin must cease.
The government of Djibouti also undertook to respect this principle when it signed up to the Lomé Convention, Article 5 of which states that each signatory shall be guided by the principles of respect for human rights and democratisation of their own country.
I think Article 5 should be borne in mind because if, first and foremost, the specific situation of political prisoners and, more generally, the human rights situation are not improved, the application of this article and the measures which derive from it is an option worth considering.
Thank you for those words, Mr Vecchi, and for the commitment which you have shown to the problems of the ACP countries and also demonstrated in the committee which has been responsible for all aspects of cooperation and development.
Mr President, ten years ago Parliament was discussing human rights violations in Kosovo and now there is a war there.
Today we are talking about Djibouti and other countries, and I am firmly convinced that if we take the right measures now we can help these countries to develop peacefully and to avoid war.
A new president has been elected in Djibouti, so this is a good time to point out that there must be an end to the human rights violations and the inhuman treatment of political prisoners, who are left languishing in prison untended and without rights.
We are not trying to deny that there is armed opposition in Djibouti, but even unarmed political opponents are thrown into prison anyway, and that is unacceptable.
Djibouti is one of the countries covered by the Lomé Convention, and we should regard this as a contract between us and point this out to the other countries involved.
We should make it clear to them that we cannot provide any financial assistance whatsoever if they spend it on arms which they then use to wage war and even to oppress their own people, particularly the Afar tribe.
We know the enormous suffering that war brings, and just because Djibouti is a little further away we must not forget this, otherwise it will be too late there as well.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, several colleagues who have taken the floor before me have mentioned Article 5 of the Lomé Convention, to which Djibouti is also a signatory, which establishes a genuine interrelation and operational interplay between respect for and enjoyment of political and civil rights and fundamental human freedoms and development aid.
I think we should press this point very strongly.
We cannot be satisfied with the answer that a country's straitened economic circumstances are an obstacle to the establishment of a fully-fledged democracy.
I think it would be more true to say precisely the opposite!
Indeed in the developing countries, those which have signed the Lomé Convention, we see many good examples of countries which have got under way with economic development as a consequence of the re-establishment of democratic rules, and for precisely this reason we should put more pressure on Djibouti to comply with this genuine contractual agreement it has entered into with its European partners.
Mr President, it is sometimes difficult to find different or new words to say what we think of the violations of human rights that we discuss during every sitting in this House.
We agree with everything that has been said by the previous speakers from all groups.
As Mrs Maes said, I think that we should indeed take advantage of the recent election of the new President, Mr Guelleh, in order to define the Union's position very clearly and firmly and to indicate that we will see to it that the famous Article 5 is applied very soon.
The arrest of a number of leaders of the opposition outside the borders of Djibouti, notably in Ethiopia and Yemen, their extradition to Djibouti and their imprisonment, the conditions in which they are being detained, the absence of a trial and of lawyers, the particularly difficult and distressing conditions of their imprisonment: we are aware of all these things and it is clear that we cannot allow this to happen.
The Djibouti authorities must know that we are going to act swiftly and that we are going to make use of the texts to which their country is a signatory.
Mr President, I think that if we delay we are in danger of being faced with an even more distressing and even more difficult situation in a few months' time, if that is possible given the fate of those whom we are discussing.
Therefore, on behalf of my group, I call upon the Commission and the Council to take firm and immediate action as quickly as possible, so that our intentions will be made known without delay.
International Criminal Court
Mr President, I think we would all recognise that the Rome Conference on 18 July 1998 on the Statute of the permanent International Criminal Court represented a step forward in terms of international institutions and in the international legal order concerning human rights.
Nevertheless, before this Court can actually become effective in practice, its Statute has to be ratified by at least 60 countries.
And up to now, with the honourable exceptions of Senegal, Trinidad and Tobago and San Marino, no other country in the international community has ratified it yet, although some have started the ratification process.
So the objective of the resolution we have submitted is to get the Statute ratified by at least 60 countries by the end of the year 2000, so that the International Criminal Court can start to function in that year. The resolution further calls upon the Council to include this objective on the agenda of the European Council in Cologne.
Now, I believe that at a time when we are discussing the right to humanitarian intervention, and at a time when it is recognised that the international community requires instruments enabling it to defend fundamental human rights where they are being violated in a serious and flagrant manner, it is clearly perverse that there should be delays in creating what might be viewed as a legal forum governing the right of intervention, which is precisely what this would be.
It is equally paradoxical that it should be precisely a number of those countries that are practising so-called 'humanitarian intervention' which have the most reservations about approving the Statute of the International Criminal Court, bearing in mind that this Statute contains an unacceptable exclusion clause.
That is why I believe that it is important for us to appeal to those countries, and above all our Member States and the larger countries, to ratify the Statute and to specifically reject the exclusion clause on war crimes, so as to create a genuine legal body with compulsory jurisdiction, through which we can legitimise the right of intervention.
Mr President, the current difficulties in punishing those who have committed crimes such as genocide, war crimes and, in general, crimes against humanity have more than demonstrated the need to establish an International Criminal Court. It must be operational as soon as possible and be able to effectively try those responsible for such crimes so that they do not go unpunished.
In this context, it is disappointing that no Member State of the European Union has ratified the Statute for this Court. This is all the more disappointing when we take account of the fact that the Union claims to be not only an area of pluralism and diversity but, in particular, a Community of law.
The ratification of the Statute of the Court, with no exclusions in terms of its remit, would demonstrate our commitment to complying with the law and to defending freedoms and human life. These objectives of the Union are at least as important as our commercial objectives.
For this reason, I am calling on the Council and the Commission today to establish the ratification of the Statute of the Criminal Court as a political objective for the Union.
When we talk about the right to intervene, this House believes that the right to intervene is valid when it refers to military situations but not when it refers to other matters.
Mr President, the purpose of this resolution is to underline the importance attached by Parliament to speedy ratification of the Statute of the International Criminal Court. We want to see the court operational as soon as possible.
Nothing that has occurred in Kosovo or anywhere else has diminished the significance of this.
The Liberal Group unanimously endorses the call for such a court to be set up.
This week - in the course of my three final speeches in the European Parliament - it has given me great satisfaction to be able to speak out in favour of peace and freedom in Kosovo, to support the EU's fight for the abolition of the death penalty, and to argue for an international tribunal to judge war crimes.
These three issues reflect some of the basic values underpinning our Union: freedom for the oppressed, the rule of law, democracy and common humanity.
As a student from a country which did not take part in the Second World War, I was horrified by what that conflict produced.
For me too, European integration came to figure as the key to overcoming hatred and building a new and better order for a healed and whole Europe.
I have met many people in this Parliament who feel the same way and have as a result become my friends.
Much more than I could ever even have dreamed of as a young man has come about, but a great deal still remains to be achieved.
I like to believe that there will always be people with dreams and expectations of a better Europe and a better world - people with the strength and determination to make their dreams a reality.
Mr President, I believe it is really very significant that this Parliament, which has concerned itself so much with human rights issues, should conclude its topical and urgent debates on human rights for this term by turning its attention once again to the question of the International Criminal Court.
I think that Parliament has done a great deal of work in that direction through its intergroup, which bears the significant name 'No peace without justice'.
I believe one thing must be clear to us here, namely that this intergroup which deals with the subject of the International Criminal Court, and of which my colleague Mr Dell'Alba is one of the leaders, is saying quite plainly that there must be justice with a legal basis.
Sad to say, we usually have a legal basis for various operations, as we are witnessing in Kosovo at the present time; we have it at international level through the United Nations or through an organisation such as NATO, we have it at national level and at regional level, where such legal provisions can be effectively enforced.
One area in which we are regrettably without such a legal basis is that of ethnic groups and minorities.
I believe that is the reason why many conflicts of the past ten to fifteen years have been pursued by force of arms rather than before a tribunal or a criminal court.
I therefore consider it especially important that we in the European Union should act with the utmost vigour and tell our Member States that they should be among the first to ratify the Statute of this International Criminal Court and that they should press for the establishment of the Court and not leave it to other states, such as San Marino and Senegal, which have devoted themselves to this cause with admirable zeal.
We should set an example here.
The European Parliament, with its tradition of commitment to human rights, certainly possesses excellent credentials in this area.
Mr President, we now need this International Criminal Court more urgently than ever before.
The turn taken by events in recent years has borne out what we have been repeating all along in this House.
What is needed is an international forum in which - before there is recourse to military means - issues can be managed and resolved in a dignified way.
It was a major step forward when the Statute was adopted last July, but I deplore the fact that not one of the EU's Member States has yet ratified it.
The procedures ought to have been set in train much more swiftly.
I am pleased to see that as many as 82 countries have in fact signed the Statute, but it is regrettable that only three have ratified.
Let us all go back home to our Member States and ensure that our governments sign and ratify this Statute as soon as possible.
We owe this service to the next millennium.
Mr President, I am particularly glad that the last time I take the floor during this parliamentary term should be to speak on the subject of the International Criminal Court.
I would like to thank Karl Habsburg very much indeed for mentioning the role of the intergroup we set up with so many colleagues.
The 'No peace without justice' campaign by the international radical movement has helped to promote what I feel amounts to one of the most important messages we can pass on at the end of a century which has been the bloodiest in history.
Just three countries have already ratified the Statute of the Court but others are about to do so.
Our country, Mr President, will probably do so at the end of May, and France is well on the way.
A strong signal needs to come from Cologne so that the fifteen Member States, whose role was decisive for the success of the Rome Conference, should set the tone for the other countries and be the first to ratify the Statute.
It is not by chance that the very first countries to do so were an African country, a Caribbean country and San Marino.
Europe is lagging behind somewhat: it should pass on this message!
I hope that Parliament will state this clearly afterwards.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, when we talk today about justice and security, we can begin with an example close to home.
A few weeks ago in front of the Parliament building in Brussels, a woman was murdered.
The important thing is that the culprit should be quickly arrested, brought to trial and fairly sentenced.
It is exactly the same with international human rights.
We cannot simply tolerate and accept the violation of human rights.
What we need is a system whereby offenders are extradited and made to face the consequences of their actions.
Justice and security, after all, are among the main pillars on which our European Union is built, and not only our European Union but also the applicant countries and the rest of the world.
We must campaign to ensure that our 15 Member States recognise the International Criminal Court and also that the rest of the world acknowledges these principles of justice and security.
Mr President, I should like to pass on the European Commission's reactions to the different points that have been raised in this urgent debate on human rights.
As regards the death penalty and the establishment of a universal moratorium on capital punishment, as you are all aware, on 28 April, the European Union did in fact take the initiative of submitting a draft resolution on the death penalty to the Commission on Human Rights.
This resolution was approved by 30 of the 53 member countries of this Commission and was sponsored by 72 states, seven more than in the previous session.
In other words, awareness of this situation is being raised at international level. We must not give up hope as this type of battle, just like the battle you highlighted, and as is usually the case with all problems that affect human beings, is won on the basis of a persistent day-to-day fight.
Consequently, in relation to previous situations, there is no doubt that we are making progress.
Of course, whether or not the United Nations General Assembly adopts a resolution is in the hands of its members.
If it were up to the Commission, we would have no trouble promoting it.
As regards the Kurdish issue and the Öcalan case, I would point out that, as you all know, the European Union adopted a declaration on the arrest of Abdullah Öcalan and the trial that is to take place in the near future.
And, of course, the Commission fully supports the declaration made by the Union.
More specifically, the Commission stresses that the trial must be public, it must comply with the rule of law, it must take place before an independent court, Mr Öcalan must have access to a defence lawyer of his choice and international observers must be allowed to attend.
The Commission is disappointed with the response from the Turkish Government stating that they will not admit international observers and it takes note of the fact that it has been assured that the trial will be a public one.
We also deeply regret the request for the death penalty from the private prosecution.
The Commission will pay close attention to the trial and the procedures followed.
As regards Malaysia, the Commission shares your view that the Malaysian Government must ensure that its legal system is not misused for political reasons.
In line with this view, and given that Mr Anwar Ibrahim has already spent almost seven months in prison without bail being set, the Commission considers that the trial and the appeal the defence lawyers have already announced, must be concluded in accordance with the internationally accepted criteria on guaranteeing a fair trial.
The Commission also trusts that the necessary legal measures will be taken to determine who is responsible for the verbal and physical assaults on Mr Anwar Ibrahim.
This also shows that the incident is linked to the current debate in Malaysia on the reform of the police.
The Commission is still concerned that if fundamental human rights continue to be restricted, such as the right to peaceful assembly and the right to freedom of expression and opinion, this may give rise to a climate of instability and social unrest in Malaysia.
As for Djibouti, the Commission is aware that some political figures are being held in the Gabode prison and fully shares your concerns over the fate of these political prisoners.
In all its contacts with the country's authorities, the Commission has reiterated its position on the respect for fundamental human freedoms and the rule of law.
The Commission has also taken note of the recent proposals made by the Government of Djibouti which seek to allow the Red Cross or any other independent bodies to carry out inspection visits of the prisons. And, of course, we warmly welcome this position from the new government.
Contact has been made with the International Committee of the Red Cross and with the Member States so that they can begin helping displaced persons and refugees to return home, thus respecting their right to return to their place of origin.
As regards the ratification of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, I naturally believe that you have pointed out something that is mere common sense: the sooner this Court is up and running, the easier it will be to address and begin to resolve problems such as those in the Balkans - with Kosovo as the most recent example - as well as other problems throughout the world.
But of course we also believe, in particular, that our Member States should set an example and speed up the ratification procedures in the various national parliaments.
I should also like to draw to your attention to the fact that the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has been receiving financial support from the Community for several years.
The Commission intends to continue to provide this support within the terms of the regulation adopted by the Council, which creates the legal basis that allows us to carry out and develop actions in the field of human rights.
Thank you, Mr Marín.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0487/99 by Mr Pasty, Mr Andrews and Mr Girão Pereira, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0507/99 by Mr Corrie, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0508/99 by Mr Hory, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Allianceon the situation in the Comoros.
Mr President, I would like to make a couple of comments on the joint motion for a resolution on the Comoros, which obviously begins by condemning the recent coup d'état. I should say 'the most recent' coup d'état, because goodness knows the Comoros have experienced a considerable number of them since gaining independence in 1975: this is the eighteenth one to be recorded!
Several comments have been made concerning the responsibility that could be attributed to those responsible for the secession of the island of Anjouan in the current crisis.
To a certain extent the problem is like that of the chicken and the egg.
In other words, the question is who first caused the problems.
The fact that some of the problems in the Comoros have worsened and have been repeated is very probably because the existence of some populations with their own crises and their own problems, particularly on the island of Anjouan but also on the island of Mohéli, was not taken sufficiently into account.
Mr President, some people here - I know that Mr Hory is going to take the floor in a moment - know this area and the problems that it faces infinitely better than I do. What we can hope is that we are able to find a solution - and the Union must take part in this - that will be capable of stabilising relations between the three islands, if this is possible.
In any case, this is what we want to see. This solution must also take account of the specific and particular needs of the people of each of these islands, needs which are specific even though the various populations are not very far from each other.
Personally, Mr President, I must say that I regret that recital G of this joint motion for a resolution casts some doubt on Parliament's opinion concerning the initiatives taken by the chairman of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, Mr Michel Rocard. Personally, I approved and supported them.
Mr President, having observed the political collapse of the Comoros, we could well think that they are the victims of some sort of bad luck.
In fact bad luck has nothing to do with it, and if we consider the situation objectively, we can clearly see three levels of responsibility.
Firstly - and even though it is not at all fashionable here to say such things - there is the responsibility of the Comoran people, or more precisely, of their leaders.
In the 19th century the Comoros were called the islands of the battling sultans, because Grande Comore and Anjouan were dominated by a few supposedly noble families who had been fighting for power for centuries, and who forced the vast majority of the population to bear the weight of their privileges by enforcing vast social inequalities, unjustifiable financial monopolies and a truly medieval structure of society.
This is the first level of responsibility.
In the current crisis - and this is not a fashionable thing to say either - the responsibility of the Organisation of African Unity must be underlined. It is theoretically in charge of reconciling the people of Grande Comore with those of Anjouan after the secession of the island of Anjouan.
The sole activity of the OAU, if not its sole raison d'tre , seems to be to defend the old colonial borders, against everything, against everyone, and even against obvious facts.
The OAU is therefore very understandably accused of partiality, as it has shown itself to be indifferent to even the most legitimate claims made by Anjouan and Mohéli.
Finally, and I will not dwell very long on this point, there is the responsibility of France, which has been caricatured by the fact that the eighteenth coup d'état in the Comoros coincides with the opening of the trial in Paris of the mercenary, Bob Denard, who in 1975, 1978, 1989 and 1995 was himself responsible for four coups d'état in Moroni and who is suspected of murdering two Comoran heads of state.
Today we have learnt that a former French Minister for Cooperation and Development will attend the trial to testify in his favour.
I think that is all that need be said.
Having established these responsibilities, it seems that the European Union has a duty to make up for the inability of the usual key players on the Comoran stage by mounting a political initiative for inter-island reconciliation, a considerable degree of humanitarian aid, particularly for Anjouan, and a fresh emergency economic aid programme for the Comoros.
Personally - and I will now conclude - I would like to stress this urgency from a particular point of view.
As Mr Lehideux was kind enough to say, I am fortunate to have a last chance to speak in this House on a subject which concerns me personally.
Since 1997, in Mayotte, which has fortunately remained French territory, there has been a massive and artificial influx of refugees as a result of the crisis in the Comoros that neither the public services, the local economy nor the people of Mayotte can withstand for much longer.
The stabilisation of the Comoros is therefore the condition necessary for peace in the entire region.
Mr President, it is with some emotion that I am making my last speech in this Parliament.
The Islamic Republic of Comoros is a state which for many years now, virtually ever since independence, has been living through a serious institutional crisis, as previous speakers recalled.
And it is the very unity of the country, or rather of the three islands making it up, that is constantly being called into question.
A few days ago a framework agreement was reached - helped on its way by the unobtrusive but extremely important work of President Michel Rocard, to whom we pay tribute - which did and still does provide a good basis on which to re-establish conditions enabling coexistence between the various islands and the very survival of a state in the Comoros.
The military coup d'état, which we of course condemn, followed in the wake of a number of serious incidents on Grande Comore against people from the island of Anjouan and was also due to the civil authorities' inability to uphold the process of state reunification and reconciliation.
I believe that two things need to be done: the first is surely to re-establish constitutional and civil order and put an end to the coup d'état, which - as colleagues have pointed out - is the eighteenth one since the mid-seventies; and secondly, and at the same time, the process of seeking a national agreement needs to continue and should also deal with those forces, not just military forces, wishing to maintain the supremacy of the people in one island over the others.
For that reason it is important that the representatives of the island of Anjouan be allowed to consult the people and to sign up to the agreement which all the others had endorsed before the coup.
Furthermore, the international community, working inter alia through the Organisation of African Unity, but with the European Union playing an active role, should back this agreement and get to work preparing an economic assistance programme of both emergency and long-term aid, to allow the country to recover in economic terms as well.
This agreement would moreover, if it were successful, set a positive example for other African countries experiencing crises of a similar order and complexion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as pointed out in the first paragraph of the preamble to the resolution and by Mr Lehideux, this is the eighteenth coup d'état in the Comoros in the last twenty-four years, making one every sixteen months.
This statistic is sufficient to convey the difficult situation of a region which would otherwise have every likelihood of taking the right path towards democracy and development.
We need only think of the example of Mauritius, which has many similar cultural and geopolitical characteristics.
Therefore, in my own humble opinion and in that of the group I represent, the European Union must deliver a clear, specific and united response from.
Actions by individual politicians and countries are important, but only a collective effort on the part of the Union can bring something good out of this difficult and troubled time.
And having expressed this hope, Mr President, I would like to thank you in your capacity as President for the achievements of these last five years, and I would like to thank my colleagues, particularly those taking part in meetings on human rights and matters of urgency, for all the work they have done here and for all that I have learned from them.
Mr President, the European Commission shares the European Parliament's concerns over the situation in the Comoros following the coup d'état which took place on 30 April 1999.
As you are well aware, the Commission reacted immediately and stressed the European Union's disapproval to the chief of staff, Colonel Azali Assoumani, drawing his attention to the principles on which our cooperation is based, the main elements of which are the respect for human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Furthermore, the European Commission has suggested to the Member States that they should apply the procedure set out in Article 366 of the Lomé Convention, which allows them to suspend cooperation with the Comoros.
In addition, the Commission is examining with the Member States the possibility of a diplomatic initiative aimed at applying the agreement signed in Madagascar on 29 April 1999 under the auspices of the OAU.
Since 1998, the Commission has financed humanitarian aid programmes to the order of EUR 1 million to improve the situation of the people of Anjouan in terms of nutrition and health care, and the Commission has just approved a new programme to the value of EUR 730 000 which is aimed at providing primary health care.
It is also examining whether or not it would be appropriate to approve an additional humanitarian aid programme in view of the requirements on the three islands as a result of the political instability.
The Commission's office in the Comoros is paying close attention to how the situation develops and, according to our latest information, the situation is calm and the army has established the initial contact needed to establish a transitional government in accordance with the agreement reached in Madagascar.
Thank you, Mr Marín.
Mr President, I would like to make a point of order, to clarify, although everyone will have guessed it, that the former French Minister for Cooperation and Development, who is testifying in favour of the mercenary Bob Denard, is not Mr Jean-Pierre Cot.
Thank you for that clarification.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B4-0457/99 by Mrs Stenzel and others-B4-0458/99 by Mr Pompidou, on behalf of the Union for Europe Group-B4-0464/99 by Mr Swoboda and others, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists-B4-0484/99 by Mr Frischenschlager and Mr Eisma, on behalf of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party-B4-0489/99 by Mr Manisco and Mr Marset Campos, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left - Nordic Green Left-B4-0499/99 by Mr Chichester and others, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party-B4-0500/99 by Mr Weber and Mr Hudghton, on behalf of the Group of the European Radical Alliance-B4-0505/99 by Mr Voggenhuber and others, on behalf of the Green Group in the European Parliamenton the nuclear power plant in Temelin.
Mr President, in a few days' time, the Czech Government will make its decision on the completion of the nuclear power station in Temelin.
Let me quote the report by the International Commission on Temelin, which said that there is currently an excess productive capacity and that power from the Temelin plant can only marginalise the use of other resources for power production.
The stage has already been reached when any solution to the Temelin project will have more adverse than beneficial effects.
Completion may bring even greater financial losses than discontinuing the construction work would cause.
Economically, then, the situation is very tricky to downright crazy.
And yet Western industries are still trying to make money there and have no compunction about possibly creating economic difficulties for a young democracy which, I hope, will very soon be a member of the European Union.
The International Atomic Energy Agency formulates minimum technical safety standards for nuclear plants which even nuclear power stations in the third world could satisfy.
That is well known.
This assessment does not come from me, but from very high-ranking diplomats and scientists.
I consider that to be an insult to the Czech Government and an affront to the Czech people.
In its conclusion of 7 December 1998 on nuclear safety, the Council, distancing itself from the IAEA, speaks of a 'high level of nuclear safety'.
That is quite a different matter!
If I may quote the Temelin report again, it says that the release of radioactive substances will be prevented by a simple concrete shell in the event of a nuclear accident. How simple, I wonder!
The report also states that the long-term storage of radioactive waste will be assured in due course.
So when and where will it be stored? Whatever the answers to these questions, I should like to thank all of my colleagues, particularly those from my own group, who intend to vote in favour of this resolution today.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, nuclear safety has always been a very important subject in this House, since we are all aware that an accident in a nuclear power station affects not only the people who live and work nearby but also everyone else in Europe, and that we must therefore devote very special attention to safety.
As the previous speaker said, the government of the Czech Republic has been faced in these past few weeks with a decision as to whether or not the construction of the Temelin nuclear power station is to be completed.
Ever since the borders between the Czech Republic and my own country were opened, this nuclear plant has been a source of endless amazement, since it was supposed to have been completed several years ago.
Time and again they said the work would be done, but time and again it failed to materialise.
I believe that all these points have to be considered very carefully; the fact that money has been spent on it already is no reason to finish building something that is neither safe nor economical.
However, I should like to highlight another point here.
My group is not only anxious to voice our concerns about public safety in the European Union and in the Czech Republic and neighbouring countries; it also wishes to see aid being offered to promote change, to promote another form of energy production, another source of energy, a different type of energy efficiency to that which can be achieved with a nuclear power station, with the accompanying wastage of electrical energy.
What we are interested in is being able to offer ecologically as well as economically acceptable ways of obtaining sustainable energy to meet people's needs.
Since this is my last speech in this House, allow me to mention that I myself have launched an initiative to that end. Under the scheme, known as 'Building with the sun in Upper Austria and Southern Bohemia', mayors, administrators, engineers and architects are invited to work together on projects in which greater use is made of solar power, for the sun, after all, is a source of energy for all of us, and it is better to harness that energy than to construct our buildings in such a way that we need a great deal of nuclear power in order to heat them.
Mr President, in most Central and Eastern European countries, nuclear power is routinely accepted as a way of meeting energy requirements.
We know this, but we also know that we in western Europe tend to differentiate more.
It is clear that the obsolete Russian nuclear plants need to be shut down, but the sort of plant we are discussing now, at Temelin, is a modern Russian power station, although it still needs to be brought up to international safety standards.
I actually think that we need to consider which option is best for each country.
Sometimes alternatives to nuclear power are possible, and if there is an option that is just as cost-effective, then that is the one to go for.
But if it appears that upgrading the obsolete plants is the only option, then the European Union must work with the applicant country, in this case the Czech Republic, to achieve this.
Because there are question marks about the economic feasibility of Temelin, I do not think that we can take a decision yet, but we must work with the Czech Government to find the right solution.
I hope that the Commission will concentrate its efforts on this over the next few months.
Mr President, it is the sovereign right of every state, including the Czech Republic, to decide which primary sources of energy it uses.
But the European Parliament must focus on the following point: all these matters have a bearing on the Community too and affect every one of us.
In the case of power plants, this applies to safety standards, especially those governing the construction and operation of nuclear power stations, their fuel cycle and the disposal of their waste, and all of these things are important in the context of future accession treaties, because we cannot admit any new Member States which maintain lower safety standards than those which obtain in Western Europe by virtue of political decisions.
Secondly, this is about the free energy market and future participants in that market.
We shall naturally be unable to tolerate a situation in which customers can freely obtain electricity from producers who do not apply the common safety standards and thereby secure competitive advantages in an unacceptable way.
These are the two Community aspects that we in Parliament must discuss.
That is why it is right to adopt this resolution.
That is why it is right that the Commission should deliver its opinion on the present reports too, because we have a duty to the European people to create transparency publicly here on this important issue.
So it is certainly not a matter of the Czech Republic and Austria alone but rather about the European public, and we must remember that if we are to fulfil the mandate from our electorate.
Mr President, I visited the Temelin power station that is under construction.
I visited it as a national of a country that has four large nuclear power stations on its borders, notably the Cattenom station that is on French territory.
French engineers have always tried to convince us that the French power stations were entirely safe with a high level of security.
It has now been demonstrated that this is not the case.
There is always a risk, one which the people of Luxembourg do not want.
I do not think that the Austrians, who are neighbours of the Czechs, should be exposed to the risks of a power station that is even more vulnerable to accidents.
I think that the European Union should help the Czech Republic to equip itself with an alternative system for producing energy, that uses soft energy, but should not release funds for a Soviet-designed type VVER 1000 power station which, in my opinion, presents a great many risks.
Mr President, the most significant Austrian contribution to the common future of Europe in recent decades was the referendum in which the population rejected nuclear energy.
What some of you dismissed at that time as the reaction of Luddites has long since proved to be a recognition of the insoluble nature of the problems of nuclear power, of the security issue, the waste disposal issue and the cost issue.
Over the past few years, the European Parliament has been increasingly supportive of the quest for new, sustainable forms of energy.
It has recognised that the risks emanating from nuclear energy production in Central and Eastern Europe have assumed an entirely new dimension, but it has also recognised that the accession talks present us with a new opportunity.
The Temelin nuclear power station is a yardstick of the credibility of this House.
But the parliamentary groups remain split.
The influence of the nuclear lobby in this House is still intolerably powerful.
I wish we had received more decisive support in the past from some of those who have tabled this resolution today, particularly the European People's Party, and I wish that some of the signatories had been more effective advocates within their own party.
Had that been the case, today's debate would not have exuded this faint odour of electioneering.
Unfortunately, however, this Parliament of ours is still unable to act on its own judgement by making the abandonment of nuclear power in Europe one of its top priorities.
But there is one responsibility that this House cannot evade today, namely its responsibility for enabling the countries of Central and Eastern Europe to switch to alternative energy policies, instead of helping them to pursue the dangerous and senseless upgrading and conversion of their nuclear plants.
Mr President, along with many others, I am delighted about the forthcoming accession of the new Member States, and particularly the Czech Republic.
At the same time, I think we need to adopt a sober and even strict approach when it comes to meeting the agreed political and economic criteria, since the successful operation of the enlarged Union is at stake here.
However, this sensibly cautious approach must not mean that solutions to bilateral problems are forced on the applicant countries under the pressure of the accession process or by subtle references to it.
The applicant countries are the weaker party in relations with the Union, and I do not think I need to remind anyone here that it is one of the most difficult tasks in politics to ensure that justice is done to the weaker party.
As for the objections that Austria especially has against nuclear power stations in general and the one at Temelin in particular, I would point out that there are a number of recently built power stations in Central and Eastern Europe, many of which are considerably more dangerous than the one at Temelin.
Furthermore, Temelin at least meets the internationally recognised minimum requirements, which definitely cannot be said of various other plants.
This is why many in my group feel that it would not be right to single out the Czech Republic, particularly when this issue has already been covered in much greater depth and in a more appropriate context in the Adam report.
There is no reason to pick on the Czech Republic, and certainly not on Temelin.
This would simply be underestimating the dangers presented by many others.
We need to show some understanding for the Czech Government, which has few alternatives for meeting its energy needs.
I hardly think that brown coal can be seen as a viable option, because of the huge environmental damage that it causes.
So we need to adopt a more positive approach towards the Czech Government.
Mr President, the safety of existing nuclear plants and those under construction, as accession approaches, is a primordial objective, as has been underlined on many occasions by Parliament, by the Commission with regard to the Agenda 2000 package, and by the Council in the context of nuclear safety in connection with the future enlargement of the European Union.
In the case of the Czech power station, Temelín, it seems highly unlikely that the maximum safety levels for power stations which is required of applicants for accession will be achieved, particularly in the light of the Czech authorities' plan to use Soviet-type VVER 1000 reactors, which are presented as latest generation plants but have actually proved not to be very reliable at all.
These reactors do not appear to meet the maximum safety levels we should now be demanding and there are doubts about their viability insofar as their much vaunted energy efficiency is concerned.
Considering that the Adam report on nuclear safety, which was approved by this House last March, called among other things for restrictions on the use of RBMK reactors and also VVER Soviet-built models, which the Czech authorities are now planning to use in Temelin, let us reaffirm the conclusions submitted by Alleanza Nazionale's head of delegation and the draftsman of the opinion on the Adam report: first, safety is the key element of the pre-accession strategy; secondly, international legislation on safety systems must be strengthened; and thirdly, the application of such legislation should be supervised by an independent body.
We can therefore approve the common resolution submitted today, paying particular attention to environmental protection standards, which are, moreover, the only way of guaranteeing that public health is protected.
Mr President, we welcome this joint motion for a resolution, and we shall support it too, even though the broad support for this motion does remind us, as one of the previous speakers said, that we are in the midst of an election campaign.
As immediate neighbours of the Czech Republic, we in Austria are particularly affected by the planned high-risk reactor.
Looking beyond the present motion, however, we take the view that, in the context of its enlargement to the East, the European Union must spell out clearly that accession would be inconceivable unless the applicant countries completely change their dangerous nuclear policy.
Let me point out, for example, that reactors built to the same specifications in the former German Democratic Republic were decommissioned after the reunification of Germany.
We believe that the financing of this reactor by means of a grant or loan from EU funds would be tantamount to misappropriation on both economic and ecological grounds.
Heckling
Is that all you can say about the nuclear power station? Is that all the importance you attach to this subject?
It is certainly legitimate to support these countries financially in the establishment of a sustainable energy system. I thank you, Mr President, and I thank the gentleman who felt he had to shout out his statement on this important subject in order to book his place in tomorrow's newspaper.
I will be brief, Mr President.
The Commission understands that the Temelin reactors are, in principle, among those that can be improved to meet acceptable safety levels.
And, as indicated in Agenda 2000 and in the communication of March 1998, the Commission's overall objective in relation to this type of reactor is to ensure that the improvements undertaken by the respective countries are carried out in a rapid and efficient manner and produce satisfactory results.
However, two elements must be taken into account.
The authorities in the country where the nuclear power plants are situated are responsible for their nuclear safety.
A high level of nuclear safety is a priority in the accession process and the Commission is prepared to cooperate with all the applicant countries to help improve nuclear safety. The Commission is also prepared to help guarantee that the levels of technological and operational safety are brought into line with the safety practices currently in force in the Union.
In the Czech Republic, aid has been granted under the framework of the PHARE programme to the authorities responsible for nuclear safety and to improve the safety of the Duckovani nuclear power plant.
As regards the specific case of Temelin, the Commission does not have sufficient information on the current state of progress.
At the moment, there is no formal agreement with the Czech authorities under the PHARE framework to allow the European Union's technical safety bodies to carry out an overall safety assessment.
The Commission has taken careful note of the opinion on Temelin set out in the report published by the WENRA regulators.
This report does not provide sufficient information to allow us to reach a definitive conclusion on the level of safety that has been reached.
As regards the economic aspects of the Temelin project, the Commission supports the development of an energy strategy that gives due consideration to energy production and the diversification of sources.
The PHARE programme has supported this approach in various projects.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will be taken in a moment.
Mr President, perhaps you will forgive me.
This is not strictly a point of order, but it concerns events that have occurred since the morning.
I ask that we somehow take them into account.
You may know that there has been an announcement by the G8 ministers which offers terms for a Kosovo solution which are much less intransigent than the five conditions that have been insisted upon until now and significantly re-involves the Security Council.
In view of that, the resolutions that we have tabled this week are very much out of step with events and give the impression that Parliament is out of touch with what is happening.
Mr President, I do not know procedurally what should be done, but I ask you with your superior knowledge of procedure to invent some way in which we can take account of this event and show that we do follow the live process rather than sticking to dogmatic positions that bring nothing new and contribute nothing to the solution of this tragedy.
I am afraid there are no procedures that would allow us to come back to this issue.
If events have changed before we come to the vote there is nothing we can do about it.
VOTES (continuation)
I have to agree with the rapporteur that the results of collective bargaining to date reveal such serious shortcomings that they cast very serious doubts on the democratic credentials of legislation based on the outcome of dialogue between management and labour.
Failure to enforce the principle of non-discrimination, the application of laws to a highly restricted circle of persons and activities and a lack of binding obligations are reasons enough to question whether the European Parliament can serve employees and employers as a guarantor of minimum standards and minimum obligations when negotiations between their representatives break down.
This is no reason to opt for nothing at all rather than the little something that has been scraped together here.
And it certainly must not encourage those Member States which regard even this as far too heavily binding.
The Commission and Parliament must close the loopholes in basic European social legislation which allow people to be employed in atypical jobs without proper social cover and must hasten to address the democratic deficit in this area by concluding an interinstitutional agreement pending the next amendment of the Treaty.
Moreover, it is also high time the European trade unions learned how to represent the interests of their female members more effectively and more vigorously.
Recognition of qualifications for liberalised professional activities
The next item is the report by Mrs Gebhardt (A4-0253/99) for the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive establishing a mechanism for the recognition of qualifications in respect of the professional activities covered by the Directives on liberalisation and transitional measures and supplementing the general systems for the recognition of qualifications (3612/99 - C4-0209/99-96/0031(COD)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased that my last speech of this parliamentary term contains some good news.
The directive establishing a mechanism for the recognition of qualifications in commercial, craft-related and industrial trades is out of the woods.
We can approve the outcome of the detailed conciliation discussions between Parliament and the Council with a clear conscience.
Even though the European Parliament has not entirely succeeded in securing acceptance of the decisions it had adopted by large majorities at the first and second readings, we have nevertheless achieved our main objective.
This primary objective was to ensure that a vocational qualification obtained in one Member State of the EU is equally valid in the others.
That will be the case in future, even though our proposal on aptitude testing suffered a few knocks.
The important point, however, is that we have done something for the freedom of those in commercial, craft-related and industrial trades in the European Union to obtain employment and set up businesses in any Member State.
The directive will not trigger a flood tide of new migrants, but it is a particularly valuable mechanism for young people.
In a situation in which high unemployment weighs more heavily on us than almost any other problem, fair distribution of the existing work assumes enormous importance.
In the third directive on the recognition of qualifications, we are contributing to the fair distribution of work.
Newly qualified people in particular, who have no family ties to impede their mobility, can go where their labour is required.
They need not stay in the place where they have learned their trade if their skills are not currently in demand there.
I believe that, for the sake of strengthening the civil rights of freedom of movement and freedom of establishment, we can endure a tinge of disappointment.
The slight disappointment is that, in the host countries, migrants will not always be free to choose between an aptitude test and an adaptation period as a means of proving their knowledge and occupational skills.
As a parliament, we wanted this freedom to be granted unreservedly to those qualified in commercial, craft-related and industrial trades.
We took the view - and we stand by it - that all migrants will know how they can best prove their aptitude.
Any restrictive set of rules is a superfluous bureaucratic obstacle, in our eyes.
The Council sees the matter differently, and we had great difficulty in moving it towards the ultimate compromise during the long and arduous negotiations.
It was quite obviously under heavy pressure from representatives of craft and trade federations, which would evidently prefer to revive the medieval guild system.
That, at least, we were able to prevent, but we did not achieve our aim.
The parliamentary delegation followed a consistent line at the negotiations but showed itself willing to compromise when the need arose, and this approach was successful in saving our Council interlocutors from a headlong rush into the past.
I do not suppose that the Council will show its gratitude at the next opportunity by adopting a more flexible approach, but I am certain that this Parliament will accept what we have done for young people and their vocational development.
A large majority would serve as a signal to those young people that we intend to act quickly to improve their vocational prospects through this third directive on the recognition of qualifications.
Applause
Mr President, Mrs Gebhardt, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to congratulate the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and, more specifically, our colleague Mrs Gebhardt, for the excellent work that they have all done and the determination they showed during the conciliation procedure.
The negotiations with the Council were certainly not easy, but despite this they ended in a compromise which I personally think is quite satisfactory.
In this area it must be recognised that, although progress has been made over the last thirty years in moving from sectorial directives to more general horizontal directives - in particular the key directives of 1989 and 1992 - there was, and there still is, a great deal of work to be done.
I therefore obviously support the proposals aimed at repealing the sectorial directives, which were supposed to be temporary and have often continued longer than necessary, resulting in serious restrictions to the freedom of movement and freedom of establishment of European citizens across the Union.
With regard to the more general system of recognition of qualifications, I am also in favour of improving and consolidating the system, because although in theory the level of recognition of qualifications is satisfactory, it is not exercised sufficiently in practice.
European citizens are too often faced with problems when they try to have their qualifications recognised, and they are often refused employment because of supposedly insufficient qualifications.
As a Member representing a border region, I am in a position of having to deal with these problems almost daily, in Belgium and in France.
To conclude, I would like to say that these are serious problems, because they are damaging to the very idea of citizenship.
It is impossible to convince Europeans that European citizenship exists if they are daily being denied a fundamental right, the right to employment.
This is why, Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur once again, and to take note of the progress that has been made, but to say that in this area too, our battle is far from over.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the start of what I should like to say, let me also express my thanks to the rapporteur and my respect and appreciation for her work.
Cooperating very harmoniously, not least with Mrs Fontaine, who chaired the conciliation meetings, she managed through a very astute approach, a firm hand and indefatigable persistence to make this compromise possible.
That was indeed a fine piece of work.
Everyone who attended those meetings was able to see at first hand how difficult it is to move the Council even a fraction of an inch.
Our rapporteur's achievement was truly prodigious.
As has already been emphasised, the crux of the matter is freedom of movement in the Community.
This freedom would effectively be a joke if migrants could not practise their trade or profession in the country to which they have chosen to move.
At the same time, it is a matter of ensuring that freedom of movement is not restricted to unskilled labour; on the contrary, the success of the common market and the people who work in it depends on a high standard of exchange among the Member States.
That is the core of the directive now before us.
Qualifications should be obtainable and usable. The way that this should happen was what we ultimately managed to find.
What we found was not a perfect solution, but, as has rightly been said, a tenable compromise that provides a common path for all to follow.
My group is therefore happy to endorse the report and will vote for it.
Thank you once again for all your work.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes the Conciliation Committee's adoption of a joint text on the recognition of qualification.
And, on behalf of the Commission, I should like to thank Mrs Gebhardt in particular, as well as the chairman and members of Parliament's delegation to this Conciliation Committee, for all the work they have done over the past four months to obtain this joint text.
Congratulations and well done.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken tomorrow at 9 am.
Statistics on trade between Member States
The next item is the report by Mrs Lulling (A4-0226/99) to the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee on a European Parliament and Council Regulation (EC) amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3330/91 on the statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States with a view to reducing the data to be provided (3608/99 - C4-0172/99-97/0155(COD)).
Mr President, in 1993, the entry into force of the single market and the removal of border controls resulted in the withdrawal from VAT returns of statistics relating to the trading of goods between Member States, the reliability of which was guaranteed by the customs services.
As we still have a need for statistics on trade in goods within the Community, Intrastat was established, and firms were obliged to supply the necessary information to enable this body to establish the statistics.
Firms, and particularly SMEs, were of course not enchanted with the idea.
In June 1997, the Commission presented us with two proposals to simplify the 1991 regulation, with the aim of reducing the obligations for firms, and particularly SMEs, in terms of tax returns, and to reduce costs for those liable to pay tax.
Even during the first reading, it was clear that in the Council the Member States were not even prepared to support these proposals, even though they had been toned down in relation to the results of the first study carried out within the framework of the SLIM initiative.
Despite this, at first reading we tabled amendments to limit the tax return burden, to remove non-relevant information, for example means of transport and optional information, in order to limit the number of SMEs obliged to provided detailed statistical information. Their aim was also to simplify the use of combined nomenclature, while preserving a single nomenclature for intra-Community trade and trade with third countries.
We pointed out that this was only a first step in the right direction, while awaiting a more fundamental simplification, especially as the reliability of the Intrastat statistics is unfortunately inversely proportional to the costs that are borne by the 450 000 firms that have to supply the data.
With the exception of one detail, we had the Commission's blessing on the amendments that were unanimously adopted at first reading.
However, the Council then forwarded to us a common position that further weakened the original Commission proposal, which had already been weakened in relation to the results of the SLIM studies, and which we wished to strengthen by means of our amendments.
Moreover, that common position would have resulted in an increase in the tax return burden for firms.
The Council even went so far as to simply refuse to adopt a common position on the proposal for a regulation concerning nomenclature.
In the face of such a negative attitude from the Council, we refused to give in.
We retained our amendments at second reading, and we went to a Conciliation Committee.
We reached the following compromise: as there is no common position on nomenclature, we were able to obtain a declaration from the Council promising to consider the position on nomenclature, taking account of Parliament's amendments and of the results of the discussions currently taking place within the framework of a second SLIM initiative.
We achieved this result because, in the Conciliation Committee, I was able to confront the Council delegation with the decisions of the Ecofin Council of 18 January 1999, which state, ironically, that the current Intrastat system holds more details than is necessary, that it should be simplified, that costs should be limited and that the 1991 regulations should be modified.
I thought I must be dreaming when I read that, as the Council had presented us in July last year with a 'decaffeinated' common position on the proposal to modify the 1991 regulation.
In December 1998 we maintained our amendments against the common position, and then in January 1999, the Council discovered that there was a need to modify Regulation (EEC) No 330/91. Meanwhile, the Commission proposal had been on the table since 2 June 1997 and there had been two readings in this House.
Is it that in the Council, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing?
Is this an illustration of the obvious political malfunctioning of the Council? How is it possible that in January 1999 the Council can demand a much greater simplification of the Intrastat regulation, which it had refused in July 1998, forcing us to go to a Conciliation Committee?
Make of it what you will! In any case, I am pleased to have persevered at second reading, and I also welcome the Commission declaration promising to submit a report to us on the Intrastat system.
If I had to estimate the cost of the work that has been done since 1997, it would certainly be inversely proportional to the results, which are even more meagre when compared to the ambitions of the first SLIM study and to our ambitions for reducing the burden on firms.
However, at least the Council's contradictions have enabled us to make a new start, which we hope is more promising than what we have had to go through on this issue over the last few years.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur and the delegation to the Conciliation Committee for a very successfully drafted report.
It is a most pleasurable opportunity to say this on a day like today, the penultimate day of this parliamentary term.
I believe that through conciliation we have achieved a compromise, which indicates that both the codecision procedure works well and that Parliament has demonstrated its strength.
The directive which went to conciliation is important for small companies, and, hence, the issue of employment.
In the European Union there are approximately 18 million SMEs, and almost 17 million unemployed.
This comparison of figures already suggests that we must do our utmost to ensure that the SME sector is able to remove the burden of bureaucracy and complexity from its shoulders.
By reducing the amount of data that has to be provided on statistics on trade, we are making an important difference to those SMEs which do not have the resources to produce and maintain complicated sets of statistics.
The compromise that was reached in conciliation will ease the burden for SMEs, which hopefully will then mean that those companies can put this part of their expenditure and endeavour to better use, thus boosting employment.
In the European Union and Member States the role of labour-intensive SMEs in particular has been considered central to improved levels of employment.
If we can continue to simplify matters for them in the areas of thresholds and obstacles, that will be a good thing.
The euro is an important factor for small companies, as it removes the need to exchange foreign currencies in the single market area.
Small companies do not generally have the means or skills to monitor currency situations to keep them completely up-to-date on how exchange rates are behaving. This being the case, the single currency will be of great benefit to SMEs, lowering, as it will, the degree of risk they encounter in the single market.
During the conciliation process Parliament also had the opportunity to send a political message to the Commission on another matter that was being dealt with. This too demonstrates the strength of the codecision procedure.
Now that the Treaty of Amsterdam has been in force for just under a week and the role of the codecision procedure is growing in importance, perhaps we have reason to congratulate ourselves, Parliament, and the triumph of democracy.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking Mrs Lulling for her very committed efforts on behalf of SMEs and other businesses.
She rightly recognised that firms need less red tape so that they have more time for their customers, and that this also provides an opportunity to create new jobs.
I would also like to thank Mr Paasilinna, who has always given this initiative his strongest support and who has shown us the way in this field.
I would also very much like to thank the Commission, because the research we were promised as part of the SLIM-Intrastat initiative, looking particularly at the issues of quality and the burden on the economy, is extremely important.
Commissioner, this research is very important for us in Europe.
We are always talking about relieving the burden of bureaucracy and supporting firms in order to create new jobs.
This is a real opportunity to find a new approach.
I think it is very important that we have decided to cut down on the number of people required to provide information, as well as reducing the amount of information to be given, although we do, of course, want to have an acceptable level of information.
What we want, in other words, is a good cost-benefit ratio, so that the exercise is a profitable one.
In Austria we are shortly to hive off the Central Statistical Office, making it into an independent profit-making operation.
People using the data will have to pay for doing so, because if the data are worth anything, then there should be a price to pay.
I would also stress that we have made great efforts to use a single nomenclature for internal and external trade, and we are reducing the number of sections from eight to six, which I think is very important.
We need to have data that are manageable.
They will not be broken down so finely, but they should still provide a clear overview of the market.
We should also welcome the fact that the transport sector and supply conditions have been dropped.
What we want is to be able to obtain really efficient data rapidly.
They should be collected in computerised form as far as possible, and we should encourage firms to supply them voluntarily, using systems of incentives rather than fines. We must see to it that the most up-to-date statistical methods are used, such as random sampling, market research and opinion surveys.
I think that this will bring us much closer to the people, and we will then be more readily accepted by businesses, have greater room for manoeuvre on the world market and thereby create new jobs.
In the framework of the SLIM initiative, the Commission presented two proposals for a regulation on 30 May 1997 with the aim of simplifying the basic legislation on the Intrastat system.
Their objective is to relieve the burden on those who have to provide statistics.
In the first proposal, the number of compulsory variables to be provided in declarations was reduced, and in the second, the nomenclature of products used to classify traded goods was simplified.
As regards the first proposal on reducing the number of variables covered, the conciliation procedure allowed us to reach a satisfactory result on the Commission's initial proposal.
This result was obtained through the combined efforts of our two institutions - Parliament and the Commission - and we are very pleased about that.
The joint text agreed in this way represents an important step in the work to relieve the burden on businesses, and particularly SMEs.
To be specific, from 1 January 2001, small and medium-sized enterprises will no longer have to provide five variables. However, the Member States will retain their option to request the 'delivery terms', 'mode of transport' and 'statistical procedure' variables for businesses that are above a certain threshold.
As regards the proposal on simplifying the nomenclature, the Commission notes with satisfaction that all the institutions acknowledge the importance of simplifying the combined nomenclature.
Its importance is highlighted in the joint text through a specific recital to this end.
Moreover, the Commission would like to point out that the Council is willing to examine the proposal for a regulation on this matter.
In conclusion, the European Commission is satisfied with these specific simplifications, which businesses will soon benefit from, and would especially like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Lulling, on her excellent report.
However, this is only the first step.
The Commission is committed to continuing with the SLIM/Intrastat initiative and the EDICOM actions for businesses, in accordance with the Council's position on the need for information in the framework of economic and monetary union.
I understand the point you are making, but it is not our Rules but the Treaty that sets down that we require a simple majority for third reading.
I accept what you say about Friday, but in terms of the parliamentary calendar, it is a normal working day.
Mr President, I hope that next time a very controversial conciliation report is being discussed, we will also vote on Friday morning, with 20 votes to 18, or something of the kind!
I am just a servant of this House.
I merely follow the agenda.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Insolvency practices
The next item is the report by Mr Malangré (A4-0234/99) on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights on insolvency practices.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this own-initiative report is Parliament's contribution towards closing a very sensitive loophole in internal market legislation.
Much of this single market legislation is, as we know, very well advanced, I am glad to say.
However, despite three attempts we have still not succeeded in finding a solution to the problem of Community insolvency law.
This is the unavoidable downside to the great success of the single market.
As we know and are extremely happy to see, many businesses are taking advantage of the single market to operate in other countries and now have sizeable assets in various Member States of the Union.
When insolvencies occur, however, the confusing legal situation with, at present, 15 different bankruptcy systems creates great scope for manipulation, generates enormous costs in complicated proceedings and makes it extremely difficult to ensure that the assets are fairly distributed among the creditors.
Here too - and this is something we would stress - the idea of introducing remedial measures through an intergovernmental agreement, thereby excluding Parliament, came to nothing.
However, I will not deny that I have great sympathy with what the Commission has been trying to do since the early 1980s, or at least with the substance, but not with the idea of using an intergovernmental agreement.
This Commission draft was an outstanding and extremely knowledgeable legal text, but it was not accepted.
The subsequent attempts - the Istanbul Convention and the last one that failed in 1995 - tried other routes, but they too missed the mark.
Nevertheless, we need a Community solution, which is why I call in my report for a draft directive or regulation to be put forward as soon as possible.
We urgently need to have this on the table, and most of the preliminary work was done in the three earlier drafts.
If we take the approach of demanding directives or regulations, we are ensuring that Parliament will be involved and that there will be a majority decision, which experience has shown to be clearly what is needed here.
My report contains a number of proposals which improve on the agreement that failed in 1995, and we would ask you to consider them.
I think they are essential improvements which can be incorporated.
I would like to thank the Committee on Legal Affairs for all its hard work.
We held a hearing that produced a very clear outcome, and we were unanimous in demanding an urgent solution to this insolvency problem.
I would just mention that four amendments were tabled in committee which were all positive and supported the line taken in the report.
I was therefore happy to include them and can now put before you a proposal that was approved by the entire committee.
I would urge you to vote in favour of it tomorrow.
Thank you Mr President.
I agree with the rapporteur that this is an important report and I agree with his suggestions.
I regret, too, that the convention has not been ratified by all Member States and would stress that we need to find a solution to this very serious problem.
I agree with the demand of the rapporteur to draft a regulation or a directive on crossborder insolvency.
I want to flag up though that we need a solution which finds a fair balance for creditors and employers and employees alike.
Employees need some protection for accrued salaries and creditors need a sensible solution which will give them the best possible repayments of debts under the circumstances.
I would also flag up a point made by my colleague, Mr Falconer: I am sure he will not mind me saying this.
He is particularly concerned that, in insolvency situations where someone later develops an industrial disease, a solution is found whereby they can be recompensed for industrial disease problems.
I agree that this is an urgent report and that it is crucial to find a solution swiftly.
Indeed, to show how urgent it is, I was lobbied about this at an international banking meeting in Paris in spring 1994.
That shows how longstanding the issue is.
I speak on behalf of the Socialist Group.
My Socialist Group will be supporting the report and I would like to thank the rapporteur for his hard work.
It has been extremely nice working with Mr Malangré over the years that we have both been in Parliament.
Applause
Mr President, I should like to begin where the previous speaker left off, by expressing my great admiration for Mr Malangré.
He has produced a report that is as sound as a bell.
I myself have a personal connection with this subject, since my very first report, on an amendment to the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, dealt with the bankruptcy of the Ferrovie San'Anna, which was very unusual at the time, a steel company going bankrupt.
The High Authority, which was responsible for the social side of things, seemed to come last in the queue, while first the State, then the social services, the suppliers, the banks and anyone else you cared to mention all helped themselves to whatever was left over from the liquidation.
So I said to Commissioner Cristoffersen that the situation could not be allowed to continue, because there were so many different bankruptcy systems in the European Union, and it was high time that we had the possibility of creating European limited companies whose creation and termination would both be jointly regulated.
Now, in my last speech at the last sitting I shall attend as a Member of this Parliament, bankruptcy is on the agenda again and it has still not been regulated.
As Mr Malangré described in his explanatory statement, which as I said is absolutely first-class, it is high time that we did something about bankruptcy in the Community at European level.
There are twelve different systems for suspension of payment in Italy, and in Denmark all creditors are treated equally, even the State and the social security authorities.
We need harmonisation here, otherwise any attempts to create European transfrontier companies will be doomed to failure.
I support the Malangré report, to which I have been able to make a small contribution through my amendments in the Legal Affairs Committee, which have been included.
I and my group wholeheartedly endorse it.
Mr President, the Commission welcomes Parliament's initiative to support the adoption at Community level of legislation that allows us to determine the legal and economic effects of the bankruptcy of companies operating within the internal market.
Such legislation does not currently exist.
The effects of insolvency proceedings opened in one Member State upon goods and people situated in another Member State depend on national legislation and on bilateral agreements between the Member States.
The Community has always attempted to compensate for this shortcoming in the context of the smooth running of the internal market and, to this end, it launched two types of initiative in the 1980s.
Firstly, the Member States began to negotiate an agreement on the basis of ex Article 220 of the EC Treaty. This agreement aimed to regulate in a horizontal manner the intra-Community effects of bankruptcy by determining the legal competences and the law to be applied in declaring a business insolvent.
These negotiations culminated in the signing of the 1995 Convention on Insolvency Proceedings, on the basis of which we are debating today.
Secondly, the Commission presented two directives on the liquidation of insurance companies and credit bodies.
These proposals are based on the principle of the authorities' powers in the country of origin where these companies are authorised to operate.
The Commission hopes that the two directives will be adopted as soon as possible.
Until now, however, neither of these two initiatives have been successful. We are awaiting their adoption with bated breath.
The 1995 Convention on Insolvency Proceedings had still not been signed by all the Member States before the Amsterdam Treaty entered into force and, as a result, it cannot be implemented.
Retaining its use of the right of initiative, the Commission is assessing how the text agreed by the Member States in 1995 and could be brought into effect within the framework of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Mr President, I am sorry that the Commissioner must be feeling that he is getting the third degree here.
He said that the 1995 Convention has not been signed by all the Member States and the Commission is now considering doing something about this.
Will the Commissioner promise that the Commission will come up with either a directive or a regulation here - we leave that to the Commission to decide - so that we no longer need to wait for these countries to make up their minds?
Mr Wijsenbeek, I have been very tolerant but I cannot allow the dialogue to continue.
We have to conclude the debate.
I would like to add my own personal thanks to Mr Malangré for all the work that he has done in this House and to wish him every success in the future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
Lawful interception of telecommunications
The next item is the report by Mr Schmid (A4-0234/99) on behalf of the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs for a Motion for a Resolution on the lawful interception of telecommunications in relation to new technologies (10951/2/98 - C4-0052/99-99/0906(CNS)).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, before I move on to the subject of this debate, there is something I would like to say to Mr Malangré, who is leaving this House after 20 years as a Member.
You know that there are personal reasons why I am addressing these words to you.
We are, if you like, opponents and competitors in politics, since we both come from the Aachen region.
You were mayor of that important European city for 16 years and alongside that a Member of the European Parliament for 20 years.
I was mayor of Aachen's smaller neighbour for just a few years, and we did our best to get our hands on your trade tax by stealing your biggest factories.
However, this has not affected our friendship or the work we have done together for Europe.
I think I can say on behalf of many in my group that you have been one of the most honourable and reliable Europeans in this House.
Many thanks for all your work!
Applause
The Schmid report deals with an extremely sensitive subject - the modern communications society on the threshold of the 21st century.
People value their privacy, and every democratic country has legislation which protects its citizens against arbitrary State interference in their private lives.
This is why the police are only allowed to tap telephones or intercept faxes and letters under lawful conditions, and then only in certain strictly limited cases and only with a court order.
The conditions for such activities are regulated under national law, and rightly so.
This draft Council Resolution on the lawful interception of telecommunications does not interfere with national law here, since whether we like it or not, resolutions under the third pillar have this somewhat circumscribed nature.
In future, under the Amsterdam Treaty, it will be more accurate to call them 'common positions', but they will still have no binding legal force.
They simply indicate that the Member States have agreed on a common course of action.
A resolution was used in 1995 to agree what interception meant in the technical sense, such as whether only the content of a telephone conversation should be recorded, or the time and the recipient's telephone number as well.
There are two reasons for having these telephone and fax agreements between the Member States.
Setting up interception facilities involves costs for the system operator, but in the single market the level of costs must be similar everywhere if distortions of competition are to be avoided.
So one country cannot impose costs on its operators which are not charged in other countries.
Secondly, in the case of cross-border requests for legal assistance, we need to be clear about what interception actually means.
The draft resolution before us extends the scope of the agreement to include mobile telephones and Internet communications.
This is an extremely sensitive area.
It is a logical extension because it will protect people's privacy, but it does not mean that we are protecting a particular technical communication medium.
The two must be clearly distinguished.
There is opposition to these agreements and the planned procedures, which is very interesting and is worth looking at more closely.
There are some Internet freaks who are very concerned that we are trying to interfere with their freedom to communicate and think that free communication is under threat.
They need to realise that the Internet is not outside the law, and that in a democratic society there cannot be any areas where people can just do what they like.
I was Parliament's rapporteur for the establishment of joint measures to combat child pornography, and I can tell you that what is happening on the Internet cries out for some form of regulation, however hard it might be to put into practice.
The Internet service providers also have some misgivings because of the costs involved.
We have included an amendment in the report to answer these concerns.
There is also no fixed timetable for implementation, which is a weak point.
There is opposition too from those with an interest in money laundering and tax evasion.
The draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, Mr Florio, has expressed such misgivings.
He has been good enough to air the concern that regulations on interception might also be applied to bank transactions on the Internet.
The 'Handelsblatt ', which is hardly what you would call a Socialist newspaper, wrote last December, and I quote, 'The Internet is the ideal medium for tax evasion.
A firm called Privacy Solutions is openly advertising itself on the Internet with the following words: 'Your office is in cyberspace, the tax authorities will never find you!'
' People have a civil right to protect their privacy, but there is no civil right to crime, money laundering or tax evasion!
Anyone who totally rejects the lawful interception of modern communications, which we have heard many speakers do, is simply aiding and abetting criminals, albeit unintentionally.
However difficult it may be to translate joint agreements into practical action, it is absolutely essential that we should recognise that the freedom which the new telecommunications give us is still something that is open to abuse.
This is an appeal to the sense of responsibility of those able to take advantage of this freedom, but it is also a challenge to the national authorities to find intelligent ways of stopping these freedoms from being abused, which is harmful to the public interest and creates particular problems for the tax system and the collection of taxes.
My colleague Mr Schmid has tried to contribute to these efforts in this report.
Applause
Mr President, the interception of telecommunications is a sensitive matter, since it touches upon the personal integrity of ordinary people.
We are engaged in the eternal process of finding the right balance between safeguarding that integrity and combating crime.
Nobody wishes to see Orwell's Big Brother take over, but nor do we want to expose the public to uncontrollable levels of crime.
The current exercise is simply a matter of updating an existing resolution on telecommunications interception, bringing it into line with modem technology.
This is a very low-key text from the legislative point of view.
National legislation is not infringed upon; Member States implement the provisions only if they so wish, and in the way they choose.
The State has a duty to fight crime committed within its borders.
It bears responsibility for anti-crime measures and supports the cost.
This applies in the United States as well.
Costs arising in connection with the interception of telecommunications are currently borne by the State, and should continue to be so.
This is especially relevant at a time like now when telephony markets are being privatised. Increased costs would make life harder for small Internet providers, undermining Europe's competitive edge.
Internet providers can, after all, set up anywhere in the world; we do not want rising costs to drive them out of the European Union.
Success on the advanced technology front is vital for Europe's development.
We cannot afford any deterioration in the growth potential of the IT industry.
There is currently scope for expansion in the sector, particularly for small and medium-sized companies.
They are the ones that would suffer if they had to bear the costs of generalised data storage.
Personal integrity must be at the forefront of any debate on anti-crime measures. Sophisticated data inspection requirements offer one solution.
Equally, we will need a preventive strategy to stop the Internet from becoming a playground for criminals.
Across-the-board storage of information naturally puts us in mind of Orwell. If the State takes charge of the costs, however, we will have some degree of assurance that only such information as is absolutely necessary will be saved.
There must be a decision from a court; the exact nature of the information required will need to be specified; this data must of course only be used if there is suspicion that a very serious crime has been committed; and no action should be taken on statements from informers.
This whole area is rightly regulated in an extremely strict way in almost all countries.
I can therefore see no reason why Parliament should seek to block this move.
On the contrary, we in this House need to demonstrate that we can perform the balancing act required and contribute towards an unfettered information society, without allowing the Internet to become a vehicle for crime. Mr Schulz has warned us about that.
So, in the interest of combating crime, I would commend this proposal.
The EU FBI telecommunications surveillance system is developing rapidly through two separate but very linked initiatives.
First, the Council has proposed a new draft Council resolution to extend the 1995 requirements resolution to cover new technologies, the Internet and satellite-based telecommunications.
And, second, the Council is on the verge of agreeing a formula to provide a legal base for remote access to a satellite ground station in Italy through a new clause in the draft convention on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.
This draft convention will provide the legal framework for the interception of all forms of telecommunications in the EU which is required to put into effect the EU FBI surveillance system.
Both measures are expected to be agreed at the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 27 to 28 May.
What we are discussing here today, in the version discussed in the European Parliament, amends the 1995 requirements to include data on Internet users such as IP address, electronic address assigned to a party, account number and e-mail address (ENFOPOL 10951/98 REV2).
That has actually been changed.
What we are discussing now is not the actual wording, because what it says instead is: 'IP address' and instead of 'account number' it says 'credit card number and e-mail address'.
It is very disturbing that an issue like this is being discussed on a Thursday evening when there are very few people here, the vote will be tomorrow morning, and there has been no proper debate within national parliaments on this issue.
There has definitely been no debate within the Irish Parliament and I do not think there has been debate within many of the other parliaments.
If it is possible to monitor communications in such a manner you will be able to tell where a person is, when they are there, what sites they are consulting, what electronic messages they are sending, what electronic payments they are making, basically you will know everything about a person's private life.
The Greens believe that this is a serious attack on privacy and there are not sufficient safeguards regarding data protection and democratic control.
This is something that was actually brought up by the Committee on Legal Affairs, which was very critical of this.
It is unfortunate that the draftsperson of the opinion is not here because it is extremely important that this point is stressed.
Rules on telephone tapping are controlled, for example, at national level.
That follows very proper procedures and authorisation.
This proposal here basically ignores the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the provision on the protection of private life in Article 8.
These are being overwritten here and interference by a public authority should be subject to extremely strict conditions.
The view of the Committee on Legal Affairs should be taken on board.
The other point I wanted to make is that this whole issue was discussed in a procedure which was a written procedure, not in a meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers.
This issue has not, as far as I am concerned, followed the proper democratic procedures.
It has not been discussed in national parliaments.
I also feel it is very sinister that this issue is put on the agenda on the Thursday night when everyone is going back to campaign for the election.
There is absolutely nobody here to listen to what is going on.
This is a grave step against people's right to privacy and right to freedom.
It has always been the case in Member States throughout the European Union and right around the world that oppressive legislation is brought in using the argument that we have to combat serious crime.
For example one of the speakers mentioned paedophilia and things like that on the Internet.
That does not mean that you overwrite people's basic right to privacy.
That is what is going on here.
There needs to be a lot more debate about this, not just here in the European Parliament but in national parliaments.
I would like to know why these issues have been railroaded through in such a fashion without proper democratic control and proper public debate.
Madam President, lades and gentlemen, the mere mention of the idea of telephone tapping is enough to get the relevant circles talking about a police state and 'Big Brother', just like Pavlov's dogs.
What the Legal Affairs Committee has given us here is the sort of arrant nonsense that you might expect to hear from a first-year student, but from the second year onwards you would have to call it out-and-out troublemaking.
Mr Schulz pointed out quite rightly, and Mr Schmid wrote, that this Council recommendation makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to the legal situation in the Member States.
The legal conditions for telephone tapping and for monitoring Internet access will still, even after this resolution, lie solely in the hands of the national legislator.
The resolution simply aims to harmonise the technical standards, which we need to do in order to use telephone tapping to prevent organised crime.
Let me give you an example.
Virtual bank accounts can be used to collect extortion money: a blackmailer sets up a virtual bank account and has the money paid into it, and if access cannot be monitored, he cannot be held responsible or brought to account.
This is why it is absolutely vital that these measures are taken now.
The Council has made a recommendation, and we have a resolution before us that is essential if we are to combat organised crime.
The Member States will certainly introduce all the constitutional requirements that are needed to register something as sensitive as telephone tapping or Internet monitoring.
But we need to make provision for ways of combating organised crime.
Madam President, I do not want to take up too much time unnecessarily, but Mrs McKenna made two points that I feel I have to take issue with.
Mr Schmid, for whom I am deputising, has not stayed away deliberately.
His report was actually on the agenda for this morning, and this afternoon he had a private appointment, not a political one, that he could not put off.
I apologise on his behalf, and I would assume that Mrs McKenna criticised his absence simply because she did not know the reasons for it.
The second point is one that I simply have to reject. The committee responsible here in the House is called the Committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs.
No other parliament in the world, I think, devotes as much care and attention as ours does to basic and human rights if there is any question of interference with civil liberties in the construction of a European legal area. You know, Mrs McKenna, that as well as being the spokesman on internal affairs for my group I am also the vice-chairman of the Subcommittee on Human Rights.
I categorically reject the claim that the careful work which we are doing - whether it is Mr Nassauer, myself or Mr Schmid - is designed to railroad something through that goes against the guarantees of basic rights enjoyed by individuals in the European Union.
I have to say that I think these are rather harsh allegations, and because I value you as a colleague I would ask you to consider carefully in future whether you can substantiate them.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I was not criticising Mr Schmid for not being here.
I did not mention his name.
I was talking about Mr Florio because he was the draftsman of the opinion in the Committee on Legal Affairs.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has the opposite view to the Committee on Civil Liberties.
Madam President, I should firstly like to congratulate Mr Schmid on his excellent report on the lawful interception of telecommunications.
The Commission shares Parliament's opinion of the importance of this issue, particularly since in Europe the telecommunications world is constantly undergoing rapid and revolutionary changes.
On the one hand, we must take into account the logical concerns of the police authorities.
The development of Internet telecommunications must not affect the Member States' ability to fight crime and maintain national security.
On the other hand, we are seeing a significant increase in telecommunications services and, in particular, Internet services.
Information technology companies already account for more than 5 % of the European Union's gross domestic product.
They provide employment for more than four million people and they create more new jobs than any other sector of the European Union's economy.
As a result, the Union is obviously extremely keen to remain at the forefront in this age of information.
Moreover, if this sector is to continue to expand, it is essential that we are able to ensure that users trust the telecommunication services.
The European Commission therefore believes that it is vital to maintain an appropriate balance between the interests at stake.
In our opinion, this can only be achieved through open dialogue between the police authorities, the operators and the industry.
As highlighted in both Mr Schmid's report and the opinion by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights, there is a series of aspects that must be addressed in more detail.
We thus need to clarify issues such as operators' liability as well as privacy in telecommunications.
The Commission should like to begin a broad debate on the necessary requirements and on the way in which these can be met in as beneficial a way as possible.
This debate could lead to the Commission making full use of the new opportunities provided by the Amsterdam Treaty and submitting proposals on this issue.
Only in this way will we be able to protect the development of the information society.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
The sitting was closed at 7 p.m.
It took a few moments before we could open the sitting, because I was afraid that the lights were going out all over Europe, but thankfully they have now come on again.
Today we have the very last sitting of this parliamentary term and probably also the last sitting to be held in this Chamber.
I think that many people will be glad if we can then move into a new Chamber, but for quite a few this is also their last day's sitting and it is no doubt an occasion tinged with sadness.
I also see that a good many colleagues have already embarked on the election campaign and the House is no longer full to capacity.
I should like to thank all those who are staying on here today, the so-called Friday club, which is indeed a very alert and active club which will see things through here to the end.
I should like to thank everyone, and above all to wish you well and hope that you will be back!
And to those who are not returning, I also send my best wishes for the future.
Madam President, I thought you showed great respect today by having the lights dimmed to say a dignified goodbye to all those colleagues who are with us this Friday and for whom today will be their last day in Parliament.
I would like to add that as Vice-President you have always made Friday mornings enjoyable occasions for us.
Thank you very much.
Applause
Thank you, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten.
Before we move on to the approval of the Minutes, there are two points of order.
Madam President, on a point of order.
Can you confirm that the Bureau agreed yesterday to send a delegation to meet Mr Rugova and, if that is the case, can you draw the attention of political groups to Rule 91 of the code of conduct, Annex 1, Articles 1 and 2, which says that before a Member may be validly nominated as an office-holder, or participate in an official delegation, he must have duly completed the declaration provided for in Article 2.
Can you confirm that rule will be applied?
The Rules of Procedure are just the same for the Conference of Presidents, Mr Ford!
Laughter
The nominations have taken place, and I assume that all those who have been nominated will have been informed of this individually.
In any event, that is the instruction that was given.
Madam President, on a point of order.
As you know, during my time here, I have made a great play of raising these points of order.
Today is a very important day for this House and it is a very important day for my country, Scotland.
We have just had the first democratic election for our Parliament.
Applause
We in the European Parliament appointed an officer to liaise with it, Mr Dermot Scott. He took up his position in February.
For those politicians who are interested, the latest state of play is as follows: Labour 56, the Nationalists 25, the Conservatives 9, the Liberal Democrats 3 and others 3.
It looks as though it will be a very interesting situation and could I therefore suggest that we write to Mr Dewar, who is the Secretary of State for Scotland, wishing him well in his new venture.
Madam President, in January I submitted an urgent written question to the Council about five Angolan MPs who were imprisoned last December without charge and without trial.
The legal period of nine days allowed in Angola had expired by then.
The least that we as MEPs can do is to look out for fellow MPs who are suffering oppression.
Although I am coming to the end of my term in office, I would urge you, Madam President, to ensure that I receive a written answer to my question about the five Angolan MPs.
Thank you, Mrs van Bladel.
Unfortunately, there are no fixed time limits for the answering of questions by the Council, but we will once again press for you to be given this answer as soon as possible.
Madam President, on 15 March I submitted a written question to the President about his statement concerning the working place in Luxembourg and the seat of the European Parliament's secretariat there.
The President had said that Parliament's secretariat would be leaving Luxembourg once Luxembourg became the seat of another international institution that was to employ 1 200 officials or other people.
Shout of 'What a good idea!'
I do not know whether it is a good idea or not, but I have asked Parliament's President and Bureau to comment on the statement.
He has not done so.
I think I am entitled, having waited since 15 March, to a written response from the President about what he said, and if he claims not to have made this statement he should say so.
I would ask you, Madam Vice-President, to make sure that I receive a written answer to my question of 15 March.
Thank you, Mrs Lulling.
Your comments will be recorded in the Minutes, and I will once again take steps to ensure that you receive your answer.
VOTES
We shall now move on to the votes.
Proposal for a Council Regulation (ECSC, EC, EURATOM) incorporating daily subsistence allowance rates for officials on mission within the European territory of the Member States of the European Union for Austria, Finland and Sweden into Article 13 of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations of officials of the European Communities (COM(99)0133 - C4-0226/99-99/0076(CNS))
Parliament approved the Commission proposal
The next item is in principle the report by Mr Jarzembowski.
However, I have to tell the House that we have not yet received the opinion of the Committee of the Regions.
With your agreement, I should like to defer this item.
We are waiting for the information, and if it arrives in good time, it can still be taken into account.
Madam President, I wholeheartedly endorse what Mrs Oomen-Ruijten said about your conduct of our business, but with all due respect I would urge that we should vote on the Jarzembowski report.
We discussed the possibility with the Legal Service of voting today and forwarding the results later, subject to receiving the approval of the Committee of the Regions.
There are still quite a lot of Members here for a Friday, which is why I would seriously urge you to hold the vote.
We had intended to wait for this, Mr Swoboda, but I have just been informed that the answer from the Committee of the Regions is no longer expected to arrive today.
I shall therefore put this to the vote now.
Recommendation for second reading (A4-0245/99), on behalf of the Committee on Transport and Tourism, on the common position adopted by the Council (13651/3/98 - C4-0037/99-96/0182(COD) - former 96/0182(SYN)) with a view to adopting a Council Directive on the charging of heavy goods vehicles for the use of certain infrastructures (Rapporteur: Mr Jarzembowski)
The President declared the common position approved
I would point out that this approval will only take effect once the opinion of the Committee of the Regions has been received, pursuant to Article 71 of the Amsterdam Treaty.
Madam President, I just wanted to point out that we should adopt this provisional opinion.
I would also like to compliment you on your new hair style.
Laughter
In fact it is not new, but one always looks a little fresher after a visit to the hairdresser!
Laughter
I should like to begin by congratulating the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights and the rapporteur for all her hard work during the procedure involved in drawing up this proposal for a directive on the recognition of qualifications, a subject which is a highly sensitive one in the Member States.
The negotiations with the Council have not exactly been easy, but they have produced a fairly satisfactory compromise, even though as we all know a compromise is always just the least worst solution.
I must admit that some progress has been made in this field since the 1960s.
We have gradually moved from sectoral directives regulating various activities to a horizontal approach based on the principle of mutual recognition and two key directives from 1989 and 1992.
Clearly, I support the proposals to repeal the sectoral directives.
These were supposed to be directives on liberalisation, but in fact they involved various measures that were intended to be transitional but which went on for much longer than necessary, inevitably producing restrictions on freedom of movement and freedom of establishment.
I am also in favour of improving and consolidating the general systems for the recognition of qualifications.
Although there is fairly satisfactory provision in law for the recognition of qualifications, it is not adequately translated into practice, and Europe's citizens still face too many problems when they try to use their professional qualifications and experience in other Member States.
I know what I am talking about, because I have heard stories from many young French students wanting to work in Belgium, particularly in the medical field, about the rejections they have faced.
Another even more flagrant example of discrimination is the situation of foreign language assistants at universities in Italy, which everyone has heard about.
I think these kinds of situations are extremely serious.
They are worrying not just because of their effect on the free movement of people and freedom of establishment, but above and beyond that because they are a threat to European citizenship.
How can we expect Community nationals to feel any sort of sense of belonging to the European Union if, in their everyday lives or in doing something as natural as looking for work, they are rejected just because they come from one Member State or another?
The problem is a very complex one, I know.
This is why we need to deal with it, so that it is easier for workers to move around within the European Union.
The recognition of qualifications is one way of going about this, and the proposal we are considering today is a step in the right direction.
Malangré report (A4-0234/99)
Madam President, I voted in favour of the report by Mr Malangré because I believe that it is of great importance and that its content is extremely sound.
The last committee report for this parliamentary term confirms the old adage of 'last but not least'.
It responds to a pressing need, and the lack of attention it has received until now is at odds with the intensive harmonisation achieved in so many aspects of commercial law, from company law to some specific points on insolvency, such as deposit-guarantee schemes for trouble-stricken credit institutions.
The lack of minimum rules for insolvency proceedings has enormous repercussions for the Union's territory as it means that the single market is being built without a roof.
Mr Malangré's proposal is based on Article 65 of the EC Treaty, as amended by the Amsterdam Treaty, and I support it.
However, I understand that this is not only a procedural issue and that with Article 65, we would find ourselves in a situation whereby unanimity is required in the Council.
For this reason, I should like to point out to future legislators that the basis provided by Article 95 - ex Article 100a - is valuable in terms of approximating all the provisions that relate to the workings of the internal market by means of a directive.
Madam President, on a point of order.
I wonder if, on my last day in Parliament, you could just solve a little mystery for me.
How is it that somebody who is not present and has not taken part in the vote can submit an explanation of vote? I am fascinated by this!
You are right, Mr Hallam. One can only give an explanation of vote if one has actually taken part in the vote.
But that is checked carefully every time.
Potato starch
The next item is the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1868/94 establishing a quota system for the production of potato starch (COM(99)0173 - C4-0214/99-99/0088(CNS)).
Madam President, alongside its decision on compensation for the reduction in the price of cereals, the Agriculture Council also adapted the compensation paid for the production of starch potatoes.
It was agreed to fix the compensation for potato growers, given solely in the form of hectare premiums, at a higher level than the Commission had proposed, provided that the number of hectares was reduced accordingly, so that the overall decision would be budget-neutral in relation to the original Commission proposal.
This could only be achieved by reducing the national potato starch quotas by an agreed percentage, albeit in an adapted form, with the larger producers giving up more than the smaller.
The Council and the Commission rightly called for the European Parliament to take a decision on the compensation and the potato starch quotas simultaneously, simply as a matter of good management.
If we approve this Commission proposal on reducing the quotas, we shall be making the growers' incomes a little more secure; otherwise they would have been hit particularly hard by the new policy.
In certain areas, the production of starch potatoes is a vital concern.
The quota proposal, in conjunction with the decision on compensation for starch potato growers, has no effect whatsoever on the competitive position of the processing industry - in actual fact the production of potato starch is being slightly reduced, so the producers of other starches can hardly object to that.
Madam President, I have always been proud that we have consistently succeeded in the CAP in finding sensible ways of linking the interests of primary producers and processors, while at the same time giving equal weight to the interests of consumers and taxpayers.
The potato starch sector shows the successful operation of the CAP in a nutshell.
It is a good example of an extremely dynamic and inventive sector which offers prospects for the non-food use of agricultural crops.
I would like to thank my colleagues for their cooperation in continuing the development of what is an extremely well-constructed policy.
Madam President, potato growing is a significant and promising area of agriculture, with its strong potential for new openings.
Sweden has a fairly sizeable potato sector.
Our negotiations for membership of the Union coincided with the dying days of alcohol production using potato starch.
Now that this activity has ceased, potato growing - for the purposes of industrial starch production - has had to be cut back considerably.
This in turn has led to problems for farmers in areas where the land is suited to such crops.
A new regulation is now being proposed, under which quotas will be reduced. The reductions will, however, be somewhat lower for countries with low-volume quotas.
I find this a satisfactory solution.
It is certainly better than it might have been.
I have no objections; in fact, I applaud the proposal.
What I would like to stress is the special value of potato starch as a raw material for industry.
It is very good for paper manufacturing and there is scope for using it in many new sectors.
This is the type of product that should be at the heart of our future investment and development strategies for agriculture.
Madam President, the Commission proposal to reduce the production quotas for potato starch forms an integral part of the Agenda 2000 package approved in Berlin.
It is therefore a good idea for us to deal with it as a matter of urgency today.
The regulation of the market in potato starch is closely linked to the regulation of the market in cereals, and rightly so, since potato starch producers are largely operating in the same market as the cereal starch industry.
It is therefore extremely important that the subsidies for potato starch should be kept closely in line with the level of aid for cereals.
The Commission's original proposals seriously affected the balance between potato starch and cereal starch and would have had disastrous consequences for the incomes of potato starch producers.
The Commission wanted to pay compensation of only 44 % of the price reduction, but the Council rightly corrected this by increasing the income premiums to 75 % of the price reduction.
To keep this budget-neutral, the Council linked this decision to the regulation reducing the quotas, a solution that the sector can live with.
A reduction in the quotas is also very much in line with the current supply and demand situation on the potato starch market.
A few years ago, the European quota was increased for political reasons.
The new Germany was allocated a reserve of 110 000 tonnes, while the most recent Member States got a quota of almost 170 000 tonnes.
All of this led to overproduction on the European market.
In short, the proposal to reduce the quotas deserves our full support.
It enables potato starch producers to be offered reasonable compensation for the price reduction, and it is a decision which the current market situation also justifies.
Madam President, I had the opportunity earlier in the week to tell the House how important it was to deal with this proposal this week.
It is entirely logical that we should vote on the potato starch sector in the same week that we have voted on Agenda 2000.
My group believes that potato starch production is of enormous economic importance in certain areas of Europe, which is why it is absolutely vital that the balancing premium should be maintained.
We think that potato starch and cereal starch should in principle always receive the same payments.
The Commission proposal to reduce the production quotas and increase the compensation payments for potato starch seems like a good idea, mainly because future developments on the world market could yet take us by surprise.
I also think it is important that the Commission should ensure that the compensation payments are made directly to the farmers, if at all possible.
If there are fewer middle-men, there is less chance that money will be used for other purposes, so we must ensure that wherever possible the payments go directly to the farmers.
Finally, I would like to say something this morning in support of the development of new technologies.
There are a number of technological developments that would make potato starch an ideal sector to promote.
I think the Commission needs to pursue an active policy here and should say that it is compulsory to use certain agricultural products in the interests of the environment.
This would create a new market for such products and would also be good for the environment.
Firstly I would like to express my appreciation for your acceptance of the urgency procedure for this proposal.
Parliament is aware that the proposed reduction of the potato starch quota is very much linked to Agenda 2000.
Only yesterday Parliament expressed a positive opinion on the Agenda 2000 package. This includes price reductions and compensation for both cereals and starch potatoes.
The compensation for starch potatoes was set at a higher level - 75 % - as compared to cereals - 48 %.
The potato starch sector fears that a lower compensation would endanger its raw material position.
The sector accepts a quota reduction in return.
The proposal for quota reduction before us fully neutralises the budget impact of the higher compensation rate.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament approved the Commission proposal
Hannover 2000
The next item is the report (A4-0195/99) by Mr Hoppenstedt, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament entitled 'EXPO 2000 Hannover' (COM(99)0131 - C4-0153/99).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, when the House discussed Expo 2000 in 1990, Venice was still being mooted as a possibility.
It was made clear that it would be tantamount to a natural disaster if Venice was chosen to host the exhibition.
At the time, and without realising, of course, that I would be speaking as the rapporteur on the last day of this five-year parliamentary term, I said that if Venice was not going to be considered, Hanover should be Europe's representative to compete against Toronto.
We know the outcome.
Today, some ten years later, we are voting on how Europe is to participate.
There is quite a background to this, of course, because for the last 18 months we, and I myself in particular, have been working to move this whole project forward so as to ensure that there is adequate funding for the European Union to be represented at Hanover, and that is by no means an easy task, as you know.
This was why we made such a push last year for the 1999 budget, and thanks to all those colleagues who recognised how important it was for the European Union to take part in Hanover, particularly in the year 2000, it was voted through.
I would like to thank all those responsible.
I was entrusted with the report in March 1998, not March 1999 as it says here, and since then quite a lot has happened.
However, the report itself has appeared rather late in the day.
This was because the Lisbon World Exhibition was also important for the European Union and the Commission was very much taken up with it.
But it was not too late, because the European Union will be in one of the Expo General Commissariat's pavilions and will have an excellent position at the head of the European Boulevard near the Plaza.
I think the European Union has a good chance of attracting a large number of visitors.
As I have said in my report, we do not want the entrance to the European Union to be through the back door to some building or other.
No, the European Union must be open to all spectators, and this is what we have achieved through our work together.
If we can look forward to a total budget of some EUR 15 million, including the 2000 budget, then it is all thanks to the efforts of our colleagues.
And we need the money, because this pavilion looks both back to the past and forward to the future.
The theme in Hanover is 'Humankind - Nature - Technology', depicted in various imaginative ways, and what institution could be in a better position than the European Union to bring together all the various ideas from around the world and in the Member States, and to disseminate these ideas to give new impetus for the future?
I think that we have also been quite successful in having a square near the European pavilion or the European exhibition named after Robert Schuman as an indication of how important Robert Schuman was for the development of Europe, and to have a square that will remain in use in the future.
The exhibition centre and buildings will not be disappearing, but are to remain as a living centre in Hanover and the European Union.
There is another European element in the European Union's exhibition on the theme of 'Humankind - Nature - Technology': the euro.
The euro will be featured as one of the most recent developments that is of enormous importance for the future in particular, and we have arranged with the relevant bodies, including through requests made by our committees here in the House, to be able to use the euro as an electronic currency.
I think that it is important for the many millions of visitors to be able to use the euro and to explain to other people how it will work in future.
I think that everyone will pull together on this, including in the future, and since I will no longer be here in Parliament, I would ask Doris Pack, Paul Rübig and others to ensure that it is a success.
As I have said, I will not be returning to Parliament, and I should like to thank all those colleagues who have worked so closely with me in the Committee on Economic Affairs and the Committee on Culture, especially on these topics that are so important for the future.
I should also like to thank the interpreters sitting in their booths, who have communicated our activities here to others.
My thanks go to everyone, and I hope to see you again in some other arena in the future!
Applause
Madam President, I should like to begin by thanking Mr Hoppenstedt for all his hard work on this issue, and we all hope that Hanover will be a huge success.
It is extremely important for the European Union to be involved in an event like Expo 2000, which will attract enormous attention from the media and the public.
It is important to present an image of Europe for inward consumption, for the Union's own citizens, but also outwardly, for visitors from around the globe.
The EU must get closer to the people in its activities, raising its profile among passing trade, as it were, and the Expo is an ideal forum for this.
In the Committee on Culture too we have repeatedly stressed that the exhibition should not just show Europe's economic successes, but should also illustrate the European Union's cultural diversity and in particular its successful programmes.
I would also urge - and this is addressed to the organisers of the exhibition - that Parliament should be able to demonstrate its independent role in initiating these programmes, and it should be kept entirely separate from the Commission both in the pavilion and in the budget for the event.
Finally, I should also like to take the opportunity to urge the Council once again not just to be proud of our cultural achievements here, but to ensure that there is sufficient funding for the programmes, because there is absolutely no point in getting the public interested in all these wonderful programmes that the European Union organises if the level of funding is just a joke.
Madam President, I should like to thank Mr Hoppenstedt most sincerely for his excellent report, which I have followed with great interest - not so much the exhibition in Hanover as the problems that it has generated.
I am also glad that Mr Elchlepp spoke on the subject, for the simple reason that he too produced a wonderful report on an earlier occasion which I still remember with pleasure.
I would like to thank him once again for that report.
Like any exhibition, the Expo in Hanover will be very important if it is used for the right purpose, as Mr Hoppenstedt underlined.
But I would also like to look a little further forward, because there will be other exhibitions in future, and we should be starting to think now about things that will be vital for these future events.
Time and again the vital cultural dimension is missing, as Mr Hoppenstedt rightly said, yet this is one of Europe's great strengths, and we should focus more attention on the cultural side of things instead of selling it short.
Secondly, we should remember that we have not always done ourselves justice here, particularly at exhibitions.
As the 2005 Expo is, I am delighted to say, to be held in Nagoya in Japan, I would point out that the exhibition in Osaka led to a number of scandalous bureaucratic blunders, when they built the Europe pavilion but refused to put up the Coudenhove-Kalergi statue.
After a wave of protests the European Community, as it was then, explained that it could not afford it.
Then came the most shameful thing of all - the Japanese themselves bought a very fine Coudenhove-Kalergi statue for the pavilion.
This also reminds me of something that happened here in this very building with a statue that was removed by the bureaucrats and has now been returned.
We should think of our own roots, and when we go to Japan in particular - and 2005 is not so far away - we should focus on the links we have with these countries.
The fact is that we cannot afford to operate just within the European Union: we must also take Europe out into a world that is, whether we like it or not, becoming increasingly globalised and in which partnerships in the Far East are also of vital importance to us.
This is why I feel that even today we should all be thinking about what to do in Nagoya.
The Asians are, after all, our logical partners.
They are a great deal more culturally aware than certain bureaucrats here, and they would be very impressed if we gave our culture pride of place.
I remember a Croatian exhibition that we had once that was Croatia's first appearance in this building.
I was wrong at the time to insist that we should stop pandering to tourists.
Thank goodness no one listened to me and they brought culture into the building, which was the best thing they could have done in the long run.
We should think about all this very carefully, and because we are now preparing to organise an event in Germany and the preparations are going so well, we should be starting to think a little further forward.
I must apologise for having pre-empted the next two stages, because we need to make long-term plans for our European culture and taking Europe out into the world, and we need to ensure that this impression of Europe is spread much further.
As this is the last time I shall be speaking in the European Parliament, I would urge my successors not to forget culture, because it is vitally important.
We are a cultural continent and we should remember that this is the most permanent feature that Europe has!
Applause
Thank you, Mr von Habsburg.
Not only is that your last speech in the House, but I would also like to point out the following once again: since 1979 - for 20 years now - you have been one of the Members who are virtually always present on Friday, and you were among the founders of the so-called Friday club.
On behalf of the House, I should like to thank you once more for setting such an example.
I also hope that other Members who join us will follow your example and behave likewise.
Applause
Madam President, Mr von Habsburg looked ahead in his speech and said that we must look forward to future universal exhibitions. A glance backwards would not be out of place, however.
Let us consider how past Expos have turned out, and what sort of impression they have left on us. Several members of the Green Group were in Lisbon and felt very disappointed about the whole event.
Lessons should be learnt from this.
The Green Group in the European Parliament therefore maintains a 'constructively critical' attitude towards the Hanover Expo.
It is important that the exhibition should be held. As Mr von Habsburg said, what is at stake here is culture.
I am also glad that we are resisting 'EU nationalism' by not restricting ourselves to European culture alone. Countries outside Europe will be included, so that we can draw on cultural knowledge from around the world.
As far as this particular Expo is concerned, there are some purely budgetary issues to bear in mind, as the Committee on Budgets has pointed out.
One aspect is the fact that a huge amount of money is being spent on this exhibition.
Appropriations for the European campaign to combat violence against women come under the same budget item. I trust that resources for the latter will not be eaten up by the Expo.
My personal opinion is that the campaign on violence against women is actually more important from a future perspective than this exhibition.
The theme of the Expo is highly relevant: 'Humankind - Nature - Technology'.
I myself find the range a little narrow, nonetheless, and am not one hundred per cent sure that the EU should be getting involved in such an event.
Yet I believe in the end that the Green Group should support the idea of taking the project forward.
In parallel, however, we need a thorough evaluation of exhibitions of this kind. Lessons can then be learnt for future occasions.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Hoppenstedt on his last speech, which was very much to the point and summed up what all this is about, namely linking modern technology with nature and mankind.
He has been very successful in fighting for this in his time in the European Parliament, for which I congratulate him.
The world exhibition in Hanover is to run from 1 June to the end of October 2000, in other words about a year before euro notes and coins come into circulation.
The whole world will be there, as millions of visitors converge on Hanover not just from the 15 Member States, but also from the rest of the globe.
One hundred and seventy countries and 14 international organisations are to exhibit, so it is important for Parliament, the Commission and the Council to start thinking now about the meetings they could organise, because a visit to the world exhibition should also primarily involve meeting up with other people, holding conferences and reaching agreements.
It is an ideal platform for us in Europe, and it is one that we should exploit to the maximum.
As far as the European Parliament is concerned, I would also urge that we should hold our interparliamentary meetings there, for example.
Hanover has an extremely modern conference centre which is right there on the exhibition site, and it has excellent infrastructure with full interpreting facilities.
It would be a good opportunity to show the rest of the world outside Europe the possibilities that Europe has for the future.
I would like attention to be focused in particular on the 'Edu-tainment Centre', placing the 'learning adventure' - lifelong learning - at the centre of our efforts.
We should show what the European Union has already achieved, and we should ensure that all the information is made available on VDUs, on the Internet, on multimedia, for young people, the elderly, in fact anyone interested, in the form of 'Infotainment'.
I think the 'learning adventure' is a special challenge, and this modern way of learning is very important and a tremendous opportunity for schoolchildren, students and everyone else.
Finally, we must take advantage of the infrastructure around Hanover, which has been developed to a very high standard.
I am already looking forward to the opening of this major exhibition.
I should like to congratulate the Committee on Culture, and in particular its rapporteur, Mr Hoppenstedt, for this comprehensive report on Expo 2000 Hannover.
In the year 2000, Expo 2000 Hannover will be a major communication event on a world scale.
The theme for the exhibition is mankind, nature and technology.
The organisers, under the leadership of the Expo Commissioner General, are committed to presenting current and future options on how to achieve a balanced and harmonious coexistence of the theme's three elements.
It is the Commission's intention to ensure the participation of the European Union and its institutions at this important event.
This was also outlined in our communication of 18 March.
We are pleased to see that all EU Member States will participate in this event.
The vast majority will have their pavilions located on the so-called European boulevard.
The EU pavilion would be at the heart of this, just opposite the host country's pavilion.
The aim of Union participation at Expo 2000 is to present the crucial role the European Union is playing, through its institutions, as a forward-looking, dynamic actor on the world stage at the dawn of the 21st century.
The Commission is pleased to note that Mr Hoppenstedt's report gives positive backing to the Commission's intention to organise Union participation at Expo 2000.
The report specifically underlines the importance of a coherent and balanced presentation within the Union pavilion.
The Commission agrees with Mr Hoppenstedt that the Union pavilion must present the best possible image of the European Union in the 21st century: a European Union which is democratic, transparent, law-abiding, socially just, tolerant and culturally diverse.
What we strive for is to make its citizens aware of the reality of European integration and of the Union's role in international relations.
It is our aim that such a presentation will be based on the use of the latest interactive multimedia and electronic technology available.
This will ensure that visitors, and in particular the younger generation, will have an eye-catching and thought-provoking experience.
I am pleased to inform you that an architect's competition for the design of the Union's pavilion has now been judged.
Its results are due to be announced formally in the EC Official Journal.
The companies involved in the competition have also been informed directly.
The Commission is responsible for the official coordination of all EU institutions to ensure they participate in a coherent manner in Expo.
I can report to you that such coordination has already begun.
The Commission's inter-service task force, and an interinstitutional working party have been created.
The detailed programme of activities and communication strategies is being developed within these two bodies along the lines of the Commission's communication and the Culture Committee's report.
Regular reports on the progress of this work will be made to the Culture Committee.
With regard to the budget, an estimated amount of EUR 14 m is proposed for the year 1999-2000 on budget line B3-309, Special Annual Events.
This budget, which will cover the needs of all EU institutions, is deemed the minimum necessary to finance the proper participation of the Union at the Expo.
It will be recalled that a total of EUR 10 m was earmarked on budget line B3-309/99 in order to finance two activities: Expo 2000 and a European campaign to combat violence against women.
In addition to this it is strongly recommended that a further EUR 6.5 m is voted for in the budget for the next year, the year 2000, to complete the Expo 2000 action.
The Commission is confident that the interinstitutional cooperation already set in place will produce the necessary positive results to allow the budgetary authority to determine favourably the budget for 2000.
The Commission also welcomes the proposal to second Parliament staff to work at Expo 2000.
This will be in addition to the Commission staff that will be devoted to this action.
The estimated administrative expenditure for this participation is EUR 1.44 m on part (A) of the budget.
The Commission looks forward to continuing cooperation with the European Parliament and its services to ensure that the Union's participation at Expo 2000 will be an important event in bringing the European Union and its institutions closer to its citizens.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
Parliament adopted the resolution
I voted against the report. It seems to me that more relevant tasks are being postponed because EUR 15 million are being expended on Expo 2000 in Hanover.
European textiles market
The next item is the joint debate on the following oral questions to the Commission:
B4-0338/99 by Mrs Ferrer, Mrs Peijs and Mr Chanterie, on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party, on mass imports of low-priced textiles; -B4-0339/99 by Mr Moniz, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, on the mass of cheap imports on the European textile market.
Madam President, Commissioner, the European textile and clothing sector is currently being battered by massive and abnormally cheap imports from economic areas that are either in the grip of a serious recession or whose own traditional markets have been closed to them.
This is what is happening with the countries of South-East Asia, Central Asia, the former Soviet republics and the Baltic republics. In addition to this, there is the unprecedented increase of imports from Turkey due to the closure of the Russian market and Turkey's industrial capacity, which has expanded dramatically over the past five years.
As a result of such massive imports, which scarcely cover the cost of the raw material, many European textile companies are currently recording losses and their survival is threatened. This is seriously jeopardising a number of jobs.
The unfair competition faced by this sector - a sector that includes the production of fibres, threads and cloth and also the finished products - is getting worse. And it is getting worse because of the tariff and non-tariff barriers, as all the rules established within the World Trade Organisation prevent the sector from having access to the markets of countries such as India, the United States or even Turkey.
It is as if these rules only applied to the Community's markets, which these countries and their products can access freely.
This imbalance is heightened by the vast array of preferential agreements that the Union has already signed, or is about to sign, with third countries, at a time when the announcement of a new round of multilateral negotiations is casting a doubt over the advisability of these bilateral agreements.
The result of the combination of these negative elements is that European businessmen in the textile sector feel that there was little use in investing significantly, as they did, in high technology and ambitious restructuring to modernise their business and in specialising in quality, fashion, design and the European trade mark.
Despite having taken steps to be able to successfully meet the challenge of international competitiveness, the textile sector does not have the weapons it needs to defend itself when faced with unfair competition.
For this reason, I would urge the Commission to adopt whatever measures are necessary to put an end to the unfair competition to which this sector is subjected. In this way, we could guarantee full compliance with the commitments made by all the parties in the framework of the World Trade Organisation.
I am thinking specifically of the trade defence instruments available to the European Union to eliminate trade barriers affecting Community products.
I am also thinking of the safeguard measures provided for in the Uruguay Round agreements, which the Commission should perhaps adopt.
However, in the resolution on the Commission's communication on the textile and clothing sector, and in the actual plan of action that the Commission then drew up, there is already a series of proposals along these lines.
What is happening is that these proposals are not materialising, and if they are not urgently promoted, an large part of a sector which is firmly established in European industry and which, above all, provides many jobs, could disappear.
Therefore, Commissioner, I would ask you to tell Commissioner Brittan how urgent it is to adopt measures to protect our textiles sector in a fair and faithful manner.
On the one hand, this protection should be justified and should comply with some of the provisions and requirements set out in the rules of the World Trade Organisation. On the other hand, it should come under the legislation that the European Union itself has drawn up to govern its trade with third countries and with developing countries.
I hope that the Commission will bear this in mind and will address this problem which affects so many jobs.
Thank you very much, Mrs Ferrer.
I wish you all the very best for the future, in spite of the fact that you and I will be competing in the same area in the elections.
Mr President, during the parliamentary term now drawing to a close, we have frequently discussed textiles and clothing.
There has certainly been proportionately more talk than action.
Nevertheless, some positive things have been achieved, above all as regards the Commission's approach to this sector.
Previously, the textiles and clothing sector were viewed with suspicion, being regarded as uncompetitive and the province of third world countries.
That is to say, it was regarded as a marginal sector doomed to fade away because of an attitude of conformism and fatalist determinism which would inevitably lead to millions of workers losing their jobs, just when the European Union had chosen to give priority to the fight against unemployment.
As discussion and analysis of the situation has progressed, there has been a significant change in the attitude towards textiles.
Fortunately, this sector has come to be viewed as one of the most competitive and innovative, and it has been recognised that it is one of the most labour-intensive sectors and is therefore potentially an effective tool in the fight against unemployment.
I personally am satisfied that I have to some extent been able to contribute to this new perception of the textiles and clothing sector.
But many things still need to be put on a firm footing.
The plan of action announced should not just remain on paper as a list of good intentions.
The specific support measures needed for SMEs should be progressed without delay.
The European Union should be firm in calling for strict compliance with the rules of the World Trade Organisation and the Textile Agreement, in particular the timetable for liberalisation, controls on dumping and fraudulent practices, access to third country markets and restrictions on bilateral agreements.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, five years ago I started my membership of the European Parliament by raising the problems of the textiles and clothing sector.
I am concluding my participation in this final part-session of the European Parliament on the same subject, more convinced than ever of the need to defend this sector and more confident about its future.
In my own country, where this sector accounts for 25 % of jobs in processing industries and 30 % of exports, where there are regions that are almost entirely dependent on it, with a consequent impact on the life of most families, thousands of workers and employers are viewing the future with hope and anticipation, but also with many doubts and fears.
We must show ourselves worthy of their confidence, dedication and hard work, and their willingness to continue demonstrating their faith by investing in a sector which involves risk but undeniably has a future as an integral part of the Europe of social responsibility and solidarity that we wish to see.
I should like to reply to the questions by Mrs Ferrer and Mrs Peijs, and by Mr Chanterie and Mr Moniz.
On the question regarding recent imports of textiles from third countries into Europe, the Commission is in contact with the European textiles and clothing industry on this issue.
The European industry believes that recent imports from a number of third countries, especially from Asia, were made at very low prices.
On 3 May, representatives of the European industry met with my colleague Sir Leon Brittan to explain the situation.
At present the Commission is in the process of establishing, together with the industry, the facts regarding import flows and prices.
Once the facts have been established the best course of action can be determined.
If it shows that there have been unfair trade practices such as dumping or subsidisation causing injury to the European industry, the European anti-dumping and anti-subsidies legislation provides for means to deal with this situation.
At the meeting of 3 May Sir Leon Brittan assured the European industry that if there was evidence of such unfair trade practices the Commission would examine very seriously any complaint made by the industry.
It would then take appropriate action.
As regards the situation under the relevant international agreements, we have to keep in mind the following. Firstly, for WTO members, the agreement on textiles and clothing (the ATC) already provides for quantitative restrictions on imports from a number of third countries, including countries in South-east Asia.
The Commission ensures that these limits are respected, and there is no evidence that the recent imports have exceeded the quantitative ceilings.
In addition, the ATC provides for a transitional safeguard instrument.
According to this agreement new quantitative restrictions can be introduced when it can be demonstrated that increased imports seriously damage the domestic industry or threaten to do so.
These actions are subsequently scrutinised in the WTO.
Secondly, for a number of non-WTO members, bilateral textiles agreements fix quantitative limits.
In addition, for imports that are not under quota, reference ceilings are set.
These are percentage limits of the previous year's imports as a share of total Union imports.
Once these reference ceilings are reached the imposition of a new quantitative limit may be requested.
Finally, in response to the question regarding the positions expressed by third countries in preparation for the forthcoming round of the WTO negotiations, I would like to say the following. Some developing countries which are WTO members would indeed be interested in amending the agreement on textiles and clothing in order to speed-up the liberalisation of all quantitative restrictions, presently due to be completed on 1 January 2005.
Nevertheless the Commission does not advocate this idea.
Such an acceleration of the liberalisation timetable would also cause immense difficulties for the second major textiles importer, the United States.
Thank you, Mrs Gradin.
I have received two motions for resolutions to wind up this debate, tabled pursuant to Rule 40(5).
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as you mentioned, the Group of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform party had in fact tabled a motion for a resolution but, in the light of those tabled by both the Group of the European People's Party and the Group of the Party of European Socialists, there is no reason why we should not support these resolutions. That is why we have withdrawn our motion.
In truth, we are returning to an issue that we have dealt with on previous occasions.
We are calling for positive action from the Commission to ensure that international trade practices relating to products of the textile industry are dealt with appropriately.
We are trying to ensure that trade is conducted in accordance with the rules agreed on in the respective international agreements applied by the World Trade Organisation.
We have adapted our position not only on the textiles industry but also on the European system of production in general in order to respond to the need for the sector to accept the conditions of a global economy and to work to increase its productivity and competitiveness.
It must be restructured so that our products and services are sufficiently accepted in a global economy to enable them participate fully in the international markets.
As a result of this increased competitiveness, European industry and services will be able to grow and will therefore also be able to create more jobs.
This is the general approach we are also applying to the textile industry.
Therefore, our position is not a protectionist one.
It is a position that will allow us to comply fully with the agreed international trade practices.
The events of recent months, particularly in Asia - which Commissioner Gradin mentioned - are of great concern since the very positive effort made by the textile industry to become more modern and competitive and to have the best possible position and share of the international market may be ruined in a very short space of time.
Massive imports under inadequate conditions from various areas, including Asia, could ruin the industry's opportunities. These imports worry us and I welcome Mrs Gradin's specific comment on this matter.
I must stress that this industry has made considerable efforts to adapt. What is more, it would be unfair to put at risk one of the industries that creates most jobs in the European Union.
Mr President, I am very pleased that my last speech in this parliamentary term relates to an important sector, the European clothing and textile industry, which has a predominantly female workforce, a large number of SMEs, often in rural areas, and a future which is largely dependent on the application of fair trading rules.
In the absence of any positive measures by the Commission, whose action plan to make the sector more competitive we examined in 1998 but has not been followed up in practice, some Member States such as France, Spain and Portugal have taken steps to curb the exodus of jobs to third countries.
In France, a textile sector plan which reduced the social charges that were a burden on wages has enabled 35 000 jobs to be saved, not to mention indirect employment.
The Commission then decided to get tough, not against those countries which refused to introduce social and environmental clauses in world trade rules, but against the Member States.
It considered that reductions in social charges could distort competition between European producers, and it declared France's textile sector plan to be illegal, demanded impossible repayments from firms and blocked the extension of this job-saving measure to other sectors.
This approach needs to be changed.
We should only allow into the Union products from third countries where operators comply with the ILO social rules relating to working conditions, working hours and child labour, until such time as the Union applies these rules as part of the package of international agreements it is negotiating and, in particular, the WTO negotiating rounds.
It is unfair competition against European businesses that the Commission should be attacking, not the Union's own firms.
In conclusion, I would refer to the concern generated by Mr Prodi's first statements on this subject, which suggested that he has a very ideological notion of competition and regards any regulating or corrective measures taken by a Member State as tantamount to distorting competition.
Would he regard Sir Leon Brittan as dangerously 'dirigiste'? This is not the way to help European industries and the families they support to meet international competition on a level playing field.
Mr President, it is good to see you, the faithful Friday President, taking charge of affairs at the close of the session.
I support this cri de coeur from the Europe textile industry.
Europe is a big market but it is not a dumping ground and Mrs Ferrer has made a very good case.
Mr Moniz also talked about fraudulent practices.
Let me tell you one. A country which had the right to import shirts but not piece-good textiles got round the rules by importing shirts with tails 15 metres long - and they got away with it.
Europe may lead in the textile fashion industry but we must have a basic manufacturing industry in order to support it.
Europe may well lead also in the design and techniques of textile machinery but there again we need to have a home market for such products.
I mention friction-spinning, which was as a fairly recent invention in Europe.
Instead of using it to make textiles more profitable for Europe we actually sold the technique abroad.
We made the profit of our invention once.
We need to support developing nations by having bilateral treaties with them in order that they can have a market for their goods.
I have no quarrel with that at all, but if we are going to have these bilaterals the Commission should be called upon to draw the lines very clearly and make sure they are properly controlled.
Mr President, I should like to begin by thanking Mrs Ferrer, because I think that this is an extremely important initiative.
When sectors are in crisis, we must always ensure that we take the right measures in good time.
It is crucial that we should prepare for the WTO negotiating round in Seattle, and in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs I have always insisted that we should clearly identify the salient points here and that our main concern is access to third markets.
We must specifically ensure that these markets are opened up to us and that fair conditions are applied.
We also need to consider incentives in export marketing.
We must see to it that firms are able to offer their goods internationally so that Europe can be presented as a powerful force.
Another very important point is that we must ensure that a lighter burden is placed on SMEs in particular.
This is an issue to which I personally am very committed.
We have more than 16 million SMEs in the European Union, and they need to be given greater help and consideration here in the House in future.
Since I am the last speaker, I should also like to thank the President and his team, who have always worked so very hard here on Fridays.
I should also like to thank the President of the European Parliament, Mr Gil-Robles, for taking my initiatives to eliminate crime in and around the European institutions very seriously; our group chairman Mr Martens for promising not to forget this issue in future in Belgium and to continue to support us; the President-in-Office for promising to devote his efforts to this; and finally the Quaestors and the Conference of Presidents, for whom this issue has now become genuinely topical.
I am looking forward to seeing a safer Europe in the next parliamentary term.
Applause
Thank you, Mr Rübig.
The debate is closed.
Given that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has withdrawn its motion, we shall proceed to the vote on motion for a resolution B4-0455/99.
Parliament adopted the resolution
I voted against the resolution on the European textile market.
The proposal is over-protectionist in its thrust and takes inadequate account of the importance of exports of textiles and ready-to-wear clothing for poor countries that are anxious to develop their economies.
Ladies and gentlemen, when I am in the Chair I usually do not vote.
Today, somewhat exceptionally, I myself requested this roll-call vote and participated in the vote. I abstained in order to remain true to my supposedly institutional attitude.
However, I wished to make a record of all your names, with mine among them, as a symbol of what we could call the 'Friday club'.
And, ladies and gentlemen, if you will let me make the most of this list, I will contact you all every autumn from the year 2000 onwards so that, wherever we may be, we can try to meet on a Friday here in Strasbourg.
Applause
Mr Habsburg-Lothringen wishes to speak on a point of order.
Mr President, chairman of our 'Friday club', I should like to make the most of this opportunity to thank you in Catalan, your mother tongue and a language steeped in the traditions of our European culture. It is a language that we do not hear enough in this Parliament.
As a loyal member of this club, it is very important to me that I thank you for your wise leadership and your hard work to make Fridays a fully valid day of Parliament's part-sessions.
I hope that your and our example will be carried through to the next term to include Friday as a day when we can count on the presence of 620 Members.
Thank you very much indeed and goodbye.
Applause
Thank you - moltes gràcies .
Mr Medina has the floor on a point of order.
Mr President, you know that I am usually present for the Friday sittings but that I rarely ask for the floor because we are almost always working so quickly as we have planes to catch and so on.
Today, as an exception, because it is the last day of the current parliamentary term and taking into account how early it is, I should like to speak on behalf of the Socialist Group and acknowledge the work you have done as President of the sitting.
Furthermore, I should like to point out that for 40 years, Spanish parliamentarians were starved of democracy, and for us the parliamentary institution is extremely important.
It is important to you and to me because of our own life experience. I believe that one only values what one does not have.
The fact that the European institutions include a Parliament, with all its defects and all its problems, is something that the people of Europe should begin to value. The fact that this Parliament has become a fundamental element of the Community mechanism during this term must be valued.
I believe that our task now in the coming weeks must be to convince the people of Europe of how important their participation in the elections is to this Parliament.
And I believe that at least those Members who are here today have done everything possible to ensure that our work is not trivial, but that it is important and definitive work in the process of European integration.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the last sitting of this parliamentary term, I should of course like to add to the thanks expressed by my colleagues Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Habsburg-Lothringen. And, of course, I should also like to thank Mr Habsburg-Lothringen for speaking in our language, which is something I hope will become more commonplace in the next term.
I should like to say how pleased I am to have been part of this closing sitting. I should also like to thank you, Mr President, for your work as Vice-President of this House.
Thank you very much.
Applause
Mr President, on behalf of the PPE Group, I should like to thank you most sincerely and congratulate you, not just on being such a stalwart president on Fridays, but for presiding in such a very democratic, open and disciplined manner.
It has been a pleasure to come to know you as a Member of this Parliament and also as a president of the sitting, often in difficult circumstances on Fridays.
I therefore endorse what Mr Medina and the acting chairman of the Liberal Group have said.
Thank you very much and goodbye.
Mr President, I would not wish the Italian language to remain unheard at this moment of farewells.
I cannot, much as I would like to, speak Catalan, but nonetheless I would like to thank you and also all the Vice-Presidents who are not here and have done such sterling work, as well as President Gil-Robles.
We shall be leaving this Chamber, and I believe even those colleagues who are re-elected will not be returning to it, because a new one has been provided.
We are rather sorry to leave it, because this is the historic residence of the European Parliament.
I would also like to thank our chairman Mr Martens, whom I can see leaving just now, for staying here right up to the end.
Nonetheless, the vice-chairman, Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, remains and is a worthy replacement for him.
I bid farewell to you all, and would particularly thank you, Mr President, for the great skills and common sense you have shown in chairing our debates.
Mr Gutiérrez Díaz, I would first like to say that I believe your profession as a paediatrician has been a great help to you in understanding many of the issues discussed here in Parliament.
Lenin himself referred to leftism as a child illness, and so in this Chamber we find childishness, maturity and longevity.
All human life is here.
Those of us here on Fridays, this loyal group of survivors of the often hard and tedious work during the week, amongst whom there is a spirit of complicity, have managed to maintain a sense of humour.
Humour is a basic requirement here.
It has brought cheer to young and old alike - I will not say to children, as there are none here.
I would like to thank you on behalf of the Union for Europe Group, and in Portuguese, for the patience, humour and wisdom that has marked everything you have done here.
Thank you very much and I wish you every success in your profession.
I shall be returning to mine also: five years is a long time in a man's life and I do not have many five years to spare for Parliament, so I shall be devoting myself to other causes.
Mr President, a number of people have already thanked you, and I would like to join them in doing so.
There is one person I would like to mention, whom I refer to in our group as the Friday godfather, the one who always has something to say, and that is Mr von Habsburg.
The fact that there are so many of our group here is partly thanks to him.
He too is now leaving us.
I should like to thank him for the excellent leadership he has shown us all.
Applause
Mr President, as this is the last sitting in the first parliamentary term in which Finland has been a fully-fledged Member of the European Union, I, as a faithful son of the Friday club, would like the Finnish language to be recorded in the verbatim report of the proceedings of this last sitting.
We would especially like to thank you, Mr President, for the fact that you were always happy to welcome us Finns in the Finnish language, which you pronounce so elegantly, and for the fact too that you were always ready to guide and encourage us, as we were new to the procedure of this House.
Many thanks, and many thanks also go to all of you sitting there on the tribune.
The work you have done has been invaluable.
Thank you.
Mr President, greetings to you from Nordic parts and from Sweden! On behalf of the Green Group, I should like to join in the chorus of praise heaped upon you today.
You have always conducted Friday's proceedings in such a friendly way, with great humanity and humour.
You have been a fantastic President. Because of you, Fridays have been a high point of the Strasbourg week.
Along with everyone else, I wish you all the very best for the future.
Mr President, I would like to add my thanks to those of Mr Paasio, as, of all those who chair our sittings, you are one of the few who have actually used the Finnish language in carrying out your duties.
Mr President, it would be terrible if the group that has loyally supported this Vice-President to the end did not thank him for his work and dedication.
What is more, from a personal point of view, he knows we think fondly of him.
I hope, however, that he will not use these great complimentary speeches by the whole House to his benefit in the election campaign, as we are in different camps.
Laughter
I should like to say how fondly I think of you.
Our group has supported you faithfully until the end and you know that, wherever we may be, you will always be remembered.
Thank you very much, my good friend Laura.
Allow me, in this case, to correct what Laura said slightly: we are not in different camps, we are in the same camp but on different lists.
Mr President, I would just like to draw your attention to a small point which I think is rather important.
Friday is not a normal day either for you or for me.
Friday is usually the day when I receive groups of visitors, and I can assure you that as far as the people from my country who have visited the European Parliament are concerned, you are the most popular president of the sitting.
I am grateful that you are a candidate in your own country, because in mine you would have been unbeatable.
Thank you and good luck for the future.
Thank you very much, Mr Goerens.
I hope that I will pick up your way of thinking to help me in the difficult journey ahead.
Mr President, you have always been a very friendly person.
Whenever we met in the corridor, you would always ask 'How is Maastricht getting on?' Other people thought you were talking about the Maastricht Treaty, but in fact you meant my football club, which was always doing very badly - and still is.
But we knew what we meant.
Barcelona, on the other hand, is doing very well, but that is because it has eight Dutch players.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr Bertens.
Of course, you speak as if you were from Barcelona, because you know that at the moment Barcelona is almost a Dutch team.
Mr President, you seem to be being presented today with a bouquet made up of all the different cultures and languages of our various nations.
As someone born a Frenchwoman, I should like to add Germany's flower to this bouquet for you to take home in your heart, and I should like to wish you every success in your work for democracy, which is so important.
Applause
Mr President, I was possibly the last Member to join the 'Friday club'.
You are well aware that I came to this House scarcely six months ago.
That is a very short time but it is enough for me to have appreciated your work as President and your work in chairing this sitting.
In these six months I have missed two Friday sittings and you made sure to remind me of them.
I should like to thank you personally and on behalf of the group I represent.
Mr President, as well as thanking and congratulating you, I should like to add to what has been said by Mrs González Álvarez and by you yourself.
I should like to say that there is one thing we agree on in terms of parties and lists: we are all on the list of pro-Europeans.
In the past in Spain, being on the list of pro-Europeans meant being on the black list.
Therefore, whether or not you are on the list, whether or not you are in the party, or whether or not you are in this House, I know that both of you, like many of us here today, are in favour of freedom, justice and solidarity.
Mr President, as someone who has been in Parliament for 20 years, I should also like to congratulate you, together with my colleague Ursula Schleicher, who has also often been a member of the Friday club.
It was always a great pleasure to round off a long and difficult sitting - and I was often there at the end, though not always - with a joke, and I hope that the spirit which you have stood for and which several people have reflected in their speeches will continue in the next Parliament.
It will be in a different building which will not be as homely; the light will be colder, I think, but I hope that the pleasure, the vision, the cooperation and the humour will remain.
Mr President, Luxembourgish is sadly not one of the Community's official languages, otherwise I would have added it to the bouquet that Mrs Gebhardt talked about.
But if I say 'Villmools merci ', I am sure you will understand, and it would surely not be against the Rules of Procedure just this once to use two words of Luxembourgish, one of which is French anyway.
Mr President, I should like to thank you for being in the Chair for almost all the Friday sittings.
I regard Friday as a normal working day just like all the rest, and I am extremely sorry that so many of our colleagues are notoriously absent.
I have attended every Friday sitting for the past ten years, and if I return - I do not know whether I will, because in my country the people decide, not the parties - I shall maintain the same discipline.
I would also like to thank you for being so generous with speaking time.
We have sometimes been allowed to have the floor for half or even a whole minute more than the minute officially allocated, so I would thank you most sincerely and hope to see you here again - because you are sure to be re-elected - not just on Fridays, but on all sitting days.
Mr President, I should like to thank you not just for being such an excellent leader of our Friday club, as many people have already mentioned, but for something else as well.
This morning Mrs Schleicher, who is also a member of the Friday club, said in the Chair at the beginning of the sitting 'The Rules of Procedure also apply to the Conference of Presidents'.
This has inspired me to thank you for being a vice-president who has always stood up for the rights of individual Members.
The Friday club itself consists of people who stand up for the rights of Members, and I very much hope that we will be able to continue to work together on this in the next parliamentary term.
Mr President, as a member of the 'Friday Club', I too would like to say a few words.
We must remember that this is not the only club we have.
Let us not forget our 'Questions Club', over which you have often presided.
Several of us are keen users of Question Time.
Although attendance tends to be lower on those occasions, you always behave in Friday fashion, in your usual open and friendly way.
Thank you so much for the fine times we have shared, Mr President.
Mr President, I too would like to thank you.
I cannot for the moment find the rule that I need in the Rules of Procedure, but I would like to say, finally, that this was a parliamentary term which took Europe a little further forward, but took the European Parliament a great deal further forward.
We have three new Member States, and I hope that the Amsterdam Treaty and the excellent spirit that you have generated with your sense of humour will enable us to make considerable progress towards a democratic Europe.
I wish all those colleagues who are not coming back every success and good health in the future, and I wish those who are coming back the strength to stand up for a democratic Europe.
Thank you, Mrs Gröner.
I should like to thank you and all the Members of this House who have spoken.
As regards what Mrs Lenz said, if it is not going too far, I believe that her words can be extended to all the Vice-Presidents.
I have received a request for the waiver of Mr Carlos Coelho's parliamentary immunity from the relevant Portuguese authorities.
Pursuant to Rule 6 of the Rules of Procedure, this request will be passed on to the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
I have received requests from the Group of the European People's Party to appoint Members to the following committees: Mr Wieland as a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Citizens' Rights; and Mr Gahler to replace Mr Wieland as a member of the Committee on the Rules of Procedure, the Verification of Credentials and Immunities.
Are there any comments?
If not, these appointments are approved.
Mr Posselt has the floor.
Mr President, I should like to offer my warmest congratulations to everyone on their appointments.
Thank you very much, Mr Posselt.
That will be noted in the Minutes.
Parliament has come to the end of its agenda.
As this is the last sitting in this parliamentary term, I would propose to the House that we derogate from Rule 133(2) and approve the Minutes of the current sitting now. They have been drafted as the debates have taken place.
If there are no comments, that is how we shall proceed.
The Minutes were approved
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of our work.
As you are all aware, I usually thank Parliament's services for their help during the sittings on behalf of all of you and I am sure I reflect your feelings in doing so.
Today, such thanks must be of a special nature. It is not the last time they will be thanked but it is the end of an era.
You all know that in order to weave a basket to hold our political activity, we need many willow branches and these branches are the officials who help us.
Therefore, allow me, albeit briefly, to express my thanks to the various groups involved, beginning with the ushers.
The ushers, ladies and gentlemen, achieve a marvellous mix of discretion and service without any degree of servility. They respond to any of our requests for help.
I believe that we should show our appreciation for their silent and subtle company with great enthusiasm.
Applause
We must also thank two groups of survivors. The first of these is the translators, who survive the reams of pages we throw at them everyday without being exhausted or overcome by such a vast quantity of pages.
An average of four thousand pages are produced by the translation service every day.
I believe it is only fair to express our gratitude for the rapidity and quality of their work. And, as I cannot mention them all by name, allow me to express our thanks via the Director-General of Translation and General Services, Mr Wilson.
Applause
And there are more survivors to be thanked: the interpreters.
The interpreters manage not to choke on the rapid speeches we cobble together in the few seconds the President may give us if we are lucky. They also work hard to turn our rambling speeches, which are sometimes difficult to understand, into something coherent.
Therefore, because they have survived, and because they have helped us so much, we thank them.
Applause
We should also like to thank those whom we do not see every day but whom we see traces of every day, that is, those who produce the Session News, the document that briefly tells us about the sitting.
In the inscrutable jungle created by the number of issues we deal with in the House, they are able to choose the appropriate species and tree on every occasion.
I should also like to pass on our thanks to them for their work on selecting the right aspects.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must also thank those who produce the Rainbow every day.
I would say that they are like good photographers, who photograph a sunset and improve upon it but make us believe that it is exactly the same. With great subtlety, they often improve upon our speeches.
We should also like to thank them.
And, lastly, allow me to express my thanks to my friends - indulge me and let me call you my friends - who are here with me today and who have been with me on so many occasions.
I am also going to say a few words of special thanks to the Secretary-General.
I personally owe a great deal to the Secretary-General for his skill and his rigour when it comes to putting forward proposals.
This has made my work a great deal easier and I should like to thank him from the bottom of my heart.
And I would also like to thank my friends who have helped me.
Ladies and gentlemen, our political activity does not move at a frenzied pace, but we could compare it to a train, not a high-speed train but a goods train.
Yet trains do not move forward if there are no rails and these rails are what stop us from coming off the tracks.
On many occasions, I have felt that these rails were guiding me along the right track and making my work easier.
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank you all from an emotional and a rational standpoint.
From an emotional standpoint, there is a Spanish folk song that could express the way I feel at the moment. I am not going to sing it but I will recite the lyrics.
Of course, this is a challenge for the interpreters because it obviously rhymes in Spanish.
Let us see if they are capable of making it rhyme in every language: 'They say goodbyes are not sorrowful, they say goodbyes are not sorrowful, say that to him who has said farewell, say that to him who has said farewell'.
Ladies and gentlemen, there is a hint of sadness today; we are not going to try to hide it.
We are saying goodbye to one another and we know that we will go down diverging paths and that there will be separate adventures for those we have met day after day in this House.
But I must say that the hint of sadness can be compensated for, firstly, by reflecting on what we have done.
We can consider two things and the first of these is the satisfaction of a job well done.
Ladies and gentlemen, we can be satisfied with a job well done every day, and even on Fridays, and we can say this without being smug and with the peace of mind and conviction we have when stating something we are absolute sure of.
The second thing that makes up for the hint of sadness, ladies and gentlemen, is the fact that we know that this is not the end: this great celebration of democracy celebration will help it continue.
As Mr Medina Ortega said, many of you have been lucky enough to have democracy handed to you as if it were completely natural and you value it just as naturally.
Some of us have had to fight for this democracy.
Therefore, every time there is an election, irrespective of the outcome for us as individuals, it is a celebration. It is a reason to be happy because we are safe in the knowledge that nothing is above the will of the people when it comes to choosing their representatives.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, we can take solace in the satisfaction of knowing that we will be well represented in the future.
Ladies and gentlemen, my friends, I wish you good health and good luck in your future work.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 11.02 a.m.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 7 May 1999, and I declare open the sitting provided for in Article 10(3) of the Act concerning the election of the representatives to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage and Rule 10(3) of the Parliament's Rules of Procedure.
Before the start of the proceedings, Mr Crowley asked to take the floor.
Mr President, I should like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to address the House.
I want to register my protest at the lack of facilities for me, as a Deputy within this Chamber.
Two and a half years ago, I went to the authorities who were dealing with the building of this new structure and informed them of my requirements as a person with a disability within the Chamber.
I was assured at that stage that every facility would be made available.
I arrived here last month and spoke with the architects and builders with regard to the seating arrangements within the hemicycle.
I also wrote a letter to the former President, informing him of the difficulties that would arise.
I arrived here today, after being re-elected to this Parliament, to discover, firstly, that I cannot get from the '0' level of the building to the first level without getting a security card from one of the security services.
I was delayed for 24 minutes this morning and 38 minutes last night waiting for someone to come along with a card.
Secondly, I cannot sit with my political group within this House because there are no facilities for me to sit with them.
Thirdly, it is an absolute disgrace when so much public money has been spent on this new building that we could not give a proper example for the 21st century - for the new millennium - of what kind of an inclusive society the European Parliament wants to see in the future.
Loud and sustained applause
I should like to finish with a quote from George Bernard Shaw: 'To hate your fellow man is not the ultimate sin but to be apathetic towards him, that is the essence of inhumanity' .
We have seen it here today. I want to register this protest.
I will be taking part in the proceedings. But I want my heartfelt objections to be heard by everybody within this Chamber and around Europe when it is being televised today.
Loud and sustained applause
Mr Crowley, your complaint will certainly be recorded in the Minutes.
I would like to express my own personal deepest regret at the occurrence.
I can assure you, as I am being assured at this moment, that the services will carry out the necessary technical alterations you have requested in time for the September part-session.
I am sure that the President-elect will personally ensure that this undertaking is made good within the deadline.
Oldest Member
I would like to announce that, pursuant to Rule 12(1) of the Rules of Procedure, the duties of oldest Member should fall to Mário Soares.
However, he considered it appropriate not to carry out these duties as he is standing for President of the Parliament.
Under these circumstances, the duties fall to myself.
Ladies and gentlemen, I will be brief.
It is not the first time that I have had to perform the duties of President of a Parliamentary Assembly, but it is the first time that this has been in the capacity of oldest Member, even standing in for an illustrious, older colleague, and I cannot disguise a certain feeling of embarrassment.
I am, nevertheless, very grateful for the opportunity that this occasion affords me to welcome each of you very warmly to this Assembly, of which I have had the honour of being a Member for several years now, although most of my experience comes from my many years as a Member of the national parliament of my country, Italy.
I believe strongly in the parliamentary institution, and I am especially convinced that the democratic legitimisation of the whole of the process of European integration rests on this Parliament, on the full recognition of its role, and also on its ability to collaborate with the national parliaments.
We are aware of the fact that our Parliament has acquired wider powers and must acquire more.
We must now make a decisive contribution to the reform of the institutions of the Union, to building an authentic European democracy.
This is the task which unites us, beyond the substantial political differences which characterise us, and which will certainly be expressed in heated debates.
In this hemicycle, our lovely new home, there will be brilliant reasoned debate and there will be competition, but we will never allow ourselves to forget the cause to which great personalities of European life have devoted themselves.
Please allow me to mention, of all of them, a man from whom I have personally learned a great deal, calling to mind the ten years of battles he fought in this hemicycle, our beloved Altiero Spinelli.
Applause
The cause which unites us, ladies and gentlemen, as we face difficult and exacting challenges, is that of building a more united, wider, stronger Europe, in order to ensure peace, freedom and justice throughout the continent.
I wish you all every success in your work during the fifth legislative term.
As I recall, the Rules of Procedure prohibit any discussion while the oldest Member is in the Chair, which is not strictly related to the procedures for the election of the President or to the verification of his credentials.
Mr President, I would like to take the floor in order to invoke the Rules of Procedure, for future reference, of course.
Rule 14(2) reminds us that only the President-elect can give an inaugural address.
Thank you for clarifying that point. However, you don't know how long this would have lasted had it been an address!
Applause
Mr President, before moving to the election of a President of this House, I should like to ask you to confirm that Annex I of our Rules of Procedure is being abided by.
Annex I of our Rules of Procedure, Article 1, paragraph 2, states that before a Member may be validly nominated as an office-holder of Parliament, he or she must have duly completed the declaration of financial interests.
I would ask you to confirm that this has indeed been carried out.
On behalf of the departments of the Parliament, I confirm that this has been carried out.
Election of the President
Let us proceed this morning, ladies and gentlemen, in observance of the Rules of Procedure, to the election of the President.
Pursuant to Rule 13 of the Rules of Procedure, nominations for President of the European Parliament must be made, with the consent of those concerned, by a political group or by at least thirty-two Members.
Pursuant to Rule 14 of the Rules of Procedure, the following nominations were made for the Presidency of the European Parliament:
Mrs Nicole Fontaine Mrs Laura González Álvarez Mrs Heidi Hautala Mr Mário Soares
Subsequently, the GUE/NGL Group declared that it was withdrawing the nomination of Mrs González Álvarez from the election.
With regard to this, Mr Wurtz has asked to take the floor.
Mr President, for the first time in ten years, we shall actually be voting for the President of the European Parliament without any of those prior agreements between social-democratic and socialist groups which always seemed to represent, to my mind, a kind of condominium, stifling democratic debate.
Today, more by chance than political will on the part of the two principal groups, we have a Left and Right at loggerheads with one another.
The Confederal Group of the European United Left...
Please restrict yourself exclusively to the statement regarding the withdrawal of Mrs González Álvarez from the election, without expounding political considerations on the issue of the election of the President.
Applause
I agree, Mr President, but as you know, here it is all politics.
I shall nevertheless bear your words in mind.
In the first ballot, when it was inconceivable that the election of President of Parliament could be resolved, we took the decision to put forward Mrs Laura González as our candidate to affirm our place at the very heart of the Left.
The latest developments in this situation, particularly the signing of a formal agreement between the two main groups of the Right, mean that we can no longer ignore the fact that everything is still to play for, from the first ballot onwards.
We want to contribute from the outset, to opposing a united and self-confident Right with a Left which is rallying together and on the offensive...
I am sorry, Mr Wurtz, but I am afraid that I must cut you short.
Everything is political. We will have five years in which to discuss political issues, but this is not the time.
Applause
Therefore, three effective candidates remain, not four: Mrs Nicole Fontaine, Mrs Heidi Hautala and Mr Mário Soares, the nomination for Mrs González Álvarez having been withdrawn, according to the intervention of Mr Wurtz.
I would remind you that, pursuant to Rule 14 of the Rules of Procedure, a candidate must obtain the absolute majority of the votes cast in order to be elected in the first three ballots.
Blank or void ballot papers will not be taken into consideration in the counting of the votes.
I shall now draw lots to appoint the six tellers.
The President drew lots to appoint the tellers
The following representatives have been appointed tellers:
Mr BaltasMrs O'TooleMr Ortuondo LarreaMr KatiforisMrs SandersMrs Sauquillo Pérez del Arco
The vote was taken
I declare the ballot closed.
I invite the tellers to count the ballot papers.
The sitting was suspended at 11.15 a.m. to allow the tellers to count the votes and was resumed at 12.20 p.m.
Here is the result of the ballot for the election of the President.
Members voting: 615Blank or void: 60 including 5 irregular ballot papers bearing the name of Mr SoaresVotes cast pursuant to Rule 136(1) of the Regulation: 555
The required majority is 278 votes.
The results are as follows:
Mrs Fontaine: 306 votesMr Soares: 200 votesMrs Hautala: 49 votes
Mrs Fontaine obtained the absolute majority of the votes cast and is thus elected President of the Parliament.
May I congratulate Mrs Fontaine on her election. I wish her every success in the performance of her mandate and invite her to take the chair.
Loud applause
Ladies and gentlemen, you have just given me one of the most wonderful surprises of my life. I must tell you that I am extremely moved.
I am not going to make a speech, as I shall be doing that tomorrow. I would just like to say a few words to thank you from the bottom of my heart for the confidence you have just shown in me.
This confidence is rather overwhelming, but I would like you to know that I shall do all that I can to prove worthy of it and also in order for us to work wonderfully together, as we have done until now.
If you will allow me, I would like to say a few words in particular - I think my male colleagues may forgive me for this - to my fellow women MEPs, who have always given me wonderful support, as have others. I would like to say that this vote is also, to some extent, a vote for you because, for twenty years, since Simone Weil in 1979, no woman has been President of the European Parliament, and so this makes me very proud.
Loud applause
I would also like to dedicate this election to those colleagues who, until yesterday, were still our colleagues.
I know that many of them are still here but there are many others who told us how much they would have liked to take part in this election, which has been a very happy one, and I would like to offer them all my thanks.
And now, I would like to say to Mario Soares that we have competed against each other in a very democratic and good-natured way, and as for the election result - well, that's life in politics - it certainly doesn't diminish the enormous respect I have for him, which is shared by our whole Assembly.
Loud applause
I shall immediately grant Mario Soares' request to have the floor.
Thank you very much, Madam President.
Please allow me to use my first words to congratulate you.
You have conducted a fine campaign, you have acted with great dignity and have always behaved impeccably in all the dealings that I have had with you.
I would therefore like to congratulate you most sincerely and to wish you an excellent Presidency, which I am sure it will be.
I would also like to thank, if you don't mind, everyone who voted for me.
Through my nomination, we have unleashed a new dynamism, and I would like to thank not only those belonging to my own group, but also those from other groups who voted for me too.
Applause
Thank you, Mr Soares
Madam President, I would like to warmly congratulate you on behalf of the Group of the Greens and European Free Alliance in the European Parliament.
We know you to be a very fair and experienced President, and we want to continue to work with you in accomplishing internal reform.
The question of rules for Members, for example, is a very important issue.
On a more personal note, I would also like to congratulate you on being the first woman to lead this House in a long time.
I have had the pleasure of working together with you on the Conciliation Committees and we know that you come to your duties as an exceptionally able President.
It is now our mutual task to represent the nations of Europe here, so that they too can have a say in the affairs of the European Union.
Congratulations once again.
Honoured Madam President, I should like to congratulate you most warmly on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party. I am also very pleased to do this on a personal level, for we have been working together here in the European Parliament since 1984, in a spirit of friendship and trust.
Madam President, I wish you all the success that you would expect and wish for yourself, and which all of us here would wish for this Parliament.
When you relinquished the Chair in May, during the last session here in Strasbourg, you said: 'I am now closing this session.
That was my last time in the Chair as Vice-President' .
You then received loud applause, something that neither I nor any of those present had experienced before, and everyone stood up, something which is generally only reserved for Presidents.
That is why we are able to say today, wherever we happen to be sitting or standing here in this Chamber, that if there is such a thing as political justice, right here in this European Parliament too, then this political justice has become reality with the election of Nicole Fontaine as President of the European Parliament.
Jean Monnet once said: 'Nothing can be achieved without people, nothing endures without institutions' .
The European Parliament has come a long way since 1979 and, in Nicole Fontaine, we have the person we need to carry the powers, authority and honour of this Parliament forward to a prosperous future.
I wish Nicole Fontaine the best of luck and every success, and she will always be able to count on the largest party in this House, which made this proposal from a sense of political duty and for the sake of democracy.
But I should also like to pay a few words of tribute to Mario Soares.
He is one of Portugal's great characters and, Mr President Soares, during the Seventies it was you that prevented Portugal from exchanging one dictatorship for another.
You are a great statesman and a great European, and although we could not elect you as well, we still have great respect for you.
Loud applause
Heidi Hautala, we have worked very well together over the last few days, and, indeed, this finds expression in the fact that as leader of the Green Party you are sitting here in the first row, as is the leader of the Liberals, Pat Cox.
Let us continue to work within this spirit of openness and culture of fairness and, notwithstanding our personal political differences, which is to be expected in a democracy, let us get down to business today and drive European integration forward.
Madam President, these are my wishes for you and for us all.
Applause
Madam President, I hope you do not mind if I speak first in your language in order to congratulate you, to wish you the best of luck, and also to assure you of the friendship of the Group of the Party of European Socialists and of its desire to work with you.
We have worked together for several years now, in different roles.
I know very well what your responsibilities are because, ten years ago, one July day, I too went up to occupy the Presidential seat.
You have worked as Vice-President under my Presidency and under subsequent ones. You have also earned enormous respect in the House for your work, firstly as Vice-President, especially on days of difficult votes, and also for your long-standing involvement with Europe which has enabled us to work together on other projects and other platforms.
I would like to point out, Madam President, that although until now you have represented one political grouping, you are now President of all the MEPs in the European Parliament and I am sure that you will prove equal to the task.
As far as the Group of the Party of European Socialists is concerned, you will have all the support necessary, not only to bring about reforms which are essential for working within this Institution, primarily the status of MEPs and their assistants, but also to open the windows of this Institution to our fellow citizens throughout the Member States and beyond, for we are building not only a House of Parliament, but also a more united Europe.
In this, you can count on our loyal support and friendship, and I hope that in the Bureau too, given the commitments which await us, we will be able to do our best, not only to make Parliament work, but also to take Europe forwards.
I would like to conclude by saying how much respect and friendship I have for an old comrade, Mario Soares, whom I have known since the anti-fascist struggle in my own country and in Portugal.
He is a model not only of a staunch fighter for democracy but also of a great man who helped in the process of decolonialisation and in creating a world which is a little more just and more open. Above all though, I would say that he personifies admirably the attitude of fair play so essential to democracy.
I would also like to offer my greetings to Mrs Hautala and I hope that together, we will all be able to advance the cause of democracy and of a united Europe.
Applause
Bravo, Nicole, and congratulations, Madam President.
This morning, I asked Nicole beforehand for some clarification and advice in case she did indeed occupy the Presidential seat today.
In the language of Molière, what is the rule when a woman is elected President?
She informed me that according to the Académie Française , one can say either 'Madame le Président ' or 'Madame la Présidente ' .
Well, Madame la Présidente , and this is perfectly correct according to the Académie Française , I would like to congratulate you not only for just having been elected President of our Assembly for the next few years, but also for having become the first woman in twenty years, as you have pointed out, to succeed my former colleague Simone Weil, as President.
I congratulate you as well, not only for becoming President and a woman President, but also for having been an excellent colleague over the years. I hope that your work for the Parliament and for the internal reforms goes well, and especially your work for the Assembly and for Europe, because I know how much Europe and our common vision of it mean to you personally.
I would also like to say to our Portuguese colleague, Mario Soares, that I congratulate him because, by taking part in this election, he gave Assembly the chance to contest the seat, which is a sign of true politics and true democracy.
Within the Liberal Group, we chose to support your nomination, not with a view to forming a political coalition, but as a political statement, for the duration of the opening meeting, because some form of political counterbalance is needed from time to time amongst the great European political groupings.
Having been elected President of our Assembly today, you also hold this political balance between institutions which is necessary for a clearly-defined future, for a shared undertaking on Europe, for internal reform and for the whole Assembly.
Congratulations and bravo, dear colleague.
Thank you so much, Mr Pat Cox.
Mr Wurtz has the floor.
Madam President, I extend my congratulations and good wishes on your election as President of the European Parliament.
I am quite satisfied that Parliament has acquired an excellent President and I am equally certain that you will conduct your duties with dignity and fair play at all times.
You have won the respect of this Parliament during the period of time that you served as Vice-President and the many roles that you had to fulfil.
I want to wish you every success, on behalf of Parliament, during your term of office.
Parliament has a wonderful President.
We all wish you well.
Applause
Madam President, the Alleanza Nazionale knows that you will lead this Parliament with that same spirit of democracy and equilibrium which we experienced during the last legislative term.
Your strong drive for a free and politically united Europe, your respect for the democratic institutions and your belief in a Parliament with, at long last, a strong, informed and transparent relationship with the Commission give us real hope that the years to come will be a time in which the consociativismo (tacit tolerance of corruption) of the past will truly be a thing of the past and real collaboration between all the groups of this Parliament will begin.
Europe is embarking upon this legislative term at a time of great difficulties, due both to the events taking place just beyond our borders and also to the fact that the process of political union and the economic policy project are still far from being completed.
A strong, kind and capable Presidency which is well-balanced and just, such as you have already shown yourself capable of providing, will give us the hope and faith to work together, all of us together, to meet the needs of those European citizens who are still looking to us to give them a clear answer regarding their future.
Madam President, dear Nicole, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities is also pleased to congratulate you on your election today.
I am sure that you will be the President to safeguard the interests of all Members.
It is a matter of great importance to us that things should now be put in order in Parliament, so that a journey costing EUR 300 is not reimbursed with EUR 1000, and remuneration is completely upfront and not hidden in perks slipped in through the back door.
My group is critical of centralism and a lack of transparency within the EU.
I am certain that we will be able to work constructively together to open up the decision-making process within the EU.
There are other areas where we are unable to offer constructive co-operation but we can offer constructive opposition, and that is, of course, because you want greater integration in areas where we want less.
But we can offer constructive opposition.
Now some comments on a personal note to Mário Soares.
Around this time, twenty five years ago, I visited you at a flat in Paris, where you were in exile.
I was a great admirer of your fight for democracy in Portugal and helped you by getting your speeches printed in Scandinavian newspapers and by broadcasting your messages.
But I have been unable to support you today, for, although we may agree on democracy in Portugal, my group does not support your ideas on integration within Europe.
That is why we have been unable to vote for Mário Soares, even though his past life and background strike a chord with me.
Again, on a personal note and speaking as one of the ten veterans to have sat here in Parliament since 1979, Nicole Fontaine is the best President we have ever had.
When we closed the session last May, there was unanimous support and loud applause from the entire Chamber because she had presided over meetings with such outstanding success during the last election period.
On no account is it for political reasons that I voted for you today, but because I hope that you will continue to represent all Members.
And on that note, I am pleased to welcome you as the new President of the Parliament for the next two and a half years.
Applause
Election of Vice-Presidents
Ladies and gentlemen, the next item on the agenda is the election for Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament.
You should have the list of candidates in front of you. I shall read it out to you.
Ballot papers are being handed out as we decided, once again, to hold a manual vote, given that there were fourteen candidates for fourteen posts.
We shall take advantage of the benefits that electronics can offer later.
I have received the following nominations:
Mr Joan Colom I Naval, Mr Ingo Friedrich, Mr Renzo Imbeni, Mrs Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, Mr Luis Marinho, Mr David Martin, Mr Gérard Onesta, Mr José Pacheco Pereira, Mr Guido Podestà, Mr James Provan, Mr Alonso José Puerta, Mr Gerhard Schmid, Mr Alejo Vidal-Quadras Roca and Mr Jan Wiebenga.
The candidates have informed me that they accept their respective nominations.
I would like to draw your attention to something that I mentioned a moment ago, which is that, as the number of candidates does not exceed the number of seats to be filled, I propose that in the first instance, we elect these fourteen candidates to the posts of Vice-President and that we do it unanimously.
We will then hold a ballot in order to establish the precedence between the various Vice-Presidents you will have elected in this way.
Applause
The fourteen Vice-Presidents are elected unanimously.
I hereby declare the ballot open.
The vote took place
(The sitting was suspended at 3.40 p.m. and resumed at 6.05 p.m.)
Election of Quaestors
With regard to the election of Quaestors, which will take place tomorrow morning, I propose that we set the deadline for the registration of nominations for eight o'clock this evening.
The registration of these nominations must be done in the same place as those for the Vice-Presidencies, which is the small room next to our Chamber.
Madam President, the deadline you have set can easily be adhered to by those parties that only have one good candidate for the election of the Quaestors.
Unfortunately, our party has several good candidates and we must first make a selection.
Indeed, since the election will not take place first thing tomorrow morning, I would ask you to defer the deadline to ten o'clock this evening for example, or as far as I am concerned, even to midnight, but to make it no earlier than ten o'clock this evening.
I urge you to do this on behalf of my party.
Mr Swoboda, I think that we can be even more accommodating and I suggest, if you have no objection, the time of nine o'clock tomorrow morning.
This way, you will have the whole night in which to hold consultations.
Madam President, if you continue to be this generous then we shall be very satisfied with you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the order of business.
The sitting was closed at 6.10 p.m.
Address by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, once again, I should like to convey my heartfelt thanks for the trust you showed in me by electing me President of the European Parliament yesterday.
To follow the various Presidents who have left their mark on the history of our Parliament ever since it was first elected by direct universal suffrage, and to follow you, José Maria Gil-Robles, who so successfully led Parliament along the path of democratic progress
Applause
calls for modesty rather than pride, in that the honour which I feel gives way immediately to an awareness of the burden which we must bear together and I can assure you, as far as I am concerned, that it will be exciting but also demanding.
To those colleagues who voted differently, I must say, in all sincerity, that once he or she has been elected, the President must be everyone's President.
A first among equals.
The President is merely the instrument of the smooth operation of parliamentary democracy.
To remain faithful to my convictions and to the group which nominated me as President, but also to take up the task with rectitude and impartiality, whilst respecting our political or national differences, is how I see my role and its moral code.
As Vice-President during the last few years, that was how I always tried to behave.
I shall continue in the same spirit.
The conditions under which the election was held marked a step forward in the democratic workings of the European Parliament.
It allowed all Members, whatever the size of their group, to participate openly; it took account of the balance of power established by the citizens who elected us on 13 June; in addition, it allowed each person to express his or her preference, as dictated by conscience.
As I said yesterday, I am grateful to Parliament for taking into account another aspect of this democratic equilibrium.
During the life of the previous Parliament, 23 % of Members were women.
Today, the figure is nearly 30 %.
Applause
Since Simone Veil, who was the first President of the new Parliament elected by direct universal suffrage in 1979, the efforts made over the last 20 years to achieve fairer representation have resulted in the election which has just taken place.
I am, of course, happy and proud, but setting myself aside I should like to say to the other women Members of the European Parliament that my promotion is also theirs.
Our constituent part-session coincides with the handover of the new building which, after and together with those in Luxembourg and Brussels, will be the location for our parliamentary deliberations. It appropriately bears the name of a great European, Louise Weiss.
The official inauguration will take place at a later date, but this coincidence is symbolic of the fact that our Parliament has now acquired deep foundations, both literally and metaphorically.
Architecture has always glorified mankind's projects and it has remained, down the centuries, the tangible and preferred memorial to civilisations.
It has great significance here and now.
The fact that we now have premises separate from those of the Council of Europe - grateful though we are for the hospitality it afforded us for so many years - marks the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.
The Gordian knot which bound the European Parliament when it was merely a consultative assembly has now been definitively cut.
Alas, this building is not without its teething troubles, towards which we and the media must show indulgence.
We are bearing the brunt of these but I can assure you that at the end of this week we will compile a detailed list of all the functional problems which have come to our attention and we will do everything possible to remedy the situation before the next part-session.
I am aware of the daunting task which awaits us during the two and a half years of my Presidency.
Our first duty, as I see it today, will be to demand full recognition of the new responsibilities which the Amsterdam Treaty has assigned to the European Parliament and which must, without delay or hesitation on the part of the other institutions, be translated into deeds.
Undoubtedly, interinstitutional co-operation between the Council, the Commission and Parliament is essential and we hope it will be harmonious, but a better balance still needs to be established between the two forms of democratic legitimacy on which the adoption of Community legislation is based: that of the Member States, embodied by the Council, and that of the Assembly which is the product of the direct universal suffrage of all the citizens of the Union.
Applause
A new era is beginning on the threshold of this parliamentary term - the European Parliament is now a parliament in the true sense of the word.
Since the Treaty of Maastricht, our prerogatives and influence have continued to grow.
They have now been strengthened by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
This is the outcome of the efforts which Parliament has unceasingly made at each stage in the process, with a view to making the Union more democratic.
This is what happened after the ratification of the Single European Act in 1986, when it took maximum advantage of the new, albeit modest, powers inherent in the co-operation procedure.
It is also what happened after the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, when it monitored in minute detail the implementation of the co-decision procedure, which was considerably more far-reaching.
All those among us, and there are many, who took part in the various delegations to the Conciliation Committee, which brought Parliament and the Council together face to face, accompanied and assisted by the Commission, saw for themselves how far this new procedure increased Parliament's influence during the last parliamentary term.
Thus, almost all the disputes which were submitted to it were settled successfully, with all Parliament's major concerns being taken into account.
The positive outcome is largely due to the cohesion which I always observed in Parliament's successive delegations to the Conciliation Committees which I had the honour of co-chairing together with Renzo Imbeni and Mr Verde.
Adherence to the outcome of parliamentary votes, the internal settling of any differences of opinion, the sense of reasonable compromise and responsibility, the thorough knowledge of the various issues displayed by rapporteurs and committee chairmen were of decisive importance and commanded the Council's respect.
I pay tribute to all the colleagues who took part.
To make the most of the powers which we have acquired whilst moving towards new democratic achievements has been our constant aim.
In this connection, I should like to pay special and sincere tribute to the last four Presidents - Enrique Baron Crespo, Egon Klepsch, Klaus Hänsch and José María Gil-Robles - irrespective of their political allegiance - for their considerable powers of persuasion when dealing with the Heads of State and Government in the European Council meetings in which they took part.
It is to a great extent thanks to their diplomacy and moral authority that the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam introduced the new powers for Parliament which we today are able to implement.
In future, in fact, there is almost no legislative act in any of the fields covered by the Community's sphere of competence that can be adopted without Parliament's formal agreement.
In this connection, I would like to say to the Council that I am convinced that Parliament is determined to do its utmost to ensure that the Council and Parliament reach agreement, whenever possible at the first reading.
But I must also say that the Council will have Parliament to reckon with if the concerns of the citizens whom we represent do not find their proper place in the draft Community legislation submitted to us.
Applause
As far as the Commission is concerned, Parliament now first of all approves the appointment of the President proposed by the Heads of State and Government and then all the Commissioners as a body, whilst retaining its subsequent power of censure.
I am well aware that this procedure is a very delicate mechanism.
The outgoing Commission's last few months in office were marked by the serious crisis which everyone remembers.
The climax came in December 1998 when Parliament dared for the first time to refuse to grant the Commission discharge for the budget.
The subsequent sequence of events led to the Commission's resignation.
In the coming weeks, Parliament will hear and then appoint the new Commissioners.
This will be the first opportunity for the new Parliament to exercise its responsibilities.
In this connection, I must tell you how I feel.
It would be inconceivable for us to appoint the Commission without first having read the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts.
Applause
I would like to say to whom it may concern, in other words the chairman of that Committee, that the European Parliament absolutely must have this document before the hearings of the Commission nominees are held.
Applause
I should like to tell the President, Romano Prodi, that we do not want a weakened Commission.
On the contrary, we want a strong and creative Commission capable of tackling the great challenges which we have to face together.
We hope that the means made available to it will be equal to the responsibilities it has to bear.
But, quite apart from its powers, we expect it to be transparent on the basis of a new Code of Conduct and to respect the political and democratic equilibrium desired by the electorate, we expect the procedures for assigning tasks to external bodies to obviate the risk of conflicts of interest and we expect it to be willing to work in close synergy with Parliament.
With this in mind, we already appreciate the fact that the Commissioner responsible for relations with Parliament will be one of the Vice-Presidents of the Commission.
Despite some substantial advances, we all know that the Amsterdam Treaty has not achieved all the objectives attributed to it at the outset, the main one being the institutional reform, an essential precondition for enlargement.
Our Assembly will therefore need to use all its influence to enhance the Union's institutional equilibrium, and this in several directions.
The scope of co-decision must be extended so that it becomes the Community legal procedure to be applied to all items of Union legislation.
The European Parliament must be involved in the common external and security policy as regards the operational pillar thereof, the WEU which must be integrated in the Union's institutional structure, as indeed was decided, in principle, in the Amsterdam Treaty.
The European Parliament must be totally involved in the preparatory work of the Intergovernmental Conference on the reform of the European institutions.
The citizens who have given us our mandate would find it incomprehensible if the European Parliament were to play only a minor role in a reform as sweeping and necessary as that which is to be undertaken.
It must be involved at a very early stage, so as to be able to make an active contribution as soon as the preparatory work commences.
And we shall be asking the Council to heed the request expressed by the Assembly in approving the reports by Mr Méndez de Vigo and Mr Tsasos, which were adopted by a very large majority, that the method used should be the Community approach, namely a proposal from the Commission to both Council and Parliament.
Finally, the Council must be aware that Parliament would not content itself with a minimalist reform, if that were to be the case.
Applause
This entire enterprise must, of course, be carried out while stepping up our co-operation with the national parliaments, as indeed we have been doing in the last few years.
Parliament must also be closely involved in the negotiations leading up to Union enlargement, which remains the priority of priorities in the coming years.
And it must exercise greater influence over the major budgetary decisions and the defining of the relevant priorities, within the parameters of the Agenda 2000 guidelines.
Finally, I strongly believe that our Assembly must ensure that the voice of the European citizens it represents is heard more clearly on the international trade scene.
What has just happened in the World Trade Organisation in connection with hormone-treated cattle is not acceptable.
Applause
We all remember the contaminated blood tragedy and the dangers to human health posed by mad cow disease.
The problem is not to oppose the progress of biotechnology, but to make sure that the demands of public health prevail.
We shall endeavour to do so.
Applause
My experience in our Assembly leads me to think that in the course of this Presidency, we must make progress in a number of directions. I shall briefly mention those which seem to me to be worthy of priority, without anticipating the outcome of discussions already under way and which I shall be intent on encouraging.
First and foremost, we must draw the political conclusions from the low turnout at the recent European elections and gear our internal reforms to the need to bring ourselves closer to the citizens who elected us.
In this connection, we shall also be at pains to press ahead with the proposed uniform procedure for the European elections.
Contrary to the image that is being portrayed, the European Parliament works very hard. But it may be that we do not work as rationally as we could or should.
Modernising our working methods and procedures is becoming essential if we want to be more efficient and have enough time at our disposal to make ourselves available to our fellow citizens and voters locally.
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Whilst showing due deference to the Treaties, which are our supreme source of law, we must tackle every issue unflinchingly. Our efficiency, both in Brussels and here in Strasbourg, depends upon it.
Various avenues of reflection have already been opened up concerning, for example, ways in which voting time in the House could be reduced so as to enable more Members to speak in important debates,
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freeing up more time between meetings to enable Members to meet their constituents during the week or on Fridays,
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clarification of the respective roles of the Bureau and the Conference of Presidents, with regard to preparation of plenary sittings - in this connection, I propose that the notification of agendas should be improved and that a list of decisions taken should be sent to Members by electronic mail - the problems raised by the diversity of working languages, which will, of course, become even more numerous with the next enlargement of the Union, enhancing the efficiency of Parliament's administrative departments, responding to the increasing volume of requests to visit Parliament from groups of visitors.
I do not wish to anticipate the decisions which the Assembly, in its wisdom, will take democratically after weighing up their possible consequences or hazards.
I should merely like to say this morning that I personally will do everything in my power to foster an open debate and to encourage efforts to make our parliamentary work more efficient.
My second point is that we must carry through to its conclusion the work already begun on establishing a common statute for Members and, additionally, on clarifying the terms and conditions of employment of our parliamentary assistants, on a basis of transparency and equity and having regard to the dignity of the parliamentary function.
Today this clarification is essential in a political environment which has changed a great deal since the Treaty of Amsterdam at last accepted it in principle.
Our Assembly has already made great strides on this issue, on the basis of the report submitted by Mr Rothley.
This work now has to be finished off by seeking the widest possible consensus in Parliament, and as its President I shall be making every effort to achieve this.
Finally, it is absolutely essential that we improve our communication strategy, especially in terms of greater decentralisation.
The information we send out must go far beyond the inner circles within which it is regrettably often confined and reach out as closely as possible to our citizens.
In politics it is not enough to do things, they must be seen to have been done. And there is a huge deficit in this area.
'Europe is boring' was a phrase used recently by one of the quality dailies.
This is the challenge we have to meet and, insofar as I am able to do so in the office that has been conferred upon me, I shall endeavour to meet it, with the assistance of Parliament and that of the journalists, of whom greater numbers will, I hope, take an interest in our work if we succeed in raising our political profile.
Our failure to inform cannot be remedied by improvisation.
It requires an in-depth political debate.
The current situation is somewhat paradoxical.
The results of all the surveys show that European integration is gaining favour in people's minds. At the same time, however, the steadily increasing number of people who fail to turn out at the European elections is a reminder of the fact that, for many, Europe remains an abstract concept far removed from their everyday concerns.
The life of a democracy, however, cannot be reduced to a mere succession of elections and parliamentary procedures, otherwise, as Churchill famously quipped, it would be 'the worst form of government except for all the others'.
We shall have to accept the political implications of the fact that, for too long, the European Community has been seen by the public, albeit wrongly, as a sort of coldly efficient bureaucratic machine trying to impose standards where there was variety, compromise where there was divergence and uniformity where there were differences.
It has been one of the Commission's historic achievements that it created the conditions for the single market. But people cannot be won over to an ideal by Directives and Regulations.
If Europe is to be viewed as anything but a constraint, it must give birth to an enterprise which involves much more than setting up an economic and monetary area, even if the necessary social and environmental dimensions are added.
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There is an urgent need today to give new meaning to the Union.
I believe that our Assembly, using the appropriate means, a matter which we shall have to debate, should set itself the objective of reversing the dangerous trend towards abstentionism by the time of the next European elections and thus ensure that the European Parliament, in the minds of our fellow citizens, retains to a high degree the democratic legitimacy it derives from the ballot box.
Beyond the confines of the European Union, the international influence of our Parliament is considerable, particularly in all of the countries which have applied for accession and in those which have signed co-operation agreements with the Union.
This positive image derives not only from the expectation that the European Parliament will provide support in terms of financial aid to development projects or the conclusion of economic agreements with the Union.
The predominant factor is of a spiritual nature.
The European Parliament is identified with the success of a civilised democracy on the scale of a large multi-national region of the globe.
In all of the international agreements for which Parliament's assent is required, our Assembly has unfailingly insisted, even under the pressure of reasons of State, that its approval was conditional on the partner countries showing respect for a more authentic democracy which respects freedom and human rights.
Thus, for all those peoples who throughout the world are afflicted by dictatorship, civil war or underdevelopment, Europe represents an immense source of hope for peace, freedom and progress.
I believe that our Assembly should keep sending out signals which mobilise global awareness of the universal nature of the fundamental values of human society.
In this context the most burning issue, and that closest to us, is of course the tragedy which has torn Kosovo apart.
Today the guns have fallen silent, the horror has ceased, but peace still remains to be built.
We each of us somehow sense that this war was about the future of a democratic model which affords protection to all minorities.
The war also witnessed the emergence of the European continent as a kind of humanitarian sanctuary.
It was not acceptable, and indeed we refused to accept, that in the very heart of Europe human rights should once more be flouted in such a barbaric manner.
The united intervention of the 15 Member States of the Union will, I believe, come to be seen as the founding act of a political Europe, and a fitting response to our citizens' expectation that we should be establishing not just a single market, but a humanitarian ideal.
A new Europe was born in Pristina, and that Europe has seen the light of day on the threshold of a new century.
Now that the arms have been held in check, the country is being rebuilt and one day perhaps reconciliation will come, I think it would be a highly symbolic act if my first external initiative as President were to visit Kosovo on your behalf, as soon as that is feasible.
Applause
I know, of course, that many prominent persons have already been there. But such an initiative, now that peace has returned, will have special significance: to go to the two communities, Albanian and Serbian, to the United Nations High Representative, to the political and religious authorities, to the international peace-keeping force, and convey the message of our determination.
The European Parliament will play a full role in the reconstruction of Kosovo and stabilisation of the Balkans.
It will do so in particular by exercising its budgetary power, but in many other ways too, of course.
Naturally, I shall be counting on you all to play an active part in attaining all these ambitious objectives.
The task that awaits us is a tough one, so rather than wishing you a good holiday, I wish you all, I wish us all, good heart. Thank you.
Loud applause
Madam President, I would like to congratulate you on your being elected to your challenging post.
As you yourself mentioned in your excellent speech, immense challenges await us all.
You said you prized interinstitutional co-operation highly.
Madam President, I can assure you here and now, and I shall say it again this evening when, in this same Chamber I officially present the programme that Finland intends to adopt while it holds the presidency, that our goal is a closer system of co-operation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Madam President, I have come here today in token of my respect for the power bestowed on Parliament by the citizens of Europe and to offer my sincerest co-operation in building a better future for our citizens, bearing in mind all the while that we are part of a common world.
Madam President, I would like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here on this occasion.
Applause
I thank the President-in-Office of the Council.
Madam President, I will be very brief.
I must congratulate you, on behalf of the outgoing Commission, on your election to the Presidency of the Parliament.
What can I say about your personal qualities and your already long record in the quest for European integration?
We know, because we know you very well, that you are a demanding character, but we also know that you have a profound sense of balance which will no doubt help us in the future to form a new approach with regard to the relationship between the European Parliament and the Commission.
As you have indicated, I believe - and why hide it? - that this is one of the fundamental issues to be resolved.
We are convinced that, under your authority, the next Commission will be capable of re-establishing that trust which has always been a fundamental asset as far as European integration is concerned.
May I reiterate, Mrs Fontaine, my warm congratulations on behalf of the Commission.
Thank you very much.
Applause
I am truly grateful, Mr Commissioner Marín.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the last sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, with regard to the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, I would like to provide all the Members with some information relating to the introductory intervention of our Irish colleague yesterday morning.
I would like to make it known to all the Members that the issues concerning the means of access, for people with reduced mobility, from the public car parks to all the buildings, is entirely effective.
I tested it myself this morning, using all the paths provided and signposted by means of all the symbols normally used for this sort of information.
I want to point this out so that we can stop the circulation of inaccurate facts.
Everything is in order so that people with reduced mobility may have effective access to the buildings.
I believe that what still needs to be resolved is the problem of the chamber itself.
Thank you for that very optimistic intervention.
I must tell you that I do not share your view totally.
I believe there is still an enormous amount to do to improve the efficient functioning of this Parliament building.
Everybody is aware of this and we will do everything we can to resolve these issues.
Madam President, speaking both for myself and, of course, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I wish to concur with your demand that the second report of the Wise Men be made available to all MEPs before 30 August, i.e. before the hearings with the new Commission begin.
However, I have learnt from an extremely well-informed source that a kind of preliminary draft report is already in circulation in this House, between the Committee of Wise Men, the services of the European Parliament and the services of the European Commission.
We know what happens with preliminary draft reports: they are leaked, they get into the newspapers.
I think we are all entitled to demand that when such a preliminary draft is in circulation, it be made available to the MEPs.
I know it probably is not possible for it to go to all 626 Members, but would it not then be sensible, if such a report exists and if you can confirm this, for this preliminary draft report to be given to the President and the bureau of the Committee on Budgetary Control for example, and to the co-ordinators of all the groups that are represented in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Mr Staes, that was not exactly a procedural motion, but I have listened to you with interest and, as I told you earlier, I will very quickly make the necessary contacts to that end.
Madam President, I would like to say something in relation to the Minutes. Yesterday, the Conference of Presidents and the political groups jointly registered an objection to the establishment of the so-called 'Technical Group of Independent Members' and I believe that the said objection should be explicitly recorded in the Minutes.
I assume that the chairman of the PPE, who currently holds the presidency of the Conference, will have forwarded that letter to the Presidency of the Parliament.
In any event, I would like to place my group's objection on record.
Furthermore, since I have the floor, Madam President, I would like to add that it is not appropriate to open a debate, based on rumours, on a subject which we will have to consider in turn on the agenda, for which I believe amendments have been tabled, and on which the political groups are still to give their opinion.
It seems to me that we should debate each issue in its turn.
Madam President, I am able to confirm the comments made by my colleague, Mr Barón Crespo.
However, I wish to draw attention to another item, that of the name of our group.
Under item 5, it says 'formation of political groups' . I should like to inform you that in future our group is to be known as the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats)/European Democrats and would ask that note be taken of this.
I would also ask that note be taken, on the monitors and the other technical installations, of the fact that our group is now the largest group in the Parliament, something of which many people are already aware.
Applause
Madam President, I would simply like to react to the intervention of Mr Barón Crespo.
We are speaking here of the Minutes.
When you made the announcement yesterday, no reaction was registered.
I believe that the Conference of Presidents will subsequently receive a document concerning the constitution of this group.
We have taken note of this, but I do not believe that it was mentioned yesterday during the discussion.
I therefore think that the two things are different.
On the one hand, there is the possible response and, on the other hand, a reflection of what was said yesterday in the plenary session.
It does not seem to me - and there are witnesses - that any objection was expressed at that time.
Thank you, Mr Dell'Alba.
There is no reason to rectify the Minutes.
Madam President, I know you, like me, will share the concern that this week offers no opportunity to express our interest at what is occurring in Burma and, in particular, the sacrifice and suffering of Aung San Suu Kyi who is our Sakharov Prize winner.
There has been a troika visit to Burma.
I would urge you, President, as one of your first acts, to support the proposal that a political dialogue takes place urgently with Aung San Suu Kyi and her political party.
Thank you, Mrs Kinnock, for that intervention, which I will very much bear in mind.
Madam President, may I say that I fully endorse your speech earlier in which you said that one of our jobs is to provide the public with information about the work of the institutions.
Can I invite you therefore under Rule 38 (Statements explaining Commission decisions) to ask the Commission at the end of today's agenda to come to this House and explain the decision that was taken yesterday to fine the French football authorities a derisory £650.00 for a clear breach of Community rules.
It is very difficult for anyone to understand what that message was from the Commission, apart from to say that it is good news for ticket touts and bad news for football fans to suggest that people can actually get away with breaking the law providing they are prepared to throw a few coppers towards the European Commission later in the process.
So, may I ask you to invite the Commission, at the end of today's proceedings, to come and explain that decision so that ordinary people can actually try and understand the thought processes which, I have to say, completely confound me.
We will happily forward your question to the Commission.
European Council of 3 and 4 June/ German Presidency
The next item on the agenda is a joint debate on
the report of the European Council and the declaration of the Commission on the Cologne European Council meeting of 3 and 4 June, -the declaration of the Council concerning the six months of the German Presidency.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be able to meet the newly-elected European Parliament today and extend my congratulations to you all, and particularly you, Madam President Fontaine, on your election.
At the beginning of the German Presidency, the European Union took a historic step when it introduced the single currency, i.e. the euro.
In January, I declared here in the European Parliament that the Federal Government considered the rationale behind the introduction of the euro to represent further steps towards achieving full integration, and that Germany would spare no effort in attempting to bring this about.
I said that we considered it important to make the structural and procedural preparations needed to transform a union of Western European countries into a truly pan-European Union which would, at the same time, have power to act in matters of foreign policy and security, and which must therefore be more democratic too.
Today, six months on, we can see that the progress made in these three main areas relating to integration has fulfilled our expectations.
This progress is closely associated with the two crises that the European Union has had to contend with over the last six months.
The resignation of the Commission, the outbreak of war in Kosovo and the European Council in Berlin all coincided, putting the EU's power to act to the test in a dramatic way at a particularly critical moment in time.
The EU Member States maintained not only unity and their power to act during this extremely difficult period, but also displayed considerable creative genius.
They turned the crisis to good account as an incentive to achieve further integration.
The reason for this is that the war in Kosovo served to highlight again that the essence of European integration is to establish a lasting framework for peace on our continent.
This insight resulted in an awareness of the degree to which the national interests of individual Member States are interconnected, and in a readiness throughout Europe to take a decisive step forward in the historic task of bringing European integration to fruition.
In this way, the crisis has accelerated the process of integration.
The step forward we have taken in the course of the last few months is above all a success shared by all Member States and European Union institutions.
I should therefore like to thank the European Parliament today for fulfilling its responsibility to extraordinarily good effect during this difficult period.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I should now like to take a few moments to sum up the main events of the German Presidency and then look at the prospects for the future.
Firstly, there has been an increase in the ability of the EU to act in matters of foreign and security policy.
The EU is now an international player holding considerable sway.
Nothing rendered this more apparent than the Belgrade mission undertaken by President Ahtisaari and the Russian envoy to Kosovo, Mr Chernomyrdin.
The contribution they made towards bringing the Kosovo conflict to a peaceful conclusion has enabled the civil might of the EU to take a major step in the direction of a common foreign policy.
Unlike 1991/92, the EU pursued a common line in the Balkans this time, which can be explained by the fact that the European States had at last recognised that it was not just about moral duty or the future of a region on the periphery of Europe, but about their own security, indeed our collective security.
In Europe, there is just one single, indivisible kind of security; that is, the logical conclusion we can draw from our experience of the tragedy in Kosovo.
If we had stood idly by in the face of bloodthirsty, aggressive nationalism on our continent, then ultimately the fate of European integration itself, the greatest achievement in recent European history, would have been placed in jeopardy.
We could not and would not allow this to happen.
Applause
The Kosovo conflict has propagated two important ideas in the EU.
Firstly, South-Eastern Europe is now widely and unreservedly accepted as being part of Europe.
This led to the Stability Pact being adopted, a subject I shall return to later.
Secondly, the Member States have hardened in their resolve finally to give shape to a Common Foreign and Security policy.
Against this background it has been possible to present a united front to China and the Near East in terms of human rights policy and many other difficult foreign policy issues, and ultimately to reach a number of important decisions in Cologne, which included adopting the first common strategy towards Russia and a timetable for achieving a European security and defence policy, as well as nominating Javier Solana as the best possible candidate for the post of Mr CFSP.
The European Union's importance as an international player has also become evident at the numerous Interregional Conferences such as the Latin American Summit in Rio, the Mediterranean Conference held in Stuttgart, a platform which can now gain considerably in importance against the background of a new peace dynamic, the ASEM in Berlin and many other meetings.
Secondly, the Berlin decisions on Agenda 2000 have secured the European Union the power to act for the next few years.
If we had failed to reach agreement there, and consider what it would have meant, if the Berlin meeting had finished with no compromise having been reached at a time when the Kosovo war was just beginning and the Commission was in a state of crisis, then Europe would have been plunged into a serious, historic crisis.
Agenda 2000 contained a sheaf of reform initiatives and huge national interests of a kind unknown hitherto in the history of European integration.
The fact that it proved possible to reconcile these issues in one great compromise was because major Member States, not least of which Germany, refrained from pushing to achieve the most they could for their own countries, come what may, and instead made the further development of Europe a priority.
Certainly, the Federal German Government would have liked to have seen more progress in many areas, for example in agricultural policy, where, following the WTO Round, it will be soon be essential to take further reform measures.
But, all in all, the compromise is still an excellent foundation on which to lead the Union into the 21st century.
Thirdly, Agenda 2000 will also foster opportunities for the enlargement of the European Union.
The success of the Berlin compromise can in fact be measured in terms of the extremely positive reactions displayed by the Applicant States.
The negotiations for Accession have also made good progress over the last six months.
We now undertake negotiations in more than half of all the capital cities.
Moreover, when we decided in Cologne to have a new Intergovernmental Conference on institutional affairs, we seized the opportunity that will enable us to soon overcome the second large internal hurdle facing the enlargement process.
As a result, the historic project of enlargement has made considerable progress in terms of pace and quality.
Fourthly, at the time of the dispute that led to the resignation of the Commission, the European Parliament fulfilled the responsible role expected of it by the people of Europe.
I regard this as the beginning of a process that will lead to more a pronounced democratisation of the Union.
The nomination of Romano Prodi as the new President of the Commission was a very rapid reaction on the part of the EU States to the resignation of the Commission.
I should like, at this juncture, to wish Romano Prodi and the new Commission a great deal of luck and every success as they embark on the great tasks ahead of them.
In adopting the Code of Conduct the new Commission has already sent out an important signal intended to regain the citizens' trust, a good start.
However, I should also like today to again address particular thanks to the old Commission and all its staff for their work.
Despite any criticism levied at certain individuals, we should not forget one thing, and that is that without the Commission's hard work and commitment, we would not have been able to solve the numerous and difficult problems, and not least those encountered during the German Presidency.
Applause
My fifth point is that the Employment Pact agreed in Cologne makes it possible, at the European level, to pursue our goal of supplementing and strengthening national efforts to create more employment.
The Pact improves the conditions necessary to achieve an active employment policy in both a national and European context.
The macro-economic dialogue agreed on in Cologne, with the involvement of the two sides of industry and the European Central Bank, will make an important contribution to this process.
We should therefore take stock of the situation for the first time at the Employment Summit to be held during the Portuguese Presidency.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the period that lies before us we should use the dynamic that has emerged over the last six months from the tension between the exigencies of crisis and those of reform, to take further steps towards integration.
We must make progress in five key areas. The first of these is that our experience of the Kosovo conflict must lead to a speeding-up of the enlargement process.
The agenda for the European Council in Helsinki includes decisions that will point the way.
Two questions of central importance will be discussed, the first being which additional Applicant States the EU is to enter into negotiations with.
It has been evident for a long time now that several of the States not yet at the negotiating stage have made considerable progress in terms of reform and this should be shown due appreciation in Helsinki.
It should also be made clear that any candidate fulfilling the Copenhagen Criteria is entitled to enter into accession negotiations.
The second question which will need to be addressed is that of a target date for concluding negotiations with the first candidates.
Numerous idealistic proposals have been made, but as yet we have no foundation worthy of consideration on which to base a realistic date.
However, a foundation of this kind will be created for the first time in Helsinki, when the full results of the screening and the Commission's new progress reports are made known.
It is therefore my fervent hope that it will be possible to fix a date in December.
Personally, I feel that we must fix the date in December.
This would send out a signal of enormous importance in terms of the future dynamics of the reform process as well as those of the accession negotiations.
Unfortunately, it has not been possible, over the last six months, to bring about any substantial improvement in Turkey's status vis-a-vis the European Union.
Germany's proposal to designate Turkey an Applicant State and to assess it in accordance with the same Copenhagen Criteria as applied to the other candidates, did not meet with agreement in Cologne, but this issue remains on the agenda.
It is important that Turkey should draw up a timetable for implementing the Copenhagen Criteria.
It is essential that Turkey fulfil these criteria if it is to enter into accession negotiations.
My second point is that if an enlarged Union is to retain its ability to negotiate then it is essential that the three institutional questions that remained open in Amsterdam, namely the size and composition of the Commission, vote weighting in the Council, and extending majority voting, are clarified in good time and comprehensively before enlargement takes place.
In any case, this is in the interests of the Applicant States.
We should therefore make every available effort to adhere to the timetable for institutional reform agreed on in Cologne and to complete the package of reforms in the year 2000 under the French Presidency.
However this will require the will and support of all Member States.
Thirdly, the end of the fourth, and hopefully last, Yugoslavian war of succession in Kosovo and the agreement of the Stability Pact mean that for the first time in its history, South-Eastern Europe now has a real opportunity to break with nationalism and violence forever and draw closer to an integrated Europe.
Reconciliation was able to take place in Western Europe after 1945 and so it can in the Balkans today, provided that it is possible to root out the hatred and violence of nationalism there too.
For this to be achieved, it is important that the European Union should make the securing of peace in South-Eastern Europe a priority in peacetime too.
Reconstruction in Kosovo and the EU's central role in giving impetus to the Stability Pact mean that it carries more responsibility, also in material terms.
Equally though, in the long-term this represents a major and exceptional opportunity for the Union and its national economies which we should embrace with determination.
Economic co-operation will be a decisive factor in the stabilisation of South-Eastern Europe.
Germany supports additional proposals for creating a regional Trade and Customs Union with the aim of forming a free-trade zone which ought, if possible, to be linked with the European Union.
A stable economic framework of this kind would also be of great benefit to outside investment.
However, the most important goal is to create stable conditions for democracy and rule of law throughout the Balkans.
The key to the lasting stabilisation of the region will be the democratisation of Serbia.
Applause
This is a question which the Serbian people must decide for themselves.
Nevertheless, as far as the European Union and its Member States are concerned, we must do everything to strengthen democracy in Serbia and weaken Milosevic.
It is precisely at this time, when courageous demonstrations are taking place throughout the country, that we must show the Serbian people that they can count on the full support of the European Union when it comes to the democratisation of their country.
Applause
Our experiences over the past few months show that Europe also needs to be better organised in terms of security and defence policy if it wishes to be able to manage future crises effectively by itself.
The Cologne decisions on the creation of a European Security and Defence Union have far-reaching implications.
This area of policy must be the European Union's next large project for integration, after the Internal Market and Economic and Monetary Union.
Consequently, the development of common options for action and the creation of the infrastructure necessary to achieve this will, in time, be the very first item on Europe's agenda for the future.
But in fact, this is not about militarisation of the European Union at all, but about developing it into an effective force for peace which has the ability to act, and which is able, as in Kosovo, to uphold the power of justice and the renunciation of violence, thus ensuring that war as a political instrument in Europe is forever a thing of the past.
Applause
The future viability of the European Union depends on its being strengthened in terms of its legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the citizens.
The draft for a European Charter of Fundamental Rights agreed in Cologne should ensure that the fundamental rights of the citizens are accorded the same status at the European level as they are at the national level.
This is a new process.
The Charter should be based on a wide-ranging dialogue involving representatives of the European Parliament, the national parliaments, the government and the Commission.
This Committee should present its report to the European Council under the French Presidency.
I hope that the European Parliament will play a leading role in this process, building on the preparatory work that has already been underway in the Parliament for some time.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the progress that has been made in terms of political integration and enlargement raises an issue of central importance to the future of the European Union. How can a Union of 27, or with South-Eastern Europe in mind, in the long-term even 30 Member States, continue to work and have the power to act?
How is the enlarged Europe of the future both to retain its cohesion and fulfil its obligations internally and externally? This question, which in terms of far-reaching implications goes well beyond the next Intergovernmental Conference, is very soon to have a considerable impact on the debate on reform within Europe, indeed it must impact on it.
Democratisation and, ultimately, development of the parliamentary process within the European Union, must be central to this debate: the creation of a true union of citizens.
It is only by following this path that we will gradually be able to overcome the decline in interest which manifested itself in the alarmingly low turnout at the European elections. Indeed, it was to the alarm of us all.
The democratic imperative has become evident from the conflict surrounding the resignation of the Commission, during which the fundamental issues of transparency, democratic control and the legitimacy of European dealings have been raised.
However, this imperative is also a consequence of the European Union's growing power to act, not least in terms of foreign and security policy.
A Union that wants to have the power to act in crises and conflicts urgently needs its own chain of democratic legitimacy.
It will therefore be essential, in the future, for the rights of the European Parliament to be extended beyond the new stipulations of the Amsterdam Treaty, but also for the national parliaments to have greater involvement.
At the beginning of the German Presidency, Madam President, I initiated a debate on the idea of a European Constitution.
This debate will further strengthen the citizens' consciousness of their identity as European citizens.
However, we should detach ourselves from a strictly legal understanding of the term Constitution and instead understand it to mean a combination of values and fundamental principles, the functioning mechanisms of European co-existence, and the way in which the European Union functions as a political construct sui generis.
The two crises experienced over the last six months will have a long-lasting effect on the progress of European integration.
The Kosovo conflict has caused us to focus again on the point of departure for integration; the setting up of a European framework for peace.
The resignation of the Commission, on the other hand, has shown that we will need in the future to create a truly democratic Union with as many checks as there are balances.
I feel that these two insights serve as a good basis for the Finnish Presidency, which I wish the best of luck for the responsible task that lies ahead of it.
Thank you for your attention.
Loud Applause
Madam President, I am also going to be very brief this time for reasons which I am sure you will understand perfectly.
I simply wish to point out that, as mentioned by Mr Fischer, the President of the Council, during the German Presidency - which has been a complicated and difficult Presidency - some of the great issues and challenges which were facing us have been resolved.
I refer, of course, to the approval of Agenda 2000, which was an enormously difficult exercise in terms of politics, diplomacy and the balance of interests within the Union, and to all the consequences resulting from perhaps the greatest contemporary problem, given its repercussions within the European Union itself, by which I mean the Kosovo conflict and all the circumstances surrounding it as well as its resultant consequences for the future.
European security and defence have taken a step forward with the appointment of the person responsible for the CFSP.
These steps perhaps demonstrate that foreign and security policy, in the aftermath of the Kosovo affair, continue to be the 'Achilles heel' of Community construction and still have a long way to go.
Finally, the European Employment Pact has also been given a great boost - with the implementation of the conclusions of the European Council of Luxembourg.
The outgoing Commission therefore congratulates the German Presidency.
We believe it has been a very good Presidency.
Very difficult problems have been resolved.
This is all due, with no doubt whatsoever, to the talent, efficiency and intelligence of Mr Fischer, the Foreign Minister, with whom I have been very impressed, and I promise him that, in my new life, when I return to Spain, I will go jogging and eat bananas.
Applause
Mr President, Mr Foreign Minister, ladies and gentlemen, I concur fully with your speech, Mr Foreign Minister, but unfortunately the German Presidency cannot be assessed in a purely positive light.
That is why my words will be less genial in tone than those of the President-elect of the Commission.
The German Presidency was one of peaks and troughs, and whilst we have recognised its successes, there were also serious shortcomings, failures and blunders.
The German Presidency had to contend with the tragic situation in Kosovo, and the Berlin Declaration left nothing to be desired in terms of clarity.
The German Council Presidency, together with the countries of the European Union of the Western Alliance took resolute action in order to oppose the Yugoslavian tyrant and dictator Milosevic.
Such action was necessary and just.
Our message on the threshold of the year 2000 must be: never again are people in Europe to be driven from their homes, from their homeland.
Human rights, human dignity, the right to a homeland are the foundation of our European civilisation.
On behalf of our group, I should like, Mr Foreign Minister, to address a word of thanks and recognition to you on an expressly personal note, for having championed human rights with such dedication and commitment, even to the point of sustaining physical injury.
Applause
But we in our group have often asked ourselves: what would have happened if our political friends had had your political responsibility? Had you been a member of the Opposition, would you have shown the same solidarity towards the Federal Government?
That is why we want to say a word of thanks to our political friends in the CDU and CSU, and also to the Liberals, for showing such pronounced solidarity in their support of the Council Presidency.
It filled us with horror, and we are as critical of this as you are, that the chairman of the post-communist PDS shook hands with Milosevic in Belgrade.
What is more, this individual's supporters are represented here in the European Parliament.
Kosovo must now be reconstructed; that is one of the European Union's main tasks.
We must not repeat the mistakes made in Bosnia, when there was so much red tape and everything took so long, but rather the European Union must take rapid action that is free of red tape.
In this respect, the Council of Ministers, Commission and European Parliament are called upon to take concerted action that will give the sorely afflicted people in Kosovo, in former Yugoslavia and the Balkans, hope for the future.
Agenda 2000 was decided on in Berlin and it must now constitute the basis on which the first applicant countries will be able to join the European Union during this legislative period of the European Parliament, hence by 2004.
The crux of the matter here is to anchor the European family in the principled society bequeathed by European civilisation, the expression of which is the European Union.
This will promote stability and safety, democracy and peace.
But we also say, and I know that we agree on this, that there are prerequisites to enlargement, namely the reform of the European Union.
We welcome your endeavours towards a European Charter and we welcome your endeavours as regards a conference on the reform of the European Union.
At the heart of this reform process must lie the long overdue acceptance of the majority system in the Council of Ministers as the fundamental decision-making instrument for this Parliament.
For we want this to be a Union which has the power to act and which is rooted in the principles of democracy and the parliamentary system.
The Cologne Summit reached a decision on the Secretary-General, also known as the High Representative.
We consider Javier Solana to be an excellent choice.
But it is now a case of ensuring that this High Representative is given the authority he needs and that he works constructively with the appropriate Member of the Commission.
Furthermore, we must prevent those areas of foreign policy where a common line is already being pursued, from degenerating into mere co-operation between the States of the European Union.
We must take great care to ensure that the correct steps are taken in this respect.
The Western European Union must be integrated into the European Union, which would be a welcome move.
Should the Assembly of the Western European Union ultimately disappear, then, of course, in addition to the national parliaments, there must be parliamentary accountability at the European level. For this reason, authority in foreign, security and defence policy must accrue even more to the European Parliament, so that there is no sphere within the European Union escaping the influence of parliament and democracy.
Applause
I should now like to turn to less pleasant matters associated with the German Council Presidency.
Firstly there is the appointment of the new Commission.
At the beginning of the year, the Council Presidency advised us to issue the discharge for the 1996 and 1997 budgets, thereby giving us advice that was actually long out of date.
The Federal Government was still at a stage of development which we were unable to fully comprehend.
Then it came to the nomination and appointment of the two German Members of the Commission.
Mr Foreign Minister, it is scandalous how this process has developed.
It is scandalous how the Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany has handled this issue.
The Treaty provides for the Members of the Commission to be nominated on the basis of agreement between the President-elect and the national governments.
We now know that an individual nominated by the Federal Government did not even have the opportunity to meet up with the Chancellor before the Chancellor's discussion with Mr Prodi, which means that the Chancellor had no conversation whatsoever beforehand with the individual that he proposed.
He then, as it were, imposed these two people on the President of the Commission, the President-elect of the Commission, which did Romano Prodi, the European institutions and the Federal Republic no service.
The list of mistakes of this kind goes on.
Even before the German Council Presidency the Environment Minister travelled to London and Paris with the intention of breaking off Treaties.
It was to be the first time since the War that Germany would breach international law in the French National Assembly.
This was inappropriate behaviour of the worst kind on the part of the Environment Minister.
The failure of the German President-in-Office of the Council and the Finance Minister to attend the launch of the euro is another case in point.
The disappearance from office of the President-in-Office of the Finance Council is an event that has never before taken place in the history of the European Union.
The Chancellor's order to drop the Directive on end-of-life cars from the Council of Ministers sitting is something unknown and unheard of hitherto in the European Union, and the order given by the Chancellor that the German Minister of Trade and Commerce should not attend the Council of Ministers sitting in Finland is also without precedent in the recent history of the European Union.
Mr Foreign Minister, I am sure that none of this was intentional, but from Konrad Adenauer, through Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt to Helmut Kohl the strength of German politics always resided in the fact that Germany's partners trusted her.
I hope, Mr Foreign Minister, that you will be able to safeguard this trust in the constancy and reliability of German European policy in the future, for it is of importance to progress within the European Union and to the future of our European continent.
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Mr President, I have no desire to involve myself in a private German dispute.
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I would like to congratulate Germany on a broadly successful Presidency though I would venture to suggest that it might have been perceived as more successful had it been trumpeted rather less.
Recent presidencies - Austria and Luxembourg with their low key presentation - can teach larger Member States such as Germany and the United Kingdom that the impact of a Presidency is sometimes in directly inverse proportion to its fanfare.
This has been a difficult Presidency.
The Kosovo conflict started during the European Council in March.
The news that Belgrade had accepted the peace terms came during your Cologne Summit in June; and the resignation of the Commission ten weeks into your Presidency cannot have made life any easier.
I would like to concentrate my remarks on three areas - employment, enlargement and citizenship.
Employment, Mr President, is a constant reminder of the failure of Western democracies to be inclusive and I would welcome some very good new ideas that came up during this Presidency. Allowing Member States to reduce VAT on labour-intensive services where there are no cross-border implications; a renewed emphasis on research and development and a more imaginative use of European Investment Bank money such as in the creation of the European technology facility; changes in work organisation and working time to share out better the work available.
These are all ideas that came up and they deserve to be pursued.
I regret that less progress was made on Agenda 2000.
The Presidency claims to have created the financial framework for enlargement to the east.
I hope that is the case but I believe that the reality is that we backed away from the tough decisions on agricultural reform.
That will lead to problems in transatlantic relations and to further delay in the integration of Central and Eastern European applicant countries into the European Union.
But the most important progress has been in the area of citizens' rights.
If we are to get this right, we need a new approach from the Member States.
If we are to create an area of freedom, security and justice - promised to us at Amsterdam - then we will need transparency.
It is a disgrace that important documents regarding the Third Pillar have still not been made public, but I would pay homage to the role of Mr Fischer himself in this particular area and thank him for his help.
Amsterdam heralds a new dawn in the rights of European citizens.
It was a brave decision of the German Presidency to table and to advance the idea of a charter of fundamental rights.
Your pluralistic approach, your attempt to involve the European Parliament and national parliaments can only add to the likelihood of success.
We as a Parliament, Mr President-in-Office, look forward to working with the Council and the Commission in securing the anchoring of fundamental rights and fundamental freedoms for the citizen in European law.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, esteemed Foreign Minister, it would be politically short-sighted if a representative of the Greens were to praise the German Presidency with no ifs or buts.
For example, is it not the case that the conduct of the red-green Federal Government regarding the Regulation on end-of-life cars has caused it to lose credibility and sacrifice an environmentally-friendly, sustainable policy to short-term opportunism? A rather different attitude can therefore be expected from a member of the Greens, when speaking of the German Council Presidency, not that we would wish to compete with the Opposition for their role, Mr Poettering.
The German Presidency faced extraordinarily difficult circumstances and we believe that it passed the acid test well; a faltering European Commission which had at last to face facts and which resigned, but which in so doing also afforded a clear view of Europe's major institutional shortcomings.
The staffing implications were quickly dealt with under the German Presidency with the appointment of Prodi, which was an important start.
Unfortunately, the Council has failed to speed the progress of the institutional decisions with the same determination, but we wish to extend our particular thanks to Foreign Minister Fischer for his important initiatives, for his important work, in precisely this area.
Agenda 2000, an ambitious reform project, was to be put into action under the German Presidency in order to deepen European integration and to make the EU fit for enlargement towards the East by means of substantial reforms.
Not all the decisions reached at the Berlin Summit were as forward-looking as we had expected.
For example, whilst good compromises were reached in the area of finance, which will provide reserves for enlargement of the EU towards the East, only faltering steps have been taken in terms of agricultural reform.
It was here that the opportunity to pursue a policy of environmental sustainability, which strengthens regional structures, was thrown away.
The German Presidency was marked not least by the escalation of events in Kosovo.
The decision to undertake military intervention, in order to oppose a policy of racism, nationalism and ethnic expulsions in a 21st Century Europe, met, as you know, with a variety of reactions in the Green Party.
However, the German Presidency demonstrated great commitment to driving forward a solution, what is known as the Fischer-Plan, with the participation of Russia, Finland, and not least the UN.
We must now strengthen the region by providing well-directed reconstruction aid in order to prevent renewed destabilisation.
The German Presidency played its part in strengthening this Europe of common interests.
We hope that the learning processes experienced by all parties at this time will contribute towards the strengthening, democratic development and enlargement of Europe.
However, the European Parliament also has its part to play now and must carry on the work in precisely this area, which involves strengthening the EU institutions and consolidating the democratic structures of Europe.
It remains for me to address a final word to Mr Poettering, without wishing to make reference to decisions on domestic policy, for I feel that as this is a European Parliament, there are other matters besides Germany that we should be discussing But I can assure you of one thing, Mr Poettering, which is that the Green Party did learn from Bosnia, and has now learnt from Kosovo, and we would have taken account of this responsibility today, even had we been at a different Assembly.
It was not without reason that we had a great many discussions within the Party, and I think we have made enormous progress in this respect.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, to begin with, allow me to address a few words to my colleague, Mr Poettering.
A little while ago, you made reference to the fact that your group is called the Christian Democrats and European Democrats.
Unification of Germany took place almost nine years ago, and it would please me greatly if, after such a long time, you could at last bring yourself to respect the fact that there is a Democratic-Socialist Left in Germany which is now also represented in the European Parliament.
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Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, instead of an Employment Union we're getting a Defence Union.
That is the uninspiring outcome of the German Presidency and the inauspicious message it sent out.
The hastily adopted Agenda 2000, which is to secure the financing of the Community and its enlargement, is a half-baked piece of work.
Agricultural reform failed to open the door any further to the Applicant States of Central and Eastern Europe.
Immediately after the Berlin Summit the Federal Government itself commented that agricultural policy would need to be reformed again in view of enlargement.
Not even the nomination of Romano Prodi as President of the Commission was able to camouflage the poor results produced by this Summit.
The German EU Presidency took no action to at least put a brake on the euro's continued decline in value on foreign exchange markets.
The crisis facing the European Single Currency was not even on the agenda in Cologne.
Not a single decision was taken on the taxation of international speculative movements of capital or the fight against tax dumping and tax havens within the Union.
As a German MEP, it saddened me greatly that national egotism was to become the hallmark of the German Presidency.
The crass way in which the European Directive on end-of-life cars was blocked solely to serve the interests of a German car company caused dismay, as did the overdue appointment of ex-Minister to the Chancellery, Hombach, as envoy to the Balkans and the lack of understanding of the goals and nature of French politics.
It became clear that in many Member States, people felt they had been duped by this lord of the manor approach to European policy.
Our group is as emphatic in its appreciation of the Cologne Summit Decision, which it intends to actively support, so as to further strengthen the fundamental rights of the citizens in the future, as it is resolute in its criticism of the Employment Pact.
Since unemployment continues to languish at a high level, this Pact does not merit its name.
Indeed, that is one of the reasons why such a shockingly large amount of people stayed away from the European elections.
The people of Europe do not understand why European employment policy should degenerate into sound bites.
Binding and verifiable, quantitative goals must at last be agreed for economic growth and the fight against unemployment.
We vigorously declare our support for a socially responsible Europe and that is why we will not tolerate people lightly putting the social cohesion of the Union at risk, preaching restraint in matters of pay and calling the social security systems into question.
During the German Presidency, the NATO war in the Balkans, which transgressed international law and dispensed with the authority of the UN, was actively supported by the European Union and its Member States, and at the same time the Community's conversion to a so-called defence union was sealed.
War as an instrument of politics was rendered socially acceptable again and the progress of this fatal course will be speeded further still by the incorporation of the WEU military pact into the European Union and by the build-up of armed forces for intervention.
Disarmament, crisis prevention and the settlement of conflict by non-military means, in particular by strengthening the role of the OSCE, risk falling by the wayside.
It was this kind of reasoning that led to NATO General Secretary Solana being nominated as the future Mr CFSP.
Our group rejects this nomination.
The German EU Commissioner-designate Mr Verheugen said after the Cologne Summit that it would scarcely have been possible to achieve rapid agreement on the strengthening of a Common Foreign and Security Policy for the Union without the pressure of the Kosovo war.
Put another way, war became the driving force and catalyst for European integration.
That is disastrous, and looking ahead to the year 2000, a dangerous and misguided path to go down.
Those who are now hailing the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe a great success would have done better to have refrained from squandering the money on bombs, rockets and soldiers and instead to have presented the Pact a few months earlier as part of a comprehensive political and non-military plan drawn up by the European Union for the region, and to have provided the OSCE with the necessary means.
We give our staunch support to a policy that outlaws war and military violence, banishing it from the lives of all peoples.
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Mr President, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, I would first like to briefly mention the lessons which can be drawn from the recent European elections.
It seems to me that the massive and increasing abstention recorded in all of the European countries indicates the emergence and confirmation of a virtual Europe which is distancing itself more and more from European citizens.
Another apparent sign of the increasing disinterest of the Europeans in European construction is the lack of interest in the euro, barely six months after its launch.
It seems to me - and this is the second lesson to be drawn from the European elections - that an increasing euroscepticism amongst voters in numerous countries has been demonstrated, particularly in the United Kingdom and France, and I believe that by voting for the opposition parties in the large European countries, it is the Europe in which their governments participate that the citizens wanted to reject.
I see an enormous paradox in yesterday's election, on the part of the Right in this hemicycle, of a candidate who, however admirable, is a known federalist, when this does not apparently reflect the view expressed by the voters - particularly those of the Right - in the countries of Europe.
I do not believe that the legitimacy mentioned by the German Foreign Minister can be achieved by reproducing, on a European scale, the party systems to be found in the European countries.
This legitimacy can only stem from a Europe which has been 'reforged' on the basis of national democracies rather than trying to create a virtual Europe which is ever more distant from the concerns of its citizens.
To return to the Cologne Summit and the consequences of the German Presidency, I will make three points. First of all, the Employment Pact which has been Europe's old chestnut for a very long time.
I believe that a certain German Chancellor whom we have still not forgotten, Helmut Kohl, used a phrase which seems to me to sum the situation up exactly.
He said, 'employment - in other words, unemployment - is and shall remain a national prerogative' .
This is precisely the definition of this Europe which is seen to make plans but leaves the problems to the Member Nations.
The second point concerning the German Presidency and the six months that have just passed is the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.
It is clear that this reform has been and still is a precondition to the negotiations to be held with the World Trade Organisation, which, as we well know, is an instrument of the dominant economy, that is, the American economy.
The recent developments that we have seen with regard to the WTO, the way in which the new negotiations will be carried out and, particularly, the appointment of the Director General preferred by the Americans for the first round of the WTO, are very bad omens with regard to European interests.
It seems to me that this Europe, which was born of the idea of the Common Market, has become a Single Market and will end up as nothing more than a part of a great global market.
That will effectively mean the defeat of the Treaty of Rome project.
Lastly, the Kosovo affair has also demonstrated the impotence of the European Union and its total diplomatic and military dependence on the dominant military power of NATO.
Furthermore, the appointment of the Secretary General of NATO as a representative of the European Common Foreign and Security Policy, appears to complete the picture, and brings to mind that phrase of a French diplomat who said that it is illusory to try to develop a European defence policy while building the European Central Bank in Fort Knox.
I believe that the Kosovo affair and its favourable outcome have eclipsed the six months which have just passed.
It is very important - for our group at least - that, in the course of the coming institutional reforms, a far greater importance is afforded to national democracies and national parliaments, instead of allowing Europe to sink deeper and distance itself even further from the citizens by creating the kind of democracy that I have described as virtual.
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Mr President, the Presidency of the European Union has now passed from German into Finnish hands. It is now time to review the last six months and as well as assess the German Presidency.
We now face a situation in which the German Presidency has in fact already assessed its own performance.
According to a recent statement by the German Minister of State Mr Verheugen, it has been a very successful six months.
We find these sentiments repeated in the speech by Minister Fischer.
I think some questions are in order here at the very least.
Firstly, the negotiations for Agenda 2000 produced an agreement that was only a watered-down version of the original ambitious proposals placed on the table by Germany.
There is still the danger that whilst the agricultural sector is being reformed, there is no increase in opportunities for enlargement of the Union with countries from Central and Eastern Europe.
The nomination of Prodi as President of the European Commission and the recent events in Kosovo have also left their mark on the German Presidency.
The rapidity with which Prodi was nominated was good, although it is certainly taking a very long time for the new European Commission to get up and running.
Consequently, the European Commission's work has been at a standstill for far too long.
In addition, the war in Kosovo has greatly influenced the way in which the German Presidency has developed.
Chancellor Schröder also deserves praise for his work in this area, although of course the work of the United States and President Ahtisaari of Finland should not be forgotten.
It has highlighted the fact that it is not easy to achieve one common European policy, but I've spoken on that subject before.
What really concerns us is the way in which the German Presidency in the Environment Council dealt with the draft Directive for the handling of end-of-life cars.
Of all governments, we might have expected a green/red coalition to have taken the initiative here, rather than prove obstructive.
After all, the German car industry doesn't pull the German government's strings.
The private chats between Germany, France and Great Britain also give cause for concern.
For example, the posts of Prodi, Solana and Boisieur have recently been allocated during discussions entered into by these three big powers.
If this is a sign of the way in which future posts are to be allocated, then this does not augur well for the small Member States.
The Council of Ministers will have to become aware of this and adapt its policy so that it is possible to achieve an even distribution of positions across all Member States.
As far as that is concerned, one of these small Member States, Finland, can endeavour to bring about change in the coming months.
We shall just have to wait and see.
Preparations for the forthcoming IGC fall to the new Finnish Presidency.
There are important items on the agenda for this and our group hopes that they will receive due attention.
Mr President, the Presidencies of the Council of the European Union are not isolated entities and cannot be judged without taking into account the sequence of past events.
The German Presidency was established within the context of the British leadership and the creation of the single currency.
Thus, no judgment can be made regarding the outgoing Presidency without taking into consideration the low profile of the previous one and the hopes raised by the appearance of the euro, which were then dashed and now remain on the drawing board.
The Treaty of Amsterdam had not resolved the issue of the functioning of the institutions, and in the field of foreign policy the only step forward was the appointment of Mr CFSP who, however, was not yet in office during the Kosovo crisis, which, without waiting for the delays and continued absence of Europe, broke out like a scourge and set off a new spate of the crime of ethnic cleansing which had infected Bosnia.
The German Presidency was therefore left without sufficient tools at its disposal and the Atlantic Alliance was the only support suitable to confront Milosevic's policy.
Notwithstanding the ambiguous waverings of certain governments, the weight of the European Union was irrelevant for the purposes of military action and Europe was seen to have no autonomous will, even with respect to the Alliances.
Was the Cologne European Council meeting a step forward? Perhaps, with regard to the intentions declared, but it all seems very hazy to contemplate setting a date by which the Union will be able to be an autonomous political entity with foreign and security policies.
The responsibility of the national governments regarding the excessively delayed implementation of political union is huge and the German Presidency really does not seem to have changed the rhythm.
The only positive point is that it included the common defence issue on the Cologne agenda.
Another issue on which the Presidency failed to make progress was that of employment.
Having shouted from the roof-tops during the German election campaign that with the socialist rise to power everything would change and a shining path would be embarked on leading to the creation of large numbers of jobs and thereby reversing the negative trend evident in Europe for over ten years, no initiative was taken in this direction and no proposal was discussed with regard to the development of the European economy.
Without a concerted economic policy aimed at development it will be difficult to fight unemployment or create conditions adequate to stop the fall of the euro. Since the German Presidency did not do this, how is the Finnish Presidency going to manage it?
And how are we going to be able to deal seriously with unemployment with the date for enlargement ever nearer? Political union, foreign policy, defence policy, common economic policy, the fight against unemployment - these seem to be the priorities that no Presidency can ignore.
But the Presidencies talk about these issues, pass them, yet fail to implement them. The European Union loses momentum and the citizens continue to call for less talking and more action.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, the German Presidency has, of course, been overshadowed by the war in Kosovo, but that is all the more reason for keeping in mind that the Presidency of the Council, for which the German Federal Government was answerable, was only able to maintain its position in this matter because it had the unqualified support of the Parties of the Union, whilst your own supporters, Mr Fischer, would have taken pleasure in knocking your trainers from under you, had you still been wearing them of course.
The Council Presidency's track record is questionable, and it is in fact only the Council Presidency itself which disputes this.
Let us have a look at the outcome of Agenda 2000 for example.
This is not a decent compromise, but a shaky foundation. It will not even withstand the onslaught of the first WTO negotiations.
This holds true for the problems associated with agriculture as well, which are far from being resolved, and which have not provided any scope for enlargement whatsoever.
All that was achieved was a worsening of the situation in terms of farmers' income.
The promising attempt at a solution in the form of co-financing was allowed to slip out of sight at the very beginning, which was an amateurish way to proceed.
At first, the German Chancellor stirred up the question of net contributions and the overhaul of the financial framework, particularly in the German public arena, and then, when it came to solving these problems, he failed miserably.
Institutional progress? Wrong!
Everything has been postponed for the future and for future conferences.
The single currency, Minister Fischer, which you have rightly claimed to be one of Europe's great achievements, obviously wasn't even important enough in the eyes of the Finance Minister, who had responsibility for this matter at the time, for him to attend the first important session.
That is also something which should not be forgotten.
And where exactly did the gossip concerning the independence of the European Central Bank come from, which was to contribute not least towards the weakening of the euro against foreign currencies, and to the fact that only now, much to our relief, is it beginning to pick up again.
This Council Presidency's track record is problematic due, in particular, to the fact that like few before it, it failed to act in a way which was beneficial to the Community.
A particular instance of this can be seen in the case of the withdrawn Regulation on end-of-life cars.
This was not dealt with in a way which was beneficial to the Community, and it was left to Mr Trittin to play the role of the fanatic, a role which obviously comes very naturally to him.
No, this Presidency of the Council has forfeited the trust built up by many previous Chancellors over the years, and therefore it is particularly appropriate that we should examine the events of the last six months with a critical eye.
We cannot talk in terms of success.
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Mr President, firstly I would like to offer my warmest congratulations on yesterday's splendid election result.
Ladies and gentlemen, the challenges of the German Presidency showed very clearly just how difficult and complex the world we live in is.
The news of tragic events in Kosovo held our attention in the spring, and it came as a great relief when the Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari, informed the Cologne Summit that the Yugoslav authorities would approve a peace plan for Kosovo.
It is now very much the responsibility of the EU to start to rebuild the region and stabilise the situation there.
The situation in the Western Balkans clearly shows that Europe needs a more effective course of action to ensure stability in this continent.
A vital part of that process is the Union's enlargement to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The indisputable achievement of the German Presidency was the ultimate agreement that Agenda 2000 was vital for the issue of enlargement.
It is important during the Finnish presidential term to get a clear indication of just how determined the EU is to make headway in the enlargement process.
For that reason we must make a serious effort to introduce inter alia much-needed institutional reforms.
The German Presidency, and now the Finnish Presidency, which has just begun, have been overshadowed by an administrative crisis which culminated in the resignation of the Commission.
We all certainly hope the crisis is a prelude to a genuine series of reforms in respect of the way things are done, not only in the Commission, but in the Council and in Parliament also.
However, we have to remember that no headway can be made without a new Commission which is functioning successfully.
Obviously, Parliament must make full use of its consultative and monitoring rights in respect of the institutions, including the Commission, but it also has to be aware of its responsibility in this important situation to ensure that the new Commission may begin its work as soon as possible.
We must be particularly careful that national political passions do not predominate over the common European interest.
Unfortunately, I think there have been signs of this in this debate.
The citizens of the European Union, our own citizens, who were disturbingly passive in the European parliamentary elections, hope, above all, that the Union will improve the situation regarding employment.
A healthy rate of employment is also essential for the equitable development of our societies.
For that reason, we must embark on the practical implementation of the European Employment Pact, which was concluded at Cologne.
It is also important to pay close attention to ensuring that the economic policies of the EU Member States are compatible, and to developing courses of action in order to bring this about.
That will be vital in ensuring that the employment rate rises.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, the German Presidency has had to assert itself within a particularly dramatic context.
The first six months of this year have demonstrated, once more, the need for European integration on the one hand and the need to continue the process of enlargement on the other.
With regard to the latter, the war in Kosovo reminds us of the wisdom of the Copenhagen criteria which stipulate, amongst other things, respect for human rights on the part of all applicant countries as a precondition for their accession to the European Union.
The Cologne European Council, which unquestionably confirmed this double ambition, shows us the enormity of the task still to be undertaken and the additional efforts which are required in this area.
The European Council meeting in Cologne, despite all the efforts of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council - to which I would like to pay particular tribute - still nevertheless raises some major questions.
I would like to highlight two of them.
The first relates to point 53 of the conclusions of the Presidency-in-Office of the Council, and I would like to ask the German Foreign minister how we should interpret the mandate of the Intergovernmental Conference and particularly - and I quote - the possible use of qualified majority voting in the Council - end of quote - in view of the declaration of Belgium, France and Italy, annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I would like to ask you whether these three Member States who, in Amsterdam, made the reinforcement of the institutions an essential condition, and therefore a prerequisite, for the conclusion of preliminary accession negotiations, still maintain the reservations annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, or whether they have moderated their position in the meantime.
My second question concerns the common security policy, particularly with regard to defence.
In my opinion, any European Union defence policy will overlook the basic problem for as long as the Member States do not accept the indivisible nature of security in the territory of the European Union.
We are still not there.
To this end, I would like to ask Minister Fischer if he envisages, apart from the conclusions of Cologne, a short or medium-term perspective on allowing accession to those countries which have not signed up to Article 5 of the amended Treaty of Brussels, that is, the mutual assistance clause which binds countries which are currently Members of the Western European Union.
I believe that the subsequent and essential stages will depend on this question if we want to realise the contents of the provisions of Chapter J IV of the Treaty of Maastricht.
Mr President, the Greens believe that non-violent methods of solving conflicts must play a much greater role than military intervention during the 21st century, and that any force which could , under exceptional circumstances, become necessary should only be applied following a UN mandate.
We envisage an important role for the EU as a non-violent civilian peace maker.
For this reason, we regret that the German presidency did not follow the European Parliament's recommendation to the Council to carry out a pilot study for a European civilian peace corps.
We are also worried about the resolutions of the meeting in Cologne which have been interpreted around the world as important steps towards militarising the EU.
The Swedish government has been forced to say that if more steps are taken in the same direction, a veto would have to be lodged.
The Finnish presidency has requested clarification as to whether the Cologne resolution means that the EU would only be able to intervene following a UN mandate, or whether the EU, like NATO, would be entitled to take the law into its own hands.
Joschka Fischer now states that the resolutions taken in Cologne do not imply a militarisation of the EU, which all sounds very nice. But why then are Poettering and Goerens, who are now in the vanguard for a militarisation of the EU, so satisfied?
Why is the WEU military alliance integrated into the EU?
Why, according to the resolutions taken in Cologne, is the EU to create a military commission, a military council and other military institutions? I really do hope that Joschka Fischer is serious when he says that the EU will not be militarised, which would reunite him with the Greens' fundamental principles of non-violence.
As a non-violent civilian body, the EU is indeed able to play a very important positive role. Were we, however, to become a military superpower competing with other superpowers for world hegemony, the EU would only contribute to power struggles, chaos and warfare, which I sincerely hope will not be the case.
Mr President, with the passage of time, I believe that it will be seen that the German Presidency has had some successes.
With the approval of Agenda 2000, I believe we have produced an agreement between those people whose unfair and selfish motto is 'I want my money back' and all those who, led by the government of my country, believe that the European Union is a political project with cohesion and solidarity as its cornerstones.
I also believe that the Presidency reacted quickly in the face of the resignation of the Santer Commission and found that 'one in a million' which Mr Prodi appears to be.
It also seems to me that the appointment of Mr CFSP, after the image which we projected in Kosovo, demonstrates at least that the Presidency wanted to shake up the European Union's lethargic foreign policy and give it a new impulse.
And this new stability plan for the Balkans seems to me to be a positive thing.
However, Mr President, there is one thing which has reflected badly, very badly, on this Presidency.
I refer to the reform of institutions.
Mr Fischer, if there is one thing which all this morning's speakers have agreed upon, it is the fact that the Cologne Summit does not form a basis for the reform of the Union's institutions.
We want the European Union to work, we want to maintain the principle of integration and we want it to be effective.
The proposal of the German Presidency in Cologne, that is, to change the number of Commissioners, reconsider votes, perhaps to move in some areas from a unanimous vote to a qualified majority vote, is quite clearly insufficient.
I will go further.
You do not understand the protocol of the Union's institutions.
If you believe that there will be enlargement to more than 21 Members, profound institutional reform is required.
What you proposed to us in Cologne was a limited reform.
And not only I myself, on behalf of my group, but also all the other groups in this Parliament, say that this will only achieve one thing: it will obstruct the European Union.
I therefore believe, Mr Fischer, that we in this Parliament are bored of so much verbiage.
You came to us and said, and I quote, 'I praise the role of the European Parliament and the revision of the institutions' .
Let me ask you not to praise so much and not to laugh so much.
Take note of what we do.
We have a resolution dated 19 November 1997 in which we propose a method for the reform of the institutions.
We told you of it and you have not taken it into account.
Well, we will meet again in this Parliament, Mr Fischer, and you will see that this Parliament will be unanimous in its rejection of any reform which does not guarantee the effectiveness of the Union and guarantee that it really serves the interests of the citizens.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I think very highly of my colleague Mr Poettering, the new Chairman of the new, hard to pronounce group in this House.
I am nevertheless extremely concerned by his speech, concerned because it expressed more than the fact that he represents the largest group and forged an alliance with the Liberals for the election of the President of this House.
But if this pact is supposed to be one which is somehow intended to strike terror into the hearts of, or rather, create difficulties for, the governments led by Social Democrats, then Mr Poettering and his group should be made aware that this doesn't just create difficulties for Social Democrat-led governments, nor does it only create difficulties for governments like that of Austria, which also includes a Conservative party and a Christian People's party, but it causes difficulties for the process of European unification.
On behalf of my group I would also like to make very clear at this point that we will not be judging the Commission and the new Commissioners on their party political affiliations, but on the skill, clarity and correctness of their past and present stances, and we believe that these must be the only criteria by which to judge them.
I now come to the fundamental aspects of the Presidency.
In many respects, it was a successful Presidency, I would like to acknowledge that quite clearly, certainly as far as Agenda 2000 is concerned and the furthering of the enlargement process, and also concerning the difficult decisions relating to the Balkans and security policy.
I would especially like to give my personal thanks not only to the Chancellor, but also to the Foreign Minister, to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Fischer, who is present today, for doing everything in his power to bring us out of this difficult state of armed conflict.
Opinions on whether the war was justified, or whether it could have been prevented, vary throughout this House, but the German Presidency, and I would like to make particular mention of the Foreign Minister at this point, managed to act on the basis of a clear position with regard to the crimes of Milosevic's regime, but also on the basis of a clear position whose most ardent wish was for peace in the Balkans.
It was handled well and properly, and that deserves distinct recognition.
In this respect, and since security policy comes up for discussion here again and again, I would like to clearly emphasise the following: security policy is not about militarisation of the European Union.
It is about employing all the instruments of security policy to take whatever preventative measures can be taken, and I have said repeatedly that many opportunities for taking preventative action have been missed in past years, and no group, nor any Presidency can claim here that they did everything possible to prevent this war.
Therefore, we must now support all the forces in Serbia and Yugoslavia which are striving for a new political system, which are standing up for democracy, for human rights, for respect for minorities.
This is the only chance of success.
The second thing, and this is extremely important, is that we must enable all of those who are returning - and thank God there are so many returning, it was also the right decision to keep the refugees in the region where possible - to get through the winter in conditions which are acceptable for human beings.
That is why the money for this must quickly be made available, and the appropriate organisation must be established, so that the largest part of our work does not go on ensuring that there is co-ordination between one organisation and another, but is devoted to giving substantial help to the Balkans, so that the Balkans will finally become a peaceful region in Europe.
Mr President, I would like to comment briefly on what has been said here before I leave on a trip to Turkey.
I would like to thank all those who sang our praises and who gave us their support, and I would also like to answer some criticisms.
Something that we never promised, and there was no way on earth that this could be done, was that in these last six months we could resolve every problem facing the European Union, problems which I too have dearly wanted to see resolved for some time.
On criticism of the institutional reforms; we tried to make progress with the institutional reforms, and when I made my maiden speech as Germany took over the Council Presidency, it was still not at all clear whether we would actually receive support for an Intergovernmental Conference.
I am glad that it was possible to push this through. I see this as an important step forwards.
But this is where the critics got themselves into a terrible muddle, and sometimes, all logic went out of the window.
To my colleague in the PDS who, on the one hand, criticised us for ignoring French sensibilities and also the aims of French politics and yet, at the same time, heavily criticised the inadequacy of the compromise on the agricultural commodities market that was worked out at the Berlin Summit, I can only say that these things go hand in hand, and you should look more closely at whether you have not, as it were, ended up getting yourself entangled in a knot of contradictions.
It will become clear to you in the weeks and months to come that these things are very closely linked.
I would like to say to those of you who are talking of the militarisation of the European Union, and this is an important point, keep your illusions.
This would mean that in the areas of security and foreign policy, Europe would not be in a position to determine its own fate, that is, to follow its own path.
During the war in Kosovo, I experienced just how much weight Europe can bring to bear in terms of possibilities for shaping situation by political means, and in terms of possibilities for pursuing a preventative foreign policy, a preventative peace policy, and for resolving a conflict when the conflict has worsened.
I can only say that Europe must come together, also in terms of its security and foreign policy, otherwise decisions will be taken elsewhere.
Here in the European Parliament or perhaps in any one of the Member States, it may be easy to sit back and allow oneself the illusion that we are not affected by such decisions.
The reality is that these decisions are taken under completely different conditions and in a completely different place.
This is exactly what I do not want, and I believe it to be a development in the wrong direction.
Applause
The euro is showing that there are differing views on Europe, and we should not pretend otherwise.
It is quite obvious that there are.
My view is that of a convinced integrationist and I would like to see Europe become an entity which has the power to act politically, because there are two reasons which convince me that it will not work in any other way.
The first reason is that in this age of globalisation, it will only be possible to maintain the European nation-state and that which we value and wish to preserve about the European nation-state, if Europe unites, because the magnitude of the traditional nation-state will only be able, in the conditions created by globalisation, to guarantee peace, security, prosperity and democracy for its citizens as part of an integrated Europe, in other words, if we have a European entity, a European Union which has the power to act.
The second reason though, and this was clearly demonstrated again by the war in Kosovo, and perhaps the various lessons history has taught us also have a role to play here, particularly in central Europe, is that there can only be one form of security for this continent. We cannot permit nationalism, racism, and what amounts to a primitive and crude form of fascism, to take hold on this continent.
Since 1992, we have tried everything in order to convince Milosevic to abandon this policy.
I took part in the final stages of the talks at Rambouillet right through to the beginning of the military action and I did not meet anyone on the Western side, even amongst the Americans, who was behaving like a war-monger, but rather everyone was striving for compromise up to the proverbial last minute.
The only party not interested in a compromise was Milosevic and the government in Belgrade.
I personally had a two and a half hour long discussion with Milosevic, and for one of those hours there was no one else present.
Should we have sat back? Should we have said that we would like to help, but we cannot, as it would offend our pacifist principles and we have no resolution from the UN Security Council?
The UN is stronger today as a result of this conflict, and this is one of the effects of Europe's role during this conflict.
The Security Council is stronger today, unlike after Bosnia, which weakened it.
I think that we should acknowledge that...
Applause
....., that this is a result of the concerted efforts of the European Member States, of the European Union.
We should not forget this.
Let me tell you, I was in Bosnia, I saw the mass graves and I will not forget them as long as I live.
It is our duty to complete the process of European integration, and this means peace, security and democracy for everyone on this continent.
This requires our determination to oppose those who seek to carry out nationalist policies through violence, murder, terror and expulsion, and when all other means fail, to resort to military means if necessary.
This integrated Europe must not accept nationalism.
Applause
That is the most important point, although it was not included in the plans for our Presidency of the Council, because it gives a very strong message about the future of the European Union.
I am firmly convinced that in essence, this must go hand in hand with progress towards integration, and above all with the process for further democratisation.
This will be a very complex and complicated debate, but we must start this debate, which in France is summed up under the heading 'Culmination of European Union' , and it will continue for a long time. Where do the outer borders of the European Union lie?
What does the make-up of its constitution look like?
What is the relationship between the European Union and its Member States, and the relationship between the institutions themselves? What will the future role of the Parliament be and how can its powers be strengthened?
These are all questions which will relate directly to enlargement, because we can already see what heavy weather a Union of fifteen Members makes of things.
If enlargement occurs, the question of the Union's ability to act will be absolutely central.
This is the essence of the next great challenge; common security and foreign policy, deepening and, ultimately, enlargement.
I have a message for all those who speak in favour of a preventative peace policy, and there is a broad consensus in the national parliaments as well as in the European Parliament, in spite of all the things Dayton failed to deliver, and that is not a criticism of Dayton as presumably it couldn't have been any other way at the time, and that message is that a strategy which will be effective in the long-term for bringing South-Eastern Europe up to the level of an integrated Europe and then bringing it into an integrated Europe, has now become a functioning policy.
Life must now be breathed into the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.
Money is not the first and foremost issue here, for the issue is one of decisions about structures.
We must bring about confidence there and we must establish a free trade area there.
Trade and change must replace national aggressions and the necessary means must be put in place to achieve this.
So I appeal to all of you who have spoken here in favour of a preventative peace policy, to fight for the long-term success of the Stability Pact, because that would indeed be drawing the right conclusions from the war in Kosovo, the Yugoslavian wars of succession.
I would like once again to thank everyone, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, for your support during the German Presidency, and I wish you, the new Parliament, all the best, as I do the coming new Commission, once they have survived the difficult hearings.
These are the Commissioners who have yet to be appointed in the torture chambers, and I mean this ironically and, of course, only in a rhetorical sense, of the freely-elected European Parliament.
All the best!
I would also like, if you would permit me to, to make a parting request of you, and in particular of the new majority: we should discuss national politics at a national level and argue intensely about them, and come to blows, but it is European politics that should be discussed at the European level, and this House should always uphold the subtle differences!
Applause
Thank you, President Fischer.
In addition to the opinions which have been expressed, on behalf of the Parliament as a whole, may I thank you for your work, as you have put in six months of extraordinary hard work.
Mr President, it is a shame that Mr President-in-Office of the Council is now leaving the hall as I was going to begin by offering a word of praise.
I was going to say that he has been one of the few, if not the only, shining lights under this Presidency.
Mr Swoboda mentioned the new majority, yes the new majority gives the profile and views of this Parliament clarity, and that is good for Europe, Mr Swoboda.
Applause
Unfortunately, I have no option but to grade the German Presidency as overall 'unsatisfactory' for the first six months of this year.
The grandiose announcement of a new Employment Pact turned out in reality to be a castle in the air.
When analysing the Cologne Decisions in detail, it is possible to see that not one new idea was added to the Luxembourg guidelines of the previous year.
Secondly, the language and style adopted by the German Government over the last six months have at times caused me to feel ashamed in the European Parliament.
This style has been of no use to Europe and it has certainly been of no use to the German Presidency. Mr Trittin's loutish conduct in terminating the nuclear Treaties led of course to the German Presidency's proposals being regarded with great scepticism.
The shameful withdrawal of the sound proposal for co-financing in agricultural policy was also the consequence of a similarly ill-advised policy.
And to cap it all, I might add that Chancellor Schröder said Helmut Kohl's cheque book diplomacy must at last be brought to an end!
I do not wish to say any more at all on the nomination of the German candidate, which in view of the choice, was a resounding slap in the face, and so to conclude I shall express a wish. As long as the dictator Milosevic is at the helm in Serbia, neither a penny nor a euro of the European taxpayer's money should go to Serbia.
Democracy must first be restored there.
That is the message the Council Presidency should take away with it.
Applause
Mr President, the Berlin Agreement has enabled the European Union's main issues to be opened up, but it has not done anything to secure the future of the European Union in the long or even medium-term, because the Agenda 2000 Agreement went far beyond what was necessary.
I say this because in the first place, it has been unable to achieve any reform of countries' own resources, which should be based solely on the Gross National Product, the only fair, equitable and transparent basis for contribution.
Secondly, it has not reformed the Common Agricultural Policy, which was imposed in order to make us adopt an offensive position in the next round of GATT negotiations.
Without wishing to denigrate the efforts of Commissioner Fischler, it was almost a reform which maintained the status quo which had never secured the sought-after balance between farmers, regions and their cultures, in which farming in the Mediterranean was once again badly treated by the CAP. It did not guarantee, in any practical sense, the completion of the European Farm Model, almost nothing was done in this area to help small farmers and very little progress was made on the issue of rural development.
Thirdly, this Agenda 2000 runs the risk of leading us towards a Europe which is less evenly-balanced and less united.
I shall give you two examples from the country I know best, which is my own.
Firstly, all the studies have shown that the Portuguese economy is the one which will be most affected by competition from the new Member States from Eastern Europe, but nothing has been done to support Portugal in this area.
Secondly, nothing has been done to improve the situation of Portuguese farming, the one which is the most debt-ridden, backward and least-favoured by the CAP.
Apart from the durum wheat quota, Portugal has gained nothing specific from this CAP unlike some countries such as Spain or Italy which have benefited from arrangements made specifically for them.
It is true that we in Portugal suffer from a government which is incompetent and unable to negotiate successfully, but this does not justify all the treatment we have received.
We need a more united Europe in order to move forwards.
Mr President, the serious and negative effects of the financial crisis and the slowing down of economic growth within the European Union, at a time of Economic and Monetary Union, have clearly underlined the need for the Cologne Employment Pact.
It is no castle in the air, but a long overdue, concrete attempt to go beyond employment guidelines and achieve co-ordination of economic policy within the European Union, particularly with a view to promoting growth.
We need structural reform in the European Economic and Monetary Union, in the European Union.
However, it is equally important to achieve increased and more rapid growth.
That is our aim.
In this respect, the national governments are right, as far as the European Employment Pact is concerned, not to delegate responsibility for employment policy to the European Union.
However, they are aware that in this age of globalisation a common solution must be found, and that is right.
There should simply be more concrete terms of reference and guidelines.
But I should like to ask something of the forthcoming Presidencies.
We also failed under the German Presidency to improve the democratic legitimacy of Economic and Monetary Union dealings.
We urgently need there to be inter-institutional agreement between the Council, Commission and European Parliament on the essential features of economic policy.
In addition, we need the guidelines on employment and economic policy to be integrated, and we need the institutional framework for the European Employment Pact to be modified, something which is of great importance.
In other words, it is more democracy that we need and not for the European Employment Pact to increase the democratic deficit, and this is what this Parliament demanded during the previous legislative period.
As regards this demand, we must also...
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, I believe that overall the German Presidency was a very positive period.
In particular I should like to thank them on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, and indeed the Socialist Members, for the very good work that was done throughout that period on the reform of the structural fund process.
We believe that we have a fair and just deal for Member States.
In particular I would like to thank the Germans for not only pushing ahead for progress in peace concerning Kosovo, but peace on the issues concerning Northern Ireland.
This House will know that we have entered yet again a critical phase in the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Successive Presidencies have backed that peace process.
What I should like to say today at this inaugural session is that we hope to be able to count on our new Commission President, on the Finnish President-in-Office of the Council and indeed on Madam Fontaine to continue that good work in supporting the peace process and making a priority of peace in her visits to Northern Ireland.
I would like to announce that I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Election of the Quaestors of the European Parliament
The next item is the election of the Quaestors of the European Parliament.
Mr President, you have had a declaration distributed to us and a trial vote has subsequently taken place.
The name of the candidate selected is visible and is also emphasised by the asterisk.
I should be grateful if you could explain to us how, under the circumstances, we are to vote in secret.
I regard it as being anything but a secret ballot and wish to contest its legitimacy before we go any further.
It is illegal.
We vote in secret here, and not in such a way that everyone can see how people cast their votes, and that includes the cameras present in this house.
I do not consider that a secret ballot.
Applause
It is true, colleagues that unless you put a piece of paper over your machines, the people around you can see how you are voting.
What we mean by 'secret ballot' is that no record is kept.
Of course, when you fill in a piece of paper, someone can look over your shoulder and see where you put your cross.
However, we can vote on whether to have a written vote instead.
Parliament decided to hold an electronic vote
(In successive ballots the following were elected Quaestors of the European Parliament:
Mr BalfeMrs BanottiMr DucarmeMr PoosMrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl)
Mr President, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I would like to express my grave disappointment with the manner in which the Group of the Party of European Socialists has handled this matter.
I believe it is morally wrong that the representative of the Greens/European Free Alliance was not selected, and I hope that the Group of the Party of European Socialists will consider this matter among themselves.
Your comment is noted.
The sitting was suspended at 12.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.
Statement by Mr Prodi, President-elect of the Commission
The next item on the agenda is the declaration of Mr Prodi, President-elect of the European Commission, and it is my great pleasure to offer him the floor immediately.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first of all to welcome Mr Prodi and thank him for his speech and also to welcome the candidates for the Commission.
I think we should remember now that we are having this debate on this side of the Rhine and not on the other side.
On the other side, there are domestic issues which can very well be resolved in Germany, but this is not the place to bring them up.
Applause
Madam President, I hope we are capable of overcoming this first great crisis which is currently facing us in the European Union.
According to the opinion polls, the citizens are still in favour of the European Union. However they do not participate in great numbers in the elections.
We have the responsibility, as elected representatives, for construction rather than destruction.
This means that we have to respond to the problems which are worrying our fellow citizens: unemployment, Kosovo, consumer problems, the management of the euro.
This must be done as soon as possible.
We can neither carry on with a Commission in total ruin, nor delay its investiture until next year.
How could we explain such a thing? Mr Prodi, you have spoken of the Commission as the government of Europe.
I will offer you a more sporting simile: a team.
We are playing here a European league.
The German, Italian, Spanish and Danish leagues each play against each other in their own countries, but not here.
Here we have to take the lead as Members of the European Union.
I therefore believe that there is a basic truth in your talk of this team and this government.
Your Commission must be invested in a democratic fashion.
You have begun to take steps.
You have announced reforms.
I agree with you that it is impossible to make known the list of Directorates General, and I am grateful that the change is going ahead.
We cannot subordinate the work which must be done by the Commission - and I say this, Madam President, with all respect for what you have demonstrated this morning - to this report by the Committee of Experts.
The report of the Committee of Experts is a useful instrument, not a basis for law.
We must show political judgment and responsibility in order to understand what we can ask of the new Commission and in order to await and support the reform process proposed by President Prodi.
Applause
With regard to such a critical matter as the hearings - which for us are fundamental - we believe that these must be directed at Commissioners regardless of the political persuasion of the particular Commissioner.
Questions should be asked of the Commissioners - first in writing and then orally - in order to discover whether they are in a position to fulfil their responsibilities and also to identify their political criteria with regard to Europe.
This is absolutely legitimate, but we must not turn this into a sort of fairground shooting-gallery where we blast away and see how many candidate Commissioners remain standing.
It seems to me that this would be enormously dangerous and, of course, my group intends to ask questions, responsibly and on our own terms - without waiting for third parties to tell us what to do - and we will ask them in a way which will deliver us, as soon as possible, a Commission which is in a position to carry out its duties.
Applause
Secondly, Mr President Prodi, we have listened attentively to what you have said in relation to the individual responsibility of the Commissioners.
In politics, responsibilities may be accepted, above all, when they are taken up.
But I believe that you have touched upon a constitutional matter which is tremendously important and the standards which can and should be adopted by the Parliament, which has already expressed its view on this question, must be taken into account.
I think this should be discussed with a little more calm.
With regard to the European Union reform process - which is absolutely necessary, not only in terms of enlargement but also in terms of making the Union more democratic and efficient - Madam President, I believe that we cannot have another Intergovernmental Conference behind closed doors.
It should be done in the way that we carry out reforms in our own States: transparently and on record, in Parliament and before our co-citizens.
Applause
How can we explain that we have the euro - a common currency which is not common to all - but at the same time we are implementing reforms which not even we are able to comprehend or justify. In this respect, we believe this to be an absolutely critical matter.
Therefore, Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, we do not participate in the threats made by some political groups in this Parliament, who want to take the Commission, which presents itself to our scrutiny, hostage.
We do not believe we should take it hostage.
Our future is genuinely at stake with this Commission.
Furthermore, we should remember that if we go along the route of concessions we will never know where we will end up and we must act responsibly.
For some people, the principal objective is not to achieve institutional equilibrium but to undermine it and destroy it.
We do not share that opinion; we believe that the European Union, our fellow citizens, deserve better, they deserve a Parliament which acts responsibly and with an approach which looks to the future, with hope and towards the construction of a united Europe.
Madam President, may I conclude my intervention - if President Prodi will allow me - with a quote in my own language, written by an immortal Italian, by Manzoni, who says in I promessi sposi : 'Adelante, Romano, con juicio ' ( "Go ahead, Romano, wisely' ).
Applause
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office, President-designate of the Commission and nominee Commissioners, you are very welcome to our Chamber this afternoon and we look forward to our hearings and our various communications over the next few weeks and eventually months and years.
I want to make a few things clear here at the outset.
Firstly, the ELDR Group in this House comes here in terms of a European vocation.
We will not judge Commissioners on the basis of the national preferences of one or other party or group inside this Chamber.
Applause
I wish to say, Madame President, in respect of your helpful suggestion this morning that we should incorporate, as we prepare for the hearings, an understanding of the work and insight of the Committee of Experts that we, as an Institution, must say to the Experts 'speed up what you do and deliver it in time'.
If necessary, 'speed up the report' but by no means should we slow down the process of hearings as anticipated.
Applause
My group's essential and fundamental starting point in this debate is very clear.
The outgoing Commission resigned last March and since I can hardly explain to myself why the rump part of that Commission is still there, how can we expect the citizens of Europe to understand that fact? It is therefore our overwhelming duty in this House to decouple Europe from this institutional embarrassment at the earliest available date and the only means to do that is to take the available Commission - and I do not prejudge how the hearings may go - and do our utmost to make sure that it takes up office at the earliest available date.
By this means we should begin to decouple ourselves from what has been a very difficult, but useful experience, but one that remains, unfinished as it is, deeply embarrassing and complicated as we have seen recently by the deplorable choices of Dr Martin Bangemann.
Could I say also in regard to the hearings process which will be in two parts, i.e. written and oral, that we in the Liberal Group will want to know from each of the candidate Commissioners: 'What is the perspective that you will bring to Europe for Europe?' This will be important to us.
We want to be able to talk to you and engage with you on the question of suitability for the portfolios and to understand the capacities that you bring to this prospect.
We want to ask you about your willingness, your personal willingness, to accept that you are accountable and responsible to the public of Europe in whatever you do with your President and before this House and in clear and full public understanding that this is the public forum for European democracy to which you are accountable and have a public responsibility.
I wish to say on behalf of my group that when the IGC comes we will continue to press for Treaty reform on the question of individual accountability.
We recognise that within the current constraints Professor Prodi is taking some steps to improve the dreadful situation of the past, but we may need Professor Prodi to take some more steps.
We propose that the hearings should be tough because we have learned from the lessons of the past five years that it is better to be tough at the outset than to regret it later.
Our hearings also will be fair.
There is one point I would ask the Commission President-designate to respond to.
We have been so busy reconstituting ourselves we have not yet had the capacity to do our homework and our research, so if the hearings bring to light issues of substance and public concern about which we as yet know nothing, we in this House would have a duty to Europe to act and we will act - certainly, my group will.
If such difficulties present themselves, I would make an appeal to you as President-designate of the Commission, Professor Prodi, please to make sure that difficulties do not become crises.
We need a respectful dialogue between our institutions.
This Parliament has matured in recent months and we have learned one basic lesson for the years ahead: we are no longer the junior partner in the European political institutions.
We do not claim the status of 'primus inter pares' but we expect and demand to be treated as an equal among equals in the European institutions.
Applause
Madam President, in September we have the hearings and, as I said, I do not wish to anticipate how they should proceed, but my group's strong preference is that in September - subject always to the reservations that we must see what emerges - we should take a decision and rid ourselves of a sense of crisis.
If we have to have some difficult debates, for God's sake, let us have them in September and let us have it out in September so that we do not have some form of institutional guerilla warfare right through to December or January.
Let us do the business early and let us do the business well!
A final comment, Madam President; before he had this high office thrust on him some months ago, rather I think to his surprise, Mr Prodi had sought to contest the European elections in Italy.
He had chosen as the symbol of his party the donkey.
Well, the donkey has various traits - one of which we know is stubbornness.
I wish to say to Professor Prodi, if he uses his stubbornness in this Parliament as a reliable partner for Europe, that is the kind of stubbornness we welcome.
And if he uses his stubbornness to refuse to dialogue with us, if we have difficulties in the hearings, that is a stubbornness we will oppose.
That is the message of my group today.
We want to work with you as a reliable partner for Europe now and in the future and that requires respectful dialogue.
We will give it.
We believe in a strong Europe, we believe in a strong Commission and we believe we should be natural allies - let us work to that end.
Applause
Mr President of the Commission, I would like to welcome you on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and to welcome the promising declarations which you have just made.
Your team, Mr Prodi, faces a double challenge of which the first, which you have mentioned at length, is the restoration of the trust of the citizens and parliamentarians.
The institution that you will be presiding over must achieve this trust.
We can only have trust in an institution if it is run rigorously and transparently.
I believe that you have the necessary qualities to restore that trust, and I have no reason, at first sight, to believe that the various applicant Commissioners are not also up to the job, whatever their political allegiance.
I therefore greet your team positively.
It goes without saying that we are impatiently awaiting the second report of the Wise Men, which is constantly being promised us, and your reaction to its contents, before expressing a definitive opinion.
But I would like straightaway to deal with the second challenge, which has already been widely discussed.
In my opinion, this challenge which you are going to have to face is more political and just as fundamental.
Certain recent events, such as the war in Kosovo and the new crisis in the field of food safety which has occurred in Belgium, but which clearly has repercussions for the whole of Europe, are particularly significant, and I believe that the necessary responses to them - and you have said some interesting things in this respect - must be ambitious responses.
There are also important deadlines and I think there is one deadline that nobody has mentioned until now and that is the opening of the new negotiations of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle at the end of this year.
I believe that this is a major problem and when we talk of transparency we find ourselves faced with a significant problem.
I do not wish to criticise you though, for ideas which you may not hold.
I want to mention the relationships, which have sometimes been difficult, between the Commission and the Parliament.
It has often been said that there is a natural alliance between the Commission and the Parliament.
In the past, the facts have unfortunately often shown that this alliance is more frequently evoked than realised.
The rejection by the Commission of the Parliament's position - even when passed with an overwhelming majority - does not show a good attitude and I would like to point out that it is the previous Commission which is responsible for it.
Likewise, I could speak of the numerous resolutions voted for by the Parliament - with just as big a majority - involving requests for initiatives which have not been responded to or acted upon for years.
We await from you, Mr President, a change of attitude in this respect.
Some moments ago, I mentioned the start of the new round of negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, and I would like to dedicate my remaining two minutes of speaking time to this subject.
The Commission has obtained from the Council the mandate for negotiations proposed by the last Commission - in fact by Mr Leon Brittan.
This mandate has not been debated by the European Parliament nor by national parliaments.
There is, however, a fundamental problem which we find totally unacceptable; that is, the broadening of the competencies of the World Trade Organisation without a serious and exacting evaluation of its workings having been carried out.
Applause
In fact the World Trade Organisation, as it currently functions, plays an extremely arguable role in European politics.
In this respect, I could mention the decisions regarding the issue of bananas and that of hormones in cattle rearing.
Applause
The adoption of concrete measures aimed at respecting multi-national agreements on the environment - in particular on climate and biodiversity - and the implementation of the decisions of the Copenhagen Summit with regard to the fight against poverty, have been put on hold. Meanwhile, the Committees of the WTO are imposing their law on democracies - in particular the European Union - and are giving priority to free trade over all other issues, whether they concern public health, the environment, human rights or social rights.
Applause
The precautionary principle, which forms the basis of European legislation relating to the environment, is, if not ignored, then interpreted in a very restrictive manner by that organisation.
Your Commission, Mr President, must express its view on this subject in a clear and rapid manner, at least before the negotiations start.
We are ready to open a debate on this subject and I hope that this goes for the other political groups.
It is even more important that the dioxin affair in Belgium, which will be the subject of heated debates, is clearly connected to the problem of food safety which is itself clearly directly related to the functioning of the World Trade Organisation.
Transparency, Mr President, must not only be applied to management, including financial and administrative management, but also to political decisions.
And on this point, it should be noted that there are serious deficiencies.
We therefore expect ambitious initiatives from you and your team.
I hope you do not disappoint us and I insist once again that we are prepared to work loyally with you and to listen attentively to the arguments of the nominee Commissioners in the forthcoming hearings.
Applause
Madam President, President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, our group is set to assess the Commission on the basis of the tasks before us, the hearings and the presentation of the whole programme announced for September.
We will carry out this assessment with great care and, naturally, try to be constructive.
The President of the Commission has pointed out the need for a clear rapport between the composition of the Commission itself and its programme.
We will assess the proposed choice on the basis of this rapport.
At the moment, the composition appears to us to be rather neocentralist, and the representation of women still inadequate, but in any case, it is a question of assessing the overall success of the operations as they happen.
The decisive factor will essentially be the relationship between the Commission and its programme, and we are preparing for this comparison with great enthusiasm.
The President of the Commission has touched on some of the issues such as public health, doping in the sporting world and air traffic, to give a token semblance of adherence to the programme, but his attention seems rather to me to be focused on two other issues: the reconstruction of Kosovo and the Intergovernmental Conference in Helsinki.
I would like to comment on these two issues.
Firstly, with regard to Kosovo, it is right to be thinking of reconstruction and reconciliation and treating the Balkans as a region with a special relationship with Europe.
However, it is also essential to be aware, in addition to the damage in the Balkans, of the devastation wreaked by the war both on international order, with international legislation ripped to shreds and on the UN, which has been razed to the ground, and to bear in mind the substantial loss of autonomy for Europe with regard to the Atlantic Alliance and the United States of America.
Now, of course we must reconstruct the Balkans, but in order to do so, Europe needs to regain its autonomy and authority, which requires democratic construction as well.
President Prodi is giving thought to the Intergovernmental Conference, but he seems not to be giving enough heed to the fact that the critical state of the institutions and the citizens' lack of confidence in them is neither politically nor socially neutral.
Although it is exacerbated by the confidence crisis produced by the défaillance of the Commission, this Parliament does have a democratic deficit. It is far removed from the everyday problems of the people of Europe.
The only Governmental body seems to be the Central European Bank, and that has less control than the United States' Central Bank.
However, we await what will be said in the hearings with great interest and especially in the September programme.
We would like you to know, Mr President, that our attitude will nevertheless depend on the correction we request from you regarding the content of your previous speeches, which displayed a change of direction which we did not appreciate.
It is not for me to remind you that there are twenty million unemployed in Europe at the moment - and unemployment is a problem which undermines Europe's social cohesion - and that the achievements of this Europe in areas such as the welfare state are being undermined by neo-free trade policies, which are those same neo-free trade policies in which you exalted the need for flexibility in previous speeches and which, however, brought a reduction in the quality of work and life, in contrast to your proposals for the future.
We suggest that you reflect on the need for a change of direction. Even this debate seems to point to two testing grounds: one concerns the relationship between Europe and the world, and the other concerns European construction and the individual situations in the different countries.
The negotiations on the WTO and world trade will be the testing ground for Europe, to see whether it will be able to temper the first principle of the free trading of goods, which dominates today, with the need to protect working conditions throughout the world, environmental conditions and the health of the world's populations and Europeans in particular.
The other testing ground is that of Europe. Here we have a Stability Pact which is making it increasingly difficult to respond to the problems of unemployment.
Even the costs of the war are by now placing strain upon the Stability Pact, which was already being challenged by a growth rate so slow as to be completely inadequate for the problems of Europe.
Here you are right, Mr President. There is a need for flexibility, not in the labour market, but regarding the Stability Pact.
Maybe it should be suspended, but in any case, growth investments need to be considered outside of this context and a qualified enlargement policy put forward. Without these, there will be no possibility of either making good the democratic deficit or reducing the lack of confidence of the people of Europe in their current institutions.
It is in this spirit that we are preparing for a constructive debate on the work that awaits you.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission Romano Prodi, I have just heard your intervention, and I must say that I am none the wiser: politically speaking, nobody knows for sure where you stand.
To some, you appear to be a Socialist, others would call you a Christian-Democrat and the latest news paints you as a Liberal.
The Italian view is that you are sustaining a left-wing government; the view in Europe is that you are associating yourself with political groupings to the centre and to the right.
This ambiguity does nothing to bring clarity and credibility into the political debate in Europe.
In any case, Professor Prodi is a Southerner and from a Portuguese point of view, this is something in his favour.
I hope therefore that he will understand my questions, which are frank, direct and of a practical nature.
They will probably be of no interest to the federalist parties of this House, but they will certainly interest the citizens who voted for me; that is, the workers.
Mr President, the Commission's attitude towards Portuguese farming has been one of real persecution.
I will deal with the Portuguese government's inability to protect us when I am in Portugal, but it is my duty to deal here with the profound injustice of the Commission's decisions.
The first proof of this is mad cow disease.
The Commission has just extended the embargo on Portugal by another six months. At the same time, it has partially lifted the embargo on the United Kingdom.
Just think about the scientific dishonesty in their decision. Portugal has fewer than two hundred cases per thousand animals whereas the United Kingdom has more than six hundred cases per thousand animals.
Since the first outbreak of the disease, there have been no more than five hundred cases in total in Portugal. In the United Kingdom, more than one hundred and seventy thousand cases have occurred.
Given these facts, the Commission is punishing Portugal and is seriously threatening the livelihood of one hundred thousand farmers across the country.
There is an even more serious side to this!
The Commission's decisions have been nothing but political wheeling and dealing between big States and have no basis in any kind of scientific logic.
This is how mad cow disease in a Europe without borders mysteriously disappears at the border with Spain.
It is pathetic, Mr President Prodi.
The second proof of our persecution is the crisis in pig-farming.
We all know about it, because it hit pig-breeders hard in several European countries, and drove them to ruin.
My country's government set up a programme of national assistance, as did others.
To our surprise, and probably in order to take revenge for some other matter, the Commission is now saying that this assistance is illegal, and goes even further by saying that pig-breeders are running the risk of having to repay the sums and pay interest on them, which means that those in real difficulty are going to end up bankrupt.
In one word, Mr President Prodi, it is pathetic.
If I am directing these remarks to you, it is because you decided to keep Commissioner Fischler in the agricultural domain.
My question is very simple. Are you prepared to look into the matter of why Commissioner Fischler acts systematically against the interests of the Portuguese state?
You see, Mr President, to my mind, the Commission is not a government, and here we have a difference of opinion: a government is what each of us has in his own State.
Above all Mr President, I will only accept a Commission made up of impartial scientists, not of biased bureaucrats.
I will only accept a Commission which treats big States, medium-sized States and small States equally.
Mr President Prodi, we have listened to you attentively and we are concerned.
On 13 April last, you stated your desire for reform aimed at greater efficiency, absolute transparency and full responsibility.
Since then you have frequently restated your laudable intentions in this respect.
But what exactly does this reform consist of? Where is this promised revolution when you are bringing back those same commissioners who were forced to resign following the damning report of the Committee of Independent Experts?
The ultimate mystery is why you entrust administrative reform, which must be based on the said report, to one of the four returning Commissioners.
Not all of the new Commissioners seem to us to have the necessary credibility to satisfy this desire for reform.
Our group will therefore be particularly attentive during the coming hearings, and as far as we are concerned there is no question of Parliament being content to be a mere registration chamber.
This disastrous management of the Commission must come to an end.
It must never happen again, otherwise it will be the citizens who, justifiably, turn their backs on Europe.
The high level of abstention in the recent European Elections is a genuine cry of alarm.
It is a sign of a profound crisis of confidence.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are open to dialogue and debate, but can only pass judgment on actions rather than fine speeches.
Firstly, we need to know what spirit the Commissioners are going to be working in and what approach they intend to take with regard to working with all Members of this Parliament, regardless of whether they belong to a small group or large group.
Last January, Jacques Santer asked for the political trust of this Parliament, under threat of a vote of no confidence, stating that we should stop looking to the past.
Today, you are asking almost the same thing.
How much confidence can we show in you? At best, we can give you the benefit of the doubt.
If your changes only consist of technical improvements, while preserving the same culture, they will not be acceptable to us.
We expect Commissioners to open dialogue with the elected representatives in the European Parliament as early as possible before decisions are taken, but above all we expect them to respect the principles of transparency and subsidiarity as well as our democracies and traditions.
In that way you will provide us with the means to work with you effectively and we will all gain from our differences.
Applause
Madam President, President of the Commission, in January this year, Parliament adopted Mr Brok's report recommending that the majority of the new Commissioners be Members of the European Parliament, people with experience in the European institutions. It requested sufficiently equal numbers of men and women representatives and an adequate balance of political trends.
I leave it to you and to this Parliament to assess to what extent you have complied, or been able to comply with this Parliamentary resolution.
Mr President, you went so far as to announce an era of change, a revolution - in which I wish you every success - and mentioned an internal restructuring which maybe Mr Kinnock will elaborate upon; the fifth, I may add, in seven years!
I assure you, however, that it will not be a change in the number of Directorates-General, the fact they are called by name instead of by number, the fact that the homes of the Commissioners are scattered all over Brussels or that the use of a spokesman is consolidated which will bring the institutions closer to the great European public, the objective you referred to.
What is currently lacking in Europe and our institutions is a fresh vision of the Europe of the beginning of the next millennium.
Today, we live in a situation which is post Berlin wall, post Kohl, post Mitterand, post single currency, post initiation of enlargement, and pre-hardly anything. This is the vision, the challenge.
For us radicals, the Federalist compass of Altiero Spinelli will remain an appreciation gauge, a very clear compass, which will show us whether our institutions are moving towards the consolidation of the Union, towards a more European Europe and towards political union.
This, I believe, is the challenge which must unite us in the diversity of our roles, in the knowledge that those who have brought us thus far, Mr President, present and past colleagues, may deserve greater respect and perhaps even a little more generosity of spirit.
Applause from the left
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, President Prodi, the representatives of the Alleanza Nazionale have taken note of your declared intention to renew and revolutionise the Commission.
We will, of course, see whether your deeds measure up to your words and we will be keeping a check on concrete achievements, but I would like to say that right from the word go that we will base our assessments purely on facts, disregarding our respective positions in national politics.
I know that we are politically opposed in our own country, but we are nevertheless united in our desire to build a Europe in which the peoples of the old continent are increasingly ready to place their trust.
We appreciate your unequivocal statement regarding the urgent need to restore the faith of the citizens of Europe in the Commission.
Their faith has been damaged, as we have seen from the fact that the number of voters at the European Parliament elections is ever-decreasing.
It has been damaged, to our way of thinking, not only by the events which caused the resignation of the last Commission but also, and I would say above all, because of the fact that too often the citizens of Europe see the Commission as a source of bureaucratic obligations which are sometimes costly, sometimes neither indispensable nor urgent, sometimes stupid and even dangerous. These obligations seem to have nothing to do with the process of building a united Europe and, unfortunately, in many circumstances, undermine European ideals.
Faith will be regained, therefore, when there is greater transparency, but especially when greater consideration is given to national and cultural differences when Directives are issued and there is greater and more frequent recourse to the principle of subsidiarity.
Greater attention on the part of the Commission to the fundamental rights of the citizens of Europe will also be essential.
We were particularly pleased to hear you express the intention to concentrate more on both workers' rights and the right to health, including the quality of food products.
The damage caused by incidents such as dioxin in poultry or mad cow disease to the overall credibility of the Community institutions is huge and cannot be repaired by words. Unfortunately, these situations often take a great deal of time to remedy, and time is not always available in the institutions.
In conclusion, I believe that in circumstances such as these it is essential not only to adhere to the facts, but to do so without bringing the dynamics of national controversies into this House.
Above all, there must be a closer relationship between the institution of which you are President and the Parliament. This attitude must be mutual, and I hope that one effect will be to inspire the Commission of which you are President with greater respect for the work of Parliament, and therefore to greater diligence and to produce a higher quality of responses to questions than that of the recent past.
Applause
Mr President-elect of the Commission, I would first like to reiterate the sense of esteem, respect and personal trust which some of us expressed when we voted for your investiture.
We are still faithful to this fundamental choice and we would like to let you know that, in your difficult task, you will always find us to be speakers who are sometimes demanding but always anxious to help you and not to hinder you.
I have found grounds for reassurance, if that be needed, in the fundamental approach which you have laid out, particularly - if you do not mind me saying so - with regard to institutional matters and I therefore have confidence in the action you intend to take and the approach you have indicated for the Commission.
I would like to take advantage of this brief intervention to attempt to clear up a kind of misunderstanding.
I do not want you to think, neither you nor your potential, possible or future colleagues - who can say - that concerns about you are dictated by national or partisan considerations.
Let us not speak of national considerations.
As for partisan considerations, it is clear that your Commission must represent the great political forces of the European Union, and on a Parliamentary level we must continue to work with all the large groups - and that does not mean just two groups - according to a policy of co-operation necessary for the success of our legislative work.
What we are defending here - and what concerns us - are the rights of Parliament in relation to the European Council.
We hope that the Commission that you embody is fully representative of that difficult balance between the European Council and the European Parliament.
In conclusion, and I will finish here Mr President, we do not want to be, as if in a new version of Plato's myth, the shadows in a cave where the true life is the European Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, President Prodi, we expect from you not only fresh political determination in the Commission which you will be leading, but also a strong commitment to initiating a great period of reform and change in Europe.
This is why we, on the Left, view your programme with confidence.
We are not here to preserve, we are here to reform: we are here to reform European institutions and European politics and economics, because we want the Institutions to become ever closer to the people, even to those of the electorate who did not believe in our mission in the recent elections; we want a political climate which is capable of resolving issues and providing government, and an economy which is geared to building foundations for cohabitation which are fair, compatible, and mutually agreed on.
From this point of view, the project for institutional innovation of which you have spoken may, I believe, be the subject of dialogue, as Mr Bourlanges just said, between the different forces within this Parliament.
The goal we must set ourselves is a process which will take us to greater and more marked political, economic and social cohesion.
This is the direction in which we must move.
I am sure that you and your team - and I would like to draw attention to the balance achieved in your team - are starting off in the most favourable conditions for the successful completion of this operation.
You have been appointed President of the European Commission because of the ability you displayed in governing Italy wisely and competently, because of your professional experience, which is internationally acknowledged, and because you represent a trustworthy, powerful response to the crisis which afflicted the previous Commission.
May I recall with pride the years President Prodi and I worked together in our national government, the difficult challenges we faced and those in which we succeeded, including that most difficult challenge for Italy - the euro.
Today, you are at Europe's helm: you face another challenge, another wager which will be taken up by the Commission as it looks to the interests of all Member States.
Today, Europe needs hope and confidence in herself and her qualities.
We have only just emerged from a painful conflict which forced the international community to intervene to defend the right to exist of a people excluded from their own territory; the Kosovo crisis.
We entered this conflict thanks purely to Milosevic; we came out of it thanks to European cohesion, solidarity between allies and a new political climate between Europe, the USA and Russia.
We are asking ourselves, what could Europe become today with a stronger and more determined political profile?
We must do all that we can, and become all that we can as Europeans, taking Kosovo as a starting point, with the obligations which fall to us to set reconstruction in motion, to bring to life a policy of peace and stability for the whole of the Balkans and to bring about a Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which is democratic and multi-ethnic.
For us, therefore, to be Europeans means in this case to support all those forces which are fighting in Serbia at this time for a pluralist and democratic system.
We expect a great deal from you.
We expect a great deal from this new European Commission, from the Council and from this new Parliament which is anxious to hear the position of the Commissioners.
In particular, much is expected by Europe's young people, who are waiting for concrete results regarding the fight against unemployment.
Therefore, above all, we must focus our attention on the excessive burden of unemployment which is weighing heavily on our territories and on the whole of Europe.
Young people, in particular, are expecting, as are we ourselves, a major new policy from the Commission for training, research, culture and the environment, and then also for economic growth and freedom - freedom from bureaucracy and petty regulations.
This freeing-up of society, together with the capacity to guarantee rights, which the authorities must be able to express, can indeed create that society of equal opportunities which is the motive for our political commitment.
We are at a delicate stage: practically all Member States are going to have to face national reform of the welfare state.
The social state is coming into being in Europe, driven by the organised movement of workers, to help those who are weakest and most vulnerable.
The task before us today is to build a new welfare state; one which will provide opportunities, which will help those who are weakest once again, but which, at the same time, will be capable of mobilising both human and material resources to promote growth, development and long-term training.
In other words, this task will be able to regenerate hope and trust in Europe and in its own resources: a Europe of opportunities, as Jacques Delors would say, a Europe of growth and development, a Europe of peace and stability, not a closed fortress but an area of openness which is able to benefit growth and development in other parts of the world as well.
This is the Europe we want, and we are fully confident that with you and your Commission, President Prodi, we will be able to achieve it.
Applause
Madam President, Mr President-elect, I represent the EDD Group, a small group in this Parliament, but extremely democratic.
I share the platform this afternoon with my French colleague and I share his concerns for the future role of this Parliament.
Parliament, at the moment, does not appear to be very democratic.
It appears also that Members of Parliament are not very concerned as the auditorium is now half empty.
To get a democratic structure we have to change over the years so that Parliament is not the servant of the Commission but the Commission is the servant of the elected representatives of the electorate of Europe.
Until that happens there will be extremely low turn-outs at all future European elections.
It would be better if the future of Europe was entrusted to elected representatives who can be dismissed from office at elections and not to nominated bureaucrats in the form of Commissioners.
Turning to Mr Prodi, I believe that half this Parliament at least is disenfranchised because he was endorsed by the previous Parliament and just over 50 % of us were not in that Parliament.
I would seriously suggest that he should put himself up again for reselection with his other Commissioners in September.
Applause
In the long-term, I am convinced that, while the cart is in front of the horse - and that is the Commission exercising greater policy-making influence than the elected Members of this Parliament - throughout Europe people will remain apathetic toward this institution.
In the United Kingdom, we already have a very Euro-sceptic electorate.
We probably are the most Euro-sceptic according to a survey conducted on behalf of the European Union published two weeks ago.
If Mr Prodi and his colleagues wish to remedy Euro-scepticism and Euro-apathy, I am calling for true democracy and for the elected representatives to have much more authority over the programme and policies of this institution.
Mr President, as a Member of the Italian national Parliament for the Lega Nord per l'indipendenza della Padania (The Northern League for the Independence of Padania), I did not vote for Professor Prodi in Rome as I considered he would be completely useless as head of government.
I was then proved right as he lost the vote of confidence of the Italian Parliament. Reckoning also that a Roman idiot would still be that stupid wherever he was, which, incidently, is reflected in the symbol on the list which bears his name for the election of this Parliament, I cannot for consistency's sake express my faith in the President of the Commission.
As a native of the Po valley who is Italian only by passport, I am fortunately immune from the national Christian Democrat type of opportunism which brings Berlusconi together with Mastella and De Mita and sees in Prodi not the impartial President of the Commissioners uninfluenced by the States, but the lavish dispenser of favours to a wide and varied assortment of Southern Italian profiteers.
Although I hold some of the Commissioners in high esteem, I recall the old mafioso Neapolitan saying: 'A fish rots from the head downwards' and I therefore have to express my negative opinion of the Prodi Presidency.
Mr President, I wish to congratulate Mr Prodi on his presentation here in the Parliament and to concentrate on two issues which he mentioned.
Firstly, the situation in Kosovo.
I appreciate, as does Mr Prodi and as do we all, that the rebuilding of Kosovo is a very important matter.
However, it is an issue which goes beyond quantitative criteria.
Rebuilding is not just about construction.
It is of much greater significance, involving the regeneration of the societies which existed there before the catastrophe.
I want to believe, therefore, that the new Commission will put in place procedures to incorporate basic political, social and, of course, economic factors into the reconstruction programme.
On those grounds, the question of where to locate the seat of those organisations involved in the rebuilding programme is a very important one and I would like to believe that Thessaloniki will remain the choice to serve as the main decision-making centre for the whole reconstruction project.
The second issue I would like to consider is the Intergovernmental Conference.
It is a matter of great importance, so much so that, at the last Intergovernmental Conference, we examined and reached decisions on many issues which were simply brushed aside when it came to the actual signing.
It is not advisable, in my view, to start off with sweeping statements and far-ranging plans at this stage.
It is, however, imperative before we begin work on specific plans for specific sectors, to clarify once again what exactly we want, where we want to go and just how far we can go.
Finally, I should like to express my delight in what Mr Prodi expressed regarding relations between the Parliament and the new Commission.
It is clear that better progress in the advancement of the European ideal can be made when the institutions are on an equal footing and when the Commission and the European Parliament work in harmony.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, I would first of all like to remind Parliament that we generally judge a tree by the fruit that it produces.
The tree that you have described to us has strong and healthy branches which appear to us to be a good omen for the future of Europe.
Certain people have obviously expressed - is this not the case, Mr Cox? - a degree of regret at seeing former Commissioners present in your Commission, but this perhaps proves that Mr Cox, driven by a desire for polemic, had not properly read the report of the Experts which fully exonerated those Commissioners.
Of course, some people, such as Mr Poettering, have been carried away, and we are not surprised, by partisan spirit, to the point of turning this Parliament into an annex of the Bundestag, but a 'stage left' annex, of course.
Our attitude in the Socialist Group is clearly extremely different.
We are going to take care of your Commission and to those who doubt your independence, Mr President, because you will have too many socialist Commissioners, I will reply by saying that, while you have been nominated by a majority of socialist and social democratic governments, it is the Socialist Group which has been most surprised by your first public statements.
This will be a good demonstration from the outset of your desire for independence and your desire to see to it that the Commission is what the Treaty wants it to be; that is, a Commission beyond countries, beyond national sentiments and also beyond the ideological preferences that we hold here within this Parliament.
Of course, we have raised the spectre of the hearings.
Certain people, no doubt through historical atavism, would like to turn them into an inquisition process.
As for us, we would like to take the hearings for what they are, that is, as an opportunity to listen to the Commissioners, to question them, to ask them questions so that we might better understand their objective and above all to find out to what extent their expertise, competence and motivation are appropriate to their positions. It is on these bases that we will come to a certain number of conclusions, but it is not our job to treat you as if we were the judges at the final judgment.
What is important for the Commission, apart from the hearings which your team will doubtlessly pass successfully, is to see what you are going to do, in other words the works which you are going to undertake.
You have mentioned some of them today.
From the outset, I would like to take up that of reforming the Commission.
You have rightfully stressed the fact that the Commission must modernise its structures, its spirit and its working methods and I believe you have been given the means to effectively carry out that reform.
I would, however, urge that, by acting in that way, the baby is not thrown out with the bath water, and that it is well understood that one of the causes of failure on the part of the previous Commission has sometimes been the loss of the notion of public service.
It is important that the Commission is offered the means to take on, with its new structure, its officials, whose spirit will no doubt have changed, is offered the means to take on its tasks and that it shows no hesitation in saying to the Parliament or the Council, 'you ask us to achieve these objectives, we ask you for the means' .
Otherwise the fear is that you will re-live the difficulties of your predecessor.
Secondly, the Intergovernmental Conference.
I must confess that, of the decisions taken during the Summits of the German Presidency, the idea of establishing an Intergovernmental Conference has both pleased us and worried us.
We are pleased by the desire for reform; we are worried by the fact that we are returning to an old method.
I was therefore very happy to hear you say that now you are going to return to what I would call the Delors method, which stimulated the 1985 Intergovernmental Conference in Luxembourg, leading to that wonderful reform of the Single Market.
Finally, since I am running out of time, I would simply like to make an appeal by saying that the Commission is not only an executor for the decisions of the Council and the European Parliament, and that we have now perhaps lost the taste for the discreet charm of standards for lift springs and we would prefer more initiatives from the Commission in the area of social problems.
In that way you will truly be the European government that we all hope and pray for and which deserves our trust.
Applause
Mr President, Professor Prodi, you are presenting us with your ideas of a political 'dream team' .
Our fair yet strict interrogations in the Parliament will be the test of competence which each part of your team must be able to pass.
However, when seen in context, Europe's Heads of State and Government have made things unnecessarily difficult for you at the outset.
This is a proposal which has an unnecessary bias.
I share the agitation of my German friends, while I would also like to state that in the three countries of Northern Europe approximately one third of the votes go to the Social Democrats.
Today, however, we have a proposal for a Commission comprising 100 percent Social Democrat candidates.
The lack of balance may result in tensions which risk giving your team less leeway if things go wrong.
Professor Prodi, the trust of the PPE Group in you is based on the civic spirit and the political orientation you have expressed: a policy of renewal for Europe, the ability to compete, liberalisation and free trade, co-operation and peace, an open and trustworthy administration and an EU which devotes itself to matters of common relevance in order to gain the trust of the citizens of the EU during the next century.
You wish to create a 'dream team' Good luck!
I believe you will need it, but most of all Europe will need it.
The challenges and possibilities for us all are great.
I wish you luck and welcome you to this Parliament.
The coming weeks of questions by the committees promise to be interesting.
These will be fair but, as has been said before, tough.
President Prodi, this is your third meeting with this Parliament, a Parliament which is greatly changed but which has an institutional continuity which we must all respect.
We know the areas in which you intend the Commission to work, and today you have completed and spoken in greater detail of your intentions for the reform of the Institution, and you are aware of the orientation and also of the political concerns of the European Parliament.
I will make three very brief points.
The first is that we agree with your objective of accelerating economic union by means of a political Europe.
This objective requires close collaboration between the Commission and Parliament, whose composition democratically represents the citizens of Europe and must therefore contribute fundamentally to the reform of European Institutions.
This is where we must search for that European soul which is essential for the future of the continent.
But although we need first of all to reestablish trust between the Institutions and the people of Europe, we consider that it will be necessary to establish a relationship of close, loyal collaboration between the European Institutions, and therefore between Parliament and the Commission.
The second point concerns the objections and the debate which we will resume in September.
I think that the primary reason for the objections is to verify the compatibility between the selections that you have made in putting together the team which you introduced to us today, and the general themes which you have presented to this Parliament.
We fully support a strategy which is motivated by the conviction that it is essential to respect the Stability Pact, and we are in agreement with the idea that today the fundamental issue is to make Europe into a more competitive unit, in order that it can resume the path of development, and also in order to combat unemployment.
However, we also consider it necessary to emphasise the opportunity to highlight the reasons why there has been recent talk of an Employment Pact as well, and the need to devote great attention to the regional imbalances which still exist in Europe.
Without a European strategy from this point of view, we will run the risk that an economy such as ours will tend to concentrate its resources on the strongest areas and leave the weakest by the wayside, even though some of these have recently shown signs of great progress.
The third and last thought refers to President Martens' address on behalf of the Group of the European People's Party in this Parliament during the debate on political agendas.
He expressed strong support for your candidacy, and I invite him to deal with a few issues which are holding back the activity of the Commission.
I believe, however, that notwithstanding the peculiarity of the constitutional nature of relations between the Commission and the Parliament, the concerns voiced regarding the political balance which exists in this Parliament but which is not reflected in the Commission are well founded.
We hope that the hearings will help us to resolve this point as well.
Applause
Mr President, Mr President-elect of the Commission, rarely has the formation of a new Commission been accompanied by such high hopes and expectations as has this one.
The distrust between citizens and Commission, clearly caused by the inappropriate behaviour of individual Commissioners, is deeply entrenched.
However, your appointment to the post of President-elect of the Commission, Professor Prodi, and the appointment of your team, which has now taken place, give cause for great hope.
You are the first President of the Commission who will be able to transfer a Commissioner's individual area of responsibility if he or she behaves inappropriately, and to dismiss the person concerned.
This is a major step in the process of rebuilding trust.
Even if the Commission does not reflect the majorities gained in the European elections, the reappointment of reliable Commissioners gives cause for satisfaction.
The restructuring of areas of competence should also open up the way for greater efficiency and transparency.
We will, though, in the interests of our citizens, be looking at each individual Commissioner extremely thoroughly.
This will be a hearing though and not an interrogation.
We need credible representatives for it to be a strong Commission.
This is why we urgently need the relevant information though.
It is necessary that the findings of the Committee of the Wise Men's second report be distributed suitably in advance of the hearings.
Otherwise, the seeds of a new crisis between Parliament and the Commission will have been sown.
Any delay in the appointment of the Commission would not be in the interests of our citizens either.
In view of the great tasks ahead, whether it is enlargement, the Intergovernmental Conference or reconstruction in Kosovo, the European Union must be able to act at all levels as soon as possible.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for this debate, which has been in-depth, clear and in many cases, extremely comprehensive and which has mostly demonstrated open confidence in our future work. I say open confidence because all those who spoke, even those who criticised the composition of the Commission, acknowledged the need to work closely together in a major, intense undertaking and recognised the fact that the future of the European Union lies in collaboration between the Parliament and the Commission.
It is we and our collaboration which will form the basis for the way out of the current crisis, a crisis so serious as to reduce the number of voters who turned out at the last elections to among the lowest proportions in European political history.
I believe that, at the end of this mandate, one gauge of our success will be the numbers who vote in the next elections. That will show whether we have managed to restore the faith of the citizens of Europe in the Institutions for which we are responsible.
This means transparency, a whole cleaning up operation which will not be easy to conduct.
It is easy to promise - and I have committed myself fully on this matter - but I also know very well that it is not an easy promise to keep.
A little while ago the electoral symbol for my candidacy - a little donkey - was invoked with charming irony, and I was invited to be stubborn, an invitation which was unnecessary as I am pig-headed by nature. However, I would like remind you that I was prompted to choose the donkey while reading a passage from Leonardo da Vinci, in which, while he is describing the donkey - although I cannot vouch for the truth of the statement for lack of proof - he said that the donkey is a strange animal because rather than drink dirty water it will die of thirst.
Applause
It is important for us to take the donkey as the symbol of our politics because, in this five-year term, we must try to do likewise.
I am perfectly aware that it is easy to make these resolutions but that it is not so easy to keep them, but the method we used to build the Commission, Mr Poettering, was a very open one.
There was no night of long knives, no investiture struggle and no border fighting.
It was not an easy task to bring together fifteen countries, north and south, and diverse political situations.
As for the result, when I say 'balanced' we know full well that there is discontent in some countries, but that is politics: balanced means that the major forces present in the European Parliament are very well represented in terms of personality and portfolio size in the Commission.
You can analyse the composition of the Commission in as much detail as you like.
I repeat, within the bounds of the Treaty of Amsterdam, I have taken full advantage of all the power conferred on me, and I believe that one improvement at the end of this mandate may be more advanced ways of forming the Commission.
Nevertheless, please consider the progress made with regard to other areas.
Please consider the fact that we have arrived here with a Commission which will work hard - well or not so well, we will see - whatever the case, which is able to agree on common programmes and the Members of which are ready to face their responsibilities, individually and collectively.
I reiterate this point because there has been a great deal of discussion regarding the manner in which we will conduct the audiences, hearings and inquiries.
I attach very great importance to this aspect of things, as I attach very great importance to the Wise Men's report, but I also believe that these inquiries must be made into the history of the Commissioners and their programmes, and must be carried out in great depth and with political serenity as, in my opinion, they cannot be the tool to regulate problems which occurred in the past.
Having said this, I believe that they must be explored in more depth and that there must be hearings which go right to the bottom of the Commission's problems, because, and I am right to do so, I have taken on board the warning that prevention is preferable to the Commission being subsequently thrown into crisis.
Earlier today, in my address, I said that I have asked all the Commissioners to give me their word of honour that they would resign should any new event take place or should there be any hidden fact.
I believe that this tool will not be used lightly, but with the sense, however, that the problem in question involves not only individual responsibility but also the efficiency and responsibility of the entire Commission team which must present itself to you as capable of governing for the next five years.
Clearly, we have to present ourselves as individuals, but we must also present ourselves as an organically composed group, not as distinct individuals which are separate from each other.
This has been the endeavour of the past few months and this is the type of Commission which has been introduced to you.
Please assess it in this way. Therefore, I consider that the vote on 15 September will be enormously important.
I believe that you have the right to reject the entire Commission and consider it inadequate for the great task of leading Europe in the next five year period and making its contribution to the great task before us.
Well then, I invite you to perform this task according to the vision of European common interest, and not in a context, although absolutely legitimate in politics, of individual interest.
I will conclude by returning to a couple of points which have been recalled and raised today.
Firstly, the Wise Men's report.
I believe that it is very important for us to have read the first of these carefully and to have measured against it many of the thoughts which I have expounded to the Parliament on the three occasions in which I have come here.
This report does exert an influence, but we have to understand that the political responsibility of the future is our own.
The Wise Men's report is a wonderful instrument, and we must read it and reflect upon it, but the decision is ours alone to make and its consequences ours to bear, and it is in this sense that the dialogue between Parliament and the Commission takes on a completely different dimension.
Secondly, several speakers have invoked the question of international trade, which I did not bring up because it will be discussed in September.
I can assure you that it will be very important to maintain a balance between the need for free trade, which is one of the foundation stones of Europe, and the protection of important rights, including the fundamental health rights.
This is the reason why I have highlighted the example of health with regard to food and medicine as one of the benchmarks for the our future Commission.
There you are. This is the path we have to follow.
As Mr Barón Crespo said, quoting Manzoni: 'Adelante ' but 'con juicio ' , 'Go on, carefully' .
The quotation is not complete, however, because there is another sentence.
In fact, Manzoni says: 'Adelante, Pedro, si puedes ' , that is 'Go on, Pedro, if you can' , and this power to move forward is in your hands.
Applause
Mr Prodi, you have just portrayed very colourfully, how the little donkey would rather go thirsty than drink dirty water.
I ask you now though, if you can assure us that the little donkey would also say no to watered-down wine.
This is the aim of the proposed Commission and this is the reason why we have made health a priority, to be consistent.
In this case, to protect humans rather than donkeys.
Applause
Ladies and gentlemen, the agenda now provides for time for a further ballot for the Quaestors, which we do not need because we voted electronically.
I therefore declare the sitting adjourned until 5.30 p.m.
The sitting was adjourned at 5.05 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.
Programme of the Finnish Presidency
The next item on the agenda is the declaration of the President-in-Office of the Council concerning the programme of activities of the Finnish Presidency, economic and social reconstruction in Kosovo as well as the draft Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe and the death sentence passed on Mr Öçalan.
Madam President, I would like to thank Finland's Foreign Minister, Ms Halonen, for her excellent account of the Finnish Presidency programme.
As the Member State to hold the Presidency of the Council, Finland is piloting the European Union into a new millennium with an extremely well-balanced programme.
It is important to point out, as the Foreign minister made clear in her speech, that together, the internal reform of the Union and the strengthening of civil societies all over Europe will form the cornerstone of EU development in the future.
Emphasis on these goals can be seen very clearly in the Finnish Presidency programme.
The hallmark of the Finnish Presidency, a strong and open Europe for a new millennium, reflects the Union's vital need for reforms.
The people's Europe must be built with the emphasis on the serious importance of transparency among the EU institutions and on the principle of subsidiarity.
The enormous challenges of the future, such as the economic changes associated with the single currency, the Union's enlargement to the east, and the prevention of international crime, require the support of more viable EU institutions than is the case today.
It is a positive sign that Finland has started off with concrete proposals.
Wordy proclamations will not produce the changes we now need.
Tragedies such as the crisis in Kosovo, and, more generally, in the whole of the former Yugoslavia, show that the peace and stability afforded by European integration do not as yet extend very far beyond the Union's external borders.
The inevitable conclusions must be made regarding this point, so that the Union's crisis management skills may be strengthened as promptly as possible.
The EU must ensure that it has in future an effective non-military range of options at its disposal both to prevent a crisis and to put out fires that have already started.
The fact that these goals are high up on the agenda is a very positive sign.
The economic, social and political rebuilding of the Western Balkans must proceed at a brisk pace while Finland holds the Presidency.
It is such an immense challenge that the Finnish Presidency will be required to show it has the special ability to keep all the interwoven threads tightly in its hands. Finland has to ensure that all allocated funds are used effectively.
Not a single bridge can be rebuilt nor a single school constructed if the costs of administering the reconstruction projects are inflated.
The reconstruction programme should be funded in a way that takes account of the use of local resources.
In this way, the region's business community, ravaged as it has been by war, can be revived, jobs can be created, and trade with the surrounding areas and the Union can be developed.
The Union's employment problems cannot be solved by making official appointments at Kosovo's expense.
Aid must go to where it is most needed.
The enlargement of the Union to the East will require the unflagging support of its citizens.
The Union must make absolutely sure no bottlenecks in the enlargement process arise through its inability to function properly.
Ensuring the single market functions effectively and strengthening the Union's internal security are the important keys to successful enlargement.
We must expect the Tampere Council meeting, which will focus inter alia on questions relating to asylum-seekers and refugees as well as the fight against organised crime, to provide concrete proposals for action to improve internal security.
The Union's northern dimension concept, about to come into the limelight, features many aspects of EU internal security, such as nuclear and environmental safety and co-operation with neighbouring regions.
Furthermore, the ideas expressed concerning the Union's northern dimension need to be made into more concrete programmes of action.
Applause
Mr President, Members of the Council, Ms Halonen, the start of Finland's first presidential term in the European Union marks a time of great change.
Parliament, in its new assembly, will start newly invigorated by its recently acquired constitutional rights as bestowed on it under the Treaty of Amsterdam; in place of the former Commission that resigned before its term was over we await the appointment of the new Commission, and Council is preparing for reforms in its working practices.
The undeniable fact is that we shall be unable to restore the confidence of the people in the Union to take decisions, without reforming the way we do things and this concerns all institutions: the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
One of the most pressing matters we are expecting Parliament and the Council to resolve is a proper arrangement relating to members' pay and expenses.
The reform of the Union's institutions is a crucial part of the Finnish presidential programme, as Ms Halonen mentioned in her speech.
We note with particular satisfaction that the programme includes an aim to reform working practices in the Council.
The principle of transparency will be promoted in a very real sense with the development of open sessions of the Council, better accessibility to documents, and the general availability of Council and working party agendas and meeting schedules.
In acknowledgement of decisions taken by the Cologne European Council, Finland will oversee preparations to convene an Intergovernmental Conference.
The aim must be for a conference which leads to a new agreement to make enlargement possible and create the right conditions for more effective action on the part of the Union after enlargement has taken place.
It must be said, however, that the efficient functioning of the Union has already met with obstacles during this session.
I cannot help wondering why the right-wing group in the Parliament is attempting to postpone the appointment of the Commission using the report by the Committee of Independent Experts as an excuse.
I shall be frank and say that tactics like these will make it difficult for the Finnish Presidency to succeed.
We must speed up the drawing up of the report and the proper debate on it in Parliament in every way possible, but we cannot surrender the legal rights of the Parliament to an unofficial investigative body and give in to the timetable it imposes.
We also need to strengthen the Union's credibility, to enable us to become fully involved in serious problems that are our responsibility, the most pressing of which is the drawing up of the timetable for the rebuilding programme in Kosovo. That will be the start of our task to strengthen stability in the whole Balkan region.
The Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari, made a sound contribution to the achievement of a solution for Kosovo, showing that a non-aligned state can also successfully represent the common view of the Union as a whole.
A properly functioning Union is a pre-condition of a successful conclusion to the enlargement process that is under way in respect of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
The starting point must be insistence on uniform membership criteria, which also means an attempt at the truth when discussing a timetable for enlargement.
Finland has quite rightly pointed out that it is necessary to connect the enlargement process with Europe's influence on developments in the areas of environmental protection and social welfare.
The aim must be sustainable development and the inclusion of the issue of environmental protection in all community policy, which means obligations not only for future members but for the present members also.
The enlargement process can make headway if co-operation with the Union's neighbouring regions is strengthened.
The northern dimension policy, which has been approved by the Union, covers inter alia co-operation in the Baltic region, but it also supports the implementation of the approved strategy on Russia.
The main issue in need of reform is genuine cross-border co-operation, which needs to be strengthened.
Another current challenge for the Union also is the realisation of economic and monetary union in a way that will generate jobs.
So there are various challenges.
Finally, I would sincerely like to wish the Finnish Presidency luck in the implementation of its programme, favourably inclined as it is, to reform.
Applause
Mr President, Madam Minister, just as the Minister did in a part of his speech, I am also going to use the second Finnish national language.
The agenda of the Finnish Presidency does not contain any great surprises; it is balanced, and is focused on the most important challenges to the Union.
The agenda actually emphasises those problems which earlier Summit Meetings have agreed that we should solve in Helsinki.
I am very glad that the minister tackled the problems concerning the work of the Council of Ministers so frankly for I am of the opinion that they have not been discussed sufficiently, and there remain for us many tricky problems to be solved.
Precisely for this reason, many issues have also been delayed until Finland's Presidency.
We emphasise in the agenda a strong and open Europe, which is correct.
A strong Europe is a Europe in which the institutions are strong, not where some strongmen solve Europe's problems.
Unfortunately we have witnessed the tendency that some problems have not been solved in the institutions, but by individual persons.
This is not in the spirit of Monnet.
I hope that the Finnish presidency will succeed in its aim of making the EU act unanimously for a common policy and with common will.
A strong Union is also a Union which is able to create stability in its neighbouring regions.
For this reason, it is important to also build up a comprehensive and clear strategy of involvement, which includes countries such as Albania and Macedonia, by means of successful expansion and through credible crisis management.
Regardless of all the work carried out with a view to stabilisation, there are nevertheless risks that the streams of refugees might increase.
In this regard, I think that the Finnish agenda could have been more ambitious, in particular in light of the Kosovo crisis.
We certainly must not find ourselves once again in a situation of unreadiness as was the case when we had to find a solution to the distribution of payments.
I finally wish to stress that I sincerely hope that Minister Halonen, who knows the situation in Slovakia personally, is going to fight for an end to the discrimination, for instance against the Roma population, which exists there as well as elsewhere.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to welcome you here to the European Parliament.
I promise that the Greens/European Free Alliance will do all it can to achieve close and effective co-operation with your institution.
It really cannot be stressed enough that Finland is embarking on its Presidency in quite problematic circumstances.
We have to see that a properly functioning Commission is appointed in September, and the Green Group must do all within its power to ensure that the procedures here in Parliament are as realistic as possible, though at the same time thorough. That is something we surely all want to see.
Foreign Minister, you said that the Kosovo crisis might prove to be a sort of turning point in EU common foreign and security policy.
My group's position is that the European Union must strengthen its common foreign and security policy, but we would hope that Finland, which is a militarily non-aligned State, will emphasise the importance of the non-military aspect of crisis management.
It is quite obvious that occasionally human rights in the modern world have to be defended with weapons, but if we want to act wisely and avoid large-scale human and economic suffering and destruction we have to work on a long-term basis and use specifically non-military means to solve future crises.
Our group would like to remind everyone that the European Parliament this Spring approved a report recommending the establishment of non-military peacekeeping bodies for the European Union.
We are surprised how little the non-military options were spoken of at the Cologne Council meeting, and we hope that during the Finnish presidential term they will be energetically addressed.
The European Union is large enough to be able to have an influence on global developments.
During the Finnish Presidency, we will be involved in preparations for future world trade talks.
It is absolutely vital that this is undertaken in a spirit of openness.
We have already seen how civil society is eager to participate in this debate. I am now referring to what happened with the Multilateral Agreement on Investment.
I believe you all want to work in such a way that civil society is able to interact openly with the decision makers, when the topic of debate is the relationship between free trade, people's health and the protection of the environment.
Our group would like to point out that, during its presidential term, Finland will have ample opportunity to lead Europe towards social and ecological union.
We will give you all our support, so that the Directive on an energy tax can finally be issued. We have been preparing it for seven years now.
I would imagine we are all starting to become rather impatient with regard to this matter, as it has been so difficult to move the decision-making process along.
At the same time it is obviously necessary to strengthen the marketability of labour.
Throughout the entire European Union it is possible, for example, to reduce the figures for non-waged labour enabling us to create new jobs once more and thus induce a more vigorous degree of economic activity.
Finally I would like to state firmly that the Tampere Council meeting must not simply prove to be a chance to increase police activity and the surveillance of the public.
It also has to promote civil rights, as well as improve the status of third country citizens legally resident in the Member States of the European Union.
All this must take place in a spirit of openness.
We also expect the Commission to start to ease the task of the Finnish Presidency to increase transparency as soon as possible by furnishing Parliament and the Council with information on the public availability of documents.
Applause
Mr President, Finland's goal is the right one: there has to be more transparency within the EU.
Right at the start, the EU's Finance Ministers, under the leadership of Finland, reached the conclusion that it is only possible to speak of EMU within the EU if it is with one voice.
As a result, we have now fallen silent in eleven languages over the subject of monetary policy in the EU.
Under Finland's leadership, transparency and public accountability should extend to the secret and secretive work of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Finland is a non-aligned country, and not a member of NATO.
Nevertheless, she should show more credibility in her opposition to an EU common defence force.
We should not give in to the former Social Democrats and the Green pacifists, to Schröder, Fischer, Blair, D'Alema or Solana, who want more arms for Europe, and to expand NATO. NATO is also now an organisation on the offensive.
It will be Finland's task to see to it that EU Member States are free to remain non-aligned.
This goal is being undermined by the principle that the EU should have a common will, a common policy and a common voice, a goal the 70 per cent of Finns who did not vote in the European Parliamentary elections were opposed to.
Mr President, the Finnish Government assumes the Presidency of the European Union at a very challenging time.
This year has seen the implementation of some very wide-ranging and aggressive policies which are all going to play a role in developing the economies within the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
The launch of the new euro currency will certainly help to reduce business costs for small and medium-sized enterprises as foreign exchange transactions in eleven countries become an event of the past.
I know that the euro currency has experienced some trading problems at times during this year.
The instability within the EU institutions and the war in Kosovo have certainly not encouraged a climate of investor confidence.
However, in recent times, the value of the euro currency has substantially increased as political and economic stability within the European landscape has re-emerged.
There are eleven participating countries within the new euro currency zone encompassing over 291 million people.
It is of the utmost importance that consumer information campaigns about the timetable and effects of the new euro currency continue in the run-up to the introduction of euro notes and coins in the year 2002.
The Finnish Presidency of the EU, together with the Commission, should review progress that is being made on this important issue across the EU so that consumer concerns about the new euro currency are fully addressed.
The increased interdependence between the Member States and EMU demands the strengthening of economic co-ordination.
In order to boost competitiveness, growth and employment, the Finnish Government rightly intends to promote the co-ordination of economic, employment and structural policies and to complete the internal market.
The ageing nature of our population, globalisation and technological advances present real challenges for European economic and social development.
European employment strategies must be put in place in accordance with the new powers contained within the Amsterdam Treaty as well as within revised European social fund regulations.
Unemployment still remains at over 9 % within the European Union which is unacceptably high.
It is not right that one in four people below the age of 25 have difficulty in getting a decent start in life.
The Finnish Government is certainly laying a great emphasis on the need to promote the enlargement process to a greater extent.
The Finnish Presidency will direct preparations to convene an Intergovernmental Conference in accordance with the decisions taken at the recent Cologne European Council.
An IGC is very important as institutional reform must take place before the practical process of enlargement can succeed and much work needs to be done to prepare EU Institutions for this intergovernmental phase.
I am very satisfied that the Finnish Government intends to pursue this matter vigorously over the next six months.
Enlargement of the Union is essential for the stability of Europe.
The opening-up of larger markets will assist in the process of economic growth.
The Union itself must be prepared to take up the challenges posed by enlargement by improving its decision-making capacity and improving the functioning of its institutions.
National interests must be protected during this phase of negotiations as an overburdened bureaucracy at EU level is not the desired outcome from these IGC talks.
In conclusion, as a result of the Cologne Summit of March of last year, it has been agreed that the EU budget will be worth over £506 billion during the seven-year period, i.e. 2000-2006.
The conclusion of the Agenda 2000 discussion has ensured that the European Union can move forward and discuss and implement new policy objectives and goals.
The Finnish Government has certainly started this process.
The EU certainly now has a golden opportunity to put in place new policies in the fields of consumer rights, food safety and assistance to the elderly, as well as areas of environmental protection.
I would like first of all to thank Madam President-in-Office for her comments regarding the abolition of the death penalty.
I believe that, on the Finnish initiative, the European Union is preparing to implement other initiatives on an international level, and I am grateful for that.
The point I would like to highlight here concerns Kosovo.
Nobody has spoken about it until now, but there is a problem which has not been confronted, or has not been confronted with the determination expected by the European Union. It is that of the three thousand Kosovan prisoners who were literally kidnapped by Mr Milosevic and his henchmen during the latter days of the international intervention in Kosovo and transferred by force to Serbian prisons.
Nobody knows anything about these three thousand people.
They are Mr Kurti, the former leader of the student movement in Pristina, Professor Oti, and three thousand other people who have literally disappeared.
I would like to know whether, on the initiative of the Finnish Presidency, we may finally take determined action, with the support of the Red Cross and other international organisations, to oblige the war criminal Milosevic not to do what he has done so many times before: to use blackmail, to use these people who are now in his hands and about whom nothing is known, to once again oblige the European Union to drop the evidence.
I believe that, before even talking about lifting the embargo, Mr Milosevic should be forced to release all of these people unconditionally.
Applause
Madam President, the work of developing the Amsterdam Treaty for even greater union is commencing under the Finnish Presidency.
As things stand, the next treaty will be even worse than the one we already have.
It will provide for more majority decisions whereby ministers and civil servants are able to tone down the democracy in our Member States.
Decisions which today are taken in publicly elected open assemblies will pass to secret committees within the Commission and the Council.
We will have much more Brussels and less democracy.
That the new treaty is to be called the Paris Treaty is unfair on the city of cities.
The power which we as voters are losing is mainly being transferred to the Commission and the Council, although the Parliament is taking over the right of veto from the parliaments of the Member States.
The individual States may no longer prevent the adoption of a law or recommend that a law be amended.
A democratic era is being superseded by a bureaucratic era in which the voters are being driven into a siding.
It is to prevent this watering down of democracy that we have created a new group: the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities.
Democracy, because power must lie with the publicly elected in our Member States and because the necessary common legislation must also be controlled democratically.
Plurality, because we wish to maintain diverse identities and cultures and to counter euro-nationalism and its euro-anthems and common passports, currency, policing and defence.
We no longer want centralism and unification, but decentralisation and freedom.
We do not want the EU to be a new state, but rather a practical collaboration on problems which we cannot solve individually.
The EU must be a help and not a hindrance.
Mr President, when speaking of Kosovo in the address she gave this morning, President Fontaine said: 'The guns have fallen silent, the horrors have ceased, but peace still remains to be built' .
The guns may well have fallen silent, Mr President, but the anti-personnel mines continue their butchery; the horror of war is over but not the horror of the discovery of mass graves day after day, a tragic, heart-rending testimony to a contempt for the right to live of individuals and populations, a right which is no less than respect for the diversity and identity of a people for whose affirmation we will fight both here and in our national parliaments.
' It is not acceptable that in the very heart of Europe, human rights should once more be flouted in such a barbaric manner, ' declared Mrs Fontaine once again.
We are in agreement on this point as well, reaching forward as we are to be part of the process of solidarity between nations through a common foreign and security policy for which my group has fought right from the start of its representation in the European Parliament.
Starting with the Balkans, with the urgency and determination which today's situation demands, the Common Foreign and Security Policy will allow us to achieve the objectives of peace, economic stability and the certainty that human rights are being respected.
NATO has won the war and Europe must build the peace: this is the challenge which we must take up immediately, in the loud and clear definition of the role that Europe will assume in the construction of the peace process, in political wisdom, in the quality of the steps that it will take in order to prevent the migration flows which it is currently suffering and will continue to do so in the years to come, from causing religious, economic and social conflict, especially in areas in which unemployment is increasing at an alarming rate. Of course, the establishment of an agency will not in itself solve the problem.
However, all remains to be seen.
How will this body, which we hope will guarantee rapid, efficient, useful, rational and fair measures, be structured and made operative, with the appropriate participation in the reconstruction, above all, of all those areas such as Italy and, in particular, Puglia, whose tourist trades have suffered extensive economic damage from the war and the effects of migration. It is true that the war has left deep wounds: they are clearly visible.
They can be clearly seen on territories and on the people who lost their lives in or were driven from those territories; but it has also harmed certain governments, which are left without a clear foreign policy.
In any case, it has displayed the failure of ten years of diplomacy and highlighted the oversights, the shortcomings and the squanderings, of international co-operation.
Europe's undertaking, then, cannot be understood as merely revolving around the reconciliation of the parties involved in the conflict, but the measure of its performance will depend upon the overall ability it displays in reconciling the Stability Pact, reconstruction and ever-increasing unemployment.
In his statement, the President of the Commission undertook to spend money on reconstruction, not bureaucracy.
Let us hope that this reconstruction will be more than just material.
We must rebuild roads, schools, ports and water systems, but we must also restore the faith of peoples who for years have been deprived of the right to live with their loved ones on their own land with their own jobs, and who are now hoping to enjoy the peaceful life denied to them for years.
If Europe were to pursue the aim indicated by Professor Prodi of providing the Balkans with a clear political and economic future, it would certainly achieve a great deal, but it would not be performing the whole of its task, which includes making a substantial contribution to building a path for democratic, and of course economic, development, but essentially social and cultural development, in the knowledge that reconciliation is all the stronger and more stable, the higher the level of tolerance and respect for diversity of the parties is concerned.
Honoured President, esteemed Representative of the Council Presidency, ladies and gentlemen, it is inappropriate that the Representative for the acting Commission should make a full statement on the Finnish Presidency's programme here, for this programme will largely be implemented under the new Commission.
Permit me, therefore, to restrict my comments in the main to two issues, namely reconstruction in Kosovo and the sentence passed on Abdullah Öçalan.
Firstly, I should like to remind you that from the very beginning, the European Union was heavily involved in the endeavours being made to bring about a peaceful resolution of the Kosovo conflict.
The Commission also provided humanitarian aid throughout the conflict.
The European Union is, as we are all aware, the largest donor.
We gave financial aid to those countries most severely affected by the influx of exiles and refugees.
Now that the conflict is over, our immediate priority is to support KFOR's endeavours to restore peace and order and to reconstruct a functioning civil administration under the leadership of the United Nations.
The European Union has a special task to fulfil in this respect.
In particular, we bear the responsibility for the reconstruction aspects of UNMIG.
Jollie Dixon, the acting Special Delegate for the Commission appointed for this purpose, has now taken up his position in Pristina and it is time to solve the huge number of practical problems.
What has been provided so far in terms of aid? The humanitarian aid committed to Kosovo and the neighbouring countries totals EUR 378 million, with the bulk going towards providing essential foods and other goods such as medicines, sanitation equipment and accommodation.
This aid is channelled through the UNHCR, the International Red Cross, UNICEF and various NGOs.
This amount includes the EUR 196 million currently being mobilised from the Commission's budgetary reserves.
Furthermore, EUR 100 million were committed as macroeconomic aid for the damage sustained by other countries as a result of the Kosovo crisis, 62 million being earmarked for Albania, 25 million for FYROM and 13 million for Montenegro.
The first instalments have already been paid out.
In addition, EUR 45 million will be committed to Kosovo through the OBNOVA programme, a first priority of which will be to finance a delegation whose task is to ascertain the scale of material damage.
The first set of findings will be available on 23 July.
The European Commission will then base its definitive aid programme on these figures.
In addition, the budgetary requirements for reconstruction will need to be set in the course of the next two to three years, and the anticipated costs which the other donors are to incur will need to be calculated.
The measures to be financed under the OBNOVA programme as a matter of priority include such areas as mine clearance, obtaining materials for rebuilding houses and also public buildings, supporting public utilities and customs control, and a village employment and rehabilitation programme.
Working in conjunction with KFOR, UNMIG and UNHCR, these projects were prioritised and they are to supplement the on-going work undertaken by the humanitarian organisations.
We hope to be able to commit the EUR 45 million before the end of this month.
As explained to the budgetary authorities in the trialogue of 2 July, an additional EUR 92 million will still be required this year.
It was agreed during this trialogue session that in September the Commission will submit a proposal to increase the budget by means of an amending and supplementary budget which will raise the 92 million required.
The funds are largely to be raised by reallocation, with as little utilisation as possible being made of additional funds.
It was also agreed that both parts of the budgetary authorities will deal with this proposal in one reading.
We are counting on receiving Parliament's support as far as this is concerned, so that the European Community can continue to play a leading role in the reconstruction process.
I should now like to say a few words on the issue of a reconstruction agency.
Before the Cologne European Council meeting, the Commission proposed to the Heads of State and Government that a special agency should be set up which would deal with the implementation of the reconstruction work.
The European Council followed this recommendation and instructed the Commission back in June to formulate an actual proposal on the basis of experience gained from Bosnia.
We at the Commission proposed that the agency should be located in Pristina, that is at the centre of reconstruction activity, where all the other international organisations are located.
Applause
However, at the informal meeting of Heads of State and Government in Rio, the Heads of Government agreed that the agency 's seat should be in Thessaloniki.
We cannot escape the conclusion though, that this was due not so much to the fact that the reconstruction activities, for which this agency was to be responsible, were in the immediate vicinity, but rather to the fact that there was a general need for economic aid throughout the region.
The Commission takes the view that it will only be possible to work effectively if the vast proportion of activities is concentrated in Pristina.
However, the Commission could envisage a solution whereby, for example, some of the administrative personnel would be based at another location.
But this must not be to the detriment of the efficiency and effectiveness of the operation.
The Commission assumes that to uphold these principles accords with the Court of Auditors' position and the first reactions of the European Parliament.
However, the Council decided conclusively on Monday this week that the agency's seat should be in Thessaloniki.
The Commission has refrained from stating its position, preferring the Commission's definitive position to be established by the new Commission.
The proposal has now been submitted to Parliament for advice.
Meanwhile, as of 1 July, the Commission has been despatching a task force consisting of approximately 20 officials and supporting personnel to Pristina, where it will be responsible for implementing the reconstruction programme.
All authority required to effect implementation was transferred from Brussels to the leader of the task force in Pristina in order to create a mechanism which will work with optimum efficiency and speed to provide aid at a time when it is most urgently needed in Kosovo.
Finally, a comment on achieving co-ordination amongst the donors.
On 13 July, a meeting took place of the High Level Steering Group, the committee managed by the European Commission and the World Bank which is based on partnership and is intended to co-ordinate the Kosovo crisis aid provided by international donors. It was confirmed on this occasion that the first Kosovo donor conference would be held on 28 July in Brussels.
This conference is to focus in particular on determining what the pressing needs will be from now until the end of the year.
A second donor conference has been planned for October and this will deal in greater depth with the reconstruction efforts.
Turning to the Öçalan trial, the Commission takes the same position on this matter as that taken up by the German Presidency on 29 June, following the death sentence passed by the state security tribunal of Ankara on Abdullah Öçalan, and again expresses its absolute repudiation of the death penalty.
It was for this reason that on 29 June, the Commission asked the relevant Turkish authorities to take account of the European Union's repudiation of this death penalty.
Consequently, the Commission, knowing that Turkey has not employed the death penalty since 1984, anticipates that as a member of the Council of Europe, Turkey will abide by the obligations that it has entered into.
To carry out the death penalty would inevitably place relations between the European Union and Turkey under huge strain.
Like the majority of EU Member States, the Commission believes that recent amendments to Turkish legislation have paved the way for the case against Mr Öçalan and the process of reaching a verdict, to be transferred to a civil court.
Applause
Thank you, Mr Fischler.
I have received ten motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I must begin by emphasising that this Parliament has observed that the Finnish Presidency, from the beginning of its mandate, has shown independence and equanimity and has sought agreed solutions.
These three attributes, which I wish to highlight, bode well for the success of this first Finnish Presidency and they will be needed, given the challenges which face it.
Since it is impossible in three minutes to list all these challenges - the Presidency-in-Office of the Council has said that it is impossible to list its programme - I will limit myself to a few brief observations on some particular points.
With regard to enlargement, we must be aware that events in the Balkans have changed the landscape, and in Helsinki we will have to open negotiations with other countries.
In relation to institutional affairs, the Finnish Presidency has an enormous responsibility: that of initiating work which will lead to the conclusion of a statute on fundamental rights.
But we should not forget that the mandate of the Cologne European Council meeting speaks of a non-binding statute which, initially, will not be incorporated into the Treaties.
If our intention, from the outset, is to implement a set of binding rights, this would leave us with a minimal statute which will offer little to European citizens.
With regard to the statute on MEPs, the Finnish Presidency - and it should be congratulated on this - has also shown respect for the fact that this initiative concerns this Parliament.
With regard to the functioning of the College of Commissioners, I would like to say, from this Chamber, that we will not allow the individual responsibility of the Commissioners to be used as a weapon.
Moving on to economic affairs, the matter of a tax on energy has been mentioned here.
The Finnish Presidency knows that this is a disputed question and we hope it will make use of all its powers of conciliation in order that this taxation package might move forward, since it is of great importance to Europe.
And I would like to say a few words on the question of the internal market. I hope that the internal market does not suffer as a result of this idea of bringing it into line with international agreements in areas such as electronic commerce.
It is must be stated that the Tampere Summit must not become a Summit on immigration and asylum.
Although this is very important and events in the Balkans have demonstrated the urgency required in this field, the Tampere Summit must be dedicated to developing a region which enjoys liberty, security and justice.
We must be conscious of the fact that, if this development is to be harmonious, we must insist on the idea of 'justice' , we must promote the European judicial network, we must be capable of making sentences effective and making the sentences immediate, both the criminal and the non-criminal ones, and we must facilitate direct relationships between judges.
These are the challenges for the Tampere Summit and immigration, although important, must not be allowed to push them to one side.
And just a word about three matters which have been side-stepped and which are important for the South and for Spain. We must begin a dialogue with Mexico and Mercosur.
And with regard to Morocco, those EUR 125 million must be released.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, I should first like to offer my warmest congratulations to the Finnish Presidency, Madam Foreign Minister and her colleagues on their lucid and precisely-formulated programme, which may not be one imbued with great vision, but which is nevertheless very forward-looking.
It is exactly what we need.
There will be more than enough problems to solve, the list is already before us, but best efforts have been made to this end.
I should like to stress the following, further to the points made by Mr Commissioner Fischler, giving particular attention to the two matters of Turkey and reconstruction in Yugoslavia. Firstly, I consider that it is right that as far as actual reconstruction work is concerned, particularly in Kosovo, the decisions should be taken on site.
That is a line of argument that this Parliament has represented and which we have defended, namely that greater local autonomy should be devolved to the area where the reconstruction work is actually to take place.
However, and I am probably prepared to go further than you are in this respect, Mr Commissioner, I believe that Greece and Thessaloniki would be a good location when it comes to aid for reconstruction in general for the Balkans or South-Eastern Europe, and particularly in co-operation with Mr Hombach.
This work cannot be undertaken in Pristina alone, both in view of infrastructure and political relations.
People may well say that is a bad compromise.
I don't believe it is.
I believe that they are two different things, but that they must be closely interwoven. But this decision is entirely reasonable, on the one hand Pristina for the actual reconstruction aid and, on the other, Thessaloniki.
Turning now to my second point, which is Turkey, I believe that we must state in a clear and unambiguous fashion that as far as we are concerned, the Öçalan case is not just about one man threatened with the death penalty, but rather we repudiate the death penalty in general.
He is a symbol for many others, for example Akim Birdal or others too, who are in prison, some of whom have not had legal proceedings taken against them, and some whose health is greatly impaired.
Turkey must at last demonstrate respect for human rights, for full democracy, particularly as regards the Kurdish question.
We do not support terrorism in either word or deed.
We support a political solution for Turkey; this is necessary in every sense, and I hope that the Finnish Presidency too will succeed in making this clear to Turkey.
Yes, there is a road that leads to Europe and there is also a road that leads to the European Union for Turkey, and the same rules apply to Turkey as apply to Latvia, Bratislava and Slovenia.
If Turkey is prepared to recognise these rules, then there is a clear and unambiguous road leading to Europe, but that means showing respect for democracy and showing respect for human rights.
Applause
Mr President, during the Finnish presidential term, the Council will be discussing many important issues.
The Finnish government's programme for its presidential term shows that Finland intends to carry out its most important tasks in an effective manner.
For my part, I would like to make two points. As far as the future of the Union is concerned the most important tasks of the Council will be tied, on the one hand, to enlargement, and, on the other, to improving the Union's decision-making machinery, both of which hinge on one another.
The large-scale programme of enlargement which is now on the horizon calls for a selection of bold reforms to the decision-making process.
The Union, which is achieving pan-European dimensions, can only function properly if it develops more as a union of independent states rather than a federation.
This must be taken into account when the mandate for the next Intergovernmental Conference is being drafted.
The mandate must be drafted in such a way that the Union's decision-making process is changed to cater for the needs of eastward enlargement as a whole and not the requirements of accession in respect of just five or six countries.
This being the case, action cannot be restricted merely to the points not covered by the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The Union has to change direction.
Any move towards a centralised federation of states on the American model must be checked; we should be aiming for a decentralised Union, and here the Swiss federation might serve as a model in principle.
The Swiss system is often referred to as a confederation.
Only a Union developing in this sort of direction will be able to enlarge in accordance with existing plans.
The Intergovernmental Conference mandate must therefore be broad in scope and include an investigation into the basic principles of the Union's decision-making process.
My other point is connected with the northern dimension.
During its presidential term, Finland must try to speed up developments associated with the northern dimension.
The next major step will be the development of the northern dimension as part of the union's internal policy.
The northern dimension means that the situation and circumstances pertaining to the northern regions should be taken into consideration in all Union decision making.
Mr President, I have lost count of the number of times we have discussed the problem of Balkan reconstruction in this Parliament.
We have spoken about Bosnia and have endlessly discussed the same problems of decentralisation.
I believe that the Balkans will not be reconstructed unless the European spirit of co-responsibility becomes the dominant spirit of politics there.
I think that the European Union can offer the spirit of European construction to the reconstruction of the Balkans and that will be the determining factor.
Nothing we say about Thessaloniki, Pristina or Sarajevo will have the same meaning, because today - and this is where the danger lies - in the method of reconstruction with the UN on one side, the European Union on another and the OSCE on yet another, we are creating institutions of dependence where the reconstruction of the Balkans depends on our will but the self-determination of the Balkan peoples in terms of managing themselves is not achieved.
The danger is that we plan and construct on behalf of others, but do not create the conditions necessary for the peoples and countries of the Balkans to take control of their own destiny.
It is for this reason that here, in this Parliament, we have already proposed, for example, a foundation for democracy which, starting with the Bosnian problems, should be extended to the whole of the Balkans.
This foundation would finance all the initiatives and contribute to the reconstruction of democratic structures in the Balkans, because, at the end of the day, the capacity for self-determination depends on the society's capacity to organise itself democratically.
This is where the great problem lies in those countries with authoritarian structures where democracy is not readily available.
Not until democracy is readily available will the reconstruction of the Balkans be possible.
Applause
Mr President, listening to the Finnish Presidency, it is evident that European Union policy, which only proliferates and aggravates the problems facing our citizens, will not undergo fundamental change.
That is precisely why it is essential for our citizens to step up their fight against the objectives of the European Union.
Thus, under the Finnish Presidency, we will see EU militarisation become increasingly subordinate to NATO.
Indeed, with the Presidency of a country which is not even a NATO member and which is renowned for its pacifist stance, we will also witness the continuation of the European Union's participation in the escapades of new NATO on a similar or even a much worse scale, as in the imperialist attack against Yugoslavia. We can also expect to see a lot more of the flagrant attacks on workers, in addition to an increase in unemployment and poverty, heightened levels of social and marginal inequality, continuation by the Turkish regime, with the support of the European Union, of the 25 year occupation of 40 % of Cyprus and the genocide of the Kurdish people, regarded by some as terrorists.
It is a crying shame that Öçalan has been refused asylum and that he was handed over to the Turkish authorities when it was certain that a death sentence would be imposed.
In other words, we are dealing with a combination of imperialistic policies and crass hypocracies, since, amongst other things, the European Union does its utmost for Human Rights and the rights of its citizens.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the disastrous war in the Balkans unleashed against a sovereign State without the approval of the United Nations Security Council and with no prior declaration of war only appears to have ended.
Of course, the Atlantic coalition, on the orders of American politicians, appears to have come out on top.
But at what price? We are now faced with the enormous destruction which we have caused, mostly with no serious military objective.
Having paid for this destruction, the European tax-payer will now be asked to pay for reconstruction.
Bitter derision and, material waste have added to the human and political damage, and we are now in the front line of Community confrontations, in a psychological situation which is aggravated by the destruction which we have brought about.
We are at risk of being ensnared in these conflicts, unless the European countries do not stand by powerless in the face of the final phase of ethnic cleansing which has not touched the universal sense of conscience to any great extent: we risk the elimination of the remaining Serb inhabitants, in that region, who have become a minority in their own country.
Respect for international law, for the sovereignty of States, for their territorial integrity, is not always without its problems, but the violation of that respect causes infinitely more problems.
This is what the authorities of the Union and the governments of the Member States should understand.
In that way we will perhaps be spared the still unforeseen dramas which may await us.
Mr President, over the next six months, the Finnish Presidency faces the weighty task of initiating substantial input to the economic and social reconstruction of Kosovo.
Indeed, it was the violent escalation of the drawn-out Kosovo affair that now places before us the prospect of a Stability Pact for the Balkans.
I should like to make a number of recommendations in connection with both interrelated themes.
If we are to consolidate the fragile peace on the legendary killing fields of Kosovo Polje, there must be optimum co-operation between the international organisations concerned; the UN for the return of the refugees, the OSCE in terms of constructing democracy, and the EU for economic and social construction.
If international co-ordination is lacking or falls short then the price paid for this will be institutional chaos.
For its part, the EU would do well to guard against this critical danger.
Thus, there should be no proliferation of EU bodies all concentrating on the one essential task: the reconstruction of Kosovo.
At the same time, Brussels must urge the rival Albanian parties, that is the Democratic League of Kosovo and the Kosovo Liberation Army, to work together.
Ultimately, those who pay have a fair amount of say in the matter.
We believe that it is precisely this kind of homegrown contribution that is indispensable to the realisation of an effective Stability Pact in the Balkans.
That is why all those engaged in the Balkans should also turn their hand to the wheel together; with every available support from the European Union.
A regional Stability Pact could be one solution, or a pan Balkans bureau for reconstruction.
Homegrown initiatives of this kind will boost Western stabilisation efforts in a way that cannot be underestimated.
For neither the region nor the European Union will be served by Balkan states entering into the race for Brussels on a purely individual basis.
As I speak, the notion, perhaps the distant dream, of a form of Benelux, is spreading through the Balkans.
This is certainly an encouraging sign, for even if we do not strive for political unity, we are certainly in favour of being on good neighbourly terms. Indeed, that is in every sense our Christian duty.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-in Office of the Council, ever since 1989, Kosovo has constantly been the subject of debate in this Parliament.
We have demanded action and warned against passivity on the part of the West.
I make this point so that those who are new here today know that we have been talking about this for a very long time.
Unfortunately, the Western governments' lack of action led to Milosevic first launching an assault on Croatia, then on Bosnia Herzegovina, and ultimately creating a bloodbath in Kosovo.
There are millions of refugees, umpteen thousand dead and misery everywhere we look in the region.
Many years of turning a blind eye is one of the reasons why it was necessary to undertake a military strike.
We are all glad that the joint action undertaken by the West and Russia brought the war to an end and made it possible for the Albanian refugees to return to their homeland.
But major tasks now await us which we must tackle energetically and efficiently, ensuring above all that we do not exclude the citizens of Kosovo in the process.
The errors that we made when undertaking reconstruction work in Bosnia Herzegovina must not be repeated.
If the salaries received by the international personnel in Bosnia Herzegovina are not in reasonable proportion to the aid which is received on site, then that is unacceptable and must not be repeated in Kosovo under any circumstances.
But we must also avoid making other errors of the kind that the Council is prepared to make now.
If the Council were to locate the Kosovo agency in Thessaloniki then inefficiency would be the order of the day.
This agency must be located in Kosovo, and not 200 Kilometres away in another country, when all the UN, OSCE, and UNHCR organisations and agencies are located in Kosovo.
However, I am convinced that Thessaloniki is the best location for the headquarters of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe.
I urgently call upon the Council and also the Greek government to vote for this option.
Permit me also to mention at this point that I cannot begin to see the point of next week's spectacle in Sarajevo.
One and a half days of spectacle will cost EUR 1.5 million, which is out of all proportion to the achievements that won't be made that day, since all the things that are supposed to be achieved there have already been decided on in Cologne.
How many small and medium-sized enterprises could we set up in Bosnia Herzegovina with this one and a half million euro? How many jobs could we create and how many more people could return than have been able to hitherto?
Now just a word for Serbia's benefit. A warm welcome to two representatives of the Serbian Opposition in the stand.
Esteemed colleagues, the Serbian resistance to the Milosevic regime must now be given all the help that we can offer, unlike two years ago when we left the Opposition to their own devices for fear of antagonising the regime.
Let us at last learn from our mistakes.
Applause
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as others have said previously, your Presidency has come at an exceptional time, just when the crisis has erupted in Kosovo and the European Union has made its contribution to dealing with it, after an institutional crisis which we have still not dealt with, after the election of a new Parliament in very unusual circumstances with voters taking less and less interest in an institution which has more and more powers and, finally, after the Cologne European Council meeting which launched important projects for the future.
In order to face up to this, Madam President, we require a Community machine which is in good working order, and I can assure you that my group will do everything possible so that this machine may be put in order as soon as possible.
You need it and we need it.
How can we allow a situation in which the resigning Commission has continued to operate since last March and is still intervening to try to undermine the implementation of a single price for books and to define the mandate for the next WTO negotiation, the importance of which for the future is well known.
This is not democratic and we will fight it.
On the other hand, we will help you with the rapid establishment of a serious and trustworthy Commission which is at the service of all Europeans.
Apart from these considerations, our candidate for the Presidency, Mr Romano Prodi, has just displayed the constructive and creative spirit with which he views the contribution of the Commission to the next Intergovernmental Conference.
Under your Presidency, it will fall to the Council to define the mandate of that IGC.
I believe that the presence by your side of a strong Commission making its contribution to the development of that mandate is equally essential.
We will certainly help you in this to ensure that everyone faces up to his or her responsibilities.
However, apart from that IGC, certain things will also depend on your Presidency, and we all know that certain improvements to the functioning of the institutions do not necessarily depend on a reform of the Treaties and that it concerns firstly - and perhaps principally - the Council.
It depends particularly on you.
As for Kosovo, I only have one thing to say. At the end of the day we Europeans often regret our lack of a common foreign and security policy.
We express our impatience in the face of these vacillations.
However, the President of your country has given a marvellous demonstration of the contribution that Europeans can make to peace on their continent and the development of a European solution to European problems.
The fact that the United Nations and Russia have been able to be incorporated into the peace process in Kosovo is due to united European action.
With regard to the Öçalan affair, Mrs President, I would like to say a few words. The first is to congratulate you for having made Tampere into a European Council primarily dedicated to asylum policy.
In fact I believe that the current Öçalan affair in Istanbul is also due to the fact that we were not at first able to implement an asylum policy worthy of its name.
Finally, in relation to the death penalty, please allow me to draw your attention and insist to you that your Presidency intervenes with all its powers in Istanbul as well as in Tehran, since in Tehran we know of thirteen judges who face the death penalty simply for having been accused of spying on behalf of Israel.
We are counting on you, Madam President.
Applause
Madam President, it is an extremely difficult task to rebuild Kosovo without disempowering the population and undermining the self-supporting powers of that country.
It is even harder to rebuild relations between the Serbs and the Albanians which make it possible for the Serbian minority to remain in Kosovo.
This can only be achieved if legal proceedings are initiated against murderers, rapists and war criminals.
This is one of the genuinely difficult tasks.
The most difficult of all will be to secure long-term peace.
We must learn to combine the military iron gloves of NATO with the economic velvet gloves of the EU and provide co-operation and aid for economic and democratic development.
We in the EU must establish an anteroom to those Balkan states which intend to develop along the lines of democracy and the market economy.
If they hope to perhaps one day become members of the European Union, we can strengthen the democratic forces in the same way as was successful for other previous dictatorships in Southern Europe.
We must also provide humanitarian aid to Serbia, insofar as this can be achieved without supporting the Milosevic regime, and we must urge municipal leaders, private associations and others to work with the democratic forces in both Kosovo and Serbia.
With regard to the reconstruction agency, I would like to thank Mr Fischler for his frankness.
I have seldom heard a Commissioner distance himself so clearly, and in such a well-reasoned manner, from a Council Resolution.
The Council has entered into a shameful, face-saving compromise for those who promised to locate the centre in Thessaloniki.
Now, the Headquarters will be in Thessaloniki, whilst those carrying out the work will be in Pristina. What on earth is that all about?
I ask all the Union's citizens to note that it is therefore not the Commission and the Parliament but their own governments which cannot grasp something as simple as the fact that the reconstruction work in Kosovo must be carried out in Kosovo and from Kosovo.
We in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party will vigorously contest the Resolution.
It simply won't do.
It must be amended.
Applause
Mr President, in addition to Kosovo we are currently dealing with the Öçalan case as well, which we could in fact have handled better as Europeans if we hadn't made so many mistakes.
Abdullah Öçalan was in Italy. Abdullah Öçalan was in Greece.
My country, Germany, didn't want him.
He was not supposed to remain in Italy and neither did he wish to.
He was not permitted to be in Greece.
Now he is in Turkey.
Our collective failure in the Öçalan case makes it difficult for us to explain to many people in Turkey, irrespective as to whether they are Turks or Kurds, why we are against the death penalty in principle, and that, as Mr Swoboda has just said, we do not just oppose the death penalty on account of Mr Öçalan, but in principle.
We challenge the Turkish Parliament to abolish the death penalty once and for all, because it is very much in our interest to welcome Turkey amongst us as a European country amongst equal partners.
For this reason, we are convinced that to use the death penalty in the Öçalan case would not be the right answer to the long-standing Kurdish question and certainly cannot be an alternative solution.
The Öçalan case could also be an opportunity for the people, for the Turks, for the Kurds in Anatolia and for the country, the Republic of Turkey, if the Turkish government and the Turkish Parliament only had the will for this to be so.
In this respect, our resolution, which hopefully we will adopt tomorrow, is also an appeal to our Turkish colleagues in Ankara.
Working together, we could ensure that one day it will not be necessary to conduct debates in this exalted Chamber on a democratic Republic of Turkey.
I hope that together we will succeed in bringing this about.
Mr President, between the devil of Milosevic and the deep blue sea of NATO: this is the feeling of most of the Serbian democratic opposition to Milosevic.
Between the violence of Serbian paramilitary forces, the intimidation and violence of the KLA and NATO bombs falling from the sky: this is the sentiment of those Kosovo Albanian troops who chose to fight for their rights without resorting to violence.
Against the NATO bombings and against nationalism and the homicidal and suicidal politics of Milosevic: this is the feeling of millions and millions of European men and women who hold the respect of human rights to be fundamental, wherever they have been violated: in Kosovo, Kurdistan, Palestine or Iran.
These are the democratic, peaceful forces which should have been supported by the international community.
Obviously, Milosevic had and has to be stopped, as the KLA had and has to be stopped, each responsible in different ways.
Now, after NATO has destroyed and laid waste in the name of the defence of human rights, we must rebuild.
We hope and wish to act in this Parliament so that construction takes place in such a way that human resources and the dignity of each side involved in the conflict are respected and valued during the process, and that colonisation by Europe or the United States World Bank is avoided.
Kosovo must be reconstructed with its present and past inhabitants - both Albanian and Serbian - as protagonists.
At the same time, Serbia and Montenegro and the infrastructures laid to waste and destroyed by air raids, must be rebuilt, and the damage to the environment investigated and remedied.
The reconstruction of Kosovo must focus not only on the economy and trade, but also on the social, civil and democratic fabric.
To achieve this, reconstruction must be carried out through the involvement of local communities, with exchanges between municipalities, universities, men and women of the European Union, Kosovo and the Republic of Yugoslavia.
For the war to be truly erased from the picture, we must bring about reconciliation, create societies and build democracy. This is our challenge.
Mr President, NATO intervened in Yugoslavia maintaining that they were defending Kosovans from Serb persecution, but no-one intervened to defend the Kurds from Turkish persecution.
This is the crux of the Öçalan issue: the fact that laws still exist in too many national legal codes which punish as a crime the exercising of peoples' rights to self-determination in its extreme form of secession, even when non-violent, democratic means are employed.
This is the meaning of Article 125 of the Turkish Penal Code, which, as Mr Kaleli, the Turkish ambassador, stated right here in Strasbourg, follows the example of Article 241 of the Italian Penal Code, which was issued at the time of the Fascists and is still in force.
Therefore, for as long as the European Parliament focuses its attention solely on whether Öçalan's death sentence will be enforced, without dealing with the question of peoples' rights to self-determination, it will scratch the surface of the problem but never manage to resolve it.
Mr President, I should very much like to congratulate the President of the Finnish Council Presidency on the statement she has just made, particularly with regard to the comments she made on Kosovo and the Balkans.
As the Parliament of a union of democratic constitutional States how can we do otherwise than to advocate a just peace and reconciliation in that region, and particularly in Kosovo.
That is the heart of the matter and we have gained that insight particularly during the debates on and inquiry into the enlargement of the European Union, a democratic constitutional state, that is the heart of our movement, of our Union.
I also think that we are justified in saying that everything depends on this, both the safety of the citizens and the development of the economy in the regions concerned.
Nothing can be achieved when there is no constitutional state.
I believe that we must also endeavour in earnest to see that particularly the other aspects associated with law and government in Kosovo are also given the attention they deserve.
It is about the safety of the citizens, and particularly those who are returning.
I should like in particular to draw your attention to the fact that there are perhaps 2000 or maybe more Kosovan prisoners who have been taken to Serbia by the withdrawing Serbian troops.
I feel that there should be no question of us leaving them to their fate, but that we in this Parliament, the Council and the Commission should give our full attention to the situation.
Equally, if we are to see justice done then we will have to ensure that full co-operation is given to the International Tribunal in The Hague in order to pursue the criminals that have wrought havoc in Kosovo, and not just in Kosovo but now at last in Bosnia too.
Why have Karadzic and Mladic still not been arrested? If that doesn't happen, Mr President, then we can more or less forget being able to achieve reconstruction in the region in any real sense.
If we talk about a Stability Pact then it isn't about gagging those who are screaming for justice, but about a just peace, and that demands action and not keeping serious crimes under wraps.
I think that we should also urge parties and groups in Kosovo towards political participation in government.
That is why the resolution also states how important it is for Mr Rugova to be present in Kosovo.
On the subject of which, it will not do for the most important figures not to be present at all times when they too have a role to play in the process of political reconstruction, also perhaps in co-operation with other parties that have emerged from the KLA.
We are going to have to get everyone there wishing to take political responsibility used to the fact that they are responsible in an administrative sense, so that later on, when elections take place, the population will also be able to see whom it can trust.
I think that the Stability Pact is of great importance for the wider region.
For far too long now, we as the European Union have taken measures, for example against Serbia, measures which were necessary but which were taken at no cost whatsoever to ourselves.
It was Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the surrounding regions, which paid the price.
It is imperative that we offer financial compensation here, but by no means that alone.
We will also have to create economic opportunities so that the European Union, by taking a more generous stance, is able to recompense the economic damage done in this area.
I believe that the whole process of development, also in terms of society, is of great importance.
The same applies to the insights we have gained from the enlargement process.
Democracy can only grow if the population truly experiences it.
I should like to close by quoting the Bishop of Kosovo: 'Nothing will ever become of Serbia unless it is transformed into a democratic constitutional state' .
The Parliament has never given up hoping for this.
Mr President, Madam Foreign Minister, it is shameful and deeply regrettable that now, just as so many other international problems begin to approach a solution, it has not yet been possible to treat the Kurdish question in a civilised way. It continues to be a bleeding wound in our continent.
Despite international protests, including from this Chamber, the Turkish government continues not merely to refuse to recognise but also to systematically violate the basic rights of the Kurdish people.
Thousands of people have been killed and maimed in the long years of this conflict.
The arrest and death sentence of the PKK leader Öçalan and the strong reactions caused by this have emphasised the need for a rapid solution.
Both Turkey and the Kurds must demonstrate the will to sit down at the conference table and must, in a peaceful and democratic way, find a solution in order to end the suffering.
Hopefully, the EU and the Finnish Presidency will be able to play an active role in this process.
It goes without saying that all Members of the Parliament distance themselves from Öçalan's methods and actions. I, nevertheless, believe that we are all ready to declare that capital punishment will not bring the problem closer to a solution.
Capital punishment can never be the answer to any problem.
We Liberals will never cease to condemn this barbaric act wherever it may occur.
In those countries which have applied for membership of the Union and where capital punishment still exists we are currently witnessing how it is being abolished.
Since we hope that Turkey also will be welcomed to the European Union within the next few years, we appeal to Turkey not only to suspend Öçalan's death sentence, but also to work towards the general abolition of capital punishment in Turkey.
To conclude, I would like to urge the Turkish government on behalf of the Liberal Group to go even further and to use this opportunity in order to take the initiative for negotiations and to implement those reforms which are necessary in order to guarantee the political, human and cultural rights of the Kurds.
Mr President, Madam Minister, I agree with you that the death sentence imposed on the Kurdish leader Mr Öçalan constitutes a significant challenge for the international community, since it violates minimum requirements in terms of justice as well as respect for human rights.
Our group condemned both the violation of human rights on the part of Belgrade and the war by NATO against Yugoslavia, as an illegal, unjust and immoral war.
For this reason, despite the violation of human rights and the ethnic cleansing against the Kurds by the Turkish regime, our group does not request that the European Union nor NATO bomb Turkey.
We are prudent and we are sensible.
On the contrary, we believe that the two problems that you have mentioned - the death sentence and respect for the human rights of the Kurdish ethnic minority - require a peaceful, political solution.
The death sentence against Mr Öçalan must be lifted.
In addition, the European Union must demand that the Turkish government maintains a dialogue with the Kurds, a dialogue which resolves the Kurdish claims for autonomy within Turkey, as well as respect for democratic rights.
In the same way that there are Autonomous Communities in Spain, Länder in Germany or Communities in Belgium, etc., there should also be a similar solution in Turkey for the Kurds, so that they may enjoy, in the same way that you have indicated in Finland, the ability to speak their own language, a free press reflecting their problems and a regional Parliament.
To this end, we believe that the European Union and the European Parliament should react speedily and thoroughly, so that Turkey may embark on a democratic path and participate in this greater Europe which stretches from Portugal to Russia.
Mr President, the programme of the Finnish Presidency, as presented, seems a very positive one, even though it does not differ greatly from the programmes of other Presidencies.
The question is whether or not there is the basic political will throughout the whole of Europe to ensure its progress.
Naturally, it is a welcomed sign that one of its long-term objectives is to advocate an Intergovernmental Conference which will deal with all institutional issues, in particular the hitherto largely unchecked issue of maintaining institutional balance.
Of course, rebuilding Kosovo and intervention in the Western Balkans are matters requiring immediate attention but the question is: have we learned from past mistakes? I have the feeling that European intervention and investment in the Balkans has remained very much on an individual rather than an institutional level.
If we fail to recognise our past mistakes, I do not think that we will be able to proceed in the future and it must be said that, from now on, it all boils down to whether we can deal with issues relating to democratic progress without the use of weapons.
That is what is important.
As regards the issue of the reconstruction agency and of Thessaloniki, I would like to say that, whilst the solution may be a simple and straightforward one, let us not forget that we are primarily talking about European intervention.
When there is a neighbouring country - and the same would be true, Mr President, if the situation were in Hungary, in which case the base for intervention would probably be in Austria - the question is not only whether the latter can and should benefit but also whether those neighbouring countries which border problematic areas really can share their experience about what is happening in the area.
Therefore, this issue should be examined from a political, practical and commercial perspective.
The security policy which the President referred to is, I believe, one of the most important issues but one which once again calls for political will.
We have decided to narrow the gap between high-sounding proclamations and the practicalities of their implementation.
Of course, all the organisations will work together and experience has it that wherever many international organisations are involved, we have had results.
Issues concerning freedom and security are of utmost importance.
Madam President, at the Tampere Council, we must decide to fight against drugs, organised crime and the threat to the safety of our citizens. We must also invest in the protection of citizens and not compromise with that 'dark side' which promotes closer links between terrorism, trade in arms and nuclear weapons and organised crime.
Generally, our policy must not be one of compromise with the status quo, but of war against it.
Only in this way can we ensure the protection of our citizens.
The resignation of the Commission proves that we do not just need institutions - we also need the control mechanisms and the collective will to assign the European Commission the role it deserves. In addition, we have to fill the democratic void - not, as I see it, within the European Parliament but between the Council and the Commission.
We must return to the fundamental principles which advocate real co-ordination between social and economic policies.
We must intensify our social intervention, Madam President, since guidelines are not enough.
I am afraid that the problems are getting out of hand and our way of tackling them is far too bureaucratic.
I wish, of course, to congratulate the Finnish Presidency for its ambitious programme.
We know that the Finnish Presidency will do all that it can.
The issue is whether the whole Council is determined, and if we are all determined for that matter, to meet the challenges of these difficult times of heavy competition and internationalisation, and to respond to all the problems, including Third World development, where the support of Europe is vital. We also need to ensure the success of enlargement which can only be made possible, Madam President, if we increase our existing pool of resources.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I wish to welcome the Finnish Presidency for the usual reasons but also for particularly personal reasons.
During a particularly dark period of my country's history, when freedom of movement was effectively forbidden, Finland was the first country which I was able to visit using my journalistic immunity.
It was the first European country where I saw with my own eyes what democracy and socialism mean and what it means for a nation to live freely and not under military rule.
It was a great eye-opener for me and has remained with me throughout my life.
Madam President, Finland is a country with great experience of surviving peacefully under difficult conditions and with difficult neighbouring countries. It is the ideal country to lead our increasingly urgent endeavours for Balkan reconstruction and already President Ahtisaari has contributed a great deal to this process.
I regret that I cannot speak more on your very interesting programme, but unfortunately political issues have arisen here which I am obliged to comment on.
Firstly, Commissioner Fischler's attack on the decision to locate the reconstruction agency in Thessaloniki.
He suggested that this was just a means of getting aid for the area, meaning Greece.
I don't know when he last visited Thessaloniki but I can assure him that it is a thriving city and the establishment of this centre there will not necessarily add anything to the city.
Surely, however, it will be very economical for the European Union to establish the Centre in Thessaloniki. I don't know if the Commission has done its home-work and realised that the alternative would mean higher salaries, that there is no infrastructure in Pristina and that it would have to pay out a great deal to ensure the safety of its staff who would be in danger in an area where there is little safety.
So if you consider that, under these circumstances, Pristina is an ideal place to establish an international centre, a central administration covering not only Kosovo but also all of the Balkans, then I regret to say that your comments are not only insincere but are also politically motivated. It makes me wonder how a Commission which no longer has any political authority and whose ethical reputation has been largely discredited, particularly following the Bangemann case, dares to adopt such a stance and campaign against the decisions of the Council of Ministers.
I am dumbfounded, Mr Commissioner!
As regards Turkey, Madam Minister, I personally wish to see Turkey heading in the direction of Europeanisation since that will be better for Greece.
I would agree with the need for a special strategy for Turkey but please take into consideration that a similar strategy of guarantees for Greece is required by the European Union.
Greece is the only country of the European Union whose borders are threatened and disputed by the very country which everyone - we Greeks included - truly wishes to welcome with open arms and to see become a European country.
As regards Öçalan, now regarded by many as a terrorist - just as Arafat and the IRA were terrorists before we accepted them as leaders of their people - the least we can do for him, since the idea of political asylum seems to have fallen by the wayside, is, as our colleague so aptly put it, to save his life if that is what it takes to rid ourselves of the stigma that, up until now, has been attached to our conduct in the matter.
Madam Minister, I apologise for not being able to stay for your reply as I have another urgent commitment, but I would like to send a few words of Finnish to your country: Minä rakastan sinua ( I love you).
Mr President, today we have heard two Foreign Ministers speaking on the issue of Turkey.
We heard Mr Fischer, the great general of the European Union, who is in command of the incursions in the Balkans, speaking about Turkey and the only thing he said was that in Helsinki Turkey should be upgraded to a preaccession state.
What Mr Fischer seems to have forgotten, what he failed to recall, what just escaped him, was the Öçalan factor and, not least, the existence of 20 million Kurds in Turkey.
The Finnish government minister made reference to the Öçalan case which was most encouraging.
But we must not limit ourselves to a few simple references in our speeches.
There are two very good reasons why the European Union should intervene proactively.
The first is that we were under the impression that it was interested in human rights both within the Balkans and further afield.
So, there are 2 million Kosovars, fine - but what about the 30 million or so Kurds?
The second reason is that the European Union is guilty of not granting asylum to Öçalan.
In this case, we need actual intervention, not words.
I would like to end, Mr President, with a question to the President-in-Office of the Council of Foreign Ministers: If Turkey cannot give assurances for Öçalan's life and if Turkey does not take steps to ensure the political rights of the Kurds, then does the Finnish Presidency believe that Turkey should proceed to the preaccession stage in Helsinki? I would like an answer from the Minister.
Mr President, firstly, I should like to congratulate Finland on the Presidency and I should also like to compliment the Finnish government on the sound and refreshing manner in which it is approaching this task.
I shall not talk about Kosovo, for my colleagues Doris Pack and Arie Oostlander have already done that.
I want to say something about the rest of your programme, because there are a number of interesting points there too.
Firstly, the problematic area relating to asylum seekers.
I understand that you are to organise a special summit on this subject.
For many years now, there have been calls for effective policies at the European level in this area and we too advocate improved harmonisation of our legislation in this field, both in terms of admission procedures and reception facilities.
We advocate improved distribution of asylum seekers across the European Member States so that it is not a case of a few Member States, and there are four or five of them, receiving the vast majority of asylum seekers and the others doing far too little.
If you see an opportunity to achieve something in this respect then I think you will have achieved something very worthwhile for Europe.
A second point on your agenda is a transparent Europe free of fraud.
In my country, the Netherlands, we have a law on openness in government with maximum transparency and Finland has the same tradition.
I understand that a number of international researchers have recently produced an excellent proposal relating to openness of government and transparency for the European Union.
I shall see that you receive this proposal.
It is a full regulation with explanatory notes, etc.
I hope that we shall at last have the opportunity to implement something of this kind.
Then I saw to my surprise that you have also put the subject of taxation high on your agenda.
That is interesting, particularly with there being a new Commissioner from the Netherlands in that field.
I should like to recommend that you concentrate above all on taxation pertaining to trade and industry, for there is a great deal that needs to be brought into line there.
But I should also like to ask you to give attention to one particular area of income tax and that is the equal treatment of men and women.
The Parliament has been asking for this for more than ten years.
If you could make a first move in this respect and receive support from Mr Bolkestein then you will also be doing something very positive for Europe.
To conclude, Mr President, the subject of human rights.
I have seen that you wish to undertake a number of endeavours in this field too.
Firstly, in relation to Yugoslavia. I sincerely hope, and concur with Doris Pack and Arie Oostlander in this respect, that you take the opportunity to exert such pressure on Yugoslavia that those who have violated human rights there are indeed handed over to the Tribunal in the Hague.
I also hope that you can prevent the death penalty from being carried out in Turkey for I believe that would be a disgrace for Europe.
Lastly, a subject I am particularly keen for you to give a great deal of attention to is Burma.
I hear that the Finnish Presidency has already organised a visit to Burma.
Earlier this week, a request was made for attention to be given to the subject.
I belong to the international committee that supports Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi.
I hope to travel to Thailand and Burma in three weeks' time and to speak to all parties concerned.
I sincerely hope that you will take the opportunity to at last bring about progress where Burma is concerned.
I think that you would receive a great deal of support from this Parliament. I think that you would then have performed a valuable task for democracy in the ASEAN countries.
I wish you a great deal of luck and success.
It is your first Presidency but it appears to me that you really are going to do it well.
Mr President, although our hemicycle is largely empty, I do not want to miss this opportunity, from the benches of this Assembly, to greet and wish the best of luck to my former colleague, Tarya Halonen.
There is a new Presidency, which does not resemble the last one very much, but shouldn't we point out some similarities nonetheless? The German Presidency was concerned with putting together its key work, Agenda 2000, and faced two major crises, that of the Commission, and the much more serious one of the war in Kosovo.
The Finnish Presidency has been entrusted by the European Council with a number of important projects which could be grouped together under the heading 'Preparation for Europe's Future' .
Indeed, if it manages to bring to a successful conclusion the Tampere Extraordinary Summit, which concerns the security of Europe's citizens, the preparation of a European defence system, through the integration of the WEU with the European Union, the launch of a new round of enlargement in December, and finally, the implementation of the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe, the Finnish Presidency will have been a great Presidency of transition for the 21st century.
Finland, thanks to the commitment and tenacity of its President, Martti Ahtisaari, caused a shift in the mind set in Kosovo from one of war to one of peace.
Together with the German Presidency, the Finnish President clearly articulated Europe's voice at the opportune moment.
In Kosovo, and throughout the region devastated by war, almost everything remains to be done: to guarantee an orderly return of the refugees, to build democratic institutions, to set up infrastructures, to reconstruct the economy and make it work.
Well, in order to overcome all of these challenges, the international community, particularly Europe, will have to commit a huge amount of human and financial resources.
Are we ready for that? The necessary funds have not, of course, been provided for in the financial projections.
The sums of money which have been announced seem largely insufficient, and the ECO/FIN Council, as it has done many times before, is already questioning formal decisions taken elsewhere.
If I have one piece of advice to offer you today, Mrs Halonen, one suggestion to make, it is that you should ensure that these words are followed up with action.
The great European plan for definitive peacemaking in the Balkans must not fall victim to complicated and penny-pinching calculations.
Mr President, Kosovo is a small economy.
The European Union could subsidise Kosovo for ever and hardly notice it.
But surely this is not an acceptable solution.
As soon as possible, we must aim to have Kosovo stand on its own economic feet.
That inevitably means external trade.
However, there is a problem in redeveloping Kosovo's trade.
Its biggest trading partner in the past and almost certainly in the future must be its neighbour immediately to the north, Serbia proper.
Not only that but its trade routes to much of the rest of Europe past through Serbia.
And yet Serbia is a pariah, embargoed, its infrastructure largely destroyed, its economy shattered.
Here we have a conundrum: how do we get Kosovo to stand on its own feet unless we can rehabilitate Serbia also?
The current international community's set purpose is that Milosevic and his regime must be got rid of and then everything is possible.
Until he goes, not a penny - well, we heard earlier, hardly a penny. But what if Milosevic does not go?
Let us hope that he does, but if he does not, have we begun to estimate the cost of restoring Serbia's infrastructure and productive economy? Remember, Serbia was a sizeable, developed industrial economy, a vital trading partner and transport corridor for Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Greece, as well as Kosovo and all the former Yugoslav Republics.
So my question to the President-in-Office of the Council and to the Commission is this: how far have you thought through the political steps, the economic and financial commitments that are needed to bring about a free and democratic Serbia and reintegrate a free and democratic Serbia into the European economy and body politic?
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, as rapporteur for the rules governing Members of Parliament, I would like to make a couple of observations.
In December 1998, the European Parliament adopted a statute with a qualified majority, a decision which was confirmed in May of this year by an overwhelming majority.
We therefore have a statute, all that is now required is the approval of the Council.
It is not enough that the Council submits an alternative draft.
That is no solution.
I would like to remind you that the European Commission has unequivocally approved the statute of the European Parliament.
Permit me to make a few observations regarding the principles which will govern our actions.
One thing is for sure; this statute will not be drawn up by the press, be it the Swedish press, the British press, the Dutch press or that of any other country.
Not even the highly regarded French daily Libération will write this statute, nor shall we allow ourselves to be governed by a statute produced by civil servants.
We are not children who can be taken to task; we shall not be harassed by civil servants.
Therefore, I would recommend that the Finnish Presidency gently shelves the Council document.
We will not place ourselves in the Babylonian Captivity of the Council.
We will preserve the Parliament's autonomy and reject any type of guardianship over the Parliament.
Applause
We shall make constructive proposals to the Finnish Presidency.
I look forward to initial talks taking place at the beginning of September.
My request to the Finnish Presidency is that the talks, which will be necessary, be conducted at the highest possible political level.
In this way, I believe the success we are after will be achieved as soon as possible.
Mr President, we are pinning high hopes on the Finnish Presidency.
We are also pinning our hopes on the Finnish Presidency as far as the European Parliament's involvement in drawing up the catalogue of fundamental rights is concerned.
The Council cannot seriously be considering the option that only two members of Parliament collaborate on this catalogue of fundamental rights.
Without a minimum of 15 delegates, an imbalance will exist between the European Parliament and the national Members of Parliament, where such a balance is required.
Applause
Madam Minister, since 11 February, when our Parliament reacted to the first news of the massacres in Kosovo, it has ceaselessly denounced the atrocities committed in that province, caught up again in that hellish spiral of violence and fear which has caused so much suffering through the systematic violation of a human being's most basic rights, one of the first of which is that of being able to stay in the place where one was born, and to retain the culture one has grown up with.
The dynamic reaction of the Union's governments has been supported by the large majority of European citizens.
Public opinion can be congratulated for the fact that, for the first time in centuries, a war has been fought, not in the defence of national or private interests, but in order that what is right should triumph.
If many of us feared seven years ago, that Europe had been killed in Sarajevo, our President is all the more right when he says this morning that a new Europe should be born in Pristina.
However, the political aim, which caused us to resort to force, is still far from being achieved.
Peace needs to be rebuilt there.
Allied soldiers, with their Russian partners, are on the ground to calm people's fears and in time, to allow reconciliation to take place.
They will only be effective if the whole of Europe, and its Parliamentary representatives at the highest level are up to the task of taking over from them.
Nicole Fontaine committed herself this morning to contributing personally to this undertaking.
I think that I am speaking on behalf of most of this Assembly when I say that we approve of this initiative, and that many of us would like to join her in this.
It has been said that Parliament should provide itself with the means for this action through its budgetary powers.
This is the message that several of us were expecting, because we were worried to discover the absence of any specific funds and feared that in these circumstances we might be tempted to rob Peter to pay PauI by sacrificing steps which were considered essential at the time the budget was set.
I am therefore repeating the request that our colleague, Mr Poos, has just made.
We know that the healthy management of the budget during the last Parliamentary term has left us with sufficient means to deal with Kosovo's immediate needs.
We fervently hope that this will be done.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, repairing the dramatic material and, above all, moral consequences of the Kosovo drama, collaborating with the International Criminal Court so that the crimes committed do not go unpunished, laying down the foundations for the economic development of the area so as to promote reconciliation between the Kosovan Albanian and Serbian populations, must be matters of the utmost priority for the European Union.
Another priority must be the promotion of enlargement in order to safeguard the peace and political stability of the continent.
To this end I have heard, Madam President, with satisfaction, that both issues are political priorities of the Presidency, together with the creation of a catalogue of human rights.
I was also satisfied to hear, passing on to other matters, although no less important, of its concern about the creation of jobs and improvements in the well-being of our citizens.
In the global world of today, job-creation measures, in order to be genuinely effective, must be adopted within a global framework.
Hence the need for this Presidency to pay particular attention also to the preparation of the next Millennium round.
Not only to continue with the deregulation of world trade, but also to provide instruments with which to fight fraud and dishonest commercial practices and to guarantee reciprocal compliance with the regulations governing international trade to achieve the simplification and generalisation of customs procedures under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, in order, in a word, that the opening up of markets may constitute a genuine opportunity which will create jobs and contribute to the well-being of the citizens of the European Union.
Mr President, most of the contributions in this debate have been about the big global issues that appear on our television sets.
I want to raise something with the Presidency which was in the small print of her remarks.
It is something which affects millions of our fellow citizens in Europe, not once in a while, but every day of every year, and that is mental illness.
I was so pleased when the Finnish Government decided to make mental health promotion one of their priorities for their presidency.
That is welcome.
It is important.
It is important because as the World Bank showed, this is the fastest growing area of health burden throughout the world.
It is important because as the United Nations has declared, it is to be one of the priorities for the UN for the next fifty years, as declared by Boutros-Boutros-Ghali, Secretary General.
It is important because, as the Harvard World Bank report showed, mental disorder accounts for some 10.5 % of the global health burden and that is forecast to rise to 15 % by the year 2020.
It is important because five of the ten leading causes of disability are psychiatric, with the first of those, unipolar depression, accounting for some 10 % of life with disability.
It is important because psychiatric and neurological conditions cause 28 % of lives with disability.
It is important because suicide is the tenth most important cause of death in the world - in the United Kingdom it is the ninth, ahead of road accidents.
It is important because surveys show that one in three people visiting their doctors have a mental health problem but only one in six are diagnosed as such.
It is important because one in seven of us have a mental health problem at any one time.
One in three of us will during our lifetime.
It is not a forgettable minority. Nothing is more important among all the Finnish pledges than their pledge to take up the cause of people and their families who suffer not just an illness or a disability but disadvantage and stigma too.
We need to encourage good mental health.
We need to help prevent illness and we need to educate peoples and governments in Europe that mental illness is not to be feared, not to be ignored.
It can be cured, it can be treated and millions of our fellow citizens can lead full and fulfilled lives if we...
The President cut the speaker off
I would also like to commend the Finnish Presidency on another of their initiatives which is the attention they are giving to the development of the information society.
This issue is going to affect the lives of every citizen in the European Union.
We have crucial decisions to make in the Union and in the regulation of information technology over the next five years.
I am very much hoping that the Finnish Presidency will give us the right framework within which those decisions will be taken.
I would just like to set out some pointers for that.
The first pointer is that it is quite clear that technology runs ahead of politicians.
I cannot resist pointing out, Mr President, that we do not yet have computers or Internet access in this splendid building.
Indeed, I suspect that many of our colleagues are not as literate in technology as they should be, but that technology is going to have a huge effect on opening up the single market and we must make sure, first of all, that legislation does not restrict the ability of people to innovate and introduce changes and new forms of electronic commerce.
Secondly, we must ensure that consumers powerfully use this technology.
The information society is going to be one in which consumers have tremendous power to shop all over the world and particularly within the boundaries of the single market.
I have to say that over the next five years the power of electronic commerce will act more quickly to create the single market than any amount of harmonising legislation that we might care to introduce in this Chamber or anywhere else.
It will be crucial in creating the single market.
Finally, of course, it will create jobs.
Electronic commerce is giving small entrepreneurs access to global markets cheaply, quickly and effectively.
It is encouraging the development of new forms of small business and we must continue to allow those new businesses to grow.
And so, in conclusion, Mr President, Finland with its great strength in computers and communications is ideally placed to lead us.
There are three words I would leave you with if I may - openness, flexibility and innovation.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 p.m.
Position of Mr Bangemann
The next item on the agenda concerns the statements by the Council and the Commission on the appointment of Martin Bangemann to a post in the private sector.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, right at the start, I would also like to congratulate you on your election to this Parliament.
I wish you all every success in the discharge of your demanding duties.
As a representative of the country that now holds the Presidency, I shall be personally present at the part-session in September.
I really appreciate having the opportunity to work together with you all.
In a letter from him dated 9 June, Mr Bangemann, then Member of the Commission, informed the then President of the Commission, Gerhard Schröder, of his intention to enter the service of a private telecommunications company, the Spanish firm Telefónica .
The Council immediately looked into the matter, deciding on 9 July to take the case to the European Court of Justice, on the basis of Article 213 (2(3)) of the EC Treaty and the regulations contained in the ECSC Treaty and the Euratom Treaty.
Under the EC Treaty, Members of the Commission must make a solemn declaration, when commencing their duties, that they will honour their obligations of membership, during their term of office and after it has ended, and behave with integrity and discretion, in the acceptance, after their term of office has ended, of certain appointments or benefits.
In the view of the Council, Mr Bangemann, who has, since 1992, been the Commission Member expressly responsible for telecommunications, was in breach of the regulations.
The Council believes he was under an obligation to decline Telefónica's offer.
The Court will decide whether the Member of the Commission was in breach of the EC Treaty or not.
While handling the Bangemann case, the Council noticed with satisfaction how swiftly the future President of the Commission was to act after the case was brought.
It is the common objective of the Council, the future President of the Commission, Romano Prodi, and all the candidates for membership of the Commission to prevent the repetition in future of similar conflicts of interest, such as that which occurred in the Bangemann case.
Professor Prodi, in his own programme of reforms for the Commission, has stressed the need for transparency, efficiency and accountability.
When he spoke earlier today here in the European Parliament, he told us what demands he would be making in practice on the Members of the new Commission.
For example, there will be clear rules for new Members regarding what sort of posts would be appropriate for them to take up on departure from the Commission.
Members of the Commission must also, if requested, allow an independent ethics committee to investigate any future post up to a year after they have ceased to hold office, to ensure the new job is compatible in its nature with the work of the Commission.
The Council and its President warmly support the rules on behaviour that Romano Prodi has given notice of, and they are a good start on the road to comprehensive reforms.
Besides the Members of the Commission, all others in the service of the institutions of the Union must be able to demonstrate that they are adhering to the principle of transparency and complying with commonly accepted rules of behaviour.
I am happy to note that the Commission has acted in accordance with the wishes of both the Council and Parliament and begun preparations to alter rules relating to personnel policy.
We need precise rules.
Only credible reforms will bring the Commission and the Union as a whole closer to the public and increase the confidence of our citizens in the Union and its institutions.
Mr President, as Finland is bilingual, I will conclude my contribution in Swedish.
As President of the European Union, Finland will place great emphasis on openness, efficiency and accountability.
The reform process has been initiated in all institutions, which is due, amongst others, to the European Parliament, which on various occasions has drawn attention to these problems.
On the other hand, there is still a lot to be done.
I hope that all EU institutions take responsibility by showing the necessary readiness to undergo reform in this work.
Can I join Mr Sasi in congratulating Members of the House on the election that they achieved to this Parliament and particularly congratulate, as Mr Sasi did, the new Members of the House?
I hope that they will find their tasks and their career here are both fascinating and fulfilling in the service of the people who have elected them.
The resolution for debate relates to specific events and to principles concerning the conduct of Commissioners.
I will therefore respond on behalf of the Commission by reporting briefly on those events and on the Commission's reaction to them.
On 29 June 1999, the President of the Commission, Mr Santer was made aware of the decision of Mr Bangemann to depart from the Commission in order to take up a private sector appointment two days later on 1 July 1999.
Mr Santer wrote to Mr Bangemann on 30 June 1999 informing him that he would be put on functional leave and that his responsibilities would be transferred to a colleague in the Commission.
In that letter, Mr Santer stipulated that Mr Bangemann could not commence his new duties and his new activities until the procedure set out in Article 215 of the Treaty had been completed and he also said that he would submit to the College the question of the compatibility of that planned appointment with Article 213 of the Treaty.
On 1 July 1999, the Commission discussed the matter before beginning its formal scheduled meeting.
Mr Bangemann attended those proceedings and stated that he had not acted and would not act in ways that breached Article 213.
The Commission formally took note of those statements from Mr Bangemann.
The House will be familiar with Article 213 which, amongst other things, requires Members of the Commission in particular 'to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance, after they have ceased to hold office, of certain appointments'.
All Commissioners, Mr President, appear before the Court of Justice to swear an oath to that effect on taking up office.
At the meeting held on 1 July 1999, Commissioners expressed their views to Mr Bangemann and he then withdrew from the room.
Commissioners subsequently considered the issues raised by these events and their conclusions are set out in a statement which was published on 1 July 1999 and extensively reported.
On 9 July 1999, as the House will have heard from Mr Sasi, the Council decided to refer this case to the Court of Justice under Article 213 of the Treaty and, following that decision, it is now for the Court to pronounce on the matters.
Honourable Members will understand that the case is therefore now sub judice and the Commission consequently has to abstain from public comment on it.
As a general indication of the view of the Commission on the issues posed by the motion before the House, I refer Honourable Members to the concluding paragraph of the Commission's statement of 1 July 1999 which expressed the view 'that it would be advisable for the future to clarify the implementation of Article 213 regarding Commission members' activities after they have ceased to hold office'.
The Commission consequently notes that on 17 July 1999 the President and Commission-designate agreed upon and published a draft Code of Conduct for Commissioners.
As the House will have seen from press reports, that document specifies clear compulsory requirements for future Commissioners who intend to engage in any occupation during the year after they leave office to inform the Commission of their intentions in good time.
It further provides for a procedure of examination and decision-making that includes the specific power of the Commission to refer the matter to an ethics committee when a Commissioner's planned occupation is related to his or her portfolio.
The House may also wish to know that, in the course of discussions this month, Members of the existing Commission who have always fully respected their solemn undertaking to meet the obligations of integrity and discretion have readily and voluntarily reaffirmed that commitment.
To them, as to me of course, it is axiomatic.
The House will be aware that the composite version of the resolution for debate before this Parliament today was produced this morning in keeping with usual practice.
The Commission has therefore had no opportunity to discuss the specific call in the motion for resolution for current Commissioners to respect voluntarily the new Code of Conduct.
I have, however, consulted the acting President, Mr Marín, and can inform the House that this issue will receive the attention of the Commission at its meeting next week.
I have sought to respond to the motion for debate as fully as possible whilst respecting the fact that the case which prompted the question is now sub judice .
I know that the House will share my awareness of the fact that this debate and my later response to it will need to take account of that obvious legal consideration.
Mr President, it is clear that in our European Union today changes are underway, particularly in the Commission, as a result of the refusal to give discharge for the 1996 budget and then the consequent and ultimate mass resignation of the Commission.
Everything in that particular story showed where codes of conduct had begun to be discussed and debated.
Indeed the acting President, Mr Santer, had put out a Code of Conduct for Commissioners and officials but it seemed it did not go far enough.
Everything in the story was too little, too late.
From the comments of Commissioner Kinnock, the Commission might examine this tomorrow or next week.
It is always in the same kind of vein.
This applies also to the question of a Code of Conduct for high level officials because in the Commission over the last few years there has indeed been lax management in internal organisation as was underlined by the Wise Men's report.
This is why we were calling earlier today for the second part of that report to be available to us so we have as much information available to us when we come to the hearings in early September for the incoming Commission.
One simple example which I can give the House of the internal games which were played by the heads of cabinets - not the Commissioners - on one particular staffing matter goes to show how these things were handled.
ESPRIT, an important information technology programme designated under Mr Bangemann at the beginning of the Commission as it was in early 1995, was transferred from originally DG XIII which was under Mrs Cresson to Mr Bangemann.
Lo and behold, in 1998, this was then shifted back to Mrs Cresson without any formal Commission decision - it was just decided as a game between the cabinets.
How much time, energy and problems were caused for staff in the running of a programme simply because the Commissioners did a deal between themselves which was not transparent, not effective and certainly unaccountable to us here in the European Parliament.
I come to this particular case of Mr Bangemann.
It is to us extraordinary insensitivity at this particular time, in this current climate, when you have an acting Commission, that someone can, in that particular state of office simply say two days later he wants to go and work for a private company which is one of the major operators in the field for which he is responsible in telecommunications.
It could be argued that Mr Bangemann is not doing anything strictly wrong because there was not an enforceable Code of Conduct.
But the Statute is very generous to Commissioners.
Is not 80 % of salary for five years enough to satisfy someone's need for financial back-up and to make sure that they do not need the extra finance which a company like Telefónica is giving?
We unanimously support in our group the Council's decision for this case to go to the Court of Justice.
We are particularly hopeful that they will look at the suspension of pension rights for the Commissioner in this instance, particularly while he is engaged in a private company.
What it leaves for us is a reflection of the disregard of certain members of the outgoing Commission for the need to have a rigorous approach to high standards in public life.
We therefore welcome the statement by the incoming President, Mr Prodi, that there will now be codes of conduct applied rigorously, but we have heard this before. This is what worries us.
We want to be able to see these codes of conduct effectively applied so as to make sure not only that the people at the top accept political responsibility, but also that we have high quality management right the way down so that people can be appointed for what they know rather than who they know.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council on his first appearance, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, I asked the question on the Bangemann case because I thought it raised a matter of great topical importance, that of the ethical behaviour of public officials.
We are not only judging a Commissioner whose behaviour has been unacceptable. We are talking about a former Member of this Parliament, a distinguished parliamentarian who was even a leader of the Liberal Group in the European Parliament, a former German Minister for the Economy and a Commissioner with a long record of service.
We must start with the freedom of people and the fact that we are all in public service voluntarily, and the ex-Commissioner cannot claim ignorance of this.
I welcome the Council's decision on this case - and I believe it has been a quick one - as well as the Commission's explanations with regard to its actions in this case, which have been enormously speedy.
It is clear - while I respect the fact that it is still sub judice - that the acceptance of the post offered to him by Telefónica represents an obvious conflict of interests.
We simply have to remember the role played by Mr Bangemann in the Commission's revised proposal on royalties and the information society, the pressure applied by Telefónica to introduce changes to the proposed Directive previously rejected by Parliament, Telefónica 's active policy with regard to penetrating the media, and also in relation to charges.
And I could mention other cases, such as the case of the Internet.
Mr President, I know from my own experience what the Telefónica company represents in Spain.
I was Minister in this area during the 80s and I can tell you that in Spain it is more significant than the Society of Jesus.
Telefónica has been a monopoly from the beginning and has been privatised incredibly quickly, it has been put into the hands of an ex-college associate of the present Spanish Prime Minister, the whole privatisation having been highly questionable.
But it still holds a dominant position in the Spanish market-place and an international profile, which means that this is not a purely Spanish matter.
What is there at the moment to prevent Mr Bangemann from using any confidential or strategically sensitive information about Telefónica 's competitors that he has obtained through his status as Commissioner? There is no answer to this question and it is truly serious.
I therefore believe that we should draw up codes of conduct which include standards of political decency applicable in all of our countries.
At the moment, as we have been reminded, the Commissioners now have a suspension of three years to rebuild their professional life without having to sell themselves to the highest bidder.
Allow me, Mr President, to conclude with something which relates to the end of the last legislature and the beginning of this one.
In the Committee on Budgetary Control, certain examples of the behaviour of the ex-Commissioner were presented.
However, these were not used, even in the light of the report of the Committee of Experts, an inquisitorial campaign against certain Commissioners was preferred - and in one case I would say there was sexual discrimination because the Commissioner was a woman.
Since highly critical things have been said here in this Chamber, who is going to restore the honour of those Commissioners?
In any event, I believe that, in view of the locations we have for this Parliament and in the Union, this is an experience which must not be repeated because, in the end, black sheep are found in unexpected places.
Mr President, I am delighted to be making my first intervention under your Presidency.
Mr President, on 10 June, all Europeans suffered an electoral defeat.
By not voting, many people made it clear that they no longer have any faith in Europe as it now is.
That is why it is an absolute priority for our group to restore our citizens' faith in Europe so that we are able to meet the challenges of the coming five years with credibility.
For the same reason, my group finds it incomprehensible that Commissioner Bangemann should choose precisely this moment to take an extremely dubious step in his career.
Unfortunately, this affair confirms the view that nothing will ever change in Europe.
Whereas the whistleblowing official Paul van Buitenen is still waiting for his reputation to be rehabilitated, those at the top, such as Mr Bangemann, are evidently able to go about their affairs in the usual way.
We democrats seek to restore the people's faith in Europe, which is no small challenge.
That is why every European slip-up must be tackled, irrespective of who is responsible for it.
Consequently, my group heartily endorses the fact that the Council intends to present this case to the Court of Justice.
However, it would have been more fitting if the President of the European Commission had taken this step himself.
This would have signalled an ability to put its own house in order, which would have been most welcome in view of recent events.
Mr President, esteemed colleagues, I could make things easy for myself and side with the previous speakers.
They are certainly right when they say that Mr Martin Bangemann, in his own inimitable manner, has succeeded in permanently damaging not only the reputation of the Commission and the Parliament but also the European ideal itself.
The electorate, the citizens out there in our countries, cannot always clearly distinguish between the Commission, the Parliament and the Council.
They frequently get the institutions mixed up and we now have a situation where people at home refer to us as 'you over there, you in Brussels who are always corrupt, lining your own pockets and so on' .
We now have to painstakingly rebuild, together with the new Commission, that which Mr Bangemann destroyed.
What does this tell us about Mr Bangemann when he acts in such a manner? It is imperative that the courts deal with this matter since, casting our minds back to the case of Ignacio Lopez at Volkswagen, this sort of insider knowledge is actually tantamount to a criminal act when an individual gains employment in another area so soon afterwards.
This should also be borne in mind.
This Mr Bangemann, however, was also sent here on two occasions by Kohl's government.
In this regard, I would like to clear up the myth once and for all that the opposition in Germany also always provides a Commissioner.
That was the case the first time with Mrs Wulf-Mathies, and only then.
I would like to ask Mr Poettering, who of course is no longer here: Where was his Party when it came to controlling their own Commissioner? He was hardly acceptable as Minister for Industry and Commerce.
He has again been kicked out by the Liberal faction in the European Parliament.
As Commissioner, he was very often controversial.
Remember the business with the yacht.
This is also relevant here.
I welcome enormously the fact that the new President of the Commission, together with his new Commission, which we still have to approve, wishes to introduce different rules to the game.
Of course, simply signing a Code of Conduct won't make any difference. We also have to lay down legally binding and documented sanctions in this regard.
We can not accept it when someone says: 'Well, my reputation may have been called into question but, in any case, I am free to do what I like once my time in office is up' .
In this regard, it is down to us, among others, in our positions as Members of Parliament, to fight for clear statutes and rules of the game, and to elaborate on these, since no one benefits from simply throwing stones at others whilst overlooking the fact that we ourselves sometimes sit in glass houses.
Applause
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Bangemann's decision to accept a position on the board of directors of Telefónica represents an unacceptable breach of political ethics.
Such behaviour endangers the reputation of European institutions and engenders reservations on the part of citizens towards the European Union.
This makes it all the more pressing to take effective measures in the fight against corruption and to introduce clear and open regulations for the proper application of Article 213 of the Treaty.
Legally binding regulations must be created, similar to those in private industry, which contain a competition clause or a competition restraint clause in employment contracts.
Naturally, Mr Bangemann has to take personal responsibility for his actions, but a policy geared towards economic interests as a matter of priority and, unfortunately, towards the business management interests of large concerns, also as a matter of priority, poses the inevitable risk that their leading representatives, as those putting this policy into practise, adopt the same attitude, thereby devoting themselves to maximising their personal profit, in violation of every moral code.
In order that an example can be made of Mr Bangemann for future generations as an unfortunate, one-off practitioner of amoral behaviour, the case against the former leader of the FDP, the party which, typically enough, carries the nickname in Germany 'Party of the Self-seekers' , must be upheld at the European Court of Justice.
Mr President, the Europe of Nations Group finds the attitude of Commissioner Bangemann, the Commissioner for Telecommunications in the previous Commission - or in the present one, we are not too sure of his exact position - completely unacceptable. This same Commissioner Bangemann has just accepted an extremely well-paid job on the board of a company involved in his area of responsibility.
We think that the Council of Ministers was right to inform the Courts of Justice, in accordance with article 213 of the Treaty, which prohibits Commissioners from accepting, even after leaving their posts, jobs which would place them in an awkward position, given their obligations to be honest and sensitive in these matters.
One of these obligations which I feel should be mentioned in particular, as it is not mentioned often enough, is that of professional secrecy, which, in accordance with Article 287 of the Treaty, applies to Commissioners indefinitely after leaving office.
Indeed, I do not see how Mr Bangemann could act as a director of Telefónica without using, directly or indirectly, confidential information which he has acquired over the last few years.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group finds that the new Code of Conduct, touched on by Mr Prodi, is not up to the job.
The one year minimum period which would relieve the Commissioners of their obligations after leaving office, seems far too short.
In addition to this, potential penalties should be made much more severe, and could even include the returning of salaries paid to them during their time in office at the Commission.
The stakes are high, dear colleagues.
We must know whether or not we can take decisions at a European level which reflect the opinions of the citizens of Europe and not those of economic or financial lobby-groups.
There is more.
The indifference of Commissioner Bangemann, who has not even had the decency to wait just a few months until the Commission's agony is over, shows the extent to which there is a feeling within this institution, of being above the law and above public opinion.
This type of behaviour casts serious doubts, in retrospect, on many past decisions.
This must be put right as a matter of urgency, particularly before the forthcoming international negotiations at the Millennium round which will be fundamental to Europe's interests.
In order to put things right though, Mr President, we will need more than a new Code of Conduct.
The control of whole European institutions will have to be given back to the people, and the first step in this direction is to give this control back to their national parliaments.
This case is interesting.
It reveals totally rotten law and no less rotten policy.
I consider that these persistent colleagues, who are keen to give their own ruling in the case brought before the Court, thus pre-empting the course of events by pronouncing a judgment without court proceedings, in obvious violation of Article 213, and depriving the man of his pension rights, are usurping a function which is rightly a matter for the courts.
It is rotten law and it is rotten policy.
However, I will take another starting point and say that I, representing the Danish opponents of the Union, the People's Movement against the EU, owe Mr Bangemann a debt of gratitude.
It was Mr Bangemann who, as a Commissioner in 1992, spoke the truth concerning the Maastricht project.
The truth which is evident today, namely that the large States have unlimited power and outrageous dominance over small, less fortunate States such as the State which I represent, Denmark.
It was Mr Bangemann who, in this way, secured the Danish 'no' to the Maastricht Treaty on 2 June 1992, which put the skids under the process which we call the democratisation process.
We now owe Herr Bangemann a debt of gratitude for yet another eye-opener.
Mr Bangemann has breached a few regulations, but we are not here to defend Telefónica' s competitors.
We are not here to reproach Mr Bangemann for damaging trust in this project.
Mr Bangemann simply transgressed the very, very broad and flexible boundaries of greed and the merging of private and public, which is a vital part of the European Union.
Mr Bangemann's offence is that he has made this fundamentally corrupt system visible, so that any European voter could see it and therefore choose to stay at home on voting day, as most people did between 10 and 13 June, thus depriving this assembly of any form of democratic legitimacy.
That was all I wanted to say.
Mr President, it is right that this Parliament and indeed the Council and the Commission treat this matter with the utmost seriousness.
It really is most reprehensible that there has been not only an apparent flouting of the formal rules for Commissioners, but also a contravention of the spirit of transparency and trust that should be the basis of the work between this Parliament and Commissioners.
I have been the rapporteur on a substantial number of Directives concerning the liberalisation of the telecommunications industry and I, and my colleagues, have acted in good faith in this work and had assumed that the former Commissioner Bangemann had done the same.
One can only speculate at just how much of a commitment Mr Bangemann had to the level playing field in this aspect of the internal market when he is willing to sell his knowledge to Telefónica , a major player in the European Union and further afield.
It is particularly difficult, Colleagues, when Mr Bangemann was a former Member of this Parliament and indeed, a leader of the Liberal Group.
One matter which has not been mentioned in the debate is that there is to be a major review of all of the telecommunications legislation later this year and part of this work has already been started by the Commission under Mr Bangemann's commissionership.
As I have previously stated, I have been the rapporteur on a number of matters, but if I can just give you a thumbnail sketch of just how extensive this review will be and what it will cover - universal service, frequencies, satellite, regulation, licences, interconnections, numbering, mobile telephones, convergence of broadcasting, data transmission and telecommunications - an explosion of legislation and an enormous segment of the European Union's manufacturing, industrial and commercial base in its own right, but also as an adjunct to so many other industries.
On all of this, Mr Bangemann takes with him his knowledge and his contacts to Telefónica .
There are also a worryingly substantial number of cases before the European Court of Justice on breaches of legislation, particularly in the field of interconnections - again, matters on which the former Commissioner has intimate knowledge.
The Commissioner, when he was here in this Chamber, and I have had many debates with him, was fond of quoting from Shakespeare and other English poets.
I shall quote one in his absence on his behalf - 'Just for a handful of silver he left us, just for a ribbon to stick on his coat'.
I know that the money he has been offered by Telefónica hardly can be justified by the description of a handful of silver and indeed it begs the question of just how seriously Members of this House will treat a company like Telefónica when it comes to lobby us as they surely will on the matter of the review and future legislation in this field.
If I can be slightly mischievous, one wonders just how much value for money Telefónica will get out of Martin Bangemann.
I wish he were on a performance-related pay and he might find that the fat cheque might not look nearly so attractive.
I understand Commissioner Kinnock's hesitation and his hesitations because this matter is sub judice .
Fortunately, Members of this Parliament are protected by parliamentary privilege, but even then, Commissioner Kinnock, I would ask you to note the reasonably restrained language that there is in our resolution and if I may just quote to you briefly on what the resolution says - "it deems his conduct to be particularly open to criticism' .
We did choose the language very carefully and many might say that 'open to criticism' might be a serious understatement.
I finish, where I started, by saying that we are right to treat this with the utmost seriousness.
I support absolutely the Council's decision to refer this matter to the Court and to use all the powers that there are under the agreements.
However, one matter still is outstanding.
There seems to be no mechanism within the existing rules and obligations where a company like Telefónica itself can be subject to some sort of punitive measures.
If we could find some way not only of having a measure to take against former Commissioners who act in this way, but also against the companies who benefit from their knowledge, then I think that we might have two very powerful levers to use in future transgressions.
We hope, of course, that these will not occur.
We wish the new Commission every success and hope that the high standards they espouse will be put into practice.
I would like to take this opportunity to say that I was always unpleasantly surprised by the fact - and this observation has nothing to do with the debate now taking place - that generally, when the Conciliation Committees were held, all the Commissioners except for one, were present and on time. Commissioner Bangemann never took part.
He would send officials in his place, in spite of protests from us, Members of the European Parliament.
I don't know, maybe it was just his way of doing things that was the problem.
Mr President, the worst thing about Mr Bangemann's imprudent career move is the threat that it poses to the Commission that he served.
The Commission was already in serious trouble and its problems were bound to have been compounded by the Bangemann decision.
In my view, the Commission has a final chance to prove itself the clean, efficient and effective executive that the European Union needs and that its citizens deserve.
Should the Prodi Commission fail, then I fear that the European Council will execute a coup d'état and deprive the Commission of its right of initiative and its important role as the promoter of European Union.
So to start the process of the Commission's recuperation, may we insist that the outgoing Members of the Santer Commission apply voluntarily the Prodi Code of Conduct.
Mr President, I share the indignation of Mr Markov of the GUE/NGL Group towards Mr Bangemann's attitude, but the real question is: what has Mr Bangemann been able to offer in order to command such a high salary?
How much have his services brought to Telefónica, a private company? How much control do European institutions have over the subsidies and advantages gained by private companies such as Telefónica or others, and what control is there over the use that these companies make of them?
Yes, it is shocking that a European Commissioner should be able to profit unduly from his position for his own benefit, but it is even more shocking that incredibly rich companies should be able to profit, quite legally, from subsidies from European institutions whilst to my knowledge, these same institutions are giving no help at all to the eighteen million unemployed workers throughout the Union, nor to the several million other people who are forced to live on salaries which barely keep them alive.
Applause
He was a determined and skilful Member of the Commission, a bit like a steam train, and occasionally in debates he would slap us MEPs like cod on a jetty, but what of that?
What is most important is that this sort of thing does not spread to the civil service or gain popularity there.
The impartial nature of our administration is the most important issue for all of us here and in the Commission.
There is a real need to reform the bureaucratic machinery of the European institutions, and an end must be made to these sorts of cliques.
This is what the public hates most about the European Union.
That was seen in the elections and in the campaigning.
Our citizens do not understand an administration that works along such lines, and we should not wonder.
Mr Prodi's Commission is off to a good start, and I congratulate him on that, but it must continue as it has begun.
I thank the Council for taking a swift decision to bring this case to the European Court of Justice, but as we have to be the pioneers in an administration which is open and efficient, so Mr Prodi's Commission should get ready for the test in September.
I believe that by the start of next year, we will see, on the basis of the study by the five experts, what the Commission has achieved with regard to its own administrative reforms and those of its body of civil servants.
Therefore, we shall meet up here once more at the end of the year.
Mr President, we have been unanimous in this debate. The actions of Mr Bangemann, a Member of the Commission, in this affair can in no way be approved.
I would like to thank those who have spoken for having given their approval of the Council's decision to take swift action in this affair, and for their support in bringing the case to court.
I would like to underline the importance of Mr Prodi's code of practice in this connection, and I wish to refer to Mr Elles' speech in which he said that hopefully we will not be saying 'too little, too late' next time.
We must take care this time, then, that codes of conduct are absolutely clear and legally binding on all parties.
In my view, it is an issue that concerns us all as it is sometimes hard for the public, as was mentioned here, to distinguish between the institutions of the Union, which means that events such as this should not be allowed to occur in any of the institutions.
Thank you.
I should like to begin by saying that Mrs Read was absolutely right to draw attention to the moderate way in which the resolution is couched and indeed the moderation of the language throughout the whole of this debate.
It would have been easy for people to try to make a populist appeal.
That was almost entirely avoided.
That simply added to the weight of the opinion of this House and therefore to the reaction which everyone has just heard from Mrs Sasi, President-in-Office of the Council.
Mr Elles was quite right to emphasise that it is absolutely essential to see responsibility exercised to the highest standard.
I hope - to take Mr Barón Crespo's point - that this experience is not repeated, that we can ensure that specific and very clear provision is made so that there cannot be any repetition of the experience of recent weeks.
There are those who would say, and they have, I believe, rationality on their side, that the provisions of Article 213 of the Treaty and its references to integrity and discretion mean that for anyone who has an understanding of required standards in public life, little more should need to be said, if anything.
But if it is necessary - and I am conscious of being subject to the fact this issue is now before the court - even then to be more specific about what the implications of integrity and discretion are, then I am glad the House welcomes the developments that will take place as a consequence of the initiative taken by the President designate.
I look forward to ensuring that there is a full response to both the appeal of Mr Barón Crespo and that of Mr Elles to the demonstration of the highest standards of public integrity.
I would also say that Mr Kreissl-Dörfler was right to emphasise, together with Mr Duff - in a very interesting maiden speech - that if all institutions do not demonstrate the highest standards of rectitude for themselves, by themselves, then those standards will be imposed externally, either in the form of punishment by the general public, initially through its apathy and detachment but maybe in other ways more directly, politically too, or by the Council taking a responsibility which others appear to be unwilling to demonstrate.
I do not believe the European Union, its institutions or its people would be enriched by that experience.
It is a fair warning to all of us who serve the institutions and the European people that we are responsible for our own destiny and our own standards and we must therefore proceed without any form of delay to ensuring that those standards are as stringent as possible.
I was interested in the point made in another fine maiden speech by Miss van der Laan which calls for a response.
I am happy to report to the House that she is a friend of some years and therefore my joy in witnessing her maiden speech was very particular.
I see it was shared in other parts of the House.
She said that it would be 'better if the Commission had taken the step of reference to the Court of Justice' .
I should like to say to her, therefore, that the Commission, as I reported earlier, discussed the matter in its meeting of 1 July.
In that meeting the feeling was expressed that the issues relating to Mr Bangemann and to Article 213 had legal complexities that could not be speedily resolved.
For that reason the Commission made plain its view in its statement of 1 July that there needed to be clarification of implementation of Article 213.
There was no consensus at that meeting which supported reference to the Court of Justice at that stage.
I say that to ensure that Members of this House understand that the issue is live, it has been a matter of discussion, the action has now been taken by the Council and that determines the path for the future.
But there is no lack of concern or consideration in the current Commission, despite the fact that it is coming to the end of its life, in these issues.
I conclude by saying that Mrs Laguiller made an extremely valuable contribution to this debate because, like others, she dramatised the issue quite properly by drawing attention to the economic gaps in society and the way in which those divisions actually serve to emphasise the fact that it is absolutely essential for those of us who have the good fortune to hold representative and appointed positions in the public service to act with complete integrity and discretion.
We enjoy a very considerable privilege.
We must, therefore, show complete probity. This debate has served to underlined that.
If anybody ever needed the lesson, this has added to it.
I hope we can look forward to a future where no instruction will be necessary.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12.00 p.m.
I have received four motions for resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The sitting was closed at 9.10 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the previous sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
I wonder if you are able to confirm, or your services are able to confirm, that this building, particularly the Tower Building, satisfies all aspects of health and safety legislation and whether it has a valid fire certificate.
These are important issues and if it does not, then I think serious questions must be raised.
I would therefore ask you either to confirm this categorically or, if not, to confirm that measures are taken to investigate the situation.
Mr Evans, we have followed the building regulations and taken them into serious consideration during this time at the Presidency office, and I believe that your concerns received due attention.
I will, however, pass on your comments to the President and they will be discussed at the Presidency office, so that all possible clarification may be given to the Assembly on this matter.
Mr President, do I understand it that you are therefore not able to confirm what I asked?
You are not confirming that the building satisfies health and safety and fire regulations? You said you will look at it and try to clarify the situation.
What I am asking is: are you able to categorically confirm that the building satisfies these regulations, yes or no?
Mr Evans, my opinion is that the building complies with all the specifications laid down by law, but at this precise moment, I am unable to give you a guarantee of this because I do not have the relevant information to hand, and I therefore reserve the right to pass on your intervention to the President.
The Minutes were approved
Dioxin
The next item is the Council and Commission statements on the contamination by dioxins of certain products intended for human or animal consumption.
Council. (FI) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first, I would like to congratulate you all on the election results and wish the European Parliament every success in its legislative work.
I eagerly look forward to working in co-operation with you in my role of chairman of the Agriculture Council during the Finnish presidential term.
I have no doubt that co-operation between us during this time will be fruitful and will serve the interests of European producers, manufacturers and consumers well.
Obviously, I might have wished that our first meeting under the Finnish Presidency had taken place in other circumstances which would have permitted me to present the actual priorities of our programme. These include, in particular, legislation projects which aim to guarantee food safety for the consumer and promote the health and welfare of animals.
Unfortunately, owing to circumstances, we were obliged to give consideration to a chain of events we would never have wished for.
Recent events concerning the contamination by dioxins of certain foodstuffs in Belgium have resulted in a very serious situation, not only with regard to the risks to people's health, but also because they have weakened confidence in the animal feed and food production chain and in the ability of the authorities to monitor the situation properly.
Quite understandably, there has been a very strong reaction on the part of the public to this crisis, which erupted just as we were starting to think that the BSE crisis was an exceptional, isolated case which we were already getting over.
I fully understand why consumers expect us to take speedy, comprehensive and effective action, appropriate in terms of the gravity of the matter, to give them the necessary guarantees that the crisis will be resolved in both the short and the long-term.
At the same time, we have to bear in mind that an undesirable occurrence such as this has very costly economic consequences.
For that reason, we are under an obligation to do all we can to protect consumers' health and offer them guarantees regarding the safety of food that are as comprehensive as possible.
It is in our own interest to take all necessary action to prevent incidents such as this from recurring.
In connection with all this, I shall be working in co-operation with Ms Biaudet, who is chairman of the Council of Health Ministers, to restore consumer confidence.
We have to take into account the fact that legislation on issues of veterinary medicine and animal feed in the European Union is amongst the most stringent in the world.
You are well aware of the criticisms made by certain third countries that measures meant for the protection of consumers within the Union are too restrictive.
I can mention, by way of example, the recent decision by the World Trade Organisation to allow the USA and Canada to impose penalty tariffs on our exports, owing to the importation ban on hormone-treated meat.
The understandable financial and social worries of producers notwithstanding, the Council has always worked, and will continue to work, with two principles in mind.
First, the most important objective is the protection of people's health, and second, all action must be based on the best possible scientific evidence.
The recent decisions of the Council are indications of this style of approach.
I would refer to the decision forbidding the use of some antibiotics in feed as a boost to growth, and the decision approved by the Council last Monday to tighten up the rules on the treatment of animal waste as a way of protecting against infectious TSE diseases.
In speaking of dioxin contamination, we have to say that the investigations carried out by the Belgian authorities and the inspections made by the Commission show contamination was due to the introduction during the manufacturing process of a raw material that should never have been used for this purpose.
We must also admit that the dioxin contamination of the feed shows that current legislation and protective measures are not fully sufficient to prevent the feed becoming contaminated by hazardous substances such as dioxin.
For that reason, there is no doubt that Community legislation should be amended to ensure that the quality of animal produce is to be relied upon fully.
We must act now to see that the 'prevention rather than cure' principle is fully applied in the future.
Before I move on to the question of the approach agreed upon in the Council, I would like to remind everyone of the timely and effective work instigated by the Commission and given the support of the Member States' Standing Veterinary Committee to implement vital crisis measures imposed by the precautionary principle.
This action led to the identification, withdrawal from the market and destruction of all produce that was contaminated or suspected of being so.
In addition, the Commission imposed conditions on certified produce coming onto the market and on the continuance of trade in produce in national markets as well as the entire Community market.
The Commission has already sent out all the details regarding the work it has begun, so I will not repeat them here.
For my own part, and on behalf of the Council, I would like to say we appreciate the Commission's work.
Turning to the action the Council has taken, I would like to remind everyone that the Ministers of Agriculture and Health have followed the dioxin crisis closely, and that they discussed the situation at the first available opportunity in meetings held in June.
The aim was to provide a springboard and political direction for further vital action to be taken.
The Council adopted a set of conclusions on how this issue should be approached.
The Council particularly stressed that a swift, thorough and independently drafted report should be produced and, if required, that there should be changes to current legislation.
The Council also made a point of asking Member States to ensure, through a comprehensive programme of checks, that EU legislation to guarantee health protection was being complied with.
The Council reminded everyone that, with the threat of a risk looming, the Member States should use the early warning systems currently in place fully and in good time.
Furthermore, the Council asked the Commission to monitor the effective and uniform implementation of these EU early warning systems and, if it was appropriate, to make recommendations regarding how they might be improved, and give consideration to how much the existing monitoring systems should be extended to cover all situations.
In addition, the Council asked the Commission to produce a report by the end of the year on the progress made in the establishment of a Food Veterinary Office and its overall viability.
On the basis of this report, we should also look at the need for a general improvement in food monitoring, including the possibility of food monitoring bodies.
The Council urged the Commission to speed up the work already begun by its Standing Committee on Feedingstuffs, which re-examines the legislation on animal feed and proposes, if deemed necessary, additions and amendments for tighter harmonisation.
The Council also urged the Commission to take a critical look at EU legislation regarding the disposal of meat meal, animal waste and feed.
Moreover, the Council emphasised that the manufacturers of animal feed were responsible for the safety of their products.
Anxious about the situation, the Agriculture Council in their meeting on Monday this week returned to the issue to monitor developments.
At the end of a new full debate on the issue, the Council reaffirmed the conclusions drawn in June, and drew attention to the importance of unanimous political will on the part of the Member States and the Commission to act on these conclusions fully and immediately.
The Council considered the Commission's proposal for an exhaustive programme of legislation to be welcome in principle, a programme of which you are aware and whose purpose is to accommodate legislation on animal nutrition and measures relating to animal waste.
The Council made all the relevant decisions relating to procedure to ensure the speedy examination of the Commission's proposals, bearing in mind the aim the Council has to finish the job, if at all possible, before the end of the year.
I will take this opportunity to remind everyone that the co-decision procedure applies to debates on future Commission proposals, and I would therefore ask the European Parliament for their co-operation in honouring this very ambitious timetable.
I can assure you that Finland, as the country to hold the Presidency, will, for its part, do everything within its power to ensure that work in the Council is expedited in order for us to achieve a positive end result as speedily as possible during the Finnish presidential term.
Before I end, I would like to say that the dioxin crisis has clearly shown that the effects of this type of occurrence are not restricted to the regions, or even countries, in which it began.
The effects spread to every region of the Community and extend also to our trading relations with third countries.
This crisis has had an adverse effect on our exports, and the actions of some of our trading partners have in many respects exceeded justifiable limits as regards not only severity but also scope of application.
We therefore have to rebuild consumer confidence both within the Community and the world over and, at the same time, develop appropriate action to restore viable commercial relations.
When it is a matter of people's health, simply the best way to reassure the European people and the consumers who live outside Europe is to act with transparency, clarity and a sense of accountability.
Aside from the programme of legislation, now available, as it is, to all, we are grateful to the Commission for the consistent way in which it kept third countries and the World Trade Organisation informed and for its reports on Community action to solve the dioxin crisis.
It was an attempt to show that certified EU exports are safe.
Some positive results have been achieved, but the situation remains unsatisfactory in some cases, which means that the Commission will have to continue with its efforts.
In order to be successful these efforts need, and should receive, the support, not just of the Council, but the European Parliament also.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, esteemed colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. Sincere thanks for affording me the opportunity to be able to inform you of the measures taken in relation to the recent dioxin crisis in Belgium.
I would also like to take this opportunity, however, to outline, in a somewhat broader context, some plans and projects which will help, firstly, to put this event in context and secondly, to provide us with the opportunity to give consideration as to where we must, and should, make improvements in the law concerning animal feed and foodstuffs.
Now to the reason itself.
Unfortunately, the Commission was only informed of the problem by the Belgian authorities on 27 May, but we immediately implemented a whole range of measures with a view to safeguarding the health of humans and animals.
With the consent of the representatives of the constituent Member States on the Standing Veterinary Committee, firstly, emergency measures were laid down for the poultry industry as well as for poultry products of Belgian origin.
These were followed, several days later, by measures relating to the cattle, pig and milk sectors and products derived therefrom.
In the meantime, however, it was possible, on the recommendation of the Scientific Committee, and following consultation with the Standing Veterinary Committee, to lift the bans on milk and milk products.
As far as the question of the source of the contamination is concerned, and I should point out that inquiries are still continuing in this regard, it can be assumed, based on the latest findings by the Public Prosecutor's Office in Gent, that the cause of the crisis was a serious product contamination which took place in January of this year.
I should also point out that Community officials arrived at the same conclusion during their inspections which were carried out on site between 8 and 11 June.
Looking ahead, one can assume that all products which are manufactured or marketed in the Community today, be they of Belgian origin or otherwise, will not be contaminated by this source.
Naturally, our work is continuing, and we will verify, as soon as the Belgian authorities have provided us with the necessary information, whether the PCB certificate can also be applied to pork and beef.
This would then allow us to make certain changes to the precautionary measures already taken.
In order to limit the economic damage caused by the dioxin crisis, the Commission has also introduced a number of measures.
A Regulation was passed on 16 June with the aim of maintaining exports at an acceptable level in spite of the more difficult conditions.
Pig breeders can also profit from having to keep their animals for extended periods.
With regard to the poultry sector, a Regulation was passed on 13 June allowing export grants for destination countries in addition to the Middle East.
As regards the milk sector, on 15 July, the management committee for milk decided to extend the period of use of butter and butter concentrates in bread, cakes, pastries and ice cream.
A Commission resolution for eight different state subsidies, which were announced and notified by the Belgian authorities, was passed the day before yesterday.
Apart from the emergency measures which have already been adopted, the Commission is, however, now working, and this is where the general context comes in, on proposals to improve and define Community provisions relating to foodstuffs and animal feed more closely.
These projects far exceed what is required.
In connection with this, I would now like to cover certain issues which have already been discussed in Parliament and which will continue to be discussed. Firstly, I shall come to the question of foodstuffs legislation.
Here, we have already long since set about consolidating the texts of all hygiene-related regulations in the area of foodstuffs.
This project is about to draw to a conclusion.
On this point, we should also look to simplify matters from a legal viewpoint, which should serve to make the regulations relating to hygiene more transparent and ensure that they are applied better.
In this regard, we have come to a definitive ruling on an issue which we have already discussed previously here in Parliament, namely to what extent the decontamination process, modified and carried out under strictly controlled conditions, should apply to slaughtered hens and chickens as well as to red meat.
Another key issue is the traceability of animal products from the shop counter to the manufacturer.
In the pig sector, of course, we have come a long way in this regard but the question still has to be asked regarding the extent to which this system should be applied to other sectors.
Throughout the Community, four research laboratories are at our disposal for the testing and inspection of foodstuffs and the development of different research methods in connection with said testing and inspection. One of these, the laboratory in Rome, has been specially commissioned to develop, where necessary, new and improved research methods.
In addition, this laboratory offers a further education programme which is particularly concerned with the consideration of environmental contaminants.
In the last Council, which the President-in-Office of the Council has already talked about, political agreement was reached on different measures and, even prior to this in June, at the meeting of Agricultural Ministers, an agreement was reached on a Regulation concerning biological farming and its expansion to include animal products.
This is also one of the Commission's initiatives which should assist in improving production conditions and, above all, transparency for the consumer.
Another ambitious programme, which was last discussed on Monday at the meeting of Agricultural Ministers, concerns substantial changes to current foodstuffs legislation.
The Commission is trying to deal with this matter as quickly as possible but, in this regard, we also need the support of the Member States and, above all, of this Parliament.
We wish to concentrate on three different types of measures.
In the first instance, we want to expand the list of animal feed raw materials which should not be used in mixed animal feed.
Secondly, we wish to establish maximum dioxin values for oils and fats as well as mixed animal feed products to which oils and fats are added.
Thirdly, we want to change the definition of animal feed raw materials, in particular with regard to oils and fats and animal products.
In order to achieve this, we have a catalogue full of concrete proposals which have already been discussed by the committee responsible for animal feed products.
I have forwarded this catalogue to the Committee Secretariat since it would simply take too long to go into all of these points here and now.
Therefore, I would like to mention a few points briefly.
A legal basis must be created as regards the application of a safeguard clause in the event of emergencies which may occur in the European Union in connection with animal feed products and which may pose a serious risk to the health of humans or animals and the environment.
Secondly, it is a question of making it incumbent upon the Member States to implement a Union-wide monitoring programme for contaminants in animal feed products.
Thirdly, we also wish to introduce an early-warning system for animal feed products, along the lines of the one already in place for foodstuffs.
I would like to point out that the time frame for this has been altered and that it will now be in place as of September 1999.
From this time, there will be a ban on the intermixing of contaminated animal feed raw materials and the exemption regulation for the regional use of animal feed products that have been contaminated due to local conditions will also cease to apply.
Finally, we want to inspect current provisions relating to the information concerning raw materials, in particular provisions concerning the labelling found on mixed animal feed products in the sense that, in future, a clear statement of quantity on all the raw materials used should be possible which will obviate the need for information on raw materials by categories.
We then want to approve, in general terms, all mixed animal feed manufacturers as well as drafting an exhaustive positive list for approved animal feed raw materials.
I would also like to point out that not all of the measures contained in this list, which I have forwarded to the Committee Secretariat, are completely new.
This is the case, for example, as regards the approval of mixed animal feed manufacturers.
We have already made a proposal along these lines in the past, but at that time the Council did not accept the Commission's view and the proposal was therefore dropped.
I would now like to talk about some trade issues with third countries.
It was extremely important to inform these countries on the ensuing situation and of the precautionary measures taken by the Commission and to keep them updated on an on-going basis.
To this end, the competent services of the Commission have been in regular contact with third countries and we used the WTO/SPS plenary session which took place on 7 and 8 July to report in detail on the current situation and the relevant legal documents.
During this session, we also made it clear that the dioxin problems are not only a Community issue.
No country is free from dioxins and we can cite a whole number of examples of dioxin contamination which have made the headlines in many different parts of the world.
It is to be hoped, therefore, that all countries, not only Europe, can take some lessons from this.
The majority of committee members at this session welcomed this report and thanked the Commission and the sovereign authorities for the on-going and reliable exchange of information.
A final word on the tests. The Foodstuffs and Veterinary Office of DG XXIV has introduced a range of measures on site.
Even in the case of the first visit to Belgium, it became clear that the crisis, unfortunately, had been poorly handled by the Belgian authorities.
This state of affairs could be attributed primarily to the lack of co-ordination between the various competent administrative authorities and the responsibilities of these authorities which were fragmented and unclear.
In addition, it was revealed that Community decisions concerning the withdrawal from the market of potentially contaminated products had been inadequately enforced by the Belgian authorities.
Tests carried out in the Netherlands, France, Germany and Spain also demonstrated certain loopholes in the procedures relating to the inspection of animal feed products.
Unfortunately, certain Member States used the crisis in Belgium as an excuse to erect trade barriers against non-contaminated Belgian products, thereby infringing the principle of the free movement of goods.
It has also transpired that other Member States have also been supplied with reconditioned used oil which is Belgian in origin.
With regard to the infringement procedures, I can report to you that the Commission has introduced, on the basis of Article 226 of the EC Treaty, summary infringement proceedings against Belgium, since it failed in its obligation to inform the Commission and Member States immediately regarding the dioxin cases and did not fully transpose Decision 1999/389.
Other issues concern the import barriers imposed by certain Member States with regard to Belgian products in general.
The Commission's services met with the competent authorities to discuss in detail the uncertain legal and administrative provisions.
These talks have led, in the meantime, to specific health protection measures being implemented and the lifting of temporary import barriers for a range of products.
Other problems persist of course, but the Commission's services are endeavouring to co-operate closely with those parties responsible at a national level, and we want to resolve the issues outstanding as quickly as possible.
In conclusion, I would like to assure you that the Commission will continue to do everything in its power to alleviate the consequences of this crisis as quickly as possible.
Applause
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, if you will allow me, I would like to address my speech to you directly, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, because I believe that the European Council in recent years has become far too an insignificant factor at the heart of European discussions and has also held back somewhat when it has come down to stepping in and taking charge.
In this instance, following our unpleasant experiences with BSE, the Commission is largely blameless and the Member States have once again played their games under the guise of subsidiarity and have not been brave enough, for example, in drafting a framework Directive on foodstuffs which could be something concrete to which the Member States can adhere.
I do not want to go so far as to say that the last five years have seen an upswing in renationalisation but certainly, in that time, the Council has not become any more audacious when it has come down to, for example, in view of the obvious conclusions to be drawn from the BSE crisis, proposing real European goals which could then also be safeguarded and sanctioned.
This is very regrettable and I fear the only thing that will get the Council moving on this question will be the agreement that we have just concluded with the Americans whereby they may verify whether Europe itself is observing the same standards of hygiene as we expect from the Americans.
Only then will the Council start to act.
The days of Member States playing their games must stop; instead, they have to play a European game with European goals and, of course, proceed along individual paths in order to achieve this goal.
As a farmer, let me now come onto another issue which I am finding somewhat disconcerting.
Worldwide competition in the foodstuffs industry is causing ruin.
The Americans are squeezing the European market and the profits of processing industries are lower than ever before.
Competition is passing this onto the consumer and, in this instance, onto producers in particular. As a result, this is clearly creating the environment for criminal dealings.
Minister, you have said that the dioxin admixture was a mixture of unsuitable raw materials.
Perhaps this is a translation problem.
As far as I am concerned, it is a criminal act which is driving farmers in my constituency to ruin.
Applause
Therefore, let's talk in clear and plain language for the benefit of consumers and farmers alike, and for the benefit of Europe as well.
Applause
Mr President, let me begin by giving Mr Prodi a sound piece of advice, both him and all the other nominees who wish to be confirmed in their positions by this House here in September.
One of the questions which all of the committees certainly wish to ask is this: What is your attitude towards honouring decisions made by the European Parliament?
If Mr Prodi or one of the other nominees replies, 'Well, I couldn't care less' , then these nominees will have a problem.
Yesterday, in his third speech to this House, Mr Prodi used the words 'consumer protection' and 'health policy' for the first time.
That is a fair few.
In this regard, he also said that he would make provision for, and I quote, 'an independent European Food and Drugs Agency' .
This House decided, after long discussions in connection with the BSE crisis, that this is something which we simply do not want.
We are not after an independent Agency but an authority which is subordinate to the Commission and which is accountable to this House, the European Parliament.
Applause
I hope that this piece of information reaches Mr Prodi so that he knows in future to be very careful about what he says.
I have already asked Mr Fischler yesterday whether this was his suggestion. He assured me that it was not.
Mr Fischler, I believe this to be the case and, after your speech here today, which I thought was excellent, I am even more convinced.
I would now like to say something to the President-in-Office of the Council.
He said at certain points that the Council was concerned that the dioxin crisis has shown that its effects concern the Union as a whole and that the Council wants to act decisively and responsibly.
Mr President, I believe that it would be something new if the Council were to act decisively and responsibly. I hope that the Finnish Presidency of the Council will actually bring this about.
You would then be able to count a complete novelty amongst the successes of your Presidency. Up to now, the Council has routinely covered things up, dithered, and swept things under the carpet.
Applause
So let's get down to business.
Everyone in the Council knows that individual countries all handle things in a similar manner.
What has happened in Belgium, and it is a disgrace that it took the government six weeks to inform the Commission, could have happened anywhere else.
It was just bad luck that it happened in Belgium.
We all know that it could have occurred in Italy, Germany or Austria.
Have you, for example, done anything to help ensure tighter inspections and controls? You have left untouched a proposal from the European Parliament on this matter for more than six months.
As far as the details of this crisis are concerned, I would like to expressly commend the Commission.
We have certainly frequently maintained, in connection with BSE, that the Commission was not quite on the ball.
But at the same time, however, there is nothing, nothing at all, as regards the behaviour of the Commission for which it can be criticised.
Everything the Commission did, and the way in which it was done, was excellent.
The same certainly cannot be said of everybody else.
So what lessons can be drawn from this? Mr Fischler mentioned some of these.
He made reference to legislation which is necessary.
This is definitely the case. There is no question that other legislation for animal feed products is required.
We have to avoid a situation where, for example, waste products enter into animal feed.
We talk of foodstuffs and animals which have been fed on these foodstuffs.
Waste products have no part here.
Mr Fischler, of course there should not be dioxin limit values.
The limit value has to be zero for both dioxins and PCB.
We should therefore be very careful as regards both the wording and the language.
In this regard, something else is worthy of mention.
Let's have the courage to also declare dioxin to be a worldwide problem. Will there be a dioxin register in the European Union and worldwide?
Will it be investigated where emissions accumulate from incineration plants, where other dioxin emissions can be found which are present in the soil and in the grass which is eaten by animals? We know for sure that they are not only found in animal feed but also in our natural environment.
So please let's have a dioxin register.
This is something that is definitely needed.
I would now like to briefly outline some proposals relating to the checks.
If we do not ensure that the tests are better carried out in Member States, if the Commission is not able to carry out inspections unannounced, but first has to wait for permission from a Member country such as Belgium or another Member State, we can forget it.
We must modify the inspection process and agricultural policy as a whole.
If we believe that we can make high profits by means of waste products which are as cheap as possible, and that is something which we want, such cases will always crop up.
We have to change this within the European Union as well as with our partners outside the Union.
Applause
Mr President, it is a shame that in my maiden speech as a new MEP, I should have to speak of serious mistakes that have been made in my country, firstly by companies that supply raw materials for cattle feed, and secondly by the control agencies whose responsibility it is to ensure that when a mistake is made, it is discovered immediately and the consequences limited.
Particular mention should also be made of the government then in office which wasted weeks and caused us a great deal of harm by not giving the European Commission and the Member States adequate warning that something was wrong.
These mistakes have resulted in an extremely serious situation, firstly as regards public health, and secondly, they have caused economic disaster in agriculture and throughout the food sector.
People's trust has been damaged and it will, of course, be a long time before it is restored again.
These mistakes were duly punished in the political arena at last month's elections.
There is now a new government in Belgium which is trying to limit the damage, pick up the pieces and also repair the damage, as quickly as possible and using all the means at its disposal.
I hope that Belgium will also be able to count on the Union's support in this, for it is clear that whether a crisis such as this is caused by a disease or an accident, or even a crime, that is of no consequence to a consumer, a farmer or a company that falls victim to the crisis.
They are victims and they suffer.
Fortunately, Mr Commissioner, at the beginning of the week, the Commission opened the door for the Belgian authorities to come to the assistance of companies in need.
I hope that will not prove to be the last step.
In the long-term, there is also a task for us here in the European Parliament.
Mr Commissioner, you have said that you will soon be presenting proposals.
I assume, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that we and the Council will be able to discuss the texts very shortly and will be able to turn them into the legislation we need.
We must have European regulations.
Speaking as a liberal, Mr Commissioner, I am very pleased that you have said that these regulations must be simple and user-friendly.
Of course, they must also be strict, so that people know what is meant by healthy food, and they must apply to the whole food chain.
But it is clearly absurd that at the height of the crisis, the Commission and its technical services should be wasting time on discussions with the Belgian authorities and their technical services because there are no standards, because people do not know what the permitted level of dioxins is for different products.
At the height of a crisis, time can be better spent on other things.
Clear and unambiguous regulations must be drawn up for all matters of this kind which are clear, simple and strict.
And, of course, you must monitor them as well.
We must ensure that consumers are able to tell from a quality label when something is healthy, and they must also be made fully aware when something has the European seal of approval.
I think it is a good thing that Romano Prodi said yesterday that there is to be a European agency for food.
Of course, it goes without saying that such an agency must discharge its responsibility in a democratic manner and must be embedded, if I can put it this way, in the European institutions.
If we, as European Parliament, European Commission and European Council, fail to ensure that regulations and effective controls are introduced very rapidly, then yet another item will be added to the long list of disasters already in existence.
My colleague said things of this kind can happen in any country.
We have seen a number of examples.
I think that we should spare no efforts in ensuring that the list of examples does not grow ever longer.
Mr President, may I remind Parliament that our group has two components, the Green component and the European Free Alliance component, of countries with no State.
I have been noticing, yesterday and today, that, on the screens and elsewhere in general, the real name of our group, Greens/European Free Alliance, does not appear.
I therefore ask the President to provide all the relevant information, in order that the true name of our group be re-established.
Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, you are what you eat.
This popular maxim demonstrates why the issue of 'food safety' is a matter of such sensitivity as far as public opinion and our electorate are concerned.
I learnt at primary school that cows eat grass and are ruminants.
And it is owing to pursuit of profit that we now feed our cows cattle feed fortified with animal bonemeal.
We are turning our cows into cannibals.
But that is not all.
Our Belgian pigs are so susceptible to stress that they are given tranquillizers and betablockers just before they are transported to the slaughterhouse.
Mafia-type organisations give our cattle hormones, antibiotics, corticosteroids, betablockers, and beta-agonists.
We have also known for a few days now that there are dioxin chickens.
In my country, Flanders, it used to be a tradition to eat chicken and chips on a Sunday.
We now know that we can dispense with the chips as well because our chickens are fed discarded frying oil.
This brings us to the heart of the problem.
Ladies and gentlemen, the dioxin chicken scandal is far more than a mere setback.
What happened in Belgium could just as well have taken place in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Spain or Italy.
It is the result of a defective system, an erroneous Common Agricultural Policy that plunges farmers into a vicious circle of producing ever-increasing amounts ever more cheaply, investing ever more heavily, having ever larger scales of operation which must be farmed ever more intensively.
Quantity takes precedence over quality.
We must change tack.
From now on, quality must take precedence over quantity.
There is a common resolution which has been put forward by several groups, of which my own group, the Greens/European Free Alliance is one.
I want to stress that there is a definite need for an efficient system whereby people are warned in good time about any kind of unsafe food.
A far-reaching proposal must be produced which will reinforce the precautionary principle in food production and trade at European level.
Let's be honest, there is going to have to be a debate on the recycling industry.
Can it be acceptable for the waste from water purification plants, which contain cadmium and heavy metals, to be incorporated into cattle feed and thus end up in the food chain. A clear distinction must be drawn between what is waste and should be treated as such, and what can still be used in our food production.
On a final note, this crisis is a disaster for the producers.
Tens if not hundreds of companies will go bankrupt.
I have here the report by the Court of Auditors on the Community aid given to those farmers affected by the BSE crisis.
I have today heard the Commissioner listing a whole range of measures which are to be taken or which have already been taken.
I am pleased about this, but still I cannot help but feel that this is still too little.
Billions have been spent on the victims of the BSE crisis and something must also be done for the victims of this crisis.
Why are Flemish farmers denied what is given to English farmers? I fully concur with the view expressed by my colleague Sterckx that what the Commission has now done is just a first step, and that the Commission and the Council and this Parliament will have to go much further.
To return to the comment made a minute ago, the competent services confirm that there is indeed a problem with the computer programme, and that the names will be corrected, I hope, by the next part-session in September.
Mr President, the crises are mounting, we have the dioxin crisis in Belgium and the soft drinks crisis with Coca-Cola amongst others.
We have the continuing crisis of mad cow disease, Mr Fischler.
And the crisis is not yet over.
A reliable British magazine has reported that towards the end of 1998, the number of young people dying from the new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease quadrupled and yet we have no information on this matter.
We do not know what is happening with mad cow disease in Portugal, yet we are hearing a great deal about hormone-treated meat from the United States and the intolerable pressures imposed on us with regard to its free movement.
There was not even any fundamental and serious debate on genetically-modified foods prior to their becoming a part of our daily diet.
As I read in a recent study, we do not ultimately know what we are eating. In fact, even our farmers and cattle breeders do not know what they are farming or how to feed their animals.
It is all very disturbing and worrying, Mr President.
The Parliament owes it to its citizens to do more than make accusations of criminal offences like the one committed by Belgium. It should also be noted, Mr Commissioner, that it hasn't yet made known those companies which used dioxin-contaminated cattle feed.
This time, however, the Commission, having learned its lesson from mad cow disease, took Belgium to the European Court of Justice.
However, we have still not discussed things fully and have not taken decisions on how to make controls tighter and more efficient, leaving them instead to the good will of the Member States.
Although we are mindful of the fact that we are lacking infrastructure, veterinarians and inspectorates, we are well aware of the bribes and attempted bribes, the threats and the murders which have taken place in certain countries with regard to these issues - yet, I do not see anybody taking it seriously. We are also well aware that there have been strong reactions from the European Union itself to the establishment of a proper organisation to carry out spot-checks, along the lines of, for example, the American Food & Drug Administration, instead of having non-specialised research bodies.
What we need here is both transparency and public access to information.
Therefore, Mr President, I strongly endorse our group's proposal for the Parliament to set up a temporary committee which will fully deal with all issues of food safety and public health and not just certain aspects of it.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the dioxin crisis, BSE and the pressure put on us by the Americans to ensure that we accept hormone-treated meat are just a few examples of the very serious threats overhanging the safety of our citizens' food today.
If these threats are not dealt with forcefully and adequately, irrationality will prevail at the expense of our farmers.
The President-elect of the Commission recognised yesterday the huge importance of this matter, but he has remained completely silent about how he proposes to deal with it.
Instead of these ideological tirades from days gone by, calling for a return of the old supranational connivance between Parliament and the Commission against the Council, we would have preferred to hear from Mr Prodi, how exactly he intends, within his jurisdiction, to repair the damage done by previous Commissions at the Uruguay Round.
By accepting rules which act against our interests and measures such as the one covering sufficient scientific proof, which prevents us in practice from applying the precautionary principle, previous Commissions did a great deal of damage to our companies and to our economies.
They offered up our exports as hostages to those countries who want to impose their methods of production on us with all the effects that these may entail, on health, the environment and society.
In years to come, our citizens' food safety will depend almost entirely on the way in which the new Commission is able, at the forthcoming Millennium round of negotiations, to defend the complete acceptability of a model for a separate European zone of high agricultural quality.
Member States must give or renew a clear and firm mandate to the Commission in order to make it the stimulus for a new, enlightened renegotiation of the GATT regulations which today are an obstacle to setting in action the precautionary principle in the areas of health and food safety.
The Commission must also put a stop to the CAP's very serious drift towards collapse as a Community-wide policy, as European prices are higher than those anywhere else in the world.
Those who are pushing for complete integration to the world market in order to satisfy American demands should be aware of the heavy responsibility that they bear.
They are leaving many of our farmers no other option but to launch themselves ill-advisedly and prematurely into introducing new and untried methods of crop cultivation and animal-rearing, which have not been properly tested and which, therefore, may put public health at risk.
Ensuring the safety of our citizens' food is one of our prime duties.
So, ladies and gentlemen, let us not allow European farming to go mad.
Mr President, as the people in my country already know, the dioxin crisis has, I am sorry to say, propelled tens of thousands of companies into extreme difficulties.
It is my belief that when an economic and environmental disaster occurs on such a scale, people should have the courage to seek out and point to the causes, and, where appropriate, the culprits, not out of some misplaced form of vengeance, but in order to prevent problems of this kind from occurring in the future.
We must be honest.
It is, above all, the former Belgian government that made one blunder too many in this area.
At first, the government didn't know what was going on and was completely indifferent, then it wanted to sweep everything under the carpet until after the elections, and ultimately it was responsible for a panic reaction which was out of all proportion and which led to the entire world boycotting so-called Belgian products, although it was my country, Flanders that suffered most from this, since the lion's share of so-called 'Belgian' exports are, of course, Flemish exports.
But sadly enough, the problem is not just one of incompetence, nepotism in the administration, political appointments and lack of monitoring in Belgium alone.
Perhaps we, as MEPs, must now just face the fact that years of European agricultural policy have, in fact, almost destroyed the high-quality agriculture that can invariably almost be described as small-scale, and have led to the omnipotence of industrial European agriculture and to the omnipotence of a number of agro-industrial groups which are only out to make a profit and which thumb their noses at public health and quality standards.
If, for example, the man in the street were to hear that all manner of waste was being recycled for animal feed, that years after mad cow disease, herbivores are still being fed with animal bonemeal and what is more, that products of obscure provenance which have undergone no checks whatsoever, are being mixed into animal feed bases, then he may well ask himself if decades of European agricultural policy should not, in all honesty, be classified as a total failure.
I shall remind you again that half of the European budget is spent on this agricultural policy.
I believe we must now have the courage, and we must now ask the Council and the Commission to have the courage, firstly, to learn from past mistakes and to discontinue the kind of agricultural policy we have been pursuing to date, and to opt, at last, for high-quality agriculture in Europe, which is the sensible, sober and necessary choice.
Mr President, yesterday we were alarmed yet again, this time by news of increased dioxin-content in German cattle feed.
The contamination, though less serious than in Belgium, is another appeal to producers and governments to act responsibly.
I consider the European Commission's strict measures in the recent crisis to be quite justified.
It is right that irresponsible, indeed criminal behaviour, should be punished.
However, punishment alone will not suffice.
We must avoid such incidents in the future.
The question is how?
I do not think there is any point in setting up a new bureau after every food crisis.
More bureaucracy does not automatically lead to increased food safety.
Neither do I think that we should ban an ever-increasing number of cattle feed ingredients.
If cattle feed factories are no longer permitted to collect waste fat from catering establishments, then who will? The environmental problems should not be underestimated.
Well-integrated management of the food chain would be far more likely to prevent incidents of this kind from arising.
It is very important to be able to trace the waste derived from cattle feed.
This would also guard against one incident throwing the entire cattle feed sector into disrepute.
It is, above all, the Member States that have an important role to play in terms of food chain management.
If they are not prepared to take action for food safety, then the European Commission is powerless.
Finally, I should also like to draw the Commission's attention to the fact that Belgium's ban on vegetable fats for cattle feed encourages fraud, owing to the limited availability of animal fats.
Therefore, for this reason too, I support the call within the resolution to change to vegetable fats.
Pursuant to Rule 37 of the Rules of Procedure, I have received five motions for resolutions.
The vote will take place at 12.00 p.m.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe has had, over the last few years, a succession of food-related scandals. We have had mad cow disease, we are questioning GMOs and their labelling; we are now aware of the problem of the dioxin content in animal bone meal; we are seeing well-known soft drinks withdrawn from sale because they have been causing problems...we are all wondering what the next scandal will be: which one will be uncovered tomorrow.
We must certainly not give in to a mood of panic, but it is quite reasonable for us to be asking ourselves about the quality of the products which we consume.
Concern about food safety is unfortunately far too recent a development in Europe, emerging as it did at the time of the BSE crisis.
This concerns all of us, consumers, small producers, industrial-scale producers and farmers.
We are all concerned because we care about public health, and this drives us.
But at the same time, we also feel very worried for farmers who are directly involved and who have been singled out for blame, and for the whole food-processing industry.
All parties are still suffering.
These scandals have done them an injustice because there are some producers and farmers, very honest people, who do their best to ensure that their processes are faultless.
We should not punish the whole profession because of a few people within its ranks who are less than honest.
What can be done? We must recreate the right conditions for winning back consumer confidence in Europe.
We must therefore strengthen Europe-wide rapid alert mechanisms.
Member States must be willing to accept health inspections. Member States must not be made to feel that they are being singled out for blame if we ask them to make these inspections.
We must all play the game.
It is in everyone's interest as we have this huge single market.
This condition must be met if the market is to work successfully. If it is not, consumers will boycott products and we will find ourselves once again in an economic situation which most people will find extremely difficult.
Member States and the Council must therefore both show greater transparency.
Quality producers who respect the environment must be offered support.
We must, in effect, be brave enough to bring about a fundamental reform of agricultural policy if our consumers are going to want to consume our products again.
We must guarantee vigilance and consistency in traceability and labelling.
We must be especially resolute in discussions with the WTO.
We must, quite simply, put an end to unacceptable practices.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am certainly very reassured by the fact that no one in this House, nor in the European Commission or the Council, has considered the Belgian dioxin crisis to be a purely Belgian problem.
It is indeed the case that enormous problems have arisen in Belgium and, of course, the European Commission was right to state that serious mistakes have been made as regards the Belgian situation. However, those of my colleagues who have got to know a little bit about the case in the meantime, are aware that the Belgian government has taken very drastic measures and can now give guarantees to all consumers throughout the European Union.
Indeed the Belgian dioxin problem also points to a European problem and as such, of course, it has to do with the European internal market, with competition policy and with flawed agricultural policy.
I must say, Mr Commissioner and Mr President, that I welcomed the measures just announced by you both, but I would like to remind you that a number of those measures were placed on the table by the European Parliament some time ago. In fact, they have been there since the Committee of Enquiry into mad cow disease finished its work.
First and foremost, Commissioner Fischler, I do indeed think that the European legislative framework needs to be improved.
You are quite right in saying that we need new quality standards.
I should be pleased if a positive list was indeed to be produced and we were to stop undermining the legislation on account of pressure and lobbying from the agro-industry.
Or are there really people out there who can make out a good case for recycled products and waste entering our food chain?
Secondly, I wish to say something about the organisation of the European administration.
My colleague Dagmar Roth-Behrendt has already said that we are of the opinion that food safety should remain under the control of the European Commission, and consequently also under that of the European Parliament.
We believe that the European Commission should set up a service that is adequately staffed and has adequate finances but which above all, is also able to co-ordinate the controls undertaken by the national bodies and which is able to carry out its own controls, sometimes unannounced, on its own initiative, where and when it considers it appropriate.
Mr Commissioner, I was particularly taken with your announcement regarding the legal foundation for a community initiative on food safety.
It would indeed appear to me to be of benefit for action to be taken to prevent contamination of the food chain and to avoid public health disasters, without the bona fide farmers being the ones to suffer in the process.
But to conclude, Mr Commissioner, Mr President, I should still like to emphasise, just as my colleagues have done, that we shall never be able to solve this food safety problem unless we undertake a radical and complete rethink of our agriculture and of our food production.
We should not continue to give preferential treatment to large-scale agro-industry alone.
In particular, we must support small-scale agriculture and healthy food production.
As a matter of fact, I must say that I find it totally unacceptable that the Belgian farmers' union is refusing to co-operate on agricultural reform during this dioxin crisis, and on reducing the quantity of livestock in Belgium.
Lastly, ladies and gentlemen, there are perhaps quite a number of arguments in support of setting up a European Committee of Enquiry as part of this European approach.
I should just like to say that we must give serious thought to the matter before we come to a decision, and we must think carefully as to whether it would not be better to use the respective committees to continue our work.
Mr President, the last speaker can rest assured that I do not intend to talk exclusively about the mistakes made in Belgium either.
I believe that a dioxin scandal or a BSE crisis, or whatever it may be, can occur anywhere in Europe.
I therefore feel it is high time that the European Commission, together with the European Council, which I understand has given its full support, should develop initiatives as rapidly as possible for bringing about a food policy at European level.
Of course, it goes without saying that it is all about public health.
Providing guarantees for public health must be the first priority.
On the same theme, I should just like to refer to the resolution adopted in October last year, when the European Parliament gave unanimous support to producing a European quality assurance policy for foodstuffs.
All foods which are to enter the marketplace and receive a European label of quality will have to have been monitored throughout the food chain.
Who will be able to do this? We already know of a number of inspection bureaus that are offshoots of the biological production industry.
If people do not want to buy such food, they want to have food in a different way, but so that we know exactly how it has been produced, then in my opinion that should be possible.
The customer is king and the same inspection bureau that monitors biological food will also be able to monitor food subject to different standards.
I think it is particularly important for this to happen in Europe.
For if it happens in Europe, then we will be the first large trading block in the world to provide consumers with guarantees of food quality in this way.
At the end of the day, that is what it is all about.
It has already been pointed out from various quarters that our first priority is to guarantee fair competition, that if we demand something of the European producers, we can also demand the same standards of producers outside Europe.
What would be the best way of bringing this about at the moment? We are already aware that there are, at present, integrated production systems in various European countries.
Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, to name a few countries at random, all have standards for integrated production.
It is only a pity that these standards vary from country to country and I consider that unacceptable for such large common European markets.
It is, therefore, for the Commission to find the common denominator as soon as possible.
I should also like to talk about what Mr Prodi said yesterday on the subject of a European food bureau.
I am not yet absolutely convinced of the need for one.
The American Food and Drug Administration has some five to six thousand officials.
Can the Commission afford to set up something of this kind? I very much doubt it.
I should therefore like to ask if it could send something to the European Parliament so that a comparison can be made. How does the American Food and Drugs Administration operate?
How would it be if a particular department were to be added to our office in Dublin, the Veterinary and Phytosanitary Bureau. They could perhaps fulfil the very same function considerably cheaper.
That seems to me to be something that this Parliament should consent to.
Finally, I wish Finland every success.
We shall take stock at the end of this year.
Mr President, Mr Commissioner, I would like to have been able to address the Commissioner for the Environment and other Commissioners too, because we know very well the harmful effects of dioxins on human health, and this is not merely an agricultural matter. It goes far beyond that.
Along with many scientists, we estimate that the spreading of carcinogenic dioxins into the human food chain will undoubtably be the scourge of the next century.
I really would like the Commissioner to hear what I have to say, because it is our job as well as his, within the framework of the policies which he will be putting into place, to find a way of integrating this problem into these different policies.
We also believe that it is criminal to allow dangerous dioxins to spread into the human food chain.
Recent studies have shown that mother's milk throughout the world is contaminated by dioxin, and that nobody is immune.
We also know that the main causes, the things spitting out most dioxins, are incinerators.
In this matter though, given the considerable financial cost of analysing it, we do not yet know how many people on continental Europe are currently contaminated by dioxins, imagining that they are eating foodstuffs grown in a nice clean field, which are actually being grown near old incinerators still in use.
The European Union is responsible for conserving human health and the environment.
This is why we are demanding first of all, a totally efficient warning system.
It appears that we do not currently have one, given that France did not immediately interpret the announcement of contamination published by Belgium as a health alert.
We are also asking for a parliamentary enquiry.
We know that when the announcement was made about the chicken 'with dioxin in it' , consumers rushed out to buy fish, even though we know that fish are fed with the same food. What will be next on the list?
We very much hope that the Commission will be able to tell us.
Mr President, although the BSE crisis was of an epidemiological nature and the dioxin crisis of a toxic nature, they share worryingly similar characteristics.
Both crises were caused by the addition to animal feedingstuffs of raw materials derived from recycling and both caused serious problems for consumer health.
These practices inevitably lead to the concentration and accumulation of elements which are either infectious or toxic.
The dioxin crisis has also coincided with the scandal of the use of sewage sludge in the manufacture of feedingstuffs.
In this case, the risk arises from the accumulation of heavy metals.
But although we cannot go into a schematic analysis here, I must make a comment in this context: the Common Agricultural Policy and the World Trade Organisation are increasingly promoting the search for aggressive competitiveness as a fundamental principle, which worries me greatly because this type of official approval of competitiveness, above all else, will surely lead to practices presenting risks, such as the use of hormones or antibiotics for example, amongst the raw materials used in animal feedingstuffs.
For the European Union, the precautionary principle in defence of consumer health should take precedence in these cases.
One serious problem in this area concerns the insufficient regulations on the manufacture of feedingstuffs and the lack of a food policy in the European Union.
Let me remind you of the fact that Community institutions have not taken heed of the recommendations and demands of the Parliament, which requested the prohibition of meat and bone meal in animal feedingstuffs.
Nevertheless, the most serious problem arises from the fact that any ingredient which has not been expressly prohibited in the manufacture of feedingstuffs is implicitly authorised.
Therefore, the Commission must draw up and formulate proposals for the creation of a positive list of raw materials authorised for use in animal feedingstuffs, together with a study of the incidence of production costs for cattle feedingstuffs in order to prevent incompatibilities with the CAP.
Lastly, Mr President, I would like to remind the Commission that it must immediately formulate a food policy, in implementation of the Green Paper which was produced two years ago, and I would like to express my agreement with the comments of Mrs Roth-Behrendt with regard to the independent Food Agency.
Mr President, given the history of the United Kingdom in relation to the BSE crisis, some delegates may consider that the UK is disqualified from giving an objective view.
However, such a view would be wrong.
It must be remembered that this was not our only crisis.
We also had salmonella in eggs and listeria, giving us unparalleled experience in dealing with food safety crises.
On the matter of listeria, this crisis came to a head in 1989 when over 200 babies and young children had been killed in preceding years, far more than died of new variant CJD.
What fellow Members may not know is that the main source of the disease was contaminated paté sold from three Belgian plants.
Only when UK health officials intervened was the problem finally resolved.
What this says is that it is not just the UK that has food safety problems.
But what we have learned from our incidents is that precipitate reaction can often do more damage than the initial crises.
Action needs to be carefully considered and based on good science.
In response to the dioxin incident, we see the Commission launching once again into frenzied legislative action.
This is damaging British interests, in particular a company called Spalding Nutrition which is threatened by an entirely unnecessary ban.
Thus, we would say: by all means have an enquiry, but first let us have a wide-ranging review of all Member States' systems for dealing with food and health scares, starting with an evaluation of the British system.
Mr President, once again, we are faced with unbelievable sloppiness and criminal behaviour and, in this respect, there are definite parallels with past events, with one difference however: the Commission has taken the lessons on board and has acted more rapidly than in the past.
Some Member States, in this particular instance Belgium, are still taking preventative consumer protection far too lightly.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, after listening to your speech this morning, I hope that there will be jump forward in terms of quality in the Council and I also hope that this will become evident through actions and decisions over the coming months.
The Commission has now submitted a number of good recommendations, in part, recommendations which have already been called for in relation to BSE.
Therefore, Mr Fischler, you will be able to rely on this Parliament for its full co-operation and support as regards the questions of open declaration, the safeguard clause and also the positive list.
But I should also say that I find it absurd if Member States which, in the past, have not observed European safety standards for example, now wish to prohibit the use of meat and bone meal in general or, if the Commission, as regards the question of the use of oils and fats, at the same time makes a general issue in a working document of the recycling of leftovers.
In this event, we are heading from recycling systems which are in working order towards unresolved waste problems.
One last point: I am opposed to the inflammatory ideas expressed by news agencies who say that the Commission is no longer required.
This is my point: tell the Parliament what you expect of veterinary surgeons and inspectors, make sure that the notification procedures function more quickly and that the allocation of posts within the Commission is more flexible.
In this way, we can bring about an improved system within the Commission which is also under the control of the Commission.
Here in Parliament, we will make sure that, in the case of co-decision making, matters are dealt with smoothly, quickly and in a proper manner and do not descend into chaos.
The dioxin story is very familiar to those of us in the United Kingdom who have lived through BSE.
Many of the ingredients are exactly the same - disagreeable and even disgusting practices in the preparation of some animal foodstuffs in a world of intensive agriculture and panic and deceit in some of the Member States concerned when the source of contamination is first discovered.
We must remember this was discovered in January 1999 and the Commission was only able to take action after a period of months and a good deal of obfuscation.
What we have now seen is the same set of arguments that perhaps they were trying to avoid: a consumer panic and protection of a market - a market which is actually now much more imperilled by the way in which the crisis has unfolded.
I think there are dangers of overreaction and some Members have referred to that.
What I would say is that we must learn lessons from this crisis.
Firstly, a vigorous and properly funded inspectorate must be established to take a preventative role in this matter.
We are now talking about significant changes in the law, long lists of further regulations of substances which may be banned.
I certainly do not know, because I do not have the technical expertise, whether the range of recovered vegetable oils which are now seen to be a source of risk should be subject to an outright ban, or whether it should simply be limited to some section of kitchen waste which should never have been in any form of animal foodstuff in the first instance.
What I do know is that the inspectorate which we have fought for - we had to fight to get an effective budget for it, to set up the veterinary office in Brussels and to make sure that we had the principle of general inspections throughout the Community - that inspectorate finds itself threatened and bullied.
We have had examples in my country and in Belgium of people being physically threatened, of being blackmailed and in some instances even murdered!
Now when that is the situation, how can we say that the proposal, welcome as it is, to look at a Europe-wide Food and Drugs Agency and all these grand gestures can work when no individual inspector can penetrate into the world of crime and fraud which characterises sections of this industry.
So, in my opinion, we have to put our own House in order in this matter.
We have to be able to say, as the motion of the Socialist Group does, that the rule of law must apply, that we are a Community of law, and unless we have a universal application, which never happened in the wake of BSE, of the regulations, the situation cannot improve.
Simply to bring forward new lists to imperil the producers and not to safeguard the consumer in the actions involved is the wrong way forward.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Fischler, in this dreadful state of affairs, we must take note of the fact that here clearly systematically toxic substances have been recycled via animal feed.
You have talked about product contamination being the starting point of this crisis, but there is still no apparent mishap to which blame can be attributed.
Clearly, this contamination can also take place systematically and therefore the full force of the law must be brought to bear.
The criminal elements who exploit people by using them as human waste disposal units must be punished.
Many demands which they have made are still under discussion by the BSE investigation committee.
I hope that they can now be transposed quickly.
Above all else Mr Fischler, the question of maximum values must be tied in with a ban on mixing or else this systematic disposal will continue.
One more thought on waste: if we are talking about toxic substances, it is not.....
The President cut the speaker off
Mr President, in an internal market, the attention given to producing safe and healthy food must, of course, be organised on a cross-border basis.
We appear to all be in agreement on this, but we still haven't managed to bring it about, either in terms of prescriptive legislation or in terms of monitoring and control.
However, the dioxin crisis is not the first crisis to occur in European food policy and neither will it be the last.
Let us hope that we shall be able to manage future crises more effectively.
Of course the Member States must exercise more control, but there is also a need for control at the European level.
That has already been made clear here this morning.
It goes without saying that this must be brought about in a democratic manner, but what I ask myself is when is something at last to be done?
Commissioner Bonino told us the week after the parliamentary elections that she didn't think an agency would work out.
Mr Mulder has already spoken here of the 5, 000 officials that would be needed to staff it.
The new President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, told us yesterday that he is in fact considering such an agency.
I should very much like to know which course of action the Commission actually intends to pursue, what actual steps have been taken, and whether the Commission intends to take account of the wishes expressed by the Parliament, both in the BSE reports and in the Green Paper on food, the resolution that we drew up on the subject.
However effective the control, we can never rule out human error.
We have learnt that the consequences of problems can escalate to an unexpectedly high level.
This raises the question as to the purpose of Community solidarity.
Should this really continue to be restricted to natural disasters and veterinary illness, or should it also come into play when human error has serious economic consequences, for many entirely blameless SMEs, among others.
Hence my second question to the Commission. Has consideration already been given to creating a legal foundation for Community financial aid given to innocent victims?
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, we owe it to the people of Europe to tell them the whole truth about this dioxin business.
In addition to this, we must finally obtain world-wide figures for this sinister matter.
That is why I am asking for a Temporary Parliamentary Committee of Enquiry to be established, with the responsibility of ensuring that the whole range of problems is brought to the table, and that all the lessons to be learned from it are looked at.
I can see at least three.
The first would be to amend European legislation which has shown obvious shortcomings.
There are some products which need to be banned, and some mechanisms which need improving.
The second is the question of the notification procedure which did not work and which must be clarified, toughened up and improved.
And here we come to the vital matter of inspection.
This Europe of ours will not work, and there will be no confidence that Europe does work, if we are not able to move from this type of co-ordination of inspection towards a genuine Community-wide approach to at least some aspects of food inspection.
From this point of view, Mr Prodi's proposal for an authority or agency seems attractive.
There is a need for an authority with specific responsibility for food safety, but it would have to remain independent, because we need both the Commission and Parliament to uphold the public interest in this matter.
I would like to insist finally on the banning of animal bone meal.
How many more times must we have the kind of accident that results from this practice before we put an end to this absurd system which leaves land fallow and farmers, who should be working in order to keep the heritage and the countryside of this Europe of ours alive, unable to work because we favour the use of recycled waste, particularly animal waste. This is an absurd and dangerous system which we should really bring to an end.
I would like to end with the idea that behind this question, which is asked so often, lies the fundamental issue of the direction that farming is taking in Europe and around the world.
We shall be reopening the WTO negotiations, and like everyone else in this Parliament, I expect you, the Commission to ensure that standards for health, the environment and society are set to limit and restrict this theory, which is becoming more and more dangerous, of a free market whose prime motive is profit.
Europeans expect something better than this.
Mr Commissioner, I would like to know if you are intending to propose a ban on animal bone meal and within what framework you think this measure might be possible.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr Commissioner, in recent years, Europe has been plunged into two significant health crises caused by food; firstly, BSE in the United Kingdom and, subsequently, the dioxin case in Belgium.
This should give us cause for reflection. But rather than just reflecting, we should take urgent and effective steps.
The effects of these crises have been collective panic amongst consumers, some unfortunate cases of people affected, and irreparable and significant financial losses in the agricultural and food industries.
Furthermore, they have caused distrust amongst consumers, damaged the reputation of the European agricultural and food industries amongst third countries and caused headaches for the governments of the Member countries. I can confirm this as a former head of food policy in Spain.
I want to highlight the fact that this serious health crisis is being fought with instruments which were designed for other purposes connected to the Common Agricultural Policy, such as the Standing Veterinary Committee which was intended to monitor animal health.
Europe should have a professional Scientific Committee which guarantees food safety, including animal feedingstuffs which are another link in the food chain.
It should have control mechanisms which allow for prevention rather than a posteriori stop-gap solutions and must have in place mechanisms to penalise Member countries which put public health at risk by deliberately obscuring causes of risk for a certain length of time.
Let us bear in mind that the necessary liberalisation of the markets and the opening up to third countries is exposing agriculture and cattle farming to difficult levels of competition and if effective preventative measures are not taken, the race to lower production costs will sooner or later bring about another similar case.
Legislation is important as well as ecologically friendly agriculture, but it is not enough.
We must act through effective mechanisms.
Finally, I would like to draw attention to the Commission's chaotic information policy.
In the case of dioxin, 15 days passed between the communication of the Standing Veterinary Committee and the official alert, while Commissioner Bonino simply announced that she did not drink Belgian milk.
All of this was conveniently manipulated by the media.
Mr President, I want to focus on one particular issue which I feel has not been fully explored.
Dioxin, and in this case its source chemical PCB, is one of the number of non-biodegradable bio-accumulative chemicals that we know are contaminating the food chain around the world.
There are rules and regulations already in existence for the correct and proper disposal of these substances.
Indeed, I was Parliament's rapporteur on the Council and Commission proposal for the elimination of PCBs and PCDs we dealt with in the last Parliament.
We have to ask if these existing European rules and regulations are being properly followed.
Are the responsible authorities given the duty to dispose of these chemicals in a correct and safe way, following the rules, or are they deliberately avoiding them and disposing of these chemicals in the wrong way? This incident appears to indicate that is the case.
Unlike bacterial or some other form of organic or biological contamination of the food chain, we have here a finite quantity of substance that could easily be eliminated.
Would the Commission please look into why the regulations on the proper disposal of PCBs and PCDs are not being correctly followed? Will they please investigate where the substances came from that caused this incident?
Mr President, the dioxin crisis has demonstrated that consumers want safe food.
Farmers produce it, but things sometimes go wrong through no fault of their own.
At such times, it falls to the authorities to do something.
As far as that is concerned, we should note that although this crisis originated in Belgium, it affects countries throughout the EU. I should like to propose, therefore, that we quickly get to work on setting up a food safety bureau, and that more money is devoted to this.
I should like in particular to lend my support to the proposals put forward by MEP Böge on this point.
Let the Commission advise the Council of Ministers on what is necessary in terms of money and manpower, with a view to dealing with this more quickly.
For citizens and farmers are entitled to expect the authorities to respond effectively to a crisis of this kind and although it may not be appropriate to term a natural disaster, it comes very close to one when you see what the effects are.
I would thus advocate quickly getting down to work and setting up a food safety bureau under the direction of Commissioner Fischler.
My second point is that there should be improved harmonisation of national legislation as regards criminal law, with a view to dealing rapidly with those who infringe the laws on this point, which is, in fact, a criminal matter.
I should like to draw attention to two matters: firstly, the side effects.
It is Belgian farmers and Belgian consumers who have been the ones to suffer.
In fact, it is a natural disaster of sorts and we actually ought to be able to say: this is a matter for the European institutions.
I should like to support MEP Thyssen's call for the Commission to be more generous in that respect and to enter into discussion with the Parliament on how matters of this kind should be dealt with in future.
Secondly, what is the Commission doing about the fact that the minute such a crisis arises, the next thing to happen is that Belgian pigs are transported to other countries, are slaughtered and labelled there, and are therefore using a different label?
This has repercussions for the market.
What does the Commissioner hope to do at this juncture and in terms of creating effective policy? As a representative of the European People's Party, I should particularly like to point out that whilst we cannot prevent disasters, as administrators, as parliamentarians, we must take the opportunity to deal with matters in a completely effective way.
That is why I wish to make you fully aware of these two points in particular.
Mr President, this House is expected to produce at last one clear statement in relation to the dioxin crisis.
I would sum this up by saying that on the question of health, we do not want to enter into a compromise, nor do we want to compromise on the issue of industrial crimes. This crisis, just like the BSE crisis, is throwing up questions which we must answer, both in concrete terms and also very quickly.
Are the resources which we have allocated to carry out checks sufficient at the end of the day? And are they efficient?
To what extent are crises of this sort also an opportunity for certain Member States, as the Commissioner has just mentioned, to set up additional trade barriers over and above the measures imposed? What resources shall we place at our disposal, together with the Commission and especially with the Council, so that definite checks and early warning systems can be introduced?
I am raising these issues because I am of the opinion that we do not have to answer these questions in tedious or prolonged committees of enquiry.
Nor am I convinced that a government Commissioner responsible for dealing with a crisis in a country will concern himself with efficiency and credibility.
Let us simply show, at our level and at a national level, that we possess the political will to act rather than simply to analyse.
The consumer expects a swift and efficient response, not contradictory statements by experts who engender more mistrust than trust with consumers.
Quick, efficient action is also expected by farmers since, in our country, in Belgium, well over 90 % of farmers are victims of this crisis.
We should not punish these farmers who have invested many years in the quality and also the clarity of their controls.
I therefore ask you not to give a de facto refusal to provide financial assistance within the framework of the European Union.
We know, in the meantime, how crises originate; now we must finally provide ourselves with the means of avoiding them.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree in many respects with what has been said here today.
The safety of consumers is vital, not just for the consumers themselves, obviously, but for the whole food chain from the field to the dining table.
In fact, consumer safety is an absolutely essential aspect of an idea which has become familiar in connection with Agenda 2000, that of the European agricultural model.
That model includes the notion that the farmer must be able to trust in the quality of the production foods he or she purchases, such as animal feed.
The dioxin crisis is also proof of this as its result is that tens of thousands of innocent farmers will suffer heavy financial losses.
I agree, in this regard, with the comments of Mrs Grossetête and Mr Souchet on the European agricultural model.
I would like to return to two particular comments.
Mr Florenz raised the issue of the position of the Council in this crisis. This theme was taken up by Mr Böge, among others.
I would like to stress the fact that the Council embarked on a series of measures as soon as the problem arose.
The Agriculture and Health Ministers began work on the matter in co-operation with the Commission immediately.
As far as the Agriculture Ministers are concerned, the conclusions were adopted at political level in the Council in June, and now, again in terms of practical action, in the Council last Monday.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt mentioned the independent European Food Agency.
This was also mentioned by Mr Thyssen, Mr Mulder and Mr Van Dam.
Regarding this, I would like to state very clearly that food monitoring is the responsibility of the Member States, of the regions and the local authorities.
At Community level we need effective control, but the office responsible for overseeing the work of the Member States is sufficient for that.
I would like to give my strongest assurance to Mrs Roth-Behrendt that Finland will act with complete transparency in this matter.
Mr President, I shall convey the messages I have heard here to my colleagues in the Council.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for conducting a very constructive and healthy debate on this difficult question.
I would like to briefly add to certain points that have been raised.
Firstly, the question of the applicability of the PCB tests for pork is still open.
The problem, and this particularly applies to the Belgian Members of Parliament who have asked to speak on this issue, that we are still faced with is that as a prerequisite for using this test, parallel tests on dioxin and PCB content must be available so that a correlation can be established.
In order to do this however, a minimum number of samples is required.
Thus far, we have received a total of eight such samples from the Belgian authorities.
This is far too few. As soon as we obtain the necessary results from the Belgian government, we are ready to implement the required measures immediately.
A second issue which has been raised by many is the question of the use of Community funds to aid farmers who have been victims of this crisis.
In my introductory remarks on this issue, I pointed out that in the area of market regulations, we have put in place a whole range of measures to alleviate the difficult situation in different areas.
I also pointed out that we have thus far authorised eight national subsidies after notifications.
However, as far as a direct Community subsidy for Belgian products is concerned, I have to make it clear that there is no basis in Community law for doing so.
Ladies and gentlemen, I agree with those of you who have asserted here that the mixing together of substances which are highly contaminated with dioxins, and which is suspected here, is still a criminal act and not an animal illness.
We can only pay compensation or subsidies where animal illnesses are concerned.
Applause
Mention should also be made of the fact that recently, there has allegedly been increased dioxin values in Germany.
I do not want to leave this matter hanging as that would be unfair.
What is the issue here? Several clay minerals were tested which are also partly used as binding agents in the production of animal feedingstuffs.
In some of these clay minerals, increased dioxin values were actually found.
This dioxin, ladies and gentlemen, is several million years old, and is therefore nothing new.
So we must take care that these substances have also been tested where they are used in the manufacture of animal feedingstuffs.
At the same time, this also demonstrates that it is not possible to have a zero dioxin value.
Dioxin these days is an ubiquitous substance that can be found anywhere in the world and which also occurs, unfortunately, in our countryside.
What we have to prevent, therefore, is the mixing together of dioxin-containing substances or at least ensure that such substances do not enter the animal feed chain via another route in spite of sufficient controls.
In this regard, I am also of the opinion, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, that it is irresponsible that we do this by means of the dilution factor.
That cannot be the plan.
On the other hand, however, we must discuss further how we should deal with animal waste products in general.
Things are actually not as simple as Mr Böge suggests.
It is also illogical, for example, that it is permissible to cook soup for human consumption from cattle marrowbone, or that the cattle marrow is even served in restaurants as a delicacy, while its use is prohibited in the animal feed industry.
Therefore, I am very much in favour of ruminants not obtaining their feed from materials which are animal in origin. Such a black and white policy in this area is not possible, however, if we do not want to run the risk of finding ourselves with enormous difficulties in terms of waste disposal.
Ladies and gentlemen, a couple of small points to finish with which I consider to be important.
Firstly, repeated mention has been made of the issue of safety and quality requirements and an appropriate label.
Let me be quite clear on this point. We are not saying that if we have a quality label, we can, so to speak, permit a two-tier system as regards safety requirements.
The safety requirements must be satisfied for every foodstuff; there can be no compromise on this.
Of course, however, there have to be other possibilities for designating particular quality accordingly.
In this regard, we have the resolution from Autumn '98, which I commented on at the time. My stance remains the same today.
Last point: Hormone meat.
On this issue I would like, ladies and gentlemen, to draw your attention to the fact that, the day before yesterday, the USA announced that they are abandoning, at least temporarily, the supply of hormone-free meat to Europe since they are not currently in a position to observe the guarantees required by us.
As you know, however, we have made considerable changes to our regulations so that not only are spot checks carried out on imports but that every import is scrutinised.
Just so you know!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12.00 p.m.
Madam President, I should like an error to be rectified.
In Annex I of the Minutes for yesterday, Wednesday 21 July, Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck's name appears under the Liberals in the list of Members that took part in the vote. Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck is no longer an MEP.
However, Mr Ward Beysen, who succeeded Mrs Neyts-Uyttebroeck, is an MEP and he participated in this vote.
Might I then request that the name Neyts-Uyttebroeck be deleted as regards the first round of voting as well as the second, and that the name Ward Beysen be added.
Of course.
The Belgians did, in fact, send the details of their newly elected Members rather late, and the services will, naturally, make the necessary changes to these lists.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in the Minutes of yesterday's sitting, 21 July, my name appears as a Member of the ARE Group.
I believe that the ARE Group no longer exists as a political entity.
Politically, I belong to the Liberal Group.
I would be grateful if this error could be rectified.
Absolutely.
This correction will, of course, be made.
Madam President, as Mr Sánchez has pointed out, there are errors in the Minutes, but not only because Mr Sánchez is included in the European Radical Alliance, which does not exist - and this has also happened with MEPs Bautista, Hudghton and MacCormick - but because I, although I belong to the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, appear in the Group of Non-attached Members.
I therefore respectfully request that the Minutes be revised since, to be quite frank, they are awful.
Of course, we will be systematically checking all of that to ensure that everything is correct.
Madam President, my intervention concerns the same matter.
I appear in both votes as belonging to the Group of Non-attached Members, although I belong to the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
May I ask that the appropriate rectifications be made.
A small matter, Madam President.
Is it possible to sort out the microphones? Those of us that must listen to interpretation for nearly every speaker are finding it very difficult to hear with the volume of these mikes.
A small matter, but please resolve it.
Applause
Mrs Doyle, we are working on a list which will be as complete as possible, of all the problems - and unfortunately there are many - that we have encountered in this building.
The list will be compiled at the beginning of next week. It will be sent to all MEPs - I insisted on this - so that you can each add to it if needs be.
We will then, of course, do everything we can to rectify all the problems.
Madam President, I would just like to point out that although I, like Mrs Thomas Moreau, took part in the second round of the Election of Quaestors, this fact is not recorded in the Minutes.
We shall have this corrected as well.
Madam President, yesterday's Minutes state quite correctly that I asked you to supply all the MEPs with the preliminary draft by the Committee of the Wise Men, if such a draft exists.
The Minutes state that your response to me was that you would take the steps necessary to achieve this.
Madam President, have you, from your position of importance, had the time to take any action in this matter yet?
Yes, Mr Staes.
You will shortly receive chapter VII of this report.
The Chairman of the Committee has sent me chapter VII and he says that the other chapters will only be available on 13 September.
I have already replied to him, asking to see him in order to let him know that this arrangement does not meet the wishes of our Assembly at all.
Applause
Madam President, it seems that there have been some amendments to the nomination of Members of the committees and delegations.
I would like to know if I am the only person who is not aware of these amendments, or if there are other MEPs in the same position, because before deciding if I am for or against an amendment, I would like to know what it is about.
I shall announce these amendments very slowly so that everyone will be aware of them.
As you will see, they are not particularly problematic, and this is why they have not been distributed in advance, although obviously, all amendments should otherwise be distributed beforehand.
Madam President, I respect the individual way in which you conduct sessions but could you perhaps ensure that it is standardised as far as possible that once the speaking time has expired, and before the microphone is switched off, an acoustic warning, made with the small hammer, sounds first so that a speaker is not simply cut off mid-sentence?
I have taken note of your request.
Madam President, apparently the Committee of the Wise Men may be presenting their report to the President and the group leaders sometime today.
If that is the case, could you please ensure that these are the final conclusions and that they are available to all Members as soon as possible?
Mr Elles, I have just given an answer to Mr Staes.
The position is exactly the one I have just stated, which is that one chapter of this report has been made available to us.
This is by no means acceptable, and that is why we are pursuing our demand as I have just told Mr Staes.
VOTE
Six amendments have been submitted to me, and I would like to repeat the point that I have just made, that they are merely redistributions of posts between various political groups, and by that I mean that they represent the exchange of various posts within the same group, or the addition of an appointment for a post which was vacant.
Madam President, you say that these are just revisions or changes, but we would like the Socialist Group to tell us, concerning its amendment 1, if it is an addition or a real change, and we would like the same answer from the European Socialist Group on their amendment 4.
Mrs Grossetête, I propose that you hear what I have to say, if you don't mind, and then, if you are not satisfied, you may ask for more detailed explanations.
That is a good question.
The amendments have not been given to any Member.
I do not know what Mrs Grossetête's information networks may be, but no favouritism has been shown to any Member.
By successive votes, Parliament adopted all the proposals
Madam President, would you please bear in mind that our group is called 'Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance' , that it has two components and that this is a new group and should be referred to as such.
I do not know if you noticed, but when I called for your first amendment, I was careful to give the name in its entirety.
I thought that afterwards, we might save time by abbreviating it.
Applause
(Parliament rejected the joint motion for a resolution)
(Loud applause)
Madam President, can you confirm this latest electronic vote? Is it a vote by roll call or not?
The President replied that the vote was confirmed
May we have a vote by roll call?
No, Mr Beazley, requests for votes by roll call must be made within certain time limits.
Applause
It is quite possible that some Members may have voted electronically rather than by hand, but they are entirely within their rights to do so.
In any case, I personally did not observe the result, but the machine deems it to be correct, and the result stands as I have just announced it.
We shall now proceed to the resolution of the Group of the PPE and European Democrats.
As this resolution has not been adopted, we shall vote on the other resolutions.
Motion for a resolution (B5-0008/99), on behalf of the PPE Group on the conclusions of the Cologne European Council meeting on 3 and 4 June 1999
Madam President, firstly, please allow me to intervene so that there may be equal treatment amongst all of the groups.
I believe that you said that it was the Group of the European People's Party/European Democrats.
I believe that the third part of the group's title is missing, and I say this so that all of us may be treated equally.
Secondly, Madam President, I believe that the proposal that you are suggesting we put to the vote has already been rejected. I think we should move on to the next one.
No, Mr Barón Crespo, we had a joint motion for a resolution which was issued by two political groups, the Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats, and the Liberal Group.
This resolution has just been rejected.
We are therefore proceeding now to the vote on the various resolutions which have been put forward individually by the groups.
That is how it stands.
Do you agree?
Madam President, in the event that the PPE Group and the Liberal Group present a joint motion for a resolution, as I understand it, the other proposals are automatically rejected.
Madam President, I would already have asked for the Minutes to have been approved this morning if I had seen that Annex III had not been distributed for our perusal.
This morning, we found on our seats the Minutes containing two Annexes while the third Annex had not been distributed.
They were only pigeonholed over the course of the morning.
I wish to protest at this and would like to ask about the reasoning behind it. Approval of the Minutes dictates that all three Annexes, and not just two, are available.
Secondly, I wish to point out that the third Annex contains the composition of the committees of delegations, and I would like to ask whether yesterday, when we took a vote on this issue - which is what apparently happened - whether the lists with the names and the composition were available or whether we took a vote without knowledge of the composition. I consider this to be an unheard of sequence of events if no appropriate submission was forthcoming.
We have just voted on the composition of the committees and delegations.
As far as the Annexes are concerned, you are indeed quite right. Members must have all relevant documents, and let me assure you that we will see that they do.
Madam President, the Cologne Council launched two processes for institutional reform which, to our mind, avoid the fundamental issues.
Firstly, it decided to work on a Charter which will bring together citizens' basic rights already in force throughout the Union, but it did not state exactly what legal basis it should end up having, nor what it would add to current legislation.
This is an obvious case of propaganda, with the aim of bringing to the table the idea of a European Constitution which would itself legitimise a Super-State ready to be constituted.
The second Cologne initiative was the work towards an Intergovernmental Conference on improving institutions with the future enlargement of the European Union in mind.
Its mandate has expanded beyond what was foreseen in the first Article of the Protocol on Institutions found in the Annex to the Treaty of Amsterdam, because the Cologne European Council, without consultation, added the option to extend voting to the qualified majority.
This solution strikes us as completely unworkable, for in order to prepare for enlargement, we need institutions which are not more rigid but more flexible, and that is why we feel that this mandate for negotiation must be set right by the Helsinki Council.
The biggest drawback about the Cologne conclusions is that they made a huge omission.
Almost nothing has been learned from the institutional point of view, from the major crisis, prompted last March by the collective resignation of the Commission, as a result of irresponsible management.
No amendment to the Treaty was proposed.
The possible reforms are being dealt with by the Anti-Fraud Office and by Romano Prodi himself, who told us yesterday that he would be able to resolve almost everything by changing the internal workings of the Commission and by putting forward a Members' Code of Conduct.
We are being taken for a ride, because the problems which led to the resignation of the Commission are much more serious. They represent a huge gulf between the Union's institutions and its citizens, which can only be remedied by reform on a huge scale which would establish a Europe of Nations.
By forgetting this, the Cologne Council managed to dodge the question of democracy itself.
The Danish Social Democrats have voted in favour of the motion for a resolution from the Group of the Party of European Socialists on the Cologne European Council Meeting because we found the main content to be sound.
However, we wish to draw attention to three points on which we do not share the group's position. These are:
1.The points concerning an EU defence policy, since Denmark has a reservation in this matter.2.The point concerning the statute for European parliamentarians.
We abstained from voting on this point, since the European Parliament's proposal for a statute is unsatisfactory.3.The point concerning the next Intergovernmental Conference, since we consider that the Conference should only cover enlargement and not be hampered by extensive reforms.
Concerning the Summit which closed the Council's term under the auspices of the German Presidency, I would like to insist from the very outset on the very good work achieved by this Presidency within a perilous international context and in a period of 'doubt' in European opinion.
There was no lack of seriousness and toughness.
Who could think otherwise?
Concerning the actual decisions taken, although I welcome the efforts devoted to employment and the decision on a 'European Employment Pact' , I must state my unhappiness about the gains which were made and the concrete proposals put forward.
I hope, therefore, that it represents a starting point (and not the point of arrival!).The overwhelming majority of the Right in Parliament, incidentally, will not make things any easier.
The European Left will therefore have a fight on its hands to help the Council to implement its promises, and if possible, to go even further.
Unemployment is still 'an absolute evil' in today's Europe, destroying our society.
We will see then, how this matter is followed up under the Finnish Presidency.
I could only approve with reservations the resolution of the European Parliament regarding the European Council Summit, held in Cologne on 3 and 4 June 1999 under the German Presidency.
Those who had hoped that the success of the German Presidency would continue smoothly through this year would have been bitterly disappointed.
There is a big difference between someone like Helmut Kohl shaping policies in the German and, at the same time, the European interest, coming to an agreement in advance with partners in the Member States, and thereby achieving something tangible as a result, and someone like Mr Schröder attempting to do this.
The entire world has noticed that he is uneasy on the international stage.
This has been evident in the lack of progress in the fight against the predominant problem in Europe, the lack of jobs and the inadequate employment situation.
Back in 1994, with a German as EU President-in-Office of the Council, Helmut Kohl, a milestone was reached in Essen when agreement was reached on the first elements of a co-ordinated European employment strategy.
On this basis, the Employment Summit in Luxembourg agreed upon significant guidelines.
Jean-Claude Juncker demonstrated the path to changing the structure of the labour market with the aim of securing a higher employment level through increased efficiency.
The grandiose announcement by Mr Schröder concerning the European Employment Pact was, as usual, premature.
A lavish menu was planned but what transpired was meagre fare.
All the' Cologne process' means is getting macro economic dialogue under way, i.e. conducting negotiations between the Council, Commission, social partners and the European Central Bank. Nothing more was achieved.
This takes you back, embarrassingly, to the 'Alliance for Work' , which has transformed into an 'Alliance for Rhetoric' , lacking in effective structural reforms worthy of the name and where agreement cannot be reached on low wages, wage policy and wealth creation.
Citizens, and primarily those who are unemployed, are sick and tired of rituals lacking in substance.
Recently, the Kosovo conflict has overshadowed everything, but nothing can be concealed for long.
With bombastic Schröder maxims, the Federal Government going it alone, unauthorised and arbitrary personnel decisions à la Hombach and through rough behaviour instead of sensitivity, there has been absolutely nothing to write home about, either at a national or at a European level.
The European elections gave the necessary resounding slap in the face: The outgoing Council Presidency was a flop, not a success.
Kosovo
Madam President, with regard to the resolution approved on Kosovo, and in particular with respect to point 11, which appears to be an opportunity for political dialogue between the different positions, I think that it is important, within the declaration of voting intent, to emphasise a certain number of aspects.
One of these is related to the structure of the reconstruction agency in Kosovo.
The fact that a decentralised, flexible structure for improving efficiency has been identified is very important, but this must be linked to a more comprehensive assessment.
Since 1990, certain areas of Europe, Southern Italy, and, in particular, Puglia, have been suffering because of their geographic location from the effects of migration flows.
The Kosovo conflict has further complicated this situation.
In attempting to evaluate the situation, a more comprehensive assessment of the problem will be crucial, as will efforts to identify solutions which, within the flexibility of the structure, are able to highlight any aspects which may be linked to the problems of these territories of Southern Italy.
As far as I am concerned, there is no reason for soul-searching.
Europe was right to use military intervention.
Europe must do everything to punish the murderers. Europe must contribute to the reconstruction of the region.
I would like to say that, above and beyond these three points, the most important thing for me is that we quickly build a politically solid Europe, to speed up enlargement in the East in order to strengthen democracy, to eliminate the residues of National Communism and to reassure democratic governments by giving them the possibility of association and then accession.
The Balkan region is still very sensitive, and there is no guarantee that we will not face another, even more serious crisis.
There is, therefore, no time to lose.
I am not one to defend terrorism and terrorists and so I am not shocked that Mr Öçalan should face trial in Turkey.
Nevertheless, the drama of the Kurdish people is very real, and if we want to see their rights respected, a reasonable and balanced solution will have to be negotiated with its representatives.
This is assuming that there will not be an irrevocable decision on Mr Öçalan, especially an execution.
Finally, we must remind Turkey that its association with Europe implies respect for the same values and principles which unite the countries within the Union.
Contamination by dioxin
The issue that we are dealing with during this constitutive session is an extremely serious one: that of the dioxin crisis.
I am pleased that it features on our agenda and that representatives of the European Commission and the Council spoke on this matter this morning at the request of our Assembly.
The scandal of chickens and other animals being contaminated by dioxin, this carcinogenic substance, brought back very bad memories for all consumers.
This is the unpleasant impression for many of us, of having been through this scenario before - a scenario in which consumers are the last to find out what they are eating, and yet whose health is at serious risk.
The vote for this resolution is a genuine sign of the will of the European Parliament to get to the very bottom of this business and to answer consumers' legitimate concerns.
At the time of the mad cow crisis, the European Parliament did not spare any effort to have measures adopted for the protection of consumers.
Through its Temporary Committees of Enquiry, it followed with great vigilance the way the European Commission and the Member States managed the crisis.
Its efficiency has been unanimously recognised by all European institutions.
This is why I, like many of my colleagues, feel that we must set up a Temporary Committee of Enquiry on the dioxin crisis.
Short-term solutions must be found in order to resolve problems caused by the contamination of foodstuffs in Belgium, and in the longer term, debate must be started on the many questions first thrown up by the mad cow crisis and which are again coming to the fore because of this new food crisis.
I am thinking, for example of the Belgian government's lack of transparency in alerting the European Commission so late, and of the lack of information which was given to consumers.
On a more global scale, the question being asked is 'what kind of food policy do we want within the European Union?' .
The European Parliament, as well as numerous consumer associations, has been able to give answers which are also ways forward for thinking about a new definition of the European Union's approach to food.
This must uphold the interests of consumers, it must ensure that the precautionary principle prevails over all other principles, and it must set up an integrated inspection of the food chain in its entirety, from producer to consumer.
This traceability is essential for food safety.
This is, therefore, a global debate which we Members of the European Parliament must sustain throughout the next legislature. It must cover dioxin, hormones and GMOs which are all very controversial issues.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in Germany we have a saying: 'Was ich nicht weiß, macht mich nicht heiß ' , i.e., ' What the eye cannot see, the heart cannot grieve over' .
At a personal level, this holds true, but when it comes to consumer protection, this maxim can not apply.
The dioxin scandal has once again demonstrated that an open information policy is an essential prerequisite for effective and comprehensive consumer protection.
The irresponsible behaviour of the Belgian authorities and the withholding of information relating to animal feed and foodstuffs contaminated with dioxins have shaken consumer confidence permanently.
Consumers must be able to feel confident that they will not be presented with health-endangering foodstuffs.
This equally applies to farmers as regards animal feed.
They obtain their feed from industrial enterprises and do not have the opportunity to inspect these products for harmful substances.
They must also be able to have the confidence that the animal feed is completely untainted.
On the one hand, this clarifies the responsibility of the competent authorities which are responsible for inspecting products and, on the other, makes it clear that the dioxin scandal is not a problem nor a mistake on the part of agriculture.
It is solely a failure on the part of industry.
Farmers, along with consumers, are the ones who have suffered as a result of this scandal.
Through no fault of their own, it is the farmers who have to accept heavy losses and who must also carry the burden of trying to win back the trust of the consumers.
Healthy feed is a precondition for healthy animals and thereby also for healthy foodstuffs.
Equally, it is a prerequisite for a flourishing farming industry with good operating profits.
Like other products, animal feed and foodstuffs could also be traded throughout the European Union without boundaries.
Nevertheless, or precisely because of this, it is important that consumer safety is safeguarded by the Member States and the European Union.
European standards exist in the area of foodstuffs, ensuring that products are properly inspected.
Similar monitoring should also be put in place for animal feed. The dioxin scandal has clearly demonstrated one thing - if animal feed, as the first link in the food chain, is contaminated, the inspection of foodstuffs comes too late.
That concludes voting time.
The sitting was closed at 1.05 p.m.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday's sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, today's Minutes include an Annex indicating that the Bureaux of delegations of the joint parliamentary committees for Associated States have already been elected.
However, if you read the Rules of Procedure, you will see that Rule 170(6) states that the appointment of the joint parliamentary committees is somewhat different from the interparliamentary delegations and must therefore be carried out under the same conditions as the appointment of the committees.
This is how we have done it in the past.
This means that elections must take place as for the committees.
The fact that there are discussions between the groups of parties is another matter altogether.
So, in the case of interparliamentary delegations, the Plenum decides, whereas in the case of the joint parliamentary committees for Associated States, in my opinion, Rule 170(6) applies.
I would like to make that point.
There is a second point which I would also like to make.
The deadline for submitting the relevant proposals was ten o'clock yesterday.
However, the proposals - that is, the preliminary draft - on which we voted did not reach us until after ten o'clock and so I must call the entire vote into question.
I would ask you to consider both points and give me your feedback at the next sitting.
I will make the President aware of your first point, and she will discuss it with the Presidents of the Groups at the Conference of Presidents.
On your second point, the services have informed me that you were given all the documents relating to the Minutes of the previous sitting.
In any case, your comments have been noted.
Madam President, I would like to ask that the results of the votes be displayed on the indicator board for at least ten seconds so that in future they can be noted down.
We now have a new voting device and perhaps this can be programmed to display the results for at least ten seconds.
This has been noted.
I think that many here share your concern.
It is important that we find out the result of every vote.
Madam President, I have a question on Wednesday's Minutes, or, more specifically, on Annex 3 which was first distributed yesterday afternoon and which contains the proposals for nominations to the Bureaux of interparliamentary delegations.
I would like to know whether the typing error, which is actually binding, has since been corrected.
It meant that my colleague Sumberg from the PPE Group would have become a deputy chairperson in two of these delegations, i.e. for Japan and China. In actual fact, colleague Jarzembowski has become deputy chairperson for the Japan delegation.
Has this been corrected and is this binding?
This correction has been made and everything is now as it should be.
Madam President, I wish to refer to the comments which the President, Mrs. Fontaine, made yesterday concerning the prohibition of the use of mobile telephones inside the hemicycle.
There is nothing more important in our Parliament than talking and communication, but in debates and not through external means of communication such as mobile telephones with the ringing and distortion that they cause.
I ask that real measures be taken, where necessary, to impose sanctions, just as we might penalise those who do not vote.
Those who distort the use of words in this hemicycle must be penalised, forbidden entry or have their mobile telephones confiscated.
I request that effective measures be taken.
Applause
I shall certainly make the President aware of this, but I think that the first step is to appeal first to the courtesy and public-spiritedness of our colleagues.
I am sure that, given time, everyone will find ways of treating one another with respect.
In any case, I hope that we will not find ourselves having to impose disciplinary measures.
We will discuss this within the Bureau to see how this problem can be dealt with.
Madam President, firstly, I would like to point out that the German interpreting service has clearly failed.
However, I also have a second point: are you aware of the significance of Mr Posselt's explanation?
If the error, as pointed out by Mr Posselt stands, we do not have a properly elected President and Vice-President in the delegations.
This is an extremely serious matter and must therefore be treated with urgency.
I would ask that this be clarified and dealt with as soon as possible by the Bureau because this means we are entering the summer recess with a completely unclear situation with regard to the delegations and this must not happen in this Parliament.
Applause
On your first point, I have been told that the German interpreting service appears to be working again, and I am very relieved that this is the case.
On your second point, I think that you are right. I shall inform our President of the comments which you and others have made.
As you are part of the Bureau, I know that you will also make her aware of this.
Madam President, it has become a bit of a tradition in this House for Members to stand up and say that their name was not on the attendance list for the previous day.
My name does not appear on the list for yesterday for some reason or other.
Perhaps it might be a better system if one could just go up to the front desk somewhere and point out to a member of staff that one's name was not on the list, rather than having to rise and inform the whole House.
We shall be attending to this.
Incidentally, you have just given me the opportunity to tell our new colleagues that the procedure you have just mentioned is available to all Members. This makes the sitting somewhat easier and also means that an MEP does not have to come and point out the omission orally.
Madam President, I was very interested to hear the main findings of the second report by the Committee of Wisemen on Belgian radio this morning. But I think it is a bit of a shame that in this high temple of communication, it appears to have been easier for the report to find its way into the newspapers, even in a far and distant land such as Belgium, than onto the desks of the MEPs.
My colleague Mr Staes raised this matter yesterday.
I understand that he succeeded in getting hold of the report, on which I congratulate him, but to tell the truth, I had at least expected that all MEPs would receive this report yesterday.
That is right. It seems that the report has indeed been given out to all MEPs.
Perhaps you should approach the distribution services.
In any case, this is what I have been told, and I shall see to it that it is confirmed, and that everyone does indeed have access to this report.
Besides, you know that, unfortunately, the media sometimes manages to obtain information before the official channels are able to act.
This is one of the great debates in society today.
Madam President, I should like to raise a point of order, and he should not take this personally, regarding the presence of the Commissioner.
The subject we are shortly to discuss is the 'non-competition clause in football' .
That is on the agenda for this morning. The Commissioner for competition policy, Mr Van Miert, ought to be present for this.
It has often been the case in the past that Commissioners who did not have competence in the agenda item have attended here.
I would urge you as the Bureau, to discuss with the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, that when certain items appear on our agenda, the Commissioners who attend are those who actually have competence for the area concerned.
Mr Kinnock is not to take this personally, for it may be that he is a great fan of football, and I know that he is a talented Commissioner, but I think this matter is too important to have to bring before the new Parliament again.
It is the Commissioners with responsibility for the topic concerned that should be here when their subject is being discussed.
Applause
As you know, in his new Commission, Mr Prodi has nominated a Commissioner with special responsibility for relations with Parliament.
We must be able to make Mr Prodi and his new Commissioner aware of your proposal to have Commissioners come and give detailed replies to questions which are relevant to them.
Having said that, the Commission is a collective body, and Mr Kinnock certainly made use of all the necessary information in replying to us this morning, and I would like to thank him for being here.
The Minutes were approved
French Football Federation fine
The next item on the agenda is the Commission's statement on the fine imposed on the French Football Federation following its infringement of the European legislation on competition.
I should like to begin by responding to the words of Maij-Weggen.
The point is well made and well taken.
I know that she feels strongly about this and that she is not alone in that.
Whilst I obviously cannot commit my colleague, Mrs Loyola de Palacio, who is happily a Member of this House at the present time, to the development of her policy and approach in this House, there are several who feel that the time is right for further discussion between the Commission and Parliament on some of the procedures and conventions of this House, which obviously meets in more than one place, as well as the conventions and procedures of the College.
I hope that discussion can proceed without great delay because there could be developments which would be of mutual benefit and would actually promote accountability and transparency in the service of the Union.
On the question before the House, I would like to make the following statement on behalf of the Commission.
This week, the Commission issued a formal legal decision against the local organisers of last year's football World Cup tournament in France. The organisers were the CFO.
That decision followed the organisation's use of discriminatory sales arrangements for tickets for matches.
As the House will recall, in 1996 and 1997 the system used by CFO favoured consumers who were able to provide an address in France.
In the view of the Commission, that constituted an abuse of the organisation's dominant position in the market which is contrary to Article 82 of the Treaty.
This was the first case in Community history in which Article 82 of the Treaty has been used to penalise a discriminatory practice that harms the interests of consumers without having a significant effect on the market.
In reaching its decision therefore, the Commission took account of the fact that there were no previous decisions of the Commission or case-law from the Court of Justice to guide CFO in its ticketing policy.
In addition it was evident that the ticketing arrangements used by CFO in 1996 and 1997 were exactly similar to those employed in previous World Cup tournaments and other similar major international contests.
As the House will recall, the Commission responded to complaints from people outside France who were finding it impossible to buy tickets by beginning an investigation.
The CFO then quickly changed its policy and made efforts to make sure that tickets sold in 1998 were available without discrimination. Then 100, 000 tickets became available to everyone on a first-come-first-served basis.
The Commission judged that these factors - the unprecedented application of the law, the conventions relating to previous ticket sales for international tournaments, and the constructive action of CFO - justified a symbolic rather than a punitive fine.
In addition, it is relevant to add that a more substantial fine on the organisers of the 1998 World Cup in France would have imposed an obligation on the Commission to consider action against the organisers of previous major tournaments who used exactly the same ticketing policies.
This could have meant, for example, action against the organisers of the 1996 European Championship because on that occasion, supporters benefitted from a sales scheme which favoured nationals over fans from abroad.
The French organising committee is not a normal commercial profit-seeking company.
It exists for the interests of football and it is important to recognise that all profits reverted to the game of football.
Fining the French organising committee means taking money away from grassroots football and from the promotion of the game and putting that money into the coffers of the European Commission.
I do not believe that any genuine lover of football would think that was either sensible or acceptable.
I know that football supporters in parts of the Union have strongly criticised the size of the EUR 1, 000 fine.
My colleagues and I can certainly understand such reactions when those reactions are not informed by the facts.
I hope, however, that in this House and elsewhere, there will be recognition of the specific factors directly relevant to this case.
The important - and I think the instructive - outcome of the case is plain.
All future sports tournament organisers now clearly know that any ticketing arrangements must comply fully with European Community competition rules and be non-discriminatory.
Secondly, they know that the Commission will not hesitate to take action against any organiser that fails to comply with those rules.
Thirdly, they know that the symbolic approach could only be followed once, and in very particular circumstances.
These realities, in the view of the Commission, mean that standards of fair treatment for sports fans have been clarified and strengthened.
They will definitely enjoy protection against discrimination in the future.
The organisers of the Euro-2000 Cup in Belgium and the Netherlands have, for instance, contacted the Commission and as a result, they have adapted their sales system to meet the requirements of Community law.
There has been no previous occasion on which a higher percentage of tickets has been made available to the general public with absolutely equal rights for all citizens of the European Union. We intend to keep it that way.
That is the silver lining. It is a pity that first there had to be a cloud.
Madam President, I want to congratulate Commissioner Kinnock on the statement he has just made.
I simply do not know how he managed to keep a straight face as he read out those comments.
That statement from the Commission was quite appalling.
I do not blame Commissioner Kinnock himself, but I certainly blame the action, attitude and inaction, in fact, of the outgoing Commission.
This is a pathetic fine from a pathetic Commission.
All we can say is that it is absolutely typical of the way they have conducted affairs over the last five years.
I only hope that the President-elect Mr Prodi will take this as an example of how not to do it.
I was one of 32 Members of this Parliament who took a private legal action before the French courts last year in a last-ditch attempt to get more tickets for fans across Europe.
Unfortunately, when we went to the French courts, we were told that it was too late at that stage to get the redistribution of tickets ordered, although the French courts themselves recognised that European rules had been flouted in the procedure that was followed.
I should like to point out that the costs to the individual Members of Parliament who took that legal action was, surprise, surprise, in the order of £1000 each, something rather more than the fine that has now been imposed upon the World Cup organisers.
The Commission itself, had it wished, had the power to impose a fine of something like EUR 20m - perhaps even more - if it had taken this seriously.
It did not take it seriously in 1997 when it could have taken action to ensure a fair distribution.
It did not take it seriously in 1998 when we had the problem and fans across Europe were denied the opportunity to see the World Cup.
It is not taking it seriously now.
What sort of message is this giving out to sports organisers? Commissioner Kinnock called this a symbolic fine.
Well, it is certainly giving a sign that it does not take it seriously at all. We are talking about big business here.
The amounts of money involved are significant.
Something like £300m, I am told, was the turnover of the World Cup; the fine something like EUR 1000.
This is simply not acceptable at all.
The sign that is being given is that the Commission is turning a blind eye, that it is not really worried.
It is saying to large-scale organisers: 'You can carry on exploiting the fans' .
It is also saying that this is the way to encourage - and it is encouraging - a black market in these tickets.
It must do something to stop it. Sport is now big business.
The Commission in future must show that it means business to ensure that sport, like other businesses across Europe, must observe European rules and regulations.
Madam President, I thank the Commission and Commissioner Kinnock for being available to make this statement following my request earlier in the week.
While I welcome the fact they are here to make the statement, I am disappointed in its content.
I am told I do not like football: I am a Manchester City season-ticket holder.
I am told that the Commissioner has similar problems with a rumoured enthusiasm for Cardiff City which may explain some of the difficulties we both face.
Nevertheless, I agree that the French Football Federation put on a wonderful feast of football.
The French 'rainbow team' did much to confound the xenophobics and racists who, like Mr Le Pen and our unlamented former colleague Mr Mègret, believe that to be French is to be white.
Yet importantly, there clearly was a breach of competition rules on a massive scale.
Commissioner Kinnock talked about 180, 000 tickets being made available to football fans across Europe.
That was after 600, 000 tickets were sold on a discriminatory basis.
The organising committee deliberately and provocatively ignored early on the requirement that all citizens of the European Union be treated equally, and clearly breached Article 82 of the Treaty.
In doing so, they massively increased their profits, selling tickets in corporate blocks as small as one.
You could not buy a ticket by telephoning and paying FF500, but for FF5, 000 you could get the same ticket and the equivalent of a school dinner - I have had corporate hospitality before.
If Commissioner Kinnock is asking me if I believe that the European Commission could actually help grassroots football better than the multinational corporations who actually rely on the profits, I would actually vote for the European Commission.
It may not be a very popular move but I have seen very little evidence of the people who are making multi-millions of pounds out of football putting it back into football.
They are putting it into franchising and other things.
This also endangered the security of thousands of football fans. It turned tens of thousands of French men and women into amateur ticket touts.
If they bought their allocation of four tickets each for a major match and sold them on the black market, they had enough money for two of them to take a two-week holiday in Australia.
It was very difficult to imagine that French men and women would not pick up tickets and sell them in that way and clearly that was happening.
In these circumstances, therefore, does the Commissioner not agree that football fans will think it is absolutely ludicrous, the EUR 1000 fine - which was about the black-market price for a ticket for England-Argentina - that ticket touts will think that this is good news and that genuine football fans will be disappointed? Can he not confirm that we could have fined the French football authorities something between FF 100m and FF 200m, which was something like 10 % of the extra profits they made?
Does he not believe that the excuse that the organising federation no longer exists is actually a facile one when clearly it is the responsibility of the French Football Federation?
Does he not agree that the message to the organisers of Europe 2000, to the organisers of Europe 2004 and the possible organisers of the Mondiale 2006, whether in Germany or the United Kingdom, is that they can ignore the rules, maximise profits and in the end, all it costs them is the small change?
Should the Commission be treating football differently from any other multi-billion pound industrial operation? It seems to me that if this had been in the telecommunications sector or elsewhere, the notion that we would have come back with a symbolic fine in circumstances where people had increased their profits by £200m or £300m would have been as ludicrous as the symbolic fine appears to football fans.
Madam President, our former Belgian Socialist colleague, Mr De Coene, and I led the group of 30 MEPs who took the case to the High Court in Paris last year. The tribunal there found in our favour.
They found that the European law had been broken by the CFO. They dismissed our case on a technicality, finding that we were inadmissible as litigants.
But we took action because we were not convinced that the European Commission was standing up for the rights of the European citizen.
As a result of our action, we were assured by Commissioner Van Miert that the Commission would prosecute this to the very end.
That action, as Mr Perry has pointed out, cost us individually more than EUR 1000 each.
Members of this House are sick at the fine that has been imposed by the European Commission on the CFO.
I can well imagine why Commissioner Van Miert did not want to come here personally to make this statement today.
This is not the first time that the World Cup organisers have rigged the sales of tickets against the ordinary football fan.
But it is the first time that they have trumpeted their tournament as the first billion-dollar World Cup.
They have made millions out of discriminatory sales arrangements.
If the Commission had pursued this abuse of Article 82 as rigorously as it pursues abuses in other areas of industry then this fine would have been not £600 but £6m or more.
The Commissioner tells us that the interests of consumers were harmed but that this had no serious effect on the market.
I suggest to the Commissioner that it has a very serious effect on the European Union's reputation.
He tells us that there was nothing to guide the CFO.
What about the fine that the Commission imposed on the Italian organisers of the World Cup in 1990, a fine which was, in fact, larger than the fine that is imposed on the CFO this year? What about the exchange of correspondence between the CFO and the European Commission which started the previous July?
Unlike Mr Ford, who represents the Southwest but supports Manchester City, I do not support any football club, but I do support the right of the European citizen to be protected from discriminatory practices and the abuse of a dominant market position.
I support the European Union in developing its role to protect those citizens.
To me, this fine sends to the European citizen the message that Europe is on the side of big business and not on the side of the ordinary man or woman in the street.
In my view, this is a sad-and-sorry ending to a sad-and-sorry Commission. I hope that our new Commissioners, when they have been approved in September, will have rather more backbone in taking up this kind of case on behalf of the people of Europe.
Applause
Madam President, unlike the previous speakers, who were, it has to be said, all British - well, well, what a surprise! - I would like to protest against the Commission's decision, which I find quite astounding, to penalise the French Football Federation for so-called discrimination in the sale of tickets during the last football World Cup.
Commissioner Kinnock pointed out, and rightly so, that this has been the accepted practice in previous World Cups.
And why is this an accepted practice, ladies and gentlemen? Well, it is quite simply that a World Cup like that is organised by a country, and paid for by the tax-payers of that country.
Given these conditions, it is felt to be courteous and good practice to allocate a slightly larger quota to that country's citizens.
When a company floats shares for example, increases its capital, and then sells the shares, nobody says that it is illegal if it reserves a quota for its own employees, who are a vital component of the company's lifeblood.
This quota is, of course, a form of discrimination and yet, I feel it is a legitimate one.
I, therefore, think that the Commission was wrong to apply Article 82 of the Treaty because there was no real abusive exploitation of power, only a quite legitimate and understandable use of a set of circumstances which were highly unusual from a financial point of view.
However, Madam President, I would like to move on, because this is, when all is said and done, a relatively minor matter which is of no great consequence to life in our country. There are other more serious matters in which the Commission has been guided by the same extremist mind set which may bring about very serious imbalances in our country's economy and also in its employment figures.
I am thinking in particular of the sanction imposed, yet again on France, for having allowed certain textile companies to reduce their national insurance contributions at a time when they were taking on new staff in an international climate which, as you know, ladies and gentlemen, is extremely tough, largely because of the international agreements negotiated by the Commission itself.
So these businesses are now going to have to repay the social grants which they were given because of an extremist, narrow-minded and almost plain stupid way of seeing things.
It is an absolute scandal.
I think that, in future, this Parliament should set an example with a more considered vision, one which is more fair and impartial towards competition.
Applause
Madam President, first and foremost, I should like to quote a great Dutch philosopher, Michels, a famous football coach who once said that football is war.
I would prefer to suggest that if football is an alternative to war then I am in complete agreement with that.
I do not intend to talk about the World Cup in France here, but there are a few general points I wish to make.
I believe that football, and international fixtures in particular, are indeed a valuable alternative to war, however silly that may sound.
Football should be a celebration, and international fixtures such as World Cups or European Championships really ought to belong to the people again.
What we are seeing now, and what happened last year in France, is a perfect illustration of this.
What ought to be a celebration for the people has, to some extent, become a completely commercialised celebration.
We can see that the same thing is tending to happen with national football competitions throughout Europe.
These show that football is becoming less and less accessible to ordinary people and has to some extent become a celebration of business, with people tucked away behind plate glass windows and in comfortable business lounges.
That is why I want to call on the Commissioner to take positive action for a sport that must remain accessible to ordinary people and that must be protected from commercial interests.
Of course, the same applies to competitive cycling, where cyclists sometimes inject themselves with the same hormones that cattle are injected with.
On the same note, I would ask the Commissioner to actually produce a policy that is no longer concerned with imposing fines on organisations that have infringed some competition regulation or other, but is, in every sense, a policy aimed at controlling those big organisations and ensuring that European Championships and World Cups that are held in Europe really do continue to be celebrations for the people and not celebrations of business.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think that the market should be the only factor taken into consideration as regards the organisation of sporting events.
During the 1998 World Cup, of the two million tickets sold, the largest share was handled directly by FIFA, which sent quotas to the 203 national football associations, with a larger share going to the 24 qualifying countries, of which the United Kingdom was one.
Another share, 600, 000 tickets, was handled by the host nation, which reserved 37 % of this quota.
The idea of putting all tickets for a sporting event of this size up for sale on the European market has never been put into practice by any country, as Commissioner Neil Kinnock has just pointed out.
In Euro '96, for example, the football tournament organised in the United Kingdom, 42 %, not 37 % of the tickets were reserved for the host nation.
Secondly, having control of the tickets is to have 90 % control of security.
If the World Cup was a success in this area too, if we had relatively few incidents, it was largely because this control over the tickets facilitated for example, Franco-British co-operation in security matters, and efficiency in handling the arrival of groups of supporters, supervising them, and following up any problems. This allowed us to escape many outbreaks of hooliganism, which we hope never to see again on our continent.
Thirdly, the more individual sales that are made, the greater the risk of a black market developing.
This is the lesson learned by the Italians themselves, from organising the 1990 World Cup, and it was obviously taken on board by the French organising committee.
Fourthly and finally, it is understandable to ensure that where a popular sport is concerned, when the host nation has invested nine billion francs in the event, the citizens of the host nation support and participate positively in this event, and this is also a key factor in its success.
But it is also understandable that care is taken over the security of these citizens and also that of the groups from abroad, whom the host country accommodates for the occasion.
During this World Cup, ladies and gentlemen, you saw thousands of little Zidanes and Marcel Desaillys, coming from the working-class neighbourhoods of Marseilles, Toulouse and Strasbourg to applaud the exploits of the great Zidane and the great Desailly, but also those of the great Owen, the great Beckham, and the great Di Pietro.
Nobody could say that this amazing World Cup was tainted by racial or social discrimination.
It was an open and welcoming popular celebration.
It gave us a wonderful picture of sport, a picture of the diversity of our teams and of our nations, and a picture of fraternity across our continent.
The supporters group which was most successful and most appreciated by the French people was that of the Scots.
We, the citizens of France, did not go on holiday to Australia in July 1998 because the world came to France, and because we were at the Stade de France, at St-Denis, at the velodrome, in Marseilles with the people from our working-class neighbourhoods.
Ladies and gentlemen, I think that the European Union's priority in sport today is not to punish a Member Nation which has managed successfully to organise an event like this, but is rather, as Romano Prodi said yesterday, to engage in a real pan-European battle against doping, and this means refusing to allow the unique power of money to kill off the beauty and the very spirit of sport.
Applause
Madam President, I am here to speak on behalf of millions of women football fans.
I welcome Commissioner Kinnock's reassurances.
I must say that I was appalled at how the ticket allocation was handled by the French authorities.
I know that a large number of people in Britain were equally frustrated.
The release of the tickets was really too late for most people to be able to take up those opportunities given their work commitments.
What we need, I believe, is some joined-up thinking.
One of the main objectives of the EU institutions is to ensure that citizens of all EU countries are treated fairly and equally.
In this instance, millions of football fans were discriminated against. And yet, this breach is taken lightly.
Whatever the reasons for that particular measly fine, it will alienate a large number of fans.
It is another missed opportunity to connect with the people of Europe.
Football is a passion that unites all the countries.
What better way for us to change our image and connect with the people of Europe than to say that we take football as seriously as we take any branch of commerce.
I should like to begin where Ms Gill left off, first of all by congratulating her on her maiden speech in this House.
She will never feel such fear again or derive such satisfaction.
I am sure the whole House thanks her for her contribution.
Indeed, she summed up the feelings of the Commission in many ways when she said that she deeply regretted the existence of discrimination.
That is the universal feeling in the Commission, which is why my colleague, Mr Van Miert, and his associates in the Commission specifically sought to do something effective about preventing for all time in the future and indeed for 1998 the use of discriminatory practices by CFO.
I should like to take up where Mr Vander Taelen left off.
When he said that football is a valid alternative to war I was reminded of the maxim that the first casualty of war is truth.
As I listened to some of the contributions in the course of this debate, I could not escape the feeling that sometimes the first casualty of football is truth because there were one or two contributions that were made passionately, but largely without the recognition of fact.
I would like to respond on behalf of the Commission, with some repetition of fact.
I regret it if I am repetitive, but if at first people do not hear, perhaps they will hear the second time.
I begin with Mr Perry.
I enjoyed his recitation of sound-bites about pathetic, appalling and all the rest of it.
But what is he really saying when he says that the European Commission has the power to impose a EUR 20m fine? In theory and in constitutional terms, he is right.
But is he really suggesting that the European Commission should take EUR 20m or EUR 30m out of football and put it in the coffers of the European Commission? Mr Ford says 'yes' , he would rather that the European Commission have the money than the CFO.
He demonstrated a surprising distance from the realities of public opinion.
This man has been my friend for a considerable time. I admire everything but his taste in football clubs.
But the fact remains that if that were the course of action taken, he knows what the headlines would be.
So does Mr Watson, who is disturbed about the reputation of the European Union.
He knows the headlines would say: 'Euros snatched from football' .
Let us be rational.
Is it sensible in the circumstances to take the money in large amounts from football and deposit it in the European Commission's coffers, or is it sensible to take action that guarantees that on no future occasion will there be discriminatory sales of football or other international tournament tickets? Then Mr Perry says that he wants this action to be absolutely firm and ferocious.
I can understand the sentiment.
But to be consistent the same action would have to be taken against the organisers of the European Cup competition which happened to be in the United Kingdom in 1996.
Football came home, it was said.
Are we really suggesting in this House, or anywhere else, that we should look back to 1996 or comparable competitions and say that we are dishing out EUR 20m fines on those who organised these competitions? Come on.
Let us be rational.
Let me return very briefly again to Mr Ford. He said those who make money out of football should put it back in.
He knows very well that I am zealous in my support of that view.
But I would suggest that we have to do rather more than attend only to international football ticket sales in order to bring about that intelligent and necessary recycling of funds.
One point I want to focus on, in what Mr Ford said, is that the Commission, he alleges, is sending out the message to organisers of Euro 2000 and maybe future World Cup competitions in the European Union that they can ignore the rules.
The absolute opposite is taking place.
I had already said ten minutes before Mr Ford spoke that the organisers of the Belgian and Netherlands European championship have been in touch with the Commission and not a single ticket will be sold on a discriminatory basis.
They are already obeying the rules, setting the precedent, and, at all future times in the European Union, that will be the way in which affairs are conducted.
The football supporters and supporters of other sports quite rightly will now know that they have the protection of the law and organisers of tournaments will know that they will be the object of real and heavy punishment if they break what are now known to be the rules.
This is the point.
There was no knowledge of the rules.
There is no case-law from the Court of Justice.
There is no precedent of action by the European Commission.
The money would have been taken out of football if there had been a heavier fine.
There would have to be a further effort to levy fines against previous organisers.
The fact is that CFO, who I do not paint as plaster saints, the moment that our investigation commenced, stopped the discriminatory sales.
Everybody would have liked that to have occurred earlier, but it did happen.
When Mr Watson says, therefore, that this is not the first time that organisers have rigged the sales, he may be right.
But this is the first time that the legal competition authority has stopped the rigging, stopped the discriminatory sales and the first time that any competition authority in the world has prevented for all future time the use of discriminatory methods in the sale of tickets.
Mr Watson accepted my point when I said that this was a case where consumers were hit but the effect was not on the market as it is generally understood.
I think he conceded that because he said that was my claim and the problem was that the reputation of Europe had suffered.
I would put this point to him, a man for whom I have very high regard, as I do for the other participants in this debate: that reputation can only suffer if what has occurred is misrepresented.
I know there is no-one in this House who will ever want to do that.
I therefore appeal for attention to the facts.
Whilst I fully understand and indeed, to a degree, share the passions about the way in which the big business of football so frequently now is operating in ways that contradict the interests of genuine football fans, I accept all that. I ask for fair treatment in this case as indeed in many others.
It was uncharacteristically unworthy of one honourable Member to say that he could understand why my colleague Mr Van Miert is not here because of the gravity of this case.
If there has ever been a Commissioner in the forty-two year history of the European Union who has publicly demonstrated integrity and guts, it is Mr Van Miert.
The reason he is not here this morning is because he has to attend to his work, not from any cowardice.
It is infamous for anybody to even infer that is the reason for his absence.
Thank you, Mr Commissioner.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
The sitting was closed at 9.55 a.m.
Resumption of the session
Madam President, I respect what you say about not engaging in the debate and I will not seek to do so. But I wonder if you could give an undertaking to reply to the letter that I and a number of other Members specifically wrote to you personally on the issue of disability access.
If we were to receive that reply in advance of Friday, it would help the issue enormously.
Absolutely, we intend to look into the matter with colleagues but also with the organisations which are competent in these matters in order to ensure that everything which has to be done is done.
But I shall, of course, give you a reply before Friday, if you so wish.
Madam President, we have a marvellous television in our room and it works too, so I have no complaints whatsoever on that score.
It is fantastic, and there are twenty channels.
But in the previous Parliament building, one of them was a Dutch TV channel, which meant that we Dutch MEPs could follow the news as well.
Now, not one of the twenty channels is a Dutch one.
Could you please have this channel re-installed?
I do not mean one for following the plenary part-session but an actual TV channel such as Nederland 1,2,3 or RTL 4, as we had last time.
As you can imagine, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, since I have tabled this period on Friday in order to itemise all the new problems and the old problems which have not been remedied, that is the time when we can look into all this.
I would ask you to please keep your comments concerning the premises until Friday so that we can have a comprehensive debate on the subject at that time.
If it is a matter of urgency, we shall see if the problem can be settled before Friday, but I am not sure whether it can.
Madam President, I believe that it would be appropriate if we now, having observed a minute' s silence for the victims of the earthquakes in Greece and Turkey - with good reason since, quite apart from the large numbers of casualties, these events have a deep political significance - observed a minute' s silence for the victims of Indonesian repression in East Timor.
Madam President, I should like to request that the "no smoking" areas are respected, which was not the case at the last Strasbourg session.
As an asthmatic, I had two asthma attacks in this building during the last session.
I do not wish to repeat that performance.
I am sure there are other people in this building who also have asthma and other lung problems, so I request that all "no smoking" areas are respected.
(Loud applause)
Mrs Lynne, I have noted your request which is perfectly legitimate, even, indeed, if one does not suffer from asthma.
It is certainly very unpleasant, and we shall ensure that these areas are scrupulously respected.
Madam President, as well as supporting my colleague' s proposal regarding the victims in East Timor, I would like to remind you that, a year ago, a peace process was launched in my country. I would like, through your Presidency, to ask the European Parliament firstly to support the efforts of all political forces in the promotion of dialogue between all political representatives.
Secondly, I would ask this Parliament to strongly urge ETA to abandon violence for good. Thirdly, and lastly, we should agree on programmes to aid victims, the rehabilitation of prisoners and education aimed at peace in the Basque Country and Northern Ireland.
Mr Knörr Borràs, I have noted your intervention whose rightful place is in the context of the debate we have organised on the matter.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of the sitting of Friday, 23 July have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, a word regarding the Minutes.
I just want to point out that in the Minutes from last Friday, one of my interventions was not properly reproduced.
I was pointing out that, in accordance with our Rules of Procedure, the joint parliamentary committees, unlike the delegations, but just like the committees, have to elect their bureaux.
This is not properly reflected in the Minutes. All that is contained is my protest that the documents were not distributed on time.
I request that it be made clear that we in the joint parliamentary committees also have to hold elections just as is the case in the parliamentary committees.
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
I take note of your request.
If there are no further comments on the Minutes, I declare the Minutes approved.
Madam Chairman, I rise on a point of order.
I see that certain Members in the House at this time are raising banners in support of a cause.
I am sure the overwhelming majority, myself included, agree with the sentiment but can you advise us on any rules, regulations or guidance that you wish to give this House in terms of manifestations in any form other than speaking under the Rules of Procedure of the House?
Ladies and gentlemen, as Mr Perry has just said, I think I can say that virtually everyone in this Parliament of course shares the feelings of our colleagues who are waving the banners concerned.
This demonstration does, however, create a difficult precedent and though, today, there is great consensus on the Timor question, you will understand that this may not always be the case.
Moreover, as I have already told you, we have tabled a debate on the subject.
We hope this will be a truly serious debate, and I do not doubt it for an instant, a debate which will result in some conclusions on the political role which the European Parliament considers it must play in this situation.
I shall therefore request you, colleagues, to be so kind as to put away your banners.
The message has been received.
But that will suffice, as we must take care not to set a precedent which may, in other circumstances, seriously impede the running of our House.
Thank you for your understanding, and as an expression of thanks I am going to grant your request and propose that you stand to observe a minute' s silence for the victims in East Timor.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Interpretation of the Rules of Procedure
I am sure you remember that during its meeting on 27 and 28 July, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (AFCO) examined a request for interpretation of Rule 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure put forward by the Conference of Presidents during the meeting on 21 July.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs ruled as follows: "The constitution of the Technical Group of Independent Members, a mixed group, is not in accordance with Rule 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament."
In fact, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs continues, "The constitution of this group, specifically Annex 2 to the letter of constitution addressed to the President of the European Parliament, excludes any political allegiance.
It permits the various signatory members total political autonomy within the group."
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs requests that the following interpretation be inserted into Rule 29(1) of our Rules of Procedure: "The formation of a group which openly rejects any political character and all political affiliation between its Members is not acceptable within the meaning of this rule."
This interpretation will be included, as is right and proper, in the Minutes for this day' s sitting.
It will then be inserted into the Rules of Procedure, but if this interpretation is opposed tomorrow, before the Minutes of the current sitting are adopted, by a political group or by at least 32 Members, in accordance with Rule 180(4) of the Rules of Procedure, the matter will then be immediately referred to our House for a decision, as is usual, by simple majority vote, with at least one third of members in attendance.
This is the procedure.
If rejected, the matter will be referred back to the appropriate committee.
Madam President, as you might expect, given that until tomorrow morning the Technical Group of Independent Members will still be in existence, we will ask for a vote and to that end, we will ask for an immediate announcement that tomorrow morning, the Chamber will give an opinion on the matter.
Those elected from the Bonino list tried to explain in an open letter to all their colleagues the reason for the setting up of this group, the reasons for the discrimination against the Non-attached Members in this Parliament and therefore the reasons for our initiative - as well as for the motion for an amendment to the Rules of Procedure which I hope will be announced soon - and to invite them to vote with us against this interpretation.
There is no need to start a debate on the subject.
Thank you for giving us advance notice that there will be opposition to this interpretation and that, consequently, our House will be required to vote at 9 a.m. tomorrow according to the procedure which I have just mentioned.
Order of business
The next item is the order of business.
The final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting of Thursday, 9 September has been distributed.
Madam Chairman, I rise with regard to an item on the agenda for Wednesday, 15 September.
I am rather surprised to see a procedure without debate on a report under the name of Mr Westendorp.
I have the document of this report in which it says that the committee voted it.
I was in attendance in the committee at this time and I am not aware that this report was voted.
I think there has been a misunderstanding or a mistake within the secretariat of the committee.
I am giving advance notice that this is a matter subject to a query and that we may have to object to this item on the agenda.
Obviously, Mr Chichester, if this report has not been voted on by the committee concerned, there can be no question of voting on it in plenary session.
We shall therefore check this point, and I thank you for drawing attention to it.
(The President read out the amendments to the Agenda for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) (The order of business was adopted thus amended)
Second Report of the Independent Experts
The next item is the Statement by the Commission on the follow-up to the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts which has been issued to you, as you wished, as speedily as possible.
We have really done all in our power so that you could familiarise yourselves with it at a sufficiently early stage, particularly within the groups.
I would remind you that at its meeting on Thursday, 9 September, the Conference of Presidents decided to refer the matter to the Committee on Budgetary Control so that a report could be drawn up.
Madam President, honourable Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased that my colleague Mr Pöttering has today spoken in different terms than was previously the case when we were still uncertain as to its contents.
Many myths have been spun surrounding this report, one being that this report will show that several Commissioners from the old Commission should no longer be represented in the new Commission - a further statement on the old Commission and its practices.
In reality this has happened, something I consider very important, and I believe that in this sense I have also understood the previous speaker. We must take appropriate steps as a result of the mistakes and inappropriate behaviour of certain Commissioners.
In this respect, we have to draw a line under the old Commission, we should not cover anything up as far the mistakes that have been made are concerned, but rather we should look to the future in order to jointly make things better in the coming years.
This is our task for which, as far as I have been able to read the report, very many starting points are contained therein, although it is too early to put my name to it at the moment.
I would, however, also like to make an observation regarding the time factor.
I did not understand Vice-President Marín to be rebuking us, although perhaps, in his situation, he sees things somewhat differently from us parliamentarians.
Why am I in favour of giving the Commission time, albeit not too much time?
Because I take the viewpoint that, at the end of the day, we have to get round to the important issues: strengthening the Union and enlargement of the Union.
In addition, we must get away from the fact that for far too many of our people, the European Union is associated with scandals, fraud and maladministration.
This is certainly not the case.
But we also have to demonstrate this by rectifying matters where mistakes have been made.
My question to Commissioner Kinnock therefore relates to the notion of time.
Yes to having sufficient time to initiate reforms, but also yes to beginning these important steps as soon as possible, in order that we can get away from the bad light in which the Commission, and indeed the whole European Union, is portrayed.
In this regard, clear decisions must be taken.
The most important thing, and this is something which was also often mentioned at the hearings, during yours too Commissioner Kinnock, is the question of responsibility.
It was not clear to Parliament and, of course, still less so to the citizens of Europe, as to who is ultimately responsible for what.
These points, which have been clearly pointed out in the first and also in the second report, must be quickly rectified.
I, for example, am in total agreement with the report where it says that ultimately, the Directorates-General within the Commission should also bear not only the political and administrative responsibility but also financial responsibility.
It should be made clear in this regard that in carrying out a range of duties, with this comes full responsibility.
I would like to make one more comment in connection with this which is very important as far as my group is concerned.
We stand by our policy of collective responsibility within the Commission and we want to see this maintained in the future.
But we are also standing by the fact that, in addition to this, we have to find the means of incorporating individual responsibility of the individual Commissioners.
In this regard, some positive things have come out from the hearings, while other points were perhaps rather cautious.
This will be a difficult matter.
My question to Commissioner Kinnock is certainly along the lines of him taking the trouble to make it clear that individual responsibility of the individual Commissioners and collective responsibility do not contradict one another.
We do not want to amend or abolish collective responsibility in principle but we would like to supplement it accordingly.
The report of the Committee of Wise Men also makes it clear that the Commission must be bolder in relation to national governments, even with regard to filling certain posts.
I have experienced it myself in the area of foreign policy how governments exert influence and how decisions that the Commission would like to make itself are frequently delayed for long periods.
I call upon the Commission to show greater courage in relation to national governments and to report to Parliament if governments, as a result of their stalling tactics, not making a decision, or their unacceptable and unreasonable influence, prevent the Commission from adopting a certain stance or making clear decisions.
They have us on their side provided they clearly demonstrate where the reason lies.
An important area which we must concern ourselves with over the coming weeks is the overall question of the allocation of contracts and subsidies.
This is my question to Commissioner Kinnock in this regard: is the Commission ready to draw up clear regulations regarding the allocation of contracts, subsidies and regulations which are transparent and comparable? This seems to me to be an important issue and it will certainly be difficult to do this in such a way that flexibility is not lost.
But transparent and clear regulations of this type are required and I hope that the Commission is ready in this regard.
Such clear regulations are also particularly necessary in those instances where responsibilities have to be delegated elsewhere.
In this area, I am also in agreement with the report. It should not be that the Commission takes on all the responsibilities itself and does not delegate anything.
That would mean an immense extension of the apparatus of officialdom.
Yet even if responsibilities were to be delegated elsewhere, then the regulations must be clear as to the principles according to which this allocation should be effected.
The report of the Wise Men is also very clear on matters relating to control in the Member States.
I know that this is a delicate area.
I now come back to my original point.
Member States are all too ready to apportion the blame to the European institutions, to Brussels. In this regard, in truth there is quite a lot of abuse and inappropriate behaviour on the part of Member States themselves and their own institutions.
Even here we will be on your side if you implement controls where they are necessary, even in the Member States.
Through OLAF and the Bösch report, we have made considerable strides with regard to controlling fraud.
In my opinion, we should get away from the saying: fraud has its home in Brussels.
Fraud does not have its home in Brussels!
As with all large institutions, there are cases of fraud.
But what there has been too little of at home is the clear disclosure and pursuit of fraud.
And, my colleague Mr Pöttering, Commissioner Kinnock has already said that certainly as far as whistle-blowers are concerned, there will be new support procedures in this regard, and this House will certainly fully endorse that.
In this sense, Commissioner Kinnock, I hope that we will soon have this regulation.
The final point, which this report also goes into in detail, is openness and transparency.
It is not only this House which now expects a higher degree of openness from the Commission than was the case in the past.
There will be fewer rumours circulated in the media if openness and transparency hold sway.
In Recommendation No. 85 - I would particularly like to draw the Commissioner 's attention to this point - it clearly states that there may only be a few regulations that are exempt from this openness and transparency and these should still be agreed with the institutions.
But the large majority - 95% of cases - should be characterised by openness and transparency.
If the Commission succeeds in this in the coming years, then it will have our support.
Then, what has happened in the past will not be repeated for we will not be interested in sending the Commission packing again.
We want to cooperate with a strong Commission.
Madam President, it has, of course, only been possible to draw tentative conclusions in the time allotted to us for reading the report.
My first reaction to the report is that it is a constructive one.
It does not focus so much on individuals, but rather on issues, which I feel is right and proper.
The only individual mentioned, and rightly so, is Mr Bösch in connection with OLAF.
There are two general comments to be made.
The most explosive sentence in the Wise Men' s first report, which I may not be quoting entirely accurately, is that there is scarcely anyone to be found in the Commission who feels responsible for anything.
I think that was the stumbling block of the whole report the first time round.
This report emphasises that it is all about structures, the nature of the decision-making process, the way in which supervision is exercised, the different safeguards that are needed.
This makes it impossible for any one individual to feel that they are responsible, for there is so much supervision that everyone thinks there is always someone else in charge.
That is why the recommendations merit serious consideration.
I was particularly interested to read Chapter 3(13)(2) on export repayments.
No product is mentioned, the name of the company is not mentioned, but I am very familiar with the whole saga.
It is about butter exports to the former Soviet Union at the beginning of the 90s.
The report concludes that there was clear evidence of fraud and condemns the Commission' s attitude as far as this is concerned.
Commissioner-designate Lamy stated in the course of the hearings that it had been a completely normal affair.
If I understood Commissioner Kinnock correctly at his hearing, then, as far as the Commission is concerned, the case is closed.
I can assure Commissioner Kinnock that the case is not closed.
The case will only be closed when Parliament deems it to be so.
We will certainly come back to this matter.
A few general comments on contracts.
Too many different contracts are concluded with various forms of financial assistance from the Commission.
I believe that is quite right.
To hear the average consultant in Europe, we take far longer to pay these consultants than do other donor organisations.
For that reason alone, we need to alter the system.
I also feel that some extremely useful points are made on European agricultural policy.
It is a policy that does not find favour with everyone.
We could improve the situation by reducing the irregularities etc. at the very least.
I believe that what was said about the Conciliation Committee deserves particular attention.
I feel that all too often the Member States use it as an excuse not to have to pay when there is a dispute.
The proposals for an internal audit service also sound attractive, particularly as they are based on a recommendation from an institute for internal auditors.
As to whether it is really necessary for DG XX to be abolished, I consider that to be a finding that is all too makeshift.
But who knows, maybe it will be taken out.
I believe it is also a good thing that the committee said something about the way in which the Court of Auditors operates.
Year in, year out the Court of Auditors recommends not giving a positive statement of assurance.
Like the Wise Men, I too would very much like to know why that is so.
And maybe in the future the Court of Auditors could go into a little more detail about sectors, systems, procedures, and perhaps even about that holy of holies, the Member States themselves. Which Member States have sound procedures and which do not?
We are very receptive to the argument in favour of a European Public Prosecutor, an idea that was raised in the Wiebenga report in April of this year.
Recommendations 85, 86 and 87 are of particular interest.
The Commission is always ultimately accountable to Parliament.
Individual accountability to the Commissioners must be the first priority.
And it is particularly important that any Commissioner who knowingly misleads Parliament must resign.
I consider that to be an excellent proposal.
I believe a heavy task awaits us in view of the low turnout at the elections.
Together with the new Commission, we will need to develop improved structures, so as to increase Europe' s credibility.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, honourable Commissioners, the report that we have before us is, I feel, an impressive work.
It undoubtedly exercises the mind in an extremely useful way, coming as it does in the wake of the first report produced last March.
In any case, it shows that there is a need for greater transparency.
For almost three hundred pages, the experts bash away remorselessly at the problems relating to management, supervisory mechanisms, the fight against fraud, personnel management and business organisation.
In so doing, they do not shrink from taking the Commission severely to task, but they also refer to what has sometimes been weak behaviour on the part of the European Parliament and the Council.
I feel this only increases the objectivity of this report.
I fully endorse my colleague Mr Mulder' s comments on the Flechard case.
Be that as it may, our group considers that this report has come slightly too late.
It should have been available when the hearings started at the beginning of this month.
There is no doubt that it contains a whole armoury of facts that we could have used to good effect during our hearings.
Certainly as far as Commissioner-designate Kinnock was concerned, who will probably be responsible for reforming the Commission, it has provided us with facts which could really have added to the discussion.
I will cite just two examples.
Under point 2.323 the Committee of Wise Men suggests that when the Commission' s contracts are put out to tender, non-profit making associations are used which have been set up by officials or officials' acquaintances.
What truth is there to this?
It could have been an interesting debate.
The Committee of Wise Men also refers to the handbook that Santer' s dismissed Commission compiled on Technical Assistance Offices.
The Committee of Wise Men considers this to have been an analytical error.
It could have been an interesting debate with Commissioner Kinnock.
It is all too late though.
Be that as it may, the crunch question now is what does Prodi' s Commission intend to do with this document? I have been told that Mr Prodi said in the Conference of Presidents that this document has no legal basis.
Is that so? In any case, our group considered it unacceptable that this document should just be brushed aside.
Our group of greens, regionalists and nationalists wants Mr Prodi to take this document seriously.
The European Parliament and the Commission financed the five Wise Men.
In the course of the last six months, they have spoken to many people working at the Commission, and their analysis is damning and sometimes caustic. Messrs Prodi and Kinnock, what do you intend to do with this report?
As a matter of fact, I feel that it would be a good thing if the Commission, which is soon to take office, were to provide answers on a point by point basis to the proposals and comments made by the Committee of Wise Men.
Come what may, there must be some follow-up to this document in the European Parliament.
I am very pleased that the Conference of Presidents has proposed that this document should be referred to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It is certainly the case that this committee must now draw up an own-initiative report, but I would also like to appeal to all the other committees which, in view of their expertise, could each make a particularly substantial contribution.
I have in mind the Committee on Agriculture, the Committee on Regional Policy, and also of course, the Committee on Industry, which could make a number of concrete proposals in the run-up to the IGC.
To conclude, let us be quite honest about this, the Committee on Budgetary Control has done a lot of work in this area over the past five years.
But at the end of the day, it was a humble official on level B3 who, in December 1998, passed a 700-page memorandum to the European Parliament, and whom we owe thanks to for the fact that this document at last came into being.
His actions had a catalytic effect and ultimately led to the appointment of the Committee of Wise Men.
I fully endorse Mr Pöttering' s proposals on this matter, but I would like to point out to Mr Kinnock that Mr Van Buitenen is still in the dark so far as his position is concerned.
The disciplinary procedure to which he is subject is still on-going.
Would Mr Kinnock, working together with the whole Commission as a College, undertake to bring this disciplinary procedure to a satisfactory conclusion as soon as possible after his appointment, so that Mr Van Buitenen can at last return to work in the right and proper manner and have his reputation restored?
Madam President, my colleague Herman Schmid will be making a contribution on behalf of my group in this debate.
I would, however, like to make a preliminary comment and ask a very concrete question of Mr Kinnock.
Reading the second report of the Committee of Independent Experts shows how right we were to ask these five wise men to pursue their investigations and their thinking beyond the cases of the individual Commissioners and, in particular, to draw up a more general diagnosis of the institution as a whole.
For this diagnosis is an edifying one.
The title of the report alone represents strong condemnation of the outgoing Commission: tackling maladministration, irregularities and fraud.
The former Commission must be reminded, 42 years after the creation of this institution, of the necessity of, I quote: "making Commissioners responsible from the initial drawing up of a proposal through to its implementation" .
The matter is in fact one, as one can read in the conclusions of the Experts' report, beyond the actual operational problems, of an attitude problem, one which implicates not the staff of the Commission, but the structural deficiencies of this institution, which are of a political rather than technical nature.
Another document had already been produced on this subject, proposing an analysis which was, in my view, lucid and pertinent.
What is more, it had been commissioned by the Commission itself from its own Forward Studies Unit in preparation for the European Council of Pörtschach, and was subsequently classified as not to be followed up.
It contained, for example, fundamental criticism of the propensity of the Commission - like other administrations - to, I quote: "deal with its own area according to a logic of its own, listening to a particular type of lobbying, and taking insufficient account of the consequences outside its own field of expertise" .
This exposition of the internal workings of the crisis which the Commission is going through, and with which all the European institutions are faced, would contribute towards usefully placing the analyses of the Independent Experts in their global political context, which is characterised, in the terms of the Forward Studies Unit document in question, by the exhaustion of a certain manner of organising public action, by a crisis in governance which is clashing head-on with the European Union.
My question to Commissioner Kinnock is thus a simple one: do you agree to make public this document of the outgoing Commission, whose great topicality is shown by our debate?
Mr President, we are being asked to comment on a 283-page report that was not released until late on Friday morning, and that was produced in two languages.
In between there has been a weekend and today most people have spent the whole day travelling to Strasbourg.
We cannot possibly comment in any way at all in such a short space of time.
It is not possible for us to have formed any real opinions.
For certain, no business would ever operate like this.
But perhaps I should not be surprised because it seems to me that in the European Union one is drowned in paper to the level where the European Parliament - and, I am sure, the Council of Ministers - cannot actually read what they are being asked to approve.
In this world the bureaucrat most certainly is king.
There are, however, two points that I have picked up: firstly the outgoing Commissioners complained that in practice they were unable to supervise the actions of their most senior officials, namely, their Directors-General.
It seems to me unacceptable that the Commissioners can be the executive of the EU without having the responsibility that goes with it.
But the real meat of this is Recommendation No. 59 which urges strongly the appointment of a European public prosecutor, which urges strongly a European prosecution office with delegated public prosecutors in Member States to create "an area of freedom, security and justice as laid down in the Treaty" .
The British Government has repeatedly told us that corpus juris was merely a discussion document.
And yet it would appear that we are at the beginning now of an entirely new legal system just for the sake of a few fraudulent officials.
It is quite unacceptable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, naturally the Wise Men' s report is an excellent report, and naturally their recommendations must be studied in great detail.
I would say that, as with their first report, which had a far-reaching effect on the College of Commissioners, I also think that this second report, if possible, should have an effect that is just as far-reaching and severe, where it is deemed necessary, on the structure of the Commission.
However, since everyone is talking about the Commission, I would like to talk instead about the European Parliament. Every now and again some self-criticism does not hurt, and the same goes for the other institutions.
Firstly, I would like to say to my colleagues who, in January and February, protested against the motion which established the Committee of Wise Men, thinking that it was a kind of manoeuvring to stifle everything through the creation of a committee, that I think they realise they were very wrong in their viewpoint and reasoning, and they should at least withdraw all the criticisms they made at that time of the European Parliament' s initiative, which I believe was a positive move, on the part of those Members who voted to establish the Group of the Wise Men.
And I would also like our Parliament itself to take its cue from the Wise Men' s report. What does the Wise Men' s report say?
It says that the institutions and the budgetary authorities were likewise not very quick to detect a series of irregularities and that they themselves did not operate in the best and wisest way to prevent the consequences either. I am thinking, for example, of the great policy which led us to drop the famous mini-budgets.
Our Parliament, ready for battle, created a policy which brought about - and we are proud of it - the abolition of mini-budgets.
It seemed to be the overall solution.
The abolition of the mini-budgets and a freeze on human resources: this was the recipe that the Commission should have followed to implement infinite additional policies.
Naturally, four years on, the result is that those who protested against the mini-budgets are now saying: ah, you have given the jobs to the TAOs, to the Technical Assistance Offices!
A little self-criticism then!
From those same pulpits now comes the argument, for example, on helicopters: much is said about Agusta but we never hear about Westland, for example.
Well, I would like to hear about the Westland case from those pulpits that have so much to say on the Agusta case, given that the Commission had an interest in these helicopter stories too.
I have strayed from the point a little, but to get back to the subject, I would say then that our Parliament should...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have impatiently awaited the second report from the Wise Men and I cannot conceal the fact that I would have preferred to have had it before the hearings of the Commission candidates were held rather than afterwards.
But we do now have it and it was announced that it would not be a continuation of the first report and would therefore not contain any new revelations.
Rather the report is providing us with a yardstick for the reform of the European Commission, which the future President, Romano Prodi, has announced, and which has just been confirmed again in some detail by Mr Kinnock.
The report also makes it clear how necessary a far-reaching wholesale reorganisation and rearrangement is and that it is not enough to carry out only selective modifications.
Even where the subject of this second draft of the Wise Men talks in somewhat theoretical terms of "cultural practices and Commission procedures" , the question of the improved utilisation, supervision and thereby protection of Community finances runs like a red thread through the thoroughly analysed areas.
Recommendations are included, which Parliament, for the most part, has already stipulated as requirements for the previous Commission.
Will they now be adhered to? Mr Kinnock, we will have to take you at your word.
I am thinking in this regard of the question of the Financial Regulation and its adaptation, efficient controls, independence of financial control, the significance of discharge and, above all, the question of clear definitions of tasks and responsibility for the individual departments, officials and Commissioners.
A clear reference to ethical responsibility will be a pointer to a new culture that does not just stop at the Secretary-General, the Cabinets and the Commissioners.
If the Code of Conduct for the Commission is described as being insufficient and the Wise Men call for a stricter code for the administration, if the disciplinary process is reformed and sanctions brought about, then in this way our demands will also be taken up, the fulfilment of which we will have to keep an eye on.
As far as the complex matter of combating fraud is concerned, the call of the five Wise Men for a European Prosecution Office raised eyebrows and rightly so.
The significance of this point is not impaired by the fact that the Wise Men were not the first to call for this.
I am casting my mind back to the reports of my colleagues, Fabra Vallés and Bösch, as well as my own report concerning criminal prosecution to protect the financial interests of the Union.
This key question must be resolved if we want to successfully defend ourselves against fraud and corruption, which is to the detriment of European contributors.
The goal, which the Wise Men have set, the creation of a European Prosecution Office within a year, is ambitious, yet it is completely feasible if the will is there.
With close cooperation between Parliament, the Council and the Commission, within three months we have succeeded in establishing the new, independent anti-fraud office OLAF.
Now the next step must be taken.
Here as well, the new Commission will have to be measured in terms of their willingness for reform, as demanded by the public and Parliament.
Although the reports of the five Wise Men have been regarded as being helpful, in future Parliament should again assume responsibility for supervisory functions and not pass this responsibility on to outside parties.
We do want a strong Commission but we also want a strong Parliament.
In any case, the second report of the Wise Men still has to be prepared for the plenum by the competent committee, and for this we require all the documentation and information which the Wise Men had access to.
On this matter I would like to put another question to Mr Kinnock, a question which was not answered in the hearings: will the Committee on Budgetary Control also have access to the same documentation and information made available to the Wise Men? I believe that we can then work together towards a sound future for the European Union.
Madam President, firstly, I would like to thank Commissioner Kinnock for informing us of the action that is to be taken and of the debate due to take place in February.
The European Union is in a paradoxical situation.
On the one hand, there is a great deal of support for the "people' s Europe" , food, air quality and so on, and a variety of issues must be tackled at a European level.
The citizens support this and consider it to be important, but on the other hand, they do not understand how the workings of the European institutions actually function.
The low turnout at the elections reflects this lack of understanding.
It will undoubtedly be possible to tackle some of the problems on the basis of the report of the Committee of Wise Men.
To some extent, and others have made this point here, it is also something that we as a Parliament must address ourselves.
If there were less of an ivory tower mentality in the hemicycles and more interaction with ordinary citizens; if more time was spent amongst them; if there were not so many debates between experts and institutional specialists and institutional debates were to take place rather as a result of tackling actual problems, then Europe would draw much closer to its citizens.
It is not just the Commission and the institutions that are deserving of criticism, for we too have a difficult task ahead of us.
When the debate with the Commission takes place in February, we will also need to hold a debate ourselves.
Madam President, as regards the second report which we now have before us, issues such as subsidiarity, the delegation of competencies, the importance of combating fraud using independent agencies, are the key concepts.
They are underpinned by a vision.
Less centralised hierarchical control over social and economic affairs, with more delegation to States and to social organisations would create space and consequently greater clarity in job demarcation.
That too demands a certain vision.
A kind of vision that certainly was not always of central importance in this Chamber.
I am very curious as to whether that is the path that will be chosen in February.
If that path is chosen, then that will mean creating a different kind of culture.
In Mr Kinnock' s words, a different culture for officialdom, getting away from the island structure that we have now, a more inviting work atmosphere, entailing a different remuneration structure.
My personal view, and I say this without hesitation, is that the expatriation allowance should be abolished too, for no one has to feel all that much of an expatriate in Brussels.
We support the idea of a European Prosecution Office and its being independent.
It could be seen as a trial run prior to establishing a European Public Ministry in the longer term. It would mean a more clear-cut relationship with Parliament and effective supervision.
It would not be under the supervision of the President of the Commission, but rather there would be a more clear-cut relationship with this Parliament.
Madam President, might I also make a suggestion as regards the events referred to by Mr Kinnock which are to take place in February?
Why, if there are so many important issues at stake in our Member States, do we not ask them to initiate debate in the regions and local councils on fund spending and end-results, enabling a public debate to take place in these countries, which will feed into our work and ensure that these two issues are not separated?
I am in favour of having a European-wide national day of monitoring for fund end-results.
Lastly, Madam President, on the subject of the whistle-blowers, I hope that we will soon know when the matter is to be settled and I support everything that has been said in this Chamber about Mr Van Buitenen.
Madam President, as Vice-President of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I will have plenty of time in the coming weeks to exchange ideas with Mr Kinnock and other Members of the Commission on this report.
I want to restrict the comments I make now to a few major points.
Firstly, we must not forget why this all started if we are to guard against losing the support of the European people as we embrace the major challenges of the future.
And we need to aim high in the face of such major challenges.
That is why I see this report not as a panacea but as a modest starting point for the reforms which are to take place.
And so I challenge the Commission not to regard this report as the ultimate yardstick but merely as the minimum level to which we should aspire.
Listening to Mr Kinnock, I also hope that we can trust him to push his proposals for reform this far and that he will do all that is necessary and not just work through a wish list like the one we have here.
Secondly, this report could be used by some individuals in this Chamber, and also outside it, to pass the buck to the Commission, so that they get all the blame for the crisis in Europe.
This has happened in the past and I want to warn everyone to guard against it happening again.
The Commission is now being investigated and we applaud this, for it is a first step towards improving the situation.
But we cannot blame the Commission alone for the crisis of confidence as regards Europe.
The European Parliament has its own role to play here and it is also time now for us to hold up our hands and put our own house in order, just as if a report had been written on our working practices.
Nor should we forget the part played by the national parliaments and governments.
More than 80% of all fraud goes on there.
That is why it would also be a good idea to create a legal structure for carrying out effective supervision of the way in which these Member States spend European money.
Finally, a few words about Paul Van Buitenen.
He has become symbolic of the fight against fraud in Europe, probably reluctantly.
The care we take over a symbol of this kind here in Europe could, to a very large extent, determine whether or not we regain the trust of the citizens of Europe, which is why we must ensure that the Commission, and particularly Mr Kinnock, live up to the pledges undertaken during the hearings with regard to Mr Van Buitenen.
But I am sure the Commission was already aware that we will continue to keep a very close eye on this.
Madam President, as I round off this Dutch trio, I would not wish to deprive you of hearing about the feelings I experienced over the weekend.
I must say it was difficult to suppress a certain amount of despondency.
Thirty degrees outside and I was indoors ploughing my way through an enormous, well-documented, but also depressing analysis of the functioning of the European Commission.
Fortunately these analyses were followed by many well-documented and well thought through recommendations and solutions.
There is no point in going into detail right now, but I would like to mention two.
One is the proposal to set up an independent internal auditing service, which is directly accountable to the President of the Commission.
I am pleased that Mr Kinnock promised when he delivered his answers during the first round, that this idea would be taken up by the Commission in any case.
The same goes for the proposal to establish a Public Prosecutor.
A Public Prosecutor in Brussels and also in the Member States having special responsibility for fraud involving European money.
To be quite honest, I am a little more circumspect about the third step in the Committee of Wise Men' s proposal.
The third proposal relates to a European bureau, a European Prosecution Office, an EPO.
It is not just to do with the abbreviation EPO, which is just a little too reminiscent of doping scandals for my liking; it is our view that that third institution, that third step in the process is taking things just a touch too far at this stage, and that we are being a little premature in concluding that it all has to be done at a European level.
Returning to the broad outlines of the Commission' s proposal, the report clearly shows that the personal errors of judgement of a number of Commissioners which were laid bare so painstakingly in the first report, were committed within an organisation which falls short on a number of crucial points.
I think that it is crystal clear to anyone who has read through 300 pages, or even 100 pages, that the European Commission needs to be reformed if not just the Commission, but also the European Union, wish to retain their credibility.
But various things must first be done.
I would like to ask Mr Kinnock the following question: in Recommendation No. 36, based on what is, to my mind, a very correct analysis in Chapter IV, emphasis is once again placed on the fact that ultimately the individual Commissioners are the ones who are responsible, not just for the political functioning of their Directorate-General but also for financial management and control.
I would very much appreciate it if Mr Kinnock were to endorse this analysis and the findings.
I think that is one of the most important prerequisites for the effective functioning of a new Commission.
A second point which, to my mind, must not be ignored, is the role and influence of the IGC, the next Intergovernmental Conference.
I think that it would be impossible, after this report, to regard the agenda for the IGC and everything that went on in the report, separately from each other, because the role of the Member States, of Parliament and the Commission, for example when it comes to the budget, control and discharge, really is under discussion.
And Mr Marín has already said that a number of changes proposed in the report cannot be made without treaty amendments and, to my mind, it would be a very bad thing if Parliament, Commission and Council were shortly to set to work on an IGC without addressing these problems in the process.
A third point which merits attention is as follows: it is right and proper that the Committee on Budgetary Control has been designated as the committee in Parliament which must address the report.
I completely agree with Mrs Theato that this can only be done if all the papers held by the Commission are also passed through to the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The fundamental and sweeping reform of the Commission will be of crucial importance and, of course, the first wave of reform must apply to the Commission itself.
If this takes place without the involvement of Parliament in a transparent and effective manner, then I fear it will not succeed.
If you want it to succeed, if you want to involve Parliament in the mammoth task awaiting you, then you can count on the support of my group.
Mr President, when you read this report by the Committee of Independent Experts, you are amazed at how many unsatisfactory states of affairs are reported there; so amazed, in fact, that you wonder how it can have been possible for there to be so many.
I think that the committee has really left us a bit in the lurch in regard to this.
I do not think the analysis it offers is sufficiently thorough and searching, but is too superficial.
I will try to explain what I mean by that.
The experts are looking for more rationality, more administrative professionalism etc., but they are ignoring what is itself the main problem with the Commission, namely that the Commission is a political bureaucracy.
In classical bureaucracy theory, a sharp distinction was made between the political and the bureaucratic.
The bureaucracy was to be a neutral organisation, drawing its impetus from the political system.
But the Commission is a political democracy.
The main problem which has given rise to the cheating, fraud and other difficulties there have been over the years is precisely the fact that the Commission is political in character, meaning that it acts politically and is therefore treated in a political way by other political forces.
I also think that the committee' s recommendations point in the direction of a strengthened political democracy.
The talk is of more internal monitoring, increased management responsibility and a more efficient and cohesive bureaucracy with more muscle.
That is how I would summarise the ninety recommendations.
I had hoped to hear something quite different: more talk about the principle of transparency, more talk about freedom of information. How are people like Van Buitenen going to go on in the future?
Will they get caught?
Will they be stopped? Will they be silenced, or will they get to speak freely?
I would like to hear more talk about openness and public control. That is the first problem I think requires a deeper analysis, that is to say how a political democracy' s internal antagonisms and problems are to be dealt with.
The second problem, which is also a major one, is in fact touched upon in the report, but too superficially.
It has to do with the antagonism between the Member States and the central EU community.
We all know that this is an on-going antagonism that characterises day-to-day life in the EU in everything, big and small.
Joint decisions are taken at one level and are then put into effect by an administrative apparatus with offshoots all around Europe. International interests then come to dominate more often than not.
That is when you get cheating and bad supervision and when even the EU' s inspectors and their attempts to carry out inspections are viewed as abusive meddling or as disagreeable acts of hostility.
You do not solve the problem by sending in more EU inspectors or by tightening up on the hierarchical controls.
Quite different approaches are needed.
The talk must be of democracy. Discussions have to be started about how the Commission might be de-politicised and about how political power might be transferred to the actual political bodies.
How do you go about that? Do you create a relationship between democracy and administration such as we have in the democratic nation states?
Renationalisation is also a tool we can work with.
Large parts of the EU' s activities would benefit from renationalisation. This would also reduce the problems concerning legitimacy.
Political reforms are needed, then, and not just administrative reforms.
I' ll conclude by turning to Mr Kinnock and to President of the Commission Prodi and asking some specific questions. What is the situation now regarding freedom to provide information?
Are we to be getting any changes or guarantees in this connection?
What is happening about the principle of transparency?
What is to be done about the political character of the Commission?
Is this something we want to hold on to and develop or is it something we want progressively to do away with?
Those of us who sit in this Parliament experience on a daily basis just how powerful the Commission is as a political factor. Is this the road we want to go down, or ought we to be moving in the direction of the classical relationship between political and bureaucratic authorities?
Madam President, when it comes to financial management, the following holds true: trust is good but control is better.
I want to consider the Wise Men' s second report in this light.
Their criticisms leave little to be desired in terms of clarity.
Control over the European programmes must be greatly improved.
The report demonstrates again the importance of control before the event.
Control after the event should be the finishing touch.
The new Commission should make the improvement of financial management and combating fraud its highest priority, but this would mean making a lot of changes.
Up until now, most Commissioners were interested primarily in new policies.
The Wise Men refer to it as expansionism in the Delors era.
Little attention was given to management of the programmes.
There are a number of reasons why we have no use for expansionist tendencies Delors-style.
The Union should concentrate on its core tasks and to carrying them out to good effect as well.
The Wise Men say the legal framework for tackling fraud is disjointed and incomplete.
This must be improved with all speed, as must cooperation with the national control organisations.
After all, a good two thirds of the European budget is channelled via the Member States.
Is the Commission prepared to step up the controls in the Member States to a considerable extent? 150 control visits per year are currently undertaken in relation to an agricultural budget of EUR 40 billion, which is nowhere near enough.
To conclude, this Parliament has stringent requirements as far as the European Commission' s financial management is concerned.
Practically all the instruments for tackling fraud originated in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
But that means that we must also set high standards for ourselves, on the subject of which, I am attracted by the idea of imposing a kind of interinstitutional Code of Conduct on the committee.
Parliament should take up the gauntlet here.
Mr President, the second report of the Committee of Wise Men is an important contribution, while not containing too many big surprises.
It deals in the main almost inevitably with the reform proposals which we today regard as being necessary.
Of course, I cannot go into detail on all the recommendations contained in the report, but I would like to concentrate on one problem, namely that of individual responsibility.
When the Wise Men' s report, which expressly does not draw a distinction between administrative and political responsibility, calls, inter alia, for the Commission President to have the authority to dismiss individual Commission members, then, to my mind this requirement does not do justice to the gentlemen' s agreement between President Prodi and the Commissioners-designate.
In any case, as called for in the report, what is required is a relevant contractual regulation designed to provide a firm basis for a form of individual responsibility which is legally enforceable in serious cases.
The agreement can only be a transitional regulation.
No one has so far been able to explain to me, and the report in question has not helped in this regard either, how those Commissioners who are standing again have contributed to exclusive collective responsibility, something which has been criticised by us but which is legally stipulated.
In view of this de facto rejected responsibility, it is now difficult however to take the explanations of the Commissioners seriously, i.e. that they would in future resign if requested to do so by the Commission President.
With good reason, the report additionally calls for the Commissioners to be directly responsible to Parliament, but the gentlemen' s agreement also brings with it the danger that if we trust it, we could prevent ourselves from actually taking the necessary radical steps.
That should certainly not be allowed to happen.
I consider it absolutely necessary that the recommendations in this regard from the Committee of Wise Men be included in the programme for the next Intergovernmental Conference and be legally transposed, in spite of the explanations given by the designated Commissioners.
That should be a considerable pillar for effective cooperation between the institutions from the point of view of citizens' interests.
Mr President, like many, I am pleased to have a document which will undoubtedly be useful in the process of administrative reform which the Commission must undergo, unavoidably, in the short-term.
Commissioner Kinnock will no doubt be delighted to have this guide and, perhaps, alibi.
However, apart from this shared sentiment, I am also pleased for other reasons.
In particular, because I hope it will put an end to the unhealthy climate which is stifling the discussion of Community matters.
Too often, the unavoidable and laudable concern for good management and the fight against fraud has been manipulated and used in demagogic and hypocritical operations, deliberately aimed at the discrediting of the European Institutions and even the European project itself.
Well-intentioned colleagues have fallen naively into this anti-European trap.
I confess that, having seen the product issued to us by the Committee of Independent Experts, my initial doubts remain with regard to whether its appointment did not basically illustrate a certain recognition of the inability of our own systems of control and political orientation.
I trust that the voters will not demand to know who is responsible for the cost of the report given that, as well as penetrating observations, I have noted the presence of obvious remarks, various "re-discoveries of the wheel" and a wide use of our own documents.
Although my mental hygiene rules for the weekends have stopped me from dedicating the hours to my reading of the report which it no doubt deserves, I believe that it has an additional virtue little appreciated by my predecessors, if I may use that word. In many points, it takes up positions of Parliament and proposals which were not favoured in their day.
It is to be hoped that now, endorsed by independent and well paid experts, they will be better treated.
Some of our colleagues have dedicated dithyrambic eulogies to the report, which we might have been spared had they paid more attention to the work of the Committee on Budgetary Control or had they not voted against some of our suggestions.
Do not oblige me to mention any names, but I do not have to look far to see people in these very seats who now applaud the proposal to create a European Public Prosecutor, but who had no hesitation in voting against it when Mrs Theato and myself proposed it a couple of years ago, anticipating that this would require going ahead with the creation of a European judicial area and amending the Treaties.
A new Financial Regulation.
Enough of patching up and "updating" processes.
Excellent.
I have spent fourteen years in the Committee on Budgetary Control and, without delving into my archives, I can remember four resolutions of the Plenum in which this very thing was demanded.
I requested it myself from this bench last year from Commissioner Liikanen on behalf of the Socialist Group.
Time is at a premium and I would like to highlight a couple of observations which are important, if not fundamental.
Firstly, the Committee of Independent Experts recognises that, in spite of the fact that ultimate responsibility for management falls to the Commission, we should not forget that Member State administrations handle more than 80% of the Community budget and that their attitude towards fraud is not always diligent, although their Ministers do protest about Community management.
They have clearly read Mr Brinkhorst' s working document of May last year.
Secondly, in its final observation 8.1, the committee highlights that the Commission must be provided with the resources necessary for its responsibilities and stipulates that it is not only referring to those laid down in the Regulations.
It is de facto alluding to the possible hypocrisy and incoherence of the budgetary authorities.
And lastly, chapter 5 refers to "whistle-blowers" .
Before anybody proposes the restoration of torture in the investigative processes, I would ask, please, that the defence of the accused be attended to.
Mr President, one of the aspects of the discussion on the Experts' report concerns Community personnel which includes, I believe, the staff of the European Parliament.
This is why my question is addressed as much to Mr Kinnock as to the President of the Parliament.
In their report, the Experts highlighted the non-transparency which taints recruitment and recommended that regulations and principles be applied to Community personnel.
That is all well and good, but it should also be the case for the staff of the European Parliament.
The fact is, we have heard of many instances of irregularities, of non-observance of the Community Charter of Basic Social Rights for Workers within the European Parliament, especially in sub-contracting firms.
There have, for example, been irregularities as gross as paying night watchmen at day work rates.
There is also the problem of social welfare cover according to local law.
There are problems with wages.
And these are just a few examples.
My question is thus as follows: what action do you intend to take in order, in the first place, to make an inventory of all these irregularities and, more especially, of course, to put an end to them?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it has not been possible to make an in-depth analysis of what the Wise Men have said from an initial examination of the report that we have received and also from a comparison of this examination with what my colleagues have said in the Chamber.
We had the feeling, or at least I had the feeling, that we are faced with a wonderful exposition of analyses, proposals, rules and legal points which seem very impressive, but which do not really change anything.
It has been said that there are 90 recommendations.
It is true that God made 10 recommendations but especially in the case of the seventh commandment, he did not manage to put a stop to the large numbers of thieves and delinquents who crowd our planet.
I hope that in some way something can come of these rules, but I think that we have to start, as a Parliament, but in the first place as individuals, by proposing firmly that the activities of Parliament' s inspection body with regard to the Commission be stepped up, thereby providing us with a procedural method.
Today, we have had a statement by the President of the Parliament who announced the dissolution of the Technical Group of Independent Members.
Here too, in my opinion, we are dealing with genuine fraud as it certainly is not a good example of democracy and freedom to have the authority to overrule the free will of people who unite on the basis of one of the Rules of Procedure.
On the contrary, if a Member of Parliament was to think that this act came about simply because of the economic budget of the groups and the assistants, then we are dealing with an out and out case of fraud.
Mr President, many Europeans were awaiting this report to see when the hard core, the driving force which the Commission is supposed to be, will finally begin to function at a certain amount of speed.
This is not the time to deal with details, since in the Committee on Budgetary Control, thanks to the proposal which we have made, we will have the opportunity to closely observe the work of Commissioner Kinnock.
He tells us that he will respond effectively.
Perhaps we will have our first opportunity to see whether this is the case in a month' s time when the Justice and Home Affairs Council takes place.
I do not know whether or not you will have time to include in the agenda of that Council meeting some of the questions put forward in the report of the Committee of Independent Experts which I believe are supported by general consensus.
There is no doubt that the fight against fraud should be one of the objectives which we aim for immediately.
I believe that we should offer OLAF the necessary resources as soon as possible so that it can carry out its work efficiently, but it is nevertheless essential that budgetary control goes much further than the sixth part which is directly controlled by the Commission.
We will have to pursue those 1,327 cases which in 1997 were included in the former UCLAF.
The current legal framework is incoherent and incomplete.
We will have to work, steadily and relentlessly, to remove that permanent suspicion of fraud which, unfortunately, engulfs the activities of the Community institutions.
But I do not wish to dwell on these issues, since I agree that the enormous majority of people who work for Europe are competent and honest.
It is perhaps not the resources lost through fraud or corruption which should worry us most but rather those lost through the absence of a personnel policy, as claimed by the Committee of Independent Experts.
Those inefficiencies, those mistakes and that lack of motivation which affect the work of the people who work for the Commission must be, from our point of view, one of the principle areas of activity of the reform of the Commission.
Chapter 6 of the report of the Committee of Independent Experts, which we have not had time to study in detail, demands absolute transparency.
It demands it, perhaps, because we have never had it.
There has certainly never been transparency in the policies of recruitment, promotion or mobility.
We want a Commission which is strong and independent.
Therefore, we want you to be prepared to say no when you are asked to carry out work for which you do not have the resources.
You must not accept commitments which you are not able to fulfil effectively.
In your hearing, Mr Kinnock, we heard that there are 500 posts, which have been authorised by Parliament, which are still vacant. Perhaps this was pressure?
Distribution of power? Lack of transparency in recruitment procedures?
It is essential to evaluate the merits of the personnel who work for the Commission, to have a genuine career policy.
I have noticed that, amongst the 90 recommendations of the Independent Experts, some describe an Anglo-Saxon style administration, where more responsibility falls to managers.
It is necessary to decentralise and clarify competences.
Not everybody is responsible for everything, neither in the management carried out in the Member States, nor in the Regions nor in the Commission.
Therefore, Mr Kinnock, time is running out.
The European citizens cannot allow us to fail in this pursuit.
Let us work steadily and relentlessly because, as I have said, we cannot continue to be a source of scandal for the citizens of Europe.
This is not good for Europe and not good for any of us.
Mr President, as a new Member of the European Parliament I had not anticipated coming here and beginning by saying thank you.
However, I do want to thank the group of Experts for the work they have carried out. It has, in fact, led us straight into matters relating to the EU' s legitimacy and credibility, straight into the core questions affecting the EU citizen: questions of accountability, openness, supervision and efficient use of the EU' s resources.
I would also say that all this may possibly already have been discussed in Parliament (in fact, I am certain it has been), but a firm push from outside is perhaps what is needed to speed up the process.
I would also take the opportunity to thank Paul van Buitenen.
Secondly, I would like to thank Neil Kinnock who has given a major political response today.
I am very pleased to be able to say that I have no important questions to ask him in this connection.
Instead, I will say only this: with what he is promising, with the pledges he is making, we can return to our fellow citizens, our voters, and say that the process is under way.
We are on the way to concluding a pact for radical reforms of the EU, just as our voters and all citizens of the Union expect of us. So thank you.
Mr President, President-designate of the Commission, Romano Prodi, spoke in July of a revolution of the working method which it is now time to translate into action.
In fact, the statements from the Wise Men make it clear that we in Europe need a new culture of responsibility and I would like to add, Mr Kinnock, that on this very point it would be an enticing prospect to continue the hearings from the past week because many issues from the hearings which are still unclear have to be tidied up in terms of definitions and clarity since we would certainly like to know how exactly the Commission should look and function in future.
The Wise Men' s second report contains approximately 90 recommendations which are worth analysing and discussing carefully.
I shall pick out four points.
There are the recommendations relating to the Commission' s Code of Conduct.
The Committee of the Wise Men says that these recommendations have not yet been fully incorporated into the Commission' s proposals.
When I look at the wording of the Wise Men on this point, what they talk about are actually foregone conclusions, and it really is surprising that the Commission has not even transposed these in the past.
As regards OLAF, I am of the opinion that it should be made clear that the strict independence of OLAF, which is something we all want, must include the operative, independent capacity to act.
This has to do with personnel provision and, at the end of the day, has to lead to the establishment of a European Prosecution Office.
It is quite interesting that the Committee of Experts in its concluding remarks says that Community administration is moving towards favouring the tasks of conception and negotiation to the disadvantage of management and supervision responsibilities.
I believe that this is the crucial point. We have to learn to practise successful management at a European level and this will only be achieved, and this is something that has been made clear to the Commission, if, in this regard, Parliament, the Commission and the Council can come to solutions jointly.
I would also like to mention another point in this regard. In most political areas, we have committees in which representatives of the Member States have administrative and supervisory authority, but this is used by these representatives, at the end of the day, to pursue their own interests.
Whilst not wishing to anticipate Thursday' s debate, I would like to make it very clear that, for example, the discussion regarding the creation of the reconstruction agency in Kosovo, both with regard to the legal position as well as with regard to the administrative structures for which provision has been made, is heading precisely in this direction.
It cannot be allowed to do so, hence my reference to the discussion due to take place on Thursday.
I expect the new Commission to comply with Parliament on these very points, as regards the legal basis and on the question of the future administrative and responsibility structures of this reconstruction agency for Kosovo.
Otherwise, we will be creating new structures which are basically encumbered with past mistakes.
Let me say one more thing. The Committee of Independent Experts has complained that the indifference with which the Council practised the discharge procedure in the past, was truly scandalous.
In this area as well, it is quite crucial that in the interests of Europe, a new culture of responsibility takes shape in the Council itself.
The Commission has at last taken action on quite a few issues although, with regard to BSE, it only acted after coming under pressure, and the pressure of public opinion at that.
I say to you: in future, you are better off listening to Parliament than some policy advisors, even from among your own ranks.
That will benefit the European project, the success of which we all certainly believe in and wish for.
Mr President, we are debating a report of around 200 pages which contains an exhaustive analysis of the structural operation of the Commission' s departments, and yet we have had only 48 hours in which to read it and give it our consideration.
I think that, given the seriousness of the subject, it would have been preferable if the President of the Commission had made a statement on the document which we are expecting from Mr Kinnock, on institutional reform, and to wait for a report compiled by the competent body of this House, and then formulate Parliament' s position on the future functioning of the Commission.
We could then have done this without the conditions which have led to the rushed inclusion of this report in the plenary part-session before we have even voted on the investiture of the Commission which will have to propose and apply the reform.
Indeed, Mr President, in the great haste which seems to hold sway over us, the competent committee for the fund has been decided on even before we know what it contains.
It is a great source of satisfaction for me - and I would like to make this known - to have heard the current Commissioner Manuel Marín refer today to the Commission' s future with the same honesty he displayed throughout his terms in office, and the same dignity with which he took on the problems of the previous College of Commissioners.
I must also point out that it is the outgoing Commission which is presenting this document, bringing into the debate a Member of both Colleges, but we are not altogether sure in which of his two roles he is addressing us.
The reasons we have found ourselves in this situation, a situation the Chairman of my group has been warning of since June, are to do with the fact that we have not been able to impose the limit for institutional responsibility on those groups who thought that the report' s contents could influence the investiture of the new Commission and who, for this reason, have insisted that it be debated now.
They have underestimated this Parliament' s ability to implement independently the competences conferred on it by the Treaties, and this has brought about the present situation: the public has the impression that we are unable to comment on the future Commission since this report, as important as it is, and as knowledgeable as its authors may be, does not really determine our political standpoint.
As spokesperson for the Socialist Group on the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I would like to make a few observations regarding the idea put forward in this report on the future functioning of the Commission.
One of the mitigating circumstances in the Commission' s shortcomings, which is clear throughout the report, is the lack of resources that the Commission' s departments have in order to carry out the policies which we MEPs agree on in the area of cooperation in development and humanitarian aid, both of which fly the flag for Community action abroad.
We cannot expect the Commission to have a growing, skilled, visible and efficient presence in the developing world if we do not provide it with the necessary means to achieve it.
Some of the problems which afflicted the last Commission in this area of cooperation for development were sometimes due more to the imbalance between resources and aims than to poor administration.
This is why I advocate - I believe with the consensus of the majority in this Parliament - that, in the future, together with our parliamentary requirements for efficiency, our generosity should also be realistic.
We can start, as the budgetary authority, with the budget for the year 2000, which we have recently been debating in the Committee on Development and Cooperation.
Mr President, I hope that this report will prove to be a useful contribution to the reform of the Commission' s functioning.
Therefore, the Socialist Group is prepared to contribute - given the institutional responsibility that Parliament must hold - to an improved functioning of the Community institutions, both of Parliament and of the Commission, and to demand this of the Council.
Mr President, I shall just comment on one point made in the report by the Committee of Independent Experts, which is chapter 5, concerning fraud in the European Union.
The Committee of Independent Experts has hit the nail on the head in the sense that, at the moment, fraud is a matter of national responsibility.
That is to say that, theoretically, somebody could take all the European Community' s money, and if that person is brought before a court, in a legal system which does not recognise the crime of fraud against the Institutions of the European Community because it is not classified as such, that person would not even be able to be tried, because there would be no legal basis to do so.
I think that this is quite a serious matter.
We must remember, for example, that only four States have ratified the European Union Agreement on cooperation in the fight against fraud in the European Union and that, at the moment, there is no legal framework for combating fraud.
The Committee of Independent Experts' report has some practical conclusions to offer on this matter.
The most important is the creation of a European Ministry for Public Affairs in various stages.
Both Joan Colom and Mrs Theato mentioned this.
I think though, that the problem goes far beyond that.
Specifically, the Committee of Independent Experts' report proposes that the Union Treaties be amended in order to give the European Ministry for Public Affairs far-ranging powers.
But the question we should ask is, is it not time, if the European Union wants to protect its financial interests effectively, for a Community Criminal Law which would allow us to establish fraud against the Community' s financial interests as a Community-wide crime, and to have a competent criminal legal system?
I have the impression that, when all is said and done, the proposals are positive, that we should endorse them, but that probably, bearing the Intergovernmental Conference in mind, we should take them further.
I would like to end my intervention by thanking Mr Marín for his hard work over all these years in his posts within the Commission, and in his final one as President-in-Office of the Commission, and by wishing Mr Kinnock good luck, a lot of tact and caution in the difficult tasks which await him in the forthcoming months and years.
Mr President, I, along with my Socialist colleagues very much welcome this report which underlines the work that we have done in the Budgetary Control Committee and really is built upon that.
There are several very radical recommendations, not least the one that establishes the post of the European public prosecutor.
Time and again many Eurosceptics have used fraud within the European Union institutions as a battering ram to beat us with.
Of course any degree of maladministration and fraud must be weeded out.
But this makes clear that 80% of the problem lies within the Member States themselves.
The recommendation to establish a European public prosecutor, as proposed, would mean that there would be a mechanism to present criminal cases relating to EU fraud throughout the Union but it would not impinge on the jurisdiction of national courts.
That is the way it has been written. It is sensitive to Member States' worries.
A series of shortcomings within the institutions have been identified in this report and recommendations are made here for correcting the problems.
We look forward to developing the action programme for reform with the Commissioner responsible and although we have not had time to look at it in detail, I believe it would be fair to ask the Commissioner for a clear discussion and justification on why steps are not taken if some recommendations are left out.
I am sure we will not agree with every single detail in this report but that would be a useful exercise nevertheless.
The whole question of outside bodies doing work for the Commission is an area that needs clear attention. Whose responsibilities are the bureaus for technical assistance?
Can we tighten-up the contracts granted to these bodies?
How can we simplify procedures and make staff within the Commission more knowledgeable about tendering processes? The proposals outlined by Commissioner Kinnock in his hearing, in particular in the field of training, need more detailed response.
We look forward to hearing more of his ideas over the next few months.
I hope people will take time to read the report which clearly distinguishes between fraud and irregularity.
The report states that of all the thousands of transactions which take place within the European Union institutions there are only 30 investigations involving Commission officials in fraud.
Of course that is 30 too many, but the main cause of concern are the many examples of irregularities.
This is an administrative problem, not a criminal issue.
But measures are needed to tighten up the slack administrative practices, to rewrite poor regulations, to cut down complicated payment mechanisms, dispense with excessive exceptions and derogations which lead to the far too many irregularities and errors.
It is these irregularities that give rise to alarmist headlines when we are presented with the Court of Auditors' report on an annual basis.
The report also correctly referred to the regulation on the protection of the financial interests of the European Community and points out that only three Member States have ratified the regulation.
I am sure this report will give food for thought to those Member States that have not signed.
It will be interesting to note how they respond in particular to the recommendation on the creation in each Member State of a national prosecution office for European offences.
It is indeed appropriate that this report is published this week when we are about to decide on the fate of a new Commission.
It is interesting in particular, in the light of recent events, that the Committee of Experts recommends that legal powers are given to allow the Commission President to sack individual Commissioners.
This week we also received from the Commission a request on the supplementary and amending budget for money to establish the staff necessary to operate the new fraud office, OLAF.
We would also concur with the report that specialised expertise is needed for these posts, and the need to make more effective use of information technology in intelligence gathering.
The report itself should also be a lesson to us all within the European Union institutions.
It has been clearly written, is really easily accessible and avoids jargon wherever possible.
It is really a model on how to write European legislation.
Having said that we welcome the move from ex ante to ongoing ex post control in the budget control mechanisms within the Commission.
We would like to see that implemented.
Again, we will have further discussions on that in the committee.
We are at the dawn of a new era within the European Union institutions.
We look forward to a time when officials are promoted on merit.
We look forward to recruitment of people with appropriate expertise in specific sectors.
We look forward to the commitments already made on whistle-blowers being implemented.
But most of all we look forward to a time when every official and Member State Government responds to a new culture of responsibility.
The next few months and years will be critical.
But let us not forget that we have a base on which to build.
The report is clear in its praise of the commitment and experience of most officials.
From this week on a new chapter is being written.
The plot is outlined in this report.
It will be written by the Commission but Parliament will insist on strong editorial control.
In partnership we can rebuild confidence in the institutions, not only for the people who work within them but most of all, for the people they serve.
. I will speak, as I can at this juncture, only on behalf of the current Commission.
As I said earlier, my fate is in the hands of this Parliament.
Depending on the vote on Wednesday, either I have taken up much too much of Parliament' s time already in putting forward a point of view or we are at the start of something big.
It is for Parliament to choose, therefore, which capacity I speak in on this particular evening.
It really must be a big question because there are an awful lot of questions on your plate.
I hope you can answer some of them at least.
As you have indicated, Commissioner, this matter will be under discussion for weeks, months, years and possibly even generations in the future.
But thank you just now.
Accidental marine pollution
The next item on the agenda is the report (A5­0003/99) by Ms McKenna, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a Council Decision setting up a Community framework for cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
. Mr President, I am rather disappointed that the Commissioner responsible, Commissioner Bjerregaard, is not here.
It is rather disappointing that the Member of the Commission responsible for this issue is not here and that someone else is here who is not responsible for this portfolio.
It makes a laughing-stock of the debates in this Parliament.
Marine pollution, accidental and deliberate, is one of the major threats to the marine environment of Western Europe.
This region represents one of the most intensively industrialised areas of the world where chemical, radioactive and hydrocarbon materials are routinely discharged into the marine environment and carried by cargo ships.
The region also contains one of the highest concentrations of shipping and includes several of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
There are several tragic examples of accidental pollution from tankers and from other ships carrying various forms of dangerous cargoes.
More by good fortune than by good planning there has not yet been a major accident resulting in radioactive spillage with a ship carrying radioactive materials although there was an incident some years back where a ship carrying uranium hydrofluoride from France to Riga sank but it is recorded that the containers apparently were recovered without any spillage.
Historically the marine environment has been used as the ultimate dumping ground for much of our industrial waste.
Although industrial and radioactive discharges continue from a range of sources, the practice of direct dumping with little thought to the future is now widely regarded as unacceptable.
However, the legacy of the years where materials were simply dumped remains and has sometimes returned to haunt us, often with severe consequences.
It is a lesson which tells us that when we attempt to throw things away there really is no such thing as "away" .
This report acknowledges the need for establishing cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
Furthermore there is a need to broaden the definition of accidental marine pollution to include operational historical and radioactive and other harmful substances, accidental and operational marine pollution.
Although much attention is rightly paid to the impact of marine accidents, in terms of the chronic pollution it is the operational spills and discharges of hydrocarbons, radioactive materials and other harmful substances which, because they go largely unnoticed, are a cause of major concern.
In terms of the environment whether a substance is accidentally or deliberately discharged is of no real consequence, the environmental impact remains.
Furthermore, although the direct dumping of industrial materials, including military dumps of redundant munitions, is largely a practice which has been abandoned by Member States, the sites of such dumps continue to present a real threat to fisheries and in some cases, for example not far from my own coast, the Beaufort Dyke, a threat to human safety.
Often fishermen' s lives are at risk, as are the health and welfare of the public who either visit the coast or live by the sea.
Furthermore, as the sea is the ultimate sink for much industrial material from the shores and rivers these sources must be included within the definition.
The transboundary nature of the marine environment, which means that pollution in one area can impact on a wider region, leads to the need for a Community-wide framework for cooperation in the field of accidental marine pollution.
Sharing information regarding hydrocarbons, radioactive substances and other harmful substances carried at sea and discharges into the sea which have been dumped as part of historical dumping regimes is a vital prerequisite in facilitating the preparation and coordination of any response necessary to mitigate the environmental and human health impacts of pollution incidents.
Effective mitigation requires a rapid response.
The longer an incident is allowed to go unchecked the wider the impact, as we have seen.
Hence it is too late to begin trying to get the required information after a serious pollution problem has occurred.
We need to take action before.
Knowledge about the type and extent of potential pollution problems is also a prerequisite for correct preparation in terms of techniques, personnel and equipment at appropriate locations.
It is also necessary to be clear about the risks to the public and the environment and to alleviate justified public concern with accurate assessments of the risk.
The public' s trust in the authorities is important to ensuring adequate responses.
Furthermore, the public have a right to know what preparations are being made, what types of materials are threatening and what impacts may be expected.
To this end, publication of information is a vital component as it establishes a route through which the general public can obtain information, for example emergency phone contact numbers.
Such information can be easily made available and updated on the Internet as well as through established channels.
To conclude, it is a truism that once the marine environment has been contaminated or polluted it is impossible to fully clean up and repair the damage.
However a rapid, efficient, adequate and effective response coordinated across national boundaries is needed to mitigate the impacts on the environment and public health in the case of a pollution incident.
A prerequisite is the necessary information sharing with all parties.
The database and information technology exists to establish the necessary communications between national and regional authorities, emergency response experts and the public.
The dissemination of information about the range of marine pollution threats - hydrocarbons, radioactive substances and other harmful substances - will serve to ensure that the best possible mitigation measures are in place and have the full public trust and confidence of the public.
On the issue of radioactive substances, during the debate in the committee the Commission representative said that it was "implicit" but we want it to be explicit.
It is quite clear that it should be explicit and if it is already implied then I do not see what the problem is about ensuring that it is explicit because as time goes by radioactive substances are going to pose an even greater danger and - as I have already said - we are very lucky that there has not already been a serious accident.
Mr President, accidental marine pollution is in reality a rather odd expression.
It is an expression which I do not think sounds alarming enough in relation to the problem we are confronted with here and which does not at all convey the seriousness of the matter.
It includes oil spills, serious instances of which we are all aware of.
We have all seen pictures of thousands of birds covered in oil.
But it also includes all other possible examples of sea pollution which cause damage to health and to the environment and which often lead to extensive damage to, and real catastrophes for, the environment and animal life.
Obviously, the responsibility lies with the Member States, but I also think I am right in saying that there are two reasons why cooperation at European level is required.
Firstly, we are talking here about what is definitely a cross-frontier problem concerning pollution and the environment.
And secondly, we derive a lot of benefit from being able to exchange experience and expertise with one another, so that we can make use of each other' s experience and support each other in taking measures to prevent and combat damage.
That was recognised in the EU as long as 20 years ago with the first initiatives involving cooperation in this area, and the proposal we now have before us is in fact one which, in reality, extends and implements the cooperation established at that time.
I should like to indicate four areas where I think it is a question of really useful innovations, especially when the proposed amendments put forward by the Committee on the Environment are included.
The first is a matter which Mrs McKenna has been much exercised by, namely the question of providing a broad definition of both "accidental marine pollution" and "harmful materials" .
It is not only oil spills we are talking about.
It is just as important to make clear that we are also concerned here with leaks from dumped munitions.
It may be a question of leaks from radioactive materials or of leaks which can cause people' s hormonal balance to be upset.
I think it is important that we do not set limits here but that we define things broadly.
Any measures taken ought to relate to all these materials.
The other thing I want to refer to is the information system itself, which I think is very important.
It is simply a key tool for efficient cooperation in this area so that we might quickly exchange information and so intervene early on. It also means that we are able to track down the polluters and so both assign liability and establish the relevant penalty to the extent that that is necessary.
The third thing I want to mention is the reference in the comments to the Directive concerning harbour facilities for receiving waste from ships.
I think it is very important that we also call upon these particular facilities in our efforts to prevent damage to the marine environment.
It is important that ships should easily be able to dispose of their waste.
The final matter I want to refer to is the question of involving neighbouring non-EU countries in Eastern and Central Europe and in the Mediterranean and Baltic areas.
If cooperation is to be effective, then it is enormously important that we involve these countries.
In this connection, I also think it is important that reference should be made in the proposed amendments to the fact that we ought to be giving economic support to these countries so that they have a real opportunity to participate in the process.
After emphasising these four points, however, I would say that we are very glad to support the proposal, together with the amendments proposed by the Committee on the Environment.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf on my political group I would like to offer heartfelt congratulations to Mrs McKenna on her excellent report.
It is about monitoring pollution of the maritime environment.
The Commission' s proposal concentrates primarily on oil spillages at sea.
It is an important problem but there are other issues.
The Committee on the Environment was right to have the report include dangerous chemical substances and radioactivity.
European Commission officials say that this is already implicit in the text. Would the Commissioner, Mrs Bjerregaard give explicit support to this as well?
In any case, why is she not here? Mr Kinnock was right to criticise us for the fact that we MEPs do not turn up, and what is more, neither do those who put the questions.
But we want information from the European Commission.
With all due respect, I do not believe that Mr Marín is responsible for this area.
If the great work, the framework Directive on water, is to succeed, then it is very important to monitor the pollution of the maritime environment effectively.
This report makes an enormous contribution in this respect.
Even those in favour of nuclear power and chlorine chemistry would be able to vote for this report for it only concerns itself with information relating to radioactivity and chemical substances.
It does not deal with closing down or developing chemical factories or nuclear power stations.
That is why I appeal to all my colleagues to vote for this report.
Mr President, I agree with the tenor and the thrust of the McKenna report.
Indeed, as a Member of the European Parliament who represents the east coast of Ireland, this is an issue which is close to my heart.
It has come to my attention that British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. has applied to the British Department of the Environment for authorisation to discharge high levels of technetium 99 into the Irish Sea in the near future.
If BNFL is successful with this application, while it will result in halving the levels of technetium 99 that are dumped in the Irish Sea, this will still be 15 times higher than the levels which existed in 1992.
If BNFL has problems in discharging radioactive products such as technetium 99, it should store such waste materials on land in Britain as opposed to dumping them in the Irish Sea.
It is quite timely that BNFL is making applications to the British Government to deal with how much radioactive materials it can discharge into the Irish Sea.
I say this because 15 September - Wednesday of this week when there will be a lot happening - is the deadline which has been given by the Radioactive Discharges Commission of the Ottawa Convention for the British Government to come up with proposals as to how best it is going to substantially reduce the discharge of radioactive substances into the marine environment.
One must remember that the Ottawa Convention on Marine Pollution has at its core the principle of substantially reducing the use of radioactive substances.
A clear plan in this regard must be implemented by the year 2000.
We know that the British Government has done nothing to implement its obligations under the Ottawa Convention to date.
I await with interest to see how the British Department of the Environment intends to comply with its legal obligations under this important convention.
As the British Government addresses the final details on this issue, it should be remembered that there is no safe level of radiation.
The Irish Sea must not be used as a soft option for the disposal of radioactive nuclear materials by BNFL.
Ever since the opposition to the THORP nuclear plant in 1993, the level of radioactive discharges from nuclear operations in Cumbria has substantially increased.
In conclusion, I support the proposals in the report.
From the Irish perspective, we will have more confidence in the British regulatory authorities if they reject this application in its totality.
It is up to the British Government to force BNFL to come up with alternative technological methods to deal with the discharge of such materials.
I congratulate Ms McKenna on her report.
My dear Mr Fitzsimons, as President I always add a little on to the speaking time anyway.
But if I am to indicate with the hammer that your speaking time is up, then I would request in future that you adhere to it.
We cannot stick to a schedule if someone simply steals the speaking time of others, as you indeed have just done.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Committee on the Environment, and particularly its rapporteur, Mrs McKenna, as well as the members of the Committee on Budgets, for the work and the dedication they have put into this proposal.
I am sure that you will all agree with me in confirming the importance of this Community framework for cooperation with which we are trying to back up and finalise the work of the Member States in the field of accidental marine contamination, in order to make it more efficient.
This framework has proved to be very useful when, in cases of severe spillage, it has been necessary to coordinate the work of various Member States.
The Commission can completely or partially accept 20 of the 29 amendments proposed, which obviously improve the proposal.
Amendments Nos 3, 6, 8, 9 and 13 and part of Amendment No 15 would be acceptable in principle, although we would like them to undergo another rewrite.
The 9 remaining amendments pose difficulties for the following reasons:
Amendment No 1 and, in part, Recommendations 5, 15 and 24 make specific reference to contamination caused by radioactive substances which are already regulated by implication in the proposal.
Furthermore, prevailing international agreements on the protection of the Mediterranean, Baltic and North seas, to which the Community is partially bound, all follow the same approach of not making mention of any specific substance.
Amendments Nos 10, 11, 12, 17 and 18, and the first part of Amendment No 22 have as their objective closer cooperation between countries taking part in the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes.
The inclusion of these amendments may make managing it difficult, given the differences between the decision-making processes and the proposed Community framework.
Amendment No 22, in the Commission' s opinion, does not conform to the recent decision on the amount of time spent in committee.
Amendment No 23, in our opinion, contravenes the Commission' s right of initiative.
In spite of these observations, I am sure that Parliament' s contribution and support will facilitate the rapid adoption of this proposal, so that continuity between the way in which the Community currently works and the programme which is due to be implemented on 1 January 2000 will be guaranteed.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
Environmental inspections
The next item is the report (A5-0002/99) by Mrs Jackson, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Recommendation providing for minimum criteria for environmental inspections in the Member States (COM(1998)0772 - C4-0073/1999 - 1998/0358(COD)(former 1998/0358(SYN)).
. Mr President, I rise as the rapporteur on the draft recommendation from the European Commission on the provision of minimum criteria for environmental inspections.
The most important thing about my report is that I rejected the idea - and the Committee has backed me on this - that it should be a recommendation.
I want to make sure that this instrument is in fact a directive.
I am absolutely certain that the speech which Mr Marin is now anxiously looking through rejects what I am about to say.
It is a very important point and underlies some of the disappointments that people feel about the European Union in many of our countries.
It is based on the perception that we adopt legislation in the European Union which is then not implemented universally throughout the Member States of the European Union.
I do not know about my MEP colleagues but certainly this was one of the criticisms made against the European Union during the British version of the European election campaign.
It is a situation at the moment where there are currently more than eighty actions pending before the Court of Justice against eleven Member States for infringement of European Union environmental legislation.
I know, as rapporteur on the recent directive on landfill, that what is happening is that the European Commission is proposing legislation on the basis that it will be adopted and properly implemented in all the Member States while at the same time the same directorate-general of the European Union knows full well that in some areas of policy no inspectorates at all exist able to see that that legislation is implemented in some Member States of the European Union.
The European Commission' s recipe for dealing with this is for inspectors from the various Member States to meet together from time to time to try to improve their techniques and to make that into a recommendation.
There is nothing particularly radical about it at all.
I and the members of the Environment Committee feel that this is grossly inadequate and that if it is not a directive there will in fact be no impulsion on the Member States which are currently lagging behind to do anything at all.
The advantage of transforming the recommendation into a directive is twofold.
First of all it creates the momentum for changes to take place under the eventual sanction of financial penalties and secondly, by taking the proposed text of the recommendation, which we have before us as its base, avoids creating a directive which is too heavily prescriptive in detail.
People want to see the legislation implemented.
They do not want what they call 'red tape' .
This instrument, if transformed into a directive, would mean that we are able to see through the European Commission and through the Members of Parliament whether anybody is actually doing anything.
The likelihood is that if we leave it as a recommendation somebody in five years time or so may or may not remember to report to the European Parliament that a recommendation was passed and that very little was done about it.
A directive has legal force and we feel that is what is needed.
I note that the Greens have proposed an amendment drawing attention to the opinion of the European Parliament that there should be some form of European Union environmental inspectorate.
We have to tread very carefully here if we are not to tie up even more red tape around the Member States.
It is much better, rather than going for a supranational environment inspectorate with all the difficulty about right of entry, if we have the legislation in place to make sure that the environmental inspectorates in all the Member States (a) exist and (b) are performing their tasks to more or less the same standard.
You can only do that through a directorate.
A recommendation is grossly inadequate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Socialist Group, I would like to express our full support for the report by Mrs Jackson. I believe that this is an important question.
We have seen it happen, even if it is not the direct subject of this report, with the dioxin case.
We can set up all the European directives, all the recommendations, all the laws that we want. If their application is not guaranteed by inspection, I believe that the grave doubts of our fellow citizens regarding European effectiveness and the value of these standards may well increase.
We therefore need to establish control and inspection on a Community basis.
Obviously, a fair balance between the responsibility of Member States and European intervention must be found.
In this area, we support the request from Mrs Jackson not to limit ourselves to adopting recommendations, but to go on to the phase of an actual directive, which establishes precise criteria, which each of the Member States shall have to respect in its performance of inspections.
We therefore support all the amendments, requesting the Commission to take note of the need to set strict frameworks.
We have heard the new Commissioner, Mrs Wallström, whom we questioned on the matter of the effectiveness of laws.
She stated the intention of the Commission to be stricter to ensure that, in the end, inspection is effective and its application strict.
We therefore support adoption of the amendments by Parliament.
After all, after the cases we have experienced with dioxin, we can clearly see the risk we face.
We can progress in a reasonable and strict manner towards effective European inspection of Member States, within the framework of a European vision.
But the second phase is the creation of European inspectors - I might call them super-inspectors - who will be able to check the proper performance of Member State inspections.
If we do not do this, when the first crisis comes along, given the lack of inspection in a Member State and the lack of a European principle on inspection, we shall resort to an independent agency which must be created in order to manage the question of food, for example, as we have seen when debating this matter.
I think that this is not the correct response.
The proper response is inspection, control, regulations, managed politically by the representative authorities of the Union, and in which the European Parliament must have entire responsibility.
We therefore would request the Commission to heed the proposals of the Jackson report both to go on to issue a directive but, at the same time, to finally initiate a new phase as regards Community inspection.
Mr President, the European Union has many critics but few voices of protest are heard when the institution takes action to protect our air, our rivers, our seas and our land.
Because people everywhere recognise that pollution knows no national boundaries and can only be tackled effectively by countries working together.
To its great credit Europe has taken a lead in introducing legislation to protect the environment.
But laws which are not enforced equally by all 15 Member States will be cynically ignored by those who seek financial gain at any cost and will generate a sense of injustice and eventually hostility in all those who play by the rules.
None of us, of course, have any reason to feel superior.
No country has a perfect record when it comes to enforcing environmental legislation.
This report takes us a positive step forward and shows Parliament at its best as a defender of the public interest.
It emphasises our commitment to protecting our environment and applying equal procedures in each Member State.
It greatly strengthens the Commission' s well-meaning but frankly insubstantial recommendations for inspection procedures which could not guarantee that improvements will actually take place and it provides for a detailed programme of action to make sure that existing laws are properly enforced within a realistic but tight timetable.
There are one or two sections in this report, as drafted, which I believe would benefit from some very minor amendments to tighten them up.
I have tabled a couple and one of the delights about making a maiden speech in this House is that one has the feeling that those words might actually be studied for their merits rather than simply judged on their party political background.
The real substance of this report and my concern is as raised by Mrs Jackson, that the Commission may not give its support to these proposals.
I congratulate Mrs Jackson on the work she has undertaken.
I believe strongly that this report should be given Parliament' s wholehearted support and a message should be sent to both the Commission and the Council that we are determined that these essential measures should not be diluted or weakened in any way.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Mrs Jackson has compiled a good report on the problems concerning compliance with environmental legislation.
My group gives its full support to this report.
But at the end of the day the European Union must work towards setting up an independent environment inspectorate.
At the present time, those countries that fail to comply with environmental legislation have to supervise themselves, which, of course, is not working.
This report aims, by realistic political means, to kick-start this stalled process and get it moving again, an aim which merits praise.
But more needs to be done in the long-term.
Where cartel formation and competition law are concerned, European officials, together with national investigators, drop into companies unannounced and are able to confront the company administration.
Our proposed environmental inspectorate has a very long way to go before it reaches this stage.
But if we regard the economy and the environment as being of equal importance then we should also conduct unannounced environmental inspections coordinated at European level.
Mr President, I endorse Mrs Jackson' s report, which makes some very valid points, particularly in its explanation as to why we do not want a recommendation, but a directive.
If we had had such inspections over the last few days in Greece, especially in Athens, even in the form recommended by Mrs Jackson, we certainly would have been able to protect, albeit indirectly, by looking after the land and the urban environment, most of the dead, the injured and the thousands of homeless which our capital is witnessing today.
That is why we support the proposal for environmental inspections.
I just wish to add two comments, Mr President, one of which is in slight disagreement with Mrs Jackson.
I too believe that the inspections should at some point be carried out at a Community and pan-European level.
It is not certain, it is not inevitable, as Mrs Jackson says, that this will lead to increased "red tape" .
There are ways in which we can organise it to make the inspections of a random nature and perhaps have them at a higher level of legal redress, which would not necessarily involve any red tape.
On the other hand, it incorporates rules and, I believe, it satisfies all the citizens of the European Union, who not only want the legislation to be enforced but who also want it to be enforced to the same degree and at the same level in all the countries.
My second comment - and I am, of course, stirred by my anguish and great sorrow in the wake of those earthquakes in Athens - is that our environmental legislation, which we will now have to review and enforce, still does not incorporate any, or does not incorporate enough, regulations on the use of land, the urban environment, and the degradation of the environment within towns and cities.
With these two comments, which I hope we will be able to bring to the table as soon as we have settled the general issue raised thanks to Mrs Jackson' s report, I once again wish to offer my support of the report.
Madam President, we are dedicated, as a European Parliament, to protecting the environment.
For this to be a success the Member States must implement the directives, regulations and recommendations in the right and proper manner.
It is, of course, extremely important for environmental legislation to be implemented and upheld if we are to protect the environment.
We cannot allow an industrial sector in one Member State to expel far more polluting substances than the same industrial sector in another Member State.
This would result in the manufacturing industry moving to the country where the most lax environmental regulations are in force; the environment would then stand to lose the most and those Member States that were taking the environmental legislation seriously would be punished for doing so.
That is why we must invest a great deal of time and energy in the coming months in bringing about improvements in the way in which this legislation is implemented and upheld, in order to provide adequate guarantees that our policy really will bring about improvement in the quality of the environment.
I want to emphasise how important it is for EU environmental legislation to be upheld to the same standard across the board.
The existence of the internal market justifies striving for common competition regulations.
How can this best be achieved? The Member States are empowered to implement European directives under the terms of the subsidiarity principle.
Equally, the Member States themselves bear full responsibility for implementing European environmental legislation.
After some hesitation, I have allowed myself to be convinced by Mrs Jackson' s arguments in support of establishing minimum criteria for environmental inspections in the Member States in a directive, and not settling for the European Commission' s proposal for a non-binding recommendation.
However, in future, this Directive on environmental inspections must not be further embellished.
Mr President, there is, in fact, in the report presented by Mrs Jackson, one point which concerns not so much the content but the question of which legal basis we should choose in order to try to resolve the problems of the minimum environmental criteria in Member States.
The Commission has in fact proposed a recommendation.
Parliament would like it to be a directive instead. This is not really, and I must repeat this, because we have a problem with the content, since none of the amendments are fundamental to the recommendation proposed by the Commission.
Why has the Commission considered that in this specific case, it was better to present a recommendation rather than a directive? Firstly, Mr President, because the Commission, before making a legislative proposal, holds appropriate consultations with Member States.
Of the fifteen Member States, only one is in favour of a directive.
And once more we find ourselves caught between a rock and a hard place. When the European Commission proposes a recommendation, you in Parliament want a directive, and when the Commission proposes a directive, we should be making recommendations, because the principle of subsidiarity must be respected.
It is therefore extremely difficult, given that out of the 15 Member States, 14 think that a recommendation would be better.
Firstly, because it is sometimes right to respect the principle of subsidiarity.
Secondly, because we prefer the concept of shared responsibility.
Thirdly, because in this case, it concerns a measure within a programme which does not exclude the possibility of presenting it as a directive in the future if the recommendation proves insufficient.
This means, firstly, that it is just a pragmatic approach, knowing that most of the Member States do not want a directive.
Secondly, it would have recourse to the principle of subsidiarity.
And thirdly, the Commission prefers to maintain this programme through recommendations, see the results of this phase of closer cooperation on the question of inspections, and then present a directive at some point in the future if it considers it to be appropriate.
These are the explanations which I am able to give you on behalf of the European Commission.
. Mr President, I will very briefly come back on that.
I take the Commissioner' s point about subsidiarity but what we are arguing for in Parliament is a minimum framework directive which does not invade subsidiarity and which solves the problem by creating an obligation on the Member States to set up an inspectorate within certain broad guidelines.
Secondly, I would like to ask the Commissioner, given that all of us will be lobbying the Member States to change their minds, whether he can let us in on a secret in the interests of transparency.
Which is the one Member State which we do not need to lobby?
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.52 p.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, we have had some slight technical problems regarding the Minutes for yesterday' s sitting. Apparently, not all Members have received a copy.
In this situation, given that a number of Members have not been able to obtain the Minutes, I do not think that I can ask you to approve the Minutes.
This is one of the things that we are going to improve gradually in order to prevent a recurrence of this type of incident.
So, we will approve the Minutes for both today' s sitting and yesterday' s sitting tomorrow morning.
However, we still have one problem.
You will recall that we had tabled a vote for this morning on the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs regarding the Technical Group of Independent Members, a mixed group.
I will now turn to the representatives of this group.
If Mr Dell' Alba thinks that, considering the absence of the Minutes, we should postpone this vote too, then this is what I shall do.
That would be quite in order.
On the other hand, if he thinks that we can proceed to the vote, then I shall give an explanation of the case so that all Members are properly informed.
Mrs Fontaine, since it is an Appendix to the Minutes, it would be appropriate, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, to vote tomorrow morning, at the same time as the Minutes, if you wish.
Mr Dell' Alba, that would indeed seem to be perfectly in order.
Madam President, I would propose that it be approved at midday.
We are perfectly capable of doing so.
Mr Barón Crespo, there is no vote at noon, and I do not think it would be desirable to interrupt the debate with Mr Prodi in order to have the Minutes approved.
That is all that I am saying, even if it is very important to get the Minutes approved.
Frankly, I think tomorrow would be better.
Madam President, may I draw your attention to the fact that not voting on the Minutes this morning will have consequences which are not limited simply to their approval but will also affect the political and budgetary work of Parliament.
Well, firstly, will we in fact have received the Minutes by noon?
As I am assured that everyone will have a copy of the Minutes in their own language by that time, we could, indeed, interrupt the debate for a few moments in order to approve the Minutes.
But let the House decide the matter, and we will then also vote at noon on the interpretation of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. That would seem logical.
So, I turn to the House. Who is in favour of this, given that I have just had confirmation that everyone will have received the Minutes by then?
Madam President, there are matters which the President should decide, as a guarantee with regard to the entire House, so that we do not start to query the principles of proper procedure, even the most reasonable ones.
We had accepted the decision which you announced.
Going back on that now and submitting the decision you had so wisely taken to the majority of the House just because of the contribution of the chairman of the Socialist Group seems to me a meagre excuse in comparison with the principle which you applied and which we all supported.
Statement by Mr Prodi
The next item is the statement by Mr Prodi, President-designate of the Commission.
Madam President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, you have recently outlined to us a view of what the tasks of the European Union will be.
You have spoken of an enduring development, you have spoken of peace and of stability.
Mr Prodi, you may not belong to the great Expressionist painters, but I have faith that your gentle leadership can produce good results.
You have also mentioned East Timor, and we all expect that Europe will bear full responsibility in this matter.
What we have heard from the Commission in Parliament has not been a useless act and a worthless spectacle at all, they have been particularly necessary and you yourself have been completely right to demonstrate to us in the last week that elsewhere in Parliament the Executive has not got around to issuing any detailed clarifications.
Perhaps in this there would be a model also in relation to other Parliaments and executive bodies.
This Commission cannot ally itself with the Council unilaterally, just as its predecessor frequently did, unfortunately.
My group will not unite with those who would like the Commission to be some kind of secretariat to the Council.
No.
The Commission is a political organ and, as has now become clear, it also has political responsibility to, of all things, the European Parliament.
So that we can have confidence in your Commission at least until the year 2005, it must first be confirmed what this new spirit in the relations between the Council and the Commission will come to mean in practice. We are still waiting for clarification.
My group emphasises the political responsibility of each Member of the Commission, and we accept your promise that you will carefully study the well-founded dissatisfaction with each Member of the Commission.
The President of the Commission must also commit himself to using his power if there is any Member of the Commission suspected of, or being investigated concerning, misconduct or criminal behaviour.
Mr Prodi, one thing must be stressed: there are far too few women in the composition of your Commission, and this must be stated now so that we learn something from this for future occasions.
In future, the equal representation of men and women in the Commission or in other named bodies of the Union cannot be an optional principle of others in the group.
Concrete measures are needed.
When the new agreement between Parliament and the Commission is negotiated, action must be taken so that in future the candidates for the Commission will also be discussed with Parliament.
The procedure now followed has clearly proved to be too limited.
My group also calls for the amendments to the legislative process proposed by a large majority in Parliament to be taken in accordance with the proposals of the Commission in future.
We also appreciate that you have promised to take a serious view of Parliament' s suggestions for legislation.
We also call for Parliament to be included in the coming reform of Union bodies and also in the negotiation process with a completely different emphasis than has previously been the case.
We will also be responsible for including the whole commonwealth of European nations in this process because the upcoming reform of European institutions will guarantee greater rights to the citizens of Europe.
We have not been satisfied with the way in which Parliament has been allowed to participate in international agreements.
We also call for Parliament to be consulted at every stage in future in negotiations such as those involving the World Trade Organisation.
Mr Prodi, everyone is talking about glasnost, and transparency, and I believe that you are talking about it sincerely, but the hearings have not convinced me that the individual candidates or even you yourself, as the future President of the Commission would understand what glasnost or transparency really mean in practice.
It must not remain a mere catchphrase.
Your first task is to create the background for the transparency required by the Amsterdam Treaty.
This is not only necessary so that Parliament is kept informed, but also so that the citizens and all the nations can influence the development of the European Union with an emphasis which is completely fresh.
Mr President, since your nomination to the Presidency of the Commission and the candidacy of the nineteen Commissioners-designate, you and the members of the new College of Commissioners have spared no pains to get a very clear message across to the European Parliament.
And we have received it.
You and the Commissioners have found the words to express it: change, reforms, questioning, new culture, glasnost.
Although often suspected of arrogance, the Commission has managed to come down off its pedestal.
Although it has a reputation for opacity, it has committed itself to promoting transparency.
Although severely criticised by the Committee of Wise Men, it has adopted the recommendations of the Independent Experts.
During the hearings, the Commissioners proved to be so open to the consensus of the majority of Members that even the groups which, for reasons outside European politics, had promised to maintain an antagonistic attitude were quick to bury the hatchet.
In short, you set yourself the task of regaining the confidence of Parliament, and you managed to achieve it.
It must, however, be noted that you have not tackled the other challenge which you just mentioned, Mr President, a far more ambitious one, it is true, with the same strong will - that of regaining the confidence of the citizens of Europe.
And there' s the rub.
You, like us, will note that a real phenomenon of rejection of Neo-liberalism, bearing with it a great desire for justice, solidarity and change, is on the increase in our societies. What new solutions do you offer in response to the increasing rejection of the galloping ever-growing threat to job security and even to life itself?
What new solutions do you offer in response to this thirst for resistance to the frantic rush for profits which is being expressed throughout Europe, for example, at this very moment, in my own country, in the form of the immense movement of sympathy towards the workers of the Michelin group which has just announced 7 500 layoffs in Europe despite seeing its profits climb by 20%. What new solutions do you offer the men and women who expect Europe to give the impetus for a real dynamic of alternatives to the globalisation of exclusion that is today at work, whether it is a matter of employees, rural workers, or cultured people opposing the regulations of world trade, or two young men from Guinea, victims of the flight from poverty, in default of an international order recognising the right of each and every human being to life, employment and dignity?
In connection with this, I note, Mr President, that in your inaugural speech I heard no mention of the relationship between Europe and the South, that is to say the majority of the human race.
Generally, the responses of the Commission to all these ethical questions are far too conventional: they do not have the ambition which generates major projects.
At the start of my speech, I highlighted the efforts you have made towards fulfilling the expectations of Parliament.
The comments I have just made do not deny the progress made, but put them into perspective.
Still less does my group ignore the slight shift in the centre of gravity of the Commission towards Parliament which has just taken place, as this proves, in the eyes of the world, that it is possible to shift the position of seats of power, even those reputed to be untouchable, and this is very important.
I would add that the working areas which have been opened up are of interest to us.
In this respect, we shall be demanding but constructive partners.
For all that, we cannot let ourselves be satisfied with administrative reform whilst our fellow citizens are asking us questions on the very meaning of Europe today.
At this stage, therefore, we cannot, to our great regret, affirm our confidence in this Commission.
Madam President, at the outset we must view this week as a new beginning for all the key institutions within the European Union as to how they intend to interact and work together on various policy programmes over the next five years.
In particular the relationship between the European Parliament and the European Commission must be hardworking and harmonious, so as to ensure that key elements of our EU legislative requirements are enacted in as an effective a manner as possible.
The 350 million people who make up the membership of the European Union will not thank either the European Parliament or the European Commission if we are seen in the public eye as having a fractious relationship in any shape or form.
This would only help to erode public confidence in the institutions of the Union, which would be a very regressive step for all interested parties, particularly in the light of the key challenges that lie ahead for the Union as a political and economic entity.
The President-elect of the Commission, Mr Prodi, has certainly made it clear that he intends to guarantee that the European Commission and the European Parliament will work extremely closely together on the implementation of a comprehensive work programme within the Union over the next five years.
Included within this process must be the efficient working of the codecision procedure, which covers the enactment of EU legislation across 38 different economic and social sectors of our society.
Since the Amsterdam Treaty came into force on 1 May, the codecision procedure, which involves a very close relationship between Parliament, the Commission and the Council, now covers a wide range of policies including those in the transport sector, regional affairs, social matters, employment initiatives, structural funding, consumer protection, public health and environmental concerns.
The relationship between the European Commission and the European Parliament must not be based on strict contractual terms.
We must set common policy objectives together and face the key challenges which lie ahead for the European Union within a united and unified framework.
The European Union works at its best when Parliament, the Commission and the Council are working closely together on the implementation of various EU regulations and directives.
The body of the European Union treaties and, in particular, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty and the Amsterdam Treaty are all to be reevaluated in the context of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
This IGC will examine what key amendments must be made to the body of EU legislation to take account of the impending enlargement of the European Union.
Preparing for enlargement is not going to be a particularly easy task and it will not be made any easier if Parliament and the Commission are not working closely together to guarantee that tough decisions must be taken on these issues or worked through in an atmosphere of understanding and equal purpose.
Enlargement of the European Union will itself not succeed unless the internal decision-making procedures within the Union are streamlined and simplified.
Finally, with the accession of six new Member States between the years 2004 to 2006, we all collectively have a lot of work to do to ensure that this process is a success.
The forthcoming IGC is the biggest challenge facing the European Union as a political and economic body since the decisions were taken when negotiating the Maastricht Treaty to set in train the process of Economic and Monetary Union.
Madam President, the hearings have provided no clear answer.
Next time, they must be prepared better and concentrate on fewer questions, which can then be pursued until the Commissioners give clear and unambiguous answers.
We still do not know these 15 men and 5 women. We have heard about which of them is interested in jazz but we also want information about the economic interests they have represented over the last twenty years so that they are protected against unnecessary pressure.
We shall also insist upon clear answers on the subject of openness.
Some questions, then: will the ombudsman receive all the documents he asks for? Will the Chair of the Committee on Budgetary Control receive all the documents concerning fraud that she requests?
Will we be able to obtain a complete overview of all the committees and their members so that we might see who is involved in making laws and taking decisions?
Will Mr Prodi, here in the Chamber, solemnly promise that there will no longer be documents in the Commission which can be read at COPA, within the national delegations, in the lobbying firms and by journalists but not by ourselves, who have merely been elected by the people? Dear Professor Prodi, at the meeting with my group you promised that there would always be a place in Parliament where full information could be obtained from the Commission.
Will you repeat that promise here today in the Chamber, where it is binding? I shall then, in return, promise critical and constructive opposition on behalf of my group.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we will be called upon to vote for the Commission presided over by Mr Prodi who has presented, like everyone who presents programmes, a good programme - as if there were any doubt that he and his collaborators could present a good programme!
But let us take a look at what he has done in the past.
I do not mean in a professional sense, because he has amassed considerable personal wealth - he has used his abilities well - but let us look at when he was Chairman of IRI, Italy' s largest economic public body, and the thousands of billions of lira much of this from the pockets of taxpayers in the Po area - that he managed to squander by implementing a policy which led to bankruptcy.
Just think of the steelworks in Southern Italy that are now closed.
And I recall that as Italy' s Prime Minister, a vote of no confidence was brought against him by Parliament and also by those political groups which - and I do not know how they have the nerve, the cheek - have become turncoats and have willingly voted for him here after having voted against him in Rome.
Madam President, I also believe that the hearings process has been rigorous and useful, as my group has stated, and we have all taken an important step towards the transparency of the Community' s institutions.
And as the coda to these hearings, in my judgement, Mr Prodi has shown signs of political good sense and courage in the speech which he has just made.
The offers which he has made us, which are broadly accepted by this group, form a clear commitment to European integration and are a clear declaration of intentions with regard to the representation of citizens which this Parliament demonstrates.
Where is the problem then?
In my frank opinion, it lies in some people' s attempts to transfer their domestic debates to the Community institutions, in those governments which juggle European postings in order to satisfy the demands of pacts in their countries, and also in some opposition parties who wish to achieve on a higher level what they cannot achieve at home, like Mr Barón, in Spain, who has been ordered to prolong the internal domestic debate by attacking the Vice-President-designate of the European Commission in, as he well knows, an unjust and dishonest way.
Mr Barón, please display more independence, more prudence and, above all, more responsibility.
Ask the advice of your sympathisers, Mr Solbes and Mr Solana, because we know how these things begin but not how they end and, sometimes, the schemes backfire.
You have some experience in this respect.
And above all, do not try to distort the facts.
State here that the Committee of Inquiry on flax of the Congress of Deputies has already approved its conclusions. State clearly that this Committee has cleared Mrs de Palacio of any responsibility, pointing out that the responsibility for the management, control and granting of subsidies falls to the Spanish Autonomous Communities, and famously the one governed by one of your cohorts in Castilla La Mancha.
I will end, Madam President, by saying that I want to forget about this squalor because it is not our style.
We still have an enormous task to perform during the next five years, in which dialogue and the existence of a consensus between us and between the institutions is essential if we are to continue to make progress.
We offer you our co-operation.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen of the Commission, I am assuming that you will be receiving a vote of confidence from this Chamber tomorrow.
I should therefore like to speak to you directly, but I must first make just one comment to Mr Galeote who is also now being so kind as to put his headphones on.
You started out by saying that we ought not to be discussing any internal political matters here.
You then went on to spend at least half of your speech dealing with just such internal political matters.
If you have seen how reticently Enrique Barón has addressed the subject, then you will see how reticently we too are dealing with it, because we do not want to deal with any internal political matters.
Mr President of the Commission, I can agree one hundred per cent with the programme you have put forward today.
I should not like, therefore, to comment upon it in more detail but, rather, to mention a few more points in particular.
First of all, we are engaged in a process - and here I should like to take up a concept which Michel Barnier used during the hearings - a process of developing a constitution.
This is not something which we can do overnight, but it is something which we really must set in progress over the next few years.
For this, there needs to be a big European debate.
You yourself have said - and I agree with you, Mr President of the Commission - that a succession of Intergovernmental Conferences is not particularly appealing.
I would imagine that you are making proposals from your own point of view too about how you see this process of developing a constitution. For the Commission must in fact have a leading role to play.
In this connection, Mr President, I must mention that a number of the Members of your Commission have still not perhaps made the relevant approach to the European Commissioner in the course of these hearings.
A number of them were still too caught up in the business of the governments to which they belonged or in the roles set by their individual nations.
Here, the European consciousness must certainly be strengthened, above all because we are unfortunately also seeing increasing nationalism, which we must combat.
Secondly, reform of the institutions.
In yesterday' s debate here, we were in complete agreement with what Commissioner Kinnock stated. It was a clear and unambiguous creed of reform and could not have been clearer.
I should like, however, to repeat exactly what he said: "deeds speak louder than words" .
That is the basis on which we shall judge you.
I am convinced that deeds will in fact follow, but it is they that will be the yardstick for our further ratification of the Commission in the years to come.
The third point is the question of openness and transparency.
Yes, it is also a measure of the relationship of the Commission to this Parliament that we demand complete openness, the full truth and not half-truths or statements which mislead.
That, for us, is the deciding factor.
It is also quite clear - and this too we have always said unambiguously - that if it should prove that a Member of the Commission has lied to this Parliament, then our confidence in that particular Commissioner has certainly been destroyed.
We are therefore absolutely in favour of there being in addition to - I emphasise, in addition to - the principle of collegiality, the principles of individual trust and individual responsibility.
Only, we do not want a situation in which a multi-party policy plays any role here.
We do not want Commissioners from small political groups from small countries being to some degree open to blackmail by majorities in this Chamber.
So we have to take this with a pinch of salt.
We need sensible regulations which do not undermine and interfere with the principle of collegiality.
A last word about the hearings.
They were positive.
Not everyone shone all the time, but it is easier being the examiner than the examinee.
On the whole, though, we find that this Commission is in a position to be a strong Commission but, Mr Prodi, a strong Commission because you can be certain that we shall be a strong and alert Parliament.
The two together can nicely set about the necessary reform of the European institutions.
We wish you good luck with your work.
Mr President, Mr President-designate, ladies and gentlemen, this new chapter in our history requires us to be here today for this discussion on the crisis in transparency and the crisis in the functioning of the Commission.
Mr President-designate, you have agreed to lead us out of that crisis, which is why you are here today to propose, and we are here to demand, institutional reform and the strengthening of European politics.
Leaving aside the albeit serious crisis which initiated everything, this was the only possible outcome because, there is now a demand, for apparently opposing reasons, for greater attention to be paid both to the need for institutional reform and for more policies.
I said for apparently opposing reasons because one of the subjects we are dealing with is the apparent bewilderment - I hope it is not lack of confidence - of the European citizens, as shown by the poor turnout in the June elections but, on the other hand, there is undoubtedly more being asked of Europe.
The Kosovo crisis has certainly highlighted the original reasons for the creation of a united Europe. Europe as an instrument of strengthened European institutions, as an instrument to ensure peace even before ensuring prosperity, across the entire continent.
This demand calls for commitments on enlargement and on strengthening the institutions which on the one hand, we must honour.
However, on the other hand, for the Europe already in existence, for those countries of Europe which are already part of the Union, there is more being asked of Europe. The euro is a tool, an intermediate stage.
It is a condition, a tool for bringing prosperity to everyone, so that we can move on to those policies which form the fundamental chapter we are about to open, the final goal, that is, more growth, more development, more employment. We must deal with the need for new transparency, new institutions and new politics.
As for transparency - we have already said, Mr President - our group puts all its confidence in you, confidence which obviously depends on the results you and your Commission will achieve.
This confidence obviously depends on each individual Commissioner' s ability to sustain high moral and professional standards. We shall keep a close watch on the Commissioners in many different ways, which includes the improved methods of transparency that you have promised us.
However, in my view, we need to make greater progress on the institutional problem, because that is what the institutions' image hinges on as far as the European citizens are concerned.
I think that the points of that triangle you mentioned - Commission, Parliament and Council - must evolve, are evolving and will evolve along an upwards course towards the progressive, inevitable transfer of powers from the governments - that is, from the Council - to the citizens, and therefore to Parliament.
This is the basic process that we can either speed up or slow down.
We are asking you - and this is why we are happy to put our confidence in a strong Commission - to do all you can, which means a lot, and maybe even more than you imagine doing at the moment.
We are asking you to be ambitious in this area, to make sure that as you already said in a meeting with the leaders of the parliamentary groups, the relationship between Parliament and the Commission is a positive one.
This is possible, but it depends on you. It also depends on us.
We will do all we can to create the conditions necessary for success.
However, we are doing all this as a means to implement European policies.
We accept the commitments that enlargement brings, but even if the focus is now essentially shifting towards Central and Eastern Europe, we must not lose sight of the Mediterranean policies that Europe has a duty to adopt.
I know that there is a great deal of work to do. I know that the difficulties may seem impossible to overcome.
But I also know that you have the right qualities, the will and the ability to succeed. Aim high, Mr President!
Mr President of the Commission, circumstances have contrived to focus the debate on the acceptance of the new Commission upon the operational problems of the institution.
You announced your intention to set your house in order, fight against corruption, demonstrate efficiency and strictness, and you announced the implementation of ambitious reforms.
We are delighted to hear it. You even went beyond this debate, mentioning a number of challenges facing the Commission and the European Union: expansion, consolidation of growth, sustainable development.
Having said that, I do not see any hierarchical ordering in this list, and I do not believe we can get away from what seems to me a crucial challenge for the future: overcoming the possible lack of coherence between the policies run by the European Union.
Let me take one example: you declare yourself in favour of greater liberalisation, yet it will be difficult, in this context, to achieve real sustainable development.
You will recall the commitments on biodiversity made by the European Union, whether at Kyoto or at Rio: the convention on the subject is still at the draft stage.
Do I also have to remind you of the Copenhagen Declaration on social development with its very ambitious handling of the North-South divide and the divisions within the North between rich and poor: the European Union made a number of commitments in this regard, none of which has to date been upheld.
I therefore believe we must look into the tools which are available to us and not be content to use the tools which have already existed for many years.
I am thinking, for example, of our relationship with the WTO.
It goes without saying that the regulations of the World Trade Organisation are, to a great extent, incompatible with the objective of sustainable development.
Finally, I would like to mention a second and final point: you wish to reconcile the European citizen with the European institutions.
Very well. You also speak of transparency.
Certainly, it is an effective tool, but it must not be limited to routine mechanisms and usual administrative procedures.
There must also be transparency on the major stakes involved, particularly those which, justifiably, are of concern to citizens, as is the case right now with food safety.
In this connection, I observe increasingly, hence my disquiet, that important decisions on the subject are both discussed and digested in advance in the inner sanctums of diplomats, thus escaping the control of both Members of Parliament and citizens.
I am thinking in particular of a statement made a few days ago by the United States Ambassador to the European Union, in which he declared his delight that the biotechnological working party resulting from Transatlantic economic partnership had arrived at a draft agreement on procedures for the approval of new transgenic varieties.
You know, Mr President, that transgenic varieties are not well thought of within the European Union and that we are therefore on the verge of a probably very heated conflict between expert opinion and public opinion on the subject.
I would like to see more clarity from the Commission regarding the role it intends to play with regard to Parliament and the citizenry.
Are you on the side of the experts and big industry or are you on the side of the citizens and Parliament?
Mr President, I should like to thank the President-designate of the Commission for his presentation.
As a newly elected Member of this Parliament, I had been rather looking forward to taking part in the democratic process which was planned before we were finally to adopt a position on the Commission.
However, I was quickly disabused of any prior illusions I may have had, because the committee I served on had in fact already prepared the written questions before we held our first meeting.
They had been prepared by officials and by the outgoing Parliament.
We newly elected Members did not have any chance to pose written questions to the Commission.
This can scarcely be called particularly democratic.
Regarding the round of oral questions, this has been a major piece of work requiring a major effort by the Members of Parliament, the proposed Commissioners and the employees in both the Commission and Parliament.
And yet it now looks as if it was not an open democratic process that decided the matter.
The decisions were taken in a completely different place and against a completely different background.
What was decisive was the conversation which you, Mr Prodi, had with Mr Poettering from the Group of the European People' s Party and, after you had twisted the arms of Parliament' s largest group, Mr Poettering obviously did not think he had any choice.
Is it a sign of European democracy in the future, not to have any choice?
I will not be in a position to support this form of democracy.
Certainly not when all the warnings have been taken no account of, when Commissioners are proposed whom the first Wise Men' s report has cast considerable suspicion upon and when, following the conversation I mentioned, no critical questions are asked of Mr Lamy in the course of the committee' s oral hearing.
It is being said that we are getting a strong Commission, stronger than the one which is now bowing out.
And Mr Prodi talked about our having an open, modern and efficient administration.
There are a lot of positive things to say about this.
But the introductory round of questioning does not augur well for how the Commission is to use the power it has.
Twisting the arms of the European Parliament' s politicians, steamrollering through ideas such as common defence, common taxation and a common policy on social benefits (which, into the bargain, it is recommended be reduced); bulldozing policies like these through, irrespective of how the populations in Europe see things. A Commission which has the power and working methods of a bulldozer will make sensible co-operation and the development of democracy difficult, if in fact democracy is to be taken even slightly seriously.
The previous speakers did not think that all this was symptomatic of what future co-operation would be like.
Now, I believe that problems should be nipped in the bud.
Promises were given at the Conference of Presidents.
One of these was that a Commissioner who did not have the confidence of Parliament would be asked to resign.
This sits ill with the requirement that the Commission be endorsed in the one go: either every single member or no-one at all.
I cannot recommend a "yes" vote.
I shall recommend saying "no" to the proposed Commission, and this for political reasons but, first and foremost, for democratic ones.
Mr President, the statement of the President-designate of the Commission confirms his previous statements, particularly those given to our House on 13 April or 4 May, and the French Members in my group shall therefore be induced to vote against.
Mr Prodi in fact thinks himself the head of government of a European super-state, and sees no solution to problems other than promoting ever greater integration, ever greater unification, ever greater limitation of national authority.
During last week' s hearings, the Commissioners-designate competed to show their zeal on the subject in order to demonstrate their Federalist ambitions to their questioners.
Mr Barnier tried to outdo them by proposing heading towards a "European sovereignty," I quote "replacing national sovereignties."
Let me say, in passing, that these hearings, in this form, which incite the candidate Commissioners to undertake commitments which are not approved by their peoples, seem to me to introduce a certain distortion in fidelity to the procedures.
Mr Prodi furthermore described his extreme vision of the bonus of competition according to which public service would be acceptable only if did not present an obstacle to the market.
The presidential candidate champions the continued liberalisation of international trade according to the reductionist route taken by the Uruguay Round.
This assessment was somewhat tempered subsequently by Pascal Lamy, but it was still not very clear what means he would use in order to control globalisation without demanding radical change in the rules of the game, particularly by means of the introduction of the idea of social or environmental cost into international negotiations.
Finally, Mr Prodi was insistent that the Commission, in his words, should establish itself as the main driving force behind an accelerated campaign for a review of the Treaties in many areas.
Clearly, this idea leads in a direct line to a future expanded Intergovernmental Conference, where the nations would be deprived of their prerogatives and would no longer have any control.
The initiative has already been given by Mr Prodi who himself appointed a Committee of Wise Men to produce a preliminary report on behalf of the Commission even though the Council of Cologne had expressly rejected this idea of the Committee of Wise Men.
Indeed, although we never quite know how these Wise Men are selected, we do, however, know in advance that their conclusions are going to be in favour of going ever further in the direction of a super-state.
I would like to tell you today, Mr Prodi, that you will not fight against fraud, as you would like, or re-establish democracy in Europe by constructing a super-state which would be artificial and which, by its very nature, would entail a Commission and a European civil service which are cut off from the people.
What is necessary, on the other hand, is to make them more open and to re-establish their links with the nations.
Mr Prodi, you spoke of glasnost in order to describe your future policy.
This word, which was applied to Soviet institutions, seems to me particularly well chosen to apply to the Commission today.
I hope that, like the other glasnost, your version will create a shock wave in these anti-democratic institutions likely to lead to reforms which you cannot today anticipate.
Mr President, the problem today is not to judge the Commission programme but the operation of the institution.
You said, President Prodi, that we must get past the crisis of last year and that we should turn the page.
Yet you have not, in our opinion, learnt the lessons of the crisis.
For, in spite of the recommendations of the first report of the Committee of Independent Experts backed up by the second report which has just been published, no serious action has been undertaken to modify the methods and modes of operation of the Commission.
Thus, the new Commission includes four Commissioners who were part of the former, recently disowned team.
Although they were not individually implicated, they did give their support to the incompetence of the entire Santer Commission and its lack of collective responsibility.
In addition, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities deplores the fact that the essential reform of the Commission has been entrusted to a member of the former team.
At the time of the hearings of the future Commissioners, the EDD Group, of course, noted the quality of the majority of these Commissioners while criticising some centralist tendencies.
We would like to see a change in culture and democratisation of the existing system, as well as greater consideration for Parliament.
At present, for instance, it is not possible to request the resignation or non-renewal of one individual Commissioner without implicating the Commission as a whole or without causing an overt crisis.
The cultural revolution which you announced, Mr President, is not in sight.
Bad practice is allowed without sanction, dysfunction in the system is allowed to continue.
The work of Parliament is, furthermore, flouted by dubious practices.
The second report of the Committee of Independent Experts discussed in the plenary part-session on Monday has still not been delivered, or has only just been delivered, to the majority of Members of Parliament, thus preventing us making a serious study of it.
In these circumstances, the six CPNT Members, and the whole of the EDD Group, will be voting against the appointment of the Prodi Commission in order to denounce a system which is deeply undemocratic.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, following the crisis of confidence we have experienced this year, there has been a lot of talk about the need for a new beginning in relations between the Commission and Parliament. A new beginning of this kind is in fact necessary.
Mistrust on the part of Parliament arose as soon as documents concerning cases of fraud landed on the desks of newspaper editors but not on those of the Committee.
It was unacceptable for amendments proposed by this Chamber simply to be ignored by the Commission and for any officials who referred to mismanagement also still to be punished for this.
All this, in fact, makes a new beginning necessary.
However, I still have some reservations even after the long preparatory phase this new Commission has been through.
I should like to quote three reasons for this.
Firstly, political responsibility must also be accepted by each individual.
Each Member of the Commission is responsible and answerable for his department.
Not all candidates see it like this.
Secondly, there are still doubts about the Commissioner-designate responsible for research.
I expect you, Mr Prodi, to produce a further statement of your position regarding this matter.
Thirdly, because the former Commissioners are again standing as candidates, there is still in the end the question of the terms in which they understand their political responsibility as part of a collegiate body.
Europe' s citizens are entitled to expect transparency and proper supervision and a policy which accepts, undivided, that responsibility which has been transferred to it.
We have our justified doubts as to whether this has in fact been guaranteed for the future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, responsibility for Europe and the European Union again having by the end of tomorrow a Commission which is capable of acting lies with this Parliament, with ourselves.
In an overall judgement, we have to decide whether or not, tomorrow, we can affirm our confidence in this Commission.
In so doing, Parliament accepts responsibility for the Commission, as well as for individual proposals, and that does not make our decision any the easier.
I should like first of all to say to you, Professor Prodi, that as President of the Commission you can count upon the broad assent of the CDU/CSU Members of Parliament.
The fact that we have formed different judgements about individual members of the collegiate body is no surprise.
A number of people have used the opportunity of the hearings brilliantly, for example Chris Patten and also Mr Vitorino.
However, you have on board a candidate who has been implicated in a matter regarding a donation in his home country and about whom we must, since yesterday, ask whether he has made an appropriate statement in the hearings before this Parliament.
This particular candidate could become a burden on the Commission.
I allow myself to issue this warning because the restoration of trust which you yourself, Professor Prodi, have quite rightly demanded naturally depends too upon your heading a Commission which can go to work unimpeded by reproaches of this kind.
It is precisely this which must distinguish it from its predecessor.
There has been talk of the political balance of the Commission. It is not a condition of any treaty that there should be balance of this kind but a sign of political wisdom and, in fact, of consideration for this Parliament.
Our critical comment on this subject still stands, although we do not want to emphasise it again right now.
We therefore have high expectations, Professor Prodi, in connection with our comprehensive affirmation of yourself and of your task as President of the Commission.
You are the first Commission President to whom the Treaty grants the ability to reach agreements, and not only with the Commission as a whole but also with each individual candidate.
We can only encourage you to make energetic use of this role.
No government of any Member State should, in future, be able to disregard the President of the Commission.
In this connection, we demand that the budget and the supervision of the budget be very clearly separated.
We shall judge the Commission on the basis of whether you succeed, when legislating, in being more true to the spirit of subsidiarity than Commissions in the past have been.
A new culture of subsidiarity must enter the Commission over which you preside.
Mr President, tomorrow' s vote means that finally, the Commission presided over by Professor Prodi can get down to work.
After listening to the speeches that the President-designate has made to Parliament, after voting for his appointment in May, and after taking part in the hearings with the 19 Commissioners-designate with a professional and open-minded approach, our group believes that the long crisis involving the Commission must end with a clear and strong appointment: you, Mr President, and your proposed Commission, in accordance with the powers that the Treaty confers on you.
We have no hesitation in endorsing you so that the Union can once more have a strong executive, where there are new people, new programme perspectives and a new way of handling important internal and international policies which call for efficient, transparent and democratic institutions that respect each other' s autonomy yet co-operate effectively.
I hope that this framework will bring about a return to the strategic partnership between Parliament and the Commission, albeit respecting their different functions.
I say this because, as well as the political balances within the various institutions, the Council' s role is to represent the national governments, and the federal and Community leaning of the Commission and Parliament means that they are the driving force behind integration.
This is the subject which recent events threatened to overshadow and that we must now discuss. It goes without saying that we must fight abuse of power, dishonesty and inefficiency in this area.
The second report of the Committee of Independent Experts highlights the areas we need to deal with, many of which were already among Parliament' s suggestions and which you yourself have already given clear undertakings on. For example, the new criteria for the establishment of private offices and more transparency in relations with the European Parliament and public opinion.
I would, however, like to mention that I am particularly concerned about something in the report, although I do not intend to dwell on it longer than necessary. Nonetheless, it is almost as dangerous as corruption.
I refer to pursuing national interests to the detriment of common interests, and that goes for the Commission, and also Parliament, although in a different way. In fact, if Parliament becomes the forum where national political conflicts are replayed, how can we credibly rebuild an open, objective, robust and sometimes severe relationship with the Commission?
How can we restore credibility to European politics? We are faced with economic and social challenges in the wake of the single currency and must carry out a far-reaching reform of the institutions.
We need to specify the rights of European citizens.
Looking beyond our borders, we must tackle the strategic vacuum that has been around for at least ten years and that has been exposed by the dramatic Balkans crisis. We must continue with a policy on the Mediterranean which is supported by the revitalised peace process.
Then there is the dramatic crisis in Russia, and matters concerning human rights and the rights of the world' s minorities.
In conclusion, if the European citizens do not receive convincing replies at a supranational level, it will be difficult to curb their feelings of detachment and alienation from the institutions, which will seem distant, incomprehensible and also costly.
This is why, Mr Prodi, I wish you and your Commission every success in your work.
It is indeed welcome of course that the interinstitutional trauma of the last few months is now drawing to a close and good that normal business is about to resume.
But, as has been said before by many speakers, we must understand the way in which the interinstitutional crisis of the last few months has altered in some fundamental way the relationship between our two institutions.
It is fair to say that in the past there was a traditional view that the European Parliament and the European Commission should operate in an almost permanent state of collusion to take on the vested interests of Member States and so promote European integration.
This is now an outdated view which has been bypassed by recent events.
From now on we should perhaps both accept and welcome a permanent creative tension between our two institutions - that, after all, is the heart of a mature parliamentary democracy.
This requires changes not only in the European Commission with which we are all familiar, but also changes in the European Parliament itself.
Indeed, I hope that Parliament will take this opportunity to reform our own outdated procedures and practices including the financial provisions for MEPs.
Unless we, as parliamentarians, examine ourselves with the same forensic attention with which we examine other institutions we will find it difficult to reverse the shocking voter apathy which was seen in so many parts of Europe in the elections in June.
Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that voter indifference remains the greatest long-term threat to the European Union as a whole and perhaps to this Parliament in particular.
Thus our overwhelming priority should be to re-engage the disenchanted voter: a reformed European Commission, a reformed European Parliament, interacting in a robust but mature manner, is the only way in which we have any real hope of doing so.
Mr President, Commissioner, we want a democratic Europe, a peaceful Europe, a Europe of different nations.
We are a Europe in the making.
We want to be a strong Parliament and that is why we also want a strong Commission.
The hearings have shown that some of your Commissioners are strong and others are weaker.
Parliament does not have as much confidence in their readiness to reform things and does not have as much faith in the way in which they will treat Parliament.
But all in all, our wish for you is that you will be the strong Commission we need, although it is possible that not all members of our group will vote for you.
You were right to regard the word "responsibility" as a key word, not just in the Wise Men' s first report, but also in terms of solving future problems - collective responsibility, but also the individual responsibility held by the members of your Commission, and to my mind, the responsibility held by your officials.
I am thinking of the fate of Mr Van Buitenen here, and of the fact that his case should be brought to a conclusion in an honourable manner.
Commissioner, our institutions are not equal to the challenges you have outlined as regards the enlargement of Europe for we must bring about the enlargement of Europe and make it more democratic at the same time, which is difficult.
You spoke of reorganising subsidiarity and that is a statement that finds favour with us as it holds promise for the future.
The parliaments of the Member States, as well as our own, must become involved. But we want to go further.
We want you to consider that if the right of nations to self-determination is to be taken seriously, then that will also mean the constitutional parliaments of federal states, regions and of cultural communities being taken seriously and being given a place in the subsidiarity-based Europe of the future, for the right of nations to self-determination is a sacred principle for all the nations of the world and that does not always mean for the states alone, for those concepts do not always coincide.
I also want to remind you that we inhabit a world that has become very small.
I found your speech to be rather heavily eurocentric. For when we look down our own streets we find that the poor of Africa are there as well.
To a large extent, the world is one of poverty and AIDS, and one in which the Europe that you outlined as being an island of prosperity and peace is, as we know from experience, one which remains a distant dream for many people.
Indeed, we have not yet been able to realise this distant dream within our own Europe.
I have in mind the peace processes that are dragging on in Northern Ireland and the Basque country.
Commissioner, you can inspire confidence but at the end of the day, you have to earn it too.
I hope that this Commission will achieve this.
Mr President, our group' s vote, which expresses our lack of confidence in the Commission, is not down to disliking the people, the Members of the Commission, or the President, but is the result of a political assessment of their programmes.
We have listened carefully and with an open mind to the President' s repeated statements and the Commission hearings, and this has allowed us to welcome the commitment which springs from a new relationship between the Commission and Parliament.
Following the collapse of the previous Commission, a significant change is being proposed, which includes the undertaking to produce an Annual Report on the State of the Union. This is a change that we welcome.
Nevertheless, on the subject of the programme, our dissent could not be clearer.
Indeed, the Commission appears to be continuing along the same path as the previous Commission.
We disapproved before, and disapprove even more today, because to continue along that path now, in the light of two important new events - first, the terrible war in the Balkans, whose effects are still being felt, and second, the creation of the euro, something which has the potential for development.
We would then need a new political plan to deal with the economic and social issues.
The tragedy in East Timor testifies to the falsity of the thinking behind the war in the Balkans.
The UN Charter was torn up and international aid and the supremacy of the United States was the only reason behind the war. America' s geopolitical vision worried even its old friends like Helmut Schmidt.
You are proposing an ambiguous response on the UN, which is dominated by the United States from a military point of view, and you are totally uncritical with regard to the process of globalisation of the world economy which greatly reduces Europe' s autonomy.
Basically, there are no original ideas for a new social and political European model, so it might end up simply as a watered-down copy of the North American model.
I am struck by the Commission' s lack of useful and original discussions on culture, mass communication and artistic and cultural production, with regard to which Europe is showing a distrust and a stubborn resistance to the influence of the United States.
However, it is mainly your proposals on economic and social matters that do not convince us.
The Stability Pact has been confirmed, and you propose a neoliberal approach to the World Trade Organisation' s important meeting.
This is basically another monetarist orthodoxy which goes against any proposed attempts to leave it behind, such as the proposals made by the French Government or by a Minister such as Lafontaine.
We have seen the creation of the euro and, as the President says, we are in an economic upturn, although mass unemployment undermines this orthodox policy.
You propose maintaining this policy so that in reality, you can pursue the goal of increased productivity by means of increased flexibility in work.
However, this will lead to an increase not a reduction in the social crisis.
Mr President, I fear that this will accentuate Europe' s political crisis and widen the gap between the European citizens and these institutions.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the long appointment process is drawing to a close.
It marks the end of a turbulent time in the life of the Union, from an institutional point of view, a time which Parliament has used to express all its capabilities and resolutely reaffirm its democratic vocation.
We need a strong, responsible Commission, able to propose suitable choices and ensure that the aspirations of the European citizens will be honoured, which will work alongside a Council that expresses the will of the national governments, and a Parliament which represents the people.
The Commission will be strong if it can carry out its work in harmony with Parliament, which would like more involvement in drawing up legislative proposals and an enduring institutional relationship with the Commission.
This continuous transparent relationship with Parliament will prevent the Commission from acting as the Council' s secretariat and from harming Parliament and its democratic function.
Making proposals is not the same as implementing them, but means drawing up initiatives based on the guidelines discussed with Parliament.
The statement by President-designate Prodi seems to express this intention. We invite him to pursue this avenue, thereby taking the path to reducing bureaucracy.
The events that led the previous Commission to step down must never happen again.
Internal reforms and reorganisation must be carried out according to the rules of transparency.
The principle of collegiate responsibility has been reconfirmed, but it is up to the President to exert control over individual responsibilities.
Trade talks will soon begin within the framework of the Millennium Round, and we ask the Commission to take a firm and determined stance so that within the World Trade Organisation, it can defend the supreme importance of social rights, safeguard the environment and protect the European agricultural model and the consumer with regard to world trade. It must also find the courage to propose again a triangular nature for aid for developing countries.
Preserving and spreading the culture of the European peoples is a main common priority.
If the Commission performs this task with conviction, it will have Parliament' s support.
One of the more delicate and immediate tasks is to regain people' s confidence, as you, Mr President, said in your report, to bridge the gap made apparent by the poor turnout at the elections.
It is not only a political problem, but also a social one, with the citizens' increasing feeling of alienation from politics, and this is something we find in all our countries.
A structure as complex as the European Union cannot do without a stable relationship with its inhabitants, those on the receiving end of all its decisions and policies, but the unification process cannot proceed without the conscious support of citizens, without combating unemployment and creating new economic growth.
Without deepening the Union, which is the basis for a new institutional order to give Europe a role on the world stage, we will neither be effective promoters of peace and justice nor capable of reconciling the needs, sometimes opposing needs, of North-East Europe with South-West Europe.
So we must have new and thorough discussions on the enlargement process in our institutions.
Good luck, Mr President, to you, the Commission and Parliament!
And good luck with the Europe which we must finally build!
Mr President, as far as we, the Dutch members of the EDD group are concerned, the European Parliament does not approve of appointing Mr Prodi' s Commission.
We have major objections to the political vision being broadcast by this nominated Commission.
Mr Prodi' s first policy priority is not enlargement of the European Union with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe but political integration of the current Union.
We fundamentally disagree with this.
We want to see the old ideological gulf between Eastern and Western Europe eliminated as soon as possible.
You also take it for granted that opting for political integration will have a centralising effect, which will work against the decentralisation of policy that we need.
Secondly, we are very disappointed in President Prodi' s attitude as regards the Van Buitenen affair.
At least 6,000 Dutch voters have shown their support by signing a petition for this whistle-blower' s reputation to be restored, which we initiated and which has the support of all the Dutch delegations.
So far, Mr Prodi, you have shown no sign of making out a case for rehabilitation.
You are even reluctant to find the time to take receipt of the signatures That is a very negative signal to send out to citizens and officials because the idea will take root that your intentions as regards the fight against fraud and nepotism are nothing more than paper tigers.
To conclude, there are individuals amongst the candidates who have against them the appearance of having been involved in some way in fraudulent practices.
Certainly after the goings-on of this Spring, the Council should have the sense not to nominate candidates whose incorruptibility and integrity are debatable.
It is incomprehensible that Mr Prodi should have protected these candidates with strong and assertive words, even before Parliament heard the candidates and made its findings known.
That is why we oppose the new Commission.
Professor Prodi, you are a man of great talent, surrounded by men and women of equally great talent: Professor Monti, Mr Barnier, and Mr Busquin, who survived where Mrs Cresson succumbed. The first thing your gifted Commission will have to deal with will be the major Seattle Conference.
You are, together with Mr Lamy, the negotiator for the Fifteen.
But are you going to work in transparency, or are you going to work as you did at Blair House in 1992, where we had to wait a year, until October 1993, before receiving the Blair House text? In other words, are you taking the democracy of Athens or the oligarchy of Venice as your model?
And this is the real question of the Intergovernmental Conference. The problem is not the vote by qualified majority or the reduction in the number of Commissioners.
The problem is how to work with realism, with compromise, perhaps even with such a compromise as there was in Luxembourg in 1965.
After all, the World Trade Organisation has over 137 members and operates by consensus.
We can therefore expand to twenty members while still respecting the identity of each one. In other words, expansion is not an institutional problem.
It is perhaps a fiscal problem, to know who will pay: will there be a tax on revenue?
It is perhaps a geographical problem: how far should we expand? You mentioned Ukraine.
In the South, should we extend as far as Turkey? And then, at a certain point, we will be faced with an issue of civilisation, not between the civilisation of Maimonides, Averros or Saint Augustine, but between that of the Islamists, who carry out bombing in Moscow or massacres in East Timor, and the sophisticated civilisation which you represent.
In other words, Mr Prodi, when one seeks to create a synthesis of East and West, the result is Byzantium, and you know how that ended.
That is why we shall be voting against the Byzantine route, while admiring the "emperor" you could have been.
Mr President, I should like to make four points.
The Conservatives are opposed to the return of any of the former Commission and we have been denied votes on individual Commissioners.
Secondly, the left-wing composition of the proposed Commission is wholly contrary to the views of Europe' s voters as shown in June.
Thirdly, important questions on probity have still not been answered in respect of some of the Commissioners-designate.
Fourthly, we are concerned that some are simply not up to the job.
Over the past two weeks Conservative MEPs, as others, have cross-examined the nominated European Commissioners.
Our criteria were competence, policy and background.
Right from the outset we demanded an open vote in every parliamentary committee in order to allow MEPs to register their opinion on individual EU Commissioners. Time and again this request was blocked.
Finding ourselves unable to hold individual Commissioners to account, Conservative MEPs are left with no choice but to oppose, on the grounds of democratic principle, the incoming team of European Commissioners.
We insist on responsibility and accountability.
Even Professor Prodi declined to face an open hearing.
In most of our countries, perhaps all, a minister who misleads parliament or who fails to take action to deal with grave mismanagement would step down.
In the Wise Men' s report into the last Commission, it was noted that it is becoming difficult to find anyone who has even the slightest sense of responsibility.
It is even less reassuring to note that during their time as commissioners not once were the EU accounts effectively signed off. It is hardly an advertisement for responsible financial governance.
The outgoing Commission stood on collegiate responsibility.
Four governments reappointed their Commissioners.
For these reasons, Conservative MEPs oppose the four returnees. This is not personal.
It is not political. It is a point of principle.
The only way to deliver on this is to vote against the Commission as a whole.
We want the European Parliament to be given the power to dismiss individual Commissioners for maladministration or fraud.
By failing to allow votes on individual Commissioners, MEPs have been denied an important democratic right.
We want a European Union that is efficient and accountable and where Europe' s institutions are kept under close scrutiny.
We are not anti-European Commission.
We are against fraud and corruption, mismanagement and inefficiency.
We want a Commission which works, which really does less better.
Wednesday' s vote is an important opportunity to signal to the new Commission that business as usual cannot be the guiding principle in Brussels.
Mr President, I address my remarks this morning in the main to Mrs De Palacio.
Mr Prodi in his address to this Parliament some time ago gave a strong commitment to combating fraud and the misuse of public money.
That is why during Mrs De Palacio' s hearing I and my colleagues insisted on questioning her very closely on the flax subsidy scandal in which her department was involved in Spain.
The response of Mrs De Palacio was not to our satisfaction and indeed her contention that the Spanish Parliament had cleared her of any responsibility and that the issue is now closed is clearly not true.
Whilst I appreciate that the OLAF and Spanish investigation is ongoing and that Mrs De Palacio may be totally exonerated of any involvement, the fact remains that she was a little economical with the truth when answering my questions on 30 August.
Finally, Mrs De Palacio' s outburst at the press conference following the hearing does not bode well for someone whose remit includes relationships with the European Parliament and, whilst I accept that Mrs De Palacio did apologise later for her remarks, it nevertheless raises another doubt about her ability to carry out this specific role in the new Commission.
Sadly, Mr President, even though Mrs De Palacio answered our questions on transport to our satisfaction, and as a group we will no doubt endorse the Commission tomorrow, we must enter a reservation on the candidature of Mrs De Palacio pending the findings of the OLAF and the Spanish authorities' investigations and because of the way she responded to questioning on this issue at her hearing.
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, you have spoken, Mr Prodi, of the future of the Union as a union of sentiments, as a preservation of diversities.
You have spoken of a new order as a co-operation between cultures.
You have even spoken of religions.
I believe that, so that it may be politically effective, this desire demands the recognition of the plural reality of Europe and plural reality of many States.
The United Kingdom, Belgium, Spain, Italy and many States which will join the Union in the future are plural realities.
For their political recognition to be effective we have to promote it and we believe that the appropriate body for this purpose is the Committee on the Regions, the institution which will lead this process within the European Union.
Tomorrow, a group of MEPs will begin work on the creation of an Intergroup to work in this area, with the intention of creating a spirit of co-operation with the Commission and the institutions of the Union so that collective rights and their recognition should become an extension of the recognition of individual rights.
This process of recognition will be based on dialogue, negotiation and political agreement, so that the supreme values of co-existence and peace should be paramount.
If this new culture is recognised as having value, it will be to the good of the European Union.
There is no doubt that if over the past decade, our position on the former Yugoslavia had shown more sensitivity to the different realities of peoples, instead of becoming obsessed with the idea of the State, things would have been different and, no doubt, less disastrous.
I appreciate your active sensitivity with regard to East Timor and also with regard to the Mediterranean area.
You can count on my vote, Mr Prodi, as our spokesman, Mr Cox has announced, with full conviction.
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, I shall be giving my approval to your Commission tomorrow. However, I shall be taking some aspirin beforehand, and I shall probably need a double dose after the end of the hearings and in view of the results of these.
We had been told that the sun shone out of this Commission. In fact, the Commission did come through the test, but hardly shone.
A number of Commissioners are suspected of having mislead Parliament, and there is the risk of the past catching up with a number of them. A number of Commissioners were hardly filled with ambition, ability and the desire to continue working in the Commission, and the fact that this applies to candidates who are to be concerned with relations between the Commission and Parliament and with preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference is something I find very regrettable indeed.
Mr President of the Commission, I believe you have a bigger job in front of you than your Commission is aware.
I am voting for you with the sober insight that work has to begin and I am voting for you in the light of your very trustworthy promise to enter into an alliance with this European Parliament.
I am voting for you not because of the visions which, for the most part, you still owe us and for the ways leading to the fulfilment of these.
I believe that it is either in this Chamber or nowhere at all that the vision of European integration will arise.
However, we need the alliance you propose for the vision of a European democracy.
We need it for the vision of a peaceful order in Europe, and we need it for the vision of Europe as a single social and ecological area.
However, more is needed in order to achieve these things than you have so far set out.
For a European democracy, a constitutional process is needed; for a peaceful order in Europe, courage is needed to accept responsibility for our own security; and for the vision of Europe as a single social and ecological area it will be necessary for politics to be emancipated from an ever more aggressive neo-liberal ideology.
This may be a punishable offence for a parliamentarian of 20 years' standing, but I am voting for you out of hope and not yet out of conviction.
Mr President, despite the brave efforts, all the palaver with the resignation of the Commission, the replacement and hearings of the Commissioners did not succeed in blotting out the crux of the problem.
In fact, in our view, the most important thing is not the individual personalities and abilities of the Commissioners, nor the changes in administration.
Our judgement and evaluation of the new Commission is based on the policies it is called upon to implement.
We must admit that the Commissioners under scrutiny, both as individuals and as a whole, have all the skills and determination, as was evident not only in the hearings but also in Mr Prodi' s statements today, to meet both faithfully and unswervingly the objectives of the European Union at the cost of the interests of the working people and of the European people more generally.
In our view, it is certain that the new Commission will not just continue the disastrous work of the outgoing Commission, but will reinforce it.
Today, Mr Prodi again presented his credentials to the forum affirming not only that both he and his team are ready to serve it but also that they can, with their alluring words, deliberately mislead the citizens.
However, the people of Europe must not succumb to this seduction.
It is simply the old hiding under the cloak of the new.
They can, however, rest assured that even with the new Commission, today' s bleak situation will still persist as it is precisely that Commission which is the brainchild behind NATO and European Union policy.
We will see fresh tensions and wars like the ones witnessed in the Balkans; a continuance of the double standards policy as regards respect for human rights and independence; we will also witness increased levels of unemployment, greater privatisation, the liquidation of all small and medium-sized agricultural and industrial enterprises, the gradual petering out of social rights, and the curtailment of democratic freedoms.
Thus, against this dangerous backdrop not only are we refusing to remain blasé, not only are we rejecting and voting against the new Commission, but we are also calling on all working people and the people of Europe, to step up their fight, to thwart those plans which are disastrous for their future and to revolt against the current situation, for the sake of another Europe, a Europe of the People, of peace and solidarity, of mutual and beneficial co-operation.
It is with growing concern that I have heard the President-designate of the Commission' s, Mr Prodi' s, remarks about the role of the Commission.
Mr Prodi and a number of the Commissioners-designate have put forward strongly federalist plans which the majority of people in my country are opponents of, and which, I have noted, a growing number of people in other Member States are also opposing.
The aversion to a federalist Europe is, of course, due to the fact that EU countries are generally much better at solving their own problems in accordance with their people' s wishes than an overpaid officialdom out to lord it over the continent.
This attitude has been reinforced by the maladministration, deceit and lack of accountability which led to the downfall of the previous Commission.
We all know that it will, at best, be a very big task to bring the Commission' s ponderous and high-handed bureaucracy up to the standard we require of public administration in our home countries.
It has therefore been a source of shock to see that the new Commission contains a number of members who, in one area of responsibility or another, have such a share in the mistakes of the past that they definitely ought not to be sitting on the Commission.
It has been disgraceful to hear a number of Commissioners dismissing the need for quite elementary changes which in fact are a prior condition of stamping out the scandalous states of affairs which characterised the previous Commission and a number of earlier Commissions, and which have turned the EU' s administration into a caricature of an accountable democratic administration.
Mr Kinnock' s hearing showed, then, that there is no will in the Commission to use its powers to instruct, and assume full responsibility for, the directors-general and their employees.
If the Commission does not take full responsibility and exercise complete authority in connection with the whole administration, then any talk about proper administration is just empty words, and I am certain that Mr Kinnock, like most of us, is used to better things at home.
I must say, therefore, that I regard it as my duty to my electors and to my conscience to vote against endorsing this Commission.
Mr President, it would seem that even the majority of your own MEPs are indifferent to this charade of a democratic debate.
What can one say in 90 seconds or even in 90 minutes, Mr Prodi, that would justify to the people of Europe your appointment and that of your Commissioners? The answer is "nothing" because there is nothing that can justify your agenda to control the political life of the nations of Europe by stealth, aided and abetted by the Heads of Government of Member States, not least the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom Independence Party supports the EDD and rejects the dangerous and unworkable scheme to create a new nation called Europe.
We campaign for a Europe that once again respects the political, economic and cultural diversities of all the individual nations and their right to democratic self government.
That is why the UK Independence Party campaigns for the withdrawal of our country from membership of the European Union by repealing the European Communities Act so misguidedly signed by Prime Minister Heath in 1972.
Already almost 50% of the British electorate are in favour of withdrawal.
Our campaign has placed this question firmly on our nation' s political agenda.
Of the three nations allowed a vote on the Maastricht Treaty seven years ago only Ireland, with a population of 3.6 million, showed any enthusiasm.
What about the other twelve Member States?
So much for European democracy.
The appointment of Mr Kinnock and Mr Patten clearly underlines the impression that appointment to the Commission is in effect a consolation prize to compensate for political rejection in one' s own country.
Clearly this is yet another reason why a large section of the British electorate reject membership of the EU and backed our campaign for withdrawal.
Tomorrow we shall vote against the appointment of your Commission.
Mr President, there are, of course, many areas in which the new Commission must be assessed, but firstly, I think that it is simply the question relating to trust that must be asked, in other words, can we as Members of Parliament, as representatives of our people, reasonably assume that the new Commission is not going to go down the same road that led to the downfall of the Santer Commission?
Sadly enough, I believe that the answer to that question has to be no, notwithstanding the respect it is possible to feel for the competence of some Commissioners-designate as individuals. After all, the Belgian Government has, in appointing Mr Busquin, chosen a Commissioner-designate who was the President of that den of thieves, the Walloon Socialist Party, a party truly epitomising bribery scandals, financing by arms dealers, fraud, political appointments, squandering of the authorities' money and European subsidies.
Mr Busquin himself enjoys massive protection, which is reported quite openly in my country' s press, but he was certainly personally responsible, and he has recognised and admitted this himself, for submitting party accounts which he knew had been falsified and which led to the party being financed by unlawful means.
What is more, he refuses to speak Dutch, the language spoken by the majority of people in his country, and has made this a kind of trademark of his.
Esteemed President, in my country, Flanders, people roar with laughter whenever this question of trust is raised in relation to a Commission containing such politically suspect individuals.
Mr President-designate of the Commission, we welcomed your report on the enlargement of the European Union, institutional reform, the consolidation and economic growth of the entire Union, as well as sustainable development for the creation of jobs.
During your speech, Mr President-designate, you stressed a subject that we are particularly concerned about: the need to fight for a European identity. Without this fight, we cannot achieve the ambitious goals that all the peoples of Europe, this Parliament and all the institutions wish for.
It is something that all the European institutions - the Council, the Commission and this Parliament - must fight for together.
It is a fight to give the Europeans a feeling of shared destiny, of a shared mission, a shared identity, a shared civilisation and a shared land.
And we, our movement, Forza Italia, the Italian Popular Party, and the European People' s Party, with links to our Christian heritage, will give all the support we can to this fight.
Mr President, Mr President-designate, just a few words on the WTO and agriculture.
We do indeed need the WTO in order to organise the opening of markets and not to suffer from them.
This is particularly true for agriculture.
Everyone knows that our form of agriculture, our rural environment, is not comparable to that in Australia, Argentina and the USA.
Confronted with this, Europe therefore has a duty to defend its own model of agriculture and has the right to an appropriate common agricultural policy.
We expect specifically that multinational agreements integrate the concerns of our farmers and of our consumers.
We expect the forthcoming negotiations to expressly take into account the fact that, in Europe, we have structures of production, and environmental and social conditions, which entail costs which must be compensated by public subsidy.
I also wish to point out that competitiveness in agriculture is measured not only on the world market but also in terms of balance of the land, maintenance of the fabric of rural life and conservation of our natural heritage.
That is why the concept of multifunctionality in agriculture must also be recognised in the WTO.
That is why, Commissioner, we intend to continue the debate on all these matters with the Commissioners concerned and we intend to monitor developments in negotiations very closely.
Mr President, honourable Commissioners-designate, I have to say that I feel sorry for you in a way.
You will not be having any honeymoon period because we are all waiting impatiently for you to begin work on the task in hand and for us, together, to begin working for Europe.
So I do not think you' re going to be getting any honeymoon period, as new colleagues and new bodies usually do.
In general, I take a positive view of your programme and of what you have put forward already and today.
There are, however, three things I should like to ask you to consider.
I perceive that there is something of the "emperor' s new clothes" about the Codes of Conduct you have adopted for the new Commission.
The question I am asking is what distinguishes them from the rules which applied to the old Commission.
This is not robust legislation we have here. The rules do not take account of citizens or of citizens' rights.
Where are the hard and fast rules and the citizen' s perspective upon things?
Secondly, Mr Prodi used the word glasnost today.
Coming from Finland, I am familiar with a number of Russian jokes.
There' s a Russian joke about a number of Presidents and Soviet leaders travelling by train, and the punchline includes the very words glasnost and Gorbachev.
One sign of glasnost is that nothing happens. There is openness but nothing else.
I do not think we shall be talking in the future about any spirit of glasnost in Europe because it is synonymous with nothing happening.
Thirdly, I would draw your attention to the fact that you must look again at your staff of advisers. If you have the same staff of advisers in the new Commission as in the old, there is in fact a risk of precisely the same errors being committed as, for example, by the previous Commission in its relations with Parliament.
You should have a shake-up of the advisers who are closest to your colleagues in the Commission.
Finally, I want to say a few words to Mr Swoboda.
I agreed entirely with him when he said that we must be careful about how we judge the individual Commissioners in future.
We did not get it right with the previous Commission. In fact, it was in particular the Commissioners-designate from smaller countries who were questioned the hardest.
This is not an honourable way of looking into just how responsible individual Commissioners-designate are.
Mr Prodi, the ecologist group suggested that you amend the distribution of portfolios among your team because, in addition to the integrity and competence of each Commissioner, we consider that their personal commitment and their determination to defend the matters entrusted to them from the perspective of a federal Europe are a further important element in our assessment of them.
Regarding the subject of growth which you dealt with in your introductory presentation, our commitments to the people who elected us are those of sustainable and less inegalitarian growth, going in the opposite direction to the structural tendencies which we observe today.
In this respect, new European policies are indispensable and in the course of their hearings the Commissioners were given the opportunity to indicate their priorities in this direction.
Regarding fiscal policy specifically, we were particularly disappointed by the lack of conviction expressed by the Commissioner questioned on the subject of developing the co-ordination of fiscal regimes and the need to move towards qualified majority rule at the forthcoming IGC.
The great majority of our fellow citizens would like to see increased fairness in fiscal matters, Mr Prodi, that is why we again ask for a strong personal commitment from you on these questions.
Mr President, the Members representing LO and the LCR will be voting against the Prodi Commission.
The European Commission, the executive body of the European Union, was designed to serve the interests of the main European financial and industrial groups in international competition.
Resulting from undercover bargains between governments, its role is to contribute towards creating the most favourable conditions for the multinationals in their constant efforts to increase their profits on the back of their own employees, the most recent example being that of Michelin, and, more than this, to the detriment of the majority of the population of the European Union and the peoples of poor countries.
Its method of appointment, its operation and its composition reflect this basic reality.
The essential interests of the working classes are not taken into consideration.
In order to justify catastrophic unemployment and layoffs, the European Union takes refuge behind national governments.
As for the harmonisation measures which it is responsible for, they do not improve the situation even in countries where the legislation is most unfavourable for the working classes and underprivileged sectors of the population or those discriminated against, women and immigrants in particular, as harmonisation, when it is implemented, is to the lowest common denominator.
The Members of the European Parliament representing Lutte Ouvrière and the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire shall consequently be voting against the Prodi Commission.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the French Members of the PPE/ED have come to a generally positive assessment of the Prodi Commission.
This positive opinion is not, however, either a rubber cheque, or a blank cheque.
It is not a worthless rubber cheque, Mr President, as we are aware of the developments in relation to the previous Commission.
Mr Prodi has undertaken, at the request of groups, our own in particular, some very clear commitments as regards the transparency of the actions of the Commission, consultation with Parliament, and the responsibility of Members of the Commission towards this House.
On the major issues coming up - negotiations on the World Trade Organisation, the Intergovernmental Conference, debates on the case of the Mediterranean - the President of the Commission also indicated his wish to include all the Members of this Parliament as parties involved, as decision makers.
This is a step in the right direction.
But still we cannot give you a blank cheque.
Firstly, because, even though the hearings of the Commissioners went well on the whole, they did not give rise to unanimous enthusiasm.
In July already, without implicating the individuals, we denounced the political imbalance of this Commission which hardly corresponds to the distribution of power within this Chamber.
In September, some of the Commissioners did not necessarily seem to us to be up to the ambitious plans which you defined yourself.
This morning, Mr President, you stated that you wanted an integrated and efficient administration, competent Commissioners above all suspicion, a political programme for the next five years, in full collaboration with Parliament.
How could we possibly not approve?
Mr President, the great challenges which await us - expansion, deepening of a European reality while respecting national identities by the new approach of subsidiarity, the safekeeping of our agricultural systems, the construction of a more humane Europe in the field of employment, a more generous Europe - are such that we must accept them together.
But while we can not give you a rubber cheque or a blank cheque, we can announce our wish to work together in order to give all the peoples of Europe, in spite of difficulties and conflicts, good reasons to believe in their own destiny and to have faith in their shared future.
Madam President, it is not my task to make a political evaluation of the new Commission.
However I would like to say a few words about fishing.
The reform of the common fisheries policy, envisaged for 2002, will be a great challenge and a great test which this new Commission will have to face since the fishing industry expects this reform to turn the fishing policy into a genuine common European policy and the Commission to endow it with the necessary additional Community status.
In the fishing industry, employment should also be our political priority, Mr Prodi.
The Commission which you preside over must commit itself to maintaining employment in the fishing industry, both in the Community fleet and in the processing industry.
The fishing policy, Mr Prodi, is also an effective tool with regard to the organisation of European territory and the correction of the disparities which still exist in Europe today.
It is the peripheral regions with a degree of development which is lower, much lower, than the Community average which suffer most from unemployment and which have the least effective infrastructures.
These are the regions, Mr Prodi, which depend most on the fishing industry.
Please make great efforts, Mr President, Commissioners, Mr Fischler, with regard to the common fisheries policy, since the whole of Europe, including inland Europe, will be grateful for them.
Mr President, I would like to ask a question on an issue which was not raised in the Commissioners' hearings as the problem had not yet arisen.
What does Mr Prodi think about the action and proposals of the Commission for dealing with the earthquakes and their consequences for Greece?
This is a major issue as we are talking about 130 dead with the numbers continually increasing and 100,000 made homeless within Athens alone not to mention the tremendous burden on the Greek economy, the huge social problem, and those small businesses and industries which have collapsed.
As far as I know, Mr Prodi received a letter from the Greek Prime Minister.
I understand that perhaps he is unable to announce specific measures today, but I would appreciate his initial thoughts on the matter.
I know that he is attuned to the issue and he will recall the measures taken by the European Union following the earthquakes in Italy, in Assisi. I therefore look forward to a positive reply.
Mr President, honoured colleagues, if we are talking today about the future Commission, then we are also talking about our political priorities.
And what do these include, Mr Prodi? They incorporate areas of life which are among the most significant for human beings and which are of importance every day for us and our children.
Examples include clean air and drinkable water, safe food which does not poison people, the safeguarding of their personal economic interests and the development of a basic standard of health within the European Union.
In the course of the hearings before the relevant committees, Margot Wallström and David Byrne have shown brilliantly and convincingly, as well as to the satisfaction of the committees, that these priorities have been recognised and that full commitment will be given to this policy and to its fulfilment.
How, though, do such policy areas become political realities and priorities? That can only happen with the support of the whole Commission around the Commission table and with the support of the President of the Commission, that is to say of yourself, Mr Prodi.
So, can we be hopeful? I have been asking myself that question for a number of days now and, Mr Prodi, I have been asking it whenever I hear a speech by you.
That is four or five in all now. I will also tell you the answer.
I am not hopeful. My impression is that, in the past, you have merely been paying lip service.
And because it was too much trouble, you do not do it at all now.
In your speech today, you did not say a word, not a single word, about environmental policy.
You mentioned sustainable development once.
This is a compulsory exercise which everyone engages in.
You did not say a word, not a single word, about consumer protection and safe food.
And that is after BSE and dioxin!
You used the word "health" in connection with the economy and sport.
You betray your ignorance here, Mr Prodi, not that of your Commission, merely your own.
Mrs Wallström and Mr Byrne have quite clearly come through their examinations before the European Parliament with flying colours.
But they will probably often feel themselves to be alone around the Commission table, for you, Mr Prodi, have no idea about the interests of people inside the European Union despite the fact that you are always spouting about the "European soul" .
You say you have learned lessons.
So what lessons have you learned, Mr Prodi, other than that enterprise is important? You have shown in the past that you do not seriously mean what you say, and so you no longer say anything at all.
I am telling you quite clearly, Mr Prodi, you have not passed the examination as far as I am concerned.
So far, you have clearly failed it.
So if I vote "yes" tomorrow, it is because of your esteemed colleagues, Mr Prodi, and not because of you.
If, when voting, I was able to differentiate between yourself and your colleagues, you would get a clear "no" and all the others a clear "yes" .
In football, a good team with a bad coach would never reach the top of the league.
I only hope that the future Commission will overturn this rule.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am suspending the debate to allow the vote that was decided on this morning to take place.
The debate will resume after the vote.
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed. You have all had time to look at them.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, in the text of the Minutes that have been distributed, only the second part of the decision made by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is included.
Yesterday, you read both the first and second part in the House.
The second part refers to the interpretation to be inserted as a note in the Rules of Procedure, but the first part says: "the declaration of the creation of the Technical Group of Independent Members is not compatible with Rule 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure" and you have entrusted us with this matter and also given us the opportunity to make our own interpretation as a note in the Rules of Procedure, which will be relevant in the future too.
I therefore think that the Minutes should also include the first part of the statement you made to the House yesterday.
That will certainly be done.
The Minutes will be corrected and completed so that this is the case.
Madam President, I would just like to say that the Minutes are perfectly well written as they are, and so it is right that they should be the sole basis for a decision on the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure which will be annexed to the Rules of Procedure themselves.
The rest of the ruling decided on by the Constitutional Committee has no place in this text.
I therefore propose that we keep the Minutes in the form in which they were written, and in which they have been submitted to us for approval.
Mr Dell' Alba, one thing is clear: I know what I said yesterday, and not only do I know it, but I have here, in front of me, the text which I read out yesterday, and which nobody can dispute.
We have a procedure which makes provision for the adoption of the Minutes and which makes provision so that Members who think that the Minutes are not in line with what has been said can choose not to adopt them.
I too, have the feeling that my ideas have indeed not been accurately reported, given the differences between the way that I expressed them and the way I see them reported here today.
The only thing I can do is, of course, to retain the correction Mr Napolitano is demanding, as I am more qualified than anyone to tell if my words have been correctly reported.
Therefore, I cannot refuse to include this correction.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
Our task is to vote in favour of the Minutes or against them, certainly not for or against the consequences of this vote and of a statement by this House.
That is all.
Absolutely, Mr Pannella.
Furthermore, we must not get things confused.
For the moment, I would ask everyone to present the corrections which they consider necessary to the Minutes, on other points as well as this one.
In accordance with the way we have always done things, I will then declare the Minutes adopted with the corrections I have been informed of. Only afterwards will we proceed to the vote on your opposition to the interpretation.
Are there any other comments?
Madam President, I would like to make a comment regarding page 7 of the Minutes.
Yesterday you were kind enough to give me the floor and I spoke of the anniversary of the beginning of the peace process in my country, the Basque country.
In your kind response, you said:
"Mr Knörr Borràs, I have noted your intervention whose rightful place is in the context of the debate we have organised on this matter."
(ES) We have not organised a debate on this matter.
It was probably an error in translation but anyway, I thank you for giving me the opportunity to say what I had to say concerning the peace process in the Basque Country.
Madam President, on page 6 of the Minutes it says that Mr Posselt clarified his remarks at the beginning of the sitting.
I want to say something about this. Firstly, I made no remarks at all at the beginning of the sitting and, secondly, this clarification of mine yesterday would appear to have been to no avail, since there is again no mention in the Minutes of what I actually said, and the next point in fact contradicts what I said.
I should therefore like to repeat my comments.
I indicated last plenary week that, according to our Rules of Procedure, the plenum decides about the Bureaux of the delegations but that, again, according to our Rules of Procedure, the joint parliamentary committees, just like the parliamentary committees (that is to say, the normal specialised committees of Parliament) have to hold elections to their Bureaux, just as we have done in the internal committee in all committees.
This also has to happen with the joint parliamentary committees in third countries.
I have touched upon this matter on a number of occasions here, and there has never been any reaction, although it is clearly stated in the Rules of Procedure.
I again referred to this matter yesterday when the Minutes of the Friday sitting of the last part-session were adopted. Now, the Minutes state that I clarified my remarks (but do not go on to state what I actually said) and then list at the back who' s who in the Bureaux of these joint parliamentary committees.
This is incorrect, though. What instead we are concerned with here are proposals which still have to be voted on in the joint parliamentary committees once these have been constituted.
Mr Posselt, we will make sure that what you said yesterday has been correctly included in the Minutes, because that is really the only issue here, and not whether there should be a new debate on the matter.
(The Minutes were adopted)
Statement by Mr Prodi (continued)
I have received, pursuant to Rule 180(4) of the Rules of Procedure, an opposition from the Technical Group of Independent Members, to the interpretation proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs to Rule 29(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
Pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, I am submitting the interpretation to Parliament.
I would like to remind you, as I stated yesterday, that our Rules of Procedure require a simple majority with at least a third of the Members present.
I would say that there are about 209 of us present, maybe more, but in any case, we will find out easily enough as there is a request for a nominal vote.
(The interpretation was adopted)
Madam President, Mr President, from Kosovo to East Timor, the world needs Europe, the Europe of the institutions of the Union. And the European Union needs a good relationship between the Council, the Commission and Parliament in order to win the full confidence of its citizens.
Mr Prodi has proved to be fully aware of these considerations.
An institutional crisis would weaken the Commission but also this new Parliament at a time which is crucial for European federalism.
In our political opinion, the Commission' s programme is very important in that it intends to build on past triumphs and strengthen the commitment to peace, security, stability, employment and the well-being of all Europeans, but also people from other nearby countries, to the East and South.
But regarding the appointment of the Commission, the method of government is important too, in terms of its collegiate nature but also in terms of the behaviour of individual Commissioners.
We think that Mr Prodi will perform the duties of President with authority regarding this matter.
Taken together, the issues we have discussed allow us to express a vote of confidence in what Mr Prodi called 'a new start' : a term commonly used to refer to the Commission, but also in my opinion, that applies to this new Parliament too.
Mr President, Mr Prodi this morning you used a Russian word, glasnost, which means openness.
I hope you know the other word which Mr Gorbachov made famous - perestroika, meaning restructuring, reforming - because we expect that from you too. You have to regain the confidence of the public of Europe.
Everyone has said that this morning. You will only do that if you show these qualities: clarity, leadership, honesty and humility.
Clarity: your political vision, as expounded this morning, does not completely satisfy our vision, and you have to expand and think very much about social Europe, the environment and other aspects.
We want from you concrete objectives.
That is what people understand, and we want, as part of this clarity, evidence that you can listen. That evidence is not forthcoming at the moment.
We want evidence that you can listen and understand what your role is, what our role is and what the roles of of the Council of Ministers, of lobbyists and of members of the directorates-general are.
Leadership: you have to show willpower, integrity and you have to show that you have very good eyes and ears and that you are a competent person.
Honesty: telling the truth even when it is not comfortable to do so.
Your Commissioners are being tested on the same grounds.
Our committee, the Industry Committee, questioned three Commissioners and sent delegations to three others.
We questioned Commissioners Liikanen, Lamy and Busquin and we went to the hearings of de Palacio, Patten and Wallström.
We had the widest grasp of any committee.
When we questioned Commissioners Liikanen and Lamy, we did so objectively, asking questions about their role.
That was not the case with half of the Members there for Commissioner Busquin. Commissioner Busquin' s hearing revealed far more about that side of the House than it did about Commissioner Busquin.
That is because he was subjected, unlike any other Commissioner-designate, to a sadistic, preplanned and concerted attack.
There was no reaction to his repeated, very clear answers to the same question, and issues involving internal Belgian politics which had no bearing on Mr Busquin' s future role, given that this is a multilingual House, were repeated ad nauseam.
No other Commissioner was subjected to this ordeal and it is bitterly resented by those of us who wanted to do this thing properly and to objectively listen to what Commissioners would say about their future work.
That side of the House should be thoroughly ashamed of their conduct in the Busquin hearing.
Unlike those opposite we listened to the answers to questions about the future roles.
The six Commissioners with whom we had dealings satisfied us as to their future competence in the roles which they will undertake.
Mr President, I would like to raise a point of order.
One of the things that is being agreed with Mr Prodi' s Commission is that the Commissioners will attend if the subject under discussion concerns them.
I now see that a large number of Commissioners, indeed a sizeable number of them, have obviously already gone for lunch, despite the fact that they are still the object of discussion.
I consider that the whole Commission should attend until the end of this debate.
Mr President-designate, you know that you have the confidence of many in this House, as a result of your conduct, and also I believe, as a result of your human and personal qualities.
These factors ensure that you will gain the confidence of this House, and because of you, many of us will be voting for your whole team.
You will be responsible for the common interests of Europe. This is the mission that the Commission has.
I think that the common interests of Europe today will require you to face up to two main challenges over the next five years.
The first challenge is the European people' s complete lack of understanding of the European Institutions.
What we have here are institutions for beginners, which people do not understand, which they are not informed about, and as these institutions are a mystery to them, they are suspicious about them, sometimes excessively so.
It is your duty, as defender of the common interests of Europe, and it is our duty as the people' s representatives, to give this action clarity, and this is why we are defending, as you know, the idea of a constitution, of working towards a European constitution.
The second challenge, which is even more important, is to find out if there is a social action programme for Europe.
Europe was made for just such a programme, and in these times of globalisation, when our citizens have the impression, the feeling that all the real decisions are made somewhere else, and particularly in the world of finance, it is important to revive the idea of a plan for Europe which is understood by the citizens and defended by the institutions.
The task of formulating a plan for Europe falls to you as President of the Commission, just as it falls to us as representatives of the people.
As you well know, and I shall end now, it is through dialogue, between the European Parliament and the European Commission then, that we will find the key to Europe' s future.
Mr President, on a point of order.
I should like to refer to the point of order that was made from the other side of the House about the attendance of Commissioners.
If we demand the attendance of Commissioners, surely it is right and proper that we demand the attendance of all parliamentarians in this House?
I would point out to the other side of the House that you cannot be selective in the application of principle.
Thank you.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, in your speech on 21 July 1999 you said that your bywords were transparency, a sense of responsibility and efficiency.
It is precisely in the area of budget policy that these three basic principles need to be given concrete expression.
If we want to win back the confidence of our citizens, we need transparency regarding the implementation of the EU budget in all its details, a sense of responsibility in handling tax revenue and efficiency in transposing Community budget policies.
Clearly, this is a task for the Commission as a whole, all Commissioners and all departments.
In the person of Mrs Schreyer you have introduced us to an experienced politician who still has to find her way around one or two corridors here and go through one or two new experiences at a European level but who is also, however, someone who has become quickly and comprehensively acquainted with the very complicated material of budget policy and who is very aware of the forthcoming challenges of budget policy.
She has set out budgetary discipline as being, for her, one of the cardinal virtues. This is praiseworthy stuff.
However, we shall also take care to ensure that it is not just a question here of describing new tasks and slipping these into our budget.
Instead, we shall need, together with yourself, to go before the Council and say that new tasks require new money.
I was gratified to hear Mrs Schreyer say, very undiplomatically, that the distinction between non-compulsory and compulsory funds has to be removed.
This would mean equal rights for all parts of the Parliament.
A courageous statement like that is worth repeating.
She also said that control over revenue needs to be shifted in this direction, something we must set about discussing very soon.
I think Mrs Schreyer is among those proposed candidates who will do full justice to their tasks in this Parliament.
We shall have no cause - over here at least - to doubt your team.
Mr President, we listened attentively to the statements concerning the programme of the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, in which he highlighted the policies which the European Union is to follow.
Mr President Prodi, your references to the extreme importance of enlargement as well as your dedication to full integration and to the political union of Europe are principles with which we sympathise.
We believe that Europe may indeed have a future only as a political, social and cultural entity.
Its goal should be to become a place where freedom and social justice prevails for all European citizens.
However, such a place needs the full participation of all the citizens.
The last European elections were characterised by the very low turnout.
You know that in the minds of the European citizens the structure of Europe is not so much an issue as is peaceful existence between the people.
The recent crisis and the resignation of the European Commission due to certain individuals who did not fulfil their duties contributed to the disillusionment of the European people.
Mr President Prodi, you are assuming your responsibilities at a time of great uncertainty but this Europe, despite its concerns and misgivings, will not go away and you and your Commissioners have serious responsibilities.
When you were designated President, we thought, based on your statements, that the final decision for appointing each of the Commissioners would have your seal of approval.
However, it did not quite happen in this way.
Of course, we are not asking you to breach any treaties.
We are, however, asking you to bring about a new start, to defy and take a stand against the badly construed texts of the past and to take account of Parliament' s recommendations.
We, the New Democracy Party of Greece, will vote in favour of your Commission, regardless of any reservations, because we are hopeful that you will respect your commitments of the previous week on the one hand and because we agree with the political content of today' s statements on the other.
This is not a blank cheque but a move of confidence in you, in a Europe which must forge ahead.
We hope that you will make transparency within the functioning of the European Commission a priority and set your initial goal as policies covering citizen protection, employment, cultural development as well as solidarity amongst those who suffer from an absence of democracy and from poverty.
Mr President, we Socialist members of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs believe that Mrs Diamantopoulou has shown herself to have the skills and attributes that she will need to become a good Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs.
We will give her every encouragement and the support she will need to pursue progress for social Europe through the college of the Commission.
We hope she will be heard fairly there.
She knows some of the tests we will apply to her.
I should like to mention three.
Firstly, a commitment to sit down at the earliest opportunity with members of the committee to devise a new social action programme to cover the term of office of the new Commission, which will recognise the realities of the new world brought by the euro and the new possibilities arising from Amsterdam to promote employment and opportunity and to combat insecurity and exclusion.
Secondly, to seek with Parliament a new understanding on the operation of the social dialogue provisions of the social chapter.
Neither the procedure itself nor the legitimate expectations of this democratically-elected institution have been met in the way the procedure has been used so far.
That is an urgent priority.
Thirdly, to join with Parliament in calling upon the Council to remedy the exclusion of Parliament from the macroeconomic dialogue agreed at Cologne.
The last thing we need now is to add to the democratic deficit.
Should all go well tomorrow, we look forward to working with her on these and other matters.
Mr President, even if the Commission gets a majority in this Chamber tomorrow, that does not mean that our group does not have any doubts about certain individual Commissioners.
Indeed it is because of these doubts that two critical passages have been included in the resolutions.
It is clearly stated under 3 and 5(a), (b) of our resolution that if Parliament loses confidence in a Commissioner then we will only need a simple majority to ask the President, Mr Prodi, to dismiss the Commissioner concerned.
Point 5(b) adds that if a judicial accusation is made on account of corruption then that too is a reason for the Commissioner concerned to depart.
In addition, point 5(f) of the resolution reiterates that Parliament can request for there to be an exchange of portfolios if there is good reason for this.
I would like to ask Mr Prodi again to respond to this.
My second comment relates to the agreements that have already been made under paragraphs 1 and 4 of the resolution and under paragraph 5 up to and including (h).
It must be evident from the additional questions that other than the points I have just mentioned, the undertakings that have been made have been inadequate.
But I also want to refer to the obligation to provide information, to the need to pass documents through to Parliament whenever requested to do so.
I have already presented a draft regulation in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs as regards this obligation to provide information.
We believe this matter should be speedily resolved.
Either you draw up a draft regulation or the Committee will do it itself, in which case there is already a text.
To conclude, I have a message for Mr Bolkestein, who is not in fact present.
For years, he has presented himself as a euro-critic and euro-sceptic, and during the hearing he made a 180º turn.
As Christian Democrats, we must, of course, support anyone who repents.
But we are assuming that it wasn' t a turn just for the purposes of the hearing, but one which will also be given expression in his work.
We will follow this with a very critical eye
The question as to whether we will vote for or against tomorrow, or whether we will abstain, depends on the answers provided by Mr Prodi to the paragraphs in the second half of our resolution.
Mr President, the right to approve the Commission goes, by implication, hand in hand with Parliament' s duty to determine the aptitude of future Commissioners for exercising their mandate.
The hearings have been extremely useful. They generally took place in a constructive atmosphere.
I would like, nevertheless, to warn Members against any attempt to ape certain practises of the American Congress, particularly its intrusions into the private lives of politicians, both male and female.
It is reasonable to require anyone on the political stage to declare his or her interests, but transparency must stop when it reaches the private domain.
The European Parliament is not the holy inquisition, although this idea might not please some of our apprentice Torquemadas whether they are Bavarian or Flemish who did their best to denigrate Philippe Busquin.
Flanders is one of the cradles of European civilisation.
The Flemish people deserve better than the Vlaams Blok.
Having known Philippe Busquin for years, I have full confidence in his personal integrity.
I am also taking up arms against those who seem to want to bring about a political emasculation of the future Commissioners.
I do not share Mr Bolkestein' s political ideals, but he is entirely within his rights to remain active within the Liberal International.
Future Commissioners will have to abstain from standing in political elections during their term of office.
I hope, though, that they will remain faithful to their political convictions.
No one criticised the excessive number of Commissioners with Socialist allegiances.
This fact is perhaps less a reflection of the current political composition of Parliament than of the image of the power held by Socialists across the fifteen Member States.
Whatever the reason, the Commission must rise above traditional political divisions.
It must, at all costs, remain a College.
Even if many MEPs are sorely tempted to judge the Commissioners individually, the Treaty requires - and quite rightly so - a vote for the whole body.
The Treaty also gives the Commission the only right of initiative relating to the administration of Europe.
An attempt to change this would mean turning the Commission into a merely executive body.
It is in Parliament' s interest to defend the Commission' s powers and particularly its right of initiative, without which the power of national governments and bureaucracies would become overwhelming.
Parliament has nothing to gain from neutralising the Commission' s powers.
The hearings showed that the Prodi Commission wants to co-operate with Parliament, to take note of our suggestions and of our legislative work.
When they appeared before the Economic and Monetary Committee, Commissioners Monti and Solbes laid down bases, solid bases for future collaboration.
Be that as it may, the Commission and its Commissioners should be judged on their political action.
What President Prodi gave us this morning was a preliminary sketch.
I hope that we will be able to see, by the beginning of the year 2000, a much larger portrait of Europe.
Mr President-designate of the Commission, you began your intervention by talking about East Timor.
I thank you for your interest in this matter, and I call on the Commission to understand clearly that the issue of Timor will, unfortunately, remain open for some time, and to demand that urgent action be taken, both in terms of humanitarian aid and in political and security terms, because the announcement of intervention by an international force does not per se guarantee security conditions in the region, as it must intervene without any kind of condition imposed by the Indonesian authorities, and the urgency of providing humanitarian aid is URGENT in the true sense of the word.
I can confirm this as I witnessed the elections in Timor personally, on behalf of this Parliament.
The situation is extremely serious and requires immediate intervention and relentless, immediate pressure from all European institutions because nothing has yet been guaranteed.
The start of a new Commission' s work is a moment of hope for Europe.
We know that the circumstances in which the proposal for the composition of the Commission arrived in this Parliament were far from ideal.
We know and reaffirm the legitimate doubts as to the factors which led governments to the individual nomination of Members, and we see with some concern that the composition of the Commission takes into account neither the results of the recent European elections nor the old tradition of political pluralism.
But these objections do not mean that we do not wish the Commission well in its task.
The forthcoming turn of the century will be a decisive event for Europe.
We hope that the Commission will be able to face up to what will probably be its main task, which is to reconcile social and economic cohesion with enlargement.
If it does not achieve these two objectives in a coherent and integrated way, it will find it very difficult to make the borders showing Europe' s politics and well-being match Europe' s geographical borders.
Conscious of the fact that this is the Commission' s main task, we would like to assure Professor Prodi and the Members of the Commission that we wish them well in their work and to state that he can count on the votes of the Portuguese MEPs of the European People' s Party.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, in your speech this morning you said that the Commission was to become much more open.
You spoke in this connection of the need, here and now, for glasnost.
In doing so, you went to the heart of the problem.
Last year' s conflict between the Commission and Parliament was largely due to the Commission' s culture of secrecy and to the arrogance with which the Commission handled Parliament' s justified concerns.
I hope all this belongs to the past and look forward with yourself, Mr President of the Commission, to a new beginning.
I turn now to the Committee' s hearings specifically in connection with foreign affairs, human rights, and the common security and defence policy.
A general remark, first of all.
If we were to set the qualifying standard for Commissioners at the level displayed by my colleague Ingo Friedrich at the hearings and also in today' s debate, we would not have any difficulties with anyone.
However, Commissioners-designate Günther Verheugen and Chris Patten have no need of formal qualifying standards. They have both engaged in an excellent debate in committee and provided real proof not only of their specialist qualifications but also - and this is almost more important - of the new political culture to which you yourself have referred, Commissioner, and of the dialogue between the European Parliament and the Commission.
Of course, we have identified differences when it comes to political opinions.
It would not be understandable if it were otherwise, but it is precisely that which makes collaboration interesting and preserves us from boredom.
All the co-ordinators were subsequently correct in agreeing that our committee had gained two valuable and esteemed partners in dialogue.
Mr President of the Commission, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has also arrived at the same consensus regarding Commissioner-designate Nielson.
I say this because our committee too was involved in this matter.
I should like to assure you and also the other Commissioners that we shall offer critical co-operation and engagement in dialogue.
I have no difficulty in repeating what my group chairman said a short while ago, namely that we shall be expressing our confidence in you.
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, no-one should take the decision regarding the new Commission lightly.
What the citizens of Europe are expecting is for work finally to begin again after the long months of crisis and paralysis, but under better conditions which increase people' s confidence in the Commission.
The great weakness in the construction of the European Union is still there, whether or not, at the end of the day, we can only approve the Commission as a whole (and this despite the fact that we have grave reservations, at least about one Commissioner-designate).
I am aware of the fact that, as President-designate of the Commission, you have already accepted significant political demands on our part in order to make it possible for the principle of individual responsibility to be transposed.
I especially emphasise this because this demand for individual responsibility is anchored in a proposal of mine which was included in the European Parliament' s resolution of 23 March 1999.
What I wish for on behalf of my delegation but also as one of my country' s MEPs is proper supervisory control over the Commission and confidence on the part of the citizens in both the Commission and the European Parliament.
Confidence of this kind cannot be taken for granted but has to be justified over and over again.
We cannot just issue a blank cheque, nor would we want to.
We need strong, functioning institutions. Otherwise, the European idea will not translate credibly into practice.
I subscribe totally to your programme, which is dedicated to glasnost, which is not about just tinkering with the institutions but about far-reaching reform, which strives for sustainable job creation through consistent liberalisation of the economy, which attaches a high value to the principle of subsidiarity and which considers it necessary to find adequate responses to demographic developments in Europe.
The European Union must remain attractive as a model.
The zone of peace and prosperity must, with credibility and a sense of vision, be extended to include the candidate countries for accession to an enlarged EU.
The European idea which forms the basis of the EU needs a new impulse.
The personalities who translate this idea into practice must be in a position to do this.
Individual responsibility and co-operation with Parliament in all phases of the process are indispensable prior conditions of this.
Mr President, we welcome the opportunity to work with the President-designate of the Commission and with the Commission.
This is an opportunity to explore their commitment to working in partnership with Parliament and embracing positively our concerns to scrutinise the implementation of the reform process and also their constructive engagement with our concerns as Members for a European economy based on knowledge, skills and creativity and a European society based on inclusion, diversity and cultural wealth.
What cannot be ignored are the challenges of globalisation now facing our Union, the explosion of the audiovisual and information society, the need for an educational capacity of great depth and breadth and, finally, the need to establish the legitimacy of our institutions and reinvigorate their forms.
These are challenges that go right to the heart of the reform process and challenges that concern my own committee.
I hope that the Commissioner-designate will go forward with our confidence but also with the understanding that your success also reflects our own success.
Together we can work for the future of the European Union.
Mr President, we now have high hopes of implementing a policy of openness and of carrying through reforms in the interests of efficiency.
Mr Prodi, your agreement with Mr Poettering points to a new era, the possibility of an entirely new Commission culture aimed at winning back citizens' confidence and interest in our European Union.
It has been a dizzying but, in my view, absolutely necessary process for the Union.
Let me go back to December 1998 when we in the Group of the European People' s Party, together with Liberals and the Greens, fought for openness and the need for accountability in the debate for adoption of the budget.
Then, the Socialists opted for party considerations, evasion and cowardliness in the face of the Council.
Without the willingness of ourselves in the right-of-centre parties to exercise supervisory power, to take responsibility for this and, in a spirit of openness before all else, to demand to have all the papers in full view on the table, we would never have come as far as we have in fact today.
Mr Prodi, Commissioners-designate, when it comes to enlargement of the Union, foreign and security policy, strengthening free trade in the world, opening up markets, maintaining a vigorous policy on the environment and continuing to pursue economic liberalisation in Europe and with a common currency that is more competitive, Europe is going to need, for all these things, a very strong and functioning Commission in which you, Professor Prodi, will have our confidence and approval of your legislative arrangements.
When you obtain these things, you also acquire, however, a responsibility to make sure that each and every one of the Commissioners can live up to the ideals, share the focus and conviction and meet the requirements of justice and propriety that we all demand now.
I wish you luck.
You will be receiving the Moderate delegation' s "yes" vote tomorrow.
Mr President, with the approval of the Prodi Commission, the European Parliament will tomorrow draw a line under the scandal of the Santer Commission.
I hope that in the process, we shall also overcome an understandable degree of mistrust on the part of Europe' s citizens and create a new confidence in the European Union.
However, drawing a line under the matter does not mean just filing it away.
The European Parliament will remain alert and keep a sharp eye on the Commission in future too.
That is why we were elected by the peoples of Europe.
We shall ensure that, if need be, individual Members of the Commission are removed if they are no longer acceptable for professional or personal reasons.
I am convinced that, for example, Mr Bolkestein would fail the test tomorrow if, in appointing the Commission, we had the opportunity to vote on individual Commissioners.
A Commissioner responsible for the internal market who, during the hearings, was forever mouthing the word "subsidiarity" has clearly not understood enough about the great common tasks facing Europe.
The people of Europe expect to benefit from a leadership which focuses upon the common good and not upon the sum total of individual interests in the Member States.
When Mr Bolkestein learns to understand this, then he may go on to share for a long time in the success which I wish Mr Prodi and his Commission.
If he does not, then he is a candidate for the sack.
Mr Prodi, since Mr Bolkestein is still not back yet, I trust you will pass the message on to him.
Mr President, on behalf of the Belgian delegation, the Belgian Members of the PPE Group, I want to start by driving home the message that the voting due to take place this morning places before us a decision of the utmost importance.
We have no doubts about Mr Prodi' s Presidency.
We were impressed by his introduction, we are expecting positive answers to the points contained in our Resolution, and we have faith in Mr Prodi' s ability to lead the Commission in a responsible and professional manner.
If we had been asked to give our opinion on each of the Commissioners-designate individually then indeed we would have given most of them our support.
But now of course, we have to give our opinion of the Commission as a College.
We know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Unfortunately, we feel that one particular link in the chain is indeed weak.
Is the crisis situation in the institutions to continue? Not as far as we are concerned, for it is high time that the Commission was able to get down to work again, exercising its full authority.
So you will not find us voting against the Resolution.
The weak link, and everyone now knows who it is, is the candidate put forward by the Belgian government.
This government could have done its own country a better service.
The hearing with Mr Busquin was not a great success for the candidate.
We, that is almost all those present in that committee, were agreed on this.
But sadly enough, this assessment did not find expression in the letter to the President of the Parliament.
It is anyone' s guess as to why.
What is more, Mr Busquin did not show the least sensitivity towards, let alone demonstrate any commitment to, the question of defending the use of Dutch in the European institutions, which was an insult to the six million Flemish people.
Those of us who represent the Flemish people cannot just overlook this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, you will not be surprised to learn that the Belgian delegation of the PPE cannot give its approval to this College with one voice, but we do intend to adopt a constructive attitude over the coming years in order to work with the College.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr President-designate of the Commission, I am now suspending this debate.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.02 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Statement by Mr Prodi (continued)
In accordance with the agenda, the debate on Mr Prodi' s statement continues.
Mr President, President-designate of the Commission Prodi, if we are optimistic and confident about the future, we can state that we are now in a perfect situation.
Now, all the possibilities of steering the actions of the EU are better than ever and the confidence of the citizens is growing in that direction.
Before us we have a new Commission, which has bound itself in the hearings to making the actions of the Union more transparent, more efficient and more comprehensible.
We have also heard from each Member of the Commission that the Commission will be getting leaders in each field who have committed themselves to working more closely with Parliament.
As a College, the Commission has affirmed that it is prepared for real reforms through the mouthpiece of its President.
The hard rebuke given to us in the parliamentary elections in June by the citizens of Europe is still fresh in our minds.
We cannot continue on the present course, but the Union must engage in prompt reforms which will transform the procedures of all the institutions of the Union for the next Millennium.
The Commission has to move forward at the same pace as the reality of the Member States and their citizens.
Here, Mrs Roth-Behrendt has drawn attention to a particularly important matter: the Commission really must bear in mind the true matters of concern for the citizens when choosing its own priorities and publicising them, such as environmental issues, an enduring development in all areas as well as the need to protect the consumer.
To this, I would also add equality of citizens and social equality.
Although I did say that all of the opportunities facing us are better than they have been before, I fear that it will not be possible to make use of them.
First and foremost, the question is whether the future Commission will have the ability to carry out fundamental reforms instead of just being content to gloss over the real problems with sticking-plaster policies. We cannot afford to do this, and I am sure that real reforms are on the way.
For the tasks ahead, I also wish the future Commission a long life.
Mr President-designate of the Commission, if we had to choose here and now between your opponents and the reasons they have given and you, we would find ourselves in a predicament, maybe to the point of abstaining, indeed even to voting for you, as the arguments of the last communists and allies of Milosevic against NATO and our countries and against British conservatives and others are so weak and worthless.
But we must judge you and decide whether to put our confidence in you on the basis of your statements and what we know about you, leaving these statements to one side.
As European federalists, we can have absolutely no confidence in you whatsoever.
The picture you painted of politics and the programme lacked all mention of the urgent institutional problems or supranational issues.
As liberals and liberalists we know, especially from your references to the programme, that we run the risk of importing the postcorporate and postfascist heritage into Europe which has characterised the so-called mixed economy of Italian party politics.
Finally, as Italians, we fear that through you on the continental political stage, there will be a return to sharing the spoils of party power which goes against every notion of the Constitutional State, every effective feeling of a Europe which stands for progress with regard to revolution and the reform of freedom and rights, progress in this sense.
And so I, along with the other elected Members from the Bonino list, announce our determination to vote against you and we clearly refuse to put our confidence in you.
There are a number of people from my group who have talked on this matter.
Personally, and on behalf of the group I represent in Denmark, I have to say that I cannot vote for the Commission.
I shall emphasise two points.
The first is that the political programme which has been put forward promotes a degree of integration which goes far beyond what there is a mandate for from 80% of the Danish population and, what is more, from the populations of the other Member States.
It is politically unacceptable.
The EU is to make its presence more keenly felt across national borders, and, to an extent, that is a threat to our nation states.
The second point is the background to the Prodi Commission.
As we know, this was the scandal that was uncovered in connection with the first report by the Experts' group this spring.
One might have imagined that, as a prior condition of endorsing the new Commission, Parliament might have demanded radical changes to put a stop to the systematic abuses that have taken place and to the consistent lack of proper supervision to be found in the system. However, none of this even enters into the equation.
In the course of these hearings, a completely perfunctory explanation from the designated candidates for the Commission has been accepted.
It is especially scandalous that someone like former Commission President Delors' right-hand man, who was responsible for setting up the criticised security services, should have been waved through this Parliament without so much as having to answer a single critical question.
For these reasons, it is impossible for us to vote for the Commission-designate.
Mr President, in his speech today, President-designate Professor Prodi quite correctly mentioned how important co-operation is for the Union.
He mentioned the need for rapprochement with the USA, the Mediterranean area and even between religions.
I may have misheard, but I did not detect any reference on his part to the Northern Dimension of the Union, the area from the Barents Sea through northern Russia to the Baltic States and Poland, and also from Scandinavia to northern Germany.
The longest borders between the Union and applicant states are, however, to be found in this area, and in addition there is the only border with the largest European state, Russia.
I hope that the problems of this area, as well as the opportunities, enjoy the attention of the Commission.
Likewise, I hope that the renewal of the strategy on Russia will continue although I know that Russia with its scandals and problems is a truly great question mark at the present time.
The report of the Group of Independent Experts shows that the structures of the EU and the Commission have been confused and obscured with regard to responsibility and power-relations for years.
Commissioner Kinnock truly has a task as great as that of the fabled Hercules when he continues Commissioner Liikanen' s work reforming the structures of the Commission.
I wish him success and await the results.
Professor Prodi was looking for more glasnost. This is quite correct when one considers relations with Parliament.
It must, however, be remembered that Gorbachev' s Soviet Union dissolved into too much glasnost and too little perestroika.
The word perestroika can best be translated as "to build a new house on tried and tested foundations" . The Soviet Union experienced its own disappearance.
I hope that the Prodi Commission will also focus on perestroika in the Union. Only in this way will the Commission be able to make progress in matters of substance and to "build a new house on tried and tested foundations" .
Mr President, I feel that none of us must lose sight of the fact that the European Union is seen as irrelevant and unresponsive to the crises in our world today.
The huge problem of confidence in our institutions has been exacerbated by the problems of the Commission in recent months.
The European Union' s response to the Balkans, on our very doorstep, was generally viewed as too little, too late.
On East Timor - and I note, Mr Prodi, what you said this morning - where are we? Two weeks after the world is advised of the most brutal genocide following elections in an attempt to establish the very essence of democracy which we, as Parliamentarians, above all should uphold, we are not yet in gear and not seen as relevant to the solution by any commentators.
While Parliament must look at its own role very seriously, especially following the poor turnout in the recent elections in many Member States - evidence at best of disinterest but more likely cynicism and disdain by our citizens - our job today is to respond to the hearing of the Commissioners-elect and to the case put by the President-elect, Mr Prodi.
Yes, Mr Prodi, we need "ambitious reforms of the European Union institutions" .
I take that to be your perestroika, to match the glasnost which you refer to, but not an everlasting reform, not a constant state of flux.
We need stability and we need to get down to the business of policy as quickly as possible.
I support the view of the Commission' s relationship with Parliament being akin to that of a government' s relationship with its parliament.
But let us reflect that in most parliaments a vote of no confidence in a single member of the government results in the entire government resigning, not just the individual minister.
Is that what we are asking for? We are giving confused signals.
In insisting on the political reflection of the outcome of the recent European Parliament elections within the European Commission, how far should we go in restricting the choice of and dictating to national governments their selection of Commissioner?
We must learn from our hearings. We must never allow a government to use the Commission as a retirement home for politicians past - to use a consumer term - their "sell-by date" or for a political pay-off for old pals or indeed to export a national embarrassment to Europe.
At the same time there is a need for an important balance between the Commission, Parliament and the rights of governments.
We have no choice, Mr Prodi.
It is all or nothing in terms of your new college.
On balance I feel we must accept it and support your team.
Yes, we have concerns about a few individuals but the responsibility for ensuring that none of them hit the headlines adversely over the next five years is yours, not ours, given the limited scope of the hearings in this Parliament.
The key to the future of a credible Europe lies in a proper relationship between the Commission and Parliament built on mutual respect.
I hope you agree with that.
I wish you all well.
Mr President, with these hearings we have just carried out an exercise in scrutiny and transparency the like of which exists in none of our Member States.
Imagine if each of our national governments had to go through a procedure whereby they had to fill in fifty pages of answers to a questionnaire and were subject to three hours of grilling and questioning in public before the national parliaments took a vote of confidence allowing them to take office.
We have achieved something that we can be proud of.
Of course this is a new procedure and a young parliament and things were not perfect.
Some of the questions were less than forensic.
There are things that could be improved next time.
Nonetheless, with the outcome of this procedure on this side of the House we are confident that we have a Commission that is a distinct improvement on the previous one.
Granted there were questions on the past activities of two candidates in particular; but both have been cleared by the national investigations that pertained to their activities and, in the absence of anything new, it would be difficult for the European Parliament to press this issue further.
But the fact that the President of the Commission has secured a right not available to his predecessors to dismiss any Commissioner, should that ever be necessary, means that we can rest assured - and we shall be vigilant on this - that, if anything new emerges, we will be able to take action.
We have not tried to play party politics or national politics and petty games of that sort on this side of the House.
We thought that Parliament should approach this professionally and responsibly.
We are satisfied with the outcome of these opportunities afforded to us in this new procedure.
Mr President, a number of hearings have taken place in which the tension between collective and individual responsibility could be felt.
It is, of course, clear that the question of individual responsibility and how this new Commission will give it shape over the next few years, will become an important issue.
Great stress has been laid on collective responsibility in the past, but if you read the Wise Men' s report, the last report that has just come out, then the situation has been rather different in practice, with cases being founded primarily on the principle of non-intervention.
I am not concerned with your affairs, you are not concerned with mine, and ultimately no one takes responsibility.
That too is the painful truth that has emerged.
I believe that the need to exchange the non-intervention principle for real collective responsibility represents a challenge.
How exactly do you give shape to this personal responsibility?
I would in fact like to make the following proposition to Mr Prodi.
He will produce an annual programme and this will, of course, include the things to be done within the various Directorates-General.
Would it in fact be possible for an annual programme of this kind also to include a number of political obligations in terms of the results to be achieved by the various individual Commissioners? You would continue to be responsible as a collective entity, but even within this context you could specify the results that an individual Commissioner was to deliver that year in more precise terms.
You could then address him or her on these issues afterwards.
I would argue in favour of this.
Then there is the unease over the question of whether it should not in fact be a number of Commissioners, i.e. one or more, against whom criminal proceedings are initiated.
I take it for granted that Mr Prodi would ask a Commissioner against whom criminal proceedings have been initiated, to resign.
I also take for granted, and this is also in the Wise Men' s report, the fact that if a Commissioner should be found to have knowingly supplied Parliament with false information, then this same Commissioner would depart.
Mr President, Mr President-designate Prodi, we Social Democrats are disappointed.
In spite of announcements, you have not succeeded in achieving a better balance between men and women in your new team.
The EU Commission remains a male domain.
The mission conferred in the Treaty of Amsterdam, to oppose all forms of discrimination, is still, for women at least, just a vague hope.
We may speak the same European language, but you have not in fact understood us.
A third of your candidates did not answer the question from the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities about gender mainstreaming.
The Social Democrats' demand was and remains - again, I stress the word "remains" - to have in future an Equal Opportunities Commissioner with the power to implement equal opportunities.
We demand that the College and yourself as its head become ambitious about gender mainstreaming, with measurable developments and improvements as a result.
Mrs Diamantopoulou, whose portfolio includes equal opportunities alongside employment and the social dimension, has in fact shown a lot of commitment but, Mr Prodi, how will she react when she has been gagged by you in advance and when the struggle against violence, as well as the issue of non-discrimination, has been placed in other hands?
You speak of a new balance, a new partnership, but do not waste a single word on the women of Europe who, at the end of the day, do represent half of our citizens.
We want you to take steps to ensure that substantial improvements in income and in access to power and money are achieved, and that you join us in our struggle against violence and against the everyday discrimination faced by women.
Without the input from women, the idea of the big European family is meaningless.
Mr President, I would like to make three remarks about the hearings, their results and the elements that still remain to be put in place between the incoming Commission and Parliament.
On the hearings, I agree with Mr Corbett that it has been a good start, but there are several things that need to be improved when the issue comes up again in 2004, for example, the possibility of our voting on individual Commissioners after a committee or at least an indicative vote to see whether the committee was really in favour or not.
Secondly, we should have time in the hearings to follow up questions which it was quite clear were treated unevenly by the committees.
Last but not least, the committees should have equal time.
The Committee on Fisheries for instance had only one hour whereas other committees had three hours.
We in Parliament need to sort out these details.
As for the results, without referring to individuals, many in my Group have already indicated which performers have been good or less good in the incoming Commission.
Our Conservative position has been set out by the Conservative Leader Mr McMillan-Scott.
We are left with an imbalance in the Commission and it is there that I believe we need to make some progress.
Firstly, in the light of our experience from the discharge for 1996 for which I was responsible, can we really be sure that, if we do vote against an incoming Commissioner, that Commissioner will resign?
Secondly, how can we be sure that we will get the information which we need? There was so much frustration in the last Parliament about not being able to get the information we required.
Finally, as regards the codes of conduct, we need to know that promotion will be on merit and that promotion at the highest levels of the Commission will involve managerial competence, which has not always been the case up to now.
In conclusion, these are important elements, at least for my Group. We want to see these included in our operating agreement between the Commission and Parliament because the numbers abstaining or voting against the Commission tomorrow on the final vote will depend on how far those elements are in place by tomorrow.
Mr President, you have a major task ahead of you and nobody is more aware of that than the Budget Control Committee.
The number one priority must be the reform agenda.
If you fail to deliver on this then we will all judge you very harshly and will in fact all suffer as a result.
But as Mr Kinnock said yesterday, you will be judged on your deeds and not on your words.
On behalf of the Socialists in the Budget Control Committee, I would like to comment specifically on Mr Kinnock' s presentation at the hearing.
Mr Kinnock' s record within the Commission is second to none and we accept fully his commitment to accept collective responsibility in terms of past problems whilst agreeing that he bears no individual guilt.
Performance and management of the transport directorate has been exemplary and we believe that with his experience of modernising the Labour Party in the UK, he has the relevant qualification to undertake this work.
If you can turn the Labour Party around from the lamentable state it was in the 1980s to getting us to a position in the 1990s where we swept everything away, then you must really be able to perform miracles.
We note the Commission' s commitment to the reform agenda and, in particular, Mr Prodi, your commitment to consult the European Parliament on the reform programme.
We expect this to be before its presentation in February.
We note the commitment to consult us on the reform of the Staff Regulations which addresses some of Mr Elles' concerns, the new commitments given to whistleblowers and the need to develop new disciplinary procedures.
The idea of giving legal effect to the codes of conduct once established is also something we welcome and the overhaul of the Commission' s management and control systems.
We expect active consultation with Parliament at all times and we have no doubts that the Commissioner will fulfil his commitment on that score.
We do have concerns that the Commission must respect the independence of OLAF.
We will not allow you to play budgetary games on this issue.
This is the beginning of the reform process and we now look forward to some action.
Mr Cashman, do you have a point of order to make?
Mr President, I am sorry to make a second point of order when I still have not made my maiden speech in this House.
I would like to point out to my colleague that the Treaty of Amsterdam refers to ending discrimination not only against women but against a whole range of minorities on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability.
That is something that I hope the Commission will approach as a whole and not just, on a point of order, the equal opportunities of women.
Mr Cashman, I must tell you that this was not a point of order.
Please observe the Rules .
Mr President, Professor Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, in the course of the 19 hearings of the future Commissioners, we continually heard talk of the fine-sounding concepts of transparency, efficiency, responsibility and accountability.
Not piecemeal improvements, but root and branch reform is to be carried out, as you plausibly inform us Mr Prodi.
That is a difficult task for Mr Kinnock, however, because words are not enough. Deeds must quickly follow, and in a way which is fully open to scrutiny by Parliament.
For us, constructive co-operation with the Commission is a prerequisite for achieving a sustained improvement in the regrettable image our citizens unfortunately have at present of Europe.
Specifically, I should like to touch upon three points relating to budgetary supervision.
Firstly, it is normal practice to separate the power to spend and the responsibility for supervising spending.
You, Professor Prodi, have combined both areas in the one department.
What is your view on possibly separating the two areas, either now or in the future? As matters stand, don' t you fear conflicts of interest?
Secondly, I was pleased at what you said about keeping the public informed.
I also wish to see openness of this kind in relation to our Committee, especially within the framework of the discharge procedure where we are entitled to expect the information we require from the Commission to be of a particular quality.
In future, we do not want initially to have to find out from the press when there have been difficulties, poor management and so on.
The third point concerns OLAF, the new office for combating fraud.
This year' s staffing of the office is quite inadequate.
Unfortunately, Mrs Schreyer has not expressed a clear opinion about the possibility of a further 15 posts this year, giving a total of 30.
From the answers at yesterday' s meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Control, there was no evidence of any change to the, so far, secretive attitude of the Commission and its administration.
There is still a lot to be done here in the services.
This also applies to work on the 30 cases on the UCLAF-OLAF list which have still to be cleared up, not to mention the 900 other cases.
I am counting on the fact that some life is going to be breathed into the words "transparency" , "efficiency" , "responsibility" and "accountability" .
Mr President, much has been said today about the cynicism and hypocrisy of the past, but I want to say to you that there is nothing more cynical or hypocritical than people who have already announced that they were going to vote against the Commission commenting on the process of hearings.
We had part of this House announce even before the hearings started that they intended to reject the Commission.
We need the progressive forces of this House - and I say this to people like Mr van Velzen and to others - to unite after the vote tomorrow to work with the new European Commission so that we can actually make progress, because we have had nine months of stagnation.
We must stop the political guerrilla warfare that is going on in this House.
We must work together.
Let me make a comment on the fact that two members of the potential Commission have been criticised.
We are not offering the European Commission a blank cheque, Mr Prodi; we will be watching very carefully what you and your colleagues do.
But we will not see members of this Commission hounded by the press in any Member State of this Union.
If there is evidence, it will be presented, and we rely upon you to take action where it is necessary.
We will be voting within the Socialist Group in the European Parliament not on a party political basis but on the objective basis of the hearings and the questions that we had answered over the last couple of weeks.
Let me pick up the point made by Mr van Velzen because I think this process is in two stages.
We have had the speech by the President of the Commission and we have had the hearings, but the second stage is the work programme of the European Commission.
The work programme should be an exciting indication of where the European Union is going and of what the European Union intends to do.
In the past even under Delors and under Jacques Santer it never appeared that way, but the second stage is vital.
That is why I agree with Mr van Velzen: we must make sure that this work programme is understood by the public, and that it is important to the public; and we have to work with you to deliver that work programme.
We have made a good start with the hearing and after that vote tomorrow let the progressive forces in this House work with the Commission to deliver what the people of Europe want.
Mr Prodi, I am not speaking on behalf of any political group or any delegation.
I speak for myself and all those of us who share certain opinions.
Certain opinions which we could sum up in the following way: firstly, we know that Europe has been built on the basis of two forces for construction which are dialectically opposed: those who, aware of the weight of history, defend the survival and validity of the national State and those who, with greater courage, imagine a future with greater integration, whose political definition we still do not know, and this is perhaps one of the advantages of construction.
Mr Prodi, I speak on behalf of all those who share your principles, who share your programme, who share the idea that Europe must establish a new order of peace, prosperity and stability and that Europe must show coraggio, ambizione and visione (courage, ambition and vision).
And in their name, Mr President, I understand that we must respect the essential equilibrium laid down in the Treaty.
In this respect, for example, we must respect the Commission' s right to initiative.
And, of course, we must ensure that the Treaties, the legislative texts and the activities of the institutions are more in line with the demands of society.
And society demands something else - you said it yourself, Mr Prodi - it demands realism and demands that we are in closer contact with that society.
Therefore, all I can do is, in the name of those I speak for, underline the commitment that, at the Intergovernmental Conference, we will carry out the fundamental reform which the citizens demand, the importance of which they have demonstrated through their low turn-out in the elections.
The texts and our attitudes should be brought into line with today' s society, but we should not lose that which has been the key to the vault of Community construction.
Mr President Prodi, good luck with next Commission which, with no doubt whatsoever, will be voted in tomorrow.
Mr President-designate, the members of the French Socialist delegation are anxious that the institutions should run efficiently, and this requires the rapid establishment of a strong Commission, strong in the sense of respecting the Treaties, which means that your mandate and ours must coincide.
The French Socialists also have a certain awareness of their political responsibilities.
This is why tomorrow, they will vote in favour of your investiture, because we believe that the composition of your Commission is balanced, in line with the Council.
We judged the quality of your team' s members.
But as you know, as you must realise, this is by no means a carte blanche or a vote of confidence.
As far as we are concerned, the political aspect is not an issue.
Our expectations of you rest on your programme.
We expect commitments from you, to define and defend the European Social Model, to re-establish balance, as the Treaty of Amsterdam suggests you should, between the policy of competition and other policies.
To ensure that the great reforms of the labour market structures do not necessarily result in greater unemployment. In short, to take into consideration these great projects which will enable Europe to experience the kind of growth which creates jobs and which does not make thousands more people unemployed.
We also expect you to implement a development policy which will allow Europe to maintain its position of solidarity between the North and the South.
We also expect you to let us know how you think international standards can be developed.
Do you think that it is up to the WTO to lay down what the internal legal system within the Union should be, or do you think that it is up to us to define the rules which will serve us?
Regarding institutional matters, we are pleased with the stances you have taken on giving the Intergovernmental Conference a broad mandate, and we await with interest the report of your three Wise Men.
But we are anxious to find out who in your team will be responsible for the development and the drafting of the Charter of Rights.
We shall also be asking you about this idea of the future make-up of the Union.
This is a matter of urgency for your Commission.
Briefly, the setting-up of your Commission has allowed new relations to be established between your institution and ours. We are delighted about this.
By holding these hearings, our Parliament has shown what a modern and democratic Parliament is capable of.
We expect the same from your institution, and if you meet these conditions, you will have our support.
I would inform you that, in accordance with Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure, I have received seven motions for resolution.
In addition, I have received from the Conference of Presidents the draft resolution for electing the Commission-designate.
The vote on these motions for resolution and the motion received from the Conference of Presidents will take place tomorrow, Wednesday, at 12.00 p.m.
Mr Prodi, I address you in my capacity as President of this Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries.
We have not heard you speak about fishing and, nevertheless, you must be aware that thousands and thousands of fishermen depend on it, thousands and thousands of families, thousands of secondary businesses and businesses involved in the processing of products which are necessary in the European Union, employment which is furthermore located in European regions and territories which are highly dependent on fishing.
I want to be very clear in this intervention, Mr Prodi, and I want to tell you that Mr Fischler, who obviously knows a lot about agriculture, nevertheless knows little about fishing.
He admitted this himself during his hearing and has also demonstrated it.
However, he made us some political commitments which I would like to remind you of in your capacity as President-designate.
Mr Fischler expressed orally the political commitment to maintain the current Directorate-General for Fisheries, amending the statement that he had made in writing in his questionnaire and thereby accepting the maintenance of the current Directorate-General for Fisheries.
And I say current in the sense that we are talking of a specific Directorate-General, for Fisheries, with the status of Directorate-General.
I say this because this is a sine qua non condition which we have established in our Committee and this is what was communicated to you in the letter which I signed myself.
I ask you therefore to take good note of it, and I ask the same of Mr Kinnock, who is to the left of you, as Vice-President responsible for reform, since this is a sine qua non condition for maintaining the parliamentary trust which we have granted Mr Fischler in our Committee.
Secondly, I would like to remind you that Mr Fischler granted us the written mandate for the negotiation of the crucial fishing agreement with Morocco, which is a matter of extreme urgency, so that this Parliament can continue to maintain the budgetary reserve of the item agreed by the Council and that your Commission, Mr Prodi, will not be responsible for the fact that there is no finance for this agreement in the future.
Mr President of the Commission, I would like to begin from where Mr Donnelly left off, the second stage of your mission - the work programme - because I believe that, aside from the collective and individual responsibilities, which I certainly believe are of the utmost importance, the work in the restoration of the Commission' s credibility and its productiveness will be judged by this work programme.
This programme will be met with some apathy and reactions as regards the wording and the actual execution of it.
In order to overcome all that, Mr President, originality and dynamism are necessary of which I hope you have plenty in reserve because many of us believe that these elements appear to have been lacking, judging by your speeches so far. Likewise, there have not been sufficient signs of a new attitude of mind emerging, which would be necessary to deal with the deepening confidence crisis facing Europe as regards not only the issue of unemployment but also the issue of security
You made reference to the Balkans, Mr President.
It is a good job that Europe understands the importance of the Balkans and I agree with you wanting to convey the urgency of the matter.
You are right in saying that the Balkan states cannot import their conflict into Europe, but you are not right in distancing yourself from the problem by telling them that they must resolve the conflict themselves before we can accept them.
Europe, Mr President, imported the Balkan problems the moment it decided, with the force of weapons, to find a settlement to those problems.
And it is not only the Balkans, if we are to begin naming names.
How is it possible that an applicant country, for example, can threaten to attack a Member State without being warned that attacking one Member State is tantamount to attacking all the Member States, just because there is no common European border.
I hope that at the Intergovernmental Conference, Mr President, you will be able to propose measures for creating such a border and for instilling a greater sense of security into many of us who do not feel secure.
Mr President-designate of the Commission, the new Commission is faced with a number of big tasks.
We now have a joint policy on currency which is being managed by the European Central Bank.
What we now need is a common economic policy.
This should include consistent application of the rules on competition, including the Stability and Growth Pact.
It should also include joint minimum regulations for taxation and a number of basic principles.
I am convinced that this common economic policy can only succeed if it is designed in accordance with the principles of a social market economy.
What we need in this connection - and this, Mr President of the Commission, is a further point to which you referred quite specifically - is a number of projects which are visible to the citizens of Europe.
Firstly - and I know that there are criticisms about this - food safety is one of people' s basic concerns yet also one of the things which stops the Common Market from really working.
I should like personally to encourage you, Mr President of the Commission, to take up this theme, for it seems to me to be of fundamental importance, on the one hand for our citizens but, on the other hand too, for the proper functioning of the Common Market.
Secondly: the supervision of air space.
For this, America has one authority, to which you also referred in one of your initial speeches.
In Europe we have three authorities concerned with this issue.
That is unacceptable to the airline companies and is dangerous for the citizens of Europe.
This seems to me to be a second big priority.
Thirdly: the further dismantling of monopolies.
From the costs of telephone calls and of electricity, it appears now for the first time that dismantling monopolies is of practical value to our citizens and also entails tangible advantages.
I think this ought to encourage us to go further down this road, that is to say, in the fields of postal services, energy, telecommunications and railways where similar conditions prevail.
In my opinion, dismantling monopolies is to the advantage of the citizens of the European Union.
Mr Prodi, on behalf of the Dutch Socialists I would like to express the hope that we will be in a position to draw a line under the crisis, with the appointment of your Commission in its entirety tomorrow.
You have our support, provided of course that the Commission fulfils all those conditions that you yourself have imposed.
You gave a speech this morning and we have heard a lot in the course of the hearings.
What is still very much conspicuous by its absence as far as we are concerned, is that element of social concern.
First and foremost, that element of social concern towards the rest of the world.
125 million children will not be going to school today, which means they have no future in this world. Our world is not millennium-proof.
I am so keen to see January' s programme become one of ambitious endeavours on the part of Patten, Lamy, Nielson and your Commission to make Europe really socially-minded towards other countries in this respect, and then towards its own.
The solidarity, free market and need for reform we have spoken of, will only work if we keep everyone on the same track.
Too many people are excluded at the present time, in our own European world too.
Internal solidarity and solidarity towards others, as I said, that is what we would like to judge you and your programme on in January.
For our part, we are looking at all the Commissioners and we hope to be able to make a confidence-inspiring new start in Europe, in the way described so effectively by Mr Van Velzen when he set out how the programme could achieve this.
We would like to hold each of you responsible on an individual basis and achieve sound results working together as Parliament and Commission.
Mr President, I should like to address matters of procedure and of substance with regard to the hearings of the candidate Commissioners.
In my view these hearings were flawed because there was insufficient time available to the committees to pursue their lines of questioning.
I speak from our experience on the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Because we had to make time available to delegations from other committees, neither the members of my group nor our committee nor the members of the delegations had sufficient time to put all the questions that they wanted to candidate Commissioners Liikanen and Lamy. This is a matter for great regret.
The second point where the hearings were flawed was in the failure to hold indicative votes at the end of each hearing.
I know there are different views on this issue but it seems to me that without an indicative vote the key element of whether Members feel the candidate Commissioner is competent or not cannot be determined exactly.
Let me come to the substance.
I have mentioned two candidate Commissioners but there was a third who appeared before us, candidate Commissioner Busquin.
It is no coincidence that this was a hearing where there were no delegations from other committees and we had more time to pursue questioning.
I am afraid that Mr Busquin did not satisfy a majority of colleagues on the committee either with his answers on his part in past financial scandals or with his answers on his competence with the portfolio and whether he would have a sense of responsibility and leadership appropriate to the tasks facing this Commission.
Fresh information has come to light since the hearing in The Sunday Times this weekend which casts further doubt on whether Mr Busquin was truthful in his answers to Parliament.
I have asked the President to consider this matter.
So, I am afraid he would be a flawed Commissioner, Mr Prodi.
Mr Prodi, on behalf of the Italian Socialists, I hope that Parliament offers you its broad and unconditional confidence.
There has been enough evasion and we need a strong Commission.
Besides, without an authoritative leadership, Parliament is in danger of losing its way.
This period of adjustment could not have been more difficult. The crisis in the previous Commission occurred just at the time when Europe was going up in flames!
If it were not for Emma Bonino, in the face of the Balkans tragedy, the Commission simply would not have existed.
However, the European citizens and peoples have been left with an impression of fragility, if not powerlessness and a sense of weakness in the crucial area - the area Europe was created for - of ensuring peace in our continent.
You spoke of the Europe of peoples more than the Europe of the institutions. It is the view and feeling of the European peoples that Europe is already one from the Atlantic to the Ural mountains, from the tundra to Anatolia.
You rightly put at the top of the list enlargement of the Union to include those countries that are ready, and then you spoke of the different degrees of co-operation by drawing concentric circles of 'virtual Membership' to include nearby countries not yet ready to accede.
You also mentioned a partnership with Russia and Ukraine and a cultural partnership with the Mediterranean countries.
And encompassing all these circles is the joint and strengthened leadership with the United States of America.
Mr President, are you sure that this view is shared on the other side of the Atlantic?
You will no doubt have read yesterday that the American Minister of Defence is already putting obstacles in the way of common European defence.
And yet Mr CFSP is non other than the former Secretary-General of NATO. NATO' s borders already stretch to Warsaw and Budapest while Europe' s borders clearly end in Berlin.
Enlargement is the main priority, but it is not without its problems, both for the countries concerned and for the Union itself.
And I am not only thinking of the disproportion between larger aims and a smaller budget.
If we do not want to lose in substance what we gain in size, if we want to give a soul to the Europe of the single market and currency, if we want to regain the citizens' and people' s faith, we - Commission, Parliament and Council - must work together on what only a more robust foundation and new energy can bring: European citizenship, a Charter on Rights and a real Constitution. What is the point in having ensured free movement within one border yet maintaining fifteen different laws on immigration and political asylum?
What is the point in having one parliament that is formed on the basis of fifteen different types of electoral system? A new frontier remains to the South, and a common citizenship: this is the perspective I would like you to focus on between now and January
Mr President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, esteemed Members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Donnelly accused us a short while ago of hypocritically making false attacks upon Commissioners-designate.
I can only say that whoever heard Brian Simpson this morning would not have recognised him at all.
That must have been socialist policy.
Brian Simpson attacked Mrs Palacio quite unashamedly and for no apparent reason. I emphatically reject these attacks on her on behalf of my group.
The facts of the matter are quite different to what was stated.
The Committee recognised Mrs Palacio' s professional qualifications by a large majority. The Committee has confirmed that the priorities which Mrs Palacio has set out orally and in writing reflect the opinion of Parliament.
A majority of the Committee was also satisfied with Mrs Palacio' s answers to the Socialists' accusations in connection with the flax subsidy investigation in Spain.
Mrs Palacio has convincingly shown that the investigating committee of the Spanish Parliament has rejected all accusations against her as unfounded.
We decisively reject the attacks by the Socialists who take up this old theme again and again and repeatedly put forward accusations.
We look forward to co-operating with Mrs Palacio.
You can gladly speak, Sir, when you have been allocated speaking time, but you will not steal the time allocated to myself!
However the collaboration with Mrs Palacio is to work, it will be decided in conjunction too with our colleague Mr Barnier, the Commissioner-designate for Regional Policy.
Because of his political experience as a national minister and also as chairman of a regional assembly, Mr Barnier is in the best position to understand, apply and transpose regional policy.
He said something which I found very convincing, namely: "Yes, we respect the principle of subsidiarity, that is to say, the Member States and the regions decide first, but, as a Commissioner, I am responsible for ensuring that the goals of regional policy are adhered to, and I shall take that responsibility seriously."
In this respect, we also look forward to collaborating with you, Mr Barnier.
Mr President, one wonders what one can say in two minutes on the appointment of a Commission.
I want to wish you all well: Mr Prodi, Mr Kinnock and everybody else who is taking on enormous responsibilities on behalf of the people of the European Union.
They are enormous responsibilities because they relate to the way people will lead their lives over the coming decades.
There are people in Europe killing each other because of differences over religion, ethnicity and nationality, there are people going to bed hungry, there are people sleeping outdoors and there are people without adequate health care.
These are all problems that Europe has to solve in partnership, not only between the Commission and Parliament but also between the Commission, Parliament, the Member State Governments and the Member State parliaments.
One of the things we should try and do over the next five years is to forge a closer partnership between national and regional parliaments and the European level.
If we are to develop a Europe in which our people have a share, we must give them a role in creating that Europe and sharing that Europe.
The only way we will do that is if we give the social dimension of Europe - the social convergence that is needed in Europe - the same status as we give to monetary convergence and to economic convergence.
We cannot create a Europe that the people will feel is theirs if we simply talk about economics and money all the time.
We have to talk about social issues, culture and what concerns people in their daily lives.
We have to demonstrate that the politics of this Union can solve their problems.
Mr President, I too was surprised by my colleague Mr Donnelly' s attack on my colleague Mr Van Velzen.
Mr Donnelly appears still to abide by the old Marxist principle that the Socialist Party is always right and anyone who disagrees with this is wrong.
But I did not want to talk about that today, Mr President, I wanted to speak, as co-ordinator of the Committee on Employment, about the hearing with Mrs Diamantopoulou.
The answers provided by this Commissioner-designate were, in principle, satisfactory.
It is clear that not everyone was in agreement with all her answers, but everyone on the Committee on Employment feels that the answers she gave provide a sound basis for future co-operation.
The same goes for the vast majority of the European People' s Party.
This Commissioner is not one of those against whom the PPE rightly raised objections.
Nevertheless, a few comments need to be made here.
The Commissioner-designate was not prepared to accept more intensive co-operation with the European Parliament as regards the Employment Pact and its further development.
I refer now to the celebrated Cologne Summit.
There is every risk of the successful Luxembourg process that we now have being swept under the carpet by the unsuccessful Cologne episode without parliamentary contribution.
That is why the Commission must continue to involve Parliament in the process.
Another critical point, which our British colleagues were particularly concerned to raise, is that concerning deregulation.
The Commission should also pursue this issue, insofar as it can create employment.
The position of non-governmental organisations in the social sector still has not been determined.
A legal basis must be created as soon as possible which will enable organisations for the disabled, the elderly, children and families in particular, to create a real civil society at European level.
The social dialogue is very important.
Europe can count itself as lucky that the social dialogue has achieved so much.
But the social dialogue, Mr Prodi, must never be a reason for the Commission and Parliament to renounce their political responsibilities.
As long as Parliament' s role in judging the outcome of the social dialogue remains undetermined, there is a need for an interim solution.
To conclude, Mr President, I very much appreciate the fact that the Commissioner went into great detail during the hearing about my report, the aim of which is to bring about a kind of Luxembourg process in relation to security for the citizens of the Member States.
Mr Prodi, you are able to represent the aspiration to carry out what this House has been demanding for a long time.
I was captivated by your comments to this Parliament when you said that you were going to act, that you were not going to be afraid of making mistakes, that you would prefer to get things right but that, if by taking decisions, you make mistakes, you would run the risk of making those mistakes.
Congratulations.
These are good intentions which we hope to see shortly reflected in deeds.
In the Commission on Budgetary Control, the members of the Group of the European People' s Party are primarily concerned with the need to be honest.
The Committee of Independent Experts says that OLAF must be given the necessary resources to put an end to this aura of corruption which brought about the downfall of the former Commission.
But I believe that we must go further.
We must soon adopt a genuine personnel policy which will ensure that those who work in the Commission - on whose successes and failures we depend so much - may work with a personnel policy which values merit.
I asked Mr Kinnock whether those 500 or so vacant posts in the Commission were going to be filled.
If you lack resources, why do you not fill the posts which this Parliament has authorised?
We want to see action soon.
In a month' s time, the Council on Home Affairs will take place.
This could be the moment to introduce those measures which the Committee of Independent Experts proposes, and which on the whole are common sense measures which should have been carried out long ago.
This Parliament demanded some of them a long time ago.
Are you, Mr Prodi, ready to include those measures which will be dealt with in Helsinki?
We want to see facts because time is at a premium, Mr Prodi.
If tomorrow you receive the approval of this House - and I hope this is the case - you have a huge job to do on behalf of all the citizens of Europe.
Make haste, Mr Prodi.
Mr President, I want to concentrate briefly on three matters. Firstly, Mr Prodi, I would remark that Mr Fischler was very well prepared on the matter of agriculture and provided convincing proof of his specialist knowledge.
In the hearing before the Committee on Agriculture, probably one of the most important questions was that of Parliament' s participation in decision-making in the matter of Community agricultural policy.
In this connection, my group expressly welcomes Mr Fischler' s statement that basic legislation affecting the way in which the general direction of agricultural policy is conceived should be decided as part of a joint decision-making process and that he would actively put forward this view at the future Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr Prodi, I am assuming that you support Mr Fischler on these matters.
Secondly, a lot of time at the hearing was devoted not only to the outstanding questions concerning enlargement of the Union but also to the question of introducing the European agricultural model to the international stage in the future WTO negotiations and, above all, safeguarding it.
Here too I can state, on behalf of my group, that it is clearly the settled will of the Commission to include such questions as, for example, socio-agricultural standards and European environmental provisions in the Millennium Round.
Our colleague, Mr Garot, has already referred to this matter.
Thirdly: if, in the next legislature, the Commissioner-designate for Agriculture succeeds in listening more to the draft amendments introduced by Parliament and to parliamentarians themselves (as long as, it is only fair to say, the latter do not exceed the budgetary limits and do not put existing legislation out of force), then a majority of my group is of the opinion that the Candidate' s experience, skills and commitment suggest that he will do some good work as a Member of the Commission.
Mr Prodi, I am going to vote for you, but I confess that I am not going to vote very willingly.
And if you bear in mind that a Spanish politician once said that the Spanish are characterised by their willingness, you can imagine the mood I am in.
Why am I going to vote unwillingly? Well, because I believe that what Europe needs are three things that in my language begin with "i" : ideas (ideas), ilusión (aspiration) and impulso (motivation).
I believe that the speech which you have made today has suffered from a lack of all three.
It has been a speech with no clear political objectives, no edge, and has been downright boring.
You have said that you want the Commission to be the Government of Europe.
So do I, but I believe that your speech has not been that of a President of a European Government but more like a speech of a Secretary-General of the United Nations.
I will give you an example of what I mean by specific commitments.
The next European Council will cover constitutional reform.
Mr Barnier made an excellent contribution before the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, and he made certain compromises, because this Parliament does not simply aspire to co-operating with the Commission.
What was it that you said today: "the Commission and Parliament will co-operate" ?
No, we already take co-operation for granted, it is in the tradition of the Community.
What we have wanted since 1997 is to prepare for the Intergovernmental Conference in conjunction with the European Commission.
The Commission must consider this matter - and this Parliament will do the same thing - and these two institutions of the European Union will together try to produce a preparatory document to facilitate the adoption of agreements.
You have not said a word about this although it has been the doctrine of this Parliament since 1997.
Therefore, Mr Prodi, allow me to give you a piece of advice.
We have to make more commitments, we have to be less prudent, because the Europeans want a strong Commission, which works hard and strives for the interests of Europe.
Mr Prodi, I believe that our citizens are going to demand this objective more and more every day, and not speeches void of commitments.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, I will not repeat what my colleagues in the PPE have already said and, as a member of the Belgian delegation, I will not introduce internal Belgian politics into this debate.
To my mind, there is a double challenge facing this Commission: winning the confidence of Parliament and also, and especially, that of our fellow citizens.
As a Member for a border region between Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, I can describe for you the everyday expectations of many Europeans but, in particular, their lack of comprehension concerning the many instances of bullying which affect relations between our Member States. Investments, employment protection, health protection and fiscal policy are just a few examples of the points at issue.
These problems are not those of a minority in Europe.
No, Europe' s shortcomings in these areas are particularly sensitive issues on the national borders.
They are everyday problems which, unfortunately, have only been acknowledged somewhat late in the day as problems for Europe as a whole.
Devoting ourselves to these problems, Mr President, means winning over our citizens, in their work and with their problems.
It is in their thinking and in their creative activity that we also have to win them over to the European idea.
This Parliament has given clear signs to the previous and future Commissions.
We therefore expect genuine co-operation, and right from the start.
We expect strengthened supervision, for EU funds are not anonymous in origin but are tax payments from all our citizens.
We are also awaiting, however, a precise definition of political responsibility from this Commission.
I shall express my confidence in you and your team because you alone at present bear the responsibility for this College and for its strengths and weaknesses.
The power is in your hands, Mr President, to ensure that Parliament' s signals are correctly interpreted.
One thing I know already. A highly critical Parliament will not be fobbed off for weeks with arguments about overall responsibility.
Our vote of confidence is no blank cheque but an offer of constructive co-operation from many Members of this Chamber.
Madam President, this is the first or maiden speech that I shall make in this Chamber and in the tradition of the House of Commons from which I came, I should normally spend a great deal of time talking about the beauty of my area.
But time does not permit it and I shall simply content myself by thanking those who sent me here for doing so and saying that I will try and serve their interests as best I can.
I shall not vote for the Prodi Commission.
Firstly, despite my fondness for my former parliamentary colleague, Neil Kinnock, my party and I made a commitment at the European elections that we would not support any Commission which had within it previous members.
Although I do not expect anybody else to support that, I hope those who disagree will understand that in a democratic society when you make a commitment to people who elect you, you try and comply with that commitment when you get elected.
Secondly, I shall not vote for this Commission because I do not believe that in real substance anything has changed in the last few weeks as a result of the hearings which we have had.
We have not had enough time to question Commissioners; we have not had enough time to follow up with an interrogatory process.
There has been not one individual vote in any committee on any Commissioner, not one Commissioner has been forced to withdraw as a result of the questions as to his suitability and not one Commissioner has accepted any sort of responsibility for the events of the past.
Because we cannot vote for individual commissioners tomorrow and because I cannot individually record my vote in this Chamber that my colleague Mr Patten would make a fine Commissioner for External Affairs, I am left with simply no choice but to vote against this whole Commission in order to send a message to Mr Prodi and his colleagues that if and when they are elected they will respond to this Parliament; they will accept that it can no longer be business as usual and that we have to change our ways if we are to give the people of Europe the confidence they must have in this Parliament and its institutions.
Madam President, Mr President-designate of the Commission, I am also among those who tomorrow will vote "no" if something decisive still does not happen.
And make no mistake, the discussion in the PPE Group this evening will still be very exciting.
These are the reasons why I shall be voting "no" if no far-reaching change is to take place.
Firstly, your Commission reveals a democratic deficit, Mr Prodi.
The result of the European election is not reflected at any point in your team.
I can appreciate why you' ve accepted a "green" Commissioner in view of the result achieved by the Greens in the European election.
People will not, however, understand why ten Socialists are to be represented when they ask what influence their votes have really had upon the composition of the European Commission.
And let us ask your predecessor, Mr Santer. Who, in this connection, has achieved any kind of success with the various national governments?
My second reason is the answers given by the Commissioners-designate at the hearings about the van Buitenen case.
The citizens of Europe will not understand it if a new strategy is not at last applied here and those who care about transparency do not also finally receive stronger support in the Commission.
The biggest problem for me and many others, however, is the proposed successor to Mrs Cresson.
I do not, of course, want to pronounce any legal judgement upon Mr Busquin.
I do not represent Belgian justice, and none of us want to put him in prison.
The question is that of how we can restore trust in the European institutions.
Do you really believe that we can win the citizens' trust when the only answer we are ever presented with is "I have not been accused personally" ?
Mr Busquin is involved in the Inusop affair and has not been accused for the sole reason that the case became statute-barred.
This is an astonishing parallel to the case of the EU' s Balkans Co-ordinator, Bodo Hombach.
And in the Dessault-Augusta affair it has since become very clear that he knew of an illicit fund.
I wonder who can guarantee us that we will not have illicit funds in the Commission in future, in the DG XII or elsewhere, if this subject is not tackled in a better way than has so far been the case.
So, Mr Prodi, you can still convince me by active intervention, but you must provide a very clear sign to Parliament and to the public.
Otherwise, I shall be voting "no" tomorrow like a lot of other people.
It won' t be a "no" vote for Europe but a vote for a clean, democratic and transparent Europe.
Mr President-designate, while I was listening to your address this morning, at one point you made me jump because you said 'the pensioners are here' .
I said to myself, "he has spotted me" , but you had your back turned to me.
Thank you, Mr President, for having unintentionally quoted me because I have come to the European Parliament as leader of the Pensioners' Party to represent for the first time the needs of the elderly.
So this statement by Mr Prodi, in which he went on to say that he will keep matters relating to pensioners in mind, has given me hope for what the next few years will bring.
I must say that I and the pensioners who sent me here to seat 270 of the European Parliament were pleased by the comment made by Mrs Anna Diamantopoulou.
When she replied to one of my questions during the hearings - and we should point out what did not go well but also what did - she said that she is fully aware of the issue concerning the elderly who expect a pension which the fifteen Member States are no longer able to pay because the pension funds are weak and are in deficit.
The elderly live for too long, and we and our supporters will do our best to make our lives as short as possible, but I am afraid this will not be enough.
So I hope that the European Parliament and the Commission will finally speak out for the elderly so that the fifteen Member States give them the respect they deserve and, above all, establish rules that ensure that the money people have to pay every month is safe, so that they will have a pension in the future.
Madam President, since we still have some money left, I would like to remind Mr Prodi of the earthquakes in Greece.
I noticed that he listened with some compassion and made some notes, perhaps to remind himself to include the issue in his rejoinder.
It is a good opportunity, now that we have time, to hear Mr Prodi' s thoughts on a matter which has scarred the whole population of a Member State of the European Union.
Following your address this morning, Mr Alavanos, I had a long talk with Mr Kinnock about the earthquake.
He is organising and co-ordinating the report on this subject, so I have not mentioned it now but I have taken steps in the meantime.
Mr Kinnock told me that on Thursday he will be ready to give us an organised response on this matter.
Ladies and gentlemen, if there are no more interventions, I declare our debate closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 p.m.
(Whilst waiting for the next debate, the sitting was suspended at 4.45 p.m. and resumed at 5 p.m.)
Budget for 2000
The next item is the presentation by the Council of the draft overall budget plan for the financial year 2000.
The acting President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Siimes, has the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today I have the great honour of presenting Parliament with the results of the meeting of the Budget Council of 16 July 1999 in Brussels.
Firstly, I would, however, like to congratulate you all on having been elected to Parliament, and I hope that you will succeed when you take on your new tasks in your careers and lives.
The unyielding Balkan crisis overshadowed the budgetary procedures relating to the fiscal year 2000.
The preliminary proposal of the Commission for the year 2000 budget had scarcely been completed when it became clear that efforts would be required from Europe to repair the damage caused by the conflict in that area and, in particular, in Kosovo.
In addition, other recent events, such as the earthquakes in Turkey and Greece and the recent development in East Timor require those having control of the budget to react swiftly.
Efforts such as these also place huge demands on finances.
The largest task of this budgetary procedure has been in the development of finances for the rebuilding operations in Kosovo. This became clear when the year 2000 budget was considered for the first time at the meeting with the parliamentary delegation on 16 July.
On the basis of the aforementioned meeting, this matter became the most important issue of the negotiations between the parties with budgetary control in the year 2000 budget procedure.
If the parties concerned are willing, it is however possible to find a solution which is satisfactory for both sides.
Both bodies having budgetary control presented their views on rebuilding Kosovo at the meeting held on 16 July.
The rebuilding of Kosovo, and the solution to the Kosovo question, is the central prerequisite for the success of the budgetary procedure of the fiscal year 2000.
The results of the first Conference of Donors held on 28 July are, however, encouraging from this point of view.
Moreover, the estimates of damage which have been specified point to the fact that a complete financial package needs to be devised.
Similarly for its part, the Union will respond to the financial needs arising from the earthquakes in Greece and Turkey and the needs in East Timor, as I mentioned earlier.
Next, I would like to introduce the results of the first hearing of the Council regarding the year 2000 budget, after the fruitful Conciliation Meeting arranged with the parliamentary delegation.
Our procedure is based on the new agreement between official bodies drawn up on 6 May 1999 concerning an improvement to the budgetary procedure and discipline with regard to the budget.
It is important to observe both the framework proposed in the new agreement between official bodies concerning expenditure, and also the detailed procedures contained within it to improve co-operation between official bodies.
We dealt with the matters affecting the financial year 2000 in accordance with the following principles.
Firstly, in the autumn, under the new agreement between official bodies, the letter of amendment is examined. This relates to expenditure connected with agriculture and with the agreement on fishing, so that it is possible to take account of new estimates on the need for grants without, however, excluding a reduction in the level of grants in terms of less agricultural expenditure.
Secondly, it has been decided to observe commitments as regards construction tasks.
Thirdly, a clear focus is defined for the budget allocations allotted to other policies, and it is the intention to retain some flexibility within the framework of the maximum figures of the categories of the Financial Perspective.
When we studied the preliminary draft budget in general terms and also the overall growth, we started from the assumption that in preparing the year 2000 budget, at least the same degree of discipline would be observed as in the preparation of national budgets.
Our procedure, as regards administrative expenditure, was based for its part on the following principles: firstly, the growth of all relevant expenditures is limited, excluding unavoidable exceptions; secondly, after the possibilities for restructuring of activities have been thoroughly studied, new measures are established in a limited way for known areas and, thirdly, concerning evaluation of those measures, the procedure will not be changed or corrected for reasons of political expediency except in particularly well-founded cases.
We also consider it appropriate to observe the approach used in approving the 1998 and 1999 budgets and to decide on the total allocations to be bestowed on small official bodies.
In accordance with the above-mentioned principles, agreement has been reached on a number of important decisions of the expenditure category, which I will briefly introduce now.
As far as agriculture is concerned, we followed the same discipline in our decision as we applied to other areas of the budget.
We introduced a fixed reduction of EUR 375 million for allocations relating to marketing.
We retained the allocations proposed for expenditure relating also to rural development and accession measures which were in the preliminary draft budget.
The section of the budget relating to agriculture would also be based, as far as possible, on current information and, in accordance with this, the Commission will update the information for the preliminary draft budget during the autumn by means of a letter of amendment.
We will continue to examine the expenditure associated with agriculture on the basis of that letter of amendment in order that we may be able to draw up a final decision on the matter.
We decided, with regard to construction programmes, to reduce advance payments of commitments with regard to the new construction programmes by 3.5%in the year 2000 instead of 4% as suggested in the preliminary draft budget, which means that the payments would be reduced by EUR 1,023 million.
This reduction is necessary in limiting the growth of payments to 2.8% as opposed to the Commission' s recommended 4.7%.
It does not require any change of regulations nor does it reduce the reserved funds for construction which will be received by the Member States during 2000-2001.
As regards construction work, we also take into account the request put forward by the European Parliament during the Agenda 2000 negotiations and we decided to create a new point in the budget for Community urban initiatives.
Commitments for this would be EUR 102 million and actual payments would be around EUR 28 million.
The commitments which we have allotted constitute one seventh of the sums agreed for the entire fiscal period.
In discussing the expenditure associated with internal policies, we stressed that it is important to stick to those principles which form part of the discipline of the budget for the new agreement between official bodies, and part of the improvement of the budget procedure.
We paid particular attention to the estimates of payments for possibilities of use and the size of approved programmes within the co-decision procedure.
Commitments have also been reduced by EUR 129 million and the allocations for expenditure by approximately EUR 216 million.
As regards the strategy promoting the accession of new Member States, we have reduced the payments by EUR 121 million.
We considered that smaller payments were required to promote the strategy for accession, and that it did not call for funding at the levels proposed by the Commission in its preliminary draft budget.
As far as administrative expenditure is concerned, we determined the total administrative allocation for all official bodies, including the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Ombudsman, to be EUR 4,664 million, which means an increase of 3.6%on the allocation for 1999.
In accordance with the view of the Council, the resources to be directed towards aid and rebuilding work in Kosovo are definitely to take priority in the draft budget.
In the view of the Council, they may be taken from the maximum grants of the new financial framework relating to expenditure connected with external actions by redeploying those funds.
For this reason, we decided to make a provision for rebuilding Kosovo, which contains a commitment of EUR 500 million and EUR 280 million of payments.
This provision was made by reducing the usual grants which the Commission had allotted to other points of the budget in its preliminary draft for other external actions.
The Council does not consider it necessary to change the upper limit of category 4 to restrict expenditure for the year 2000.
The creation of a provision of EUR 500 million, approved by the Council, is based on the preliminary estimates of the amount required, which the Commission presented.
In the course of time these figures may even prove to be overestimates.
On the other hand we must be prepared to allocate funds to improve the situation in Turkey following the earthquake, as well as for the needs of the humanitarian aid required for East Timor.
As for external actions, we decided in the Conciliation Meeting with the Parliamentary delegation on 16 July to increase commitments by EUR 7 million to EUR 40 million which the Council intended to include in the draft budget for the expenditure relating to Community foreign and defence policies.
We approved the budget structure for the expenditure in question and your proposal relating to the nomenclature.
I will now summarise the Council' s decisions on the effect on grants included in the draft budget.
First of all, the commitments total EUR 92.3 billion.
This is a reduction of EUR 4.5 billion or 4.7% in comparison with 1999.
Payments total 87.9 billion, which is an increase of EUR 2.3 billion or 2.8% in comparison to the budget for 1999.
As a second point, the total sum of payments corresponds to 1.09%of the Community' s gross domestic product.
Thirdly, the upper limits for external actions and internal policies leave latitude to the tune of EUR 222 million and EUR 22.5 million below the maximum sums of the Financial Perspective.
Finally, I would like to thank all those members of the delegation from the European Parliament who took part in the discussions of the Budget Council held on 16 July, and also all of those people who are no longer Members of Parliament.
In addition, I await with interest the continuation of co-operation with the present Parliament, and in particular with Terence Wynn, who I would like to congratulate on being selected as Chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
I also look forward with interest to a continuation of co-operation with both rapporteurs responsible for the fiscal year 2000, Jean-Louis Bourlanges and Kyösti Virrankoski.
Our common aim is to secure the successful outcome of the year 2000 budgetary procedure, a task which our official bodies have been capable of carrying out in previous years.
The successful co-operation of those having control of the budget is based on mutual trust.
For this reason I hope that both budgetary powers will stick to the these issues for which a consensus was reached in the unofficial trialogue held last week, and that supplementary budget 4/99 can be approved as it is without amendments or delays arising from any amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I take the floor to express my perplexity and to say that this Parliament is being presented with the budget of the outgoing Commission before we have elected the new one.
I believe that, within the context of turning the European Parliament into a genuine parliament, we are doing something that never ever happens in State institutions.
It is the incoming government - which won the elections - which presents the budget and it makes no sense that the Commission that has resigned now obliges us to debate a budget which, in any event, has been initially drawn up by it.
I say this in the context of European construction.
Mr Prodi, you have said that you want the Commission to be a genuine European government and Mr Poettering, Chairman of the main political group in this Parliament, has even spoken of this role for Parliament in relation to the Commission.
I wish to add - and I am sorry to cause any Member uneasiness - that the new Members like myself have felt most uneasy because we are dealing with amendments to a budget which we did not know and approving amendments to a budget which has still not been presented.
It is an absurd situation and I believe that - although I do not want to request any measures at the moment - legal measures will be required in the near future.
Sir, I think your question can be answered quite simply.
The budget procedure for the financial year 2000 does not in fact begin today.
Instead, we have already previously had a debate on the subject in this Parliament.
At that time, the Council had been dealing with the matter, and we are now about to discuss what the results of the Council's recommendations are.
Now, it is quite simple. We have a Commission which is still in office and of which Mr Liikanen is a member, responsible for the budget.
The new Commission only takes office when we as a Parliament tomorrow approve its appointment and after the Commissioners, at 12.00 p.m. on Thursday in Luxembourg, have taken their oath of office before the European Court of Justice.
From that time on, Mrs Schreyer is responsible.
Until then, Mr Liikanen is responsible, and that is why he now also takes the floor.
. Mr President, the sooner this transition period is over, the better for all of us: as soon as Parliament has confirmed the new Commission, competences can be transferred to the new Commissioners.
Firstly, I wish to state very briefly that the budget is a legal obligation of the Commission under the Treaty.
The Commission-in-office must handle the budget - it has no choice but to do so.
I have only very few comments regarding the draft budget adopted by the Council: it proposes a cut of EUR 430 million in commitments and EUR 1.7 billion in payments.
While these cuts are quite normal at this stage of the budget procedure, they are this year supplemented by a substantial redeployment of EUR 430 million in category 4 - external actions - to finance the Kosovo reconstruction of EUR 500 million.
Although redeployment appears necessary to finance this new priority, one must take account of the fact that too great a redeployment risks destabilizing the budgetary and political balance in external relations.
Redeployment should be the main source of financing of the Kosovo action but it may have to be supplemented by other means.
As far as agricultural expenditure is concerned, the new Commission will come back at the end of October with new forecasts in its now traditional letter of amendment which has been agreed by the institutions.
I take note of the Council' s overall concern to improve the situation of the outstanding commitments by following most of the Commission' s requests.
In category 2 - structural actions - where payments can be reduced due to the proposal to adapt the payment on account from 4 to 3.5%: this can be done without major difficulties.
Finally, however, I would like to draw your attention to an important inconsistency in the Council' s decision.
The Council proposes to increase the Commission' s administrative expenditure by only 0.9% while it foresees an increase of 3.5% for the other institutions.
The Council has achieved its reduction by assuming that the Commission would increase the number of vacant posts and thus realise important savings.
This aim goes against what the European Parliament has wanted for many years and what the Commission has undertaken to do, namely to reduce the number of vacant posts.
All in all, the key to success in this year' s budgetary procedure is the financing of the EUR 430 million needed for the reconstruction of Kosovo and of Turkey following the earthquake.
I am sure that the new Commission will look into this matter as one of the first priorities and come forward with a balanced proposal.
Mr President, can I just make a point to our colleague at the back who came in on a point of order, which was not actually a point of order but a criticism.
On this occasion the Commission is not presenting anything - it is the Council which is presenting its draft budget.
And on an occasion like this the Commission is not necessarily the enemy - in fact it is quite a friend.
The opposition is these people here!
Let us not lose sight of the fact that a budget has been presented to us today.
That is no condemnation of the President-in-Office, for whom I have great regard.
Also Mr President, as you said, this process has gone on for several months.
A lot of people have been involved and a lot of hard work has gone into it.
I want to name two people who have been very much involved.
One is Mr Samland, the previous Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, who left Parliament at the end of the last mandate.
He worked tirelessly right up to the end to make sure that we could get the cooperation between the Council and Parliament that we need to get the budget we all want in the year 2000.
The other person I want to thank is Mr Liikanen.
As Commissioner - or Commissioner-designate - this is probably the last time you will sit here on a budgets issue.
We have not clashed over the last few years but have had opportunities to try and solve a lot of problems.
You deserve the praise of this Parliament for the work you have done in the budgetary areas and especially in some of the areas where you have tried to change things within the Commission.
I should like to wish you well for the future.
Mr President, that has got the nice bits out of the way.
Let us now get down to the budget.
Let us not get this debate mixed up with tomorrow' s debate on the supplementary and amending budgets 1, 3 and 4 for 1999 because, when the President-in-Office says that this spirit of cooperation is based on mutual trust (that is what I wrote down) between the institutions, I only have to remind the Council of what it did with supplementary and amending budgets 1 and 3 and our reaction to it.
That had nothing to do with a spirit of cooperation and it certainly did not breed mutual trust.
I am reminded of a story I once told Mr Liikanen.
Mrs Dührkop, when she was the rapporteur, likened the harmonious relationships to a symphony being played on a grand piano.
It reminded me of a famous comedy duo in the UK - Morecombe and Wise - where Eric Morecombe was playing a grand piano and making an awful noise and André Previn said to him "You' re playing all the wrong notes" , to which he replied "I' m playing all the right notes, not necessarily in the right order" .
We have to get the right notes between the Council and the Parliament playing in the right order if we are to have this harmonious relationship.
Madam President-in-Office, you reminded us of those areas where we did get agreement in the trialogues, about the letters of amendment in the autumn, about the commitment appropriations in the Structural Funds and about what our clear priorities should be.
You also said that the budget should have the same discipline as national budgets.
We have always considered that this Parliament' s Committee on Budgets and Parliament itself are extremely prudent.
They do not go out of their way to make problems in the budget or to waste taxpayers' money.
Our problems are caused in the main in Member States, where 85% of EU money is actually administered and 85% of our problems occur.
If we had more cooperation with the Member States we would not have as many problems.
Also, there are many Member States' national budgets which are running deficits.
That is one thing we cannot do.
On the different categories, on Category 1 I would agree with the President-in-Office when she said that agricultural expenditure should be based on up-to-date facts.
That is why we agreed on an ad hoc procedure; that is why we agreed on the letter of amendment in the autumn.
But for the life of me I cannot see why you have actually made cuts in Category 1.
If we are waiting to find out what the latest situation is, why have we made reductions in Category 1 already? It just seems to be an exercise of taking money out of the system because that is the thing to do to please the Member States.
As for Category 2, we may have the commitment on commitment appropriations but we certainly do not have the same understanding when it comes to payments.
Taking EUR 1billion from payments, once again, is just a burden for the future.
The Member States have to pay some time.
It is no use trying to dodge the fact or hide it away.
It will not go away.
That money has to be paid for sometime. We would argue that now is the right time and that decision should not be delayed.
Looking at the reductions made in Category 3, there are many areas where we will disagree and agree to disagree.
In Category 4, the 10% across the board cut - I am now speaking for Parliament before it has decided this - I would assume is absolutely unacceptable.
Yes, Kosovo is a priority; yes, we do want to make sure that funds are available for East Timor and earthquake victims in Turkey.
But the way to do that is by a revision of the financial perspective.
That will be our position, I am sure.
Yes, we want a solution.
We do not want confrontation between our two bodies but at the end of the day we want to make sure that development, other sections of Category 4 and external expenditure are not disadvantaged.
If money cannot be spent then we will look at those areas where it may have to be reduced.
But a 10% across the board cut is not the way to do it.
On Category 5, the sad part is that we still see no solutions being proposed by the Council on how to solve the problem of pensions within the institutions.
I am sure my colleagues Mr Bourlanges and Mr Virrankoski will add to my comments.
We look forward to our first reading next month when the Council will get a pretty good idea of our opinion of its draft budget.
Mr President, before I start I want to welcome you, honourable Minister, to the European Parliament and to its plenary part-session.
At the same time I want to thank Commissioner Liikanen especially for his valuable co-operation.
Your work with Parliament has been transparent, decent and honest.
My own maiden task relates to the administrative course of the year 2000 budget, which affects more institutions than the Commission and the Council.
The combined budget for these institutions is EUR 1,288 million. This is a 3.66% increase on last year' s budget.
The addition is remarkably large though it is within the framework of the currently valid agreement between official bodies.
The budget of the European Parliament does exceed the share agreed by Parliament itself in accordance with the gentleman' s agreement, which is 20% of category 5, because it currently stands at 20.3%.
This naturally means that some pressure for cuts is directed at Parliament' s budget in the hearing.
Recently, the European Parliament has observed great discipline in budgetary policy.
In the staffing policy of the official bodies, great moderation has been observed, which meant that staff increases were less than in the previous five-year period.
Between 1995 and 1999, Parliament' s staff increased by eleven people, and likewise, the staff of the Court of Justice increased by eleven people.
The Court of Auditors received a considerable increase in resources in 1997, and it grew to have a total staff of 49 officials.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs as well as the Committee on Regional Policy increased their staff by ten people.
This has been achieved by employing a deliberate staff policy and by redeployment of tasks.
We therefore have a good inheritance which we should cherish.
Now a change is threatening this development, in which the EU is attempting to save taxpayers' money.
Different institutions are aiming to gain substantial increases in the number of posts.
In connection with this, it must be stressed that the European Parliament is an important example.
If the European Parliament attempts to increase its own staff considerably, this is a clear signal to other institutions.
The same can be said concerning the promotion of grades.
For this reason, the European Parliament has to create alignment in this budget hearing concerning the budgets for the next few years.
Now it must be decided what kind of disciplined staffing policy the European Parliament wishes to follow, because it has quite a lot of authority in this matter.
I want to stress that in leading the way for the other EU institutions, the European Parliament cannot evade its responsibility in this matter.
My predecessor in this post, Edith Müller, drew attention to activity-based budgeting.
Put concisely, Parliament directs money to official bodies for administration as a lump sum, and each official body can itself decide on the basis of its own unique organisation about the salary grades to be imposed and increases in those grades.
I support this idea fully.
The fact of the matter is that activity-based budgeting is the only sensible way of developing administration of staffing in the different institutions.
It is not particularly sensible that the Committee on Budgetary Control and the President of the Council discuss the establishment of one C-grade when there are 1,776 C-grades in Parliament.
It is much better to discuss allocations and grant them without analysing them in minute detail.
This point of view also accords with the report from the Group of Independent Experts. It emphasises the need for personal responsibility as well as economic responsibility at lower levels of the official machinery.
The only means of stressing this responsibility for improving the administration as well as for improving the supervision of the financial management is to delegate this power and responsibility to lower levels.
At the same time, we must improve one urgent problem in particular, namely the slow payment transactions of the EU.
It is incongruous and objectionable that the EU needs longer payment times than Member States or enterprises whose budgets can be many times the size of the EU budget when compared.
The development of staffing policy must be regarded as an important part of EU policy.
Activity based budgeting, the division of allocations and responsibility amongst lower levels of the administrative machinery, an efficient monitoring of monetary transactions as well as emphasising personal responsibility still require a lot of work.
These issues must be clearly borne in mind when staffing legislation is reformed in the next few years.
Therefore, and for this reason, it is possible to strongly agree with the Council' s demand that the Commission must set about preparing new regulations on staffing.
With these thoughts in mind, I would like to consign the Council' s budget proposal to a reading in the European Parliament.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for the speeches given here.
I would like to focus on commenting closely on one issue, but an issue which is important, called category 4 or, put more precisely, Kosovo.
In the first place, and as I said in my own speech, my view is that the question of providing the necessary finances for Kosovo will surely come to be one of the most central and dominant elements of the autumn budgetary process.
The Council view has been that we make the creation of a reservation for Kosovo a priority.
It is true that part of the funds allocated to category 4 have been cut, but the Council cuts expressly mean a reduction with regard to the Commission' s proposal when compared with 1999.
In accordance with this view, most of the allocations belonging to category 4 have grown in comparison to the budget of the past year, and on the other hand, there are also points under category 4 to which no cuts at all have been applied.
Within the framework of these regulations, Kosovo has been regarded as an absolute priority.
As regards the references made by both Mr Wynn and Mr Bourlanges concerning the agreement between official bodies and other financial means other than those newly allocated, I can state the view of the Council to be that it is possible to limit the reservation for Kosovo by means of a completely new allocation or by a transfer of allocations, but the Council is honouring the agreement between official bodies and all of its points.
I have stated on many earlier occasions that we have to expect consistent estimates of the requirements concerning the rebuilding of Kosovo.
Up to now the results of the estimates of what is required have been encouraging to the extent that the estimates of what is required for aid have fallen rather than increased as matters have progressed.
In the agreement between official bodies, it is stated that before the financial framework is exceeded, other ways of attending to finances will be clarified, and this the Council has done in accordance with its own views.
On the basis of current information, we assume this to be sufficient, but we are, of course, ready to debate this issue in the light of better information because, as we all know, acceptance of the budget requires that both official bodies with budgetary control come to a consensus on the issues.
As I stated at the outset, if we go down the path of effective co-operation and trust as well as a desire to seek mutual solutions, we will surely be able to reach the end of this process, or the year 2000 budget, together.
Mr President, I just wanted to ask the Minister if it has been thought to include the International Monetary Fund in these discussions about financial resources for East Timor, Turkey and Kosovo so that we do not have to bear the burden alone.
Mr President, this point of view on the inclusion of the International Monetary Fund is the kind of matter which the Council itself must study for its part.
In general, when assistance is the matter under consideration, it would be a good idea for all of the parties concerned who are, in one way or another, dependent on currents of money flowing in some direction, to assemble around the same table.
Thank you, Minister.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 5.53 p.m.)
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, I have the sad duty of informing you of the death of the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister, Yannos Kranidiotis, in an accident, and also that of five other people who were accompanying him, including his 23-year-old son.
The Minister was on an official mission.
He was travelling with 12 other people to Bucharest when his plane lost altitude and dropped from 25,000 feet to 3,000 feet without crashing, finally coming to land at the airport in Bucharest.
Some of you will certainly recall that Yannos Kranidiotis was a Member of the European Parliament between January 1995 and February 1997, when he was appointed as a Minister in the Greek Government, and you will remember that he was, within our Parliament, a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Budgets, as well as being the Vice-President of the joint European Union/Cyprus delegation.
Many of us have memories of our late colleague.
I shall say that he was greatly appreciated for his qualities as a human being and for his competence in the field of European politics.
I propose that we observe a minute' s silence in his memory.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Approval of the Minutes
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, first of all, I must express my appreciation, on behalf of my group, for the tribute which has been paid to the memory of Mr Kranidiotis.
But I had requested the floor in accordance with Rule 122 of the Rules of Procedure to make an intervention for personal reasons, concerning the accusations made against me yesterday by Mr Galeote during the debate on the investiture of President Prodi.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, this is the appropriate moment in the proceedings.
As I cannot see Mr Galeote in the Chamber, I leave it to your discretion as to whether I speak now or when he is present.
I think, Mr Barón Crespo, that the Rules of Procedure envisage that you should make your statement now as a personal statement, even if Mr Galeote Quecedo is not present.
He will be able to read of it in the Minutes.
Madam President, Mr Galeote made an intervention which was inappropriate on the grounds that we were not carrying out a motion of censure against myself but rather a debate on the investiture of Mr Prodi, and he criticised my comments about Mrs de Palacio.
As I have here the text of my intervention, I confirm what I said yesterday.
I said that we have decided to support the investiture of the new Commission despite the reservations which we have in relation to Mrs de Palacio, whose innocence we accept, but whose idea of political responsibility in a matter which concerns the Community budget we do not share.
Let us hope that, as Vice-President, she offers more trustworthy information than she gave on her exoneration by the Congress of Deputies, since the debate in the plenum of that Congress will not take place until next Thursday.
This is what I said yesterday and I stand by it.
And, as he accused me of dishonesty, all I want to say at the moment is that, in accordance with the principles and indications of President Prodi in relation to the responsibility of Commissioners, I believe that, if today this Parliament approves the political resolution, with the consensus of all the groups, on the new Commission, Mr Galeote will find himself part of an Assembly of dishonest people.
We shall now return to the Minutes, if you don' t mind.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, this is just to say that in the vote on the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure I am listed as having voted against whereas in fact I voted in favour.
The fact is, I was late and I voted in the place of Mr Pasqua.
I guess that explains why the machine resisted my intentions.
But I did point it out immediately afterwards.
Mr Bourlanges, this correction has already been included in the Minutes: "Mr Bourlanges indicated that he had intended to vote in favour."
But you have just managed to advertise your intentions a little more.
Madam President, I have also had a problem with the machine. In yesterday' s Minutes, on the question of the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, it appears that I did not vote.
I was obviously here and I do not know whether the machine worked.
I would like this to be recorded in the Minutes.
Very well, Mrs Palacio, we take note of this.
Madam President, after the few small criticisms which I have had to make, may I use this opportunity to express my gratitude and praise the support services.
In today 's Minutes, the remarks I made are correctly reported, in fact almost more correctly than I spoke them myself.
We appreciate your compliments, Mr Posselt.
Madam President, the Minutes give Mrs Stenzel as the member of the ACP delegation from the delegation of Austrian Members.
However, Mrs Stenzel has nominated me, and I would like to request that this is corrected.
Thank you, Mr Rack.
I see that Mrs Stenzel agrees.
We will amend this.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, may I remind all those present, and yourself, that in this week 55 years ago a forgotten concentration camp, located in our immediate vicinity here, was liberated.
The Natzwiller-Struthof Camp was one of the most gruesome of the Nazi camps, where thousands of people met their death due to medical experiments.
It also contained one of the few gas chambers not located in the large extermination camps of Eastern Europe.
I would therefore like to ask whether it would be possible for Parliament to have a plaque made.
Secondly, I would like to suggest that we send a delegation there on the occasion of the next anniversary of its liberation.
Mr Sichrovsky, I think you might make this proposal in writing, according to the Rules of Procedure, and we would then see what the best follow up might be.
Preparatory work for the European Council meeting in Tampere
The next item is the statements of the President of the Council - I would like to congratulate the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Halonen - and the Commission on the preliminary work for the meeting of the European Council on 15 and 16 October in Tampere.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Heads of State and Government took the initiative almost a year ago to call an Extraordinary European Council meeting which would be principally dedicated to the area of freedom, security and justice.
This is therefore an act of great importance which will guide the activities of the Union during the coming years.
In this context, it is important that the European Parliament, whose activity during this last year has been considerable, ensures that its voice is heard after the resolution adopted in its April plenary part-session which established the political framework which is now required.
The resolution on what we are debating today, furthermore, will have the advantage that it will be adopted on time so that it will be known in the informal meeting in Turku which begins tomorrow.
And the fact that you are talking at the same time about the area of freedom, security and justice and the Charter of Fundamental Rights illustrates the unavoidable political relationship between the two objectives.
The area of freedom, security and justice must be backed up by a solid guarantee of the respect for rights corresponding to the realities of contemporary society, which is in line with the open and innovative approach which this Parliament wishes to see.
The Commission, for its part, totally shares this approach, and will firmly commit itself to the process of drawing up the Charter and, of course, Mrs Halonen, we will communicate to the next Commission your invitation to the Commission to make specific proposals in this regard.
The European Parliament has given some indications as to the most radical institutional reforms which will have to be taken account of during the preparations for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
In this respect, neither must we forget, although there is much that must be changed, the possibilities which the new framework of the Treaty of Amsterdam offers, particularly in relation to democratic control and transparency.
The Commission fully shares your opinion on the contents you wish to see for the area of freedom, security and justice.
Some common ground has come into view; for example, with regard to the importance attached to access to justice, the development of a coherent strategy in the field of immigration and asylum, the protection of the weaker groups and those suffering from discrimination, or the strengthening of the mechanisms used in the fight against organised crime.
These are very sensitive points and they will all firstly require a broad political consensus and a great political will in order to find common solutions.
As I said before, the establishment of an area of freedom, security and justice is a basic objective in bringing the Union closer to the citizens, and this matter forms part of the daily concerns of the citizens of the Union.
It is therefore essential if European construction is to have even more legitimacy.
For this reason, failure is not an option.
Therefore the Commission, like Parliament, hopes and trusts that the Tampere meeting will provide an initial impetus.
The issues are very complicated, very sensitive and, as Mrs Halonen said, very different political cultures will be dealing with the same phenomenon, but it is good that this process has been started.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, you rightly pointed out that this summit in Tampere is an Extraordinary Summit on the subject of making preparations for an area of freedom, security and justice.
In conclusion you also pointed out that prior to this - tomorrow and the day after - an Extraordinary Council Summit would take place, a meeting of Ministers for Justice and Ministers for Home Affairs in Turku.
That is why it is so important for us to discuss this subject today here in Parliament, too.
Against the background of this preparation meeting tomorrow and the day after in Turku and against the background of having to deal in Europe, unfortunately, with a rise in organised crime, drugs-related crime, the criminal trade in human beings and the like, it was incomprehensible to me that we should have to discuss in this Chamber whether we could even have this debate here in the European Parliament.
I am pleased, however, that we in the European People' s Party, together with the friends of security, have successfully been able to implement the initiative in this Chamber against the Social Democrat Group who did not want this discussion to take place here.
It is a matter of the possibility and the necessity of giving a clear sign here that we take the sphere of security and justice seriously, that the point is to prepare material for the Tampere Summit in the interests of the security and freedom of the citizens of Europe.
This is essential.
The Council keeps appearing here and putting forward great proposals.
I see that as very positive.
What is lacking is the translation of these into concrete action.
What became, for example, of the asylum paper which was discussed about a year ago? What became of the strategic paper on asylum and migration submitted by the Austrian Presidency?
We are still waiting for the implementation of EURODAC. We are waiting for the harmonisation of data which would make it possible to check which anti-drugs campaigns are successful and which are not.
Announcements must be followed by action.
This is what we are waiting for, concrete action in three areas.
Firstly, we are waiting for comprehensive strategies on the management of migration which, on the one hand, do not make excessive demands on the capacity of Member States and their citizens to integrate but, on the other hand, also help to avoid social conflict.
We are waiting for lasting instruments for joint solutions to deal with the influx of refugees, unified standards in the field of asylum procedures.
For us, burden sharing in the reception of refugees is indispensable, as indispensable as the preparation of on-site aid.
We need permanent solutions here.
What we also need - I am pleased to see that you mentioned them - are instruments to fight against illegal immigration, the criminal trade in human beings and the abuse of asylum.
We are therefore waiting for EURODAC to be quickly set up and the Schengen security system to become effective at all frontiers in Europe.
We are also awaiting effective measures in the fight against organised crime.
EUROPOL must be fully developed; it must be given operative authority.
Cross-border collaboration between police forces must be extended to provide co-operation in training and co-operation with applicant countries.
Naturally, we expect judicial co-operation to guarantee legal protection for citizens while, on the other hand, enabling speedy and effective criminal prosecution across borders, and that means accelerated procedures, the direct exchange of documents, harmonisation of criminal law systems and also assistance for the victims of crime.
The challenge has been issued to the Council.
We expect deeds, not fine words and summit photos.
Madam President, despite the splendid presentation by the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Halonen, I have to draw attention to the secretive way preparations have been made for the meeting at Tampere, which last week led to a grotesque incident after the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende published a story saying that a curb would be put on immigration from third countries, even with recourse to scare campaigns and threats.
A certain Finnish television reporter, who had used a quite harmless memo on the Tampere meeting he had got from a Member of Parliament, received a communication from the Secretary-General and the Speaker at the Finnish Parliament banning him indefinitely from entering the Parliament building.
Suppressing the free flow of information and bypassing society in this way, whilst preparing for a summit on an area of freedom, security and justice, gives cause to suspect that that area is not free or open to the extent that our traditions would require.
It gives cause to suspect that narrow, strict security, which is ultimately based on repression, will ignore those very freedoms and fundamental rights of citizens whose enhancement ought now to be on the agenda.
The Finnish writer, Samuli Paronen, said, "The more efficient the security systems, the more insecure the people" .
Ignorance is not a virtue; sometimes it may be a questionable blessing. Ignorance due to secrecy has no place in a mature political system, such as the one we should be building for a Europe of the citizen, of the individual.
In this way, we can also achieve a positive, humane and open policy on immigration and an asylum procedure which genuinely complies with the Geneva Convention and avoids discrimination of any kind.
Madam President, democracy demands that we take decisions through a system of majority ruling.
Democracy also demands that people have fundamental rights, which may not be violated by means of majority ruling.
Such violations must be prevented in a constitutionally governed state.
Privacy is a human right that cannot be abolished with an EU directive, a convention or national legislation.
There is legal provision for the protection of privacy in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Representing the Council, Mrs Halonen said that it was necessary to identify certain new types of crime that had come into existence.
But then it is necessary to recognise the existence also of crimes relating to the violation of people' s privacy, which intelligence agencies in the USA and the EU countries are guilty of 24 hours a day.
I speak of electronic surveillance.
In the European judicial area, prevention of this type of crime seems still not to be the object of political and parliamentary preparatory action or control, and merely takes the form of police co-operation.
There are types of crime that remain outside the democratic system, which the preparation of the Enfopol 19 document is connected with.
There are undemocratic issues that are connected with the so-called Ilets police co-operation.
Undemocratic too is the Echelon programme for collaboration on espionage and the bilateral agreements between the security services in the USA and the EU countries.
It is also a crime that American computer manufacturers and software companies install special ID codes in their products.
It is a crime against people' s privacy, in addition to which it jeopardises the security of European states.
We have to fight against such things and crimes of this type with transparency and by drawing public attention to them.
I hope that Finland will move from words to deeds in this issue.
At present, there is no visible prospect of an increase in transparency and public awareness during the Finnish presidential term: they only speak about it.
Madam President, the members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group intend to vote against this motion for a resolution.
The main reason for this is that the resolution aims at introducing a legal situation which goes beyond the EU treaties in force.
The resolution includes a number of proposals which are directly inconsistent with each other.
It will not be possible to stop organised crime, the trade in human beings, money laundering and terrorism just through co-operation between police forces if, at the same time, the doors to the free movement of people between EU countries are opened, both for EU citizens and everyone else, and certainly not if controls on the EU' s external borders are weakened, as will inevitably happen when the EU is enlarged.
As a prior condition of creating peace and security in Europe, the EU' s Member States must work more actively to create this peace, security, economic growth and democracy in the EU' s poor neighbouring countries.
The solution is not to use resources in a non-prioritised way to move poor countries' populations to Europe, but to employ resources for the purpose of exporting European development to poor countries.
Immigration to Europe helps only a minority and often a quite random minority, while the majority of people in the immigrants' home countries continues to suffer under existing conditions.
The motion for a resolution is devoid of any reference to these central solutions, and it is aimed solely at promoting federalist development in the European Union, a form of development which a majority of the population in my country, Denmark, dissociated itself from in the 1993 referendum on the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Madam President, the area of freedom, security and justice we have spoken of is a utopia that we will never achieve on this earth.
The institutions have high expectations in terms of what the further development of the European Union will bring its citizens.
I think there is a need for a certain amount of modesty when it comes to the things we can achieve, and that we should exercise a certain amount of caution when it comes to extending European competencies in the field of justice and home affairs still further.
There is certainly a need for this.
A European policy on asylum is long overdue, for example.
Opening up the borders has created a need for co-ordination.
A number of countries, of which the Netherlands is one, have had to deal with a disproportionately large influx of asylum seekers in recent years.
The reality of the situation is compelling us to bring about substantive harmonisation of legislation in order to prevent a "race to the bottom" .
The main thing is that genuine asylum seekers should not suffer as a result of the tightening-up of EU legislation.
The minimum standards must not be allowed to become quite that minimal.
However, we do not consider it to be a good idea to draw up a European Charter, a new catalogue of civil rights.
The constitutions of the Member States, the ECHR and other treaties already offer adequate protection to citizens, so there is no need for there to be an accumulation of all different kinds of constitutional systems of government, as the Dutch Minister for Home Affairs said last week.
In short, there are many items on the Tampere agenda offering us the opportunity to get down to some real work.
However, the European Parliament runs the risk of putting itself beyond the discussion by straining to achieve its own utopia in which the citizens are enabled, by virtue of the advantages of European citizenship thrust upon them, to at last see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Madam President, like the previous speakers, I believe that, firstly, the creation of a European judicial area and, secondly, the introduction of general regulations for the control of immigration, will not contribute in any way towards solving the problems of cross-border crime or immigration.
This is just another decoy being waved in front of public opinion in Europe in order to deceive people into thinking that Europe is capable of solving their problems.
I would like to speak, anticipating a little bit, about the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference; this conference is actually already on course without us however knowing the exact conditions.
The European elections demonstrated the very deep disaffection of the various peoples of Europe with regard to the European Union.
The questions which public opinion has been wondering about may be summed up as follows: where exactly does Europe offer added value and improve these decision-making systems of ours? Has Europe brought us greater economic growth, an improved standard of living in daily life or the expectation of participating in a great adventure?
The response given in many countries, starting with the Netherlands - which in fact surprised me a little, because it was in the Netherlands that the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Amsterdam were signed - has been negative. More and more people are starting to have doubts about the value of the fast track to integration and indeed about the value of the Treaties which Mr Barnier, who has moved all the way from Gaullism to centrism finding no middle ground, would like to see enshrined in the constitution.
But, Mr Bourlanges, thirty years ago you were a Gaullist and now you are the opposite of a Gaullist, since you are a centrist.
In other words, the subject of the forthcoming IGC should be not to reinforce this institutional process but, on the contrary, to reduce it, that is to say, to limit the scope of activities of the Union, returning to a common market which respects the environment and public health.
Moreover, Mr Lamy, the Commissioner-delegate, described the building of Europe as a phenomenon without historical determinism, "a human and fragile endeavour."
He doubted that there was really a future...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, please allow me, first of all, as a Greek MEP, to express my sorrow at the death of a former colleague and friend, the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister, Yannos Kranidiotis and his entourage.
The Extraordinary European Council meeting in Tampere is undoubtedly particularly significant, since it aims to formulate more integrated policies on freedom, security and justice within the European Union as it is now, a European Union which is expanding and within a European Union which is developing ever closer ties with third countries - policies which, as we all understand, are perhaps more directly related to some of the issues which fall under the headings of justice, security and freedom in Europe, such as the issues of immigration and asylum.
The Tampere meeting is also being called upon to address the issues of freedom, security and justice for citizens in relation to the new conditions created by the new challenges involved in crossing the threshold from the 20th to the 21st century.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, in a few hours, you will have in front of you a resolution of the European Parliament on these issues.
I wish to ask you to pay particular attention to this resolution, since the proposals of the European Parliament do not aim just to resolve isolated problems.
On the contrary, they aim to create a new institutional framework which will not only guarantee freedom, security and justice within the European Union, but also put forward recommendations for specific policies on a range of sensitive issues, such as the key issues of immigration, asylum - since, judging by recent events, it is clear that unfortunately we need a new approach to the matter - and crime. I believe, as I am sure we all do, that the list is a long one.
Madam President, the drawing up of a Charter of Fundamental Rights for citizens is, of course, also relevant to those issues to be discussed at the Extraordinary European Council meeting in Tampere.
At this stage, we are, of course, debating the establishment of a body that will deal with this very important matter.
I would like to ask the Council to review its proposal and to ensure that the European Parliament' s participation in this body is genuinely representative of the European Parliament and reflects all the political forces and all the various political tendencies and beliefs which are currently to be found in Europe.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would have liked to say something in response to the speech by Mr de Gaulle.
Now, unfortunately, he has left the Chamber after his speech, which has actually done more to raise the tone of the debate than his presence did.
The Finnish President-in-Office of the Council has presented her ideas, and I would like to draw your attention, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, to one point which I consider essential in connection with the debate on the construction of the area of freedom, security and justice.
Practically all the ideas you have presented, and everything my fellow Members have mentioned here in the debate - as far as the collaboration of the European Parliament, national parliaments, the Council and the Commission is concerned - is within a legal arena, which involves a great danger, the danger of alienating the legislature of the citizens, male and female, of Europe.
What is this construction of the area of freedom, security and justice about? It is about security and fundamental rights, that is, on the one hand, the immediate rights of the individual and the protection of security and, on the other hand, the protection of these individual rights by state bodies or by state bodies as they should be established in Europe.
These are two factors, which can affect every individual citizen of Europe, male or female, directly.
There is thus a direct involvement in almost all subjects, whether it is asylum, immigration, migration, EUROPOL, whether it is the Charter of Fundamental Rights, or anything else, there is a direct involvement of each individual citizen, male or female, in this matter.
But how will legislation be implemented? All the fine words of the Council do not alter the fact that in 90% of all acts which are passed, only the Council is actively involved.
And how is it involved?
Well, 15 executives come to Brussels, perform the function of a legislature in Brussels, and finally travel back home to their capital cities and then implement the laws enacted by the Council alone, which is to say, the executives in this way, as the practise has been until now, increasingly exclude the national parliaments - as can be seen so clearly in the case of EUROPOL and the materialisation of the EUROPOL Convention - and do not transfer the legislative function to the European Parliament.
In this absence of referral to Parliament, the area of freedom, security and justice, which specifically represents the establishment of a structure of individual claims for protection and of possibilities of intervention in the individual sphere, cannot be established in a way that is really democratically justified.
The European Parliament must therefore appeal to the Council and the Commission.
Particularly in the areas which you have already - all too timidly, in my opinion - decided to make the European Parliament a legislative body with equal rights in the foreseeable future, if you wish to establish a democratic area of freedom, security and justice, in Tampere you must ensure that for the next Intergovernmental Conference we will be a legislative body with equal rights, otherwise you run the risk of alienating the European Union further from the citizens in general.
Welcome
Preparation of the European Council meeting in Tampere (continued)
Madam President, what needs to be done to make the Tampere Summit a success? European policy in the field of justice is in a state ranging from bad to useless, a point I want to make to my newly arrived Finnish colleagues too.
Two examples: massive numbers of people were driven out of Kosovo and, prior to that, out of Bosnia.
The European Union did not and still does not have any arrangements in place for the temporary protection and reception of these groups of people.
The relevant proposal was put forward by the European Commission two years ago, and was adopted by the European Parliament last year.
The national governments have refused up until now to enact the proposal.
The second example is European fraud; it takes so long to get improved co-operation in the field of justice off the ground.
The question of a European Public Ministry has been raised.
This House voted on that in April and was in favour of it.
The Committee of Wise Men is too, and now it is the Council' s move.
Madam President, the one thing the Tampere Summit needs above all else is the political will of the Member States.
We have no need for new plans of action, nor do we have any need for "soft law" .
We want the national governments to abolish the unanimity requirement in decision-making, for it is this that paralyses the process, and we want steps to be taken towards achieving this end in Tampere.
May I ask you another question Madam President-in-Office of the Council? Give us here in the European Parliament full control and the final say over legislation.
Madam President, on a final note: more plans of action, more fancy press releases, they are no use to us.
Decision-making by majority voting, full parliamentary control, it really would not be all that difficult to bring this about.
It is a matter of having the political will.
Madam President, the summit on internal policy in Tampere is a historic milestone in the development of the European Union.
Only a few years ago, the governments of Member States were not prepared to co-operate with the European Parliament on important matters such as collaboration between police forces, migration or common asylum policy.
The time has come for the European Union to lay foundations after Amsterdam.
The results of Tampere will determine how democratic and how just the Union will be, if it is really to be an area of freedom, security and justice for all citizens, male and female.
As yet I have not seen any documents from the Finnish Presidency.
Even in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, the Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs remain too vague.
We have not seen much sign of great Nordic transparency.
I must therefore refer to documents from Germany about Tampere.
I regret that once again we have to have a debate on internal politics in this Parliament without having the documents of the Council Presidency on the table.
In this connection, I would like to make it clear that my group is very concerned particularly if, in Tampere, the areas of collaboration between police forces, the fight against drugs, data protection and the democratic control of Europol and the Schengen information system are discussed, because we are again afraid, that it is exactly these important points, which have really great significance for European democracy, which will come off badly and that the citizens in general will find in the end that, as far as their rights are concerned, they are the real losers.
I am still hopeful, but previous experience has made me pessimistic.
I hope that the Finnish Presidency of the Council will take our reservations seriously.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we hope that the participants at the Tampere Summit will remember that migratory movements, however relentless, form the basis of the history of humanity and are, in the long-term, the premise for its collective salvation.
We also hope that, on this basis, in trying to create a common area of freedom, security and justice, they are inspired by the principles of solidarity and inclusion and are not thinking about creating a European Community that is peaceful and wealthy on the inside but which is impenetrable to those pushing to get in from the outside on account of hunger, war or social difficulties.
Internal peace and well-being cannot last long because the nearby countries cannot resign themselves to living with insecurity, need and chaos for long.
We would be terrible hypocrites to take up the fight against discrimination, racism, and xenophobia as a founding principle of the European Community and then, in our normal procedure, to implement exclusion policies which heighten the fears of European citizens of being contaminated by people who are different to us.
Just how they are different is a consideration we willingly leave to the racists.
We would also like the area of freedom, security and justice to aim to increase the guarantees for everyone - be they citizens of the Union or people from other countries - and that it does not stop at declaring formal guarantees but also aims to put substantial guarantees into practice, such as those concerning work, social security, personal freedom, equality between men and women and many others which nowadays are being sacrificed on the altar of competition - global competition - so close to the heart of the Commission and its President.
This neoliberalist strategy, a typical exclusion strategy, makes us sceptical even of the Tampere Summit, and we would be naïve to hope that our scepticism will be proved groundless.
Madam President, after employment, the most pressing issue that European citizens bring to the Community' s institutions is the security emergency which, because of its nature, cannot be solved by the Member States on an individual basis.
We must commit ourselves fully to this issue, with the aim of strengthening the faith that the European citizens have in Parliament.
However, I think that the idea of creating a Charter of Fundamental Citizens' Rights does not go far enough.
We already have a lot of written declarations which often are not implemented.
What we really need is the will to use all the practical means necessary to ensure genuine co-operation on legal and police matters.
I think that nowadays, the lack of a European strategy on immigration is unacceptable, with regard to dealing with both legal migration and illegal immigration
In conclusion, the concept of Europe as not only a single market and currency is very appealing, especially as an area of freedom, security and justice, but it is important for this challenge to become reality through progressively strengthening the Community institutions and developing the collaboration and co-operation between the Member States, rather than resorting to decisions taken by qualified majority, which in itself does not constitute the solution to the problems.
There is one paragraph in the motion for a resolution which I have a lot of sympathy for, and that is paragraph 7 b, in which the criticism is made that the texts to be decided upon within the context of the Schengen collaboration have still not been made public, in spite of the fact that they have been Union law since May of this year.
It may then be asked how and in what form the citizens of the Union can take their stand on provisions which are in practice inaccessible.
This is the only paragraph which can be supported.
Other than in this respect, however, both the report by the Council and the Commission and the proposal prepared by Mr Watson head off in a political direction.
Under cover of the concept of an area of security, peace and justice, what we have here is an enormous leap forward in the development of the Union.
It is a question of the EU' s making its presence felt to a much greater degree than there is a mandate for among the populations of Europe. The point is that this House suffers from the obsession that more power to Parliament means the same thing as more democracy.
If I may say so, that is a very restricted understanding of democracy.
The crux of the matter is that the proposal and the reports from the Council and the Commission, as well as the motion for a resolution under consideration, contemplate a massive transfer of powers to the European Union.
We are talking here about the judicial system, criminal law and police powers.
In part it is about constructing a Fortress Europe, necessitated partly by the EU' s own policy, but what we are concerned with in particular here is the fact that these parts of the legal culture represent our democracies' central nervous systems. These, if the proposers have their way, are to be subjected to a supranational system in which dislike for the EU' s Third Pillar is encouraged.
Co-operation between States is not working, so a supranational authority is needed.
What is being proposed here is the dismantling of a range of democratic mechanisms and, in their place, the construction of supranational systems which will create democratic problems with a vengeance.
Madam President, our Parliament, though it may not be aware of it, is not without a sense of humour.
In the Watson resolution, it says it is convinced that European citizens are tired of proclamations and fine declarations, and in the Napolitano resolution, it proposes nothing less than to carry out a purely stylistic exercise, grabbing the bone which the Council offered its pet dog, in the form of the writing of this great Charter of Fundamental Rights.
We already have a Charter, the European Convention on Human Rights, we have constitutions, but, otherwise, as a number of Members have pointed out moreover, we have no Communitisation of the Third Pillar, we have no democratic policy as regards foreign affairs.
Let us move in this direction then.
I think that this is just one more in a series of great exercises in mental masturbation, such as Parliament has been familiar with.
For two or three years, or perhaps a little less, this Parliament will debate this great Charter, thereby affirming its own European view of human rights, while we know full well that the Chinese have a quite different view.
All we are doing is promoting these mechanisms.
There will be a lot of talking and a lot of self-congratulation, as we have seen some Members doing already - and I am sorry that Mr Schulz dropped the debate in the end by leaving the sitting - but I would like to say that perhaps this Parliament should look into democracy in its own house.
Yesterday, we witnessed, and I thank the 90 Members who did not go along with this reasoning, we witnessed, once again, the denial of the rights of minorities in this Parliament.
We could carry on in this way, and crow over the minorities of the whole world.
But perhaps we would be better advised to start to realise that the construction of Europe rests upon foundations which are so undemocratic that there is nothing to choose between the many states in the world which we often criticise and this so-called democratic system we have today.
So, perhaps, we should go back to the basics, reject this bone the Council tossed to us, as its dog, and get down to asking for fundamental reforms, especially the reform we ought to require of ourselves, so that this Parliament may become a true Parliament and not the instrument of bureaucracies which it is increasingly becoming.
Madam President, in my opinion the proposed resolution contains all the assessments and proposals which it is appropriate for Parliament to approve in order to make a timely contribution that will enable the Tampere Council to start implementing the formal promises that the Treaty of Amsterdam makes to the European citizens.
The aim is simple: what the individual Member States would do less well on their own, we need to do together.
Nobody fools themselves anymore that the battle against organised crime, where fraud and the cruel trafficking of children, women and refugees do not respect borders, can be fought effectively by individual countries.
We have to do this together, but if we give greater powers to the Union with regard to the prevention and repression of crimes, then this must happen in a framework where every individual is sure that his or her rights will be respected.
There is no freedom without security, but there is no security without justice.
In the first instance, justice means respect for the principle of equality, for the principle of non-discrimination, for the equal dignity of each person and for diversity.
The Union' s policy must draw on this principle.
The proposed document draws on it.
We know how much resistance the Member States put up, including the countries which do not admit to it, in this field which is traditionally a national competence.
But resistance, failure to act and delays are harmful, and we cannot afford to put it off.
Enlargement of the Union to include the new applicant countries requires talks to start now on the progressive adoption of common measures and appropriate standards of guarantees.
I hope that the Finnish Presidency, whose statements I welcomed this morning, wishes to take the credit for having started the implementation of the promises enshrined in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Madam President, speaking for the first time here I want to insist that this summit be more than a committee on public safety.
It must have a balanced agenda.
The Treaty prescribes the creation of an area of freedom, justice and security, but the Tampere summit is in danger of turning only into a security summit.
Of course we want prime ministers to provide protection from threats like organised crime, drug running, terrorism and sex crimes, but let them also focus on the threat of discrimination and racism.
Let them also tackle the problems of banking secrecy and tax havens which provide cover for money laundering.
They should seek to provide European citizens with protection from injustice so that those arrested away from home can get legal representation, interpretation and bail.
Instead of trying to harmonise European legal systems, just start with getting cross-border justice for individuals caught up in expensive red tape.
And while countering illegal immigration and abuse of asylum laws is important, governments must respect their obligations under the Geneva Convention to grant asylum to genuine refugees and treat them with compassion and dignity, not demonise them.
The Treaty stresses liberty and respect for human rights as fundamental principles.
We should insist that the Charter of Fundamental Rights not only be drawn up with this Parliament as equal partner but also be legally binding and not just a pious declaration without teeth.
Some of the rights we need as citizens are against our own governments, such as checks on our police, customs and intelligence services.
Freedom of information ought to be a summit priority and so should ratification of the international criminal court and pursuing perpetrators of crimes against humanity.
The message we must send today is that Tampere must be a summit for citizens, not just the bureaucrats, and democratic accountability must increase.
Finally, if our national leaders want to set an example of justice and good governance let them disown their own foreign ministers who disgracefully want to put the Agency for Reconstruction of Kosovo in Thessaloniki.
This shabby fix is the opposite of what the European Union should stand for.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, we welcome the holding of a European Council dedicated in part to the area of freedom, security and justice, testimony to the recognition by the European institutions and States of the importance of these essential questions to the future of Europe.
These questions are important for all citizens living in this area, since they affect their individual and collective freedoms.
Tampere will also provide political orientation on such sensitive questions as immigration policies, which will necessitate a new look at North-South relations, and freedom of movement, which will necessitate real harmonisation of visa policies in Europe, such as the right to asylum and the right to health for all refugees.
Other important questions include integration policies, which also affect the cultural rights of minorities, the right to family life with dignity and political rights for all citizens residing in Europe.
All these rights must, of course, be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, a Charter which must address all these men and women who live in Europe and thereby enrich it.
It is, therefore, necessary to reinforce democratic control of the choices which we are going to make, as today there are still too many shady areas such as Europol.
That is why the European Parliament, the product of the will of the people, must be closely associated to meetings such as Tampere.
The choices of the European Council must be transparent, in accordance with human rights and the wishes of the European Parliament.
Madam President, the European Union is now quickly on the way to developing a common policy in the legal field by means of a series of different measures and programmes.
Large common registers of personal details are being established for refugees and for the purpose of combating crime. This raises important questions about legal security and personal integrity, not least for the most vulnerable refugees of all.
Experience so far is not so good.
Supervision of the Schengen Agreement' s register, SIS, has been poor and, where the SIRENE structure is concerned, it has been even worse.
In the SIS register, details of asylum seekers who have been refused entry have been mixed up with those of criminals and stolen goods.
The Joint Supervisory Authority has been severely critical in connection with the misuse of information in cases where refugees have not been informed of their rights and where the authority itself has not had proper access to the register.
The proposal concerning the EURODAC register is worrying, not least when it comes to demands to register groups in addition to asylum seekers and when it comes to the rules about when information is to be deleted.
It will be possible for very sensitive personal information, for example about political views, to be entered in Europol' s search register.
It will even be possible to register people who have not been convicted or directly suspected of crimes.
The proposal concerning the ENFOPOL Convention is worrying because certain Member States will be able to engage in wire-tapping in other countries without the latter' s permission.
In view of all these considerations, it is therefore a disappointment that Tarja Halonen and the country which holds the Presidency of the European Union had so little to say about questions of legal security and personal integrity which ought to be major issues.
Madam President, the European Council of Cologne had the unfortunate idea, without, as far as I know, any national Parliament ever requesting anything of the sort, of initiating the preparation of a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
This idea, in the form in which it has apparently been adopted, seems to us both unnecessary and dangerous.
Unnecessary, because, according to the conclusions of the Council, this should be no more than a purely formal exercise, combining in a single document the rights which are already in force.
These are then rights which already exist and which are found in a variety of documents: treaties, the European Social Charter, the European Convention on Human Rights and above all, of course, national constitutions.
What is more, these rights, as far as citizens are concerned, are already properly protected by the legal systems in force.
The proposed exercise therefore seems pointless.
It is none the less dangerous, as the Federalist lobbies will seize upon the Cologne decision in order to attempt to take the defence of citizens' rights away from national constitutions and to crown them with a superior text, a supposedly European constitution.
Mr Barnier even complacently stressed, during his hearing last week, that the process of preparing the Charter should be brought together with the process of constitutionalising the Treaties.
Clearly the Cologne Council has set in motion a chain of events of which it is going to lose control.
I believe that in fact it would be better to leave the rights of citizens to national constitutions and the protection of those rights to the national parliaments who have perfected them over the centuries.
As for the Union, it would do better to devote itself to the top priority of the moment: the need to draft a Charter of the Rights of Nations.
Madam President, the people that I represent have no confidence whatsoever in Commissioner Patten as far as law and order is concerned.
Mr Patten has just recommended what could be called a terrorist charter for Northern Ireland.
Our police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary, has had 302 of its members savagely murdered and 8 700 of its members brutally maimed.
Yet Mr Patten insists that the police must be responsible to a new ruling body on which the IRA will be represented.
If the Commission is going to adopt this sort of thinking in the field of crime and drugs etc., what will the future of this European Union be? It has within it the seeds of its own destruction.
Madam President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I appreciate that the task is very difficult.
As for you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, it is clear that we are talking about an area in which an obdurate attachment to sovereignty is in evidence which, in my opinion, should be totally banished.
It is with good reason that we identify nationality with the flag, the police and the judge. And that is what we are talking about: the policemen, the judges and what is behind the flag, at least the flags of the States of the European Union, which is the defence of human rights.
There is no doubt that you are experiencing difficulties because the functioning of the Presidency of the Council is complex.
There is no doubt that you are experiencing difficulties as well because taking decisions in the highest body, the European Council, means starting with general principles, and the will to act.
In other areas, such as building roads or establishing Trans-European Networks, these general principles make sense. However, ladies and gentlemen, at this summit we want something more specific, especially in the area of justice.
It cannot only be a summit on immigration nor, of course, only on security.
Of the three areas - freedom, security and justice - the one which is furthest behind and needs most promotion is the area of justice.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, there is a lack of specific proposals.
It is not a matter of providing access to justice or legal aid to victims. It is a matter of proposing a uniform procedure for small-scale actions.
Talk about this, do not talk about general principles or simply the fact that we all have to co-operate, because if we carry on like this, the Tampere Summit will not be a success.
Madam President, the decision of the Council of Cologne to proceed with the drawing-up of a Charter of Fundamental Rights will involve our Parliament in a long and complex process.
We will have to discuss the nature of the Charter, its contents, the relationship between the Charter of Rights and the process of creating a Constitution for the Union.
These issues will form the basis of a report by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs in co-operation with other committees, to be prepared over the coming months and which will be submitted to you during a plenary part-session.
At the moment, however, we must urgently take a position on the procedure to follow in order to draw up this Charter.
This is the limited but important aim of the resolution put forward by Mr Watson and myself.
Before the Council decides on the nature of the body responsible for drawing up the draft Charter, Parliament must state today that we cannot accept fewer representatives of the European Parliament than representatives of the Heads of State and Government. Parliament should also state that we are pressing for in-depth talks before deciding if the essential contribution of the national parliaments should be ensured through the participation of a certain number of their representatives at the appointed body or through other, more efficient channels.
And now a personal view on the fight against crime and the challenge posed by immigration.
The time I spent as Italian Minister for Home Affairs leads me to say that it is essential to speed up the move towards common rules and policies, which is just the opposite of the adoption of strictly national policies. As for immigration and asylum, the best basis is the document resulting from the Austrian Presidency in autumn 1998.
Welcome
Preparation of the European Council meeting in Tampere (continued)
Madam President, may I congratulate the Finnish presidency on this initiative in which I fully support him.
I hope that at the end of the temporary conference all Member States will ratify the setting up of the International Criminal Court so that the war criminals who are so prevalent today throughout the world can be prosecuted.
In July 1998, 83 countries agreed to the establishment of an international court at a conference sponsored by the United Nations in Rome.
Only four countries to date have ratified the Rome Statute: Trinidad and Tobago, Senegal, San Marino and Italy.
Above all, the International Criminal Court will encourage states to investigate and prosecute genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and will itself investigate and prosecute these crimes in certain circumstances.
By addressing the issue of impunity and providing a fair forum for prosecutions, the court will help ease international tensions and promote peace and security, domestically and internationally.
Madam President, Commissioner-designate Vitorino pointed out at the hearing that the purpose of preparing a Charter for human rights should not only be that of finding a common denominator between Member States. Rather, the Charter should be an independent declaration of rights.
When the Charter is drawn up, it is important to bear in mind that immigration policy within the European Union must take account of the Member States' various social systems and educational opportunities.
This applies especially if the Charter is to include citizens from non-EU countries who are resident within the European Union.
In that way, the particular level of social protection is related more clearly to immigration and asylum policy.
If too great a proportion of publicly financed social and economic entitlements were introduced, the walls shutting off the outside world would also be raised at the same time as the level of social provision in the European Union increases.
This would mean that a caring approach to EU citizens would be to the detriment of those who really need protection within the EU' s borders, namely refugees.
The Treaty of Amsterdam introduces the concept of a European judicial area.
If it is to be possible to use the term "judicial area" , then legal security must prevail there.
To be able to measure how far along this road the Member States have come, criteria must be established and efficient methods of measurement created.
It is a question of establishing convergence rules for legal security.
Once convergence is established, a table of results ought to be drawn up for the purpose of making the Member States' progress public.
This would make the differences between the Member States clear.
Group pressure is a strong social force which can contribute to voluntary harmonisation.
If evaluation of this kind is fully open, efforts by the EU institutions may be that much more effective by promoting voluntary forms of harmonisation along the same lines.
Once a process like this, aimed at establishing minimum rules, has begun, it should be possible to combine it with time limits and, in that way, provide the impetus towards creating a reliable area of justice which is a prerequisite if citizens are to be able to move freely, safely and securely and also a prerequisite for creating guarantees of security when the European Union is enlarged.
This demands more effective safety and security measures, balanced with clearer definitions of personal integrity and human rights.
Madam President, the President-in-Office has said that if you were to ask the people in Member States what they want you would get a clear message.
This Tampere motion is, I believe, part of that message.
It is one example of the people' s agenda.
If enacted at Tampere and enforced by Member State Governments it will show to some of our more Eurosceptic citizens that real progress is being made.
Many of them are not really concerned about the extension of qualified majority voting, important as that is, but they are anxious for progress on citizens' rights, progress on free movement, progress towards a real integrated Europe where people know and understand their rights and responsibilities.
You pointed out the importance of this agenda when we are moving towards a successful enlargement of the European Union, setting our own House in order.
Freedom, justice, security and transparency before we enlarge is, I am sure many would agree, absolutely crucial.
It is a Europe that builds on what we have in common and does not set up barriers to highlight our differences.
Earlier Mr Camre spoke against support for poorer countries.
I say to him and others that you cannot have real prosperity and real security for 350 million people in 15 countries if you deny hope and similar rights to your neighbours.
Walls, weapons and iron curtains are not the answer to asylum-seekers and refugees.
That is why the success of the Tampere Summit and this resolution are so important.
Some UK Members on this side of the House may have reservations about one or two points but we fully believe in the principles of this resolution, the points that are practical and enforceable.
I feel very optimistic that the Tampere Summit will not just be a positive step forward but will become a historically significant summit.
I wish the Finnish presidency every success.
Madam President, I wish to underline the point made by Mr Napolitano and Mr Voggenhuber that it is absolutely vital that this Parliament be fully and properly represented in the preparation of the Union charter of rights.
May I also say to Madam President-in-Office that subsidiarity must be as vitally respected at Tampere as in all aspects of the work of this Union.
I represent an electoral region which has had an independent legal system with a distinct tradition in justice and home affairs for over 500 years.
It is not a Member State itself, but we in Scotland now have again a parliament which legislates for our justice and home affairs.
It is vital that this and other such regions are fully and properly borne in mind when policies are developed dealing with these matters.
Finally, I agree very much indeed with what Madam President-in-Office said about making rights effectual.
It is no use having charters of rights and having rights enshrined in treaties if these are ignored in practice.
It has been drawn to my attention, in the short time I have been in this House, that there are foreign language lecturers in Italy who for eleven years have had rights declared by the European Court of Justice effectively denied by a Member State of this Union.
I hope that the Council and the Commission will take the strongest measures to ensure in this and other cases that we do not have rights and then see them rendered ineffectual by state action.
Madam President, I hope that, following the declaration which the President-in-Office of the Council has made, this Tampere Summit may lead to a firm commitment of political will on the part of the Union, and that we will adopt a whole series of clear and necessary positions which will allow us to move forwards.
I believe that this is what our citizens expect.
They do not want to hear any more declarations, but they want us to take specific steps in order to allow progress in this direction.
In attempting to do so, with regard to the area of freedom, I believe that there are two issues which warrant preferential treatment: the harmonisation of asylum procedures and illegal immigration.
To these two matters we should add temporary protection, which is an issue with great currency given the recent Kosovo crisis, and the internal solidarity between Member States of the European Union.
With regard to the area of security, I believe that it is reasonable to concentrate initially on those types of crime which are of a truly international nature.
I refer to terrorism, drugs, organised crime and the trade in human beings.
In my opinion, Madam President, the means which should be used are three in number: police co-operation - bearing in mind the progress that has been made through the Schengen Agreement - the prevention of crime and external relations, given that security in the Union cannot be isolated from security in the rest of Europe and throughout the world.
The European Union must pay very special attention to the South, as well as to the countries adjacent to Russia.
Lastly, with regard to the area of justice, our aim should be to do everything possible so that citizens have the sense of being, throughout Europe, within a framework of justice which is appropriate and within which their rights are protected in a similar way, not only with regard to criminals, but also with regard to the possible abuses of public power.
The European judicial network is, undoubtedly, the least developed of the three areas we are dealing with and, in this sense, I believe that the creation of a stable unit, charged with giving continuity to legal co-operation and acting as the judicial counterpart of Europol, would be appropriate.
I believe, finally, Madam President, that the objectives of the European Council meeting in Tampere are very ambitious, but I believe that by simply being ambitious in our efforts to turn this area of freedom, security and justice into reality, we will persuade the citizens of the European Union to see our work as an effective instrument with which to confront their problems.
Madam President, there is no doubt, I consider it desirable - quite the opposite of many of the previous speakers - that the European Union should now be starting to turn its attention to its own Charter of Fundamental Rights.
With a common general system of values it can create for itself the thing that people first look at when they meet, a face.
It is therefore more than disappointing that this new face for Europe should have no binding nature for, at the present stage of development, the Charter will not form part of the Treaties.
The modest will say, "well, at least we are creating a model" . However, we in the European Parliament should not be modest and we should maintain that a Charter opens up the opportunity of forming part of the Treaties, of becoming part of an all-European constitution and even possibly becoming the forerunner to it.
In any case, the question of who is to formulate the Charter is of outstanding significance.
We well know that institutions have their own intricacy and each their own political motivation.
There is then an obvious difference, whether an executive body or the administration work on the fundamental rights, or whether a Parliament does this.
Our Committee on Constitutional Affairs demands, therefore, that the European Parliament should not collaborate as a mere accessory in such an important process, but as a generator of ideas and decision-maker on the same level as the Council.
It is an important sign that this is precisely how so many national governments have come to see it recently.
At the same time, we are aware of the gap in credibility we have with the citizens of Europe which we still have to eliminate, for there would be the opportunity of also consulting, in a quite original form, non-governmental organisations and individual citizens in the process of development of the Charter.
From this, we could envisage organising public hearings together, even in non-conventional meetings with citizens from the various national states.
In this way, work on the face of fundamental rights could give new strength to the whole body of Europe.
Freedom and equality, human dignity and social justice cannot be achieved until they are perceived as an issue of the peoples.
I am therefore of the opinion that if we cannot have a Charter with the full participation of Parliament we should rather have none at all.
Madam President, here we stand in Strasbourg, in the unique tradition of Robert Schuman, whose European Coal and Steel Community was not only a step towards economic integration, which has now been crowned with the euro, but also a step towards political integration.
The Council now has the opportunity, at the Tampere Summit, to achieve something like a Coal and Steel Community of freedom, security and justice within this European Union.
My only fear is that this may not be the case, and my scepticism is based on a number of points.
Firstly, the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Madam President, I am of the view, that it is in fact necessary, for the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission to work together on this on an equal footing, in the manner in which such a Charter of Fundamental Rights should be created. The principal role here must be that of the European Parliament.
I find it unacceptable for us to have to act, so to speak, as mere decoration for the national parliaments.
In internal committee we were very critical of the composition of this planned body, and we were told by the Presidency of the Council that it was not possible to deviate from the mandate.
I find that scandalous!
The Council grants itself a mandate and then declares that it cannot deviate from this mandate!
I consider that to be absolutist in the extreme.
I am therefore of the opinion that we should use today to bring this procedure back to Parliament.
The citizens of Europe are represented by the European Parliament.
If national parliaments co-operate, so much the better.
But I would ask you, please, as the Council, to seek dialogue on this matter with the European Parliament on both the content and the procedure.
Secondly, Tampere will also discuss the question of burden-sharing for civil war refugees and applicants for political asylum.
I consider it scandalous that we have not yet decided to introduce set quotas.
The Kosovo crisis has shown that, unfortunately, burden-sharing on a voluntary basis does not work.
People have maintained that it was used in Kosovo and that it worked there.
We were only lucky that thanks to the Nato intervention and thanks to the return of the Kosovo Albanians prepared to rebuild their lives, the flow of refugees was soon brought to a halt again.
But we must see quite clearly that in the next crisis we would slip into a catastrophe if we approached that crisis with the same set of procedural instruments as in the Kosovo affair.
We therefore need set burden-sharing according to quotas.
European solidarity required clear, set rules which must be determined before the crisis arises and not in a mad rush once it is already underway.
I would therefore like to say quite clearly, please use this opportunity to make Tampere a real new departure which will bring Europe real political integration beginning with internal security and co-operation in justice, because these are the core elements of statehood and also of the Community.
Madam President we do not know if Tampere will be a success or not.
We feel though, after the speech that we have heard here this morning, that it may be because that item in the Treaty of Amsterdam which was, of necessity, destined to be almost a dead letter or just hot air, is now gaining a certain visibility, creating greater consensus and asserting itself naturally, thereby making the path towards a common area of freedom, security and justice seem much more credible.
Both in your speech today, Madam President of the Council, and two weeks ago, during the hearings of Commissioner Vitorino, we MEPs, used to the waffle of the Council and the Commission, found some philosophically rigorous elements concerning the fundamental assumptions about this real internal market of freedom and justice; that is, the market of values, no longer the market of goods and services - which have caused us to be quietly optimistic about Tampere and its consequences.
Why should this be?
Of course, because the basis for legal measures which we can implement is found within the framework of a Charter of Freedom and Fundamental rights.
This is also because the Community method is favoured over traditional intergovernmental co-operation which will bring about a new European institutional or legal system, which, in turn, will be more efficient, modern, and closer to the problems still festering today. These are still unsolved and caught up in the web of sovereignty and of obsession with laws and nationalism.
Finally, why not make the visibility of this new European area the benchmark of citizens' trust, not by reducing the problem to the age-old argument of "freedom versus security" , but instead by taking on the whole range of new challenges and concerns for which European citizens hope Europe will actually find solutions?
Madam President, Madam President of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that the increasing sophistication of international crime means that the efforts to combat it within the confines of individual countries are becoming insufficient.
Although much has been done relating to the economic aspects of the Union and the strengthening of its political dimension, there remains a great deal to be done in the area of genuine freedom of movement for our citizens.
Not only because the Treaty of Amsterdam enshrined the right to security, but also because the concept of European citizenship will not become real without a genuine area of freedom, security and justice.
What is required is the abolition of internal borders, care for citizens' security, harmonisation in terms of allowing into the European Union nationals of third countries, and allowing them freedom of movement once inside the Union, thereby creating an immigration and asylum policy which will be more coherent and unified. We also need to co-ordinate action on the prevention of crime and in the fight against it, particularly against organised crime (especially terrorism, trade in human beings, crimes against children, drug and weapons smuggling, corruption and fraud) and finally, we need laws and fundamental freedoms to be guaranteed at a European level.
This is why this Parliament, with the new responsibilities conferred on it by the Treaty of Amsterdam, must make its objective to move towards implementing this area of freedom, security and justice whilst respecting national differences and always attempting to bring Europe closer to its citizens, clear in the objectives it is trying to achieve and in the way they are conveyed to the general public.
In order to achieve all of this, for the sake of Europe, for the sake of our fellow citizens and for the sake of the strengthening of freedoms, of security and justice, we must work together in a spirit of efficiency and interinstitutional solidarity.
We in the European Parliament have the will to do this, we expect a great deal from the work of Commissioner Antonio Vitorino on the Commission, and from the Council. We expect to see signs of this and decisions on these matters by the time of the Tampere Council meeting.
Madam President, the Finnish Presidency of the Council has a very great responsibility.
Many are looking towards Tampere with great hopes and are expecting considerable steps towards a Europe for the citizens.
Here, I believe that the Charter of Citizens' Rights is a unique opportunity to say to people from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean that this Europe is not only a single market. It is not only a single currency.
Rather, this Europe is a community of values designed to defend and promote the achievements in terms of civilisation which we in Europe have fought for over recent centuries.
The Charter of Citizens' Rights can only be of interest if the method behind its preparation is open and transparent.
This should not therefore entail a traditional Intergovernmental Conference behind closed doors.
This Charter must be drawn up openly in dialogue with the citizens.
I believe that citizens' rights is an original theme for the European Parliament and national parliaments alike.
In this regard, I am of the opinion that the Tampere Summit should make considerable strides forward and allow the European Parliament a greater involvement than was agreed in Cologne.
It is certainly a question of European citizens' rights.
In this respect, we should really ensure parity between representatives of this European Parliament and representatives at a national level.
I believe that citizens will only take an interest in this Charter if it amounts to more than a solemn proclamation.
Citizens' rights must also be binding in law.
I hope that this debate points the way ahead as to how these rights can be incorporated in the next treaties.
Open debate and legal incorporation; then we will have the opportunity to get to know Europe' s citizens once again.
Madam President, we find ourselves, in this legislature, with a momentous challenge with regard to the construction of the European Union.
During the previous legislature, this Parliament said "yes" to Monetary Union, "yes" to social integration, making employment the centrepiece and the motor of European social policy, and now we must also say "yes" to a European area of freedom, security and justice.
The European Council of Tampere, which is the result of the initiative - it must be said - and the efforts of the President of the Spanish Government, José María Aznar, must confront this issue with the same political will that it displayed at the Extraordinary Summit in Luxembourg when it confronted the serious problem of unemployment.
The phenomenon of migration is a challenge which we must face with courage, realism and a deep sense of humanity and understanding.
Solidarity and integration must be the two fundamental cornerstones of our immigration policy.
As has been said here, any solutions which are legal, economic, social or based on controlling the flow of migration, should be adopted according to a common approach, in accordance with a common policy.
This is not a Spanish, German or Italian problem, but rather a European Union problem.
To this end, the very concept of immigration should be defined at the next European Council meeting in Tampere.
Immigration for political reasons is one thing and economic immigration is another, and the two things do not require the same solutions.
Furthermore, we should define the concept of asylum which is very often confused with illegal immigration and the problems relating to the status of foreigners.
We should also establish, as laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam itself, a balanced effort amongst all the Member States to confront the consequences of accepting refugees, displaced persons and the powerful migratory pressure which is of an exclusively economic nature, such as that which originates from non-EU countries in the Mediterranean or the Southern flank of the Union.
To this end, it is important that we analyse the political, geographical and economic circumstances of each crisis and each type of immigration.
It would be neither reasonable nor efficient to distribute responsibilities in a uniform way, especially with regard to the distribution of displaced people.
Finally, Madam President, social integration will be the shield, or protection, in the face of the racist or xenophobic attitudes which are currently appearing in some European countries
I shall end, Madam President, by appealing to the countries from which the migratory flow originates.
It is not enough for the European Union...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, as I am taking the floor just hours after the terrible accident, I must say just how distressed the Greek representatives are and how much they grieve the tragic loss of the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister, Yannos Kranidiotis, killed while performing his duty: he was a remarkable politician and European visionary who worked hard for peace and co-operation in the Balkans and for reconciliation between Greece and Turkey and who was once himself a Member of the European Parliament.
I personally succeeded him in February 1997 in the European Parliament when he assumed his services as Deputy Foreign Minister.
Madam President, please forgive me for intervening in this way and for being so overcome by emotion.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Halonen, I found your speech, which included specific recommendations, particularly satisfying, since it strengthens my conviction that Tampere may prove to be a key event, a landmark on the way towards European integration.
We hope that, like the European Parliament, the Council will send a clear signal to the citizens of Europe, reassuring them that the European Union is indeed interested in and seeks to promote their vital interests, such as heightened internal security, freedom of movement, free access to justice, the fight against international organised crime, cross-border controls and respect for fundamental freedoms and rights.
The Tampere Council meeting can and must take advantage of possibilities provided by the Treaty of Amsterdam. It must make substantial progress on vital issues such as, firstly, the harmonisation of immigration and asylum policy, with a view both to securing better protection for immigrants and granting them rights; secondly, the issue of equitable burden sharing amongst Member States in hosting displaced persons, particularly from crisis areas, a very recent example being the Balkans; and thirdly, the issue of reinforcing internal security for EU citizens not only by police measures.
Finally, I believe that the time has come to adopt the relevant proposals put forward by Greece, which include the introduction of speedy access to justice for citizens, using alternative means such as arbitration and pre-trial conciliation, and also by creating a harmonised system of public order and a way of resolving differences, based on the principles of freedom, democracy, respect for fundamental freedoms and rule of law.
Mrs Karamanou, we understand your distress at the announcement of the death of your Deputy Foreign Minister.
The President has had the opportunity to express Parliament' s sharing in your loss and that of your people.
Madam President, Mrs Halonen, security is one of the main causes of concern for the citizens of Europe.
The Tampere Summit will attempt to respond to this important challenge: the creation of a more secure Europe.
One of the most important questions at the meeting will be the EU common immigration policy.
The idea of a common policy on asylum and supranational burden sharing sounds fine, but it will be very difficult to put into practice.
Instead, voluntary burden sharing would serve very well as a basis for Union action.
If the desired results are not achieved with voluntary burden sharing, we might consider compensating Member States for costs incurred in respect of refugees flooding into the countries in question.
This is something that you also proposed, Mrs Halonen.
Otherwise, the use of measures for economic guidance should be approved as part of the policy on refugees practised by the Member States of the Union.
For example, in my country, Finland, which is a very long way from places recent crises have focussed on, there is very broad support for the idea of effective aid for destitute people as close as possible to their homes.
Recently, there have been suggestions that responsibility for co-operation in police and legal matters should be transferred from the Third Pillar to the Community.
This would, I imagine, make co-operation easier.
The proposal, however, will very clearly interfere with the essential authority of nation-states, the right to determine the maintenance of the judicial system, and monitor compliance with the law in their areas.
For that reason, we should consider at greater length the good and bad aspects of the proposal.
Co-operation under the Third Pillar must be made adequate as long as the EU lacks its own police forces, and co-operation is always therefore based on action by the police forces of the Member States, which a Europol system would attempt to aid.
Furthermore, as for the investigatory teams that were suggested, the situation is the same.
The question of transferring responsibility to a common authority will become of serious interest only if we want to establish supranational police squads for the Union.
The creation of a European judicial area and establishing a working party to discuss the idea has my full support.
The right of our citizens to fair treatment - access to justice - must be ensured and the public must be guaranteed adequate aid if they have to confront the legal authorities of a foreign Member State.
I warmly support the idea to set up a working party to discuss the issue.
The creation of a European judicial area has to be part of the new people' s Europe.
Madam President, García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote a book entitled "The General in his Labyrinth" .
It referred to the life of the liberator, Simón Bolívar.
Reading Annex IV of the European Council of Cologne gives the impression that, on the subject of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Council is also in the middle of something of a labyrinth.
I am sure that the institutions will be capable in the end of finding their way out of the labyrinth, more or less willingly.
The problem is not with the institutions which in the end will be able to find their way out of the labyrinth of the Council with regard to the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The problem is with the citizens, with the frustration which can be added to that which they already feel with regard to certain issues relating to European construction.
I therefore believe that it is essential that in Tampere decisions are taken to clarify the situation, that they be steps forward with regard to the already positive decision taken in Cologne on the character, the content, the relationship with the Intergovernmental Conference and the procedures for the drawing up and approval, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This Charter must be binding and actionable.
It must reinforce the rights of the citizens and, at the end of the day, of European citizenship.
It must encompass all those who live and work in the Union.
It must be connected therefore with the Intergovernmental Conference, so that the Treaty of Amsterdam may be revised.
This Charter must benefit from the active participation of the European Parliament, involving a sufficient number of its Members so that all the political tendencies of the Union may be represented. And above all, the Charter must be approved.
The term "proclamation" , which was used in Cologne, is clearly insufficient.
From here on - I repeat - we must ensure that the Council finds it way out of its labyrinth.
Madam President, I would like to thank the President for his remarks on the tragic event and death of the Greek Deputy Foreign Minister.
We wish, as the New Democracy Party and Greek Opposition Party, to express our profound and sincere condolences and our deep sorrow at the death of a former colleague and, I must say, a very good politician in his capacity as Foreign Minister.
The Tampere Council is extremely important, Madam President.
We largely agree with the President-in-Office of the Council. However, she failed to show any clear political will, for example, in the area of harmonisation.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, of course, immigration policy is an integral part of external policy, but on many occasions external policy gives way on grounds of expediency, grounds which ultimately go against the humanitarian aspect related to immigration and asylum policy.
Of course, Europe cannot close its doors, but neither should it open them so wide as to create ghettos or open them without having laid down the necessary preconditions beforehand.
These policies will have to tie in with development and co-operation policies which, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, have been largely unsuccessful in the delivery of the financial aid they promised.
The biggest problem, however, is that "dark side" - the amalgamation of organised crime, terrorism, drug trafficking, and other activities. We are reaching the point where we are simply observing from a distance the activities of these people, especially those involved in organised crime, and cannot confront them.
Justice and security are absolutely essential, Madam President, and harmonisation is absolutely essential, but to make all that happen, the necessary political will is essential.
I have received two motions for resolution, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Situation in East Timor
The next item is the Council statement on the situation in East Timor.
I must remind you that the debate on this statement will take place this afternoon after the debate on the report by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Fabra Vallés.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, since the process began the European Union has supported Portugal' s and Indonesia' s attempts to attain a lasting solution for East Timor, under the protection of the UN, one that was acceptable to the international community, and one that would be based on the right to self-determination on the part of the East Timorese nation.
The Union continues in its determination to achieve this aim.
As a result of a decision taken in the General Affairs Council in April 1999 we have asked the Commission to draft economic and social programmes to improve facilities for the establishment of institutions for East Timor.
The eagerness to vote shown by the East Timorese awoke interest, as we know.
The General Affairs Council stated on Monday that the East Timorese also deserve all our support in the future.
We will be ready to recognise East Timor when a decision has been made on the independence process, which is under the guidance of the UN.
In this connection, I would like once again to thank the UN' s UNAMET operation for its staff' s tireless work in bringing about the referendum in especially difficult circumstances.
At the same time I would like to say that I am grateful to Ireland' s Foreign Minister, Mr Andrews, who acted as the President' s personal representative in overseeing the election in East Timor, and Great Britain' s Foreign Secretary, Mr Cook, who represented the President at the APEC meeting.
We would have liked the Council of Ministers to be present at these events also, although the President could not be present at them owing to the obligations that a whole week' s part-session in Parliament presented.
I also wish to thank the delegation of observers from the European Parliament and everyone else that took part in the observation process: the importance of an international presence was vital for the success of the voting operation.
I believe they were responsible for the safe atmosphere that prevailed while voting itself was going on.
We all feared unrest.
When voting was over, however, the terror that started came as a shock in terms of its violence.
During the whole crisis the Union has been putting pressure on the Indonesian government to meet its obligations to guarantee safety and keep the situation in East Timor under control.
I believe that we are on the right track, but the road is long.
Alleviating a humanitarian disaster and putting together an international peacekeeping force are now urgent priorities.
The faster a peacekeeping force is got there, the better.
Consequently, the European Union will continue to exert its own pressure to bring that about.
Another very urgent matter is getting humanitarian aid there quickly.
At present those in the most difficult situation are people who have fled their homes for the mountains, and East Timorese that have been forced to enter West Timor, where some have been accommodated in camps.
According to various estimates there are from 200,000 to 400,000 refugees.
This also shows that assessments made regarding the situation are very vague.
We have no exact information on events for the very reason that foreign representatives of the international community cannot reach the area.
These people are in need of immediate humanitarian aid.
Intergovernmental organisations and NGOs are to participate in the programme of assistance co-ordinated by the UN.
The Indonesian authorities have announced an open-door policy with regard to international aid, but they cannot guarantee the safety of humanitarian workers.
A comprehensive aid operation can only begin when the humanitarian organisations have unhindered and safe access to the region.
This will ultimately come about obviously only with the arrival of an international peacekeeping force, but we have already called once again for humanitarian aid to be delivered to the region immediately.
Various countries have been prepared to participate in the delivery of relief aid.
Supplies are being planned and deliveries organised at this very moment.
The Union has a total of EUR 8 million at its disposal in respect of humanitarian assistance in East Timor, making it already the largest single contributor of aid.
Representatives of the European Community' s Humanitarian Organisation have taken part in an assessment of the size of the aid package needed together with the Indonesian authorities and international organisations.
I hope that the Commission can tell us of its plans in greater detail.
Humanitarian aid might begin with operations in which essential goods such as food, medicines and other goods such as blankets and cooking utensils are dropped from the air in areas where refugees are known to be.
Experts say that, for reasons of safety, the drops must be made during the initial phase from Hercules transport planes from a height of one and a half kilometres, which may affect its chances of getting to the right place.
Nevertheless, we have to do all we can to ensure that there is adequate aid getting through at this stage.
The situation with regard to security will improve in the region only when the international peacekeeping forces have arrived.
The Union has the whole time stressed and demanded that Indonesia take responsibility for order and security, but as we have seen, the Indonesian authorities have unfortunately ignored the obligations they have agreed to in this respect.
Indonesia has now agreed to the arrival in the region of international peacekeeping forces and I have just heard that the UN Security Council has taken a unanimous decision to send a peacekeeping force to East Timor.
We require Indonesia to work in close co-operation with the Security Council in the future also.
We shall work towards getting the forces to the region as soon as possible.
For my own part, I would like to say that I have also personally tried to contact Member States on the telephone, especially Portugal, and also Indonesia via our representation there, and Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the UN.
I hope there will be better opportunities for close co-operation among us in the future.
I would now like to speak of a serious matter, which is the climate of fear and deeds of terror that are gripping East Timor at present.
Indonesia has failed to commit to guarantees of order and security in the region. In the opinion of many, it has not entirely wished to do so either.
Tyranny has prevailed in the area.
There has been evidence that the Indonesian army and the police have taken part in acts of terror in East Timor.
According to humanitarian workers from the international community, representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights organisations were forced to leave areas so that crimes could be committed in the absence of foreign witnesses.
The day before yesterday the Council expressed its deepest anger regarding this state of affairs and the attacks on East Timorese, humanitarian workers, church representatives and advocates of human rights.
We in the Council have given our support to convening a special meeting of the Commission on Human Rights with regard to the situation in East Timor.
We shall also work towards sending an investigatory commission to the area as quickly as possible to collect evidence relating to the responsibility for deeds of terror that were committed in the wake of the referendum.
The General Affairs Council the day before yesterday approved the conclusions reached on Union action and took a decision on a common position to make them more effective, by imposing a comprehensive export ban on weapons, munitions and other tools of internal repression and terror to Indonesia.
At the same time too, bilateral military co-operation between the Member States and Indonesia was discontinued.
This common position will be in force for four months and will be renewed if need be.
While we work towards bringing about the right to self-determination of East Timor and its people, we must concern ourselves also with Indonesia' s future development.
The General Affairs Council emphasised the Union' s desire to see a strong, democratic and united Indonesia.
Democracy, a respect for human rights and the principles of the rule of law are the foundations on which Indonesian society can also build.
Conduct in the international community that reflects a democratic society will have the support of us all.
Votes
I thank the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, and, in accordance with what we agreed, each group chairman may make a speech lasting three minutes.
Madam President, in the course of the debate yesterday, I presented the reasons why my group could not affirm its confidence in the Prodi Commission.
While highlighting the interesting "shift" in the relationship between this institution and Parliament, as well as our desire to work towards the success of the administrative reform announced, I expressed the conviction that in order to respond to the urgent expectations of our fellow citizens it would have been necessary to take the initiative on significant changes affecting not only the operation of the Commission but also on its political orientations.
Unfortunately, I have heard nothing of this ilk in the various hearings of the Commissioners-designate or in the speeches of Mr Prodi himself.
At a time when the Commission is just emerging from the most serious crisis in its history and the European Union as a whole has food for thought, given the unprecedented alarm signal which millions of voters, male and female, have just given it, the time seemed ripe for strong action likely to open up new perspectives, action likely to regenerate hope.
Experience has shown that the European Union cannot be built simply by the market and by directives.
It is forged above all by means of living relationships between people who are carrying out projects which motivate and unite them.
My conviction is that Europe will win back credibility in the eyes of many of the peoples of the world, and their sympathy, by clearly stating, in the face of the advancing tide of neo-liberalism, its own values and plan.
It is this ambition, Madam President, which, in our view, is lacking today.
This is the reason why my group cannot affirm its confidence in the Commission.
Madam President, Commission President, 1999 has been a difficult year for the mainstream EU institutions in that problems which surfaced over issues such as the accountability about the administration of various EU initiatives had strained relations between the European Parliament and the Commission.
I would like to impress upon the new college of the Commission and all Members of the European Parliament that the events of this year must be put behind us as a matter of urgency.
We must all reflect on the difficulties of the last twelve months in particular and learn from the mistakes that were clearly made.
We must ensure that decision-making structures are put in place at EU level which will guarantee that all decisions are accounted for.
In the resolution tabled today by my political group, we stress that there must be sound management in the administration of all EU programmes and initiatives.
Because the Commission is responsible for overseeing the day-to-day operation of so many EU-sponsored policies, it should take particular note of its Treaty obligations in this regard.
The challenges facing the European Union are too great for institutional deadlock to hamper the Commission and the European Parliament in dealing with their legislative programme.
The European Union cannot operate effectively unless there is cooperation and understanding between the Commission, Parliament and the Council.
I am not interested in promoting European Union decision-making founded on institutional stalemate.
I believe that the Commission too must recognise that the expanded remit of the codecision procedure means that Parliament has an equal say in the enactment of EU directives and regulations encompassing 38 different economic and social sectors.
The codecision procedure covers a wide range of activities including those in the transport sector, regional affairs, social matters, employment initiatives, structural funding, consumer protection, public health and environmental concerns.
If the codecision procedure is not operated in an effective manner, then inefficiency will take root in the internal decision-making procedures of the Union.
That is the last thing we need at this challenging time.
The single greatest challenge facing the European Union is to prepare for the enlargement process with the accession of six new countries to the Union by the year 2004-2005.
There are currently 37 different chapters of negotiation to be discussed between the Union and the new applicant countries.
These are going to be difficult discussions and internal institutional reform is needed in the EU if the enlargement process is to be successful.
In conclusion, the Commission and Parliament must ensure that tough decisions are worked through in a spirit of understanding and common purpose.
I hope that all of us have learned this lesson from the events of the last year.
Our Group does have a group position.
Each national delegation will vote as it thinks fit.
The Irish delegation will vote for President Prodi and the Commission.
Madam President, with Mr Prodi' s Commission, the EU is getting a real government for the first time.
It is a product of the fifteen Prime Ministers, but it has now come into its own, freed from supervision by the Member States, removed from national parliaments, light years from ordinary voters and tax payers, but still not subject to supervision by the EU Parliament.
The voters and the national parliaments are forfeiting power to Mr Prodi, but this power is not being picked up here in this House.
Voter influence is being limited again.
The executive is again being strengthened at the expense of the legislature.
Mr Prodi promises he will listen and despatch a Commissioner every time we ask for one.
He will seriously consider firing Commissioners if Parliament expresses its lack of confidence in them.
But it is Mr Prodi and the Commission itself who decide.
It is they who decide whether they have confidence in us, in the electorate and in the national parliaments, and they are still the only twenty people in the EU who can propose a new law or propose that an existing law be removed.
In the Commission itself, the directors-general have again taken power.
While Mr Prodi promises openness, answers concerning this are emptied of content by the directors-general.
A lot of answers at the hearings were prepared by the old officials.
In the draft version of Mr Kinnock' s response the officials had even written that the problem was that the Dutch official, Van Buitenen, had given too many documents to the group chairmen.
The problem was not that the Commission had covered up the misappropriations.
Clearly, there are still officials with things to learn.
The Experts' Group is therefore proposing a prosecuting authority and more supranational supervision in the Member States.
The Commission and the majority here will have Brussels impose more rules and manage more projects.
The result will be more centralism and more fiddling and, in five years' time, a new Committee of Wise Men will be preparing a new report on increasing fraud within the EU, for it is secretiveness and centralism which give rise to fraud.
Supervision can uncover a small amount, but the solution is a radical curtailment of assignments and projects in Brussels so that, instead, the focus is upon those things that extend beyond national frontiers and can no longer be solved on a national or regional basis.
We must move in the direction of a slimmed down, open and democratic EU.
My group, the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities, cannot offer the Commission political support but, instead, hard-working, critical and constructive opposition.
The democratic dream is that people' s conditions of life should be equal. This must not be confused with treating everyone the same, for we are different in our diversity, and that is our strength.
Mr President, we have a new Commission for a five-year term, and I would like to clarify somewhat my group' s attitude towards it.
Many of us believe that we are creating a new relationship with the Commission, and that really does mean that Parliament and the Commission will, in future, work in very close co-operation with one another.
Some of us therefore decided to grant the Commission a vote of confidence, as we consider that we have made a remarkable start in this relationship.
We also value the broad co-operation among the political groups in the adoption of the resolution calling for the Commission to take seriously the responsibility of individual Members of the Commission.
We are most satisfied that Parliament as a whole stresses the importance of public access to documents and information.
We have also emphasised that Parliament and Europe' s civil society must in future be more seriously involved in amendment procedures relating to the Treaties and Intergovernmental Conferences.
Some of us, however, have said that they do not expect very much in the way of green policies from the new Commission, and our whole group will, in future, also see to it that the Commission gives sufficient weight to the principles of the creation of a social Europe and sustainable development, so that they have a serious part to play in all decision-making.
Nevertheless, we are sure that the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, has listened to Parliament, and we are now embarking on a process of co-operation with the new Commission.
Mr President, the French delegation of my group, like the Danish delegation, have already presented, in the main debate, the fundamental reasons why they could not support a Commission which believes itself to be the government of Europe even though the citizens have never expressly approved any such status.
The European Parliament, for its part, seems happy to play along since the text on which we are voting is entitled "Draft Decision on the Election of the Commission-designate."
Whereas, obviously, there is no election involved either at the level of our House, where in legal terms it is a matter of the approval of the appointment of the Commissioners, or, to an even greater extent, at the level of the voters who, in France at least and no doubt in many other countries, have never even heard of Mr Prodi.
But I would also like to take advantage of this explanation of vote to mention the parallel resolution combining a number of the undertakings made by the Prodi Commission in areas that were often technical, but important, relating to the Code of Conduct, ethics and transparency.
We can do no other than to approve most of them, especially concerning the proper distribution of information.
I hope that, thanks to this, the Members of Parliament will, for example, be better informed regarding the negotiations of the Millennium Round than they were for the Uruguay Round, although this Europe has to date been obedient to the powerful forces which want free trade to prevail absolutely, but which prefer to act in secret.
Unfortunately, this resolution is contaminated by a number of irregular conditions, for example, the one which stipulates that the Prodi Commission undertakes to include on the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference, in addition to the three points already determined, an important programme of institutional reforms.
Of course, the Commission has no power, until further notice, to itself decide the agenda for the forthcoming IGC.
This phrase at least has the merit of showing that the European Parliament and the Commission are going to back each other up in order to increase their respective powers and trample on the decisions of the Council.
But really, in this matter as in that of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, the foolishness of the Council prevents us having any compassion for them.
In any case, we are voting against the resolution which includes this condition.
Mr President, it is a disgrace at this vital time in the history of Europe that a shadow lies over the Commission.
No matter how much Mr Prodi protests, he and his college are seriously flawed.
Blackmailing threats of resignation indicate a weakness which is a running sore already and will develop into a festering boil.
If this vote had been taken before the elections I am sure the vote would have been somewhat different.
As I have already stated in this House this morning, the people I represent especially have no confidence in Commissioner Patten.
His insult to our honoured police dead and to our honoured police maimed is something we will not tolerate.
Mr Patten may forget, we will not forget.
Mr Patten may bury their heroism, we will see to it that their heroism still lives.
Solemnly I salute them today in this House.
Mr President, the United Left has already voiced our objections to the neo-liberal intentions of Mr Prodi' s proposed team.
These objections relate in particular to the Dutch candidate Mr Bolkestein, for he is the most outspoken proponent of policies for effecting cutbacks, privatisation, deregulation and the lowering of taxation.
A few months back, during the election campaign for this Parliament, the people heading the list of candidates of almost all the Dutch parties were quite vocal in saying that Mr Bolkestein should not be permitted to become a Member of the Commission.
His attitudes were often provocative, which led to him being labelled a euro-sceptic.
I do not actually think that he has ever been one.
It is true that he is keen for the Netherlands to be a tax haven for large companies and high incomes and he does not want the European Union to hinder him in this.
That is why he certainly would not be the right person to take on the taxation harmonisation portfolio.
But now, the vast majority of Dutch MEPs have voted for a Commission of which Mr Bolkestein is a Member, thereby completely breaking their promise to the Dutch electorate.
My party, the Socialist party in the Netherlands, does not go along with this.
Mr President, I am sorry that almost no Members of the elected European Commission are present.
This is an explanation of vote directed at Mr Prodi.
I hope that somebody will take note and pass the communication on.
According to many historians and anthropologists, the Basque people form the oldest nation in Europe which, in spite of its limited population, has maintained its own ancestral language for centuries and millennia, as well as a distinct culture and traditions.
But, despite all of this, there are many other manifestations of the Basque uniqueness, not only in social, biological, civic, legal or administrative terms, but also, and above all, economically and fiscally.
The gradual historical absorption and integration of the Basque Country into the Spanish State, which has always been the result of military defeats in the past, as well as the mass arrival of immigrants from other parts of the Iberian Peninsula, has resulted in the blurring and dilution of our personality and of native Basque uniqueness.
For this reason, the Basque country maintains a political conflict with the Spanish State which has manifested itself in a violent way, a violence which the majority of us reject, but which, nevertheless, has left a trail of deaths, injuries, pain, extortion, fear and many innocent victims.
Much has been snatched from us for reasons of state interest.
But there is a distinguishing mark, a clear tendency towards self-government and sovereignty which has resisted all the historical upheavals and misfortunes.
I am referring to the full autonomy, to the exclusive capacity and competence which the Basque Country enjoys from a fiscal point of view, from the point of view of the collection of taxes, rates and public levies, as well as with regard to budgets and public spending.
Fortunately, today in Euskadi, as in Northern Ireland, we live in times of hope.
The armed organisation ETA has declared a cease-fire and the majority of Basque political parties, unions and civil organisations have signed an agreement in Lizarra-Estella (Navarre) which aims at dealing with the Basque conflict through dialogue and negotiation.
That is to say, by taking an exclusively democratic path.
Well, the Commission of the European Union has called into question and cast doubt upon certain fiscal measures which are designed to promote economic activity and reduce our high level of unemployment, measures which were adopted by the Basque institutions by virtue of their sovereignty and autonomy in this area.
This is a right which not even the Fascist dictatorship of General Franco dared to interfere with or violate in the historic Basque territories of Navarre or Álava.
In these historic days when the Basques are opting for European construction as a democratic path to understanding, conciliation and peaceful co-existence with all Spaniards, as well as all the other peoples of Europe, the thing that we need least, the thing that could affect the peace which we are seeking and which we yearn for is for our remaining fiscal sovereignty, our economic harmony, not to be respected.
We would have liked to have voted positively, in the affirmative, for this new European Commission which you have presented to us.
But the replies given by those responsible for competition and other issues relating to the European regions have caused disquiet and concern in the Basque Country, and for this reason we have not been able to put our trust in them.
But neither have we wanted to say no.
We have not rejected your candidature or your proposal, since we prefer to seek opportunities for the future.
For all of these reasons, Mr President Prodi, I ask for your support for the peace process in Euskadi, in the Basque Country.
To this end, there are some proposals concerning programmes and actions which will benefit the peace process, which have been presented to your Directorate-General responsible for human rights.
But, above all, there is one thing you can do for the sake of our peace and that is to promote the respect for the historic rights of the Basques, amongst which is fiscal sovereignty, which is the right of any other Member State of the EU.
This is a sovereignty which we are willing to harmonise with everybody else, as long as it is through dialogue, understanding and agreement.
Not through disrespect, inconsiderateness and even less, through imposition.
We believe that peace warrants reflection with regard to all these issues.
Thank you very much, Mr Prodi, for your attention.
We trust that your well-known democratic disposition will help to find a satisfactory solution for all of us.
Mr President, in the vote I registered an abstention.
My reason for doing so was that the case for the appointment of this Commission needed to be proved "beyond reasonable doubt" and in my view, and that of my colleague Mr Hudghton, the correct verdict would have been "not proven" .
I recognise the quality and ability of many of the Commissioners and acknowledge that the majority in this Parliament has, on balance, decided to confirm the whole Commission.
We shall therefore work with them gladly.
However, I am still of the opinion that there are too many doubts about particular individuals and about the leadership of the Commission as a whole. These have persisted.
I cannot, in all conscience, justify to my constituents in Scotland the casting of an affirmative vote today.
On the other hand there is not yet compelling evidence to justify the total rejection of the Commission.
In these circumstances a positive abstention seemed to be the right vote.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that four members of the old Commission have reappeared in the new Commission, despite the fact that they were part of that collegiate body which, on account of mismanagement, was forced to resign, is one of the reasons why we have refused to give our approval to this Commission for the current period.
We were also not in a position to grant our approval for the period following on account of the fact that several of the candidates have not unequivocally declared themselves fully and individually responsible, as required by their office.
Mr Prodi has therefore passed up the opportunity to usher in a new start for the Commission, which is needed. He would have had a green light to replace the members from the previous Commission and thereby give a signal of transparency and integrity to the citizens of Europe.
In the end, it is the aim of this Commission to consolidate its power base in terms of a European supergovernment.
We do not agree with this development, nor does it correspond to the will of the citizens of Europe.
Even if the resolution required for approval is to be regarded as a task conferred upon the Prodi Commission, which we certainly reject, we cannot agree to this because in this way, the fundamental responsibilities of this Parliament are allocated to one of the EU' s administrative bodies.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there are a plethora of reasons for rejecting the Commission.
First of all, I would like to again recall the political imbalance of the Commission.
Following the landslide election victory of the Christian Democrats, this Commission does not reflect their majority standing in Parliament.
As far as I am concerned, this is simply not acceptable.
Furthermore, in Mr Busquin from Belgium and Mr Lamy from France, we have two people in the Commission who, it has been proven, are embroiled in scandal.
If we here today want to embark on a new beginning, then, as I see it, such a new beginning will just not be possible with both of these gentlemen, and the citizens of Europe have a right to expect that we parliamentarians ensure that only persons of impeccable character feature in this Commission.
This is not the case in this instance.
Here, it is again a question of, if I may put it this way, cast-off national politicians.
As a Parliament, we did not act the way we did in January so as to elect people in September who are worse than those whom we sent packing in January!
Mr President, I would like to explain why I abstained during the vote on the resolution.
The resolution includes one point (b) which, in my opinion, undermines an essential foundation block of European institutional architecture: the Commission' s right of initiative, since the Commission must act as a College and have the sole right to put forward European legislation.
Parliament believes it has won a great victory since it has obtained the guarantee that President Prodi is going to take account of the legislative initiatives of the European Parliament.
This initiative of Parliament' s will surely not fail to elicit requests for the same consideration from Member States and national bureaucracies.
You will see that as soon as this happens, the pressure exerted by the capitals of Europe upon the Commission will become greater than the pressure exerted by the European Parliament.
I believe we must do all in our power to defend the Commission' s right of initiative, otherwise it will be no more than a mailbox, a merely executive body.
This Parliament has considerable political influence on the Commission as long as it remains a political body, but this will no longer be the case when the Commission' s right of initiative is weakened.
Mr President, one question before I give my explanation of vote.
I would like to know in what capacity Mrs Schreyer is present.
She has been approved, I voted for her, but she has not yet been appointed, it is absurd.
Having said that, I am very happy for her to hear what I have to say.
(Interjection by the President: There is one day of transition, Mr Bourlanges.) Precisely, I think that all this is absurd, and this is the point of my explanation of vote.
I have voted four times in favour of the Commission, as I have confidence in Mr Prodi and his team.
I wanted, in my explanation of vote, to draw attention to the fact that this Parliament has not proceeded correctly in legal terms.
Rule 214 is strict on this point: it stipulates the precise sequence of procedures and a distinction between the time when the President is nominated and the time when the College is approved.
This is intended to protect the political authority of the President.
By voting in this way, what we were doing was to approve the Commission each time before actually nominating the President.
With our first vote we approved the nomination of Mr Prodi, whilst the Act of 19 July had already nominated the prospective Commissioners.
We then went on to the third and fourth votes on the basis of the earlier decision of 19 July.
I find that Parliament has not made itself look any better in this matter.
We should have been more scrupulous than the Council in respecting the very strict terms of Rule 214.
Mr President, today I would have liked to have approved the Commission without any reservations.
Unfortunately, however, I have to register a reservation by abstaining since, although there are good Commissioners - Mrs Schreyer and Mrs Wallström have convinced me - I must say that I found the interventions of Mr Prodi more than disappointing.
I do not consider it enough that he only presented declarations of intent, when really what he should have been talking about was the direction in which the reforms in the European Union are heading.
For me, there were too many fine words, too little of substance and, therefore, through my abstention, I wanted to express my feeling that this is not enough and that over the next few years, the Commission must succeed in carrying out its promises as far as possible and not stand still on its words. Hopefully, Mr Prodi will then succeed in becoming a stronger figure within this European Union.
Let me make it clear that I have not voted with a "no" , I would have preferred to give my approval with an unequivocal "yes" , yet I found Mr Prodi' s statement too disappointing.
Mr President, I shall begin in French, in that beautiful language of yours, to say that it is my duty to inform you of my intention to stop speaking this language until such time as France recognises the Basque language.
And neither will I do it in Spanish, in this Chamber, while the Basque language does not enjoy full recognition in our country.
(FR) I must add that the spectacle offered this morning was shameful, particularly before Mrs Halonen.
It shows a total lack of respect for a lady of this calibre.
Euskal Herritarrok, the Basque Left, has voted against the appointment of the Commission even though we knew that Mr Prodi had succeeded in winning the confidence of the majority of this Parliament.
We know now that the new Commission most certainly does not have the confidence of the majority of Europeans.
After this morning' s spectacle I doubt that Parliament has the confidence of most Europeans, in other words those who believe that it is still possible to build a new European Union in which freedom and justice are the guiding principles.
Mila esker
- (FR) Like my comrades in the European Socialist Party, who have been particularly attentive and assiduous on the occasion of the hearings of the candidate Commissioners, I am pleased with this procedure which has offered us a wealth of information regarding the personalities and intentions of these people we are to liase with.
This "final examination" of the future College of the executive body before the elected representatives of the citizens of Europe is an important phase in the democratisation of the European institutions which the Socialists have made their key issue.
The low-key performances of some of the candidates, still apparently reticent whenever they have to mention social or employment conditions in Europe, and even the most unconvincing hearing with Mrs Palacio, do not cancel out an overall impression which is generally satisfactory.
Unlike the European Right which manifestly sought to conceal its divisions by the very virulence of its attacks, occasionally personal and insulting attacks, on some Commissioners, I intend to promote the path of dialogue and collaboration with the future Commission.
The main thing is, in my view, to find once more a credible partner, putting an end to this interminable state of transition, and enabling the European executive to resume its onerous duties and finally make progress, in close consultation with the Members of the European Parliament, on the crucial matters of concern to Europe and its citizens.
In this spirit, I am voting in favour of the appointment of the new Commission, without thereby offering them a "blank cheque" .
I mean to give myself the option of assessing the quality of the work done on a "piecework" basis.
- (FR) I have personally listened to all the speeches by the President, Romano Prodi, and I have participated in all six hearings of the candidate Commissioners.
The first conclusion I draw from this is that we are faced with a reliable team of Commissioners who, by and large, are competent in their own areas.
The second conclusion is that the ideology expressed by this team and also many of their proposals are far removed from my own ideas regarding the construction and management of Europe, with an extremely worrying predominance of Liberalism over social aspects and citizen' s rights.
This is why, even though I shall be voting at noon, with no qualms, in favour of the appointment of this Commission, wishing it every fortune and good luck, nonetheless in a few weeks I shall be paying particular attention to the programme which will be announced for the year 2000 and the legislature.
My vote on this occasion, and any subsequent votes, will depend on the extent to which the proposals made to us reflect the propositions on the basis of which I was elected on June 13.
For me, more than ever, the stakes of the next five years come under four items:
1 - a political Europe which is democratic, transparent and efficient;
2 - a social Europe which is solid and fair, and which defends those most at risk;
3 - a citizen' s Europe where every citizen feels completely European in everyday life;
4 - a Europe which is capable of expansion with grit and determination in order to guarantee peace.
- The parliamentary group I belong to is leaning towards voting against Mr Prodi.
I share a lot of the concerns and reservations expressed by the majority of my parliamentary group regarding the Commission' s programme and composition.
However, I do not agree with voting against him.
I know Romano Prodi well and greatly appreciate his leadership qualities and his democratic aims.
President Prodi was head of the Italian Government at a decisive moment for Italy' s entry into Europe.
At that time, I firmly supported the work of his government and I tirelessly fought to prevent his centre-left government from entering a crisis - just about a year ago - through an initiative of the political group led by Mr Bertinotti.
I did not lose confidence in him them, and I do not intend to deny him my confidence today.
Romano Prodi was nominated President of the Commission by the current government of the Italian Republic, which my party is an active member of. And I confess that his strength of character can guarantee strong leadership of the Commission, overcoming the limitations and inadequacies we have noted in the programme and the composition of the Commission.
And so, in contrast with the positions taken by the majority of our parliamentary group GUE/NGL, we Italian Communist Members make a reasoned and vigilant abstention.
- (ES) I have given my positive vote to the Commission presided over by Mr Prodi, firstly, because the President clearly has the characteristics required to meet the challenges which the European Union must face on the threshold of the third millennium, and because, in general, the Commissioners have given evidence of their ability to respond to those challenges in an effective way.
It is not simply a matter of ensuring, within the framework of economic globalisation, a degree of growth which is capable of creating lasting and sustainable employment, or proposing profound institutional reform at the next Intergovernmental Conference.
Nor is it just a matter of going forward with the issue of enlargement of the Union in order to contribute to the well-being of Europe as a whole, despite the undeniable importance of these challenges.
What is needed, above all, is the advancement of the process of European construction with regard to feelings and conscience.
It is a matter, as Prodi said himself yesterday, of creating one soul and one heart: the European heart and soul.
It is also a question of offering genuine peace and prosperity to the neighbouring populations and establishing links of co-operation on a global level in order to create a decent society for all, a world which enjoys peace and liberty.
Mr Prodi, both through his loyalty to the principles which brought about the current European Union and through his proven capacity for management, will, I am sure, lead the new Commission along the path and at the pace which current circumstances require.
Therefore, in spite of individual questions which concern certain Commissioners which, in any case, belong to the past, I have given my vote of confidence to the new Commission in the knowledge, furthermore, that Parliament has the necessary mechanisms in place to withdraw that confidence in the event that it is betrayed.
The restoration of the hope and confidence of the European citizens now depends on the Commission which, under the direction of President Prodi, today embarks on its course.
This Commission has been granted, by this Parliament, the democratic legitimacy and transparency which the citizens demand.
The President of the Commission' s intervention sums up all of the committees' work which provided the opportunity to assess the political positions of the various Commissioners.
On the whole, the fundamental political positions which have been responsible for the current problems were defended, particularly those on unemployment and social exclusion.
The complete lack of confidence that our citizens have in the European institutions, which was clearly demonstrated by the low turnout in the recent elections, requires not only "a modern and efficient administration" , but new policies which will respond positively to the socio-economic problems currently experienced by the European Union' s Member States.
This is why the central features of the positions held are still neo-liberal and federalist policies, although in a few cases, there were hints of social concern in the speeches, but without any concrete suggestions as to how they might be implemented.
Only yesterday, Romano Prodi clarified his position when he claimed that it was necessary to "restructure the single market and to promote liberalisation" , and deliberately emphasised the need to continue the process of liberalisation in the goods and service sectors.
If we maintain the criteria of Maastricht and the Stability Pact, the European Employment Pact loses any credibility it might have had, and this, together with the insistence on the flexibility of working conditions makes it clear that what is at stake is an increasing deregulation of working conditions.
In turn, no progress has been made on the need to assess the movement of capital, in terms of national social programmes having to adapt to current demographic trends, which proves that, in fact, their objective is not greater social justice, but quite the opposite: greater social inequality.
In the area of farming, there was still an insistence on the great objectives of the CAP - common agricultural policy - and on a greater liberalisation of the markets, which upholds the injustices in the distribution of aid and subsidies, with an obvious bias against family-based farming and against countries such as Portugal where small-holdings represent the most common kind of farming.
Concerning foreign and defence policies, the insistence on the federalist approach was emphasised, as was the strengthening of the CFSP' s militaristic positions, instead of a decisive pledge for policies of co-operation.
These are the main reasons for a vote against the new Commission.
- (FR) I would like to report my great satisfaction at having been able to participate in the great democratic event we have just experienced, which is unparalleled on the European political scene.
The European institutions, particularly the European Commission and the European Parliament, emerge with increased statures from the hearings of the Commissioners-designate, and the European citizens who followed them (in the press) may find in them, I hope, good reasons to become more interested in the building of Europe.
For these reasons, taking account of the generally acknowledged competence of the Commissioners and the intention expressed by the majority of them to work in close collaboration with Parliament, I voted in favour of the appointment of the European Commission.
It was all the easier for me since the procedure selected for these hearings provided an opportunity to remind the Commission of its undertaking to present, by the end of 1999, a raft of proposals intended to finally give substance to Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam which establishes the specificity of the most remote regions, and their right to specific conditions of exemption, to enable them to deal with their structural problems.
In addition, with regard to the OCT associated to the European Union, Commissioner Nielson acknowledged the need to present as quickly as possible a wide range of proposals intended to give these countries a status appropriate to their current situation, with a view to the forthcoming Association Agreement and, in particular, the consequent renewal of the financial instrument allocated to their development.
On both these subjects, which I attach particular importance to, the proposals of the competent Commissioners seemed to me to augur well for the future collaboration between Commission and Parliament.
- (SV) In spite of the fact that some of the Commissioners-designate have shown that they are well qualified and ecologically aware and would certainly make good Commissioners, for example Margot Wallström and Michaela Schreyer, we cannot support the Prodi Commission, to some degree because of the total lack of ecological and social awareness in Romano Prodi' s manifesto and in other respects because of the presence of Commissioners-designate who have not been completely convincing as to their suitability and readiness to act with complete honesty before Parliament.
What is more, there have been elements of Romano Prodi' s conduct which, with good reason, have been interpreted as his striving to establish himself as a sort of head of government, something which has no basis in the current EU treaties and which would mean going further down the road to turning the EU into a state.
We are therefore voting against the Prodi Commission for the period of 23 January 2000 to 22 January 2005.
On the other hand, we will not oppose there being a sort of "caretaker" Commission for the period up until 22 January 2000. This ought not, of course, to be the present Santer Commission, which must withdraw immediately.
We have therefore abstained in the vote concerning the remainder of the present period of office.
. My main consideration in passing judgement on the Prodi Commission is whether this team of 20 has convinced me of its ability to significantly restore public confidence in the European Union and its institutions.
Regrettably, following the individual hearings and the various statements of Mr Prodi, I remain unconvinced.
The strong pressure on MEPs to approve the new Commission, thus allowing a return to 'normal' business, must be balanced against the many doubts and reservations which surround aspects of the Prodi team.
Mr Prodi views the Commission as a Government for Europe.
That concept is not one which I would be inclined to vote in favour of, but even if I did feel so inclined, I could not give a positive vote for this Commission-Designate to fulfil such a role.
I want to see real and radical improvement in management and financial control within the Commission.
I want to see genuine change in the Commission' s attitude towards the European Parliament.
I want a Commission which is seen to be relevant to the lives and aspirations of our citizens.
The only verdict which I can apply to Mr Prodi' s team is 'Not Proven' and accordingly register my abstention.
. Over the winter of 1998/99 the European Parliament came of age, bringing about the resignation of the Santer Commission and in so doing established its proper place in the European political order.
I fear however we have failed as an institution in the manner in which we have scrutinised the Prodi Commission, which has been unstructured, insufficiently in-depth and inconsistent.
That has made it impossible for me to endorse the Member States' nominations.
Before the next Commission is scrutinised I believe Parliament must instruct the Rules Committee to draw up comprehensive procedures covering all aspects of a much more thorough and in-depth series of hearings.
Unless that is done we shall destroy public confidence in us and let down the European public whom I believe have not been well served by Parliament' s actions in respect of the Prodi Commission.
- (FR) The vote on the ratification of the Commission is not a vote of approval for the Commission' s programme, since Parliament will be consulted on this at the end of the year.
What we have to do today is to assess whether the Commissioners-designate are up to the task of fulfilling their assignments competently and with due seriousness.
There is nothing in what we have learnt during the Commissioners' hearings to justify, at this stage, a veto on any one of them in particular.
Let us say that they can enjoy the benefit of the doubt at this early stage.
The fact remains that, in his speech to the European Parliament, Romano Prodi made statements which can only disappoint and worry those who are waiting for rapid and bold responses from the European Union in order to re-align Europe to be at the service of people and humanity rather than of finance and of the great God, money, for Europe to put itself forward as an alternative to world-wide liberalisation.
Mr Prodi' s silence on the subject of the need to defend the European Social Model, his irritating reticence, his frequent omissions on the subject of a European policy to promote employment and his tentative generalities on institutional change, give us rather more than reservations.
This is why in the vote on the nomination of Mr Prodi, I voted against.
In anticipation of the essential reorientation of the political paths of the Commission and of the debate on the action to be taken, a vote in favour today must be interpreted as a choice not to multiply crises, blockages, in our institutions, and as a refusal to look for individual scapegoats when it is the orientation of Europe in terms of politics and civilisation which is in question.
This vote is, to some extent, purely administrative.
My vote is not therefore a challenge to the Commissioners-designate.
Nor is it a vote of confidence.
I expect the new Commission to earn this confidence.
The Commission must be aware that there are many of us who will not hesitate to penalise it if its actions should prove to be as disappointing as its current political performance.
. My decision to vote against this Commission was not taken lightly.
But having listened closely both to the debate here today, and to the answers we have been given from the Commissioners designate in the Parliamentary Hearings over the past few weeks, I still have a number of grave concerns and reservations.
There are two aspects to these concerns: on the one side, the political side, of course we could not expect a Green Commission.
But what we did expect was the demonstration of a greater awareness of how to prioritise and implement key issues of social justice and environmental sustainability.
On the other side, the assessment of the Commissioners' ability to live up to the enormous expectations that now lie upon them to introduce a very different kind of behaviour and culture in the new Commission, we did expect the demonstration of an ability to introduce genuine, far-reaching, radical reform.
And so, in order to be able to vote in favour of this Commission, I would need to be able to say that, as a bloc, these are Commissioners whose commitment to introduce exactly such fundamental reforms I can endorse.
I would need to be able to say that these are all Commissioners whose integrity and good judgement are beyond reproach.
I would need to be able to say that these are Commissioners whom I, and the citizens of Europe, can wholeheartedly trust.
I greatly regret that what I have heard and read over the past few weeks and months means that, for a number of Commissioners in the proposed new Commission, I cannot yet say these things.
And because I cannot say these things, I cannot justify to the electorate who voted for me a vote in favour of this new Commission.
- (DE) I have just voted against the composition of this Commission and abstained from voting for Romano Prodi.
My reason for this: in May of this year, Commission President Prodi received a convincing vote from the European Parliament to initiate a comprehensive reform programme with a new team for a Commission in need of cleaning up.
Yet the Commission is already tarnished.
Mr Prodi did not react to the outcome of the hearings.
In view of the considerable doubt expressed as to the competence of the Belgian Philippe Busquin for the research department and the plethora of accusations regarding his affairs, he should have rejected the candidates.
Furthermore, he accepted without reservation the proposal from the French government to nominate Pascal Lamy as Commissioner responsible for foreign trade, even though he is the architect of the "Jacques Delors System" , and therefore responsible for the emergence of a completely confusing financial structure within the Commission.
This system is the real reason behind the serious lack of organisation which led to the resignation of the Santer Commission.
Nothing has come of the grandiose promise of "a fair balance across the political spectrum" .
The majority of the Commission is from the Left.
Romano Prodi did not raise any objection to the German Chancellor when the latter nominated a Green and a Social Democrat purely on the grounds of party political affiliation.
Word has now got out about Schröder' s lack of any definite line and sheer power tendencies, and Germans the length and breadth of the country are now making him pay.
In contrast to his predecessor Helmut Kohl who, five years ago, accepted the opposition' s nomination for the Commission - and it was not easy for me to vote for Monika Wulf-Mathies in 1994 - Schröder was not prepared to give consideration to the views of today' s opposition, the CDU/CSU, the victors in the European elections in Germany.
Elmar Brok would have been a more excellent nomination and one capable of winning a majority.
It is intended that Michaele Schreyer will take responsibility for budgetary issues, an area in which she can only supervise and not shape policy; she could do nothing to alleviate misgivings relating to her ability to take responsibility for budgetary issues.
Günter Verheugen is being pushed into the sphere of enlargement where the decisive steps have already long since been taken.
He will not even be responsible for his own Directorate-General and is, therefore, only a junior Commissioner.
I cannot accept this second-class arrangement for the largest Member State in the EU, no doubt a result of Schröder' s pigheadedness.
The upshot of all this: I have to reject this Commission.
This vote does not concern expressly the Italian Mario Monti (Trade), the Luxembourger Viviane Reding (Culture and Education) and the British national Chris Patten (External Affairs) who, and I myself am convinced of this, left behind an indelible impression of competence and an ability to communicate.
In spite of the misgivings mentioned, I did not say "no" to Romano Prodi. Instead I abstained.
I recognise that he has taken on board five demands from the Group of the European People' s Party, inter alia, with regard to the legislative right of nomination of the European Parliament, the conduct of the Commissioners in the case of a vote of no-confidence and the necessary permanent dialogue concerning Commission reform.
I hope that Mr Prodi will become someone who is willing and able to undertake reform and who will give Europe' s citizens new confidence in clear and efficient European institutions.
- (NL) Yesterday, I referred in my statement to how positive we consider the approach of Mr Prodi and his new team to be.
Nevertheless, I abstained from this vote.
After all, the representatives of the European Free Alliance want a Europe which is not just one made up of States.
Moreover, I personally cannot place my trust in certain Commissioners because I have doubts as to how effective the fight against fraud will be under their leadership.
That is why I abstained from the vote.
. I will be voting for the new Commission.
The Commitments given by Mr Prodi to change the culture in the Commission to ensure more transparency and better financial management are very welcome.
Mr Prodi' s desire to pursue enlargement of the Community, to give job creation the highest priority and to work closely with a the Parliament on the Intergovernmental Conference are also encouraging.
The individual commissioners' acceptance of their personal responsibilities and commitment to work closely with Parliament show they understand the new environment within which the Commission will have to operate.
The new Commission has not been given a blank cheque; they have been judged fit to be appointed.
Their ability to do their job will be judged later.
That judgement will be based on whether this Commission brings Europe closer to the people, tackles fraud and inefficiency within its own service and above all equips Europe for tackling crime, unemployment and social exclusion.
- (DE) Along with the rest of the CSU European Group, I voted against the Commission twice because its composition is lop-sided and in no way reflects the clear electoral will demonstrated on 13 June.
In addition, there are misgivings relating to individual Commissioners, above all strong misgivings were expressed against Mr Busquin, the replacement of whom ought to have been a matter of central concern for Mr Prodi as well.
As regards the second vote concerning Mr Prodi himself, I abstained because, whilst admittedly wanting to give him my full backing for the rest of his term of office, I did not want to vote on the coming five-year period until January and I am extremely sceptical of the procedure adopted here today.
I would like to wish President Prodi, Vice-President Palacio, who is responsible for Parliament, and whose qualities I have every confidence in, and all the other Commissioners who will have responsibilities in my areas of activity - Mr Patten, Mr Verheugen and, above all, our long-serving colleagues Mrs Reding and Mr Vitorino - the best of luck and much success and I would like to offer them good and constructive co-operation.
- (FR) Mr Prodi spoke of the Commission as if it were a real government.
Mr Poettering, on behalf of the PPE, welcomed this drift in direction.
For our part, we condemn it resolutely.
What, in fact is Mr Prodi asking for? Ever greater powers, ever more areas of competence for the Commission, that is to say, ever greater centralisation and ever more regulation.
Mr Prodi is, in fact, recommending continuing and amplifying the drift in direction which resulted in the proliferation of irregularities and fraud denounced by the Committee of Independent Experts and which was behind the resignation of the Santer Commission.
Far from proposing to correct this drift in the direction of the institution, far from refocusing the Commission on the limited tasks allocated to it by the Treaties and on the organisational strictness with which it should acquit itself, Mr Prodi' s attitude conforms completely to the customary approach of perpetually exceeding the areas of competence enshrined in the Treaties to the advantage of the Commission.
Worse than this, he is proposing, like Delors before him, to accentuate this divergence.
This is the first reason for our refusal to vote in favour of a Commission which defines its objectives with scant regard for the Treaties.
The second reason for our vote against is related to a number of worrying statements made by the Commissioners-designate during the hearings before the European Parliament.
What Mr Prodi and some others complacently presented as a model democratic exercise (Mr Prodi even spoke of an impressive exercise in democracy) was in fact a great bout of mutual congratulation on Federalist one-upmanship.
A number of candidate Commissioners - and the prize in this respect surely goes to Commissioner-designate Barnier - blithely disregarded the Treaties in order to recommend, firstly the general application of co-decision (in particular, Mr Fischler), then the development of a European constitution intended to replace that of the Member States, then the replacement of national sovereignty by "European sovereignty" (sic).
Are we dreaming here?
These calls to free ourselves from the institutional balance decided by the governments of our states, these undertakings in favour of permanent institutional instability, to the benefit of supranational European bodies and to the detriment of national democracies, are grounds for serious concern.
It is not healthy for democracy for these hearings to have been twisted into massive schemes of political blackmail, with the Commission and Parliament undertaking to back each other up in their insatiable thirst for power, subverting the frameworks established by the national governments elected by the people of our states.
We cannot sanction such drifts in direction.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.35 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Draft supplementary and amending budgets (SAB) 1/99, 3/99 and 4/99
The next item is the report (A5-0009/99) by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Fabra Vallés, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft supplementary and amending budgets 1, 3 and 4 to the budget of the European Communities for the 1999 financial year.
(C5-0021/1999, C5-0074/1999 y C5-0130/1999).
Mr President, please allow me to highlight a few points as rapporteur of the 1999 budget.
Firstly the 1999 budget was defined at the time as a "bridge" towards the new financial requirements, that is towards the financing of Agenda 2000.
Secondly, it was also a bridge with regard to the political priorities which this Parliament wanted to establish with a view to the future, with a view to the new millennium, especially in category 4 - external activities - where the European Parliament made an effort to increase the commitment appropriations.
And finally, the European Parliament also increased the payment appropriations in the 1999 budget in view of the clear shortfall of one billion in payment appropriations, a shortfall which had appeared, above all, in the Social Funds.
Now, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we find ourselves with four supplementary and amending budgets (SABs), with 41 transferrals and a fifth amending budget.
This is a record.
It is also a record that we have taken less than 150 hours to arrive at the first and only reading of this SAB 4.
On the one hand, we have amending budget no.
1.
This does not cause any problem, it is a normal procedure, it is the surplus of the 1998 budget which, normally, is returned to the Member States.
But it deserves to be taken into account when we speak of the other amending budgets.
As for SAB 3, I will leave it to my colleague, Mr Fabra Vallés, to go into more detail.
I will turn directly to SAB 4, which proposes 137 million in commitment appropriations for the creation of an Agency for the Reconstruction of Kosovo, for macro-financial aid for the former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia and 30 million in humanitarian aid for Turkey as a result of the earthquake.
And, in payment appropriations, aid of 180 million for PHARE, the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo.
And, apart from that, 15 posts for OLAF.
Mr President, once we have looked at the fact that all the contents of SAB 4 were to be reallocated within category 4, in view of the fact that Parliament and the Council have decided to finance these within title B-1 Agriculture, I will change the subject a little because my problem is not with the SABs.
My problem is not the urgency, and is not the fact that we have to provide aid through finance which was not anticipated.
I have another pressing problem, Mr President.
It is that when I read page 12 of the Spanish version of the preliminary draft supplementary and amending budget no.
4/99, I realise that we are only dealing with the tip of the iceberg.
Because here the Commission tells us literally that, despite the fact that we have made this financing effort through reallocation, a further sum of 570.5 million is required, which the Commission intends to reallocate in the global transferral or in a supplementary transferral during this financial year.
The Commission also recognises that the reallocation of this sum is not yet possible in category 4, but says that an extensive effort should be made to make a reallocation within the budget as a whole.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this terrifies me, because at the end of the financial year of the 1999 budget - to refer to a Spanish proverb - "not even the rapporteur is going to recognise her own budget" .
With so many reallocations, the most serious matter is the fact that the European Parliament' s own priorities, voted for in December, no longer exist.
They have been totally changed because the budgetary authority of Parliament has been undermined by this continuous reallocation.
I warn you of this, Mr President, in consideration of the 2000 budget.
On pages 8 and 12, there is an equally terrifying problem: we have increased the payment appropriations.
In this case, the Commission says that even so it is calculated that we are still missing 650.5 million in payment appropriations.
Add to this the fact that an SEM 2000 forecast says that the possible shortfall in payment appropriations for the Structural Funds in 1999 is going to be even greater than in 1997 and 1998.
Mr President, this "burden of the future" which you talked about years ago in the Committee on Budgets, is now the burden of the present, because I believe that we have ignored your "warning" and we have not been sufficiently strong as a Parliament to prevent this false saving on the part of the Council, which presents a payment budget while carefully forgetting that the commitments have to be fulfilled.
This is the plea I would make with regard to the 2000 budget: we must not carry on like this.
As rapporteur for the 1999 budget, the 2000 budget must - as I see it - anticipate a review of the Financial Perspective.
It has been announced and the figures are there.
It must include a considerable increase in payment appropriations, not only to prevent the burden from becoming even heavier, but also to prevent the paralysing of payments in the Community' s programmes.
I hope that the 1999 budget will serve at least to prevent these mistakes in the future.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to congratulate you - if I am not mistaken - on your first Presidency.
The truth is that it appears that you have been doing it all your life.
Therefore, congratulations.
With regard to the SAB 3/99, Mr President, there are two cases, which are not of that type which we have often criticised in the Committee on Budgets for the use and abuse of the supplementary and amending budgets, but which I believe are well justified cases.
On the one hand, the Court of Justice, which is going to renew its entire informatics system with regard to word processing.
This is totally justifiable, not only because it is currently a system which is not prepared for the "year 2000 effect" , but also because the new system takes into account the compatibility of systems and, what' s more, it is a complicated system which will cover the whole process from the beginning, from the conception of the text up to its publication, without any other system being involved, and I believe this will put the Court of Justice in the best possible position to carry out its work.
This increase which has been requested in this supplementary and amending budget amounts to EUR 1,675,000 which is not all for equipment, since a proportion - EUR 135,000 - will be dedicated to the training of staff.
This is all that would remain in this SAB if it had been taken into account earlier, since we began to speak about it in 1998, but it could not be covered in the 1999 budget without recourse to an SAB.
Well, this is due to delays because, firstly, an auditing company which understood the matter had to be used and the best system had to be chosen and also an invitation to tender had to be issued.
This has led to the delay and we therefore are faced with this supplementary and amending budget which the Committee on Budgets is fully prepared to grant.
The second case refers to the Committee of the Regions.
We all know that the Committee of the Regions and the Economic and Social Committee has a common organisational structure, the COS, but that as a result of the Treaty of Amsterdam and its implementation, it was decided that this common organisational structure would be dismantled.
Therefore the Committee of the Regions ended up without a financial controller or an accounting officer, and it is very difficult to function without a financial controller or an accounting officer.
This is why the Committee of the Regions has requested an A3 as a financial controller, an A5 as an accounting officer and a C5 as a secretary.
The Committee on Budgets fully agrees with the Council and believes that we should allow an A4 as financial controller, an A5 as accounting officer and for the moment not allow this C5.
I would ask the person responsible for the 2000 budget to bear in mind the needs of the Committee of the Regions and consider whether this post can figure amongst posts included in the 2000 budget for that Committee.
We have often been a little mean in the granting of staffing increases but it is also true that sometimes we do not allow the institutions to function totally efficiently through a lack of personnel.
This is therefore an issue which should be looked into thoroughly.
I do not wish to end, Mr President, without addressing a few words to the Commissioner, Mr Liikanen, whom I believe to be on his last day in charge of budgets.
I can only say two things to him: one, that the task has been difficult and, two, that the result has been good.
I would not say very good, but I would say good.
You have played your role in the task and how many people would want to do the job you have done?
Therefore, I would like to express my thanks and my congratulations.
Thank you very much, Mr Fabra.
I am grateful for your opening words.
Actually, after 14 years as a member of the Committee on Budgets, this is the first debate that I will follow as President.
But this is my second Presidency in this Chamber.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to make a couple of basic observations regarding this matter of supplementary and amending budgets.
It is surely correct and necessary to react to urgent and pressing demands relating to financial policy, in particular as prompted by the situations we are faced with in Kosovo and also in Turkey.
Nevertheless, one cannot help thinking that we are faced with a certain amount of confusion.
Parliament, understandably, given past experiences as well, is always very quick to suspect that conscious redistribution from sections of the budget where funds are still available is actually practised since the budget undoubtedly contains unpopular priorities on the part of Parliament which other institutions do not necessarily remember to transpose.
The worse thing is actually not supplementary and amending budget no.
4, but the fact that I cannot today make any assessment whatsoever whether we are to end this year with the fifth supplementary budget or whether we will not get to no. 7 by December, for the Commission itself in its working document regarding the setting of borrowing requirements provided very different estimates.
It is not possible to estimate what payments may still have to be made to the PHARE programme.
Madam rapporteur has already mentioned the 650 million.
In this respect, we should all actually feel uneasy.
Commissioner, I believe that in order for us to arrive at a well-ordered and rational procedure, it is absolutely necessary that the Commission gets down to clearing-up operations by December, before the second reading, so as to avoid finding ourselves in a similar situation next year to the one we have this year, particularly as the Commission itself is saying that it can certainly not be estimated what payments will be needed for the year 2000.
I would also like to set great store by the fact, Commissioner, this being a matter of concern for the Committee on Budgetary Control, that the Commission declares itself ready, in presenting the fifth supplementary and amending budget, to introduce the extra 15 posts called for in the agreement by the Committee on Budgetary Control.
As far as we are concerned, this is one of the prerequisites if we are to come to a decision in October.
I would also like to establish a connection with tomorrow' s debate, Mr President.
Tomorrow, we are discussing and voting on the proposal relating to the Agency for Reconstruction for Kosovo.
I would like to make it very clear that we, through the fourth supplementary and amending budget, were spontaneously and quickly in a position to increase the appropriate resources and to make said resources available.
But it is also in the interests of the Commission itself that the proposals, both with regard to financial responsibility and as regards the structure of the Agency for Reconstruction, are urgently revised by Parliament, for making the resources available is not in itself sufficient to make the undertaking efficient, transparent and responsible.
We will come back to this point tomorrow.
Mr President, when I came in I was immediately confronted by three surprises.
Firstly I saw you sitting there, instead of out here for our budget debate.
The one great advantage of that is that because you are there and not here the Socialists now get more speaking time since you would have had speaking time in this debate.
The second surprise is to see Commissioner Liikanen, after I praised him yesterday.
I was about to welcome Mrs. Schreyer to her first debate and all of a sudden I see him there.
The third surprise is the fact that there is no one here from the Council, because this debate is on SABs.
I say that with a lot of sadness because the Council deserves to be criticised over SAB1 and SAB3.
I have said this at a trialogue meeting, we have said it in our committee and I now wish it to go on public record.
The way the Council behaved over SAB 1 and 3 was nothing short of disgraceful.
It was a slap in the face to this Parliament.
For those who do not understand what I am talking about, I am referring to the timing of their submissions for both the supplementary and amending budgets, which meant that we would not have the chance to debate them in full.
We will vote on them this week but it will be to all intents and purposes a formality.
I hope it does not happen again.
If I thought they were going to do the same thing next year, i.e. submit an SAB at the end of July, I would not hesitate to call a special meeting of the Budgets Committee within the 45-day timetable to make sure that we blocked it so that we could discuss it in full.
It did nothing for the trust that we are trying to build up between the two institutions.
It just led to antagonism and suspicion.
Having said all that, when it comes to SAB4 the speed with which the institutions have worked has been quite commendable.
The Council took on board what we were asking and got it through within a week and tomorrow we will be voting on SAB4.
This is indeed encouraging.
We welcome the cooperation that has gone on in SAB4.
We welcome the use of category 1 funds for external expenditure and we welcome that speed.
However, two things need to be said about SAB4.
One is that the 15 extra posts for OLAF are there, which we accept, but we need to stress that there has to be an SAB5.
SAB5 should be imminent because of the Commission' s needs for payments but within the resolution that we will vote on we will insist on an SAB5 and an extra 15 posts for OLAF.
This is a political decision which the committee and the Budget Control Committee have to make and the message that therefore needs to be taken to Mrs Schreyer, if not from you, Commissioner, then at least from the Commission services, is that we would want an early meeting with Mrs Schreyer to talk about the contents of an SAB5 to be placed before Parliament as soon as possible and, more importantly, to include the extra staff for OLAF.
I believe that we all share the surprise of the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets. And I hope that the officials of the Council who are present will take note and communicate it to the relevant minister.
Mr President, the Commission' s proposals for supplementary and amending budgets 1, 2 and 3 have been dealt with in Parliament unusually quickly and very flexibly.
It shows that Parliament and its Committee on Budgets show real responsibility for the European Union economy and, in addition, real responsibility for the development of different policies and adjusting promptly to prevailing circumstances.
Budgets 1 and 3 are mainly technical; they concern a surplus and certain computer-related purchases.
The most interesting additional budget is number 4 which channels significant sums in respect of reconstruction and humanitarian aid to the Balkans - Kosovo and Macedonia - and aid to Turkey.
Putting this fund together was a significant challenge to EU credibility and the fact that they were dealt with by the Committee on Budgets leading to amendments being made shows just how great that responsibility is.
I would particularly like to stress that when reconstruction in Kosovo gets under way, the procedure must be simple and clear, with regard also to the administration of funds and the share of responsibility.
For this reason, the agency responsible for reconstruction should not be split up into two separate areas, but must be in one place, and it should be independent with sufficient authority to take decisions.
Otherwise, the management of funds will be time-consuming and will lead to a situation in which the impact of aid is weakened.
For this reason, when tomorrow we debate and decide on this issue, the Agency for Reconstruction should be set up in Pristina, and it should on no account be associated with the agency that monitors the Stability Pact at Thessaloniki.
On other matters I would say that the questions raised by Mr Fabra Vallés on arrangements regarding appointments can surely be dealt with at the next debate on the budget.
Mister President, amending budget 4 proposes that hundreds of millions of euros should be reallocated.
This newcomer had to make up her mind on the matter based on this little piece of paper.
It seems to me that that is not an exercise to be repeated.
The proposal provides for the reallocation of commitment appropriations to the value of EUR 137 million, 30 million of which is for Turkey, largely for relief action in the form of temporary accommodation now that winter is on its way, emergency aid in other words.
Yet only 15 million in payment appropriations is being reserved, and under certain conditions at that.
Therefore, we can expect another amending budget soon. Otherwise, companies and organisations are going to have to wait rather a long time before they are paid.
There will have to be another amending budget for Kosovo, too.
30 million is now being released in payment appropriations, but we need 50 million. Plugging holes and robbing Peter to pay Paul creates a lack of transparency in relation to the budget and also compromises budgetary authority, a point clearly made by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop.
Turning now to the content of amending budget 4, the original proposal provided for a reduction in the amount spent on co-operation with Latin America and Asia.
This was certainly unacceptable as far as we were concerned.
What we want is to see that this money is actually spent, and to see the Commission do its best, put its shoulder to the wheel, create the posts and ensure that the money is indeed spent on those things that the budgetary authority intended it to be spent on.
Our group welcomes the fact that, as Mr Wynne said, the Council has certainly been quick to take up the Committee on Budgets' idea and to look into the agricultural guarantee fund' s underspending.
But soon, when the time comes to deal with Budget 2000, the same discussion will start up again.
Once again, the Council and Parliament will have to reach agreement on expenditure on external activities, and the reconstruction of Kosovo will feature here again, too.
It is likely, under these circumstances, that the Council will place the money set aside for co-operation with Latin America, Asia and Africa, in jeopardy for good.
Cutbacks are also being made in spending on projects for furthering the peace process in the Middle East, and on projects for reintegrating demoralised soldiers and refugees into society.
The support for NGOs is on the decline.
I want to take the opportunity now to say that the Green Group will not support this.
Consequently, some of the 500 million needed for the reconstruction of Kosovo will be borne by those countries for which the European Union is providing development assistance.
We do not believe that to be fair.
The Green Group does not support the short-sighted slogan: "I want my money back" .
We want to ensure that the people of Europe get value for their money, and we are quite prepared to discuss making cutbacks in, or abolishing, aid programmes that are not going well.
But the 10% linear reduction, the drip-feed method, shows that there has been no serious weighing up of priorities.
Kosovo is a special case.
Even at the time when the Financial Perspective was being discussed, people said that it would probably be necessary to increase spending in category 4 for the purposes of the reconstruction work there.
I think we are indeed going to have to lay the Interinstitutional Agreement on the table for a short and limited period of time.
In view of this discussion, I would like to remind you that one of the matters we are dealing with this week concerns actually giving back 1.6 billion in payment appropriations to the Member States.
Surely it would not be an insurmountable problem to devote part of that surplus to Kosovo.
Mr President, I would first of all like to say that, unfortunately, the report by the Committee on Budgets does not exist in all the languages. The Greek version did not reach us until just an hour ago, and I believe that it is something that we must pay particular attention to.
I understand that it may have been due to the urgency of the procedure, but we are a new Parliament, we are just starting out, and I believe that some principles and procedural mechanisms must be upheld.
I would also like to make two comments on the amending and supplementary budget 4/99 and I believe that the matter should be discussed with a representative of the Council.
We see various activities: for example, we have been informed that the Yugoslav Opposition is organising conferences and demonstrations in Brussels.
My question concerns how these activities are being funded.
These Parliament-approved appropriations are reserved solely for Yugoslavia for strictly humanitarian action, but on what political criteria do the Commission and the Council of Ministers base their decisions as to when and how they should be used? Other fundamental issues, however, such as the continuing phenomenon of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, directed against the Serbian, Gypsy and Turkish communities, are not being addressed at all.
The second point I would like to make concerns the EUR 30 million which is being given to Turkey as humanitarian aid.
It is a sound move, a positive act, as is the involvement of the European Investment Bank and the use of other programmes.
However, we must not forget the principles laid down by Parliament as regards relations with Turkey and which the Turkish Government should be taking into consideration. We saw no signs of this in the meeting two days ago with the Turkish Foreign Minister.
Mr Alavanos, I am sorry that the text is not available in all language versions.
You know that the Committee on Budgets discussed this report last night, but I can guarantee that, before the vote, you will have it in all versions.
I am sorry that this has not happened yet.
Mr President, these supplementary and amending budgets relate to urgent problems, of that there can be no doubt.
Both the reconstruction of Kosovo and the provision of humanitarian aid to north-west Turkey must be undertaken without delay in view of the disasters that have taken place in those regions, and it is the European Union' s moral duty to provide the financial means for doing so.
Hence the resolution put forward by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop and Mr Fabra Vallés deserves all our support.
Amending it will lead to unwelcome delay.
Nevertheless, we have a problem with certain aspects of the package.
For example, we are not at all happy that the extra appropriations for Kosovo, Turkey and the Republic of Macedonia are to be financed in full by appropriations from category 1, agricultural expenditure.
That is at odds with the spirit of the Financial Perspective.
Additional appropriation requirements should, in the first instance, be met by making economies in programmes which come under the same budgetary heading, i.e. category 4 in this case.
Initially, the Commission took this line as well, but came to abandon it under pressure from the Committee on Budgets, even though there is a great deal of scope for making economies within category 4.
The MEDA programme, among others, comes to mind here.
This programme' s low rate of utilisation gives cause for concern.
At the beginning of September, only 24% of the payment appropriations for 1999 had been spent.
Given this fact, it would surely be appropriate to reallocate this money.
It is clear from the current state of affairs as regards these payment appropriations in category 4 that a thorough and on-going discussion between the Commission, the Council and Parliament needs to get underway. How is it that practically all the payment appropriations for 1999 for programmes such as TACIS and the programmes for former Yugoslavia have been used up now, when this is by no means the case as far as MEDA is concerned?
Can it be put down to poor administration on the part of the Commission?
Or, and I suspect this to be the more likely scenario, does the budgetary authority fail to take adequate account of the actual appropriation requirements and absorption capacity of the various programmes when it adopts the budget? Bearing in mind that we are due to embark on the budgetary procedure for 2000, this must be resolved as soon as possible.
One of the new Commission' s first challenges.
Mr President, life is indeed not always easy.
As a new Member of Parliament and of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I discovered relatively quickly that the organisational arrangements and support offered to new Members are distinctly lacking.
In order to be able to vote "yes" or "no" in the Committee on Budgetary Control, I would have to familiarise myself with several years' worth of Budgets of the European Union in a few days, and this without the support of this Chamber.
I could not do this, of course.
I am basically an optimist and believe that it is very feasible to familiarise oneself with this subject matter, although I am conscious of the interventions of several Members, the gist of which is that in the Committee matters are handled like in a cattle market, where funds are passed back and forth, and that documents are, to some extent, prepared worse than in a good many municipal councils.
I would propose, however, that, in future, new members are quickly provided with the necessary information and training which will allow them to carry out their duties in the respective Committee and participate in voting.
The citizens of Europe expect this of us, even those taking up office as new Members and, at the end of the day, will thank us if you take up and transpose this initiative of mine.
Situation in East Timor (continued)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the declaration of the Council regarding the situation in East Timor.
Mr President, to begin with, I would like to express my regard for the statement made by the President-in Office of the Council this morning.
It underlined the urgency and importance of what is happening in East Timor, where militias continue their endeavours to smother the struggle for independence in blood.
We received information only the other day, both from Human Rights Watch and from Oxfam, and of course we have been able to see it with our own eyes on television.
As we speak, it is evening in East Timor.
It is precisely when it is dark, when night falls, that the civilian population is most afraid.
Therefore, as a Parliament, the least we can do here is to express our support for that civilian population and for their legitimate aspirations.
And that is why we support the idea of an international tribunal for calling the guilty to account, and why we will take action to protect the refugees.
Mr President, I would like to join our parliamentary delegation of observers which was sent out on the initiative of the President of our Parliament and under the excellent leadership of the Vice-President of our Parliament, Mr José Pacheco Pereira.
The Finnish Presidency is deserving of praise here too, for it initiated the idea of sending a delegation on behalf of the European Union.
Whereas up until recently Portugal was practically the only country to carry this torch, now all the countries of the European Union are rallying behind the East Timorese struggle for independence.
But, ladies and gentlemen, involvement of this kind comes at a price.
We went to East Timor to reassure the population that they could vote in safety, and overwhelmingly large numbers of people have done so.
But after we left, these same people were again put to the sword by the pro-Indonesian militias.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot stand by and let this happen.
If we were to do so, it would mean that our delegation had been nothing more than a pointless exercise in referendum tourism.
I would also like to draw your attention to developments in East Timor in the longer term.
There has been an immediate and generous response from the European Union in terms of humanitarian emergency aid, but once the country has gained its independence it will be necessary to provide support for economic development and it will be at least as important to give our support to the establishment of democratic institutions.
There is absolutely nothing of that kind in East Timor.
No political parties, no system for the administration of justice, not a single functioning institution apart from the Church.
I believe that a programme along the lines of the one we undertook in South Africa would be appropriate.
Mr President, the campaign for the referendum was the most one-sided campaign I have ever experienced.
Every attempt to pursue the campaign for independence met with violence.
Yet still the people of East Timor voted overwhelmingly in favour of this independence.
The protection that the Indonesian authorities were unable or unwilling to provide must now be immediately provided, without prior conditions, by an international peacekeeping force.
We owe that to the people of East Timor, we owe that to UNAMET, which has carried out such excellent work, and we owe it to ourselves.
Mr President, the people of Indonesia are themselves, or at least we hope this is the case, on the road to democracy, and have more than enough problems to come, even without East Timor.
In future, we must turn our attention to these problems too.
Nevertheless, it was right to suspend the bilateral aid for Indonesia for the time being, as we have learnt from recent experiences that pressure must be kept up until the whole process reaches a satisfactory conclusion.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Council for the determined action it showed in connection with the referendum on independence for East Timor, for example, by sending there a prestigious delegation, made up partly of our colleagues representing Parliament.
I myself was able to be part of the presidential delegation, which I greatly appreciate.
In May, we discussed here what sort of international presence was needed in East Timor.
Some of us considered whether something other than a regular police force was perhaps needed there, or whether peacekeeping forces were required.
It would appear that the biggest mistake was that the whole international operation was aimed only at allowing people to vote.
That was the great challenge, as people were being intimidated and, since April, the terror had been really appalling.
People went to vote; it was a sunny day, and I will certainly never forget how many people came to thank us, the international observers, for having come there.
The joy, however, was short-lived.
Already the following day, paramilitary forces began to rampage through the streets and villages, and we received news that, in particular, local people in the service of the UN were being persecuted and killed.
Now I wish to add three demands to the list already presented. Firstly, we must demand that the commanders of the army, who are known to have taken part in this outrage, withdraw immediately.
Secondly, we must send, through the ECHO programme, humanitarian aid as soon as possible and, obviously, the aim should be in the long-term for a programme of development.
Thirdly, as the paramilitaries are still terrorising the people, international human rights monitors must inevitably be sent there
Mr President, I would like to begin by saying that I agree with most of the interventions which have already been made by my fellow MEPs.
It is well known that East Timor has been illegally occupied by Indonesia for around 24 years, which has resulted in successive resolutions by the UN demanding Indonesia' s withdrawal and restating the people of East Timor' s right to self-determination.
Even here, in this Parliament, similar positions have been taken on a number of occasions.
The truth is that throughout this period, the Indonesian occupying forces were claiming hundreds of thousands of victims, inflicting immense suffering on the people of East Timor, who have never wavered in their heroic struggle for freedom and independence, a struggle which we acclaim.
But with the signing of the New York Agreement between Portugal and Indonesia, under the auspices of the United Nations, it was thought that the way was finally clear for the resolution of all these problems.
The turnout of 98.6% on 30 August, in the referendum which was held with the overwhelming majority of the people of East Timor, with over 78% coming out in favour of independence, showed clearly that its struggle deserved to be recognised by the whole world.
The truth is though, that later, both the UN, and international observers and the Indonesian authorities themselves, who thought that the elections had been held in a free and fair way, in spite of the pressure and the campaign of intimidation carried out by the pro-Djakarta militias, the truth - as I was saying - is that when the results were made public, terror was once again given free rein in East Timor.
Once again, the people were, and still are, threatened with genocide.
It is therefore essential that we urgently and immediately put a stop to this situation, and that the people of East Timor are helped, using all possible humanitarian aid.
It is essential that the militias, the police, and the Indonesian army stop sowing terror in the area.
We must also recognise that Indonesia did not fulfil the commitments it accepted in the New York Agreement, which required the intervention of the UN Security Council through the dispatch of a peacekeeping force, with a clear mandate and a defined time-scale, to guarantee security and peace in the territory and to prevent further genocide.
It was a long time before this decision was actually taken.
Finally, it was taken, and the UN Security Council eventually decided to intervene, but incidents are still occurring, and it is crucial that they do not continue, that this intervention is not delayed any further.
The people in East Timor - but also those who have fled to other parts of Indonesia - need this support.
Something else which should also be done urgently is to ensure their safe return (of the refugees and displaced people) and that non-governmental organisations, international observers and journalists can enter East Timor as quickly as possible.
As we stated in our motion...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the population of East Timor has endured and continues to endure truly tragic events before the eyes of the world.
We have the courage of various reporters to thank for the fact that the world is adequately informed of what is going on.
The reason for the current great suffering of the East Timorese people is clear: pro-Indonesian militias are endeavouring to smother in blood the desire expressed by the vast majority of people for political independence, and take careful note, this is a downright denial of the outcome of the referendum which took place on 30 August 1999.
The army units present on the spot, as well as the official local police forces, are direct accessories to this orgy of violence.
Nor, however, have the Indonesian military leadership nor the Indonesian government kept their hands clean in this respect.
In fact, the latter bear full responsibility for what, according to reports, are thousands of dead, hundreds of thousands of refugees and hundreds of thousands of East Timorese deported to West Timor.
After all, in a civilised country politics presides over guns, the former instructs the latter.
The next obvious step is to prosecute those responsible for the crimes recently committed in East Timor, indeed President Habibie' s pledges support this.
Therefore, the task that needs to be attended to by Djakarta as a matter of urgency, in anticipation of the arrival of a UN peacekeeping mission to East Timor, is to call an immediate halt to the wrath of the militias.
Only action of this kind would bear witness to an intention to truly serve the interests of the country.
It is precisely at a time like this, when Indonesian national pride is so openly at issue and stirring up phoney feelings over the country' s sovereignty, that restoring the constitutional state in the Molucca Islands is entirely appropriate in this context.
Following heavy international pressure, President Habibie has at last said that he will accept military intervention in East Timor.
Now then, the great need of the indigenous population cannot brook any further diplomatic procrastination on the part of the UN Security Council.
What is more, Djakarta has made official the fact that it does not intend to impose preconditions on a mission of this kind.
In other words, the peace mission can begin its task in East Timor without delay.
In view of the lawlessness that now prevails in East Timor, only a powerful military mandate can offer political prospects to the East Timorese, who have long been terrorised, in which case, the financial aid that the European Union has already undertaken to provide, will be every bit as worthwhile.
The tragic events in East Timor have shown the cowardice and opportunism of the international community.
We need the courage, following the clear results of the referendum, to immediately implement the principle of peoples' self-determination by recognising the independence of East Timor, without waiting for problematic concessions by the Indonesian Government.
I extend this invitation especially to the governments of the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
Above all, this would mean that the intervention of an international peacekeeping force could be considered not as interference with Indonesia' s sovereignty, but as assistance offered by the international community to an independent and sovereign state.
Mr President, as we now know, what is happening in East Timor is both a crime and a tragedy.
This has been said several times here.
A crime, because Indonesian colonial occupation has lasted for 24 years.
On-going human rights violations, terror inflicted on a people that is peace-loving, unhappy and defenceless have become widespread, but have existed there for 24 years, as I myself have seen.
The UN organised a referendum: there was 98% participation, with more than 78% in favour of independence.
This was a perfectly transparent democratic vote.
Well, far from finding peace again, the Timorese are now suffering a real tragedy.
We are witnessing serious violation of East Timorese sovereignty by a state of siege imposed by Indonesia.
In international law, from the point when the Timorese people chose independence, it became effectively sovereign on its own territory.
It becomes sovereign in law as soon as it sets up representative institutions which it has chosen.
There is only one sovereign authority today in East Timor, and that is the people of East Timor.
You are aware of the facts which flout this law: the deportation of more than 80,000 people to West Timor, where they are held in pens, starved, beaten and held hostage by the Indonesian army.
Mass terror everywhere else.
The people responsible have been identified: the militia, the army and the civil authority of Indonesia.
We are told that Mr Habibie' s government is the prisoner of the army in Djakarta, that the Army High Command no longer has any control over the troops of East Timor and that the militia are getting out of hand everywhere.
But I ask you, friends, who then is responsible? If it is not the civil government, then we should denounce a bloodless coup in Indonesia.
If it is not the army, we should denounce the disappearance of any representative institution in this country.
It is clear what action must be taken.
The UN must intervene under Chapter 7.
The UN must define the composition of the intervention force.
The Indonesian army must withdraw from East Timor.
The militia must be disarmed.
And the Indonesian State must be held clearly responsible for its present prevarication.
An international commission must be set up to look into the acts of violence in East Timor and the people responsible for these crimes must be brought before the International Criminal Court.
All trade with Indonesia must be conditional upon the definitive restoration of peace in Timor.
The Timorese must be given the means to establish themselves as an independent state and to be recognised.
In this tragedy, Mr President, there is no question as to our right to interfere.
It is a matter of respect for international law.
I appreciate that this is a very emotional debate, but I would be grateful if you would limit yourselves to the allotted time.
Mr President, it is not in a spirit of sterile recrimination but because of our concern and alarm about the way the situation is now developing that we feel compelled to recall and stress the direct and indirect responsibility of the United States of America for the massacres, the ethnic cleansing, going on unabated at this very moment in East Timor.
We share some of the relief felt by many when the Clinton Administration, in an apparent turnaround, finally criticized the Jakarta Government and let the United Nations take control of the crisis.
Anybody in this House who is not familiar with Washington' s role in the tragedies in Indonesia and Timor, from 1966 to the latest genocide unleashed by the military on 30 August, should read the analysis published today by the Washington Post and the Herald Tribune under the banner headline 'Pentagon defends Indonesian military contacts as useful' .
We are reminded of the close personal friendship between the Chairman of the United States Chief of Staff, General Henry Shelton, and the butcher from Jakarta, General Wiranto.
The top military man in the United States aiding and abetting the violence in East Timor and last Monday ordering his Indonesian pal to accept an international peace force.
Mrs Halonen stated this morning that the terror unleashed on 30 August took the Council by surprise.
It should not have.
May we suggest that in order to avoid future surprises, the Council and Parliament monitor very closely the peacekeeping mission of the United Nations, the humanitarian aid plan by Europe, the integrity of any present or future programme designed to put an end to the suffering of the Timorese to guarantee their full independence and sovereignty free of any threat, interference or pressure by the Indonesian military and their American mentors.
Mr President, of course we are committed to supporting the efforts of the people of East Timor in their fight for independence and democracy.
But what form should this support take? As Europeans, we cannot behave like schoolmasters in a conflict in South-East Asia.
In so doing, we will not engender any trust on the part of those people in Asia who would be important partners as regards the democratisation of this country.
Above all, the disintegration and balkanisation of South-East Asia can surely not be Europe' s goal.
The question was therefore asked in the leader in today 's issue of the Herald Tribune: "Who are these Western crusaders to be lecturing the Asians?" - a question that may be a bitter pill for us to swallow.
Our responsibility, as Europeans, is to support democratic development, which will also result in an improvement in the living conditions of the people.
Perhaps, we will first have to learn as Europeans how to support a people in a foreign land in their fight for independence, as well as along their path to a democratic form of society.
Mr President, what is happening now was predicted well before the vote.
The people of East Timor were encouraged by the UN to go out and use their democratic right to vote and they are being persecuted for doing so.
The international community was warned well in advance.
What has it been doing for the last 14 days? It has sat and twiddled its thumbs, waiting for an invitation from Indonesia, the country that has been illegally occupying East Timor for the last 25 years, whose Foreign Minister has stuck his fingers up at the UN General Assembly when the issue was raised.
One-third of the population has been massacred and here we are waiting for an invitation from Indonesia.
President Clinton' s hypocrisy, which has already been highlighted today, is unacceptable.
Tony Blair' s wonderful new government, with its ethical foreign policy, has continued sending its arms to Indonesia.
These are the hypocrites, the so-called moral police forces of the world who put profit before people.
It is completely unacceptable.
What we want to see now is a complete arms embargo on Indonesia and also an economic embargo.
We want an international peacekeeping force.
We want to see independence for the people of East Timor, which is their democratic right.
We want an end to the tyranny that has been perpetrated on the people of East Timor for the last 25 years with the help of EU countries, America and all these hypocritical people who want to sell arms to tyrants in Indonesia and other countries around the world.
It has to stop.
The hypocrisy of the European Union' s arms industry has to end and this is the best example we have had so far of what the end result is.
Mr President, we do not yet know how the steps adopted by the Security Council are going to be applied, but we do already know that assistance will arrive too late to save a great number of lives.
On the one hand, irreparable damage has already been done.
The disaster was not unexpected.
The Timorese resistance had given the alarm signal, demanding that the United Nations oversee the safety of the ballot on self-determination.
The crime was that of failure to assist a people in danger.
The East Timorese are paying a high price for earlier compromises.
The Indonesian army, the body chiefly responsible for the current massacres, was set up, trained and equipped by the major powers of the West in 1965 in order to massacre the Indonesian population itself, in order to eradicate a Communist Party whose influence was troublesome.
Today, there is unanimous outrage, but there is great hypocrisy.
Who is going to be made to believe that the United States, but also France, which signed a military co-operation agreement with Djakarta, did not have the means to exert sufficient pressure to stay the arm of the killers? At the time of the bombing raids on Iraq or the former Yugoslavia, the great powers spoke of human rights.
It would seem, from this case, that for some people, defending human rights takes second place to defending financial interests.
Mr President, we were right to call for this urgent debate.
The Security Council of the United Nations yesterday adopted a decision which, I hope, will be up to the task and adequate for the seriousness of the situation.
Three or four weeks have elapsed from the start of the massacres until this decision.
This is, of course, far too long.
But I would like to highlight the fact, since there is much talk of hypocrisy in this Chamber, that in other cases, we have wasted not months, but years.
Even this year, we had the case of Kosovo and many of the Members who spoke to request, to loudly demand, military intervention were those who had previously opposed any military intervention in Kosovo.
If a different international law must be created, with a real duty to intervene incorporated in it, not because Indonesia is right-wing or allied to Clinton, whereas Milosevic is supposedly left-wing, but a true right to intervene like the one we have just seen emerge, then we should draw our lessons from this in order to set the right of the individual before even the right of peoples, and to ensure that such massacres cannot be repeated in future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is one thing to look back, and that is surely sensible, but it is another thing to look forward quickly.
Let us not try and kid ourselves.
Even if UN troops move in at the weekend, perhaps without the co-operation of the Indonesian army and the national authorities, we will not be able to bring about peace at the drop of a hat.
For the marauding gangs, which are still roaming through East Timor and the army, which still has a presence there, cannot be kept in check by a six or eight thousand strong UN force.
The East Timorese who have fled, and who are now in West Timor, must be able to return home.
They must be protected in West Timor where they are now staying.
Therefore, we must give a clear signal to those parties who have responsibility in Indonesia.
I am no longer sure whether the government still has responsibility and control.
Perhaps this now rests with the army.
We must say to all those parties who have responsibility: if Indonesia' s policy does not change, and quickly, then we, and I am addressing the Council and the Commission here, will have to seriously threaten them with all the economic means at our disposal and force those who have the power in Indonesia to co-operate.
Otherwise, what we will see is that although our troops are stationed there, people will continue to be murdered and driven out.
Therefore, we have to send out a clear signal.
Indonesia still has the opportunity to maintain good relations with us over the coming years.
But if it does not change its policy, then it will no longer have partners in Europe for as long as those responsible for the current situation are still in power, whether they be in the army, the parliament or the government.
Therefore, we are also appealing to the Council, along with the Member States, to send clear signals to those responsible in Indonesia in the next few days.
They must co-operate, otherwise a UN peacekeeping force will be defenceless.
We need strong action on the part of Europe, the Council, the Commission and Parliament.
Mr President, I began my military career as a British army officer in the mid 1960s, engaged on military operations against the Indonesian Army in Borneo in defence of the newly created State of Malaysia.
It is perhaps appropriate that I should now begin my parliamentary duties with reference to Indonesia and another State that is in creation - East Timor.
It is over two weeks since the referendum took place in East Timor.
The outcome of the referendum and the terrible consequences were very predictable.
Yet the international community, with certain exceptions, seems to have been taken by surprise by the way in which this tragedy has unfolded.
Quite clearly international pressure had to be put on Indonesia and many of us have called for the early suspension of World Bank and IMF financial assistance and the suspension of arms exports and military cooperation.
We therefore welcome the albeit belated common position adopted by the General Affairs Council.
If resolute action had been taken earlier, then maybe the Indonesian authorities would have responded differently.
The immediate need now is for the rapid deployment of a peacekeeping force and the delivery of humanitarian aid.
I do not necessarily think it is appropriate for the Europeans to react militarily to crises in areas far from their borders.
But the crisis in East Timor has highlighted the difficulties for Europeans in responding to yet another peacekeeping task.
The fact is that there is little scope for this, even if it was desirable.
Capabilities are limited.
EU Member States do not spend enough on their armed forces and what they spend is often not spent well.
Over the years the United Kingdom has developed a highly effective military capability and yet the United Kingdom armed forces are now desperately overstretched and most Member States of the European Union spend a smaller proportion of their GDP on defence than the United Kingdom.
The most useful European Union contribution in a situation such as East Timor is more likely to be civil rather than military.
That is the right sort of focus for us in this situation.
We heard from Mrs Halonen that the Commission has been asked to prepare a socio-economic programme for institution building in East Timor.
This is most welcome but the programme will require early implementation once the security situation permits, coordination with contributions from other institutions and countries and very careful management to ensure effectiveness.
Finally, there is yet another aspect of this tragedy which we must not forget.
Over the past few weeks the most horrific crimes have been committed against Timorese and others, and those responsible must be brought to justice.
Mr President, in view of the Dutch connection with Indonesia, I would like to start by saying that I am completely astonished by the way in which the world order has again shown such extraordinary naivety when it comes to the international rule of law and the conduct of the Security Council.
Everyone knows that in Indonesia, the real power lies with a broad military leadership of complex composition, topped by what purport to be political parties.
And everyone knows that the Indonesian military had no intention whatsoever of stopping the militias, indeed it has itself been actively involved in orchestrating the operations that have taken place in recent days.
Notwithstanding all this, the world has allowed itself to discuss the situation in formally legal terms, in the expectation that Indonesia would do the right thing.
Such naivety is almost tantamount to provocation and ought, in the fullness of time, to be a lesson to us in other situations.
That is my first comment.
My second comment is as follows: it is my fervent wish that when this House discusses the question of Indonesia, it draws a clear distinction between the military regime of Indonesia, the referendum that has taken place and which reflects a longstanding and deep transformation process that has only just begun in an enormous empire, of which East Timor is only a very small part, and the enormous suffering endured by the Indonesian people.
Just as we must give unequivocal support to East Timor, and I support the sanctions and give my signature to and support the resolution, so we must also stand by the people of Indonesia as a whole.
We must deliver humanitarian aid to them, but also other forms of aid too, for building up society for example.
It would be a mistake of historic importance if we were to neglect the Indonesian people in so many other areas of the Indonesian archipelago.
In my view, the best way to support East Timor is to support the Indonesian people as well.
Both need democracy and an international system of law, and as a European Parliament we must render our services to both.
Mr President, this is a timely debate.
As we speak, the UN Security Council has passed a resolution under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter to allow a peacekeeping force under Australian command into East Timor.
It is two weeks too late.
The UK, US, New Zealand, Canada, Philippines and Thailand have now committed manpower and material to the peacekeeping force.
They are too late.
China, Russia, South Korea and Malaysia have indicated their commitment to help.
They too are too late.
The international community has woken up at last.
As usual it is, and always will be, giving too little too late.
Since the East Timor referendum, up to 10 000 people have been slaughtered for voting for independence.
300 000, including children, out of a total population of 800 000 have been displaced and made homeless, hiding without shelter, food and sanitation in the jungle.
What surprises me is that the international community and the United Nations never manages to learn, to anticipate from the experiences of Somalia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, and now East Timor.
What is wrong with us? The international community, time and time again, is called upon to clean up the mess left by brutal tyrants, so-called ethnic cleansers and the genocide of dictators.
Under the Montevideo Convention, we are compelled by international law to recognise these brutal regimes as sovereign independent states.
Perhaps we should now reconsider this definition and encourage an international debate on whether democracy such as ours should give equal recognition, treatment and respectability to regimes throughout the world which refute democracy and the rule of law, human rights and good governance.
Surely the time has come now to differentiate, to redefine, to tighten up the criteria as we do now in giving aid.
If good governance is a fundamental prerequisite for development aid, why should good governance not also be a fundamental criterion for international recognition, bilateral relations and trade development? The IMF has recognised this recently in Indonesia and it is time that the European Union' s Member States also recognised it.
Mr President, we were told by Council this morning that East Timor deserves our full support.
We were told that we supplied observers that were crucial to the success of the referendum when the East Timorese said a very loud and very large "yes" to independence.
We were told by the Council that the Commission is preparing social and economic assistance for a newly independent East Timor, all of which of course we welcome.
But we are also told by Mrs Halunen that she was surprised at the terror that took place after the referendum.
I am surprised that she was surprised.
I was in Jakarta in August, as a special representative of the UNDP working with the Indonesian Parliament, the DPRK, on new rules for that parliament.
It was clear to me then and more importantly to everybody else in Jakarta that firstly there would be a resounding yes in a referendum and secondly that the army, or at least large sections of the army, would try to subvert that process by engaging in and encouraging terror.
We have seen that happen, but why we are surprised I do not know.
I welcome the peacekeeping force.
I welcome the humanitarian aid that is going to go in to help the 200,00 to 400,000 refugees.
I welcome the fact that we were told that EUR 8 million would be available for that humanitarian aid.
But it must be delivered quickly.
I accept that in the interim it may be delivered by air.
We are told it is going to be dropped in by helicopters from 1,500 metres.
If you remember the aid we saw being airlifted in and dropped to some of the Kurdish refugees from the air, it was not very successful.
If I recall correctly, some of the refugees were actually killed.
As soon as possible that aid needs to be delivered on the ground.
We need to make sure that it happens within days rather than weeks.
I accept the need for the ban on arms.
We need to stop arms sales to Indonesia and I welcome the four-month ban.
It may be that it needs to be continued but at the same time we also need to be helping the Indonesians by providing them with assistance to ensure that very fragile democracy elected in the last general election is able to establish itself.
Unless we do that in November or December we will be having a similar debate about Indonesia, telling each other how we knew it was all going to end in tears.
Mr President, the referendum in East Timor, which was supervised by the United Nations, has turned into a drama.
After more than twenty years of violence and repression, the people there were able at last to choose their own future; yet, the choice they made in freedom, to go down the road of independence, was punished with a brutality of which history has scarce seen the like.
Murdering, setting fire to things and deporting people as they went, the pro-Indonesian militias left the country in a state of chaos, plundered and burnt to the ground.
The images have been there for all to see.
The Indonesian army failed to take action to protect the population.
The UN, the NGOs, the observers were all powerless to do anything.
There have been instances of death and wounding in these quarters too.
I count myself as one of those that know Indonesia well.
I hesitate a little to address Indonesia in harsh terms, representing as I do, a country that held sway as a colonial power there for 300 years.
But these events transform any hesitation on my part into outright criticism and severe reprimands directed at the Indonesian government and the Indonesian army.
What happened in East Timor is serious and requires us to impose sanctions and take international action with all haste.
Sanctions have now been approved, also by the EU, and I welcome this with open arms.
I regret that France and the Netherlands tried again in Council to prevent the weapons embargo from going ahead, and admire the Finnish Presidency for pushing it through nonetheless.
The second step that must now be taken is to send an international peacekeeping force, preferably from within the region, so that the people can be protected and the independence of East Timor can be implemented
The third step is to set up a tribunal for the purpose of punishing those who have committed such cruel acts, so that law is upheld and justice is done.
The fourth thing that needs to happen is the delivery of aid to the region. Once independence has been implemented, which is undoubtedly going to happen now, East Timor will need an enormous amount of help.
And we must be generous in providing this help too.
On a final note, the violence meted out by the militias in Indonesia has not been confined to Timor alone.
They murder and plunder in the Moluccas, in Aceh and in Irian Jaya too.
Hundreds of people, especially Christians, have already died in the Moluccas in particular.
Last week, Dutch citizens of Moluccan extraction demonstrated in Brussels in a dignified manner.
We believe that attention should also be given to what is happening there.
If the murder does not stop in those other regions too, and if the Indonesian government doesn' t offer protection, then, in our view, the United Nations should also take action in those other regions of Indonesia.
Mr President, human rights and democracy are at stake in Indonesia.
Let us deal with the situation as an international community.
Mr President, who can forget the tragic images of Burundi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Bosnia-Herzegovina and more recently, Kosovo that are still fresh in our minds. We have now added to that list the ongoing humanitarian plight of thousands of displaced East Timorese as a result of the well-planned and systematic policy of killings, destruction of property, and intimidation carried out by the militia and elements of the Indonesian security forces.
In most of these situations it must be said that timely action by the international community based upon assessments and early warnings of situations could undoubtedly have saved many lives and greatly reduced human suffering and misery.
I do not believe that anyone in this Chamber would deny that recent events in East Timor were totally predictable and therefore to some extent preventable.
The international community, in particular the United Nations, has to ask itself some searching and probing questions.
I also believe that we in the European Union must put our house in order.
Today, we have just approved the new Commission and in the light of recent events in East Timor, Kosovo and elsewhere I would like to address my remarks to the new Commissioner responsible for the common foreign and security policy.
I would like to ask would he assure this Parliament that the establishment of a policy planning and early warning unit as envisaged under the Amsterdam Treaty will be given top priority? In addition, will he guarantee that this unit will provide the appropriate parliamentary committees with all the relevant information including analyses, recommendations and strategies on any potential crisis which should be monitored by this Parliament.
The provision of such information would greatly enhance Parliament' s contribution to the development of a more effective and cohesive EU foreign policy, which is long overdue.
We must ensure that the EU responds urgently and effectively to potential crisis situations and thereby helps prevent the recurrence of the sort of tragedies that we have recently experienced in East Timor.
Mr President, I will refrain from adding to what many Members have said very effectively on the subject of East Timor.
Instead, I would like to ask a question about it - 'build peace without opportunism' - what does that mean? In short, after 24 years of this tragedy, and after 24 years of the international community avoiding imposing economic sanctions, what does 'make every effort' now mean?
On this, I add my voice to the request already made in this House and by the Senate of the Republic of my country, asking for European governments and the UN to recognise, as soon as possible, the sovereign state of East Timor, and the fact that it is no longer an issue dealt with exclusively in this House does credit to my Portuguese colleagues and colleagues from certain other countries.
I would like to add another consideration to this.
In addition to the debt we have owed to East Timor for 24 years, there is the fact that, while there have been demonstrations about East Timor, we are not taking into account the political hypothesis that we must in any case once again beg the United States for the favour of possible military intervention.
This forces us to re-examine the subject of common defence.
One final point. It is still possible for us to do what is right for East Timor, to do it immediately and with determination.
The credibility of this institution depends not only on endorsing the Commissioners of the Commission, but also largely on the question of East Timor.
Mr President, a feature of the current situation is the anger and the frustration of the men and women of all our Member States.
They are angry and frustrated at the sclerosis that exists in the decision-making processes of the European Union and indeed the United Nations.
It is time we got our act together and resolved these decision-making problems.
The President-in-Office here this morning declared that the Council was surprised at the events of the last two weeks.
I cannot understand how the Council or anybody else could be surprised. Has no one in the Council been reading the paper for the last 25 years?
Do they not know that we have armed the perpetrators of this genocide for the last 25 years? The people of East Timor believed us when we told them we would protect them if they voted and they came out in their thousands and thousands to vote for independence.
We failed to protect them.
How many more times do we say "never again" before we actually take a decision to ensure that when we make a promise like that we will keep that promise and plan to keep that promise? It is not good enough for us to wring our hands and declare we are sorry.
We have to make sure it never happens again.
Mr President, you will note by the number of Irish people wishing to speak in the debate today that this is an issue very close to our hearts.
For many years Mr Tom Hyland, an Irishman who has made this the cause of his life, has led international demands for action on East Timor.
In Ireland we care very deeply about East Timor and we have been extremely active; as the President-in-Office noted this morning, our Foreign Minister, Mr David Andrews, was the special EU Overseer of the recent elections in East Timor.
But in the context of the current disaster there, Indonesia has become a symbol of the lengths to which a brutal, weak and unscrupulous regime will go to further its power and control over those it perceives as challenging its authority.
Unfortunately this government has had many friends in this Parliament over the years and many EU governments have put the profits of their arms industries above those of the basic human rights of the unfortunate people of East Timor.
Events of the past month have graphically illustrated what many have sought to highlight over the years about the reality of life in East Timor.
The President-in-Office spoke very passionately this morning about her concerns but, as Mr De Rossa has rightly pointed out, these concerns were no surprise to a great many of us.
Perhaps it is because East Timor is very far away and a very small country, that the crucial issues at stake in this dreadful catastrophe engulfing the country at the moment have been of little concern either to ourselves within the EU or, of course, to the United States.
What we have seen is a brutal regime taking a terrible revenge on a small country that dared to say it wanted to be independent and we must support it.
Mr President, the only issue left to address at this stage, given the broad range of contributions from all sides of this House, is why we are surprised about what has happened in Indonesia, why we are surprised at the impotent response of the European Union to the tragic genocide of the last two weeks in East Timor.
If we were unable to intervene and intervene promptly and properly in Kosovo, on our own doorstep, without weeks and months of prevarication and legal consultation to see what we could or could not do, how could we really expect the EU to respond as we would wish and the citizens of Europe would wish to the tragedy in East Timor?
What is it about the institutions of Europe - about the European Parliament, about the European Union collectively - that makes us unable to respond to the crises in the world as our people, our voters, our citizens would want us to do? We need urgently to examine why our response is always - as I said yesterday and others said today - too little, too late.
We are a multi-billion pound, multi-billion dollar talking-shop, as far as the citizens of Europe and the world are concerned.
We are never there when it counts.
We always respond several months too late, we spend hours debating crises in this House and in other institutions, but we are not there, when it counts, as quickly as we should be.
Why? Maybe the answer will come from the next two speakers.
Why is it always too little, too late?
Why was it a surprise that there was genocide since the referendum two weeks ago?
Why was the UN Council taken by surprise? We had guaranteed these people that if they exercised their democratic rights and voted we would protect them and see it out to the end.
We failed, and failed miserably.
The international community should hang its head and the European Union along with it.
What is wrong? What needs to be done to enable us to respond as we should?
That is the only question that needs to be answered because we are too late now.
Others have taken up our cudgels. Let us not be caught in this position again.
Pursuant to Rule 37 of the Rules of Procedure, I have received six motions for resolution to close the present debate.
Mr President, I would just like to let you know that today a consultative meeting was held, and that these motions for resolution will be replaced by a single motion for a joint resolution.
Thank you very much, Mr Seguro.
The Presidency has received a request for permission to make a statement from the Commission and the Council.
Commissioner Liikanen will therefore speak on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, Mr Cushnahan asked the Commissioner responsible for foreign policy a question.
Unfortunately, that Member of the Commission is not here; he will assume office tomorrow.
I can inform you that the new Commission meets for the first time on Saturday this week.
The situation in East Timor, and three issues in particular, are on the agenda.
Mr President, I was asked a question which was addressed to Mr Patten, who is responsible for foreign and security policy.
He is not here today.
He will assume office tomorrow.
The Commission will have its first meeting on Saturday.
In that first meeting the situation in East Timor will be on the agenda.
There will be three basic issues: how to re-establish peace; what the urgent humanitarian needs are and how they can be met in the area; how to prepare a multi-annual programme to build institutions in East Timor.
As far as the ECHO' s activities so far and at the moment are concerned, Mrs Halonen, the Foreign Minister of Finland and President of the Council would like to say that the ECHO humanitarian aid office has been present in East Timor since 15 July.
There have been six partners in East Timor.
They were fully in action until 9 September when they had to be evacuated for security reasons to Australia.
All these people are returning to East Timor as soon as the security situation improves.
We hope that the recent UN Security Council resolution allows the situation to develop so that all the humanitarian aid activities can be restarted soon in East Timor.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mr Sasi will speak on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first I would like to thank all those who have contributed to the debate for their opinions and also for the questions they have asked.
I am convinced that, with all of us working together, Parliament, the Council and the Commission, we can participate, with maximum effectiveness, in a solution to the crisis in East Timor and the arrangements that will need to be made afterwards.
The resolutions approved on Monday by the Council are an indication that we feel a special sense of responsibility towards finding a solution to the issue of East Timor that will benefit its people.
One key principle of international law is the right to self-determination of nations.
This issue is about establishing that right.
Another principle is insistence on compliance with agreements.
That we are demanding unconditionally from Indonesia.
Indonesia must respect and comply with essential commitments to human rights, and, above all, the UN agreement made in New York on 5 May on the question of East Timor.
This being the case, the Union will continue its forceful action in the United Nations, the Security Council and in Djakarta.
An international presence is the only immediate way of improving security and safeguarding it besides, so allowing sufficient humanitarian aid to be delivered to the region.
A decision was taken this morning by the Security Council to send an international peacekeeping force and an advanced guard to East Timor immediately.
The meeting at which the decision was approved was a long one: it began yesterday at 18.00. local time and ended today at 02.00.
We can feel satisfied that the mandate that has been given is a so-called strong mandate.
We expect the first troops to arrive in the region before the weekend.
The Australians have announced that they are on twenty-four hour alert.
We consider it important and positive that no preconditions were imposed in the decision to become involved.
The primary criterion - the best and fastest way of restoring security - is an important one.
In the long-term, we must allow other Asian countries, and especially those in ASEAN, to participate fully.
In addition, the Member States of the Union have been asked to participate, and we know that many countries are now doing so.
We also know that France, Great Britain and Portugal have announced their readiness to send troops.
The new problem that appears to be emerging now is the situation of the East Timorese in West Timor.
The region is a part of Indonesia, and we trust that Indonesia will guarantee the safety of all those in the region, and I also hope it will.
At the same time, we have to unconditionally ensure that the international humanitarian organisations and, above all the UNHCR, have safe access to the area.
To show that the international community is in earnest in this matter, we are recommending a visit to West Timor in the next view days by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs Ogata.
Humanitarian action is urgently needed and its main priorities are the protection of refugees in West Timor, access to the area by the UNHCR, and the commencement of airdrops of food and other supplies to take place as soon as possible.
Regarding the airdrops, we can state that apparently they can start on Thursday through action on the part of the World Food Aid Programme and UNICEF.
For this we must ensure there are sufficient supplies, and we will use Union relief funds to purchase these supplies.
I believe humanitarian action will be in capable hands with the UNHCR, the UNDP and the ICRC.
The Union and its Member States will also have a considerable part to play in the operation in the future.
Furthermore, ECHO has all the while been involved in assessing the size of the aid package needed and co-ordinating Union aid so that it gets to where it is needed most right now.
The question of sanctions has been raised here, and I would now like to say that the ban on the export of weapons approved in the Council on Monday will come into force immediately.
This decision will mean we will stop the export of arms to Indonesia by any Member State, and the ban will be in force for the next four months, after which it will be up for review.
The legal aspects of the decision are to be finalised by the relevant bodies, and I shall not go into further detail as far as that is concerned.
Much emphasis has been put in our discussions here on the fact that human rights are being violated. We strongly condemn a state of affairs in which these violations have been carried out on such a large scale and so flagrantly.
It has been said here that no one could have failed to predict that things would turn out as they have.
It is absolutely true that we knew beforehand that there would be problems in the region after the referendum.
However, I believe that the extent and intensity of the terror carried out came as a surprise to all the observers.
The Union and the whole international community had had an assurance from the Indonesian government that they would be capable of keeping order and maintaining security in the region.
They had also legally committed to this in the New York Agreement.
As Mrs Halonen said, it is probable that people in the region are also guilty of crimes that violate international human rights.
For this reason, the Council has decided to give its support to the organisation of a special convention of the Commission on Human Rights and the appointment of an investigatory delegation to be sent to the region.
It is also very important that we discover who is responsible for criminal acts in this crisis.
I would like to draw attention to the absence of the Commissioner for External Affairs who has already been appointed.
If Timor is an urgent matter, his appearance was to be expected.
Thank you very much, Mr Portas.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is questions to the Council (B5-0029/99).
I was looking over this balustrade to see whether the Council was present.
I wanted to assure myself that we were in the presence of the Council, which I greet as President of the Parliament.
This is the first sitting of this parliamentary legislature in which we will have Question Time, in this case to the Council.
I would like to remind you that, after the Council has replied to the written question, the Member who has asked the question, and two other Members, have the right to ask supplementary questions.
Mr President, the procedures used in Member States to effect deportation do not fall within the scope of Community legislation.
Neither has the Community drafted any provisions for the temporary protection of nationals of third countries.
The Member States themselves have authority in procedure relating to deportation.
In carrying out their tasks, the authorities in Member States must act in compliance with their own national legislation and be subject to legal and political monitoring by national bodies, and also act in compliance too with the relevant international provisions relating to the safeguarding of human rights.
The death of a child is always a shocking event.
Being a father too, I am touched by the case.
However, the Council, unfortunately, has no knowledge of this case, so it cannot take a position on the matters raised by the Honourable Member in her question.
I regret the so-called reply which has been given to me because are we to conclude from the words of Mr Sasi that the Spanish authorities were acting correctly on 8 July when they expelled those 100 Romanian Gypsy families? No, we do not conclude that.
They did not act in the defence of public order, they did not defend human rights and they did not safeguard national security.
They did not act according to principles of justice and fairness, nor did they act with respect for human rights.
No, the Spanish authorities only gave one response: the violent response towards refugees, the unacceptable response, democratically unacceptable.
The Spanish authorities acted against that European spirit which is the driving force behind the European Charter of Fundamental Rights which affects all of us, Members of the Council.
They acted in a way which shames and embarrasses us as Europeans and democrats.
Facts such as these once again illustrate the urgency with which we require a common policy in this area; an equitable and basically civil common policy for the control and acceptance of immigrants.
For this reason, we eagerly await the Tampere Summit. We require an initiative and a commitment which affects all of us, even the most reluctant of governments, which is, unfortunately, the case with the Spanish government in this field.
I will go further. We hope that any abuse and any violation of human rights will be punished, and that we do not fail to respond when the responsibility falls to us, which is currently the case.
Furthermore, if the perpetrator of the violation, Members of the Council, is a democratic government, ladies and gentlemen, there is no third way or means of escape in the defence of human rights, not even by giving a reply in this Parliament.
We are either in favour of human rights or, quite simply, we are against them.
Mr President, I do wish to state that we strongly condemn situations in which people die as a result of certain action.
On the basis of the question, however, it would seem that this is more a case of a traffic accident, rather than a problem of action on the part of the Spanish police.
This is a matter more suited to the Spanish Parliament' s Question Time, although we must remember that each institution has its own powers and this case comes under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Spanish authorities.
I am ashamed to hear what I have heard from the mouth of the President of the Spanish Socialist delegation.
I must remind her that one Socialist Minister has been found guilty of kidnap and the Socialist Government of her leader, Felipe González, was found guilty by the Court of Human Rights for the expulsion of 103 immigrants on the border of Melilla.
But, furthermore, I believe that the Council has responded correctly and it would be a good thing if the Socialist Member, who is also spokesperson for her delegation, would do her duty and study this thing called European construction in a little more depth and not make fools of her parliamentary group with questions concerning issues which are not within Community competence and which need to be resolved on a national level.
If her strategy consists of discrediting the Spanish Government with falsities and furthermore displaying a deceitful, irrational and irresponsible sectarianism, she is showing a clear incapacity to understand her mission in this Parliament - which is not to exploit the tragic death of a child - then it is truly worrying that her job has started in this way.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to ask you what policy of economic and social solidarity the Council intends to propose in the case of the numerous families that move from one country to another for purely economic reasons.
Mr President, the question is a very far-reaching one: what can be done in this respect? Certainly it is clear that if it is a question of a country, for example, that has applied for membership of the European Union, the negotiations for membership may cover discussions on how people' s living conditions may be improved.
In addition, it is certainly appropriate that, in the case of the Phare programme, for example, ways are found of funding projects which may result in improved living conditions, and in this way reducing pressures on migration within the Union.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like you to go into a little more depth, given that we are not at all satisfied with the reply that you have given, even taking into account the limitations of the Council in this area.
But we cannot forget that not only in my country but also in the rest of the European Union, in the years to come, we will continue to experience migratory pressure from nomadic groups, which is the case in Spain with the group of Romanian and Gypsy origin.
And faced with this pressure, which we all know will continue to increase on our borders and within our countries, we believe that it is essential that we develop a general plan to attend to these populations.
A general plan in which the competences and responsibilities of the European Union are defined, as well as those of each Member State.
It is absolutely necessary to co-ordinate actions to the benefit of these groups so that at all times, in all circumstances, the human rights and dignity of people are respected.
But the required co-ordination can never allow any Member State of the European Union to shirk its responsibilities: neither the State nor any of the administrations into which that State is divided, which has happened in the case that has been mentioned in my country.
We therefore demand a response from the Council to this problem which we will face with regard to the nomadic migratory population in the whole of the European Union, a co-ordinated response of the Member States, which at the same time involves everybody taking their own responsibility.
Mr President, first I would like to say that the Union aspires to a more uniform immigration and asylum policy and this is the subject intended for discussion at the Tampere Summit in October.
I shall not go into greater detail, as Mrs Halonen has already given an account of the meeting to Parliament in its sitting today.
I would like, however, to stress that it is important that the demarcations regarding authority that exist between institutions and bodies in Europe are relatively clear so that each one knows its business and where its ultimate responsibilities lie.
Mr Carnero has the floor for a very brief procedural motion.
I hope that it is a procedural motion.
Mr President, since you know me, you will have no doubt that this is going to be a procedural motion.
Because I am attending this debate not as a Member who simply asks questions, but as a Member who is interested in the fundamental issues in the affairs dealt with by the Council, and I witness with amazement the contents of some interventions of other colleagues, in particular Mr Hernández Mollar.
It seems to me that he, as well as the spokesman of his delegation, Mr Galeote, has highjacked questions to the Council to discredit, in a personal and unacceptable way, a colleague who has expressed completely respectable political opinions.
I believe that this is a very pertinent procedural motion.
The President, without calling you impertinent, considers that the motion is not pertinent and asks that others do not use the floor in this way.
Mr Korakas has the floor for a procedural motion.
He will lose the floor immediately if it is not a procedural motion.
Mr President, today I received a letter from the services department informing me that the question which I submitted to the Council will be answered alongside another question submitted by another colleague.
However, the issues in question are completely different, because our question does not cover the general issue of nuclear power plants.
Our question concerns a specific nuclear power plant which the Turkish Government wishes to establish in an earthquake-prone area and we are correlating this issue directly with that of the terrible earthquake which took place in Turkey. Should, in your opinion, two completely different issues be discussed together?
The nuclear power plant which will be established in Morocco concerns the desalination of water. I do not know if Morocco' s problem can be likened to the one we are raising in our question as regards the station which is to be established in Turkey; that is, the problem of seismicity, particularly in view of the terrible earthquake in Turkey a few days ago.
Mr Korakas, when we reach the questions which we have decided to respond to jointly, I will give you an explanation, but we must follow an agenda, we must follow this agenda so that the sitting may be satisfactorily completed and I am not prepared to allow any more points of order or procedural motions which disrupt the normal functioning of the question time.
Question No 2 by (H-0407/99/rev. 1):
Subject: Common EU defence policy During the European election campaign this year, the Swedish Prime Minister, Göran Persson, said that there was no possibility of a common EU defence becoming a reality as Sweden would use its veto as soon as the question came up for discussion.
Pierre Schori, then Minister for Co-operation, claimed that there was a crucial difference between what the EU meant by effective crisis management and a common defence.
According to Schori, the EU does not intend to develop a common defence but simply wishes to enhance its capabilities for effective crisis management.
With regard to these statements, will the Council say whether the Treaties stipulate that the EU should develop a common defence?
How does the Council interpret the decision of the Cologne Summit to integrate the WEU into the European Union? Is there a place for neutral Member States within the future common foreign and security policy?
Mr President, as the Honourable Member knows, Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union states that "The common foreign and security policy shall include all questions relating to the security of the Union, including the progressive framing of a common defence policy...which might lead to a common defence, should the European Council so decide." Therefore, a common defence is stated as a future possibility in the Treaty on European Union in compliance with the conditions set forth in the Article.
The Article also states that Union policy will not prejudice the specific character of the security and defence policies of certain Member States.
The European Council at Cologne discussed Europe' s capacity for attending to the so-called Petersberg Tasks, which are in accordance with Article 17 of the Treaty on European Union, and which are humanitarian and rescue actions, peacekeeping and action by combat forces to restore peace in crisis situations, including when there is a credible military capacity.
Heads of State and Government undertook to develop an effective European military capability founded on existing national, as well as bilateral and multilateral capabilities, and to strengthen the European capacity in this connection.
The General Affairs Council has been given the task of drafting pre-conditions and measures required to achieve this goal.
In this connection, we have to determine detailed provisions for incorporating in the Union such action on the part of the WEU that the EU needs to be able to see to its new responsibilities in respect of the Petersberg Tasks.
Thus, the WEU is not integrated into the Union as such.
The aim is to take the necessary decisions by the end of the year 2000.
As is pointed out very forcibly in the statement approved at the Cologne Summit, this strengthened capacity for effective crisis management does not change the independent solutions that Member States have regarding defence.
The special nature of militarily non-aligned states is preserved.
In compliance with the conclusions made at Cologne, the task we have in common is to strengthen the Union' s capacity for effective crisis management, not an arrangement for regional defence.
As the European Council at Cologne confirmed, the common foreign and security policy, according to the stipulations of the TEU, includes the issue of crisis management.
Under the Treaty, all Member States have the same rights and obligations.
Furthermore, the third subparagraph of Article 17 (3) provides for the participation, fully and on an equal footing, of all Member States in planning and decision-taking in the WEU.
The conclusions of the European Council at Cologne stress that the creation of a successful European security and defence policy will require, inter alia, that all Member States of the Union, including non-aligned Members, may participate fully and on an equal footing in EU operations.
Let it be said that decisions taken in respect of crisis management action, especially decisions having military and defensive effects, will be taken in compliance with Article 23 of the TEU.
Member States will maintain the right, in all circumstances, to decide if and when they will use their national armed forces.
Thank you for your answer.
It was quite comprehensive, but I think you would have to be able to interpret oracles to understand what the representative of the Council really said. Is there to be a common defence policy or not?
If the answer is to be interpreted as saying that there is in fact not going to be a common defence policy, then that is sensational news.
It would then be extremely interesting to hear the reactions from Paris, Berlin and Madrid and many other places where the Cologne resolutions have in fact been interpreted as a further step in the direction of a common defence policy.
Or shall I interpret the answer as saying that there will in actual fact be a common defence policy?
Is it really so impossible to answer the question? I do not know how many times I have taken up this question since I first came into this Parliament a few years ago and how many times I' ve tried to obtain clarification and clear interpretations from the Council about what is really going on.
Because opinions within the European Union are so diverse and because interpretations of the Cologne resolutions are so totally at odds with each other in different parts of the EU, is it just not on, then, to say quite straightforwardly either "yes, we are on the way towards a common defence policy" or "no, there' s not going to be a common defence policy" ? Can we not get a clear answer to this extremely important question?
I can see that the matter is clear in so far as, if you ask something about the future, then nothing completely certain about what is going to happen can be said to you in reply.
Obviously you can state that it is a possibility which may become real for us when the EU is developed further, but in that case different decisions have to be made before anything can happen.
Where the present position is concerned, it can be stated quite clearly that there are more so-called peacekeeping exercises the European Union could become involved in.
These should progressively be engaged in first.
As this process goes forward, we do not know exactly what will happen.
At this stage, I should still not, however, be able to say that we can begin to talk about a common defence policy.
Our colleague, Mr Gahrton, refers in his question to my statements in the Swedish EU election campaign. These have proved to be correct and have also been confirmed not only by the Council here but also by Chris Patten in the Committee hearings.
He said that a common EU army would be unnecessary, extremely expensive and directly damaging to relations with the USA.
Let me add that we who definitely do not want to see a common EU army and who are not members of NATO would nonetheless, in common with an overwhelming proportion of Sweden' s population, its government and the party I represent, like to see the EU taking more responsibility when it comes to Europe' s peace and security.
We also recognise the Cologne resolution which says, amongst other things, that the EU must become better at organising military and civil crisis management.
My question to the Council is this: do you share my view that the way to lasting security is mainly through civil, cross-border co-operation and not through military rearmament, that is to say that we ought to follow the Monnet line and not the Maginot line?
I think the questioner is quite right.
If we have to use military troops, then we have gone wrong somewhere.
The whole fundamental idea behind the EU is that attempts are made to bind the people of Europe to one another in a way which guarantees peace and security throughout Europe.
If we talk about the enlargement process, what we are basically saying is that we must try to bind other countries too to a peaceful Europe and in a way that guarantees that problems don' t arise in this area.
I am of precisely the same view, namely that we ought, in the first place, to direct our efforts towards such measures so as to ensure that crisis situations do not arise in Europe or in our immediate neighbourhood.
Mr President, I have a question concerning how events will run in practice. What would happen today if a neutral Member State was attacked militarily by a non-EU State?
What would you do and which course of action would you recommend? We have just recently had a military crisis between the borders of two EU countries, namely between Greece and Austria.
What plan would you have if a military attack were to take place today against an EU country, even if it were a neutral EU country? How would you proceed as President-in-Office of the Council?
It has to be said that it is difficult to predict what would happen in a situation like that.
There are no legal requirements to the effect that Member States need to take measures if anything like that should happen.
However, we clearly inhabit a Union characterised by solidarity.
If any Member State were to be attacked by a non-EU country, we should obviously have to show solidarity in some way. Precisely with what means, it is very difficult indeed to predict.
Clearly, situations such as the ones you describe and which we hope will never arise can end up having to be dealt with in different ways.
I hope, however, that we shall never find ourselves in a situation such as is described in the question.
Question No 3 by (H-0408/99):
Subject: UN Convention on combating organised crime On the basis of Article K.1 of the TEU, the Member States have committed themselves to preventing and combating all forms of international crime and regard the fight against organised crime as a matter of common European interest.
The action plan for organised crime sets out the joint strategy which the Member States have chosen as a means of combating such crime.
In October 1998, the Council called on the Presidency to submit, pursuant to Article K.3 of the TEU, proposals for joint positions concerning the draft UN Convention and protocols thereto, as it wishes to contribute to their negotiation and prevent inconsistencies between the future Convention and EU instruments.
What action has the Council taken to advance and influence the future UN Convention and to ensure consistency between it and EU instruments in this area?
Mr President, the Council is aware that it is desirable and necessary to draft and propose joint positions concerning the draft UN Convention and protocols thereto.
It also wants to participate actively in talks on them and ensure there is consistency between the future Convention and the EU instruments in this area For this, the EU countries holding the Presidency, after a call to do so expressed in the Council in October 1998, reconciled the positions of the Member States and put them to a multi-sector working party and the K.4 Committee, which is now a committee within the meaning of Article 36, at meetings in Brussels and also during talks held at Vienna.
The Member States of the Union took an active part in the talks.
During the German presidential term, the Council confirmed the common position on the proposed Convention based on Article K.3 of the Treaty on European Union on 29 March 1999.
In the future, we shall have other joint positions confirmed, depending on the progress made at the talks in Vienna.
Member States agree that it is desirable to avoid inconsistencies between the proposed Convention and the instruments drafted in the European Union, which include, for example, joint action, as agreed on 3 December 1998, on money laundering, recognition of the means of committing an offence and benefits associated with it, tracking down criminals, freezing assets, seizure of goods and successful conviction, and joint action, as agreed on 21 December 1998, on involvement in organised criminal activity.
Member States continue to reconcile their positions in talks on the proposed Convention as far as possible, and on the initiative on the part of the country holding the Presidency, and are endeavouring to reach consensus on all issues that significantly affect the interests of the Union.
The Commission is fully involved in this work.
The Member States of the European Union agree that it is desirable to participate in negotiations on the proposed Convention as energetically as possible, and they intend to continue to be intensely active in discussions and negotiations on this issue.
Thank you.
That is a good answer. It should, however, be possible to develop it further.
When it comes to combating organised crime, what is needed is a greater degree of organised, cross-border co-operation. It is a fact that criminal investigations are unduly focused upon national inquiries.
If we want to be effective, more investigations involving a European dimension are needed.
My question is this: is the Presidency exerting pressure to ensure that the informal meeting of ministers which is taking place at this very moment will be in a position to take further steps which might find concrete expression in more cross-border investigations following the summit meeting in Tampere?
As the questioner says, the Justice Ministers are at this very moment holding a meeting in Finland.
Clearly, this meeting is preparing the ground for the summit meeting in Tampere in the middle of October.
One of the subjects to be discussed at the summit meeting is criminality and organised crime, together with the problems which this type of criminality entails.
As the questioner pointed out, it is however also extremely important that this question not only be discussed within the European Union but also at international level and in conjunction with work being done by the United Nations.
Obviously, matters will be discussed within the European Union but, in order that progress might be made, we shall also give all our support to the United Nations.
With regard to providing a mandate for talks within the framework of the United Nations' convention, the idea is that a mandate shall in fact be provided, but this may be a little difficult.
This is something which, as the country which holds the Presidency, we are now looking into.
Mr President, in the draft Convention approved by the Council, there are also regulations on concealed listening devices and co-operation among authorities connected with it.
Many of the regulations on bugging, however, are drafted by the Enfopol working party, which is under the control of parliamentary or political forces, but is concerned exclusively with police co-operation.
Nevertheless, this sort of bugging might be violating personal and national privacy, and may also be criminal.
I would ask what the Council intends to do in order that these Enfopol regulations come within the scope of parliamentary and democratic control.
Mr President, obviously at the stage when regulations on concealed listening devices in each Member State are finally agreed, they will certainly be the subject of extensive debate and they will have to be assessed.
Regarding the views of the Member on the political control of this working party, the country holding the Presidency may throw light on the issue, but I cannot take a more precise position on the proposal as I do not know a good deal about it.
Question No 4 by (H-0409/99):
Subject: Access to Schengen documents When the Amsterdam Treaty entered into force, the Schengen Agreement, together with its implementing regulations, became EU law.
Previously, the Council had been unable to make public certain documents owing to the separate status of the Schengen Agreement.
The opportunity is now there to increase transparency and, thereby, democratic control over Schengen issues.
Some of the most important documents which have been kept secret are the Sirene manual and handbooks for external border control and those for embassies and consulates.
Will these documents now be made public, in full or in part?
Mr President, as the Member quite correctly stated, the Schengen Agreement became part of the European Union framework when the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force.
The more than 700 pages long Schengen Convention is to be published in the Official Journal, and it will be accessible on the Council' s web site as soon as it has been translated into all the Community languages.
The General Secretariat of the Council has, in addition, just published a pamphlet containing the Schengen Agreement, accession treaties, and decisions and declarations made by the committee implementing Schengen.
We intend to have this pamphlet sent to the Member who asked the question.
Thank you for your answer to the question.
I wonder if I am to interpret it to mean that the SIRENE manual too is to be in the public domain, as are instructions to ambassadors and consulates and instructions for external border controls. Are these included in the 700 pages of material to be published?
Or are they still to be secret? I think it is quite unreasonable that significant, applicable parts of such an agreement should remain outside the public domain.
The documents which are in this manual and which will be published in the OJEC should cover most of the material the questioner is asking about.
If there is something missing from this material, it will be seen to what extent such information can be handed over if it is requested, and in that case, we will comply with the Decision which the Council approved on 20 December 1993.
Mr President, I welcome strongly the fact that the 700 pages are going to be published.
They are of course legally binding on the citizens of Europe.
But what about the future when more of these laws are going to be passed in the Council of Ministers?
They will be passed in total secrecy. The public in the gallery, we Members, the press cannot watch law-making going on.
What is the attitude of the Finnish presidency towards law-making in secret, because at the moment the Council of Ministers is only matched by Beijing and North Korea in passing laws over citizens in secret? Should not it be in the open and will you do something about it?
Mr President, as the country holding the Presidency, Finland aspires to the greatest possible transparency in its work in the European Union.
For this reason, among other things, during the Finnish presidential term, we will be publishing Council and other committee agendas, so that people may know, if they need to, what issues are up for discussion, and so that, if necessary, they can find out more about those issues and, besides, hold public debates on them.
As far as my personal experience of the work of the Council is concerned, I have to say that, although, obviously, issues are prepared in a way that is not always open, in most cases the best way of acquiring information on the preparatory work of the Council is to read about it in condensed form in the Financial Times.
Question No 5 by (H-0414/99):
Subject: Establishment of a universal moratorium on capital punishment On a number of occasions, the European Parliament has called for the EU to promote an initiative within the UN aimed at establishing a universal moratorium on capital punishment.
In this connection, on the initiative of the Council or of Member States, the UN Commission on Human Rights has, over the last three years, adopted resolutions calling for the universal abolition of the death penalty.
Does the current Council Presidency believe (as the European Parliament does) that the conditions are now such that a majority of the members of the UN General Assembly will this year call for the establishment of a universal moratorium on capital punishment? If so, has it already moved to include such an item on the agenda for this autumn's General Assembly?
If not, is it intending to do so during the next few days, by means of some other procedure?
Mr President, opposition to the death penalty plays a central role in the Union' s policy on human rights.
In June 1998, the Council established guidelines on EU policy relating to the death sentence in third countries.
It is a fundamental aim of the Union that the death penalty should be abolished world-wide.
To achieve this aim, the Council is urging those countries still applying the death sentence to agree to establish a moratorium on capital punishment, and is calling for compliance with minimum standards.
In addition, it is inviting them to embrace international legal instruments banning the death penalty.
In compliance with its guidelines, the EU proposed, as an initiative, for the first time a draft resolution on the death penalty at the 55th sitting of the Commission on Human Rights at Geneva this year.
The initiative was a great success, being in content more radical than former resolutions and, in addition, there were more who were jointly proposing it - 72, in fact - than in 1998, when there were 65.
The Union also organised a panel discussion at the sitting on capital punishment, in which NGOs and government representatives of different countries took part.
The Council has just decided to continue with its policy to take up the subject of the death penalty in a multilateral forum, and it decided for the first time to propose a draft resolution on capital punishment during the 54th session of the UN General Assembly.
The Council believes that the Union initiative will strengthen the international trend towards abolishing the death penalty.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to ask you to take a look around the House to the right and left, because I was first to indicate that I wanted to ask an additional question just now and, because you did not see me, I was not able to.
I wish to thank the Finnish President' s team for the action it is taking at the United Nations on the matter of abolition of the death sentence, and I am delighted to know that thanks to the Finnish Presidency - not just them, of course - we will have a decision this year in New York.
The whole problem resides, I believe, in the matter of the text adopted by the Assembly.
According to the information I have, this text was based on the one adopted in Geneva.
There is only one problem, the omission of successive deadlines for the implementation of a moratorium initiative in the form of a treaty or other institutional initiative.
Could the Council Presidency give me further information on this? What type of schedule, if any, does the Council have in mind in order to be able to realise this initiative?
Mr President, the Council wants to act openly to achieve the best possible result at the United Nations General Assembly.
I also hope that we can have talks with other possible supporters of the project.
With this process still under way, the draft text has not yet been finalised.
The resolutions of the Commission on Human Rights contain a reference to the question of a moratorium.
Setting a deadline is a good thing in itself, and it would be good to achieve such a thing, but it is not entirely without problems.
I would also like to stress that we all have an obligation to try and encourage the abolition of the death penalty in our official contacts, at one-off events, at official announcements and in multilateral forums.
It is also important that when we have political discussions with countries such as China, Iran and the United States we try and raise the issue of capital punishment at those meetings also.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, my question concerns the last part of your intervention.
We are very happy that it affects the Member States and that it is intended to be included in the agenda of the 54th Assembly of the United Nations.
I am in complete agreement with the spirit of the question and the intervention of Mr Dupuis.
However, could the President-in-Office of the Council tell us whether, in those countries with which we maintain political and economic relations, such as China, the Council can have an influence, maintaining a clear and specific position in favour of the abolition of the death penalty which this European Parliament supports so firmly? Can we not in some way have an influence in those countries with which we maintain these commercial and political relations?
) Mr President, I would like to say once again that in June 1998, we agreed guidelines for Union policy relating to the death sentence in third countries.
Our main goal is the abolition of capital punishment, but as the group of countries that apply the death penalty contain some very important countries, cooling relations with them is not a viable solution.
Mr President, I was very pleased to hear the President-in-Office say that the Finnish Presidency will go ahead with negotiations with certain countries, including China, with a view to abolishing the death penalty.
I would like to ask the Finnish Presidency: do you intend to begin some kind of negotiations with Turkey either to prevent the carrying out of the death sentence on Abdullah Öçalan or to abolish the death penalty in Turkey altogether?
) Mr President, it is very evident that the Union has repeatedly expressed its desire that Turkey should continue with its policy by which it has refrained from using the death penalty, and that must obviously also apply in the Öçalan case.
Question No 6 by (H-0416/99):
Subject: EU support for Ireland's maritime services Ireland has one of the largest maritime areas to patrol in the EU, a responsibility which is important to Ireland and the EU as a whole and extends to activities such as drugs surveillance and interception, fisheries protection and the safety of shipping. Will the Council state what initiatives should be taken at EU level to support Ireland's efforts in this sector?
) Mr President, the Council is aware that Member States, which have a long coastline, have an enormous responsibility regarding the implementation of Community regulations on maritime security and the protection of the sea environment from its contamination by vessels.
To lighten the burden of these obligations, Community directives and regulations on the subject provide for closer co-operation and an exchange of information between Member States, to avoid overlapping, to make it easier to acquire information on vessels, and to standardise practices in Member States.
Regarding fisheries, the Council would like to mention the legislation provisions that apply under Council Decision 95/527/EC.
These acts, which cover the period 1996 - 2000, provide for Community participation in the funding of costs incurred by the implementation of monitoring and surveillance in respect of fisheries policy.
On the basis of this act, Ireland has the right to apply for a contribution by the Community.
Mr President, would the Council accept that the cost of maritime surveillance to Ireland is totally disproportionate to our size and population.
I appreciate his point that under the 1995 fisheries legislation provisions this is taken into consideration, but does he support the provision of funding commensurate with the area to be surveyed by the Irish authorities?
) Mr President, we must be cautious about the sort of promises we make, but I have to say that at this time, there are no plans to increase funding in this area.
I suspected something like this.
That is why I wanted to give you time to reflect.
Question No 7 by (H-0418/99):
Subject: Cheaper mortgages In view of the ever increasing cost of housing throughout the EU, will the Council outline new ways in which house buyers could avail themselves of long-term cheap mortgages?
) Mr President, the trend in mortgage rates partly reflects the long-term interest rates in capital markets.
The present long-term interest rates in the euro area should, in principle, therefore mean cheaper mortgages.
To some extent, monetary policy might indirectly affect mortgages interest rates.
This does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Council, however, as the Honourable Member will certainly know.
The Commission has not presented the Council with any proposals for tax or any measures to improve mortgage rates.
Mr President, the introduction of the single currency, combined with better competition in the marketplace, has resulted in a substantial reduction in interest for those on variable rate mortgages.
I want to emphasise variable rate mortgages.
There are however, particularly in Ireland, a substantial number of borrowers on fixed rates, sometimes at interest which is three times higher than the current rates and which lending institutions are unwilling to adjust without substantial financial penalties.
I would ask the President-in-Office if he is willing to have this matter examined, if not by the Council, by the Commission or indeed the European Central Bank.
It is a very serious problem for a very large number of borrowers who are finding it increasingly difficult to meet interest rates which prevailed five, six and seven years ago at treble the rate which we have at the present time.
Although there are some requests for the floor, I have to apply the rules, and point 4 of Annex II of the Rules of Procedure says that each Member may ask only one supplementary question during questions to the Council.
I am therefore very sorry to say that I cannot give the floor to Mr Newton-Dunn.
Mr Sasi has the floor.
) Mr President, improving the regulations on single market procedures with regard to finance policy is in fact one of the primary goals of the Council. It aims to increase competition in the sector, which would be likely to benefit house buyers also.
As I mentioned in my speech just now, the Council has had no proposal from the Commission in this area.
If such a proposal should emerge from the Commission, we will obviously pay special attention to it.
Question No 8 by (H-0420/99):
Subject: Stopping the practice of multi-use trial contact lenses Media reports in June stated that in Britain 'opticians have been advised to stop using multi-use trial contact lenses because of fears they could transmit new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease'.
Has the Council considered this development at EU level and does it consider that such a 'precautionary measure' should be taken in all EU Member States?
) Mr President, since 1996 the Health Council has examined and monitored at all their half-yearly meetings the appearance of any new form of contagious Spongiform Encephalopathy, and especially Creutzfeld-Jakob disease.
However, as yet, the Council has not been presented with information or proposals on the particular matter the Honourable Member refers to.
Is the Council aware of the situation in Britain to which I have referred? If he is not aware, I would strongly suggest that the Council familiarises itself with this situation.
I do not want to be alarmist in any way but the fact that the British Government has already acted is something which should be taken into consideration.
In view of the fact that the Amsterdam Treaty accords the highest priority to the protection of human health and given the fact that the European Parliament now has powers of codecision under the Treaty can the Council assure the House that any proposal to be considered on the multi-use trial contact lens will be brought before the House for our consultation and approval?
) Mr President, I believe that ophthalmologists and opticians are aware of the risks which contact lenses carry with them, but, as we know, as far as division of responsibility is concerned, it is the job of the Commission to monitor how the situation is progressing in practice.
If the Commission perceives problems it is its task to make recommendations that we will obviously look into carefully.
As the author is not present, Question No 9 lapses.
Question No 10 by (H-0424/99):
Subject: Youth crime, drugs and the Tampere European Council What assurances can the Finnish Presidency give that at the special European Council on Justice and Home Affairs to be held on 15 and 16 October next in Tampere a common strategy will be adopted aimed at tackling youth crime and delivering a clear message that the EU will not introduce a liberal policy towards drugs?
) Mr President, at this stage I cannot give any guarantees to the Honourable Member of what issues will be discussed at the Tampere Summit, although mention has been made of them today.
In fact, the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Home Affairs have to prepare work on matters relating to their own areas in an unofficial meeting to be held in Turku on 16 - 17 September, and the General Affairs Council began its preparatory work on the European Council meeting at a meeting last Monday, and will continue with the task at a meeting to take place 11 - 12 October.
I can say, however, that the country holding the Presidency has noted the particular interest the UK delegation, with the support of the French and Swedish delegations, has shown towards the problem of youth crime.
In the debate on the prevention of crime, the country holding the Presidency intends to stress how important it is to have an active preventive policy to act as a counterweight to measures that strengthen the tools of co-operation in respect of the police and matters of law.
The Extraordinary European Council meeting at Tampere will not be dealing with the question of drugs mentioned by the Honourable Member.
The institutions of the Council and the European Parliament are right now drafting a strategy on drugs, which is based on a Commission communication.
The intention is to deliver a presentation on the matter at the European Council to be held in Helsinki in December 1999.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office for his answer.
However, he has told us nothing new.
The purpose of this Question Time is to allow Members to raise issues of importance and try to get some information from the Council.
In my supplementary therefore, I would like a direct answer from the President-in-Office as regards the Finnish Presidency' s position firstly on reducing youth crime, secondly on ensuring that the right of Member States not to be forced to comply with a so-called liberal regime of drug use and drug policy are not diminished and thirdly, on ensuring that there is no diminution of the requirement for unanimous agreement on any changes in this area.
) Mr President, I can assure the Honourable Member that Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, will play an active part in striving to prevent and reduce youth crime.
We see youth crime as an enormous problem, and giving attention to this problem will have an impact on the crime rate in the future also, as someone learning antisocial patterns of behaviour when young is a danger in the longer term not only to himself but obviously to the whole of society also, in terms of criminal damage.
Regarding a policy on drugs, the Finnish line is very clear.
As the country holding the Presidency and as an individual state, Finland is not in favour of the liberalisation of the drugs policy or, for example, of some drugs becoming legalised.
As the author is not present, Question No 11 lapses.
Question No 12 by (H-0428/99):
Subject: Reciprocal abolition of visa requirement between EU and other countries Some Member States of the European Union have abolished the visa requirement for US citizens travelling to EU countries.
The USA, however, retains the right to require EU citizens travelling to the USA to obtain a visa.
Which Member States' citizens are not required to hold a visa for travel to the USA and what measures will the Council take to persuade the USA to abolish the visa requirement for all EU citizens?
Mr Alavanos also requests the floor for a procedural motion.
Mr President, I apologise for the interruption but from the text, at least the Greek text, it appears the question has been written incorrectly.
Something must have gone amiss between the text leaving my office and it arriving at the services department, and I would like to clarify the matter for the President. The question is this: although the citizens of the United States can enter all the countries of the European Union freely, there are some countries within the European Union whose citizens require a visa from the American embassy in order to enter the United States.
I would like you, Mr President, to enlighten us on this political issue and tell us what you intend to do to put an end to this discrimination.
I am saying all this because my question has been written incorrectly.
Mr Alavanos, it seems to me that the Spanish version says the same thing that you have mentioned.
It is probably a linguistic issue.
Nobody is perfect, as you know.
Errors are committed and the President-in-Office of the Council, who furthermore has been enlightened by you, will reply to you.
) Mr President, I believe the Honourable Member is fully aware that, as the United States is not at this time on the list annexed to Regulation EC/574/99, it is not for the Council to persuade the United States to abolish visa requirements for citizens of the Union.
This is rather the task of the Member States concerned, by virtue of Article 2(3) of the above-mentioned regulation.
The plan of action accepted for the Council and the Commission in the Council of Justice and Home Affairs on 3 December 1998, which concerns the most suitable ways of implementing the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam on the realisation of an area of freedom, security and justice, puts forward a proposal, one of a group of measures to be implemented within a two-year period, for a regulation for countries whose citizens do not need visas for Member States of the Union, and for countries whose citizens do.
Reference is made in this respect to subparagraph i of paragraph b of Article 62(2) of the consolidated version of the EC Treaty.
Only when the Commission makes proposals on this regulation can the Council, by virtue of the principle of reciprocity, make a check of those countries whose citizens do not need any kind of visa to visit EU Member States.
The USA' s Department of Immigration and Naturalisation permits travellers from certain countries to apply for entry into the United States without a visa for a maximum of 90 days for purposes of business or tourism under the so-called visa waiver pilot programme, Visa waiver.
EU Member States included in the programme are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom, which means that only Greece is missing from the list.
Greece is not yet actively involved in the programme.
However, I would like to point out that the US Foreign Minister has announced that the Attorney General has agreed that Greece should participate in the programme, but there is still preparatory work to be done before Greek citizens can enter the USA within the context of this programme.
Talks are being conducted with Greece with special advisers present, with the result that Greek nationals will soon be able to participate in the Visa waiver programme, and thus this problem will no longer be on the agenda.
Mr President, I received a reply which was quite substantial and requires some study on my part.
I do not, however, agree with the Presidency' s viewpoint that this is not a matter for the Council.
I believe that from the moment the European Union was created, from the moment we had free movement, from the moment we had the Schengen Agreement and consensus on the issue of the movement of people between Member States, no country, such as the United States, should ever have been allowed to come along and rock the boat and impose discriminatory practices on a country like Greece.
From this viewpoint, we would expect the Council and particularly the Finnish Presidency, which is generally attuned to these issues, to intervene in some way with the United States.
) Mr President, it is true that the free movement of people is a central principle in European Union policy, which, moreover, has been implemented.
On the other hand, it is also true that Member States practise independent visa policies that are not at the moment entirely in line with one another.
Question No 13 by (H-0436/99):
Subject: Land acquisition in applicant countries What is the Council' s position on efforts being made in applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe to continue, subsequent to any EU accession, to restrict or prohibit the free acquisition of land by EU citizens, at least during a transition period?
) Mr President, as the Honourable Member states, several countries that have applied for membership have asked, during the accession negotiations at present going on, for a period of transition, for them to be able to keep in force some restrictions to the right on the part of Union citizens or companies to freely acquire land.
These requests, which are being justified in terms of political, economic and social necessity, are being examined at present in Council bodies established to formulate the EU common position at the negotiations.
The Union will, however, determine its final position only after it has received further information and reports from the countries in question on the scope and consequences of the requests.
Nevertheless, we must remember that the European Treaty contains undertakings, according to which Community companies based in countries that have applied for membership have the right to acquire land, including agricultural land.
The Union also stressed its common position, when the negotiations on accession started on 21 March 1998, that the requests in respect of transition measures may not involve changes to Union regulations or policy or prevent them from being properly implemented.
In this connection, it has to be said that a transition period in respect of land acquisition has been proposed in the chapter on the free flow of capital.
This principle is of primary importance as far as the proper functioning of the single market is concerned.
In a general sense, this means it should be guaranteed that all kinds of capital transfers may take place freely in connection with accession.
Mr President, I would like to put one additional question: I share your opinion and thank you for this clear response that the complete adoption of the acquis communautaire is, of course, necessary for accession. More and more rumours are being circulated these days that a deal could be struck: transitional periods, as far as the free labour market and similar are concerned in the EU, could be combined with transitional periods in the candidate countries.
I regard this as being extremely problematic because it will certainly not be a question of the amalgamation of two things, rather an accession process, and I am of the opinion that there could be transitional periods with regard to accession, as there have been earlier, but that the candidate countries actually have to adopt the complete acquis communautaire on accession.
Should this not be the case, then it would be accession à la carte which could greatly jeopardise the Community.
) Mr President, I have myself travelled around in the applicant countries, and in some of them I have had my attention drawn to the fact that people are worried about the right of foreigners to purchase land.
I must, however, say that many countries have by now already amended their legislation, so that land acquisition will at least be easier than before.
I have made it clear in all discussions that Union regulations cannot be changed, and that applicant countries must accept the acquis communautaire in this regard also.
) Mr President, the Council has many times adopted a stance on trade negotiations and the forthcoming Millennium Round of talks, the last time in the resolutions issued at the meeting of the General Affairs Council on 21 and 22 June 1999.
The Council has not given the Commission an official negotiating mandate to prepare for the round of negotiations.
The Council has, however, decided to return to the preparatory work in respect of the WTO' s third ministerial meeting in October this year, when the new round has been planned to start.
The intention is therefore to decide on the Union' s overall position on this preparatory work.
The Council, in its resolutions of June 1999 on preparatory work in respect of the WTO' s third ministerial meeting, clearly made reference to the President' s conclusions at the European Council at Cologne on 3 and 4 June 1999, which stated that talks on various subjects, including rulings on employment, are the most appropriate way to approach the achievement of significant and fair results for the benefit of all WTO members.
Mr President, I should like to say, on my own behalf and on behalf of Mr Titley, that response is rather weak.
As we are aware, the Council meeting in Cologne fully endorsed the need to include minimum core labour standards in the negotiations for the WTO millennium round.
It is vital for our prospects of bringing the world ever closer in terms of these minimum core standards - which include an end to slavery and child labour - that we start this round properly.
I hope, therefore, that the Council will take on board many of the issues which have been raised in this Parliament, both in committee and in plenary regarding such measures.
I hope that you will take a stronger stance and come back with a stronger answer when you have considered the full implementation of your key negotiating standards.
It is essential that you consider this particular element.
) Mr President, I agree with the Honourable Member that it would be appropriate to discuss core labour standards at the WTO round, and preparations are based on the recognition that these matters have to be discussed.
However, we must bear in mind that it is evident from discussions that, particularly in developing countries, there are very great fears that the Union will call for a labour action policy which will simply try to prevent the import of goods from developing countries.
We have tried to diminish these fears purposefully, consistently and emphatically, but they still remain relatively strong.
I know, however, that, merely for the sake of the NGOs, it is important that in questions of labour standards and minimum standards we should be able to make progress, so that the next round of WTO negotiations acquires sufficient approval and credibility.
I can also assure you that the country holding the Presidency is determined to seek a solution whereby labour standards will be on the agenda for discussion at Seattle, and in that way we should be able to make real progress.
I would like to raise a question which has a bearing on relationships between the European Union and the WTO, also affecting employment but concerning present compliance.
There are small and medium-sized enterprises throughout the Union which are still suffering sanctions imposed in the context of the banana war and this is because we have been slow to comply with the ruling; hence sanctions are still in force.
This will cost jobs in very vulnerable parts of the Union and I would like an assurance that the President of the Council is in favour of securing compliance with standards of international law and preventing suffering by members of this Union from sanctions imposed under what have turned out to be illegal actions.
) Mr President, I agree with the Honourable Member entirely.
It is very important to be able to resolve the banana dispute before the next round of World Trade Organisation talks begin in Seattle.
A decision was taken in the General Affairs Council last April in which the Commission was set the task of presenting a proposal during September that would guarantee absolutely that the Union' s new strategy in respect of the banana sector would be in compliance with WTO rulings.
The banana issue was discussed last Monday in the General Affairs Council, and there was a report on the situation.
The Commission has primarily tried to find a solution that would involve some sort of quota system, but it has been very difficult to move from any kind of banana quota system to consensus on the matter with the banana-producing countries and the United States, as the interests of the countries concerned are very different regarding quotas.
If no agreed solution can be found, it is possible that we will end up in a situation in which a solution will only be found in a system based on tariffs.
The country holding the Presidency will apply its energy to find a solution quickly, in a way that will not cause any problems in relation to WTO rulings.
It is important that this dispute is off the agenda as quickly as possible, and we know that it is also important for many of those companies that have suffered from the increased sanctions approved by the WTO.
Question No 15 by (H-0438/99):
Subject: Situation in North Korea For many years now, the situation in North Korea has been catastrophic: the total lack of freedom and democracy has been exacerbated by a food crisis of tragic, not to say apocalyptic, proportions.
According to the estimates of international organisations, between one and three million people have died in North Korea since 1995 in the wake of the chronic famine which resulted from natural causes and, more specifically, from the nature of the nationalist-communist regime in power in Pyongyang.
In reaction to that situation, not only has the North Korean regime not shown the slightest inclination to initiate political and economic reforms but, on the contrary, it has imposed even harsher measures on the people of North Korea, maintaining total control on missions by expert advisers and on the food aid provided by the international community to the people of North Korea (600,000 tonnes of cereals in 1998, and 530,000 tonnes in 1999) and refusing to allow the international organisations involved to monitor the use and effectiveness of the aid.
Furthermore, the menacing attitude taken by the North Korean authorities towards neighbouring democracies, especially Japan and South Korea, extends to the entire region the threat posed by this dangerous regime.
What measures has the Council taken, or does it intend to take, with a view to ensuring that the people of North Korea may regain their freedom at the earliest opportunity, build a country where democracy and the rule of law hold sway and once again participate in the market economy? Does not the Council feel that, at this juncture, it has the duty to propose to the UN Security Council a plan whereby North Korea would be placed under international trusteeship?
) Mr President, the Council is just as concerned as the Honourable Member about the events in the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea, especially the violation of human rights in respect of political prisoners, and that the principle of the rule of law is not complied with and the authorities are unwilling to work in co-operation with international human rights organisations.
The Union also believes that the difficulties in the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea are mainly structural and self-inflicted in nature.
Taking into account the North Korean administration and, to a large extent, the speed of progress it has chosen for itself in large part, the Union is in favour of giving North Korea the opportunity to respond positively to certain undertakings.
The EU undertook the first round of political dialogue with the Democratic People' s Republic of Korea in December 1998.
It is prepared for the second meeting later this year, depending on North Korea' s progress in those areas the EU sees as worrying.
In this respect, the EU has appealed to the Democratic People' s Republic of North Korea to comply fully with the undertakings specified in the agreement on nuclear shut-down, and sign and ratify an agreement on a total ban on nuclear testing.
The Democratic People' s Republic of Korea would have to stop missile exercises, such as test flights, which weaken stability in the region.
The Union is strongly urging North Korea to stop exporting missiles and missile technology to the world' s unstable and potentially explosive regions.
The Union is also concerned about possible new missile testing.
The EU is urging third countries, in its political contact with North Korea, to try to influence the country in its compliance with all these undertakings.
On 19 October, the Council of the European Union endorsed important conclusions concerning a communication by the Commission on the Republic of Korea.
The conclusions also discuss the situation in the Korean peninsula, and express the Union' s above-mentioned worries.
Mr President, Mr Member of the Council, I think it is not enough for the European Union to be concerned.
It must take action on North Korea.
Obviously it is a distant country, but nonetheless the regime in power there is literally a criminal one; the Union ought to make efforts to overturn this regime, before we are obliged, as in the case of Kosovo or other regions, to adopt drastic means.
This would require some imagination, and that is what I am asking of the Council.
It would be possible to carry out "subversion" in the best sense of the word, and to get information to the citizens of North Korea so that they did not feel isolated.
The United Nations could set up a major diplomatic initiative in order to isolate North Korea completely.
We could parachute certain things in, as we do have the necessary military and technical resources.
I would like to know if the Council is willing to study a number of steps of this type in order to overturn this literally criminal regime, so that we would not have to, as is the case for the Soviet Union, lament the tragedy 30 or 40 years later.
) Mr President, I am very much of the same opinion as the Honourable Member.
North Korea is a positive shame to humanity, and I consider its government criminal in nature, and I have to say that its system of government is totally inhuman.
The Honourable Member said that creativity should be applied in contemplating how the country' s administration could achieve democracy and essentially change.
Many countries in the world have certainly used their imagination, but so far nobody has yet found the philosophers' stone enabling us to find a peaceful solution to the problem which is simple and easy, or even one that demands considerable effort.
Mr President, both the question and the answer have perturbed me somewhat.
I have the feeling that the incursion against Yugoslavia has whet the appetite of those warmongers who want to join the United States of America in its role as the world' s gendarmerie.
I must confess that the second reply of the Council delegate increased my concerns.
Perhaps he could tell us if the European Union really does intend to invade North Korea.
) Mr President, I wish to stress that, as the country holding the Presidency, Finland will act purposefully and firmly to ensure that the Union does all within its power to safeguard human rights in the world.
But the Union cannot act as the world' s police force, and that restricts our possibilities for a more radical solution for North Korea.
But I want to make it quite clear that the North Korean Government is continually in serious breach of fundamental human rights and introducing democracy to the administration would be desirable.
Here we have talked of creativity, with which we have endeavoured to find positive means of bringing about changes in the North Korean administration.
But it is not very easy to bring about change through positive means, and, obviously, the problem arises where such positive means only give strength to the existing administration.
These are exactly the reasons why, Mr Member of the Council, it is necessary, in my opinion, to come up with alternative solutions.
Some Members, such as the Greek Member who spoke before me, think that we discovered North Korea after Kosovo. Let me reassure him, we have been concerned with it for a long time already.
There are means other than the military means which we should strive to avoid, and therefore the imagination of the European Union should concentrate on the invention of other systems.
We could, for example, invest five million ECU to create a radio service broadcasting to the population of North Korea.
Is the Council willing to work on a hypothesis of this nature? We could parachute in food aid, broadcast information to the population of North Korea to enable them to find the means to resist this criminal regime.
Otherwise, we shall be obliged, as our Greek colleague fears, to resort to military means, because the tragedy will have grown in scale.
It is necessary, I think, to show some imagination.
But unfortunately I do not hear many responses of this kind.
) Mr President, I only want to briefly say that information is often an important friend of democracy and human rights.
But, obviously, in the case of North Korea, the problem is that the country is so tightly shut off from the outside world it would be tremendously difficult to broadcast information there, although that would be desirable.
Question No 16 by (H-0440/99):
Subject: Situation in Kosovo During two and a half months since the introduction of KFOR into Kosovo, not only has there been no progress in calming the situation in the region and promoting a climate of stability, security and peaceful co-existence among the populations, but the unstable situation created by the NATO bombings has been further inflamed and exacerbated.
The silence maintained over the discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of 15 Serbs murdered in mid-July in the vicinity of Gnijlane, a zone under the responsibility of American troops, raises serious questions about the role of the so-called peacekeeping force in that it has tolerated or even supported an extensive campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Serbian population of Kosovo, revealing the partiality of the international community with regard to the protection of the human rights it is supposed to uphold.
Given that the KLA is pursuing its illegal activities without hindrance and, according to reports in the international press, organising arms and drugs trafficking and murdering innocent Serbs with impunity, what steps will the Council take to call an immediate meeting of the United Nations Security Council so as to shed light on the circumstances surrounding the massacre at Gnijlane, launch an overall review of the human rights situation, assess the role of KFOR in Kosovo and take firm and immediate decisions regarding the KLA as well as measures to ensure that Serbs, gypsies and other ethnic groups can remain in Kosovo?
) Mr President, the international community rejects the accusations made by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia that there was concealment over the discovery of a mass grave containing the bodies of fifteen Serbs.
The United States, which was responsible for the zone in which the grave was found, confirmed that information on its location had been given to the International Criminal Court on the day after the discovery.
The International Criminal Court has been responsible for the investigation since mid-July.
Neither can I accept the accusations relating to partiality on the part of the peacekeeping forces in Kosovo.
The international community is committed to full implementation of Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council for the establishment of a democratic and multicultural Kosovo within the internationally recognised borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The violence and persecution that continue in Kosovo is only to be condemned.
For this reason, it is very important to disarm the KLA and dismantle its military structures.
The KLA must comply with the imposed deadline of 19 September.
The Council also expressed serious concern that Serbs and non-Albanians have left Kosovo in large numbers, and it reminded everyone that Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council states that all refugees and those forced to move out of their home regions have the right to return.
Everything possible should be done to try and make their return home easier.
Mr President, I believe that both the President' s reply and the debate concerning the previous question are evidence of the selective approach of the said International community for dealing with world-wide problems, including the situation in the Balkans. At the moment, Mr President, we are witnessing the ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Gypsies and any other ethnic groups living in Kosovo.
Is this issue of any concern to us?
Yes or no?
Secondly, does the Council believe that the KLA will have disarmed by 19th of the month, i.e. Monday? Yes or no?
Thirdly, does the Council have any inkling that the KLA is, by its actions, attempting to or is in danger of destabilising Albania and the Former Republic of Macedonia? Yes or no?
I would appreciate some concrete answers.
) Mr President, the country holding the Presidency has been alarmed to see the exodus on the part of many Serbs, and Romanies also, from Kosovo.
The fact that Romanies have also left shows that internal problems and disputes between ethnic groups in Kosovo are very serious and difficult to solve.
Obviously, it is absolutely essential that KFOR troops protect and help all ethnic groups in Kosovo equally.
We must try to achieve peace in the region as speedily as possible so that everyone there may feel secure.
I also wish to say that the country holding the Presidency of the Council considers it very important that the KLA adhere to their commitment to a decommissioning of weapons. Only then can confidence be sufficiently increased within Kosovo, enabling us to preserve a genuine multi-ethnic society.
Mr President, we are indeed dumbfounded by the replies that the President-in-Office has given us. Is he mindful of the fact that of the 250,000 Serbs who were in Kosovo when the bombing stopped, only a few thousand now remain.
In Pristina, there used to be 27,000 Serbs but now there are only 1,500-2,000. He himself recognises the fact that everybody is fleeing Kosovo, apart from the odd few and the Albanian-speaking population.
Can he tell us therefore why this proud International Force, which I call the Occupying Force, has left?
Can he tell us therefore why, whilst Mr Solana himself is recording secret documentaries on NATO which prove that the KLA is involved in drug trafficking, prostitution and crime, the International Force is continuing to support the KLA, and why the International Community is continuing to arm and not disarm them as was agreed? This hypocrisy must come to an end once and for all, Mr President-in-Office.
We must sober up and acknowledge the fact that the real goal was for there to be true ethnic cleansing in Kosovo just so that you could manipulate it to suit your own needs. Furthermore, that is why you are refusing to pay for the reconstruction of what you destroyed in the rest of Yugoslavia.
) Mr President, my understanding is that there is no ethnic cleansing taking place in Kosovo at this moment but that peace to some extent has been restored, with occasional isolated incidents.
The KFOR are obviously there in a peacekeeping capacity and Finland also has sent an 800 strong force.
These soldiers will work in earnest to ensure that there is a lasting peace in the region and that all Kosovans can return to their home regions irrespective of race or creed.
Question No 17 has been withdrawn by its author.
The Council will reply jointly to Question No 18 by Mr Medina and Question No 19 by Mr Korakas.
Mr Korakas has let us know that he considers that they should not have been regrouped, but this has been decided and I trust in the ability of the replies of the President-in-Office of the Council to respond to both of them appropriately.
Question No 18 by (H-0443/99):
Subject: Construction of a nuclear power station in southern Morocco Is the Council aware of the fact that a nuclear power station is due to be built in southern Morocco for the purpose of desalinating sea water? If so, could it consider discussing alternatives to the project with the Moroccan Government, in view of the effect which the project may have on the environment and the threat it represents to security in the area?
Question No 19 by (H-0446/99):
Subject: Stopping the construction of a nuclear power plant in the highly earthquake-prone region of Akkuyu, Turkey The scale and intensity of the recent earthquake in Turkey and the incalculable damage it has caused have focused attention even more sharply on the plans to build a massive nuclear power plant in the region of Akkuyu in south-west Turkey, a project with which the Turkish Government is nevertheless persevering.
All expert reports confirm that the region is highly earthquake-prone.
What measures will the Council take to block this plan, which threatens the vital interests of the entire region and opposition among its inhabitants, both within and outside Turkey?
) Mr President, I would like to answer Manuel Medina Ortega' s and Efstratios Korakas' questions simultaneously, as both questions concern the risks connected with the construction of nuclear power plants, in this case, one planned in Morocco and one in Turkey.
The Council would like to state, in a general way, that Morocco and Turkey have both signed a convention on nuclear safety, whose aims are connected with the concerns raised in the Honourable Members' questions.
The aim of the convention referred to, which came into force on 24 October 1996, is to achieve and maintain high standards of nuclear safety world-wide by developing action at national level and international co-operation, and organise and maintain effective protection in nuclear plants against possible dangers of radiation, for the protection of society and the environment from the possibly harmful effects of ionising radiation issuing from these plants.
In addition, it sets out to try and prevent accidents that lead to effects from radiation and alleviate the effects of radiation if an accident does occur.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, in the case of Morocco the issue concerns the building of a nuclear power station to produce 600 MW of electricity.
The European Union has agreements with Morocco with regard to economic aid and, it seems, the reason for constructing this power station is because there is Chinese aid available.
That is to say that it seems that the Republic of China is prepared to offer money for the construction of a nuclear power station.
My specific question is whether the Council thinks that it could offer Morocco the possibility of a more rational procedure, because building a nuclear power station to produce 600 MW of electricity is "using a sledge-hammer to crack a nut" and I believe it would be preferable if our neighbours were not to do it.
Can the Council not do something so that Morocco will not have to turn to this dubious Chinese technology which is currently being offered to them?
) Mr President, it is important that the Union should monitor these projects and their implementation and try its best to see that the plants are as safe as possible and that their use and construction present no risks either to the citizens of the Union or to the inhabitants of the countries in question.
Let it be said that one positive aspect of these plants is that they are not responsible for carbon dioxide emissions.
Mr President, the issue we raised in our question has nothing to do with the more general issue of nuclear power plants.
We are concerned with a specific nuclear power plant of 1400 MW which Turkey is about to establish for no apparent reason. We greatly fear that it will be used to build nuclear weapons, in the Akkuyu region, 120 kilometres east of Cyprus, in an area renowned for its seismic activity.
There, three tectonic plates are adjoined and in 1917 we had an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale. Recent studies point to the fact that the Esemis fault is still active and between 1871 and 1975, more than 50 significant earthquakes were recorded, all within 130 kilometres of each other.
Not too long ago, about 136 kilometres from there, we had an earthquake in Adana, measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale leaving 140 dead. Another typical example is of course the recent earthquake, and we are all aware of its effects.
So, notwithstanding all that, is it or is it not criminal on the part of Turkey to insist on building a station in that area? This is an issue of general importance not only for Turkey where there have been rallies taking place against the plant, but also for the whole of Greece, which is why we need direct intervention to stop this plan from going ahead.
) Mr President, it is clear that earthquakes are a factor that cannot be ignored when considering the planning and safety of a nuclear power plant.
It is quite obvious that the safety authorities must always take account of the possibility of seismic disturbances in examining the suitability of a site and that it is necessary to see to it that structural solutions help to ensure that an earthquake would not cause problems for the plant.
Obviously, we will be monitoring the situation as closely as possible to ensure that the buildings are up to the approved standard.
In addition, I wish to emphasise that Turkey and Morocco are nevertheless bound by these international agreements, which is an ideal situation for proposing additional safety requirements.
Mr Sasi, we thank you for the great effort that you have made today in response to all of the questions.
Since the time allocated to questions to the Council has expired, Questions 20 to 26 will be replied to in writing.
Question Time is closed.
(The sitting was closed at 7.10 p.m.)
Mr President, I wanted to ask you about a non-profit association that calls itself the non-profit association pension fund.
Members of the European Parliament, I believe that pension funds have already been discussed here in the European Parliament a number of times, and that we are in a transitional phase.
That is why I am extremely bemused to find an invitation from Mr Balfe here for a meeting that he is going to have with the non-profit association pension fund.
I wanted to ask whether Parliament provides the interpreters and covers the expenses for meetings of this kind, and whether this non-profit association continues to be supported in any way by Parliament.
Thank you very much Mrs Maes.
Your comments have been noted by the Bureau.
As you can imagine, at the moment, and in these circumstances, the Bureau is not in a position to be able to give you an answer.
This is not an individual decision, taken by the President-in-Office. It is decided on by the Bureau as a whole.
You will receive an appropriate answer when the time is right.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, it appears from yesterday' s Minutes that Mr Barón Crespo replied to an intervention of mine from the previous day.
Do not worry, Mr President, I am not going to exercise my right to reply to personal references.
And furthermore, I confess I do not have the parliamentary skill to reply to a personal reference within 24 hours.
I simply wish, through his colleagues, to offer him my willingness to co-operate.
Thank you very much, Mr Galeote.
You have asked a question, as is your right, but you must understand that I am not really in a position to give you the answer you would like.
I think that you will have to raise this question the next time Mr Barón Crespo is acting as President.
(The Minutes were approved)
European Reconstruction Agency - Situation in Kosovo
The next item on the Agenda is the following joint debate:
Report (A5-0013/99) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation 1628/96, relating to aid for Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in particular through the setting-up of the European Reconstruction Agency (COM599)312 - C5-0062/1999 - 1999/0132(CNS));
and the Commission' s statement on the situation in Kosovo.
Neil, Commission. Mr President, with your permission, indeed at the suggestion of the House, I would like to make a Commission statement on Kosovo.
Naturally I value the work and the words of Mrs Pack and particularly the force and clarity with which she put a very convincing argument.
I will respond properly to her report at the end of this morning' s debate.
The Commission welcomes the fact that international civil and military administrations have been established and have begun the very difficult task of rebuilding in Kosovo.
It calls on all parties to respect Security Council Resolution 1244 and the military agreements and undertakings in full and hopes that complete KFOR and UNMIK deployment will be completed without great delay.
The Commission supports the creation of a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo and deeply regrets the continuing ethnic violence.
It condemns, in the strongest terms, violence perpetrated by any ethnic group and calls for maximum efforts to secure the reconciliation and cooperation which are essential to stability and security for all in the region.
The Commission' s roles in the massive efforts to restore infrastructure and civil society in Kosovo will be of interest to the House.
Broadly, there are two such roles: engagement in the major reconstruction programme and collaboration in the framework of UNMIK coordinating initiatives with other international donors.
Clearly the first element will be discussed, particularly as this House debates the report by Mrs Pack, and I therefore highlight just a few of the relevant elements at this juncture.
Firstly, a total budget of EUR 137 million is foreseen for 1999 under the Obnova Programme of which EUR 46 million has been committed and implementation is under way.
However, the Commission counts on the active support of this Parliament, which I am sure will be forthcoming, in obtaining both the remaining EUR 92 million for 1999 and the additional funding which will be required in the coming years.
At present we estimate that some EUR 500 million will be needed in 2000 and EUR 500-700 million needed in 2001 and 2002.
Secondly, efficient implementation will obviously be of crucial importance.
The Commission proposes, therefore, the creation of a locally established reconstruction agency to ensure the effective application of the Community' s reconstruction programme in Kosovo.
Thirdly, the creation of the agency must clearly be well prepared and a taskforce has therefore been set up for that explicit purpose. The taskforce has programmed and is implementing the first EUR 46 million tranche of reconstruction assistance.
Landmine clearance, customs and the procurement of essential supplies for rehabilitation of housing, public buildings and, in particular, Mitrovica Hospital are the main focus of attention.
Later tranches will concentrate on preparing roads for winter conditions, municipal twinning in which assistance from Member States is being requested, and subsequently public utilities, public buildings, economic reconstruction and institution-building.
The second element of the Commission' s involvement goes beyond the implementation of Community assistance and extends to the wider international effort in Kosovo.
It naturally includes a variety of activities.
I refer to some of them for purposes of illustration.
Firstly with the other participants in reconstruction and the major international financial institutions, the Commission is involved in damage and needs assessment.
Indeed the Commission is conducting the only province-wide methodological assessment of physical damage.
The initial results of that exercise relating to damage in housing and local infrastructure were issued at the conference arranged by the Commission and World Bank donors last July.
A more comprehensive report, focusing on large-scale infrastructure, will be completed by the end of this year.
Secondly, the Commission shares responsibility for donor mobilisation with the World Bank and at that July conference of donors over EUR 2 billion was pledged.
A second conference is scheduled for next month.
Thirdly, as the House is aware, the European Union has a special responsibility for reconstruction within the United Nations Civil Administration, UNMIK.
These activities are organised in the so-called Pillar 4 which is headed by a Commission official, Mr Dixon.
Thanks to the strenuous efforts made by Mr Dixon and his colleagues, Pillar 4 is working well, though faced with enormous problems due to the legal and institutional vacuum in Kosovo.
The current priorities are putting the banking system in order, working closely with other pillars and KFOR to provide essential supplies, shelter and transport in advance of winter, preparing with the World Bank and the IMF a simplified budget and working on fiscal issues and drawing up with the World Bank a medium-term investment framework to be presented to the next pledging conference.
Fourth, the European Union, and obviously the Commission, will also contribute to work in the other pillars: pillar 1 with UNHCR on humanitarian issues, pillar 2 with the UN and pillar 3 with OSCE on institution-building and democratisation.
We will strive to ensure full cooperation between the different participants where there are clear overlaps between civil administration and reconstruction.
Mr President, following the Council' s recent decision on the easing of sanctions relating to the Kosovo crisis the Commission is putting forward a proposal for the exemption of Kosovo and Montenegro from particular EC sanctions against the former Republic of Yugoslavia.
The oil embargo and the flight ban will therefore be lifted.
Cooperation from all relevant authorities in Kosovo will obviously be vital in order to establish effective controls on end use and to avoid circumvention.
Mr President, in recent years fellow Europeans have again been perpetrators and victims of appalling violence and attempts at ethnic extermination, sometimes described, in a euphemism which bewilders me, as "cleansing" .
As ever, the worst results of such horrors are suffered by the innocent and the effects will blight their lives for many years to come.
I know this House does not need convincing, but as a direct and leading contributor to relieving suffering and rebuilding normality and as a coordinator of the efforts of others, the European Union must make the maximum possible commitment.
In those and other efforts, by working with people of all ethnic backgrounds we are for them and also working for the purposes and values that bind us together.
In giving help as humanitarians, we hope that we are giving an example as Europeans too.
Mr President, after months of misery it looked as though it was going to be possible for a little ray of hope to shine on Kosovo.
The European Union generously released EUR 500 million to help the Kosovars rebuild their country and the Commission did its best too.
Instead of the usual bureaucratic "to-ing and fro-ing" between Brussels and the location where the work takes place, the Commission opted for a decentralised agency which was in a position to start work on an autonomous basis.
But nothing came of the Commission' s good intentions. Yet again they were torpedoed by political games in the Council.
It was due to horsetrading, for it cannot be called otherwise, between the Germans and the Greeks, that the unhappy decision was taken to have the Reconstruction Agency based in Thessaloniki.
This leads to wastage, wastage of money, wastage of manpower and wastage of efficiency.
It also produces incomprehension in Kosovo, for at the end of the day, it is Kosovo itself that has to be reconstructed and not Greece.
But the worst is still to come.
Do you know that a Kosovar needs a visa to travel to Greece? And that he can only obtain that visa from the Greek Consulate in Belgrade?
Of course that is very hostile territory for most Kosovars, which means that in deciding to base the agency in Thessaloniki, the ministers are excluding the people they are trying to help from the reconstruction process.
The members of the Committee on Budgetary Control have decided unanimously, that is across all parties, to reject this state of affairs.
We also call for there to be effective supervision of the agency.
Some of the points have already been mentioned by my colleague from the Committee on Budgets.
Furthermore, we consider it to be of the greatest importance, of course, for OLAF to be able to intervene when things go wrong.
I will just return briefly to the question as to where the agency should be based, and I also speak for my group.
Mrs Pack has very courageously taken upon herself the task of clearing up the Council' s mess, proposing a completely logical solution that involves establishing the agency in Pristina and linking it with the Stability Pact in Thessaloniki.
That ought, at the same time, to give some substance to the motley collection of talking shops we have now.
I applaud her intentions, but of course the question is whether the Council is going to take any notice.
I think it was made clear yesterday that the Council has no intention of listening to what we want in any way, shape or form.
That is why I wholeheartedly support her proposal to postpone things.
We are simply going to have to do battle with the Council for what is right and efficient.
Mr President, the reconstruction of Kosovo has not yet got underway and the Member States are already greedily asking themselves: what can my country get out of it?
Duties are being distributed amongst the large countries, regardless as to whether they are major sponsors, and curtailing the Commission' s role is successfully preventing a rather broader vision from establishing itself.
That is generally accomplished by setting up a Governing Council with representatives from the 15 Member States.
In this way everyone can easily see if the interests of their own country are being given due attention.
I am also under the impression that the 15 representatives of the Member States work on this Council on the basis of an oath of office which requires them to support and further the interests of their own country to the best of their ability. They do not work on the basis of a European oath of office, which could require them to promise to do maximum justice to European interests and visions, and not just to national interests.
If our attention was truly focused on Kosovo' s needs then we would never set up a Governing Council of this kind.
For if this was truly the case then an advisory committee with a limited number of expert advisors, based on a European oath of office, would be sufficient.
They would then be able to monitor how effective the implementation process was.
Self-interest would not be the determining factor in their case, but rather the question as to whether the reconstruction of Kosovo might also give a nice boost to the business community in Kosovo and in the surrounding poor countries, whom we are only compensating in dribs and drabs for the loyal way in which they have carried out the boycott against Serbia.
In any case, we want to make a Stability Pact work for their sakes.
By stability we don' t mean things being at a standstill, but, rather, progress.
We can use the Council' s readiness to modify its proposals as regards the aforementioned board, to show the citizens what the Council' s true motives are and to what extent it has a horror of wastefulness.
After all, it will tend to be cheaper to produce the goods needed for the reconstruction of Kosovo in the region rather than in the Member States.
I would like to draw your attention to another particular aspect.
It is well known that building up the public administration will make a very important contribution to Kosovo' s developmental opportunities.
In my country, the association of Dutch authorities is working very hard on this at local level.
But they come up against KLA civil leaders wherever the KLA has been able to take over the office of civil leader.
These civil leaders impose their will on the population, which directly frustrates all attempts to create a civil service that functions effectively and inspires confidence.
That is why I ask myself if the Council would be prepared, at the suggestion of the Commission, to look into whether it might be better for such offices to be filled by experienced people from outside.
We know from our experiences in Bosnia that there are some civil leaders of decidedly criminal character and some real low-life in these posts, which impedes the proper development of local communities.
Mr President, we can see whether this project will be feasible from the Council' s willingness to take up our request to amend their document, a process that will show that Kosovo really is at the centre of interest.
I would therefore also like to see the Commission do what is necessary to urge the Council to make amendments.
Mr President, I was in Kosovo last winter and wrote a report to Parliament' s Subcommittee on Human Rights.
I visited a number of private aid organisations.
Their biggest problem was the Commission' s centralist working methods and the unduly long time it therefore took to deal with matters.
The Commission' s local representative had to ask about everything in Brussels because the people in Brussels were so dreadfully afraid of mistakes being made.
I would say to the Commissioner, however, that this is not how you combat fraud and mistakes.
If the work is to be made efficient, it should be delegated.
People locally need to have powers to make the necessary arrangements to act quickly and efficiently.
If fraud and irregularities are there, the hammer should fall heavily upon those responsible locally.
It is therefore quite naturally unacceptable, Mr President, if the chain of command is now to be still longer, that is to say if the agency in Kosovo has to wait not only for orders from Brussels but also from Thessaloniki.
This must not happen.
The Liberal Group is shocked by the horse trading which apparently went on when Mr Hombach was appointed and the office located in Thessaloniki.
We hope this doesn' t cause too much damage.
We do not want the people who are having a hard enough time as it is managing the construction work in Pristina also having to struggle with additional bureaucracy in Thessaloniki.
Finally, Mr President, I would urge that, as far as possible, local, civil representatives of the Albanian population are relied upon, that the Albanians' own talents are used and that they are not helped with things they can work out for themselves.
The most important means of opposing KLA gangs, which are to be stopped and fought against whenever they drive away Serbs, is to mobilise the civil leaders in Kosovo.
There are in fact parties which have won 80% of the votes cast in elections.
They are there all the time. Their leaders are there all the time.
They are ready to take over. And locally, too, there are leaders who can take over.
They are the best means of opposing the KLA, which I have only very, very little sympathy for.
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo is characterised by the persistent attempts by the KLA to exploit the presence of NATO and KFOR forces in order to carry out complete ethnic cleansing of the Serb, Gypsy and other minorities, with the exception of the Albanians, living in Kosovo, and to construct its own state by detaching the whole region from the state of Serbia.
The responsibilities of the European Union and the so-called 'International Community' are huge.
Already, amendment 2 of Mrs Pack' s report which is under debate today, stipulates EU co-operation with those Albanian Kosovars who are interested in the reconstruction of their state, and that we must help them to participate and contribute to the European Union' s projects.
But what are these projects?
Firstly, the report admits quite openly that it is seeking the creation of a state in Kosovo.
Secondly, flagrant blackmail is being carried out via the criminal bombings of NATO on the devastated people of Yugoslavia who are being called upon not only to submit ethnically, socially and politically, but also to adopt a style of leadership acceptable to the Americans and NATO in order to have any hope of reconstruction for this devastated country.
This policy is catastrophic.
It continues its endeavours to dissolve Yugoslavia through other means.
It supports the criminal activities of the KLA and seriously jeopardises the stability of its neighbouring countries and of all the Balkan region.
The unrestrained action by the KLA, under the wings of NATO will, sooner or later, create great problems even in Albania and the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. This is a clear indication of the type of peace which you would like to impose on the Balkans.
In all honesty, does anybody really believe that the KLA will have disarmed by the 19th of the month?
It is perfectly understandable that today we are debating the economic reconstruction of Kosovo, which, however, is directly related not only to expediency policies of the Member States, but also to their efforts to distribute those funds set aside for the rebuilding of Kosovo to the various associations within the Member States.
Let the predators fighting for their prey begin!
Mr President, first of all, I agree with the disapproval expressed by Mrs Pack in her proposal for a report on the Council' s attitude regarding the expected adoption of its position on the legislation in question.
Indeed, its attitude does not seem to take into consideration the spirit and approach taken by Parliament both in the first amendment of the 1998 Directive and in its Resolution of July this year.
I share the objections regarding the choice of where to base the Agency in question - Pristina in our opinion and not Thessaloniki - as well as the objections regarding the unilateral possibility, or so it seems - in the Council' s opinion - of extending the activities of the Agency itself to other regions of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia without even consulting Parliament beforehand. And this, at a time when the quarterly inspection and auditing of the Agency' s activities fall to Parliament, albeit after the event.
Nevertheless, regarding the composition of the Agency' s board, I do not understand the reasons that should lead Parliament to envisage the nomination of the seven independent experts by the Commission only.
This is in direct contrast to the proposals put forward by the Commission itself which, in conjunction with the committee responsible, has instead envisaged the presence of a representative of each Member State.
It is not appropriate, in my view, for Parliament to exclude, paradoxically, the Member States that constitute the European Union from a context of decision-making. First and foremost, this context is political and its operational nature comes second.
This means that it is not a question of pursuing preventative checks as regards the overall aid proposed, even if the amount, EUR 1,900 million over the next five years, would suggest that this is appropriate.
Mr President, I would first like to express my sincere regard for the work of the rapporteur, Mrs Doris Pack.
As a committed politician she enjoys great recognition among Balkans experts, for Mrs Pack was and still is "in situ" .
We can be brief on the setting up of a European Office for Reconstruction.
A commendable initiative. We support the two main strategies advocated by the rapporteur.
After a dark, repressive decade, there is light at the end of the tunnel again for society in Kosovo.
The sticking point continues to be whether this applies equally well at this stage to those of the Serbian minority who have stayed behind, as it does to the Albanian majority that has now returned.
In any case, EU aid should be for the benefit of both population groups, albeit on a proportional basis. A much-needed incentive to show mutual tolerance, provided from outside.
I would like to make a general comment on the practicalities of delivering aid to the sorely afflicted Kosovars.
Either it can be distributed evenly across the legendary Field of Blackbirds (Kosovo Polje), or it can be put to use through model projects.
The latter approach is favoured by the sad fact that some regions and towns in the de jure Serbian province had to pay a particularly high price in human and material terms, owing to the fury of Milosevic' s special police units and the regular Yugoslav army.
Selecting a number of model projects and developing them successfully is precisely what is needed to provide the Kosovars with something concrete to hold on to, for it is progress that is likely to help them gain in courage.
Furthermore, the restoration of public order in Kosovo is of course an essential prerequisite to the success of all reconstruction assistance, by which I mean EU assistance too of course.
There is plenty of provocation from both sides.
On no account should the international community tolerate this, rather it should take a co-ordinated and resolute stand against this on the spot, and under the leadership of KFOR, the organisation that has primary responsibility for public safety.
We have frequently heard about the faith the West has in the Kosovan parallel social institutions, i.e. the Albanian shadow state of the last ten years, being an ideal starting point for a new beginning for this territorial bone of contention, yet this idea merits critical comment.
Whilst there are undoubtedly areas of society which would lend themselves to this (think of the underground education system or continued medical care and specialisation), it will not do to simply follow the same line where politics is concerned.
That is why elections ought not to be a priority for the moment.
Political calm, allowing the political landscape in Kosovo to take shape, are musts.
I will end on a lighter note.
A positive development is the return of a critical Kosovan press, which covers a broad political spectrum. It doesn' t hesitate to denounce the misdeeds committed by its own Albanian people in open and severe terms.
Take the expulsion of the Roma and the Serbians.
This indigenous display of moral courage certainly justifies having a European Office for Reconstruction in Pristina.
Mr President, the reconstruction in Kosovo is without a doubt one of the most urgent tasks, but also responsibilities, of the European Union.
According to the latest reports from the UN, Kosovo is today a completely devastated country in which neither people' s security is guaranteed nor the population' s nutritional needs provided for.
However, the European Union' s responsibility must this time involve more than merely financing the reconstruction.
The reinstatement of a democratically just system is a prerequisite for any reconstruction programme, and the EU bears political, just as much as social and economic, responsibility.
As the negative examples from Russia have shown in recent weeks, billions of dollars in aid often reach only a fraction of the people who are really affected by a crisis.
The flow of cash must therefore be transparent.
We must all be given a guarantee that Europeans' tax payments do not trickle away into the accounts of so many political and economic criminals.
The European Union is alone responsible for ensuring that this money is not misused.
As Members of Parliament, we have a responsibility towards our electors who are financing this reconstruction with their tax money.
We depend upon a positive opinion in the population and it is therefore a basic responsibility of the European Union to be able also to explain to those who are helping to finance the reconstruction how the money is being used.
For this, the European Union this time needs a modern, efficient, rationally managed and also transparent form of conflict management.
Only under these conditions can we count upon broad support for this project from the European population.
Mr President, the Commission' s report on the location of the Reconstruction Agency for Kosovo is certainly a positive step because it aims to take into account the experiences of previous reconstruction work in other parts of Europe.
I think that this is also an opportunity not just to turn our attention to the main issue, that is, that this Agency can operate by drawing on the principles of transparency and efficiency that are crucial given the current situation in the Balkans. But I also think it is important and must be stressed that we must now tackle the reconstruction of the social, economic and moral fabric in a context where a broader vision of South-East Europe surely cannot be a dividing factor with regard to locating the Agency' s headquarters in one place instead of another.
Having heard my colleagues' interventions, I think that we are asking a fair and legitimate question: 'What is the Member State' s interest, which certainly cannot be a priority interest?' So we need to ask another question as well - in the context of the European Union, what damage occurred to neighbouring countries owing to the action and events in Kosovo?
Entire regional economies in various Member States have collapsed over recent months through the closure of airports and the events connected to the war in Kosovo. I refer in particular to the areas in Southern Italy.
So I think it is important to make more of an overall assessment, especially in light of an intervention policy which, as I read in the report on next year' s Union budget, provides for a far-ranging reorganisation of the policies concerning small and medium-sized businesses located in border regions.
I think that the real problem is trying to create conditions which make it possible to include, in a Mediterranean context, a more complete assessment, and one which gives, above all, a broad perspective.
It does not mean espousing one solution instead of another solution in a parochial way as regards the location of the Agency' s headquarters, but we must keep in mind the clear and well-defined basic options.
As regards the speed, efficiency and transparency of the activities of this Agency, it is important to try to look at its establishment as a good opportunity for reconstruction, quickly and as a priority, in the current situation in Kosovo. But we also need to create the conditions whereby migration in the Mediterranean will be examined in careful detail.
Thousands of refugees are now reaching our shores with no destination in mind, while the Member States and the European Union are completely incapable of providing a perspective and a specific response to this problem.
I think that this is the main issue we need to focus on, in order to avoid the possibility of having to assess other situations similar to Kosovo in the near future.
Mr President, I think it is important that we discuss a matter today which has to be settled quickly, i.e. how we formally give shape to the reconstruction programme for Kosovo.
The European Union has a major role to play where this reconstruction is concerned, and we believe that is as it should be.
However, we do not want the same mistakes to be made as were made in the past with large programmes such as those in Bosnia and in other places.
That is why we want there to be more supervision, and this Parliament has a role to play here too.
OLAF must be able to carry out its checks, and that will help us to implement the programme rapidly and effectively, for we are already receiving reports of delays that have occurred in the delivery of the things which are needed to quickly build Kosovo up.
Furthermore, and this is also in Mrs Pack' s report, the direct involvement of the EU Member States will have to be kept to a minimum.
Hence our proposal that we should not set up another of the famous management committees but, rather, that we should work together with an advisory committee.
I consider that to be one of this Parliament' s important demands.
We have often found in the past that things went wrong because the Member States interfered too much with programmes or wanted to carry out too many parts of the programmes themselves.
The implementation of a programme must, as far as possible, be managed on-site, in this case from Pristina.
That is the operational centre.
It is the people there that must do the real work, and I mean particularly the Kosovars themselves.
For another lesson we can learn from Bosnia is that too much is done by the international community and too little by the people themselves, which leads me to think sometimes that those countries are being run from outside rather from within.
At the end of the day, they are, after all, going to have to do it themselves.
Kosovo comes under the Stability Pact, which has to do with the proposal to establish the headquarters of the Stability Pact in Thessaloniki.
I am completely in agreement with Mrs Pack' s proposal as far as that is concerned.
It makes sense to administer that from within the region too.
One of the amendments states that the countries of Southern and Eastern Europe should also have the opportunity to participate in the reconstruction projects. That too is a good thing.
I think there is a great deal of expertise and experience available in the region which we can make use of.
However, my group would make one qualification at this point.
We assume that when we talk of South European countries and their involvement in the projects for reconstruction, we are not talking about the governments and authorities of Serbia and Croatia.
We believe it is still too early to make overtures to these two countries.
We are aware of the situation in Serbia, the problems surrounding Tudjman, the refugee situation in Krajina and the relationship between Tudjman and the government of Croatia and the Hague Tribunal.
That is why we have certain reservations where the direct involvement of these countries' authorities is concerned.
Mr President, it is true that the main problem is really how the area should be reconstructed and with what intentions.
Other speakers also stated the same.
Mr President, today we have heard many minced words and unclear allusions. The Commissioner told us that they are witnessing problems in Kosovo of an 'institutional and legal vacuum' , as he stated.
How did that vacuum come about? What are the Union' s administration and the rest doing?
What is this vacuum?
And how do you intend to fill it? You told us that you will carry out an assessment of the damage.
Just in Kosovo?
Not in the surrounding areas?
Just for the physical damage and not, for example, for the environmental damage? In other words, you are saying that you wish to reconstruct Kosovo in an institutional, legal, geographic, geo-political and political vacuum.
I admire you!
What is more, you and other speakers are saying all this, yet, at the same time, you are condemning the ethnic persecutions and trying to reconstruct democracy.
You know very well that none of that is possible.
The KLA will not prevent you from doing your work with their tanks but by their very presence and the tolerance that you are showing towards them, they will be an obstruction.
What is more, the KLA is not the biggest danger.
We have a great deal of past experience, Commissioner.
I can, of course, recall Greece being in ruins in the wake of the Nazi occupation and the civil war, which was won with the aid of certain countries, and of course, more recently, Bosnia, Russia and Albania.
Your greatest dangers are profiteering, land-grabbing, the secondary economy, the black market, and the mafia who are in practice trying to build a Kosovo with structures and interests as they themselves see fit.
And yet, you have not batted an eyelid.
I heard no mention of those issues throughout the whole debate.
All this talk about Pristina and Thessaloniki is completely futile when we have this great problem facing us.
Needless to say, it would be better for those who take the decisions and those who impose them to keep at arm' s length from each other.
With this in mind, therefore, I must express my pessimism and I expect, of course, some more encouraging comments and answers.
Mr President, I am sorry, but there is a problem.
I am not making my intervention as a Non-Attached Member.
I am making the intervention as a Member of the Technical Group of Independent Members.
Excuse me, Mr Gollnisch, but this political group does not exist as you well know, or should know.
Therefore, you are not allowed to intervene on behalf of a group which does not exist.
Mr President, I have not been informed of this, and there is no mention of this in the Minutes.
The vote which took place the day before yesterday was a vote on an interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, but did not contain any provision which covered the Group to which I belonged.
I am sorry to disagree with your interpretation, but if that is indeed your interpretation, please communicate it in writing and the Bureau will reply.
The interpretation of the Bureau is that the approval of the Minutes is sufficient to apply the application approved by the vast majority of this House.
Therefore, for these purposes, and until further notice, you belong to the Group of Non-Attached Members.
If you do not want to intervene, you can give up the floor, but let us not waste any more time.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, our colleague, the rapporteur Mrs Pack, gave a good description of the disastrous situation in Kosovo: the collapse of public services and chaos in the areas of administration and law-enforcement.
We must recognise the fact that this is simply one of the results of the monstrous aggression committed by the government of the United States of America and its European henchmen in contravention of every rule in international law and also of every political teaching.
Several of my colleagues have made it quite clear today that whilst ostensibly fighting against ethnic cleansing, what we are actually seeing, of course, is the complete elimination of Serbs from Kosovo.
That is the reality.
The civil infrastructures have been systematically destroyed, not just in Kosovo, but in Serbia too, in most instances, with no military justification whatsoever.
Bridges, roads, waterways, railways, electricity stations, government buildings and even hospitals have been destroyed, not to mention the dead, coyly referred to as collateral damage, or their families.
All this was done with no more justification than if NATO had bombed the bridges over the Loire to prevent the French police or Gendarmerie from intervening in a suburb of Strasbourg, a sight that we might experience sooner than you may think.
The citizens of Europe paid for destruction to take place.
Now they will be paying for reconstruction.
We look forward to hearing what the United States' contribution will be.
In the current state of affairs, we approve of limiting invitations to tender and the awarding of contracts to anyone connected in any way with a Member State or Beneficiary State.
The question of where the Agency should be located is important, but less so than the definition of eligible countries.
The United States of America and the countries of Europe are unfortunately responsible not only for the destruction in Kosovo, but also for the destruction in Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro.
But it understood, these few thoughts do not represent the slightest approval for a criminal policy which will go down in history as a terrible precedent which may well cause us to suffer as a consequence in the not too distant future.
Mr President, I would first of all like to congratulate Mrs Pack on her exceptional work which helps us all understand why we need an integrated, as opposed to a fragmentary, European policy for the Balkans.
The Balkans ought to be top on the agenda of foreign policy within the Union because a stabilised, developed and democratic Balkan region is an essential link for us to be able to have a positive impact on the creation of a more stabilised and democratic Russia.
A stable, democratic and developed Balkan region is a prerequisite for the Union to have an effective and positive policy in the troubled Caucasian region and oil-producing countries which are threatening the peace and stability within that region.
A stable, democratic and developed Balkan region makes it easier for the Union to have a positive influence in the Middle East and in Eastern Mediterranean countries.
However, a stable Balkan region would mean that we too ought to have a stable and long-term strategy for peace, democracy and development, because there must not be any doubt in our minds that up until now the Union has not been a key player in the Balkans.
To put it more succinctly, we provide the money and bear the cost and the Americans formulate the policy and collect the profit.
An integrated policy is required therefore; a common development, peace, stability and co-operation strategy for the area, such as is beginning to be outlined by both the Stability Pact and by the Reconstruction Agency, which will be effective once it gets underway, with its seat in Thessaloniki.
It is only a start, but a good start all the same.
We must exercise a policy which, for it to be productive, must not involve sanctions or predispositions towards the people in the area, but which must promote democratisation and development as a whole.
Ladies and gentlemen, this was what our colleague Yannos Kranidiotis was striving for and we Greeks would like to honour him with our work here today by continuing his endeavours.
Mr President, reconstruction not only in Kosovo but also throughout the whole of the region which is continuing to be hard hit by the repercussions of the conflict is, of the utmost importance.
The European Union, which, without a doubt, plays a pivotal role in dealing with the problems, rightly decided to widen the scope of the regulation, particularly as regards the Reconstruction Agency in the area.
Mr President, this is what led to certain misunderstandings.
It concerns the reconstruction of the region and not of Kosovo.
For that reason, I am ashamed of the stance taken by the Commission so far.
I do not believe that anyone imagines that plans for the reconstruction of the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia or of Yugoslavia can be drawn up in Pristina.
We must look at the long-term problems and deal with those.
This service, which must be set up together with the Stability Pact in Thessaloniki, since as I said it concerns the reconstruction of the whole of the region, must be authoritative.
There must be management autonomy in Pristina but this service must be powerful enough so as to be able to overcome any obstacles.
After all, we are not only concerned with repairing the damage.
We are not just concerned with restoring the necessary institutions nor are we concerned solely with law and order, but we must give the people hope that we will make a substantial contribution to the economic and social life of the country.
The rapporteur is right.
We must be more careful.
The experience to date in Bosnia-Herzegovina shows that reconstruction efforts were costly and not particularly effective.
Therefore, this service must now be able to set in motion the reconstruction programme in Kosovo, to bring back the refugees and to also function on the basis of the humanitarian measures adopted so far.
The financial assistance made available thus far is obviously not enough and should be more, but I believe Parliament will agree that more should be given if this service proves to be more effective.
It is a very positive sign, Mr President, that for the first time Parliament has become involved in this affair. It has jurisdiction and, mainly through intergovernmental delegation, can monitor the functioning of this service which, in turn, should naturally organise the actual implementation of the supplementary measures to reinstate the refugees.
It must revive the economy at a local level and it must create free communication between countries and between the regions of the area.
It is not just about repairing the damage caused by the war.
It is not just about the rebuilding and restoration of telecommunications.
It is about our fully re-establishing life in the region and being able to see more clearly what is also happening in Yugoslavia.
If Yugoslavia were left at the mercy of the current regime, then any hopes of repairing the psychological damage caused by the conflict would be dashed.
Perhaps now is not the time to analyse why this conflict arose and who made the most mistakes.
What is certain is that we do not have the right to make any more mistakes.
The European Union has a role which it must play effectively and which it must take seriously.
Mr President, I support the Commission' s revised model of operations, and here it will be put to the test.
Our problem is that our good decisions get watered down on the way, and the coffers begin to leak.
This principle of feeding off the burden has to end.
For that reason, I would like to make three points.
Firstly, we do not need two administrative bodies for one agency; secondly, decision-making must be carried out where the work is being done, that is to say at the Kosovo Reconstruction Agency in Kosovo; and thirdly, it is important to work in co-operation with the local people and, more particularly, on a multi-ethnic basis, as has been emphasised here.
Actually, I could put it this way: reconstruction is not a matter of bricks and mortar, but co-operation.
It is thus a new time for both the Commission and ourselves.
Three criteria, directness, an unambiguous approach and transparency, give us strength, and will enable us to succeed.
Mr President, Mr Vice-President of the Commission, a lot has been said about the reconstruction of Kosovo.
You know that this Parliament has gone to the utmost trouble to find a compromise strategy, and we shall stand by this compromise strategy and are prepared to make our contribution to it.
I should like to touch upon two questions which do not directly concern reconstruction but which are of special importance for the future not only of Kosovo but also of the entire region.
About 15 days ago, the UN' s special envoy, Mr Kouchner, introduced a new currency to Kosovo.
I do understand the need for a stable currency, partly for the benefit of the work being done there. What I do not understand, however, is the penalisation of the dinar, the official currency of the state to which Kosovo still belongs.
The second resolution contradicts the convictions of us all and also the agreement made between the UN, NATO and the KLA.
The KLA is not being disarmed, at least not completely. Instead, there are still KLA units, only they now put on different uniforms and will still be armed.
Have we, as the European Union, an opinion on these resolutions, Mr Vice-President of the Commission and, if so, what is it?
Thank you, Mr Sakellariou.
Vice-President Kinnock will now speak on behalf of the Commission, and I believe that this is his first debate in his capacity as Vice-President.
Thank you, Mr Kinnock.
Before closing the debate, I will give the floor to Mr Staes for a procedural motion.
Mr President, I am a newcomer to this Parliament, as an MEP.
I have followed this debate with a great deal of interest and I believe it was a good debate.
But still I have the feeling that there is something wrong with the way in which this Parliament organises its business.
What are we achieving? The Commission has submitted a proposal concerning the establishment of the Agency headquarters in Pristina.
The Parliament supports the Commission and there is a conflict with the Council.
What do we see? The Council' s benches are empty.
So there is no response from the Council. The Council appears not to have been invited to come here and tell us what it is going to do.
I would therefore like to ask you the following question: could you please convey my wish to the Conference of Presidents that in future, when debates take place on subjects where there is conflict with the Council, the debate is organised in such a way that the Council attends so that we can enter into direct confrontation.
I think this would benefit democracy.
We will take note of your observation, Mr Staes, but I must point out that the Council is represented and has not wished to take part in the debate.
The Council, at ministerial level, is only represented on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the Plenum, but we take note of your observation.
I am sure others share your view.
Mr President, since the Vice-President of the Commission has declined to say anything about the questions relating to the currency and to the KLA, may I proceed on the assumption that the European Union has no opinion on these issues?
Neil, Commission. Mr President, I understand the import of Mr Sakellariou' s inquiry and normally I would have been very happy to have given him explicit answers to his two very important questions.
I am sure he is old enough in this Parliament - I am speaking of his experience of course and not his age - to understand why at this juncture I could not.
I am certain that my colleagues who are specialists in this area will be pleased to give him the information he seeks on a future occasion.
Thank you very much, Mr Kinnock.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 p.m.
10th EC-UNRWA Convention (1999-2001)
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0010/99) by Mrs Morgantini, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Co-operation, on the proposal for a Council decision approving the text of a 10th EC-UNRWA Convention covering the years 1999-2001, prior to the signature of the Convention by the Commission and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East [COM(1999)0334 - C5-0059/1999 - 1999/0143(CNS)]
Mr President, the era of peace and prosperity, to which Mr Arafat and Israeli leaders have referred to since 1993 following the Oslo Accord, is still not here.
The revival of the peace process after the fall of Mr Netanyahu' s government, the election of Mr Barak and the new Accord signed in Sharm el-Sheikh undoubtedly mark a step forwards in respect to a dark past, after the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin. But there are still difficulties to overcome before stable and lasting peace can be achieved and before the Palestinians can live in a Palestinian State, as sanctioned in the UN Resolutions, that I hope will be democratic and will peacefully co-exist with the Israeli State.
There are a lot of on-going problems. 70% of the West Bank and Gaza territory is still occupied by the army, the status of Jerusalem has not been established, there is the question of the Israeli settlements and the confiscation of land and water, more than 2,200 political prisoners are still incarcerated and there is the issue of the Palestinian refugees from the first exodus in 1948 and 1967 who amount to around four million.
Without a positive response to these problems, peace will always be at risk.
The European Union and, in particular, the European Parliament have always expressed their unconditional support for the attempts to help the Middle East peace process and to assist the Middle East.
In the Resolution of March 1999 on the peace process and future aid for the Middle East, the European Parliament stressed with good reason that if the Wye Plantation Accords are confirmed - as they have been - the main problems must still be resolved, including in particular the status of the refugees.
The Commission voted for the need for a steady and rigorous commitment to the refugees and accepted the tenth EC-UNRWA Convention which refers to 1999-2001. This has been submitted to the European Parliament and represents an important contribution.
The proposed Convention, like the other nine signed after 1972, sets the EC' s contribution to the budget of the normal programmes of the Agency for the next three years, 1999 - 2001, and provides for annual talks on the EC' s contribution to the food aid budget.
Naturally, the amount of food aid will be the subject of separate talks.
UNRWA is asking for an overall contribution of EUR 120.82 million for the period up to 2001.
Part of this contribution will be used for UNRWA' s educational programmes.
Within the health programme, the majority will go towards the education programme.
UNRWA' s regular programme aims to help 3,500,000 Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And as I said before, it provides aid to essential social sectors.
In order to take into account the development of the political situation in the region, Article 6 of the Convention lays down that, at the end of 2000, developments regarding refugees will be re-examined and possible UNRWA programmes concerning the Palestinian authorities gaining more power over their own affairs will also be evaluated.
However, since the Palestinian authorities only control their own territory in the West Bank and Gaza, we must pay careful attention to UNRWA' s actions regarding the refugees who are still in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan and in all the countries where Palestinian refugees can be found.
In these circumstances, I would like to emphasise once again that the refugee question is not only still unresolved but is now becoming worse, as I learnt from my recent visit to the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, from the various UNRWA reports and also from our colleague, Mr Menéndez del Valle, the European Union' s representative for humanitarian aid in Jordan.
However, it is essential for this EC-UNRWA Convention to be adopted and implemented as soon as possible.
This is particularly important, especially in view of the current crisis in which we are discussing UNRWA' s budget.
Austerity measures have been introduced which suppress various appropriations for teachers, hospitals and medical equipment which has provoked, amongst other things, strong protests in the Palestinian refugee camps.
One last matter - while underlining the need to continue providing humanitarian aid through UNRWA, I think that the European Parliament is particularly interested in finding a fair and balanced political solution to the Palestinian refugee problem. This solution must be in accordance with UN Resolution 194.
In this respect, I think that the greatest efforts must be made to invite the authorities concerned in the region, especially the Israeli and Palestinian authorities, to contribute to this solution.
Just two more points: the Committee on Budgetary Control has proposed two amendments on greater transparency, which we subscribe to, and finally, there is a legal question of the way in which our vote is requested by the Commission, and this is something which we will have to examine.
Mr President, it is a great pleasure to speak on Palestine.
It is extremely important and it is a subject in which I have been very interested for many years.
Mrs Morgantini has produced an excellent report which I and my group support and the two amendments are very important because they ask for an annual report and for access to the sites and information on the aspects of the financing.
I should like to raise a few points.
One is that we are helping 3.5 million refugees.
I accept that these are people in refugee camps now and I hope that the European Union will play a very positive role in helping them to rehabilitate once they come across from neighbouring countries into Palestine for resettlement.
I hope the European Commission will take the initiative, with the close cooperation of Parliament, in being more of an active player in the Middle East and not take a back seat and let the Americans lead.
When we look at the aid we are giving, EUR 40 million, that is not a lot of money.
I accept it is quite a large part of the EUR 120 million that are being given and 85% of our budget of about EUR 40 million per annum is for education, which I consider the right way forward.
We are helping to educate half a million children.
I hope that this proposal will be acted upon quickly because as Mrs Morgantini pointed out there is urgency, teachers are losing their jobs or not being employed and education and medical help is essential.
I hope that the Commission will do its best to speed this on.
Mrs Morgantini has really covered this subject extensively.
I do not want to waste Parliament' s time and I thank the President for giving me the opportunity to speak on this subject.
Mr President, this report has been approved unanimously by the Committee on Development and Co-operation, and, wisely, with the two amendments tabled by the Committee on Budgets, so that, rather than just words, we will actually have an economic and financial plan.
The report has been prepared by Mrs Morgantini, and concerns the signature by the Commission of a Convention with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
The achievement of a just peace in the Middle East, which we advocate in the Socialist Group, is only possible if, together with the negotiations on the items on the peace agenda in this complex conflict, the problem of the refugees is resolved.
One of the issues to be dealt with in relation to this problem, which is a necessary one although not the only one, is aid for the refugees, without prejudice to the achievement of a permanent solution within the framework of the peace negotiations which goes further than the therapy of aid.
The role of the European Union in aid to Palestine is undeniable.
And, in this respect, the communication of the Commission, which has given rise to this report, simply continues our coherent approach to our contribution to peace by means of the said aid.
This should not be an obstacle to the European Union' s, and in particular Parliament' s, more direct participation in the peace process.
The problem of the refugees, together with the status of Jerusalem, the problems of water and the settlers, is one of the key factors relating to peace in the Middle East.
Every effort should be made if we want to reach a satisfactory agreement on the refugees and thereby bring peace closer.
Between the extreme positions, which demand the recognition of the right to return, ignoring the real problems which, in reality, would be caused by the mass return of refugees and the uncompromising positions, which do not even accept that the problem exists, there are intermediate options which should be studied, developed and implemented.
One of these options is this report.
Although we know it is not a definitive solution, we must approve this report as one more European Union contribution to the difficult peace process in the Middle East.
Mr President, UNRWA ought really to celebrate its fifty-year anniversary by disbanding itself.
For five long decades the way back for the Palestinians was closed off and the way forward was blocked too.
All that time UNRWA was doing extremely useful work under extraordinarily difficult circumstances.
All the endeavours to bring education and health care up to standard, no matter how valuable in themselves, were still unable to solve the political problem of the refugees.
UNWRA has suffered a great deal on account of financial problems in recent years.
Increased costs were not covered by additional revenue.
Consequently, it had no alternative but to develop illegal secondary economies, much to the discomfiture of the Palestinians.
Unfortunately there is nothing about the refugees in the Wye agreement.
The Palestinians now feel desperate, forgotten about and left to their fate.
Uncertainty about the future, high unemployment and restricted mobility cause tension and fear, which creates a breeding ground for fundamentalism.
Therefore, giving support to UNWRA as proposed does not just serve humanitarian ends but is also of political importance, i.e. by bringing stability to the region.
Israel must demonstrate more flexibility in the peace process.
The Arab host countries, in turn, must take responsibility and stop misusing the Palestinian problem for political ends.
They must assist in integrating the Palestinians into their country.
The European Union, in its turn, should provide financial assistance here.
Up until now, Europe has not known how to convert its financial assistance into political influence.
It has given the refugees financial assistance for 25 years.
It is high time for Europe to at last bring its political influence to bear in order to make UNRWA redundant once and for all.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, since 1972 the EC and UNRWA have concluded nine agreements concerning the EC' s contribution to UNRWA.
The EU is the leading donor of economic and financial aid in this region.
In this way, we shall, in the future, too, have a considerable responsibility for the Palestinian refugees.
For the period 1999 to 2001, UNRWA has requested an amount of EUR 120 million.
The major part of this amount - EUR 102 million - is earmarked for UNRWA' s education programme, and EUR 18 million for the health programme.
We Greens welcome the fact that the new programme is being discussed promptly by the EU Commission and by the Committees of the European Parliament.
We ought to be agreeing to its submission to the plenum equally promptly.
Above all, there should be no reductions in the budget, and discussions about the programme' s legal basis should not further obstruct its submission.
These problems appear now to have been solved, however, just as the justified criticism by the Court of Auditors of the lack of supervision in implementing the old contracts has been removed.
Transparency is the basis of our budgeting. This must be guaranteed even in urgent cases of humanitarian aid, for all we are in fact doing in the end is passing on taxpayers' money.
The programme is urgently necessary, for health care and the education programme are basic services.
The education programme has become UNRWA' s biggest single area of activity.
445 young people are being educated at school and 6000 are receiving training.
We also welcome health care based on needs. This is provided at local authority level, directly to the people, through a network of 123 health centres.
The Palestinian refugees are in need of this help, for the refugee situation, which has lasted for years, has serious psychological effects on many people. To these are added many forms of social and economic discrimination.
Now as before, a political solution to the problem of the Palestinian refugees is urgently needed.
Peace negotiations have finally begun again, but cease-fires and status negotiations are not enough because the Palestinian refugees are still ignored.
We must offer them prospects for the future. The EU can contribute a lot here.
At present, day-to-day deprivation must however be at least partly reduced by means of this programme.
Our group is therefore fully endorsing Mrs Morgantini' s report.
The Palestinian refugees can count on our support and our solidarity.
Neil, Commission. Mr President, it is my pleasure to comment on the fact that in this short debate we have had three maiden speeches including that of Ms Schröder who, at 21 years of age, is the youngest Member of this Parliament.
It is evidence of the fact that young people are extremely interested in politics.
At 21 she is seven years younger than I was when I went to the House of Commons.
I can only offer the hope that Ms Schröder matures better than I did and I am sure that she will.
Can I begin by expressing the Commission' s gratitude for the thorough report by the Committee on Development and Cooperation and for the support given throughout the consultation procedure for the Commission' s efforts to conclude the Tenth Convention between the Community and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East.
In particular, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Morgantini for her work.
The constructive involvement of Parliament' s Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, and Committee on Budgets also deserves thanks, and I will in a moment comment on the amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgets about which Mr Khanbhai spoke.
Since 1972 the Community has signed nine conventions with UNRWA governing the EC contribution to the organisation' s regular and food aid budgets.
The tenth triennial convention covers the period 1999 to 2001 and provides for a contribution of EUR 120.82 million to UNRWA' s regular education and health programmes.
It also allows for the annual negotiation of the contribution to the food aid budget.
That EUR 120 million includes a 5% annual increase which reflects the operative principle of indexation that takes account of inflation and population growth.
That arrangement has governed previous European Union contributions under the successive conventions and has been repeatedly praised by the United Nations Agency because it prevents erosion in the value of the Community' s contribution.
The Commission has made efforts to improve and to clarify the Convention being considered before the House today in order to make its application more transparent and also to take into account the relevant agreed provisions in the European Community-United Nations global arrangement.
Other innovations in this convention including Article 4 on payments, Article 8 on visibility of the Community' s contribution, Article 9 on arbitration and Article 12 on entry into force, all aim at enhancing transparency and accountability.
I would like to advise the House that the Commission cannot accept the two amendments proposed by the Committee on Budgets for two reasons.
Firstly, the purpose of the draft Council decision is not to regulate an interinstitutional information request.
It is to approve the text of the EC-UNRWA Convention and to authorise the Commission to sign it on behalf of the Community.
Secondly, the obligation to inform is inherent in the Commission' s responsibility to implement the Community budget.
The annual report submitted by UNRWA will certainly be provided to Parliament as well as to the Council.
Progress on this issue is now urgent.
UNRWA is facing a severe cash shortfall and we, as donors, have to do our utmost to accelerate the procedure to help out UNRWA and ultimately the Palestinian people.
The House will be conscious that, in the context of the Middle East peace process and the Oslo peace accords, the refugee issue was specified for final status talks.
Under those accords, the parties were supposed to have negotiated the final status issues by 4 May this year but sadly that has not happened.
Let us hope, however, that the signature of the memorandum in Sharm el-Sheikh will reinvigorate the peace process and ensure that the outstanding issues on final status are tackled without great delay.
I conclude by saying that until the refugee issue has found a just and comprehensive solution, the Union' s support for UNRWA, as a provider of para-governmental services in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, to alleviate the very difficult lives of 3.5 million Palestinian people in the refugee camps, is absolutely crucial.
Far from taking a marginal role, the European Union, and therefore, the European Commission will sustain a strong engagement to ensure that the conditions of those people are significantly improved.
Thank you, Vice-President Kinnock.
I believe we are all in agreement with the comments which you have addressed to our new colleague, Mrs Schröder.
There are two procedural motions: one from Mrs Morgantini, the rapporteur, and then one from Mrs Schröder.
I offer the floor first to the rapporteur.
Please be very brief.
First of all, I apologise to the President for not having stood up sooner, but I did not realise.
I will not do it again.
I certainly do not want to show disrespect to the House.
However, I am afraid I have made another mistake, by speaking too quickly.
So I apologise to the people who work so hard for us, the interpreters, because one of my colleagues told me that I was speaking too quickly.
I was emotional but I think that as I am a woman and emotion and reason go hand in hand, next time I will use reason more.
However, I would simply like to say that I am extremely pleased with the interventions that my colleagues have made because something has emerged very clearly. Despite the need to carry out this programme quickly, the important point is for the European Union and the European Parliament to play a stronger, more active role so that in the Middle East, stable and lasting peace will come about, especially between Palestine and Israel.
This will allow us to find a solution to the refugee question and enable a Palestinian State to live peacefully with the Israeli State too.
Do not worry, we are all rather new to this job.
I also believe that I should have congratulated you on your first report to this Parliament and I forgot.
Mrs Ilka Schröder has also asked to speak.
I would like to thank the Vice-President of the Commission for the warm welcome and I understand we are both political people.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 p.m.
Votes
Welcome
I have just been informed that Dr. Carlos Roberto Reina, the President of the Central American Parliament, and his wife have arrived in the distinguished visitors' gallery.
We are delighted that they have been able to join us today and I would ask the House to welcome them to the gallery.
(Loud applause)
Votes (continued)
Mr President, given the nature of the question we will be voting on, and hoping that we can count on your consent, I would like to ask you if the vote we are about to hold, could be conducted, if possible, by roll-call.
I appreciate why you are making this request, but I am afraid the Rules are very strict and I cannot allow it.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0013/99) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (COM(1999) 312 - C5-0062/1999 - 1999/0132(CNS)) amending Regulation (EC) No 1628/1996 relating to aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in particular through the setting-up of the European Agency for Reconstruction
Mr President, the Liberal Group would like to withdraw Amendment 32 because it has been replaced.
I would like to ask for a split vote on Amendments 8, 10, 14 and 18 because that would allow us to vote for more of the amendments that Mrs Pack has put forward.
In view of the very high quality debate we had this morning, that would be very helpful, but only, of course, if you would allow it.
I always try to be helpful and I understand that new Members are only just learning the Rules.
The Rules are very clear about when we can allow a split vote, a separate vote, or a roll call vote.
There are timetables for all these things which your group secretariat really should advise you of.
While I would like to help, I am afraid I cannot.
Mr President, perhaps Mrs van der Laan meant a separate vote for each paragraph and not a split vote.
That is different to a split vote.
You are absolutely right but equally we have rules about separate votes and the same ruling applies.
, rapporteur. (DE) Mr President, I have been asked to briefly say something about the vote so that colleagues do not have to be attacked at home for something which is not the case.
I should like therefore to say what we are voting about. We want no delay in providing aid to Kosovo, but we do want more efficiency.
The Council has proposed an inefficient procedure, and I would therefore ask it to be understood that we accept the headquarters in Thessaloniki as an operational component of the Reconstruction Agency for the whole of South-East Europe with its headquarters in Thessaloniki, but which must be closely linked with the headquarters of the Stability Pact in Thessaloniki. That is an important political point.
I would ask you all to bear this in mind. It is one of the essential points.
There are also two further points I must make here. We should like to see a simplification of the administration.
We should like to see more transparency and more flexibility. In fact, these points are to be found in our amendments.
We should also like the Council to include us as soon as it extends the work into other regions. We must be made a part of this.
We should also like there, for the time being, to be a time limit of thirty months on the Agency' s work, for the longer we extend this, the more inefficient it becomes.
We should set ourselves a limit and try to achieve everything by then.
Another really important point is that OLAF must be deployed...
(The President cut the speaker off)
You are long-standing Member of the House and you know that we can take points in relation to the conduct of the vote but not political points. And certainly not another round of speeches which you are in danger of starting.
Before the vote on the draft legislative resolution:
I should like to ask my colleagues to give their approval in the light of what I said just now and also in the light of what Commissioner Kinnock said this morning on behalf of the Commission and of what we yesterday learned from the Finns, as holders of the Presidency of the Council, to the effect that there is not at present any room for manoeuvre in order to comply with our amendments.
In order to give both of them the opportunity to consider matters, to acquire greater insight and then to join ourselves in ensuring greater efficiency, I would ask that the final vote be referred back to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
Mrs Pack - can you just clarify one point because neither I or the Secretariat were clear. Do you wish to postpone the final vote or refer the matter back to committee?
The two are different - we need to know.
I was told yesterday that I ought to request that the matter be referred back to the Committee so that we might have the final vote taken at a later date.
It is not a question of a new debate in this Chamber, but only a question of gaining time.
Whatever you want to call it, proceed in the way you think right.
Let me suggest that what you want is to delay the final vote.
Mr President, we would also recommend that the matter be deferred to the next plenary part-session.
Therefore, no referring back to the Committee, but deferral of the vote.
That is what we shall support.
We Independents are in favour of transparent and efficient budget planning and supervision.
With regard to the Supplementary and Amending Budget for 1/99 and 3/99, we expressly emphasise that we shall judge the Supplementary and Amending Budget for 1/99 and 3/99 positively and also support it.
In the Supplementary and Amending Budget for 4/99, a considerable reduction in the resources for agricultural expenditure is specified.
This reduction in authorised payments and in other financial commitments increases the burden upon farms which are in great difficulty as it is.
For the reason mentioned, we cannot approve the entire Supplementary and Amending Budget.
(Parliament voted to hold the final vote over to the next part-session)
President.
Before we move to the last vote I should just like to explain to colleagues who thought I may have been a little harsh about separate votes, roll-call votes and so on that the reason we take a tough line is that groups prepare their whips on the basis of information from the presidency.
If we change that during voting time in plenary it causes a lot of confusion and difficulty.
So we try to be as helpful as possible but it could actually lead to more difficulty sometimes if we acceded to requests from the floor.
Report (A5-0010/1999) by Mrs Morgantini, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Co-operation on the proposal for a Council decision (COM(1999) 334 - C5-0059/1999 - 1999/0143(CNS)) approving the text of a 10th EC-UNRWA Convention covering the years 1999-2000, prior to the signature of the Convention by the Commission and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Dührkop Dührkop/Fabra Vallés report (A5-9/99):
Hatzidakis report (A5-5/99):
. Discussions are already under way in relation to how the EU budget for the year 2000 will be disbursed.
Initial budgetary plans which have been forwarded to the European Parliament for its consideration have included within them a recommendation that monies for road safety campaigns in Europe be reduced by £1.5 million (EUR 1.9 million).
Per annum, this will mean in practical terms a reduction in the overall annual budget for road safety campaigns from EUR 9.9 million to EUR 8 million.
This is a truly unacceptable state of affairs.
It is hard to believe that in the fifteen countries of the European Union as many as 7,500 lives are lost simply because people do not use seatbelts in the front seat and in the back seat.
Every year in the European Union around 45,000 people die and about 1.6 million are injured as a result of road traffic accidents.
Ever since the enactment of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May this year, the European Parliament has power of codecision in the whole area of transport policy matters.
Other EU institutions will not be permitted by the European Parliament in the future to recommend in any shape or form a reduction in the budgets available for road safety campaigns.
On a more national front I welcome the strategy of the Irish Government to reduce road deaths and injuries by 20% before the year 2000.
The Road Safety Campaign which is being put in place includes the following matters: more speed cameras, more breath tests, a penalty point system, stricter enforcement of seat belt law.
McKenna report (A4-3/99):
Mr President, I do not have to tell you what a beautiful and vulnerable coastline the west of Scotland presents.
Certainly it is one which is particularly vulnerable and this week we have heard yet further alarming reports of leakages from Sellafield which will damage the coast of Galloway, the Firth of Clyde, Argyle and beyond.
It is vital that action of this kind be taken as quickly as possible and I am delighted to have had the opportunity of voting for it today.
- (FR) Marine pollution, whether accidental or deliberate, is a particularly serious threat to the maritime and coastal zones of the European Union' s Member States.
We have had in the recent past, several tragic examples of accidental pollution in the form of spillages of hydrocarbons and other dangerous substances, particularly chemical ones.
The members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group think that in this area of accidental marine pollution, the implementation of a community framework for co-operation is justified on the grounds of genuine common interest.
The proposal that the Commission has presented to us aims to gather together, within a single legal framework, the various actions carried out to date in this area.
Regarding the amendments adopted by the Committee on the Environment, we have voted against all of those which invite the European Union' s neighbouring countries to make use of the PHARE, TACIS and MEDA programmes in order to make them contribute financially to the implementation of this Community framework for co-operation.
Indeed, these three programmes make no provision at the moment for any action in this sector, and it does not seem desirable to be encouraging the dispersion of available means at the expense of priority programmes for the economic development of the European Union' s neighbouring countries which are candidates for accession.
On the other hand, the members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group have voted in favour of all the other amendments, including amendment 22, which limits the Commission' s right of initiative and which allows the ad hoc committee to have control over its agenda, to produce its own minutes, as well as the declarations of interest of its own members.
It is essential that we curb the tendency which we have seen in other areas: The Commission does in fact tend to set committees up and then try systematically to take complete control of them, in order to make them totally dependent on their views.
Any committee set up by the Commission must remain autonomous and independent if it is to play its full role, which is that of providing expert advice.
Jackson report (A5-2/99):
The members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group have voted against all the amendments adopted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which aim to turn the Commission' s recommendation into a directive, for three basic reasons: because of the bureaucracy, because of the legal basis and because of the structure of the inspection bodies in the European Union' s Member States.
Indeed all members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group are in favour of a Europe which encourages co-ordination between the different Member States, rather than a bureaucratic Europe which advocates a strict adherence to the rules and which does not adapt to geographical and cultural differences.
In terms of the law, we must point out that Parliament' s role is to conform to existing legal bases and not, by any means, to create new ones which are not in accordance with the Treaties signed by the governments of the various Member States.
Finally, we would like to remind you that the inspection bodies in the different Member States are, for cultural or historical reasons, different.
We know that the Federalists' tendency would be to replace the inspection bodies in the Member States with a European super-inspection body, far from the reality at the grassroots level.
As far as we are concerned, the European inspection body must remain as it is, that is, a body which allows us to see if the inspection bodies of the Member States are applying the Community rules in order, of course, to prevent distortion of competition between the different Member States.
Community rules must be applied fairly throughout the Union so that all businesses are competing within the framework of the Single Market.
I shall conclude by saying that the members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group will try to ensure that, throughout this legislature, a bureaucratic and technocratic Europe does not develop any further, but that Europe does develop within a framework which is harmonious and accepted by all the citizens of the European Union' s Member States.
European Council in Tampere (B5-110 and 116/99):
We Independents always stand up for defending basic rights and therefore also support efforts to create a Charter of Fundamental Rights for the European Union.
However, we do not understand this Charter as a step in the direction of a European constitution, which we reject because of the centralising effect this would have.
Any such Charter must also be designed in such a way that there can be no overlap of powers between the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights.
Mr President, on behalf of the Labour members of the Socialist Group I wish to inform you that we were unable to vote in favour of the Tampere resolution in its final form.
This is not because we do not sympathise with many of the things contained therein but we felt that some things were in danger of overloading the agenda of this summit and might cause it to fail.
There are other issues that were examined in this resolution which should be more properly dealt with in the forthcoming intergovernmental conference to revise the Treaties.
For these reasons we felt unable to support the resolution in its finally amended version.
We consider that the establishment of an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice is of significance for the European Union' s future, and the Council' s initiative in raising the question at the summit meeting in Tampere is welcome.
The particular resolution with which the European Parliament is dealing contains a series of important standpoints which Finland, as the country which is at present holding the EU Presidency, together with the European Council as a whole, ought to consider in advance of the summit.
We therefore lend our support to the major part of the proposals which the resolution contains, but with the odd exception.
In our view, paragraph 3 deals too generally with the integration into the relevant Pillar of the EU of police co-operation and co-operation in connection with criminal law.
We think that there is good reason for seeing police co-operation above all as being between the Member States.
With regard to paragraph 19 about providing Europol with opportunities in the operational sphere, we think that this paragraph is to be interpreted as meaning that any such development of Europol co-operation should be for the purpose of promoting the fight against cross-border crime, but must in that case take place within the framework of the Member States' right to full control over police activity within their own borders.
The resolution on which the European Parliament has just voted, on drafting a Charter of Fundamental Rights for the Union illustrates perfectly the abuses that, as I said in my intervention yesterday during the main debate, we would be risking.
In almost every paragraph of its resolution, the European Parliament broadens the interpretation of the decision of the Cologne Council in order to boost its own sense of importance, to marginalise national Parliaments and to prepare for the transformation of the Charter into a European Constitution.
In paragraph 2, the European Parliament claims that responsibility for the preparation of the Charter will fall jointly to the Council and to itself, whereas all the evidence shows that fundamental rights are protected today by national constitutions, and that any activity relating to them should largely, if not exclusively, involve national parliaments.
In paragraph 3, the European Parliament calls for an "open and innovative approach to the Charter' s character, the type of rights it should contain as well as its role and status in the development of the Union' s constitution" , which clearly demonstrates the desire for it to be more than just a collection of existing laws, as the Council wanted it to be.
In paragraph 4(1) and 4(2), Parliament requests that the number of its representatives in the "forum" who have the task of drafting the Charter, should be equal to the number of representatives of Member States; that is to say, at least fifteen. At the same time, it is doing away with the need for national parliaments by suggesting that all that is required is "the appropriate consultation of the leaders of those Parliaments" .
In paragraph 4(3), 4(4) and 4(6), Parliament requests that the future forum should itself determine the competences of its office as well as the organisation of its working parties and secretariat, which would give it a very large degree of independence and which would enable it to take the process in the direction it sees fit.
In paragraph 4(5), Parliament insists that there be "contributions from NGOs and from the citizens" .
We know what that means: the entry into the debate of people or organisations who have no democratic legitimacy, chosen according to obscure criteria and often heavily subsidised by the European Commission.
This will guarantee a mess from which, bearing previous occurrences in mind, the only people likely to benefit are the Federalists.
This is a perfect example of the start of one of these exercises in manipulating public opinion, which the Federalists have always been so fond of.
The most astonishing aspect of this manipulation is the attitude of the Council: throughout the negotiations on the Treaty of Amsterdam, it had staunchly resisted the grouping together of all the citizens rights scattered throughout the text in any form distinct from the Treaty itself.
It won the argument at that time.
Of its own accord, and without consulting anyone, it has suddenly accepted something much worse; the setting in motion of a much broader process of dispossessing national Constitutions.
We shall staunchly oppose this anti-democratic manoeuvre.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have declined to vote for a motion for a resolution concerning further integration in the fields of freedom, security and justice.
We believe in just and efficient European co-operation in connection with asylum and immigration.
We are also believers in improved co-operation to prevent criminal activity in areas such as the trade in human beings, offences against children and money laundering.
The motion for a resolution includes a desire to transfer police co-operation from the third to the First Pillar, a wish to give Europol operational powers and a plea to set up a common European prosecution service (Corpus Juris).
We have voted against giving Europol operational powers because we don' t want it developing into a European answer to the FBI.
We have also voted against establishing a common European prosecution service.
We are not in favour of a common European criminal law or authority.
Criminal activity can be combated just as effectively with the existing instruments, including Europol, and the conventions relating to extradition and to the assistance to be given by one State to another in the administration of justice.
We have declined to vote for transferring political co-operation from the Third to the First Pillar.
As long as the Danish reserve in the legal sphere still stands, we are in a special situation.
We respect the fact that the other Member States wish to transfer co-operation to the First Pillar, but we cannot vote in favour of this as long as Denmark has a reserve in the legal sphere.
For the reasons stated above, we have declined to vote for the whole motion for a resolution.
Nor, moreover, can we support the desire that the Tampere Summit should be the starting signal for a new Intergovernmental Conference concerning further integration in the area of law.
At the next Intergovernmental Conference, it is the institutional changes which need to be concentrated upon. Otherwise, we risk delaying the enlargement process.
I am voting against the positions and the priorities proposed by the European Commission at the Tampere European Council concerning rights and freedoms.
The simple fact that it does not envisage regularisation of all people living and working on European soil without proper papers should explain why I have voted this way.
Designating Europe an "area of freedom, security and justice" shows a certain amount of cynicism.
We do not ask about the background of capital in order to allow it freedom of movement and freedom of investment throughout the European Union.
The free movement of people though is regulated, limited or banned according to their national and, above all, social background.
Multinational companies are free to form groups, but the families of immigrant workers are not.
Complete freedom is granted in cases where it damages employment and society, but it is withheld however when it concerns the most basic sense of humanity.
The European Charter of Fundamental Rights which the Tampere Summit is supposed to work on will be nothing more than a collection of empty words if it does not at least contain complete freedom of movement, and the individual' s freedom to settle where he wants for all those living and working in the European Union, whatever their original nationality, as well as complete equality of rights, including the right to vote.
- (EL) The increased Community action in areas of justice and home affairs is a major cause for concern for European citizens.
It is a direct attempt to fortify strongholds and to tighten control and monitoring mechanisms with a view to exercising command over the citizens and to monitoring their activities effectively as opposed to promoting citizens' rights.
Of particular concern is the sphere of immigration and asylum where there is a growing trend towards the creation of a fortress-Europe.
We should show more concern over the attempts both to divert from and replace the Geneva Convention, which is the main source of international law governing refugees, and to implement a "temporary protection regime" . We should also be particularly concerned about deliberations to amend the Dublin Asylum Convention, to enforce stricter legislation on the procedure for processing asylum applications and to implement "effectively" the removal procedures for those whose residency applications have been rejected.
The increase in the wave of refugees cannot be dealt with by enforcing repressive measures, but by implementing an international policy which will reduce tensions and will contribute to peaceful political settlement of all differences, and will not resort, as in Kosovo, to criminal military intervention measures.
It must be dealt with by conducting an international economic and commercial policy which will support economic development of third countries and will contribute to the welfare of the population.
The proposals regarding the widening of police and judicial powers of intervention in criminal cases, as well as the various proposals concerning the creation of a special European judicial area, constitute the cloak under which Europol can strengthen and widen its operational powers and under which repressive national principles can be formulated, thereby seriously jeopardising fundamental democratic rights and freedoms.
Widening activities in the exchange of information, filing and processing this information, either within the framework of Europol or directly among Member States, will not only increase the dangers of uncontrolled use of those files but will also legitimise all activities relating to surveillance and placing on file under the pretext of crime prevention.
In this connection, the creation of "European Public Order" based on the Schengen principles would inevitably constitute an undemocratic arsenal which, at any given moment, could be used against political and trade unionist action, to prevent working people from reacting to any unpopular policies of the EU and of the Member States.
When the underlying philosophy of the proposals in question centres around the meaning of "law-abiding citizens" and the need to "make those who 'threaten the freedom and security of the individual and of society' accountable for their actions" , we cannot but detect a certain re-emergence of those principles which, in countries like ours, once formed the basis of anti-democratic laws and restrictions and the basis for the penalisation of all political and trade unionist activities.
It is obvious that under the cloak of the fight against organised crime and certain other types of unlawful punishable behaviour, we are attempting not only to control developments at policy level in the long-term, but also to introduce tougher enforcement procedures for law and order.
It is no coincidence that, for matters concerning justice and home affairs, the issues of public order and security fall outside the already limited competence of the European Court of Justice.
Similar difficulties exist for parliamentary control which means that action by the police and secret services and public security standards will remain all the more uncontrolled.
Increasing co-operation in civil and criminal cases demands total respect for traditions of international civil and criminal law, total respect for democratic rights, and the safeguarding of traditional principles of fundamental and procedural law.
It is evident that not only must we disagree with but we must also condemn such developments.
For their sake, working people should not only show opposition to the plans being advocated, but should also expose the hypocrisy of the EU and of the Member States and fight to avert such dangers to the development of their freedoms.
- (SV) The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice is of significance for the EU' s future.
The particular resolution with which the European Parliament is dealing contains important standpoints which Finland, as the country currently holding the EU Presidency, together with the European Council, ought to consider in advance of the summit.
In the main, I support the motion for a resolution, but with a number of important exceptions.
I think that comprehensive co-operation at European level in the fight against crime is important.
I do not, however, support the idea of a federal Europe and do not therefore want to contribute to changes in the direction of qualified majority voting within significant areas.
I think that co-operation in the fields of police work and criminal law ought, in the future too, to be between Member States.
Paragraph 3 is too general and far-reaching. I am therefore voting "no" to this paragraph.
The same applies to paragraph 19 which is about giving Europol the ability to act in various ways at operational level.
Paragraph 6 deals with qualified majority voting but is too unclear, especially paragraph 6 c, for me to be able to support it.
Certain parts of paragraph 21 are too far-reaching, especially 21(b) and 21(d).
That concludes the vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.46 p.m. and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Financial crisis in Russia
The next item is the Commission' s statement on the financial crisis in Russia.
Mr Kinnock, speaking on behalf of the Commission, will be the first to take the floor.
Neil Commission. Mr President, with your permission, I would like to make a Commission statement on the effects of the financial crisis in Russia and on matters relating to corruption and money laundering.
As the House will know, some stability has been achieved in the general financial situation in Russia since the dramatic fall in the international exchange value of the rouble in August last year.
Indeed, since the beginning of this year, there has been some encouraging news with the recovery in industrial output, mainly as the result of import substitution, relatively tight controls on inflation and a stronger balance of payments position, produced mainly by a sharp rise in the price of Russia' s oil exports.
In addition, at the end of July, agreement was reached with the IMF, and other financial institutions, on the resumption of direct loan assistance, and soon afterwards there was an agreement in the Paris Club on rescheduling debt service payments due on Russia' s sovereign debt.
Talks are now under way in the London club of private-sector creditors.
The Russian economy has consequently gained a breathing space in the run-up to the duma elections in December and the presidential elections next summer.
However, by itself, none of this is enough to revive an economy which remains very fragile with rising unemployment and levels of poverty.
Much more effort is therefore needed from the responsible authorities to promote sustained recovery over the medium-term.
Adoption by the duma of the budget proposed by the government for the year 2000 will be a significant test.
In addition to severe structural problems like lack of investment, the public debt, particularly foreign debt, has grown rapidly and at present it is not clear how the authorities intend to service that debt burden.
With reference to the more specific issues of the flight of capital and money-laundering, I would like to say the following.
The Commission is aware of the current media speculation and the growing worries about the misuse of international assistance funds provided to Russia.
Clearly we must await the outcome of ongoing investigations in Europe and the United States of America, and the Commission is naturally following the matter closely.
In the meantime, the decision about a response to the speculations and the allegations about misuse of assistance funds is primarily a matter for the IMF, the World Bank and the G7 countries, since they are obviously the main suppliers of direct financial assistance.
Everyone should of course be mindful of the fact that the Russian authorities are responsible for repaying the principal and the interest due on such assistance.
Moreover, the latest IMF assistance will be cancelled out by debt-servicing payments due to the IMF by Russia.
It will therefore be a book transaction without any substantial transfer of money.
Meanwhile Community assistance is, as this House will know, primarily delivered through the TACIS programme which is centrally managed from Brussels.
The funds concerned are predominantly used to pay EU firms to provide technical expertise and advice for Russia.
Only a very small proportion of the funds therefore goes to Russia.
Indeed it is only EUR 4 million out of the total of EUR 140 million.
That EUR 4 million is obviously directly managed by our representation in Moscow.
In addition the Community food supply programme for Russia, that was launched earlier this year, is subject to very close monitoring which involves, amongst other things, checks on the use of the funds generated by the sale of relevant food products on local markets.
Moreover, Russia does not currently receive Community loans, and the lending mandate of the European Investment Bank for countries outside the European Union does not extend to Russia.
However, the issues which deserve close attention are not confined to alleged misuse of international funds.
They extend, in the Commission' s view, to the massive outflow of capital from Russia which has in turn obviously contributed to the low level of internal investment and therefore impeded economic growth.
The Commission has always made it clear to Russia that reversing capital flight urgently and fundamentally requires a more appropriate investment environment and better protection of investor rights in Russia.
For some time, the Commission has recognised the link between capital flight and corruption and criminality in Russia and we also understand the cumulative threat these conditions pose to the country' s transition to a democratic system and a market economy governed by the rule of law.
The House will be aware that criminal activity thrives on institutional weaknesses and the fragility of efforts to consolidate the rule of law.
That is why the Commission has made, and will continue to make, useful efforts to assist Russia in its arduous transition by actions like targeting technical assistance at combating money-laundering and organised crime and supporting efforts to advance the rule of law in general. One example of such activities is a study into Russian institutional and regulatory requirements in combating money-laundering that will be launched later this year.
There is also growing cooperation between the relevant Commission and Russian officials in customs and anti-fraud activities.
The House will be only too aware of the sophisticated skills of international criminals in taking advantage of different legal and regulatory provisions across the globe and infiltrating economic and financial systems regardless of national frontiers.
We are therefore faced with a worldwide problem that is not confined to Russia.
Obviously combating it requires closely coordinated international responses and the Commission is ready to play its full part in that.
Russia must nevertheless take whatever action it can to put its own house in order.
The Commission therefore hopes that the Russian authorities will respond to the present situation in a convincing way and it is vital that those authorities cooperate fully with the ongoing investigations in Europe and in the USA.
The Commission notes with approval that the authorities have decided to send a high-level mission to the USA to liaise with investigators there, I think that is actually happening at the present time.
Clearly the internal investigations in Russia into these fraud allegations should be actively encouraged.
The Commission is concerned, however, that the questions raised have been met by only routine denials and have not been properly addressed in Russia.
Against that background, timely action by President Yeltsin in signing into law the Russian draft legislation on money laundering would be reassuring to the international community.
Ratification and implementation of the relevant Council of Europe Convention is also essential.
In addition, the Commission would like to see a speedy resolution of the problems in the Russian banking system, which is obviously at the centre of concerns about corruption.
Confidence in that system needs to be restored quickly and decisively as a major contribution to the achievement of something like normality.
Mr President, I do not want to interrupt the debate, but since this debate and statement by Commissioner Kinnock are due to an urgent request by a number of Groups, I should like to ask you also to pass on to the Conference of Presidents the wish that these Groups might therefore ensure that at least a minimum of Members of Parliament is present.
I find it shameful, in fact, that a statement on an important question is being made here and yet so few Members of Parliament are present.
I must admit it would have been nice to have seen more people here today.
I shall see to it that your request is conveyed to the Conference of Presidents.
Mr President, can I associate myself with Mr Swoboda' s remarks.
I had not intended to speak in this debate but I have listened to a very carefully prepared statement from the Commission and I thank Mr Kinnock for that.
It correctly sums up what I believe is a very dangerous situation developing in Russia.
What we need at the moment is stability and further investment to allow Russia to develop.
What is happening is the exact opposite.
I was in Moscow last November with a group from this Parliament which had gone there to evaluate the need for humanitarian aid, and it became obvious that the country is just not able to put itself in order.
We as a European Union really do need to take some political initiative to try to help the Russians get their economy back on track.
The Central and Eastern European countries that were former members of the Soviet bloc have been able to pull themselves together, and improve their economies and their peoples' standards of living.
This was because we put ownership and the laws of property ownership high on the agenda.
That is not the case in Russia and the difficulty there, I believe, arises because no one has the responsibility to own anything and therefore take control of their own economy.
I hope we can therefore take some sort of political initiative to try to make sure that country puts its basic law into proper order.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we perhaps have to remind ourselves that much has happened in Russia: over 5 000 nuclear warheads have been withdrawn from use, democratic institutions have been created, and the media there may criticise the government, and, in fact, dare to.
It is true the media is more and more passing into the hands of the few, the very people who, as the previous speaker reminded us, have acquired common property for themselves.
At the same time, however, we must remember that Russia' s leaders are primarily and directly responsible to their own people, the Russians themselves.
I would like to raise the issue of this ruthless campaign of terror and bombing - the most recent explosion took place yesterday evening.
The intention of this action is to create instability in the whole area, for the whole vast region, and it is happening at a very awkward time.
Russia has two elections in the near future, the situation is very tense, the country has a sick president, and the whole economy is in difficulties.
We must condemn, as we are now doing, those states that are aiding the terrorists in their aim to create new instability in a region where there is enough of it as it is.
We should not speak of a financial crisis in Russia, however.
Russia has a political crisis, and that has continued since the country changed direction.
We can certainly see the reasons for this political crisis, but the situation will not be remedied with money, however much of it you heap on Russia.
We have seen how things go with money: they go fairly badly.
With regard to the West, I would really like to bring up another issue.
We still have no clear policy on Russia, although we have a bulky agreement on partnership and co-operation.
We have practised collaboration in many ways and we support democracy and civil society in Russia, but, for all that, we do not understand Russia.
One reason for that is, in practice, we do not know the Russian politicians very well.
We have concentrated on one person, or one body of people, in fact, on one narrow group of people in power.
As a consequence, what happens in Russia always takes us by surprise.
We should therefore broaden the scope of our political contact with Russia, and, this would help us to understand the changes that take place there so unexpectedly.
We know that our financial aid and food aid have pretty much slipped into the hands of those for whom it was not intended.
It is the Russian elite that are guilty of this, a group we have had no hold on.
I think we should discover how, for example, the competition for transporting food aid granted to Russia by Europe was organised.
I perceived problems there, and I would ask the Commission to give an explanation of this affair.
In this situation, however, it is necessary to increase co-operation with Russia, and not terminate it.
The Northern Dimension, medical care, the Nordic regions, etc, will all be important.
Now Russia needs from us very concrete proposals on co-operation, and that is why I regard the aspect of the Northern Dimension as so important, and I hope the Commission will act.
Mr President, this time we are discussing Russia' s financial crisis.
It is just one of those serious inter-related problems, or crises, Russia is struggling against at the same time.
These problems have one sole cause: the political crisis.
In this I am in full agreement with the view of Mr Paasilinna.
Since the collapse of the socialist system, Russia has had no viable political system.
The parliamentary elections organised for the end of this year and the presidential elections next year may create a basis for solving the political crisis; at least we must hope they will.
The international community must be patient with Russia.
As the political system and the main social institutions do not function properly, some of the aid to the country is getting wasted.
Aid and assistance to Russia must, however, continue, but we have to learn from experience so that the operation may be as successful as possible.
The European Union must strive to ensure in particular that Russia can develop a workable democratic system for itself, with viable social and economic institutions.
To assist the operation it would be of value to establish regionally and locally based contact and co-operation between the countries of the EU and Russia.
This would provide, on a massive scale, a context for providing Russia with the social and economic know-how the country badly needs.
There are particularly favourable opportunities for this in border areas between the EU and Russia, as the bilateral agreement on co-operation in neighbouring areas made between Finland and Russia at the start of the 1990s shows.
Unfortunately, there have been difficulties in communication between the European Parliament and the Duma.
The meeting of the parliamentary Committee on Development and Co-operation planned for this autumn has been postponed.
We must hope that it will be organised again as soon as possible.
The Committee on Development and Co-operation has grown, and it has many new members from our group.
For this reason, we should make our work more effective to increase, for example, the knowledge our members have of Russia.
It might still be appropriate to hold a seminar this autumn, one in which we could acquire more expert knowledge on economic and social conditions in Russia.
In addition, we need a monitoring committee to help members to keep their knowledge of Russia continuously up to date.
Mr President, in my opinion, the Commission' s report was well-informed and valid, and I believe that the Commission will attend to the issue of the economic crisis in Russia and matters generally connected with Russian relations.
Mr President, the news that we are seeing at the moment alleging misconduct by the Russian Central Bank comes as very little surprise to many of us.
It has long been evident that the large sums of money provided to prop up the national level of the Russian economy have not produced the desired effect and that the top-down approach might have appeared simple, but it can be less efficient in the long term.
We are aware that the gap between rich and poor has become a chasm, that the people of Russia are losing faith in the ideal of democracy and that the infrastructure is crumbling and workers are not paid.
The West might have done better to have paid the teachers, doctors and miners directly, perhaps.
If we are to invest further in the Russian economy we have to find the means to support and develop local economic activity - as our colleague has just said - which meets people' s needs and provides a sense of stability and involvement.
There are many examples of that being developed in areas of social exclusion in the world' s poorer countries at the moment, from which we can learn.
The emphasis on money laundering and crime is only part of the issue.
We need to look at how to develop internal investment.
The example from the West is that you bring in other people to do the investing and they take the cash with them.
So perhaps we would do well in this House to look at how we talk about issues such as the repatriation of profit to countries producing it, rather than simply extracting the cash as well as the natural resources.
Mr President, the European Commission has now woken up to the fact that the aid and assistance granted to Russia is being abused.
However, it has been abused for ten years now, and this is how the basic structures of Russian society have been destroyed.
Aid has been both used wrongly and granted wrongly.
We in the European Union have granted it in the wrong way.
Corruption is a fine word for what has happened.
The whole of the upper stratum of society is party to this corruption.
In this we cannot trust the president, his family, the government ministers, or even the central bank.
It is unbelievable that the central bank has recycled the aid granted it by the IMF through companies that merely exist on paper on the tax evaders' isle of Jersey.
We just speak of corruption, but we do not say directly that this is a matter of criminal activity.
The reason for this criminal activity has also been the aid granted by the West.
The West has given aid for the wrong reasons.
A typical example is the relief aid granted to Russia last winter in the form of food aid.
It was meant to help Russia to escape a winter of starvation and survive the sub-zero temperatures at the beginning of the year.
But this aid has not yet reached its destination.
We gave Russia relief aid in the form of food to cover the time of the winter frosts, and that food is still on its way to Russia.
That food is being sold in Russian shops, and thus the price of Russian agricultural produce and food is being caused to tumble, and farmers' hopes of practising their own food production are being dashed.
Above all, we must say, from the point of view of the taxpayers in the EU, that if we wanted to give Russia' s social sector aid equal to the cost of a pension we should have given it money, not food.
Food aid was an agricultural policy, which cost us taxpayers a lot more than if a corresponding amount of social aid had been given in the form of money.
With this in mind, the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament should look in the mirror and recognise their own mistakes.
Aid has been used wrongly, but it has definitely been given wrongly.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at a time when we are declaring that, together with the new Commission, we must give a central role to the European Parliament, it is only natural that we should consider relaunching Parliament' s foreign policy at the same time.
The crisis in Russia gives us that opportunity.
Indeed, at a time when the international community and the world press are emphasising the importance of the scandal taking place in Russia, we must take the initiatives necessary for understanding the gravity of this scandal, the explanations of the Russian Government regarding these accusations and our position with regard to the Community' s financial aid for Russia.
Of course, Commissioner Kinnock' s report is studied and significant, but above all we need to consider the political aspect of what is happening in Russia at the moment. In the near future, all this could destabilise international politics and also the Community' s trade relations with Russia itself, not to mention the serious consequences for the Community' s entrepreneurs who have invested in this country.
We must remember that the current scandals are rocking the Russian Nomenclature and institutional representatives.
Moreover, the United States decided in Congress to launch an inquiry to ascertain the use of money given as financial aid to Russia and whether it has been used instead in an illegal way.
Having said this, the Community' s Institutions must, in my opinion, ask the competent Russian authorities to clarify how funds intended for the development of the country and for its food crisis were used.
The services of the Commission, which oversaw the aid to Russia, are drawing up a report on the way the funds were used.
In short, they are requesting a committee of inquiry, made up of the Council, the Commission, the European Parliament, the EIB and the EBRD which will verify how much aid was sent to Russia, which funds were used and if it was spent in the planned way. Take the TACIS programme for example.
Just yesterday, President Prodi referred to the concept of transparency in his Commission and at the same time, co-operation with the European Parliament.
If this is the first commitment, we must immediately clarify our relations with Russia and clarify the bilateral relations between the Community and the Russian Government.
If we do all this, we will give our institution political significance and we will regain credibility in the eyes of the world.
Mr President, there continues to be one financial scandal after another in Russia.
For example, today's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports that last summer the Central Bank of Russia sold as much as USD 3.9 billion of an IMF credit destined for Moscow and USD 4.8 billion in total directly to Russian private banks.
In so doing, it withdrew a huge quantity of roubles from the country' s public monetary dealings.
And what is worse, those USD 3.9 billion of IMF money did not even go directly to Russia but were ultimately transferred through accounts in the United States.
The man behind this revelation is Skuratov, the Public Prosecutor, whom Yeltsin relieved of his office.
Two salient comments are in order as regards this accusation.
Firstly, Skuratov has only exposed a very small part of a practice which has been going on for years, and certainly at least since 1990, that is the systematic manipulation of international credits by the Central Bank of Russia.
Secondly, the International Monetary Fund and the American government, too, were informed about this abuse early on. Yet they took no action, under the pretext of the spurious, hence costly slogan: "Corruption is better than Communism" .
The fraudulent draining away of financial assistance provided by foreign countries, a Russian capital flight over the last ten years amounting to an estimated USD 150 to 300 billion, and a Russian economy which has largely slid back into a barter economy all make it difficult for us to gain a proper idea of the scale of the financial crisis in the Russian Federation.
As far as the European Union is concerned, it should always be the case that only real Russian projects which have been approved by independent experts should be considered for financial assistance, and only then on condition that careful follow-up supervision is undertaken on an annual basis.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Commissioner Kinnock on his second term of office, which I am sure will be even more distinguished than his first.
In relation to this particular problem, while we must not underestimate the damage that crime and organised crime can do to Western society. It is important where Russia is concerned that we try to get beyond the headlines.
After all, to be blunt, crime is a fairly normal occurrence throughout the history of Russia.
There is nothing new about it.
We must not forget that Russia is potentially an extremely rich country.
It has huge natural resources from gold to oil to agricultural land, and yet production has gone down 50% since 1989.
The key problem is capital flight, whether it is legal capital flight or illegal capital flight.
After all, the money which stays in Russia, even if it is on the black market, has an economic effect.
Capital outflow is now about USD 25 billion a year and yet foreign investment is less than USD 3 billion and falling.
To be quite honest, if the Russians are not prepared to invest in Russia what chance is there that anybody else will do so? We must not lose sight of the fact that any public money we can give is a mere drop in the ocean.
The key to Russia' s salvation is private investment.
It is that area that we ought to focus on.
The answer lies within Russia itself.
It has to implement proper economic reforms.
We have to have a viable and fair taxation system.
We have to guarantee modern democratic law and law enforcement.
Industrialists have made it clear to us - for example, in the EU/Russia industrialist round table - that they want to invest in Russia.
After all, given the potential, there is a killing to be made in Russia with the right investment at the right time.
But repeatedly they all say the same thing: it is corruption that discourages them, investment conditions are very poor because there is no viable long-term tax system, laws are constantly changing , the infrastructure is poor and, most importantly, property rights, including intellectual property rights, are weak and confused.
Those are the areas we have to focus on.
I recognise that in the current atmosphere it is difficult to justify EU technical assistance but we must continue that process because of the importance Russia has for us for security reasons as well as economic reasons.
I am glad to hear what Commissioner Kinnock says because it is important that we focus on a few areas: not only economic improvement but clearly, what we also have to aim at, improvements to civil society which will underpin economic reform and the social aspects.
I would therefore like the new Commission - and I ask Commissioner Kinnock now - to make an overall evaluation of the efficiency of the TACIS programme and then to report back on how they will improve the programme for the year 2000 budget so we can have greater confidence when we vote in support of the TACIS programme.
Mr President, I too should like to congratulate Mr Kinnock on his new post. I hope for worthwhile and constructive dialogue with him over the next few years.
As far as I am concerned, two basic questions arise from what Mr Titley has said.
Russia, as we know, is suffering not only from financial crisis, but also, and above all, from the erosion of basic democratic mechanisms such as transparency, public supervision of the administration and an independent judiciary.
In a situation like that, how can the difficult process of social transformation take place at all? This is just what I have already been saying - our problem is that, in our action programme, we are setting false priorities for Russia.
The democratic bases of the market economy must be operating before we can create a free trade area.
On the other hand, it is evident that banks in the West have also been weak enough to permit money laundering and the mismanagement of money at an international level.
How can it have been possible for the destination of international credits not to have been understood?
How is it that money laundering on such a large scale is possible at all in the West? These questions are also waiting to be answered.
Thank you to the Commissioner.
The debate on this agenda item is hereby closed.
Topical and Urgent Debate
The next item on the agenda is the debate on topical and urgent subjects.
Earthquakes in Turkey and Greece
Mr President, the earthquake that struck Turkey in the early hours of 17 August was the worst in over half a century in a region that is prone to such shocks.
There were at least 40,000 casualties and we extend our deepest sympathy and the hand of support to Turkey at this tragic time.
The European Union has responded to the disaster with some EUR 45 million of emergency humanitarian aid in addition to bilateral aid from a number of our Member States.
We must insist on urgent implementation of this Community assistance.
The immediate need is for practical material assistance such as prefabricated housing, generators and specialist vehicles and equipment.
The release of a further EUR 150 million in European Union aid will require the support of this House.
In due course, given the fact that the European Union is a major contributor of humanitarian relief, it would be most useful for the Commission services and ECHO in particular to explore possibilities for improving the effectiveness of relief organisation in disaster situations.
In addition, the Commission' s joint research centre should examine ways in which more effective warning might be given of seismic activity.
However, we do not feel there is justification at this stage for the creation of some sort of new European research institute for this purpose.
Mr President, amid the tragedy there is one encouraging sign.
What was also buried in Izmit was some of the enmity between Greece and Turkey.
Greek rescue teams were among the first to provide assistance in Turkey, a very positive and humane gesture that was reciprocated by Turkey when not long after Athens too fell victim to earthquakes.
There have been many, other often low-level, gestures of rapprochement between Greek and Turkish people in recent weeks.
Many of us wish to see progress in the resolution of the various issues which stood in the way of Turkey' s candidacy for the European Union.
This requires generosity and flexibility on all sides.
Out of the tragedy of Izmit let us hope for positive and permanent improvements in the relationship between the European Union and Turkey.
Mr President, I would like to express here the sympathy and consternation of our group in the face of the earthquakes in Turkey and Greece.
It is an irony of history that the earthquake in Turkey and the earthquake in Greece have brought these two countries closer together at last.
I will not say reunited as yet, but certainly brought closer.
It is indeed a rare coincidence that legal proceedings, whose fairness and rectitude I am not one hundred percent convinced of, and a conviction, of which, for fundamental reasons, I am even less convinced, specifically the death sentence against Mr Öçalan, have led to the development of an opportunity to bring a dreadful civil war in Turkey to an end.
Sometimes this is the case in history; tragic events can set positive developments in motion.
Therefore, instead of going into details, I would like to basically welcome the fact, firstly, that relations between Greece and Turkey have improved even regardless of the dreadful events, because both Foreign Ministers are prepared to speak to each other.
I am very pleased to see that many European countries reacted so positively and made aid available immediately when the dreadful events occurred, and the European Union, furthermore, is considering, as a result, how a new beginning in the relationship between the European Union and Turkey can be achieved.
In recent days I have spoken with some Turkish Members of Parliament, who also clearly expressed their desire for this new beginning.
There have been a series of changes, new laws in Turkey.
So it could be that, because of the awful events and a certain rethinking and reconsideration within Turkey, a new beginning will be possible in the next few months in the relationship between Turkey and the European Union, with the help of Greece.
In all these steps together with, and with regard to, Turkey it is important to proceed in partnership with our Member State of Greece.
The Foreign Minister, Mr Papandreou, has just established the prerequisites for us to enter into this new partnership with Turkey.
It will be a long and laborious path.
But for once it could be written in the history books that these terrible disasters in both these countries were the beginning of a new relationship, even a new political relationship, and possibly even a new economic relationship.
Personally I shall also strive, as the former rapporteur on Turkish matters in this House, to achieve these new relationships between Turkey and the European Union.
Turkey is an important strategic partner, but Turkey must also know that it must carry out appropriate changes in its law in order to achieve the prerequisites for clearing the obstacles to its free entry into Europe.
Entry into Europe is conditional upon legality and respect for human rights.
That is the only possibility.
With this in mind, my group will attentively follow the latest endeavours of Commission and Council and will consider them positively, but critically.
Mr President, the earthquake in Turkey is clearly one of the most dreadful disasters of this century.
Nothing further need be said about the number of victims.
We also know that in Turkey in the near future there will be tens of thousands of homeless people who must continue their lives in the earthquake region for years without prospects.
In these conditions it is naturally very important to reflect more intensely on how we could more preventatively approach this situation regarding earthquakes and Turkey.
It can never be early enough to initiate fundamental thinking on the earthquake and its consequences.
There is urgent need for international dialogue on this Turkish disaster to determine the best course for the reconstruction of the country.
This dialogue could begin between the European Union and Turkey.
I support what Mr Swoboda said just now, but given the situation we currently have in Turkey, i.e. the willingness to use its relationships with European partners, we should first - in today' s motion for a resolution - speak about aid for Turkey in a much more concrete manner, and show our Turkish friends that we are there for them if they need our assistance, and also convey the impression to them that, they will not be seen by us in a sweeping way as adversaries, as was so often the case before the earthquake in Turkey.
The proposal of my Group would be that now, in addition to considering how we can best help Turkey in its reconstruction, we must also give additional thought to how we can offer Turkey some prospects for the future.
While engaging in these reflections, we should also deal with Turkey much more openly and clearly show that, as far as the prospects of EU accession are concerned, we would be genuinely willing to accept Turkey as the thirteenth applicant country, should Turkey approach us.
We will have enough opportunities to take advantage of this in the next three months.
Mr President, we all sympathise with Turkey after the traumatic experience it has been through.
We must, however, strive to see that out of this trauma comes something of a catharsis, so that civil society is reinforced by its great efforts to cope with the aftermath of the earthquake crisis.
The Turkish Government should be made far more accountable to the needs of the citizen, and the forces of reform such as Mr Selçuk, President of the Court of Appeal, and his colleagues must be everywhere stimulated and supported.
Such a cathartic effect would certainly allow us in the European Union to formulate a fresh approach to our relations with Turkey and to develop a more positive collaboration in a spirit of true solidarity, and Greece must show itself to be a willing partner in this project.
Mr President, it appears that Enceladus is furious with Greece and Turkey and, being his inept self when it comes to dialogue and bargaining, he flew into a fit of catastrophic rage, scattering death, sorrow, pain, desperation and havoc around the two countries.
The catastrophic bible-like scenes in Turkey stretch over some 60,000 square kilometres, almost the size of Belgium and Denmark put together - an expanse which has affected the lives of 15 million people.
More than 15,000 people lost their lives in the earthquake.
Every building within 80 to 90 kilometres of the epicentre of the earthquake is in ruins.
According to statistics, this region once produced 30% to 35% of Turkey' s GNP and provided employment for thousands of workers.
The purely economic repercussions of the earthquakes are great and it would seem difficult, if not impossible, to expect Turkey to overcome all that without any generous help from outside, without our active support.
In Greece, the destruction is not so wide-spread but the cost in human lives is grave with 138 dead, 3 seriously injured, and approximately 100,000 left homeless.
The material cost is huge and the earthquakes cost both Greece and Turkey dearly.
One particular part of this cost, and perhaps the most tragic, concerns the number of human beings who lost their lives, the number of families who were destroyed and the psychological shock suffered by the whole of the regions' population, who are now filled with dread at the possibility of another earthquake.
The people in those regions have had to summon spiritual strength to overcome the individual, family and financial disaster and to start building again from scratch.
Nevertheless, every cloud has a silver lining. The earthquakes seem to have destroyed houses on the one hand and built bridges between Greece and Turkey on the other.
The earthquakes laid the unique foundations for co-operation between the two countries.
The pain and the disaster have taught us that we can only cope with national disasters through co-operation and peaceful co-existence.
George Papandreou and Mr Cem, the Foreign Ministers for Greece and Turkey respectively, finally decided to include the issue of Greek-Turkish co-operation in dealing with natural disasters on the agenda for dialogue between Athens and Ankara.
It appears, as the speaker said previously, that every tragedy has a cathartic effect.
However, in closing, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to return once again to a suggestion which was also put forward by other speakers, that is the need to create a European research centre for the systematic study, research and implementation of new preventative methods for earthquakes.
Mr President, I will not make further reference to the tragic events of the earthquakes which have shaken the whole of the region, both in neighbouring Turkey and in Greece, at varying degrees, of course.
We refer to the resolution which we tabled concerning the need for action on a political, ethical and material level.
I would just like, Mr President, to take this moment to inform you that in Athens, for example, there is now great concern and panic amongst the population derived from irresponsible reports circulating around the country of further imminent earthquakes.
These are reports from scientific circles both in Greece and in other European countries because, as you know, everybody is following the progress of the earthquakes with great interest.
I believe, Mr President, that if we were to do anything useful and long-standing - and I would like the opinion of the Commissioner on this - then that would have to be the setting up of that wonderful organisation we have been talking about - the one for the study of earthquakes, etc - which, in turn, would have to have a main code of ethics as regards its constitution and when, where, how and to whom information on earthquakes should be publicised.
It is one thing to give out information to improve anti-seismic protection, for instance, and another thing to bandy about scientific information, albeit with good intentions, and to terrorise the population.
And since this is a cross-border issue, Mr President, and the information is circulating from country to country, I believe that we should have some general, serious and scientific regulation throughout the whole of the European Union.
Mr President, I would also like to say that it is imperative, without further ado, that we find the necessary but carefully monitored financial assistance for Turkey to cope with the problems brought on by this terrible earthquake.
We will have to check that the aid will be used solely for that purpose and not for others.
This, if you will allow me to say so, is the unanimous desire of the Greek people who, in a thousand and one ways, have displayed their moral and material solidarity.
However, with those feelings of solidarity towards the Turkish people, we demand that the earthquake disaster is not looked upon as just an excuse to get financial assistance. We ask that this aid be blocked if the Turkish regime does not fulfil its promises to respect human rights, as in the case of Cyprus and the Kurdish issue, or at least show that it has some intentions of taking specific steps.
With regard to Greece, as has already been said, the disaster was also great.
I myself have visited the region. It has instilled a sense of deep anguish for the future among the population, mainly precipitated by our discovery that profitability tends to have transcended safety when it comes to property acquisition.
Therefore, it is essential not only for Greece but for other seismogenic countries, to take the necessary measures to put up their anti-seismic guard so as to avert similar tragedies in the future. It is a fact that although governments and individual people cannot be blamed for earthquakes, the responsibility they bear for the extent of the disasters is huge, as has been proved by the earthquakes in Turkey and Greece.
We believe that there must be direct intervention, that the necessary funds should be taken from the 2nd and 3rd Community Support Framework in order to introduce a specific mechanism such as the one discussed by other speakers for the anti-seismic protection and for the prevention of disasters caused by earthquakes.
Mr President, because these were the worst earthquakes ever to hit Turkey and Greece, leaving thousands dead and injured and causing extensive damage to houses, factories and businesses, as well as to the infrastructure of both countries, the European Union must take both immediate and long-term action to deal with the problem.
As regards immediate action, it could grant generous help at no cost from funds from the unused resources of the legislated expenditure.
Such swift granting of aid will save lives, mainly of children and the elderly, and will relieve the plight of the homeless, who are already imperilled by winter approaching.
The cost of the disasters in Greece is estimated to be at least EUR 600 million.
Of course, EUR 100 million can be drawn from appropriations from the second Community Support Framework not expended by Greece.
However, there is an urgent need for more long-term measures for tackling the problem at a European level.
Reliable European and American seismologists have ascertained that South-Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean area, including European countries, have entered into a prolonged period of heightened seismicity.
In my view, therefore, it is quite right to propose the establishment of an organisation but this organisation should not just restrict its activities to the study of seismic phenomena or to earthquake forecasts which, according to seismologists, is scientifically impossible - something that those colleagues who are proposing an institution for earthquake forecasts should be mindful of. This organisation should also define regulations and specifications for earthquake-proof construction, appropriate building materials, etc., and should also contribute towards providing informed advice to European citizens on any imminent Acts of God and the best ways to deal with them.
I note that, aside from Greece and Turkey, other countries under threat include Albania and Italy where, just a few days ago, Mount Etna showed signs of activity.
Secondly, I believe that we should reincorporate the sadly annulled B4-3400 into the Community budget which provided for urgent aid to disaster victims.
There should be a high special reserve fund which will be transferred from year to year. It should not be abolished at the close of the financial year and should not have the low amounts that we witnessed in the past.
Finally, I propose that the various public and private voluntary direct action groups for natural disasters within Europe should unite and conform to a uniform European standard.
In this way, they can be called upon to intervene immediately in any European country stricken by a natural disaster, working alongside their national counterparts, so that rescue operations consisting all the bodies together can cover a wide expanse and meet all the requirements in as short a time as possible.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
Mr President, according to today' s agenda, the debate on matters of urgency was supposed to begin at 4 p.m..
I arrived at ten to four and as I was entering, I saw my name light up.
This almost made me out to appear unpunctual in front of Parliament, the Chamber and my colleagues watching.
I imagine that other speakers would have experienced such unpleasant surprises, too.
Could you explain, Mr President, how this confusion came about?
My expert advisers are telling me that, according to the Rules of Procedure, the action of Parliament and the session president, my predecessor, was correct, as the Agenda stated that the Commission statement on the financial crisis in Russia would take place from 3 to 4 p.m., and the topical and urgent debate would begin immediately after the Commission statement or by 4 p.m. at the latest.
That means, therefore, in the Agenda which you have before you, an alternative was also given.
That is the Agenda for the sitting of 16 September.
I am sorry that you will have to remain here a little longer, but that was correct according to the official running order.
Dagestan
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0071/99 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the situation in Dagestan;
B5-0078/99 by Mr Sakellariou, Mrs Krehl, Mr Wiersma and Mrs Jöns, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in the Republic of Dagestan (Russian Federation);
B5-0090/99 by Mr Alavanos, Mrs Schleicher, Mr Posselt and Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the conflict in the Autonomous Republic of Dagestan;
B5-0095/99 by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Dagestan;
B5-0103/99 by Mrs Schroedter, Mrs Lambert, Mrs Isler Béguin and Mr Voggenhuber, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the conflict in the Autonomous Republic of Dagestan.
Mr President, it is actually a little strange that we closed a debate half an hour ago on the financial vicissitudes of Russia and have now moved on to another problem facing the country.
Perhaps we should have organised things a little better here in this Parliament and had an extensive debate on Russia and all the things going on there, in view of its needs and the great importance of the country, also from the European Union' s point of view, in an attempt to get some kind of grip on the situation.
Once again, I would like to endorse what Mr Swoboda said on the matter.
Having just discussed the financial vicissitudes of Russia we are now going to discuss the political stability of the country.
Recent developments there give cause for concern, indeed I might say a great deal of cause for concern.
Violent conflict in Dagestan, bomb attacks in Moscow, and all this in the midst of rumours about plots and all kinds of theories as to what is supposed to be behind it all, and all the different associations being made, for example with the forthcoming parliamentary elections and attempts by certain groups to undermine this process.
We lament the violence and the victims and we sympathise with the Russian authorities, who are trying to get the situation under control.
We repudiate the violence in the severest terms.
Russia has enough problems as it is.
Even the political system is under pressure and political violence will only increase instability in the country.
The negative consequences of this affect us too.
The violence in Dagestan, the subject we are actually discussing, may spread further through the Caucasus, with all kinds of unpredictable consequences.
No one is anticipating that either.
Whilst it may be clear as to why it is in our interests to find a political solution, we only have a limited amount of influence over the internal situation in Russia.
Indeed the debate we have just had demonstrated this and all we can do is encourage the Russian authorities to restore order with the minimum of violence.
The Russian authorities must enter into political dialogue with the authorities of Chechnya, who must also take responsibility and stop supporting illegal groups in Dagestan.
We believe, and this point is also made in the resolution, that the OSCE should be the one to bear this message.
The EU should concern itself more with the socio-economic development of the region, another point made in our text.
These are small steps which are unlikely to have a great deal of impact on Russia as a whole.
But they are things we can do and which will also serve to convey that we have our reasons for wanting Russia to become stable, both in terms of the details we are discussing here and as a whole.
We must be ready to deliver any humanitarian aid that is required.
We must provide help wherever we are able to do so. But we do not have much of a grip on the situation.
That is one of the greatest risks which Europe will have to face in coming years and I call upon Parliament, but also the Commission and the Council, to put the debate on Russia and its future in Europe on the agenda, and keep it there.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we must be aware of the fact that there is seething unrest in the Caucasus.
Right now it concerns the tragic fate of the people in Dagestan.
Most news reports only give us a scant account of the drama taking place in this part of the world.
We need humanitarian aid there urgently.
The main thing would be above all for these people in Dagestan to be granted the same autonomy as they already have in neighbouring states.
So what is happening? There is clearly a lack of objective information on the political situation there, but there is also a lack of respect for human rights.
The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe must be commissioned to prepare a report for our Parliament, the Commission and the Council, and the task which faces us generally in our various Groups must be directed particularly at obtaining such information as quickly as possible and reliably.
Regardless of where responsibility lies for the situation in Dagestan, the fact remains that it is a result of the dramatic developments following the fall of the iron curtain and that the countries in this region have only managed with great difficulty to liberate themselves.
In addition, the political authorities responsible continue to attempt to regulate ethnic groups and to create divisions between them.
We have seen this in direct proximity to us in Europe in the former Yugoslavia, and now we are observing similar developments further away.
We must do all we can to extinguish the fire that has been kindled there, so that the people in this part of the world also have the possibility of developing in peace, establishing their own autonomy, and having a future, such as we have already secured for ourselves in Europe.
We should not forget that a few decades ago we lived through a similar fate here in Europe.
We were then reasonable and came to an understanding, and it is now our job to help people there in their development, which may perhaps run a similar course, but which can in any case offer them the possibility of a future, in which their existence is secure, and where they can take control of their own destiny.
Mr President, I think it is only right that we should use most of this afternoon to discuss the smoking heap of ruins that the former Soviet Union has left behind.
In fact, the conflict in Dagestan has to do not only with the conflict between the Russian army and militant Islamicists from Chechnya but also with Russia' s weakness, with oil in the Caspian Sea and with poverty in the northern Caucasus which is being increased by the lack of economic support from Moscow.
There are perhaps 30 different peoples in Dagestan with just as many different languages.
One small group consists of Chechens who are supporting the guerrilla leader Basayev in an attempt to incorporate Dagestan into Chechnya.
On the other side there are these fundamentalist Wahabis who want to establish an Islamic state with support from Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden.
So the scene is set and all the ingredients are there for a tragedy of inconceivable proportions over the next few years.
The local population has so far not supported the Wahabis' desire for an Islamic state, but things can change.
They are one of the poorest republics in the Russian Federation.
80% of young people between the ages of 18 and 35 are unemployed, and the average wage is below the Russian minimum wage.
And in Moscow there is not a lot of interest in the situation.
Now, the population is receiving a greeting from Moscow in the form of bombings.
Moscow is supposed to be protecting the population, of course, but is instead perceived by many as the opposite of a protector, namely as the party which is bombing them.
The problem is that journalists dare not travel to the place.
They are kidnapped and taken hostage for cash.
Nor do I think, therefore, that this Parliament is in a position to express a particularly precise opinion about this tragedy which is now unfolding.
But the resolution says what needs to be said, and the most important thing is that we now promise each other to keep a sharp eye open for any means of helping, any means of contributing to stability in this unhappy part of the world.
, Neil, Commission. The Commission is following the situation in Dagestan and the related issues in Moscow referred to by Mr Wiersma very carefully.
Naturally we deeply regret the loss of many lives and the displacement of nearly 40,000 people from their homes as a result of military activity in the Caucasus region.
Current information is that Russian troops appear to have secured most, if not all, of the villages occupied by the invasion forces from Chechnya.
As the House will know, this was the second major incursion from Chechnya since early August.
Fighting still continues in the border region.
According to reports available to the Commission, the invasions have not gained any general support amongst the population of Dagestan.
At present it is not clear whether and to what extent Islamic extremists from outside the region have incited or financed the incursions.
For the moment, therefore, the Commission, in common with others in the international community, calls on the Russian authorities to use proportionate force both in fighting on the territory of Dagestan and in hot pursuit operations across the Chechen border.
We also call on the Chechen authorities to prevent such incursions being launched from their territory.
We also share parliamentary and public concern about what realistically seems to be the terrorist bombings in Moscow and, as recently as this morning, in Volgadansk.
The Commission joins with the Finnish presidency in expressing its sympathy to the Russian authorities.
We await the results of the official Russian investigations into the blasts before attributing the blame for these atrocities to any particular group.
The Commission is reassured to note official statements from Moscow that neither the crisis in Dagestan nor the Moscow bombings will be treated as a cause for declaring a state of emergency and thus postponing the forthcoming duma elections.
At all costs all parties must ensure that the current situation is not allowed to destabilise Dagestan, cause destabilisation in the longer term, or lead to greater political instability in Russia as a whole.
Mrs Schroedter raised the question of a hearing with my colleague, Mr Patten, in the Foreign Affairs Committee.
I will certainly pass on her comments.
Knowing Mr Patten, I am sure he will respond with alacrity.
Mr President, unfortunately I have not been informed precisely, and now I would like to ask, whether I have the right to the minute' s speaking time which I had before but did not use, in order to say something.
Mr President, Mr Kinnock very clearly pointed out the risk that this problem presents for stability in Europe and throughout the world as a whole.
For there is a real danger that extremist forces may use this to bring about a state of emergency in Russia.
No one knows exactly what the background to this aggression is.
What is happening in Russia at present is extremely worrying.
We naturally condemn any form of extremism, but we must ascertain the precise background.
As regards Chechnya and Dagestan, this is the long-term damage left by a brutal colonial regime, which we will only get to grips with little by little.
We must therefore urge most strongly, firstly that Russia must respect its obligations resulting from the peace agreement with Chechnya and must resume reconstruction work there. Secondly action must be taken to prevent destabilisation of the ethnic balance in Dagestan.
With that, the debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, I shall not use up all the speaking time allotted to me.
The resolution we have here speaks for itself.
In addition, this morning we have again spoken extensively about the situation in Kosovo, and about all the things we want to do there to ensure that the country is rebuilt as quickly as possible.
Of course there are now all kinds of problems that need to be resolved as a matter of urgency and to which immediate attention must be given.
The resolution goes into this as well.
I am referring here to the several thousand Kosovars being held captive by the Serbian authorities.
Most of them were arrested during the military operation against Kosovo, when a state of emergency was declared throughout Yugoslavia.
The conflict has been over for a few months now, but the people are still in captivity.
It is true that there is an agreement, on the basis of which the conflict was brought to an end, but it would appear that when this agreement was concluded, the group of people in captivity was forgotten about.
No agreements were drawn up about this.
We believe that all those people who were taken captive after 24 March, that is after the state of emergency was declared, must be released as soon as possible.
Pressure must be brought to bear on the Serbian government as a matter of urgency in order to achieve this, and today' s debate also serves to underline how urgent this is.
I hope that the Council and the Commission will do all that can be done to help secure the release of these people and their return to their homes as soon as possible, just as all the other refugees who were outside Kosovo have been able to return to their homes.
Mr President, I am very happy to see that our Parliament is finally looking into this matter.
It is obvious that the international community made a serious mistake by not including the question of Kosovar prisoners in the agreements reached with the authorities in Belgrade.
We must now correct this mistake.
I agree entirely with our colleague Doris Pack when she says that this must be a precondition for any lifting of sanctions.
I agree rather less, though, on the ability of the European Union and the international authorities to intervene in this matter.
The issue of Kosovar prisoners is a humanitarian issue.
The European Union is still providing humanitarian aid to Serbia.
This is the only channel for aid still open.
I think, and the Commission is in a prime position to intervene at this level, that as the issue of the Kosovar prisoners is a humanitarian one, the European Union could be less zealous in its supply of aid to the Serbian authorities until they have released all Kosovar prisoners.
I feel that there is something we can do straight away, which is to send a clear message to the authorities in Belgrade, and I ask the Commission to let us know the results of its steps as quickly as possible.
Burma
Mr President, in the recent summer months thousands more people have fled Burma in order to escape the violence, the enforced deportations from their own country, the forced labour and the political repression.
There are now 150,000 refugees in camps, mainly in Thailand but also in Malaysia and India.
Then there are a further 100,000 illegal refugees in the surrounding countries, in Australia, Europe and the United States.
This summer I attended a conference in Bangkok held by an international organisation that concerns itself with Burma.
I got to know many representatives of the refugees again.
They feel that Europe will gradually start to forget about them and that people no longer really take the situation that has now been going on in Burma for ten years very seriously.
We know that Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi has now been under house arrest for ten years and that with 80% of the Burmese people' s votes, she is the chosen president.
We are aware that Burma' s Parliament was disbanded, that dozens of Members of Parliament have been killed, are in prison or under house arrest, or are among the refugees.
We know that the situation is growing more serious: the Burmese government is stepping up the repression in the shadow of the events in Indonesia.
In fact almost nothing is being done at the moment.
Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi has appealed to the western democracies to give her more help.
I want to appeal to the European Union to follow suit.
A delegation of diplomats went to Burma just before the summer but came back with nothing to show for its pains.
The sanctions already in force for Burma are to be extended in October and my group believes that it would be better if they were strengthened.
The United States has already added an investment freeze to these sanctions.
Let Europe at last show a united front for once and do the same.
I notice Commissioner Kinnock is nodding.
I sincerely hope that he will convey this message and our resolution to the European Council of Ministers, and that measures will at last be taken which will help to bring down the regime in Rangoon and which will enable Mrs Aung San Suu Kyi to truly feel that her actions, which are peaceful ones, are being supported.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the news last Sunday about the death sentences issued against the four people involved in the student disturbances over the summer in Iran sent a wave of disgust and indignation among the Iranian people and throughout other countries.
The shock was that much greater because many of us were delighted at the election of President Chatami and at the signals of openness, reforms and respect for human rights which he was giving out.
The Iranian people could at last begin to hope for a new future and for a time when the period of killing and violence would be behind them.
Following the student demonstrations in the summer, President Chatami promised open and just trials for those involved.
It is therefore incomprehensible and deeply worrying that the legal process was held in secret and that the death sentences against four people were published almost en passant in a newspaper interview.
The light and hope which were kindled among the Iranians following the election is now at risk of going out, and the improved relations between the EU and Iran are at risk of cooling.
I nonetheless hope that the President can draw strength from the massive support he obtained from the voters in the election and that he will act to ensure that the revolutionary court repeals the death sentences so that Iran might continue along the road to reforms and the development of a civil society.
This Chamber strongly condemns the death penalty wherever it is practised and will continue to do so.
Offences against human rights can never be merely a matter of a country' s internal affairs.
I hope that this message will also be conveyed by the Commission.
Mr President, distress cannot be measured or compared quantitatively.
It is quite shocking how the tragedies we have seen in Kosovo, East Timor, Turkey and, in some respect, Greece, have overshadowed the situation in Iran, which has become very significantly worse.
In addition to death sentences passed at secretly held trials, we have today had news of new harsh political sentences.
The freedom of the press has, at the same time, been stifled and, in this way, the considerable curtailment of human rights has reached a very critical stage.
The European Union is having a dialogue with the Islamic Republic of Iran, which should not be just critical, but actively critical.
Mr President, the power struggle in the Islamic Republic of Iran between conservatives and those inclined towards reform continues to rage unabated until today with all the consequences you would expect for the constitutional state, in other words the non-application of the constitutional state' s basic principles.
Fortunately, critical Iranian newspapers and some Iranian members of government are brave enough today to speak out about these very principles.
The same applies both to the students under arrest and to the Iranian Jews accused of espionage.
The extent to which they are prepared to stick their necks out is apparent from the sombre and also dispassionate reports by Iranian political analysts.
Quote: "As long as the generally-held view in Iran is one which defines dissidents as people of another faith and which derives the right to decide on whether people should live or die, or the right to take the fate of the country into their own hands, from religion, the country' s political climate will continue to be poisoned and politically-motivated violence is to be expected" .
Unquote.
There has certainly been no lack of this type of violence in the Islamic Republic of Iran since it was first founded in 1979.
The murders that took place last autumn of four independently minded souls are still fresh in the memory, and of course we must not forget the extraordinarily brutal treatment meted out by the henchmen from the conservative camp of the supreme lawyer Khamenei.
The latter and his immediate entourage attempted to conceal their involvement in the grim liquidations of 1998 with utterly vile lies about a Jewish-American plot against the fatherland.
The international community, and therefore likewise the European institutions, must rally around the indigenous voices calling for open and just trials for the students and Jews held in captivity.
And so it goes without saying that we support the joint draft resolution.
Togo
Mr President, the ageing dictatorial dinosaurs which stalk across the African sub-continent are dying and a new dawn of democracy is appearing.
But in one country, a dinosaur has presided over a regime responsible for widespread human rights violations for 32 years.
President Eyadema would be my first candidate for bringing before the new International Criminal Court.
The situation there is grave.
We know about the deaths at the time of the elections.
We know about the human rights activists tortured in jail every day.
We need to use the office of the EU facilitator to sort that out, to get an agreement between Eyadema and the opposition parties to take Togo to democracy.
We call on the Council which will be meeting to make sure that the office for the facilitators is given the resources that it needs in order to be able to do that job.
Cooperation between the European Union and Togo should only be resumed when Togo fully complies with the provisions of Article 5 of the Lomé Convention.
In the meantime we should be supporting independent media and civil society groups to bring what help we can to the population.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, regional co-operation between the states of West Africa has made good progress in recent times.
A West African economic community on the model of the European Union is beginning to take shape.
But one of the main impediments to further regional integration is the non-operation of democratic institutions, particularly of the Parliament in Togo.
The Group of the European People' s Party therefore welcomes the serious endeavours of practically all political forces in Togo to make the development towards democracy irrevocable and to prepare within the next few months for elections to the National Assembly which will be indisputably democratic and free of pressure from the army and the State President and his entourage.
We are in favour of peaceful transition to a fully functioning democracy.
We also accept that State President Eyadema will continue his period of office until the year 2003, even though the counting procedures of the last presidential election showed rather more than cosmetic flaws.
We also call, however, upon the State President and his administration, to agree, in collaboration with all political forces in the country, upon an election procedure which gives the same chances to every political grouping which complies with democratic rules.
We acknowledge the very constructive role played in this by our former colleague, the French ombudsman, Bernard Stasi, and his two colleagues from Germany and Austria, as mediators.
In this regard, it is essential that the elections are faultlessly prepared, carried out in a non-partisan way and result in a government freely and democratically elected by the people of Togo.
The situation in Togo is not new.
Indeed, since General Eyadema seized power, there have been constant violations of human rights: executions, cases of torture and arrests.
After the electoral fraud last year which allowed General Eyadema to hold on to power, we are right to be worried about the democratic intentions of this regime.
The absence of an independent electoral commission, the absence of fair access to the media, the absence of any guarantee of the right to campaign, have all led the opposition, which is in the majority, to boycott next spring' s legislative elections.
Even if we take the agreement recently signed with the opposition to be a step forward, it is still inadequate, and risks being a meaningless scrap of paper unless it provides a number of guarantees.
We must bring an immediate end to the impunity enjoyed by those who commit such abuses, and we must also ensure that the authorities do in fact respect human rights.
The parliament must not only be dissolved, but we must also demand Mr Eyadema' s resignation, before the end of his term of office, so that genuinely free and fair elections can be organised.
These conditions must be met if the European Union is to resume co-operation with Togo.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Lusaka peace agreements
The next item is the debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0070/99 by Mrs Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the Lusaka peace agreement;
B5-0082/99 by Mr Van Hecke and Mr Corrie, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Lusaka cease-fire agreement;
B5-0084/99 by Mr Miranda and Mrs Morgantini, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Lusaka agreement on the future in the Great Lakes region in Africa;
B5-0094/99 by Mr Van Hecke, Mr Corrie and Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the Lusaka cease-fire agreement;
B5-0099/99 by Mr Van den Bos and Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the Lusaka cease-fire agreement;
B5-0101/99 by Mrs Maes, Mr Rod, Mr Schörling, Mrs Lucas and Mrs Boumedine-Thiery, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, on the Lusaka peace agreement for the Great Lakes region.
Mr President, Commissioner, the words spoken by my colleagues show how fragile a peace process is and, at the same time, how important.
The hostilities and war in the Congo, but also in the region of the Great Lakes and in Angola, are all interlinked conflicts and are not just the cause of dreadful human suffering but will also hinder any efforts to build and develop in the future.
That is why we must not just watch this peace process from the sidelines and make symbolic gestures.
We can see that there are different phases to this process.
An end must be brought to the hostilities.
We already know how limited the achievements have been here up until now; there is the necessary preparation and implementation to be undertaken by a united military committee that must precede the establishment of a peacekeeping force. In its turn, this force must undertake the disarmament of all armed militias and prepare for national reconciliation.
Every one of these steps represents an enormous challenge.
I believe that the European Community and the various Member States have a responsibility of historic importance in this respect.
That is why, Mr President, Commissioner, I want to make particular reference to the last few paragraphs of our resolution which state emphatically that we must assist with the implementation of the peace agreement.
But I want to point out that this assistance must not be symbolic. Rather, it must be efficient and it must be tangible.
Parliament would like to be kept informed of developments here.
I also want to draw your attention to the shameless export of, and illegal trade in, weapons that various of our Member States are still guilty of.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place immediately after this.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.28 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam Present, in the past our Parliament has looked very critically at the situation in Algeria, but our Parliament was also the first which sought contact and dialogue with the Algerian Parliament.
The result of yesterday' s referendum gives us cause to rejoice, along with the people of Algeria, who are on the road to reconciliation and striving to achieve peace in their country.
I would like to ask you, Madam President, to convey the congratulations of this Parliament to the President of Algeria.
Thank you, Mr Sakellariou.
Your statement was not included in the Minutes, but I am pleased to take note of it.
Madam President, with reference to a point I made in the debate on Tampere on Tuesday, it has been brought to my attention by my colleague, Mr Camre, that remarks that I attributed to him were not what he intended and the translation into English, and I believe French, was the exact opposite of what he intended to say.
My criticism of him was perhaps unfair.
I would just like to put that straight and I have now done so.
Mr Evans, this correction will be made. Thank you.
(The Minutes were approved)
State of the Louise Weiss building
Madam President, I agree with what my colleague has just said in thanking the workers and in expressing her appreciation for what has been done since July to improve the situation, and for the on-going building work aimed at further improvements.
I would, however, like to mention something I have come across and which I feel should be resolved.
It does not concern the Members of Parliament, but rather our co-workers.
In the Tower building, in room 382 on the fourth floor to be exact, I saw an enormous photocopier which one person operates.
Well, in this room there are no windows and no air inlets, and we do not know if the extremely noisy machine emits substances which could endanger the operator' s health.
Now, since this Parliament is involved in establishing important directives on health and safety at work, I would find it extremely contradictory if this situation were to continue, even though only one person is affected. In fact, I saw the sign on the door and originally, the room was probably meant for a different purpose.
So maybe we are talking about a temporary solution. I honestly hope it is temporary because otherwise it really would seem contradictory to allow such a situation to continue.
Thank you, Mrs Berger, for this very constructive suggestion, which we are pleased to note.
Madam President, the acoustics here are so bad that it is difficult to hear the interpreter.
We cannot hear the translation clearly because the echo here is so bad.
I request that the volume be lowered.
Madam President, it is the same point.
If you speak very close to your microphone most people cannot hear what you are saying.
It is an indication of what is wrong with the system.
It is exactly the same in the committee rooms.
It is the distance of the speaker from the microphone.
We need to hear what the interpreters are saying.
I believe Mr Seppänen is absolutely right.
In the meantime, I understand that I need to speak further away from the microphone.
Madam President, I would just like to say first that last week we really got a lot of work done.
I was very pleased to see how attentive you were, as President, to all the requirements and questions which we or the administrative officials had.
To the Members I would like to mention really two points, which were mentioned here and which were decided in the College of Quaestors: your filing cabinets have not only been decided upon, they have already been ordered.
We are assuming that they will also be delivered as quickly as possible.
Secondly, the matter of the building decoration.
French law in this connection is very strict and treats this building as a work of art, over which the architects have intellectual property rights.
But we have decided - intellectual property rights or not - to discuss things with the architects to see if we can make all the dark areas somewhat brighter.
If it is already dark in the July season, how is it going to look in the December light? We do not want to do that to ourselves or to you.
I hope we can make the red more pink, the dark blue perhaps light blue or something similar, and the black perhaps a champagne colour, Madam President.
A third point which seems very important to me and to all of us is safety, something you yourself, Madam President, did not necessarily mention in detail.
You recall that it was mentioned, and now it has also been decided, that the safety of the building should be retested twice a year, that is, every six months.
We consider it essential that a building which is used so intensively by so many different groups, and sometimes used in a somewhat chaotic and anarchic manner - this chaos says something for the liveliness of European politics - is also inspected on a very regular basis.
A body such as the European Parliament cannot itself vouch for safety, cannot be responsible for it; it must be able to delegate it.
Indeed that is what we intend to do.
By the way, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the College of Quaestors I would like to ask you, if you have complaints, to formulate them, and come to us.
With your support, Madam President, matters will be rectified as quickly as possible.
Thank you, Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, and thank you at the same time for the very great help of the College of Quaestors.
I can tell you that I was most appreciative of it.
Madam President, while I welcome many of the improvements that have been made, I want to make a point concerning the management side: we would very much welcome some recycling facilities, given the sheer amount of paper that appears every day, much of which is not kept.
We would like people to look into that please.
There is an issue that was raised with me by a number of assistants who were refused entry to the public gallery even though there was space.
We quite understand that the public has to have priority - it is their building too.
But we would ask that when there is space our assistants should be allowed access: it is not always convenient for them to be in our offices if we have visitors.
Finally, a minor point that was raised with me by a colleague who had to leave early.
Could we have water provided during the sessions? People here find the atmosphere in this building very dry, not just politically, but in environmental terms, and we would very much welcome that provision.
Thank you, Mrs Lambert.
To wash down the rather indigestible nature of the pizza that Mr Ford mentioned.
We are pleased to take note of your comment.
Madam President, I concur with my colleague, Mr Ford, that of course if we only sat in Brussels, we would not be here debating this building.
That underlines the problem that we are confronted with the enormous task of managing two buildings across the European Union.
Nonetheless that is the task that the Council has decided that we must undertake.
I would, therefore, like to thank the services, Mr Priestley in particular, and all his staff for the strenuous efforts they have undertaken to make this building work.
This week this building has worked.
While there have been problems, our parliamentary business has not been hindered by the defects and this is thanks to the efforts of Mr Priestley and others.
There are significant design defects, particularly in relation to access.
It is not an architecturally welcoming building particularly to people with disabilities.
That is going to be a real challenge for us all to overcome.
On the whole, a lot of the resistance is due to the fact that people just do not like change.
They do not like unfamiliar surroundings.
In my view, it is not appropriate to discuss our own internal business at a full parliamentary session here in the European Parliament.
We need to find, perhaps, a less formal form of ongoing dialogue with you and Mr Priestley and his services to discuss the issues of accessibility and other issues relating to the internal organisation of this Parliament.
This session is an illustration that the dialogue between ordinary Members and the administration is perhaps not working as effectively as it could be.
In conclusion, putting all this in perspective, yes we have problems as Members. Our staff have problems too, but this is nothing compared to the problems faced by those we represent.
I hope we all bear that point in mind.
Madam President, this Parliament will have an increasingly important role - we said this during the discussions on our confidence in the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi - and I believe that more and more should be known about Parliament' s work in all the nations of the European Union.
To achieve this, I think that we should improve our relations with the press and that journalists' work should be made easier.
You have already done a lot and I note that this Presidency is sensitive to the needs of the press and has always been very helpful.
When the sitting opened, you announced that some initiatives have already been adopted and specific responses have been given to the Parliamentary press but, I repeat, I think that much more needs to be done to facilitate journalists' work so that they can inform the entire European Union about the important work carried out in the Parliament.
Journalists still do not work under optimum conditions, and so I think it is appropriate, for example, to move the pressroom to the area beneath the Chamber.
Their current room is still too far away and it is not often easy for the journalists to come and talk to the Members, especially during important sittings.
I think that thanks to your interventions, we can build on past improvements and continue to improve the situation over the coming weeks and months.
As a Parliamentary journalist and Member, I would be grateful for any assistance you can provide regarding this matter.
Madam President, first of all I would like to say to the Members who are thanking the French government or the city of Strasbourg for this building, that they are addressing their comments to the wrong people.
We were the ones who had the house built so we should be the ones beating our own breast if mistakes have been made.
But I am not here to offer praise. The building is fine.
It is the many defects I would like to comment on now.
Firstly, Madam President, if you ever had to send a fax in my office or that of my fellow Members, I could tell you it is practically impossible!
You would have to stand on a chair, a swivel chair, to be able to look down on the top of this machine.
You probably know that most accidents in all the households in Europe happen because housewives are trying to stand on some sort of swivel chair, which should be avoided if possible.
I would not like to know how much money the insurers of this building will have to pay out in future for all the medium-sized persons climbing up on these chairs. People like me.
I am just 1.60 m tall. I' m just not tall enough.
I need assistance. There is a notice on it saying, "Please do not move" .
Secondly, Madam President, I drive a normal passenger car into the entrance of our car park. You cannot get to Level 2 if you don' t reverse in order to take the bend.
Well, you can imagine what it gets like in the rush hour.
There are cars coming from the left, from in front, from behind, and there is always someone who has to reverse so he can get round the bend.
My heartfelt request is that this central reservation is halved in size so that we can enter the car park without having to reverse.
Apart from that I do not see why I should have to insert my pass twice when entering the car park, once on top and once in the middle.
That' s just crazy.
If I have already got in at the top, I should be able to carry on inside.
I understand even less why, when I' m leaving in the evening or at night, I have to do the same again.
Once I' m inside, you might as well let me out!
The situation is just ridiculous on both counts.
In the rush hours it is just not feasible.
Thirdly, in the morning I would like to be able to get my newspaper quickly.
There is no newspaper stand nearby.
I still have not found the newspaper stand. I always ask someone who knows where the stand is to bring me one back.
Fourthly, this week I have got into a lift five times and not been able to get out at my own floor.
I wanted to get out on the tenth floor.
It wasn' t on. Five times that has happened to me.
Then I thought, "right, let' s avoid that particular lift" , and since then I have always tried to take another lift.
It is, of course, an intolerable situation in this building.
As the person responsible for a delegation - I chair the South-Eastern Europe Delegation, this has nothing to do with the Louise Weiss building, but with the Salvador de Madariaga building across the way - I would now like to make one more request.
At least four of the delegation staff occupy a tiny cell, which I previously had to myself.
The first is talking to Dagestan, the second to Moscow, the third to Macedonia and the fourth perhaps to Cologne.
Can you imagine it, in a single room? Please could you do something for the members of staff!
The present situation is unbearable!
Thank you, Mrs Pack, for reporting all these malfunctions.
Clearly, there is some incompatibility between you and the lift, because five times is really rather excessive.
All this will be dealt with.
Mrs President, I believe that if we look for the common denominator in everything we have been talking about here, we would find that there is a problem of inconvenience, which I believe we will gradually be able to iron out. Things will then improve.
The problem is also that we are being far too sensitive with regard to this inconvenience.
And we are far too sensitive because we have to come here via a transport system which is also inconvenient and our inconvenience in the face of this transport system is added to the inconvenience that we find here.
I believe that if we want to deal with part of this inconvenience we will never be able to do so by thinking only of the building or only of transport.
We will have to deal with the problem jointly and at the same time.
The problem with the building is not to do with the current team.
On the contrary, we should be grateful for the efforts that they are making to resolve it.
And this current sitting demonstrates this.
Rather, I believe that the responsibility is to be found among previous teams, like, for example, Mr Quintela.
Mr Quintela is responsible for half - or more - of the problems which have been created in this building.
I think we should bear this in mind if, at some time, Mr Quintela wants to once again become involved in the works of the Parliament.
And lastly, Mrs President, I believe that the only way to resolve all of this is to arrange a serious meeting between the SERS, the Parliament and the French Government.
With regard to the French Government, I think the first thing they should do is find a new representative.
I do not think that Mr Vaillant currently has the necessary sensitivity to offer the solutions that the French Government must offer.
Lastly - and perhaps I am talking with my budgetary hat on - I would like to point out that, although we will eventually find out how much it is going to cost - because we will see every last invoice - what we will never know about are the additional costs there may have been because, at the moment, we still do not know exactly how much it is supposed to cost us.
Thank you, Mr Fabra Vallés.
In fact, I do not think the problem you mentioned is actually related to the building.
In other words, the problem you are talking about is actually that of the scheduling of flights to Strasbourg and transport links to the city.
Thank you for mentioning it, because it gives me the opportunity to make an announcement to you.
Our visit to Strasbourg, last Wednesday, concluded in a meeting with the Mayor of the City of Strasbourg and his principal assistants.
I pointed out the serious difficulties which many Members face in attempting to travel to the city of Strasbourg easily.
I can tell you, Mr Fabra Vallés, that the Mayor was really very interested in my comments.
He asked me to send him as soon as possible - which I will do, with your help, of course - a sort of summary of the actual situation for all the nationalities represented here.
This morning I promise you - you understand I cannot achieve the impossible: I cannot promise you daily flights to your own capitals and vice versa - that I will do all I can, with the co-operation of the Mayor and the competent authorities, to appreciably improve the situation in this area too.
I make this undertaking to you because what I want to achieve, and this is what I am responsible for, is that matters proceed in the best possible conditions, both in Brussels and in Strasbourg, for everyone: Members of Parliament, staff and visitors.
Madam President, I am pleased that you have already broached the problems relating to communications. Prestigious as this building is from an architectural viewpoint (although it has a lot of space which cannot be used), there are, to my mind, communications problems in addition to what I would say are the building' s defects in terms of convenience.
Now that we have a French President, I would have expected the French railways to have shown some interest and that the Belgian railways too, together with the French railways, would pull out all the stops to make our journeys here comfortable.
Madam President, a train service has been axed rather than an additional one laid on.
That is exactly what we did not need, and it was primarily the officials that alerted me to this fact, for those who have to stay until the end of the part-session can return to Brussels on a quarter to three train and then have a five hour journey ahead of them.
This means that I will no longer be able to fulfil my evening commitments as I have a speaking engagement this evening.
So the only other option open to me is to return earlier, which will be very early indeed.
Had I left at quarter to ten this morning, I would have arrived in Brussels seven hours later, although today, as it happens, I might not have arrived at all for there is strike action going on too.
But I digress.
I wanted to point out to you that a five-hour train journey to get here and five hours back seems an inordinately long time in this day and age.
After all, there are high-speed rail connections now, everything you could want. But not here.
There is a prestigious building here but no high-speed rail service.
I feel the two should in fact go together, but when I get to hear that the rail service that connects with the end of our part-sessions has been abolished then surely that is the complete opposite of what you would expect.
Could you please do something about this too?
By the way, congratulations on all the small and large improvements that you have already been able to make, following great efforts on your part.
I have no doubts on that score.
Thank you for continuing on the subject of Mr Fabra Vallés' s speech and my own response, because when we contact you via your groups, your delegations, in order to draw up what I have called this summary, this inventory, we will be asking you to point out everything which can be improved, in addition to planes.
I know, for example, that there were flights which Members found very practical which have been cancelled.
I cannot tell you that they can be reinstated with a wave of a magic wand.
But at least we will see what can be done.
I shall therefore ask you to respond in as concrete terms as possible, as Mrs Maes has just done, by saying, for example, "This train was very good, and it no longer exists."
We shall then try to make things easier, even if it is not perfect.
I shall be in touch with you.
We shall see in exactly what form very shortly.
Mr President, I am sorry to have lost the opportunity to bend Madam President' s ear.
I wanted to ask her to plead with Air France not to switch, as is rumoured, its flight from City Airport to Gatwick - that is if the flight works, because this week it was cancelled.
I wanted to thank her for being willing to give her personal attention to these matters.
If we are navel-gazing and examining our working conditions and those of our staff this morning, it is not a question of comfort and convenience, but because we want to be efficient as elected representatives and in spending taxpayers' money.
Strasbourg is indeed a beautiful city.
If I was a tourist I would have no problem spending one week out of four here, it would be delightful.
Many parts of this building are impressive and beautiful, although it is also, in my opinion, grandiose.
I concur with what has been said about waste and the need for recycling and energy saving and I believe that we must practice what we preach both in the area of health and safety and energy saving.
I would like to raise three particular points.
First of all I am unhappy that we have lost one-third of our offices to an unnecessary bathroom.
Please could I get mine removed and have extra office working space instead? Secondly, in the ladies toilets we are faced with constant flooding, and it is particularly unfair on the cleaners who have to constantly go round mopping up.
As far as I can see, it is a very simple problem of excessive water pressure so the water spills everywhere around the basin and on to the floor. Could someone reduce the water pressure?
Finally, could we start the session on a Thursday at 2 p.m. instead of 3 p.m. and have the votes on urgencies at 4.30 p.m. This would mean that I could catch the 6 p.m. flight, assuming of course it still exists, to City Airport.
This might help a lot of people if we could leave on Thursday night instead of Friday.
I am conscious of the fact that it costs, I think, around EUR 200 million a year extra to have this travelling circus and I am indignant that the European Parliament is unable to decide its own place of work.
We are wasting taxpayers' money and we are not as efficient as we ought to be as elected representatives.
I take my job seriously and I am sure all my colleagues have also come here to work, not to treat this place as a club, but to actually do their jobs as elected representatives.
I want to be able to go back to my constituents and tell them that I am an efficient representative.
Thank you Mrs Ludford.
Let me assure you and all colleagues that notes are being taken of this discussion this morning.
It will be brought forward as a series of proposals to the Bureau, and Mrs Breyer, if she is still here, should recognise the fact too that everything that has been said will be taken note of and will be fully discussed.
I am of the opinion, which Mr Andrews expressed, that we should not forget how to be grateful.
We should be grateful for the building, grateful for the working conditions which we now have in Strasbourg after 20 years and more of provisional arrangements.
We should also be grateful for the style and manner in which our President is taking on board our criticism. That is worth repeating.
I consider today 's question time to be an absolute novelty.
Such a thing has not existed since the first direct elections in 1979.
I would like to suggest that this is organised at specific intervals for other matters besides this.
I consider discussion between the Parliament and the President to be very useful and necessary.
As regards the concrete matters, I am of the view that this building is certainly very fine and worthy, but it is also necessary, of course, to make full and fitting use of it.
Here I would like to take up what some Members have already said.
In order to utilise this building efficiently, we must ensure that we spend the whole of our plenary part-sessions here, including the Fridays, so that we then have an entire week in which, as Mrs Ludford suggested, we can devote ourselves specifically to constituency matters.
If we do not use this building properly, ending the plenary part-session as early as Thursday and making Thursday the last day of the week, then a backlog of work is created.
This backlog of work leads to innumerable additional plenary part-sessions. Then we have a mishmash of sittings running from one week into the next.
I propose ...
Mr Posselt, we are dealing with the problems of this building and not the problems of the agenda of the House.
Can we please deal with the matter in hand. You have had well over a minute already.
Can you make the point please?
In connection with this I would like to say that it is apparently only thanks to my intervention that it was possible, for example, for the cafeteria, to be opened today, or for certain services to operate.
I would like to request that it be possible to use all the facilities of this building right through the week of the part-session from Monday to Friday.
Mr President, I am one of those who believe that this building has made history, both in architectural terms and in the parliamentary world.
For example, we have the greatest parliamentary chamber in the world at the moment, the best from a functional point of view.
I know that I am not abiding by the agenda, because this is a sitting for discussing problems and I am not doing that.
My opinion of this building is positive.
But I have decided to take the floor because we run the risk of exaggerating the complaints, and anecdotes go down in history as if they were the opinion of the Parliament.
I believe that we are talking about a piece of architecture which is difficult to understand and, on the other hand, this "culture of complaint" - which one colleague referred to - leads everybody to complain.
I believe that if architecture is a conflict between form, function and space, then this has been resolved admirably.
I believe that these initiatives to resolve the small problems are excellent but, in my judgement - and it is that of many of our colleagues - we should not forget that they are small problems which will be resolved and we have something for which we should congratulate the institutions, the French State, the architects and the workers.
I believe it is important to highlight it.
Mr President, I am one of those who would very much like to thank you, Mr Priestley, the ancillary and administrative staff.
There have been problems but we have been treated with extreme kindness and courtesy.
I would like to register my thanks for that.
When problems arise they get solved.
Like other colleagues I should like to say that the energy efficiency issue is terribly important and ought to be concentrated on.
I should like to mention just two minor areas that need improvement.
Even though I have something like six doctorates from five countries - most of them honorary, I have to admit - the instructions on how to use the telephones and how to set up the voice mail are nearly unintelligible.
Office supplies - staplers, paper clips and little things like that - are very hard to come by.
If those who have got the franchise for the newspaper shops could be encouraged to stock up with the kinds of things that efficient offices need. That would help us all.
Mr President, unfortunately the bad press over this building has again focused attention on the question as to where the Parliament should be based, and this has been the case in the Netherlands too.
Now I know that this is not the moment to start talking about this and we all know what the Treaty says.
But still I would just like to seize this opportunity to remind the Presidency as well how difficult it is to explain to our voters why we are always having to move from one place to another, and also that this is something that severely tarnishes the Parliament' s "dignité" , to use a lovely French expression.
I actually have a few specific questions to do with the building that my voters put to me.
The first question is to what extent this building really was fully financed by France and really was a gift from the French government, for my voters want me to reassure them that the money they pay in taxes, in the Netherlands that is, has not been used for this.
Secondly, I would like to know how much is paid in rent for this building.
Thirdly, I have heard that there are plans afoot to buy the building because the rent amounts to rather a lot of money.
I want to know what stage these plans are at and how much it all entails.
Furthermore, I trust that all the complaints you have received, including those in writing, will continue to be given due attention.
I do not wish to pursue this matter any further at this stage.
Thank you Mrs van der Laan.
The Secretary-General informs me that you will get a written reply to that specific question regarding the budgetary costs and the financing.
Mr President, I am going to raise a few points, but my main point is on smoking, again.
I have raised it several times with the President before and also with the Quaestors.
I have been asked to write in but I thought it would be worth raising it here as well.
As an asthmatic who has grave problems when I come into contact with a cigarette at all, I am finding it extremely difficult to move around this building.
It has got a little better since the last time we were here.
At least in the corridors people are not smoking.
But I cannot get in and out of the hemicycle without encountering cigarettes.
So I cannot do my work properly.
I have to cover my face with paper towels and run through to my office.
I had serious asthma attacks here.
I cannot carry on with the smoking in this building.
I should be grateful if you could actually do something about it so that at least outside the hemicycle I and other people like me do not have to encounter smoke.
In the restaurants there is supposed to be a no-smoking area.
It is not observed and also the no-smoking area is through the smoking area in all the restaurants.
So if I want to get food I have to queue up in the smoking area or someone has to bring it to my office for me.
I would also like to see exit signs in case of emergency.
When the bell went off yesterday several of us did not even know where the stairs were.
I personally have a great deal of sympathy with your remarks.
The Quaestors have been asked to look at this again so that they can tighten up the regulations within the building.
There will be a notice going to all Members regarding smoking and what they can or cannot do within the building.
So I think you are making some progress.
I understand that we may be able to have a discussion with the Council of Europe to see if it is possible to negotiate some sort of arrangement with them, but you should recognise the fact that we no longer, technically, have access to that building because we do not pay any rent for it any longer.
Mr President, I am also one of those who have an enormously positive view of the building.
I believe that we have a historic building and that we must be the first to respect it and to project a positive image of it.
And to the symbolic nature of our building, we should add its functionality.
We should recognise, Mr President, that this building has a significant structural defect.
In comparison with the building in Brussels the Members have much smaller offices, not in view of their smaller area in terms of square metres, but in view of the fact that Members have to share all their activities with an assistant.
Anybody who appreciates the political activity of a Member, and the confidential nature of many of their conversations and activities, will understand that this is possibly the most serious structural defect and, as the President has pointed out, there is possibly no solution to it.
Anyway, I think that we should continue to work towards trying to find a way for there to be a degree of independence between the Member and the assistant, given that our work requires this independence, with regard to conversations, the issues to be dealt with and also in other areas which are beside the point.
And finally, Mr President, I would like to make another observation - and I understand that this is not an easy issue to resolve - with regard to any possible improvements to the access to this building from the city.
There have been times - such as this week' s part-session, which has coincided with the fair - when there has been considerable disruption as far as access to the Parliament is concerned.
This will happen again and I believe that analysing possible improvements to this access - at least during parliamentary weeks - would be a positive step.
Mr President, I would first like to express my gratitude for the dynamic way in which the many different problems were tackled after the July part-session, but let us also not forget that this building was under construction for many years.
For years we have seen from the other side of the water how there was already a great deal in place, which makes it all the more galling that even though it stood empty for so long, there are still so many defects.
As far as I am concerned, we should not crow too much about this building.
In the first place, it has been funded by Community money, be it French or European.
We are talking very large sums of Community money.
Secondly, I completely agree with those who say that the least we must do therefore, is lead by example.
Consequently, I find it particularly galling that French legislation appears to focus heavily on the artistic décor in relation to impossible corridors, lights and stairwells, and appears not to concern itself with energy conservation, whilst in my country, for example, at least a third of all new homes are equipped with solar panels.
There are two small points that I would still like to mention, the first being something strange that happened in July when I was doing a live radio interview from this building. I realised that the technicians were unable, at least this was the case at the time, to get an outside line from the radio studio.
It was too silly for words, but I had to do a live interview on my mobile phone.
Lastly, on the subject of waste separation, I became aware yesterday morning that although we have two bins for different types of waste in our rooms, which is itself a retrograde step, these two bins are emptied into the same bag.
Thank you Mr van Dam.
I do not know where you were when you discovered that.
Mr President, I believe we can all be very proud of this magnificent building which will soon, I believe, be known throughout the world and which will add to the prestige of the Union.
Before making a few observations, I would like to draw your attention to the matter of tastes and colours.
Personally, I like these colours a lot.
Perhaps I am in a tiny minority, but even so.
You know, we could be discussing colours for hours on end.
Just now a fellow Member said, " I hope there will be some pink" .
Well, I don' t like pink!
So I think we must try to be reasonable, to spend as little money as possible, and then we can all get used to it.
However, I would like to add a detail regarding the specification.
When we are told that the disabled access is not suitable for visitors, well, perhaps someone should have thought of that before.
The specification was perhaps not precise enough, and I find it unfortunate that it is only now that we are noticing that disabled visitors do not have proper access.
The improvements are going to cost us even more, but it is only because we did not plan things properly beforehand.
A few thoughts, now, on the lifts.
They go as far as level zero, there are glass doors which open to the outside, but we have no access to them.
I would like to know why, as I think it is unfortunate.
Regarding access by car, even though the red light is extremely unpleasant, I find it reasonable to be obliged to use the badge.
On the other hand, being obliged to use it and still having to wait minutes on end to get out, I do not see the reasons for this.
Being checked on entering, maybe, but as we go out? That is beyond me.
I would also like to ask if it is possible to have a shuttle for our assistants and for the staff when there are meetings which last until 9 in the evening so that they do not have to take a taxi.
I find it regrettable.
Finally, the only thing that really bothers me is the reception as you enter this building.
Compared with the reception area in Brussels or that in the former building, there is a vast difference, and there should be some thought on providing a far better reception.
Thank you very much.
If you have trouble getting into the garage, think of me coming from the United Kingdom with a car and the steering wheel on the other side which is even worse.
Mr President, I have been fortunate enough to enter two new parliament buildings in the course of my political career.
The first one was the Flemish Parliament around four years ago.
In view of the fact that I was the official authorised to take responsibility for the buildings, I am well placed to draw comparisons between the opening of this building and the previous Parliament that I belonged to.
I must say that I am in fact annoyed about the many shortcomings I have been able to discern in this building, with what I would say is almost a professional eye.
I feel that the great interest in the building that is very much in evidence today bears witness to the fact that, to my mind, there was too little prior consultation with the Members of Parliament, with those who were to use the building.
I think that there are lessons to be learnt from that for future reference.
I want to make three points that may already have been made by some of my colleagues, but which serve to underline how important it could in fact be to bring about total change here.
Firstly, the offices.
I think our offices resemble a kind of glorified campsite.
I think this is a classic example of the injudicious use of the space available.
I therefore urge that adaptations be made, whatever the structural difficulties.
But I think many of my colleagues will agree with me on this.
Secondly, a great deal has been said about colours but I think that many psychologists would support my view that some colour schemes may produce severe depressive conditions, and that this particular colour scheme may be one of these.
I hope not but time will tell.
Thirdly, I feel that we are going to have to demonstrate greater efficiency and more streamlined procedures where the entrance to the visitors' gallery is concerned.
It has been brought to my notice that some people had to pass through five different security points this week, before gaining admission to the visitors' gallery.
And last but not least, we like to talk about transparency here.
I believe it is important to talk about transparency, but I would also like there to be transparency as regards the cost price of the building, and I would also like to know what possibilities there are for recouping some of the costs arising from the building' s defects that have been noted here.
Mr President, as a new Member here, I am not rising to criticise the architecture and decoration of the building, although quite clearly I could.
I agree with those other Members who think it is absolutely awful, but that is a matter of individual taste.
I wish to add my voice to the many comments that have already been made and say that I find it absolutely incomprehensible that we are even here in the first place, when we have perfectly good offices, meeting rooms and chambers in Brussels and that it is absurd that the whole "Euro-circus" has to come traipsing down to Strasbourg for three, possibly four days a month (5 days this week - I do apologise).
European taxpayers have read the extensive press coverage about this building and they possibly think that we are all mad.
Those people who are in favour of building Europe should not be surprised that the public treat it with great scepticism.
Regarding the costs, I would like a letter from Mr Priestley outlining the costs.
Perhaps we should publicise it a bit more, although I suspect that would get us into even more trouble with the electorate.
My main plea is that since a treaty change was required to bring us here in the first place, surely we can all lobby in our political parties, our Governments, to get a treaty change to take us away and spend the money on something useful that the people would appreciate.
Mr Callanan, that process has being going on for many years and has not been successful.
Mr President, in my first speech in this Chamber, I had hoped to speak about linking the banks of lifts electronically to make them more efficient, about ventilation in the bathrooms, about the air conditioning and about the dog-sick carpets in the bar areas.
But in the interests of time, I will pass that by.
I would like to respond to the first floor speaker today who asked if any Members had previously had better offices; we had such fine offices here, had we ever had better ones? Well I certainly had a better one before I gave up the day job a year ago, and every single Member of this House has a much better office in Brussels.
That surely is the key point.
The reason for all the carping and complaints about this building is, as my colleague, Mr Callanan says, that actually we do not want to come here and we want to stay in Brussels.
We ought to get that sorted out.
Just one very brief suggestion for improving the general ambience of the place as long as we do have to come here.
Our President, earlier on, said that we would look at the decoration of it.
This building is full of dead spaces and blank walls which are extremely tedious and unfriendly and inhuman.
I believe that the art museums of Europe have many more pictures and art works than they are able to display.
They have cellars and vaults full of pictures for which no display space is available.
Why does this Parliament not contact some of these museums and say that we can provide large spaces of wall on which some of these pictures could be displayed. I suggest that this would be a vast improvement in this building.
Mr President, I must honestly say that this is the first building I have been in where I often find myself thinking, "How would I get out of here if there were a fire?"
It is quite straightforward in certain places, but you cannot get over to the other side if you do not use the narrow bridges with the glass parapets.
I really should like us as soon as possible to have a very realistic fire drill for all Members of Parliament, tradesmen, visitors etc., so that we know basically how to get out of the place.
We talked earlier about the lifts being too small.
There is talk about the staircases and, regarding these, I think it might be worth knowing what kind of materials have been used in them.
If they can be re-painted, I should like to see the walls there being re-painted as well.
Certainly I do not think that very much could be seen if the stairwells were filled with smoke, but you do not, in any case, feel particularly safe when it is completely dark and you do not know if the electricity is going to work in an emergency.
A very realistic fire drill is absolutely necessary, then, before we perhaps discover that there is a real fire. In that way, we might at least be a little prepared and be able to find our way out of the building, as well as see if there are enough emergency exits.
I am not too familiar with quite specifically what intellectual property law means in French legislation.
I should be very glad indeed if I could find out what is copyright and what we can attend to in relation to possible costs. We are, in spite of everything, only here one week a month.
Perhaps we can avoid a number of extremely high costs which are not directly necessary.
One small wish that has been expressed for a number of years by the Scandinavian countries is that we should have access to the Scandinavian press here.
I do not know if it is possible, but it is clearly desirable.
It is not something uppermost on my wish list, but a comment all the same.
Finally, I should like to say that, for Swedish electors, irrespective of which party they vote for, this travelling between two buildings under construction, meaning that irregularities cannot clearly be established, is not in fact defensible. Nor do I intend to defend it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly my thanks for the good things which have quite rightly been mentioned.
I would like to mention three points.
Firstly, services.
The cleaning personnel always used to do their work very early. Arriving at the office at half past seven, one could work in peace.
Now they come much later.
If one wishes to be on time in the Chamber at 9 o' clock, the lifts are full of cleaning staff who take much longer to get in and out because they have their trolleys. Would it not be possible to ensure that the cleaning staff do not carry out their work at a time which is the peak time for the Members of Parliament?
The times we work are well known. Please give this further consideration.
The second is again access to the garages.
It has already been mentioned, but every time we are arriving or leaving with all our luggage, if we take advantage of the travel service, we have to cope with these colossal stairs.
This is really hard with all your suitcases and papers.
It is inadequate. I request that this be put to an end.
The third point is the multiplicity of different cards.
I have kept asking, whether it is not technically possible these days to have a single electronic card for everything.
I do not know if you have noticed that the card which opens the garage has to be used the other way round to Brussels.
That means you have to take the thing out every time, then you lose it and so on and so forth, because it gets dropped. These things are just unacceptable.
I maintain that modern technology is such that these things can be combined into a single item. Then we wouldn 't have to carry around three, four or five different cards.
Please look into this once more.
I am assured that we will have one badge by the end of the year but your point about the cleaning staff is well made.
I understand that already they have been told not to use the main lifts and should just be using the service lifts.
But that does not seem to be happening.
We have a time problem.
Before you all rush to go, the Secretary-General has agreed that, because so many of you are still on the list of speakers, we will treat any letters that come in rather like an explanation of vote which will be published in the Minutes of today, provided you get your letters in by the end of next week so that you can make your point.
Mr President, I should like to say one thank you and make four short points.
The thank you is to the President, Mr Priestley and his team, and our Quaestors for the way they have taken up the points we have been raising since the last meeting.
There have been many improvements which we have noticed, not least the very helpful guides who are around to help us when we get lost.
The four brief points: the first is air conditioning.
Mrs Lynne may have problems with smoky air.
I have problems with no air in some of the meeting rooms.
I hope they can get that right.
If they can get it right for our offices, it should be able to work in our meeting rooms too.
Secondly, when we leave this Chamber we are met with a scrum.
I would like to see the area outside the Chamber deemed to be part of the Chamber so that no cameras, assistants, lobbyists or members of the public block us from reaching our offices.
The area around the back, including the bridges across to the lifts should be seen as part of the Chamber, and not accessible to the public.
Thirdly, concerning the lifts, I have been stuck twice in a lift - which might not surprise you if you look at me.
The first time somebody jumped up and down and the lift started again.
The second time somebody found a bit of plastic, put it into a hole in the wall and that seemed to start the lift up again, but it might have fused the whole system.
Lastly, I ask that the flexes and loose wires in our offices be looked it.
This is a health and safety at work issue.
When I spin round on my desk chair to access my email I am entangled in a mess of wires.
One of these days there will be a puff of smoke, a loud bang and one of your Members will light up like a Christmas tree.
No, I do not have a point of order to make, I entered my name a very, very long time ago, right at the start.
I entered my name at the same time as Mrs Berger. My name was already on the list.
I particularly wanted to speak too.
I am afraid that we still have 20 people on the list of speakers, so you are not alone.
The Secretary-General has agreed that he will take written letters from you that will be published later.
Then, you could have said so far earlier.
In that case I would have left the Chamber and followed the discussion from my office, where I could also have got on with my work.
I am sorry, but I have no control in a debate like this over how long people are going to speak.
I will certainly pass that message on to the President.
I thank all colleagues who have stayed this morning.
The Conference of Presidents decided how long the session would be.
We have well overrun the time.
It is very important that we note for the future that this has been a fairly successful session.
Perhaps we need to do it again.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
Written submissions concerning the Louise Weiss building
While I recognise that the building is beautiful from the outside and that my office is more than adequate for the Strasbourg week, I would like to take this opportunity to point out some of my concerns:
drawer units in the offices (in the process of being solved)
slowness of lifts and colour of the paint (in the process of being solved)
poor working conditions for people operating photocopiers
poor working conditions for chauffeurs
poor working conditions for people working in the Members' cash office
poor working conditions for people working in the Members' cafeteria
difficulties of movement for disabled people
few WCs - which are also dark - (at least in the TOUR building), and which are insufficiently ventilated and cleaned.
We cannot allow a building, which has cost, and will continue to cost, the taxpayer so much money, to have so many functional problems.
Madam President, as I was not allowed to speak in the debate, I hereby submit my intervention in writing, as announced by the President chairing Friday morning' s sitting.
He was right to point out that this debate is not the time to state whether we are for or against having the Parliament based in Strasbourg.
It is all the more incomprehensible then that he should systematically refuse the floor to MEPs who want to speak in defence of Strasbourg, in response to the attacks on this city which he has allowed others to voice quite freely.
I protest strongly at this extremely biased way of conducting the debate, which appears to be an abuse of the Agenda.
We have a British gentleman, Lord Bevin, to thank for the choice of Strasbourg as the seat for the Council of Europe, because he saw this city as a symbol of reconciliation between France and Germany, and of reconciliation between all Europeans.
We are now at a time when we must go back to fundamental principles, to rise up and outline for our citizens the horizons of our continent' s peace-loving organisation, which respects human rights and is founded on a European model of economic and social development.
Bearing this in mind, what do the colours of our buildings' walls or the pressure of our toilet flushes matter? Any citizen listening to us is going to ask us if we have nothing more urgent to discuss than the details of our own comfort!
I am not denying that this building would benefit from some improvements.
Anyone who is keen on the use of new buildings, as I am, realises that it takes some time to break them in; in six months time, we will have forgotten these details.
I would also like to thank the President, for having shown such great interest in particular problems, and I would especially like to thank and encourage all the staff for their genuine and determined efforts, the effects of which have been very evident this month.
We are all concerned about putting the European taxpayer' s money to good use, and I was extremely sorry to hear our Dutch colleague leaping to the defence of "her" taxpayers in an outburst which she felt was appropriate, but which actually showed utter contempt for any concept of European solidarity.
Well, I want her to know that my citizens, whom I do not claim to be my own, but whose honour and taxes I shall defend, have, themselves, contributed to the financing of these buildings, and the vast majority of them are extremely proud of this fact.
Without matching the huge sums spent on the buildings in Brussels, the European Parliament has, henceforth, a worthy seat which is bound to encourage all those who visit it and work there to act with dignity and with a sense of duty.
I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague James Provan on his excellent chairing of the debate which was the first I attended with him presiding and which proved to be an interesting and useful exercise with the aim of improving the conditions of our working environment.
I would like to state that, although like many members I too regret the travelling circus between the various homes of the European Parliament, I am perfectly satisfied with my office design in Strasbourg, particularly if a lockable filing cabinet is installed as promised.
I also value the luxury of a private toilet, unlike Baroness Ludford.
However, I would like to make a strong plea for the urgent installation of a powerful extractor fan in the toilet to avoid the embarrassment of what might happen if a visiting guest to one' s office avails himself of the toilet shortly after the member has used it (this problem also exists incidentally in the Brussels office toilets)!!
I also regret the lack of TV monitor screens in the bar and restaurant areas which should be available to members having a coffee break to follow the debates in progress and, if due to speak, to time their entries back into the chamber appropriately.
Could it be deliberate policy that TVs are not there to ensure that members stay in the chamber rather than hang around in the bars watching the debates
Lastly, I dislike the garish design and colour scheme of some of the carpeting in the bar areas, reminiscent, as pointed out by another Member, of a cheap night-club rather than the desired dignified atmosphere of this house.
Similarly the beautiful cream coloured carpets used in some of the committee rooms I predict will be irreversibly stained and soiled within 3 months and rendered unusable, making it a very poor and impractical choice of colour and ultimately a waste of resources.
1.
"Request to speak" system
This does not seem to work.
I registered my request by pressing a button on the console but was not registered on the speakers list. As a result, I had to revert to waiving my arms!
2.
Lifts - C Bank
These lifts still do not appear to be working smoothly.
Link call buttons to all four lifts: one has to press two buttons to call lifts.
Programming should be improved.
The lifts are slow to arrive.
They stop at floors unnecessarily, overload and jam.
The outside glass of the building is dirty.
There is also miscellaneous dirt on the concrete beams.
3.
Lifts - Glass near hemicycle (Access to press, radio and TV rooms)
Several are out of order.
They are very slow to come.
They overload too easily.
Programming should be improved.
4.
Dining Room IPE IV
Service is extremely slow (this may be due to the distance between the dining room and kitchen or perhaps there are not enough waiting staff).
The food is less interesting than IPE 1 dining room (especially no buffet).
The room lacks character (layout and design should be improved).
5.
Quiet sitting areas outside hemicycle
More chairs and tables are needed.
6.
Bars
These need to be accessible quickly and without a scrum.
7.
Fire Escape
What do we do
8.
Flights to Strasbourg from Scotland
Flights via Brussels - overbooking.
Flights via Paris - lost luggage, tight connections.
Flights via London City - cancelled flights.
Flights via London Heathrow - none.
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 17 September.
Statement by the President
As you know, on the morning of 21 September, a terrible earthquake, measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale, struck the island of Taiwan.
Several thousand people were killed or seriously injured and there has been enormous material damage.
I would like to express, on behalf of the European Parliament, my deepest sympathy and sincere feeling of solidarity towards the victims of this tragedy and towards their families.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of the sitting of 17 September have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, Mr Van Buitenen' s fate has repeatedly come up for discussion in this Parliament and there have been repeated calls for his rehabilitation.
I want to express how delighted I am about the solution reached, whereby the action being taken against Mr Van Buitenen has been stopped. This means it is now possible for him to be taken on in another position.
I hope he will be able to work in the Parliament.
Thank you, Mrs Maes.
I shall take note of your statement even though it does not relate to the Minutes.
If there are no more comments, I shall submit the Minutes for your approval.
(The Minutes were adopted)
Madam President, I would simply like to make the Members aware of the fact that, last week, there was a serious earthquake in the Mexican state of Oaxaca.
Given that the European Union is currently concluding the negotiation of an agreement with Mexico, I would be grateful if this Parliament would express its solidarity and sympathy for the victims of this earthquake.
Absolutely, Mr Salafranca Sánchez. I shall be happy to do that on behalf of the European Parliament as a whole.
Madam President, I submitted a question for Question Time in accordance with Rule 43 of the Rules of Procedure and I adhered to the time frame contained in Annex II A(13) which stipulates, "Questions shall be tabled to the President at least one week before Question Time begins.
Questions not tabled within this time limit may be taken during Question Time with the consent of the institution concerned."
However, the question was rejected by the competent service because a term appears on the back of the form that is different to the term used in the Rules of Procedure.
Firstly, I wonder whether it is correct that a form can amend a ruling.
Secondly, in any case, the Rules of Procedure stipulates that, even if a question is tabled after the deadline, the question is admissible if the institution concerned agrees.
Instead, a completely different procedure has been followed.
Given that the Rules of Procedure were approved by Parliament, whereas the form was produced by internal bureaucracy, I am wondering whether bureaucracy should prevail, or whether what the citizens' representatives voted for should prevail instead.
Thank you, Mr Speroni.
There is one point at least on which I can give you satisfaction straight away.
Obviously, a form cannot amend a Rule of Procedure.
This being the case, we will look into the matter and see if we can give you a satisfactory answer, particularly on the problem of abuses.
Agenda
Madam President, under Rule 111 of the European Parliament' s Rules of Procedure, I propose an amendment to the agenda of this part-session to include a statement by the Commission about the French Government' s refusal to lift the beef ban and its decision to stop UK beef crossing its territory, which is a vital route into Spain and Italy.
I should be grateful if the statement could be followed by a short debate as provided for under Rule 37.
The Commission agreed that British beef is safe.
Scientific evidence proves that British beef is safe.
The French Government, as far as I know, has no new evidence.
Stringent safeguards are in place in the UK, yet one state - France - is going to opt out of the Commission ruling.
It will damage the internal market if this state of affairs is allowed to continue; it will damage the credibility of the Commission and it will further damage British farmers.
BSE has already cost the UK GBP 1.5 billion in lost exports.
British farmers have been patient for the last two-and-a-half or three years during the negotiations.
They have abided by the rules. They have even destroyed animals with no sign of BSE.
At long last the beef ban was lifted.
Now they are confronted with a new attack on their industry.
We need an urgent statement and debate.
I hope time can be made for this.
Ladies and gentlemen, those of you who have been Members of this Parliament in previous years know that there are very few people in this House who have concerned themselves so labour- intensively and, one might almost say, as enthusiastically with the question of the safety of meat, particularly British beef, as I did when I was the chair of the last BSE Committee.
A report once said that I ought to know every single cow in Great Britain by name. That is not the case.
Herr Schmid thinks I know every other cow by name, well that is not true either, but I do know at least some of them.
I am the last person who wants to see unsafe meat anywhere in the European Union.
This Parliament saw to it that the Committee of Enquiry was set up.
We took care to ensure that, within the scope of the BSE debate, loopholes which still existed in many areas of legislation on foodstuffs were eliminated.
Parliament can be proud, on the whole, of what it has achieved in the last five years. But we achieved it by working seriously and rationally.
That means, among other things, doing one thing at a time and in a well-founded way.
I am full of sympathy for fellow Members when they complain that one Member State is not complying with Union legislation. Indeed, I am thankful that my own country, Germany, was not criticised some time ago for a similar attempt.
Madam President, on your interesting initiative, we will have a comprehensive debate on food safety tomorrow, that is to say, on food safety as a whole.
There is so much more to it than meat; there is so much more to it than dioxins or sludge or swine fever.
It is a debate on the safety and quality of foodstuffs.
This is why we also wish, at some time in the future, to discuss food safety in the European Union with the President of the Commission himself, Mr Prodi.
If we wish to take away the comprehensive nature of the debate, if we wish to change this debate, then the easiest way to do so would be to add the British beef issue to the proceedings. Then tomorrow, we will have yet another debate on BSE.
I would happily run such a debate! I have no problem with that.
I even believe I know the many files almost off by heart. I could do it.
But I do not think that we should do that.
I believe for a quite different reason that we should not do that.
Two days ago, the French food agency expressed doubts regarding the safety of British beef.
I have not yet read any document on the subject.
I have not yet seen anything in writing on the subject.
The appropriate committees on agriculture or the environment have not yet had time to look into the matter.
I would like to have a serious debate on the matter.
I therefore request, Madam President, that we do not debate the question tomorrow but rather in two weeks time, if it is still necessary, so that the appropriate committees can look into the matter, and that tomorrow we should debate the topic on the agenda, i.e. foodstuffs ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I understand, Madam President, that there was one speaker in favour of the suggestion, and another speaker, who has just resumed her seat, putting forward the idea that there should be a debate on this matter at the end of this month in the second October part-session.
Are you going to put both propositions to the vote?
No, we cannot do this.
This proposal comes from the Liberal Group. It has been put forward by Mrs Lynne and aims to include in this part-session a debate on the subject which has been mentioned.
We have heard Mrs Lynne speak on behalf of the Liberal Group.
We have heard one speaker against, Mrs Roth-Behrendt.
Now, I shall ask if there is a speaker in favour of the proposal.
Mrs Roth-Behrendt did not keep to the subject.
We accept the importance of a debate in Parliament on food safety but the proposal made was for an urgent debate on the question of whether a Member State has the right to decide for itself in accordance not with Community policy but with what suits its own political aspirations at a particular time.
This is a very urgent matter and deserves to be debated as a matter of urgency, because it is a threat to the free market.
If other Member States then proceed to behave in the same sort of way, this could lead to individual items being banned in every Member State in the Community at different times, and there will be no guarantee that the single market, which we worked so hard in this Parliament to bring about and to consolidate, will work properly.
I agree with the proposer of the motion that this is most urgent and should be discussed here immediately.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Madam President, in my opinion, Parliament should not waste this opportunity of issuing a statement on the mandate for the round of talks with the World Trade Organisation, because the Council of Ministers will give this mandate to the Commission on 13 October, and it would be completely wrong if this mandate were given without knowing the European Parliament' s opinion.
I would also like to remind you all that only a few weeks ago, when approving the Commission, the Parliament approved a declaration in which it stressed its desire to be involved in influencing the negotiation of international agreements, at the different stages of the negotiations, so it would truly be a shame if Parliament neglected to take advantage of this opportunity.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very sorry to have to contradict my honourable friend, Mrs Hautala.
At the Conference of Presidents, between the group chairmen, we agreed by a clear majority that we did not want a resolution on the WTO at the present time because we still need to have discussions, and we should not now draw up a summary motion for a resolution just to gain popularity in certain quarters.
We therefore abide by our decision, also out of solidarity with our vote at the Conference, not to rush the job through now.
Mrs Hautala, as regards the representatives of Parliament at the WTO Conference in Seattle, we unanimously stated that the European Parliament must be represented numerically by 15 Members of Parliament just as the American Congress claims the right to do, that is to say, this position remains unaffected regardless of whether we adopt a resolution here or not.
For my group I say: we wish to be represented on equal terms with the Americans but, at the present point in time, we are against a statement from Parliament on the matter.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Relating to Thursday: President.
Relating to the topical and urgent subjects of major importance, I have received three requests from the Greens/ALE Group, the GUE/NGL Group and the ELDR Group who would like to enter a new item entitled "Nuclear Accident in Japan" .
Pursuant to our Rules of Procedure, we must, as you know, in the event that we accept this new item being registered, remove an already existing item.
Therefore, I shall put the first request to the vote, which proposes entering the item "Nuclear Accident in Japan" , which would mean removing the item "Earthquake in Taiwan" .
Madam President, it seems to me that there has been some misunderstanding here, as there are two proposals: one which proposes that the point concerning the accident in Ustica be replaced, and another which proposes that the point concerning the earthquake in Taiwan be replaced.
I think there has been a misunderstanding and many Members of this Parliament do not know exactly which proposal they are voting for.
I am sorry that we are in the process of taking a vote, but this is the situation.
Perhaps I have not made myself sufficiently clear, Mr Barón Crespo, and I apologise.
I was talking about the first proposal which aims to replace the item "Earthquake in Taiwan" with a new item titled "Nuclear Accident in Japan" .
(Parliament gave its assent)
I, too, am pleased about the decision that has been made not to fire Mr Van Buitenen, but I would ask you to put the matter on the agenda for the next meeting of the Conference of Presidents, as the grounds for the decision are completely unacceptable.
Mr Van Buitenen' s crime consists in having given documentation to a President of the EU Parliament. That can hardly be a crime!
These grounds must therefore be changed, and that is why I would ask you to put the issue on the agenda for the Conference of Presidents.
Madam President, I have a request for information about a matter of order.
I am not sure if one is entitled to make an explanation of vote at this stage in this debate, but if so, I would like to say that I think, from the point of view of people in Scotland, it is a great pity that we will debate food safety tomorrow, without including a case where a Member State is defying the Community judgement on food safety.
That is why I voted for that motion.
Thank you, Mr MacCormick.
I think that you will have ample opportunity to raise that point during the debate.
Madam President, I wanted to express my deepest thanks for dealing promptly with the difficulties which we reported to you during the last part-session.
I can now use my fax machine as it is located in a position appropriate to my height.
Thank you very much.
Madam President, I would like to a propose a procedural motion on the layout of the new Chamber.
In the old Chamber, the President sat in front of a display of flags which symbolised all the countries of the European Union.
I see that in the new Chamber, this display has disappeared.
We can all notice it.
I would therefore like to ask the following question: Has our House thought carefully about this matter, or has it been quite the contrary, a case of the services taking a decision on their own on a matter which strikes me as extremely symbolic and important?
Mr Berthu, I can reassure you straight away in a way which I am sure will satisfy you. I have ordered this display which, unfortunately, has been delayed.
It will be here tomorrow.
(The sitting was closed at 5.35 p.m.)
Approval of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam, I would just like to mention that my name is not included in the list of those present.
I was present yesterday and I forgot to sign in.
Fine, we will record you as being present.
Are there any further comments?
(The Minutes were adopted)
Decision on urgent procedure
I would like to remind you that in its sitting on 16 September, Parliament postponed the final vote on Mrs Pack' s report on this matter.
Pack (PPE), rapporteur.
(DE) Madam President, I should like to ask that we reject the request for urgent debate.
During the last part-session of Parliament, we did not see any requests for urgent debate because we still wanted to give the Council and the Commission the opportunity to have a proper look at our amendments and to also evaluate them and perhaps even comply with them.
It is not acceptable that, during the summer recess, we should, in no time at all, have responded to the Council' s request by producing a report, and that the Council should then not even have taken note of what we had proposed by way of amendments, let alone thought of complying with them.
We expect that, by the time of the next part-session in October, the Council will have told us which of our amendments it has accepted and which it has not.
At the last part-session in Brussels, Chris Patten told us that he too would examine these proposals and would then present one of his own.
I believe that if, by means of its proposals, Parliament is speaking up for more efficiency in spending tax revenue, the Council should not do the opposite.
If, in fact, money ever disappears or gets lost in the wheels of administration, then it is always the Commission which is to blame and never the Council.
We should like, as this agency gets off the ground, for everything really to be perfectly clear, for the administration to be stringent, for the headquarters of the Agency for Reconstruction in Thessaloniki to be closely linked to the headquarters of the Stability Pact (also in Thessaloniki) and for the Kosovo Agency to be an operational component of this in Kosovo.
We also want the administrative structures to be so strict that the processes through which money is spent are precisely visible.
I should like here to contradict anyone who maintains that reconstruction in Kosovo will not be possible if we do not take a vote here today.
That is nonsense.
The EU Commission' s Task Force is already working in the area itself.
It is doing this and, ladies and gentlemen, you all know very well that the Commission never pays up very quickly and that we cannot therefore say: today it issues its instructions and tomorrow it pays.
It can confer the assignment today, and when, in October, the amount required has been estimated, it will then pay, perhaps in November or December at the earliest - as always, unfortunately, very belatedly.
We are not the ones who are impeding the reconstruction of Kosovo.
It is the Council which will be doing this if it does not soon follow us on the path that we have embarked upon here.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee agrees with Mrs Pack' s remarks.
The Council' s decision is also not anticipated for this week, so that no delay is to be expected.
What is more, neither the Committee nor Parliament has yet received an official response from the Council to our representations.
For this reason, I would ask that the request for urgent debate be rejected.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Public health and food safety
The next item is the statement by the Commission on public health and food safety.
Madam President, President Prodi, Commissioner Byrne, sometimes you get the impression that European food policy only moves forward a step when there is a new scandal.
BSE and dioxin were good examples of this.
President Prodi, on hearing today your very interesting analysis, what is lacking as far as I am concerned is precisely what you referred to at the very end: a bit more passion on this question.
For politics consists, to a very large degree, of facts but also of passion. Otherwise, nothing new could be developed.
I believe, Mr Prodi, that it is not just a question of an agency but of whether we in Europe are going to obtain a European Framework Directive on Foodstuffs such as we have been demanding from you for more than ten years. Unfortunately, it has not been forthcoming.
I believe we have a host of good individual directives which, however, circle round Europe like satellites.
Unfortunately, no-one complies with them.
Particularly today, it once again becomes clear with what degree of commitment the Member States of this Union perceive this subject.
For, as you have correctly explained, the Council of the European Community did not even consider it necessary to be present here during the first debate.
I regard this as scandalous, for the dioxin debate was a problem for the Member States and not for the Commission.
I believe it would only have been good manners for them to be represented here in high numbers. For, again and again, in the sphere of foodstuffs, we have the problem of the Member States not transposing what the Commission and Parliament have quite rightly decided.
(Applause)
Commissioner, I share your view that the agency is something requiring real thought.
I would, however, warn you against constructing a satellite of the kind of which we already have many examples in Europe: that is to say, glorified rotary clubs which operate on a very individual basis and over which Parliament has virtually no control at all.
(Applause)
For years I was rapporteur for the budget in the Committee on the Environment.
That is the only real access point.
What we need is precisely the opposite.
Parliament must have some control over the agency and consistently be able to influence it.
When Parliament decides, then things need to start moving in an agency of the kind we are discussing. In this way, the agency will really be working for the citizens of Europe.
That is precisely what we want. That is also, in fact, what we have been paid for.
Commissioner, you have correctly stated that we require a rapid alert system.
We need a precautionary system.
There is the concept of 'company liability' .
However, Commissioner, we have been experiencing just the opposite in recent years.
All that about the rapid alert agreement was a complete mockery.
The Member States have turned the rapid alert system completely on its head. That must be said clearly so that we might obtain the basis for a new environmental and consumer policy.
Commissioner, let me finally broach another matter. There is a European Directive on the placing of plant protection products on the market.
In 1991 it was adopted, and in 1993 it came into force. At that time, we solemnly promised one another to place some 700 active substances which are in circulation on a European positive list.
More than half of this entire period is now behind us, Commissioner, and just one single active substance is to be found on this positive list after six years.
All I can do, then, is to ask you: where are the hundreds of officials whose job it is to conduct the relevant examination? I think it is high time we took action.
This is the next scandal in the offing, for which I should not like to be responsible.
I should therefore like to ask you, on behalf of my group, to take up these individual points with gusto.
We support you.
And I must say again that I am in the same position as my priest in church: he too is always speaking to the converted, namely to those who are there.
To them, there is no need to say anything.
Once again, the Council is not present. That really riles me.
(Applause)
Mr Florenz, I can assure you that, in the course of the three-way discussion which we shall have tomorrow morning, I shall notify the President-in-Office of the Council that the European Parliament is actively in favour of the Council being represented at our debates.
Madam President, against the background of a predictably fiercer debate about farming products costing as little as possible, a lot of damage has been caused to food production in the EC.
Many active farmers who were working in accordance with good rural practice had to cease production.
No details at all have so far been given of the costs of this.
The massive industrial contamination of feedingstuffs through additives introduced without regard for any maximum permitted limit leaves the consumer with the justified impression that the production of animal feed has degenerated into its mere exploitation.
Disposing of used sludge and sewage sludge may be a problem, but guaranteeing the safety of animal feed additives must be placed higher on the political agenda than it has been so far.
I expect the Commission, when it creates a food agency, to specify that animal feed should be traceable back to its origins and to formulate legal provisions which penalise criminal practices and reward working farmers.
But this has to happen quickly.
Madam President, President Prodi, it is opportune for us to have a debate on food safety today, at a time when consumers have so many legitimate reasons for concern.
The Council and the Commission would like to get the measure of this concern, but at the moment, they do not seem to be particularly capable of offering solutions other than pernickety but overcautious regulations, which the sharpest and most unscrupulous people will continue to circumvent, to the detriment of food safety.
Recent examples provide clear evidence of this.
So, I would like to take advantage of this general debate to stress to my fellow Members and to the other institutions the need to get back to a few common-sense principles which have been swept away by great theories which are based too much on economic concerns and not enough on human concerns.
Confidence is not achieved by decree, it must be earned.
Of course, it may be something innate, especially in the case of country products which are subject to quality rules which are handed down for generations sometimes.
So, let us take advantage of this in order to recognise and acknowledge as justifiably special the products which are deserving of confidence.
At least, let us leave those who have forever known and practised their business with the complete confidence of the consumers to continue to do so, without raising the guillotine blade of unsuitable directives above their head, unsuitable because the author of the directives is unable to grasp the reality of the situation.
These country products, I say to you, should never be penalised under Community regulations, especially not when they are sold as local produce, for their quality is almost certainly the best guarantee of food safety.
Let me take our local farmers' markets as just one example.
Of course, the fruit and vegetables that I find locally are not kept in isothermic containers, but at least we know where the products come from.
If they are not fresh, they rot.
So, in this case, sell-by labels are not needed.
On the other hand, when one does not have the privilege of living so close to the production sites, it is necessary to intervene in order to merit confidence, and never to betray it.
But I worry when I see that the most basic safety measures are not taken.
Whether it is a case of negligence or deliberate disregard, it is a serious error for which all the parties responsible must be accountable to the population.
So, in order to ensure food safety in the face of the unknown, I believe that, going beyond the practice of scientific committees which is far too widespread in the United States - and which I deplore, even here in the European Union - with decisions taken behind closed doors, we must, above all, guarantee the consumer complete and accurate information right from the original production sites.
The transparency of these products, their traceability with details of their production and components, and comprehensive labelling will enable everyone to be kept informed.
In addition, the use of non-natural components, such as GMOs or hormones must be clearly indicated, even if we want them to be banned.
How many more scandals must we expect before requiring, without risking incurring fines, recognition of the precautionary principle which, in the field of human health, is the only one capable of guaranteeing consumers the protection they are entitled to? This is the question you must answer today if this debate is not to have been in vain.
Mr President, the mere fact that there is a need for this debate at all ought, I feel, to instil a degree of humility in all those who make policy at European level.
After all, Europe has more competence in the agricultural sphere, which absorbs half our budget, than it does in any other area.
Nevertheless, we have had to contend with what have proved to be particularly severe forms of food poisoning in various Member States in recent years and there is little or no supervision in the agro-industry, which incorporates all manner of filth and rubbish into the food chain.
My country is now having to contend with the consequences of the notorious dioxin crisis.
But everyone knows that what is happening in my country is just the tip of the iceberg and that the food safety problem is not confined to one or a few countries.
Everywhere you look, there are residues of medicines and pesticides in the food chain.
There are salmonella and dioxin problems everywhere and the list just goes on.
We do have a large number of European regulations and standards but they are rather fragmented.
There appears to be a lack of a framework.
Most importantly, there is no effective supervisory body to ensure that all these regulations and standards are adhered to.
At the present time, more and more people in my country are asking the question, and rightly so, if it is normal practice for us to foot the bill for the stringent standards adhered to and, especially, for the stringent supervision exercised in our country when other Member States, I regret to say, do not take a blind bit of notice of these standards and supervision.
It is an either/or situation.
But since there is a free market and open borders and almost unlimited imports, including those from non-member States I might add, then effective measures must also be taken to impose common safety and environmental standards within the European Union, but also in the countries from which our food imports originate. These standards must then be supervised in earnest.
As I said, European agricultural policy absorbs half of our budget.
80% of that budget goes on 20% of agricultural enterprises, which is a very clear sign, of course, that for years European agricultural policy has taken the side of the agro-industry rather than that of the small-scale producers of high-quality agricultural products.
I believe that some responsibility for the problems we are facing should also be taken at European level, and that the EU should step in with financial aid when large numbers of small-scale farmers and agricultural enterprises in my country fall victim to what in many cases amounts to nothing less than the derailment of European agricultural policy.
Madam President, Mr President of the Commission, if the PPE did not want this debate to be held today, it was not because it did not consider it important, but just in order to be able to shed light on a number of aspects, to hear the opinions of a number of experts, before making a statement.
Well, the debate is being held today after all, and as we are here and we have heard President Prodi' s statement, we have been able to take into consideration the things he has announced, i.e. the creation of an independent European food agency, prioritisation of food safety, strengthening of controls, etc.
We hope however that these proposals are not just empty words.
A European agency may be effective, but it may also be no more than a group of officials attempting to deal with problems far removed from real events, and this is not what consumers expect.
Given the many scandals we have seen in the food sector and the growing concern of consumers, passed on, what is more, by political decision-makers, I believe there is an urgent demand for greater transparency, more controls, greater traceability, and especially greater responsibility at every stage of production.
President Prodi, there is no way around true reform in agriculture.
I believe that recent decades show that we have been playing the role of the sorcerer' s apprentice.
So, today, we are faced with food scandals relating to BSE, dioxin, antibiotics, pesticides, and the excessive use of fertilisers as well.
What scandals we have already witnessed, and how many more are still to come?
So, Mr President, you would be specifically to blame if you were unable to propose a real reform in agriculture and, from that point of view Madam President, it is a pity that the Council is not represented here, since agricultural policy is chiefly dependent on the Council.
It is not possible to progress without carrying out real reform, one more concerned with product quality and respect for the environment.
True, all this has a price, the price of extensive production, but the agricultural budget is a sizeable one and all that is required is the political will to change the way it is distributed.
Finally, Commissioner, Commission President, Madam President, we must present a united front in the discussions we are to have with the United States about our relationships within the context of the WTO.
Madam President, it is very appropriate that the issue which - in restrospect - did so much to blemish the reputation of the last two Commissions should be the subject of the opening debate for this new one.
I welcome what President Prodi has said today.
The citizens of Europe have the right to know what they are eating, where it was produced and by what means, and to have these things clearly indicated and labelled.
Of course, all of us believe that where other countries' products are concerned; but we also need to know it about our own.
When I asked the Commission representatives in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection a couple of months ago about the reported illegal recycling of sewage sludge into animal feed in some Member States, nobody could define for me what sewage sludge was, where it was being used or why.
Two separate directorates of the Commission were there - the then DG XXIV and DG VI.
Everybody looked at everybody else.
I would like to hear from Mr Byrne today, using this small example initially, whether he has got to the bottom of this problem.
We are not talking here of a practice of which no-one knew the dangers before.
It is a disgusting procedure. We need to know why and how it has been allowed to happen.
I hope Mr Byrne, when he comes to reply, will be able to tell us.
What we need is the ability to act quickly where the law is not upheld.
In the dioxin scandal, for example, what is needed, it seems to me, is not so much a mad rush to ban a whole range of products - RVOs and so on - as the possibility of discovering whether these things are new pollutants or simply products which have become polluted.
It we can find that out we are on the way to a better scrutiny of the products themselves.
A food agency, which some have doubts about, is to me as credible and as necessary as an environment agency, about which there were also doubts at its inception.
It would provide a benchmark for all Member States.
For those whose precautionary legislation is defective it would be a boost and a buttress.
For those who now set high standards, as I believe my own country does, it would be a reassurance that we are all toiling in the same vineyard and on the same level cornfield.
The tragedy is that in areas where we have a rudimentary common policy, through the scientific committees and the new Veterinary Office in Dublin, some Member States still break ranks.
We have had a relentless drive to achieve full safety methods in beef production in my country, quite rightly after BSE.
That led to the end of the beef ban in August of this year, but not, apparently, in France.
I would like to know now from Mr Byrne how he proposes to validate Community decisions based on scientific advice - as the lifting of the beef ban was - when they are flouted by a Member State.
Safety issues simply cannot be allowed to degenerate into shabby national politics at the will of any Member State.
I would like to know how the White Paper will ensure coherent safety standards, proper labelling and precautionary advice.
We want to see these things implemented in the three-year target period that he has set for himself.
It would be disastrous if we were left with the politics of retribution and recrimination where we could move towards common European standards.
It would be absolutely ludicrous if we were to go into the next WTO round unable to set out clear standards ourselves which are the framework of the precautionary principle.
If we do that we are left exchanging insults on the basis of self-interest and ignorance.
Europe can surely do better than that.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, it is therefore clear, as you rightly said, that the entire process must be followed from the beginning right through to the consumer.
In so doing, we have known for the past few years now that cattle fodder is one of the weak links in the food chain.
I can remember that when the dioxin crisis began in Belgium, in my country that is, people said: how could we have detected that?
Nobody had ever imagined that something like that would end up in cattle fodder.
I now ask myself if there are still a number of things which we do not suspect of being able to enter the chain but which do, in fact, end up there.
And so I think it is time to set to work on a positive list and, as Mr Florenz said, to ensure that we know what is allowed to be in the food chain and what is not.
That is my first important point.
A second important point is this: after months of hard work, my country' s faith has been restored in the European Commission and so, we are starting work using a system that is stringent and that is very expensive, it is true, but that is worth the effort nonetheless; it is one of stringent supervision and stringent standards.
The tests on cattle have shown that there are a number of cases which do not derive from cattle fodder but do derive from contamination, dioxin contamination, caused by industry and by incinerators.
We are aware of this in Belgium because we have carried out a great many tests, but what is the situation in the rest of the European Union?
Is it not the case that efforts should be made to monitor this in other EU countries as well, and a number of other things too? Was there not a report on incinerators by the European Parliament and should that not be in the hands of someone in the Council?
Could we, at long last, be allowed to know what stage we have reached? I had wanted to ask the Council something else and I think it is a pity that they are not present.
We note that the Commission wants to be strict, not just towards Belgium but also towards the others. I hear that there are a number of countries that are nowhere near as enthusiastic and that are putting the brakes on.
I would certainly like to know who these countries are and why they are taking this line.
Am I right in thinking that certain Member States no longer want to go as far as the Commission' s proposals?
I feel that as the European Parliament we must support the Commission when it takes rigorous, rapid and explicit action.
Its White Paper certainly must not be used as a delaying tactic.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, we are agreed that the EU should no longer be synonymous with rubbish and poison being found in foodstuffs.
Yet, a food agency does not create any security, and a White Paper ought not to be misused for the purpose of putting off long overdue decisions.
We need a change of direction in foodstuffs policy.
In the past, the Commission has made itself too much the mouthpiece of industry and all too often trampled on the precautionary principle.
You spoke of labelling from field to table. All right, but what of the duty to label feedingstuffs?
What of the duty to label genetically-modified additives? You know of the loophole in the Order on novel foods.
What of an Order on novel feedingstuffs, an Order relating to genetically-manufactured feedingstuffs? What of a stamp of quality for foodstuffs free from genetic modification?
What is not needed is a mere shunting yard of a White Paper. Rather, what we need here is a quick decision.
As long as two years ago, the Commission gave us an assurance about these matters. Really, we ought to have had these regulations a long time ago.
What I am expecting from you here is a clear timetable and a clear statement as to when these legal decisions are to be taken.
In the field of PCBs, too, more limit values are needed.
We know from the EPA in the United States that there are further toxic PCBs.
We also need clear rules and bans.
It is not acceptable that you should demand more safety in the field of antibiotics too when, at the same time, the Commission permits antibiotics in additives.
As we have already been reminded, we must finally have a clear positive list in the field of pesticides as well.
May I say one more thing. It is completely irresponsible to speak of industry' s accepting responsibility for its own actions while it postpones decisions about environmental and risk liability.
We in the European Parliament, and it is to the big groups that I am addressing this remark, must...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mrs Breyer, one minute thirty seconds is one minute thirty seconds and not two minutes.
If you would like to speak for two minutes, you must argue within your group to be allotted two minutes. Otherwise, we are going to get in a complete muddle and off track as far as time is concerned.
I hope you understand.
Mr President, Commissioner Prodi, I think that the statement you have made today demonstrates that the Commission does indeed intend to provide consumers with full guarantees as regards safe and healthy food.
Today, I want to touch on three points which appear to me to be crucial if these guarantees are to be lived up to.
First and foremost, we need effective legislation, at European level too, of course.
You did indeed refer to 800 basic directives but in fact there are still huge gaps in this legislation.
It just does not make sense for there only to be PCB and dioxin standards for Belgium, and for it not to be deemed necessary for other European countries.
Neither does it make much sense to me that we are not to discuss how to proceed with pesticides, antibiotics and with other undesirable contaminants in food.
I feel I have no choice but to agree with those here present who have called for a positive list to be compiled as regards cattle fodder, for you would not believe how much goes wrong there.
A second important point appears to me to be the introduction of a sound supervisory system.
You may say that responsibility for supervision should fall first and foremost to the Member States and indeed it should.
However, the Committee of Inquiry in Belgium has shown that things are going badly wrong there.
To my mind, it is extremely important for supervision to be undertaken in the same way in all Member States, for there to be guarantees for this supervision, for the supervisors themselves to be subject to supervision, and for the agency in Dublin to be given more autonomous authority to exercise supervision on its own initiative.
My third and final point is one that I feel it is very important to touch on in today' s debate, namely that there is a real need for the work of all the departments concerned to be coordinated. We are all aware that there are many of them.
Even though the Commission is being re-organised, it is still the case that a variety of departments are involved.
President Prodi, Belgium has set up a food safety agency for this purpose.
I feel it is also important for a coordinating body to be set up at European level, and that there is also a need for reliable, scientific advice, for coherent policy at European level.
I welcome your announcement about the open debate that is to take place on the setting up of a European food agency.
President Prodi, if this agency is to be independent of something then, to my mind, it is essential for it to be independent of industrial lobbying.
When it comes to our food policy, we cannot allow commercial interests to take precedence over the interests of the consumer.
We believe it is absolutely essential that an agency of this kind should always fall within the Commission' s sphere of political responsibility, and always be under the political control of the European Parliament.
Equally, we feel it is essential that all the Directorates-General throughout the Commission' s administration should work together in an efficient manner.
I hope that Commissioner Byrne will be able to fulfil his role as coordinator efficiently and effectively.
Mr President, it was stated in a previous speech that consumers and the public do not trust producers.
For our part, we must all swiftly rectify this basic error: this is not so much a matter which concerns producers: these crises are crises of the food production industry and the feedingstuffs industry, for which the producer then winds up involuntarily looking like the responsible party.
I would like to raise one issue which has not yet been mentioned, and that is the matter of heavy metals in sewage sludge.
Sewage sludge contains heavy metals, including considerable quantities of cadmium and because of this, in my own home country, and in the Nordic countries generally, this sludge may not be spread on the fields at all, because cadmium gets into the food chain and thereby enters the human body.
It is inconceivable that it has been possible to use sewage sludge for years in the preparation of feed and in fertiliser, although this was banned in the EU ten years ago.
Our European agriculture model has received a heavy blow and, because of this, we must swiftly take up these issues.
President Prodi said that he would also deal with economic matters.
For this reason, the factories using prohibited substances must be closed immediately.
Then we would be acting on a sensitive issue, intervening in aspects of the economy, and that would have a very speedy effect.
Such action, which adds to monitoring and bureaucracy, must be totally transparent, however, so that everyone knows what is actually going on.
Sewage sludge and waste cannot be permitted to be used in animal feed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr President of the Commission, first and foremost, I would like to lend my support to the objection raised by Mr Florenz and the PPE about the Council' s failure to attend this plenary sitting.
We are part of the three-cornered relationship of Council-Parliament-Commission, but I note that the Council attends rarely, if at all. This is scandalous.
We must search our own hearts.
I feel that this Parliament behaved in a eunuch-like way yesterday in refusing to link this debate on food safety and the WTO with a resolution.
I feel there is a need for a broadly based discussion in the public arena about the recycling industry.
I endorse the comments made by Mr Whitehead.
We really need to have all the facts about what goes into our food.
Waste matter must be treated as such.
If something can still be recycled then it must only be allowed to enter the food chain having fulfilled extremely stringent conditions, and it must always be retraceable.
President of the Commission, I welcome your proposals.
In common with Mrs Roth-Behrendt, I too feel very strongly that there should be a dioxin register.
It is clear that our food contains dioxins that also derive from external sources.
The situation in Belgium is evidence of this and that is why we must take action.
Mr Staes, I should like to point out to you that a Parliament in which we have so many female colleagues cannot, by its very nature, be a eunuch!
Mr Prodi, we shall judge your good intentions and declarations when they become proposals.
Until then, we are asking you to do your job better.
First of all, you yourselves must actively seek out any breaches of the law and not wait around for the citizens to come forward with their accusations.
In the last scandal, which few speakers mentioned and which concerns the carcinogenic coating on tinned food, we saw no initiative from you nor did we see any ensuing determination.
Secondly, we are calling on you to be tougher and to make public any legal proceedings against governments who breach the deficient legislation that we have.
Tell us which governments you have referred to the Court and why, and which companies were responsible for those violations.
Thirdly, what we are asking for is for you all to be a little more forward-looking.
We all know what the next scandal will be over: nitrate contamination of vegetables. Do you intend to do something about that?
Do you intend to say something to the citizens? Do you intend to prepare yourselves for action?
As regards the body you wish to establish, do not go looking for other models.
The best model is probably that of Europol.
And as for the international dimension of it all, do not turn to the World Trade Organisation.
For goodness sake!
What about the World Health Organisation, Mr Prodi!
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, the Commission' s statement on food safety comes not a moment too soon.
We have been pondering the Green Paper for one and a half years now.
The Green Paper itself has been in existence for more than two and a half years and, in fact, nothing more has been done in the meantime.
The BSE crisis and now also the events of the last few months have demonstrated that food safety must be made a priority, but also that such things are only given priority when there are crises.
We are banking on the fact that this is now going to change.
Mr President of the Commission, the fact that it was you that provided the introduction to today' s debate gives us cause for hope.
Your statement was certainly full of good intentions but I only heard a little about the actual measures that are to be taken.
That is why there are some questions I still want to ask and which I would be pleased to hear answered.
Firstly there is the matter of the agency for food safety.
It seems that an agency of this kind is to be something of a deus ex machina, but still we must ask the question: what exactly is its role to be?
What would the division of labour be between the proposed agency and the existing one in Dublin? Would it be adequately staffed from the beginning?
What would its relationship with the national services and agencies be? Last, but by no means least, to whom would this agency be accountable?
My second point concerns the internal market.
It must now be obvious to everyone that public health must take precedence over economic interests and those of the internal market. Nevertheless, the internal market is an established fact.
What will the Commission do to stop Member States introducing protectionist measures under the pretext of public health?
Suspicions on that score are rife. I would also refer you to the intervention made by Mr Whitehead.
My third point is prompted by the dioxin crisis.
The Commission compelled Belgium to carry out PCB testing but there is no European PCB standard.
It is an either/or situation: either there is a public health problem or there is not.
If there is then the whole of Europe is affected, which means that Europe-wide measures must be taken and the same yardstick must be used throughout the EU.
Hence, my question: will the Commission produce a European PCB standard, and if so, when?
I have submitted a question in writing on this but I am sorry to say that I have received no response as yet.
I also have a question about the distribution of competences.
I see there are no less than four Commissioners whose competences relate to food safety.
My question is as follows: how are these responsibilities to be coordinated?
Has a system of cooperation been agreed? Who in the Commission is to have the final word?
Then, of course there is the international dimension.
The Green Paper is long behind us and we have the White Paper to come.
We have prohibitive regulations in relation to hormones in meat and our own regulations as regards genetically-modified organisms, but the question is to what extent the European Union will continue to be able to choose its own policies, and how far the Commission will be able to go in demanding international recognition for the right to autonomy and the right to maintain EU authority over food safety and political choices relating to food policy.
These are questions which I would be pleased to receive an answer to.
I lend my support to the comments some of my colleagues have made about the scandalous absence of the Council from this debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is becoming increasingly clear that problems relating to public health and to healthy food truly are European problems, world problems, and not just one Member State' s problems.
For that very reason, support must be given to the efforts made by Member States such as Belgium, which is endeavouring to keep the consequences of the food contamination episode to a minimum and to guarantee safe and healthy food.
I would even go as far as to say that these efforts must be continued at a European level.
I consider there to be four priorities arising from the dioxin crisis experienced by my country and these are as follows: firstly, Belgium has set up a federal food agency which will become operational at the end of this year.
I believe that the same course should be pursued at a European level, but that there is no need to set up a new body in the process. The work can be incorporated into the existing office in Dublin.
Secondly, notwithstanding the European Veterinary Committee' s decision that it is no longer necessary for PCB tests to be carried out on Belgian meat, Belgium continues to carry out these tests on meat destined for export.
I therefore believe that tests of this kind must take place throughout the European Union.
Thirdly, supervision must be carried out on the basis of the same quality standards.
It is not permissible for Member States to still be using different standards for ascertaining food quality.
This distorts competition, which is to the detriment of those who play the game by the rules, if I can put it that way.
European legislation must provide a quality labelling system and must ensure that tests and quality standards are the same throughout Europe.
Lastly, a European financing system must be established.
It is not acceptable for one Member State to bear the brunt financially for a crisis such as the dioxin crisis.
There are a number of amendments to next year' s budget on the table that will be able to provide the necessary financial room for manoeuvre.
We hope that these will be adopted during the next plenary session and that you, Mr Prodi, together with your Commission, will give it the legal basis it needs.
Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, agricultural production of the conventional kind uses more and more chemical substances, additives, auxiliary substances, antibiotics and hormones - I could go on - and our food processing plants resemble chemical factories rather than food production facilities.
In this situation, supervision at the final stage and the setting of upper limits are no longer adequate measures.
What matters is that we have supervision over the process as a whole. Interestingly enough, supervision of the process as a whole is laid down in the order concerning conventional, organic farming.
So, in an area where production holds no dangers, we have supervision of the process as a whole, and quite rightly too. I support that as well.
In the other areas, however, we do not have such controls.
This kind of final-stage supervision is a direct invitation to criminal wheelings and dealings. Meanwhile, opportunities are taken to blend substances, something which - we must suppose - has led to the systematic addition of toxic substances in the field of feedingstuffs.
This must be changed.
The second point I should like to address is the need to restore the close relationship between producer and consumer.
There is no place for anonymity.
I tell you that if I were to behave on my farm in the way that much of industry, including the food industry, does, people would not come back; or, if they did, it would be with a stick in order to teach me a lesson!
Then I would have no more customers.
This close relationship between producer and consumer, together with responsibility on the part of the consumer for his or her own behaviour, must be restored.
Mr President, Commissioner Prodi, consumers are living ever longer lives and are becoming ever healthier at more advanced ages.
In spite of this, the subject of food safety is high up on the agenda.
I believe that producers and consumers are in the same boat here, for the producers are themselves also consumers.
That is something we sometimes forget in the overall discussion.
Losses in the cattle and meat industry due to falling sales caused by constant public discussion of these matters are, however, unsustainable in the longer term.
In Germany, a country in which animal corpses and waste from slaughterhouses are recycled in the appropriate manner, the discussion of animal feed has now become a macabre media spectacle.
Unappetising pictures, together with headlines about the everyday cycle of horror in disgusting factories, are increasingly marginalising meat production and the practice of keeping livestock on farms.
The fact is that, in a number of countries, sewage sludge is now also being declared a biomass and animal feed enriched with this is driving the last customer away from the meat counter.
Feedingstuffs legislation is part of a quite distorted picture. I appeal to you and to us all.
We can no longer skulk in dark corners. That must be our maxim!
Should the consumer really be convinced, in the future too, that farm animals have been reduced to the status of interim depositories for dubious feedingstuffs?
Is the consumer to go on thinking that we in the EU close down farms and so give up cultivating cereal, but burn the corpses of our animals and use meat and bone meal as animal feed? I cannot begin to imagine that, in this period of innovation, we cannot find new and different ways of disposing of waste.
Our farmers certainly do not want this policy.
Should the consumer then continue voluntarily supporting this practice through his consumption of meat? He will simply not do this, and for ethical, moral and emotional reasons.
Declining to use meat and bone meal as animal feed benefits both producer and consumer.
Voluntarily refusing to be involved in such processes is something which is already seen to be having a very positive influence upon the way in which meat is advertised.
I shall say one more thing: as far as I am concerned, food is not superfluous junk.
Food is now already being wasted, partly because of production costs. This state of affairs also has a bad effect upon European agriculture.
Mr Prodi, it is not acceptable to deceive consumers again, as in the dioxin scandal.
We need an entirely clear information policy in all Member States.
The tactic of covering up these matters really must be brought to an end.
I fully support you when you say that we need a comprehensive system of labelling. This should include everything of relevance to the consumer.
But we also need reasonable prices so that both producer and consumer are in accord with one another.
Mr Prodi, we are particularly concerned about the fact that, in recent years, matters of vital concern relating to the quality and safety of food and the protection of the health of European citizens are continually in the news, which does not always guarantee valid and reliable information.
I am particularly pleased that you yourself are here today to inform us about a most important issue, even though I believe that it is too soon since the new Commission was nominated for you and your fellow Commissioners to have come up with specific proposals.
It is true that there is now an urgent need to set up a system of continuous scientific control not only for the safety, but also for the quality of food.
Mr President, the Green Paper on food was discussed two years ago, and we are still waiting for the White Paper which I hope will outline specific initiatives and the responsibilities of the European policy on food issues.
I would like you to tell me what steps you will be taking over the next six months and to clarify who will be responsible for the portfolio for food safety, because I believe that, up until now, there has been some overlapping of competences.
Now that we are undergoing institutional reform, I would like to know who will be responsible for announcing the relevant information and for tackling the crises when they do crop up.
As part of the reform of the common agricultural policy, I wonder, Mr President, whether you should perhaps look at promoting small producers, so as to ensure better quality goods.
Unfortunately, all too often, citizens have been informed about everyday issues which concern them when it is too late. For such sensitive matters, preventative action should be taken so that the food chain can ensure the physical and psychological well-being of all consumers and not be an object of exploitation for purely financial interests.
Mr President, Commissioner, we appear to have lost our elementary knowledge of biology.
For tens of thousands of years, our forefathers have known that corpses, both animal and human, have to be buried or burned. They have to return to the great cycle of nature and become new materials.
Nowadays, we seem to believe that natural cycles of this kind imply re-use and that animals we shall be eating ourselves should be fed with dead animals of their own species.
We need to regain a holistic understanding and realise that whatever we put onto our fields we get back in the form of bread and, above all, drinking water, which is also an important form of sustenance.
What we give animals to eat, we later find on our own plates.
There is a need for openness and public scrutiny at every link in the food chain.
That is our best form of inspection. It is obvious that consumer groups, environmental organisations and the media should have free access to farms and to factories manufacturing foods and animal feedingstuffs.
The European Union needs a clear and precise set of regulations governing food safety. This would not distort the market if it were the same for everyone.
It must cover agriculture, the methods we use for rearing animals, the feedingstuffs and medicines which animals are given and, of course, how the raw materials are handled subsequently.
It is quite a simple matter to produce a set of regulations but very difficult indeed to monitor compliance with them. What is needed in fact is intensive collaboration and interaction at local and district levels.
The European Union must create some form of supervisory system for supervising the inspectors.
Mr President, food safety issues have quite rightly dominated much of our thinking and that of Member States in recent years.
I welcome today' s statement and debate as a recognition of the continuing need for action.
It is right that public bodies and politicians, whether in local authorities or governments, should play a part in regulating food production and processing.
The European Commission and we in the Parliament, too, should do all in our power to ensure that consumers Europe-wide can have confidence in their food purchases.
The BSE problem is one case where, at a European level, stringent conditions were put in place in relation to the export of UK beef.
These conditions were met, resulting in the recent lifting of the ban which has had such a major effect on agriculture and related industries in that country.
This came as a long-awaited sign, bringing some relief to our hard-pressed farmers.
Can it be acceptable then, given that the European Union body responsible judged it the right time to lift the ban, that individual states, without producing and publishing a clear justification in terms of food safety, should maintain the beef ban This decision by the French government last week comes as a particularly bitter further blow to Scotland' s beef farmers, whose herds are predominantly grass-fed and did not have a BSE problem in the first place.
Mr President of the Commission, there are so many cases of food contamination that there is no way that this phenomenon is arbitrary, neither is it the simple result of human error.
In our opinion, the main cause is that the social system puts profit before human health, especially when it comes to the profits of large corporations and the health of their workers.
The problem is further exacerbated by both the liberalisation of trade resulting in the circulation of products which have not undergone any fundamental inspections and the severe competition which has become an excuse for monopolies to seek out more unorthodox ways of cutting costs and increasing their profits. Thus, fundamental quality control is being left to the consumers themselves.
Neither Mr Prodi' s statement nor the discussions so far have touched on the core of the matter.
Our problem is not about the confidence or lack of confidence of the citizens.
The matter will not be resolved with food labelling or White Papers, nor will it be resolved by increasing the directives from 100 to 150.
If we do not tackle the irresponsibility of monopolies at all levels, the dangers will become even greater.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, I am grateful for the information which you gave Parliament this morning, but I would like to stress the fact that these accidents - those of mad cow disease and dioxin - are not really accidents.
I believe them to be the consequences of the policies that have been pursued.
We have a Green Paper on this issue, we will have a White Paper and 800 directives, but the root of this matter, the reality, is that it is a consequence of the economic policies and decisions which have been taken in Europe, and of globalisation.
In agricultural production, quantity has taken precedence over quality and this has caused the balance to be upset.
We have abandoned European traditions, we have ended up with extensive and semi-extensive livestock farming and, as Ferdinando Riccardi pointed out a few days ago, Plutarch reminded us in his treatise on animals of some cows who had gone mad as a result of becoming carnivores.
We have turned our ovine and bovine animals, which are ruminant herbivores, into carnivores, like those animals in Plutarch.
And not only have we turned them into carnivores, we have tied them up, immobilised them, treated them with unnecessary antibiotics, castrated them, inseminated them, kept them in conditions which are inhumane - and the expression is quite appropriate - for animals.
We have changed to an earthless form of agriculture.
We have abandoned European traditions.
This is the real cause of the problems we are experiencing.
And apart from this, whatever happened to animal welfare? We talk of animal welfare, but this welfare must begin with food.
President Prodi, do you and your Commission really intend to tackle the problem at its source or will you carry on acting as a trouble-shooter and apply stopgap solutions every time a problem arises? I would ask for more investigation, more control and more accountability for those countries which do not comply with the regulations.
Mr President, Mr Prodi, I would like to speak about two basic conditions for improving food safety.
Firstly, the European inspectorate must be able to inspect whenever it deems it necessary.
The current situation in which a Member State, in the case of fraud, can hold the key which locks the European inspectorate, cannot be allowed to continue.
This legislation must be amended.
Secondly, we must fight fraud relentlessly, and to this end it is necessary that some sectors, which have paid an unfair price for this dioxin crisis, are compensated by means of market measures.
It is essential that fraud is never rewarded in any way, through direct or indirect measures.
Food fraud has been committed and, therefore, the Commission must ensure that it does not, through any measure, for the first time, reward fraud.
Finally, I would like to point out that during the dioxin crisis, there has been a degree of genuine dishonesty between the Member States.
We must ensure that there is Community honesty with regard to information policy.
Perhaps this lack of honesty with regard to information is due to the fact that we were in an election period, but I must point out that there was a real war of accusations between certain Member States.
This is very serious and we require measures which will safeguard this Community trust between the different Member States.
Mr President, I tried yesterday to get a Commission statement on the French refusal to lift the beef ban but unfortunately the proposal to change the agenda was rejected.
We need urgently to know what steps the Commission is taking against the French.
The British farmers are in crisis at the moment. GBP 1.5 billion worth of exports has been lost in the UK because of it.
Commission scientists say they are satisfied, so why are the French flouting the rules? They have no new scientific evidence.
The BSE crisis happened because the previous government reacted too late to the problem. They closed their eyes to it.
Cows should never have been fed the remains of other cows, but it was not just a problem in the UK.
Britain is vigilant now.
Since 1996 no cases of BSE in the eligible age group - that is 6 months to 30 months - have been discovered.
Some other countries cannot say the same. They do not have to adhere to the same rules.
It is time we had a level playing field.
Hygiene standards in the UK are second to none, and the ban must be lifted across the EU, including France.
Mr President, the fact that the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, is present shows that it is indeed the case that European citizens must be able to rely on their food being safe and healthy.
I am referring to food produced here but also to food imported by the European Union.
The same safety standards are needed in both cases.
This will form an important part of the discussions due to take place at the WTO Round.
What appears to be forgotten is that the food industry is of enormous importance to the European economy.
On average, a fifth of disposable income is spent on food and drink.
This means that BSE and dioxin scandals and the like do not just harm consumers and farmers, who are often able to do little about it, but, without a doubt, they harm all the workers employed in the industry too.
This has many unpleasant consequences.
That is why I also feel that those who take risks with food must be severely punished.
On turning again briefly to the relevant section of the food book or the Green Paper, I find that as early as 1997, there were calls for national legislation and European penalties to be harmonised.
I have the feeling that nothing has happened there yet and that we are simply taking far too much of a softly softly approach.
When someone infringes an environmental law in the United States the name of the company and that of its managing director are published, and so perhaps we could do something similar in the Netherlands.
I have just mentioned the publication of the Green Paper.
However, the Commission now wants to produce a White Paper.
I have the feeling that this will delay matters somewhat.
It would be more useful to receive a proper answer to the questions that were already raised in the Green Paper.
Everyone here accepts the need for integral chain management, but how is this actually carried out in the Member States? What control does Europe actually have over this and what options does it have as regards imposing penalties?
Problems arise with the animal feed meal.
What is being done on that score?
It ought only to be permissible for animal feed to contain components of vegetable origin; why is this not so? If this were the case, then the feed would definitely be safe.
My third point relates to supervision. Our system for obtaining scientific advice is now very well organised.
We must supervise food safety at a European level. An excellent idea.
I am certainly not in favour of a system along American lines.
It is the government that must be responsible for food safety, fulfilling a coordinating function.
But what would the Commission do if, for example, food safety controls in the Netherlands were to be improved upon by those of a new agency? Would Brussels be informed?
Do you have an opinion on this? All these sorts of affairs are going to have to be better organised.
Mr President, our common goal is food safety and consumer health.
I share all the views expressed by my colleagues in the Socialist Group.
I would, however, like to draw the attention of this House and of the Commission to an often neglected aspect of this whole problem, i.e. the resignation of the parties responsible at the European, and more especially the national, level for the health and safety of consumers.
Generally, authorities are slow to react. They do not always effect the necessary preventative controls.
But as soon as a scandal breaks, public authorities go into overdrive, opening all the umbrellas they can, with the primary intention of covering themselves.
This is the Dr Garetta syndrome, named after the official responsible for the contaminated blood case in France.
Since then, the people responsible for public health no longer take any risks whatsoever.
This is called the precautionary principle, in itself a valid principle, but one which authorises all sorts of aberrations if it is used by Ministers or officials whose only purpose is to cover themselves against taking any sort of responsibility.
So bans are introduced with a vengeance, without any regard for confusion of the farmers or the shopkeepers who are doing nothing wrong.
I do not have enough time now to expand upon the subject, but I would like to draw the Commission' s attention to the need not just for preventive action but also for increasing the accountability of all the official inspectors, all the experts, so that the precautionary principle does not become a principle of refusing to accept responsibility on the part of those in charge of monitoring food safety and consumer health.
Mr Chairman, Mr President, Commissioner Prodi, ladies and gentlemen, the food crises and, most recently, the dioxin crisis have released a wave of uncertainty, yes even of anxiety, throughout Europe. How safe is our food?
Who can guarantee its safety?
Who keeps watch over these matters? The internal market has removed frontiers and border controls, and we are proud of this and happy about it.
Free trade. A Europe of citizens.
Europe must now, therefore, also guarantee food safety.
That is what the people at home are saying to us, and that is what we are concerning ourselves with in the field of consumer protection.
I would remind you of the Directive concerning Product Liability of a few months ago which inflamed passions in this very Chamber.
The crisis about dioxin in eggs and meat shows that directives and orders alone are not enough.
At home, ordinary people are already saying to us: trust is all well and good, but proper supervision is better.
Europe must accept its responsibility; that is to say, we certainly first need crystal-clear definitions so that we can say that one thing is healthy and the other unhealthy, one thing harmful and the other harmless.
We need clear, uniform, Europe-wide standards, Mr President of the Commission.
For us in Germany, sewage sludge is waste and does not, under any circumstances, belong in feedingstuffs.
Feedingstuffs are to be found at the beginning of the food chain, and they must be as safe as the food itself.
Healthy animal feed means healthy animals, and healthy animals go on, logically enough, to produce healthy meat.
That is the farmers' capital.
Farmers must be able to rely upon manufacturers of feedingstuffs.
Farmers themselves cannot check up on what feedingstuffs contain. Above all, they cannot know whether they contain substances they ought not to contain, for there are no labels specifying these substances.
Manufacturers of feedingstuffs are liable for their products and they must also be liable for losses caused to farmers.
What has happened here is not permitted under any order in connection with feedingstuffs.
That means that the consumer has been deceived.
Commission President Prodi, we are reducing cereal production in Europe in order to avoid over-capacity.
To save money, unhealthy substances are being mixed in with animal feed in order make it go further.
That can no longer be conveyed to anyone.
The trouble is certainly to be found in the low prices.
If, for example, farmers are only able to earn EUR 1.25 per kilo of pork, then everyone wonders how the production costs can be covered.
So feedingstuffs have to be cheap.
The issue then comes full circle with consumers asking the question: are we also prepared to pay more for foodstuffs?
Food must also have its value. We must be prepared to pay more for it.
Education and the provision of information can contribute to improving and enhancing citizens' relationship with the foodstuffs they eat.
But responsibility for food safety comes first, and only then can confidence increase.
Mr President, I have asked my group to again give me the opportunity at the end of this debate to elucidate a number of points arising from it.
Let me now again emphasise, Mr Prodi, that what you have talked about - and what has also in part become clear from many other interventions - is something which you ought to, if you would, take home with you.
For us, there are three essential points.
We need good, proper legislation, and we need it quickly.
There is one thing you must do in connection with this, Mr Prodi: you must also put your own house in order.
It is just not acceptable that responsibilities should be scattered among different Directorates-General with the result that no healthy, sensible legislation comes into being.
It is not acceptable that Directorate-General III should be responsible for processed food, drugs and genetically-modified organisms and that Directorate-General XXIV should also have a portion of responsibility for these while Directorates-General VI and XI should retain a small portion of responsibility for feedingstuffs.
This is just not on, and I would ask you, Mr Prodi, to regulate the situation in a sensible way.
Legislative powers belong inevitably with whatever Directorate-General is responsible for consumer protection and health policy.
What is more, we have established in this debate that we need good scientific advice.
Many of our colleagues have referred to this and have said that we need an independent, authoritative advisory body.
I would say again that any such advisory body must not be influenced by Member States or the interests of industry, Mr Prodi, and it ought not to have any powers to lay down regulations.
This power lies with the European Parliament alone and, in a small number of exceptional cases, with the Commission in its comitological proceedings.
Nowhere else!
We must be in agreement about this.
We then come to the subject of supervision, Mr Prodi.
When we have all this - that is to say when we have good, healthy, sensible and integrative legislation, together with good scientific advice - we still need supervision.
I would ask you to make it clear to the Member States that supervision cannot be had for free.
In recent years, the Member States have neglected their obligation to implement legislation and supervise production.
They have never really reported to us about how many supervisors in the Member States supervise what, when and where.
It is, however, their duty to do this, and you, Mr Prodi, must convey this unpleasant news to the Member States.
When the Member States in fact carry out what should have been their task for a long time, namely to check that food does not poison us but enables us to live, then we still have a supervisory authority at the Commission.
We have the Control Office, or the Foodstuffs and Veterinary Office, which reports to Mr Byrne' s department and which has its headquarters in Dublin.
In the Committee on Budgets, we have just now decided that this body should have more departments so that it can carry out its supervisory tasks.
I would ask you, Mr Prodi, to lend your support to the idea that this body in Dublin should be able to visit the Member States without warning, that it should have investigative powers and that it should be able to carry out its task of overseeing the relevant supervisory arrangements in the Member States.
Once these three goals have been achieved, that is to say, once we have designed sensible legislation, have access to scientific advice at a high level and are properly carrying out the relevant supervision, only then are we really on the safe side. Then, we shall have a system unlike any other in the world.
We shall then also be able to go to the WTO negotiations in Seattle and say: everything is above board, we are not practising protectionism, we are enabling our citizens to live healthily and that is what we also want for you in the United States and in the developing countries.
We want to cooperate in what we do.
This, however, is our task: that we should put our house in order, as we already have done in a sense.
It is still not perhaps perfect in every detail.
We are, however, getting there. We must, then, also make this clear outside the European Union in the negotiations which will begin with the Millennium Round.
I believe that we shall then be able to say to our citizens: nothing is ever guaranteed in life, but we are providing you with the highest possible levels of safety, well-being and health that, as far as anyone can judge and on the basis of scientific advice, we can offer at present.
If that is your stated goal, Mr Prodi, then you will be a successful President of the Commission.
Madam President, Commissioner Prodi, Commissioner Byrne, the BSE and dioxin crises coupled with the ongoing controversy regarding genetically modified foods have combined to seriously undermine consumer confidence in the safety of food.
Furthermore, inept handling of these issues by the respective governments and the EU itself has seriously undermined public confidence in the ability of politicians to deal with crises in the food chain.
For these reasons, I welcome both Commissioner Byrne' s commitment to make food safety his number one priority and also the statement by the Commission President, Romano Prodi, in this House on 23 July, when he said that one of the first tasks of his Commission would be to restore consumer confidence in the safety of food products.
Hence this debate.
Commissioner Byrne, I may add, is to be commended for his prompt action in agreeing to produce a White Paper on EU food law later this year and also to tighten up the EU' s rapid alert system for food emergencies.
However, I would urge the Commissioner to go the extra mile: if he and his colleagues are determined to regain the confidence of consumers and the food industry in the EU' s food safety structures, then he should establish a European food agency along similar lines to the US Food and Drug Administration.
Such a body could take responsibility for the Commission' s present inspection and enforcement functions in relation to the food hygiene, veterinary and plant health legislation. It could also have responsibility for the rapid alert system itself.
It could be given the role for the authorisation process for GMOs and genetically modified foods while also maintaining a monitoring brief on genetically modified foods throughout the EU.
Health promotion campaigns on nutrition and diet and the ability to initiate research into food allergy and food-borne disease could also come within its remit.
I would argue that the list of possible functions is by no means exhaustive, and its accountability could also be ensured if it were required to produce an annual report and if its officers regularly appeared before the Parliament' s Environment, Public Health Consumer Policy and Committee.
I would urge you, Commissioner Byrne, to give serious consideration to the establishment of an independent food agency along these lines.
Such an initiative would, in my view, restore not only consumer confidence in food but also public confidence in the EU itself.
Madam President, the recent successive crises in the area of food safety have shown in the most convincing manner that the protection of public health must take priority over all other policies.
In order to make this a priority, however, we need a series of actions which will cover the whole of the issue of safe food for European citizens and not just part of it.
In general, the following is required. Firstly, from a legal perspective, we need a review of Community legislation on food, animal feedingstuffs, raw materials, additives, preservatives, contaminants such as pesticides, and the labelling thereof.
We should deal with this issue first in the immediate future, so as to successfully fill the legislative gaps which exist today in the single market.
Secondly, as far as administration and controls are concerned, we need to draw up measures so that the Commission services can function effectively, without any overlapping of competences, and so that we know who is responsible for what.
Furthermore, we need effective implementation of the legislative framework, which inevitably means cooperation both at Community and national level, mainly through coordinated action.
Thirdly and finally, from a scientific perspective, we should widen and further the scientific knowledge and methods we have for the production of safe food and animal feedingstuffs. We should introduce methods of detection and restrictions on various substances which contaminate food, and examine the suitability of various animal and plant-based foodstuffs and foodstuffs based on recycled products such as oil.
Here, then, are three areas in which action is needed: legislation, controls with constant vigilance and a scientific perspective with constant advancement of knowledge and methods. In this way, we can always be ahead of the problems and not run around panic-stricken when such problems crop up, shattering the confidence of European citizens and causing serious damage to public health.
Mr Prodi, we hope that you will act soon and swiftly, because this issue and food safety are prerequisites for safeguarding the health of the European citizen.
Madam President, I will be very brief because Commissioner Byrne is going to reply to your detailed questions.
I think that here, too, the Commission must prove it is capable of working as a team.
You said that the White Paper must be very ambitious, that it must have a precise timetable and the Commission will undertake to achieve this.
We must also clarify the matter of the precautionary principle because it is a framework principle which everything hinges on.
It is unthinkable that without dealing with this aspect we could have rules which would convince all consumers and clarify the system.
During the debate we must keep in mind - and this is important - all the problems of agriculture and reward quality agriculture, as well as giving a lot of room to the matter raised by Mrs Roth-Behrendt of the relationship between technical and democratic control.
This is why we have introduced this debate today.
It is an extremely important issue because we must have - let us call it - an agency, which will take these two fundamental principles into account.
This agency, this structure - and here I am addressing Mr Nisticò in particular - absolutely must be in contact with the citizens.
So the monitoring structures must be adapted and be decentralised to a local level. We must not create a centralised bureaucratic structure.
The last matter, which I believe to be of enormous importance for our future work, was raised by Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mrs Thyssen, and is the fact that various Commissioners and various Directorates-General are involved with Parliament.
I would respond that this is - for better or for worse - our way of working.
This is a very complex question which not only involves the Committee on Public Health, but also the Committees on Agriculture, Research and Trade.
We cannot consider simplifying complex matters. We must have a coordinator, but also keep in mind that the whole Commission - and there are various Directorates-General - are still involved.
Our problem is to constantly coordinate this process and not try to reduce it by taking away the role of the various Commissioners.
We discussed this subject in depth at the meeting of Committee Chairmen and we are trying to improve things because I do not think we can solve the problems by pretending that the competences have been simplified or unified.
We have to be aware of the complexity and assume the responsibility for coordinating, but make it understood that the other Commissioners also have their responsibilities for this delicate task.
I now invite Commissioner Byrne to reply in detail to your questions on this debate which I am finding very constructive.
Thank you, Commissioner Byrne.
The debate is closed.
Eleventh international AIDS conference in Lusaka
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the eleventh international AIDS conference in Lusaka.
I would like to begin by extending my gratitude to the European Parliament for bringing up the important theme of AIDS in developing countries and by discussing the conclusions of the International Conference on AIDS in Africa which has just taken place in Lusaka, Zambia.
The Commission is very concerned about the devastating effects of AIDS in the developing world and the apparent inability to stem the epidemic drastically and provide appropriate care for all those affected and infected.
The statistics and analysis show convincingly that developing countries and the global community cannot ignore the AIDS epidemic.
In developing countries, where 90% of all HIV infections occur, AIDS is reversing hard-won gains in improving the quality of life.
In many hard-hit countries AIDS has already reduced life expectancy by more than ten years.
AIDS is also rooted in and exacerbating poverty and inequality.
Its effects are especially devastating for the poor, who have the fewest resources with which to cope.
I should like to highlight some of the efforts made by the Commission and in particular some of the new initiatives envisaged.
The Commission has been confronting AIDS since 1987 with widely-debated AIDS policies, strategies, actions, finances and, last but not least, through global and country partnerships.
By the end of 1997 the EC had committed a total of EUR 200 million to HIV/AIDS projects in most developing countries.
We are eager to do more both by providing more money, and by working with the countries, our Member States and international partners to devise effective strategies that curtail the spread of HIV, cushion its impact on the health sector and provide care for those already afflicted with AIDS.
However, we cannot confront AIDS without first acknowledging that it threatens every country and that each country has a core responsibility and potential to protect its populations through political leadership, sufficient resources and effective and equitable strategies.
Country after country has ignored the AIDS epidemic, denying that the behaviour that spreads HIV occurs within its borders; and country after country has been proved tragically wrong.
It is particularly important that the authorities of these countries should be clear in their calls for prevention of the spread of the epidemic.
Hiding the facts will do no good.
The populations must be clearly informed of the danger they are in and about the possible prevention measures.
Here I am thinking especially about the younger generation.
The latest post-Cairo-plus-five international conference on population and development debated the subject of sexual habits and rights, particularly of the young.
It is necessary to focus more on this vulnerable part of the population if prevention measures are to have an improved effect.
But political leadership and recognition of the problem of AIDS is only the first step.
Our joint response to the epidemic must also be sufficiently wide and fair.
Poor people and poor countries face many pressing problems besides AIDS, and government and international resources are scarce and even declining.
In a typical developing country it costs as much to treat one AIDS patient for a year as it does to educate ten primary school students for a year.
Balancing these worthwhile objectives is difficult but essential.
Therefore all partners should play an appropriate role and do so in genuine partnership.
This has been the spirit of the EU' s response in the past and will also be at its core in the future.
Countries are looking for incentives as part of the solution for people to lower their risk and vulnerability even in the most difficult situations.
Countries have to decide about sustainable and fair financing.
In addition the international community, including the EU, can assist, for example by lowering the cost of condoms and providing clean needles and essential drugs.
This should include those drugs that can have sizeable effects on reducing HIV transmission from mothers to children and those that provide primary health care especially for the poorest, most affected and most vulnerable.
Having mentioned condoms, it must be said that this is one of the best and safest ways of preventing the spread of the epidemic.
Some people express moral reservations about using and promoting this type of prevention.
However, I would like to underline that, given the size of the public health problem we are facing, the interests of the population at risk must be given priority over dogmatic positions of principle.
It is most encouraging that an increasing number of developing countries have already given priority to the interests of their population, but there is still a long way to go.
AIDS must be even more at the core of our development and poverty reduction efforts.
We know that higher inequality is associated with higher HIV infection.
This is especially so in the case of inequality between men and women.
AIDS spreads more widely where women depend on men' s earnings, are unable to read and have limited legal rights to divorce, inheritance and child custody.
The EU, jointly with its international and national partners, has been generous and timely in its response to the AIDS pan-demic in several developing countries.
Our support has not, however, always gone to the most effective interventions, and has not yet reached the level needed to have the impact required.
We will therefore continue to work with developing countries to ensure that the available knowledge, and our funds, produce better results in the future.
However, only a joint action can reach the level required and we will therefore step up still further our efforts to coordinate with all those involved.
Finally, the Commission welcomes the SADC Heads of States' Declaration on HIV/AIDS, which was signed in Lusaka.
We ourselves look forward to finalising, as soon as possible, the signing of an extra financial package for the regional AIDS Action Plan in the SADC region (EUR 5m) as well as an additional all-ACP regional initiative on AIDS for another EUR 20m.
These additional resources may appear meagre in view of the problem; however, it should only be seen as an extra effort, providing a further catalyst to EU and global commitments to confront this devastating epidemic.
We must all work together in this effort.
Madam President, when the first grave reports about AIDS first inundated Europe and the United States at the beginning of the eighties, some very grave predictions were made as to the extent and the social implications of this disease.
Now, twenty years on, AIDS is reasonably under control in Europe and the United States, although the situation still gives a great deal of cause for concern in certain areas and amongst certain groups.
In Africa, however, all our worst fears as regards the disease have been realised and exceeded.
Although the situation varies from country to country, there are, in fact, a number of countries in which 20-30% of the active population is infected.
These are mainly young adults, therefore people who are active in economic terms but who also often have family responsibilities; a generation of people who in most countries form the backbone of society.
When such a group contains so many people suffering long-term illness and who are seriously weakened, and there is such a high number of deaths, then these countries suffer disastrous consequences.
At the grass roots level of the family, we see the large scale on which families are without breadwinners and children without people to bring them up, whilst at local and regional level the social, health and educational problems are really getting out of hand.
Madam President, the problems experienced by the older generations, who often have to be cared for by these groups, are on the increase.
We can see how, at the national level, the economy and foundations of society are weakening.
That is what we have seen happening in Africa over the last twenty years.
As a result, everything that has been built up in terms of aid and progress these last 25 years is at risk of being demolished.
The question is, how can we help the African countries to ward off this fate?
I believe it is Europe' s duty to share our knowledge and experience of this disease and to give financial aid to those African countries that want to participate in the process themselves, with a view to supporting them in their fight against AIDS and the consequences of AIDS.
African countries really got to grips with the situation at the eleventh conference in Lusaka.
I want to express how much respect I have for the experts and relief workers, including those from the African regions, who made their contribution with such frankness and expertise. What needs to be done now in order to tackle the disease in Africa?
What can we do to help? My group considers the following points to be essential.
In each African country, an assessment must be made of the scale of this disease and of the proportions it threatens to assume.
All efforts must be directed at achieving maximum openness and preventive measures.
As far as openness is concerned, a lot still has to be asked of African leaders in terms of breaking through traditional African taboos, particularly with regard to speaking out about the dangers of unprotected sex.
This is not just about traditional African taboos.
There are certain churches, European ones too, that, to my mind, with all due respect for their teachings, ought to warn against unprotected sex, and that includes advocating the use of condoms.
Prevention will only be possible if there is honesty and openness.
Prevention is vitally important and must be encouraged in all sections of the African population, and particularly amongst young people.
People must grasp the idea that having unprotected sex puts your life at risk, all the more so in present-day Africa.
This is not about preaching at people but it is about becoming fully aware of the dangers.
Madam President, when it comes to prevention, it is also important, of course, to avoid a situation in which pregnant women with AIDS pass this disease on to their unborn children.
There are drugs for this and they must be made available.
Lastly, Madam President, there is the help we need to give the children who have been left orphaned.
They must be helped to go about their lives, to pursue an education and to make a fresh start.
We believe these to be the most important points that need to be addressed.
That is why it is so difficult to comprehend why the European Commission has reduced the original budget for the AIDS assistance programmes, specifically with regard to third countries.
I was pleased to hear the Commissioner say that additional resources are to be made available again.
That is a good thing.
But I hope that this will also be taken account of in the Budget as soon as possible.
Do more and do it better.
That was the theme of the Lusaka conference.
We call upon the Commission to boost its programmes for Africa with this theme in mind.
The disease is being tackled successfully in Europe and the United States.
Let us help Africa to avert the disaster that threatens it.
My group wants us to become involved here, even if there are budgetary consequences.
The Africans are our neighbours and we must not abandon them.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, in fact the problem cannot be taken seriously enough.
AIDS is threatening to become a health catastrophe on an unimaginable scale, particularly in the countries of Africa south of the Sahara.
Children are affected above all.
According to an estimate by UNAIDS and the World Health Organisation, 7 out of every 10 people newly infected with the HIV virus live in this region.
In the case of children under 15 years of age, the figure is as many as 9 out of 10.
Approximately 83% of deaths from AIDS take place here, and at least 95% of all children orphaned by AIDS are African boys and girls in this region.
Of the 34 million people infected since the epidemic appeared in this part of Africa, 11.5 million have already died, a quarter of them children.
At the same time, reference has been made to the fact that all the successes there have been in terms of increasing life expectancy have been reduced to nothing.
In many countries, life expectancy has even fallen again to the level recorded in the 1960s.
To put it another way: a child who is born today in an African country badly affected by AIDS has an average life expectancy of only 43 years. Without AIDS, it could have been 60 years.
The situation in Eastern and Southern Africa is particularly dramatic.
In Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Zimbabwe, a fifth of the adult population is infected or ill with AIDS.
This dreadful situation could continue indefinitely.
However, AIDS is no inevitable fate.
A number of countries such as Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda committed themselves early on to prevention, and with success.
It is high time that, where the politics of health are concerned, the emergency brake was put on throughout Sub-Saharan Africa and also in other affected parts of the world.
Social, political and religious taboos have no place here.
They must be cleared away; how and by whom is immaterial.
Trivialising AIDS and making it taboo are a direct route to catastrophe.
The partnership, AIDS against AIDS in Africa, founded at the Lusaka Conference, deserves firm support from the European Union, both in material terms and in terms of visionary perspective.
Civilian society, including the private sector, together with representatives of governments, international aid organisations and non-governmental organisations of various kinds have come together in order to declare war on the epidemic.
They have undertaken to launch comprehensive AIDS or, rather, anti-AIDS programmes in all African States.
One of the ambitious goals of these programmes is to achieve a 25% reduction in the number of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 newly infected by AIDS, and this by the year 2005 in the most badly affected countries and by the year 2010 in all countries.
These efforts can and must be supplemented by the European Union and, above all, vigorously supported through cooperation with the ACP countries.
In fact, the European Union has not been inactive to date.
Between 1987 and 1997, almost 200 million ecus or euros were spent on HIV/AIDS programmes in more than 90 developing countries.
This fact should be expressly recognised.
To this will be added, over the next three years, a further EUR 45 million in the context of a special budget strand for developing countries in regions around the world, together with EUR 20 million for a regional 5-year programme for the ACP countries and additional funds in the context of specific programmes such as those for the ACP countries. These figures do not include, for example, research programmes or co-financing by non-governmental organisations.
More than in Europe, it is young girls who are especially at risk in Africa.
Nowhere are there more teenage mothers and nowhere do they give birth to a larger number of infected babies.
The main effort must therefore be to educate young people.
This is a task which must be carried out in schools.
The education campaigns and condom advertising in Tanzania and Uganda have shown that success is possible.
Above all, the radio must be employed as a means of information to reach everybody.
Here too, specific measures of support are absolutely necessary.
Joint efforts in a spirit of partnership are the right path to go down.
But if these are to be effective, more rather than less resources are needed and, in this regard, I am anxious about the Commission' s, as well as this Chamber' s, financial policy.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, I hope that your group will help ensure that the decisions of the Committee on Budgets that I have heard about will be revoked or altered in the plenary sitting, while any watering down of the proposals tabled by the Committee on Development will be reversed.
We must together ensure that whatever it is that we want can also be financed.
Mr President, on behalf of my group I would like to say how pleased we are that this debate is taking place and I also welcome the Commission' s statement, which has a ring of vigour and decisiveness.
As far as policy in Africa is concerned, the figures speak for themselves.
AIDS threatens the long-term development of at least ten African countries.
The epidemic there causes more deaths than do armed conflicts on that continent.
Two million people have died of AIDS-related diseases, which is ten times the amount of people that have died due to armed conflicts.
In the year 2001 there will be more than 13 million orphans in Africa on account of AIDS.
At the same time, there is no, or at least not enough, money to pay for drugs in Africa.
Of course it is not just an African problem, as the Commission rightly commented.
The disease knows no boundaries.
That is why it is our duty to do something about it, and I fully endorse what Mrs Maij-Weggen had to say in this regard.
Accordingly, there are two issues I would briefly like to go into. Firstly there is the problem relating to compulsory licensing, which I believe will also come up for discussion at the WTO meeting soon to take place in Seattle.
Compulsory licensing must not be allowed to lead to people in Africa no longer being able to afford anti-AIDS drugs.
This really is a big problem over there.
AIDS drugs can be produced more cheaply than is the case at present.
That is an issue that needs to be addressed.
My second question relates to the financial aid delivered by the European Union.
I hear reports to the effect that not all this aid gets to where it is supposed to be going and that one of the reasons for this is that this aid, or at least a part of it, is distributed via national governments.
If that is the case, then it would be worth looking into whether something can be done about this.
On a final note, I want to add my voice to the appeal made by the Commission.
I have in mind its appeal to religious authorities to play an active part in preventive programmes, particularly where the distribution of condoms is concerned
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the problem of the fight against AIDS in developing countries has been discussed many times in the European Parliament.
Yet, since 1996, the situation has further deteriorated - 89% of the people afflicted with AIDS are resident in the 10% of the poorest countries on Earth.
This is clear evidence of the failure of a policy dedicated purely to limiting the illness without looking into the economic and social reasons for the spread of the disease.
On the one hand, the economy of African countries is crumbling due to the structural adjustments made necessary by the World Bank and the IMF.
States are making swingeing cuts in their social budgets, resulting in an inability to provide patients with minimum care.
The European Union must assist these countries in providing this minimum care, and more, if possible.
Indeed, we were stupefied to learn that, against the advice of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, the AIDS budget was to be halved, which would be a scandal, given the urgency of the situation, and contradictory to the comments made by Mr Nielson.
In the majority of African countries, there is no access to screening and, even if it were accessible, surely it is understandable that no one wishes to find out their status when discovering that you are HIV positive means that all you can do is wait to die.
The fact is, treatment is practically non-existent in most of these countries.
Confronted with this situation, the Lusaka conference maintained an often inappropriate line, promoting abstinence, moral order and traditional medicine.
AIDS cannot be fought by ignoring the provision of medical treatment.
Thus, the States most affected by the disease ought to be able to benefit from compulsory licences permitting them to produce, at reduced cost, the generic anti-HIV treatments effective in preventing the development of the opportunistic infections which lead unavoidably to death.
Today, this right is not applied due to pressure from holders of patents, from States or multinationals.
Within the scope of the precautionary principle in health matters, the European Union must therefore defend the application of the entitlement to compulsory licences in the Millennium Round
Millions of people dead, millions of orphaned children, we cannot stand by and do nothing.
This is why, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I ask you to support our proposals, so that we can give developing countries some real means of combating this scourge which is AIDS.
Madam President, everyone remembers the alarm cry which went out from the eleventh international AIDS conference in Lusaka less than a month ago.
HIV has become the principal cause of death in Africa. In some countries, it affects a quarter of the population.
We may speak of a risk of humanitarian catastrophe.
In requesting, therefore, a debate in the European Parliament, I was hoping that we would show that Europe had heard this alarm cry.
Since then, I have met some of the main NGOs involved in the fight against AIDS in the field.
Arising from these discussions, there are three essential proposals which I would like to mention now.
The first, naturally, is to do with the budgetary resources which Europe assigns to the fight against AIDS in developing countries.
I am not the first to remind you that the draft budget for the year 2000 anticipates a spectacular fall in the level of our aid, a two thirds reduction of the commitment appropriations from EUR 16.5 to 5.5 million, at the very time when, quite the opposite, it is the strengthening of international mobilisation which is needed.
Consequently, we Members of Parliament shall soon have to face up to our responsibilities in this matter.
The second area where we can and must improve our intervention involves, in my opinion, the selection of our priorities in the field.
The Commission favours prevention, which is indispensable, but it underestimates the possible inconsistency of access to treatment.
For, indeed, how can people be persuaded to go in for screening if they know full well that they will not receive any treatment? It is a situation which promotes fatalism.
We should therefore, in my opinion, see prevention, access to treatment and research as indivisible components.
In the third place, there is the necessary question of the cost of medicines and how to enable the countries of the South to have access to these.
Commissioner Nielson mentioned this problem and, for my part, I would put forward two proposals.
Firstly, the European Union can and should enter into negotiations with laboratories in order to obtain different prices for North and South.
Secondly, Europe could in fact play a decisive role at the negotiations in Seattle on world trade.
In fact, agreements on intellectual property signed within the framework of the WTO allow for States to authorise the local production and distribution at reduced cost of medicines, which are otherwise protected by patent, in "emergency situations" . So far this exists only in principle, but surely this is such a case.
This is the matter of the compulsory licences which have been mentioned.
In actual fact, implementing this clause exposes the countries concerned to the threat of sanctions by the most powerful groups and States.
This must cease.
Then, the European Union could take pride at Seattle by firmly defending the principle of a sort of exception for health, in other words, by demanding that the major imperatives of public health are not threatened by international trade agreements.
The European Union could, furthermore, assist the countries of the South in preparing their legislation in this spirit in order to counter ultra-liberal pressure.
Madam President, by adopting these proposals, Europe can affirm its own identity on the international stage while contributing towards giving new hope to millions of human beings.
Mr President, it is now over fifteen years since the disease we all now know as AIDS came into the public domain.
Though the number of people suffering from HIV has stabilised in recent years in Europe, the problem of AIDS is still a very real one particularly in the more deprived and disadvantaged urban areas and of course, within the African continent.
A recent study carried out by an organisation in my constituency called Cáirde points to the fact that 80% of people who contract HIV in Ireland are in receipt of welfare payments.
Social exclusion and inadequate income, and living in a disadvantaged or deprived area, are all factors explaining why HIV as a disease mainly affects the more deprived communities in urban Ireland.
There is no room for complacency when it comes to the issue of combating HIV and AIDS.
Again according to the report of Cáirde, in Ireland almost 3 000 people are HIV positive, and a further 3 000 people are affected when one considers the family members and children of those who are HIV-positive.
Medical treatments are certainly improving; however, they are not inexpensive and one year' s treatment for HIV illnesses costs an average of between IEP 12 000 - 14 000.
Public information campaigns must be supported both within Ireland and the European Union, because prevention is the best cure in such matters.
While medical treatments are improving, and while standards of care, standards of treatment and the cost of such care are paramount in our concerns, if one can prevent transmission of such diseases, then we may go a long way to reducing the number of those affected.
I believe that the European Commission, the European Parliament and the national member governments should redouble their efforts to publicise the public health information campaign; this should be done either via the respective Departments of Health or through voluntary groups who play such an important role in helping those who are affected by such diseases.
As a member of the Development and Cooperation Committee of the European Parliament, I recognise that AIDS is rampant, particularly on the continent of Africa.
Health and education programmes must be targeted at the African continent where the AIDS plague is out of control.
Mr President, the aim of the eleventh ICASA conference in Lusaka was to set in motion a critical evaluation of the priorities and strategies which have been drawn up so far in the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his statement.
We are going to have to give particular attention in our debate on this subject to the solutions being proposed by the African scientists themselves.
As affluent western countries, we must not start talking in a high-handed manner about what we consider to be the best approach.
For it is heart-rending to think that, of all peoples, it is the impoverished African people who are having to endure this affliction.
On the occasion of the Lusaka conference some comments worth listening to were made on the question of how to tackle the spread of AIDS effectively.
A case in point was the courageous contribution made by Professor Nkando Luo, the Zambian Minister for Public Health, who called for high moral standards to be maintained and for responsible sexual behaviour.
In saying this, she reached the heart of the matter.
Other speakers in Lusaka also suggested that this is not being made a subject for discussion in all candour, although everyone is aware that the spreading of the HIV virus is due, above all, to promiscuous behaviour.
It goes without saying that this should never give rise to the stigmatisation of those who are infected with the AIDS virus.
Compassion and mercy are the key words when it comes to our behaviour towards these sick fellow human beings.
Cheap drugs and the means to relieve their suffering ought therefore to be available.
Where this is not the case, as affluent countries it is only right that we should make a contribution.
But what I have just said relates to curative care. Preventive measures are even more necessary.
If we are to tackle a problem effectively, then we must always begin at its root.
If we drop the moral standard advocating that sexual intercourse be embedded in a relationship based on mutual trust, in which the man and woman know each other inside out, then it is to be feared that this will bring about disintegration and breakdown in society.
When people lead promiscuous lives we are not talking about relationships in which respect for the other person as a human being sets the tone.
This means that we are destroying that which is loveliest.
The comment made by the South African Zindaka Sibeko during the ICASA conference was telling. He said: "I believe that the longing for marriage raises a painful dilemma these days, for we have been completely robbed of the happiness, the joy that accompanies a wedding."
Africa holds up a mirror to Europe in this respect: the selfish lifestyle, in which purely individual sexual pleasure without respect for the other person or responsibility to society is considered the norm, has a very high price.
Too high.
Perhaps there is a need for a European version of the Lusaka conference at which we as Europeans would reflect on our principal responsibilities, for the draft resolutions submitted to date do not contain so much as a hint of how badly this is needed.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in Africa over two million people die every year, four million people become infected and we know that 70% of new HIV-positive people are in Africa. This is obviously a pandemic that is the primary cause of death for a citizen in an African country.
This is far-reaching and of unprecedented seriousness owing to the way this illness is affecting, in particular, a continent which the European Union has special relations and links with. But in recent years, I think these have slackened and have completely missed the mark.
I am referring, obviously, to the Lomé Convention, to this partnership pact that is a bit exclusive, a bit special, and that we have always described as the European Union' s response to the former colonies, as well as to other areas, but which mainly addresses the African continent.
And the response, as Mr Wurtz and other speakers stated, was a bureaucratic response to initially reduce the expenditure linked to the budget as regards investment in the AIDS sector.
Clearly, the response should be political, which it was not.
We are undoubtedly dealing with this illness a bit differently, according to whether it is in this part or in the other part of the hemisphere.
Next week, when we meet our African partners in the ACP Parliamentary Assembly - European Union meeting, we must bear in mind that, while Lusaka was a failure, in part this is definitely down to the fact that we did not pay enough attention to this matter, along with other matters.
We should therefore organise a large conference on AIDS, but not leave it only to those countries that must then deal with such terrible consequences in practice, but a conference that we have wanted for years, since 1993, on pandemics and AIDS. With us there to oversee things, we could meet this situation head on and finally agree on measures that are appropriate for an international authority, given that in this regard the WHO is completely incapable of offering specific responses.
I think this would be a wise and sensible measure, a measure which, up till now, we certainly have not taken.
I hope that this will head our agenda next week in the context of the ACP and that it will become, Commissioner, a proposal that the Commission and the European Union will themselves make, so that we can finally approach this matter in a serious way.
Mr President, the HIV epidemic so far has very often been described primarily as a health-related problem. Indeed the health implications are serious.
In less than two decades, a very short time in the world of infectious diseases, AIDS has become the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa.
But the implications of this epidemic go far beyond the health sector.
The loss of young men and women in the prime of their lives is devastating as regards economic development and productivity, education, agriculture and a whole host of socio-economic spheres.
Hard-won gains in terms of development are being eroded and even reversed as a consequence of this epidemic.
Reference has already been made in this debate to the demographic consequences.
Countries where the population grew by 3% or more just a few years ago will experience negative growth.
If a comparison is allowed, I believe that what several countries in sub-Saharan Africa are going through is something similar to the Black Death in 14th century Europe.
Mr Nielson referred to the response so far.
There have been efforts at international level, I agree, but far too limited.
I welcome Mr Nielson' s suggestions for the budget to be topped up, but more has to come.
What is needed in the first instance is more money and support in terms of financial resources. Here the international community can do a lot.
Then we have to bring about - and this is primarily the responsibility of the countries concerned - more openness.
The whole area of HIV prevention has been surrounded by too much silence. There has even been a stigma attached to it.
In such an environment prevention through education is difficult. In such an environment people are discouraged from seeking testing and counselling.
Let us hope that the recent conference in Lusaka represents a turning point.
What is needed in the future is more funding, more concerted effort and more openness.
I have personally followed very closely efforts within the international community over the last couple of years to bring about a more concerted fight against HIV/AIDS.
A joint programme, UNAIDS, was established a few years ago.
It has done some good things, but efforts within that programme have been undermined by shrinking budgets within the UN system.
It is my absolute conviction that the European Union has to take a much stronger lead in international efforts in terms of AIDS and HIV prevention.
Our aid budget is considerable. We ought to allocate a gradually bigger share of that budget in support of HIV prevention.
If we are serious about development we have to do this. Otherwise all our other efforts in the area of development will be very much in vain.
I have four specific questions to ask the new Commissioner. Firstly, are you willing to work hard to ensure that a permanent increase in the Union budget will be allocated for HIV prevention?
Secondly, are you willing to make sure that whatever the European Union does in this field is well coordinated with other donors? In few areas, I believe, are coordination and cooperation more necessary than here.
Thirdly, are you willing to make sure that efforts go beyond the health sector, realising that the socio-economic and developmental consequences are so serious? Last but not least, are you willing to seek partnership with the pharmaceutical companies, on the one hand, to speed up work to try to develop a vaccine and, secondly, to make medicines more accessible to the poor of this world?
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the AIDS epidemic in Africa is acquiring increasingly dramatic proportions. The recent conference in Lusaka showed this quite clearly.
Every year, two million people die of AIDS and another four million are infected.
In total there are today in Africa 25 million people who have contracted AIDS and who are virtually programmed to die.
In one tenth of the countries of Africa, life expectancy will not reach 60 or 70 by 2010, as might be expected, and will drop to 40, a rate similar to that we experienced in Europe in the Middle Ages.
This endemic is not just a catastrophe in humanitarian and health terms, it is also a threat to social and economic cohesion and to the demographic balance of the countries of Africa.
In Kenya, therefore, 43 of the 50 employees of the tax department who died last year died as a result of AIDS.
According to the Farmers' Union in Zimbabwe, the virus is responsible for a drop in production of 60% for corn and 30% for animal husbandry.
In Zambia, if projected figures are substantiated, in 2010 there will be a million fewer children than there are today.
In this situation, how can we accept reducing by one third, in the year 2000, the appropriations allocated to the fight against AIDS in developing countries? How, Commissioner, can we accept that the pharmaceutical companies have a virtual monopoly on manufacturing and distribution?
We must re-negotiate the agreements signed on intellectual property.
Solutions do exist. The pharmaceutical industry must no longer be content just to calculate its profit margin in relation to its profitability on western markets alone, and must urgently provide poor countries with triple-combination therapy - at cost price too.
Right now, it is essential for the countries of the South to have the possibility of producing and obtaining for themselves the necessary medicines.
In a few weeks' time, in Seattle, the forthcoming WTO negotiations may constitute a significant stage.
We must do all we can to ensure that free and anonymous screening centres are set in place.
This is an effective means of curbing the disease throughout the world.
We must also intensify the use of condoms because, in countries such as Senegal, it is known that condom use has played an important role in the decline of the illness.
But how many of us would agree to give half our daily wage for one condom? Because, for a farm worker in the Sahel, a condom costs 150 CFA francs, that is 1.50 Francs, half of his daily wage?
I invite you, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, and you too, Commissioner, to together call upon the United Nations, the United States, and the European Union to create a world fund for medical solidarity.
What could be more urgent than to save 25 million people from programmed death?
Mr President, there is also one matter I would like to raise, and that is the relationship of drugs to this problem.
We are looking at Africa but we must also look around us, to our own local societies.
Northern Ireland is on the periphery of this Union and it is a peripheral part of the Union and yet we are seeing the start of a terrible spread in our country, greatly linked to drugs trafficking.
Whether this Parliament likes it or not, when laws are violated there is always a sad reaping to the violation of law.
The Bible says that if you sow to the flesh, of the flesh you will reap corruption; and that is a fact that has to be faced.
Nevertheless, there must be infinite compassion for those who have been stricken.
I am glad that my own church has a programme to that effect and is working hard on it.
There must be compassion.
We must sit where these people sit, we must recognise the circumstances that they are in, and we must do everything in our power to seek to help them in their dire plight.
It is a tragedy that this Parliament is meeting today in the shadow of the fact that our Committee on Budgets is cutting down on aid.
We should be doing our best to get more finances to deal with this problem.
Mr President, our position has been very well explained by Mr Wurtz and Mr Sylla.
I only want to highlight three aspects.
The first one - and I say this as a medical historian - concerns the fact that, in a continent that has been destroyed by colonisation, which is the case with Africa, it is not an accident that the AIDS epidemic has occurred, but rather it is a consequence of the impoverishment of that continent, and therefore we are responsible, as the former colonial power, for helping Africa.
The second is that, given the prevalence of AIDS in Africa and knowing that thousands of young people cross the Mediterranean into Europe, via Spain and other countries, and also bearing in mind the incubation period of the disease, which is from five or six to twelve years, we can calculate that a third of these young people are infected with AIDS and are living in Europe.
This issue, therefore, affects us directly.
Thirdly and finally, I would like to point out that the most suitable instrument we have - this has been demonstrated by the UN by means of the WHO in the fight against smallpox - is the WHO.
It is incredible that we have abandoned such an important international instrument as the World Health Organisation.
Granting of supplementary macro-financial assistance
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0017/1999 by Mr H.-P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing further macro-financial assistance to Bulgaria [COM(99)0403 - C5-0098/1999 - 1999/0165(CNS)];
A5-0018/1999 by Mr H.-P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing further macro-financial assistance to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [COM(99)0404 - C5-0099/1999 - 1999/0166(CNS)];
A5-0019/1999 by Mr H.-P. Martin, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision providing further macro-financial assistance to Romania [COM(99)0405 - C5-0097/1999 - 1999/0167(CNS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the three draft reports we have before us concerning further financial assistance to Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia cover much the same ground in terms of content and political perspective so I should like to explain them together. What are they about?
The Commission proposes granting loans to help the balance of payments in the context of a macro-economic stabilisation programme drawn up by the International Monetary Fund.
It is intended to grant a sum of EUR 100 million to Bulgaria and a sum of EUR 200 million to Romania, in each case as a long-term loan.
In the case of Macedonia, a contribution of no more than EUR 30 million in addition to the euro loan of EUR 50 million has been proposed because the country' s financial position has been particularly exacerbated by the conflict in Kosovo.
In the case of all the countries, the financial assistance is to be provided in two tranches with the second tranche only being released once economic development and reforms have been satisfactorily resumed.
The amounts I have mentioned for the various States are proportionate, on the one hand, to the estimated deficits in the balance of payments of the individual countries and, on the other hand, to the multilaterally agreed share which the EU has to contribute to these forms of macro-economic financial assistance.
We are therefore concerned here with comparatively modest amounts.
Just to support the balance of payments of the six States bordering Kosovo, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have estimated that USD 1.5 billion in financing is required.
Let me briefly go into details about the three countries which we are now dealing with here.
For Macedonia, an external financial shortfall to the tune of USD 372 million is expected in 1999.
Financial assistance is therefore an urgent matter in view of the vital interests which Europe has in stability in the Balkans.
The dramatic reports may have disappeared from the television screens, but there are still thousands of Kosovan refugees in Macedonia.
With the economic development since the change of government in 1997, Bulgaria has made some remarkable progress.
Economic growth has been stimulated again.
The rate of inflation has fallen.
Exports have increased and direct foreign investments have been noted.
However, the balance of payments deteriorated in 1998, with the crisis in Russia being partly responsible for this.
In Bulgaria' s balance of payments for 1999, a financial shortfall of approximately USD 500 million is anticipated.
Without the balance of payments loan of a maximum of EUR 100 million proposed by the Commission, the Bulgarian reform programme might be placed in jeopardy.
Aid from the EU might also make it easier for Bulgaria to make some progress with safety at its nuclear power plants. This is also a matter of some concern for my home country, Austria.
Because of the conflict in Kosovo, foreign trade has further deteriorated in Romania.
An additional balance of payments deficit amounting to USD 190 million is in the offing.
Here too, the laborious process of economic reform must be continued with and supported.
In order to make further progress, Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia need our help.
The planned financial aid which, in the first place, is really a technical process, is also politically significant in connection with the discussion about enlargement of the European Union and, above all, against the background of the destabilisation of South-East Europe because of the Kosovo conflict. My own homeland, Austria, borders on four countries which want to join the European Union.
It, therefore, has a particular interest in the economic and also political stabilisation of Central and South-East Europe.
Such stabilisation cannot be achieved unless the region makes its own contribution. How much would growing uncertainty in Central and Eastern Europe cost in terms of political and financial capital?
In the end, how much would it cost us to look on and do nothing? We must therefore commit ourselves, and not only financially but also politically.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists last week lent its support in Skopje to the idea of a Stability Pact in South-East Europe and, above all, took up the themes of democracy, human rights and a civilian society.
Strengthening civilian society is undoubtedly an important concern but is inconceivable without stable framework conditions for the various national economies.
I therefore recommend approval of the Commission' s proposals for financial assistance, including the amendments included in the report.
My amendments to the Commission' s document are a reminder of the goal of macro-economic stabilisation.
What, however, we must be concerned with, above all, is securing long-term employment and improving the conditions of people' s lives in the countries affected.
In this context, the IMF' s policy of economic restructuring is often cause for fierce and necessary criticism.
In the end, programmes in South-East Asia and particularly in Indonesia were to the detriment of poor strata of the population when, for example, subsidies for basic foodstuffs were cancelled.
In the case of the economic reforms which are on the agenda in the former socialist States, a situation must therefore be prevented in which the burdens of change again affect those in society who are least able to defend themselves.
It is true that the IMF has improved in many respects, but there is still a great deal of work to be done.
Accordingly, we are also arguing for having representatives of the programmes join us here in Parliament, or at least in the Committees.
With my changes, I should also like, however, to go on emphasising that the Commission and the relevant States are obliged to comply with the rules for budget supervision and efficient administration.
It must go without saying that the European Parliament will be informed appropriately and in good time about any payments made and about the ways in which these are used.
Finally, steps must be taken to ensure that the macro-economic financial assistance is not misappropriated, as we have seen happen in a dramatic way in Russia.
The Council has requested urgent procedure in connection with the financial aid to these three countries.
This means that we must approve them this week here in Strasbourg.
In commenting upon this, the Committee on Budgets pointed out the basic interinstitutional problems and problems relating to budget policy which would arise if we were to comply with the Council' s request for urgent procedure in the case of financial assistance for Macedonia, since in this case, the Commission' s proposal contains a subsidy component.
Granting up to EUR 30 million in subsidies to Macedonia throws up budgetary problems of a technical nature.
The funds specified in Category 4, "External Actions" , of the Financial Perspective have already been exhausted by the funds assigned in the draft EU budget.
The European Parliament must therefore insist upon a corresponding review of the Financial Perspective as a prior condition for granting the subsidy.
Overall, there ought, however, to be agreement about the fact that aid is quickly needed for Bulgaria, Romania and Macedonia.
Mr President, I will mainly speak on the same subject the last speaker finished on.
What we are concerned with is macro-economic financial assistance for those countries. That means that the European Union only acts as an intermediary in obtaining funds.
The money is borrowed on the international markets and passed on to these countries for their use.
The European Union can guarantee that the cost of borrowing is less than it would be if these countries borrowed the funds directly from the international markets.
The aid to be given to Macedonia is the most problematic of these financings, because in this instance it is not only a case of a loan, but also of a grant, to be paid over two years.
The Council has decided on this form of financing, but it made the decision without the corresponding funds being available. The Committee on Budgets draws its attention to this fact.
If the Financial Perspective is not revised, we will have to adjust other budget lines under heading 4, "External Action" , and in order to secure the aid to Macedonia, we will find ourselves cutting aid to other areas.
With this kind of financial aid, it cannot be the intention that, in order for one country to receive, money should be taken away from others.
For this reason, the Committee on Budgets has proposed to the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy that it should demand a revision of the Financial Perspective in this regard, and positive reference has been made to this in the report.
Examination of the Financial Perspective is, in any case, an important matter and is linked in its entirety to the question of what the financial basis is or, in other words, to the fact that the war in Kosovo has brought about a situation which is unexpected and new and which had not been catered for by the Financial Perspective.
This is also linked directly to an examination of the Financial Perspective, which must be carried out on account of the aid to Kosovo, the funds to rebuild areas of Turkey devastated by the recent earthquakes and on account of the agreement on fishing with Morocco.
Neither is it unconnected with the fact that at this moment in time there are not sufficient funds available to realise all those projects in Category 4 which the Council and the Commission want to realise and which they have proposed.
The response of Parliament to the form proposed by the Committee on Budgets is that it is important in connection with this issue to examine the Financial Perspective and in this way also to ensure that general aid from Parliament and from the European Union really does reach its destination and also to safeguard the possibility of bringing these matters to a favourable conclusion.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the aid that we are calling on to be approved for these three European countries - and I stress "European countries" because we are forgetting that we do also have needs in Europe - i.e. in FYROM, Bulgaria and Romania, is both necessary and urgent.
Firstly, I say necessary because these countries are trying to adjust to a new environment of economic and commercial relations which are causing them problems, particularly in their balance of payments which, in turn, is affecting the general functioning of the market and economic development.
Secondly, this aid is urgent - and I would say particularly urgent - because following the bombings in Yugoslavia, the whole economic equilibrium of the region was dangerously affected with exceptionally negative repercussions on those countries which fell victim to the intervention, without their wanting or causing it.
Therefore, this macro-financial assistance is both necessary and urgent and our Parliament must show its support by promoting these Southern European countries.
The third point which will sway decisions to vote in favour of the Council' s proposal is that the level of financial assistance is relatively low and so it will not affect the economic programme of the Commission.
As for the difficulty which was mentioned regarding Category 4 of the Budget for FYROM, it is absurd to insist on this aid and not come up with the EUR 30 million.
In conclusion, Mr President, this aid is necessary, urgent and imperative and yet our contribution is minor compared to the great efforts that these countries are displaying in their adjusting to the new challenges they are facing and which the war has tragically exacerbated.
I believe this aid merits our unanimous support.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, macro-economic assistance for the three countries which lie outside the war zone but which have suffered in the extreme during the war in Kosovo is only right and very important.
Each of you will be thinking, are there still questions about this issue?
Support for lasting, successful development in the countries concerned is, however, urgently necessary.
Here, I wish to clearly state again on behalf of my group, that we want to do everything to ensure that Bulgaria and Romania are not left behind in the process of enlarging the European Union.
These countries, and also the neighbouring country of Macedonia, urgently need our political and economic support.
In this connection, I should again like to remind you that this Parliament has decided here on several occasions that the visa requirement for entering and leaving Romania and Bulgaria, which constitutes a form of exclusion, should finally be removed.
The Council and the Commission should urgently state their position on this issue at the Helsinki Summit.
On the question of financial assistance, the Commission and the Council always extol their splendid charitable initiatives in referring to the huge sums given by way of macro-economic aid.
Have you ever asked, though, how effective this macro-economic assistance is in regard to economically and socially-balanced development in these crisis-racked countries? What basically is the money for?
Whose pockets is it really going into? The truth is that not a single euro benefits the people in the region, neither small and medium-sized businesses nor the education and health systems.
Nor is the money used to create employment.
It does not contribute either to the local and regional infrastructure, the reconstruction of which is an important prerequisite for investment.
No, it amounts to nothing more than bribes for international banking systems. It offsets the indebtedness into which the IMF has brought these countries.
It flows practically direct into the coffers of the international banks and in that way contributes to the further indebtedness of the so-called recipient countries.
It is also only a credit, even if the conditions are better than those of the EMF.
Nonetheless, the conditions are: save on health care and on social insurance and pensions systems.
The result: the further impoverishment of broad strata of the populations of the countries concerned. Is that what we mean by stability?
Can stability in the region be based upon further indebtedness and further impoverishment? In practice, the macro-economic assistance only contributes to account being taken of the budgetary conditions of the EMF.
The indebtedness is therefore compounded.
In other words, we need a change of direction in the structure, and we need politics to again assume priority in this domain and responsibility for economic and socially-balanced development which is genuinely stable.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Members, firstly, for their analysis of the problem and, secondly, for their generally positive reaction to the proposal which is being examined here today.
I would also like, in my first appearance before this Parliament, to insist once again on something that I insisted on in the Commission, which is the need to establish the best possible relationship between my duties as Commissioner and the people responsible for the corresponding areas in this Parliament.
I believe that the various interventions have shown that there is no group which, in principle, will stand in the way of aid.
In fact I have noticed a position which is clearly favourable to the proposals.
We all agree that the crisis in Kosovo, which has given rise to this difficulty, leaves us no choice but to make a greater effort.
However, I would like to clarify certain issues which may help us to understand the Commission' s position with regard to the different proposed amendments.
Firstly, we are talking about balance of payments aid.
Balance of payments aid is very different from the provision of funds for normal programmes.
Balance of payments aid is aimed at boosting a country' s reserves in such a way that it can confront its external payments problems, which always have a compensation: it is always either the provision of services or the supply of goods which is being paid for.
Therefore we are not talking about funds directed at the budgets of each one of these countries, the aim of which would be to carry out specific actions.
Clearly, and as a consequence of this fact, they are connected neither to specific projects or programmes.
We are talking about a financial contribution aimed at confronting these difficulties.
Secondly, in the case of Bulgaria and Romania, the funds are connected to agreements with the International Monetary Fund which have this same objective.
In the case of FYROM, the situation is rather different.
That country is currently negotiating an agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
It is possible that agreements will be reached, in which case we will cooperate with them, but, in the event that no agreement is reached, we believe that the situation demands the support of the European Union in any event.
Therefore, whether or not there is an agreement with the International Monetary Fund, there will be support for FYROM, although it must clearly be conditional upon the application of the necessary reform programme so that these funds will be put to specific effective use.
I would like to remind you that this is not the first time that this type of aid has been granted to these countries.
It has happened in the past. This aid has always functioned efficiently.
We have never had problems with regard to the repayment of debts, there have never been delays on the part of these countries, and therefore, from our point of view, and in financial terms, they are absolutely viable partners.
Having made these preliminary comments, I would like to deal with the various proposals put forward by Mr Martin in his report.
In view of the philosophy that I have explained, I believe that our position is understandable.
With regard to the first proposal, if I have understood correctly, the intention is something which I share completely with Mr Martin and that is that, ultimately, growth and economic reform should increase employment and improve standards of living.
In these two respects, we are in absolute agreement.
Therefore, we would accept a wording which, in place of what has been put forward in the proposal, said "with a view to increasing employment and living standards."
This wording would be perfectly acceptable to the Commission.
We come to the second point, which is the second Amendment, which intends to establish budgetary control by the Commission with regard to the funds in question.
Given the difference between these funds and the normal projects which supply money to the budget, I am afraid that, in this case, this idea of budgetary control, which we all accept and defend, is not really applicable.
In this case, the control must be carried out differently.
We should control in general terms whether the country is using the funds correctly.
Consequently, we would be in favour of an idea which seems to us fundamental, and that is that the Commission monitors the reforms which must be carried out in the said countries so that the aid may be used correctly.
However, we do not believe that this point should be included in the text of the decision.
The Commission is committed to carrying out this control and it should be done, obviously, in accordance with the evolution of macro-economic factors.
We believe that this type of control will be sufficient.
However, as I have said, we do not believe that including the proposed amendment is the best method.
With regard to Amendment No 3, the fundamental idea, as has been said, is to try to ensure that a proportion of these resources is dedicated to the provision of the basic social needs of the population.
This raises once again the problem that I mentioned before concerning the nature of this aid.
If we were talking about budgetary aid I would have no hesitation whatsoever in accepting your proposal.
In this case we are talking about financial support for these countries' reserves in order to help them deal with a certain type of counterpart.
We are not here to discuss whether or not we should support the basic needs of the population.
Nevertheless, for your peace of mind, I will tell you that these cases are radically different from the case you have mentioned concerning Indonesia.
Also with regard to the International Monetary Fund' s own plan, in the Fund' s global plan concerning the definition of budgets and expenditure of the said countries, it is clearly established that a certain percentage of expenditure will have to be dedicated to social spending.
In the specific case of Romania for example - I have the figures here - at the moment, for 1997, 8.3% of GDP is being spent on social expenditure.
However the condition established in the Fund' s plan states that in 1999, this figure should rise to 10.5% of GDP.
Therefore, I hope that this addresses the Honourable Members' concerns regarding the issues involving the International Monetary Fund.
Nevertheless, I do not believe that it falls to the Commission to define internally, with regard to national budgets, how a global budget is to be established given that, as I said before, the Funds in question do not themselves have any particular specific purpose.
We could clearly say the same of Amendment No 4, which has a similar justification and problems of an analogous nature.
With regard to Amendment No 3, however, I would like to make an additional point.
There are specific Union programmes dedicated to this idea of improving administration and dealing with basic social needs.
Please remember, for example, that in the PHARE programme, 30% of the resources are dedicated to "Institutional Building" , which is clearly linked to the whole question of improving administrative functioning which will allow the problems to be resolved.
These are the reasons why Amendments Nos. 3 and 4 do not seem acceptable to us.
However, we are in total agreement with Amendment No 5.
To Amendment No 5, we would simply propose a small correction in terms of style and that is, instead of the phrase appearing after the reference to the International Monetary Fund, we believe it should appear immediately after the word "Commission" .
Therefore it would be worded, "the Commission, in accordance with the principles of sound and efficient management, shall verify..." , etc.
In this way we would totally accept your proposal but it would be more correctly worded.
In Amendment No 6, the Commission is asked to inform Parliament before carrying out the second payment of balance of payment appropriations.
Again this raises a problem of form and practice.
The problem is as follows: decisions of this type are based on elements which must be treated, I would not say as secrets, but at least, with a degree of confidentiality and that, therefore, it would not be appropriate, it seems to me, to explain them and discuss them in sessions which are absolutely public and on record.
Therefore, the problem stems from how we will find a procedure which will inform Parliament of these facts before they happen without involving a public meeting which I believe could cause certain problems with regard to the handling of these issues.
The formula which I would now propose, and which I can commit myself to, is that, before these payments are made, the Chairmen of the Committees involved in these issues, for example, should be informed, so that Parliament has knowledge of them and there is no problem with regard to the need for confidentiality in relation to certain matters.
We are in total agreement with Amendment No 7 concerning the provision of information before a certain date.
Lastly, we come to perhaps the most problematic amendment, in terms of the form it should take, which is the one concerning the additional loan of 30 million.
The Honourable Members raise budgetary problems and, insofar as this is a contribution of a budgetary nature, they will have to be resolved.
The resolution you propose involves a revision of the Financial Perspective.
I would like to distinguish between the two time periods.
Firstly 1999 and then 2000.
We are talking about EUR 30 million - 15 for this year and 15 for next year.
With regard to the 15 million for this year, I can tell you that the figures are laid out in the budget and therefore, we have no problem with meeting these payments immediately.
The problem concerns next year and, in fact, in the Commission' s decision, if the Honourable Members would like to see page 7, in section 4 which refers to this issue, it clearly states that, given the existing budgetary restrictions, there could be some difficulty and an adjustment in Category 4.
This is clearly not a new problem therefore.
It is a problem that has been noted and you are right to raise it now.
The difficulty is which solution to adopt.
Should we adopt a specific solution consisting of revising, by means of a specific Council decision, the Financial Perspective with regard to a specific point? We believe that this would cause difficulty in terms of budgetary authority and analysing the issues individually, in such a way that we are not able to have a global view of the difficulties which we may have to face.
Therefore, I would ask you not to include this reference to the revision of the Financial Perspective bearing in mind two things: firstly, that the Commission will clearly in any event consider revising the Financial Perspective in the future, taking into account not only this question but also other matters relating to Kosovo.
Secondly, that logically it will fall to the budgetary authorities, to you as Parliament, to the Commission in its proposals and to the Council in its decisions, to take the decisions which it considers appropriate for 2000 without, at the moment, anticipating the definitive solution.
ALTENER multiannual programme (1998-2002)
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0016/99) by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adoption of the Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community (ALTENER) (1998-2002) (7122/1/99 - C5-0032/99 - 97/0370(COD)).
Mr President, ALTENER is part of a multiannual programme of measures in the field of energy policy for the period 1998-2002.
It is concerned with the important aspect of alternative, renewable energy sources.
The Commission' s proposal dates from November 1997.
At the first reading in March 1999, the last Parliament adopted its position on the basis of the draft report by our former colleague, Carlos Robles Piquer.
With the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the legal basis has changed.
The multiannual energy programme now falls under the codecision procedure.
On 21 May 1999 - on the basis of the new legal position and directly after the Treaty of Amsterdam had come into force - the European Commission fundamentally altered and revised its proposal on the basis of Parliament' s decisions of 11 March 1999.
On 28 June, the Council adopted its common position.
Today, we can see that both the Commission and the Council have, to a large extent, accepted our proposals, and speaking here as rapporteur for the Committee on Industry, I should therefore like to say a sincere thank you for the constructive cooperation in this matter.
At this second reading, Parliament now has to examine whether the common position requires further amendment.
On 22 September, the Committee on Industry and Energy unanimously adopted a recommendation on this.
It is a shared goal of Parliament and the Commission to increase the proportion of renewable energy sources to 12% of gross energy consumption within the Community by the year 2010.
That is approximately double the present figure.
This is an ambitious goal requiring considerable efforts.
The compromises which have now been reached are only a step along this road.
Parliament is convinced that it is necessary for the Member States in particular to make increased efforts. The resources we have for the ALTENER programme are so modest that this ambitious goal cannot be achieved.
The amendments we have tabled - nine in all - call on the Member States to make a voluntary commitment to promote renewable sources of energy.
A charter should be used to overcome the fact that the European Union Treaty does not contain a specific chapter on energy policy.
What is more, Parliament wants to include in Article 1, paragraph 1 implementation of the campaign to promote renewable sources of energy already called for by the 1997 White Paper.
It also wants to create new instruments and mechanisms to promote rapid and coordinated penetration of the market by all sustainable energy technologies.
In addition, the Eastern and Central European States and, as the Liberal Group has rightly requested, the Mediterranean States should also play an important role in implementation.
In Article 5 of the ALTENER programme, Parliament would also like to insert a reference to the new procedures for exercising powers of implementation in order to improve the participation of the European Parliament.
We are convinced, ladies and gentlemen, that part IV of the programme of several years' duration consisting of measures in the field of energy policy cannot fulfil everyone' s wishes.
In this connection, I should remind you of the second report being discussed today: the report by Mrs Ahern on energy efficiency.
I should, however, also remind you that, in implementing alternative sources of energy, we have two major examples, namely water and wind power, which are already proportionately so important that the others, such as solar energy and also utilisation of biomass, will have to be promoted extremely intensively.
I am very grateful and happy that you, Commissioner, now have responsibility for this important subject for, as a former Spanish Minister for Agriculture, you know that it is possibly much more sensible to reduce the surpluses achieved in the context of European agricultural policy than to make areas available for cultivation which could be exploited for utilising energy from biomass.
I am aware, however, that there is quite a lot of resistance in this area and that we are encountering opposition from industry and also from those who formulate agricultural policy.
We should all be striving, however, to combine agricultural and energy policy in the sphere of renewable energy sources.
With this in mind, I should like to say a warm thank you for your valuable cooperation and hope that the report will be accepted by a majority in Parliament.
Mr President, I should first of all like to express my thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Langen, for presenting a really good report.
We in the Committee have gone along to the greatest possible degree - in fact, unanimously - with the proposal to again take up important requests for changes which arose out of the first reading and which have not been taken into account by the Council although we were very happy - and I say this here too, Mr Langen - that extensive approaches to Parliament were made.
It is a declared goal of the European Union to double the proportion of renewable sources of energy consumed by the year 2010.
Parliament and the Commission were already in agreement on this in the debate on the Green and White Papers.
The Council too has supported their stance in the common position we have before us.
Although it is clear that the technical potential available from wind power and solar energy, from biomass, from water power and from geothermal energy could cover considerably more than 12% of energy consumption by 2010, we know that achieving just this 12% will require great efforts, judging by growth rates in the past.
This means that the Member States must do their homework. It also means that the European Union must make greater headway than in the past.
For this to happen, it is necessary, on the one hand, to facilitate fair access to the grid for electricity from renewable energy sources.
I would point out to the Commissioner that Parliament awaits the relevant proposals which must be such as to contribute to real market penetration.
The close connection between conditions of access to the grid and growth rates in the proportion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources is something we can see from the above-average rates of increase in Denmark, Germany and also Spain.
But what we are concerned with today is the ALTENER programme.
It is the only EU programme which alone has the promotion of renewable energy sources as its goal.
This programme is also the main instrument for implementing the Community strategy for renewable energy sources and it is therefore also the main instrument of the breakthrough campaign for renewable sources of energy.
By means of this campaign, we want to introduce photovoltaic systems with a maximum output of one million kilowatts within the European Union and in developing countries.
Among other things, 15 million square metres of solar collectors are to be erected. 10,000 megawatts are to be obtained from wind power and a further 10,000 megawatts from biomass.
This campaign has to be financed from resources of the Member States, privately and with European funds.
The Commission had earmarked the amount of EUR 81.1 million for the four-year period from 1998 to 2002 in the ALTENER programme.
According to the Commission' s estimates, the breakthrough campaign alone requires public financing to the tune of approximately EUR 7 billion by the year 2003. That is to say, EUR 7 billion which has to come from the Member States and from the European Union.
We know that this 81.1 million would only be a drop in the ocean, but we cannot, under any circumstances, accept that this sum should again be reduced to EUR 74 million, as specified in the common position.
I would therefore urge you, ladies and gentlemen, to endorse this position of the Committee, which has been unanimously adopted, in tomorrow' s vote and to also ensure that corresponding decisions are taken in the budget votes.
Mr President, the promotion of the use of renewable energy sources is of particular importance for environmental reasons.
The Union cannot meet its environmental targets unless the use of renewable energy sources is actively increased.
The ALTENER programme is an important part of the strategy to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.
Renewable energy sources reduce the dependence on imported energy and an increase in their use will also improve competitiveness.
Europe must attain a leading position in the rapidly growing area of the economy which is based on new technology for renewable energy sources.
We must also remember that the use of renewable energy sources has a positive effect on regional development and employment.
The ALTENER programme is a step in the right direction.
Mr Langen' s amendments also received broad-based unanimous support in the committee, which is no everyday occurrence.
This consensus is a good starting point for promoting the use of sources of renewable energy.
As has been stated here, however, this programme alone is by no means sufficient.
An increase in the long-term use of renewable energy sources still requires a lot of research, pilot studies, an exchange of results, the harmonisation of legislation, a change in attitudes, information campaigns and also private and public investment which will pay for itself, but only in the long term.
The sums used to finance the ALTENER programme are paltry considering the scale of the undertaking.
In future we will need to investigate how we can increase investment in the greater use of renewable energy sources.
At the present time, increasing the use of renewable energy sources is mainly the responsibility of the Member States.
Hopefully, this programme will encourage the Member States to act decisively in increasing the use of renewable energy sources.
In the list of renewable energy sources, peat has not yet been mentioned.
It is, however, at least in Finland, an important, sustainable, and slowly renewable source of energy.
I hope that it can be added to the list of renewable energy sources at some point.
Mr President, as a member of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I should like to thank the rapporteur.
I think we have a fairly broad consensus on this ALTENER programme.
I also hope that, in the negotiations with the Council, he is able to get at least the EUR 81.1 million we have been talking about.
It is important, however, that, one day before the debate here in Parliament on the Kyoto follow-up conference in Bonn, and also a few days after the second-worst nuclear accident in history (this time in a hi-tech country), we should also place this ALTENER programme in a wider context.
It is against a particular background that we are framing energy policy: we want to protect the environment and we want to cut down on CO2 emissions, so we must examine in particular whether the liberalisation of the European electricity market, as is at present being implemented in a number of Member States, is not counter-productive.
Wholesale liberalisation in Germany is now already putting both biomass and solar projects under pressure and, in the social sphere, it will also, of course, result in our soon finding ourselves with a lot of little Michelin-style incidents because jobs are being rationalised out of existence so that power companies' share prices rise.
I think it is time to analyse this liberalisation - in both ecological and social terms - and then to consider what are the good approaches.
Personally, I particularly like the Danish model, where there is transparent access to the grid; there is an energy tax which corrects prices; there are clear targets for renewable energy sources; and there is an almost protected market.
We also need a protected market for renewable energy sources and for block-type thermal power stations.
In my view, merely national corrective measures or national "protective barriers" of an ecological and social nature are insufficient.
We must also consider, at a European level, how we might build in corrective features.
We naturally want this "feed-in directive" adopted very quickly.
I believe we need mechanisms in the field of renewable energy sources similar to those we have today for nuclear energy.
We need an export guarantee because, all in all, renewable energy sources mean many more jobs and better environmental protection.
Renewable energy sources should be worth that to us.
Mr President, the share of renewable energy resources in the production of energy in the EU stands at less than 6%, and hydro-electric power makes up the bulk of this.
It will be impossible to reach the target to double this figure with the current way of thinking, which would have us believe that oil and gas will last for ever, and if they do not, coal is cheap in any case.
Far too little money has been devoted to the ALTENER programme.
It is self-delusory to apply such small sums of money to good ends.
We are deceiving ourselves by investing so little in a new approach.
The security of the EU must also be considered.
By 2020, 94% of the quantity of oil needed in the EU will be imported, as well as 80% of the coal and 75% of the gas.
If we leave the future of our energy in such a precarious position, we will not be able to provide a secure future for our people.
Mr President, I would like to say to my fellow Members that, once again, I fear that this Parliament may be distinguishing itself by its faintheartedness.
As Mrs Rothe said, 12% is not enough.
Mr Langen said that the resources made available are not enough to ensure 12% of production and, yet again, in spite of these warnings, we are going to adopt this report.
I think it is important to take a broader view of the question.
It is not enough to see the amounts, which are quite inadequate, that we are going to spend on renewable energies; we should perhaps also take a little time to consider the financial energies which we are expending on other forms of energy, particularly nuclear energy.
Our colleague from the Group of the Greens mentioned the tragic events in Japan, and yet Japan is not a problem country or an underdeveloped country.
So today, in the same annual period, we will be allocating EUR 60 million to nuclear fission as against EUR 15 million to renewable energies, and EUR 200 million to nuclear fusion. That gives us an idea of the real policies which the European Union is pursuing.
It is totally unacceptable.
Especially now that a number of Member States have decided to abandon their nuclear policy, including their fission policy, we cannot accept that the Union as such should continue to finance nuclear policy by up to four times as much.
We must become aware of these disparities.
We must demand sums that are at least greater than those allocated to an energy about which we know nothing - nuclear fusion. We must immediately abolish the appropriations which we allocate to nuclear fission and transfer them entirely and directly to renewable energies.
This is the next challenge, in my opinion.
At a time when the great nuclear States of Europe such as Germany are questioning their nuclear programmes, when France is starting to talk about doing so, we cannot continue to spend such vast sums, four times, let me say again, what we are spending on renewable energies, on these energy policies.
It is not acceptable.
I therefore ask my fellow Members to vote against this draft agreement, especially as the Council has the audacity to cavil at a few million.
But, of course, the problem does not lie here.
The problem is one of resources.
12%, as Mrs Rothe said, is not enough.
We should set ourselves far more ambitious objectives, and this Parliament must force the Council and the Commission to find the resources necessary for this policy.
Mr President, my congratulations also to Mr Lange, who has shown real interest and enthusiasm in presenting his report and his amendments following on for Mr Robles Piquer.
I am pleased to see our new Commissioner, Mrs de Palacio.
We look forward to working with her and we hope she will soon share, if she does not already, our enthusiasm for renewable energy.
Together with the SAVE Programme, we have in ALTENER II a way of showing the public of Europe that there are rational ways to meet the challenge of climate change: energy efficiency and renewable sources of energy.
We are asking Member States to pledge their commitment to the encouragement of renewable energy - and they all say, individually, that they have this commitment - by signing a Charter on renewable energy - the EURENEW Charter.
This would symbolise the added value of working together in the EU on society' s wishes and needs.
Of course, the environmental benefits of renewable energy are obvious.
But Mr Langen wisely reminds us of the enormous potential for European industry.
One needs only to look at Denmark.
And I fully support his call for the European Renewable Energies Export Council to be strengthened.
Sadly, we lost one of the driving forces with the sudden death, earlier this year, of John Bonda, but others will carry on his work in the Export Council.
I must say I am very pleased at the vocational training element of ALTENER II. That is to be welcomed.
The budget is clearly inadequate and has to be increased if this programme is to be properly effective.
I hope that an indication can be given by the Council in time for the appropriate changes to be made in the first reading of the 2000 budget.
The emphasis on information dissemination in ALTENER II is very important indeed, and I look forward, if it is available yet, to looking at the Agores Centre on the Worldwide Web which is clearly intended to bring together all sorts of information on renewable energy so that everyone can look it up and can be kept up-to-date.
Alongside ALTENER, and the research into renewable energy in the 5th Framework Programme, which we hope will be very significant, we need urgent flanking measures such as the "feed-in directive" for the electricity market.
I hope we will hear more about this shortly from the Commission.
The White Paper raised expectations, and we look forward to the exciting campaign for take-off with its 1 million PV systems, its large windfarm, its biomass and most exciting of all its 100 communities where all the electricity will come from renewable energy.
There is nowhere in the whole of European Union where renewable energy is not relevant, whether it is Lapland or the Islands of Greece.
The ALTENER II Programme will work and can work in every Member State and of course, outside the European Union in applicant countries, for example, as well as in the Mediterranean countries where the potential is huge.
Renewable energy should become the symbol of what is sensible and progressive about Europe. This programme will help us obtain that symbol.
Mr President, Mr Langen, an outstanding report, you have my respect.
Utilising renewable sources of energy is a model example for the development and use of the most modern technologies which, at the same time, contribute to caring for the environment.
However, there is also a second aspect.
If one looks at those firms in Europe which are particularly involved in this area, it can be seen that these are mainly small and medium-sized companies.
And, of course, since these small and medium-sized companies have, with these new technologies, made a considerable contribution to the employment policy of securing jobs, it is also a question of continuing to support them.
In contrast to the big energy concerns in which employees are being laid off, by launching this programme and by promoting alternative energy sources, we are also making a contribution as Europeans to increasing the status of employment policy.
At the same time, it must, of course, be said that this programme also has a special significance from the point of view of the enlargement of the EU eastwards.
Of course, we are also concerned with bringing regenerative, environmentally-friendly energy production to these particular countries in order both to promote the protection of the environment and also of course - this must be added in all honesty - to open up new markets.
To that extent, the resources made available for the ALTENER programme are in no way adequate.
They must be increased, and the European Council must also be more heavily involved in the export of renewable energy sources. In that way, expertise can be combined and translated more quickly into effective action.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have prepared a speech which essentially repeats what the previous speaker said.
I am, unfortunately, in the sad position of having to read out to you a message from Reuters news agency which proves the importance of what we are talking about here.
The message was issued at 3.07 p.m., less than 30 minutes ago. It reads: Seoul, 22 injured in accident in South Korean nuclear power station.
The precise text reads: 22 workers have been injured in an accident in a South Korean nuclear power station.
They were exposed to radioactive radiation when heavy water escaped.
This was reported today by the Yonhap news agency.
Rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, last March I already had occasion to say that as a Frenchman, I was and still am in favour of a highly voluntarist policy on energy.
We must, as far as possible, move beyond the mere declarations of intent which have been heard so many times over the last decade, and find strong concrete applications if we want to achieve this target, a very modest one by the way, of 12%.
It is only on this condition that the European Union will be able to provide itself with an energy policy which is durable, balanced and fully secure.
It is of course the European Commission' s task to work towards this.
To this end, two strategies have been developed through two multiannual programmes: SAVE II and ALTENER II.
What must be done today, at their second reading is, of course, to renew both of these programmes, but also to improve them, with the help of the opportunities given to us by the Treaty of Amsterdam and by codecision.
As far as the Langen report is concerned, and this is really what my intervention is about, as well as sources of renewable energy, everyone knows how important these energies are in reducing pollution and in preserving natural resources.
We are also aware of the difficulties preventing these sources of energy from entering a free market in which more traditional energy resources are often much cheaper, not to mention the absence of measures designed to promote the taking up of new energies on a voluntarist basis.
This is, of course, why I approve of the amendments tabled by Mr Langen which demand that the Commission plays a more active role in encouraging a strategy of coordinated promotion within the Member States as well as developing Europe' s potential for exporting technologies connected with renewable energy.
It is true that this will entail additional costs. We must bear these costs because they are actually quite modest compared to what is at stake: around EUR 7 million.
I also approve, of course, of the call for a charter on renewable energy.
In conclusion, I shall say that the vote for these two reports represents a pledge to the citizens of Europe, showing the European Union' s will to protect the environment whilst reducing our dependence on energy.
This is also a statement and a measure against the dictatorship of the market and of out-and-out liberalism.
More specifically, on the threshold of the next world conference on climate change which is to be held in Bonn, this sends out a positive sign of our Kyoto commitment to reduce CO2 emissions.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate Mr Langen, the rapporteur, on his report on the adoption of the multiannual programme for the promotion of renewable energy sources in the Community, Altener II.
A number of people have made critical comments about the nuclear programme in the Community.
Fusion power is perhaps technically renewable energy, nevertheless this is not what we are talking about here.
This is a report that originated with the Commission proposal in November 1997 which the last Parliament considered at first reading, in the Robles Piquer report, in February.
Now with the Treaty of Amsterdam we have moved over to codecision and we are having a second reading here today.
The major thrust of the report is the demand for the doubling of the amount of renewable energy to 12% by 2010.
This is something we clearly support in the Socialist Group, but I am not entirely sure that commitment is accompanied either by the political resources - which is one of the reasons we are asking for the campaign to encourage and foster renewable energy - or, more importantly, by the financial resources.
The amount that is being allocated is far too small in my view and does not add up in terms of achieving a doubling.
We have EUR 80 million allocated: EUR 30 million for 1998-99 and EUR 50 million for 2000-2002.
It seems to me, firstly, that the amount available is far too little and secondly, if we are expecting a doubling of the amount of renewable energy, there should be a sharp increase in the amount of money being made available over a period of time.
In fact, even this may not be allocated given that Amendment No 5 to Article 1(3) (new), actually says that the amount of money might have to be reduced if it is inconsistent with the financial perspective for the period in question.
I welcome Amendment No 6 to Article 2(e)(a) (new) about the need to encourage the export of renewable energy technologies from the European Union and to encourage the European Renewable Energies Export Council.
In conclusion, a number of short points: renewable energies cannot be shoe-horned into the current thinking of energy suppliers, who are trained to see energy production as always being large scale and costing hundreds or thousands of millions of euros in terms of each project.
Many will be small, community-based schemes which will be site-specific, whether using wind, waves, solar power, combined heat and power or even biomass.
That means, if we are to encourage lots of small schemes, that we need even more money.
Secondly, if we are serious about exports we should also pay some attention to renewable energy sources in which we in the European Union have a technological lead, which is not necessarily the case here.
One of which I am aware of is ocean thermal energy conversion that uses the temperature difference between the cold bottom waters of the tropics and the warm surface waters.
We have a lead in Europe but we are not encouraging that.
If we want to export these technologies we need to make sure that the resources are available.
Mr President, before coming to the point and discussing the adoption of the European Parliament and Council Decision on the application of the ALTENER programme in accordance with the codecision procedure, once the Treaty of Amsterdam is approved, I would like firstly to express my satisfaction, acknowledgement and gratitude for the support that the Commission has received at all times from the European Parliament specifically in the field of renewable energy.
To this end, I would like to thank Mr Langen who is continuing the work of his predecessor, Mr Robles Piquer, a great promoter of these forms of renewable energy.
Furthermore, to an extent, both Mr Langen and Mr Robles Piquer have demonstrated that this is not an ideological issue, that we must not mix up questions of liberalism or non-liberalism with what must be our ultimate common objective, which is to promote the use of renewable energy in Europe.
This is an effort which corresponds to and obeys two key objectives of European energy policy.
Firstly, an energy policy which respects the environment; an energy policy which takes into account the future of our planet. This must be a characteristic not only of our energy policy but also of any policy worthy of its name on this dawning of the 21st century.
Secondly, we must examine something which is of great concern in Europe: our dependence on third countries with regard to the supply of energy.
As soon as we are able to achieve our objective of doubling our sources of renewable energy supply from the current 6% to 12%, we will be less dependent on third countries, some of which may be facing a difficult future.
I have to say, Mr President, that the first ALTENER programme and later the White Paper on Renewable Energy Sources, which has developed Community strategy and the action plan for 2010, have been possible thanks, and I repeat, to the cooperation between our two institutions, Parliament and the Commission, and that the new European Union renewable energy policy has been put together precisely as a result of a good understanding between us.
With regard to the ALTENER programme, which is the second bearing this name, we are now confronted with its enlargement and incorporation into the multiannual framework programme for action in the field of energy.
Please allow me, having congratulated Mr Langen on his magnificent work, to also express my gratitude to all the other speakers during the debate.
With regard to Mr Langen and the proposed amendments, which have also been mentioned by some of the other speakers, it is my pleasure to announce that the Commission can accept practically all of them, although I will make some particular points with regard to the last three.
Some will be accepted in their entirety.
In the case of some others, I will request a different wording which will render them acceptable to the Commission.
As for Amendment No 1, the Commission has always believed that renewable energy policy and energy efficiency policy are closely linked, as some speakers have pointed out, and that the coordination of these two policies is essential.
Reference is made to a EURONEW charter, and we must ask ourselves whether it may be premature given that we have little perspective on the strategies and action plans which have already been approved.
Perhaps we need a little more time.
Amendment No 3, especially once the working document of the Commission services on the renewal campaign, which has been communicated to Parliament and the Council, has been adopted, is not only acceptable to the Commission but we embrace it with great satisfaction and gratitude.
Amendment No 4 is acceptable in principle, although the Commission considers that it does not so much constitute a third objective of the programme but rather an expansion of the first objective.
With respect to Amendment No 6, I would like to remind you of the favourable acceptance by the Commission of the Parliament' s report on the European Union' s new perspectives in the field of the export of technology and services for the use of renewable energy when it was presented in the plenary meeting on 15 January.
However, it is a question of, rather than requiring a new action, considering whether point 25 does not already reflect this need to prioritise exports in order to improve the position of the European industry, which is world leader in certain renewable energy sources, which some speakers have referred to, because in this field we have clear advantages over other producers.
This is perhaps where most progress has been made, in Europe and in this field, in recent years.
Amendments Nos. 2 and 7, as well as Nos. 8 and 9, which have reached us in the course of today, have the support of the Commission in principle, although their wording will have to be revised and adapted to a form which is acceptable to the Commission.
Amendment No 5 is in accordance with the initial proposal of the Commission.
It is therefore totally acceptable.
With regard to Amendment No 10, when it mentions associated Mediterranean countries and Cyprus, I would like to know exactly what we are talking about and therefore tomorrow, when the vote is taken, Mr Patten will raise this question.
But alternatively, during our future discussions, we could talk about this issue so that we can specify who and what we are referring to, which would be the most appropriate way, from our point of view, to deal with the concern that this amendment clearly raises.
Mr President, I would like once again to congratulate Mr Langen on his contribution to the continuation and consolidation of the ALTENER programme, since we must remember that this programme is our main instrument, although not from a financial point of view, in the carrying out of the European Union' s strategy on renewable energy.
It is undoubtedly the main instrument of coordination, control and monitoring of that strategy.
There is no doubt that a key question in all of this will be the Directive on access to the electricity network for renewable energy sources.
This will clearly be the key instrument in order to see whether we are capable of promoting the use of this type of energy within our countries.
As you all know, the sources of renewable energy, in the support systems - apart from hydroelectricity, which does achieve very competitive results when compared to other energy sources - cannot compete with traditional sources of energy.
Not even in the case of biomass, which is one of the alternative sources which clearly has its place within the framework of the common agricultural policy.
And it is clearly through the possibility of providing access to the network, through being flexible enough in the proposals that we put forward, which allow us to cover the different instruments which the different Member States have used and which are not homogenous and are different, that we will be able to guarantee that renewable energy is not only maintained but doubled in the coming years.
I would like to express my thanks once again and say that I hope that the final revision will contain the definitive formula and therefore provide an impetus for the ALTENER programme, which will clearly promote the use of renewable energy in Europe.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
SAVE multiannual programme (1998-2002)
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0015/99) by Mrs Ahern, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adoption of the Decision of the European Parliament and of the Council adopting a multiannual programme for the promotion of energy efficiency (SAVE) (1998-2002) (7123/1/99 - C5-0033/99 - 97/0371(COD)).
Mr President, I should like first of all to welcome Commissioner de Palacio to this House today. I look forward to working cooperatively with her.
I cannot, however, let the information that I have just received about the nuclear accident in South Korea go unrecognised.
I was very shocked and saddened to hear of the deaths of 22 workers, apparently as the result of a heavy water accident.
That underlines what we are trying to do here today and the need for changes in energy policy and in the budget for energy policy.
SAVE is the only Community-wide programme dedicated to promoting the rational use of energy.
SAVE II focuses on the non-technical elements, helping to build energy efficiency infrastructure, and therefore does not pay for hardware investments.
The purpose of the programme is rather to create an environment in which investments and energy efficiency will be promoted and where energy efficiency will be recognised as a market opportunity.
We have heard about the difficulties of competition and renewable energy, but energy saving also saves money and, therefore, is a good investment all round.
The SAVE programme was thoroughly and positively evaluated in 1994.
I congratulate the Commission on the way it was run: credit where credit is due.
This House gives kicks to the Commission when it sees programmes badly run. When a programme is well run and has been evaluated as such, we must also give it credit.
The evaluation highlighted SAVE as a valuable policy instrument to promote energy efficiency but stressed that a clear and consistent strategy for pilot actions was required; that dissemination of results is the key to long-term success; and that long-term effectiveness requires better on-going monitoring and impact analysis.
The evaluation also showed that SAVE actions will also indirectly lead to the achievement of the objectives of the non-nuclear energy R&D programme through the creation of a positive environment for the dissemination and implementation of new technology in renewable energies.
The amendments proposed by this report are a direct result of this evaluation.
Energy efficiency means lower consumption, the conservation of non-renewable energy sources and reduced dependence on energy imports, but most of all it means lower levels of environmental pollution from harmful substances such as CO2, one of the major causes of the greenhouse effect.
The European Parliament has often underlined the importance of energy-efficient actions and the Council has also emphasised the need for energy savings and a reduction in CO2 emissions in a series of resolutions.
However, these announcements have been followed up by very modest proposals.
The energy savings targets will, in all likelihood, not be achieved by the means foreseen in the SAVE II programme.
As the Community has so far not been able to agree on what is probably the most effective instrument for the reduction of greenhouse gases - namely, the taxation of energy consumption - the Commission and the Council regard the SAVE II programme as "an important and necessary instrument" .
Why then make cuts in an already low budget? That is why I have restored the budget figures originally proposed by the Commission which were fully justified.
Bearing in mind the expected increase in the energy CO2 emissions and the low budget allocated to SAVE II it is rather unlikely that the internationally agreed objectives for reducing emissions could be achieved by this programme.
However, under the energy framework programme SAVE II offers an opportunity to reverse a trend.
Since at Member State level progress has stagnated, the responsibility for achieving energy efficiency targets and meeting reduction commitments now lies with the Community.
The Finnish presidency has therefore announced an action plan for energy efficiency during the second half of 1999. It is very welcome and important.
The Commission argues in favour of setting a Community energy efficiency target.
Given the approximately 1% annual improvement in energy efficiency in final consumption achieved so far, the Commission calls for a target of reducing energy intensity in final demand by a further percentage point per year.
Given our commitments, as already underlined, it is incomprehensible that the Commission could confine itself to such a target.
A goal of a further one-and-a-half percentage points should be set in order to develop additional savings potential.
As you know, Parliament agreed this at first reading.
I should just like to add two technical points.
We have, on legal advice, improved the comitology amendments.
Therefore we have replaced Amendment No 5 by a new Amendment No 13, and Amendment No 11 by a new Amendment No 12.
This was on legal advice to improve the original amendments.
I hope that will be acceptable to everyone.
Mr President, rapporteur, Commissioner, I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Ahern, for the dynamism with which she has taken up the work of the previous rapporteur Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz on the multiannual programme to promote energy efficiency, SAVE II for the 1998-2002 period, and has prepared it for the second reading in this Chamber.
In addition, I would like to thank the Commission for the preparatory work it has carried out.
SAVE, the joint programme for energy efficiency and energy savings, is an important and necessary part of the European Community' s strategy to promote efficient energy consumption and also to reduce CO2 emissions.
The SAVE programme is to be supplemented as a policy instrument by the specific programme covering issues relating to energy, the environment, and renewable energy technologies which forms part of the fifth framework programme for activities in the field of research, technological development and demonstration.
A number of objectives relating to the emission of greenhouse gases were set in Rio de Janeiro and Berlin.
In addition, the EU undertook to comply with a number of important statements on this subject in Kyoto.
The time has now come to turn the fine words uttered in Kyoto into deeds.
The EU is in a position to take on the mantle of pioneer and under no circumstances must Kyoto be allowed to degenerate into a pointless paper exercise.
That is why I would like, on behalf of our group, to urge the new European Commissioner to produce more far-reaching proposals which will enable the Kyoto objectives to be realised.
What we need is for Commissioner Bolkestein to finally get round to a decision on the eco-tax at a European level.
Mr President, there is every chance that the EU will fail to meet the objectives relating to the reduction of CO2 emissions.
The SAVE programme can provide a counterbalance to such developments.
But then again, one should not expect much of this programme.
What is more, the budget is very low, which is why our group warmly welcomes the rapporteur' s proposal to increase the SAVE programme' s budget by EUR 4.4 million to EUR 68.4 million.
However, we must not set ourselves unrealistic objectives.
It will be possible, between now and the year 2000, to bring about a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of between 180 and 200 million tons by further improving the energy intensity of the final demand by 5% as compared with normal expectations.
The rapporteur proposes improving the energy intensity of final consumption by one and a half extra percentage points per year over and above the percentage that would otherwise be attained.
Mr President, our group believes that this is an unrealistic aim.
Indeed, it has become apparent that one extra percentage point per year will be quite difficult enough to achieve.
That is why we intend to vote against the rapporteur' s proposal on that point and opt for one per cent.
Should it become apparent, in the fullness of time, that it is possible to achieve more, then of course we will be the first to raise the target.
But we must take care not to present households, energy companies and the like with objectives which, of course, sound marvellous in practice but which are just not realistic.
That would be very demotivating for those who have to do what is necessary to meet these goals.
My group feels that some of the proposals made by the rapporteur go into too much detail.
The rapporteur has placed the main stress on legislation.
We believe that only a framework should be created at European Union level.
According to the principle of subsidiarity, a considerable proportion of the measures for increasing energy efficiency must be taken at national, regional and local level.
That is why the PPE group will reject those amendments that prescribe an overly rigid framework.
Instead of this, I feel that it would be a much better idea to draw up various incentives measures which will encourage governments and the business community to conclude voluntary agreements, for example.
Experiences in my country have shown that in many cases more is achieved as a result of voluntary agreements than as a result of obligations imposed by legislation.
It is better to make use of the resourcefulness of the parties involved than to impose obligations on them in this area by means of legislation.
Mr President, to conclude I would like to touch on another important theme.
I wish to emphasis anew the importance of the proposal to throw open the SAVE programme to associate countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
A very great deal remains to be done in Central and Eastern Europe.
The energy sectors in these countries are lagging far behind the EU Member States when it comes to energy efficiency.
There is also still a huge amount to be organised in terms of legislation.
But when it comes to saving energy, these countries stand to achieve so much more than EU countries by employing the same efforts, which is why the returns would be so much greater.
I therefore hope that energy companies in EU Member States in particular, that have a great deal of experience of projects in the field of energy efficiency, can share their knowledge with these countries and, Commissioner, it is my special hope that these energy companies then have a real chance as far as projects are concerned and are not just shoved aside by American companies.
May I congratulate Mrs Ahern on so enthusiastically taking up the work which Mrs Bloch von Blottnitz began.
Energy efficiency is one of the few obvious contributions towards the attainment of the targets set for the EU in Kyoto.
By saving energy, we produce fewer CO2 emissions and other pollutants. We also make our businesses more competitive.
We can create thousands of much needed jobs and we can allow gas and electricity suppliers to make their money in a more sensible way by selling the services which energy gives us - warm homes, cool fridges and machines which work - rather than selling increasingly large amounts of gas and electricity.
The main area in which work is needed is actually that of domestic householders. They use more energy than industry and they use it in a profligate way.
That is why many of the measures in SAVE II are aimed at households - better design of houses, more economical household appliances and effective education programmes.
Unlike Mr van Velzen, I support very strongly the rapporteur' s amendment raising the percentage of savings to 1.5% above what would happen anyway.
We only have to look at the progress in some Member States, including the Netherlands, to see that this is a perfectly attainable percentage.
I am convinced that the use of regional and local networks like Federene, Energie Cities and Islenet is one of the most effective ways in which to bring about change, and I hope they will be specifically encouraged in SAVE II as they were in SAVE I. It is important, of course, that we monitor SAVE II and that its achievements are quantified.
Our committee will shortly be putting in place a mechanism to ensure that we monitor all spending programmes very closely.
SAVE II could be an example of how funding can be used in other EU programmes such as structural funds and funding for third countries.
The budget again is inadequate. This programme is not enough on its own either.
I hope, Commissioner, that you will persevere with the philosophy behind the rational planning directive.
I am pleased that you have done so so far, and we look forward to your next communications on energy efficiency.
It is very good to start the work of this new Parliament with programmes which can make a difference, both to the environment and, of course, to the competitiveness needs of our Member States.
Like ALTENER, SAVE II is one of those programmes.
Mr President, Commissioner, first and foremost, may I offer the rapporteur my warmest thanks for her outstanding work.
The Liberal Group considers promoting energy efficiency to be a key factor in the European Union' s energy policy.
However, if the Union wishes to pursue a credible energy policy, then the time will come when the Commission and Council will, at last, have to draw conclusions from the previous SAVE programmes.
This is a necessary prerequisite for the third SAVE programme, which has a great deal to offer, being able to achieve the desired effect.
The liberalisation of the energy markets is currently in full swing, resulting in considerable price reductions.
According to the economic principles that normally apply, offering energy at lower prices is diametrically opposed to the call for consumption to be reduced.
Energy-saving measures risk fading away against such a background.
That is why it falls to us to adopt the SAVE programme so that the liberalisation of the energy markets can go hand in hand with increased energy efficiency within the European Union.
It will only be possible to secure the effectiveness of the SAVE programme if adequate publicity is given to the initiative and there is substantial follow-up to the SAVE III programme projects and activities which are to be financed.
This can best be achieved by setting concrete objectives.
That is why the Liberals will give their full support to amendments 2 and 5 which aim to increase the energy efficiency of the final demand by 1.5 extra percentage points per year.
If we want to achieve our goals, then we really do need to have the courage to set high standards.
Ladies and gentlemen, the reference to renewable energy sources, on the other hand, appears to me to be inopportune.
It can only cause confusion with the ALTENER programme.
In any case, to my mind, the best thing to do as regards renewable energy sources would be to enter into a preparatory and searching debate about access to the electricity grid.
I am convinced that governments have an important role to play when it comes to leading by example in matters relating to rational energy consumption.
This position is in stark contrast to the observation that, equally, government buildings could be described for the most part as archetypal wasters of energy.
Citizens that have cause to enter government buildings ought to be able to see that saving energy is a concern to which the government gives priority.
It would thus be a good idea to designate a Mr or Mrs Energy whose specific task would be to strictly monitor energy consumption in government buildings.
Let us lead by example ourselves in this respect and start by designating a Mr or Mrs Energy in the European Parliament in both Brussels and Strasbourg.
Simple measures are usually far more effective than long-winded programmes.
Mr President, a sensible energy policy should aim to change behaviour at every stage.
So promoting energy efficiency should also be a natural part of any energy policy.
If we take the Kyoto targets seriously - as we hopefully do - then we must also follow them up with the relevant tools and resources.
In the programme we have before us, tools and funding are both inadequate and are not given a high enough priority.
In view of the obligations we have assumed in regard to CO2 reduction, it is urgently necessary to establish ambitious efficiency targets.
I therefore find it incomprehensible that the Commission wants to enhance levels of final energy by only 1 percentage point per year.
As Mrs Ahern pointed out, the target ought to be at least 1.5%, and the budget ought also to be larger.
Unlike the previous speaker, I do see the need for a reduction in CO2 emissions linked to programmes for renewable energy sources, such as the ALTENER programme.
Linking of this kind means that nuclear power cannot merely be left, as some would wish, to replace existing power stations which pollute the atmosphere with CO2 emissions.
It is often emphasised that nuclear power is one of the cleanest energy sources and does not discharge greenhouse gases.
I totally disagree with this.
Technical progress in recent years has markedly improved the efficiency of renewable energy sources and, instead of giving so many resources to the nuclear industry in Europe as the Community is notorious for doing, efforts to promote renewable energy sources should be strengthened.
I am also completely in agreement with Mr Van Velzen in believing that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe should be permitted to take part in this programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all, I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Ahern for her work on highlighting the importance of promoting energy efficiency.
Greater energy efficiency will mean less consumption in the medium-term, safeguarding renewable energy sources, less dependence on energy imports as well as less environmental pollution.
I would like to make two points on the draft recommendation for second reading, keeping in mind that the SAVE programme is aimed mainly at strengthening research and the exchange of know how, as well as monitoring the results achieved in the sector (Article 2), despite the limited financial resources.
My points are that firstly, as for today' s discussion on the proposal to set the improvement of energy intensity of final consumption at 1.5% a year - via an amendment to Recital 15 and to Article 1 - I think this goal is certainly ambitious but not very realistic. It is also harmful for the users who have successfully, and with notable efforts, reached the targets set out in the SAVE 1 programme (1991-1995).
As regards this, I would remind you that efficient energy use in the short-term costs firms as much as it does final consumers.
So we need to carefully evaluate the objectives for improving energy intensity in final consumption.
We might risk burdening our production apparatus with costs that will cause our firms to be less competitive with regard to other international competitors who are not bound by these obligations.
Staying with the aim of making our production system competitive and efficient on a global scale, I will now move on to my second point.
I would like to remind you that it is not always effective to promote efficient energy use using extremely restrictive, even intolerable legislative instruments and standards.
Saving energy is a complex process, one which needs to develop gradually and is geared to gaining technological and economic knowledge for firms and users alike, but this will take some time.
So, I welcome the awareness campaigns on subjects linked to saving energy, but I do not see how adopting excessively prescriptive legislation could be the most efficient way of improving the energy intensity of final demand.
I refer here to Amendment 1 to Recital 11, to new Recital 15a and to Amendment 6 to Article 1.
To conclude, in the light of these remarks, I would like to draw your attention to the need to carry out long-term cost/benefit analyses on the introduction of measures to reduce energy intensity of the final demand. These are very complex areas where the market and its regulations come into conflict with public welfare considerations.
These analyses are possible in transparent markets where the individual end user - firm or consumer - can always assess to what point energy use is efficient thanks to gradual progress in the technological and economic spheres, sustained by sound research and as much information as possible.
Mr President, I would like to thank Parliament once again, and especially Mrs Ahern, for the work it has carried out and the repeated support for the Commission' s policy, specifically with regard to the improvement in the use of energy and the increase in energy efficiency which the SAVE programme is aimed at.
On behalf of the Commission, I would also like to thank Mrs Ahern and Mrs McNally for having congratulated the Commission on the development of this type of action, which the officials of the Commission will also be grateful for.
Once approved, this programme will become an important component of the multiannual framework programme for energy, providing a greater degree of transparency and better coordination of our programmes in the energy industry, allowing Parliament to fulfil its monitoring role in the interests of European citizens.
With regard to the report of the Honourable Member and proposed amendments, Mrs Ahern, I would like to say that, in principle, the majority of them are acceptable.
In the case of Amendment No 4, as we said earlier in relation to the ALTENER programme, there is a clear need for renewable energy and energy efficiency to go hand in hand.
All of this constitutes one of the basic objectives of the multiannual framework agreement on energy, which is aimed specifically at improving complementarity and coordination in this field.
As for Amendments Nos. 12 and 13, which replace Amendments Nos. 11 and 5, which the Honourable Members have referred to, and which refer to the involvement of Committees, I would like to say that they are acceptable in principle but require another more appropriate wording.
I can say the same for Amendment No 10, which proposes an increase in the budgetary item which restores the Commission' s initial figures.
With regard to amendments which the Commission cannot accept, I would like to say that, firstly, there is the one which refers to increasing the ambitions of this programme, that is, achieving a saving of 1.5%.
In my view we should not be setting unreasonable figures but rather discussing achievable and ambitious objectives, because the objective is 1% per year, which will add up and eventually lead to considerable savings.
For this reason we can accept neither Amendment No 2 nor Amendment No 6, insofar as this issue is concerned.
With regard to the legal aspect, the SAVE programme is not a legislative programme.
Legislative action and proposals may be brought into play, but it is not in itself a legislative programme.
For this reason, we cannot accept Amendments Nos. 1 and 3, nor part of Amendment No 6.
Honourable Members, the SAVE programme is intended to provide a framework of action in the field of energy efficiency.
We believe that this formula has worked adequately in the past and that it would not be advisable, even with the best intentions, to add too many details or standards which will ultimately hinder the effective implementation of the programme.
We therefore require a certain degree of flexibility and for this reason we cannot accept Amendments Nos. 8 and 9.
Finally, and in the hope of finding a compromise, we can accept Amendment No 7, despite the fact that it presents a little difficulty, requiring some amendments of its wording.
With regard to two questions which have arisen, firstly, I profoundly regret the nuclear accident in South Korea which has happened just days after the accident in Japan and which has affected a number of workers.
Secondly, I would like to mention the Kyoto objective, to which energy efficiency is clearly of key importance.
The Commission will briefly present - it is included in the agenda of the next Council of 2 December - the action plan on energy efficiency, and then we will have the opportunity to discuss these questions in more depth.
With regard to a final matter which I had left out, which is the participation of some countries in Central and Eastern Europe, I would like to say that currently there are ten countries which are benefiting from the SAVE programmes in order to bring about an improvement in energy efficiency.
When we compare data on energy efficiency we find differences of 1:5 and 1:6 in relation to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
Mr President, I will end by congratulating Mrs Ahern once again, thanking all of you for your positive participation in this matter, and Parliament for the support it has lent the Commission in this field and, simply, by saying that we are talking about something very important which is the intelligent use of resources and energy.
Mr President, I asked the Commissioner if, when writing up the project in this field, she would give particular attention to companies in Europe that have a great deal of experience in this field.
It seems to me that she is now saying that she is keen to see the budget increased and has also rightly pointed out that the ratio is one to six and that it would be very much worth our while allowing European companies to play an important part in this.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if she would respond to this.
Mr President, in fact, in some cases we are providing external support for these countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
And not only is bilateral support from some countries being used - since bilateral cooperation with countries of Central and Eastern Europe is also taking place - but we should take into account the support which they receive via the SAVE programme and other Community programmes, by means of which companies are contracted - which are involved in such areas as support, instruction, education and the spread of good practice - and, clearly, amongst them there are companies from the European Union.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
EC-South Africa trade, development and cooperation agreement
The next item is the debate on the recommendation (A5-0020/1999) of Mrs Kinnock, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the proposal for a Council and Commission Decision concerning the conclusion of the trade, development and cooperation agreement between the European Community, on the one part, and the Republic of South Africa, on the other part (8731/1999 COM(1999) 245 - C5-0154/1999 - 1999/0112(AVC)).
Mr President, I would like to express my agreement with the comments of the rapporteur, Mrs Kinnock.
I wish to congratulate Mrs Kinnock and the negotiators who have brought this agreement into being.
I would also like to congratulate everybody because finally we have secured, after an enormously long process, the agreement instrument which the European Union is going to sign with South Africa and which must give renewed and definitive impetus to relations between the two parties.
I have said that the journey has been a long one.
At times, it has seemed interminable.
There have certainly been some complex issues, some of which, like the issue of port and sherry, continue to raise difficulties which we hope will be resolved in the coming days.
But it is also true that there have been times when we have seen behaviour on the part of the European negotiators as well as certain Member States which has been excessively bureaucratic, defensive and at times nit-picking.
We have also been concerned to see at times, on the part of our South African counterparts, a tendency to backtrack and to revive questions which we thought had been resolved, all of this causing the process to be delayed more and more.
Mr President, with the necessary will on both sides to positively resolve any remaining loose ends or interpretations, we are arriving at the point of the parliamentary procedure for approving a rigorous text which is full of hopes and expectations.
This is an agreement which has taken into account diverse interests, interests which are often difficult to reconcile and which, nevertheless, seem to be providing acceptable responses for all sides.
It is an agreement which, while safeguarding and providing opportunities for European interests, must above all contribute to the economic stability and progress of South Africa as well as its political and democratic consolidation.
Mr President, with the signing of this agreement and the support which it lends to the South African process, the European Union is acting coherently.
It is acting coherently with regard to its duty to defend the interests of its Member States, coherently with regard to the principles of social equality and progress which we claim as our own, coherently with regard to the type of world which we wish to build together, with more balance and more solidarity, but also coherently with regard to the actions which many of us and many of our co-Europeans, for four decades, have maintained in the effort to put an end to apartheid while dreaming of the establishment of a South Africa with a regime which provides liberty and dignity for all South Africans.
It would have been unforgivable if, when South Africa has dismantled that odious regime, when the South Africans have made history and shown an example by bringing about an admirable reconciliation, successfully overcoming the always difficult transition from a civil war and a dictatorship, the transition from having the profile of a freedom movement to the establishment of a pluralist, democratic and constitutional State, it would have been scandalous if, when the South Africans have not betrayed our trust in their conduct, we Europeans were not able to rise to the occasion and were to betray the trust which South Africa has put in us.
Mr President, perhaps the thing that most pleases me about this agreement is the fact we have moved from rhetoric to reality and the European Parliament, which has supported and closely monitored the negotiation process, providing impetus and acting as a stimulus, should today commit itself to applying the same energy to the monitoring of its implementation and its results.
Mr President, Europe was as lavish with its fine words when apartheid was abolished as it proved to be miserly when it came to economic concessions.
This small-minded mentality did not hold sway in the Commission but it did in the short-sighted European governments that allowed their national profit interests to carry more weight than the welfare of the South African people.
It has emerged from a recent report by UNCTAD that South Africa' s imports from the European Union are likely to increase more dramatically than exports to this market.
In so far as this is the case, the agreement is certainly going to have to be adjusted.
We are going to have to keep a very close eye on the actual implementation of the agreement.
We must not allow the SADC countries to be disadvantaged by South Africa' s relations with Europe.
The same applies here: a good neighbour is worth more than a distant friend.
Indeed, South Africa must give impetus to the development of the whole region.
Its aggressive expansion in neighbouring countries is doing nothing to further this aim.
The balance of trade with neighbouring countries is completely unstable.
South Africa exports seven times more than it imports.
Just as the European Union has granted Pretoria preferential tariffs, so Pretoria could do the same with its neighbours.
After all, economic development is essential if there is to be political stability and peace throughout the region.
Notwithstanding our criticism of the European Union' s position, we attach a great deal of importance to the fundamental objective of the agreement, that is the economic development of South Africa and integration into international trade.
That is why we support Mrs Kinnock' s recommendation.
Mr President, as the saying goes: better some of a pudding than none of a pie.
Mr President, I am pleased to support this initiative on behalf of the European Free Alliance/Green Group in Parliament.
We thank Mrs Kinnock for her efforts.
Inter-state and, more recently, inter-regional alliances both within the European Union and with partners outside is an initiative we can pride ourselves on developing enthusiastically.
Funding schemes such as INTERREG, PHARE and others are a clear expression of this ideology.
This initiative of itself cannot be expected to resolve overnight, as it were, the problems of economic deprivation in the new South Africa.
It has to address massive domestic problems including social integration, chronically poor housing for the majority of the population, massive unemployment and an economy that produces only 0.46% of world GDP.
The concern of most South Africans is that our initiatives take so long before coming to fruition.
We must ensure that all support schemes can be expedited far quicker than at present.
An agreement that provides for the full liberalisation of 95% of South African exports to the EU over a ten-year period with tariffs eliminated on 86% of its industrial goods is a very long time to wait for a country facing such acute economic and social problems.
Tariff restrictions are fine, but should be viewed in the context of the restrictions on third world countries exporting to the developed world being four times as stringent as the tariffs we face when we export to them.
Inter-regional relationships must also be fostered with South Africa, a country of regions.
The role that the regions and historical nations of the EU can have in building economic and cultural links with the diverse regions of Africa is vital and should be an essential prerequisite to its future prospects, as will the elimination of its debt.
The decision of the World Economic Summit in Cologne this year to cancel $100 billion of third world debt was important in this regard and should be a catalyst for further action by all EU countries, not just the few.
Financial partnership is not the panacea that will cure the problems of South Africa as a whole.
A whole raft of issues that are crucial to the task of ensuring that South Africa is in a position to maximise the opportunities afforded by this agreement now need to be explored in a holistic way.
The EU should be looking to develop strategies and training programmes to ensure that the regeneration of the South African economy is sustainable in the long term both economically and environmentally.
I welcome this initiative.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Kinnock for her report.
The agreement between the European Union and South Africa, which we are debating today, is of great importance.
I am all the more favourable towards it because the Council stalled the negotiations at the beginning of the year, which sent out a very bad sign to the South African people.
In February 1999, our House expressed its failure to understand this rejection, even if the interests of certain European agricultural producers had to be taken into account.
This could have been done though, without threatening the discussions in their entirety.
Parliament' s urgent appeal was obviously heard, because the Council finally approved the agreement.
I am also pleased that at the insistence of the South Africans, the agreement was extended to cover development cooperation, too.
What we have to do now is to follow very closely the way the agreement is applied to ensure that its most positive aspects contribute to the development of the new South Africa.
Although it is a "rich country" in one of the poorest continents, relations within society there are still very unevenly balanced, to the extent that the UNDP ranks this country 93rd in its human development index.
52% of annual income goes to only 10% of the population, and unemployment rose from 30% in 1994 to 37% in 1997.
These disparities reflect the racial divisions which still exist.
To sum up the situation, and this is what South Africans themselves say, "Apartheid has been defeated in political terms, but it is still very much present in the daily life of millions of people, in economic and social terms."
There is a noticeable, justifiable impatience, particularly among the black population.
Having showed our solidarity with the movement for freedom from the harsh apartheid regime, we must now support the unprecedented efforts which have led to the RDP.
Substantial advances have already been made in providing schooling for children, local medical services, access to drinking water and to electricity. Nevertheless, a great deal still remains to be done.
This agreement means all the more to me because, after years of going on demonstrations for the release of Nelson Mandela, I had the privilege of going to South Africa on the day after he was elected President.
Finally, we must listen to those expressing their concern about the consequences of free trade.
South Africa' s preference was from the outset for an agreement close to the measures of the Lomé Convention, and Unctad predicts an unequal impact on the bilateral movements of trade to the detriment of South African products.
Also, concerns and fears at a regional level in the countries within the Southern African Customs Union have not been given sufficient consideration.
Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland will be losing a major source of revenue as the entry into force of the agreement will lead to a dramatic fall in the level of the sums currently raised by customs duties in their Union.
In addition to this, the appearance on their market of produce subsidised by the CAP will represent a real threat to their agriculture.
The agreement that we are discussing is of strategic importance for both parties. It is also of strategic importance for the peace, stability and development of Southern Africa.
As well as giving my approval, I would like to finish by putting forward a proposal.
Perhaps we could hold hearings in Parliament for the ambassadors of Southern African countries in order to involve them directly in these new relations between the European Union and this part of the world, which is so crucial to the future of the whole African continent.
Mr President, as a representative of an agricultural country, France, and more importantly of a country which has linked its name and its policies with a particular concept of cooperation with Africa, we cannot go in the direction Mrs Kinnock is leading us, and as a result, we cannot approve the so-called trade and cooperation agreement with the Republic of South Africa, both because of its form and its content.
The problems of content are quite obvious.
The first problem concerns the nature of the settlement on the registered designation of origin.
To grant financial compensation to a country in order for it to stop its improper use of protected names - such as sherry, to give an individual case - sets an extremely dangerous precedent.
It is obvious, moreover, that if this agreement were ratified by national governments, whose main role, I just mention in passing, has been proven once more, any non-EU country could decide to use a European official designation of origin in order then to negotiate a financial settlement.
This is absurd.
The second problem with the content strikes us as being even more serious. It concerns the very philosophy, or rather the ideology, implicit in this agreement.
To claim that the liberalisation of trade is a priori favourable to development certainly adheres to the creed of globalisation which is holding sway everywhere, but reality continually shows these allegations to be false.
Firstly, it is obvious that poor countries are being dragged further and further down as their borders are increasingly opened up and their essential services increasingly privatised.
Moreover, the countries which are already dominant today have guaranteed their own expansion within the framework of a planned protectionist system, and it is this protectionism that I hope and pray for.
The agreement corresponds to an ideology whose sole aim is to mask the pernicious policy of a commercial superpower, the United States, and in this area as in many others, Europe has gone astray as a result of clinging to the Americans' heels.
As to the form of the agreement, I shall just mention it briefly.
It gives an additional illustration of the connivance between the Commission and Parliament aimed at divesting the European Council of something that I believe to be its exclusive competence, which is foreign policy.
For all of these reasons, we cannot give our approval to this agreement.
Mr President, whilst we recognise the valuable aspects of the agreement as regards trade, development and cooperation between the European Community and the Republic of South Africa, it has raised some critical questions in our minds, as it has in that of Mrs Kinnock, relating to suggestions to be addressed to the Commission and the Council.
Firstly, trade relations between the European Union and South Africa are characterised by a pronounced dependency.
The latter depends to a very large extent on the former both in terms of its imports (33%) and its exports (40%).
This is certainly not the case the other way around.
So why then are we not allowing South African products full access to the European market? In this way, the good intentions the Member States had towards South Africa as a developing country in 1994 are evaporating.
Secondly, an assessment of the Lomé Agreement in 1996 demonstrated that asymmetrical liberalisation of trade is not exclusively to the advantage of developing countries.
This is because such asymmetry stops them learning how to compete against world prices.
To what extent does this drawback apply to South African products too?
Thirdly, we strongly recommend that the agreement between the European Union and South Africa should not be to the detriment of Pretoria' s excellent regional trade relations.
If good rules of origin are applied, then South Africa' s partners in the SADC and SACU ought to be able to benefit from the trade agreement too.
Following on from Mrs Kinnock' s sharp observation that the European Union has "sought to hold South Africa hostage to its own subsidised farmers" , my fourth point is that failing to include the wines and spirits sectors in the agreement was a downright omission.
What will the damage to the European market actually be as a result?
On a final note: EU development policy towards South Africa will yield little fruit while Europe is not prepared to make sacrifices to this end.
In the recent past, work in the field of development cooperation has been placing increasing emphasis on development by integration into the world market, and rightly so in our view.
However, this trade agreement contains certain elements that will impede South Africa' s integration into the world market.
All in all, European self-interest appears once again to rule the day.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent report that begins by saying that after five years of discussion, hesitation, prevarication, consultation and negotiation, at last, we have a trade agreement between the European Union and South Africa.
The Dutch would express this more succinctly, Mrs Kinnock, by saying that after five years of moaning, whining and whinging, the die is finally cast.
The Dutch nationals in our midst will know very well what I mean by this.
Incidentally, and I agree with Mr Van den Bos on this, the Member States were the major culprits as regards all the moaning, whining and whinging. It was not the Commission and it certainly was not Parliament.
Mr President, whatever the words are that we use to express it in our national languages, the negotiations for this trade agreement were dragged out over a long period of time in an unprecedented manner, which was, as many resolutions in this House have expressed, a poor performance, particularly in view of the courageous transition to free and democratic government carried through by South Africa; a marvellous achievement in an age when there is so much violence in the world.
That is why South Africa is an example to us all.
The EU is South Africa' s foremost trading partner, absorbing 33% of its exports and accounting for 40% of its imports.
That is why this agreement is so important for us, but, more importantly, for South Africa.
It is a modern agreement which is adapted to the times and is all about the liberalisation of tariffs, the setting up of a free trade area, agreements on economic and development cooperation and agreements on science and technology and on a political dialogue.
To sum up, it is an agreement that is sure to enable both sides to make progress for a few years.
It could have been better of course but I think we would be well advised to just be satisfied with it for the time being.
An asymmetrical trade agreement also has a lot to offer in that Europe is to open its markets to 95% of South African exports and South Africa, in its turn, is to open its markets to 86% of European exports. This will involve 75% of South African agricultural products.
Indeed, most trading products will soon, or at least in three years' time, be allowed in, subject to as few restrictions as possible.
Of course, the fact that port and sherry have caused such delay and that, what is more, transitional regimes of 5 to 12 years have been created for this, does not inspire much confidence.
But neither does this matter a great deal.
I agree with Mr Gahler and I can tell him that we drink more "sect" than champagne in the Netherlands.
So in the long run, quality, along with price is at least as important as the name.
Mr President, I have said enough on the detail of this agreement.
The political aspects of the agreements are, of course, just as important.
As far as that is concerned, we sincerely hope that this agreement will give a positive boost to the economic development and political stabilisation of South Africa.
There is still a great deal of cause for concern there, though, for the pace of economic development in South Africa is slackening, as a result of which the fight against poverty, which is to reduce the deprivation suffered by the black and coloured populations owing to years of apartheid, is not making nearly enough progress.
Poverty is still there for all to see in South Africa and this is leading to a section of the younger generation becoming frustrated and also turning to crime.
This does not just have a serious impact on the groups concerned for it also, I am sorry to say, holds back a certain amount of investment, which causes economic development to slacken off further still.
It is important that this trade agreement has, at last, got off the ground now because it will make it possible for the European business community to know what stage it is at in South Africa and the same applies to the South African business community.
In any event, the Netherlands is soon to send a trade delegation to South Africa and I hope that the other Member States will follow suit.
South Africa needs new impetus to promote economic growth and drive out poverty at a more rapid pace.
This would benefit political stability and is what is most needed.
Mr President, South Africa will enter a new era when the forthcoming elections are over. It will be an era in which signs of hope and progress must be translated into economic and social stability and into justice.
This trade agreement has a positive role to fulfil here.
My group endorses it and I sincerely hope that positive consequences will indeed flow from it.
Mr President, with Nelson Mandela' s farewell as President and the election of Thabo Mbeki, South Africa entered a new political era.
As one young South African who had grown up in Denmark expressed it, "it is good for South Africa now that Mandela is retiring."
It is not good for a democracy to have a god as President, and Mandela was and remains a deity.
But you do not rebel against gods, not in any case when they have just opened the way to freedom.
By this, I do not mean that Thabo Mbeki does not have god-like characteristics. What I mean is that the patience shown by the poor towards Nelson Mandela will not be shown towards Thabo Mbeki.
They are making demands here and now for food, housing, education, that is to say, all the things which we in the western world take for granted.
For the time being, they remain only criminals.
Subsequently, they will rise in rebellion. This puts Thabo Mbeki in a quite different situation from his predecessor, but it also puts us in the EU in a quite different situation.
We should remember this fact and we should also remember the Balkans and what Kofi Annan said in his speech to the UN at the opening of the General Assembly this year: that it is incredible how much we sacrifice to go to war and how little we sacrifice to prevent war.
That is why it is good that we have obtained the present agreement between South Africa and the EU.
It is certainly not as good as it ought to be.
It is not nearly generous enough, and I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Kinnock, for pointing this out.
Nonetheless, it is there and it binds the EU and South Africa together.
Hopefully, it will mean that, in South Africa too, it is felt that it is no longer so very far from the EU to South Africa, either physically or psychologically, and that the gap between words and action is no longer so lengthy as, without a shadow of a doubt, it was felt to be in the period after 1994 and up until 1999.
Mr President, the first thing I want to say is how much I welcome what I hope will be the successful conclusion of this landmark agreement, and I congratulate the rapporteur for her tireless work to get the best possible outcome.
This agreement is one of the first free-trade agreements with a developing country and so it sets a number of important precedents.
One of the most significant of these is the fact that it has broadened from a focus on trade alone to a wider emphasis on development cooperation.
I welcome that, but there are also other precedents it might set which could be less positive, in particular its impact on other countries in the region.
One key area of concern for these Southern African Customs Union (SACU) countries is the loss of customs revenue, as Mrs Kinnock has said.
At the moment these countries rely heavily on customs duties which are collected from European imports and shared out between the customs union members.
We are talking about significant amounts of money here.
Swaziland, for example, depends on these for up to 40% of all government revenues.
But, with the free trade agreement in place, products arriving from the EU into South Africa duty-free will also enter the other customs union countries duty-free - there are no tariff barriers between them.
So there is a very real concern among SACU countries that these products will undercut local goods in their own markets.
While that might make products cheaper for southern African consumers, the effects on local industries could be extremely severe.
There is consequently very real concern that the pace and extent of the elimination of tariffs on imports from the EU will exceed the ability of industries in the region to improve their efficiency.
This points to the importance of getting the timing and the phasing of free-trade arrangements right, in order to avoid negative repercussions on other countries in the region.
Although South Africa' s neighbours have been promised compensation for the cost to them of adjustments in South Africa, it is far from clear how this will work in practice.
The European Parliament will, I am sure, continue to monitor this situation to assess what effects are being felt by other countries, and to do all in its power to ensure that appropriate compensation is forthcoming as necessary.
The agreement also has wider implications for the post-Lomé negotiations, where the Commission and Council are strongly in favour of regional free-trade arrangements to replace Lomé-style preferences.
I welcome Mrs Kinnock' s recommendation that we do not see this agreement as a model for ACP countries.
To conclude, while I welcome the fact that South Africa has won a share of significant European markets, I hope we can also learn from the lessons of this agreement and ensure that in future the timing, phasing and scope of free-trade arrangements will reflect more closely the different needs of the participating countries.
Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, cooperating with South Africa and helping it to put its under-development behind it should be a fundamental duty for Europe, whose ruling classes greatly benefited in the past from the pillage of that country' s mineral wealth and from the exploitation of its poverty-stricken masses.
I will certainly not join the European institutions in their displays of self-satisfaction as they have even had the effrontery to claim that they contributed significantly to the defeat of the apartheid regime in South Africa, whilst in fact, the great powers, including European ones, were overwhelmingly responsible for keeping a notorious regime in power for such a long time.
It was the struggle of the black masses which put an end to institutionalised segregation, but unfortunately, they have not been able to end the social segregation which causes that country' s workers and the unemployed to continue living in poverty.
The only thing that the European institutions are offering South Africa in terms of cooperation is a trade agreement, carefully negotiated so that it favours European business and industrial interests, an agreement which, in South Africa, will only profit the tiny minority of exporters of precious stones and agricultural produce, who were already the main beneficiaries of apartheid.
Moreover, the signatories to the agreement make no secret of this and say that, I quote, "The measures on cooperation aim to facilitate the re-structuring and modernisation of South African industry and to stimulate its competitiveness."
Well, workers of any country will have understood that this means redundancies and greater unemployment!
Our solidarity goes out then to South Africa' s workers, to its underprivileged people and not to those, whether over there or in Europe, who enrich themselves as a result of these people' s poverty.
Mr President, the agreement reached with South Africa undoubtedly constitutes an overall step forward on a political level for the European Union. In this sense, we should feel particularly satisfied.
But we do not think the same can be said on a trade level.
This agreement is somewhat bewildering, leaves questions unanswered, and still has grey areas.
Many organisations have been unhappy during these five long, tiring years, organisations which are usually involved in the processes of development in Third World countries.
Moreover, different interpretations and opinions have been expressed by Parliament which wanted an agreement with conditions closer to those of the Lomé Convention, and the Commission itself wanted, how shall we say, an agreement with more conditions attached.
In our opinion, this is an inconsistent agreement.
What we really needed were separate agreements where we could work with equal dignity and equal responsibilities.
However, where this balance could not be achieved, we should have had calmer and certainly more analytical talks.
The European Union, for example, has recognised safeguard clauses for agriculture in South Africa, and also for sectors competing with the European economy.
75% of South African agricultural products will benefit from facilitated access on to our markets and, in return, South Africa has taken - we think we can say this in good faith - rigid positions of outright refusal and which are, in certain aspects, incomprehensible.
I am referring in particular to fish and wine.
European countries have asked for access to South African waters to be regulated, despite the price concessions on South African exports of fish products, against the wishes of that country.
South Africa uses European designations for its own products in our markets and in third countries' markets in return for financial help for our sector.
All this seems excessive and irrational.
So we, the delegation of Alleanza Nazionale, believe we must vote against. We repeat, though, that in the future we are very willing to support the long and difficult process of growth and development in South Africa in a way that does not create injustice or unfairness.
Mr President, like most of my colleagues here, I too welcome the fact that this agreement has come about.
Without further ado, we have an important agreement which will make it easier for South Africa to become further involved in the global economy, which will increase political stability throughout the region and which, come what may, will provide a strong boost to our bilateral relations.
The trade agreement differs from traditional agreements because it takes South African specificity into account.
That is why the agricultural sector has not been left out and great emphasis is placed on development cooperation, as indeed it should be. This agreement creates important momentum.
But we must not allow it all to end here. We must not lose sight of the need for a follow-up.
Furthermore, building on the dynamic that has come about, further agreements must be concluded in a number of sectors, in the fisheries sector for example.
Therefore, whilst I share everyone' s enthusiasm for the agreement that has been reached, I am much less enthusiastic about the manner in which it has come about.
I have lived and worked in South Africa for the past two years. I have had to watch Europe being severely taken to task in the South African press on account of corporate and protectionist reflexes which were in stark contrast to the fine declarations of intent about solidarity with the rainbow nation.
When the Council rejected an agreement concluded by Commissioner De Pinheiro, the question was even openly asked in South Africa if there was still any point at all to concluding such an agreement.
For a long time still to come, Europe will be identified with port and sherry in the minds of South Africans.
In that respect, the run-up to the agreement was a lost opportunity; a lost opportunity to rid ourselves of the fortress Europe image.
The report focuses a great deal on the regional consequences of this agreement, and rightly so.
The rapporteur has pointed out that some SACU countries will see a sharp decline in the income from customs levies which is so important to them.
The agreement has tried to anticipate this, due primarily to the pressure brought to bear by Parliament, but we need to remain vigilant.
This agreement must invite South Africa to promote regional cooperation as well and must help the South African economy to become the driving force for development throughout the region.
Mr President, I am one of South Africa' s great admirers: I love the landscape, the people and its leaders.
However, this special affinity cannot and must not be used as an excuse for not setting the same standards when it comes to preconditions as we do for other ACP countries.
Honesty compels us to recognise that South Africa is having to contend with certain dysfunctions in governmental conduct which include sharp rises in corruption and criminality.
Good agreements make good friends.
This agreement bestows on us not just the right but also the duty to continue to press for good governance and an effective approach to tackling criminality.
Equally though, we must actively support the South African Government in its struggle to reform a society which has first and second class citizens.
Mr President, only if we succeed in this can we talk in terms of there being a true partnership between Europe and South Africa.
Mr President, according to the information I have available to me, there are still differences of interpretation between South Africa and the European Union concerning the specific agreement on wines, particularly regarding the use of "Port" and "Sherry" as designations of origin.
Following a meeting between both parties at the beginning of September, the European Union feels that the agreement lays down that South Africans cannot use the designations "Port" and "Sherry" after the specified period of twelve years, which means that they have to start thinking now about alternative names for the South African products in question.
South Africa, on the other hand, interprets the agreement to mean that discussions to find new replacement names for the designations I have just referred to, on which agreement will have to be reached, only have to be started when those twelve years are up.
If agreement is not reached on this matter, in its opinion, South Africa would continue to use the current names.
Faced with such a situation, it is vital to avoid any interpretation which is less clear on the designations of origin "Port" and "Sherry" , which are in fact European geographical names which must be protected, and which cannot co-exist in any way with brands of wine from other places, which are allowed to use them with impunity.
Above all, it is essential that, in line with the conclusions of the General Affairs Council of July, the specific agreement on wines should be concluded before the trade part of the agreement comes into force. That is due to happen in January.
If this does not happen, the agreement' s entry into force should be delayed.
What is in question here is not our political will to establish close cooperation with South Africa, a huge African country which is now a major trading partner of the European Union.
What is in question is respect for a fundamental principle of our own long-term survival, that of the designations of origin of our authentic products which are protected, by the way, by the World Trade Organisation, under whose intellectual property laws they are covered.
If the European Union is not capable of guaranteeing these principles, it will lose face completely in the negotiations which will be held shortly at the World Trade Organisation' s Millennium Round.
I repeat that it is not the agreement itself which is in question, but whether it is possible to make this cooperation agreement compatible with respect for our own principles and with defending our interests.
It must be an almost unique situation for an agreement to be ratified by Parliament before it is actually signed.
Today we seem to be preparing for exactly that.
I feel honoured and privileged that the subject of this remarkable event is the agreement with South Africa, for which I now carry the responsibility within the Commission.
In a week from now I will have been in South Africa three times this year.
My first visit was to celebrate the years of solidarity struggle.
Speaking in the prisoners' dining hall on Robben Island was a nice experience.
The second time was when I was representing my country at the inauguration of President Mbeki.
Now I look forward to taking part next Monday, in Pretoria, in the actual signing and launching of this agreement.
I want to thank Parliament and, in particular, the rapporteur of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, Mrs Kinnock, for the swift and smooth way it has prepared for the parliamentary assent to the outcome of our negotiations with the South Africans and for the very active and committed way it has assisted this process over the years.
Next week we will sign this agreement in Pretoria.
Over the last few days we have heard suggestions by some people from some EU Member States that this joyful event might be affected by the fact that the parallel negotiations with South Africa on an EU/South Africa wines and spirits agreement have run into last-minute difficulties.
Without going into the inappropriateness in principle of these kinds of suggestions, I wish to underline that both sides are working very hard to find a quick and mutually acceptable solution to the outstanding problems on the wines and spirits dossier.
As a matter of fact, this Thursday negotiators of both sides will meet again in Brussels for a concluding session on the wines and spirits talks. I am confident that they will succeed.
To the question put by Mr Souchet and others on what would be the consequences if a wines and spirits agreement was not reached in time, I have the following remarks.
This was discussed in July and clarified in an internal declaration made by the Commission.
Neither the special financial assistance - EUR 15 million - to the South African wine sector nor the duty-free wine quota of 32 million litres should come into play as long as the wines and spirits agreement is not operational.
We have told this to the South Africans and we might wish to make it explicit in the exchange of letters that will be signed on the provisional application of the trade agreement.
The trade, development and cooperation agreement that we will sign on 11 October is, in my view, a very good agreement.
It is a vibrant symbol of the EU' s political commitment to the new post-apartheid South Africa.
For South Africa the bold move towards a trade, development and cooperation agreement with the EU is a symbol of its commitment to economic restructuring and to regaining its full place in the international community.
The agreement is one of the most ambitious partnership agreements that the EU has ever concluded with a third country.
It confirms a clear determination by the EU to support the process of change and reform in South Africa and reflects both sides' desire to further expand their political, trade and cooperation contacts to the benefit of South Africa and indeed the southern African region as a whole.
The agreement will break new ground for EU/South Africa cooperation in many areas.
Seen from the specific angle of development cooperation it is my sincere hope that the agreement will contribute to the eradication of poverty and the promotion of prosperity in South Africa with full respect for democratic principles and fundamental human rights.
Mrs Kinnock' s report gives an excellent and largely accurate description of the potential and scope of the agreement.
On some points though - and please forgive me for making some technical remarks - the wish seems to be father to the thought.
I will give some examples.
Contrary to what the report claims on page 8, the regional safeguard does not apply to the whole SADC region, but only to the BLNS countries which belong to the South Africa Customs Union.
Since these countries will in practice apply the same external tariff as South Africa, it made sense to offer them also the same kind of safeguard protection, but this mechanism does not apply in the whole SADC area.
It is also not yet agreed that the EU will liberalise imports of South African automotive products within three years, as the report seems to announce on page 9.
This option has been made dependent on South Africa' s own efforts in this area, which will be reviewed in the second half of the year 2000.
If the South African side proposes meaningful market openings to the EU, we will be able to fully eliminate our tariffs by the year 2003.
If not, the EU liberalisation of the motor car sector will take longer.
In contrast to what the report suggests on page 10, good governance is in strict legal terms not an essential element of the Agreement.
Our negotiating mandate did not provide for this.
The Agreement does, however, state that both parties reaffirm their attachment to the principles of good governance and sets this concept in the context of the essential element.
But apart from some imprecisions of this kind, the report is, I have already said, very accurate indeed and very well written. And obviously, I fully share its positive conclusions.
This brings me back to the challenge ahead - how to implement this agreement as soon and as well as possible.
Since it is of a so-called mixed nature, we need to await ratification of the Agreement by all fifteen national parliaments.
I hope that the amazing precedent to be set here this week will inspire your national colleagues to put this Agreement quickly on their working agenda.
Experiences on other agreements have, however, taught us that it may very well be two or three years before the last EU Member State ratifies the Agreement.
Under these circumstances, I welcome the fact that Council has decided to provisionally apply certain parts of the Agreement, notably the trade and development sections, as from 1 January 2000.
During the next few weeks and months, I will closely follow the preparatory process towards this date so as to ensure that the all-important EU trade concessions towards South Africa will indeed effectively kick in on this agreed date.
As for the other aspects of cooperation, a lot is already legally in place - development cooperation, Lomé, science and technology.
But for many other aspects and subjects I am confident that the Agreement can provide immediate direction to our ambitions and efforts, even though in legal terms the Agreement may not yet be fully operational.
Pending the formal ratification process and guided by the agreed text of this Agreement, it is my personal commitment to ensure that existing and upcoming areas of co-operation between the EU and South Africa will be quickly and effectively strengthened and deepened.
Mr President, I thank the Commission for that response but I did raise the issue of the elements of the support package for the BLNS countries on which it was promised that a conference would take place in Lesotho.
These countries are still waiting for any kind of confirmation of this conference and have been told by the Commission that it would take place before the signing of the agreement.
That clearly will not happen, but we do need some reassurance, because they feel that the Commission is letting them down on this point.
I can reassure you on that point.
The conference in Lesotho is going to take place on 13-14 October and we are prepared to discuss there with representatives from the BLNS countries, how to structure the support package for those countries.
So, this is also on track.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Communication from the President of the Commission
The next item is the President of the Commission' s statement on the decisions taken by the Commission at its meeting today.
Madam President, less than three weeks ago, you expressed your confidence in this Commission.
At that time, I took on a series of commitments and I am happy to stand before you as proof that a new era of cooperation between our institutions has begun.
I can see that it does not draw large crowds, but major objectives are never straightforward.
The new Commission has just ended its third meeting and I would like to summarise its results.
The first important topic concerns advertising A1 posts.
Last week, we started to make a series of substantial changes at the highest administrative levels in the Commission, on the basis of a complete cultural change in appointment methods.
I would especially like to stress that we have stipulated that, at regular intervals, low-level managers and their responsibilities will be coordinated and that the nationality of the outgoing member of staff will not be a factor in the appointment of their successor.
After transferring a certain number of directors-general last week, we decided today to advertise the following vacant positions: directors-general of the Directorates-General for Enterprise Policy, Agriculture and Education and Culture; vice-directors-general of the following Directorates-General: Education and Culture, Competition and Foreign Relations. These positions will be taken up in accordance with the new procedures.
I insisted that these procedures must be transparent and that after the initial selection, appointments are made on merit.
This fact is extremely important. This will also enable those outside the Commission to express their views.
My second point is that the Commission has discussed the situation as regards the implementation of the 1999 budget and noted that there are sectors where we need a transfer before the end of the year.
The specific proposals only concern the redistribution of commitment appropriations.
The main aim is to take the burden off amending and supplementary budget 4/99, adopted on 16 September, by proposing the financing of more appropriations in line with the Commission' s proposal made at that time. These are: EUR 98 million for PHARE, EUR 68 million for TACIS, EUR 15 million for humanitarian aid to Turkey, EUR 21 million for Kosovo, EUR 20 million for cooperation with South Africa and EUR 10 million for the environment and tropical rainforests.
These increases will be financed through the reallocation within Category 4 of EUR 155 million and the transfer from Category 3 of EUR 10 million.
The third point concerns the Commission' s programme up to the end of January.
We have stressed the importance of a good work programme.
In line with this commitment, the Commission has reviewed the areas where a decision of the College must take effect before the end of January 2000.
In this way, we will be able to communicate our programme commitments to you and to the European Council, so that you can keep it in mind when planning your work programme for the coming months.
I will present Parliament with the five-year perspectives in January 2000, as we agreed here, after which our annual programming will return to its normal rhythm.
I would like to add that I will be strict with my colleagues in the way they deal with the Commission services.
The Commission demands quality, well-prepared proposals and understandable texts, above all - I repeat - understandable texts.
The Commission is not a secretariat which must follow specific interests.
We want to renew our role as the driving force of Europe and so we want to act as a College.
Our programme is the one we proposed to you and we will present it in an analytical and comprehensive way.
My fourth point is about the report on the competitiveness of European industry.
The Commission has adopted the annual report on the competitiveness of European industry which deals with structural changes.
We have also examined some reports devoted to the steel and forestry industries.
I must add that both myself and Commissioner Liikanen intend to work in such a way that, in future, the Commission can concentrate on the more horizontal issues in business policy, because we now leave discussions on individual industries to other decision-making bodies.
The fifth point concerns the new strategy for the internal market.
With the help of a comprehensive report by Commissioner Bolkenstein, we have examined the priorities facing the internal market over the next five years.
The action plan ended this year.
The aim of the communication is to establish the potential objectives and the possible actions geared to the internal market over the next five years.
We are counting on incorporating the most valuable element of the previous action plan, the so-called scoreboard framework of the internal market, and we intend to guarantee that there are sound procedures to assess, monitor and adjust the objectives.
The Commission will be glad to welcome comments and reactions before making a definitive decision at the end of November, since today' s presentation is included in a communication procedure.
Therefore, there will be a debate with Parliament and various times for consultation, and only in November will we arrive at a, let us say, operative proposal.
This is another chapter where cooperation with Parliament is of the utmost importance.
Just in the last few minutes, Commissioner Verheugen explained how we are starting to prepare the decisions which we will make next week on enlargement.
This too is just a procedural explanation but it concerns the most important issue we have to deal with.
Next week, we must approve all the reports on the progress of relations with the applicant countries.
Commissioner Verheugen has already been in contact so that the parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs can be immediately informed about the situation.
During next week, we will touch on one of the most important subjects for the whole of the Commission' s five-year term of office: we are starting the actual enlargement process.
These were the subjects we discussed today, as well as numerous procedural aspects that are always discussed in Commission meetings that it is not appropriate to go into in Parliament.
Madam President, firstly I would like to reassure President Prodi.
The difference between the parliament of a dictatorship and a democratic parliament is that the parliament of a dictatorship is always full and the Members applaud, and a democratic parliament is not very full because the Members are working in other places.
Secondly, I would like to make a comment concerning the reassignment of Directorates-General in the Commission: I welcome the political courage which this Commission has had.
And finally, I would like to ask a question regarding the budget: bearing in mind that almost all transferrals involve Category 4, that is, the external activities of the Union, and that is one of the points that produces most dissatisfaction in my group and, in general, in the Committee on Budgets. Does the President not think that it would be appropriate to revise the Financial Perspective with regard to the Union' s external policy?
Mr Barón Crespo, regarding your first remark, I was pleased by your words on the quality of Parliament.
As for the second point, I would say that today we are limited to urgent reforms on the matters which are, as we have seen, absolutely extraordinary.
If we re-read the list of the measures we find Turkey, and all the urgent cases which made it essential to alter the budget.
We have not in any way reanalysed the major items of expenditure in the budget.
If we look at that item, then I must say, Mr Barón Crespo, that it is not only external policy expenditure which must be reallocated, but I would say that we must reallocate all items in the budget.
In all honesty, the structures in the budget are more faithful to their historical origins than to the needs of the future, but I think this is one of the three or four challenges that we must face together.
So I am not responding to the single item because I do not feel like it, but I accept your invitation, Mr Barón Crespo, because when I myself start to examine the large expenditure percentages, I find that past rather than future needs are dictating our path.
Clearly, enlargement of the European Union is the most important issue for the immediate future.
We understand that you have discussed the progress reports which are to be published next week.
Now, part of this progress towards enlargement - that concerned with cooperation on legal matters and between countries of the EU as it stands at present - is not being overseen by the Commission but by the Council of Ministers.
All right, so we know this, but will any progress within this area be described in your reports? Or is there a risk of the Council not making it public?
It would be very worrying if that were the case and if we in Parliament or our opposite numbers in the countries which are candidates for accession to the European Union were unable to study the progress made.
Now, another small question by the way, Mr President of the Commission. Have you anything against your letter to Prime Minister Lipponen about the Tampere Summit being published?
It has been published in Sweden, and I imagine that you, with your policy of openness, would not object to its being published.
Prime Minister Lipponen, however, refuses to let it be published in Finland. How do you view this?
Mr Thors, my attitude regarding this letter is very simple.
I have absolutely nothing against publication but it must be the recipient of the letter who publishes it, not the sender.
Therefore this really is a decision that Minster Lipponen must make.
Since I have not written anything secret to him, because it was not at all necessary, I have nothing against this but I think that it is right for him to make the decision.
President Prodi, because I know you as an Italian and through the hearings that took place in this Parliament, I know that you have a firm desire to make this Parliament into something more than just a symbol.
However, I have the feeling that the individual Governments in the various Member States do not share your desire.
I refer, for example, to the type of administration of the budget funds that we transfer to the various Member States.
In our case, in Italy, they go via committees within the Ministry of Industry, for example. But it is difficult to have access to them, despite the work we do in the committees, in order to ensure that the funds, in ever greater measures, are transferred to the Member States.
Can you intervene to make it possible in some way for the European Members of Parliament to follow the course of funds that are given to the Member States?
In terms of power alone, no I do not have this power.
If I am being asked though, it is clear that this cooperation is desirable and I think we must do all we can to make it happen. Also, in the end, these are decisions which must be generally supported so they can be carried through.
If the two parties which have to go ahead with these decisions have no relationship with each other, the work then becomes useless, or at least disorganised.
As for the first matter, concerning people' s feelings and indeed the reality that Parliament is becoming very important, this is a process of mutual agreement.
I therefore think that it is really unlikely for the power given to Parliament to come from a concession. It has always come from a victory too, as well as from the willingness to open up.
Madam President, Mr Prodi, the President of the Commission, boasted that he was instigating some kind of Cultural Revolution in the administration by rotating senior posts. I would like to ask why not one of the new directors-general is a woman?
Is it really the case that there were not enough suitable applicants, or do you not know how to get them?
Why is it that only one of the Commissioners' chefs de cabinet is a woman? It seems to me that we must pay great attention to promotions within the Commission, so that women can also rise in their careers to senior posts.
I would also like to ask how you intend to guarantee that this so-called glass ceiling is shattered and that women are not restricted to lower levels in the administrative hierarchy?
You are perfectly right to ask the question, Mrs Hautala.
I would only remind you that the cultural revolution needs more time. Here we have only changed some posts which it was essential to change because we had to give an example of mobility, for countries and people.
We had to show that the posts are not anyone' s fixed prerogative.
So we have made these ten changes which are, however, of fundamental importance.
I, like you, looked at the issue of women and there have been great difficulties in dealing with this at this stage.
The problem, however, is worse still, Mrs Hautala, because the situation is very difficult, even with reshuffles. Either we really change policy, in employment and career procedures, or we cannot see the matter through to its conclusion.
So this is one of the themes we must talk about in the cultural revolution, and one that we must discuss with the administration.
Allow me to make one more remark. The issue of the cultural revolution of the administration goes deeper than we might think.
I came here from outside the institutions, observed with great curiosity the type of administrative structure in place, and I have to say that we need to discuss the basic philosophy of this administration.
Every new political and administrative situation created in the world has always found new strength in its administration.
Here however, the administration has grown by a process of stratification and has not looked to the future.
The cultural revolution lies here, not in changing only ten directors.
The major challenge goes much deeper, and calls for us to work intellectually too, in a direction that is still unknown.
However, in studying all this, I have realised that there has been no effort to create an administration for the duties the Commission must perform.
Mr Prodi, even though you are new in the job, you have already succeeded in creating a powerful impression.
I have been following especially closely your statements about economic policy after the introduction of the euro.
I should like to ask you whether, in your view or in that of the Commission, there is any type of taxation which will not require a common policy or some form of harmonisation following the introduction of the euro and the integration which that will set in motion.
Mrs Frahm, this really is a question which would require a conference in order to reply.
If I understand correctly, you are alluding to the problems of tax harmonisation.
Just now, in the Commission meeting which has just finished, Commissioner Bolkenstein summarised, in a way I believe to be absolutely correct and precise, why there are some items of fiscal policy which do not need to be harmonised, which thrive on diversity, for example personal income taxes.
There are other items, such as value added tax, which call for a certain amount of harmonisation, because otherwise, there would be problems with competition.
There are still more items, on company taxation and taxation on financial revenue which instead must be harmonised where the lack of harmonisation leads to a distortion of competition.
This is a general statement, but it is clear that within this, a thousand individual items must be created because then each of these general items splits into many specific issues that it is not appropriate to discuss here.
The basic philosophy, however, seems to be this: there are some subjects which upset or violate competition and so we must have thorough harmonisation.
However, I think that harmonisation would be harmful for other items, which is not the case in the current States where we even find diversity from region to region.
This doctrine is simple and also very clear because it is in line with decentralisation, which we believe to be a Commission doctrine that we have all accepted and share.
Mr President of the Commission, a sorry story of child abuse in a Commission nursery has appeared in the Spanish press.
This story came to light in 1997 and it would appear that the people involved have still not received their deserved punishment and that the Commission has still not initiated a thorough investigation, nor taken the contract away from the people who have it at the moment and who are responsible for the situation which has been created there.
There is a series of irregularities in the granting of this contract, as well as irregularities in the operation of the nursery in question.
The Commission knew that this was happening and has not resolved the problem, nor has it tried to resolve it, and the children, who are the most important concern, have not been sufficiently protected nor transferred to other people with suitable guarantees of care and attention.
This is a deeply serious issue which, unfortunately, is appearing in the media far too frequently.
Mr Prodi, what do you intend to do about it?
Madam President, I am being made aware of this problem for the first time.
I think that, given that this matter is so close to home and that it is so serious, the only thing I can undertake to do is examine this matter carefully.
Madam President, yesterday the European Commission decided to give Paul Van Buitenen an official reprimand.
Have you, Mr Prodi, and your colleagues, in fact taken account of the opinion held in this European Parliament and by many voters that this whistle-blower deserves the very opposite of a reprimand? Mr Prodi, so far you have been unable to find the time to take receipt of the petition that calls for Paul Van Buitenen' s rehabilitation.
Now it is almost too late. I would like to try a new approach and present the 6,253 signatures to you here.
I think it is a shame that this whole business continues to be a millstone round the European Commission' s neck.
Madam President, we have had an administrative procedure and we now await your petition which will be examined at length.
(Mr Blokland gave President Prodi the petition)
Well, I do not think there is anything more to say.
Madam President, firstly let me thank Mr Prodi for this initiative today.
Even if the tone of the communications today is rather low-key, they represent the crossing of a major institutional threshold.
They are a signal of the new era of which you speak and I wish to welcome that on behalf of my group.
Can I ask Mr Prodi whether in principle, subject to Parliament and the Commission being able to formalise appropriate arrangements, it would be possible to do this regularly?
Next week, if I understand correctly, you will also be available to discuss the enlargement questions, but as a general principle what you have started here today is important and the opportunity to continue this dialogue between our two institutions by appropriate and formalised mechanisms would be appreciated, either through you personally or through other members of the College of Commissioners as appropriate in other part-session weeks, depending on the agenda.
Madam President, I must say that as things stand, I have no commitments for next week. There has been no agreement on enlargement.
I thought that Commissioner Verheugen would be coming, but I will certainly be available.
We are dealing with a very serious and very important question of procedure.
I think that if the type of information we have to give is to work properly for five years, we must clearly establish when the President will be present, when individual Commissioners will be present and when instead, a written communication will be sufficient, because otherwise we will lose our relationship and it will become trivial.
I think that the most serious thing is for us to lay down these rules in a small committee.
Certainly the President is available in all important and necessary cases, otherwise, and quite rightly, the level of debate they say, will drop.
Of course, if more minor questions are asked, then we will have to lower, quite rightly, the debate to the level of the matters in question.
Now, in my opinion we have three levels: the President, specific Commissioners devoted to different areas and routine, which must be conducted in the fastest and most transparent way possible - using the Internet or written communications - because it does not merit being the subject of a debate.
We must preserve direct communication when there is going to be a debate.
This is what I think and, in this regard, in all the cases where there will be important issues, I will, of course, be happy to be of service to Parliament.
Madam President, in this House this morning, Commissioner Byrne replied by saying that he has asked for urgent clarification.
If the urgent clarification does not bring any new facts to light, then I will immediately ask for the measure taken to be abolished.
I think that all this will take place in the space of a few hours and so the formal undertaking made by Commissioner Byrne this morning will be put into practice in the next few hours.
In this way, we can establish whether the French Government' s decision has been made because of new facts, in which case it will be valid, or whether instead it has been made in breach of the general rules and then it is clear that in some way it must be revoked in the next few hours.
I should like - very unusually for me - to begin by praising the Commission for meeting in such large numbers here today.
I think it is a good tradition which is now being introduced whereby the Commission reports on what happened at that day' s meeting, or the previous day' s meeting if it is a Wednesday.
I think it is something which will help create greater openness about the Commission' s work.
In this connection, I should like to ask if the Commission will produce the agendas for the meetings of the Commission, together with the most important working documents, in advance of the Commission' s meetings. In that way, there could be something about the documents in the newspapers before the meetings take place and there would be greater interest in the meetings on the part of the press.
Mr Bonde, within the limitations time imposes, this is already happening, as there is an agenda which is definitely not kept secret.
The problem is that the Commission works at a really intensive rate and so it is impossible to say, ten days ahead of the Commission' s meeting, what the precise agenda will be.
However, as regards the important subjects that we will be discussing, the ones that can be prepared in advance, we have already begun to set down the framework for our future work.
This is a commitment that I just made in my address, that is, to lay out the framework of our work up to the end of the year so that we can work together on major topics.
Last minute changes are made to the agenda but there is nothing secret about this.
It is just difficult to communicate these changes when we ourselves only know that urgent facts have come up a few minutes before the start of the meeting.
Madam President, Mr Prodi has mentioned the competitiveness of European industry in the course of his introductory remarks.
He said that this would be high on his agenda and that the need was for structural change in European industry.
I would suggest to Mr Prodi that many economists believe that the most important factors for competitiveness in industry would be, first of all, a reduction in corporate and employment taxes and secondly, a reduction in the enormous and indeed intolerable burden of regulation which puts Europe at a great disadvantage in relation to other parts of the world.
We have a European employment programme which is based on four pillars.
None of those four pillars will make a significant impact on unemployment in the short term.
The solutions for unemployment are exactly the same as the solutions for competitiveness, that is, reduced employment taxes and reduced levels of regulation.
What attitude will the Commission take to these points?
Mr Helmer, I am very pleased to be asked these questions because, for many years, I specialised in the analysis of competitiveness and industrial economics.
I fully agree with the points you made: the reduction in corporate taxes and their harmonisation are useful for European competition, as is employment tax.
However, if you asked me what the primary factor in Europe' s industrial problems is, I would be very frank: the human resources problem as the incentive for entrepreneurship that exists on our continent and, therefore, the whole problem of preparing the financial structures for new entrepreneurship.
I therefore think that the human factor is top of the list of our problems in developing production and the fiscal factor is extremely important.
We can give them equal importance if you like, but certainly the human resources issue is, in my opinion, of huge importance for our continent. If we do not take urgent measures using a very broad programme in this sector, I believe that not even reducing taxes, which would represent substantial action and can make a strong contribution, will be sufficient to bring about growth in European industry.
Madam President, I would like to make a very brief remark.
I would never judge the matters raised by my colleagues, but I would like to say that these talks with the Commission should perhaps keep to the Commission' s discussion and their decisions, otherwise, we risk running over into another section which will soon begin - Question Time.
So I think that if we want to make this time meaningful, we must keep it as we initially wanted it to be.
A quick question to President Prodi on the organisation chart.
In the second Wise Men' s report, there is a point which concerns national interests which have supposedly been organised to some degree in the Commission.
I think that for an institution like the Commission there is nothing worse, along with fraud, than this: the thought that there is no impartiality or supranationality.
Does the policy you have begun concerning directors-general also consist of examining, tackling and facing up to the issue of the Commission' s impartiality and independence?
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0030/1999).
We will examine the questions addressed to the Commission.
First part
Question No 28 by (H-0465/99):
Subject: Measures to check the structural resistance of buildings in Greece The powerful earthquake which recently occurred in Attiki in Greece caused enormous damage to buildings throughout the area, resulting in dozens of fatalities and numerous casualties.
Can the Commission rapidly earmark funds (for example for residual balances entered against the CSF and other Community programmes) for immediate preventive checks on the structural resistance of not only public premises such as schools, hospitals etc. but also premises on which large numbers of people are employed, (for example factories) throughout Greece, to establish how well they will stand up to major earthquakes?
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Alavanos for giving me the opportunity to express for the first time the Commission' s concern for, and solidarity with, the population and the authorities of the Republic of Greece.
The Prime Minister, Mr Simitis has made an appeal to us and your question, Mr Alavanos, supports this request for aid and solidarity from the European Union and passes it directly on to us.
Together with Mrs Diamantopoulou, we informed the Commission, this very afternoon, on what action is possible within the framework of the Structural Funds to provide support to Greece and to assist it in terms of reconstruction and repairs.
I can confirm to the European Parliament that within the framework of the regulations of the Structural Funds, with the appropriations currently available, we are able to offer substantial support to those parts of the Greek population which have been affected. This is around 20,000 households, not to mention several hundred victims.
I am now able to give the European Parliament the list of areas in which the regulations allow us to intervene as well as how the European Investment Bank envisages the way it will be done. The bank will make its decision on this at its board meeting on 7 December.
Yesterday evening in Tampere I met Mr Partas, the Greek Secretary of State for Regional Policy, in order to ask him to provide us as quickly as possible - and I know that it is difficult - with an assessment and the most accurate figures possible so that we can commit the appropriations which are available to us.
This is the substance of the answer I wanted to give to Mr Alavanos.
Moving beyond compensation now, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Alavanos has asked a question which has always interested me - I am now thinking of the action that I took in my own country when I was Minister for the Environment, concerned with natural risks - the matter of prevention.
Prevention is cheaper, always cheaper than having to repair things afterwards.
My answer is yes, in a general way, without targeting any institution in particular, with the Structural Fund appropriations we can finance studies for the prevention of earthquake risk in Greece as well as other countries as long as the Greek Government asks us to.
Finally, as I have been talking about the lessons to be learnt from this natural disaster, I would also like to emphasise how seriously - and I have said this within the College - I take the idea of improving the coordination of different countries' resources in terms of the civil defence of their people.
Personally, I am in favour of the idea of a European civil defence force, which I believe will be extremely useful with regard to the citizens and the problems that still remain. The purpose of this force would be to work better together, more quickly and more visibly, in the event of a natural disaster, both within the territory of the European Union and elsewhere, and God knows, there is no shortage of disasters as current events show.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for his substantial and interesting reply and for his sensitivity.
Firstly, I would, of course, like to ask him if he could have been more analytical as regards the proposals which he himself and Mrs Diamantopoulou made for tackling the issues of the earthquakes.
My second question, which is the main point of the question, is whether or not the Commission thinks - since we have the Seveso Directive which provides for the protection of workers and citizens around factories from accidents within industrial installations - that it should take some measures to protect all industrial installations from natural disasters such as earthquakes.
Both in Greece and Turkey, and in the past in Naples, Taiwan and Mexico, we have seen a constant lack of control over industrial installations.
In view of this, is the Commission proposing to examine such a possibility?
The prevention of natural disasters, Mr Alavanos, is the responsibility of Member States.
As I have just told you though, if any government - because Greece is not the only country concerned by this: we have seen disasters or earthquakes of varying magnitude happen in other countries too, but they had a less serious effect - anyway, if any government asks us, we are able to support and finance, by means of the Structural Funds, preventive studies which would allow us to determine the risks to inhabited areas, as you mentioned in your question, but also to factories, with the secondary risks of industrial disaster that that would entail.
I am therefore giving a straightforward answer to your question: we will be able to take charge of such a request and deal with it as soon as a Member State presents it to us.
Question No 29 by (H-0470/99):
Subject: Danger of a humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan The civil war raging in Afghanistan is in danger of causing a humanitarian disaster, particularly now that winter is approaching.
Between 100,000 and 120,000 refugees have already been forced into the Panshir Valley and the Northeast region controlled by the military commander Massoud.
The refugees are fleeing a brutal offensive by the Talibans (villages razed to the ground, summary executions and mass graves, the abduction of women, etc.).
Depending on the course of the military operations, the refugees' situation may get much worse should a Taliban offensive force a further 180,000 to 200,000 refugees into the Panshir Valley, which, with the onset of winter, could become a valley of death.
Does the Commission not think that it must, as a matter of urgency, consider the possibility of providing humanitarian aid in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster?
Echo is carefully considering developments in the situation of the displaced persons following the renewed hostilities which have taken place in Afghanistan since the spring.
The office has on-going contact with the International Red Cross, the United Nations organisations, the NGOs which are present in the country and Echo' s own representative.
The latter has carried out a mission in Kabul where streams of refugees were recorded in the northern districts.
Echo' s representative is now in the Panshir valley in order to assess the situation.
Difficult access to the Panshir valley, the extremely explosive situation and the marked political sensitivity which characterise the situation in the area demand intervention of a kind which will have to be organised between the various humanitarian organisations if errors of judgement and bad decisions are to be avoided.
What is more, everything we do will have to respect Echo' s neutral mandate.
Echo has plans to provide aid amounting to EUR 1.5 million to all the displaced persons staying close to the various front lines, namely in the Panshir valley - where there is talk of displaced persons following the fighting in April and May - and in Kabul.
The fact that this particular aid, details of which have already been submitted for approval, is being provided does not rule out the possibility of further aid being necessary before the end of the year.
With the threat of difficulties created by the winter, the situation is really becoming acute.
As regards an agreement with the most representative humanitarian players in the area, the aid will be aimed in particular at consolidating the existing humanitarian structures in the area and at assisting the local population by supporting the displaced persons with medical help, food aid and shelter.
The practical details of these forms of humanitarian action are being established in collaboration with our partners in the field.
We are prepared continuously to alter our input, not least against the background of the highly volatile military situation.
This is an answer for bureaucrats and technocrats.
In reality, Europe is very slow, it does too little, and I find this neutrality that you mentioned quite scandalous.
My question concerns humanitarian aid to the Panshir valley, that is, the zone controlled by those resisting the totalitarian and criminal regime of Kabul and the Taliban, whose horrifying treatment of women we are only too aware of.
We must make a choice.
There are more than 100,000 people there, men, women and children who, as winter approaches, will experience an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in the Panshir valley.
So do not talk to us about neutrality!
Europe is not neutral in this matter.
Europe must choose.
There are executioners and victims, there are Nazis and Jews, and there are criminals and innocent people!
I ask you to give a straight answer to the question of what we are going to do for these women and children who are now hemmed in, in the Panshir valley.
We expect Europe to come up with a better answer than this.
Yes, but you are not getting one.
My answer was not of a bureaucratic nature.
There is just as much humanitarian concern in focusing on the victims of the conflict, irrespective of the character of the conflict.
When we are confronted with suffering of this nature and with victims in the numbers we are seeing here, there are obviously factors on both sides of the conflict which may be characterised in the way the questioner has just done.
Otherwise, the victims would not be in the position they are in fact in.
And our mandate in connection with what Echo is doing in the field is a humanitarian mandate.
I ask that this fact be respected.
I am fully conscious of the fact that it is not always possible to be completely unpartisan, and one can always be taken advantage of by one or the other side in a conflict when one helps the victims.
However, there is no value in representing the issue as the questioner has done.
It is difficult enough as it is to be of use in providing humanitarian aid.
I think that there is really no misrepresentation here.
As Mr Madelin said before me, this is a dramatic situation; there are opportunities to intervene via the Central Asian countries, and I do not understand why the Commission has adopted this wait-and-see position.
As Mr Madelin said, this is an extremely dramatic situation.
I think that the Taliban regime is completely indefensible, which is yet another reason to intervene.
I had expected some understanding for my line of argument.
I have not in any way expressed a positive view of the Taliban regime. Nor can I be persuaded to.
I have merely tried to insist upon regard for the conflict' s victims as being the decisive factor here.
I do not believe that the warring parties, and certainly not the Taliban regime, view what we are doing here in Europe as something which is in support of themselves in the conflict.
However, it is crucial to our credibility and to Echo' s ability to enter the zones of conflict and come into contact with the people we are to help that we avoid a rhetoric which is confrontational, and that is something I shall go on endeavouring to do.
Question No 30 by (H-0489/99):
Subject: Support for Slovakia What steps are being taken by the Commission to further consolidate and support the positive democratic developments in Slovakia?
Mr President, Mr Posselt, I would firstly like to support the basic assumption of your question, i.e. that there has been positive democratic development in Slovakia and that this positive democratic development must be supported and consolidated.
Directly after the Dzurinda Government took office at the end of October 1998, the Commission, on the initiative of my predecessor, set up a bilateral high-level working party to once again give Slovakia' s preparations for accession the necessary momentum.
This was seen as a significant sign of support for the democratic new beginning in Slovakia.
You can see this from the fact that no such group had ever been set up before for any other country.
After five sessions, this working party completed its activities in September with positive conclusions.
The positive conclusions concern primarily the political Copenhagen criterion, but I must add that the conclusions of this working party do not prejudice the conclusions of the forthcoming regular report on Slovakia.
The Commission will now accordingly acknowledge this encouraging development in its forthcoming regular report. The Commission will adopt this report on the development of Slovakia on 13 October, i.e. as early as next week, together with the other progress reports.
The Commission is particularly strong in its support of the non-governmental organisations essential for the development of a mature civil society in Slovakia.
In the national PHARE programme for Slovakia 1999, EUR 2.5 million were made available for the Slovakian foundation for the development of a civil society, brought into being on the initiative of the Commission.
This foundation will forward funds to approximately 100 non-governmental organisations for activities, among other things, in the fields of human rights, environmental protection, social work, etc.
Mr Posselt, I would, incidentally, like to point out that PHARE resources for Slovakia in the year 1999 reached the level of the previously highest volume to date with almost EUR 70 million.
In addition, we have established a special fund for projects which are intended to benefit the national minorities, particularly the Romany.
This special fund has been allocated EUR 2 million.
Commissioner, thank you for this very clear answer. I am pleased to see you here for the first time in your new role.
I would just like to ask two questions.
Firstly, is there also concentrated collaboration with the Slovakian universities, especially as regards academic and student exchange? This is also a question of the expansion of our programme to the associated States.
That is what we have the Additional Protocols for. Secondly, I would like to ask whether you consider it conceivable that in Helsinki, Slovakia will be ranked among the countries with which discussions are to be held?
Mr Posselt, I can answer the second question easily.
I consider it not only conceivable but I can even tell you right now that I shall be making that proposal at all events and I expect that the Commission will support this proposal.
It is quite clear that the reason that Slovakia has not yet been included in talks is because there were political deficits.
These political deficits have been eliminated, and no one - either in Slovakia or outside it - would understand, if there were not now a suitably positive response from the European Union.
As regards the question about universities, I shall accept that as a suggestion.
On the spur of the moment, I cannot just tell you what concrete collaboration with universities and student exchange there may be.
If they do exist I shall notify you in writing; if they do not exist, I shall put it as a suggestion to the competent authorities.
Commissioner, I would like to ask a question on the economic situation.
In Slovakia, the package of economy measures has entailed some problems and privations for the population.
It is therefore important to stabilise the economic situation.
We know in Europe small and medium-sized businesses are the bedrock of the economy.
What do you intend to do to expedite economic stability here and especially to establish contact between neighbouring States, located in direct proximity to the European Union? What programmes are envisaged here to get privatisation on the right road too?
You know, there were considerable problems with the Meciar Government when privatisation went ahead. I believe that there is a great need for economic rehabilitation, and I believe it is extremely important for Slovakia.
I would like to thank you expressly for the fact that you are going to propose that the appropriate negotiations begin in Helsinki.
I believe this is a very important contribution that Europe can make.
Mr Rübig, I can only agree with everything you have said.
In Slovakia, it is absolutely essential to quickly work off the deficits which have arisen in recent years.
One of these deficits is the sluggish progress of the privatisation process, which was also connected with other problems, as you well know.
The result is, of course, that we still do not have a satisfactory situation with regard to a self-supporting sector of the economy, capable of development, above all in the middle range.
The Accession Partnership currently under discussion with Slovakia will include appropriate programmes in this area.
The resources already envisaged for Slovakia will indeed serve, as you know, the development of infrastructure or "institution building" , but they can also be implemented as instruments for the regulation and further development of the economy.
We shall do that through the programme.
I cannot give any further details at the moment because, naturally, the basic prior political conditions for that must be achieved first.
Obviously, I shall keep Parliament informed regarding the concrete programmes not just with Slovakia but with other States, for which Accession Partnerships are now being further developed.
Question No 31 by (H-0498/99):
Subject: Aid for civilian population of Serbia With their economy and production in free fall, the people of Serbia are heading for a difficult winter.
The reprehensible policies pursued by the regime are having severe effects on many innocent people.
Popular discontent is directed at both the regime and the outside world which is regarded as compounding the suffering with indiscriminate sanctions.
It is important that the EU does not inadvertently strengthen Milosevic' s position, but that it should make a contribution in the form of targeted, democratically-controlled humanitarian aid. In the light of this situation, is the Commission prepared to consider measures in essential areas to assist the Serbian civilian population?
Consideration should be given primarily to the growing environmental threats posed by destroyed sewage plants, oil refineries and chemical factories in Novi Sad and Pancevo, for example, and to exempting young students from the academic embargo which is cutting them off from foreign educational institutions and other contacts, making their future bleak and encouraging a brain-drain so damaging to the country.
Such measures would relieve the Serbian people' s suffering, make it more difficult for Milosevic to demonise the outside world and strengthen democratic forces.
As a consequence of the crisis in Kosovo, the Commission, via Echo, is providing emergency aid to the most vulnerable population groups in Serbia.
Aid amounting to EUR 45.1 million has been provided so far.
Against the background of the growing humanitarian needs which will arise in the coming winter, Echo is considering setting aside a further EUR 10 million for the purpose of implementing a comprehensive programme of humanitarian aid with the following six components.
Firstly: aid in the form of food and sanitary measures for 770,000 recipients of support in Serbia.
This figure, which includes 350,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, 120,000 internally displaced Serbs and gypsies from Kosovo and 300,000 socially vulnerable people, has been calculated by the World Food Programme' s and UNHCR' s joint assessment team for emergency food aid which visited the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in July of this year.
Support for the displaced persons is being provided via the International Red Cross, while the Red Cross Federation and the national Red Cross societies are in the process of extending their programme to provide food stations, to which Echo will continue to provide support.
Secondly: shelter to individuals who have been displaced recently.
Echo provides support for the repair of private dwellings and the supply of goods other than food to make it possible to establish adequate shelter for new arrivals driven out of Kosovo.
Through its contribution to UNHCR, Echo also provides support to families who are housing displaced persons from Kosovo.
Thirdly: psychological and social support for displaced persons.
With the help of projects of this kind, attempts will be made to alleviate the trauma caused by the experiences undergone by many displaced persons, especially children.
Fourthly: emergency improvement of the structures for providing water and sanitation.
Even if larger rebuilding projects are not undertaken, Echo will make less extensive improvements to the installations concerned in order to prevent health problems from arising.
Fifthly: support for social institutions.
The most vulnerable groups in Serbia are to be found in such institutions, and Echo will, to the extent that is necessary, provide help in the form of supplementary food aid (basic food aid being provided by the World Food Programme) and supplementary goods other than food and heating.
Sixthly: hygiene.
In the course of the winter, special arrangements will have to be made at certain points to provide heating, among other things.
Negotiations with the World Health Organisation concerning flu vaccinations and problems with tuberculosis are under way right now.
Students from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia are not - as the honourable Member supposes - excluded from foreign universities or cut off from contacts abroad, because the sanctions in place do not extend to such matters.
It is true that no EU aid is being provided under the Tempus programme, but that is due to the fact that the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia does not fulfil the criteria established by the Council in connection with the PHARE programme to which Tempus is linked.
In any case, resources have been set aside to support democratisation and promote the institutions of civil society.
With regard to the environmental consequences of the Kosovo conflict for Serbia, I would refer you to the answer given to question no.
1512/99.
Thank you for that answer to my question.
I am delighted by what you said. My question arose from a visit I made to Belgrade about three weeks ago and from renewed contacts I had last week with the democratic movement, all the opposition political parties, private and humanitarian organisations, etc., which had issued a message for help in combating the way in which Milosevic is now demonising other countries.
Other countries, including the EU, are being regarded as enemies which have destroyed their lives and institutions and which are now even subjecting them to sanctions.
It is extremely important to destroy this picture, which is false.
So I am very pleased that Serbia' s democratic opposition and other democratic forces are now getting the clear message that the European Union is ready to do its utmost for the civilian population in its present difficult situation.
I think that the very size of the EU' s humanitarian aid to Serbia clearly underlines the fact that we wish to make a positive contribution to benefit the population, and we have, up until now, been in a position to identify clear, well-founded needs of a humanitarian nature.
We have therefore sought to make a contribution in relation to these needs. We naturally need to work together with other organisations, and I was therefore careful to report on what we are doing together with the Red Cross, the World Food Programme, UNHCR and others who are involved, including the World Health Organisation.
This is precisely for the purpose of making it clear that this is a humanitarian operation, but I also think it is a good thing that the population and political circles in Serbia see that the world outside is also prepared to help in this way.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I see crocodile tears being shed over the people of Serbia.
Whilst Serbian academics have been banned from international scientific circles, we are concerned about the fact that students in Serbia have no contact with foreign educational institutions.
Whilst the European Union, together with the Americans, is slaughtering the people of Yugoslavia, transforming its whole infrastructure into ruins, we are concerned that the Serbian people are heading for a difficult winter.
I have the feeling that we have here a case of gross hypocrisy.
In my opinion, the only honourable thing left for the European Union to do for Yugoslavia would be to pay out war compensation for the disaster it caused, and a first step would be to lift the trade embargo.
I wonder if such thoughts prevail in the Commission, albeit at embryonic stage. I would like to ask whether this flagrant blackmail of promising aid to Yugoslavia once Milosevic goes will ever end.
I have reported on the humanitarian aid being provided by the EU to those who require it in Serbia, and the other questions in fact lie outside the actual discussion of humanitarian aid.
A limit needs to be set upon the extent to which humanitarian aid is really going to be provided, and I feel that the proper limit at present lies in what we are doing in relation to Serbia.
Commissioner, I am sure that you will agree with me when I say that the humanitarian aid which we are giving to Serbia is by no means penalising Mr Milosevic, but those are the criteria for humanitarian aid, and it is therefore right, at least according to your logic, that they should be met.
Having said this, there is another humanitarian issue yet to be resolved: that of the 3000 or more Kosovar prisoners still being held in prisons in Serbia.
This is a humanitarian issue, so it concerns you too.
You have a major bargaining tool, which is the sum of EUR 50 million granted to Serbia as humanitarian aid.
Are you committed to using this in the near future to ensure that these prisoners are set free?
It would be extremely good if what was suggested in the question could be done.
The money I have mentioned is money we have in fact used.
The sum of EUR 45 million is money we have spent so far.
I cannot use it again, and that was the point at issue in the question.
What we can do in relation to those in prison is to contribute to the international effort to obtain some insight into how they are being treated.
We shall use all possible channels and contacts to help them in their situation, but the great struggle for power in Serbia, for democratisation and so on is not something which - if I am to have the slightest credibility - I can assume we can sort out using these humanitarian resources.
Question No 32 by (H-0514/99):
Subject: Ban on imports of American hormone-treated meat Will the Commission provide a summary of the findings of those of the 17 scientific committees that have completed their investigations into the risks posed by hormone-treated meat?
If those findings do not indicate that the consumption of hormone-treated meat poses any risks, will it explain how this will affect current policies towards the USA and the WTO agreements?
Second part
I should like to thank the questioner for giving me the opportunity to deal with this issue which is a complex, difficult and sensitive one.
First of all, a clear distinction needs to be made between the 17 scientific studies and the opinion delivered by one of the Commission' s independent scientific advisory committees.
In February 1998, following the criticism of the WTO appellate body, the Commission launched 17 studies with the aim of providing additional information concerning risks in areas such as toxicology, abusive use and environmental aspects.
The studies will be continued as planned and the final results from a number of them are expected to be available by the end of the year.
However, several studies will, as foreseen, not be completed before the summer of 2000.
In conformity with the principle of transparency the Commission intends to make the outcome of the studies public as soon as possible after their finalisation.
The results of the studies concerning residue analysis of meat and meat products have already been made public and can be obtained from the Commission services.
The Commission also asked its Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures relating to Public Health to deliver an opinion on the potential adverse effects to human health from the administration of the six animal growth promotion hormones.
On 30 April this year the SCVPH adopted unanimously an opinion on the assessment of potential risks to human health from hormone residues in bovine meat and meat products.
That report has been published.
This work has been carried out on the basis of the most recent data in the open scientific literature.
On the basis of this scientific advice the Commission is of the opinion that it cannot propose lifting the ban.
Any new information which may come to light from the studies or from other sources will be fully considered.
I listened with interest to the discussion this morning about food safety and have a question to put to the Commission: is it the precautionary principle which is now to be tested by the Commission in connection with the hormone war with the USA? I do not feel convinced that there are scientific proofs to justify our maintaining the ban on imports of hormone-treated meat.
Nor did I hear the Commissioner substantiate any possible scientific proof. I only heard that the Commissioner did not wish to propose that the ban be lifted.
Can we be certain that there will in fact be scientific proof to justify continuing with the ban on hormone-treated meat? That is the first question.
The second question is this: how can one be certain that, in the forthcoming World Trade Organisation negotiations in Seattle, problems do not arise with the USA and, in general, with the negotiations concerning free trade if Europe continues to stand by what is, in my view, an unscientific ban on imports of hormone-treated meat?
In response to that question, you will be aware that the precautionary principle operates in circumstances where there is either no scientific evidence available or where the evidence that is available is uncertain in character.
That is not the situation here.
The report that I referred to, that was published by the SCVPH in April this year, specifically identified that there were residues of one of the six particular hormones that were being checked for - that is, 17 beta-estradion. That particular hormone is found in 80% of the tests that have been carried out.
This particular hormone is - as described by the committee - clearly a carcinogen.
Having regard to these circumstances it is believed that the lifting of the ban at this stage would be premature.
Accordingly, having regard to what I said earlier about the application of the precautionary principle, it seems to me that it would be inappropriate to apply that principle because there is clear evidence available to us from the report from the SCVPH.
In relation to our negotiations with the WTO, this issue will have to be addressed.
There has been United States representation on the committee that conducted the examinations. That will be stressed to the US negotiators.
This is an important issue. It is one that has to be addressed between the United States and the European Union.
One would hope that it would be addressed in an amicable and non-confrontational manner.
Hopefully that will be done during the WTO negotiation period.
I would like firstly to welcome the Commissioner' s response but also to push him a little.
What he said in relation to beef is that free trade is important, but that the health of the consumers should come first and free trade second.
Will he also reassure us that he will take that attitude in Seattle When we look at the WTO negotiations it often appears that the health of consumers and others is subordinated to the free-trade aspect.
Both are important, but health is a key issue.
As you say, both issues are important.
But in his presentation to Parliament this morning, President Prodi identified both health and food safety as being of primary importance and made it clear that they take precedence over trade.
However, that is not to say that trade considerations are not important - they are.
That is the challenge facing the negotiators from the United States and the European Union: to solve the problem.
It should be solved in a manner that surely can, and hopefully will, accommodate both considerations.
>Questions to Mrs Reding
Question No 33 by (H-0463/99):
Subject: Availability of the Official Journal Members of the public are not particularly well aware of their rights and should be entitled to receive information about legislation, since it is they who finance it.
The EU' s Official Journal (OJ), which provides information about EU legislation, is published in an edition of 20,000 copies for 380 million people - is it any wonder, therefore, that the information is poorly distributed?
A single copy of the OJ on the Internet would substantially increase access to the information and should be made a requirement under a Free Information Act for the year 2000.
Will the Commission endeavour, within the next two years, to ensure that there is free access to the entire Official Journal on the Internet?
The concerns expressed by Mrs Cederschiöld are shared by the Commission, so much so that the Eurlex system, set up by the Publications Office in April 1998, already deals with it.
This service offers free access and coverage of the Official Journal for 45 days.
After this period, texts concerning legislation are stored on the Celex documentary database, which is also accessible via the Internet, but this must be paid for.
This also contains the Treaties, current legislation, bills in preparation and recent judicial cases.
As you can see, Mr President, the Commission has taken the initiative in this matter.
Thank you for that answer, Commissioner.
I am pleased with one part of it, namely the positive attitude towards openness and having access to documents. However, I am less pleased about there not being cost-free access to these on the Internet.
The European Union is actually financed by its citizens who should also be entitled to know what it decides.
As far as I am concerned, it is transparently clear that there should be free access on the Internet to the whole of the OJEC.
I myself find it difficult to understand that part of the answer given in connection with the hearings, i.e. the view that certain citizens' not having access to the Internet and, therefore, free access to the OJEC, could be regarded as discrimination. In fact, we live in a modern society where by far the majority of people can get access to the Internet.
Most school children are on the way to having, or already have, their own e-mail address. Most people in employment have Internet access, and there are lots of Internet courses for pensioners.
Every citizen should have the right to obtain relevant information.
I hope that the Commissioner will take this to heart and that information will be available for free in the future.
I can only repeat what I have already said.
All the information that the Commission provides for the public via the Internet is absolutely free. There is no cost to the user.
Of course, installing the Internet itself involves costs, but the Commission cannot supply every citizen with free Internet access so that they can then have free access to information.
What counts and what is important is that all of the Commission' s official documents are accessible at no charge.
Moreover, we also have the Europa site. Access to this site is also free on the Internet and it is consulted, by the way, by millions of citizens every month.
As you see, we have already set in place the opportunity to use modern forms of media.
I would also like to tell you Mrs Cederschiöld, that the Commission obviously wants to expand access to the Internet across all strata of society.
For example, as the person responsible for education within the Commission, I have already looked at the question, with the Ministers for Education, of how we can ensure that as many young people, as many schools as possible, have Internet access.
I know that in Nordic countries, it is relatively easy to set up this access, but this is not true for other countries in the Union.
We must also reach a balance within the Union where Internet access is concerned.
So, I take what you say extremely seriously.
Question No 34 by (H-0469/99):
Subject: Commission's plans for combating drug abuse and preventing the use of drugs in sport The World Championships in Seville turned the spotlight once more on the issue of drug-use among top sportsmen.
The widespread use of drugs is serious, both for sport as such but also because top sportsmen act as role models for many young people.
The use of drugs among top sportsmen may entail greater tolerance of the use of drugs among young people.
Does the Commission intend to take measures to prevent drug abuse in sport in connection with its efforts to combat drug-use or in other contexts?
Mr Andersson is asking what the Commission intends to do concerning drug abuse in sport.
Following President Prodi' s statements to the European Parliament, the Commission will be making an in-depth study of the situation brought about by the increase in cases of drug taking in sport, and it is considering concrete measures which it would be possible to take at a Community-wide level.
In the context of this study, we have taken into account your Parliament' s resolution of December 1998, as well as the conclusions of the Council Presidency following two informal meetings of Ministers in charge of sport.
We are also working, in this matter, in close collaboration with Member States and the Council of Europe within a working group which has already met several times.
Moving on to the creation of a world-wide drug-testing agency, I can tell you, Mr President, that today, the Commission is already working on this issue.
We have already moved towards a first round table discussion on the initiative of the sports ministers.
I met some of them yesterday and they told me that the Commission had to act very quickly in order that we should become, as the European Union, part of this world-wide agency.
The Commission expects to announce its decision on this matter next week.
So, as you see, we are making huge leaps forward in this area.
In parallel with the Union' s possible membership of a world-wide drug testing agency, we feel that a European plan is needed, a plan which will make us all responsible, with all fifteen Member States marching to the same rhythm in the fight against the plague of drug taking in sport.
This will be the aim of the document that we are preparing at the moment so that Mr Prodi will be able to inform the Heads of State and Government at the Helsinki Summit about the measures which need to be taken in this area.
We will then be able, from next year, to propose concrete measures to you to be put into practise in our Member States.
Thank you, Commissioner.
I am grateful for your answer to the effect that this matter has now been placed on the Commission' s agenda or, more accurately, placed higher up on the agenda.
Work which prevents young people from beginning to use drugs is a priority area in the fight against drug abuse. If we look at sport, we see that this is an activity which attracts a lot of young people.
Sports stars are often role models for young people.
It is therefore important that, in this area too, we should actively combat drug abuse.
Because I think that sport has a responsibility to help prevent drug taking within sport, I wonder if plans are being made for some type of collaboration with the sports bodies in Europe with a view to tackling the problem, which has become worse in recent years.
Is the Commission planning to cooperate with the sports bodies?
Mr Andersson is very aware of the problems inherent in the fight against drug taking in sport.
I would like to thank him for his intervention and I would like to discuss this matter with him, as he seems to have information which I would like to make use of.
Let us move on to the specific issue here.
As you know, Mr Andersson, the Treaty of Amsterdam clearly specifies that there must be a European body competent in this area, but we must also take subsidiarity into account as well as the autonomy of the world of sport.
The measures that I would like to present to the College and to Parliament will therefore be measures which have the assent of Member States and which will guarantee this autonomy.
I am also responsible for youth programmes.
I have already discussed this with colleagues who are dealing with these matters in Parliament.
I am very aware of the importance of prevention through the work of youth movements.
Our studies have shown that in most cases, sporting organisations are the ones that young people value most.
I think then that through these young people, and through sport, we can convey many ideas on cooperation, attitudes of fair play and the elimination of racism and xenophobia.
Consequently, moving in these directions - fair play, sport and healthy young people - youth programmes will be taking the direction that you would like to see, Mr Andersson.
Mr Andersson' s question seems very interesting to me, and having been a professional sportsman for the last 20 years, drug taking in sport is an issue which interests me and worries me very much.
As has just been said, in February this year the World Conference on Drug Taking in Sport took place and it was decided that an international agency to combat drug taking in sport would be created.
Eight months have passed and this agency has still not been established because one very important issue has not been decided, which is where the agency will be based.
The European Union does not want the agency to be based in Lausanne, at the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee but, nevertheless, wants to have it in one of the Member States of the European Union.
Possible locations such as Madrid, Bonn, Luxembourg, Lille, Vienna, Lisbon or London are under discussion.
I would like to ask the Commissioner whether, in order to achieve our aim, it would not be better to unite all our forces and, with the backing of all the Member States, present a single European candidate as a seat for this agency.
You will not be surprised if I tell you that I agree with you entirely, Mr Zabell Lucas.
This is in fact a world-wide agency, and we Europeans cannot march out of step.
I do not think, however, that the most important issue at this stage is where the agency should be located, because it has already been decided that it will be based provisionally in Lausanne, for two years, until a definitive decision is reached.
As you know, the Finnish Presidency, which would like to see the agency based in Helsinki, is putting a great deal of effort into persuading the Ministers for Sport to reach agreement on a single site which the Europeans would then propose.
I shall be making a case for this too, but I do not think that it is a matter of priority.
Our priority is rather to ensure our membership of this agency. Once this is done, we will help to set it up and we will also insist that it be based in one of the Union' s Member States.
Commissioner, as a doctor specialising in sports medicine, the issue of drug taking worries me enormously.
But I would like to ask you one thing. Is the Commission aware of the powerful influence of the links between sport, the media and those with large financial and advertising interests, which induce elite sportsmen to use drugs?
Has the Commission established, with the International Olympic Committee, a timetable with regard to the issue of drug taking in sport?
I am quite surprised - pleasantly surprised - that so many Members of this Parliament are interested in the fight against drug taking in sport, and are so knowledgeable about it.
I propose then, that we put all this information together and discuss ways in which we can improve the programmes for fighting drug taking in sport.
I agree with you, Mr Bautista Ojeda: top sportsmen and women who are not "clean" , who use substances from outside sport in order to win, do set a bad example.
I think that the necessary steps have to be taken as quickly as possible.
We will be taking these steps at a world-wide level in conjunction with the Olympic Committee; indeed, it is together with this body that we will take our seat within the world-wide agency on drug taking in sport if, as I hope, the decisions go the way we would like them to.
In parallel though, we must develop a programme for fighting drug taking in sport across the fifteen Member States which the Member States themselves will have to set in action.
With your permission, Mr President, I shall therefore ask all Members of this Parliament who are interested in this matter to come and meet me so that together we can work out the best way of wiping out this plague.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
We will find a way of holding this meeting which promises to be so interesting.
Let us proceed to the last question to the Commissioner.
Question No 35 by (H-0478/99):
Subject: Raising the awareness of European citizens concerning the EU The EU spends vast sums of money printing thousands of information leaflets on its activities. This involves, inter alia, using huge amounts of paper, which is not exactly environmentally friendly.
The low turnout at the last European elections showed, however, that the message about the EU and its aims is not getting through sufficiently to European citizens.
Will the Commission look into the use of more modern means of communication for this purpose? For example, it could purchase between three and five minutes of advertising time daily between the news bulletin and the sports part of peak-time news on the TV channel with the largest viewing figures in each Member State, so as to put across in simple form the achievements and aspirations of the EU, thereby targeting the broad sections of the population who do not normally read anything, least of all our publications?
Questions to Mr Patten
The budget allocated to information activities is very small.
Publications account for only 0.005% of the total EC budget - much less than average Member State expenditure on similar information products.
The Commission is aware of the scope and possibilities of different communication media and carries out twice - yearly public opinion surveys with two questions, on how citizens are informed about EU affairs and how they would prefer to be informed.
Now it is interesting to see that TV is used and preferred by over 90% of citizens, so improving and increasing audiovisual information has been a priority for several years.
Free dissemination of our own production material via the Europe by Satellite service and cooperation with Euronews have proved effective measures, but we cannot go further than this free availability.
It is up to the communication media whether or not to use this material.
Publications follow as the second choice of medium.
For general information, print is still predominant as Eurobarometer shows that access to the Internet is not yet general in most Member States, especially not for the public at large.
Concerning the purchase of public air time, a wide variety of attitudes exist amongst Member States.
In some of them, free institutional primetime is available. This is very positive and we can profit from it.
In others, this is perceived as unacceptable political interference.
You see that respect for cultural values and preferences calls for strict application of the principle of subsidiarity, so we have also to respect cultural differences concerning the information system in the different Member States.
I would like to thank the Commissioner, whom I welcome in her new capacity to the European Parliament, of which she was once a Member before she was nominated Commissioner.
I am aware of the efforts being made by your domain and I am aware of the restrictions on the budget.
I also know that you consider television to be the most effective medium for reaching a wider audience.
However, I am very mindful of the fact that the problem of lack of information and communication is much more widespread as far as the public at large is concerned, proved by the low turn-out in the European elections.
The abstention was a spur for this weak European Union to inform and to convince people of its significance.
People do not know what the problems are and they do not know of Parliament' s efforts, what Parliament is, what it does and why citizen participation is important.
I suggested advertising on prime time television and, indeed, I asked if the Commission would be prepared to choose the time between the general news bulletin and the sports section of peak-time news because the public at large tend not to change channels at these times.
I regret that time does not permit me to continue but I am at the Commissioner' s disposal to develop my argument verbally to her in person.
I understand why you are asking these questions Mr Marinos, because you are yourself a highly regarded professional in the media industry, and you know what works and what does not work.
If we want to operate in the different Member States, we must respect the letter and also the spirit of national prerogatives.
We have tried in the past, during election campaigns, to have the Commission and Parliament conduct these campaigns jointly.
The Commission cannot, of course, take a political stance, but it can take a stance on the information available to the citizen.
I think that in the future, in order to reach the wider public as efficiently as possible, the Commission and Parliament should join in their efforts to inform the public of what is happening in Europe.
I would not want this information to be mere propaganda, but I feel strongly that it should be balanced and that it provides answers to our citizens' questions.
I know that this is much more easily said than done.
As you will see from the new flow chart of my Directorate-General, this a citizen' s service, which really puts itself at the service of the citizen, and which aims to answer all the questions and meet all the requests citizens may put to it. It does this by using, as Mrs Cederschiöld requested, the most up-to-date technology, but also falls back on the printed word when no other means can be used.
If we can, in conjunction with the Member States and Parliament, make use of television, we will certainly do so, but we cannot set up access to that medium if it is not felt that there is a demand for access to it.
Annex II, Conduct of Question Time under Rule 43, part B (3) states that the time limit of 30 seconds should not be exceeded.
I have now suffered because my question was No 36, a very important question dealing with people in my constituency, and I feel that people should keep to the timescale.
It is unfair!
This was my first time to speak in this Chamber and I have now lost that opportunity.
I am very grateful for your interpretation but it is no doubt due to the fact that it is the first time that you have spoken in this Chamber.
This is the second time that I have presided in this Chamber, I have sought information and there is a Bureau doctrine which Mr David Martin should be very aware of, for example, on the time of the intervention, which has been extended to one minute.
Mr President, Mrs Reding, thank you for your explanations.
I believe that increasing the awareness of the citizens of Europe is of special importance for the next elections.
Is it conceivable to create our own program in the field of 'learning entertainment' ?
Young people are clearly very enthusiastic about the Internet, and if we could offer the enjoyment of learning in this area with various possibilities such as prize competitions, trips to Brussels, etc. and could encourage schoolchildren to use our program on the Internet, would that not be one goal for the next five years?
Mr President, Mr Rübig has spoken from the heart.
I do see the significance of a policy on information, also after my experience of many years as a Member of the European Parliament, not just in the "higher spheres" but also among very young people, among children, who absorb information like a sponge and utilise it throughout their lives.
I shall certainly strive to ensure that the programmes, the cultural programmes and the youth programmes are applied not just to high schools and universities, but that cooperation between schools is promoted in primary schools too.
For this, we do not actually need long journeys, as these cost a great deal of money and cannot be paid for.
But different schoolrooms in different countries can be connected via the Internet.
This is an idea which is close to my heart and which I will willingly take up.
I heard what the Commission had to say about Europe by Satellite, but is the Commissioner satisfied that local and regional television stations across Europe are adequately aware of their rights of access to Europe by Satellite?
Can they do it easily technically? I find that in the south of England that is not the case.
Is there anything the Commissioner can promise to do about making sure that local television stations get easy access to the Europe by Satellite server?
The honourable Member has given me a very important cue.
It is true that it is not only the big channels which are important.
The small routes - the regional TV stations and the regional newspapers, the regional newsmen and - women are also of paramount importance.
I do not know whether it is technically possible or not.
If not there should certainly be a solution to that.
I would very much like you to send my services information about this lack of communication so that we can find a solution as quickly as possible.
Thank you very much for all your interventions, Mrs Reding.
Questions 36 to 39 will be replied to in writing.
Question No 40 by (H-0494/99):
Subject: Holding of a first annual EU­India Summit In its report A4-0066/99 of 12.3.1999 on the Commission Communication on the EU-India Enhanced Partnership, Parliament 'calls on the Council and Commission to propose to the Indian Government the holding of an annual Euro-India Summit' .
Furthermore, during the debate which preceded the vote on the report the Commission, represented by Mr Monti (Commissioner), expressed its support for such an initiative.
Can the Commission say what action (including representations to the Council and the Indian Government) it has already taken or intends to take with a view to holding the first of such Summits in the very near future? In more general terms, does the Commission not think - in the light of the various crises and the growing threats posed by the many anti-democratic regimes in the region - that the development of a strategic, political, economic and cultural relationship between the EU and India (the world' s largest democracy) would make it possible, within a single policy, for the wish to establish special political and economic relations with countries governed by the principles and rules of democracy and constitutional government to be combined, in a significant and exemplary fashion, with clearly conceived trade and economic interests?
I am aware of the contents of the European Parliament' s report on the Commission' s communication on India, and I am aware also of the honourable Member' s interest in the country, which I fully share.
When I met Mr Jaswant Singh, the Indian Foreign Minister, last week on 30 September, I emphasised to him that I intend the EU-India relationship to be a very close one reflecting India' s strategic and economic importance.
During our meeting Mr Singh invited me to visit India, and I hope to do so early next year.
I intend to push for full implementation of the Commission communication taking into account Parliament' s recommendations.
I am pleased that a number of joint working groups have already met, or will shortly do so, on topics as diverse as consular affairs and environmental issues.
In addition, we have regular meetings of ministers and senior officials.
As for the specific proposal for an annual EU-India summit, this is a decision for the Council.
I personally believe that we should measure the success of the EU-India relationship through substance, not summits, of which - and I hope the honourable Member will not think this too undiplomatic of me - in general, I believe there are too many.
Thank you very much for your answer, Commissioner.
I see that you intend to strengthen greatly relations between the Union and India.
I think, and here I differ a little from you as far as the last part of your answer is concerned, that there must be a counterbalance to the powerful signals given out by the Union to other parts of the world, which are nevertheless close to India, by organising events such as Summits.
European entrepreneurs, the European political classes and European public opinion, just like those in India, need a clear sign which only a Summit can provide.
I would like to ask you then, to determine the views of the Members of the Council, to see if one or more Member States might be interested in organising this kind of Summit quite quickly.
I want to stress straight away that I totally share the honourable Member' s enthusiasm for developing our relationship with India.
It is not just that we have a very close economic and trade relationship with India; it is not just that we have a relationship based on historical ties. It is much more important than that.
We have a relationship based on shared values. In the last few days there has been a fair and free election taking place in India involving an electorate which is larger than the electorate of North America and the European Union put together.
India is the largest democracy in the world and has coped with some horrendous problems precisely because it is a free society living under the rule of law, with a fully developed civil society.
I accept that we have to develop that relationship.
We have to encourage India' s relationship with the other members of the SAARC, of its regional body.
I will certainly discuss the Member' s proposal with my Indian colleague and with Member Governments.
But I do not accept that the only way you can demonstrate the importance of a relationship is through a summit.
Sometimes there is a danger of them being ceremonial occasions.
What we really want with India is a lot more - I will not say beef - muscle in our relationship and a lot more substance to it.
That I am determined to do.
If we keep putting hormones in beef we will get a lot more muscle in our beef as well.
The point I want to make to the Commissioner is this. While I welcome the question and the answer he has given - I agree with him that too much emphasis on summits is not necessarily a healthy thing - I wonder whether he will consider expanding the India/EU dialogue into an EU/Indian sub-continent dialogue?
That is a role that the EU could usefully play - of bringing the Indians, Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, etc. together in that sub-continent to discuss their common problems and, in a sense, act as an external honest broker in dealings between the countries in that sub-region.
In New York about ten days ago I had an extremely good meeting, together with the Presidency and the Portuguese Foreign Minister; with the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation under their splendid Chairman, the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, who happens, incidentally to have been at my college.
He has done a terrific job in revitalising that organisation.
We are involved in trying to support it, not least administratively, as it tries to develop free trade agreements in the region.
I accept what the Member said.
There is an important role to play in helping to sustain those regional relationships.
After all, we do have a certain experience in the importance of regional arrangements to demonstrate here in Europe.
Question No 41 by (H-0496/99):
Subject: Joint service for Community aid to non-member countries There is not time to regale the Commission with the litany of problems being experienced by both North and South NGOs in receiving funding from projects already agreed by the former DG VIII.
Obviously, the new Commissioner responsible for the SCR (Joint Service for the Management of Community Aid to Non-Member Countries) has been handed an unenviable legacy and I am sure he will be intending to institute reform in this area.
However, I would like to know what the Commission intends to do about the immediate situation and the real tragedies that are occurring because of the immense backlog that has now been built up?
The honourable Member is absolutely right to highlight this important issue.
As the House is aware, one of my top priorities is to build on recent improvements in the management of European Union external aid programmes.
In this context I should mention the significant personal contribution of Philippe Soubestre Director-General of the SCR.
We have a huge responsibility to the developing countries to ensure effective and timely use of European Union aid.
This is vital for the credibility of our policies and for the wider international image of the EU.
The honourable Member will know that the Commission' s services have recently made significant progress in eliminating the backlog of late payments on external aid contracts.
The vast majority of valid invoices are now being paid within the normal deadline of 6 000 days - I beg your pardon 60 days.
This applies, in particular, to the some 5 000 current projects with NGOs, financed either from the budget or via our delegations from the EDF.
It is an unfortunate but inevitable fact of life that we never have as much money as we would like.
This is particularly true in development aid where the available resources are never enough.
This means, for example, that we have requests for additional support for existing co-financing projects with NGOs amounting to twice the available budget in 1999.
This may create an impression of delays, but in reality it is an unavoidable consequence of pressure on limited resources.
Finally, I draw the honourable Member' s attention to recent changes to the requirements for NGOs to provide bank guarantees, which should make it easier to obtain advance payments up to EUR 1 million.
I could list a number of NGOs and others who have, in fact, waited 6 000 days and are still waiting.
For example there are landmine clearance NGOs and 'Article 19' - which the Commissioner will be aware of in the UK - who have had problems with lost documents, and with a whole litany of complete chaos.
Is the Commissioner aware of the huge tensions which exist between the external DGs and the SCR now because of the confusion about tasks, because of the staffing difficulties that DG VIII has, for instance, because of their staff being moved to the SCR?
There are underlying tensions which your answer does not address.
The answer is somewhat complacent about a real crisis situation in the SCR. That is added to by the fact that the RELEX DGs are being reorganised.
That causes even more chaos for the very essential work that we are engaged in with countries outside the European Union.
I think the honourable Member, who knows as much if not more about the NGO sector as anyone does, recognises the priority we have given to reforming and supporting the SCR.
We need to recognise as well the problem they inherited - a backlog of 19 billion of commitments, a backlog of 14 500 projects.
They have been making progress in dealing with those issues and I want to help them with that and not further damage their morale or that of the DGs.
It is therefore important to understand the difference that exists at the moment between problems caused by applications which cannot be met because of budgetary considerations and the processing of commitments, where the situation, despite difficulties at the beginning of the year, has improved; and it is worth remembering that some of the problems at the beginning of the year had a little to do with the lateness of receipt of commitments in December.
We all have to work together to try to ensure that the European Union gets the assistance it has promised to those to whom those promises have been made as rapidly and as effectively as possible.
I am aware of the gap between rhetoric and reality.
I want to ensure that those who are responsible for managing these funds have all the support from me and from others that they deserve; and I know very well that is an objective which the honourable Member shares too.
So, I take the question as pressing me to do more but I can assure the honourable Member that I am intent in moving in the same direction as she would like.
Question No 42 by (H-0516/99):
Subject: Commission action to restrict arms transfers and promote disarmament Bearing in mind the forthcoming first annual report on the operation of the European Code of Conduct on arms transfers of 1998, would the Commissioner for External Relations indicate whether he would support an extension of Commission competence to include arms trade issues at the next intergovernmental conference? What action has the Commission taken and what does it intend to take in the future in order to implement the Joint Action and Resolution on Small Arms adopted by the Council and the subsequent EU Development Council Resolution on Small Arms?
. Member States have up to now on the basis of Article 296 (former Article 223) exempted trade in arms from the scope of application of European Community Treaty rules.
There has therefore not been any scope for Community action in this field.
Arms trade is currently dealt with in the context of the common foreign and security policy, with which the Commission is of course fully associated.
The new Commission will have to consider whether to seek a modification of Article 296 at the next Intergovernmental Conference, taking into account the Conference agenda as well as progress on a new policy on arms exports.
Following the adoption of the Joint Action, the Commission participated in a series of troika demarches aimed at presenting the Joint Action to all governments and major regional organisations and gaining their political support for its goals.
A number of specific projects are currently under way.
The European Union is contributing EUR 500 000 to the UNDP Weapons in Exchange for Development pilot project in the Gramsh district of Albania, which, if successful, might be expanded to other districts.
A fact-finding mission to Cambodia has put forward a series of recommendations for practical cooperation on the basis of the Joint Action.
More projects are currently under consideration in the Council.
I thank the Commissioner for his response.
I regard consideration as positive and urge him to bring that forward.
We know that two billion a day is still being spent on the military and on arms sales - 40% of it from Europe.
All of us therefore have to be more effective in curbing this trade.
I congratulate the Commission on what it has done in terms of implementing the Joint Action on small arms - the project in Albania. I urge the Commissioner to implement the project in Cambodia as soon as possible, and other projects which I know he and his services are considering in a former Soviet Republic and in a South African country.
I hope that when we look at the review that is taking place in the Council at the moment, we will all be able to contribute in a way that will curb the arms trade and enable more money to be made available for development.
The honourable Member will know what the Commission' s traditional view has been on the trade in arms.
He may also have read recently an extremely interesting column in the Times newspaper on the arms trade by Simon Jenkins, which I thought made some extremely important and valuable points.
As the honourable Member knows, we have had discussions with the United States and Canada about small arms, and I very much hope that we can continue to make progress with specific projects in the way he has suggested.
I take it from the Commissioner' s answer that he is in favour of regulating the arms trade.
What is his response to the brokering of arms which is still going on? Recently arms travelled from Russia via Antwerp to the war in Eritrea.
Would he like to see a tightening up of the regulations to ensure that kind of gun-running cannot occur?
. Absolutely!
As an ex-development minister I formed very strong views about expenditure on armaments as opposed to expenditure on educating people and improving their health.
The honourable Member knows better than I, though I have some experience of it as well, the damage which has been done to Africa by the illegal movement of arms.
As they deal with the same subject, the following questions will be taken together.
Question No 43 by (H-0517/99):
Subject: East Timor What assistance does the Commission propose to offer to help with the reconstruction of East Timor?
Question No 44 by (H-0543/99):
Subject: East Timor Will the Commission state what action it intends to take on behalf of the European Union with regard to East Timor?
The Commission considers humanitarian aid as the most urgent priority in East Timor.
The ECHO services of the Commission are relaunching their temporarily halted humanitarian aid projects worth EUR 2 million.
In addition to that, a series of aid projects worth EUR 3 million is about to be started.
If necessary, more money - and I want to emphasise this point - can be made available for humanitarian purposes.
As to rehabilitation programmes, the Commission is in close contact with the World Bank and other leading donors to develop a coherent scheme, thus avoiding the overlapping of donor contributions.
In an interim period a UN administration will be put in place.
The Commission obviously intends to participate actively in this phase.
A procedure has begun to make a significant contribution to UNAMET with a view to help establish administrative structures.
Mr President, I know that the Commissioner, whom I would like to take this opportunity to greet, has several times expressed his solidarity with the people of East Timor quite emphatically, but I would like to know if there is in fact a programme of aid for the reconstruction of East Timor yet.
This programme is extremely urgent, and I would like to know if it has been quantified and how much the Commission foresees spending on this plan.
. If I may say so to the honourable Member who in the course of his distinguished career has gained much more experience of this issue I imagine than almost anyone else in this Chamber, there seem to me to be three stages to our assistance.
Firstly there is the immediate humanitarian assistance which is essential, not least given the systematic trashing of infrastructure and transport by the militias in East Timor.
Secondly - and this is immensely important and I discussed it at the UN with the Secretary-General and the deputy Secretary-General - there is the question of funding civil administration in the short and medium-term.
There has not been any indigenous civil administration in East Timor for as long as anybody can remember.
It is going to be costly to run services in East Timor.
That is why I mentioned as I did contributions to UNAMET.
I hope that we will be able to help there and I hope that Member States will be able to help as Portugal has already indicated it will.
Thirdly, there is the question of longer term development assistance and longer term reconstruction help. We are discussing that with the World Bank.
There was a donors' meeting on 29 September. There is going to be a subsequent mission to look at what is required.
I want to see that we do what is best for East Timor, not just pluck figures out of the air.
I can assure the honourable Member that is not a way of excusing ourselves from the obligations we have to that part of the world, to that soon-to-be country.
For years every foreign minister from Europe and North America who has been to Indonesia has had a speaking note about East Timor.
Now there is an obligation on us to put our money where our mouths have been all those years.
I hope that we will do it in a way which is sensible and effective and focused and targeted on real needs.
Question No 48 by (H-0467/99):
Subject: Cultivation of flax Does the Commission consider it reprehensible that high-ranking officials at the Ministry of Agriculture should have encouraged practices reminiscent of 'premium hunting' with regard to the cultivation of flax, promoted them through administrative channels, and received perks for themselves and their families as a result? What information with regard to Spain and the EU can the Commission provide on developments in the cultivation of flax, the receipt of subsidies, the monitoring of requirements to guard against fraud, the resultant processing for marketing purposes, and the providential fires at some processing plants?
What measures does it intend to implement to protect income aid for farmers under the CAP and shield such aid from fraudulent practices which tarnish the sector' s image and undermine its impact?
Mr President, as regards flax cultivation and the problems in Spain in connection with this, the Commission has already, within the framework of the prices package for the year 1996, proposed to the Council that a guaranteed ceiling be established for flax cultivation and, over and above that, that flax - with the exception of flax pulled in the traditional way - be assigned a lower level of support.
The Council should have adopted a position on this proposal by the end of 1996.
The Council did not endorse this proposal. As a result, the Commission sought to implement other measures so that premium hunting - as it is termed generally - in this area could be curtailed.
Here, I would like to stress particularly that we introduced compulsory supply contracts between the producers and the primary processors, and we then also introduced the principle that every primary processor requires a licence.
Finally, in addition, we also introduced a processing commitment for the harvested flax and a minimum yield.
Besides this, the system of explanations of sowing areas, controls and sanctions was reinforced.
On top of that, within the framework of the EAGGF statement of accounts for the budget years 1994 and 1995, the Commission services cut back the expenditure declared by Spain by 10% due to deficiencies in the checking system.
Years 1996 to 1998 are currently undergoing inspection. The inspection has not yet been completed.
We will then see what amounts can be paid out definitively.
In addition, in February of this year, we asked the Spanish authorities to supervise the conditions of cultivation, harvesting and processing particularly carefully in order to prevent premium hunting.
Just today I learnt from the newspapers that currently only one region in Spain has acted accordingly in this area and has withdrawn support from various producers.
We all know, then, that in the Spanish Parliament a committee of inquiry was set up which has looked into these matters as well.
On the part of the European Union, the anti-fraud office, OLAF, was commissioned to arrange for the Spanish judicial authorities to conduct investigations as to whether the Community aid for textile flax had been administered and monitored properly and whether incidents under assessment were to be noted as criminal offences.
These investigations are still underway and are being monitored attentively by OLAF.
But, over and above this, I would like to say in conclusion that we still see a need for fundamental rehabilitation in this area and that the Commission, by the end of this year, will therefore be putting forward a proposal for a comprehensive reform of the aid system and the market organisation system in the area of flax and hemp.
Let us try to redirect the situation because your reply has also been very general.
You will know, Commissioner, that the headlines of the entire Spanish press, and not just the largest newspapers, today feature the serious irregularities uncovered by the inspection of the Agriculture Department of the Council of Communities of Castilla la Mancha in the flax processing companies which were in dispute and have been examined and analysed by the Committee which has been mentioned.
Since you know about this, I would like to ask you what information you can provide regarding the investigation, which I imagine you are also carrying out in your Directorate-General, with regard to flax and premium hunters. Do you not have any information of your own?
Will you take account of the information supplied by the Agriculture Department which I have mentioned? If the Agriculture Department inspection indicates evidence of serious irregularities in the flax processing companies, should the corresponding subsidies be paid or should we await the conclusion of your Directorate-General?
Commissioner, the worst possible approach would be to try to prematurely close an investigation such as this flax investigation, which involves senior members of the Spanish Government in relation to the illegal payment of subsidies and fraud in this aid for the flax processing industry.
There could be nothing worse than to close our eyes to it.
Mr President, Mr Izquierdo Collado, I would like once again to remind you that I have given very concrete answers, both to the problem and also to the steps which the Commission has taken with regard to it.
If today it is reported in the newspapers here that now the competent authorities in individual regions are starting to take action, then this is only welcome and desirable, and actually complies with the request we made to these authorities as early as February.
Furthermore, I must point out to you that, insofar as it concerns suspicious circumstances which could possibly involve a criminal act, we only have the possibility of cooperating with the Spanish legal authorities on the basis of OLAF.
This is an area where absolute confidentiality must be guaranteed and so, because of the legal requirements we are subject to here, I cannot name specific names or cases.
I would also like to point out to you that at the moment a number of years are being investigated by the EAGGF, and if deficiencies in the running of the market organisation system are determined in these spot check investigations, then Spain must be prepared for the fact that a lump sum penalty may be incurred, i.e. that the support payments already paid out are reduced in retrospect by a lump sum - according to the gravity of these deficiencies.
Commissioner, this question is part of the electoral stunt organised by the Spanish Socialist Worker' s Party in relation to the recent European election campaign in order to attack the then head of the Popular Party list, Loyola de Palacio.
In any case, Commissioner, despite all of this, it was this list that received the most votes.
At first they talked about privileged information, but the announcement of aid is published through the European Union, Spain and the regional governments.
Then they talked of an organised system for the payment of subsidies, but the family relatives of the senior members of the Agriculture Department who received subsidies already cultivated flax before those people took their senior posts, before Mrs de Palacio became Minister for Agriculture and even before Mrs de Palacio knew them.
They then tried to accuse the then Minister of Agriculture of a supposed fraud in the award of subsidies, but responsibility for the control and payment of CAP subsidies falls to the regional governments, in accordance with the distribution of competences of the Spanish State.
Good evidence for this can be found in the a posteriori inspections carried out after the election campaign by the Socialist Government of the autonomous community in which this fraud took place.
Mrs Ayuso, I must remind you that you have used up one minute and 36 seconds and that furthermore you have not asked any question.
There are various procedural motions.
I expected this to be the case although, in my capacity as President, I have to behave as if I were, for example, Finnish, which is the Member State which holds the Presidency of the Union for this six-month period.
Naturally, I do not want to enter into a discussion of intent, not even when the issues relate to my own constituency.
But I must remind all of you that you must ask questions of the Commission and that they must relate to the matter under debate.
There are various procedural motions and I am going to offer the floor to the person who asked the question, who is Mr Izquierdo Collado.
I would ask him not to spend more than one minute in tabling the procedural motion.
Mr President, I would simply like to point out that, once again, groups in this Parliament and Members, specifically of the Spanish Popular Party, are manipulating Question Time and supplementary questions to the Commission.
It is truly incredible that this behaviour should reoccur and that every time there is a question from a Member, especially a Socialist, the Popular Party uses Question Time to hide the shame of its government and does not ask the corresponding Commissioner a question.
This should cease to happen in this Parliament and I would ask that the Presidency, when Members from the Popular Party are seen to behave in this manner, not to wait until the end of the intervention.
We are not currently sitting in the Spanish Parliament, nor in the Assembly of the region in question, but in the European Parliament, and I cannot prejudge nor anticipate any principle or respect for freedom of expression of the Members.
I have allowed you a procedural motion in which you have also digressed and indulged in name-calling.
I would ask you to respect the dignity of this Parliament.
This goes for all of us, whether Tyrians or Trojans, although I am not sure whether there are any Tyrians and Trojans here.
I would like to ask a follow-up question to question no.
48.
The Commissioner made an interesting point.
He intends to produce new proposals at the end of the year concerning flax cultivation in Europe.
That being the case, I would like to ask if these will include proposals relating to other fibre plants cultivated in Europe, such as hemp and so on and so forth.
Commission. (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to specify that as far as I am concerned there are no Socialist or other types of question.
As far as I am concerned there are only questions which I am called upon to answer.
Well, just such a clear question has been asked by Mr Mulder.
Perhaps just now something was lost in translation. I already mentioned in my first contribution that this proposal would be presented in any case by the end of this year and, secondly, that this proposal would deal with both flax and hemp.
Question No 49 by (H-0479/99):
Subject: Possible abolition of the Directorate-General for Fisheries Can the Commission state whether it is the case that, as has been reported in the media and in contradiction to the undertaking given by Mr Franz Fischler, the Commissioner for Agriculture, at his hearing before Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries, the Commission has decided to abolish its Directorate-General for Fisheries (DG XIV) - a measure which would clearly be contrary to the interests of the Community' s fisheries industries and, in particular, the interests of fisheries-dependent regions such as Galicia?
Does the Commission intend to reverse this damaging decision, as those interests require?
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I believe I can answer this question very briefly.
At its meeting on 18 September, the Commission decided the guidelines for the re-organisation of its departments.
This was previously announced - on 9 July - by President Prodi.
According to these guidelines, the Directorate-General for fisheries was furthermore set up.
Thus this decision is also in accord with the explanation which I gave in my hearing to the European Parliament Committee on Fisheries on 30 October.
Over and above that, the organisational plan for the Directorate-General for Fisheries was adopted by the Commission on 29 September.
There is therefore also a valid organisation chart for this Directorate-General.
Finally, at the same meeting, a new director-general for the Directorate-General for Fisheries was also decided, and so it is Mr Smidt who will, in future, be the director-general in charge of the Directorate-General for Fisheries.
This, I hope, clearly establishes that the Directorate-General for Fisheries does exist.
I would like to congratulate you, Commissioner, on your decision to keep the Directorate-General for Fisheries.
For my part, I retained my question in order to have the opportunity to hear in this plenary sitting, the ratification of your commitment to the Committee on Fisheries.
I hope, as I am sure you do, that this decision will prove useful to the development of an economic and social sector which is fundamental for the people of Europe who make a living from fishing, and for European citizens' food in general.
Mr President, unfortunately, I was unable to find any question in Mr Nogueira Román' s comment. So I am unable to give an answer.
I was following the question in Portuguese instead of Spanish and I am not sure whether there really was a question.
I did not want to interpret Mr Nogueira' s words.
There is a procedural motion from Mr Knörr, which I imagine will be the last intervention concerning the procedural problems of this Question Time.
I am new in this Parliament and I regret that the first question whose reply I was expecting to hear in this Parliament cannot be replied to orally due to lack of time, but I doubly regret the fact that this is due to the attitude of some people who, by raising questions in this House which, in my opinion, do not belong here, deprive us of the pleasure of hearing Mr Fischler speak today of the problem of our fishermen' s daily bread, for example.
I share your point of view, and the question which was not going to be answered orally, due to the over-running of the previous one, has been included in the end.
It was Mr Nogueira' s question.
I thank Mr Fischler for his response to all of the questions.
Questions 50 to 86 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was closed at 8.20 p.m.)
Madam President, I am grateful to you for giving me the floor.
I want to bring to your attention and that of Parliament the tragic and terrible rail crash that took place yesterday just outside Paddington Station in London, in which two trains collided.
At the moment the death toll is at 26 but is expected to rise - maybe even to double that - and there are many people seriously injured.
I therefore request, President, that you write a letter on behalf of the European Parliament to the British Prime Minister expressing our shock and horror at the magnitude of this terrible disaster, asking him to and pass on our deepest sympathy to the relatives of those people who have died, and also to the relatives of those who remain seriously injured in the hope that they make a full recovery.
I would be grateful, in light of this terrible rail disaster, if you would do that.
Yes, Mr Simpson, I have myself heard the news of this terrible accident and I agree completely with your suggestion.
I shall write on behalf of all of us, if you agree, to express our deepest sympathy to those who have suffered in this disaster.
State of relations between Turkey and the EU
The next item is the statement by the Council and the Commission on the state of relations between Turkey and the European Union.
I have received 6 motions for resolution laid down pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
Madam President, Members of the European Parliament, Turkey is, economically, socially and culturally, a key partner of the European Union.
Turkey also has, and will have, an important role to play in maintaining peace and stability in our continent.
This has once again been proven with the recent events in the Balkans.
It is clear that the Union and Turkey need one another.
The importance of that cooperation was underlined four years ago, when the Customs Union became effective.
It is our belief that the Customs Union has benefited both sides.
Last year, EU exports to Turkey accounted for more than half of Turkey' s total imports, and Turkey' s exports to the Union area in the same year accounted for approximately half of its total exports.
In this connection, it is worth noting, however, that the financial and institutional cooperation, which was agreed when the Customs Union agreement was made, has not come about in the way that was planned.
By virtue of the decisions made at Luxembourg in 1997 and Cardiff in 1998, Turkey is involved in the enlargement process.
Turkey has had created for it, its own strategy for preparing for membership: the so-called European Strategy.
This strategy involves both a broadening of cooperation in different areas, as well as financial cooperation.
Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, is endeavouring to enhance the implementation of the European Strategy.
Two proposals for a Regulation relating to financial cooperation in respect of the European Strategy are at present on the agenda in the European Parliament.
It will be very difficult to implement the strategy fully without financing.
As the country holding the Presidency, we appeal to Parliament to debate these regulations in a positive frame of mind, and as promptly as possible.
As we all know, there was a tragic earthquake in Turkey in August.
The damage the country suffered as a result, as well as the serious economic damage, underline even more the importance of financing.
The Union is closely following the development of democracy in her partner in cooperation.
There are serious failings with regard to human rights in Turkey, including the rights of minority groups.
We hear all too frequently about, inter alia, restrictions on the freedom of speech. This is not in harmony with our European values.
We have, however, noted with satisfaction a recent move on the part of the Turkish Government to implement democratic reforms and improve the situation regarding human rights.
We also wish to encourage Turkey to continue on its path to reform.
The OSCE Summit in Istanbul on 18 - 19 November will be an important opportunity for Turkey to show that it is trying to improve the situation with regard to generally accepted civil liberties.
The European Union opposes the death penalty everywhere, and whatever the case.
It is a common objective of the Union to abolish capital punishment everywhere in the world.
Under Turkish legislation, it is still possible to pass and implement the death sentence.
However, the death sentence has not been carried out in the country since 1984.
We hope that Turkey will refrain from implementing the death sentence in cases where such a sentence has been passed - including the PKK leader, Abdullah Öçalan.
We expect Turkey to remove the death sentence from its statutes entirely and continue with its moratorium until that time.
In addition, we would like to remind everyone that non-implementation of the death penalty belongs to the common set of values of the Union, a Union whose membership Turkey has indicated it aspires to.
Recently we have seen encouraging signs that relations between Turkey and Greece have improved.
We hold in high regard the contribution that Greece has made to this development, and we consider the dialogue that has started between these countries to be a very positive step forward.
It has been quite moving to see the genuine show of sympathy and solidarity in both Turkey and Greece, as a result of earthquakes in both countries.
We hope that the positive climate that has recently developed will be a step towards a more lasting improvement in relations between the countries.
Increased cooperation breeds trust, which can only lead to reinforced stability in the eastern Mediterranean and the whole of Europe.
This is to our common advantage.
Although the dialogue I mentioned awakens optimism in us, difficult questions remain.
The European Union and the country holding the Presidency give their full support to UN efforts to achieve a lasting and just solution to the situation in Cyprus.
This autumn we hope to make headway in finding a solution to a problem that has dragged on for too long.
We believe that Turkey, for its part, can contribute to the process wherein a just solution may be found,
When I went to Turkey, two weeks ago, I discovered that the destruction resulting from August' s earthquake was the most extensive in Europe since the Second World War.
Turkey cannot cope alone with the demanding task of reconstruction.
There is no full reckoning as yet of the cost of repairing the damage caused, but estimates vary between USD 3 million and 6.5 million.
The earthquake left 400,000 people homeless. At present, they are living in tents.
With winter approaching, it is no longer possible to live in such conditions.
The European Union wishes to support the reconstruction work in Turkey.
We also trust in the constructive cooperation on the part of the European Parliament in this important area.
During its presidential term, Finland will strive to do its best to integrate Turkey more closely into European structures.
This aspiration on the part of the country holding the Presidency has been given a good basis by an exchange of letters between Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and the Union' s previous country to hold the Presidency. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit reconfirmed in his letter that he thought the Copenhagen criteria were a basis for Turkey' s aspirations for membership.
There is unanimity among the countries in the Union with regard both to Turkey' s importance as our partner in cooperation and the need for closer cooperation.
It is something that has been mentioned by the European Union and individual Union countries in many connections.
Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Costas Simitis and Chancellor Schröder stated that the Union, for its part, would make a serious attempt to reach a positive conclusion at the forthcoming Summit in Helsinki.
The central issue will be how to strengthen Turkey' s status as a candidate.
There must be much active work and goodwill shown on the part of both the Union and Turkey to achieve this.
We are firmly of the opinion that bringing Turkey closer to the Union will be the best way of aiding the implementation of democratic reforms in the country.
In this respect, the path of isolation does no more to promote the aims of Turkey than it does the aims of the Union.
In this there is no doubt that we need the support of concrete action on the part of the European Parliament in matters of financing and general support to develop and consolidate relations between the European Union and Turkey.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is extremely pleased to see that the European Parliament, so soon after the start of its work, is having a full debate on the subject of Turkey, since this is in fact one of the most important political and strategic matters which we have to settle in Europe at the present time.
Today' s discussions are taking place at a time when relations between the European Union and Turkey have the opportunity to pursue a new course: exactly two months before the European Council meeting in Helsinki, which is expected to make important decisions with regard to the enlargement process as a whole and with regard to Turkey in particular.
The representative of the Presidency has just given a political analysis of the current situation, which the Commission can fully endorse.
I would like to add the following thoughts, from the viewpoint of the Commission.
Since the European Council meeting in Luxembourg in December 1997, relations between the European Union and Turkey have deteriorated, for obvious reasons.
As you know, Turkey did not see the European Council confirmation that it should be considered for accession as sufficient.
Shortly after the European Council of December 1997, the Commission discharged the "European Strategy" on Turkey' s preparation for accession in all relevant areas.
This European Strategy was drawn up as a specific, customised introductory strategy with the goal of expanding and deepening the existing Customs Union.
The Commission proposals were approved politically at the Summit meeting in Cardiff in June 1998.
Since Cardiff, several meetings on the implementation of specific aspects of this strategy have taken place, but thus far, the lack of appropriate funding has prevented substantial progress, although I must point out that the overall picture is not so black as it is sometimes painted.
The Customs Union was improved in some areas, and the exploratory talks regarding a possible free trade agreement in the service sector have made good progress.
The Commission experts visited Turkey in order to improve our general knowledge of Turkish legislation in all the areas concerned.
Concerning financing, I wish to point out that by the end of this year, Turkey will receive a share of EUR 375 million from the MEDA I financing programme.
We must in any case make further efforts to fulfil our arrangements with Turkey.
The Commission would like to encourage the European Parliament as soon as possible to issue its position on the draft regulations, with which the European Strategy should be supported.
Without this financial support, we are in danger of losing the credibility of the European Strategy.
Credibility is urgently needed in order to convince the Turkish side that they have to make an active contribution to the implementation of this strategy.
If we really want to help Turkey in the preparations for accession, as the European Council in Luxembourg wanted it with the European Strategy, then we must also show that we ourselves will make a significant contribution to the achievement of this goal.
The European Parliament clearly has a key role in this process.
At this point, I would like to express my satisfaction at the fact that the Commission reacted so promptly following the devastating earthquake which shook Turkey on 17 August.
The decision to make EUR 30 million in emergency aid available for reconstruction was possibly thanks to the speedy reaction of the budgetary authority.
In future, the European Investment Bank will grant medium-term loans of up to EUR 600 million for reconstruction, and also macro-financial aid of up to EUR 200 million, in order to support the current reforms in close agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
But we should look to the future.
As has already been mentioned, the European Council in Helsinki will once again deal with the question of the European Union' s relations with Turkey.
In this respect, I would like to make it absolutely clear that all accession candidates are assessed according to the Copenhagen criteria, and are all treated equally in this assessment.
Turkey does not fulfil the political part of these criteria.
In addition, there are deficiencies in terms of democracy, rule of law, human rights and minority rights.
However, the question is how we can ensure that the necessary reforms are initiated in Turkey and that Turkey is resolutely and irreversibly on the way to becoming an established member of the family of European democracies.
I am firmly convinced that this process in Turkey will only get underway and can only be successful if Turkey has the green light to enter Europe.
Recently Turkey has made some progress, though by no means enough, in the field of democratisation and human rights, and I can point out that this will also be made clear in the next progress report on Turkey.
Next week, in exactly one week' s time, this progress report will already have been discussed and decided by the Commission.
This report will indicate, among other things, that in June of this year, the system of special courts was changed and the military judge eliminated from the Turkish national security court.
It will point out that a number of important legislative and administrative measures have been carried out in order to prevent the abuse of human rights by public servants.
We expect Turkey to go one important step further and finally abolish capital punishment.
I would also like to stress that the rapprochement between Greece and Turkey which had been achieved shortly before the earthquake in various matters of mutual interest is an encouraging sign for the future.
I sincerely hope that the trust achieved between both these countries by means of détente will give them the possibility of addressing the difficult issues of security in the region in the same spirit as in previous discussions.
As you know, Turkey has decided in favour of Europe and is ready to undertake its obligations under the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I therefore think that, at its forthcoming meeting in Helsinki, the European Council should clarify what place Turkey can assume in the structure of Europe.
I would like to inform you as early as today that next week I shall be proposing that the Commission issues a recommendation for the Helsinki Summit to the effect that Turkey should also be treated as a candidate for accession on the same basis as all the others.
This means that Turkey must undertake the obligations of the Copenhagen and Madrid criteria.
Turkey still has a great deal of work to do, and considerable progress in the political and the economic field is still needed. Still, in view of the enormous strategic importance of Turkey for the future of Europe, for long-term security, stability and peace in Europe it would be a grave mistake to deny Turkey entry into the enlargement process on equal terms.
The time leading up to the Helsinki Summit must be used by Turkey and by us to agree jointly upon a timetable for Turkey.
There was already some discussion of this timetable in the exchange of letters between Chancellor Schröder and Prime Minister Ecevit prior to the Cologne Summit.
This would concern specific measures in the areas covered by the Copenhagen criteria in order to assist Turkey in the fulfilment of these criteria in the medium or long term.
Appropriate initiatives by Turkey in the run-up to the Helsinki Summit would doubtless increase the chances of success of this European Council meeting.
I am convinced that this Parliament will play an essential role in the forthcoming debate, particularly when, following the decision at Helsinki to grant Turkey candidate status, the comprehensive process of alignment of legislation, of screening begins.
I would like to clarify one thing at this stage in order to prevent misunderstandings. We are not now discussing initiating accession negotiations with Turkey, instead we are discussing taking the very first step.
The very first step involves granting Turkey candidate status so that the process may be initiated and so that we have the opportunity to be able to speak on the subject of starting negotiations in the foreseeable future.
Madam President, the central question seems to be whether this Parliament and the European Union show themselves to be sufficiently self-assured to confirm Turkey' s status as a candidate.
A failure to do so will provoke a serious crisis in our relations with Turkey.
Nobody wants special treatment for Turkey and nobody should ignore the series of problems over the treatment of the Kurds or over the situation in Cyprus.
My group believes that the discipline of candidate status will involve Turkey in more serious preparation for membership, a stronger dialogue and greater exposure to European Union culture and politics.
Parliament has certainly been dragging its feet on this issue, as the MEDA programme and the financial support for the European strategy show.
The Liberal and Green groups have tabled an amendment calling for the clear prospect for membership to be opened up.
This would encourage the forces of progress and reform within Turkey and increase the leverage of the European Union upon Turkey' s future development.
This position is supported by the Cypriot and Greek governments and Parliament would be reactionary should it fail to be in the vanguard of progress here.
I plead to all those who want Turkey to modernise on the basis of its European traditions to support our amendment.
Madam President, in his speech at the formal opening of the new legal year in Turkey on 6 September, the Senior Judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal, Sami Selçuk, strongly denounced the country' s constitution.
With the words, "Turkey is a country with a constitution but it is not a constitutional state," he condemned the Turkish constitution.
The constitution apparently protected the rights of the state at the expense of the freedom of the citizens.
"We need more democracy and more citizens who are allowed freedom of thought without being restricted by the laws of the land," said the judge.
He spoke in favour of widespread democratic reform and also fundamental restructuring of the political system.
He is right.
His demands are identical to our expectations.
I am even convinced that the majority in this House is also in favour of a democratic Turkey, in which human rights and minority rights are respected.
It is my conviction, too, that we are bound to support democratic circles and their modest successes not just on moral grounds but also because a democratic Turkey, which can solve its own problems within Turkey, will be advantageous for the internal security of the European Union.
By means of our policy we could make a contribution towards ensuring that the proponents of a European democracy in Turkey may be successful and that the hawks who are against Europe may be the losers.
In other words, at the present time, we need a policy which assists Turkey whilst maintaining a critical attitude and a policy which induces it to settle obvious issues such as the Kurdish question, the Cyprus issue or the human rights problems speedily and humanely.
This cannot be the policy of the exclusion or the isolation of Turkey!
Therefore, whatever the timetable or the exact procedure, in Helsinki a sign must be given towards the people of Turkish and Kurdish origin and towards democracy in Turkey.
I cannot as yet say anything for sure on behalf of my group on the integration of Turkey, because we are still having discussions, but for me personally, it means as Mr Verheugen has already said, that it has candidate status for accession to the European Union. Its integration is urgently necessary, not just for the democratisation of Turkey, but also for peace and stability in the Balkans and in South-Eastern Europe.
The Greek Foreign Minister Papandreou yesterday said at the University of Istanbul, "We want Turkey in the European Union right now!"
Nothing further need be said!
I think he made it perfectly clear!
Madam President, our group is in favour of a European vocation for Turkey and the possibility of its eventual accession. It is also in favour of a more open policy as regards granting financial assistance, provided this aid can benefit in particular the plight of its many earthquake victims.
This does not mean, however, that we agree with the delegate of the Finnish Presidency or with Mr Verheugen or with the joint motion for a resolution being tabled in the European Parliament.
We believe that we, the European Union, must be a community of principles and not a cynical political entity pursuing geo-strategic policies which, to a large extent, come from Washington. Why did we lay down certain conditions for Slovakia and refuse to grant it applicant status.
Was this a bad thing for Slovakia?
And why did we do the same for the Baltic States on the grounds of respect for minorities?
Was this a bad thing for the Baltic States?
Were we not aware that Slovakia and the Baltic States had made specific progress? So why should we change our standpoint as regards Turkey?
Mr Verheugen said that it is up to us to provide Turkey with an incentive, a signal or a symbol to help set in motion the democratisation process in Turkey. Have we not already done this?
Did we not do this with the Customs Union?
Did we not do this with the proposal for the European Conference? Did we not do this with the MEDA programme?
We had no response.
Therefore, I believe that we must insist on the preconditions and demand that specific progress be made by Turkey. Finally, I would like to mention that I was disappointed to hear the three groups referring to the Greek Foreign Minister' s statements and standpoints to endorse their argument for intensifying relations unconditionally.
I myself do not wish to comment on this.
It is not an area on which I would like us to comment. However, I would like to say that Mr Swoboda is wrong to say that progress has been made on the Cyprus issue because Mr Papandreou said so.
No progress has been made on the Cyprus issue!
We also heard Mr Ecevit saying that there will be no intercommunal agreements unless Mr Denktash' regime receives official recognition.
No progress has been made on the Cyprus issue and no progress has been made on the Kurdish issue!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it will seem incredible or maybe simply a coincidence, but just yesterday evening, I was given a statement on behalf of the Kurdish authorities on the continuation of the armed struggle.
In my opinion, this should be condemned in the name of both democracy and mutual civil respect of populations.
I am saying this because this is the real Turkish problem, along with the relations between us as the Community and the Turkish State.
Before the Öçalan case, nobody questioned the wisdom of the best possible relations with a State which had always declared its desire for an ever-closer cooperation with the Community, even to the point of asking to accede.
Mr Poettering himself stated just now in his report that at the time of the customs agreements, he was in favour of this step.
On the one hand, both as a Catholic first and as a politician second, I must stress the need in Turkey for more genuine respect for civil rights and fundamental values, especially as regards human rights. But on the other hand, we have to consider that all the commitments made by Turkey to the Community in recent years in terms of foreign policy, cooperation, economy and also in the cultural field, have always been honoured.
So in my opinion, we need to press both the President of the Commission and the President-in-Office of the Council, as well as ourselves in this Parliament, to make sure that all the agreements made with the Turkish State are upheld and complied with. And also that the competent Community bodies continue the timely and very thorough task of checking that the democratisation process and the peaceful resolution of the differences with other States are actually going ahead and are not mere words spoken by the Turkish State.
If we continue with the goal of enlarging the Community and, at the same time, of ensuring it complies with fundamental principles and values, this institution will assume its true role once more, which is fundamental in terms of foreign policy and international credibility.
Madam President, the terrible earthquake of 17 August took place in the very region of Turkey that has the highest per capita income.
The three provinces in the disaster area account for no less than 17% of the country' s industrial production.
One in every hundred workers in the region did not survive the earthquake.
One in every four inhabitants lost relatives and their homes.
Who in Europe could not feel pity for the victims of this disaster?
There is no doubt that a helping hand was and continues to be provided.
Indeed this is our moral duty from a Biblical point of view.
One of the offshoots of the disaster was a sudden change in the worldview of the Turks.
The spontaneous assistance provided by their traditional arch enemies Greece and Armenia refuted the Turks saying that a Turk will only find friends among fellow countrymen.
The earthquake made people painfully aware of the great shortcomings of the ostensibly powerful state machinery in Turkey.
Non-governmental organisations had their hour.
Since then, calls for sweeping political and social reforms have been on the increase.
These have come from people at all levels of society and even from President Demirel himself who only last Friday refrained from describing the Turkish constitution as democratic.
On the other hand, prominent representatives of the Turkish business community are suppressing these positive noises.
They are not saying a word about the dangerous polarisation between state and society, whilst at the same time, the gulf between rich and poor is widening.
The aforementioned industrialists are endeavouring to defuse this explosive situation by calling for people to join forces for a civilian society.
What attitude should the European Union adopt towards Turkey, a country at odds with itself?
Certainly one that bears witness to genuine good neighbourliness, which includes providing political and economic support.
Offering the prospect of membership of the European Union is not on the agenda yet though.
In any case, we still await progress reports.
It is precisely Ankara' s unaltered, hard military line as regards the Kurdish question, notwithstanding the PKK' s request for dialogue and the fact that they gave up the armed struggle, that underlines how important it is for us to assess Turkey' s compliance with the accession criteria.
The still unresolved question of Cyprus is another reason worth mentioning.
Madam President, the Commissioner' s statements displayed nothing but utilitarianism. He spoke of economic criteria, of strategic criteria and of security.
He made absolutely no mention of democracy and human rights.
In Turkey, the death penalty is still in force, and neither individuals' rights nor peoples' rights are respected.
Apart from the Kurdish question, there is the question of other minorities too.
Antidemocratic rulings are still present in the legislation - for example, Article 155 of the penal code and Article 8 of the so-called Anti-terrorist Law.
So before giving Turkey candidate status, I think we should verify that Turkey is making the necessary legislative changes.
Only then will it be able to take the path to accession.
I was a member of the committee established by the Council of Europe to monitor the Öçalan case, and I have to say that the penal process completely transgresses democratic rules.
I therefore think that it is too soon to grant Turkey candidate status.
Madam President, we have of course, listened with great interest to the European Commission' s proposal to grant Turkey candidate status.
But the problem you are now confronted with is that whilst, as a politician, you obviously have to act when the going is good, you also of course have to ask the question as to what will actually happen next once a country has been granted candidate status.
For we are not talking about political dealings here but about preparations for a country to become an EU Member
You only have to look at what effort it is costing the countries of Central and Eastern Europe for the inevitable question to come to mind as to what the Commission' s offer will mean to Turkey.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if we are proposing to leave Turkey in this position for decades? Would it not make far more sense to achieve things little by little and to continue to work on the process we have set in motion in order to bring it to completion.
Mr Swoboda' s little list of developments in Turkey was of course extraordinarily lean.
As things stand we are proposing to grant candidate status to a country that does not yet fulfil the Copenhagen criteria in any way, shape or form, so as to send out a positive signal from Helsinki.
I am absolutely convinced, Madam President, that it will not turn out to be a positive signal from Helsinki but that it will, on the contrary, become one big source of frustration. Moreover, what is the state of play as regards the European Union' s own preparations for the future membership of Turkey?
How much thought has been given to the implications it will have for our borders? How much thought has been given to the implications it will have for our agricultural policy and for the deepening of the European Union that we are currently working on?
We are simply going to have to answer all these kinds of questions.
It is time for us to deepen the Union.
It is time we started pondering questions of this kind now that this proposal, which is completely premature, is to be put forward in Helsinki.
I hope that we will come to see the error of our ways as far as this is concerned, for it would be extremely frustrating, for the Turkish Government and the Turkish people too, if we were to grant a status which will not offer any real prospect of membership for decades.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Representative of the Council, it is clear that today' s debate on EU-Turkey relations is a limbering up for the negotiations to be held at the Summit meeting in Helsinki at the end of the year.
The direction these negotiations will take has not yet been specified.
During the last round of talks, the Finnish President of the Council, Prime Minister Lipponen, stated in Athens that he did not yet feel ready to make specific recommendations.
Also in Athens, Chancellor Schreider, following his meeting with the Greek Prime Minister, Mr Simitis, stated that he thought it would be a mistake in a public debate and at a press conference to mention the conditions that Turkey must meet in order to be considered a candidate country. I believe, this suggests Madam President, that Turkey must meet certain conditions before it can be considered a candidate country.
Public debate is certainly the biggest flaw of democracy.
Governments can negotiate behind-the-scenes but Parliament cannot have this luxury of silence.
I believe that we all, or at least most of us, agree on certain basic issues.
We want Turkey to have a positive European vocation.
We want Turkey to be given generous humanitarian aid for the earthquake tragedy.
Finally, we all, or at least most of us, know that, in Turkey, individual freedoms, freedom of the press, the prison service and methods of police interrogation bear no correlation with democracy or with European culture.
I cannot forget the comment of the Prime Minister of Luxembourg during the Luxembourg Presidency when he declared, quite justifiably, that Europe cannot sit at the table with torturers.
Madam President, the anachronism of the regime was demonstrated by the sacrifice of the Turkish people themselves in terms of human lives during the earthquakes. This could not have happened in a country with a fully functioning legal system, democratic control and freedom of the press.
I consider very optimistic the remarks of the Commissioner that, by the time the Helsinki Summit comes around, Turkey will have fulfilled the criteria laid down by the Copenhagen Council to become a candidate country.
The Greek people showed their heartfelt sentiments towards the Turkish people during the earthquake tragedy and I believe that the Turkish people also have heartfelt sentiments towards the Greek people.
The Greek Government has stated that it is prepared to accept the progress made by Turkey towards candidate status provided that Turkey can show some signs it intends to fundamentally change its attitude.
Turkey has shown no signs of this.
It still persists with the partition and military occupation of Cyprus.
It still persists with its threats of war against Greece if Greece should enforce the international law on territorial waters.
As long as Turkey persists with these, it will not be possible.
What has been said here about Mr Papandreou acknowledging that Turkey has made progress on the Cyprus issue is totally wrong.
I can assure you that Mr Papandreou made no such statement.
It is not right that such statements can be distorted just to impress.
If Turkey does show signs of progress, then of course we will welcome it with open arms, but it must show some signs.
The ball, Commissioner, is in Turkey' s court and the next move must come from them. Europe has given it sufficient encouragement yet we have not seen, on an official level, and not from the Turkish people who are also suffering under the regime imposed on them, the response Europe needs to proceed to the next phase.
We would need to have the necessary response and then, of course, we can proceed with the issue of Turkish candidature.
As an MEP for London, I am glad to represent many Turks, Turkish Cypriots and Kurds.
That leads me to insist that the chief obstacle to Turkey' s accession is not prejudice or discrimination.
The EU is not a Christian club.
Europe is culturally richer for having Muslim citizens and residents, and I welcome that.
The chief obstacle to Turkey' s entry is its inability to meet the political criteria laid down at Copenhagen, especially regarding democracy, human rights and the rights of minorities, especially the Kurdish people.
And it is patronising and insulting to treat Turkey differently from other candidates as if suggesting Turkey is second class and incapable of aspiring to European political standards.
The main cancer in the Turkish system is the repression of the Kurdish people.
This has distorted the Turkish State and justified its militarisation.
Hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions have been evicted from their homes.
The PKK has committed some atrocities but these have been far outweighed by those perpetrated by the Turkish army.
There is insufficient response to the PKK' s ceasefire.
Our mistake is to perceive Turkey more as a strategic military ally than as a political partner.
We must intensify our relationship and contribute to constructive change, but must not say yet that Turkey is on track to join.
That is why I cannot support my own Group' s Amendment 1.
Madam President, it is clear that both the Council and the Commission are determined to grant Turkey candidate status within the European Union.
In our opinion, this once again shows that total hypocrisy is an underlying principle of the European Union, with its double standard policies of selective sensitivity towards human rights and respect for international law.
Personally, I am not surprised by the proposals brought by the Council and the Commission.
When the Union itself can bomb Yugoslavia, an independent country, it cannot have any problem with the bombings carried out by Turkey on Kurds in Iraq.
These double standard policies, based purely on the financial and political interests of the powers that be in the European Union, are making us turn a blind eye to what is happening in Turkey today; that is, Turkey' s refusal to acknowledge democratisation and respect for human rights, not to mention the violations of all the principles of international law.
The prisons are full, the tortures and the executions are continuing.
The Turkish regime has ignored the gestures of the PKK who actually sent some representatives to Turkey, just as a sign of peace, and called a cease-fire.
Nevertheless, this means nothing to the Turkish regime.
It still insists, at all costs, on a military solution to the Kurdish question, and on enacting genocides on Kurdish people.
Cyprus is still suffering the invasion and occupation of the Turkish troops and yet, we are still turning a blind eye to it.
If we vote in favour of the proposal of the Commission and the Council, then rest assured that this will not in itself encourage democratisation.
It will, however, encourage Turkey to reinforce the current inhuman, objectionable policy it is pursuing and to intensify the incursions against Greece and the incursions against humanity.
A few days ago, in the EU-Turkey joint committee, the representative from the Turkish delegation told us, "This is how we are; we are a democratic country.
Take us or leave us" .
So well done!
Keep it up and you will indeed be the ones receiving the human rights prize!
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the French, Flemish and Italian Members of Parliament in the Coordination of the European Right are in favour of establishing a relationship with Turkey based on mutual respect, mutual benefit and non-interference in internal affairs.
However, they are resolutely opposed to the integration of Turkey into the European Union where this would be in the interests neither of the Union nor of Turkey.
The Turkish nation is a great nation, but it is distinct from the nations of Europe in terms of its origin, its language, its history, its culture, its religion and its institutions.
The main part of its territory and population is in Asia.
The integration of Turkey into the European Union would cause insoluble problems: immigration aggravated by demographic differences, economic competition aggravated by differences in earnings and labour costs.
We must finally rid ourselves of these internationalist delusions which seek to extend the Union indefinitely, without taking national identity into account.
We must also find a way out of the humiliating impasse that we have been keeping Turkey in for years.
We must have the courage to say that the pre-eminent role of Turkey is to serve as a bridge between Europe and Asia, between East and West, and not to attempt integration which will be damaging for all the nations involved.
Mr President, I think that as far as the thorny and complex matter of relations with Turkey is concerned, we should begin by stating the fact that relations between the European Union and Turkey have been in hibernation for the last two years.
Turning to the representative of the Commission, I would like to ask: is this situation really in the European Union' s best interests?
I believe, Mr President, that we must make ourselves clear, and be able to distinguish between what we can actually do and the promises we would like to make. I think that one of the messages that we have to put across in Helsinki - and I am directing this remark to the Presidency-in-Office of the Council - is that the climate for negotiating in Luxembourg must be improved.
How can we do this? Well, we have to bring Turkey closer to the European Union and the European Union closer to Turkey on the basis of actions which are concrete, tangible and resounding.
I do not think that dodging a question that we will have to face up to sooner or later is a good idea.
We cannot put this off any longer.
Do we want Turkey to become firmly anchored in the democratic system of Western values or not? What are we prepared to do in order to achieve this?
Turkey has been a loyal ally of the European Union and deserves a clear and honest answer.
I think that within the European Union, we must face up to this situation with clarity, not by replacing reality with a reality of our own invention, because when all is said and done, that produces nothing but discontent and frustration.
I shall direct these remarks, for the sake of this clarity, to the Commission' s representative because in the end, the Commission' s decision will be definitive, or at least will have great bearing on the way Heads of State and Government see the matter.
Is the Commission going to propose more of the same to the European Council, or will the Commission, on the basis of the requirements of the Copenhagen criteria and of its own conviction about the Turks, offer the Turks the chance of not missing the boat in the future?
I would like the Commission to give a clear answer as to what the terms of their proposal will be.
Mr President, I sincerely believe that the most important factor in relations between the European Union and Turkey is to avoid making U-turns and complete shifts in policy.
It is essential not to give out wrong or unrealistic messages either to the Ankara Government or to the Turkish people, and to base our position on two principles.
The first one is that relations between the European Union and Turkey are vital to both parties, now and in the future, in all areas and at all levels. Secondly, that the European Union must give priority to promoting Turkey' s democratisation in an intelligent way.
To achieve this, we have to use the means available to us - the Association Agreement and certainly the Customs Union too.
The European Union must demand that Turkey fulfils the Copenhagen criteria, but we must not add new ones.
I was perturbed to hear how Mr Poettering, on behalf of the European People' s Party, added a so-called cultural criterion to our relations with Turkey. What was he referring to?
To the fact that there are unavoidable cultural differences between Europeans and Turks, which prevent Ankara from having the chance that their country might join the European Union? I am radically against this unacceptable view.
We can require that there be political principles, democracy, respect for human rights, and fair treatment of minorities and of the Kurdish people, and that international law be respected.
But to add other criteria would certainly not be European in the best sense of the word.
I would therefore like the EPP and Mr Poettering to make their position clear on this matter.
Turkish public opinion, a progressive public opinion in terms of politics, society and business, requires that we give a clear message. But this message includes a rapprochement between the European Union and Turkey and at the same time, a push for the democratic values which today are still not being fulfilled.
Leyla Zana is surely the most striking example of what I am talking about.
Mr President, Europe has a lot to offer Turkey and vice versa.
That is why I agree with the Commission that Turkey should be granted candidate status and will be welcomed providing it fulfils the strict Copenhagen criteria.
We must help Turkey with the preparation process.
However, it is essential for Turkey to undertake radical reforms itself, not just in words but above all in deeds.
Supreme authority must fall to the government and no longer to the military.
As long as Turkey infringes human rights and Ankara attempts to resolve the Kurdish question primarily by military intervention, there is not the remotest possibility of its actually becoming a member of the EU.
The resolution we have before us articulates this view, Madam President, particularly in paragraphs 1, 2 and 3.
However, I consider paragraph 9 to be unacceptable because it suggests, unjustifiably, that Turkey is attempting to resolve the Kurdish problem by peaceful means.
If only that were true.
Mr President, I concur with all the speakers who have pointed out that the current changes in Turkish policy are completely inadequate.
Nonetheless, as a Member of Parliament of Kurdish origin, I advocate financial aid and economic cooperation, and I also support Turkey in its integration into the European Union, on condition, however, that the Helsinki conditions be fulfilled, i.e. the question of Cyprus, the human rights issues and the Kurdish question must be settled politically, capital punishment must be completely abolished and all prisoners must receive a general amnesty.
Kurdish identity must be recognised!
Mr President, the European Union is a Union of democratic constitutional States that contribute to the strengthening of the international rule of law both amongst themselves and in their relations with non-EU countries.
That is why the European Parliament wanted Article 6, which contains such wording, to be included in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Article 7 even provides for the suspension of those Member States that do not abide by Article 6.
It therefore follows that negotiations on accession to the European Union cannot be undertaken with countries that are not full constitutional States.
We have had prior experience of this with Slovakia.
We adopted a very clear position at that time.
Slovakia did not satisfy the political criteria established in Copenhagen.
Commissioner Verheugen is also absolutely right in saying that Turkey does not satisfy the political criteria, and certain consequences flow from that statement.
Of course, we cannot compromise the character of the European Union on geopolitical grounds and for reasons of Realpolitik.
We cannot allow a State that is not a constitutional State to determine our common future; there cannot even be negotiations on that point.
We must give the character of the Union due consideration.
The Council has politely said that Turkey is doing its best to become more of a constitutional state. The Right Honourable Member, Mr Swoboda has scratched around for some ideas, with a view to showing that there really is some truth in this.
He himself will not be too happy with the list he has submitted. What actual evidence is there that Turkey is doing its best?
Could we cite its dealings in relation to Cyprus or the Kurdish question, or the treatment meted out to Christian minority groups in Turkey? Could we cite the fact that command is being taken of the police, who have become a law unto themselves at local level, or the fact that the role of the army is under review?
Could we cite the changes that are afoot as regards religious freedoms? I would like to see either the Council or the Commission produce a documented report on the positive steps that Turkey has taken, together with an overview of the points which still need to be worked on.
There is one point on which we, as the European Union, fall short and that is the completion of the Customs Union in financial terms.
Immediately after the earthquake, the Greek Government made very friendly noises about Turkey' s becoming a member but I do not think we can take them at their word.
The litmus test for the Greek Government consists in their willingness to lift the blockade on the financial aspects of the Customs Union.
That is the only real contribution the Greek Government can make and any friendly noises it might otherwise make are completely empty gestures.
We want them to put their money where their mouth is.
Nor must the European Union disappoint Turkey in this respect.
Fond words about the earthquake do not help either, for it did not alter the constitutional state in any way.
Mr President, we are going to have to leave Turkey in no doubt about all this.
There must be no doublespeak!
Mr President, the chairman of the Group of the European People' s Party expressed his sympathy with regard to my own group, because at the time we made heavy weather of the decision on Customs Union.
I would like to return this sympathy on the grounds of the ease, with which the Group of the European People' s Party has undergone a complete U-turn in its position since the agreement on Customs Union.
Mr President, I have listened attentively to what the President of the Council and also Commissioner Verheugen have said on the subject of the possible candidacy of Turkey in Helsinki.
I would have welcomed it if it really had been an honourable position of the European Union with regard to Turkey.
But I am afraid that we are re-establishing a policy which, for decades, has permitted us to hide behind the Greeks and say that the Greeks would never agree to it.
Now, as the Greeks are showing that they would agree under certain circumstances, we must, in fact, come clean.
We must really ask ourselves in all conscience if we want to have Turkey in the European Union or not.
Nuances of wording, whether it concerns one candidate for one candidacy, as in this case, or whether we should establish a new category of candidates, who are indeed valid candidates but with whom no negotiations are held, will by no means be beneficial to our relationship with Turkey.
My last remark concerns a matter in which nuances of wording once again play a role.
We are always talking about the Kurdish question, but we never talk about the Kurdish people.
This is a people of between 12 and 20 million individuals, who nowhere, either in Turkey or in other countries, can enjoy their freedoms, human rights and rights as citizens.
We must support the cause of these people.
Mr President, Mr President-in-office of the Council, Commissioner, there is no doubt that the tensions, the insecurity and the instability are all enemies of development and prosperity.
We Greeks seek the consolidation of peace and stability throughout the whole of the South-Eastern Mediterranean.
It is therefore evident that we consider closer rapprochement between Turkey and the European Union a positive development.
I ought to stress the point, so as to avoid any misunderstanding, that the rapprochement of Greece and Turkey, despite the historical antagonism and the fundamental differences, is in fact one of the most significant issues in our country' s foreign and security policy.
Turkey' s vocation within Europe, however, is a debate of great interest within the international community.
Any positive development depends solely on Turkey itself.
Provided that Turkey conforms to the prerogatives and duties imposed on those states wishing to join the European Union, and provided it subsequently fulfils the criteria and follows the programme stipulated in the joint decisions in Copenhagen and Luxembourg, then it could progress with its European goals.
It is unfortunate that Turkey' s behaviour both nationally and internationally is a far cry from that of stable Europe.
As regards democratisation and respect for individuals' rights, the gap is major.
Internationally, Turkey is known for its lack of stability, persisting with actions which promote rather than prevent destabilisation of the local geopolitical environment.
International Law cannot accommodate threats of violence, political blackmail by the larger States or disputes over borders and obligations arising from involvement in the international arena. Nor can it accommodate countries adopting defiant stances in the international arena.
In particular, the stance taken by Turkey in relation to the Cyprus issue proves that nothing has changed, despite the distorted view propagated by the international press during the disastrous earthquakes.
Turkey wants to join the Union, but it wants to do this without changing anything in its internal functioning and approach.
Is this possible when it does not respect international law? It is self-explanatory that one cannot justify such preferential treatment, such behaviour and such forfeitures of rules and principles within this Community.
It would be wrong for other applicant countries and would set an unpleasant precedent in the framework of enlargement and of current and future.....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I think that this debate and the motion that we are discussing today fully demonstrate Parliament' s wish to give out a clear, strong and friendly signal of cooperation, a signal which takes note of the Greek Government' s changed position with regard to the Turkish Government.
However, we must also find the courage to admit that now, Parliament is waiting for the Copenhagen political criteria to be complied with, even before there is compliance with the Copenhagen economic criteria.
The Copenhagen political criteria are ethical criteria which represent the real identity of Parliament and the European Union.
The European Union bases its own identity on the fact that it follows the principle of the rule of law, which is much more important and significant than being able to mint a common currency or have a common defence policy.
The ethical criteria mean human rights, democracy and respect for minorities.
I think that the summary we have made in our motion is a fair one, and that we should impose it on Turkey.
Candidate status and the cooperation signals are fine as long as we have the courage to repeat first to ourselves that it will be difficult to welcome Turkey into the European Union while the Turkish Government continues to ignore the Security Council' s resolutions on the invasion of Cyprus, while it continues to deny the existence of a Kurdish minority by referring to them generically as terrorists and until the threat of the death sentence no longer hangs over Öçalan.
I think that in our reasoning, we should rise above a purely economics-orientated approach and reading.
We must demand genuine results at a democratic level, and this is a guarantee required not only by our Treaties but above all by our peoples, especially the Turkish people.
Mr President, in a historical context the European Union is a baby.
In its infancy it questioned the eligibility of British membership and rejected its application to join.
At that time many thought Greece or Spain - I suppose these days all that is forgotten - would never qualify for membership.
Over the last ten years we have witnessed huge changes.
Membership has expanded to 15 Member States, Parliament is beginning to acquire political power and will, I hope, cease to be a mere talking-shop.
Turkey' s application has to be judged on the basis of the following criteria: Turkey' s strategic geographic and economic position and how this impacts on Europe; Turkey' s crucial role as a member of NATO and how this membership could be sustained if the door is permanently shut in its face; Turkey, which as a future responsible member of the EU could be the fire extinguisher for the fires of discontent that burn in the Middle East and beyond.
I appreciate the fears of those who worry about Turkey' s Islamic population.
The reality is that there are large numbers of Turks living in Germany and France, large numbers of Muslims - including Turkish Cypriots - who live in Britain.
The populations of Kosovo and Albania are predominantly Muslim.
The religious complexion of Turkey is a matter of historical accident, like Spain under the Moors for a few hundred years.
Turkey' s culture is distinctly European and its religious complexion should not devalue its European identity.
Let us look ahead over the next 10, 15 or 25 years and examine what is in Europe' s best interest: what will contribute to the prosperity and peace of this family of nations that we call the Europe of today.
Let us not be hypocritical, and let us ask ourselves what is the intellectual basis for excluding Turkey.
Young Europeans, socially mobile and far less religious than us, expect us to develop a Europe of opportunities for work and prosperity that we can all enjoy.
Turkey cannot join the EU today; but geography, culture, history, security and common sense . . .
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the European Parliament is called upon to make give a fundamental, open and honest evaluation of past and future policy on Turkey.
Turkey is and remains an important partner of Europe.
But this partnership is not strengthened by now offering the prospect of accession to Turkey.
We need pragmatic steps on the way to an autonomous European Union Policy on Turkey.
We said yes to Customs Union.
But in this House the financial services of the Customs Union were blocked.
I am asking for these pragmatic steps to be implemented at the earliest possible juncture.
We need Turkey as a reliable partner in a geostrategically unsettled region on the edge of Europe.
An autonomous policy on Turkey cannot, however, have Turkey' s accession to the European Union as its objective.
The prospect of accession, Mr Verheugen, which the Helsinki Summit will open up and which you have described here on behalf of the Commission, is, we are firmly convinced, clearly the wrong way to go.
We are pleading emphatically in favour of an autonomous European Union policy on Turkey, based on the three pillars: partnership in security matters, close economic integration and ongoing dialogue on political, economic, cultural and democratic issues.
The admission of Turkey into the European Union would excessively overstretch the European Union and would impose radical political change on Turkey, which it cannot fulfil in the foreseeable future and, I know, does not even want to fulfil.
Therefore, the admission of Turkey would lead for a variety of reasons to a qualitative change in the European Union and to an inevitable standstill in European efforts for integration.
The Ankara Agreement is not a sufficient reason for this as, since this Agreement with the EEC, in three amendments to the Treaties, the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty and the Amsterdam Treaty, Europe has documented its willingness and capacity to transfer further competences from the national to the European level and thus deepen Europe.
My group is, therefore, in favour of an autonomous policy on Turkey just short of accession.
We want these high level relations with Turkey for reasons of security policy, economics and politics.
But we also want to deepen Europe further and not let it be undermined by accessions which we cannot cope with.
Mr President, I must confess when I hear phrases about Europe being overrun and overwhelmed it fills me with absolute horror about the quality of the debate in this Parliament.
However, this debate has puzzled me somewhat and therefore I would like to put a question to Mr Sasi and Commissioner Verheugen, namely: What is the difference between what is going to happen in Helsinki and what happened in Luxembourg? In Luxembourg we confirmed Turkey' s eligibility for accession to the EU.
I understand we are talking about confirmation of Turkey' s candidate status in Helsinki.
However, whenever I ask Commissioner van den Broek if Turkey is a candidate, he says the Commission regards Turkey as already being a candidate.
So what exactly is new in Helsinki?
All candidate countries of course must meet the Copenhagen criteria and Turkey is surely no different.
None of the applicant countries meet the Copenhagen criteria yet, otherwise by definition they would be members now, so what is the difference with Turkey?
Meeting the Copenhagen criteria is not a static process - it is a dynamic process.
We are working with the other applicant countries to help them meet the Copenhagen criteria.
Human rights problems in Latvia and Slovakia would never have been dealt with without the positive prospects of European Union membership and Turkey should be treated in the same way.
We have to be actively involved in order to improve the implementation of the European strategy.
We need to harmonise Turkey' s legislation to the acquis and we need to work with Turkey to build a civil society.
We cannot do that unless we do what we did with the other Central and Eastern European countries and are prepared to spend the money we have promised: that is the crucial factor.
We have to become involved as we promised to do in the Customs Union and in the association agreement, and we must work to make Turkey ready for European Union membership, just like all the other applicant countries.
Mr President, the impassioned and fascinating nature of the debates held last week in Brussels within our group, as those being held right now in this Chamber show, if proof were needed, the importance of the matter before us today.
In this light, there is a wide consensus in favour of according Turkey a special position due, specifically, to the history and geography of Europe.
As a result there is some agreement on the need to intensify the relationship between the European Union and this country.
Yet, even though we must acknowledge the progress that Turkey has made towards rapprochement, doubts remain as to its ability and even its intention to meet all the Copenhagen criteria.
The time has come to get rid of this ambiguous position.
This is why our group has suggested that a discussion forum be set up, uniting politicians from the European Union and from Turkey, naturally, but also representatives from elsewhere in society.
The objective would be to look in depth into the matters which are still problematic, those involving respect for human rights and minority rights, of course, but also matters relating to economic relationships, and in this respect Europe must fulfil its commitments regarding the Customs Union and expedite the establishment of the appropriate financial protocol.
In consideration of the geostrategic importance of Turkey and the role it continues to play in the defence of Europe, it seems to us, finally, that it would be appropriate also to table a discussion of questions of security and foreign policy.
Establishment of a forum of this type seems to me the only way to respond to the questions that remain without hypocrisy.
Mr President, I think that the new position which has been outlined for Helsinki on relations between the European Union and Turkey is a good one, and that it should perhaps be made more urgent, by stating even more firmly, the two principles on which - I believe - our approach is based.
The first is that Turkey has the right to become part of the European Union and that we need Turkey for our project, which will not be complete unless Turkey is incorporated into it.
The second is that in order for Turkey to be integrated, it must meet the same requirements accepted by the other Members of the project.
I am convinced that we need Turkey not just for reasons of security but also to regain the credibility and universality of the project of European construction.
A large secular State with a majority Muslim population will prove that the Europe we are building is not a Europe with a Christian outlook, but is rather one based on universal values relevant to every citizen of Europe, of any faith or of none at all.
This Europe that we are committed to is capable of sharing values with other great groups of humanity from whom a project based on a religious outlook would separate us.
If we state emphatically that Turkey' s place is ready for them, that we are waiting for our fellow European Turks to come and join us at the Union' s table, we must state, just as firmly that there will be no weakening of the conditions set out in Copenhagen.
We must do this because we acknowledge that Turkey has a long way to go, basically in the area of human rights and of the rights of their various peoples and minorities, whether they are recognised as such or not, who make up the population of that country. Turkey also has a long way to go in terms of the way it acts towards Cyprus.
We must make Turkey aware of this firmly but without exaggerating or caricaturing things, by describing their shortcomings and the obstacles they must overcome without shying away from them, but neither must we portray these difficulties as insurmountable.
The European Union must see their shortcomings, even the most serious ones, as problems, and we will be committed to helping Turkey to find solutions to them, always bearing in mind the fact that our shared objective is to achieve the integration of Turkey into the European Union.
Mr President, the subject of relations with Turkey is difficult and complex.
We cannot hide from the true situation of a country which, however, has always sided with NATO.
Turkey must still make a lot of progress, embrace western democratic values, and resolve the question of relations with Greece and Cyprus.
But to facilitate this process, I think that serious consideration should be given to President Poettering' s proposal to establish a timetable of regular meetings between Turkey and the European Union in order to discuss democracy, the human rights of minorities, economic and social development and foreign security policy.
There is a long, long way to go, but open dialogue between the partners, which will be strengthened with the forum proposed by Mr Poettering, cannot and must not stop.
Ending talks would mean increasing the risk of a growing Islamic extremist presence in Turkey. This would have a destabilising effect in the Mediterranean region.
So we favour continuing talks between the European Union and Turkey, but invite Turkey to make actual progress.
A policy of promises is not sufficient. We need a policy of concrete facts, we need respect for human rights and we need the abolition of the death penalty.
However we know that the Kurdish question does not only involve Turkey. Respect for the human rights of the Kurdish minorities also involves Iran.
When we speak of respect for human rights and guarantees for the Kurds, we have to look beyond the Turkish borders because otherwise it would only become a political propaganda tool.
So I think that the proposal to continue the dialogue should be supported but, I repeat, Turkey must give real proof that it is adhering to European democratic values.
Mr President, the Turkey of today is not the accession candidate of tomorrow.
We are worlds apart as regards capital punishment, human rights, minority rights, democracy and rule of law.
Scarcely less deep are the rifts on important matters such as economic, social and environmental legislation, to name but a few areas.
The continuing military occupation of part of Cyprus is no contribution to peace and security in Europe.
There is no getting around these facts.
Anyone who says otherwise is, in the best analysis, hypocritical.
No trust is to be gained by means of hypocritical set phrases, either in Turkey as our partner, or with our citizens at home.
Therefore, we cannot say yes to substantial passages in the compromise resolution before us.
If the relevant sections are not deleted from the text then we shall reject the whole resolution.
Turkey' s membership of the European Union is not really an important contribution to the future development of the Union.
To put it correctly, we are making a contribution to greater clarity in Turkey and on behalf of Turkey. At the same time we retain our credibility in the eyes of our own citizens.
In order to make further progress along the long road which Europe and Turkey must travel to become closer, we urgently need credibility.
In this sense, we can support everything that has been mentioned many times today.
This includes, for example, the requirement to take the European Union' s financial commitments towards Turkey under the financial protocol seriously and not just verbally, but also to make the necessary funds available.
In so doing we will be showing both our own citizens, and also Turkey and the citizens of Turkey, that we take invitations and declarations of belief seriously. We do wish to be partners in future!
This is however conditional upon our not proceeding to the second step before taking the first, as one may already have supposed on many occasions today.
Mr President, when Romano Prodi was presenting his programme, he told the European Parliament that we had 20 or even 30 years of enlargement in the Union ahead of us, during which time the number of Members would rise to 25 - perhaps more than that.
His time perspective was a realistic one, and remains so.
I fear that many countries, which are much closer to possible accession than Turkey, were given the impression years ago, from many quarters - and I do not mean Parliament, but government representatives - that full membership for the Baltic Countries, Poland and Hungary, for example, would be possible by the year 2002 or 2003.
The internal development of these States, and, above all, their ability to fulfil the obligations of the Union in order to acquire Union rights, may not be sufficient for such speedy accession as they themselves would hope.
We must make one thing clear for ourselves, however.
In my opinion, it is not honest to say that developments in Turkey remain inadequate, when we mean that Turkey cannot be a Member at all.
No, in my opinion, we have to say, as Mr Sasi, representing the Council here, said, that we must see a lot more development in Turkey, but that we wish to show goodwill.
In other words, we shall not exclude Turkey.
Furthermore, the Union must take stock of the burden of enlargement, when, in a few years' time, Poland, with its population of almost 40 million, one quarter of which still derives its livelihood from agriculture, becomes a Member.
And the Union' s potential is not boundless, either, which is why it is easy to agree with the words of Mr Poettering: yes to a reformed Turkey in the future, but that time is not now.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I think the premise, which is repeated again and again here, according to which Turkey would have to fulfil specific conditions to become a Member of the European Union, is a false one.
Just imagine if the Turks were actually to fulfil the criteria!
We, in the European Union would be in no position whatsoever to integrate Turkey.
That is the reality!
For we have a principle in this European Union of ours, the socialist principle of redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor.
We call it economic and social cohesion.
If Turkey were to become a Member of the European Union, then of course Turkey would also have a claim in having this principle respected.
The European Union would be completely overtaxed by this.
What we are planning now, is already a show of strength of the first order, i.e. integrating the Poles, the Czechs and Hungary, whom I would have in the European Union tomorrow rather than the day after.
But we cannot yet integrate Turkey too.
And as regards identity, as this is an argument which keeps being brought into play, I think that if Turkey is European, then Ukraine and Russia, at least, should first belong to the European Union, and that is impossible too. But it is equally impossible to integrate Turkey.
We should dismiss this thought.
We should not string Turkey along any longer.
It is just unfair and thoughtless. It is not we but our children who will have to pay the price.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Members of Parliament for their valuable opinions.
I would like to stress that political situations have to be exploited to promote peace, stability and human rights.
Now we have this opportunity.
The Kosovo crisis gave us a concrete picture of how important it is for us to build cooperation and peace in Europe.
That can only happen through commitment to European structures, and we know that Turkey has an important part to play in promoting stability in South-East Europe.
The other major event has been the earthquakes in both Turkey and Greece.
They have generated a sprit of goodwill between the Greek and Turkish people and laid the groundwork for closer political relations between these countries.
We therefore have an opportunity for better cooperation to take the place of estrangement.
I believe that closer cooperation will also aid real development in Turkey.
I believe that will mean that, in Turkey, improved human rights, democracy and political climate will be seen as absolutely vital steps to take.
I also believe that it will give us the opportunity to make headway on the Cyprus question, as Turkey has an indisputable influence on that issue, and its cooperation will be needed for progress to be made here.
Mr Verheugen of the Commission referred in his speech to Turkey' s possible candidate status.
In this regard, it has to be said we still have a lot of work to do before the Helsinki Summit in order to reach a conclusion here.
We have work to do in the Union, but it is also important that Turkey gives out positive signals during the whole of this process that the country is on the right track for development and that the position of democracy and human rights in Turkey is being strengthened.
The Copenhagen criteria have been discussed here.
Regarding these, it should be stated that they are a condition of the opening of talks.
We are now discussing Turkey' s candidate status.
If candidate status can be approved, the Copenhagen criteria will be an important path for Turkey to follow for its development, and they will be an ideal vehicle to take that development in the right direction: towards the values that we advocate here.
I would also like to emphasise Turkey' s importance with regard to the stability of the region that surrounds it.
I believe that if the Islamic countries see that Turkey' s new road towards Western values offers it greater economic opportunities and better political operating prerequisites, it will serve as an important example to the Islamic countries surrounding it, and it may also in this way have a stabilising influence on developments in Europe' s neighbouring regions.
I value the motion for a resolution proposed here very highly, and I would like to say that I am particularly satisfied that Parliament is promising to act swiftly in matters relating to the Turkish question.
Once again I would like to appeal to Parliament that the regulations on funding be dealt with in Parliament as quickly as possible.
The debate is closed.
The vote will be taken at 12 noon.
Middle East peace process
The next item is the Council and Commission statement on the Middle East peace process, followed by a debate.
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, I am glad to have the opportunity to speak to you today on the present situation regarding the Middle East peace process, and the role of the European Union in it.
It has been gratifying to hear, after a gap of many years, positive news on the progress the peace process is making.
Much has changed since the last spring.
Six months ago we were in a situation in which the implementation of the Wye River Accord, signed in October 1998, had come to nothing.
The Israeli Government, owing to internal political pressures, was unable to secure the implementation of the treaty, and the country ended up going to the polls prematurely.
The ending of the mid-term stage of the Oslo Agreement on May 4 this year made the situation more uncertain.
The Palestinians had said they would unilaterally declare the existence of an independent Palestinian State on that day.
When, at the same time, a heated election campaign got under way in Israel, the situation looked likely to come to a crisis.
There was a general atmosphere of disappointment and uncertainty.
Furthermore, people were afraid that terrorist attacks would increase.
Today, the situation is to a large extent different.
The result of the Israeli parliamentary elections and the election for Prime Minister in May was a turning point that made it possible to restart work on settling the conflict.
Israel' s new government has given an assurance to the international community that it will strive in earnest to attain peace with its neighbours.
There is always a hint of the unexpected associated with political developments in the Middle East, however.
What is different about the situation at the end of last year compared with this spring is that this time there is some cause for hope.
We have a display of increased political will, of the capacity for direct talks and the timely implementation of agreements.
I know that the European Parliament closely follows the development of the Middle East peace process and that there is a good deal of expertise here in matters relating to the region, as shown by the study published by the Parliament on the subject.
I shall concentrate on developments since last spring.
That was when Parliament last issued a statement on the matter.
Finland, as the country in the Union to hold the Presidency, has consistently considered the Middle East peace process to be one of the most important issues in the common foreign and security policy.
We follow the development of the peace process carefully and are in close contact with all parties.
The Finnish Foreign Minister visited the region on 1 - 5 August.
The Finnish President, Martti Ahtisaari, is right now in the region, on a visit which will take in Israel, the Palestinian areas, Syria and Lebanon.
Furthermore, we have regarded the comprehensive network of contacts set up by special envoy Miguel Moratinos, as well as his vast expertise, as being of immense benefit.
His work has been very valuable from the point of view of EU transparency, visibility, and contact for discussions.
The European Union has made an important contribution to developments in recent months.
We have always encouraged the parties involved to take part in discussions and negotiations.
In addition, we have always tried to create opportunities to generate a climate of opinion that is favourable to the peace process and we have worked to ease tension.
A good example of this is the declaration made at the Berlin European Council, which, in my opinion, played an important part in reducing tension in the spring.
It is hoped that the EU will be more active in the Middle East peace process in many contexts.
It is true that we are in a very influential position.
Europe has a solid, one thousand-year-old Mediterranean connection to the Middle East and an unparalleled knowledge of the region.
We are not trying to compete with the United States or any of the other players in terms of whose role is more important, but seek close dialogue with them.
The prospect for the near future would appear to be that, with regard to the Palestinian track, both sides will discuss the matter directly with one another, without any appreciable participation on the part of others.
There is broad consensus among the Member States of the Union regarding the basic issues and objectives of the Middle East peace process.
It has solidified during the last decade, which has meant that the role of the Union in the region has gathered strength.
We are already now the largest donor of aid to the Palestinians, which is visible, from the political point of view, in the important contribution we are making, for example, to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee to coordinate Palestinian aid, to be held in Tokyo in mid-October.
Economic cooperation and expert technical assistance in certain matters relating to the permanent status negotiations, and in the area of good administration, are those areas where we have been of help and where we are ready to act in the future also.
In addition, the European Union believes it is very important to have projects involving the cooperation of citizens, which would bring individuals into contact with each other in a positive way.
This kind of cooperation has quietly gone on during all the years of the cessation of peace.
The current stage of the political peace process can be regarded as having once more got under way with the agreement made at Sharm el-Sheikh last month.
The international community supports the agreement made by the parties involved.
The implementation of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum has got off to an excellent start, with Israel and the Palestinians fulfilling their obligations to the letter.
The implementation of the agreement, through tangible practical action, will be the best way to rebuild trust between the sides.
The agreement will create a new belief that the principles of Oslo have not been forgotten.
In my view, there will be a need for faith and trust.
The parties have purposefully left the most difficult and sensitive issues to be solved later.
The one-year deadline set by the parties for signing a permanent status agreement is an ambitious one.
However, determination, the consistent building of mutual trust, and the right attitude will make the objective achievable.
The European Union is prepared to assist with every means at its disposal, should the parties so desire.
The Syrian track has ever greater opportunities to start negotiations and thereby achieve peace, as both sides want peace.
They only feel they should wait for someone else to make the first move.
The opportunity must be seized, and we are ready to offer our services to all parties.
I believe it is only a matter of time before talks begin.
In the rapid developments that have taken place in recent weeks, the Lebanon track seems to have been somewhat excluded from public attention.
It is vital to bring about more stable conditions in Lebanon for her to develop favourably.
We hope that a political solution for the Lebanese track can be found quickly, and we are ready to assist as best we can with regard to this track.
I have, up till now, examined the peace work mainly from the political standpoint.
Politics has the main role in achieving peace, but, at the same time, economic and other types of regional cooperation will play an important part in increasing trust and, above all, securing the peace that has been achieved.
This will be handled on a multilateral track.
It still has not succeeded in living up to the expectations we had of it as a factor in supporting the peace process, but I believe that it offers every prospect of success.
Indications of that are EU cooperation with the Mediterranean countries within the framework of the Barcelona Process and moves to continue the MENA series of Summits next spring.
A just, comprehensive and lasting peace will bring with it, not only changes in regional cooperation, but also pressures for change within the countries themselves.
We were glad to see the parties preparing to reconcile themselves to unavoidable bilateral compromises demanded on both sides.
Now is no longer the time for harsh words.
We earnestly believe the changes in the Middle East to be only for the good, if only people get to enjoy the fruits of change.
Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, fully understands that there is an opportunity for profound change and will continue, together with our partners, to promote peace and the common interest with every means at our disposal.
Mr President, many of us feel that the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum represents a milestone in the Middle East peace process that we all want to see.
The simple truth is that it is not possible to find absolute truths in a dispute whose origins are interwoven with the very roots of our civilisation.
This is exactly why the determination that Israelis and Palestinians are now showing in the way they are developing and applying their agreements is opening up an amazing opportunity for hope.
Further proof of this feeling is the way the recent stumbling blocks relating to the introduction of the 45-kilometre corridor which will unite Gaza with the West Bank, have been overcome in the last few hours.
But, as Mr Patten put it so well, we must not underestimate the difficulties lurking on the horizon, which will certainly trip us up in critical situations - hopefully these will only be fleeting - during which we should all bear two things particularly in mind: firstly, that the way forward must always be dialogue between all those involved, which is genuine, open and direct. Secondly: that it must be seen that both Israelis and Palestinians have a common enemy - terrorism - in all its forms, whose only aim is to destroy peace, freedom and respect for human rights.
Particularly given our own current historical context, there is no possible justification for the use of violence, wherever it may come from.
We do not have to resort to the figures on commercial exchange, investment and cooperation in development to see how important a role the European Union plays in the region, but the European Union' s proven economic solidarity must be valued as highly as its ability to contribute efficiently to a peaceful solution to the conflict.
I share Minister Sasi' s recognition of the efficient work done by the European Union' s special envoy, Ambassador Moratinos.
Nevertheless, the fact that we have mentioned it so many times does not mean we can stop discussing the lack of vision of our contribution, as Europeans, to the peace process.
This is another area for which the European Parliament must accept responsibility in line with its stated desire to contribute to developing a common foreign policy for the European Union.
Given this context, I think that this House should have two immediate objectives: to set in action the parliamentary structures of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum, bearing in mind that this could be a very useful instrument for securing peace. It should also put into practise the initiative of Parliament' s President, Mrs Fontaine, who is to make a tour of the region.
Mr President, after decades of war, conflict, refugee columns, occupation, terror, despair and bitterness, we are now finally seeing some light at the end of the Middle East tunnel - a tunnel which has locked the region' s inhabitants into a situation of mistrust and antagonisms.
Through the Wye River and Sharm el-Sheikh Agreements, the new political situation in Israel, a decisive PLO leadership and, not least, a deeper insight into the Arab world, a new situation has been created which prepares the ground for a real and sustainable solution in the region' s interests.
Seldom have the prior conditions for progress been as good as they are now.
It is Israelis and Palestinians who are the main players.
They themselves have the key to this solution.
Today' s leaders are conscious of their historical responsibility.
In this situation, it is very important that both sides refrain from unilateral undertakings which might jeopardise the process.
With commitment and disquiet, indefatigable diplomatic energy and enormous financial commitments, the surrounding countries have followed the Middle East drama for more than half a century.
As has been evident here, the EU has a growing and important role in the region.
I fully support the Presidency' s and Commissioner Patten' s constructive attitude here today.
Our new Parliament is today sending out a new and clear signal of vigorous and sustained support for the peace process which must open the way to progress, democracy, respect for human rights and hope for the future for all people in the region without exception. And, not least, it will open the way to peaceful co-existence between Israel and the independent State of Palestine.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists unanimously backs the multi-party resolution which has been set out here.
Mr President, this motion celebrates the good news, the successful ending of the Sharm el-Sheikh negotiations and the agreement of safe passage for Palestinian goods, vehicles and people.
But the safe passage is physically just a narrow corridor through which freedom of movement, a central tenet of European Union philosophy, is hedged about with many necessary security constrictions.
May these soon ease as confidence builds up.
Free trade also needs fair pricing in order for the producer and the seller to make due profit, as well as honest labelling of product origins and processes to satisfy the customers' requirements on health and choice.
Both these key free trade elements have been absent in part or in whole from Palestinian export trade, particularly in textiles and in agricultural products.
Conflict has dominated the trade agenda too.
This motion calls for an end to all trade obstructions.
Only then can three close neighbours - Israel, Palestine and Jordan - build real prosperity for all their peoples.
Yes, there are risks involved, but what a prize to win.
I commend this motion to Parliament.
Mr President, this resolution does not evoke the same feelings.
In fact, we all welcome the developments that have taken place since Mr Ehud Barak was elected Prime Minister of Israel.
We welcome the relaunch of the peace process and the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum, which came into being after what were certainly laborious negotiations and which, to this day, has had the respect of all parties. The protocol that was signed yesterday concerning the link between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank of the Jordan is also a cause for celebration.
We may be in optimistic mood but we are still troubled.
The new Israeli Government is persisting with its policy of colonising Palestinian areas and remains the hostage of the Likhud party, which multiplied the number of settlements in order to prevent people from returning to the Palestinian areas.
As far as these settlements are concerned, both in the Syrian Golan Heights and in the Palestinian areas, we want to draw the Commission' s attention to the matter of the preferential tariffs that Israeli products attract.
Commissioner, we need to ensure that these preferential tariffs also apply to products from the settlements.
The previous Commission took certain precautions to this end.
More attention must be given to these measures, otherwise we will be giving de facto encouragement to those pursuing a policy of colonisation, and that when the European Community together with the rest of the international community, the United States included, has constantly condemned this policy and we are all aware that Israeli settlement policy is a major obstacle on the long road to freedom and a true Palestinian state.
Mr President, I am convinced that we must make the most of every opening and every chance of building peace through the assertion of the human, social and political rights of each individual or people.
The situation in the Middle East is still a long way from this, but without doubt, the election of Ehud Barak as Prime Minister of Israel and the Palestinian' s peaceful choice have given peace a chance. This was shown by recent developments in the reworking of the Oslo Accord at Sharm el­Sheikh.
But for peace, or at least possible justice to materialise, the Israeli authorities need to take more steps - some colleagues have already said this - not only because of the Palestinian-Israeli question, but also because of the Lebanese and Syrian question.
The occupation of southern Lebanon must end and Syria' s land must be returned, as laid down in various UN resolutions.
Of course, this is all in the interests of the security of the Israeli State.
However, the security issue cannot hide the illegality of the military occupation or bombings of civilians, which happen in southern Lebanon, or the existence of prisons like those in Qian. But the Palestinian question is still at the heart of the matter.
In March 1999 in Berlin, the European Union reaffirmed the Palestinians' right to a sovereign, democratic State that will peacefully co-exist with the Israeli State.
In Sharm el­Sheikh, the conflicting parties undertook to lay down the final State by 2000.
To achieve this, it is imperative that Israel realises that for the Palestinians, a sovereign state is not a generous concession but a right.
Above all, Israel must not take any action that will change the territorial and demographic order of the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem.
Still today, we hear news of Palestinian houses that have been demolished, confiscated land and the growth of colonial settlements.
On 25 September, the military administration gave the go-ahead for the confiscation of Palestinian land belonging to 79 villages, in the Green Line area of cultivated and inhabited lands.
The same happened in the village adjacent to Hebron.
In East Jerusalem, men and women' s identity cards are confiscated to reduce their numbers in an operation that the centre for Israeli human rights has called 'silent deportation' .
Moreover, there is still the Palestinian refugees tragedy.
Well, the UN resolution must be implemented.
Of course, the opening of the corridor between Gaza and the West Bank is extremely positive, but Israeli checks make it difficult for men, women and goods to pass through.
The European Union has a large part to play here.
The European Union has played a positive and important role in the peace process in everything it has done and I think that it should continue to do so.
In this sense, our role, the role that the European organisations are also performing, is essential.
Mr President, firstly I should like to say that I very much appreciate the comprehensive statement made in the debate this morning by Commissioner Patten on the many complex issues which remain to be contended with in this very difficult area.
The outlook for the future in terms of securing a permanent peace agreement in the Middle East is, I believe, now more promising than ever.
There have been key developments taking place in this regard, which have been mentioned by others.
The new Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Barak, has put in place a government with a sufficiently strong majority to allow him to resume negotiations in the peace process with adequate parliamentary support for his declared intention to get the peace process moving forward again.
In fact President Arafat and Prime Minister Barak have already signed the memorandum to implement the Wye River Accord and to resume the final status negotiations.
A number of measures have already been implemented under the Wye River Accord, including the transfer of control over specific territories as well as the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners.
Our Union must continue to play an active role in putting in place and consolidating a permanent peace agreement in the Middle East.
The European Union is right to support a negotiated settlement in the Middle East which reflects the principles of the transfer of land for peace, which ensures the collective and individual security of both Israeli and Palestinian peoples.
In this context I welcome the decision by the Palestinian National Union to reaffirm the nullification of the provisions of the Palestinian National Charter, which called for the destruction of Israel.
They have also reaffirmed their commitment to recognise and live in peace with Israel.
I am convinced that the creation of a democratic, viable and peaceful sovereign Palestinian state on the basis of existing negotiated agreements is the best guarantee for the security of Israel.
I support the right of the Palestinian people to form a state, but one which comes about on the basis of negotiation and goodwill of all interested parties and not one which is brought about as a result of coercion.
The implementation of the Wye River Accord seems likely to proceed.
The real difficulties will arise within the framework of the final status negotiations, which includes the contentious issue of Jerusalem, control over water rights and the return of refugees.
Progress on these issues may be hindered by developments on the ground, such as the expansion of settlements or terrorist attacks.
I welcome the statement of the Palestinian authority which has declared that it will take action against terrorism while Prime Minister Barak has informally given an understanding that he will try to limit the expansion of settlements.
Prime Minister Barak has also vowed to end his reign of occupation of Southern Lebanon within a year.
Peace talks between Israel and Lebanon which have been frozen since 1966 - and the conditions in which Israel' s withdrawal from Lebanon is achieved - will be of particular importance for the safety of UNIFIL personnel who are based there.
In addition to questions relating to the sovereignty and security between Israel and Lebanon, the return of refugees will be of particular concern to Lebanon, whose ethnic balance is disturbed by the fact that there are 250,000 Palestinian refugees on its territory.
Finally, I believe that Syria, which seeks complete restoration of the Golan Heights, has announced that it is willing to renew peace talks with Israel, but only from where they broke off in 1966.
The issue has stalled there.
I believe that the European Union and the United States working together will do their very best to get the talks under way.
We must continue to be very active in encouraging movement on both sides.
European discussions about the peace process in the Middle East often tend, in our view, to be remarkably one-sided.
They would have you believe that the major stumbling block is solely down to a failure on the part of the Israelis to be accommodating and cooperative.
On the other hand, the West makes remarkably few peremptory demands of the Palestinian authorities.
The Arab world itself often stays completely out of the picture.
In this respect, there is no doubt whatsoever that the present joint motion for a resolution represents an improvement on certain previous resolutions.
The key to an accurate understanding of the long, drawn-out Arab-Israeli conflict still resides in the fundamental question as to how it began, in other words the cause of it.
Well now, the cause certainly does not lie in what is termed the Palestinian question.
This exists, of course, but this extraordinarily poignant question is, in turn, a legacy of the war that the Arabic States waged in 1948/49 against the recently proclaimed Jewish State.
The big test facing the peace process is likely to be the question as to whether the Palestinians will be able to introduce sound administrative structures.
The Palestinians definitely deserve all the help both the Israelis and Europe are able to give to this end.
This kind of interaction will also promote mutual understanding, which is an essential step towards real peace in the Middle East.
As a matter of fact, paragraph 11 of the joint motion for a resolution links up perfectly with this idea.
Lastly, both parties, Israelis and Palestinians, should themselves make it known if they require the European Union to act as a political mediator in the peace process.
Mr President, as Europeans, we have a special, historic responsibility in connection with the peace process in the Near East.
This responsibility cannot however involve our judging the current political strategy or the Palestinians and expressing our opinions on democratically elected politicians in Israel.
As Europeans, we must remain neutral in this conflict and support both sides equally in their efforts.
We are therefore, like the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance rejecting motions for resolutions which express views which are increasingly critical of the Israeli Government but which do not go into the problems of the other side.
As Europeans we cannot afford to take sides in this conflict, thus losing our credibility as negotiators.
Mr President, I think that the debate taking place here shows the unanimous welcome this Parliament accords to the progress in the peace process noted in the Sharm el­Sheikh Memorandum.
It is a complex process - Commissioner Patten reminded us of this - and yet today, we have important deadlines and timescales during which things should happen which will bring us within sight of a definitive solution; that is, the recognition of two independent, sovereign states which can co-exist in a situation of mutual security.
I think that we must now reconfirm our commitment and make an exceptional effort which will supplement that of the contracting parties which clearly nobody can replace.
But I think that within this framework, the European Union can perhaps play a more political role to help resolve controversial points. We have been reminded of the negotiations between Israel, Lebanon and Syria on the Golan Heights and the items on the agenda which have not yet been dealt with.
However, I think it is important that no unilateral action is taken on these items which will compromise the negotiated solutions and I think that the two societies must immediately work together - Israel in a move towards security and the Palestinians in a move towards peace and prosperity.
I do not think there is anything that cannot be resolved.
I would like to make a final remark on the extremely delicate question of Jerusalem and its status, which naturally requires that both the Palestinians and the Israelis find a solution.
I want to say that there is nothing that cannot be resolved, and to back this up, I will give my city, Rome, as an example which shows that within the capital city itself, it is possible for two States to co-exist.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Democrats, I would like to say that we are very satisfied by this Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum which will strengthen the tiring peace process in the Middle East, and we hope that it will bring it to a conclusion.
In the Liberal Democrats' opinion, Europe must continue to give its firm backing to the peace process and cooperation in the Middle East. But it must make commitments, not just on an economic level, but also on a political and cultural level and acquire a stature and political weight recognised in the region and the rest of the world.
However, in defending the right to self-determination we believe that all parties must be urged to make real commitments against terrorism to ensure people' s security.
Mr President, obviously we are delighted at the change in policy promoted by the new Israeli government of Mr Barak and the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum.
Today, we must support by every means possible those forces in both Israel and Palestine who wish to come to a definitive agreement.
In this context, the Israeli Government must refrain from creating new installations unilaterally, carrying out expulsions of Palestinians and maintaining its settlement policy in East Jerusalem.
We also think that it is important to continue and intensify the Community "People-to-People" programme mentioned in paragraph 11 of the resolution.
Peace between these two States, Israel and Palestine, will be a lasting one only if their economy develops within the framework of regional cooperation favouring development which is sustainable and equitable for all parties - cooperation which prioritises the most vulnerable territories. We are thinking, for example, of the problem of water.
The European Union must target this objective.
It must also initiate the negotiation of Euro-Mediterranean Agreements with Syria and Lebanon and update the agreement signed with Jordan.
The statements by the Council President and Commissioner Patten seem to us to be heading in the right direction.
Mr President, developments in the Middle East have taken place according to the motto, "two steps forward and one step back" . Nonetheless, it is true to say that we have come a long way since the beginning of the 1970s when I first became interested in the problem.
At that time, the Palestinian people and the PLO were completely marginalised.
The only people who took them even slightly seriously were the European Left.
I must point out that it was only when the right-of-centre Netanyahu lost the election that the peace process got under way again.
Even if there are grounds for optimism now, it has to be said that there are still a number of unsolved problems.
There is the problem of the status of Jerusalem.
There is the problem of international contact for the Palestinians via Gaza and that of an international airport on the West Bank and, not least, the question of resources for migrants.
There will now be the important task of keeping both parties on the track of peaceful development.
I think that the EU can play an active role if it is prepared to use economic incentives and keep a careful watch on whether the agreement is being adhered to.
This will be a form of development in which human rights can be strengthened on both sides and in which my friends on the Israeli Left may perhaps see their dream fulfilled.
Everyone is entitled to a homeland!
Mr President, in the Basque country we have examined with interest the whole Palestinian peace process, because we also support in Euskal Herria the need to overcome the current political conflict through democratic settlements.
We are much concerned about the fact that the impression most people get from the current talks in the Middle East is a positive one.
As a matter of fact there is no real peace process going on because the most important issues to be tackled have not been agreed upon.
We would like to stress at least three of them: firstly, the continuing colonisation process, both in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank.
Secondly, the situation of Jerusalem, Al Quds - that is to say, the wish of the Barak government to make the city the indivisible capital of Israel.
And, finally, the lack of solutions for the Palestinian refugees living outside their country, who have the right to return to their home.
As Minister Sasi says, now Israel has no major reasons for not resuming the negotiations with Syria that they left off in 1996.
If these negotiations are successfully settled, we are sure that negotiations between Israel and Lebanon will follow.
Meanwhile, Israel does not respect the Accords signed with the representatives of the Palestinian people.
There is only one solution - a solution based on the peace process, that also takes into account also the will and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.
Mr President, we are all delighted that the peace process in the Middle East has been relaunched. Nevertheless, we know that the history and circumstances of the conflict are dramatic and that, over the years, various initiatives which seemed to open up a future of hope, have ended up being blocked as a result of intransigence, a lack of political will or the short-sightedness of one of the sides involved.
This is why serious obstacles to achieving a peace which is just, such as the constant establishment of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory or the lack of respect for what East Jerusalem means to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims in general, have made the road to peace a difficult one. Peace is a concept which should not be defined as merely the absence of war.
In order to ensure that, this time, the way forward for hope which has opened up after the signing of the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum is not closed in the future, the political sensitivity and intelligence of the new Government of the State of Israel, whose security we want to see guaranteed, must come up with measures which are capable of creating a lasting confidence on the Palestinian side, so that the peaceful way forward, recently reopened, reaches its final goal as soon as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner Patten, ladies and gentlemen, yesterday in Jerusalem, Israelis and Palestinians were signing the Agreement to open the road between Gaza and the West Bank, a free passage through Israel connecting the Palestinian territories.
This corridor, today, is more than a symbol, it is a reality, fragile but tangible.
The way opened up a month ago by the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum finally puts the Oslo and Wye River Accords back on track.
This phase is essential for a fair and lasting settlement of the conflict.
The Accords recognise the Palestinians' right to self-determination, as a State, but also guarantee the right of Israel to live in safety within secure and recognised borders.
The European Union, itself a unique example of cooperation between nations formerly at war, must serve here as a model and as a catalyst, promoting trade with the region and why not, in the longer term, creating an internal market for the whole of the Near East.
Did you not speak, Commissioner Patten, of multiplying, revitalising multilateral cooperation in the region? The objective may seem to be a distant one, but it is one worth pursuing.
The European Union must associate itself with this; its vocation and its interest require it to be present wherever peace and democracy must be consolidated.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I welcome the fact that, according to your statement, there is again movement in the peace process.
Nonetheless I would like to stress that the terms of the present agreement fall considerably short of those of the Wye Agreement.
I am disappointed by these repeated relapses to agreements already signed.
It is so much more gratifying that the Commission is taking the political initiative in supporting the Gaza seaport, the connection between the West bank and the Gaza strip and the "People-to-People" projects.
I consider the working party on regional cooperation important in taking forward the multilateral negotiations of the Madrid Process.
As Greens, we are requesting a Council and Commission Initiative on the disarmament process in particular and on environmental protection.
We ask Israel to make the joint use and fair sharing of resources with Palestine possible, especially in the area of ground water and drinking water supplies.
The peace process between Israel and Syria requires stronger support from the EU.
The situation must not be allowed to deteriorate into a two-way blockade!
Mr President, the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum is a new interim agreement.
It does not contain anything new and is insufficient as regards its content.
The two parties have agreed on the implementation of commitment which had previously been signed but which had not been followed up.
It is not peace, and it is premature to cry victory.
Nonetheless, this recent agreement has considerable political significance - it marks the end of the deadlock in the peace process after years of stagnation, even sabotage, by the Netanyahu Government which never accepted the terms of the Oslo Accord.
This is why it is important for the European Parliament to consider it favourably and to call on the parties involved to implement it in its entirety and in good faith.
The motion for resolution is balanced and fair.
It is a useful reminder of the statement of the principles of the European Parliament on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
I am sorry that paragraph 7 of the PSE motion for resolution on the freeze on settlement has not been included in the compromise text.
Observation of this condition by Israel is, in fact, essential to establishing confidence.
The Palestinian counterpart, however, is found in paragraph 8 in the form of a clear and unambiguous undertaking to fight terrorism.
The European contribution to peace in the Middle East is expressed not only by means of economic and financial aid, it is also by adhering firmly to the political principles of a fair and lasting solution that we shall ultimately leave a European imprint on the final settlement.
Mr President, I can agree with what a lot of other people have said here, namely that something positive is finally happening. The road between Gaza and the West Bank is an example of this.
There is, however, a very great deal which remains to be done.
Where, for example, settlements are concerned, we want a more powerful wording for draft Amendment No 1.
It is very important indeed that it be emphasised that it is Resolution 242 which is the foundation for the whole peace process and that Israel must definitely vacate the areas which have been occupied since 1967.
An important part of these areas is, of course, Jerusalem.
I think it is important to note that Israel, or its predecessors, in fact accepted the principle that Jerusalem is an international concern.
When the United Nation' s partitioning plan was accepted, it was also accepted that Jerusalem should be an international city which should not belong to any of the Jewish or Palestinian States decided upon in accordance with the partitioning plan.
The EU must persistently emphasise that it is unacceptable for Israel to treat Jerusalem as if it were its own private concern.
It is an international interest, not least for the three big world religions.
Finally, the matter of the refugees.
Through its contributions of one kind or another to the war in Kosovo, the EU has, in practice, accepted a war in order to guarantee that refugees might return to their own land.
In Palestine, there are also millions of people outside the region who, in accordance with the United Nations' Resolution of more than fifty years ago, are entitled to return there.
It is absolutely crucial that this principle should be maintained.
The people concerned should have the freedom to elect either to return or to receive compensation.
Most of them have already found other lives and are certainly unlikely to exercise the right to return to precisely the houses in which they once lived. The principle must, however, still be held to.
Otherwise, there is unlikely to be any final resolution of this problem.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, having been the President of the Europe­Israel delegation under Netanyahu, today, following the election of Ehud Barak, I wish to express how pleased I am to see the peace process under way again.
Barak made the promise; now, he is keeping his promise.
As we say in French, let us not deny ourselves this pleasure, let us salute Israeli democracy.
But at the same time, let us not be deceived.
It will not be easy, none of it will be easy.
There will no doubt be crises, deadlocks, and I wish to say today that it is necessary, and it will, in future, be necessary, to trust the negotiators and, perhaps, within this Parliament, undertake in future months not to proliferate resolutions which offer little instruction, at every hitch along the way.
I shall end by expressing a second wish.
It is that the European Union should cease to be a mere provider of funds and should take on a real political role in the Middle East.
Perhaps the Commissioner and the Council President will tell us how it may find the means to do that.
Mr President, Members of Parliament, I realise that we are all taking quite an optimistic view of the future of the Middle East peace process.
The opportunity for progress is a real one, and we have to try to seize it.
The Union is prepared to participate in promoting negotiations both financially and politically.
Nevertheless, as many speakers have stated, immense challenges lie ahead that no one should underestimate.
The most difficult and sensitive issues are still unsolved.
If the period following the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 had been put to better use, there might now be a solid trust between the parties.
Now, instead, the one-year time limit set by them for the signing of a permanent status agreement seems fairly ambitious, as, indeed, is generally agreed.
I only wish to say that if the parties so desire, the Union is ready to assist with every means at its disposal
As Minister Sasi said, this has been a very helpful debate.
It has underlined the concern of Parliament and of the entire European Union to play a constructive role in the Middle East.
Several speakers: Mr Galeote at the beginning of the debate, and Mr Schori - pointed out that after some rather and difficult, gloomy months and years there was at least a hint of dawn on the horizon.
I think that is true, and it was reflected in what most honourable Members said.
Of course Mr Poos is correct in saying, with all his knowledge and experience, that - and I paraphrase him - 'it is a little too early to open the champagne' .
There is more work to do.
We intend to do what we can to assist the process and I want to express once again my gratitude to Ambassador Moratinos for all that he has been doing in the region to contribute a great deal of assistance on the part of the Union.
Perhaps it is just worth emphasising once again the strength of our economic relationship.
We are, of course, the largest economic partner of Israel, and it is worth recalling as well the total aid to the Palestinians.
European Union assistance to the West Bank and Gaza Strip from 1994 to 1998 totalled EUR 1.5 billion and European Union assistance to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency during the same period totalled approximately EUR 505m.
That is a very substantial commitment by any standards.
The honourable Lady who spoke on behalf of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Parties - we know one another from different pasts - referred to the importance of fair as well as open trade between the region and the European Union.
When I saw Foreign Minister Levy in New York a couple of weeks ago, I said to him that I did not think that our relationship should be drowned in orange juice - there are important trade issues we have to resolve, of which orange juice is one.
There are more comprehensive issues that we have to resolve, and I am sure we should aim to do that in the next few months.
Mr Collins, speaking about halfway through our debate, said that he thought there was a more promising outlook in the Middle East.
I think that reflected the consensus, during the discussion, that there is the opportunity of carrying things forward more helpfully, and we certainly intend to do all that we can in the Commission to contribute to that process.
Thank you, Commissioner Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place during voting time.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.55 a.m. and resumed at 12.00 p.m.)
VOTES
Madam President, on behalf of the radical and non-attached Members of Parliament present, I confirm that we will not be taking part in the final voting until the matters of the rights and prerogatives of all the elected Members of this Parliament have been resolved, and until all the 626 Members of Parliament are allowed to have the same rights and duties.
We hope that the Committee on Constitutional Affairs will find a suitable solution as soon as possible which will enable all European citizens to feel fully represented in this Chamber.
Proposal by the Conference of Presidents on Parliament' s calendar of part-sessions for the year 2000
Madam President, I only got to see the Conference of Presidents' proposal for the European Parliament' s calendar of part-sessions for the Year 2000 once the deadline for submitting amendments had elapsed.
I then became aware of the fact that one plenary part-session in Strasbourg, namely the one due to take place on 12 June 2000, falls on Whit Sunday. This is an official Christian festival and therefore also a public holiday in some EU Member States, that is to say in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria and Sweden.
I have never known the European Parliament to meet on such a day before.
I bitterly regret that the existing proposal fails to take account of this important tradition.
In view of the aforementioned considerations and the practical problems that may arise as a result of organising a part-session on what is actually an official holiday in many Member States, I would ask you, Madam President, to find a fitting solution.
Madam President, I hope to appear on the screen for less than ten seconds.
On Amendment No 1 the Commission has always been of the opinion that renewable energy policy and policy on energy efficiency are intimately linked and must be closely coordinated, but we wonder if a charter on renewable energy is not premature.
We accept Amendments Nos 2, 7, 8 and 9 in principle, but we think they could be reformulated.
We are delighted to accept Amendment No 3.
We can accept Amendment No 4 in principle although we do not believe this is a question of adding a third objective for the programme, but rather of clarifying its first objective.
Amendment No 5 is fully acceptable.
We are happy to accept in principle Amendment No 6.
Amendment No 10 is the one with which we have the most difficulty.
Having had the opportunity to consider this amendment we are now of the view that it should be rejected for two reasons.
Firstly, the ALTENER programme is open to participation from countries in line for accession.
This is not the case with the associated Mediterranean countries in question.
Secondly, the amendment refers to a recital and makes no corresponding reference to the article in question, which is, I think, Article 7.
Accepting this amendment would, in our judgment, be inconsistent and confusing.
I am afraid that we cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 6.
They seek, in our judgment, to introduce an unrealistic objective, increasing energy intensity to 1.5% over and above what would otherwise be achieved.
There is another reason why we find them difficult to accept, and that is because they seek to make SAVE a legislative programme.
With regard to Amendment No 4, we are happy to accept this.
There is a clear need for complementarity in the fields of energy efficiency and renewable energies.
On Amendments Nos 5, 11, 12 and 13, we accept all of those in principle, subject to some rewording and I think the last two replace Nos 5 and 11.
We are prepared to accept Amendment No 7 in principle.
Amendments Nos 8 and 9 we do not find acceptable as they would make the programme too inflexible, and Amendment No 10 we fully accept.
Relating to Amendment 5
I thought this had been explained in plenary yesterday.
These are technical readjustments, on legal advice.
Amendment No 5 from the Commission was a commitology amendment and we reworded it.
The Commission has already indicated that they need some rewording, so we have replaced, on legal advice, Amendment No 5 with Amendment No 13 and I would request your patience with this.
If you want to vote Amendment No 5 through that is fine but we have had indications that the legal position is that we should reword it somewhat.
So Amendment No 13 replaces Amendment No 5 and Amendment No 12 replaces Amendment No 11, on legal advice.
If you could sort that out please, Madam President, because we really need to get a clear legal text.
I would like to ask the Commission to confirm whether its position on South Africa is the same now as it was when the Commission presented it to Parliament, as I understand that there is some discrepancy.
If there is any discrepancy it is entirely unknown to me.
We are positive about the report which Parliament is considering and we are positive about the agreement.
We do not think that there are any problems with it.
That is quite clear then.
According to what I have heard today, South Africa is refusing to sign the agreement on wines.
This was an absolute prerequisite for the signing of the whole agreement.
I would like the Commission to tell me what it thinks about this.
Madam President, there is a rather serious problem. This motion for a resolution says in paragraph 15 in the Italian version that 'religious authorities are invited to cooperate fully in implementing prevention programmes and to participate constructively in the AIDS prevention scheme' .
This seems completely normal and reasonable. The French and English versions stipulate that religious authorities are asked to cooperate unreservedly, which already from a lexical point of view, differs from the Italian version.
But above all, they are asked to participate in 'the distribution of condoms' . Now, it seems quite incredible and inexplicable for religious authorities to personally distribute condoms.
Do you realise that in the French and English versions this is what it says!
I have not been able to read the text in the other languages of the European Union, but first of all, I would like to know whether there has been a political misunderstanding which has caused the Italian version to be wrong, or whether the French and English versions are wrong. However - but this is another issue - I wonder if each time Members of Parliament have to vote, they really can be expected to read the texts in fifteen languages, because if this were the case, Parliament would have to meet every day of the month.
President Pasqua has already stressed the problem of the lack of translations.
Our group is today stressing that there is not only a lack of translations but also inexact translations.
I would like a clarification and, obviously, if the French and English versions prove to be correct, I will withdraw my signature from this proposal.
(The Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for resolution on Turkey
Madam President, there are more problems as regards the different language versions of the text.
At any event, concerning the resolution on Turkey, an essential verb has been left out of the first paragraph of the Dutch language version.
It is "to apply for" in the English version but has been left out in the Dutch.
I would like to point out that the English version is used as the point of departure and that the following phrase should be added to the Dutch version: kan in aanmerking komen om het lidmaatschap aan te vragen (may be eligible to apply for membership).
Yes, I can tell you that it is the English version which is the authoritative version.
Madam President, I have to comment on the same thing.
It is very, very misleading, as obviously most Members have mentioned, in paragraph 1, and that is the most important paragraph of all.
The printed text reads: voting on the first section, second and third section.
This is misleading insofar as in this sentence both the "first" and the "second section" refer to the first half of this rather long paragraph.
The difference between the "Vote, first section" and the "Vote, second section" is only that the words "to apply" should be added in the one instance and omitted in the other.
If the words "to apply" are missing, then this of course completely changes the meaning of the sentence, because it then reads as if Turkey is in fact eligible for membership.
If "to apply" remains, then it is saying that Turkey has the right to apply for membership.
This is the "first section" in plain language. Anyone voting in favour of the first section will want to remove the words.
Anyone voting against where it says here in the text "first section" will want to have the words "to apply" included in the second section.
I therefore request, Madam President, that exceptionally in this case you should read out what we are voting on so that everyone is clear as to what they are voting on.
That is exactly what I was going to propose to you, Mr Friedrich.
I think it is very important.
It is important that every Member should be clear as to what they are voting on.
I shall therefore first read out exactly what we are voting on.
If you agree, Mr Swoboda, I think it would be better, or clearer, for you to give me your oral amendment when we get to the vote on paragraph 7.
Madam President, I would just like to say that the same error which Mr van Velzen mentioned has also been committed in the Greek translation. The words "to apply" have been omitted, which are vitally important.
I would like to point out to my Greek colleagues and to you all that there has been an error in translation.
Relating to paragraph 7
Madam President, once again, when voting on the calendar of part-sessions for the year 2000, we have had to withstand an assault of amendments tending to reduce the length of the plenary part-sessions in Strasbourg.
This behaviour is all the more intolerable as it is intended to invalidate an intergovernmental agreement almost before the ink is dry, i.e. Protocol No. 12, integrated into the Treaty of Amsterdam which has just been ratified by the various Member States.
This arrangement, furthermore, was perfectly in line with the decision of the Court of Justice on 1 October 1997.
Finding it impossible to reduce the number of part-sessions, opponents to Strasbourg are now seeking to reduce the number of days in each part-session, achieving the same result by a different route.
This would be, in our opinion, just as much a violation of the spirit of the Treaty and that is why we are pleased to see that these amendments have been rejected.
But let us also take this opportunity to recall our position of principle on the Brussels mini-sessions.
These are, as the Treaty specified and as the Court of Justice reminded us, additional sessions - let me specify "additional" - which can be scheduled only if the normal Strasbourg part-sessions have been held regularly.
The mini-sessions are thus additional sessions, obviously indicating, according to us, that they can be held only if the regular agenda for Strasbourg is overloaded.
This being the case, it is clear that we cannot know as of today, when voting on the calendar for the year 2000, whether the agenda for the plenary part-session in November 2000, for example, will be overloaded and whether it will be necessary, therefore, to add a mini-session on 29 and 30 November, i.e. in more than one year' s time, in precisely fourteen month' s time.
In taking such decisions, the European Parliament violates the spirit of the Treaties and I hope there will be governments capable of restoring order.
The very disappointing turnout in this year' s European elections provided dramatic proof, if proof was needed, that this Parliament' s visibility and relevance to the people of Europe need to be enhanced.
I think two proposals relating to the calendar gave us an opportunity to improve both our working methods and our contact with the citizens.
The proposal to shorten Strasbourg sessions to four days would have meant that MEPs could have been back in their constituencies for longer periods meeting groups, individuals and organisations and getting across the message about what we do here in Strasbourg and Brussels.
The proposal to have a mini-mini-session in Brussels on a Wednesday - when, of course, MEPs are already in Brussels for Group and committee meetings - would have allowed the President of the Commission to come to Parliament and report on the outcome of the Commission' s weekly meeting, and thus demonstrate to the citizens that the Commission is responsible to Parliament and raise our profile by getting major Commission initiatives announced inside this institution.
I regret that both proposals were rejected today, but I am sure colleagues will come back with future proposals at a later date.
Madam President, I have asked for the floor so that the Minutes will show that the five radical Members of Parliament present - Mrs Bonino, Mr Dell' Alba, Mr Della Vedova, Mr Dupuis and Mr Turco - have not taken part in the vote on the calendar for 2000 or in the following votes.
As Mr Dell' Alba reminded us at the start of voting time, we will not be voting because we do not intend to support a situation which discriminates against millions of European citizens, whose representatives are denied the ability to fully exercise their own parliamentary mandate.
Mr President, I would first like to say that I am very happy about this vote on the calendar, not because of an administrative compromise, like Mr Berthu, but because I am convinced that only by fully using the working week can our capacity for work be maintained, that means not turning Thursday in to the last day of the week.
Secondly, it pleases me because I am of the opinion that Strasbourg is the autonomous, democratic and anti-centralist face of the European Parliament with significance as a symbol of Europe.
I am therefore, as a European, grateful for this vote and I would like to say very clearly that we must ensure that this is not now undermined in practice.
I share the opinion of Mr Martin that we need free time.
That problem is not solved by using the Fridays but by the way we structure our work in committees and groups so that we can timetable working weeks without any sittings, which can be used for any one of the three types of work, but the great majority of us will spend in our own constituencies.
. (DA) We have voted for the proposal to have part-sessions lasting four days in which Fridays are omitted.
It is our view that there is no serious political content in the Friday sittings, which are used for matters which might just as well be dealt with on an administrative basis.
We should have liked the Groups in the European Parliament to have been able to agree to use Fridays for political debate, but this has not happened.
Europol personnel (C5-90 and C5-89/1999)
- We voted against these two Council decisions regarding Europol employees on a point of principle.
The Europol Convention was passed in the national parliaments of Member States without any true debate.
The ratification of the Convention was merely a rubber-stamping exercise as it was impossible for the national parliament to propose any amendments.
The European Parliament - the only one of the EU institutions which is directly elected by the citizens - was also not consulted at any stage during the two years of negotiations on the Convention' s content.
This was in spite of the provisions in Article K6 of the Maastricht Treaty that EU ministers regularly consult Parliament on the principal developments in justice and home affairs and ensure its views are "duly taken into consideration" .
But the most disturbing aspect of all is that Europol officers will, in effect, be above the law.
In May 1997, EU justice ministers reached agreement on a protocol granting immunity from prosecution for Europol staff for any "words spoken or written or acts performed by them in the exercise of their official functions" and for unauthorised or incorrect processing of data.
This immunity would continue even when somebody stopped working for Europol as "all their official papers and documents and other official materials are inviolable" .
These powers of immunity are extraordinary and not analogous to those enjoyed by any police force within the EU.
Such powers are an insult to the rule of law and not in the public interest.
Veterinary and phytosanitary matters (C5-100, C5-101 and C5-102/1999)
On the occasion of these technical votes on veterinary and phytosanitary matters, I would like to recall how important it is for the Member States of the European Union to retain sovereignty, at the national level, with regard to their freedom to assess and decide all food safety matters.
Indeed, States must retain the absolute right to protect their population.
We have a perfect illustration of this today with the decision of the Commission to lift the embargo on British beef, and the refusal by France and Germany to apply this decision.
In the opinion of the French it is clear that if 3,000 cases of "mad cows" are still being recorded in Great Britain every year, despite all the precautionary measures which have been taken, then there is something in the transmission of this disease which has not yet been fully understood.
In these circumstances, our national food safety agency in France, approved by the French Academy of Medicine, considered justifiably that France must maintain its embargo.
If we did not have this national agency, and if we had replaced it with a European agency, as some people are today requesting, then we would be deprived of objective information, and we would not have this expert opinion on which to base our reluctance.
However, the fact remains that the governments of European countries, particularly the French Government, have put themselves in an impossible situation by adopting the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The new Article 95, modifying the former Article 100(A), prevents any Member State from implementing, on its own initiative, derogations to Community regulations in the field of public health, and force them to come and request the Commission for any derogations, justifying their case by presenting "new scientific proof".
Well, it is clear that in the "mad cow" business, we are not adding any new scientific evidence in relation to the elements which the Commission already has in its possession.
All we have is an alternative interpretation of the principle of caution: as ever, the Commission places a high priority on the freedom of movement of products, and it is interesting to note that, for once, France is placing a higher priority on the food safety of its citizens.
It still remains that the inconsistency between the European Decision to lift the embargo and the refusal by the French to do so creates an intolerable situation which, less than six months after the ratification of the Treaty of Amsterdam, proves the fecklessness of those very people who supported it.
A few more events like this, and perhaps the French will understand the usefulness of taking at home the decisions which are to be applied at home.
Recommendation for second reading of the Langen report (A5-16/99)
Mr President, in connection with the ALTENER programme, I would like to draw your close attention to the Nordic energy economy.
The exceptional climate in Europe' s peripheral areas makes its own demands, which the EU has to take account of.
The use of peat is a bonus in Nordic energy policy.
For example, the Finnish marshes are an important natural resource, and peat bricks meet approximately 7% of Finland' s energy requirements.
6,500 people derive their livelihood either directly or indirectly from peat production.
Up till now, peat has not been classed as a renewable energy source, like wood.
In fact, peat is a natural renewable resource whose cycle for regeneration is longer than that of wood.
Estimated emissions from the use of peat as an energy source would decline considerably if the whole life cycle of its use and its renewable nature were taken into account.
The use of peat is essential with the increase of the use of wood to produce energy.
Without the parallel use of peat, the volume of planned wood-burning boilers will not be sufficient nor will the operation be lucrative.
Thus, the exceptional use of peat must be taken account of when examining energy taxation in Europe.
A healthier and cleaner energy economy requires that peat should be included among renewable sources in the future.
. (FR) As I already had the opportunity to say last March, I am in favour of a voluntarist policy on energy.
We have gone beyond the stage of the declarations of intent which we heard throughout the last decade, now it is time for the words to be applied in practice.
It is only on this condition that the European Union will work in this direction.
It must give impetus to a movement in favour of the rationalisation of European energy policy.
To this end, two strategies were worked out in two complementary multiannual programmes within the framework programme of actions in the energy sector: SAVE II (promoting more efficient use of energy) and Altener II (promoting sources of renewable energy).
The time has now come to renew these two pre-existing programmes.
The European Parliament must take advantage of the codecision power conferred on it by the Treaty of Amsterdam in order to approve them.
With regard to SAVE II, the Council has accepted a number of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament at the first reading.
In addition, a number of amendments have taken into account the recent resolutions of the Council and the positions defended at the time of the Kyoto Conference.
However, the Parliament wished to re-present some amendments which were discussed in committee, particularly the important amendment on the degree of improvement in energy efficiency.
In fact, considering that the energy efficiency of final consumption has improved until now by approximately 1% per year, the European Commission advocates a reduction of a further percentage point in the energy efficiency of the final point of demand.
Even the rapporteur wanted to set a more ambitious objective of more than 1.5%.
I support this amendment even if I allow that it is necessary in some way or other to measure its potentially negative impact on the ability of firms to compete, especially small and medium-sized firms.
In order to reach this objective, it goes without saying that legislative measures must be adopted even if they represent just one instrument among many. I am thinking particularly of economic sanctions.
With regard to Altener II, everyone acknowledges the importance of renewable energy sources in reducing pollution and conserving natural resources.
We also know of the problems such energies have in gaining ground on the market and the reasons for this state of affairs: traditional energy sources are available at a relatively low, stable price and there is a shortage of measures intended to promote renewable energy sources.
This is why I approve the amendments laid down by Mr Langen demanding a more active role for the Commission in encouraging a coordinated promotion strategy within Member States and in developing the potential of Europe in the exporting of technologies related to renewable energy.
In the same vein, I feel it is essential to adopt the charter on renewable energy as soon as possible.
The vote on these two reports constitutes a pledge to the citizens of Europe of the will of the European Union to protect the environment while reducing our dependence on energy.
Recommendation for second reading of the Report by Mrs Ahern (A5-15/99)
- The political benefit to mankind of genetic research is seriously eroded by vested interests, using the technology in a manner which is not compatible with sustainable development, and every often in conflict with acceptable ethical standards.
While the EU is committed to closely monitoring and regulating the industry, there is, in my view, a moral responsibility on those involved to agree on standards which it is not acceptable to exceed.
Experimentation with human genes and more recently attempts to introduce 'terminator technology' which ensures that crops will not produce reproductive seeds represents a frightening affront to the welfare of mankind.
If it were not for the vigilance of politicians, NGOs, environmentalists and consumer interests, this technology would by now have been foisted on society.
While I welcome the recent undertaking by Monsanto not to commercialise the 'seed termination technology' , this matter is far too serious to leave to those who are directly involved and who would have acted otherwise in the absence of consumer vigilance.
I believe both the EU and Member State Governments must further tighten and control the overall operation of the genetic research area and, in particular, the implementation of programmes that do not fully conform to established ethical, environmental and consumer guidelines.
Recommendation by Mrs Kinnock (A5-20/99)
. (PT) This agreement with South Africa is part of Community policy on cooperation and development, which aims to guarantee vital solidarity with developing countries.
But we must analyse the economic and social consequences resulting from the liberalisation of trade for both contracting parties.
Apart from the fact that this would eliminate customs duties on products of concern to Portugal, such as textiles and clothes, we are also concerned about the specific case of the Davos Agreement on wines and spirits.
The matter of the "Port" official designation of origin is vital to the Portuguese wine-producing sector.
It would be a very positive thing if South Africa took steps to resolve the problem of its use of this designation, which is both unfair and illegal.
In spite of the very long deadlines provided for in the Davos Agreement and of the concessions made in the area of agriculture, the latest available information shows that South Africa is delaying its fulfilment of this commitment.
On the other hand, it would be an extremely serious matter if this agreement were to be separated from the overall negotiations on the general agreement, as this would cause it to be postponed, with all the damaging consequences that that would entail.
This would set a dangerous precedent from the point of view of defending Community designations of origin at the WTO, particularly as far as the "Port" designation is concerned.
This is why I am abstaining from voting.
. (FR) The signature of the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the Republic of South Africa has just been approved by our House by a large majority.
I can only rejoice at this Agreement, which I, naturally, voted in favour of.
As a local representative, one of my first acts after being elected as Mayor of Saint-Benoît, in Réunion, was to name one of the city squares after Nelson Mandela.
It was then 1983, and this purely symbolic act was intended as a fraternal gesture, a hand stretched across the Indian Ocean to the man then languishing in the jails of the apartheid regime.
Today everyone can appreciate the distance we have come along the road.
And this agreement, whose signature we are approving, comes at the opportune moment to definitively consolidate the process of democratic transition and economic and social stability undertaken some years ago now by the Republic of South Africa.
It is in keeping with the tradition of solidarity of the European Union.
By establishing a free trade area between two bodies at different stages of development, it even takes on a historic aspect.
It also puts the finishing touches to the implementation of the strategy of the Union with regard to this country, a strategy defined, let us remember, under the French presidency.
Finally, it is doubtless not without interest to note that the partnership thus cemented with this great nation of the south may contribute to the creation of synergy useful to the European Union within the framework of the delicate negotiations which are about to be opened within the WTO at the Seattle Conference in November.
For all these reasons, we can only rejoice at the approval of this agreement.
There is, however, one point to which I wish to draw the attention both of this Parliament and of the Council and the Commission: it is the influence which this liberalisation of trade, even over a ten year period, may have on the economic development of the outermost regions, specifically Réunion, a fully functioning European territory located in proximity to South Africa.
I did indeed, of course, note the conditions given in Article 23(2) of the agreement, providing for the possibility of making use of supervision or safety measures in the event that the economic development of the "outermost regions of the European Union" should suffer serious damage.
It seems important to me, nonetheless, firstly to have an in-depth study made as soon as possible in order to determine as precisely as possible the possible impact of this agreement on the economy of Réunion, and secondly to establish a permanent mechanism for supervision, establishing the conditions for quick intervention.
Indeed, failure on our part to remain vigilant could have dramatic consequences for the society of Réunion, which is already seriously affected by unemployment (40% of the active population) and would be in total contradiction to the efforts of the European Union for many years, through the Structural Fund, to promote the economic and social development of the island.
It is for these reasons that it seems important to me to draw the attention of this House to this essential aspect.
. (FR) The French, Italian, Portuguese and Danish delegations of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group have voted against this free trade agreement between the European Union and South Africa.
As opposed to what the rapporteur indicated in his presentation of reasons, this agreement is not based on general acceptance of all parties.
I would like to remind you, furthermore, of its nature which is particularly favourable to South Africa and as a result of the main terms stipulated by this agreement, which applies, let us remember, to a country whose GDP is closer to that of Poland than to that of its African neighbours:
Within 10 years, Europe must open its markets to 95% of South African exports, while South Africa needs to open its markets to just 86% of European exports.
75% of South African agricultural products will benefit from facilitated access to the European market.
The European Union will eliminate customs duties on 86% of the total volume of exports of industrial products from South Africa to the European Union.
Products which South Africa considers sensitive will be placed on a reserve list.
A separate agreement on fishing will be signed, as well as an agreement on wines and spirits.
In my own contribution during the debates, I personally addressed four questions to the Commission on this separate agreement on wines and spirits and, more specifically, on its Annex 10.
The answer which Commissioner Nielson gave me was couched in the vaguest possible terms and I am personally very surprised to observe that Parliament has been able today to give the go-ahead to the signature of this free trade agreement, even though the principle of protection of trade names and designations of origin has not been clearly acknowledged in the Annex to the Agreement and that no guarantee has been offered regarding the evolution of zero-rated imports and the consequences of this for the whole of the wine-growing sector in Europe.
I would remind you that we currently import 320,000 hl in wine from South Africa which will be imported, if this agreement is applied, without any import tax.
In conclusion, Mr President, I and the fellow members of my group are very worried about the evolution of these free trade agreements.
For the first time, we are reimbursing a third country which illegally abuses the terms defining our European registered designations of origin, in total contradiction of the TRIPS Agreements.
This infringement of international regulations, enshrined in an irresponsible fashion in an agreement which is binding upon the European Union, constitutes a dangerous precedent likely to be extended to other States, especially wine-producing countries (Latin America, Australasia, etc.) if they make such a request of the European Union.
Finally, Mr President, I am worried that we are proliferating preferential agreements, even before the opening of WTO negotiations, which will lead us to reconsider the concept of the most favoured nation clause.
Report by H.-P. Martin (A5-18/99)
Mr President, I am very pleased that the European Parliament is working intensively on the situation of Macedonia, for we must clarify that Macedonia is the European country which is at present most endangered by the instability of its neighbours. On the other hand, it has made exceptional progress in the peaceful resolution of problems with minorities and tensions with the neighbouring countries.
Hence this country needs massive support, as the new government has shown how it is possible, in a European spirit, to ensure stability in one of the most dangerous regions of the world.
So, let us give massive support for Macedonia and its reform government supported by both peoples of that country.
Reports by H.-P. Martin (A5-17, 18, 19/99)
. (FR) I am opposed to aid whose only objective is to re-establish a market economy, an economy of exploitation, which means that not one cent will go to the population who will continue to live in the same poverty.
And just because Parliament hypocritically adds the word "social" to the expression "market economy" , this does not mean anything will be fundamentally changed.
Besides, the precedent of Russia in the matter of aid under the aegis of the IMF can only make us more distrustful as to what becomes of the money in this sort of aid.
Conference on AIDS
. (FR) I am abstaining on the compromise resolution on AIDS.
The fact that the joint motion for resolution bears my name is an error.
I was not made aware of the text in the form in which it has been presented, and I do not approve it.
Precisely because I think that AIDS is an absolute catastrophe, particularly for Africa, I find it inadmissible to conceal the overwhelming responsibility of the governments of rich countries and pharmaceutical trusts in the spread of this disease.
. (FR) We can only sympathise with the fate of a continent where 25 million people will die within the next ten years and which is experiencing, due to AIDS, unprecedented economic and social decline.
The resolutions proposed by the various political groups are full of good intentions but also great naïveté.
In them you condemn the "egotism" of an industry which respects only the rules of the economic and commercial game which you at best accepted and at worst contributed to establishing.
You also condemn Western indifference and the paucity of the aid given to Africa for the fight against AIDS.
But you did not even have the courage of Emma Tuahepa who herself dared to ask the African Governments what they had done and what they were still doing with the money of the Africans.
No more did you report that none of the eleven African Heads of State invited to the Conference either deigned to turn up or pointed out the importance of cultural and religious factors in the spread of this scourge.
In the world of the GATT and the European Union, you seem to be only just discovering that the values of sales and finance have taken over from politics.
Well, Africa will not escape this human catastrophe by means of solutions offered by external sources alone.
It needs not only the political will of its own leaders, but also the participation of the entire population.
There is no question of denying the financial needs of Africa.
It is a question of remaining lucid: manna in the form of Western financial aid, part of which, as per usual, will end up in private bank accounts, will not be enough to curb the epidemic.
It is necessary, but it is not sufficient.
And it is all the more necessary as the populations of our own countries are also endangered.
Our own political leaders are acting irresponsibly.
In refusing to put an end to immigration into Europe, in refusing to control it systematically, in refusing to impose systematic AIDS screening for candidates for immigration coming from African countries, you are exposing Europeans not only to HIV, but also to a number of opportunistic illnesses, such as tuberculosis, which had nonetheless been eradicated from this continent.
- AIDS has become a massive development crisis in Africa.
It is threatening to obliterate decades of health and social development progress.
It threatens future economic development in Africa as it kills adults in the prime of their working lives, thus decimating workforces.
AIDS fractures and impoverishes families and orphans millions.
In other words, AIDS brings untold misery to countless Africans.
In order to tackle this scourge, health education and welfare resources must be mobilised on a massive scale.
This assistance should be channelled though local agencies spreading knowledge of the disease, its causes and its effects, and providing preventive and palliative healthcare.
Turkey
Certainly I would wish to explain why despite our reservations about the resolution and its ambiguous character the Liberal Group in the end decided to support it.
The resolution is at least a statement of our position on our relations with our great neighbour, and for Parliament not to have expressed itself upon this important subject would have been to have failed to shoulder its responsibility as an international parliament, and a sad sign that the policy of Fortress Europe is alive and carries more support than it deserves to inside this Assembly.
Mr President, on the Turkish question we have this morning heard what I consider to be quite staggering statements from Mr Verheugen, the Commissioner responsible for enlargement.
Already, during his hearing last month, he had stated that Turkey' s candidacy must be re-examined next December, at the Helsinki Council, and that he, personally, would support it.
This morning, Mr Verheugen committed a second offence.
He declared that the Helsinki Council must grant Turkey candidate status and this country must subsequently be treated like any other candidate for accession.
It is true that Turkey, as such, would have to satisfy the criteria laid down by the European Council of Copenhagen, including the existence of stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, human rights and respect for minorities.
Obviously, in the short term, Turkey is a long way from fulfilling this criterion.
Nonetheless, according to the rather muddled speech by Mr Verheugen, Turkey should be accorded the candidate status to be allowed, in time, to join the European Union.
For, although it seems necessary to us to associate Turkey to the Union in order to prevent an Islamist breakaway in this country, still its integration, pure and simple, into the structures of the Union in their present form, as the European Parliament has just requested, seems to us impossible.
It seems to us impossible to integrate into the superstate which is being formed a country which is so profoundly different, and which, in the very short term, will have the largest population and therefore, no doubt, also the greatest number of votes in the Council and the largest number of Members of Parliament in our House.
One wonders what Turkey would make of this power when we see the downright blackmail we were subjected to on the occasion of our invitation to them to participate in the European Conference.
In addition, it seems impossible to us to extend the area of free movement of citizens, which the countries of the Union today enjoy, to Turkey.
In fact, the Turkish question today highlights the inadequacy of the structures of the Union when faced with enlargement.
It is impossible to integrate Turkey into a European superstate.
On the other hand, it ought to be possible to associate it to a Europe with a flexible shape, respecting national sovereignty and national boundaries.
Mr President, we cannot accept Turkey as a candidate for the European Union, because of its attitude of constantly denying the slightest recognition to the Kurdish people.
This morning, as usual, we have heard speakers from different groups of this House mentioning the Kurdish minority in Turkey.
It is crystal clear that there is a Kurdish people, as our colleague, Mr Sakellariou, pointed out during the debate.
The European Parliament ought to realise that there is no Kurdish minority in Kurdistan, just as there is no Basque minority in the Basque country.
We want to see Kurdistan closer to the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the process of enlargement of the European Union is the important theme of this legislature. Now today, in an isolated fashion, we have discussed and voted on a resolution on Turkey.
Against the background of this enlargement process, I voted against this resolution.
Today Turkey, and tomorrow perhaps another country too? The question must be asked.
I consider it important for this Parliament to stop and think fundamentally about how we actually see Europe. How large should the European Union become?
Today Turkey, tomorrow Armenia, and the next day Morocco, or is there an alternative concept? I am therefore opposed to extending the established enlargement process now to just any other country.
My second comment is that in Helsinki the Council will very probably include Turkey in the group of candidates for accession.
We have told the eleven countries - the applicant States - that when we accord a country candidate status, we are, at the same time, undertaking to allow their accession to the EU.
That being the case, this status would be devalued by our according it Turkey now, but declaring at the same time that no negotiations are to take place.
This is harmful to the process which has been initiated and I do not consider it acceptable.
I believe that the Parliament has the task here of clarifying what the concept of Europe, which we can finally also call political Union, should be.
Mr President, I should like to warn our Turkish partner against thinking that all those who voted in favour of the resolution were friends of Turkey and all those who voted against were enemies of Turkey.
I see things the other way around.
I would like to see more intensive cooperation with Turkey than previously, the financial protocols being released, and a close partnership, just short of full membership, being put into effect immediately. Those who voted in favour of the resolution, are only contributing to propagating the idea of this unattainable goal of full membership, so that they can take advantage of it to discourage and oppress Turkey.
I am therefore of the opinion that we need honesty, we must tell the Turks that their dream of full membership is deluded, but everything up to that point must be tackled rapidly in the interests of stabilisation and bringing Turkey closer to European structures.
Mr President, I would like to make this statement on behalf of the EFA members of our group.
Although we are aware that the Turkish authorities are making positive noises, still we are not convinced that they signal real change at this stage.
Their position as regards human rights, the Kurdish question and Cyprus means that we do not yet consider Turkey to be a democratic constitutional state.
What we want is for Turkey to become such a state The pro-democracy Turks, the Kurds and the Cypriots want this too.
We must support these forces in Turkey and that is why we want real cooperation.
Consequently, we have voted neither for nor against this resolution precisely because we are both for and against it.
So do we consider the prospect of full membership to be a necessary precondition of cooperation? Not so.
We believe that cooperation is certainly feasible, indeed we believe that such cooperation is actually necessary for bringing about policy that will truly promote peace and development.
That is something we all have a need for.
So can we not have cooperation which is made to measure? In any case, geopolitical factors are not sufficient reason for something as radical as full membership of the European Union.
We believe that a democratic Turkey must be able to speak out about this itself.
But we also feel that the European countries themselves, that the people must know how far they want integration to go.
I am very concerned, particularly when I actually hear someone in the Commission, Commissioner Bolkestein to be precise, say that the enlargement of Europe is getting in the way of the deepening process.
We want a Europe that truly unites peoples and regions and has extensive supranational power, with more authority being devolved to subordinate levels.
But we believe that these questions need answering first.
However we feel that Turkey deserves an honest answer too.
Mr President, I would also like to say that I voted against the resolution on Turkey because it essentially adopts the proposal for granting Turkey candidate status in Helsinki.
Worse still, the resolution stipulates that the government and parliament of Turkey are making efforts towards democratisation, that they respect human rights and that progress is being made in these areas.
However, we all know that, at present, the tortures are continuing, the prisons are full and the resolution will be the last straw for those who are fighting within Turkey itself for real democratic change.
My vote is just as much a sign of solidarity towards the Turkish people as it is to the Kurdish people.
This resolution will encourage the Turkish regime to pursue and reinforce its policy of oppression not only against the Kurds but also against the Turkish people and to continue its occupation of Cyprus and its intolerance and disdain for UN decisions. Finally, it will have a very negative effect.
The resolution will intensify and deepen the intransigence of the Turkish regime, which is why I believe we should have voted on another resolution - the one recommended by the GUE Group.
. (FR) Turkey is a great nation and a key partner of the European Union.
As such, any position regarding its accession to the Union must be characterised by a serious and responsible attitude.
This is what leads me to say that if Turkey (still) indeed wishes to join the Union and not just to negotiate the most advantageous partnership with the best possible balance of power, serious discussions must be held on the basis of specific conditions:
respect for democratic principles and for the rules governing human rights in the European Union;
economic rapprochement and respect for the rules of healthy competition without dumping or disloyal manoeuvres;
a fast democratic solution to the Kurdish question with "clear signs" at the earliest possible opportunity;
the evacuation of military personnel from the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus.
Today, Turkey seems to be on a more positive path, and we must therefore negotiate without reservations but without closing our eyes.
Personally, I am not very optimistic either regarding the real will of Turkey to join us or on its ability to fulfil the required conditions in the near future.
- I welcome the compromise motion on Turkey as striking the correct balance between the need to affirm Turkey as eligible for EU membership and the need for Turkey to undertake a number of economic and political reforms before their application becomes 'live' .
There is no question that Turkey has the right to join the EU, nor in my mind that one day it will.
However, it must build on its recent reforms and ensure that full democracy, respect for human rights and the rights of minorities become the norm in Turkey.
Turkey must continue to improve its relations with Greece and work actively to find a solution to the Cyprus issue.
The Turkish Government' s efforts to find a political solution to the Kurdish question are encouraging.
The commuting of the death sentence on Mr Öçalan and the formal abolition of the death penalty in Turkey would be welcome further steps.
- (EL) I shall not be voting in favour of the joint resolution on EU-Turkish relations as it contains contradictory policies and arguments as well as a dose of hypocrisy which does not become such a serious political body as our Parliament. Even in its first article, the resolution calls for Turkey to be considered eligible for candidate status with a view to eventual Union membership.
Yet, immediately on from that, there is a series of articles which explain why Turkey does not fulfil the Copenhagen criteria for recognition as a candidate country!
If that is not a contradiction, then the draftsmen of this resolution obviously mean that recognising Turkey unconditionally as a candidate country will help it to make better headway towards the political reform necessary to satisfy the Copenhagen criteria.
In which case, why can we not say this in our resolution? Why can we not make it clear to Turkey that its recognition as a candidate country is an exception to what we demanded from other countries (such as Slovakia), and that this exception is being made for special reasons (which must be clearly stipulated) so as to facilitate its progression towards the necessary reforms?
It should stipulate that Turkey' s progress will be monitored by the EC and only then will it consider its actual application for accession into the EU. The fact that we did not do this in this resolution can only mean that either we do not take the Copenhagen decisions seriously, or that we cannot explain publicly, i.e. politically, why we are making an exception for Turkey.
Alternatively, it may mean that we do not take Turkey seriously in the sense that we recognise it as a candidate country for reasons we cannot make public, but in any case, we have absolutely no serious intention of even helping it to ever become a Member!
From what I have heard of other speakers who pointed to certain differences which generally rule out rapprochement with Turkey, this last interpretation seems the most likely.
I am also totally against such standpoints, which even border on being racist in some cases. Europe has everything to play for with Turkey' s accession, and should not mock or underestimate it but should set clear preconditions for a stable and long-term relationship with it with a view to eventual accession into the Union.
But this will not happen with micropolitical and opportunist sophistry or with endless pirouetting, which favour neither the Union nor Turkey.
. (SV) I would have preferred a different wording for paragraph 9.
Paragraph 9 - which deals with Turkey and the Kurdish question - is, in my view, far too weakly formulated.
For decades, the Turkish State has persecuted the Kurdish people and denied them their self-evident entitlement, as a minority, to political, social and cultural rights, as well as the right to their own language, their own schools and their own culture.
The death sentence upon Öçalan is one more proof that Turkey still does not comply with the EU' s requirements of a candidate country.
It is also important to emphasise that the KLA must cease engaging in violence and terrorism in order to support a peaceful and political solution to the Kurdish question.
Turkey may not be regarded as a sound candidate for accession to the EU for as long as basic human and humanitarian rights are not respected.
I therefore refrained from voting in the final vote.
Middle East Peace Process
. (FR) On the occasion of the debate and the vote on the resumption of the peace process in the Middle East, I wish to congratulate the Israeli and Palestinian partners on their courage and their tenacity.
I also wish to express my satisfaction at seeing Mr Ehud Barak keep his campaign promises and resume the path marked out by Mr Yitzak Rabin.
I wish to assure my Israeli friends of our support on this course.
I hope that Europe will be capable of demonstrating intelligence and tolerance, in letting the negotiators get on with negotiations, and refraining from "preaching" every time there are one or several more or less serious problems. The way forward has been marked out.
It will not be easy.
It is full of pitfalls.
Nonetheless, there are no other roads possible and, at the end of the road, there will be two States which are each guaranteeing to respect the other.
I have always had confidence in this.
Now, of course, I have even more confidence and I support Israel in its attempts more than ever.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.20 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Opening of the Millennium Round
The next items on the agenda are the statements by the Council and the Commission on the opening of the Millennium Round under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, due to take place in Seattle from 30 November up to and including 3 December.
Mr President, Members of Parliament, it is a generally recognised fact that the multilateral trading system has, over the last fifty years, guaranteed steady economic growth.
The EU' s main priority in foreign relations is to establish and strengthen a multilateral trading system.
The new round on the liberalisation of trade is a necessary and natural extension of earlier achievements.
The EU has been pushing for a broad-based round of trade negotiations since 1996.
In spite of the fact that there have been doubts in many countries about the advantages and benefits of a new round, all WTO Members are now very keen to have a new round.
However, we do not agree on how broad-based the round should be
The EU' s great challenge is to now convince the less developed countries and civil society of the benefits of a broad-based round.
Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, will endeavour to ensure that the final decision on the commencement of the forthcoming round, the form it will take, and its agenda, will be taken at the meeting of WTO Ministers to be held in Seattle in November to December.
The Union supports the commencement of broad-based WTO talks to take place in 2000.
A round that is as broad-based as possible will guarantee a balanced end result, which will take account of the interests of all.
As everyone knows, we will embark on negotiations to follow on from the decisions taken during the Uruguay round, at least on the issues of agriculture and services.
This will be known as the 'built-in agenda' .
Unless we can convince other WTO Members of the advantages and benefits of a broad-based round, there is a danger that the talks will focus on agriculture alone, a matter in which the EU has important interests to defend.
The EU is also agreed that the outcome of the round must be approved as one package and by all WTO Members.
In other words, nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.
However, this will not prevent results being achieved more quickly in some areas than others.
We also have to insist that the results achieved impartially reflect all the views of the Members of the WTO.
The EU is also united in its call for a round to last approximately three years.
We have to bear in mind that the EU objective of a broad-based round must fit in with both the United States' sector-based and internally structured agenda and its policy to reduce tariffs as well as more qualified positions on the less developed countries.
The less developed countries have called for inter alia the Uruguay Agreement to be reviewed and amended to make its terms more favourable to them.
It is enormously important for the success of the Union' s objectives that the less developed countries are convinced of the advantages of a broad-based round and of the EU' s good intentions behind this objective.
This means, firstly, that the EU should be able to discuss issues that are difficult for it also, such as dumping and the textiles industry.
In other words, the EU must be open to the recommendations of other WTO Members.
The industrialised countries must be able to offer the less developed countries concrete benefits rather than promises.
The Union has been in the forefront of those pushing for exemption of duty on almost all products from the least developed countries by the time the new round ends.
We hope that the other industrialised and better-developed countries, in addition to the EU, will give their approval to this objective.
I will briefly go over the most important topics the EU is proposing for the agenda for the next round.
It is of fundamental importance that agriculture can be practised everywhere in the European area, including regions where there are special problems.
It must be made possible to preserve the countryside, protect nature and promote a thriving countryside.
These form a part of a concept for which we have used the term 'multifunctionality' .
As an important exporter of food, the Union believes it is also important to improve access to markets and remove trade barriers in this new round.
We are also ready to negotiate cuts in aid, provided that the so-called 'peace clause' , and the 'special safeguard clause' remain.
In addition, we must be able to respond to consumers' worries about the quality and safety of wood, the protection of the environment and the welfare of animals.
The Union is also in favour of a broad-based WTO round with regard to services.
We consider that no sector should be excluded from the talks.
The EU' s position in the talks will be improved commitment to services and a broadening of the existing commitments by sector and by country.
The EU believes it is important to support the participation of the less developed countries in the talks, with reference to the provisions of the agreement on services.
The Union believes that a regulated system is of benefit to all, as the effects of unilateral action are avoided.
We support the fact that the new round of talks will enable new rules to be made and principles agreed in those sectors that are closely associated with international trade.
These would be questions of the environment, investment and competition, for example.
Our objective is to review and adapt the rules of trade to meet the demands of a globalised and integrated world economy.
The WTO rules of the future must be fashioned in such a way that they enable us to take care of the environment and take responsibility for the non-discriminatory treatment of foreign investment.
At the same time, we must ensure that the special needs of the less developed countries are taken account of and that they are accorded a certain degree of flexibility in the manner in which they adopt the new rules.
Sustainable development is the common objective of the Member countries mentioned in the WTO Agreement.
Trade policy and environmental policy must support each other more effectively.
For that reason, the Union considers it important that sustainable development is the basic principle behind the talks and that the environment is taken into account in all aspects of the round.
Direct foreign investment has grown faster this decade than trade.
We wish to create a framework for the non-discriminatory use of investment around the world.
At the same time that the WTO starts to draft an agreement on investment, which would safeguard the rights of international investors, we think we should also create a mechanism to ensure that investors act responsibly.
It is important for the Union to guarantee the future work of the WTO in the areas of trade and competition.
We regard the development of multilateral principles of competition as an important part of the liberalisation of international trade, which we believe will remain limited, unless the WTO can prevent barriers from being erected by private companies and the distortions in trade that they create.
In these areas also we must take account of the special needs of the less developed countries and ensure that they are accorded a certain degree of flexibility in the way they make progress.
The Union is strongly committed to the enhancement of democracy, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, which include fundamental employment rights.
The EU therefore believes it is important that the next round pays attention to issues relating to the social dimension of trade.
We must remember, however, that the less developed countries are strongly opposed to the discussion of so-called standards of employment in the WTO.
They fear that debating basic rights of employment in the WTO is an attempt to undo the advantages they enjoy as a result of low labour costs.
It is naturally fundamental to the WTO talks that they should be transparent.
If we are open internally we are strong and credible externally.
We think it is important that Members of Parliament participate in the meeting of Ministers at Seattle.
As the country holding the Presidency, we shall see to it that Parliament is kept informed and we shall take its views into account to the best of our ability.
It is also worth noting that communications with NGOs have strengthened both at Community level and within the Member States.
We are living in a historic age.
We will be in a new Millennium when the round of trade talks commences.
While the new Millennium will bring with it challenges for the WTO, it must also reflect development.
Including new subjects for discussion by the WTO is the answer to today' s challenges.
They can have an impact on the progress that we hope for.
It is the objective of the country holding the Presidency that the draft conclusion of the Council should be approved in the General Affairs Council Monday.
Immediately after the General Affairs Council, I will be reporting in detail to the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on 12 October on the common position of the Council in the light of the approved conclusions.
Finally, to describe the conclusions briefly, they will by nature be primarily an expression of EU political will, containing a vision for the new Millennium.
The conclusions will be directed at the public at large, and they will reconfirm at the same time the common objectives of the EU to commence a round of negotiations that features different topic areas.
Thank you very much, Mr Sasi.
Welcome
I would like to inform the House that an official delegation from the National Institute for Public and Social Administration in the People' s Republic of China, under the direction of Mr Wang Zhongyn, Member of the Council of State and Secretary General of the Council of State Affairs, is now seated in the official stand.
This delegation is visiting France as part of an exchange programme between the National Institute for Public Administration and the Ecole Nationale d' Administration in Paris.
I would like to offer you all a warm welcome and hope your visit to our Parliament proves fruitful.
Opening of the Millennium Round (continued)
Mr President, Members of Parliament, those of you who requested the debate today on the subject of the Seattle Conference did not want, if I have understood correctly, an exchange of technical proposals but rather a political presentation.
I think you are right.
Public opinion in our countries clearly feels that the liberalisation of trade - in which we hope to enter a new phase - is part of a greater movement, which invites questions and interrogations and in relation to which we must therefore adopt a stance.
So, let us ask the question quite bluntly, is internationalisation a good thing or a bad thing?
In the Commission' s view, it is positive, for at least three reasons.
In the first place, the internationalisation of markets makes the economies of scale possible, which are essential to the industrial revolutions in progress within information technology, biotechnology and transport.
These are the advances which should make it possible to reconcile demographic growth and economic growth with a limited pool of natural resources, for it is technological progress which pushes back the frontier of the long-term use of these resources.
In the second place, it is access to our markets and the liberalisation of direct investments which have supported the industrialisation successfully initiated in South-East Asia, opening up new and growing outlets for our own exports and demonstrating that there are strategies to overcome underdevelopment.
It was also the successes achieved, thanks to liberalisation of trade, by industrialised countries and emergent economies in Asia which shook the confidence of the communist regimes and led to their radical transformation both in Europe and in Asia.
Finally, internationalisation comes back to the perceptions of the rising generations, those of the next century, who, through the media and through their own wandering, will experience the world as the global village where mutual dependence entails solidarity and where the taste for differences and for encounters can be expressed.
Of course, I do not intend to confine myself to a lyrical and idyllic vision of internationalisation here.
Like a number of you, I can perceive the costs and the risks of free trade without regulations and without strong multilateral institutions to control it.
I can see inequalities gaining ground to the extent of creating social exclusion in our countries.
I can see the growing divide between continents.
I can see the instability of the financial markets.
I can see the threats to the local and the planetary environment.
But if our role here is to reflect the concerns, the questions and the expectations of our fellow citizens in Europe, let us keep in mind the world-wide dimension of what is at stake, those of developing countries divided today between the hope of integration into the world economy and the fear of marginalisation.
Our responsibility is also to separate millenarian fears and resistance to change from the opportunities to be grasped in internationalisation for growth, human development and the protection of the environment.
Through the new cycle of negotiation, what we are preparing is the multilateral organisation of the world markets of the 21st century, with the firm intention of achieving better balance.
You know the reasons which induced the Commission to propose a long agenda and a short schedule for Seattle to the Council and to your House.
Although I am jumping onto the bandwagon, liberalisation by means of rounds of negotiations rather than through the routine WTO channels seems to me to be advisable for three reasons.
Firstly, à la carte liberalisation just does not work.
Real progress requires a comprehensive approach and a single ultimate commitment.
That does not mean that we cannot quickly garner the first agreements as they come to ripeness.
Secondly, new subjects must be integrated into the WTO missions, subjects contributed by society, such as the environment, culture, health, food, and also competition and investment, henceforth an integral part of international trade.
Thirdly, the world economy needs direction, after the financial crises which emerging and transitional economies have experienced over the last two years.
A round of negotiations thus seems the safest defence against the temptation of protectionism.
Let us quickly go into these points in further detail.
In our position - as the Council President has just rightly mentioned - there is first and foremost the concern of the Union not to get caught up in the sectorial negotiation, enshrined in the conclusions of the Uruguay Round, concerned only with agriculture and services.
Our strategy is to make negotiation more balanced by opening it up to all sectors, so as to cover our offensive and defensive interests and to persuade our partners - particularly, developing countries - to do the same.
As regards agriculture, the orientations provided by the European Council in Berlin on Agenda 2000 give us a solid basis to achieve, in the field of liberalisation, progress which is compatible with the European agricultural model.
There is then the concern to define the rules and consolidate the institution of the WTO, so as to strengthen its multilateral nature, to improve the impact of internationalisation on sustainable development and prevent the risks to the environment and to health inherent in unrestricted competition, between different national standards and different levels of production.
These regulations concern investment and competition primarily, two areas where some of our partners show a certain reluctance, for very different reasons, and which, given the precedent of the MAI - I prefer to spell it out A.M.I. (rather than call it friend "AMI" ) in French - give rise to reservations on the part of some developing countries and reluctance, even outright hostility, in some of our non-governmental organisations.
Allow me to expand briefly on these two subjects.
On the matter of investment, let us be clear: we are not looking to impose our own investment codes, the ones which predominate in our countries and which suit us, on developing countries.
We hope to convince them by means of negotiation that the most effective way for them to attract direct external investment, the special access route to technology and international markets, is first to create a safe and predictable framework for foreign investors, whether they come from industrialised countries or from other emergent nations.
With internationalisation, the concentration of economic power and the extra-territorial impact of decisions taken on competition policy by states, competition presents all economies with challenges.
But for developing countries the stakes are even more formidable.
In this area, these countries face a twofold problem: their internal markets are too often cornered by monopolies or by oligopolies whose first effect is to inflict prices which are far too high on the local consumers, the mass of the very poorest in the main, and whose second effect is to prevent the arrival of newcomers and to force them to confine themselves to the informal economy.
Restrictive practices in access to markets, credit and energy are among the main causes - generally not acknowledged by us - of underdevelopment, of the perpetuation of social inequality and corruption in these countries.
The inclusion of competition on the WTO agenda is not intended to transform the WTO into a world authority on competition but simply to establish a body of principles and procedures intended to promote the implementation of internal competition policies and to make them mutually compatible.
Let us look at three more subjects, protection of the environment, consumer health and the audio-visual sector which, beyond the tensions between technical progress and cultural traditions, refer back to the features of civilisation which characterise Europe - the demand for quality, food quality, for example, cultural identity in an open world, the preference for the non-commercial in a number of areas.
It is evident that we suffer, in this respect, from a lack of regulations and procedures, and indeed primarily, I must say, in our own countries.
The European Union has undertaken to define policies for the protection of the environment, health and food safety.
Indeed yesterday, right here, Romano Prodi committed the Commission to a fundamental revision of food legislation by 2002.
Everyone knows the complexity of these questions, involving scientific knowledge, with its share of uncertainties, national legislation and the WTO procedures.
We are all aware of the problem presented by the interface between national standards, WTO regulations and those of the other multilateral agreements on the subject of the environment or health protection.
With the new round, we must, on the one hand, prevent any abuse of these gaps and differences with a protectionist purpose and, on the other hand, stop leaving the arbitration between competitive national standards to market forces.
The precautionary principle must serve as our safety valve to adjust for scientific uncertainty.
Furthermore, progress in the labelling and traceability of products, indissolubly linked, would serve to better inform the judgement of the consumer.
European opinion also considers it necessary to reinforce the capacity for artistic creation within the audio-visual media, a key sector in our culture, and the Union must respond to this expectation.
I come finally to the issues which most polarise opinion today and our Member States' Governments, to wit, the link between commercial liberalisation and the progress in the fundamental rights of workers.
For the European Union, it is evident that these objectives are not only compatible but also, in our experience, deeply coherent.
In Europe, the return to free trade since the post-war period has been accompanied by social progress in which the relations between productivity and collective negotiation have been the two main driving forces.
In raising this question, then, our intention is by no means to open up the possibility of setting wage standards or to bear down on the comparative advantages of developing countries, as Mr Sasi said so well just now.
We have, in addition, become particularly sensitive to the risk of protectionist abuse that the unilateral imposition of social standards would entail, potentially.
Nor do we wish to make the WTO the forum for the drawing up of these standards, for which the International Labour Organisation is responsible.
Our only concern is to achieve progress in the observance, by our partners, of fundamental social standards, as defined at the Copenhagen Summit for Social Development in parallel with progress in the liberalisation of trade.
In Seattle, we must therefore attempt to convince developing countries of the political legitimacy of this objective and the interest which social progress offers in their own development.
If I have referred several times already to developing countries, it is for two reasons.
Firstly, because the chief target of this new round of negotiations is indeed sustainable development and this is primarily of concern to developing countries.
Next, because, in order to achieve our own objectives within this round, we need the consensus of all our partners and, of course, of developing countries.
But it is self-evident that this round must be included in the wider context of global government.
Henceforth a stronger and stricter connection must be ensured between the new pillar of the international system, the WTO, and the pillar already formed by the Bretton Woods institutions.
Mr President, Members of Parliament, this debate on the new round which you requested leads to a question of great importance, in my view.
Does the Union, by means of its own action, offer the governments and citizens of Europe any additional means to adjust successfully and gain control of internationalisation? Do we have the will, by exploiting our position and our weight in the world economy, the institutional advances which we have achieved, to regain the sovereignty, which world markets rob us of occasionally, and to contribute to effective global government?
If the response from the Council and from Parliament is positive, our negotiating position will be stronger. This will mean, in fact, that we are capable of gaining support for our views and transforming the fears we perceive here and there into a meaningful project.
My wish is that one day, your legislature will be called upon to give an opinion on the results of this new round, entailing a great deal of work and not a little dialogue for us all.
Once again I undertake, on behalf of the Commission, to pursue this dialogue with you, on an ongoing basis, in the months and years to come.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mr Vice-President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the development of world trade in the last 50 years is a success story.
In the last 50 years, trade throughout the world has increased by a factor of 17, and has expanded by more than twice the level of macroeconomic production.
Increased prosperity and the creation of jobs in Europe are an important consequence of this.
Freer and fairer world trade within the framework of a strengthened multilateral world trade system formed a successful foundation for this.
Progress to an exceptional extent and at an exceptional rate in the globalisation of real activity now makes further development of this multilateral body of regulations, which was based on GATT and is now the World Trade Organisation, the WTO, imperative.
The focus of the Millennium Round is this objective.
A comprehensive European Union Strategy, which embraces all the areas concerned in a dynamic way is being proposed by the Commission and, I feel I can already say this as a rapporteur, is widely supported within the European Parliament.
We are defending the European Agricultural Model, food production, the maintenance of farms as family businesses, preservation of the countryside and environmental protection in equal measure.
This Millennium Round should not be characterised by a defensive attitude towards the American position on imports of agricultural and genetically modified products into the European Union.
Instead, the European Union should be finding confederates for its dynamic global strategy.
The usefulness of globalisation should be measured against its usefulness to the regions and nations of the world equally, so that a better balance is achieved between the interests of the European Union, of the other European States, of the USA, of other industrial countries, and newly industrialised and developing countries.
The framework now available to us, established with the World Trade Organisation in 1995, must be developed further in this direction and its instruments must be perfected.
The essential bases for negotiations and solutions mentioned in the Commission document of July 1999 have so far met with a predominantly positive response in our discussions within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Today, I would like to touch briefly on our guidelines for content.
In November, we have the opportunity to discuss this again in detail.
Our draft resolution will predominantly include the dynamic elements which the President of the Council and also Commissioner Lamy have already mentioned and which will include our ideas on the improved incorporation of financial services, on investment and competition policy within the framework of the WTO, on the further reduction of duties on industrial products and on the improved integration, indeed the "mainstreaming" , of environmental and consumer protection in the body of regulations of the World Trade Organisation and vice versa.
The protection of copyright must be improved in many developing countries.
Labour standards should be taken into account more in the world trade system, and our markets must be opened more to developing countries.
There are still, however, some outstanding questions regarding the cooperation between the Council and the Commission, on the one hand, and with the European Parliament, on the other hand, within the scope of the Millennium Round.
Let me stress one thing at the outset. The European Parliament gratefully accepts this dialogue with the Commission and hopes that this dialogue will also include the Council.
It will represent its position within the framework of its resolution, which will certainly be adopted in November, in an energetically coherent but also responsible manner.
You can assume, Mr Sasi, as President-in-Office of the Council, and Mr Lamy, as Commissioner, that in the position determined in our November resolution we will present ourselves as energetic and coherent both to you and to our partners in the Millennium Round.
We shall strive thereby to be true to our responsibility as the elected representatives of the peoples of Europe.
Secondly, we are assuming, a previously justified assumption, that the Commission and the Council are representing the interests of the European Union with equal coherence.
The strength of the European Union as the largest trading power in the world resides in its joint position, which is represented by all elements.
We are therefore somewhat concerned to hear rumours that in the Council, even before the start of negotiations, some delegations are now ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Lamy, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to talk about some fundamental aspects of the Millennium Round which my party considers to be important.
My colleagues will deal with this in greater detail from their own respective points of view.
The new round of World Trade negotiations which will open in Seattle on 30 November, offers the opportunity to partially extend the blueprint for world trade, in some fundamental aspects.
The round will automatically take on a symbolic character and should contain a clear message from the European Union.
Our aim must be to achieve growth, employment and prosperity for everyone, and at the same time to reduce the poverty which exists throughout the world.
The concept of opening up the market further only makes sense if everyone is able to profit from it.
What we need is a new sense of direction, which leads to a reconciliation of trade and social components, without thereby setting up new barriers of discrimination by means of a concealed form of protectionism.
We therefore have to ensure that social and employment standards, standards for health and food as well as env0ironmental considerations form an essential part of the negotiating package.
The new WTO Round may lead to a further push towards globalisation which will make many people anxious.
We must make it clear that everyone has something to gain from an open system of world trade.
As far as this is concerned, it is particularly important to establish improved integration of the developing countries into the world economy and into the multilateral world trade system.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists particularly supports the Commission' s attempt to combine the concepts of globalisation and sustainable development.
This is the only way to ensure that the basis for world trade is formed in a balanced and socially just way.
We also agree with the Commission and the Council, in that this round of negotiations must be comprehensive, that is, one that includes all subjects.
This is the only way to guarantee a sensible consideration of the specific advantages and disadvantages. This is also the only way that the interests of the European Union and of its citizens can both be assured.
This time, the European Union must show that it is in a position to play some role in these marathon negotiations, if not a leading one.
It would be disastrous for the European side to respond passively to the current weakness of the American political leadership.
This is an appeal particularly to the Council to come up with a united European position and to the Commission to express complete confidence that a comprehensive mandate for negotiation will be granted in time, which will allow it to be submitted officially to Parliament for approval at the same time.
Only if the European Union is strong at the negotiating table, will it be able to ensure that, within the framework of the World Trade Organisation, there will be a better balance in the globalisation process, between the European and the American models for liberalisation.
Comprehensive information and transparency are necessary to win the public' s confidence in and agreement with the new negotiating rounds.
We particularly welcome the consultation with unions and non-governmental organisations.
Confidence is also essential because the continuing development of the European Model amongst other things depends on what scope for arrangements national and regional administrations will have in the future.
Just consider that the World Trade Organisation is a leading player, if the leading player, in shaping global economic processes.
Only by combining transparency, the involvement of the public and official, extensive means...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, on behalf of the ELDR Group I would like to signal our strong support for the efforts of both the European Commission and the Council to persuade our international partners of the virtues of a broad-based new round of WTO talks, covering a wide range of issues.
In order that the right compromises can be made between the different and complex issues facing the international trade system today it does indeed seem essential that the talks should cover a comprehensive agenda from traditional tariff reductions to crucial issues such as the environment and labour standards, and new topics such as competition and investment.
You can count on large parts of this Parliament to give you robust support when arguing against those who may wish to confine the round to no more than a narrow series of sector-specific commercial trade-offs.
I also welcome the openness with which Mr Lamy has commenced his working relationship with this new Parliament, and I also welcome his support for changes to the Treaty in the forthcoming intergovernmental conference to strengthen the role of the European Parliament in the common commercial policy.
It would be a benefit to the Union as a whole if the Commission and Parliament could increasingly stand together in international trade negotiations.
However, if the European Parliament is to play a new and more responsible role it must be given greater access to the information governing trade issues than is presently the case.
New responsibilities should be accompanied by new rights.
For that reason I would like to ask the Council two specific questions.
First, the Commission has already stated that it has no objections to the inclusion in the conclusions which will be adopted at Seattle of wording on the role of the European Parliament in the conduct and completion of the new WTO round.
Could Mr Sasi confirm the presidency will draft such new language?
Second, could Mr Sasi confirm that the presidency will come forward with new proposals to facilitate the fullest possible provision to the European Parliament of documents discussed in the 133 Committee in the Council, accompanied, if necessary, by special procedures to protect confidentiality? Since Mr Sasi has kindly agreed to come to the meeting of the European Parliament' s Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on 12 October, I suggest he presents his formal response to both these points at that meeting.
If we could move forward on those two points, I feel both the accountability and legitimacy of the European Union' s negotiating position in the Millennium Round will have been significantly strengthened.
Mr President, I believe that the question that concerns all of us here is not whether or not multilateral rules are necessary to provide a framework for world trade.
We unanimously recognise the need for such rules.
The problem, in my view, is to know whether the World Trade Organisation is functioning on the basis of rules which are equitable and able to help the world, and not just Europe, to progress towards sustainable development.
The replies that I have heard from the Council especially, and to a lesser extent from Commissioner Lamy, make me think that it is begging the question.
We have started from the hypothesis that there is clearly no contradiction between these two objectives and therefore the desire is to extend the field of competence of this organisation without having answered, through reasoned argument, what seems to me to be a fundamental question.
We have five years of experience from which we can say that, in a certain number of significant cases such as hormones in animal rearing, bananas and GMOs, the record is far from brilliant.
We note that the consequences are negative upon the functioning of the European Union' s policies and also, I feel able to say, those of certain developing countries.
Also, we note a lack of action on the part of the European Commission when it senses the possibility of conflict with the WTO.
We therefore in advance give in to certain demands which may be made by trading partners in order to avoid conflicts.
So much for internal policies.
As for foreign policy, I think we should insist on the fact that we do not only have commercial commitments, but we are also bound by multilateral agreements on the environment and international conventions on respect for human rights and that these commitments, in my opinion, an opinion which I believe is shared by many colleagues, have a value on both an ethical and a political level which is more important than free trade.
We believe that these values cannot be called into question by the functioning of the WTO.
We have no choice but to state that there is contradiction at the very heart of the texts of the WTO, the agreements and the statutes. Two principles form the basis of the functioning of the WTO.
On the one hand, the prevention of discrimination between products for which the production processes are different, that is to say in particular the environmental or social conditions under which the product is produced. On the other hand, the fact that it is necessary to reduce to a minimum the negative effects on free trade of any political measure aimed at public health, the protection of the environment or social protection.
These are two examples of the basic principles of this organisation which go against the objectives which we are trying to defend.
In conclusion, Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, we believe that an evaluation prior to any expansion of the competences of the WTO is essential and that, otherwise, we are doing nothing more than applying a liberalist ideology.
Mr President, I agree with Mr Lannoye that it is a question of rules, but the question is - which rules?
Unfortunately, all the indications available to us show a desire to turn the future negotiations of the WTO into a further stage in the imposition of rules of liberalisation on a global scale.
The European Commission has in fact announced, in its communication in July, that it wishes to liberalise new services, such as health, education, but also investments and public contracts.
This wave of liberalisation is clearly justified in the name of the general interest and employment, as you stated, Mr Lamy, in your hearing, indicating that the progressive opening up of markets, both for goods and for services, is in the interest of the Community.
However, it is not the results of the liberalisation initiated at Marrakech which are going to calm the fears which you spoke of just now.
Did the Union make a serious appraisal in Marrakech? What I observe is that the poor countries are trapped in wretched circumstances and that here we are seeing an increase in unemployment and instability that goes hand in hand with huge profits.
We are seeing great mergers and take-overs on a European and global scale.
Yesterday and today, the employees of Michelin have been here, in this Parliament building, to dramatically illustrate this idea which governs relationships on a European and world scale. Financial viability comes first.
But what about the human beings? What about thought?
What about nature? What about solidarity?
I do not believe that the choice is between liberalisation and protectionism.
I am reassured by the fact that the MAI has been rejected, which shows that intervention is possible.
A front could be developed to demand a change of direction.
To this end, this Parliament has adopted an amendment from my group which requested a review of the mechanisms of the WTO and the rules procedure, in order to take more account of social, health, environmental and cultural questions.
Today, 1,800 organisations are addressing us and calling for changes to the system.
Developing countries are demanding a review of the previous agreement.
I am also pleased to see that an Intergroup on WTO issues is about to meet.
With my group I have taken the initiative to organise an open meeting on these matters during next November' s part-session.
Many people expect the European Union to stand up in these negotiations for the values of cooperation, solidarity and the pre-eminence of human beings, as against financial values and the dictates of the market.
Mr President of the Council, Mr President, Commissioner, the communication of the Commission to the national parliaments is extremely revealing with regard to the profoundly antidemocratic workings of the main European institution and of the conditions under which the new round of multilateral trade negotiations will be approached.
The Commission claims peremptorily that for 50 years, this GATT and WTO system has contributed to stability and the pursuit of economic growth, with all the advantages which result from them.
A malicious mind may point out to the Commission that this phrase destroys our illusions since we thought - and God knows we have heard it enough times - that it was to the construction of Europe that we owe these fifty years of stability, economic growth and the peaceful settlement of disputes etc.. However, a purely curious mind may ask the Commission what it thinks of the continuous decline, decade after decade, of the average annual rate of growth in developed countries.
According to the OECD report, the average annual growth rate of OECD countries was +5.2% between 1961 and 1969, +3.9% between 1970 and 1979, +2.6% between 1980 and 1989 and +2.1% between 1990 and 1996. These statistics hardly support, and this is putting it mildly, the idea that the progressive dismantling of barriers to trade, after the eight rounds of negotiations from the early fifties until 1994, have favoured economic growth.
Would it be too much to ask the Commission to communicate to us the relevant economic studies on which it bases its current recommendation to proceed to a new round - as Mr Lamy has said - of dismantling? Would it be impertinent also to ask the Commission whether it has taken the care to ascertain whether the possible projections which it established on the launch of the Uruguay Round have been achieved?
Could you give us written documents containing figures, sources and dates? It is, to say the least, strange that the Brussels Commission, at the point when it is inviting the Member States to give the green light to the immediate launch of the new round of multilateral trade negotiations, does not feel the need to make an appraisal of the WTO which is the least bit objective, particularly of its provisions for the settlement of disputes.
Is the Commission really more modest than our friends across the Atlantic who regularly weigh up the pros and cons of a procedure? Is this a procedure you hoped and prayed for?
It is noticeable, furthermore, that in reality it is above all the Americans who achieve a certain degree of success within the system which has been put in place.
I will not go on, given the short time allotted to me.
I would however like to say this: unless we are blind and have no idea what is being said and what is happening on the other side of the Atlantic, we cannot help but be struck dumb by the similarity between the terms used by the Commission and the words of President Clinton.
The opening of the new round of multilateral trade negotiations is first and foremost a decision of the President of the United States of America, who himself has set the tempo - I translate: accelerated negotiation, a tight agenda - and the objectives ....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, our fellow citizens understand only too well that the agreements resulting from the Millennium Round will seriously affect their personal and professional lives.
The Uruguay Round offered producers and consumers a fait accompli.
Let us not allow this to happen again.
Look around.
The farmers are justifiably concerned for their future and it is our duty to listen to them.
Repeated food scandals, the dictates of large-scale distributors, the European desire to give handouts to the agricultural world, we have been spared none of it.
This is the logic of globalisation ordered by certain people who should now be called into question.
Otherwise the Millennium Round will become the death warrant of our farmers, our countryside, our land, and this is something that we must not accept.
These negotiations should be aimed at the promotion and prosperity of our peoples and not simply at the defence of the great financial powers.
We must leave behind this ultra-free trade logic which standardises the market.
It does not guarantee the fair defence and promotion of our interests, which are European interests because they are primarily local, regional and national.
It falls to us to ensure the continuity of our employment, our production and our quality of life.
Europe will thereby find its justification.
The current situation shows that we are liable to incur retaliatory measures, while we simply intend to protect ...
(T he President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, international trade and a new international division of labour are a major resource in terms of economic growth and freedom for the 6 billion plus human beings who are now crowding the planet.
No freedom exists that is not also the freedom to trade and the freedom of movement.
In my opinion though, in this context of international trade and also in the Millennium Round, there are well founded risks that Europe will hang back and will not instead take on a role as a leader of civilisation, a leader which wants to guide, within the scope of clear rules for everyone, the changes in international trade in 2000.
In the first place, these risks must be averted for the good of the European citizens.
I am thinking, for example, of the excessive emphasis on the social protection clauses and social dumping when we know full well that these will be mere words which nothing can come of. They will not lead to effective checks and for developing countries and recently industrialised countries, this can only represent the protectionist sword of Damocles which can be used when the old Europe, the old Europe of bureaucracies, of union bureaucracies and industrial decline is in a fix.
Another point concerns audio-visual production and cultural production.
I think that this protectionism which is felt in Europe - in France and Italy - is completely out of place and obsolete.
We need only think of how the Internet represents the chance to disseminate audio-visual and cultural products.
To insist on protectionist values means imposing low quality audio-visual and cultural products on the European citizens, which are almost always state-controlled, and financed and aided by the public purse.
I think that European citizens have the maturity and the right to make choices in this area too, from within the supply available on an international level.
I would like to contribute to this debate by making three remarks of the following nature - general, specific and political.
Firstly, a general remark.
From the outset we should be in support of this round, we should have a positive outlook to ensure that we can avoid protectionism, promote free trade and extend prosperity in the world system to other parts of the world.
It is a pity that Mr Pasqua has gone.
He said that there was no debate in this Chamber, but I would refer him to results of the economies run by Britain and the United States where they are achieving in a world trade system high rates of growth, low rates of unemployment, low rates of interest.
The French economy and one or two other continental countries could learn from that particular experience.
Might I say too, in terms of the general debate, that the communication of the Commission has indeed laid down four major principles for the Agenda of the round which we fully support in my Group.
Not least we support the need to have a comprehensive round because if the round is as broad as possible, we will be able to make progress in the end.
On specifics, there is one comment I would like to make about agriculture.
Quite clearly, this is going to be one of the most sensitive areas to be investigated, in terms of export subsidies, in terms of the vital need to maintain the rural areas, but also in terms of food safety.
These are three of the main issues which the round will have to deal with.
It may be, Mr Commissioner, that the Commission together with the US administration could come up with some kind of Green Paper sketching out where the differences are and where the common interests are between America and Europe because as you know, in your previous role, unless America and Europe agree on the major outlines in an international round such as this, we will never conclude.
And therefore, maybe an informal document such as this would be useful for Seattle.
Lastly, of a political nature, there are a number of networks and non-governmental organisations now which are indeed in favour of world trade and would like to take a responsible part in these negotiations.
There are others, which are much less responsible, more militant in nature and likely to be present in Seattle.
It is for those reasons that, if we want to ensure that consumer and social and labour issues are part of the agenda, we must ensure that these networks do not actually take over our agenda.
We therefore need, I believe, to have a large parliamentary delegation in Seattle from this Parliament at least equal in size to that of the US Congress to make sure that we can represent what the views of this House are there as well as being able to ensure that as this negotiation takes place on non-tariff as well as tariff issues.
These are legislative problems and therefore legislators need to be present.
I therefore endorse those colleagues who have said that we should have a strong parliamentary presence.
The three institutions of the European Union must cooperate and it would be very interesting to have the both the Council' s and the Commission' s view on the need to have a strong European parliamentary presence in these negotiations.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Erika Mann has given a good - if rather brief - summary of the Group of the Party of European Socialists' current position on the Millennium Round, so I shall not dwell on it any further.
I just have two observations which I would like to share with the Council and with the Commission - and they are two sides of the same coin.
These are, to be precise, the need to include our citizens in this important exercise, and to deal with their legitimate concerns.
My first observation concerns the need to include the European Parliament in the forthcoming negotiations.
This is not simply a matter of making a claim for this institution, and nor is it a childish desire to be in the limelight.
It is a question above all, of ensuring that the problems that this round poses for our citizens can reach the European Union' s negotiator at all times, as we have seen from what previous speakers have said, as well as the solutions that these citizens expect of the negotiators. This is the only way to ensure that these demands reach the Union' s representatives.
And these demands will have all the more force if Parliament presents a united front with the Commission and with the Council.
This therefore, is my first observation.
My second observation justifies my first request and that is that our citizens' main concerns are heading in an apparently opposing direction.
On the one hand, we are perfectly aware that this round should not result in empty words, but should instead provide a net benefit for everyone, especially for the developing countries.
On the other hand, our society has legitimate concerns about the challenges that the phenomenon of globalisation poses for us: respect for human rights and of fundamental social liberties, the protection of the environment and the preservation of nature, as well as the protection of our consumers' health.
My question to the Council and to the Commission is this: how can we reconcile these two apparently contradictory issues?
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the WTO must guarantee the purity and quality of food.
For that reason, with the meeting at Seattle drawing near, the EU must not be too modest in its demands.
Europe wants to practise a social and sustainable agricultural policy and, above all, produce food which is pure and of good quality.
That is why the environment, people' s health and that of animals, and the question of fairness must be a proper basis for the talks.
The agenda for the negotiations must be broad in scope from the outset.
The European agricultural model has to be forcefully promoted in the talks.
The quality and purity of food cannot be put into jeopardy as the result of a liberalised market.
In future, food production must be able to comply with the principle of caution.
In addition, I think it would be best for all if food could, in the future, be produced near to where it is to be consumed.
Regional food chains would help us to monitor the quality of food in the best way.
The EU must take an aggressive stance to defend its own sustainable course of action.
Furthermore, others must take account of the protection of the environment and health in their own production processes, if trade is to be liberalised.
Mr President, wealth is just as unevenly distributed throughout the world as it ever has been.
In the last five years, since the WTO was set up, the differences have become even more marked, and those countries which cannot count themselves amongst the leading industrial nations have become even more dependent.
That is why we do not need new rounds on liberalisation, instead we need a fundamental analysis and evaluation of the effects of the Uruguay Round on countries, people and the environment.
The WTO Round of Ministers is the right place for this.
A fundamental reform of the institution itself is also called for.
Transparency, democratic control and the equal participation of all countries, amongst other things, must be guaranteed.
Now on the subject of agriculture: if we stay on our current course, as the Commission and the USA would like, farmers with small- and medium-sized holdings will be the ones to suffer, both here and also in developing countries.
They cannot be made to compete with one another.
That is why better conditions for entering the market must be obtained for developing countries and at the same time, all export subsidies for farm products from the EU should be withdrawn.
The recognition of safeguarding food as a 'non trade concern' according to Article 20 of the Agreement on Agriculture must also be accepted.
A whole raft of Southern countries is quite rightly demanding a renegotiation of the TRIPs Agreement because they are losing the right to use their own resources.
We are also completely against the patenting of living things.
We must also refuse to accept any agreement similar to the MAI agreement on investments alone at a WTO level.
Other international institutions such as the UN and the ILU must unite on this issue.
By combining their forces they would be able to say that the welfare of all people will come to the fore in Seattle, and not the interests of big companies, of the rich and powerful such as well as the interests of the European Union and various elites and oligarchies.
The Commission should not accept a mandate for negotiation which goes against human rights, social rights and the environment.
What developing countries need, as they are not equally strong economic partners, is a special position laid down by agreement, and this should be the rule, not the exception.
It is not only to them that we owe this, but also to all of us here.
Mr President, globalisation needs a leader.
It is clear that the World Trade Organisation has removed barriers from commercial activities, meaning ideological barriers have been broken down which has helped peoples to communicate with each other.
But liberalisation cannot be an uncontrolled process, but must be steered by rules which will safeguard the specific values of each people and the characteristics of each country.
We must therefore also defend European agriculture and the traditions of those typical products which also encompass the textile sector, shoe sector and industry. We must remember that the demise of certain products also means a change in traditions or even landscapes - just think of olive oil, hops and malt.
Another requirement is to guarantee food safety. We cannot, in the name of freedom of trade, allow non-approved products to circulate.
Hormones in veal are not a very good recipe.
So removing barriers must not include removing the safety and quality of products.
The last imperative is to prevent small businesses being eliminated.
Let us ensure that the Millennium Round is not a round in which Europe gets knocked out.
Mr President, in the Millennium Round, concern with further free trade ought to be combined with concern for poor countries, employees' rights and the environment.
Unfortunately, the Commission' s proposals in important areas such as agriculture and TRIPS reflect an old-fashioned trading policy designed to promote one' s own export opportunities at the same time as retaining protectionist arrangements within the EU.
It is not therefore difficult to understand why developing countries form the impression that the EU' s policies in other areas are just as heavily characterised by our own interests.
If the negotiations are to cover employees' rights, the environment, consumer protection, investments and competition, the EU must send out a clear signal that common interests are being given priority over and against our own narrow interests.
For developing countries, this must mean free access for all goods, compensation for rising prices for basic foods, exemptions from the TRIPS agreements and a situation in which the EU removes the subsidies which result in unfair competition, especially in connection with agricultural products.
Mr President, this new round of negotiations poses a question of principle, a question of method and a question of content.
First of all with regard to principle, why have a new round? There has already been Tokyo, Kennedy, Nixon, Uruguay!
Has humanity gained anything from them? If the rounds had not taken place, would we have been worse off?
The MAI has not been signed, the transatlantic contract has not been signed! Yet, there has been no catastrophe.
On the other hand, the GATT has been signed and there are still 18 million unemployed people in Europe. The NAFTA has been signed and Mexico has been bled dry.
Scientifically, free trade is like the independence of central banks.
There is no conclusive scientific evidence as to whether it is good or bad.
We are not in a domain of science but in a domain of belief.
It is basically as if in Seattle on 30 November the Church of Globology was going to meet.
That means that the method is important.
It is important that the Council monitors the mandate of the Commission, so that Blair House may not happen again, and that both the States and public opinion monitor it.
This is because in France the sickle has revolted against MacDonalds and the Millennium has come out of hiding.
As regards the content, there will clearly be a lot of questions.
The question of services, audiovisual, social and environmental questions, developing countries and, of course the agricultural question, with the risk that Europe will behave like Bambi and Walt Disney.
Europe will no doubt obtain labellings and traceability, it will be able to play with blue boxes and green boxes, but it will give in on the important points, that is, the internal support for the farmers and the Community preference.
Mr Lamy, you have not even mentioned the term "Community preference" , hence our reservations regarding this round.
To participate in these cycles, you have to be some sort of a cyclist.
The only problem is that it is the people who do the pedalling and the very poorest who most suffer from the punctures.
But it is true that we still have the strength to bear the evils of others!
Mr President, as my colleague Konrad Schwaiger, the general rapporteur, said, the framework for the agricultural negotiation must be the CAP, reformed in the context of Agenda 2000, as laid down at the Berlin European Council.
However, I would like to emphasise four particular points.
Firstly, the only way that the European Union can maintain a fighting stance in these negotiations is to lay the truth about the state of its agriculture on the table.
The reality of this is one of multifunctional agriculture, which combines its economic function with preserving the environment and the countryside and which guarantees that the whole of our territory remains populated.
This reality has a name: it is called the European agricultural model.
Bearing this in mind, the European Union will not be able to accept any measure that might put it in jeopardy.
Secondly, the European Union can only consent to enter into negotiations on the issue of agriculture if it is made clear that free trade is inseparable from fair trade.
And for this reason, the WTO cannot confine itself to commercial matters, but must also address fundamental issues such as the quality and safety of food, animal welfare, the protection of the environment, and respect for consumers and their views.
Thirdly, the European Union must put on the table the precautionary principle, which means being able to take exceptional steps to protect our consumers.
There should be no more trade reprisals merely because we have sought to protect our consumers, as we did in the case of the battle over hormones.
Fourthly, we must be aware that although European agriculture as a whole comprises many specific elements, it is also deeply heterogeneous.
That is to say, the European agricultural model is a plural model.
To this extent, special measures should be advocated for those areas whose survival is at greatest risk, particularly those with small farms, and the poorer regions.
Mr President, agriculture will therefore still be one of the main subjects of the next round of WTO negotiations, and our European institutions all seem to agree that we should seek the recognition of our European Farm Model, protect the consumer, and treat the Berlin agreement as the framework of the Commission' s negotiating mandate.
We now have to benefit from this coherence in the face of our competitors, our partners in the WTO.
In this respect, we should make it clear that anything that can be done to inform, sensitise and mobilise public opinion, will strengthen the determination of our negotiators in the eyes of the Cairns Group, the United States and developing countries.
We can already see that the pressure of our civil society can have contagious effects in our competitors' camp.
The proof can be found in what is currently happening in the United States, for example, with regard to GMOs.
It is therefore necessary, as an extension of this matter, and with the aim of creating a favourable balance of power within the WTO, to debate, to communicate throughout Europe regarding the direction to be given to globalisation and the liberalisation of trade.
For us Europeans, the aim of this globalisation should consist of reconciling economic competitiveness with a global development which is more balanced, more durable and better distributed especially between North and South.
With regard to agriculture, we should establish a system for trade in agricultural products which is fair, based on the market certainly, but also on more general considerations such as public health, the environment, employment and balance between territories.
It is in light of these objectives that there is good reason to carry out, without delay, an intermediary appraisal of the application of the Marrakech Agreements.
Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, these aims should naturally form the basis of the principle of the global application of the agreement, which should take precedence in the negotiations.
Mr President, as stated in the introduction to the Commission' s report on the draft communication to the Council and the European Parliament, in public opinion today, there is, fortunately, growing concern, engendering much debate, about the impact of the liberalisation of trade on employment, on the distribution of wealth, on the environment, on health, consumer protection and cultural diversity, as well as the increased marginalisation of poor countries.
These concerns are shared and (...) by our group.
We are not in favour of increasing the competences of an organisation lacking democratic structures, as is the case with the WTO. Nor are we in favour of interaction (...).
What we want instead, is the World Trade Organisation to be officially reformed so that it complies with the Convention on Human Rights and with the conventions of the ILO.
We particularly want economic and commercial measures for the development of poor and marginalised countries.
In any case, I want to say that the Millennium Round negotiations must not harm the basic elements of the European Agricultural Model. Neither must they harm the reforms which in addition to Agenda 2000, are necessary for protecting the development within each State of the number one objective which is local, family-based farming in the face of the interests of big industrial companies which have huge powers of distribution.
Finally, we are asking this Parliament to participate, as well as the Commission...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I believe that what is being considered here will probably be the most serious international agreement ever.
It is therefore all the more depressing for me that, so far, no comprehensive evaluation of the consequences of the Uruguay Round has been made.
During our discussion on food safety yesterday, I wondered how we are really doing on the safety issue, as few of today' s consequences have stemmed from the deregulation which has already begun.
The fact that the mandate for negotiation has barely been discussed in national parliaments I find all the more unacceptable.
I think that it is shameful that we must accept that many developing countries who are contractually bound within the framework of this discussion to take part and above all who are directly concerned, for financial reasons cannot sit down at the negotiating table at all. It is also shameful that so little of the proceedings will be open to the public.
If there is one thing then that I would call for, in the short time I have left, I would wish that this Parliament, across all Parties, guarantees this openness to the public, and that there is transparency and intensive discussion.
Mr President, I had almost decided against speaking in this debate. Why?
Because when I hear the Council, Commission and Members of Parliament talk in this way it really does put me in mind of courting hedgehogs: afraid of needling each other and knowing that when it comes down to it we appear to agree on all the important issues, that is to say the social issues that Mr Hansenne talked about before and which I shall enumerate again: sustainable development, culture, the precautionary principle in food safety, agricultural affairs, development-related matters and animal welfare.
Mr President, that would only require a day' s work, which is why I believe it is appropriate to call upon you to consider this one point: all these courting hedgehogs will soon be gathering in Seattle; how does the European Commission intend to keep them communicating?
I think there are two things which will achieve this. Firstly we need to see to it that Parliament sends a strong delegation which will ensure that national interests do not play a part.
Secondly, Mr President, I hope that Mr Lamy will see to it that everyone continues to be aware that if the WTO is of importance to us, if it is of importance to Europe then it is also of importance to our other trading partners.
What is more, they must remain aware of the fact that the WTO can only serve an important purpose if every Member State ensures, and also continues to understand, that the interests of one State alone cannot be allowed to prevail, rather the interests of Europe as a whole must always be served by these negotiations too.
Mr President, the advantage or disadvantage of speaking late is that much of what I was going to say has already been said, so I will just reinforce three general points.
Firstly, we must resist the pressure for a narrow round of debate, wherever that comes from.
We need a broad round, we need comprehensive negotiations to get a package that has something in it for everybody.
Secondly, throughout these talks we will be very much in the public eye.
The days of negotiations on technical matters behind closed doors are gone forever.
People are watching, NGOs are watching, businesses are watching environmental concerns, health, animal welfare.
So I am very pleased that the European Commission is tomorrow having a consultation with NGOs in Brussels.
That is very good news.
Thirdly, many have spoken about the need for a balanced approach.
We must have a balanced package.
It is not just about trade, it is about international and social justice, it is about environmental concerns.
But neither can we, as some in this House would wish, forget job creation and wealth.
That matters to the public too.
It is going to be hard to get that balanced package, but the public expect it of us and that is what democratic, responsible government is about.
We have to do it.
Finally, I am pleased to hear the Commission and the Council mention the needs of the developing world.
It is very important that we give them more than warm words as we enter the new millennium.
Let us hope that in the next century we shall see something other than stories of Africa going backwards in terms of economic development.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is reassuring to know that in negotiations as important as those with the World Trade Organisation, the Fifteen Member States have adopted a common position in order to establish, in the area of agriculture, stable ground rules which will allow fair trading on the world scene and to face the challenges of the new Millennium with a clear purpose. We can do this because we have based our position on those adopted at the time from the agenda of the agriculture agreement of the Uruguay Round and at Agenda 2000 in Berlin, as well as on maintaining the multifunctional nature of agriculture
To these basic principles, I think that we should add the strategic value of agriculture in some regions of the European Union with strong exports, which furthermore were given particular recognition in the Amsterdam Treaty, such as the so-called outlying regions. These should be given special consideration in the Millennium Round negotiations so that the decisions taken in Seattle safeguard their agricultural interests and guarantee their cultural, economic and environmental survival, particularly after the Cologne Summit.
This is why it would be useful to remind the Council and the Commission of the problems these regions face, and to make another of the negotiations' aims safeguarding the...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am concerned by the statements on the so-called Millennium Round.
They say that we should extend our policies of liberalisation to an ever-greater number of sectors and countries, including agriculture and services essential to development and essential to improving the quality of life of our citizens, such as education and health.
The President of the Commission made his intention clear when, in his speech during the investiture process, he said that it was necessary to continue restructuring the single market and to promote liberalisation. He specifically emphasised the continuation of the process of liberalising the goods and services sectors.
This means that we are no longer only in the process of liberalising the exchange of goods, as happened with GATT.
The multinationals now want to go much further. They want to take over public sectors which are essential to our citizens' lives and which have until now been the responsibility of the State.
This is a very dangerous road to go down, as the consequences of applying the WTO rules have shown, causing as they did, an increase in social inequality, unemployment, and world poverty.
It is vital that the forthcoming negotiations do not go any further down this road, but take the road of solidarity and cooperation instead.
Mr President, yesterday we held a debate here on the strengthening of food safety in Europe, while conflicts on the precautionary principle are taking place within the Union and in parallel, the Americans are pursuing unjustified retaliations.
The situation in the agricultural and food-processing sectors has become more serious over the last few years, although we were theoretically covered by the Uruguay Round and the Marrakech Agreements, which were supposed to guarantee and organise access to the market, support for exports and internal support.
So you will appreciate, Commissioner, our concern at the apparent absence of shared views within the Union before the beginning of the negotiation, while the United States seems very determined to oppose the European system of subsidies, while skilfully absolving themselves from flexibility payments.
In fact negotiations cannot get under way seriously until we persuade our partners and competitors to recognise the European Agricultural Model.
It is this model which, based on the Community preference, guarantees product quality, food safety and the survival and development of our agricultural and food-processing sectors.
Commissioner, we have been happy to note your answers to the committee as well as your words at the beginning of this sitting.
But we would like to know whether you can tell us how the Americans have reacted to the European position in favour of extending the peace clause beyond 2003.
Could you also tell us whether the United States are demanding compensation or the disappearance of the green and blue boxes which amused Mr Martinez so much but which are absolutely essential for our farmers? Finally could you tell us whether you consider that the conclusions of the Berlin Council on the reform of the CAP are an inviolable basic element in your eyes or whether they are under threat in the new negotiations?
Mr President, Commissioner, in the short time I have left, I would just like to make a few key points.
What do we need to do in terms of form? We must change the process for the settlement of disputes within the World Trade Organisation.
We must make it more transparent, clearer and more accessible to the public.
This is one of the most important conditions necessary for ensuring that areas such as the protection of the environment and of the consumer are given their rightful place, and are not ridden roughshod over in some panel.
Concerning the areas that are included, Mr Lamy, the most important of all is the precautionary principle.
I have already said this on many occasions.
We must take the precautionary principle from the trade agreement on plant health and apply it to the Agreement.
So what then do we really need? We need policies on the environment and health to be important and proper components of the Agreement.
The achievements of the World Trade Organisation' s committee on trade and the environment are not enough.
It has not so far fulfilled its duties and must be penalised.
It must be given a clear timetable so that it can give support to the various projects.
What are the most important areas that we really have to deal with? We must do what the Commission itself asks.
We must make the whole World Trade Organisation more open, more democratic and more transparent and we must ensure that the whole contract underlying it can be subjected, as you yourself say, to a study on its environmental acceptability.
We must examine production methods that are not tied to products and we must have an overview of the situation.
I am convinced that this Parliament will not ratify another agreement in which the precautionary principle, consumer protection and health policies do not play an important part.
Mr President, a great many people are concerned about the social consequences of a new wave of trade liberalisation.
These fears must be taken into account and must appear in the agenda of the Millennium Round negotiations.
However, neither on the creation of the WTO nor at the Singapore Conference were we able to persuade our partners to discuss them.
We must draw lessons from this failure and, with determination, present a credible and coherent position.
Above all determination: there will be no balanced negotiations if we are not able to debate these issues, and our citizens will not understand if we dare to start these negotiations by immediately giving up this essential issue.
In order to succeed, we should take a credible stance.
In 1994, in Marrakech, and in Singapore, in 1996, we were unable to convince many developing countries of the validity of our concerns because we presented them in the form of a social clause.
We failed because we presented ourselves with a negative and punitive image.
Since then things have changed.
Last year, the Member States of the ILO - and amongst them our own countries - adopted a declaration on the principles and fundamental rights relating to work.
We all undertook to respect the principles which create a genuine social dynamic in each country.
We promised to support the efforts of developing countries to fulfil their commitments.
We do not wish to sanction but rather to assist.
Not to assist for the sake of assisting, but to assist so that the commitments may be met.
To this end we must ensure that there is suitable and effective cooperation between the ILO and the WTO.
We must finally give substance to the agreement reached in Singapore on the cooperation between the secretariats of the two organisations, in order to guarantee the positive implementation of the declaration.
We must also adopt a coherent position.
If we are willing to help our partners to build with us genuine world-wide social foundations, we must tell them what efforts we are willing make to this end.
A more attractive incentive system involving preferences and a programme of specific and generous cooperation may contribute to this.
A clear and strong sign in this direction on the part of the Commission and our governments must be prepared and announced in Seattle.
Mr President, I think the Commission did well to stress in its communication, the important point that what we are going to open in Seattle is a round of world talks.
It will mean difficult and complex talks, during which we must always keep at the forefront of our minds the strategic interest that is fundamental for the European Community.
We are the largest exporter in the world and so we are involved more than any other area on the planet with the push towards the abolition of barriers which hinder development of international trade.
Developing international trade means making a substantial contribution to European economic growth, which the countries of the Community really need.
I think that this is an irrefutable situation which Mr Pasqua' s anti-American arguments, which are at least 30 years old, cannot bring into question.
Naturally, we have to defend the values and principles which are fundamental for the countries of the Community, but we have to do it in a shrewd and flexible way. We must also keep in mind that first of all, we need to develop that strategic interest that is fundamental to the liberalisation of international trade which I spoke of a short while ago.
I therefore think that this is neither the place nor the time to be erecting barriers.
I think that Parliament' s involvement in the course of the talks and its cooperation with Commissioner Lamy will bring about results that are appropriate for this objective.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to talk about an area in which there is a large deficit, and to state that I recognise the advantages of further liberalisation.
But I would like to see balance in world-wide trade.
The tried and tested European Model must be maintained, with, for example, our high environmental standards and consumer protection, including our socio-economic measures.
Against this background several maritime aspects must be considered in the WTO negotiations, even if the fishing industry does not have as much weight as agriculture.
I shall now mention three of these aspects.
Firstly, Europe has been allocated fish imports.
Each measure that weakens our European fish-processing industry means large-scale job losses, mostly in regions which already lack infrastructure.
The valuable assistance that the Commission and the European Parliament have so far guaranteed, through various market and regulatory instruments, should not be sacrificed at the altar of absolute liberalisation.
Secondly, international fisheries agreements benefit the exploitation of waters outside Europe and give support both to European fishermen and to the development of third countries.
I do not call this protectionism. But without public support, these agreements would not be feasible.
What we must do here is to look beyond the confines of absolute liberalisation, in order to guarantee the many jobs which are dependent on a balanced and regulated world market.
In the future, the principle of partnership must be strengthened on a global scale.
But this does not mean that free trade must be proclaimed to be the golden calf.
It must be brought into line with other important aims such as environmental protection and sustainability in the fishing industry.
The WTO negotiations must also deal particularly with ensuring that the products we want to market world-wide will still be available when we finally get around to discussing them.
Mr President, even if the European Community is a passionate advocate of the new round of negotiations within the framework of the WTO, in the course of what will probably be the last big push for liberalisation, we should not ignore social issues.
Participation in prosperity, a healthy environment and healthy working conditions are by far the best investments for a good future.
Following the 1994 Uruguay Round, we expected to see greater prosperity through higher growth for the ACP countries.
Growth was to a large extent achieved, but according to studies by the OECD and the UNCTAD, standards of living at the lowest levels have not changed at all. In fact, what has happened is quite the opposite!
It cannot make sense to have a policy of increasing our prosperity while making poor people poorer.
This is why we should not miss the last chance to demand that the seven most important core employment standards, which were ratified in the IAO agreement, be made checkable social clauses.
This does not imply a new form of protectionism, but is to do with standards of fundamental rights with which employees suffering discrimination can protect themselves.
This is a human rights issue and we must strive for this minimum standard.
Once we have these things, we can offer the ACP countries positive incentives to do the same.
There is a whole raft of ideas on this in the Commission' s report.
If we do not succeed in having the social components included, the last great step in achieving liberalisation will not work.
I expect greater commitment on the part of the Council on this matter.
Mr President, Mr Sasi, the liberalisation of world trade is preparing to take a big step forward at Seattle.
With European integration, the EU has grown into a major global influence on the economy, for which only a broad-based round of negotiations will make it possible to ensure steady economic growth.
Of all the important issues on the agenda for the talks, the liberalisation of trade in services is the most challenging.
The European Union is the world' s largest player in the field of trade in services.
Services account for the largest share of GNP in the European Union, and, what is more, that share is growing all the time; and that is good.
One of the greatest barriers to free trade in services is the lack of any global set of norms relating to tendering for contracts in the public sector.
International companies must have converging opportunities to make tenders for contracts, and the public sector must be opened up to international competition.
Furthermore, the rules of global commerce must be defined to safeguard the rights of the market operators.
Similarly, we must substantially develop a scheme to gauge the international comparability of rules of copyright.
The main aim of the talks is to ensure the quality of services on offer.
If the European markets are opened up, any external agent offering services must meet the same high standards that exist in Europe.
Any monitoring mechanisms used to check levels of quality must be clear as to their principles and as open as possible with regard to the communication of information.
It is especially important that the fast growing services of the information society become subject to an agreement.
The advantage of the development of the modern trade in services in Europe is that it maximises the benefits of increased commercial exploitation of information technology.
Electronic shopping must clearly be made easier, and regulation and taxation in this area must be kept to a minimum.
At the talks we must be able to ensure that electronic shopping remains free and dynamic, and guarantee the possibilities for developments in electronic shopping in Europe in the next Millennium also.
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy, Mr Sasi, the Millennium Round will, out of necessity, have to promote forms of cooperation and integration between the World Trade Organisation, the International Labour Office, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. This is so that the liberalisation of trade will be accompanied by renewed stability in the money market, by wide-ranging policies on human resources, by social protection networks and by widespread compliance with the fundamental regulations on work.
Only in this way will it be possible to remove the mutual accusations of social dumping and protectionism.
With the solemn declaration of June 1998, the 178 Member States of the ILO undertook to promote the four fundamental rights of work: the right of association, respect for the minimum working age, the prohibition of forced labour and the suppression of discrimination.
Out of this came an indirect definition of fair competition so that social development will not be compulsorily suppressed for competitive purposes.
More recently, the express hope came out of the G8 meetings in Washington and Cologne that the ILO' s solemn declaration will be implemented.
Support policies must therefore always prevail over sanctions.
In this regard, Europe can constitute a reliable point of reference, and this is also thanks to its model of the social market economy.
The Commission, backed by Parliament, must therefore commit resources to assisting developing countries and transitional economies, construct modern social protection systems and efficient job markets.
This is the ideal, political message which the united Europe will be able to take to Seattle, confirming the traditional function of dialogue and integration between developed economies and developing economies or those undergoing changes.
Mr President, in today' s Financial Times the Secretary-General of UNCTAD reiterated that there remains persistent bias against developing countries in the multilateral trading system.
In these deliberations we need to be absolutely clear that developing countries are not asking for an ambitious programme in this round.
They are asking for compliance with the commitments which were made under the Uruguay Round.
They have not, for instance, seen the benefits for their textile and clothing industries, neither have they seen benefits from the liberalisation of trade in farm products.
What they want to see first are the good effects that could come from the Uruguay Round.
Developing countries are preparing for Seattle, and preparing to be very busy.
They are saying that market access alone is not going to be a panacea enabling them to achieve competitiveness and integration into the global economy.
We need to acknowledge that all these fine objectives will demand that we support the supply side in developing countries, because they simply will not have the capacity to deal with these fine objectives.
It is also necessary to see the elimination of agricultural export subsidies and a new WTO clause to cover the need for food security in developing countries.
Also, a social clause - which many people have mentioned - should be jointly managed by the ILO to ensure that some of the susceptibilities we all know about are dealt with.
Finally, Commissioner, when you deal with WTO rules in your deliberations, I would ask you also to remember that we have enormous duties and responsibilities under the Lomé Convention.
Mr President, production in the European Union has grown by just over 3% per year in the last few years.
Trade in recent decades has decreased by an average of 6% per year, service exports stand at 9% and foreign direct investments are at about 12%.
This shows very clearly what our priorities must be.
Our number one aim, which is full employment in Europe, requires an improvement in our competitiveness and is being decisively formed by these developments.
My priorities for the WTO negotiations are firstly, electronic commerce, the area with the greatest potential growth rate, and in which Europe is actually very competitive.
In this area, we want to see electronic transactions and supplies made officially exempt from duty in the long term.
We want to avoid ways of looking at the situation that differentiate between traditional and new services as the way in which a transfer of goods or services is effected does not change the nature of providing a service. We also want improved access to markets in non-EU countries for goods and services, and in the telecommunications services which give the necessary support to electronic commerce.
Secondly, telecommunications.
Well-developed networks and fairer competition have a generally positive effect on a country' s economic performance and employment situation.
The forging of international alliances opens up new markets, and as a consequence brings about a covert and strengthened sense of competition which is to the consumer' s advantage.
But there is also a need for transparency in this area.
Liberalisation is a prime example of a job creator.
Through liberalisation, hundreds of thousands of new and supplementary jobs have been created.
My third point is TRIPs.
The effective implementation of this agreement should safeguard the equality of status between material and intellectual property.
Mr President, many NGOs have signed the declaration opposing the Millennium Round, the WTO and Seattle.
We are no longer in a position to leave the concerns of citizens and various organisations off the Seattle agenda, which means that the European Parliament and the Socialist Group also have an important role to play here.
This role must be focused on making a positive contribution during the negotiations.
A contribution that has due respect both for trade interests and the interests of citizens.
We must succeed in having the best of both worlds, even when it comes to the sensitive area of consumer and environmental protection.
The political question is always about the division of responsibilities between the WTO, the European Union, national governments and the consumer.
There are various answers to this question.
In the United States, more responsibility rests with the consumer.
Here in Europe, the government tends to bear the responsibility and we rely on legislation.
Many conflicts over environmental and consumer protection could be avoided by the effective application of the precautionary principle.
According to the Rio Declaration of 1992, it must be scientifically proven that a new product will have no damaging effects.
This evidence must then be provided before the product can come onto the market.
Mr President, the significance of the Millennium Round and world trade on economic and employment policies and for the European economy in general, which is now the largest trading partner in the world, cannot be emphasised enough.
This means that it is particularly important that the European Union clearly states its opposition to any attempt to promote a new or even an old kind of protectionism.
It must contribute towards developing a type of administrative interdependence for interdependent national economies, and it must also contribute to a global concept of economic management.
The most important thing we need to do is to establish international rules for competition.
These rules for competition are all the more important because it is actually not very useful for the development of the European economy to have rules for competition here which do not apply throughout the world.
I am thinking here of huge mergers, amalgamations, price cartels and cartels within a particular field.
It is not acceptable that the 100 biggest companies in the world share things out between themselves, and all we can do about it is react but not actually play a role in it.
That is why we need a catalogue of minimum standards for international rules for competition which must be laid down in national rules for competition.
What we need above all are independent competition authorities in all the countries that are members of the WTO to implement these minimum standards for competition regulations.
Whether a procedure for the arbitration of disputes will one day turn into an international competition authority is a question that should be left open for today.
Mr President, I am just going to talk about one subject.
This is a subject Mrs Roth-Behrendt has already spoken of: the procedure for conflict resolution.
When the Uruguay Round ended in Marrakech, the World Trade Organisation brought in a compulsory system of settlement of disputes, but the procedure they used was one inherited from the old General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
This was a procedure led by groups of experts and informal bodies. The result of this is that now, the European Community is handing over to an international organisation its obligation to find a solution to its international disputes with no guarantee that it will be treated with sufficient impartiality.
For example, the first dispute about bananas was resolved by a panel, that is a group of experts, presided over by a former American senator, when the plaintiff was the United States of America.
And secondly, closer to home, the Commission needs to set its own affairs in order because now, the Commission services responsible for putting its claims to the dispute settlement body of the World Trade Organisation are completely toothless.
I would therefore expect from the Commission and from the Member States that in the new draft of the World Trade Organisation text, an independent and impartial system for settling disputes will be established, which will not push us into the path of an oncoming bus as has happened in the past.
I think our deliberations today have been very much about the key issues of environment and agriculture and also the social clause issue, but I want to bring to your attention the specific needs of the cultural industries and the audiovisual sector.
It is particularly important, in considering these areas, that we look at the problems that challenge us in these sectors: for instance, the growth rate, presently 13% in the EU, which probes the capacity and the reach of negotiated rules; as well as their complexity.
To take, for instance, the convergence of the telecommunication industries, audio and computer technology, which I feel pose fundamental questions regarding the way in which we produce and consume these industries.
But much of this will depend on the detail as concluded in the negotiations themselves.
I want to use the opportunity of the Commissioner' s presence here today to propose - in the light of the exemptions we already have in the European Union for the audiovisual industries, which give us room for manoeuvre, which give us also the ability to evolve with the industry and to make a gesture in the direction of an even playing field vis-à-vis the US - that, in constructing the infrastructure for the negotiations, we should be flexible enough to accommodate our needs here in Europe.
At the same time, I also recognise that we need a negotiating arena that is both robust and realistic.
So I would advocate that, in terms of our position here in Europe, we need to ensure that our industries move forward in a way auspicious to achieving the potential that they undoubtedly possess.
I do not intend to touch on all the subjects which we have debated, but I would simply like to thank the speakers - or at least most of them - for their support and to reply to some specific points or some of the questions posed by the speakers.
First question: can we, or should we analyse the impact of something like a round on the economy or the environment? I believe that in the case of the economy, it is not necessary, even if it is not an exact science, because the majority of economists consider, for reasons which have just been indicated, that the liberalisation of trade is the right direction to take.
It is less obvious in the case of the environment, so much so that the Commission has taken the initiative to carry out a study of the environmental impact of the round which we are about to launch.
One could therefore ask why we have not done the same in relation to the Uruguay Round. We did not do it because at the time we had not thought about it, we did not have the means and to do it now on the basis of the Uruguay Round does not make any logical sense.
On the other hand, we have begun to do so for the next round. It is not an easy task and furthermore I think that the Union is a pioneer in this field.
It is clearly possible to improve the mechanism for the settlement of disputes!
Let us remember however, between ourselves, that, on the whole, the results of the application of the mechanisms put in place after Marrakech are absolutely correct from the Union' s point of view, with regard to the relationship between the number of cases we brought against other parties and the number of cases brought against us, between the cases won and the cases lost.
If we look at the statistics and try to consider the exchanges in question, the results are satisfactory.
It is true that I have not mentioned the term "Community preference" .
I am not superstitious and, from the moment that it appeared in the treaties and I was made responsible for developing it, I have not felt the need to repeat it constantly.
To my knowledge, the United States have not yet given their opinion on the problem of the peace clause which takes us to 2003; we will clearly have to address the question of knowing what we will do after that.
With regard to the interpretation of the European Council of Berlin, which has, on this point, expressed its agreement on what has been called Agenda 2000, I have said, and I repeat, that it seems to me to be a good basis for discussion.
With regard to the possibility of developing countries gaining access to the techniques of commercial liberalisation, to the WTO and its panels etc, it is true, as has been said, that this poses a problem, that this objective is not yet within the range of many of them and that the use of these complex mechanisms is reserved for those who have the means, hence our proposal of technical assistance (which is furthermore mentioned in the Commission' s document), so that these countries may themselves possess and use the necessary legal technology.
As for the problems of health and education, we do not think, we do not foresee and we do not wish to call into question the public policy objectives in these areas within the proposals on the liberalisation of services in the next round.
Finally, with regard to the representation of the European Parliament, I have already said, and I repeat, that the Commission is absolutely clear on this issue.
We believe that to have the Members of the European Parliament, who are so well informed, by our side, in a negotiation of this type, is a trump card for us and hence for the Union.
I have not therefore changed my opinion on this.
We are aware that generally we work under your supervision and, sometimes, with your support.
On the question of the number, I consider this to be a matter which is in your hands and I would not presume to interfere.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
The debate is closed.
Climate change
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the forthcoming global conference on climate change, from 25 October to 5 November 1999 in Bonn: implementation of the Kyoto Convention.
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, I would like to thank you for this opportunity to inform Parliament of the work of the Council and its views on climate policy.
Climate policy is one of the greatest of all the environmental challenges that exist on a global basis, and I believe that it will continue to be so throughout the next century.
Climate change will have immense social and economic effects. Obviously, the more we allow the climate to change, the greater these effects will be.
One issue that people are just becoming aware of is the likely effects of climate change on health.
Many researchers believe that the increase in the number of storms and flooding are a sign that the climate is changing.
Obviously, these have a direct effect on people' s health. But still more significant are the indirect effects of climate change that stem from changes in the ecosystem.
It is predicted that, for example, warmer and drier summers in many areas will mean smaller harvests.
It is also predicted that, as a result of warmer climates, many diseases spread by what are known as vectors, such as those spread by insects, will increase.
It is predicted, for example, that malaria may spread to southern parts of Europe and the United States.
Ultimately we could also have a situation where a new type of gap emerges between rich and poor: the health gap.
This is just one example of the dramatic effects that climate change could bring with it.
For that reason, it is vital that we prevent, or at least slow down, climate change.
The agreement that was made in Kyoto is an important step forward, but one that does not go nearly far enough.
It is important to realise that beyond the commitments of Kyoto, new commitments have to be made in order to sufficiently slow down climate change.
But in spite of that, achieving the commitments made at Kyoto will take a lot of effort and a significant change to the way the problem has been dealt with up until now.
The European Union' s action consists of two main areas. One is the Union' s own action to reduce emissions, and the other is the work of the Union in international negotiations.
The Union' s own action and the action taken in the Member States at national level to reduce emissions are essential in order to maintain the international dimension.
It is worrying that, according to a report by the European Environmental Agency, the 'business as usual' attitude will lead to an increase in emissions in the Union and not the reduction of 8% by the year 2010, to which we are committed.
This means that new policy action is needed.
One of the most important objectives of the Finnish presidential term is to achieve first sector strategies for energy, transport and agriculture.
Without such strategies it will not be possible to achieve the reductions in emissions we are committed to.
I believe it is important that a continuous process should emerge from these sector strategies, i.e. that we should not be content with the first versions but that at regular intervals sector strategies in the areas of transport and energy, for example, should be reviewed and targets should be set that are ever more ambitious.
In my opinion, what is most important in international talks is to resolve issues that are still open, enabling us to start to ratify the Kyoto Protocol so that it may come into effect and become binding.
It is Finland' s objective at the Fifth Party Summit at Bonn to make decisive progress in the creation of rules relating to the Kyoto mechanisms and rules for monitoring the agreement.
Our aim is that, ideally, the Fifth Party Summit should produce a draft agreement, which will obviously have sluice-gates in it, but which will enable us to adhere to a timetable, thus making it possible to conclude the agreement at the Sixth Party Summit, meaning that progress in the Party Summit this autumn is essential.
One of the most difficult issues is the main role played by the less developed and the industrialised countries.
As the country holding the Presidency, Finland will also work to ensure that climate policy and development policy support one another.
We also have in the Development Council conclusions being drafted on the connection between climate policy and development policy.
It is important to bring technology, for example, to the less developed nations.
The most important mechanism here will be the Clean Development Mechanism.
So that the transfer of technology and resources to the less developed countries can start to work we need rules for the CDM.
But it is also important for the Union that the agreement on all three of the Kyoto flexibility mechanisms - the CDM, International Emissions Trading and Joint Implementation - make equal progress under the agreement.
The 50% ceiling proposed by the Union for the use of the mechanisms has attracted harsh criticism from other negotiating parties to the agreement, which means that this will be a very difficult issue in international talks.
Finally, I would like to say that the Commission' s communication on preparations for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol is a lucid document and a good start, but it mainly contains measures for the initial stage.
It will also be essential to draw up a longer-term programme.
Mr President, I cannot think of a worse building in which to hold a debate on climate change.
The building is a monument to how humankind has ignored the imperatives of climate change.
There is no natural light at all and we demand huge amounts of electricity.
Even when we get into the lifts they are black so we have to have the electric light on.
However, that being said, I welcome the remarks by the President-in-Office and by the Commissioner and, if I may do so in my humble position, I would like to congratulate her on her maiden speech.
The Kyoto Protocol created certain expectations and the impression of the European Parliament is that things have been allowed to go to sleep for far too long after the negotiations on that protocol were concluded.
Politicians have partly conspired to hide from the peoples of our Member States that implementing the Kyoto Protocols is going to be painful.
It is going to cost them money.
It is going to be money well spent, because we need to spend it to protect the environment, but it is going to cost them money.
I should like to thank Mrs Wallström for outlining to us what the Commission' s action is going to be.
She said at one point, rather blandly I thought, that she was going to propose tangible measures in various sectors.
Well, we wait to see what these are going to be.
We are glad there is going to be an action programme coming forward in the spring and a Green Paper on emissions trading.
When we had our debate in the hearing with the Commissioner about a month or so ago, my committee, the Committee on the Environment, was really rather in two minds as to whether it wanted to see emissions trading measures put forward, but it is worth our while to explore that line.
We need to produce an action programme to enable the European Union to live up to what it signed up to in Kyoto.
We would like to highlight - and we have highlighted in our resolution - the need for action, particularly in the air transport sector.
That is not something which can be left to the transport Commissioner, it is an initiative that should come from Mrs Wallström.
Finally I would like to pledge the Commissioner our full support in the Committee on the Environment for whatever it is that she brings forward.
Whatever it is, we hope she brings it forward in concrete form and soon.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to make two observations as well as two requests.
The first is about emissions trading. Emissions trading has two sides, one is political and the other economic.
In political terms, there are different ways of evaluating emissions trading.
Many in our group take the view that emissions trading, i.e. the freedom to buy the obligation to reduce CO2, is not politically tenable.
I do not want to evaluate that further now, but I think that the reduction of CO2 should not be seen merely as a burden but that it actually has an economic effect, and offers the opportunity, and the possibility, to bring the improvement of the quality of life into line with employment. That is why I feel that we should not participate in unlimited emissions trading.
I am absolutely convinced that Parliament' s position, which we drafted - to permit at the most 50% emissions trading, that is, 50% reduction of CO2 must be done in one' s own country - is in political and also economic terms, exactly the right way to generate employment here at home.
There is a sufficient number of studies which show that, for example, a reduction by 34,000 carbon equivalent units creates around 100 jobs in Europe, and this is the route we should take in order to bring ecology and economics designed to increase employment more in line with one another.
Hence my request: could you please confirm that you do not support any agreement which allows more than 50% emissions trading to take place outside one' s own country.
Secondly: the European Parliament' s participation.
I was very pleased Mrs Wallström, that you emphasised once again your desire to work closely with the European Parliament and I fully accept what you say. Past experience has shown, though, that this was sometimes not the case and that participation indeed worked on a very ad hoc basis.
This occurred firstly in the delegations for example, where one sometimes had the impression that the European Commission did the actual negotiating there, and that the Members of Parliament who were also present, were just there to make up the numbers. It also occurred in the drafting of the mandate or, to give a particularly negative example, in the issue of individual obligations to reduce CO2 and their negotiation by the Commission with the relevant partners, especially recently with the Japanese and Korean car manufacturers.
In this case, there was absolutely no contact with the European Parliament and the Parliament was not even officially informed.
The Council on the other hand, was informed and will make its decision on this on 12 October, but we have been cut out of the loop.
If we want to establish an instrument for individual obligation, then please ensure that all partners participate.
This brings me on to my second request: could you please confirm that a modus vivendi for the participation of Parliament will be found.
Mr President, changing and influencing nature in such a way that future generations do not have the same chance to live as we have is indefensible, be it from human or ecological points of view.
That is why it is really good to hear that Mrs Wallström has ambitions for the years to come.
I believe that we are today in a position where ever more people recognise that it is the interplay between environment and economies and between environment and markets in which a large part of the solution to our problems lies.
We must therefore make more and more use of economic instruments of control.
We take this up in our resolution. Commissioner Wallström has also touched upon the question.
The fact is that each country is free to introduce this type of measure, as in fact a number of countries have done already.
The best thing, however, would be for all countries to do this at the same time.
The next best thing would be for all EU Member States to do it at the same time.
A less good, but nonetheless necessary, alternative would perhaps be for some country to take the lead, that is to say for the flexibility clause to be used.
In that case, the majority of countries could move to introduce the measures required, while the others remained shamefully behind.
I had intended to ask Commissioner Wallström a question about this. I do not, however, need to do this now because she has backed this point of view right from the beginning.
The question is merely one of how many countries we can get to join us in a first phase of this kind.
The second point I want to raise is precisely the point that Mr Lange raised in the matter of trade in emission rights.
I believe it is necessary to make for the greatest possible effectiveness at the lowest possible cost.
It is good that we should now be getting a Green Paper on this subject.
I am also pleased that Commissioner Wallström, with the background she has, has adopted the standpoint she has done.
I think it would be unfortunate to land ourselves today with percentage figures concerning the extent to which a particular environmental measure is to be employed.
I believe that we should be prepared to work as quickly and effectively as possible to influence the environment for the better.
Mr President, on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I would like to welcome Madam President-in-Office of the Council and Mrs Wallström, of the Commission.
Parliament must give you both its fullest support in your aim to include the issue of climate change in all European Union policy.
We know that very far-reaching decisions will be made at the Helsinki Summit on how to take account of environmental considerations generally, and climatic issues in particular.
Mrs Wallström spoke of a very positive matter with regard to Mr Monti.
The Member of the Commission responsible for issues of competition is thus ready to look into how subsidies and taxes will impact on climatic issues.
Parliament' s draft statement forcefully emphasises the importance of reducing those very large subsidies that are granted at present for fossil fuels.
I believe that Mr Monti will tackle this problem in earnest. Perhaps we could then redirect the subsidies to areas that further the Union' s intentions, especially that of sustainable development.
I also support the idea that we must try hard to ensure that market forces work to halt the development of climate change.
In this, the importance of an energy tax cannot be underestimated.
The Commissioner responsible for the Internal Market, Mr Bolkestein, told Parliament yesterday that he also intends to become involved in this issue, although, unfortunately, he said he still needed a year to convince Spain that an energy tax is really needed.
I would have been interested to hear the opinions of the Member of the Commission and the President-in-Office on how a common energy tax would evolve, as, without one, the European Union will be unable to fulfil its objectives.
Mr President, climate change is set to be one of our most difficult environmental challenges.
What makes it so difficult is that, if we are to take the matter seriously, huge changes must be made in both the energy and transport sectors.
What is probably also required, in spite of new technology and alternative energy sources, is less use of transport and lower energy consumption overall.
A large part of the responsibility for this lies, of course, with the individual Member States, but the EU too can do a great deal.
My Group naturally supports this resolution which we have also been involved in drafting.
I shall emphasise three points which are especially important for the EU in this situation.
The first point is that we must come up with a carbon dioxide levy, that is to say, a tax on greenhouse gases.
I should like to emphasise what is stated in paragraph 15 of the resolution to the effect that it is probably better to have a decision of substance, even if we do not have everyone on board, than to have a decision lacking in substance which entails an unacceptable delay.
The second point concerns the subsidy for fossil fuels which is, of course, directly counter-productive.
I also think that the EU' s energy research grants must focus solely on renewable sources of energy, which is not the case at present.
The third point concerns aviation fuel.
It is a matter of urgency that agreement be reached on the international taxation of aviation fuel. Aviation is the area with the fastest increase in emissions of greenhouse gases.
On this subject, I should like to hear a little more from Commissioner Wallström.
What do you intend to do with regard to this particular area? What initiatives do you have under way?
To conclude, I should like to point out that there is a lot of scepticism in my group about trade in emission rights.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Minister Hassi and Commissioner Wallström for their inspiring statements.
A conference on climate change is just around the corner now.
It is to take place in Bonn.
In view of the fact that there are so many different opinions about climate change, there are bound to be a great many more conferences in the future.
The fact is that there has been no noticeable improvement whatsoever.
According to a report by IPCC, there will need to be a 35% reduction in CO2 emissions between now and 2010 if temperatures and the rise in sea level are to be kept within the necessary limits.
This does not sit well with the fact that in most EU countries CO2 concentrations have done nothing but rise since 1990.
So we will need drastic supplementary measures if we are to comply with the Kyoto Agreement.
However, it has become apparent since this agreement was reached that countries are taking their time when it comes to compliance.
It is downright scandalous that the Member States have not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
This severely restricts the foundation on which practical efforts to cut down greenhouse gases are to be based.
It would in any case be best if Member State Governments were to press on with ratification.
In view of the seriousness of the situation I support the proposal made by Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mr Lange to do this by means of an assent procedure.
Ratifying the Kyoto Protocol is not, in fact, something Parliament has to do, but neither can we allow a situation to develop in which laxness on the part of the Member States means there is no ratification whatsoever.
Another point is that there must soon be clarity and agreement in relation to the criteria for flexible mechanisms.
However, we must also guard against wanting other countries to effect reductions when we do not take measures to limit CO2 emissions ourselves.
Mr President, we must be perfectly clear about the scale of all this.
We are currently releasing as much CO2 per day as has been bound in the last 3000 years.
If we add that up over the course of a year, we are actually moving backwards in one go, at a rate of one million years per year.
In this sense, the plans of the Council and the Commission do not of course go far enough by any means and are actually merely cosmetic actions.
What we need in the long term are not voluntary agreements, but thorough analyses of the real costs and to make the whole tax system environmentally friendly.
If these things are not done, it simply will not work!
Within the framework of the current agreement on the common position, the requirement in Amendment No 5, that is, an EU Directive with legally binding targets for renewable energies to be achieved, is the minimum condition necessary if the Paper in any form can be taken seriously to any great extent.
Mr President, this is an important motion for a resolution which may form the basis of continued work in the field of climate change.
There are ever more signs to indicate that imminent climate changes on our planet will become the really big environmental question and challenge for politicians the world over.
On behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, I should like to report on the positions we have adopted.
We oppose paragraph 15 because we are doubtful as to the suitability and effectiveness of general energy taxes.
We oppose paragraph 16. The question of energy efficiency is in fact also dealt with in paragraph 11 in the motion for a resolution.
It is proposed in paragraph 11 that a directive be prepared for this area and, in so doing, consideration can be given to what might be a more realistic goal for increased energy efficiency than what is stated in paragraph 16.
Where the draft amendments are concerned, we support proposal 1 from Mr Bowis, who is a member of the Group of the European People' s Party, together with draft Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 from the Group of the Party of European Socialists.
With regard to proposal 4 from the Socialists, we request split voting because we think that it would be unrealistic to try to achieve ratification of the protocol as early as the first few months of next year, even if it were a matter of urgency.
With regard to paragraph 5 from the Greens, we request split voting there as well.
We share the view that an EU Directive on renewable energy sources ought to be prepared, but we think that decisions about targets which are to be legally binding upon the Member States ought not to be formulated by the EU organisation.
Finally: I listened this morning to Environmental Commissioner Wallström who is in fact also with us here now. She emphasised that market forces, free trade and well-informed consumers can be our best friends in obtaining a sound environment.
I agree with her statement, including the parts of it concerning measures to arrest climate change.
Mr President, we have to move on from the Kyoto agreement to be successful in preventing climate change.
For that reason, we need a longer-term action programme, as proposed by the country holding the Presidency.
International emissions trading must be assessed according to how effective it will be in reducing emissions.
Environmental taxation is important, and that is why it has been discussed here.
It is an important means of achieving cleaner production processes and cleaner transport.
Ambitious attempts on the part of individual countries are doomed to failure unless there is progress in the EU area as a whole.
The cultivation of forests, as a means of dispensing with carbon dioxide, is still being discussed; this discussion must continue openly and we should also make more of the versatility of forests with regard to the environment and the prevention of climate change.
Mr President, today the European Parliament is discussing two global questions: the liberalisation of world trade, and the realisation of an agreement on climate change, both of which issues are connected.
They must both be seen as part of the greater whole.
The current trend in all the Western societies of the European Union and throughout humanity is in irreconcilable conflict with the economics of nature.
We speak of sustainable development with reference to the economics of nature, but the main drift of the action goes in the opposite direction.
Despite the population policy, population growth continues at a considerable rate.
Everywhere, including the most prosperous countries in the world, people are trying to raise their material standard of living, which is to say, they consume more.
There are many who believe that the invisible hands at work in the markets and technological development will solve the problems of mankind.
Market forces are a good servant, but a bad master.
The new technology will help us to adapt our own economy to that of nature, but it also creates new problems and risks all the time.
Both market forces and technological developments must be steered in a direction that will take sustainable development from the sphere of mere words to one of deeds.
In the end, however, it will be a question of the values of life and policy.
To check the advance of climate change and other changes to the environment that are harmful to human beings effectively, we need to be able to break the chain of materialism, with its supremacy of temporary values, which is harmful both to nature and humanity.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I think that what the public expects from us is not a contribution to even more hot air, but concrete measures.
The most important of these will be specific steps towards the incorporation of them by the European Union, and industry-specific targets and timetables.
Unfortunately, I have heard you say very little about these things here today.
Please be more specific. I believe that we must start implementation here in the EU and not wait until the start of the period of enforcement.
There are two other points I would like to mention.
Commissioner, you mentioned renewable energy sources.
This is less a matter of financial assistance and more of when we will have a European "feed-in directive" with compensation that actually covers the costs.
Secondly, as the Swedish speaker already said, there is the matter of taxing aviation fuel.
According to our international obligations, we are not able to tax aviation fuel.
What is possible, though, is a tax on CO2. The European Union could introduce such a tax immediately.
I would have liked to hear in concrete terms, what the timetables look like and how they stand in relation to these two specific recommendations, which represent a real contribution to achieving a noticeable fall in CO2 emissions.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, I must thank you for agreeing, on most points, with the European Parliament' s resolution, which lays down our whole philosophy on climate change.
Really, I would like to concentrate on the points which are of most concern to this Parliament.
Firstly, the European Union must continue to lead the way at the meeting which will take place in Bonn from the 25th of the month and, if necessary, it would be very useful to suggest a unilateral reduction, which was initially envisaged as 15%.
Secondly, we also feel that it is essential that the Kyoto Protocol be ratified.
I think that it is scandalous that 84 countries signed it and yet only 12, mostly small islands, have ratified it.
Perhaps these small islands have done so because the danger is much closer to home for them.
The European Union therefore, must make efforts to ensure that its Member Countries also sign this protocol.
I am also very keen on emphasising the issue raised by Commissioner Wallström, regarding a concrete plan of action.
I think that the time has arrived, Commissioner and Madam President-in-Office of the Council, to abandon rhetoric and to take action.
If you abandon rhetoric and take action, this Parliament will certainly support you.
Mr President, I welcome many of the things our Commissioner has been saying and is proposing to do.
I ask her with my amendment to do one thing more.
We all want to see greenhouse gas emissions reduced and my amendment is not a judgment on energy taxes, but it is seeking to help us make informed decisions on any proposals for such taxes.
What we need to know is the assessed impact on jobs in Europe and the extent to which pollution might simply be exported to low-income countries which can ill afford to cope with it.
An example of this: for a leading tomato grower in Britain currently paying GBP 363 000 for its gas and GBP 60 000 for its electricity, the proposed climate change levy in Britain would increase its energy bill by GBP 149 000.
That is a staggering 35% increase, an increase which would simply drive that company out of Britain and into some non-EU country, possibly in Eastern Europe, possibly in the developing world.
What would then happen is that the European Union would claim to have reduced its pollution, reduced its emissions, but at a cost: firstly European jobs would be lost and secondly the world would not have reduced its pollution levels by one iota: the pollution would simply have been exported.
That in my view would be immoral to low-income countries and it would be insane economics for the working people of Europe.
The European Trade Union Confederation has called on us to make sure that every step - and they do say every step - taken to implement the Kyoto targets is carefully evaluated.
They are right.
That is what I want. That is what I am asking the Commissioner to do.
Please publish your impact assessments on jobs and on the extent to which emissions would be exported.
Then we can all take an informed decision.
The climate changes we have been experiencing for the last few decades present us with the biggest environmental challenges of all.
There are also humanly created problems.
The EU and the Member States should therefore stick to their goal of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases by 15% by the year 2010 and might well go further than that in the slightly longer term.
On the other hand, the tools we use to reduce emissions will have to be effective and binding, as Mrs Hassi and Mrs Wallström emphasised.
We know however that there are strong forces which are prepared to cheat the system by means of any old agreements.
You can certainly do that as a way of wangling lower environmental requirements for yourself, but you cannot cheat with regard to the actual effects of climate changes.
I would therefore urge the Council and the Commission to stand by the demand that at least half of the CO2 reductions are to be made on a national basis.
If we lower that 50% level, then I think we should be considerably impairing the EU' s policy on climate change and also greatly reducing the EU' s credibility in continued negotiations on the subject.
Mr President, Commissioner, I support the joint resolution submitted by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, and unlike others in my Party, I also support the section which deals with an CO2 energy tax.
The CDU Party in Germany believes, and we have recently discussed this again with our Chairman, Mr Schäuble, that we should stop continuing to work towards a European solution, just because at the national level, left-wing and Green governments are abusing the issue of environmental taxes.
But we should not concentrate solely on the tax issue, as seems to have happened in the Committee to some extent, as well as in our Party.
There are many aspects of reducing CO2 which we will not be able to resolve through a tax alone, perhaps not through taxation at all.
I will give the example of the stand-by switch which is taken up in paragraph 9 of the motion for resolution which I proposed.
Between five and ten per cent of the European Union' s energy consumption is wasted because we do not switch off our televisions and other electrical appliances, but leave them on stand-by.
Five to ten per cent represents a huge contribution to energy savings, which can be achieved here if we either turn the appliances off or come up with new technical means in order to achieve a reduction in energy consumption.
This will not be achieved though, by means of a tax.
When someone buys a television, the question of how much energy it uses on stand-by is not generally of prime importance. They have other criteria in mind, and this is why we also need technical solutions to this problem.
However, I would like to ask those of you who want to see solutions other than a tax not to raise objections again when we are holding a discussion on technical alternatives to stand-by on the grounds that this is a European regulation and you did not want that either.
We must do something if we are to appear credible in the negotiations.
Nor should we discuss only CO2, because if my information is correct, 50% of the greenhouse effect is caused by other greenhouse gases.
I think that we have not made this sufficiently clear in the discussion.
We should give this point much greater consideration.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank Mrs Laura González Álvarez and also the Spanish speaker who is coming after me.
Without them, one might have assumed that this is a Northern European debate.
This is not the case, as this is an issue which concerns us all.
On climate change itself, I would like to express my fear that this issue is being continually pushed into the background, as something which is of less and less interest to the public and to politicians.
Finally we have professed our beliefs and that appears to be enough for most people.
That would be extraordinarily dangerous!
Therefore, I would like to suggest two things: firstly, we should endorse Mr Lange' s call to reach agreement on the emissions trade with the close involvement of Parliament, because such a powerful intervention in trade policy would be very difficult to carry out against Parliament' s wishes.
Secondly, I suggest that we establish a binding timetable, one with real sanctions against any EU State that deviates from the targets for reduction.
The model I recommend is the concerted reduction of debt, which has now made the Euro possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that now, all of us in Parliament agree on the need to tackle the problem of climate change rigorously, not just in order to fulfil a commitment made by the European Parliament but also because of the undeniable world-wide importance of this issue.
Nevertheless, we feel that in order to succeed in this task, we must avoid various topics which crop up on a regular basis in discussions on the subject and we should avoid including them in the text of the resolution.
The first approach that we have to avoid is to think that economic development inevitably brings with it an increase in the deterioration of the environment.
It is possible to neutralise to a large extent this undesirable effect of growth by making our resources more efficient.
Introducing low cost efficiency measures would significantly reduce emissions.
Nevertheless, attaining this objective may prove difficult for certain Member Countries, which is not what we want at all.
The second topic concerns the way global problems are dealt with as local issues.
The European Union must show itself to be strong on this matter and encourage as many countries as possible to sign up to this commitment and fulfil it.
This is the only way we will be able to accept adopting measures which will certainly be difficult and economically damaging for various European Union countries, as well as for some of those mentioned in the motion for resolution.
The last thing that we should avoid doing is to make the protocol' s so-called flexible mechanisms the fundamental basis for our actions.
Although it is true that there are means which would potentially allow us to fulfil the commitment made in Kyoto through national strategies and measures, the economic cost of the different options varies enormously.
Strategic action in the areas where the net economic costs are lower should be stepped up immediately.
For this reason, and before the measures are adopted as standard for energy, we would have to ensure the adoption of this strategic action, as well as the reliability of the means of production of gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect, so that we can efficiently monitor the development of the problem in all countries.
Mr President, now that we have discussed the question of world-wide negotiations in great detail, of course we have to optimise our own strategy.
I am pleased then, that the Commissioner finally wants to propose appropriate strategies.
At the moment, I rather have the feeling that our actions are relatively selective and ad hoc and not really purposeful.
What we really need is an integrated strategy on which we will base our decision as to which industry-specific measures we should take.
I would like to come back to the idea of voluntary agreements.
The gist of the Commission' s statement is that we should call on everyone to sign up to voluntary agreements.
This will not allow us to state precisely where our priorities lie and what conditions are necessary to achieve them.
I reiterate Parliament' s continual demand to specify what measures are required for each industry and how they should be applied.
Mr President, most of what needs saying has been said at this point.
The EU is falling sharply behind in meeting its legally binding undertakings on reducing greenhouse gases.
I would just like to mention my concerns about my own country.
I am very concerned that the Irish Government is complacent in its attitude towards its Kyoto Protocol commitments, which they entered into in December 1997.
We are committed to limiting the emissions of greenhouse gases to 13% above our 1990 levels by the year 2010 or so.
On current predictions Ireland' s emissions will be up to 40% above this target.
In relation to the energy tax issue, it is time we decided exactly what we mean by this.
I am a great believer in more carrot and less stick, particularly when it comes to environmental protection.
Just to wave taxes as a threat, without matching them with grants for retrofitting older plants so that they can comply with acceptable emission standards, and without generally increasing investment in monitoring emissions, will not work.
Are we talking about climate change levies, emission taxes, energy taxes generally, carbon tax, carbon dioxide tax? I do not think we have ever put our heads together to decide exactly what we mean by it.
I fully support the point made by my EPP colleague, Mr Bowis, that under no circumstances can we export our problem from the developed world by slapping taxes on our older plants with problematic emission standards and just driving those jobs and those particular production units to the less developed regions where they are less able to cope with environmental degradation.
It is a net reduction in emissions we want globally, not just exporting the problem from the West to the less developed regions.
I am also very concerned about the projected increase in fluorocarbons, which are presently a minor contributor to the total greenhouse gases.
We are told they will increase by 40% on current rates.
That is a major cause for concern.
We should turn our attention to it.
Mr President, Mrs Jackson said that the policies hid the fact that their implementation costs money and that it was hard-hitting.
I do not know how the debate is conducted in other Member States, but in my own country, it is certainly no secret that big changes are needed to reduce emissions.
The question was asked here concerning the effects of reductions in emissions on jobs.
Personally, I am certain that the reduction of emissions will create jobs in some areas, but it is equally true that it will mean reduced employment in others.
Those who will obtain jobs are not certain of it yet, but those who are losing them know a lot more about it, and, for that reason, unfortunately, there is much stronger lobbying from their side.
Many Members spoke of the need for financial controls and an energy tax.
As you know, the Council cannot take a decision on this, so I cannot say anything at all on behalf of the Council.
I can only state Finland' s position, which is that we believe it is very important for the Union to make headway in the creation of a common energy tax and we have also discussed the possibility of Member States, which are so inclined, moving forward faster in this area.
One problem connected with this is whether such action would be of benefit in conflicts that could possibly arise with regard to EU competition legislation.
For example, in my own country we experienced the situation where an energy tax that was brought in at national level in its first version was found to be in violation of the Union' s acts on competition.
However, I think that energy taxes are one means of inducing market forces to reduce emissions and develop new, modern and clean technology, and I consider that to be very important.
Regarding the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, I would say that, as the rules for the Kyoto mechanisms and those to do with compliance with the commitments made have not yet been agreed, ratification at this stage would mean that we would not really know what we were ratifying.
As these matters are being discussed internationally, I believe it is important that the EU holds the trump card, enabling it also to negotiate the terms on which it should be ratified.
If the EU were to ratify it immediately, it would mean that, thereafter, it would no longer have any great significance when more precise rules were being discussed.
I agree with Mr Linkohr that, as the Union is committed to targets for reduced emissions, we also have to decide on action in respect of those Member States that are unable to meet their commitments.
The Kyoto Protocol and the climate agreement also states that if a combined body of economic cooperation such as the EU cannot achieve the targets as a whole, responsibility for the targets set for it falls to all its Member States, in other words, if some Member States cannot meet their commitments, the Union will suffer as a whole.
Finally, I would like to stress that the idea, which has been expressed in these deliberations, that, if nothing is done, the temperature of the Earth will have increased by two degrees in a 100 years' time, is wrong.
Restricting the rise in temperature to just two degrees over the next 100 years will take much effort.
If the current trend is allowed to continue uncontrolled, with no determined climatic policy, the rise in temperature of the earth will be a lot greater than two degrees in one hundred years, and all the corresponding effects it will have will be all the more dramatic.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is an almost incomprehensibly large and difficult task we have before us.
We are to assess the credibility of future scenarios which involve actually diverting the Gulf Stream and perhaps encountering a new ice age.
On the other hand, we are today to try to make decisions about concrete measures which in certain cases may only take effect perhaps 50 or a 100 years in the future.
We are being asked preferably to come up with specific proposals today and to speak about exactly what will happen.
I believe that this is necessary because it is exactly what citizens in our respective countries are asking of us.
We know that the problem exists. They too know that it exists, and they wonder: are you prepared to take decisions so that we can see a change?
What I have done today is to report on how the Commission and I want to tackle this problem, how we must analyse it, how we must work with a strategy and a programme in which we consider each greenhouse gas in turn and how exactly we are to manage the problems. There are already proposals on the table.
The Kyoto Protocol contains a number of proposals concerning how we can proceed further and what measures need to be taken.
I am completely convinced that we need financial incentives.
Money talks, as they say. That is when things become serious, and this is something which companies and industries understand too.
On many occasions, expectations that jobs were to leave the country have proved unfounded because, instead, an environmentally friendly technique or a more efficient and environmentally-friendly use of energy has been promoted. Which is what we want to bring about.
I want to comment briefly on a number of questions which have been raised here.
Where air traffic is concerned, the Commission is very conscious of the fact that this is a growing problem.
We shall present a report before the end of the year.
Those of us from the Environmental Directorate have of course been involved in this.
In this connection, too, I am in favour of the use of financial instruments of control because we know that they are effective.
When it comes to trade in emission rights, I believe that we must first see a concrete proposal.
I have said that I shall be presenting a Green Paper with just such a concrete proposal for a system. This will, of course, describe the national responsibilities which each country will have.
It will not be possible for a country to buy itself free of obligations. There must be a system of rules through which, instead, countries honour their commitments in the most effective way.
That is what is intended.
I believe we should be on our guard against language. You see, words channel the way people think.
If you use a concept such as "an exchange for trade in emission rights" , then I think that we are feeding the thought that this is to be a cynical system in which it will be possible for countries to buy themselves free of obligations. Now, this is definitely not my approach.
Any system must be sensibly regulated, and we must make sure that a lot more interests are involved.
If we do not have industry with us, if we do not have the citizens of the European Union with us and, above all, if we cannot take political decisions, then it is not going to work.
In that case, we shall not succeed in this undertaking.
We must mobilise on a much broader basis.
In fact, I believe that, in general, our citizens are the ones who are more acutely conscious of these issues and that their willingness to act is greater than that of the politicians in our Member States just now.
That is the big worry.
When it comes to an energy tax, I cannot judge exactly how long it is going to take to introduce this.
It is something which we have to discuss in the Commission.
If the fact of the matter is that it is going to take too long a time, then I am prepared to support a proposal to the effect that a number of countries go on ahead in order to show the way and demonstrate that it can be an effective way of achieving results where the issue of climate change is concerned.
I want also to take the opportunity to thank you for your interventions.
Mr President, some of the speakers have already asked quite specific questions.
I would like to ask Mrs Wallström again, to go into some specific details.
Firstly, there was the question on when we can expect industry-specific plans for reduction, and timetables for this from the Commission.
Secondly, there was the question raised by two of us on the subject of CO2 emissions from aviation fuel.
The question obviously still remains as to how you produce a Directive on phasing in renewable energies, and providing compensation which actually covers the costs.
I would be most grateful to you if you could answer these three specific points.
I do not know if you are in a position to as you have so recently taken up your post.
I think that we are agreed that we should all do something to protect the environment.
I do not have time to answer every specific question, but what I have been talking about here is my way of setting to work on the concrete measures.
Before the end of the year, we are to present a Green Paper describing a system for trade in emission rights (one of the flexible mechanisms).
We are to get an action programme under way, requiring us specifically to examine each area in turn and involve all interested parties.
This is necessary because there is no such plan at the present time.
I shall also, of course, try to push forward the integration process as far as possible.
Exact dates cannot be given. The question of energy taxes has been on the agenda for six years.
I wish I could say that results will be seen no later than tomorrow, but it is going to take a little longer than that.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mrs Breyer, in this kind of debate, even the omissions are respected.
I have received, pursuant to Rule 37(2), a motion for a resolution to close the present debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0030/1999). We shall look at the questions put to the Council.
Question No 1 by (H-0464/99) :
Subject: Adoption of a decision regarding the reconstruction of areas hit by earthquakes in Greece. Following the powerful earthquakes which occurred in Attiki in Greece, causing dozens of deaths and incalculable damage, will the Council adopt an immediate decision concerning a subsidised loan to restore economic and social infrastructures, including housing, and restore production capacity, following the example of previous decisions in respect of Portugal in 1993 and in respect of Greece in March 1981 and September 1986 (Decision 81/1013/EEC of 14 December 1981 and 88/561/EEC of 7 November 1988)?
Mr President, the Council is very sorry to hear about the earthquake in Greece, and would like to convey its deepest sympathy to the Greek nation with regard to the widespread damage this natural disaster has caused.
So far, the Commission has not sent the Council a proposal for a decision on the reconstruction of the areas affected by the Greek earthquake.
However, the Council would like to state that it is satisfied that the Commission has already begun talks on how the consequences of the earthquake can be alleviated.
As was the case with decisions previously made on natural disasters, and if the Commission makes a proposal to the Council regarding the earthquake, the Council will treat the matter as urgent.
Question No 2 by (H-0466/99):
Subject: Structural Funds The Structural Fund resources allocated to the Objective 1 Autonomous Communities are not distributed by the Spanish Government on the basis of objective criteria relating to population size and per capita income. This constitutes a policy which is not in accordance with the objectives of the various European funds.
During the 1994-1999 period, which Autonomous Communities received the Structural Fund resources allocated to Spain for distribution to Objective 1 areas and in what proportions? In the 2000-2006 period, what will be the criteria for the geographical distribution of the Structural Fund resources set aside for Spain and legally allocated to the Objective 1 Autonomous Communities?
Mr President, the Council considers that the distribution of financial aid from the Structural Funds in different areas should be carried out in compliance with the rules in existence, so that all regions are treated impartially.
However, the Council cannot give a precise answer to the honourable Member' s question regarding Spain.
The coordination of Structural Funds aid for the Objective 1 areas is laid down in the Community' s aid framework, which the Commission drafts with the Member State concerned, The implementation of Structural Funds aid does not, therefore, fall within the competence of the Council, but the Member States.
It is the responsibility of the authorities and bodies appointed by the Member States and the Commission.
I could really not have hoped for a more insubstantial answer.
What I mean Mr President-in-Office of the Council, is that as far as the Autonomous Regions in Objective 1 are concerned, the Spanish state, in spite of the competences held by these Regions, is reserving 55% of revenues which go to the Spanish State for centralised policies which do not apply in general to the Autonomous Regions in Objective 1.
Therefore, they are being distributed arbitrarily and - I repeat - are being spent on centralised policies.
For example, in my country, Galicia, which is part of Objective 1 and which should therefore receive proportionally around 12% of the revenues going to the Spanish state, received only 5% in the period 1994-1999.
In this way, Galicia differs from Portugal and Ireland, both countries in Objective 1 who have achieved extraordinary development, which has unfortunately not taken place in my country, Galicia.
What is the Council going to do to stop this happening?
Mr President, the question of competence is really very clear here.
By virtue of the rules governing the granting of Structural Funds aid, it is the Commission' s task to see that no distortions occur.
As this is the business of the Commission, which is an expert in the field, being in possession of all the necessary information, it may be able to give an answer to the honourable Member' s question.
As long as the rules stay as they are, these matters are the concern of the Commission, and they must be dealt with by the Commission.
The Council may not interfere.
I would like to restate my colleague' s question and although I realise of course it might have been more aptly directed to the Commission, I would like to inform the Council of the reality of the situation he mentioned.
We have seen a large overall growth in the Structural Funds, but what is happening is that in some countries, the money coming from the Structural Funds is being used by the Member State under the pretext of putting it towards multiannual programmes, which means that the money received by the Communities and other regions is greatly reduced.
This does not happen in other countries.
In other countries, the State does not appropriate 50 or 55% of the Structural Fund money.
Does the President-in-Office of the Council think that it is logical to take away so much of the European regions' budgetary contribution?
Mr President, I believe it is logical that aid always goes to the right areas for the right work, as only in that way can we achieve the best possible results.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, it was my understanding that Spain, just like other countries which receive Structural Funds for Objective 1 regions was applying these funds according to criteria which accord perfectly with the regulations of these Funds.
And I have to say that it is quite a bad mistake to confuse countries with regions.
Furthermore in Spain' s case, all institutions, starting with the Court of Auditors and the Commission itself say that Spain is applying the Structural Funds to Objective 1 correctly and they also confirm that these funds have been managed extremely well.
Some Spanish regions such as Galicia, to give an example, have a percentage of the gross domestic product dedicated to infrastructures which is well above the national average.
But my question to the Council is this: does the Council intend to put pressure on Member States whose standards of performance relating to the Structural Funds are lower than the European average, to force them to manage their funds more effectively and to prevent the "snowball" effect taking place?
Mr President, as the Commission monitors this matter, the most appropriate option is to leave the Commission to apply pressure. The Council does not consider it appropriate to interfere in this matter.
Besides, I believe that this might well also be a subject for debate in the Spanish Parliament.
Mr Nogueira is asking for the floor on a procedural motion.
But there is not actually any procedural discrepancy here.
Everything is going very well and you can write to Mr Sasi, who I am sure, will be very helpful.
Despite all that, Mr Nogueira, now has the floor in order to make a procedural motion, but it must be a genuine procedural motion.
Do not set a bad example, Mr Nogueira.
Mr President, I am making this intervention because of an anticonstitutional remark that the Member of the People' s Party has just made. I must remind you that in the Spanish Constitution, my country is defined as an "autonomous region" .
I therefore ask you to respect the Spanish Constitution.
Mr Nogueira, I told you yesterday that as this is the Finnish Presidency' s term in office, I intend to act objectively in these controversial debates, as if I too were a Finnish President.
This is not a debate on nationalities and regions in the Spanish Parliament.
When we talk of regions, I understand that to mean that it is European Regions that are being discussed.
I do not want to hear anything that goes beyond that.
Question No 3 by (H-0471/99):
Subject: Women's rights and equality Article 3(2) of the Amsterdam Treaty stipulates that equality must be a feature of all areas of policy.
To achieve that goal, budget resources must be earmarked for a fifth action programme and specific, measurable targets set for equality.
Targets may be set, for example, by measuring the percentage of women making up the labour force and the unemployed, by assessing the extent to which the equal pay directive is being implemented and measuring the percentage of women on decision-making bodies.
The best three countries should then be selected as targets to be achieved by the Member States through their own action programmes.
What does the Council intend to do to promote the adoption of a fifth action programme with sufficient budget resources and a fixed timetable and what measures will the Council take to set specific, measurable targets for equality?
The Council recognises, as does the European Parliament, first of all that the policy of equality is still extremely important; secondly, that the action programme comprises the EU' s most important instrument for implementing the obligations accepted as a result of the action programme arising out of the Peking Conference; and, finally, that successful implementation can best be achieved by integrating a perspective of equality into all policies.
That is the reason why, during the Finnish Presidency, the Council is expected to take decisions with a view to achieving this and why the Council welcomes the Commission' s intention to submit a proposal as soon as possible for a new action programme designed to promote equality between women and men and to ensure that this can be implemented when the present action programme comes to an end.
What is more, the Council is planning to have indicators and benchmarking for the purpose of following up the action programme arising out of the Peking Conference.
The Finnish Presidency has prepared an initial report on women' s participation in the decision-making process.
Finland has proposed that the Council should clarify its intention to continue, during the forthcoming presidencies, to develop indicators and benchmarking for other critical areas specified in the Peking Conference' s action programme and to undertake regularly to examine progress in the areas under discussion.
Thank you for your answer.
I want to say that I welcome your answer clarifying that there is to be a fifth action programme.
There is one small quibble, namely the question of adequate funding through the budget.
I would therefore hope that the Council will ensure that there are in fact adequate funds (because, without money, nothing can be achieved) as well as make sure that there is a fixed timetable.
Integration within all policy areas is very important indeed for equality, but it is necessary to have a two-pronged approach and therefore also to come up with special measures designed for specific purposes.
It is important, then, that specific goals should be set for what one wants to achieve.
That is why I want to ask again: in what way are you, on the part of the Council, prepared to establish specific and measurable goals for equality for the coming five-year period?
When it comes to funding through the budget, the question may be said to have been asked too soon because the Commission has still not issued its proposal. The Council cannot yet therefore take up a position on this question.
The Council could of course indicate what its response would be if the Commission were to bring forward such a proposal for financing.
However, my question to the Council is: does the Council not believe that the European Institutions themselves have a duty to lead by example on the issue of equality, and is it happy about the existing staff quality of the Institutions? Even though Mr Prodi has initiated some reforms, it seems to me that women are still very much under-represented in the hierarchy of both the Council, the Commission and, to be honest, this institution as well.
I want to say that we welcome President of the Commission Prodi' s proposal to strive for a higher level of competency where the Commission is concerned.
It is our goal on the Council too to try as far as possible, whenever people are elected, to take account of qualifications.
We would wish and hope that this would lead to the proportion of women in various posts increasing in the very near future.
Question No 4 by (H-0473/99):
Subject: Common method of compiling drug statistics One of the tasks of the Lisbon Institute is to compile drug statistics for the Member States, which provide an overview of the trend in drug abuse in the EU and an opportunity to compare Member States' statistics.
Unfortunately, there are a great many failings in this system as no common method of compiling the statistics is used.
Will the Council press for the introduction of a common method of compiling these statistics and/or does it consider that other improvements can be made to make the system more practicable?
The Council understands very well how important it is to have access to precise statistical data which can be compared. In that way, it is possible to assess the nature and extent of drug use, together with the trend in drug-related crime and to analyse the success and effectiveness of the methods which have been introduced to combat drug misuse.
In this connection, it ought to be emphasised that all Member States of the European Union now have access to statistics of this kind.
It is also clear, however, that it is not enough to exchange national statistics if we want to develop a specifically European method. We must also ensure that the definitions any such system is based upon can be compared between one country and another.
The work which has already been embarked upon within this field has, however, has revealed significant differences between the national systems for collecting statistics.
The Member States use a range of different indicators to describe the incidence of drug abuse and its effects upon health, together with the trend in drug-related crime at national level.
Definitions forming the basis of the indicators are also sometimes very different from each other.
When it comes to the quantity of confiscated drugs, a number of Member States combine different kinds of drugs in their statistics while other countries divide the information according to criteria which are not necessarily the same from one State to another.
The statistical information is assembled by a variety of bodies, for example by the Customs, the office of the public prosecutor or departments reporting to the police. At the same time, the systems for collecting, recording, evaluating and transferring the information operate at considerably different levels of centralisation.
It is also important progressively to harmonise the principal epidemiological indicators.
The Council understands all this very well and is supported in its disquiet by the European Parliament' s resolution of 13 April 1999, as well as by the Commission' s report on the European Union' s action plan to combat drug abuse during the period 2000-2004 and by the report of 17 March 1999 from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EDMC).
Ever since its second work programme for the period 1998-2000, EDMC has formally described its most important goals as being those of introducing common indicators and devising instruments and methods for comparing initiatives, schemes and legislative strategies within the European Union, as well as that of establishing a data base for existing tools, which is to make it easier to access and compare information.
In March 1999, the EDMC reiterated its message from the previous year. There was also an initiative from the German Presidency to give a working group within the Council the task of investigating what measures are required for improving the ways in which police drug statistics are compared.
A detailed statistical questionnaire has been prepared.
The Member States' answers will then form the basis for preparing indispensable common standards for collecting information.
The fact that suitable structures have been introduced within the Council has already made possible the conclusions to which I referred at the beginning of my intervention about the difficulty of comparing different national systems.
It is the very clear intention of our Presidency to support these endeavours and ensure that the records of past and future success in reducing drug trafficking are afforded added value in both qualitative and quantitative terms.
May I thank the Minister for that answer in which he shows that he has come to the same conclusions, namely that this is a problem.
On the other hand, he does not perhaps indicate equally clearly how this problem is to be solved.
It is not just a question of our being able to report to each other upon how many drugs the police are confiscating or upon what the Customs are doing. Instead, it is above all a question of the statistics we have for drug abuse among young people in Europe today.
These are what are most interesting because they show us what the trend is, what increase is to be found and which drugs are being used.
With this information, we can attempt in a more effective way to administer the European Community' s resources for combating any increased use of drugs.
Statistics are important because they reveal the trends.
The fact is that, at present, we are to a certain extent taking each other in by having different concepts when it comes to producing statistics.
Then we put everything together at the Lisbon Institute and send it around the European Union.
In that way, there are no reliable statistics. Nor, perhaps, are the programmes we present reliable.
This is a task for the Council too, I believe.
With all due respect, Mrs Hulthén, I must tell you, so that your intervention does not set a precedent, that although you have given us a great deal of information, you have not asked anything, and you have taken the floor in order to ask an additional question.
Mr Sasi will have to answer a non-existent question, but he can try if he wants.
. (SV) As I said in my answer, it is a fact that there is a problem which we must try to solve.
The EDMC has now undertaken to devise a common method for compiling statistics.
However, it will then also have to be seen what resources are available.
In then attempting to develop the required statistical method, the purpose for which the statistics are required will need very much to be borne in mind.
Mr President, I am rather astonished by the reply of the Presidency of the Council, insofar as we are all in agreement with regard to the need for statistics.
The European Parliament has restated this in a resolution, and as the President of the Council has reminded us.
This has been requested several times by the Monitoring Centre.
There is a working party with the Retox network, and according to the response of the Presidency of the Council, we still do not know when we will have the joint statistics.
I believe that this is really important because we have fifteen national policies which are all absolutely disastrous in the field of drugs.
It is therefore urgent that the European citizens understand that the increase in resources allocated to the fight against drugs corresponds directly to the increase in the consumption of drugs and that therefore the policies that have been pursued are a complete failure.
I would like to ask the Minister when we will finally get these joint statistics which will demonstrate the disastrous strategy of the prohibitionist policy.
. (SV) Let me just say briefly that we are on the way forwards.
We have, then, taken steps to make progress and to obtain uniform statistics.
It is still not possible, however, to give any date for when everything will be ready.
Question No 5 by (H-0475/99):
Subject: Common policy Speaking in Strasbourg in July as a representative of the country currently holding the Presidency of the Council, Finland' s Foreign Minister stated one of Finland' s objectives as being to ensure that the Union had a common will, a common policy and a common voice.
Does this mean that Finland, which is militarily neutral, is prepared, like other countries, to establish a common defence policy within the Union in order that the Union may have a common will, a common policy and a common voice?
Mr President, the honourable Member, Mr Seppänen, knows it was firmly concluded at the European Council at Cologne, that the Union would participate to the full in international action.
Union Heads of State and Government also said they intended to grant the European Union the means and facilities to deal with the job of creating a common European security and defence policy.
At the European Council in Cologne the Union' s readiness to prevent a conflict and manage a crisis was discussed.
Reference was made to a credible military capability specifically in connection with controlling international crises.
It was also emphasised at the European Council that the Union' s development of a crisis control capability would improve its position when involved in the furtherance of world peace and security in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter.
Work in the area of crisis management is in total harmony with the neutrality or non-alignment policy of Member States.
The conclusions of the European Council in Cologne specifically state that there would be no interference when it came to the special status of the different Member States with regard to guarantees made concerning a collective defence.
Mr President, the representatives of the country holding the Presidency have stated, in various connections, that we shall be adopting the practice of qualified majority decision-making on the subject of a common foreign and security policy also, and, evidently, since Cologne, on a common defence policy as well.
I would ask the Minister how the country holding the Presidency is preparing for the adoption of the practice of qualified majority voting in the areas of foreign and security policy and defence policy.
Mr President, as the country holding the Presidency, Finland has prepared for qualified majority voting by asking Member States in what areas they are prepared to increase majority voting.
Preparations are still in hand, and it is impossible to say yet whether it will extend to foreign and security policy, but if we consider the history of preparatory work for a moment, it has to be said that taking binding decisions based on a qualified majority, for example in matters of defence, is not very likely to come about, at least very quickly.
Question No 6 by (H-0477/99):
Subject: Attacks on homosexuals There has recently been an escalation in the number of attacks on gay and lesbian communities throughout Europe. They have included the attacks on two gay establishments, one in Gijón and one in London, in which several lives were lost.
These crimes are particularly serious in a region such as the European Union, where the protection of human rights is a basic issue, especially at the present time when we are drafting a European Charter of Fundamental Rights
Under new Article 13 introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam the Council is entitled to take appropriate action to combat discrimination based, amongst other things, on sexual orientation.
For this reason, homophobic attacks of this kind on freedom of sexual orientation call for a clear and tough response from the Council.
What action does the Council intend to take to prevent and avoid attacks of this kind within the territory of the European Union?
Mr President, the Council considers the protection of fundamental rights to be very important.
As Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union states, the Union is based on the principles of freedom and democracy, the respect for fundamental rights and fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.
The same Article states that the Union respects fundamental rights as a general principle of Community law.
With the Treaty of Amsterdam becoming effective on May 1 this year, the new Article 13 of the EU Treaty gives the Council the power, within the limits of power the Community is entrusted with under the Treaty, to take action to combat any form of discrimination inter alia discrimination based on sexual orientation without, however, limiting the application of other provisions in the Treaty.
The provisions require a proposal from the Commission and a hearing in the European Parliament, for the Council to take a legal decision.
The Council has to say that, thus far, there has been no such proposal from the Commission that is based on the new Article 13 referred to.
The Council would remind everyone, for the sake of clarity, that it is the exclusive authority of the Member States to prevent the attacks and attempts on people' s lives the honourable Member refers to.
They alone are responsible for maintaining order and protecting people and property.
I would like to use this intervention to the House to draw the Council' s attention to an extremely serious matter.
In the European Union' s territory, in our territory, a whole range of completely intolerant attitudes and behaviour bordering on the fascistic is currently prevailing towards homosexuals.
Europe has always been at the forefront in the protection of human rights, coexistence and tolerance, which have made this territory the most advanced in social terms, and we cannot allow ourselves to go back on these achievements of liberty, tolerance and coexistence.
We must denounce the slightest hint of a divergence away from these strikingly European values.
In the face of these facts, we should be concerned, and we should react in order to eradicate attacks on people, whatever their moral, religious, ideological or sexual orientation may be.
Having said this, and considering that we are now at a historic moment in European construction, with the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice, with a debate on a Charter of Fundamental Rights about to take place, and considering also the powers conferred on the Council by the Treaties in order that it carries out action which guarantees these rights of European citizens, I would like to know what the Council' s attitude is on the contents of this Charter of Fundamental Rights concerning the protection of sexual freedom and sexual choice rather than sexual guidelines.
Mr President, a respect for, and tolerance of, human rights are basic values of the Union. They are Western European basic values.
In this regard, we all have to work hard to create a climate in all Member States in which, for example, sexual minorities are viewed with respect and appreciation.
As for rules, they can have an impact on developments to some extent, but in this case it is more a question of attitudes.
Attitudes can also be influenced through action in the areas of cultural policy and social policy.
It has to be said that all sectors of society must try to cooperate so that the climate in all European States is as tolerant as possible.
Thank you very much.
I do not think you read the question - it said what action will be taken? We know what has to be done, but it is no use standing there saying that until the Commission acts or until Parliament acts, you will do nothing.
Such inaction actually endorses these attacks upon minorities.
Therefore, I offer you another chance to answer: will the Council undertake an audit of Member States to establish those states which have discriminatory legislation against lesbians and gay men, which fail to offer equal rights, equal civil rights to lesbians and gay men and which fail to offer equal protection under the law to lesbians and gay men? Only when we have determined this can we begin the process of implementing Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The talking has to stop.
The excuses have to end.
We must act and act swiftly or else this House and all its institutions will always be held in low regard.
Mr President, I would like to say that we really have a proper legislative basis insofar as all Member States of the European Union are parties to the Council of Europe' s Convention on Human Rights.
This agreement is of immense value with respect to civil rights, human rights and tolerance.
We also have Article 13 of the EU Treaty to refer to in such matters, but in concrete cases it has to be realised that the Union does not have its own police forces, but national governments with their own police forces in each country, which are specifically responsible for the safety of their citizens.
Audits of the situation in the various Member States can of course be made, but I believe the primary responsibility in this matter lies totally with each Member State and its political decision makers themselves.
Mr President, we must, of course, adopt a tough and determined line on violence and crime.
We are all aware that that there are constantly muggings in Brussels, within sight of this Parliament, and that out there, crime is the order of the day.
There are really no comparative statistics for Europe.
If you ask EUROSTAT, they give extremely varied results.
I think that we need standards for evaluating crime and that we need comparable statistics.
During the last legislature I asked the Council to make an effort to look after the safety of Parliament' s employees and of the people of Brussels. I would also like to take this opportunity to request the Council to create a safety initiative which is for Brussels and against crime in the city.
I must say, Mr Rübig, that I gave you the floor so that you could ask a supplementary question.
I specifically asked the President of the Council if he is prepared to provide comparable statistics in this area.
That was my question: will the Council try to obtain comparable statistics?
Mr President, I wish to say in answer to the honourable Member' s question that there is certainly much benefit to be derived from statistics in themselves, but the question is of a general nature, so that if the honourable Member specifies what sort of statistics he would like to see, I can take a position on this issue later on.
However, I want to say that this is very much a question of attitudes, and, obviously, in a society in which there are strong clashes of opinion, attitudes often easily harden.
It is quite a lot to do with what sort of spirit prevails in a society.
As for deeds of violence in general, in just over a week from now there is a Union Summit organised in Tampere, whose purpose is also to debate how crime, and violent crime also, can be prevented generally in the Union area.
Mr Dupuis is asking for the floor so that he can table a procedural motion.
Mr President, Mr Rübig' s question had nothing to do with the question which appeared in the agenda.
Maybe it was a very interesting question for him, but in this case he must ask a question like the other Members of this House.
Question No 7 by (H-0480/99):
Subject: Denmark's share in the capital of the ECB Will the Council state what Denmark's share in the ECB's capital has to be, as a percentage and as an actual sum, if Denmark wishes to play a full part in EMU?
Mr President, under Article 28 of the European Central Bank Statute, the ECB' s paid-up capital amounts to EUR 5 billion.
According to the formula for ECB Member States' subscriptions set out in Article 29(1) of the Statute, the Bank of Denmark' s share of the paid-up capital of the ECB is 1.6709%.
Member States outside of the euro area pay, according to Article 48 of the Statute, only a minimum percentage of the share of entered capital to share in the operational costs of the ECB, if the General Council of the ECB so decides.
On the basis of the Article in question, central banks outside the euro area had to pay a share of the ECB' s operational costs, which was 5% of the share of the entered capital.
In Denmark' s case, it was EUR 4,177,250, which takes account of the revenue that resulted from the discontinued work of the EMI.
Thank you for your answer. I should like to ask an additional question.
The fact is, the huge power which the European Central Bank has to intervene in national financial institutions and the national banks is part and parcel of a highly cryptic system reminiscent of a nest of Chinese boxes.
I am very familiar with Article 28 of the Statute.
In addition to this, there is Article 30 which stipulates that the contribution may be increased by the currency reserves to ten times as much, that is to say EUR 50 billion. What is more, Article 30(4) has a condition to the effect that the European Central Bank can call in currency reserves over and above the maximum, which is set at EUR 50 billion.
This is a very large sum, whether it be for Denmark or for other countries, and this maximum may, of course be established by means of a majority decision in the Council on the basis of a recommendation of the Board of Management, which also makes majority decisions, while each individual country has the voting weight to which its contribution entitles it.
My question is: are there any limits?
Mr President, it is my understanding - although I have to say there was very little time for a legal amendment - that it is the European Central Bank that will make the decision on this.
I also want to thank the Council for their answers.
I have two additional questions.
First of all, I am curious to know how large Sweden' s share will be as a percentage if we join the single currency. We have received some information here about Denmark' s share.
Secondly, I just want you to confirm that the Council can, against a Member State' s will, increase this share so that the country concerned has to pay more. That is to say, it can be forced to deposit a larger proportion of its currency reserve with the Central Bank, and there is no real upper limit.
I have to admit that, in this particular case, I do not have sufficient material to be able to answer the Member' s question concerning Sweden' s share and the procedure in question.
I would ask to come back to the Member with a written answer.
Question No 8 by (H-0481/99):
Subject: Non­compliance with Regulation 1239/98 on a reduction in and ban on the use of drift­nets The Luxembourg Council of Ministers of June 1998 agreed to ban the use of drift-nets for tuna fishing from 1 January 2002. By adopting Regulation 1239/98, it also agreed on a minimum reduction of 40% in the number of vessels allowed to use them for the year 1998, and that lists of those vessels authorised to use them must be drawn up annually.
Given the blatant non-compliance with this regulation, the delays in communicating lists, the increase in the number of vessels using these nets, the harm to the tuna fishing industry and the marine ecosystem, the serious economic repercussions for fishermen in the north-west Bay of Biscay and the total lack of response from the EU to the recommendations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in relation to the overfishing of this species, what measures will the Council take to ensure strict compliance with Community legislation in this area?
Does the Council intend to urge the Commission to incorporate the ICCAT=s recommendations into Community legislation?
Mr President, first, the Council would like to remind everyone that it is within the competence of the Commission to monitor compliance with Community legislation in the Member States.
This also holds true for monitoring action that Member States have to implement within the framework of the common fisheries policy.
It has not come to the attention of the Council that the application of Regulation 1239/98 has been found wanting.
So far the Council has received no proposal to implement the recommendations of the ICCAT regarding restrictions on white tuna catches.
The only thing I would like to say to the President-in-Office of the Council is that this does in fact fall within the competence of the Commission, but I put this question to the Commission, who could not give me an answer yesterday, and I still have not received an answer.
There have obviously been cases of non-compliance, there are delays of four months in communicating lists, the number of boats is increasing - between 57% and 63% more in Ireland and England - at a time when there should be fewer. Harm is being done to the ecosystem, people are suffering financially and the ICCAT recommendations are not being implemented.
I shall therefore ask again, how many more facts and figures do the Commission and the Council want us to give them before they actually take steps to ensure that this does not continue?
Mr President, we most certainly like to receive information.
If we do, we convey it to the Commission so that they can embark on the necessary measures.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we all agree that the element of control is essential to guaranteeing a sustainable level of fishing.
To this end, the Council, and the Commission, Mr President, adopted in 1998, with this aim of conserving our resources, a decision on the progressive disappearance of drift-nets also known as volantas.
I would like to ask the Council, and the Commission, how it feels, in general terms, that this campaign is developing; if it is true that this has been a good year for tuna and that this is why disputes between the different fleets that work the Bay of Biscay have been avoided.
I would like to know by how many boats each country has reduced its fleets as a result of the moratorium and if this method is proving useful in reducing the pressure on tuna populations.
Finally, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would like to ask you if the fact that several European boats - and I hope you will tell me just how many - have replaced their drift-nets with other high yield methods has brought about greater protection for tuna fisheries or if, quite the opposite, we are now seeing increased pressure on tuna populations, which is the opposite effect to the one we wanted.
Mr President, unfortunately, I have to say that I cannot really answer these questions.
The Council does not have these statistics at its disposal.
These statistics are in the possession of the Commission, and I would ask the honourable Member to refer the question to the Commission, which can give him the information he requires.
Mr President, drift nets are also used in the Baltic, where they lead to overfishing of salmon.
I would ask the representative of the Council this: if he has no information on reductions in tuna catches, has he any information on the natural salmon spawn last year in the Tornio river that separates Finland from Sweden, and will the representative bring it to the attention of the representative of the Commission that drift net fishing should also be restricted in the Baltic, and not just in the tuna fishing waters now being talked about?
Mr President, I have an idea that drift net fishing is restricted in the Baltic, but I would have to consult Kalevi Hemilä, who is President of the Council of Ministers for Agriculture, and convey these questions and this information to him.
I think that in some cases, we should direct these questions to national Parliaments.
Question No 9 by (H-0484/99):
Subject: Referendum for civil concord in Algeria What are the Council' s views on the referendum on the Law on Civil Concord held in Algeria on 16 September? What measures and actions will the EU undertake with this Mediterranean partner over the coming months?
Mr President, after the referendum on the Law on Civil Concord held on 16 September 1999, the country holding the Presidency of the Council issued a declaration, on behalf of the European Union, which also answers the honourable Member' s question in full.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I thought that here we had a question on which the Council could finally shine, because this is a matter of enormous importance for current European foreign policy - as the recent referendum showed - for a partner of ours such as Algeria, a country with an extremely important role in the Mediterranean, and for the relationship we have with that country.
Instead, the Council has given an answer which is a kind of lengthy side-step which makes my role useless.
This is a Parliamentary Question Time.
I ask the President in Office of the Council to be explicit, to use words I can understand, not bureaucratic ones, and I ask him to assess what view the Council should take on the referendum on the Law of Civil Concord held recently in Algeria.
Please speak to us in words that the citizens and I can understand.
Mr President, perhaps it would be best if I read the essential points of the declaration: "The European Union is satisfied with the results of the referendum held on 16 September in Algeria.
The Algerian people expressed their support for President Bouteflika' s plan for national harmony and peace.
The European Union hopes that Algeria will finally rid itself of the violence its people have had to suffer for years and start national reconstruction to bring about the political stability that is an essential requirement of economic and social progress.
The European Union reconfirms it is prepared to support and encourage the renewal process in Algeria, especially through Euro-Mediterranean partnership, including the prompt recommencement of talks on establishing the Euro-Mediterranean Association Pact.
The Union believes it is very important the political dialogue that has commenced with Algeria should continue, and it is satisfied that a meeting at ministerial level is to be held with the EU troika on 3 November in Algeria."
I would like to say that, as the honourable Member stated, Algeria is a very important country for the Union, and we consider it to be a positive sign that the referendum was able to take place.
We are satisfied with the results, and we hope that peaceful development can gain strength in Algeria in the future.
Question No 10 by (H-0488/99):
Subject: Agreement with Croatia What progress has been reached with preparations for the conclusion of a trade and cooperation agreement with Croatia and the release of PHARE funds?
Mr President, as the honourable Member knows, in granting a preferential agreement on trade and PHARE aid, as with contractual relations, a regional approach to the action is adopted by the European Union that it has applied to the countries of South-East Europe. The countries in question are aware of the criteria they have to meet, and the sectors in which the Union hopes progress will be made.
The Council regularly reviews the situation with regard to the progress that has been made in meeting the criteria set for this approach.
In connection with the last review, carried out on 21 June 1999, the Council found that political dialogue between the Croatian Government and the opposition had improved over the previous six-month period.
It was the Council' s opinion that progress, however, had been insufficient in the areas of democratic development, human rights and the judicial system, especially regarding the separation of powers and the return of minority groups.
The Council also considered that the government had not begun proper information campaigns on the rights of the people who wish to return.
On the basis of its assessment, the Council decided that a unilateral preferential agreement on trade should continue to be applied to Croatia.
The Council found that democratic development should be furthered through inter alia an overhaul of the media, electoral reform, and the return of refugees. It noted, however, certain positive moves with regard to elections and the media.
The Council presumed that if current developments continued in these areas, an opportunity would soon present itself for Croatia to benefit from the PHARE programme.
Regarding contractual relations, the Council stated that the commencement of talks on a Stability and Association Pact, which is a new type of bilateral agreement that the Union is offering the countries of South-East Europe, would be discussed on the basis of a report by the Commission when Croatia has met the relevant conditions.
The Council next intends to discuss conditionality in November this year.
Mr President, I am referring directly to a discussion with Mr Verheugen in Questions to Council before the European elections, and I would like to say that, of course, Croatia has many things to improve on.
But many people who were driven out have now returned, and democracy there is very highly developed.
Therefore, I would like to ask you why Russia is receiving a TACIS programme as is the Ukraine, and why States like Albania which have many problems also have a Agreement on Trade and Cooperation.
Why are tougher criteria imposed on Croatia - and I am afraid that this does appear to be the case - than on any other country? The PHARE programme and the Agreement on Trade and Cooperation are the first steps in taking a country forwards in order to reform and open it up.
My question is: do you not want to take this step at last?
Mr President, I wish to say that the same criteria apply to all countries.
And, indeed, as regards Croatia, positive developments are taking place, and we believe, hopefully, that we can also make headway fairly soon with the PHARE appropriations.
Question No 11 by Mr Deva lapses as it appeared on the Agenda of the present part-session.
Mr Deva has been informed of this in writing.
Question No 12 by (H-0497/99):
Subject: 'Cultural cleansing' by the Front National In the town of Orange in the south of France the Front National has conducted a 'cultural cleansing' (èpuration culturelle) operation in the municipal library by banning what it regards as impure literature.
For fear of knowledge of both the past and the future, books on subjects such as Ancient Egypt, and the EU on the brink of the Millennium have been removed.
This is an attack on the freedom of expression and the public' s unrestricted right to culture unparalleled in the EU or anywhere else in the democratic world.
What action does the Presidency intend to take against this form of cultural cleansing and to strengthen the democratic and informational role of libraries?
The Council attaches a very great deal of weight to protecting fundamental rights.
According to Article 6 of the Treaty on European Union, the European Union is founded upon a number of principles common to the Member States, namely the principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights, together with the fundamental freedoms and the principle of the constitutional state.
It is specified in the same Article that the fundamental rights are to be respected by the European Union as general principles for Community law.
It ought however to be noted that circumstances of the kind described in the Member' s question are a matter for the Member States.
On the question of libraries and the promotion of democracy and culture, the Council would remind you that, in Article 151 of the EC Treaty, it is specified that the Community' s efforts to contribute to the development of culture in the Member States, at the same time as respecting the latter' s national and regional diversity, should be aimed at promoting cooperation between the Member States. If need be, the Community' s efforts should also support and augment the Member States' activities in a number of areas: firstly, improving people' s knowledge of, and disseminating information about, the European peoples' culture and history; secondly, preserving and protecting such cultural heritage as is of significance to Europe as a whole; thirdly, promoting cultural exchange of a non-commercial nature; and fourthly, supporting artistic and literary creation, including within the audiovisual sector.
In accordance with the codecision procedure, the Council, together with the European Parliament, therefore assumed on 28 June 1999 a common position on the adoption of a decision to establish a uniform instrument for financing cultural cooperation and for planning programmes for such cooperation.
It is called the Culture 2000 programme.
Thank you for your answer.
I consider it a disgrace to this Parliament that we have representatives here who stand for this type of ideological and intellectual "cleansing" .
I should like to ask if the Council considers that this perversion of local democracy is compatible with the European Union' s fundamental values.
Where our fundamental values are concerned, it may indeed in this case be said that the rights which ought to apply throughout the European Union have not been properly respected.
In the end, however, it is always a matter for the individual nation state to guarantee that human rights and other fundamental rights are guaranteed in that country.
Question No 13 by (H-0499/99):
Subject: Peripheral island regions Will the Council, under the Finnish Presidency, outline its policies towards peripheral Objective I and II island regions in relation to infrastructure, agricultural and employment policies?
Mr President, many thanks for your sympathy.
When it approved the new Code on Structural Funds last June, the Council defined in the basic regulation the primary objectives, general principles and programming procedures for the period 2000 - 2006.
In the various regulations on Structural Funds, the Council has defined the rules for each fund and, in particular, their areas of operation.
As the Council charged the Commission with the task of applying the codes, the Council is not competent to specify sector strategies for Objectives 1 and II, based on the code in question.
I wish to thank the President-in-Office of the Council for his reply.
There are two parts to my supplementary question.
The economic and social situations of the EU' s peripheral and island regions vary considerably.
Export costs and excess costs to the market put these regions at a major disadvantage.
I would like to know what commitment the President-in-Office intends to show to ensure that EU policies will always give special priority to assisting peripheral and island regions, including those regions on the Atlantic coast.
Peripheral and island regions have their own specific and geographic characteristics which require European Union responses, particularly with regard to infrastructure and employment needs.
The concentration of infrastructural development in cities must not be at the expense of other areas.
I would like to know what the Council' s response to this is.
Mr President, firstly, the new rules on Structural Funds were approved last June, and, obviously, the relevant decisions were made.
As for the island regions generally, it could be said that when people in the Union have spoken of areas that have fallen behind, for example, in many conclusions made at Summit meetings and in other declarations, particular attention has been drawn to these very island regions.
Question No 14 by (H-0501/99):
Subject: Duty free Will the Council outline its strategy aimed at assisting Irish airports, ports, airlines and passenger shipping companies in their efforts to overcome the loss of income resulting from the ending of duty-free and how does it intend to safeguard consumers against higher fares, protect and enhance employment and support vital infrastructure developments which, in the past, were made possible by sales of duty-free goods?
Mr President, according to the decision taken by the Council in 1992, duty-free sales to travellers within the Community do not apply to the single market, which does not have any tax restrictions.
However, the Council decided in 1992 to keep the situation with regard to duty-free shops unchanged for a temporary period ending in June 1999.
The Council considers that it is primarily the task of the Member States to alleviate both the social affects on the sector and regional problems in border districts that have been caused by the duty-free sales being discontinued.
A communication was issued to the Council on 17 February 1999 by the Commission containing Community instruments at the disposal of Member States to deal with the possible consequences of the ending of duty-free.
Does the President-in-Office of the Council understand that the ending of duty-free contrary to the majority view of the Member States has undermined the strategy of airports, airlines and passenger shipping companies aimed at keeping fares at a low level? Will the Council undertake to keep the decision on the review and request the Commission to ensure that airports in Objective I areas and Objective I areas in transition are not penalised by the loss of revenue resulting from the ending of duty-free, which inevitably leads to higher prices for consumers, loss of earnings for airlines, shipping companies, ports and airports, and threatens employment for the industries and small firms which have supplied a range of goods to duty-free shops?
Mr President, firstly, personally, I have noticed that most large airports are doing very well, despite the ending of duty-free, and, as I said in my reply, we consider that it is primarily a matter for each Member State to try to alleviate both economic and other problems - mainly problems of employment - that will result from the fact that duty-free sales have stopped.
As the author is not present, Question No 15 lapses.
Question No 16 by (H-0505/99):
Subject: New EU Combat Poverty Programme As the Council is aware, under the Treaty of Maastricht no progress was made towards the adoption of a new Combat Poverty Programme.
Following the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, does the Council now intend to press for a comprehensive EU Combat Poverty Programme and to what extent will it support EU action for housing and the homeless?
Mr President, the Council takes a positive view of those new opportunities to prevent social exclusion that it gained with Article 137(2) on social provisions when the Treaty of Amsterdam came into force.
Within these frameworks the Council can now implement measures to promote cooperation between Member States.
This being the case, it supports such initiatives to prevent social exclusion that attempt to improve access to information, improve information and the exchange of best practices, promote innovative approaches and evaluate experience.
As the measures to be decided on and implemented in this area are very delicate in nature, the legislator has included this area in the codecision procedure, meaning that the European Parliament will also function as legislator.
Up until now the Council has had no proposals from the Commission that would have any bearing on the special problems mentioned in the question.
I should like to thank the Minister for his answer.
I know how difficult this area has been in the past for the Council.
However, there is a very firm majority in Parliament who are in favour of a European involvement, not just in the exchange of best practices or the cooperation procedures, which we agree with, but also in utilising some of the previous programmes which existed in the past; in particular the Poverty I and Poverty II programmes and the way that they dealt with the problems using a bottom-up approach.
By analogy we already have at the moment within the European Community initiatives like the Leader programme and the Urban programme where this bottom-up approach has been proven to be successful, and has resolved some of the problems that have been faced.
Could I ask the President-in-Office whether he would be willing to bring forward an initiative at Council level calling on the Commission to put in place a new poverty programme that will utilise the best of the past but to make it a real programme, not just experts exchanging ideas, or meetings taking place in exotic parts of the Union.
Mr President, I would like to say in reply to the question that such programmes that have up until now been implemented have had barely any significant effect in the Union area.
For this reason, it is the opinion of the Council that a new approach should be found to deal with this issue.
Question No 17 by (H-0511/99):
Subject: 'Open' Council meetings The Finnish Presidency began with the laudable aim of holding many of the Council' s meetings in open session, accessible to the public and the media.
What success has the Presidency had with this objective during this period, and what proportion of the meetings have been fully or in part open to the public? Where the Presidency did not succeed in its plan to hold open meetings, which Member States opposed it and prevented it from being carried out?
An interesting question with which to end the sitting.
Mr Sasi has the floor.
On the Presidency' s initiative, the Council has in fact approved a fairly complete list of questions which ought to be taken up for public debate in the course of these six months.
These questions are all based around a common theme: "a strong and open Europe in the new Millennium" .
The Presidency has also undertaken to improve the quality of public debates and increase the interest these generate, partly through preparing the debates better.
In advance of any public debate, the Presidency therefore distributes a discussion document with a list of questions for the Member States and the Commission. This constitutes a springboard for the discussions.
It is too early to provide a definitive evaluation of this procedure.
When it comes to the public debates which have already taken place in accordance with this principle, it must however be noted that a satisfactory start has been made.
With regard to the Member' s question about certain Member States' attitude to these initiatives from the Presidency, it should be pointed out that the initiatives were approved unanimously by the Council.
I want to thank the Council of Ministers for this answer.
It is, in fact, a most excellent initiative by the Finnish Presidency to arrange for greater openness in the work of the Council.
This is something which is really positive and timely.
It is indeed a fundamental democratic right to be able to have insight into the actual processes of legislation and, in that way, to be able to insist upon political accountability.
My question following on from this is about whether it has ever happened that whole Council meetings, from start to finish, have been open to the public.
Or has it only been specified points on the agenda that have been debated in public? Have you ever, during your Presidency, been presented with objections which, in one meeting or another of the Council of Ministers, have prevented you from having as much openness as you would have wished for?
With regard to the first question about the extent to which whole meetings have been open to the public, the answer is that they have not been.
We have always had some point on the agenda which has been discussed openly but the remainder of each meeting has, so far a in any case, been closed to the public, as it will continue to be during the Finnish Presidency.
What was the second question?
My second question was about whether there had ever been a case in which you wanted to have a greater degree of openness but in which some individual Member State, in one context or another during the period of your Presidency, prevented this and used its veto to oppose such openness.
What can be said is that the practice has been for the country holding the Presidency to decide which points on the agenda are to be discussed openly.
As far as I know, all the other countries have approved this.
It may be that, in certain situations, we have consulted other Member States, but in principle, it has been the decision of the country holding the Presidency which has been acted upon.
As far as I know, no problems have, at least so far, arisen involving other Member States.
As you know, Mr Sjöstedt, Mr Sasi is renowned for his discretion.
I think that he has answered you as best he can, and we are very grateful to him for the great mental and physical efforts he has had to employ this afternoon.
I am also pleased because we have ended the sitting on time, in harmony with the Council.
As the time allotted to Questions to the Council has run out, Question Nos. 18 to 27 will be answered in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
(The sitting was closed at 7.30 p.m.)
TOPICAL AND URGENT DEBATE
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Chechnya
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0142/1999, by Mr Maaten and Mr Väyrynen, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Chechnya;
B5-0149/1999, by Mr Schori and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the alarming situation in Chechnya;
B5-0158/1999, by Mr Markov and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the situation in Chechnya;
B5-0168/1999, by Mr Schroedter and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the war in Chechnya;
B5-0177/1999, by Mr Oostlander and Mr Posselt, on behalf of the PPE Group, on violence in the Northern Caucasus.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this is certainly not the first time that this House has talked about a war in Chechnya, nor is it the first time that we have talked about a problem in the Caucasus.
Mind you, compared with the war that took place in 1995, the motives behind this war are much more understandable.
The events which have taken place in Dagestan and Chechnya in recent weeks render it almost imperative that this pressing problem be resolved through military action.
The problem in the Caucasus, in Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia is actually nothing new.
It has been around for decades, for centuries, and it is therefore also quite important that in our resolution, we express the view that in general in this area, the problem has to be tackled and a solution has to be sought, something which is important for the region as a whole and which will bring stability to the entire region as well as contribute to its development.
The proposal in the resolution to convene a New Millennium Conference in which European partners and organisations would also participate and provide structures for such negotiations is, therefore, very important.
I hope that our Russian negotiating partners will take this up accordingly.
The European Union also has to look into the problem of refugees, and very closely at that.
Hundreds of thousands are again fleeing. We still have things to do as regards the refugee problem from previous conflicts.
I would like to call upon the Commission to make proposals as quickly as possible in this regard as to how the problem can be solved; how a way can be found for the refugees to survive the winter, which is imminent.
I think that being able to help in this area is a matter of the deepest concern for Europe.
Mr President, it is clear that the problems facing Chechnya are complex.
I am pleased that the resolution as well as a number of the amendments that have been submitted point to the complexity of the problems.
Russia has been in Chechnya for years now.
This has nothing to do with the government that is currently in power.
The situation already existed under the Tsarist regime.
It is easy to understand why, in many countries of the Caucasus, some of whose problems differ widely, there is great opposition to Russia' s presence.
I therefore think it is important that we first ask Russia to really get down to talking to everyone in Chechnya.
That is the only solution.
It is important as well that we ask them also to take care of all the refugees that come from there.
That is why we intend to support some of the amendments submitted by the PPE.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once more we have a war.
In this motion, this term, unfortunately, does not appear and therefore, I am pleased that Mrs Krehl used this expression.
Do you also not consider it appalling and alarming that both in thought and deed, responsible politicians regard the use of military violence as an indispensable element in the resolution of conflicts? And do you also not consider it appalling and alarming that increasingly, the inhumane tactic of bombardment, which was employed to excess in Yugoslavia and where nobody suffered more than the civilian population, is again regarded, in the meantime, as being an adequate policy?
Mrs Krehl, I simply cannot understand you when you talk about fighting terror with terror, and when you express understanding for the current situation in Russia.
Military violence has no place in the political spectrum in the resolution of conflicts.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing another tragic chapter in Russia' s development after the end of the Soviet Union.
We can certainly understand why the Russian Government, against the backdrop of terrorist attacks against its civilian population, would like to take vigorous action.
However, one must distinguish between vigorous action in the sense of a legal development and what is currently taking place in Chechnya.
There were many dead and injured as a result of the first Chechen conflict, numbers being totally comparable with the dead and injured witnessed in other conflicts world-wide, as well as in Europe.
It is not right that we, as the European Parliament, on the one hand criticise human rights' violations in other regions and make strenuous efforts to put a stop to them while, on the other hand, stay silent on the issue in Russia because we are talking about an important economic partner.
Even in Russia' s case, the European Parliament is called upon and (we, as the European Union are called upon) to defend all people clearly and unequivocally, and to speak out in favour of human rights and against human rights' violations.
For this reason, it is good that we are today dealing with this matter in an urgent procedure.
Mr President, the Russian Parliament is trying to impeach this same President for the former war in Chechnya.
The war is political, it is taking place at the same time as election campaigns in Russia, so that any way out must also be political.
It will not be possible to get these fighters out of the mountains using force.
Russia has got its own Kurdish problem, which is evidently just as difficult to solve as it has been in Turkey.
In both cases international aid is required simply on account of the refugees, some of whose camps are out in the open. Soon they will be covered in snow.
In addition, there is the threat of the conflict spreading.
Military operations are now taking place in the territories of at least five States and for this reason the matter is already an international one.
The OSCE and the Union must offer to negotiate between the two sides so that in this way, the stalemate, which seems time and again to lead to war in the area, can be broken.
We must act swiftly to aid the refugees because they are the innocent ones in what has happened.
It is therefore a question of a political solution - I do not believe a military one to be possible - and we now have the opportunity to help Russia, which is in a difficult political situation in any case, by offering help to find a solution and bring about negotiations on the Chechen problem.
Mr President, we are again dealing with what we might call the conflict of interests between the principle of the territorial integrity of a State and the principle of self-determination of a people. As regards what is today Russia and what was once the Soviet Union, this second principle has been implemented smoothly in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and the Caucasus.
But it seems that within the Caucasus, this does not apply in the case of Chechnya.
The international community has made every effort to help the Kosovars, but not the Chechens.
The international community has supported independence for East Timor, but not for Chechnya.
I wonder: why is there this discrimination against a people which has every right to self-determination?
Mr President, there is nothing new about the conflict between Russia and Chechnya, that small country in the Caucasus with little more than a million inhabitants which, nevertheless, has the same right as any large country to freely determine its own future.
The last precursor to the current conflict took place between 1994 and 1996, a war which cost 100,000 lives.
Now, since 22 September, Russian warplanes have begun to bomb Grozny and other cities.
The Russian army has entered the Republic' s territory and has invaded, according to its own sources, a third of its territory causing death, destruction and a massive exodus of more than 100,000 refugees - women, children and the elderly - who have entered neighbouring Ingushetia, whose President is now talking of humanitarian disaster and is requesting international aid which is not arriving.
It is also true that Russia has, in previous weeks, suffered horrendous terrorist attacks which have caused considerable loss of life, supposedly carried out by guerrillas who are based in the mountains of the Caucasus.
The European Union must not remain passive in the face of this conflict, once again displaying the same spectacular inactivity that we showed during the early years of the war in Yugoslavia.
It is essential and urgent that all the institutions of the European Union make a serious plea to the Governments of Russia and Chechnya to end the escalation of war, silence their weapons and take up political dialogue, using all our resources - of whatever type - so that our voice may be heard.
It is essential and urgent that we use all the measures available to us so that we may re-assert human rights in the region, so that the refugees may count on all the humanitarian aid that they require and so that, finally, they may return to their homes as a result of peace being established once more.
I simply wanted to ask whether the Commission will press Georgia, in view of the supply problems, to build the 700m of road which is lacking up to the Chechen border, and which was not constructed following pressure from Russia, so that humanitarian supplies may, in future, reach the Chechen border?
You will recall that the first thing I mentioned in my contribution here was to express deep concern about the threat to stability in the Caucuses that this conflict represents.
I fear that if we do what is being suggested here, if we commit ourselves very directly on that specific matter, we might not be helpful in terms of strengthening stability in the region.
We have to do what is possible, so I will not commit myself to any specific action that is suggested here.
We will have to find many different ways - perhaps unexpected ways - of solving the logistical problems of getting assistance to the people who need it, but it is difficult to promise specific action on this one.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
European Code on arms exports
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0143/1999 by Mr Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the EU Code of Conduct on the export or transfer of arms;
B5-0152/1999 by Mr Van den Berg and Mr Howitt, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the First Annual Review of the EU Code of Conduct on the export or transfer of arms;
B5-0157/1999 by Mr Morgantini and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the EU Code of Conduct on the export or transfer of arms;
B5-0163/1999 by Mr McKenna and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the EU Code of Conduct on the export or transfer of arms;
B5-0175/1999 by Mr Morillon and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the export or transfer of arms.
Mr President, we have to change this resolution in one important respect and it is for a gratifying reason.
In paragraph 1 we urge the Council to publish its report on arms exports - and the Council has now decided to do so.
When we have the vote this afternoon I would like to make an oral amendment to that effect, noting with satisfaction that the Council has published its report.
This is a very good example of transparency.
It is a good example for the Member States, it is a good example for the EU as a whole, and we can all be happy that at least we have achieved some progress in this field.
Finally I would like to note that what we do jointly as a Union in this area has a lot of influence.
This really is progress, when we can act together on this issue, and when what individual countries are doing is less important.
Mr President, I too consider it an important step but, unlike Mr Haarder, I am extremely dissatisfied.
Three obvious things come to mind.
Firstly, I find it depressing that a Code allowing arms to be exported to Indonesia up to the summer of 1999 is obviously totally insufficient.
Secondly, if the rules are so totally different whereby arms exports to Yugoslavia are prohibited by law, but are permitted to Indonesia, for example, then clearly standards other than those contained in the Code, namely economic interests and trade, hold sway.
Thirdly, it naturally occurs to me that the dependency of governments on these economic interests is so great that no uniform standards are enforceable in this regard.
It is for this reason that I considered it extremely necessary that this Parliament is included in supervising arms exports, over and above the transparency which is desirable.
Mr President, arms trading is a persistent plague, which also distorts the development of the poorest countries.
Therefore, the fact that the Union has produced its first report on the export of arms, and that it has made it public, is very welcome.
The report must, however, be actively extended to also include instruments of torture and other inhumane and debasing treatment so that information is available to national parliaments and this House as soon as possible, and before it is more widely disseminated.
In this way, the monitoring of arms exports can be made more effective and we have sufficient political and legal means to intervene when the regulations of the monitoring system are contravened.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not think that I need three minutes to tell you that the resolution concerning the export of arms, which is subject to our approval, deals with a matter which is fundamental to the establishment of an area of peace and stability throughout the world, which is without doubt one of the most important mandates which our electors have given us.
I simply regret the fact that it has been examined following an urgent procedure, thereby denying us the time for a thorough reflection on it, and God knows it would have deserved it!
I fear that it contains nothing more than proposals which, while certainly noble and generous, in some cases perhaps do not have much practical application.
I would like to take this opportunity to draw your attention to the risk to the credibility of this Parliament resulting from the excessive use of this urgent procedure, especially when, as in this case, we are examining a text drawn up by an external body.
Mr President, this motion is both topical and urgent.
It is urgent because we have not yet defined how to control the spread of small arms and light weapons, nor have we strengthened the code to cover conventional arms.
Death and destruction can be caused by almost any means.
I saw recently the mass grave in Rwanda of up to half a million people bludgeoned to death by physical weapons, called machetes: just a single weapon in the hand of one man killing person after person.
Half a million people were genocidally slaughtered by this method.
Some time ago, 25 000 people died as a result of ground-to-ground missiles in the marshlands of southern Iraq.
I saw where they had been killed by just one ground-to-ground missile.
So death and destruction can come by simple or complex means.
We have to address that.
That is the urgency.
The topicality of the motion comes because the year 2000 has now been declared by the United Nations to be the year for peace and to usher in a decade of UN aims for peace.
Let us, in this motion, also put our hands behind that effort.
Mr President, the reason for this urgent resolution is, of course, that we as a Parliament have produced a joint statement about the problem of bringing the export of small arms and arms in general under control.
At the same time, we know that our governments really drag their feet and are uncooperative and often obstructive when it comes to taking any action.
We are soon to receive a report from various governments and this motion for a resolution is extremely topical because it addresses the national governments yet again, via Parliament and the Council, on the fact that we as a Parliament - and I am very pleased that all groups have been able to reach agreement on the motion for a resolution - really do stress the importance of their taking active steps to produce a carefully considered report.
Russia is supplying Eritrea with arms through Antwerp whilst we, the European Community, are in the midst of this conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
We know that the authorities are not supervising these affairs properly.
So we also know that there is a desperate need for discussion about effective supervisory mechanisms.
The motion for a resolution, expressing as it does the view of our Parliament, has the following to say on that point: if we are aware that at the beginning of this century, just as many soldiers perished in wars as civilians perish in modern-day conflicts on account of these very same small arms, and if we are aware that so many arms are exported from or conveyed through our own Member States, or are actually produced there, then do we not bear an enormous common responsibility for this?
I welcome the fact that this Parliament as a whole supports putting the right amount of pressure on our Member States and governments to take serious action on this point.
Doubtless we will be able to discuss this further in November.
Mr President, this resolution states that we are appalled by the atrocities in East Timor and that these awful events strengthen the need for effective controls on arms exports.
If we truly believe that - and I hope we do - how can we then not take the next logical step and condemn those governments which ignore arms controls? What is the use of a code of conduct on arms exports, or an arms embargo, if we do not condemn those who violate them?
In the very week after Britain agreed to an EU embargo on arms sales to the Indonesian government last month, three British Hawk warplanes were delivered secretly to Indonesia.
It stretches credibility beyond belief to imagine that the British government could not have halted the delivery of these war planes which arrived only hours before Indonesian forces shot dead at least five demonstrators in Jakarta.
Please make this resolution on arms exports a resolution that is worthy of this Parliament. Make it one that truly respects the awful suffering of the people of Indonesia.
Make it one which firmly condemns those governments which defy an EU arms embargo. Please support the Green/EFA amendment to this resolution which seeks to do exactly that.
The Code has now existed for one year.
As acknowledged in the first annual report, initial experiences of the Member States from its operation during that period were positive.
The Code has increased mutual understanding on Member State policies, established an efficient consultation mechanism and encouraged dialogue on the implementation of its provisions.
The statistical tables attached to the report testify to the strong interest shown by Member States in making the Code' s consultation mechanism a success.
It is undeniable, however, that there are grounds for continued strengthening of the Code and its implementation.
The aim of the annual review process is to identify such potential improvements.
Naturally, any amendments to the Code must enjoy the support of all Member States.
As far as the role of the Commission is concerned, I would like to point out that Member States have up to now, on the basis of Article 296, exempted trade in arms from the scope of application of Treaty rules, thereby preventing Community action.
Ultimate responsibility for arms exports therefore belongs to national governments.
Arms trade is currently dealt with in the context of the common foreign and security policy with which the Commission naturally is fully associated.
Finally, the Commission is interested in broadening acceptance of the main principles contained in the Code so as to cover the world' s main arms exporters.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Human rights
Mr President, we believe that it is particularly important that in the debate on the budget, amendments have now been approved in committee which support the Commission and ask it to back the campaigns and actions in favour of the moratorium on executions and, in the long term, the abolition of the death penalty.
Why am I saying this, Mr President? Because this House has often made commitments on specific issues and has had successes, alongside defeats, as regards the commutation or stays of executions.
The important thing is to mark the end of the twentieth century by means of action by Europe - Europe as the home of human rights - involving the abolition of the death penalty.
All over the world, there is a vitally important campaign which Europe should be leading.
I would ask the Commission to undertake to implement these objectives to make Europe the global home of political action against the death penalty.
Mr President, since I and my colleague Olivier Dupuis moved this draft resolution on a moratorium on the death penalty, a most grievous and sinister event has taken place.
Last Monday, the United States Supreme Court rejected the petition for a writ of certiorari by Moumia Abou Jamal, the Afro-American freedom fighter sentenced to death in 1992.
At the very moment we are debating in this Chamber, Thomas Ridge, the Governor of Pennsylvania, is probably issuing and signing the order for his execution.
There are very few legal avenues left open to Moumia to escape the gallows.
As has happened in the past, when this House, the Council, various heads of state and world public opinion mobilised to obtain a stay of execution, we once again have to do everything in our power to save the life of this victim of racist hatred and of an egregious perversion of justice.
Mr President, the fight against the death penalty in the world is, first and foremost, civilisation' s fight for the right of humanitarian intervention which is making headway in terms of global awareness.
This Parliament has a long tradition on this issue, and I would like to pay tribute here to the work of Adelaide Aglietta, who was the first rapporteur in this Parliament to deal with the issue of the death penalty in the world.
The Council is doing a good job and we hope that the Commission will do likewise.
However, we must now make sure that the resolution which will be put to the House will not end up as just a piece of paper, but will constitute another stage in the continuation of this fight.
The Council must not stop.
It needs to establish further deadlines and mechanisms to monitor the implementation of the resolution.
Mr President, we know that Olivier Dupuis has been leading this particular struggle, a fact which has also been mentioned here before.
I think he deserves a big thank-you for enabling this discussion to take place.
I also think that, at the moment, things look very promising indeed in the UN General Assembly.
There has been a lot of support from every country, and it has been easy to reach agreement within the Council on this point.
Now that the fight is being carried on within the UN, we must beware of cunning counter-proposals which perhaps look innocent enough but which will come from various directions for the purpose of watering down any strong position adopted by the UN General Assembly.
We therefore need to keep track of what is happening in the UN.
At the same time, we need to ensure that there is strong support from Parliament for this action and that in the future, and in Geneva too, whenever questions affecting human rights come up, we get binding decisions adopted. We also need to ensure that we can follow up the present resolution, which I hope will be approved in New York this autumn.
Mr President, it is high time that we adopted a universal moratorium on the death penalty, that true administrative murder, as Albert Camus called it.
This is the purpose of our resolution directed at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Like my colleague, I would like to devote a few words to the urgency with which we must intervene to save Moumia Abou Jamal.
Moumia is the black American journalist who was sentenced to death in 1982 after a police set-up and a rigged trial.
The Supreme Court has just rejected his appeal.
Having spent 17 years on death row, Moumia is now at the mercy of an execution order which the Governor of Pennsylvania can legally sign at any time.
At a time when an American study has revealed racial disparity in the application of the death penalty in Philadelphia, the American Government should be noble enough to make a stand against this flagrant violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
The shock that this produced in public opinion and the resulting powerful international mobilisation, in which this Parliament took full part, already prevented the implementation of the first execution order, signed on 2 June 1995.
Today the threat is serious.
It is urgent.
The person who is known as the voice of the voiceless and the peacemaker is in danger.
Any stand, demonstration or resolution will help to prevent the irreversible, and may prevent that voice from being silenced.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first of all like to thank Mr Frassoni, Mr Thors and Mr Manisco for their support for the text of this resolution.
I think that we are very close to achieving the first great result from the UN General Assembly and that it is important that we make an effort to ensure that the final text is a genuine text, a text which allows us to continue this battle which, as other speakers have said, is particularly close to this Parliament' s heart.
We risk - as is the case after debates within the Council - having a weak text, which will simply reproduce those which have been adopted over the last three years in Geneva and which will not allow us to continue this battle, set new deadlines, or create mechanisms which allow us to verify the steps taken or the progress made to date.
I therefore ask the Council not to get bogged down in philosophical debates, but to see to it that the mechanisms allowing us to continue this battle are included in the text and that the drafting may soon be completed, so that the Council and the Commission - and we have Mr Patten' s assurance on this - may begin the work of convincing the 180 Member States of the United Nations.
It is urgent. The House has already begun its task.
The days and weeks to come must be used to give solid form to this great text in favour of the abolition of the death penalty by the General Assembly.
We must also ensure that this text is not anti-American.
The initiatives of recent years have shown the Americans that this is not the case, but I believe that this point should continue to be stressed.
The American administration is aware that there is now progress in this direction on the part of the whole of humanity and it is really a matter of widening the sphere of human rights.
Finally, it is all the more significant that in the last few hours, Mr Öçalan has been sentenced to death.
This is therefore another manifestation of the need to definitively legislate, at United Nations level, for the abolition of the death penalty.
Regardless of its formulation, I shall be voting for this resolution which demands the abolition of that barbarous punishment, the death penalty.
I would ask the House to take an urgent stand against the execution of the black American journalist, Moumia Abou Jamal.
Moumia Abou Jamal fought against racism and for the dignity of Blacks by denouncing in his articles the violence and corruption of the Philadelphia police and institutional racism in general.
After being arrested by that same police force, which accused him, without proof, of the murder of one of his own people, he was sentenced to death following a rigged trial, as a result of falsified evidence and bribed witnesses.
He has now spent seventeen years languishing on death row, seventeen years claiming innocence and fighting for a review of his case.
Moumia Abou Jamal may be executed at any moment, since his appeal in the United States Supreme Court has just been rejected.
The United States is a signatory to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Racial Discrimination, as well as the Convention against Torture, which is applicable in Moumia' s case since the racial factor weighed heavily in his trial and he has spent seventeen years on death row which constitutes, according to those Treaties, an unjust form of punishment which is equivalent to torture.
This is why I call on the House to vote not only for the resolution against the death penalty, but also for the amendment which adds that the European Parliament is appealing to the Governor of Pennsylvania to refrain from signing any new execution order against Moumia Abou Jamal and is renewing its demand for a review of his case.
Moluccan Islands
Mr President, viewed apart, the problems facing Ambon have their own particular characteristics, yet at the same time there are certain similarities with the situation in East Timor and also in Aceh and other parts of Indonesia.
It is the case with all these areas that we must not labour under the misapprehension that the international community is in a position to solve the problems.
The international and European Community can only play a modest role.
We must also avoid giving the local population the impression that when international institutions start getting involved everything will come right again.
We must spare the local population the disappointment that this expectation could lead to.
Of course this does not alter the fact that the situation in Ambon is serious.
Our first priority is to remain vigilant and endeavour to find a solution, but we must not add fuel to the fire.
In my view, the resolution produced contains all the necessary ingredients.
We might consider modifying the religious aspect slightly but, even without such a shift of emphasis, this resolution makes it adequately clear that the European Parliament attaches great importance to preventing a similar situation from arising in Ambon as arose in East Timor.
Mr President, with all due respect to my colleagues in this Parliament, I think that it is a little odd - I thought I would just say this, looking at the list of speakers - that we are having what is almost an all-Dutch round on the Moluccas.
Of course, there is every reason to say something about the Moluccas.
The pictures and, still more, the reports that we are receiving are, after all, very reminiscent of what happened in East Timor.
But I must say that I have my doubts about this round.
Last time, we talked about East Timor and today, we are talking about the Moluccas. We might talk about yet another part of Indonesia tomorrow, for the problem is not confined to the Moluccas.
I have a problem with the way in which we are handling this subject; that is to say, I do not think Parliament should discuss individual incidents, for I fear that this great island kingdom will be the scene of many more such incidents where national and religious factors are intertwined.
What actually needs to happen is for Parliament to ask itself how, in any event, it should deal with the big problem of Indonesia.
The Moluccan situation is not an isolated case.
The Moluccas form part of a great State comprising many nationalities and religious groupings.
It is a State that is at risk of falling apart and where tensions are running high.
I would be very much in favour of having a big debate of the kind I have just described at some stage in the future, rather than going from incident to incident all the time.
Mr President, in recent months, more disasters have occurred in Indonesia, in the shadow of the awful events that took place in East Timor.
The Moluccan island group is one of the areas that has suffered terribly under the violation of human rights going all the way back to November 1998.
Since November of last year, hundreds of people have been killed, many have been badly injured and tens of thousands of people have been uprooted or are fleeing their homes.
In August alone, there were 65 deaths and 242 people were injured.
In September, a further 40 people died and many people were injured.
Thirty-five thousand people in the Moluccas are in camps or other reception centres and even larger numbers of people have fled.
In addition, many villages and houses have been burnt out and stocks of food and medicines are diminishing.
The area is becoming more and more unsettled.
The increasing violence between the Muslim and the Christian populations, among others, is responsible for this disastrous situation.
The Indonesian army units stationed there do not offer enough protection in the face of such violence; they even instigate violence themselves sometimes, a consequence being that armed civilian groups are coming to play an increasingly provocative role.
In the Moluccas too, militias are forming which appear to be in collaboration with the army.
The situation is a little like that in Timor.
One of the causes of the tragedy is the fact that people have been forced to migrate from other islands to the Moluccas. As a result, the traditional relationship between the population groups has been disrupted.
Of course, the economic crisis has a role to play here, too.
Then there is the attitude of the army units stationed there, for they support some groups more than others and have little understanding of human rights and the rights of minorities.
All this means that armed civilians can just run amok.
I will give you an example of a recent atrocity: on 20 August, twenty-one Moluccans died having sought sanctuary in the Jabor church in Galala just outside Ambon city.
According to eyewitness accounts, the perpetrators were dressed in the uniforms of the elite Kostrad unit of the Indonesian army.
Mr President, surely it is necessary to get to the bottom of something like this.
What needs to happen? Democracy, respect for human rights and respect for religious and ethnic population groups must be established in Indonesia as soon as possible.
UN and NGO reporters must be able to compile objective reports so that the situation on the ground is reflected as accurately as possible.
Militias and other armed groups must be stripped of their arms because they are an out and out threat to security.
Those individuals, and that includes military militias, who are guilty of provocation and acts of violence, must be tried.
If necessary, a tribunal should be set up for this purpose, now that as many as 500 people have died.
Action must be taken to enable the various groups to live in peace side by side.
There is good will on both sides but this does mean that an end must be brought to the enforced migrations.
We must also look carefully at the presidential elections because there are plans to replace the army units that are in the region now with army units from Sulawesi.
The people say that may create a dangerous situation.
In that case, Mr President, there is a need for help.
Tens of thousands of people have been uprooted.
There is a lack of food and medicines and countless houses and villages have been burnt down.
Help is also needed to rebuild those.
I would like to ask the Commissioner if it would be possible to involve ECHO in this; the NGOs can also help here, as can the churches.
Mr President, I will close by saying that Timor was a tragedy that shocked the entire world.
It has overshadowed the situation in the Moluccas.
But in view of the fact that hundreds have died, thousands have been injured and tens of thousands of people have been uprooted, we need to turn our attention to this region as well.
This kind of solidarity is a big support to the Dutch-Moluccan delegation sitting here on the platform.
I am banking on the Commission' s giving serious thought to this point, on action being taken and on the points contained in the resolution being implemented.
Mr President, I am keen to endorse what Mrs Maij-Wegen had to say.
I think we would all agree that we need to ask for attention to be focussed on the situation in the Moluccas as well.
There are many people from the Moluccan islands living in the Netherlands and they also believe it is important for the European Parliament to speak out about the situation in that part of Indonesia.
I welcome the fact that we are all able to do so this morning and that we have also produced a joint motion for a resolution containing those principles we consider to be fundamental.
We all know that the violence in Indonesia has not been confined to East Timor, although, as is perfectly right and proper, this region has received most of the attention of late.
We are also very much in favour of talking about the Moluccas.
The violence being meted out there has cost many people their lives and the Indonesian authorities have failed to take adequate action against this.
By disturbing the balance of Moluccan society Jakarta has, in fact, contributed to the increase in violence.
The authorities do not appear to want to get a grip on the continuing polarisation between Christians and Muslims. There too, as we see, armed militias run amok without let or hindrance.
We want this situation to change and we demand that the Indonesian Government put an end to the violence.
We also demand that it create a situation in which we too are able, from within the European Union, to lend appropriate assistance with repairing the damage and providing the people with the humanitarian aid they need.
Indonesia will not survive if it does not find a solution to the violence that is spreading across a number of islands, if there is no respect for minorities within a democratic structure and if there is no scope for regional autonomy.
Indonesia must be given a push in this direction.
We want the United Nations to play an active part in this, particularly in the interests of the people who live on the Moluccan Islands.
Mr President, the list of speakers from this morning also clearly shows how firm the bond between the Moluccas and the Netherlands is.
You see, we are closely involved in the ups and downs of the Moluccas, one reason for this being that many Moluccans have lived in the Netherlands for a long time now.
Following the disturbances that took place at the beginning of this year, there was a short period of calm in and around the Moluccan islands, but at the end of July, the violence flared up again in all its ferocity.
It is striking how little interest the media show in these disturbances.
The Moluccas have been completely overshadowed by East Timor.
The current irregularities are much more organised in character than the disturbances that took place in January.
This gives me great cause for concern.
Various army units in the Indonesian army have been transferred to Ambon, not to maintain public order but to participate in the conflicts themselves.
Civil-military relations are not very democratic, which is why pressure must also be brought to bear on the Indonesian Government to take independent action.
To close, I would just like to make reference, in this connection, to the disadvantages of delivering aid via international channels.
In the case of the Moluccas, there is a historic bond with the Netherlands.
The Netherlands has recently started delivering ever more multilateral rather than bilateral aid, which has led to the aid no longer being recognisable.
Consequently, the Moluccans feel they have been left in the lurch.
We must not allow the joining of forces to be to the detriment of historic bonds.
Belarus
Mr President, we have just come from the first meeting of the delegation from this Parliament that concerns itself with relations with countries such as Belarus.
We have already briefly discussed the alarming situation in this country.
We would like to ask Parliament to give some of its attention today to recent developments there, whereby Belarus, that is the Government of Belarus and President Lukashenko in particular, are at risk of isolating themselves still further from the international community, and in so doing from the European Union too, of course.
The internal situation in Belarus gives great cause for concern.
Democratic structures are not functioning and we are on the sidelines to some extent because the international community is disregarded by the authorities in Minsk.
Our willingness to help to find a solution to the internal political problems and the deadlock that exists there is not being satisfactorily addressed by President Lukashenko.
We also want to help to promote dialogue between the opposition and the government.
We support the OSCE, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in its efforts to achieve this.
Our Parliament is also involved in activities undertaken by the Assembly of the OSCE which are designed to bring about an improvement in the situation in Belarus.
But where is the gesture from the President? What positive reaction has there been on the part of the government in Minsk to the efforts being made to bring about a dialogue?
What we see is quite the reverse.
Instead of positive gestures we see arrests, intimidation and disappearances.
A climate of fear is being created.
It gets very difficult to find a compromise in a situation of this kind.
We are in fact prepared to stretch our standards a little in the interests of the people of Belarus.
We are prepared to talk to a President who is actually there illegally.
If he fails to offer us a gesture, then things will certainly become very difficult.
If, as I said, the opposition wants to talk then we will support this, but there will have to be a prospect of fair elections which will put an end to what is currently an extremely odd constitutional situation in Belarus in which there are two parliaments and a President reappointed by "referendum" .
There are, of course, limits to our realism and that is why we want to take the opportunity today to register our protest about the situation in Belarus. We also want to make an urgent appeal to its government to do something about those who have disappeared and to ensure that they reappear so that that in itself may lead to really getting a dialogue going which will move towards free and fair elections, hopefully next year.
Mr President, as Deputy Chairman of the delegation which has just sat on this subject, and as a rapporteur to this country for many years, I can seamlessly follow on from the previous speaker.
We know that we are faced with a very, very difficult situation on account of the fact that in this country, such dubious Stalinist values are enjoying a renaissance and it appears that nothing has really changed.
On the other hand, Belarus is important for the entire European security structure and it is - and we should not forget this - one of the countries bordering the European Union.
Therefore, we are naturally clutching at any semblance of hope that we can again support a democratic movement in this country.
But the situation is unimaginably poor.
The work of the OSCE is marking time, in spite of the enormous motivation of the working group and despite the fact that it is really looking into every opportunity in detail.
All attempts at dialogue with the opposition are counteracted in practice by human rights' violations on the streets and in the prisons and by violations against the free press.
Lukashenko has to be told in no uncertain terms that he cannot speak with a forked tongue.
The drama attached to important people, rivals of Lukashenko, suddenly disappearing, shows that the opposition is to be rooted out.
As soon as a critical article is written, the newspapers are threatened with closure.
We really have to strive to speak a clear language in this regard, even if we naturally want to promote the process of dialogue and not obstruct it.
In this connection, Lukashenko, however, must be the first one to set an example.
Such an example would amount to him approving the 5 Million programme for civilian society in the event that the Commission were to travel to Minsk tomorrow.
A second example would be releasing his opponents from prison.
That would be a sign to begin a dialogue.
I would question the sense behind this resolution when Lukashenko will not listen to us in any case.
But it does have a point, because we would like to show the people that we will never lose hope for a change in Belarus, and that we will do all we can to ensure that democracy is restored to this country.
Thank you, Mrs Schroedter.
We could really sense your own personal commitment.
I would like to call Mr Sacrédeus as the next speaker.
Perhaps you can help us a little with the correct pronunciation of your name. It is certainly a name with holy connotations and you are from Sweden.
Perhaps you could tell us how it should be pronounced.
Mr President, my name is pronounced Sacrédeus and it is a family name we have in Sweden.
Democracy is a gift to us all.
It is a gift from previous generations, from our forefathers.
It gives expression to a view of human beings, a view bearing the stamp of Christianity, which says that all human beings are of equal worth and have the same value, a unique and inviolable human dignity.
It is an important task of the European Union to defend democracy and this view of human beings.
Developments in close proximity to the European Union, namely in Belarus, are therefore deeply worrying.
An old communist system lives on there.
People disappear and, not least, parliamentarians close to the Christian Democrat Party such as Andrey Klimov and Vladimir Kudinov have disappeared without trace.
Other people too have disappeared, as has been pointed out here in previous interventions.
Democracy is founded upon people being free to express their opinions, even if this is uncomfortable and is not appreciated by everyone.
Let us, together as a Parliament, view supporting the developments towards democracy in Belarus as one of our most crucially urgent tasks.
I would also say to you that today is Birgitta' s name day. In fact, my wife is called Birgitta.
Birgitta has also been chosen by the Pope as one of the three patron saints of Europe.
Birgitta is also a Swedish patron saint.
It is a special honour to be able to give one' s maiden speech in the European Parliament on Birgitta' s name day.
I should like to see it as one of my most important tasks to work for democracy and human dignity in Belarus.
Mr President, speaking of courage, this commendable human quality is certainly one that adorns the Belorussian lawyer Vera Stremkovskaya.
Though one of the few advocates in her fatherland, she dares to defend the political opponents of the Lukashenko regime.
In so doing, she does in fact already have one foot in prison, figuratively speaking.
The judicial authorities in Minsk judge that her personal commitment to human rights is irreconcilable with her legal work.
The confederation of German lawyers has an entirely different view of the matter.
It recently awarded Stremkovskaya its prize for human rights.
Her speech of thanks tells us a lot.
Those who champion a democratic constitutional state in Belarus long for western support and for interest to be shown in their extremely difficult position.
This is the ultimate significance of the prize awarded to her for her selflessness.
Belarus must not remain a "black hole" on the European map.
The present joint resolution fulfils this fondest wish of ours.
Hence, we are able to give it our full support.
The resolution serves to underline Stremkovskaya' s criticism of Lukashenko' s repressive presidential rule: "people are disappearing in Belarus and that is causing great public unrest."
We want this topical debate to give a boost to the opposition in Belarus.
There is certainly a need for this, now that such bitter, almost desperate words are reaching us of the kind uttered by the exile Siaretski, the former President of the Belorussian Parliament that was dissolved by Lukashenko: "Belarus is currently under the leadership of a man who says of himself that he admires Hitler."
A man who can only survive politically on account of support from Moscow which, in turn, is itself being financed by the West.
The situation of the Roma in Kosovo
Mr President, it is an incredibly serious crisis we have in Kosovo regarding the Roma.
A week ago, I was involved in a live television debate with the OSCE's representative for the Roma population, who is monitoring the situation.
I regret to have to say that his appeal to the effect that the EU should do something about the Roma' s situation, such as arrange a special meeting, has fallen on deaf ears.
We know that people are being thrown out of hospitals and exposed to various forms of violence if they belong to the Roma population.
The profound appeal I am making to the Commission and the Council is therefore as follows: help arrange a special meeting where the Roma' s situation can be discussed. Try to obtain a proper monitoring of the situation and demonstrate that all the international organisations which are on the scene in Pristina want to do something about the issue, for example by calling a meeting of the kind that the OSCE' s special rapporteur has been seeking (but without receiving any support).
This could be extremely significant in showing the path we are to go down.
I hope that the present Commissioner, Mr Nielson, will present this message to Mr Hombach and his colleagues in Pristina and Thessaloniki.
Mr President, we are now talking about the situation facing the Roma in Kosovo.
We all agree, and this is also apparent from the joint motion for a resolution, that the Roma in Kosovo are not receiving adequate protection at the present time.
There may be all kinds of reasons for the fact that they are being treated in a very unfriendly manner, particularly by the Albanians, but that does not alter the fact that they have a right to protection and that this is inadequate.
KFOR is doing its best but there is too much happening all at once.
Nevertheless, we urge that a more active approach be taken to protecting the rights of the Roma, for they have just as much right to this as the other inhabitants of Kosovo.
After all, that is what the Kosovo conflict was all about.
Were those not the values we were fighting for? It is on account of these selfsame values that we must now also fight for the interests of the Gypsies in Kosovo.
If the Albanian leaders expect us to support them in rebuilding Kosovo, then it is right that we should not hesitate to remind them of their responsibilities with regard to the Roma.
Their situation demonstrates yet again that it is taking far too long to build up the police force.
One of the big complaints we have at the moment about the situation in Kosovo itself is that the military police have to carry out extra duties when they have so much other work to do and they are not actually trained for the duties.
We would also make an urgent appeal to the UN to ensure that the police force is built up more rapidly than is the case at present.
For the situation in Kosovo - I was there myself only last week - is one of chaos, and this must not be allowed to continue for too long.
The resolution rightly points to the problems endured by the Roma in other European countries, some of which are applicant countries.
Only this week, I was confronted with one example of this in the form of a Czech local authority that wants to build a wall somewhere in the city in order to separate the Gypsies from the rest of the population.
It seems to me that actions of this kind are not in keeping with the Copenhagen criteria.
I just wanted to point out that the Roma problem is not one that crops up in Kosovo alone.
The Council of Europe is very active in this area, for every day there are in fact reports of problems somewhere in the world.
I would also urge this Parliament to endeavour to develop a coherent approach and to help to find solutions to the problem on account of the sense of responsibility we all share.
Just shaking a fist does not always solve problems.
Mr Wiersma, I do not hold it against you that you have spoken three times today on the subject of human rights; quite the opposite, we need colleagues in Parliament who will take up this subject.
However, next time, I would request that you do not exceed your speaking time by 100%!
Honoured President, ladies and gentlemen, and Members of the European Commission, this is not the first time since the elections that we have spoken about the situation in Kosovo.
As recently as the last part-session, we talked about reconstruction and we also discussed the situation facing Albanian Kosovars in Serbian jails in the debate on urgent subjects.
I would like to point again to the fact that this situation gives a great deal of cause for concern.
We did adopt this resolution last time but reports have reached me in the meantime to the effect that there has been no improvement whatsoever in the situation.
We really are going to have to keep an eye on this.
It is right and proper that we should be discussing the situation facing the Gypsies in Kosovo today.
I think it is completely unacceptable for any section of the population whatsoever to be disadvantaged and persecuted.
We must take very decisive action against this and I believe that the compromise resolution articulates this in a very balanced and effective manner and also places responsibility where it needs to be placed.
There is no need for me to read it out.
Everyone can read it for themselves and we will see that it is indeed worded very effectively.
Indeed, I have visited Kosovo myself and have spoken to most of the Albanian political leaders there from across the political spectrum including Rugova, Bukoshi and Thaçi.
These people are well aware that they do not always have control of the situation.
I believe this resolution shows our support for them; it is a recommendation and we must help them to put it into practice.
Mr President, Milosevic has long been poisoning the entire region with his racist ideas as regards ethnic minorities.
He has certainly been successful in certain parts of former Yugoslavia.
Radicalisation is underway in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, everywhere, in reaction to his ethno-racist policy.
The Albanians in Kosovo have already been subject to this pressure for a very long time but they have continued to resist it. They have succeeded in this for some time now due in particular to Mr Rugova' s leadership.
But if the oppression continues to increase in its severity and shows no signs of abating and ethnic cleansing takes place, then it is to be expected that radicalisation will be the response met with there too.
In reality this would mean success for Milosevic in terms of his policy, for he would actually like to spread this ethno-racist ideology throughout the region.
We must bring pressure to bear on the Albanians as a matter of urgency and appeal to them not to grant him this success.
This Parliament has always rejected ethnically-based lines of reasoning.
We are on the side of the oppressed in principle and even if the victims of yesterday are the ones holding power today, we will still be on the side of the victims of today.
Everyone knows that this tends to be the Serbs.
Indeed, there are many instances of the Serbs being violently oppressed at the present time, but there is very little attention being given to the Roma.
They easily fall prey to ethnic hatred for no one likes them anywhere.
That is all the more reason to keep this very vulnerable population group within our sights, specifically with the use of this resolution.
KFOR must be afforded the scope and resources it needs to protect the Roma.
There is an urgent need for a fully fledged Kosovan political power that will truly be in a position to guarantee public order, and not by choosing the easy route, that is to say, the division or cantonisation of Kosovo, but by choosing a route that leads to reconciliation.
Kosovo must take the route leading to a constitutional state if it is to achieve this.
Effective public administration must be established.
I know that in that respect Western Europe is doing everything that can be done and this deserves our full support.
This will have to include support and a role for the Yugoslav Tribunal, since justice for all concerned is an essential prerequisite to reconciliation between the various population groups.
The war against Serb ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was a just war.
It was fought in the cause of upholding European values.
The fact that it was to protect a largely Muslim people - the Kosovo Albanians against oppression and genocide by the Christian Serbs showed that such values are independent of, if certainly influenced by, religious belief.
The core of the values we fought for was the right to be different - the right to live in peaceful enjoyment of one' s own culture and identity and to enjoy full civil and political rights and not to be segregated or ghettoised.
It would be a betrayal of those who believed in the morality of the war in Kosovo for us now to tolerate discrimination against any minorities there - whether Serb, the subject of my Group' s amendment, or Roma.
Of course, we can understand bitter grievances and resentments, but we cannot condone summary justice.
We stress here again the need for proper investigation into war crimes.
The success of the Austrian Freedom Party last week threatens to contribute to making dangerously populist and xenophobic views respectable in Europe.
This resolution signals, not least to the Kosovo Albanians, that Europe does not accept xenophobia in any guise.
Europe does not choose to defend certain communities or minorities.
It insists on defending everyone' s human rights.
Thank you very much.
Mrs Hanja Maij-Weggen, has asked me to point out that she would still have liked to mention in her speech the fact that a delegation of Moluccan Dutch nationals is present who have just been following our debate with great interest.
Mr President, the situation in Kosovo is both tragic and dangerous for all ethnic groups, not only for Albanians.
Serbs, Gypsies, Egyptians and Muslims are also victims of the ethnic cleansing operation which the KLA forces have been systematically carrying out for some months now, turning the presence of NATO and KFOR forces to their advantage.
The responsibilities of the European Union and of the so-called international community are great.
Despite our being well aware of the atrocities committed by the KLA, we still nominated its forces to act as a protective body for Kosovo and, at the same time, we purported to be interested in the plight of the Gypsies.
In view of this, we consider the resolution under debate today to be hypocritical. Not only does it omit to outline the responsibilities, but it essentially makes the European Parliament jointly responsible for the terror facing the Serbs and Gypsies in Kosovo.
If Parliament wishes to play its role, it needs to put an end to KLA action, under all its guises, both policing and military.
On capital punishment: during the last three years, a resolution on the death penalty has been passed in the UN Commission on Human Rights with a growing number of co-sponsors.
To take the policy against capital punishment one step further, to consolidate the achievements of the Human Rights Committee and to establish the question of the death penalty on the agenda of the UN General Assembly, the EU Member States have decided to introduce a resolution in the Third Committee during the 54th session of the General Assembly.
It is the objective of the EU to keep the text focused and concise to win as broad a support as possible.
The EU will seek collaboration with other regions and states that share the same vision to arrive at the best possible result.
I noted, and I agreed with, what Mr Dupuis said, that this initiative is not anti-American.
It is pro-human.
On the Moluccas: the Commission follows closely domestic events in Indonesia and shares with honourable Members, the serious concerns about the dramatic inter-religious conflict in the Moluccas and the ensuing injury and loss of life.
The European Union has made it clear to the Indonesian government, on numerous occasions, with particular reference to the Moluccas, that it holds it responsible for law and order throughout Indonesia.
The government is well aware of the Union' s view and acknowledges its responsibilities.
ECHO has been running a project worth EUR 1 m for humanitarian aid to the population in need.
The project covered the supply of drinking water, food and medication.
A renewal is under consideration.
At this moment, Indonesia is undergoing significant political, economic and social changes.
It is hoped that this process will contribute to improving the social climate in particular as regards inter-ethnic and inter-religious tensions.
I heard the debate today and I interpret it as a very mature and very sober contribution to furthering these hopes that what I would call a soft landing for Indonesia and for all the peoples of Indonesia can be obtained.
On Belarus: the Commission is closely following developments in Belarus.
We appreciate the efforts of the Belarus government and opposition to initiate a constructive dialogue in order to agree on acceptable conditions for fair and free elections, and thereby restore the rule of law in the country.
However, the Commission remains concerned about Belarus' s human rights record and in particular about the disappearances of political personalities, most recently Mr Gonchar.
The EU presidency has officially asked the Belorussian authorities to make all efforts to find Mr Gonchar and secure his safety.
This took place on 24 September.
Such developments may well put at risk an agreement between the government and the opposition in the framework of their recently established dialogue.
In a few days the Commission will adopt the TACIS civil society development programme in the slightly amended form agreed informally last June with the Belorussian authorities.
The document will then be formally submitted to the Belorussian authorities for approval.
We trust that the Belorussian authorities will remain committed to the endorsement of the programme.
This will represent the fulfilment of an important political benchmark set by the EU last April.
Only the fulfilment of the EU' s political benchmarks will allow the EU to gradually normalise relations with Belarus.
Among these, human rights have a significant weight alongside free access to the media, an end to harassment of the opposition, constructive dialogue between opposition and government and endorsement of the TACIS civil society development programme.
On the resolutions on abuses of Roma and Serbs in Kosovo I have the following remarks.
The Commission fully shares the concerns expressed in these resolutions.
The Commission and the EU have been clear from the outset in our condemnation of all ethnic violence whoever the perpetrator and whoever the victim.
It is as unacceptable now against the Serb and Roma minorities as it was when carried out against the Kosovars until some months ago.
The Commission continues through its assistance programmes in the field of democratisation and human rights to support confidence-building measures and dialogue between the different communities.
We already did so, though unfortunately without enough success, before the conflict and now in the changed circumstances this continues to be one of the priorities in selecting projects.
Furthermore the Commission, through ECHO, provides humanitarian assistance in favour of the victims of the Kosovo crisis, including the Serb and Roma minorities.
We fully support the efforts of KFOR to maintain law and order in Kosovo and to protect all citizens.
We fully support the efforts of UNMIK to establish a functioning civil administration which would take over policing functions from KFOR, and to create a peaceful multi-ethnic society which would set about the task of rebuilding Kosovo and its society.
UNMIK has approached the Commission for support for the Kosovo protection corps.
Member States will decide in the coming weeks on the Commission' s proposed programme in this regard.
We call on all others within and outside Kosovo to also support these aims and to support UNMIK and KFOR in their work to achieve them.
We too oppose any cantonisation of Kosovo.
Kosovo must become a multi-ethnic society without distinction or discrimination on ethnic or any other grounds.
Mr President, I wonder if the Commission can support the proposal I submitted, to the effect that the EU should call a meeting with OSCE representatives in order to have a special discussion specifically about the Roma' s position and involving everyone who is active locally there.
I would appeal to the Commissioner at least to pass on my message to his colleagues and to Mr Hombach.
I will convey the wish you have expressed concerning such a meeting, but I would also add that the existing organisational set-up is very comprehensive in its complexity.
Most of the problems we are facing will fit in somewhere in the framework established concerning the organisation of support and the re-establishment of society in Kosovo.
So I think the issue will come up in one place or another, but I will convey your wish to them.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Aviation accident at Ustica
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0138/99 by Ms Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica;
B5-0148/99 by Mssrs Procacci and Haarder, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica (Italy) on 27 June 1980;
B5-0156/99 by Mr Barón Crespo and others, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica;
B5-0160/99, by Mssrs Di Lello Finuoli and Manisco, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the Ustica attack of 27 June 1980;
B5-0162/99, by Mr Celli and others, on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica on 27 June 1980;
B5-0176/99, by Mr Bodrato and Ms Grossetête, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the aviation accident at Ustica.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it really is very important that a debate is taking place on the Ustica massacre here today.
It will take on particular importance if Parliament manages to exercise an appropriate political and practical role which will help shed light on this sombre event and bring justice for the 81 victims and their families who, for more than 19 years, have been waiting to find out what happened, why it happened, and who was responsible.
I said that more than 19 years have passed and there have been several inquiries by the Italian magistracy, but not even the last inquiry overseen by Judge Priore, while very noteworthy, has provided truly satisfactory answers.
Was it a missile launched during air combat which destroyed the aircraft or was it a bomb planted inside? Unfortunately, a great deal, indeed too much evidence has been concealed or destroyed and it would be an oversimplification to place the blame for this tragedy only on the top ranks of the army, who generally speaking, only follow orders.
Obviously, the real blame lies elsewhere, in particular at the door of the high level Italian representatives of government and politicians of the time.
What inconvenient facts, what political manoeuvrings were covered up in the interests of National Security? In fact there have been numerous unanswered questions regarding the complex international events of those years.
On the one hand, the great world powers - USA and USSR - were at diplomatic breaking point, and on the other hand, there was a progressive deterioration in relations between the Atlantic Alliance and some Islamic countries, Libya in particular, while in Italy, the far left in particular, was continually calling into question Italy' s participation in NATO.
Finally, what is the link between the Ustica massacre and the one that happened around a month later at Bologna train station?
We have tabled a motion for a resolution to underline the importance of these factors, factors which, however, were not mentioned once in the joint motion for a resolution.
Nevertheless, while we consider that the joint motion for a resolution leans too far towards the air missile hypothesis rather than towards an internal bomb, and above all, while we believe this motion to be far too kind and diplomatic towards the Italian political authorities, we agree on the need to request the cooperation of all the Member States of the European Union in finally providing everything necessary for an appropriate and adequate detailed examination of the inquiries, so that those who did this, the instigators and the motives behind this absurd massacre can be identified.
Mr President, the Ustica question is one of the darkest legal episodes in not only Italian, but I would say especially, European history.
Over the past 19 years, we have seen numerous dramatic turns of events regarding the investigations to establish the truth that has still not emerged which, it appears, is also down to those involved preventing this happening and riding roughshod over the legal rights of the victims' families and over our basic democratic principles.
We do not want to apply a political interpretation or allow anyone to exploit a tragedy which has caused so much suffering.
Let us leave it to the magistracy to ascertain the truth which is the right of everyone, not only of the victims' relatives.
In addition to the results obtained recently by the Italian magistracy, I do not know whether, in the future, there will or will not be other scenarios which, in recent years, we have unfortunately become used to owing to the legal events of Ustica. But today, we are faced with a judgement which outlines the hypothesis of the participation of aircraft from different countries during the disaster of 27 June 1980.
And so Parliament must make a firm request to the Member States and the United States to cooperate in finding the truth.
It is certainly significant for our institution to promote an action which aims to protect...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, as you can see, it is almost exclusively Members elected in Italy who are speaking, and this is significant. Various colleagues from other countries have asked me - what is Ustica?
Why the urgency? This is a question, or rather, these are two very reasonable questions.
Ustica, as perhaps a lot of people know, is a small island in the South Tyrrhenian Sea. Why this urgency though?
It does not spring from something that has happened now but from something serious which happened almost twenty years ago.
The urgency is because an Italian deputy Public Prosecutor has issued a judgement which identifies the high-level air force authorities as being to blame for covering things up, keeping quiet and not saying what they knew, which prevented the truth coming to light about what happened almost twenty years ago.
So what happened? An aeroplane left my city, Bologna, two hours late but never reached its destination, Palermo.
It was hit, so several parties say, by a missile during an aggressive act which took place nearby.
Well, immediately afterwards, in the following days, weeks and years, there ensued an extraordinary criminal course of events which aimed to conceal the evidence, to silence people and to ensure that the truth did not come out.
Why was all this done? This is why we need to take up this subject again today, as the course of Italian justice has entered the final and perhaps overdue stage of its inquiries.
We are asking the Member States - because they say aircraft from one of the Member States or NATO might have been involved in that act of war - to help with information, which there is no longer any reason to keep confidential, concealed or secret, so that we really can bring the facts to light and the whole truth can be told.
After all, the relatives of the 81 victims are asking for nothing more than to know the truth and to see that justice be done.
I think this is not just an Italian internal affair, but is a service to the whole of European democracy.
Mr President, on the night of 27 June 1980, off the coast of Ustica, 81 innocent European citizens who were flying from Bologna to Palermo, lost their lives in the course of a military operation which involved the civilian airliner in which they were travelling.
A few minutes after the disaster, the military and secret service machinery of the countries concerned - with the Italians leading the way - were already putting in place a huge and disgraceful operation to conceal, if not destroy, the evidence to prevent the legal authorities ascertaining what really happened in the skies over Ustica.
The European Union and its Parliament have the institutional duty to protect the interests of the European citizens and not those of individual governments, NATO or the United States.
The European citizens, including the 81 European families of the victims of Ustica, have the right to demand all our help in bringing justice to bear.
And so it is our duty to ask for the States involved in the disaster to be put under pressure to say all they know.
This is also of the greatest interest to us because this is the only way to prevent something similar happening again in European skies, and not only in European skies.
Over the next five years, we are committed to creating a common area of freedom, security and justice.
Ascertaining the truth on the Ustica disaster would be a major first step along this path.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Ustica tragedy - with more than 80 dead, almost 20 years of inquiries and more than 15 victims linked to this tragedy either during or after the inquiries - brings to mind three crucial points: the transparency, accountability and arrogance of a certain type of military power, but not only military power.
In order to perhaps understand this tragedy better, I will also refer to the tragedy which occurred at Cermis in the Dolomites, where an American military plane cut through a cablecar cable. Twenty people plunged to the ground in the cablecar and died.
In this case, we know what happened because the plane was seen, but up till now, even in the Cermis tragedy, it is still not at all clear where the blame lies.
Firstly, I wonder whether Italy, despite it being strategically important in Europe, is the best place to carry out military experiments, tests or even training.
In my opinion, the Nevada desert is much more suitable because Italy has too many inhabitants.
And it has to be said that the victims' loved ones have the right to know why, how and when their children, parents or relatives died, and to this end, we join them in asking for help and complete transparency.
The Governments of Italy, France, Great Britain and the United States as well as the Secretary-General of the UN must help us to shed light on these tragedies, especially the Ustica tragedy.
Mr President, after almost twenty years and despite the commitment of the Italian magistracy and the association of the victims' families, we still do not know the truth about the Ustica tragedy, a tragedy which affected Italian public opinion and also the wider European public opinion.
The inquiries were made more difficult by the reticence and lack of cooperation shown by some countries, including countries which are Members of the European Union as well as the very Alliance which guaranteed security in Europe during those years.
The mystery which continues to surround the catastrophe has ended up casting serious doubts on Italy' s democratic life and its very independence.
Now, a judgement made by the Italian magistracy has outlined various scenarios which provide for military operations along the very route taken by the DC9 that disappeared into the Mediterranean that evening.
Transparency is therefore an issue.
Transparency is a value which this Parliament referred to decisively during the first weeks of its activities and the public has the right to trust both political and military institutions.
However, we believe that it is right for the European Parliament to ask the Member States - which can participate in ascertaining the truth - to provide the magistracy with all the documentation necessary to definitively identify who was to blame.
This is the moral and political significance of this joint resolution and is the reason for the urgency.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in 1980 something happened in Italy, the scale of which, in terms of numbers of victims, made it a disaster.
As is typical of Italian justice, 19 years later, nothing has yet been said with any certainty.
In relation to this grave episode - and the previous speakers highlighted this - secrecy and doubts have surrounded military bodies, institutions, governments and nations for two decades.
The lack of certainty encourages prejudices and vague judgements.
The victims, their families and the entire international community have the right to uncover the truth, not in twenty years or more but as quickly as possible.
This Parliament must oblige all the States concerned and individual institutions to close this chapter, which is one of the many Italian mysteries where the truth is never found, and which has seen high level involvement and assistance.
The Italian and international communities will be grateful to this Parliament and they will regain confidence in the institutions. This will honour the memory of the many innocent victims.
Mr President, today' s debate in this House is also an opportunity to highlight the extremely serious and unjustified delay of a magistracy measure arriving after twenty years of inquiries.
This delay has displayed a serious disrespect for the great desire for truth, not only of the victims' relatives but also of those entire communities which have been involved in this tragic event.
So naturally, while I join the invitation extended to those countries which were involved to cooperate in establishing the truth, I would also ask the European Parliament not to forget this event at this most delicate time of public debate in order to ascertain the truth. Therefore, I ask Parliament to use its representatives and bodies to continue to monitor events so that this tragedy will finally reach a just and honest conclusion, as requested by the Italian and European communities in their entirety.
Mr President, we are in favour of this debate being dealt with on a European as well as an international level, because we think that the Ustica question, with its fatalities and the controversy left in its wake, which are still an issue in our country, deserves to be clarified, and must be clarified.
If we all want to be European citizens, if we want a shared destiny, we must not regard this as just an Italian matter but as a matter for the international community, and it must be investigated and resolved at this level.
We are asking for military activities to be definitively and transparently coordinated with civilian activities. This is the transparency that citizens are asking for, this is the justice we want, this is the sense of justice that is being requested by the citizens, by the people who have suffered this grave loss as well as by the entire international community.
We are asking, therefore, for serious cooperation between political and military activities. We are asking for justice to be done.
Just as Cermis was not only an Italian matter and was dealt with at an international level, so Ustica deserves to be discussed here. It deserves to be clarified and it deserves our respect, as does the work of the magistracy, which must get to the heart of the matter, clarify blame and charge those responsible.
The Commission deplores this tragedy and hopes that investigations carried out by the Italian authorities can be conducted with full transparency and equity.
The Commission shares the concern of the honourable Members, and calls on the Member States to collaborate with the Italian authorities to bring together all available evidence to help clarify the causes of the disaster.
Concerning the rules on safety of military air traffic, the Commission recalls at present the Community has no powers in this field.
It is for the Member States to take the necessary measures.
However, the Commission is well aware that the joint use of airspace by various users, civil and military, may be at the root of safety problems, as it is already partly responsible for air traffic delays and congestion.
This is why the Commission has advocated in the past, in its White Paper on freeing European airspace, that European airspace should be managed centrally by a strong international organisation for all aspects of its use.
Moreover, the Commission felt it was better to entrust this task to Eurocontrol rather than to a Community body, because national governments might find it easier to allow that organisation to play such a role in the military use of airspace.
At the request of the Council, the Commission is preparing a communication on air traffic delays and congestion and will certainly address this question again and propose initiatives in the field of airspace management.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11.30 a.m.
Nuclear accident in Japan
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0141/99 by Mr Maaten and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on recent accidents at nuclear power plant and shipments of dangerous substances;
B5-0150/99 by Ms McNally, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the accident at the Tokaimura nuclear power processing plant in Japan;
B5-0161/99 by Mr Papayannakis and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the nuclear accident in Japan;
B5-0165/99 by Ms Ahern and others, on behalf of the Greens/EFA Group, on the major nuclear accident in Japan and MOX shipments;
B5-0171/99 by Ms Grossetête and others, on behalf of the PPE Group, on the nuclear accident in Tokaimura, Japan.
All accidents are tragic for individual people and, of course, we extend sympathy to the workers involved in the incident at Tokaimura, their families and the 300,000 local people who were subjected to intense fear and worry for several days.
Accidents occur in all industries, and we have just seen an appalling train crash in the UK this week.
But accidents in nuclear installations, especially criticality accidents, are the most feared of all accidents.
Rare though they are for obvious reasons, the potential consequences to very large numbers of people are extremely serious.
That is why the nuclear industry has to be more careful than other industries.
It will not survive as an industry unless the public believe in a strongly instilled and strictly enforced safety culture.
Now that culture was breached quite clearly at Tokaimura this week.
There will be an investigation.
We hope and expect that the findings will be shared with us so that any lessons can be enforced everywhere where nuclear activities take place.
Workers in the industry expect this, and the public most certainly does.
Nuclear activity requires emergency plans, spot checks by independent inspectors and factoring-in of the possibility of error or negligence.
That costs money but it has to be done.
All installations in the supply chain are part of safety requirements.
Any weak link is dangerous.
A wide-ranging investigation and a public explanation are required by those whose concerns have been justifiably raised by this very serious incident indeed in Japan.
Mr President, the accident in Japan has again reminded us of the very great risks associated with nuclear power.
Again, it was human error which caused the accident but, as human beings, we are made in such a way that we easily make mistakes.
It is this which is the big risk in connection with nuclear power.
The export of MOX from Sellafield in Great Britain means that both Great Britain and the EU are involved in this problem. That is why I personally share the points of view expressed in the draft amendments submitted by the Greens.
We in the Liberal Group do not, however, consider that they are sufficiently at home with this issue.
We shall therefore abstain in the vote.
Mr President, the accident which has just happened in Japan shows that nuclear power can never be completely safe.
Even in a technologically very advanced system, the so-called human factor plays a decisive role.
The resolution which has been produced is a good one, even if I should like to have seen it go further still in the positions it adopts.
An example of this is point 9, because it ought to be obvious that one should not have reprocessing contracts with countries which do not comply with international standards.
As we all know, Japan is one of the world' s technologically most developed countries.
Nuclear power and the way in which nuclear fuel is handled are probably, all in all, no less safe in Japan than they are in our own countries.
It may be worth remembering this when we happily criticise unsafe nuclear energy in other countries but do so less readily in the case of our own countries.
All that is, in fact, completely certain is the fact that one can never be certain that nuclear power is completely safe.
President, our hearts go out to the two radiation workers who were subjected to intense radiation poisoning and to the 300,000 people who were in terror as radiation levels skyrocketed.
All over the world nuclear authorities insist that an accident like that in Japan could not happen anywhere else.
Different processes will ensure that the chain reactions do not start.
But in Britain, BNFL has recently admitted the falsifications of safety checks on MOX fuel while in Japan the authorities have found that the plant at Tokaimura was operating illegally for four years.
The nuclear industry is clearly out of control.
The PPE and PSE refuse to acknowledge a link with the BNFL MOX shipments to Japan.
Perhaps here we see the long arm of Mr Blair, but the falsification of such data is of concern to Europe.
There is a link - MOX shipments to Japan are under EU safeguards controls.
If both ends of the chain are operating illegally, we must not only halt all MOX shipments but we must also halt the production of MOX fuel.
I have to say here today that we must also stop blaming workers, workers who are now under sentence of death for the illegal and criminal activities of the nuclear industry.
We have been told time and time again that stringent controls are in place, that accidents cannot happen and that fail-safe systems are in place and then when anything happens, we are told it is the fault of the workers.
This is not only injuring people but also adding insult to injury.
It is time that the nuclear industry was shut down completely.
That, of course, is our position.
But is this latest accident the death rattle of the nuclear industry or must further nuclear terror happen before we close this monstrous industry down?
Mr President, a nuclear accident always provokes highly emotional reactions, fear and even irrational terror.
The events in Chernobyl affected our mood for a long time.
But in Tokaimura, the Japanese authorities have themselves recognised that the safety procedures, both in the conversion plant and in the fuel production plant, had not been followed.
It was therefore not an unforeseeable accident.
Apart from our sympathy and friendship towards the families affected by this drama, what are the lessons and consequences to be drawn from this accident? The first lesson is clearly that it is imperative that the European and national authorities in each of our States deal with the question of safety procedures.
Secondly, it seems very clear to me that the IAEA should intervene more regularly, not only to verify the text of the regulations, which it does too often, but also to do what it has not done often enough, that is, to go to the site to verify that the regulations are really being applied.
In the case of Tokaimura, the IAEA should, in any case, ask the Japanese authorities not to authorise the resumption of reprocessing activities before a thorough investigation is carried out and before public and transparent conclusions are published.
For us, the European Parliament, it seems to us more necessary than ever that the European Commission, within the framework of its Euratom competences, not only lends its assistance to Japan in the current circumstances, but also asks the Euratom services to carry out a complete analysis of the official safety regulations for our power stations, and around our power stations, in Europe. In this way, it would be in a position to ascertain whether all the safety conditions are being respected and to know whether further urgency procedures can be added in the case of regrettable human negligence, which are ultimately much worse or at least they have been in the last few years, than the unforeseeable accident which, by definition, can spread terror.
We are in favour, Mr President, of the use of nuclear energy and we know that, in the European Union, the safety rules and conditions are stricter and more respected.
Or at least we are told, for example, that the initiation of a nuclear chain reaction as a result of faulty handling by an operator is practically impossible in Europe.
This is what happened in Tokaimura.
We wish to avoid two pitfalls, Mr President.
On the one hand, the blind, unconditional and uncontrolled support for nuclear energy.
But also on the other hand, the manipulation by too many people of public opinion in order to spread irrational fears and terrors which were well known a thousand years ago.
These were the famous millennium fears of the year 1000.
Today, they are the fears on the eve of the year 2000.
No, nuclear power does not kill any more than a traditional source such as coal has killed and still kills.
That is the purpose of our resolution today.
Two accidents have focused our attention over the last ten days.
The first was in Tokaimura in which some 45 people were injured and 3 are in a critical condition in hospital.
The second, was the rail crash in London which involved a train taking hundreds of people from the capital to the region of England I represent, in which 70 died and 200 were injured.
While I wish to think of the individuals and families of those who died or were injured in the railway accident, I am afraid that the two accidents are very different.
Accidents in transport systems can endanger the lives of hundreds of people.
Unfortunately, a nuclear accident can affect potentially hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people.
Mrs McNally made the point that near Tokyo, in Tokaimura, 300,000 people were confined to their homes.
It appears that the accident was not as severe as we first thought.
As a former Japanese civil servant, and as a member of the Japanese delegation for the last 15 years, I wish to put on our record, however, our concern for the victims of this accident in Japan.
I want to make three political points: firstly, it is very clear that human error or human stupidity is continually with us in all areas of endeavour.
We cannot trust individuals.
In Tokaimura, it would appear either that the workers - with the active collusion of management or owing to the failure of management to enforce regulations - were breaching regulations that were there in the interest of nuclear safety.
There are stories that there was actually an illegal handbook produced by the management telling workers to operate in this way.
The swift action of the Japanese police going into the company may enable us to establish whether that is the case.
If it was the case, it demonstrates the truth of Nietzche' s dictum that madness is rare in individuals but common in parties, groups and organisations, which is why we need individual, independent monitoring of what goes on in nuclear plants.
We need someone to guard those people from their own stupidity and errors.
Secondly, it is clear that there is a lack of emergency planning.
Thirdly, we have to say that we should be offering assistance to the Japanese if they request it.
Finally, two factual corrections; firstly, our Amendment No 6 makes it clear, when we are calling for the plant not to be reopened until an investigation has taken place, that we are talking about the conversion plant and not the reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, which is a separate plant on a separate site operated by a separate company...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the accident in Japan is, of course, something we must also concern ourselves with here in Europe for at least two reasons. Firstly, it has created uncertainty about the safety of nuclear power.
Now Japan is planning to build 20 additional reactors between now and the year 2010 and to make itself enormously dependent on nuclear energy.
It is therefore unacceptable that neither Japan' s own people nor the rest of the world have been provided with adequate information, and their failure to involve the IAEA in the investigation is equally unacceptable.
Of course, it should actually be standard international practice to involve the IAEA when accidents of this kind occur.
Secondly, nuclear MOX fuel is shipped from Europe, for example from Cherbourg and Sellafield, to Japan.
Apart from the problem of what may happen to it out at sea, British Nuclear Fuel has admitted that safety data relating to MOX shipments has been falsified.
Of course that just cannot be allowed to happen and is every bit as unacceptable.
I would like, in due course, to hear from the Commission about what kind of European Union regulations are applicable to such shipments.
Mr President, I would like to put some questions to the Commission.
In my view, the accident in Japan demonstrated, first of all, that nuclear energy is not safe. When are the safety levels actually determined?
How many victims were there at the time of the Chernobyl accident and how many are there today, about ten years on? Safety levels cannot be measured at the time of the accident.
A nuclear accident is not the same as a train accident.
In time, the effects magnify and they cannot be reversed quite so easily.
Secondly, just how cheap is nuclear energy, Commissioner?
Will the nuclear industry pay the initial cost of research and development which the military, i.e. the taxpayers, had to pay? Does the nuclear industry pay for the cost of the accidents when they affect areas and sections of the population on a much wider scale?
Of course, it would work out cheap if it did not have to bear all those costs.
This is why I believe that it is time to turn a new leaf, to change existing policy.
It would take decades to close down all the nuclear plants.
Let us capitalise on this time and concentrate our efforts on the other sources of energy we have been discussing here. Let us discourage the establishment of new nuclear plants, particularly in areas which are not as safe as Japan such as the ones now under preparation in Turkey, in Akkyu, or in Thrace.
How can we dare to encourage such dangerous investments?
Mr President, when we have spoken in recent years on the use of nuclear power to produce electricity, we have always made reference to the hazardous eastern reactors which are of Russian design.
Self-declared opponents of nuclear power have drawn the distinction between the relatively safe reactors of the West and these reactors.
The Japanese have said, just as the Europeans are doing today, that their reactors are safe and that a chain reaction could not occur.
The facts tell us otherwise.
Today, after these two bad accidents, the one in Japan and the other South Korea, we have to recognise that drawing this distinction between high-risk nuclear reactors and supposedly non-risk nuclear reactors was a serious strategic error.
All nuclear reactors have a risk attached to them, to say nothing of the fact that the permanent disposal of nuclear waste is not safe in any area.
In view of the fact that such nuclear accidents do not stop at national borders, now would be an opportune time to explain to the accession candidates to the European Union that if they choose to continue with their risky nuclear policy - I am thinking here of Temelin, Krsko, Bohunice and Mohovce - which are a threat to the entire European Union, then accession should not, and cannot, be granted under these circumstances.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, once again we are faced with a nonsensical disaster, and we are powerless to intervene.
The nuclear accident of 30 September in the private nuclear power plant in Japan proved once more that the use of nuclear energy is dangerous and that it is imperative that we establish tough safety specifications.
Of course, what is particularly noticeable is the fact that for a country with 51 reactors and an undertaking to establish a further 20, it does not have the appropriate knowledge and experience to deal with such events.
Thirteen years after the great Chernobyl disaster, this nightmarish history seems to be repeating itself.
In the immediate future, we shall find ourselves grieving for yet more innocent victims.
Despite all that, instead of being ousted from the world energy market on environmental and financial grounds, the nuclear power industry is still continuing to expand
The issue is a critical one and public opinion is sufficiently sensitive to it.
The European Parliament, as a representative of European public opinion, has a duty to take heed of the messages and react accordingly.
The objective of sustainable development stipulated in the Treaty of Amsterdam has once again provoked deep concern and forced us to rethink what we are doing.
Current trends show that milder and renewable energy sources are increasingly becoming the only solution to the energy problem of post-industrial society.
The Commission shares the concern of the European Parliament and others about the accident at the uranium processing plant in Japan.
That an accident such as this could happen in a technologically developed country such as Japan once again makes it very clear that nuclear safety requires great and constant vigilance everywhere.
Another major concern is that in a facility handling such hazardous materials the operators were able to interfere with or bypass the procedures designed to avoid such accidents.
This, in particular, highlights the question of the overall safety culture of the plant and the level of training of the personnel as well as the importance of rapid dissemination of information.
The Commission has already asked the Japanese authorities for detailed information on the accident and its causes.
The authorities have launched an enquiry.
This will undoubtedly address the issues of regulation, safety procedures, supervision and worker training.
The Commission will most carefully examine the report of this enquiry for lessons to be learnt in Europe.
In the light of these, it will in due course review its emergency procedures.
Poor safety management in combination with inadequate training or poorly qualified personnel appears to have been a very important factor in this as in many accidents.
In the European Union, Member States' national authorities must require undertakings to inform exposed workers and apprentices of the health risks involved in their work and train them in radiation protection.
The Commission will enquire of Member States what their latest provisions are for radiation protection and training of workers.
The Commission will also undertake a review of the present levels of training in nuclear safety for operators and other workers in the different types of nuclear facilities in the European Union.
Research on safety culture in the nuclear sector is already included in the research and training part of the Community' s Fifth Framework Programme.
Research on nuclear reactor safety is also included in the programme, though at a lower level of funding than previously.
The Commission will respond positively to any request for assistance from the Japanese authorities in managing or exploring the consequences of the accident.
The Commission services will remain in close contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency to exchange information and analysis and, if necessary, provide support for follow-up activities.
The issues raised in the motions concerning the manufacture, transport and use of mixed oxide - the MOX fuel - are unrelated to the accident at the Tokaimura plant.
The questions relating to inspection of the fuel at the Sellafield MOX plant are within the competence of the national authorities and have been reported to the UK nuclear installations inspectorate.
There was no question of any of the material being removed from safeguards control.
Transport of MOX fuel is performed under the control of national authorities in the countries of origin and destination, taking into account the appropriate Community legislation and IAEA standards.
As the MOX fuel shipped to Japan is ready for use in the nuclear power reactors without any further processing, it will not pass through the Tokaimura facility.
Concerning the use of MOX fuel in nuclear power plants, this is a decision made by the individual electrical utility after licensing by their national safety authorities.
VOTES
The first item is the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance
Mr President, I have a point of order to make.
A characteristic of urgent procedures is that they are urgent and, as a rule, we receive the approved amended texts with the Minutes on Friday morning.
I wanted to ask you whether these texts will be available here in Strasbourg by tomorrow morning, in which case I would pick them up or will they otherwise be vailable this afternoon?
At the moment I can only assure you that the texts will be available electronically this afternoon.
Motion for Resolution (B5-0188/99) on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on climate change: preparing for implementation of the Kyoto protocol
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Explanations of vote
According to the definition in the Kyoto protocol, only forests established in non-forested areas after 1990 can be considered as carbon sinks.
Under this method of calculation, only 1 to 3% of the network of European forest can be taken into account.
The present definition of 'carbon sink' in forest is inappropriate for the European practice of forest regeneration.
This is a matter of the utmost importance.
If we really want to combat climate change and not just develop measures which have nothing to do with the environment, we should accept the overall carbon stock of forests as a carbon sink.
- There must be full cooperation of all the Member States within the European Union if we are to play our full part in reducing the level of greenhouse emissions which are presently playing such a destructive role within our global environment.
We owe it to future generations to take seriously the long-term implications of the uncontrolled emissions of CO2 and their impact on the environment.
I welcome the fact that EU Environment Ministers have agreed to reduce the EU' s emission of six greenhouse gases by 8% between the years 2008 and 2012.
The figures agreed will permit Ireland only to increase emissions by 13% relative to 1990 figures.
The European Parliament too, has worked hard in implementing legislation which reduces the use of CO2 gases.
For example, the EU' s new directive on regulating pollutants obliges oil companies to sign up to ensuring that the sulphur content in cars is cut three-fold and that the sulphur content in diesel is cut seven-fold by the year 2005.
If the overall social, human and environmental benefits of clean air are to be secured, then the standards laid down by the EU' s recent directive on vehicle emissions and fuel quality must be strictly adhered to.
There must be maximum cooperation between the EU Member State governments and all interested bodies so that a reduction in the use of CO2 becomes a reality.
I welcome the debates which took place this week in the European Parliament on the uses of alternative energy resources.
The Irish government has brought out a Green Paper on Sustainable Energy which is to be given special status within our National Development Plan for the period 2000-2006.
This Green Paper discusses the framework for reducing CO2 emissions within all sectors of our society.
More funding must be put aside for alternative energy resources and there is also an anticipation that there will be a switch from the use of solid fuel and oil to natural gas and renewable energy sources and power generation in the future.
This plan also proposes measures targeted at various consumer sectors which are designed to enhance energy awareness expertise and practice in areas such as appliance purchasing, use of energy in the home, building installations, heating systems, energy management in industry, the services sector and the public sector.
I want to stress that the publication of the Green Paper on sustainable energy in Ireland should be viewed as a positive contribution to the debate on how we deal with climate change threat within the energy sector.
- This motion for a resolution calls, inter alia, for a kerosene tax and for kilometre charges for motor cars.
I believe that these measures are damaging and unnecessary in themselves, and in any case I am opposed in principle to taxes being set at the European level.
I affirm that fiscal policy is exclusively a matter for individual Member States.
In view of the position of my political group in this matter, I feel unable to oppose the resolution outright, and I shall therefore abstain.
- (FR) I am voting in favour of this report because it is urgent that the European Union takes specific decisions to combat the greenhouse effect.
However, the reference, in point G, to "flexibility mechanisms" is unacceptable to me because the principle of organising a market for the right to pollute would be scandalous.
The "right to pollute" should not be for sale and the richer countries should not be able to side-step the common law by means of a payment or transaction.
It is they above all, who should have the means to conform to the necessary constraints in order to improve the environment.
Everything possible must be done to ensure that each operator will make the greatest possible reduction in its pollution, guaranteeing that the minimum effort laid down is carried out by all parties.
Market regulations should not replace the requirements of the law - and therefore the duties - which apply to everyone.
This is a crucial choice of society which is fundamental to European identity.
In this respect too, we are making serious concessions to American and liberal ideas which, however, have proved to be ineffective in terms of protecting the planet and to be unfair.
Europe has not been able to prevent the establishment of this principle in Kyoto, however it is in no way obliged to implement it in its own territory.
Finally, I hope that we will be able to resist it.
- (SV) I should like to give the following explanation of my vote.
I could not, for the following reasons, vote for the resolution concerning climate changes and the way in which the Kyoto conference as a whole is to be followed up.
The resolution contains nothing about which particular consequences for the climate the unreasonable development of nuclear power has.
In my home country, Sweden, the parliament has decided to phase out nuclear power by closing an extremely dependable nuclear power station, Barsebäck on the Sound.
According to calculations made, closing this power station will increase carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 3.5 million metric tons per year.
This more than doubles Sweden' s contribution to overall CO2 emissions from electricity production.
This unwise strategy in my own country has also meant that Sweden has negotiated for itself a quota within the EU, on account of the EU' s commitments following the Kyoto Conference, as a result of which carbon dioxide emissions in Sweden have been permitted to increase by 4%.
This is extremely regrettable and remarkable, considering that the EU' s responsibility after Kyoto is to reduce CO2 emissions by a total of 8%.
Because these important facts were not dealt with in the resolution, I could not support it.
. (FR) To drastically reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases in the rich countries is a duty of solidarity towards future generations, but also towards the peoples of the developing countries who will suffer more and more from natural disasters caused by global warming.
The Kyoto protocol sets targets in this respect which are still very limited.
Only radical public interventions will allow the environment to be protected.
In each country, action must be taken without waiting for hypothetical international agreements.
The question of road transport offers an example of this.
It also demonstrates the need not to limit this issue to a national level and to develop a battle strategy on a European scale.
That concludes the vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was adjourned at 12.05 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 7 October 1999.
I cannot quite place your intervention, Mr Bethell, in the framework of the Rules of Procedure.
I think it was supposed to be a procedural motion, but was not in fact.
Nonetheless, I take note of your wise advice.
Agenda
The next item is the inspection of the final version of the draft agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
Regarding Thursday' s sitting:
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has requested that the Commission statement on British beef be brought forward to Thursday.
I must clarify that the reason why we decided at the Conference of Presidents to schedule this debate for Friday was, of course, to take into account the meeting of the Committee of Experts scheduled for the previous day, i.e. Thursday.
I felt it necessary to clarify this point, without wanting to prejudice the decision of the House in any way.
Madam President, I should like to speak on behalf of my colleague, Miss Lynne, who sadly has injured her shoulder, having fallen down the stairs here while showing people how dangerous a particular set of stairs was!
Miss Lynne would have asked that we be allowed to close the debate on the question of British beef with motions for a resolution from the various political groups.
I would like to make that proposal that the political groups be invited to submit motions for a resolution to close the debate on British beef.
Thank you, Mr Watson.
Firstly, please convey my sympathy and best wishes for a speedy recovery to Miss Lynne.
There are two aspects involved here: we already had the problem of the lifts. As far as the stairs are concerned, that is quite a different problem, and we shall be looking into things.
I would like us to proceed in order, as I do not quite follow.
I had two requests. The first was for the debate scheduled for Friday to be brought forward to Thursday.
This is the request which you should be speaking in favour of, first of all, on behalf of your Group, and I shall therefore give you the floor.
Madam President, my apologies for not being clearer the first time I spoke.
Our initial demand was to bring the debate forward to Thursday.
However, we understand now that the reason the Commission wished to make the statement on Friday was because on Thursday there is a meeting of the Veterinary Committee which will look at this matter, and so the Commission will therefore be in a position to give further information on Friday.
We welcome this but we would also like to ask that Members have the possibility of putting down motions for a resolution to close the debate.
In other words, if I understand you correctly, in the light of the argument I suggested, you are withdrawing your request to bring the debate forward.
On the other hand, you are maintaining your request for the submission of motions for resolutions at the end of the debate.
Is there a speaker against this request?
Madam President, instead of the empty gestures that we are getting from the Liberals and the British Conservatives on the issue of British beef, can we hear what the Commission has to say on Friday.
Then, at some stage, in the future, Parliament can table an oral question with debate, where we can have a resolution to wind up the debate.
What we want on Friday is a clear statement from Mr Byrne as to the legality of the document produced by the French Government.
I expect that it will vindicate British beef.
What we then want is for the Commission to take action or the French Government to back down and allow the free movement of goods through the European Union.
At this stage there is no need for Parliament to have a resolution.
I wish that other British Members would stop the cheap politics that we are seeing this week in this House.
(Applause from the left)
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been approached with a request from the Liberal Group for the submission of motions for resolutions and a vote on these at the close of the debate on British beef.
(Parliament rejected the request)
Madam President, it should be said at this particular stage that it was the British Conservatives, the EPP, who asked for this item to be put on the agenda on Friday simply because, as Mr Watson has said, the Commission will only be ready on Friday morning.
I therefore reject the allegations of Mr Donnelly.
British Conservatives were in favour of making sure that we have free commerce in the European Union.
We want to make the internal market work and have British beef bought on the continent.
It is my very great pleasure to cordially welcome Mr Dehaene who does us the honour of attending in the visitors' gallery to hear our debates prior to his own statement on Wednesday.
(Loud applause)
Still on the subject of Thursday' s sitting, I have a request from the Group of the European People' s Party to bring the question for oral answer on the European Union-Morocco fisheries agreement forward to Thursday.
At the moment, this point is included on the order of business for Friday.
Who wishes to speak in favour of this request?
Madam President, it was always the wish of our colleagues in the Committee on Fisheries that we should no longer only ever discuss fisheries issues on Fridays, and we have heard that there is still sufficient time on Thursday afternoon to discuss one issue.
Given that relations with Morocco are of such great importance, not just in general terms, but also with regard to the area of fisheries policy, we are pleased that there is time on a Thursday to give an issue like this its due importance.
I would be grateful if we could show a relatively united front in deciding on this.
Is there a speaker against this request by the Group of the European People' s Party?
There is no speaker against, and I can further confirm that it would be possible to include this item in the order of business for Thursday.
(Parliament gave its assent)
The question for oral answer is therefore entered at the end of the order of business for Thursday.
(The order of business was adopted thus amended)
Madam President, I am sorry, but I was getting Tuesday and Wednesday confused.
I would be most grateful if you could advise me whether it would be possible for the Council, before the vote on the report on Kosovo - which we have urged should take place - to at last provide its comments on Parliament' s amendments, following which we will then be able to hold the final vote.
We had made a written request for the Council to be present, for it to comment and for us to hold the vote only after this has been done.
Has it now been resolved that this is how matters are to be handled?
Absolutely, Mrs Pack. I can assure you that the Council will be represented, and that we have forwarded Parliament' s request.
Madam President, I propose to talk about a human rights violation. Many Europeans have been shocked and disgusted over the last few days to discover that in a country with which we are on very friendly terms, and to which we Europeans, especially those in my own country, owe a great debt of gratitude, that is, the United States of America, it is still legally possible to put children on trial and to take them away from their homes in handcuffs and shackles.
And I am not talking about seventeen or eighteen-year-old youths, but about ten and eleven-year-old children. This is what has happened to a small slip of a boy with a very high-pitched, young child' s voice, who has been accused of sexually abusing his five-year-old sister.
Madam President, I would therefore request that you write a letter to the governor of Colorado and ask him to give this small, mistreated child his fatherly help.
Remind him too that the United States of America is the only country apart from Somalia that has not yet ratified the UN Convention on Children' s Rights.
(Loud applause)
Thank you, Mrs Flemming. We are going to look very closely into this case, and I shall be happy to consider some action along the lines you request.
Madam President, I would like to raise a matter which, although not as sensitive, is still important.
During the first part-session of this Parliament I asked you if you could do something about the television channels.
We had a Dutch TV channel for five years at a stretch in the other building and suddenly we find that we no longer have one.
I asked you about this during the first part-session and you assured me at the time that you would spare no effort in putting matters right again.
We are now three part-sessions and three months on.
I do not doubt your good intentions but the point is that nothing has been done yet.
I would ask you again to see to it that we get a Dutch channel on the television again, just as we used to in the old building next door.
Thank you, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel.
Thank you for reminding me of this point once again.
We shall see when this can be done.
I thought it had been.
I did ask for it to be done, quite emphatically.
I think that it has not been possible to do anything so far for technical reasons, but I promise that I shall ensure that the situation is remedied as quickly as possible.
I promise you that I shall read this booklet very carefully, and if there is indeed the need to carry out this amendment, then we shall readily attend to it.
Mr Chichester, I can tell you that the report has been included on the order of business for the November part-session in Strasbourg.
I thought that would suit you. I see that is the case.
Madam President, over the last few days, the Italian press has disclosed the scandal of the Mitrokhin files which concern spying.
As I belong to the group of Members which was disbanded in a democratic vote in this Parliament, I have tried to properly understand the meaning of the term 'affinities' .
Reading about the scandal in the press, I have learned that two influential Members of the European Parliament are involved in this scandal.
Given the involvement of these two Members, I would like to know whether the term 'affinities' also covers possible relations between their groups and the KGB.
As you can imagine, it is not my place to answer that question.
Madam President, on the same subject of TV reception, as raised by my colleague Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, I wish to express the hope that the technical problems currently preventing the reception of BBC1 and BBC2 can be resolved.
I realise that we English-speakers are spoilt with Sky, CNN and BBC World, but it is not the same as having the domestic channels.
I think that your request involves another technical problem, one that we are going to look into, but which seems to me less easy to solve than Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel' s.
Changes to the Rules of Procedure following the interinstitutional agreement (OLAF)
The next item is the report by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, regarding the possible changes to the Rules of Procedure following the interinstitutional agreement of 25 May 1999, relating to internal inquiries carried out by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
Madam President, when a speech is made before a parliament, silence might be too much to expect; I think we can allow a gentle hum of voices.
Ladies and gentlemen, the report and proposal for a decision that I am presenting and briefly explaining on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs concerns the implementation of the interinstitutional agreement on the methods used to investigate fraud.
We are tabling this report at the specific request of the President of the European Parliament, taking fully into account the opinion of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I would like to remind you of the facts that are, actually, very simple.
On 6 May 1999, the European Parliament approved this interinstitutional agreement with its own vote in plenary session.
On 25 May 1999, the agreement was signed by the President of the European Parliament - Mr Gil-Robles, the President of the Council and the President of the Commission.
The Council and the Commission adopted, on 25 May and 2 June respectively, the necessary decisions under their competence concerning the implementation of the agreement within those institutions.
We are somewhat late in implementing this agreement, which can, of course, be explained by the hiatus caused by the elections and the start of the new Parliament' s work.
We must proceed, however, without further delay in order to avoid any ambiguity regarding our desire to cooperate fully in the more correct and rigorous way fraud will be investigated.
In fact it means inserting, in accordance with Rule 186(C) of the Rules of Procedure, a very short new rule - 9(C) - which will allow an annex containing the text of the interinstitutional agreement to be included, in which the necessary technical alterations with regard to our institution' s competences have been introduced.
To avoid any ambiguity regarding the respective functions and competences of an institution such as the European Parliament and a unit such as OLAF, I would like to stress, Madam President, that both Recital 5 and Article 1(2) state unequivocally that the provisions on privileges and immunity of the Treaties in general, and of the Protocol in particular, will take precedence and will be fully complied with.
I would like to add that because concern had been expressed about Article 2 in particular, during the debate of 14 October in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, all of us in the committee agreed on an amendment which now appears as the last paragraph of Article 2 and says: 'This article applies without prejudice to confidentiality requirements laid down in law or in the European Parliament' s Rule of Procedure."
I therefore believe, ladies and gentlemen, that this text can be adopted without any reservations, especially because the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has unanimously adopted this report and proposal for a decision.
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate the Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, Mr Napolitano, for clarifying such an important issue in his report.
We all know that this clarification has come at an opportune and important time - at a time when there are widespread calls to tackle, and ultimately root out altogether, fraud and those conditions which nurture it.
As you are all aware, the European Parliament showed some awareness of this issue when, some months ago, it adopted a decision containing very specific articles - a decision which Mr Napolitano has incorporated in his report which also contains very specific articles on how we should function and what factors we must consider in order to achieve our goal of combating fraud.
Now is not the time to re-examine the articles one by one.
We all know them very well.
However, at this time, it is essential to draw your attention once more to the awareness this House has shown and the awareness the European Parliament has shown on the issue of fraud - an awareness which was turned into action by the internal decision of the European Parliament, and an awareness which is re-formulated in the report and the proposal of Mr Napolitano.
It is, I believe, quite significant for this House and it is significant for the institution of the European Parliament that, once again, it is responding to the demands of the European citizens - demands which have been made quite clear of late, particularly during the recent European elections.
Madam President, you all know that the word "fraud" forms part of our major focuses.
On many occasions, we have mentioned the need to combat and eradicate fraud altogether.
However, you all know very well that our experience, both in the European Parliament and in Europe, proves that it is not enough just to say this, to go on reiterating that something should be done.
We need to take steps - specific steps - and it is up to us to take the first steps since we are the ones who anxiously call for fraud to be tackled and eradicated.
Mr Napolitano' s proposal which, as he himself said, was adopted in the Committee of Constitutional Affairs without any objections, is a very clear and very specific step in this direction.
For precisely this reason, this House must also vote in favour.
At the same time, it would be an oversight on my part if I failed to mention the contribution made by the European Parliament' s Committee on Budgetary Control which has laid down the right foundations for us in one of its opinions, which can also be found in Mr Napolitano' s report.
In closing, I would once again like to thank the Chairman of the Committee of Constitutional Affairs, as well as the Committee on Budgetary Control, and I would like to ask the House to vote in favour of the Napolitano report.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee asked for an opinion, the Committee on Budgetary Control.
(DE) Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am able to follow on from where the preceding speaker left off.
We give our unqualified support to the report by our colleague Mr Napolitano. We, on the Committee on Budgetary Control, have recommended that the changes that have become necessary as a result of OLAF should be incorporated directly into the Rules of Procedure.
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs has suggested that a single basic rule be incorporated into the actual Rules of Procedure and that the full wording - consistent with the interinstitutional agreement - be added as an appendix.
That is perfectly acceptable. It is crucial that the substance remains unchanged.
The key point, as has already been mentioned, is that we, as a Parliament, should give a clear signal that we are not just demanding or stipulating that others should be subject to investigations by an external, independent authority, but that we want to subject ourselves to this process too.
I would have liked us to be able to discuss this decision of Parliament' s together with the question of appointing the new director of OLAF.
We had planned to hold the hearing for shortlisted candidates last week, in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
The Commission, however, did not draw up the definitive list of candidates in time.
Some people, moreover, have the impression that we have sought to interfere improperly with an appointment procedure that is, and must remain, the responsibility of the Commission.
Yet those who have this impression overlook or gloss over the fact that this is by no means a normal appointment procedure, rather it is a matter of filling a key post that has far-reaching powers and the right to conduct administrative investigations into every organisation and institution of the Union.
The Regulation on OLAF of 25 May 1999 lays down specifically that the Commission can only appoint its director once Parliament and the Council have voted.
Therefore, there must be harmony between the three bodies.
This procedure was chosen to guarantee the director' s independence.
I hope that this week, here in Strasbourg, we will succeed in resolving the confusion over the procedure which has emerged.
Ultimately, we must not be the ones to delay any decision of this kind when, almost exactly a year ago, the overwhelming majority of Members of this House gave their support to the idea of launching an independent anti-fraud office.
Madam President, for my group this interinstitutional agreement is another building block in the re-establishment of the credibility of the European Union as regards how it handles fraud and financial mismanagement.
I say "another" building block, because since last year this Parliament has had the toughest provisions of almost any parliament in Europe as regards the declaration of the financial interests of its Members and it already has, in the Rules of Procedure, one of the toughest provisions as regards the behaviour of lobbyists within the institution.
This interinstitutional agreement takes us one step further in another direction with the obligation it would place on all Members and staff to use the proper procedures to inform the future office, the OLAF office, so that any allegations of fraud can be properly investigated.
The interinstitutional agreement has been signed by the other institutions, and indeed already adopted as regards the internal provisions both by the Council and by the Commission, where it applies both to the politicians and to the staff alike.
Today we shall be adopting the same or very similar provisions for ourselves.
I was very glad to hear in the debate so far that the EPP Group now appears to accept that these provisions should also apply within Parliament to the Members of Parliament.
There was a question on this but I think we solved it satisfactorily in committee by the compromise amendment tabled by Mr Gil-Robles and myself, which specified that application of this interinstitutional agreement is without prejudice to any provisions in law or in our Rules of Procedure as regards an obligation of confidentiality upon Members.
Now that has been clarified, there is no reason whatsoever not to apply this interinstitutional agreement in full.
I am pleased that, at least as far as the speakers that have spoken until now are concerned, this should be something we can achieve today.
To postpone it further or, even worse, to fail to approve this interinstitutional agreement and to fail to apply it internally would be a severe embarrassment to the European Parliament and one that would undermine the good work that this Parliament has done in rebuilding the credibility of the European Union in matters relating to fraud and financial mismanagement.
Madam President, my group welcomes the decision.
We regret, in fact, the delay of four months now in Parliament bringing the report to a conclusion.
A failure or further delay would be catastrophic for Parliament' s reputation with its public.
The centrepiece of the decision is Article 2.
This will avoid a potential van Buitenen affair emerging from inside Parliament' s own ranks.
The final clause of Article 2 is slightly cryptic, and questions will arise about its meaning.
It is important for us to recognise that under the Rules of Procedure of Parliament the information acquired inside a temporary Committee of Inquiry is to remain secret only if it contributes to the writing of the inquiry report.
We must acknowledge that any knowledge acquired that is superfluous to the inquiry or gratuitous should be disclosed immediately.
Madam President, I am very keen to add my congratulations to those extended to the rapporteur and fully concur with the previous speakers who actually said that they will support this report.
I could stop there, but since I have four minutes of speaking time, for once, as opposed to two I will say something more on the subject after all.
The call for more openness and transparency is closely bound up with the call for more democracy that is ringing out loud and clear across Europe, not least in relation to the institutions of the European Community.
Parliament - and we have been reminded of this - was most insistent in its calls for clarity during the last part-session and made a stand against dirty tricks and fraud.
When I arrived here a year ago I saw the reports produced by the Committee on Budgetary Control, the report by Mr Bösch, how many meetings there were under Mrs Theato' s leadership, and the protest being made by Mr van Buitenen.
It all revolved around the question of clarity and transparency.
This therefore led to an interinstitutional agreement being produced, which we welcomed.
It may not have contained everything we could have wished for but it was still a very honourable compromise and went further than Parliament had been able to manage.
But all this happened back on 25 May 1999.
The Council, the Commission and Parliament have now reached agreement in principle but OLAF, the new anti-fraud office, was unable to set to work because, on the one hand, a formal ruling still had to be issued by the Bureau for the purpose of making the procedures applicable to Parliament' s services and, on the other, we have yet to take up responsibility ourselves, as a Parliament, so that we as individuals, our services, and our working practices also become subject to the same supervision that we impose on the Commission and on Parliament' s services.
I therefore think it is absolutely essential that we take this step here today.
There are, of course, individuals who have raised formal objections, and rightly so, but the rapporteur' s expertise and that of the people who have assisted him in compiling the texts, completely reassures us that there is no further cause for any objections and that we have crystal clear texts which will make the procedures applicable to Parliament itself, providing we add this amendment.
Consequently, we are in favour of this happening without delay, for imagine if the reverse were to be the case.
It does not bear thinking about, Madam President.
One of the worst moments I have ever experienced in this Parliament occurred when we voted on the Statute, for there is still no sign whatsoever of a European Statute despite all the hoo-ha that was made about it at the time and despite all the praiseworthy efforts on the part of our Parliament. The fact that the "best" result had not been achieved was used as an argument for not pursuing something that would merely be "good" .
I believe that in this case there is not even an argument for taking such a line, and that we can give our full support - in the firm belief that all formal objections have been resolved - to the proposed texts, so that the fight against fraud will be something to be undertaken not just by others but also by ourselves.
The obligation to provide information that we impose on others will also apply to us, and we will be subject to the same supervision that we require others to submit to.
I was often asked at the time if, in view of the fact that Parliament wanted to subject the Commission to more stringent supervision and to impose on it a stricter regime for combating fraud, Parliament would also live by the same code?
I will be ashamed if we are unable to adopt this unanimously.
Madam President, my group is totally supportive of the interinstitutional agreement of 25 May 1999 on the internal investigations which the anti-fraud office must be able to carry out within the institutions, bodies or agencies of the Communities, including the European Parliament.
This seems to us an excellent agreement.
It is indeed necessary to react vigorously to any suspicion of fraud of any nature whatsoever.
We are, however, rather more puzzled when faced with the measure to be applied with regard to the European Parliament which has been proposed to us today, in the form of an amendment to Parliament' s Rules of Procedure, directed at both officials and Members of Parliament.
I feel that we have simultaneously moved too fast in one respect and not fast enough in another.
Not fast enough because, as regards the officials, it seems unnecessary to me to wait until the end of October before taking an implementing decision applying to parliamentary officials. A simple Bureau decision taken under Rule 22(5) of the Rules of Procedure would have been sufficient.
But perhaps we have moved too fast regarding the Members of Parliament, and here I plead guilty before Mr Napolitano, chairman of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, as I am a member of this committee. But perhaps the debate in plenary session will enable us to make good some omissions.
We should at least have found it strange, considering that this does not exist in many parliamentary democracies, that Members of the elected House may be monitored by a body which is more or less answerable to the Executive and, as it happens, although OLAF is supervised by an independent supervisory committee, it is still run by a manager appointed by the Commission.
This observation should bring us back to the interpretation of Recital 4 and Article 1 of the interinstitutional agreement defining the persons whose breaches of discipline may be subject to administrative inquiries by OLAF.
The persons targeted are the personnel subject to the Staff Regulations and Conditions of employment of other servants as well as, I quote, 'Members, heads or members of staff of the institutions, bodies and agencies of the Communities not subject to the Staff Regulations' .
I think that this wording and the reference to the Staff Regulations in particular show that the members and personnel involved here are employees rather than elected representatives.
In any case the Members of the European Parliament are subject to specific rules under the Treaty itself.
Consequently, Madam President, I think that Members of Parliament must, of course, be subject to a rigorous internal inspection system, and I am the first to say so, but I do not believe that the text establishing this control should be one that is simply derived from the standard decision applicable to just any individual within the administrative bodies of the Community.
The Members of Parliament must be covered by a specific decision which could perhaps envisage a separate supervisory board, for parliamentary inquiries, for example, which would be elected by this House at the beginning of each legislative term.
This text could quite naturally be included in an Annex to our Rules of Procedure, whilst it would not be necessary for the text on officials to be included.
If, however, my fellow Members considered it politically impossible to postpone the adoption of the current draft legislation, and I am not that far from their point of view, I think that a reform should still be started fairly quickly.
Madam President, the best way of combating fraud is not to appoint more inspectors but to implement, in our own Parliament too, a policy of complete openness about subsidies and administration.
It is the present culture of secrecy which is the fraudsters' best defence.
All administration and all subsidies are nowadays dealt with by computer.
It is a very simple matter to give our citizens access to the information on the Internet.
Everyone can see, at the library or on their own computer, who has received what amount and for what purpose.
If a company or an association wants there to be confidentiality about any subsidies it receives, then it is free to use its own resources to ensure this.
If a company, a municipality or a Member of this Parliament wants a subsidy from myself and other European taxpayers, I want to know what I am supporting.
I ask that funds should be seen as being entrusted to our care and that they should not, en route to their recipients, be wasted or siphoned off by fraudsters.
But no matter how many people we appoint to OLAF, fraud is, at best, only going to be slightly reduced.
We need to go to the root of the problem if we want to stamp out fraud.
The first prerequisite for doing this is a radical reduction in the number of projects and subsidy schemes the EU operates.
Brussels ought only to be granting subsidies to cross-frontier projects or in cases where each country is too small to be able to carry out the projects concerned on its own.
It should not be the EU' s job to decide if taxpayers' funds are to go to a church in Christiansfeld or a golf course in North Jutland.
Prioritising of this kind can be done much better by Danish voters and politicians.
Nor should it be the EU' s job to decide whether motorways or schools are to be built in Alentejo with the help of EU subsidies.
We can safely leave those decisions to Portuguese voters and their representatives.
Funds are more efficiently transferred to poor Member States from the rich countries in the north by reducing or completely doing away with the contributions paid by poor countries to the EU.
At present, EU subsidies mean more often than not that poor people in rich countries are taxed for the benefit of rich people in poor countries. None of us ourselves want to pursue a policy of wealth distribution of this kind, but this is happening nonetheless because of the EU' s numerous systems for granting subsidies.
For example, 20% of farmers receive 80% of subsidies.
We ought instead to make all subsidy schemes transparent.
Our citizens will then ensure that they are done away with.
The newspapers will write about the absurdities entailed.
And then the voters and the various organisations will get involved.
In this way, living democracy will ensure that incentives to fraud are abolished and that the fraud which does go on is revealed.
To combat any remaining fraud, it is a splendid idea for the police authorities in the Member States to cooperate with each other.
On the other hand, we have no need for a Corpus Juris, a common prosecution service, penal legislation and a European answer to the FBI.
These things are aimed not at reducing crime but only at creating a new state and developing a more intrusive European Union.
I totally agree with Mrs Maes that complete openness about subsidies and subsidy schemes will make the job easier for OLAF' s new director.
So who is this to be? My group proposes that we do not turn the decision into an election battle between left and right.
We ought instead to unite around the best qualified candidate and be content with nominating him or her for the job.
For years, the Council has approved faulty accounts and so disqualified itself from finding the right candidate.
The Commission has positively concealed fraud and so shown the need for an independent director of OLAF.
As the situation stands, a unanimous nomination from the European Parliament is therefore the best solution, and my group sincerely hopes that we can find a director for OLAF who will take decisions to prevent any fraud in future.
And because, Madam President, Parliament must clearly abide by the same rules, I too am voting for the agreement.
Madam President, I think it was a good idea for you to stay and chair this debate, because it is a very important subject.
I have taken note of the consensus which seems to reign in this House on this matter, but I have the impression that there are a number of us who, in spite of everything, have doubts and some concerns regarding the wording of this agreement and this amendment to the Rules of Procedure.
Does the creation of an anti-fraud office, logically designed to ensure that the Community budget is handled properly, have anything to do with the establishment of all-round supervision, exercised without discrimination, not only of basic staff but also, as someone has already mentioned, of the members of institutions?
I have read the rule governing members of the Council.
Do you really believe that the Ministers of European States, despite the little phrase which was added, will stand for effective supervision of their professional activity? This in a way draws a parallel between the role of the member to that of the civil servant who is subject to supervision both under the Staff Regulations and also within the framework of his responsibilities.
I do not want Members to be exempt from all monitoring or not to be subjected to any sort of questioning regarding their activities including their activities as a Member of Parliament in the execution of their mandate, but I am afraid that this agreement may allow some uncertainty to remain and may entail precisely this parallel nature of the roles if we proceed in an over-hasty way, just like the events of recent months, and do not take a step back.
For my part, I would have preferred to wait a while, just as some groups suggested at one point, in order to gain a more objective overview.
I think that the provisions which we have implemented require further thought.
There is certainly a contradiction between the fundamental decision and the application thereof.
We inherited this matter, and indeed I even wonder why it was not considered to have lapsed.
This House even decided that it was necessary to proceed to a new vote on Mr Prodi as the decision was taken on 4 May.
On 6 May, the previous Parliament adopted a text which has since been changed. That text has the force of law.
President Gil-Robles signed it at a time when everyone was involved in election campaigns and now, two or three months later, we are involved in making it enforceable.
There is food for thought here.
My own opinion is that a little time would perhaps enable us to gain more objectivity and better understanding of the margin we must retain within the framework of the protocol on privileges and immunities in the event that we all become subject to OLAF decisions or inquiries.
Mr President, I have always been rather sceptical about moralistic or police-like attitudes that actually encourage whistle-blowing, which means that fraud is only avoided through the creation of increasingly invasive instruments used to monitor individuals.
I believe that along with my group, I can give my full backing to President Napolitano' s report, because the amendment to the Rules of Procedure and the proposed decision are a serious response to the concern that Members might be subjected to excessive and arbitrary checks - a concern which has been voiced of late, most recently by Mr Dell' Alba.
I think that there is no reason to delay the decision any longer.
The European Parliament and its Members have a wide range of means available to defend themselves in the event of these investigations.
This will clearly become easier if the internal procedures are made clearer and more transparent.
We must have confidence in OLAF' s future work and make its work easier.
Only in this way can we react in a credible way in the event of abuse, and react effectively to episodes like those mentioned today by Mr Theato and Mr Bösch.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the decision on the establishment of an anti-fraud office can largely be attributed to the European Parliament' s involvement.
The establishment of this office was a very significant decision because combating fraud plays a central role in the way the citizens of our Member States perceive European politics.
This is why the general public expects this office to be able to perform its task thoroughly, and this ability to perform its task thoroughly will relate primarily to the institutions in which OLAF is able to carry out investigations, and I therefore welcome Mr Napolitano' s report and the contributions that have been made here.
The appointment of the director will obviously play a major role in the office' s ability to do its job.
A special appointment procedure was agreed on and has been emphasised here several times.
That is why it is also necessary to prevent irregularities in this procedure.
I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, and you, Mr Bösch, that I, for my part, will prevent any improper influence being exerted on the selection of a director.
The only decisive factor in appointing someone to this extremely important post should be that person' s qualifications for the job. I hope that very soon the selection of the candidates and the appointment of a director will take place, through consensus, and also that the posts you have already approved for this year will soon be filled.
I can assure you that the Commission is fully aware of the role that combating fraud plays in the way European politics are perceived by our citizens and therefore, on behalf of the Commission, I once again welcome the report and the work that went into it.
Thank you, Commissioner Schreyer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday after the votes on the Budget.
Electronic signatures
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the Internet may have been seen until now as a source of information, it is now being used by the business world for buying and selling, and not just by businesses but by quite ordinary private individuals.
Of course, this development within a rapidly expanding market with terrific growth rates ignores national borders and requires the provision of a Community framework.
In recognition of this fact, the Commission has proposed a recommendation for a Directive on a Community framework for electronic signatures, in other words for signatures that are produced electronically rather than by hand.
Parliament approved 32 amendments at the first reading in January 1999.
The Council then presented its common position on 28 June 1999 having taken into consideration many of Parliament' s amendments.
The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market discussed the position and voted unanimously in favour of it, with 7 amendments, one of which we ought not to accept though.
I would like to discuss the following points. The directive is intended, first and foremost, for subscribers to open networks such as the Internet and does not affect the right to voluntary agreements in the context of closed systems.
The Internet does not stop at European borders.
For this reason, the directive aims to open up the market to third countries and provides for cross-border agreements.
Secondly, the future of electronic legal and business transactions essentially depends on whether we succeed in improving confidence in security, especially where the consumer is concerned, both in technical security as regards forgeries, for example, as well as in the legal validity of such processes.
A crucial starting point for this is the electronic signature.
By means of this kind of signature in electronic form, one can guarantee that the identity of the person who has made a declaration and signed it, the signatory in other words, can be immediately ascertained.
In addition to this, the integrity of the data that have been supplied can also be ascertained.
As regards the technical standards which the directive deals with, it is attempting to ensure technological openness.
We should be able to achieve higher standards of security through such advanced signatures and qualified certificates.
The directive guarantees that the appropriate cryptographic products will be available throughout the Community without this being made dependent on approval.
It will permit voluntary accreditation systems though, in order to promote the level of quality standards.
It is envisaged that there will be a minimum liability for certification-service providers.
It will have to be possible to use pseudonyms and data protection will also be taken into account.
A crucial issue in subscribers' confidence in the trustworthiness of legal transactions concluded electronically on the Internet is the legal validity of such actions.
In future, advanced signatures will, as a matter of principle, be accorded the same status in the eyes of the law as hand-written signatures because they are particularly secure.
However, the legal validity of ordinary signatures and their use as evidence ought not then to be denied as a matter of principle.
With this directive, which involves the first worldwide framework regulation of this kind, the European Union is making a first and crucial step towards both the regulation and the promotion of electronic commerce within the Community.
This is designed to increase people' s confidence in the trustworthiness of open networks, in the services and products on offer and in the legal validity of business concluded on the Internet.
It also makes a valuable contribution to the free trade in goods and services in the internal market, and indeed both for the consumer - if I may make a rather sensational comment: in terms of Internet shopping - and also for the suppliers of the necessary cryptographic services and products.
I would like to offer a word of thanks in particular to the Commission and to the Council for the extremely cooperative way in which they both worked together with Parliament.
But my thanks also go to all my fellow Members of Parliament, from every group, not least those from the previous legislature period during which important preparatory work was done.
Our task consists mainly of painstakingly dismantling the divergent national regulations which have evolved, and of bringing them into line with one another.
In this case, we are dealing with a newly developing technological and social reality, to which we can, from the outset, give legal form, through original European legislation, by means of which we will be able, at the same time, to prove our worth as a European Community of law in a particular way.
Divergent national regulations should not be allowed to develop at all, or become established over and above the current scope.
For this reason, I also think that it is important that this directive should come into force as quickly as possible and so I ask you to give it your approval.
Mr President, European regulations are often accused of lacking balance; either they are too bureaucratic, or they only serve certain interests, or they are even ignorant of worldwide developments.
I think that we can say now that here we have an excellent example of the opposite.
In the area of the approximation of laws, we must always try to find the difficult balance between necessary harmonisation, on the one hand, and consideration for the legal traditions that have evolved in Member States over the years on the other.
This is an outstanding example of balance.
On the one hand, a small number of clearly defined regulations relating to the requirements pertaining to electronic signatures will be laid down. On the other, Member States will be able to decide in which cases to accord these signatures equal status with conventional declarations of intent such as hand-written signatures, written proof, or other documentary evidence.
At this point, I would like to comment particularly on proposed Amendment No 2 which clarifies the rather misleading wording in Article 5(1).
I would now like to emphasise once again that it was also confirmed to us by all sides in the discussions that were held in Committee that it is not automatically permitted to substitute an electronic signature with a personal one for certain form requirements as laid down by individual Member States.
National legislature will have a completely free hand in deciding in which cases electronic signatures will be afforded the same status as hand-written ones.
This directive is a good example of balance between the interests of commerce, on the one hand, and the consumer on the other.
What we have here is a precise, straightforward rule that lays down only a few requirements.
Look at the appendices for example.
But we also have the necessary protection to make such agreements binding and to make the supplier liable.
Finally, it is also a good example of, on the one hand, systematic action by the European Union within its borders, in the internal market, but is, at the same time, a way of opening up towards international cooperation.
We have here a clear framework which applies first and foremost within the EU, but we have also laid down in the text of the directive itself, and this is particularly noteworthy, an openness towards international regulations.
One can see very clearly in exactly this area that in terms of harmonisation within the EU, we are currently at an intermediate stage of regulation.
We have the national level, we have the European level, and recently the international regulations level has increasingly been making its presence felt in more and more areas.
It is good that we are clarifying here that precisely in the area of new technologies, in the area of electronic commerce, we are prepared to address these issues on a worldwide scale.
Of course, this will also have a central role to play when it comes to the WTO negotiations.
I am pleased that, as a new Member of this esteemed House, I have been able, in my maiden speech, to participate in a good piece of European lawmaking, and I hope that there will be broad agreement here with what I have said and that the Council of Ministers will not have any problems in adopting the directive.
Thank you very much Mr Wuermeling, particularly as this was your maiden speech here in the European Parliament.
Mr President, I would first like to give my heartfelt congratulations to the rapporteur for his report on behalf of my group and to give him my especial thanks for having been able - in spite of being new to this House - to steer this report on the Directive on electronic signatures so quickly to its second reading.
Because in a matter such as the regulation of requirements for the recognition of electronic signatures, a rapid solution is at least as important as finding the proper solution.
I am convinced that we have found both a rapid and proper solution for helping the electronic signature along and making it possible for there to be a breakthrough in the suitability for everyday use of the new information and communication media.
What strikes me as being particularly appropriate is the demarcation of the scope of closed and open systems, the neutrality of technology, enabling people in the legal field to apply these rules unambiguously, and the admissibility of pseudonyms.
First and foremost, this will allow the consumer to remain anonymous on the net, as anonymous as in everyday business in the 'offline' world. It will also allow the prevention of a precise profiling of the consumer.
In accepting one of the amendments we want to establish this week that it is the responsibility of the Member States to stipulate those legal areas where the use of electronic signatures may apply.
This clarification has certainly been necessary.
However, I would like to see this clarification combined with a request, a request to Member States, to be as generous as possible here and to limit the applicability of electronic signatures and the equal status accorded them only in exceptional cases.
If we now more or less conclude the Directive on electronic signatures at second reading, it will be an important stage victory.
The aim, which is to achieve a consistent and halfway-complete European legal framework for the information society, has not yet been achieved.
For that, we still need the second reading on the Directive relating to e-commerce, the Directive relating to copyright and that relating to the distance selling of financial services.
To conclude, I would therefore like to appeal to the Council to establish its common position on these draft directives as quickly as possible, of course as far as possible on the basis of the amendments from first reading in this Parliament, in order to submit it to Parliament for second reading.
Mr President, at this time I shall be thinking of our former colleague, Ullman, who was the rapporteur when we discussed electronic signatures last time.
There were not many of us present here then, but there are a few more of us today.
I think it is because there are more of us here in the Chamber who understand the importance of this directive.
Its importance is also illustrated by the share issue last week in connection with the Finnish company, Data Fellows.
This was a real example of people' s capitalism.
Data Fellows is a company which, partly through the Internet, markets just the kind of security and verification services we have been discussing.
It is therefore an economically important proposal we are debating.
When we discuss this, it is also important that we obtain a quick decision, as the rapporteur pointed out and as many others have emphasised.
I support the rapporteur and am pleased about the Council' s view that a quick decision is wanted and that constructive dialogue has taken place.
I think that, otherwise, the European market may well become fragmented because quite a lot of countries have now already adopted directives.
It would therefore be unfortunate if we were not to obtain this directive.
I also think that this directive is clear, even though there have been certain discussions about its not specifying what formal requirements the Member States want to make in connection with different procedures.
One unoriginal example which might be used to illustrate this is the fact that, if legislation in the Member States makes it a prerequisite that both parties be present simultaneously, then, in order to get married over the Internet, it is not enough for both parties to produce this type of signature.
There is therefore a formal requirement there in the legislation, and this cannot be overturned.
When we talk about identification and security services of this type, I hope that we do not limit ourselves and think that it is just a question of numbers.
Instead, we shall, in the future, have other forms of perhaps physical identification and verification, and I hope that this will be borne in mind when drafting the revision clause of the directive.
Now, do not imagine that I have been watching too many James Bond films.
No, this is in fact how it is going to be in the future, and that is why the revision clause is important.
The talk is of voluntary agreements and of a variety of options, but in actual fact it is important that the security requirements in this directive should be complied with so that signatures valid on a national basis also have international currency.
It is also worth pointing out that the Commission has an important task in establishing both what are to be regarded as reliable signatures and what are to be regarded as secure arrangements.
Where these matters are concerned, I hope that the Commission will establish standards which are economically correct, that this will be done in an open way and that no de facto monopoly will be created. We know in fact that standards in the information society have precisely this degree of significance.
The directive gives the Commission a very great deal of power in this area.
Mr President, it is a remarkable thing that we are coming to the end of a period of about 500 years when the main way of authenticating documents and transactions has been the written signature and the witnessed signature and so on.
Now, within half a lifetime, we are entering a world which is going to be dominated by e-commerce, by new technologies and by signatures which do not exist in the old sense of the term and which therefore have to be authenticated in a new way.
For many of us, and I am surprised Mrs Thors did not mention this, this is an exciting, equalising and liberating phenomenon because the old world was dominated by the great centres and peripheries were at a disadvantage compared with the centres.
But in the new world of electronic commerce, there is no centre: the periphery is as central as the centre.
This will be a great thing for many of us in this House and certainly for Mr Miller and myself who represent Scotland here.
Indeed it is such a very welcome development that we in the European Union should be setting out to create an adequate framework for this form of commerce - an adequate framework for mutual trust among citizens of the different countries because, after all, if anything acknowledges no frontier, it is the Internet.
We believe, as other speakers have said, that this directive does a very good job.
I would particularly like to congratulate my fellow new Member, Mr Lechner, on the job he did for us in the committee.
My own group would have felt happier if there had been somewhat stronger protections for privacy as well as somewhat stronger data protection elements.
No doubt in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity these remain with the Member States and I have no particular objection to that.
But it may be something that we will need to revisit at another time.
It is also very important, as has been said by others, that there will be a possibility for further development internationally because the frontiers of the EU are artificial frontiers when it comes to this matter.
I want to be sure that when developing international agreements, we do not find things arise which are oppressive either to citizens or to consumers.
Not all of us feel that the balance has always been well struck in the World Trade Organisation, for example, between environmental, consumer and worker protection and the liberalisation of trade.
Let us not see that happen again in this domain.
Our negotiators must fight hard for a fair and just framework as well as a free market.
Mr President, firstly I should like to congratulate Mr Lechner in the preparation and presentation of his report which my group can support in principle.
Worldwide electronic communications and business traffic in the field of information technology services are increasingly becoming more important products, and services in the field of information technologies will increase by over 100% within the European Union between now and the year 2001.
Ten years ago, who would have believed there would be such an expansion in information technology services.
E-mail was non-existent on personal computers worldwide, but this is now changing at an accelerating rate.
We know that new forms of business, particularly in the field of e-commerce, are developing.
Equally, security standards must be provided and improved so as to protect the interests of consumers at all times.
I read recently in the Financial Times that half the disputes which customers have with the Visa credit card company relate to Internet transactions.
Therefore, procedures to improve security standards must be put in place as a matter of urgency.
This should also include the legal recognition of electronic signatures, and certification services are needed to cope with this development.
These are essential if the twin aims of consumer security and consumer confidence are to be secured.
The European Council' s common position of June of this year seeks to establish a European framework for electronic signatures.
For the first time the European regulatory framework for authentication services will be established and the legal recognition of electronic signatures ensured.
In areas of rapid technological progress, the European Union must make a special effort to avert any future barriers in the internal market as a result of conflicting national rules and establish a European legal framework at an early stage.
In conclusion, the implementation of uniform European rules can play an important pioneering role in influencing world level agreements.
Parliament must take this into account when voting on this important directive.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to welcome Commissioner Liikanen as for the first time he is concentrating on information society matters and no longer on budgetary matters.
I wish him every success in his work.
I am very pleased by this development.
I hope that with our vote we will accelerate the procedure as much as possible in order to finally allow electronic signatures to be recognised, something which already exists in practice.
We are aware of the speed with which this system is growing and the fact that the world of the Internet, that is to say, the world of the users of the information society, is already well advanced as regards the validity of contracts and transactions via the electronic system.
I would stress that we in the European Parliament should have been the pioneers of this, but we were not because our administration refused to comply with one of Parliament' s decisions.
Some years ago, we voted on an amendment to the Rules of Procedure which aimed to make electronic signatures valid, especially as far as petitions and appeals to the Ombudsman were concerned.
This would have allowed petitions to be presented via the Internet, increasing transparency and the chance to contact Parliament and the other institutions, for example the Ombudsman' s department.
Well, despite this amendment, this provision has, to a large extent, remained a dead letter.
Indeed, it is true that a petition can be presented via the Internet, but then written confirmation by the writers is always needed, which in fact makes this method redundant.
I hope that during the vote which we are about to take, the strength of Parliament' s wish will be affirmed in a way that will immediately establish the provision that will straight away allow more visibility, more transparency and give the citizens of Europe more access to our democratic life.
Mr President, I should like to begin by congratulating Mr Lechner on his report and on the way in which he introduced it to this House.
The point that he made very clearly is one which I believe to be very important - that this piece of legislation is one of a larger series of pieces of legislation which are going to regulate electronic commerce.
That clearly is going to be very significant, not only for Europe, but for business round the whole world.
In this context I should like to use my time to flag up one particular concern I have about the possible impact of the proposed - if I can use the horrid word - "Amsterdamised" versions of the Brussels and Rome Treaties relating to the operation of this part of the single market.
As I understand the position, they may pose a serious threat to the market inasmuch as a number of the provisions look as if they will cut across the country of origin principle which, as the House knows, is the basis on which the single market is founded.
If the country of origin principle is not honoured in the construction of the single market then I am concerned that it will not work to the benefit of Europe' s citizens.
As we all know, electronic commerce is going to become ever more important to the economic and social wellbeing of the citizens of the European Union.
If it turns out that the legal framework for that means of doing business is flawed, it is then going to jeopardise the wellbeing of all Europe' s citizens.
And if, as I believe, it is the case that the erosion of the country of origin principle threatens fundamentally the single market in electronic services in Europe - and this, in turn, has a significant read-across to the operation of electronic commerce around the globe - that would be very sad and damaging for Europe' s citizens.
It is something that we, as representatives of those citizens, should strive our utmost to ensure does not happen.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for this report.
Electronic commerce is growing rapidly, which we find very positive.
However, we still often fail to understand the cultural and political significance of the Internet.
In the future, we shall obviously need a movement to uphold civil rights in electronic commerce.
Electronic signatures ensure the security of electronic commerce, and that is important.
We need growing trade, for example, so that we can improve our competitiveness with the United States.
Our use of the Internet is only one third of that in the U.S. Even though three passwords would be needed for one transaction, and two of them would be changed each time, the system is not completely secure.
If hackers can access Pentagon files, then obviously they can also access electronic commerce networks.
In retail trade, where losses due to theft might be about 1% of sales, it is the retail trade that suffers.
In electronic commerce the customer suffers too, and very often just the customer.
For this reason, the importance of security cannot be sufficiently emphasised.
We need international cooperation, as has been proposed here already earlier this evening.
To secure extensive cooperation we should set up an Internet police force comparable to the traffic police.
But imagine how much higher the speed is and how much longer the roads are than in ordinary road traffic.
It is also important that surveillance take place where the action is.
This will require international cooperation and much effort from our negotiators at the WTO round of talks.
We also want to protect minorities, and the largest minority in all countries is the poor.
I await the time when they too can access the Internet, and I hope that the Commission will take action to that effect.
Mr President, I too would first like to warmly thank my colleague, Mr Kurt Lechner, for his excellent report which I can also fully endorse in terms of its content.
With the Directive on a Community framework for electronic signatures, the European Union is taking an important step towards breaking down the barriers to electronic commerce.
Until now, the legal position of electronic signatures has been unclear, and it has been particularly open to question whether electronic statements with a digital signature can be accepted as evidence in legal proceedings.
These problems will now diminish since, according to the directive, in future, legally binding declarations may also be submitted electronically, thereby facilitating electronic commerce.
The directive is the first step on the way to achieving a comprehensive legal framework for electronic commerce.
Amongst other things, it points the way for the Directive relating to electronic business transactions, for the Directive relating to distance selling and in part for the Directive relating to copyright which will both soon be dealt with at second reading in the European Parliament.
My colleague, Mr Wuermeling, has already quite rightly clarified the fact that the directive leaves it to the Member States to determine when an electronic declaration of intent which is signed with a digital signature should be taken to be equal to a signed statement or to a statement for which the law stipulates, for example, that a hand-written signature is necessary.
I particularly welcome the fact that the directive exempts national contract law, in particular provisions on the drawing up and fulfilment of contracts, from its scope, and concentrates on essential matters.
I have two more very brief observations on the directive.
Firstly, it is extremely important that a Europe-wide system for electronic signatures is established, one which will be open to global developments and ready to integrate them.
Here, too, it is incumbent on the Commission to take up contact with third countries and international organisations in order to find appropriate solutions.
It will be of particular interest to observe in this context which recommendations the UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), the OECD and the WTO are developing in this area.
It must be our aim to ensure that electronic signatures are recognised across borders, in other words, to establish an internationally compatible framework.
Secondly, I would like to stress, and with this I shall also conclude my speech, how important and urgent it is for there at last to be regulations governing market access for the certification service providers, for internal market principles to be applied and for there to be liability regulations.
It is high time that through the adoption of uniform provisions, both for certification services providers and for consumers, consistency of law is achieved, so that - as is the case when credit cards are used - they will then know exactly to what extent there is a risk of them being threatened with liability.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mr Lechner on the way he has presented the report and I particularly commend him for not trying to add too much to what was basically a sound directive.
There is always the temptation for rapporteurs to add some new aspects but he has wisely resisted that temptation.
I made my first speech in this House back in July in commending the initiative of the Finnish Presidency in giving priority to information society issues.
It is a particular pleasure to be able to make some comments on the directive which we are discussing today and to build on what a number of colleagues have said: in that this is a crucial measure in that it is the first of a series.
The way we deal with this in this House, in the Commission, in the Union, will be very important for the development of electronic commerce in the future.
In making this closing contribution I want to think ahead about the implications of this for other directives and also to request to the Commission in particular to make sure that this first directive is very closely monitored in the way that it operates in practice.
As my colleague, Mrs Berger, and a number of other speakers pointed out, there is a certain amount of flexibility given to member governments as to how they implement this directive.
We want to make sure that they do not add provisions to this directive, make it too restrictive, or too intrusive so that it will choke off the development or the use of electronic signatures and thereby hold back the development of electronic commerce itself.
That, after all, is what we want to achieve with the legislation that comes here.
We want legislation that will encourage the development of electronic commerce from the consumer' s perspective and encourage businesses to move into this new age of directly connected business.
Electronic signatures will be very important in giving consumers that security to encourage them to take on electronic business.
I therefore ask the Commission to make sure that they monitor this aspect of the directive at the level of national governments to make sure that it is working effectively and achieving its aims of encouraging consumers and businesses to participate in the electronic revolution.
The second and important aspect of this directive is that it has been made technologically neutral.
It is not the job of politicians to determine technological solutions.
We are living in a very fast-moving world, where new products are developed in months, come to the market very quickly, are on offer very quickly and accepted by consumers very quickly.
We must make sure that our legislation does not close off technological options or inhibit engineers and software engineers from developing new products.
Again, this is something I would like to ask the Commission to monitor carefully.
The final - and I think crucial - point for the development of electronic commerce across the Union is that we must provide a framework that encourages smaller businesses to get involved in electronic commerce.
If we do not encourage the small businesses, the micro businesses, to take advantage of the immense power of this technology to open up international markets quickly and cheaply, to enable them to offer new products in a very simple and effective way direct to the customer, then I suggest that we will have failed.
Again, we must look at how this directive operates in small- and medium-sized businesses and in particular, to pick up on the point of my colleague, Lord Inglewood, we must ensure that the changes in the overall legal framework do not have the potential to frustrate the entry into electronic commerce of smaller businesses.
I commend this legislation.
I leave those pointers and I hope that the Commission will pick them up in moving forward into this new era of framework legislation for electronic commerce.
Firstly I should like to thank the European Parliament for the very encouraging and supportive approach taken on this matter.
I must say for the first time in this Parliament that I have agreed with all the speakers.
It has been very constructive and different viewpoints have been presented here.
In particular, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Lechner, on his constructive report.
The progress in Parliament has also been of symbolic importance for future issues in the same area.
The rapidity of the technological change is such that we need to strike a balance between rapid procedures and flexible legislation.
Otherwise, we shall not be able to meet the requirements of the huge changes we see every day in the information society in its different sectors.
The directive which is on the agenda today deals with the use and legal recognition of electronic signatures.
This is very important, as has been said so many times today.
Doing business electronically is increasing rapidly both for companies and for consumers.
The Internet will be pervasive in Europe in a matter of five years or so.
We can expect half of the European population to be connected to the Internet by 2005 and not only via PC, but increasingly via mobile communication devices.
That was the message everyone received from Geneva Telecom two weeks ago.
The use of electronic signatures is an important means of ensuring authenticity in the future electronic world.
Without it there will be no safe electronic communications for European citizens.
In fact, even further growth in Internet usage may even be slowed down due to the growing concerns of security and privacy.
The bottom line is that without security and trust there will not be a notable shift towards commercial and financial transactions on the Internet.
This directive is not designed to regulate everything, neither is it meant to replace the market.
It offers legal recognition of electronic signatures where currently only the paper form is recognised, thus providing for more security in the market place.
Furthermore, it secures the internal market for electronic signature products and services.
But there is also a considerable international dimension to this initiative.
The Internet and e-commerce are global by nature.
Therefore, other international organisations like the United Nations and the OECD are increasingly active in the field of electronic signatures.
Almost all US states either have an electronic signature law in place or are preparing one.
Japan is also drafting a law in this area.
Hence, having a harmonised European legal framework in place would strengthen Europe' s position in the international context.
We also need this directive to avoid divergent approaches in Member States' law, as has been mentioned.
Today, all EU Member States agree on the importance of electronic signatures to ensure security and trust in electronic communication.
This is good news.
We can build on this by avoiding obstacles to the free circulation of electronic signature products and services within the internal market.
As to the amendments proposed, the Commission can accept them with the exception of one.
We have a problem with Amendment No 6 because, according to our interpretation, it goes against the Treaty because the Treaty provides that these kinds of proposals must be submitted to the Council.
In that context the European Parliament is not mentioned.
All in all, I want to repeat that I am very pleased about the high degree of consensus between the positions of the Commission and the European Parliament.
It is in the interests of all of us to support the fast progress of this matter.
With this aim in mind, I should like to suggest that Parliament reconsider Amendment No 6 in order to avoid an unnecessary conciliation procedure.
In this context, the Treaty does not leave room for interpretation.
Thank you for your cooperation.
I hope that this kind of rapid consensual cooperation can be taken by us with many new initiatives in the same field which are already now in Parliament or expected later this year and next.
Thank you, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 p.m.
Motor vehicles and trailers
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0033/1999) by Mr Harbour, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position of the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 70/221/EEC on the approximation of laws of the Member States relating to liquid fuel tanks and rear underrun protection of motor vehicles and their trailers [8697/1/1999 - C5-0031/1999 - 1998/0071 (COD)].
Mr President, I am now putting on a different hat to present my report to Parliament.
I would very much like to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for entrusting me with this job a week after I assumed my mandate, and I see a number of colleagues are here in support.
I will try to make this a simple presentation.
It is an important piece of single market legislation that establishes uniform technical requirements on a key component of the motor vehicle fuel tank.
The proposal achieves four important objectives.
The first is that it introduces uniform test standards for plastic fuel tanks; that covers all types of motor vehicles, both cars and commercial vehicles.
Some of you may be aware that plastic material is increasingly being used across the motor industry and this uniform test standard will allow designers to concentrate on meeting one single standard, instead of having to divert their efforts to meet a whole range of different standards.
It is often felt that these technical directives may not mean a great deal to consumers, but I must point out from my experience as an engineer in the car industry that if we allow engineers to concentrate on making safer and cleaner vehicles instead of having to meet a whole series of different regulations, that in the end will be very beneficial for customers and users.
That is the first objective.
The second is the provision for the technical requirements to be extended in future through a regulatory committee procedure to introduce new standards for fuel tanks containing gaseous fuels.
This is an important and forward-looking proposal because gaseous fuels are increasingly being used - and I refer for example to things like liquefied natural gas and petroleum gas - and there is also the prospect of hydrogen becoming a fuel in the future.
This is a sensible measure; yet this relatively straightforward technical measure has already taken 18 months to get to this point of second reading. That does not seem to me to be a very sensible use of administrative time.
That is the second point.
The third point is that it provides for type-approval to be extended in cases where motor vehicles are fitted, after they have been built, with additional fuel tanks for additional fuels or additional larger tanks.
That again is increasingly important for safety.
Those three principal objectives were in the original proposal that came from the Commission to Parliament on first reading and has subsequently resulted in the common position.
Parliament, at its first reading, was particularly concerned to add an important extra objective, namely to address the problem of diesel fuel spillage on the highway, which has been posing an increasing safety hazard for road users, particularly riders of motor cycles.
Parliament proposed that this should be addressed.
This was rejected by the Commission, but the common position from the Council did contain this measure.
This fuel spillage has resulted from inadequately fitted fuel filler caps, and the directive that we are now putting before you, with Parliament' s amendments at second reading designed to tighten up those provisions, addresses this question by requiring motor vehicle fuel tanks to have positive closure mechanisms so that the cap is always securely closed.
We have added recitals explicitly setting this out as an objective of the legislation and tightening those technical requirements to make sure that provision is effective.
I am sure that will have the full support of the House.
In presenting that to you, I would like to say that this is not the only solution to the problem and our committee wishes to draw attention to the need for other committees to address this safety hazard through the forthcoming emission directive for heavy commercial vehicles and also through vehicle test standards, to make sure that faulty fuel filler caps are picked up, either in roadside or annual testing of commercial vehicles.
To conclude, Mr President, the final element of this proposal is the committee procedure for maintaining and enhancing the technical nature of this directive, and I referred to this earlier.
Parliament, at second reading, proposed a change to the commitology arrangements but, in the light of the Treaty of Amsterdam, I have not recommended that those amendments be supported.
I am proposing that the Council and Commission' s proposal for a regulatory committee be endorsed.
This issue will come up when we discuss Mr Ferri' s proposal later.
In conclusion, I commend this proposal to the House.
It is a sensible, straightforward single market proposal with a number of important features and I hope it will have your unanimous support.
Mr President, I congratulate Mr Harbour on his first report.
For a new Member he has done very well on this.
He gave a clear explanation of what the report is about.
I would like to pick up on a couple of the aspects he touched upon.
These relate to the question of safety. Safety was pertinent to this report all the way through.
At the very end it picks up the question of safety of two-wheeled vehicles.
Perhaps not many people here realise that there are more accidents involving motorbikes in the vicinity of roundabouts than anywhere else on motorways or roads.
Why is that? It is because of diesel spillage.
Mr Harbour recognises that in his first amendment.
He states quite clearly that diesel spillage is a danger to users of two-wheeled vehicles.
So we have to look at why there is more spillage of diesel around motorways.
It is because of missing caps or ill-fitting caps on fuel tanks.
As these commercial vehicles go round roundabouts the fuel tends to spill out and motorbikes following closely behind skid on the greasy surface that diesel leaves.
Therefore, the second amendment tackles this whole question of the ill-fitting caps and, sometimes, no caps at all.
I congratulate him on that.
I should also like to point out that motorcycling is enjoying a boom at the moment.
There is a revival in motorcycling. I do not know why.
I look around this room and see that most of us are probably approaching middle age.
Maybe some of us hanker back to our younger days and fulfilling the role of Dennis Hopper in the film Easy Rider.
I do not know, but anyway motorcycling is enjoying a revival.
I welcome that, and if there is increasing usage of motorcycles on the roads, then we have to make those roads safer.
Therefore my group will fully support Mr Harbour' s report.
Mr President, first of all I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Harbour, for the deep analysis of the common position, and also his very concise presentation of the issue here today.
This draft proposal for a directive is aimed at establishing construction standards to be respected by manufacturers of fuels tanks for the purpose of EC type- approval.
In particular, the idea is to introduce into Council Directive 70/221/EEC new provisions for plastic fuel tanks for motor vehicles.
The provisions will cover such matters as impact resistance, mechanical strength, fuel permeability and fire resistance.
In fuel tanks, safety is of paramount importance, especially when new technologies and materials are introduced.
The draft proposal links up directly with the technical requirements of Regulation No 34 of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, relating to the prevention of fire risk and in particular to the provisions for plastic fuel tanks.
The report proposes two amendments, both related to diesel spillage, which may be a serious hazard to motor cyclists, especially in combination with a wet road surface, as has been mentioned here.
We fully agree that this is a serious problem from both safety and environmental points of view and the Commission can accept the two amendments.
To summarise, the Commission can accept all the proposed amendments.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
Speedometers for two- or three-wheel motor vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0029/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on speedometers for two- or three-wheel motor vehicles and amending Council Directive 92/61/EEC on the type-approval of two- or three-wheel motor vehicles (COM(98) 285 - C5-0029/1999 - 1998/0163(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Ferri).
Mr President, at its first reading, Parliament did nothing about this directive because it appeared to be a technical directive which presented no difficulties.
But the Council later opened up a Pandora' s box by introducing two supposedly technical amendments: one, to Article 3, which provides for a sort of legislative delegation with continuous reference to the Regulation of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe; and another, to Article 6, extending the time limit for the entry into force of the directive owing to the need for an adaptation period for the industry.
Parliament, as a result of these amendments introduced by the Council on the recommendation of the Commission, felt obliged to review the text.
The time limit seems reasonable, bearing in mind the delay which this directive is experiencing. The deadline for mopeds has been extended from 1 January to 1 July 2002, so that the industry may have a slightly longer adaptation period.
But above all, the Council has re-addressed the question of commitology.
The original decision laid down a certain type of committee, specifically the committee mentioned in Article 3(A) which, in the meantime, was disbanded last July.
That committee no longer exists and therefore the rapporteur, displaying a high degree of responsibility and intelligence, has proposed an advisory type committee.
It seems inappropriate that in the case of provisions of this type, which the Council describes as technical, the Commission feels set on the idea of a management committee.
I hope that the rapporteur maintains his proposal to adopt an advisory committee, which would be most appropriate for this type of regulation.
Maintaining the mechanism of a management committee is complicated and, furthermore, it would have to be done by amending the original directive on the type-approval of motor vehicles.
Therefore, I hope that, on the basis of the agreements which this Parliament adopts this week, the Council and the Commission will consider the possibility of definitively laying down the advisory committee procedure.
Mr President, I will not take up the two full minutes because several thoughts that I wanted to express, particularly about road safety, have already been expressed by the preceding speakers.
I think that the problem of road safety, particularly for two-wheel motor vehicles, is actually a problem that concerns the younger generation above all.
I personally only ride motorcycles and never drive a car. I am also a member of various motorcycle clubs and deal with young people there too.
This is why I think it is particularly necessary to do something about this specific area.
Of course, speedometers are installed in order to automatically create an inhibiting threshold to the vehicle' s speed because otherwise - unfortunately this is the case - very high speeds are attained which these vehicles cannot cope with on account of their centre of gravity being too high, for example. This has dire consequences.
For this reason, we fully endorse this directive, and we would also be pleased, of course, if, all in all, more could be done in the European Parliament with regard to road safety so that it is more consistent between Member States, because the accident figures clearly show that young people are the ones most affected in this area.
We agree that the deadline should be postponed.
We must also give industry the chance to actually transpose it if, at the end of the day, that then helps us to achieve a uniform directive.
We also believe that an advisory committee would be the appropriate instrument for this.
Mr President, I am sorry to be taking up so much of colleagues' time but it shows the interest we have in each other' s measures.
I want to commend Mr Ferri on his report and, in particular, his emphasis on the road safety aspects.
My concern is that I believe these aspects are so important that I certainly would not like to see this directive held up because of arguments over commitology.
It seems to me that this directive is too important for that.
I know Mr Ferri feels very strongly about commitology but it seems to me there are much broader issues.
This links in with my own report, as I mentioned earlier.
It is quite clear from Mr Ferri' s analysis that we are talking in terms of motor vehicle legislation not just at a European level, but at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe level which has, for many years now, been accepted within the motor vehicle industry as setting a whole range of global standards.
Increasingly we are entering into dialogue with the United States and Japan about global technical standards for motor vehicles.
Indeed in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, of which I am also a member, we will shortly be considering a report on that subject.
It seems to me that to just look at the commitology aspect of this particular directive now and to hold up this measure is not the right way of proceeding.
We have to think about how we are going to address the whole issue of considering and approving global technical regulations and the European Union' s input into them.
This is something we really need to ask the Commission to consider.
We also need to consider our own approach.
It is quite clear, looking around here this evening, that there is not an overwhelming interest in these technical directives among Members of the European Parliament.
There are some enthusiasts here with an interest in addressing these issues and we have to think about ways in which we can have an input into these technical processes.
We must let the Member States and the Commission make their proposals and then look at some of the key initiatives and put forward the point of view of the citizens, the businesses, the road-users and drivers across the European Union.
I do not think we have got that balance right.
We need the safety benefits of Mr Ferri' s directive but we also need to take a much broader look at how to handle the move towards global technical standards in a crucial industry for the European Union.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
Passenger cableway installations
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0028/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to cableway installations designed to carry passengers (COM(93) 646 - C5-0030/1999 - 1994/0011(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr Miller).
Mr President, can I again thank all my colleagues in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for their assistance in producing this report.
The first reading of this report went through Parliament earlier this year - in April I believe - and that report had two aims similar to the aims of this report.
The first was the free movement of cableway installations. That is central to the whole concept of the single market.
But this can only be done - and I stress "can only be done" - where we have harmonisation of safety standards.
I would add that each Member State remains responsible for overseeing that.
So the central point initially was the free movement of cableway installations.
The second point was the safety of cableway installations.
Earlier this evening I spoke about safety - the safety of two-wheeled vehicles on the road.
We in the European Union should be concerned about all aspects of safety in all modes of transport, not just two-wheeled vehicles, four-wheeled vehicles, trains, planes, boats or whatever, but also in relation to cable cars and cable installations.
We have to be concerned about safety.
That brings me on to the amendments which have been tabled here by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Amendments Nos 1, 2, 3 and 5 clarify the position with regard to all persons utilising cableways.
In the past, this has been a grey area but hopefully now, with the introduction of those four amendments, we will have clarified the position for all persons using those installations.
Amendment No 4 is basically a tidying-up operation, as the earlier paragraph was out of date.
Amendment No 6 takes out the question of mining which is the subject of separate legislation.
Amendments Nos 7, 8, 9 and 10 simplify the safeguard clause.
If we had agreed fully with the Commission text we would have had three unwieldy safeguard paragraphs.
By doing it this way we have one simplified paragraph.
Amendment No 11 again highlights safety aspects.
Amendment No 12 is again a tidying-up exercise.
I commend this report to you.
It highlights the whole question of safety within the European Union; it is an area we should all be concerned about and, as such, I would hope that the Commission and Council will accept it.
Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party/European Democrats, I would like to thank the rapporteur and to welcome this directive.
We all ask that the formal procedure following Parliament' s decision be carried out as quickly as possible, and that the directive be quickly transposed so that we can successfully conclude this discussion process which was initiated by the Commission in 1994.
This directive is significant in four ways. It is significant in terms of industrial policy, competition policy, security policy and consumer policy.
This directive relates to all four policy areas.
We can all still remember the dramatic accidents that have taken place on and as a result of cableway installations.
They are largely responsible for the fact that calls for uniform safety standards have become more vociferous.
These calls have also become increasingly topical. I am therefore very pleased, and the preceding speaker also touched on this matter briefly, that it will not only apply to those people who are actually in the cable car, but also to those who disembark at the station or who are waiting to depart.
Uniform Europe-wide safety standards are necessary in order to protect both the safety of passengers and also the competitiveness of the European cableways industry in the international market.
Cableway installations have undergone highly specialised, state-of-the-art improvements.
Cableways are an important economic factor in many Member States, particularly in the Alpine region.
I am pleased to be able to refer to the fact, in my maiden speech to this House in plenary session, that in my own country, Austria, cableways are a cornerstone of tourism and consequently, of the Austrian national economy.
I would just like to emphasise the importance of this directive.
In my country alone, we have nine million passengers who take around 526 million trips with 255 cableway companies and, in economic terms, this represents a total turnover of 10.8 billion Austrian schillings.
The directive represents a competitive advantage and raises the competitiveness of European and particularly Austrian cableway companies.
The directive is aiming to harmonise safety standards for passengers.
It aims to boost the free movement of goods, that is to say the internal market, as far as the cableway industry is concerned.
It will consolidate this sector as an integral part of the national economy.
Uniform and simplified procedures, a relieving of the burden on the authorities as well as the removal of procedural steps are all part of this directive.
I welcome the fact that, by means of this directive, it is going to be possible to bring an initiative that was introduced during the Austrian Presidency to a successful conclusion in terms of consumer safety and competitiveness.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on the substantial and significant content of this directive.
I have only been a member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market for a few days, and therefore I have not had the opportunity to follow its entire course. Over the past few days, I have only been able to familiarise myself with it.
The speaker before me was saying that this type of installation is very widespread in Europe - it certainly is in my country, which includes almost all of the Alps as well as the Apennines.
So we are dealing with structures, and a sphere of activity which are of great concern to us.
As I was saying, the content of this directive is all very noteworthy, and we certainly agree with it.
In this way, we are giving the go-ahead to the free movement of technologies in this regard, and to the free movement of supplies.
As was said a short while ago, the route has been opened to competition in this sector which, in the field of technology and in the field of safety, is essential because competition is exactly what it is - it makes technology advance.
I have read carefully the content of the directive and from a technical point of view, I still find some points unclear.
Of course, the directive lays down principles, gives specific instructions, brings into line and also harmonises legislation within the Member States on what has to be an essential goal - safety.
However, in the area of safety and in the area of technology, specifications, parameters, characteristics and materials used become fundamentally important.
Levels of maintenance and planning times also become vital.
Now, from my point of view, certainly the technical provisions which will follow this directive - and which will be laid down in other places and after other meetings - will form the basic element in defining the authorisation of this directive in all the Member States.
In this sense, and knowing which parameters will be examined from a purely technical point of view, I would ask whether it is possible for Parliament, and particularly the Commission, to be kept informed. Above all, I ask whether it is possible for the Commission to inform us what the result of the implementation of this directive will be, from a purely technical point of view.
The draft directive before the European Parliament concerns the safety of the persons carried and the free movement of cableway equipment and installations.
In ordinary language, the installations concerned are the cable cars, the funicular railways and ski lifts used in mountain resorts, all used where access is difficult.
It goes without saying, as has been said here, that these are very important issues.
I should like to thank the parliamentary committee and in particular the rapporteur, Mr Miller, for the excellent work carried out during the second reading.
The Commission is happy to accept all the amendments.
For one thing, they are designed to clarify certain provisions of the common position, in particular, regarding its scope, and are therefore welcome.
Secondly, the rapporteur has proposed adding mining installations to the exclusions.
This seems justified given the particular nature of such installations which are subject to very specific rules and regulations.
The Commission also agrees that this matter should be part of the report to be drawn up by the Commission four years after the directive enters into force.
The adoption of your report will constitute a decisive stage in the process leading to the long-awaited implementation of this much-needed directive.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12.00 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.40 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, on behalf of myself and several other MEPs, while I fully respect the solemn nature of today' s formal sitting, I wish to make a point of order under Rule 19 out of concern for human rights given that the Colombian President' s visit today is restricted to his parliamentary address until a formal dinner with heads of political groups.
Bearing in mind that the Colombian Government' s own public defender reports one massacre for every day this year and that the Commission of Colombian Jurists attribute 78% to paramilitaries with the knowledge of the official Colombian forces, will you, as President of this Parliament, in your private talks ensure that you discuss issues of human rights. Will you in particular ask when the law passed in June this year requiring crimes against humanity committed by the Colombian military to be transferred to the jurisdiction of civil courts will actually be implemented.
Will you ask why instances of forced disappearance, extrajudicial execution and sexual abuse have been excluded from that law. Will you find an appropriate way to report back to Parliament on the responses given.
I ask this in the spirit of successive resolutions on human rights in Colombia passed by this European Parliament and in support of brave human rights defenders working under the threat of violence and of death.
Thank you very much, Mr Howitt.
Of course, both the Bureau and the Presidents will present Parliament' s position in accordance with their traditional decisions in that regard.
The results of these contacts will be communicated to you.
(The Minutes were approved)
EC and ECSC budgets for 2000
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0030/1999 by Mr Bourlanges, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000: Section III Commission (C5-0300/1999);
A5-0031/1999 by Mr Virrankoski, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000 (C5-0300/1999)
Section I, European Parliament - Annex: Ombudsman
Section II, Council
Section IV, Court of Justice
Section V, Court of Auditors
Section VI, Economic and Social Committee and Committee of the Regions;
A5-0032/1999 by Mr Pittella, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the ECSC draft operating budget for the financial year 2000 (SEC(1999) 803 - C5-0017/1999 - 1999/2072(BUD)).
Mr President, the 'EU budget for the year 2000 - other sections' , which we are considering, follows the rigorous policy of recent years.
The budget for institutions other than the Commission and the Council for the year 2000 will be EUR 1.286 billion.
The increase is EUR 44 million, or 3.5%.
The margin for manoeuvre calculated from Category 5, as referred to in the Financial Perspective, is EUR 135 million.
This draft budget focuses mainly on rental arrangements and renovation solutions for the places of work of the institutions.
The intention is for the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions to move into Belliard buildings I and II once they have been vacated by Parliament and renovated.
The joint organisational structure for these committees will be accommodated in the Bertha von Suttner Building, the former Montoyer building.
The rented premises that have been in use until now will be given up.
For these solutions to be successful, seamless cooperation is required on all sides.
The budget provides for new posts to be created at both Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee to render the administration of the buildings more efficient.
One condition of adequate administration, however, is that the division of labour and of responsibility of both Parliament and the Economic and Social Committee be clarified both interinstitutionally and with regard to the individuals involved.
This division of responsibility must be considered a pre-condition of the project' s success.
There are two reserves attached to the buildings, which are still in the budget.
A reserve of EUR 7.4 million has been entered in Parliament' s expenditure for the rental of the Belliard buildings, as the rental agreement between the owner and the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions is still under discussion.
If the rental agreement is finalised before the end of the year, the amount mentioned will be deducted from Parliament' s budget, as the European Parliament budget is, at present, 20.11% of Category 5, whereas Parliament has itself declared a ceiling of 20%.
There are two reasons why this ceiling has been exceeded. The first is the double budgeting relating to rents, as explained above.
The other reason is the reserve related to the Statute for Members.
In the spring a reserve of EUR 60 million was included in the parliamentary budget for remuneration related to the Statute for Members.
Parliament has demanded that Members' remuneration be paid from parliamentary funds, and the Council has supported this initiative.
Because at present it is the Member States that pay the salaries of MEPs, this will mean that the payments are transferred from the Member States to the European Union.
It is quite natural to suppose that a new expenditure item of this kind, which at the same time would diminish Member States' costs, cannot be included under the ceiling for formerly approved expenditure.
If we take these two expenditure items into account, Parliament' s share of Category 5 would be 18.97%, which is in line with the principles of budgetary discipline.
Another priority of this draft budget is increasing the resources of the Court of Justice of the European Union, especially their translation resources.
According to the Council' s proposal, the Committee on Budgets has recommended that altogether thirty new translator' s posts be established, and that a substantial appropriation be earmarked for paying freelance translators.
As appropriations have been proposed for improvements to the electronic office, the Court of Justice can expect a clear increase in resources.
After this, we expect that the Court of Justice will be able to cope better with its workload, reduce the number of documents left untranslated, and serve Member States, citizens and businesses better in the interpretation and application of European law.
Parliament has both the right and the obligation to demand clear results.
Discussion of this year' s budget made it clearer than ever that there is a need to move towards activity based budgeting.
The institutions have an abundance of staff, and it is to the benefit of all that they be used efficiently.
The present administrative model, however, gives cause for criticism.
The institutions seem extremely interested in inventing new requirements and job descriptions, so as to be able to justify their ever-growing need for staff.
It is very difficult for Parliament, as a decision-making authority, to scrutinise the chart of its own four thousand strong organisation and draw conclusions as to what new posts are needed for what jobs.
Every Member State, however, has had to radically reorganise personnel structures.
Jobs have been reallocated, as have posts and staff.
That is why in many cases the establishment of new posts is no longer the responsibility of the budgetary authorities.
The budgetary authorities only allocate appropriations to the institutions.
There are two advantages to this. Firstly, the overall work of an institution is seen clearly, which means that there is less danger of getting swamped in details.
The work of the institutions can be assessed more clearly, on the basis of results, and can be better managed.
On the other hand, comprehensive budgeting also makes it possible to clarify and increase personal responsibility.
This encourages better and more efficient work, as everyone can find a way to work more effectively and use resources sparingly where the need is greatest.
It is high time the European Union switched to activity based budgeting, result-oriented management, delegated power and responsibility downwards, and clarified personal responsibilities.
We must require managers and heads of department to bear the responsibility for their own areas of revenue, and for their development and improvement.
Finally, I would like to thank all those who helped me to prepare this report.
I would especially like to thank the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Terence Wynn, who has given me his support in so many ways, both in practical negotiations and at meetings of the Committee on Budgets, and in personal discussions.
At the same time I wish to thank the main rapporteur, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, with whom I have enjoyed seamless and smooth cooperation.
I would also like to thank all the coordinators, especially Reimer Böge of the European People' s Party and Ralf Walter of the Party of European Socialists for their constructive and pertinent cooperation.
Finally, I wish to thank my own group for their unreserved support in every respect, as well as the secretaries and employees who were involved in the project.
Mr President, I should like to extend our congratulations to the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, and to the Chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Wynn, on the way these proceedings have been conducted.
Regretfully I cannot offer congratulations to the Council for their part in this process.
The message the Foreign Affairs Committee has taken from the Council is that they believe we can only pay for Kosovo by taking money out of the hands of those who are even worse off than those in Kosovo.
We want to rob the very poor in order to pay the slightly less poor.
We want Africa to pay for the Balkans.
I do not believe that is the message the EU should be sending out to the rest of the world.
To find the EUR 500 million for Kosovo the Council has proposed an across-the-board cut of 10% in Category 4.
Some cuts are even worse.
For humanitarian aid, line B7-21, they are proposing a 20% cut.
They are cutting EUR 70 million from NOVA: in other words, a 40% cut in assistance to Bosnia, so Bosnia has to pay for Kosovo.
We are cutting support for the Middle East peace process just at the time where there is hope for a long-term solution to that process.
What sort of political message is the European Union sending out about its commitment to that process?
Of course there has to be financial responsibility and we have to set priorities, but a 10% cut across the board is not a proper setting of priorities. It is an exercise in indifference and irresponsibility.
No wonder the EU' s reputation at the moment is not very high with the public.
There are two other areas that the Foreign Affairs Committee would like to draw your attention to.
First, we would like to see proper funding for the Royaumont Process, particularly ensuring that it is a Pillar I activity, not a Pillar II activity.
Hence we propose that we should set up a line on the Stability Pact and take some money away from the Meda line in order to pay for it.
Finally, we would also like your support for the conflict prevention network, set up as a result of Parliament' s work, particularly the work of Mr Rocard.
Now that we have a similar organisation in the Council its work is even more important.
I would urge your support for increased funding.
I urge that financial prudence is not made an excuse to drive more people down into poverty.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Budget Committee and Mr Bourlanges for their work.
I am grateful to the commitment that they have shown in the fight against fraud in the European Union and, in particular, with the extra commitment they have made - an extra EUR 9 million has been voted by the Budget Committee for OLAF.
This will allow for the creation of an extra 50 to 75 new posts in the year 2000 on top of the 30 new posts voted for in the supplementary and amending budgets.
I should remind you that OLAF needs 300 posts to carry out its duties. This was endorsed by the report of the Committee of Independent Experts.
Let us not forget that there are raised expectations in terms of the public' s attitude towards reform of the European institutions.
It is essential that OLAF is given the appropriate resources.
I should like to remind the Commission that we will not allow OLAF' s independence to be compromised by budgetary gains - a little note there for the future.
I am disappointed that the Council Presidency has not referred to this.
Are you committed to the extra 75 posts or not? I would be grateful for some kind of feedback on that.
You need to show the same commitment to fighting fraud as we are within the European Parliament.
Another issue for the Budgetary Control Committee is the use of technical assistance agencies.
In its budget guidelines for the year 2000, Parliament called for the phasing out of the agencies.
And for the Commission to provide it with an assessment of its staffing needs. That has not been done.
The Budget Committee has entered expenditure on logistical support and technical assistance in a separate section, with 90% of those appropriations in reserve.
The Budgetary Control Committee would support this approach.
It is absolutely right that those appropriations should not be released until the Commission has defined those categories of tasks that need to be outsourced.
We look forward to receiving that information from the Commission.
On another matter, in 1999 there have been large under-spends in the Community initiatives, the cohesion fund and many other areas.
In some cases this is the second or third consecutive year when there has been a large transfer away from particular lines.
This demonstrates the need for Parliament to monitor budget implementation more closely throughout the year.
The subject committees must take more responsibility for monitoring the budget lines within those areas.
If we do that then we can feed that into the budgetary process and make sure that we are more on track during the course of the year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to join the two previous speakers in expressing my thanks and praise for the work done by the general rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets.
As regards Budget 2000, the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs was working towards four objectives.
The first of these objectives was to align the budgetary nomenclature with the priorities defined by the Treaty of Amsterdam and, in particular, the fact that henceforth the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice is one of the fundamental objectives of the Union.
This is the reason why we proposed, with the support of the Committee on Budgets in this matter, to gather all the policies and budget lines relating to the creation of this area of freedom, security and justice under a single title comprising five chapters corresponding to the main policies dedicated to the establishment of the area of freedom, security and justice.
As our second objective, we wished to rationalise and restructure the budgetary instruments in the sector of asylum and immigration policy.
When drawing up the budget for 1999, we managed to create the European Fund for Refugees.
Unfortunately, following events in Kosovo, the Council was forced to mobilise virtually all these resources in order to deal with the emergency situation in Kosovo and in the Member States.
This is the reason why the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs has proposed that, henceforth, in the area of asylum and immigration policy, there should be two budgetary instruments: firstly, a European Refugee Fund intended to finance by structural means the necessary measures relating to the reception, integration and voluntary repatriation of refugees in the event of a normal flow of refugees, and secondly, a second budget line with the objective of making it possible to take emergency measures in the event of a mass influx of refugees.
Indeed, with this, we anticipated the request of the European Council at Tampere, as the Council considered it appropriate to envisage creating a financial reserve, in some form or another, intended to offer temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of refugees.
Mr President, this instrument is something we have already proposed.
Our third objective was to strengthen resources in the area of the fight against crime, and our fourth objective was a budget line making it possible to undertake measures within the framework of the Commission Action Plan 2000-2004 for combating drugs trafficking.
Mr President, the first reading of the budget by Parliament, which we have been following today will, as always, have a significant impact on the policy of the European Union, of which Economic and Monetary Union forms a part.
The budget contains internal policy lines concerning the Prince programme.
This programme covers the public information campaign with regard to the euro which was, is and should be a priority for the European Union.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) believes that this endeavour should continue to be a vital policy priority and that a great deal of work is still required before the banknotes and coins can go into circulation throughout the European Union.
That is why we support and welcome wholeheartedly the proposals tabled by the Committee on Budgets for an increase in the Prince budget.
ECON also believes that funding measures in the field of taxation should be an absolute priority as it is still an area which displays some irregularities in the internal market, and as a consequence, budget line B5-3001 for the completion and development of the internal market should be kept at the level proposed by the Commission in its draft budget.
ECON also endorses the amounts recommended in the draft budget as regards the Fiscalis programme in line B5-305.
This ensures stricter coordination of the current taxation system.
The committee also believes that the provision of quality statistical information should be a priority for the Union, particularly now that Economic and Monetary Union has been introduced in the euro area and we have prospects for a further enlargement of the Union.
Therefore, line B5-600 on statistical information should continue to be funded.
Finally, speaking as a member of the Greek delegation, I would like to express my regret at the European institutions for not yet coming up with an appropriate legal basis to enable us to provide assistance to a particular Member State recently struck by natural disasters.
There is no such legal basis in the budget and I believe this to be a serious oversight. As in the case of Greece, and in other cases, this shows a lack of sensitivity towards our fellow human beings who are victims of such accidents and to whom we should show at least some generosity.
Mr President, with all due respect to the rapporteurs, the Committee on Budgets will not take seriously the fact that the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market is applauding it for its work!
The Committee on Budgets has let down the European Court of Justice, as has the Council!
I know that in the political process law is frequently considered irritating.
However, to disregard in such a way the work of the European Court of Justice on European integration and legal protection of the individual is verging on scandalous!
The question arises as to what role a specialised committee should continue to play when the Committee on Budgets, in a generous gesture, simply sweeps all the carefully considered, moderate proposals from the table?
So what role should specialised committees continue to play? I fear that legal protection in this European Union will continue to be limited.
It is all too clear who is responsible for this.
We should not expose ourselves to the danger of limiting legal protection in the European Union, not least when we constantly talk of wanting to create an area of freedom, security and justice.
Mr President, I took over the job of committee draftsman following the heart attack of Mr Desama who was originally to have done the work for the committee.
We hope he will soon be back with us.
My thanks and congratulations to Mr Bourlanges for his painstaking work on behalf of the Members of Parliament.
The Committee on Industry covers 120 budget lines - so you can see our task is fairly complex!
We cover the energy programmes, those relating to industry, including small and medium firms, the research programmes under the framework programmes which of course amount to more or less 60% of the internal policy expenditure of the European Union, and the trade and technical assistance lines.
As far as the energy lines are concerned, we were sorry that the Committee on Budgets did not follow our line in increasing the expenditure for Altener and Save.
Those are renewable energy and energy efficiency programmes currently in conciliation.
If we get, as expected, an increase as a result of conciliation more money will, of course, be asked for next year.
As far as research is concerned, and after very many long discussions with Mr Bourlanges, I am interested to know what he intends to do.
We, in the Industry Committee, do not want the research programmes broken down into dozens and dozens of lines, one for each key action.
But we do want to monitor each key action.
I think we have reached an agreement with the Commission that information will be provided to us at intervals and in a form that allows us to monitor that spending in the way we want to.
I am also sorry that the Committee on Budgets did not approve moving the training of the nuclear inspectorate in the former Soviet Union from the external policy to the energy line where that training could be done far more efficiently.
We have made this argument very clearly and we will make it again.
As far as monitoring is concerned, we intend in our committee to take one member responsible for monitoring each of the 120 lines.
They will be expected to follow the spending, to look at the way the projects are organised, to visit the projects and to be in a position to let us know how things are going.
Mr President, I would like to thank my colleagues on the Budget Committee and the Budget rapporteur in particular for the good cooperation we have had with them in this first reading.
That is code for saying that the employment committee got pretty much what it was looking for in this first reading and I am grateful for that.
Others have referred to the Structural Funds.
We are broadly happy with the fact that the Budget Committee agreed with our recommendations, so I would like to look instead at a number of subcategories of lines.
One that is important to the Employment Committee is that of Social Dialogue.
There we have ended up with EUR 4.5 million more than the European Commission were looking for initially.
That I think is more in line with the tasks that we are facing in that important area and it includes appropriations to involve representatives from accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe which we think is very important.
We have less than we wanted on B3-4003. That is a cause of disappointment because it is an important area with the expected implementation of the European company statute and, we hope, progress on the general framework for information and consultation of expenditure.
We are happy that what we were looking for in relation to NGOs has been agreed in the first reading.
This, we think, is a very important area - the idea of developing civil dialogue.
I am particularly pleased that funding will continue for the NGO platform which I think is an important part of developing civil dialogue.
Employment, of course, is one of the most important issues from the point of view of the Employment Committee.
And here, with budget lines B5-502 and B5-503, we have combined some EUR 24 million more than the Commission' s original proposals.
We think that is an excellent outcome.
We are looking to implementing the employment chapter from Amsterdam and making progress in relation to the macroeconomic dialogue agreed at Cologne.
We are therefore grateful that we have the funding to move those important issues forward.
Two slight problems in conclusion, President.
One is that we still have no enduring legal base for NGOs.
I hope the Commission and the Council will make progress on that, otherwise the civil dialogue will end at the end of next year. That would be catastrophic.
The other difficulty relates to technical assistance and the funds that have been transferred into the reserve.
I hope that the Commissioner for Social Affairs will act quickly to provide the information necessary to release 50% at second reading.
Mr President, firstly I congratulate the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgets on the work he has done this year.
I also thank Mr Wynn for the cheerful way in which he conducts the Budget Committee, a new experience for me.
The rapporteur has done very well given the constraints he has been under this year.
Whilst the budget lines under the responsibility of the Committee of the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy are not great in monetary terms, they play a vital role in facilitating the development of the Union' s policies, and particularly in bringing closer to the Union and realising the needs and desires of the ordinary citizens.
The Budgets Committee rapporteur has acknowledged a number of points we have made and has enabled us to maintain spending in most areas and develop it modestly in one or two.
I cannot thank the Council in the same way when I examine their PDB.
They have to give greater priority to the interests and needs of citizens.
Utilising the amounts determined last year through the conciliation on the Whitehead report, the consumer affairs budget lines will continue to build confidence amongst the public, reassuring them that we are not just a Europe open for business but are also campaigning for citizens' rights as consumers.
The additional monies granted for the additional posts in the Veterinary Health Office in Dublin will reassure our citizens that we are taking steps to protect the quality and safety of the food on their plates.
The new health responsibilities put into the Amsterdam Treaty can be developed using the additional monies granted on the health budget line.
I particularly welcome the possibility of developing new strategies for dealing with mental health problems and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer' s and CJD.
Equally, as we come to the end of the fifth action plan on the environment, the monies available to begin development of the sixth action plan are most welcome.
If I have a disappointment, it concerns the rapporteur' s approach to the various agencies of the Union, set up by the Commission.
I was the only draftsman, along with Mr Bourlanges, to meet the representatives of the agencies and I heard good arguments for increasing monies available to those agencies for the work they are doing with the applicant states of Eastern and Central Europe and for bringing on to the market orphan drugs that are so vital for a relatively small number of people with diseases difficult to treat.
I feel that perhaps more consideration could have been given to the arguments they made. I am very disappointed the rapporteur of the Budgets Committee did not accept the validity of the arguments as I have done.
I can only hope that in the following years we can address the problems they have identified.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, relations between the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and the Committee on Budgets were always tense during preliminary work on the budget.
That is clear and, given that the greater part of the budget falls within the agricultural sector, it was only to be expected.
Which is why it is particularly pleasing that, on this occasion, we can state that cooperation has been a whole lot better than in the past.
This is in no small measure owing to the committee chairpersons and, above all, the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, but also, it should be added, to senior members of all groups.
Nevertheless, not all the wishes of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development would manage a majority today; we know that.
All the same, we place particular importance on not accepting the Council proposals for across-the-board cuts and, above all, on providing for a moderate increase in veterinary and plant health expenditure and in sales promotion.
Veterinary and plant health expenditure is not just agricultural expenditure, but also expenditure in terms of sensible, forward-looking consumer protection.
The new second pillar in the matter of rural development is, of course, a special concern of the Committee.
Here we simply cannot understand the reservation of the Council.
We are pleased that, in its letter of amendment, the Commission opposes Parliament' s position.
The multifunctional tasks of agriculture relating to food, maintaining the countryside, nature conservation and tourism as a job sector of the future which will expand rather than diminish are a major concern for the whole Parliament.
The Council really must accept that, in future, changes will be made to agricultural sector expenditure across the individual blocks of which it is made up.
But that must not lead to us pursuing the cheap option and imagining that we can simply free up money for other policy areas by making across-the-board cuts in the agricultural sector, which not only covers expenditure on farmers but also that on all rural matters.
It should be noted that recent years have seen a convergence of Parliament and the Commission in this sector.
The previous lack of vision on the part of the Council must give way to a more realistic approach, not least with a view to what the future holds for us in terms of the powers of Parliament, also where the budget is concerned.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee asked for an opinion, the Committee on Fisheries. (DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Fisheries has studied in detail the figures in the budget relating to fisheries.
The debate was tense and lively.
There were many differences of opinion, firstly on FIFG, secondly on support for the common European fisheries policy by the Council and the Member States, above all in relation to international fisheries agreements such as the most recent one with Morocco, and thirdly on relations between the EU and other international organisations.
We appeal for the European Parliament at least to try to maintain the level of appropriations allocated to the common fisheries policy in recent financial years.
On my initiative, we in the Committee have drafted three amendments which have all recently been adopted either directly or indirectly by the Committee on Budgets.
In particular, the Committee on Fisheries is concerned about line B2-901 concerning supervision and monitoring measures by the Member States, line B2-903 concerning support for the common European fisheries policy and line B7-8000 concerning international fisheries agreements.
The budgetary policy variously affects the three following core issues.
Firstly: structural operations.
At the Berlin Summit, EUR 161 million were earmarked for regions outside Objective 1 areas.
That is a truly considerable amount, yet the commitment and payment appropriations increased in 1998 and 1999 and might, in all probability, increase further.
Secondly: the draft budget does not allocate sufficient money for the implementation of an effective supervision and monitoring policy.
In 1999 alone, the Member States applied for more money than was available in the EU budgets.
This explains why the Committee on Fisheries applied for an additional sum of EUR 2 million.
At the same time, we are understandably reassured by the fact that there is sustainable management of resources, systematic recording of basic data and an intensification of dialogue with the industry.
Accordingly, the Committee on Fisheries then made this application a high budgetary priority.
The third matter is obviously Morocco.
We welcome the negotiating mandate which the Council has finally awarded.
Finally, I would like to point out that the common fisheries policy - but I do not really need to tell you that - requires major support by the Community.
I do not just mean financial support.
We are facing major challenges.
We must all make it perfectly clear that that the EU, which constitutes a superpower in the fisheries sector, is prepared to stand up for an industry which concerns numerous regions, States and citizens of the Union.
The number and quality of jobs is of significant added value to the EU and, as we all know, also plays a crucial role in enlargement.
Mr President, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy and Transport and Tourism I would like to endorse warmly the approach adopted by the general rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges.
In particular I would like to thank him for the attention he has paid to liaising with my committee over recent months and our predecessors in the past year.
My committee has advanced five budget priorities: Objective 1, 2, Interreg, transport safety and sustainable mobility.
I will deal with the regional policy priorities first.
I agree with the general rapporteur' s comment that the cuts to Structural Fund appropriations are completely unacceptable.
So what are the cuts proposed by the Council? The Council is proposing that the payment appropriations are cut by EUR 433 million for Objective 1, EUR 95 million for Objective 2 and EUR 33 million for Interreg.
This Parliament enthusiastically endorsed the Agenda 2000 Structural Fund programme.
We expect the new Structural Fund programmes to be launched in the coming year with a flying start. This simply will not be possible if these cuts proceed.
The Council is advocating a reduction in advance payments to new programmes to just 3.5%. In contrast, this Parliament has previously considered that advance payments at the time of first commitment should be in excess of 10% of total funds.
In our view, if these cuts proceed regional regeneration will be put at risk.
Existing programmes will stall before they are transformed into new programmes.
Momentum will be lost. Inevitably the poorest communities in the poorest regions will suffer the most.
The bottom line is that new jobs will not be created and existing jobs will be put at risk.
My committee has proposed 100% restoration of these three budget lines to the level of the provisional draft budget.
This EUR 561 million increase in Structural Fund appropriations will allow us to honour properly historic commitments and ensure the new Agenda 2000 programmes hit the ground running.
We also endorse, incidentally, the proposed 20% entry into reserve pending the successful outcome of our discussions over the guidelines.
I will now turn briefly if I may to transport and just say to members that I hope they are able to support the Committee on Budgets' moves to restore the cuts to the transport safety line and the cuts to the line on sustainable mobility.
I would like to conclude by thanking all my colleagues on the committee for the support they have given me through this budget process.
Mr President, this is the third occasion I have been asked to be draftsman for the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
It is not an easy job, there is never enough money, but it is one I would rather do than be the general budget rapporteur.
I would like to add my thanks to those already expressed to Mr Bourlanges for the support he has shown to the Culture Committee.
Culture has not come out of the budget process as well as it wished, but we are doing rather better than the Council of Ministers' proposal and have figures close to the 1999 level.
Our main education programme, Socrates, and the programmes of Youth and Culture have been mauled by the Council of Ministers.
I would say that the EUR 238 million proposed for Socrates is simply not enough to do a sensible job.
Last week I met the Committee of British University Vice-Chancellors. They told me that no-one - student or university - gets involved in Socrates because of the money.
They do it because they believe in Europe and they want to make the single market work.
But we have to ask ourselves, are the figures now so low as to make the objectives unrealistic?
Let us hope that the conciliation procedure taking place tomorrow will recognise the need to give a higher priority to Europe' s students and increase the funding.
The total for our share of the budget is approximately EUR 600 million, a lot of money until you divide it by 370 million people - less than 1% of our budget, not a bottomless pit.
In the year 2000, the EU will spend less than EUR 2 per citizen on education, encouraging young people to participate in exchange programmes or to acquire knowledge of different languages and cultures, on informing its citizens about the future developments of the Union while supporting our audio-visual industry.
Of this scant EUR 2 support for Europe' s cultural heritage will be less than 20 cents.
The call for the millennium must be EUR 1 per head on Europe' s culture.
What we are currently engaged in is tokenism and symbolic expenditure only.
Even there we manage to get it wrong.
I do not criticise individual staff, but I receive too many complaints from prestigious organisations like the European Youth Orchestra, the European Youth Parliament, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation - renowned organisations doing a wonderful job for Europe and our young people.
Not one of those organisations covered by budget lines 3021 or B3-2005 has received a single euro yet in 1999 for their budgets.
Can we make the millennium the year when our systems work.
Mr Prodi, Mrs Reding and Mrs Schreyer, we are relying on you to do it better this coming year.
I will finish by telling you a story.
I live in a small village in Hampshire with a population of 2 500 people.
My wife is the chairman of the parish council.
I asked her what she spends on cultural, sports and social activities for the village.
They spend EUR 50 000, or EUR 20 per head.
So if anybody comes to me for European support, I tell them they are much more likely to get realistic support from their village council than they are from the EU.
Mr President, the budget debate is always a key moment to express one' s political will.
For the European Union, it represents the opportunity to reassert its firm moral duty to extend a helping hand to the developing world; the opportunity to show how much we wish to combat poverty, injustice, discrimination of all kinds, the lack of democracy, violation of human rights and attacks on freedom.
In short, it is the opportunity to show our determination to pursue our development policy, even if we must review it here and there in order to make it more efficient and more transparent.
From this point of view, the draft budget for the year 2000 gives rise to serious concern.
In saying that, I am of course referring to Category 4, which Mr Bourlanges has just discussed at length.
In addition to the fact that first the Commission and then the Council have proposed very significant reductions in all the budget lines concerned, we now have to respond to a great number of tragic situations throughout the world.
We have to respond to the tragic situation of the Kosovar people and commit considerable resources to the reconstruction of the country.
But we must do this by freeing up new appropriations and not by amputating all the Category 4 lines by approximately 10%.
We cannot make the very poorest people pay for the operations of the European Union.
We cannot set the poor of one country against the poor of another country or distinguish between good victims and bad victims, and I am very sorry that the Council to some extent presented the problem in these terms, by setting different cases of poverty against each other.
We need sufficient appropriations to finance reconstruction in Kosovo, of course, but also for East Timor.
And, believe me, ECHO appropriations will not be enough to fund everything, no more than transferring appropriations from one line to the next according to current priorities.
We also have to finance the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which is a priority for the European Parliament.
We must therefore invite the Council to review the Financial Perspective for our external policies in Category 4.
I believe that Parliament is fairly unanimous on this point.
I must also thank, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, both the general rapporteur for the budget, Mr Bourlanges, and the Committee on Budgets, as well as its chairman, Mr Wynn, for the stance they have taken on this matter.
Nonetheless, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, we have decided to submit three amendments.
The first involves the question of gender.
Throughout Africa, women are taking action; they are the driving force, the hope of Africa for the next millennium, and we must support this movement.
The second amendment concerns the lines of health, reproduction, and the fight against AIDS, which we propose to merge.
This merging must not, however, be grounds for a reduction in appropriations.
Twenty-five million people in Africa are going to die of AIDS, twenty-five million potential patients, nine tenths of whom, due to lack of scanning and lack of sex education, are unaware of the danger lurking in their body.
AIDS will be the next tragedy in Africa.
The third amendment which we wish to submit concerns line B7-6000 on the Community contribution to the operations of NGOs.
The draft budget envisages a drastic reduction in the appropriations allocated to this line.
Mr Bourlanges proposed instead to increase them, and I thank him for this.
What we propose is to amend the wording.
This is an amendment which does not have financial implications but which is going to enable the Liaison Committee ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Schreyer, ladies and gentlemen, according to an ancient Chinese proverb 'women are half of Heaven' and it is only right that in the European Union women should also be involved in the budget in the same proportion.
Perhaps that is why the Committee on Women 's Rights and Equal Opportunities is the last in the series of Committees to be heard this morning.
We in the Committee on Women 's Rights and Equal Opportunities have few priorities: firstly, actions specific to women and, secondly, gender mainstreaming in all Community policies.
The Fourth Action Programme for Equal Opportunities expires at the end of the year 2000 and I would like to remind Commissioner Diamantopoulou of the promise which she made to the Committee to submit as soon as possible a proposal for continuing this programme so that the Fifth Action Programme can follow on seamlessly.
DAPHNE, the programme for combating violence against children, youths and women, must pass through the second reading as quickly as possible in order to retain here also continuity with the promotion period which is expiring.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities is asking here for a broad interpretation of the term "health" which covers not just physical but also mental and social well-being.
The Community initiative NOW is expiring and therefore funds must be made available in the new Community initiative EQUAL specifically for promoting women.
The labour market, education and training are key areas for the active promotion of women and accompanying measures, e.g. support for dependants, play a major role for women in particular and help to make access to the labour market easier.
Unfortunately it is still the case that in the European Union, we need special promotional opportunities for women also.
The same also applies to public relations work and the information society where we should direct our attention to women in the applicant countries in particular.
The funds for the European Women' s Lobby, which also represents the interests of women in Europe, must also be made available in Budget 2000.
Europe is facing up to its responsibility in development policy and therefore the funds here must not be cut under any circumstances.
It makes sense to group together the budget lines B7-631 and B7-6211 into a single line.
But this must then be allocated the corresponding monies.
Family planning and health care for mothers and children are among the most important principles of population policy.
Here, women are a key factor which we must use to lead developing countries out of poverty.
The involvement of women in social, economic and political life must be expanded.
By purposefully promoting women within population and development policy, we can help to produce a stable social background, to modify existing structures and to develop new structures.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities is proposing only a few amendments and I would invite you to support them.
Mr President, firstly, on behalf of my group I would like in particular to warmly thank the two general rapporteurs for the correct points of focus and the correct strategy which they have developed.
If in a public debate concerning budgetary reorganisation and savings measures we advocate a limited revision of the Financial Perspective, we are doing this as a Parliament with a clear conscience because in the past, we have always maintained that Parliament was able to responsibly set the necessary European political priorities whilst striving for greater efficiency and transparency in the budgetary procedure.
Of course, it is not a matter of financing new political needs simply by increasing funds.
But, on the other hand, current development makes it clear that parts of the Berlin Agreement were not quite so prudent and forward-looking and that there is a need here for further improvement.
I would like to address the following comments to the Council and the Council Presidency: you do not need to remind us that we have a responsibility to the European taxpayer and that we too have a responsibility to exercise budgetary discipline.
I would much prefer it if in the future the Council did its share of the homework rather better.
It really was scandalous that the Council recommended to Parliament granting discharge of the budgets for 1996 and 1997 to the Commission.
Since a major part of the Community budget is handled by the Member States, I would recommend that, in the interests of good housekeeping, the Council pay attention in this matter to efficiency, transparency and tidy implementation so that the Commission is not forced in future to repeatedly resort to the funds of the charging procedure.
If this part of the job is done, then the Council can feel free to make new proposals to Parliament on how we should conduct ourselves in matters of budgetary procedure.
I am very grateful to Commissioner Schreyer that she opposed the figures. What was the preliminary draft?
What proposals did the Council lay on the table? How is this to be assessed in connection with the ceilings on financial expenditure on which we jointly agreed?
We certainly do not want to use up the margins which, in terms of the 1.27% of the gross national product of the Member States, now comprise EUR 9-10 billion. But I would also like to say very clearly that there are international commitments which we have undertaken towards developing countries, towards third countries, which cannot simply be cut across-the-board by 10%!
That is visionless and politically indefensible.
That is nothing but bookkeeping! The Council really should distance itself from this!
In this regard, I would also like to make clear that it is not just a matter of setting in motion the necessary priorities for external action, such as the reconstruction of Kosovo, but, so that it is reasonably organised and initiated, the Council must also meet Parliament halfway in the matter of how we should organise this aid and how the future reconstruction agency for Kosovo should really operate?
I believe that here also the Council must compromise with Parliament.
The rapporteur correctly pinpointed the problems of the Technical Assistance Offices.
We are prepared to give the Commission the necessary funds for administrative expenditure and the management of all these projects if in return Parliament is involved in the deliberations on reform.
I believe that we can have good dialogue here.
I would also like to take up what my Mr Perry said: multiannual programmes such as SOCRATES and LIFE are indeed programmes which the citizens outside expect from us and here also we should provide the quality and the necessary funds as a contribution to European development, the European integration process.
The Commission has taken a first step towards Parliament in the form of the comments of Mrs Schreyer that we should strive for reallocation, the use of a smaller portion of the flexibility reserve and possibly an amendment to the Financial Perspective.
This is a first step but, where cuts are concerned, there is an onus on the Commission and the Council to provide evidence line-by-line, whether it is genuinely the case that funds are not being drained away, or whether the intention is to block the politically desired priorities of Parliament.
The onus is on you.
Then we can have various debates.
I believe that we still have a lot to do before December, before the second reading.
Parliament is agreed: we need a limited revision of the Financial Perspective so that, unlike this year, we do not need to again crib our way through x number of different supplementary and amending budgets!
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, firstly, Mr Böge, a minor correction: I would like to thank the three rapporteurs, not two.
Mr Pittella also submitted an extremely important report to us; I would therefore like to thank the three rapporteurs for the genuinely constructive cooperation which has accompanied the budgetary procedure this year.
I must also thank all those who have approached us from the individual committees with their requests and who, in the majority of cases, in the vast majority of cases, have shown a great deal of understanding for the fact that in a limited framework much is desirable but not everything is possible.
We are dealing here with monies which are of course limited, and indeed limited with our approval, but which must reflect the tasks which we have carried out at European level.
The European Union budget for the year 2000 is a special budget, not just because it was initiated by the old Parliament, but because there was also a binding interinstitutional agreement which we adopted at the same time and which has had to be continued after the re-election.
It is this interinstitutional agreement which restricts us, but which has also opened up additional opportunities for us; I shall come back to this.
Thirdly, Budget 2000 is noteworthy because this year we are entering the period of the next Financial Perspective, which runs to 2006, and today we must put down important markers for the coming years.
Fourthly, following the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Union is in a situation of facing many new challenges, for example in matters of internal policies, the area of freedom, security and justice, the employment chapter or increased opportunities in health protection and even consumer protection.
However, additional tasks also require that we make available the necessary funds, since otherwise it is nothing more than lip service and budgets should not be mere lip service.
We must, therefore, clearly define our priorities and make it very clear what they are. We have done this in the past and will do it in the future.
Turning to the President-in-Office of the Council, I must say: obviously for us this is about people, people in the form of the taxpayer who must raise what we spend here, but also the people to whom the money must be made available, for whom we are deciding policies.
We are not making policies as a game between the Commission, the Council and Parliament for our own benefit, but in order to create the best possible conditions for the development of the European Union and for the people with whom we are dealing.
In the past we have placed great importance on the citizens being able to verify that we ensure careful handling of our taxes.
In terms of appropriations which concern commitment appropriations, Budget 2000 is lower than the budget 1999.
Just go to the finance ministers in your Member States and tell them that they must submit a budget plan which is lower than the plan for the previous year.
I would like to see that.
That is the first thing we must get on top of.
Here we are acting accordingly and anyone should be aware of this if they come to us and say that we only want increases.
That is not the case.
We handle the money very, very carefully.
However, because we are working with and on behalf of people, one of our particular tasks is Category 4, external action.
Here the Council has actually come up and said: we want to finance an important future task and an important current task which must be spread over the coming years, i.e. aid for the people of Kosovo.
To finance that we are carrying out a 10% cut in all lines.
Mr Böge said that this is visionless and this is a neat term.
Are you aware, for example, that in these lines we must then cut by 10% financial aid for Israel and the Palestinian people, i.e. the aid for establishing peace in the region?
Are you aware that we must cut by 10% population programmes and funds for combating the scourge of AIDS in developing countries? Are you aware that tackling anti-personnel mines, which is also in our budget lines, will have to be cut by 10%, or that we must cut by 10% measures by non-governmental organisations in developing countries, e.g. for street children in Guatemala or in other regions of the world because we do not want to have any vision, because we do not want to take a close look at where these funds ought to come from?
This cannot be the policy which we want to pursue.
An across-the-board cut with the lawnmower is indefensible and, therefore, we must and will fight it and we will cite Category 4 as part of the interinstitutional agreement.
Although it is difficult, we will observe the other parts of the interinstitutional agreement.
We also have problems with other categories, e.g. Category 3, which contains the traditional focal points of our policy: environmental policy, youth training programmes, research and trans-European networks with their possibilities for creating jobs and improving our competitiveness in global dealings.
Here also things are very tight because we are outlining ever more tasks but are not getting the necessary funds.
We are shifting tasks from national to European level, expressis verbis, but then we are not getting the appropriate financial resources.
This cannot be a sound policy.
We need to discuss this.
All the same, within this Category we will not endeavour to increase the funds.
Within the interinstitutional agreement, we have established that, in future, agricultural policy too can be definitively co-decided by us.
In future, we cannot just promote the production of individual products, but the development of rural areas.
This is an extremely important matter for us, and finally, allow me to say something on staffing policy.
In this too we have acted extremely responsibly, as in previous years.
Except in two central areas, we have not provided for additional jobs.
OLAF must be strengthened, whilst the second area concerns veterinary protection and food controls, where we have made a very modest increase of five staff.
This much we owe to the people, who demand that we ensure that they have safe food to eat.
These, in brief, are the focal points.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Three rapporteurs and many draftsmen of opinions.
Mr President, on behalf of the Green Group I would like to say how obliged I am to them for their endeavours, which have resulted in the piles of reports that I have here before me.
Unfortunately I am only in a position to single out a few points and I intend to start with expenditure in the field of external action, since it is this area that is at the heart of this discussion on the budget.
I share the rapporteur' s disapproval of the European Commission' s proposal to organise development cooperation under geographical headings from now on and to reduce thematic budget headings.
It is by using the horizontal approach that we are in fact able to boost precisely those activities relating to subjects which we make our political priority: human rights, the environment and emancipation for example.
Four years after reproductive rights were fought for at the United Nations conference in Beijing, the European budget heading on this is being torpedoed.
I am very pleased that the rapporteur still put this right in his report.
What is a pity is that this subject is going to be added to the budget heading on AIDS.
Condoms seem to me to be a common denominator but there are also other aspects to the right of women to self-determination over their bodies.
I fully support what the rapporteur has to say on financing the reconstruction of Kosovo.
Minister Siimes reminded us of our obligations to the taxpayer and that the money must be spent wisely.
I think that is precisely our point.
The Kosovo pot is being filled at present by means of an across-the-board cut of 10% in expenditure on external action.
This drip-feed method is, in every respect, a short-sighted approach of the kind used in accountancy and does not testify to a serious weighing up of priorities.
The question that needs to be asked most is whether or not this amendment to an EU external policy area will also have its advantages in the long term.
Mr Walter has already mentioned a number of examples.
There will be less money for the peace process in the Middle East; less money for projects aimed at reintegrating demobilised soldiers into society.
The lesson Kosovo has to teach us is not being taken to heart.
There is less money being invested in conflict prevention.
My group therefore believes that the reconstruction of Kosovo should be financed by raising the ceiling on Category 4.
The financial assistance for East Timor and Turkey will, however, be more limited in scope.
I agree with Mr Mulder that there is a case here for looking at the possibility as to whether the money can be found in the existing budget.
This will certainly mean setting priorities, and that being the case, using the European budget to subsidise large enterprises' exports will not be one of my first priorities.
It may also be possible to create some room for manoeuvre - and that is perhaps something for discussion with the Council - by taking the EUR 89 million destined for humanitarian activities in Kosovo out of the humanitarian aid pot and carry it over to the total financial package for the region.
These differences must not, however, be allowed to conceal - and I said earlier that I share the rapporteur' s opinion - the fact that more money must be made available for external policy because it is unacceptable to allow Kosovo to suffer on account of the developing countries.
Another major point of discussion in the Committee on Budgets was the subsidising of non-governmental organisations.
Budget heading 3021 - Mr Perry has already made reference to this too - contains a list of organisations awarded a precise amount.
I do not intend to call the work of these organisations into question here, but I do feel that it is appalling that Parliament is going to have to be drafted in where the granting of individual subsidies is concerned.
It is understandable though, from the point of view of the organisations concerned, for the Commission is failing badly in its tasks if organisations have to wait a year and a half for subsidies to be awarded or if criteria are changed in the meantime.
The amount of red tape involved has to be seen to be believed.
That is precisely what puts a brake on initiatives from EU citizens. The reform of the Commission is therefore also going to have to play its part in improving service provision by ensuring that money is spent efficiently, in a transparent manner, and also in accordance with the political choices of the budgetary authorities.
That is not to say that the choices made by the budgetary authority itself are always rational.
The cultivation and export of tobacco is being subsidised to the value of almost EUR 1 billion for example.
In addition, we spend several millions a year on informing people about the negative consequences of smoking tobacco.
How can we still justify this? Accordingly, my group proposes that we should reduce this tobacco subsidy by 10%.
My final point, Mr President, relates to the Members' voluntary pension scheme.
This became the talk of the town because the affiliated Members were receiving extra pensions from European resources through this arrangement.
This will all be gone into at length during the negotiations on the Statute and I will not attempt to prejudge any decision on this at this early stage.
What I do want us to achieve in the course of these negotiations is to see the pension fund become independent of Parliament, both in terms of its administrative and political structure.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, any budget is the expression of political choices par excellence.
From this point of view, I think there is a singular contradiction between piling on the tasks assigned to the European Union, while subtracting the resources necessary to fulfil these tasks.
The iron logic of the budgetary Stability Pact does not go at all well with the ambition for a Europe of greater social justice and greater solidarity.
Let me sum up as follows for the benefit of the uninitiated, by which I mean our fellow citizens, in order to make explicit the main themes of the draft budget submitted to us by the Council of Ministers.
Agricultural expenditure: a systematic 10% cut of all the credit lines in relation to the Commission' s preliminary draft budget, without even examining the specific requirements, case by case.
Structural Funds: appreciable reduction in the regional aid appropriations.
Internal policies, that is, excluding research and networks, all policies supporting employment, youth, training, the environment, culture: a reduction of nearly 18% in relation to our current budget.
External policies, especially in the area of cooperation with the countries of the South: the chop.
Examples have been given already, but let me add: food aid down by 9% in relation to the present, cooperation with Africa down by 12% and aid to NGOs down by 35%.
This choice is completely unacceptable in the opinion of my group.
The reason put forward to attempt to justify these swinging cuts is the unexpected appearance of new priorities, which are incidentally perfectly legitimate, such as aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo, our contribution to the construction of East Timor now that it has been liberated, our solidarity with the earthquake victims in Turkey and financing of a fisheries agreement with Morocco.
This argument is inadmissible, in my opinion.
It is not acceptable to rob Peter to pay Paul.
While my group is by no means arguing in favour of recklessly increasing Union expenditures, we still think it necessary, if the need arises, as is clearly the case, to utilise the margin for the increase in expenditure which is authorised under the agreements signed between the Member States themselves.
Yet, as a percentage of the gross domestic product of the Union, the volume of the Council' s draft budget is less than that of the Commission' s preliminary draft budget, which was already less than that of the Berlin Agreement which in turn was less than the ceiling set by the Edinburgh Agreements.
Where is it all going to end? We have to know what we really want to achieve and allocate appropriate resources, within reason.
This is why my group is requesting, within the limits envisaged under the agreements signed by the Member States themselves, a review of the Financial Perspective for all the items I have just mentioned.
And, Monsieur Bourlanges, since he who can do more can do less, we are at all events supporting the rapporteur' s proposal for the review of the Financial Perspective for external policies.
In addition, I would like to draw the attention of my fellow Members to some amendments proposed by my group in favour of a study on the application of the Tobin tax in support of the world cultural heritage classified by UNESCO within the countries of the Union, in favour of a freeze on aid to Turkey, excluding, of course, aid to the earthquake victims, until the Turkish authorities change their attitude to the Kurdish people, on the question of Cyprus and on the subject of human rights in general.
Finally, we urgently demand that the appropriations allocated in the 1999 budget to the European Women's Lobby, which unites 1400 women' s organisations and which performs work of a high quality, are renewed in their entirety in the 2000 budget.
As you can see, these are common sense proposals on which all progressive Members of Parliament, and even others, can and should agree.
Mr President, the budgetary procedure for the year 2000 is henceforth included within the strict financial framework with the regulated expenditure for the period 2000-2006, as accepted by this House in the interinstitutional agreement.
If the same stringency in budgetary matters prevails as much at the level of the States as in the Union, here it is chiefly a response to the demands of some Member States, and we know that the first victim of this stringency will be the common agricultural policy.
A gradual decrease of expenditure is being organised deliberately, to the detriment of farmers.
As regards the Structural Funds, European regional policy has become a real handicap for France, contrary to the myth complacently propounded by some, including, alas, the current Commissioner responsible for regional policy.
On the subject of foreign policy, we are of course in favour of the fisheries agreement with Morocco, an essential agreement in European-Mediterranean relations, which are too often neglected by the Union.
We are also in favour of financial support for East Timor and of aid for Turkey in the aftermath of the earthquakes.
As for aid for Kosovo, let us one last time deplore the bombing of a European State by the countries of the Union.
Yesterday we bombed the Balkans and today we must help to reconstruct the region and re-establish peace, but this means re-establishing peace for everyone, including the Kosovo Serbs.
We can indeed clearly see what this increase in the total appropriation for foreign policy actions foreshadows.
The austerity that the Financial Perspective herald will in fact be a sort of selective austerity: foreign policy rather than agricultural policy.
The significant weakening of agricultural policy and the dubious regional policy are elements that our group could not possibly accept.
And if there were further need, paragraph 20 of Mr Bourlanges' resolution, which considers the distinction between compulsory expenditure and non-compulsory expenditure to be seriously anachronistic, would be sufficient to justify our rejection of the budget.
Mr President, last May this Parliament endorsed the financial framework for the period 2000-2006.
That implied a readiness to observe the necessary budgetary discipline.
We must assess Budget 2000 against this background.
The rapporteur proposes that we should go way beyond the ceiling on expenditure on external action.
He is playing for high stakes in so doing; seeing as this will only unsettle matters where the interinstitutional agreement is concerned.
Financing important priorities such as Kosovo and East Timor is now becoming dependent on a political game that Parliament and the Council are playing over the Financial Perspective.
Moreover, what credibility can a Parliament have when it wants to renegotiate the financial ceiling that it itself agreed with such a short time ago?
It is far too early to call upon Article 19 of the interinstitutional agreement.
We must first look seriously at the various possibilities for financing these new priorities within the present framework.
I am thinking, for example, of those areas where there was underspending in 1999 and of the possibility of making cutbacks in programmes with low expenditure figures such as MEDA.
Next a few words about the Structural Funds.
The current problems with the payment appropriations are evidence of the fact that the budget for the Structural Funds has been pegged at too high a level in the past.
The rapporteur proposes to incorporate 50% of outstanding payments into Budget 2000.
I am very apprehensive about this enforced increase in the appropriations.
Can such an amount be absorbed and is the Commission capable of managing this extra money effectively?
I cannot support those who are in favour of incorporating the resources of the European Central Bank into the European Union' s budget.
After all, this would mean the budgetary authority gaining control over the European Central Bank' s capital, which would jeopardise the independence that the ECB needs to have.
Furthermore, the European Union is not a shareholder of the European Central Bank.
Any distribution of profits would then go not to the EU but to the national central banks.
We are amazed to see an amendment to the effect that the Commission is attempting to draw up a statute for European political parties.
Only parties matching up to this blueprint would be considered for financial assistance.
There is no way that we can go along with this attempt at centralism.
Drawing up a statute of this kind is a matter for the political parties themselves in the first instance.
Moreover, the party organisations reflect national cultures and diversity.
Any attempts to squeeze the political parties into a European straitjacket will only serve to widen the gulf between Brussels and the citizens of Europe.
On a final note, the Virrankoski report contains the umpteenth declaration of intent to revise the regulations governing travel cost reimbursement on the basis of costs actually incurred.
But are we not getting to the point when it is time to convert words into deeds? Our group put forward an amendment aimed at achieving this but the Committee on Budgets rejected it.
That was a lost opportunity and it sends out the wrong signal to the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur and, with a great deal of respect for the work he has done, thank him very sincerely for this draft budget which is courageous and innovative in many aspects.
The rapporteur is to be praised for having achieved it by means of a budgetary procedure which has run its course with the utmost smoothness, even if Parliament is in the process of issuing a major challenge to the Council - a challenge which, in my opinion, is worth accepting.
I am referring, obviously, to the Financial Perspective and the need for Europe to prove itself worthy of the role it wishes to play in the world, without making an over-complicated issue of the budget of the Union.
In 1999 we had a budget - I say this to the ladies and gentlemen of the Council in particular, I am reminding you of this because it is a matter which affects us all - in 1999, Commissioner, we had a budget of EUR 96 billion.
This year, a milestone year, what with the war in Kosovo, the events in East Timor, the earthquakes in Turkey and the commitments of a Union that wishes to take on more responsibility in the international arena, the Council is proposing a budget of EUR 92 billion, that is, EUR 4 billion less than the budget for the previous year.
The Edinburgh perspectives set us an ever higher ceiling and the Council gives us an ever more limited budget, meaning that it will be necessary to cut back on actions in the field of development, for example, or human rights and many other actions, in order to finance the priorities which have been set, and it is not our fault if Europe is the great paymaster of foreign policy.
We shall be responsible for the payments, while other people are responsible for the policy, and I hope that this is going to change.
Parliament will therefore do well, on Thursday, to ask you to go beyond these Financial Perspective.
Do we wish to finance reconstruction in Kosovo? Fine.
Do we wish to assist the integration of Turkey, including by subsidising its immediate dramatic needs? Do we have a new nation emerging into the international arena after all these massacres which have taken place?
Then, let us finance these policies, for heaven' s sake. We have an interinstitutional agreement that allows us, if exceptional events require, to go beyond the Financial Perspective, so why not do it?
That would be EUR 1.5 billion more.
It will still be less than the 1999 budget, but I think that the citizens of Europe will clearly see that this endeavour is not only logical, but also perfectly feasible at the level of the budgets of our Member States.
We would therefore do well to proceed in this way and I think that Parliament should follow through and, if necessary, demand that we have recourse to the former Article 203 of the budget.
A brief word on TAOs.
There too I think we are demonstrating great pragmatism. I thank the rapporteur very much.
We have an interim solution which, I think, will enable us, by means of dialogue with the Commission, to find an agreement on a definitive solution.
I am pointing out this pragmatic aspect of our report for the year 2000 and I would compare it to policies which were rather more extremist in which a clean sweep was made of mini-budgets and then one found oneself with one or two thousand TAOs which could not be managed because the project had been axed in the meantime without any thought as to the consequences.
So, I congratulate the rapporteur.
As regards political parties, may I say that, frankly, asking the Commission to lay down the status of political parties - I am referring to the contribution of the last speaker - is neither fair nor worthy.
Mr President, like others who have already participated in this debate I should like to congratulate the rapporteurs, but in particular Mr Bourlanges.
In his opening remarks, he clarified for us the perspective for the 2000 budget in putting forward the idea that we have to have more programmes, we have to have more countries and we have to have less money.
There seems to be a contradiction here which, in the longer term when we come to enlargement, when we come to a new intergovernmental conference, we are quite clearly going to have to resolve in the context of our budget procedures.
For my part, I would like to focus my remarks on three aspects which concern the running of European policies and the attitudes which we have taken in Parliament in previous years to these aspects.
This is in the particular context of the Commission.
We, as a parliament, want to make sure that accountability is seen to work for those who elected us and to make sure that we have value for money in the running of the programmes.
The first item in internal policy refers to information policy.
In the last Parliament we wanted to make sure that we had proper functioning interinstitutional cooperation.
We made progress in that respect by making sure that in terms of the general information lines, in terms of the specific campaigns, we had good cooperation on both sides.
But we did not arrive at a common framework for this interinstitutional cooperation as we in Parliament had wanted.
There is some degree of concern at some of the initial moves the Commission is now making in its information structures which we in Parliament will keep a close eye on.
In particular, we had asked in the last Parliament, and indeed in previous Parliaments, for the Commission and Parliament offices to work closely together in the Member States.
I have put down an amendment, our group has put down an amendment, to make sure that we can have a report from the Commission on how far this has gone.
There are still one or two countries where the Commission and Parliament are separate in terms of structure and we need to be particularly vigilant in instances where more than 75 or 80% of the appropriations go into paying for salaries and buildings rather than adequate information policies.
Secondly, in terms of external policy, particularly in terms of Kosovo, the hearing we organised a few days ago with the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Budgets, was very revealing to me, in particular the fact that this is not a short-term commitment.
We had evidence from Mr Bildt, Mr Kouchner, Mr Hombach and then from all the other agencies, that this is a long-term problem we have in front of us.
We must, therefore, make sure not only that we get proper coherence between the agencies working on the ground but also Madam President-of-the Council, that we do not take decisions which mean that we are spending money futilely because of a Council decision that we must have some people removed some 100 miles away in another place.
We must make sure that when we come to Mrs Pack' s report later this week we take the right decisions and that the Council understands Parliament' s feelings on that.
In the longer term, we must ensure that we have vision and - as you said Commissioner - we need to have the idea of building civil society in the longer term, not just as some kind of short-term project.
Kosovo and stability in the Balkans must be a long-term project. It is us, as Europeans, who have to take that responsibility.
We cannot expect others to take on that particular responsibility for us.
I therefore welcome the idea of a working committee between the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Budgets.
We must make sure not only that funds are properly spent but that the ideas which are coming through are properly coordinated.
Lastly, in terms of administration policy, there are the Technical Assistance Offices.
I would underline what Mr Böge said to the Council.
The Council has been absent from this debate on discharge.
With nonchalant ease, they have gone through approving the 1996, the 1997 discharge, and it has been up to us in Parliament to press for change at every turn.
Therefore in terms of EU reform we are right, as a parliament, to say that we do not wish to see new posts until we know where the posts are going.
What are the real needs of the Commission?
Secondly, we are right to say that we should not have Technical Assistance Offices performing tasks through temporary officials in what are meant to be permanent posts for the Commission.
We must find some way of having a dialogue between the institutions over the next 12 months to make sure that these reforms take place and that we have the right kind of criteria for making sure that we are getting value for money from the staff.
Otherwise - and I will end on this proposal: we must start cutting programmes if we do not have the proper staff resources available to run them, because ultimately we must make sure that these processes are accountable and we must make sure that we get value for money in the system.
Mr President, I speak on behalf of the Socialist Group in relation to the Virrankoski report.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on a very good approach to this issue and to say that the Socialist Group broadly agrees with the matters he has raised.
On the issue of staffing, which affects all the institutions, we take the view that we have to find a balance between financial prudence and the ability of the institutions to do their job properly.
As we have just heard, there is a danger of the institutions taking on new tasks which they are unable to resource properly.
Mr Virrankoski has just about got the balance right.
We would have liked to be a bit more generous to Parliament in terms of staffing resources.
On the European Parliament section of the budget, we firstly welcome the fact there has been a marked change in attitude between the Bureau and the Budgets Committee.
As someone who sits on both, perhaps I can comment on this.
The way in which the Bureau and the Budgets Committee have worked together to come to a compromise on Parliament' s budget has been very constructive.
I want to highlight just three issues within Parliament budget.
One is the issue of the Members' Statute.
There was a suggestion that we should put money on the line for a Members' Statute.
The Socialists rejected this idea, not in any way to weaken our approach to the Members' Statute; through our comments we indicate we strongly support the notion of a Members' Statute but believe it is now up to the Council to respond to Parliament' s proposals in this area.
Similarly with political parties, the Socialist Group strongly supports the notion of European political parties.
But you simply cannot put money on the line without having an idea of who is going to qualify for this money, what purposes the money is going to be used for, and so on.
Parliament has produced an excellent report - the Tsatsos report - in this area.
It is now up to the Commission to bring forward a proposal on how we might implement the proposal for a European political party.
Once that happens, again the Socialists would be happy to negotiate the idea of putting money on the line.
Finally, and perhaps something that you and I, Mr President, take a personal interest in, the notion of regional offices.
The Bureau of Parliament last night decided that Edinburgh, Marseilles, Milan, Munich and Barcelona should all have regional offices.
We have put money in the reserve in the budget.
When we come to second reading, I hope we can release that money from the reserve and get on with implementing the policy of regional offices. They are vital in terms of Parliament' s strategy of bringing Parliament closer to the people.
The only other institution' s budget I want to talk about specifically and briefly is the Court of Justice' s budget.
My view, and I am sure the view of many in this House, is that justice delayed is often justice denied.
It is quite clear that the Court of Justice has not had the resources to carry out its tasks properly.
The Council has made a limited gesture in terms of improving staffing of the Court. Parliament wants to go further.
I hope we will support the rapporteur' s proposal here.
In particular, delays in interpretation and translation are causing major problems for the Court.
We should do all in our power to resolve this. The Virrankoski report does that.
I turn briefly to the Bourlanges report which is outwith my own remit.
I put on record my support for Mr Bourlanges' approach to the 2000 budget.
He is absolutely right to reject the 10% across the board crude reduction in development lines.
It is true, as the Council says, that some development lines have not been used well.
It is true that some suffer from underspend.
But simply to say that we cut them all by 10% is a very crude mechanism.
The Council needs to make a more refined proposal before we come to second reading.
At the moment, the rapporteur is absolutely right.
Money for East Timor, Kosovo and other emergencies like Turkey, has to come from new money unless the Council makes a more refined proposal.
To pick up Mr Elles' last point on the Technical Assistance Offices, again, the Council has been silent on this. It was the root of the problem with the Santer Commission.
What the rapporteur has said in his report is absolutely right on this issue.
Again, the Socialist Group gives him 100% backing.
Mr President, I should also like first of all to express my appreciation of the sterling work which Mr Bourlanges, Mr Virrankoski and Mr Pittella have done as rapporteurs for the budget.
As a Liberal, I personally have the basic attitude that we should be thrifty when it comes to public expenditure.
In fact, I also think we have tried to live up to that basic principle when discussing the budget.
I therefore want to emphasise that, when a majority of the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party gives its backing to the strategy which the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, has devised and which aims at rejecting the 10% general reduction in external expenditure, this does not reflect an unwillingness on our part to make savings.
It is, on the other hand, a rejection of the way in which the Commission and the Council have proposed financing the reconstruction of Kosovo.
As has been mentioned many times today, it is unreasonable that poor countries in Africa should in this way finance the reconstruction of Kosovo.
All the more so when, with the signing of the interinstitutional agreement in the spring, it was anticipated that there would be a need to find funds specifically for Kosovo and that the reconstruction would be expensive.
It is important that a solution to this problem is found, and it is my hope that, in the negotiations, the Council will show the required flexibility so that we might find a solution within the framework of the interinstitutional agreement.
We have started with the assumption that EUR 500 million should be found for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
That is the Commission' s figure.
But, in the Committee on Budgets, we have also, through a conference among other things, received information to make us question whether that figure has not been set rather too high for the year 2000 and whether we might not be concerned here with a more long-term commitment.
This also indicates that a great deal of effort will have to be made to find a solution involving all the various institutions.
As a new member, I have been very pleased, during the Committee on Budgets' negotiations, to experience the discipline which characterises its work.
We have tried to live up to an unwritten rule about avoiding dotting the "i" s and crossing the "t" s too much when it comes to noting specific budget appropriations.
These tie down the administration and can lead to far too little flexibility and a lack of accountability if we go too far in that direction.
Noting specifically which funds are to be earmarked for which purposes is obviously an important tool for Parliament when preparing a budget.
But any tool can become blunt and lose its power if it is not used with care.
Despite our attempts at restraint, there are many examples of dotting the "i" s and crossing the "t" s in the budget, including many good examples.
I think that in principle, however, it is goals and frameworks we ought to be aiming for to as great an extent as possible.
It is our task as politicians to establish goals and set the general frameworks.
We need to beware of specifying too much detail.
In this connection, I want vigorously to back up Mr Virrankoski' s proposal that budgets should be prepared and controlled on the basis of activities and in relation to goals, as he has recommended they should be in his report.
Clearly, the circumstances of the past year - what with the Commission' s departure and the reports by the Committee of Independent Experts - provide a reminder that we need to secure for ourselves a foundation which can give us confidence that resources are being administered in a reasonable way.
There have been good signals from the new Commissioners, and I think we are all looking forward to fruitful cooperation with both Mrs Schreyer and Neil Kinnock, but they must live with the burden of what we have experienced.
This is also the background to why so much money has been placed in reserve.
The Technical Assistance Offices, or TAOs, have been established by the Commission as a roundabout way of getting administration into those areas which could not be administered with the given resources.
And the Experts' report shows that the necessary follow-up and supervision was not in place.
We need the Commission to provide realistic assessments of the need for administrative resources.
This is the background to the situation in which payments into the technical accounts have been placed in a reserve, and there is a need for open dialogue concerning future administration.
As I say, those of us in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party attach a lot of importance to a solution being found which all three institutions can live with.
The next few years will demand a lot from us.
There will continue to be major external tasks to consider.
Enlargement of the European Union will necessitate a constant re-ordering of our priorities, and we need to continue tidying things up internally.
The prior condition for tackling these things is constructive cooperation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I think we are heading for some difficult debates given that Parliament is pretty much agreed - even my group - that we oppose the across-the-board 10% cuts in funding.
We would like to thank Mr Bourlanges for his preliminary work, even though we certainly envisage the need to amend some points of the negotiations.
It has already been mentioned by Mr Mulder that there must still be a critical review of expenditure on Kosovo, of the assessment of expenditure on Kosovo.
As a group, we also consider that there must also be a critical review of the fisheries agreement.
In these areas also we must ensure more efficiency, more ecological principles.
There are some points where a critical review may be necessary, e.g. the export agreement with Japan.
Nevertheless, we believe that additional tasks - and in this case many additional tasks would pass to the European budget - must also mean additional funds being allocated.
We therefore need a critical review of the Financial Perspective. We would like to thank the Commissioner for intimating this.
In any case, we are prepared to cooperate constructively in this matter.
We think that Kosovo can certainly be financed with fresh funds, but we consider that the other points - Turkey, the fisheries agreement, etc. -must be financed by the budget for the current appropriations.
However, Parliament has also clearly shown in today' s debate that it is increasingly aware of its responsibility, not just insofar as concerns the effective use of funds, but also the discharging of funds.
It is not just a matter of introducing new budget lines and critically reviewing whether all the budget lines can be used correctly and effectively; it is also about ensuring during the course of the year that the programmes are run properly.
We are also responsible for this.
I hope that these were not just isolated declarations today, but that in the coming year Parliament will also assume the responsibility of critically reviewing in all the Committees whether the appropriated funds are also being discharged properly.
I would like to briefly address another subject that has also been mentioned here and which will be important.
We must, in order to increase trust in the European institutions, also increase the efficiency of parliamentary work itself.
In this regard, we have already heard several key points today.
Firstly, it is a matter of swiftly developing a Members' Statute, an Assistants' Statute.
Also, and here I am opposing some of the previous speakers - it is a matter of developing a European Parties' Statute since I think that, in the area of party financing at European level also, we need more transparency, more efficiency.
The voters must know what funds are available in these areas.
This, of course, requires that we clearly define what a European Party is and what sort of work is done at European level.
It also, of course, requires that we critically and precisely determine what in this case the term "European area" means.
How far does the European Union' s coordinating task go? It cannot just be about the EU.
It must also cover enlargement in the east.
Funds must also be made available for this.
But in all these areas we need more transparency.
Finally, one more area in which I think that Parliament must also do its homework properly is the whole question of estate management.
Here, in my opinion, mistakes have been made in the past. We must therefore ensure that in future the monies in this area are used much more efficiently and purposefully!
Mr President, the first budget of this new financial framework confirms and reinforces the grave apprehensions we had during the debates on Agenda 2000 and on the interinstitutional agreement that goes with it.
Indeed, the most striking point about this budget is its obvious lack of appropriations with which to confront specific objectives, given that it is in Category 4 on external action and cooperation that this shortfall is most evident.
On this matter, I would like to express not only my strong disagreement with the indiscriminate horizontal cuts that the Council is proposing in this Category, but also to state my general agreement with the strategy that the rapporteur is proposing to us. I also agree with the fact that in essence, it is aiming for a revision of the Financial Perspective so that they will respond to new priorities without previous objectives being affected as a result.
Within the scope of this strategy, we are pleased to note that Timor is one of this budget' s priorities, and we particularly welcome the fact that the rapporteur has accepted the insertion of a new heading in order to deal with the reconstruction of that region, which is moreover what we on the Committee on Development and Cooperation had proposed and approved.
This is, moreover, the only way in which we can respond to the new situation in Timor, whilst at the same time respecting the legal basis for intervening in the right way.
The proposal of EUR 30 million in payment appropriations, however, seems insufficient to us.
This is why we want to see this merely as the starting point for a final sum which will be established in the near future and in the context of the Conference of Donors, which is in progress and in which the European Union is participating.
By the same token, we would only accept the insertion of this new heading for Timor in a multiannual perspective to be considered within an international framework.
One final, very specific point, which is nevertheless of great importance: it is essential to ensure - if this has not already been done - that under heading B7-6000, concerning non-governmental organisations, there is a reference to the Liaison Committee in the respective commentary.
Indeed it would be absurd if this did not happen.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Mr Bourlanges for his competence and the great balance he has shown in preparing this budget.
However, I must emphasise the fact that this year' s budget cannot fulfil the objectives set at the beginning, that is, a revival of the Union' s economy and, above all, growth in employment.
Indeed, if we start by cutting back the budgets by 10% and we hit sectors like industry, trade, transport and in some cases, even agriculture, we will not be able to revive our economy and become more competitive with regard to competitors such as the United States and NAFTA.
We must not forget that these are our real competitors and that therefore, only budgetary policies aimed at protecting investments and economic growth will allow us to lay the foundations for a Union which will certainly be stronger from a structural and economic point of view.
In view of this, I therefore propose that during the next period, we no longer analyse the programmes and their related credit lines for periods of four, five or six years but for shorter periods - one or two years at most - as the rationales of the market and investment in a now global economy no longer correspond to the criterion which the budget itself was built on.
In fact, everything is moving much more quickly and much more competitively on the market.
This will allow us to intervene immediately in specific sectors and, at the same time, to verify whether our budgetary policy is on course, moving in the direction we set out.
In short, this is a budget which must be revised by including new credit lines with regard to international interventions.
I therefore agree with the line set out in Mr Bourlanges' report, although nothing must be taken away from the other credit lines that have already been allocated.
At the same time, however, we must endeavour to alter the content and rationale of the budget to take into account the challenges that the Union will have to face over the coming years, in particular the fact that the real enemy to be overcome within the individual States is unemployment.
Mr President, the budget line for reproductive health has been halved by the Council and the Commission.
But, every minute, 380 women become pregnant.
Of these pregnancies, 190 are unwanted or unplanned. One hundred and eleven women experience pregnancy-related complications and 40 have unsafe abortions.
Every single minute, there is a death following a pregnancy-related complication.
Approximately 300 million women suffer from short- or long-term illnesses because of complications in pregnancy.
That is more than a quarter of all women living in developing countries.
The risk of dying in pregnancy or while giving birth is 1 in 8 in Angola, while it is 1 in 8,700 in a country like Switzerland.
Only 53% of women in developing countries give birth with a doctor, nurse or midwife present.
Seventeen per cent give birth completely alone.
At least 60% of all pregnant women in developing countries are anaemic.
We know what it means for a family if the mother is sick or dies.
The mother' s income goes on food, clothes, schooling and health care.
If there is no access to reproductive health facilities, there are consequences for the whole family, not least the children who, in the worst case, also die when the mother dies or else stop going to school and become malnourished.
Reproductive health is cheap, costing EUR 2 or 3 per woman per year.
It is also cost-effective when one considers the consequences for the whole family.
This year, almost 600,000 women will die in pregnancy or while giving birth.
By far the majority of these fatalities could be avoided.
It is therefore incredibly important to maintain this particular budget line for reproductive health.
A lot has been said about Kosovo.
Of course, I completely share the view that it is outrageous to let poor countries pay for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
Mr President, the draft budget for the year 2000, EUR 92 billion, a margin of flexibility for our Parliament of EUR 1.5 billion taking into consideration the Financial Perspective, the across-the-board reductions in all appropriations, or at least in appropriations for agriculture, the lack of ambition, and the usual thin spreading of resources and budgetary gimmickry; in other words, it is a draft budget with no great innovations.
It is to Mr Bourlanges' great credit that he attempted to make the discussion more lively by introducing technical objections.
He presented a fine study with a sort of pot pourri of everything he has written since March and all that with the attitude of an official of the French Supreme Audit Office.
Well, that is all very well.
The only innovations are not deliberate.
It is the first budget of the 21st century, one which will indeed see the dissolution of the European Union following the Seattle Conference where the Community preference will be abandoned. It is the first budget to implement the Financial Perspective for 2000-2006, which Mr Bourlanges is also asking that we review.
It is the first budget which is going to verge on the EUR 100 billion mark if we adopt the amendments which Mr Bourlanges is proposing and, speaking of Mr Bourlanges, who I might call the financier from "Uncle Jean Monnet' s Cabin" , this is a first for him, his first report following the general report, after that of Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, Mr Tillich, Mr Lamassoure or others.
Apart from the change in presentation in the form of Mr Bourlanges, 2000 is much like 1999 as far as the budget is concerned.
Firstly one finds once again the European Parliament' s ongoing aspiration to make its presence felt. This has been a constant ever since 1979.
This is a natural tendency on the part of all parliaments throughout the world.
The judgements of the Court of Justice of the European Communities have multiplied.
The 1995 budget was even cancelled, and President Hänsch refused to sign, and, every single time, there is this conflict about NCE and CE.
Well, Mr Bourlanges is bringing us back to this bellicose atmosphere, even quoting Marshal Foch, which is appropriate, I suppose.
In the backwater of the European budget there is not enough room for two crocodiles, the crocodile of the European Council and the crocodile of the European Parliament which, after eating up the Commission by toppling Santer, now wants to eat the Council too.
So Mr Bourlanges proposes to be voluntarist, he wishes to increase Community expenditure by 7%, he is an ultraliberal who has forgotten the budget rationing pact which he wanted to inflict on others, and he is doling out money because Christmas is coming, 135 million for Turkey, 500 million for Kosovo.
First we bomb, then we rebuild.
And then there is even East Timor.
It is said that it is old monarchs who concern themselves with foreign policy.
Of course, the farmers are not entitled to the same largesse, unless they move to Turkey.
The only problem, obviously, is that if you keep increasing expenditure, one day you will also have to increase revenue and contemplate a Community tax.
But in the meantime, well, Italy will pay, and France will pay another EUR 600 million.
I shall conclude, as Mr Bourlanges quoted Saint Matthew, by quoting Jesus, asking Simon Peter. "What thinkest thou, Simon?
Of whom do the kings of the earth take custom or tribute?
Of their own children, or of strangers? Peter saith unto him, Of strangers.
Jesus saith unto him, Then are the children free." But with Mr Bourlanges' tendencies, how long will this freedom last?
Mr President, this budget is fundamental to the development of Europe in the next few years.
It is the first budget in accordance with the new Financial Perspective and institutional harmony will depend very much on its efficient execution, and without that harmony - and I would like to underline this - it will be very difficult to implement a genuine European policy.
We must remember that the previous Parliament approved, in May, the Financial Perspective for 2000-2006 and the interinstitutional agreement.
Parliament approved them by a simple but, nevertheless, clear majority.
We must also remember that the Berlin Council approved the Financial Perspective by means of an extraordinarily complicated consensus, which began with some extremely divergent standpoints between the Governments and, furthermore, with a European Commission which had resigned and a European Parliament which was at the end of its mandate.
What I mean by this is that it is now of fundamental importance to defend the Financial Perspective.
Only in this way for example can we guarantee the financing of the Union' s structural policies.
It is clear however that the interinstitutional agreement itself provides for a review of the Financial Perspective if necessary.
If the Council has not found any other way of financing the reconstruction of Kosovo other than an across-the-board cut in the external activities of the Union, it is logical that the European Parliament will want to defend those lines.
In any case, we believe that the notion of defending the validity of the approved Financial Perspective and the notion of needing to finance the reconstruction of Kosovo by means of a limited review of that perspective, are compatible notions.
If this is the proposal which Commissioner Schreyer is making, I hope that this Parliament will welcome it.
With regard to the fisheries agreement with Morocco, we should point out that the commitment presented by the rapporteur on the first reading calms the fears of a significant section of the Community fishing industry.
We must remember that the fisheries agreement with Morocco affects almost 30,000 citizens of the Union and that regions such as Galicia, the Canary Islands and Andalusia have a large proportion of their fleet fishing in Moroccan waters.
It is normal - and this is the view of the rapporteur and my own group - that, at the beginning of the budgetary process, we should be concerned to see that in the first reading no commitment had been specified for these EUR 125 million.
Nevertheless, and bearing in mind that fishing policy is a Community policy whose funding is separate from the Treaties, a formula has been found between all of us that allows the Council' s amendments not to be rejected in the first reading, including those referring to fishing, but rather defers their approval until such a time as financial agreement is reached with the Council.
We would have preferred to separate the fishing agreement from the rest of the Community' s external activities.
In our opinion, this is a confusion of two categories of expenditure and two different kinds of problem.
However, it is also clear that the outgoing Commission did not include any indication concerning the renewal of the agreement in its preliminary draft and, for this reason, did not include any appropriation in the reserve.
If the outgoing Commission had been willing to take that political step, we would not now have to wait for the second reading.
We repeat however that we will have a political commitment on the part of the European Parliament to prioritise the funding of the said fisheries agreement.
This will serve to calm the fears of all those families and economic sectors which urgently need this agreement.
Finally, what we do ask the rapporteur and the representatives of the Council is that an enormous effort be made in terms of negotiation.
We do not want to reach the second reading with a proposal to break the interinstitutional agreement and thereby end up with no Financial Perspective.
I repeat: we need a Financial Perspective and we need the interinstitutional agreement.
But we also need credible, and therefore well financed, external European activities.
We need both things.
And we want the Member States to confront these exceptional circumstances, and the reconstruction of Kosovo is an exceptional circumstance, with exceptional solutions which must not be sought by means of a simple across-the-board cut imposed on Parliament in their lines and programmes.
The general rapporteur has said this: we are in a paradoxical position which requires a real solution.
The priorities are clear.
Now, representatives of the Council, the negotiation must begin.
Mr President, it is customary to congratulate and thank the rapporteurs and I will do that as chairman of the committee, and there are three of them - let us not forget that.
First of all, Mr Virrankoski who has done a thorough job.
He came to this position halfway through the year; his attitude has been exemplary and he really deserves the congratulations of Parliament, not just the committee.
Secondly, Mr Pittella who, as a new member, came to the committee and has made quite a significant point about the phasing-in of the ECSC funds.
It is quite an innovative approach and he should be congratulated.
And while we are giving out congratulations I shall also congratulate the Commissioner on her speech which was politically realistic.
Well done Commissioner!
But the main congratulations go to Mr Bourlanges.
When Mr Bourlanges began he said it was the first time he had had 15 minutes to speak in Parliament, and my immediate thought was "yes and that will not be long enough" .
Sure enough it was not long enough - he exceeded it by almost a minute and still had not said half the things he wanted to say.
Mr Bourlanges, I congratulate you on your approach to the budget.
It is fair to say there has never been a dull moment.
You are pragmatic, innovative and, most importantly, serious.
That is shown in your attitude towards the BATs.
You may well be known as "BATman Bourlanges" although I cannot quite see you with a cape and mask, wearing underpants outside your pants, but you have done an extremely good job on the BATs!
This first reading is predominantly about the asterisk amendment concerning Kosovo, the Morocco fisheries agreement, East Timor and Turkey, which was mentioned by the rapporteur.
I have to stress this point quite clearly to the Council and - to a lesser extent - to the Commission because I think they understand.
We take the interinstitutional agreement extremely seriously.
There are forces within this Parliament which would quite happily see it scrapped tomorrow but as far as I am concerned my job - and the job of Parliament per se - is to defend the agreement which we made earlier this year.
We have shown that we are prepared to do that.
If we were against it the Category 3 ceiling would have been exceeded, and on that point, incidentally, all three institutions have a problem with the amount deemed necessary for codecision lines such as Socrates.
This is not just a problem for the year 2000, it is an ongoing problem.
Can I say to both the presidency and the Commission that this is something we need to find a solution to together and quickly.
The amendment for Category 4 should not be seen as Parliament just flexing its muscles.
I hasten to add this is not a threat - though that may sound like a contradiction of something I have to say a little later on.
But I do not want the Council to see it as a threat.
We do not want the Council thinking that we think we have them "by the Balkans" so to speak; we are not trying to squeeze them too hard, though that may be the wrong phrase to use.
It should be seen as an invitation for our two institutions to sit down and agree a solution.
That is what we should be aiming to do, President-in-Office.
We look forward to the proposal from the Commission which will come forward next week.
In the light of what Mrs Schreyer has said, I look forward with anticipation.
I hope the Council can do the same.
But I do need to stress to the Council that this is not the Grand Old Duke of York marching his troops up the hill, just to march them down again.
This is not just some act by Parliament to mount a show of force, but at the end of the day Member States will put pressure on individual Members whose parties are in government to get us to change our mind.
Things do not work like that because of the majorities that now exist within this Parliament.
If we do not get an agreement on the revision of the Financial Perspective especially, I am fairly certain that Article 272 will be invoked.
There is no doubt about that and Council should be in no doubt about that whatsoever.
That it is not a threat, it is a statement of intent.
Let me reiterate the philosophy of two of my predecessors: Mr von der Vring and Mr Samland.
I want the Council to take back this message. What we are fighting for is Parliament' s rights, we are not fighting for money.
It is about the rights of this Parliament and that is the message they have to understand through and through.
Once they understand that message I am quite sure that the discussions we should and will have will be fruitful.
I know the political constraints that Member States are working within, we are all serious about - as you put it - the principles of cost efficiency and rigour.
We abide by those same principles but in this instance, after what Parliament has fought for over the years, this revision of the interinstitutional agreement, a revision of the Financial Perspective as outlined in the interinstitutional agreement, is extremely important to Parliament.
I hope that is understood.
Mr President, I would like to add my voice to those who have already expressed their satisfaction and support for the basic outline in the Bourlanges report.
Mr Bourlanges stands before a double paradox - a debate on the budget which deals with expenditure but not income, and then a budget subject to the double conflicting pressure of an increase in the tasks of the European Union and an actual trend towards reduction of the European GDP rate which is reflected in the Union' s budget.
The way out of the paradox has been suggested to us and means not accepting tomorrow' s priorities being financed by the sacrifices and priorities of today and yesterday, and consequently, financing new, indispensable priorities of external actions by increasing the Financial Perspective for Category 4.
I hope that the European Parliament will follow the rapporteur' s statement and that the Executive Commission and the Council will accept the consequences of this.
However, I do not think that everything can come down to difficult negotiations that seek a possible compromise between new resources and the sacrifice of former priorities.
It would be a short-sighted attitude which is largely hypocritical and out of keeping with the irreversible prospect of an extension of the Union' s competences and geographical enlargement of the Union' s strategy.
This prospect is dictated by the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, but even more so by the change in global political balances following the war in Kosovo.
One of the few and sure guarantees of stability and prosperity in Europe which cannot be ignored is Europe' s active presence on the world stage and its unequivocal, open attitude towards progressive enlargement policies, even towards south-east Europe and the Balkans in the perspective of that parallel virtual enlargement of peace and security which Mr Prodi has given us a glimpse of.
In these circumstances, we need to make a bold choice.
We need the hypothesis which is contained in Mr Bourlanges' proposal to be set out for all to see.
We have to say that the emperor is naked!
Today the European Parliament, the Executive Commission and the Council have to take on the responsibility for opening a broad, thorough debate in full view of the European taxpayers.
In short, we need to ask ourselves whether or not the moment has arrived to entrust the European institutions with greater shares of financial resources.
This must not lead to any increase in public spending in Europe, but requires individual countries, all the European countries, to be willing to transfer the resources corresponding to the de facto transfer of competences to the Union.
The increase in the Community budget will and can correspond to a reduction in national budgets.
The task we have before us is a formidable one which can no longer be avoided, for otherwise the all the European institutions will lose credibility.
I hope that Parliament will take this path.
Mr President, firstly I would like to give my reaction to the rather naïve comments made by Mr Martinez about Kosovo.
The money that we want to spend in Kosovo, Mr Martinez, will largely be spent on rebuilding the 80,000 homes that were destroyed there.
Those homes, Mr Martinez, were destroyed not by NATO but by your friends there, that is to say, by certain Serbian paramilitary organisations.
That is the truth of the matter and there is no other.
I am indebted to the rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets for their support for Amendment No 69, which I submitted with the support of Mrs Van Lancker and Mr Beysen, as well as most of the Flemish and French-speaking Belgian Members.
It provides for an appropriation of EUR 50 million to be taken up in the financial reserves for financing the activities to be undertaken by those producers or Member States wishing to set up an integrated quality control system for the whole food chain.
That will make it possible for us to restore the consumer' s faith in his or her food.
And so I will take the opportunity at this plenary sitting to say that it is my express wish that the Council should lend its support to this amendment.
Secondly, I would like to affirm my support for paragraphs 13, 17 and 57 of the Bourlanges report.
Paragraph 57 relates to the allocation of additional posts to OLAF and the Veterinary Office in Dublin.
I endorse what Mrs Morgan, Mr Walter and Mr Mulder had to say about this.
Paragraphs 13 and 17 concern the future of the TAOs, the Technical Assistance Offices.
As Mr Bourlanges rightly says, the measures produced by the European Commission do not satisfy our demands.
I regret that Mrs Siimes' reaction to the proposals made by rapporteur Bourlanges was one of slight disenchantment.
The Council maintains that the European Parliament is proposing very far-reaching reforms and that it will not be possible to accommodate these in Budget 2000.
Mrs Siimes, the citizens of Europe expect us to exercise robust and financially-transparent administration and it is therefore absolutely essential that we see to it that the Technical Assistance Offices are gradually disbanded.
I would refer you to what Mr Elles has just had to say on the matter.
And so it is my hope that the overtures we have made to you do not fall on deaf ears.
Mr President, the main proposition of the Bourlanges report involves increasing the budget by EUR 700 million to finance what he calls the four priorities, with, first and foremost, aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo.
I am in favour of aid for Kosovo.
But financing for the reconstruction of Kosovo, and indeed Serbia, where the fate of the population seems not to be of interest to the European institutions, should be taken out of the military budget of the powers responsible for the destruction.
The humanitarian arguments which we have heard serve mainly to hide the fact that EUR 500 million of public money, supposedly earmarked for Kosovo, only serve to make profits for big business in the private sector, especially building firms and public works contractors.
The Members of Lutte ouvrière and the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire have no intention of sanctioning the European budget either directly or indirectly.
This budget reflects the fundamental orientation of the European institutions, responsible for facilitating the activities of the large capitalist groups, including in the areas which are most damaging to society, such as the redundancy plans which are responsible for the gravity of the unemployment situation and the spread of poverty.
On the subject of internal policies, since the Bourlanges report establishes priorities, the first priority should be to prevent all the redundancy plans announced by Renault-Nissan, Alsthom, Rhône-Poulenc, Hoechst-Marion-Roussel and many others.
This is the only way to oppose the rise in unemployment effectively without it taking a single penny from the budget.
Mr President, there is one financial matter of importance to Ireland which I would like to focus on during this wide-ranging debate on the budget.
This relates to the continuation of the European Peace and Reconciliation Fund for the period 2000 to 2006.
As a Member of Parliament for the constituency of Connaught/Ulster I certainly welcome the decision of EU leaders taken in Cologne this year to ensure the continuation of this programme.
Peace and Reconciliation has been successful. I believe it was a wise and sensible decision to continue this programme.
For the border county region which I represent it will be worth something in the region of IEP 80 million.
But my primary concern relates to the transitional period between the ending of the existing programme and the commencement of the next programme.
It is important that transitional financial arrangements are put in place so as to guarantee that those organisations who oversee the fund can smoothly make the changeover from the existing programme to the new programme.
In conclusion, I believe a roll-over will ensure the retention of the excellent staff on both sides of the border who have played no small part in ensuring the success of the programme.
Mr President, Commissioner, in undertaking our first reading of Budget 2000 today, we are discussing the first budget under the guidance of the new Commissioner, under your guidance Mrs Schreyer.
And it is the first budget to be treated in accordance with the Berlin decisions on Agenda 2000 from March of this year.
I think that both these points are worth mentioning. Firstly, because I had expected more involvement by the Commissioner in the budgetary procedure; there was actually little to be seen and heard.
Secondly, because in the first year of implementation of the decisions on Agenda 2000 there is already a need to discuss revision of the Financial Perspective.
This also I consider to be fully worthy of note because the wish list of the foreign ministers, which has grown in recent years, means that today we can no longer cope financially.
The buck has been passed to us to bring about a solution in this and to find a way to handle matters from a budgetary point of view.
To be perfectly honest, I find this unacceptable.
First of all, the foreign ministers should be at one with their own finance ministers and then we can also sensibly implement this in the budget.
However, I would also like to say a few words on the so-called "small budgets" .
Firstly: I do not consider it credible that, as the European Parliament, we should, on the one hand, require the most stringent tests from all other institutions, in particular the Commission, that we should expect the staffing structure to be adapted to new challenges and that we should want to accomplish this through the European budget, when, on the other hand, we are not prepared, here in our own domain, in the parliamentary budget and in the parliamentary administration, to take the necessary action.
For this reason, as the Group of the European Peoples' Party, we have commissioned a study which, for our own administration, will bring about opportunities for staff development and task allocation within our departments.
We have - and I would like to state this quite clearly - started an initiative to find a neat solution to the budget funds which we must manage ourselves as a Parliament - I am referring here, in particular, to travel costs.
In this regard, in the very near future I am expecting specific proposals from our parliamentary administration which can then be treated accordingly by our Bureau.
It must not be the case that the initiative which we as the Group of the European Peoples' Party have started leads in the end to savings being made where it makes least sense, i.e. in the very place where real work is done, Strasbourg.
In the European Court of Justice, there has been an urgent need to increase the number of interpreters.
It must not be the case that Court processes are delayed for two or three years due solely to problems with interpreters.
Here we as a Parliament have seen the need and assume our responsibility.
The Committee on Regional Policy has now found a solution for solving its staffing problems internally.
It is not a matter for the budgetary authority, but something they can do, and indeed are doing, by their own efforts.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs for their loyal cooperation and hope that in the second reading also we can adopt a sound budget.
Mr President, naturally enough the rapporteur and some of the previous speakers have already alluded obviously to what for me is one of the crucial political elements - if not the crucial element - of this draft budget.
But, as rapporteur for the interinstitutional agreement and the Financial Perspective, I feel compelled to emphasise it.
Few people interpreted Berlin as a success: the European Council confused austerity with miserliness.
I will not repeat my criticisms: I refer you to the Minutes of the plenary sittings.
Between 25 March and 6 May, we held the last round of negotiations between Parliament and the Council.
During that long and intense month of bargaining, Parliament made an effort to persuade the Council that there was more to the Union than the EAGGF and the Structural Funds, that the remaining 20% of the budget was also used to serve the Union' s objectives and that, often, it affects issues which were politically very sensitive.
The Ministers implicitly recognised the obstinacy of their leaders, but did not want to find fault with them barely five weeks later.
For this reason they only accepted the slightest and most miserly alterations to Category 3 (Internal Policies) and Category 5 (Administrative Expenditure).
The insuperable stumbling block was Category 4 (External Action) and not even the war in the Balkans persuaded them to accept the higher figure.
One of the Ministers who negotiated and who is now a Commissioner came to recognise that it was possible that the Financial Perspective would have to be revised before it entered into force, but that we would have to wait until the Commission provided an estimate of costs.
Once again, the Council confused the multiannual budgetary framework, that is to say the Financial Perspective, with the budget itself: a self-interested short-sightedness which hindered suitable and appropriate political decision-making and which led to a bungled handling of the budget.
What is the situation? We are beginning to see the cost of the needs of Kosovo, there has been an earthquake in Turkey and a political disaster in East Timor, not to mention the need to pay for the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which the government of the principal country involved must have forgotten in the negotiations in Berlin.
The Council intends to resolve the matter by cutting a good proportion of the aid to Russia and the Mediterranean area with the rest coming from proportionate reductions in the other external programmes.
Very cunning.
The Financial Perspective has also failed to take into account the question of the accession of Cyprus and Malta.
I believe that we should bear in mind that the interinstitutional agreement includes a mechanism for revision of the Financial Perspective for these cases, and that it is there to be used when necessary.
There are those who keep an empty bottle in the fridge in case their visitors do not wish to drink anything.
If the Commission now presents a proposal for revision of the Financial Perspective, think of that bottle, Madam Minister.
Commissioner, Mr President, the current climate conference in Bonn is crying out for more funds for renewable energies; to wit funds from the EU, both for research and for demonstration projects.
The recent nuclear accidents in Japan and South Korea again show how overdue a new energy policy is.
Regarding the EURATOM credits, we in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy are asking that Parliament be consulted immediately.
It is incomprehensible to us that our colleagues in the Committee on Budgets cannot support this as parliamentarians.
The sole purpose of the budget lines in the area of trade is, professedly, to promote exports and create free market access.
Yet this so-called "free market" only exists for multinational concerns because, for example, the SME cannot access either the information on money allocation nor the programmes themselves.
In the last two decades exports from Latin America have increased by 300% whilst the gross domestic product in those countries has only increased by 3.3%.
Since the beginning of the worldwide policy of a liberalised world economic area, there has been a massive redistribution from the rich to the poor, both within societies and between States.
I advocate the opposite political trend. The result is that the financial assistance from the EU is indirect subsidisation.
It is precisely this which contradicts the declared concept of free trade.
Ultimately, what we are seeing here is another of the many inherent contradictions in WTO policy.
Mr President, any budget reflects the financial implementation of the intended policy.
Consequently, the decision to accept or reject the budget can, of course, only be bound up with how the focal points of the policy match up to one' s own ideas and whether the available financial funds are sufficient.
What then, in my opinion, are the main criteria for this budget?
Firstly, a drastic minimisation of the unemployment which dominates in the Member States of the European Union.
Secondly, a reduction in the economic and social divergences in the Member States.
Thirdly, the enlargement of the European Union and, fourthly, a peaceful, democratic and social development of all regions in the world.
If, and this I am assuming, you share these starting points, albeit there will certainly be differences of opinions as to the ways in which we reach these goals, it must be clear that the budget, as it stands, cannot be affirmed.
Mrs Schreyer, I am, of course, in favour of reorganising and redistributing.
I would immediately switch the focus from large enterprise to small and medium-sized economic policy which safeguards jobs.
I would immediately move from an offer-oriented economic policy to a demand-oriented economic policy in order to boost consumption.
But it is absurd to find ever more responsibilities for the European Union without providing it with the necessary financial funds.
It cannot be the duty of Parliament to accept that the Council wants to finance important new political needs by renouncing traditional needs.
Similarly, it cannot be the duty of this Parliament to accept that the Member States want to reorganise their budgets to the detriment of the European Union budget.
Consequently, I consider that the most urgent task, given that we have a new Parliament and a new Commission, is to give consideration to the fact that the Financial Perspective really must be amended and that the interinstitutional agreement must also be modified.
Mr President, Budget 2000 contains some technical improvements while an attempt has been made to do away with the usual over-budgeting for structural arrangements.
Over-budgeting is an unsound budgeting practice, and it is important that it should disappear completely from the EU' s budget.
I have noted the Council' s savings in regard to both structural arrangements and the agricultural sphere.
These I support, even though they only constitute a small beginning when it comes to the required changes to the EU' s financial arrangements.
In a changing world, we must be in a position to make adjustments to the budget far more quickly so that, without increasing the overall budget, we might meet any new needs including, first and foremost, the development needs of the new Member States in Eastern Europe but also the need for emergency aid and reconstruction in the Balkans, which ought not to be financed through cutbacks in support to the Third World.
Overall, the EU has no need for more money but, rather, a need to use the existing money more sensibly.
I want to emphasise that a more professional and accountable administration of the EU' s financial resources will provide rich opportunities to get more out of the same amount of money.
Everywhere, there is a need for activity-based budgeting.
More cost-conscious administration must be implemented and the wastefulness of which we have again and again seen examples and which the Court of Auditors' reports have revealed for a number of years must be eliminated if the EU' s citizens are at all going to be able to regard the EU' s institutions as serious partners in the development of Europe.
Mr President, I would like to draw Parliament' s attention to the fact that the draft budget for 2000 did not envisage any allocation of funds to line B1-3800 concerning the promotion of agricultural products, an amount used solely to discharge the past, and I would of course like to thank the rapporteur, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, for his understanding, and Mr Böge and Mr Görlach for their support.
As a result, all the efforts made in favour of quality beef, fruit, vegetables and dairy products would be in danger of being wiped out, even though this action is part of the Community action which could be entered in the green box at the WTO.
The pretext of setting up an evaluation study does not justify the suspension of appropriations whose continuation is the guarantee of success.
The professionals in the Member States who participate widely in this action are in agreement in favour of a study. Such a study could in particular result in the harmonisation of the Community contribution which currently varies between 40 and 100%, according to the products.
For the same period, there are plans to finance a communication action for third countries, but in the absence of an implementing regulation, it will probably not be possible to use the provision in the year 2000.
Finally, provision is also made for the promotion of the labelling. The Commission, however, is actually proposing to defer the implementation of labelling for one year, making the promotion of this non-existent product completely useless.
It is therefore possible to continue to promote quality products without requiring additional expenditure, and I therefore ask the Commission not to stop promoting quality products, for these products are the external face of difficult regions, local products and the earnings of family farms in Europe.
Mr President, supporting the economic reconstruction and the political renewal of a free, democratic and independent East Timor is not only nor is it fundamentally a question of humanitarian aid.
What it represents above all is the confirmation that the Europe that we are building is ruled by universal values which are equally resonant across the world.
It also means that military invasion is not an acceptable method of extending borders, whoever perpetrates such an act and whatever geopolitical factors and interests may be involved.
It means above all, that liberty, democracy and respect for human rights are the fundamental principles according to which we would like to see our world develop.
By deciding that the budget for the year 2000 is to make Europe' s financial contribution to Timor one of the four great European priorities, the European Parliament will be giving an unmistakable political signal to Europeans and to the world.
I am pleased to note here the determined way in which the Commission and most particularly the Commissioner directly responsible for this matter, Chris Patten, is committed to supporting East Timor.
In spite of the huge budgetary constrictions within which we work, the Commission managed to find the means to respond to the most pressing needs even in 1999.
The assessment reports on the reconstruction costs for East Timor, as well as for the attendant international financial aid plan, have still not been completed which means that it is not yet possible to have an accurate estimate of the European contribution to the costs of reconstruction.
The political message that we shall be giving when we vote next Thursday in favour of Mr Bourlanges' draft legislative resolution is nevertheless unmistakable.
Europe' s support for East Timor is an absolute priority for Parliament in terms of the budget for the year 2000.
It gives an accurate reflection of the feelings of many Socialist MEPs and of those from other benches who came here to give their evidence in the debate that we held on the situation in East Timor in the September part-session.
(The sitting was suspended at and resumed at 3.00 p.m.)
Mr President, we approach the draft budget 2000 with considerable concern, particularly regarding the lines on development and cooperation but also those concerning human rights, as other Members have already said.
Indeed, we have the impression that this budget is restricting all those things which are dearest to us.
At a time when the requirement is for women to take greater part in the decision-making process, the corresponding budget lines are being restricted.
At a time when the wish is for the environment, particularly the protection of tropical forests, to be integrated into the development process, the appropriations allocated to this are being reduced.
At a time when developing countries are being asked to respect the principle of good government, with respect for human rights, our own budget on this crucial issue is being drastically reduced.
Finally, at the very time when Lusaka is reminding us of the human and economic ravages due to AIDS in Africa, we are reducing the funds dedicated to it, contrary to the Commissioner Nielson' s assertions, while mixing them in with the policy on health and reproduction.
Furthermore, we can only regret the re-orientation which involves favouring aid to States rather than to NGOs, especially the organisations of the South which are, however, known to be more effective and which make it possible to really target society.
In short, we cannot be satisfied with this new distribution of appropriations which destabilises the priorities of the European Union in developing countries.
Mr President, I would like to express my support for Mr Bourlanges' s position regarding the amendment of the Financial Perspective.
At the same time, I wonder how Finland, as the country to hold the Presidency, has clung to the untenable position of the Council, according to which world events do not influence the EU budgetary framework and the final sums fixed in the budget itself.
In the same connection, I would also like to draw attention to the calls there have been to adopt financial support for European political parties.
Our group, the Confederal group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, has another stand in this matter.
We do not want Europe' s taxpayers' money to be spent on support for political parties.
We would also like to see a revision of the pay and benefits enjoyed by MEPs by adopting a common rule, whereby MEPs do not receive unjustifiable expense compensations and everyone is paid a fair salary and remuneration.
Mr President, in the time available I want to refer to just one particular line in the budget which is the school milk scheme where the Commission has proposals to reduce the allocation from EUR 96 million to EUR 53 million.
In 1997 Ireland for example received over IEP 1.4 million from the European Union for the administration of the school milk programme.
As a member of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development I fully support the scheme, both now and in the future.
However, I am disappointed that reductions are being made in the overall budgetary allocation but I hope that the European Council, when it comes to reviewing the second reading of the EU budget for the year 2000, will take on board the recommendation of this Parliament that it should increase the funding for the programme to EUR 67 million or IEP 53 million in next year' s allocation.
Mr President, it feels good to be able to say, in my first speech in the European Parliament, that the EU' s budget for the year 2000 has its sights set on a number of important processes.
I am thinking of the importance of increased democratic support for the EU' s activities and of the importance of concentrating on crucial issues, for example the fight against unemployment and the enlargement of the European Union to include the new applicant countries.
These tasks go hand in hand.
The European Union must win the fight against unemployment so as to break down ordinary workers' and employees' mistrust of the European Union.
In order to succeed, the enlargement of the European Union must quickly give rise to social and economic improvements for the citizens of the applicant countries.
That is why we now want to increase the resources for developing dialogue between the two sides of industry.
It is a question, among other things, of giving employees a say in the development of the Employment Pact and coordinated economic policy.
It is equally important that the applicant countries should now be able to participate in the dialogue with a view to constructive cooperation on the labour market in these countries too.
The procedure leading towards membership for Eastern and Central European countries, among others, is a difficult one.
It is not enough to design well-balanced accession agreements.
For EU membership to be a palpable and advantageous change in the eyes of ordinary citizens, the current state of affairs needs to change, and companies and employees need to be able to create a labour market which is not only dynamic but also grants rights to employees.
Enlargement of the European Union must not mean that companies exploit a situation where there are low wages and poorer social security or that taxes and environmental demands are evaded.
Employees in the new Member States have the same legitimate claims upon social entitlements and influence as we do.
In this budget, we want, both for their and for our own sakes, to support dialogue between employers and employees and the establishment of union rights in the applicant countries too.
In the same way, we would point out how important it is for the EU' s Committee of the Regions to have resources to develop contacts with regions and municipalities in the applicant countries.
We also support the proposal for a special initiative to promote local and regional cooperation around the Baltic and the Barents Sea.
Mr President, I would like to start by saying how indebted I am to the rapporteur, who has done some sterling work in this area.
He has developed a strategy that everyone can support.
My colleague Mr Wynn may have feared that we would end up with a "Duke of York" -type scenario, but I feel that the whole affair is more akin to a scene from Asterix and Obelix, where Asterix has a special part to play in this case and we then have to vie with the Council, which plays the part of Julius Caesar.
That is my first point.
I must say that we can be satisfied with regard to Category 3, which is of particular interest to me.
The rapporteur has struck the right balance here.
But I would like to temper this comment with a caution to the Commissioner. I would ask that she does not start making changes to the categories when she puts her package together.
We have decided most emphatically to restrict ourselves to Category 4 and if she starts on Category 3 then I think we might run into difficulties.
I am very curious as to the contents of this package.
I believe that the Council and in fact the Commission itself are responsible to a certain extent for the problems now facing us.
The Commission because it misjudged the fisheries agreement, thereby actually reducing our margin, and of course the Council because it allowed Africa to foot the bill for the remainder.
I have one more small point to make about Kosovo.
It relates to a particular concern of mine besides that of the total amount to be spent on Kosovo.
Of course we can consider the situation in terms of existing needs.
I am completely in agreement with taking this approach.
But we must also look at how much Kosovo' s economy can bear.
If we were to provide assistance amounting to approximately 50% of Kosovo' s GNP - and there is a possibility of this happening if very high estimates are made - then I fear that the inflationary and other consequences for the economy would outweigh the benefits afforded by the assistance.
I would ask the Commissioner to look not just at existing needs but also at the macroeconomic consequences.
It is very clear that this is what happened at the time of the Marshall Plan.
That is when it all started.
We should also look very closely at this matter in the case of Kosovo, and we must learn from our experiences in Bosnia as far as that is concerned.
Mr President, I would like to start by saying that it is very difficult for me to get on with my work here in Strasbourg owing to the fact that for the second time now, my case of documents has failed to reach my office.
I would like to thank all those involved in the budgetary procedure for their work, which had to be executed with very little room for manoeuvre and was intended to send out a message to all the citizens of Europe.
We are able to do this as far as Category 3 is concerned, which relates to internal policies.
The youth programme, the SOCRATES programme, the cultural programme and issues relating to women and equality all provide us with the opportunity to make clear to the citizens what we want to achieve.
A mistake was made in the case of Category 3, that is to say, when the vote took place in the Committee on Budgets an amendment was adopted by a very slim majority which could cause considerable damage if it is not corrected.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities submitted a remark and a budget for the European Women' s Lobby in line A-3037, as it did the previous year, but the remark now states that this line is to be opened to all non-governmental organisations.
May I remind you that we as a parliament have supported this umbrella organisation for European women' s organisations and have entrusted it with the task of implementing the plan of action agreed in Peking at non-governmental organisation level, and I think it would be disastrous if just any women' s organisation could have a share in this budget.
That is why I would ask you all to correct the amendment again and to vote against Amendment No 443 and in favour of the amendment tabled by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
We weighed the situation up very carefully and exercised great restraint as regards the amendments relating to gender mainstreaming and the question of firmly establishing equal opportunities in all European policies.
I would particularly ask the rapporteur to take this into account and to support the position of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
Mr President, all budget work is about setting priorities.
There are grounds for asking the question now and again, "What should the EU' s tasks really be?"
It is in fact the answer to this question which ought to guide work on the budget, too.
Within a short period, we shall be facing what will probably be the biggest round of enlargement of the EU ever.
It is a prerequisite of enlargement that there should be extensive changes to the budget and that we should begin to make these changes right now. This ought to involve making cuts right now in Category 1.
We can begin this work by reducing the tobacco subsidy, among other things, and in such a way that it can be abolished completely within a ten-year period.
A number of so-called unforeseen expenses have arisen in the course of the year' s work on the budget, and this means large demands for increased expenditure in Category 4.
Humanitarian efforts to help refugees or victims of war in Kosovo, people injured in the earthquake in Turkey or innocent people hit by events in East Timor have obviously led to demands being made upon the European Union.
As I see it, it must be an obvious objective successfully to deal with these matters too within the frameworks which we ourselves have been involved in setting up.
That is where the important issue of prioritising comes into the picture.
We have budget frameworks in the form of an interinstitutional agreement, signed less than six months ago.
In my view, it would be extraordinarily unfortunate if this should need to be cancelled.
I am in fact proceeding on the assumption that it will be possible for this issue to be solved jointly by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers before the second round of discussions.
Mr President, this is my first budget.
I should like to begin by thanking Mr Wynn and Mr Bourlanges and the other two rapporteurs for simplifying a very complex process for me.
I believe that the European Union is changing.
The institutions are having to become more representative.
In that spirit, we should be trying to bring the European budget closer to the electorate.
It is crucial for the citizens of the EU to know what their stake in the EU' s policies and operations really is, what they are paying and what they are paying for.
Increased transparency will be the key to the future success of all EU institutions.
That means assessing every budget line to see how it benefits the citizens of Europe.
Given the commitment in the Treaty of Amsterdam to incorporating the interests of consumers into all other policy areas of the EU and the derisory level of the consumer budget, which stands at a quarter of one percent of total EU spending, there is a need to begin by making sure that valuable programmes such as the school milk scheme are safeguarded.
This is not the case in the draft budget as my colleague, Mr Hyland, said earlier.
The draft budget for the school milk programme throughout Europe has been reduced by 50%.
This cut is a drastic measure for a programme that has benefits for both consumer and producer alike.
The reason I feel strongly about this budget line is that it has an impact on the long- and short-term health of people, it addresses social deprivation issues and it impacts on the economy and jobs in my region.
I do not have any difficulty with the reform of the CAP if it means cheaper and safer products for the consumer.
I know that people are concerned about paying for subsidies that increase prices for them as consumers.
The response I had from the Commission in the Budgets Committee was initially quite disappointing.
They said that social issues are not within the original remit of the programme.
But it now emerges from the Trialogue meeting last week that the Commission will be proposing an increase of EUR 31 million. I welcome this.
I must say that I am disappointed that the Council is not here because I would like to know if they will support this.
People out there are not concerned about the finer points or headings of the subsidy.
What matters to them is the impact and the positive benefit of policies, such as this one.
I accept totally the need to streamline and introduce efficiencies in the management of this scheme and others and to improve value for money, but a more effective way in terms of amending the budget would be to outline improvements and provide an implementation plan for the future.
The Commission, in estimating spending, should look at funding in its totality.
I call on Members to support this endorsement and amendment in Thursday' s vote.
Mr President, in this debate, the European Parliament has the opportunity consistently to underline its resolve concerning the future of the European Union.
In this context, I must emphasise the fact that the Council' s draft budget represents less than 1.10% of the Community' s GDP, an amount which is already quite low in itself and what is more, is considerably lower than the ceiling of 1.27% set in Edinburgh and confirmed in Berlin. This should be cause for serious reflection for those who want Europe to do more and to do it better.
Having said this, I agree completely with the rapporteur Jean-Louis Bourlanges, whom I congratulate for the quality of his work, concerning the obligation to meet, in the budget for the year 2000, major needs which have recently arisen in the area of Category 4 on external action without calling into question other needs which have been previously defined, as the Council is trying to do.
Taking away from some in order to meet others is not acceptable!
Across-the-board cuts are an aberration!
I am also against any reduction in the level of Category 1 on agriculture and Category 2 on structural operations.
Amongst the new priorities, I would single out that of the reconstruction of East Timor, a region which has been a permanent target of the attention of the European Parliament which in September, once more adopted a firm resolution.
In terms of the political commitment it represents, I think that the proposal to dedicate a specific budgetary heading to East Timor is of great significance.
It is a shame that the Commission' s estimates - EUR 30 million - are not in line with reality.
Once we have consistent forecasts, we will have to make the necessary adjustments.
Two final observations: the first is the difficulty in understanding and then in explaining why there is a legal basis, and rightly so, for assisting victims of natural disasters anywhere in the world, as we are very rightly going to do for Turkey, but there is no such basis for doing the same at home.
Today let me remind you, it is Greece. Tomorrow, God knows.
Secondly, there is the expectation, that I insist be noted, of the specific measures and the resulting funds which the Commission is obliged to propose for the outermost regions of the Community which have been recognised, identified and defined since Amsterdam in the Treaty on European Union.
Mr President, adopting the budget for the cultural sector is more difficult than usual this time.
The Socrates II programme is presently the object of conciliation, and the recommendations for a second reading on the Youth for Europe action programme and the Culture 2000 programme will be discussed in the plenary sitting on Wednesday, which is tomorrow.
Thus the final effort to have these multiannual programmes approved still remains to be made.
The greatest differences of opinion between Parliament and the Council relate to the financing of the programmes, which is still open.
At the same time, the Committee on Budgets has had to present the allocations for the implementation of the programmes next year.
It has to be clearly pointed out that the figures presented by the Committee on Budgets do not constitute a stand on the result of conciliations.
A schematic mathematical method is not suited to multiannual programmes.
The financing of the programmes has caused worry to the members of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, and it might not be just a one-off problem.
We have to alter parliamentary procedures with regard to the budgetary procedure for multiannual programmes that are the object of the codecision procedure.
The opinion of the Committee on Budgets relates to the report on the first reading, but there is no official collaboration between the special committee and the Committee on Budgets in connection with the second reading and conciliation.
That can easily lead to breaks in the flow of information and misunderstandings between the special committee and the Committee on Budgets.
The worst that can happen, however, is that Parliament' s position on financing for the programmes remains unclear; that can be used against Parliament.
As multiannual programmes must in any case adapt to the general Financial Perspective of the relevant budget heading as well as the budget as a whole, it is necessary, in my opinion, for Parliament to enhance the effectiveness of its internal coordination when discussing multiannual programmes and the budget.
Communication between the special committee and the Committee on Budgets should not be broken at Parliament' s first reading, after which some time might pass until the matter is finally resolved.
The Treaty of Amsterdam emphasises Parliament' s position as a responsible and effective decision-maker.
That is why we need Parliament to have a common and sustainable view of the matter under discussion in budgetary negotiations and conciliations.
Mr President, we are dealing with a consolidated budget, which is showing the effects of choices perpetuated over the years and which has not yet been dynamic enough.
The major items have undergone some changes, but they are not yet at the level of a structure free of conditioning, which may vary in nature: there is national conditioning which, however, is acceptable in part, conditioning by sector, not to mention by corporation, which is less acceptable, and by lobbies, categories, individuals and structures.
Budgetary language is not dry because it is made up of numbers but because it pays little heed to changes in society and its needs, expectations and hopes.
The Union performs its major function not only through political and legislative acts, but also through investments, management and expenditure, which are becoming a means not so much to satisfy as to stifle high expectations.
The wait for funding is becoming the strongest bond for many communities, not just local ones - funding which binds people together more than any other types of ideals or principles.
While we do not agree at all with some of the programming choices, we will, however, accept them on one condition - that expenditure is subjectively and overall, individually and collectively useful.
But because of inveterate habit, it does not always appear to be like this.
Just because there is unjustified management does not necessarily mean there is unlawful management.
Taxpayers' money can be badly spent in a perfectly orthodox manner.
The Community' s expenditure is huge and there could be many benefits and beneficiaries.
If this is not the case, it is often because Brussels seems distant from Europe and does not always know what is happening there, while those in charge of controls sometimes seem distant and uncoordinated or disorganised.
Let us give them more means, as is repeatedly requested, and the results will certainly be significant.
There is a great deal of confidence, but the choice of what is to happen is just as important.
Finally, I would like to recommend a reduction in the Community' s bureaucratic impetus, reducing the number of officials who are inspectors in name only, committees, commissions, temporary transfers, obligations and regulations.
We need more passion and transparency.
As a new Member - and this is just one example - I approached the European Investment Bank, and I felt as if I were approaching a sanctuary for privileged, all-powerful fat cats who had been released from the rules of democracy and therefore from their obligation to citizens.
Mr President, this year, once again, we rapporteurs and speakers are using the word rigour in relation to the budget.
And if it is clear that rigour is required in the implementation of the budget, I would also claim that we require rigour in the drawing up of the budget.
And it is difficult to be rigorous in the drawing up of the budget if one does not have rigorous information.
And here today, how many of us have had to insist on the question of the fishing agreement, a clear case of a lack of rigorous information.
The previous Commission should have foreseen that the said agreement was going to be discussed again, that it was going to be renewed and that therefore it would have to be reflected in the budget.
With regard to the other institutions, when we speak, for example, of interinstitutional cooperation, how much rigour was there in the information on the day when our colleagues previously agreed that a Common Organisational Structure had to be set up and what is the reality today when we decide that we have to dissolve that common structure?
I believe that we lack rigorous information.
When we speak of building policy, who has the genuine information about the continuous changes between the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions who say "now I am going to that building" , "now I am not interested" , "now I am going to the other" ? When we speak of the rigour necessary for interinstitutional cooperation with regard to the buildings in Luxembourg, has Parliament decided what the effective minimums and maximums are which Parliament requires in Luxembourg?
When we talk about expecting enlargements as from 2002, are we taking account, in our building policy, of the enlargements to come, in 2002, 2003 and 2004?
Rigour also has to be demanded of the members of other committees: the Committee on Budgets must not always be seen as the baddy, the one who always makes all the cuts.
The other committees must take responsibility in the knowledge that new policies mean new expenditure, that for every increase there must be a cut.
And with regard to MEPs allowances, I believe that the current regulation is less unjust than any situation which the absence of a regulation would cause.
In any event, it can only be reformed by means of the Members' Statute.
Mr President, Commissioner Schreyer, we have just had a very interesting discussion. The Members have endeavoured to get to the heart of the issues.
At the same time, we should not forget the goals of the European Union, the most important of which is to make our budget lines as effective as possible in terms of creating employment.
Which budget lines can we use to create fresh employment opportunities in Europe?
Another interesting question of course is which budget lines we can use to secure fresh taxation revenue. Revenue is a very important area and we should examine these issues in detail.
On the other hand, we must take a look at which of the products currently on offer in the EU superstore we could take off the shelves. Which products could be returned to the national level?
It would be interesting to set up a research programme into which activities are currently being performed at European level that could in fact be dealt with much more easily, more efficiently and better at national level.
This would free up our time and give us the opportunity to concern ourselves with the new projects, new goals and all the aspirations that we have expressed here today.
There are two budget lines that are particularly dear to my heart.
One is B5-512, financial support for small and medium-sized enterprises, support for family businesses.
The SMEs account for 66% of jobs. In excess of 55% of turnover in the European Community is generated by these enterprises.
We must concentrate our energies on specific programmes, start-up support, transfer of business know-how, and on the Euro-infocentres, for it is these that will give rise to fresh employment opportunities and fresh sources of taxation revenue.
The second budget line B5-234 concerns financial support for the European digital capacity for global networks.
Commissioner Liikanen advised this House that there will be approximately 1.2 million additional jobs by the year 2002, but we will not be in a position to guarantee the necessary quality of staff.
We must train people and ensure that this labour market of 1.2 million jobs can be exploited in future, and that we develop programmes that will enable us to get people into work.
This will put us on the right footing in terms of the Internet, e-commerce and the many sectors which will bring brand new opportunities to Europe, and there is no question but that we should work on this.
In addition, programmes such as BEST are of crucial importance to us.
When it comes to enterprises of this kind - there are 18 million SMEs in Europe, 50% of which have no employees - we must make the legal requirements pertaining to them a great deal simpler so that they can concentrate on their main tasks of satisfying customer requirements and offering the right products and services.
That is what creates jobs and new opportunities.
That is why we should also look to encourage innovation in schools and to reinforce initiative and innovation in schools - from primary school to university level - so as to give this sector completely new impetus and also enable new opportunities to develop there.
We must reach agreement with the supply sector.
How can we foster links between small and large companies so that the former can learn from the latter, so that we can help them with the introduction of the euro, so that we can promote transfer of business know-how, and so that we can tackle any year 2000-related problems?
To close, I would like to mention the enormous challenge we have before us, that of enlargement.
I believe that enlargement also represents a huge opportunity for small companies.
But we should not shrink from providing them with the support they need.
There are only a few more years to go.
Many are already involved over there, many are interested, and I believe that the work being done at grass roots level is interesting and affords new opportunities.
We in the European Parliament recognise the challenge to give our commitment and invest our energies here, and I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your support in this, Commissioner.
Many thanks, Mr Rübig.
Also many thanks for coming to work on what is a national holiday in your country.
, rapporteur. (FR) Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Schreyer for the remarks she has just made.
We will appreciate her proposal, once she has drawn it up, which will help us to understand.
For the moment, I shall limit myself to one small comment, which Mrs Schreyer will understand perfectly, on the subject of research appropriations.
I appreciated the terms of the commitments which were publicly undertaken by the Commissioner regarding the management of the lines for research.
Like everyone, I believe, on the Committee on Budgets, I attach particular importance to seeing these commitments being made in writing further to the highly interesting letter which Mrs Schreyer sent us and to which our chairman, Mr Wynn, responded requesting, I believe, further details.
I shall therefore ask you, Commissioner, together with your colleagues, please, to formalise the commitments that you have just undertaken in the terms you deem appropriate, so that we can be familiar with the facts and we can proceed to the vote on Thursday on the basis of clear commitments which do not allow for any misunderstanding between us.
I see that the Commissioner is nodding in agreement, which means that there is no need to continue the debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote on the budget will take place on Thursday at 10.00 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 3.45 p.m. and resumed at 4.30 p.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, the best laid plans in life are wont to go wrong.
Mr Duisenberg should in fact be here by now but he is stuck in a traffic jam.
I shall, therefore, open the sitting and suspend it again straightaway for another fifteen minutes in the hope that he will have arrived by then.
If not, then I am afraid that we will have to repeat the same formal procedure once again.
I am not the one to blame; presumably it is the motorways.
Thank you for bearing with me.
(The sitting was suspended at 4.30 p.m. and resumed at 5.20 p.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, please take your places, as Mr Duisenberg has just joined us.
Mr Duisenberg, we have been waiting for you, if I may say, with some impatience, and we are delighted that you have at last been able to join us.
ECB annual report
The next item is the report (A5-0035/1999) by Mr Huhne, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the 1998 annual report of the European Central Bank (C4-0211/1999).
I shall give the floor immediately to Mr Duisenberg.
Mr President, President Duisenberg, rapporteur, I would like to outline five thoughts briefly.
Firstly, we have heard that this is the first report of the ECB and first position that we have been called upon to express on it.
It can be discerned immediately that the report describes the status quo of a year that has now passed and does not definitively clarify the work of the ECB and our relationship to the ECB.
Cooperation between the European Parliament and the ECB, as well as the operating methods of the European Central Bank, are in a process of evolution.
Much of our criticism or our requirements today will seem self-evident in a while.
I would, however, like to say on behalf of our group that we consider the fundamental conditions to be sacrosanct.
The Group of the European People' s Party/European Democrats sees itself as the political group which says yes to the independence of the ECB, to reinforcement of the stability policy, regarding both price stability and currency stability, and which also says yes to further reduction of the public debt, to new growth and employment and to the credibility of monetary policy.
These fundamental positions of ours, in addition to the tension between autonomy, confidence, a transparent public record and the essential intensification of monetary dialogue with the European Parliament, are crucial for us to be able to assess the work of the ECB, but also for the preparation of our own report and the operating methods of Parliament.
We have already heard briefly today that the main theme of the report is the year 1998, a year in which it was announced which countries had met the convergence criteria - eleven of them, the location of the ECB was decided, the EMI was taken on, the third phase of economic and monetary union was introduced and the ECB Governing Council decided on the stability strategy, based on the two recognised pillars.
It has to be said, a lot happened in the course of this year.
In spite of some currency turbulence on other continents, the euro has already demonstrated that it can earn confidence, and the conversion of existing currencies to the new currency on 1 January 1999 was achieved smoothly.
At this point, therefore, I would like above all to offer congratulations and thanks. Congratulations and thanks to the European Monetary Institute, the national banks, the European Central Bank, represented here today by President Duisenberg, but also to all the Member States who, by means of many politically necessary reforms, drove forward further structural and institutional reforms and fulfilled the convergence criteria, and not forgetting the citizens who support this necessary step towards European integration with increasing approval.
Permit me to say in conclusion that fulfilment of the convergence criteria has led to price stability, exchange rate stability and to improved public finances.
These three successes are the prerequisite for economic growth, on the one hand, essential investment in the future, on the other hand, and creating jobs and making them secure.
Considering that the report contains all our fundamental conditions, my hope is that it will meet with wide approval.
Mr President, our primary objective is to establish the euro, after a successful start at the beginning of this year, as a stable currency in the long term, to make it an international reserve currency and to ensure that it is accepted by the citizens.
I am particularly pleased that the President stressed again today that the European Central Bank also regards consumer protection as an important task within monetary union.
The independence of the European Central Bank is important for the objectives I mentioned, but its credibility and the degree to which the public can have confidence in it are important too.
In a democratic legal system, the institutional and political independence of an institution is only possible if democratic legitimisation is guaranteed at the same time, and that includes transparency of decisions and indeed the possibility of understanding these decisions.
In this respect, a central role falls to the European Parliament, and I think that the dialogue on monetary policy, in the form established between this Parliament and the European Central Bank, is a good start for future years in the euro area.
I know how difficult it was, and this is shown in the annual report, to set up the European Central Bank, and indeed the whole system, and to get Monetary Union underway without problems.
I also consider it very positive that the European Central Bank has improved its information policy.
I do think, on the other hand, that it is not sufficient to allocate only an ancillary role in this communication policy to the European Parliament, as the open forum for European policy.
It is important to see the special role of the European Parliament here too and I also think therefore that ECB information services and transparency could be significantly improved with regard to the European Parliament.
By that I do not mean that we necessarily need to have verbatim reports of meetings published now, but it would be useful to have outline minutes of meetings giving the arguments for and against, making it possible to understand the way in which the European Central Bank actually makes its evaluation in the assessment of the risk of inflation or of deflation.
It has not been clear to us to date how an assessment can be made or is made in this area regarding the development of prices over and above goods and services, with reference, for example, also to property markets or share markets.
There is therefore some uncertainty in this area as to the basis for decision making and the intelligibility of decisions, just as there still is with reference to the forecasts and models.
The European Central Bank must be allowed some time.
It is only 10 months since the child came of age and became responsible in the monetary arena, but it must continue in this direction.
I am convinced of the fact that trusting collaboration between the ECB and Parliament will also contribute towards achieving greater certainty and confidence among the public.
At the moment there is great speculation on the subject of the ECB' s decisions in matters of interest rate policy.
In this context within the euro area, I expressly welcome the ECB decision last Thursday to leave interest rates unchanged.
This shows that the ECB is taking its responsibility in supporting other national economic objectives, particularly employment, seriously, and we know that the economic "spring" in the European Union, in spite of the varied developments within the euro area of the 11, certainly needs even further support.
I think that the drop in oil prices, together with the fall in consumer prices which has already been experienced and which is expected to continue in the telecommunications, electricity and financial service sectors as a result of competition and the liberalisation of the market also certainly played a part in the decisions of last Thursday.
This should continue to be the case.
I am filled with consternation regarding the ECB' s attack upon the Employment Pact.
I would ask the ECB to make a constructive contribution towards achieving the Growth and Employment Pact and to say very clearly what part it intends to play in the macroeconomic dialogue in order to contribute to a balanced policy mix.
It is no longer possible for monetary policy just to be responsible for price stability.
It is no longer possible for budgetary policy just to be responsible for state finance, and social partners for moderate wage policy.
There must be real liaison here in the interests of the further development of European Economic and Monetary Union, and also a shared position in this area in the interests of increasing employment.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group, I am pleased to express our support and favourable position with regard to the report presented by Mr Huhne, concerning the 1998 annual report of the European Central Bank.
First of all, we must congratulate ourselves on the process of introducing the euro.
It is now a complete reality which is operating with total normality on all the economic levels envisaged - in the Member States, in the European Union, on an international level.
The good leadership and management of the European Central Bank has undoubtedly contributed to this normality and we should congratulate it and its President since, during the early months of the establishment of the euro, when the initial approaches were adopted, they had to overcome - and they did it skilfully - certain adverse circumstances at moments which were clearly delicate at an internal as well as an international level.
At that time - and I must insist on this - the European Central Bank displayed skill, good leadership and management and the ability to maintain the principles of independence.
This very solidity, which has been demonstrated in so few months, should allow us to be braver, more decisive in some areas which have already been mentioned, which are in Mr Huhne' s report and which I would like to insist on.
One of them is clearly the issue of transparency in some areas that the President of the Central Bank himself has already mentioned.
The publication of the forecasts, the possibility of having access to the minutes of meetings and a global report on the economic progress of the Member States are elements which will contribute - as the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, by means of the intervention of its President, Mrs Randzio-Plath, has demonstrated, and as mentioned in Mr Huhne' s report - to the consolidation of the level of internal and international acceptance and, of course, transparency, not only with regard to public opinion but also with regard to the experts in monetary affairs.
Let me end by insisting on the specific position of the Liberal Group which calls for, after the transitional period of two years, the publication of votes, the various positions taken in the meetings of the Executive Board and the macroeconomic models, which I believe would allow more convincing and accurate forecasts to be made by those whose operations relate to the European Central Bank.
Mr President, this is the first time that the new Parliament is fulfilling its mission of supervising the European Central Bank.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance heartily supports the Huhne report, not only for its professional quality but also for its general attitude of mind.
It is effectively a response to the fundamental problem which faces us today, that of accountability in managing monetary policy.
What is the nature of this problem? The Central Bank is not a fourth estate.
It is not, for example, in a position to challenge the social rights gained by Europeans.
These rights are enshrined either in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in national bodies of legislation and in conventions between management and unions.
The Central Bank, on the other hand, has been assigned a specific function by Europeans, that of ensuring price stability.
The Maastricht Treaty is not very specific on the manner in which it must actually be accountable for the fulfilment of its mission with regard to national representatives.
All central or international banks of major countries are bound, in one form or another, by this democratic accountability with regard to the socio-economic community - in the Anglo-Saxon countries through Parliament and in Germany through the federate banks of the Länder.
Today we have to invent the forms of democratic responsibility of the European Central Bank.
The Huhne report already provides many possible routes.
We support the two amendments tabled by the rapporteur himself, for publication of votes in the Council of the European Central Bank and the econometric models on which these votes are based.
Only the most complete transparency of the relationship between the objectives set by the Treaty and the actions of the members of the Council will make it possible for Europeans to actually measure whether the members of the Council are fulfilling their mission properly, not that we doubt it.
From this point of view, the Huhne report is justifiably very pleased with the reduction in interest rates which occurred in April.
Apart from the positive effect of this decision on employment, it is in line with the objective of ecological sustainability, which is to say the rejection of a policy of excessively favouring immediate prospects at the expense of long- term future prospects.
This is why our group is concerned about the rumours of a forthcoming increase in interest rates.
Such a decision would compromise both the upturn in employment in Europe and ecological investment, especially that related to saving energy and combating the greenhouse effect.
Such a decision could only be taken in the event that price stability was threatened.
Well, price stability applies in both directions.
For many months, the consumer price index has been increasing at a rate of 1%, while the industrial price index on the other hand has been decreasing, at a rate of 1%.
This deflation in industrial prices prompts giving preference to short-term prospects. It would become dangerous if real interest rates were to increase.
In order to prevent such situations arising, our Group is proposing an amendment drawing the attention of the European Central Bank to its mandate to ensure price stability in both directions.
President Duisenberg, I would like to mention three matters critical to this first annual report of the European Central Bank: accountability, transparency and employment.
Firstly, in my view, the content and the drafting of the report do not make it sufficiently clear that the European Central Bank is willing to subject itself to democratic control by the European Parliament.
This is demonstrated by the fact that dialogue on monetary matters between Parliament and the ECB is assessed on page 95/96 on just the same terms as cooperation with other institutions.
In my opinion, this is in contradiction to Article 113 of the Treaty on European Union, which makes it mandatory for the ECB to present an annual report of its activities and its monetary policy to Parliament.
This is precisely what you get as a result of the fact that the European Central Bank' s accountability towards Parliament is described in such vague terms in this Article.
I therefore support the request made in the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, to wit, that the ECB should take immediate action in order in future to at least take into account fully the special relationship with the European Parliament established by the Treaty on European Union.
This brings me to my second comment.
It is not acceptable that the European Central Bank should give no details of the background and reasons for its decisions on monetary policy.
Indeed, this Parliament is the forum where the ECB must present its monetary decisions, justify them and, if necessary, let them be criticised.
If this does not take place, then Parliament cannot fulfil its own task of supervising the activity of the Bank.
Monetary policy is, as is known, a highly political matter, and it is precisely for that reason that the Bank must demand a high degree of transparency with regard to decision-making.
Thirdly, what for me is a central question, there is clear dissent in this House, President Duisenberg, as to the views you have just expressed.
I am of the opinion that the European Central Bank must make a contribution to economic growth and employment by means of its monetary policy.
It is not right for full employment to be de facto abandoned as a political objective and for everything, literally everything, to be subordinated to monetary stability.
I still consider this to be the crucial foundation for establishing...
(The President cut the speaker off.)
Mr President, today our Parliament has the President of the European Central Bank as its guest, that is to say the president of the first institution to which the nations of Europe, by who knows what perturbation, have decided, eleven of them at least, to confer to give sovereign power.
Thus, Mr Duisenberg, even though today' s poor attendance does not seem to back up my statement, you are nonetheless the successor to the emperors and popes who, since the time of Charlemagne, have dreamt of unifying our continent by faith or by force.
No doubt you will even have more power or influence, in the final analysis, than they ever did, even if it is to be a less flamboyant form of power, since at the end of this millennium which seems to set money up as the ultimate universal value, you are poised to hold both temporal power and spiritual power within the European Union.
Confronted with this - I do not know how to describe it exactly - this "Bank State" or this "Holy Bank" , the Vice-President of which, Mr Noyer, recently explained to us ingratiatingly, but in English, how responsible it felt for the long term whilst governments, on the other hand, gave in to short term whims because they were subject to the vagaries of universal suffrage. Confronted, then, with the omnipotence of this Bank, the excellent report by our fellow Member, Mr Huhne, calls for greater transparency, without however daring to go as far as demanding of you what might pass for exhibitionism, that is to say, ceasing to maintain anonymity regarding decisions.
We can only approve these excellent resolutions, while being aware that there is even more talk of transparency when democracy is being relinquished or sidelined.
Let us recall, for that matter, that transparency comes from the Russian glasnost.
That is why, Mr Duisenberg, I believe that today' s meeting, and particularly the ridiculous opposition force which Parliament is attempting to exert in relation to the considerable power which has been entrusted to you, can only worry anyone who attaches importance to national sovereignty, which is just one way for nations to keep control of their own fate.
I only hope that, aware of the power which has been granted you, you will be able to exercise this power with all the wisdom one could hope for.
Mr President, the ECB' s first annual report looks back over 1998, a year dominated by the build-up to the launch of the single currency on 1 January 1999.
The transition to the third stage of EMU proceeded fairly uneventfully.
We can justifiably be pleased about that.
But it has since become apparent that bringing about the monetary union of eleven Member States also has its drawbacks.
These negative effects could, in the main, have been foreseen, but this Parliament never gave them serious attention during the run-up to EMU.
One issue that is now receiving people' s undivided attention is that of the divergent rate of inflation in the euro countries.
Currency depreciation is significantly higher in Ireland, Spain and the Netherlands in particular.
There will be no change here in the foreseeable future.
According to the estimates published by the IMF yesterday, the Netherlands can expect inflation to be at 2.3% next year.
The constant rise in consumer spending is prompting the Dutch Government to make concerned and admonishing comments, but it is doing the wrong things in policy terms: tax reductions instead of debt reduction.
Following an inquiry into the situation, the ECB concluded that the differing rates of inflation ought not to be a major cause for concern.
Regional differences in the rate of inflation are in fact greater still in the United States.
However, federal states in the US benefit from automatic stabilisers coming into play via the federal budget.
The mobility of labour is also much greater in the United States.
I tend to feel that the ECB wants to play fast and loose and I would like its President to clarify his position.
I also want to ask him if the banking supervision system needs to be adapted.
As things stand it is decentralised and that is fine, but is the supervisory process not rendered more difficult by transnational mergers with banks outside the euro area? I would be pleased to hear what you intend to do about this.
Mr President of the Central Bank, I am speaking on behalf of the Italian Radical Members.
Certainly, this first report by the European Central Bank is compensating for the launch of the euro and you and the Governing Council of the bank are taking on a great responsibility.
The Huhne report certainly contains positive elements, especially as regards the request to the European Central Bank for more information regarding the grounds for the decisions it adopted through the publication of concise Minutes including dissenting opinions as well.
However, there is a point in the report which, Mr President, in my opinion is completely unacceptable. I am referring to point 11, which states that Parliament regards 'the reduction of 50 basis points in interest rates on 8 April 1999 as appropriate, and welcomes in particular the reasons given for it' , which tells us that the cut in rates supported the general economic policies in the Community.
Regarding the method, I wonder why on earth Parliament, in discussing the 1998 report of the European Central Bank, feels the need to include its approbation of a specific measure which the European Central Bank will give an account of in its next report - the 1999 report.
Moreover, how can we consider judging the effects of the manoeuvre on taxes after only a few weeks? And what sense is there in Parliament giving an opinion of one single act of the Central Bank?
Considering this matter further, I find this approbation totally out of place.
Yesterday, both the head economist of the Central Bank, Mr Issing, and Vice-President Noyer implied that a fresh increase in taxation is imminent. Does this not maybe prove that the decision taken in April was wrong, given that in the meantime there has been no unexpected shock?
And was the long-term tax increase not due to the loss of credibility owing to that very cut? We have the suspicion, actually more than a suspicion, that that decision was made following political pressure - for example, Oscar Lafontaine - and that Parliament, with today' s approval, wishes to confirm the move towards a Central Bank which is subordinate to political requirements or even electoral interests.
I believe that the Central Bank' s strategy must focus exclusively on currency and prices.
It would be suicide, as today others have repeatedly advocated, to think that European leaders can put pressure on the Central Bank so that it will make up for their inability to relaunch the economy through structural reforms, liberalisation of the markets - the job market first and foremost - and tight budgetary policy which must be coupled with a reduction of the tax burden on people and firms.
Mr President, President Duisenberg, I too would like to express my delight at being able to welcome President Duisenberg here today. Why is the debate we are having today so important?
The European Central Bank is autonomous, and my group is surely the one which always stressed this most. But, at the same time, the European Central Bank must make decisions which concern every individual citizen of Europe.
It is therefore particularly important that the bank should not exist in an ivory tower but that it should continue to justify itself to the public. There are a variety of ways in which it can achieve this.
I would also like to point out that the European Parliament has a particularly privileged role here.
The European Parliament is explicitly mentioned in the Treaties as the partner of the European Central Bank in dialogue, and this is not the case in the same way with other institutions.
The European Parliament is a forum where all of Europe can in fact take part in the debate; though I would have liked to see a rather larger participation in this debate today, for I am of the opinion that this debate is of great significance.
The European Central Bank is autonomous. It is committed in the first instance to ensuring price stability.
At this point, I would like to remind Mrs Randzio-Plath that the Treaty plainly stipulates that the prime objective of the European Central Bank is to ensure price stability and that any other objectives may be pursued only if they can be achieved without any risk to price stability, and that price stability itself, as the President has already stated, can have positive social and economic effects.
On behalf of my group, I should like to say that the European Central Bank has achieved some outstanding work in the course of this last year, since it was founded.
It has taken some very important decisions, for example, its decision on the definition of price stability.
That is of very great significance for the long-term development of our debate on this question.
Even in its decision regarding the minimum reserves, which were rather controversial, the European Central Bank, i.e. the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, has demonstrated great perceptiveness.
It has, at least, passed its period of probation as far as that goes.
I would however like to specify that throughout this probationary period the Bank experienced fair weather, economically speaking.
Perhaps occasionally things were rather hazy, but, on the whole, we are going through a period of positive economic development.
It will be much more difficult for the European Central Bank to take uncomfortable decisions, such as, for example, raising interest rates rather than lowering them, if the economic situation becomes more difficult and if actual risks to price stability arise.
In the first months of its existence, the European Central Bank has earned our confidence, but if it is to be able in the future to withstand such situations, then this confidence must be systematically consolidated in the years to come and, Mr President, in that endeavour you may count on the support of my group.
We are called upon to vote on a draft amendment which demands that the votes of the individual members of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank should be made public.
I would like to make it perfectly clear that my own group will never agree to such an amendment.
Why not? Individuals sit on the Governing Council of the Bank, who are personally responsible for monetary stability and who make decisions as individuals within this Governing Council.
There is not, therefore, any weighting of votes, such as there is in the Council of Ministers, since it has been determined that these are people who have to vote here as individuals.
Publishing the votes could lead to a situation where there would then be national debates on the behaviour of individual members.
That would be extraordinarily negative both for the European Central Bank and also for all of us.
The European Central Bank has achieved some excellent work, it has earned the confidence of the citizens by dint of its work in the last few months, and this is what we are going to reflect in this resolution.
Mr President, this first annual report of the Central Bank gives me the opportunity to make an on the whole positive assessment of the work accomplished to date by the European Central Bank and the operation of the euro area.
The Central Bank has managed to fulfil its primary mission of maintaining price stability.
The general economic policies of the Union have been accompanied by an opportune reduction in key interest rates.
The countries participating in the euro area have been in a position to continue their structural improvement. Growth has returned in the majority of European countries.
Following the doubling of petroleum prices, a slight upsurge has been observed in inflation.
The ECB has a duty to remain vigilant, but as the mean rate of inflation of the euro-11 is still well under the 2% mark, I dare to hope that the Governing Council will give growth and, consequently, further reduction in unemployment, a chance.
According to ECB estimates, some four fifths of unemployment is structural in nature.
More recent studies show that in fact less than one fifth of unemployment is structural.
This type of unemployment linked to the current economic climate could be absorbed only by more vigorous growth.
While emphasising the need to continue the policy of stability, I would like to ask President Duisenberg the following question: can Europe' s only ambition be to pursue a macroeconomic policy focused on stability alone?
In my view, the fight against inflation must go hand in hand with the improved coordination of budgetary policies and the establishment of a macroeconomic framework favourable to growth and to employment.
When assessing the work of the ECB and the positive effect of the euro area, one must consider the internationalisation of financial markets.
One is bound to observe that Europe has come to terms with the crises in Asia, Russia and Brazil rather well.
Without the euro, some more vulnerable Member States would probably have experienced monetary difficulties along with, who knows, some cases of competitive devaluation.
The euro is also a victory of Community regulation over the disordered interaction of individual financial markets.
People will bring up the objection that, since its successful launch, the value of the euro has depreciated in comparison with the dollar.
This is to forget that, within a floating exchange rate system, the main currencies are always going to evolve in relation to each other.
In the last twenty years, the yearly slide in the volatile Mark/Dollar exchange rate has, on several occasions, exceeded 10%.
The only criticism I have of the ECB is that it should be a bit less reticent about international exposure in all the various for a.
The ECB is one of the most important central banks in the world.
It is its duty to take a particularly close interest in the vulnerability of the international banking system and the fragility of the financial sector throughout the world.
The crisis in Asia was not triggered by traditional macroeconomic imbalances, but by the financial excesses of the private sector.
The irrational exuberance which characterises some stock exchanges, the excessive indebtedness of American households and of some economic sectors in important countries cause a definite threat to hang over worldwide economic stability.
The ECB should make a firm commitment in all the appropriate fora to create a new regulatory framework for the structure of international finance.
The essential complement ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, we in Sweden are relatively new to the EU, and I am new to this House.
It is my understanding that we Swedes still have a lot to learn within the field of European cooperation.
At the same time, it is my conviction that there is also a great deal for the EU to learn from how we handle some things in Sweden, for example the issues of openness and public access to official records.
When it comes to the report on the European Central Bank, there is every reason to wonder whether we should not be able to do more to increase openness within the European Central Bank and public control of its affairs, to strengthen the Bank' s legitimacy and to increase democratic support for it.
We Liberals believe that this is needed, and without, moreover, encroaching upon the Bank' s independence or reducing its efficiency.
The Bank of Sweden now reports, with two weeks' delay, upon the minutes of the meetings of the Board of Directors. Monetary considerations, together with the positions adopted by the various Board Members, are reported on at this time.
Last week, Swedes learned that the Deputy Chief Executive of the Bank of Sweden, together with a further Member of the Board, did not back the Bank' s latest report on inflation.
They advocated a rise in interest rates but were voted down.
Similar openness would be to the advantage of the European Central Bank too. Why?
Well, openness leads to clarity, which reduces uneasiness in the market and makes for stability. However, Mr Duisenberg and I are clearly not properly in agreement about this argument.
Openness would increase our citizens' support for the Bank and make it easier for everyone to understand the goal of monetary policy: that price stability, just as Mr Duisenberg said, should lead to growth and employment.
In my opinion, being open about strategies and prognoses, internal discussions and methods of voting will also actually increase Board Members' accountability, not reduce it.
It is actually a good thing to be open to public scrutiny.
I want to say too that we have today been able to see that support for EMU in Sweden has increased, which I am glad about.
I should like to tell Mr Duisenberg that support for EMU and the likelihood of taking Sweden into EMU will increase if he and the European Central Bank display greater openness.
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, it is probably not necessary to say it, but please allow me to emphasise, as a humble MEP from a small country - the Basque Country - that you have a lot of power but it is a democratic power.
And contrary to what somebody said a little while ago, we do know who granted that power.
In the current phase of European construction we are seeing significant economic and monetary integration processes, which have been speeded up since the adoption of the single currency.
In the real economy we are witnessing great mergers and concentrations which must be carried out in accordance with good practice and respect for consumer rights.
At an institutional level the Central Bank plays a key role and we would also like this role to be counterbalanced with the transparency demanded of those institutions which result from the votes of the citizens.
Somebody said that one should not grow fond of banks because they will never grow fond of you.
We do not intend to present you with a rosy picture or a wonderful idyll, but we do not believe that it is too much to ask that at least they are transparent with the citizens of Europe who are affected by their policies and measures.
In general terms we agree with the Huhne report, which emphasises the quality of the annual report of the ECB and the progress made in the communication of the Bank' s policy.
We also agree with the measures proposed with regard to the increase in transparency and the need to clarify what the European Central Bank understands monetary policy to be, beyond price stability - which is evidently its main function - because this will undoubtedly contribute to an appropriate and balanced policy mix which is aimed at promoting sustainable development and lasting employment.
I must insist once again on transparency: do not apply a bandage until you are injured.
Mr Solbes said in an appearance before this Parliament that he would try to cooperate with the Members without prejudice to the quality of his work.
Transparency does not have to be incompatible with the protection of aims of monetary policy.
We are not asking for miracles nor that a great song and dance be made about what is going to be done, but simply that its management model be more transparent.
If you take note of what other Central Banks have done and if you trust in this Parliament, have no doubt that we will make progress with transparency without endangering the objectives of the European Central Bank.
Mr President, the European Central Bank is still very much an institution which makes crucial decisions for the millions of citizens of the European Union without being subject to any democratic or political control.
From this point of view, when Parliament considers that progress is being made because regular press conferences are held following any Governing Council meetings and because, in addition to annual reports, the ECB also publishes monthly reports, this invokes a false sense of true democracy among the peoples of Europe.
This 'progress' has, in fact, been run-of-the-mill practice at the central banks since the 1930s!
Mr President, European citizens are, first and foremost, interested in and, at the same time, concerned by the content of the policies of the European Central Bank, the European Union and the Member States - policies which give absolute priority to so-called monetary stability and the interests of major credit capital, at the cost of dramatic job losses and the total disintegration of the so-called European social model.
Workers are concerned by the fact that the European Central Bank considers a growth rate of over 2.5% to be dangerous for the notorious monetary stability, thereby deferring indefinitely efforts to address the issue of unemployment.
The average inflation rate of the 11 countries within the euro area is below 1%.
Some countries have already entered an anti-inflationary phase, but there are growing signs of a rise in interest rates in order to maintain monetary stability.
Mr President, with growth rates below 2%, with a new rise in interest rates, with deflation and the rigorous implementation of the Stability Pact, growing pressure is being brought to bear on the security and social rights of workers, and this will indirectly bring about a dramatic deterioration in their living standards and working conditions.
Mr President, first of all, we must analyse the first period of the ECB' s activities which, as we know, began a year ago in the hope of becoming, in time, the main institution for intervention in the economies of the Member States of the Union.
On the one hand, we have all noticed the greater role played recently by this institution - and indirectly, at the same time, the whole Union - in terms of economic policy and, especially, employment policy.
On the other hand, this was not sufficient to ensure that the euro was not affected by speculation or weakened in the face of our competitors - which, of course, we must definitely not ignore - which are the United States and NAFTA.
In fact the euro, which started with a strong position in the money markets, after a few months was exposed to attacks which were, to say the least, speculative. We must take note of this signal and always ensure that the focus behind major political, budgetary and monetary strategies is not the new single currency but a long-term view taking into account the need to give the euro and the Member States stability, and above all, to relaunch the Union' s economy and the employment situation which concerns each of us in this Parliament so greatly.
Therefore, we must continue along the path which President Duisenberg is establishing within his role and the institution itself.
However, at the same time, we must monitor price stability so that we can control the greater evil with which we are all familiar - inflation - and at the same time keep interest rates low to stimulate investments and relaunch the European industrial sector, making it more competitive with regard to the other States.
In doing this, we would bring prestige to a new institution like the ECB and we would gain political credibility internationally.
In a debate like this about this important institution known as the European Central Bank, two starting points might be taken.
One can talk about what is apparent, that is to say the surface details; or one can talk about what is real.
The European Central Bank' s mode of functioning is to stay on the surface.
It is a question of regulations and rules of procedure.
We are conducting a rather shadowy debate here, and it is also interesting what the rapporteur has written in the explanatory statement, namely that the European Parliament "is responsible both for receiving and debating the annual report of the ECB and for monitoring the ECB" .
There is no basis for this.
Neither Article 113 of the Treaty nor Article 15 of the Statute give Parliament any powers other than the power to talk.
So we can talk, then, and come up with comments about openness, as my excellent Swedish colleague has done, and I concur fully with the criticism of the culture of secrecy.
But the reality is the European Central Bank as a political tool, and this House believes that the question of the euro and its establishment as an important institution is a matter which is over and done with.
It is not!
It is a success, writes the rapporteur at the start of the report. Success according to what criteria?
Is it a criterion of success that the exchange rate has fallen since the euro was established? And, if one considers social criteria such as unemployment, it hits you right in the eye that the three North European countries which are outside the single currency (namely Denmark, Sweden and Great Britain) have significantly lower unemployment than certain areas in the EU, where it is catastrophically high.
Is this success?
The next step consists of referenda in the Scandinavian countries, and these will perhaps introduce a different agenda.
Mr President, nine months after the euro' s launch and with enthusiasm for its future role as the major international reserve currency dimmed as the result of exchange rate weakness, it cannot be heralded as an unqualified success.
It remains to be seen if the "one-size-fits-all" model of interest rates will work in countries like Ireland, without causing large tax rises and damaging the popularity of the Euro-project.
Nevertheless I applaud the aims and coherence of the Huhne report as a basis for defining accountability of the Central Bank, on which I should like to say a few words, particularly on the issue of transparency and accountability.
Some may question why I, as a British Member, should like to speak on this issue.
I would like to point out that Britain and the British Conservative Party - to which I belong - have never been hostile to the euro as a currency for those Member States which genuinely wish to join, as we are all bound together through our membership of the single market so that a collapse in confidence for the euro would affect us all, whether we are in or outside the EMU.
For this reason it is vital that the Central Bank enjoys the confidence of the financial markets.
We live in an era of massive capital flows and foreign exchange markets.
Some £300 billion is traded every day in the City of London.
A collapse in the credibility of or belief that the Bank would not be prepared to pursue an anti-inflationary policy at all costs could have severe repercussions economically throughout the whole Union.
I believe that only the Central Bank, for instance, should pronounce when necessary on foreign exchange target zones for the euro, to avoid conflicting messages being given to the financial markets.
It is also vital, in my opinion, that the Bank be encouraged to follow the example of other leading central banks, such as the Federal Reserve in America, and make transparency a central feature of all its activities.
I regret, therefore, that attempts to require the Bank to publish the names of those present, the voting on monetary actions, after a grace period of some two years and the publication of the ECB' s econometric models were defeated at committee stage and have not been put before this House today.
It was also confusing yesterday to hear that Mr Issing, the ECB' s chief economist, reportedly stated in London that the Bank would not publish economic forecasts for Euro-land, perpetuating a culture of secrecy.
I welcome Mr Duisenberg' s clarification on this issue today.
I believe that any confident central bank would welcome the opportunity for its members to be challenged on the fundamental assumptions underlying their decisions.
But particularly in the ECB' s case, as it does not have the track record of the mighty Bundesbank and could quickly lose the confidence of the financial markets if it is reluctant to protect itself through greater transparency.
Openness to criticism is not a weakness but a strength.
As a doctor I know that advances in medicine are often achieved only after rigorous scrutiny and challenge in peer review journals.
The Bank has to learn to operate within the same spirit.
I also believe that the financial markets and the people of Europe will expect no less of this new Central Bank and that this Parliament should be relentless in the pursuit of an open and accountable European Central Bank for the near future.
Mr President, Mr President of the Central Bank, Commissioner, I believe that our sitting, today, is a founding act.
This is the first time that you have presented your annual report to this House as President of the Central Bank.
Indeed, if I am interpreting the Treaty on European Union correctly, this is an essential element in the balance designed by the people who set up Economic and Monetary Union, with the success we have seen, taking into account the conditions of the transition to the euro on 1 January this year.
This balance, in fact, involves both the independence of your institution and the annual report which you must present to our own institution.
This is the meeting we are witnessing today.
Unlike some of my fellow citizens, I believe that today we are here reaching the very core of your democratic responsibility.
As you know, this institution has clearly shown its will to exercise fully the competences accorded under the Treaty.
Parliament set the condition of having a hearing with each of the members of your Executive Board; it meets you on a regular basis, and considers today' s meeting to be the high point of this approach.
It is only to be expected that our debate today should be more concerned with the methods rather than the basis of the monetary policy.
You are still just about in your initial running-in period, as are we.
We must take advantage of this period to strengthen the resources that we, the European Parliament, have.
But for your part, you too, Mr President, must perhaps take advantage of it to review again your idea of the relationship between your institution and ours.
So, as regards transparency - many people before me have said it, but let me repeat it once again - if we want to be able to really act as an intermediary in monetary policy, which you implement and which we discuss, then we need you to present the decisions you are taking, and give your reasons and justifications for them.
As regards monetary policy itself, you said, Mr President, that it cannot solve the structural problems of the labour market.
Very well.
But it can make a contribution, and this is what the Treaty invites you to do, and what we invite you to do.
Sustained growth in Europe is essential if we wish to solve the problem of employment.
There will be no structural reform without growth.
Certainly, positive signs are appearing. We know that more gradual growth today is already enabling the creation of jobs in some of our countries.
But if we want sustainable growth for a high level of employment, we need monetary policy to accompany this movement.
This is what the treaty invites you to do, and this is the matter on which we expect positive signs from you.
In this sense, the policy which you are pursuing in the area of interest rate policy is clearly essential, and we are awaiting very clear commitments from you in this respect.
Mr President, this is an important debate for it is the first time we have come to discuss the European Central Bank' s report.
The fact that President Duisenberg is present serves to underline the special relationship that the ECB has with our Parliament.
The Liberals are satisfied with the ECB' s report and with the four proposals put forward by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for there to be more transparency in the bank' s dealings.
But we are disappointed that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has shown itself unwilling to take one step more towards achieving still greater openness, hence my group has submitted a number of amendments to this end.
I refer in particular to the publication of votes and the voting behaviour of each individual member of the Governing Council.
We believe that this could only strengthen, not weaken the independence of the members.
After all, the ex officio attendance of the Council of Ministers and the European Commission means that the national governments too are now in a position to know how the members vote and are able to bring pressure to bear at will, but then this is done completely unverifiably and behind closed doors.
We do not doubt the integrity of the members of the Governing Council and openness is, we think, the best way in which to guarantee greater integrity.
We have no time for the argument that members could not then change their minds.
Of course they can if, for example, circumstances changed or new arguments were put forward.
It may well be that their voting behaviour would initiate debate, but we are sufficiently reassured that the members of the Council have the fortitude to deal with this.
Greater openness is a sign of strength and inspires confidence.
We consider this to weigh more heavily than any possible risks.
What is more, publication would bring the Bank more into line with the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States and the Bank of Japan.
Why should we Europeans act as if we have something to hide? Surely that is only going to weaken confidence in the euro?
Mr President, as liberals we are very much in favour of the ECB' s being independent and we value the part the President has to play in upholding this.
But we believe that greater openness would reinforce the independence and authority of the ECB and request that Parliament supports moves to this end.
Mr President, I want to thank Mr Huhne for an interesting report containing a number of important clarifications.
Among other things, he points out that the European Central Bank is altogether too secretive, that the meetings are held in camera and also that the current President, Mr Duisenberg is against the minutes from the Bank' s discussions being published.
There are a lot of people who have taken up this point, so that Parliament is expressing a strong opinion on the matter.
Mr Huhne complains in his report that the European Central Bank does not display the same openness as the central banks in the USA, Japan and England.
Olle Schmidt talks about the Bank of Sweden' s publishing the minutes as soon as two weeks after the meetings concerned.
Why should not the European Central Bank be able to do the same?
There are various arguments in favour of this culture of secrecy.
One of these which has been put forward is quite startling, I think.
This is an argument to the effect that the Bank' s leading personnel will be better able to withstand pressure from lobbyists and individual governments if they have a duty of confidentiality imposed upon them.
I think that, in this way, an amazing lack of confidence in these people' s strength of character, integrity and independence is being expressed.
They are mistrusted, which shows that it is not only ourselves, who are among those critical of the EU, who are mistrustful.
Instead, I would maintain that distrust of the Bank' s leading personnel is written into the Bank' s own statute.
Finally, I also want to associate myself with Mr Huhne' s understanding of the goal and significance of monetary policy.
I want to go a step further and say that the ideology concerning stability is just that: an ideology.
If we look at what has happened in Europe in recent years, it appears, rather, that the policy of stabilisation merely stabilises unemployment.
Ortega y Gasset said that wasted effort leads to melancholy, and I, in order not to become a victim of melancholy, am not going to repeat any of the ideas which have been expressed here.
I will simply highlight some of the points with which I agree or disagree.
The vice-chairman of my committee said, referring to the history of the euro, that we would have to go back as far as Charlemagne and probably Diocletian, who is the grandfather of the euro.
And as a Spaniard I must mention Charles I, who wanted to unify the European currencies on the basis of the Cologne mark.
And this leads me to the speech made by an English Conservative Member, who explained what the single currency required in order for the financial markets to have faith in it.
What they probably need most is for the United Kingdom to join the single currency.
Having said this and to get to the point, the Treaty of Maastricht enshrined the principle of price stability and put in place a fully independent European Central Bank to uphold this principle.
But the Treaty of Maastricht did not deal with the institutional consequences of this decision, and for this reason we are talking today about the independence of the Central Bank, the relationship between the Central Bank and other institutions and the unresolved problems.
In Amsterdam, the decision was taken not to amend the Treaty of Maastricht in any way, and therefore the problems which were pending are still pending.
We are now on the eve of an Intergovernmental Conference which has to deal with the consequences of the decisions which we have taken before.
Much has been said here about independence and it is true that, with the Treaty of Maastricht, those of us who believed that price stability was an essential condition for sustained development and that a Central Bank was necessary to control inflation have been vindicated, while those who believed that it was possible to implement any economic or monetary policy provided it produced short-term artificial growth, have been proved wrong.
The spokesman of my group has expressed this very well and I will not repeat it.
But because we believe in this model, we also believe that we should adopt decisions so that this model does not fall apart.
Firstly, we have the problem of transparency, a topic the rapporteur handled with humour and skill.
We believe in the independence of the Central Bank, but this Central Bank is much more independent than the Bundesbank or the United States Federal Reserve, because it was not created by an act of Parliament and cannot be modified by one, because it does not exist side by side with a government that has its own economic policy.
And this has led some people to talk of a type of platonic aristocracy composed of a series of independent experts to whom decisions regarding monetary policy are entrusted in the belief - probably correct - that money is too serious an issue for politicians to deal with.
For this reason, if we do not want this model to fall apart, it is necessary to prioritise transparency measures, and I whole-heartedly subscribe to each and every one of the measures which the rapporteur has mentioned.
Secondly, we have the problem of the relationship of the Central Bank with the other European institutions.
It has been said here that the priority objective is dealing with inflation, but it is not the only one: we have to think in terms of, amongst other things, an economic focus, responsibility, the international representation of the euro and the monitoring of the banking institutions at a time of significant mergers amongst the financial institutions.
Mr President, Mr President of the European Central Bank, this debate is taking place with the euro having been in place for nine months, in conditions which enables us to affirm that its introduction has been successful, even if only in the limited sense that the transition to the third phase of the Economic and Monetary Union has taken place with no great upsets.
Given that much of this success is undoubtedly due to the Central Bank, we must communicate our congratulations to its President, and we hereby do so.
Having said this, we must stress two or three points: firstly - and this has been mentioned this afternoon and Mr Duisenberg knows perfectly well that it is a concern of this Parliament - we have the question of transparency.
Given that this has been discussed here this afternoon, I will not pursue this argument, particularly as I know that Mr Duisenberg is perfectly aware of the Socialist Group' s position in this regard.
The second issue I want to address, which for me is more important, is that of growth and employment, specifically the relationship between monetary policy and growth and employment.
We agree with you, Mr President of the ECB, when you say that price stability is necessary for growth, and that growth and the creation of employment cannot happen without guaranteed price stability.
Likewise we agree with you when you say that monetary policy alone cannot resolve the problem of unemployment.
But we must also warn - and you understand this perfectly - that bad decisions regarding monetary policy may harm growth and prevent the economic recuperation which has started.
There is no lack of historical examples in this respect and the warning is worthwhile at a time when economic recuperation in Europe is far from being confirmed and when, at the same time, there is speculation about the imminence of a stricter monetary policy.
Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity, given that the Commission is present in this debate, to remind you of something which has also been repeated many times by this Parliament and which, in any case, is very important to our group: economic policy does not end with currency and does not end with monetary policy.
The third phase of Economic and Monetary Union raises the issue, even more than in the past, of the need for a more robust and articulate coordination of economic policies.
In this case, it is the responsibility - I would say the main responsibility in this area - of the Commission.
You know this, Mr Solbes, and we call on you to face this responsibility, and in this you will surely be able to rely on the support of this Parliament.
Mr President, obviously I do not share with the rapporteur in offering congratulations to the ECB.
As for presenting the purely formal actions of the managers of the European Central Bank to involve the European Parliament as if it were the expression of democratic control, that is just a feeble joke.
Having said that, I feel bound to object in particular to the virtual declaration of war against the workers and the unemployed of the European Union in the form of the objective declared by Mr Noyer, the Vice-President of the ECB, when he speaks, and I quote, of the need to "reduce rigidities in labour markets" or even for "a break with often deeply rooted habits and allegedly acquired rights" .
Well, we know that the rights he is talking about are simply the rights to a job and to a wage which affords a person a decent living.
These gentlemen of the Central Bank act like the spokesmen for the employers who are effectively in the process of reducing "rigidities in labour markets" by axing thousands of jobs, such as Michelin, Renault-Nissan, Alsthom, Rhône-Poulenc, and Hoest Marion Roussel and many others even now, or by propagating the precariousness of jobs by means of wages which cast an increasing proportion of the population into ever greater poverty while the fortunes of major shareholders continue to grow.
Gentlemen, beware, their attitude will ultimately trigger the reactions they deserve among workers and the unemployed.
I hope that in all the countries of the European Union these reactions will unite the victims of the policy of employers.
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, we MEPs, as we have stated a number of times this evening, have a unique role to play in relation to the single currency because this Chamber here is the only place in which the people of Europe can have any democratic input into how their new currency is run.
We must not shy away from addressing the difficult issues which surround Europe' s single currency, because if we do so we will be letting down those people who elected us to this Chamber so recently.
Mr Duisenberg, in my view, you have a more or less impossible task because you have to set a rate that is suitable not only for the booming economies of Ireland and Spain but will also suit the faltering economy of Germany.
Still less would it be possible to fix a rate which would also suit the persistently divergent economy of the UK.
But none of us here doubt the importance of your role because a domestic Euroland government faced with reviving a faltering economy has very few weapons at its disposal.
It has no power to set interest rates, no power over exchange rates, little power over government spending restricted by the Stability Pact and, if many people in this Parliament had their way, it would have no power over its own tax rates.
The governments have very few cards left to play with and not for nothing has it been said that the euro could lead to a recipe for stagnation.
But we should not be surprised at the limitations on the powers that are left to the domestic governments in Euroland because it has never been a secret of those founding fathers of the single currency that what they had in mind was the creation of political union and a united states of Europe.
I welcome your frankness, Mr Duisenberg, in making clear the very big political leap which has been made by those countries which have already entered Euroland.
But anyone who denies the existence of this political agenda - which subsumes the single currency - in my view is either deluded or dishonest, because it is a very real agenda.
We saw that very recently, articulately presented to us by President Prodi when he said that we now face the best opportunity to unite Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire.
Clearly, Mr Prodi had in mind the replacement of an ancient hegemony with a new economic one.
But political union may not just be the idle dream of a few federalists.
When you share a joint bank account with your neighbour you are affected by the actions and the spending decisions of your neighbour.
You legitimately need some control over their actions.
There is a very strong argument for saying that the single currency cannot function properly unless there is increased political integration and political union.
That is one of the many reasons why the British Conservatives are campaigning vigorously to persuade the UK to keep its own currency and to keep the pound and to stay out of the single currency.
Mr President, Mr Duisenberg, the annual report from the European Central Bank shows that the bank has got off to a brisk start, and the steps taken so far have been on the right track.
The transition to the third stage of EMU has taken place without problems.
During its first months of operation, the bank has been able to adapt its working methods to the demands of the present day.
Nevertheless, much has still to be done to raise the European Central Bank to the position to which it is entitled, though not automatically so.
In the future we wish to see a strong and independent European Central Bank and not just one alongside our global competitors, Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan, but, preferably, edging ahead of them.
Building up its status and obtaining the confidence of markets will, however, take time, and we here in the European Parliament cannot presume that everything will happen in an instant.
In discussing the annual report in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we had lively discussions on inter alia the issue of transparency and how it can be gradually increased.
Although transparency has undeniably increased and, for example, press conferences with the President, held after board meetings, have meant a clear improvement in the bank' s approach, the aim must be to increase transparency further, once the work of the bank becomes established and the teething problems disappear.
The European Parliament must, as the representative of the European people, have the right to demand that in future, the ECB, like other central banks, should also publicise the arguments both in favour of, and against, its monetary policy decisions.
Furthermore, the publication of abstracts of board meetings is justifiable, and the justifications for decisions taken must be clearly evident from these abstracts, so that market players can make their own decisions.
For my own part, I seriously considered my position regarding whether the individual opinions of the members of the board and possible decisions taken by a vote should be made public in the future.
However, I ended by adopting the majority position of our group, justifying my decision by reflecting how this sort of approach might reduce rather than increase market confidence in the work of the bank in the early stages.
It could also be just too big a step to take so early on.
In the long term, however, I hope that transparency is fully realised at every stage, in this regard also.
Information is power, and the dissemination of information in an open market economy is democracy.
Market viability can be enhanced through the spread of information.
The more evenly information is disseminated in a society, the more effectively individual choices steer the economy' s development and guide the invisible hand of the market.
Finally, I would like to say that I thoroughly support the publication of the reports on the economic situation of the countries in the euro area and the various indicators that go with it.
The ECB may also comment on this information, but their analysis must, however, be left to national decision-makers.
We have to remember that, although the euro area has just one monetary policy, we still have eleven different economic policies, for whose coordination the Member States are responsible, within the frameworks determined in the Growth and Stability Pact.
Mr President, it is a shame that this debate is soon to finish.
I would very much like to hear Mr Duisenberg answer a number of questions that have been raised.
I hope there will still be enough time for this.
I wanted to remind him of his role in the Dutch consultation system in a former life.
In particular I also want to raise the question that other speakers have raised too, as to what he would think to developing a consultation system of this kind on the European scene.
I hope that he will take a little time to address this issue before we close.
As far as his former life in the Netherlands is concerned; the Central Bank of the Netherlands, of which he was President for many years, was at the centre of the field of influence in society in which socio-economic policy was developed, and I believe that we should take our example from this and involve the European Central Bank in a European macroeconomic dialogue.
As you know, there are plans afoot for dialogue of this kind to take place and there is also due to be a meeting on 8 November.
It is also established practice in the Netherlands for there to be structured ways in which the Dutch Central Bank participates in the consultation system, for example there is a banking council in which advice is given to the bank and in which both sides of industry also take part. This participation in the consultation system economy is also afforded by the Dutch Central Bank having a seat on the socio-economic council, which is the most important advisory body in the socio-economic field.
I hope that the macroeconomic consultation between both sides of industry that is soon to take place will be given a far more prominent role.
The comments that Mr Duisenberg made in his introduction, to the effect that this dialogue ought only to confine itself to the exchange of information, fell rather short of the mark in this respect to my mind.
I think that in view of his experiences in the Netherlands he ought not to be so wary of taking such responsibilities, and also feel that coordinating and harmonising policy could be of great benefit to further developments.
I would like to close with a quote that he himself used when he recently attended the opening of new banking premises in the Netherlands. The quote was as follows: " I believe that the future is also the past, only it comes in through a different door" .
He might like to relate this quote to his own circumstances.
Mr President, I never thought of comparing Mr Duisenberg with the Pope but if we are going to do so here in this Parliament then might I request that Mr Duisenberg' s role is a more independent one, if at all possible.
The annual report goes into great detail about the seamless way in which the crucial transition to 1999 was effected, a very important moment.
Another such crucial point in time is on its way, that is to say the day on which Europe' s general public will literally have the new coin in hand.
I have had several discussions with you, Mr Duisenberg, on how the Member States want to handle the introduction of the euro.
The closer the first of January gets, the more everyone becomes aware of the difficulties that consumers, particularly the elderly, and the retail trade are to face.
An ever increasing number of studies state that there are going to be very considerable problems and these are being shouldered by the weakest parties: the consumer and the retail trade.
It recently became apparent that the Central Bank will not oppose frontloading the general public with coins.
It is true that the Member States are in agreement about the distribution of coins.
However, the Central Bank has always maintained to date that regulations and/or laws preclude the frontloading of the general public with banknotes.
Mr Noyer came to Parliament recently and when I asked him what the main objection was to frontloading coins or banknotes he actually gave the vaguest answer I have ever heard.
If he ever finds himself penniless then he will have no trouble at all getting into politics.
But I want a clear answer today.
I know just how clear you can make yourself.
What is the main objection? And do not tell me that it would be difficult to explain to people that they could not spend their euros for the first fortnight.
Any citizen assumed to have an understanding of the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam could not possibly have difficulty comprehending that.
It is downright insulting to suggest otherwise.
The Economic Institute of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in the Netherlands, which I am sure you are familiar with, carried out a study and concluded that the retail trade needs to have 100% of its daily turnover available in change, as opposed to the 7% available to it now.
The situation is so bad because the cash machines, the banknote dispensers will not dispense any of the small five and ten euro notes.
I hardly need to tell you what kind of an impact that will have on cash flows, the security of check-out operators and shops, bank charges, etc.
Every evening proprietors are going to have to convert their whole day' s takings into change again, doing the same for every shop they own.
The banks will have to face up to their responsibility.
Mr Duisenberg, the Central Bank needs to come down from its ivory tower and really get to grips with the difficulties facing those ordinary people who are soon going to have to work with the euro.
Have trial runs carried out if you do not believe me or the studies.
But consider that the success of the euro will depend on its introduction running smoothly precisely where ordinary people are concerned.
The discussion continues to focus on how much it will cost the banks.
But the discussion ought in fact to focus on whether there is going to be chaos or whether things will run smoothly. The banks are equipped to deal with large flows of money and security but the corner shop and the local baker are not.
You too will be assessed not in terms of greater or lesser increases or reductions in the rate of interest but in terms of how the euro will be brought into circulation.
. (ES) Mr President, my intervention will be very brief, and I simply wish to highlight the importance of the presence of Governor Duisenberg in Parliament for the analysis of the first report of the Central Bank.
It also seems essential to comment on the success of the euro and to congratulate the Bank on its excellent performance during the last year.
Given that today' s debate is basically between Parliament and the Central Bank and it is not for us to play any other role, I would simply like to point out, in response to the concern of some Members, that we will have the opportunity to debate here the problem of coordinating economic policies, which is within the competence of the Commission.
And with regard to the specific problem of the external representation of the euro, we are satisfied with the role that the European Central Bank is playing.
We are not so satisfied with the role of the Commission.
As I pointed out in my hearings, we will have time to return to a discussion of this issue.
Once again, my congratulations to the Central Bank.
Mr President, in my introductory statement I already approached many of the issues which have been again brought forward in Parliament this afternoon.
So if you allow me, I will try to formulate my answer by grouping together many of the issues that have been raised in Parliament and produce a comprehensive answer, or at least some remarks.
First of all the issue of transparency.
Although I realise and I am grateful that the desire to have the votes or minutes published by the Governing Council does not appear in the motion for a resolution which will be voted on tomorrow by your Parliament, in this discussion a lot of attention, much more than I expected, was paid to the phenomenon of transparency, culminating in publishing the vote.
I would like to emphasise that when you talk about and require transparency you have to indicate precisely what that means.
What does transparency mean? I would warn against what I might call mixing up transparency with publishing the vote.
As far as transparency is concerned, which I define as giving to the public or Parliament as much information as possible about developments in the economy, about monetary developments, about the outcome of the deliberations of the Governing Council, I believe - and I said so in my introductory statement - that the European Central Bank can look squarely in the eyes of any central bank in the world.
For example, there is our publication immediately after the meetings of the Governing Council of the considerations which have played a role in the Governing Council' s ultimate decision whether or not to change interest rates.
That is done about one hour after the decision has been taken.
We give the arguments for and against certain decisions there.
I believe that you will find no central bank in the world which is more transparent than we are.
The only thing we do not do is we do not publish votes.
Apart from the fact - and this may be somewhat embarrassing - that we virtually never vote in the Governing Council, so there is nothing to be published, I will not repeat all the arguments against this which I have brought before this Parliament on earlier occasions, but one has to remember that the decisions of the Governing Council of the Eurosystem are made in a collegial way and there is one decision only which emerges.
The arguments for and against it are published in the press conferences and in the Monthly Bulletin after the meetings have taken place but there is one decision.
One always has to bear in mind that every word that is spoken by me or any other member of the Governing Council about economic developments and about the decisions which are taken and in what direction sets in motion immediately billions of euros across the world.
It is always a signal to the market and it takes effect almost simultaneously with the utterance of the opinion.
On forecasts, Mr President, I do not need to say more than I have already said in my introductory statement.
There will come a time when we will publish forecasts, either bi-annually or tri-annually.
I do not yet know the precise form.
We are actively investigating this question but we simply are not ready yet and we do not have enough data or know the models which ultimately we will use.
We have not yet reached a degree of stability which would make it responsible for them to be published now but, as I said in my introduction, I am confident that in the course of next year we will publish forecasts.
To avoid one misunderstanding, it has been asked repeatedly here "why do you not take an example from the Federal Reserve system which publishes forecasts" and I believe it is also a consideration behind the motion for a resolution.
That must be a misunderstanding because what the Federal Reserve system publishes twice a year in its Humphrey-Hawkins testimony for the Senate is a range of figures for a few indicators, the range being the range of the individual forecasts of members of the Federal Open Market Committee coming from the regional Federal Reserve banks.
That range, the forecast with which they come once every six weeks to Washington, is published.
Forecasts are also prepared for the FOMC meeting and in particular for the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve system, forecasts prepared by the staff of the Board of Governors.
They are the forecasts which are used to underpin the decisions that the FOMC takes at any particular moment in time. Those forecasts are not published.
And I already made some remarks in my introduction on the relativity of forecasts, even if they are published, for the decision-making process.
Various Members of this Parliament have questioned whether the ECB places too much emphasis on prices and too little on growth and employment.
At least that is how I have understood the question; that was the signal that was given to me.
Firstly, the Treaty of the ECB makes it literally mandatory for the ECB to give primary attention to their primary objective, which is to maintain price stability.
The Treaty says "without prejudice to price stability" , that is only when price stability, I should say, is guaranteed, should the ECB in its policies support the general economic policies of the Community.
There is another small remark I would like to make, Mr President, but it is important in the context of the motion for a resolution.
I believe the Treaty language is a little misrepresented.
In the resolution it says "providing that this price stability is attained" .
The Treaty says, and not without reason, "without prejudice to the objective of price stability" - and that is of great importance in economic terms.
The wording of the resolution may be interpreted as suggesting that when the current rate of inflation is below 2% then the Eurosystem would be under an obligation to support the general economic policies of the Communities.
In contrast the wording "without prejudice" clarifies, and it is intended to do so, that the Eurosystem is under no obligation to act in this mechanical fashion if it believes that doing so might jeopardise price stability in the future.
I ask Parliament to take that into account.
Regarding the suggestion that there is too much emphasis on price stability, the formal answer is that it is our mandate.
Also, I would like to repeat that we do not overestimate the impact that monetary policy can have - what it can and cannot do.
It is my firm belief that monetary policy can and will influence the movement of prices over the medium-term but not in the short-term.
That is why we have a forward-looking strategy.
The direct impact of monetary policy measures on employment and growth is very limited indeed.
That is borne out by research which we did at the institution where, as Mrs van den Berg indicated, I previously worked.
Turning to the current situation, I should like to repeat that the monetary policy strategy of the Eurosystem, which has been made very clear to Parliament, is based on two pillars, both designed to be forward-looking over the medium-term.
The two pillars are: the reference value for monetary growth, M3, and a broadly-based assessment of a wide range of indicators and their impact on the primary aim of price stability.
That broadly-based assessment is one that encompasses a wide range of indicators, of course including developments in the real economy, movements in employment and unemployment, an assessment of movement of the exchange rate in so far as it has an impact on price levels in the euro area.
That is our strategy. It is forward-looking.
Of course we look at the current developments in inflation also as one of the indicators of what we think is going to happen in the future, but it is certainly not true that we only look at the current inflation rate, as implied in the draft resolution.
You will understand that I will not join Parliament in the debate on what decisions might be taken in the short-term on interest rates, although that decision has been alluded to by various Members of Parliament.
In Parliament it has been said by various Members that if interest rates were to be raised that would choke economic growth and the growth of employment.
But please remember that when you are driving a car very fast and you want it to go forward, but maybe a little slower, you can either step on the brakes or you can lift your foot a little bit from the accelerator.
There is a difference.
Raising interest rates in a certain situation might be more akin or related to lifting your foot from the peddle as opposed to braking the momentum of the economy and in that way going slower.
We all want to go forward.
Mrs Peijs wanted a very clear answer on frontloading.
I hope to be as clear as I can on banknotes.
The Eurosystem, early on, made it clear to the public at large that frontloading over a short period would not be a problem provided it could be ensured that the money frontloaded to banks, for instance, or other organisations is not brought into circulation before 1 January 2000 - into general circulation that is.
We formulated that by saying that banknotes may be frontloaded provided there are legal or contractual guarantees at the receiving end which ensure they will not be brought into circulation before 1 January.
There would have to be contracts or legal provisions or contracts with retail organisations or banks.
Then it would be possible.
On coins - you will be aware I do not have responsibility for coins, this is a matter for the finance ministers - the big difference is that it is virtually impossible to get that same guarantee as far as coins are concerned because coins are generally put into circulation by the retail sector rather than by the banks.
To have such a guarantee would be impossible.
Another large difference is that it is very easy to try to make a counterfeit banknote with modern photocopying techniques which is the reason why the precise features of the banknotes to come will be widely published but only very briefly in advance of their introduction, so as to reduce the danger of counterfeiting and confusing a public which is not yet familiar with the notes.
It is much more difficult to counterfeit coins.
I have touched upon all the major issues that have been raised today on banking supervision.
It is well known that the Treaty gives very little responsibility to the European Central Bank in the area of banking supervision.
Our task is to promote financial stability and the stability of the financial markets.
We monitor banking supervision, but this is not one of the tasks of the Central Bank.
We are fully involved in the further development of rules.
Mr Goebbels said that the ECB should be: "a bit less reticent about international exposure in all the various fora" .
The ECB is now fully involved in all discussions in all international fora on the future of what is now called the "financial architecture" in the world.
The ECB is fully involved in all discussions of the G-7, of the G-10, of the OECD.
We have a permanent representative who is very actively engaged in discussions at the IMF.
In December there will be the first meeting of this new Group of 20 at the initiative of the G-7 countries, consisting of the G-7 countries and a few emerging market representatives.
The ECB will be there.
We will also participate in that dialogue.
As Mrs van den Berg has asked, we do participate in the macroeconomic dialogue but just as in the Netherlands, the Central Bank participates in the dialogue but does not agree to a compromise on its policy in order to get a concession in another policy area.
There will be no ex ante policy coordination but there will be an extensive and, I hope, critical exchange of information of all the partners involved, including the ECB.
Thank you very much, Mr Duisenberg.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
Assessing the Community' s humanitarian actions and looking to the future
The next item is the statement by the Commission on assessing the Community' s humanitarian actions and looking to the future.
Mr President, the Commission has today accepted a report to Parliament and the Council, assessing ECHO.
The Commission' s assessment is based upon a report by consultants.
This report has been prepared by professional people.
I think that this is the correct way to go about things.
When, in the future, the Commission assesses activities in my own area, this ought to be done on the basis of such modern, professional and open methods.
The consultants' overall conclusion was positive, and the Commission shares this positive view of ECHO.
However, we are alert to the fact that there are a number of things which can be improved.
First of all, cooperation needs to be improved.
We need to improve our cooperation with the multinational organisations, the UN bodies and the Red Cross organisations.
The intention is to help the international community respond more effectively and in a better coordinated way in different crises.
The fact that ECHO is such a big aid organisation means that we also share a more general responsibility for its effectiveness.
At the same time, it means that we should also make larger demands in cooperation with, among others, the various UN organisations.
We need to establish a broader and more activity-based approach to individual humanitarian crises.
This should be done within the framework of the existing regulations.
Secondly, there is the question of our management strategy.
Improvements internal to ECHO should also be made.
We should invest more highly in a concerted handling of the whole project cycle, which includes ensuring effective feedback.
On this basis, we should to a greater degree be measuring results instead of input.
There are also points on which we have disagreed with the consultants' proposals.
We do not, for example, wish to abolish ECHO' s logo.
European taxpayers are entitled to know where the aid is going to, and there is no reason, either, to conceal from the recipients where the same aid is coming from.
But ECHO' s visibility and its logo must not be permitted to hamper cooperation with our partners.
Thirdly, there are the policy considerations.
In the longer term, the Commission wants to develop a cohesive strategy for the grey area here, that is to say the area between real humanitarian aid and longer-term, more future-oriented development work.
At present, a lively international debate, in which the Commission is also to be an active participant, is taking place about this so-called transition gap.
What is more, the Commission' s internal resources are to be mobilised so that they can release the required humanitarian aid in individual situations when the time is ripe.
The objective is to give ECHO the opportunity to define a meaningful exit strategy in connection with different crises.
Combining the two portfolios of development and humanitarian aid provides a better opportunity for this, not least on the basis of the fact that both ECHO' s sphere of work and the Commissioner' s responsibility for development policy are global in character.
The plan is to present a report on this subject in June 2000.
The Commission will also launch a debate about other important policy areas: conflict prevention, preparedness in advance of crises and catastrophes, and humanitarian aid which is based upon upholding human rights, that is to say which focuses to a greater degree upon the victims' rights as human beings.
Special groups include women (especially victims of rape), child soldiers, refugees and internally displaced persons.
In all these areas, a connection with the Commission' s development policy should naturally be guaranteed.
The plan is to report on these areas in July 2001.
And, finally, the conclusions.
ECHO is to continue to retain its non-partisan character in all conflicts.
This is important for the purpose of securing access to the victims of crises.
ECHO' s presence in a wide range of countries, each with its own workers who have been sent out, is an important link in an effective policy of humanitarian aid.
ECHO is an organisation with its own power to act and with motivated staff who are ready to implement the proposed improvements.
In the midst of all discussion about changes, it is important to state that ECHO' s committed and loyal staff are the most important asset we have to build upon.
I am looking forward to seeing the results of the changes.
It is my intention to visit East Timor in the very near future.
This will be a good opportunity to see some concrete results of ECHO' s work and for me to do what I can to establish fruitful cooperation with all our partners.
Mr President, I have a question for Mr Nielson regarding bridging the gap which he mentioned.
He said there would be further discussion of this.
Were there any proposals in the expert report as to the form this involvement of development aid would take or even of other development instruments such as PHARE or TACIS, for example, and has it been ascertained whether the problems are in the area of ecological aid and the programme there or in the area of other forms of aid? Could you clarify this?
Mr President, there were actually a number of proposals made by the evaluation.
One of them had to do with ECHO moving more into the area of development cooperation, in a sense staying longer in a post-conflict situation.
I do not think this is how to do it - we will end up over-stretching the resources very rapidly because new conflicts keep coming up.
So we need to have a balanced approach, drawing on the resources in our development cooperation in general but making sure that they go in when ECHO goes out.
It sounds easy but it is not that easy.
In general it is necessary to combine these things and many are not able to do it.
A very big problem is that individual countries although good donors do not have the resources to stay a long time in many conflicts.
This is where the European Union has a special capacity and also special responsibility.
It is extremely important that we, at a certain point, become very good at managing this transition gap.
Mr President, I am going to ask three questions on behalf of my Socialist colleagues in the Committee on Development and Cooperation, who are here in spirit but physically are in the Committee itself, voting on the amendments relating to the World Trade Organisation.
Firstly: can it be deduced from the Commission' s arguments here today that the funding of ECHO for humanitarian aid will mainly continue to be channelled through the programmes of different NGOs, or is any change envisaged in this regard?
Secondly: does the Commission intend to support the reform of the regulations which govern humanitarian aid?
And, if that is the case, in what respect? Would such a reform be carried out in accordance with the codecision principle which is introduced by the Treaty of Amsterdam?
Thirdly: can it be deduced from today' s discussion that ECHO will retain its full role of channelling European Union humanitarian aid in crisis situations, or, rather, that the activity of ECHO and humanitarian aid itself will be progressively diluted within the Union' s general policy of cooperation for development?
.
First, we are not planning or expecting any change concerning distribution, as between NGOs and UN organisations and other organisations, driven by our management or policy We respond to appeals and crises and use whichever organisation is able to do a good job in the specific circumstances.
We do not have a fixed, preconceived idea of who gets what.
Concerning the NGOs, we have found very few changes to be necessary.
We know that in practice, in daily operations, we will have to streamline procedures as much as possible but, in general, this has not been seen as a major issue in the whole evaluation process.
Moving on to the next question, on reforming or changing the regulation, I already made it clear in my opening remarks that we think it is possible to make many important and necessary changes within the existing regulation.
We will come back to that.
We are not closing the option of changing the regulation but this will be taken up in a much broader, long-term process - the one I mentioned concerning the policy part of our response.
For the time being we will work on the basis of the existing regulation.
We think this gives enough scope for the changes that are needed.
Regarding the codecision aspect of this, in responding to the evaluation, I have deliberately avoided saying anything concerning that issue.
How codecision will eventually be hammered out in terms of relations between Parliament, the Council and Member States in decision-making on humanitarian activities is something that needs to be discussed further and perhaps negotiated.
But I did not want to open up a discussion on that because following up the evaluation is not a problem I have to deal with.
Concerning the identity of the operation, I distinctly mentioned the logo and the discussion.
The consultants recommended that we should give up the specific ECHO logo.
This is one point on which I feel we should not follow their recommendation.
But we have to strike some kind of balance.
To put it in a nutshell: visibility is fine, feasibility is better.
There is, in some cases, a risk that pushing the logo too much creates friction and reduces the willingness to cooperate smoothly on the ground.
Somewhere we have to find a balance.
But I did not want to back down as far as visibility is concerned.
We owe it to our tax-payers, the European public.
Certainly there is no reason why we should hide from the beneficiaries who it is that is actually helping them.
Mr President, I want first of all to say that I am here as a representative of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, which is meeting now.
I want to say to Commissioner Nielson that his presentation was music to my ears.
Three things, in particular, caught my attention.
First of all, he promises openness and modernity; openness is incredibly important, since ECHO is among the highest-profile organisations of the European Union.
Secondly, he also promises increased cooperation with the United Nations and the Red Cross; this is also important and has been needed for a long time.
Thirdly, he anticipates too a more integrated view of humanitarian aid in foreign policy generally, designed to prevent conflict, which I believe is necessary.
My question is this: is the Commissioner prepared, in anticipation of the report also promised for June 2000, continually to consult in one form or another with Parliament and with any non-governmental organisations concerned?
My answer to the question will be "yes" .
I should very much like to see open debate and open procedure.
We can use any good ideas, and what we are trying to do with ECHO is precisely to mobilise Europe' s population, too.
The fact that we are involved as active partners in these different conflicts and crisis situations is also a demonstration to our own citizens in Europe that Europe has a role to play in these places.
That is why it is also necessary to involve citizens, and that is to say Parliament, and I am therefore very prepared for cooperation with Parliament and with Parliament' s committees when it comes to the next steps we are to take.
Mr President, involving the NGOs is something which the machinery both of the United Nations and of Europe is intensely concerned with, and this is doubtless something which is necessary.
But when it is a question of constructing democracies in a number of countries, I also think we ought to be looking at how we can involve the members of the parliaments in these countries.
We have no tradition at all for doing this through, for example, the UN machinery.
We still scarcely have any such tradition through the European machinery.
It is, for example, a fact that the NGOs have direct representation in the United Nations whereas members of the parliaments are only appendages of their governments, and it is only as such that they can offer any input.
I am very much of the view that we could re-think this machinery and that we ought to be asking ourselves how we can guarantee better parliamentary cooperation with a number of developing countries and also with the Central and East European countries we are supposed to be helping.
I am saying this not because the NGOs should not continue to be involved there but because I think it is a rather false picture we are giving of the construction of democracy if we say that it is only NGOs which can be actively involved.
In fact, parliamentarians can also be involved and, in reality, were in fact originally involved in our own wealthy part of the world before the NGOs came on the scene.
I very much share Mrs Dybkjær' s point of view.
The impression has been given that the abbreviation NGOs might almost be read as standing for neogovernmental organisations.
But when we consider ECHO' s work, we are talking here about situations following wars and crises in which the societies concerned have fallen apart and in which, in general, it is a question of establishing structures in the societies concerned.
I very much agree that members of the various parliaments are naturally important elements but, if we take countries like Somalia, Sudan and other such places, we are forced to take what there is by way of structures in the so-called civil society and try to help these structures become parts of a civilised society.
In connection with our efforts as a whole in this area - and not just those involving ECHO and humanitarian aid - a lot of people have asked whether we have not got things the wrong way around in insisting that elections be held quickly.
Cambodia was one example, Angola another.
Some people think that, in these cases, we insisted too quickly that elections should be held and the formal structures of democracy created.
On the other hand, insisting on these things has worked well in many cases, so I agree that we should be pressing for the outward and formal structures of democracy to be established. This is the way in which - as soon as structures of this kind have been established - parliamentarians become the decisive players, in civil society too.
With regard to the part of the question concerned with the role to be played in what we are doing by members of the parliaments concerned - and that is another way of looking at the question - I want to say that the debate itself, the very dialogue between the Commission and Parliament about the policy we are to pursue, is for me the decisive factor, and it is from there that we get the decisive inspiration.
Mr President, could I ask the Commissioner whether he considers that this evaluation risks putting structures in place which actually endanger the possibility of us of being able to react in a crisis as quickly and as effectively as he suggests we should? secondly, Commissioner, let us take for instance a case study such as Sierra Leone: You talked about the clear distinction between humanitarian aid and long-term assistance.
Could you give me your analysis of what stage one part of your work will take over from the other in the case of Sierra Leone?
No, to the first part of the question.
I do not see that anything we are suggesting here would actually endanger our capacity for quick action.
We are not moving towards creating a rigid system and the special character, the ability to act and the identity of ECHO as such, are all something I find important in order to avoid ECHO, as a humanitarian relief organisation, becoming involved in the very cumbersome decision-making machinery of the Commission in general.
We are not heading toward the kind of problems that you ask about here.
Regarding Sierra Leone, it is very difficult to say.
The main thing is to what extent it is possible to mobilise enough donors; it is not just what we do ourselves.
There must be a critical mass of donors who are willing and able to make a more long-term effort in a given country, so coordination is extremely important here.
We have to be able to deliver our share of it and phase out crisis-based ECHO presence, replacing it with the post-conflict presence of a more long-term character of our development resources.
If others do not participate, it will not work, so part of the answer to what we have to do now is to be more active in the discussion from case to case - within groups of friends of Sierra Leone, to take one example - trying to organise a more coordinated response to moving away from the immediate crisis demands.
One case that illustrates where we should be careful not to end up is that the UNHCR is still today funding and managing primary education in Rwanda.
Nobody else is ready to pay for it and that is why they are there.
They are doing a respectable job but it shows that the international system and who does what becomes distorted if the normal donors do not demonstrate a readiness to play their traditional role.
This is where we hope to be able to push the international discussion in a better direction than hitherto.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Nielson.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.15 p.m.)
Annex - Formal sitting
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my very great pleasure today to welcome Mr Andrés Pastrana, President of the Republic of Colombia here today.
(Loud applause)
Mr President, your visit to the European Parliament comes at a time when the whole population of Columbia has demonstrated loud and clear its desire for an end to civil unrest, and for democracy and respect for human rights.
We were very touched by this appeal by eleven million Colombians, including your own wife, who last Sunday marched through the streets of many towns in your country.
Please be aware that the desire for peace expressed by your fellow countrymen addresses us and it is our duty to encourage any initiative which may contribute to peace.
This massive demonstration coincided with the opening of peace negotiations between your government and the guerrilla movement in Uribe.
I would like, especially, to pay tribute to your perseverance and to your courage which made it possible to initiate this peace process which, I sincerely hope, will progress and be successful.
Yes, the European Parliament can stand alongside the Colombians who last Sunday chanted Nunca mas (No more).
Mr President, your continent and your country in particular have paid a high toll to violence and political instability.
This is why I would like to pay tribute, in your presence, to all those who were the victims of their own commitment to democracy.
There were too many of these female and male politicians, journalists, defenders of human rights and citizens who paid with their lives for their fight for a more just and more humane society.
Please be aware, Mr President, that we shall support every effort intended to suppressing terrorist campaigns, to controlling paramilitary forces, and to affirming the supremacy of civil authority over military might.
The European Union will assist you in your peacemaking enterprise, and shall promote the strengthening of relations between the European Union and Colombia.
The cooperation agreement, of the third generation type, has already made it possible to establish solid links between us.
I am convinced that these links would be stronger yet if they were to come within the framework of intensified regional cooperation between the Andean Pact countries, a reinforcement which we devoutly wish for because regional stability is achieved primarily, of course, by being on good neighbourly terms.
Mr President, the European Parliament today hopes to encourage you to continue in your move to establish once and for all the rule of law.
We thank you for your attendance here, for your visit, and it is now my very great pleasure to give you the floor.
(Loud applause)
Address by Mr Pastrana, President of the Republic of Colombia
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, it is an honour for me to appear before you, the representatives of a Europe which promotes optimism, which is the most successful example of a genuine political integration this century and which demonstrates that it is indeed possible to return from death to life, from disrespect for human beings to the veneration of their rights, from pessimism to hope: which also demonstrates that peace is possible wherever development, social justice, the defence of the weakest, solidarity and coexistence are established. These are the things that determine culture, give meaning to liberty and open up the path leading to the achievement of shared goals.
At this moment, and from this hemicycle within the new European Parliament complex, my country has the great privilege of addressing Europe, through the elected representatives of the people of the fifteen countries which currently make up the European Union.
Colombia, the country which I govern by democratic consent, is struggling with a difficult quest for peace, employment, development and, above all, social justice.
The sovereign population of Colombia, in the highest vote in history, expressed itself clearly and delivered to me an emphatic mandate. A mandate to search for peace in our country.
It is not my custom to block out the sun with my hands nor to cover my eyes with bandages. The international community is discerning and is watching us attentively.
We, who are also discerning, also see what is happening in the countries of the world and we know that it is necessary to act now, that there is no time to lose. We know that this is the time for cooperation, not for confrontation nor for intervention.
Many of our neighbours in Latin America, over the course of time, have found solutions to their conflicts.
In these processes the European Union has always been present to a significant degree, as a mediator and as a bridge between the various political and social sectors.
In the negotiation processes in Guatemala and El Salvador, the role of the European Union was fundamental.
The traditional concern of Europe for peace and human rights, and its marked tradition with regard to negotiation processes provide my country with absolutely essential support: this support is vital.
And it is also vital that Europe understands the background to the Colombian conflict.
We cannot allow the discussion of Colombia to be based on words but no action, on the idealisation of conflicts belonging to past decades and even less on press reports which are more concerned with the spectacular nature of the news rather than the reality behind it.
I can tell this from your questions concerning our conflict and the peace process: "Why are there still guerrillas in Colombia when they have disappeared from the rest of the continent?" "Is there a civil war in Colombia?"
"What does the "zone of peace mean?"
"Who violates human rights in Colombia and what is the commitment of the government to human rights?" "Is the Colombian Plan a military plan?"
I have come here today to explain our real situation to you, without denying the brutality of the violence we suffer.
Nobody could be unaware of the reality of my country.
Violence has plagued our country for years.
Many Colombians have died for their cause and many, through kidnap, have lost their liberty.
The Colombian conflict, under its own steam, has undergone serious changes and, without doubt, the force with which drug-trafficking exploded in Colombia in the Eighties has been the element which has led to the greatest increase in violence.
This has not only permeated the guerrilla movement, whose finance increasingly comes from charges imposed on coca leaf, but it has also extended the circle of violence to other armed groups and organised criminal groups.
Faced with this escalation of violence, the Colombian population has said NO MORE.
Mass demonstrations have taken to the streets, reminding us of the response of the Spanish people to terrorism, to demand NO MORE VIOLENCE.
Today the people of my country, like never before in their history, are united in the demand for a cessation of the violation of human rights, especially kidnap which should cease to be used as a source of finance by the guerrilla movement and other violent groups.
In Colombia, there is no civil war.
Less than 4% of Colombians support the guerrillas.
During the last two decades, the conflict has changed substantially.
While the military capability of the violent groups is increasing, largely thanks to drug money, the civil population is asking to be freed from the conflict, since they have realised that it is they who suffer as a result and it is their fundamental rights which are violated day after day.
Ladies and gentlemen, ours is a unique type of conflict which requires a unique type of solution, and my government is determined and committed to finding this solution.
The guerrilla conflict has concerned our people for 40 years.
During this time, several insurgent groups have participated in the conflict.
But there are also several who have now understood that the best alternative for our country is to abandon violence through a process of political dialogue.
Six armed groups comprising around 8,000 rebels, have, during the last ten years, laid down their arms in favour of the power of argument.
Today we are treading the path of negotiating the armed conflict with the FARC, the oldest of the guerrilla groups.
In little more than a year, through dialogue, we have already agreed an agenda for negotiation which consists of twelve points and last Sunday, in a historic moment for our country, we embarked upon a negotiation process which must lead our country along the path to the construction of a lasting and genuine peace.
There has also been a lot of speculation about the so-called "zone of peace" .
The truth is that this is an instrument created by Colombian Law to generate security conditions to assist the dialogue.
This zone covers only 3% of the national territory and a quarter of 1% of the Colombian population lives there.
We have not given up our national integrity there and the State is represented by democratically elected Mayors and Councillors.
We are also moving forward in the search for a solution with the National Liberation Army, the ELN.
Last week preliminary contacts were started, aimed at reactivating the discussions and I am optimistic that we will soon see significant advances which will allow us to initiate negotiations with this rebel group as well.
The whole of Colombia and the international community believes in the progress that is possible through a political solution.
I know that it will not be an easy path to follow and we will certainly continue to encounter difficulties, but we will always remain steadfast in the effort to overcome them.
Peace processes take time and require patience, a lot of patience.
Let us remember the cases of El Salvador or Guatemala.
Let us observe the peace processes in the Middle East and Ireland.
Neither of them happened overnight, but a negotiated political solution will be seen to have obvious benefits.
I would like to repeat that I will do everything possible to achieve this peace which is essential to all of us.
But, as I said a few days ago before the United Nations General Assembly, I do not want peace at any price, but rather a peace which genuinely strengthens democracy, which preserves the territory and allows all of the citizens to enjoy full rights and liberties.
I believe that a decent and democratic future is not possible without a culture of respect for fundamental rights.
I know that in the course of the protracted internal conflict in Colombia these rights have suffered serious violations, and this must not continue.
I am totally committed to the defence of human rights.
My convictions, my background and the mandate of my people testify to this.
To this end, I have implemented a broad State policy to combat, within the framework of the law, those armed groups which operate outside that law, to guarantee security, protection, support and freedom of action for the defenders of human rights; to assist people who have been displaced by violence; to adopt legal instruments which protect human rights and strengthen our judicial apparatus.
To sum up, a group of specific measures aimed at guaranteeing compliance with international humanitarian law.
The results of the application of this policy are reflected in the notable decrease in the complaints of human rights violations emanating from the public, as recognised in the reports from the intergovernmental bodies and NGOs which operate in this field.
We have worked hard to bring our legislation up to date.
Congress is currently debating a law to define and punish enforced abduction, genocide and massacres.
Furthermore, my government supported the approval of a new Military Penal Code which includes significant advances with regard to the competence of the civil courts to judge the military with regard to crimes such as genocide, enforced abduction and torture and we have signed up to the Statute of the International Criminal Court.
In addition, a Presidential Decree has been issued to promote respect for non-governmental organisations which operate in the field of human rights.
I also hope that those organisations can carry out their noble activities for strictly humanitarian purposes, without any political interference.
Ladies and gentlemen, my government is taking decisive action with regard to the protection of human rights, and in this task we need the support of the international community.
If the guerrillas or the autodefensas (vigilantes) violate human rights, this fact must be reported and they must be punished.
If any agent of the State does the same, this is also a crime and must not go unpunished.
That is to say, any human rights violation must be rejected and the perpetrators punished in accordance with the law.
Over the "State motive" or the justifications bandied about by the perpetrators of violence, the "human motive" must always prevail.
It is also important for Colombia that both Europe and the United States understand the correlation between drug trafficking and violence in Colombia.
There is no nation in the world which has offered up as many martyrs as Colombia in the fight against drug trafficking.
This disastrous trade has been and continues to be the principal cause of the worst tragedies of our recent history.
The economic power of these organisations led to corruption in many areas of our lives.
Drug trafficking has been the great creator of violence and has led to assassinations of the highest possible human cost to our country.
Currently, it contributes to the maintenance of the wave of violence which we are suffering by financing the various perpetrators of violence.
I have said, and I would like to repeat to you today, that drug-trafficking is the foremost and the worst enemy of peace, and peace will not be achieved totally without the eradication of the organisations which carry out this accursed drug trade or without finding alternatives and solutions which are economically and socially sustainable.
My country, like no other, has carried on its shoulders the burden of the fight against drug trafficking.
Therefore, I would like to take this exceptional opportunity to invite all the countries of the world community to fully implement the principle of what has been called "shared responsibility" , in order to combat the global problem of drugs.
This principle requires us to confront together the serious global problem of drugs, at every link in the chain; that is to say, production, distribution, consumption, money laundering, the diversion of chemical ingredients and arms sales.
It also requires us to contribute to lasting solutions in accordance with our own individual capacities.
We have significant agreements with the European Union which recognise the shared responsibility in this area.
We have made advances in the promotion of cooperation mechanisms between Europe and the Andean countries, as in the case of the tariff concessions of the Andean GSP, the expansion of which is vital to my country.
Whilst on this subject, I must also express my satisfaction with the recent conclusion of the Presidency of the European Council at Tampere with regard to the laundering of capital, which mentions the Council decision to "ensure that specific steps are taken to trace, freeze, seize and confiscate the proceeds of crime" .
We must confiscate the money and property of the drug-traffickers, and their associates, which results from this murderous trade and deny them any possibility of buying chemical ingredients and arms and we must pursue the underworld which launders the money which they obtain.
Together we must continue to make advances towards complete solutions which cover all the links in the chain.
And together we will have to give priority to those education and prevention programmes which will bring about a reduction in demand.
In this struggle, ladies and gentlemen, we need you as partners and allies.
My country is not asking for much: simply that each member of the world community plays its part in the task, in accordance with the principle of shared responsibility, and that we can all meet the costs of lasting solutions within the bounds of the available possibilities and resources.
It should also be of great concern to all of us that drug trafficking is causing more and more ecological damage.
In our country, which is one of the eight richest nations in terms of biodiversity, the illegal cultivation of coca and poppies have destroyed more than a million hectares of jungle, rain forests and mountain areas.
The pillage of nature is so out of hand that five hectares of forest are destroyed in order to cultivate one hectare of coca or poppy and every year 200,000 gallons of herbicide, 16,000 tonnes of chemical fertiliser and 100,000 gallons of poisons used on these crops contaminate Colombian waters and soil.
I want to repeat today that there is no doubt that the activities associated with illegal cultivation are spoiling the earth' s natural heritage.
It is therefore the duty of all of our countries to stop this destruction in order to defend at all costs the human right of future generations to a habitable planet.
We share Europe' s concerns about global warming, deforestation and the essential conservation of tropical forests.
We also understand that we must tackle the problem of polluting emissions.
For this reason we want to propose to Europe an Environmental Alliance between the countries of Europe and Colombia so that we may move forward together in this noble purpose.
Faced with Colombia' s real situation it is clear that in order to advance in the arduous task of building peace it is necessary to go beyond dialogue and negotiations with rebels.
It is necessary to find fundamental solutions to our problems.
We need to construct a new nation where respect for human rights, the application of justice and the reconstruction of our social fabric are the solid foundations which will allow us to build a society in which the factors which create violence are eradicated for good.
It is for this reason that I am here before those of you who share these ideals, to propose that you deepen your commitments with us and that we strengthen this alliance which is useful to all of us.
Appropriate cooperation is one of the most effective ways of protecting human rights; cooperation means preventing the preventable; cooperation means opening up the roads to hope.
To this end I have drawn up the Colombia Plan for peace, prosperity and the strengthening of the State.
It is not a military plan.
It is a comprehensive and unified plan aimed at strengthening such basic issues for our country as the search for peace, the reactivation of our economy and the generation of employment, the protection of human rights, the strengthening of justice and the increase in social participation.
The final result will be the strengthening of our State, as the essential requirement for the achievement of peace and progress.
We need your participation on all these fronts but principally we need you, your nations and the whole of Europe to invest in peace for the sake of peace, and to open up your markets so that we can create employment for the sake of peace.
For this reason, Colombia is presenting the international community with an alternative policy for the eradication of illegal crops based on an alternative development which offers the rural population, which is currently involved in illegal cultivation, a permanent escape from their economic and social problems, replacing illegal crops with commercial, mining, agricultural, agro-industrial and service companies, and with the necessary infrastructure so that they may compete adequately in the world' s globalised economy.
Colombia hopes to finance, jointly with those countries which are in some way involved in the drug chain, the infrastructure of the project and also hopes to involve private capital, both national and foreign, in the economically productive companies so that they may incorporate advances in technology and new capital.
Madam President, honourable Members of the European Parliament: I wish you, on behalf of the Colombian people, the greatest success in the enlargement and deepening of European democracy.
You represent people who have opted for life, peace and the defence of human rights, you constitute the means of expression of those who believe in democracy, freedom and a healthy environment for future generations.
You are largely responsible for leading the rapprochement with those countries which are building hope for themselves and which are eager for the third millennium to bring genuine successes.
I am here before the representatives of European democracy, to tell you unequivocally that I have opted for peace, I have offered the guerrilla movement peace with dignity and security.
In order to live in peace we need a national agreement supported by the international community.
As a democrat and before democrats I ask you here today: support peace in Colombia.
To do this would be to invest in humanity and in a vision of a future which brings about development, well-being and social justice.
Thank you very much.
(Sustained Applause)
Mr President, thank you for the statement you have just made which will remain imprinted in our minds as Europeans, and in our minds as female and male politicians.
You have presented the difficult situation of your country with great candour and great clarity.
You emphasised, I noted, the disasters of all sorts caused by drugs trafficking and you appealed to what I shall call our joint responsibility in eradicating this scourge.
We have clearly heard your message.
As you know, a few days ago in Tampere, an extraordinary Council of the Heads of State and Government of the European Union met and decided upon a number of extremely strong measures in this area.
And then you explained how you intended to progress along the road to peace.
You very powerfully expressed your wish to lay down, and I quote, "arms in favour of the power of argument" .
I must say that I greatly admired what you had to say on this subject and I also appreciated the wish you expressed to establish a form of peace which strengthens democracy.
In this connection, you mentioned a number of very courageous measures which, as you may have observed from the applause of my fellow Members, were greatly appreciated.
We have heard, Mr President, your wish, your appeal, I would say, for close cooperation between us and your appeal for our assistance in your very courageous undertaking.
Thank you for choosing the European Parliament as the place to launch this appeal, and may I assure you that this appeal has been heard and understood.
(Loud applause)
(The formal sitting was closed at 1.05 p.m.)
Outcome of the European Council of 15/16 October in Tampere
The next item is the report of the European Council and the Commission statement on the outcome of the European Council of 15/16 October in Tampere.
It is my great pleasure to give Mr Lipponen, President-in-Office of the Council, the floor.
Madam President, Members of the European Parliament, I am very happy to be able to appear before you and speak for the first time in the European Parliament as Finland' s Prime Minister.
I wish to congratulate you on your election and wish the new Parliament every success in its work.
When we met recently, the President and I pointed out that we have a new Parliament, a new Commission, a new start and, above all, a new President, meaning that the new institutional arrangement is now, on the whole, a better one.
I would like to thank the President for the views of Parliament that you presented at the European Council in Tampere, when it began its work.
I believe that the decisions taken at Tampere correspond well with the expectations that Parliament had of the meeting there.
The European Council has approved both the policy guidelines and the practical action to help the Union become an area of freedom, security and justice, within the meaning of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The results we achieved at Tampere can, in my opinion, be regarded as successful in many regards in terms of the expectations of the public and the development of the Union.
Obviously, expectations cannot always be fulfilled in all respects, but it is good to be able to say that the NGOs, such as the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, have praised the results achieved at Tampere.
Sadako Ogata, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told me on the telephone, after the meeting, how satisfied the UNHCR is with the outcome of the meeting.
I assured her that we would continue on a path of good cooperation with the UNHCR in the implementation of the decisions as well.
The meeting at Tampere was, for many reasons, important for the Union.
The European Council sped up the implementation of the Treaty of Amsterdam, making it a concrete reality.
At Tampere, justice and home affairs were raised to the highest political level in cooperation with the Union.
The meeting took an important step forward towards closer cooperation among the Member States, and it was decided to break down the barriers to cooperation between the police and judicial authorities.
The Member States of the Union showed determination in bringing the work of the Union closer to the people by tackling commonly shared concerns and deficiencies in Union cooperation.
At Tampere, the Union strengthened the basis for cooperation in justice and home affairs, of which a respect for the principles of human rights agreements, civil freedoms and rule of law are an essential part.
The European Council called its results the ten milestones, and I will briefly consider them here.
At Tampere a step was taken in the direction of a common Union policy on immigration and asylum.
The European Council emphasised the consideration that asylum and immigration issues are separate, but are still close to one another.
The first milestone for Tampere is the creation of a comprehensive policy for the union on questions of immigration and asylum.
What is most important is to have an influence on the reasons behind emigration through contact with the countries concerned.
The European Council meeting welcomed the work the high level taskforce has done to draft action plans for influencing reasons for emigration.
This work requires a wide-ranging assortment of Union foreign policy and policy on development cooperation, human rights and trade, and the prevention of conflicts.
The taskforce' s mandate was extended to the drafting of new action plans.
We decided to strive towards a common European policy on the asylum system.
This decision is, I believe, one of the most important of the breakthroughs at Tampere.
The European Council adopted a very strong position in support of the right to asylum by committing to a full and comprehensive interpretation of the Geneva Convention regarding the European asylum policy.
The principle of non-refoulement, according to which no one may be sent back into a situation where they might suffer persecution, was again reinforced separately.
Building a common system will obviously take time.
The Commission is being asked, however, to draft within one year an announcement on the creation of a common asylum procedure and on a common status for those granted asylum throughout the Union.
With the implementation of the decisions taken at Tampere we can decisively improve the way the asylum system works, as well as standards of fairness, in Europe.
An important achievement at Tampere was setting an objective whereby those who have migrated into the Union legally must have rights and obligations comparable with those of Union citizens.
The legal position in particular of those who have resided in the Union for a longer period of time must be improved, for example, by guaranteeing the right to stay, the right to education and work, and the right to practice a profession.
The Union must also defend its most important values against intolerance and discrimination.
This must be something that is today regarded as being very important in the European Parliament as well.
The European Council emphasises the importance of more effective action to combat racism and xenophobia, and urges Member States to draft national programmes for this purpose.
Important decisions were taken concerning the control of mass immigration.
It was decided to take measures to combat illegal immigration and trafficking in human beings.
There will be tougher penalties for those engaged in human trafficking and other forms of financial exploitation of immigrants, and the Member States will work in closer cooperation with Europol to counter the work of crime networks.
I would like to stress here that, at the same time, we must safeguard the rights of the victims of crime and, in particular, the position of women and children.
Border control cooperation, both among the Member States and in cooperation with the applicant countries, will improve through, inter alia, exchange programmes and the transfer of technology.
In this connection, the importance of the Schengen Convention and the professional control of the external borders are being emphasised in an expanding Union.
It was also agreed at Tampere to embark on practical action that would allow us to build a European area of justice.
We decided to create an on-going information system that would be up-to-date and easy to use, enabling the public to obtain information about other Member States' legal systems.
The Union is to adopt, on the basis of the Commission' s proposal, minimum standards, thereby ensuring there is proper legal aid available in cross-border situations.
We similarly decided to simplify and speed up legal proceedings relating to consumer, commercial and maintenance demands of slight monetary value.
The position of the victims of crime will improve with the adoption of minimum standards for the protection of the victims of crime, especially with regard to legal protection and the right to receive damages.
After a thorough debate on the issue, the Council of Europe approved the mutual recognition of sentences and judicial decisions as a keystone in the development of an area of justice.
I consider it an excellent achievement that the principle of mutual recognition was endorsed as a basis for both private law and criminal cases.
An important milestone at Tampere was reached when it was decided to continue with the convergence of civil law and civil process law, for better cooperation and legal protection.
At Tampere, joint action to make the prevention of crime more effective within the Union was thoroughly discussed.
The European Council was unanimous in its verdict that persons and organisations that abuse freedoms and violate citizens' rights within the territory of the Union have to be brought under better control and be held responsible for their deeds, through closer cooperation between the authorities.
It was agreed that the key to fighting crime was better prevention of crime.
The Member States will draft national crime prevention programmes and establish their mutual cooperation and a comparison of best practice.
The European Council called for a study into the possibility of financing a programme from Community funds, the primary focus of which would be youth, urban and drugs-related crime, which have been found to be the fastest growing areas of crime in many countries.
The decisions taken at Tampere will enhance cooperation in Europe between the police and the judicial authorities.
The European Council decided that joint investigative groups should be set up to counter, initially, trafficking in drugs and humans, as well as terrorism.
A top-level European taskforce would exchange experiences and aid the planning of operations together with Europol.
Europol should also be given powers to request Member States to commence, perform and coordinate investigations.
Action to combat organised crime will also be reinforced with the establishment of a new body - Eurojust.
Member States, depending on their legal systems, will send state prosecutors, examining magistrates and police officers with similar powers to join this unit.
In this way we can see to it that Europol' s criminal investigations lead to criminals being convicted and sentenced more effectively.
A European police academy will be established to train higher-ranking legal officials. This will also be open to officials from states applying for membership.
The European Council also decided to embark on a programme of legislative convergence in certain areas of national criminal law.
The purpose is to agree common definitions of crimes, and agree on prosecution and legal consequences.
This work will initially focus on certain forms of serious cross-border crime such as fraud, trafficking in drugs and human beings - especially the exploitation of women - the sexual abuse of children, high technology crime and environmental crime.
Finally, the last milestone I have to mention, which I regard as being very important among the decisions taken at Tampere is special action to combat money laundering.
The importance of this action is underlined by the fact that money laundering has a major role to play in organised crime, and it is closely connected with areas such as trafficking in drugs and human beings, and the illegal trade in weapons.
I especially want to raise the point that the legal authorities and centres of investigation into money-laundering will be given the right to acquire information, regardless of bank regulations or business secrecy rules, when the information is necessary to conduct an investigation into money laundering.
Europol' s powers will be extended to money laundering in general, regardless of what type of crime the laundered funds derive from.
Member States will try to reach a coherent and comprehensive definition of the scope of criminal activity that would constitute a so-called originating crime with regard to money laundering.
The targets set for cooperation in justice and home affairs can be realised only through comprehensive action.
That is why the European Council has approved the political guidelines regarding how the Union' s external action must be strengthened in order to achieve the targets for justice and home affairs.
The results achieved in cooperation with the Baltic Countries are an example of practical regional action to combat organised crime.
Special attention was paid at Tampere to closer cooperation with the Balkans region.
Implementing the decisions taken at Tampere will begin immediately, but it will obviously take time.
Monitoring will be carried out using a method that proved beneficial in the creation of the single market.
The Commission is drafting a proposal for a scoreboard to monitor the implementation of decisions and adherence to timetables.
A thorough survey of achievements will be undertaken in the European Council during the Belgian Presidency in December 2001.
Madam President, if you will allow me I will briefly present the most important aims we still wish to achieve during the Finnish Presidency.
The most important decision taken at the European Council at Helsinki will affect the future of the whole of Europe.
At Tampere, I became increasingly convinced that Member States have a very converging opinion of how Union enlargement should be taken forward.
The political impetus behind the process that has begun must not be lost.
Finland, as the country holding the presidency, wishes to ensure that all applicant countries are encouraged and supported equally in their efforts to meet the criteria for membership.
Each applicant country must progress on the basis of their individual conditions.
We wish to ensure that the better-prepared states can move forward in negotiations faster than the others.
We would like to point out to the applicant countries that the membership criteria set at Copenhagen must be met before membership is possible.
I am convinced that, on the basis of the proposals announced by the Commission on 13 October, it will be possible to take decisions at Helsinki that will be based on a comprehensive, credible and consistent policy.
This is vital to ensure that the enlargement process has a positive impact on European stability.
But the Union must also reform.
I discussed this with the President this morning.
The process by which we try to strengthen Europe cannot be allowed to weaken decision-making in the institutions of the Union and, hence, the Union' s capacity for action.
I will be presenting a report to the European Council in Helsinki on necessary institutional reforms, which are due to be approved in an Intergovernmental Conference to be held in 2000.
The Finnish Presidency will comply with the European Council mandate, which means preparing a brief agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference.
Over the next few years, however, we require a broader debate within the Union on what sort of European Union we actually need, in order to be able to respond better to the challenges that lie ahead.
I do not wish, in this connection, to estimate when the Member States will be ready to take steps in a more ambitious direction and amend the Treaties for the further development of the Union.
Hurrying the matter is not necessarily of any benefit, but the need for more thorough reform is growing, both with enlargement and the changes in the world outside the Union.
The development of a common security and defence policy and the Union' s readiness to respond to crises is one of our most important objectives.
The Union has the potential to develop into a strong global player, as it has at its disposal a vast range of political and financial instruments and resources.
A common foreign and security policy is presently being reinforced through common strategies.
In order to become a credible player in maintaining peace and stability, the Union also needs a civil and military capacity for crisis management.
The report that we will present at the European Council in Helsinki discusses an approach to integrate both civil and military means to solve conflict situations.
We would like to achieve real progress in the development of security and defence policy and take prompt and decisive steps forward.
Finally, I have to say that we, as the country to hold the presidency, wish to improve effectiveness and transparency in the work of the Union.
This is a key question when securing the confidence of the people in the work of the Union.
During our presidential term we have started to reform the work of the Council.
We have improved transparency in its work and access to documents, and we are announcing meeting schedules for the Council and working parties, and agendas for meetings of the Council.
A debate on other proposals for reforms to increase transparency is presently under way.
The Commission may still issue during the Finnish presidential term a proposal as required under Article 255 for rules on transparency.
I hope that we can, in this way too, leave a permanent imprint of our presidency on the work of the Union.
Madam President, I await with interest the opportunity to enter into discussions with the Members of Parliament.
First of all I should like to say that the Commission shares the presidency' s positive point of view on the outcome of the European Tampere Council.
We would like to warmly congratulate the Finnish Prime Minister, both for the preparations which preceded the meeting and for the way in which he personally chaired its proceedings.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the conclusions reached in Tampere combine a strong political message on the priority given to the construction of an area of freedom, security and justice with the concern to define priorities which concentrate on those issues which directly affect the daily lives of Europe' s citizens.
The Heads of State and Government have thus set themselves the obligation to respect the solemn commitment they made in Tampere.
The Commission, on the basis of dialogue and cooperation with the European Parliament, is prepared to do everything necessary in order to create an area of freedom, security and justice which, above all, achieves balance between its three components: freedom, security and justice.
The letter that President Romano Prodi wrote to the European Council highlighted our main concern which was that Tampere should not be a restrictive summit.
This objective was achieved.
The Commission is particularly pleased with this fact. And I would like to emphasise that the steadfast affirmation of the untouchable nature of the Geneva Convention as a basis for constructing a European asylum policy is something that merits our backing and applause.
We are pleased with the commitment given at the highest level to working in partnership with countries of origin and transit countries in confronting immigration issues. We are pleased with the far greater emphasis given to fighting the trade in human beings than to action against its victims in relation to illegal immigration.
The Commission backs the clear affirmation of the importance of prevention in the fight against crime, whether it is financial crime, crime in the cities or juvenile crime, and notes that its efforts to give special prominence to the rights of victims of criminal activity have been recognised.
The Commission agrees with the proactive view of the establishment of a European concept of access to justice as an instrument for people to exercise their right to free movement without obstacles of a legal or administrative nature. It is also necessary that this right to free circulation should now be accompanied by the legislative measures which are necessary for us to be able to achieve it as quickly as possible.
The Commission is pleased with the establishment of the principle of harmonising, as fully as possible, the rights of citizens originally from third countries, but who have lived for a long time in the Union, with the rights and duties granted to citizens who are nationals of the Union' s Member States. We realise that we will have to move forward with specific proposals in this area.
Finally, the Commission would like to single out the establishment of the clear priority given to fighting racism, xenophobia, and all forms of discrimination, which are laid down in Article 13 of the Treaty, as being a very positive move.
Similarly, the Tampere conclusions tackle, in an appropriate way, the strengthening of cooperation between police forces and between judicial authorities in order to protect and preserve the freedoms of Europe' s citizens.
The conclusions do this in a way which is necessary in order to respond to citizens' legitimate concerns about security and about the judicial guarantee of their rights, as is fitting in a Union which claims to be founded on the principle of the prevalence of rights and of the law.
I would like to highlight, in this regard, the principle of mutual recognition of decisions and sentences, which all Member States should contribute to by adopting common definitions and penalties against certain criminal activities which transcend borders,.
This would cover areas such as organised crime, illegal drug trafficking, the trade in human beings, or crimes against children.
I would also like to highlight the establishment of the EUROJUST network which is, without any doubt, the beginning of the construction of a European Judicial system which will be an instrument of support and monitoring for EUROPOL' s actions in guaranteeing security within the Union and which will also be an instrument for protecting the rights of European citizens.
The Commission is looking at its own role and proposes to act by responding to the ambitious action plan for fighting money-laundering, which involves changes both in the Union' s position towards the rest of the world, and also at the level of legislation in each Member State.
However, Madam President, Tampere did not fully meet all of the Commission' s expectations.
Without wishing to criticise the positive results which, to a large extent, have just been highlighted by the President-in-Office of the Council, I cannot help admitting that on some points, the Commission is rather disappointed. The Commission regrets that the European Council has not accepted the idea of a single asylum system which represents, as we see it, something to aim for, but also the urgent necessity of dealing with asylum issues in a collective and coherent way.
The Commission will not stop making proposals which will allow us to dispel any possible fears that a centralised asylum system may bring about in some Member States.
Similarly, I regret the fact that some Member States were reluctant to support the idea of a European refugee fund, even though the Commission made it clear that this fund would not involve any new or additional expenditure. The lessons drawn from Bosnia and Kosovo reinforce our conviction that it is crucial to persist in explaining our aims, which we hope will happen before the end of the current year, specifically in the context of preparing the 2000 budget.
Tampere did not allow the idea of a European Public Prosecutor to be adopted yet, even one who would be limited to protecting the Community' s financial interests.
I would like to suggest that the next debate on the Intergovernmental Conference might be a good opportunity to take up this idea of ours once again.
An event like Tampere, with the expectations which precede it, can sometimes appear to be an end in itself.
It is only the beginning of a process.
The Commission believes, however, that Tampere sent out the right message to many different audiences: to our citizens, first of all, that a subject high on their personal agenda is also rising quickly to the top of the Union' s political agenda; to national administrations that there is no turning back and that their own heads of government are committed to making the improvements, including the institutional improvements of the Amsterdam Treaty, work properly; to the criminal world, that the Union is mobilising all its potential to counter their activities which threaten our freedom and our well-being, if not our own democratic regimes; finally, to the outside world, that an internally secure Union does not mean a fortress Union and that our commitments to those in need of protection are sacred.
That is not a bad start.
There is an enormous task ahead, not least for the Commission, to whom the European Council entrusted numerous tasks, thus showing a gratifying confidence in us. With the help and cooperation of Parliament and the necessary resources to do the job I am confident that we will be able to play the part that has been allocated to us by Tampere.
We certainly plan to begin by working on how to create the scoreboard requested of us as a way of keeping up the pressure on ourselves, in the first instance, but also on others, as well as ensuring that everything takes place with the fullest possible transparency in the very near future.
If either you, in Parliament, or we, in the Commission, see any signs of back-sliding we will not hesitate to remind heads of state and government of their message from Tampere.
When I say "their message from Tampere" , it is not only the message in the letter of Tampere but also what we could call the spirit of Tampere.
(Applause)
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, first of all I would like to congratulate the Finnish Presidency on the success of Tampere with regard to the opening up of a new stage in the development of European citizenship, dealing with the always difficult balance between liberty and security.
This demonstrates that we are not only building a Union based on freedom for goods, services and capital, but also one which will respond to the question of the freedom of settlement and movement of European citizens.
A step forward has been taken with regard to the fourth liberty of the Treaty of Rome: the access to justice beyond national boundaries, thanks to the mutual recognition of sentences, the possibility of fighting organised crime and money-laundering beyond national boundaries.
Furthermore there is another important dimension, Madam President, and that is that we are now on the eve of a new wave of enlargement, as the President-in-Office of the Council has said, and we are also witnessing a series of election results which are a clear warning for all of us that certain xenophobic and racist attitudes are arising within the populations of some of our countries.
Therefore, it is very important, at the moment, that we are capable of sending a message of freedom and progress in the face of this type of defensive reaction which demonstrates that not everything has yet been consolidated.
And this is especially important in relation to two issues.
The first is asylum.
I believe that this is one of the basic freedoms which we have to defend, and to this end, a single system of asylum is very important, and I say this from the point of view of somebody who comes from a country in which political asylum saved the lives of many of those who fought for freedom and allowed them to continue to live in other European countries.
The second is immigration.
We have to strive, depending on our own particular situations, for legal immigrants to have the same rights, together with a policy of co-development which will prevent the kind of out-of-hand immigration which we have been witnessing for a long time.
And to this end, we believe that this is the way to tackle the issue afresh and we also support - as the Parliament' s initiative demonstrates - the creation of a refugee fund, which we believe may be a key element.
To conclude, Madam President, we understand that the Commission has repeated what it did with regard to the internal market, the scoreboard system and the emulation system.
This is positive.
We still advocate that there should be a public prosecutor to fight fraud at a Community level.
Finally, I am grateful to the President-in-Office of the Council for being here today.
I regret that the presence of the Council in the Committees of this Parliament has not been too frequent, because that would have helped us to debate and get to know each other better so that we could have moved forward together.
Madam President, as one might suppose, given the lack of transparency regarding the preparatory work, the conclusions of the Tampere Council are, as far as our Group is concerned, still disappointing in terms of their ambition and vague in terms of their conclusions, even in spite of a few interesting advances.
Generally speaking, it is significant that the Council should have announced a specific timetable for the measures to do with the area of security.
On the other hand, no clear timetable has been drawn up for the actions to do with an area of freedom.
Our fear of the establishment of Fortress Europe therefore still remains.
As far as measures regarding the right of asylum and immigration are concerned, they are still totally vague and not at all mandatory.
The only good news is the commitment to the observance of the Geneva Convention and further confirmation of the fight against racism.
Our Group is pleased to see the desire that was shown to grant similar rights to nationals of third countries as well as to European citizens.
It is concerned, however, at the grey areas which remain on this matter.
It is indeed vital that this equality in rights should be extended to political rights, to freedom of movement and the right to live together as a family.
Europe has a duty to offer the same guarantees to all individuals resident on European soil.
Prime Minister Lipponen' s statement regarding the future of the Charter of Fundamental Rights may also be cause for concern.
Announcing at this stage that this is to be nothing more than a political declaration is tantamount to wiping out in advance the hard work of the working party.
The compulsory aspect of this charter is essential with a view to the construction of a Citizens' Europe.
Finally, while the Council announced that the scope of activities and the mandate of Europol, a necessary instrument in the fight against organised crime, were to be increased, what of democratic and judicial supervision, especially regarding the compilation of files? This omission is the potential source of future irregularities as regards our individual and collective freedoms.
This omission must be dealt with as a matter of urgency by setting up a Committee on Information Technology and European Freedom.
Madam President, I do not believe I am the only one to be disappointed by the results of the Tampere summit.
It is true that it could have been worse, much worse, especially for the citizens of third countries who are in Europe or who need to come here, but that does not change the fact that we have missed a good opportunity to actually start constructing an area of freedom, security and justice.
The Summit' s conclusions seem to be a summary of the preparatory documents which had already been in circulation in Parliament for some time, without any more detail being added.
There was a long list of good intentions with which we cannot disagree, but I am concerned and perplexed by some of the clearer decisions.
I will give only one example out of the many I could give - the priority given to cooperation in fighting urban youth crime seems a little odd and out of place, given that, to make any real impact, the States would do better to join forces in order to defeat large-scale organised crime, which increasingly operates on an international basis.
We will only be able to find out more from the legislative proposals that will be put forward.
In the meantime, we repeat our concern that what we will actually achieve is an area of internal security fitted with an iron lock to stop the outside world getting in.
Madam President, I believe that the EU leaders' recent meeting in Tampere in Finland was a very successful one.
It was the first such meeting since the European Parliament ratified the new College of European Commissioners and the new President, Romano Prodi, has stated many times that he is deeply committed to involving Parliament in more decision-making in the future.
This new interinstitutional approach within the European Union was certainly in evidence at the Tampere Summit.
EU leaders had extended an invitation to you, Madam President, to attend the meeting: a recognition of the importance of the European Parliament as an institution.
I fully agree with the statement issued by the EU leaders when they expressed their deep regret at the failure of the American Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
This treaty is a cornerstone of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation efforts, and without it, the prospects for progress in nuclear disarmament are considerably reduced.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is in the interest of all States worldwide, and the European Union is correct to restate its deep commitment to bringing the treaty into force at the earliest opportunity possible.
I welcome the restated commitment of President Clinton to ratify this treaty as well as his renewed commitment to the maintenance of the US moratorium on nuclear testing.
Earlier this year the European Council in Cologne decided to establish a chapter for fundamental rights which will bring together in one comprehensive document all the fundamental rights applicable at European Union level in order to make these rights more visible to its citizens.
The Cologne Council directed the Finnish government, as the office-holder of the Presidency, to establish the conditions for the implementation of this project in time for the Tampere Summit.
Madam President, I recently said of the Tampere Summit that we ought not to strive for an unattainable utopia but rather we should set to work in a pragmatic manner on what the Tampere agenda had to offer in the way of concrete possibilities.
Judging by the reports from the Summit and the Presidency' s findings, the Council has, I am pleased to say, followed this modus operandi.
There has been criticism to the effect that the outcome has been indeterminate as far as asylum and immigration policy is concerned and some of my colleagues in the European Parliament would probably like Community legislation to be in place already.
I believe that it is the very caution with which cooperation is being brought about that will have a major bearing on asylum and immigration policy receiving a broad spectrum of support.
The outcome of the Tampere Summit is pervaded with a positive attitude that is clearly expressive of the desire for practical cooperation.
Even Parliament seems to have been affected by the positive tone set by the Summit and has maintained this in its resolution.
The fact that Parliament' s resolution contains any criticism at all can be put down to those who nurture the pipe dream of a federal Europe.
I do not share this dream.
What I do want is for the European Union to be one in which the Member States endeavour to draw closer together in those areas that have a European dimension.
The Council took a positive step in this direction at Tampere.
Madam President, once again we have received a Council document which fails to combine the announcement of great and noble principles with their implementation.
In Tampere, not only did the reticence and insignificance of the decisions mean that Europe is not being constructed, but the creation of the Europe that we - and I think the citizens of Europe as well - do not want was announced.
The much trumpeted area of freedom, security and justice is nothing more than the confirmation of a bureaucratic, repressive view of politics where much is said about security but little about freedom and justice, as demonstrated by the intensive series of Intergovernmental Conferences, Dublin, EUROPOL, EURODAC, EUROJUST and reciprocal assistance on legal matters, none of which are under the democratic control of Parliament, the Commission and the Court of Justice.
Once again, you have chosen to let bureaucracy determine policies, and not the other way round, as is the case in the major democracies.
Since you have created the European bureaucracy of the right to asylum with the Dublin Convention and with EURODAC, perhaps one day you will finally decide on a European asylum and immigration policy. How can we combat organised crime using the instruments you are proposing?
Firstly, the way EUROPOL was established, and its nature as a body which is not covered by democratic and legal control, means that thanks to you it continues to gain new competences, and so EUROPOL has the characteristics of the phenomenon it is intended to combat.
As for the actions concerning the fight against drugs for the period 2000-2004, the Council is now urging us to rush through the adoption of this document while, as the Commission itself admits, no systematic and rigorous assessment of the presumed results of the previous plan have been carried out.
Not only is the Commission anxious to state that the objective is far from being achieved, but it is also saying that drug trafficking and abuse is on the up, which means that a large part of the money spent up till now has turned out to be an investment not in the fight against drugs but in the spread of drug abuse.
And what about freedom? The Council is proposing the implementation of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam in the most minimalist way possible, by proposing that we give a non-institutional body the responsibility for drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Council, this is not the Europe we want - an intergovernmental, ademocratic, illiberal Europe which it is the duty of your institution to represent!
We, along with Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli, want the federal United States of Europe of rights, freedom and democracy!
Madam President, there is every reason to congratulate the President-in-Office of the European Council on the very well organised Tampere Summit, which proved even more fruitful than anticipated.
The country to hold the presidency played an important part in reaching these results.
An extra challenge to the extraordinary summit conference at Tampere was that justice and home affairs are only now being debated on the EU general agenda.
The steps taken thus far have, owing to the basis of the agreement, been modest.
The issues are difficult and lead easily to conflict.
However, we have to devote our considerable energies to matters that affect the security of our citizens, such as crime prevention, at European Union level.
Criminal investigations and convictions must take place within the context of a real European area of justice.
Mutual recognition of sentences and judicial decisions is therefore needed, as is work to harmonise criminal law.
This is especially needed in the area of fraud.
It was important that, in the fight against crime, prevention was raised as a Union level issue.
We have to be concerned about our youth, and invest in youth employment and training.
The European social model must show more solidarity and, with its help, we must be able to prevent exclusion, encourage spontaneous recovery, and support equal opportunities for all groups of citizens, including immigrants.
The results of the meeting at Tampere also confirmed that we do not want a 'Fortress Europe' , but want to take responsibility.
The new comprehensive approach that has been established for issues of immigration and asylum, the European Council' s commitment to the full application of the Geneva Convention as it relates to refugees, and the decision to aspire towards a European asylum system, are steps in the right direction.
We must realise, however, that our work is just beginning and the biggest challenges still lie ahead.
It is important to take account of issues relating to the applicant countries as well as regional cooperation in this area.
Face with these challenges we will need seamless interinstitutional cooperation.
Furthermore, the citizens of the Member States must be included in the process and we must ensure firmer support from the people than is the case at present in decisions taken at EU level.
Madam President, I can only support what Mr Watson has said in his intervention and make it clear that, despite the poor preparation (since Parliament was genuinely excluded and not kept informed at all by the Finnish Presidency), the outcome is nonetheless welcome.
We in Parliament must also, of course, express our thanks to Commissioner Vitorino, for his contribution was decisive as far as the outcome was concerned.
I think that the Finnish Presidency should learn from this that, when one is prepared to cooperate, one can also achieve reasonable results.
We saw this when the Commission got involved and salvaged a good deal of what there was to be salvaged.
With this in mind - and in view of the fact that my colleague, Mrs Boumediene-Thiery, of my Group has really already said everything that needs to be said - I should just like to add the following comment. We now have a good outcome.
There are still outstanding questions, and the years 2000 and 2001 will be the decisive years in which a great deal will finally be undertaken.
I hope the future Presidencies of the Council will support the Commission and Parliament and keep us informed. In that way, we shall, in the end, be able to translate this positive outcome into action.
Madam President, a lot of fine words have been written following the summit in Tampere, but the prerequisites of these fine words' becoming a reality and of our living up to the humanitarian principles behind them are that people must actually be able to get into Fortress Europe; that we must seriously begin to pursue a political strategy where policy on asylum can be distinguished from policy on immigration; and that we should begin to pursue a serious policy involving cooperation with UNHCR in solving Europe' s and the world' s refugee problems.
I think it is time now to begin to see if Europe cannot introduce an immigration policy of its own, and I should like to urge the Council to do some thinking along those lines.
It is also the case, however, that special situations demand special contributions - and a special fund was necessary to cover the special contribution we have been discussing. It will not then be projects already up and running which will have to pay for special situations, in the way that there is now a risk of Africa' s having to pay for the EU' s contribution in Kosovo.
I should like to close by saying that I cannot support the idea of a scoreboard in the legal sphere.
I think this is integration by the back door and a move in the direction of a United States of Europe by the back door.
It is out of step with the democratic approach to things which I otherwise know from experience that Mr Vitorino is in favour of.
If we are to go down that path, it must be by the front door.
Madam President, the Tampere summit has finally decided that we must harmonise asylum and immigration policies, tighten cooperation on investigating crime and really construct a European judicial area.
Alleanza Nazionale has been backing this in this House for at least eight years and so we are pleased that the Fifteen have begun to take a common position, and we hope that words will be followed by deeds.
It is clear that without security there can be no social peace, and we must combat crime using strict controls on illegal immigration.
Immigration is now a phenomenon which affects all European countries and, to prevent this causing imbalances or tensions in our national societies, it must be regulated and controlled in every aspect by common legislation.
Creating a European judicial area means eliminating the inequalities between the Member States' legal systems and changing Europe' s multi-speed image in this field.
An area of justice will give form and substance to the third pillar and allow a more intensive fight against organised crime, in all its terrible forms - trafficking of women and children, paedophilia, prostitution of minors, the production and selling of drugs and prostitution. These have all been fuelled recently by illegal immigration.
I think it is difficult to conceive that all of this can happen in the short term if there is no strong signal given out to the national States as well.
In 1998, in Italy alone, there were 130,000 statute-barred criminal cases, and the magistrates themselves say that the penal code has failed and that the Italian judicial system is bankrupt.
We need common legislation or we will not be capable of promoting growth in Europe or stopping the spread of crime. To this end, we must also address the issue of how to prevent laws on security being in force in one Community country but not in another, given that our borders are open.
There are in fact legal problems with cross-national borders and which demand cooperation.
These are predominantly technical problems which we might reasonably set the lawyers to solve.
However, the ambitions which now dominate, both in the motion for a resolution concerning the Tampere Summit and in the communications from the Commission, go much, much further.
They go much further because the hidden agenda is not merely to solve technical problems but to establish a number of supranational systems.
There has been talk of "creating a union of security" .
This is part of the European Union' s project and of the development of the Union, and it goes much further than is necessary.
When the discussion turns to legal and home affairs, it is the family silver we are talking about.
We are at the heart of a nation' s right to make its own decisions.
We talk about a common policy on crime, refugees and immigration, but the question is: which policy is to be pursued?
There are widely different interpretations of crime involving drugs, for example.
There are many different legal traditions and, where legal policy is concerned, you can talk in terms of repressive and liberal approaches.
You can do so too on the question of refugees and immigration.
I would warn against establishing the supranational systems.
Better to wait a bit and not be too impulsive.
Madam President, we are all still under the spell of the June elections in which a clear, absolute majority was achieved.
But for the low turn-out (with people not voting, either because they were not interested in, or did not agree with, the development of the Union), the election was probably a milestone of democracy.
Whether the conclusions of the Presidency and whether the results of the Tampere Summit will merit the term "milestone" remains to be seen.
By the time of Amsterdam, we had had to acknowledge that the limits had been reached of how far the Member States were prepared to move towards integration.
Following Amsterdam, there was extensive agreement that the Intergovernmental Conference was no longer a suitable instrument of change.
This analysis was impressively confirmed by the embarrassingly low turn-out in the election.
Otherwise, everything is continuing much as before.
True, the Intergovernmental Conference is to get a face-lift, but the basic problems remain the same.
There are doubtless some more positive entries on the balance sheet: the Tampere declarations concerning the area of freedom, security and justice; efforts towards a more intensive programme for combating crime; and improved access to justice.
And also the results we are already seeing of the new policy on asylum and migration.
Where, however, it was a matter of placing common interests before individual ones - for example, when it came to a fair sharing of the load - no agreement could be reached.
Our conclusion, then, about Tampere: no doubt some important steps were taken there, but these were hardly milestones.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Tampere has been an important step forward, and I believe that great progress would be achieved by using these initiatives to create a genuine Europe of citizens in the areas of justice and internal affairs.
You will see, however, that, when it comes to translating these initiatives into practical terms, you will only achieve the relevant goals when the opportunities afforded by the Treaty of Amsterdam are taken to make decisions about these areas using majority voting.
This subject should therefore, perhaps, be addressed again in advance of the Intergovernmental Conference in Helsinki, for a decision about voting can in fact be made simply by the Council and without an Intergovernmental Conference.
The tasks of any policy on justice and internal affairs are twofold: to provide the citizen with security against crime, yes, but also against instances of interference by the State.
In a liberal community, both are tasks forming part of the relevant policy concerning justice and internal affairs.
Partly in connection with what has been achieved in Tampere, a Charter of Fundamental Rights is to be designed.
I should like to thank the Finnish Presidency of the Council for the way in which it has set this process in motion.
What now needs to happen is for the matter to take on a dynamic of its own, leading in the end to obligations on our part and to certain rights for our citizens.
This process ought not to give rise to revised new catalogues of fundamental rights for the individual Member States but to legal entitlements in respect of action taken by the European institutions and in respect of legislation affecting our citizens.
I believe we should achieve this in time.
At the same time, I should like to ask the Presidency of the Council to abide by the bill and give the Commission the chance, however, to submit, in preparation for the Intergovernmental Conference, its own proposal for how working methods might most sensibly be put into practice.
This is a really effective way of making progress.
Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me make a final remark about the Pack Report which is to be voted on today.
The European Parliament has no institutional objections to the Report.
It would like only to display an efficient approach, and there is also the widest possible agreement on this matter.
With this point of view and in the light of the decision by the European Council concerning the competence of the Agency, agreements should be reached which, in time, achieve reconciliation throughout the Balkans and tie the region into the Stability Pact.
The Administrative Council should no longer have an advisory role in deciding on individual reconstruction projects.
In this connection, and with a view to achieving the greatest possible degree of efficiency, there is certainly broad agreement that a reasonable distribution of the workload between Pristina and Thessaloniki should be achieved.
It would be helpful if you could adopt a position on this matter which might make the decision at 12 o' clock easier for us to take.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I do not know if there will be a spirit of Tampere.
In any case, I am fairly sure that Tampere will be a significant step on the road to the establishment of a Citizens' Europe, the Europe which we must henceforth fight for with determination.
In this area of freedom, security and justice which we hope to create, all three elements are important, and Tampere acts on all three of them.
What is more, Commissioner, in undertaking to draw up this "scoreboard" , you are henceforth assuming a considerable responsibility.
There is a helm which is in your hands; we have great expectations of it.
On the matter of fundamental rights, the establishment of a forum for Parliament to make its contribution to drawing up a charter is one element, but we shall be debating the basis of this for, as far as we are concerned, this charter must have a direct application, i.e. citizens must be able to appeal to the Court of Justice, and this charter must include the new rights for Europeans in the 21st century.
On the subject of immigration, by integrating what might be called a co-development strategy, that is to say, by acknowledging that, in order to resolve the question of immigration, the underlying causes of the refugee phenomenon must be tackled in full, I believe that Tampere is a significant milestone.
It is also a significant step in the recognition of the nationality rights of nationals of third countries.
It is an important step.
We also think that, in this fight, the contributions of the French, Germans and British on the subject of asylum rights and immigration will offer elements which must be taken into account to a greater extent in future.
In the measures relating to justice, we attach especial importance to the mutual acceptance of verdicts in civil and criminal cases.
This is an essential point, in our view, for this is underpinned by the reality of a Citizens' Europe in which it will be possible for the rights of the family to also be extended to the rights of couples of different nationalities, and not just to be a cause of problems.
We therefore invite you, Mr Lipponen, to integrate the second Brussels Convention at the earliest possible juncture, since this is a matter of urgency, and it is a legal entitlement which many families are waiting for.
Next, and this will be no surprise to you, in this Parliament we attach great importance to the democratic nature of procedures.
We therefore request that the legislative procedures envisaged by the Treaty of Amsterdam be applied properly.
We also request that, as regards police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, these matters may be communitised in future.
Finally, if there is a Tampere spirit, we request that heading 4 of the Amsterdam Treaty may be implemented ahead of schedule.
We would see that as a pledge of the good faith of all the partners involved.
Mr President, the Tampere Summit in itself was indeed a milestone in the progress made towards widening cooperation and strengthening intergovernmental solidarity.
The constructive effort focused above all on the area of security, we could say that from here on the direction is going to be fairly uncertain and it might be a hard and bumpy journey.
Despite its positive features, therefore, the outcome must be seen, from the point of view of fundamental and human rights, as the victory of a defensive battle.
We must be particularly vigilant in the next round of preparatory work, which must be done openly.
The road to Tampere was a very dark one.
We need more light!
Mr President, the Tampere Summit decided that a European Charter of Fundamental Rights must be drawn up.
The fact that the HCR was consulted on immigration and asylum policy may be seen as a significant sign of progress.
I am sorry to see that human rights associations, anti-racist organisations and both sides of industry have already been left out of the process of drawing up this charter.
For my own part, I would like to pay tribute at this point to these men and women.
Their dedication and their groundwork have made it possible to re-establish a social structure and drive back racism, hatred and contempt on a daily basis.
Enlisting these human resources would make it possible, when discussing matters of immigration and asylum, to find a way out of a debate which has been cut short.
Unemployment, lack of security and immigration are too often lumped together.
It is not acceptable to have people say today that Eurodac is going to be used to record the fingerprints of asylum-seekers and minors, and justifying this on the grounds that it is easier than taking DNA samples is beyond belief.
Quite the contrary, immigrants must be given equal rights and treated as citizens in their own right.
This means granting the right to live as a family unit, combating discrimination in accommodation, employment, leisure, and full nationality rights.
And, in view of the daily round of humiliations inflicted on immigrants, it is only fair to grant them the right to vote.
Finally, regularisation of the situation of those immigrants without proper documents, and elimination of the double penalty, would amply justify the existence of this Charter.
There was one extremely important phrase which was used at Tampere, if you will permit me.
This charter will guarantee, when confronted with outbreaks of extremism....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, the issues discussed at Tampere are obviously of great concern to all decent law-abiding people: asylum, immigration, cross-border crime and not least the death-dealing drug-smuggling activities of the loathsome drug barons.
Like disease, crime knows no borders.
Therefore, there can be no good reason for opposing the meetings of Heads of State as has happened at Tampere to discuss these issues.
However, one has to express a note of caution. The suspicion amongst many in the United Kingdom is that these issues and the high-minded pronouncements are yet another power play by stealth on the part of the EU and its institutions.
We have seen it all before: first the problem, a problem of huge legitimate, public and topical concern, then the meeting and then the solution.
The central agenda is that whatever the problem, the solution is always the same.
More power to the EU and its undemocratic institutions.
The issue of asylum, immigration and cross-border crime and the administration of justice impact on the very fundamental issues of human rights and individual civil liberties.
What we are considering is vesting even more powers in the hands of the EU and the unelected bureaucrats to take control of our very liberties - the body which brought us the inestimable benefits of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy.
Both are absolute disasters.
British fishermen and farmers are now martyrs to the irresistible ambition of the European Union.
Therefore, before we even think of passing more powers to the European Union, we must take into account its past activities and failures.
Fishing and farming have been subjected to its most tried and tested policies: policies tested almost to destruction.
We should forget the theory, fellow delegates.
Forget the high-minded pronouncements and look at the implications.
If there were prizes for rhetoric, the EU would be a world-class performer.
But when it comes to performance, the EU is the bottom of the class for efficiency.
There is a yawning gap, an unbridgeable gap.
So, when it comes to the issues of liberty, the EU cannot even sort out fishing or look after our farmers.
Why should we trust it with our freedom and our security? Much more can be achieved by using existing national institutions and an international organisation....
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, General de Gaulle used to say that a fine policy is not a policy which expresses fine sentiments.
In this respect, the Tampere Council marks a new era in the refusal to accept reality.
Reading the report of the proceedings of this conference, the special characteristics of the peoples of Europe should actually merge together in a sort of worldwide melting-pot in which migrants have, I quote, "rights and obligations comparable to those of EU citizens" , and "the legal status of third country nationals should be approximated to that of Member States' nationals" , all this in application of an alleged principle of non-discrimination.
All these fine sentiments will clearly only result in increasing the flow of migrants yet further, and this means unemployment and lack of security.
A realistic immigration policy ought, on the contrary, to involve making the situation of migrants in Europe more difficult by particularly eliminating any social assistance, and this indeed is the policy of the American Congress, by reducing economic aid to countries which encourage immigration, and organising systematic deportation.
But for that, we should have to make a break with the prevailing ideology, denounce the media who spread this ideology, such as the ARTE television channel, and, in general, stop being afraid of our social and cultural superiority.
We cannot carry on our shoulders the poverty of the entire world, the inability of some parties to organise themselves and the thirst for revenge on the part of formerly colonised peoples.
It is natural for groups of men to attempt to dominate others.
It is up to us, the peoples of Europe, to be the strongest in this fight.
If we do not fight, then Europe, like any entity which stops fighting, will ultimately be lost in the melee.
Mr President, the Tampere Council was a significant step forward for European construction.
It pleases me as a Spaniard that it has given its backing to the impetus which the Spanish Prime Minister, José María Aznar, gave to this Summit.
The European citizens are very concerned that freedom of movement should not be coupled with the free movement of those people who wish to use it to threaten their security.
Terrorists, drug traffickers, traders in human beings and other criminals most not be allowed to move around within Europe unhindered by the police or the judiciary.
It seems to me to be good news in the fight against terrorism, although the resolution of Parliament does not say so, that the formal extradition procedure for people who have been finally sentenced should be removed.
It also seems to me that the Commission, in accordance with the new Tampere spirit and as the monitor of Community legislating, should ensure that directives to tackle money-laundering are complied with, given that non-compliance with these directives is hindering effective judicial cooperation as, for example, in the case of Gibraltar.
Furthermore, the will expressed in the Council to tackle illegal immigration networks must come to fruition urgently as a result of decisive and effective police and judicial action.
The Straits of Gibraltar and the Andalusian coasts are the silent witnesses of the tragic deaths of human beings.
Not one death more, Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
Not one death more.
The President-in-Office of the Council has also referred to the cooperation with countries of origin by means of action plans.
I hope that, from now on, the Presidency of the Council will give this Parliament more explanations concerning the content of those plans.
I ask you, Mr Lipponen, for more clarity and transparency in this area.
We would like to know the timescales for action, the financial framework within which they will operate and the Commission' s responsibility with regard to these plans.
And finally, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I cannot understand how the mandate will be extended in order to initiate other plans of action when the recently adopted ones have still not been implemented.
Mr President, the conclusions of the Tampere Summit seem to me to be a basically positive sign for the citizens of the European Union because they address issues that affect all of us, but also, above all, because they open the door to the development of certain policies which the citizens themselves demand.
I would like to see Tampere as a starting point, as a door which is opening and which will show us the path which we must travel along during the coming months, since there are some things which I still wonder about and I hope that they will be resolved during this process.
With regard to fighting crime and the creation of an area of justice, I believe that we have moved forward and that this is positive.
But I would like to concentrate principally on the question of immigration.
I believe that it has also been positive to confront the need for a common asylum policy, but we need the funding to sustain it.
We also need to confront the reality of immigration.
I hope that, in the coming days, we will receive more information about what the Council intends and how the measures adopted at Tampere will be implemented.
The action plans approved seem to me to be very interesting.
This "interpillar" policy opens up possibilities which may lead us to a good result, but it also raises many questions as to by who and how these action plans will be developed and whether the Council will ever give us any information concerning the results of the one which has been implemented, that is to say the action plan concerning Iraq.
The fight against illegal immigration also interests me.
But I believe that, in order to combat illegal immigration, we must ensure that it is more worthwhile to approach a European Union consulate than a band of traffickers.
If we want to put an end to the ignominy of deaths on our borders, as Mr Hernández Mollar said, we must offer a genuine common immigration policy, which we did not see at Tampere, offer new initiatives, and allow those people who live in the Union to do so with equal rights.
Mr President, in spite of all the fine words which we have just heard, it seems clear to me that after the enormous effort that went into Tampere, the results are something of an anti-climax.
The only resolution adopted was to adopt the resolution to adopt a resolution at a later date in order to resolve the problems we face.
Yet the situation is urgent.
While all the States in Tampere were pledging their commitment to human rights, the Belgian government was sending several dozen gypsies back to Slovakia by chartered plane, under military guard.
In France, due to changes in the legislation, around 70,000 immigrants now find themselves without the proper documents, in an illegal situation.
In Saint-Denis in the Parisian region, six of them started a hunger strike more than 30 days ago.
The question remains, how can Member States be forced to respect the rights and the dignity of immigrants and asylum-seekers? In concrete terms, this means freedom of movement, voting rights, the right to live together as a family, abolition of the double penalty, regularisation of the situation of immigrants without proper documents, and an end to racist discrimination.
The Tampere approach is, thus, a poor one.
Rather than harmonising the repressive laws in this Europe which more and more resembles a fortress, let us establish real status and real rights for immigrants and asylum-seekers throughout the Community.
Mr President, everyone, especially lawyers like myself, is in favour of justice and civil rights.
Any member or aspiring member of the EU should already have in place systems to protect their citizens based on their own common law, precedent and legislation.
The third pillar is a vital repository of national competences arrived at through historic development, reflecting different cultural and social histories of the nations.
Its demolition in my view is very sad and a big mistake, just at the time when it could be needed most.
As for the proposals on immigration and asylum, I was the minister in the UK until 1997 dealing with these issues.
From my experiences there, I now believe that the uncontrolled movement of people in global terms over the next 20 to 30 years, whether it be based on economic issues or climatic issues, represents a massive challenge to good order and democracy.
I am certainly in favour of free movement in the EU where legal status exists, but what of the applicant states and their borders - they will have to take over protection of the EU under Schengen? Are we really happy about those arrangements and does Tampere really address them?
What do our German friends think?
What do the ordinary electors in Yorkshire or in Brentwood in the United Kingdom think?
The granting of asylum is a precious gift not to be abused, as is unfortunately the case too often. The United Nations Convention in 1951 was clear: it should be applied to the letter but not replaced or surrounded with new regulations which, in my view, could cause even more confusion.
Sometimes, in order to be generous, in order to show good sense, it is essential for us also to be firm.
I regret that Tampere does not address the issues with sufficient firmness.
Mr President, without a shadow of a doubt, Tampere is a significant step forward on the path towards full European integration and I would like to congratulate the Finnish Presidency for its great contribution.
Tampere proved that the Union has the political will to carve out joint policies on issues which indirectly affect our daily lives, policies which will, for example, make citizens feel more secure through effectively stepping up the fight against organised crime, particularly in the area of drug trafficking, money laundering and the trafficking of human beings through judicial cooperation and mutual recognition of judgements.
Personally, I would like to see a common European family law and further efforts to combat racism, nationalism and xenophobia.
The protection of the fundamental human rights of every person, without exception, who lives in the European Union is a sine qua non for the creation of a common area of freedom and justice.
It was very encouraging to hear special reference to the Greek-Italian memorandum on strengthening cooperation in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas in order to combat organised crime.
However, the Council remained quite diffident when it came to endorsing the common European Asylum System and Fund for immigrants proposed by the European Parliament and the Commission, as opposed to simply approximating rules and procedures.
In addition, the Union seems unable to formulate a strategy to combat the social causes of immigration and to provide aid to the countries of origin so as to reduce pressure on the European Union.
Finally, Mr President, please allow me to express my reservations on one question in particular.
Do you believe that the Tampere meeting has set in motion a five-year process to enhance the democratic and political make-up of the Union or to transform it into a fortress which is unassailable to all the victims of persecution around the world? I believe that only in December 2001, with the interim assessment and with hindsight, will we be able to judge the direction which it has actually taken.
Mr President, laying the foundations for the construction of a European area of freedom, security and justice was the goal of the European Council of Tampere, an important goal because it affects the values which are at the heart of our western civilisation.
We are therefore waiting impatiently for the good will declarations to be followed by real, concrete policies.
For example, the need to establish a joint policy on immigration and asylum is now commonly felt by the peoples of Europe.
We must aim for an open, secure European Union which will establish partnerships with the migrants' countries of origin and draw up joint development policies with these countries and those that migrants pass through.
To start with, we need a common European asylum system with the basic conditions for receiving migrants and, later, we need a uniform statute for asylum seekers.
I am worried that, along with joint legislation, there is a lack of effective solidarity measures between the Member States for times when we need to address emergency situations, as in the case of the huge influx of Albania and Balkan citizens into Italy following the political crisis in those countries.
Think of the Mediterranean in general, and the Adriatic in particular which forms an external border of the Union and not just Italy.
The invitation to the Commission to assess the possibility of a budgetary reserve for this is significant but it is still not enough - the entire European Union should take responsibility for the extraordinary influx of non-Community immigrants with a strong act of solidarity towards the most affected countries, Italy in particular.
The act of solidarity and improved control of migration flows are important instruments in the fight against organised crime and, in particular, against trafficking in human beings.
The issue of women and children who are exploited and set up as prostitutes and the relationship of this world with drug trafficking, apart from being important matters affecting public safety, are, from a human point of view, tragic and distressing and require specific intervention on our part.
All of these actions and others as well, which relate to the security of European Union citizens, must be carried out in full compliance with the fundamental rights of those living in the Union, because the keystone of the future area of freedom and security is in fact those indispensable fundamental rights.
Mr President, if the Tampere Summit achieved one thing, then it was the fact that the Member States were reminded that they once signed something called the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I have to be honest with you; it was vital that this should happen for we needed to give form to the aforementioned area of freedom, security and justice.
Of course Parliament wanted more far-reaching European commitments to come out of the Tampere Summit but I have to say that since these important issues are now on the European agenda all the same, along with a scoreboard, a clearly-defined task for the European Commission and thus also a role for the European Parliament, then that is a very good thing and I would like to congratulate the Presidency on this, but also the European Commission in particular.
However I would like to raise two critical objections in connection with the outcome of the summit; first and foremost with regard to the rights of the citizens of Europe.
It is a good thing that it was at last resolved at the summit that all citizens of the European Union must be accorded equal rights, and that includes those who are non-nationals of the Member States. Citizenship of a Member State must not be founded on exclusion and discrimination though.
And so it is also my hope, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, that the Council will assign the European Commission the task of establishing what the rights of citizens from third countries are, and that the Commission will interpret these in the broadest sense, respecting the non-discriminatory principle, also when it comes to voting rights, to the right to live as part of a family and to the right to freedom of movement, notwithstanding the fact that nothing was said on this at the summit.
Secondly, the policy on asylum and migration appears to me to still be lacking in balance.
For one thing there are intergovernmental measures which can be implemented immediately through the action plans but which are primarily geared towards the protection of migrants, and for another there are tasks for the European Commission, common asylum policy, protection of asylum seekers.
On behalf of my group, I would like to urge that the principles of the Geneva Convention find full expression in all its aspects in the two aspects of the migration policy and that the Commission and Parliament become fully involved in all said aspects.
Mr President, the purpose of the Tampere Summit was to specify the measures which are required for creating an area of freedom, security and justice.
Among the Commission' s tasks was that of establishing a table of results as a model for comparing the extent to which the relevant measures had been implemented.
This is a good initiative which will also clarify the areas within which the Commission should be the first to take action.
It is, however, only an evaluative instrument and can only go so far towards achieving the goal of a European Union governed by the rule of law.
As well as strengthening fundamental rights, the table of results can provide legal convergence rules with legal objectives and guarantees.
If an area is to be designated an area of justice, the rule of law is required to operate there. If it is going to be possible to measure how far the Member States have progressed, criteria must be established and effective methods of measurement devised.
It is about being able to compare legal systems and bring about improvements.
If differences are to be made clear and voluntary harmonisation achieved by means of group pressure, comparisons ought to be illustrated in the form of a table of results open to all.
This is how the driving force can be produced to push ahead with extending throughout the European Union that dependable area of justice which is the prerequisite of citizens' being able to move about freely, securely and safely.
The principle of mutual recognition, accepted in Tampere, must, however, in future, be supplemented by a degree of harmonisation within the field of criminal law as well.
Initiatives were also taken at the summit to strengthen the position of the victims of crime and to ensure that citizens have access to the judicial system.
I should like to have seen the Member States urged to introduce national funds for the victims of crime so as to be able to guarantee that the latter receive support in terms of financial prerequisites which are similar throughout the Union.
Victims ought to receive aid, economic, psychological and social support through State, voluntary and individual contributions throughout the entire European Union.
I want to end by expressing special thanks to the Commission and to Commissioner Vitorino for their constructive contributions at the summit.
Mr President, the big news from the Tampere Summit is that apparently there is the political will to produce common European policy.
The political role of the Commission and of this Commissioner will be strengthened as a result.
Some essential fundamental principles were also reaffirmed such as the right to seek asylum and the fight to combat racism and discrimination.
It goes without saying that this is all to the good.
But it is still a matter of first seeing then believing.
The decisions taken still need to be given substance and some policy options have not made it.
The proposed common European asylum system still falls a long way short of the idea of integrated European policy.
The notion of spreading the burden between the Member States is still taboo.
A European approach to migration as such is not a realistic proposition at this stage.
We are talking in terms of a policy of determent at the very most.
And it remains to be seen how exactly the Council proposes to improve the rights of people from third countries.
The Commission should take the lead in drawing up a further agenda and Parliament must be enabled to play its rightful role where all of these issues are concerned.
Cooperation in the fields of criminal and civil law establishes the principle of mutual recognition as the crux of the strategy.
That may sound modest but it is probably a sensible choice in view of the disbelief and repugnance that this development still seems to evoke amongst the professional circles that lawyers move in.
A great deal of work still remains to be done here to get the message across.
In this context, setting up EUROJUST is a bold initiative.
Hence it is all the more a pity that the parliamentary control aspect has been swept under the carpet.
On a final note: the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
Now that a decision has been taken on the composition of the forum that is to compile the Charter, it is high time that we determined what the status of this document is to be.
So far, the Council has left this matter up in the air.
If this Charter is to have any added value then it must become binding law to which every EU citizen can appeal.
To that end, it will have to be incorporated into the Treaties.
Mr President, on 3 April of last year, this House thankfully approved by a large majority my report on internal security and on extending the European Union to the East and issued an order to establish a European Academy for Internal Security.
I am very happy and grateful that, in Tampere, the Council gave concrete expression to this order by establishing the European Police College.
I am also delighted that, on Monday in the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, Mr Vitorino gave notice that the Commission would soon be submitting a study concerning the way in which this project might be specifically put into practice, for I believe in fact that, when our police are trained together in the European spirit and when, as specified in the order, the police in the candidate countries are involved right from the beginning - and this idea too is traceable back to the proposal by this House - then we shall be taking an important, concrete step towards a Europe of justice and internal security.
I should be very grateful if this College could be located in the border area between the EU and the candidate countries, for example in East Bavaria.
Here, there are already a lot of examples of practical cooperation in the sphere of policing, and these might be useful in connection with this project.
I should like to address a second issue.
I am of the view that the Council has done well to set the course for a common policy on asylum and refugees but, unlike many members, I am not so unhappy about the fact that we still have some way to go in that direction, for a number of quite important elements are still missing.
Above all, I should like here to criticise the fact that, now as before, no specific sharing of the burden between individual countries has been arrived at. It even looks as though any such personal distribution of the burden has receded into the far distance.
I am of the view, however, that, without such a sharing of the load, a common policy on asylum and refugees would be something which might be likened to a large roof erected only with a single supporting wall somewhere on the perimeter.
A roof of this kind would inevitably tumble down.
I consider a common asylum policy to which there is no definite key for sharing the load to be completely unthinkable.
We therefore ought to use the time we have here and do some further, specific work on this matter.
Mr President, Mr President of the Council, on 15 and 16 October, in Tampere, important steps were taken towards the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice within the European Union.
Contrary to the idea that our Union should be of an exclusively or mainly economic nature, the Council, following a course of action that Parliament has now been defending for a long time, turned to our citizens, to their freedom of movement, to their security and to the recognition of their right to justice, rights which must be granted not only to citizens of the Union but to all those who, for a variety of reasons find themselves in our territory on a regular basis.
Various political priorities and guidelines were agreed on, and the Commission will have to put forward a "scoreboard" proposal, that is, a panel which will assess the progress that has been made and whether we have met the terms laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, by the Vienna action plan and by the conclusions of this European Council itself, a pragmatic initiative which promises good results and which relied on the commitment of Commissioner António Vitorino, whom we should congratulate for this too.
It is true that there will be greater cooperation and that there were some areas in which it was easy to reach agreement, such as in the case of creating EUROJUST which should become operational towards the end of 2001, or in the strengthening of EUROPOL' s role or even in the creation of a European Police Academy.
But, we should recognise that, on the whole, compatibility, convergence and the approximation of practices in the 15 Member States were given preference over the harmonisation and standardisation which could and should have taken place.
In this way, the emphasis was placed on convergence and on common rules on asylum procedure, on the creation - albeit in vague terms - of a financial instrument for situations in which the temporary protection of refugees is required, on closer judicial cooperation, on recognising judicial decisions etc.
The principles have been laid down and are on the whole positive ones.
What we are now waiting for are the decisions and the initiatives which will allow us to give real substance to what was laid down.
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, I would like to thank you for your speeches; they have been very constructive.
I would like to take up your valuable time, first to move on to some general comments, and then to reply to your points in detail, and finally speak about the future, and about implementation and monitoring.
In my opinion, the last speech, by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, was very important, as it put forward the notion that we should be setting ambitious targets.
On the other hand, Mr Holmes, in his speech, was concerned that the harmonisation of legislation and administrative practices would advance too hastily.
The problem for Tampere was that the issue of justice and home affairs is, all in all, a very conservative area.
On the one hand, there is the worry that national practices will have to change too quickly. On the other hand, we have a real need for the convergence of legislation, inter alia, in the fight against crime and the enhancement of police cooperation.
For example, we do not have in our legislation any coherent definition of what organised crime is.
The method we use here is the single market method, where we look pragmatically at how progress is to be made, using problems as the point of departure.
The mutual recognition of sentences is one line of action, and the other is that we examine the need for the harmonisation of legislation.
First, I will speak of Eurojust and the European prosecuting authority.
Eurojust itself aims, not just at networking among the prosecuting authorities, but also at achieving a situation where investigations and action can be initiated in investigation teams.
The question of a prosecuting authority of benefit to the Community was raised in the final stages by the Commission.
It is quite another question, as it would be expressly concerned with crimes committed within the territory of the Community, in which the Community has a financial interest.
This has quite a lot to do with the issues that were discussed mainly last spring, but they can certainly be returned to once more.
Regarding Europol, worry has been expressed here concerning Europol surveillance.
I think that is very justifiable, as this must be monitored as Europol' s mandate or, to be precise, its competences, expand.
However, Europol' s basic operational model and nature were not altered at Tampere.
Europol and its officers did not acquire independent competences, but will work more closely with the Member States, providing aid and support.
This must be monitored closely.
Some speeches focused attention on the status of nationals of third countries.
At Tampere the term "comparable" status was used.
This means that we shall go as far as possible in the direction of full citizens' rights but, for example, there is perhaps a certain unwillingness to grant voting rights in parliamentary elections.
Instead, the right to vote in local elections is a good example of the sort of European practice we should be hoping for.
The question of a refugee fund, of the share of the burden, gave rise to some discussion, and we agreed that we should return to the question of a fund.
We must clarify our concept of what we are trying to do.
What we mean here is that, when masses of refugees suddenly arrive seeking temporary protection, we should support those countries that are the target of such large-scale migration.
The request is entirely legitimate, and financial aid may also come into it, but the matter will take more preparatory work.
Speaking of the share of the burden, we might say that in the situation in Kosovo we saw that we were not prepared.
We should be able to agree policies to build solidarity among the Member States.
We perhaps do not have to go as far as an automatic share of quotas, but we are in need of better practices when it comes to solidarity.
Obviously, we have to work in cooperation with the UNHCR, as in the Kosovo situation.
The capacity for action by the international community in these situations must, on the whole, be improved.
I want to return once more to the question of organised crime, which Mr Di Lello Finuoli referred to in his speech.
At Tampere we in fact agreed some very far-reaching aims. Money laundering came within the scope of Europol' s mandate.
In my opinion, the work will be enhanced on a very broad front when the prosecution authorities are involved.
Now I would like to speak on certain other matters that have been raised here.
Firstly, the Charter of Fundamental Rights: will it be a political act or a draft for a new constitution. As the country to hold the presidency of the European Council, we shall take the matter further on the basis of what was decided at Cologne, i.e. that it is a political act.
But that will not prevent us from raising the question at some stage that the Union needs some sort of constitution, into which fundamental rights should be written.
This is a matter of processes.
At Tampere resolutions were made on the working party' s mandate and composition, and it will assemble for the first time during the Finnish Presidency.
I hope that it will acquire a prestigious chairman.
The question of an Intergovernmental Conference was raised, for example by Mr Brock.
I would like to emphasise that this is a matter for the presidency.
We were charged with the task at the Cologne Summit.
Obviously, we will work on the basis of the Commission' s proposal, but I hope that it will not be forgotten here in Parliament that such an institution as the Council and its presidency do exist.
Mr Brock raised the issue of the situation in Kosovo and the Stability Pact. They were discussed on the evening before the meeting at Tampere.
The President of the Republic of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, spoke on the subject, considering it necessary that the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, the Secretary-General of NATO, Javier Solana, and Balkans representative, Bodo Hombach, should now work together more effectively to safeguard both the implementation of the Stability Pact and, obviously, the progress in practical matters, such as cooperation between Pristina and Thessaloniki.
The country to hold the presidency is therefore monitoring this issue very closely.
As for the Obnova regulation, the Council will carefully look into Parliament' s draft amendments.
I discussed this this morning with President Fontaine.
The purpose is to clear the matter up immediately, as the European Parliament has adopted its opinion, and the Council will already be initiating discussions at the end of this week about how the amendments proposed by the European Parliament might be taken account of when making the final decision on Obnova.
I hope this will also be one of those issues that will be settled during the Finnish presidential term, signifying that we have, as it were, got beyond this problem of the institutions, and that is what our citizens actually expect.
Moving on to how the European Parliament participates in decision-making, and what has happened in this matter, I accept the criticism, as the representative of the country to hold the presidency.
I would, however, like to point out that in the part-session in September, three of our Ministers were here to report on the Tampere meeting. They were the Minister for the Interior, the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
A fourth was present too: our Coreper representative.
As far as we understand it, all that information, which has been at the disposal of governments, has also been at the disposal of Parliament.
Generally, what was achieved at Tampere is founded on our adherence to transparency, and we did not, for example, at the last moment produce any surprises for governments or Parliament.
Everything was known; our draft agenda was available to all.
In the future, the European Parliament will participate in decision making, and this will obviously be rooted in the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The conclusions of Tampere will improve further the European Parliament' s practical opportunities for involvement and monitoring.
The conclusions of Tampere show a commitment at the highest political level to an assurance of much-needed transparency and to the practice of regular supplies of information conveyed to the European Parliament.
I have already told the ministers that if something is unsatisfactory, they have to come here.
The constructive and active nature of the conclusions of Tampere will provide Parliament with better opportunities to participate in the creation of an area of freedom, security and justice.
In other words, the aims and means have now been more clearly defined, and it will be easier to take part in their implementation.
For this, that adopted proposal provides an important aid. I would like to thank Mr Suominen for the advice on terminology.
It was, if I remember correctly, a 'balanced score card' , which we have to achieve. That will also facilitate the work of Parliament.
Regarding transparency, may I be so bold as to remind everyone that in the Treaty of Amsterdam it was Finland that proposed a change to the paradigm.
Until then, it was a principle in the Union that documents were not generally public, although there were exceptions.
We proposed that the opposite principle should be adopted, that documents should be public, although there might be some exceptions.
Now the question is whether all the institutions, within the framework of their own responsibility, will put this principle into practice and whether the Commission will actually make proposals for acts on these issues.
Then I would speak finally about implementation, which was something Mr Suominen and others drew attention to.
The Council on justice and home affairs will initiate the implementation of the Tampere resolutions on Friday of this week.
As the country to hold the presidency, we have drafted a certain sort of agenda for that meeting, which comprises all the action required of the conclusions of Tampere, which is to say, what needs to be done, who is to do it, and according to what timetable.
I hope that we will succeed with this model of working, so that it will also facilitate the work of Parliament.
I would like to thank the President, the Bureau and those who have spoken for their very kind words, but also for their criticism, as we simply cannot be complacent in the wake of the Tampere meeting.
We have to really take the decisions reached there seriously and start work accordingly.
Thank you very much Mr President-in-Office of the Council.
Lastly, I am going to hand the floor to Mr Vitorino, who is to speak on behalf of the European Commission.
The debate is overrunning somewhat.
I would ask the Commissioner to restrict his speaking time a little if at all possible.
There will be plenty more opportunities for us to enter into debate with you.
I hand the floor to Mr Vitorino.
Mr President, I do not consider your warning to be a constraint on my fundamental freedom of speech, I do assure you.
I would simply like to thank you, on behalf of the Commission, for all the contributions you have made in this debate.
I must assure you, ladies and gentlemen, and Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi in particular, that the Commission is well aware of its own responsibility as regards the application of the Tampere conclusions.
I must stress that the Commission could never have fulfilled its role if it had not been able to count on the support of the Finnish Presidency, particularly the Prime Minister, Mr Lipponen, whom I must thank once more for his cooperation and his work to make Tampere a success, and also on the support, critical and vigilant as always, of the European Parliament.
The Commission is now indeed counting on the critical and vigilant support of the European Parliament in order to prepare the "scoreboard" .
In fact, the "scoreboard" is not just an instrument for legislative programming, it is also an instrument intended to strengthen the transparency and accountability of all European institutions with regard to the citizens, because it is the citizens who are in control in the area of freedom, security and justice.
It is not just a control panel, it is also an instrument for evaluating the actual results achieved in terms of actual progress in the application of the Tampere conclusions.
The progress achieved will not be the concern of just the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament, but also the Member States, insofar as some "scoreboard" tasks will be entrusted to them in application of the principle of subsidiarity.
Finally, Mr President, I wish to stress the importance, for the Commission, of the decisions regarding the drawing up of the Charter of Fundamental Rights which were taken at Tampere and which will be followed up in Helsinki.
As the political and philosophical foundation of the area of freedom, security and justice I propose to consider all matters related not only to the fundamental rights of the citizens of the Members States of the Union, but also the rights of third country nationals legally resident on a long-term basis within the Union.
As for rights relating to the fight against discrimination, based on Article 13 of the Treaty, they will be discussed during the debate on the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
At this time, a clear sign must be given so that the process of drawing up the Charter and the Intergovernmental Conference of the Union, which are due to take place at the same time, both express movement in the same direction, with a view to guaranteeing the conditions for enlargement and strengthening the foundations of the rule of law in our Union.
Before handing over to my fellow Commissioner, Michel Barnier, who is going to present the objectives of the Intergovernmental Conference, I would once again like to thank the Parliament for the support given to the Commission in this project, the Tampere project, the spirit of Tampere, the letter of Tampere, but most of all the project of the citizens of this shared Union of ours.
(Loud applause)
I have received six motions for resolutions, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2), to conclude the present statement.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 p.m.
Report on the IGC
The next item is the Commission' s statement on the report by the high-level working group regarding the Intergovernmental Conference.
I now hand the floor to Mr Barnier, who will speak on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, my group welcomes the publication of the Dehaene, Lord Simon and von Weizsäcker report because it makes the case clearly, and makes it well, to have an IGC that is not confined to the so-called "three Amsterdam leftovers" .
We must address wider issues.
This IGC, though, will not be so much about broadening the field of responsibility or the competences of the European Union; it will be about structural reform, institutional reform, reform that will make the Union more open, more efficient, more democratic and more transparent.
Above all, the IGC will make it capable of functioning and carrying out its responsibilities when it is composed of more than 20 Member States.
The three Amsterdam leftovers will be part of the package but they will not be alone.
We are winning the argument to have a wider agenda.
But even those three leftovers, as Mr Barnier underlined, are not subjects which are easy to handle.
For instance, extending the field of qualified majority voting will immediately provoke assorted Eurosceptics and others to say in their Member States that their country is giving up the veto and giving up sovereignty.
Indeed, it is the position of one of the largest component parties of the EPP that there should not be an extension of qualified majority voting.
Yet if they pause to think for one minute they would soon realise that their own country, every country, probably loses more from the vetoes cast by other countries than they gain in using their own in many areas of European Union responsibility.
However, change must come not just for the three Amsterdam leftovers; extension of qualified majority voting, the size of the Commission and the weighting of votes in the Council.
Change is necessary for the Court.
How will it function if it is going to be composed of nearly 30 members? Change is necessary as regards the size of this Parliament if we are to respect the limit of 700 members laid down in the Treaties at our own request.
Something needs to be done to take further the conclusions reached by our Member States that the WEU should now be integrated and its functions, or part of its functions, transferred to the European Union.
There is the question of codification and simplification of the Treaties, an issue that this Parliament was first to highlight in the run-up to the Amsterdam negotiations; a task started by Amsterdam but far from complete and which, too, is a point underlined and highlighted in the Dehaene report.
In adding new issues like those to the IGC we are not necessarily making it more difficult.
Having a wider package might make it easier to reach agreement and easier to ratify in our Member States but I can say, on behalf of my group, that we are willing to have Parliament work closely with the Commission in the spirit that Mr Barnier has just indicated, so that together we can put a balanced package of proposals on the table of the IGC that he, and our representatives to all the meetings of the IGC, can defend: a package that will make the Union fit to work when it has more than 20 Member States.
Mr President, I welcome the report for pointing us at the central question which is the method for revision of the treaties in the future.
We must realise that it will be virtually impossible - and certainly it will be impracticable - to forge agreement between 25 or 30 states upon essential questions of sovereignty.
So, the key reform is Article 48 for treaty change.
We must entrench the constituent articles of the treaty and we need a softer, lighter system for changing the treaty in regard to policy chapters.
The first reform will calm citizens' fears of creeping sovereignty transfers and the second should encourage citizens to engage more obviously with the political choices that we face in Brussels and in Strasbourg.
The second reform that is essential is to remove the national veto from the clauses of reinforced cooperation; and the third will be to grant citizens the right of direct approach to the European Court.
Commissioner Barnier, the Dehaene report contains positive and negative points, like almost everything in life.
I would like to add that the main ideas have been advanced by the European Parliament for decades, so it does not seem particularly original.
I would like to make the most of my short speaking time to invite you and President Prodi to reflect on the risks we are running in only talking to the governments and trying to convince them alone, especially the most reluctant ones, and always trying to combine realism and credibility in proposals which are often ambiguous and moderate.
In my view, it is worrying that even the Wise Men, who no longer have any obligations to anyone, consider trying to reach a compromise as a priority and that they want to play a part which is not theirs.
I hope that in the proposal that you put to us, the Commission and yourself will have the courage to aim higher and that you will be able to justify the need to establish a constitutional section in the founding texts of the European Union with something more inspiring than the mere reorganisation of the confused texts of the Treaties.
I am sorry that President Dehaene could not find this courage.
I also hope that the Commission will be able to free itself of the inefficient and anachronistic pillar structure and clearly refute the extremely odd idea which the Wise Men put forward, that Parliament' s power of codecision is legitimised only under the first pillar.
The courage to seek alliances and a consensus outside the palaces of power, among the people, and in this Parliament, is a challenge that the Commission must accept.
If it does not, we will all lose.
Mr President, President of the Commission Prodi was quite right when he spoke before this House of an error of historical proportions if the Intergovernmental Conference were to be reduced to dealing with the so-called Amsterdam leftovers.
No, what the citizens of the European Union rightly expect is true democracy, transparency and efficient decision-making.
What is necessary, above all, is the courage to critically examine the policies of the Union so far.
The need for a socially just Europe remains highly topical.
We need a reform of the Union which finally places the struggle against mass unemployment and poverty at the centre of policy.
The reform should also entail having the courage to change Article 4 of the EC Treaty which, in classically neo-liberal manner, defines the Union as an open market economy with free competition.
The same applies to Article 105 of the EC Treaty so that the European Central Bank might have the contractually established political task of using its monetary policy to promote growth and employment.
Our citizens must be involved in the debate about the content and objectives of the reform.
They must have the opportunity, through referenda, to themselves deliver their own judgement on the results of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I have noted with interest the proposals of Messrs Dehaene, von Weizsäcker and Simon.
A number of these I personally consider to be definitely worth discussing, for example the proposals to simplify the Treaties or the proposal that qualified majority voting in the Council and the involvement of Parliament in decision-making ought to be the rule in future.
As a Member of the European Parliament representing a large Member State, I attach the greatest importance, of course, to the fact that the rights of small States should not be restricted.
One thing, though, I want finally to say loud and clear here. My Group decisively rejects the integration of the Western European Union into the Union.
We want to see a civilian Europe characterised by solidarity. We do not want a military union appearing in future, armed to the teeth, as a Euro policeman on the stage of international politics.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Union for a Europe of Nations Group considers the Dehaene report on the institutional implications of enlargement to be unsatisfactory in terms of both its method and the greater part of its conclusions.
Firstly, its method. The Cologne Council, last June, refused to appoint a limited working party to prepare the work of revising the Treaty.
It did want discussions to be more open from the outset.
And what did we find? The Commission, piqued at not having been able to control the debate completely, hastened to appoint a limited working party on its own account, which was immediately described as a Committee of Wise Men even though its members are no wiser than most people here today.
All this in order to attempt to force the Council to retain the conference agenda which the Commission wanted.
It is not surprising, in such conditions, to see that the Dehaene report, basically, is seeking to strengthen the powers of the Commission and circumvent the rights of the States.
First of all, by a strange coincidence, this text concludes that, from the very beginning of the Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission will have to submit a complete draft Treaty to the Council.
It is simply a continuation of the same old method of forcing decisions through.
In the same spirit, the working party puts forward the old federalist proposal of making qualified majority voting the general rule in the Council.
This proposal, combined with maintaining the Commission' s monopoly of initiative, would ultimately end, as we know, in a considerable strengthening of the Commission' s powers and a concomitant reduction in the rights of States.
For that matter, it is quite interesting to note that the system of majority voting is presented in the report, in a fine example of European Newspeak, as, I quote, "leading to consensus" , whereas, obviously, the opposite is true.
Majority rule obliges the minority to give way, especially the smaller States, whereas the requirement for unanimity makes it necessary to negotiate until a consensus is obtained.
Again, in the same spirit of circumventing State power, the Dehaene report proposes that the Treaty may, in some cases, be modified by a simple Council decision, and even on the basis of a decision taken by qualified majority alone.
This is absolutely unacceptable, since it stands in absolute contradiction to our concept of a Europe which respects its nations.
Apart from the usual federalist clichés, the report does, however, tentatively sketch out one new idea, the idea of the institutional flexibility required in an enlarged Europe.
It acknowledges what we have always said, that the cases of strengthened cooperation outlined by the Treaty of Amsterdam go in no way towards resolving the twofold problem of increasing heterogeneity and the absolute impossibility of giving up sovereign powers in favour of procedures for decision by qualified majority and, what is more, in a Europe comprising thirty or more States.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the real subject that must be included on the agenda of the IGC, and a second subject, "how to restore national control in Europe" should be added to the first, since it too posits the free exercise of national sovereignty.
Mr President, the as yet unofficial Dehaene report is on the right track.
Of course, on reading the report, one notices that it makes no mention of the visions, the goals or the challenges facing Europe on the eve of the 21st century. Nevertheless, it does, at least, give some broad guidelines on a number of institutional issues which must be addressed.
Despite Commissioner Barnier' s very interesting comments, we have yet to see how many and which of those proposals we shall adopt and what needs to be added for the European Union to prepare itself properly for the future.
Mr Barnier' s comments about the Commission presenting a text which will be "global et fort" are quite significant.
We, therefore, await the contents of this text.
In any case, from the European Parliament' s point of view, we must press for the text to include a systematic approach to all aspects of the European Union, so that the new Intergovernmental Conference can address in turn all the issues and problems which concern us at present using the Aristotelian logic that politics is the art of the possible.
Mr President, I see the report of the Wise Men as being a big step forward and I expressly agree with Commissioner Barnier that comprehensive reform of the European Union must now be implemented and should not be postponed until after the enlargement of the Union.
That would be disastrous and fatal because what the 15 States cannot settle among themselves, 20 or 25 States most certainly will not be able to.
Now is the last chance to reform the Union in such a way that it functions properly, is understood by the citizens and is capable of being expanded.
I am pleased that the Treaties are to be redesigned.
None of our citizens understands the Treaties of Maastricht or of Amsterdam.
It is unreasonable to expect any citizen of the Union to read these texts.
The texts must now successfully be divided up into their genuinely constitutional and their more technical elements.
This distinction needs to be made, as it is in our Member States' own fundamental laws or constitutions.
A word about the reform of the institutions.
The Dehaene Group has concentrated very much upon the reform of the Commission.
In my view, it is the Council which should be at the centre of the reform.
The Commission will function on the basis of what is done now.
Parliament has carried through reforms and is functioning.
The institution which is not functioning is the Council.
It is the Council which forms a barrier within the Union.
In Parliament, we shall therefore also be concentrating on making demands for the reform of the Council.
The rules must somehow be laid down for this dual role it has as both a legislative and an executive body, and certainly in a Union of 20 or 25 Member States.
I hope, Commissioner Barnier, that the Commission can come up with a concrete proposal for altering the Treaty, which we shall then discuss.
Mr President, Commissioner Barnier, the clear message regarding change which the electorate sent out on 13 June is something which we EU politicians must take very seriously indeed.
We must act in accordance with this message and work for change.
The Intergovernmental Conference is one very good opportunity for doing just that.
There is a lot to be inspired by in the Report of the Wise Men, and we ought to use the Intergovernmental Conference to carry out a proper examination of the Treaties.
We need to simplify, open up, clarify and review all of the European Union' s tasks and bring about an order in which the EU concentrates on fewer things, that is to say the genuinely cross-border problems.
The EU' s citizens need a democratic constitution which lists the powers that can be exercised, and in such a way that accountabilities are clear and that the principle of subsidiarity is of proper significance.
With these ambitions on the eve of the Intergovernmental Conference, I believe that we can succeed in both of the EU' s major tasks: to create a larger Union which functions democratically and to win back some of the confidence our citizens have lost in the European Union, as well as the legitimacy they lent to the enterprise.
Mr President, if the Dehaene Group' s report is to be summarised in the course of one minute, which is what I shall try to do now, it might be said to contain what Swedish supporters of the EU promised would never happen.
If the Group' s proposals were implemented, the EU would take a decisive step towards being transformed into a State in its own right.
The remaining right of veto is to be taken away and the influence of small countries reduced; the President of the Commission is to become a sort of Prime Minister in an ever more powerful European Commission, and the EU is to become a military union.
What is especially negative is the fact that the Group proposes that the Member States' power over changes to the Treaty is to be drastically reduced.
Where large parts of the present Treaty are concerned, the Group wants it to be possible for changes to be made without these being approved by the Member States' parliaments and without any requirement of unanimity.
It is a proposal which is directed specifically against the opportunities which Member States and their populations have to wield democratic influence on the EU' s development.
Mr President, what must the next Intergovernmental Conference do? It must prepare the Union for a Europe of 27 Member States.
Therefore, the wider the scope of institutional reform, the wider the scope of enlargement will be.
What must it do? It must maintain the institutional equilibrium, which has allowed the advance of European construction over the last forty years.
What must it mean? It must not mean new competences for the European Union.
The Treaty of Amsterdam did this already.
And neither should it mean changing the nature of the Union.
In this context, I wish to say that the report carried out by Mr Dehaene is very correct in many areas, but it contains something that worries me very considerably.
If we consider it in its entirety, Mr Dehaene' s report intends, on the one hand, to extend qualified majority voting and, at the same time, the constitutionalisation of the Treaties and their division into two parts, one subject to a very strict procedure, which requires unanimity for reform, and the other subject to majority voting.
And to this add making strengthened cooperation more flexible.
What worries me - I address this to the Commission, which has to carry out a report on it - is that the combination of these three factors - the extension of the qualified majority, the subjecting of legislation to differing types of revisions and making strengthened cooperation more flexible - leads to a Europe à la carte, a Europe where every Member State chooses what it wants to be.
And I wish to say, Mr President, that that is not the European Union which many of us have fought for and in which many of us believe.
The Dehaene Group' s plans are, by its own admission, very ambitious, but these plans are only ambitious in relation to the current situation and existing opposition.
However, the proposals fall short with respect to the requirements of a Union numbering more than thirty Member States.
If the Union was to have twice as many Member States as it has now, the decision-making process would completely run aground unless drastic changes were to be put forward, and they would have to be far more drastic than those that are now on the table.
Inevitably, the competences of the Commission, as guardian of common European interests would be extended at the expense of the competences of the national governments represented in the Council.
This would demand far greater democratic legitimacy on the part of the Commission than is presently the case, and it would be necessary in the long term for all Commissioners to be directly elected.
Of course our Parliament would also need to be accorded the authority due to it.
What has a revolutionary ring to it now will soon seem very realistic.
Mr President, beforehand there were rumours circulating that the high level working party was intending to propose an onion skin model for Europe, a sort of system of concentric circles.
It is a pity that the report contains no 'onions' , as institutional differentiation would seem to be the only realistic solution for a Union that is expanding fast.
In the future Europe must comprise three institutional circles.
The outer circle would be the European Council, whose intergovernmental institutions could be utilised better than they are at present by giving them new jobs to do.
The second circle would be the European Union, which would develop as an association of states in the future.
This would mean the decentralisation of decision making and would require intergovernmental cooperation to be strengthened.
This sort of EU association could easily and rapidly expand.
The inner circle would be the Federation of Europe, made up of an integrated group of EU states that had progressed the furthest: those that belong to NATO and the euro area.
The EU would thus become an association of states, the core of which would be a federation.
Mr President, the Dehaene-report unmistakably has the advantage of clarity and testifies to creativity and vigour, to pragmatism and ambition.
We do not have 101 recipes for making an Intergovernmental Conference' s work rapid and efficient.
If there is a desire to avoid a new tour de force in legal high technology, an inextricable tangle, then one way or another it will always be necessary to refer back to the substance of this crystal-clear report.
It does not have to be Mr Dehaene' s swansong.
But if we fail to embrace the crucial importance of post-Amsterdam Treaty developments then we run the risk of rendering Europe powerless.
The ball is now in the court of the Member States and the Commission.
As far as we are concerned, and let this be made very clear, reforming the Union is, in any case, still a conditio sine qua non for enlargement.
First deepening, and only then enlargement.
After all, we should say "no" to a Europe that is becoming increasingly rich in members but increasingly impoverished in terms of support, efficiency and soul.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at this stage, in view of the restrictions of your agenda, I shall limit myself to a brief comment.
As regards today' s debate, the rules of the game were clear.
This debate was of great interest to the Commission but it was also somewhat limited since neither the Commission nor yourselves had yet defined precise positions and proposals.
It was therefore an exchange of views on the basis of the Dehaene report which President Prodi had intended specifically to initiate and shed light on this debate.
I have listened to all the speakers, Mr President, with a great deal of attention and I thank them for their attention and for their own contributions.
We are going to take these questions, these suggestions, and even these occasional criticisms or fears into account in the few days which remain before 10 November.
This is the day on which the Commission is to establish its initial position on policy, and then we shall have a debate on the Commission' s first policy document.
After this, we shall again have a great deal of work to do between 10 November and the start of the talks, since the Commission will then have to submit a document which I have myself described as a forceful and comprehensive policy document, designed to be of use to the negotiators and to facilitate the talks.
During this period we shall have to work in close liaison with the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and with the Parliament.
I therefore wish, Mr President, by way of conclusion, to thank the European Parliament for this initial exchange of views on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference and on the ambitions we should have in approaching this conference.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a few moments.
Votes
I now have a list of Members wishing to speak.
I will give the floor to Mr Madelin in the interests of political balance but I would ask all the other speakers to withdraw so that we can proceed to the vote.
Mr President, without wishing to prolong the debate further, I believe that one problem has arisen which requires a solution if we are not to face the same problem over and over again.
Certainly, the operation of a democracy requires rules, but the honour of a democracy lies in the attention it devotes to the protection of its minorities, and I would want us all to have the same rights within this House.
Thank you, let us now move on to the vote.
Report (A5-0013/1999) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on a proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 1628/1996 relating to aid for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in particular through the setting-up of the European Agency for Reconstruction (COM(1999) 312 - C5-0062/1999 - 1999/0132(CNS))
Mr President, I should like, because it is not unimportant, to refer to a linguistic ambiguity in Amendment 1 and simply have this put on record.
In clause 2, point 16 of the German version, it says: "Es bedarf keiner gesetzlichen ... Rahmenbedingungen für Signaturen, die ausschließlich in geschlossenen ..."
The word "geschlossenen" must be taken out. This is a printing error.
In the same way, further on in the same clause it reads "einer begrenzten Anzahl ..." Instead of "begrenzt" , it should read "bestimmt" , that is to say "einer bestimmten Anzahl" or, in English, "defined" .
May I also point out that I am asking for Amendment 6 not to be accepted, because otherwise this important directive would not come into force.
Does the Commission wish to comment?
Mr President, following Mr Lechner' s contribution, I wish to say that we have no problem with the suggestion he has just made concerning amendment 1.
We ourselves had a problem, which Parliament was aware of, on the subject of amendment 6, since it seemed to go against article 133 of the Treaty.
So, that was another reason why we could not approve this amendment which Mr Lechner himself has just recommended that you reject.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0033/1999) by Mr Harbour, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position of the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and the Council amending Council Directive 70/221/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to liquid fuel tanks and rear underrun protection of motor vehicles and their trailers (8697/1999 - C5-0031/1999 - 1998/0071 (COD))
Mr President, we have no problem with any of the amendments.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0029/1999) by Mr Ferri, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of the European Parliament and Council Directive on speedometers for two- and three-wheel motor vehicles and amending Council Directive 92/61/EEC on the type-approval of two- or three-wheel motor vehicles (6884/171999 - C5-0029/1999 - 1998/0163(COD))
Mr President, without wishing to hold the debate up any more, once again we have had no problems with accepting all of the amendments.
We did have a problem with amendment 5, but you yourself have just said that it was unacceptable.
Mr President, I would only like to say that this is a missed opportunity, in my modest opinion, because Amendment No 5 touches on an important aspect of the relations between the Commission and the Council, in particular the issue of commitology.
The previous legislation has been revoked and therefore we must urgently take positions on the amendment procedures of the various regulations we are adopting, especially on some important and delicate matters, that is, whether the opinion of the Commission or the Council should prevail.
They have two different points of view, regardless of whether an advisory committee is selected - which we chose - that put more emphasis on the Commission, or a regulatory committee which put more emphasis on the Council.
I think that we should have been able to vote on this amendment because, especially in a fairly delicate area like road safety, and therefore the protection of citizens, it could have been very useful.
I would, however, like to urge the Commission - I do not know whether Commissioner Liikanen is present, but, in any case, we have already discussed it in the general debate - to move quickly if it is to present a legislative framework covering all the subjects, so that an issue which is very sensitive from an institutional point of view can be addressed in an organised, thorough way.
Thank you.
Amendment No 5 had to be ruled inadmissible because it was not compatible with the rules for second readings.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0028/1999) by Mr Miller, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to cableway installations designed to carry persons (14248/3/1998 - C5-COD 1994/0011)
President.
Would the Commissioner like to comment?
Mr President, I can tell you immediately that we approve the amendments.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0035/1999) by Mr Huhne, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the annual report for 1998 of the European Central Bank (C4-0211/1999)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Joint motion for a resolution on Tampere
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
Madam President, I have been waiting patiently - or even impatiently - for quite a long time now because I wanted to raise this point before the vote on the Ombudsman.
Could you explain why, when we have a very expensive and sophisticated system of electronic voting, we had to go through - and I choose my words carefully - the organised chaos of the previous vote.
We have a system here which has three buttons to vote for candidate A or candidate B or abstain; this affords the perfect opportunity for secrecy, and I know we have used it before in similar circumstances.
It would be less time-consuming and less expensive surely to have used that rather than go through the procedure we have just gone through.
Could you explain why that decision was taken.
Whilst I am on my feet, Madam President, I would like to refer back to earlier this morning when you were in the chair.
You will be aware - because I noticed a distinctly presidential frown - that a Member' s mobile phone went off during the speech of, I think it was, the Prime Minister of Finland.
This was a gross discourtesy to the Prime Minister of Finland, and I felt the discourtesy was exacerbated by the fact that the Member then proceeded to answer the phone and continue with the conversation.
What action can we take to eliminate this in future?
Thirdly, as I am on my feet and I have your ear, can you do anything about the fact that the some of the huissiers at the entrance are smoking on duty. I think it gives an extraordinarily poor impression of this Parliament.
Mr President, on behalf of our group I just wanted to explain why we voted against the report.
The European group of liberals and democrats always felt that the Agency for Reconstruction in Kosovo should be based in Pristina and only in Pristina and should not, in some way or other, be linked with or part of, or work in tandem with, some other agency in Thessaloniki.
We believe that this is the only logical position and it is also the only position that is in the interests of the Kosovars themselves.
In view of the fact that the original text from the Commission is very clear in this respect and Mrs Pack' s amendment adding the Thessaloniki aspect is superfluous, our group has opted to vote against the report.
What I do want to make clear is that our group does support this Parliament' s position when it comes to improving the efficiency of the agency' s management and the procedures, and of course when it comes to making the agency subject to OLAF' s supervision; indeed how could it be otherwise for I penned these amendments myself.
Consequently, we are particularly pleased that the Commission is to adopt many of these amendments.
The specific answers that Mr Patten has just given this Parliament are, however, in stark contrast with the overwhelming silence on the part of the Council.
The Council has systematically refused to enter into constructive dialogue with this Parliament about the content of the report.
We consider this attitude unacceptable and, as far as that is concerned, we are particularly keen to support the position adopted by Mrs Pack, who endeavoured to delay this report up until the very last moment.
I would just like to clearly point out - sadly the Council is not present - that Parliament will, of course, have the last word on this matter under the terms of Budget 2000.
To sum up, Madam President, as a group we were faced with what was in fact a difficult dilemma in that we had to decide whether to vote for a report that went some of the way towards accommodating our concerns but not on that one essential point, namely Pristina.
That is why we opted for clarity and consistency at the end of the day and voted against the report.
Palacio Vallelersundi Report (A5-0037/1999)
- (DE) The position of the non-attached Members on the content of the first two decisions of Parliament regarding the Statute for Members has not changed.
In order, however, to put an end to the present inactivity on this issue, we have - against the background of recent negotiations with the Council - agreed to the confirmation of these decisions.
I voted for the PSE amendment to paragraph 2 in the vote.
In approving this amendment we are opening the door to resuming discussions with the Council on the future statute for the Members of the European Parliament, in the hope that this statute will at last be brought in with all possible speed.
As far as I am concerned, this vote in no way signifies approbation of the resolution of 5 May 1999 on the Statute for Members.
I still believe that with this draft statute the majority of the Members of Parliament failed to give the voters a clear signal that they want to renounce the excessive privileges and remuneration entitlements.
That is why, on 5 May last, I voted against the aforementioned resolution together with my socialist party colleagues in the PSE group of this Parliament.
The SP will also continue to be a zealous advocate in the new European Parliament of a fair and just statute with a transparent remuneration system on the basis of costs incurred, and is therefore also able to identify with the proposals that the Council has drawn up on this matter.
The socialist party believes that this statute should be approved as quickly as possible.
It must form the basis for far-reaching reforms within the European Parliament so that our institution too is in a position to win back the trust of the citizens of the European Union.
The demands we make of the Council and the Commission we must also be prepared to ask of ourselves.
Recommendation for second reading of the Lechner report (A5-0034/1999)
It is not the first time and certainly not the last time that I am making a statement regarding the stakes related to the development of electronic commerce services.
Indeed I think that, while one should be delighted that trade is facilitated by developments in information technology, it is nonetheless necessary to remain as vigilant as possible and ensure that there is a fair balance between the interests of the service providers and consumer protection.
We must take new data into consideration: electronic communications and transactions are becoming more developed and more widespread.
Sectorial products and services are generating a rapidly expanding world market. Its growth is expected to exceed 100% by the year 2001.
This means that regulations to control this new market must be adopted as quickly as possible.
Indeed, while it is generating new possibilities for firms of all sorts to make profits, it is, at the same time, creating a certain lack of security for consumers.
It is therefore imperative to perfect standards for security and for the legal recognition of electronic signatures and authentication services (authentication of the origin and integrity of data).
This is what the directive we are discussing today proposes.
At the time of the first reading, the European Parliament proposed several amendments.
We were pleased to note that many of them were adopted in the common position.
This must also apply to the amendments proposed today.
This directive must form an initial step in the development of a European framework in the field of electronic commerce, while bearing in mind that we cannot afford to wait long before having worldwide discussions on this subject.
With the proposal for a directive, the commercial use of electronic signatures takes a step forward, but there is still a long way to go.
The basic problems of electronic signatures, such as how reliable and flexible the system is, and clarifying how responsibilities relate to one another, call for more development work in the future also.
Many states and organisations over recent years have developed digital signature systems and rules on them.
In addition to the EU draft directive, the International Chamber of Commerce and the OECD have made recommendations on this issue. An important recommendation has been made on an organisation to promote global electronic commerce, Global Information Infrastructure.
In my opinion, as we develop a European frame of reference for electronic signatures, the European Union must also constantly work on the international level, so that the legal framework of the system can be strengthened.
It would be to the European Union' s benefit to establish an international organisation.
The development of cooperation must not, however, lead to an increase in regulation.
Systems of protection must be allowed to develop freely and become as effective as possible with the help of market forces, and they must at the same time ensure that the confidence of consumers in the opportunities presented by electronic signatures remains firm.
There is no doubt that electronic commerce is going to be one of the boom areas of the future, providing consumers feel that they can use the system with confidence.
Two problems are presently holding back the development of e-commerce: the difficulty in verifying the identity of users and consumers and the uncertainty surrounding the extent to which on-line transactions are legally binding.
I welcome the fact that the proposed Directive gives legal force to digital signatures (provided they are authenticated) and so gives them the same legal force as documents signed in ink.
Increased security for e-commerce in the EU should boost consumer confidence and help the citizens of the EU to benefit from this area of activity with greater peace of mind and security.
I wholeheartedly welcome this sensible step to tackle one of the key problems hindering the potential boom in e-commerce across Europe, namely the difficulty in verifying the identity of users and consumers.
This latest EU initiative, complementing others at the national level, will help create the right regulatory framework enabling European businesses to be at the cutting edge in developing electronic commercial services.
In short, this e-commerce initiative makes A grade business sense.
British business is already at the forefront in realising the potential of e-commerce in Europe.
More than 13 million people now have Internet access in Britain and revenue from e-commerce is expected to top GBP 10 billion next year.
The Labour Government is likewise at the forefront in creating the right environment for e-commerce to thrive.
We are introducing a bill, hailed as a model across Europe, to modernise contract law to take account of e-commerce.
We are improving educational standards, encouraging life-long learning and striving to ensure that our schools are on-line.
Indeed, by 2002 we will have connected every school in Britain to the Internet.
We will also be opening a network of IT learning centres, or 'e-libr@ries' , right across the country.
The great towns and cities of my own region, the North West of England, were built on the back of an earlier great economic revolution, the Industrial Revolution.
What iron was to the 19th century, information technology will be to the 21st.
And, just as the railways were the communications network that drove the Industrial Revolution, so the Internet will drive the new Knowledge Revolution.
I want the north-west to regain its position at the forefront of technological progress.
Through such far-sighted yet practical policies, I believe we can release the natural industriousness and imagination of the people of the north-west and once more turn the region into a powerhouse of economic prosperity for Britain, Europe and the world.
Recommendation for second reading of the Miller report (A5-0028/1999)
Huhne report (A5-0035/1999)
I voted against the European Parliament resolution on the 1998 annual report of the European Central Bank (ECB), since it approves this report, which itself is aligned with the prospect of transition to a completely unified European monetary system.
Indeed, like the economists of the Association for the Monetary Independence of France (Association pour l'indépendance monétaire de la France), I think that this is not a desirable objective, and that on 1 January 2002 it will be necessary to retain national currencies alongside the euro which will serve as a common currency.
Moreover, the European Parliament resolution discusses at length the technical measures to improve the transparency of the ECB.
This is an apparently laudable objective, but one that is impossible to achieve.
The European Parliament has indeed just proved this by getting into an imbroglio which it has not been able to get out of.
Actually, the initial text of the resolution required that the way that the various members of the Governing Council had voted should be made public following each decision on monetary policy.
Mr Duisenberg, the president of the ECB, asserted that he did not agree with this idea, for all sorts of reasons, each one worse than the last.
In particular, he stated that making voting public would be an incentive to exert undue pressure on the members of the Governing Council.
Professor Buiter, a member of the Bank of England' s monetary policy committee, rightly replied that if the votes were to remain secret then this pressure would be applied in secret, and that would be even worse.
The European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs eventually withdrew the relevant section of the draft resolution so as not to get into trouble with Mr Duisenberg, and the European Parliament has just backed up this withdrawal.
The matter is more serious than it first appears.
In the first place, it demonstrates the timidity, nay subservience, of the European Parliament in its supervisory capacity.
In the second place, it must be recalled that open voting is accepted in all great central banks throughout the world, particularly in the United States and Japan. Why should the European Central Bank be the exception to the rule?
Why should it play the card of less transparency?
The answer is simple. The central banks which I have just mentioned all work within a single nation, while the European Central Bank works with several different nations and several different peoples.
By virtue of these differing circumstances, it is far more afraid than the other banks that particular Member States may exploit its internal conflicts.
And to stave off this danger, it is forced to be that much less transparent.
So, it' s all connected. Because it has jurisdiction over an area that is too diverse, the European Central Bank must distance itself even further from social reality.
In so doing, in the short term it may calm things down on this or that vote, but in the long term it is ultimately condemning itself by cutting itself off from the peoples of Europe.
Understandably, in these conditions, I cannot give my approval to either the European Parliament resolution or the annual report of the ECB for 1998.
As a former member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, I read attentively the first annual report of the European Bank whose work I try to monitor closely.
This is the reason why I cannot but approve the action of the rapporteur in deploring the lack of transparency in the ECB.
Some progress has certainly been achieved, but this falls a long way short in comparison to the information made available by other central banks.
Considering its high degree of autonomy, it is essential for the ECB to ensure a high level of transparency regarding decision-making on monetary policy.
This would provide a guarantee of its credibility.
I find it deplorable, for example, that Mr Duisenberg is opposed to the publication of detailed minutes of meetings, even though this is common practice in many central banks.
I support the proposal of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs requesting that brief reports of the meetings of the Governing Council should be made available to the EP, outlining the arguments "for" or "against" the decisions taken and the reasons for these decisions.
I think it essential, furthermore, that, in order to promote effective collaboration between the ECB and the EP, the ECB President should be willing to brief Parliament regarding any significant decision on monetary policy.
I shall also insist on one requirement which the EP expressed with regard to the ECB.
The Bank must endeavour to consider monetary policy in terms of sustainable growth and employment.
The objective of price stability is not an end in itself; monetary policy must contribute to growth and the creation of jobs.
I am taking advantage of this opportunity to express my views on the ECB to mention a problem which I feel strongly about, and which I have had to denounce on several occasions, the bank charges which some banks add to euro transactions.
These problems are far from being resolved and they are still affecting European citizens within the euro area.
An initiative must be taken as quickly as possible to put an end to these practices which have been denounced on many occasions by the European Parliament and the European Commission.
The European Central Bank, in spite of having a financial role in European policies and the economy, operates independently of the Council, of the European Parliament and of national parliaments, which is unacceptable.
Regrettably, this is an example of the lack of democratic control on the part of these institutions.
By taking the fulfilment of the Stability Pact and of the respective criteria for nominal convergence as a basis, and making price stability the main priority, the ECB' s monetary guidelines come to be crucial for national and European policies in a huge variety of economic and social areas, including in the Financial Perspective of the European Union and of the Member States.
Thus it is vital that the ECB finds another means of intervention, that there is effective democratic control over the way it operates, that priority is given in European policies to resolving the economic and social problems of the European Union and of its Member States, giving particular prominence to the policies of growth and job creation.
That is the reasoning behind my vote.
I welcome this first annual report by the Governor of the European Central Bank, Mr Duisenberg.
He has earned our praise for the successful establishment of the ECB and the smooth introduction of the euro.
To MEPs such as myself, the ECB' s annual and monthly publications have proved to be invaluable and of a consistently high standard.
I regret, however, that the ECB does not follow the high standards of transparency and openness set by the Bank of England.
The Bank of England was granted operational independence in May 1997 in one of the first acts of the incoming Labour Government.
Minutes of meetings of its Monetary Policy Committee, including voting records and reasoning, are now published after about six weeks.
This boosts market confidence in its decisions and is a great example of open government.
It can surely be no coincidence that, since the Labour Government' s brave decision in May 1997, Britain has enjoyed a previously unknown period of economic stability and been praised by the OECD.
It can also be no coincidence that the Labour Government' s decision was criticised at the time by the boom-and-bust Conservatives, who have a record second to none when it comes to economic instability and incompetence.
I would like to see the ECB follow a policy of openness and transparency similar to the Bank of England.
Such openness should include the publication of minutes of its Governing Council with the reasoning behind decisions taken, particularly over interest rates.
It would be perverse for Britain to go from a position of transparency to one of relative secrecy.
Therefore, if Britain is ever going to embrace the euro, the ECB must also embrace greater openness.
European Council at Tampere on 15 and 16 October
Madame President, the Tampere Council which has just taken place, dedicated to the so-called European area "of freedom, security and justice" , did make a few good technical decisions to strengthen cooperation in the fight against crime and in favour of judicial coordination, for example by means of the wider use of mutual recognition of legal judgements in civil and criminal law, as you yourself, Madam President, indeed recommended in your introductory speech.
More generally however, particularly when it dealt with the subject of immigration, the Council became bogged down in two contradictions which indeed both suggest either its lack of political courage or the mutual paralysis of its members, it is not very clear which.
The first contradiction: whereas, in the Treaty of Amsterdam, the means were proudly established to make immigration matters totally Community-controlled, the Tampere Council suddenly becomes more cautious.
It is as if the heads of state and government, who are always willing, in treaties, to sign up to great European principles that do not commit you to anything, were suddenly appalled at the practical consequences of this new text.
The difference in tone is so marked that it is hard to believe that these same people signed both the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Tampere conclusions with an interval of six months.
The contradiction becomes frankly laughable in the case of the French Government which, in the Amsterdam Treaty, signed in favour of the financial and physical distribution of refugees among the states of the Union, and which now recoils at the consequences of its own signature.
The second contradiction: the Tampere Council propounds its purely formal intention to control the flows of migrants and to combat illegal immigration at source, but, at the same time, staunchly proclaims, on several occasions, that legal immigrants must be given, I quote, "a set of uniform rights which are as near as possible to those enjoyed by EU citizens" , and that as a priority a policy of integration must be set up to enable them to stay.
This is absurd.
Obviously, the more rights you give legal immigrants, the more immigrants you are going to attract, including illegal immigrants hoping that their situation will one day be regularised.
How much more time will it take for the Council and the Commission to see, in this matter too, the catastrophic practical consequences of the principles they publicly maintain?
Madam President, thank you and thank you to the services who, I realise, I am delaying from enjoying their lunch.
I want to emphasise my support for a European police training college and for increasing the competences for Europol provided, of course, there is full democratic control over their activities.
I have talked to the public a lot about this subject and I find that they would welcome a much greater ability to act against international crime and organised crime which increasingly crosses our frontiers.
There are over 100 separate police forces in the European Union, over 50 in my own Member State.
Their separateness weakens their ability to deal with increasing and unquantified amounts of crime across Europe.
So I predict the need for a capability for our police to operate across frontiers is going to become increasingly obvious and increasingly urgent.
The Tampere special Summit, whilst focusing on immigration and asylum policy for the first time, also seriously raised the issue of trafficking in humans which has been steadily growing over the past five years.
No European city is without refugees, primarily women, who have been illegally trafficked for the purpose of prostitution.
The Parliament resolution does not make reference to this, but I would like to put on record that concurrent to trafficking in adults, there is growing trafficking in children for prostitution and paedophile activities.
It is disgraceful that the affluent West has now added trade in human flesh to its consumer excesses.
The main objective of the Tampere European Council was to provide continuity and to plan the establishment of the "area of freedom, security and justice" which was laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, with the intention of seeking greater coordination or even common policies in the areas of immigration, asylum and visa policy.
In our opinion, this, and taking into account the importance of the area of public freedoms, justice and security, demands that the Council' s unanimous decision-making procedure be assured, with respect to the sovereignty of Member States.
This Area, which has come to the fore in line with progress in dismantling the EU' s so-called "internal borders" and with the strengthening of its "external borders" , must not transform the EU into a fortress.
In spite of the concern to establish principles relating to respect for rights, freedoms and guarantees in this particularly sensitive area, and that measures leading to cooperation are necessary, for example in the fight against organised crime and money-laundering, the traffic in drugs and weapons and the trade in human beings, it is worth highlighting the fact that we will have to be particularly attentive to the coherence and the implications of the policies and measures that are actually adopted.
I have voted for amendment 2 from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance because I consider that citizens of third countries resident within the EU ought to have the same rights as EU citizens when it comes to freedom of movement.
However, I am not a supporter of a common EU policy on the issuing of passports. Instead, I consider that each EU country should be able freely to exercise control over its own policy in this area.
I sincerely hope that the Tampere Summit marked a step away from Fortress Europe, as claimed by the EU Presidency.
The confirmation of the Geneva Refugee Convention "in its full and wide interpretation" is an important victory for the Greens and many non-governmental organisations.
I regret, however, that for most asylum-seekers, the only way to get into the Union is still an illegal one.
The new approach towards combating illegal immigration in the countries of origin bears a risk, since the cooperation could lead to a sort of repression.
The Union must tackle the problem at its roots to truly improve human rights and economic conditions of people living in those countries.
Our Group welcomes the increased efforts to fight money-laundering and trafficking of human beings.
But we insist that increased powers for Europol must be accompanied by equally increased democratic safeguards at Union level to ensure respect for civil rights.
This includes control by the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice.
The Greens think that the status of third-country nationals needs to be further improved beyond the Tampere proposals.
Fair treatment includes not just the right of access to social services or education, but also the right to vote and free movement in the EU.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights must include new and binding rights for EU citizens if it is not to become a mere political declaration.
Mr President, most of my constituents were probably not aware that an important meeting of EU Governments took place in Tampere last week on justice and home affairs.
This is probably because the agreements reached make such common sense and are of such obvious benefit to ordinary Britons that not even the extremist Europhobic Tories could find anything to complain and make a fuss about.
EU Governments agreed to create a common area of justice to tackle the common problem of organised crime, especially drug smuggling and human trafficking.
There will now be greater cross-border police cooperation, including - at Britain' s suggestion - a new Police Chiefs' Task Force and a European police college.
There will also be greater cross-border judicial cooperation, including mutual recognition of court decisions in all EU countries.
Fast track extradition will be introduced, which may even help bring ex-dictators to justice.
In addition, measures were agreed at Tampere to make it easier for ordinary people to travel, live and work across Europe.
Long-term British residents from non-EU countries, from the Commonwealth for example, will now receive guaranteed equal access to education, health care and other benefits on the Continent.
Furthermore, Britons facing legal difficulties abroad will now have easier access to justice, including access to legal aid and translation services and simplified procedures governing compensation and debt claims.
Among other measures, Governments also agreed common rules on providing refuge to those in need of political asylum and to draw up a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The Charter will, for the first time, set out all the fundamental rights enjoyed by EU citizens on one piece of paper.
A milestone instrument, it will complement the European Convention on Human Rights now being incorporated by the Labour Government into UK law.
With all these measures, I will no longer be stuck for advice when constituents, facing legal problems abroad, call me asking for help.
Britons will now have the same statutory rights on the Continent as all other EU citizens.
For so long relegated to second class under the Tories, Britons are now first class citizens under Labour.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.30 p.m. and resumed at 3.05 p.m.)
Announcement of the result of the election of the Ombudsman
I shall now announce the result of the ballot for the election of the Ombudsman, as agreed. A total of 557 members voted.
There were 32 blank or spoiled ballot papers.
The number of votes cast was 525.
The absolute majority is 263 votes.
The votes cast were as follows:
Mr Anastassopoulos: 256 votes
Mr Söderman: 269 votes
Mr Söderman obtained the absolute majority of the votes cast and is thus elected Ombudsman.
May I congratulate him on his election, and wish him every success in the performance of his mandate.
(Loud applause)
Restructuring of firms
Ladies and gentlemen, the Michelin case has once again brought the key issue of the restructuring of industry to the fore.
We are living in a time of radical changes to industry and to companies in general - changes which have come about for a number of reasons, the main one being the complex phenomenon of globalisation.
The deregulation of the capital markets, the abolition of economic borders, changes in various models as a result of high technology and the information society and global competition are all factors which often precipitate drastic changes and restructuring in industrial production.
What is certain is that this restructuring can be predicted and effected in many ways.
The Michelin profit figures, together with the announcement that it is to shed 7,500 jobs over the next three years, has created considerable disquiet with which I sympathise. This disquiet does not relate solely to this particular company, but to what is happening and what will happen from now on in all small and large businesses in Europe.
It would be quite realistic of me to say that no restructuring can be a smooth operation without its problems.
However, restructuring can either be "intelligent" , in other words, it can take account of the social and economic cost, or it can be short-sighted by taking account of the economic cost today and paying the social cost at a much later date. Any company which fails to take account of the social dimension will have to suffer the negative consequences.
Our goal is most certainly "intelligent restructuring" and there are three distinctive factors which many companies already take into account. In the past, we have witnessed cases throughout the European Union which adopted both methods of restructuring.
Intelligent restructuring consists primarily of a plan to address the issue of the employability of the persons concerned.
Clearly, this is both a right and an obligation of the company itself.
Companies should draw up strategic plans which, first and foremost, address the issue of the employability of the persons concerned.
Secondly, there is no excuse for failing to give adequate notice to employees, for not giving them detailed information and for not consulting them on alternative forms of restructuring which could be just as effective but at a lower social cost.
The institutional framework to date in the European Union has consisted of two directives: the Directive on collective redundancies and the European Works Council Directive.
These two directives constitute a minimal framework of specifications within which a company wishing to restructure can operate.
As regards today' s discussion, there has been no proof to date that the company in question has contravened any of the rules.
We have plenty of time ahead of us to monitor its next moves.
It is, however, quite clear, and so it appears in today' s case, that with the changes that are taking place around us, the way in which we deal with these changes will also need to be changed. In other words, existing rules may well need to be improved and amended or new rules may be needed.
That is why, in November 1998, the European Commission submitted a directive on information and consultation of workers.
This directive has, to date, been endorsed by Parliament, and I believe that today' s discussion on Michelin will spur us into further action in support of this directive.
However, what is certain is that, at present, legislation alone or this particular piece of legislation cannot address the major problem of the restructuring of industry when European industry can only compete within its own borders. European industry must engage in and be able to successfully withstand global competition.
In previous cases, such as that of Renault, the Commission had entrusted experts to approach the issue of restructuring from the job losses perspective.
The Gillenhammer report, which is well-known to Parliament, contains relevant proposals which we could follow.
The first is that of the Observatory.
In January, we will have the final proposal for the Observatory, which I would like to discuss with Parliament in order to decide whether or not there should be an Observatory for small and medium-sized businesses to keep them informed of imminent changes. It will be connected at national level to the local Observatories so that firms are better equipped to deal with changing times.
My next point concerns social dialogue.
Social partners bear the responsibility for social dialogue and they could initiate special action plans within the context of the social responsibility incumbent upon all of us.
The first action is to address the employability of workers. This is not only a matter of national policy; it also concerns the workers and the company itself.
Companies are responsible for maintaining the employability of their workers and workers are responsible for participating in continuing training and for updating and developing their abilities and skills.
Negotiations between companies and workers on lifelong learning mechanisms is one of the most serious issues of social dialogue.
At the beginning of November, I shall be having my first official meeting with the European social partners and one of the key issues under discussion will be precisely this.
Finally, and again I am borrowing ideas and proposals from the Gillenhammer report, I intend to send a letter to every company in Europe with over 1,000 employees, asking them to draft a voluntary report entitled "managing change" ; this kind of benchmarking between these large companies will help us to make provision for restructuring without creating acute or major social problems.
Ladies and gentlemen, I feel it is important to touch on a number of measures which have been taken so far at European Union level in connection with the restructuring of firms. I would like to mention very briefly the decision taken just a few days ago to implement the draft on risk capital and high risk capital investments approved by the Commission last week; this will be a very important tool, particularly for small businesses.
Measures include promoting cross-border innovation, promoting the mobility of wage-earners by transferring their rights and pensions, special training programmes and, of course, the exceptionally high amount, in the order of EUR 24 billion over the next 7 years, to be channelled to Objective 3 via the Structural Funds, to which all the countries belong. Objective 3, the Structural Funds programmes and, of course the employment strategy can be used to structure national and associated policies at European level on employability, entrepreneurship and the adaptability of firms and workers.
We have before us today a special case which is not a model worth following.
This is a special case whereby there have been two announcements made by the same company; one announcing mass redundancies and the other announcing huge profits.
Quite clearly, the European Union will and, in fact, must make every effort at every level to support free competition and create a free and healthy competitive area in which European companies can operate.
It is also clear that Europe must primarily support what it has been proud of for centuries - the European social model.
There must be no victims in the restructuring and modernisation of firms.
As I said earlier, restructuring is not a smooth operation but it can be both foreseen and managed, and true, it may indeed cost us provisionally but there must be no victims.
I believe that the proposals on a legislative level, and more importantly proposals resulting from the cooperation between the social partners are a good starting point from which to address these pressing issues of our time.
Mr President, we are talking about restructuring today.
I want to start by offering the Commissioner my sincere congratulations.
I believe that today is the first time she has been involved in a debate on social affairs.
I think that we will see a lot more of her here on a variety of different occasions.
But this particular debate is in fact bringing out something that is fairly essential in all debates on social and employment affairs, namely restructuring and globalisation
I think that it is a good thing in itself that we should discuss this subject again in this new Parliament.
It is clear that restructuring is taking place on a continuous basis.
That is sometimes forgotten.
People tend only to consider restructuring if there are job losses.
Of course jobs are often created as well but much less is said about that.
This debate has taken something of a strange course.
That is why I would just like to make a comment about a resolution that is evidently still in circulation and is still in my name.
It is a resolution that was submitted in connection with the original subject of the debate: the Michelin affair.
The Presidents decided not to include this subject in today' s agenda but to talk about restructuring in general.
I believe that was a very sensible decision on the part of the Bureau.
But my first resolution had to do with the original subject and that is why the PPE has replaced this resolution with the Menrad resolution, which has therefore become the official PPE resolution.
Ultimately we also succeeded in producing a compromise resolution, which replaces a number of group resolutions.
The only point, and we must not beat about the bush here of course, is that it was the Michelin affair that gave rise to this debate.
I do not intend to talk about this a great deal myself.
I believe that it is not the place of Parliament to involve itself in decisions concerning individual companies.
My group is firmly convinced of this; all the more so since there has been no mention of government funding in this concrete decision and the decision is also being dealt with in its entirety on the territory of the Republic of France.
The French government, which as we all know, consists of socialists, greens and communists, has not intervened in this affair.
It would therefore be extraordinarily odd if we were the ones to do so.
That is another reason for not getting involved here.
But our fundamental position is that as a general rule we ought not to do so, particularly now that we have a European Works Council whose responsibility it is to solve these types of problem.
I would like to add that consultation and information are things that can make it much easier to resolve restructuring problems.
Far and away the largest section of my group is absolutely convinced of this.
This was also evident from the figures.
It is much easier to solve problems if there has been extensive consultation.
The Commissioner said the same.
But if there is an instrument, and the European Community is fortunate enough to have such an instrument, then surely it makes no sense at all to start talking about each specific case at European level.
We must leave that to the consultation system within the company concerned.
Even if a national government feels that it has to intervene, that is a matter for that particular national government.
It is certainly not for the European Parliament to raise this but that does not alter the fact that a debate of this kind always has its place of course.
Lastly, I have a brief question for the Commissioner.
I have not heard government assistance mentioned.
That has always been something that has played an important part in debates on restructuring, as in the case of the Hoover debate amongst others.
Might the Commissioner be prepared to say something more on this issue?
Mr President, Commissioner, as the representative of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I wish to begin my contribution to this debate on the restructuring of firms by repeating the message of the Michelin employees, a message which I understood to consist of a thrice-repeated "no" , whatever Mr Pronk might say.
No, ladies and gentlemen, in a balanced and prosperous Europe, it is no longer acceptable to have a firm announce a 17% increase in profits while at the same time making 7,500 employees redundant.
No, ladies and gentlemen, it is not a moral situation where the share price of this firm can increase by 12% following this announcement, thus creating added value for shareholders without creating any sort of additional wealth, quite the contrary.
No, ladies and gentlemen, employees can no longer be content with the incomplete and twisted, if not actually false, information issued by the Michelin bosses in attempting to justify their decision.
By the way, this new and serious scandal which shook the media and the political milieu in France, demonstrates, if proof were needed, the urgent need for strong and appropriate action in Europe to finally reconcile economic performance and social guarantees, growth and employment, freedom to do business and the defence of wages.
The European Socialists are demanding such measures and this is why they have drawn up, among other things, a number of proposals.
Firstly, a direct link between public aid and agreements, including a reduction of working hours, with financial penalties for firms which do not respect their commitments even though they may have received public monies.
The Socialists are also asking for a report on the application of the European Directive on collective redundancies, to be accompanied by proposals for improvements intended just to make it effective in defending jobs and employees.
The European Socialists are insistent, finally, that the European Directive on the establishment of a European Works Council should be reviewed, so that employees can receive proper information, in the normal course of things and at the right time, and so that there can be real consultation, which presupposes that employees are given adequate resources in terms of time and independent experts.
Without these minimum measures and some others, accompanied by concrete measures against the relocation of firms within the European Union and other measures against social dumping outside the Union, the European social model, so dear to some of our politicians, including those on the right wing, will never be anything but empty words, and this will contribute to exacerbating the anti-European feeling pervading our countries and many employees.
As is often said, progress is worth nothing unless it is shared, and for us this means that, in a world of constant change, we should stop placing the main burden of effort and sacrifice on employees in order then to let the most wealthy and most powerful be the first to benefit from the positive results of this effort and sacrifice.
It is more than time for action at Council and Commission level, and I would even go so far as to say, in conclusion, that this is of course a matter on which the consistency of our societies, industrial peace, the very survival of the European ideal, but also, of course, the interests of enterprise as a whole and thus of the soundness of the European economy, depend.
Mr President, Commissioner, in view of the fact that the market is becoming ever more global in character, it is more important than ever for companies to optimise their competitiveness.
For this reason it is sometimes inevitable that companies will have to reorganise or introduce painful measures such as transferring or replacing employees, or if the worst comes to the worst, making them redundant.
As my group sees it, neither the European Parliament nor the European Commission have the authority to intervene in the operational management of European companies.
Companies ought to be free to take management decisions which will lead to growth and thus to more jobs being created.
That is what Europe needs.
It goes without saying that my group believes that the restructuring of companies must take place following thorough and timely consultation with the works council.
The right of employees to consultation and information as laid down in various European directives should be respected.
In addition we should also see to it that measures taken at national and European level improve the economic climate in Europe.
After all, inappropriate social or economic commitments for companies lead to more unemployment instead of more jobs
Finally, I would like to say, Mr President, that a number of companies in France have also reached the conclusion that there is a need for reorganisation.
Better late than never because all companies must be primed for the 21st century.
That will be good for Europe and will guarantee jobs in the long term.
Commissioner, Mr President, the Commissioner' s statement was more concerned with SMEs than with the concerns of the Michelin employees represented here.
I was born in Clermont Ferrand and live there still, Michelin' s birthplace and headquarters, and it is for this reason, amongst others, that they have been my guests here on several occasions.
The concomitant announcements of the axing of 7,500 jobs, the enormous increase in its profits, and the closure of the Wolbert-Michelin factory at Soissons, described as a PR mistake by the company' s directors, show to what extent cynicism and lack of respect are the driving forces behind this multinational' s industrial strategy.
Other identical examples are still fresh in our memory, Renault Vilvorde, the French banking system and the large distribution companies, and let us not forget Daewoo.
All these companies who implement redundancy plans year after year have benefited from European and national subsidies without at any time being held accountable for the way in which they use those funds.
I think that our institution is duty-bound to be involved with the concerns of millions of Europeans who live in unemployment or in the fear of becoming unemployed.
We must therefore be firm and clear on three points. We must work out whether the allocation of sums to large companies will result, above all else, in guaranteeing the permanence of jobs.
On the eve of the opening of the WTO negotiations, we must remind everyone that any business strategy, including that of multinationals, must take the human figures into account, in the same way as the economic and financial figures, so that millions of European employees may keep their jobs and their dignity.
Finally, at a time when a European-wide Michelin works committee has just come into being, Community legislation must be amended so that employees, or their representatives, who are concerned at the plans for collective redundancy on economic grounds can take their case to the competent local court, without waiting for the redundancy to be announced, and challenge the grounds for the decision.
This is the thinking behind the resolution that we are proposing and it is only if these conditions are met that Europe will maintain its political role whilst facilitating the truly sustainable economic development of businesses and protecting the rights of employees who are, let us never forget, the Union' s lifeblood.
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Diamantopoulou for her speech.
For my Group, the Union for a Europe of Nations, the context of this matter is rather delicate because there is the danger, on the one hand, of setting the premises for restricted competition and, on the other hand, limiting the actions of the Member States in this field, and this conflicts with the principle of subsidiarity.
So a real principle that would justify the Union' s intervention here is the possibility of social discomfort that the restructuring of firms could cause within the Community and within the Member States as a whole. It is, moreover, a principle which is already provided for by the Treaty of Rome of 1957.
And this is to prevent future Union policies intended to increase cohesion and social integration being rendered, even only partly, useless.
Given the hope that the Union will have a joint economic policy and, possibly, a joint industrial policy, in our opinion it seems appropriate in the meantime for the Union to give its opinion, especially on those restructurings which the Member States have been or are involved in, financially or otherwise.
Moreover, we must stress the requirement for the Union to subject its interventions in this area to more stringent control and some checking mechanisms, both as regards the involvement with - and in any case, the information given to - trade union representatives, and also as regards the actual positive results - not just economic but also social results - of the interventions themselves. Union aid to firms has not always resulted in stable growth in the firms or protection of their employment levels.
In these cases, we have to ask for a broad sanction to be implemented until the amounts committed by the Union itself have been completely reimbursed.
This principle must also be applied in the event that aid is given to a non-Community firm, when it is considered that a cooperation agreement with the firm' s country - if one does not already exist - might not only better formulate and integrate the Union' s interventions regarding that country, but in this desirable event it could facilitate the implementation of the above-mentioned sanction.
Mr President, the arrogant and rabble-rousing European political class has found the ideal scapegoat to carry the blame for its own base economic behaviour.
Those on the left who are today denouncing the redundancies at Michelin have given massive approval to the ultraliberal economic policies of the European Union, as defined in the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties.
You actively support globalisation but you scream at the top of your voices when European companies try to adapt to the damaging regulations that you yourselves laid down, as well as to the economic environment that you are imposing on them.
Have the courage then, to face up to reality. The Michelin employees are not the victims of the Michelin management, they are the your victims, created by you, the merchants of globalisation, in the same way that employees in the banking sector, in the insurance sector, in the car industry and so many others whose companies merge, relocate or restructure just to survive are also your victims.
Your globalised economy means the globalisation of unemployment and it will ensure that society as a whole goes backwards.
Socialist or Liberal governments and the European Commission, also under the sway of the dogma of globalisation, are jointly responsible for this situation.
They have constantly deceived and manipulated the workers of Europe.
They are capitulating at the height of the campaign, before the negotiations of the Millennium Round even open, refusing to fight effectively against social dumping, refusing to force through a necessary social clause and abandoning the principle of Community preference.
So, in favouring the free circulation of capital throughout the world, in seeking to liberalise investments even further, European governments are transforming Anglo-Saxon pension funds into the real masters of the economic and financial markets.
Tomorrow, these stateless multinationals will be the uncontrolled masters of the economy, but also of the new world order that you pray for.
The only possible policy for the full employment of the European workforce is to win back the internal market, to protect it against unfair competition, to reject this criminal and antisocial globalisation, and to re-establish the necessary rule of Community preference.
In short, it is to produce European, in Europe, with Europeans.
Thank you very much, Mr Hughes.
I will be very happy to look into what has happened and we will inform you accordingly.
Mr President, we will be very interested in the conclusions of the enquiry that you are going to lead because we are also signatories to this resolution and we made the same observations.
What we have all been saying for a while is that, in fact, the goal being pursued by a growing number of companies who are restructuring is to provide their shareholders with more and more guarantees, and to ensure ever greater profitability for their financial investments.
That is why the management of the Michelin Group simultaneously announced the axing of 7,500 jobs and fantastic profits.
That is why, as you pointed out, announcements of redundancy plans are always followed by a rise in the share prices of the companies concerned.
This violent expression of scorn for employees and their lives fundamentally contradicts our stated objectives in favour of employment, social and regional cohesion, and the European Social Model.
What do you expect the employees who are being made redundant from the Wolbert-Michelin factory at Soissons to think of these objectives and our determination to take them forward? The social desperation that these decisions generate is inevitably transformed into political desperation and this political desperation is a permanent threat to democracy.
That is why the European Union must make its actions match its words and must uphold its commitments to employment and to the right to live in dignity.
How can it do so now, at the moment, when it is confronted with the brutal, unilateral decisions of huge companies? First of all, the European Union must unequivocally condemn this type of decision and support the employees concerned.
No, Mr Pronk, huge companies do not have the authority of divine right for their decisions.
It is the responsibility of politicians to intervene and to say what they think of these decisions.
The European Union must also acknowledge the end of a magical formula that all the European Institutions keep trotting out, according to which growth plus competition would necessarily equal employment and development.
This is wrong and has been proved to be so!
We will have to draw conclusions from such a statement, in order to bring ourselves to reconsider the foundations of our European employment strategy and of our economic guidelines.
We must provide for increasing the power of employees and their representatives in order to strengthen their right to contest the basis for the economic reasons behind their redundancy, which we shall call the Wolbert-Michelin amendment and which we shall submit for your vote tomorrow.
It is not acceptable for the definition and the management of the general interest to be hijacked by the economic decision-makers.
Neither by bowing down to shareholders nor by injecting authoritarian nationalist populism...
(The President cut the speaker off)
I share many of your views, but my obligation is to obey the Rules of Procedure and the timetable.
You will understand this.
Even those of us on the left must obey the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, I must use this debate to protest at the scandalous decision by Michelin to go ahead with 7,500 redundancies when it is experiencing increased profits.
I am of course equally disgusted by the plans for lay-offs by Renault-Nissan, by Alsthom, by Rhône-Poulenc, Hoechst Marion Roussel and many other companies.
What they have in common is the fact that they are all making considerable profits and are nevertheless sacking workers, or making them redundant, the consequences of which are almost as serious, for every job axed means one more unemployed person.
Companies behaving in this way, their customers and their major shareholders are the people mainly responsible for the seriousness of unemployment and for the physical, and even moral poverty that this creates.
We think that redundancies by all companies who are making profits should be prohibited, subject to requisition.
Favouring the enrichment of a handful of major shareholders whilst forcing tens of thousands of men and women into unemployment and into poverty is a criminal attitude, and I choose my words carefully.
Company profits are the result of the work of all its employees; those profits should be used to maintain existing jobs as a matter of priority, and to create new ones, by sharing out the work without reducing wages.
Mr President, we are all aware that redundancies involve human tragedies, and it is perhaps a good thing that the European governments, which draw their inspiration from the European social model, are taking greater responsibility for these.
However, today' s debate has become absurd, given that we are talking about restructuring firms and what should be acceptable profits and what should not, in the great liberal Europe.
I think that, if many of the opinions we have heard today were to prevail, we would be building a Europe of poverty and unemployment and not a Europe of employment and wealth. What is the point in saying that Michelin' s profits have increased by 17%, without saying whether that is more or less than the profits of Bridgestone, Goodyear or other competitors, and without saying that Michelin is a company with a turnover of 106 dollars per employee, as compared to Goodyear' s 141 dollars per employee.
Then there is Renault, in which if I am not mistaken, the French Government is a major shareholder, that went to Japan, bought a company there - Nissan - but to keep it open found itself forced to make 21,000 workers redundant, but as they are Japanese, do we really care? I think that, instead, we should bring into question the European social model which is the social model of the Europe of unemployment and taxes, the Europe where trade unions have enormous power, stifle economic growth and prevent millions of unemployed Italians, French and Germans and millions of immigrants finding work, in order to protect situations which are often nothing more than situations of privilege.
Yesterday, Parliament asked President Duisenberg to subordinate monetary policy to the need for growth in a Europe which does not know how to reform itself, how to reform its economies or to liberalise the markets, especially the job market.
If this is the Europe we are building, we are hypocrites because we are building a Europe where unemployment will reign and companies will close.
But when there are no more firms, maybe there will not even be any tears left to shed.
Mr President, the European Union must have a competitive industry, one that creates wealth and thus jobs.
This means that within the Union, we must arrive at a real coordination of fiscal policies and at a definition of comparable social norms for everyone, so that we no longer experience the distortions of competition that are still too marked today.
This also means that we must prepare our companies to support globalisation and to adapt to it.
We might wish that this globalisation did not exist, but it does.
It is up to us to manage it in such a way that its negative aspects can be avoided.
In this context, we find ourselves facing the difficult problem of relocation. The problem is difficult because obviously it eliminates jobs in Europe, difficult because the people vilifying relocations today are the same people who are, at the same time, demanding that Europe should multiply its investment in developing countries and should make it as easy as possible for products made in those countries to enter European Union territory.
As far as the Michelin affair is concerned, since everyone is talking about it, despite our all saying that it is not the subject under discussion, on the day the Michelin redundancies were announced, Pirelli was doing the same thing, on just the same scale, but nobody is talking about that.
Michelin today consists of 82 production plants, 48 of which are in Europe.
I would be very interested to know how many car manufacturers, including those in public ownership, or tyre manufacturers, including those in semi-public ownership, still have such a major presence in Europe today and have not already quietly relocated, sometimes with the assistance of governments, including left-wing governments.
Today, we should tell it like it is.
Michelin has, it is true, reduced the number of its jobs by 25,000 in twenty years but, I would like to remind some people, these are 25,000 job losses due to levels of productivity which are comparable in all sectors of industry, and particularly in the car and tyre industries. These are 25,000 job losses, only 186 of which have been redundancies.
So for goodness' sake, let us stop trying to find scapegoats for the way industry or restructuring is evolving.
People are telling us to just look at the profits being made on the stock markets.
Well, excuse me. Do look at the profits made on the stock market, but look at all the profits for all businesses for last year or the last two years, and let me remind Mr Wurtz that he, or rather his friends, are members of a government which does nothing to stop profits being made on the stock market.
Mr President, we are here once again - this is not the first time, unfortunately - to discuss a very serious problem: the redundancies of thousands of workers due to the unilateral choices of a firm.
And the Michelin case, which I do not want to talk about in detail because other speakers have already done so, gives us the opportunity for this debate.
In many Member States - as recent history reminds us - there have been cases of restructuring: indeed, history is full of cases of restructuring, relocations and firm closures - Mr Wurtz reminded us of some - which not only reduce employment, but jeopardise the economic and social cohesion of affected areas, create a climate of social insecurity among workers and create a climate which certainly does not encourage development and growth.
The requirement for greater competitiveness of firms, especially in the era of globalisation of the economy must, however, be able to combine the necessary flexibility within companies with the security of workers.
These processes, these phenomena which are becoming increasingly more frequent, must be regulated using the instruments available and these must be improved.
Commissioner Diamantopoulou, whom I would like to thank for the clarity of her statement, spoke of intelligent restructuring.
The existing instruments for prevention and management of the phenomena must be used both at national and European level, because job losses, Mr Pronk, concern Europe. They do not only concern individual countries, but all of us.
In particular, the case we are discussing today should give the Commission the chance to pledge today, before the European Parliament, that it will make an assessment, a revision of the Directive on redundancies and the closure of companies to make it more effective in terms of protecting jobs.
Moreover, we need to speed up the re-examination of the Works Council Directive, strengthening information processes and consultation in particular but, I would add, we must also include in that directive the fundamental issue of sanctions. Rules must be obeyed, and those who do not obey them must pay the price.
Mr President, I am pleased that this debate is taking place here today because the Parliament must be permanently attentive to the citizen' s needs and be the pioneer in the construction of Europe and, in order to fulfil this double objective, the development of the European social dimension seems fundamental.
The resolution which were are now debating is a mixture of styles, of individual contributions, whose result is an extraordinarily unequal combination.
But some of the reflections, especially those expressed by Mr Pronk, seem to me to be particularly important.
But, allow me to say that those of us who believe that only competitive companies can create employment, and that only by creating employment can the European social model be preserved, have emerged the winners. And those who believe, by means of public intervention, in a type of arbitrary inventiveness, have emerged the losers.
But, having said that, those of us who believe in the market and belong to this side of the Hemicycle, far from the autarchic temptations of some parts of this Assembly, believe that the principle of social compensation must counter-balance the principle of a functioning market.
Therefore, I am especially pleased that our resolution opts for social dialogue as a method for resolving conflicts.
I am also pleased that it opts to implement the Social Charter, the Social Protocol, by means of specific measures.
I am also glad that it refers to the need to review this fiscal set-up, which tempts companies to relocate to areas where there is a more favourable tax system.
And finally, I am happy that employment should be a fundamental principle, a principle which underpins all policies, especially with regard to public aid.
However, to those on the other side of the House, I would say that those people who tried to throw the textile machines into the rivers of Manchester, in order to save jobs, were wrong because we live in an era which is infinitely better than the one which they wanted to preserve.
Mr President, I believe that the gentleman who spoke before me is right about one point.
If it were in fact the case that the market could regulate itself, then we should not today be speaking about Michelin.
It is also a spectacular mistake, Mr Pronk, to believe that this is not an issue for this House.
We spoke here a number of years ago about Renault, too, and also quite rightly.
7,500 jobs are being destroyed, and that is an especially negative record for a company to set here.
Secondly, we must talk about this matter here because employees in Europe expect us, the European Union, to direct the process of globalisation and to regulate necessary modernisation and companies' adjustments to the market in intelligent ways, that is to say in ways which take the social contract into account.
The European Union has a number of directives for doing this which, however, are being applied all too cautiously here.
It seems to me to be symptomatic of Michelin' s policy as a company that it is only at the end of this year that it has established a European Works Committee.
There will be further economic changes in the EU but, for us Social Democrats, it should go without saying that employees and their unions are to be included in this process, that they are to be informed of developments in good time and that their proposals are to be examined seriously.
If, Commissioner, you will be sharpening the tools available to the EU, we shall most certainly support you and accompany you in the process.
I should like to express my thanks to those of Michelin' s employees who are here today.
I should also like to have seen that kind of commitment from the owners.
A rise in profits for the first six months of over 17% is really excellent, but these profits ought to be invested by the companies in new products, new environmentally friendly production methods and, above all, in employee training too.
That would be a contribution to social peace, and the share markets would then have every good reason to see an increase in value.
Mr President, with regard to the restructuring of companies we have been referring to, I would emphasise the statement made in the four Groups' joint motion for a resolution which has been mentioned.
Global players in Europe have no choice other than to lay themselves open to competition in world markets.
In the opinion of the Group of the European People' s Party, instances of rejection on social grounds are simply to be avoided.
None of this is a completely new phenomenon.
When I first entered Parliament ten years ago, I was approached by works committees from a cable fibre factory in my constituency.
Their company had just been taken over by a large group in France.
The employees were hoping first of all to have more secure jobs now.
More by chance than by anything else, they learned that the distant head office of the French concern wanted to close the factory it had taken over within three months.
It is when sore points like this come up that the Directive on European Works Councils comes in. This has been predominantly successful.
We should also let it be known here, as a success story and positive message, that 600 new European Works Councils have been created in the last couple of years.
It is still often the case, though, that not enough information is provided soon enough.
An amendment to the Directive would definitely be appropriate here, Commissioner.
Finally, we must also insist that all companies and groups fulfil their now legally accepted duties to offer information and consultation and that there must be consequences if they do not do so.
I close with the observation by the Christian Democrat Minister of Labour under whose chairmanship the Directive on European Works Councils was adopted.
Lack of information results in uncertainty, mistrust and, in the end, only anxiety.
Information and consultation mean transparency, which creates trust and does away with losses due to friction in European companies.
Employers and employees are then winners in equal parts.
Mr President, Commissioner, by this stage of the debate many things have been said. This allows us to take up some of the ideas again by way of a conclusion.
This resolution on restructuring in industry has arisen today because one company, Michelin, decided to make 7,500 people redundant.
Of course the situation is tragic, but it is interesting to note today that we are able to talk about restructuring in industry not from a purely economic point of view, but raising the human issues that it involves.
I think that it is quite right to link this resolution to Michelin' s situation.
To axe 7,500 jobs today, when neither a company' s financial or industrial output allow us to attribute these redundancies to some kind of crisis, is quite unacceptable from the legal point of view alone.
From the human point of view, this situation is not only unacceptable; it is indecent and immoral.
The fact that a simple PR exercise allows a company' s share value to rise by 12% whilst no extra value has been created, no extra tyre has been manufactured or sold, giving the impression that huge sums of money could simply appear spontaneously as a result of the financial markets alone, shows utter contempt for human labour.
While shareholders are selling their stock and making a gain, men and women are finding out that they will be the only ones to suffer from the situation.
This is the heavy price that European employees must pay so that a few investors can maximise their return.
In the measures that have been proposed, Commissioner, you talked about social costs and the way we should take them into account in the long term.
It is obviously essential, as a matter of urgency, that this measure is complemented by strengthening the directives on collective redundancies and European Company statutes.
It is also essential to envisage new forms of social redistribution, financed by the shareholders of prosperous companies that make employees redundant with the sole aim of increasing the price of their shares.
Finally we are waiting for an explanation which will enable us to find out if we will be able to vote on this compromise resolution, omitting the word Michelin.
In any case, this debate has clearly shown the political division in this House which does not disappear even in supposedly "compromise" resolutions.
Mr President, first of all I would like to express my real and genuine sympathy to all those who lose their jobs through no fault of their own as a result of corporate restructuring.
I say that with real feeling and authority because I have been in that position myself.
I have been unemployed and it is no fun.
But the best way to promote job security is for companies to be successful.
The best way for companies to be successful is for them to be competitive in the global market.
To disagree with some people opposite, it may not look good in the newspapers but the best time - indeed the only time - to make restructuring plans is when you are strong.
If you wait until you are weak, you have to take much greater action and lay off more people.
That is very much a fact of life.
Companies clearly have many responsibilities but their primary responsibility is to survive as an employer and to take the necessary steps in order to do that - and I do not believe it is for us in this House to lecture them on the best way to do it or to comment upon whether that restructuring is "intelligent" or not.
Rather it is for us and indeed for governments to see what we can do to help, as far as is possible, avoid the problem in the first place.
That means looking to see where we can reduce the burden of unnecessary regulation which adds costs to business and to see how far we can reduce the non-wage costs on business which, in turn, encourage companies to shed labour as the best way of saving large sums of money.
That is the real issue which we should be debating today.
Finally I would say that all too often government intervention can get in the way and make companies less competitive.
We must make sure for the credibility of this House that we do not fall into the same trap.
Mr President, this dispute we are witnessing here about which direction to take really is an interesting one.
The European company landscape is changing at a pace never before seen, but the pattern which, in our view, these changes follow is always the same.
Through restructuring and mergers, new giant companies come into being in their respective branches of industry, and their record on jobs - if it is the big companies you look at - is practically never good.
In the German banking industry alone, more than 100,000 jobs are being lost at present.
Millions of employees in Europe rightly fear for their jobs and, at the same time, the company reorganisations and restructurings are accompanied by rising share prices, at least in the short term.
The fact is very often ignored that only a very few people benefit from this new distribution of profits, for it is a very modest minority who hold any shares at all.
And, in contrast to what you said, Commissioner, Michelin is not in fact, heaven knows, an isolated case.
Other speakers have in fact already made this very clear.
Those who carry out the restructuring always argue that they had no other choice. You just have to adapt now; no-one can avoid the growing concentrations of businesses.
The result, however, is a very dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy and, in more and more branches of industry, we are heading for dangerous market concentrations.
I am certain that, in the future, we shall still be very much occupied with this question precisely here in the European Parliament.
We therefore need initiatives for a workable European law on cartels.
I should also like briefly to emphasise two further aspects.
In the course of powerful and radical changes, small and medium-sized companies in particular come under a very great deal of pressure.
While large companies are setting their sights on yields of 15% on invested capital, more and more suppliers are seeing their profit margins shrink.
In the end, it is the small and medium-sized companies which, in addition to the employees, are having to bear the largest share of the tax burden.
Those who come out on top from the mergers and restructurings also understand how legally to avoid paying tax.
In this way, Europe is heading for a genuinely dangerous and unbalanced state of affairs.
Our social peace is placed in the greatest jeopardy if scarcely more than a fifth of society benefits from developments and the remainder lag behind.
Any commitment which runs counter to this development ought now therefore to be persistently supported.
We are not concerned here with a law of nature.
We must have the courage to demand also of those who profit from the reorganisations that they should make a relevant contribution to social tasks.
To that extent, it is important that national tax policies should be coordinated in such a way that transfers of capital and of companies on the basis of tax advantages alone should be prevented.
However, that is not enough.
Never since the Second World War has there been such an imbalance in economic and political power.
In this connection, the opportunity for employees, as well as small and medium-sized companies, to organise themselves on a cross-border basis ....
(The President cut the speaker off)
That is why it is crucially important to strengthen the European Works Councils.
I urge the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament to concentrate on these central questions and to put the finishing touches, above all, to the European Works Councils and not only to the issue of offering consultation and information.
Mr President, Commissioner, competitiveness is theme number 1 in Europe.
Every company, every entrepreneur, is of course out principally to create a monopoly.
The entrepreneur himself or company itself would like to have a monopoly.
Suppliers and customers are naturally opposed to this so that, here too, there is pressure in the direction of a market economy.
I believe - and this is what makes it so interesting - that the market economy is there in the first place for the benefit of the consumer and therefore stands in the way of monopolists.
The consumer creates jobs through his decision to purchase products and services which are of use to him.
I believe that this triangle of success we have, with the company on the one side with its owners and shareholders, the employees on the second side and the consumers on the third side just has to be successful.
Everyone must gain some advantage.
We must see to it that there is a win-win situation here and that everyone benefits when products and services are offered which are bought by consumers.
What we need as a priority here is a development initiative.
We must ensure that we see electronic commerce and many other technologies introduced quickly and efficiently.
We need a dramatically strengthened and improved infrastructure.
In very many areas in this regard, we are still limping along behind.
Finally, research too.
We are discussing minimum amounts for research here. Having new and efficient products, however, is precisely what the consumer values.
This is where we also need a new culture at European level. In the European social partnership - and here I should like to support Hans-Peter Martin - we need new emphases which permit a win-win situation arising for all three types of participant: namely for companies, employees and consumers.
In Europe too, then, we shall have the chance to live in prosperity in the future.
If today we consider the enlargement of the European Union, then prosperity is one of the central and most important questions in connection with enlargement as well.
I should like to ask the Commissioner to ensure that, where the European budget too is concerned, we have a situation in which more money is put into budget lines which promote jobs.
First of all, I would like to comment on the issue raised, i.e. whether we are actually discussing the case of one company in particular and whether or not we are, in fact, justified in doing so.
Quite clearly, the Michelin issue is an issue which is at the heart of the preoccupations of the European Union at this time; that is, the issue of competitiveness on the one hand and social cohesion on the other.
Comparisons have been made with other countries and other continents by way of example.
I believe that we have a lot to learn from the United States of America on the issue of monetary policy and on the issue of the use of high technology and the fast functions at that level. However, there is, of course, a significant difference in Europe: the cultural, social and historical model of Europe is based on stringent social forces and on the balance between society and the economy.
It was said that Europe will have to create an environment for our companies.
However, we should also have a corresponding environment for our citizens and the two must be created at the same time.
It is clear from the extremely productive debate which has ensued that this preoccupation applies to both sides.
The means may differ but it is clear that both sides have the same preoccupation.
Can the European Union intervene? I think the answer must be "yes" because the market does not operate according to natural laws, it is not a natural phenomenon.
It calls for intervention by the political powers.
And we, the European Parliament and the Commission, form part of the political powers of Europe.
At the European Union level, therefore, there should be three levels of intervention.
The first level is in the area of legislation and institutional intervention.
There have already been proposals from the European Parliament on the two directives you mentioned, the Directive on the European Works Council and the Directive on collective redundancies.
The initial assessment of these two directives shows that they work well, but at present amendments tabled by Parliament are being processed and in January 2000 we will be able to begin discussions on these two directives.
The second directive, concerning information and consultation of workers, has, as you are aware, already been tabled for discussion at the Council of Ministers.
I believe that it would not be wise at this stage, since we are working on promoting the directive, to begin amending it.
It is, however, certain that this will be one of the areas in which the European Parliament will be playing a pivotal role.
Again in the area of institutional and legislative intervention, interesting proposals have been made to shift the tax burden away from labour costs, away from the taxation of workers, and on to environmental factors and the directives on employment have provided an initial incentive to move in this direction.
I consider that at this level, we can, within a general framework of either broad economic guidelines or broad employment guidelines, learn a lot at national level, i.e. we could have a form of benchmarking, an exchange of information and successful models already in place at national levels to address this major problem of restructuring which faces us on all levels.
Banking was mentioned, and this is one of the problems which will face us, but of course, Europe has vast experience and a history of restructuring, beginning with the textile factories and shipyards, through to the industries of today.
The second level is that of institutional operations.
I would like to refer here to social dialogue, an issue which a number of MEPs have already raised.
Please allow me to refer to an extract from the recent document by UNICE, the Union of Industrial and Employers' Confederations of Europe.
The document concerns the issue of liberating the workforce of Europe and includes the opinions of companies on European social policy beyond 2000.
It states that European companies regard themselves as an integral part of society which means that they operate in a socially responsible way. It mentions that European companies view profit as their main goal, but not their sole reason for existing and they prefer to take a long-term approach to strategic decisions and investments.
In addition, they are prepared to accept their responsibilities and one of the main challenges which they face is the complexity of the demands made on them by the various social factors (workers, consumers, capital investors, public authorities, environmentalists and other interest groups).
Therefore, when one side of industry - the side faced with global competition and which, we all agree, should be supported and protected since we have a strong interest in European companies being able to compete at a global level - begins to voice its concerns over society and maintaining social equilibrium, we have a very strong argument for developing and supporting social dialogue.
Please allow me to make one political remark: these positions are based neither on charitable perceptions nor on socialist ideas.
They are based on the completely realistic assessment that, without social cohesion in Europe, which is an area of powerful social forces, social conflict will arise. In turn, this social conflict will have negative repercussions on economic stability, i.e. the environment which competition and companies need in order to develop.
Enhancing social dialogue is, in my view, of fundamental importance.
Yesterday saw the beginning of the technical element of the first form of macroeconomic dialogue in Europe.
The political element of this dialogue will begin on 8 November and for the first time social partners expressing their social concerns on the issue of employment, banks outlining their monetary policy, and the Member States, which are the political forces in Europe, will sit at the same table.
Supporting and promoting social dialogue is not only essential but it is also a prerequisite on a more microeconomic level for every form of restructuring within firms.
This brings me onto my third issue: actions and policies.
At a European level, we have, and for the first time this is being enforced, a European Employment strategy, with 22 directives which have been incorporated into the Member States' employment plans. As I mentioned earlier, substantial funding is also available.
These broad guidelines and the funding of many of these policies include a lot of the proposals we have heard here, such as special tax relief for workers and for small and medium-sized businesses, financial assistance for the education or further education of those workers facing either redundancy or restructuring, social packages to support the social network in cases of major restructuring, continuing training and providing workers with new skills and qualifications so that they can respond to restructuring.
Naturally, at a time when changes are taking place at such alarming rates, enough can never be done.
Plans drawn up yesterday will never suffice for today.
I would like to mention the issue of state aid and how we can combine state aid with company profits.
History shows us that companies cannot operate under laws which prescribe employee numbers or profit margins.
But the political forces can clearly intervene in how those profits are invested and in how much is invested in high technology, the environment or in manpower in ways which were mentioned earlier.
Such guidelines can be imposed and can be adhered to.
Therefore, at a time of such rapid change, there will have to be scope for modification and reorientation of these guidelines on a daily basis.
There has already been exceptional cooperation and exchanges of views at this level within Europe.
I would like to assure you that constant communication between the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Works Councils will steadily pilot the Commission towards further and, as far as possible, more flexible and fundamental intervention in this area.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your intervention and your closing words concerning dialogue with the Parliament.
I have received six motions for resolutions, tabled pursuant to Rule 37(2), to conclude the present statement.
I have taken a careful note of Mr Hughes' intervention and we will ascertain whether any paragraphs have disappeared from the motion for a resolution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Nuclear testing
The next item is the statements by the Commission and the Council on the failure by the US Senate to ratify the treaty imposing a wholesale ban on nuclear testing.
Mr Sasi has the floor on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, the European Union has pushed for the speediest possible implementation of the Test Ban Treaty.
All EU countries, whose ratification is needed to bring the treaty into force, have complied - including France and Great Britain, which have nuclear weapons.
The EU believes that the CTBT is an important step in the promotion of non-proliferation and the decommissioning of weapons, and its entry into force will be to the benefit of all countries.
This being the case, the European Union deplores the decision taken on 13 October in the American Senate not to ratify the Test Ban Treaty.
The decision reflects badly on the multilateral attempts that have been made to promote non-proliferation and decommissioning.
The disappointment felt as a result of the decision was expressed, while it was still fresh in everybody' s mind, in the statement presented by the country to hold the presidency of the European Union on 13 October.
There was also a resolution on the banning of nuclear testing passed at the Tampere Summit.
We have also emphasised European Union support for the Test Ban Treaty in political dialogue between the EU and the United States.
In assessing the significance of what has happened, we should point out that President Clinton still assures us that he is doing his best to have the United States ratify the Treaty as soon as possible.
President Clinton has stated that the United States will, in the future, refrain from carrying out nuclear test explosions.
International credibility regarding the nuclear test ban is strong.
There is a long history of trying to ban nuclear testing, stretching back to the 1950s.
As a result of hard negotiations, a general session of the United Nations approved the Test Ban Treaty in September 1996.
155 countries have now signed the treaty and 51 have ratified it.
Of the 44 countries that use nuclear technology, and whose ratification is, under Article XIV of the treaty, a condition of the entry into force of the Test Ban Treaty, in all 26 have ratified it.
A strong international reaction to the nuclear test explosions carried out by India and Pakistan last year showed that nuclear testing - no matter who is responsible - will meet with clear global condemnation.
In July 1999 the European Union adopted a common position, whose purpose it was to strengthen EU cooperation in international efforts to bring the CTBT into force.
On the basis of the common position, the EU actively participated in the conference held this year on 6 - 8 October in Vienna according to Article XIV of the treaty.
In addition, the EU has been involved in bilateral discussions to promote the entry into force of the treaty with all those countries that have not yet signed or ratified it, but whose ratification is vital for the treaty to come into force.
These efforts to promote the treaty' s entry into force must continue, with the relevant objectives very much in mind.
The EU is appealing to all countries, and especially those, and this includes the United States, whose ratification is a condition of the treaty coming into force, to become associated with the treaty as soon as possible.
The European Union considers the Non-Proliferation Treaty to be a major tool of international security that offers a set of global frameworks for the promotion of both non-proliferation and the decommissioning of weapons.
The Test Ban Treaty supports this system of non-proliferation.
The European Union is preparing to play a constructive role in the study conference with regard to the Non-Proliferation Treaty to be held in April - May of the year 2000.
The Test Ban Treaty is unique in nature. It prevents all nuclear tests in whatever place, including so-called peaceful nuclear explosions, which were the subject of a heated theoretical debate when the Non-Proliferation Treaty came into being in the 1960s.
Compliance with the Test Ban Treaty will be monitored by means of a comprehensive system of verification, whose main element is a worldwide monitoring system consisting of 321 technical survey stations.
The verification system also contains legal provisions that enables on-the-spot checks to be carried out when there is reason to suspect that there has been a breach of the treaty.
The verification system is effective and makes it possible to check that the treaty is being complied with to a highly reliable degree.
The system will support the maintenance of relationships built on trust among the parties to the treaty.
Members of the European Parliament, the European Union will play an active part in the preparatory work being done in Vienna to create an organisation for the implementation of the treaty and a verification system for it.
The Union supports the efforts on the part of the CTBTO Preparations Commission to establish a verification system in good time and with the degree of efficiency the treaty requires.
The Commission shares the disappointment that has just been expressed by the presidency of the Council that the United States Senate rejected ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
The Treaty, as honourable Members will know, is the result of decades of hard work, decades of determined work to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, starting with the Non-Proliferation Treaty in the late 1960s.
It constitutes a key element in the international strategy to control, reduce and ultimately to eliminate the risk of nuclear conflict.
Its ratification by the present nuclear powers is essential for our efforts to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other countries.
The European Union, as the presidency has pointed out, has been and remains fully committed to these objectives.
We have worked hard for the earliest possible entry into force of the Treaty.
All 15 Member States, bar one, have already ratified the Treaty and work is under way in the 15th state to complete the procedures there.
I know that the American administration shares our objectives.
President Clinton and his team worked hard to obtain Congressional approval for ratification of the Treaty.
They understood, as well as we do, how important it is for us to take the lead together in order to obtain the 44 ratifications which are necessary for the entry into force of the Treaty.
It is therefore all the more regrettable that the Senate voted against ratification.
They seem to have done so for internal American reasons as much as on the basis of any assessment of the value of this Treaty for United States' and international security.
I believe - and this is reflected in the motion put before us today - that they made a very grave mistake.
In refusing to give their agreement to the Treaty they offer encouragement to the very states which we wanted to draw into the commitments set out in the Treaty and whose ratification is a condition for its entry into force.
What message has been sent to Russia and China?
How will this vote help to persuade countries like India and Pakistan to ratify the Treaty? This regrettable vote may even offer encouragement to other countries in their nuclear aspirations and make them cross the threshold by testing their own nuclear devices.
Any such nuclear tests at this stage might undo all the work which has gone into the Treaty.
They would undermine international support and confidence in the multilateral arms control efforts.
More seriously, they might trigger reciprocal actions in other countries through testing or through the strengthening of their nuclear programmes.
The Senate refusal to agree to ratify the Treaty is a setback but it is not the end of the road.
We must now, more than ever, show our commitment to the Treaty and redouble our efforts to promote its early entry into force.
This is essential in order to maintain the international momentum in favour of continued arms limitation and a stronger global non-proliferation regime.
The Commission has consistently supported an ambitious European Union policy on non-proliferation issues.
Wherever possible, we have complemented CFSP initiatives in this area with action falling within Community competence.
Under the Euratom Treaty, for example, we have contributed to the development and strengthening of an efficient nuclear safeguard system in Europe, including the Russian Federation.
Activities in this field are supported by financial allocations under the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
We are currently considering extending these activities to other areas such as safeguards on chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction.
The common strategy on Russia also contains specific provisions on non-proliferation.
In this context we are examining the scope of cooperation with the United States on the expanded threat reduction initiative.
Accession to the Treaty is also a crucial element in our policy towards South Asia, as the presidency made clear.
Following the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan the Commission has participated in the international taskforce set up to develop confidence and security-building measures and to engage these countries in constructive discussions on regional non-proliferation and arms control.
Over the years remarkable progress has been made in international arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament, through both bilateral and multilateral efforts.
In the multilateral context the ratification of the Treaty and the review of the non-proliferation treaty next year will be crucial to reconfirming earlier commitments and building a platform for further progress.
To achieve this we need to work with the United States and other leading partners.
The leading role played by the United States has been essential in developing the global non-proliferation regime.
I hope we can encourage our American friends to take up that role again.
We should do everything we can to convince Congress of the importance of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for ourselves, for the United States and for the international non-proliferation efforts.
I can assure you that the Commission will continue to bring its contribution to this objective.
I also believe that all honourable Members have a particular role to play in this respect.
I would hope that you would use every opportunity to explain and underline to your colleagues in the Senate why they should reconsider their vote on the Treaty and how a renewed commitment to international non-proliferation and arms control will promote American security interests, as well as broader international security and stability.
In that marvellous newspaper the International Herald Tribune, there is today a shortened version of a speech given the other day to the Council on Foreign Relations by the President' s national security adviser Sandy Berger.
American opponents of treaties like the one we are debating today neglected the fact, he pointed out, that the United States has already stopped testing and that the Treaty helped freeze the global development of nuclear weapons when America enjoys an enormous strategic advantage.
I hope that, to borrow an unattractively appropriate phrase, the fall-out from this lamentable political decision can be contained.
I know that is what the American administration wants.
It is what we all want.
American senators and congressmen should face up to the responsibilities of their country' s global position.
It places a high premium on bi-partisanship in foreign policy in general and in nuclear policy in particular.
Failure to recognise that condemns us all to live in a much less safe world.
Mr President, Mr Sasi, Commissioner, you have just reminded us, in great detail, of the importance of this Treaty Ban, the basic aim of which is to strengthen the measures of the non-proliferation treaty and, in conjunction with this, aims to keep the development of nuclear weapons under control, thereby limiting the proliferation of these weapons and of the technology necessary for developing them.
As you pointed out, the treaty was established three years ago and was signed straight away by the five nuclear powers which are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
But, in order for it to come into force, it must be ratified by forty-four specifically designated States amongst which there are the states that actually have nuclear capability, and the nuclear powers, but also those States known as "threshold States" , which are States that, because they have nuclear reactors in the civilian sector, are capable of developing military technology.
On 13 October, this treaty was defeated in the American Senate, which rejected it by 51 votes to 48 and one abstention.
This shows that the margin was very narrow and that it may therefore be useful - and it certainly will be useful - for our Parliament to make its voice heard after those of the Heads of government who, in Tampere, lamented the attitude of the American Senate, pointing out that it represented a timely signal to those who might be tempted to equip themselves with nuclear weapons.
Among the arguments put forward in the United States, some people thought that it was not yet time to stop nuclear testing at a time when North Korea is making efforts to develop its own weapons, and as China is continuing to build up its arsenal.
Others questioned the validity of simulation and felt that in order to ensure the long-term credibility of nuclear deterrence, they should not prohibit themselves going ahead with testing.
Finally, others questioned the application of this treaty which, it must be admitted, will be difficult to control even when the 381 monitoring stations that the Representative of the Council told us about have actually been deployed.
There is no guarantee in the short term that they have the necessary means to detect weak nuclear explosions in an environment which does not always make it possible to tell them apart from earthquakes.
All of that is of little consequence, however, in terms of the geopolitical challenge that confront us, consisting of monitoring as efficiently as possible the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.
I am pleased that Commissioner Patten mentioned the fact that the threat does not come from nuclear weapons alone.
Having dedicated my life to the use of weapons, I know that force is in itself neutral, and that it is the way it is used that can be good or bad.
The advent of nuclear weapons has at least had the merit of forcing political leaders to take stock of the risks that their jobs may entail.
It was probably the balance of terror throughout the forty years of the cold war which allowed us to avoid a third world war.
The strategy of deterrence may therefore have its merits.
If we do not manage to ban the proliferation of these weapons, we run the risk that they will end up falling into irresponsible hands.
This is why, aware of this risk, I am approving the resolution which will be submitted tomorrow for Parliament' s approval.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, my group had requested the inclusion of this point in the agenda.
Allow me first of all to welcome the fact that there is virtual unanimity between the Council, the Commission and, hopefully, the Parliament, concerning such a crucial issue at a time when we have to take decisive steps in the development of the common foreign and security policy.
Since we are always so self-critical, I believe that we should welcome this step.
And, having said this, I believe that rather than debating amongst ourselves, what we have to do is address the American Senate, and especially its Republican majority, because this is not a debate against the United States, but a debate in which we specifically support President Clinton.
What we profoundly criticise is that attitude of the Republican majority in the Senate which corresponds more to the former doctrine of the "clear destiny" of the United States, much more than to the moral, as well as military, leadership which they currently hold.
I must confess - with some experience of relations between this Parliament and the Congress of the United States - that in the Congress of the United States we have many friends and connections but that we have at no time been able to timetable a positive debate with Senator Helms, who does not even seem to have an American passport and who considers, not only with regard to this issue but also with regard to many others, that it is his job to impose his laws on the world.
Think also of the slow and delayed attitude of the United States with regard to UN funding.
We have to point out to our American friends and partners the risk involved in this decision, because it encourages States such as Pakistan and India - with the risk of all-out war - to continue with their nuclear tests.
It disturbs our relations with Russia and creates a situation which encourages those States which are on the threshold of having a nuclear capability to start again.
I believe that this a blatant display of total irresponsibility.
And in the Union, where we have all ratified the Test Ban Treaty, we have political and moral arguments to address to our American partners so that we can remind them that they have a serious responsibility to try to stabilise the world and that they can rely on our help if it is really possible to cooperate with them.
This type of unilateral measure, which ignores the lessons of history, which puts a dramatic halt to the process which has taken many years and still needs to be promoted, is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.
Mr President, I hope that our colleagues in the Delegation for Relations with the United States will remind our American friends of this as soon as possible.
Mr President, I should like to thank Commissioner Chris Patten for his clear and powerful speech, and I should also like to thank Mr Barón Crespo for emphasising that it is not the United States we are criticising today.
Rather, it is a number of specific politicians in the American Senate.
We are friends of the United States.
We admire the United States' contribution to freedom and peace in the world.
We have supported the United States' and NATO' s nuclear strategy, including their attempts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
And that is why, in this situation, we must have a serious word with our friends in the American Senate.
It is completely irresponsible to use ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty as a political football in an internal political dispute between the Republican Congress and the Democratic President.
How are we to be able to press Russia and China and India and Pakistan to ratify the treaty when our most important ally will not do so? We protested - I think Mr Morillon can remember this - when France carried out its nuclear tests in the Pacific.
We protested because this damaged attempts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
We need now to criticise the majority in the American Senate.
We urge that the matter be taken up again.
We hope due note is taken of the fact that the American Senate is today facing a barrage of criticism.
It is well deserved.
I hope that it leads to the issue being taken up again quickly.
Mr President, first of all I should like say on behalf of my group that we are very disappointed at the failure to include in the resolution a call for all European Member States and EU applicant Member States to give their full support for the new agenda coalition resolution which is now on the table of the 55th United Nations General Assembly.
This resolution which, incidentally, is supported by the European Parliament and by my own country, Ireland, sets forth a new way of thinking for effective measures to forward the cause of a nuclear-free world.
The American decision is deplorable and it sends out a very dangerous signal to the rest of the world as regards nuclear disarmament.
The recent case in Scotland which has re-endorsed the International Court' s ruling that nuclear weapons are illegal is also interesting and has to be taken on board.
We also have to look at NATO where there needs to be a review because, as far as I can see, the US has demonstrated quite clearly its contempt for the whole issue of nuclear disarmament at an international level.
These are issues which have to be taken on board.
Finally, the European Union should look again at its policy of supporting NATO and the Western European Union.
Both military organisations are committed to nuclear weapons, weapons that the International Court has deemed illegal.
We are supporting illegal weapons and we really have to look at this.
Mr President, in voting against the Test Ban Treaty the American Senate has been irresponsible, and at the same time has become responsible for putting the world at serious risk of a nuclear holocaust. Senator Jesse James pompously said that the Treaty is dead and buried.
He is known for his fundamentalism, but he did not realise, or perhaps he realised full well, that the signing of the Treaty was the first step towards the concrete realisation of the hope that what the United States did with the nuclear holocausts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would never be repeated.
What a sad prospect for our century!
In fact, in the country which wishes to set itself up as a moral and strategic leader, groups seem to prevail which, for the sake of profits and military and nuclear supremacy, are not afraid of destroying themselves too.
Actually, maybe we should not be surprised.
These groups are the same ones which continue to inflict the death penalty and not pay the amounts due to the United Nations, thereby contributing to the loss of legitimacy and functionality of a structure which was founded on the principle of peoples' right to be free from war.
What the Senate has done is sheer madness and, as Commissioner Patten was saying, it may not even have been done for strategic reasons but because of internal struggles, which makes the matter worse and even more shameful. Above all, as we have seen, this is encouraging other countries which already have nuclear capabilities, not to ratify the Treaty, and inciting even more countries to arm themselves with nuclear weapons.
We have seen that Russia did not waste any time, and the day before yesterday it tested a Steel RS 18 intercontinental ballistic missile.
What the Japanese Minister is doing is also worrying.
And China, which has carried out 45 nuclear tests, had assured us it wanted ratification to be accelerated.
Now all of these things are certainly in doubt.
Several times, Parliament has come out in favour of an end to nuclear weapons.
We must work hard to ensure that those countries which have not yet ratified the Treaty do so as soon as possible.
Here are just a few examples - China, Russia, India and Israel, which is still holding Mr Mordekaivanour as a conscientious objector in prison.
We must also put a stop to Nuclear Sharing, as laid down in articles 1 and 2 of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which states that no State in possession of nuclear weapons can, directly or indirectly, transfer weapons to another country.
On the contrary, we have seen that large quantities of nuclear weapons have been brought to NATO bases, against the wishes of the local population who have chosen to live in nuclear-free areas.
The European Union is certainly active in consolidating the path to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.
I do not want to lose confidence that it is possible to make this world more rational, and that it will stop producing what could destroy it.
I am convinced that peace movements against nuclear weapons, which achieved so much in the seventies and eighties, could take up their activities again in cooperation with us and our Parliament, so that we can truly live in a nuclear-free world.
Mr President, the previous speaker mentioned Senator Jesse James.
My recollection is that he was a gunfighter.
We are actually referring to Senator Jesse Helms who normally shoots from the hip, but not with a gun.
I should like to make three points in this debate.
Firstly, we all agree about stressing the dangers of nuclear proliferation.
The Commission was right in its statement to highlight the need for a lead from the United States in dealing with countries like Russia, China, Pakistan and India, who are waiting for this lead.
They do not have it now.
We will have to try to do what we can to make sure the Senate recognises where reality is.
Therefore we are right today to strongly criticise the action which the US Senate has taken on the comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Secondly, it is interesting that in the previous debate we had on this issue of globalisation we recognised, whether we liked it or not, that economic forces were global, new technologies were global.
And yet here we have a US Senate, a legislature, which wishes to resist the global environment in which it lives.
Perhaps it is because they have fears of difficulties in verification and that the ban could allow countries such as North Korea and Iraq to conduct low-level tests, or perhaps they fear that by permanently halting testing the US could suffer a deterioration of its nuclear stock-pile and deterrent.
The Commissioner says there was an article in the Herald Tribune from Sandy Berger, but was that the real answer to the question of why Republicans in the Senate voted to condemn the Treaty this time round? There is a second article in the Herald Tribune today on exactly the same page where Mr Crystal, who is editor of the Weekly Standard, says: "Republicans will argue that American security cannot be safeguarded by international conventions.
Instead they will ask Americans to face this increasingly dangerous world without illusions.
They will argue that American dominance can be sustained for many decades to come, not by arms control agreements but by augmenting America' s power and therefore its ability to lead."
I contend that we will have, as other speakers have said, the absolute right and need to argue with our Congressional colleagues, particularly those in the Senate.
As a member of the Delegation for relations with the United States, I will be doing precisely that as soon as possible.
Mr President, last week in Greenock, on the western seaboard of this Union, three brave women Angela Zetter, Ellen Moxley and Bodil Ulla Roder stood trial on a charge of criminal damage.
They had acted to impede the Trident missile system based on the Clyde.
Their aim was to prevent what they consider a grave crime under international law.
The judge, Sheriff Gimblett directed the jury to acquit them on the ground that the prosecution had not proved they acted with any criminal intent.
Her judgement can be appealed. If he appeals, the Lord Advocate of Scotland will have to contend in our highest appeal court for the lawfulness of a defence policy based on weapons of mass destruction.
The doctrine of double-effect has no application to weapons which, in their intrinsic design are designed to cause mass destruction.
The courage and judicial independence of Sheriff Gimblett - the courage of Angela Zetter and her companions stand in sharp contrast with the petulant failure of the United States Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Like most of my countrymen I am deeply hostile to the use of Scottish waters for Trident.
I am proud to represent here a party, the Scottish National Party, which opposes this absolutely.
I am glad that the entire Green EFA Group is in solidarity with us on this point.
Unsurprisingly, we deplore the Senate' s action.
Mr President, the recent decision of the US Senate to reject ratification of the comprehensive nuclear test-ban treaty has set an unpleasant precedent for the efforts by the people of the world to create lasting peace and stability.
At a particularly eventful and critical time in the international arena, rejection by the one and only de facto superpower has raised a fundamental issue; that is, the need to reaffirm the political will of the civilised world to monitor effectively the production and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Without a doubt, modern democratic societies enjoy an order of peace, security, growth and prosperity.
However, new forms of political and social instability can indeed threaten the cohesion of our liberal societies, for example as a result of organised terrorism.
Terrorism today is regaining strength at all levels and is keeping up to date with new technological developments in both weaponry and communications systems.
According to available statistics, there may be, at some point in the future, means of mass destruction which will be used to hit specific political targets anywhere in the world.
Such a prospect, Mr President, should remain just a prospect.
Only by introducing concerted, joint preventative measures to monitor the development, availability and use of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction can we prevent this from happening.
We are under no illusion that limiting nuclear weapons and banning their development will, undoubtedly, discourage some states from acquiring any in the future.
We have all seen what has been happening between India and Pakistan.
Very often, differences between warring neighbouring countries or even upsetting a geopolitical equilibrium which one state feels is not in its interest is reason enough for some to resort to the nuclear option.
It is, however, important in all cases that there are clear and binding expressions of political will, both internationally and on the part of those who can guarantee world peace and stability, that the non-proliferation of nuclear arsenals is a high and non-negotiable priority.
We would like to believe, Mr President, that the decision by the American Senate is but a temporary diversion from the moral obligation which the superpower has towards public opinion worldwide, i.e. as a country which should lead the way in its policies to reduce nuclear danger.
Mr President, this Parliament was always squarely behind any endeavours to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world - the French President will have some vivid memories of this- both when it came to the START Treaties and the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, which I am glad to say was extended not so long ago.
Very many states renounce nuclear weapons voluntarily.
The major nuclear powers have scaled down their arsenals by a considerable amount, but that does not mean that we can rest content though.
The START process is faltering and too many countries reserve the right to develop a nuclear capability.
This is increasing tension in some parts of the world.
Some time ago a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was signed.
An important step forwards.
The treaty was and is the expression of an ambition to eradicate nuclear weapons in the long term.
The US was one of the countries that promoted the ban and it is extremely sad that it is precisely the US, or rather the majority in the Senate, that have now declined to ratify the treaty.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty more or less signifies the acceptance of five nuclear powers.
The non-nuclear states went along with it on condition that the nuclear powers would do everything to reduce their nuclear capability.
A ban on nuclear testing was and continues to be an essential part of this.
This commitment is an important feature of the non-proliferation process and constitutes its moral basis to some extent.
That is another reason why the step taken by the American Senate is so serious.
The credibility of the non-proliferation process is thereby impaired.
The Senate points to the fact that countries such as Iraq could pose a nuclear threat in the future.
The US therefore claims that it must continue to be in a position to have an up to date nuclear arsenal at its disposal and that nuclear tests may be necessary to this end.
Quite apart from the significance of this line of argument in political and military terms, it is important to recognise that it is an expression of American provincialism which leaves no room for a reciprocal international approach, in which countries such as Iraq are countered with international embargoes coupled with sanctions.
We believe that the EU will have to be quite forceful in fostering this approach.
Mr President, the American Senate' s refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty or CTBT is a setback for disarmament which I most particularly regret.
This behaviour by the US Senate is in conflict with the final declaration of the CTBT Conference which, as the President-in-Office of the Council has mentioned, sat in Vienna from 6 to 8 October and emphasised the importance of a comprehensive, verifiable ban on nuclear testing, as well as urging all States to sign and ratify this Agreement quickly.
Viewed with political realism, the fact that this has not happened in the USA is not of very great importance because, of 155 countries, only 51 have so far ratified the Treaty and, of 44 key States, only 41 have signed it.
However, this Treaty' s coming into force in the USA would have put regional nuclear powers under pressure to enter into the Treaty - countries such as India and Pakistan, which are in the process of building up their regional balance of terror, or North Korea or Iran, Iraq or Israel.
Not all of these countries are equally unpredictable, but the proliferation of nuclear weapons has, unfortunately, not declined but increased since the existence of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Through the failure of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the United States, fresh impetus will be given to the suspicion on the part of Third World nuclear powers and countries on the threshold of becoming nuclear powers that the Non-Proliferation Treaty primarily serves to maintain the large nations' nuclear status and discriminates against small countries.
The fact that a non-nuclear power like Austria has signed and ratified the Test Ban Treaty is no doubt laudable but will have no direct effects upon regional nuclear powers.
What we want to see and must now strive that much more to achieve is a step-by-step approach to the final goal of nuclear disarmament.
A ban on nuclear testing is part and parcel of this process, to the same extent as the continuation of the START process and the verifiable reduction in fissionable material.
Mr President, I do not need to go over the issues which have been very succinctly summarised by Mr Patten in particular - except I would re-emphasise the danger that this action by the Senate may give the wrong message to the hawks in the Russian Duma who have so far failed to respond to nuclear disarmament initiatives.
I would also mention the impact this has on the Non-Proliferation Treaty which is due to be reviewed next year because that is based on the premise that existing nuclear powers work towards disarmament.
That premise must now be called into question.
And all this despite the fact that the Test Ban Treaty would have frozen forever US nuclear superiority.
That is the stupidity of this.
But this is actually about a broader issue.
This is really about domestic US politics.
If, for example, we look at the history of western policy towards former Yugoslavia, we see the effectiveness of that ebbed and flowed with the ebb and flow of US domestic politics.
I would ask Commissioner Patten, if he is still listening, whether or not he agrees with me that this reinforces the need for an effective European Foreign Security Policy and European Defence Policy where we would be capable of taking autonomous action - not to be independent, but rather to protect our security from being blown around constantly in the winds of US domestic policies and US presidential elections.
Mr President, "The land shall be built with law" - a dictum which should also apply internationally.
When it comes to nuclear weapons, there are two central treaties: on the one hand, the Non-Proliferation Treaty in which the nuclear powers have undertaken to reduce the size of their nuclear arsenals in return for other countries' not acquiring nuclear weapons; and, on the other hand, the Test Ban Treaty which is incredibly important because the purpose of the tests is to develop nuclear weapons.
It is an enormously dangerous signal which the American Senate has sent out to the world community. In this way, the process of nuclear disarmament, which is so extraordinarily important, may be brought to a standstill.
Let me say that it is not the case that nuclear weapons are only dangerous when they are used; instead, their mere existence is a source of danger.
The four-star general, Lee Butler, who was responsible for American strategic nuclear weapons and who has had his finger on the button for many years, is entirely convinced that the very existence of nuclear weapons, which can be triggered not only through political decisions but also through technical mistakes, is a very serious matter.
It is important that the European Union should clearly speak its mind to the United States and demand that the present Treaty in fact be ratified.
Mr President, I am very satisfied that the debate here in Parliament has shown complete unanimity, and it is good that the Commission, Parliament and the Council have very clearly emphasised the support of the European Union for the Test Ban Treaty.
It is also good that our Member States have comprehensively ratified the treaty.
It is unfortunate that the American Senate has given the totally wrong signal in this issue, and especially the wrong signal to those countries that might still feel tempted to carry out nuclear testing.
I assure you that, for our part, this issue will be raised continually in political dialogue between the European Union and the United States.
But as you know, the US administration is not a problem here: we, and especially you, the Members of Parliament, must target your special efforts at the American Senate, for it to support this treaty.
Mr President, I asked Mr Patten a direct question.
I wondered whether he was going to give me an answer?
Was the honourable Member referring to the question whether we recognised that the American action argued very strongly the case for us developing a common foreign and security policy? I totally agree with him on that issue.
But perhaps I could go a stage further and say that what would be really damaging for the European Union would be if, having asserted the case for a common foreign and security policy, having argued the case for a European security and defence initiative, we were then to fall way short of our rhetoric in what we actually did.
Because in those circumstances we would have had the worst possible effect on American public opinion as well as on our own.
It would be the sort of action that would encourage the very unilateralist sentiments in the United States that he and I both deplore.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
I have received five motions for resolutions, tabled pursuant to Rule 35(2) to conclude the present statement.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow morning.
EC-Russia summit in Helsinki
The next item is the statement of the Council on the EU-Russia Summit in Helsinki.
Mr Sasi has asked the presidency to inform the Assembly that he must leave at 6.00 p.m. due to unavoidable commitments.
You have the floor, Mr Sasi.
Mr President, the summit in Helsinki took place against a very serious background.
According to information from Moscow, the Red Cross is now, in anticipation of the winter, preparing new deliveries of aid for people in need throughout the Russian polar region.
At the same time, the World Bank and the UNDP are talking of growing poverty, increasing social maladjustment and record youth unemployment in Russia.
The fact that social destitution constitutes fertile ground for populists and extremists and for ethnic and religious conflicts is something we can see right now with appalling clarity in Chechnya and neighbouring regions where warlords and criminal clans are feathering their nests at the expense of the civilian population.
There seems to be no end to the blood bath in Chechnya.
Close on 200,000 innocent people have been forced to flee, and Dagestan is being ever more destabilised.
It may be that our best intentions where Russia is concerned will in fact run into a lot of difficulties and be threatened by on-going crisis. In other words, "our best laid schemes might go agley" .
No-one within the EU is recommending an independent Chechnya.
We cannot accept terrorist acts, but nor can we accept a military solution to this crisis.
We demand that Russia initiate negotiations with Chechnya' s elected President without unrealistic prior conditions and that the aid which the EU has also promised should actually get through.
Yesterday, Prime Minister Putin got the Duma to approve an appropriation of a billion dollars for the war effort in Chechnya.
My question to the Council and the Commission is this: will you see to it that Russian aggression in Chechnya is not partly financed from international sources?
Mr President, with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the West began from the principle that the Russian Federation would be given unreserved support for her regional unity.
Presumably, the Russian leaders also received some sort of promise regarding this when they were making their contribution to the peaceful dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union.
This has also been the West' s common position in its attitude to events in Chechnya.
The Russian leadership, however, apparently fears it is losing those regions whose population is mainly made up of ethnic and religious minorities.
Military withdrawal from Chechnya was seen as a dangerous precedent.
The events of Dagestan gave cause to presume that the disease is spreading.
The Russian leadership' s worry concerning their country' s regional unity is doubtless well-founded.
They should, however, realise that a country' s sovereignty cannot be secured through military force.
The only realistic way forward is for the minority peoples living in the southern parts of Russia to be satisfied with their circumstances and feel that belonging to the Russian Federation benefits them.
Military might is necessary, but it should be used only to keep terrorism under control.
The West must clearly condemn the excessive use of military force in Chechnya - more clearly than what was the case at the Helsinki Summit meeting.
We must influence the Russian government so that it would try to solve its country' s internal problems both through political means and by promoting economic and social development.
EU and Western credibility and capacity for action generally is unfortunately made weaker in this matter by the recent war waged in Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Sasi has just reconfirmed the unfortunate idea that the European Union is examining the events of Chechnya as a Russian internal matter alone.
However, Russia is in breach of many human rights agreements.
For example, the European Council' s agreements strictly prohibit countries from murdering and bombing their own nationals.
The OSCE agreements also demonstrated clearly that countries are committed to the notion that violations of human rights can never constitute the internal affairs of a state.
In addition, Russia' s centralised power is oppressing a national minority.
We might even suspect that ethnic cleansing is taking place there, with Russia trying to create Chechen-free buffer zones.
Our group' s position is that our wishes and cabinet discussions are not enough: financial aid for Russia should be restricted to humanitarian and environmental aid.
My colleague, Mr Schori, gave an account just now of the latest information on how Russia is, in fact, strengthening its military budget.
Does the European Union want, for example, to be involved, through a pact of partnership and cooperation, in increasing Russian military expenditure, which will be used to punish Chechnya in the future?
Mr President, we must totally condemn the acts of terror that have been targeted at the Russian people, and which have resulted in a large number of civilian victims.
If, and only if, these acts of terror are the work of Chechnya, then they are the wrong way to go about things on the international level. But at the same time we must also condemn Russian action against the civil population of Chechnya and the acts of terror perpetrated against civilians there.
Unfortunately, the European Union and the countries of NATO have given an example of how to act in this connection; in the war in Yugoslavia, they showed how conflicts can be resolved.
They can be resolved in the EU and NATO through violence, precision bombing raids and attacks on independent countries, all of which runs counter to the decisions of the international community.
This way of solving problems is the wrong one.
We should be developing international means of peacefully resolving problems between countries and safeguarding people' s freedom and human rights.
Mr President, Commissioner, there is no doubt that constructive cooperation between Russia and the CIS States, on the one hand, and Europe on the other, is one of the most important prerequisites for peace for the 21st century.
Cooperation of this kind is presently threatened by the war in Chechnya and by other regional conflicts.
I believe, however, that the war in Chechnya should not be seen either as a purely regional conflict or as a purely religious dispute.
That would be to play down the situation and also to underestimate it.
It is also quite clearly a question of geo-strategical manoeuvrings for access to the oil and gas reserves in the Caucasus and around the Caspian Sea.
Here, European, American, Chinese, Russian and other economic interests collide.
A small spark in this area can lead to an explosion.
And, as of today, a new crisis has evolved, namely in Armenia.
A few hours ago, Prime Minister Sarkisjan and President of the Parliament Demirtschjan were murdered.
Mr President, unfortunately, I have to leave for a meeting with the President of the European Parliament, and, for that reason, I would like to say now that, as Mr Patten of the Commission said in his excellent speech, the Union will not accept terrorism, but neither can we in any event accept the disproportionate use of force. In no circumstances is it acceptable.
We wish to achieve a solution through dialogue, and that will require talks between the leaders of Russia and Chechnya.
We will arrange for still closer dialogue between the EU and Russia.
In these discussions we will express our frustration with the Russian action in Chechnya.
As was pointed out in the discussions, it is clear that the continued crisis is increasing pressure to put Union cooperation with Russia on ice.
If the situation does not improve, it will be even harder for the Council to counter this pressure. We have also noted the growth in the proportion of military expenditure in the Russian budget, and we have asked how Russia intends to finance this.
It has been said that, with increased tax revenues and economic growth, there may well be more funds at their disposal. But, as has been claimed, the longer the war goes on, the more negative the attitude will become to any kind of aid to Russia.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, relations with the Russian Federation are very important.
All of us in this House agree about that, and it has been said again and again through a multiplicity of decisions.
Against this background, I naturally welcome the fact that the partnership agreement has now been translated into concrete fact, that there are regular consultations and that every possible question is being discussed and, in that way, positive results even achieved.
I also welcome the fact that the new Secretary-General of the Council, Mr Solana, has declared that, from his point of view, policy towards Russia has first priority.
It is certainly only right that that too should be the case.
So much for the good news.
Now for the bad news.
I do not want to conceal the fact - and I have in fact been involved with policy towards Russia for a number of years now - that there are aspects of it which are hugely frustrating.
In connection with Russia, the same themes appear over and over again on the agenda, whatever the Committee concerned and irrespective of whether it is a question of the fight against crime, economic reforms or sensible legislation in Russia concerning, for example, banking or taxes. And nowhere can any effective progress be seen.
That is frustrating.
It is just as apparent that, now as before, a large part of the flow of aid to Russia (I need only mention the letters IMF or International Monetary Fund) disappears into a bottomless pit.
It is regrettable that we cannot achieve any real progress on this issue.
Just as frustrating is what is happening at the moment in Chechnya and being conveyed to our television screens.
I do not want to say anything more at all just now about the infringements of human rights because quite a lot has already been said about these at the last plenary part-session.
They are alarming, and we must condemn them and address the issue.
But I believe too that what is now being done in Russia to solve the problem is really no solution.
Mr Putin may perhaps have some short-term successes in the area of domestic politics, but he will not in the end solve the problem of minorities within Russia and the problem of a certain necessary decolonisation.
The Russian government would be well advised to look at examples partly to be found in their own country - I mention only Tatarstan - and to try to find other political solutions instead of doing what they are doing at the moment where, in the end, any success will be outweighed by the damage done.
This must be said because one must be honest with partners and also tell them the truth.
Mr President, to follow on seamlessly, may I thank you, Constanze Krehl, for finally being so courageous and for saying these things so clearly.
Throughout Europe, this summit has been a gigantic disappointment. Nor can there really be any beating about the bush as the Presidency has just done.
In fact, the EU has failed downright and has not used the possibilities open to it.
Why are we again accepting a brutal war by Russia against its own people? Why do we simply pass on to the existing agenda?
That is really not what meetings at the highest level are there for. They are not there for the purpose of exchanging civilities.
They are there for calling a spade a spade. I must say that the report by the Finnish Presidency is a mockery of the facts, however they are described.
The truth is that villagers are being bombarded and refugees surrounded, and these are startling infringements of international laws.
This is not just an internal matter for Russia that can simply be brushed aside.
We have the partnership and cooperation agreement, we have the human rights clauses and, therefore, we have the opportunity to threaten economic sanctions and press for the bombardments to cease.
Without this, no international aid can arrive there, Mr Patten; that is no doubt clear.
I therefore expect the Presidency and the Commission to get together now and to develop a strategy in the framework of the Joint Foreign and Security Policy which threatens the use of these economic tools and compels Russia to end this war.
Mr President, by now it is crystal clear that most colleagues in this House share my conviction that the tragedy of Chechnya could have been avoided if the European Union had shown a firm attitude towards the Russian aggression.
Instead, we have witnessed in recent days a most deplorable sight with the Russian Foreign Minister in Madrid and with the Russian Prime Minister in Tampere.
Mr Sasi mentioned the particular significance for the Finnish people of the place where the meeting was held in Helsinki.
Finland is now an independent country.
How can the European Union deny this very right to the Chechen people? Can we stand any longer the imperialistic policy of Russia towards small nations like Chechnya?
A few minutes ago Mr Patten mentioned Kaliningrad and I recall the historical shelter of the people of Kaliningrad, formerly Königsberg.
Can we accept that only these particular countries are well protected?
Mr President, when Russian colonial troops conquered Chechnya in the last century, Finland had already been under Russian control for a long time.
It was with great bravery that the Finnish people found their way to freedom, and I should therefore have expected the Finnish Presidency of the Council to show more understanding for the sufferings of the oppressed Chechen people.
I must say quite clearly that the European Union' s strategy towards Russia has failed.
Not only because the Russian State and economy are in a deeper crisis than they were just a few years ago; and not only because the present Russian leadership is already conducting its second brutal colonial war against Chechnya, which is about oil interests and which we are paying for.
It is also the case that at present a particularly brutal form of election campaign is being developed. We are contributing to this bloody election campaign with summit meetings and with money which is being frittered away in this war.
Without western money, Russia would in fact be unable to finance this war by no later than the end of the month.
It is therefore we who are financing this murder of the civilian population in Chechnya.
We must therefore get down to business here as well, and make it clear to the Russians that we are no longer prepared to do this.
I should like to be quite clear in my opinion that the European Union must change its policy here, that it must come out unambiguously on the side of the Chechen people. For this, the OSCE, the Ceasefire Agreement of 1996 and also Russia' s membership of the Council of Europe can also offer levers, together with our Cooperation Agreement with Russia.
We only have to use these tools and should not just say what the present Russian leadership wants to hear.
Mr Putin, a secret service man who distinguished himself in the last war in Chechnya, has constantly been quoted today.
It has been said - almost emotionally - that he does not plan to declare a state of emergency. Why not?
Because his popularity since the beginning of the war in Chechnya has increased sevenfold. Why then is he not going to be holding any elections?
In fact, he is already conducting an election campaign by means of this war, and only if his popularity were to decline would scenarios like that have to be reconsidered.
That is why we need to change our tune quickly and find clear words in which to express our point of view.
Mr President, it would indeed appear that the Chechen war in Russia is also part of an election campaign, although there may be many other reasons for it.
The Russian action there seems to be taking the form of actual persecution of the civil population. This is to be condemned once and for all, and this will lead to a situation before long in which we have to cease providing aid to Russia.
The cessation of this aid will obviously affect the poorest and those who need help most, it has to be remembered.
I am looking for a way out.
Could we imagine a conference being organised for the whole Caucasus issue, as there are military operations going on there within the territories of at least five states, and not just in Chechnya, about which my colleagues have spoken? The example of Armenia - the murder of the Prime Minister a few hours ago today - is again a deplorable indication of that.
The other possibility is that Russia turns the main weight of its attention from the south to the north, which is much richer in natural resources than the south, with no conflicts or dangers.
This again would be one way of finding a way out of the difficulty.
Is the Commissioner ready to support this sort of northern dimension action?
Mr President, in the Caucasus States the Russians are pursuing the policy which they vehemently rebuked others for pursuing in Kosovo.
Recently, Prime Minister Putin' s 2000 budget was approved but only because he has earmarked an additional billion dollars for the army in Chechnya, which means arms for Chechnya against the vote of the old Communists.
With less than two months to go to the vote, Putin is not going to upset the Russian Parliament, which is against him, with proposals for a political solution instead of a military one.
Putin, moreover, accepts the military aid, but says that it must be distributed by the Russians without international control - an absurd request given all the thieves and enemies around.
Putin is pushing the war on for pre-electoral reasons and not because he fears Islam or any other even more foolish reasons.
However, documents where a rational desire to cooperate with westerners is expressed are useful to him, such as the Helsinki document of 22 October.
We know that a week ago the debate was very bitter, while the resulting document, loaded with clichés singing the praises of cooperation, obviously does not express the feeling of that debate and the Russians are taking advantage of it.
I would also invite the Ministers not to use the term "terrorists" when referring to the Chechen guerrillas.
Indeed, we have had to change our minds all too often, as in the end terrorists have become fighters for national rights.
I think that proper political dealings with Moscow will only be able to start again in January, after the elections, and maybe not even before August.
The debate has been dominated by concerns about the North Caucasus.
But there are, as Mr Paasilinna pointed out, grounds for concern about the situation in the South Caucasus as well.
The honourable Member pointed to the alarming reports of the shooting in the Armenian parliament today and the reported assassination of the Prime Minister.
We await confirmation of that tragic news, but it appears the news is probably accurate.
I saw the Armenian Foreign Minister recently to discuss his concerns about the stability of the Southern Caucasus and, as well, to hear some of the concerns that he was expressing about Chechnya and the Northern Caucasus.
I should like to say on this occasion that the Commission wants to reiterate its support for the Armenian Government in its efforts to find a rapid and peaceful solution to the situation in the Caucasus.
What has happened today is deeply troubling.
This debate has focused on Chechnya, which was the subject of some very straight talking in Helsinki with some Members understandably asserting that the European Union should have done something more than it has done already.
I think it is perhaps an inevitable consequence of a debate like that, that there was not absolute clarity on what it was that we should have done.
I want to reiterate some points that were made earlier by the presidency.
The communiqué, as the honourable Member pointed out, referred to the fact that we had exchanged views on the situation in the Northern Caucasus.
The communiqué did not say any more than that for a very good reason: we could not put in the communiqué that we had agreed on anything regarding the Northern Caucasus.
What the European Union asserted strongly was: first of all, that whatever the concerns about Chechen terrorism - which are understandable - there is a powerful case for proportionality in dealing with that problem; secondly, we argued passionately for de-escalation and political dialogue.
The problem, if you appear to undermine and destroy the authority of any moderate leaders in Chechnya, is this: who do you then talk to?
Who do you then have a political dialogue with? That is a point that we put very strongly to Prime Minister Putin, both during the official discussions and over lunch when Chechnya completely dominated the discussion.
We argued very strongly for the aid assessment mission to be allowed into Ingushetia as rapidly as possible.
I spoke last week to the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance at the UN.
I spoke last week to Mrs Ogata in the UNHCR.
I read, as honourable Members will have done, the reports from the International Committee of the Red Cross on the humanitarian crisis which gets worse day by day in the Northern Caucasus.
The ICRC suggested last week that over one third of the population of Grozny had left already.
So we pressed the Russians to recognise that there must be an early visit by aid organisations to the region so we know what the situation is and how we can best contribute to the humanitarian problem.
I hope that the honourable Member who suggested that we should perhaps consider cutting off any humanitarian assistance will have second thoughts about that.
I have been a development minister providing humanitarian assistance on a national basis to countries torn apart by war.
I have never believed that cutting off assistance to those who are affected by war, who are affected by the political decisions taken by their rulers, was a very good way of responding to crisis.
Let me just add a word about the funding of the military campaign which, in my judgement - not a judgement which appears to be supported by the Russian Prime Minister - is bound to have an effect on the recovery over the last months of the Russian economy.
Some Members suggested that we should cut off financial assistance to the Russian Federation because that assistance might be used to sustain the military campaign.
I should just like to remind Members of Parliament, who are probably more familiar with some of the details of these issues than even I am, that we are not the provider of direct financial assistance to the Russian authorities.
That is not how Tacis works.
We are not an international financial institution providing financial assistance for the reconstruction - we hope - of the Russian economy.
People should be clear that what we are doing is not sustaining Russian military campaigns in Chechnya or anywhere else.
But when you start talking about cutting off programmes of assistance to Russia you have to face up to some of the consequences.
An issue about which I feel passionately is the successful negotiation of the multilateral nuclear environment programme, the attempt to ensure that Western donors can provide technical and financial assistance for the storage and disposal of nuclear waste in north-west Russia, including all those terrifying, rusting nuclear submarines and the other nuclear garbage.
It is very important for all of us that we make a programme like that succeed.
I hope we can push on with talks about programmes like that even while we talk firmly and strongly to the Russians about the tragedy in the Northern Caucasus in Chechnya.
One point that we made to Russian officials, to the Prime Minister, was that we were talking strongly on these issues, not as enemies but as people who wanted a cooperative relationship with Russia.
We were talking strongly because we were reflecting the opinions of our public in the European Union: the sort of opinions reflected in speech after speech in this Chamber today.
So what this debate has done is to underline the argument that we were putting to Mr Putin and others.
It is an argument which I hope they will take very seriously over the coming days and weeks.
There must be a return to negotiation, difficult though that may seem to Russian leaders.
There must be a return to negotiation otherwise I fear that we will see disaster loaded upon disaster.
In those circumstances I do not think that anyone' s opinion poll ratings are going to hold up for very long.
Thank you, Commissioner Patten.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Culture 2000 programme
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0026/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Decision establishing a single financing and programming instrument for cultural cooperation (Culture 2000 programme) [13328/2/1998 - C5-0023/1999 - 1998/0169(COD)] (rapporteur: Mr Graça Moura).
Mr President, the CULTURE 2000 programme, as a single instrument, will be replacing the ARIANE, KALEIDOSCOPE and RAPHAEL programmes which gave outstanding service to the cause of European culture and whose success has been universally acknowledged.
Thanks to the activities that were developed within the respective frameworks, access to a vast range of cultural products and values has been provided for many European citizens who would not otherwise have had this opportunity.
As a single financing and programming instrument for cooperation, CULTURE 2000 declares a range of objectives which aim to provide a response, more of a response and a better one, to such needs, and this, then, is able to represent a decisive step in the direction of a European cultural policy that is worthy of this name. By this I mean an instrument which will permit repeated, interactive and fruitful contact between the cultures of the various Member countries in such a way that the variety of areas looked at and the multidisciplinary nature of the events become an ever more vitalising element in the very soil of European identity without threatening pluralism and the essential diversity of these cultures.
Although all the participants in the various phases of the process bore these concerns in mind, it became clear that the attitudes of the Council and the Commission on the one hand and of this Parliament on the other were not completely attuned with one another.
But although we have come a long way, we should nevertheless mention some of the main areas of disagreement.
These are, of course, the budgetary question, the question of a supposedly excessive fragmentation or disintegration of the Union' s actions, which is considered likely to reduce its visibility and, as a result, the question of an option in the sense of there being privileged lines which would support initiatives of a greater scale and of a more spectacular kind. The participation of agents and operators had been foreseen for this, which would involve a greater number of countries as a minimum which, as we see it, would carry a serious risk of hypertrophy in some networks of cultural operators.
This would give them an excessive concentration of means and powers and, as a result, threaten the normal functioning and even the very existence of many others.
Consistent with the Mouskouri report which this Parliament was right to adopt, the recommendation to which I am honoured to put my name, maintained its aim of seeing the budgetary appropriation strengthened, from the EUR 167 million initially provided, and raised it to 250 million.
There is no doubt that both the Council and the Commission are sensitive to the great needs that are being experienced in all the sectors covered by the programme, nor that there is much good will in the sense of trying to find satisfactory solutions.
Moving now to other points of disagreement, I will say that experience shows that the greater the number of States participating, the greater the risk of each initial project losing its own character.
Now, in principle, each initial project corresponds to needs experienced specifically by a given group of citizens.
On the other hand, it seems obvious that there are great imbalances as a result of extremely varied conditions of time, method and place, in terms of the opportunity for access to the enjoyment of cultural values that the citizens of various European countries possess.
This aspect tends to become even more complex with the perspective of enlargement which has, to a large extent, been prepared and anticipated at exactly the level of cultural contacts.
This is why the possibility was foreseen of supporting medium- and even small-scale actions so that the greatest possible number of European citizens benefit, who will, as a result, be able to become more directly involved.
Visibility will not count for much unless it relates intimately to life and to what culture has to offer.
In this respect, more concessions were made, and a minimum number of three was accepted for States involved in the joint organisation of specific projects and of five for States involved in the large-scale cultural cooperation agreements. Attempts were also made to find a way towards making the framework mechanisms more flexible.
There was also the intention to stimulate the emergence of new synergies and of new thrusts for creativity without wanting to favour a sector-based approach to action.
It is becoming a matter of urgency that we move ahead.
There are countless cultural operators and agents who will be deprived of any kind of means for the action that they are developing, which will be of inestimable value if this dossier is not concluded before the end of the year so that we can allow the programme to come into force at the beginning of next year.
The figures calculated for conciliation will make this possible, as we know, moreover, that this conciliation will be conducted in parallel with the conciliation relating to the YOUTH programme, although it will be completely autonomous in relation to this programme.
We all know that our cultural coordinates are related to our sense of identity as Europeans. We also know that fundamental action linked to cultural life in its multiple forms is an indispensable factor for the strengthening of an awareness of European identity.
Until this dimension is fully achieved, political union itself will have feet of clay.
Culture on its own can be one of its strongest foundations.
In order to achieve this, there will have to be greater participation on the part of the citizens, and greater access to culture.
I shall close my speech with the hope that this Parliament' s actions will make an important contribution to achieving this.
Mr President, I wanted to sincerely thank our colleague, Mr Graça Moura, for taking over this report and really being content to take forward what we had already decided in the last legislative period and which was the work of Nana Mouskouri, whose warm greetings I am to pass on to you today.
She is very happy that things are finally moving forward.
The model of society which forms the basis of this report by Mr Graça Moura is a deeply humanitarian one.
Culture plays an important role in this model, and partly for the purpose of facilitating respect on the part of our citizens for each other' s different cultures, as well as for national and regional traditions.
This new programme sets out the framework for the European Union' s cultural policy for the next few years.
It must be added that a genuine policy on culture and education is needed today more than ever, since it is the actual basis of European politics.
Above all, however, it gives a human face to the distant and bureaucratic politics of Europe and puts the citizen in the centre of activity and debate, as is also happening with the "Youth" programme and with the "Socrates" education programme.
The European Union should not just be a question of figures and statistics, for example.
Only the genuine participation of its citizens makes it a living whole.
When we see that the European Union has precisely 167 million ecus left for cultural policy, we naturally regard this as a ridiculous sum.
As insiders, we know of course that what we are doing in terms of cultural policy is not confined to the area covered by this sum.
We are also working in the cultural sphere when it comes to the areas covered by the regional funds.
However, EUR 167 million is too small a sum.
Even EUR 250 million would not be enough in view of the scale of the work which awaits us.
I consider that the cultural sphere, to which we have the task of giving a higher profile, requires a much larger sum of money.
But that is how it is everywhere in the European Union.
Everyone gets up on their soapbox and says that Europe must be given a soul.
That is a wonderful catchword.
Everyone hides behind it but, unfortunately, not a lot of money is spent on it.
I believe it is the same in every country.
This cultural programme can basically make only a small contribution to realising this desire that neighbours should be made genuinely aware of each other' s respective cultures.
In the form in which we now have the report, extensive parts of the former Commission' s proposal have been changed.
We have responded more to the will of our citizens and have been that much less inclined to go in for big events.
I know that this is also the attitude of the new Commissioner.
I hope that the quality of the projects which we are now to have will make up for the lack of financial resources.
Mr President, this is a serious and rigorous report.
And Mr Graça Moura deserves the congratulations of the Socialist Group, which I pass on to him with pleasure.
Culture 2000, for the reasons which have just been expressed, is an extraordinarily important programme.
The joint position of the Council has not yet accepted the Parliament' s criteria and the rapporteur, reasonably, has retained in this second reading the ones which he considers to be essential.
Firstly I must highlight funding.
We do not understand, given the margin within the Financial Perspective, why a third of the resources which we considered minimums have been cut.
On the other hand, we agree with the Council on the need for the activities of Culture 2000 to be visible to the public, but the best way to achieve this is through small and medium scale events, in diverse locations and close to the citizens, rather than events on a grand scale.
The Council confuses public reaction with media reaction and forgets that in the latter case the reaction is almost always ephemeral.
The Council, or rather, a small part of it, has ignored the spirit and the letter of the Treaties and specifically Article 151.
It is still afraid of expressions such as "European Policy" and "European Cultural Area" etc. and prefers to carry on speaking of "partnership" .
Legislating and taking action in the field of culture and education directly shapes the European soul which has so often been elusive.
The system of knowledge, the human emotions which only the Arts and Letters can produce, in other words, our culture, are deeply based on what the Europeans have in common and therefore form the basis of European citizenship.
I hope that the steadfastness of this Parliament, on the one hand, and the help of the new Commissioner on the other, together finally with the understanding of the Council, will all come to act together to this end.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to congratulate Mr Graça Moura on his outstanding work.
The liberal group warmly endorses the amendments that he has submitted.
As far as the level of the Budget is concerned, the liberal group too feels that the Council' s efforts fall short of the mark.
There are a few points that I would like to emphasise.
Firstly, the cultural networks.
The Council' s text literally states that financed projects must operate with the aid of networks.
According to this text cultural networks ought only to be able to make claims of the Framework Programme on culture for individual projects.
However, they should also be able to receive support for some of their recurring expenses.
For if there is money available for the project, but not for keeping the network' s office running, then there will be no support for the project and the experience gained will be wasted.
My second point is that the programme now takes full account of the importance of reading and translation.
However, I am rather concerned as to whether the money will be distributed effectively.
There must be proportional representation as far as promotion, translation and cultural exchanges are concerned, and these must not compete with each other.
The literary translation establishments, which play an important part in making our cultural heritage accessible, are particularly at risk.
That is why I intend to see to it that they continue to receive some of the money.
My final point, Mr President, is that I was not happy with the budgetary procedure.
The members of the Committee on Culture have a better understanding than the Committee on Budgets as to how the money should be distributed amongst cultural and educational institutions.
Let the Committee on Budgets establish the framework and the specialised committee get down to work on the priorities as regards content and the financial interpretation thereof.
I await with interest the discussion that the budget rapporteur has announced which will take place on the way in which the financial resources in chapter A 30 of the budget for 2001 are allocated.
Mr President, I just wanted to make a few general points in connection with cultural matters.
Although everyone appears to agree that culture is important in theory, in practice the situation is often quite different in Europe.
Europe seems to be more interested in agriculture than culture.
They only differ by four letters but that certainly makes a very big difference at the budgetary level.
Any MEP with cultural sensitivities is still moved to read the European Council' s declarations of love when it comes to cultural matters.
But this emotion soon gives way to disillusionment when the words are not followed by deeds, particularly where budgets are concerned.
For there is nothing that the European Union spends so little on as culture and savings even have to be made in the little that we do spend, notwithstanding the fact that everyone always agrees that promoting culture is probably the only way to make the EU popular with its citizens.
I therefore think that it would be particularly misguided of this Parliament not to follow the rapporteur' s recommendations, for you cannot keep saying that you think it is a shame that an ever-decreasing number of people vote in European elections, or that you regret that every inquiry shows that the EU appears to be ever more distant from the people of Europe, only to go making cutbacks in projects whose precise intention it is to bring the EU closer to the people.
We certainly feel that we ought not to finance large-scale, expensive projects, but rather small-scale projects that the people of Europe can identify with and which could make a tremendous contribution at the socio-economic level in terms of job opportunities.
Now that we are talking about the Europe of the next century, a new, wider Europe, an enlarged Europe, would it not perhaps be useful to pursue a bold cultural policy at long last, for culture is not something that should be talked about in the way that all the other "important" matters are discussed.
Now that everything appears to be discussed in economic terms, perhaps it is time for us to start showing more interest in what are, after all, the origins of Europe, notably our culture.
Mr President, I would first like to point out how important Mr Graça Moura' s report is.
The construction of a cultural Europe is now proving to be just as great a necessity as the construction of a political Europe, which has until now been an economic and monetary Europe.
Whether we are aiming for a cultural policy or promoting cultural activities, the findings are the same. The budget allocated to the "Culture 2000" programme is ridiculously small.
Is it acceptable that the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, Media and Sport has been given EUR 167.33 million per year when it is asking for EUR 250 million?
Community expenditure on culture stands at 0.003%.
Is it really appropriate to welcome the adoption of such a budget?
Mrs Reding herself, in the September hearings spoke of cultural action in a way that suggested it was being recognised belatedly.
Let us find a way of making up the lost time that is obvious to everyone, with an adapted budget.
The rapporteur also stresses the link between culture and citizenship.
I think in fact that greater balance is necessary between the budgets allocated to ambitious cultural events and the targeted projects.
The construction of European citizenship will come about as a result of the involvement of individuals, not only of institutions
In view of this reticence where budgets are concerned, I would like to make a concluding observation.
What can we say about a Europe which is proud, and rightly so, to defend its cultural diversity at the forthcoming WTO negotiations if we are not capable of giving real support to this cultural expression? I would not like the budget for culture to become inversely proportional to our cultural ambitions.
Mr President, it is very important that we have finally succeeded in including explicit references to culture in the Treaty.
Indeed, at this delicate stage for the European Union, while we begin to enlarge eastwards, while all the economic and financial changes linked to the creation of the single currency are already underway, we must not forget the value of culture, the specificity and diversity of European culture, its enhancement and its diffusion.
Culture, which also means history, languages and traditions, must remain a fundamental and indispensable bond for European citizens.
We must therefore welcome the new Culture 2000 programme, but reiterate some considerations which, moreover, most of my fellow Members have already done.
Firstly, we need to encourage and stimulate the European citizens and European associations and small businesses in this sector to make as much use as possible of this programme, but avoid concentrating the meagre funds on only a few large events, to the advantage of a few privileged networks which, in the long run, as past experience has taught us, end up monopolising these funds.
Secondly, in any case, we would need to make an effort to increase the funds laid down for this programme.
To conclude, Europe must not forget that investing in culture does not mean simply preserving a great legacy and our identity as Europeans, but also the creation of many new jobs.
Mr President, I think that the European citizens are currently in great need of this.
Mr President, I wish to support the Culture 2000 programme and congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Vasco Graça Moura, for having enriched the text as a whole with new contributions aimed, on the one hand, at achieving greater participation of countries and beneficiaries and, on the other, at emphasising the need to diversify the grants, as well as recommendations in defence of the deconcentration of activities and great cultural events.
In this same respect, I wish to communicate to the Commission my concern about the development and subsequent implementation of the programmes, in all their fields.
The success of Culture 2000 will depend largely on its capacity to implement new working methods and to bring these offers of cooperation closer to a citizens' Europe.
It is important that the Commission itself and the Member States achieve greater efficiency in communication, expand their advice and information services and cooperate in the task of guiding and advising possible beneficiaries.
The announcements of grants must be published with sufficient notice and must reach all points of Europe, allowing applicants sufficient time to find partners and seek supplementary aid.
If we intend culture to be active at a grassroots level and for the majority of individuals to be involved in it, it is necessary for the European Union to come closer to them and for the details of the grants to be published in the sections of the media with the widest audience.
On the other hand, I believe there is a consensus amongst all of us who have been involved and all the parties that small-scale creative elements should be supported.
At the same time, it would be appropriate to favour, through the selection criteria, the proposals of individuals and groups, since it is necessary to compensate for the tendency of institutions to become the protagonists in terms of cultural production.
Although it is easier to operate through the procedures of agencies and institutions, the basic purpose of the programme will be to break this barrier and favour culture at the grassroots of society, given that their function is not to create an official culture.
On the other hand, Mrs Reding, I would like to offer you my full support with regard to funding: I am conscious that pressure must be exerted on Mr Prodi and the College of Commissioners and I know that you will strive earnestly to achieve this improvement.
Mr President, I would like to touch on one aspect of cultural diversity needing support: minority languages.
Europe should take pride in its linguistic diversity.
The European Union has done much to promote its wealth of cultures and I congratulate Commissioner Reding on her work in this regard.
Many in this new Parliament might not remember that in May 1998 budget lines for minority languages were frozen because they had no legal basis.
Will the Commission now guarantee that a legal basis for these projects is introduced? The situation of 1998 cannot be allowed to arise again.
Lesser-used languages must be granted the funding they deserve, otherwise excellent innovative projects - drama, the translating of literature following the end of the Ariane project - the teaching of languages and so on will all suffer.
As a Welsh speaker, I have seen the significant benefits of European funding but also the threat to many excellent projects when financial support is withdrawn.
As the budget has already been frozen for 16 months it is unlikely that any schemes under the Culture 2000 programme will come into being until 2001.
It is crucial therefore that the Commission uses its preparatory measures to ensure that current projects do not now suffer.
Languages are more than mere words.
They are the vehicles by which the cultures of Europe are expressed and celebrated also.
Let us hope that Commissioner Reding' s words become reality and that every language is respected and promoted regardless of the numbers who speak it.
Mr President, last Tuesday we received Mr Pastrana, the President of Colombia, in this Hemicycle, and all welcomed his proposed peace plan.
In Europe we also have on-going political conflicts which result from cultural differences.
Two of them have also taken a violent form: Northern Ireland and the Basque Country.
I wish to state here my support not only for Colombia and other countries but also for the current peace processes in these two regions, which are part of Europe.
I call on the Council, the Commission and this Parliament to ensure that the mechanisms of the Culture 2000 programme, as well as the other programmes available, are also used to support these peace initiatives.
We should opt for events such as the European Culture Capital and the Month of Culture taking place in Northern Ireland or the Basque Country, since this new political framework for Europe may offer valid solutions to these two conflicts.
In these areas we need to promote the values of tolerance and respect for cultural diversity and the freedom of peoples to decide their future and promote co-existence, solidarity and a sense of justice and peace.
This is what we should opt for.
Thank you, Mrs Reding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Youth programme
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0038/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision establishing the Youth Community action programme [13175/1/1999 - C5-0022/1999 - 1998/0197(COD)] (rapporteur: Mrs Gröner).
Mr President, the Youth programme has been one of the most successful programmes in getting people from different nationalities to work together and learn from each other.
If I can take Scotland, which I represent, as an example, there have been hundreds of Youth programmes benefiting thousands of Scots.
For example, in Fort William in the Highlands of Scotland, a Youth group interested in outdoor projects developed a cross-country ski programme with Slovakian counterparts.
In Dundee an exchange of views and experiences has developed with a Spanish project concerning the current problems being experienced by young people.
In West Lothian a project has been developed on street work with a partnership from Munich.
In fact only yesterday a group from the Lothians were here listening to a debate in this Chamber.
To end my list of examples: a link between Larkhall in Lanarkshire and a French programme where young people have contributed to the construction of a cycle path in the south of Scotland.
From youth work to cross-country skiing, from cycle paths to street work, the issues are as diverse as the participants.
And if this is just a small number of examples of how the Youth programme has worked in Scotland, just think what an impact the Youth programme has had across the EU and the potential of what it can achieve in the future.
However, funding for the Youth programme is not just critical, it is paramount.
Young people like myself are the Europeans of the present and the future.
We are the first generation to relate to a European identity as well as our own national ones.
If these very institutions which we are members of are to have relevance today as well as tomorrow, funding of the Youth programme is essential.
I encourage Members to go back to their constituencies and to speak to the organisers, participants and beneficiaries of this work, the work which brings the basic ideas of the European ideal to local communities: the ideal of people from different nationalities working together for the benefit of the common good.
Please support this report and support the work of young people in Europe.
Mr President, I too would like to congratulate Mrs Gröner on her excellent and also particularly succinct work.
I see cross-border youth exchange programmes as a good opportunity for young people to get to know each other' s cultures, at the same time making a contribution to the edifice of Europe.
They enable young people to gain greater awareness of the differences in their surroundings and make it possible for mutual trust to grow, which lessens fear of anything that is unfamiliar.
This increases people' s tolerance and their willingness to cooperate and show solidarity.
In short, democracy is strengthened and that is what Europe needs.
Money is needed for this, on a large scale even, in view of the importance of the programme.
But the liberal group feels nonetheless that this programme too must stay within the financial framework.
Secondly, I would just like to emphasise here how important it is to have good communication with young people.
The communication medium par excellence is, of course, the Internet.
That is why an Internet site "Youth for Europe" is an absolute must.
Young people will then be able to read about all kinds of European and national activities in the field of education, training, sport, media, leisure, and so on and so forth.
The possibilities are there, use them.
In this way young people will become well informed by doing something which is very appealing to them, that is surfing the digital highway.
I expect it to be a website that is challenging, innovative and highly accessible.
On a final note, the programme must be set up soon.
Mrs Gröner was right not to submit too many amendments so as to enable agreement with the Council to be reached quickly.
Consequently, the vast majority of the liberal group intends to support her in all aspects of her work, in which it has every confidence.
Mr President, the strengthening of the European Union cannot be achieved solely through the euro.
Our young people must feel integrated, not separated by borders, and have a more open, free mentality.
In short, they must gain that ability to adapt and that speed in cultural exchange, training and professional experience which are increasingly necessary elements in the society of the next millennium.
"Youth" is a programme which will be able to achieve these aims. Above all, it allows the least well-off and most disadvantaged young people to have experiences of other countries which could prove decisive when they enter the job market.
It is therefore a priority to ensure, as highlighted by the rapporteur, a greater diffusion of the programme and to make sure that, in future, Community actions like this one will not remain a privilege for a minority because of a lack of information.
I fully agree with criticisms that the Council has not been willing to increase the budget, which is necessary for equal opportunities of access to the programme.
Moreover, it is incredible that full protection of the participants cannot be ensured as far as social protection and medical assistance is concerned.
To conclude, I would like to emphasise that in a society which is leaning towards telematics networks and the Internet, and which increasingly invests in their use, for communication, information and services, it is almost ridiculous that the Council has not accepted the amendments on the creation of an Internet site dedicated entirely to young people.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mrs Gröner for her excellent report.
As regards an analysis of the factors which have promoted or hampered the social integration of young people, I believe it is essential to include an analysis of the role of the family or lack of family in the young person' s development.
In the Council of Europe report on Coherent and Integrated Family Policies it states: "Families play a primary role in socialisation because they communicate the values, standards, customs and behaviour of the social group to which their children belong.
Presumably a lack of family structure will also affect the child' s socialisation."
Whether a child is raised within or without a family, both circumstances will have a profound effect upon that child' s social development.
Therefore reference to the role of the family should be, I believe, included in the European Community Youth Programme, which hopes to analyse the factors which have promoted or hampered the social integration of young people.
Mr President, Commission Representative, Mrs Angelilli commented that we are just speaking of the euro, although there are many other important issues here.
I would like to say to her that the birth of the euro is a very important thing for us young people too.
The Community' s Youth Action programme is one of the most important programmes targeted at the citizens of the European Union.
It has been a success both in the operational sense and with regard to its publicity value.
Although Parliament also decides the framework and main policies of the programme, it is important to remember that the successful implementation of programmes can only be carried out at national level.
In the implementation of the Youth programme the Member States must allow for sufficient leeway and provide the necessary support.
The Youth programme, despite its success, is not ready or complete.
The programme' s application procedure has to be further clarified and be made more user-friendly, which is what has already been said here.
The problems of youth programmes often originate in the fact that there is an attempt to reach as large a target group as possible with different sector programmes.
In this way we try to make it possible for people who are as young as possible to take advantage of the programmes.
Experience, however, has shown that a target group that is too heterogeneous increases the amount of administrative work required to assess applications and might even adversely affect the chances of certain special groups to use the programmes.
Youth programme evaluation must clearly be improved.
We have to make more use of the ideas of national players in the implementation of programmes.
Programme evaluation should also pay attention to the programme' s cost-effectiveness.
For example, the group meeting sector programme is considerably cheaper than the European voluntary service and, furthermore, a greater number of young people derive benefit from the group meeting.
Sport has been included as an added dimension to the Youth programme.
This is an important step forward.
Before the programme is implemented, we must, however, be clear about what sort of sports the Youth programme funds may be spent on.
Funds must be targeted mainly at emphasising the educational dimension of sport.
Programme resources can easily be used up in mere sporting events unless restrictions are imposed.
Mr President, Commissioner, I have been elected to the European Parliament as leader of the Italian Pensioners' Party.
An hour ago, someone in my Group said: "Fatuzzo, you must have bumped your head - you are from the Pensioners' Party and are speaking about the youth programme!" . Yes, two days ago I did indeed have a slight accident, but that is not why I am talking about the youth programme.
I am speaking about it because I want people to know that in Italy, the Pensioners' Party and the pensioners - and I think all Europe' s elderly people too - agree with this youth programme, and are in favour of young people meeting each other, learning languages, going from Ireland to Italy, to Portugal, to Finland.
This programme is extremely important because it brings Europe to young people.
However, I also tried replacing the word "young" with "elderly" in the programme we are discussing today and I saw a wonderful project appearing, which would be worthwhile too, because it is true, as Mr Taylor said, that this is the first generation who have a European identity and, as Mrs Gröner said, that the future of Europe starts with the young.
But the elderly who constructed Europe - do we think about them sometimes? Well, I am taking the adoption of this youth programme as a starting point to say: "Build, let us build together a programme for cultural exchange among the elderly too!" .
Maybe we will not spend a billion in seven years, given the age of the elderly, but seven billion in one year.
It is not very much, but it certainly is positive.
Mr President, a short comment. I should like to point out that the English text has been changed.
In amendment 12, a portion of the proposal withdrawn by Mrs Scallon has found its way back into the German version.
Spiritual undertakings ought to be included in the investigation of activities.
This runs the risk of our suddenly also having sects for young people included in the programme.
This part of the amendment had been withdrawn at the Committee stage.
I would ask you to check the language versions for which the English text provides the basis.
Mr President, I should like wholeheartedly to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Gröner, on her efforts and on the energy with which she has moved this project forward.
I should also like to thank the Members of the Committee, for it is them we have to thank for the fact that we can today vote on a project which will in fact be available to young people very quickly.
Speed was required, and speed was what we got.
Please accept my sincere thanks on behalf of the Commission.
I must also highlight the very positive attitude of the Finnish Presidency, which has also done its best to ensure that work progresses, and I think that the cooperation established between the two institutions in order to take the negotiation forwards as quickly as possible is quite exemplary.
As the point has been raised, I would like to inform you, on the subject of information on the "Youth" programmes, that the Eurodesk network, a combination of Internet sites and youth advisory services, is available in all the countries of the Union and in all its languages.
This is a first step towards achieving what Parliament is requesting and I shall say, for the sake of the anecdote, that it is a programme that was developed on the basis of a Scottish project.
This shows that the things that work well in the regions are taken up by the Commission.
I would also like to tell you that the Commission is receptive to the conclusions of the report that your Parliament has produced.
I am therefore able to accept almost all of the amendments.
The 13 amendments tabled by Mrs Gröner will be totally or partially accepted at second reading.
We rejected certain parts of amendments for what are basically institutional reasons.
This is the case, for example, regarding the interinstitutional declaration on the significance of the sums deemed necessary, amendment 9 part 3.
One aspect of the amendment may also concern implementation. I am thinking here of amendment 12, part 2.
Concerning finances, I have listened very closely to what you have said and I agree with you.
As you know, in the initial proposal, and in accordance with the priorities established in Agenda 2000, the Commission proposes a financial package of EUR 600 million over a period of five years.
Given that I agree with your amendment to extend the period from five to seven years, we will of course have to review the sum provided by the budget accordingly.
I think, like your rapporteur, that in order to maintain consistency between the programmes on education, training and youth, we must extend the length of the period from five to seven years.
I have indeed just confirmed this.
I also consider it essential to find a solution to the obstacles that remain in the area of youth mobility, whilst of course respecting each State' s own competences.
This is why we are able to accept amendments 2, 3 and 6.
Besides, some amendments provide useful clarification for the text of the Council' s common proposal and we feel able to accept these too.
These are amendments 1, 4, 5, 9 part 2, 10, 11, 12 part 1, as well as amendment 13, tabled by Mrs Gröner and Mrs Scallon.
It goes without saying that article 7 concerning the programming committee will have to take into account the new decision on commitology.
We are thus able to accept, in principle, amendments 7 and 8, as long as the appropriate wording can be found of course.
In order to follow up this report, I am intending to propose to the Commission that we adopt a modified proposal on the basis of the amendments that we can accept.
We will present this modified proposal to the Commission before the Council meeting due to take place on 23 November in order to assist the Ministers for Youth in reaching a decision.
As you well know, ladies and gentlemen, we still have a small battle to fight, but I remain confident in the objectives and stakes of the "Youth" programmes, and I have no doubts that these objectives will be accepted just as completely by the Council and by the Member States.
I must tell you how delighted I have been to note the enthusiasm that has been expressed here, the enthusiasm with which young and not so young Members have committed themselves to ensuring that the youth of our continent may, in future - even more so than in the past, because everyone was also in agreement in pointing out that the "Youth" programme has already given a great deal to millions of young people - build on what has already been well done.
Young people are our present.
Together with us they are building the future.
They are building their future.
With this programme we will be giving them a helping hand. I thank you, on behalf of the young people of Europe, for having contributed towards giving them this helping hand.
(Applause)
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
European Audiovisual Observatory
The next item is the report (A5-0024/1999) by Mr Gargani, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning Community participation in the European Audiovisual Observatory (COM(1999) 111 - C5-0019/1999 - 1999/0066(CNS)).
Mr President, I would start by saying that in a letter of 6 July 1999 the Council consulted Parliament pursuant to Article 157, on the proposal for a Council Decision concerning Community participation in the European Audiovisual Observatory.
At the sitting of 23 July, the President of Parliament proposed that the Committee, chaired by myself, should examine the subject, and in its meeting of 27 July, the Committee on Culture and Youth appointed me rapporteur.
During the meetings of 22 September and 11 and 12 October, the Committee considered the proposal and the draft report, which it adopted unanimously.
The European Audiovisual Observatory, Mr President, is a very important public service body, which aims to gather and disseminate information on the audiovisual industry: cinema, television, video etc.
It was set up under the aegis of Audiovisual Eureka in October 1989 and operates within the framework of a partial agreement which was obtained in the Council of Europe. As a whole, its members include at least 34 European States and the Commission of the European Union.
With regard to its network of partners, correspondents and various organisms, its mission cannot be confused - this is an important and fundamental fact, which the Committee discussed at length - with Eurostat' s mission and its tasks in this sector.
They are two different things. While the Community body aims for a harmonised, systematic collection of general statistics from various States, with the public and administrations as its main clients, who therefore provide it with work, the observatory has more specific and focused objectives, according to the market and the statistical requirements of firms and professionals.
Moreover, its sphere of competence is broader: it extends into the legal sector, to specialist information, and its mandate, which covers the 34 States - and I stress this once again - is broader than that of Eurostat.
The two institutions must not be too far opposed, or rather, they must not and cannot be opposed as they are in regular contact, have also established their modus operandi and have come to an agreement on the way their activities are to be carried out.
On the other hand, the Court of Justice' s ruling of 12 May 1998 concerning the legal bases called for a better defined framework with respect to the past because of the previous confusion.
The new line concerns the preparatory measures of the audiovisual sector.
It does not refer to former Article 130(3) regarding industrial development and the decisions on the basis of which a Eureka programme was founded for the audiovisual sector. A category seeking to create an infrastructure of statistical information has been envisaged.
This should allow payment of the Community' s contribution to the budget of the European Observatory of Strasbourg for 1999, that is for the current year. The delay has certainly hindered and is still hindering the functioning of the institution.
And I think - and moreover, this is the opinion of the entire Committee - that its functioning is important and fundamental for the European Commission and for the 34 Member States which are members and which continue to be active members in the observatory. On the other hand, I believe we will have the chance to cooperate on these issues with the excellent Commissioner, Mrs Reding, and I take this opportunity to greet her and thank her for her willingness on the matter.
Mr President, having the honour to chair the Committee on Culture, naturally I also represent its position.
As I said at the beginning, the final vote was unanimous and of the three amendments, two were adopted unanimously and one was adopted by a majority.
On a personal note, however, I would like to say that I did not agree with the third amendment, in the sense that the decision we are about to adopt and that the Commission has already brought forward should have expired in the original text on the last day of the last month of the fifth year, while the Commission has shortened the time period to three years.
I repeat that, personally, I have some doubts because I think that we are making a distinction between Eurostat and the observatory which will maybe not lead to cooperation, although that has been decided on recently.
On the other hand, the justified concern which was worrying Mr Perry - he is a signatory of the amendment - that over the next few years Parliament would have to control the expenditure and budget of the observatory, will still be valid when we change the five year period, that is when we give the observatory the chance to plan the valuable functions that it has in a broader and more organised way.
Mr President, I am sure I speak for more or less everybody in the Chamber this afternoon when I say that we believe culture does not get enough money.
The question is what do the Members who are not here think?
What they would all agree is that we must make sure that we get value for the limited amount of money that we have to spend on culture.
I really need to be convinced that we are getting value for money out of the audiovisual observatory.
That is why I tabled, and supported, Amendment No 3 that was put forward by the Committee on Culture, restricting our commitment to three years.
It could be extended, but our commitment is for three years.
My reasoning is threefold: what substantive evidence do we have that the audiovisual observatory is doing the job that we want? Let me quote Mrs Dührkop Dührkop in her report on this.
She said that Parliament' s own audiovisual services had a negative perception of the quality and usefulness of the paid services provided by the observatory.
We are running a EUR 6 billion deficit with the United States.
Clearly we are getting something wrong and we need to get that put right.
Secondly, I would say that we are financing statistical services from too many angles. The observatory itself: EUR 215,000; Eurostat: EUR 250,000; Member States' statistical services: EUR 350,000.
That is almost EUR 1 million we are spending on statistics alone.
The observatory is used to perform those tasks that Eurostat cannot.
We should be asking Eurostat and the Commission if they could sort it out, to give us the information we want so that we can try and get better value for this money.
If I can say that in under two minutes, it is not unreasonable to expect the Commission and Eurostat to get their act together in three years.
Mr President, Commissioner, audiovisual production has an important role in preserving and developing the cultures of European countries and Europe' s cultural diversity.
The importance of national cultures is being emphasised with globalisation.
The audiovisual sector is one of the most global of cultural sectors.
While audiovisual production is big business, the cultural dimension also plays a major part in it.
Neither must we forget the sector' s impact on employment.
The total number of jobs in the cultural sector in Europe is more then three million.
A considerable number of these are in the audiovisual sector.
Although the sector may be run by large consortiums, we have to remember that its new jobs are created primarily for SMEs.
The work of the Audiovisual Observatory is important for these SMEs.
We must safeguard the development of SMEs in the audiovisual sector.
They mean greater competitiveness and more diversified production for Europe' s audiovisual sector.
There are actually 34 European states, plus the European Commission, that are members of the observatory.
In other words, states that are only now applying for membership of the Union are also included in the collaboration within its framework.
The Audiovisual Observatory will improve the operating prerequisites of European companies in this rapidly developing area.
The collation and dissemination of information particularly helps SMEs to cooperate and, hence, develop.
For that reason, it is important that the operating prerequisites of the observatory are safeguarded.
It is unfortunate that, as a result of a vote taken by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, it is being proposed that financing for the observatory should be safeguarded for just three years, going against the position of the rapporteur, the chairman of the committee, Mr Gargani, among others.
I am very happy that Mr Gargani made his opinion clearly known here in this plenary session.
It is true that Parliament must be careful with taxpayers' money.
At the same time, however, it must be remembered that savings should not be made in the wrong areas.
It is better to support SMEs through services and not, for example, through business aid that distorts competition.
Mr Chairman, we are often accused here in Parliament, and sometimes justifiably so, of spending taxpayers' money too freely.
In discussing this motion, we can demonstrate that we also have some aptitude for effecting savings and making matters more efficient.
The European Audiovisual Observatory prepares statistics for businesses in the audiovisual industry, work which Eurostat and the various national offices for statistics also attend to, so that there is a certain degree of overlap between these organisations' work and that of the Observatory.
This cannot be rational or expedient, and we should like it to be investigated whether closer cooperation between Eurostat and the various national offices might, in the long term, render the Observatory' s work superfluous.
Even if the Community' s contribution only constitutes 12% of the Observatory' s budget, it is money all the same, and we believe that there is money to be saved.
But, when the main content of this motion is "only" about reducing the period of support from 5 to 3 years, then there is also time to investigate whether Eurostat and the national offices of statistics can cover the need we have for statistics and statistical information.
Mr Gargani, the Italian Radicals would have liked to have amended, intervened in and had the chance to speak about this as well as all the other reports. They cannot do this because, as Emma Bonino reiterated this morning, we are not allowed to carry out that parliamentary activity which is part of the very mandate of a European Member of Parliament.
Therefore, Mr President, we have not tabled, or rather we have not been able to table amendments, or participate in the vote on the report.
We are sorry about this, because it is an important subject and besides, in Italy, we have had a lot of experience with the European Audiovisual Observatory.
It was precisely us radicals who were perhaps the first to independent create an audiovisual monitoring centre that monitors the frequency of appearances, for example political appearances, in various television programmes, news programmes and media.
It would be important, and this was the amendment we would have liked to have tabled, for there to be, for example, among the Observatory' s duties, with a view to European integration, which must increasingly become political integration, integration of societies and political behaviour and integration of information at European level, monitoring of the various television channels across Europe for the appearance of parliamentary political activity of national political groups and European politics, which could thus take the observatory as a reference point.
President Gargani, this is an idea I am putting to you as, I repeat, I am unable to set it down in a parliamentary act, which we are not allowed to do as things stand.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the first place, I would like to offer some background information which seems to me to be useful, although some of it has already been mentioned.
The European Audiovisual Observatory, as has been said, was set up in 1992, under the initial auspices of the Audiovisual Eureka programme.
At that time it was laid down - and I quote - that "the aim of the Observatory will be to improve the transfer of information within the audiovisual industry and promote a clearer vision of the market, as well as greater transparency.
Specifically the task of the Observatory will consist of collecting and processing information and statistics relating to the audiovisual sector" .
Furthermore, in 1997, the European Council commented on the Observatory by saying: "Its services must be directed principally towards the needs of the professionals in the industry" .
Therefore, on this basis, Commissioner and Mr President, I wish to ask both the Commission and the Observatory itself to remain faithful to this founding principle.
Although it is not the case with the Observatory, there currently exists a tendency towards the easy option.
Let me explain: it is a reality that many structures and organisations end up tied to their public funding body, and this situation tends to take them away from their objective, which in this case is public service and assistance for professionals in the audiovisual sector.
Many people have not heard of the Observatory.
For this reason, I believe it to be appropriate, on the one hand, that the Observatory makes a greater effort to attract the interest of professionals, substantially reducing their increasing dependency on the request for their services on the part of the Commission.
In that way their resources would be increased through the provision of services to professionals and greater autonomy would be achieved.
This requires objectives and efforts.
On the other hand, it would be suitable for the Commission to obtain, from external specialists, a periodic review of the efficiency and acceptance of the Observatory' s services amongst professionals, for example, by means of surveys.
Mr President, whoever would like to know what use the Audiovisual Observatory is, needs only to cast a glance at the contents page of any issue of the legal journal, IRIS, for example the issue for September 1999.
Here, there is a report about a resolution to enact a Directive from the European Commission requiring Member States to ensure that no telecommunications company of relevance to the market should be able to operate its cable television network through the same legal entity.
Another report is about the plan for a comprehensive French draft law concerning the information society which is to govern, among other things, questions about the free use of codings, about confidentiality in data transfers, about copyright protection and about necessary regulatory authorities.
A third report concerns the latest judgements of the European Court of Human Rights through which 13 complaints against Turkey were heard and in eleven of which the Court agreed with the appellants and recognised violations of the law concerning free expression.
All this amounts to far more than just collating statistical material, and I think it makes it clear why this institution is important.
This impressively casts some light upon the objectives with which the founding of the Observatory was originally justified, namely those of surveying the market and promoting transparency there, as well as collecting and processing information and statistics concerning the audiovisual sector.
Industry and related areas, and also the European Commission, Member States and the European Parliament, have since reaped the benefits of the Observatory' s services in many different ways.
It has not, however, had any binding legal basis, and this is now to be created on the basis of Article 130a, paragraph 3 of the EC Treaty and with reference to the fact that, as a provider of information, it is mainly to contribute to strengthening the competitiveness of the audiovisual industry by improving the flow of information.
The transparency which is to be produced in this way is an indispensable prerequisite for political action on Europe' s road to the information society, even if this is not perhaps to the liking of those who want to throw open the doors to unbridled market forces.
I welcome the fact that the rapporteur has come out in favour of a five-year period of applicability.
This view is shared by my Group.
Mr President, I would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent report.
His work was thorough and fast.
Thank you, President Gargani.
As Members of Parliament know, the observatory is a public institution with the task of collecting economic and legal information from various international sources and to upgrade it by assembling it in an organised and comprehensive way.
The observatory disseminates such information via periodical publications as has been discussed in the Chamber.
These tasks are fulfilled effectively by the observatory and the return on our participation in terms of support for the audiovisual industry and the Union is positive.
Moreover, I would like to stress that were Community participation in the observatory to be discontinued, the Commission would be obliged to collect the same information from different sources - in most cases on a commercial basis.
This would not only be time-consuming but certainly more expensive than the amounts envisaged for the yearly contributions.
I understand that consultation of the observatory publications, notably the year book and the legal newsletter, Iris, is common practice in the services of the Commission dealing with audiovisual issues.
Moreover, the observatory' s advice has been sought on several occasions and in several areas in the context of on-going contacts when specific information was needed.
I wish to mention the fields of employment, film financing schemes, international trade statistics, statistical methodologies, market trends and so forth.
For the future the Commission envisages extending the activities carried out by the observatory, notably in two specific areas: implementing a statistical information structure under Eurostat and preparing for the GATT 2000 negotiations.
The active participation of the Commission for the next five years in the observatory will allow it to optimise the complementarity of the tasks carried out by Eurostat and the observatory itself.
The aim is to create, at the end of a five-year period, a harmonised official EU set of statistics for the audiovisual sector.
I would like to stress that the activities of the observatory and Eurostat do not overlap in terms of period covered, geographical scope or output and could be usefully coordinated in order to achieve a clear view of the complex reality in the audiovisual sector.
The Commission services are best placed to carry out this task.
With your understanding, Mr President, I do not intend to go into Parliament' s amendments in detail, but I am happy to tell you that the Commission shares the concern about the need for small and medium-sized enterprises to be successful and so accepts the amendment relating to such enterprises.
Concerning the other two amendments: the Commission understands Parliament' s concerns but cannot accept the amendments as they are drafted.
Nevertheless, the Commission will do its utmost to ensure that the observatory work is widely accessible.
To conclude, I would just like to say one thing.
Within the framework of the budgetary procedure, even if we opt for a period of five years, Parliament every year has the opportunity to make amendments and to determine payments, i.e. to impose sanctions if it should prove necessary.
Parliament thus has complete control.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
Turkish participation in Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0023/1999), drawn up by Mr Gargani, on behalf of the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council decision amending the basic Decision relating to the Socrates programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries (8076/1/1999 - C5-0024/1999 - 1996/0130(COD)), and the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council decision amending the basic Decision relating to the third phase of the Youth for Europe programme to include Turkey among the beneficiary countries (8077/1/1999 - C5-0025/1999 - 1996/0131(COD)).
Mr President, the idea of including Turkey among the beneficiary countries of the Youth and SOCRATES programmes goes back to 1996.
The Commission' s proposal was made on 14 May 1996 and is in line with the objective of extending the large cultural market to Turkey too.
This happened despite the obstacles put forward, in particular, the human rights situation in Turkey and the Cyprus issue.
Despite these difficulties, and despite the fresh wave of problems we have had recently, this idea led Parliament to extend the decision to include Turkey at its sitting of 25 February and, in the last few days, the Commission has also decided the same thing.
I think that this is a very significant decision.
It is significant because, despite Turkey being a country which has had some difficulties in this area - I confess, Mr President, that in the committee we heard about this problem, this difficulty in getting the idea accepted within Europe, the Europe which is so open to culture, as the various speakers have been saying all afternoon in their speeches on the four somewhat interconnected measures. I think that this decision means we can describe Europe in its entirety, as a body of States which regards new countries with an open mentality and great dignity, and offers them wide possibilities to develop in the areas of freedom and culture.
I think that in adopting a measure of this kind, Parliament is giving a warm welcome to Turkish young people who, by renouncing their forefathers' mistakes, can now look to Europe as a place of great freedom, as a union of States, where culture, its dissemination and solidarity among young people are important, fundamental elements.
I would ask for this measure to be adopted unanimously, as it was in the Committee, and despite the delay in the 1999 programmes, for it to be implemented on time in 2000, which is now very near.
Mr President, my thanks to Mr Gargani for bringing forward this report and to Members of the previous Parliament who also put some work into ensuring that it comes before us tonight.
Of course it is not an issue without contention.
There are largely two approaches to dealing with this sort of issue.
The first is to say that we are letting people off the hook without allowing them to fulfil their obligations.
The second - and a view to which I subscribe - is that we are actually allowing the power of cultural activities to cut across people' s differences and to change people' s lives.
While there are serious issues that are not entirely resolved here, if we want to have a healthy European future and a healthy European project, we depend on such initiatives to take this forward.
These initiatives are vital to changing people' s attitudes.
If we look at change and coexistence as our goal, then we need to look no further than Northern Ireland where we have brought people together through European funds and dramatically changed the landscape of conflict.
It is this that can be achieved from this sort of initiative, and this that will help Europe, its borders and its beneficiaries to put forward an agenda of change.
I echo Mr Gargani in saying that all of the issues that have been discussed around the Chamber tonight seek to ensure that culture is seen as a priority; that it is not just, for instance, the euro or jobs and employment that will bring a successful European project together.
Cultural change will ultimately concretise the ideals and ideas that we all have in promoting our future together.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Italian delegation from Alleanza Nazionale is fully in favour of Turkey being included among the beneficiary countries of the Youth and SOCRATES programmes.
This is not just a deserved tribute to culture, but it is also an objective political assessment which springs, in particular, from the knowledge that we have a State - Turkey - as an interlocutor, which is still a long way from fully upholding human rights and the principles of freedom and democracy which the European Unions is based on.
And it is for this precise reason that we must stimulate and encourage full involvement of the young people of that country in a sound policy of exchanges, mobility and meeting the other young people of Europe.
Youth has always been the first to long for novelty, change and growth - even cultural growth - of a country.
The young are an extremely efficient means of transmitting sound values, characterised by democracy.
The European Parliament has already done well at first reading - and here I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Gargani - in saying that it will allow Turkey to take part in the exchanges envisaged by the two programmes.
Besides, to deny this chance would mean increasing the isolation of that Mediterranean State from a Europe which has to seek dialogue, especially with those, as in this case, young people, who cannot be expected to take the blame for something that is not their fault, but which is the fault of a government which we still have our reservations about.
Therefore, allowing Turkey access to the SOCRATES and Youth programmes does not confer legitimacy on a State that has not yet shown concrete evidence of maturity with regard to the rights of minorities, but it does contribute to helping young people to accelerate the slow and difficult process of achieving this.
Mr President, Commissioner, the extension of the Socrates and Youth programmes is a clear signal sent by the Union to Turkey, to those in Turkey who want Europe and who need Europe.
This programme targets young people and does so with good reason: young people are the sap which will nourish the whole tree and it is through young people that democracy and human rights may be enabled to take root in that country.
We must also ensure that the young Turkish people who join us are representative.
It is up to the Commission then - we are counting on you Mrs Reding - to be extremely vigilant in ensuring that all young Turks, regardless of sex or ethnic background, are eligible under this programme.
The substance of amendment 5, if not its wording, has been adopted by the Council.
It demands absolute respect for minority rights.
It is almost impossible, or at least extremely difficult, to approach this debate without mentioning Turkey' s possible accession to the Union.
Turkey is an Associate Country and we demand more, much more than this from an Associate.
As a result of the inflexible way it has dealt with the Kurdish question in particular, but with other matters too, Turkey has sent a very negative signal to Europe.
Ankara is still a long way from meeting the Copenhagen criteria.
Through this programme, we are staking our hopes on Turkey' s young people.
It is up to the young people to act as a link between us.
Mr President, I have carefully listened to MEPs state their positions.
The Commission is convinced that Turkey' s participation in programmes directed primarily at young people, such as exchange and encounter programmes, which strengthen society, democracy and respect for human rights, will foster friendship and understanding between peoples and cultures.
At first reading, the Commission accepted the amendments tabled by the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport, and for which I must thank the rapporteur, intended to encourage the implementation of preparatory action.
Indeed, the Turkish structures which are to run the new generation of Socrates and Youth for Europe programmes would not be able to get their work under way without prior training or technical assistance.
It is also clear that we will not be practising any sort of elitism but will be helping those parts of society that most need help, including minorities.
Although decisions on Turkey' s eligibility under current proposals do not allow that country to actually participate immediately in the programmes, they will allow the European Union to send a positive signal to Turkish society at large and to express once again its desire to develop cooperation in different areas with Turkey.
You are quite right. If Turkey does change, it will change through its young people and because its young people have changed.
Thank you, Commissioner Reding.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 8.10 p.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that I do not need to tell you how shocked we all were at what took place last night in Armenia.
I think you have probably all heard the reports.
I am of course referring to the murder of the Prime Minister and of eight members of parliament.
By now the terrorists have been arrested and the hostages released, but of course, considering the serious nature of these events, and if you agree, I shall express our solidarity and sympathy, on your behalf, towards the people of Armenia and I shall do so by sending a letter to the President of the Republic of Armenia.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, during the conclusion of my contribution in the debate on company restructuring yesterday I pointed out to the Vice-President presiding at the time that there was an anomaly in the joint resolution which we will vote on later today.
The resolution which I signed on behalf of my group on Tuesday included in the final paragraph a reference to Michelin.
The text has now been distributed and while the English and Spanish versions include that reference to Michelin it appears to have been removed from the other language versions.
One explanation I have had from the Sessional Services is that someone from the EPP Group had been in touch to say that point had been withdrawn.
Madam President, the authors of the resolution, the signatories of the joint resolution, were not consulted.
As far as I and the other signatories are concerned, that reference should remain in at the vote today.
(Applause from the left)
Madam President, there is a great deal of confusion surrounding this issue because an error has crept into the final signed version.
The negotiated version of the resolution did not contain any reference to Michelin.
I am quite sure of this.
There are quite a few versions, however.
So either the English version is the correct one or else the other versions are.
Whichever way, we are dealing with different versions.
I would therefore suggest that a vote be taken on this issue in Brussels after the Strasbourg part-session.
This seems to be the best way forward to me.
Madam President, I do not wish to drag this out and frustrate Members waiting to get on with the vote on the budget.
The test should be very simple.
All you need do is ask for the version with the signatures of the various signatories from the different groups that combined in this joint resolution.
If the reference to Michelin is there, that is the text we should vote on today.
I would oppose a deferral until Brussels.
Madam President, I too would like to say something on the matter as I dealt with this resolution on behalf of the liberal group.
Right from the word go, it was decided to omit the word "Michelin" from the resolution because it would otherwise be impossible to reach a joint resolution.
The word "Michelin" does not appear in any of the language versions, apart from the English.
I would therefore ask you to keep the German or French versions as they are and take a vote on them.
This, in my opinion, is unacceptable behaviour in politics: if we agree on certain issues, then I hope that the socialists too can subscribe to these.
Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, we shall very carefully examine the question of which version is the authoritative one.
Madam President, we do not wish to re-open a debate which was concluded yesterday.
I would merely like to clarify one point.
There was not a unanimous opinion at the Conference of Presidents in favour of removing the reference to Michelin in the debate.
There was a majority consensus, which we had to bow to, naturally, that the word Michelin should not be included in the wording.
As far as I am concerned, I spoke at the Conference of Presidents to say that, of course, everyone would be free to speak in the debate as they saw fit and that, for my own part, I considered Michelin to be at the very centre of this debate on the restructuring of firms.
On that basis, I do not see what objection there could be to Groups discussing a text considering that the Michelin question should be included in the resolution.
I would like furthermore to specify that my group did not sign this compromise which it did not, in any case, consider satisfactory.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not think we can drag this debate on for much longer.
We have a perfectly clear idea of the situation.
Indeed, I must say, having chaired this Conference of Presidents, that my recollection of events tallies with what has just been said.
Madam President, I wish to make a comment about this resolution.
As far as we are concerned, the matter is very simple: we put our signature to a document which specifically mentioned Michelin, and so for us the compromise is clear on this point.
If there were to be some ambiguity or if the word Michelin were not to be included in contradiction to the text we approved by signing, then obviously this signature would no longer be valid.
Very well.
That is quite clear.
We understand your point.
Mr Barón Crespo, you are quite right.
In fact, Mrs Miguélez Ramos should have asked my permission to speak on the subject of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
I checked with the Sessional Services.
Apparently there was a technical error, so I am told, and the text on which we are to vote tomorrow, Friday, will be duly amended.
So, things should be quite clear.
I apologise, but all this was due to the technical error.
I think, indeed, that in future we must ensure that mistakes of this sort do not recur, because they are really very prejudicial.
Madam President, I would like to take the opportunity afforded by the adoption of the Minutes in order to point out that, even today, in the case of Mr Turco, we shall not be participating in the vote in the way we announced.
As regards the actual Minutes, on page 7, at the point where the report of Mrs Bonino' s speech is given, and where it is noted that Mr Corbett and Mr Madelin spoke, I think that the Minutes should be a more accurate reflection of the statements made by the speakers.
Mr Madelin, in particular, spoke in favour of this proposal.
I think it would be logical if this was indicated in the Minutes.
The verbatim report of the debates will give the exact content of the statements made by Mr Madelin.
Madam President, I would like to announce that, as of this morning, I am joining the Radical Group' s fight for an independent technical group.
To improve the overall situation of Parliament and the non-attached Group, I too am joining the Radicals' endeavours - I will therefore not be taking part in the vote on the Minutes or the other votes, and I declare that, like them, I am on strike.
Mrs Hautala, I am extremely sorry that you were not present at the beginning of this sitting because, as you might expect, I did mention this tragedy and I said that I shall send, on your behalf, naturally, my condolences and sympathy to the people of Armenia.
We are all on the same wavelength on this matter.
(The Minutes were adopted)
Madam President, with regard to the question of fishing which was mentioned previously by Mr Barón Crespo, you said that there had been a technical error.
In my capacity as President of the Committee on Fisheries, I would like to ask you, since this a very important and serious question, to explain this technical error and tell me what it consists of.
And also, I would ask you to inform the political groups who have signed this motion for a resolution so that they may know exactly what has occurred: whether it was a technical error on the part of those who presented it or whether it was a technical error on the part of those who allowed it.
And I would also like, Madam President, to tell you that the motion for a resolution will be debated this afternoon and I understand that, in accordance with Rule 37(3), the vote should take place following the debate, that is, this afternoon and not tomorrow, as you have said.
Could you please clarify this point?
Madam President, yesterday I wrote to you to report certain facts which I believe deserve consideration in this Parliament.
According to information received from the services of the sitting of Tuesday 26 October, an unidentified person approached those services to withdraw a motion for a resolution which had been presented by the PPE, PSE and UEN groups, as well as the motion for a resolution presented by the ELDR group, without the consent nor the agreement of any of the signatories and, what is more serious, these motions for resolutions were replaced with a supposed joint motion for a resolution, without signatures, which contained, in addition to a whole series of names of MEPs which had been added, those of some of the signatories of the first motion for a resolution.
Madam President, I had to find out about these facts through a journalist who rang from Spain.
Madam President, I am not going to describe the behaviour of these MEPs who can name themselves as co-authors without having added a dot or a comma to the text of the resolution.
This is an action which speaks for itself and is an example of active parliamentary manoeuvring, if you will permit the irony.
My question, Madam President, has to do with the procedure.
Does the procedure followed in this Parliament allow these things to happen? Because personally, I would have loved to have been a co-signatory of the text of the Spanish Constitution and through this procedure, Madam President, I could have been precisely that.
Ladies and gentlemen, I do not think we can prolong this discussion any further.
I can assure you, Mrs Miguélez Ramos, that I shall take action to ensure that this type of unacceptable occurrence does not recur.
We must be clear on this point.
Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, you have had your answer. The three proposals that were made initially have been reinstated and these are the ones we shall be voting on.
There has been, in discreet terms, a technical error, actually some sort of tampering, and, indeed, this is something that must not happen again.
Madam President, I wish to speak in order to support strongly the two speeches which have just been made.
Our group co-signed this compromise resolution.
It is absolutely unacceptable for such compromise resolutions to be modified without the knowledge of their authors.
I therefore request you, Madam, to take extremely strong action against what has just happened, which is perfectly deplorable.
Absolutely.
You can rely on me.
I have just said so, and I believe that we are in perfect agreement.
Madam President, I imagine that this problem will have arisen because ten MEPs, who form part of the Greens/ALE Group, aware of the joint resolution of three parliamentary groups, had the idea of supporting it in the belief that we were exercising our right as individual MEPs.
To this end, we ten MEPs delivered a letter to the registry, saying that we supported this resolution, which we believed to be a joint resolution of the PPE, the PSE and the UEN, and that was that.
We are unaware of any other problem.
We simply thought that the resolution was so good that we supported it, and we still support it.
Anything else is pure confusion and we do not understand it and, anyway, we do not understand why something as normal as a minority group of MEPs supporting the majority groups, should be presented in such a problematic light.
If you do not want us to support you, let us know and next time we will not do it.
(Applause from the Greens/EFA Group)
Madam President, I echo your regrets, and I also work on the assumption that errors of this type must not recur in future.
I signed the PPE resolution myself and was, naturally, more than astonished, not to say horrified, at the subsequent actions.
At this point in time I also have to say that, unfortunately, this is not the first such occurrence.
I have experienced something similar in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
Something must be done here, immediately and as a matter of urgency.
Votes
I must point out that we are proceeding to votes in blocks, taking into account the requests for individual votes by split voting and by roll call.
Members new to the House will see that this is rather complicated, but we shall try to make things as simple as possible, with the active support of the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, to whom I hereby give the floor.
Bourlanges (PPE), general rapporteur.
(FR) Madam President, may I assure the new Members, they are not going to get another speech.
As Mr Napolitano would say, making a speech is something completely different from what I am about to do now.
Madam President, I would just like, as a preliminary comment to the voting, to make a statement regarding some technical points.
I must point out to the staff of the Sessional Services that purely technical or linguistic errors have been found in a number of amendments.
The necessary corrections will have to be made so that they reflect the voting of the Committee on Budgets.
This involves the following amendments: Amendment Nos 409, 471, 520, 621, 612, 565, 637 and 459.
I can assure my fellow Members that there is not one jot of a political problem relating to these technical corrections.
Thank you. I hope that the services responsible for the Minutes will be able to make the necessary changes.
Mr Bourlanges, I can confirm this, and I can tell you that the linguistic services have already been made aware of these problems, and will make the necessary corrections.
Relating to Amendment No 460
Madam President, a number of amendments with regard to the re-structuring of administrative expenditure and the technical assistance offices will now follow.
The question is whether this should be dealt with here, i.e. after a discussion in the Committee on Budgets, or whether it should be discussed as part of an extensive debate about the re-structuring of the Commission as a whole in all the relevant committees.
We are concerned that a whole spate of amendments will not actually benefit the management of the Commission.
My group will therefore vote against this amendment but many subsequent amendments will also contain this particular issue.
I therefore want to point out that, as of today, we will only vote on the additional points in those amendments and that our vote, as far as this aspect is concerned, will remain unchanged throughout the voting procedure, because otherwise, I would have lumbered you with more than twenty split votes.
Relating to Chapter B1-400 President.
We shall now move on to chapter B1-400 which requires a majority of 314 votes.
I shall immediately give the floor to the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, who, I believe, wishes to make a compromise proposal.
Madam President, the compromise proposal is not mine exactly since, as the rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets, I am obviously bound by the previous vote of the Committee on Budgets.
Having said that, we held a consultative meeting with the coordinators of the various Groups and a compromise was arrived at between the coordinators regarding the amendments to sub-section B1-4.
This compromise involves a change to the amounts of the amendments adopted by the Commission on Budgets.
It makes it possible to cover all the lines in sub-section B1­4.
If this amendment were to be voted in, the request for a separate vote introduced by Mr Walter, the coordinator of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, and others, would then have to be withdrawn.
So, if this compromise is adopted, we should still have to vote on the heading for line B1­4050, amendment 507, with a favourable opinion from the Committee on Budgets and in a split vote requested by the Group of the Greens, as well as the heading for line B1­406 on Amendment No 69, this time with a vote by roll call.
Thus, the compromise amendment concerns lines B1­400, B1­401, B1­402, B1­4030, B1­404, B1­4050, B1­406, B1­4070, B1­408 and concerns a total amount of EUR 115 million, or, more precisely, it deducts EUR 115 million from the margin.
This, then, is the content of the oral amendment.
I believe that we must vote on this and then, if it is adopted, obviously the whole section will be finalised in the way I have just described.
Thank you.
I cannot be associated with it in my official capacity as rapporteur for the Committee on Budgets.
I shall be voting on this amendment in a personal capacity.
This may seem rather complicated for the uninitiated among us, but it really is quite simple at the end of the day.
It must also seem rather complicated for the visitors present.
Madam President, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, I would like to thank the coordinators of all Groups in the Committee on Budgets for the fact that this compromise has been achieved.
I must acknowledge the generous nature of the general rapporteur, who was himself of another opinion.
That is understandable, and I also know that the Committee chairman was in favour of another view, but we should pay tribute to the hard work of all the representatives of the Committee on Budgets here. The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development supports this view.
Madam President, I have attempted to listen very carefully to the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges.
From what I can gather, Amendment No 69 on budget line B1-406 has been incorporated into this oral amendment.
This Amendment No 69 was drafted by a number of Flemish and Wallonian colleagues of mine.
What I have as yet failed to understand is what is to remain of this amendment if it is included in the overall compromise.
I would very much welcome clarification on this matter.
Yes, that is correct, Mrs Staes.
We still have to vote on the heading for line B1-4050, Amendment No 507 and the heading for line B1-406 on Amendment No 69.
Amendment 69 did not present a problem for the coordinators in terms of the amount.
The heading did, however, present a problem and, as you so rightly say, we shall be voting on it separately.
Relating to Amendment No 65
Madam President, Amendment No 65, introduced by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, has now been included in the compromise amendment in a somewhat altered form, but it has been included, so that plant and animal genetic resources have received their own title.
The Council still has to approve this.
Something in the compromise was deferred so we do not have to vote on it now.
We therefore withdraw our amendment.
Madam President, I would just like to make a policy guidance suggestion regarding all the amendments to Category 3.
Following our discussions in the Committee on Budgets and consultations with all the relevant committees, we arrived at proposals which are generally satisfactory to all parties concerned, but the price to be paid for this is that we are working right up to the limits of the margin permitted.
Now, the interinstitutional agreement, which is our Bible, stipulates that in our votes on the budget, right through the procedure, we must keep within the ceiling limits.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, you are of course free to vote as you wish, according to your own judgement, but you should be aware that as soon as you vote for an amendment on expenditure in excess of what has been agreed I would say "around" rather than by the Committee on Budgets, you risk putting us in a very delicate position with regard to the margin.
I wanted to make this perfectly clear so that everyone can be aware of the responsibility they have.
Thank you, Mr Bourlanges.
So, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, would the President of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development please tell me if he will withdraw this amendment?
I see that he will.
Relating to Amendment No 430
Madam President, may I ask how it is that there is a change to the voting order? We have Amendment No 430 on the European Year of Languages as the next amendment to be voted on.
Could someone, either Mr Bourlanges or yourself, give us some information on this?
That is because it is still the amendment of the Committee on Budgets which we are going to vote on.
This is the custom. It is perhaps not justified but, like any custom, one must take care before challenging them!
Madam President, a number of Members present today will be confused as to what has actually gone on concerning this European Women' s Lobby amendment.
Amendment No 394 was tabled by a colleague of mine, Mrs Scallon.
A number of us would like to vote for her amendment but, because of what has gone on in the coordinators' meetings, we have no idea how to do so.
I would very much appreciate your advice on how we can support the original Amendment No 394.
Madam President, I think that there is no way that we can proceed to a vote on this amendment as it has not been re-introduced after being subject to a vote or, I might say, a transformation within the Committee on Budgets.
Thus we have an amendment from the Committee on Budgets which, I must say, was voted on in a state of some confusion, and which represents a hybrid entity since it has the European Women's Lobby' s title and the content of Mrs Scallon' s amendment.
Well, it will not have escaped you that in some respects the positions of the European Women' s Lobby and Mrs Scallon are not identical, but this is the amendment which the Committee on Budgets has voted on.
I can understand people voting against it.
I am supposed to be supporting it, but I find it somewhat incoherent.
If Parliament votes against it, then we will then have to vote for or against the amendment of the European Women' s Lobby.
Procedure does not allow for Mrs Scallon' s amendment to be reintroduced into the cycle since there is no compromise basis for an oral amendment to be submitted.
I simply think that the problems that have arisen on this occasion will certainly be examined by the Committee on Budgets, within the working party specifically set up by chairman Wynn to deal with the subject of this institution' s policy on subsidies as a whole.
I wish to reassure my fellow Member on that point, but, in my opinion, we can vote only on the two amendments which have been submitted: the Committee on Budgets' amendment and the amendment reintroduced by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities.
Following the vote on Amendment No 443
Madam President, now that Parliament has voted down Amendment No 443, we have solved the problem.
In other words, it is the European Women' s Lobby which remains and which gets the 600,000.
It remains both in the nomenclature and in the remarks.
It was precisely that which each and every one of the Women' s Committee intended, and that is why we can withdraw Amendment No 10. We are therefore withdrawing the proposal in Amendment No 10 because we have achieved precisely what we wanted to achieve with this vote.
Madam President, draft Amendment No 503 concerning promotions is in this voting group.
I would like to propose that the remarks be removed.
Only the numbers remain, as the Council of Ministers has already dealt with the remarks.
The remarks are therefore unnecessary, and just the numbers should remain.
Report (A5-0030/1999) by Mr Bourlanges, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the draft general budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000 - Section III Commission (C5-0300/1999)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, as both rapporteur and Chairman of the Committee, I must say that I am very surprised.
The request is completely unexpected.
In this House, on Monday, we discussed the report I tabled on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which adopted it unanimously. Also, two influential Members, representatives of the Group of the European People' s Party - the ones who spoke on behalf of the Group - spoke clearly in favour of the report on Monday.
Now we are told, no less, that there are serious legal gaps.
I, naturally, respect the legal background of the Member who spoke, but I am also surprised by the fact that these serious gaps were not regarded as such by the members of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs - who, in terms of legal knowledge, are deemed second to none.
What I mean is, the Committee cannot, under any circumstances, go any further than it has done already, as the inclusion of this Interinstitutional Agreement in the Rules of Procedure does require technical adjustments, but these must not call into question the agreement negotiated and signed on behalf of Parliament.
Therefore, may I say that as far as we are concerned, it makes no sense to refer the report to the Committee.
(Parliament rejected the request for a referral to committee)
Mr President, the first part of your ruling is absolutely right.
It is clear that a Rule change requires a qualified majority.
But Mr Corbett has a very strong point.
All we are doing now with the remainder of this text is annexing the implementation of the interinstitutional agreement to the modus vivendi of this Parliament.
I ask the House to think very carefully about what they are doing here.
We are now in a position that the interinstitutional agreement has been implemented as far as it affects the Commission.
It has been implemented as far as it affects the Council.
By a decision of Parliament' s Bureau it has been implemented as it affects Parliament' s staff.
The only people left are Members of the European Parliament.
Do we really want people to be saying that Members of the European Parliament are scared about the OLAF regulations applying to them? Let us not put ourselves in that position!
(Loud applause)
Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, this is quite a difficult situation.
I now give the floor to Mr Nassauer too, because he has requested it, but I invite you to reflect on the fact that, in a situation such as this, it is difficult to press ahead using majority votes - we really should take into account this very delicate situation which must be addressed, if possible, with a broad consensus across this House.
Mr President, I shall speak with right on my side.
Personally, I believe that we are making a mistake, largely due to the way the original regulations of OLAF were put together, but that is another question.
Here we must have a very clear idea about why this Parliament requires an absolute majority for questions which affect MEPs.
You have given the reason, Mr President: because we are looking for a broad consensus.
We cannot hide behind a technical question that there are agreements which are not incorporated in the regulations.
This is a matter which must remain outside the regulations and therefore the logical and reasonable thing - and rules, when the law is the law and not just formal texts, must be reasonable - should be that this be supported by an absolute majority in this Parliament.
Any other approach would fundamentally contravene the very essence of the parliamentary Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, the internal self-regulation of Parliament is one of the fundamental bulwarks of its independence.
Anything which affects Parliament' s right to self-regulation affects a core element which allows it, or rather enables it, to perform its sovereign functions as the people' s representative.
This is found in the constitutional history of all parliaments.
This is the reason why specific precautions are introduced to prevent this sovereignty being limited in any way.
If we take an impulsive, majority decision on a matter of this kind and interpret the annexes without taking into account how these agreements affect fundamental issues, we will in some way contravene the basic rationale, the objective of the legislation we are addressing.
Mr President, I agree absolutely with what David Martin had to say, and it would be a disgrace if we do not vote today.
But, at this stage, I do not wish to discuss content, I would just like to ensure, and you shall have to take responsibility for that too, that the matter is pursued.
For we are now faced with a difficult crisis regarding the Rules of Procedure, since the matter is to be referred back to Committee again, even though the majority in this House rejected that option today.
I therefore request that it is ensured that this resistance from a particular quarter, creating the present situation in which Members of Parliament alone are not monitored by OLAF, does not become a permanent state of affairs.
For that is precisely what you have achieved!
Please deal with this matter, Mr President, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, so that we can settle it in a decent and dignified manner on behalf of the Members of this House. Otherwise, we will no longer be able to look our fellow citizens in the eye.
Mr President, firstly, on behalf of Commissioner Reding, I would like to congratulate Mrs Gröner and all the Members of the Committee who have worked so significantly on the whole of this document.
I would like to say that the work is so positive that no amendment will be rejected and, to this end, I am happy to say that the Commission accepts Amendment Nos 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13.
Therefore, the Commission practically accepts all of the amendments and with regard to Amendment Nos 7 and 8, it cannot accept them as they stand, but it accepts the spirit of their content.
I can say that the work has been magnificent, that we offer our congratulations on it and on the fact that no amendment has been rejected outright.
As you will have understood, Mr President, there is a problem in this morning' s debate. We are not agreed on the compromise text.
It would therefore be advisable to find out, first of all, what this compromise text involves, especially in relation to paragraph 17 thereof.
Personally, I think that if we were to adopt compromise texts which are not those that the Members signed or to which they committed their Group, we would be setting an extremely dangerous precedent.
All the Members who were present in the House at the start have already heard the debate and several Members have already intervened.
Clearly, we need to avoid a repeat of the debate which we had this morning, both as regards the agreement existing between the Groups on whether we should mention the firm we discussed at such length this morning and also as regards the specific question of whether the signatories of a specific compromise text were aware of the fact that a part of the text had been changed.
I would like to make two proposals. Firstly, I think that the Secretary-General of Parliament should carry out a swift investigation into what actually happened.
I think it is right for all of us to be informed for the sake of clarification.
Some Members say they signed one text, but other Members say they signed a different one.
I think that it is right for us to be informed as to what really happened.
The Secretary-General of Parliament will inform us as soon as possible.
As far as the point under discussion is concerned, I have the following proposal to make.
If there are no objections, I can also put to the vote the part of an agreed text with regard to which there is a difference of opinion over whether or not it exists in the compromise text. However, I will only put this part to the vote if you all agree because, given that there are two versions, I cannot say that there is agreement.
It is, however, possible for everyone to agree that, despite this different interpretation, it is appropriate to vote separately on the part which is controversial.
I repeat - I can only go ahead with this vote if everyone agrees.
I will obviously not be able to put that part to the vote if any of you is against this working hypothesis.
To avoid restarting the debate, I would ask the Members who do not agree with the proposal which I have just made to say so immediately, so that we know whether, when we reach that part, we can vote on it or not. If there is an objection, I repeat, we will not be able to put it to the vote.
Is there an objection to this proposal or do you all agree that that part of the amendment can be put to the vote anyway? There are no objections?
Good. Well, when the time comes, we shall have a separate vote on each part.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr President, I spoke yesterday.
I wish to remind you that I am the representative for the town where Michelin has its headquarters, since we do not dare mention its name today, although Commissioner Diamantopoulou did have the courage to do so yesterday.
I believe that the union leaders from Michelin who were among us yesterday will be able to assess the manner in which the majority of this House is treating them at its face value.
Mr President, I want to give a brief explanation of vote with regard to the Bourlanges report and in particular our vote on Doc. A5-30/99.
In that document Mr Bourlanges sets out in paragraphs 7, 8 and 9 the reasoning behind the conclusion that Parliament does not approve the Council' s proposals.
In particular, paragraph 8 was an important political signal to the Council.
My own group, which is of divided opinion on the matter, has a minority who intended to vote against paragraph 8, and did so.
However, I also led the majority of the group inadvertently into voting against paragraph 8 due to an incorrect voting indication.
I wish to place on record for Mr Bourlanges and for the House that the majority of my group was disposed to vote for the strategy in paragraph 8.
I should like that to be noted and duly recorded.
Mr President, I voted against the proposed budget of the European Parliament for the year 2000, as it seemed to lack rigour, unlike the Council proposal.
In this respect, I would like to draw attention to two specific points, which I think are extremely indicative of the spirit and the methods which predominate within the Union' s institutions.
Firstly, the stubbornness with which the European Parliament, despite all the regulations in force, persists in seeking to hand the taxpayers' money over to so-called European political parties.
The Council of Amsterdam which signed and approved the Treaty of the same name had looked into this question and explicitly refused to recognise the existence of European political parties, and still less to finance them from public funds.
We must therefore refer back to the current edition of Article 191 of the Treaty, formerly Article 138A, which only mentions, in a rather vague way, the action of political parties, I quote, "at European level" , which is a very different matter, or so the Amsterdam Council and the Treaty intended it at any rate, from the idea of a "European political party" strictly speaking.
So, in the Parliament budget, under Category 3710, we are surprised to read an entry relating to contributions to European political parties, with an explanation to the effect that the Commission is shortly to present a statute for European political parties.
Such a brief reference and yet it contains three instances of irregularity. There is no European political party, there is no provision for the allocation of public funds to them, and the Commission has no right to prepare a statute of this type, which is not in accordance with the Treaty.
In doing this, the European Parliament is moving its pawns in an illegal manner.
Admittedly, for the moment no appropriations have been allocated to this item, but, even so - and this is my second point - it has set aside an enormous appropriation, of EUR 60 million, in a reserve for the Members' Statute, which is rather mysterious, since the statute does not yet exist and, in any case, even if such a Members' Statute were to be adopted, it would certainly not apply within the present term of office.
These two problems, apparently unrelated, lead me to draw a common conclusion.
As recently as last year, the Court of Justice of the European Communities severely reprimanded the Commission for making budget expenditure commitments without a legal basis, with the collusion of the European Parliament.
I observe that these practices are continuing and even getting worse, since now the European Parliament itself is taking a direct part in it.
Thus the old European rule is still being applied here: every base act is permitted as long as it contributes to the construction of a federal Europe.
Mr President, unlike the vast majority in Parliament, I think that the Union should finance its possible activity in Kosovo, East Timor and Turkey with appropriations that remain within the excessiveness threshold for Category 4 of the Financial Perspective.
The same goes for the adoption of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
As the Council has stated, no precise estimates of the aid requirements have been presented other than those regarding Kosovo.
It is thus too early to fix the total amount of appropriation needed for external operations next year.
Besides, funds have already now been reallocated to respond to the challenges that go with the relief operations mentioned above.
Regarding point 11 in the report, I think that Parliament, for its part, committed to reviewing its statute already last spring, so that travel expenses would be paid according to bona fide costs incurred.
Although I am also personally committed to reviewing the expenses arrangements on the basis of bona fide costs, I call also on the Council' s commitment to push through Parliament' s proposal.
Mr President, I would like to move on to the Virrankoski report.
I would like to indicate to the voters that we at the European Parliament are not just big spenders but that we also look after the pennies.
I was therefore disappointed to hear that Parliament did not adopt my amendment.
.
(EL) Budget 2000 marks a major turning point in the whole question of funding for Turkey.
The Council has introduced the amounts to be used for action to extend the EU-Turkey Customs Union and for the economic and social development of Turkey, but it has not set the usual political criteria which have to be fulfilled nor has it allocated any of the funds to action over the earthquakes.
For the first time in years, the amendment of the Committee on Budgets not only approves the Council' s appropriations but actually increases them, thereby making good the cuts the Council had previously made as a result of Kosovo.
Also, instead of stipulating the political criteria which the European Parliament had so rigidly laid down, it has simply confined itself in the "Remarks" section to mention of an institutional control mechanism, the actual effectiveness of which, from our experience with the MEDA programme, is somewhat questionable.
Unfortunately, the position of the European Parliament benefits neither democratic nor human rights in Turkey, does not encourage a settlement of the Cyprus and Kurdish questions and does not support the tragic victims of the earthquakes in Turkey.
- (FR) In today' s sitting, the European Parliament adopted the General Budget of the European Union for the financial year 2000.
The vote on the budget is a key point in the parliamentary calendar.
Throughout the process of drawing up the budget, the Group of the Party of European Socialists forcefully defended the principles of Union solidarity and political commitment with regard to the most disadvantaged in order to meet the objective of eradicating poverty.
As a member of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, I paid particular attention to the development of Category 4, intended to finance the Union' s external policies and to promote development aid.
Indeed, the Community' s historical and political responsibility towards developing countries must be fully taken up by this House and represents one of our absolute priorities.
Despite the rationale of the general reduction of appropriations allocated to development aid, the European Community is, and must remain, the main partner of the most disadvantaged countries.
In this respect, we cannot accept the Council proposal to implement a 10% reduction in the appropriations allocated for cooperation and development in order to finance the reconstruction of Kosovo and aid to Turkey following the earthquake, or support for East Timor.
The cost of these displays of solidarity, all perfectly legitimate, must not be borne by the poorest countries on earth.
Indeed, how could we sanction any reduction in the amounts allocated to the prevention of AIDS when it is known that 25 million people on the continent of Africa are already condemned to die from this scourge? Industrialised countries in general and the Member States of the Union in particular must not withdraw from their development aid commitment as that would have social, economic, political and health-related repercussions on the ever fragile equilibrium of the most disadvantaged countries.
This is why, while being fully aware that the increase in Community spending is occasionally hard for the public finances of Member States to bear, I voted, in spite of everything, in favour of the resolution proposed by the general rapporteur for the budget.
The European Women' s Lobby represents over 3,000 different women' s organisations across the EU.
It has represented the interests of women with competence and professionalism.
The group has provided invaluable information and support, particularly on the impact of European programmes on women' s lives.
We have also been able, as individuals, to access information, evidence and analysis when necessary.
The material produced by the lobby is high quality, as are the forums, seminars and conferences which they organise.
A clear example of this was a day conference involving women from all over the EU which was held in Cardiff to coincide with the summit during the UK presidency.
It is clearly inadvisable to distribute the funds between a variety of organisations which would, by definition, fail to identify the core objectives in terms of giving the service which EWL can so uniquely provide.
The agenda pursued by EWL is clear and incontrovertible - to promote the concerns, priorities and interests of women.
The accusations which have been made, that the EWL is a "single issue" body, is simply not true when it represents such large numbers of women through its 3000 member organisations.
- (DE) The Members of the Austrian Freedom Party will be rejecting both Mr Bourlanges' motion for a resolution (individual plan III - Commission) and Mr Virrankoski' s (further individual plans), since the principles of transparency and efficiency in the budget procedure were not respected.
Nor is it possible to carry out effective supervision of the Union' s budgetary procedure.
Apart from that, the Commission operates far too ponderously.
The processing of applications and payments to the citizens of the Union in some cases takes more than 18 months, leading to justifiable criticism of the administration of the Union.
Insufficient funds and programmes are provided in the Budget 2000 for real problems such as, for example, the high rate of unemployment.
The Union is somewhat helpless in the face of the effects of globalisation and the introduction of the euro.
Instead of developing employment schemes or programmes promoting small and medium-sized enterprises, the Union indulges in an administration which is far too expensive, with two parliament buildings, for instance.
The challenge for the future will be whether the EU can manage to draw up common principles which ensure that an economic recovery returns to Europe through which the problems of the labour market can for the most part, be eliminated.
To this end it will also be necessary, however, for the administrations of the Union and national states to be structured more effectively.
Since it cannot seriously be discerned that the Union can contribute to an economic recovery in Europe, the Budget for 2000 is rejected in its entirety.
.
(EL) The Commission' s draft and more so the Council' s draft EU budget for 2000 are marked by their austerity and drastic cuts, even in relation to the decisions reached at the European Council meeting in Berlin.
Budget 2000 is an austerity budget with drastic cuts in agricultural, structural and social expenditure.
It is a budget tailor made to the Stability Pact and to the drastic cuts imposed on Member States both within and outside the euro zone.
The victims of this policy are the public at large, workers, farmers, artisans, young people and women.
In the agricultural section of the budget, it is evident that even before the start of the multilateral negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, the EU wishes to join forces with the Americans and reduce protection and intervention by reducing the funds allocated to individual agricultural products. In turn, this will entail further cuts in producers' income and further restrictions on farming.
What is particularly worrying is the fact that, alongside the reduction in support expenditure for agricultural product markets, there is also an increase in and systemisation of expenditure under the second pillar of the CAP intended to wipe out small and medium-sized farmers.
We have noted a reduction in the Structural Funds, which proves that the heroic declarations to iron out social and regional inequalities were merely rabble-rousing tactics.
The same goes for the exceptionally limited social expenditure which is oriented not towards reducing unemployment or improving workers' lives, but towards facilitating measures to upset working relations.
We wish to denounce the efforts to activate the appropriations allocated to Turkey within the framework of the Customs Union and for the promotion of Euro-Turkish relations. We are equally against the tabling of proposals to approve the necessary appropriate legal bases, when it is a well-known fact that the human rights situation in Turkey has showed no signs of improvement, that the same policy is still being pursued on the Kurdish question and that Turkey is still occupying a large part of Cyprus.
We also wish to condemn the hypocrisy of the EU on the Kosovo issue.
On the one hand, it has totally destroyed the area with its unprovoked and criminal attacks on Yugoslavia and, on the other hand, it is now bending over backwards with its restructuring endeavours, without prejudice of course, while at the same time demanding that the perfectly legitimate government and the President of the country be overthrown.
Despite the report' s containing certain positive individual amendments, it embraces the restrictive and unacceptable agreements reached in Berlin on Agenda 2000.
It would be naïve of us to expect a different approach from the bodies of the EU, when both the community budget and national budgets have to operate within the unpopular and austere framework of the Maastricht criteria with tight cutbacks in public finances. It would be naïve to expect a different approach when the external policy of the EU is marked by crass hypocrisy, oppressive controls and the ever-increasing subjugation of countries, not to mention open and multiple intervention in their own internal affairs, as is the case with the enlargement process and the Stability Pact for south-eastern Europe.
For these reasons, we shall once again be voting against the draft budget.
.
UK Liberal Democrats are voting with this budget line as proposed by the Committee on Budgets, but in anticipation that further discussion is to take place in order to meet the substantive points of Mr Jan Mulder, MEP, and to find more financial resources within the overall total without either depleting the reserves or calling upon the Council to provide new funds.
Reconstruction aid to Kosovo is essential but the pile-up of earlier unspent budget lines means that more discussion might be fruitful.
.
I raised the issue, put to me by European citizens, of an unacceptable monopoly within the process of European funding.
The "Scallon amendment" was not accepted by the Committee on Budgets.
My colleagues who belong to this committee drafted an amendment in order to broaden funding for women' s groups to a wider range of women' s groups.
Parliament today has debated this issue and the vote continues this monopolistic arrangement.
The issue will certainly continue to be debated over the next year.
It is a matter of principle that all women, and the groups that are campaigning for them, should have equal access to EU funding, most of all when its aim is to allow European organisations to be represented at UN level.
People are well aware that sometimes it is necessary to take a stand on the principle of transparency and fairness in our democratic structures.
Monopolistic arrangements cannot be allowed to continue.
While I acknowledge that a monopolistic arrangement has been allowed to continue, I welcome the continuing allowance of EUR 600 000 and would welcome future increases, hoping, of course, that it will assist in making all women' s voices heard.
Napolitano report (A5-0036/1999)
Mr President, I would like to state that I have voted against the referral back to Committee of the Napolitano report and in favour of the inclusion in the Rules of Procedure of the Annex which appears in the said report.
I have done so firstly for basic reasons of coherence because, when the text of the Annex was signed by me in the name of this Parliament, I did so in accordance with the mandate of the competent bodies of this Parliament.
Today' s vote seems serious to me because it entails the discrediting, not of me personally, which would not matter, but of the bodies of Parliament itself during the last legislature.
Secondly, because I cannot see anywhere, and nor did we see it at the time nor since, these supposed legal irregularities which would give rise to the rejection of the text.
Thirdly, for political reasons.
It seems to me to be a serious political error that, if the Council and the Commission have established a system through which its own members, the Commissioners, Ministers and Heads of State of the Member States, can be investigated in the event of irregularities, we MEPs cannot also be investigated.
For these reasons, I have voted in favour of the Napolitano report and against its referral back to Committee.
Mr President, very much in the same tone as Mr Gil-Robles I voted against referral back and for the amendment which, sadly, was rejected.
I have to say that a section of the EPP Group were playing games on this issue.
There is a valid need to draw a distinction between staff matters, which are a Bureau responsibility, and Members' matters which are a plenary responsibility.
That would have been dealt with by Amendment No 2 had we reached that amendment.
I was disappointed because the Christian Democrats, as well as the Socialists, had put their names to Amendment No 2 and so it would have been carried and the matter would have been covered.
As Mr Gil-Robles has said, and as I said earlier, we are now in a position where the interinstitutional agreement as regards OLAF applies to the Commission, to the Council and to the staff of this institution but it does not apply to the Members of this institution.
Given that we are the institution that, quite rightly, has made great play of tackling fraud in European Community institutions, how are the citizens of Europe going to understand that the only people with whom OLAF has not reached an agreement in terms of internal investigations are Members of the European Parliament? It puts us in an intolerable position.
Mr President, on behalf of the Socialist Group I would like to say that we supported approval of the interinstitutional agreement as an essential building block in re-establishing the credibility of the European Union in how it relates to fraud and deals with allegations of fraud.
It is highly regrettable that we have not been able to approve this today, for the reasons outlined by my colleague Mr David Martin.
It leaves Parliament in a highly embarrassing position and with a few honourable exceptions, notably Mr Gil-Robles, the attitude of the European People' s Party is highly hypocritical.
They supported this in committee.
They supported it in the debate on Monday in which they stated clearly and unequivocally that they would be supporting this proposal, and yet today they back out of it and they fail to adopt it.
How can we show ourselves to our electorate and how will the EPP be able to show itself to the electorate when it quite rightly makes a fuss about fraud in the election campaign yet, when it comes to delivering here, it fails to deliver?
The EPP Group needs to examine its conscience and to do so rapidly because the position it has created in Parliament today is an embarrassment for all of us.
Mr President, I see that at the last minute there has been an avalanche of explanations of votes regarding referral of the Napolitano report to committee.
I have the impression that my own has been lost en route, and I would also like to give an explanation.
Thank you.
I believe that the question before us is not whether or not the expenses of Members of Parliament must be strictly controlled.
I am the first to say, and I explained this at length in my speech last Monday, that there must absolutely be supervision, but that this must be specific supervision, in line with our role as elected representatives, Members of Parliament.
In this respect I have just heard many rough approximations, in my opinion.
The institutional agreement explicitly mentions the members of institutions, true, but if you take this expression in context you see that it is more a matter of paid members, such as the members of the Commission, and that the terms established are not appropriate for elected members like those of the European Parliament.
The two categories of member must not be muddled.
In the Napolitano report there is, indeed, another strange confusion resulting from this, between the situation of Members of Parliament and that of officials.
Quite clearly, as far as officials are concerned, the decision could have been taken long ago.
Besides, Mr President, the Annex was, in my opinion, related to the main body of the text and, consequently, it was not possible, as you quite rightly decided, to vote on the Annex after rejecting the main body of the text.
Referral to committee is therefore perfectly justifiable.
The Napolitano report had been discussed too quickly, in haste, and many things had been overlooked.
- (FR) The project on which we are called upon to declare our opinion in the form of the report by our fellow member, Mr Graça-Moura, is hardly a matter for controversy and is one which can legitimately gain the support of Parliament in its entirety.
Indeed, the European Union has a central role to play in the development of culture and the arts in Europe.
In the vision of a Europe of the nations, which is the one I am arguing in favour of here, this is precisely the type of action in which European cooperation can contribute a significant added value.
But I must stress that we are not to be fooled, for all that. The fact that Parliament wishes to substitute the term "cultural policy" for the term "cultural cooperation" shows the temptation to standardise of a "European" cultural policy intended to replace those of Member States would have.
Culture must not be the test-bed used by ideologists for the creation of the "European nation" .
There is no European culture, any more than there is a European nation.
There are, and this is a formidable source of cultural wealth, many nations which participate in the European Union, and many national cultures.
This programme will, I hope, contribute towards permitting all citizens of Member States to discover this wealth and this diversity.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group will always support programmes intended to promote exchanges, to develop the appetite for culture in the citizens of our Member States.
As long as this really means exchanges and discovery and not creating the Homo Europeus who knows the speeches of Jean Monnet off by heart.
This new expression of European cultural cooperation is of very special importance on the eve of the Seattle negotiations which will not, I fear, do anything to challenge American cultural hegemony.
This is why I am warning the Commission and Parliament against the temptation to use these programmes as an instrument for propaganda or standardisation. There is too much at stake.
Moreover, and in conclusion, it seems to me that the war of figures which Parliament, the Council and the Commission are waging regarding this case is particularly fruitless.
We all know that the European Union must face up to decisions, painful decisions perhaps, but crucial decisions, in order to ensure its enlargement.
So, please, ladies and gentlemen, let us learn to face up to our responsibilities, and let us not accuse the Council of stinginess, when it is simply facing up to the responsibilities which voters and tax payers in our Member States have entrusted to it.
Restructuring of firms
- (FR) The Union for a Europe of Nations Group co-signed the joint motion for resolution on the restructuring of firms in the face of globalisation, since it indicates the beginning of a new spirit, distancing itself from free-tradism, and encouraging one to think of international trade "in terms of the more complex objective of sustainable development" .
Indeed I believe that, even though it would be inappropriate to challenge the idea of international free trade, it should however now be forced to take account of a number of unquantified costs imposed on society in Europe.
We must somehow continue to reap the advantages of free trade while neutralising its disadvantages.
Among the unquantified costs are the social costs resulting from firms relocating.
Of course, the redistribution of the workforce internationally may contribute to the better use of the workforce, and thus ultimately benefit everyone.
But, at the same time, competition in terms of wages marginalises the least qualified personnel in developed societies, and this is something we cannot accept.
Michelin, who have just implemented some controversial redundancies in France, are in precisely this type of situation, since its main competitor produces tyres in Eastern European countries where wage costs are five times less.
The French Minister for Social Affairs, Mrs Aubry, put forward the idea of charging Michelin an exceptional unemployment contribution.
This proposal seems absurd, since, in the event, this firm is, if anything, the victim.
As far as I am concerned, I would propose the exact opposite. Firms who have their manufacturing operations in low-wage countries should be forced to pay an exceptional unemployment contribution when they import goods into France, or into Europe.
This contribution would be one element, but no doubt not the only one, in a system for balancing out social costs so as to better regulate international trade between heterogeneous areas, without however depriving us of the advantages of free trade.
We consider that this proposal is one that should be put on the table at the forthcoming trade talks of the Millennium Round which is about to begin in Seattle.
I would furthermore like to take this opportunity to recall the main objectives of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group at the beginning of these negotiations.
1) We would like the importance of the problems which were not resolved by the Uruguay Round to be stressed, problems whose harmful effects we are only just starting to perceive, in the fields of social costs, as I have just mentioned, but also those of the environment, public health, food, etc. It should be remembered, even so, that, alone against the world, or almost, we refused to approve the Uruguay Round, both in the French National Assembly and in the European Parliament, for precisely this reason, i.e. we thought it extremely dangerous to agree to significant reductions in customs tariffs without first resolving the essential collateral problems.
And so now we have to try to make up for lost time by entering these matters of social, environmental and health costs on the agenda for Seattle.
2) We want an objective and complete assessment of the Uruguay Round to be drawn up, based on the transparent consultation of governments and specialist non-governmental organisations.
We refuse to negotiate in the dark, as at present.
It is inappropriate for negotiations to begin in such conditions, and a period of moratorium must be decided while waiting for the assessment to be drawn up.
3) We object all the more to a number of matters which the European Union presently proposes to add to the Seattle agenda, subjects whose consequences we shall absolutely not be able to control.
I shall cite in particular the question of international investments, which would lead to a second attempt to establish the ghastly Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI).
I shall also cite the definition of a world competition policy which, as presented today, even more surely than current European policy would lead to public services being compromised.
4) Finally, we demand that future negotiations openly acknowledge one fundamental principle from the outset, the principle that each nation has the right to choose its own laws, and international trade must respect them.
As a logical consequence of this, every nation has the right to express choices and preferences.
Areas of preference, be they regionally-based (European Community) or functionally-based (the Lomé Convention), must immediately be recognised as legitimate if they are founded on the democratic decisions of the peoples concerned.
- (FR) Ridicule never killed anyone.
Fortunately for the European Parliament, which should have strongly denounced the attitude of the Michelin management which has just announced a massive series of cuts in workforce and redundancies, even though the returns and profits for this firm increased substantially.
The simultaneous nature of the announcements, of course, blatantly exposed the scandalous and unfair aspect of current economic reasoning and this financial capitalism which has gained the upper hand in Europe and throughout the world.
Of course, in the first place, the European Parliament must, in this specific instance, strongly condemn the Michelin management, and request that the firm reconsiders these job losses, and assure the group' s employees of its solidarity.
But this House must also learn the lessons necessary to improve Community legislation, in order to provide some protection for employees against such practices.
Obviously, the directive on collective redundancy procedure must be reviewed and measures which afford greater protection for workers and for jobs must be included in it.
In particular, it is necessary for employees to be able to challenge the actual basis for these redundancies and the economic motives for these before they are actually implemented, and this at a very early stage of the procedure.
Moreover, the establishment of real group level works councils, European Committees with real powers, becomes ever more essential.
Once more, the European Parliament should review its directive on this point.
Our resolution is singularly lacking in determination and it is to be feared that, unless widespread forces are mobilised, Social Europe will go unheeded on a long-term basis.
, in writing.
(EL) The phenomenon of mass redundancies from large multinationals which seems to be having an 'avalanche' effect is a sharp slap in the face for the high-sounding proclamations on tackling unemployment and job creation in the EU.
Goodyear, Renault and now Michelin, having adapted themselves to the growth models created by the single market and integrated into the Maastricht and Amsterdam Treaties and EMU, have turned the climate of unaccountability to their advantage by gradually annihilating every form of social responsibility and protection of workers. This has created more unemployment and increased levels of social exclusion.
Extensive restructuring and company mergers have favoured increased profit-yielding activities at the cost of productive investments which, in turn, has led to mass redundancies.
Pretexts are hardly even needed now in the climate of rampant competition and unaccountability of big business, as is apparent from the announcements by the Michelin management of a 17% increase in profits and 7,500 redundancies, adding to the 15,000 redundancies in recent years.
This callousness and cynicism are not only endorsed by the EU and its various bodies; they are also being funded in the context of direct or indirect financial aid intended to safeguard competitiveness on a global scale.
The human factor has been largely overridden by the most barbaric form of capitalism.
Employees are expected, with a gun threatening unemployment held to their heads, to underwrite increased profits and to accept humiliating agreements on terms, conditions and salaries, as in the Michelin case, only to find that their jobs are eventually axed anyway.
EMU is a one-way street for monopolies whose only aim is to increase profits and consolidate their power.
Employees have nothing to gain by following this route which only leads to unemployment, a lower quality of life, marginalisation and eventual destitution.
Since employee protection is being violated and disregarded altogether and since employees' rights are being flagrantly trampled underfoot, the only way open to employees is to protest, fight, challenge the choices made by the monopolies and EMU and fight for full employment, improved living conditions, real social development and prosperity.
Today' s resolution, in effect, renders the European Parliament jointly responsible for implementing more unpopular policies to the detriment of workers.
It is an unacceptable resolution and, on behalf of all working people, we shall be voting against it.
Nuclear tests
Throughout Europe, the restructuring and relocation of companies, particularly multinationals, has resulted in several thousand employees being laid off, a situation that is unacceptable and that is to be condemned for the serious economic and social consequences it has on the workers, on the region and on the country affected.
Cases such as that of Michelin in France, of Renault, Grundig, Siemens and Texas Instruments, amongst others, in Portugal, have made it clear that it is crucial to strengthen European legislation and legislation in the Member States in order to protect workers' rights, particularly their jobs, and to prevent multinationals from continuing to act in an arbitrary way, in order to achieve greater profits.
It is particularly important that special attention is paid to the granting of any kind of subsidy to these companies, which should always be conditional on jobs being maintained, and weighty penalties must be provided for as well as the return of subsidies received if this does not happen.
It is equally vital that the necessary measures are taken to give more rights and more scope for intervention to the European Works Councils established in the 94/95 directive, particularly in terms of the right to suspend licences.
- (EL) The arrogance of the American superpower, as demonstrated by its flagrantly murderous bombing campaign against Yugoslavia, is becoming all the more defiant and monocratic towards all the people of the world, with endless Senate decisions on the research and development of nuclear weapons.
Following the recent Senate decision to restart the famous "Star Wars" by voting for further funding, in contravention of the ABM Agreement, its refusal to ratify the Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons demonstrates out and out contempt towards worldwide demands for a general and comprehensive ban on all nuclear testing.
At present, popular movements are fighting for the total abolition of nuclear weapons and, with the threat looming of a resurgence of nuclear rivalry, the general public is calling for a reduction in military defence expenditure to avert the danger of a nuclear disaster. Nevertheless, the USA is not only adopting an extremely defiant stance by blocking efforts to stabilise international relations but it is deliberately undermining endeavours to build a climate of international peace and security.
This move has evoked considerable concern over the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the extensive armament of certain regions of the world and the modernisation of weapons of mass destruction.
Recent revelations concerning the proliferation of nuclear weapons and warheads to third countries which are not nuclear powers, and unbeknownst to their citizens, have added a new terrorist dimension to the threat of a nuclear disaster.
Unfortunately, some EU Member States, Greece for example, are included in those countries.
To ensure that the aspirations of the peace movement are respected all over the world, we are calling for immediate and specific initiatives to be introduced to abolish all nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. We are also calling for a general and definitive end to nuclear tests, a ban on the deployment of nuclear weapons outside the boundaries of the countries that own them, in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the withdrawal of all atomic weapons which are either deployed or stored in other countries and a ban on the export of all nuclear waste.
If the funds for nuclear testing and armament were released and channelled towards more productive investments in economic and social cohesion, education, culture and the protection of the environment, then this could ensure conciliation and peaceful co-existence and enhance mutual relations and equal cooperation.
This and only this can encourage, strengthen and guarantee stability and peace.
The rest would simply overfeed the greedy interests of monopolies and imperialism, particularly American imperialism which is a constant threat to all the people on earth.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.18 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Transport of dangerous goods by rail
The next item is the report (A5-0027/1999) by Mr Hatzidakis, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 96/49/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by rail [COM(1999)0157 - C5-0005/1999 - 1999/0087(COD)].
Mr President, as you said yourself, the report concerns a Commission proposal on the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
In recent years, this transport has expanded considerably, thus increasing the risks of accidents occurring.
The international transport of dangerous goods by rail is governed by the regulations concerning the international carriage of dangerous goods by rail, usually known as RID.
All the Member Sates are contracting parties to this Convention whose geographical scope extends beyond the European Union.
This Convention only applies to cross-border transport and does not cover the national carriage of dangerous goods by rail.
Therefore, and in order to ensure a high level of safety for national and international transport operations and to guarantee the elimination of distortions of competition, the European Union has adopted Directive 96/49/EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States with regard to the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
The main purpose of this Community legislation is to extend the above-mentioned regulations concerning the international carriage of dangerous goods by rail (RID) to national transport, i.e., to transport operations within the national territory of each Member State.
The aforementioned directive entered into force in January 1997.
However, this directive provided for a certain number of derogations, restrictions and exemptions.
In particular, transitional provisions expiring on 1 January 1999 relating to the construction, use and conditions of carriage of new tanks and new receptacles for the transport of gas, allowed Member States to retain the provisions of their national legislation.
The reason was that the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) had not yet completed work to standardise the construction and use of tanks and receptacles.
The present proposal aims to extend the aforementioned transitional period until 1 July 2001, or even longer for the transportation of pressure equipment for which no detailed technical specifications or no adequate references to the relevant European standards exist.
In this case, the date of entry into force of the provisions of the directive is to be determined by the Committee set up on the basis of the directive.
The reason for the postponement is that, due to delays in the standardisation work being carried out by the European Committee for Standardisation, the 1999 version of the RID does not incorporate standards for the construction and use of tanks and receptacles for transporting Class 2 gases.
The second objective of the present proposal is to amend certain provisions in Article 6 concerning derogations and to specify their acceptance procedure in more detail.
In particular, it aims to define the conditions that must be met for the application of certain derogations authorising Member States, as an exceptional measure, to issue administrative authorisations valid on their territory alone to carry out "ad hoc" transport operations of dangerous goods.
The general public takes a great interest in the transport of dangerous goods and measures relating to such transport.
Ensuring quality and safety standards in the carriage of goods by rail must be the main objective of any EU legislation in this field.
The key problem is that standards for the construction and use of tanks and receptacles for transporting Class 2 gases have not yet been agreed by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN).
In all Member States, there are various provisions in industrial and transport law concerning the packing and transportation of these gases.
The national regulations can be very different, in particular on technical grounds and also for climatic reasons, which leads to a fragmentation of the market within the EU which is incompatible with the single market.
It is therefore difficult to explain to the general public why the necessary common European standards have not yet been incorporated into the Annex to the EU legislation.
This is the reason why I cannot welcome this Commission proposal.
I understand, however, the need to extend the deadlines in Directive 96/49, in order to preclude the need for Member States to amend their national legislation for a brief period, entailing extra expenditure for the Member States and industry.
With regard to the second part of the proposal specifying the conditions on which a transport operation can be considered an "ad hoc" transport operation and also regarding the procedure for the acceptance of derogations, I personally welcome and approve the Commission proposal which is, in fact, more stringent than the legislation in force today.
Mr President, we have latterly been discussing technical regulations, technical details, regarding which one might ask whether such details are actually the concern of Parliament.
Transport safety in all transport operators has always been an important matter of concern to Parliament, particularly, of course, in the transportation of dangerous goods.
The annoying thing about the matter before us is that the CEN, the European Committee for Standardisation, is extremely dilatory.
We therefore find ourselves in the situation of having to concede an extension to the time limit for, as the rapporteur said, it would be senseless if all Member States were now going to have to issue further individual regulations for a set period of time.
We therefore need common regulations which are as strict as possible, also for the transportation of dangerous goods.
Consequently, one can only fully endorse the proposal of the rapporteur, our committee chairman, and also thank him for the work which he inevitably took on himself. This would have been superfluous if the other authorities had completed their work in good time.
Mr President, if we want dangerous goods and materials to be transported primarily by rail, then it would seem necessary, as a matter of urgency, to establish requirements for the conditions for this.
The fact is that the general population and the personnel working in this sector are being subjected to ever greater risk, and this is due to a number of reasons.
Firstly, the privatisation of rail networks, particularly in all matters to do with their maintenance, presents serious problems for safety, with an increasing number of accidents occasionally causing real disasters in human terms, such as we have just seen in Great Britain.
The need to make profits and competitivity are enshrined in European standards.
They demand drastic reductions in costs, always to the detriment of the employees who nonetheless play an essential part in the field of maintenance and safety.
This is done without any supervision.
Neither officials, nor users, nor citizens are called upon to give their opinion.
The diversity of the legislation within each State further complicates safety matters and increases the risk factor.
As far as we are concerned, it is important for the principle of precaution and of maximum safety to have priority.
This is true, particularly for the transportation of radioactive waste, which is dealt with in France with intolerable insouciance, particularly in the case at The Hague, with little respect for the health of railway workers and the general public.
Today, then, it is a matter of urgency to put an end to privatisation, to increase staff levels, and to give these people proper training, to enforce compulsory budgets reserved for the maintenance and supervision thereof, to set up user/professional committees to supervise traffic, to enforce an official right of veto with regard to goods transfers when real risks are involved.
This would make it possible to take preventative action rather than waiting for accidents to happen, as they will, more and more, if no action is taken involving the authorities and the general public.
Mr President, it is absolutely crucial that we obtain some common regulations, offering a very high level of protection, governing the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
The risk of accidents has increased concurrently with the growth in the number of consignments of this kind in recent years.
I myself have experienced at close quarters a rail accident involving dangerous goods.
A few years ago, a goods wagon containing poison overturned in my home town of Næstved, with catastrophic consequences.
The dangerous liquid poured out.
If there had been a powerful wind, thousands of people could have been poisoned.
It was so serious that the team which cleared the track after the accident was clothed in what looked like space suits, which almost began to melt.
I am therefore very glad that we in the EU are making a point of enforcing some very high standards in connection with this kind of transport.
The present directive states that the international regulations in this sphere also apply to transport within the individual Member States.
Unfortunately, it was necessary to have a number of exceptions because the European experts had not finished drawing up standards for the transport of gas.
The Member States were therefore given permission to keep their national regulations for a transitional period.
The experts have still not completed their work, and the transitional arrangements ought therefore to be extended.
I therefore think that we shall be voting for the report. In fact, it secures a high national level of protection which can be retained until such time as we get acceptable international regulations adopted.
But we need to get a move on before a major accident occurs.
We have been lucky.
But for how long will our luck last, and for how long can we go on saying that we are getting by unscathed? One of these days, an accident will happen with disastrous consequences, and we shall be left with a bad taste in our mouths for not having got things organised.
So let us make sure now that we get this matter sorted out properly.
Mr President, I wish to speak in favour of the report by Mr Hatzidakis, simply because we do need regulations on the transportation of dangerous goods in Europe. I would, however, add at the same time that this report also describes the tense relationship of road and rail.
We have, in the agreements which we are to conclude here, repeatedly drawn attention, from many different points of view, to the fact that rail transport must be intensified.
This is as is should be, because we do need these transport operators, particularly in the case of dangerous goods.
There is no doubt about it.
But we must approach this subject honestly and ask ourselves whether we have the necessary capacity in this sector. I have my doubts in this regard.
I think all of us here, getting up on our soap-boxes, have repeatedly discussed the capacity of the railway system, a capacity which just does not exist in reality, either because too few rail networks are available or because there is much too much passenger traffic on these rail networks.
I believe we need a touch more honesty in this discussion.
I myself come from a region in Germany, the Ruhr, in which there is a very dense railway network, but despite that we can observe in the same region that the capacity available is simply far from adequate, even if it was required.
Permit me to introduce a second aspect in connection with this, a matter which I believe it is very important to take note of.
Whenever the European Parliament discusses this theme or similar ones, it is clear to me that this is a field which we must deal with on the European scale, for example, on the subject of railways, or on the subject of the transportation of dangerous goods.
It is accepted that we should establish a common European transport policy. It is accepted that we should establish a common European environmental policy, and these are precisely the areas where this Parliament and European policy are credible, in my opinion.
So what use are national regulations, for dangerous goods on the road, for instance, if we need Europe-wide regulations? This is precisely the point described in this report.
We do not need to justify to the citizens of Europe the fact that we need a common European environmental policy or a European safety policy in this field relating to dangerous goods.
It has been accepted and is understood. It is applicable, besides, to other areas of transport policy.
Let me just mention, in connection with this, that there is no longer anyone in Europe who understands why we still regulate aviation safety in Europe on a national and not a European basis.
I am therefore grateful to President Prodi for adding this as a point and clearly emphasising it in the Commission' s intergovernmental programme.
We must put an end to petty national jealousies and say that, with five phases, we could guarantee safety in aviation in Europe.
In this area we need European solutions, not national solutions, and here the national state is yielding none of its sovereignty.
Instead, all one is trying to understand here is what is necessary in order to provide safety.
The sovereignty of national states was lost long ago in the fields of the environment, aviation, or safety. This is an area where Europe must make a positive contribution.
That is why this report may be seen in isolation as dealing with a specific subject, but when it is examined in the European context, it becomes clear that this report is outlining more than the specific subject of dangerous goods on the rail network. It exemplifies the fact that in this House we do see connections, and this is something I wished to stress clearly once more.
Let us approve this report, and on all matters let us keep in mind the big picture, seeing this as a document which contributes towards a Europe which is responsive to its citizens.
Mr President, I would like firstly to thank Mr Hatzidakis, rapporteur and President of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, for the excellent report which he has carried out concerning the proposed amendment of the framework Directive on the transport of dangerous goods by rail.
The truth is that the framework directive entered into force in January 1997 and the current Commission proposal attempts to resolve the problems of application of the transitional provisions concerning containers for the transport of gases and tanks.
In fact, as has been correctly pointed out by Mr Hatzidakis, this directive lays down certain transitional provisions, valid until 1 January of the current year, in order to allow for the termination of certain work by the European Committee for Standardisation.
To this end, I would like to express my agreement with Mr Hatzidakis and with certain other speakers and to express my regret that the European Committee for Standardisation has still not reached an agreement which would allow Member States to legislate in accordance with what will be the final regulation, and not to find themselves in a position, if today and in the weeks to come we are not capable of amending the current directive, where they have to legislate to amend the legislation once again within a short space of time, with all the problems which that would entail.
We are talking in the short term about the application of paragraph 4 of Article 6 which refers to containers for the transport of class 2 gas, as well as the corresponding tanks.
The time limit for this provision causes problems and therefore we will have to see how this situation can be resolved.
We are simply trying to resolve a question which, if the Committee had done its work on time and correctly, we would not be facing now.
On the other hand, the second objective of the present proposal is the amendment of certain provisions concerning derogations, with the aim of making them more precise, as well as the amendment of the procedure for their approval.
Given the good reception in this regard, which amounts to an acceptance without amendments on the part of this Parliament, it only remains for me to thank you for your cooperation, study and work.
I would like, however, to make some comments about what has been said in the debate.
Firstly, it is clear that a directive is necessary because we are amending a previous directive.
In this case, the instrument necessary to amend a directive is another directive.
Passing on to other matters, I would like to reply to Mr Pohjamo that Directive 96/35 on safety advisers, which will enter into force on 1 January 2000, will contribute to the application of the legislation on the transport of dangerous goods, and make it more transparent and more in line with our intentions.
I would like lastly to comment briefly on what Mr Konrad said with regard to the capacity of rail transport and the promotion of railways by the Commission and the Member States.
It is true, as he has said, that in certain areas of the network we have a situation of overload, with infrastructures which are already very well used, particularly for the transport of persons, which is the form of use which is currently the priority of all the Member States in terms of their railway policy.
In recent years, when the Member States have supported the railway it has mainly been with regard to the transport of persons.
These magnificent and successful efforts mean that today we have high speed trains which connect, for example, Brussels and Paris in little more than an hour.
But in fact we still have the problem of the transport of goods by rail.
And I believe that in this area we still have work to do. The forecast regarding the increase in the transport of goods in the coming years - which is good or bad depending on your point of view - is very significant.
This increase will be the result of increased development and growth in our countries and, in a way, if it did not happen, it would be a bad indication with regard to the performance of our economy and therefore of our society as well.
To this end, we must improve the infrastructures.
And above all the interoperability of our trains.
As Mr Konrad has explained very effectively, when you arrive at a border in a goods train, it probably takes six or seven hours to cross the border.
But this problem also has its equivalent in the field of air transport.
If, for example, you travel by car and cross the border between Germany and France, nobody asks you to identify yourself nor to say whether you are crossing the country.
However, if you travel by plane, you have to ask permission to cross from one side to the other and sometimes it is even granted when you are already in a third country because you have already crossed in the meantime.
Mr President, I wish to repeat my thanks and say that I hope that we will soon conclude the handling of this directive, which will allow the Committee for Standardisation to carry out its work correctly.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
EC-Morocco fisheries agreement
The next item is the oral question to the Commission (B5-0031/1999) by Mr Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the EC-Morocco fisheries agreement.
Mr President, Commissioner, I wish to express my regret, firstly at the fact that the Council cannot reply to this oral question which had originally been formulated by our Committee for both the Commission and the Council.
For whatever reason the Council is not going to reply to this question.
I am pleased, however, that this debate is taking place today instead of being, as is usually the case, one of the last items on the agenda of the last day of one of our Strasbourg part-sessions.
I hope that these debates can take place during the sittings on the "important days" in Strasbourg, because fishing deserves it, and an agreement of the importance of the one we will discuss today, even more so.
I would especially like to thank Mr Fischler for his punctual presence, and to thank him also for honouring the promise that he made to the Committee on Fisheries, in the hearing of 30 August, when he told us that he would give priority to the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which can be seen from the promptness with which he has drawn up a proposed mandate for negotiation.
I wish therefore for this expression of thanks to be noted.
We must also congratulate ourselves on the fact that the Council has approved, despite the storm clouds which had gathered, this proposed mandate.
Therefore, we now have a mandate for negotiation of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
If we add to this the fact that the two budgetary authorities - that is, the Council and Parliament - have declared themselves in favour of the political priority of funding this fisheries agreement, we will conclude, Mr Fischler, that "all" that is left is to negotiate and sign it.
That is your challenge now, with no doubt whatsoever, but in this task you can count on the support of this Parliament and of course the help of the Committee on Fisheries which I preside over.
I would like to inform you that on the 29th in our committee we will have a wide-ranging audience with the sector affected by this fisheries agreement with Morocco and the participation of the European Commission would also be desirable.
I am sure it is not necessary, Mr Fischler, to emphasise once again the importance of this agreement with Morocco to certain Member States, such as Spain and Portugal, and to certain autonomous communities such as Galicia, Andalusia and the Canary Islands, all of which, as is well known, come within Objective 1, are very dependent on fishing and at the moment have no other fishing grounds for their fleets and have a business structure which does not allow certain types of cooperation.
Commissioner, you will have the opportunity to observe what we are talking about on your next visit to Galicia, which we await with open arms.
A significant amount of the supply of fish to the European market depends on this agreement, as do many direct jobs, as well as many more involved in the industry and services.
The proposed resolutions presented speak for themselves and I need no more evidence.
The recent seminar between Europe and Morocco which took place in our own Parliament highlighted the great interest, at the highest level, which Morocco has in Europe.
"Cooperation" has been the mostly commonly used word.
Well, the cooperation which the European Union is asking of Morocco at the moment is in the specific field of fishing.
In relation to fishing we have no choice but to understand each other and cooperate.
It is not a matter of exchanging one thing for another: fruit for fish.
It is a matter of cooperating in the area of fishing. It is a matter of reaching the best possible agreement in terms of fishing cooperation.
When?
How? Fortunately the European Union is an economic, financial and commercial power.
Fortunately we have structural mechanisms which provide for the negotiation contingencies.
And, at the moment, I call on the Finnish Presidency to go ahead in the next Council with the FIFG Regulations and on the Commission, Mr Fischler, to be flexible in this text so that it may come closer to the position of the European Parliament.
It is urgent that we foresee these contingencies in our structural aid and also, in exceptional cases, both for shipowners and for fishermen.
In this way, we should not be excessively hasty: our legislative and budgetary forecasts allow us to deal with a protracted negotiation.
It is better to have a prolonged negotiation, resulting in a good agreement, than a bad one achieved quickly.
What kind of agreement, Commissioner? One which continues to allow the fishing activities of the different fleets which today fish in those waters.
What kind of cooperation? The widest possible, which must also include extractive cooperation, since if Europe is the principal market for the export of Moroccan fish, to subscribe to cooperation in terms of marketing and processing is not what is necessary, given that the market is controlled from the centres of consumption rather than from the centres of production.
In any event, Mr Fischler, a genuine association policy should involve the opening up of that country to European investments, including in the field of extractive fishing. This will allow us to compete under equal conditions, putting Europeans and Moroccans on the same footing.
Equality has to be both real and effective and therefore non-discriminatory with regard to measures for the conservation of resources.
Let us make sure, Commissioner, that what happened with the agreement with Argentina never happens again.
Effective measures concerning the monitoring and control of the issues agreed, equally applicable to both parties, will be necessary.
Nobody has a greater interest than the European Union in protecting resources and fishing responsibly.
Let us ensure that the other party guarantees that it will apply these measures in the reproduction areas of the various species, where European fleets do not fish, and in those areas where both parties fish, and that closed seasons and temporary fishing bans are also applied, without discrimination and with a mutual system of control.
Commissioner, the European Parliament will support you politically and financially.
That is why we have asked to be associated with this negotiation, which I hope will be approved in the coming tripartite meetings.
Therefore, Mr Fischler, now - as we say in my country, on which you will no doubt become a great expert - good luck and al toro [take the bull by the horns].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Varela, as you know, on 15 October the Council finally accepted the mandate for the commencement of negotiations with the Kingdom of Morocco.
For our part, all the arrangements to be able to start these negotiations had been made a long time ago.
Thank you, Mr Varela, for the good luck you wished me in this matter.
Since it is more to do with ships, perhaps it would be more appropriate, rather than wishing for me to take the bull by the horns, to take the helm, using the more nautical expression.
The objective of these negotiations is to seek new forms of cooperation in the fisheries sector together, which are in harmony with the development of the Moroccan fisheries sector and with maintaining the catch capacity of the European fleet.
As you also know, in spite of all the efforts undertaken on the part of the Commission, and in part by my predecessor, Morocco has still not wished to hold any exploratory meetings.
Consequently, on the occasion of the meeting which you already mentioned, Mr Varela, on 21 October with Prime Minister Youssoufi, I offered to take up the negotiations in Morocco personally.
In the meantime, the Moroccan authorities have approached us with regard to setting a definitive deadline.
Since it has been mentioned, I would also like to point out that I have been invited to participate at the meeting of the Committee on Fisheries on 29 November. That is the date that was set.
To be perfectly frank I envisage some problems there, as at that time I am also required to be in Seattle for the opening of the WTO Millennium Round.
I would therefore ask you to understand that we shall either have to postpone this meeting or you will have to hold your Committee meeting without me.
I absolutely agree with you that we must spare no effort in order to successfully sign this agreement.
But we all know, too, that it is going to be tremendously difficult, and you mentioned the discussions on this matter with the Moroccans last week. I attended some of these talks myself, and I had to observe that up to now the Moroccans' attitude towards us has been anything but positive.
I would also like to go into one other matter, and this concerns what should happen after November, after the agreement has expired, if the discontinuation of fishing activity is enforced.
The Commission intends accordingly to apply the possible terms of Community law in favour of the crews and fishery firms affected.
But the legal basis for applying these, especially after December, will be the new structural measures.
It will therefore be important for an appropriate decision to be taken in Council in good time so that we have a legal basis for having available, at least, an instrument to be able to guarantee financial support to the fishing firms and fishermen affected in that event.
Mr President, first of all our group did not sign this resolution for a number of very important reasons.
We find it very one-sided and a blatant demand for Morocco to give in to European demands regardless of what it wants.
We Greens believe it is up to Morocco to decide how best to benefit from its resources in its own waters.
One of the most deplorable aspects of this resolution is the failure to address the issue of the Western Sahara.
Last night a representative of the Saharoui people spoke to the Greens.
He told us of EU-flag vessels fishing off the coast of Western Sahara.
The border of the Western Sahara is established at 27º 4' .
North of that is Morocco and south of that is the Western Sahara.
We all know that the Saharoui people are supposed to vote in a referendum very soon on self-determination but of course many serious problems have been posed by the Moroccans.
There is no EU country that has recognised Moroccan sovereignty over the Western Sahara, but according to the Saharoui people, at the same time the EU pays EUR 500 million to Morocco.
EU vessels fish hake and other species in waters off Morocco, and Morocco has no legal jurisdiction in these waters.
Many people believe this constitutes illegal fishing.
Some might even go as far as to call it piracy.
These are very serious allegations and I should also point out that similar allegations have been made as regards Somalia.
I would ask the Commission what assurances it can give that this is not happening.
Current agreements with Morocco have provisions for an experimental satellite system.
Can the Commission reassure us, through the results, that EU vessels are not engaging in illegal fishing.
I should add that the representative stressed that they had no problem whatsoever with EU/Morocco agreements.
Their concern was that it be "legal" , that is, restricted to Moroccan waters only.
Our problems with the resolution are not just on this point - although it is a very serious issue.
The Greens would like to stress first of all that we are not, as many people would have it, against fisheries agreements with third countries but we have very important conditions that we want attached to those agreements.
We want them to be more equitable, less environmentally and socially damaging and consistent with other Community policies.
There are specific criteria that we would like to follow.
First of all with regard to all EU fisheries agreements, not just Moroccan agreements: they should follow the precautionary approach.
Most people subscribe to this in theory but not in practice.
Simply put, in the case of agreements there must be clear scientific proof that added fishing pressure from proposed EU activities will not compromise sustainability of fish stocks.
If we cannot be sure that fish are available these particular species should not be put in the agreement.
The second criteria is that the regional approach should be followed.
All countries involved in fishing the relevant stocks, be they coastal states or distant water states, should be involved in assessments of stocks and negotiations over how much fishing is done and who has the right to do it.
This approach is followed very successfully in the South Pacific on tuna and there is no reason whatsoever that it should not apply here.
There is a consistent EU approach of negotiating with one state at a time.
This is not acceptable.
Control is also a very big problem in most of these agreements.
The third countries simply do not have the resources to ensure that the vessels from the EU and other distant water fleets respect the rules.
We know the problems that the Member States have in their own waters, so it must be very difficult indeed for these other countries to be able to tackle these problems.
Satellite systems are a very small but positive step, but a lot more needs to be done.
In 1997 the Council requested an in-depth analysis of the EU third country agreements.
The summary report is now available.
It was discussed on Tuesday at the Council meeting.
We welcome this study very much and hope that the Council will now conduct a wide-ranging debate, both within the Council itself and with other sectors of society, about these EU fisheries agreements.
Some of the conclusions of the report are questionable but at least it provides some hard information and figures on the agreements.
This is something that was sorely needed and has been called for for a long time.
Another point I want to make, as previous speakers have and, I suspect, most of the following speakers will, concerns the importance of this and other fisheries agreements to certain regions of the Community which are heavily dependent upon fishing.
The Greens sympathise with their plight and trust that appropriate compensation will be made available for those fishery workers who are put out of work in the eventuality of a halt in fishing activities.
But the current EU policy is doing them a disservice by continually holding out hopes that there are fish available for them somewhere.
It is fanning false hopes.
It is clear that there are limits to how much fish is available.
For many years the FAO has been warning of the problems, yet we keep looking for fish somewhere else until there is nowhere else.
If one looks at Community statistics on employment in the sector, it is clear that this is on the decline.
Much of this is due to the continued industrialisation of the sector, developing even larger vessels which require fewer people.
While this serves to make fishermen' s lives easier and safer, it does come with certain social costs in terms of employment.
The aspect of employment in all sectors of the fishing industry needs to be reviewed.
It is affected by many factors including structural policy which does not take employment into account in issues of vessel size.
Finally, to come back again to the point of Morocco' s right to make its own decisions.
On behalf of the Green Group, I went with the Committee on Fisheries last year to Morocco and the Moroccans were very clear: they did not want to sign the last agreement.
They did so only under extreme pressure from the European Union including a letter from Jacques Santer pleading and begging with the Moroccans to agree this last time; this would be the last agreement; the EU needed time to find another solution.
But nothing has been done to find other solutions and this has to be done.
We cannot force our wishes on other countries.
We must respect their rights.
We must have equitable agreements with other countries.
Mr President, just a few brief observations - as Mr Salvador Jové Peres will be speaking next on behalf of my group - to say that this is an issue that is becoming extremely important and extremely relevant today, both in terms of what it means for fishing stocks, and in terms of the number of jobs that it involves directly or indirectly. And also in terms of the unpleasant incidents that would ensue from a possible stoppage of the fleets working in Moroccan waters, with all the inherent tension and social costs.
And as far as this is concerned, I cannot fail to highlight the mistake made four or five years ago by establishing a fisheries agreement outside the broader framework of the cooperation agreement established between the European Union and Morocco.
At the time we drew attention to the dangers that would ensue, and now we have new and inevitable consequences, specifically the demands for more Moroccan fishermen on Community vessels, fishing licences restricted to new, joint ventures, the obligation to unload fish in Moroccan ports, more concessions in the agricultural area etc.
Of course we are in favour of and want to reach a rapid and efficient negotiation with the Kingdom of Morocco, which will be to our mutual advantage.
But we think that it is vital that the negotiations about to start, which may prove to be difficult and slow, are directed towards certain key areas at Community level.
Firstly, the fisheries agreement will definitely have to be incorporated into our overall cooperation agreement with that country.
Next, we cannot make more concessions or give more compensation in the area of agriculture, and the current jobs in the fisheries industry must be guaranteed.
And finally, but no less importantly, we must take every precaution and provide for appropriate compensation in case of a possible and undesirable stoppage of the Community fleet' s fishing.
Mr President, Commissioner, the fisheries agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco is by far the most important ever signed by the European Union by virtue of the number of Community vessels which it affects, the fishing opportunities which it opens up and the jobs which depend directly on it, more than 8,000 fishermen and 20, 000 workers.
A number of regions within several European Union Member States are closely, if not totally, dependent on this fisheries agreement.
Everyone here knows that if this agreement were not renewed, then the whole European Union fishing sector would suffer indirectly from the consequences.
Effectively, the fishing vessels that could no longer fish in Moroccan waters would inevitably transfer their activities to other areas, thus risking causing dangerous chain reactions and imbalances harmful to everyone.
It should have come as no surprise to the Commission to find that the Moroccans are tough negotiators. It should have come to this conclusion before.
We already experienced considerable difficulties when negotiating the agreement currently in force.
It is, furthermore, perfectly legitimate for Morocco to seek to manage its fishing resources to the best advantage of its long-term interests.
It would be remiss of us to reproach them for this.
But it must be possible to integrate this requirement properly, and respect it fully, within the framework of a new agreement.
Yet, has the Commission made our Moroccan friends sufficiently aware of the formidable consequences that Member States of the Union would have to deal with as a result of the non-renewal of this fisheries agreement with them? We have the impression that the Commission has not shown the necessary zeal in this matter.
The fisheries agreement expires on 30 November.
The Commission was very tardy in requesting its negotiating mandate.
New negotiations have not been initiated, even though the deadline is only one month away.
What mechanism is envisaged, Commissioner, if the situation becomes deadlocked, to prevent the vessels directly concerned, the fishing sector participants affected, the regions concerned and, most especially, Objective 1 and 2 areas which are dependent on fishing, as our joint resolutions specifies, bearing the brunt of the disastrous consequences in the event of non-renewal of the agreement? Just now, Commissioner, you were rather vague on this essential point.
There is no question that the Commission has demonstrated passivity, incompetence and laxity, even though this is an essential task entrusted to it under the terms of the Treaties.
If the Commission does not now devote all the energy needed to preserve this fundamental pillar of the common fisheries policy which the fisheries agreements represent, then there will be great and justified pressure from those working in the fishing sector to demand that the common fisheries policy is challenged and a bilateral framework reintroduced enabling fisheries agreements to be signed directly between Member States and third countries, agreements which would better respect and defend the vital interests of our nations.
This is to say, Commissioner, that the issues involved in the negotiations with Morocco are particularly important to the very future of the common fisheries policy.
We therefore hope that in Brussels, Strasbourg or Seattle, you will give it all the priority attention which it demands.
Mr President, Commissioner, the matter of renegotiating the EU-Morocco fisheries agreement which is due to expire on 30 November has been referred to us.
This is one of the 29 fisheries agreements signed by the European Union with around fifteen countries of Africa and countries bordering the Indian Ocean.
These negotiations are going to take place in a specific context, characterised by two new elements, firstly, the death of His Majesty Hassan II, the last giant figure in the history of the twentieth century, and, secondly, the principle of Turkey' s candidacy for accession, accepted a few days ago.
When proposing to integrate a country which has nothing in common with Europe, it is hard to voice significant reservations with regard to Morocco which at least shares with Spain or France its language, history and economic relationships.
Technically, Morocco wants comprehensive negotiations on fishing, the preservations of fish stocks, on local industry and even, more generally, on our agricultural dealings with Morocco.
The position of our countries is essentially a budgetary position, with a cost of EUR 125 million per year.
The main beneficiary is Spain which carries out 20% of its fishing production within the framework of the agreement with Morocco, Mauritania and Senegal. As for Portugal and France, they benefit to a lesser extent, and Italy too would like to derive advantage from it.
Furthermore, Morocco wishes to preserve fishing resources within its economic area, and other countries, such as Great Britain, are announcing their concerns about the budget.
It is true that the Community budget allocated to fisheries agreements is not inconsiderable: EUR 300 million, or 5% of the budget for European external policies.
It is a not inconsiderable sum then, even if we lose nothing in the deal.
If IFREMER is to be believed, then, for every euro invested, the turnover generated for Europe would be around three euros, and the added value would be 900 million.
The Spanish are the main beneficiaries, with the Canaries where 91% of the fleet is dependent on this agreement, and with Andalusia where 75% of the fleet is involved, and there would be a cost to pay if there were to be no agreement.
And indeed Morocco does not lose out either since almost a thousand jobs are affected by this agreement, for an annual added value of 36 million.
But the Moroccans bring up, quite rightly, the risk of over-exploitation of fishing resources.
Forty years ago, fishing catches worldwide were less than 20 million tonnes, today they are around 100 million tonnes, even if Europe is not responsible, as we are fishing less and less in the Mediterranean, where our share is no more than 40% of the catch.
It is important, then, to monitor these fishing resources, which I know well, from the small ports of Oualidia or Media down to Mauritania by way of the Western Sahara, which I must remind Mrs McKenna is not independent, but has belonged to Morocco for centuries.
How are we to find a compromise with the Moroccan Minister, El Khyari? On the European side, we could make concessions on the development of the local Moroccan processing industry, on aid for scientific research and on landings in Moroccan ports.
There are still two stumbling blocks: firstly, the matter of abandoning community preference in the field of agriculture, and we already know the problems affecting the sectors of tomatoes, early fruit and vegetables or horticulture, and secondly, another point, on which we cannot yield involves trading the Spanish fleet' s fishing rights for an increase in immigration in a Europe which already has 18 million unemployed.
Mr Fischler, you reminded us that you will be in Seattle. The problem must therefore be considered at a much higher level.
These are not negotiations regarding just fishing, but are far wider-ranging negotiations, Euro-Mediterranean talks, or even WTO talks.
If, in Seattle, we are going to give in to the United States on the subject of compensation funding in agriculture, then it will be difficult to refuse Morocco similar concessions in the agricultural sector.
Clearly, too, Morocco-Europe relations must be evaluated at the summit.
We must take advantage of His Majesty Mohamed VI' s forthcoming visit to Parliament to undertake comprehensive renegotiations, and we must ensure that Morocco is not destabilised by the sort of foolish remarks made just now by Mrs McKenna regarding some putative Saharan sovereignty. We know full well what the consequences would be if Algeria had access to the Atlantic coastline.
Europe needs Morocco and vice-versa.
The agreement must therefore be sought with respect for our shared identities, for sovereignty and also for our separate identities, while acknowledging that history has made Morocco, if not a cultural exception, then at least a Mediterranean exception, for Europe in general and for France in particular.
Mr President, the enormous pressure which the Council, this Parliament and the fishing industry had to put on the Commission has finally led to the achievement of a mandate for negotiation, hardly a month before the termination of the fisheries agreement with Morocco.
It is never late if the outcome is good.
And at least we have a good mandate, above all in view of its ability to seek different forms of possible cooperation and even new legal formulas which may allow us to maintain satisfactory fishing relations for both parties.
However, we should regret the delay, which has created public alarm and a nervous state within the fleet which could have been avoided, and the speculation and declarations which may do more harm than good to negotiations which, given the importance of the agreement, should be held in a discreet, calm and cordial environment.
But also because, at this stage, a halt in fishing activities seems inevitable, which will necessitate, as happened at the time of the expiry of the previous agreement, a search for extraordinary Community funds to finance time when the fleet is forced to remain in port.
I am not going to repeat the arguments which other Members have given and which illustrate the enormous importance of this agreement and its socio-economic repercussions.
But I do want to insist that, for all these well-known reasons, the fleet is in suspense, and since it also has to pay for an ever increasing proportion of the fisheries agreements, it has stated that it is not prepared to not receive information regarding the progress of the negotiations.
Natural discretion and reserve is one thing but secretiveness towards those who have everything to lose is another thing altogether.
Unfortunately, Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries knows very well what it feels like to beg for information from here and there amongst the negotiators, even in these times of transparency and cooperation which we have just inaugurated.
For this reason, like the industry itself, I believe that this time - and in this case I am particularly sorry that the Council is not here, because it is to them that I mainly address my comments - we must stand firm and show that, even though we have spent years asking and begging to be able to take part, as simple observers, in the negotiations of the fisheries agreements, this participation can no longer be postponed, Mr President.
It is the case that, within the meagre budget which fishing represents in Community funding, the agreement with Morocco implies a relatively significant amount, so much so, Mr President, that it is the only agreement for which we are asked for our assent.
We are therefore legally bound to the result of the negotiations and we have, therefore, the full right to first-hand information, without having to wait for the charity of representatives of the Council or the Commission who may come to inform us third-hand whenever they can or whenever it suits them.
The citizens also demand information and we are the representatives of those citizens, elected by them and, for this simple reason, we have acquired the responsibility, in this case, to at least be informed of what is happening.
Therefore, Mr President, I hope that the question of observers, which appears in at least one of the motions for resolution also signed by my group, is taken seriously for once.
And to this end I ask, as other Members have done as well as the motion for a resolution, that this be, once and for all, a priority issue in the next tripartite meeting.
Mr President, Commissioner, the situation is well known and the Commissioner has had the opportunity throughout this debate to obtain further details about the difficult situation in which we find ourselves, especially the fishing communities most affected by this problem.
This is not only an economic problem.
And if it were, that alone would have required the Commission to act more rapidly and to take the initiative in this matter.
It is also the problem of the relationship between two countries in a part of the world that needs peace and tranquillity.
And this is why this Agreement is of strategic importance, not only in relation to these fishing communities, but also in relation to the balance, to the peace that can only be achieved by means of various types of cooperation, this being a case in point.
But now that we have reached this situation, we should work out why it is that we have done so.
And the Commissioner is not new to the Commission; he is a Commissioner who has joined us from the previous Commission.
He has joined us with exactly the same portfolio and the same dossier, and therefore, he has a very specific and genuine political responsibility which is his alone, not only to resolve this problem, but also to resolve all the problems that will remain until the agreement is renegotiated.
I would like to tell you sincerely, Commissioner, that I was not very convinced by your speech a while ago.
I sensed little enthusiasm, and it seemed to me that you have come here to give an administrative response to what is a worrying situation.
This is a cause for concern not only to me, but certainly to my fellow Members in Parliament too.
What fishermen need to know on this specific point is not that the Commission will be implementing initiatives and not that the Commission is prepared to help them.
What the fisherman need to know, Commissioner, is what kind of initiatives are going to be implemented, and above all, what amount of Community subsidy is going to be provided to help these fishermen, and for how long the Commission is prepared to maintain it.
Because, as Mr Miguélez said, what the fishermen need is not to be financed to remain inactive, but to be supported by the European Union so that they can carry out their professional duty, which means being able to work and thus contribute to the wealth of their country and to the wealth of the Community.
Therefore, Commissioner, I am asking you for concrete responses.
You know that you are already not very popular in Portugal because of the meat issue.
We hope that your popularity does not continue to decline because of fish!
Mr President, Commissioner, within the global framework of relations between the European Union and Morocco, I would like to highlight, on the occasion of this oral question on the fisheries agreement which we are dealing with today, the regional dimension of that agreement.
I refer to a Community region, European politically speaking but African geographically speaking, which is called the Canary Islands and is situated on the Atlantic flank opposite Morocco.
In recent years, including Spain' s time as a democracy, we have experienced various situations where fishing has always been an unresolved issue between the parties because of the contentious issue of defining our territorial waters in relation to the neighbouring continent of Africa.
Nevertheless, we have recently managed to take cooperative positions, by means of the Morocco-European Union agreements, despite having other unresolved matters, such as agriculture (tomatoes), the environment (nuclear energy policy) and the Saharan referendum, which affects us significantly from a global point of view.
In fact, the Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries of the Spanish Senate has begun a visit to the Canary Islands in order to directly familiarise themselves with the problems facing the primary sector: agriculture and fishing.
The President of the Government of the Canary Islands has also expressed his desire to visit Morocco in order to hold a dialogue and often a direct channel of communication with the Moroccan Government, along the lines of the good neighbourliness which should characterise the relations between two neighbouring and civilised peoples, since frequently the viscosity of reality - as Mr Obiols said so well the other day during the debate in Brussels in relation to the common destiny of Europe and Morocco - does not always permit the most appropriate type of action.
We trust that peace and stability will reign in our Atlantic area and we have a good opportunity to use the fisheries agreement or other European instruments for transnational cooperation to achieve this.
I hope that Morocco will fulfil its international obligations, as indicated in the talks held last week in Brussels by the Moroccan authorities.
In any event, I hope that the diplomacy of the European Commission will adequately defend the general interests of the Community fishermen who are affected by this future fisheries agreement between the European Union and Morocco.
Lastly, I would like to remind you of a Spanish saying - which I believe is relevant today - which says: "he who wants to eat fish, Commissioner, must get his breeches wet" .
For this reason there are many of us here, Mr Fischler, who want to convince you of the social and economic importance of renewing the European Union-Morocco fisheries agreement.
Mr President, I am participating in this debate in order to demonstrate my position and also to demonstrate our desire to support any positions which will contribute, both in Parliament and in the European Commission, to the achievement of the new agreement between the European Union and the Kingdom of Morocco.
To this end, I support the resolution tabled by the European Popular Party, the European Socialist Party and the UEN Group, and I belong to the group of ten MEPs from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance who have expressly supported it.
Logically, our position is a consequence of our conception of the relationships of the European Union and also the specific interests of the countries which we represent.
I wish to express our support for the signing of the agreement for two fundamental reasons.
Firstly, because we consider that the policy of reaching agreements with non-EU countries is a correct policy on the part of the European Union.
In this case it is a policy which affects an essential industry, which affects a significant section of our society as well as employment in certain countries.
It affects the way of life of our coastal populations, in the same way that agriculture affects the populations of our inland regions and - why not say it - it affects a fundamental part of the food requirements of the entire European Union.
We clearly want these agreements to respect the conservation of resources.
We clearly want them to defend and respect the interests of non-EU countries.
But I would like to say that the agreements should not only refer to poor non-EU countries, that is, Morocco, Angola and other countries, but that they should also refer, and this is also a European Union Policy, to agreements with Canada, the United States, Australia and Argentina, countries with which my country - specifically Galicia - has a direct relationship.
I would like to say that at last, agreeing with these arguments, the Spanish Economic and Social Council has said that European Union agreements with non-EU countries lead to seven times the benefit than the cost of producing them.
I said that this particularly affects the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese States: the Canary Islands, Andalusia and Galicia, in Spain.
In Galicia, specifically, you know that 120,000 jobs rely directly or indirectly on fishing and that the agreement with Morocco especially affects three very significant areas: Ribeira, O Morrazo and A Guarda, where there are approximately 150 ships and 1,500 sailors who depend on the signing of the agreement with Morocco.
I would like to remind you here that on 15 November 1995 the economic and social cooperation agreement with Morocco was only signed after Morocco had agreed that a fisheries agreement had to be signed.
I say this because these two agreements, which were considered essential if the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona was to take place, shows that in our fisheries agreement, as we and Morocco want, all relations, political, economic and social, with the neighbouring Mediterranean kingdom should be taken into account.
I also want to say that no agreement will be valid unless it conforms to the fishing industry as it actually exists.
The fishing industry in the Kingdom of Morocco is made up of small businesses owned by shipowners for whom it is absolutely impossible to create joint enterprises which are largely Moroccan.
Therefore, the new agreement must be an agreement which extends, while amending the necessary clauses, the current agreement, bearing in mind, of course, that we respect the fact that this agreement must benefit the economic and social development of Morocco.
On the other hand, we want a quick negotiation and in any event we want significant and sufficient economic support for the sector affected - shipowners and workers - to cover any transitional period during which there is no right to fish in those waters.
Mr President, my political group has tabled its own resolution and amendments to the resolution of the other political groups.
I am not going to insist on the different aspects of the resolution, which you already know, I am simply going to refer to certain specific points which - I am afraid - may be important in our future debates.
First point: joint enterprises.
It appears that Morocco would be prepared to sign an agreement in which joint enterprises were the principal element.
What does this mean? Simply that it would be an agreement which would only benefit certain shipowners.
The small-scale and inshore fleet would be of no interest to Morocco in terms of establishing joint enterprises; this would mean, in areas such as ours where employment problems are very serious, the scrapping of small vessels and a reduction in employment.
On the other hand, joint enterprises would mean fewer Community crews and the demand by Morocco for more landings in Moroccan ports.
This would mean cutting jobs.
If this were the principal element of the agreement, it would benefit the type of fleet which is multi-purpose and larger-sized which, in any event, is already looking for other fishing grounds.
Second point: on the 26th, Commissioner Fischler - according to items in various parts of the media in my country - appears to have expressed his approval of considering additional concessions in the importation of fruit and vegetables originating from Morocco in the negotiation of the fisheries agreement.
In this regard, we should take into account three factors: firstly, fruit and vegetable are grown in the European Union in areas where there is also an urgent need for employment; secondly, fruit and vegetable are frequently used as an exchange currency in commercial agreements with non-EU countries and thirdly, in the last reform of this sector, important public instruments for market management were dismantled.
Therefore, it is not admissible for fruit and vegetables to pay the price for a large part of the European Union' s external policy.
I would like to remind you that, during the negotiation of the fisheries agreement which is about to expire, the Group of the European United Left opposed the signing of a fisheries agreement through the concession of additional quotas for the importation of fruit and vegetables within the framework of the parallel negotiation of the Association Agreement.
Initially it was a question of balance: while the fisheries agreement was in force temporarily, the conditions for fruit and vegetables were of a permanent nature.
Frequently, these concessions are granted as a contribution to the development of non-EU countries.
Nevertheless, the reality is much more complex.
And in the case of Morocco, 85% of tomato production and exportation is carried out by five companies; the largest of them is Domain Royal, which belongs to the royal family, and the other four belong to the Moroccan aristocracy.
The cuts to the fisheries agreement to favour the Moroccan fishing industry only benefited the main owner of the cephalopod-fishing fleet, a family relation of the former Minister for External Affairs.
This does not exactly favour a just and egalitarian development, but rather benefits certain interests.
And lastly, I would like to refer to the way that negotiations are carried out.
Traditionally, Morocco does not negotiate until the previous agreement has run out and the fleet is halted, with the social tension which that causes.
This time the same thing will happen.
This attitude cannot be permitted from a supposed partner.
My group wishes for a just and balanced agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco on the part of the European Union, but we also think that, in order to prevent this periodic bartering which causes our fishermen enormous anguish and places them in a difficult situation, the future agreement should be established within the framework of the Association Agreement.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly let us address the situation in hand.
On 30 November, Portuguese boats that currently fish in Morocco will stop doing so.
As a result, many boat owners will obviously ask for vessels to be decommissioned, thereby adding even further to the graveyard for boats that the common fisheries policy has become.
And many fishermen will fall straight into unemployment, thereby adding even further to the poverty trap that the common fisheries policy has become.
Another two Portuguese ports will be badly affected if this agreement is not renewed: we cannot fish nor can we work, which is a denial of basic human rights and of citizenship.
Let us now address the situation from the political angle.
This situation reflects the incompetence of the Commission and of the Council.
The agreement expires on 30 November and the mandate for negotiation does not extend beyond October this year.
I have never seen such negligence, such delays, such inertia and such total lack of consideration for fishing countries and for the fishermen of Southern countries.
Do not deny it, Commissioner, because it is true.
Secondly, this is a case of negligence on the part of the European Union.
We have known of Morocco' s intention not to renew the agreement since the day the last agreement was signed.
Years have passed and neither Commissioner Bonino, nor Commissioner Fischler, nor the respective ministers have had the necessary diligence or agility to avoid the need to debate now, a month before a very damaging event takes place, what we can do about it.
On the other hand, the situation shows the foolishness of a certain vision of the European Union' s Economic Policy.
We gave Morocco a trade agreement with no time limit.
We obtained a fisheries agreement with a time limit.
This means that Morocco can place its products in European Union territory at will, but we can only fish in Moroccan water until 30 November 1999.
We are conceding much more than we are getting in return, and this is what you get for choosing an unchecked and unfettered globalisation in which you systematically prefer uncontrolled liberalism on a global scale, to the defence of national interests.
Finally, this case shows how mistaken it is to allow federalism into common policies.
Morocco' s problem is essentially with Spain.
As everyone knows, the Spanish fleet is much bigger, the Spanish fish in competition with the Moroccans; the Portuguese fleet is smaller which means that our fishing does not compete with that of the Moroccans.
What is Portugal's situation at the moment? Europe is not able to negotiate with Morocco because Morocco does not want to, and Portugal cannot negotiate with Morocco because Europe will not allow it to!
We cannot even guarantee our right to fish, we, who are a maritime nation, nor can we guarantee our right to handle our own affairs, we who are a neighbouring country of Morocco.
We entered Europe in order to be part of a solution.
In terms of fishing as well as agriculture, this Europe is isolating us as if we were part of the problem!
The only solution is to allow, within the framework of the common fisheries policy, each country to reach bilateral agreements with third countries which do not have agreements with the European Union.
And this is what I am asking for in the name of the principle of subsidiarity, with a view to a revision of the common fisheries policy: a member country of the common fisheries policy must be able to make bilateral agreements with third countries as long as an agreement is not already in place between the European Union and those third countries.
Commissioner Fischler, I have been here for three months and I have already seen you harm Portugal' s interests three times: over mad cows where your decision defies belief, over pig-breeding, where your desire to persecute us is unacceptable, and now over fishing where your Commission' s inaction is also unforgivable.
I would just like to say one thing to you: I am beginning to be convinced that you think that Portugal is just a beach.
If you have the misfortune to go to that beach one day, you will see that the Portuguese fishermen will tell you politely that you are a persona non grata in my country.
Mr President, I will speak this afternoon along the same lines as most of the MEPs who have spoken. I will not have much to add.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate Mr Fischler on his taking up of this fishing portfolio at a very bad time.
We have worked with him for the last five years, and I have confidence that he will move these issues forward.
I am not in favour of nationalist speeches.
We should not use this debate to look after our own national political interests.
It is a Community debate.
Fishing policy is a Community policy.
The Commission, the Council and the different institutions are obliged to defend this common fishing policy, which of course includes agreements with non-EU countries.
I come from one of the three Spanish regions which are most directly affected by the fisheries agreement. I am referring to the Canary Islands.
And I can tell you that we have always fished in these waters- my great-grandfathers fished in these waters - and it seems incredible to the population of these regions that this agreement could disappear.
But I believe that it would be a mistake at the moment for us to tell the Commission what the conditions for the negotiations should be.
Parliament, this very morning, fulfilled its obligation to include in the 2000 budget an item of EUR 125 million, which had not been envisaged in the Financial Perspective negotiated in Berlin, in accordance with the interinstitutional agreement between the Council and Parliament, but which is fundamental to the starting of the negotiations.
I believe that Parliament has fulfilled its duty and has offered the Commission the means to carry out the negotiations, and we hope that the Commission will carry this task forward.
But I also believe it would be a mistake, as some have done here, to impose any kind of conditions on the negotiations.
I do not believe that we should tell the Commission what it should or should not do.
I believe that, finally, this agreement is important and that must be concluded.
There is another important dimension: Morocco is a nearby country.
This European Community was not built to attack anybody nor to threaten anybody.
This European Community has to be concerned not only for its own future but also for the future of the neighbouring countries.
At the moment, we are dealing with the future of the neighbouring countries of Central and Eastern Europe by means of incorporating them into the European Union, but we also have to concern ourselves with the future of the neighbouring countries on the southern side of the Mediterranean.
It is not a matter of trading one thing for another.
I do not believe that the solution to the Moroccan problem consists of admitting Moroccan immigrants, but the reality is that every week twenty or thirty Moroccans arrive on my island in small boats - the so-called pateras - at great risk, and many of them drown.
We have a critical situation within a few minutes of our own shores, within an extremely short distance.
I believe that in the negotiation, the Commission, on behalf of the European Union, which is rich, is probably able to offer sufficient compensation to Morocco so that the fisheries agreement may become a reality.
It would be tragic if there was a re-occurrence of what happened last time, when there was a delay of seven months.
I hope that as a result of the ability of the Commissioner and the attitudes of the Commission, the Council and our Governments, a favourable agreement can be reached which will allow us to continue fishing, on the one hand, and, on the other, allow Morocco and the Moroccan people to profit from the privilege of administering waters which contain such an abundance of fish.
Mr President, today' s sitting has been dominated by talks about the Budget 2000.
The fisheries agreement with Morocco has also been on the agenda this morning in this context, when we talked about external action expenditure.
The majority of this Parliament was then of the opinion that this agreement would feature as one of its new priorities and that it belonged on the list comprising the reconstruction of Kosovo, East Timor and Turkey.
Whatever the opinion may be concerning the fisheries agreement with regard to the impact on the local population or the European fishing fleet, there will be very few people who will be prepared to put the humanitarian disasters of Kosovo, East Timor and the earthquake in Turkey on a par with this fishing deal.
Also, from a budgetary point of view, I find it completely irresponsible to agree on an amount whilst negotiations have not even reached the halfway stage.
In fact, we do not know if an agreement will be reached.
We do not know what the situation will be like then and we cannot gauge the financial implications.
But the funds are already available.
I would have thought it was acceptable to place an amount in reserve.
Then, at least Parliament would be able to vote again on the allocation of these funds after having read the content of this agreement more carefully.
Because how will this pan out?
Is the integrity of Parliament' s decision not seriously prejudiced if we have the funds available at this stage? What happens now if you do not like the agreement?
Or would any agreement be acceptable a priori?
You will get another chance during the second reading of the budget in December. It is therefore important that you grant more importance to the opinion of the Committee on Fisheries and not to consider it as a little added extra to a fait accompli.
What input will Parliament have? There is no guarantee whatsoever that the agreement will be submitted to the European Parliament for approval.
The agreement with Mauritius was subject to a simple, consultative procedure.
Parliament objected to this and took the matter to the Court.
The Court ruled that it was unnecessary for Parliament to approve agreements.
As a result, we now have a situation where it is completely unclear what agreements have to be submitted to Parliament for approval and what agreements only require comments.
In this light, the agreement with Morocco might well bypass the European Parliament in terms of content on account of the consultative procedure and in financial terms on account of the blank cheque we provided this morning.
Parliament' s power should not only be fought for by government leaders at intergovernmental conferences but must also be asserted by ourselves in our daily work.
Mr President, the question of renewal of the fisheries agreement between Morocco and the European Union perfectly illustrates the general policy of Europe enshrined in the budget which we discussed this morning and whose rationale we denounced.
We are opposed to the reduction of appropriations for aid to developing countries.
Europe is directly affected by the desperate situation in Africa.
Firstly, as a former colonial power, but also for having continued to plunder the wealth of these countries even after they became independent.
The very nature of this aid must be completely reviewed since, until now, it has served only to maintain neo-colonial relationships favourable to the establishment and the multinationals. Elf provides a particularly striking example of one of these.
As for the population, they remain entrenched in endless poverty.
Instead of setting the interests of workers in the fishing industry, the interests of European countries and those of African countries against each other, a way must be found to unite their demands and their campaign against powerful capitalist interests.
In the case of Morocco and this particular fisheries agreement, it is no longer possible to once again ignore the rights of the Western Saharan people, starting with their right to self-determination, their right to establish an independent state, if they so wish, and to protect the natural wealth of their territory, whether it be phosphate deposits or the specific resources of its shoreline which are threatened by this agreement.
I would, finally, like to draw your attention to the particularly tense social situation in the Moroccan fisheries sector.
A strike movement has been affecting most of the ports in the country for several weeks and is being violently repressed by the forces of law and order.
Once again, as in September 1998, it is a campaign to gain the freedom to exercise elementary social rights, paid leave, social security, retirement at 55 and a guaranteed minimum income.
But the fishermen of Morocco are also demanding justice following the murder of the founder of their union, Mr Mounacir, by the henchmen of Basri, and I would like to express our solidarity with them.
Mr President, at this point in the debate, I believe that nothing new nor original can be added but, as a member of the Committee on Fisheries and representative of the citizens and interests of Spain and Andalusia, I would like to make two brief points.
The first is that thousands of Andalusian and Spanish families are looking to us.
They hope to see evidence that, for the European Commission and especially the Council, the priority and the most urgent matter at the moment is to come to a sound agreement with Morocco.
It is difficult, Commissioner, as you have just said, but it is not impossible.
Employment is a priority objective of the European Union and it is not enough just to create it.
We also have to prevent its destruction.
Andalusia, my region, has the highest rate of unemployment in the Union and almost 50% of the boats which fish in Moroccan waters are Andalusian.
The second is that Morocco is a priority country within the framework of Euro-Mediterranean relations.
Morocco and the European Union have a mutual interest and need, and intransigent positions and insults are the enemies of cooperation and understanding.
Parliament can and must help with this understanding insofar as we are the legitimate representatives of the citizens of Europe, who at the moment are naturally expectant and concerned with regard to the results of the future negotiations.
Neither is it good for the negotiation climate that, through an absurd desire for the limelight, spectacles should be made such as the one this morning with the resolution which various political groups have presented.
It does no favours for the workers in the fishing industry and their families if certain politicians are after a photo and a headline in a newspaper or, as they say in my region, want to confuse wheat with chaff.
I believe that there is no place in this debate for the Sahara question.
The Commission, the Council and Parliament must act together, in a coordinated and transparent fashion.
Nothing would offer as much advantage to the other side as a lack of unity amongst ourselves and contradictory debates on a matter which is so vital to our interests and also for Morocco itself.
Mr President, Commissioner, as has already been said here, it would be hard to say that the end of this agreement comes as a surprise, given that this scenario has been foreseen since December 1995.
This is why we are somewhat perplexed that the Commission has still not explained its plan to us for dealing with this situation.
By making the substantive part of the FIFG regulation an implementing regulation, the Commission will cause fisheries to be the only area in the agricultural and structural domain not to be decided on in the first six months of this year.
It is also worth pointing out that even if the Commission' s proposal for an implementing regulation had been adopted, it would not have helped us in the slightest.
In article 17(3), concerning financial compensation in case of a temporary stoppage in activity, it excludes fishermen from any compensation and imposes ridiculous limits on boat-owners.
I do not know if you have noticed, Commissioner, that one of the annual financial ceilings that you are proposing in order to deal with situations of this kind in Member States is lower than your own salary as a European Commissioner.
We know that when you assumed your new responsibilities for fisheries, you made a show of highlighting your distance from the sea.
Nevertheless, you should not forget that you are a Commissioner for Europe and that here, both on the coast of continental Europe and on archipelagos such as the Azores and Madeira, there are many people who make their living from the sea, and as a matter of fact, these people tend to be some of the most deprived and the least supported.
To conclude, I would like to say that I agree wholeheartedly with two things said here by my friend and colleague Manuel Medina Ortega.
We, the Portuguese Socialists, are radically opposed to any kind of nationalistic rhetoric or rhetoric about re-nationalisation.
More than this, we are also extremely concerned, as my friend António José Seguro has also said here, about the support to Morocco, and not merely in terms of its commercial aspects, as has been suggested by certain speakers.
But for this, Commissioner, you will need a radically different attitude to the one you have had in the past, particularly towards my country.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, firstly, many thanks for your contributions.
I believe this really is the way to make constructive progress in this certainly very difficult situation we find ourselves in with reference to the future agreement with Morocco.
Unfortunately Mr Portas is no longer here, as he expressed a rather different opinion.
Apparently there are always people who think that discussion and debate involve insulting the Commissioner and then disappearing!
You can be certain of one thing: even though I did not in opening mention all the elements relating to the significance of this agreement, particularly for the Spanish and also the Portuguese fisheries industry, I am nonetheless perfectly aware of its significance.
But I think we all know how important this matter is, and you can also be sure that I shall be lending my wholehearted support towards arriving at a solution to this matter. I am even willing, Mr Nogueira, to wade in myself, if necessary.
This is not the essence of the problem.
I would like to stress, in particular, that it is essential to look upon 15 October and the formulation of the mandate for negotiation in the right light.
This is undoubtedly not a case of delay.
We started to approach the Moroccan authorities as early as February with direct contacts, a great number of letters, and a great many visits.
As early as February, we initiated preparatory talks in order to ascertain what exactly Moroccan future interests would entail.
For this would have considerably facilitated the task of drawing up a customised mandate in order to be able to have very precisely orientated negotiations.
You all know that these efforts were to no avail because, quite simply, our Moroccan counterparts were not yet ready to exchange even a word with us or even meet us to discuss the matter.
Our prime concern at the moment, therefore, is how to manage to start meaningful negotiations.
Our positions in the debate have become very clear.
When I am told that we must make no concessions, then you have to consider what our respective starting positions are.
As far as our starting points are concerned, ours is, as virtually everyone here emphasised, that this agreement is of exceptional importance.
Morocco' s current starting position is that they do not want this type of agreement any more!
At any rate, emphasising that we will not tolerate any concessions in the negotiations will not, I believe, succeed in making the Moroccan side more open towards us, as it were, and more prepared to come to an agreement with us.
So now, as has been said, it is really important to get things underway.
There is another thing you can be quite sure of. It is also very important to me that these negotiations are handled in the most transparent way possible, and, obviously, I am willing to report back to Parliament at every stage on the further progress of negotiations.
It has been stressed how dangerous it would be if this agreement which is, incidentally, not part of the Association Agreement, as many people thought, were to be extended to include associations relating to agricultural goods.
We should be very, very cautious here, and we should try as far as possible to reach an agreement purely concerned with fisheries.
When, at some stage in the future, we know precisely what the Moroccan demands are, we can certainly come back again to a further debate on the matter.
I have also been asked whether there is any guarantee that the use of this agreement will guarantee sustainability for the future, and to what extent the satellite monitoring system actually serves to monitor fishing activities.
Well, again, to be frank, all the prerequisites have been met on our side.
All European vessels operating in this area can be monitored by satellite.
There is though still a problem on the Moroccan side.
We have proposed to the Moroccans that we are willing, within the framework of the MEDA Programme, to contribute towards resolving these problems on the Moroccan side, but, as has been said, definitive implementation on the Moroccan side is still outstanding.
On the matter of aid following 30 November: I have already pointed out, too, that we wish to proceed on the basis of potential support in principle, as we already did last time.
Therefore, fishermen can count on our providing aid.
But we must also obtain the necessary administrative prerequisites in good time.
Here too, no time is to be lost.
Here too, there is some urgency, I believe, and I would like to ask for the support of Parliament in this matter.
The last question, why at this stage have we applied for EUR 125 million in the Budget? I am very grateful to see that this was accepted this morning.
It is a matter which I think can be seen from two points of view.
I do not think that anyone could realistically expect any future agreement to be obtained substantially more cheaply, or at a substantially lower price, than the previous agreement.
Therefore if we envisage an amount in the budget which is exactly equal to the previous annual amount we were prepared to allocate, then that is a clear sign that we are not going to let ourselves be persuaded to part with increasingly high amounts, but that we are setting a limit at this point for the amount of money we are prepared to assign to this agreement.
I believe this is a good sign to send to Morocco, one which will certainly be of support to us in negotiating.
A final point, something which certainly does not help us progress in this difficult matter is our tendency to continually pass the buck to one another, from Parliament to the Council, or Council to the Commission, or vice versa.
We can only be successful in this matter if all three institutions work together.
This is what I would request, and I find it a pity that the Council is not represented here today to be able to give this guarantee.
Mr President, agreeing with the words of the previous speakers, I would like to say, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group that it gives me enormous joy that in a world which is often driven by a hierarchy of interests and not by a hierarchy of principles, Parliament is recognising a man of great principle who fought for a principle, that of his people' s freedom, and is awarding him the Sakharov Prize.
This is a particular source of pride as this Prize bears the name of a scientist, Andrei Sakharov who, suffering all kinds of hardship, lent his prestige to the fight for the freedom of the people of Eastern European countries against one of the most horrendous forms of totalitarianism seen this century.
This is a source of pride for all of us and we Portuguese Christian Democrats are extremely happy.
Mr President, I should just like to endorse what other people have said about giving the Sakharov Prize to Mr Gusmão.
I should also like to remind Members of this House that what has happened in East Timor after the referendum is something we should look at.
We have just discussed Morocco, and the Western Sahara was mentioned.
A referendum will be taking place there.
The European Union needs to be extremely diligent to ensure the same fate does not befall the people who go out and vote.
We need to see that a fair and democratic procedure takes place in Western Sahara, that people have the right to vote freely.
We hope that what happened in East Timor, after the UN persuaded the people to go out and exercise their right to vote and they were subsequently persecuted and murdered by the Indonesians, will not happen when the people in Western Sahara vote.
The European Union needs to address this issue.
We are delighted that Mr Gusmão has received this award.
He deserves it and the people of East Timor deserve it.
They deserve their independence, their freedom and the right to live in peace.
I have received three motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 42(5) of the Rules of Procedure.1 2
The sitting is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 5.45 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, the Minutes contain the sentence: "Since different Members have asked to change their voting behaviour with regard to this last vote, the Members Mr Van Hulten and Mrs Swiebel have requested a repeat vote." This concerns the same report that Mrs Buitenweg touched on.
In my opinion, this is not right.
The issue was not the fact that various members asked to change their vote, the issue was that many Members were unable to cast their votes.
I would like to see this minuted.
I should also add that the arguments brought yesterday for not having a repeat vote were not right either, in my opinion.
I understand the rule that the same issue cannot be subject to voting twice.
As far as I am concerned, however, this issue has not been voted on at all since many Members were unable to participate in the voting.
I have noted your remarks and, I am sorry, it is also the custom to stand when one has the floor.
You did not know this and now you have been made aware of it.
Madam President, I would like to point out that in my intervention concerning the incident with the groups who presented a resolution on the fisheries agreement with Morocco, it appears from the Minutes that I was speaking on behalf of the Greens-ALE Group and this is not correct.
At that moment I was only representing the ten MEPs who make up the ALE and I therefore ask for the Minutes to be corrected.
I remember perfectly well.
We shall correct the Minutes to show this.
Madam President, you have quite rightly said that we should never have to vote a second time, yet this is precisely what we did yesterday.
There were certain reasons for this as the roll call vote had been forgotten.
However, yesterday afternoon, we had another attempt to take a vote for a second time.
I call upon you, Madam President, and your colleagues, to reiterate the fact that once we have taken a vote, then that should, in principle, be the end of the matter and we should not keep on engaging in further debate as to whether to take a second vote.
This principle, which you have made reference to here, should be stringently observed.
Madam President, it is not a point about the Minutes but about the problem that was mentioned in the Minutes.
It does seem to me that the difficulties that many of us had yesterday were to do with the fact that the Vice-President in the chair was too quick to close the vote.
And people who had their fingers on the button discovered that it was not registering.
Could the President and the Vice-President take careful note and discuss with the sessional services the need for a reasonable space between calling the vote and counting it.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, I would like to clarify a point following my reference to last Monday' s regulation relating to the publication of a directory by the American Chamber of Commerce in Brussels which contained seriously erroneous information about me, about the MEPs in my Group and about several other MEPs.
I have just received a letter from Parliament' s Secretary-General who says that there has been a mistake and that he never imagined that this directory would contain such partisan information.
I take note of his words.
We have agreed that he will write to the Chamber of Commerce, requesting that the directory be withdrawn and that a corrigendum be issued concerning the copies already in circulation.
I thank him for reacting in this way which I think is appropriate, but obviously the matter is not over because we must now have this directory withdrawn from circulation altogether.
Thank you Mr Berthu.
This information was indeed quite partisan and the Secretary-General tells me that the letter has already been sent to those concerned.
Votes
British beef and veal
The next item is the statement by the Commission on British beef and veal.
At the Florence Summit in June 1996, the heads of government agreed to take any decision on lifting the UK embargo "only and exclusively on the basis of public health and objective scientific criteria and of the judgement of the Commission, in accordance with the existing procedures, that these criteria have been satisfied."
The conditions for the scheme are very demanding.
First the UK had to slaughter offspring, which could otherwise be eligible, of known BSE cases before the scheme could be operational.
This cull continues for new BSE cases.
Then, the only eligible products are: deboned meat and a limited range of derived products, from animals between 6 and 30 months of age and born after the effective feed ban, that is born after 1 August 1996.
In addition to that, there are not only stringent conditions concerning the identification and traceability of both the animal and its dam, but also the absence of any suspicion of BSE in the dam.
Finally, stringent specific controls and full compliance are required from the entire production chain.
These controls are under the competence of the UK authorities.
But, prior to setting the date at which exports under the scheme were to commence, a mission of the Food and Veterinary Office to inspect the operation of the scheme was carried out.
This led to a satisfactory conclusion and allowed that date to be set at 1 August 1999.
Just this year two inspections in the UK have already been dedicated to auditing the DBES controls, namely in April and again in October.
The opinion issued by AFSSA on 30 September 1999, concerning the lifting of the ban for bovine meat and meat products of UK origin, comes to an unfavourable conclusion on the basis of arguments related to scientific and control matters.
The scientific matters have been presented for opinion to the Scientific Steering Committee.
Preparatory meetings took place on 14 October and on 25 October in the framework of the ad hoc BSE group.
During these meetings, the scientific documentation provided by AFSSA was examined and supplementary hearings of epidemiologists from MAFF also took place.
A report of those meetings, in which a detailed analysis of the situation is provided, has been presented to the Scientific Steering Committee.
This committee met in Brussels yesterday and is meeting today in order to discuss and draft an opinion on this matter.
This meeting is still going on.
Consequently, at this moment, I do not have any information on the outcome of the meeting.
I understand that my colleague, Commissioner Byrne, together with the chairman of the Scientific Steering Committee, will give a press conference in Brussels at 6 p.m. this evening on the outcome of the meeting of the scientists.
I can assure you that the European Parliament will be kept fully informed about the conclusions of the Scientific Steering Committee.
Madam President, the reason I believe France should immediately lift the ban on British beef is because Britain has met the requirements of the Florence agreement.
The Florence agreement reached between the EU heads of state and government on 21 June 1996 sets out five preconditions which the UK must meet before the beef export ban can be lifted.
They are: implementation of a selective slaughter scheme.
Introduction of an effective animal identification and movement record system, one that is fully in place.
Legislation for the removal of meat and bonemeal from feedmills and farms.
This is complete in the UK and not in the rest of Europe.
Effective implementation of the Over Thirty Month rule, meaning that nothing over 30 months old can get into the food chain.
Improved methods for removing specified risk material from bovine carcasses.
These conditions have been met through the implementation of the control measures outlined above.
The European Commission inspection visits verify that they have been fully and effectively implemented in the UK.
This is the reason for my argument.
I believe that the Commission has passed UK beef safe for export.
The Commission lifted the ban on British beef on 1 August this year.
The key issue is no beef animal over 30 months old is allowed into the food chain in Britain.
There has not been a case - and I repeat: there has not been a case of BSE - in an animal born after 1 August 1996 in the UK.
That is very important.
Nothing over 30 months old and no case of BSE in anything born after 1 August 1996.
There has been a selective slaughter of cattle born and reared alongside confirmed cases of BSE.
There is a compulsory cull of offspring born to cattle with confirmed BSE.
The cost to British farmers is enormous.
UK exports to the EU alone in 1995 amounted to almost GBP 500 million, of which nearly half was to France.
Nearly half a million calves were exported from Britain to the rest of Europe in 1995 and that must deliver a message in itself.
The cost to farmers from the reduction of the value of the UK beef herd and by-products, along with the extra regulation, is estimated to be GBP 1000 million.
While the bureaucrats and the politicians argue, farmers and their families in Britain suffer.
On 1 August this year when the Commission lifted its ban, 12 out of 14 Member States to which Britain could export lifted their bans.
If France had new evidence as to the safety of British beef why did the French Government not bring this information to the Commission before the ban was lifted in August 1999 - why wait until now and delay and delay and delay?
People in Britain expect France to comply with European law and they also expect the European Commission to act decisively to end the illegal ban on British beef.
The single market is fundamental to the very existence of the European Union and the illegal action by France throws the whole single market into disrepute.
Having a war of words on whose food is safest in Europe will only result in one thing: the destruction of consumer confidence in food from Europe wherever it is produced.
We learned that lesson when BSE originally came in.
The longer this dispute continues, the more likely there will be a boycott of French food by British consumers.
Feelings are running high in Britain and the crisis must be resolved quickly, otherwise there will be tit-for-tat retaliation on both sides of the channel.
Three months after the lifting of the ban by the Commission, the Veterinary Committee is still considering evidence as to whether British beef is safe.
This is unacceptable.
The Commission accepted British beef was safe on 1 August when it lifted the ban.
It must now act decisively and make France lift the illegal ban on British beef immediately.
Compensation must be paid to the British beef industry by the French government for the damage it has caused the industry.
The longer this illegal action by France continues, the more it damages the reputation of the whole of the European Union.
Madam President, first of all I would like to thank Commissioner Fischer for his statement, and say to him that on Wednesday of next week we want either President Prodi or Commissioner Byrne to come to Parliament to make a clear statement on what measures the Commission intends to take following the publication of the scientific conclusions later today.
This new Commission must be seen to be acting decisively and if public confidence is not to be eroded we need action within days, not within weeks or months.
Therefore I say to Commissioner Fischler that when you have discussions with your colleagues over the weekend, when you look at the scientific conclusions - when you meet as a College on Wednesday - we cannot have prevarication or fudge.
We have to have decisive action based on a clear decision that would be taken at the scientific committee later today.
Perhaps Mr Parish could send a copy of his speech to his own party leader because sadly in Britain his own party leader has been advocating a ban on French products in the United Kingdom.
What we want here, President, is the scientific evidence to prove or disprove the French case and we want an immediate resolution.
We do not want the xenophobia and the jingoism that we have heard on both sides of the English Channel in the last couple of weeks.
We want to make sure that farmers and their families are taken care of.
We want to make sure that the British beef ban is lifted.
All of the evidence demonstrates that British beef is now the safest in Europe and, we believe, the safest in the world.
It was this House, through its special committee of inquiry into BSE, together with the European Commission, that recommended the measures that have now been taken to guarantee the safety throughout the European Union of those who consume British products and British beef.
It is for the future of the European Union, it is for the future of our unity in the World Trade talks in November when we go to Seattle, that we need to have two of Europe' s major trading partners resolve this dispute.
Can anyone imagine what it will be like when we open the World Trade talks, if there is still a dispute between the French and the British on such a fundamental issue? It will be used by our opponents to divide the European Union in these crucial talks.
I would pay tribute, President, to the National Farmers' s Union and to British farmers.
This week we had the Vice-President of the National Farmers' s Union, Tim Bennett, here.
He met my French colleagues from the Socialist Group and he put forward a compelling argument as to why the British beef ban should be lifted.
He did not use the gimmicks that we have seen recently: the Liberal Democrat dragging a sack of British beef through the airport, hoping that some hapless customs officer would arrest her for a photo opportunity, or the Tories storming the Bastille two weeks ago in Paris, again for a photo opportunity.
The National Farmers' Union came here to meet Parliamentarians and to meet representatives of the Commission because they have a compelling argument.
I want to thank those colleagues from Parliament who met representatives and British farmers and listened to that compelling case.
But I say to the Commission that the responsibility being shown by the National Farmers' Union can only last for so long.
If the Commission does not act next week, if this drags on for more than a few more days, then the argument in Britain will shift.
Those people who at the moment have been asking for calm and for no retaliatory action will not be listened to.
Inevitably, this issue will escalate and I think it will do permanent damage to British and French relations.
I say to the Commission and I say to this House that over the next few days, we need calm: we do not want a trade war, we do not want an escalating trade ban.
We want common sense and we want to base our decision on science because in the disputes that occur in the future - and there will be many on food safety because consumers are so concerned now about the food that they eat - the scientists, the objectivity and the independence of the scientists is absolutely critical.
Who knows what issue we will need to refer to that Scientific Committee.
It is critical that we base our decisions on the scientific evidence and if there is a clear majority today by the scientists to lift the British beef ban we expect the French authorities to act within days, and we expect the Commission to take the appropriate legal action if that does not happen.
Let me conclude on one final point.
The one issue that has been highlighted by this dispute is the fact that we now need a European Food Agency in place as a matter of urgency.
I would say to Commissioner Fischler that, when the College meets next Wednesday, please come forward more rapidly with a proposal to establish a European Food Agency because in my view, if that had been in place today, this dispute would never have arisen.
Madam President, I should just like to say before I start that it is a bit rich of Mr Donnelly to say that people should not have a trade war.
Mr Brown, the British Minister for Agriculture, said himself that he would not be buying French food.
I am very disappointed that there is no solution today.
I hope there will be a solution quickly.
It is not doing any good to any of our farmers, whether they be French or British.
British beef is safe.
Hygiene standards prove that British beef is safe; the scientific evidence has proved that British beef is safe.
Other countries lifted the ban on 1 August.
There have been no cases of BSE in the relevant age group - 6 months to 30 months old - since 1996.
No cases at all.
So why have the French not lifted the ban? I suspect it is because they have picked up our trade.
Nearly 40% of our trade with the EU was to France.
No objection was raised by the French back in May when the International Veterinary Organisation adopted less rigorous conditions than those foreseen by the date-base export scheme.
But all this argument illustrates the need for an independent food standard agency at EU level.
It would prevent the undue influence of national bodies who quite often have a political axe to grind.
It could look at EU practices across the whole of the European Union.
It could point out the hypocrisy of France continuing the ban.
I have heard of some of the practices in France at the moment.
I do not know how true they are, but I have heard of: French beef being sold in markets with the spinal tissue and brain still attached - the food agency could look at that; carcasses not inspected in France by qualified vets, unlike in the UK; pigs still fed bone marrow - the food agency could look at those cases; lower standards of farm hygiene in France; French supermarkets do not insist on seeing pesticide records.
The list is endless, not to mention the sewage sludge.
That has disgusted everyone.
But I am not as worried about that as I am, perhaps, about the reports that offal and bonemeal are still being fed to French animals.
Before any food safety agency is set up, the Commission must examine all these cases in France as well.
Stringent action must be taken against them if the Commission finds, through scientific evidence, that France is breaking any of the rules and that the food is not fit for human consumption, in the same way as it did on BSE.
I do not think the French were wrong to criticise Britain over some of the practices over BSE in the past.
I felt the Conservative Government should have acted sooner. I felt they should have put more money into research sooner.
But now we are BSE-free in the 6 months to 30 months-old exports.
It is important to remember that.
But we must make sure that when the evidence comes forward tomorrow and when we hear the result, if there is no new scientific evidence - and I doubt there will be - that action is taken against France immediately if it does not lift the ban.
I hope France will see sense.
I hope it will see sense for the sake of our farmers, for the sake of the French farmers, for the sake of the European Union and for the sake of the Commission.
The Commission has to be seen to be acting firmly.
If it fudges the issue, if it comes up with a compromise not based on scientific evidence, then the Commission will be brought into disrepute and consequently the whole of the European Union will be brought into disrepute.
Mr President, Commissioner, the French study confirms the finding that as regards BSE there are no definite scientific criteria regarding the cause, transmission and the incubation period, including for the human variant of BSE.
Rather, the only thing that is certain is that BSE cannot be transmitted horizontally.
This basic uncertainty and risk, including with regard to human health, not only applies in England but in France as well.
There is no scientific certainty that there is no risk of BSE either in Great Britain or in France or, for that matter, in other European countries.
In other words, the only absolute guarantee against becoming infected by BSE is if people do without animal protein completely or, qualifying that somewhat, if they purchase products where they can be sure that BSE has not occurred in the herd in question.
The tragic fact, however, is that those people who are affected today were most probably infected in the mid eighties to early nineties.
The risk of becoming infected with BSE in Europe today is considerably less, very slight indeed, although there are no guarantees.
An embargo or an export ban does not fight BSE, rather it is simply a means of containing the disease and a way of implementing the European safety standards which the Commission has enacted. This has been the case in Great Britain, England and Portugal.
Our Group has always maintained that this is not an English disease but a European problem.
Thus, the criteria that are now leading to the lifting of the embargo are in keeping with the safety criteria which the Commission has laid down.
English beef is also eaten in England, and always has been.
The European institutions, those of us who are politically active at a European level, also have to provide care for English consumers as well as make provision for them.
Even if national provision is an overriding priority, it should also be a matter of concern for us.
One simply cannot say that they should be left to their own devices!
It is clearly not possible to limit the incidence of BSE to certain parts of the body, as has been discussed previously.
As you are aware, BSE or prions indicating the presence of BSE have been found in blood, even if these tests have not yet been validated.
In other words, even though removing risk material is no absolute guarantee of safety, it is a valid safety measure, since in the carcass, of course, we have a decreasing order of incidence.
Commissioner, I have two further points to put to the Commission.
You are also personally aware, through your exchange of letters with our Group, that we have always said that the lifting of the embargo must be associated with the introduction of tests.
You have three tests that have been validated, and yet you are not applying them.
It was a safety measure, Mr Fischler, but at the same time also a psychological one.
We could have spared ourselves this Anglo-French conflict, also involving Germany to some extent.
My second point is as follows: You know that, back in 1997, Parliament wanted to introduce the label I for beef, a measure that was designed to safeguard consumers and allow them to make a decision.
This was to have come into force on 1 January 2000.
Instead of enacting the implementing regulations, you are now putting proposals to us to defer this labelling for three years.
That is not a measure that engenders confidence!
Finally, I would like to come to the question of the Agency.
An Agency is sensible and appropriate.
You may also choose to call it an Agency but let us not get onto the slippery slope in this discussion where we start saying that we should have an independent Agency which the European Parliament will no longer have supervisory access to. We want to retain control.
We did, after all, also sort out the BSE problem here in the European Parliament!
Mr President, I would nevertheless like to point out that by deciding not to lift the ban on British beef, France, in the case in point, is merely applying the Treaty which gives each State the opportunity to ban or restrict imports in order to protect the health and life of humans and animals.
Personally, I am delighted that the precautionary principle has taken precedence over free trade.
The reasons put forward by France to justify its decision are not false pretexts masking some kind of protectionism.
They are based on serious scientific arguments made by AFSSA, a totally independent scientific body.
Its studies show that the BSE epidemic is far from being under control.
I am not, of course, going to become embroiled in a war of figures, as there are quite a few other people who are ready to do so.
Moreover, the British committee of experts does not contest these figures, which have been taken up by the director of Public Health in Scotland, who has stated, "I am aware of the fact that there is a risk to human health in this country."
Too many cases of BSE are occurring in cattle born after the ban on animal meal.
How can this be explained unless we recognise the fact that the eradication programme implemented in Great Britain has still to be fine tuned? Furthermore, animal traceability has not been guaranteed.
There is nothing to ensure that only animals born after 1 August 1996, aged between 6 and 30 months, are put on the market
France, moreover is not the only country to adopt this position.
Although Germany has not formally decided to lift the ban, it is dragging its feet over applying it. Indeed, has the Health Minister herself not just announced that the ban would only be lifted at some point before Christmas?
I think that the European Commission' s decision to lift the ban is more political than scientific, as the differences in interpretation and points of view within the European Scientific Committee demonstrate.
Past experience of the European Commission' s poor handling of, and shortcomings in, the BSE affair do not inspire me with any blind faith in its decisions, to put it mildly.
Of course, in the light of the campaign which has been conducted in the British press, I do not think we should stir things up as some here are doing.
I think that we should keep our heads and help to bring calm in order to guarantee the best protection of our fellow citizens' health by keeping the risks to a minimum.
Food safety has become something that society places great value on, something that I would say our fellow citizens are even demanding.
This is why I feel that we should now ask the Scientific Committee to conduct more detailed scientific studies, taking the most recent data into account, whilst at the same time waiting for the screening tests which could be applied to live animals, and stepping up monitoring at all levels.
Only if these conditions are met will France be able to lift the ban with complete safety.
Mr President, nobody can dispute the fact that Great Britain is still the continuing source of an epidemic which has affected half of its beef herds.
There will be more than 3,000 cases of mad cow disease in 1999, in spite of the measures that have been taken since the ban was declared in 1996.
The persistence of this endemic raises a frightening question; whether there may be other means by which this disease is transmitted, apart from the ones we have seen so far, such as feeding animals with animal meal and transmission through the mother.
In the light of these fundamental questions, as in the case of GMOs, we must be as prudent as possible, and all the more so because we will soon have an effective scientific instrument - the BSE tests - which will enable us to judge the state of health of all herds.
The scientific validation of these tests is imminent.
So why should there be such a rush to force the lifting of the ban now, even though Great Britain has no beef that it can export and when these tests are about to be validated?
Nevertheless, the French government' s attitude is not entirely consistent.
If, instead of abstaining at the Council, it had, like Germany, voted in favour of maintaining the ban in the absence of elements which are essential for traceability, the ban would now be in force, consumers would be safe, the tests would be able to clarify things for us, the great British people would have been spared the blast of nationalism from across the channel and our Conservative friends would not have had to disown the principle of sovereignty for which they feel legitimate affection.
Having said that, issues that are just as vital for human health as those surrounding BSE would not stand up to most close examinations.
The whole issue of protecting our people' s health and food is at stake.
Indeed, the crisis is fundamentally a result of the obstacles created by both the European Union and the WTO to the implementation of the precautionary principle, and we will only be able to implement the precautionary principle appropriately by regaining genuine subsidiarity, not by subverting it in the name of federalist and free trade ideologies.
As far as food safety is concerned, given the current state of the European Union, we know very well that we can only expect it to provide a minimal level of protection, and to provide reduced value rather than added value.
Subsidiarity thus makes it a matter of urgency that we recognise that States have the right to derogate from any harmonisation measure as long as they intend to adopt regulations providing greater protection for public health, and for the environment too.
It is essential to add this as an emergency measure to the next IGC agenda, and this is, consequently, a point that must absolutely be renegotiated in the framework of the WTO, otherwise any attempt to apply subsidiarity at the European level would be susceptible to being bypassed.
In Marrakech, the Commission forced us to surrender our freedom in the area of health protection.
The burden of scientific proof, which weighs heavily enough on those wishing to protect the health of their population, puts a brake on applying the precautionary principle or actually prevents it.
It is crucial that these measures be revised if the current crisis is to lead us in these two directions, which are closely linked.
We cannot demand that the precautionary principle be taken into account at the WTO in Seattle when at the moment, we are denying this to Member States.
If we do this, Mr President, Commissioner, some good will have come out of this crisis.
Mr President, let me say right from the outset that the UK Independence Party, my party - the members of which are so often dismissed as "little Englanders" - totally deplore the outbreaks of petty nationalism in the UK and France, over this beef issue
However, I find it ironic that the EU institutions - which introduced the ban on British beef exports in 1996 - and which exist to promote the unity and cooperation of European nations, have by their original actions, created a political situation which has directly led to this disharmony.
My party, which has a clear election manifesto to seek Britain' s withdrawal from the EU, notes that if the Commission had not interfered in the first place, back in 1996, individual nations would have been able to decide whether or not to buy British beef.
At that time, a number of countries, particularly South African and Botswana, were willing to continue to buy British produce.
Without the EU ban, Britain would have been free to exploit alternative markets, and this crisis would not have arisen.
Now we have a classic demonstration that membership of the EU is bad for British business.
It affirms my belief that it is about time that my own country recognised that our interests are best served by not being a member of this club.
Most people in the UK thought we joined a free trade area but this crisis demonstrates it is anything but that.
While the UK has obeyed EU law to the letter, other countries are running a cart and horse through the rule book.
The "level playing field" is about as level as the decks of the Titanic after it hit the iceberg!
Thus, while I wish the Commissioner well in his endeavours, I am afraid that whatever he does it will not be good enough.
I, for one, will be urging my own government to leave this club and to rejoin the real trading world.
Mr President, I understand the position of our British friends, just as I understand the position of our Portuguese friends who are also concerned, just as I understood the position of our Belgian friends in the dioxin affair and just as I understand even better the position of the French in the sewage sludge affair.
But this is not the same thing.
Atypical Creutzfeldt-Jakob is a terrifying disease which affects young men or women of around twenty years of age.
First they lose the ability to move, to walk, they are confined to an armchair, their muscles waste away, they find it more and more difficult to breathe, they can see themselves dying and then die after six months.
It is true that our British friends have taken precautions over traceability, that they have introduced a passport for cattle, that different types of meal have been banned since 1990, that conditions for the slaughter of animals have been changed, that lymph nodes, spinal marrow and lymphoid tissue are now removed and that only cattle less than thirty months old are exported.
They have seen to it that the consequences of the terrible mistake made by the Demulder brothers in Yorkshire, which was the original cause of the disease, have been mitigated.
It is nevertheless still the case that slaughter by means of a special pistol causes particles of the brain or lymphoid tissue to enter the jugular vein and from there they can reach the muscle mass.
It is also true that there are still 3,000 cases every year in Great Britain, and that there are 40 cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob, which is the upper limit for normal rates of occurrence.
It is nevertheless true that there are 650 cases of BSE per million head of cattle.
People say to me that the cattle that are exported are in perfect condition.
That may be true, but the disease incubates for 15 or 20 years.
There may be no clinical signs when the cattle are imported, but they may be incubating the disease, and so may the Englishman who has eaten the meat!
It is also true that the first results of the screening tests show that cattle that are clinically perfect may in fact already be affected.
I am sure you understand why there is still some doubt.
It was thought that the disease was transmitted by different kinds of meal.
These kinds of meal have been banned but the disease still exists.
It was thought that the disease was transmitted from mother to calf, and there is undoubtedly a third means of transmission perhaps through scrapie, through the soil or through fodder.
There are some accursed fields from which a herd is removed and then, two years later, a new herd is put there, which also contracts the disease.
Perhaps the same thing applies to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
You can understand then, why the French food safety agency recommended not lifting the ban.
People say to us that things would be different if it were a European Agency.
Would they? So French biology is one thing and Brussels biology is quite another.
This harks back to Lysenko who, in the days of the Soviet Union, told us that there was one biology for proletarians and one for capitalists.
This is completely untrue!
The laws of biology apply to everyone.
Professor Dormond and Jeanne Bruger Picou are two of the greatest scientists around, as is Professor Dirringer in Germany, as is one of the Scottish consultants, who also has his doubts.
People tell me that the ban has been lifted, and that first Germany and then France is resisting.
I must remind you that at the beginning of 1996, when five German states refused to accept British beef, the European Commission tried to bring a liability action against them when all that these states were trying to do was to protect their citizens.
Then a few weeks later, the European Commission imposed the ban and admitted that the German states had been right.
We all agree on opposing meat containing american hormones and to the use of somatotrophin, a lactation hormone, when there is no scientific evidence to say that it is dangerous.
Somatotrophin can cause mastitis in cows, but if we were to inject ourselves with it, we might experience a swelling in the chest, but it would not kill us.
How can we refuse to accept meat containing american hormones and somatotrophin, when there is no clearly established risk, and yet accept British meat which presents a serious risk?
How can we make a case for Europe and the precautionary principle at the WTO, whilst refusing to apply the precautionary principle in the case of British cows? There is a hierarchy of standards, and top of the hierarchy of standards is the health standard, then the standard of international trade.
After all, our British friends are just reaping what they have sown.
It was an Englishman, Ricardo, who explained the laws of international trade and its comparative advantages to us.
He explained to the Portuguese that they should produce wine instead of cloth because the English were better at producing cloth.
Well, my dear British friends, you should realise that others are better than you at producing cows, and maybe you should stop producing cows.
In any case, you have been punished for your sins, which result from excessive free trade practises and from an excessively ultraliberal approach, for that is the fundamental cause of this pandemic and of this disease that can be transmitted from animals to humans.
We cannot take the risk of allowing young men of twenty to die just so that international trade may flourish.
Mr President, Mr Martinez will certainly be a hard act to follow.
The violence of the reaction from the Europeans across the channel to the measures taken by the French public authorities, in response to the recommendation by the agency that has already been mentioned here this morning, seems to be out of all proportion.
It must be admitted that a three and a half-year ban is extremely harsh and that something that could be mistaken for a lack of goodwill can become the straw that breaks the camel' s back.
I know that livestock breeders are suffering enormously and, as a result, I received a number of them in my office on Tuesday.
The British are currently trying to set their health concerns about meat from animals fed with banned products, against the health concerns of the French.
I would, however, like to clarify a few things.
Firstly, the beef war: cattle have not been fed meat meal since 1990 and are thus are no longer a factor in this problem.
Secondly, it is undeniable that legal action must be taken against all the practises that have been criticised, and these must be severely censured.
Thirdly, France is the only European country, apart from Belgium, to have undergone an inspection from a team of experts from the Commission.
Does this mean that the British are not committing any offence, even when we know that their exporters have not had any misgivings about exporting contaminated meal, which was banned in their own country in 1988? They exported it to the Community until 1990, the date of the European ban on these products, and to other countries for a long time afterwards.
I would like to add that measures have been taken in France too, for if there is a sick animal in the herd, the whole herd is killed.
We have had 22 cases compared to several thousand in the United Kingdom.
It has to be said that this is another reason for the French not to feel particularly reassured any more.
As Northern Ireland is not restricted and transit through France is legal, trade can nevertheless still take place with all European countries except France.
For my own information, I shall now ask the European Commission for some technical details.
Which European countries are currently buying British meat, and in what quantity? I think that this will shed some light on the matter.
All the evidence suggests that French consumers have no blanket, a priori prejudice against British meat: you only have to think of the great quantities of British beef to realise that this is the case.
Producers and consumers must realise that the current debate is primarily a debate among scientific experts, who must be allowed to make their case freely.
Producers and consumers should also be aware that scientific facts evolve as new discoveries are made.
I hope, for everyone' s sake, that screening tests are quickly implemented.
Once the scientific debate is over, everyone will have to face up to his or her own responsibilities.
It is indeed vital that the meat on European consumers' plates is healthy.
To conclude, I would like to say that I am delighted to see that throughout this crisis, governments and the respective professional organisations have finally sought to restore the calm that is essential for allowing a debate to progress, a debate which, all the evidence suggests, will not come to an end today, and I would simply ask the British Minister to adopt the same measures adopted by the French Minister.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is crucial for all of us that we can guarantee the safety and quality of our food.
To this end, the French government has established the French food safety agency in order to make a better scientific assessment of the risks from food.
It was thought to be essential that France should have an authority which will enable it to make decisions on a rigorous, scientific basis, completely independent from any outside power.
Just imagine the things that people would have said if the government had not taken the scientists' advice when their conclusions were negative!
Nevertheless, we must not allow psychosis to take hold.
It is also quite unacceptable to stigmatise the British farmers who have suffered a great deal and who have made Herculean efforts.
We cannot ignore their desperate plight.
On the other hand, nobody will come out of a trade war unscathed, least of all the European Union.
Let us not give anyone a stick with which to beat us, and let us not play into the hands of the anti-Europeans who are shamelessly exploiting the situation.
Those people who do not want Europe are making shameless use of any pretext to set the public against Europe.
It is so easy to use emotion, but let us not forget that it is entirely thanks to Europe that we are able to have a free market and actually trade our products.
If the European Union did not exist, today, whenever we are confronted with a problem, our borders would close and that would be that!
We would not be here holding a debate today.
The European Scientific Steering Committee must express its views on the relevance of the French arguments because, on Monday, the ad hoc group, which gathers together European prion disease specialists, was not able to reach a unanimous conclusion and passed the results of its study to the European Scientific Committee.
This committee must take a decision, and we are all waiting to hear the opinion of the Commission, which must take responsibility.
It will take responsibility, and we feel sure that it will do so in a way that will not affect high standards of protection.
It was scientists' recommendations that triggered the crisis, and scientists will be the ones to get us out of the crisis.
We now have the opportunity to make use of a test which will allow us to screen incubating animals.
We will have to see if it is possible to set this up quickly, because although there is no such thing as zero risk in food safety, it is our duty to make use of all possible means to reassure our citizens that everything has been done to prevent mistakes, particularly where food is concerned.
The Commission could propose complementary measures which would allow us to feel completely reassured.
I would like to add that, of course, everyone should keep their own house in order, and that includes France.
All those who have led our countries into mad agricultural practises must be roundly condemned.
It is quite easy to see today that the race for profits leads to appalling events and terrible paradoxes.
At a time when manufacturers have had no misgivings about turning ruminants into carnivores, there is still hunger in the world.
Scientists make their recommendations and politicians make their choices, which are not always easy to make.
The problem is really one of knowing to what extent we can take on a risk when one exists.
This is exactly why the precautionary principle has been developed.
We will only come out of this crisis by working together, and we will come out on top, because we cannot allow our credibility to be damaged.
All our consumers want to know what they are eating, and they want to be sure that they can trust us.
Mr President, Commissioner, this debate and situation have come at the worst possible time for the EU and is causing a lot of harm.
Just think, ladies and gentlemen: we should and must defend the European agricultural model at the WTO talks in Seattle.
We have made a decision that there should be no import ban on British meat but, nonetheless, within the EU - an EU which should represent a free economic area at its best - a decision is being made to impose an import ban.
This is an absolutely inconceivable situation!
The English have had to suffer the inconveniences of BSE for quite long enough.
They have done all they can to get the problem off the agenda and solved.
That was a very commendable thing.
It seems inconceivable that we should take a joint decision to lift the ban on the export of British meat, and yet we decide, for our part, that the ban on importing it has not been lifted at all.
Just think of the future, when we are discussing EU enlargement.
Let us take the example of Poland. If Poland' s agricultural standards quickly reach the average standards in the EU, it will just about be able to feed the whole of the EU on its own.
That is why we must defend the European agricultural model at the WTO talks, so as to safeguard exports in the future since, in the years and decades to come, we will not find a solution to the problems of agriculture anywhere else but in exports.
These are basic principles.
In a way both England and France are guilty: it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
If, in Finland, my country, we were to make feed which had had sludge added to it, that plant would be closed down the next day - you can be quite sure of that.
There is no way you can produce feed from sludge.
We in the EU are allowing this situation to continue, although it was banned in 1991.
We will certainly have to take a good look at ourselves and contemplate what sort of image we want to present to the outside world, and how we should accomplish that, in this very difficult and delicate situation, when we join the WTO talks and when we consider the issue of EU enlargement and what the future will look like.
These sorts of crises have to be dealt with very quickly.
We can do it by ourselves, and only by ourselves, and we must do so as quickly as possible.
Mr President, it is regrettable that again today we are having this debate in the absence of a decision from the committee currently meeting in Brussels.
It is also regrettable that this debate has taken such a hysterical tone in certain parts of Europe, fuelled by some of the London-based media in particular.
We would all agree that food safety and public health issues must be regarded as the highest political priorities throughout Europe, but British beef, as stated again today by Commissioner Fischler, has satisfied the public health objectives set by the European Union.
I wonder whether the Commissioner, in his summing up, can state that every other Member State now meets equally high standards in beef production and slaughter.
I also regret that this matter has been allowed to be portrayed as a battle between Britain and France, because it ought to be an issue between France and Europe.
Here we have just ended a period of the most difficult conditions being set by the European Union on the British beef production industry, conditions which have been met, and therefore action to implement the lifting of the beef ban should be taken decisively by the Commission.
My group colleague, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, referred once or twice in his speech to "English" beef but of course the UK consists of four distinct countries and in Scotland, where I come, from the beef farmers are rightly entitled to feel badly treated because we did not have a significant BSE problem in the first place.
These conditions set by Europe have been met and still we are not able to export.
Our farmers rightly wonder what was the point of all of the pain they went through over the last few years in order to meet the high standards which have been set and which have been met.
What would be the point of having more years of discussion and of setting up a European food standards agency if its recommendations were not to be implemented? The issue here is that if we are to have European standards then surely we must be entitled to expect that these standards are accepted by the participating Member States.
Our consumers must be protected in relation to food safety, but consumers are also entitled and intelligent enough to make choices.
I am quite convinced, as a resident of Angus in the heart of Scotland' s Aberdeen Angus beef production country, that consumers in France, as elsewhere, would choose Scottish beef if they were allowed to do so.
Mr President, I would first like to state that I am in favour of the precautionary principle in an area where consumers' health is under direct threat, but the discussion taking place here between the supporters of the ban and their opponents is nothing but hypocrisy.
Everyone knows that both the good and the bad arguments in favour of consumer protection are used above all as weapons in a trade war and as arguments in shady manoeuvres in domestic politics.
It is therefore total hypocrisy to blame farmers and their interests and to set them in opposition, explicitly or implicitly, to the interests of consumers, without censuring the part played by the large capitalist groups which produce and supply cattle feed.
In Parliament we hear endless praise for companies' competitiveness, for their right and even for their duty to maximise profits.
Well this is the result of this race for profits in an area which affects health and food safety!
Along with the carcinogenic consequences of asbestos, spongiform encephalitis is yet another time bomb laid by industry' s capitalist management.
Whether the European Parliament adopts a position in favour of the embargo or of lifting it, the basic problems will not have been addressed.
There will still be companies that cut corners on the investment necessary for studying the danger posed by new products.
There will still be companies, such as those that produce asbestos, that continue to pass the dangers on to their workers and to consumers; companies which, in all conscience, will continue to run the risk of poisoning and even murdering people, in order to make a little more profit.
Mr President, following the excellent interventions by Mr Souchet and Mr Martinez on maintaining the French ban on British beef, I would just like to add three observations, from the legal, moral and political points of view.
From the legal point of view, it is obvious that the French act of 1 July 1998, establishing the Agency for food safety, infers that France has sovereign power to safeguard the health of its citizens.
It is equally clear that Article 95 of our Treaty, in the way it has been reinforced since Amsterdam, says the opposite, out of an absurd desire for standardisation.
This kind of contradiction between national law and Community law also exists in the area of hunting and in many other areas, as if governments were signing abstract European commitments whose aberrant practical consequences they only discover later.
In this type of contradiction, the ultimate yardstick can only be the free choice of each nation; otherwise the whole European system will explode.
We must also consider the moral dimension of this business.
There is of course a superior moral principle which requires a government to safeguard its citizens' fundamental interests.
But neither must we lose sight of the fact that the catastrophe that was mad cow disease which struck our British partners could have struck in any one of our countries, as we all practise the same policy of high productivity in agriculture that goes against nature, and which is more and more subject to the worldwide doctrine of free trade.
As far as this policy is concerned, all Member countries share collective responsibility.
I would not say that this applies to all sectors of our relationships within Europe; nor would I say that about our relationships with third countries, but within the Union, there is undeniably a common agricultural policy and a joint responsibility with regards to this policy.
This is why we should find it understandable that the European budget gives particular help to British livestock farmers.
And whatever you say about it, there is no shortage of money!
Only yesterday, Parliament' s Federalists found the means to set aside EUR 60 million - yes, EUR 60 million - for a unified statute for MEPs which would be completely useless and which, moreover, has not yet been decided.
Finally, the political dimension and political thinking: how can we get out of this mess? Well, beside the compensation that I have just been talking about, I think that the only solution to this business is to make screening tests available as quickly as possible.
Until then, the principle of prudence must prevail; otherwise, our citizens' trust will be broken a little further.
In broader terms, we should agree on the need for high-quality farming, which will respect the environment as well as consumers' health, and which will ensure our self-sufficiency in food production.
But this kind of farming requires Community preference, which we should now go and fight for in Seattle.
I think that a positive outcome of today' s debate would be to reach agreement with the British in recognising that this must be one of our main priorities.
Mr President, Commissioner, scientific checks in France have allegedly brought new findings to the subject of BSE.
Allegedly!
I am not a scientist, I am a farmer, a consumer, a politician, but I say to you quite candidly that I am not always ready to trust science for it is all too often the case that scientific findings come out in favour of the parties who commissioned the inquiry.
There are countless examples of this in everyday life. I will give you one such example.
We are currently awaiting the findings of the Scientific Committee with some trepidation and I believe that we will be continuing this discussion this evening and next week in Brussels.
We all know the expression, "two lawyers, three opinions" .
Where I come from, it goes, "two scientists, two opinions" . And for why?
We once had a case of trying to find a location for a waste disposal site, the application for which had been turned down.
The assessment of the district scientists was that the subsoil was watertight, while the local authority scientists maintained that the subsoil was as watertight as a bathtub without a plug!
I admit that this topic is now actually far too serious.
We can have a very emotional discussion here this morning on this subject of BSE, but this does nothing to help either British farmers or European consumers.
It is also of little help when we, as European MEPs, refer to current contraventions of internal market regulations.
An infringement of the Treaty is an important topic for all of us involved in European politics but, as an MEP in my constituency, I cannot use this at the moment as an argument to circumvent a political discussion on this topic.
While we sit here and discuss this issue, we are driving more and more consumers away from the meat counter.
As recently as the last plenary part-session, we made a renewed call for more stringent food safety and improved consumer protection.
Commission President Romano Prodi made it clear during the debate that he would make the safety of foodstuffs his priority and the Commission wants to, and must, set up a new chapter in consumer policy.
The most recent developments in the BSE crisis, in the "beef war" , involving not only France and Great Britain but Germany as well, where the federal Länder are currently adopting a very negative attitude, clearly demonstrate, Mr Fischler and Mr Byrne, too, the difficult task that we are faced with and the enormous challenge we have before us of creating a responsible and transparent consumer policy.
Economic interests represent one side of the coin, consumer protection the other.
I nevertheless believe, as I also said at the beginning, as a practical person I have a great deal of trouble with the results, that we should take the objections of the authorities very seriously.
I eagerly await the outcome of this evening.
Mr President, like Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, who spoke earlier, I was a member of the special Committee of Investigation into BSE.
He would endorse my recollection that we added a whole series of special precautionary measures which would be needed before British beef could be deemed to be safe again.
Those, along with the five Florence agreement provisions were all enacted.
It was only then, after a three-year delay, that the beef ban was lifted in the strictly controlled terms that have been described by others in this debate.
The logic of the case now being put to the Special Scientific Committee is that we should, in effect, overrule its previous hearings and reintroduce the beef ban across Europe.
What else could the Scientific Committee say if it were to eat all its previous words? Surely what we should be doing is building on the kind of precautions which were introduced in the United Kingdom as a result of the BSE disaster.
That means looking at the present position and not going backwards but asking how we can build in additional safeguards and precautions after they become available and bring a greater sense of urgency to the study of some of them, particularly live and post-mortem tests for cattle.
Others have already said in this debate that we should have a European Food Agency looking at the kind of health precautions we need.
That would include some things which are not yet present in other European countries.
It would include the removal of MBM from the whole of the food, animal and poultry chain.
That does not happen in some other countries.
It means the rigid separation of risk materials, which again is not fully enforced.
It means strict precautions against the kind of illegal practice which the Commission very promptly discovered in the matter of the adulteration of the bovine food chain by human and animal waste, which has happened recently in some other countries.
The precautionary principle has to inform our policy but it must be on the basis of common principles, a hierarchy of standards which places health at the top.
That is why the UK Government was the first to introduce the notion of a food standards agency, while Europe is still talking about it.
That is why the DBES scheme specifically excluded anything about which there is still, or has been, a scintilla of doubt, including meat which is not deboned.
Mrs Roure touched on the dangers of xenophobia in this debate.
I want to salute the speech she made.
It was very much in the spirit of the entente cordiale.
It would be terrible for us, at this stage, to collapse into jingoism on either side of the Channel.
I agree with the president of our own National Farmers' Union who said this week that what made him most angry were people who were trying to make cheap political capital out of the tragedy that has engulfed his own members.
The clash between two Member States over this unilateral ban could be disastrous.
It will damage the single market.
It will cost jobs if there are reciprocal sanctions and bans; and it will humiliate us if we turn up in Seattle bitterly divided and a quarrelsome rabble when we need to have a common front against the United States.
We understand that Commissioner Byrne is to return from Dublin to Brussels today to chair a press conference with Mr Pascal when the Special Scientific Committee reports.
He knows exactly what the problem is for the Commission and for European cooperation.
I should like you, Commissioner Fischler, to convey to him, in the words of his own national poem that gloomy verse: "the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity" .
We want to see some passionate intensity from the best on this issue.
We want to see people coming together and helping Europe to come together with the kind of undertakings which Parliament has called for, which the special Committee of Inquiry called for, and which alone will stop us degenerating into a Europe in which the European idea is the first casualty.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is true that we are not proud of the situation in which the farming profession finds itself today.
But you can be assured that I shall not be speaking just as a Frenchwoman, but primarily as an ecologist and as a European.
This is why I am fighting for the environment, and particularly for the precautionary principle, as much for Great Britain as for France, Spain and the countries of Southern Europe.
This precautionary principle is, for us, a political line which must be followed in order to guarantee food safety itself.
In France, it was under pressure from the people, from consumers, and of course from ecologists and Greens, that this agency for food safety was established.
The agency made a recommendation, and of course the French government acted on it.
Therefore people cannot refuse to accept the French position, all the more so as we are calling for this type of agency to be established at a European level.
Of course, I hope that MEPs and the Commission will follow the recommendations of this future agency once it has been established.
But we must spare a thought for the farmers.
Mad cow disease dealt them a terrible blow and they barely recovered from it.
It is completely unacceptable today to allow the situation to become poisoned by letting citizens from the same profession within the European Union stand in opposition to one another.
The distress of British farmers is quite understandable.
It must, nevertheless, be pointed out that the farming that is responsible for the situation in which all European farmers now find themselves, or at least a large proportion of them, is a result of a farming policy that emphasises high productivity.
Therefore, it is our responsibility today finally to radically modify the European Union' s farming policy.
Moreover, we have assumed our responsibilities towards the WTO and is the European Union not in the same situation in relation to the United States that France is facing today in relation to the European Union?
We cannot reject, on the one hand, the supposed legality of the WTO' s position on meat containing american hormones whilst, on the other, invoking the European raison d' état in order to reject the precautionary principle that France is proposing.
The Greens are asking the Commission for concrete and urgent proposals even if today, the experts have not yet given their verdict.
Commissioner, you are familiar with the current situation, and you know that it has been going on for a long time.
It is really crucial to put forward proposals in order to reassure European consumers as well as farmers.
Mr President, cattle in England was fed with the ground carcasses of animals and foreign prions caused BSE.
In France sludge has been mixed with animal feed, which has also contained human waste, because of its urea content.
In Belgium, fats have been mixed with animal feed, and the fats, when heated, have produced dioxins.
The EU and Mr Fischler, the Commissioner responsible for agriculture, are very much to blame for many problems, but the real guilty parties in these matters are the national governments.
The basic problem is animal feed.
It is the most important stage in the food chain.
The solution to this problem is not to establish an army of EU officials to oversee the work of farms.
The solution is a national one.
The national authorities must dare to monitor farms and their production.
Perhaps that way the illegal use of hormones will also be discovered.
In any case, this issue will best be resolved by adopting the practice of food labels that indicate the origin of the produce.
Mr President, the embargo on UK meat imposed by France raises, in my opinion, two kinds of issue, both of notable importance and significance for the future of the Union.
On the one hand, there is the need to give substance to the very existence of the European Union by implementing in all the Member States the decisions made by the competent bodies on matters relevant to the Community, particularly in cases like the one we are addressing today which are liable to invalidate one of the fundamental premises of the Union itself - the free circulation of goods.
On the other hand, there is the requirement to protect consumers, which is one of the absolute priorities and which is so important as to justify even national choices that contrast with Community decisions, provided that they are justified on scientific, health and hygiene grounds.
The appraisal carried out on both of these kinds of issues cannot be reduced to specific for or against positions being taken in Parliament regarding the French decision.
It is up to the other institutions to decide on the validity of the legal premises and, in particular, on the health grounds given by the French authorities. In this regard, we are waiting impatiently for Commissioner Byrne' s press conference this afternoon.
An in-depth Parliamentary debate leading to a political assessment on someone' s behaviour would be misleading, and, above all, it would not contribute to the overall smooth functioning of the European institutions.
On the contrary, what seems appropriate and desirable is for us to use these opportunities as well to continue the work of bonding the Community institutions together. This is something that Parliament, under the mandate conferred on it by all the Europeans it represents, must take responsibility for, incorporating the role performed up until now by the national governments in the construction of the Community.
Moreover, Parliament must, with increasing commitment, perform that function of acting as a counterbalance to the Executive, that is, the Commission, which is a characteristic of all modern democracies.
Returning to the case in hand, I believe that Parliament should not ask the Commission to investigate the existence of recommendations made by national agencies responsible for food safety that conflict with Community decisions.
Instead, I think that it should ask the Commission and other competent Community institutions to draw up reports on what has been done as regards these decisions, in order to enable Parliament to formulate critical assessments which are a preliminary step towards perfecting the Community legislation in force on this subject.
Mr President, I have certainly enjoyed some of the speeches today, not least the opening speech by Mr Donnelly where he seemed to be criticising the failure of the French and the British governments to achieve any solution to this escalating trade war.
I would remind Mr Donnelly that both the governments in France and the United Kingdom are socialist governments.
It has just been revealed that the Minister for Agriculture from his party in the United Kingdom has not even been in dialogue with his opposite number in France, which is ridiculous when you consider the way tempers are getting raised in the process of this trade war.
But I can understand some of the rage felt by farmers and consumers in Great Britain when they hear that sewage sludge has found its way into feedingstuffs in France, when they hear that the British Government has known about that since June but has not chosen to raise the matter with the European Commission and when they know that in Britain we are still slaughtering 60,000 cattle a month because they are over 30 months of age and cannot enter the food chain.
Otherwise these are perfectly healthy cattle.
They are going to incineration after they are slaughtered and then their ashes are dumped in landfill sites.
This will be seen as one of the great mistakes of this entire century as far as agriculture is concerned.
There is rage when we know that in France there is also BSE - 22 cases so far this year.
Yet even injured and diseased animals which die on the farm are finding their way into rendering plants and the tallow from these animals is finding its way into the pharmaceutical industry, into the cosmetic industry and therefore into the food chain.
There is no level playing field, as other speakers have said.
I hope that we can find a diplomatic solution and we must do everything within our power to do that.
I appeal to the Commission and to the UK government to put pressure on France to comply with the findings of the Scientific Steering Committee, whatever those may be later today.
Commission. (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank you above all for the manner in which today' s debate has been conducted.
I believe that it was an exemplary debate which will contribute considerably towards allowing us to bring the discussion back to the realms of objectivity.
Essentially, I can draw the following conclusions from this debate: Firstly, I am deeply convinced of the fact that we have to base our decisions, and also the decisions of the Commission, on the judgement of independent, and this is an important point, independent scientists, as well as on the state of the art.
Nor should we overlook the fact that the cause of the entire BSE problem lay in the fact that this principle was disregarded, that decisions were taken for market reasons, for economic reasons, without appropriate consideration being given to the health issue.
We should therefore take care to avoid making a similar mistake again by heading in one direction or the other.
For this reason it would also be wrong for us to draw our own conclusions without being aware of the conclusions of the scientists who are at this moment discussing the issue in committee.
We must await the verdict from the Scientific Committee which is made up exclusively of independent scientists.
What we must then do, and I take this very seriously, is act immediately, so that we are doing more than just waiting and I am quite prepared to also communicate the message, which I am announcing here, to President Prodi and to my colleague David Byrne.
I am quite prepared to ask you if this debate could then be continued on Wednesday, incorporating the conclusions drawn by the Commission.
This French report essentially discusses four elements.
One of these elements is application of the tests that are now available.
I am not of the opinion that these tests should be used solely for placebo purposes, but in this regard as well we should base our decision, as indeed we have done, on scientific fact.
I am convinced that these tests can render a valuable service in supervising the events on a Europe-wide basis and they should also be applied to this end.
As to the extent that they may be used over and above this, we should certainly be careful on one point, and that is in believing that we have a one hundred percent guarantee, and that we can give a one hundred percent guarantee that we can distinguish between meat which may pose a risk and that which does not.
However good the tests are, they are not one hundred percent reliable.
In this regard as well, we cannot dream of a zero risk.
Should the scientists put forward new recommendations in this matter, we should obviously be more than ready to examine these recommendations accordingly as well.
As far as supervision is concerned, I agree with those here who have demanded that the level of supervision be comparable throughout Europe and that it is not sufficient to have a working system of supervision in Great Britain alone.
We are not, however, carrying out inspections only in Great Britain but in other countries as well so as to guarantee this at a European level too.
With regard to the calls for a Food Agency, I would like to point out that we would be well advised to make headway on this question.
In this regard, we must establish the preconditions laid down by my colleague, Mr Byrne, and in this connection I would like again to emphasise the following: I do not consider that we should go in the direction of a Food Agency along the lines of the FDA, but we should adopt the Food Agency which we already have for pharmaceutical products as a model, in other words, a European model for a Food Agency.
As far as the question of postponing the labelling is concerned, I would again like to draw your attention to the fact that the Commission' s interest is not in delaying this, but rather in ensuring that we do not get to the end of the year only to find ourselves without either a voluntary or a mandatory labelling system in place.
Do not overlook one point, namely that it is of no use to make a labelling system obligatory if the data required for this is not available.
After all, we would then actually be deceiving consumers with something that does not exist in reality, thus undermining our call for transparency and objectivity.
In conclusion, what we really should be concentrating on from now on is letting the facts speak for themselves.
In this way, we should also encounter various emotions and, in addition to these facts, we have to demonstrate competence and transparency in this regard.
On a final note, I would like to say one more thing, which is that the results of the Committee will be made available to all MEPs in electronic format today.
Thank you, Commissioner Fischler.
I am sure you have the support of the entire House in trying to resolve this difficult situation.
Following Commissioner Fischler' s announcement, the Commission will be making the appropriate documents available this afternoon before the press conference.
That will be made available to you on e-mail and it will also be on Parliament' s intranet.
The debate is closed.
EC-Angola fisheries agreement
The next item is the report (A5-0022/1999) by Mr Cunha, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the conclusion of the Protocol defining, for the period from 3 May 1999 to 2 May 2000, the fishing opportunities and the financial contribution provided for by the Agreement between the European Community and the Republic of Angola on fishing off Angola (COM(1999)389 - C5-0170/1999/0169(CNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, in his capacity as rapporteur, Mr Cunha has called on me to present his report.
The Protocol to the EU-Angola fisheries agreement, as mentioned, already expired on 2 May this year.
A new Protocol was signed by both parties. This Protocol laid down the technical and financial conditions whereby Community ships are permitted to fish in Angolan waters in the period from 3 May 1999 to 2 May 2000.
Apart from the extremely short period of validity of the Protocol, one year instead of three, and the fact that the tuna quota was increased, the Protocol is identical to the previous one.
This Protocol is significant for the EU, however, from the budgetary viewpoint alone.
EUR 10.3 million is already a large sum in itself, and we do not even have a guarantee that we can interrupt payments in the event that Angola stipulates a closed season for shrimp fishing.
Moreover, we are not making the most of our fishing entitlement, with the exception of tuna vessels where 100% of permitted capacity is taken up.
Only 63% of shrimp vessel capacity is taken, and 0% of dredger capacity.
We also must give serious consideration to the funds allocated to scientific programmes (EUR 1.7 million), training (EUR 1 million) and studies (EUR 350,000).
There is no clause authorising the Commission to check whether these funds are used correctly.
For their part, the Angolan authorities are not obliged to account for how the funds are used.
In this area, the rapporteur recommends that all payments under the agreement should be dealt with by the Angolan Central Bank. This is valid for reasons of security and transparency, especially as Angola is still in a state of war.
The Commission made a sound choice in concluding a protocol with only a one year duration because Angolan fish stocks have been exploited intensively over recent years, particularly by the Soviet fleet, which has led to a spectacular drop in catch levels.
We have also heard that, as a result, licences will not be distributed to shipowners belonging to the EU.
If we consider the repercussions of this, we could conclude that fishing in Angolan waters is a rather risky matter as far as the EU is concerned.
Nevertheless, as the rapporteur says, we can be optimistic. The number of tuna vessels and surface longliners has increased.
This is generally a reliable indicator of the state of deep-sea stocks, and so can be viewed positively.
However, the Protocol does not contain any international standards regarding the conservation and rationing of fish stocks.
Having a closed season is certainly an effective means of preserving fish stocks, and this has been borne out in practical and scientific terms.
An international framework is necessary, however, otherwise the fear remains that Angola could abuse the close season to the detriment of the EU.
The Commission has to ensure in this regard that shipowners are informed in good time, i.e. at least three months in advance.
My conclusions are as follows: The negotiations are obviously important.
The current political situation in Angola is deplorable, all the more so given the fact that it is fundamentally a potentially rich and geopolitically important country.
What the Protocol lacks, however, is precise information on the state of fish stocks in Angola.
The Committee on Fisheries has submitted the appropriate amendments so as to obtain this information.
For this reason, we are not in a position to talk about a new fisheries agreement.
The results of the negotiations should be supported however and should serve as a basis for a comprehensive Protocol or a new fisheries agreement in the future.
In return, the rapporteur expects Angola to observe the interinstitutional agreement on budgetary discipline and to improve its budgetary procedure in connection with financing the expenditure arising from this fisheries agreement, which is extremely important as far as we are concerned.
) Mr President, the current Protocol to the agreement with Angola, which lasts one year, is in reality an extension of the previous one, in the hope that conditions may improve so that the Agreement may be renewed within the traditional period of three years.
We are in total agreement with this solution.
On the one hand, it allows fishing to continue, within the framework of an agreement whose formulation has been generally satisfactory to both parties and which has presented no apparent problems.
On the other hand, this Protocol provides a natural step towards the signing of the new agreement, which could be under threat given the political situation in the country and the possible presence of other fleets in the event that the European Union were absent from the area.
Another piece of good news is the increase in fishing opportunities for the tuna fleet, whose number of ships has almost doubled, which indicates the more than healthy state of the fish resources in those waters.
On the other hand, the maintenance of fishing relations with Angola is, at the moment, of great importance and the least the European Union can do is to help a country which is traditionally closely connected to certain Community areas and which is enduring worrying political and economic times.
There is no doubt that financial compensation is an important form of support but, nevertheless, the presence of the European fleet contributes to a greater sense of stability in the area, which can only be beneficial to international relations with Angola.
Furthermore, the presence of the Community brings a more responsible form of fishing to the area and may be an important factor in terms of balance given the presence of other fleets, particularly the Russian fleet, not to mention the aid to scientific research programmes which is included in this Protocol.
For all these reasons, and in the hope that, as Mr Cunha' s report requests, the Commission will inform this Parliament of the result of the application of this Protocol, our group, Mr President, calls for the approval of the Cunha report.
Mr President, yesterday we were urged to approve the renewal of the EU agreement with Morocco to give Spain and Portugal fishing rights in Moroccan waters.
Today we are being asked to review a similar agreement with Angola.
In my brief but eventful career as an MEP, and particularly after yesterday, I have noted a willingness of this Assembly which dares to call itself a "parliament" to act as a rubber stamp for the Commission and again I sense that this is our role.
But if this Assembly is to begin to behave as a proper review body with any teeth it must begin to ask some fundamental questions about the whole principle behind these agreements.
Such evidence as we have about their operation indicates that these have been responsible for conservation disasters of the first magnitude.
Effectively, an example of colonialist exploitation of the peoples of the Third World which should shame everyone in our supposedly civilised one.
In the past seven years the taxpayers of the European Union have paid out EUR 1.4 billion to the governments and elsewhere and, even in the neutral words of the Commission, it is difficult to trace where the money goes.
Yet all this is to fund Spanish and Portuguese fishermen, giving them a licence to pillage Third World waters, often in flagrant disregard of the basic principles of fisheries conservation.
We know from Morocco what despair this has aroused among local fishermen as they see immense damage being done to their fish stocks, simply to provide European markets with sardines and other common species on which their own livelihoods depend.
The horror of what is happening down the west coast of Africa was illustrated a few years ago by Namibia.
In the end it said it had had enough, so devastating was the impact of Spanish fishing there.
It is about time that we in this House said that we have had enough of it all.
The result of these policies has been a conservation disaster.
In fact the whole thing, it seems to me, is an insane catastrophe.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Cunha, on the report which he has carried out.
I would like first of all to express my support for the Agreement and for the position held by the European Commission, as well as the opinion expressed by Mrs Langenhagen, Mrs Fraga and Mr Medina.
And I absolutely and radically disagree with the position of the previous speaker who has demonstrated a policy which shows very little solidarity with the Member States of the European Union and the fishermen. This policy fortunately has minority support in this Parliament.
With regard to this report, I would like to point out that the fisheries agreement with Angola means a continuation of the common fisheries policy of the European Union with regard to international fisheries agreements, which contribute to the consolidation of one of the fundamental pillars of said policy. This was pointed out by Mr Crampton' s report to this Parliament in the previous legislature, this report stating that these agreements were a fundamental condition in the effort to reduce the commercial deficit in the European Union in the field of fishing, in fish supply and in order to protect direct and indirect employment in the fishing sector and in the industries related to fishing in the European regions which are heavily dependent on it.
This was approved here during the last legislature.
In relation to the Cunha report on the conclusion of a new Protocol which defines the fishing opportunities and financial contribution provided for in the agreement with the Republic of Angola for the period from 3 May 1999 to 2 May 2000, I would like to point out that this is a classic Protocol, which allows for access to fishing resources during a certain period and sets a financial contribution.
Despite the fact that certain information and statistics must be borne in mind, and the Commission has promised to be very strict about this, and also bearing in mind the delicate situation that that country is in - it is in a state of war - we believe that the conclusion of this provisional Protocol is very positive, in the hope that it will be renewed for a year or that a new agreement will be reached.
This is a very important country geopolitically, with a very considerable potential wealth and which the European Union has to support, clearly helping it to put an end to the serious situation which it is in.
But it must help in the best way possible for both parties: Angola, on the one hand, and the Member States of the European Union and the regions involved in fishing, on the other, with the control of this Parliament and in accordance with the amendments which the Committee on Fisheries has presented with regard to this important Agreement which has, as has just been pointed out here, a considerable political dimension, as well as economic and financial dimensions.
Therefore, Commissioner, on this question and with regard to fisheries agreements in general, as was demonstrated yesterday in the important debate which we held in relation to the fisheries agreement with Morocco, you will always enjoy the favourable, generally majority, opinion of the Committee on Fisheries, and I hope that you will continue to enjoy the favourable opinion of this Parliament.
Mr President, I am taking the floor in order to lend my support to the fisheries agreement between the European Union and Angola.
I am doing so for economic reasons, which have already been explained by several speakers in this Chamber but, as in yesterday' s debate on the fisheries agreement between the European Union and Morocco, also in order to help a country that is rich in natural resources, but which remains poor due to its political situation, and particularly its on-going civil war.
This is why I think it important to see this agreement, in addition to the economic benefits that it brings to one of our country' s industries, also as assisting the development of an economic sector, as well as the consolidation of peace in Angola.
We agree that we must be vigilant in the way this agreement is implemented, specifically in the way funds are spent. Vigilance is also necessary in order to ensure the preservation of species and the sustainability of fishing.
However, we would like to point out, Mr President, that although the words exploitation and cooperation have the same ending, there is quite a difference between them; cooperation means both parties cooperating when they are in agreement, and we do not believe that Angola sees any kind of exploitation in this agreement, otherwise they would not have renewed it the day after it expired.
Commission. (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would firstly like to give my heartfelt thanks to this Parliament, on behalf of the Commission, for its all in all positive assessment of the new Protocol to the fisheries agreement with Angola.
Until tuna fishing is extended, this Protocol certainly assumes the potential catch quotas of the previous Protocol for the years 1996 to 1999 as well as the appendices thereto.
It must also be emphasised, as a number of speakers have already said, that the Protocol is only valid for one year and more than half of this period has already lapsed in any case.
This year, however, the Community and Angola will be able to redefine the future framework of their fishing relations, as has been proposed by Angola.
We should therefore use this time.
What the Community is paying Angola in return for the catching opportunities afforded under the Protocol and the contribution which Community shipowners pay in the form of duties have also remained at the same level as previously.
The financial consideration therefore corresponds pro rata for one year to the sum established in the previous Protocol.
As far as Parliament' s amendments are concerned, I would like, on behalf of the Commission, to assure the Committee on Fisheries that the Commission, as has been the case in the past, will inform Parliament in the appropriate manner as regards the implementation of the Protocol.
We should, however, choose the most suitable form for this.
Commissioner, now that you have a new portfolio looking after fisheries you will discover that Parliament very often discusses fish on a Friday, but you have had a mixed menu this morning, for a change.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Explanation of vote
Mr President, I wholeheartedly endorse this excellent report by Mr Cunha as it brings very much to the fore the principle of sustainability which is necessary for a forward-looking fisheries policy.
Angola is suffering under the consequences of the Soviet colonialism which plundered this country.
I therefore consider the role of the European Union to be positive and important and also regard this fisheries agreement as being an integral part of our foreign and development policy.
Mr President, to conclude, I would like to make one more personal observation: I am delighted that you have been chairing this sitting here today.
That puts me in a more conciliatory frame of mind.
I hope that one day you will be just as pleased to be the President of this Friday club as your predecessor, President Gutíerrez!
Thank you, Mr Posselt.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 11.10 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday, 29 October 1999.
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to tell you how shocked I have been, as I know you have, by the tragedy that has taken place in the state of Orissa in eastern India, due to the terrible cyclone which, as you know, has caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people.
More than 200,000 houses have been destroyed and more than one and a half million people are now homeless.
I would simply like to express, on your behalf, and on behalf of the European Parliament, my sincere condolences to the victims' families.
If you agree, I shall write to the Indian Prime Minister to send him our condolences.
Furthermore, we shall be asking the Commission to implement an aid plan to address the most immediate and urgent needs.
I was anxious to make this announcement to you.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of Friday 29 October have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, last week Prime Minister Sarkisian and seven other leading politicians were murdered by terrorists in the Armenian Parliament.
An expression of sympathy from us would be appropriate.
In this context I would like to ask whether our own Security Service and the Belgian authorities are prepared for incidents of this kind.
Mr Rübig, that was not at all relevant to the Agenda.
Madam President, I would like to make an observation regarding Friday' s voting in Strasbourg.
I think the fact that only forty MEPs voted on important issues on Friday has somewhat tarnished Parliament' s image.
I am aware that it is not unusual for only a few MEPs to attend certain deliberations, but if voting is involved, then I think that this is extremely detrimental to the image of our Parliament.
Forty MEPs voted on important matters.
I know that quorum is not an issue - this is in line with the Rules of Procedure and there is nothing that can be done about that - but we should avoid this situation at all costs.
I therefore wonder whether it might not be a good idea to refrain from scheduling any more votes for Friday in the future.
Thank you, Mr Vander Taelen.
I have noted your words and, on a personal level, I can tell you that I entirely share the feeling you have just expressed and I do indeed hope that there will be many more MEPs present at the Friday votes than are here now.
We know that this is a longstanding problem, but of course we all share the same desire.
Madam President, this is not really a point of order, but new events are constantly taking place, and I was obliged to take a decision on Friday because there was nobody who could answer my questions.
On Friday morning, the Armenian Ambassador to the European Union, Mr Chitechian, invited me to attend the funerals last week of those murdered in the Armenian Parliament.
Having checked to see whether I was able to attend, I then took the decision to attend these funerals and I tried to inform the Presidency and the Secretariat of my decision.
Unfortunately, it was between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Friday afternoon and there was no-one I could speak to.
So, I faxed you a letter to tell you that I would be attending in a personal capacity, but would nevertheless represent the European Parliament to some extent at these funerals.
I was therefore present at the funerals and at the official ceremonies held in the memory of those murdered in Armenia.
I wanted to inform you of this, Madam President.
Thank you, Mrs Isler Béguin.
You were quite right to do so.
Madam President, I would like you to inform us as to whether there is any truth in the rumour that - and if this were to happen, I believe it would be disastrous for the information policy of the European Parliament - the press reports covering the part-sessions in all languages of the European Union are to be discontinued.
These press reports have always been extremely useful as they reach a wide audience and make known in each language the activities of the MEPs speaking a particular language or from a particular national party. That is why it is something that we, if you like us older MEPs and Members of the previous European Parliament, are quite perturbed about.
If this is the intention, then we would like to know.
Mr Alavanos, I shall answer you straightaway.
It is true that tonight, in the Bureau, we will be holding a debate on information policy.
I can also tell you that I have no intention of discontinuing this report.
I hope that the Members of the Bureau will follow me in this matter.
(The Minutes were approved)
Agenda
Madam President, on behalf of my group, I have requested that the communication proposed by the Commission concerning the case of British beef be followed by a debate.
This is for various reasons.
The first is that we are in the European Parliament and, last Friday, we held a debate without the Commission and without the report from the experts. During this debate I believe that Parliament, and certainly my group, tried to place the issue within its corresponding framework, that is, within our competences and duties as MEPs, towards our citizens.
I believe that Friday' s debate, without the Commission and without the report of the experts, was a positive step because we are obliged to create confidence and offer responses to the people' s problems; we should not always become embroiled in debates amongst ourselves which may be very interesting but only when a joint approach is required.
The second reason is that, in the past, and also very recently, this matter has lent itself to images which may have been amusing in some cases, such as the image of smuggling meat between two countries of the Community, but I do not think that we should re-awaken certain conflicts between our countries since this would seem a farce given the gravity of the issue.
We therefore believe - and of course my group is prepared to do this - that it is important that the Commission should give an explanation and that we, in the debate, should express the positions that we have taken as groups.
My group is prepared to do this and I believe that this would be more effective in restoring citizens' confidence, rather than holding a Question Time as we go along.
Madam President, our Group of the European People's Party and European Democrats has called for us to follow the system that we always use and debate BSE on a 'catching the eye' basis.
I must say, Mr Barón Crespo, that I am absolutely amazed that you are demanding an impromptu debate now.
You criticised me last week when I called for the Napoletano report to be referred back, for quite understandable reasons as we saw it.
You said that conflicted with the agreements.
Fair enough, I had to accept that.
This morning our group considered this afternoon' s discussion.
Some Members in the group also felt that there should be a debate.
The Members who called for that will recall that I said that we had no idea what the other groups' positions were. I said it would be unfair to demand a debate here, because we could prepare ourselves for the debate, whereas the other groups would be unprepared.
Therefore, as a matter of principle, we are not in favour of having an ad hoc debate which this House is not prepared for.
That is why I am in favour of sticking to the present procedure.
Commissioner Byrne will make a statement to us, and we will then discuss it using the 'catching the eye' system and ask our questions.
We should then deal with this serious topic at a later date in a very orderly and serious fashion, giving us the opportunity to conclude the debate with a resolution.
But right now we are most definitely opposed to having a debate sprung on us under the ad hoc procedure!
(Applause from the PPE group)
Madam Speaker, I do not see much cause for drama here.
I would like to think that we could organise a small debate.
It goes without saying that it has not been possible to prepare this matter properly in the groups or at the Conference of Presidents, as the news of this resolution came so late.
I really do not think this is much of a crisis; debate is a good thing, but the most important thing is that we get a chance to hear this announcement in the first place.
It is very important that we have the opportunity to question the Commission on this sensitive issue and the issue between questioning and debate should not loom so large.
We have a procedure and that is that we should proceed now to questioning in depth.
Certainly in my group we have not prepared a list of speakers, nor do we wish to revert to that procedure at this moment.
But we would welcome the opportunity to question the Commission in depth and eventually we can have with due process a reflective debate on the matter.
We should not be discussing a sensitive question, such as this beef issue, on the hoof.
Madam President, with regard to Rule 1 et seq, it seems very unfortunate to me to compare the rights of MEPs with the situation regarding British cattle.
I believe they are unrelated.
Mr Barón Crespo, are you standing by your request that we hold a debate and not a question time as usual?
I shall put this proposal to the vote, with a request for a vote by roll call.
(Parliament rejected the proposal)
British beef and veal
Madam President, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to update Parliament on the developments over the past few days in relation to BSE.
To begin with, I would like to update you on the opinion adopted unanimously by the Scientific Steering Committee last Friday.
This opinion was on the scientific grounds of the advice of the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA) regarding the measures applicable to British beef exports.
I arranged for the summary recommendations of the committee' s opinion to be issued to Parliament on Friday together with a copy of my statement to the press.
Yesterday, I also arranged for the full copy of the report to be issued to you.
However, you may not all have had time to digest their contents and I will, therefore, briefly summarise the main issues.
The opinion addressed in particular three questions from the Commission.
These questions can be summarised as follows:
Is there any new evidence in the documentation provided by AFSSA?
Is there a need to re-examine any of the four Scientific Steering Committee opinions directly related to the scientific rationale of the date-based export scheme?
Is the date-based export scheme satisfactory with regard to the safety of meat and meat products concerned?
In its opinion, the scientific steering committee confirmed that there is no need to review the decision to lift the ban on UK beef exports.
Allow me to quote three of the more important conclusions of the committee:
"there is clear evidence of the continuing progressive decline in 1999 of BSE in the UK.
There is no justification at present to infer any new route of infection" ;
"the SSC concludes that there are currently no grounds for revising the overall conclusions of the SSC opinions directly related to the rationale of the DBES" ; and, finally:
"the SSC considers that the measures taken by the UK make any risk to human health from the UK DBES at least comparable to that in other European Member States" .
This followed a very thorough examination which focused on the concerns raised by the French authorities.
I was greatly encouraged by the unanimous view of the Committee.
It has provided the reassurance necessary that the DBES is sufficient to ensure that British beef exports are safe.
And let me be very clear: I have always insisted that the opinion of the committee would be instrumental in determining the Commission' s handling of this dispute.
I have gone on record several times, including in my hearings before Parliament, that my decisions on food safety will be science-based.
My priority is to ensure that there is no threat to public health.
Sound, independent and excellent scientific advice is essential in this respect.
In this particular case, we now have scientific backing for the existing systems of controls.
It is on this basis that I have called on the French and German authorities to take the committee' s opinion into account and lift their national restrictions on imports of British beef.
As I said on Friday, these restrictions are no longer necessary in the light of the safeguards in place.
However, we have to accept that this is a highly charged issue where we need to proceed cautiously.
This is why I also insisted on Friday that everybody needs a few days to reflect on the full implications of the scientific committee' s opinion.
My meeting last night with my French and British counterparts was held in this spirit: we need to discuss the best way forward to resolve this dispute.
The French authorities have now requested clarification on five key points.
Very briefly, they want further information on traceability, testing, derived products, controls and labelling.
I do not consider this request for clarification to be unreasonable.
Accordingly, a meeting of officials will take place this Friday to discuss the issues in question.
Let me quote the very short communiqué agreed by all participants last night which agreed this strategy:
"We have drawn up a method to emerge from the crisis as quickly as possible by identifying five points - which I have already mentioned - worthy of being looked at by our experts over the next few days.
Our experts will begin this work on Friday.
We undertake this work in a constructive spirit and a common will to assure public health of our citizens" .
I am very surprised at the reaction in the press to last night' s developments.
It is not a setback.
It is not a victory for France or a defeat for the UK.
It is simply a further necessary stage in resolving this difficult issue.
A few extra days in discussions is a very small price to pay for a successful conclusion.
I need not add that the alternative - legal proceedings - would be a far longer and more painful process.
Some additional reassurances or clarifications may be necessary to allow the French authorities to lift their restrictions on UK beef.
However, that should not prove to be an insurmountable problem and it is in that spirit that discussions should continue.
It is the clear implication of these discussions that the ban will be lifted.
However, I would like to make very clear that there is no question of re-writing the date-based export scheme.
It has been upheld by the scientific steering committee as a set of reliable safeguards to ensure that British beef exported under the scheme is safe.
It does not need to be changed.
Finally, I will continue to insist on a very quick solution.
Let me remind you that today is the very first working day since the adoption of the scientific committee' s opinion.
We have all worked long and hard over the past several days and these efforts will continue until we have found a solution.
I will, of course, continue to keep Parliament fully informed of developments.
In answer to the first part of your question, Mrs Jackson, I believe that the very opposite is the case.
Rather than throwing President Prodi' s plans for a food safety agency into chaos, it highlights the very need for such an agency at Community level.
We are working on that very point in my service at the moment.
Not only are we concerned to identify and establish its level of competence but also it would be of considerable importance to identify clearly and mark out the jurisdiction that the food safety agency would have at Community level and how it will interact with the agencies at Member State level. It will be important to identify where the function of one begins and ends and dovetails with the other.
Once that has been clearly established, in my belief, the problem that we have seen over the last four or five weeks should not arise again.
I should emphasise also that, what we are engaged in now, and the exercise that is going to be undertaken on Friday and the subsequent days is, as I have said, a clarification.
It is not a negotiation.
A negotiation implies that two parties come to a negotiating table, each with their own views, and something comes out of it at the end which reflects both their views.
What we are engaged in here is an exercise in clarification of the five points that I have referred to.
The French authorities have not unreasonably requested more information in relation to these very important issues.
Most of them are a request for information as to how the date-based export scheme actually operates, both on a practical level and on a technical level.
My service is perfectly happy and willing to give that information to the French authorities. Civil servants from the UK will also be involved.
There are practical considerations involved in how the issue works on the ground which are necessary to explain.
So I am perfectly satisfied that it is more accurate to refer to this exercise as a clarification.
In the event that my statement that the clear implication of this exercise is that there will be a lifting of the ban turns out to be incorrect, then, as I have said from the very beginning when we first saw this issue on Friday 1 October, there would be the initiation of infringement proceedings.
That remains my view.
I have said on numerous occasions since then that court proceedings would be the last option.
I believe it is much better to achieve a result by discussion with the parties so as to ensure that everybody understands what is involved.
That is the exercise we are engaged in at the moment.
In the event that does not yield results, then my view that it is appropriate to bring infringement proceedings will prevail.
Madam President, Commissioner, do you agree with me that it really is astonishing that Member States are now seeking fresh explanations and clarifications when this has been the subject of discussions with the same Member States in the Standing Veterinary Committee for over a year and a half, and do you agree that Member States still imposing a ban on imports should present fresh scientific evidence, failing which it simply gives the impression that they want to push the internal market still further into some distant future?
Do you also agree with me that you should make it compulsory, immediately - or rather in the next four weeks - for those Member States and all others to universally apply the newly evaluated BSE tests. No doubt the two Member States who still have an import ban will support you in this!
Lastly, do you agree with me that even if there were - were, that is a subjunctive - if there were such an agency of the kind that Mr Prodi would like and which has not yet been fully discussed in this House, even if that were the case, a situation like this could recur again and again? The reason being, of course, that there would still be national agencies that could, at any time, claim that there was new scientific evidence.
Would you therefore agree that your hope that a European agency could avoid such a situation is quite simply an illusion?
Not a lot astonishes me nowadays.
I believe, however, the clarifications that are asked for by the French authorities are not unreasonable.
They are related to the date-based export scheme itself.
They are related to five topics: traceability, further testing, issues surrounding derived products, further information relating to controls, inspection and controls by the Food and Veterinary Office on the single plant that exists in Truro, in Devon, which slaughters and exports this product, and finally, on the issue of labelling.
In relation to the labelling issue, there is EU-wide legislation in draft at the moment, intended to be implemented by 1 January 2000.
Those provisions have been put back for one year because Member States had not completed the preparatory work to enable the legislation to be implemented.
In the meantime, the UK authorities have in place their own beef assurance scheme labelling system and have indicated that this labelling system, on a voluntary basis, would operate in respect of exports to France and elsewhere.
That, I should stress, is being operated on a voluntary basis.
It is not being legislated for at EU level.
I would not have the competence nor the desire to do that.
As a transitional measure, pending the final implementation of the EU-wide labelling system, this proposal has been put forward by the UK on a voluntary basis and will operate in that way.
I agree fully with what you say, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, that there is no new scientific evidence being put forward by the French authorities.
That was confirmed by the Scientific Steering Committee last week.
There was up-to-date information but no new evidence to change the opinion of the Scientific Steering Committee.
In relation to the agency I can only refer you to the answer that I gave to Mrs Jackson that my belief is that the establishment of a centralised Commission level food safety authority will go a considerable distance to eliminating these kinds of difficulties.
There may be teething problems along the way but it will be the challenge of all of us involved in establishing the legislation for that agency to ensure that the competences of each of the various institutions - whether they be at Community level or at Member State level - properly interact and that each side knows exactly where their competence begins and ends.
In those circumstances one is in a position to bring more certainty, rather than less, into the situation.
Madam President, Commissioner, together with the Scientific Committee, you have taken responsibility for the consumer and I believe that I myself was one of those who have experienced this crisis at first hand and I have always monitored the work of the Scientific Committees.
But I think that we must be particularly vigilant as regards the identification of cattle in the different countries of the Community.
Of course you have answered one concern in terms of labelling and traceability, and I beg you to do the same, especially in terms of complete transparency throughout the Community on the whole beef and veal sector, whose past we are all familiar with.
So what different control systems are available to you across the Community and how far have you got with the various tests, particularly the BSE test which has been accepted by the Commission?
There are, at present, four BSE tests, three of them of the very highest reliability and the fourth one quite reliable.
They are post-mortem tests.
Further work is on-going to try and achieve a situation whereby these tests, or a development of these tests, might well be used in a pre-clinical situation.
We have not reached that stage yet but it is the hope that we will.
Work is on-going in relation to that at the moment.
Tests are being undertaken as we speak.
The control systems that are in place - the inspections and controls - are undertaken by the Food and Veterinary Office in respect of the DBES scheme.
That office has conducted two tests in the last six months.
Certainly the last one was as recently as the first week in October.
Whereas I have not yet got a written report from that particular inspection, I have a verbal report to the effect that the findings are satisfactory.
Madam President, Truro is in Cornwall, not in Devon.
Can you give assurances that France is not just playing for time? With the Scientific Committee having ruled on Friday that British beef is safe, it seems incredible that we have this further delay.
I believe it is probably just a face-saving exercise on behalf of France.
I am sorry that the Agriculture Minister, Mr Brown, seemed to cave in.
Whatever the reasons for it, it does not help consumer confidence.
We need to make sure the ban is lifted as soon as possible.
Can the Commissioner give assurances that it will be lifted in the foreseeable future? Last Friday he mentioned a two week time span.
Can he tell us now what he feels the time span should be for the lifting of the ban by France?
Thank you, first of all, for your correction in relation to the location of Truro.
I am, as best I can be, satisfied that the French authorities are not playing for time.
They have asked for these clarifications.
I believe these requests are not unreasonable.
I believe my civil servants and those in the UK can reply and give the information that is necessary.
This can be done within a matter of days.
In relation to the delay, I should like to point out that the Scientific Steering Committee' s report was delivered on Friday night.
This is the first working day since then so it does not seem to me that there has been much evidence of a delay in the meantime.
In relation to Mr Brown, he and I have discussed this issue on a number of occasions over the last two weeks or more.
I have found in my dealings with him a determination on his part to resolve this difficulty as speedily and satisfactorily as possible.
You have raised the issue in terms of him having caved in, but that is far from the true position.
He has dedicated himself to this in negotiations with me and then with Minister Glavany most assiduously.
In my opinion the views and position that were adopted last night were the intelligent, rational, reasonable approach to adopt to this situation and, in my view, is far from a cave-in.
I hope that my judgment in this will prove to be right and that within the next ten days or so we will have a final resolution to this particular problem.
Commissioner, I think - and this is not because I am French - that we must put this Franco-British squabble behind us.
We already had occasion to say so on Friday and I think that the work being done by the Agriculture Ministers shows that it is crucial to find a compromise that is acceptable to everyone and not only to us, the MEPs who are rather trailing behind the news, but especially to consumers.
If there is a problem today and French specialists have recommended that this ban should not be lifted, this means that there are some serious questions to be asked.
Personally I am trying to put myself in the shoes of consumers who must by now have an idea of the situation.
On the one hand you have a French food safety agency which says that there are in fact risks, and on the other, experts who tell us unanimously that there is no problem at all.
Personally, this raises serious questions in my mind.
I have read in the press that there are only three prion specialists on the Scientific Committee.
I therefore turn to you, Commissioner, in order to find out if these three prion specialists really abstained, in which case those who voted unanimously were not prion specialists and we would then be able to understand why the proposals, the compromises and the supplementary questions tabled by France have been accepted.
Like you, I am also concerned as to the protection of consumers.
That is part of the brief that I have been asked to undertake.
I have noticed with interest and already welcomed the statement made by the French Minister for Trade and Consumer Protection, Mrs Lebranchu, who referred to the unanimous report of the Scientific Steering Committee over the weekend saying it would provide a reassurance to consumers.
I welcome her statement in that regard.
There has been a little confusion in relation to the interaction between the Ad Hoc Committee and the Scientific Steering Committee.
I should like to shed some light on that at this stage, having been given the opportunity to do so by the last question.
The Ad Hoc Committee is made up of experts on BSE.
They met last Monday for the second time.
On the previous occasion they were given the evidence from the French authority, which I had asked the French authorities to provide.
They also asked for up-to-date information from the UK.
They got that information also. They then met last Monday, considered all of that, applied their own experience to it and produced a report which, in effect, recited all of the issues involved and the aspects, dangers, risks and the pros and cons of the arguments relating to BSE.
There was no vote taken by that committee.
It is not their function to do so.
It is an advisory ad hoc group that feeds into the legally established committee, established to carry out the function of advising the Commission in relation to these matters - that is, the Scientific Steering Committee.
It is that committee that took the vote and it is that committee that was unanimous in its view, having reviewed all of the information that was contained in the Ad Hoc Group' s report and some other documents that were supplied by the Ad Hoc Group and obviously applying their own scientific knowledge.
These sixteen scientists are drawn from most of the Member States.
They are vets and scientists of the very highest calibre, at the pinnacle of their careers, people of the very highest reputation.
They formed their view - which we now know - which was expressed unanimously.
So there is not any confusion or contradiction between any ad hoc view and the Scientific Steering Committee.
That is the genesis of how the decision-making process actually takes place and the interaction between the Ad Hoc Committee and the Scientific Steering Committee.
Madam President, Commissioner, do you think it is right that at the very point the export ban is being lifted - and there is no doubt that we belong to a legal community - earlier decisions about labelling and identification should be deferred? Do you think that these are confidence-building measures?
My second point is this: what is your opinion about the fact that we have different measures in place within the Union for combating scrapie and BSE? As a matter of principle, would the correct approach not be to eliminate and cull all herds infected with BSE in the case of incidences of BSE in all Member States, and would this not have been the correct approach right from the beginning as a means of preventative consumer protection?
In relation to the issue you raise about scrapie in sheep and BSE, whereas they are similar diseases they are quite different in their forms of transmission and so on.
One cannot readily extrapolate from information available in relation to scrapie directly across to BSE.
It is informative but it does not directly extrapolate one from the other.
I believe the issue relating to labelling is an issue that builds consumer confidence.
I have spoken about this on a number of occasions, including at my hearing in September, that the provision of information to consumers must be the very first stop in any armoury of a Commissioner charged with consumer protection.
The provision of labelling obviously provides information.
I regard this as a good way forward.
Madam President, Commissioner, please give me a straight yes or no answer.
Have there been more than forty fatal cases of atypical Creutzfeldt-Jakob due to mad cow disease, that is, a zoonosis?
Commissioner, did or did not the European Parliament' s Committee on Agriculture receive a draft directive one month ago saying that until 2003, we would not be able to show the cattle' s provenance on the label? Commissioner, in what way is the scientific competence of the members of the Scientific Steering Committee superior to that of the German scientists, of the Scottish scientists and of the French scientists who tell you that there is a risk of zoonosis.
Commissioner, who chooses the members of the Scientific Steering Committee?
How are they chosen?
How independent are they?
Commissioner, how do you explain the fact that for seven years, two MEPs, the Belgian Socialist José Happart and myself said here, between September 1989 and March 1996, that there was a risk of zoonosis before the British Minister for agriculture admitted it on 24 March 1996 in the House of Commons? What good is the precautionary principle, Commissioner, when, if there is any doubt, we do not refrain from selling cattle that are still suspect?
And finally, Commissioner, are you still prepared to say to the country of Fleming and Newton that Galileo was wrong to say that the earth turns, when the university and the Scientific Steering Committee say that the earth does not turn?
My information is that there have been more than forty cases diagnosed of new variant CJD.
In relation to the provenance of animals from labeling, you are correct to the extent that the legislative regime that is to be established at Community level will ultimately provide that products which are imported from another Member State will identify that it is of EU origin rather than from a Member State origin.
What is happening in this situation is that on a voluntary basis the UK propose to keep on their beef the labelling that they have put in place under their beef assurance scheme.
It is a purely voluntary aspect and it is not governed by legislation at EU level.
I should say that I am absolutely satisfied as to the competence of the Scientific Steering Committee.
It is made up of the chairmen of the eight scientific committees dealing with such issues as food, toxicology and other issues, and then eight others who were selected and appointed by the Commission.
They are, let me emphasise, absolutely and completely independent.
The Commission cannot tell them what to do, either in relation to the substance of their reports or indeed as to their timing.
In relation to your reference to the Scottish scientists and so on, my understanding is that this issue relates solely to beef on the bone which is not part of the DBES scheme.
I am not at all convinced that anything that the Scottish scientists have said on that issue is relevant to exportation from the UK under the DBES.
In relation to your question on the precautionary principle, this is derived from a concept that was first laid down in the environment field.
It lays down the basis on which the precautionary principle will be applied. It is quite specific in the way it says that it should be applied and one of the specific aspects is that there has to be an absence of scientific evidence in relation to a particular danger, or serious doubt as to the scientific evidence.
We have a unanimous report from the best scientists and vets in the European Union available to the Commission and they have expressed their view that the British beef exported under the DBES scheme is as safe as any other beef in Europe.
In those circumstances it is not appropriate to apply the precautionary principle.
Commissioner, would you agree that it is of paramount importance that we have a European solution to this problem and would you accept our congratulations that you have put your best efforts towards that in the events over the weekend.
Nevertheless, would you not agree that since the unanimous confirmation of the safety of the date-based export scheme, provided you personally endorse it in this House, as I hope you will, there is a very limited area for clarification of what more can be done.
Would you not accept that some of the issues now raised by the technical experts - and I particularly refer here to labelling, to improved diagnostic tests and so on - are incremental improvements in safety measures for Europe as a whole.
They are not a replacement or a supplement needed for the date-based export scheme.
If that is the case, would you not further agree that the debate about the safety of British beef ought to be concluded by 10 November next and on Wednesday, if the Commission has no word on that matter, will you bring forward, regrettable as they are, the legal proceedings which are then overdue?
Mr Whitehead, thank you for those kind words.
I agree with you that it is of paramount importance that this issue be resolved at European level for the reasons that I identified earlier.
It is important for a number of reasons, not least consumer confidence, and it is to that end that I am trying to resolve this issue as I am sure also Minister Glavany and Minister Brown are doing.
In relation to the date-based export scheme, of course I endorse it.
I welcome the opportunity, in response to your question, to do so again.
You may have noted I did so earlier and I have done so on a number of occasions.
Let me repeat that it is not my intention to put forward any legislation to amend the date-based export scheme which itself is the subject of legislation. It is not my intention to do that and I have made that situation clear over the weekend on a number of occasions and I did so again yesterday.
These improvements, as you describe them, are incremental.
Some of them are not related to the application of the date-based export scheme but I have to say that some of them probably are, particularly in relation to the issue for instance of traceability, to the issues surrounding derived products.
Some further information was requested as to how exactly the derived products scheme would operate under the DBES.
Of course I am perfectly happy to give a clarification in relation to that but I should remind you of something that I am sure you are aware of: there is no exportation of processed beef under the DBES from the UK because it is necessary first to identify and approve a plant for that purpose and no such plant has been proposed by the UK authorities.
Therefore there is no exportation of derived products under the DBES scheme but it may happen and in the event that it does, questions were asked of me yesterday to clarify exactly how it would work, how products might be segregated and so on.
These are not unreasonable questions which I feel perfectly happy to answer over the next few days.
In relation to when this should take place, the meeting is taking place on Friday, I would hope that it would conclude its deliberations and its explanations on Friday.
There may be other meetings next week.
I suspect that the French authorities may well have a further discussion with their food safety authority and I would expect a response from them certainly no later than Thursday of next week.
I would then be in a position to first of all give an up-date to the Commission next Wednesday and give a final conclusive version on the following Tuesday at the Commission meeting in Strasbourg.
It may all happen earlier.
If it does, so much the better.
If it does not, on Tuesday week I will be bringing a report to the Commission.
In my innocence and naivety I thought that when the scientific steering committee met last week and made their announcement, indeed the announcement was made by Mr Pascale, himself a Frenchman as President of that committee, indicating the unanimous approval of that committee that British beef is as safe as any other beef in the EU or possibly safer than any beef worldwide, that was the top of the pyramid. I did not think you could go any higher than that.
Now we are told by Mr Byrne that we need just a few extra days of discussions.
Well, it appears to me that we have had three months since 1 August in which the French and the Germans have defied EU law.
Are you now telling me Mr Byrne that during those three months when a vast dossier was prepared by the French food safety agency that they did not examine the technical implications embracing traceability, testing, derived products, controls and labelling? Are you telling me that only now at this last minute after the scientific steering committee has made its unanimous pronouncement they want further technical clarification of those points?
It seems ludicrous. What exactly are they asking for?
We heard Mr Martinez questioning the competence of the Scientific Steering Committee.
Is Mr Martinez aware, and are you Commissioner aware, of the fact that the AFSSA, the French food safety agency, has an annual budget of EUR 52 million and has a board of governors of whom 50% are appointed by the French government, the other 50% representing farmers, food retailers and food distributors? So let us ask some questions about their competence.
We were assured at the highest level in Paris that this matter was not being driven by protectionism but was being driven purely by science.
This smacks to me of pure commercial protectionism and now it has been exposed.
Are you aware this is the way that the AFSSA is being driven, Mr Byrne?
(Applause from the PPE group)
I am glad of the opportunity to reiterate my view that the Scientific Steering Committee is, as you describe it, the top of the pyramid.
They are the best available I rely on their advice, there is no doubt in my mind, and I am not in any way challenging their view.
However, I should say that the issues that have been raised by the French authorities in requesting some clarification of the issues that they have identified seem to me quite reasonable.
I have referred to some of them earlier in the answers that I have given, particularly to Mr Whitehead.
They seem to me to be not unreasonable and therefore I think it correct to take this opportunity over the next few days to clarify these issues so as to avoid having to go to litigation in the European Court of Justice.
That seems to me to be the sensible and the quickest way forward.
In the event that we do not achieve a result along the lines that I envisage then, of course, that option is open and will be looked at in a short space of time, but I believe that the course of action which I have identified as being appropriate, and that others have agreed with me is appropriate, including my colleagues in the Commission this morning, is the appropriate way forward and I intend to pursue that line at least for another number of days.
Thank you, Mr Byrne.
The use of my gavel was not aimed at you but at an MEP who was trying to interrupt you.
Proposals in relation to labelling are before Parliament, as you say, under Article 152 which is a co-decision procedure and you are correct to say that those labelling provisions provide for information in relation to the animal from birth so that thorough labelling arrangements are a valuable tool.
They provide information but they will not, of course, provide absolute guarantees in relation to public health but they at the very least provide information.
Other procedures have to be put in place, which we have put in place, and we are examining so as to ensure public health safety and I am talking now in particular about the DBES scheme itself.
But yes, I agree with Mr Goepel, that the labelling issue is an important issue, it is before Parliament and we will obviously have an opportunity to discuss that in the future.
Commissioner, throughout the crisis of the last few days, the Commission has, on several occasions, adopted a position in favour of a European food safety agency.
As far as this agency is concerned, it could take one of two forms.
The one that I find quite positive would consist of creating an authority formed by a group of European experts without detracting from the decision-making power of national states on the fundamental issues which are the closest to citizens' concerns. There is quite another concept which I feel is much more negative and this consists of establishing an additional feature which would take away a nation' s right to safeguard themselves, a right which is nevertheless inalienable.
This form would, because the Commission seems unable to act in any other way, immediately prioritise the free movement of goods over consumers' health, as we have just seen in the business of the ban on British beef and veal where, Madam President, we should really wait until the tests are available.
Furthermore, this leads us to the following extraordinary conclusion that the precautionary principle is not being applied within the European Union, when we are trying to make it prevail in relations with third countries, particularly with the United States.
Well, Commissioner, what form would you choose for the food agency; one which takes a flexible and liberal approach towards countries, or one which takes an authoritarian approach towards countries?
Yes, as I said earlier, I am in favour of the establishment of a European food safety authority and the work is on-going in my service in relation to this.
I have had a number of discussions with colleagues and with Members of Parliament also in relation to this on an informal basis.
So work is proceeding on this issue.
No final decisions of course have been taken and, as I said to you a moment ago, the constitutional structure of that authority has yet to be decided and how it would interact with the other institutions of the European Union and with the national food safety agencies of Member States.
It also has to be carefully choreographed because we want to rule out any difficulties like the ones we are faced with at the moment.
However, we have to be careful about, as you say, the removal of Member States' inalienable rights because any interference with the Member States' rights may very well encroach upon the rights of Member States' , thereby requiring Treaty changes.
I am not sure that we want at this stage to move quite that far.
I am not ruling that out, but I want you to understand that in addressing your question in that way you should be aware that for progress to be made in that particular area, if it is intended to reduce the jurisdiction or the rights of Member States, Treaty changes would be necessary.
Let me just finally address the issue of the precautionary principle you mentioned.
I have mentioned the precautionary principle in the context of imports from the United States and I am sure you are referring to beef and hormone-treated beef.
I have referred to that in this House and I have referred to that in the Environment Committee on a number of occasions.
I have to point out to you that the advice that I am receiving from the scientists in the European Commission is that the beef imported from the United States contains the hormone 17-beta-oestradiol.
I am advised that is a complete carcinogen. In those circumstances, it is appropriate to apply the scientific evidence rather than the precautionary principle because with clear scientific evidence, it is open to me and the Commission to make a decision based on that scientific evidence.
It is only in the absence of scientific evidence, or where there is a clear uncertainty in relation to scientific evidence, that the precautionary principle comes into play.
So that is why we do not apply the precautionary principle to the hormone issue on the importation of beef from the United States.
What British farmers, and in particular farmers in the English West Midlands region that I represent, are looking for is a speedy resolution to this particular problem.
The scientific committee has clearly demonstrated its belief that British beef is as safe as any other beef anywhere in the European Union and under those circumstances I am sure that the Commissioner would agree with me that a delay of perhaps another few days only is better than two or three years going through courts which ultimately frustrates everybody, satisfies nobody and in particular does not satisfy British farmers who have followed the rule of law, have done what has been asked of them and are now in a position to sell an excellent product throughout the whole of the European Union.
What I would like the Commissioner to go through just one more time again here now for total clarity is his belief that this delay will only be a few days and that at the very latest he envisages this process being completed by the Tuesday of the Strasbourg session, and preferably before.
Let me say to you that I have met Mr Ben Gill of the National Farmers' Union on a number of occasions, I have spoken to him on the telephone and I have seen what he has had to say on the subject over the last couple of days and in particular overnight.
I have kept in close contact with him and I can assure you I am conscious of the problems that this issue poses for farmers in the UK.
I fully agree with you when you say that a delay of a number of days, if it achieves a resolution of this difficult problem, is by far the better solution, rather than embarking upon litigation in the European Court of Justice.
I also further confirm to you, and repeat what I said earlier, I hope to bring a final report on this issue to the Commission no later than Tuesday week in Strasbourg.
Thank you for addressing us so clearly.
I just wonder whether or not, having listened to all the debates, you are actually totally and utterly aware of the devastating effect of this decision on UK farmers.
You have said already quite clearly that the standing committee on scientific evidence is the highest authority.
Mrs Jackson asked you as the very first question if we have another committee to look at our food safety across the European Union will that actually be better than the present standing committee and will people take any notice of it.
It appears to me that they have not taken any notice of it.
You actually argued almost to the contrary that in actual fact the standing committee on scientific evidence is probably not as good as a food agency.
British farmers are suffering as a result of indecision.
It is about time the decision was ratified.
The previous speaker said in a few days; it was actually in August the decision was taken.
How many more days do we need to have a decision?
Can I also ask you: there is a practice within Member States, or some Member States, to feed what I would call banned substances to some of their beef cattle.
Is the scientific committee and the Commission going to look at that? Or are we going to continue with a situation where the press are just going to use it to attack Member States?
Commissioner, all I say to you is that British farmers, the European Union and agriculture are suffering as a result of indecision.
We want to see the decision taken on Friday evening, not waiting until Strasbourg. There is no more scientific evidence.
Did the French sign up to the Florence agreement?
Has the United Kingdom met all the conditions that were laid down in that agreement? Why has a decision not been taken immediately?
(Applause from the PPE group)
I am totally aware of the problems that all this has caused for British farmers.
This issue has been going on for a long time now, long before I came to the Commission.
The decision that was taken by the French authorities on 1 October is a decision that has had to be dealt with as best one can in the meantime.
Since then the one feature that can be pointed to is that there has not been any indecision on the part of the Commission or on the part of those who are involved in trying to resolve this difficult issue.
I have said on a number of occasions - and I have said it again here today - that I believe that the application of steady diplomacy, cool heads with firm determination, will make more progress than knee-jerk reactions resulting in the Commission ending up in the Court of Justice in Luxembourg two years hence.
It will not do the farmers of the UK any good, in my view, if the ban remains in place in the intervening two-year period.
I am firmly convinced that the view I take, the line that I have adopted, the decisions that I have made, reinforced by my colleagues in the Commission this morning, are the correct decision.
I look forward to a speedy resolution of this issue.
I have mentioned on a number of occasions over the last weekend in various interviews that it is my firm wish that this matter be resolved quickly and diplomatically.
Sometimes it is difficult to achieve both of those at the same time.
That is what I am trying to do.
That is what I am trying to achieve.
Allowing me a week until Tuesday to do that is not unreasonable.
To bring this debate to a close, Commissioner, I think that it would be useful to let the matter lie.
For much of the debate, I have had the impression that a kind of war was being fought to see whether it would be Great Britain or France who would lose face.
I think that that is not what the issue - or the debate - is about, but it does affect the following question in a major way: what is being proposed for European consumers as a whole? British consumers, just like French and Spanish consumers, have the right to know what they are eating and from this point of view, I consider labelling and traceability to be both unavoidable and essential.
But, Commissioner, should it not be pointed out that the source of the whole business, geographically speaking, is Great Britain. Excuse me for saying so, but that is where the first cases of BSE occurred.
And why was that? Because there is a farming system there that is particularly geared towards high productivity, because there more than anywhere else, farmers are sacrificed at the altar of the food-processing industry and because instead of crying over British farmers, we would do better to help them to achieve sound means of production, more appropriate means of production.
This is something they have already begun to do. I would not want to forget to mention the fact that at the worst moments of this mad cow crisis, the Welsh and the Scots, who have continued to maintain more traditional farming methods, have been punished in the same way as English producers.
Therefore, Commissioner, please tell me what financial resources will be released to pay for traceability, for the slaughter of whole herds in which there is a single case of BSE, for cases of cattle plague, because that is the only way we will be able to reassure consumers. I also think that from this point of view, every European country needs to stop repeating the words "precautionary principle" , as we have done for years, whilst continuing to practise the same frenzied methods of high productivity, and to highlight two or three rather limited examples in order to exercise their rights.
Well, Commissioner, what resources will this agency be given?
I fully agree with you when you say this is not an issue of losing face or winners and losers.
The characterisation of this difficult matter in those terms is quite unhelpful.
Also, those who address it in that way do not give full justice to the seriousness of the problem.
I also agree with you that assurance for consumers is of paramount importance.
It is the DBES scheme which has been devised by the Commission with the advice of the scientists which, in my opinion and the opinion of those scientists who advise the Commission in these matters, will give that assurance to consumers.
I also agree with you that it is extremely valuable to have labelling and traceability.
In relation to the labelling issue, you have asked me what will be put in place at Community level in the legislation regarding labelling.
From 2003, all beef will be labelled with place of birth, place of fattening, place of slaughter, breed and age of the animal.
It is not possible to provide this labelling and information at present because the Member States have not yet provided the information for that to happen.
But it is being addressed and that will be the situation from that date.
Again, I should like to emphasise the importance that I attach to this entire issue in terms of consumer confidence and, in particular, the issue of public health.
It is my intention to take this into account over the next number of days in the on-going discussions.
Thank you, Commissioner Byrne.
This item on the agenda is now closed.
Before we continue with the agenda, I would like to point out that tomorrow morning, the reports by Mr Hughes and Mrs Smet will be debated together, as that is what the rapporteurs wanted and everyone agreed to do.
Macroeconomic dialogue
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the macroeconomic dialogue in order to encourage growth and employment (Cologne process).
Madam Speaker, Members of the European Parliament, may I first say how pleased I am to have the opportunity to come here to meet you and especially to be allowed to contribute my views to the macroeconomic dialogue, which is only just beginning.
It is thus a new process. The adoption of a single currency in Europe has increased the need for dialogue on economic policy.
Both the ECOFIN Council and the presidents for the euro area have seen evidence of this in their work.
In order for the euro to quickly acquire the weight it deserves, not only as part of the international economy but also in discussions concerning the economic policy of the Union area, the common points of view on economic policy in the euro area in particular must be explored in more depth.
The European Council in Helsinki is expecting a report from the ECOFIN Council on the development of coordination with respect to economic policy, which again will help to step up this debate.
The economic and monetary union opens many new possibilities for Europe.
We must seize this opportunity and do everything possible to safeguard economic growth and employment development.
The best way to do this is to ensure that the benefits of a single currency and a single market are fully exploited.
The economic and monetary union means a new beginning for Europe, both in terms of entrepreneurship and of economic policy.
The European Employment Pact, which was signed last summer at the European Council at Cologne on the initiative of Germany, is an initiative which will promote mutual understanding and a reform of the European economies.
The macroeconomic dialogue is part of the European Employment Pact.
The implementation of this Pact begins with the organisation of the first macroeconomic dialogue, which will take place on Monday next week at the meeting of the ECOFIN Council.
For the first time, all the prime movers at Union level will be seated at the same table: representatives of the Council, of the Commission, of the European Central Bank and of the parties in the labour market.
Until now we have met up with representatives of the parties in the labour market twice a year, and been engaged in a separate dialogue with the ECB.
Now we are coming together at the same event.
The participation of the ECB is a significant feature of this. It is a clear indication that the bank is prepared, for its own part, to be involved in open and direct discussions, and to justify its reasoning and its actions.
It is important to recognise the main principles of dialogue.
They ensure that the independence and autonomy of the parties involved are respected.
The dialogue will be based on confidentiality, which means that there is no intention of issuing joint conclusions or passing joint resolutions.
The time will be used for discussions.
There will be no public report on the discussions: each side will report to their own quarter on the content of the meeting.
We may question the usefulness of the parties having confidential talks behind closed doors.
The answer is that this dialogue is primarily aimed at generating an understanding of the fundamental principles of economic policy.
It complements - but by no means excludes - public debate on economic policy, which takes place in any case.
It is a lot easier to begin discussions on the basis of a common viewpoint and a joint analysis of the situation.
It is not possible, of course, to arrive at anything as concrete as this at European level, nor is there reason to talk about negotiations or coordination.
Even so, we believe that the dialogue will make a positive contribution to the climate of debate surrounding the issue of economic policy.
In Finland, the responsibility for dialogue on a political level lies with the Economics Council, whose duties and objectives are of a general and unofficial nature.
We have found how beneficial it is to maintain contact through discussions, especially in difficult times.
These discussions have concerned matters of principle regarding social and economic development.
Similar practices exist in several countries.
National experience and procedures, of course, are not directly transferable to European level but there is plenty to do at that level, too.
Macroeconomic dialogue at European level cannot take the place of national dialogue, either.
We need both.
We just have to find the right content and form for the dialogue at European level.
In our presidential capacity, we have also wanted to make sure that this dialogue works.
It is for this reason that all 15 Member States are not present, only the representatives of the Council. This, too, is significant.
The debate should not focus on the situation and problems of individual countries - the matters on the agenda concern the whole area, a joint area of responsibility.
This provides significant parameters and policy guidelines.
The participants in this dialogue were specified in the conclusions of the European Council at Cologne, and it was declared that the limited number of participants would ensure the success of the dialogue.
Naturally, we have acted accordingly.
The conclusions of Cologne also emphasised the fact that the macroeconomic dialogue is perceived as a sustainable and on-going process.
For this reason, in its arrangements, Finland has wanted to look ahead with an emphasis, above all, on continuity.
Therefore, future presidents of the Council will also be taking part in the meeting, whose tasks it will be to develop and further deepen the dialogue.
The dialogue is not about coordinating economic policies; it is linked with those current challenges which concern the development of economic policy cooperation.
Much of the decision making that has an impact on economic development and employment still takes place within the Member States despite the introduction of the economic and monetary union.
Above all, it is a question of budgetary policy and determination of wages.
Can we be sure that the conditions and demands created by economic and monetary policy have been internalised? From the point of view of individual Member States, there is a risk, not of inflation, but of excessive nominal pay increases, which will lead to a sharp decline in competitiveness and profitability in business and, consequently, to job losses.
Still, there is no reason to paint such a sombre picture.
It is, however, vital that those who make decisions on economic policy - especially on monetary policy - can feel confident.
That is why we need dialogue and reassuring signals, just as we need the decision makers to act swiftly and decisively in potential problem situations.
This is a positive way of promoting the prospects of an economic policy which favours economic growth and employment.
As part of the dialogue, we also have to improve the statistics on economic development - including wage and cost trends - and the flow of information.
The two levels of dialogue - technical and political - complement each other successfully.
Discussions must be based on facts, and it would be better still if we could agree on these facts.
It is, above all, a question of being realistic.
Madam President, I would like to point out that macroeconomic dialogue forms part of the complex process of the Employment Pact and that, as the Presidency-in-Office of the Council has explained, it is a consequence of the Cologne decisions, trying, through the establishment of this dialogue between social partners and the people responsible for economic and budgetary policy with the participation of the European Central Bank, to achieve our ultimate objectives.
In accordance with the broad guidelines of economic policy, these objectives simply consist of achieving stability in monetary policy through budgetary measures and wage trends which are appropriate and more favourable to growth and employment, including exchange rates and interest rates in the long term.
The macroeconomic dialogue will be initiated in accordance with this philosophy.
Its significance has been clearly defined by the President-in-Office of the Council and I do not intend to insist on it.
I simply want to point out that the first technical meeting took place on 29 October and the next will take place on 8 November.
Despite previous experiences, such as the social dialogue established after Val-Duchesse, it is clear that the new macroeconomic dialogue has some different characteristics.
I would like to concentrate - so as not to repeat part of what has already been said - on the contribution which the Commission made to the technical debate on 29 October.
Firstly, I would like to point out that the Commission' s Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs provided, prior to the debate, two working documents.
One related to the economic situation and the other was intended to prepare the informal exchanges on macroeconomic policies in the medium term.
Both documents should serve as technical contributions to the debate.
The first Commission document aimed to present the general economic situation and the macroeconomic perspectives in the short term.
The diagnosis of trends for the European Union contained in this document is of a descriptive and analytical nature.
And its contents confirm that it is possible to have a more rapid return to growth than the one announced by the Commission in its macroeconomic forecast in the spring.
The growth announced for 1999 will be around 2%, similar to that established in the forecast.
But this 2%, as an annual average, reflects a different performance.
Performance was lower than expected in the first part of the year but, nevertheless, the upward trend which will occur in the second part of the year will favour growth of close to 3% as an average for the last two years, thereby reaching similar and even higher figures for 2000 than those which we had forecast in the spring.
The document also includes the possibility that growth may be higher in the future.
The second document presented by the Commission must serve to prepare for informal exchanges on macroeconomic policies in the medium term.
The document presents the macroeconomic conditions needed to promote durable growth, drawing certain conclusions from the slow growth recorded in the past, especially since the middle of the 1970s.
A technical analysis allows us to reach the conclusion that the deceleration of the growth tendency in the European Union can be explained by a combination of external impacts, exacerbated by divergence in national policies, in a context of structural rigidity.
In particular, the lack of consensus on the content of macroeconomic policies in the period prior to the entry into force of the Treaty of Maastricht and of the initial guidelines on economic policy played a fundamental role in the increase in negative effects, external impacts and the development of greater obstacles to growth and employment.
It is worth emphasising that the change to the rules introduced on the implementation of Economic and Monetary Union has lightened the load of those responsible for national macroeconomic policy and is helping to overcome these obstacles, so that growth may become more sustainable.
The document analyses the conditions necessary so that the policy mix may continue to be as balanced as possible, thereby allowing us to achieve longer-lasting growth.
At the meeting on 29 October there was a discussion of this information which was very open and constructive, and I will tell you about this in a summarised fashion.
With regard to the diagnosis of trends, all the participants agreed that the perspectives had improved considerably, and that the negative external impact of 1998 had already been absorbed by the internal development of the European Union itself.
With regard to possible risks to future growth, there were differences of emphasis, especially when some of the participants pointed out the risk that further external impacts may affect the Union' s economy.
In relation to economic policy - the second document provides a response to the challenge of transforming the current upturn into a sustainable process of higher growth - each participant expressed their position very frankly.
However, I would like to emphasise some of the elements of the debate which may be very useful for the purposes of today' s debate.
Firstly, the broad guidelines of economic policy are confirmed as a fundamental element.
All the participants agreed on the need to maintain price stability and negotiate wage agreements which are compatible with the objective of continuing the process of consolidating the budgets - in accordance with each country' s stability programmes - and of completing the structural reforms in accordance with the Luxembourg and Cardiff processes.
Secondly, I would like to point out that there was also absolute agreement on the key principle of the macroeconomic framework, which I referred to earlier.
That is, the more we promote the objective of stability of monetary policy through budgetary measures and appropriate wage trends, the more favourable monetary conditions will be towards growth and employment.
Thirdly, I would like to point out that the discussion clearly demonstrated the usefulness of this type of direct exchange, which allows each of the participants to express, directly, their points of view and receive adequate answers from the other participants.
The role of the social partners was fully recognised as a third element of the policy mix.
Fourthly, some of the ideas offered by the participants warrant special attention.
I would like to highlight the fact that there was an emphasis on macroeconomic policies, particularly monetary policies, having to take into account progress on the supply side of the European economy.
In this way, we will increase the possibility of sustaining, without inflation, higher growth in demand.
The combination of the complete realisation of the single market together with the single currency, in a context of structural reform and strong international competition, will allow for a reduction in the risk of bottlenecks that may arise in the event that wage and budgetary policies are inadequate.
Lastly I would like to point out that the representatives of the Commission underlined the fact that the supply of labour currently seems to respond more positively than it did previously, but that there exists a significant reserve of qualified and available labour.
If we add to this the availability of existing capacity, given the high potential tendency towards inflation, the consequence of raised profitability, structural changes will be put in place which those responsible for economic policy must take into account when adopting their respective decisions.
These are what seem to me to be the most relevant elements of the meeting of 29 October and which, today, as I said, I wanted to share with you so that you may then comment on them and debate them.
Mr President, the macroeconomic dialogue that the European employment pact has established is a highly praiseworthy new exercise.
There is never enough dialogue between political leaders and economic operators.
I would nevertheless like to question the real impact of a dialogue which is fixed beforehand by abstruse procedural rules.
First of all, there is a technical level which allows fifteen experts to discuss matters and twenty-five other experts to listen; the political level will bring together twenty-four high representatives and 18 aides.
It is understood in advance that the aim of this two-level dialogue is not to reach agreement on common guidelines or binding commitments; this dialogue will therefore not result in an ex ante agreement for the coordination of different fiscal, budgetary, monetary or even contractual policies.
Governments and the Central Bank will remain free to decide on their own respective policies.
Their social partners will continue their free negotiation on conditions of work and pay.
What will be the added value of this exercise? Whilst I hope that I will be pleasantly surprised, please allow me to remain sceptical.
To tell the truth, the European Union would gain from rationalising the different projects launched by successive Presidencies following the Amsterdam summit.
Who, apart from the professionals involved in Community policy, is still involved in the processes known as Luxembourg, Cardiff, Vienna, Cologne and tomorrow Lisbon or Helsinki? The debates on employment guidelines which are, of course, always useful, overlap with discussions on the broad economic policy guidelines and now with the macroeconomic dialogue.
Green papers and white papers come one after another and are all more or less alike.
The Commission' s communications pile up on top of reports and resolutions by Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
So many words, and quite often incomprehensible to the average citizen!
Community texts look more and more like the political literature that used to be produced by the former Soviet Union.
The bulk is made up of quotations and references to sacred texts adopted by the European Council or the Commission: replace plenum of the Central Committee with European Council and politburo by Commission and the texts become interchangeable.
European citizens do not expect more words, rather concrete measures for employment.
Macroeconomic dialogue only makes sense if it results in macroeconomic action.
Maintaining price stability is still crucial.
Inflation affects the poorest people first but the Union' s sole ambition cannot be a policy of stability which is established as dogma.
Each Member State taken individually is too open to other markets to practise a policy of growth in isolation.
The Union is a rather closed entity.
Intercommunity trade represents some 90% of the common GDP.
At a time when economic recovery might permit both a reduction of public deficits and a policy of maintaining growth, effective coordination of budgetary policies focusing mainly on infrastructural investments, research, education and training could achieve a sustainable economic revival.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, on behalf of the Liberal Group we support this initiative which we consider to be very appropriate in terms of ensuring the necessary consensus in the economic and social field as well as absolutely essential in order to achieve a climate of stability, growth and greater employment in the European Union.
While accepting this approach, I would like to make two observations.
The first takes up the observations of the Socialist representative with regard to the good sense in taking account of fundamental aspects, of structural reforms, which were already contained in the White Paper on Competitiveness and Employment.
The report of the European Central Bank explains that there are certain problems in achieving greater levels of growth - or greater stability in the European Union or greater competitiveness in a process of open economy, needs which are even more accentuated bearing in mind the coming Millennium Round - specifically because certain structural aspects still need to be dealt with in more depth: from the labour markets to, as has been said, the training system, or other equally important aspects such as, for example, an improvement in the levels of research and development.
On the other hand, I would like to refer to the participants who must be taken into account in the macroeconomic dialogue and I would dare to suggest that three more should be added: the representatives of two institutions of the European Union itself, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - two institutions which represent an extremely important economic and social dimension and, in the case of the regions, clearly, some of them have an absolutely essential role in guaranteeing these objectives - and finally the organisations of small and medium-sized enterprises.
All of us say that the SMEs play a very important and decisive role in ensuring greater growth and yet, I have not seen them incorporated into this macroeconomic dialogue.
Having made these observations, I would like to reiterate our support for this initiative.
I want to speak about three areas: context, dialogue and democracy.
Firstly, the context within which this macroeconomic dialogue is taking place.
There is a huge and vitally important factor missing although it is reflected in the Treaties and I refer of course, as you would expect me to, to the environment.
Article 2 refers to sustainable development as one of the objectives of the European Union, although many of us might question the methods which are set down to attain it.
But certainly some of them are macroeconomic, as reflected in this debate.
And sustainable development I would like to point out is not the same as sustainable growth which we have been hearing a lot about this afternoon.
If growth is quantitative and not qualitative I would submit that we are actually creating instability by making money out of oil spills, clearing up after crime etc.
Article VI, Title 2 of the new Treaty clearly states that environmental considerations should be integrated into all areas of European Union policy and practice and we believe that includes macroeconomic dialogue.
For example, climate change, if unchecked, is certainly destabilising to anybody' s economy as the European Union' s own research shows.
Our own research also shows that economic development in the conventional sense is becoming limited in some areas due to lack of fresh water and that the European Union already produces more toxic waste than it can deal with as a by-product of economic growth.
The environment has therefore to be factored in and I would like to know how that is going to be done.
Who is going to be represented? We would also like to ask for real dialogue within this, not just economic propaganda.
It is essential that we look for new ways and the best ways to meet the objective of balanced and sustainable development in a way which meets our own needs, those of the environment and which does not have a negative impact on the living standards of those in the poor parts of the world.
So how are we going to evaluate the wider effects of our own macroeconomic policy?
Thirdly, I would ask for the democratic deficit in this process to be repaired, certainly at the next Intergovernmental Conference.
I listened to the list of those who were going to be present and it struck me that the process is actually similar to what happens down the pub on a Friday night where you get together with your mates, then go home and tell people what happened and if you are lucky other people might hear the best stories.
I want to know how, as elected Members, we are going to be involved in this process, particularly if it is going to be as closed as has been laid out for us.
It appears to me that we are not being treated as parliamentarians here, as being grown-up and mature enough to participate in the process of dialogue on macroeconomic policy, and I would urge you to change that and at least open up in the meantime so that we know what is happening and can explain it to our constituents.
Mr President, the declarations on employment from the European Union Summit meetings are continuing at a steady pace.
With the same steady pace, however, mass unemployment, underemployment and part-time employment are also continuing to torment the working people of Europe.
Mr President, the European Employment Pacts, the Cardiff, Luxembourg and Cologne processes and their combined effects, the macroeconomic dialogues and the technical and political bodies engaged in those dialogues are doing nothing positive to boost employment levels for the working people in Europe.
This dramatic worsening of the unemployment situation is due to the initiatives being undertaken and the policy currently being pursued; that is, a policy which not only puts economic factors before social factors and price stability before social security, but also one which declares that the Stability Pact is the supreme law which must be applied at all times.
This is not a policy for the working people, rather a policy for capital gains.
When the European Central Bank considers a growth rate of over 2.5% dangerous, whilst the Commission is calling for a growth rate of over 3% in order to reduce unemployment to 7% within 6-7 years, then this can only lead to greater pressure on the labour market which in turn will upset working relations. It will also lead to part-time employment, fewer jobs and reduced salaries, and it will cripple the social security system.
From this viewpoint, the only success that can come of macroeconomic dialogue with the participation of employer and employee representatives is to enforce collective bargaining and readjust salaries to suit the demands of credit capital, the euro and the ruling economic policy which is guided by EMU and the Stability Pact.
The transparency which goes hand in hand with the procedures for macroeconomic dialogue and the continued absence of the European Parliament from this dialogue are giving rise to concerns that we are once again faced with attempts to overturn fundamental rights of workers and to undermine any social model still in existence in Europe.
Mr President, at the European Summit in Cologne, the Council decided on a European Employment Pact with a view to cutting unemployment substantially and permanently.
One of the three main components of this Pact concerns the institutionalisation of the macroeconomic dialogue at European level.
My political group would firstly like to state that this dialogue is the latest in a long line of hybrid "European talking-shops" .
As the proposals stand at the moment, four parties are involved in this dialogue: representatives of the European institutions, of various committees, of employers and employees, the latter two insofar as they are organised at European level.
Secondly, this consultative body, on account of its tripolarity, embraces elements of both government and society.
Its corporate nature casts uncertainty on who should be held responsible for the realisation of the macroeconomic policy and its implementation.
In this way, transparency and the separation of powers, two key principles of our European democratic constitutional states, are not honoured at European level.
Put more bluntly, they are being blatantly ignored and, as such, further jeopardised.
Also, it is quite remarkable that the European Union appears to be assuming the dimensions of a state, whilst it is primarily a cooperative of national states and as such, could not be a state in itself and never will be.
With this proposal, the European Union seems to have become too big for its own boots and chooses to ignore the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality for the time being.
A fourth point concerns the serious possibility of overlap with the Economic and Social Committee.
The transparency of the process for developing the general guidelines for economic policy and employment policy would benefit more from an official and public recommendation by the Economic and Social Committee than from tripartite-flavoured consultation, the outcome of which has, at best, the quality of obligatory effort.
Could the Commission explain how it views the relationship between the proposed macroeconomic dialogue and the existing Economic and Social Committee? Do European bodies not run the risk of endlessly repeating themselves?
After all, meetings cost time and money. Could the European Commission indicate how it sees the intrinsic role of the Economic and Social Committee once the macroeconomic dialogue has been set up?
Fifthly, the macroeconomic dialogue concerns a field of policy with regard to which the European Union does not issue any legislation.
Macroeconomic policy and employment policy are primarily a matter for the individual Member States.
Needless to say, it is beneficial for Member States to exchange ideas and dovetail their policies, as far as the macroeconomic situation in the relevant country allows for this.
General agreements are reached via guidelines, within which the Member States have sufficient scope for a degree of policy freedom necessary to incorporate measures which will accommodate the specific features of their national economy.
Given this situation, a macroeconomic dialogue at European level is largely up in the air.
Efforts are, of course, required to reduce the unemployment levels which are still far too high.
We should, in particular, focus our attention on the long-term unemployed.
But talks at an abstract European level do not create jobs.
We therefore advocate freedom of policy at regional and local level because that is the level at which there is expertise in the actual labour market.
Exchange of information and good practices at European level are highly commendable but the official institutionalisation of a European macroeconomic dialogue hardly has any impact on this, if any.
Mr Niinistö, Commissioner, if the millions of European unemployed had heard this first account of the macroeconomic dialogue promoting growth and employment, they would have despaired.
It seems that, apart from evoking the odd principle, there is nothing incisive, there are no proposals and there is no blunt analysis - and we need a blunt analysis of the state of many of the European economies, especially those of the European continent.
Commissioner, when I hear talk of macroeconomic dialogue - given that the definition seems extremely evasive - the conciliation process in Italy comes to mind.
What I am afraid of is that this macroeconomic dialogue will try to export to European level the method and mechanism of the Italian conciliation process, which is the method that has given our country its lowest growth rates, its highest unemployment levels and its highest inflation rates.
In Italy, conciliation between social partners and the Government has become a pact between the representatives of established interests -unionist, political and those of Confindustria (the Italian Manufacturers' Association) - seeking to protect the established interests and revenues from the possibility of the unemployed and all those who are not represented by conciliation having a place in the new economy.
In Italy, conciliation with the social partners has blocked all the strategies and the hypotheses for reform on the crucial points - I am thinking of the labour market, public spending and social security spending in particular, a labour market act which closely follows the one adopted in the seventies.
Both the representative of the Council and the representative of the Commission were right only about one thing, that is the request for pay moderation.
In Italy, starting with pay moderation, which the trade union oligarchs allowed, any plans for reforming the economy have been blocked.
I wonder why we have to tell European workers that only one thing is certain, that their pay will be moderated.
And I wonder why, on the other hand, we must not say that if - thanks to liberalisation and thanks to being able to accept the challenges of the new economy openly - we manage to reverse the downward trend in economic growth, there will be wealth and there will also be the prospect of salary increases. Instead of having collective national or European contracts, maybe these salary increases can be linked to productivity and the profits of firms.
In conclusion, I think that we should use this dialogue, if necessary, to explain to the European citizens why employment has increased by 45% in twenty years in the United States but only by 4.12% in Europe.
I think that the European unemployed, and maybe even immigrants need liberalisation, less State interference, less taxes and less State intervention in the economy.
Maybe this would lead to economic growth and more employment.
Mr President, many things have already been said which I think can be summarised in this way: either the macroeconomic dialogue is sheer hypocrisy, hiding the lack of a real economic policy for the Union, and so it is completely useless, a mere imitation and a waste of time, as other Members have already said, or the macroeconomic dialogue is something real and substantial, and so there is hypocrisy on the other side and they are trying to use flimsy words to hide the danger, to my mind, of a trend towards State intervention in the European economy. What does macroeconomic dialogue actually mean?
What could it mean? According to the sacred texts of the economy, it means conciliation and policy on revenues, which Mr Della Vedova has just reminded us have been around in Italy for some time, with the results he emphasised.
So macroeconomic dialogue and policy on revenues basically come down to wage policy and pay moderation policy? Let us just admit it!
A group such as the European People' s Party - Democrats cannot agree with this because its aim is the free functioning of the market, which leads to the free distribution of revenues, starting with workers' income in particular.
Workers' income must be linked to productivity, and not to coordination strategies of varying degrees of obscurity decided upon by others.
Furthermore, who are the participants in this macroeconomic dialogue?
The Council?
The States?
The Commission?
The European Union?
The European Central Bank? Well, when free traders see the Central Bank in this group they go into a state of shock - a Central Bank can never be part of an assembly of this kind, never!
If, in fact, the Central Bank tells the truth, it commits harikari, so to speak.
If it does not tell the truth when talking to the other participants - as indeed it should not because the Central Bank should do otherwise - then it is telling lies and wasting time.
Then there are the social partners.
Well, these four participants are a highly dangerous mix which, on the one hand, is trying to eliminate Europe' s real problem, which is the lack of a real economic policy and, on the other hand is doing its best to clog up the system with negotiating games of varying degrees of obscurity, and to hell with unemployment and to hell with the market.
Just one more point.
Cologne had based its hypothesis for an employment pact on three pillars, but too little is said about the third pillar, the liberalisation of the markets.
At the beginning of this year a macroeconomic dialogue became absolutely essential and no doubt the first meeting of the partners to that macroeconomic dialogue next week will be an historic step.
Sadly we here in Parliament will be witnessing it from the sidelines.
Despite an absolutely resounding rejection just last June in the European Parliament elections of the remoteness and secrecy of our institutions collectively, that first step next week will be adding to the democratic deficit in that Parliament will be excluded and there seems to be no good reason for this.
The partners to the dialogue are of two types.
First there are those like the social partners or the central bank who have a direct influence on facets of the equation such as wage formation or the level of interest rates and then secondly, in a class of their own, are the European Commission and the Commission advisers on the direction, for example, of the policy mix.
They do not directly affect any of the facets of the equation, they have not got that decision-making power.
They are there to advise and influence.
In this respect this institution is one of the Commission' s main interlocutors.
We might disagree with the advice and the direction they will suggest but we will not have the right to be there at the macroeconomic dialogue to say so.
I am told that these sorts of things are technical issues and that we in Parliament should remain above them, but to me the issues that will be discussed in the macroeconomic dialogue that have been touched upon here are not technical, they are highly political and we, as the democratically elected institution, should have a part to play in that macroeconomic dialogue.
That leaves the excuse of what some call the need for confidentiality, trust or even secrecy.
Some have used the word secrecy.
That is a retrograde step.
We have found all sorts of ways in the budgetary procedure to find a working arrangement for this institution together with the Commission to maintain confidentiality and that could be done in relation to this dialogue.
On the content, I hope the macroeconomic dialogue will call for and take note of evidence on the success of the active labour market measures we have been increasingly pursuing since Luxembourg.
Has that resulted in an increase in the effective supply of labour or do we need to hang on to the increasing unsustainable view that structural unemployment represents the bulk of unemployment? Can we begin to abandon concepts like that, can we perhaps begin to take a more realistic view in the setting of interest rates, a view which would accept that conditions have changed and that we can now begin to hold back on interest rate increases as unemployment falls so as not to choke off a fragile growth?
These are the sorts of points I would love to be at the macroeconomic dialogue next week to make, but sadly neither I nor any other Member of this institution will be allowed to be present at that meeting next week.
That is a real retrograde step and an absolute shame.
Mr President, the fact that so many of Europe' s citizens turned their backs on the EU at this summer' s election is largely due to the fact that they did not think that the EU and the Member States had succeeded in creating jobs in Europe.
Growth in the EU is still too low, and unemployment in the vast majority of countries unacceptably high.
Quite simply, not enough is being done by the individual Member States.
The tax system is still preventing new jobs from being created and, in fact, my own country, Sweden, is an example of one country where this is happening.
Laws and regulations in the labour market, too, are still an obstacle to job creation and, where this issue too is concerned, I can cite Sweden as an example.
According to a recent survey, it is Sweden and Germany which have the least flexible labour markets.
If the macroeconomic dialogue is to be fruitful and produce results, which is something we all want to happen, and if European countries together are to be able to provide better conditions for new job opportunities, then I am firmly of the view that all Member States without exception must participate in EMU.
In Sweden, there is a debate going on at the moment about whether Sweden, including the Swedish Government, has less influence within the EU because we are at present outside EMU.
Former Finance Minister Erik Åsbrink and - most recently, yesterday - former Commissioner Anita Gradin have expressed the view that this is the case.
I fully share their opinion.
To believe that a macroeconomic dialogue can seriously be conducted if some Member States remain outside EMU while the majority of countries are a part of it is, in my view, an illusion which cannot be maintained in the long term.
For the sake of employment and welfare throughout Europe, I am therefore looking for a clearer and sharper perspective upon EMU from the Commission and Commissioner Solbes Mira, as well as from the Council.
Mr Karas said that "we are all in the same boat" .
I should like to say to him, "no, unfortunately, we are still not all in the same boat" .
But it is important that, in future, we should in fact be so.
Mr President, complete or partial unemployment is a tragedy in human terms for millions of families.
It is a social catastrophe even in those European countries that claim to have the fewest unemployed people, and here we have the Cologne European Council and the European Commission, which are both content to gorge themselves on words as they talk about the European Employment pact.
The measures that are envisaged though are ridiculous given the extent of the problem.
The worst thing is that they are cynically using unemployment as an excuse to give more money to employers.
The extra EUR 500 million that the European Central Bank is being asked to release on the pretext of stimulating job creation, as well as the EUR 1 billion for hi-tech SMEs are officially supposed to be used for investment.
Now I would like to take one recent example, amongst so many of those big companies who make their workers redundant at a time when they are experiencing increased profits.
The ABB Alston Power Trust is preparing to shed a large number of jobs in several countries within the Union, in England, France, Germany, Italy and Sweden, not to mention other countries in Europe or across the world.
Why then does the Commission not use its authority to oppose these kinds of job cuts? It is deciding on a huge number of directives which have the force of law in the areas affecting competition.
I shall stop now.
How can we understand the Commission' s refusal to react to this attitude of big companies, which is irresponsible in human and social terms, unless the explanation is that it serves the interests of these big companies and that it does nothing for the unemployed apart from offering words of consolation?
Mr President the procedure relating to the macroeconomic dialogue that has been presented to us is characterised by two dominant features at the moment.
The first is the fact that very vague aims are expressed, in terms that are much more emotional than practical.
The second is the way that they are formulated appears to be liberal but actually results in further constraints.
The first matter concerns the very vague aims of growth and employment.
These are things that we have been promised for years.
It has been discussed in Vienna, in Luxembourg, in Cardiff, and in goodness knows how many other places.
We now have to recognise the fact that until now the Europe of full employment has been the same Europe that has made unemployment worse.
This is unemployment that does not exist to the same degree in developed countries that are not Members of the Union such as Switzerland or Norway.
To seriously address the problem of full employment would mean questioning the validity of removing borders but that will not come into the discussion, because that would mean opposing globalisation.
It would mean questioning the validity of excessive taxation and bureaucracy but that will not come into the discussion because that would mean opposing the doctrines of socialism.
It would mean questioning the validity of our immigration policy which takes a heavy toll of employment not to mention the costs that it incurs, but that will not come into the discussion either because it would mean opposing the orthodoxy of the single-system Europe.
I fear therefore, that the real problems will not be addressed but also - this is the second aspect, as vague as it is - that the terms of this dialogue will result in further constraints.
We are being told that there will be dialogue, but the simple fact that certain subjects are being mentioned means that they will fall within the Union' s area of competence, and the Union is beginning to look more and more like the frog who ended up exploding because he wanted to become as big as a cow.
We are also being told of coordination, harmonisation and cohesion; even striking a balance is mentioned, never constrictive regulations and detailed laws which would restrict everyone' s freedom.
This, however, is the direction in which we are inexorably heading.
Currency standardisation has resulted in the standardisation of financial policies; the standardisation of financial policies has resulted in the standardisation of economic policies and the standardisation of economic policies in the standardisation of social policies.
We all know full well that this is the direction in which a hidden hand is leading us in this area.
Hazy arguments will not bring about the freedom of nations, as they would have us believe; they serve only to hide the aims to which they would like to lead those nations. These aims are undoubtedly already known, but only by a select few.
Mr President, monetary union binds the Member States of the European Union together in a permanent, mutually supportive community in which national approaches are possible but are not permitted to play a crucial role.
The regulatory policy necessary to supplement the European market on the road to a socially and environmentally sustainable European market economy cannot succeed in the European Union unless priority is given to community interest. Hence, also, the importance of the macroeconomic dialogue.
The macroeconomic dialogue is not an end in itself. It serves to bring about growth with a positive impact on employment in the European Union and to help to overcome mass unemployment.
It thus complements structural and labour market policies.
However, I wonder if we have really grasped the scale of this dialogue yet.
In a society with such a great division of labour, it is essential for the economic actors' activities to be coordinated, either by the market or through economic planning.
I believe that market-led coordination will not work.
We need political guidelines.
That is why the Maastricht Treaty rightly emphasised in Article 103 that coordination of this kind is necessary.
All we need now is the implementation measures.
Unfortunately, national governments are either unwilling or unable to achieve the implementation measures, as mentioned in the Delors White Paper.
We know a good many national governments which have seen that there is a major interdependence between monetary, financial and wages policies and which, like Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland or Denmark for example, have drawn the obvious conclusions, with positive consequences for the labour market and for budget consolidation as well.
That is why I think it is incredibly important to make it clear that coordination means understanding the conflicting interests of the individual economic actors and getting them to act without having to limit their autonomy.
Even today there is no real insight into this coordination, and I think that the ECB contribution to the last sitting highlighted the dangers we need to be aware of and how great the fears here are.
We accordingly need a genuinely successful coordination of wages, monetary and finance policy.
This will provide the basis for coordination across the European Union.
It will not just imply good governance but also a European multi-level system of governance.
What actually strikes me is the failure to involve the European Parliament.
I would like to stress once again that the European Parliament was calling for the coordination of policies long before the Maastricht Treaty existed, as a means of genuinely achieving European added value.
I believe that nowadays transparency is a given for all democratic institutions.
Just as we demand it of the European Central Bank in the dialogue, we must also call for greater transparency on the part of the Council of Finance Ministers, the Jumbo Council, the Social Affairs Council and the European Council, and demand direct European Parliament participation.
It is not a question of confidential information or of keeping state secrets - although Members of Parliament are quite capable of that - it is really all about how we shape our future in the twenty-first century, and in that respect there should be no information, no analysis, no forecast that is dealt with sub rosa, no, everything must be genuinely accessible to the public.
That is why I believe that European Parliament participation should really be required again.
We are not talking about information like that at this sitting, or, following this sitting, at the joint meeting of the Council and the Commission with the two committees responsible.
This is actually about dialogue with Parliament, because we really must ensure that we are involved here, so that in the interests of our citizens the macroeconomic dialogue truly creates really concrete guidelines that can then be taken up in the employment forum under the Portuguese Presidency.
Mr President, nobody can say that any form of dialogue, macroeconomic dialogue in particular, is useless.
But come now! Let us not present this as an institutional reform or as a significant step forward in the evolution of the European Union.
What kind of dialogue is this? A confidential and secret dialogue?
A dialogue with no flexibility, silent witnesses and no freedom of speech? And whom will this dialogue affect exactly?
The European Central Bank which is not accountable to anybody? Governments which, or at least most of which, cleave to trade unions and the automatic guiding of the EMU, which will effectively function as a mechanism which embodies and by-passes collective bargaining?
In my view, this is making us regress; it is a return to the Privy Councils of pre-Cromwell days when there were no records of proceedings and the people knew nothing.
From this point of view, I would like to congratulate Parliament for not participating.
In my opinion, in refusing to take part in such short-lived institutional fabrications, the European Parliament, which is a vehicle for openness and transparency, is showing dignity.
Mr President, last week, in plenary session here in this House, I enquired after Wim Duisenberg' s opinion and commitment regarding the macroeconomic dialogue which is about to kick off in the next couple of days.
His reply was courteous and obliging, albeit rather reserved.
He said that the exchange of information is fine, as long as absolutely no coordination of policy takes place beforehand.
This reserve, which is somewhat exaggerated to my mind, is also something that can be detected in the other partners in the dialogue.
If the leaders, the majority of whom are men, are in the least ambitious, then there will certainly be a healthy dose of scepticism at grass-roots level.
This is also true of the circles I come from, the trade unions.
There too, there is a rather sceptical attitude towards involving the government and central banks in wage development.
I think this is a serious case of getting cold feet.
Surely, there is a whole world of possibilities between preliminary policy coordination on the one hand and complete non-commitment on the other.
This world is what we refer to in the Netherlands as the "consultation system" , a set-up of frequent and reasonably structured consultations between the main socio-economic operators.
This is a joint framework of analysis where attempts are made to come up with solutions to shared problems.
A key element of this process is the organisation and guarantee of trust, as well as commitment among the respective grass roots.
The latter is essential but cannot be brought about overnight of course.
It is a world which is yet to be conquered at EU level.
In my opinion, this is one of the great challenges of this post-EMU era.
This is why I regret that at the start of the process, parties are threatening to hide behind the interests of their own autonomy on their own patch of authority: the government with respect to their budgetary policy, the two sides of industry with regard to wage negotiations and the European Central Bank with regard to monetary policy.
The very presence of this autonomy could make the dialogue so interesting.
I am also among those, as is Stephen Hughes, who would have liked to participate in last Friday' s meeting and who have had discussions with the European Central Bank on this rise in interest rates.
I am convinced that various colleagues here in this House would have made a brilliant contribution to this debate.
Whether this means that we could have made Mr Duisenberg change his mind is a different matter but this could perhaps be a goal for the future.
Also, I would like to take part in this coming Monday' s political debate on the effects of this rise in interest rates, which will probably be implemented soon after, and by that I do not just mean the effects on the current financial rates but also on the real economy.
There is a strong wish in Parliament to bring this about.
I feel we should not only focus on this but in particular that we should also endeavour, together with our colleagues in the national parliaments, to enter into this debate with our government representatives and the European Commission.
This is why it is so beneficial to have this debate now.
I do hope that there is no question but that this will be carried through at heads of government level and I feel optimistic about Prodi' s initiatives in this direction.
Mr President, it is very important indeed that the Council and the Commission think very carefully about the meeting that is being held and the meetings that will be held in the future on the macroeconomic dialogue.
It is absolutely pointless to exclude the European Parliament from that discussion.
We debate the annual economic report with the Council and the Commission.
Last week we had Mr Duisenberg in the European Parliament to oversee the work of the European Central Bank.
We have finance ministers coming before the Economic Committee of the European Parliament and we have the social partners also coming before the European Parliament.
I hope that at this stage it is an oversight in not involving the European Parliament in this discussion.
It seems to me a rather pointless exercise if we are not present.
I want to talk about the outputs from the dialogue.
Frankly, that is much more important at this stage than who sits around the table at the first meeting.
It is called a macroeconomic dialogue.
I hope it is a dialogue and not a monologue.
Our experience from our discussions with the ECOFIN Council and the European Central Bank is that we are very much involved in a monologue.
We sit and listen to the orthodoxy from the ECOFIN Council and we listen to the orthodoxy from the European Central Bank.
They show absolutely no imagination whatsoever.
The macroeconomic dialogue is critical.
At the moment we are operating in a very benign economic environment.
We have low inflation, we are returning to growth and things are reasonably stable.
What happens in the future when we have a problem in our economy and where there is a serious external shock or a serious internal shock and you have to talk to the social partners and the other economic actors about some perhaps unpalatable measures that need to be taken at a European level?
I say to the president of the ECOFIN Council and to Commissioner Solbes Mira that what we set out in the macroeconomic dialogue in the next few days is not just for what is occurring at the present time, but to set the mood so that in the event of a problem or difficult issues we can actually sit together with the social partners and work out solutions to our problems.
Equally, we do not want this monologue - having listened to Mr Duisenberg it will certainly run the risk of being a monologue - to be a discussion only about wage levels.
There are many more things involved in the real economy of the European Union than the level of wages of people in employment.
We need to look at the reform of labour markets. We need to look at the reform of the capital markets.
We need to look at the reform of the product markets.
All those things impact upon the social partners.
In conclusion, my group will look with interest at the conclusion of the macroeconomic dialogue.
We see this as a first step.
But please involve us in the future and understand that in times of difficulty this dialogue could be critical to the way in which European citizens accept the institutions of the European Union when difficult decisions have to be taken.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office used the image of a relay baton to be passed on with the macroeconomic dialogue.
But it is not totally clear to us where he wants to run with this baton.
We are still afraid he will just do a few splendid laps of honour round the stadium for the gallery, and that we will have to make do with unproductive or inadequate results.
I would like to emphasise what has already been said here about Parliament' s non-participation.
The lack of European Parliament participation in this dialogue is more than just a slight drawback.
There is a direct link between democratic productivity, the productivity of the results achieved through a dialogue of this kind, and the type of participation.
None of you involved in the dialogue, neither the Council nor the Commission, nor the European Central Bank, will be held directly to account if European solutions fail to emerge - unlike those elected to this Parliament, unlike those who sit in this House and are considered directly responsible by the electors who have voted for us!
I warn you not to underestimate that point, because I believe that participation by Members will lead to better results in this case.
There are pivotal shortcomings in the thought process.
These relate to both the employment guidelines and to the key features of our economic policy.
What is more, in some important areas thinking revolves around out-of-date ideas that public budgets can be consolidated just by limiting revenue and at the same time cutting expenditure.
But that is not the sort of thinking that can eliminate remaining deficits.
Last but not least, experience in America has shown that you cannot save your way out of remaining deficits, but rather that you have to eliminate them through growth.
That is why it is necessary to support the economic development process in Europe, so as to tap all the available potential.
That is why we are asking you very directly as to when agreements will be reached in which concrete benchmarks will be negotiated on the contribution of public investment to steady growth, which is also bound to have a positive impact on the labour market?
When will you finally agree quantitative and qualitative employment targets to ensure that employment is raised to the level prevalent in Japan or in the USA?
And when will you enter into a concrete agreement with us so that we can implement a consolidated strategy to exploit all the economic potential of Europe' s countries as well?
There is no sign of that yet!
Mr Speaker, first I would like to thank you for this debate.
I believe that it is useful; it has certainly been interesting.
It is important that Parliament is involved in these deliberations.
I am obliged to confirm, however, that the European Council at Cologne very explicitly limited the number of participants in the dialogue proper, and that the country which holds the presidency of the Council cannot but comply with this restriction.
I believe that the macroeconomic dialogue will make progress and will bring results.
This is quite an opportune time, but also a very challenging one.
Economic growth seems to be underway, it is beginning to take shape.
It does not present itself, however, as some fundamental reduction in unemployment.
On the other hand, although there is unemployment, there are bottlenecks and a shortage of manpower in certain industries.
This sort of situation is very challenging.
It is important that we try to create confidence and faith in the future among the economy' s key players. In the private sector: those who provide employment; and consumers, who generate demand and opportunities for employment.
As was mentioned earlier, the single currency has increased our opportunities, but at the same time also produced new risk factors.
As far as the macroeconomic dialogue and its nature are concerned, I would like to express my agreement with what Mrs Randzio-Plath said earlier.
It is important that the economy' s main players can enter into confidential discussions in so far as their duties overlap.
Each one will have their own duties to perform, both the ECB and the social partners, but in places they are tangential to one another.
It is important that these main players understand one another' s reasoning and basic points of departure.
As the country to hold the presidency, Finland also wants to stress the importance of transparency in this matter, although the operative word here is confidentiality. This is very much due to the fact that all participants are likely to speak about their own issues and their own area and may not necessarily be seeking joint decisions, but mutual understanding.
I am convinced that Parliament will get its voice heard, and I for one will be very happy to convey news of this debate to the dialogue next Monday.
Mr President, this has been a particularly interesting dialogue and I would like to begin by making an initial political comment.
I believe that it is in fact dangerous to glamorise and glorify the facts and create false expectations in the same way that it is dangerous to dash efforts and to generate feelings of emptiness and despair.
I therefore believe that we should see macroeconomic dialogue in its true light.
It is not a one-off event or even a process which will change the way things are in the European Union.
It is, however, an innovation.
It is a new endeavour which will enhance communication between those members and leaders of economic life who have never before sat at the same table.
It is a dialogue between the masterminds of monetary policy, i.e. the European Central Bank, the political powers of Europe, represented by the Council and the Presidency, and the social partners, representing workers and manufacturers.
We have full participation.
All of us, the new Parliament and the new Commission alike, must act on a decision reached at the Cologne Council and it is important that we show the political will to develop, change and transform this dialogue since we are the ones who will be trying it out first, and with this first-hand experience we will be able to see where changes need to be made.
I would like to stress that macroeconomic dialogue, as was also stipulated in Cologne, focuses in essence on the need for both employment and growth.
A particularly interesting agenda has emerged through the various participants in this dialogue on both a technical and political level. How effective can the action plans of the Member States and the employment policy with its 22 guidelines be in addressing the problems of structural unemployment, long-term unemployment and youth unemployment?
Can restructuring within the labour market and the restructuring and reforms which must take place pursuant to the Cardiff decisions in both the products and services markets create the preconditions for monetary policy to operate within another framework? Alternatively, can the common currency, today' s low inflation rate and the anticipated growth rate create the necessary framework for job creation within the European Union?
When a dialogue at this level and with these procedures is only held twice a year, it is not possible for it to provide all the answers to such questions.
But I believe that politically we must look at its positive side and consider the major concern of the peoples of Europe- after all, MEPs do represent the peoples of Europe and speak on their behalf - which is why the interesting yet burning issue of employment and unemployment is at the heart of macroeconomic dialogue.
In other words, financiers, finance ministers and the unions of industry on the one hand, and the labour ministers and social partners in the area of trade unions on the other hand, are discussing employment and placing it at the top of the common policy agenda.
That is precisely the reason why it would be worth our while to give this dialogue some time, to see how it progresses and to see the ensuing results, before we begin casting stones and calling for changes before it has even got under way.
Mr President, both the President-in-Office of the Council and Mrs Diamantopoulou have made certain observations concerning the issues covered in this debate and, therefore, I shall simply introduce certain additional elements. Firstly, we are aware - and this has been explained well - that the dialogue is aimed at preparing the political debate, not replacing it.
Therefore, it is an essential element of information which, unfortunately, cannot lead us, as some MEPs have suggested, to the definition of a different economic policy.
The coordination of our economic policy is not on that level at the moment.
Neither does the dialogue intend excessive consensus nor authoritarianism.
It is an exchange of information with the aim that the different economic operators should understand the reality better and be able to act accordingly.
The problem regarding the content of the dialogue and of the members who take part in it is, and will always be, contentious. Should it include the issue of the environment?
Should other elements be included which clearly relate to the economy but not to the aspects of macroeconomic policy to be applied at a particular moment? An increase in the content of the dialogue will possibly not make it more useful, but will cause it to lose some of its effectiveness because we will be causing greater dispersion.
The second problem, concerning who should or should not participate in the dialogue has been mentioned today.
Should the Social and Economic Committee and the Committee of the Regions also have their place in the macroeconomic dialogue? They could undoubtedly make an interesting contribution despite the different nature of the participation of the businessmen and workers in, for example, the Economic and Social Committee.
Nevertheless, the essential point which has been put forward - and I understand this perfectly - is the possibility of the European Parliament itself participating in the macroeconomic dialogue.
Both the President-in-Office of the Council and Commissioner Diamantopoulou have referred to this issue.
You already know the situation, thanks to the decisions of the European Council.
Having said that, what can we do and what are we doing? Of course, we can be here today, we can inform you of the work we have done up till now, and make ourselves available to you to carry on debating with Parliament the issues which are of interest with regard to the macroeconomic dialogue.
The fact that you are not physically at the dialogue table does not mean that it is out of the question that Parliament may maintain a presence, with the opportunity to communicate its ideas. I believe that today, certain issues of interest have been highlighted.
Is it necessary to pursue a policy of greater demand in the present context?
Is it reasonable to continue to plan certain elements of the structural policies as has been decided? Is it useful to envisage, in the long term, the presence of Parliament in the macroeconomic dialogue, given that it is very likely that, in the future, the conditions of that dialogue will turn out to be different from the present ones?
These are questions which we have taken note of, which we will study very carefully, and obviously we will remain committed to keeping Parliament informed and even holding a debate with Parliament on those points which are of special interest to it.
Seafarers' hours of work - Organisation of working time
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
the recommendation for second reading (A5-0042/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive concerning the enforcement of seafarers' hours of work on board ships using Community ports (8639/2/1999 - C5-0035/1999 - 1998/0321(COD)) (rapporteur: Mr S. Hughes);
the recommendation for second reading (A5-0041/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Council Directive 93/104/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time to cover sectors and activities excluded from that directive (8642/1/1999 - C5-0036/1999 - 1998/0318(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs M. Smet).
As you said, the proposal for which I am responsible is that relating to the enforcement of seafarers' hours of work on board ships using Community ports.
This is just one element of an overall package of proposals that were brought forward by the Commission last November to try to plug the loopholes of the sectors that were excluded from the original working-time directive back in 1993.
I hope we are nearing the final chapters in this long saga and that soon we will have all sectors covered by arrangements on working time to protect worker health and safety.
Just as a quick reminder, the batch that was brought forward last year by the Commission included first of all an overall amendment of the 1993 directive, that is the subject of Mrs Smet' s report; a directive on road transport, sadly that one is totally blocked in the Transport Council at the moment I understand it; the third, a directive implementing the agreement between the social partners on seafarers, was adopted in the form of a directive in June this year so that element is taken care of, and then finally the proposal that I am speaking on today, a directive on the enforcement of working hours on board ships using Community ports.
The three proposals effectively need to be seen together in relation to the one proposal I am speaking on.
There is the agreement reached between the two sides of industry in the maritime sector, there is the specific proposal relating to seafarers having recourse to Community ports, but also there is ILO Convention 180 and in fact the agreement between the two sides of industry in the maritime sector was very closely based on ILO Convention 180.
These three proposals: the agreement, the directive on seafarers' hours and the ILO Convention are designed to come into effect together in mid-2002.
At the first reading on this particular proposal Parliament made no amendments but the rapporter, Hugh McMahon at that time, made the point that it was absolutely essential that these three instruments should come into effect at the same time to avoid any competitive disadvantage.
I am therefore very pleased indeed that seems to have been agreed and we seem to be making progress in that direction.
The fact that the ILO Convention now has a time limit set down effectively in the form of the other two directives means that we will, I am sure, have sufficient Member States with sufficiently large fleets ratifying the Convention to make sure that it too comes into effect in mid-2002.
The only significant difference in the common position compared with the first reading position is that the implementation date has been put back by one year.
That really is to allow Member States to overcome one or two technical difficulties they might have in ratifying ILO Convention 180 and thereby allowing the whole package to be brought into effect at the same time.
Perhaps I could also say that I have just met with the two sides of industry from the maritime sector and congratulated them heartily on the agreement they reached.
It took five years of negotiation to reach the agreement in the maritime sector.
These things do not happen easily, they do not happen overnight but they did work extremely hard and we are now seeing the fruits of the social dialogue in that particular sector.
I think it is very sad indeed that we have not seen similar progress in the road sector.
The difficulties we are now facing in the Transport Council over the legislative proposal the Commission brought forward stem directly from the fact that there was a failure to make progress on a framework agreement on working time in the road sector.
It reveals a real sharp contrast to the progress that was made in the maritime sector.
That really poses a danger; it poses a danger to the revision to the general directive that Mrs Smet is also dealing with and the danger is this: the rail sector is included in the general directive.
The two sides of industry there agreed to be included in the general directive so long as parallel progress was made in the road sector because they quite naturally fear a competitive disadvantage if they put in place wide-ranging arrangements to cover working time but the road sector does not.
I hope the Transport Council will hear that message and that we will see some progress to make sure that road transport is covered, otherwise we see a real danger to the rail sector element of the revision to the general directive.
For now, however, I can thoroughly commend the common position in relation to the enforcement of seafarers' hours at work on board ships using Community ports.
This will make sure that the workers on board vessels from third countries having recourse to our ports are covered by the same broad arrangements as the agreement between the two sides of industry.
It is a perfectly sensible and good proposal and I commend it to the House.
Mr President, the PPE Group agrees with the rapporteur' s recommendation on the second reading and would like to thank the rapporteur for a sound and comprehensive report.
I think it is very important that if an ILO treaty is concluded which does not provide binding and enforceable legislation - this also includes inspections, sanctions and remedial measures - so we fail to succeed in this, then we have not done our work properly.
We would therefore back the rapporteur' s draft directive concerning seafarers on board ships calling at Community ports.
The other report concerns the organisation of working hours.
If you, Mr President, were to have a heart attack any time now, which of course I do not wish upon you, then I hope you will be treated and cared for by a junior doctor who has benefited from sound training and a good night' s sleep, because in a number of EU Member States this is by no means certain.
It could well be that this doctor has been on duty for 70 hours over the past five days or has carried out medical and even surgical operations for the past 14 hours without a break.
It could also be that this doctor does not have enough experience in order to carry out this type of work but will do so anyway out of necessity without the supervision of a competent senior.
Mr President, when you - in good health, I hope - make your way home by car immediately after this session, then you will still not be safe.
You will be sharing the roads with other vehicles and especially transport operators, including truck drivers.
They should only drive for 10 hours a day but they also carry out other duties apart from driving, such as cleaning or maintenance.
These working hours are not regulated in a number of EU Member States.
So on the way home, you may well have to face a transport operator who has only been driving for 10 hours that day but has spent 5 hours loading and unloading on top of this.
Consequently, it is important in terms of both public health and road safety that junior doctors and truck drivers respectively are given reasonable breaks and working hours.
Moreover, working hours form part of health and safety at work and of competition rules, both of which fall within the scope of the European Union.
Despite this, the entire transport sector, activities at sea and junior doctors are excluded from the scope of the working time directive of 1993.
In order to nullify this inadequate exemption rule, the Commission drafted a White Paper in 1997 and made an announcement in 1998 which included a draft directive reviewing the working time directive.
The European Parliament pronounced its opinion as early as the first reading and the Council has since established a common position.
Meanwhile, the institutional context has changed and we are now involved in a co-decision procedure with the European Council.
In the capacity of rapporteur, I have sought a balance, not only between the Commission' s draft directive, the first reading of the European Parliament and the Council' s common position, but especially between the safety and health of both workers and the other parties involved.
So the issue is restricting working hours to benefit the safety and health of employees at work, especially in the various transport sectors, for activities at sea and in the case of junior doctors.
The Council is right in distinguishing between mobile and non-mobile workers.
The Social Affairs Committee has adopted this distinction but not the definition issued by the Council.
According to the Council, mobile workers also include own-account transport operators and transport operators who work outside the transport sector, such as those involved in the transportation of concrete in the timber and construction sectors, for example.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs of our Parliament has rejected this definition, partly because these workers would then be partially excluded from the scope of the existing working time directive.
They presently come under its scope and no problems have materialised so far.
I therefore wonder why the Council is so keen to introduce a change, hence an amendment.
Not included in the description of mobile workers are rail transport workers.
There has been a European collective agreement in place since 1998 which advocates the wholesale inclusion of rail transport in the existing working time directive, barring a few exemptions.
This has been the case but this collective agreement also states that a solution needs to be found, not only for rail but also for road transport and other methods of transport for which there is, as yet, no solution.
I would remind the Commission that it has also promised to issue separate proposals for the air-transport sector and internal shipping.
Nothing has been tabled so far.
As far as road transport is concerned, as already stated by Mr Hughes, no agreement appears to have been reached within the Council, which I regret.
At any rate, all mobile workers in the transport sectors are guided by four basic principles which are embodied in the common position on the draft directive and which, in fact, also apply to seafarers and junior doctors; namely four weeks' annual paid leave, restricted annual working hours, appropriate breaks and medical examination in the case of night work.
This applies without any restrictions to all workers in the transport sector.
In addition, provisions need to be drafted for each sector with regard to daily breaks, weekly breaks, other breaks and night shifts.
This has been regulated in the railway sector and this is being regulated here for seafarers and junior doctors.
Amendment No 3 concerns exemption in the case of work activities where the employees live at considerable distances from their workplace or there is a significant distance between the employee' s various workplaces.
Needless to say, this deviation applies also, but not exclusively, to the off-shore sector.
Hence the need for a legal technical amendment.
Similarly, Amendment No 4 is a legal technical amendment on urban transport.
Amendment No 5 regulates the weekly working hours of junior doctors.
The Council and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs are aiming for 48 hours over a four-month reference period.
This is the goal we would like to achieve.
The Council, however, has accepted a transitional period of 13 years, I repeat 13 years!
According to the European Parliament, this is far too long and it proposes a four-year transitional period.
This is more than adequate.
A transitional period of 13 years cannot be justified from the point of view of health and safety.
There have been enough accidents in hospitals involving junior doctors to render the Council' s proposal unjustified.
So we are in favour of a limited transitional period.
Amendment No 6 relates to the reference period for calculating weekly working hours in the off-shore sector.
The Council authorises the Member States to extend the reference period of four months to twelve months.
The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is in agreement, provided that the two sides of industry involved enter into consultation and negotiation with each other, although this consultation does not have to lead to any agreement.
Amendment No 7 provides for seafarers on board sea-fishing vessels to work an average of 48 hours per week over a 12-month reference period.
This is comparable to that provided by a collective agreement for seafarers.
The time which the Council gives the Member States and hence itself to transpose the directive amending the existing working time directive is, according to the common Council position, four years.
This is a huge exaggeration, Commissioner.
It is even the case that only three years were allowed for the transposition of the original directive, which was a great deal more detailed in those days.
A transitional period of four years is suggested here.
We would like to restrict this to two years.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, working hours are often a matter of give and take, with some flexibility around the edges.
But sometimes it is also a matter of life and death.
To conclude, for the millions of transport operators, seafarers, junior doctors, for the patients, the passengers and other road users, it is absolutely essential that a sound agreement is reached swiftly.
Ladies and gentlemen, I now have a heartfelt request for you.
We are very badly behind with the schedule for this meeting.
So my request is that you should really stick to your speaking time, and above all that you should actually conclude when the President wields his gavel, and not get carried away in the heat of the moment!
Mr President, I will indeed try to do this, although the issue in hand would probably merit 30 minutes.
Luckily, there is a stream of people from our group who will illustrate this issue.
I am also very pleased that so many people from my group have expressed an interest in this social issue.
I think that, in practice, this often means more to people than long debates on macroeconomic dialogues, etc.
I would like to start by thanking both rapporteurs, Stephen Hughes and Miet Smet, but I would also say a big thankyou to Raf Chanterie, who got the ball rolling in the previous Parliament, for his contribution.
As far as I can see, although there are few amendments to the documents from Stephen Hughes, this Parliament has invested a great deal of time and effort in the relevant sectors.
The sectors, however, are very complex indeed and especially with regard to road transport, it is extremely regrettable that no agreement has been reached.
It is now really up to the Council to reach some sort of resolution, because the minute strikes break out, the whole of Europe will go mad.
We now have time to solve this matter and this is the time to do it.
The Council is putting itself in a very vulnerable position if yet again something were to happen in the field of road transport.
This, of course, applies even more so to the Commission because it has failed to submit any proposals with regard to the other sectors.
I think that, in general, we have reached acceptable compromises.
The off-shore sector has proved to be a highly complex area but we eventually reached a sound compromise that is better than the one the Council proposed but not as far-reaching as some attempted to make it.
Also, I think we have found an extremely good compromise where junior doctors are concerned. Here again, I would say that I hope the Council adopts this.
Actually, I have a proposal.
Let those individuals in the countries which do not wish to see this issue resolved over a twelve-year period seek treatment by doctors who have worked in excess of 48 hours.
If they need to perform brain surgery or something similar, let' s volunteer one of the Members of the Council.
Maybe this would help them realise that it is rather dangerous to have junior doctors work such long hours once the first Council Member has passed away following an operation that went wrong.
My concern is that this is not happening at the moment but that poorer people are being exposed to this experiment and I do not think that this is the intention.
All in all, I firmly believe that sound proposals are being tabled and that further negotiations with the Council are certainly called for.
I would like to talk just briefly about some of the amendments tabled in the report by Mrs Smet.
First of all Amendment No 5 relating to the working time of junior doctors in training.
I agree absolutely with the amendment that has been tabled here reinstating the first reading position.
I know certain Member States feel that a far longer transition period will be necessary.
It might well be that the maintenance of this amendment will take us into conciliation.
That will give us an opportunity to look at the circumstances facing certain Member States but for now I think it is absolutely right that we stick to this amendment.
Mr Pronk is absolutely right.
We should ask ourselves would we want to be receiving an injection from a doctor at the end of an 18-hour working day, which is not unusual.
In the offshore sector, Amendment No 6 - we have looked long and hard to try to come up with a formulation that will make sure that we get a collective agreement leading to the maximum flexibility available under the directive, that is annualisation of working time.
The formulation of the common position would have simply allowed the employers to walk away from attempts to reach negotiation on annualisation of working time and Member States could then have allowed annualisation.
We have built in an addition here that will ask for a review after five years involving the two sides of industry at European level to see how the regime is functioning in this sector with particular reference to the health and safety of the workers involved.
Amendment No 7 relates to sea fishing.
The effect of this amendment will be to try to limit to one year the reference period available for the annualisation of the calculation of working time, in other words making sure that annualisation of working time is possible but no more.
If we go to two, three or more years as the reference period for the calculation of working time it becomes absolutely meaningless and we feel that the maximum flexibility of one year annualisation should be sufficient.
In Amendment No 8 we look at the issue of the transposition period to be allowed to the Member States.
The common position proposes four years which I think is without precedent in the social area.
We have looked in this amendment to return to the first reading position of two years.
Perhaps again this is something that will be subject to conciliation but we will have to see if and when that is triggered following our vote tomorrow.
My final point relates to urban transport, Amendment No 9.
We have also built in here a review in order to try to remove an anomaly. The way things stand we would have a different regime applying to a person driving a tram to a person driving an urban bus.
That needs to be reviewed.
We think a five-year time period should be sufficient.
Mr President, we generally welcome these reports and their recommendations.
I particularly want to speak about doctors in training.
As others have said, it has been a concern in a number of Member States for many years and of particular concern for EU residents who travel, let alone those who reside in places like the United Kingdom or Ireland.
Some Member States have clearly not acted quickly enough on this.
Looking at some of the rates of pay for overtime one might understand their lack of incentive.
However, we believe that now is the time to up the pace for change.
The working time for more than one quarter of a million doctors in training in the European Union is an issue of health and safety for the doctors themselves, who should have the same rights to safeguard their health and personal lives as those they treat.
It is a similar issue for those who need treatment.
We want to be sure that those treating us are able to act effectively and efficiently, which we cannot be when we have research showing that 24 hours of sustained wakefulness reduces performance to levels associated with excessive alcohol intake without - I would argue - some of the pleasures.
Training doctors is a lengthy and expensive business, we are told.
It is a reason for giving a lengthy implementation time, some governments argue.
However, there is reason to believe that the harsh working hours contribute to a significant drop-out rate, with a particular impact on women junior doctors.
We therefore urge colleagues to support the four years proposed in this report because we believe we need to accelerate change through negotiation.
Mr President, ensuring the same working hours for seafarers on board Community vessels as for seafarers on board vessels flying the flag of third countries using Community ports is undoubtedly a positive measure.
Of course, I do not agree with the date of implementation of that measure being postponed until the end of 2002.
It should have taken immediate effect.
May I take the opportunity, however, to denounce the unacceptable situation on ships at present.
My country is a country with an advanced merchant navy and so we know what we are talking about.
We have increased workloads and exploitation of seafarers by ship owners, and, at the same time, the situation with regard to health and safety of life at sea is worsening.
We have many fatal naval accidents making ship owners wealthier and seafarers fewer.
Of course, those responsible for this situation are the politicians who allow unrestrained action to ship owners who, in many ways, are forcing their crews to work very hard in exceptionally dangerous conditions, very often pushing them to the limits of human endurance.
Those same politicians are making reductions in the number of workers per ship.
Therefore, if the real cause of the problems facing seafarers is not identified or recognised, then it would be pointless to introduce measures and create control mechanisms, such as the one concerning the rest period for seafarers which will not only be ineffective but will also be hypocritical as it will only increase workloads and lead to even greater exploitation.
It is essential that demands for a five-day, 35-hour, working week with no more that 7 - 8 hours work per day, are met, and with pay rises. We must also put an end to regulations obliging seafarers to work a 12-hour day as standard.
It is imperative that the operational crew members on board ships be increased.
In any case, Mr President, we support the just demands of the seafarers and we shall stand by them. And regardless of how positive those directives may be or whatever improvements may come of it, we cannot vote for them since they will eventually perpetuate the current unacceptable state of affairs.
Mr President, I, like my colleagues, would like to congratulate both our rapporteurs on the presentation of their work.
Also, as this is the first opportunity I have had, I should like to welcome the Commissioner to the House for this debate.
The whole area of working time and the directive have created a lot of difficulties for individual Members and also in Member States.
I feel that whilst each of us in this House would welcome the opportunity to ensure a safer working environment, not only for employees, but also for consumers and other users of transport and so on, we have to ensure that we do not over-regulate in any individual area.
Therefore, my group will be seeking separate votes on certain paragraphs, in particular within the Smet report.
When framing legislation we have an obligation to ensure that legislation is effective, that it can be easily enforced and that it does not impose an onerous burden on employees or enterprises.
I feel there are some areas within the present proposals which will create difficulties.
Firstly, with regard to mobile workers, the exclusion of own-account operators from the definition will subject this group to the full rigours of the original working time directive.
This will mean, for instance, that in the road transport area there will be three categories of operators: own-account, third party hauliers and self-employed.
Secondly, the deletion of mobile workers from Article 17 dilutes the opportunity for mobile workers to extend the reference period from 4 to 12 months.
Thirdly, the proposed sector-specific directive for working time in road transport, when finalised, will supersede this common position and will provide a more detailed regulatory framework for this area.
In the light of these issues we should be cognisant of the difficulties which will be created.
Therefore I am recommending a negative vote in relation to these areas.
There is one further point to bear in mind.
The intention of the introduction of this legislation, as I said earlier, was protection of health and safety.
However, I have in my possession a study carried out by University College, Dublin, which highlights the negative impact of this proposed extension of the directive, not only on the grounds of safety and competitiveness, but also on the grounds of damage to the environment.
The Commission already has a copy of this study. I would welcome a response from it with regard to the points highlighted in it.
I should like to refer very briefly to some of the points highlighted.
Firstly, the overall cost of the directive would be far greater than that proposed under the impact assessment.
Secondly, the average cost increase for firms in this study would be in excess by about a hundred times that of the study carried out by the EC which stated that it would be 0.2%.
The impact of this directive will not be uniform across all sectors of the economy and therefore it will negatively impact on certain sectors, in particular those areas that are more heavily dependent on transport.
Thirdly, it is likely that rather than aligning competition, the application of a single standard across all road transport and other transport areas in some Member States will actually distort competition.
The proposals will also lead to a conflict with other goals with regard to the regulation of traffic to reduce congestion and other impacts.
Finally, we already have in place in the transport sector tachograph requirements which are rigorously enforced in all Member States and which may be one way of dealing with some of the concerns about the health and safety aspect.
We should look at modifying and solidifying those tachograph requirements.
In Ireland we have a road safety plan which has been in operation since 1998.
This is a five-year plan which aims to reduce road deaths, the amount of traffic on the roads and to ensure that the quality of vehicles on the road meet the highest possible standards to protect the environment.
The next point I want to cover is with regard to junior doctors and training.
This is an area that has been fraught with danger for the Member States.
I believe everybody in this House would welcome the opportunity to give a very positive and assertive vote in favour of the proposals put forward by Mrs Smith in her report with regard to reducing the transitional period to four years.
There is no reason why we need a 13-year introduction.
Even the common position proposal of 7 years is too long.
Each of us is fully aware that junior doctors in training carry out tasks which are virtually the same as those carried out by their so-called "masters" , the consultants.
Indeed, in 1994 the report commissioned by the European Commission which looked at this whole area of junior doctors in training highlighted seven points which need immediate action: the excessive hours of work in some countries; the question of on-call duties; unrealistic rostering periods; protracted periods of continuous duty; the distribution of duties between junior doctors and senior doctors; informal pressures on doctors in training; the vulnerability of breaks and time off in the face of the pressure of service needed.
I have had several meetings with junior doctors in Ireland over the last number of months with regard to this issue.
One of the areas that is of highest concern to them is that because of the existence in Ireland - and in Britain as well, for example - of the archaic feudal-type system whereby junior doctors in training are apprenticed - I use that word broadly - to senior consultants, they are afraid to raise too many issues of concern, because it might affect their future careers.
What we have to guarantee is that the proper level of health care and health protection can be given to patients in the health service and also, that junior doctors are given the highest possible level of training with proper standards for their working conditions and working time - this will mean a reduction in the amount of hours that are worked - and also, the other so-called duties which they are obliged to carry out merely to deliver the service.
We have a model in Australia and New Zealand which could usefully be copied in the European Union Member States.
Finally, with regard to the concerns of fishermen, special consideration has to be given to this special sector.
There is no other sector to which it can be compared.
The proposals put forward are unrealistic and impractical.
We must ensure that fishermen' s rights to earn their living are not hindered by ridiculous regulation.
Mr President, I will restrict myself to saying how extremely bewildered I am, not so much by the rapporteur' s work, but by what is happening in the maritime world.
This is an extremely important sector.
I come from a country, Italy, where this sector has always been of considerable importance because of the employment it has created, and it is a sector which no longer manages to give workers what it used to.
Workers in this sector have experienced a veritable regression; they have gone back in time. Today, they earn less and work more, victims of a liberal capitalism which makes them real victims in this sector.
Even moving the implementation of the agreements to 2002 has baffled us.
We believe that Parliament must do more, do it soon and do it well in order to rectify the situation.
Mr President, I congratulate Mrs Smet on her report.
I should like to concentrate on two specific categories: junior doctors and fishermen.
Concerning junior doctors, I was delighted that the European Parliament, in committee, has agreed on Amendment No 5 with regard to a transitional period of four years instead of the Council position of nine years, which I believe is too long.
Doctors have our lives in their hands.
It is important that they are included in the working time directive.
I was worried about the weekly working hours and how they should not exceed the 54 hours over a four-month reference period.
That is why I would like you, for the same reasons, to support Amendment No 10 tabled in my name.
I should like to mention here that on the order paper it looks as if I had taken out some of the recital 11.
In fact my amendment is purely and simply an addition, an add-on to recital 11.
I am not taking out anything in that.
I ask for your support.
It is important also with derogations on minimum daily rest periods that we still have adequate rest for doctors.
I know doctors in the UK who work 56-hour shifts consecutively; 9 am on Saturday to 5 p.m. on Monday is not uncommon.
We are not asking for an 11-hour rest period.
We are asking for, say, six hours within a 24-hour period.
That is not asking too much.
If doctors do not get that their judgment will suffer.
We do not allow people to drink and drive because their coordination is gone.
I do not believe we should allow junior doctors to be able to practice medicine.
I urge you to support Amendment No 10.
Mr President, I want to raise one matter relating to the enforcement of seafarer' s hours, of their working time onboard ships using Community ports.
I do not really see how this measure can be monitored satisfactorily because the Community ports and the countries within the European Community have no real jurisdiction over those ships that are flagged or owned in overseas countries.
If we take it forward: Say, for instance, they had agreed that some monitoring was possible - surely they would not have certain working hours outside European Community waters and ports and then change once they were inside our geographical area.
I have been talking about this with American lawyers over recent weeks - personal friends, I have no interest to declare here.
They just feel that it is wrong that ports should dictate to owners of ships.
We want the maximum trade here in the European Union.
We want to make sure that cruise ships come here, spend money here and give employment to our various countries.
I do not see how it is possible to monitor a practice that would seem to be more a matter of international law.
Ship owners and the nations that have these ships flagged in those countries should be monitored elsewhere rather than by European countries.
Mr President, I want to address primarily the trainee doctors issue.
But I want to make a few points before I deal with that.
First of all, the original directive excluded six million workers from its remit.
It seems to me that was excessive and unfair.
I cannot see how you can make a distinction between trainee doctors who are fatigued, truck drivers who are fatigued or fishermen who are fatigued.
They all are a risk either to themselves, to those who work with them, their patients or other road users.
I do not see how Mr Crowley can make the distinction he has made.
I hope he is not reflecting the Irish Government' s position in relation to these proposals.
It is scandalous and unacceptable that trainee doctors in Irish hospitals are expected to work sometimes in excess of 80 hours a week.
It is scandalous and disgraceful that we have truck drivers who are falling asleep at the wheel, putting the lives of those who are working with them and other road users at risk.
We know that there is a fairly high rate of road accidents as a result of truck drivers who are driving hours too long.
For Mr Crowley to claim that the tachograph legislation is rigorously applied in Ireland or anywhere else is simply not true.
I do not know why that is the case.
I do not know why it is not rigorously applied but it is not.
We need to take steps to protect the public at large and patients.
It is not good enough for any Member State in the Council to say that it would be costly to implement these proposals.
Of course it will be costly but what price do you put on the life of a child who may be knocked down on the road, or a patient in hospital who may receive wrong treatment as a result of the fatigue of a doctor? It is just not acceptable.
It is necessary that tomorrow we adopt the position as proposed by the rapporteurs and as proposed by the ESOC Committee and put it to the Council that it must finally come to grips with this issue and ensure that nobody has to work the inhuman hours that we are expecting our trainee doctors to work.
In relation to truck drivers, it seems to me that the only way to regulate this is to put it into law.
Own-account truck drivers will work all the hours that they get because they are not sure when they will get another job.
So it is necessary to apply the law so that they will be forced to take rest and forced not to be on the road when they are simply too tired to drive.
Mr President, I think the report in question is a quite good one, above all because Parliament' s first positions, especially in Amendment No 5, are being maintained.
For certain professional groups, establishing working hours is not only a question of doing the obvious and protecting the individuals concerned but also, and to a large degree, a question of our own general safety.
The roads are not going to become safer and better if those who drive heavy goods vehicles are not alert and wide awake but tired and irritated.
This is a matter which concerns all of us.
Young junior doctors' working hours must also be reviewed directly from a public health point of view.
Firstly, to demand from these young junior doctors an average of up to 60 hours' work per week during a four-month period is ruthless exploitation of young people, because they have to do these shifts in order to pass their exams. Secondly, it is the rest of us who are going to meet these young junior doctors out in health centres and casualty departments.
In those circumstances, one can only hope that they are fully rested and wide awake and can at any rate judge whether a particular case is one they can deal with themselves or one for which they need recourse to a colleague on duty.
Once again, I want, as a minimum, to support Parliament' s first position.
Mr President, the original directive dating back to 1993 on the organisation of working hours was necessary for the health and safety of people at work.
Also, the present additional directive tabled by Mrs Smet, which includes additional sectors and activities, is of great importance and we give it our full backing.
In addition to a few previous minor remarks made by my group, I would like to make a few observations.
In some EU countries, including the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland, employers in road transport have, within the framework of a strategy of contracting-out and more flexibility, rendered their wheels i.e. trucks and transport operators independent as it were.
They hire these zelfstandigen zonder personeel (staffless own-account workers), as they are referred to in the Netherlands, to carry out the same activities.
These own-account transport operators are no longer in someone' s employment but their role is virtually the same and the risks are to be borne by them.
Both trade unions and employers' organisations would like to see arrangements made for them.
So they fall outside the scope of this new directive.
Their health and safety is not protected because they are self-employed.
They hardly seem to be involved in the consultation between the European social partners in this respect.
In fact, this phenomenon can also be identified in other sectors, such as the building sector and a few others besides.
The social issues which we are facing here seem to reflect to a certain degree some of the guidelines from the employment policy.
We should think very carefully about what this means.
As far as I know, a number of guidelines are being drafted behind the scenes but there are also barriers to these activities and their implementation.
I would urge the Commission to raise this issue as soon as possible and make the necessary additional proposals.
Mr President, the working hours in question are those for quite special but, nonetheless, very important areas.
Now that we have common legislation on working hours within the EU, it is in fact incomprehensible and unacceptable that key groups such as young doctors, train drivers and air crew, seafarers and other such groups should be exempt.
On the contrary, it might be thought that these particular groups might have a special need for legislation of this kind.
I believe that this situation is due to a number of factors, and partly to particularly bad traditions.
In the case of the mobile professions, for example, there are poor conditions for safety work of a practical and technical nature. At the same time, employers have had a great need for continuity of service or production, and this has become the decisive factor.
It should also be remembered that, as we have mentioned here, there are also traditions of this kind where young doctors are concerned.
One example - which a number of people here have mentioned - is that of young doctors' dependence upon senior physicians and professors. Someone talked of feudal traditions, in which case what is meant is old traditions which force young doctors to work in a way and to a degree that is harmful.
Their professional future depends upon their doing this.
Traditions such as these must be broken. Most people seem to be in agreement with this.
Where agreement breaks down is in the wish to postpone the necessary changes, perhaps for financial or practical reasons.
This is something which this Parliament must oppose.
We must attach much more importance to the protection of workers than is implied by this type of short-term, expedient reasoning.
I think we should also remember the need to emphasise that unusual, different and, in various ways, mobile labour markets should also be brought under the umbrella of this directive. In fact, we are getting more and more professional groups who are working under mobile conditions, together with more and more individuals in the labour market who have mobile working conditions.
If we have a situation in which in which it is possible to have exemptions from the labour market directive, then we are going to have more and more groups who will be able to maintain that specifically their own workforce should be exempt.
I therefore think that it is a very good thing that we have obtained these two reports.
I want to give them my wholehearted support, but I want at the same time to draw attention to a third factor. We have to think not only about showing consideration for employees and employers.
There are also third parties involved. A high proportion of the groups of employees concerned provide services to consumers or operate utilities on their behalf.
We are concerned here, for example, with passengers at risk of travelling in aircraft flown by tired-out pilots and of patients at risk of being treated by exhausted doctors.
This is naturally unacceptable.
We must therefore set limits upon what the general public can be expected to accept in this regard.
We cannot, of course, accept transition periods of seven or thirteen years.
My Group and I should like to have seen us go much further in certain respects, but we are nonetheless satisfied with the developments which have taken place and think that the two reports are excellent.
When the 1993 directive on working time was drawn up certain sectors were excluded from its remit and the reason is very clear.
It is that the very specific characteristics of some of the sectors concerned required legislation that took these particular characteristics and needs into consideration.
I want to focus my remarks this evening on the fishing industry, and of course one of the sectors excluded is sea fishing.
I share the Council' s view that flexibility in this sector is absolutely essential.
Indeed I will go further and call for the exclusion of those workers who are involved in the processing of fresh fish - and I emphasise fresh fish - because there is no continuity of supply when we are dealing with fish.
I believe the health and safety of workers must not be compromised.
I am not suggesting that, but I believe that protection can best be accorded by an agreement between the two sides of the fishing and fresh fish processing industry.
I cannot therefore accept Mr Hughes' amendment which would place too many constraints on the fishing industry.
Fishermen must have sufficient holiday time and a maximum limit to working time but I am seriously concerned about the damage to the industry that could result from an inflexible attitude.
I would like to stress that neither the fishing industry associations nor indeed any individual fishermen have approached me seeking to be included in the directive.
This is an industry which I like to believe that I have a particular affinity to, and appreciation of, coming from a maritime constituency in the north-west of Ireland where fishing is a crucial part of the local economy.
My concern is with the families of those trying to make a living.
I would call on Mr Hughes and those who feel they want to vote for his amendment to take common sense into consideration.
In conclusion, I want to take the opportunity to refer to the other group - the junior doctors.
The hours that this dedicated group of individuals currently has to work in Ireland are unacceptably long.
They need to be brought under the correct protection of the directive and I fully support Amendment No 5 calling for a maximum transition period of five years.
There have been some easy and pious words spread around tonight on working time.
As everyone knows, it is effectively about health and safety.
Yet it is fraught with problems.
Nonetheless it should apply to all workers as an absolute principle, whoever they are.
It is easy to see how some people pick on some groups but will not highlight the need for it to be applied to others.
Of course, Mrs Smet, who has brought forward this report, having picked it up from the last Parliament, has to accept that as a former Council member she had to accept the common position of the Council which she now rejects.
Missing in all this debate quite clearly are the necessary staged processes by Member States.
It is after all an inelastic supply in certain circumstances, just as it is with doctors in training.
Missing also are the efforts already made in certain Member States.
In the UK, for example, proposals are in advance of this directive and have been welcomed by Andrew Hobart, chairman of the junior doctors' committee who says he is delighted that an understanding has been reached on a new contract for junior doctors which will guarantee safe working hours in advance in the United Kingdom.
Deep sea fishing -here is an area unique in its case which proves the rule that this working time directive is fraught with practical problems.
But, after all, perhaps I can afford a smile.
I agree with the principles of this report. I disagree with the estimated effects of all these amendments, but I think that is consistent with my position at all times.
It will be interesting to see how some who feel free to pick and choose who should have effective limits on working time and who should not can explain that to the workers affected. Also, what about the emergency workers - paramedics and others.
Do not they deserve to be a special case too? So before we get smug in our concern for just certain groups, what about sparing a thought for those others who carry out emergency health care at all times and are also derogated from certain aspects of the working time directive.
Less smugness please, more practical application.
In general terms I find Mrs Smet' s report and most of the committee' s amendments wholly acceptable and worthy of support.
Others have referred to particular activities and sectors which are proposed to be covered for the first time by working time regulations.
For example, my group colleague, Mrs Lambert, referred to doctors in training and I associate myself totally with her remarks and support the proposals relating to that sector.
I do have a concern though that sea-fishermen, especially share fishermen, who are wholly self-employed, will be adversely affected by some aspects of these proposals and I seek some clarification of this.
Share fishermen jointly own their vessels and are paid solely by share of their catches.
Their work patterns are dictated by factors outwith any control, such as weather conditions and fish movements, and therefore it is difficult to imagine how restrictions on working time could possibly be practical in this sector.
Of course, health and safety issues are a major reason for limiting working time but fisheries is already subject to codes of practice and to regulations which are monitored by competent authorities.
Share fishermen up to now have been assured that their unique circumstances would be catered for through exemption.
I believe that share fishermen must continue to be regarded as a special case and not subjected to impractical regulations.
I will be taking full account of the potential impact on fishermen of the various proposals and amendments before casting my vote tomorrow.
I will be listening very carefully to the summing up of this debate for indications that the needs of share fishermen particularly can be accommodated satisfactorily.
Mr President, within a free market with unrestricted competition, the business that produces the cheapest product has the best chance of survival, even if the product can only be cheap on account of bad working conditions, poor wages, environmental pollution or cruelty to animals.
We can see this on a large scale in the fight for new agreements in the World Trade Organisation and on a small scale in the fight over working hours within the EU Member States.
Employers would like to think that workers are always available, even after more than 8 consecutive hours or in the evenings, at nights, Saturdays and Sundays.
Paid work is still seen as a commodity.
Safety and conditions at work, despite improved legislation, still leave a great deal to be desired.
In fact, the efforts required are invariably more demanding than before.
Working has increasingly become a type of top-class sport.
Only few will sustain it in the long term.
Many burn out long before their pensionable age due to overworking.
This is why we desperately need to protect all workers against wear-and-tear, accidents, overworking and lack of consecutive time off which can be spent as one chooses.
This should be a right for everybody, without exceptions.
Employers, however, keep pressing for exemptions: exemptions for weak industries which have grown big on the back of production costs kept too low and their nineteenth-century industrial relations.
As long as we tolerate this, there will be groups of workers who are discriminated against.
In the case of industries which rely on this, there is something wrong.
This applies especially to road transport which is far too cheap and passes an increasing amount of business risks onto the transport operators by forcing them to join the ranks of the vulnerable self-employed.
It is not a coincidence that the exceptions largely relate to mobile workers and people who earn their living at sea in either the fishing or oil industry.
After all, it is more difficult for them than their colleagues in other industries to stand up against discrimination, especially as they are not constantly together with their colleagues at a fixed place of work which is easily accessible for the trade-union representatives.
Only in the case of people with special responsibilities and high rewards commensurate with these could it be justified to require, if necessary, working hours that deviate from the norm.
If, on the other hand, workers in the weakest positions have to work longer hours, then there is something amiss.
This then only happens for the benefit of the competitive battle between companies that work at prices which are too low or that are aiming for profits which are too high.
I therefore urge that we do not refer the solutions to this problem back to the consultation between the trade union and employers' organisations since it is precisely the position of parts of these groups of workers that is still too weak.
Negotiations do not solve their problems fast enough.
This is why exceptions must be deleted, transitional periods must be short and the traditional rights to Sunday rest actively protected and maintained.
The first thing that I would like to say is that the 1993 directive on working conditions is quite inadequate and leaves room for all sorts of excesses.
Nevertheless, the legal grounds speak of the need to harmonise social conditions with progress.
I deduce from this then that the overall aim is to bring working conditions into line with those of the more advanced countries of the European Union.
Now, forty-eight working hours per week, just one day of rest per week and an eleven hour break between two working days are proposals which already fall short of the gains made in some Member States.
This directive leaves room for all kinds of exemptions, which make the situation even worse and as a result, it is not acceptable.
If it is extended to railway and airline employees, it would even constitute a step backwards, as the legislation in some Member States is more advanced.
It is absolutely essential that measures which are favourable to workers and which are in force in certain European countries are not abandoned under any pretext and that includes on the grounds of competition in particular.
In France, for example, where women' s night work is very strictly regulated, no European directive should have jeopardised this right which, on the contrary, should have been extended to all European working women.
Mr President, I want to talk about Amendment No 5 which deals with trainee doctors.
The improvements which are being proposed are absolutely essential.
First of all, we are talking about the safety of patients, that is to say of ourselves, and of a situation in which doctors are alert and manage to fulfil their vital tasks.
Secondly, we are talking about public health.
Who among us, or who anywhere, would thrive on having the long working weeks, sometimes of over 100 hours in certain Member States, which some young doctors have? Thirdly, we are talking about doctors as models for others and their life-styles.
Fourthly, what we have here is a central labour-market issue about the length of the working week.
It is only right that the European Parliament should be urging governments to act more quickly. Thirteen years is an indefensibly long changeover period.
Four years is a more reasonable period.
I also see the European Parliament as having an important role in forming opinion and instigating change.
In a previous intervention, Mr Skinner took offence at the fact that a certain group, in this case young doctors, had had its case selected for discussion here in the European Parliament and that the debate should be focused upon this group in particular.
Remember, this should be seen as just one example among many of one group of employees' conditions being improved in such a way that other groups too will benefit.
Enough envy predominates in plenty of other contexts.
Let us see this as an improvement for one group from which other groups will also derive benefit.
In relation to the working time directive on road transport operators, I have concerns about the exclusion of own-account operators from the definition of mobile workers.
For road transport we will now have three categories of operators, own-account, third party hauliers and self-employed with three different working time regimes under Directive 93/104.
I suggest that will be inoperable and unenforceable.
If tachograph legislation could be rigorously applied would we need the amendment before us, would we need to double the lorries and trucks on the road with the consequent environmental impact? The jury is out.
In relation to Amendment No 5 I fully support it.
Indeed, in Ireland, we can hang our heads in shame.
We have 3,000 non-consultant hospital doctors, or junior doctors.
The voluntary maximum working hours negotiated by the Irish medical organisation and our department of health is 35 hours per week averaged over their rota period of 46 hours and not more than 72 hours work continuously.
Never mind an injection from a doctor on duty for 16 or 18 hours as another speaker mentioned.
Who would like to have their baby delivered by a doctor, a junior obstetrician after being on duty for 70 hours? Working continuously for 70 hours is permitted.
It is appalling at the moment.
The Commission' s study at the time of the original working time directive stated that in Ireland non-consultant hospital doctors worked well in excess of the 65 hours permitted per week and they undertake tasks indistinguishable from that of their senior colleagues.
This study listed issues needing urgent resolution and I will list these briefly - excessive hours worked in several EU countries, on-call duties, - we by the way have problems in Ireland about the definition of on-call.
In Ireland, on-call equals on-duty, we need to be very careful of that.
The co-shape study also lists unrealistic rostering, protracted periods of continuous duty, the distribution of duties between junior and senior doctors, informal pressure on doctors in training, the vulnerability of breaks and time off and the pace of pressures and service needs.
In conclusion, thank you.
All I would like to say is in protecting our doctors, we are protecting their patients.
This is a health and safety issue of both doctors and their patients.
We must stop the exploitation of doctors in training for their sake and that of their patients.
Let me make an altogether separate point of order.
My colleague, Mrs Scallon is not here because we understood President Nicole Fontaine to say at the end of the beef debate that the Smet and Hughes reports would be taken tomorrow.
There probably is a problem in interpretation here.
I understood that, and Mrs Scallon and other colleagues who are not here have been confused by this.
Clearly there is some misunderstanding.
I take note.
Mrs Doyle has listed many of the technical points I wished to make about the conditions of junior working doctors.
It is ironic on the eve of the millennium that we are discussing the working conditions of doctors who are working in what could only be described as Dickensian situations.
They have long working hours in difficult circumstances with little or no recognition in terms of government policy to the serious difficulties they are encountering.
I hope very much that Parliament will clearly indicate their support for the re-introduction of the original time of four years for the inclusion of junior doctors in this directive.
It is amazing that in this day and age people with such huge responsibilities are working under such difficult circumstances.
Mr President, would you get into a plane flown by a pilot who was exhausted and had worked more than 70 hours in a week? I would not, and I am sure no other colleague would either.
I was a nurse, I dread to tell you how many years ago, but in those days the technical demands on both doctors and nurses were considerably less than they are now.
Now doctors - and, of course, nurses as well, I must make a point for them too - are expected to be highly technologically proficient.
We all know how dicey it becomes when we are exhausted doing something as simple as working on our computers.
So how much more so dealing with technical issues.
These young doctors, these junior doctors, are dealing with serious emergencies in a condition of extreme exhaustion.
I hope very much, Mr President, and clearly from the debate so far, our colleagues also share this concern, that they will support all the amendments and I thank Mrs Smet very much for the amount of serious consideration she has given to this particular issue.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Hughes, on the report on the organisation of seafarer' s working time and for his proposal to Parliament to approve, without amendments, the Council' s common position on the enforcement of seafarers' hours of work on board ships using Community ports.
The approval of the proposal without amendments will allow the procedure to be closed once and for all and therefore complete our work in the field of working hours in this maritime sector.
I would like to remind Parliament that last June the Council adopted Directive 99/63, which incorporates into Community law the agreement on the organisation of seafarers' working time, signed by the social partners in the maritime transport sector.
And I believe that one of the great successes of this measure is the fact that we are following up an agreement between the social partners themselves, which guarantees - I believe - the effectiveness of this agreement.
Therefore, Mr President, both the directive on the agreement and the current draft directive will enter into force on 30 June 2002.
This time period is considered necessary so that the Member States may ratify the relevant agreements of the ILO on the hours of work in maritime transport.
The ratification of the instruments of the ILO is in fact a necessary condition so that foreign ships which call at EU ports may be boarded for inspection, which will allow us, amongst other things, to prevent unfair competition within our own ports.
Mr President, lastly, I would to expressly thank the European Parliament once again, and especially Mr Hughes, for the work carried out and for your support for the proposal.
Mr President, Members of Parliament, I would like to congratulate and thank Mrs Smet.
I must stress from the outset that today we are discussing the amendment to the directive concerning the branches of workers not included in the directive on the organisation of working time, which has been under discussion for 6 years.
It is a very important issue and it has been a political challenge for us to finally come up with a realistic and pursuable proposal. This is what we need.
Because of the discussions which have taken place following the action by Parliament and the Council of Ministers, I feel that we are now close to that goal.
The Commission may accept most of Mrs Smet' s proposals, either fully or in principle.
I would like to point out that Amendment Nos 2, 3, 4 and 8 will probably be accepted fully.
Furthermore, the Commission will probably agree in principle on Amendment Nos 6, 7, and 9, which may need further clarification in their wording, although we totally agree with their content.
Furthermore, it must be made absolutely clear that the Commission upholds the right of initiative as regards the proposals arising from the revisions.
There are therefore two amendments which are particularly problematic; those concerning practising doctors and those concerning Sunday as a rest day.
Most of the speakers referred specifically to junior trainee doctors and to their working conditions.
I must stress that there is a great discrepancy between the Council' s proposal and that of the European Parliament, and the Commission has a half-way house proposal to limit the working week to 48 hours within a 7 year transition period.
We believe that this proposal can help resolve and ultimately push forward this directive.
Of course, this is not totally satisfactory for working doctors, but for this particularly complex problem we must take into consideration the policies of Member States on local national health systems and the different practices as regards the training period for doctors and the required transition period in each country. Then we must endeavour in realistic terms, to find a half-way house solution which will finally allow us to make headway.
The second issue concerns Sunday rest.
If the Commission decides to revise the entire directive on the organisation of working hours and, from the outset, to put forward the issues of Sunday rest, which is now a major topic of discussion and one which the European Court of Justice has already delivered judgments on, then there is the danger that this issue may never actually be resolved and that we will again reach a deadlock in our search for the perfect solution.
I would like to express my gratitude to Parliament for supporting the efforts of the Commission on the issue of the directive, but it is clear that we need a conciliation procedure for those important outstanding issues.
These issues include transitional provisions for practising doctors, the date for implementation of the whole directive and working hours for the crew of boats working at sea.
For two of these issues, sea-fishing and the date of implementation, the Commission supports Parliament' s position.
As a result of the issue raised today under Amendment No 10 which is something which has only just come to our attention, I would say that from the initial recommendation of my colleagues, apparently this already exists and is covered in article 17 paragraph 2.
However, to be more certain and because this is only our first assessment, I feel that we will be able to provide a concrete answer on this amendment by tomorrow.
Members of Parliament, I believe that the most important issue and also the most difficult one for this conciliation committee and for finding a favourable solution is the issue of the directive on doctors which I spoke about before.
It is my firm belief that, and I am appealing to you all, we must adopt a realistic approach on all sides so that we can all have an effective directive which will act as an initial safeguard for trainee doctors.
If, by adopting maximalist approaches and trying to achieve the impossible, we do not in fact reach the required compromise, then I fear that this directive will, for many years, remain on the table without us even making any progress on it.
I believe that through this whole conciliation procedure we will be able to make swift headway towards a directive which will, in due course, be voted for by the Council.
With your permission, in the debate I made specific reference to share fishermen and sought specific assurances about the position of share fishermen.
I detected no reference whatsoever to share fishermen and their position in the answers.
I wonder if you would permit a specific answer to be given.
In a previous debate on the subject when I made similar comments, the then Commissioner made it very clear in the summing up that share fishermen were not included in the proposals.
Can the Commissioner confirm whether that is or is not still the case?
Mr President, I did not entirely understand the question.
Could the speaker please repeat it?
With your permission again, share fishermen, as I attempted to explain clearly, are self-employed due to the nature of their ownership and operation of their vessels.
Previously, share fishermen were specifically exempt from working time regulations in the same way that other self-employed people are or had been.
I just asked for clarification of whether the particular position of share fishermen has changed since the previous debate?
The article of the previous directive still applies here, according to which self-employed share fishermen are subject to national legislation as regards their licences and choice of working conditions.
The directive concerns only fishermen in an employer-employee relationship.
I was just saying that the issue is whether fishermen of that kind are regarded as employed or not.
This is critical to us and the Commission has still omitted to answer the question.
I shall repeat, although I feel I was quite clear: the working practices of self-employed share fishermen are defined by national legislation.
We are talking here of a specific employer-employee relationship.
I do not believe I can provide further clarification.
I would just like clarification as to when the Commissioner believes the conciliation process on the junior doctors will commence.
Obviously, this is of great concern.
I accept her point that there will probably have to be compromise on all sides but I would be interested to know when she anticipates conciliation starting.
The conciliation process will begin over the next four months.
It will certainly depend on the Council and on the developments following on from the discussion in Council.
Mrs Lynne, please tell me on which Rule you are basing your request for the floor for a procedural motion.
With respect, we are still not very clear whether the Commission intends share fishermen to be included in this article or not.
We need clarification in some of the parties.
I am not prepared to break our rules.
This is a very elegant attempt to reopen the debate and I am not going to tolerate it.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
EC-China scientific and technological cooperation agreement
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0049/1999) by Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision concluding the Agreement on scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the People' s Republic of China [COM(1999)0287 - C5-0038/1999 - 1999/0123(CNS)]
Mr President, it is of course an incredibly important event when the EU is to enter into an agreement on scientific and technological cooperation with the People' s Republic of China, because we all know that China is the big country which will decide a large part of our common future.
My own basic attitude to the agreement, as rapporteur, and also that of the Committee, is that this is a good Agreement.
It is important and positive that we should go through this process in order to reach an agreement.
The Chinese Authorities have recently introduced a number of reforms in line with the broad principles agreed at the 1992 United Nations World Conference on Environment and Development in Rio. The European Union is prepared to offer further support to the Chinese Government towards achieving its objectives.
That is part of the agreement. This should especially improve environmental protection and limit the negative impact of industrial growth and urbanisation on the well-being of the Chinese population.
It is important that this should be stated clearly in the texts of the agreement and that we understand that our type of industrialisation has many positive sides, but also a number of negative sides.
For the EU' s part, we are funding joint research projects, especially in biotechnology applied to agriculture, medicine, health care and natural resources.
In this regard, concerns have been raised, and with some justice, about the lack of ethical constraints in China, especially in human genetic research.
It is very important indeed that we should be well aware of this when we enter into the agreements concerned.
Various organisations have also pointed out that there are risks of proliferation of bio-weapons technology.
The EU will supply technical assistance to develop energy resources and promote energy efficiency, energy conservation and clean or renewable energy supply, as well as promoting the use of environmentally friendly technology.
We are now becoming involved with China in aspects of this cooperative work.
This is important, not least when it is borne in mind that China produces 15 million tons of sulphur dioxide, causing acid rain, and over 13 million tons of particulate pollutants.
These are some of the signs that suggest that our partnership with China is extremely important and could also lead to a better environment for ourselves and the whole world.
The Committee has made up its mind that this is, on balance, a sound agreement.
We have accepted it, and I completely support our having done so.
I just have a few remarks along the way.
They are not binding upon Parliament, as the decision process is, but I hope that the results of certain aspects of scientific cooperation are applied with caution and that, in view of the lack of ethical constraints in China, we avoid cooperation in the field of biotechnology.
I think it is very important indeed that we should be sure to check up on what would happen in China following this type of cooperation before we enter into any concrete agreements.
There is also a quite different aspect of the agreement which has a considerable air of secrecy about it.
I am assuming that when section 5 of the annex relating to intellectual property rights is applied, it will be ensured that it is not applied word for word but in a way that accords more with the general rules of openness which now happily apply more and more within our European Union.
To summarise, I recommend that we accept this agreement with China which is important for ourselves, for China and for our common future.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy supports the report of the committee responsible and the rapporteur' s presentation.
We hope that intensive scientific and technical cooperation will also enhance the overall dialogue between scientists and thus lead to greater freedom of expression, and that this will accordingly be a helpful step towards liberalisation in China.
We do not know of any cases where a scientist has been persecuted or arrested because of his scientific work, but I do know that in recent years any number of scientists have been persecuted or arrested because of their political beliefs, and we consider that this opportunity should be taken to make it clear that such people should be released.
Mr President, allow me to make one more brief comment, as this will shorten this evening' s proceedings: my committee also believes that the report on the scientific and technical agreement with Argentina should also be viewed in a positive light.
We have also reached a similar opinion regarding Russia.
If the rapporteur, should she touch on this subject, were to propose that this agreement should be abandoned, then the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy would totally support this request, as this would be a sensible step given the war in Chechnya, as a means of pointing the way to the future regarding this issue.
In any case, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy would support such an initiative if the committee responsible could see its way to come to such a decision.
Mr President, my group fundamentally welcomes the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the People' s Republic of China.
The agreement forms part of the Commission' s policy, as described in various Commission communications in recent years.
China also needs to be included in the international research and development framework, and political and economic links need to be developed.
The EU and China need to conclude a separate scientific and technological agreement in order to improve and extend cooperation in fields such as energy, the environment, life sciences, abiotic sciences, transport, telematics, information technology and communications.
This will serve to strengthen the presence of European economic actors in China.
All the Commission representatives who know me will be aware that it is unusual for me to quote their documents at such length!
Not only will the presence of European economic actors in China be strengthened in this way, but also the presence of Chinese research institutions in the EU.
I accordingly believe that this cooperation will be of great benefit to both sides, and that the democratic process can in this way also be promoted through greater cooperation and an enhanced dialogue.
We are working on the assumption that the agreement could contribute to greater freedom of thought.
It is certainly unheard of for scientists to be persecuted for talking about science.
However, we do know that in many cases freedom of expression cannot always be taken for granted and I now appeal to China to move towards greater democracy and openness in this area.
However, on behalf of my group I would like to emphasise that we are not in agreement with the rapporteur' s conclusions, as described in his explanatory statement.
However, it is not customary for Parliament to vote on explanatory statements.
So we will vote for the report, which consists of one sentence.
But please do not assume, Mr Gahrton, that your statement reflects the views of this House.
At best it represents the views of a small part of it.
Mr President, the Group of the Party of European Socialists will also be voting for this report.
We believe that international cooperation is bound to benefit from research, without denying that there are also certain risks.
However, in the case of China, I would also like to point out that cooperation with this country in not a one-way process with Europeans bearing their fine gifts on a golden platter - we can also learn from the Chinese.
As we are going to discuss Argentina later on, I would like to remind you of something. The compass came to us from China via the Arabs, and if we had not been given the compass, we would probably not have discovered America either.
We could then forget about the report on Argentina! So European culture has learnt something from China, and I hope that will continue to apply in future.
Our problem with China - which has already quite rightly been pointed out and which is not limited to this one country - is human rights.
With China there is also the issue of Tibet, their threatening behaviour towards Taiwan, and so on.
Nevertheless, I would like to warn again using research as a political weapon, as a means of putting pressure on a country over such issues.
I do not believe that works. In any case, we end up punishing the wrong people since, in general, scientists are our allies, at least in spirit.
The subjects listed here are quite reasonable - health, the environment, food and so forth.
Let me remind you that we are not talking about nuclear cooperation.
Nor are we planning joint development of arms, no, we are considering reasonable issues of benefit to people there and also, indirectly, to us in Europe.
To conclude, perhaps I could mention an idea of my own.
I can well imagine that in view of China' s great importance it would make sense to have an EU-China research institute or a facility where Chinese and Europeans could work on one or more long-term projects.
So Chinese and Europeans would work together on a single site, be it in China or in Europe.
An experience of this kind, learning each other' s language and understanding each other' s culture, could be extraordinarily attractive and stimulating for both sides.
There is no mention of this in the project, but I simply wanted to propose it here.
Perhaps we could consider this when we sign our next agreement with China.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, the liberal group is delighted that scientific and technological cooperation between the European Union and China is being stepped up.
Collaboration between scientists promotes mutual understanding of each other' s cultures.
This could serve as a catalyst to intensify the dialogue with China and, in time, to improve democracy and the human rights situation.
Since the People' s Republic of China accounts for a quarter of the global population and has great economic potential, its involvement in European research and technological projects is of huge importance.
I agree with Rolf Linkohr, both sides can benefit.
But a lot can be gained in the field of environment and energy too.
Technical support for the promotion of energy efficiency, saving energy and clean and renewable energy sources will enable China to reduce the production of CO2.
If there is transfer of expertise then the European Union may be able to achieve part of its own CO2 objectives over there.
My second point concerns cooperation in the field of information and communication technology.
The problem in this context is access to the Internet.
The Internet is the first medium which enables worldwide, interactive communication.
But the Chinese government wants to monitor the free flow of information and the freedom of speech via the Internet.
This will not benefit the development of information and communication technology.
In order to continue to grant the Chinese access to the worldwide web, it is essential to cooperate with China in this field.
An honest dialogue will keep the door open for new developments, such as e-commerce, where China also forms a large potential market.
Mr President, I would like to ask all those here to think about the process of democratisation in China.
I think that everything that we have seen over the last few months shows that the opposite is taking place: the huge increase in the arrest of dissidents, the persecution of the so-called sect, the Falun Gong, etc.
Obviously it is possible to maintain a strategic relationship with an undemocratic country, with a dictatorship.
The communist regime has many faithful friends here, starting with Mr Gahrton, who is endlessly asking us to resume and strengthen our links with the People' s Republic of China.
There is another country, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, with a billion inhabitants, and which is the largest democracy on earth, India; and we always forget about that country and develop no strategy towards it.
Even though it is a democracy, we prefer to talk to dictators.
I deplore this, and all the more so because this report, and particularly the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy is being particularly hypocritical.
We state clearly in the text of the report that at least four people are being held in prison for scientific reasons, contrary to what we have been told by Mr Brok, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
These four people are quoted in this opinion and yet we are not even demanding their release.
I think that this shows unbelievable hypocrisy.
Let us carry on then; let us close our eyes to India.
Let us carry on with China.
You will see that the process of democratisation in China leads nowhere.
Strength is the only language that communists understand, and in this case, we have no strength.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to say a few words about the three agreements that we will be debating this evening.
Firstly, these agreements have been speedily adopted, and I would like to thank all the rapporteurs, as well as the members of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy and the Committee on Budgets, for having studied the proposals in a very short time.
They are representative of a new generation of agreements for scientific cooperation with third countries.
The countries concerned of course are different.
Now we are talking about China and we will be talking about Russia and Argentina next.
I would nevertheless like to say that these offer real added value to the current situation; they will clarify aims to be pursued, strengthen and extend collaboration, and will provide a solid formal basis.
Next, I would also like to say, as Mr Linkohr emphasised, that there is a need for reciprocity which will be in our mutual interest.
The European team' s reciprocal access to, in this case, Chinese programmes and activities, is the very spirit of the fifth framework programme.
Finishing with the general aspects, I would also like to say that I know how much Parliament would like to be kept informed about the implementation of this programme and that the Commission will ensure that it supplies Parliament with regular detailed information on this matter.
As far as China more particularly is concerned, whilst thanking Mr Gahrton for his report, I would like to say that we know how crucial the human rights problem is and that it is a particularly complex issue.
I, as many speakers have said, consider it important to establish cooperation on a scientific level which encourages contact between our researchers and Chinese researchers.
In this context, I can only agree with the conclusions of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, because this will permit greater freedom of expression for those working in the scientific and technical fields in China as well as in general.
As far as the contribution that the Internet may make, we think that through this kind of contact, and also as you said, Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel, regarding the problem of e-commerce, a certain kind of dialogue will be possible in the future, as a result of this type of scientific agreement.
As far as the issues of biotechnology are concerned, I must answer Mr Gahrton by saying that all research proposals in the area of biotechnology must completely satisfy the ethical conditions that apply to any framework programme project.
This compliance is an essential requirement if the project is to be accepted, which I think gives all the guarantees we would want in order to prevent, as you pointed out, abuses that we would not want to see.
Moreover, the framework programme covers only civilian research and the possible areas of cooperation do not lend themselves to its use for military ends.
Finally, I would like to point out that as far as the problem of the annex relating to issues of intellectual property is concerned, the same thing applies to the three draft agreements.
It is generally the same for all these types of agreements.
This text has been drawn up following in-depth discussions with all parties concerned and bears in mind the need to guarantee the best possible protection for the European participants.
, rapporteur.
(SV) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I just want to say very briefly that I do, of course, fully share Mr Dupuis' basic attitude.
We are dealing with a country which does not fulfil the demands for democracy and human rights which we have within the EU.
That is quite clear.
Do you not believe that we are continually talking with our Chinese friends about this? That is precisely what we are doing.
We are, in fact, in constant communication with them about this issue.
Whether or not this has any influence upon them is a moot point but, on absolutely each and every occasion that we meet our Chinese counterparts, we tell them that we ourselves have a different view to them about what they are doing where human rights are concerned.
We say it openly and to their faces and we say it repeatedly and shall go on saying it.
We refer constantly to the resolutions which are adopted by the European Parliament.
We tell them that this is not some kind of campaign against China.
We tell them that we adopt resolutions against just about every country in the world, including our own countries, when human rights are not respected.
We do all this when we meet our Chinese counterparts.
I think that what we say possibly has very little influence indeed, but it can have influence.
We shall not, from our position here in the European Parliament, change China fundamentally - that is something we must realise - but we shall be able to ensure that when in fact China, of its own volition, becomes a more democratic country, we shall have supported the change by maintaining good relations with the country.
That is my aim as head of the delegation for cooperation with China.
It was also my aim when I wrote this report that we should engage in what would be positive cooperation with China but should definitely not in any way be less critical than the non-governmental organisations which work with China.
Thank you very much, Mr Gahrton.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
EC-Russia scientific and technological cooperation agreement
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0048/1999) by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision concluding the Agreement on scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and Russia [COM(1999)0324 - C5-0083/1999 - 1999/0133(CNS)]
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is actually very simple to write a report like this, because it consists of precisely one sentence: it recommends that Parliament should vote for the report.
It also recommends that this decision should be forwarded to the Council and Commission.
So I could just sit back and stop talking now, after just 20 seconds.
On the other hand, it is certainly worth asking why we need this agreement right now.
We all know from experience that cooperation with Russia, with Russian researchers, has constantly improved and increased in recent years, both in terms of the number of researchers and as regards budget lines.
However, cooperation has been spread over a number of different programmes, including, and this is just one example, the INTAS programme - the International Association for the Promotion of Cooperation with Scientists from the new Independent States of the former Soviet Union.
A few years ago I was rapporteur for the INTAS programme, and I must say that for me it was an excellent example of how it was possible to build up a cooperation network despite adverse technical conditions and despite poor infrastructure.
Besides that, it was also a very good example - I am mentioning this to you, Commissioner, in case you were not yet involved in those days - of how researchers can take research policy into their own hands, which did not always best please the Commission officials at the time!
Nevertheless, I believe that the experiment as it was carried out at that time was worthwhile.
We now have the EUREKA and COST programmes and the ISTC in Moscow, for example, and we need to provide a more formal framework for all this cooperation; that is also the point of this agreement.
We will also make sure that the agreement is actually implemented in accordance with the principles set out in Article 3.
It must be of mutual benefit.
This is not about development policy, it is about cooperation in the field of research.
There must be a timely exchange of information, of all information which may affect cooperative activities.
There must be a balanced realisation of economic and social benefits by the Community and the Russian Federation.
Although we now have this improved structural framework, we still need to emphasise several points.
For one thing, in my conclusions, I have accepted the proposal from the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities.
We have assumed that the need to increase the involvement of women in the projects financed will actually be taken into account, although it has to be said that Russia is not exactly at the bottom of the class in this area.
Secondly, we recognise the need to increase private sector involvement in the drawing up and implementation of programmes, and also the need to aim for closer cooperation between the relevant parliamentary committees of the parties to the agreement.
There is sometimes a lack of concrete political dialogue.
We could also perhaps use modern means of communication somewhat more, so as to reduce travel costs and allow rapid ad hoc contacts.
As a Parliament we would like to stress that we expect the Commission to provide us with an overview of all cooperation activities between the European Union and Russia in the field of research and technological development.
We have already asked many specific questions, and we are now awaiting detailed answers.
Cooperation on nuclear matters is excluded from this agreement, and I consider that to be quite right and proper.
We would, however, like to mention here that these matters have been the subject of separate EURATOM negotiations, and that we are also expecting clear and unambiguous information from the Commission about these, as was indeed promised to us.
I do not think this is the right place to use rejection of a research agreement as a means of signalling to Russia that we expect concrete and rapid efforts to achieve a peaceful solution in Chechnya.
There are other political means of achieving that.
Nevertheless, I have to agree with Mr Brok: it can never feel so painful as it does now to vote for an agreement, even if rationally we fully support the objectives behind it!
So I really am in two minds, and I would just like to cautiously mention that.
Mr Speaker, ladies and gentlemen thank you for the report.
My group supports the line that has been chosen. Technical cooperation is important, of course.
Russia has considerable scientific resources, especially in the field of basic research, and a large proportion of it remains untapped and unutilised in an international context.
The unstable situation in the country has not interrupted research work, although it too is experiencing difficulties.
There is a shortage of available funds, salaries are delayed, and it is difficult to produce scientific publications; the shelves of the shops are filled with cheap literature: thrillers, sex and so on.
In the 1993 - 1998 period, the European Union financed cooperation in the area of techno-scientific research to the tune of approximately EUR 140 million.
35,000 scientists from Russia have been involved in these projects.
Quite a number of government officials seem to be travelling into Russia, too. I would be obliged if the Commission could inform us as to what the proportion of officials is to scientists.
Currently, EUR 90,000 is spent each year on meetings and travel.
Agriculture is one area of research cooperation.
I would also like it to cover organic production, for example.
In Russia, small farmers have actually been compelled to switch to organic production because they cannot afford chemical fertilisers.
They are therefore surprisingly close to the organic ideal that we aspire to here.
Cooperation would also be important where industrial methods and organisation are concerned. We could make significant progress in that area.
There is also talk about "the technology of the information society" being part of the cooperation referred to in the agreement.
But why is the content sector of the information society not included? In many ways, Russia is a very content-rich country.
Where content is concerned, we are lagging behind our main competitor, the United States, and the Russians really do have very different angles, which ought to be exploited.
Finally, I would like to refer to the war in Chechnya, where the relentless fighting continues - or bombing, to be exact.
The number of refugees is on the increase, and conditions have become horrific.
The Russian leadership refuses to react to any of this. The real victims are now civilians, not the terrorists, as they call the Chechen rebels.
It seems more and more likely that this is all part of the Russian election campaign.
Those responsible for the explosions in Moscow have not been found, or have at least not been charged.
This amounts to pulverisation of a nation, and I believe we should become more seriously involved, in order to make Moscow listen and take heed.
This is something that cannot be tolerated.
Mr Speaker, our group supports this report.
Cooperation between the EU and Russia should be continued and developed.
The agreement now under discussion will provide a better framework than ever for this.
The cooperation process has been slowed down by the fact that it has become fragmented and is being administered by many different authorities, especially on the Russian side.
The agreement now under consideration will bring the widespread cooperation activities within the sphere of a more effective coordination.
I would like to emphasise the importance of cooperation, particularly in the field of environmental and climatic research, and within the framework of information technology and telecommunications.
The cooperation that takes place in these areas also reflects positively on Russia' s neighbours.
Through techno-scientific cooperation we can also promote the exploitation of natural resources of North-Western Russia, which are of great importance for the future development of the economies of both Russia and the EU.
At the same time, I would hope that developing techno-scientific cooperation will direct practical cooperative projects to the right places and improve, inter alia, the implementation and success of the research framework programme and projects funded through the TACIS and the Interreg programmes.
Practical projects must be coordinated more efficiently; they must be increasingly target-oriented and their timetabling and scheduling improved.
We must also see to it that projects that have been started are brought to a conclusion within their allocated time span.
We must also insist that the Russian side adhere to their part of the project.
In recent years, many projects have been implemented ineffectively, they have dragged on for an unreasonable long period, and some of them have even been abandoned.
To a certain extent, this has detracted from the interest in practical cooperation with Russia.
The results of research work must increasingly be utilised for improving the environmental conditions and economy of Russia.
I believe that the cooperation agreement will further the implementation of these objectives.
Mr President, contact between scientists is important for the development of our civilisation.
I therefore fully agree with Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl and with the subsequent speakers in essence.
But I would nevertheless like to express two very specific reservations that I have.
We know that the nuclear aspect is excluded from this agreement.
Negotiations on this are taking place within the framework of Euratom.
A great deal of uncertainty remains in this respect, despite agreements between the Commission and Parliament - the KEDO agreement which is due for renewal.
Pursuant to this KEDO agreement, Parliament should be kept abreast of the state of affairs within the Euratom negotiations.
This was not the case.
The Chairman, Mr Westendorp, has therefore written to Mr Lamy whose reply was received today.
In his reply, he wrote that negotiations started in 1994 regarding the nuclear segment and nuclear fusion were completed but not signed.
We can only guess why.
There are formal objections, according to some.
But we do not really know what is behind all this.
Official confirmation from the Russians is pending.
Furthermore, and this is something new, investigative talks on cooperation are said to be taking place regarding the trade in nuclear material.
You will understand that we are very concerned about this in our group and that this is raising further questions.
The ambiguities in the field of the nuclear segment and our concern with regard to this would, in fact, be sufficient to formulate a reservation and to say, for example: we want both finalised simultaneously.
But these days, there is an even larger problem looming. It has also been touched upon by previous speakers.
Incidents are taking place in Chechnya which are forcing us to rethink.
In view of the fact that Russia continues to terrorise Chechen citizens with bomb attacks and traps people, men, women and children like rats, we cannot sit by and watch or look the other way and preach business as usual.
The European Parliament needs to give a clear signal in the short term.
Pressure on Russia must be stepped up so that it respects the human rights in Chechnya.
We demand this as emphatically as we did for Kosovo.
We condemn the Russian military intervention and the humanitarian crisis it caused.
The fact that the civilian population cannot even take refuge flies in the face of all international rules.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to consider and ask you to consider with me whether we should formally postpone this vote tomorrow to allow us to present our opinions tomorrow.
Mr President, I believe that cooperation between Russian and the European Union is one of the most important conditions for creating peace in the twenty-first century.
This involves working towards cooperation from which both sides can benefit.
Russia will always be one of Europe' s main providers of raw materials.
That is why this is important for us, as we can only maintain our own prosperity by seeking such cooperation.
And of course we also have to consider, no matter how masochistic this might perhaps sound, that in the long run we will also have to offer fair prices for raw materials.
We cannot, of course, ignore Chechnya.
It represents a vital issue and an enormous challenge.
We should remember that it was precisely these Caucasian territories round the Caspian Sea that were the cause of conflicts a hundred years ago, because they were geographically strategic, just as they are today.
After all, these events shaped the twentieth century as we know it. I believe that this area, research, provides a way of defusing one of the main causes of such conflicts - the battle for raw materials.
So the research aspect here is also very important as regards renewable energy sources.
My next point is that the non-nuclear component of these research projects must be given clear priority. We have seen what is happening on the nuclear side.
We need to be aware whenever we are considering Russia that it represents one of the most important challenges for the next century in terms of strategic geography.
Mr President, I would first like to thank Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl for her fine report.
I think that you covered all the essential points.
I would just like to confirm that a very important aspect of this agreement is that of mutual interest, unlike in other agreements, such as TACIS, which are unilateral assistance projects
As far as women are concerned, we agree entirely with the Commission' s report of February 1999 on Women and Science, and we will ensure that we encourage the presence of women in the fifth framework programme.
Finally, you rightly spoke of the issue of private companies, and we also feel, as you do, that the presence of companies in the project for collaboration is a central element for the whole framework-programme and which is particularly important in this kind of agreement.
Of course there is also the question of the summary document on the different points that have already been made in terms of information.
I believe that you have already received a series of particular items of information, but I shall shortly be sending you a summary document, which will give an overview.
As for the more specific question on nuclear power and Mr Lamy, you know, as Mrs Maes alluded to it, that Mr Lamy has today sent a letter to the Chairman of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, Mr Westendorp, in which he sums up the situation and in which he says quite clearly, and I am answering Mrs Maes at the same time, that we do not yet have the official confirmation from Russia which we need in order to proceed to the signing of the decision of 12 December 1994.
Thus, as far as the answer that Mr Lamy has just given you is concerned, it is the Russians who are holding up this agreement.
I would also like to tell other speakers that electronic resources, both for information and for communication, are heavily used by researchers, and that they already use them as much as they can.
This use must obviously be developed even further.
This will moreover contribute to a greater exchange of information and of developments in common.
More fundamentally, as far as the political issue that has been raised over Chechnya is concerned, I obviously share your questions and your distress, but the question is this: until now, the European Union has neither suspended nor curtailed its diplomatic relations with Russia, because we feel that we must always maintain channels for dialogue with Russia in order to get our messages across, including those which express our concern about what is happening in Chechnya.
I would, moreover, like to remind you that the Union, through the Finnish Presidency, informed the Russian Government and its Prime Minister, Mr Putin, of its deep concern, at the European Union-Russia summit of 22 October 1999.
This is why, in this matter, whilst sharing Parliament' s concerns about the gravity of the situation in Chechnya, neither do I think, and I fully understand your position on this matter, that this agreement is the best way to show our concerns and our questions about what is happening.
Like all of you, I have been affected by the events that have taken place.
I think that this agreement is of great importance for dialogue and for the promotion of cooperation in the area of technological research and development.
This agreement is therefore a positive thing.
It has been questioned, but we think that it will be a positive step in our relations with Russian researchers, and from there, towards the construction of the best possible area of freedom and trade.
Thank you, Commissioner Busquin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
EC-Argentina scientific and technological cooperation agreement
The next item is the report (A5-0047/1999) by Mr Linkohr, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Argentine Republic [COM(99) 0292 - C5-0040/99 - 99/0125(CNS)].
Mr President, fortunately we do not have the same problem with Argentina that we have with Russia or China.
I am happy to say that Argentina has put its military past behind it.
It is now a democracy - to be taken with a pinch of salt, perhaps, but a democracy.
That is why as rapporteur I would also like to recommend that we include the democratic aspect in this scientific and technological cooperation, by which I mean that Members of Parliament from Argentina and also from the European Union should discuss research and science topics and perhaps point the way to the future.
In recent years, Argentina has made efforts to increase public expenditure on research and technology, but it remains at a relatively low level.
0.5% of GDP is spent on research. That is far too little, even if, within Latin America, it is still one of the top-spending countries.
But that is no way to approach the twenty-first century.
Cooperation between Argentina and the European Union is therefore also a way of encouraging Argentina and other Latin American countries to increase the amount they spend on investing in future.
It is no secret that Latin America' s share of world trade - and thus Argentina' s share - has fallen significantly over the last 20 years.
This is associated with a lack of investment in the future.
We are witnessing a flight, not only of capital, but also of people educated either in these countries or in Europe or in the USA, who have left their country and sought work elsewhere.
In this respect - let me repeat this - cooperation with Europe is a form of encouragement to take the same approach as we do, that is to invest in the future.
Nevertheless, the funds involved are meagre.
In my report you will see a summary, provided by the Commission, which indicates that Argentina received EUR 18 million under the fourth framework programme of research. This consisted of nothing but small, yet very interesting programmes.
EUR 18 million is not a lot!
If you have that sort of money available, then you have to try to use it to attract larger sums.
I would like to encourage the Commission to consider using these modest sums to encourage private companies to invest more in research in Argentina, and, once again, in other Latin American countries also.
I have a figure in front of me which I find encouraging - and it ought to be extrapolated to the whole European Union: Germany' s chemical industry spends DM 12.3 billion a year on research and development, added to which there is DM 5 billion for research abroad, generally in the USA in practice, but also in countries in Latin America and elsewhere, and you will see that there are more and more investors in the research sector.
If you extrapolate that, European industry as a whole may be investing DM 20 billion or EUR 10 billion in research activities outside the European Union, and if the funds the European Union is making available here could be used to attract private research funding also, that would be a benefit, and would mean that countries like Argentina would not be just tantamount to extensions of Europe' s workshops, but could also participate in research and development themselves.
I would like to encourage the Commission to adopt that approach.
The committee for which I am rapporteur will approve that.
In addition, just as with China, I would like to remind you that research with these countries - with Argentina and other countries - is a two-way street.
We benefit from it too.
Given that this year is the two-hundredth anniversary of Alexander von Humboldt' s journey to Venezuela, I would like to recall that Alexander von Humboldt did not just take something out there - his curiosity - but he also brought something back, namely knowledge about tropical plants and about the geography of this interesting continent.
On that note, I also hope that research cooperation with Argentina and other countries will benefit the people of Europe, the European Union.
Mr President, the report by Mr Linkohr is really good and I am therefore very happy to congratulate him.
The European Community and the Republic of Argentina have a great interest in cooperating in terms of mutual assistance because, despite the fact that Argentina is a young country, I believe that it is very important that this Latin American area should be fully associated with the fifth framework programme for technological research and development.
I agree with the rapporteur that this form of cooperation must be promoted in the Latin American region as a whole and that we should provide impetus for the negotiation of the agreement with Mercosur, an agreement which - I think we have to accept - I believe has come to a bit of a halt or, to put it another way, has not proceeded at the speed which we expected in 1995 when we approved it and when the Agreement on Interregional Cooperation was signed between the European Union and Mercosur in Madrid.
With regard to other possible forms of cooperation, we must follow a logical order of priorities, starting, as proposed, with member countries of the said area, that is to say, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, and then moving on to their associated countries - Chile, Bolivia, etc - with which, as we all know, the European Union is discussing an interregional association.
I would also like to highlight the fact that we are looking at a good example of how a country which has still not achieved its maximum level of development will commit itself to a sustained form of growth which respects the environment through the use of renewable energy, by means of this agreement on scientific and technological cooperation.
Finally, I believe that it is very important to establish these regular contacts between the European Parliament and Argentina, not only in this area, but also in the economic, social and cultural fields, since it is an obligation of the European Union to consolidate our presence in that country with which we Europeans have so much in common.
I would like to thank Mr Linkohr for his significant report on this cooperation agreement with Argentina.
In fact this is the first agreement concluded with a Latin-American country and it fits perfectly within the guidelines for cooperation by the Union with countries with emerging economies, as laid down in the Commission' s communication in 1996 on this matter, and put into practise in the fifth framework programme.
Until now, as you pointed out, Argentinian researchers have only benefited from cooperation projects established in areas such as nutrition, health or the environment.
This agreement will enable both parties to exploit all the potential for advanced research skills in countries in terms of sustainable development, as has been pointed out, but also, as you can imagine, in the area of the specific Energy-environment programme, in the area of renewable energies, bearing in mind the commitments made in Kyoto.
We will also ensure that this constitutes a starting point for negotiations with other countries in Latin America.
I am able to inform you that preparatory work on the agreement with Brazil has already reached an advanced stage.
But as you pointed out, perhaps we should extend the issue to the whole of the Mercosur zone.
Next, as I indicated in my general presentation, it goes without saying that Parliament will be kept fully informed of developments arising from this agreement.
One final remark by way of a conclusion.
An important aspect of the Union' s cooperation with the countries of this region is, as you have pointed out, the interregional dimension.
In the projects undertaken until now, the emphasis was on the development of projects in collaboration with other Mercosur countries, an association in which Argentina plays an important role and is thus a sort of bridgehead for us to reach other countries in Latin America.
This aspect will thus continue to be the object of particular attention in terms of the Union' s relationship with the countries in this region.
The Commission, as well as Parliament, will be particularly attentive to it.
Thank you, Commissioner Busquin.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
Information on fuel economy in new cars
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0040/1999), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Directive on the availability of consumer information on fuel economy and CO2 emissions in respect of the marketing of new passenger cars [C5-0037/1999 - 98/0272(COD)] (rapporteur: Mr Sterckx).
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the UN Climate Convention in Kyoto, the European Union accepted a target to reduce CO2 emissions by 8% by the year 2012, relative to emission levels in 1990.
If we now know that cars are accountable for 12% of these CO2 emissions, if we know that people who buy cars are completely unaware of the fact that the car is a polluting tool and to what extent it does pollute, although, for example, they do know what the maximum permitted level of alcohol in the blood is or I know that if I buy a car which uses three litres per 100 km then this is quite an economical car, then it is a matter of urgency to make the consumer aware of car pollution.
Only then can we ensure that the European Union will yield results when reducing CO2 emissions.
We have to impress on people that, at the moment, we emit an average of 186 grammes of CO2 per kilometre by car and this must be cut down to 120 grammes per kilometre.
So one way or another, we have to drum these grammes per kilometre into people.
How will we do this? The directive proposes we provide information in four different ways.
Firstly, it is suggested to introduce labels for new cars which specify information such as fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
Secondly, we can compile a guide containing this information on all new models, which also includes a top ten of the most economical and environmentally-friendly cars.
A third suggestion is to display posters in showrooms with a list of data for all models on display and lastly, the fuel consumption and CO2 emission data should be included in advertisements for new cars.
At the Commission' s proposal, the European Parliament submitted a number of amendments during the first reading.
We have noted that the Council has incorporated a large number of these in its common position.
Parliament had requested not to mention fuel costs.
The Council went along with this.
Parliament had also requested to make a fuel consumption guide available on the Internet and at European level.
Again, the Council agreed.
Mentioning CO2 emissions explicitly, as was suggested by Parliament, has also been complied with.
There are two other points which the Council seems to have accepted to some extent, and one is that there should also be a "top ten" per category of cars.
Although the Commission has stated that this is a complex issue, the Council still requests that the Committee concerned with the revision of this directive should look into this and get on with this categorisation exercise.
A second point relating to the revision is that Parliament had requested that the directive should also apply to second-hand cars, managers' cars and cars registered for the day.
Upon revision, it is possible to include second-hand cars, according to the Council. Again, Parliament' s request has been met to some extent.
Since the Council' s stance is so close to that of Parliament, I would recommend swift action, not tabling any amendments and approving the common position now so that, by the end of next year, the directive can enter into effect.
I think this is rather more important than trying to achieve perfection in every last detail which would not make any significant difference.
The Committee on the Environment has supported this proposal unanimously.
This does not mean that we think this regulation is now perfect.
A number of observations made by Parliament are important, however.
From the very outset, it was clear, for example, that complete harmonisation was impossible.
As such, the Member States can elaborate on the provisions set out here.
We would ask the Committee to ensure that the internal market is not disrupted.
That on the basis of best practices in one or more of the Member States, the provisions in this directive are applied in a manner which is as uniform as possible and that red-tape is avoided for manufacturers or sales outlets.
I would like to put forward another three points.
Parliament had also requested if it could be borne in mind that air-conditioning or other additional equipment can increase pollution levels, that the legal responsibility of manufacturers and dealers should be delineated more accurately and that, as such, managers' cars and cars registered for the day should be included.
The directive is a mere starting point.
We now have to gather experience.
We need to find out whether the environment is really an argument for the consumer when they are buying a car, i.e. whether they decide in favour of an environmentally-friendly rather than a less environmentally-friendly car.
When the directive is evaluated, we will need to decide whether adjustments need to be made.
The intention should at any rate be to reduce CO2 emissions as efficiently as possible and to act swiftly.
This is why I would like to ask Parliament to adopt this directive.
Mr President, there are many factors which purchasers may wish to take into account when choosing a model of car.
When I bought my first car my primary consideration was to be noticed in it by the opposite sex.
Now other considerations such as safety and economy are more pertinent.
We welcome this legislation because it is important that the information outlined is made available to those purchasers for whom environmental and economy considerations are paramount.
People in the United Kingdom are particularly interested in fuel economy because of the punitive fuel tax levels set by our Labour Government, which particularly pose problems for people living in rural areas like my own where public transport is often non-existent.
My first reaction when I saw this directive was surprise.
Not only have we had such a scheme of publicising fuel economy data for some time in Britain, but most people assume that the existing scheme is the result of a European directive already.
In fact only Sweden and the United Kingdom have such a scheme.
It is good to see Europe following Britain' s lead.
The key to the success of the United Kingdom' s scheme is simplicity.
I hope that the directive, as outlined in the common position, does not confuse consumers by going further than our scheme.
My first concern is that there is flexibility for Member States to extend the information available.
Whilst I realise that there are subsidiarity implications for this flexibility it is also true that by having different information and different formats in different Member States this could distort the single market and confuse consumers who wish to buy in different states.
Secondly, the directive proposes to compile a top ten list of vehicles according to class.
How does one define these classes? If it is based on the footprint of the car then we could see small saloons, four-wheel drive vehicles and two-seater sports cars listed together, clearly a nonsense.
It is also possible that a manufacturer could move a model up to a class containing larger vehicles simply by adding 15 cm of plastic to the front.
Top ten rankings may also differ in neighbouring countries.
In welcoming this scheme, I hope that when it is reviewed in 2003, if any of the problems I have mentioned have arisen, these can be addressed.
Finally, I congratulate Mr Sterckx on the way he presented this to the committee and for his cooperation.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this directive forms part of the EU' s overall strategy for reducing CO2 emissions from transport, which is based on four pillars: consumer information, covered by this directive, tax incentives at Member State level, monitoring CO2 emissions from cars and the agreement between the Commission and the car industry.
The directive does not entirely match Parliament' s expectations in all areas.
Nevertheless, I can go along with the rapporteur, and would like to thank him for his work.
We want to see this directive implemented as soon as possible.
That is why we do not want a narrow-minded debate here today.
For example, we could talk about whether we need realistic values, as everyone knows that air-conditioning or independent vehicle heating has a huge impact on a car' s CO2 emissions.
Another obvious question is why, when someone from Denmark buys a car in Germany, or someone from France buys one in Italy, they do not get the same information about its design. But we can put that to one side for now.
We want to have the directive as soon as possible.
I would, however, like to say something about the centrepiece of the strategy - the voluntary agreements between the Commission and the car industry.
If we really end up with 140 g in 2008 as intended, that would be excellent.
However, and Parliament has already expressed its opinion on this at various critical junctures, there are certain risks.
Parliament, and in particular of course the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, which was responsible for this, was not exactly pleased that it was not involved in the work on the negotiations and the agreement between the European Union and Japanese and Korean manufacturers.I think, Commissioner, that once again you clearly need to find a modus vivendi to make sure that the legislature - Parliament - is in future properly involved in the voluntary commitments.
The directive before us allows consumers to buy a car not only according to its horsepower, but also its CO2 emissions, by referring to a "top ten" list.
While in Bonn people are trying to shirk their responsibility and avoid reducing CO2 emissions, we here are doing things properly, establishing law and giving consumers the option of cutting CO2 emissions themselves!
Mr President, firstly, I would like to express my great satisfaction with this initiative, which is clearly an important step in the direction of transparency of information with regard to the environmental characteristics of cars and, in this respect, it will aid consumer choice.
Nevertheless, I would like briefly to refer to the factor which gives rise to this directive: the energy efficiency of cars.
This doubled, effectively, between 1973 and 1986.
Consumption decreased, during this period, from 17.8 to 8.7 litres per 100 kilometres.
During this same period, the stricter provision of equipment contributed to a 4% saving and the use of a lighter chassis led to the remaining 96%.
Nevertheless, since 1986, fuel efficiency has increased by a mere 10%.
In our opinion, this is due to the fact that technological development systems used in the car industry impede global improvements in the product as a result of the high level of specialisation of companies' R and D laboratories.
These laboratories - which are often physically a long way from each other and lack a coordination and communication strategy between them - invest a lot in improving very specific features of cars, and very little in improving the car as a system for moving from one place to another.
To this end - and since directives such as the one which we are discussing today have been very well received - I believe that the European Parliament must promote and support initiatives which are aimed at an integrated product policy in which the R and D in design, in this case of cars, receives all the attention it deserves.
I believe that unless we deal with production in an integrated way, that is, from the moment that the car' s raw materials are selected, through its manufacture, the production process, the use and finally the recycling and final disposal of the car when the buyer is no longer using it, we will never really manage to introduce measures which are genuinely significant in the field of reducing green-house gases.
I think that only in this way will we ensure that the car stops squandering between 80 and 85% - just imagine! - of the energy before it even takes to the road.
Therefore, I believe that this list we are talking about of the ten most efficient cars could also be, if we carry on like this, the list of the least inefficient, and in no sense will it be the list of the best.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for about two years now, ever since the Kyoto conference, we have been discussing how our commitments to cut CO2 emissions can be transposedinto European law.
Consumer information and awareness-raising are the third pillar of our strategy, alongside the environmentalagreement with car manufacturers and tax measures.
I believe that the common position submitted to us by the Council fully addresses this third requirement.
It is well balanced and takes account of the main requests made by the European Parliament at first reading - let me say that again, the main points.
Because we should be really grateful to the Council, and I am not just saying this to get a laugh, that so many of Parliament' s requests from first reading have been weeded out, given that they were adopted in a fit of over-zealousness and did not have my approval.
Mr Lange, I hope you will not take offence if I say that this request regarding petrol and fuel consumption in independent vehicle heaters and air-conditioning units is one of these.
If we start trying to limit that certain level of luxury, that element of quality that people have become accustomed to, we will just irritate consumers. We should not be deterred by this.
That is why I am happy that this directive is now somewhat clearer and that requests like this have been taken out.
I think that we should limit our legislative texts to essential and comprehensible points, and that also applies to this directive.
This is all the more relevant given that in future we will increasingly have to deal with complex and technical subjects.
In Strasbourg we have plans for a similar directive on just such technical processes.
The directive we are discussing is certainly an important part of our strategy for combating CO2 emissions.
However, I think that a certain scepticism about its effectiveness is not out of place.
I have my doubts about whether publishing consumption and exhaust gas figures will really influence consumers in their purchasing decisions.
Consumption figures are important anyway at a time of rising petrol prices.
In order words, customers will inform themselves out of pure self-interest.
I also believe that mentioning CO2 emissions has more to do with awareness-raising. For me, that is also one of the key points of this directive: raising consumers' awareness of the problem, so that they worry a little more about reducing CO2 emissions when it comes to their favourite toy, their car, and so that this becomes part of their way of thinking.
Because if we are really to achieve Kyoto' s ambitious targets, then we all need to get involved, not just governments!
So what am I driving at here? As the legislature of the European Union, we will in future continue to have no option but to set clear limit values and time limits for achieving significant reductions in emissions.
Some Member States have limited ambitions in this respect.
I believe, Commissioner, that we still have some persuading to do together.
Finally, I would like to thank the rapporteur for taking on this report.
I am very grateful to him for that and he has our support.
I do not think there are any more problems!
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the objective of the common position before us is to provide potential purchasers of new cars with information.
They need to know what the fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are.
Great!
Tables, advertising brochures, guidelines, tips, that is all marvellous and Parliament adopted 29 amendments, of which 14 have been included in the common position.
I would like to take the liberty of praising the Austrian Presidency a little, because I think they were the ones who made this happen.
I also totally agree with the rapporteur when he says we should not waffle on!
We should accept the wonderful job done by the Council and make sure that it comes into force as quickly as possible.
As someone has already said, there are few of us left, it is late, and we are tired, but perhaps we should nevertheless look at the facts of the case, which are that CO2 emissions from private cars are constantly rising, and will continue to do so.
So we should not act as if we have saved the planet here today!
We certainly have not.
We missed the boat long ago - or rather we missed a lot of cars.
We will not save the world with this directive.
It is necessary, it is important, and I am delighted that we have it, and perhaps we will all have a bit less of a guilty conscience the next time we get into our cars, but we should not imagine that we can really save the world with such minimal measures, even if there are a great many of them.
We need action of a quite different kind for that. I wonder if we will ever adopt a directive along those lines!
Mr President, I want first to address the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and, of course, Mr Sterckx, and to praise the latter for his work on this recommendation for second reading and, above all, for the fact that it has been shown in this way that work can be done quickly and efficiently.
Mr Goodwill has gone out now. Otherwise, I should have wanted to say that the goal must be for environmentally friendly cars also to be able to impress the opposite sex.
We hope that, one day, this will be the case and that there will be good grounds for maintaining that the car concerned is environmentally friendly.
We support the rapporteur' s recommendation to accept the present common position without further changes.
It can also be seen from the recommendation for second reading and from Mr Sterckx' s intervention that the common position takes account of many of the European Parliament' s points of view.
We consider that consumers should be informed systematically and without unnecessary delays about the fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of new private cars.
In this way, consumers can be helped to make the right decisions.
True, this is not going to change the world but it can be a small move in a larger strategy.
Just as Mrs Flemming said, there is certainly a need for further measures in the future.
We followed the discussions in committee very carefully. Even though there were some proposals as to how one might be able to improve the common position, rapid implementation was considered to be the most important thing.
We are well aware of the fact that, in its current version, the directive is only the first step on the way towards a situation in which the consumer is better informed.
Here are two examples by way of illustration. Firstly, we intend as soon as possible to develop the directive further by applying Article No 9 in connection with the inspection process and Article No 10 in connection with establishing the relevant committee.
The Commission' s officials are at present working on the implementation of these articles.
In the course of the work, we shall in, all probability, be returning to some of the Committee' s remarks.
Secondly, the Commission also has plans to create an Internet page with information about the fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions of private cars for sale within the European Union.
This demonstrates that we want the consumer to have this information as soon as possible.
I want to say to Mr Lange - and this is in fact not the first time we have discussed this - that I take this question extremely seriously.
We must look again at the issue of how the European Parliament is to be involved and also kept informed about the work on voluntary agreements.
I also want to remind you that the European Parliament, the Council and the Association of European Car Manufacturers all maintained that it was a matter of urgency to reach agreements with car manufacturers which are not members of European associations.
But, as I say, I take the European Parliament' s points of view seriously.
I also want to say that I have no plans to introduce proposals for further environmental agreements as long as the issue of the European Parliament' s involvement has not been solved.
Finally, I just want to say that the Commission is pleased that the common position received such a warm welcome from the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
We hope that, at the plenary part-session, the rapporteur' s recommendations will be complied with.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11.00 a.m.
European internal market
The next item is the oral question (B5-0032/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, to the Commission, on the Commission Communication to the European Parliament and the Council on the Strategy for the European Single Market.
Mr President, Commissioner, this is not the first time that I have taken the floor in this House to speak in my capacity as a citizen and would like to say that, for me, the most important thing is to speak as a citizen on behalf of the citizens.
And normally I have spoken on reports which affected the citizen' s main concerns: the issues of the third pillar, that is, justice and internal affairs.
But today, reminding you of something I said here during the last part-session - after Tampere the European citizens have received the message that Europe is no longer just a market - I would like to say loud and clear that, with this strategic document on the internal market which has been presented to this Parliament and which I am speaking about today, the citizen is going to have a clear idea of the coherence of that market and the fact that the ultimate and main protagonist of that market is the citizen.
The ultimate and main protagonist of the internal market is the citizen and the small and medium enterprise.
Why is there any confusion? It is clear: the internal market is a wonderful achievement, a success story, without any doubt, but it is not perceived as such by the citizens nor small and medium-sized enterprises.
Today the impression is still that the internal market is the concern of the multinationals, the major companies, the bureaucrats, Brussels, the technocrats who are far from the concerns of the ordinary people, where many initiatives pile up on top of one another without order or harmony, with no guiding ideas, which, in many cases, are perceived as one more nightmare in the onerous task of living in a developed Community or having a small or medium-sized business.
I believe, Mr President, that it is not only a matter of refuting the idea that everything bad in the Member States comes from Brussels and everything good comes from the governments.
It is not only that.
It is something that goes much further.
Until now, there has been a lot of very good legislation with very clear consequences, but it has been done without a strategy.
Now the strategy is here and the importance of this strategy is fundamental if we want the citizen to see that the internal market is not just a matter of legislative acts which relate to the four freedoms, but that it affects them fundamentally.
Therefore, congratulations to the Commission and, naturally, we offer our unconditional support to this idea which seems to us, in Parliament, to be very interesting and deserves to be developed.
Now for our wishes.
Firstly, this Parliament wishes to be closely involved with each and every step in the process which is planned for the internal market, with the selection of strategies, the selection of second level objectives and the selection of specific objectives.
We also wish to be closely associated with the balance given to legislative and non-legislative actions.
We are in favour of non-legislative actions, since often legislation is not necessary given that sometimes "soft law" is enough, but these initiatives should not cause us to lose sight of the fact that we must avoid the false idea of harmonisation and we have to avoid legal insecurity, as well as false expectations about the internal market.
The same thing happens with the choice between harmonisation and mutual recognition.
We also believe in the need to establish a fair balance and Parliament hopes that its points of view will be fully taken into account.
And with regard to the citizens' more specific ideas, we are very much in agreement with this general strategic objective, but we want the citizens to understand their rights better and above all to be able to exercise them in a clear and concrete way.
We want more efficient and clearer systems for the settlement of disputes which would be better if they were extrajudicial as well as judicial, and all the better if self-regulation policies are created to discipline those markets.
And, of course, we want the four freedoms to be fulfilled.
We want the fourth freedom - the free movement of persons, which stands between the internal market and the policies of justice and internal affairs - to be a reality.
We want, above all, Commissioner, to insist on legal security and, to that end, we are calling upon you to develop an initiative - which is lacking in your strategy - for the creation of a genuine administrative procedural law for all types of infringement procedures, for all the procedures which involve the citizens.
To sum up, we want Europe to speak with a single voice with regard to the internal market and to act as a model - why not? - in international relations.
And to this end we need a clear legal framework, a legal framework for the internal market, with principles, which radiates into other policies and by means of which the citizens may have a clear idea of what has been done over the last 50 years and which now, through these initiatives, we believe will have an absolutely guaranteed future role.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mrs Palacio very much for giving me the opportunity of enlarging upon the strategic plan for the internal market and also for the preliminary remarks she has made.
I would also like to thank her for the congratulations she has extended to the Committee and, indirectly, the services which fall under my remit.
The action programme is now behind us.
What we need next is a strategy.
The Commission' s announcement combines a strategic vision for the long term and priorities for action in the short term.
The strategy should provide a coherent framework for policy development.
The aim is to enhance the internal market' s efficiency, benefiting both citizens and businesses.
We need to make all interested parties, citizens, consumers, small and large businesses realise that the internal market is a good thing for them, that because of it, the conditions can be created for a thriving business world and a competitive position which focuses more on the challenges of globalisation.
Also, and this might be an even bigger challenge, we need to convince the consumer that the internal market opens up a wider range of goods and services at lower prices without putting safety and quality at risk.
The integration of fifteen national markets required a new legal framework, a framework which is supported by nearly 1,500 directives at present.
This work is on-going.
There will always be new decisions.
A number of important measures are currently being discussed by this Parliament, for example regarding e-commerce.
Your question, Mrs Palacio, highlights, however, quite rightly so far as I am concerned, the increasing significance of measures and initiatives of a non-legislative nature which need to ensure that the agreed rules function well in practice.
The specific actions are not static or long-term.
They will be reviewed annually and replaced as soon as they reach completion.
It is essential that Parliament is involved in this revision in the capacity of co-legislator.
Actions will be adapted and adjusted largely on the basis of the scoreboard of the internal market which is compiled twice-yearly by the Commission and also on the basis of the Cardiff report on the operation of product and capital markets.
Also, the Council' s conclusions concerning the Cardiff report, with regard to which agreement will be reached during the Internal Market Council of February or March, will make a huge contribution.
Input from Parliament running alongside this would be ideal.
Admittedly, the deadlines are short.
The Cardiff report will be published in mid-January.
The Commission will need to table its proposals for new specific actions by April.
But I am convinced that your institutionalists are up to the task.
Measures of a non-legislative nature encompass a wide range of activities.
There will be areas where the Community, invariably the Commission, will be in the forward line and three elements, by way of example, will prove to be useful in this.
Firstly, the dialogue with Europe' s citizens and industry which provides information on the precise way in which rights can be exercised.
Secondly, simplification.
Initiatives, such as SLIM and the business test panel are intended to lighten the administrative load for industry.
Thirdly, promoting a common European administrative culture with high levels of services for the European citizen.
We need to encourage national officials to exchange good practices and solve problems swiftly and informally, thus obviating the need for legal remedies.
The position of Parliament which is, of course, aware of the needs among citizens and within industry, is essential.
I would like to emphasise this point.
I promise that I will inform Parliament, maybe through its committees, of the development of this type of initiatives right from the start.
Another form of non-legislative measures which can underpin and reinforce the operation of the legal framework is self-regulation or, better still, an approach in which regulation and self-regulation are integrated whereby many aspects are laid down in the legislation and alongside this, many groups of interested parties offer solutions upon joint consultation.
It is only starting to dawn on us what scope this approach gives us in the fast-moving area of e-commerce, for example, with regard to on-line complaints procedures.
It cannot be left to the legislator, the Union or the individual Member State to deal with these issues.
We have to join forces with those who have most involvement: consumers and industry.
Parliament is ideally positioned to initiate the discussion on initiatives of this kind, probably mainly to highlight the concern of the ordinary citizen whose voice is not always heard in Brussels.
Finally, the new institutional equilibrium established by the Treaty of Amsterdam, requires that Parliament, the Council and the Commission cooperate in the field of legislation.
I hope that the strategy for the internal market will allow us the opportunity to extend this cooperation to the preliminary stage when the priorities for action will be established and to the implementing stage when it is to be ensured that rules function fully.
I herewith conclude my response to the question raised by Mrs Palacio.
Mr President, perhaps you will allow me to say a few words more at the end of the interventions to complete my contribution to this debate.
Thank you for your time.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank the Commission for bringing this paper to Parliament so speedily and for informing us about its strategic intentions in such detail.
Although it is a very general paper, it is still important.
The internal market itself is a wonderful thing, and has enabled us to make a lot of progress in Europe but, as Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi said earlier, it has not been such a success with consumers and the public as it should have been.
That is why there really is scope for improvement in our internal market policy.
In particular, I consider it to be very important - and this is also made clear in a motion for a resolution which we have submitted today - that in future, internal market legislation should be more coherent than it has been in the past.
In my experience over the last five years in this House, the approach adopted has, unfortunately, always been a rather piecemeal one, failing to recognise links with other legislative issues.
In my experience this has also applied, particularly so in fact, to consumer protection legislation, where there have very often indeed been discrepancies between various directives, between various pieces of legislation at European level.
For instance, this applies to specific cancellation deadlines and periods of protection for consumers: these have frequently been different.
In some cases there are deadlines or periods of seven working days, and in others just seven days.
In the end nobody knows where they stand any more.
This is just one example of a lack of consistency where more needs to be done.
In any case, I believe that it was a mistake that at the beginning of the last parliamentary term the old Commission did not continue with the work on a European Contract Law - which Mr Lando and his commission had begun - despite the fact that Parliament had made funds available for this.
We very often have a problem with internal market legislation these days in that there is no framework, no common structure for legislation.
I think that a process of rational, scientific advance preparation would have helped to ensure far more coherent internal market legislation today.
I therefore very much welcome the fact that the Commission has addressed the issue of coherence in its paper.
Commissioner Bolkestein drew attention to the need for this at the joint meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs in Strasbourg.
I also feel that the special attention being paid to improvements in judicial cooperation is extremely important.
Without better judicial cooperation, and if consumers are unable to have their rights guaranteed within the internal market, the internal market loses half its potential value.
I am not enthusiastic about everything in this paper and in the motion for a resolution before us today.
For example, let us take the case of the requirement in the paper that a package leaflet should in future be used to remind consumers of their rights. I think that is rubbish, to put it mildly!
There is a big difference between going into a chemist' s and buying a medicine there, with a full explanation of any risks, and simply buying a normal product on the market.
I do not think it makes sense to explain every consumer' s rights in a package leaflet.
I would also like to make a few comments about the amendments tabled on this motion for a resolution.
The Socialist amendments are largely unacceptable to the PPE Group, in some cases purely and simply because they are very Socialist!
Amendment Nos 7 and 8 are just two examples of this.
I think that not even Gerhard Schröder or Tony Blair would be very enthusiastic about these amendments. Neither are we!
In addition, there are also any number of amendments that look reasonable at first sight, but which we actually consider to be out of place in this paper on internal market strategy, as they relate to social issues and should be dealt with elsewhere.
For that reason, we will not be voting for those amendments either.
Finally, let me say something about that old chestnut "Do we want more harmonisation or do we want mutual recognition?"
You really have to answer that question on a case-by-case basis.
The principle of mutual recognition often has advantages.
But in cases where it is no longer practical because the systems are just too different, the only way forward is then harmonisation.
So it is not possible to settle this issue as a matter of general principle - a decision really has to be made in each individual case depending on what is at stake.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that in the world of politics - I am sorry to say this - politicians always find it more attractive to come up with new ideas and at least launch their initial implementation than to complete and improve on existing, tried and tested concepts that do not attract so much media attention!
I believe, therefore, that we should be all the more grateful to the Commission for not treating the internal market like an old hat that just has to have a few dents knocked out now and again, but rather as a project that constantly requires new political initiatives.
With this in mind, I welcome the Commission communication on the European internal market which we have before us.
I also consider that the four strategic objectives have been very well chosen and the right method has been adopted for evaluating and monitoring them.
Nevertheless, I think that I can allow myself a few constructive criticisms.
One of these relates to the structure of this communication.
I must confess, even though I am by no means a totally inexperienced Member now, that the complexity of this communication, with its strategic objectives, operational objectives, target projects, legislative and non-legislative measures, makes it really hard to follow and to grasp what the Commission is trying to convey to us.
I hope that the European citizens whom the whole thing is ultimately intended to help can make more sense of it.
I also think that the Commission is in places too polite when it comes to identifying obstacles standing in the way of the internal market today.
It seems to me that the Member States' responsibility should be spelt out more clearly.
The communication also fails to address the system under which the European Parliament is tied in with the procedures and the tight time framework of the so-called annual cycle, to ensure that Parliament' s rights are fully respected.
In this case it seems that the schedule is dictated more by the Council' s timetable.
I also hope that the procedure under which we have had to consider this particular communication here in Parliament is not to be a model for future procedure. I say that, Mr Lehne, because it is precisely on account of this procedure that we have not had an opportunity to discuss amendments in committee, and that we have had to follow a procedure not at all typical of this House.
I believe that we should pay more attention to the fact that the internal market and other EU policies have, to some extent, led to developments which the public regard as absurd or off-putting.
Some product components are nowadays transported thousands of kilometres across Europe, only for some of them then to be returned to their country of origin. Not only are significant transport costs incurred, but there is something wrong about this whole system, for example with the export refund system or the marking of regional origin system.
If, in this day and age, the very same pesticide attracts 20% value added tax in one Member State and just 3% in another, whilst fully complying with the sixth directive on value added tax, something is obviously wrong!
We should not wait for the great day of fiscal harmonisation to dawn, we should do something about this with all haste.
I am presenting this as evidence that we urgently need a new strategy for the internal market.
Mr President, I thank the Commissioner for his good lead to us in bringing forward this clear, rational strategy document that helps us to see how the Commission means to bring forward the internal market strategy.
Thanks also to my colleague Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi for having made such an excellent job of putting together thoughts in a motion for a resolution on this strategy.
We are very happy with that but we will suggest one amendment: to clarify the position of artists in the Community, in particular in the areas of freedom of movement, establishment and taxation.
In the main paper we are particularly attracted - as are others - by the emphasis on the need for a coherent approach to Internet regulation and e-commerce; also, intellectual property, distance selling and data protection - taking them all together in order to protect consumer rights and ensure adequate rules of viability.
Naturally, in our group, we want to see that the achievement of the internal market involves a balance - as you said yourself, Commissioner - between market freedom and the need to protect the environment, consumer health and consumer confidence.
I should also like to mention our sense - like yours - that the ordinary citizens need to see an increase in the speed and efficiency of infringement proceedings against defaulting Member States where the rights of European Union citizens exercised within the internal market are impinged upon or denied.
I am very upset, as a member of the academic profession, to see yet again the issue of foreign language lecturers in Italian universities coming forward without yet a resolution after eleven years, after three judgments in favour of the rights of these ordinary citizens seeking to exercise freedom of movement, seeking to take advantage of that fundamental principle of the Union and the internal market of no discrimination on nationality grounds.
It really is disgraceful that this issue still remains open.
I hope that the Internal Market Commissioner and his colleagues will make it their urgent business to bring this to an end.
The Commissioner has shown himself wise and far-sighted in his strategy document.
I trust and am sure he will show himself no less resolute in pressing home cases which have to be brought to a conclusion speedily.
Mr President, the internal market idea is based on doing business in a competitive environment without confines where the same rules apply for everyone: a level playing field.
But I increasingly notice that the interpretation and enforcement of legislation in the internal market differs quite dramatically from country to country.
One country enforces nothing at all, whilst in another country enforcement weighs very heavily on industry.
Even the understanding of the outcome which needs to be achieved by means of a certain law can be totally different from country to country.
I can list many examples: the fresh meat directive, the liberalisation of telecom, environmental directives or the directive concerning slaughterhouses.
Customs offices too interpret EU decisions completely differently.
What can be done in one country is completely inconceivable in another.
A source of discrepancies are the minimum and maximum harmonisations.
On account of the uniform outcome, I would prefer maximum harmonisations in future, such as in the case of the directive on distance selling or even mutual recognition.
Any other approach will ultimately lead to a situation which covers so many variations that it will appear as if there has never been an internal market.
The postal services directive will prove my point.
In the Netherlands, we naively believe that the directive is one on liberalisation.
This is completely refuted by the French Secretary of State.
The aim of the directive is to protect public property.
This will lead to a situation where the Dutch postal services will be extremely vulnerable to take-overs but the money involved will be earned in a monopoly.
Indeed, Commissioner Monti stated that it has never been verified whether the ban on cross-subsidy is observed when making purchases.
There can be very harsh penalties indeed for Member States and companies if European legislation is observed.
Fair competition is difficult, especially if one time-sharing company observes the legislation but another one does not, for example, and nothing is done about it.
Since this would obviously create an excessive amount of work for the Court of Justice, the Commission is planning to grant national judges power to rule on exemptions within the framework of article 85, para.
3. I can assure you, Commissioner, that judges in Naples and Frankfurt will interpret the article very differently indeed.
I believe in the internal market, but I am very concerned because I am convinced that the market is threatened in its very core by a lack of uniform enforcement.
There are too many different transpositions of directives, and as you also point out in your strategy, too many cases of non-transposition and non-enforcement.
You mentioned the SLIM programme, but Commissioner, the SLIM programme is completely ineffectual.
Simplified old legislation has a discouraging effect on companies which already comply with old legislation.
And what you do is to reward companies which never comply with legislation.
I do not think that we could subscribe to this.
Besides, SLIM does not even work in itself.
Enforcement is the priority.
Mr President, with this document, the Commission has tried to show courtesy towards us.
In a short space of time, the Commission and Commissioner Bolkestein have presented us with this communication on a strategy for the European internal market.
Now, as Mrs Wallis has highlighted, the problem is that we are acting at breakneck speed, perhaps because we have little time and we have to move quickly.
Clearly, the Commission has had little time to draw up this document, and we have had even less time.
Tomorrow we are going to vote on a motion for a resolution.
I believe that the Socialist Group will vote in favour of it, but it has introduced a series of amendments which, as you might expect, reflect socialist thinking.
And here I would like to point out to Mr Lehne that, without doubt, he has not read the Commission' s strategy if he thinks that social considerations were left out of it, because the strategic objective number 1 which the Commission has set is to improve the quality of life of our citizens.
And within this strategic objective, we should achieve, amongst the operational objectives, the promotion of employment and ensure the coordination of social protection and the broad protection of our citizens' rights.
Therefore, the socialist amendments aim to fill this particular gap.
And among the socialist amendments, there is one, which Mrs Wallis highlighted, which points out the special position of the outermost regions, which are totally separated from Community territory, a long way from it and which therefore, in the application of Community law, in accordance with the new article 299.2 of the Treaty, cannot be subject to the same regulations which are in force in the internal market in continental Europe.
I totally agree with Mr MacCormick' s observations on the situation of artists, which would have to extend to the whole field of intellectual creation, which suffers from a deficit within the European Community, especially in the field of external competition, and I also agree with his observation concerning the need to guarantee the free movement and free practice of the intellectual profession within the European Community.
And I would also like to point out that Mrs Peijs is very right to say that one of the difficulties which we have today in the Community field is that Community law is interpreted and applied in a different way in each of the fifteen Member States.
The problem is that the Community has to legislate because, if it does not legislate, the States will legislate for it.
At the moment, we have a broad set of Community regulations, fifteen sets of national regulations and in many cases, for example in the federal, or almost federal, States, many more.
If the Community does not regulate, if the Community does not provide a legal framework, this will continue along the worst lines possible.
I hope, therefore, that after this first Commission communication, the Commission will present Parliament with a strategic programme, with the necessary legislative package, with more time for the Commission and more time for Parliament, but I also hope that, during this legislature, the internal market will become a reality and that, in becoming a reality, it will do so to the benefit of the citizens and the workers and that it will allow for the continued consolidation of this European social model, which I would say at the moment is the envy of those countries which do not belong to the European Union.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the Commission.
The strategic document which has been submitted to us certainly represents an important change in the single market and extends and consolidates the idea of a single market which is one of the main cornerstones of the construction of Europe.
Among other things, it gives us a glimpse of a series of scenarios where the single market is certainly also the bearer of new freedoms and opportunities for the citizens.
I do not want to dwell on some legal subjects which have already been dealt with sufficiently by Mr Lehne and Mrs Palacio.
I would instead like to talk about some political matters which have not yet been fully addressed by the document but which, I am sure, will be the subject of a debate in Parliament, because it is through these matters that the idea of Europe is developing.
Firstly, there is the question of how we are going to create a real single market where the States are currently tending to implement protectionist measures - we have seen some cases, even recently and how the Commission intends to make the best use of the infringement procedure, speeding it up and encouraging the citizens and their associations to report the breaches of Community law which occur daily in the various Member States.
A second area is the use of new technologies.
The European Union must provide a direct legal framework to allow the free movement and free provision of services and avoid conflicts and obstacles to free movement caused by too great a divergence in the legislation of the various countries of the Community.
The directive on electronic signatures will definitely be followed by directives on e-commerce and copyright in the information society and on consumer protection in distance selling of financial products and other kinds of products.
All the European institutions will have to be vigilant so that consistency of the common legal institutions is guaranteed.
In these areas, a fair balance between public regulation and self-regulation of those concerned will allow the market to function without infringing citizens' or consumers' rights.
Besides, these new technologies require consumers' trust in order to be fully used.
Giving your credit card details must not and cannot involve a risk.
Now we come to a third subject: how the Commission intends to act in the progressive extension of the single market to the applicant states.
This must happen without calling into question the acquis communautaire and guaranteeing the albeit delicate balance currently in place.
Applicant states' national markets must become integrated into the Community market smoothly, and it will therefore be necessary to provide for any transitional measures which may be necessary where these countries are not yet ready.
Our goal, though, must be to help them be prepared right from the first day of accession.
One final subject: what does this document mean for international economic relations, which will soon have a crucial time in the Millennium Round.
We are living through a historic time which has no precedent and which calls for a far-reaching ability to adapt to changes, in order to prevent the European model leaving the international arena with its tail between its legs.
Ours is the time of interdependence. Different aspects of economic and social life at a global level are entwined together and with their respective interests.
Interdependence requires that diversities are taken into account, where possible, in the transition from plurality to unity, and it must be regulated by maintaining a balance in the relationship between the identities, diversities and co-existence of the models.
The inevitable confrontation with diversity requires the ability to adapt one' s own identity as far as is necessary in order to be able to compete on an equal footing with others.
So, in the sectors concerned with international trade, we are assessing how the mutual influence of systems on a global level is increasing with every passing day.
We know that the European model has already been taken as the basis of the transatlantic dialogue.
We must not allow our efforts to let us be conditioned by other models that are not our own.
Mr President, Commissioner, any consideration of this communication by the Commission which we are discussing today should take into account the fact that it is a document which is being presented at the same time that the new Commission is starting its work.
This consideration obliges us to highlight its positive aspects and, to a certain extent, avoid any negative comment.
It would be unjust, therefore, to describe the document as unambitious, but it would nevertheless have been justifiable to level this criticism at the document if it had been carried out by a Commission which had been in action for longer.
This situation cannot hide the fact however that this is really simply a document of intentions, which we take note of. Meanwhile, we will wait to see whether these intentions become concrete measures, commitments which involve a time scale for their implementation.
Then, and only then will we be able to make a more accurate judgement of the Commission' s intentions.
Amongst the aspects which warrant our special approval, is that of protecting consumer interests.
If anybody should benefit from the construction of the internal market, it is the consumer, that is, all of the citizens.
And in this respect, Commissioner, there is a phrase in the communication which worries us.
It says literally that "a more intense trade in goods and services between the Member States could lead to additional risks to the consumer" .
This phrase raises the question of the view of consumer protection as an inevitable requirement to impede the free movement of goods, within the meaning of the judgement on Dassonville, Cassis de Dijon etc.
In other words it leads us to the principle of mutual recognition, which seems to be very dear to Mr Bolkestein.
I would like my position to be very clear.
Mutual recognition is a principle which was important in preventing barriers to the free movement of goods, but it is only partially valid for the construction of the internal market in the absence of harmonised legislation.
In order to move forward with the internal market, it will be necessary to insist on the principle of harmonisation.
Once legislation in the field of consumer protection is harmonised, I would not be in a position to make such a statement.
This is a very important document and indeed I am sorry that there are not more Members here to discuss it.
The most welcome thing about it is a recognition by the Commission that we are moving now into an entirely new and different phase of the development of the single market from any that we have seen before.
The first point that I want to make echoes what a number of colleagues have said, namely that this strategy has to be responsive and flexible.
The corporate by-word now is about reinventing corporations, reinventing what we do.
And of course the sort of new technologies available to businesses and consumers that many of us have referred to tonight are going to be the engine for making the single market develop even more quickly.
Really the question I pose to the Commission tonight is whether this strategy is not in fact not ambitious enough.
I really echo what my Socialist colleague said a bit earlier because we have to consider the newly emerging electronic technologies as being the engine of creating the single market.
One of the things this strategy has to do is to really encourage businesses and consumers to move and adopt the new electronic commercial technologies as soon as possible because of themselves they will be what creates this single market in the future.
I remind you, ladies and gentlemen, in reflecting on that, that as empowered consumers start to adopt this technology, that many of the barriers that are put in their way at the moment, the legislation for example on commercial communications, on the way that goods can be presented to customers, are going to become redundant.
The messages that come directly to people into their homes are not going to be subject to the extraordinary array of diverse and intrusive in many cases regulations affecting commercial communications in the European Union at the moment.
In future we must trust consumers, we must give them information, we must empower to use the information at their disposal and they will be the people that will bring about this single market.
There will be new generations of new small businesses coming into existence to exploit and develop that technology that will be there to service these consumers.
The second point that we must consider is encouraging the development of these new businesses, to encourage new entrepreneurs, to make sure that the traditional ideas of the European social model that Mr Medina referred to earlier do not in fact inhibit the development of making Europe the place that is going to have the sort of energy and excitement that we see currently in the United States in adopting these new technologies.
So, in welcoming this, I ask the Commission to think about the next step forward, to encourage new technologies and encourage consumers and businesses to use them.
Mr President, many thanks for allowing me to speak for the second time this evening.
I would especially like to thank the Members of this Parliament who have postulated their ideas this evening, as well as their criticisms regarding the document which is tabled for discussion this evening.
I will try to respond to a few points in more detail.
I will probably not be able to deal with all the points in detail, but I would like to stress, for the benefit of the Members of this Parliament, that both my colleagues and I have carefully taken note of all the points brought forward and I would like to underline that we will make every effort to incorporate the ideas and thoughts prevailing in Parliament into the document at issue this evening.
I would also like to thank the MEPs who have expressed words of appreciation for the Commission and who have welcomed this new strategy for the internal market.
The Commission is very grateful. The Commission is new in this legislature.
We have tried our best to work as fast as possible to submit this document to Parliament, thus enabling Parliament to give its opinion at the earliest opportunity.
Needless to say, criticism can be levelled at many points and this is what some representatives did.
But I do not agree, on the other hand, with Mr Medina Ortega, who remarked that the internal market should become a reality to benefit all European citizens.
The internal market is a reality.
The internal market exists and all European citizens benefit greatly from this in the form of low inflation, low pricing and the large choice of goods and services which they want to buy.
In other words, I would like to say to Mr Medina Ortega: the internal market is a reality which benefits everyone, especially the consumer, albeit that they may not be sufficiently aware of this.
As far as this is concerned, it is up to both the Commission and the MEPs to make this even clearer to these consumers.
A number of representatives, not least Mrs Palacio, have mentioned what is termed these days as "soft law" .
In other words, these are not legislative instruments but instruments which relate to the use of the mutual acceptance of standards with regard to issues such as "peer group pressure" and to the adoption of the best working methods from other Member States.
This is a key element of this communication.
We are indeed making efforts to this effect and, as such, we are drawing on the original methods used to complete the internal market, namely the 1992 project by Lord Cockfield.
There are indeed many advantages to the mutual recognition of standards and we would like to continue in the same vein.
It is definitely the case that there is a difference between harmonisation and this mutual recognition of standards.
As far as this is concerned, I share Mr Lehne' s view of assessing on a case-by-case basis whether harmonisation or mutual recognition of standards should be applied.
Although it is something that has to be assessed case by case, I would like to stress - the proposed resolution, in fact, deals with this in one of the sections - the great importance of the mutual recognition of standards because they work faster, are more flexible in this fast-changing world and because they make sure they meet the requirement of subsidiarity.
This is something Mrs Wallis remarked on.
I could not agree more.
The right balance needs to be struck, of course, between harmonisation on the one hand and the principle of subsidiarity on the other.
I think that the mutual recognition of standards meets this requirement.
According to Mrs Berger, the structure of the document was somewhat chaotic.
I am pleased that Mr MacCormick claimed the opposite.
After all, he spoke in English about a "clear and rational document" .
These are, of course, two conflicting opinions.
My own opinion is that the document is well-organised.
There are four strategic objectives, each of which is split up into three, four, five or six operational objectives.
And then, of course, there are still those objectives which require a practical plan of implementation.
So with the best will in the world, I cannot see why Mrs Berger claims that the structure of the document is chaotic.
She does seem to cut ice when she advocates involvement of the European Parliament in the annual cycle set out in the document.
This to my mind is a very important point.
I would also like to stress that, every year at the appropriate time for this, the Commission will gladly listen to the remarks and ideas put forward by the European Parliament when, in the course of its annual cycle, it can once again examine the actual target actions close-up and substantiate them further.
We find the involvement of the European Parliament a matter of the greatest importance.
This is not only because in the European constitution, Council, European Parliament and the Commission form the three corners of the triangle which is to decide on all of this in a balanced way, but also because the representative body of the people that is gathered here is clearly best suited to interpret the opinions of Europe' s citizens, which is what it is all about, thus enabling the Commission to draw the right conclusions.
I would, therefore, like to impress on Mrs Berger and other Members of this representative body that we will listen very carefully to the opinions expressed by Parliament when, in the future, they are put forward once or maybe twice a year or through contact on a smaller scale with the Commission.
I would, furthermore, like to respond to the remarks made by Mr MacCormick on artists.
I recognise that Mr MacCormick has a valid point when he highlights the situation of travelling artists within a European context - i.e. those working in different countries such as, for example a concert pianist or a dance group - when he highlights the predicament of those who create and propagate the arts.
I myself would like to make an effort to raise the issue of the freedom of movement within the European Union but also to provide an improved basis for taxation.
But, as I am sure Mr MacCormick will agree, this is not easy.
There is no European income tax at the moment and it is not likely that there will be any in the foreseeable future.
This might be a good thing but, in any event, I share Mr MacCormick' s opinion that the tax situations of artists working in the different Member States require attention and I am quite prepared to look into any objective suggestions made.
As for lecturers at Italian universities of non-Italian nationality, I can inform Mr MacCormick that it so happens that I signed a letter on this matter today, addressed to an MEP who had lodged the same complaint.
As far as this issue is concerned, we are aware and it is in hand.
Mrs Peijs distinguished between minimum and maximum harmonisation. She stated that she much prefers maximum harmonisation.
I agree, in principle, with Mrs Peijs.
Ideally, we should agree on a maximum level of harmonisation throughout the Union and each country should observe this.
There is, of course, room for defensible exceptions to the general principle.
Think, for example, of the social standards which are higher in some countries than in others. If we consider that some standards to safeguard, defend and protect the environment are higher and more stringent in some countries than in others, then surely we will not prevent these countries from exceeding the generally accepted standard.
Indeed, my starting point coincides with that of Mrs Peijs.
I too favour maximum standards, but we cannot prevent countries from going beyond the generally accepted standard in some areas.
As far as this is concerned, I think we need to try to strike the right balance between the internal market on the one hand and requirements with regard to the environment or social standards which exceed the general norm on the other.
She also spoke about the postal services directive, which is a very important point.
My department and, indeed, I myself, are examining how we can move this issue along.
It may be premature to give details at this stage but I do agree with Mrs Peijs when she says that it is by no means an ideal situation that companies are bought by certain postal services which have a monopoly position, in other words that some companies are bought by those bringing about a monopoly-like situation.
We do not welcome monopolies being used to purchase companies which are in the same line of business but which are independent.
Because then this is a clear indication that the liberalisation of postal services has not gone far enough, or at least that this liberalisation is not applied correctly by some postal companies.
We have to be very mindful of this because once again, we cannot accept this and this is also one of the reasons that I hope, in the not too distant future, to propose further ideas on how the postal directive can be further detailed.
I will skip over Mrs Peijs' observations on the decentralisation of decisions in terms of competition, but not because I do not want to discuss them.
In the dim and distant past, I myself have been involved in policies on competition in the capacity of minister in the Dutch government. Not wishing, however, to encroach too much on the remit of my colleague, Mr Monti, I will not go into this issue any further.
She closed her intervention with the words "enforcement is the priority" .
I agree with Mrs Peijs on that score.
To draft a policy is one thing, to enforce it is quite another.
This is, of course, also one of the key points of this document of the new strategy, namely that we acknowledge that legislation has been laid down in broad terms but that it is now a matter of implementation, enforcement and monitoring this implementation, so as to enable the Commission to lend its support to the correct implementation of provisions of the internal market by means of infringement procedures.
My penultimate remark concerns an observation made by Mr Berenguer Fuster, where he states that consumer protection should not jeopardise the internal market.
The document that we submitted and that is being discussed this evening, attempts in fact, in the first strategic objective, to create a balance between the internal market on the one hand and the protection of consumer and environment interests on the other.
We have made this attempt and hope that we have succeeded to some extent in creating this balance and hence in preventing the protection of consumer interests from jeopardising the internal market.
Because the internal market, of course, is also there for the manufacturer and industry although it mainly serves the consumer.
In other words, if consumer protection were to be detrimental to the internal market, we would shoot ourselves in the foot and this is not what we want.
And I believe that is not what the Members of this Parliament want either.
To finish off, Mr President, I really valued the observation made by Mr Harbour.
I know that Mr Harbour applauds the document on strategy with regard to the internal market.
I would also like to thank him for attending last Friday' s hearing. In fact, Mrs Palacio gave a very valuable general introduction to that end and I would like to thank her too.
Mr Harbour stated that the internal market should mainly be responsive and flexible, in other words should accommodate the requirements of the consumers and of the citizens of the country in question and should also be flexible.
I could not agree more.
We live in a world which changes at high-speed.
The new electronic gadgets used in business are well-known, are gaining in popularity and create their own problems.
The Commission should react to this.
Will you allow me to impress on Mr Harbour and, in fact, all Members of this Parliament that it is the ambition of this Commission to be responsive and flexible, so that we can indeed, bearing in mind consumer interests, meet the needs at the time as flexibly as possible.
Mr President, I hope I have not spoken for too long.
I thank you for your patience and that of the Members.
I would also like to thank them for their attention.
It would be a pleasure, should opportunity allow, to have a further exchange of ideas with this Parliament on this important topic.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
I have received a motion for a resolution, tabled in accordance with Rule 40(5) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 10.05 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I have wanted for a long time to comment on the bell which summons us to meetings.
We are very glad that it is rung, but is it necessary to ring it for several minutes at a time so that we get sick to death of hearing it?
Would you mind telling the department concerned to ring it in small doses.
Mr Haarder, as you know, it only takes a few minutes to decide on important strategies but we need more time for small matters.
You raised this issue during the last parliamentary term too.
We shall see if we can do something about this.
As you know, Mrs Flemming, it is not the bell that makes Members hurry here, it is whether or not there are going to be votes in the House.
In this case no votes are envisaged, and consequently several Members are working in their offices.
Mr President, I only wanted to ask Mrs Flemming not to call me "no one" !
Your clarification will be recorded in the Minutes.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I refer to Rule 43 and Annex II on the time periods for submitting a question.
I had already raised this point and the President has kindly sent me a reply which, however, I do not believe conforms to the Rules of Procedure because, if the Rules of Procedure says one week, then one week cannot be understood to mean seven working days. Seven days can mean seven calendar days or seven working days, but a week cannot mean this, just as a month, or a year, for example, cannot be considered to mean 365 working days.
Moreover, the deadline is fixed for the Thursday of the week before the week when the question will be discussed, but given that the questions are discussed on Tuesdays that makes eight working days, in which case the time period is exceeded however you interpret it.
Then, in my case, the question would have been discussed on the Wednesday. That would have made nine working days.
In any case, interpreting the Rules of Procedure should not be the responsibility of the Bureau - here a meeting of 22-23 November 1979 is referred to - nor of the Bureau at the suggestion of the President with the agreement of the leaders of the political groups as decided on 19 November 1992.
There is only one body in Parliament, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, which can decide on the interpretations of the Rules of Procedure.
Therefore, I would like to ask, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, for the matter to be referred to the competent body.
I think that the President will certainly welcome your proposal.
In this way, there will be a response that is sure to satisfy both yourself and the rest of us.
Employment
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A5-0045/1999) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Decision establishing the Employment Committee [COM(1999)0440 - C5-0173/1999 - 1999/0192(CNS)] and on the proposal from the Commission: Guidelines for Member States' Employment Policies 2000 [COM(1999)0441 - C5-0147/1999 - 1999/0816(CNS)];
(A5-0046/1999) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission' s draft Joint Employment Report 1999 [SEC(1999)1386 - C5-0215/1999 - 1999/2139(COS)].
Mr President, the employment guidelines for 1999 emphasise that a concern with equality must permeate all action plans and measures which are proposed under all four pillars of the EU' s employment strategy.
So far, the results have been meagre.
A very limited number of measures concerning equality have been introduced.
Few (albeit some) budget resources have been made use of, and few quantitative objectives have been established.
European women earn, on average, 76 per cent of men' s hourly wages, and their employment rate is approximately 20 per cent lower than men' s.
It is not enough to make sweeping commitments concerning equality under the fourth pillar in the employment guidelines. What, instead, is required are clear references under all four pillars.
The opinion I have formulated on the report will ensure that a concern with equality permeates the employment guidelines for the year 2000.
Most of the proposals which I and the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities have submitted have already been adopted by the Committee, but a small number of central proposals were not adopted, namely Amendment Nos 37, 38 and 39.
These are now being submitted by a number of groups.
These proposals require the Member States to undertake to achieve a balance between women and men in any decision making, to ensure that there are as many female as male candidates for committees and working parties within the EU, to improve labour market legislation so that it reflects women' s needs and problems, and to ensure - not least - that those who draw up the guidelines for national employment policies are trained in such a way that they might more effectively integrate a concern with equality into their work. Finally, annual quantifiable objectives are to be introduced in the Member States.
My opinion is entirely in line with the Amsterdam Treaty which attaches much more importance to equality than did the Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Rome.
Above all, the Amsterdam Treaty describes the achievement of equality between women and men as one of the EU' s central tasks.
Discrimination against women in the labour market is not only non-productive but prevents the development of women as individuals, of women as a group and of society as a whole.
Mr President, I would very much like to thank the rapporteur and this is not just a formal thank you.
He managed to complete an extremely difficult report and a highly important task under adverse circumstances.
I believe that the report as it stands now is basically sound.
There is, of course, always room for minor improvements.
But this, of course, also holds true for what the Commission submitted to us.
I would like to make two observations in this context, not so much regarding the Menrad report but regarding the report issued by the Commission itself.
Firstly, I very much approve of the Commission rating the Member States.
I know that Member States sometimes have difficulty taking the feedback on board but it is very important that this is done, because this spurs them on to achieve greater things than if there were no assessment.
Secondly, I do feel that there is something missing from the Commission report, namely the demographic aspect.
This aspect can be split into two components.
The first is demography in the actual sense of the word and the second is the impact migration and emigration have on the labour market.
Although there are statistics available for this, which are, in fact, also prepared by the Commission, these guidelines fail to take adequate account of them.
I would actually like to ask the Commission to reconsider this in future because this is such an important issue.
Then we had a long chat about the amendments in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
There were dozens and dozens of amendments, a large number of which have been resolved.
I regret that these amendments have nevertheless been resubmitted, especially since those submitting the amendments largely agreed on the Menrad report.
In particular, I am bound to say, when I hear my predecessor, Mrs Theorin, that I happen to know that the rapporteur has made every effort to incorporate as many amendments as possible, but it is no longer the case that all amendments as proposed, even if the same idea is repeated two or three times over, should all be included in a report.
We now have slightly different proportions of majority in this new Parliament.
It is unacceptable that if the socialist group feels that certain amendments need to be incorporated that these should be automatically included in each and every report.
We should take a vote on it in that case.
Quite frankly, the way the negotiations have been conducted, especially by Mrs Theorin, has caused some resentment and unnecessary friction with regard to this report.
I hope that this will no longer be the case in future so that it will be easier to reach the intrinsically sound outcome of the Menrad report.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the European Commission' s Joint Employment Report clearly shows that the European employment strategy is slowly paying off.
Good progress has been made especially in cases where the Member States have reached clear-cut and common agreements.
But there is certainly no cause for resting on our laurels for the time being.
There are still too many long-term unemployed with no real prospect of finding jobs.
Women and the elderly often do not fare well in that same job market.
Jobs are still badly distributed and investment into services is still very much lacking for example.
What is more, there are alarming signs that the process which has been in place since Luxembourg is now grinding to a halt due to a lack of European convergence strategy.
Not all Member States have expressed the same enthusiasm to continue with this process.
We were therefore disappointed, Commissioner, to see how the proposals with regard to the new employment guidelines 2000 put forward by the previous Commission were lacking in ambition.
There has been no added pressure in this respect but perhaps we need it.
My group is not asking for new guidelines either.
What we do need is to add substance by setting clear goals in the existing guidelines.
I would like to take this opportunity of thanking the rapporteur for his cooperation.
It was hard work.
We had to work fast but I should add that I regret that my group failed to reach agreement on a number of our high-priority points within the Committee and that we have therefore decided, Mr Pronk, to resubmit these amendments as we consider them to be essential.
I think my group is entitled to this.
I would like to point a few things out.
Firstly, under no circumstances should we restrict the European employment strategy to mere following-up of what is happening within the employment policy at national level.
As far as we are concerned, the European Union should take the matter into its own hands and push for change.
This is why we would like to see greater substance added to the employment guidelines by setting specific, measurable benchmarks at European level.
We noticed that a great deal of progress has been made in cases where the Member States had agreed on joint benchmarks, for example with regard to the integration of the young unemployed.
Consequently, my group would propose three new European objectives for the next couple of years.
First of all, it seems important to us that we should reach an employment level of 65%.
This was the gist of Jacques Delors' White Paper and it was, in fact, also the text of the previous Commission in 1997 before the Committee on Censorship apparently took action.
Secondly, we would also welcome benchmarks for the long-term unemployed and for halving the gender divide. Both long-term unemployment and the gender divide between men and women should be halved within the next five years.
A third important remark regarding our employment strategy is that we should be careful not to fall into the American trap where work and social security are played off against one another.
We are therefore hoping to create a link within the employment guidelines between creating new chances for the unemployed and new jobs on the one hand and the quality of those jobs and social protection on the other.
As is the case with European Economic and Monetary Union and, in fact, as is now the case with employment, we are of the opinion that the Member States should be guided by the three most successful Member States.
So in actual fact we would like a social convergence strategy in addition to the employment strategy.
In so doing, we would like to make the fight against poverty our priority.
I have to say, it strikes me as almost incredible that this proposal to set up a Luxembourg process for social security has also been rejected by members of the PPE in the Committee, especially in view of the fact that it formed the very core of the Pronk report which we voted on in the previous Parliament.
In my opinion, those who take the employment and social security issues seriously should perhaps finally take a stance on the matter.
Parliament got involved in the process exceptionally late this year.
This was on account of the elections and the appointment of the new Commission.
But still, we have made some progress because, as the rapporteur has already pointed out, this year the Council officially asked us for advice for the very first time.
I urge us not to miss this opportunity of reinforcing the European employment guidelines and at the same of setting up a process of securing quality jobs and good social protection.
Mr President, employment policy is a national concern, and it shall remain so.
We in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party find therefore, that, with the employment package, a good solution has been found to the problem of how we combine the principle of subsidiarity with a desire to ensure that employment policy is properly coordinated.
The Member States' reports on how they are complying with the guidelines do not simply explain how the various countries are managing individually and in relation to the others but are also a source of mutual inspiration through which countries can learn about each other' s successes.
However, precisely how employment policy is put into practice is entirely a matter for the individual Member States.
A good deal of policymaking in the areas of employment and the labour market belongs at local level.
What is more, success in employment policy is crucial to sound development in the public finances, and it is reasonable to see the employment package and macroeconomic cooperation in an EU context.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party is not, however, in favour of the employment guidelines' containing demands that the various countries organise their employment initiatives in accordance with a specific template and in terms of heavy-handed numerical objectives.
The individual countries themselves should decide upon the priorities for their employment policies and, in this context, we in the Group of the Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party feel free to take pleasure in the fact that a liberal employment policy which is particularly concerned with securing the correct incentives in taxation and social policy has been proceeded with in most Member States in recent years.
In the EU countries, cooperation between parties in the labour market - in other words, the social dialogue - follows very different models characterised by different traditions and cultures.
This process is to be respected.
And it must also be ensured that the dialogue between governments and the social partners in the labour market does not overshadow the democratic process in the national parliaments and the EU Parliament.
I want finally to say that, in its report on employment, the Commission has made recommendations to the individual countries.
That is not unproblematic, and it is very important that the Commission should openly describe the assumptions on which it is making its recommendations.
Mr President, the European Union' s employment strategy states that the fight against unemployment is being taken into consideration in European-level policy. This is desirable in itself.
It is realistic. For the broad guidelines of economic and monetary policy have a real impact on employment at European level.
And it is desirable if we wish to curb the sort of competition which is based on reducing social aspects to the lowest bid and also the growth of inequality between regions and between social groups within the economic Union.
European employment strategy, however, in the form in which it has been laid down, has been progressively implemented since the Luxembourg Summit and is characterised by dubious ideological foundations and a not particularly dynamic conception of institutional practices.
To hear some people speak, you might wonder why we even need a policy on employment.
Yesterday' s debate on macroeconomic dialogue showed this: you might think that a policy of monetary stability would be sufficient.
No one has yet proved the validity of the premise that it would be enough to guarantee monetary stability and overall competitiveness for employment to follow.
Our last debate in Strasbourg on the subject of Michelin and the restructuring of firms was an opportunity for us to develop our doubts on the subject.
Once it has been said that European economic policy should have employment as its goal, once this is laid down in law and is proclaimed loud and clear, without ever checking the validity of the affirmation in a realistic and pragmatic way, then the subordination of the social to the economic is being written in the stone of the Treaties, finally reducing the social aspect to the task of managing each and every one of us in our competition for a place in a labour market which is getting tighter and tighter.
The result of this economics-based, minimalist approach is that any debate on the means of creating jobs, running counter to this liberally inspired dogma, is ruled out, virtually prohibited.
Is it conceivable that out of twenty-two guidelines on employment, there is not a single one on the effective reduction of working hours.
Not one is on public investment.
And even the mention of active support for local initiatives on employment is limited and any attempts to examine the quality and sustainability of jobs created are eliminated.
We have to deal with the figures.
It is essential to bring about a reduction in the number of registered unemployed in a Europe where the number of men and women living below the poverty line is itself not getting any less.
Before mentioning the proposals of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, let me express one fear.
Some circles in Europe appear to be overcome by a feeling of blind optimism, with their eyes riveted on the upturn in growth and only the officially recorded and registered unemployment figures.
A considerable number of political leaders seem to forget that many of the jobs created are temporary, part-time jobs, are not chosen, are generally forced on women, and do not always afford the people employed in this way wages which take them above the poverty threshold.
If we do not seriously evaluate the sustainable and qualitative nature of growth, there is a risk that we will underestimate the efforts which still need to be made in order finally to give the construction of Europe a social aspect.
This is why we think it imperative to evaluate the success or failure of European employment strategy against the yardstick of the indicators measuring concomitantly the numbers of registered unemployed, standards of living and the quality of jobs created.
It is only when we increase job security and reduce unemployment that we can see the European Union as representing real progress for its residents in terms of civilisation.
As far as the Greens are concerned, the selection of an ambitious European employment strategy should instigate a number of actions, most of which are currently ignored by the guidelines proposed by the Commission.
The commitments undertaken in favour of the young unemployed and the long-term unemployed must be implemented at a faster rate, it is true.
Job creation must be promoted by combining a number of policies supporting the development of sustainable activities.
It is fundamental that local employment initiatives are favoured, that the cooperative, mutual and non-profit sector is supported by being guaranteed a status, that the third sector is truly recognised, including by means of public financing, this form of economy emerging between the traditional public sector and the profit sector, based on the creation of socially useful activities.
Broad consultations and public debate must be undertaken in order to decide upon major public works: public transport networks, energy saving programmes, renovation and construction of housing, projects which create a great number of jobs and which benefit everyone' s quality of life.
Finally, working hours must be reduced, that taboo subject, which we are not allowed to discuss in Europe.
We must find the resources to specifically evaluate the initiatives to reduce working hours which are being implemented in any case, in an equitable or inequitable manner, more or less across the whole of Europe.
And to make real progress, we must really bank on the intelligence of the community.
It is essential to implement a policy whereby community projects and unemployed people' s associations are acknowledged.
It is necessary, at the very least, to preserve their rights to allowances and grants in full.
We urge that you give your enthusiastic support to two amendments contributing towards this, numbers 30 and 31, on which I shall ask the presidency for voting by roll call.
Finally, institutional practice must be changed so that we really bank on democratic debate and the commitment of all the parties involved.
We must find legal bases at the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference for the whole chapter of social and civil dialogue.
Mr President, unemployment is one of our really big problems in Europe.
Even if it is macroeconomic policy which is the most important factor, an active policy concerning the labour market is also very necessary. The labour market can no more chart its own course than any other complex systems can, but must instead be regulated and given direction.
It is just a question of how this is to be done.
In fact, labour markets in Europe all look very different from each other, and the conditions which need to be present before they can be directed and regulated vary from one market to the next.
In certain countries, levels of trade union membership are high.
There, the social partners in the labour market can themselves play the main role.
In other countries, it is the State and the employment agencies which play the main role.
Where future labour markets too are concerned, we must perhaps consider strengthening the rights of individual employees.
When the Commission and the Council now set about devising employment plans and guidelines, these national differences must be taken account of.
You can have common objectives, but the way of achieving these has to vary depending upon national and regional circumstances.
What is most important is that the actors at national, regional and local levels want to be involved in a constructive way.
There should not be any commands coming from Brussels. Instead, we must listen to the actors in the market and develop a dialogue.
I therefore think it is a good thing that the Commission has now seriously begun to emphasise the importance of local job creation.
I was very pleased to see that one of the main topics in the so-called employment week conference which is now going on in parallel with our own discussions is precisely the importance of local initiatives. This, then, is one of the main themes at this conference.
Whether or not the Luxembourg process functions effectively will depend in fact upon cooperation between local, regional, national and European actors.
Where this is concerned, I think that the planning and the tools need to be improved.
The Menrad report is a good step in that direction, even though I think that it largely accepts the existing form of planning.
In the future, we in Parliament must be bolder with our proposals and initiatives.
Personally, I think that the convergence philosophy ought to be replaced by an interest in variation, diversity, experiment and the mobilisation of local resources.
Workers should not be regarded as an abstract labour force but as active participants who are to be supported and strengthened by the planning process.
That is, in fact, much more important than individual detailed formulations in the written guidelines.
Mr President, the enactment of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May 1999 has certainly ensured that greater attention is given to the implementation of a common employment policy.
The central aspect to the implementation of new employment must be a need to guarantee a fair distribution of job opportunities throughout each Member State through the process of regionalisation and decentralisation.
This is only correct and proper in the light of the fact that 11 countries out of the 15 are participating within a common, single European currency regime.
This also takes into consideration the fact that within the workings of an internal market there are still many social problems which exist in both urban and rural parts of Europe and certainly in my own country, Ireland.
Unemployment is falling within the European Union and in Ireland it stands at a little over 6% of the population.
However, those people without skills seeking to integrate into the workplace have little or no chance of taking up remunerative and rewarding employment unless they learn a new trade or a different work practice.
National Member State governments must also take into account the provisions of the new European Social Fund regulations.
These regulations in essence will ensure that Member States support programmes that take account of the changing nature of work practices, the need to promote entrepreneurship, as well as supporting local job creation programmes.
This latter point is of particular importance to me and my constituents in the Province of Leinster.
Local job creation initiatives must be supported by national and European Member States.
Local communities, from the private, public and voluntary sectors must be allowed to pool their collective talents in an effort to create employment within the small and medium-sized enterprise sector in their respective areas.
That is why I supported the LEADER initiative both now and in the past and why I support the new EU EQUAL job creation programme.
This is also part of the process of decentralising the implementation of EU and national job creation initiatives.
The European Union and national Member States must implement programmes which take account of the ever-changing nature of employment, both in urban and rural areas.
This also means that we must address existing difficulties which act as an entry point for men, and particularly women, to take up jobs in the workplace, most particularly so in rural areas.
One such problem relates to the need to provide greater childcare facilities for women who take up jobs in rural parts of my country and indeed, throughout Europe.
From an Irish perspective I fully welcome the recent publication by the government of its White Paper on rural development.
The government fully recognises that a strategic programme must be put in place if more jobs are to be created within the small and medium-sized enterprise sector in rural parts of Ireland.
An intrinsic element of this relates to the need to put in place more expansive childcare facilities heretofore which simply have not been in existence.
The lack of childcare facilities is a very real and fundamental barrier to women taking up employment in the workplace.
Mr President, the employment policy is an issue with regard to which the European Union does not issue any binding legislation. And this should remain so.
Indeed, the serious problem of unemployment justifies an approach which creates optimum impact.
As such, the policy will need to focus on the local or regional job market.
This approach requires the guidelines to be broadly-based so as to give the Member States sufficient free rein in terms of policy.
The Commission' s plans to monitor the policy efforts and policy results at national level more closely are well-intended but will probably have the opposite effect, especially if this is done by means of a quantitative approach: counting the number of measures, aid schemes and employment projects.
Adding the numbers up in this way tells us nothing about the extent, quality and inventiveness of the policy measures.
Peer pressure amongst the Member States is better addressed by consultation on matters of content, exchange of good practices and focused recommendations which are really what the Member States need.
Could the representative of the Council explain how the guidelines fit in with other EU policy. Just before the summer, the Council turned down a regulation to increase the tax burden with regard to energy and to decrease that with regard to employment.
However, recommendation no 14 in the present guidelines recommends this very thing to the Member States.
Why do we have this conflicting approach?
Finally, I welcome the insistence on a more family-friendly policy in view of the individualistic tendencies which seem to pervade our modern society.
At the same time, I fear that as long as our culture adopts the idea that you only count as a human being if you have a paid job, we will be left fighting a running battle.
The emphasis on economisation within society and the introduction of market forces into virtually all social fields, in particular, have a family-unfriendly impact and put humanity under pressure.
I would ask the European Commission and Member States to undertake a radical overhaul of their policy.
Mr President, we are being called on to debate the proposal to establish an Employment Committee.
Often the establishment of committees is, in reality, a solution which is adopted in order to avoid addressing a problem, or when the ability, the power or the legal basis needed to address the problem is lacking.
I think that this in reality, the first issue we must address is who must decide on employment policies.
We have already said that the European Parliament was almost totally excluded in Cologne.
I think that at least, given that employment policies at European level are already policies that make suggestions, recommendations and push for coordination between the Member States - so there is no actual concrete, decision-making power, which, all things considered, I believe to be positive for the subsidiarity principle, although it is a somewhat limited power - Parliament should be fully involved.
However, a committee, an apolitical committee runs the risk of being a clearing house where there is the attempt to take the drama out of debates, to find alternative policies in the name of consensus, which is, of course, neutral and non-political, and which I do not think we can find when it comes to employment.
The system of committees, conciliation and social dialogue must not become a substitute for parliamentary prerogatives.
It must not become a substitute at European level, but obviously it must not become a substitute at national level either, because when we have social dialogue - which, in reality consists of dialogue between the large workers' unions, often in the more traditional sectors of the economy, and big business - it is often dialogue, cooperation and conciliation which result in the exclusion of those who today remain on the fringes of European economic systems, meaning the unemployed, immigrants and prisoners, and keep all those who are outside the system of guaranteed work outside the insiders' system.
And, in fact, there is something very important missing in the guidelines on employment policies, and that is immigration.
In reality we, like the European Union and the Member States, should find the courage to request and promote the entry of hundreds of thousands of people from outside the European Union, as this is the only way that we can fill the jobs with the highest staff turnover rates, because training the manpower, the current workforce in the European Union, is not enough.
A bold, active employment and immigration policy is what is needed to boost employment in the European Union.
Statement by the President
Mr President, I think the response to the investigation you initiated on the document which did not correspond to what had been agreed is just a little bureaucratic, in the sense that the matter which had been raised concerned a document which had been substituted without the knowledge of any of the signatories.
This was the issue, so the response has nothing whatsoever to do with the matter raised.
We are not going to reopen Thursday' s debate now. The response is the one I have just outlined, which recalls the terms of the inquiry which I had proposed and which everyone agreed to, which was carried out by the Secretary-General and which gave rise to this conclusion.
Mr President, is the text which has been presented as the compromise text to the Members of this House the same as that signed by the political groups, yes or no?
The answer is no.
Personally, I find it extremely dangerous that the presidency should be ratifying practices of this type which cast suspicion on the credibility and democracy within the sessional services.
I refuse to accept your assessment, Mr Flautre, and I would ask you to read the letter that the Secretary-General has given me.
You can read it, as can all the other Members, and I am sure that when you do you will rethink your last remark.
Employment (continued)
Mr President, I too would like to voice my appreciation of the rapporteur' s excellent work carried out in difficult conditions on a difficult subject.
Two circumstances have shown us that this is a difficult matter: an almost unanimous joint agreement on the urgency and importance of adopting efficient policies to combat unemployment and for this to happen within a framework where the necessary support for a positive economic process will safeguard social cohesion and the European social model.
That the conditions are complicated is shown by the way our agreement on these objectives often runs the risk of collapsing when it comes to establishing the solutions and strategies for action.
I will therefore concentrate on the things that I believe can be strengthened in the future and which can form one of the elements to be discussed in our debate.
Firstly, I think that, as regards supply policies to boost employment, our intervention, the joint intervention of the Community institutions of the Member States, is important but it is not enough.
I think there is insufficient coordination between the policies on labour, employment, and managing the job market and the policies which affect structural factors and in the macro-economic framework.
There is an insufficient level of structuring and investment in efficient Community institutions capable of managing these processes where it is not enough just to respect the competences and the prerogatives of the national States.
Regarding this matter, I would mention only one problem for the Members who, on the other hand, always show this sensitivity in particular.
We consider unemployment to be an evil to combat, certainly not a circumstance to exploit even in the competition between countries' economic systems and production systems for instrumental competition based on social dumping.
I have never fully understood what is meant when reference is made to a job with a social content but, on the other hand, I definitely do know that a perspective of increasing employment by reducing the fundamental safeguards and fundamental objectives of social cohesion is not possible.
Finally, as regards active policies on the job market, training and retraining, all important guidelines, I think the level of consensus is insufficient, even on credible gauges of the effectiveness of these policies within national plans on employment, with regard to which the whole range of Community Institutions is, in any case, committed to assessing the successes and results.
When we abandon compensatory policies and passive polices in favour of active policies, we cannot be satisfied by a casual use of words. What counts in gaining qualifications, training and retraining is action.
When talking about the suffering of millions of people, statistics are often deceptive.
We cannot allow them to be used as drunkards sometimes use lampposts - as support when they are unsteady, instead of to light up the way forwards.
Mr President, cooperation within the EU on economic policy has now been taken further.
EMU has been successful in the sense that, once the various countries had established common goals concerning inflation, interest rates and budget deficits, it emerged that coordination of this kind led to the objectives also being achieved.
Inflation is now low, levels of interest are low and budget deficits are either low or have disappeared altogether.
However, cooperation of this kind in the economic sphere is much too one-sided.
We therefore pursued the question of cooperation in the employment field too, with a view to its having the same importance as cooperation in the economic field.
This became possible through the Amsterdam Treaty and by the fact that the Luxembourg process had been set in motion.
Now we are to discuss the guidelines for next year, that is to say for the year 2000.
The Commission has no doubt been right to base these guidelines upon last year' s and to ensure that no unduly large changes are introduced from year to year.
We still think, however, that increased clarity in a number of areas would be no bad thing.
Let me mention a few such areas.
Firstly, there must be more coordination between the formulation of the economic guidelines and that of the employment policy guidelines.
Secondly, as Mrs Van Lancker also mentioned, we must have clearer objectives when it comes to increasing the level of employment and reducing long-term unemployment.
It is important that, in these areas, we establish objectives and have a system of benchmarking for the future so that we can achieve the objectives concerned.
I want, however, to concentrate mainly upon the social security systems.
In Amendment No 1, we say that we especially urge that a strategy be created for social convergence which is analogous to the Luxembourg process regarding employment and with the help of which it can be ensured that the goal of social cohesion is given priority in the development of economic and employment policies.
That is not the first time we have said this. Rather, this Parliament said much the same thing in connection with the Pronk report too.
It was sensible then, and it is sensible now, to support this.
Mr Pronk said previously that we cannot always support Social Democratic proposals.
No, I can understand that, but one might at least support one' s own proposals. Those which were sensible a year ago are just as sensible today.
What is the connection, then, between economic development, employment and the social security systems? In fact, there is a connection in as much as economic stability is necessary for an increase in employment, and high employment is necessary to safeguard the social security systems.
Finally, does this not conflict with the principle of subsidiarity?
The answer is no.
If we look at the way in which employment strategy has been formulated, the objectives are shared but policy is formulated at local level.
The same will be true when we aim at social convergence.
We shall establish a number of common objectives in terms of combating poverty, establishing sustainable pension systems, securing good health care for all and designing a system which stimulates employment. None of this conflicts with the principle of subsidiarity.
Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for his excellent work. It is imperative that we regard the irrefutable fact that unemployment has fallen by 10.1% to 9.4% as being a positive step forward and that we also regard the employment policy embarked upon by the European Union with its four fundamental pillars in the same light while adding to this linguistic training and the issue of immigration.
We also believe that we need to assess more thoroughly the creation of conditions at Community level whereby these processes can be monitored and regulated efficiently.
We also believe that Europe can and must do more, so that the Europe of the euro will be able to function if we construct a social Europe, a Europe of solidarity and a secure Europe with more incisive macro-economic policies, linked to structural reforms which will stabilise and reorganise the States' public finances.
It is true that employment policies are national policies, but it is also true that they must now be reproduced at European level, because only through conciliation and social dialogue will we succeed in consolidating the European Parliament' s power on employment policy, and this is the policy that will enable Europe, finally and decisively, to have a political, as well as an economic definition.
Mr President, Commissioner, the guidelines rightly stress employability, i.e. the possibility for job seekers to actually do the job they are applying for.
But we must never forget that this is just a possibility. Between this possibility and the reality of the job itself everything will depend on the state of job vacancies in society.
On this subject, the guidelines speak of enterprise spirit. They are right but, in order to flourish, the entrepreneur needs favourable policy, low interest rates, a competitive euro and, above all, he needs to know the relationship between a given business activity and the number of job offers.
This is the fundamental problem of the relationship between employment levels and growth.
You acknowledge that with growth at less than 2.4% there was no reduction in employment.
France is currently refuting this diagnosis thanks to its policy of reducing working hours, which is still too cautious.
Let us hope that this policy is intensified and that it is extended in a coordinated fashion to Europe as a whole.
Finally, there is one form of enterprise which is particular good at creating jobs; i.e. cooperatives, associations, the third sector.
This sector merits a special status, particularly as regards taxation, and this is the subject of the amendments which we are putting to you.
Mr President, Commissioner, paradox it may be, but the Menrad report has again brought unemployment to the fore within the European arena.
This is a bad time for employment in Europe, with seventeen million unemployed and sixty million people living in poverty.
If employment levels have remained identical to the 1994 levels within the Community, this is principally due to the massive loss of job security.
We are really far short of the target.
The Union needs to be ambitious in its employment policies, it needs voluntarist and binding policies, breaking away from the destructive rationale that is currently at work.
At a time when money should be used to meet the needs of men and women, the needs of society, the Michelin case is a symbol of the tyranny of the law of filthy lucre over the economy and over individuals.
The citizens of Europe are waiting for clear signals from Parliament.
In order to be effective, then, the guidelines should include quantifiable objectives enforcing job creation.
Reduction of working hours without reducing wages, without job flexibility or insecurity, should be the order of the day as we approach the year 2000.
The Union should be ambitious in using money in favour of employment, monitoring public funds awarded to businesses, with a credit policy which penalises destructive practices and promotes job creation.
Finally, declaring equal opportunities means that we must reject any form of discrimination against women, particularly with regard to wages.
Mr Menrad has done a good job in difficult conditions, to be sure.
The report includes many good points, but it does not, in my opinion, live up to our demands and expectations, despite taking a series of amendments debated in the Commission into account.
It is not surprising, therefore, that a series of crucial amendments have again been proposed here by my own group and others.
Whether these amendments are taken on board by this House will demonstrate the real will of Parliament.
Mr President, on behalf of the UEN Group, I would like to voice my appreciation of Mr Menrad' s report.
I must also say that, although his work does not define a Community law, it is impossible to ignore the importance of Parliament' s voice on a topic which is defined as a Union priority, employment.
Moreover, I think that Mr Menrad' s report, supplemented by contributions he has had the courtesy to take into consideration, is actually the best possible within the confines of the subject, Parliament' s competences and the constructive methods of Europe.
Nevertheless, the employment issue is not only found in the laudable work that Parliament can and will be able to do, but in a much broader field, sometimes with additional competences, sometimes with transient contents.
Parliament' s recommendations and assessments of this subject are, of course, valuable, but there are aspects of this undertaking which seem to conflict.
Yesterday, we heard the Council and the Commission talk about the impending start of the macroeconomic dialogue, but opinions and indications from this will not be published - this is what we were told.
But it is not so much this as the rather uncertain spirit which has emerged, full of hope but lacking the desire to coordinate.
The aim that was announced with the launch of the single currency seems to be to create confidence in the economic policies through the stability of monetary policies, prices and budgetary policies, as well as pay moderation and flexibility.
And yet, today, the national macroeconomic dialogues have been shifted to a regional level. Conciliation has affected the regions and the Union in general and their programming ability, including their use of structural instruments and when devising models of local growth.
However, I do not think that the Committee of the Regions is participating in the European macroeconomic dialogue, or that there are indicators in the assessment of the achievements of the States with regard to the creation of employment polices at local level, which are often entrusted only to the activism and will of the social partners.
Moreover, a fundamental role in employment strategies and social integration is reserved for these very social partners, and there is still no clear definition of the role of the social partners in their capacity as NGOs.
But that is not all. We cannot only deal with pay moderation and flexibility for their own sake, because this would misrepresent the nature and spirit of the national dialogues, the maintenance of social protection systems and all the planning instruments negotiated on the subject, sensitive not only to small and medium-sized businesses but also to those sectors that are more compatible with tradition and the characteristics of the territory.
Taxation and security are certainly not secondary considerations, on the contrary they are more important than moderation and flexibility.
The hope is to establish an exclusively European model that is more coordinated and more transparent but also more determined where the States, because of their diversity, are not only divided into the strong and the weak.
Page 13 of the Commission' s report on employment refers to the fact that the level of employment is highest in Denmark, and two other countries are also mentioned.
We are talking here about the three countries which are outside the euro area.
This is in itself worth noting.
I want to latch onto that graceful term "level of employment" .
This is one of those euphemisms which conceal the problem that, in this richest part of the world, we have 60 million citizens who are living under the poverty line and more than 20 million unemployed.
It is noteworthy and thought-provoking that the countries outside the euro area have higher levels of employment and, if we look outside the European Union, we find a still higher level of employment, namely in our neighbouring country, Norway.
The main cause of this problem area of employment, this blemish upon our society, is in fact macroeconomic.
It is the EMU convergence criteria which, in themselves, promote unemployment.
When we voted on the Amsterdam Treaty in Denmark, we were told that a number of decisive leaps forward in the direction of actively combating unemployment were being taken.
We never believed this.
On the contrary, the macroeconomic reality is the opposite.
The EMU project creates unemployment and, where active labour market policy is concerned, it is transparently obvious that this presupposes local and national initiatives, and this on the very grounds that the labour markets in the countries of the European Union are organised on such widely different lines that it is impossible to implement anything other than the quite general and non-binding measures specified in the proposals we have before us.
There are a lot of words, but there is a poignant gap between the words and the reality.
Mr President, figures for unemployment and poverty in Europe are still disastrous, with 60 million people living below the poverty line, 9% unemployment and 25% unemployment among young people. It is not what you might call a positive result, especially if you consider that the slight upturn in 1999 was due, primarily, to an improvement in the economic situation in which neither governments nor the European Union played any part.
You might even say that, in France, the creation of jobs in retail was achieved in spite of government policy.
To tell the truth, reading the two Menrad reports, one cannot help thinking that the European Union is attempting to offer first aid, even though it is its own policy which is largely responsible for the social troubles affecting tens of millions of Europeans.
Since the Treaty of Amsterdam, Brussels has had official, full and legal access to a new area of interference in social and employment matters.
Indeed, it cannot be repeated often enough that it is its ultraliberal internal policies and ultra-internationalist external policies, its cult of the opening of frontiers and of the almighty market which have brought our economies to their present plight.
A number of guidelines proposed by the Commission may seem positive.
Surprisingly, one can even find common-sense proposals in them for a voluntarist family policy.
But the good ideas are limited to the chapter headings, whilst examination of the detailed measures reveals the true nature of the Union' s action on employment.
This action is just another pretext to extend the jurisdiction of Brussels to areas where its intervention can be nothing other than harmful - social protection, retirement, wage policy, taxation.
We will be spared nothing: harmonisation, unification of legislation, alignment to the lowest bid in social terms.
We can expect loss of job security, the erosion of working conditions, widespread social decline.
It is indeed time for a change in policy.
There is much to be welcomed in this report and the messages that it is trying to give and I would join others in congratulating Mr Menrad on the skill with which he has put his report together.
As British conservatives we share the concern expressed throughout this House that the high level of unemployment in the EU as a whole is indeed a major problem and that a significant decline has to be the aim.
Specifically we welcome the references to equal opportunities including the old as well as the young unemployed and for the need to promote employment of the disabled.
We welcome the comments of the EMAC committee that the need for administrative costs and taxes and charges on SMEs to be reduced should be particularly stressed as these represent one of the biggest obstacles to growth in employment.
We also welcome the general call for a tax review for reductions in fiscal and social security burdens plus red tape, all of which increase unemployment and bear down on jobs.
However, we do not accept one key conclusion about the single currency, where it is stated to be fact that the implementation of economic and monetary union creates a good climate for new jobs.
It is not a fact.
The experiment has just begun and our views on the single currency are well known.
Finally, we do not accept that it is for the EU to lay down prescriptive rules for Member States on the key issue of unemployment and we regard as very ominous some of the suggestions from Members opposite this morning that the guidelines should become reinforced or indeed binding.
Different problems in different Member States require different national solutions to create the right climate for their businesses to create jobs.
So, if and when these guidelines become rules, dictating to national governments what they must do, then we would oppose them.
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that it is intelligent and necessary to begin this brief contribution to the debate on employment guidelines by congratulating ourselves on the positive European statistics and I would like to show my appreciation for the work of all those who have worked so intelligently so that we may finally have a procedure for coordination in the field of employment, as provided for in article 128 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
But, at the same time, I hope not only to express satisfaction but also concern, because the project and the procedure, in my view, are ambiguous.
Together with the clear fact that it is very important that the Union has, as one of its objectives, a high level of employment and social protection, we can see that the data shows that there is still an enormous gap between the support given and the needs of those people whose families and themselves personally suffer from the scourge of unemployment.
And I would describe this procedure as insufficient, not because it is naïve to believe that it is easy to carry out, nor because it is puerile to ask the Commission and the Council to achieve objectives which are beyond their capabilities.
I believe that it is insufficient because we are still treating the problem as if it were a current problem when, in reality, Europe is suffering from a structural problem of an historic nature, born of a change in production methods, born of an increase in productivity in work which leads to increases in production and wealth which do not result in increases in employment and that this increase in wealth is distributed amongst companies and the workers who are in work, leaving those in a worse situation out of the picture: women, unqualified young people and the long-term unemployed.
To sum up, it is because we continue basically to believe that the market will resolve a problem which cannot be resolved by the market because it is not a current problem, but rather a problem caused by our model of society.
And I would like to take advantage of the few seconds remaining to say to the Commissioner - while thanking her for being here - that she should keep an eye on the figures provided by the Governments, firstly, to ensure that those figures are accurate and, secondly, so that they do not continue to provide data on active policies which are actually figures arising from taxes on employment and social welfare contributions.
We see, although we do not have time to illustrate it, that in the Governments' reports, figures are given on new initiatives on active policies, but they are being financed through taxes on employment and social welfare contributions.
I therefore think that the Commission should be more diligent so that, so to speak, "they do not have the wool pulled over their eyes" and let us see whether, finally, in the year 2000, we may have criteria and levels to measure our objectives, our means and our results in terms of quality rather than just quantity.
Only in this way will European employment strategy be more than just propaganda in some of our countries.
Mr President, this is an interesting report and the proposals will no doubt be widely approved by the vote in Parliament, but going beyond the Commission proposals which simply, in my view, go over the Luxembourg process again, there is one question which arises and that is why attention is not focussed on the Monti Report even though it clearly demonstrates that it is the lack of social convergence or fiscal convergence which is costing jobs in all the countries of the Union.
The message I would like to convey to the Commissioner is as follows: let us not simply stay with the framework as it is presented, with interest in employment fading.
Let us get back to basics and realise that it is not possible to have a better employment policy if, after the phase of economic and monetary convergence, we do not wish to establish full social and fiscal convergence, with standards common to all the States of the Union.
I await proposals such as these from the new Commission, knowing, Mr President, that at this time we are to encounter the social objective of the Union, and that means greater social richness and employment which is not based on partial measures but on economic development and on businesses which are fully profitable and reliable.
Mr President, following on from Mrs Van Lancker, I would like to say a few words regarding the modernisation of the organisation of labour, i.e. job improvement.
The outcome of the national plans of action in terms of modernisation is very disappointing indeed.
It partly deals with partnership and consultation of employees and partly with new types of work and working times.
The then Green Paper on the modernisation of the organisation of labour was an incentive to overcome the kind of labour organisation that is based on strong arm tactics.
It hardly had any impact at all.
The reports show that in some countries the low level of participation of people older than 55, women - think of the gender divide - seems to go hand in hand with relatively low unemployment.
The people' s opinions on their work in terms of stress and all sorts of other phenomena are extremely negative.
It is against this background, in particular, that the drafting of guideline 16, the modernisation of labour organisation, has been rather disappointing and it is likely that too much is being left for the European social partners i.e. employers to deal with.
If the next round of national plans of action still does not yield any progress then we feel that stronger measures should be taken.
I would like to appeal to the Commission to pay more attention to the quality of the work rather than just the quantity of employment.
Mr President, my views involve some important distinctions.
For example, I see the enhancement of regional and local employment initiatives and the greater emphasis on equal opportunities for women in employment policy as being positive, although I believe that Mrs Theorin' s criticism in this respect is still valid.
Nevertheless, I think that the basic positions are inadequate.
Each one of us has too many unemployed people amongst his or her constituents.
We should have rejected that old chestnut put forward by the Commission that the unemployed ought to be encouraged, by deregulating the labour market and imposing social constraints, to look for work or seek assistance under employment policy measures.
I believe that the causes of mass unemployment are essentially structural and socio-political.
Sweeping references to service sector jobs in the USA make the picture quite clear: everyone knows that these are mainly underpaid jobs with no social security net.
Anyone who wants to follow this US model is accepting or even participating in the destruction of the welfare state in Europe.
I also regret that it has become fashionable to ignore macroeconomic analysis.
As long as financial markets are more lucrative than investing in business, then the problem of unemployment will no doubt remain unsolved.
I therefore urge you, ladies and gentlemen, to support the amendment that refers to this.
Mr President, I would like, in turn, to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent contribution and also to thank the administrative staff of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs who, considering the conditions we had to work in, assisted us until late in the evening.
Thanks to the constructive proposals for employment policies of Member States for the year 2000, proposals based on a fair analysis of the joint report on employment, Mr Menrad' s report outlines the route to be taken for Europe to maximise the potential of its extraordinary human capital.
It is significant, too, that the report makes mention of demographic trends, as it is true that an ageing continent is a continent which is committing economic suicide.
The report falls completely in line with the Luxembourg Process, for which, personally, I would have preferred objectives giving specific figures, and it is also in line with our desire to receive the report proposed by the Commission on the annual national employment action plans.
In this respect I share the opinion of the rapporteur who stresses the need for our institution, jointly with the Commission, to supervise the implementation of European initiatives on employment within Member States.
It is essential for a transparent and democratic public debate to take place and I have no doubt that if the Luxembourg process took place it was because Parliament was to some extent instrumental in this.
But what I would like to say is that I consider it to be essential that this strategy which is just beginning to bear fruit should not be obstructed by rigid measures which are not adapted to the interests of businesses or of workers.
Yesterday, members of the French Parliament met with French industrialists, and they reiterated that they did not want to see rigid and unsuitable measures obstructing this movement in favour of employment.
Now to the second part of my intervention. I would like to stress the role of social dialogue within the framework of this policy.
Social dialogue must be renewed.
It is essential for workers to participate in the decisions which affect them and if, at the time, Mr Schweitzer, the chairman of Renault, had consulted the European Advisory Committee, created and proposed by this House, we would no doubt not have had the Vilvorde affair, and we would not perhaps have had the Michelin case.
Secondly, the voluntary participation of employees in the production capital of their firm is also desirable and urgently needed, as the rapporteur writes in Amendment No 12 to the employment guidelines, for two reasons: firstly, for financial reasons, involving the need to improve businesses' allocation of equity capital, in order to withstand the dictates of the major investment funds and to safeguard employment, but also for a human reason connected with the evolution of jobs in the future, requiring an ever higher level of training and a personal commitment which is only given true worth and encouraged intelligently by profit sharing.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to thank Mr Menrad.
His report provides a helpful basis which, it also has to be said, has been very greatly improved upon by our shadow rapporteur Anna Van Lancker.
As for the Liberals who have spoken, I would like to tell them that their theory that Europe does not need an employment policy comes five years too late.
European employment policy has already undeniably demonstrated its value.
Various analyses have shown that the Member States have taken many sensible initiatives, that they are taking workers' initial and further training more seriously than before and that new jobs have been created by means of this employment policy, and above all, Mr Brie, in the services sector.
Our committee does not want to see new jobs in services with pay below the poverty level, as in America - we want quality employment in services also closely linked with production.
It is possible to criticise the policy adopted up to now, especially the measures taken by Member States.
We are not being persistent enough in fighting the exclusion of older workers, and it is evident that in all Member States, even in Sweden, women do not participate to the same extent in working life.
It seems to me that despite the Employment Pact, despite the social dialogue, employers - businesses - are totally ignoring this issue.
There is an urgent need for them to become involved, and financially too!
It is not acceptable for the financing of employment policy to be a matter solely for the Member States and solely for the European Union.
Furthermore, both sides of industry must of course be involved in the process of renewing and modernising employment in the Member States.
Involving employees and keeping them informed is a prerequisite for this.
The Commission needs to play a more active role here, because there is still a great deal to be done in this area, as we saw in last week' s debate on Michelin.
It is essential for the European Parliament to be involved in the guidelines, that much we agree upon.
It is, however, also essential, as Anna Van Lancker has already said, to have specific, measurable benchmarks for the guidelines.
That is why we are tabling these amendments.
I have to say that I totally fail to comprehend why our Conservative friends do not want to support measurable benchmarks for the Member States, for example increasing the employment rate or achieving a specific reduction in long-term unemployment over five years.
You will even be helping the Socialist and Social-Democrat heads of government in a way that could scarcely have been expected!
Finally, I would like to mention - since our Conservative friend has already told us this - that the euro is probably also a successful example of employment policy.
All Member States have worked to comply with the stability criteria, as have those countries that wish to join the European Union.
We also need these specific criteria for employment policy.
Mr President, the Commission proposal on guidelines for employment policies in 2000 does not really add anything new as compared with previous documents.
Nevertheless, it does contain some really crucial points, in particular on information systems and the policies facilitating the transfer of these systems to labour.
It is also right to emphasise, as do Amendments 2 and 3 to Guidelines 1 and 2, that long-term unemployment cannot be fought effectively with State subsidies.
I would also like to emphasise three limits which we still have to resolve concerning employment policies that the Commission proposal does not adequately address.
First of all, there is still not enough attention being given to small and medium-sized industry, which has other problems apart from an excessive tax burden, which is typical of large industry too.
Moreover, the document does not even mention the role of an active credit policy intended to support firms - the European credit system is still light-years away from the American system in this regard - and I think that the endeavours of the European Union and the Member States to redirect it have, until now, been very weak.
Finally, the main shortcoming of these documents concerns the definition of the role of the regions and local authorities in an active labour policy.
If we continue to think in terms of macroeconomic planning and we do not start instead with conciliation at local level and between administrators, trade unions and entrepreneurs in establishing concrete development plans based on actual resources, then we will never address the root of the employment problem.
To this end, Amendment No 15 to Guideline 12 is important, but still not sufficient.
Several Members have mentioned the need for measures to prevent discrimination against women in employment policies.
We should be explicit in the guidelines about the measures that can be implemented like parental benefits, childcare facilities and policies to combat sexual harassment.
We also need to call on the Member States to do more than promote equal pay.
The directive on equal pay was adopted over twenty years ago but there is still a 28% pay gap so we should strengthen the wording in the guidelines and urge the Member States to adopt measures to ensure equal pay.
The Commission' s report on the implementation of the employment policies stated that Member States had failed to go beyond token efforts at alleviating gender inequalities.
Successful mainstreaming requires that the people making policy understand how to implement it effectively.
So there is a need for training and awareness raising and a better balance of women and men in decision making.
Research just published in Wales that I represent has shown once again that women are hugely under-represented in management positions at work and do not move up the career ladder as quickly as their qualifications should allow.
We know this is a typical scenario and it merits specific attention in the guidelines.
So I would ask Members to support Amendments Nos 37 and 38 which would achieve this.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as you can see from the reports on employment policies in the Member States, there is a high level of non-compliance with the guidelines on employment, and unemployment is still very high - particularly long-term unemployment - and this affects young people and women most of all.
This proves that what is essential, apart from employment guidelines, are changes to economic/financial and monetary policies.
The main barrier to the creation of good quality jobs with associated rights is the existence of a Stability Pact which has criteria for nominal convergence that impose restrictions on public investment and influence economic and social policies.
What is needed, then, is a change in these policies, so that the priority becomes to establish clear objectives and produce efficient instruments for the creation of lasting jobs with associated rights, and to achieve a significant corresponding reduction in unemployment.
I hope, then, that Parliament will adopt the proposals leading towards this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the review process facilitates control, and we should, of course, exert that control to a greater extent.
I therefore think that both aspects covered in the Menrad report are important, because peace and security on the one hand and growth and employment on the other are key policy priorities for the European Union.
But the review process and target setting release neither the Member States nor the two sides of industry from their main responsibility for employment policy in their countries, because they are specific.
Benchmarking has been mentioned.
I would like to add a few thoughts here.
We are all talking about primarily structural unemployment.
There are several indicators of structural unemployment: excessively high labour costs, lack of flexibility in working hours and general employment profile, an underdeveloped services sector, an over-heavy state and bureaucratic regulatory burden, slow rates of innovation and long lead times between scientific findings and implementation in production.
So the first step we need to take along this path is to further reduce public debt.
In most countries, we are still taking on new debts to pay off old ones.
That means mortgaging the future, especially for the younger generation.
We need more scope for the investment required for the future.
Secondly, we have to combat structural indicators and step up the pace of structural reform, if we really want to bring down unemployment in the long term and not just increase employment figures.
Thirdly, we need to give innovation in education policy a boost, because many young people, and also the long-term unemployed, cannot find work on the job market with their qualifications, because they are not yet adequately qualified to cope with new developments in technology.
Fourthly, we must make it easier to start up new businesses, and we should support the small and medium-sized companies that provide and create 80% of the jobs in Europe with a harmonised and coordinated fiscal policy, and remove the constraints on starting up new businesses.
If we proceed in accordance with the guidelines and these principles, then we will not only increase the number of those in work, but also reduce existing unemployment, and that is our goal.
Mr President, the rapporteur, Mr Menrad, had a difficult task and ought to be congratulated on the orderly way in which he has carried it out.
Most of the amendments express the anguish of us all over the most difficult problem of the single market - the problem of unemployment.
This has a bearing, although this has not been voiced, on the fate of our democracies because, as history has taught us, democracies are not maintained just by the production of wealth; they also presuppose distribution on a large scale to the large majority of the population which, in today' s society, presupposes guaranteeing employment.
One of the most interesting recommendations from the proposed amendments is the development of more analytical, comparative, quantitative objectives and parallel statistical data with a view to improving comparative evaluation.
However, it should be noted that, in acknowledging that unemployment is not just a quantitative but also a qualitative factor, the quantification of the qualitative aspects of employment must be more extensive in respect of levels of income, working hours and special working conditions.
After all, leaving aside for the moment the actual form of employment, this is by no means unfeasible.
Qualitative data of this kind are the spirit of our social model and, with this in mind, there should be some means of representing minimum protection and the rate of reduction in the invisible sector.
Also, employment growth must be linked to the type of activities which do actually stimulate it, because increasing employment using measures adapted to transitory working models is only a short-term solution and a waste of resources.
In this sense, Amendment No 9 in Guideline 7 is on the right track.
However, it does not fully accord with Guidelines 1 and 2, which specify vocational training with a view to effective integration into the labour market.
The amendment incorporates the term "lasting integration into the labour market" , which is an improvement.
The Member States should, however, interpret this to mean that the main part of the programmes should not be based on past activities but on those which aim primarily at achieving a capacity to create.
One further remark concerning the services sector.
Guideline 13 rightly mentions the development of the services sector and of industry-related services.
I believe that a broader approach should have been taken on these issues.
Developing the service sector can be effected in two opposing ways. On the one hand, we have the development of services within all sectors of production, including the agricultural sector, of which no mention has been made, thus breaking down the barriers between them and, on the other hand, we have the industrialisation of the service sector.
The former creates wealth and so mention should have been made of services in the agricultural sector, whereas the latter, banks and insurance companies for instance, will lead to job losses and therefore other measures will have to be taken.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the employment problem is not only an issue for the national States, but also for Europe.
Recognising this does not mean removing the Member States' competences, but asserting that with a broader and more cohesive view of the employment issue we can work with greater efficiency to address one of the most important matters of our time.
We therefore need an institutional balance split between the Union' s objectives and guidelines and the Member States' free choices.
The Committee is a first step in this direction, but it is not enough.
As regards the guidelines, I would like to talk specifically about the part which concerns the transition from school to work.
This aim is not pursued only by the albeit commendable proposals contained in Guidelines 7 and 8.
Certainly, it is good that schools are recognised as having a fundamental role in combating unemployment, but there is no reference to the need for schools to operate in the field of planning within Europe as a whole, encompassing the participation of social partners, local organisations and the business world.
Therefore, the Commission needs to refer to this aspect and undertake to promote support programmes which will encourage this perspective.
Mr President, for years the European Parliament has been putting considerable pressure on the Member States.
We are tired of woolly declarations of intent where tough decisions are called for.
Now, just before the turn of the Millennium, we are reaping the harvest that we sowed at the Luxembourg Employment Summit in 1997.
Under Christian Democrat leadership we were successful in persuading political, economic and social actors to join the practical battle against unemployment and for new work structures.
The group pressure predicted actually materialised.
Who would want to be one of the ones who have not done their homework? Furthermore, there is added value at European level if the two sides of industry can also learn from each other how to develop new concepts and to implement pilot schemes.
It was absolutely right to nominate Winfried Menrad as rapporteur of the 2000 report.
All three committees that I belong to concur with much of his excellent work, which was produced under considerable time pressure. That certainly applies to the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and, with perhaps a few reservations, to the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities, where the maxim "less would have been more" applies.
The report indicates that much of the progress will not be sustainable.
In one case there is a lack of macroeconomic thinking, in another a failure to implement structural reforms, and in the third a lack of coordination between economic and employment policy.There has obviously been an increase in preventive measures such as integrating the long-term unemployed into the labour market, and in active measures such as incentives to seek work or create jobs.
But what is lacking is retraining leading to qualifications, and training facilities for young unemployed people.
There is also a lack of part-time work models for older employees who are capable of work and keen to do it.
We must not forget young people, who need access to practical experience with computers and the Internet.
In this case the Member States are responsible for providing knowledge about information technology.
Also, we must not forget those late developers who we need to give a second chance to by opening doors to our education and training systems.
I am pleased to say that the biggest progress has been with small and medium-sized companies, which are now working in an improved environment for new start-ups, as various administrative burdens have been lifted.
But we need action on access to risk capital and worker participation in production capital.
In short, the four pillars of employability, entrepreneurial spirit, flexibility and equal opportunities are stable components of a framework to provide secure jobs in the future.
My amendment, which has been accepted, seeks to ensure that we firmly adhere to the annual cycle for reviewing the guidelines, so that Member States do not let up in actively promoting employment.
Mr President, in its document on the guidelines on employment policies in the Member States for 2000, the Commission takes as its starting point a basic consideration: that after its launch at the extraordinary summit, the progress made in the development of the process towards employment has been considerable. It states that 1.8 million additional jobs have been created in Europe, and therefore confirms the four pillar structure and the main points of the guidelines.
We can agree on the need to keep the structure substantially unchanged.
Nevertheless, despite Mr Menrad' s commendable work, both the Commission document and the European Parliament report could have and, above all, should have attempted more.
In particular, coordination between the macroeconomic policies and the guidelines for employment must change from being simple dialogue to agreement between the Member States, without invalidating the competences and responsibilities of the States themselves, which no-one is calling into question.
However, the guidelines and recommendations at European level need to be transformed into concrete, quantifiable objectives which the Member States must aim towards with their own national plans - concrete objectives which define targets that we can gauge in the medium term, converging in terms of employment levels and the reduction of the current gap between the employment of men and women, and also through investments in infrastructure and services and the promotion of youth employment. We need to establish quantitative and qualitative indicators.
It is not a question of a solution at European level, as some fear, but it is, of course, a question of recommending a range of instruments which will effectively allow us to create employment and bring about social cohesion. We need, then, to take a giant leap forwards.
We need to be bold. The launch of the single currency was possible because constraints were set down.
If we do not do the same for employment we will never achieve sufficient results.
Mr Speaker, the reform of the Union' s employment policy that began in Luxembourg in 1997 is one of the biggest and most important projects the EU has launched during these past few years.
Although the main responsibility for the project naturally lies with the Member States, to carry through such a large-scale programme of reform without coordination at Union level would be politically impossible in the single market.
The European employment policy is, indeed, badly in need of reform!
The basic structures of the Member States are the biggest problems.
High taxes, enormous levels of welfare contributions and an inflexible pay policy often lead to a situation where society becomes demoralised and where work no longer is a financially motivating alternative for the individual.
The framework exists, however, for bringing about change.
The single currency offers a splendid environment for the promotion of employment.
Establishment of the internal market will inevitably add flexibility to the labour market which, in turn, will make the entire European economy more dynamic.
In addition, the convergence of the economic policies of the euro countries as a result of the single currency offers the opportunity to seek optimal models, a process known as benchmarking.
A prerequisite of this is, of course, that we have comparable indicators; these have already been mentioned a few times here this morning; and, why not - sometimes we should look for these models outside the borders of the European Union, as well.
The proposal for guidelines is very appropriate, and in particular Mr Menrad, the rapporteur, has done some excellent work.
I would especially like to emphasise the importance of the measures taken to improve the employment facilities of SMEs.
We simply have to try to reduce administrative costs, taxes and expenses.
At the same time, I would also like to refer to the VAT experiment in the service industries which the Member States, with a few exceptions, do not appear willing to join at present despite the fact that it was duly carried through in the Council, I wish this matter had had a different outcome, at least as far as my own country, Finland, is concerned.
I also consider it slightly worrying that the proposals for guidelines for the year 2000 are coming under discussion before the tangible actions regarding the old guidelines have been concluded or even started.
The Member States have committed themselves to implement these guidelines in their own national programmes.
They must also be given the opportunity to do this.
In congratulating Mr Menrad on his report I want to concentrate on progress or the lack of it in achieving employment guideline 9, promoting a labour market open to all.
It is precisely at a time when prosperity is returning to Member States across this European Union that those marginalised from the world of work can and must be helped.
If that is not achieved now, these victims of social exclusion will be left out altogether for all time.
The European Commission is quite right in its report to criticise lack of progress on employment for these disadvantaged groups within the Member States and to call for greater mainstreaming in our employment programmes linked to measures to combat discrimination.
This European Parliament is right in our Amendment No 13 to support the holistic approach and for the development of comparable targets, which I will refer to in a moment and which I call on all in this Parliament to support.
I welcome the examples in the report, in particular concerning employment of people with disabilities.
On this morning, when welfare benefits for disabled people are causing great public debate in my own country, the United Kingdom, I welcome our example of the new deal for disabled people which has sought to break down the barriers by providing personal advisers at the local level through what is known as a single gateway to use flexibly both employment and social security budgets with unemployed disabled people to genuinely find the measures which will assist them into work.
But here, at the European level, we can do more.
If it has been possible to secure performance targets from Member States in relation to both youth and long-term unemployed people, why do we not seek a similar target to improve the employment of disabled unemployed people too. And, if it is the absence of reliable statistics cited as the problem, urgent action for adequate definitions of the information should be called for.
If we do not do this, perhaps the Commissioner could explain how we can possibly evaluate the success of our policies and how disabled, unemployed people can be helped back into work.
Madam President, I would like to congratulate and thank Mr Menrad on his work.
I must also say that I listened attentively to, and would like to thank, Mr Grosch and Mrs Theorin for the opinions of their respective Committees on the issue of the Employment Package.
In my view, the outcome of this two-and-a-half hour discussion is extremely optimistic and it is clear that the European Parliament is following, debating and, above all, making proposals on the extremely sensitive issue of a European employment strategy.
I would like to stress, since we have heard many opinions and proposals from various MEPs on the role of the Commission as regards setting targets for effective action, that the European employment strategy will support and encourage national policies and, in this regard, we are trying to cooperate as closely as possible with Member States.
Today, the employment guidelines have been debated in the Committee on Employment and the Economic Committee, and intense deliberations are under way to get them to the Council, where we believe that they will be adopted in full. An official debate will be held on 29 November in the Joint Council between national finance ministers and employment ministers.
I would like to point out that apparently there is an agreement on how we should draft and implement guidelines for next year.
There are no major changes, the 4 cornerstones still apply and the changes made to the guidelines are very small and cover 4 points.
The first is greater focus on the transition from training to work, the second is in the area of information technology where strenuous efforts are already being made, including the forthcoming Commission initiative on the information society, to coordinate the issue of employment with information technology; the third is active involvement at local level, where the Member States should pursue and work towards increasing the role of local authorities and, of course, the role of the social partners.
Madam President, I would like to comment very briefly on the some basic principles which came out of the Menrad report and which were taken up by many of the speakers.
The first is that it is clear that successful implementation of the European employment strategy requires a stable macroeconomic framework which is why there is close and continuous cooperation in the whole of the process of macroeconomic dialogue.
The second serious issue is the issue of indicators and harmonisation of statistical services and indicators of the Member States.
It is an issue which, as was rightly said, is not technical and is not technocratic, but it is profoundly political.
It is extremely important yet extremely difficult at the same time to have a monitoring system for the Member States.
It is one of our priorities and we are trying to make a success of the process of harmonising indicators.
The next point concerns the concept of lifelong learning.
We have made some effort here, but it is clear from the recommendations to the Member States that not as much emphasis has been placed on lifelong learning as there perhaps should have been.
Our goal for the coming year will be to have a more vigorous and better organised policy on lifelong learning of workers in the Member States.
The next issue concerns information technology.
There was mention of a target and a proposal for targets at national level in the area of the information society.
I believe that we can be even more ambitious and set common European targets in the area of the information society because we cannot talk of the convergence of Member States unless there is convergence in the particularly sensitive area of the information society.
Furthermore, I would like to remind you of the decision taken by the leading States in Cologne to equip schools with access to the Internet.
I would like to mention the extremely important issue of the development and formulation of policies by local authorities at regional level within the Member States.
This was also one of the priorities and initiatives of the Finnish Presidency and we believe that the Council will consolidate such an approach.
Members of Parliament, the proposal for closer cooperation between the Commission and the European Parliament to promote the strategy for the European policy has once again been reiterated.
It is clear that from Cologne we do have specific procedures, such as the spring and autumn procedures, but of course, I am awaiting proposals and practical means of implementing closer cooperation, which should be initiated by the respective Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your contribution.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place shortly.
Mr Cappato and Mr Costa have notified me that they did not wish to participate in the vote.
I take that to mean that they are in fact present.
Votes
Madam President, I would like to inform the Members that Rule 51 of the Rules of Procedure was, in fact, repealed by bureaucratic means. This is the Rule which should allow Members to sign written declarations which, if they are signed by the majority of Members, would be directly sent to the institutions mentioned in the declarations themselves.
Well, in my opinion, this right has in fact been taken from us.
In Strasbourg, I myself tried to sign Mr Parry' s proposal to transfer Parliament' s activities to Brussels, thereby giving Parliament, finally, one single seat. It took twenty minutes.
No-one knew where the office was, and it turned out to be on the second floor of the Tower, a long way from the Chamber, even further than it was during the last parliamentary term - and that was far enough.
Now look at the location of the relevant offices for the only signatures we are comfortably allowed, signatures to receive the money for our being here.
If they hid these offices somewhere inside the parliamentary maze we would probably rebel.
So I call upon our dignity as Members of Parliament, President, because we need to give signatures relating to politics and political declarations the same dignity and importance reserved for the signatures for our presence here and for our money.
I now come to my second point.
Only a Parliament which seeks to shut away political declarations and political signatures in basements, a Parliament which, in fact, is regulated by bureaucratic logic, can allow the months-old situation of discrimination against non-attached Members who have less rights than other Members to continue in this fashion.
We do not intend to collaborate with this discrimination, and therefore, neither on this occasion do we intend to take part in the votes until this matter...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, during yesterday' s roll-call vote some other Members and I gave our names because our voting machines were not working.
I have now seen, much to my surprise, that according to the Minutes you did not see my request to speak.
I would be grateful if you have that corrected.
Absolutely.
On the subject, as we are about to begin voting, I would like to tell you that, for our part, we have checked that all the machines are working properly, and I hope that you will check, for your part, that you all have your cards.
Before the next series of votes on the Smet report, could Mrs Smet be given the opportunity to clarify on the record a point which she was not given the opportunity to clarify at the end of the debate yesterday in relation to share fishermen, who are self-employed fishermen.
Can Mrs Smet confirm on the record whether or not the provisions of this proposal will apply or not to self-employed fishermen, please?
Obviously, there is no question of re-opening yesterday' s debate on this.
Mrs Smet did, however, request that she might be given the floor in order to propose, I believe, that the vote be postponed until the Strasbourg part-session. I shall give her the floor immediately.
Mr President, in response to the question raised a minute ago regarding fishermen, if they are self-employed, they do not fall within the scope of the directive.
If they are employed by someone else, then the directive will apply to them.
The request to delay voting until the next part-session in Strasbourg will hopefully enable the last few discussions between the groups to be resolved.
This is a second reading.
We still have sufficient time to organise the vote in Strasbourg.
In consultation with other groups, we would ask to delay this matter.
Very well.
The rapporteur has just made a proposal.
Is there a speaker in favour of Mrs Smet' s proposal to postpone the vote until the Strasbourg part-session?
Is there a speaker against?
On behalf of my group I would like to propose that we do not agree with the rapporteur' s request to send this back to Strasbourg for voting.
There are more than enough competent Members of this Parliament sitting in this House to take this vote today and we should go ahead with the vote.
I would like to support the rapporteur' s recommendation that we defer the vote.
It is a difficult week with lower attendance in the plenary.
Some critical amendments in this report will require, of course, 314 votes.
We have already had one question asked in the House concerning a point of controversy that arose only last night and which might well, because of confusion, jeopardise an important amendment.
In the light of that it would be sensible to take time until Strasbourg.
The clock is still ticking with Council, we have time to take it there.
We can be sure we will have the necessary number of Members present and we can make sure that any further confusion is eliminated by the time of the final vote.
(Parliament approved the request to defer the vote)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0040/1999) on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of the European Parliament and Council Directive on the availability of consumer information on fuel economy and CO2 emissions in respect of the marketing of new passenger cars (5617/2/1999 -C5-0037/1999 - 1998/0272(COD)) (Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection) (rapporteur: Mr Sterckx)
(The President declared the common position approved)
Report (A5-0049/1999) by Mr Gahrton, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the People' s Republic of China (COM(1999) 287 - C5-0038/1999 - 1999/0123(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0048/1999) by Mrs Quisthoudt-Rowohl, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade and Energy, on the proposal for a Council Decision concluding the Agreement for scientific and technological cooperation between the European Community and the Russian Federation (COM(1999) 324 - C5-0083/1999 - 1999/0133(CNS))
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, as rapporteur I am convinced that the agreement on technical cooperation with Russia is a good thing.
Nevertheless, I would like to move a postponement of the vote, as a sign that we expect Russia to make serious and concrete efforts to achieve a peaceful solution in Chechnya as soon as possible.
In saying this, I am perfectly aware that postponing a technical agreement is not necessary the best way of adding force to such an appeal.
I am also very well aware that this postponement, as unfortunately so often happens, will hit the wrong people, in this case Russian scientists and researchers.
Nevertheless, although it pains me to do this, after many discussions with Members from many groups and committees I am now calling for us to give a signal, even if it is unfortunately only a very weak one!
I gladly agree with the rapporteur here.
Yesterday, on behalf of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, I argued in favour of being able to give out this signal.
I am convinced that the citizens of Europe would not be able to grasp why, however well-meant our intentions, we are today approving an agreement when the Russian Federation is bombing Chechnya and even preventing helpless refugees from fleeing.
Madam President, I gladly subscribe to the rapporteur' s point of view and I hope the other groups will do the same.
Madam President, I fully sympathise with the concerns of the European Parliament over the gravity of the situation in Chechnya.
Last night, the competent Committee was given the opportunity to explain the contents of this agreement and whom it concerns, that is mainly the universities and the research community of Russia.
The Commission believes that this dialogue is progressing in the right direction to develop the procedures and strengthen the forces we want to see in Russia.
We therefore believe that we would be sending out the wrong message if the agreement in question did not proceed in this direction.
Madam President, I would like to make three preliminary remarks.
Firstly, I would like to make it clear that the opinion I am presenting represents the position of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, even if my own views are somewhat different.
That sometimes happens.
Secondly, in some cases I am rejecting new amendments, where I think that they add nothing new in terms of content.
I am in favour of presenting focused proposals to the Council of Ministers.
Thirdly, there are, of course, other amendments that I am rejecting because of their content, such as Amendment No 46, which suggests reductions in working hours without cuts in payments are the only effective approach.
I am in favour of flexible working.
Thank you, Mr Menrad, for your explanations.
You were kind enough to give us your opinion on each amendment and, as is customary, I shall announce your position to the House.
Relating to Amendment No 13
Madam President, with regard to Amendment No 13, I have nothing against the proposal to take a joint vote on this, but I wish to point out that the German version is incorrect.
This amendment was also proposed as an oral amendment in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
That oral amendment from Mr Skinner is not included here, nor is Mrs Sbabarti' s statement on the policy with regard to disabled persons.
This applies to the German version.
Although the explanatory statement is once again correct, it is wrong in the original German version.
I would like to see a vote on what we agreed in committee.
Besides, the English version seems correct to me.
Of course, Mr Menrad, thank you for clarifying this important point.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Madam President, I have a brief point of order on the basis of Rule 29 of the Rules of Procedure.
In the voting which has just taken place, everyone was able to observe that a number of members of one group voted in a different way to the majority of their group.
This is indeed perfectly reasonable according to the freedom to vote enjoyed by the Members of Parliament.
This means, consequently, that it is indeed possible to have independent voting without the group being considered to be lacking in political affinity in accordance with Rule 29 of the Rules of Procedure.
If the same rule applies to the small groups in the same way as to the large ones, or to the large groups in the same way as to the small groups, then I think that the conclusion will not be that the PPE Group must be dissolved on the grounds that this or that national grouping has an autonomous vote in this Parliament.
But then, in order to be consistent, Parliament should review the decision which the majority thought proper regarding a group which permitted the independent voting of its members and enshrined this in its own rules of procedure, which does not preclude the possibility of political affinities in accordance with Rule 29.
Report (A5-0046/1999) by Mr Menrad, on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on the Commission' s draft Joint Employment Report 1999 (SEC(1999)1386 - C5-0215/1999 - 1999/2139(COS)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Motion for a resolution (B5-0204/1999) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the strategy for Europe' s single market
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE- Menrad Report (A5-0045/1999)
Madam President, we have rejected the report on the employment policy.
Together with the Commission, we have established that a great deal is left to be desired in the Member States when it comes to implementing the employment policy, as laid down in the guidelines.
But we wonder whether the Commission has taken sufficient account of the differences in welfare within the Member States themselves and the large discrepancies in terms of employment between the various regions.
Take Belgium.
The unemployment rate in Flanders is 8.2%, that in Wallonia is 24.5%.
You will understand that Flanders and Wallonia have adopted one and the same policy on taxation and social security but this is inadequate.
There should be scope for clearly different regional policies to be pursued.
Regional statistics need to be made available in order to go in this direction.
I regret that the Commission does not use this regional reality as a basic principle, because I am convinced that both a regional and a European approach are necessary.
But then in order to do this it is also essential that we have regional figures at our disposal, as those supplied by the Member States distort regional reality.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, although we have all supported the reports on the employment situation, we believe that the unemployment rate is extremely high and that we have failed to find any really effective answers at either national or European level.
There are many different reasons for this.
One important reason in my view is that in comparison with Americans, Europeans are risk-averse, and there is also a lack of positive motivation in the public at large, which is needed if good economic growth is to be transformed into a positive employment policy at both European and national level.
This is also partly a reflection of the fact that, in Austria for instance, we have a very low proportion of entrepreneurs.
In Austria this proportion is about 8%, the second lowest level internationally.
For example, surveys carried out amongst school leavers and students about to start work have indicated that 60% of our young people want to become civil servants instead of embarking on an active career.
A simple analogy would be an employment teamin which out of 22 players, 13 want to be referees and only 9 want to kick the ball, with only two or three players wanting to be strikers, who are, in the end, the key to success.
That is why we need a better climate.
We need simpler laws and above all we should not make the mistake - and that applies to this House also - of over-regulation by means of European standards, regulations and directives, which the public see as an obstacle, and which ultimately encourage them to stop taking risks or setting up on their own, avoiding any really active business, and instead, just working in a secure area, which will ultimately lead, as far as economic recovery is concerned, to ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, I would like to give an explanation of our vote on the Menrad report, especially as regards Amendment No 31, on which the French Members of the Socialist Group and I myself abstained when it was rejected.
I would like to specify that it was chiefly the radical nature of the wording which was behind this.
For, in fact, while we may share the idea that aid and incentives for employment cannot be totally subjected to conditions of rigid technocratic controls which are in danger of excluding one disadvantaged section of job seekers from this aid, our vision encourages us to propose positive and constructive support, rather than supervision, in the procedures which must be implemented, which are still, as we know, difficult ones.
The practices which have already been implemented for this type of support, especially for the most disadvantaged, show that it is not sufficient to allocate financial aid which would excuse us from having to do anything more.
This is related, in the final analysis, to the good conscience of someone who gives money to charity.
But real social support for the objectives to be set with regard to disadvantaged individuals in the context of the contract-based procedures is the only way for support and incentives for job-seeking to be effective, not only for access to work itself but also for the issue intimately associated with this, to wit, the lasting reintegration of individuals who have been totally undermined by the destructive processes of unemployment.
It was also in this spirit that we previously submitted an amendment on positive approaches which, unfortunately, was not adopted.
- (FR) Last week I expressed my view of the Michelin case and the absolute scandal of an otherwise prosperous firm proceeding with collective redundancies.
Today I wish to express my view of the guidelines on employment for the year 2000.
The Treaty of Amsterdam gives me this right, and I am taking advantage of it to say how important I think it is for the European Parliament to be formally consulted on this matter.
It is not a matter of adding new guidelines at the present time, when the basic rules adopted in 1997 seem to be working well. It is rather a matter of amending them on the basis of the joint report on employment 1999, adapting them to the new socio-economic order.
The report tells us that there has indeed been progress since 1998, as unemployment has dropped from 10.1% to 9.9% and there are 1.8 million more people in employment.
But these positive figures must not obscure the serious inequalities and problems which still exist.
Unemployment among young people, for instance, is around 20%!
Half of the unemployed in the European Union are long-term unemployed.
Many jobs are still insecure and 60 million people are living below the poverty line.
It is therefore essential to give new impetus to employment strategy in Europe, and to set ambitious goals, such as reducing unemployment by half within five years.
This can only be achieved by attacking on several fronts at the same time, using energetic, preventative and corrective methods.
In particular, this requires reform and modernisation of education and training which must be of benefit to everyone, without discrimination based on social environment or on the individual, and which must take technological and IT developments into account, and a ferocious fight against all forms of unemployment and job insecurity.
People must, at all costs, be prevented from "getting used to" being unemployed.
The unemployed really need support, guidance and motivation in order to be reintegrated into employment.
Imaginative measures must be found, which can be adapted to the diversity of the situations in different Member States and which respect the dignity of job seekers.
But beware lest we fall into the trap which some policies create, claiming that, just because they are unemployed, people should take any job going on the grounds that it is better to have a job which is not secure than no job at all!
The objective is to enable the unemployed to gain employment which is lasting, with full entitlement to their rights!
- (IT) Unemployment is Europe' s main problem, and in Italy the situation is terrible, with unemployment exceeding 12%.
We must continue to fight unemployment with efficient, incisive measures that are swiftly implemented.
It is important that in this area, too, the European Parliament seeks the opportunity to intervene democratically in the choices of the European Union.
The Members of the European Parliament cannot be content merely to be present, as has happened in the past, at decisions made in other places which do not meet the real needs of the populations.
We do not agree with the document on employment policy guidelines as it draws on the ideas and principles of economic free trade. Nevertheless, the European Parliament is proposing some guidelines to bring about equal job opportunities for men and women, on the constant search for dialogue between the social partners and the necessary consultation of and provision of information for workers by firms.
In our country, Communists are fighting for the law on union representation to be adopted swiftly, and this too is a democratic act for the work place.
We have noted the European Parliament' s suggestion to bind the tax incentives to firms so that they will really contribute to job creation and not to restructuring and relocation which lead to redundancies, so as to avoid a repeat of the Michelin scandal.
With limited, inadequate alarm signals being given with regard to the job market, we tabled amendments which were wholly reasonable and responsible.
But they were not accepted.
This is why the Italian Communists have voted against the Menrad reports.
- (FR) This report is a typical example of the type of debate which precludes political consensus.
This is an eminently political subject where one can see the conservative right flirting with lack of job security and the forces of the left seeking to establish social convergence, stressing the link between employment, job quality and social protection.
For the first time the advances of Amsterdam give us the opportunity to be involved in the discussion of the guidelines in the form of Mr Menrad' s report.
This is why we must insist on objectives which are expressed in definite figures, with a definite timetable.
Hence the importance of the amendments resubmitted by my group, with the following requirements:
1) the combined forces of Member States and the European Union should converge towards a 65% rate of employment within the next five years;
2) preventative measures should have the objective of reducing unemployment by 50% within each Member State over the long term within the next five years;
3) positive measures should be undertaken to encourage the young unemployed to find a job and to facilitate their integration into employment;
4) the deadline of 2002 should be set for equipping schools with computers and enabling students to access the Internet.
Employment cannot be assessed simply in terms of the creation of jobs. It is important, above all, to consider the quality of employment, of education and the quality of training for all.
It is on this project as a whole that we shall be judged, on quantitative but also on qualitative results, on a new way of living, of life at work and life outside work, and balancing the two.
Let us accept the challenge, and let us get all the weapons on our side, the side of life and integration.
- (FR) I am pleased that the Treaty of Amsterdam accords the European Parliament the right to be more closely associated with the implementation of the European Employment Pact and that this House has, therefore, had the opportunity to express its opinion on the guidelines for Member States for the year 2000 on the subject of the fight against unemployment.
Improving integration into employment, developing enterprise spirit, encouraging the capacity of firms and of workers to adapt, strengthening equal opportunities for women and men, these are the main pillars of this policy.
In addition to these ambitious principles, we have asked the Council and the Commission to ensure that the guidelines become practical proposals necessitating implementation in the form of practical and effective measures within Member States.
Indeed, while I am pleased to see the lowering of the unemployment rate on the European scale (9.4% of the working population in 1999 as against 10.1% in 1998), the actual gross figures must, in no way, obscure the human and social aspects of the economic situation which are extremely hard to bear in the most disadvantaged regions of the Community.
The benefits of growth are not shared by everyone, far from it!
Thus, in the French overseas territories, there are dramatically high levels of unemployment: 27% in Martinique, 30% in Guadeloupe, 37% in Réunion.
Far from being resolved, this situation has, in recent years, been constantly exacerbated, with the unfortunate consequence that every year it is thousands of young people who have all hope taken away from them!
To "have your whole life before you" , as the saying goes, at 25 without any chance to make plans for the future, no prospects other than unemployment and a minimum subsistence income - surely this is worse than a death sentence? Should we be surprised (or indignant, as some are), in such conditions, at the temptation towards violence which permeates our young people and, occasionally, blows the cover off our social boiling pot?
The situation is all the more worrying because it is not the result of the current economic situation. It is a situation brought about by our remoteness, our insularity, and the very structure of our societies, their demographic dynamic.
This means that the traditional remedies have no chance of success: growth returning and lasting in the long term will not be enough for the prospect of full employment to reappear!
But this current state of affairs must not be seen as inevitable!
Nothing is inescapable, and this is why an imaginative approach must be adopted, and the heart to find specific solutions to specific problems must be found.
In this respect, the new Article 299(2) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, by making a special case of the overseas departments as belonging to the outermost regions of the Union, gives us the opportunity to implement derogations to Community law in the interests of their development.
It is important to remember that the European Council of Cologne last June had invited the Commission to present by the end of this year a raft of proposals intended to substantiate this new legal basis.
This is the area where this House must apply its vigilance, ensuring that these measures are characterised by audacity and ambition.
This is the only means of tackling the problems that these regions experience; it is the only opportunity to avoid disappointing the great expectations of their populations, the extreme points of Europe at the heart of the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean.
I cannot vote for the report on the guidelines for the employment policies of Member States in its entirety.
These guidelines do not actually wish to change in any way the situation whereby the economy is dictated by the market and by the multinationals.
The fact is that the European Union has 20 million unemployed and 60 million people living in poverty and the guidelines do not envisage a single binding measure to prevent redundancies and lay-off plans.
The only remedies proposed are aid funds for firms, but this aid does not, generally, create jobs.
The so-called "employment" policy will continue to be, at best, restricted to a few empty phrases, or, at worst, it will continue to serve as a pretext for subsidising the employers with non-repayable funds, while no authoritarian measures are going to be taken to prevent major European firms implementing redundancies despite, at the same time, making profits.
The fact that, in this specific area, the European States of the Union are refusing to bring in binding measures indicate that its prime concern is to sweep the obstacles from the path of big business, and that includes the social obstacles, so that they may maximise their profits and do nothing to put an end to unemployment.
- (SV) In the discussion of the Menrad report, a lot of important questions concerning equality were taken up.
I support the proposals which emphasised that young women in particular should be taken into account when educational initiatives for the information society are planned.
Because I, for reasons of principle, oppose quantitative objectives as part of the employment strategy, I could not, however, support the objective of reducing the difference in wages by a certain percentage within a period of five years (Amendment No 22).
Quantitative objectives, especially within the EU, give a false picture of the options actually open to the European Union when it comes to employment, nor are they compatible with the principle of subsidiarity.
It is good that the Member States should be urged to strive for best practice, but this is not to be achieved by means of quantitative objectives.
Nonetheless, it is pleasing that a lot of attention is being devoted to the aspect of equality.
Internal Market (B5-0204/1999)
I wish particularly to make some remarks about my reasons for voting on the strategy for the internal market but before I do that could I also say that I voted against the procedural motion to defer voting on the fishing matter because I shall be absolutely unable to visit Strasbourg in two weeks time and would very much have wished to express my solidarity with the share fishermen in Scotland, particularly in the islands and remote parts.
In relation to the strategy for the interior market, I was very glad that Amendment No 1 was carried.
My distinguished colleague Mrs Echerer, put this forward in our group to favour the position of artists who have to travel throughout the Community, earning in many different countries.
I was very glad that the Commission showed willingness to take our point on board.
Finally, in the debate last night on the whole of that resolution, I drew Mr Bolkenstein' s attention to the points in the report which say we must remove barriers which are preventing the implementation of the internal market.
I drew attention yet again to the problem of foreign language lecturers in Italian universities whose rights have been denied despite three judgments at the highest level in Europe.
I hope the Commission, as Mr Bolkenstein indicated last night, is pressing vigorously ahead to prevent this injustice.
Thank you.
That concludes the agenda.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting was closed at 12.20 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 4 November 1999.
Statement by the President
Madam President, I would like to add that, on Friday, a United Nations aeroplane crashed. It was carrying 21 volunteers on the WFP programme for the reconstruction of Kosovo and 3 crewmembers.
I think that we should remember these victims too, and thank these people for the incredible and useful work they did and pass on our condolences to their relatives, as well as addressing the reason that caused this catastrophe.
I would therefore ask you, President, if you think it appropriate, to hold a minute' s silence as well in memory of these heroes of our time.
It goes without saying, Mrs Napoletano, that I shall pass on everything you have said and all our sympathy to those concerned.
It also happens to be the same plane that Mr Swoboda, Mrs Pack, Mrs Nicholson and I took when we went to Pristina.
It is a tragedy.
We shall request an inquiry to find the causes of this accident.
We shall discuss this with Mr Kouchner and once again, you can count on me to pass on all our condolences to the victims' families.
Agenda
Mr Andrews, I can tell you that your wish has been granted even more quickly than you could have imagined, because the debate on Chechnya has been included on our agenda on Wednesday afternoon and of course we shall hear statements both by the Council and the Commission.
The next item is the examination of the final draft Agenda as drawn up by the Conference of Presidents at its meeting on Thursday 11 November pursuant to Rule 110 of the Rules of Procedure.
This draft has been distributed.
Relating to Tuesday: President.
I have received a request from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and the Group of the Party of European Socialists for the presentation of the Court of Auditors' annual report to be moved from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Does anyone wish to speak in support of this request?
Madam President, with regard to the presentation of the report of the Court of Auditors, it is clear that, at the moment, this report - which previously attracted very little attention - has become an important item in the press.
Certain Members and groups have expressed their concern at the occurrences of leaks to the press - a concern which I share - and I think that we should ask the Court of Auditors, as well as the other institutions, to respect the time limits.
But it seems to me that the punishment which some people have tried to impose on the Court of Auditors is absolutely out of proportion because if we remove from the agenda all the issues which have suffered from leaks, we will end up with no agenda at all.
We have to be more rigorous in our behaviour.
I believe that the reasonable thing to do, bearing in mind, furthermore, that the report of the Court of Auditors has a series of consequences for Parliament' s activities - and I am thinking particularly of the approval of its management - is to present what has happened to the President of the Court of Auditors and get him to commit himself publicly, apart from giving the relevant explanations, to an investigation to try to control this issue, and to improve the system of distribution and provision of information to Parliament.
However, in any case, I think that in the end it we will be the ones who are penalised through this behaviour.
Therefore, I believe that the sensible thing to do is, tomorrow, after the presentation which the Committee on Budgetary Control is going to make today, to present this report to Parliament.
Madam President, I agree with the two former speakers that this is an annual report of the first rank and of the highest political order.
It is precisely because I agree that I believe this Parliament should use this occasion to signal to the Court of Auditors its intense disquiet at the fact that a document of substance of the sort prepared by the Court should, whether correct or incorrect in terms of its content, have found its way into Der Spiegel of 8 November.
This is not the way to do business.
In a matter as weighty as this it is not right, on whoever' s part - and I do not know who is to blame for this leak - to seek a route which chooses the sensational over the institutional management of this issue.
We are the body with the political competence to take into account the substantial and professional work of the Court of Auditors.
It does not make sense that we should now be negotiating with the European Commission, following all the events of the past several months, a new code of conduct which, inter alia, insists that where there are issues of importance the Commission first comes here to tell this House what they are and then to take a procedure, such as the annual Report of the Court of Auditors, and say: there was a leak, it is a bit unfortunate, but let us get on with business as if nothing happened.
No.
This is the moment to draw a line and say to the Court of Auditors - whom my group holds in very high esteem - that we have separate functions: they audit and we do the politics.
One of the tasks between now and December, if we choose to postpone this matter - as was the view of the majority of the Conference of Presidents - would be to invite the President of the Court of Auditors to undertake an extensive investigation as to whether it was to the Court or another institution that the leak could be traced.
It was the Committee on Budgetary Control of Parliament which began years ago to insist that we should give, as parliamentarians, this report the weight that it deserves.
In saying "postpone it" we are saying we want to take command of what is in it - not to sweep it under the carpet.
We are saying that from now on there are new rules of engagement, not just with the Commission.
The creeping propensity to find ourselves, as parliamentarians, on the back foot, explaining leaks that were inspired by one source or another is not the way to do business.
Let us claim our rights as the institution.
Let us stop sensationalising the work of the Court of Auditors.
Madam President, I have a question about the agenda you are proposing.
On Wednesday, we also have the important Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report.
How do things stand on timing?
Do we have enough time to consider this report as well, given how important it is for the future of the European Union? Both rapporteurs deserve to have a reasonable amount of time devoted to their report.
Could you comment on this, please?
Mr Poettering, as the debate on Chechnya is in any case tabled for 5 p.m. to 6 p.m., we shall have to adjourn the debate you are talking about from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.
If we hold the debate on Chechnya at 3 p.m. and then we continue the debate on the very important report that you mentioned, I do not think that any harm will be done.
I think it would be very inconvenient to hold a debate on the situation in Chechnya without the competent Commissioner for the matter.
As you know, this is something we have never liked to do.
Madam President, with regard to the debate on the situation in Chechnya, I believe that the Presidency' s proposal is absolutely reasonable.
In relation to the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report, so that there may at least be an intervention by groups on such an important report, I would propose that in this case the Questions to the Council be cancelled, and in that way all of the groups could express their view, since this is a very important matter for Parliament.
Madam President, I would like to support your proposal.
Perhaps we can state, in order to enlighten everyone on the matter, as we discussed it at the Conference of Presidents, that in the expected absence of Mr Patten, we had suggested the name of Mr Verheugen not in a personal capacity, but because he is one of the Commissioners particularly involved with international affairs.
Now, on a subject as sensitive as Chechnya, we do not simply want a text written in advance by someone else to be read out.
Therefore, I entirely support your proposal.
I think that it is better to move the debate on the agenda and have the opportunity to hear directly from the Commissioner concerned.
Madam President, your proposal to hold the discussion on Chechnya between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. is, in my view, the best solution. Instead of interrupting the discussion on the Intergovernmental Conference, we shall begin the afternoon sitting on that an hour later so that both issues may be discussed properly.
Thank you for your understanding, Mr Dimitrakopoulos.
Madam President, I just wanted to say that I am against Mr Barón Crespo' s suggestion that we should cancel Question Time.
I regard Question Time as a fundamental parliamentary right, which unlike other agenda items is specifically protected in legal terms, and I would like to insist that the full Question Time should be held.
I do of course understand that there are problems with time, but that is simply because we have relatively little time and a great deal to discuss, and the people who are now complaining about this are precisely the ones we wanted to shorten the plenary weeks a little while back.
At the time I protested against that unrealistic proposal and thank goodness that succeeded.
We used to have Council representatives here on two days: Wednesdays and Thursdays, and we had Council Question Time on Wednesday evening.
That worked brilliantly.
Somewhere along the line they cut Council attendance to one day, and that is the cause of the problems.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us take one thing at a time.
We are concerned now with retabling the report on Chechnya.
I shall give the floor to Mr Leinen, the second rapporteur, and then we shall make a decision on this matter.
Madam President, I agree that we should have the Commissioner here when we discuss Chechnya.
I also agree that we should discuss the situation in Chechnya at 3 p.m., but I would like to request that the debate on the Intergovernmental Conference should be taken in one go.
I support Mr Barón Crespo' s idea of waiting until we have completed the debate and then finishing with the "Questions to the Council" agenda item.
It would be wrong to consider a topic as important as the Intergovernmental Conference in bits and pieces, with a little bit on Wednesday and then perhaps another bit on Thursday morning.
We should be able to debate this subject without interruption.
Thank you, Mr Leinen.
I put to the vote that we move the debate on Chechnya to 3 p.m. instead of 5 p.m.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Now we have Mr Barón Crespo' s proposal to cancel Question Time to the Council, a proposal adapted by Mr Leinen, who proposes that this Question Time could take place during the evening sitting, at the end of the institutional debate, which I think is exactly what Mr Barón Crespo would like to see.
Madam President, after the debate on Chechnya, the debate on the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report would begin.
Therefore, what we could do is to postpone Question Time a little.
I think this is a reasonable request.
Mr Poettering, I think that the Council would entirely agree with Mr Barón Crespo' s proposal to hold Question Time after the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen debate.
What is your position on this?
Madam President, it is as you have just said.
I just wanted to be sure that Question Time to the Council would actually take place.
Mr Posselt is quite right there.
It is the Members' right to hear the answers, and we should ensure - procedurally speaking - that they can be given to Members.
Madam President, it is very important that the European Parliament continues to support Alexander Nikitin, who is accused of endangering state security in Russia.
This has been a tradition for us; we have supported him in his trial and followed it on a regular basis, and it has come to our attention that now would be just the right time to adopt a position, as the action will be continuing very soon.
Emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants by vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0043/1999), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, concerning the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council Directive amending Directive 88/77/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the measures to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from diesel engines for use in vehicles, and the emission of gaseous pollutants from positive ignition engines fuelled with natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas for use in vehicles (5734/1/1999 - C5-0028/1999 - 1997/0350(COD)) (Rapporteur: Mr Lange).
Madam President, may I first of all congratulate the rapporteur on the report he has now drafted.
I think - and Madam President you will know from your own experience - that the action taken by Parliament in the case of the Auto-Oil issue was very courageous indeed.
We have tried to clean up passenger cars as well as truck traffic, including heavy commercial vehicles, and not just the cars as such, but we have also tried to ensure that clean fuels are used.
This whole package will ensure that air quality will indeed improve.
The only encouraging thing I have read recently about the environment, in the Dutch press, is that this improvement in air quality owing to the use of cleaner cars is already in evidence.
I would be dishonest if I failed to mention that a few people in our Group do not fully agree with the report and the amendments proposed by the Environment Committee.
I think that, possibly, further negotiations need to take place where further compromises can be reached before the vote takes place.
The people who are of the opinion that the requirements now prescribed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and its rapporteur, Mr Lange, for heavy commercial vehicles, are too strict, should consider the following. In Europe, we still boast a sound automotive industry for heavy and light vehicles.
The same automotive industry exports vehicles to the United States which must already meet stricter requirements or, at least, the requirements as prescribed at present.
I think it is in no-one' s interest that we in Europe set lower standards than what would be perfectly feasible, even in the longer term.
This is why I urge that the proposals by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection actually be adopted in tomorrow' s vote.
Madam President, the legislative project under discussion is very important for the issue of air protection.
It has a direct effect on the quality of the air we breathe, that is to say the air' s nitrogen dioxide content and the amounts of ozone being formed in the atmosphere.
All this also has an effect on acidification and eutrophication.
It will also reduce the number of particles in the air that are hazardous to health.
All this can only succeed sufficiently well, however, if the action required under the directive is taken as quickly as possible.
The most difficult challenge is the rapidly increasing volume of transport, which is predicted to double between 1990 and 2006.
In my opinion, the rapporteur, Mr Lange, is quite right when he proposes that heavy goods vehicles should be included in a common strategy to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from road traffic as quickly as possible.
We have to respond to the race against increased emissions by speeding up the adoption of measures to reduce them.
I therefore offer my strong support to the rapporteur' s proposal that new limit values be introduced as quickly as the latest technology allows and certainly not only once the Member States happen to approve them.
In a market economy, money is the deciding force.
Therefore we have to use financial pressure to push forward environmental values.
Tax incentives have had a major importance in encouraging the use of more environment-friendly fuels.
Using tax concessions as a carrot to replace heavy old commercial vehicles is well justified, as are tax benefits for environment-friendly vehicles.
All this would serve to speed up the introduction of vehicles that pollute the environment less.
I would now like to mention a change that would cost nothing.
You yourselves must daily encounter situations where heavy vehicles such as buses and construction machinery leave their engine running at times when nothing is going on.
Imagine how much we could reduce air contamination if we did not let our vehicle engines idle in this way.
It really costs nothing.
It is just a question of attitudes.
Madam President, the topic of today' s sitting is making trucks more environmentally friendly.
In my book and, of course, in anyone else' s, this is a contradiction in terms. Trucks pollute.
This is what they do. And since freight transport, in particular the international variety, invariably takes place by road, we cannot do much more than endeavour to reduce this harmfulness.
As far as this is concerned, a compliment is in order for the Committee and the Council, but, above all, for the rapporteur.
Given the number of amendments adopted in first reading, his role as a rapporteur can be seen as an outright success.
We are very satisfied, even at this early stage, with the outcome before us.
We are now dealing with the second reading of a directive, aspects of which will need to be introduced as early as the year 2000.
This is why we are under a certain amount of time pressure.
The rapporteur is re-opening a number of previous proposals.
We can support him in many of those, but there is one section where we do not support the rapporteur but rather the Council' s common position, and this concerns the two-stage approach to the NOx limit value of EURO IV stage.
I heard very clearly what the rapporteur says about this.
However, the Group of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party considers that if this limit value for 2006 is laid down now, it will, in practice, force industry to apply one specific technology, whilst we are not entirely convinced of the environmental friendliness of this technology.
In our opinion, evaluation in 2002 and implementation in 2008 offer a better chance of using a more effective technology.
Moreover, the Council proposes introducing a category of very environmentally friendly vehicles.
We welcome this proposal in which these vehicles are linked with tax incentives.
We also listened with great interest to the rapporteur with regard to the improvements he is intending to incorporate in this proposal.
Also, we give our full backing to the rapporteur' s proposals to cut CO2 emissions so that we can achieve the Kyoto objectives, but also to the tax incentives for adapting older vehicles and the adjustment of test conditions, so that actual emissions of vehicles in use can be measured, albeit in the longer term.
Madam President, my colleague, Mr Lange, has again produced an excellent report, which will have a considerable effect on air quality, and our Group unreservedly supports it.
Trucks and buses contribute to air pollution in ever greater proportions, as we have actually done a lot to reduce car emissions, for example by using better quality fuels and tax concessions, as Mrs Myller said.
In the first reading, Parliament was very successful in getting through strict limit values for particulate pollutants, which are very dangerous for the health.
The Ministers of the Environment then adopted Parliament' s proposal and now our job is to demand that industry adopts just as strict a line on nitrogen emissions.
Industry needs sufficient time, and industry will certainly get the time it needs to prepare itself for this technological change.
The engineers have proved very inventive before, and I trust that the right technology will be in place by 2006.
Madam President, in the discussion of the various parts of the Auto-Oil programme, we in the European Parliament have pressed for a tightening up of the requirements. We ought to continue to do so, both now and in the future.
As a result, we in the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left shall be voting for just about all the amendments from rapporteur Lange.
We think it is our role to ensure in this situation that the best possible technology is used as early as possible.
I am also convinced that some of the pressure which has been exerted on us as Members of the European Parliament in connection with this issue has exaggerated the difficulties involved in adjusting to the demands made in this recommendation for second reading.
I am rather hesitant about one section. This is section 11, about whether a time limit should now be set for financial incentives in connection with environmentally friendly vehicles.
However, this is a minor question in this context.
I should like to thank the rapporteur for producing a very good piece of work on a matter which is technically quite complicated.
The European Union and national Member States must work closely together at all times with Europe' s motor and oil industry so as to guarantee that pollution is defeated once and for all in the near future.
The great car culture has been referred to before in European Parliament reports as the main culprit of air pollution in Europe and Parliament is now playing an active role in establishing limit values for various pollutants so as to bring this environmental problem under control.
It goes without saying that the European Parliament must support a whole raft of measures to control environmental pollution in order to comply with its obligations under the Kyoto Agreement to reduce the level of European Union emissions of six greenhouse gases by 8% by the years 2008-2012.
I would point out that the European Commission and the European Parliament have held extensive consultations with the European automobile industry on these various matters, and it has voluntarily agreed to accept a timetable to cut carbon dioxide emissions in new cars by 25% by the year 2008.
We have made extensive progress over the last few years in relation to meeting these problems, for example with the systems installed in cars which have completed 80,000 kilometres and which were built over five years ago, to monitor the durability of anti-pollution equipment.
We have tax incentives which must also be used to encourage the early introduction of vehicles containing advanced anti-pollution equipment.
We will support the phasing out of the sale of leaded petrol.
We have also supported measures which would guarantee that the sulphur content in petrol will be cut three-fold and that the sulphur content in diesel will be reduced seven-fold by the year 2005.
The Lange report this evening on the control of emissions of gases and other pollutants produced by vehicles continues the progress we have been making.
May I say in conclusion that since May of this year the European Parliament has the power of codecision on all environmental matters as a result of the enactment of the Amsterdam Treaty?
The European Parliament must and should use these new powers to push forward an even stronger legislation in the area of environmental control.
I support Mr Lange and congratulate him on his report.
Madam President, first of all, I would like to congratulate Mr Lange on his report in second reading.
He has once again delivered excellent work with regard to making traffic more environmentally friendly.
After the Auto-Oil programme for passenger cars, a sound approach has been adopted with regard to heavy-duty vehicles too.
I am also pleased with what the Council adopted from Parliament in first reading.
It is clear that consensus within Parliament has led to good results in the Council.
However, I fail to grasp why, when agreement has been reached in the Council, Parliament should have to wait so long for the official common position.
I actually find this important enough to raise as an issue.
I fear, namely, that it will increasingly become a habit for common positions to be held up.
The Council could, of course, say that the procedure has become more complex since the entry into effect of the Treaty of Amsterdam and therefore requires more time.
However, I cannot see the difference in this respect.
A text had to be laid down prior to Amsterdam and this is still the case after Amsterdam.
Alongside this, I should add that such delays create huge problems for the implementation of the relevant legislation.
This is certainly the case for heavy-duty vehicles.
For the car industry, it is essential to know exactly what is going to happen and when.
If the decision-making process occurs much later than necessary, then it is impossible for the car industry to accommodate this adequately.
It is now the case that, regarding the strict NOx values, some car industries are aiming for 2005, first reading of the European Parliament, others for 2008, the Council' s common position, and some others still for 2006, the draft recommendation for the second reading.
This intermediate phase is creating a great deal of confusion as it is.
Timely clarity in this respect is what is called for.
As for my reaction to the content of the proposal, it is only natural that Mr Lange would like to see a few improvements made.
If we are serious about meeting the Kyoto objectives, then this sector certainly is important.
The vehicles concerned are large, have a high mileage and, as such, cause high levels of CO2 emission.
More far-reaching investment into more economical engines, and not just for passenger cars, will certainly have an effect.
I would therefore urge the Commission to take concrete action.
I am also in favour of tax incentives for the vehicle category of very environmentally friendly vehicles.
This will help ensure that the proposed emissions are achieved in good time.
Mr Lange is right in indicating that, alongside standards for emissions, standards will also come into play for other aspects of these environmentally friendly vehicles, such as noise and fuel consumption, which was mentioned earlier.
Certainly in terms of noise, heavy-duty vehicles play a key role.
Needless to say, test cycles for measuring vehicle exhaust gas values should mimic the real driving situation as soon as possible.
Negotiations on a worldwide harmonised dynamic test procedure is also a step in the right direction.
By way of conclusion, I would like to say that I fully agree with Mr Lange' s report.
I will therefore vote in favour of all his amendments.
It would be good if Parliament and the Council were to draft a sound directive without a conciliation procedure.
Unfortunately, over the past couple of weeks, the Council has clearly stated that it is not prepared to adopt draft amendments from the second reading.
This may well result in a conciliation procedure, which will, in turn, cause delays.
This is why I would like once again to urge the Council - and will do so via the European Commission if need be - to adopt the sound proposals tabled by Mr Lange.
Mr President, Mr Lange has submitted a first-class report on behalf of the Environment Committee.
On 20 December last, the Council of Environment Ministers adopted sound amendments from Mrs Hautala. These comprised strict limit values aimed at preventing air pollution and carcinogenic particulate emissions from trucks.
Unfortunately, the Council has decided in favour of 2008, compared to Parliament' s 2005.
Mrs Hautala has already touched upon this.
I would like to discuss CO2 emissions from trucks.
The European Commission needs to table proposals fast.
With regard to ordinary cars, Parliament had expressed its preference for a three-litre car in 2010.
We have ended up with a feeble compromise of an agreement relating to a six-litre car in 2010.
No agreements have been reached at all for trucks, whilst the mileage of trucks is rising at an alarming rate.
It is expected that it will rise by 40% by 2015.
This is why I would ask the Committee to submit a directive for more economical trucks.
Otherwise, we will never meet the Kyoto objectives.
Mr President, when, in the autumn of 1998, the European Parliament made a decision to continue with the Auto-Oil Programme, the matter was timetabled to return to Parliament in good time to facilitate a Council decision during the spring of 1999.
However, the German Government, which sat on the issue during its Presidency, clearly had other ideas.
The matter was seriously delayed and did not return to Parliament until the middle of the summer.
If the initial timetable had been followed, the manufacturers would probably by now already have certified the requirement in stage 3 of the Programme. Environmentally more friendly diesel vehicles would already have begun to be driven on European roads.
Now, Mr Lange has drafted comprehensive amendments at this late stage in the discussion of the issue.
If Parliament complies with Mr Lange' s proposals, there will be further delays. That would not be good for the environment in Europe.
Europe presents a variety of faces.
Sweden and Finland, especially their northern parts, are very much dependent upon efficient road transport.
It is quite right that we should impose tough environmental requirements upon motor vehicle manufacturers.
They should really need to employ absolutely all their skills and knowledge in accomplishing the tasks we set them.
We must not however draw up proposals in such a way that they contain aspects which are bad for the environment.
If our decisions lead to the simplest solution becoming general practice, which is to say that of basing exhaust purification technology on catalytic converters which require large admixtures of ammonia solution, then the distribution system alone, involving the distribution of this ammonia solution to all petrol stations throughout Europe, would mean that a not insignificant portion of the environmental benefits would be lost.
A technical solution like that would be especially problematic for us in northern Europe.
I want to say too that the EU cannot provide direction in Europe by means of directives which are not adapted to the real situation throughout Europe.
Let us make very high environmental demands, but let industry too have the time it needs to develop the best possible technical solutions for the future which are good for Europe' s countryside and for the environment in Europe' s large population centres.
From this perspective, the common position is a better alternative for the environment than continued delay.
Mr President, we are looking at a proposal for a directive under the Auto-Oil programme, with the aim of improving air quality by the year 2010 by reducing emissions from motor vehicles.
I personally feel that the Council has included many highly important provisions in its common position, such as reducing emission limits for carbon monoxide by October 2000 or 2001 by 30% in comparison with 1996.
We always face the same problem, and I can remember our discussing that, Mr Lange: you promised to come to an arrangement with the Council so that your amendments would be accepted in part. The question now is this: what are we to do?
Are we to vote for your amendments tomorrow or the day after?
Will there be a hold-up? I wonder what is really better for the environment now.
I very much regret that the arrangement with the Council has not worked out.
We are really faced with a decision on a matter of conscience, and this evening I will have another very good look at all this, because things have not worked out as we discussed in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
There is one thing we need to be clear about: the Council has accepted a great many important points here, but our cars are not yet clean by a long chalk, and they never will be.
Who would have believed that we would now be facing an explosion in traffic not only in the industrialised nations but also in the Third World?
It has not even begun to take off in those countries yet, and it is bound to grow further - and I can only wish for the population of those countries that it will.
Perhaps, Mr Lange, you could try again to reach some sort of compromise with the Council during an overnight meeting. In that way, we will all be relieved from having to decide on a matter of principle, that is whether to vote against your very good report - which I would dearly like to vote for - or else, I think it is fair to say, to vote against the environment, by procrastinating yet again.
Mr President, as I see it, the report before us today on reducing exhaust emissions from heavy goods vehicles serves to carry forward our efforts to improve air quality in Europe whilst preserving our citizens' mobility.
No one has said so yet, but that is guaranteed too.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for his work.
The report largely addresses the critical issues and fits in well with existing clean air legislation.
At this point I would like to make a general comment about the formal structure of the report.
I wonder if the technical criteria set out in the annex really are a matter for us to discuss as Members of Parliament.
Without expert guidance, the annexes are simply impenetrable for most of us - that has been my experience at least.
I think perhaps that in future, with technical reports like this, the Legal Service should bring them into line with what we have already proposed and agreed upon.
I would also like to comment on the most difficult and controversial points of this second reading, in terms of content.
I agree with the rapporteur that the transition to new standards should be done in a single stage.
By setting the deadline for 2006, we are demonstrating to the Council that we are willing to compromise, as we too will be making a concession as compared with the first reading.
I consider that the Council proposal, which does not provide for this to be introduced until 2008, is not acceptable here.
The directive on improving fuel quality and the catalytic converter technology now available make it possible for the Council and Parliament to come up with a truly ambitious project, without burdening industry and the transport sector with charges.
Let me remind you of our experience with the Auto-Oil programme for cars.
We stuck to our guns then, and it has now turned out that we took the right approach.
Another important point, as I see it, is to encourage re-equipping of older vehicles by means of fiscal and other incentives.
I think there is enormous potential here.
Heavy goods vehicles have a very long service life.
We should most definitely look at the fiscal options, even if the conversion only meets one criterion.
This is an area where a lot more can be achieved.
By and large, I am very pleased...
(The President cut the speaker off)
.
First of all let me express my thanks to the European Parliament and in particular to the rapporteur, Mr Lange, for acting quickly to present the second reading of the report on this dossier.
The second reading of the report contains a number of amendments which the Commission can support, for example the amendments relating to the Enhanced Environmentally-Friendly Vehicles, the EEVs concept.
The EEVs provide for a fuel and technology-neutral concept based on the best available technology which will allow Member States or local authorities to encourage the use of the vehicles which qualify as EEVs through tax incentives.
EEVs will always be a concept which will complement future mandatory emission limits.
Therefore the Commission can accept in principle to study the possible expansion of the scope of the EEV concept to include perhaps other vehicle characteristics such as noise and fuel consumption and other propulsion technologies.
The Commission can also support the amendments relating to the expansion of the directive to include other alternative fuels, in this case ethanol, the amendment relating to tax incentives applied to the re-equipment of old vehicles, the amendment to include heavy-duty vehicles in the overall Community CO2 strategy and the amendment relating to the market quality of liquefied petroleum gas.
The Commission can also support in principle the amendment that deals with abnormal emission control strategies, but we would prefer to see the reporting date on this issue deferred.
A reporting date at the end of 2002 would enable the Commission to fully evaluate the effects of the new type-approval test cycles being introduced from next year on the regulation of in-use emissions from new European vehicles.
In adopting a common position with much more stringent limits for particulates, we should note that the Council moved a significant way towards the view expressed by the European Parliament in the first reading.
The Commission supports this precautionary approach towards the emissions of ultra-fine particulates.
Now the main issue in this package of amendments for second reading is the early application date of stringent limits for oxides of nitrogen, NOx.
The Commission believes that the state of development of the necessary technology to achieve such stringent NOx limits makes it difficult at the moment to accept a date earlier than October 2008.
In this regard the technology feasibility review is necessary, since the emission control devices to meet the ambitious NOx limits are still under development.
While they have demonstrated great promise in laboratory trials, there is no certainty yet as to the long-term operational efficiency of such devices which will make them a viable and durable technical solution to achieve emissions controls in the longer term.
There are also important issues still to be resolved with respect to the quality of market fuels and notably sulphur content.
In conclusion, the Commission can accept the following amendments: the first part of Amendment No 3, Amendments Nos 6, 7 and 10, Amendments Nos 16 to 26 and Amendments Nos 29 to 47.
The Commission can accept in principle Amendments Nos 1, 4, 5, 13, both parts of Amendment No 12 and Amendment No 15.
The amendments which the Commission cannot accept are Amendment No 2, the second part of Amendment No 3, Amendments Nos 8 and 9, both parts of Amendment No 11 as well as Amendments Nos 14, 27 and 28.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Daphne Programme 2000-2003
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0056/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a Community action programme (the Daphne Programme 2000-2003) concerning measures to prevent violence against children, young people and women [9150/1/1999-C5-0181/1999 - 1998/0192(COD)] (Rapporteur: Mrs Avilés Perea).
Mr President, we are talking today about the Daphne programme on measures to fight violence against children, young persons and women.
A decision is urgently needed on this programme, in order to ensure continuity when the present period of support comes to an end.
This is an important programme which complies with our commitment to achieve a high level of health protection in the European Union. I say this because we unfortunately still come across the effects of violence in our society all too often, and they represent a serious health risk.
This is not just a question - and let me stress that I would like to see that little word "just" in quotation marks - of physical and sexual forms of violence.
Protection against psychological violence, which occurs in many more different shapes and forms, and against which victims are even less well equipped to defend themselves, belongs in the Daphne programme.
You cannot define health solely in terms of physical well-being.
Every form of violence leaves a legacy of psychological damage which can only be repaired in rare cases or with difficulty.
We need to set up new networks here and to support existing ones.
However, it is equally important to support appropriate information campaigns, and in this case exchanges of experience play a big part.
These exchanges need to extend to criminal prosecution, where discrimination against the victim must be avoided when charges are brought.
It is important to give victims adequate information about their rights, and society must be made more sensitive in dealing with crimes of violence against women, children and young people.
Children and young people need our special protection, and unfortunately this still applies to women too. Only when well-being has been attained in all social structures in our society will we be able to solve the problems of the future.
Finally, I would like to thank Mrs Avilés Perea very much for her swift and competent work, which she did so quickly despite the changeover, so that this urgently needed report is before us now.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Avilés on getting to grips with this difficult subject so rapidly, which meant that we in the Committee on Women's Rights and Equal Opportunities have been able to present this report very quickly.
Nevertheless, I would have liked to see more men involved in this work. Violence against women and children is after all a men' s problem, not a women' s problem.
I am convinced that with this programme we have taken a big step forward in combating physical, sexual and psychological violence against children, young persons and women.
However, we all need to be aware that it is only one step, and that there is still a lot to be done to effectively combat this phenomenon of violence.
In 1999 this House succeeded, in the face of persistent opposition, in initiating a campaign to counter violence against women.
The Eurobarometer poll published this May made the extent of violence clear and identified the gaps where we need to take action.
Europol and the STOP programme are instruments for combating trade in women.
The Member States have committed themselves to do a great deal, which has, for instance, emerged from the campaigns.
The complex interrelationships in the fight against violence have only really become clear because of the Austrian, German and Finnish Presidencies' Conferences.
My own country, for example, has as a result set up a national action plan against violence, and other countries are following suit.
I think that we have given an important impetus to this.
Mrs Avilés' report on the common position was adopted after a great battle about changing the legal basis from Article 235 to Article 152, with the codecision procedure.
But my own group only voted for it with great reservations and only because the World Heath Organisation definition, according to which health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, is now evidently recognised and taken as a basis by the Council.
My group would have liked to see certain other changes of emphasis in the Daphne programme, for example links with other Community programmes such as PHARE, TACIS and MEDA,because that is where the big money is, in order to initiate preventive measures and campaigns in the applicant countries. However, as regards reaching agreement quickly and avoiding the conciliation procedure, we agree with Mrs Avilés here, and are only recommending six amendments to the common position.
In any case we recommend that the media should be involved in order to get the programme up and running.
I would like to thank you very sincerely for your work and hope that the Council will accept our amendments.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank Mrs Avilés Perea for her thorough work.
She has resubmitted a number of amendments that will receive our Group' s full backing, especially the definition of health.
This is an enormous improvement to my mind.
Many people, men but also women, still think that violence against women has become a rare occurrence within the European Union.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
One in five women within the European Union has been a victim of such violence at some time, including in our immediate surroundings.
One does not have to look far.
There are probably more victims but they never reported the crimes to the police or relief centres.
In fact, most incidents of violence occur in the home, which means the phenomenon is less visible.
Many women still want to keep their dirty laundry inside. They feel ashamed.
The link between violence within the family and child protection is often overlooked.
For example, if the court allows contact between the violent partner or ex-partners and their children, then the woman will remain exposed to violence via the children.
I would once again draw attention to this fact.
The specific aim of the Daphne programme is to encourage and support non-governmental organisations and other institutions to combat all kinds of violence against children and women.
I welcome the fact that national measures are to be lent added value. Great!
Liberals do not wish to harmonise Member State legislation on violence against women and children.
My group, however, is of the opinion that the Member States that are behind in this respect should be encouraged to bring their legislation up-to-date.
I also think that the perspective should be shifted.
Instead of trying to change the behaviour of women, the behaviour and attitude of men should be examined.
This is not about short skirts, Mr President.
Awareness and information campaigns on violence against women are desperately needed.
This issue should, as far as I am concerned, feature high on the political agenda.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mrs Avilés Perea on her work.
The Daphne programme, we should remember, was an initiative of this Parliament in 1997 which recognised the need for action to combat violence against women, young people and children.
In the first year of the programme alone 428 projects were submitted by various organisations in Europe and this level of response reflected the need for programmes such as this.
In my own constituency I have seen the work of organisations like Welsh Women' s Aid which provides support, advice and practical refuge for women and children victims of violence.
It receives over 15,000 calls a year and the number is rising all the time.
Last year it housed over 2,000 women and over 3,000 children in refuges and they had to turn many others away because of the lack of accommodation.
This workload reflects the scale of the problem we have throughout Europe.
It also shows how important the role of NGOs and voluntary organisations is in this area.
There are specific examples of the way in which Daphne-funded projects have helped.
In just a few weeks' time an international seminar will take place in Leeds to look at issues of violence against women in conflict situations.
Speakers from many countries will be attending that seminar.
There have been many other projects linked to the important fight against child sex tourism which have been funded by Daphne.
On the issue of the legal base - this is a health issue of course, but it is also far more than that.
However, we can accept the World Health Organisation' s definition of health as not just being the absence of disease but a state of physical, mental and social well-being.
Any lesser definition would leave much of the problem unexposed and we hope that this will be agreed as the European definition for the purpose of this programme.
The Daphne programme, as others have said, has made a great deal of difference but there is a lot more to be done and it is vital that it is followed up.
I trust that the Council will decide on this before 1 January so that existing projects can continue.
Mr President, seeing the Daphne programme come up for renewal is a happy moment indeed.
MEPs' determination, from 1996, along with the report by Marianne Eriksson through to today' s report by Maria Antonia Avilés Perea have all enabled violence towards children, young persons and women to become the object of political action.
In speaking of politics, I choose my words carefully, because this violence is quite unacceptable in the view of countries that have taken the principle of human rights as their basis for fifty years.
Please allow me then to emphasise the dignity of the victims of violence and the need to ensure that the health of these victims is understood to be both their mental and physical wellbeing.
I think that prevention is the appropriate word.
If we look at the issue in its totality, which is a question of taking action on the causes as well as the consequences, then it is obviously a political one in the sense that we would like the causes of violence, most often inflicted by men - and like Mrs Gröner, I deplore the fact that there are so few men present here in the Chamber this evening - to be studied and combated in the framework of the forthcoming programme.
In the same way, we hope that by taking into account the consequences of violence and the effectiveness of a remedy and more besides, the aim will be to end this violence.
This is why we must give full scope to this programme, both in terms of children on the one hand and of women on the other.
These are two categories of victims that it is important to be able to distinguish between.
Europe must establish a Children' s Rights day, following the example of France, and which the European Parliament has been requesting for some time.
Are we not celebrating the tenth anniversary of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child today?
This is also why the dignity of women must not be subject to any ambiguity.
If the term "sexual exploitation" indeed describes the trade involving another person' s body, then there is no good trade, neither trafficking in human beings nor prostitution.
The States cannot, as States, accept, let alone organise or even encourage the trade in women.
The awareness of rape for example is quite recent, as it was so recently still considered to be at worst a misdemeanour, whereas today, we know that it is in fact a crime.
Awareness has come recently but I am delighted that violence towards children and women is no longer taboo.
While this programme has an experimental value, we should understand it to be something powerful, to be a model, and not only as an ad hoc experiment for Europe' s forthcoming enlargement, but as the responsibility of a democratic Europe towards the whole world.
To my mind, we are committed to our responsibility as Europeans.
I would like to see the new Daphne programme applied as quickly as possible and if possible, with greater resources of time and finances.
But I also hope that, beyond a health-based approach, we see that it is a question of people' s fundamental rights; I hope that this programme is guided by the objective of fighting all violence directed at women and children.
Mr President, the Daphne programme' s great mission is to raise public awareness, to ensure that there is an exchange of information, to try, in this way, to protect children, young people and women from all those situations of break-up and despair.
Underlying the texts of the recitals, there are the broken personal destinies of children and women who suffer physical violence, but also, and more insidiously, mental harassment.
This issue concerns Europeans' physical and mental health.
Direct or indirect violence towards anyone considered weak must be unequivocally condemned.
Personally, I have the impression that violence is on show between couples, in families, at work, on television or even in political and social life.
Perversion, aggression, and predatory behaviour hold more fascination for us and we pay too little attention to the victims of the law of the jungle that prevails in today' s world.
Our age has refused to establish standards.
It tolerates perversion because setting a limit today means an attempt to censure.
We have lost our moral or religious boundaries and we are not able to become indignant unless the facts are visible, such as bruises on a face, or unless they come into the public domain, relayed by the media.
Therefore we need information campaigns, and the Daphne programme will support these.
Violence takes place in a world without borders and is not something from distant, barbaric times.
We are in 1999, in this Chamber in Strasbourg and we are discussing violence perpetrated against women and children in Europe.
We are not in some mythical, cruel and obscurantist Middle Ages but on the threshold of the 21st century.
I firmly support the establishment of the Daphne programme; indeed we must support any initiative that aims to make this dark side of our society visible, as borders disappear in the face of all sorts of evil networks: prostitution, paedophilia and others, on the Internet for example.
Our States must therefore collaborate and exchange information.
The European Union can provide added value to the action of its Members.
But it is also incumbent on our States to protect these women and children and anyone harmed by society.
The State knows its citizens because it knows their mentality, the culture that they have in their mind and in their society that it has, to some extent, moulded.
It is up to the national States themselves to promote the family as a support structure and to create men liberated from these patterns of violence that they pass down from generation to generation.
Mr President, in my intervention I would like to stress the fundamental role played by the European Parliament, and in particular, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, in, I hope, reaching the point where the final adoption of this programme will be debated.
It has already been mentioned in other interventions that, a few years ago, the European Parliament promoted pilot projects supporting non-governmental organisations and local authorities that, for some time, have been endeavouring to use actions to fight violence against women and children. This phenomenon of violence against women and children is, unfortunately, not only very widespread but is increasing, and is gradually taking on new, even more sophisticated forms, which are therefore more difficult to combat.
The programme we are debating today is the result of this previous work.
A very thorough discussion took place with the Executive Commission, especially with regard to amending the legal basis and therefore making the adjustments implied in the proposal to the original proposal.
I do not wish to return to this topic, but I would like, however, to express a certain amount of satisfaction, despite the change to the legal basis, that the Commission and the Council have in any case adopted some elements which are extremely important to us.
I am referring to the fact that the common position contains references to health in terms of physical, mental and social well-being, to quality of life and to violence as a violation of human rights, and, in particular, to the fact that this programme also covers victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation.
I also find it especially significant that there is recognition of the important role played by the NGOs and multidisciplinary networks as well as public bodies who are already carrying out valuable work, in particular with regard to the prevention of violence and the support and protection of victims.
To give this programme real added value, we must launch a major awareness campaign involving Parliament and the Commission, but, above all, the Member States, which must take complete responsibility for fighting violence.
Mr President, of course I have nothing against part of the budget being dedicated to preventive measures against violence towards children, young people and women, as long as it is dedicated to providing financial help to organisations working at grassroots level.
However, I think that the amount proposed is laughable and the Council' s desire to reduce it even further, shocking.
The European Parliament and the Council are easing their conscience on the cheap because, besides domestic violence and violence connected to sexual exploitation, we should also acknowledge the growth of social violence which results from the increase in poverty and from the growing destitution amongst the working classes.
The greatest act of violence is the serious effect of unemployment, but also the deterioration in the working conditions of those who still have a job.
Is it not an act of violence for example, to force women, mothers, to work on production lines at night in order to make the machines more profitable and to provide greater profits for shareholders? Now, not only do the European institutions tolerate such violence, but they have even made it worse by removing measures in the social legislation of some countries which gave some protection to women.
And the mollifying speeches of the Daphne programme do not compensate for the rest.
Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Avilés Perea, I would also like to pay tribute to Francisca Bennasar Tous, who worked very hard in the last legislature to ensure the success of this programme.
The European Parliament, and, particularly, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, have played a vitally important role in placing the issue of violence against women and children firmly on the European agenda.
As the legal basis has now changed, we now face a codecision procedure on public health, because violence is really a physical and mental act that affects all social classes.
Parliament firmly supports the definition of "health" made by the World Health Organisation and so, for us, health can be defined as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not just the absence of disease.
The actions of the Daphne programme must still be supported by NGOs, and, as we ourselves have proposed in our amendments, by social communication, as women, who are some of Europe' s most sceptical citizens where the European Union is concerned, must be made aware and understand that programmes such as Daphne exist and that they are of direct concern to women.
In Portugal, for example, violence against women is statistically higher in areas which have a higher standard of living or higher levels of education, which does not necessarily mean that that is where more violence against women and children occurs.
What it means - to my mind - is that there are more women in those areas who are financially independent, better educated and braver about making a complaint to the police.
One of the practical measures taken in Portugal, at least in urban areas, was to have women police officers deal with women making complaints, and that immediately made a huge difference.
Finally, I would like to take advantage of the fact that Commissioner António Vitorino, who attended the Tampere Summit, is here, to ask him to tell us how the Council' s final decision, which we applaud, to criminalise violence against human beings, particularly against women and children, will be put into practice.
What it is going to change, Commissioner, and how?
Mr President, I would like to thank Mrs Avilés Perea for this report, because with it she has provided us with another instrument to combat violence against women and children, and also, above all, to identify how and where violence occurs.
The term violence is defined more precisely here, as violence can mean any type of exercise or abuse of power, injury or duress.
All forms of violence should be rejected, but all too often there is a very high level of tolerance amongst families regarding violence.
Violence against women should therefore be identified more actively, so that help can be provided.
We also know that acts of violence increase if no sanctions are taken.
It is difficult for victims to escape from violent relationships without outside help.
The women and children affected need active support, and above all protection.
It is society' s job - everybody' s job - to make available the best possible support measuresand protection instruments.
Daphne is a support measure that makes it possible for us to combat this.
However, legal measures will also be needed in individual countries.
Let me take Austria as an example.
Austria has been in the vanguard with a law providing protection against violence in force since 1997. This is known as the expulsion law, and under it violent men can be expelled and women can no longer be forced to flee with their children to women' s refuges and other similar establishments.
The expulsion law initially applies for seven days and can if necessary be extended up to the divorce date.
I would now like to invite other countries also to adopt a law of this kind, as it would help to ensure that women and their dignity are protected.
Mr President, the Commission is delighted to take part in what is now the final step in the adoption of the Daphne Programme 2000-2003, a four-year Community action programme based upon the experience of the Daphne initiative established when the European Parliament included for the first time funds in the 1997 budget to combat violence against children, young persons and women.
The programme rests firmly upon the recognition of the need to uphold human rights whether those of children under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989 or those of women as expressed in the Beijing Declaration and Platform of Action in 1995.
The Commission' s first proposal was made in May 1998 and during the last 18 months the procedure has survived not merely a change of legal base but also a change of Treaty, a change of commitology, a change of Parliament and a change of Commission.
It is, clearly, therefore, a hardy plant designed to thrive and grow as a potent weapon in the Community' s armoury against the evil of violence inflicted upon those most at risk in our society.
I would like to pay particular tribute to the parliamentary rapporteurs, Madame Bennasar Tous and Madame Avilés Perea for the work during the adoption procedure. They have led the parliamentary side in often difficult negotiations.
I would also pay tribute to the work of the German and Finnish Presidencies without whose help we could not have achieved the second reading today in time for the programme to be adopted by 1 January next year.
Finally, I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Mrs Gradin, who throughout handled the Daphne dossier with great skill and expertise.
The Daphne Programme builds on the Daphne initiative, but with two important changes.
First, it is open for the applicant and EFTA countries to take part in the programme.
These will significantly help the victims of cross-border trafficking of women and children.
Secondly, the programme is now open to applications from other organisations than the NGOs.
In the light of the different traditions within the Member States these changes will I hope greatly increase its effectiveness.
The Commission accepts all the six amendments which are before the House today.
We therefore hope that the Daphne programme will be adopted as speedily as possible.
Once it has been adopted, the Commission will work with Parliament and the Member States to ensure that it achieves its goal.
The Commission will specifically ensure that this programme is a relevant tool to channel the synergies of public authorities and NGOs in order to preserve the physical and psychological integrity and the social well-being of children, young persons and women in all areas of activity.
I consider that coupling this initiative with the perspective opened by Tampere will lead in the near future to common definitions, common penal procedures and common sanctions that will be applied by Member States to the crimes of trafficking in human beings and to crimes against children.
The goals are therefore to establish networks throughout the European Union and within the applicant countries between organisations active in the fight against violence against women and children that know the field and to raise awareness among the European public as a whole of the nature of this evil and of the need and the means to eradicate it.
On the eve of the new millennium I may say, Mr President, that strong support in the European Parliament for this programme will be the best and clearest sign that the Union attaches the utmost political priority to effectively combating violence against children, young persons and women.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Rights of the Child
The next item is the Commission' s statement on the tenth anniversary of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.
I shall now give the floor to Mr Vitorino to speak on behalf of the Commission.
I am sure that the issue that has been raised today merits detailed consideration by the Commission and by the Union as a whole.
As we have just seen from the previous debate, the Commission is already active in several fields involving children, though competence for action in the majority of relevant areas concerning children remains with the Member States.
Children constitute a particularly vulnerable group.
For example, for a number of years the Community has been providing support to countries in which there is a particular problem with regard to the economic exploitation, abandonment and prostitution of children through special projects aimed at fostering social assistance, protection, well-being, reintegration and education.
In 1999 to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, dramatic priority was given to children' s rights under the European initiative for democracy and human rights, Chapter B.7-7 of the European Union budget.
The Commission is already implementing the Daphne Initiative to combat violence against young persons and children, and this will be succeeded next year, as we have just seen from the previous debate, by the Daphne Programme 2000-2003.
Through the STOP programme and through its work in the fields of police and judicial cooperation, the Commission is actively fighting the sexual exploitation of children including child pornography on the Internet.
In the field of police cooperation and of the third pillar, the Commission now has the power of joint initiative with the Member States and is actively pursuing the fight against the sexual exploitation of children.
In January a codecision was adopted establishing an action plan to promote the safer use of the Internet thereby protecting children from violence and pornography.
It followed a recommendation in 1998 on the protection of minors and human dignity.
The Commission is now implementing these measures.
In May the Commission adopted a communication on the implementation of measures to combat child sex tourism and it has now selected a number of actions to be co-financed in this field.
The Commission is also undertaking action in the social field and the educational field with a view to improving the quality of life of children and opportunities for their development and education.
The suggestion that sometimes has been put forward to establish a children's unit within the Commission is one that I recognise will require study in particular to ensure that full account is taken of the human and financial resources that are at present available.
The Commission will also give consideration as to the idea of publishing a communication on children to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention.
This will clearly take a little time.
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this matter in the plenary session of the European Parliament.
The Commission will study attentively the reports of this debate and will take all appropriate action to meet the concerns of the Parliament in order not only to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Convention but also to improve concrete policies in order to achieve the goals set by this Convention.
Mr President, firstly I should just like to make a technical point.
The debate we have here today, which is very welcome, has been part of a long, difficult technical process.
First of all we thought we would have a proper resolution and then an oral question; in fact a great many Members signed an oral question.
I would hope that their names can be added to whatever resolution comes out of today' s debate.
We went to a lot of trouble to get colleagues to sign this.
I hope that their names will also be listed in the agenda.
I thank the Commissioner for his statement: "We demand that the EU listen carefully to the voices of its 90 million children and young people under eighteen.
We are concerned that the way in which Europe is developing creates real risks for the safety, protection and wellbeing of its young citizens.
Twenty percent of Europe' s children live in poverty despite the countries of the EU being amongst the richest in the world."
These are not my words but the words of children and young people from my country, Ireland, and other EU countries.
They put it better than I can, how children are excluded from EU policy and how laws and policies that the EU makes have a very real impact on children' s lives, an impact that is different from that on adults.
Children have a very low priority at European level.
The only really serious political response came following the horrific Dutroux affair in Belgium when MEPs were queuing up to sign my resolution on that tragedy.
Even then the EU' s institutional response has been largely focused on the issue of sexual abuse and trafficking and not on the wider set of EU issues that affect children.
The lack of a clear legal base in the Treaty has meant that children' s specific needs are ignored.
This week the world celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
This is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world and the most comprehensive legal statement of children' s rights world-wide.
Except the US and Somalia, all countries in the world have ratified the Convention; but despite the fact that the EU Member States have ratified it too, the EU institutions themselves have so far failed to implement it.
We have an absurd situation in which Member States have to promote the best interests of the child in legislation and policy, but the Union is under no legal obligation to protect children' s best interests.
At present children are invisible in EU legislation.
Single market considerations often override children' s best interests.
For example, protection of children and children' s safety may be compromised by lack of regulation of services such as Internet and TV advertising.
Children are seen as burdens, dependants, victims or barriers to work in direct contradiction to their status in the Convention.
The strong focus on the citizen as worker in the Treaty means that the best interests of children are not considered.
Children are only a target group in one action programme and very few temporary budget lines.
Children and children' s projects receive less than EUR 5 million directly from the EU' s vast budget.
Since the disappearance of the children and family budget line in DG V there is no budget line which has children as a general target group.
Children have become invisible in EU policy.
Most fundamentally, there is no coordination and no unit of the Commission, no Directorate-General which takes a lead in developing a coherent, overall policy on children.
I am glad to hear you say you are considering it, Commissioner.
We look forward to rapid action on this matter.
I would like to make the following recommendations to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention.
The Commission should adopt a communication on children' s rights to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention and create a children' s policy unit.
Member States, at the next revision of the Treaties, must adopt a clear legal base on the EU Treaties to promote the best interests of the child.
Parliament should ensure that children are more visible in budget lines and the Commission should improve its technique and develop mechanisms for dialogue with the NGOs representing children.
Mr President, on 20 November 1989 the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted, and I think that the tenth anniversary of that event is a good opportunity to take stock.
Our Member States did indeed ratify the convention, even if in some cases it was with certain reservations, and they should now be removed as a matter of urgency.
We Social Democrats have over the last ten years worked hard to secure a better hearing for children' s rights, and have emphasised these rights with various important reports and resolutions.
This goes back to the Gröner report in 1991, in which Parliament for the first time dealt with children' s problems, and in which I was already demanding a children' s ombudsperson.
I should also mention the Bandres Molet report on a European charter for children' s rights and last year' s Zimmermann report on minors.
We have also given a very high level of political priority to children' s needs in various reports to the UN world conferences, in conjunction with third countries, and in particular with the ACP countries.
In the course of this year, Parliament has submitted a succession of proposals to the Commission, and it now expects the Commission to produce a communication in which all these initiatives are brought together.
The various tasks on the list of priorities should be tackled one by one.
Right at the top of the list is the incorporation of fundamental children' s rights into the new treaty.
Secondly, using the Daphne programme as a first step, as the first instrument for taking action to counter sexual exploitation and violence against children.
Thirdly, there is the situation of girls and young women, which merits special attention in all areas of policy, as they are still exposed to particular discrimination not only here in Europe, but all over the world.
Fourthly, we must do everything we can to ensure that children are not involved in wars, either as victims or aggressors.
We do not want to see any more child soldiers anywhere in the world.
Two minutes is very short and the list of tasks is a long one.
Please take some action!
Mr President, as previous speakers have indicated, allowing this convention to become a powerful and important tool for the European Union is the best way of celebrating it, when it comes to both domestic and foreign policy.
We must do everything to ensure that the countries with which we are cooperating honour their obligations under the convention.
We know, as a lot of people here have mentioned, that many countries have ratified it.
But how many countries are there really which honour their obligations, for example to report on what they have done. We must make sure that the convention is an important tool in relation to the candidate countries.
I think that a step forward was taken when children' s rights were specified in the progress report on Romania.
As we know, conditions were in that way established for negotiations with Romania.
In the statement which most of us are looking forward to and which Commissioner Vitorino mentioned, we must also find out how much the European Union is spending on children under the PHARE and TACIS programmes.
Hans van den Broek was promising for a time that we should obtain such a report, but it has not been forthcoming.
I look forward to its arriving no later than with the statements.
Mrs Gröner mentioned child soldiers.
I think that is the most topical of the questions concerning children' s rights.
We must support all those who are working for the voluntary protocol, which will begin to be drawn up next year.
We must make sure that countries which sanction child soldiers really are not given the same advantages.
I am sorry that this Parliament could not have given the Sakharov prize to a woman who has fought against the employment of child soldiers.
I think it is particularly important that, not only before but also after the Tampere Summit, we investigate - under the third pillar - how children are treated and ensure that child refugees receive special treatment.
Mr President, I would agree with much of what we have heard already in the debate this evening.
I, like many others here, will remember the enthusiasm and political excitement with which this convention was adopted, how many world leaders were keen to be seen with young people and to talk in glowing terms of the future they were offering.
I reflect with considerable sorrow at the dying-away of many of those fine words.
One of the main concerns of that convention is the right for children to live in peace.
People have already referred to some 300,000 under-18 year olds recruited as soldiers throughout the world.
Some of them are in our own Member States where they have no right to vote for the governments which decide their futures.
We see many children working in conditions of slavery and forced labour and we would urge all European Union states to ratify the ILO Convention dealing with these issues.
We would also urge Members States at the next IGC, to adopt a legal base to promote and protect the rights of the child as defined in the United Nations Convention.
We also need to take responsibility for the state of the world in which those children are growing up, not least the environmental conditions under which many of them have to suffer.
It is essential that we meet and surpass the targets that we have set ourselves to combat such things as climate change.
For far too many children, clean water, safe food and adequate shelter are still a dream, even for many in the so-called developing world.
We would also argue that we need to change the priorities of our international financial institutions so that priority may be given to safeguarding the environment and providing health care and education rather than open markets.
Lastly, cancelling the debt of the world' s poorest countries would also help the young people of those nations considerably.
Mr President, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of this Convention, a text which recognises the child as an individual in its own right, by giving it its own rights (the right to life, the right to identity and to a family, the right of expression and the right to be fed and educated) it is nevertheless still true that on our continent every thirty seconds, a child is abused, raped or beaten up, is indoctrinated, and is the victim of inadequate policies, changes in family and financial circumstances, a victim too of the fact that we are not applying this international Convention.
It is therefore our duty, at the end of the century to ask ourselves why there are millions of children who are forced into prostitution, who kill themselves, who take drugs, and as our continent is only just beginning to discover the terrible effects of paedophilia, to which we have closed our eyes for such a long time, we must ask ourselves why, in our countries which are developed in terms of democracy and economics, which proudly celebrate the Declaration on Human Rights every year, these rights are flouted when the most vulnerable in our society, that is children, are concerned.
With this in mind, Commissioner, we hope that our children will become much more visible.
During the last Parliamentary term, I tabled a report on behalf of Parliament on the protection of children and the family in which I asked for a visible budget for our children and for the creation, within the Commission, of a special unit responsible for protecting children and the family.
In it I also highlighted the need to bring together, at our own behest, an extraordinary European Council on the future of policies on the family and on protecting children in the Union and to present an annual report to Parliament comparing legislation on this issue in our respective countries.
Finally, we hope, and I too hope, like many of my fellow MEPs, that we can contemplate, within the framework of the IGC, the introduction of an indisputable legal basis for actions favouring children and the family.
Whereas in 2001 a report will be made at the UN of the first World Summit on Children, I suggest that within our own Parliament, we create a European Children' s Parliament, established together with them, to celebrate this European World Summit in 2001.
Mr President, Commissioner, every time children' s rights are not respected, an act of violence is committed.
Even if collective violence happens to be the most visible, daily acts of violence and problems between neighbours, which we might call small acts of violence, are very hard to bear for those who suffer them and it is in this climate that some children are born and grow up today.
Violence is indicative of social problems that must be urgently addressed.
Instead of corrective or repressive solutions, priority should be given to preventive solutions, creating a different kind of family setting, which would finally enable us to prevent pointless suffering on a personal and on a social scale and to practise a genuine policy of inclusion and socialisation from birth onwards.
The important thing is not to try to draw up a catalogue of rights, but to make everyone aware of the importance of early childhood, in order to avoid a future society where, because they were denied their rights when children, young people' s only means of expressing themselves is to rebel.
Humans are born helpless and in a state of dependence.
Babies have nothing but their rights.
They can have no obligations.
Obligations come only with awareness, and awareness is only stimulated by means of education and there can be no successful education without respect for the baby' s dignity and for that of the child.
We must support children' s rights in third countries, but also in our own States.
We must also start to collectively think about children' s living conditions in the various European countries particularly in urban areas, and initiate a form of collaboration as well as financial resources in order to help families in difficulty, particularly in the case of single-parent families or of vulnerable parents.
Our goal is nothing less than to have well-balanced children.
It is therefore our duty to protect and educate them.
Mr President, this year' s tenth anniversary of the UN Convention is a very good opportunity for both the European Parliament and the Commission not just to deliver speeches in celebration of the anniversary but above all to press for further action, to make more resources available, and to take initiatives and measures to coordinate an integrated and binding policy which will prove effective in protecting human values and the human dignity of children.
Recent UNICEF statistics paint a gloomy picture of world reality.
Millions of children are suffering from hunger and a lack of basic medical care and education, whilst some 300,000 children under the age of 18 are currently being trained for and are taking part in military operations.
And whilst all this is happening in the underdeveloped world, in the civilised West violence against children, abandonment and the sexual exploitation of children through international networks is assuming terrifying dimensions.
That is why the European Parliament needs to send a strong message to all the institutional bodies of the European Union, to international organisations and to governmental organisations telling them that we must put an end to this scourge.
In light of the drawing up of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the creation of the area of freedom, security and justice, we must incorporate a separate chapter on the protection of the rights of the child.
Mr President, never before in history were humanitarian rights so well developed.
Never before have there been so many international treaties ratified by so many states.
Despite this, human rights are still being systematically violated on a large scale.
This also applies to children' s rights.
Nearly all countries have now ratified the treaty.
Although good progress has been made in certain areas, other forms of abuse against children are on the increase.
Over the past decade, the number of children on the streets has grown at an alarming rate.
Commercial sexual exploitation of children has become more international and more organised.
Children are more than ever the victim of wars.
It is estimated that since 1987, two million children have been killed in armed conflict.
Six million have been maimed for life.
Nearly 30 million are currently on the run from war and violence.
Treaties on their own do not suffice.
They also need to be implemented.
More mechanisms should therefore come into place in order to actually enforce these rights, more monitoring bodies to ensure that they are observed and more pressure tools for sentencing perpetrators.
We have already mentioned one of the cruellest forms of child abuse: child soldiers.
In fact, over the past two years, 300,000 children under the age of 18 have fought in conflicts all over the world, many of whom were recruited under duress.
Invariably, greater numbers of children than adults are killed due to a lack of experience and training.
Drafting in child soldiers not only threatens to lead to a criminalisation of society, it also turns all children into potential targets.
Mr President, we need more than fine-sounding declarations of intent.
As Parliament, we need to advocate the introduction of a minimum age of 18 for recruitment and taking part in armed conflict.
Presenting a united front on this, linking all European Member States without exception, will be more than a symbolic step in the direction of a more child-friendly society.
Mr President, many tragedies there are in the world but none more moving than those that affect children.
There are none worse than the ones we have heard about today involving trades in children.
I want to refer to one of those trades and that is the trade that takes place in adoption.
In the United Kingdom, in the 1960s, we had some 25,000 adoptions, with 12,500 under one-year-olds.
In the 1970s that figure had fallen to 13,000 and the under one-year-olds to 3,000.
By the 1990s that had dropped again to 7,000 with only 900 under one-year-olds.
Much of the differences stem of course from the wider and freer availability of abortion.
In Britain the figure is one in five pregnancies, in London it is one in three.
More children who are available for adoption have disabilities - mental or physical or behavioural problems - and so couples, not surprisingly, look further afield for babies to adopt.
And further afield, indeed, there are babies available for adoption.
The first duty for all of us should be to the child.
For any child that needs a family, the preference is for its own family and if that is not available then a family in its own community.
If that is not available then a family, perhaps with a different background, within its own country.
If that is not available, then, and only then, should one start looking for a home abroad.
But it must be a properly vetted and loving home and the couple taking on the responsibility for that child must show an understanding of the child's background.
Too often we have seen abuses in the system which puts couples' wishes before the child's interests.
So we have seen rackets developing in baby-selling, mothers having their babies stolen, mothers being bribed to part with their children, mothers being conned that the child is going to benefit from a good start in life and return to the family when, of course, there is no such intention.
That is why we have the Hague Convention on Inter-Country Adoption.
That is why I ask the Commission to make sure that Hague Convention is properly implemented throughout the European Union nations.
I ask for a report to be brought forward to show the state of law in each member country and the state of legal practice.
On this, the tenth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, we must stand up for those children, for their rights to be children.
That means supporting children in need because of illness, or disability or hunger or poverty or lack of educational opportunities.
It means an end to child labour and exploitation and the awful trades in children.
So much of that is caused by the cruelty or neglect of adults and the least adults can do is to ensure that when a child genuinely has no family we apply the provisions of the Inter-Country Convention when giving that child another chance in life through adoption.
. (FR) Mr President, first of all, I would like to thank all the speakers and to assure you that, on behalf of the Commission, I have noted your concerns and your wishes.
I think, moreover, that we are facing a problem that can be seen from two different angles: on the one hand, from that of basic rights, and on the other, from that of the influence of children' s policies on the Union' s areas of action.
With regards to the first angle, fundamental rights, in accordance with Article 6 of the Treaty, we in the Union are committed to respecting fundamental rights, and specifically, the freedoms and fundamental human rights, in the way they have evolved in the constitutional traditions common to our Member States.
I think that the appropriate forum for debating the opportunities to enshrine a fundamental right for children must be the same as for the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
I would like to say, before Parliament, that I shall raise the issue there.
With regard to sectoral policies, I still hold with the suggestion of a communication on this subject by the Commission which must, by definition, be horizontal.
But I would also like to point out, before Parliament, that the Commission is already committed to developing specific measures concerning children.
I must tell you all that in my own area of action, more specifically, police and judicial cooperation, that the fight against the trade in children, the fight against the abuse of children and other crimes against them, as well as the prevention of juvenile crime are just as much priorities for action by the Commission which we will be developing within the framework of programmes for police and judicial cooperation that I shall inform you of when I give the presentation of the scoreboard system requested by the Heads of State and Government.
With regard to this opportunity for a horizontal communication by the Commission, I think that we can envisage therefore, its organisational consequences put forward in your suggestions: the creation of a unit within the Commission and the definition of budgets dedicated to the protection of children in order to improve public supervision of the Union' s participation as well as over policies of child protection.
Finally, I would like to point out that the responsibility for applying the Convention rests above all with the Member States and that that is an area in which we are strictly bound to apply the principle of subsidiarity.
But I would also like to think that we could envisage promoting, under the auspices of the Commission, a comparative study of the transposition of the Convention on the Rights of the Child into the national laws of several Member States.
I think that this kind of study could help to identify the extent to which the Convention is actually being applied.
I am a lawyer and I am very keen on laws and legal texts, but I am also a father, and I am especially keen on seeing moral, political and cultural rules being applied to protecting children.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Informing and consulting workers
The next item is Mr Rocard' s oral question (B5-0034/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, on informing and consulting workers in the European Community.
Mr President, Commissioner, in April 1999, the European Parliament adopted at first reading its legislative resolution on the Commission proposal establishing a general framework for informing and consulting employees in the European Union.
The proposal for a directive establishes a framework which aims to remedy the gaps and counter the shortcomings of the national and Community legislation currently in force.
The objectives of this proposal are the following: to ensure that the right to regular information and consultation of employees on economic and strategic developments in the firm and on the decisions which affect them exists in all Member States of the European Community; to consolidate social dialogue and relations of trust within the firm in order to assist risk anticipation, develop the flexibility of work organisation within a framework of security and enhance employees' awareness of the need to adapt, encouraging this; to include the situation and anticipated development of employment within the firm among the subjects of information and consultation; to ensure that workers are informed and consulted prior to decisions which are likely to lead to substantial changes in work organisation or in contractual relations; ensure the effectiveness of these procedures by introducing specific penalties for those who seriously violate their obligations in this field.
In this regard, we have seen recently - judging by some debates held in this Chamber - how important it is to lay down a precise reference framework for information and consultation.
This proposal will ensure minimum standards for information and consultation to be applied throughout the Community, by harmonising the fundamental rights of employees - these are already in place in many Member States - and helping to strengthen the European social dimension, which is what we are all aiming for.
The European Parliament has adopted a series of amendments, aiming, in particular, to specify procedures and definitions for information and consultation, in particular as regards the moment at which information should be transmitted.
We believe, however, that it is important for this to be carried out during the planning stage so as to allow employees to anticipate change, extending the Directive' s field of application and ensuring that it contains minimum provisions at Community level, derogations from which may be allowed only if they are more favourable to employees, as well as extending the content to the areas which directly affect the workers and their future.
The Commission reacted positively to some amendments to our report and voiced reservations about others.
Nevertheless - and here is the reason for this oral question - it still has not tabled a revised proposal that clearly states its position on Parliament' s amendments, and also - and I must say this with regret, in that we had expected the Finnish Presidency to take this issue into account - the Finnish Presidency has not shown the political will to continue with this dossier.
The reason for this question is, in fact, to ask the Commission not just to express its position on Parliament' s proposals clearly, but, above all, to ask it for the procedures and time periods for the tabling of its own revised version on Parliament' s position.
On behalf of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, the question I would like to ask the Commissioner - who moreover, has displayed great sensitivity on these subjects in other circumstances - is the following: can you tell us what the conflicting aspects of the matter are and the reasons why a revised proposal has not yet been tabled?
Moreover, can you anticipate the proposal to be tabled before the end of the year?
But above all, what measures do you intend to adopt to facilitate a political agreement on the issue, an agreement which is of prime importance for the Commission, Council and Parliament to be able to take a final decision on this matter? We consider this to be especially important, and besides, it is part of a more wide-ranging issue which is concerned with preparing and accompanying the changes underway in the labour market, so that they do not produce negative results, especially as far as employees' job security is concerned.
Mr President, without a doubt the European Parliament plays an important role in many significant issues concerning social awareness, but it must be said that particularly here, Parliament has played a forceful role in this directive.
Mr Ghilardotti described the facts.
I should just like to make four basic points on the issue of the Community directive.
This proposed Community directive is a framework which will enable us to adjust to industrial change.
It is an essential political framework which will enable us to welcome this inevitable change in a socially acceptable way.
In the last discussion we held in this Chamber on the Michelin case, I had said that such changes are by no means a smooth operation since we are living in an age of major restructuring, technological advances, changes in the work place, and expanding globalisation.
We must therefore prepare ourselves to welcome this change at a social level.
The next point I would like to make is that in this age of restructuring, Europe has been generally successful.
It has the internal market, which is deepening day by day, and it has Monetary Union, which is widening day by day. Now, the time has come for Europe to prove its social dimension.
Thus, this directive is indeed a very important political choice.
It was proposed following some three years of dialogue in April with the social partners and in November 1998 it was proposed both in Parliament and in the Council.
Parliament reacted with the resolution and the 35 amendments.
A year on, however, the Council has not even considered this directive.
As far as the amendments are concerned, the Commission accepts nine of them, seven of them are in principle acceptable, but we did not make further progress and I would like to explain why.
Under the Finnish Presidency, which as you know is responsible for pushing forward directives and planning the six-month period, a strategy was announced in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee.
This strategy envisaged the first ballot on the European company statute directive to be followed by the ballot on the directive on consultation and information. Reasoning that if the directive we are discussing today were to come first, then the ballot on the employment directive, which as you all know has been on the table for discussion for more than 14 years now, would become extremely complicated.
The Finnish Presidency' s strategy was for there to be a discussion on the issue of the European company statute.
However, the directive we are discussing today did not make it to the negotiating table and I would like to reply to Ms Ghilardotti' s question regarding what issues are still controversial and what issues are still giving rise to disagreement among the national representatives.
Firstly, the companies' personnel threshold should be higher than the one we have been discussing for consulting and informing.
In my opinion, the issue of small and medium-sized businesses must be treated separately.
The situation regarding small and medium-sized businesses is different, but of course, there must be a threshold higher than the one we have been discussing.
The threshold of 50 people had been suggested.
I repeat that this is a major topic of discussion and there have been many differences of opinion over it.
The second issue concerns what is actually meant by the term 'consultation and information' .
There were some dissenting opinions which depended largely on the differing state of affairs in various Member States and, in many cases, on the political viewpoints we adopt.
The third issue concerns the degree of self-reliance and the terms of agreement between the social partners in each Member Sate and how far they can go. The final issue is that of sanctions.
Those issues are to a greater or lesser extent still open.
The question at present is what we will have to do and how we will have to proceed in order to achieve the desired result.
And the desired result is for us to be able to vote for such a directive as soon as possible.
It is not important for us to have a particularly sound directive on the table for discussion.
What is important is that we create the right framework with set preconditions and that it is voted for so that it can enter into force.
So, what is the timetable and what does the Commission propose to do hereafter?
Firstly, we are awaiting the completion of the Finnish Presidency' s term of office and to see if there will be some final agreement on the issue concerning the European company statute.
If there is no result at the end of the year, I intend to propose a new strategy to the Portuguese Presidency, a different approach to the issue and a different basis for negotiations so that we can make quicker headway with the directive in question, and, as soon as we have the Council' s initial reaction, proceed with this new approach which, in my view, is quite a straightforward one.
It is not difficult for us to readjust the proposal based on the amendments accepted so far and then to refer this to the Council.
I believe, however, that under the Portuguese Presidency we must adopt a very different approach from the largely unsuccessful one adopted under the existing Presidency, and proceed in the way I prescribed before.
Mr President, Commissioner, in April the PPE Group voted for the legislative resolution on the directive on a European framework for informing and consulting workers in the Member States.
Partnership and subsidiarity are the hallmark of the Parliament and Commission proposals.
Companies should be provided with a tailor-made solution for informing and consulting workers, based on agreement between the two sides of industry.
One of Parliament' s proposals is that existing national workers' organisations must be involved in drawing up this agreement.
It would be unthinkable to have an agreement that local works councils had not been involved in shaping!
Although the Commission' s initial reaction to the various amendments was positive, they have not yet put forward an amended proposal, as you yourself have said.
You cannot just put everything that was so carefully worked out in Parliament on ice!
It is high time that the right conditions for a Council common position were created. There is obviously a lack of political will in the Council.
How does the Commission view the situation, Commissioner? I did not entirely follow you.
Does the Commission believe that the Finnish Presidency and possibly also the forthcoming Portuguese Presidency should be concerned that the United Kingdom, for example, might switch back to the opposition camp in the dispute over workers' participation rights in the European Company, which has not yet been created? After all, it is an open secret that the British Government was only persuaded to support a European Company with minimum participation rights because of a promise to hold back on the directive on information and consultation for one year.
When we have considered examples of company restructuring in this Chamber, we have often complained about management' s failure to provide information in good time, as with Hoover, Renault and Michelin.
But we have some good news now. This relates to the success story of the directive on the European Works Council.
For it to work well, national workers' organisations at local level should be able to forward their information to the European Works Council, and they should have sufficient rights to react in good time.
This directive will ensure that.
I would like to state my question even more clearly, Commissioner: was I right in understanding you to say that the Commission does not intend to present an amended proposal before the end of this year? I would deeply regret that.
Timely information for workers means transparency, which in turn creates confidence and avoids friction in European companies. Employers and employees stand to gain from this in equal measure.
Mr President, I am not going to repeat what the previous speakers have said about the need for this directive.
A few days ago, Commissioner, it was said on the subject of the Michelin debate that intelligent approaches to restructuring were required.
I shall give you the example of the restructuring of a company of European dimensions which has a European works council, which is intelligent, but only in one respect.
And this is exactly what we are trying to avoid: a lack of balance in social dialogue.
All of Parliament' s amendments have been very significant, and one that I consider to be extremely relevant is the one that expresses the need for ethics and good faith on all sides.
What happened, for example, with the restructuring at Ford in Portugal is a prime example of what happens when this good faith is missing. At the end of the 1980s, Ford in Portugal had twelve hundred employees.
The company moved the factory to Poland and promised investment in that country in return for state tax and other incentives.
That investment was never fully made in Poland.
And Ford is now announcing the closure of both factories: in Poland and in Portugal.
This kind of relocation and restructuring, Commissioner, is this century' s way of doing business.
It has nothing to do with introducing new technology or with companies' needs to maintain productivity levels.
According to Ford, they do not have problems with their productivity levels; on the contrary, they say that these two plants and their workers are enormously productive.
And the result is that because these employees are so highly specialised they will only be able to find work as unskilled workers.
We should be concerned by all of this social upheaval.
It requires a response, it requires steering through, and it requires legislative measures and more besides!
It was high time that the Commission started monitoring companies of this size because it is not the companies of fifty or a hundred employees that are under threat.
Let us begin, then, with companies of European dimensions, and let us begin by assessing what a necessary restructuring actually is.
We in the European Parliament represent both sides of industry, and one of them has no voice of its own, Commissioner.
It is crucial that we let it be heard.
I sincerely hope that the Portuguese Presidency will provide a response to this and I shall use all my influence to this end.
Mr President, I want to say that I too am sorry that the Commission has still not submitted a revised proposal on the subject of informing and consulting workers.
Even if, after the election, a new and different majority is formed here in Parliament, we support this inquiry into the issue, even if there are some amendments which we in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party value more than others; yes, even if there are aspects of the proposal we should definitely like to have done without.
The political process should not be directed by delays.
We in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party want to promote the cause of informing and consulting workers, but it is also important to us that the necessary respect should be shown for differences in traditions and culture in this area.
No new bureaucratic systems should be established which are out of harmony with labour markets where there is at present an effective dialogue between the social partners.
We attach particular importance to the fact that life should not- even with the best of intentions - be made more difficult for small and medium-sized businesses where, in the nature of things, management is close to the workers.
The amendments which Parliament adopted at the first reading in April mean, among other things, that the regulations governing the consulting of workers will apply to businesses with 50 or more employees and that it will no longer be possible for individual nations to be exempt from these.
We prefer the original proposal which makes it possible in certain circumstances to raise the limit to 100 employees.
On the other hand, we can support the tone of the amendments which clearly points in the direction of making the directive a minimum directive with the Member States having the option to go further.
As we say, we like some of the things in this proposal from Parliament, and some other things we like rather less. However, a delay in the decision process is something which we definitely cannot countenance.
I think, however, that Mrs Diamantopoulou has provided a good explanation of the problems there are in implementing the proposal, and this shows in fact that there are real political problems.
Commissioner, I come from a country where the boss of a multinational company, Michelin, decided to inform his shareholders first of his decision to make 10% of his employees in various countries redundant over the next three years.
In the course of last month' s part-session, Commissioner, you stated, in a warm and convincing way, the Commission' s determination to protect employees' rights in terms of information and consultation about their future.
We are delighted that you are determined to see this into the Portuguese Presidency.
However, and contrary to what the previous speaker has just said, the Greens think that these rights should be extended to all companies that are not part of the small-business sector and we propose a minimum of twenty employees.
If we adopted, as the Commission seems to want to do, a minimum of fifty employees, this would cause serious distortions of competition, affecting only 3% of European companies.
One day we will have to go further.
In several European countries, the participation of workers is something which society sets great store by.
Participation in decision making and also participation in the results.
The European Council did not want to follow Parliament' s advice on this matter.
Today however, by means of pension funds, pensioners are participating more and more in companies' capital, in their management and in their profits.
It would be paradoxical and would even threaten a war between the generations if current employees were to be excluded from this kind of participation.
Mr President, Commissioner, during our debate on 27 October on the Michelin affair, I reminded all those present that Parliament had amended the directive on informing and consulting workers and that we were still waiting for the Commission to adopt these amendments.
The two main amendments - I shall remind you of them - covered two points: firstly, the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs wanted the directive to apply to companies with twenty or more employees, and Parliament to companies of fifty employees or more, whereas the Commission is proposing the figure of one hundred or more, if I am not mistaken.
On the other hand, the second major amendment stated that any withholding of information from the employees' representatives by a company' s management should be penalised, and not only the withholding of information that the management considers important (far too vague an idea).
What does the Commission have to say today about these two points? Nothing new, and we will get back to that in the year 2000.
Frankly, Commissioner, I do not think that we can do things this way.
This wait-and-see policy is completely turning its back on the way society is waiting for an answer.
We should not only listen to the message that was sent to us in the last elections, and adopt these two amendments, but I have also put forward additional proposals which strike me as being crucial today.
I proposed the introduction of a waiting period of six months for any restructuring plan in order to allow an independent trade union review to take place, and I also proposed that if the company had received public subsidies but is not complying with the rules which have been laid down, it should pay back the subsidies it had received.
I think that, now, you should present an amended draft directive, incorporating these further measures, this waiting period, and use your role to put pressure on the Council rather than falling in line as a measure of precaution with the lowest common denominator in our respective governments.
I also expect, Commissioner, that Mr Prodi will include these references too in the programme that he will be presenting to us.
Mr President, I would like to extend my warmest thanks to the Commissioner this evening for her promise.
1 January 2000 is very close indeed, and a certain strategy has already been put in place by her predecessor for keeping an eye on what is happening as regards the European plc.
It is clear that something needs to be done about this.
I am delighted that the Commissioner has taken this so well.
Indeed, I think, as far as this is concerned, that we must go further from 1 January onwards.
I should also add that with this strategy, it has been the case before that we have lost sight of the fact that the European plc has to be voted on with unanimity, whilst this is a directive requiring majority voting.
We may well speed up in the long run by putting this directive back on track, rather than continuing endlessly with the European plc.
This may be an unnecessary consideration but I do think that we achieved our purpose tonight.
We have made some progress.
Mr President, of course it is not the Commissioner who is keeping a low profile - although they tried to play down the fact that nothing has been submitted yet, but that has now been addressed as far as I am concerned - rather it is the Council itself.
Then we have to shift our attention to the somewhat mysterious Prime Minister of Great Britain, Mr Blair.
Mr Blair who would very much like to join forces with Europe, yet is trying to stop Europe from bringing this issue to a satisfactory conclusion.
This is the problem we are facing, Mr President.
In all manner of ways, using traditional politburo tactics, attempts are even being made to thwart debate on this directive, that is people expressing their opinions as to the content.
Surely, this is not something we should expect to happen.
I can only say, Mr President, that the Blair administration and some other socialist governments are so frightened to admit how little they are prepared to do for the employee, that they cannot cope with this in debate, as they used to, but have to resort to all kinds of underhand politburo tactics.
This must end and I am really pleased that this has been highlighted this evening in this debate in one way or another.
Mr President, I could tell my good friend, Mr Pronk, that if he will have a word with Mr Aznar, I will have a word with Mr Blair.
It is a majority proposal.
We have problems with a number of governments.
I should like to thank the Commissioner for what she has said.
I see now the sense in the strategy that she is adopting.
I hope the delay in a revised proposal might lead to progress.
I would say this, however: please bear in mind that if part of this strategy is that a new proposal is brought forward after the turn of the year that is substantially different to the first then we, Parliament, would need to be consulted from the beginning once again.
Please bear that in mind.
One argument in addition to the list of crunch points that you mentioned in your introduction that has been deployed by my own government and others is that of subsidiarity.
It is not a very good argument in this particular area.
In the ten years up to 1996, following the introduction of the Single Act, there was a tripling in the number of mergers and take-overs in both the service and manufacturing sectors.
An interesting thing is that two-thirds of those mergers and take-overs were at national rather than transnational level.
They were, however, directly related to the completion of the internal market.
Therefore developments at Member State level are inextricably linked to the changes we have put in place at European level.
That is one of the strongest arguments against subsidiarity - denying progress in this area.
In the 1970s our governments, despite the unanimity rule, introduced a directive on transfers, one on collective redundancies and one on insolvency to try to bring about responsible restructuring following the oil shocks.
It is absolutely dreadful that the Council now seems to be paralysed when it comes to this directive, to the worker involvement in the company statute and indeed the Commission in relation to a revision of the Works Council Directive.
We need to get this moving once again.
May I start by saying, Commissioner, that I was very pleased with what you had to say and I am as surprised to be saying that as perhaps you might be to hear me saying it.
But given that there is a delay, which has already been deplored, I would hope that the period of that delay will be used constructively and that the Council and the Commission and indeed Parliament will reflect on how to get things as right as possible in what is clearly a key area.
I was concerned to read a comment in the Financial Times last week when you, Commissioner, were in London - where you made quite an impact - about you forcing the creation of workers' consultation committees and stating that Anna Diamantopoulou' s decision will dismay the UK Government and industry.
Whilst I accept that the fact that it may dismay such illustrious bodies does not automatically make your proposals wrong, I trust that you would also admit that it does not automatically make them right either.
I would like the Commission to bear in mind that at the time when Parliament put forward the amendments last April, the composition of this Parliament was indeed very different.
At that time the Socialists were the largest group; happily that state of affairs no longer applies and hopefully will continue to no longer apply long into the future.
But certainly the composition of this Parliament is very different and I would expect its conclusions to be different.
Clearly we will continue to work in a spirit of constructive consensus but the epicentre of that consensus has moved sharply.
So finally I would say that when the second reading comes up, if we are serious about creating jobs, if we are serious about keeping our industries really competitive, if we are serious about encouraging enterprise, then some of us may feel we have gone too far and that it may well be time to draw a line.
Mr President, I would like to say to Mr Matthews that, following my visit to London, there was a party statement accusing me of having "crazy ideas" .
I hope that this was not the general consensus.
In response, I must say that- and politicians too are always faced with such dilemmas - you have to decide between being a likeable individual or one that is effective.
I could quite easily be a likeable person.
Parliament' s amendments from April could have been accepted, incorporated into a text and referred to the Council and from there on I could quite easily have said that it was just a matter for the Council.
However, it was I who introduced the reform, accepted the proposals and forwarded them to the Council and left it in the hands of the Council to resolve.
However, I believe that for such a demanding directive - and Parliament is quite aware that it is not a straightforward one - we must take the current state of affairs of each country, the various aspects of social dialogue, the positions of the social partners and the various discrepancies in all the points I mentioned before, piece them all together and thereby find a very fine balance between them all, so that we can be as successful as we possibly can.
If we approve the amendments straight away, and take the new proposal to the negotiating table, then that will necessitate unanimity, which, as we all know, as things stand at present, will not achieve the desired result.
I believe therefore that we need to be more effective and I shall endeavour to do just that.
Already we are in constant communication with national representatives and governments, with all the individual ministers.
In my view, this directive is not merely a directive which will help workers.
I believe that it is of great social significance because of the major problems and reforms ahead of us.
And we all know that there are sectors, such as the banking sector, which will undergo radical change in the coming years.
We must therefore prepare a framework to make us all aware that it will facilitate competition, and that it will not be just a framework of social awareness, but one that will protect social equilibrium and social rest in Europe, and ensure stability and development.
We shall proceed on this basis, and on this basis, I shall also proceed, with the aforementioned timetable, in the belief that, under the Portuguese Presidency, we will indeed be able to find a new strategy.
I, like Ms Damião, note that there are such endeavours and laws at national level and two directives at Community level.
With this new directive, we wish to reinforce the right of workers to be consulted and informed, which to date has not been reinforced.
There is more to be done on a voluntary basis and this can be interpreted at will.
We want to see stronger reinforcement and greater responsibility being taken, but we also need to have the consensus of both Member States and social partners because acceptance from all quarters will play an extremely important role in its effective implementation.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was closed at 8.15 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I simply wish to refer to the official status of Strasbourg, a wonderful city which nevertheless has a series of defects.
Yesterday, I left home before 1 p.m. and arrived here just before 8 p.m.
I had been moving from airport to airport.
Then, fortunately, the City of Strasbourg provides a service to bring us here, but it consists of a bus which picks up a large number of passengers and we end up wasting a lot of time.
I believe that this is a great city, where we should perhaps all meet once a year, but the rest of the time we should act in a pragmatic manner, take a practical approach to finances and work in one single headquarters, where we should all be located.
This is much more sensible, much more rational, and I believe that that is how we should view it and, while we should praise this great city for its official status, we have to operate efficiently.
A similar problem. I omitted to sign last night as I was travelling all day and arrived a bit late last evening.
I would appreciate it if you would consider me as having been present when it comes to the Minutes.
I was in Strasbourg yesterday evening but I omitted to sign.
Mr President, I got to Strasbourg on time yesterday but last week my flight was delayed by several hours getting to Brussels, then I had to wait an hour and a half for a taxi, and to cap it all I fell victim to the train strike.
I would ask you to take note of that as well.
Thank you very much, Mr Esclopé.
On behalf of the European Parliament, may we also express our sympathy towards the victims of this natural disaster.
(The Minutes were approved)
Mr President, I would like to draw Parliament' s attention to the interview - published yesterday - that our President, Mrs Fontaine gave to an Italian newspaper, La Stampa, where she is openly and strongly in favour of state funding for private schools in Italy.
Now, at the moment this matter is the subject of a very heated political debate in my country and I think it totally inappropriate, if not intolerable, for our President to side so strongly with one party, given her institutional position, what is more, overlooking the fact that an article of the Italian Constitution talks explicitly about freedom for anybody to open a private school without putting burdens on the State.
I would therefore invite the President to take more care, at the time of a political debate in one of the countries of the Union, not to take sides and to respect, or at least take into account the existence of the constitutions in force in the various Member States of the Union.
Mr President, I have to say that what Mr Vattimo said is not a true representation of the facts. The President of this Parliament only stated the outcome of a vote in this House on a European Parliament resolution which called on all the Member States to respect the commitment to equality of school qualifications, i.e. to facilitate scholastic equality.
No position was taken: she only spoke of what was happening.
However, I think that this attempt to exploit, even in this House, a political battle that the left is fighting in Italy against equality of school qualifications is absurd and not relevant to this Parliament' s work.
Thank you very much, Mr Tajani.
System of own resources
The next item is the report by Mrs Haug (A5-0052/1999) on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision on the system of the European Union' s own resources (COM(1999)333 - C5-0092/1999 - 1999/0139(CNS)).
Mr President, Berlin may not be ideal, but the Committee on Budgetary Control deemed it the best possible outcome in the current climate.
Top of the agenda of the Committee on Budgetary Control was - what else can we do?: how can we monitor things in the best possible way?
We have decided to maintain our viewpoint, as Mrs Haug has just stated that we must maintain the own resources ceiling at 1.27%, provided that the old calculation method is maintained.
With regard to the cost of collection, the Committee on Budgetary Control has not objected to the increase in this cost from 10 to 25%.
As for the stand-by percentage of VAT resources, the Committee on Budgetary Control agrees with a reduction thereof and also approves of this reduction occurring one year earlier than planned in the Committee' s proposals.
We are also of the opinion, as has been expressed by the Committee on Budgetary Control itself, that it is necessary that a reserve is built into the expenditure for the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund so as to be able to cushion unforeseen expenses.
As I have already stated, it is obvious that the control on revenue is paramount for the Committee on Budgetary Control.
In this respect, we have attempted to refer to the work of this Parliament' s first Committee of Inquiry, the Committee of Inquiry which was involved in fraud in transit. Since the publication of this Committee' s report, we have heard very little in this respect.
We would like to change this. We would like to be kept informed by the Committee on a regular basis.
What is to be gained from having a situation whereby revenue is collected from the Union which belongs to the Union but the work involved is carried out by the national services? We have therefore managed to have an amendment adopted which stipulates that in the year 2003, the Committee will need to submit an extensive report to demonstrate the level of improvements achieved since the work of this Committee of Inquiry.
Finally, Mr President, the Committee on Budgetary Control is of the opinion that, at the half-way stage, we should once again look into a new system of own resources because if new countries join, the current system could well prove to be too complex.
Mr President, the own resources system is the hub of European policy; it directly affects 370 million citizens with national and economic sensibilities of very different types.
The rapporteur applies certain questionable criteria, for example she accuses the Commission of having limited itself to applying Council guidelines.
We must remind the rapporteur that that was the task which the Council entrusted to the Commission: to transform the political equilibrium of the fifteen into a concrete and viable proposal.
We agree with the rapporteur' s request for a more transparent and simpler system, which is intelligible to all the citizens of Europe.
We also agree that there is a need to take account of the citizen' s fiscal capacity and a need to seek new sources of income.
The current system still contains regressive elements which should be modified.
We believe, however, that this is neither the time nor the place to impose expiry dates on the British rebate and the reductions granted to certain countries in the funding of the said rebate, especially when these proposed decisions have still not been approved in the various national Parliaments.
It seems to us inappropriate to launch into this debate at the moment.
The benefits of belonging to the European Union cannot only be measured in budgetary terms, since there is the possibility that imbalances will be created.
The Berlin agreements are a combination of the total level and the composition of spending, political reforms and the own resources system.
The said combination must guarantee equity within a budgetary framework which includes enlargement.
It is for this reason that it seems to us so inadvisable to modify the Berlin decision in the absence of a solid basis.
Neither do we share your apprehensions concerning the application of the ESA(95).
It is an accounting system which allows for a broader base for GDP resources and, consequently, greater financial resources, without surpassing the relative index expressly laid down in the Berlin agreements and in the interinstitutional agreement.
Your fears concerning the modification of the 1.27% can simply be corrected by a downward adjustment of the ceiling on the said resources.
It is therefore an unnecessary amendment.
Neither do we consider the amendments on the traditional own resources to be necessary.
The 25% which the Member States are going to retain for collection expenses will allow for an administrative improvement in customs efficiency and the fight against fraud, which is an aspect that is frequently pointed out by the Court of Auditors.
We also reject the idea of rewarding success in collection since this is incompatible with the principle of equity.
Finally we cannot accept the amendments which modify the timescale for the entry into force of the decision on own resources.
Neither the political reality of the Union, nor the needs of enlargement, and much less the complexity of implementing a system which, in 1997 alone, cost EUR 82,469 million, make it advisable for Parliament to vote for changes to the said timescale.
Finally, we appreciate the continued efforts of the rapporteur, at least over the last year, in bringing together positions and putting forward a common position on behalf of this Parliament.
There are already broad areas of consensus on the basis of which we can contribute to improving the funding of the Union, but the result of the vote in the Committee on Budgets shows that there are some ideas on which we are far from reaching a consensus.
For many of us, our final vote will depend on the result of the voting on various amendments, but, in its current wording, we prefer the Commission' s text.
I would like to start by congratulating the rapporteur, Mrs Haug, for addressing some of the key problems in the current system of own resources.
In her report, Mrs Haug is right to check the Commission' s arbitrary changes introduced through the back door, via a mathematical operation relating to the ceiling on own resources.
Now in the interinstitutional agreement, the Council entered into a binding agreement with the European Parliament on the percentage of GNP, i.e. 1.27%.
The Commission is now saying that this means cash value of 1.27%. This is not acceptable.
The rapporteur emphasises that we should be striving to establish a more equitable system of financing the EU.
The Community budget should have a fair system of revenue collection.
The traditional own resources, for example, are a systematic source of inequitable burdens on Member States and, as has been said, are prone to fraud and excessive bureaucracy.
Instead, the EU budget should be funded on the basis of criteria which improve the fairness of the system and what I would like to see therefore is a fair system of net contributions.
I am speaking here on behalf of the Socialist Group, but if I were speaking as a British member, I would question particular references to the British rebate.
If the budget is to be fair, there should not only be a fair system of contributions but also a fair system of spending.
Unfortunately, such a fair system appears to be a long way off.
I believe that a really serious attempt to reform the Community' s finances should start by making sure that all Member States get their fair share of expenditure.
Until this happens, attempts to reform the own resources system will not improve the situation.
Therefore, what I want to see is a proper reform of the EU' s finances for the future.
But reform cannot be focused on single issues such as the rebate and I feel very uneasy about discussing this issue at this stage in the new Parliament.
It is too early to be making decisions on this subject and setting things in tablets of stone when all the facts are not in front of us.
Mr President, first I would like to thank Mrs Haug for a very well prepared report.
It continues a series of reports in which Mrs Haug has meritoriously and comprehensively analysed the EU' s system of own resources.
The report under discussion is based on the decisions taken at the Berlin Summit, which involve many compromises.
The most important basis mentioned were the estimates for Member States' contributions, reconciliation on which became more important than safeguarding EU financing.
The cornerstone of the system of own resources is still, however, the percentage a member pays out of GNP.
The ceiling for committed contributions remains at 1.27% of GNP, which guarantees that EU revenue rises with inflation and general economic growth.
But this is where the system' s clarity ends.
First, the premium paid for the collection of traditional own resources, i.e. customs duty and agricultural levies, was increased to 25%.
This rise in the rate is, in fact, a clear concession to those countries that collect mostly customs duties, relatively speaking.
The rise was justified by the need to collect contributions more efficiently, but that is not sufficient justification.
Politically, the most problematic issue is the rebate in respect of contributions by the United Kingdom.
The UK has been a member of the EU for 30 years, so it cannot be a matter of a transitional stage.
The same might be said for the agreement made on the payment of this rebate.
The reduced contributions by Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Austria do not have any proper justification either.
Mrs Haug' s report contains a proposal whereby a report on amending the system should be drafted before 2004.
It should examine in particular concessions on contributions and the possibility of creating a new system of own resources that would relate directly to the public, without increasing their burden of taxation.
The Liberals support this reform, all the while stressing that the burden of taxation must not be increased.
Perhaps new forms of own resources could include environmental protection taxes, as environmental questions concern all, and not just the new Member States.
It is important, however, that the new system outlined in the report should come into effect in all respects from the beginning of 2007.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on her report.
She has hit the nail on the head with her observation that at the Berlin Summit, political ideals and ambitions had to give way to a short-sighted bookkeeping mentality.
The European Union' s own resources have the feel of national contributions.
This is why the discussion on the system of own resources is being dominated by a net mentality: who are the net payers of the European Union and who make the net profits?
It will be clear that the economic benefits appeal to the individual Member States, to the detriment of values such as stability, solidarity and welfare in the long term.
It is regrettable that the net payers mainly focus on the revenue side of the budget.
Consequently, a net mentality will mainly lead to missed chances.
For example, the Netherlands has turned its back on the fund for refugees, a fund which, by the Netherlands own admission, it would benefit from disproportionately.
But the Netherlands had prioritised "money back from Europe" over and above "value for money" .
The Berlin straitjacket means, above all, that Europe cannot realise its responsibilities.
It leads to proposals in which Turkey, purely from financial motives, is offered a different political route of access.
It leads to transitional periods which are far too long for the other candidate countries in terms of the environment, for fear that otherwise this, and I quote from the government document, "would lead to an increase in financial strain" .
Unexpected events - which are always to be expected - lead to unfortunate mishaps, to proposals where the reconstruction of Kosovo is at the expense of developing countries.
The Berlin Summit could also be dubbed the Summit of national exemption positions.
Four countries were exempted from contributing to the United Kingdom' s exemption position.
The rapporteur adopted a very wise viewpoint in this respect and has formulated a goal which I support, namely the abolition of all these exemption positions.
The four countries which, rightly so, have rejected the British correction mechanism, should make an effort to rectify this situation.
In respect of levies, it has been proposed that the Member States can now retain 25% instead of 10%.
Contrary to the rapporteur, I welcome this development, and I would even take it one step further.
As far as I am concerned, Member States should be allowed to keep 100%, as long as we increase the rebate via the percentage of GNP.
The GNP eminently reflects the economic development in Member States. It is, to my mind, therefore, the fairest instrument to distribute Europe' s financial responsibility over the Member States.
Mr President, Mrs Haug, first I would like to offer my thanks.
Examining your report was a pleasure both for political and intellectual reasons.
I firmly believe that the report describes what is deemed to be politically feasible, but I think that in view of the challenges that lie before us, it is our responsibility to draw up fundamental reforms aimed not at what is deemed to be politically feasible but rather at what is considered to be politically necessary.
If one wants to change a system then one must establish clearly in one' s own mind what the disadvantages of the current system are, and I believe that these can be summed up under the following four main headings.
Firstly, the existing EU own resources system has a very rigid framework.
The sources of revenue are limited in number, some are on the wane and additional expenditure can only ever be financed if expenditure elsewhere is cut to pay for this.
However, European integration has now reached such proportions that we have simply reached the limit of our capacity where this framework is concerned.
This means that tasks such as enlargement of the Union, upholding human rights worldwide, and creating basic conditions for combating severe unemployment can no longer be tackled using this framework.
Secondly, if we want to be effective in our discussions on reform in this Parliament then ultimately, we as a Parliament must also be given the opportunity to have our say on all the aspects of the process.
In this respect, the powers of the European Parliament in budgetary matters do not go nearly far enough.
Thirdly, the existing structures for budgetary decision making are such that it is extraordinarily difficult for fundamental reform to be carried out.
It stands to reason that the Member States will not exhaust the established ceilings when they are under pressure at home to have to overhaul their budgets and maintain the stability criteria.
Fourthly, discussion about a fair and balanced structure is justified on the one hand but also absurd on the other.
Absurd because the Member States interpret the concept of fairness in such a way that, in the final analysis, they want to get out of the European Union' s budget that which they put in.
That being the case, I for one would be only too happy to spare us the detour via the European Union.
Fairness within the European Union can only mean one thing, namely that the original objectives of economic development, prosperity, and the balancing out of developmental differences constitute the criteria by which fairness is measured.
Ultimately, every budget represents the financial implementation of political strategies.
The European Union has undertaken to do a great deal in the course of the next few years.
If, in so doing, we are only ever going to try and reduce expenditure, then it will simply not be possible to do justice to our political needs.
And if, in addition, rebates, corrections to contributions and so on are to be introduced, then it is only fair to say that any enterprise carrying on in this way would go bankrupt.
This means that we must now concentrate our minds on how we can improve our revenue.
Europe needs a financial instrument that, aside from the funds arising from gross domestic product, is independent of the particularist interests of the Member States.
In other words, we need to raise our own taxes.
The first report in March cited a whole range of positive suggestions to this effect, i.e. an eco-tax, a CO2-tax, taxation on the creaming-off of short-term speculative gains, ECB profits.
This is the path we must go down if the European Parliament and European Union are to have sufficient own resources at their disposal in the future.
Mr President, the Haug Report, which is before this House, presents an eminently political problem, the problem of financing the Union by means of its own resources.
In other times, French leaders would not have hesitated before adopting the policy of the empty chair on such a matter.
Today, unfortunately, our country is the great loser of the Berlin Summit where the Fifteen agreed upon the review of the Union' s system of own resources.
In Berlin, we effectively acknowledged the principle according to which some rich countries, those from the northern part of the Union, were paying too much, hence the revised weighting of Member States' financing shares, resulting in the increased participation of France to the tune of several billion francs.
It is, moreover, obvious that limiting the participation of some Member States in financing the UK rebate will have the effect of increasing the contribution of the others.
As far as this corrective mechanism in favour of the United Kingdom is concerned, we obviously share the opinion of the Haug Report, which proposes that this privilege is gradually phased out, whereas the Commission is proposing only technical adjustments to the reform.
We are opposed to the Haug Report, however, when it proposes to gradually reduce the system' s dependence on Member States' contributions and to achieve financial autonomy in the long term.
Financial autonomy, fiscal autonomy, is this not all leading up to the introduction of a European tax by the back door? At any event, financial autonomy of this type is still in line with that same rationale which we are clearly against.
Ever greater integration, ever greater federalism within Europe, always to the detriment of nation states, eliminating their last remaining area of sovereignty, their fiscal sovereignty.
We cannot accept this and we shall be voting against this report.
Mr President, last March Parliament examined a first Haug report on own resources.
Now we have another, a sort of Haug II, Return of the Haug, but it is a poor sort of comeback.
On 11 March, in our resolution, we voted in a paragraph stating: "believes that the revenue system should as a matter of principle be rid of exemptions and special arrangements" etc.
We are well aware of what the Berlin Council made of this and what the Council based its Berlin Agreement on.
Now, six months later in November, we are examining a report which makes no mention of this point except for a single amendment which, for my part, I would like to see adopted, but it is a Recital which attempts to say more or less the same thing in even vaguer terms.
The fundamental problem before us may be summed up simply as follows: either the system of own resources is referred to us under co-participation, as part of the package of measures which Parliament is asking the IGC to deal with so as to make it, as it were, more democratic, with greater participation, or else, unfortunately, all we can do on this point is note that the ball is in the Council' s court and will stay there for a long time if our proposals are not taken into consideration.
I believe and I hope, therefore, that Parliament may, on the basis of this report, be supported with revenue by this reference in particular as well as by others, and by the elements contained in it, and that Parliament will associate itself to a formal demand, according to which the Intergovernmental Conference will be authorised to tackle both the proposed reforms and also this fundamental aspect of the full participation of Parliament not only as regards the "expenditure" but also as regards the "revenue" of the Union budget.
Mr President, almost thirty years ago it was decided to replace the system of revenues then in force, based on the contribution of the Member States, with a system of own resources.
The importance of this decision is obvious.
Now that three decades have passed, the weaknesses of the current system are only too well known. It is not adequate and it is not simple, logical, transparent or fair.
It is therefore unsustainable.
It is the result of successive, confused judgements which have been forced by the needs, pressures and interests of those who, in different contexts and historical periods, have had the ability to protect them.
The perverse relationship between the contribution from each Member State and its relative ability to guarantee it is unacceptable.
The United Kingdom' s system of positive discrimination, based on the destructive concept of fair return is unjustifiable.
The idea of investing the European Union with own resources has, for this reason, remained a good intention.
Even now, instead of introducing urgently needed reform, the Berlin Council has limited itself to a new raft of small judgements that have resulted from major commitments.
To insist on the current logic of expenditure in which the consequences of the common agricultural policy are increased, which, apart from jeopardising any aim for fairness which has been accepted as a principle of the Treaties, is political in name only. To insist on the system of revenues currently in force, the product of different, contradicting interests, is irreparably incompatible with the desire to develop the project of enlargement of our geographical area.
All of this has been studied, known and discussed for far too long.
We are not even talking about disproportionate resources.
This is a sum that corresponds, in the Council' s proposal for Budget 2000, to only 1.10% of the Community' s GNP and this year could reach 1.27%.
This is a fundamental issue.
The success of the European Union' s pledge before its citizens and the world depends on our ability to show that we are facing up to the necessary reform.
I know that this is a complex issue, as I know what a utopian idea it would be to try to start afresh.
The past cannot be erased and has produced many good things.
But to continue postponing decisions on this matter is to postpone much more than a difficult decision on the European Union financing system.
It would affect a project in which I consciously maintain confidence, as do so many of our fellow citizens, aware as I am of its problems and its potential.
Only a new approach to the issue of own resources which does not increase the fiscal burden on taxpayers, one which makes the system more transparent, simpler and more rational can provide the European Union with equitable conditions.
Mr President, listening to the spokesperson of the Group of the European People' s Party, I sincerely wonder why we exercise the right of consultation in this matter.
Berlin was a step backwards in the field of own resources and, in general, in the field of European solidarity and construction of the political union.
Both elements are probably linked, but I would not dare now to state which is the correct order of cause and effect.
In any event, Parliament criticised it severely in the Spring.
The decision on own resources which we are discussing today, which is merely a translation on the part of the Commission of the European Council' s political decision, is the best evidence of this retrograde step.
All the features of the system which may lead to confusion between own resources and national contributions are highlighted. I wonder, by the way, why these national contributions were abrogated in Maastricht.
Parliament' s position is to condemn and rule out the application of the so-called principle of fair return to the European budget.
Well, Berlin has confirmed that principle, and without daring to admit it, naturally, they have sided with Mrs Thatcher.
There was a disputed British rebate, for historic reasons which are becoming less apparent but which are understandable.
Berlin maintains it but also offers four small rebates to Germany, Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands, which are not exactly the poorest countries in Europe.
It increases the already scandalous 10% prima de collection premium to an unspeakable 25%.
The only real justification for such an aberration is to lower the Dutch bill, despite the fact that the payment - to use the Council' s terminology - is inflated to the benefit of the Dutch coffers as a result of the Rotterdam effect.
And that is what they want to hide.
The Commission' s proposal is completely unsatisfactory, as was the Council' s decision.
We will only resolve the problems of own resources when we accept that the contributors are not the Member States but the citizens. What is unjust is the fact that two European citizens with an identical income make different contributions because of the mere fact that one lives in Frankfurt and the other in Seville.
That is where the injustice lies.
Therefore, it should be made clear that the objective must be that the citizens directly shoulder the burden of the Community budget without an opaque system of resources which will mask the process and prevent democratic accountability.
Meanwhile, temporary solutions should be aimed at ensuring a certain degree of justice and transparency and not the reverse.
Mr President, the draft resolution proposes to increase the European Union' s own resources and to distribute them among the States in a different way.
The real problem is not between States, or between the States and the European Union. The real problem is between social classes.
Of course, the draft resolution states, hypocritically, that this should not lead to an increase in the burden of charge on the European citizen.
But it seems obvious that this is just an empty hope, and that future European taxes will be added to the others.
I am all the more opposed to any idea of increasing taxes because taxation, whether it be national or European, bears down on the working classes in particular.
Throughout Europe the main taxation resource is the indirect taxes which are particularly unfair since they are paid by both the poorest and millionaires at the same rate.
Thus, the most badly paid employees and even the unemployed or the homeless, when paying VAT on their food, are contributing towards financing the European institutions which, nonetheless, have not undertaken a single measure in their favour.
The basic raison d'être of the European Union is to favour large firms by sweeping the obstacles out of their path, unifying their market in Europe and supporting them on the international market.
And if it is necessary to pay more for the European institutions which are working on their behalf, well then, let the major firms pay, let us tax their profits and the dividends of shareholders, let them be forced to pay.
Mr President, more autonomy in raising own resources will automatically mean - and I agree with the previous speaker here - a heavier burden for the European citizens.
At the end of the day it will only lead to additional taxes being brought in and not to certain taxes being abolished.
We believe that it will only be possible to reform the system of own resources with the agreement of the national parliaments, for we will also have to take their ideas into account.
It goes without saying that we are in favour of systems being simpler and more transparent, and that ultimately we are also in favour of the burden on the citizens of Europe being eased rather than increased, so that we in Europe can achieve greater economic growth and in this way raise more taxes for the Union, that is to say for the national Member States.
Before we advocate more autonomy though, we must exploit, that is to say fully explore, every available opportunity for making savings in the EU budget, and we must also explain to the citizens of the Union why we are permitting ourselves expenditure for two parliaments and are not coming up with simpler systems that would relieve the burden on the citizens of the Union rather than add to it.
We will advocate simpler and more transparent systems, but we will not advocate putting even more pressure on the citizens of the Union in the form of additional taxation.
Mr President, a system of own resources gives rise to four questions: who must pay, what are the bases for payment, what must be paid and who must decide to enforce payment?
Neither the Commission nor Parliament have the power to provide an answer to these four questions.
In this affair, we are the imaginary actors in a play written by someone else.
Mrs Haug with her report has the great merit of doing this, by setting out a number of problems and heading in the right direction.
Who must pay?
States or individuals and economic operators? Current evolution is towards States and not towards individuals and economic operators.
It is a dangerous tendency, going towards intergovernmentalism, towards the UN-isation of our system of resources.
What are the bases for payment? Proportionality, progressive increase?
We may well hesitate. Something that we can observe today is that if there is a step in the right direction, towards proportionality, we are in the process of inventing a new system, which involves making the contribution fit the expenditure.
I pay, therefore I receive.
I receive, therefore I pay.
I give you subsidies, on condition that you pay for them.
It is absurd!
The situation is completely surreal.
What must be paid?
Is anyone considering how much longer we can continue with such a limited collection rate at a time when the European Union is taking on more and more new responsibilities relating to the continuation of monetary union and enlargement of the Union, and to the assumption of foreign and security policy responsibilities? In this respect, our schizophrenia is rampant.
Finally, who decides who must pay? At the moment, it is the States, and States only.
This mechanism must absolutely be reformed.
It is essential for the matter of own resources to be the focus of the next Intergovernmental Conference.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, following the Berlin Agreement, and the interinstitutional agreement, it was mandatory to review the system of own resources of the European Union in order to weight the shares of each Member State correctly.
The report by Jutta Haug recalls the objective of this overhaul.
It is fourfold: to simplify the system, to create greater transparency thus making it more comprehensible, to strengthen the financial autonomy of the European Union and to reduce the imbalances between Member States' shares in the budget.
The envisaged readjustment of the balance between the four types of resource and, in particular, the reduction of the VAT share in favour of the GNP-related share of each country is of particular interest, since it is far more equitable.
It is a better reflection of each citizen' s actual capacity to contribute.
We consider this important, and it must be pursued.
While various elements have been underlined by previous speakers, I would like to return to two specific points.
Firstly, it is essential that the imbalances in the current budget shares due to rebates, which are perhaps justified in terms of previous history, should be gradually, progressively but persistently dismantled and that the contributions of each country are brought to what they should be in objective, accounting terms.
This simplification is essential for the equity of the system and for the transparency of management, two imperatives which will go towards ensuring the future of Europe.
Particularly on the eve of enlargement, current practices for rebates or reductions are no longer justified and must therefore be inexorably abandoned.
The second point I wish to draw your attention to is one I find extremely strange.
It is the request made by Member States to deduct administrative costs for collecting this tax, which may go from 10% to 25%.
What justification is there for this usurious inflation? The strengthening of supervision and follow-up tasks for food safety are perfectly standard activities for states.
The 10% basic rate must therefore be maintained, making it possible to amply cover the expenses incurred in this task.
On behalf of the Parliament, I expect the Commission to take up the requirements mentioned above, since they are essential to our political objectives of clarity, transparency and equity.
Mr President, I believe that reform of the own resources system is necessary if we are to strengthen the principles of transparency, fairness, solidarity and cohesion, with the corresponding extension to the area of Community revenue.
And, in the same context, we reject concepts such as fair return or the false issue of net financial contributions.
I understand that such a reform will have to target national contributions that correspond effectively to the respective economic development, so the GNP will have to be strengthened as an essential indicator for such contributions.
This is what we have always maintained, in clear opposition to the repeated but inconsequential proposals for creating new jobs as a source of own resources.
This is why, on this matter, we agree with the Commission' s current proposal.
We want to emphasise, though, that what is particularly relevant at the moment is the obvious shortfall in resources, a situation which is entirely due to the lack of political will and not to a need to reform the system of own resources.
I would like first of all to reject the argument made by a number of people here that to increase own resources is to increase the burden of taxation on the citizens of Europe.
That is, of course, not necessarily true.
The responsibilities of the European Union are based on the principle that there are some things we can do more efficiently at European level.
If we decide to transfer responsibility for agricultural industry from the Member States to the European Union and discharge that responsibility more efficiently, the end result could in fact be a reduction in the burden of taxation.
Similarly, if we decided to transfer responsibility, say, for development cooperation, from the Member States to the European Union, I believe we could achieve immensely more in the world with the same amount of money and we could increase own resources while at the same time not increasing the burden of taxation on the citizens of the European Union.
We talk about democracy and transparency.
First of all I would say that anything that we decide in a democratic way, through the institutions of the Union, about own resources, is what own resources are.
If the European Union, in a democratic process, decides that own resources are simply a straight percentage of GDP collected by the Member States and passed over in a lump sum, that is fair enough: that is what own resources are and that is democratic.
The more elements we drag in, the more un-transparent we make the system, the more difficult it becomes.
That is why I am not concerned in the least by the 10% or the 25%.
If we have a fixed figure that the European Union needs as own resources, then obviously if we leave the Member States more of what we call the traditional own resources, we have to collect more of that as a percentage of GNP.
So this argument is not important all.
The balance of advantage, or the balance of returns to Member States, is extremely difficult to calculate.
Let me make one further point on this.
If you look at Holland and Germany, on whose behalf there was so much crying in this Parliament, you will find that the single market has given them immense benefits and they have had extremely positive balances in their trade with the rest of the Union over the years.
Mr President, the EU will be faced with having to make very large financial investments when, in different rounds, ten or more countries from Eastern and Central Europe and from the Baltic region become members.
Clearly, there is occasion for discussing the EU' s financial requirements if this process is to be managed successfully.
At present, the EU is not entitled to raise taxes itself. Nor, as I see it, should it be entitled to do so in the future either.
The Haug report does not involve our automatically introducing taxation by the EU, but it opens the door for taxation of this kind, which is bad enough.
What is not spelled out is nonetheless what a lot of people are obviously thinking.
In the last few days, the Swedish mass media have been saying that the EU intends to introduce a tax on flights and mobile telephones.
It is perhaps no accident that it is precisely in Sweden, which has far and away the heaviest burden of taxation in the EU, that imaginations are running riot when it comes to finding new forms of income from taxation.
If taxes are to be directly discussed at all within the EU, then the Member States must first, in my view, show clearly and precisely which national taxes are to be reduced at the same time. Otherwise, our citizens will just be afflicted with new forms of taxation, and the EU' s citizens do not need still higher taxes.
How, then, is the enlargement of the EU to be financed? Yes, the alternative to new income from taxation is still that of reduced costs.
This will involve better prioritising and concentrating on the major and crucial questions.
The enlargement of the EU is one such priority.
As long as almost half the EU' s budget goes on subsidising agriculture and as long as five sixths of it, including the Structural Funds, goes on subsidies of one kind or another, there can be no doubt that changes can still be made.
Mr President, Mrs Haug, ladies and gentlemen, it goes without saying that the revenue side of the budget is as important as the expenditure side of the European Commission' s budget, albeit we do not have an annual debate on the latter.
At the Berlin Summit, changes to the revenue side were agreed on in respect of the maximum proportion of VAT paid to the EU, the British contribution rebate and the financing thereof, and with regard to the proportion of customs duties and agricultural levies that can be retained by the Member States.
The Commission considers that we are justified in raising this amount to 25%.
However, I would also like to make quite plain the fact that in return, I would expect the Member States to step up the measures for supervising the own resources as appropriate and to stop trying to talk their way out of this, so that these supervisory measures really do start showing favourable results.
A decision was also reached as to when the Commission is to review the current financing system and report on the possibility of raising autonomous own resources.
I welcome the fact that Parliament has again had such an in-depth debate on the financing structure and I personally welcome still more the fact that I have been able to discern a great deal of common ground between my own basic position and the positions expressed today in the contributions to the debate.
In October 1998, the Commission presented a report on the revenue side of the budget and possibilities for reform.
Many arguments put forward in this report are the same as those ventured by Parliament in its earlier Haug I report and in the Haug II report that we have here before us.
All deliberations on reform ought to concentrate, above all, on making the revenue side transparent, effective and simple.
There is no longer transparency in the current system on account of the copious individual provisions relating to the VAT rate of collection, the British rebate and the financing thereof.
The citizens are no longer able to tell what proportion of their taxes is spent on the European Union.
This lack of transparency is a bad thing and as such is reason enough, in my view, for us to endeavour to make reforms.
I share the view - as I emphasised during my hearing before this Parliament back in September - that it should be our aim in reforming the financing system to strengthen the financial autonomy of the Community.
We need to create the opportunity to establish revenue without - and I want to stress this point - increasing the overall burden on the taxpayer.
I also share the view that an equitable approach to planning the budget is not something that should be reserved for the revenue side alone, and I share the view that we should not wait until the year 2006 to have a debate on reform, but rather that the debate, together with its administrative back-up, should take place in this legislative period.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Budgetary discipline
The next item is the report (A5-0055/1999) by Mr Averoff, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Regulation on budgetary discipline ((COM(1999) 364 - C5-0141/1999 - 1999/0151(CNS)).
Mr President, the 1994 decision on budgetary discipline is, without a doubt, outdated on several counts.
A great deal of water has passed under the bridge since it was first applied and numerous important changes have come to bear in the interim, the most important being the introduction of EMU on 1 January 1999, the pursuit of enlargement with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Cyprus and Malta and, finally, Agenda 2000, which sets out, inter alia, the changes needed in the agricultural sector.
These changes and the strengthening of budgetary discipline apparent in both the conclusions of the Berlin European Council and the new interinstitutional agreement are the main reasons why this decision needs to be amended and supplemented with new mechanisms.
The Committee has referred to these developments and has drawn on experience to date in implementing the current decision in order to arrive at today' s proposal, which seeks to amend and strengthen the current guideline, which refers specifically to agricultural expenditure.
However, the proposal does not confine itself to adjusting certain provisions; it also makes changes to tighten budgetary discipline and to strengthen the procedure used to achieve it, as evidenced by the preventive nature of the proposed measures.
This marks a new approach and entails an increase in the management responsibilities of the European Commission.
The changes which accompany the report under discussion accommodate the majority of proposals relating to adjustments to provisions.
In addition, however, certain adjustments have been improved and rendered more functional, without detracting from their efficiency.
Certain measures which were automatic are now no longer so, while care has been taken not to over-react.
This means that the facilities provided for in the interinstitutional agreement must be used before these measures are applied.
It was also decided to reject the proposal to replace the decision by a regulation since the fact that the measures are adopted as a decision has no effect on their efficacy.
This change merely seeks to maintain a balance between the authority of the institutions.
In all, the fundamental arrangements are as stringent as before and there are no changes which affect the principle of budgetary discipline.
Budgetary discipline is indispensable and must govern both Community and national budgets, forming as it does the basis for sound budgetary management.
However, I would stress that budgetary discipline is not an end in itself and must not stand in the way of proper and efficient application of the basic provisions of Community law or, in this case, affect the basic principles of the common agricultural policy.
Mr President, I consider that the report under discussion and the proposals contained in it, as formulated by the Committee on Budgets, represent a strict but balanced and efficient way of strengthening budgetary discipline. Budgetary discipline affects all of us, but it can only be applied where there is basic cooperation between the institutions and with the Member States.
Finally, Mr President, I should like to point out that there was very little input in the procedure leading up to this report; apart from the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and a few fellow members who helped with the changes, I cannot in all honesty say that there was a great deal of input.
I realise that my report is far from perfect and that numerous other changes could have been included; however, I fear that Parliament finds the word discipline somewhat disagreeable.
Mr President, for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, the principle aspects of this report on budgetary discipline on which we have presented amendments are the following:
Firstly, the new coverage of the agricultural guidelines and their future revision.
The Commission includes within the scope of the guidelines the available amounts foreseen in the Financial Perspective for accession, which appear in heading 8 of the interinstitutional agreement.
This heading envisages a hypothetical scenario prior to enlargement for the purposes of mere illustration and orientation.
Therefore, we understand that it is not possible to include it within the guidelines.
In fact, the correct thing to do would be to re-examine the guidelines before the first enlargement on the basis of the real needs so as not to block a series of guideline appropriations with total uncertainty with regard to their suitability in terms of amount as well as timescale.
Secondly, the adequate funding of rural development and the accompanying measures.
In this respect, the Commission is urged to introduce sufficient flexibility in its management in order to respond appropriately to the multiannual and non-compulsory nature of these expenses.
On the other hand, we consider it necessary to also improve funding conditions and, therefore, we propose the possibility of carrying out transfers of unused appropriations from compulsory to non-compulsory expenditure.
Thirdly, the implementation of the principle of flexibility within certain limits for agricultural expenditure, proposing the transfer to the following budgetary year of unused expenses or resources.
We consider that this would not only improve the funding of the second pillar of the CAP, but that it would make it possible to deal with disasters or unexpected situations with the speed and efficiency that such events require.
Lastly, in relation to the increases in the management powers of the Commission, by means of which it can reduce the amount of direct aid or suspend the payment of monthly advances to the States, we consider that Parliament is not sufficiently involved in the adoption of these measures.
And we also believe that they cannot be used in a systematic way because that could lead to a budgetary overrun year after year at the expense of the real needs of the budget over which they are exercised, which could even result in peace itself being put at risk.
Mr President, Mr Averoff' s report on budgetary discipline is excellent and it affects the implementation of the next budget.
The European Parliament has always been in favour of discipline. This means that Parliament has refrained from increasing its expenditure, although there may have been sums set aside for this in the margins, the Financial Perspectives or the basic agreement itself.
Parliament has been very strict in the area of staff increases.
The report now under discussion concerns agricultural expenditure.
Agricultural expenditure is the EU' s largest item of expenditure, taking approximately 45% of the budget.
For that reason, agricultural expenditure is the major consideration when we are discussing the EU budget.
The ceiling for them is determined by a policy of agricultural expenditure.
In practice, the ceiling is an interinstitutional agreement, which is clearly lower than the expenditure policy.
This is another clear indication of Parliament' s accountability in matters of the budget.
Agricultural expenditure is a rather sensitive issue within the EU, as agricultural policy is the only area where the EU has a direct influence on citizens' livelihoods.
In its practice of agricultural policy the EU has an exceptionally great responsibility.
This particularly concerns the reduction of direct subsidies mentioned in Article 5(7).
Such a situation cannot arise, as it concerns directly a reduction in the income of individual persons and is thus a curtailment of their constitutional rights.
It would be the same as withholding pay.
Agricultural expenditure now divides into compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
LFA aid and environmental aid, in particular, are important in many less favoured agricultural areas.
It follows that in future Parliament will have an even greater responsibility than before for agricultural policy.
In this regard, the spirit of the report, which stresses the importance of cooperation between the Council and Parliament, is very good.
Mr President, Commissioner, would you support me in my observation that the proposal you are making means that the Council' s commitments will actually be eliminated from the compulsory funds but the Council' s rights, in particular those pertaining to the re-routing of surplus funds, will be preserved, which means in effect that there will be a switch from compulsory funds to non-compulsory funds without Parliament retaining its sovereign rights over this sector of the budget?
I do not share your view Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf.
However, you all know what my view is on the issue of the division between compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
This division is an existing state of affairs though and one that will certainly merit more and more discussion.
Regarding the matter of interchangeability between these two categories, I might point out that in the course of the debate on the next report we will discuss how those funds that were not required in the agricultural sector - i.e. in the 1A categories, in respect of market regulation measures - on account of price and market trends, can be re-allocated and made available for other measures.
Mr President, in my capacity as draftsman for the interinstitutional agreement from which this decision is derived, I would like to know the Commission' s position, because no statement has been made with regard to our proposal to exclude the expenses foreseen for future accession from the guidelines.
I say this because in the interinstitutional agreement they appear in a merely illustrative capacity and outside the Financial Perspective, in Annex II.
The Financial Perspective appears only in Annex I. Instead, the Commission' s proposal includes expenses which do not form part of the Financial Perspective within the guidelines.
Mr Colom i Naval, the decision was taken in Agenda 2000 to create a separate heading for expenditure on enlargement.
In fact, the decision was also taken to establish measures for development aid in the agricultural policy sector now.
I believe that was an important decision.
When it comes to the question as to whether the expenditure earmarked for agricultural policy will be sufficient, it is certainly necessary to keep a constant eye on how the situation in the applicant countries is evolving and to establish what the assumptions were that the Berlin Summit based its estimate of necessary expenditure on.
If I conclude that these assumptions will need to be revised, then I will inform Parliament immediately and, I will, of course, make it my business to enter into discussion with the Committee on Budgets on how the situation should be handled.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have granted two requests to speak over and above the speakers ' list since we are well on schedule.
We will not always be able to do this but when the opportunity allows I believe we should take it, for it would do this House no harm whatsoever if the debates were to become more spontaneous and political than is usually the case.
But as I said, no permanent rights derive from this in the sense of a precedent being set.
Whether there is opportunity for something like this depends on how disciplined you are about keeping to your speaking time.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Supplementary and amending budget No 5/1999
The next item is the statement on the report (A5-0061/1999) by Mrs Dührkop-Dührkop, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on supplementary and amending budget No 5/1999.
Mr President, I could limit my intervention to simply presenting the supplementary and amending budget SAB 5 and explaining my recommendation to vote in this Parliament.
But, Mr President, we have to understand that SAB 5 cannot be seen in isolation, but that it forms a whole with SAB 4 and what we call the global transfer and the Notenboom procedure.
Allow me, then, to begin with some thoughts which are directed at the Commission.
On presenting the SAB 4 and in the tripartite dialogue, on the 7th, before the adoption of that SAB 4, the Commission announced that the supplementary and necessary payment appropriations - EUR 650.5 million in particular for PHARE, TACIS, Obnova and FYROM - were covered, or were going to be covered, by means of three instruments: SAB 4, the global transfer and SAB 5, which today is the object of our debate and resolution.
And SAB 5 would also serve to increase the posts in OLAF from 15 to 30, as the supervisory committee recommended in its report on this body, so that OLAF may begin to work in accordance with the priorities which had already been identified.
On 15 September, Parliament discussed SAB 4 and it was then approved, both by Parliament and by the Council, in the vote in plenum.
Today SAB 5 is also being debated.
But with regard to the global transfer, which is one of the three instruments, and which the Commission had presented to increase the payment appropriations, part of this whole does not pass through this procedure in the Plenum.
It passes a little more unnoticed through the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
But you will allow me, since this is part of the whole, to make some observations and take this opportunity to quote directly the small gems of arguments which the Commission uses to transfer payments between the different lines and transfer them towards external actions.
I shall begin with a curious issue, which is the reduction in the line which is called "European Union Celebrations for the Millennium" .
The Commission' s justification for removing all the payments from there is: "The planned activities are not taking place."
Next I have three lines, "Special actions for the benefit of the Baltic region" , "Integrating gender issues into development cooperation" and "Preparatory actions by the NGOs in the campaign against child abuse" .
In these cases the Commission says: "No decision has yet been taken" .
We are in the middle of November.
It will be done, but we will see that as a result of taking decisions so late, especially in preparatory actions, which is what all these lines are, and they are priorities of this Parliament, payments may be removed on the grounds that decisions have not been taken.
I would like to ask, firstly: Who decides that it will not be done? (given that the political priorities, in my understanding, are set by Parliament).
And secondly: what is the reason for this delay in the taking of decisions? I would recommend an improvement in 2000.
I do not want to be firmer with you, but I believe it is important, given that we said the 1999 budget was a bridge, not only with regard to funding, but also in the setting down of the political priorities for the new Millennium.
Lastly, of the three instruments, it is SAB 5 which we are examining today with an additional EUR 202 million in payment appropriations for external actions and these 15 additional posts for OLAF.
And the Commission proposal states - and the rapporteur is very happy about this - that they will be entirely funded by the EAGGF-Guarantee, since there are appropriations there which will not be used.
I would ask Parliament to approve the resolution which is short and concise.
It takes note of SAB 5 and indicates once again that the forecasts for agricultural expenditure have been excessive.
It is also indicated in this resolution - and this is perhaps the most important point, section 4 - that it asks Parliament to approve the decision to increase the amount of supplementary and amending budget 5/99 by EUR 25 million in payment appropriations intended for the PHARE programme, in accordance, Mrs Schreyer, with the urgent needs of this programme which the Commission has indicated.
Lastly, I also want to appeal to the Council. I would like to ask the Council to approve without amendments this SAB 5, amended by Parliament, so that the payments are not subject to further delays.
Mr President, the very first thing I would like to do is thank the rapporteur, Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, very much indeed for this report on the Commission 's fifth supplementary and amending budget, and make it known that it meets with our approval.
You may find it astonishing that a fifth supplementary and amending budget is being put forward here, at the end of this financial year.
I would like to remind you though that Parliament, or rather the European Union as a whole, have, in recent years, developed the Notenboom procedure to such an extent that the carry-overs were practically indecipherable by the end of the year, and that we pressed for doing this by means of supplementary and amending budgets, in order to achieve greater transparency.
And look what is happening: the number is rising all the time.
I think though, that this has enabled us to bring about greater openness and also a situation that lends itself more readily to scrutiny.
It will not surprise you to learn that I am particularly keen to talk about OLAF and the fifteen additional posts.
OLAF, which came into operation on 1 July this year, thereby disbanding UCLAF, the previous anti-fraud office, is a new body and we want to do everything we can to make it run efficiently.
I assume that this is something that is a major matter of concern for the Commission every bit as much as it is for the other institutions, which are at present still engaged in deciding on accession via the interinstitutional agreement.
Originally, amending budget 4/1999 provided for 15 posts for OLAF, which was to have a total of 300 posts.
A total of 120 posts that were part of what used to be UCLAF - I will refer to them as posts rather than people - are already at the disposal of OLAF and we must now consolidate this position with all haste.
That is why we were most disappointed that people took so much convincing when it came to adding a further fifteen posts to the fifteen provided for in the supplementary and amending budget 4/1999, i.e. a total of 30 for this year.
I am very grateful to the Committee on Budgets for giving its unequivocal support to the Committee on Budgetary Control in this matter and that we now have these 30 posts for 1999.
The budget has earmarked 75 posts for the year 2000.
But the full staffing plan really ought to guarantee that OLAF is fully up and running by 2001 at the latest.
Mrs Schreyer, I would like to put a few direct questions to you.
I believe you have been in touch with the monitoring committee, for which provision has specifically been made to reinforce its secretariat with high-flying personnel.
This monitoring committee, which is part of OLAF, comprises five independent experts who continue to pursue their normal occupations however.
They may not be undertaking this work on a voluntary basis - they receive a certain amount of money to cover costs, but this is not payment in the real sense - and they require appropriate support.
You will have had contact with the monitoring committee by now and in so doing also have allowed yourself to be persuaded that this work is necessary to guarantee the independence of OLAF.
Yesterday, we decided on the procedure for appointing the director of OLAF in the Committee on Budgetary Control.
I would like to ask you the following question Mrs Schreyer: on 28 October, I wrote to you to ask if you, indeed the Commission as a whole, could send me official confirmation of the list of eleven candidates for this office.
I am sorry to say that so far I have not received a reply to this letter.
I would like to take the opportunity in this plenary sitting to urge you most fervently to provide a response as soon as possible.
As soon as possible means that I am counting on it being this week - and I want to make that very plain - so that we can get the official referral under way, so as to enable us to make progress here in Parliament.
The Council is putting pressure on, as is Parliament.
And so should the Commission, so that there is still time for us to appoint the director before the end of this year.
I would urge you, if you are able, to undertake to have the official referral together with the list of eleven candidates, forwarded to us straightaway.
Mr President, I would like firstly to thank Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, as is customary, for her good report concerning SAB 5/99.
In addition to Mrs Dührkop' s report, we have already heard the debates on the issues of own resources and budgetary discipline and the truth is that none will be of any advantage to the tax-payer unless we improve the efficiency of the campaign against fraud.
Mrs Theato has just commented very effectively on the fact that we have replaced UCLAF with OLAF. We are debating how to find the most suitable director.
But none of this is of any use if we do not provide OLAF with the necessary resources. Therefore, I am pleased that by means of this supplementary and amending budget of EUR 202 million the new posts can be increased from 15 to 30 and that, furthermore, it should be done this time with the agreement of the Council.
Every day, OLAF is having to deal with an increasing number of problems.
Every day, the geographic area is increasing and I therefore believe that every day, OLAF must be provided with sufficient means, both in terms of personnel and of material means, so that it may attend to the new issues.
For example, I believe that one of the parts which has still not been sufficiently studied is the proportionality of fines: I am referring to the fact that the worst fraud should be punished with the greatest fine.
We also lack knowledge of the details when a fine is lowered or waived.
Therefore, I have always said - and I repeat it here today - that in order to move forward, good will is not enough, but we also need the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament to move in the same direction.
And, as in this case, to be able to count on a strong and effective OLAF which will benefit the European tax-payer.
Mr President, this supplementary and amending budget 5/99 is an important step towards ensuring that the new anti-fraud office, OLAF, will soon have the power to act.
I welcome the fact that the expert recommendations provided by the OLAF monitoring committee were also taken full account of on this occasion.
This was not always the case, as we have heard.
This has been put right, which is good for OLAF.
It underlines our desire to secure OLAF' s independence.
The decision as to how these posts are to be filled will lie with the future director of OLAF.
Last night, the Committee on Budgetary Control established a hearings procedure for the candidates.
It is our intention to compile a list of three names which the President of our House will then be able to decide on in concert with the Council and the Commission.
As such, we are following the recommendations provided by our Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
What we still need from the Commission though, in order to be able to start the process - and I agree with Mrs Theato here and am specifically addressing this comment to you Mrs Schreyer - is a formal decision on the candidates to be considered for the post.
There were 450 applicants.
The OLAF monitoring committee whittled this down to a list of 11 names.
Vice-President Kinnock and you yourself informed us that the competent services of the Commission have endorsed the monitoring committee' s vote.
As far as I know, however, the Commission has not yet reached a formal decision itself and rumour even has it that the Commission is to decide on a list today that now comprises only four names.
Would you be so kind as to correct me if I am wrong.
It is quite clear that such a decision would be in violation of the OLAF Regulation, which sets out that you as a Commission, require a positive statement from the monitoring committee.
Parliament and the Council decided that this is how it should work, so as to ensure that the new director would be independent of the Commission.
But you only have a positive statement of this kind for the list of 11, not for a list featuring more names and not for one featuring fewer names either.
I am not nit-picking; the point is that as this process unfolds, it must be beyond all doubt.
Particularly in view of the incidents of the last few months and the crisis in the Commission, it would, to my mind, be a severe handicap if the new director were to be appointed without EEC legislative procedure having been fully complied with.
Mr President, I would like to reply to Mrs Schreyer, in a general way, on the comments we made.
Mrs Schreyer, I believe that you will have been able to deduce - from these and also from my intervention in September - that we are very concerned about the need to rectify and reassign the amounts within the budget itself.
Mrs Schreyer, I would like to ask you a simple question: has the Commission, given what we have heard here in September and today, addressed the question of how, in the budget for 2000, we can avoid the situation whereby, in the middle of November, we are still producing a supplementary, amending and transferring budget?
And a final question: is there anything else on the waiting list before the end of the year for the 1999 budget? As rapporteur, I would like to know.
Mr President, rapporteur, ladies and gentlemen, this fifth letter of amendment for the budget of 1999 is in accordance with the directives proposed in May in budgetary conciliation.
The means of payment for the PHARE and TACIS programmes, for former Yugoslavia and for the macro-economic aid for Macedonia can now be increased, that is to say they can now be safeguarded.
As such, account is also being taken of the negative effects that the Kosovo conflict and the Kosovo war had on the situation in Macedonia, among other things, and we can at last come up with the budgetary aid this country badly needs and that was promised back in the spring or summer.
In addition, this letter creates 15 new posts for OLAF and it goes without saying that I would like to address the questions that have been put to me here on the appointment of the director of OLAF.
It is true: the independent monitoring committee - and I would like to place great emphasis here on the word "independent" in the context of the monitoring committee - picked out 11 candidates it considered suitable from the multitude of applications.
The Commission' s nomination committee then made a selection and I can assure you that at some point today you will receive the list of candidates that the nomination committee deems to be suitable.
I believe that the procedure can be interpreted in such a way that naturally the Committee on Budgetary Control is at liberty, for its part, to conduct hearings of the 11 candidates and reach a decision.
I very much hope that the Commission' s procedure and the one you use in your hearings produce similar outcomes.
In view of the eligibility of the candidates on the list, I am optimistic that it will be possible to find a very good candidate to hold this difficult office.
I would like to turn again to the matter of carrying appropriations forward.
Parliament had already transferred EUR 30 million less in the overall carry-over.
Consequently, the rapporteur proposes increasing the PHARE programme by EUR 25 million now.
Again, I can assure you, as I also did in the trialogue, that we support this amendment and request the Council to adopt it.
If this modified supplementary and amending budget is adopted, then it will be possible, in 1999, taking into account all the amendments, to make available and finance an additional EUR 670 million for the PHARE and TACIS programmes, for south-east Europe and other programmes, mainly from unused funds in the agricultural sector.
All in all, I welcome the fact that it has been possible, on account of this reduction in expenditure, to increase funds in the external action sector.
Several of you have criticised the fact that carry-overs of this order of magnitude are being proposed, and indeed that it was feasible to do so.
To this, I would say that surely the reality of budgetary policy is that there will always be developments in the course of a financial year, that is during the handling of a budget, that will debar full exploitation of all the budgetary lines.
This does not signify a failure on the part of the Commission to accept Parliament' s decisions.
I will make it my business to see that Parliament' s decisions are adhered to.
Nevertheless, we will always be faced with situations in which one or other development debars full exploitation of the lines.
I will inform you whenever it is possible to predict to what extent situations of this kind will arise, and I believe that what we must do then is to jointly consider neither freezing these funds, nor employing them, but rather reallocating them to precisely those areas where Parliament too agrees that this represents constructive use of these surplus funds.
As I said before, I am absolutely convinced of what a positive development it was that since less money was needed in the agricultural sector, i.e. less money had to be spent, on account of market and pricing trends, this is now available for such urgent and important external action programmes as are detailed in the documents we have before us.
Mr President, I have a specific question: Mrs Schreyer, you said that the list will be made available to us before the end of today.
Which list is that? The list of eleven or a list of four?
Mr Bösch explained it in great detail. I would like to warn of the fact that we are not pursuing the procedures properly.
They are clearly set out in Regulation 1037/1999 and in the interinstitutional agreement.
Parliament is not in a position to say "we will hear eleven ", or if there is another list, "we will hear four" !
That is not how it works!
We cannot afford to open up the possibility of those who were placed on the list by the monitoring committee taking legal action.
First of all you must reach agreement with the monitoring committee and then you must officially pass the list on to us so that we can then set our own procedure in train, come to an agreement with the Council and then make a proposal to you as regards who to appoint.
Ultimately therefore, you appoint in name only, but the procedure leading up to this must be conducted properly.
Could you please tell us exactly which list it is you intend to make available to us today?
Mr President, I congratulate you.
This is a genuine Parliament and we are embarking on a debate.
I believe that we should be grateful for that.
Mrs Schreyer, I agree with you and I am very pleased that agricultural expenditure will in fact have to fund this last SAB.
But I also take you at your word when you say that we are going to take great care in the budget to ensure that the reassignments do not alter the priorities that the European Parliament has set.
The examples which I gave earlier were, curiously, genuine priorities.
And I take your word so that in 2000, as part of a joint effort, which is much more intense and much more open, we may from the outset prevent priorities such as the Baltic regions or actions in favour of children from being the first to be affected, because there is a suspicion that it is perhaps not you who do not want to carry them out, but rather other powers which are behind it.
Mr President, chairman of the Committee on Budgetary Control, my committee has also debated the matter of how we can guarantee to avoid committing formal errors.
Of course we have, in the appointment of the director of OLAF, a situation that is new to us.
A special procedure has been decided on.
At the same time, the decision does not cover every detail - understandably so I might say - and as such does not map out every single step.
Therefore, we must handle this together so that the existing procedures, which the Commission regards as formal procedures; i.e. the calling-in of the nomination committee and also Parliament' s right to conduct hearings of the candidates, and the role of the monitoring committee, can be included in the process.
The Commission now has to hand the recommendation of its nomination committee and this selection was made on the basis of the list of eleven candidates.
As such, there has therefore been a combination of procedures in this instance.
I can assure you that I will bring everything we have talked about in today' s discussion on how we are to proceed - you decided yesterday how all this is to be brought into line - into the Commission' s debate.
All I can say, and I really want to impress this on you again, is that I am very much in favour of us being able to reach this decision before the end of this year.
It is already relatively late, but the decision ought to be reached this year so as to enable the director to set to work without further delay, and I am actually very optimistic that we will be able to reach a sound decision here, on the basis of an interinstitutional procedure.
I would like to respond to Mrs Dührkop Dührkop as follows: of course the priorities this Parliament sets in the course of the budgetary process and for the budget itself are guiding principles for the Commission when it comes to the implementation stage of the budget.
That is why I referred to the fact that you could count on being informed in good time if difficulties should arise.
When it comes to the examples you have just cited, this is expenditure which I set great store by, I can assure you.
As such, I will, of course, ensure for my part, that foundations are laid here which will make it possible for this expenditure to actually be deployed.
But if, on the other hand, savings are made, on account of positive trends say, then there is no reason why we should not put our heads together and decide how this expenditure could be usefully re-deployed.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 p.m.
Environment and Community energy policy
The next item is the statement on the report (A5-0039/1999) by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and European Parliament on "Strengthening environmental integration within Community energy policy" (COM(1998) 571 - C4-0040/1999).
Mr President, both the Maastricht and the Amsterdam Treaties focus on environment protection measures.
This communication from the Commission takes the issue forward within the energy sector.
Three objectives have been set out: firstly, to promote energy efficiency; second, to increase the share of production of cleaner energy sources - the target is 12% from renewables by 2010 - third, to reduce the environmental impact of the production and use of energy products.
Three priorities have been set for integrating these environmental objectives in energy policy.
First of all, they need to be implemented in a balanced way which takes account of competitiveness and of security of supply.
Then, they must be realistic and cost-effective.
Third, they must be flexible in their implementation to take account of rapidly changing markets and technologies.
Global warming is a major issue but, of course, it is not the only environmental issue that we confront.
In the energy and transport sectors there are major contributors to global warming emissions.
We, in Europe, must do our part and set a good example to the rest of the world, while recognising that the major pressure for energy consumption in future will come from countries like the United States, which is rather profligate in its consumption of energy, and also from developing countries which, as their economies grow and they raise their standard of living, will look for more energy consumption, which is likely to come from rather polluting sources of energy.
The report calls on the Commission to promote best practice, to encourage the exchange of views and experience, to encourage increased public awareness while respecting the principle of subsidiarity.
It must be recognised that energy policy is still determined largely at Member State level.
But there can be no doubt that energy efficiency is a matter that should be of concern to all of us.
The report also calls on the Commission to support the process of integrating these environmental objectives in energy policy through research into the impact of climate change, through research into all possible technologies, through research into identifying the best indicators to measure achievements in reducing emissions and through regular reports to Parliament.
In terms of possible legislative action, this report calls on the Commission to consider amending existing legislation or to introduce new measures which will strengthen those objectives, but it also asks the Commission to follow-up and study the effect of all legislative measures up to now and to report on their full cost and their full effectiveness to Parliament.
The report also calls for the environmental objectives to be taken into account in the enlargement process.
There are many concerns about energy consumption and electricity generation in the applicant countries, which need to be addressed.
The report reminds us that in order to achieve significant improvement in global environmental protection measures and reduction of emissions, we need dialogue and consensus with both our trading competitors and developing countries alike.
The Commission has made one major omission in not making any mention of nuclear energy in this report.
Whatever your views on this source of power and electricity, it is a fact that it supplies a significant part of our electricity in Europe and it does so in a way which does not produce CO2 or other greenhouse gas emissions and that is why - and the only reason - it has been mentioned in this report.
It would be a mistake for this reference to nuclear energy to distract attention from the main thrust of this report, which is about improving energy efficiency, drawing more supply from renewable sources, and integrating our environmental objectives in our energy policy.
It is a good start and there is much more to do.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to compliment the rapporteur, Mr Chichester, on his report.
The Liberal Group agrees with the main thrust of the recommendations in the resolution, except for considerations C and L and sections 4 and 5.
Mr President, the benefits of nuclear energy are not as undisputed as these sections make them out to be.
Where nuclear energy helps us achieve our CO2 objectives, it also adds to the environmental problems of nuclear waste, which is completely opposed to the objectives of the communication of the Committee before us, namely a more powerful integration of the environment into the energy policy.
My second point concerns Amendment No 7 submitted by the Liberal Group with regard to section 1.
My group is delighted that the rapporteur has accepted this as a supplement.
Energy policy falls within the principle of subsidiarity but its transnational environmental impact is very much a European concern.
Since sustainable development has become a Treaty objective, it is only logical to include an energy section in the Treaty which enables an integrated approach to energy and environment.
Liberalisation leads to lower energy prices in time.
This will, however, not lead to higher energy consumption.
After all, energy is a high cost item for companies and private people alike and this is set to remain so.
A further incentive to integrate policies on energy and environment is the introduction of an eco-tax, as is already in place in the Netherlands and Sweden.
The introduction of an eco-tax may lead to more energy efficiency and, as such, lower energy consumption.
My group calls on the committee and Member States to introduce such a tax in a coordinated manner, thus avoiding unfair competition within the Union.
Needless to say, this tax should not add any extra cost to the European citizen.
The most vital requirement of energy and environmental policy as we approach the millennium is to meet our Kyoto commitments, and here of course a CO2 tax would have a major role to play.
Unfortunately, that has not yet been agreed, but we would ask the Commission to proceed in this direction.
We are not in fact meeting our energy commitments under Kyoto at all.
Energy conservation, rational planning and renewable energies are agreed to be the most important way forward other than the CO2 tax, about which, as I have said, no agreement has yet been reached.
They are indeed the right way to sustainability, but we are not pursuing them strongly enough.
The most recent statistics on energy intensity show that for 1996 we are at level zero.
We are in fact going backwards after seven years of trying to meet climate change commitments: this is not only unacceptable, it is completely scandalous.
I would refer you to those statistics - I am sure you know what they are, and we have to do better.
Our citizens expect and, indeed, demand that we do better.
The Commission and Parliament have indeed together sought to keep the already small budget for SAVE and ALTENER on target and for that I thank you and I hope we can continue to make progress.
What does not have a place in energy and the environment is nuclear power because it is not sustainable.
We do not have the ability to deal with nuclear waste although various fancy solutions have been proposed, including sending it to the moon, and we would be indeed on another planet if we agreed with Mr Chichester that nuclear power was a solution.
It is not, and I think that he was very ill-advised to add this discordant note to an otherwise more or less acceptable report.
I also feel that the Commission was most wise to avoid reference to nuclear power in its own proposals and I would advise you to keep to this approach because it is a most divisive thing to propose, and we will certainly not agree to it.
The recent nuclear accident in Japan has exposed once again the criminal negligence of the nuclear industry, and the recent falsifications of safety checks by BNFL at Sellafield are further evidence that we need to have great anxiety about the nuclear industry and how it operates.
What do we want, and what is the way forward? We want the implementation of commitments in the White Paper on renewable energies, for example.
We want these commitments fleshed out by a Commission action plan on renewable energies.
Reference has been made to the internal market, and this is the most important environment in which we now operate: here the large subsidies for coal and nuclear energy must be ended and support for renewables as an important aspect of environmental policy must be made realistic.
Legally-binding targets for renewable energies are an important part of this strategy, but we must also have very clearly the externalisation of internal costs in respect of traditional energy production.
Finally, I think that if we have a level playing field and if we end the subsidies particularly for nuclear energy, we will see the other forms of energy coming forward.
Mr President, energy is at the heart of any economic or social activity.
All citizens are affected by the supply, transportation and distribution of energy.
There is still a lot to be done to ensure that the right to energy is a reality everywhere, both in the poorest countries and in industrialised countries, where all classes of the population do not have access on equal terms: needs are not therefore being satisfied and energy-related issues are becoming crucial.
The European Union is still highly dependent on energy.
CO2 emissions have not yet been stabilised and energy sources have not yet been diversified.
Designing an energy policy which respects the environment therefore requires determined effort.
In this respect, the fifth UN Conference on Climate Change has just confirmed the divergences between those with pro-active policies and those who are continually attempting to circumvent the Kyoto targets.
The European Union is itself undertaking to ratify the Kyoto Protocol by the year 2002 and is campaigning for measures which are different for developing countries and for industrialised countries.
Its CO2 emissions were reduced by 19% in 1997.
In this way it may contribute, I believe, to preventing the Americans' exclusively commercial liberal concept gaining the day, a concept which goes as far as to call into question the Kyoto targets.
Yet, Europe has not made sufficient effort, and there is no guaranteed response to all these challenges.
There is, therefore, cause for concern in the fact that the Commission and the Council continue to regard opening the energy market to free competition as an essential phase.
As the Chichester report indeed observes, there is a contradiction between liberalisation and the reduction of CO2 emissions.
But this is not the only contradiction.
Market pressure is also exerted on public service tasks: the most effective centres of resistance to unbridled free competition and public enterprises are under threat.
Furthermore, the call for competition restricts the capacity of States to intervene in energy policy choices and to guarantee equal access for users.
Energy is not like other goods for sale and must be treated as a special case.
Greater cooperation and the coordination of national policies are required, not an integrated European policy.
Finally, the rapporteur is astonished, rightly so, that the Commission makes no mention whatsoever of nuclear energy even though it contributes towards reducing CO2 emissions, even if this energy should be safer and more environmentally friendly.
Such key issues merit extensive public debate, enabling everyone to come to terms with the challenges and choices involved in energy policy.
At the outset I want to compliment Mr Chichester on the preparation and presentation of this report.
The Commission' s communication on strengthening environmental integration within Community energy policy is very welcome in view of its realistic approach to the question.
Sustainable development is not just a lofty aim, it is an obligation imposed by the Treaties and must therefore form the central principle of any future European energy policy and at the same time a balance must be struck.
Certain clear targets have already been set by the Union in the energy field to reduce CO2 emissions by 8% by the middle of the next decade and of course to double the contribution of renewable energy sources from the current 6% to 12% by 2010.
The efforts at Community level complement those of Member States.
In my own country, Ireland, for example, EUR 160 m are to be spent on the development of an environmentally sustainable energy sector.
With the combined efforts of the Community and the Member States which have primary responsibility for energy policy, I believe that these targets can be attained.
We must be careful to allow sufficient flexibility to take account of the necessary adjustment of the energy market while in transition, and for this reason our targets must remain realistic and proposals must remain open as to details.
Mr Chichester recognises the limited role Parliament can play in energy policy, given that it is essentially a Member State competence.
We do have a clear and consistent voice when it comes to environmental matters, and the environmental considerations of energy generation are self-evident and considerable.
I support initiatives at European level which contribute to the efforts of Member States to meet their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector.
We recently voted to renew the same programme with increased funding and this will make a valuable contribution to Member States' efforts.
In conclusion, I believe that much can be learned from an exchange of views between Member States on energy policy, and I support Mr Chichester' s call for the Commission to highlight examples of best practice in integrating environmental objectives in the energy policy.
Mr President, the Treaty of Amsterdam stipulates that the environment should be integrated in other areas of policies.
This very clearly applies to the European energy policy, since it has a great impact on the environment.
A very one-sided view is taken of the CO2 issue both in the communication of the European Commission and in the motion for a resolution of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
The risk that other environmental effects will be neglected in the energy policy is considerable.
Think, for example, of the emission of acidifying substances and dust particles in the production of electricity, among other things.
In directives currently under way, such as the national emission limitation directive and the directive on large combustion plants - refer to the Oomen-Ruijten report - these issues are of key importance.
This is why I believe that it is necessary to bear the following considerations in mind with regard to the resolution.
In Amendments Nos 1 and 4, reference is made to the fact that in traditional energy production, alongside CO2, harmful substances are released which contribute to the formation of smog and acid rain.
The policy on CO2 reduction should not prejudice the efforts to cut down on the above-mentioned emissions.
In Amendments Nos 2 and 5, the application of total energy is recommended, so as to save energy and, consequently, reduce CO2 emissions.
Amendment No 3 highlights that in the application of nuclear energy, in addition to a possible CO2 reduction, various other environmental effects also play a role, such as the storage of radio-active waste.
In Amendment No 6, we request the Committee to consider all environmental effects when undertaking comparative research into different sources of energy.
I am quite convinced that this has not happened yet.
CO2 emissions and energy savings have been looked into, rightly so, and I fully support this.
But, as I already indicated, there are a large number of environmental aspects which have been ignored, and so there is definitely no sign yet of a more forceful integration of the environment and energy policy.
Mr President, I would like first of all, to congratulate the rapporteur, especially on his skill in extracting the nuclear issue from this report.
But, apart from that, like him I believe that the problem that Parliament has is that we cannot find the right time to tackle the matter of energy policy in a general and in-depth fashion.
This is due to the omissions in the Treaty, and also perhaps to Parliament itself.
In fact, with the recent preparation of a report on renewable energy sources, what we can see is a piecemeal approach to this issue, which nonetheless is a fundamental issue: once again, I agree with the rapporteur and with many of the speakers.
As regards this report, we cannot restrict it to the environmental impact related to CO2.
It is a very important aspect of the problem but, as Mr Belder and other speakers have said, there are many other aspects, in particular the nuclear issue, which have an ecological impact and which must be dealt with.
The problem also involves the appropriations.
Lacking a single policy on energy, the European Union is proliferating appropriations, especially those for research.
This is evidence that even today there is a hidden policy to promote nuclear power, which is no longer tolerable, in my opinion.
The 12% renewable energy target is totally inadequate and, even despite that, there is a risk that it will not be possible to achieve it.
It is essential, therefore, to unify the energy debate in order to determine exactly what our investment choices are, and to put an end to the contradictory situation whereby at least five members of the European Union, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Portugal and Greece, who do not actually use nuclear power, are obliged to finance a nuclear policy which is still subsidised, by more than 50%, by the European Union.
A debate must be initiated, I believe, as a matter of urgency, in order to have real discussion of the matter of energy, and to end the practice of tackling the subject piecemeal, which has been the case until now.
Mr President, Members of the Commission, although the importance of environmental considerations has grown over the years, the aim of the Union' s energy policy in the future too must be to ensure that Europe' s industrial and household energy supply is kept at a competitive price.
In meeting this aim, the environment also has its own role to play.
The environment is, however, not the main objective of an energy policy, - and should not be.
In recent years, the European Union has done much to achieve a more sustainable energy economy.
We have committed to a considerable reduction in carbon dioxide emissions by 2005.
We have invested in the increased use of renewable energy resources, and we have expressed our firm desire to take account of the requirements of a sustainable energy economy in the enlargement process.
At the same time, we must, however, acknowledge that the demands concerning the Union' s energy policy are partly contradictory.
In connection with this report, there was a wish to discuss nuclear power, and how appropriate a means of production it will be in the future.
There can be no denying the contradiction there is between the speeches made here opposing nuclear power, which came from at least a couple directions, and the aim to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
The share of nuclear energy in electricity production must be kept at least at its present level, and it should perhaps even be increased, so that we can achieve the ambitious target for the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, to which all of you, my good friends, including Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel and Mrs Ahern, and everyone else in this House, are committed.
If we are to take proper account of the environment, this requires that Member States allow sufficiently early on for replacement and renewal investments in their national strategies, this being a matter for decision making at national level.
Neither can the aim to have a common European energy tax be buried.
Reform must, however, be based on the notion that there will be no increase in the overall burden of taxation for European industry.
In this regard, I share the concern of my colleague, Mr Mombaur, that the possible threat of an energy tax should be offset by looking into other forms of taxation for business.
At the same time, we have to ensure that no model for an energy tax will prevent the very important exploitation of fuel peat in Finland in the future either.
Mr President, this is an important report and the work of a professional.
It is, however, very general in nature, and I would like to touch on something fairly concrete in this issue.
I thus thought I would speak about gas, and a little about Russia. The share of renewable energy in the European Union will have doubled in ten years' time from 6% to 12%, and in reducing carbon dioxide emissions an important and really decisive factor is held to be the development of combined electricity and heat plants using coal and natural gas as fuels.
In my own country, wood chip energy production from waste wood is now becoming very competitive and important.
Investigations show that the use of gas is growing in the Union, but at the same time the Union will have run out of this resource in 10 - 20 years' time.
Russia is our biggest importer, and it is there that the world' s largest deposits of gas are to be found, many of which are located relatively nearby, in northern Russia, Siberia and the Barents Sea region.
It is predicted that the additional need for gas will be approximately 150 billion cubic metres in 2020, twenty years from now.
Russia' s gas production will also start declining in a few years' time.
Production will therefore decline in both the EU and Russia, but our requirements will grow.
To meet the gas consumption requirement for this region we will perhaps need four or five pipelines of additional gas.
This is precisely the problem.
With Russia we have a partnership and cooperation agreement, which cannot be implemented without concrete objectives. At the same time, the situation in Russia is confused, though, hopefully, after the elections it will have recovered to some extent.
We would have a common target for investment here: gas, which we badly need and whose new production and satellite regions in the north are quite near us.
In fact it might be said that Russia must turn to its resources in the north as in the south there appears to be an on-going period of fighting and wars.
In other words, Russia will turn to a region where these problems do not exist.
The European Union is also offering a cooperative hand in the light of the northern dimension.
I therefore propose that the Commission take forceful measures in this issue, and, at this stage, I would ask what the Commission has done to resolve the gas issue via Russia.
Mr President, Mr Chichester has quite rightly stated in his report that environmental considerations must be taken better account of in the Union' s energy policy, but, by virtue of the principle of subsidiarity, the Member States bear the main responsibility for energy policy.
The environmental dimension must also be included in energy policy at regional and local level.
That too has been mentioned in this report.
The recently amended SAVE and Altener programmes are the cornerstones of a sustainable and environment-friendly energy policy.
Energy efficiency and the use of renewable sources of energy must be stepped up to meet at least the ambitious targets of the Union.
That will require research, pilot projects, exchange of experience and new technology applications.
We have to ensure throughout the whole Union area that the networks are also at the disposal of small companies that produce renewable energy.
The greatest barriers to the increased use of renewable energy and energy saving are attitudes and ignorance.
For that reason, communications have an important part to play in the promotion of more environment-friendly production and use of energy.
All this requires money.
Unfortunately the Union budget sets aside very little funds for the promotion of a sustainable energy policy.
This amount has to be increased if we mean to keep to our targets.
The Member States also have to seek bold taxation solutions and other incentives to boost energy efficiency and increase the use of renewable sources of energy.
Peat, as a renewable energy resource, must also gradually be included in the incentives package.
The report presents nuclear energy in too favourable a light.
In my opinion, nuclear power is not the solution to the environmental problems of energy production.
Nuclear power is still needed, but the safety factors involved and the storage of nuclear waste are still serious problems.
Mr President, environmental considerations are very important in the field of energy and that is why I would like to thank Mr Chichester warmly for his report, which addresses the right questions in substance.
Approximately 50% of our energy requirement in Europe is met by mineral oil and 25% by gas, which means that ¾ of our energy currently derives from fossil energy sources.
If we take as read that we import more than 50% of the European Union' s total energy requirement then we definitely need to ask ourselves the following question: how can we guarantee reliability of supply in the face of climate change, which in view of the worldwide CO2 problem may, indeed will affect us, not just if there is a failure to take preventive action on our part, but, above all, if there are changes in the political climate?
Speaking of changes in the political climate, I would like to point out that we are extremely dependent on certain regions.
39% of the gas we use has to be imported and 41% of this comes from the CIS States.
Gas consumption is experiencing very rapid growth in the European Union and energy imports to the European Union are still rising at a rate of 0.9% per annum.
We have made good progress where the environment is concerned.
CO2 levels are constant to rising slightly, we achieved a 30% reduction in SO2 levels between 1990 and 1994 and a 9% reduction in the case of NOx.
Nuclear power cannot be the answer to our problems.
That is why the Austrian delegation intends to abstain when it comes to consideration L and section 5.
Increasingly, nuclear energy is being replaced by gas.
That is why we consider reliability of supply in this sector to be paramount and also why Parliament does not intend to give way in the negotiations with the Council on ALTENER and SAVE - that is to say with EUR 81 million and EUR 68 million.
We need reliability of supply, we need competitive energy!
Mr President, Commissioner, it is with great satisfaction that I receive the Commission communication on the inclusion of environmental aspects in the energy policy, even if, like many people, I must deplore the serious delays which have arisen in this field in Europe.
In fact, many Member States, with jurisdiction in this area, have too often chosen to overlook this issue, resulting in real ecological disasters.
For all that, now that the requirement has been established, apparently with general consensus, the problem of implementation arrangements remains and, here, the task of reconciling the policies proposed is far from being as easy.
It is a source, indeed, of a great deal of disagreement, on a par with any of the challenges which the European Union must meet.
As far as I, and others, of course, are concerned, the main challenges are as follows.
Firstly there is the challenge of the safety of our power supplies and the energy dependence of the European Union, a dependence which is going to grow and which is likely, we are told, to reach 70% in the year 2020, with all the consequent political risks.
Next, there is the commitment made at Kyoto to reduce CO2 emissions by 8% relative to their 1990 level.
Confronted with these two challenges, there are some arguing in favour of the all-nuclear solution, while others are arguing in favour of completely giving up nuclear power.
Personally, I do not think that either of these two extremes offers the solution to environment protection.
I would be more in favour of a balanced development of energy sources, retaining the nuclear share but especially developing renewable energies.
The European Union has set the target of increasing the share of renewable energies from 6% to 12% by the year 2010, but the financial resources must be found for this and, today, we are a long way off, to judge by the latest discussion in the Conciliation Committee.
A further challenge, an absolutely major one, is related to the contradiction, a particularly serious contradiction, I feel, between the liberalisation of energy networks, which, while it certainly affords a certain reduction in prices, also, by the same token, favours waste, and the promotion of rational and economic energy use.
To the pro-liberals I say that it is necessary to recognise that the market does not solve all problems and ultraliberalism has negative effects.
In order to meet these challenges and overcome these contradictions, what we need, very quickly, is cooperation at every level, in the Member States and with candidate countries, to enlist the assistance of candidate countries and to work within the terms of the fifth framework programme.
The rapporteur has done an excellent job and has produced some excellent proposals.
I would like, in conclusion, to congratulate him on this.
Mr President, I am liberal but not ultra-liberal.
Questions relating to energy and the environment must be seen in context, and methods of obtaining energy must be framed in a balanced and well-judged way.
Because almost all energy production and use has a negative effect on the environment, energy policy must also be seen as an important part of environmental policy.
Good access to energy sources is a prerequisite of our well-being and of jobs and development.
The way in which we adapt our methods of obtaining energy must therefore take account of Europe' s need for growth and increased employment.
It is quite clear that if nuclear power and access to nuclear energy are handled in an irresponsible way, this will seriously damage both Europe' s opportunities for growth and its ability to deal successfully with what is, in my view, the most serious threat to the environment, namely climate changes due to increasing carbon dioxide emissions.
Let us therefore stop burying our heads in the sand in the belief that the problems involved in adapting our methods of obtaining energy will disappear.
The rapid phasing-out of nuclear power, the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, a better environment, continued well-being and economic power - these are not all of a piece.
Mr Chichester' s report is mainly characterised by a holistic vision which I am convinced must be present in policy concerning energy and the environment.
One additional point, however: a common environmental tax for the whole of Europe must become a reality.
This will be required.
Finally, the unsafe and, in certain cases, downright dangerous nuclear power stations in Central and Eastern Europe must be closed down very quickly.
It is unusually bad policy to close down properly operating nuclear power stations in the Member States, necessitating a replacement source of power involving increasing carbon dioxide emissions, at the same time as retaining a form of nuclear power which constitutes a serious environmental threat to the whole of our continent.
Mr President, I also want to congratulate Mr Chichester on his report.
It is undoubtedly the case that, among the environmental problems we perceive as being serious, current energy systems probably account for at least 50% of the causes of these problems.
Therefore, it is naturally important that the European Union should get more of a grip on energy policy in the future.
Seven years after the Rio conference and the convention on climate change, and carbon dioxide emissions are still continuing to increase. This is something which has been touched upon by many speakers here today.
The main problem, as I see it, lies in the fact that the industrialised nations have done too little at home.
This especially applies to the United States which appears to be most interested in purchasing so-called hot air from Russia and Ukraine and in that way honouring its commitments.
This deadlock must be broken. As I see it, only the EU can do this, and by means of an active strategy.
On the one hand, it must emphasise efforts on the home front and active cooperation with, above all, the developing countries, as well as aid to these countries to enable them to adjust their methods of obtaining energy to environmental requirements. On the other hand, it must show that it is in fact possible to change course without incurring large costs because we obtain so many other environmental benefits when we limit our dependence upon fossil fuels.
In order to manage this successfully, a number of different means of control are of course required, for example norms and standards, but also economic means of control.
We must look very carefully at road traffic because emissions in this area are continuing to increase very considerably.
When energy becomes cheaper due to efficiency measures, there is unfortunately a tendency for savings to be eaten up through the so-called rebound effect; that is to say, we cause demand to be increased.
I therefore think that taxation is an important means of control.
A carbon dioxide tax involving a simultaneous reduction in the tax on work would be an excellent step in the right direction. It would show the world that we are tackling these questions seriously.
It is my hope that, during the next few months, the Commission will take initiatives along these lines so that we might translate words into deeds.
Mr President, firstly I would like to thank and congratulate Mr Chichester on his positive and constructive report on the communication from the Commission to the Council and European Parliament on strengthening environmental integration within Community energy policy.
I would also like to thank all the Members of Parliament who have participated in this debate for their constructive and positive contributions.
At the Helsinki Summit, which will take place in December, the Heads of Government will deal with the issue of environmental integration and sustainable development in different policy areas, and especially energy.
Therefore today' s debate is particularly appropriate.
Firstly, I would like to point out that it is precisely the energy sector which has been the first to draw up a communication on environmental integration in its policy.
This reflects the significant role which it has to play given the environmental challenges which face us.
The energy sector has made a substantial contribution to improving air quality on a local and regional level as compared to previous practices.
The directive on large combustion plants with regard to the reduction of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides and the Auto Oil programme to deal with the problem of air quality in cities, are good examples.
I would like to highlight the existing cooperation between the energy and environmental sectors.
This confirms that there are ways of strengthening integration and, as a result, establish environmental quality standards at a cost which will not affect European competitiveness, which is an issue that should always be taken into account.
This cooperation is particularly important in the light of the challenge presented by climate change.
Energy continues to occupy a significant place in the preparation of international negotiations for the application of the Kyoto Protocol.
As a whole, the Commission receives the opinions of Parliament very favourably.
The insistence on the need to influence the instincts of the people and the habits of the consumer and to establish channels of communication with the citizens and small and medium-sized businesses confirms the importance which political leadership will have with regard to changing our consumer habits and promoting sustainable development.
As I often point out, we have to start by providing an example, by way of public facilities and public buildings, and by way of the public sector and the institutions, of how energy can be used in a more efficient and rational way.
Technology will play an important role, but the establishment of new and more demanding environmental standards will depend on the support of the citizens.
The search for cleaner and more viable technologies is one of the Commission' s main ambitions.
The resolution of Parliament reminds all of us of the external dimension, that is to say, the process of enlargement and relations with non-EU countries, especially the developing countries; it requires that we adopt a realistic, balanced and flexible approach to the development of policies, which is especially important when it comes to examining the combination of energy sources and its evolution over time.
The Commission agrees with Parliament that it is necessary to adopt a broad approach in order to promote the use of energy sources with low carbon content in order to satisfy demand.
In our programmes, we insist on renewable energy and energy efficiency.
These demand policies are a central pillar of our sustainable approach to energy policy aimed at addressing the major environmental concerns of our citizens.
Parliament also requests that we attend to the sector which has not received all the attention it deserves.
That is to say the development of the capacity to separate and store CO2, which is an option which should be studied in depth.
In conclusion, Mr President, we receive this resolution favourably.
It reminds us of the true definition of a form of development which can be maintained over time; a sustainable development.
The human dimension of our policies should also be borne in mind. And we must carefully analyse the economic and social consequences of our political decisions in the energy and environment sectors.
And to sum up, Mr President, several speakers have referred to a broader debate which would take into account all the issues, not only demand and environmental issues but also the question of energy sources and energy dependency based on the forecasts.
Undoubtedly, this is a debate which we will have to lend all our attention to, and I hope that, throughout the coming months and, of course, before the end of this Commission' s mandate, we will be able to fully develop it, transparently, intensely and effectively in the discussions, as has been the case with the discussion of this report.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place in a few minutes, that is at 12 p.m.
I will ensure that your remarks are passed on.
I personally have no information about this but I will ensure that the President is informed of your concern.
Normally it is the Quaestors who give permission or not for such meetings so I do not know the situation.
Mr President, I would like to confirm that, once again, the Radical Members will not be taking part in the vote.
As you all know, this is because we intend to protest against our inferior position in terms of parliamentary rights and the right to take the floor.
I hope that this House will not start to think of our interventions as an annoying habit, or even something to be treated superficially and with amusement.
I think that it would be a serious situation if Parliament were to get used to conditions of continuing discrimination against some of its Members. And a sign from the Presidency that they are paying attention and are sensitive to this matter that we are constantly raising would not go amiss either.
Mr President, I support what Mr Cappato said.
As a member of the Italian Socialist Movement, I too am continuing to abstain from voting in support of the Members' fight for freedoms and for improved conditions in the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament.
I therefore declare that I will be abstaining from voting for the whole of the parliamentary term, in line with the Radical Members.
Vote
- I respect the reasons for which the British delegation has abstained on Amendments Nos 5 and 8 - junior doctors - but I have not followed this line since firstly, this is a negotiating position and secondly, my close family experience of a highly stressed and overworked NHS midwife do not allow me to impose long working hours on vital medical staff for any longer than is absolutely necessary.
- Perhaps I should start with a historical, not current, declaration of interest on why I have voted in favour of Amendment No 5, Article 1(6), concerning junior doctors.
My husband, Dr Rhys Jenkins, currently a GP and working restricted hours, has in the past worked in excess of 100 hours a week whilst training to become a doctor.
This first-hand knowledge has highlighted for me the dangers of requiring doctors to work such long hours.
This potentially endangers the lives of patients and certainly can have a detrimental effect on doctors' health.
I believe that a much delayed and staggered transition such as that proposed by the Council of Ministers is unnecessary and inappropriate.
In addition there is a particularly acute problem in Wales where the British Medical Association calculates that 30% of junior doctors are working longer than the recommended 40 hours a week.
The figure in Scotland by comparison is calculated at 10%.
There is a huge problem in terms of recruitment in the profession, and a haemorrhaging of trained doctors to other countries due to the excessive working hours.
The present situation in which large groups of workers are excluded from the EU' s basic working time regulations is unacceptable. We therefore think that the Smet report constitutes an important step towards improving the work situation of hundreds of thousands of employees and preventing a situation in which working times are made into an unfair means of competition.
We consider however that the proposal to regulate Sunday working, originally a proposal from the Group of the European People' s Party, is unjustified. We are therefore going to vote against Amendment No 1.
We also consider that Amendment No 7 concerning fishermen' s working times is too far-reaching.
We consider that the special conditions which apply in the fisheries sector are better taken into account in the Council' s common position.
- Commissioner Byrne, at his hearing stated that: the future of public health policies should not be linked only to the present crisis of the day; that there must be a high level of human health protection in all Community policies; that we must be proactive in public healthcare.
I repeated these words to the junior doctors of Ireland who, by the way, work the longest hours of any in their profession in the EU. They were greatly encouraged by them.
In light of Commissioner Byrne' s statements, let us look at the words of the Permanent Working Group of European Junior Doctors: "Research demonstrates that sustained wakefulness such as that experienced by junior doctors (working excessive hours), reduces performance to a level similar to excessive alcohol consumption."
These totally unacceptable conditions not only undermine the health of our junior doctors, they also undermine our health care system and endanger the patient.
I call on my own Irish Government to support this working time directive in line with the rapporteur' s suggestions.
I also call on the Commission to support Commissioner Byrne as he strives to be pro-active in public healthcare by ensuring that patient care and the health and training of non-consultant hospital doctors is protected.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the Smet report on changing certain aspects of the organisation of working time.
We think it is a good idea that those employees who have not to date been covered by the Working Time Directive should now be so.
We have declined to vote for Amendment No 6 from the Committee.
We agree that the reference period for offshore work may be extended to 12 months.
A shorter period might compromise safety because it would involve more flights to and from the oil platform.
Consideration has also to be given to the welfare of employees on the oil platform, where there is very little space.
We think it is important that the social partners in the labour market should be involved in such important questions as the organisation of working time.
We think, however, that EU legislation must respect the structures and traditions in the national labour markets.
We cannot therefore vote in favour of this proposal from the Committee.
We have voted against Amendment No 7 from the Committee.
The background to our doing so is that this proposal removes the Member States' freedom to choose whether to regulate employees' hours on the basis either of working time or rest time, as established in ILO Convention no 180 concerning seafarers' working hours.
We think that sea fishermen will be able to achieve better protection if working time or rest time is regulated on a daily or weekly basis, as proposed by the Council, rather than by having a fixed limit of 48 hours in a reference period of 12 months.
- The European Parliamentary Labour Party abstained on Amendments Nos 5, 7 and 8 to the Smet report on the Working Time Directive.
Although the EPLP is committed to the extension of the WTD to the excluded sectors, it understands the need for this to be done in a rational way.
We are committed to reducing the working hours of junior doctors, but it is essential that this is done in a planned and structured way which does not undermine patient care.
This directive will require an adequate transposition period with staged reductions in working time.
The fishing industry required flexibility.
This amendment does not recognise the reality of the needs of the fishing industry and will adversely effect it.
- (FR) We are now finally making good an omission dating from 1993, the year when the working time directive was adopted.
This legislation represented definite progress but at the same time its application excluded six million workers.
This included personnel involved in the transport sector, but also in work at sea (offshore workers, in particular, and "doctors in training" ).
It was no longer acceptable to exclude these workers in so far as the nature of their work was no different to that of the workers covered by the terms of the directive.
The proposal under discussion today is intended to rectify the current situation.
There have been fierce discussions, especially on the question of the "offshore" sector and doctors in training.
Regarding the latter, the European Commission' s initial proposal was that the application of the directive should be extended to doctors in training over a transitional period of seven years.
We demanded that this period should be reduced to four years, with a maximum weekly working time of fifty-four hours (subject to negotiation) during that time.
This is the minimum that may be asked if the nature of this profession is taken into account.
It is the welfare of these doctors at work, and the health and safety of their patients, which is at stake!
This is why the Council' s common position on this, envisaging a nine-year transitional period, would be unacceptable!
Regarding offshore workers, we have demanded that working hours may be expressed by an annual figure subject only to collective wage agreements or employer-employee agreements.
This condition shall have to be reconsidered taking into account the health and safety of workers within a period of five years after the directive comes into force.
The organisation of working time and the improved reconciliation of working life and private life which it affords must be of benefit to the majority.
This is the condition on which we may start talking about Social Europe.
It is more than time for this.
Recommendation for 2nd reading by Mr Lange (A5-0043/1999)
- (FR) I am abstaining from the vote on Mrs Smet' s report, which envisages limiting the working hours of doctors in training, even if it does represent some slight progress in relation to the current situation.
The fact is, I find it shocking that a transitional period is envisaged, even if it is less than that proposed by the Commission.
As far as I am concerned, I cannot see any objection to the measure being applied with immediate effect.
I am even more shocked by the fact that the road transport sector is excluded from the scope of the directive to limit working hours, and by the conditions stipulated for offshore workers in this matter.
Report by Mr Chichester (A5-0060/1999)
Emissions from heavy goods vehicles are contributing more and more to carbon dioxide emissions due to the increasing number of consignments.
Our aim by means of this report is to reduce emissions of this kind in order to contribute to cleaner air.
In order to meet our commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, we must take decisions involving difficult commitments for industry, above all when it comes to carbon dioxide emissions.
That is one of the purposes of this report.
We are aware that the decision may be felt to be onerous for certain manufacturers.
It is nonetheless our conviction that Swedish industry, with its considerable technical know-how, is well placed to cope with these demands within the time frame proposed in the report, which is to say by 2006.
Our understanding is that the proposals in the report are not confined to one particular technology but contain a range of technological solutions to choose from. To that extent, the report is neutral from a competition point of view.
We are convinced that, in the long term, Swedish companies will win out by being well ahead in adapting to environmental demands.
We are proceeding on the assumption that this judgement is shared by the companies concerned.
As Members of the European Parliament, we see it as our task to force the pace of such developments.
- (FR) This proposed amendment of Directive 88/77/EEC is based on the Auto-Oil programme concluded by the European Commission in 1996.
In this context, Parliament has already had occasion to adopt proposed amendments to a number of directives addressing the technical improvement of engines and fuel quality.
I would not like us to lose sight of the strategy behind the Auto-Oil programme: the objective is to reduce pollution of the atmosphere connected with vehicle emissions.
At the second reading stage, it is important for Parliament to clearly distinguish between the elements which it considers a priority and the rest.
Some might think, perhaps, that it is obvious.
However, the second reading of a text, referred under the codecision procedure, is all too often an opportunity to enter into a game of one-upmanship against the Council.
This temptation must be avoided at all cost, for a number of reasons.
Firstly, the European Parliament is in danger of losing sight of the general objective of the proposal before it.
Next, if it makes the text less clear, it is weakening its position.
Finally, it loses its credibility with the people and those directly concerned.
In presenting his reasons, the rapporteur explains that the amendments adopted at the first reading by the European Parliament have made a significant contribution towards improving the initial Commission proposal.
He specifies that the Council has, in its common position, taken on board some of Parliament' s significant amendments. I fully share this point of view.
The rapporteur has, however, has started on the path of one-upmanship, and, in supporting 47 amendments, he was taking the risk of causing a delay in the entry into force of the best terms of this text.
The Council' s common position will make it possible to make real progress regarding pollution related to heavy-duty vehicle traffic.
I was not in favour of adopting the amendments on which the House had to vote, since this would have delayed the entry into force of this text and thus the implementation of investment and industrial strategies.
The sooner the directive can come into force, the greater the beneficial effect on the environment.
Mr President, the Chichester report will certainly have important repercussions on European energy policy.
The Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities voted in favour, as we are committed to application of the principle of subsidiarity.
Energy is still a strategic and sensitive area for States.
It is indeed essential to allow them to select and define their policy on the subject, since Europe and in particular the Commission, have only a supporting role rather than a critical role.
This very realistic report demonstrates unquestionable open-mindedness.
Nothing is anathematised and no doors are closed, particularly that of nuclear power.
It lists the various energy sources, seeing them as complementary to, and not replacements for, the forms of energy currently used.
Realism on the subject of energy makes this necessary.
All avenues must be explored, none must be ignored or sacrificed.
The diversity of sources must be acceptable.
Finally, it is necessary to ensure that the most absolute transparency is applied, while respecting strategic technical safety regulations.
By means of serious and comprehensive studies and evaluations, everyone will be able to appreciate whether a given choice is appropriate, making it possible to make any operational changes necessitated in the light of the assessment of current knowledge.
We would like to see energy and the environment in intelligent coexistence, but we must, at all costs, avoid sacrificing energy on the altar of the environment.
The consequences of this would be disastrous for the Member States.
- (FR) Despite its general title, once the gift wrapping has been removed, it readily becomes apparent that the draft resolution proposed by Mr Chichester is intended primarily to promote the nuclear industry on the pretext that it does not produce much CO2, at least as far as the power plants are concerned.
Indeed, while it remains extremely vague on most environmental matters related to the energy sector, this resolution proposes that, in future, in the countries of the EU, nuclear-based electricity production should at least retain the share which it currently has.
And this at a time when an increasing number of European countries are deciding to get out of nuclear power.
However, rather more than electricity production, the reduction of CO2 emissions involves the problem of the organisation of transport - a point of which the resolution makes no mention.
It is silent, too, on the considerable risks inherent in nuclear-based electricity production and the accumulation, over the very long term, of radioactive waste!
We can do nothing other than vote against this draft resolution.
That concludes the vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
I hope you will bear with me.
This is not a point of order, but I believe it is an historic announcement.
As the House is probably aware, there have been recent announcements by David Trimble of the Ulster Unionist Party and Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein.
Both have come out with statements which are committed to the peace process and to decommissioning for Northern Ireland.
I am sure that the President will want to write on behalf of the European Union to congratulate all parties concerned on their actions, their courage and their determination to carry the peace process and decommissioning forward, and I am sure that you will agree that peace in Northern Ireland offers hope to everyone everywhere.
Mr Cashman, I am grateful for that information.
I am sure that the Presidency and all of us offer our congratulations.
I do not know if you knew, but I personally was rapporteur for budgets for the first aid package for the peace programme in Northern Ireland, and in a way, I therefore feel personally involved.
Judicial cooperation
The next item is the debate on the following reports:
A5-0060/1999 by Mr Lechner, on behalf of the Committee on Citizen' s Freedoms and Rights, on the proposal for a Council Directive on the service or transfer in the Member States of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil or commercial matters [COM(99) 219 - C5­0044/1999 - 1999/0102(CNS)];
A5-0057/1999 by Mr Gebhardt, on behalf of the Committee on Citizen' s Freedoms and Rights, on the proposal for a Council Regulation (EC) on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters and in matters of parental responsibility of joint children [COM(99) 220 - C5­0045/1999 - 1999/0110(CNS)].
Mr President, both these reports before us today recognise the increasing mobility of persons and the rise in contractual and commercial transactions across our Union.
As the internal market develops, our citizens really need a legal framework that guarantees them access to justice wherever they are and whatever their problems.
I will confine my remarks mainly to the report on the service of documents.
I concur with Mr Lechner that the rules that formerly governed this are some 25 years old; they are complicated and out of date.
With the increase in commercial transactions across the internal market, we need new, simple and certain rules.
When our citizens or our businesses have to resort to the courts, they need to get past that first step, which is the service of documents, possibly in another jurisdiction, before initiating proceedings.
Here we need a simple procedure.
As a lawyer in private practice in the UK, I myself, have often wrestled with a pile of books to find the right rules and the right way to go forward for my clients in these circumstances.
The proposals that we have before us take matters forward but perhaps they do not go far enough.
My group will re-table certain amendments that were put to the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market to try to take matters forward even further, to make the systems that we are going to put in place more readily available and open to practitioners.
We need to take this area of law outside the remit of a few specialists who may be able to charge a lot for it.
We want to give our citizens across the Union real access to justice so that when they have to resort to the courts they can get things up and running quickly and without difficulties.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I rise to speak about the Gebhardt report on judicial cooperation in family affairs.
Anyone who comes into contact with judges and registrars in the cross-border areas of our Member States will know that this is a problem that urgently requires solving.
For a long time, there has been an increasing number - and thankfully one that continues to increase - of marriages and familial relationships between people from different European countries.
Naturally, this often results in a number of problems.
There are also more and more people moving or emigrating from one country of the European Union to another in order to live and work there.
It is indeed the case that the current provisions pertaining to family law and also the international regulations on this subject are simply not adequate to deal with this problem.
I would therefore like to join Mrs Gebhardt in offering special praise to the Council and Commission for their initiative in taking a decisive step towards solving this problem.
This is indeed urgently necessary.
Moreover, in my opinion the shortcomings that the document reveals are positively limited.
There is a range of lesser aspects that have also been addressed in the committee discussions.
For example, I still to this day do not fully understand why negative judgements should have been excluded from the scope of this regulation.
In my opinion, this is particularly problematic, since the fact that negative judgements are not binding in all States may ultimately mean that a State in which a negative judgement is made may not recognise a positive judgement made in another state, with the result that we are once again faced with the disintegration of what constitutes law in the European Union, which, of course, we do not want.
I would ask that the Council to reconsider this aspect in its further discussions on this subject and that it consider whether this problem cannot indeed be resolved.
In all other respects, I support the initiative; I think that it is a good one and think that it should be pursued.
Mr President, the submitted proposal on matrimonial and custody cases represents a clear improvement for the citizens of the European Union and is particularly welcomed by the PPE Group.
For this, I would like to express my thanks to the Commission and the rapporteur.
The aims of the regulation are to ensure that judgements made in the Member States pertaining to divorce and other forms of separation are rapidly recognised by the other Member States, and also to provide up-to-date and uniform regulations governing parental responsibility for the joint offspring of spouses.
This was made possible by means of the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May this year, which as part of heading IV in Articles 61 and 65 makes judicial cooperation in civil cases a firm part of the EC Treaty.
The sought-after aims cannot be achieved by the Member States alone and must therefore be realised at Community level on account of their transnational nature.
This will enable the creation of a European legal area finally granting European citizens throughout the entire EU a common feeling of legal security and guaranteeing them a standard of marital status that is the same across Europe.
Problems arising in the European Union in the past with regard to marriages between people of different nationality have been due to the fact that documents attesting to marital status used in connection with marriage ceremonies were not recognised in the same way by all the Member States.
Questions regarding the competence of the courts and the validity of their judgements for spouses of different nationality who wanted to separate proved to be even more problematic.
They revealed that one could not rely on judgements made at some point in the past and that judgements in custody cases frequently took no account of the children' s interests.
The purpose of the present regulation is to improve and accelerate within the internal market the free movement of judgements in matrimonial cases and in parental responsibility proceedings.
The aim of the European Union is to create an area of freedom, security and justice in which the free movement of people is guaranteed and in which citizens of the Union can assert their rights with the same guarantees that they could obtain from the courts in their own country.
The recognition of judgements in transnational family disputes should therefore be made easier by allowing the European Community to govern the recognition of divorce decrees passed by the competent courts.
In such a linguistically diverse legal area as the European Union, uncertainty and discrimination with regard to marriages between people of different nationality can also arise due to a lack of linguistic proficiency.
We therefore support the call of the rapporteur for the Member States to ensure that case records are drawn up in a language that both parties understand.
In addition to governing the jurisdiction and recognition of judgements on the dissolution of marriages, the regulation also covers the custody proceedings that in many cases accompany a divorce.
This point requires particular emphasis, as it represents a significant addition to the protection of the children in question, whose interests must be guaranteed.
In the past, only a very small amount of progress has been made in creating a European Legal Area for the citizens' benefit.
Recognising divorce decrees and judgements regarding parental responsibility will solve the legal and administrative problems with which citizens are confronted on a daily basis.
The entry into force of this regulation will fill a loophole that has existed in the field of international private law and represents an important step towards extending the Union into an area of freedom, security and justice.
Mr President, this proposal, which we hope will, by means of a Community regulation, resolve the difficulties experienced by our citizens and their families due to failure to recognise judgements on ending the bond of matrimony and parental responsibility, deserves our applause and our sympathy.
Of course because on this important subject of family law, the very broad area not regulated by the law due to the way judgements cease to be effective across borders has had a legal and moral effect on thousands of our citizens, damaging families' social and psychological stability and particularly affecting the weakest members, that is, women and children.
We have all at some time been confronted with the tragedies and paradoxes that occur when there is no free movement of judgements, a situation which has resulted in justice being denied to individuals and the obvious absence and omission of obligatory and crucial European instruments, which, in terms of a common area, would eliminate the inconsistencies caused by the legal fragmentation that is the natural consequence of national legal systems.
This regulation is a sign of the creative development of the Community legal system and represents the introduction of a new series of common rules.
Rules which are able to protect European citizens' civil relationships, turning a European area which is fragmented in terms of the protection of rights and the enforcement of obligations into a more organised and structured area in which all citizens will be able to avail themselves, not only of their own national laws, but also now of a common European law which will apply to families in all areas of the Union, unless that area has asked that an exception be made in this matter.
Mr President, the path that we are taking in the area of judicial and civil cooperation is the right one.
I therefore urge my friend, Commissioner António Vitorino, to continue along this path.
There is no formal European citizenship, but there will be when in the most relevant branch of law, civil law, Europe has the legitimacy and the strength to guarantee our citizens' rights and to enforce justice.
Mr President, Commissioner, it feels important to debate this issue with you - an issue which, too, is about the best interests of the child.
We had the pleasure of discussing this yesterday with you, as well.
The fact that we have this regulation on the agenda is also a very good way indeed of celebrating children' s rights.
I know that rapporteur Gebhardt was thinking of just that point when drafting the amendments which I hope the Commission will adopt.
In these, she pleads that, whatever judgements are made and whatever concrete steps are taken in this area, they should be so expressly with children' s best interests in mind.
Thank you, Evelyne Gebhardt, for these amendments.
I also take the view, expressed by all the previous speakers, that this is needed in the mobile Europe of today.
It is needed in the mobile Europe of today where, despite this mobility, we still experience discrimination.
For example, articles 16 and 18 are needed so that cases of child abduction do not have to lead to judicial reviews. We know of course that child abduction and the prospect of a subsequent judicial review can lead to tremendously heart-rending conflicts.
I also share the view of Mrs Wallis, a colleague from my group, that we must go further, partly through supporting her amendments but also, I hope, through the Commissioner' s seeing new possibilities in the light of the Tampere Summit as to how we might go further in this area.
Take, for example, maintenance disputes (an issue I understood not to be covered by this proposal), that is to say the financial aspect of the dissolution of a marriage, together with the issue of parental responsibility.
These questions are not dealt with here but can in practice also involve problems which are tremendously difficult to solve.
I also want to ask for colleagues' support when our Group supports Amendment No 3, together with the corresponding amendment from Mr Lehne' s opinion as delivered to the committee responsible. In this way, we shall be able to reform the Nordic Convention in the same area.
I hope that it will be possible for the Nordic Convention to go further and support the same objectives, but in that case we shall also need the explanations which were to be found in the opinion delivered on this proposal by the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
Finally, I want to say that the present partnership should aim to create a situation in which we begin to rely more upon each other in Europe.
Mr President, after hearing the statement given yesterday by Commissioner Vitorino on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, I am happy that we are today discussing concrete issues from which children can really benefit.
On account of the increased freedom of movement, more and more marriages between people of different nationality are taking place within the European Union.
When these marriages take place or indeed are dissolved, particular problems frequently arise due to the different laws of the two States.
The people who suffer the most in these cases are the children, who have to cope with additional problems, as if the other problems were not enough.
The new proposal by the Council for a regulation on the jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial cases and parental responsibility proceedings now guarantees uniform marital status for the citizens of Europe.
Marriage and divorce documents as well as judgements should, as a result, be recognised in all countries of the European Union.
However, we must ensure that applying these principles does not continue to lead to differences and discriminations, something which unfortunately is currently the case.
In particular, the welfare of the children from these marriages must be ensured.
Custody proceedings should be coherent and conclusive, and the result recognised everywhere.
The basic interests of the children must come before everything else.
The individual child must have the possibility of being heard before a court and in this way of clarifying that his or her welfare is taken into account.
I hope that our colleague Mr Watson' s compromise solution does not create any additional problems, and that we are able to settle this important issue in the best interests of the child.
Only in this way can we avoid international legal proceedings lasting several years and prevent child abduction, which unfortunately often happens as a result of legal confusion.
We must tackle the problem of the various conflicts of laws that arise in matrimonial cases.
Only in this way can we achieve legal security in the international domain for the citizens and children of Europe.
For this reason, I would like to thank the rapporteur Mrs Gebhardt on behalf of myself and my group, for her splendid report, and I hope that we can now take a major step forward in the best interests of children.
The problem we are working on here is, in reality, not only a European problem but also a global, cross-frontier problem.
Really, we ought to be working for a global convention in this area, but the present proposal takes us some way down the road, for it is undoubtedly very important - as just about every speaker has agreed - that we recognise each other' s decisions on matrimonial issues and on matters concerning custody, especially at a time such as we are experiencing now where the structure of the family is undergoing tremendous change.
In this connection, I can only express my pleasure at the fact that there are still a number of countries - including EU Member States - which recognise marriages between two people of the same sex and appreciate that such couples may also wish to have children and that this is a wish they can justifiably demand should be fulfilled.
One can only hope that, in future where these matters are concerned, the motions of the heart will ever more be granted expression - as they have been in issues of divorce - and that the voices of religion and moralism will be hushed.
My group can therefore back the report.
As a Dane, I have a special problem, of course, when we talk about making decisions concerning legal questions under pillar 1, but I am certain that it is a problem which can be solved, for this is undoubtedly an area which Denmark also wishes to see put in order.
Mr President, I hope that what the Danish Member just said will never happen, and that families will retain their traditional structure.
No, no, I do not think there is anything to laugh about: in my opinion, families must not adopt a structure that is not part of the normal order of society.
We are talking about an extremely sensitive issue, relationships within families, especially as regards citizens' mobility within the boundaries of the European Union.
Essentially, what we are dealing with is the protection of minors, which is already very difficult when they live in families that we could define as normal, or rather traditional.
I think that a particularly sensitive aspect is that of listening to children.
Many of us, the different Member States of the European Union, have already addressed the issue of using children' s guardians at a time when families are going through a particularly difficult time in their lives, such as when couples separate, with all the repercussions - especially in psychological terms - that affect the children involved.
In the very short time I am allowed I would like to emphasise just a few points.
Something that is of particular interest is parental authority, especially in relation to nomadic peoples who are now present in large numbers throughout Europe.
Very often, as local administrators as well, we are faced with situations which are particularly regrettable and which are not covered by legislation.
This regulation certainly represents a significant step forwards - and we are grateful to the rapporteur for this - but we need to return to the issue with particular reference to nomadic children, to Roma children, and therefore to everything related to the internal problems of these families, including, precisely, with regard to mobility in Europe.
Mr President, regarding Mrs Gebhardt' s report, I have no doubts as to the good intentions of our rapporteurs and I share their concern to reinforce the legal security of people involved in matrimonial cases which are as delicate as they are painful for the parties concerned.
But, since our objective is to contribute to an improvement, I wish to draw your attention to the draft amendment to Recital 10, which I consider problematic.
Is it proper to entrust the task of defining the notion of parental responsibility to the Court of Justice, whereas the proposal for a Regulation envisaged that reference would be made to the national law of the Member State concerned?
Would it be an easy matter for the Court of Justice, to provide a definition of the notion of parental responsibility in isolation without the existence of a common family law for marital cases, which is neither desirable, nor envisaged at the present time?
My fear is that with this amendment, the application of this text, whose aim is to strengthen legal security, may create vagueness, which is harmful.
Furthermore, attributing this new area of competence to the Court of Justice would surely increase the Court' s caseload, which is already excessive.
The rapporteurs themselves note the very marked differences between Member States as regards private law, thus explaining the serious reservations expressed within the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market.
I would suggest that the rapporteurs should be satisfied with resorting to a Community legal instrument without seeking to harmonise the fundamental legal concepts.
If these amendments were to be adopted, it would be difficult for me to support this proposal.
Mr President, I would not like to tamper, no pun intended, with the enthusiasm of this House on the subject of the European legal area.
The solutions which we must arrive at must fulfil a twofold role.
Firstly, every plaintiff must be able to find a judge for his case, otherwise this would be denial of justice.
He should be able to find applicable law, and it must be possible to enforce the judgement.
This is the requirement of legal security.
Secondly, in the meantime, it is essential to ensure that the diversity of Member State legislation is respected. This is no more than the translation into the legal sphere of respect for cultural or national diversity.
We must get away from the unification of legislation which is too often pursued here on the pretext of harmonisation.
The obvious solution is to unify international private law rules exclusively, without unifying the fundamental rules.
Unification of international private law rules, i.e. regulations on conflicts of jurisdiction and rules on conflicts of laws.
It must be possible to clearly identify which law the court is going to apply, since a court with local jurisdiction does not necessarily apply its national law and in some circumstances this procedure is a fair one.
As for the development of enforcement procedures - the enforcement orders or "exequatur" for foreign judgements - this is no doubt useful in civil cases, such as divorce or custody cases, just as they are useful in some aspects of mutual assistance in legal matters, but care must be taken not to go too far along this route.
We must not arrive at a situation where, under the pretext of mutual assistance in legal matters, a wall of silence reigns over Europe in the name of political correctness.
I shall not mention Switzerland' s degrading handover of an old man, 90 years old, to France, since this is a matter involving a country which is not a member of the European Union, but I shall simply mention the increasingly repressive legislation which mean to dictate political and historical attitudes, a phenomenon I would not like to see spreading from one European state to the next.
Mr President, without doubt the directive proposed by the European Commission is an important step towards the creation of a single area of freedom, security and justice. It organises judicial cooperation at Community level and introduces uniform rules in international private law, an area in which they were sorely lacking.
Standard treatment of all European citizens in connection with family disputes and the care and control of children in the event of divorce will spare thousands of families considerable anguish and bureaucratic obstruction, thereby bolstering the sense of security and confidence in the European Union of our citizens.
The proposed changes, such as giving the child an opportunity to be heard before taking a decision and full compliance with the Hague Convention, seek mainly to safeguard the rights and interests of children.
I hope that Mrs Gebhardt will use her considerable skills to draft a change which satisfies all sides.
However, this generally positive assessment of the directive notwithstanding, I believe that numerous matters still remain unresolved, such as full application of the new arrangements to third country nationals resident in the European Union and to persons living together outside close, traditional family arrangements.
The directive is a good directive; however, it needs to be more daring if it is to pave the way, in the foreseeable future, for a single European family law which takes account of the huge social, economic and cultural changes which are the order of our day.
The construction of Europe has for too long ignored private law, and the Citizens' Europe, which we represent, must, as we said last night on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the International Convention, henceforth take into consideration the real concerns of families and the welfare of children.
We all have a recollection of a number of cases, such as the Lancelin-Thiemann case which last year contaminated discussions between Germany and France on the subject of the dramatic situation of the children of this couple.
The Gebhardt report rightly stresses that the increasing level of free movement within the European Union is causing and will in future cause an increasing number of marriages between nationals of different countries, hence the interest of examining this question.
Current European law has not managed to draw the conclusions of this development, thus placing couples, and more particularly children, in a very complex position.
The regulation submitted for our opinion today is therefore particularly welcome in so far as it includes unquestionable advantages in relation to the so-called Brussels II Convention, signed in 1998, but not as yet ratified.
If it is unanimously adopted in Council, this regulation may come into force very soon and shall be applied immediately and harmoniously throughout the European Union, thus enabling long drawn out wrangling over jurisdiction, which is harmful to everyone, to be prevented.
I would add that this proposal for a regulation specifically targets legal judgements relating to parental responsibility for joint children, corresponding to the requests made on several occasions by this House.
But, like other Members, I am concerned by two amendments, Amendment No 2 and Amendment No 5, which is going to attribute a number of responsibilities relating to parental authority to the Court of Justice.
I am afraid that this is not a matter for its jurisdiction and, moreover, that this may increase the caseload of this Court.
In my opinion, we should stick to the Commission text.
If this is the case, I shall support Mrs Gebhardt' s report, which I hope will be widely adopted by Parliament in these terms.
If there were just one thing to bear in mind, this would be the interest of the children, and I have my doubts as to whether it would be in the interest of the children if Parliament were to adopt these two amendments. Children are the ones with a lot to gain from the rapid implementation of regulations acknowledging their simple right not to have to endure the choice of their parents to live in different European countries.
Of course, major problems will remain, particularly the matter of the disparity of applicable divorce laws and the consequences of this, but this regulation is just an initial step and I congratulate the rapporteur on this initiative.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Commission, I would like firstly to express my pleasure that the opinions relating to the proposal for a directive on the service of judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil and commercial matters have been adopted, as well as the proposal for a regulation on the competence, recognition and implementation of judgements on matrimonial matters.
I would particularly like to congratulate Mr Lechner and Mr Gebhardt for their excellent work as the rapporteurs of these two initiatives.
These two instruments constitute one of the foundation stones of the Community building that we are constructing, the main aim of which is to give all the Union' s citizens and legal operators easier, more rapid and more efficient access to justice with a safeguard from the rules of legal security.
As far as the proposal for a regulation is concerned, by reducing the time it takes to transmit judicial and extrajudicial documents from one Member State to another, we are adopting an instrument which will enable the judicial processes to progress in the best conditions of speed and legal security whilst preserving the rights of all parties involved.
I would particularly like to highlight the importance of adopting the proposal for a regulation which constitutes a cornerstone of the creation at Community level of a European legal area.
To this effect, the Tampere European Council made the mutual recognition of judgements one of the pivotal points in the development of an area of freedom, security and justice.
The Heads of State and Government themselves recognised the fact that priority must be given to family relationships and particularly to resolving issues of divorce and parental responsibility.
If the movement of people within the European Union is going to be more than an empty phrase, it must be accompanied by the necessary measures in the field of family law.
This proposal is the first, and only the first of these measures, because it provides standardised rules on the jurisdiction of courts in the Member States in matters of divorce and separation as well as in the matter of processes relating to the enforcement of parental responsibility, and even provides a clear and coherent framework for rapid, practically automatic recognition in every Member State of judgements made in another Member State within the scope of the regulation.
These are legal instruments that will open the way for the future adoption of other solutions that go further in the direction the Tampere European Council wanted.
As far as the directive is concerned, the Council can accept practically all of the amendments, except the amendments relating to Nos 3, 5 and 10, which we feel do not fit in with the proposal' s premise.
If I am not mistaken, Amendment No 3 brings nothing new to the measure in question, in that the Member States which will designate a single authority and then a central authority are precisely the ones whose legislation does not allow for the direct transmission of judgements.
As for Amendment No 5, we feel that it places an excessive burden on the central authorities in the context of a directive-based system in which these central authorities have only a subsidiary function.
And finally, concerning Amendment No 10, we feel that it contradicts Article 11(2) of the proposal for a directive.
As far as the proposal for a regulation is concerned, we can accept most of the proposed amendments, namely Amendments Nos 1 to 8, 13 to 18 and 20.
We feel that Amendments Nos 9 and 10 can be partially accepted, with a slight alteration which does not change them fundamentally.
We have objections to three amendments: Nos 11, 12 and 19.
Concerning Amendment No 11 - and I hope that a new oral proposal will be made so that I can comment on the new version - where it states that the best interests of the child must be taken into account, we feel that this would clear the way for a judgement to be made - with regard to the costs to be borne by the State due to receive the judgement - which is not appropriate for this kind of instrument.
We agree, therefore, with the principle of child hearings, but not with a new judgement on this basis.
We feel Amendment No 12 gives an advantage to the mechanical implementation of a possible, out of date judgement over a more recent one which may have been issued on the same matter.
Priority must be given to the most recent judgement, because that will be the one that best takes into account the child' s situation at the time the verdict is made.
And finally, in relation to Amendment No 19, I understand the meaning of the proposal, but I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the rule concerning the translation of decisions does not fall within the scope of a regulation on the competence, recognition and implementation of judgements; the proper place for the rule on translations is the directive on the transmission of documents, the other instrument that we are debating today, which lays down precisely this possibility of translation.
Finally, Mr President, I am convinced that by adopting these instruments we are giving a great boost to the free movement of persons today.
And we are providing a balanced boost, because, on the one hand, we are favouring the internal market and economic integration with the directive on judicial and extrajudicial documents in civil and commercial matters, but, on the other hand, we are also attempting to give primacy to people' s rights, to the rights of human beings and to the rights of children, because, in addition to having to suffer the trauma that a divorce always causes, they should not have to suffer the trauma of the bureaucratic nightmare that the recognition of judgements involves.
And this is at last proof that the Union provides added value for our citizens' actual lives.
And thus we honour a major principle of the project of European construction, which is designed to think of people, by people and for people.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Checks on nuclear installations in the CEECs
The next item is the Commission statement on the implementation by the Commission of the programme for checking nuclear installations in the Central and Eastern European countries.
Mr Verheugen has the floor on behalf of the Commission.
Mr President, Honourable Members, in Agenda 2000 and in numerous opinions of the European Council, the European Parliament and other European committees, reference has continued to be made to the fact that, as a precondition to EU membership, the candidate countries of Central and Eastern Europe must guarantee a high level of safety of their nuclear power installations.
May I repeat at this point what I have previously said on numerous occasions: with regard to nuclear safety, the Commission will accept no compromises.
The European Union has left no room for doubt that nuclear reactors that owing to basic lacks of technical planning are classed as incapable of being updated must be shut down as part of the preparation for accession.
These include eight reactors from the nuclear power stations at Ignalina in Lithuania, Kosloduj in Bulgaria and Bohunice in the Slovak Republic.
In the past few years, the Union has provided comprehensive aid within the framework of the PHARE programme.
From 1991 to the present day, the Commission has provided almost EUR 2 million to finance concrete measures for the short-term improvement of safety levels.
However, it has also vigorously strived to pursue its aim of ensuring the shutdown of reactors that cannot be updated.
I would like to put my following remarks in this political context, and begin by reporting that two of the three countries concerned have committed themselves to shutting down their reactors, and in the process have laid down concrete time-scales for closures.
Talks are currently in progress with the third country, and I am very confident that a solution will be found before the European Council meets in Helsinki.
At the start of September, the Lithuanian Government adopted a new national energy strategy obliging it to shut down unit 1 by 2005 and to set the date for the shutdown of unit 2 within the framework of the next national energy strategy, which will be passed in 2004.
The Commission is assuming that unit 2 will be shut down by the year 2009 at the latest.
This new energy strategy was accepted by the Lithuanian Parliament on 5 October with a clear majority of 63 votes in favour with 31 votes against.
The Slovak Government officially informed the Commission on 28 September of its decision to shut down reactors 1 and 2 of the Bohunice V 1 nuclear power station ahead of schedule by 2006 and 2008.
This decision was taken even after the Slovak Republic had in previous years invested more than EUR 200 million in the improvement of reactor safety.
I am aware that some people consider that their expectations with regard to the shutdown of Bohunice have not been met, and I take these concerns seriously.
Earlier shutdown of the reactor blocks would indeed be desirable.
However, I must also say that nuclear reactors cannot be shut down overnight.
It must also be clear that the particular country concerned requires considerable technical and financial support.
I must also point out that Community acquis in the field of nuclear safety and in particular radiation protection is extremely limited.
At this point in time, each Member State and therefore also each candidate for Membership is free to choose its own form of energy production.
The only principle that everyone in the Union must observe is that the highest internationally accepted standard of safety must be guaranteed.
The Commission is therefore of the opinion that Lithuania and the Slovak Republic have, in their decisions to shut down their reactors, made the necessary commitments in the field of nuclear safety to justify entering into membership talks with them.
However, this does not rule out the possibility that there may be room for further flexibility.
The Commission considers the promises made by Lithuania and Slovakia to be necessary steps towards effective shutdown.
However, the aim itself remains to be achieved.
Let us now concentrate on the actual implementation of the adopted decisions on shutdowns.
Lithuania will have to pass a shutdown act formally ordering the operator to initiate the shutdown procedure.
An action plan for the implementation of the national energy strategy is currently being drawn up.
The Slovak Republic will also have to begin planning for shutdowns.
Our cooperation with these countries is now moving to the implementation phase.
To assist with the shutdown of the two nuclear power stations in Lithuania and the Slovak Republic that have been mentioned, the Commission has committed itself to providing non-repayable financial aid from the 1999 PHARE programme.
Most of these subsidies will be paid through an international credit fund managed by the EBRD.
As of the year 2000, we intend providing financial support in the form of up to EUR 20 million per year for every shutdown measure.
However, these subsidies are not intended for the shutdown measures themselves, but are rather intended to also support the resulting measures that arise in the traditional energy sector.
In Lithuania, for example, there is a need for market deregulation and technical modernisation in the non-nuclear electricity sector to compensate for the shutdown of the Ignalina nuclear power station.
On 13 October, the Commission stated in the conclusions to its general document on the progress reports that it would also enter into membership talks with Bulgaria in the year 2000.
However, we would recommend that this be made dependent on the Bulgarian Government deciding by the end of 1999 on acceptable dates for the shutdown of units 1 to 4 of the Kosloduj nuclear power station and on meaningful progress being made in the economic reform process.
I would like to emphasise that the decision on the shutdown of Kosloduj is a crucial condition.
It will be hardly possible to reach a consensus in Helsinki on entering into talks with Bulgaria if this problem is not resolved.
On this matter, I am currently in close contact with the Bulgarian Government.
There are signs that there is the political will to find an acceptable solution once the Bulgarian Parliament has approved the possibility of deviating from the dates for closure cited in the country' s energy strategy.
However, the talks have yet to reach a breakthrough.
As it has done with Lithuania and the Slovakian Republic, the Commission is prepared to provide Bulgaria with support in the form of similar facilities as soon as Sofia decides on the closure of the dangerous reactor blocks.
The Commission is also prepared to grant a EURATOM loan for the modernisation and refitting of units 5 and 6 of the Kosloduj nuclear power station.
However, granting of this loan is dependent on an agreement being reached on a deadline for the closure of the four older units.
Having now reported in detail on the latest development with regard to the nuclear power stations in the candidate countries that cannot be updated, I would like to say a word about the reactors in the New Independent States that can and those that cannot be updated.
In the last week, the members of the PHARE Management Committee issued an opinion approving the Commission programme under which EUR 11 million from PHARE funds will be made available for financing safety measures in nuclear power stations in the candidate countries and for financing measures to be taken by the licensing authorities in the candidate countries.
The Commission intends to continue providing this aid throughout the entire period covered by the Financial Perspective for the years 2000 to 2006.
Parallel to this, recipients of aid from the TACIS programme will continue to receive financial support to achieve the targets of Agenda 2000, including strengthening of the safety culture, improved management of incinerated nuclear material, efforts to close down Chernobyl, the establishment of a working group to work jointly with Armenia on the issue of the Medzamor nuclear power station, and other measures.
The Commission knows - and I am sure that the Members of Parliament agree with this opinion - that the closure of nuclear power stations imposes a heavy burden on national economies faced with radical change, particularly in those countries that, having won independence from the Soviet Union, have only recently set themselves up as independent states.
The Commission sees it as its obligation to achieve this target as soon as possible.
However, we cannot do this alone.
The international community must act together.
It shares a common interest in establishing European safety standards.
Both the Member States and the international community must be on hand to provide help and advice to the candidate countries.
Furthermore, raising the safety standard of nuclear installations by either refitting reactors that can be updated or closing down reactors classed as ones that cannot be updated will entail significant costs.
For this reason, the Commission would like to arrange with the candidate countries concerned for donors' conferences to be held aimed at setting up special credit funds for Lithuania, Slovakia and Bulgaria.
It is intended that the first of these conferences will be held for Lithuania at the beginning of the year 2000.
We urgently advise the Member States as well as the third countries, particularly those with regional interests in Northern, Central or south-east Europe, to contribute towards these three funds.
We shall plan these funds carefully, taking into account that additional money is also required for the G7-supported fund to finance dismantling of the Chernobyl reactor next year.
Although we have made some achievements, much will still be demanded of us in the future.
We must insist that nuclear safety on the eastern external borders of the Union is accorded top priority.
There is now a realistic prospect of an effective shutdown of the problematic nuclear reactors in candidate countries.
This is both a political and economic task.
The European Parliament can rest assured that the Commission will pursue this task with the utmost vigour.
I hope that the Commission will be able to count on the support of the Members of Parliament in tackling this difficult task in the best interest of our citizens.
)
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for his statement this afternoon on the programme of work being undertaken by the Commission for improving safety in civil nuclear installations in Central and Eastern Europe.
I ask myself, having listened quite carefully to the Commissioner, whether there is any new information in the statement that he has made.
He has given us a fair amount of detail and a fair number of promises about what is happening or will happen.
I note the time-scale of some of his comments that reactors will be shut down early in 2006 and 2008 - I will come to the question of whether a reactor should be shut down or not and how quickly in a moment.
I must agree with the Commissioner and the Commission position on the primacy of safety issues.
I think we can all agree that where nuclear power stations and nuclear installations are concerned, it is absolutely essential that safety, safety of operation, safety of construction and design, be given top priority.
For obvious reasons, public opinion has to be assured that this is the case.
I also agree that it is essential for countries which are largely dependent upon nuclear power plants for their electricity and energy that closure programmes are phased to allow time to provide replacement capacity.
In some countries, when reactors have had to be shut down, there has been a loss of electricity which has caused severe hardship.
You have to weigh up that consideration with the debatable issue about safety.
We also have to bear in mind that we are still negotiating with countries which are sovereign, independent states and we have to respect their internal procedures.
We are in a slightly sensitive position in terms of telling them or asking them or assisting them to do things that we want to do, but that they may not be enthusiastic about doing themselves.
The question is that if a reactor is safe to run until 2006, why is it not safe to run for its full economic life?
If it is unsafe it should be closed down immediately.
That is the conundrum that faces us. I feel, with respect to the Commissioner, that you have not quite addressed that conundrum this afternoon.
Mr President, Commissioner, may I firstly say that I am sorry to hear that the Commissioner has a cold, which is hopefully real and not political, and that I hope he is soon feeling well enough to undertake the important trip that he would still like to go on this week.
I would also like to thank the Commissioner for his report, particularly for his basic statement that there can be no compromise as far as nuclear safety is concerned.
The Commissioner already made this quite clear at his hearing in the European Parliament, and it is a principle that must be observed.
Perhaps this has not been so clear in some of the comments made in the debates of the last few weeks, but I would like to emphasise it and very much welcome the statement.
Today, this House has voted on Mr Chichester' s report, and in so doing has clearly indicated that it will reject any pressure or any form of indirect recommendation to change its policy on nuclear safety.
On this understanding, we have voted by a large majority in favour of Mr Chichester' s report.
Naturally, we must acknowledge that the opposite also applies.
There is no pressure on any country to stop using atomic energy.
However, it is absolutely essential - and on this point the words of the Commissioner were completely clear - that nuclear safety be pushed to the forefront, and I hope that this, as you yourself said, Commissioner, is used as the guideline and basis for the talks with our neighbours in Eastern Europe.
The highest internationally recognised safety standard must indeed be the criterion.
In this respect, the decision as to whether nuclear safety is used as a criterion for the production of energy in a country lies with the national authorities.
However, the decision on the safety standard goes beyond this, as it does not just concern the citizens of the particular country.
In any event, there is now the belief that the countries want to and will apply strict safety standards for it is in their own interest.
However, we all know that the reality is that this naturally depends on economic problems and the standard of living, and that we could in inverted commas afford to worry more about our national safety than some of our neighbouring countries could.
It is for this reason that it is important and right that the European Union shows appropriate concern.
Naturally, what Mr Chichester has said applies in the general sense. Either the power stations are safe or they are unsafe.
However, approaching the issues from a realistic point of view, we must grant countries time to adapt to the appropriate safety standards and not proceed according to a system of either closing them down immediately or allowing the reactors to run until the end of their operating life.
I would like to clarify just one point, which is clear to the Commissioner but which I believe must be clear to this Parliament.
It is not the case that our concern about nuclear safety is really a hidden instrument to prevent expansion.
But because it is perhaps sometimes perceived as such, I would like to state in plain and simple terms that in fact the opposite is the case.
The sooner our neighbours recognise that nuclear safety is our common concern, the sooner it will be possible to enter into constructive and open talks with our neighbouring countries and to conclude talks on expansion.
If this common safety basis is also recognised on the part of our neighbours, then this possibility will become meaningful.
The present issue is not therefore a question of, as it were, vetoing the talks if not everything is achieved before they begin.
Nor is it a case of stubbornly sticking to closure plans decided upon unilaterally by different governments.
Rather, it involves recognising that the decisions adopted by the governments can and indeed must be discussed.
In this regard, account must naturally be taken of the fact that the closure of nuclear power stations in various countries also leads to economic problems, affects energy provision, energy prices and export opportunities, and can obviously also lead to environmental problems if fossil-fuel power stations that are old and in poor condition are used.
In this sense, I would also like to offer my clear support to what the Commissioner has said with regard to financial aid.
If nuclear safety is to be our joint concern, we must also be jointly prepared to provide our neighbouring countries with financial aid if they recognise the appropriate standards.
In this respect, I am also very grateful for the donors' conferences.
It must be clear at these donors' conferences whether not only the European Union as a whole but the Member States as well are prepared to provide money towards ensuring nuclear safety.
We in the European Parliament support this, and want to help our neighbours so that they can re-equip their atomic power stations within the context of common safety.
Mr President, thank you, Commissioner, for the information.
Allow me to say that, after this, I was placed rather in the same situation as when one reads the news, for example in one' s own country, that a hospital which has just been renovated at a cost of millions is to be closed down.
You mentioned that EUR 200 million had been invested in the Phare partnership to improve safety. I believe that, where this is concerned, we need an honest appraisal to be carried out.
What have we done previously?
What has proved to be unnecessary now in the light of the perhaps rather stricter line Europe has adopted in the membership negotiations? I think we may have behaved a little stupidly here.
I also think that uncertainty in the matter of what we have had a legal basis for doing has shown that we in the Community could do with rather more in the way of conditions where energy supplies are concerned, something we shall be discussing over the next few days when it comes to the Intergovernmental Conference.
Where the Slovakian nuclear power plant, Bohunice, is concerned, it is obvious that we need more information about what the real situation is there in the matter of safety.
Unfortunately, we have the type of situation in which none of us knows anything about this; we do not have access to the same information as the Commission.
Where Ignalina is concerned, I want to say that I do not think that the information we have obtained is really satisfactory in the light of, for example, the so-called WENRA report where it is stated that we do not have any certain knowledge about safety in so-called reactor shutdown systems.
Mr President, Commissioner, firstly I too would like to wish you a speedy recovery from your cold.
I would also like to thank you for your earlier comments that nuclear power stations must be treated politically and economically, that we cannot expect them to be taken out of operation overnight and that we need an exit plan and time to implement it.
I think that Bohunice had sufficient time.
I must remind you of the Hermes Agreement under which Bohunice was to be removed from the network by the year 2000 at the latest.
In the light of this, I was extremely surprised by your laudatory acceptance of the new shutdown dates for Bohunice in 2006 and 2008.
I shall now come to my question, Commissioner.
A study by the Vienna Institute for Risk Research has been available since the summer.
Although it has become somewhat dusty sitting in the drawer of the Minister for Consumer Protection, Mrs Prammer, thanks to good cooperation with the environmental non-governmental organisations we became aware of this study and since last Thursday have had the opportunity to examine its contents in detail.
We need not discuss the safety defects in Bohunice, although perhaps I may raise just three of the most important points: as before, there is no replacement for the missing reinforced concrete and no pressure suppression system or other safety systems; the upgrading is inadequate seismologically; and the reactor pressure container is so brittle that the possibility of bursting cannot be excluded.
Now for something funny: in 1995 the UJD, the Slovak Nuclear Supervisory Authority, stopped issuing the standard multiannual operating licence and has been issuing provisional one-year extensions in order to compel the operators to carry out the necessary upgrading.
In vain it would seem!
The currently valid safety certificate for Bohunice expires in the year 2000.
In Austria, we say that from the year 2000, Bohunice will be spotless!
This study was submitted to the Slovak government at the beginning of September, but not to you, Commissioner.
This sort of neglect is not unique to Austrian politics; it also exists within the EU.
At the same time, however, Mrs Prammer' s office assures me that she did inform you of the unresolved safety issues relating to Bohunice V1.
So I ask you, Commissioner: were you aware of this study?
If you were, the behaviour of the Commission is scandalous!
If you were not, I would urge you to reconsider the facts.
If you still do not have the documents, I have brought them with me from Vienna.
You yourself have said, if I may quote you, that the final words have not yet been spoken.
Perhaps the Commission could also exchange words with the Slovak Nuclear Supervisory Authority.
We demand earlier and binding shutdown dates for Bohunice as well as clear assistance with the exit plan.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to thank you for the clear way in which you have presented the Commission' s position, although this definitely does not mean that I am in full agreement with it.
I would like to protest at your assertion that nowhere and at no time is it possible to take nuclear power stations out of operation overnight.
You know, coming as you do from Germany, that if it is necessary, and I am thinking here of the Greifswald nuclear power station, it can be done overnight, provided, of course, that there is the necessary political will and that the necessary environment is created.
I am also not deluding myself that in the Central and Eastern European countries, there are some extremely difficult issues which are in part economic and even social.
However, I also believe that I am forced to protest, and perhaps this has something to do with the undecidedness of energy policy within the European Union, if in the cases in question you ultimately see safety in terms of shutdown, with which I agree, yet when it comes to comparable power stations in the CIS States you want to ensure safety by upgrading and by the European Union promoting safety measures.
I believe that our objectives within the European Union and in the candidate countries can only be achieved by shutting down power stations.
Setting another rule outside the Community, as in the cases under consideration here, I consider to be highly problematic and I believe that all in all we would be well advised to make shutting down the rule not just in Eastern Europe but for energy policy within the European Union as a whole and to not endanger the possibilities of this by carrying out further deregulation.
Mr President, the area of nuclear safety is of fundamental importance in pre-accession strategy.
One of the conditions placed on Bulgaria for opening accession negotiations is precisely to draw up a reasonable timetable for the closure of unit 1-4 of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant before the end of 1999.
This plant is actually obsolete, according to the distinction outlined by the Executive in Agenda 2000, where nuclear plants are divided into three categories: Soviet type or obsolete plants which must be dismantled because they are dangerous, other plants that need to be repaired to allow them to reach safety levels acceptable to the Union, and a tiny number of western type plants which can remain active provided their safety level remains high in the long term.
As draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Humans Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy on the report on nuclear sector related activities for the applicant countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States, unanimously adopted on 27 October last year, I stressed the crucial importance of safety, defining it as a requirement for accession for new Member States of the Union.
In fact, nuclear safety affects the lives of millions of citizens of the European Union and Eastern European countries.
Abandoning civil nuclear power is not on the cards, and we need to bear in mind the economic and social implications of the decisions that the Union wants to be adopted in Central and Eastern Europe.
Nevertheless, whether they border on these countries or not, the Member States are expressing their concern and disagreement with an accession process that does not take nuclear safety into account.
Mr President, Commissioner, I find that I can sleep well next to a German, French or British nuclear power station.
As far as is humanly possible, an MCA ought to be excluded during routine operation.
I cannot sleep so well, if at all, next to the nuclear power stations in the candidate countries.
May I make a personal confession at this point, as Mr Swoboda did earlier: I am a passionate advocate of the swift expansion of the European Union.
All the States which have already submitted their applications for accession are a part of Europe.
They belong to us and we belong to them.
However, I believe that it not just our right, but also plainly and simply our duty, to point out that nuclear power stations in the applicant countries have very different standards of operation.
Nowadays, we do not get into a Zeppelin if we want to fly to Brussels or Strasbourg; we are delighted to have ultra-modern planes at our disposal.
Furthermore, we also need to know exactly how these nuclear power stations stand with regard to computer changeover difficulties for the year 2000.
Allow me to quote the Austrian Foreign Minister, Dr Wolfgang Schüssel, who said on 9 November: "if the candidate countries- Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria - want to take up accession negotiations with the EU, then they must submit to the European Council of Helsinki by the middle of December specific closure plans for the three non-convertible nuclear power stations" .
And again on 11 November: "in the case of nuclear power stations which are already in operation, EU standards must be the guiding rule."
I in no way share the opinion of one Austrian socialist minister who considered that there should be no discussions until the nuclear power stations are shut down.
This is completely the wrong approach and I fully and firmly reject it.
I am convinced that we will not have difficulties with nuclear power stations in the west in terms of the changeover to the year 2000.
I do not have the same conviction for nuclear power stations in the east.
Something could go wrong and we need to offer assistance.
Chernobyl taught us that the term "neighbourhood" simply has to be redefined in the case of nuclear plants.
At that time we were all next-door neighbours.
Greater flexibility on the part of the applicant countries should be expected in the name of good neighbourliness.
I too would like to thank the Commissioner for his words and, as a Christian Democrat, I would like to offer him more than just good advice to take with him and to ask whether he perhaps needs an aspirin C. I should be happy to fetch him one.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is a truly momentous occasion in Parliament when bitter pills are handed out here and there in order to wish one another well.
I was very pleased, Commissioner, that you were recovered today and that it would be desirable if the reactors, in particular Yaslovske Bohunice, had been decommissioned earlier.
I think that the debate which we have been having for some time now could perhaps be moved forward a bit with a few specific questions.
In your evaluation, Commissioner, what do you think of the fact that relatively large sums of money from EU programmes, e.g. PHARE, have been poured into upgrading in the east and yet there are so few positive results to show for it?
What can be done, and this is my particular concern, so that the proposed and now accepted exit dates regarding all types of nuclear power stations, not just Yaslovske Bohunice, can actually be met? What are the Commission' s plans, since we all know that there can be long gaps between an announcement and the actual decommissioning?
On another point: I also received the investigation by the Risk Institute of the Academic Senate at the University of Vienna, which puts the issue of Yaslovske Bohunice in a different light again.
The previous speaker, Madam Echerer, has already pointed out that there is no containment and also, according to the independent assessment of the atomic safety authority in Slovakia, no adequate operational safety of the plant.
What does the Commission intend to do about this?
Is it not also the case, if we once again refer to Yaslovske Bohunice, that it simply isn' t true that the Slovak Republic is so very dependent on these reactors? I would like to quote from a report from a joint working group of the European Union and Slovakia on nuclear energy which states very clearly: "Even without Bohunice V 1, the country is in a position to cover its average consumption needs with national production throughout the period to 2015."
This means that the arguments which are continually produced by Slovakia that decommissioning would endanger independent energy provision are not correct.
By way of summary, I would like to conclude that I am still convinced that there must be a little bit more, specifically concerning the premature nature of decommissioning and realisability, where the EU will be able to make the necessary financial aid a little easier.
Mr President, I would like to thank Commissioner Verheugen for the very thorough report he has given us of the problems he is encountering in this field which is so essential to the future of Europe.
Listening to him and to my fellow Members throughout this debate took me back to the recent election campaign and to the answers that we were required to provide at that time to the voters regarding the need to establish and to complete the construction of Europe.
Clearly this is one of the fields - i.e. the threat constituted by the existence of so many nuclear power plants but also all the armaments accumulated on the territory of the former Soviet Union - where none of the Member States may, individually, claim to intervene on behalf of security of the entire continent.
Only Europe and - Commissioner, I thank you for having understood this - only a united Europe may go to the assistance not only of the countries which are applying for membership of the European Community, but also all those which have nuclear installations which do not comply with our safety standards, in solving this problem taking their own economic imperatives into account.
I would therefore thank Commissioner Verheugen for reminding us that it is only if each of the Member States makes a contribution to providing the necessary appropriations that we shall be able to achieve this objective which is common to all of us and which has been mentioned by all of us.
President, I would just like to say to the Commissioner, if I may, that I liked his summing up much more than his statement at the beginning.
I congratulate him on it, particularly in the circumstances of his health, and I say well done, and come back and say more to us in that fashion Commissioner.
(The sitting was suspended at 4.49 p.m. and resumed at 5 p.m.)
Ban on British beef - Production and sale of tobacco
The next item is the Commission statement on the decisions taken at today' s meeting of the Commission.
The Commission took a decision today on my initiative to initiate formal legal proceedings against France for not lifting the embargo on British beef.
This decision is without prejudice to the negotiations which are continuing on an amicable settlement to the current dispute.
Let me be very clear.
We are very close to a solution, and I remain convinced that an amicable solution is in the best interests of all parties, the UK, France and the Community.
Negotiations and contacts are continuing over the few outstanding issues which continue to block an agreement.
I am hopeful that with a little goodwill on all sides the ban can be lifted in the very near future.
I am aware that there are critics, including in this House, of the discussions that have taken place in this case.
However these discussions are the best means to reach an early solution.
In the absence of formal procedures to lift the ban within the EU, the situation is even more difficult.
The British efforts to lift the ban in third countries, including the US, and in its Commonwealth partners, bear this out.
Nonetheless it is necessary for the Commission to formally signal that France has not fulfilled its obligations to lift the ban.
I am asking France therefore to submit its position in reply within two weeks.
I have also informed the Commission of the situation concerning Germany, the only other Member State which continues to impose a ban on the import of UK beef.
In this instance, however, the German authorities have not declared that they will not lift the ban.
Instead their position is that a number of constitutional steps have to be cleared, in particular the approval of the Bundesrat.
In Germany' s case also, however, there is now a need for positive action to lift the ban.
I will be reviewing the situation in the next few days with my services in this respect: in particular Germany will be asked for an indication of its timetable for lifting the ban.
I will be insisting on equivalent treatment for both countries, and a communication will be sent to Germany in this regard requesting its proposals on a timetable for lifting the ban.
Mr President, Commissioner Byrne, I welcome the fact that recognition will be given to Community law.
Legal awareness of Community law must be increased in the Member States.
However, I would like to ask you whether we are looking at a long time period if you initiate treaty infringement proceedings.
In the meantime, will the Commission ensure in negotiations and in any compromise decisions that what you announced during the hearings at your installation, by which I mean testing, will be applied and that beef labelling, which will become obligatory on 1 January 2000 unless other regulations are passed, will take effect in connection with the lifting of the import ban and its enforcement in the States which have adopted import bans?
This is the first step under the old Article169 procedure which is now under Article 226.
Provision is made in that Article for sending a letter of this type prior to the actual institution of the proceedings.
But it is part of the infringement proceedings and is regarded as the first step.
It sets out in chronological form the present position, how we have reached this stage; it then sets out the legal position and then requests France to respond and set out whatever arguments it wishes to advance in its reply.
All this is to be done within a period of two weeks.
Within the discussions over the last few weeks, a number of issues were discussed, as you are probably aware, and one of the issues that was identified was the question of tests, as you rightly identify in your question.
You draw attention to the fact that during my hearings on 3 September before the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I mentioned that it was my intention to establish diagnostic testing for BSE on an EU-wide basis.
That is still my intention.
That fact was also drawn to the attention of the parties who were involved in these discussions over the last couple of weeks.
As I mentioned on that occasion, one of the purposes of establishing such a testing system is to ensure that there is an equal testing system throughout the European Union so as to identify the levels of infectivity throughout the EU, and in particular to identify what further measures may be necessary.
The removal of SRMs would be one particular issue I have in mind in relation to that.
On the question of identification and labelling, one of the important issues that we discussed over the last few weeks was the requirement contained in the legislation for traceability.
That is an important issue. It was discussed in Florence.
It also forms part of the DBES and is in the forefront of our minds in relation to this and has been incorporated into our discussions.
This is a very sad day for Parliament and for the rule of law.
I wonder whether the Commissioner can explain why he has not acted more firmly and insisted earlier that a unanimous scientific opinion is not negotiable.
This Parliament deals with laws; the people who elected us - certainly in the United Kingdom - are waiting to see the law enforced and have been waiting since October.
This is a very bad precedent for the European Commissioner, given that he is about to write a White Paper on a food safety agency.
Are all unanimous scientific committee opinions delivered to him in future to be negotiable? We hope not.
Secondly, where exactly is France raising problems and can the Commissioner confirm that any problems raised by France must result only in clarification to the French and not in any changes to the British date-based export scheme?
As I have said on a number of occasions, including in the committee that Mrs Jackson chairs, the DBES scheme is not a negotiable issue.
It has not been a negotiable issue nor has it in any way been undermined in the discussions that we have had over the last few weeks.
I believe that this is a good day for the rule of law, I believe that it is a good day for the Commission and I would suggest that it is also a good day for all the institutions of the European Union including Parliament.
A decision was taken in the Commission today to initiate infringement proceedings rather than not to initiate legal proceedings.
In those circumstances, I find it difficult to understand how this could be described as a sad day for Parliament or a sad day for the rule of law.
These proceedings, as I say, have been decided upon today and they will be initiated unless the discussions that have been taking place produce results within the next few days.
We came close to resolving these issues over the last few days - I had expected them to be resolved if not yesterday, then certainly this morning.
I was disappointed in that, but I believe that we may yet finally resolve this issue over the next couple of days.
I would also like to remind Members of the House that, as I have said on a number of occasions, problems of this nature are much better resolved in an amicable way.
The resort to litigation is necessary in circumstances where the parties to a dispute or a difficulty cannot reach agreement.
In the case of this dispute, it seems to me that if these two Member States can resolve this difficulty through discussion, in association with the Commission, that would be by far the best way forward.
It would also achieve a much faster result.
I would imagine that the people that Mrs Jackson represents in the UK would like to see this matter resolved quickly, rather than in two years time, by a verdict from the Court.
That is why I have pursued this particular line and will continue to do so despite the decision today to initiate infringement proceedings.
Mr President, Commissioner, I share your belief that this is a problem which must be handled extremely carefully.
You rightly stated that we must take scientific opinions seriously and I assume that British farmers wish to sell safe beef as soon as possible and not wait two years until they can do so.
For this reason, no one in this House, nor indeed anyone at all, can really want to see treaty infringement proceedings which will take two to three years and create nothing but uncertainty in the European Union during this time.
Mr Byrne, can you tell me how you will be able to ensure that objections at a scientific level are investigated in the shortest possible time so that Member States are not able to repeatedly raise objections and to apply laws without needing to prove their case? Can you also tell me that you will make clear to Germany that you are expecting constitutional barriers, such as a resolution of the Bundesrat at the earliest possible opportunity?
Mr Byrne, finally I would like to ask one more question which I have already asked in Brussels.
Would you please be a little clearer about the issue of testing? When will you present the House with a proposal to prescribe BSE testing as compulsory in the European Union?
, Commission. In relation to scientific information and its evaluation and so on, this is an issue I have been considering, not only because of the events of the last few weeks when the food safety agency of the Member State in question took a different view from the Scientific Steering Committee.
That obviously was an issue of some considerable concern to me.
But also because the Commission and myself, and my service in particular, have been looking at the establishment of an appropriate structure for a food safety authority.
One of the issues that will be of paramount importance in considering such a structure will be its jurisdiction and how, in particular, it will relate to any food safety agencies established at Member State level.
Quite clearly, a controversy between these two agencies such as we have had over the last few weeks cannot be tolerated if we hope to have a unified harmonised market.
Confidence in such a food safety authority at Commission level will have to be such that Member States and the authorities and scientists in Member States, have full input into such an agency but also have confidence in it so that its opinions are fully and readily accepted.
In relation to the situation in Germany that you asked me about, as I said earlier, my discussions with the minister responsible in Germany lead me to the conclusion that the German Federal Government wishes to move towards lifting the ban and that the discussions arising out of the dispute involving France will ease any lingering concerns that may exist in Germany.
I have been in constant communication with the authorities in Germany - they have had an input into the discussions that have taken place over the last couple of weeks at observer status level, and I am confident that they understand what has been discussed over the last couple of weeks.
Therefore, I have every hope that the Federal Government of Germany will take the appropriate steps now to lift the ban.
In relation to the last part of your question, Mrs Roth-Behrendt, dealing with tests, it is my intention to have something in place in relation to this by the end of the year.
Commissioner, I am grateful for your assurance that this is the first step of the procedure for infringement proceedings.
I have had here today beef farmers from my constituency.
Those farmers have had to wait more than 14 weeks since 1 August and still their beef is not back on the market in France.
They have now been told that they have to wait a further 14 days until we get the French position.
May I put it to you straight. Do you not already know what the French position is?
Has the time not come for the Commission to throw the book at the delinquent Member State? Does not anything else make the Commission look limp and lily-livered and undermine public confidence in the European Union?
Will you make it clear please at your press conference that the full force of the law will be used against the delinquent Member State unless this ban is lifted.
I find it difficult to make it any clearer than I have already made it.
We have commenced proceedings, we have taken the decision to take the first step in initiating proceedings.
I do not know which book you think I should throw but it seems to me that the initiating of proceedings is the only step open to me to achieve compliance with Community law apart from negotiations.
I have been doing that for the last six weeks with considerable success and I expect to continue to negotiate in tandem with the institutional proceedings over the next few days.
My belief is, as I have said to Parliament on the last occasion I was here, that cool heads and firm determination are much better than adopting another approach.
This is the approach that I commend, it is the approach I have embarked upon, it is the approach I believe is going to achieve results and it is the approach I intend to continue with.
Commissioner, obviously, I am still French and I am still in favour of the precautionary principle.
I have already had the opportunity to ask you a number of questions, which have still not been answered, particularly regarding the varying assessments offered by scientists.
Consequently, today, as a Member of the European Parliament, I find it hard to see the difference between your experts and the French experts.
Professor Dormont' s work on prions has, I believe, met with international recognition.
He is not a person who is working on behalf of a specific lobby or in opposition to a specific lobby.
He is simply doing what the consumers, the voters and people of France asked him to, i.e. applying the precautionary principle for the sake of food safety.
He is only doing his job.
The French Government which set up this food agency is doing nothing more than acting on the requests of the citizens of France.
We have not, then, had any response regarding the varying assessments of the scientists, and I would like to hear your answer to this.
I would like to draw attention again to the fact that we had a unanimous opinion from the Scientific Steering Committee set up at European Union level some weeks ago.
That committee is made up of 16 experts drawn from most of the Member States and is chaired by a fellow countryman of yours.
The opinion that it expressed was unanimous and reinforced two earlier opinions this same committee had reached.
So I am confident that the opinion expressed by them is a good opinion.
I am also confident that the agreement which is now close to being reached between all the parties will also be acceptable to the French agency.
In the event that we achieve that, which I earnestly hope we will, it may very well be the end of the difficulty that we have been faced with for the last six weeks.
I am very interested in the statement the Commissioner made.
He is quite right to point out that we want to avoid legal proceedings or court proceedings if possible.
But if he is correct in saying that the two parties are only two days away from a possible agreement, it is absolutely inexplicable that he should be giving one of the parties two weeks in order to resolve this matter.
We were told several weeks ago that today was the deadline - and yes, the Commission has initiated proceedings.
But for heaven' s sake Commissioner, by indicating today and presumably also at your press conference, that there is another two weeks, you will make everyone read that as meaning that you have simply extended the deadline.
How on earth do you justify the fact that in instigating proceedings today you are also effectively sending a signal to the French that they still have another two weeks to take a decision on this matter?
You have to understand the actual provisions of Article 226.
It provides specifically for the sending of a letter of this type and it also specifically calls for a response within a period of two months.
I felt that a period of two months was too long; I felt that a period of one month was too long; I felt that a period of two weeks was appropriate.
In those circumstances, that is the period of time that I have included in the letter which is the first step in the initiation of proceedings.
I should say that this does not mean giving anybody a further two weeks.
The decision today has been to initiate proceedings.
That was a decision I said that I would put before the Commission some weeks ago. That is what I have done.
It is the first step.
It sets out the chronology of the events and the legal position and requests the Member State in question to respond within a period of two weeks.
No further time has been given.
This provision is contained in the Treaty of Rome as amended and is something which I cannot change now - other than to shorten the period, which I have done.
However, I should say that the fact that the letter stipulates a period of two weeks within which to reply does not preclude further discussions taking place and an agreement being reached within the next couple of days, if that proves possible.
It does not in any way undermine that process because we are, as it were, moving on two separate tracks.
So I have to assure you that the inclusion of fourteen days in the letter does not, in my mind, suggest an intention to stave off negotiations or further discussions for a period of two weeks.
Those discussions continue in the hope that we can achieve a result.
I congratulate Mr Byrne on his position.
He may well remember that I asked him last week in Brussels to say whether he would instigate proceedings today and obviously he has done so and I am delighted at that.
But he must understand the feelings of this House.
Today, we have half the Conservative delegation in this Chamber to hear his responses - and I have to say very few of my Socialist colleagues from the UK party.
As of today, there are eighty-six infringement proceedings against France, so this is not something new to France.
One of those infringement proceedings concerns bovine products - could the Commissioner actually answer the question as to what that case involves.
Secondly, has the UK Government applied for compensation, because it should be doing so on behalf of the British farmers who have lost out?
The procedure whereby anybody can apply for compensation arising out of infringement of European law comes under a different article.
The competence of an individual or State to bring those proceedings is not really a matter for the Commission.
So I would not necessarily be aware of any such proceedings.
But so far as I am aware, no such proceedings have been instituted.
But I may very well be wrong about that.
According to my calculation, unless there are new members of the Conservative Party, the proportion of Members from our side and their side are almost the same.
I have said since the time that I took up this position that it was my intention to make decisions on a science basis, examining the best scientific evidence available to me and making my decision on that basis.
I have available to me a unanimous opinion of the Scientific Steering Committee.
It is a further opinion expressed by that committee, following an earlier one.
I make the decision on the basis of that.
In my view it is a fully transparent process.
The decision is based, as I say, on the opinion of the SSC. I cannot see that there is any lack of transparency in relation to that.
You raised the question of the precautionary principle.
The application of the precautionary principle is sometimes not fully understood.
It only applies in circumstances where either there is no scientific evidence or the scientific evidence that is available is so uncertain so as to be unreliable, and in circumstances where the damage that can be caused is of an irretrievable nature and the remedy that is proposed is proportionate, cost-effective and time-limited.
To compare the situation of BSE and hormones seems to me to be inappropriate.
The precautionary principle is not being applied in relation to hormones.
The decision in relation to hormones in beef and its importation is based on scientific evidence - that was supplied to the Commission before I came into office by the appropriate scientific committee - to the effect that one of the hormones in particular - 17 beta-estradiol - is a complete carcinogen.
Given that evidence, it seems to me to be appropriate to impose the ban.
It also seems to me to be inappropriate to lift the ban with that opinion in place.
In relation to the BSE issue, once again it seems to me that the application of the precautionary principle is inappropriate because we have a firm opinion from the Scientific Steering Committee.
Its members are drawn from most Member States of the European Union, scientists at the very pinnacle of their careers and abilities who advise on this issue. Therefore, I follow their advice.
Since there is scientific advice on the issue the application of the precautionary principle is not appropriate.
In relation to the labelling issue, the whole question is currently being examined and is before Parliament. It will be open to Parliament to amend the legal principles if it so wishes.
You raised the question of Article 36.
In my opinion Article 36 would be an inappropriate defence and would not provide a defence in the circumstances of this particular case.
It does not provide, as I understand it, for a situation where there is a harmonised market as there is in this instance.
In relation to transmission, there is no evidence of any other form of transmission of BSE other than the two that have been identified, which are feed and maternal transmission.
Until such evidence is available it is appropriate to proceed on the basis that these are the only two methods of transmission.
Commissioner, there are at least 47 very important countries, such as the United States and many countries of the Commonwealth, which are maintaining the embargo on British meat.
The question I would like to put, following the decision you made today, is this: will you get to the very bottom of this? And will you ask, for example, the World Trade Organisation to state that it is against this embargo?
I think that this is a very important question. Secondly, yesterday, the President of the Court of Auditors presented his annual report to us in which he points out serious deficiencies in the keeping of the registers of bovine cattle in Great Britain.
Did you take this into account today when you made your decision?
Yes, it is, of course correct to say that there are a number of other countries that have maintained an embargo on the importation of UK beef.
I have to say that since taking up this job eight weeks ago I have concentrated on the European Union.
In relation to deficiencies in stock and so on, my understanding of the operation of the DBES scheme is that it protect public health and ensures food safety in relation to the exportation of UK beef.
I would also draw your attention to the statement contained in the communiqué from the Scientific Steering Committee that beef exported under the DBES scheme is as safe as any other beef in the European Union.
The point of order is as follows: this is such an important issue which affects British farmers across the UK that we should surely have more time to question the Commissioner.
This is the first time that he has been able to come and tell us definitely that legal action is going to be taken, and we have a lot of questions.
Can I request that we have some other time to ask the Commissioner questions?
Mrs Lynne, we will see what we can do about that proposal.
I noticed just now that a Member of the Parliament was seeking to intervene rather more directly than I thought was appropriate.
I believe that she sought the floor and, like many Members, did not have a chance to put a question to the Commission.
I therefore share the view of Mrs Lynne that this Question Time has not been long enough given the importance of the subject.
Nevertheless, can I ask you to confirm that it is quite inappropriate for Members of this House - Liberals or otherwise - to seek to persuade you to hear them.
I think the staff ought to make sure that this is prevented in the future.
Thank you very much, Mr McMillan-Scott.
I hope that colleagues realise that there are still more than 20 people who would wish to ask questions on this issue.
I try to draw a balance between political groups and between nationalities to make sure that there is fair-play right the way round the Chamber.
I think the Commissioner has done very well in answering the questions this afternoon.
I give the floor to the Commissioner for a statement on tobacco.
- Today the Commission also adopted a proposal for a very important directive on tobacco.
It is the end of a long consultation process involving the Council and Parliament.
Essentially it provides for the following: a lowering of current tar content in cigarettes; the introduction for the first time of a limit on nicotine content in cigarettes; the introduction of limits on carbon monoxide; improved and bigger labels on cigarette packs on the dangers of smoking and on the tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide content of cigarettes; controls on the misleading use of descriptions such as 'mild' and 'low tar' etc.; and new safeguards on additives to tobacco.
The case for such a directive is clear.
The Community has very important public health obligations, especially since the ratification of the Amsterdam Treaty.
These include the obligation to ensure a high level of health protection in all Community policies and activities.
Smoking kills half a million citizens in the European Union each year and is the single, biggest, preventable cause of death.
We must therefore be seen to take strong measures to tackle the problem.
The directive, when adopted, will provide European smokers with the highest level of protection in the developed world.
They will be better informed of what is in their cigarettes and of the dangers of smoking.
They will also be afforded protection by the measures to limit tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide levels.
However, the directive is also proportionate.
We have been careful not to stigmatise smokers.
We need to avoid being over-prescriptive and interfering in citizens' day-to-day lives.
The aim instead is to put in place a framework, where there is full information on tobacco and its dangers.
This will complement the Community ban on tobacco advertising which will combat industry-led efforts to attract new smokers, especially young people.
The combination of these measures should ensure that smoking will be a much less contentious issue in the future.
I am hopeful that Parliament will support the Commission' s proposal under the codecision procedure in the forthcoming negotiations.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0033/1999). We will examine the questions addressed to the Commission.
Part I
Question No 42 by (H-0634/99):
Subject: Helms­Burton Act Is the Commission aware of the comments made by the US Secretary of State, Mrs Albright, ruling out any possibility that the US Congress might amend Title IV of the Helms-Burton Act, thereby failing to comply with one of the core aspects of the agreement between the European Commission and the Clinton administration, part of the new arrangements provided for by the Transatlantic Summit between the US and the European Union in May 1998?
Is it aware of moves by the US State Department to open an investigation or to seek information or recommendations with a view to reaching agreements involving the Sol-Meliá Group prior to applying the Act to the said group and other European undertakings, including Club Med and LTU, thus blatantly violating the agreements reached between the European Commission and the Clinton administration within the Transatlantic Summit framework granting European undertakings exemption from the scope of the Helms-Burton Act?
What measures does it intend to take to ensure that this Act is not applied to European undertakings?
Does it intend to stand by the undertaking given by Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan to Parliament=s Foreign Affairs Committee, whereby, in the event of a failure to honour the terms of the agreement in full, the European Union would once again ask the World Trade Organisation authorities to convene a panel?
The Commission recalls that the decisions and statements made at the European Union-US Summit of 18 May 1998 regarding the Helms-Burton and Iran-Libya sanctions acts, were intended to pave the way for a definitive solution to this major bilateral disagreement.
The Commission remains very concerned that no tangible progress has so far been made on the US side on their commitment to seek Congressional amendment to Title 4 of Helms-Burton, not least since the US Administration has regularly recalled that the President is obliged in the absence of such an amendment to enforce Title 4.
The Commission has for its part always made it clear that if action is taken against EU companies or individuals under the Helms-Burton Act it would request a new WTO panel against the US in respect of this act.
The Commission had urged the US Administration to accelerate the implementation of the May 1998 Summit deal.
The Commission is aware of the inquiries by the US State Department into the activities of certain of the companies mentioned by the honourable Member and is following the situation very closely.
The Commission will continue to keep the European Parliament informed of any new developments regarding the implementation of the 18 May 1998 understandings.
Let me just add this: I raised these issues at a meeting with Secretary of State Albright last week.
I also went to see Senator Helms on the same visit to Washington.
I stressed two points: first our commitment to opposing extra-territorial legislation, second our commitment to protecting property rights and the law of contract.
I pointed out that if a waiver enabled us to trigger the May 1998 undertakings, that would ensure a comprehensive attack on the expropriation of property, not just in Cuba, where the May 1998 understanding was strongly attacked.
I hope that the senator in particular and his colleagues in the Senate and the House of Representatives will reflect very carefully on what I said.
Many thanks to the Commissioner for his reply.
I would like to say to you, Commissioner, that the fact that the Commission tells us that it is still worried about this situation is frankly not enough.
It also seems to me to be insufficient that the Commission, in its contacts with Mrs Albright, should say that she has to comply with the commitments which were agreed within the framework of the Transatlantic Summit.
This is clearly not enough.
I do not know if you believe that, after twenty months of non-compliance, the Clinton administration will persuade Congress to ratify and amend Title 4 of the law.
Therefore the question - and I understand and am grateful for your good will, Commissioner - is as follows: is the Commission prepared, in view of the harassment and pressures which European companies are suffering, to do more than express its consternation and concern, and to take some type of measure - and your predecessor, Mr Brittan, committed himself to this before this Parliament: I am well aware of this because I asked the question at the time - in the event that this non-compliance should continue to be absolutely evident and blatant?
In a pre-election year, the Senate of the United States is not going to amend the law: is the Commission really prepared to denounce this non-compliance to the authorities of the World Trade Organisation?
I do have an answer, which is that if possible it is still in everybody' s interest to have an agreement to allow the undertakings entered into in 1998 to operate.
It is in everybody' s interest to see a waiver to Title 4, it is in everybody' s interest including potential investors not to have a trade dispute that not just discourages investment but poisons our overall relations.
So far we have not been obliged to have recourse to a blocking statute, we have not had to go to the WTO panel, though it is perfectly clear that in certain circumstances we would have no other choice.
I happen to think that at the moment it makes a lot more sense for me to try to persuade American senators, for me to try to persuade the American Administration to behave sensibly, than to throw up my hands and say we are going to go to the WTO.
If the honourable Member has a better suggestion than going and trying to persuade Senator Helms - which I am not sure has been done recently - I would be delighted to hear in all humility what it is.
I think for the time being it is more sensible for us, provided there is no action which triggers a recourse to the WTO, to try to persuade the US Administration and the US Senate.
Mr President, it is a fact that this disgraceful law, known as the Helms-Burton Act, has had catastrophic consequences both for socialist Cuba and its people, and for humanity as a whole.
Not only does it seek to subjugate a proud race which insists on its right to self-determination; it also signals the wish on the part of the American imperialists, manifested on numerous occasions, to impose their will and their laws on the international economy, on international trade and on international business.
This is why the Helms-Burton Act has met and continues to meet with general disapproval and demands for its immediate repeal, and rightly so.
What worries me is that the request for European undertakings to be exempted from the scope of this criminal legislation, however beneficial this may in fact be to European undertakings, fails to solve the problem.
In essence, it is tantamount to acknowledgement of the Act, thereby detracting from the very pressure which we are exerting for its repeal.
Do you not think, Commissioner, that the European Union should exert all its influence, using every means imaginable, to bring about the immediate repeal of this unacceptable Act, rather than confining itself to statements.
I want to assure the honourable Member straight away that the undertakings given in May 1998 did not in any way mean that we accepted the legitimacy of Helms-Burton legislation.
Our views on extraterritoriality are perfectly clear.
We have made them clear again and again.
We have also made clear - and you do not have to be a dyed-in-the-wool imperialist to take this view - that we are against expropriation of property.
I imagine the honourable Member is against the expropriation of property as well.
Sanctity of property rights has a great deal to do with the stability of plural societies.
If, at the end of the day we can have a waiver of Title 4 under Helms-Burton and the triggering of the undertakings we gave in good conscience in May 1998 then that will be in everybody' s interests, it will prevent any trade dispute with the United States and it will give, I hope, investors around the world - not just in Cuba - greater certainty about what they are putting their money into.
Exceptionally, I am going to accept a procedural motion by Mr Salafranca.
I fear that this may be a piece of parliamentary manoeuvring, but we are going to run that risk.
No, Mr President.
The Commissioner asked me, in relation to the question which I asked him at the time, if there was any other option rather than convincing Senator Helms.
I would like to tell the Commissioner that here there have been agreements which have clearly established two obligations on the part of both sides: the United States committed themselves to amending Title 4 of the law and not to apply the law to European undertakings.
They have not amended Title 4 and - as you recognised in your reply, Commissioner - pressures are being applied on European companies.
Therefore, I believe that the only language that means anything is hard facts.
And the United States negotiated on the basis of the complaint which was presented to the GATT authorities.
Therefore Commissioner, I would ask you to expand somewhat, on behalf of the Commission, with regard to your concerns.
Thank you very much, Mr President, for your benevolence.
Yes, I have been benevolent and I do not want to set a precedent because second questions are not allowed.
Mr President, as the Commissioner raised the point as to whether I too am against the expropriation of property, I should like to tell him that, when it comes to colonial property, I am in favour of the expropriation of property.
The American installations in Cuba were colonial property and they were right to expropriate them.
I would ask Members not to use this Question Time to establish a political, and sometimes ideological, dialogue with the Commissioners.
This is not the time.
Anyway, the Commissioner may reply to these atypical questions or interesting interventions, but it must be outside the Rules of Procedure, at your convenience.
- I would certainly enjoy a polemical exchange with the honourable Member on some other occasion and to share with him, as a former colonial oppressor myself, our respective views of the imperial legacy, but perhaps I can respond to the honourable Member once again.
It is absolutely clear that if, as we would like and as we have sought, Article 4 waiver is given, then we trigger the agreement of May 1998.
If we do not get that waiver then the agreement does not come into operation.
It still makes sense - and there has not been any of the behaviour yet which has required us to put in place a blocking statute or go to the WTO - if it is still possible for us to reach an agreement it would be in everybody' s best interest.
If it is not possible to reach an agreement, then it is perfectly clear that we will have to go to the WTO panel.
But for the time being I would still hope that we manage to reach an agreement.
Question No 43 by (H-0650/99):
Subject: East Timor At its sitting of 5 October 1999 the European Parliament was informed by Commissioner Patten that the Commission attaches very high priority to the humanitarian aid and reconstruction support plan for East Timor.
On the same occasion, Mr Patten spoke on the EU=s support for the actions of UNAMET and on the plans for sending a new evaluation mission to East Timor.
Is the Commission in possession of fresh data relating to East Timor=s needs in the matter of support? Can it now state more specifically how it intends to act on its undertaking to support the reconstruction of East Timor?
Let me deal first with humanitarian aid.
ECHO' s on-going aid amounts to EUR 5 million in two tranches of EUR 2 million and EUR 3 million.
In addition ECHO is preparing a further decision to provide a significant amount for additional humanitarian assistance.
These projects will cover food distribution, logistic support, water and sanitation, medical assistance, protection and security for the returnees and the transport of returnees from Dili to their place of origin.
An essential element of humanitarian aid consists of food supply.
A few days ago, the Commission reached agreement with the World Food Programme to supply 10,920 tons of maize and 1,240 tons of vegetable oil.
This aid will cost EUR 8.5 million.
As regards our support for the UN administration the Commission intends to give EUR 10 million support to the new UN trust fund for East Timor.
Consultations with Member States are already under way.
The Commission should take a formal decision by the beginning of December.
Another visible demonstration of the Commission' s priorities in helping East Timor is the forthcoming visit at the end of this month of my colleague in the Commission, Mr Nielson, to East and West Timor.
As to the long-term prospects for rehabilitation the report of the Commission' s representative who participated in the World Bank-led assessment mission to East Timor will be evaluated as soon as he returns to Brussels tomorrow.
The Commission will keep the European Parliament informed about this.
I see, incidentally, from this afternoon' s news agency reports that the World Bank has calculated after its mission that between USD 260 million and USD 300 million would be needed for medium-term reconstruction in ruined East Timor and that it will be seeking most of the funds from donors in Tokyo next month.
We will be attending that donors' conference.
Mr President, Commissioner, on 5 October, when we addressed the subject of the reconstruction of East Timor and in your answer to the MEP Mário Soares, you said, in this Chamber, and I quote: "We have to put our money where our mouth is" .
And I must say that I did not doubt that that was your intention, because this Chamber is familiar with your CV, particularly your time in Hong Kong, which shows an unswerving commitment to the defence of human rights and of a democratic system that is not confined to Europe alone.
Nevertheless Commissioner, I would still like to ask you a question. In its budget, Parliament voted, at first reading, for an invitation to the Commission to set up a task force to manage the aid for the reconstruction of East Timor.
I would like to ask you if the Commission is actually going to set in motion this task force to organise all the aid efforts for East Timor.
I think the honourable Member would think it sensible for us to have taken part in the World Bank assessment mission and to wait for our officials who have been taking part in that assessment mission to report before we actually come to the budgetary authorities and ask for specific amounts of money.
But I have no doubt at all that we will be expected to be sizeable contributors to the reconstruction of East Timor, though I imagine the honourable Member would agree with me that others should be contributors as well and I imagine that the honourable Member would also think it sensible for us to try to draw on the lessons of reconstruction activities elsewhere, not least in Kosovo to ensure that the money we deploy in East Timor is spent as effectively and rapidly as possible.
I have to say that it gives me very great confidence that Sergio Vieira de Mello is to be the UN administrator in East Timor - he is somebody that I worked with very closely in my previous occupation in Hong Kong dealing with the refugee and illegal immigrant problem there.
He is a man of outstanding qualities and we will all look forward to supporting him in the very important work he has to do.
I just add this to the honourable Member - there is also an obligation on us to give some assistance to the new government in Indonesia as it tries to make the transition from authoritarianism to democracy.
There are appalling social and environmental problems there - I would like to be able to help as much as possible.
Then I look at the size of our Asia programme which runs at around EUR 350 million per year and I scratch my head about how we are going to be able to provide the level of assistance required to what may well be one of the very largest and most important democracies in the world.
So I think we have to do our bit - in fact more than our bit - in East Timor and that we must also help in Indonesia about which we look forward to putting forward a communication to the Council in the early months of next year.
Question No 44 by (H-0608/99):
Subject: Protection of EU companies' interests in Kosovo The Greek Telecommunications Organisation (OTE) and the Italian company STET International, owners of 49% of Srbija Telekom, are being threatened and harassed in Kosovo by the KLA and >others= in a bid to oust the two companies B the sole legal owners of network rights in Kosovo B from the region, in breach of international agreements.
At the same time, Mytilinaios AE, which has invested more than $ 52 million in the >RMHK TREPCA= mines, is being obstructed and subjected to pressure with the ultimate aim of depriving the company of its contractual and real property rights in the mines.
Given that EU companies are involved and that there are indications of covert support from EU representatives for these aims, what practical measures have been taken to safeguard the interests of the above companies and what guarantees will there be that they can pursue their activities without hindrance so that they are not supplanted by other companies and organised criminal interests?
To date, the Commission has not actually received reports of any threats or harassment of EU companies with interests in Kosovo by the KLA; however, if that were to happen, it would be brought to the attention of UNMIK and KFOR immediately.
UNMIK which is responsible for the interim civilian administration of Kosovo is devoting considerable energy and resources trying to revive the Kosovan economy.
This includes the reestablishment of a legal and institutional framework as well as coordinating the very considerable amounts of donor assistance that are supporting the economy.
There is currently little or no economic activity taking place in the Trebce industrial complex including the mines which are being guarded by KFOR.
Commissioner, as to whether or not there are reports, I have before me a written reply by Mr Dickson to a written question on these matters which bears the stamps and seals of all the organisations.
However, that is by the by.
The point is, it is only to be expected that, in a region in turmoil, there will be no particularly official record of the action, legal or otherwise, of certain systems with no legal status or authority.
What is certain is that, if you were to inquire right now into the state of telecommunications in Kosovo, the answer would automatically come to light.
You know full well that telecommunications in Kosovo, as a part of Serbia, were jointly owned by the Greek Telecommunications Organisation and the Italian company STET International and you also know full well what the situation is now. This investment is not therefore being protected.
You know full well that the TREPCA mines were owned and operated by Mytilinaios and you know what the situation is now.
And you should also consider in this respect that when the taxpayers of the European Union are asked to fund the reconstruction of Kosovo, while companies already established there are basically being threatened and have no protection, then this is a contradiction in terms and I would ask you to see it as such.
Can I make it absolutely plain to the honourable Member that if he has specific information about threats to a company, if he can let me have them, I will take them up as soon as possible with both UNMIK and KFOR, because I would regard those threats as being extremely serious.
I will be delighted to take charge of those papers.
The honourable Member is entirely correct to point to the importance of the telecommunications industry in the very construction of economic activity in Kosovo.
It is important to the whole economic future of that part of the Balkans, and I will certainly take notice of what he said in my contacts with Bernard Kouchner and with the UNMIK authorities.
I would remind Members that this Question Time is for asking supplementary questions, not to explain doctrine to the Commission.
This may suit the Commission, I do not know.
But it is only for questions.
Commissioner, you said at one point in your reply that UNMIK was endeavouring to create a legal and institutional framework for Kosovo.
I should like to remind you that Kosovo has a legal and institutional framework and that it is still part of the Federation of Yugoslavia and that this has been acknowledged in a resolution by the United Nations Organisation.
Of course, it has not escaped our notice that KFOR is acting as an occupying force, but Kosovo is still, albeit formally, a separate part of Yugoslavia.
In the meantime, there have been numerous accusations of a series of infringements by KFOR which calls this status into question.
I would be grateful for your comments.
Well the honourable Member has been extremely imaginative because he asked a question about something I did not say.
I do not recall using the words 'legal framework' at all in my answer but maybe there was some problem in translation.
However, let me deal with his question and say without any hesitation that Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council has complete authority, there is no attempt to dilute it, as far as I am concerned, it is the basis of our activity in Kosovo, and I do not wish to depart from 1244 and its application by one centimetre.
As for KFOR, I must say that on my visit to Kosovo, I was impressed by the relationship between KFOR and the civil authorities.
KFOR is doing its best in extremely difficult circumstances and it deserves, for example, all our support in trying to ensure that there is no repetition of the sort of atrocity against both sides that has unfortunately disfigured life in Kosovo in the past.
KFOR I repeat has been working well with the civil authorities and I am sure that will continue.
Question No 45 by (H-0619/99):
Subject: Implementation of the nitrate directive Is the Commission (in particular the Commissioners for the Environment and Agriculture) aware that the European directive on nitrates (91/676/EEC) provides no conclusive guarantees with regard to the quality of ground water, as the directive concentrates exclusively on nitrates from animal dung and thus overlooks a number of other sources of nitrate?
Does the Commission agree that at present it seems almost impossible to implement the directive in full and on time, as it will cause problems in nine Member States?
Does the Commission appreciate that there is no exact way of monitoring implementation of the directive, as various methods of measurement are used within the EU?
As the implementation of the nitrates directive is causing problems in so many Member States, is the Commission prepared to give renewed consideration to improvements and a phased implementation so that the required standards on nitrates can ultimately be achieved?
This question is about whether the nitrates directive overlooks a number of other sources of nitrates.
It is about whether it is impossible to implement, it is about monitoring and there is also question about if the Commission is prepared to give renewed consideration to improvements.
This is my answer.
The nitrates directive considers not only nitrogen from animal manure, but also from chemical fertilisers both as regards quantities supplied, see Article 5 and Annex III, and methods and periods of spreading and that is in Annexes II and III.
The Commission is aware of the difficulties faced by several Member States in the implementation of this directive, but considers it to be an important element of its policy to tackle water pollution.
In this context the Commission will continue to press for full implementation of the directive as requested by the Parliament resolution of 20 October 1998.
The Commission is preparing monitoring and reporting guidelines with Member States which will allow comparisons and the aggregation of results and maps from the year 2000 when Member States report on the impact of their first action programmes.
A complete study of eutrophication and groundwater problems and vulnerable zones designation by Member States has already been achieved by the Commission.
All the necessary tools for the sound management of nitrogen at field and watershed level can be found in the existing directive as soon as it is properly implemented in all intensive agriculture and livestock areas of Europe.
I thank you, Commissioner, for your response.
But her response does not answer my questions.
I asked her whether, if it appears that a large number of Member States do not or cannot yet meet the objective of the directive on account of large discrepancies in nitrate sources, both animal and artificial, should a different approach then not be opted for?
I have not received a reply to this question.
Neither have I received a response to my question regarding infringement proceedings.
If it appears that out of the fifteen Member States, there are at least nine in respect of which infringement proceedings have been initiated and if the Commissioner presses for the implementation of the directive, what do we do then? Do we then enforce the legal instrument, is this what you want?
Or would you withdraw this?
Or would you just continue pressing for it?
I would greatly appreciate it if I could have a clear answer to all these questions, as they have been submitted in writing, in addition to these supplements.
Of course we will insist that the directive be implemented.
Now you could, of course, wonder whether the Commission would consider a short-term revision of the directive.
The Commission believes that the majority of measures that have to be taken by Member States, for example, transposition monitoring, designation and codes of good practice, action programmes and reporting are straightforward.
Most of the measures of Annex II and III are very efficient in reducing losses of, for example, phosphorus from agriculture, and the future water framework directive will complete this with a tool of management plans at watershed level.
So, there is no need for new interim directives or the revision of the existing ones; instead we need increased pressure for their effective implementation at vulnerable zones and farm level.
I think the directive could not be clearer, the problem still exists and is increasing, so we just have to continue along the same path.
We have increased our legal pressure - 11 countries are currently concerned by infringement procedures at high level - the Court of Justice has recently condemned Italy and Spain, and thanks to this pressure things are now moving in a positive way.
All countries must now transpose the directive.
A new designation of vulnerable zones has recently occurred for Spain, Greece, Italy and the UK and the action programme contents have been strengthened in a number of countries.
A general improvement in the situation can thus be expected within the next few years.
I share my doubts with Mrs Oomen-Ruijten regarding the Commissioner' s replies but I do not intend to enlarge on this.
At first reading, this Parliament earmarked a sum of EUR 250 million for the budget to facilitate the implementation of the nitrate directive.
Even if Parliament only partly approves this at second reading, how does the Commissioner intend to spend this money? I assume at least that she will take Parliament seriously.
Commissioner, you must explain how you are going to spend the money.
This is always a difficult question to answer, especially before this Parliament.
The other questions which Members want to ask, such as Mrs Oomen-Ruijten' s question, will have to be asked in the lobby in a bilateral fashion.
As you know the lobby is very important to political life.
In the Chamber, we are only going to answer this question.
I am glad to answer that question.
I know what is behind it of course and the Commission is aware of the important economic and social efforts required in Member States with highly intensive production to adapt the structures and practices in agriculture to the requirements of the directive.
Those difficulties were already anticipated in 1991 when the directive was signed under the Dutch Presidency.
That is why Member States were given five years to prepare for adaptation and four more to achieve it and ensure the necessary reconversions were undertaken in a progressive fashion.
In spite of this, we have some problems, but a new delay would not change the social consequences of the necessary measures.
So it is very important that the countries implement this directive.
There is a variety of funding at national and EU level - such as agri-environment and Structural Funds - and this may be used to help with reconversion and in the management of its social impact for a transitory period.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten should know that we are running out of time.
Mrs Oomen-Ruijten, you have ten seconds.
I only want to establish that our questions are not being answered.
In fact, what I would like to ask is: if eleven Member States are unable to implement a nitrate directive and the Commission instigates infringement proceedings, what conclusions would you draw from this? I am just wondering about that.
This dialogue will now carry on outside the chamber, in writing or in a bilateral fashion, unless the Commissioner wants to reply within fifteen seconds.
If not we will be depriving the other Members and Commissioners of the chance to speak.
You have 15 seconds, Commissioner.
If we decide on a directive to protect the environment against eutrophication, if we see that this is a very serious problem and that it is a growing problem, we have to take action.
We have decided on a directive and the directive should be implemented.
There are, of course, problems which were foreseen nine years ago when the directive was decided.
It has been a very slow process in some countries and much faster in others.
But the Dutch Government has to take measures to implement this directive, and that is what it is all about.
It is really important to realise that you cannot pick and choose what you like but you have to implement the directive.
Now we see that things are moving thanks to the legal instruments available to us and we just have to continue, because otherwise we will see much bigger problems of eutrophication.
In the interest of all the Members who have come here today to ask questions, there will be no points of order unless there is disorder and everybody will adhere to the Rules of Procedure.
I must fulfil my obligations.
Question No 46 by (H-0590/99):
Subject: Approval of Objective 2 proposals The Commission has asked the Member States for proposals for Objective 2 regions and programmes.
Some Member States have submitted their plans for support regions in the manner required by the Regulations, but others have not.
It is vital to the regions that the programmes should enter into force immediately at the beginning of the year 2000.
EU aid has a significant impact on the development of the regional economy, and there should not, therefore, be any gap between the old and the new programmes.
How will the Commission proceed in its overall decision making with the aim of ensuring that countries which punctually forward their proposals for regions eligible for support and, subsequently, their Objective 2 programmes, do not suffer on account of other countries= delays?
Part II
The question which Mr Pohjamo has asked affords me the opportunity of reminding you, ladies and gentlemen, of the method we use to draw up the list of Objective 2 eligible regions, as well as the programming arrangements, complying with the Regulations for the Structural Funds.
As far as the list of eligible regions is concerned, Mr Pohjamo, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to remind you that the Commission sent a letter to the Member States on 1 July 1999, asking them to present their proposals by 31 August 1999.
The least I can say is that we had not received many proposals by the time the deadline expired.
So, Mr Pohjamo, I understand the concern which you are expressing, one which has been expressed most forcefully elsewhere by Mr Hatzidakis, the chairman, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism.
Is there a risk that the delays of some Member States in putting forward their proposals will penalise those who made efforts to respect the time limits better than the others?
It is precisely so that we do not penalise the Member States who managed to submit their proposals at an earlier stage and in due form, complying with the terms of the Regulations, that the Commission has decided to approve the list in terms of groups of countries.
So the Commission' s decision on eligible regions for Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland was taken on 26 October.
Let me remind you, however, that this decision is a procedural one, since the Member States must be consulted via the committees, in accordance with the Regulations, before the final decision of the Commission may be taken.
And it is only after the final decision that the programming process may begin, in negotiation between the Commission and the Member States.
On this subject, ladies and gentlemen, I wish to say that the Commission shall exercise the utmost pragmatism in working in this programming.
So, for example, as I recently indicated to the Greek authorities in Athens, in programming the future appropriations, we shall be taking into account in quite a substantial manner the tragic consequences of the recent earthquake.
I may say the same, with reference to current events in France, regarding the equally tragic consequences of the floods which have just occurred in four French departments.
We can adjust or adapt the total appropriations allocated to each of the countries of the Union in order to take current events, particularly when they have such disastrous consequences, into account.
The Regulations stipulate a period of four months for the economic development plans to be submitted by the national authorities, and a further period of five months for these proposals to be adopted.
It is therefore expected that the first Objective 2 programmes shall be approved towards the middle of the year 2000.
An identical process shall be followed for the eight remaining Member States to which Objective 2 still applies.
However, due to the extended time limits for the approval of the lists - delays, as I have said, which the Commission is not responsible for - the programmes should be adopted in the second half of the year 2000, for most of these eight Member States.
Ladies and gentlemen, not one programme will be in force by the 1 January 2000.
I would, nonetheless, like to reassure the Members that may be concerned about this by specifying that there will be no interruption in the investment activity at local level since the resources for the current term, which has not yet run its course, must be committed in full by 31 December 1999.
The implementation of projects for the previous period, which is due to expire on 31 December, will be continued for the next two years.
Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for your reply.
It is extremely important that the programmes in the area under discussion commence immediately at the beginning of 2000.
EU aid will have an important impact on the development of regional industry and, for that reason, there should be no interruption between the old programmes and the new.
I would still like to check that I understood correctly that these new programmes can start to be implemented, with the risk taken at national level, right from the start of 2000, as long, obviously, as the proper applications have been made beforehand.
I believe, Mr Pohjamo, that we understand each other well.
As far as your own country is concerned, matters are in particularly good order, since the first proposals were covered by the procedural decision of the Commission, on 26 October.
We are at the stage of consulting the committees, made up particularly of the other Member States, and I shall therefore be able, by the end of the year, to propose a final, official decision for the approval of the Objective 2 zoning plan for your country, and also, probably, for the other three countries which were covered by the Commission' s initial decision on 26 October.
These were Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands.
So it will indeed be possible to make the investment commitments within the first half of next year, as soon as we have arrived, together with the authorities of your country, at the negotiations on the programmes.
I am, of course, obliged to comply with the Regulations of the Structural Funds, but I am in a position to reassure you as far as your own country is concerned, Mr Pohjamo.
My interest is to assess the efficacy of the EU in giving development aid to any of the third world countries.
So will the Commission answer my questions if I take one of the third world countries as a model and try to assess how effectual our aid is and what the delegation does?
Mr Khanbhai, I am sorry to say that only questions which are supplementary to the question may be asked.
Yours is a universal and all-encompassing question and therefore it cannot be asked today.
Commissioner, allow me to say, as Chairman of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism that what you have told us about Objective 2 is most reassuring and a step in the right direction.
With reference to what you said about natural disasters in Greece and France, perhaps you would be so kind as to clarify what you meant.
So far, all we know is that the legal services have been hesitant on the matter of aid, shall we say, for the areas stricken by the earthquake in Greece, as far as housing is concerned.
The legal services have agreed to provide aid for public infrastructures but they were hesitant on housing.
We know that, previously in Italy, aid was also granted for some housing damaged by earthquakes.
Does your statement mean that the Commission has changed its position and that there will be aid under the Community Support Framework for people whose houses were damaged?
It would be a great pity if I could not get my message across, because I have some useful things to tell you.
Mr Hatzidakis, there has been no change in the Commission' s position.
In tragic circumstances, such as those which some years past affected Portugal or Italy and, more recently, Greece - which I recently visited twice, once, a month ago, with my fellow Commissioner, Anna Diamantopoulou, and again just a few days ago - we are basing our attitude on the same Regulations of the Structural Funds and we are being accountable.
You cannot ask the Commission to do anything other than comply with the Regulations ourselves and ensure that they are complied with by others.
But, at the same, different responses are possible within the terms of these Regulations, and this is what I confirmed to the Prime Minister of your country, Mr Simitis, and to the other government ministers whom I met.
Damage to public property in Greece following the latest earthquake on 6 September, and I am speaking from memory, are evaluated at approximately EUR 2.5 billion.
In order not to compromise the considerable efforts undertaken in that country, particularly in terms of achieving budgetary stability, in preparation for its entry into the euro system, Greece called upon external appropriations of approximately EUR 1.9 billion.
We calculated that EUR 1 billion of public expenditure was eligible within the terms of the Regulations of the Structural Funds.
Right now, without any change to the Regulations, and this is the best way, EUR 1 billion in public expenditure was eligible for European aid, within the framework of the total appropriations allocated to Greece.
We are going to redistribute and redeploy these appropriations in order to carry out the works necessary in the aftermath of the earthquake, and these works shall be subsidised on average up to 80%.
For the rest, your country is probably, in the near future, going to receive a loan in the amount of EUR 900 million at an extremely advantageous rate from the European Investment Bank.
My impression, then, and I mention this because it involves the question of solidarity among all the countries of the Union, is that, following the earthquake in Greece, there has been a good response in relation to material damage.
It is not possible, naturally, to repair the human damage and the loss of life. No more than it is possible to do so in the context of the floods which have just struck France and which have caused dozens of deaths.
I simply wish to say that in such cases I shall adopt a pragmatic approach in order to be able to adapt the programming of Objective 1 or Objective 2, according to the requests made by national authorities, in order to aid reconstruction in these countries.
This is indeed a matter for regional development.
As regards Objective 2, Italy has had a great many problems if we are to believe the press reports about its initial list of eligible items and areas.
There was, apparently, a conflict between the Commission' s interpretation and that of the Italian authorities.
I know that you have had a meeting with the Minister for Economic Affairs and Finance.
Can you tell us what the state of affairs is? Has Italy compromised the launch of Objective 2 or did this meeting result in a possible compromise between the respective positions of the Commission and the Italian Government?
Mr Dell' Alba, I mentioned that four countries out of the twelve countries concerned by Objective 2, were covered by the Commission' s first procedural decision.
Of the remaining eight countries, the situation of the Federal Republic of Germany has been more or less finalised in the discussions which we are having.
As far as the other seven, including Italy, are concerned, we still have to check, on the basis of the proposals received by my department, country by country, that the proposed zoning plan in fact meets all the criteria of the Regulations of the Structural Funds.
This is what you must ask of the Commission, and this is what I strive to do in a pragmatic manner and in a spirit of cooperation with each of the Member States.
We are having a rather specific and difficult discussion with Italy, given the zoning plan which we have received and which actually, in one specific respect, does not comply with one of the rules adopted by the Heads of State and Government at Berlin.
I would like to specify, if I have time, that a great deal of flexibility for every Member State is acceptable, but, in the zoning plan which will be adopted definitively under Objective 2, we must find at least half of the population which was initially identified as resident in zones eligible according to Community criteria.
The zoning plan which I have received does not completely meet that criterion.
I therefore had a very serious discussion with Minister Amato several days ago, and we agreed to continue the discussion, in a constructive spirit, in order to reconcile our points of view.
I may say that this meeting was a very positive one and that we shall continue to work, in the weeks to come, to come up with a zoning plan for Objective 2 from the various regions of Italy, which is compliant with the Regulations.
Commissioners and Honourable Members, we are already overrunning by more than 20 minutes and we have minimal time available.
I would like to ask all of you for your cooperation.
I think that we should do without one of the supplementary questions in each case, that is to say, that only one should be asked.
We must agree on this but, otherwise, we are depriving a Commissioner or several Members of the chance to speak.
We will try to deal with this lack of time.
Questions to Mr Vitorino
Question No 47 by (H-0628/99):
Subject: Violence against women Measures designed to tackle violence against women are often of a curative nature and target women and girls, e.g. support for hostels where women can seek refuge with their children, and rehabilitation of victims of violence.
Such measures are necessary but we must go beyond the symptoms and the effects of violence in order to overcome the problem.
Combating violence calls for a dual strategy. Violence must be combated by addressing the structural causes of violence B by focusing on men=s attitudes and behaviour B and by legislation which prohibits all violence against women, including domestic violence.
Several Member States do not have such legislation at the present time.
What practical measures will the Commission take to bring about legislation banning all violence against women and to combat the structural causes of violence against women?
Mr President, the Commission fully agrees with Mrs Theorin' s concern about the problem of violence against women and the need to give support to the rehabilitation of victims and their families.
The issue of making such violence a crime and punishing it really falls within the jurisdiction of the Member States.
All forms of violence, whether against men, women or children, are banned in all Member States by their respective criminal codes.
The Council of the Union, in its joint action of 24 February 1997 relating to action against the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of children requests Member States to revise the legislation and the practices in force in these areas in order to guarantee that the kinds of behaviour I have just referred to are subject to effective criminal punishment.
At the end of this year, the progress achieved by Member States in this joint action will be debated in the Council.
Since 1997, the Commission has been responsible for implementing the Daphne programme, which is specifically designed to combat violence against women, adolescents and children and which will be succeeded by the Daphne - 2000-2203 programme (approved this very day), which has the same objective.
Underlying these initiatives is the pressing need to defend human rights, especially those of women and children.
By means of the action I have just mentioned, the Commission has supported a raft of initiatives relating to the structural causes of violence, particularly the practises and behaviour of men, as well as actions assisting and rehabilitating the victims.
And the Commission will continue in its endeavour to develop initiatives to this effect.
The Commission is also responsible for the STOP programme, the aim of which is to provide the necessary training and information for professionals, particularly judges, for police forces and for social services departments in the fight against the trade in human beings and the sexual exploitation of women.
Our main concern, apart from continuing in this direction, is to implement the Tampere European Council' s decision to come up with definitions, prosecutions and punishments for crimes of trading in human beings and crimes of abuse against children.
The background to my question is very clear indeed: 15-25% of all women are battered during pregnancy; 50% of all women who are murdered are murdered by their husbands or partners; violence is the biggest cause of harm inflicted upon women, responsible for more deaths and injury than robberies and car accidents combined; and only 2-3% of all rapists are sent to prison.
It is unfortunately the case that assaults upon women within the family are not illegal in all countries.
It is important that there should be legislation of this kind. At the same time, it is also incredibly important to understand that it is men' s behaviour and attitudes which must be changed.
It is on this matter that I should like to see the Commission take action.
What, specifically, is one prepared to do to ensure that this structural cause of violence, that it to say, men' s behaviour, is changed? What is one prepared to do to ensure that those countries which do not have legislation outlawing domestic violence against women in fact obtain such legislation?
Mrs Theorin, my opinion is clear and unequivocal: domestic violence against women must be equally sanctioned by means of criminal punishment.
And this punishment is really the responsibility of each Member State' s legal system.
The time to assess the situation that you have just described will be when, before the end of the year, the Council evaluates the results of the 1997 joint action on combating violence against women.
As you have said, Mrs Theorin, and I agree with you, there are many different causes of violence: there are social causes, cultural causes, economic causes, and, at times, even political attitudes are to blame.
And, of course, it is against the causes that we must act.
It is true that, not just at the national level but also at the Community level, the main strategy that can be developed is that of reporting incidents, alerting people and providing information, all of which must be done by non-governmental organisations; we feel that the aim to which we have dedicated ourselves is to raise the awareness of public authorities, the police, to whom complaints are made or not made, and the judges, who have to judge each specific case, so that they all understand the criminal significance of violence against women, even when it is perpetrated within the family.
And I think that some of the future Daphne programme' s concrete strategies will respond precisely to this concern.
I wonder, if the Commissioner would agree that education is vital in terms of tackling violence against women?
I would ask him if he is aware of the project pioneered by the City of Edinburgh district council which is entitled 'zero tolerance on violence against women' .
This has been taken up by many local authorities.
The campaign emphasises that violence, whether it be for social, cultural or economic reasons, is unacceptable and should be treated as such by local authorities, social workers and the police.
Would he look at this programme and consider disseminating it throughout the Member States as an example of best practice in tackling this very difficult, but nevertheless, important area?
I fully agree with the honourable Member of the House that we have to tackle the causes.
All such programmes are very useful to the Commission in evaluating the effective results of the actions that we are supporting with tax-payers' money.
We should not rely on the idea that all we need to do is change the law.
That is not true.
Changing the law is a very important instrument to fight violence against women and children, but we need to go further.
That is why we are laying great emphasis on the programmes on judicial and police cooperation to make the authorities - the policemen who deal with such cases every day - more aware of how to handle these kinds of incidents.
I know that the various cultures in the Member States differ in their handling of this issue.
In some Member States there is a certain tendency to regard as less relevant violence within the family.
We have to put great emphasis on the fact that violence against women is always punishable.
Question No 48 by (H-0631/99):
Subject: 1983 Convention on Compensation to Victims of Violent Crime The Commission recently called for all Member States to ratify the 1983 Convention on Compensation to Victims of Violent Crime.
Which Member States have already done so and what action does the Commission intend to take to ensure that all Member States ratify this Convention?
Mr President, the Commission recently presented a communication to the Council, to the European Parliament and to the Economic and Social Committee, on the theme "Victims of crime in the European Union - a reflection on standards and measures to be adopted" .
In this text, the Commission puts forward ideas for a debate on standards for treating victims of crime in the European Union.
One of the fundamental ideas in the Commission' s communication is precisely the ratification by all Member States of the Convention of the 1983 Council of Europe, and I am able to inform you, Mr Cushnahan, that this convention has been ratified by Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Sweden.
Some Member States have already signed this convention but have not yet concluded the ratification process in accordance with their own laws.
This is the case of Belgium, Greece, and Portugal.
Finally, four Member States have not yet signed the convention. They are Austria, Spain, Ireland and Italy.
Before the presentation of any proposal for specific action in this area, on the basis of the communication I have mentioned, the Commission invited the Member States, at Council level, and the European Parliament to state their observations on the points addressed in the communication on protection for victims of crime.
I can tell you that this communication, made at the Council of Ministers of Justice and Internal Affairs of 4 October, was received very positively.
The Commission awaits the opinions of Parliament and the Member States in order to develop further proposals for action to implement the objectives of the communication to which I have just referred.
I am sure you agree with me that a victim of serious crime endures great pain and suffering, and this is doubly traumatic in a foreign country.
I very much welcome the Commission communication.
I welcome the range of proposals, not only as regards compensation but also the emphasis on the need for the availability of medical, psychological and counselling services for victims of crime.
This Convention is dated 1983.
We have had the Amsterdam Treaty which talks about creating an area of freedom, security and justice.
We have had the Tampere Summit.
While I recognise that you want to use this communication and debate in Parliament as an instrument to increase pressure on the Member States, I would urge that you create that pressure now and not just wait until this document goes through all the necessary channels in the EU.
People have already waited long enough.
You should increase the pressure on the seven Member States which have either failed to ratify or failed to sign the Convention.
I fully agree with the honourable Member.
If you examine Conclusion No 32 of the Tampere European Council, it is quite clear that we have a mandate to put forward concrete measures within the legal framework of the Amsterdam Treaty.
I hope that by the end of the year we can get reactions from Member States and this Parliament so that we can start immediately at the beginning of the year 2000 putting forward specific European legislation on this issue as well as continuing to put pressure for the ratification of the 1993 Convention.
Mr President, Commissioner, are there any statistics on violent crime and, above all, on compensation payments within the European Union and, particularly, developments in recent years?
That is precisely the purpose of the evaluation that we intend to conduct with the Council by the end of this year.
At the end of the year, we will not only be able to evaluate the progress of national legislation to protect victims of violent crime but also the concrete measures that each Member State is willing to implement.
They include compensation, psychological and medical treatment, assistance to victims in debt collection, the transmission of decisions from one Member State to another in order to improve the protection of victims, or asking courts to accept the written testimonies of victims who cannot attend court cases against their aggressors because they now live in another Member State.
All those aspects will, I hope, be considered by the end of the year and will form the basis of the initiative that the Commission intends to take in the year 2000.
Question No 49 by (H-0633/99):
Subject: Andalusia and the EU's new border policies There is an ever-increasing demand in Andalusia for EU action to deal with the major problems that are appearing there, on what is one of the Union=s southern borders.
Andalusia is a comparatively disadvantaged region which is faced on a daily basis with disturbances arising from extremely high levels of illegal immigration, while it lacks the proper means to tackle, alleviate or resolve these problems.
These are not local problems of Andalusia as such: they derive from the Union=s borders, and the responsibility for dealing with them should therefore lie squarely with the Union. However, to date the costs arising have been borne almost exclusively by this Objective 1 region (which should be a beneficiary, not a provider of funds), and it has proved virtually impossible to plan the financing of effective border policies.
The Tampere European Council did indeed raise these problems, but has this been reflected in any concrete measures? Will action finally be taken on the demands concerning economic and social development in northern Morocco and interregional cooperation programmes?
What concrete measures does the Commission intend to adopt in the forthcoming months with a view to introducing practical improvements on the Union=s Andalusian frontier? What EU budget resources are to be allocated, and via which specific programmes?
Questions to Mrs De Palacio
Mr President, the Tampere European Council set guidelines for a common policy on asylum and migration.
Its conclusions define the elements of a global approach, which it is important to put into practice straight away.
To this effect, the Commission will have a special responsibility, both with regard to providing appropriate initiatives and generally following up the implementation of guidelines through its "scoreboard" system.
One of the main political conclusions of the Extraordinary meeting of the Heads of State and Government targets the need, in aiming for a genuine migration policy, to move beyond the traditional limits of justice and internal affairs and to have recourse to a series of instruments within the scope of other Union policies, an idea that has been promoted by the Commission since 1994 and which has always merited the support of the European Parliament.
The same thing applies to relations with third countries of origin and of transit.
The European Council confirmed the renewal of the high level group' s mandate on asylum and immigration, whilst insisting that the plans already adopted be implemented.
You all know that one of these plans concerns Morocco and includes numerous recommendations, particularly in the area of economic development, which are in line with the concerns expressed in Mrs Izquierdo Rojo' s question.
Over the next few weeks, the Commission, in close collaboration with Member States, will be making an inventory of the measures currently in force or still to be adopted that are likely to contribute to the implementation of the measures to which I just referred.
I do not think, then, that it can be considered that this initiative constitutes the Commission' s only contribution in this area.
Indeed, the Commission has for several years paid special attention to the development of the provinces in Northern Morocco, at a time when technical and financial cooperation with the Kingdom of Morocco has been implemented.
In this way, around half the funds of the MEDA programme were allocated to these northern provinces between 1996 and 1999, and this represents projects to a total value of EUR 330 million.
Apart from this, under the third and fourth financial protocols as well as under other budget headings, several projects have been or are taking place in this region at a cost equivalent to more than EUR 80 million.
In addition to this, the Community initiative INTERREG-II has already financed cooperation actions between Spain and Morocco during the current programming period, including a specific cross-border programme between Andalusia and Morocco.
It is a matter of encouraging the development of cooperation between countries, under the auspices of the new Community initiative INTERREG-III for the period 2000-2006, which will continue to finance cross-border cooperation within the European Union and with third countries.
In the case of the cross-border region of Spain and Morocco, it is incumbent upon both the Spanish and Moroccan authorities, in partnership with the Commission, to identify common priorities for action for the period 2000-2006.
I am very grateful to Commissioner Vitorino for his very encouraging reply and I hope to see that list of specific items which he has said we will have before long.
However, I would like to ask the Commissioner whether the Commission has realised that there will have to be complementarity between the INTERREG and MEDA programmes so that the associated country - in this case Morocco - may have the financial means necessary for cooperation.
I would ask the Commissioner to deal with this issue, so that it may be possible to promote complementarity between the INTERREG programme and the MEDA programme, because otherwise, Morocco will not have the financial means intended for cooperation.
This is done with the CCEE countries and it will be necessary to do the same with this new form of cross-border cooperation.
Mrs Izquierdo Rojo, I am in complete agreement with you and I believe that the conclusions of the Tampere European Council highlight the fact that there is a horizontal approach between pillars which includes immigration and asylum policies and the other policies of the European Union, amongst which we have development aid policy.
I am sure that the Commission will guarantee the cohesion of the Union' s external and internal policy - of cross-border programmes and development aid programmes - and also that it is in the interest of the States benefiting from cross-border cooperation - Morocco and Spain - that proposals be put forward which will address the same concern.
I believe that this new approach to the coordination of internal and external policies, and of the programmes which are related to one or other of those policies, may be a very positive step forward in terms of Union action in these fields.
The border between Andalusia and Gibraltar has been the scene of absurd and inordinately long delays over the last several months.
What steps is the Commission taking or going to take to ensure that travellers can freely and easily move across this internal EU border without undue formality?
I am most obliged to you for treating me so kindly and I can assure the honourable Member that as far as Gibraltar is concerned - I do not feel Morocco is particularly involved - the Commission is following very closely not only the situation on the border but also the dialogue between the UK and Spanish Governments on the Gibraltar situation.
I sincerely feel that within a short period of time we will be able to take decisions on some of the complaints that have been put to the Commission about those delays.
Meanwhile, I am very hopeful about the direct dialogue now under way between the United Kingdom and Spain.
Question No 50 by (H-0606/99):
Subject: Transport policy/aviation Delays are becoming an increasingly common feature of air traffic in Europe.
According to the latest IATA statistics, the number of air passengers in Europe has risen by 6% in 1999.
This has been accompanied by a 74% increase in the number of delays.
The EU is not prepared for the twofold increase in the number of aircraft movements that is set to take place over the next ten years.
Events this summer gave an indication of the chaos that could soon be commonplace.
There are currently 66 national and local air traffic control centres in Europe.
What is needed is a common European airspace and a joint air traffic control system.
Given that there is little time left, the Commission must act immediately.
What does the Commission plan to do in order to prevent the air traffic chaos in Europe from getting even worse next year?
I have to say that both President Prodi in this Chamber, last July, and myself on other occasions, have stated that the air traffic situation in Europe is untenable.
We really need to make progress in this area if we want to provide real solutions to the problems we are faced with.
And I believe that all of you, as regular air passengers, know exactly what we are talking about.
The Commission is completing a communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the delays which have occurred in air traffic management.
To this end, I intend to present an action plan specifically to promote real changes which can respond to the demands which we have to address.
Without anticipating the Council' s final decision, it is clear that our objective is no less than that of creating a single European airspace: fifteen countries under one sky.
How can we achieve this?
Firstly, there are measures under way which must be pursued and promoted, such as the European Community joining Eurocontrol, a process which will not only call for greater political responsibility on the part of the European Union but also that the last convention will be implemented and therefore measures may be adopted by majority voting, by majorities and not the systematic use of unanimous assent.
We do not believe that this measure is a panacea, but we think that it is essential in responding to this issue.
Secondly, in the area of Eurocontrol, and not only in that of Eurocontrol but also in other areas, we must guarantee efficiency and transparency in the operations of air service providers and furthermore clearly separate regulatory responsibilities from the provision of services.
Air traffic management cannot be an exception in relation to the other public service sectors which have had to face up to the single market.
There is a third aspect to be dealt with: better distribution of the civil and military use of the airspace of the fifteen countries.
In that respect, there is a need for greater flexibility and greater cooperation in order improve management and the use of that airspace.
The ambition is to try to prevent the chaos which, according to all the forecasts, we are inevitably going to suffer during the next summer season.
To this end, I intend to deal with this issue at the next Ministerial meeting of the European Civil Aviation Authority Conference, which will take place on 28 January, and, as I mentioned before, the Commission' s communication on this subject will be presented to Parliament at the end of this year and to the Council of Transport Ministers, specifically at the meeting of 6 December.
Allow me, first of all, to thank the Commissioner for her answer which I think sounds very positive.
It is now really however a question of translating words into action. Where this is concerned, we naturally have high hopes of the Commission.
It is a fact that air traffic over Europe has seen a period of very considerable delays.
This is to a very large extent due to the fact that the number of flights is increasing very dramatically just now. This year alone, the increase has been close on 6%.
If delays are to be avoided, what is now really required is the ability to take political action.
It is only to be hoped that the Commission has this.
The Commissioner is saying here that we need to ensure that we get a common system of air traffic control in Europe.
I think that is extremely important.
In the long term, we cannot have 66 different national or local bodies dealing with the matter. Instead, one body is needed.
I therefore think it is good that the Commissioner is now talking along those lines.
Allow me just to ask a short follow-up question. When does the Commissioner consider we are likely to have implemented such a system?
The intention is to obtain support firstly for the proposal which I am going to make - both to the Commission and in time, if the Commission accepts it, to the Council of Ministers and Parliament - so that we will not only proceed with the incorporation of the Commission into Eurocontrol, but will also forward in the area of the fifteen countries to try to achieve a single airspace and, therefore, common management of that single space by those fifteen countries.
If I obtain the support of the Commission, the intention would be to promote a high level group in which the main civil authorities would participate, and the military would perhaps have to take part, in order to help the Commission to develop suitable guidelines. But that is not all.
We would also need to promote a dialogue with the principal operators - not only air companies and users, but also air traffic controllers and all the airports etc.
That is to say, all those operators who participate within the complex world of air traffic.
As you have said, some of the delays can be attributed to air traffic control, to the management of air traffic, which accounts for more or less 50% of the delays, and the other 50% is shared between air companies and internal problems in the management of the airports themselves.
But I believe that we should act on all fronts.
We should act in the short term with urgent measures. This includes achieving distribution and greater flexibility in the management of airspace in its civil and military uses - and in certain countries this can be achieved with a certain speed, we have to promote it and we are working on it - and, also in the short term, intervening in the management by airports and air companies of their flight forecasts and the organisation of their flights, in order to improve the use and efficiency of airport slots.
But we also have to act in the medium term, I insist, with a more ambitious measure; this single airspace and this common management of the single airspace by the fifteen Members.
And then we will make it more extensive, within the framework of Eurocontrol as well. It will cover wider European areas given that a larger number of these countries are asking to join the Union and will become part of it in the years to come.
Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner for her very bold replies.
Mr President, I would like to refer back to the questions.
Regarding the demarcation which the Commissioner would like to introduce between civil and military aviation, could she manage this before the coming holiday season? My second question concerns the proposals of the high level group, could this be possible in the short term?
Could a date be indicated for this, if possible?
Competence for the civil and military issue lies with the Member States and, therefore, what the Commission can do is urge the Member States to implement this greater cooperation, promote it and assist in any every possible way: we are working with the different Member States one by one.
As for the high level group, if the Commission and the Council approve it - as I have already said, the Commission will foreseeably do so on the 24th of this month, and the Council on 6 December - the intention would be that it would start its work at the beginning of February or even at the end of January.
It would be useful if a measure of this type could receive some kind of support from the European Council in Helsinki.
Question No 51 by (H-0613/99):
Subject: Progress with reorganisation of Olympic Airways In October 1994, the Greek Government, in collaboration with the Commission, launched a programme to reorganise Olympic Airways. However, the programme does not yet appear to have yielded the anticipated results.
What are the causes of the problems involved in implementing this programme? What stage has been reached in talks with the Greek authorities and what are the plans for the immediate future?
I would ask the Commissioner to be as specific as possible - I know she is doing so - because we are out of time.
Our controls, not in terms of air transport but in terms of speaking, have not worked properly.
Questions to Mr Verheugen
The Commission, through its decision of 7 October 1994, authorised the granting of considerable aid for the reorganisation of Olympic Airways.
As always, this authorisation implied certain obligations on the part of the company, obligations intended to guarantee the genuine recovery of the company and limit the impact on competition and the single market.
Unfortunately, these obligations have not been fulfilled and, consequently, the Commission had to reopen the case in 1996.
The Greek authorities once again made additional commitments so that new aid could be authorised during 1998 and thereby unblock the last batch of aid to Olympic Airways which is still pending.
Nevertheless, the report on the reorganisation presented in April of this year indicated that the financial results of the company were below the forecasts.
This led the Greek authorities to order the drawing up of a new reorganisation plan by a new team led by specialist managers.
As soon as the Commission receives that new reorganisation plan - we hope that this will be during this month of November - we will examine the content of the new commitments and we hope that they will give sufficient guarantees to allow the granting of the funds which are still pending.
Commissioner, it is clear from your reply that difficulties still surround Olympic Airways, as they have since 1994.
In the meantime, Greece has granted the company several billion drachmas in state aid.
And yet the problem persists.
I think that the Greek taxpayer is entitled to know what difficulties the Commission has encountered with respect to Olympic Airways and what problems it has encountered, given that these problems have, at times, made it extremely hesitant with respect to the demands of the Greek authorities and, if I have understood your reply correctly, continue even now to make the Commission hesitant on the matter of the third instalment of aid for Olympic Airways.
Ladies and gentlemen, a series of decisions were taken in 1994 - specifically to grant aid to various European companies - with the aim of carrying out the reorganisation of those companies which would allow, on the one hand, their possible privatisation but, in any case, to put a definitive end to the State subsidies and aid which, to a certain extent, distorted the single market and free competition between the different operators in the deregulated air market.
This aid was given on the condition that the companies were managed commercially - and therefore that the administrations and authorities of those countries would not be involved - that a suitable process of reorganisation would be carried out and that, finally, we would have viable companies which could develop without the need for new public aid.
The reality is that - according to the information provided by the Greek authorities themselves - there has been an excessive involvement of the Greek administration in the management of the company, and the commitments of 1998 should have put an end, once and for all, to this situation.
The granting of aid other than that authorised, which has happened over recent years, has been aimed, above all, at the funding of the social element of the reorganisation plan, and specifically supplementary compensation for employees made redundant.
Therefore, there was a reduction in the aid authorised in 1998, in such a way that the total allocation did not increase.
It is considered that this aid for social purposes should be deducted from the total amount which was granted to Olympic Airways.
And lastly, I have to say that the financial results of the company in 1998 are disappointing.
They have led to the current Greek authorities taking a very important decision, specifically the appointment of a new board of directors, turning to experts from other companies - that is, Speedway, a subsidiary of British Airways - which must update the company' s recovery plan and which, I am sure, will be able to offer us over the next month, sufficient information and the necessary guarantees so that, once and for all, we can authorise the last batch of aid to Olympic Airways and ensure that it takes off correctly and takes to the air without any great problems.
Thank you, Mrs De Palacio.
Given the total lack of time, we are obliged to move on to the questions to Commissioner Verheugen.
Therefore, Questions No 52 to 55 will be replied to in writing in the shortest time possible.
I ask for the Members' forgiveness.
Question No 56 by (H-0625/99):
Subject: Commission's efforts to further the applicant countries' preparations in the enlargement process The association of the Central and Eastern European countries with the EU and, thereby, their association with the internal market will entail competitive pressure precipitating structural changes in those countries.
To achieve political and economic stability, enhance social welfare for the citizens of the applicant countries and prevent the risk of social dumping in the present Member States, the applicant countries will need to modernise their social security systems if enlargement is to be successful.
The Union=s initiatives in this respect will in turn have a bearing on the applicant countries= ability to modernise and on our common interest in achieving an effective enlargement as quickly as possible.
Can the Commission provide a progress report on the applicant countries= preparations for modernising their social security systems and can it also report on present and planned measures to further the applicant countries= efforts in this respect?
Mr President, the Commission is clear about the importance of the reform of social security systems in the applicant countries in the context of their accession to the EU.
With the exception of the rights of itinerant workers and the coordination of regulations concerning them, the acquis communautaire relating to social security is not very extensive.
As the Commission' s Communication of 14 July 1999 on the modernisation of social security systems shows, efforts are being made to further develop the acquis communautaire.
The applicant countries must be incorporated into this process.
In its annual reports, which were presented to the Council and Parliament on 13 October, the Commission draws up a balance in this regard for the situation in the applicant countries.
The Commission establishes that although modernisation in the social sector and in health is generally only progressing slowly, efforts are being made to achieve strong social security nets.
Changes have recently been made in the social security systems and health insurance systems in Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Bulgaria and Poland.
These are considerable, but they are still not enough.
This leads the Commission to continue to implement the reform programmes for the social security systems in the applicant countries.
These programmes are known as Consensus 1 and Consensus 2.
They are to be continued in addition to the technical aid which most of these countries have already received in the form of national PHARE appropriations.
From the year 2000 the reform and modernisation of the social security systems in the applicant countries might also be supported with the Consensus 3 programme.
As of this year, i.e. 1999, this sector will be given EUR 18.6 million in support.
These funds are for institutional improvements in the social sector in the accession countries, the policy of partnerships playing an important role.
Within the framework of accession partnerships the strengthening of administrative structures for coordinating social security in the States of Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Cyprus, Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovenia has been given medium-term priority.
The European Commission has also repeatedly pointed out to the applicant countries the useful role which social partners could play in the accession process and has also reminded them that greater consideration for social problems means that it is necessary to develop social dialogue in the applicant countries.
I share the Commissioner' s view that these questions are important, that a lot remains to be done and that we ourselves must also modernise our social security systems and link the questions concerning enlargement of the Union to this process.
I have a follow-up question which can partly be linked to what the Commissioner said just now in his answer and which concerns the role of the social partners in the labour market in, among other things, preventing social dumping. The question is this: is it true that the Commission is demanding of the applicant countries that they should establish some form of social dialogue, for example through the three-party cooperation which we have in the present Member States?
Are demands of this kind now being made of the applicant countries as part of the accession process?
The term "promote" is probably not appropriate in this context.
We are negotiating here with sovereign states.
The ways and means with which we interact with our partners are not such that I would like to use the term "promote" , particularly concerning something for which there is no acquis.
We can of course expect, as it is the basis for association, that the accession candidates take on everything which is legally regulated in the European Union.
However, what goes on in terms of social interaction is not legally regulated.
In this case, political dialogue, which is also a part of the accession strategy, repeatedly makes reference to the need for intensive social dialogue.
We have done this in the past and we will continue to do it in the future, in which regard I would also like to point out to you that in this matter the situation is very different, that is in no way do the majority of the accession candidates fall short of the standard of the Member States.
Question No 57 by (H-0627/99):
Subject: Enlargement of the EU and the Schengen Agreement The applicant countries must adopt EU rules on visa requirements and border controls on accession to the EU, which will entail considerable changes for several of those countries, in particular the possibility of requiring visas and stricter border controls in regard to neighbouring countries.
Has any analysis been made of the changes this will require of those applicant countries which have embarked on negotiations?
Is there a list of the neighbouring countries for whose citizens the current applicant countries will have to introduce a visa requirement? Have any exemptions/transitional arrangements been discussed to facilitate the changes?
In connection with the opening of the accession negotiations on 31 March 1998, the Commission, in tandem with the applicant countries concerned, carried out an analytical evaluation of the EU' s acquis communautaire.
The controls on external borders and the visa policy of the EU were treated within the framework of Chapter 24 of the accession negotiations concerning cooperation in the sectors of justice and internal affairs.
The evaluation showed that further progress is to harmonise the acquis communautaire.
An additional need for reform was also established in the course of the expert missions organised by the Commission, in which representatives of the administrative and justice authorities took part.
The applicant countries are obliged to take on and apply the acquis communautaire of the EU at the time of accession.
This also therefore applies to the visa list applicable at the time of accession, which the Council establishes after consultation with the European Parliament.
Concerning the issue of transitional regulations which might be applied for by the applicant countries within the framework of this Chapter of the accession negotiations, the basic negotiating stance of the European Union is that such measures are only possible in exceptional cases and only for a limited period and scope.
The transitional regulations must not entail any amendments to the provisions and policies of the Union, must not hinder their trouble-free implementation and must not have any significant impacts on competition.
Thank you for your detailed answer.
This is, in fact, quite a difficult and sensitive question which may also create a number of problems for those applicant countries which are compelled to introduce a more restrictive policy towards neighbouring countries which they would really like to be more open towards.
My follow-up question concerns whether, in the present situation, any of the applicant countries has requested exemption from the list of countries in connection with which visas are required, whether the matter has in any particular case been very specifically discussed.
I should also like to hear whether you consider it likely that it will be possible to remove internal border controls with the new Member States from the first day of their membership.
But of course.
That is the whole point, but under certain preconditions.
Firstly, with regard to the visa obligation we do not want to allow any exceptions.
The Council regulation is clear on this.
If we make exceptions here, then we are giving up the basic principle of a uniform area of freedom, security and justice.
I must point out at this juncture, as you have rightly said, that the subject is highly sensitive.
The sensitivity is not just in the fact that it is difficult for the candidates to implement this.
The greatest sensitivity is in the fact that I know a number of Member States which will not accept enlargement unless there is total clarity in this matter.
We need not just the agreement of the candidate countries, but also of the Member States, and for most Member States this is a crucial point on which no compromise is possible.
With regard to controls on external borders, the applicant countries expect that on accession they will take on and apply the acquis communautaire of the EU, as I have said.
The controls on internal borders will only be abolished if the EU confirms that the applicant country can fully guarantee effective implementation of the acquis communautaire of the EU in this matter.
However, your question was whether internal controls will disappear?
The answer is a definite yes.
That is what it is all about!
Question No 58 by (H-0638/99):
Subject: Alignment of laws in the Czech Republic Is the Commission aware of a study concerning the slow pace at which the transposition and alignment of laws is proceeding in the Czech Republic, drawn up and addressed to it by four Czech opposition parties? If so, what conclusions does it draw from that study?
Mr Posselt, the Commission is aware of the study submitted by four Czech opposition parties on the alignment of laws in the Czech Republic.
However, I must point out that this study was first presented to the press and to the Czech public before a copy was given to the EU delegation in Prague.
I myself did not receive a copy, not even when I met the previous week in Prague with representatives of the parties which produced the study. Unfortunately, therefore, I cannot personally speak about the contents of this study.
Mr President, I find that very interesting.
I was told that this study had been sent to you personally.
But irrespective of that I would like to say that I support these four opposition parties and also many social democrats who fully advocate European integration.
I also regret the resignation of Mr Lansky, who worked hard in this matter, but I do see the danger of a debate arising in the Czech Republic and I would like to mention this to you.
It has been said by another party which previously governed, a large opposition party, that there could be membership à la carte; there is talk of a status being accorded which is akin to that of Turkey, of a political discount, and I would like to ask you whether you consider such thinking plausible or whether you presuppose full implementation of the acquis communautaire.
Questions Nos 59 to 115 will be replied to in writing.
Mr Posselt has the floor for a procedural motion.
I would ask you to be concise and that another additional dialogue results from it.
Mr President, I would just like to say on a personal note that it was the furthest thing from my mind to suggest that the Commissioner had not received the paper and had lied, although it was stated publicly in the Czech Republic that this study had been sent to you and that you had not yet responded.
This was the reason for my question and I thank you for clearing up the matter.
I did not mean to suggest anything.
There must be reasons why you did not receive it, but I never suggested that you had lied!
We thank Mr Posselt for this clarification, which I hope the Commissioner has listened to very attentively.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was closed at 7.35 p.m.)
Ladies and gentlemen, some Members of the House did not hear me yesterday speaking about the terrible floods which occurred in the departments of south-west France.
I did actually do this, I said how affected we were by this tragedy and I added that, of course, we are going to ask the Commission to take appropriate action, both to provide assistance for the victims of these disasters and also to add to the arrangements set in place by the government concerned.
I did, in fact, also mention the terrible earthquake in Turkey.
I wished, then, to reiterate this message in your presence.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr Barón Crespo wishes to make a comment.
I was welcoming Mr Solana.
Yes, of course, we shall be welcoming him to the House presently.
You see, Mr Solana, what a welcome!
Are there any comments relating to the Minutes?
Madam President, in the vote on amendment 7 of Mr Smet' s report, it is recorded that I voted against.
This is an error and my vote should be recorded as being in favour.
Very well, Mr Nogueira Román, we shall make that correction.
The three Members of the Greek Communist Party will be leaving the Chamber in protest at the presence today of Mr Solana who, as Secretary-General of NATO, is one of those chiefly responsible for the crimes committed against Yugoslavia, and because of the fact that he has been appointed "Mr CFSP" .
Mr Korakas, your comment has nothing to do with the Minutes.
(The Minutes were approved)
Madam President, I am taking the floor in order to welcome Mr Solana, of course, but also to ask about the deadline for the submission of amendments with regard to the OLAF report which is on today' s agenda.
As non-attached Members, we find it particularly difficult to collect the requisite signatures, as you know.
We would therefore like to know when the deadline is for the submission of amendments to the Napolitano report.
For the moment we are waiting for confirmation that the report actually exists in all the language versions.
The deadline for amendments will be set as soon as we have this confirmation, and are thus in a position to debate the report.
A period of 24 hours, as stipulated in the Rules of Procedure?
Yes, of course.
Statement by Mr Solana
Thank you, Mr Solana, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy.
Thank you, once more, for attending the House in this capacity - since you have already attended in the past in another role - and thank you, too, for your contribution and for the desire which you have expressed and demonstrated, Mr Solana, for very close cooperation with this House.
Madam President, Secretary of the Council and High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Commissioner, firstly I would like to welcome the appearance of Mr Solana, in his three-fold capacity as Secretary-General of the Council, High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy and Secretary-General of the WEU, currently in pectore.
I imagine that in terms of the Community budget, they will be three jobs for one salary.
I wish you luck.
I am not going to sing the praises of Javier Solana.
We have shared a great friendship and many years of struggle, first for the freedom of my country and then for our integration into Europe.
And I expect that the defence of democratic values which he displayed in earlier incarnations will accompany him and inspire him in his new task.
For the first time the Council has a human face - and I hope this is permanent - and I am sure that Mr Solana will be able to confront this challenge, which I believe is important not only for the Council, but also for the development of the European Union as a whole.
Since much has been said about his duty as High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, I would like to mention an aspect which I consider to be important: our Common Foreign and Security Policy will be, fundamentally, a reflection and extension of our internal strength.
Our ability to create a Common Foreign and Security Policy, and also a defence policy, will depend on how united we are on the consolidation of our strength.
This means that Mr Solana will not only have to deal with the more immediate question of crisis prevention, but also - and he has some experience in this - that of our role in the world, that is to say, the United Nations, the Millennium Round and the future of the IMF and the FAO; it is also important in the sense that Europeans, in constructing Europe, are also doing something important for the future and stability of humanity.
I believe that this consideration must inspire his activities and, at the same time, as Secretary of the Council, I hope it will allow him to help in the task of reforming and giving coherence to that institution which, at the moment, is perhaps the institution which most requires the impetus of rationalisation.
Mr Solana has spoken at length on the security and defence question.
I believe that he is the person who has shown himself, in this historic process, to be the most capable of seeing through the complex evolution which involves the development of a European identity in terms of defence, in which NATO itself and our North American partners are coming to accept the need for a strong European pillar, not only in the field of defence, but also in terms of the industrial dimension which must support it and also in the role of stabilising and consolidating democracy in Europe and the Mediterranean.
To this end, I believe that he will have a decisive role to play at the upcoming OSCE meeting as regards the crisis in Chechnya.
My colleagues will comment on these issues later.
I would like to conclude my remarks by speaking of the need for close cooperation with the Commission - and I am not asking Mr Patten to stand shoulder to shoulder with Mr Solana.
We simply need them to understand each other perfectly.
And with regard to the role of this Parliament, I believe that in recent years we have shown our capacity to help and collaborate and I understand that, from the point of view of the form that the dimension and development of the Union' s defence and security policy can and must take, we can play an important role in relation to the rest of the world. I believe that, on this occasion, we must offer our cooperation and show the most positive of attitudes.
Madam President, I believe, as the other speakers have said, that this is a significant formal occasion today, because we have for the first time in plenary the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy.
It has been said that he has three jobs but only one salary.
But an even greater marvel is that he has three such great, large, heavy hats and only one head to wear them on.
High Representative, we wish you every success in this task.
As regards your role, we hope, above all, that you may contribute to closing the gap between the aspirations and reality of European foreign policy.
The challenge that you undertake is at the core of what we do.
To take an example, in 1992 we as a Union drew up the Petersberg Tasks which offered comprehensive non-military and military security options.
The aspirations set out in those Tasks were perhaps most rudely challenged by Kosovo where the gap between aspirations and reality was cruelly exposed by an absence of an appropriate operational substance.
The highest priority for you now is to begin to give operational content and meaning to both the non-military and military challenges of Petersberg, not least, given the several hats you wear, particularly the military ones.
My own group, the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, is strongly committed to the general concept of developing a capacity for autonomous European action which correctly has been identified as a rapid response capability with the necessary logistical support.
This will perhaps require some re-allocation of resources.
This issue of cost will have to become a parallel priority in our debates.
We are committed to a capability for autonomous EU action in my group.
We are somewhat sceptical about the degree to which this should be autonomous of transatlantic relations.
In so far as you have dealt with the issue in broad transatlantic terms, my group welcomes strongly that emphasis.
A second point I would like to raise is the question of the European Union and the coordination of our aid policies and our foreign policies.
I should like to say to both Mr Solana and Mr Patten that there is an enormous challenge to bring greater political coherence to this task.
The Union or its Member States account for half of all the world' s humanitarian aid and half of all international development aid.
The Union gives three-fifths of all aid to Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
But we have nothing like a proportionate say and influence in terms of foreign policy.
This is a core challenge that we look to you and to the Commission to resolve in terms of foreign policy.
If we develop this operational capacity through the Petersberg Tasks, if we develop more coherence in aid and foreign policy, how can we then adopt more coherent policies in international fora? We have a great density of institutional relations - we have touched on some of them in the debate already.
In particular, I want to signal on behalf of my group an interest in the non-debate that waxes and wanes every so often about the reform of the UN Security Council.
Without prejudice to the arrangements in existing Member States, it is a question that we must look at in due course.
If we are really to have a non-military as well as military capacity, an effective voice at the Security Council table would be important especially in our outreach beyond Europe itself.
This is therefore something we would put down as a marker.
In his hearing before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, Mr Solana talked about having a less declaratory and more active foreign policy.
We agree whole-heartedly with that, and I would say one of the tests that we would have in the back of our minds as a group is this: in five years' time will we have exported stability to south-eastern Europe, or will we still be importing the consequences of instability? This is for us a core challenge.
Today is the tenth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia as it then was.
I hope, Mr Solana, that you will use your role to give an added sense of political urgency to the task of enlargement, rather than to promote procrastination.
I hope that you will use your voice to teach the lessons to be learned from the former Yugoslavia.
It is an ambitious, difficult task.
We wish you well.
You will have the full support and goodwill of my group.
Madam President, Mr Solana, I opposed the action of the Secretary-General of NATO.
I welcome Mr CFSP' s taking office.
In fulfilling your new role, you will find my group a demanding partner, extremely critical, if necessary, but deeply convinced that the European Union must be represented to a much greater extent, more active and more proactive, in the international arena.
Wherever you go in Africa, in the Mediterranean, in Latin America, in Asia, everywhere you can gauge the degree of expectation there is for a major ally, which is capable and resolved to assist them in extricating themselves from the demanding showdown against America which is arrogant and too powerful.
What splendid challenges you could devote yourself to accepting on behalf of the Fifteen: establishing yourself as a protagonist in your own right in the Near East in order to contribute towards establishing a just and lasting peace, as now seems possible; launching the Lomé negotiations once again on new bases, integrating the concerns of our 71 partners in the south, in order to safeguard the spirit of this Convention which is unique in the world; addressing international financial institutions with an alternative opinion, for example, in favour of cancelling the debt of those countries which are today arrested in their development because of this infernal mechanism; starting a real international crusade in favour of disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, at this time when there is great danger once again of proliferation; establishing yourself as the spokesperson, the standard-bearer for the enhancement of the United Nations' system again, ensuring that the UN Charter is respected, promoting a form of civilised international relations, forever doing away with war as the means of settling disputes, and, in the short term, if you please, putting an end to the intolerable inertia of the Union as regards the savage war in Chechnya by some means other than a few purely formal communiqués.
Finally, I invite you, High Representative, to make a courageous and critical assessment of the war in the Balkans.
In Kosovo, we face a serious policy failure, as one form of nationalism succeeds another, as one form of ethnic cleansing succeeds another, this time with the Union, the UN and NATO in attendance.
In the rest of Yugoslavia, an Iraq-style scenario is in progress.
The power, which is legitimately censured, is still firmly in place, while the population, which is unfairly penalised, is enduring a martyrdom which is morally unacceptable and politically dangerous.
As for the region, it is anything but stabilised.
These realities cannot fail to be of direct concern to you.
So, do not take as the only lesson to be drawn from this terrible experience the need to be able to line up more troops, to increase military expenditure and to advance at the double towards the Europe of Defence within, what is more, the framework of NATO.
I am not seeking to draw a veil over the military aspect of security, but the key factor, in my opinion, is that this strategy continues to be obsessed by military matters, at the expense of a major pan-European policy for the prevention of conflict capable of dealing with the tensions and splits of the post-Cold War period on this continent.
To give just one illustration of this imbalance: tomorrow, as you very briefly mentioned, fifty European Heads of State are to meet in Istanbul at the OSCE Summit dedicated to drawing up a security charter for the twenty-first century. But how many people know about this?
How many people are talking about this? The Council representative did not even consider the request I made for a debate in the European Parliament prior to this conference to be appropriate.
Revitalising the OSCE, re-establishing it, making its debates open to the public of European society, that is one more grand design, which is, in my opinion, inseparable from the prospect of enlargement of the Union.
This is the constructive message that I wished to convey to you today on behalf of my group.
The EU' s combined defence chief and foreign minister, Mr Solana, said very clearly and plainly that Monday' s meeting in Brussels was historic, for - as the representative said - the EU is taking up its rightful place on the world stage.
In other words, the EU is to be equipped with a military capacity and to become a superpower.
This is plain talking compared to what the press and what government offices are saying, especially in the non-aligned countries which are Members of the European Union.
But is it a military superpower that the peoples of Europe need? Both Mr Solana and Mr Patten, and most of the speakers, have revealed a sort of surrealistic Dr Strangelove-style logic surrounding this whole problem area, a logic which goes like this: shoot first and ask questions later.
The trial run for the so-called peacemaking measures, which is of course one of those splendidly misleading euphemisms, may be seen in the Kosovo crisis and in the attack on Kosovo this spring.
This is assumed to have been a success which has shown that NATO has a role which the EU should now take over because we can do so more cheaply and more efficiently than the Americans whom, moreover, we are supposed to follow through thick and thin.
It was not a success.
It was a disaster in every way.
Several of the speakers, among them Mr Souchet, have touched on this point.
In fact, something like the opposite of what was intended has been achieved.
People have a distorted and hypocritical stance on the question of Kosovo' s constitutional status and status in international law, and the action in Kosovo shows first and foremost that the small nations have been made to join forces with the Allies.
Their influence has been confined to that of being able to confirm decisions already taken by the large countries.
It has been, in every respect, a total fiasco. In fact, it has been more than that: it has been a disaster.
It is high time that the European peace movements were revitalised as a counterweight to the foolish militarisation that has been taking place in recent years, for which there is not much support to be found in this Chamber.
Mr Alavanos, I shall give you a reply straight away.
As Mr Solana has just said, he must take his leave in order to attend the OSCE Summit.
I can, however, assure you that Mr Sasi will be present at the Question Time to the Council and I can guarantee that he is perfectly competent to do so.
Madam President, the new political-military apparatus which Mr Solana is hoping and praying for is nothing but a watered down version of the European Defence Community which France discarded in 1954 in a far more threatening international context.
Now that the Soviet Union has disappeared and danger, less clear-cut but just as formidable, today threatens from the south, the rivalries between the major Western powers have become more pronounced.
Germany, rather like France in the 1960s, hopes to find in political Europe not only the opportunity to regain lost credibility but also the opportunity to find veiled resources of power politics.
The real issue which is hidden behind the Europe of defence is actually access to nuclear weapons or, failing this, the removal in the long term of the French nuclear deterrent which, as everyone knows, exists when it is not shared.
Although the United States did not seek the French supremacy to which it adapted extremely well, as Dr Kissinger wrote on several occasions, it would then adapt to the new situation by distancing itself from European affairs.
So, the on-going interest in short-term results at the expense of the long term, a certain French President' s need for personal glorification, a score of zero, and all these discussions and other protocols of Nuremberg are in danger of upsetting the subtle geopolitical balance of power which has existed for decades between the United States, France, Great Britain and Germany.
This tendency must be fought with all the necessary strength, particularly by the strict application of the rule of unanimity, without a legal get-out or differentiated cooperation.
Before giving the floor to Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra, I would like to make an announcement on a question I was asked regarding the Napolitano report.
For the time being we have the translation in five languages, but we have every hope of having the report in all the official languages by noon, which means we could set the deadline for the submission of amendments at 8 p.m. today.
The text of the amendments would therefore be available tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.
Madam President, this morning you guaranteed us 24 hours for the submission of amendments.
In that case, we will have to bring the deadline forward to before 8 p.m. in order to have 24 hours before the time of the vote, at noon.
If you would rather, we can try to organise things in this way.
At the moment we are waiting for the report to be available in all languages.
I think that is the first matter to deal with.
At present only some of the languages are available.
Madam President, I am sorry but the period of 24 hours starts from the time when the Members have the document in their own language, in this case at noon today.
The time limit for amendments would then be set at noon tomorrow, if I understand correctly.
You shall have your 24-hour period.
We shall see how we may proceed.
I am sorry but I really do not see how you can, Madam President.
Madam President, I would also like to wish Mr Solana every success in this difficult task of creating a Common Foreign and Security Policy which is effective, visible and coherent.
I had the opportunity to question him on this subject during his appearance before the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, as to what the political means would be - and I was thinking fundamentally of the Intergovernmental Conference - to make use of the next Intergovernmental Conference to the benefit of the CFSP.
At that time, Mr Solana told me that he had not yet finished considering the issue and I would like to know whether he has made any progress in this respect.
I would like to know, Mr Solana, what the political, economic and budgetary means are - bearing in mind the principle that "he who pays is in charge" , which you know very well from your time as Secretary-General of NATO - to create a force which can maintain peace and prevent situations as dramatic as those which we have seen recently in the Balkans.
You have also spoken this morning of the problem of human rights.
In this respect, I would like to know your opinion with regard to relations between the European Union and China, especially in light of the recent trade agreement between that country and the United States.
And on the subject of the United States, I would like to ask you two very specific questions.
Firstly: What is your opinion of President Clinton' s statement that Turkey should become a Member of the European Union? And secondly: What do you think about the pressure which the United States administration is putting on some European companies - I am referring to the Spanish Sol Meliá chain and other companies such as the Club Méditérranée and the German company LTU - and what measures, in your opinion, should the European Union take?
Lastly, Mr President, I would like to ask the High Representative, with regard to our policy and relations regarding Latin America, if you think that the new European Union priorities which have resulted from the Rio Summit would require new resources. I understand that your answer is yes and therefore: What do you feel about the decision of the Council of Ministers which, on the first reading of next year' s budget, has reduced the amounts to a level lower than the amounts for 1996?
What will you say in this respect to the Mercosur Ministers with whom I believe you are going to meet next week? Do you think that the new priorities on Latin America have to be dealt with using fewer resources, in opposition to what this Parliament approved in the first reading?
Mr Solana, you will not be a Lord Grey in any sense; you are very welcome here.
Mr Solana, wearing your two hats as "Mr CFSP" and Secretary- General of the WEU, you are going to have a great responsibility in our common endeavour to establish a European order of peace.
First on the agenda is the matter of complying with the Cologne decisions on crisis management and conflict-prevention initiatives.
These decisions also include the Member States' undertakings to establish a specific military capacity in such a way that the EU' s ability to take credible initiatives in accordance with the principles of the UN' s Charter is reinforced, and this without any Member State' s interests being compromised and without the EU' s taking on NATO' s basic tasks.
Right now, a lot of energy is being spent on crisis management, something you talked a lot about.
We are seeing more and more proposals on the way.
Against this background, I should like to ask you the following question. You said that our citizens feel that we ought to be able to intervene in a crisis.
Yes, but I think our citizens want us to be able to intervene before crises break out at all.
My question is therefore as follows: do you share the view that measures to prevent conflict are at least as important as the crisis management which in fact kicks in at a stage where politics and diplomacy have failed? What measures are you therefore going to take in the area of conflict prevention so that you can, as it were, start taking charge of preventing fires rather than turning out to fight them?
The Cologne decision ought not to lead to our one day finding ourselves in the same situation as my second home country, Switzerland, where, following studies of possible threats to the country over the next decade, the conclusion was reached that Switzerland is well equipped to deal with dangers which no longer exist.
I would mention in this context that the Conflict Prevention Network (CPN), established by Michel Rocard on the initiative of the European Parliament, warned, long before the Kosovo conflict, that war was going to break out, and that a variety of visiting delegations from Parliament did the same thing.
The CPN still exists, but the problem, then as now, is that there is no structure in the Commission or in the Council which can effectively utilise the experience and expertise of the CPN and others.
Mister President, the fact that most Members of my group welcome the creation of a European defence identity has a lot - but not everything - to do with the lessons we have learnt from the Kosovo war and the insight that, unfortunately, in some cases, it is necessary to use armed force if there is a mass violation of human rights.
Having said this, I would like to emphasise once more - this has fortunately already been done by many speakers - that, to my mind, the power of the European Union is, or should lie, in crisis management and the prevention of conflict.
I am therefore grateful to Mr Patten who has emphatically drawn attention to this very issue.
I think that he is right.
I think that the power of the European Union - as already referred to by the previous speaker - lies in the fact that, before conflict spreads, every effort should be made to prevent this from happening.
Within this context, I would again like to ask Mr Solana about his pledges in the Committee on Foreign Affairs following a feasibility study carried out by the European civil peace corps.
He confirmed this at the time and I would like to hear from him again, as this is one of the very situations in which the European Union could be effective in the prevention of conflict.
The question remains how autonomous this conduct of the European Union will be in future, how independent from the United States and how closely involved with Russia, for example.
Your successor, Mr Robertson, has stated in a number of interviews that the EU' s conduct will largely remain restricted to minor, less significant conflicts.
This remark has prompted three questions that I would like to ask here.
The first one is: in your opinion, what bearing does this have on the deployment of nuclear weapons? Would you agree with me that the EU' s involvement in smaller conflicts then renders nuclear weapons completely unusable and superfluous?
Secondly, you mentioned the reorganisation of funds and the making available of appropriate tools.
Would you agree with me that, at present, the reorganisation of funds within the European Union is far more important than consideration being given to raising the ceiling on defence?
Thirdly, cooperation with Russia: Could you be more precise about how the European Union should bring this about, independently of NATO?
After all, if the majority of potential areas of conflict are either in or bordering Russia, does this not raise the dilemma of us creating something which we will only be able to use in practice with great difficulty, precisely because Russia is involved?
High Representative, the establishment of your post and, in particular, your appointment, have certainly created high expectations among those members of the public - and I think they are numerous - who think that Europe needs a Common Foreign and Security Policy if, as you said, it wants to be at all credible in areas other than trade or economic stature.
It is therefore a question of high expectations and, I believe, also high hopes, especially if - as Commissioner Patten said - a synergy really will be created between the two institutions.
Your task is certainly a very difficult one.
I do not mean it is impossible, but a host of good wishes - which we all give you (they are free and cost absolutely nothing) - will certainly not suffice. Maybe you need something more tangible.
The first steps, taken in the Council at least, do not seem particularly promising.
I am referring to a fact that might be considered to be of secondary importance by many, but that I think is very significant: you thought Monday' s Council meeting a historic occasion for defence.
Can this be true?
I, too, consider Monday' s Council meeting historic, but in a negative way and for other reasons. I refer to the incomprehensible attitude taken in respect of an initiative, promoted for once by the European Union, on the moratorium on capital punishment.
If I have understood correctly, this time the Ministers have decided to be particularly thorough.
They have decided to stand their ground and to withdraw the proposal for a moratorium, or at least to block it.
They have decided to make a huge effort to be verbosely and verbally maximalist and extremist and are refusing to give ground or negotiate ... Basically, they have decided to lose.
This position is so astonishing that I wonder whether any of the Ministers have actually read the amendment and the facts, because this is completely incomprehensible, unless it is true, as some people suspect, that this strict, moralist position will serve to save the face of some of the great powers who are not especially interested in the proposed moratorium.
It does not take much to realise, Commissioner, that what we should have done was to use serious negotiations to bring moderate countries which do not use capital punishment over to our side, countries which had taken positions and which were sensitive regarding the preamble - I repeat, the preamble - based on an article in the United Nations Charter. But why are we trying to amend the United Nations Charter, Commissioner?
What do we hope to gain with a proposal for a moratorium? Are we trying to reform the Security Council or change the Charter?
None of this makes sense.
If I may say so, what happened on Monday was disgraceful.
As a consequence, the European Union will withdraw - so it seems - the proposal for a moratorium, or it will not even put it to the vote.
Just think about it: a freeze on the proposal.
And we want to talk about credibility? The truth of the matter is that today, Mr Solana, Europe is very good at making empty, pompous announcements, but it is completely incapable of learning from history and seeing how and where we really can negotiate.
So again, my heartfelt good wishes, but these in the form of a simple suggestion on the Common Foreign and Security policy: maybe using the process of economic and monetary union to reach diplomatic and military union would be a good way of transforming declarations of intent into more concrete steps.
Mr President, Mr High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, I would also like to congratulate you very warmly on your new post as High Representative and wish you all the luck that your new post requires in order that it may be a success, both for you and, above all, for the European Union.
And having said this in your language, I am afraid I will have to continue in German and I would ask you to put your headphones on.
First of all, unlike many other speakers, I am not happy with the decision taken on Monday and, Mr Solana, as a former pacifist turned militarist, I would actually feel that your role within the WEU is a further compromising of neutral states.
Now there are a significant number in my group from neutral and non-neutral countries alike who are actually very much against the whole idea of the creation of a European defence identity, and the debate within the neutral countries is being conducted in an extremely dishonest fashion.
You yourself said that Monday was a historic occasion and that is true.
It was a historic occasion.
It was the first time that there was a formal meeting of defence ministers, and the decisions that were taken were historic.
However, within the neutral states, the public is being misled.
In fact, it is being brushed over as a non-event.
For example, our Foreign Minister said that he was quite happy with the decisions taken: he said that the interests of neutral countries were taken on board and that they were met within the opinion which was submitted by the EU Political Committee.
In that opinion, it states that your role will be confined to what is set out in the Treaty on the European Union and also on the decisions taken at the European Council meeting in Cologne.
That actually is quite a broad perspective and anything can happen within that.
Within the Western European Union the issue of the mutual defence guarantee is even stronger than within NATO; within the neutral countries the general opinion at the moment is that the mutual defence commitment does not apply.
But, I believe and many people within the neutral countries believe that when further decisions are taken, eventually the mutual defence commitment will be applied.
I also believe that, as Commissioner Patten mentioned, this involves basically the whole issue of a European arms industry.
His statement gives credence to our fears about the creation of a European arms industry.
The St Malo Summit concluded that the EU needed, and I quote, 'strengthened armed forces that can react rapidly to the new risks and which are supported by a strong and competitive European defence industry and technology' .
There are many Member States within the European Union which are not involved in the arms industry and do not want to be involved in the arms industry.
These decisions and discussions are not taking place at an honest level within the Member States, and especially within the neutral countries: the public is being misled.
Here, in this Parliament today, it was quite clear and most people were quite honest about it: they want a European defence identity, they want a competitive European arms industry and they want a European army; but the public in the Member States has not actually been consulted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the joint appearance here of both Javier Solana and Chris Patten is symbolic since they will enjoy joint success or, if they do not work together, joint failure.
It is in our common interest that they succeed as this will also be our success and in this we must support them.
It is also an indication that the new troika is finally starting to work.
If I have understood things correctly, the Finnish Council Presidency has again sent the old troika to Russia.
The new troika to which you both belong should also, in future, take on representation abroad.
Since 1990 and the collapse of bloc confrontation, it has once again become possible to carry out conventional wars at regional level in Europe, which in turn facilitate the old classic struggle between ethnic groups, border disputes and the like, the old circle of violence.
We Europeans have not yet found an answer to this, as the former Yugoslavia shows.
The efforts which are now being made in the common security and defence initiative are an attempt to find the European answer, specifically in terms of prevention.
However, prevention, Mr Sakellariou, only works if it is backed by a credible military force.
For this reason, the two must be tied together.
Only then can prevention be genuinely implemented and I hope that it will work accordingly.
I think that, through joint efforts, it will be possible to achieve synergetic effects in gathering troops to combat crises with the aim of bringing about a common armaments agency.
We all know about the meagreness of the budgets and I think that with these synergetic effects the aim can be achieved.
We should not do this with independent expensive structures but, as far as possible, in accordance with the NATO Resolution adopted at Berlin in 1996, in tandem with NATO and with the NATO structures.
This seems to me to be an important route because it strengthens transatlantic ties whilst at the same time creating our own European capability where it is needed.
In my estimation, this would also mean that we will be able to carry out our duties jointly or separately, but not against our traditional partners.
The European Union, with its common currency, common internal market and common legal system, has a common interest in also implementing a credible common security and defence policy.
However, we must also realise that this picture cannot exist indefinitely in areas where there are varying degrees of security.
For this reason, at the Intergovernmental Conference, we should seek to make article 5 of the WEU Treaty a protocol of the EU Treaty to which each state can accede and, specifically, on the basis of an independent sovereign resolution.
This means that none of the neutral or non-allied states would be compelled to accede.
However, everything would then fall under the umbrella of credibility and common interests and we could further develop matters on this basis such that the appointment of Mr Solana as Secretary-General of the West European Union and the involvement of that Union could be fully effected without us needing to make allowance for article 5.
Mr President, Mr Solana, it is with very great pleasure that I can welcome you here in your new role, and I am delighted that in a few days you will be combining this role with that of Secretary-General of the WEU.
This all augurs well, and represents real progress.
An equally good augury is given by the desire for mutual cooperation expressed by yourself and by Mr Patten, who has also just made some very rational statements.
Let me address you in my capacity as rapporteur for the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, regarding security and defence policy.
This means I have listened to you with the utmost concentration.
In brief, today, permit me to stress the timetable or, to be more specific, the rate of the innovations and reforms which you are responsible for.
The Kosovo crisis has made Europeans aware of the gaps in the political and military resources available to them.
Furthermore, they have become more than ever aware of the risks they are running in letting a system continue which was designed at the time of the Cold War and which is no longer in any way suitable for the instances of instability which are proliferating around Europe and even within Europe.
This increased awareness provides an opportunity for innovation, as the Cologne Summit showed.
But I am afraid that this window of opportunity may close again all too soon under the pressure of national conservatism and budgetary constraints.
This is why my view is that things must get done quickly, as quickly as possible.
Institutional reforms still need careful consideration, of course.
It would be a mistake to rush.
The same goes for the fundamental question of the respective roles of Europe and the United States.
The solutions are not yet fully mature, but there are certainly already some practical steps which can be taken quickly.
For example, the enlargement of the General Affairs Council to include Defence Ministers, a formula which was already tested last Monday; setting up a permanent political body, "COPS" , responsible for monitoring all matters relating to common foreign and security policy, including defence; setting up a Military Committee; creating a rapid deployment task force of approximately 50,000 men, and so on and so forth. And I should take care not to forget the task which the Finnish Presidency, quite rightly, considered to be of great significance: improving our non-military security resources, particularly for preventive purposes.
All this may be achieved quickly on the lines of the guidelines established by the Fifteen.
I think the old adage of testing the ground by walking on it would be particularly wise in this case, Mr Solana.
The uncoordinated and therefore ineffective response of the EU to the crises in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo was a serious embarrassment.
Thankfully, it would now seem that we are learning our lessons.
This week' s discussions at the General Affairs Council are to be warmly welcomed.
The intention to place the reinforcement of European security and defence policy high on the agenda of the Helsinki European Council is an appropriate one.
The positive approach of a traditionally neutral country such as Austria to these developments is to be applauded and I urge all other neutral Member States, including my own, to follow their lead.
Needless to say, I disagree with my Irish colleague, Mrs McKenna, because I believe that the establishment of an EU defence policy is as much an essential prerequisite of genuine European integration as the single currency.
If you subscribe to one, you should support the other.
Allied to these exciting developments is the emergence of a Franco-British proposal to establish a force of 40,000 by 2003 to cover all Petersberg Tasks on a permanent basis.
Before I welcome this proposal, I wish to see removed the ambiguity that has arisen in the wake of the remarks made by the British Defence Secretary, Geoffrey Hoon, namely is it a Franco-British force or an EU force?
If the EU is to act as one in the future then the force must be an EU one with components from all Member States who wish to participate, and operating on the initiative and under the political control of the EU.
I look forward to the Helsinki Council endorsing this vital principle and other elements which will strengthen the EU' s security and defence role.
Mr President, may I start by paying Mr Solana a huge compliment?
Since he has taken office, the second pillar has been a hive of activity.
The agenda is enormous.
In actual fact, all EU political issues are dominated by foreign affairs and the Finnish Presidency is certainly taking great strides forwards.
This is, in fact, worth two compliments if one considers the country' s historical neutrality.
I would like to discuss European security policy and put a number of issues before Mr Solana, a number of questions which he may not be able to deal with today but which should be given priority in future, to my mind.
First of all, I back the EU' s ambitions in this field.
The European security and defence identity should and shall emerge.
I will not enlarge upon the military aspect, the structure and the capacity required, but I would like to be informed of the extent of the so-called Petersberg Tasks because the answer to this question will determine a great deal. Does the Union focus on minor or major crises?
And if it focuses on minor crisis situations, what happens if a minor crisis escalates into a major one - because we all know that this is not unusual. According to the Washington Declaration, the European security and defence identity is open to all NATO countries.
How does this relate to the EU' s ambition to be able to take unilateral decisions?
What is to be done about the NATO countries which are not within the EU, namely Norway, Turkey and the three countries in Central and Eastern Europe? Many would like to know what will happen after your appointment as Secretary-General of the Western European Union.
How can the WEU be fully integrated into the EU and what will then happen with the infamous article 5? Although some people in the Netherlands would like to take over the British role when it comes to desperately hanging on to the Atlantic relationship, and I mean the former British role, this is surely not comparable with the issues at large in neutral, non-aligned EU Member States regarding the European security and defence identity.
I can respect this opinion.
But how can such respect be compatible with a progressive agenda when it comes to the European security and defence identity? I know from my own experience that a broader approach to security and making conflict prevention a priority can be helpful here.
The Union could make headway on this score by improving coordination between the first and second pillars.
I would like to finish off with a pertinent question.
I think that we all, but also you, the Council and the Commission, should be concerned about how Parliament can monitor the system which we are developing.
I would like to discuss within Parliament, but also with you, the way in which we could, from within this Parliament, but also from within national parliaments, better monitor the coming into being of the European security and defence identity and the further elaboration thereof.
First of all let me thank Mr Solana and Mr Patten for their statements.
It seems to me that in all this discussion of European security, two elements - defence capabilities and institutional arrangements - have been confused and one seems hostage to the other.
Of course we welcome any commitments by European states to modernise their armed forces in order to redress the present well-known deficiencies.
As Mr Solana knows from his previous appointment, many Allied states do not even fulfil their force commitments to NATO.
These issues are already being addressed by the Alliance as part of the defence capabilities initiative.
The British armed forces are world class but they have been desperately over-stretched over the past year.
I am not sure from where, therefore, the UK Government intends to find and sustain its contribution to some new European rapid deployment force that it has proposed, unless this is just smoke and mirrors, or at the expense of commitments to NATO.
I have to say that legitimate concerns about military capabilities are not resolved by the Europeanisation of defence, which responds to an essentially political agenda and is an aspect of the process of European political integration.
The danger is that there will be pressure for the EU to become the organisation of first resort when next there is a crisis to be dealt with and that NATO would increasingly be relegated to a purely residual role as a collective defence organisation.
NATO' s vitality and transatlantic solidarity will only be maintained if NATO remains closely and constantly engaged in current crisis management.
Of course, as the Europeans are not proposing any additional forces, the capacity for EU autonomous action refers primarily to the political decision-making process.
The key issue will be the interaction between the two centres of decision making, NATO and the EU, and the impact of this on the transatlantic relationship.
Can we really afford strategically or financially duplicated staffs and committees, the proliferation of Euro forces and the wastefulness and confusion of subjecting our armed forces to two separate operational doctrines and planning regimes? Encumbering the European Union with defence responsibilities will do little to encourage it to make more effective use of its valuable non-military crisis-management instruments, which could genuinely complement the military forces of NATO.
This is where the EU' s emphasis should be as Mr Patten has indicated.
Improved military capabilities within the well-tried structures of NATO, not institutional geometry in Euro headquarters, are what is needed.
The requirement, the objective is for greater security effectiveness with the Europeans and North Americans each contributing more proportionately.
Our armies should not be recruited to the process of political integration, dressed up in other clothes.
Kosovo showed us four things above all else.
Firstly, that the European Union is capable of maintaining a common front during a crisis.
Secondly, the excellent work of President Artisari shows that the EU can take decisive diplomatic action.
Thirdly, it also shows us that NATO works well, and indeed works best, when the United States is focused and gives clear leadership.
But also it shows that when that leadership is absent Europe has to be able to have the capacity to act to preserve the security of its own continent.
And, fourthly, it showed us that, despite the fact that we spend 70% of what the Americans spend on defence, we are almost entirely dependent on American equipment because we have something like 10% of their capacity.
And part of that reason of course is that much of our military is based on the cold war principles of static defence and not the modern principles of rapid reaction.
Unless we address that question then the whole issue of a Common Foreign and Security Policy and a European defence identity is no more than a day-dream.
So, I welcome what has been said today, but I do have some questions and, unusually for these sorts of debates, I would actually like some answers. Does Mr Solana agree with me that what we need primarily is a European defence review to assess our capacities?
Does he agree with me that conscription is incompatible with a modern mobile force?
Does he agree with me that we need to have a Council of Defence Ministers if we are to address these questions? And does he agree with me that we need to have convergence of defence expenditure by Member States?
He also addressed the question of non-EU NATO members. Is he saying, as I think he is, that Turkey is vital to the success of the European defence initiative and we should take that into account?
And to Mr Patten may I say I welcome what he said about armaments but will the Commission be following up its previous communications with decisive action in this field and does he agree with me that the Meteor Missile project is crucial to the future of a European defence industry?
I am sure Mr Solana will agree with me when I say that the current goals of those of us who have a greater or lesser responsibility with regard to the process of European integration far outweigh the most optimistic ambitions of the European leaders at the time, for example, when you presided over the General Affairs Council of the European Community.
And within this framework you have taken on the important task of personifying the joint effort to put in place a foreign and security policy which concerns us all.
As you reminded us the other day in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, you are at the other end of that telephone which Kissinger spoke of.
And please be assured that, in your task, you can count on the stimulus and support of this House and my group in particular.
I am convinced that you will not disappoint us.
Since I am confident that you will make every effort to ensure that our foreign policy will respond to balanced criteria, which will, without doubt, confirm that you give priority to the political and economic convergence of all those countries which, like Spain, almost 25 years ago, are moving from an autocratic regime to a liberal regime and that you will ensure that peace will always reign on European soil. I am also sure that you will guarantee our prominent role throughout the Mediterranean region, another priority both in economic and in security terms, and that we will effectively safeguard our interests in Latin America, for example by ensuring compliance with the commitment made with the United States Government with regard to the application of the Helms-Burton law.
I am surprised that Mr Solana did not mention it this morning, although I have no doubt whatsoever concerning his convictions in that regard.
In any event, we wish him every success in his work.
Mr Solana, we have recently witnessed a meeting between Castro and the Spanish leadership and we are all aware of the position of the United States of America.
I would also conjecture that a leader of a European country went to Belgrade to see Milosevic.
What would your comments be on these two events?
I am raising this issue not to make things difficult for you, because we do not carry out foreign policy based on conjecture, but to illustrate the context in which you should operate.
You must not walk on a tightrope because, as we all know, tightrope-walkers are doomed to fall one day.
There are two strategies before us.
The first is for preventing tension and the second is for managing tension and crises whenever they arise.
The latter involves a Europe which is politically absent but economically present; it is a strategy for simply monitoring crises, which leads nowhere.
The former is a strategy for Europe and for peace, security and economic development.
Fifty years on, we once again witnessed war on Europe' s doorstep with the recent crisis in Yugoslavia.
It was a mistake with indeterminable repercussions.
Now we are confronted with a new phase of developments and hostilities in the Caucasus region.
I believe that there is a golden opportunity for you now in the Caucasus to prove yourself as a true Prometheus and not an Epimetheus.
You are probably familiar with the Ancient Greek tragedies of Aeschylus and the story "Prometheus Bound" which took place in the Caucasus region where Zeus punished Prometheus and tied him up in chains as punishment for stealing fire from the thunderbolt and giving it to Man.
I hope, Mr Solana, that you will, in any case, be a Prometheus, both in the Caucasus and in your forthcoming term of office, as that will serve the interests of Europe, of democracy and of human rights.
Once again, I wish you every success.
Thank you very much, Mr Solana.
The debate is closed.
WTO Millennium Round
The next item is the report (A5-0062/1999) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: The EU Approach to the WTO Millennium Round (COM(1999) 331 - C5-0155/1999 - 1999/2149(COS)).
Mr President, Europe' s new role in the world will be conditioned by external and security policy, but also by the tensions between social, economic and political needs.
The world trade round is therefore exceptionally important in Europe speaking with a single voice in world trade negotiations so that social and environmentally-friendly growth can also gather pace through the contribution of world trade.
Since 1990 there has been a worldwide increase in mergers and also the market power of transnational concerns.
It is therefore very important that the Millennium Round creates multilateral rules against private restrictions in competition.
An international competition system must create minimum norms so as to prevent anti-competitive behaviour such as the forming of price and area cartels, the misuse of a market-dominant position or vertical and horizontal competitive restrictions which distort competition.
Part of these minimum norms must be the obligation for WTO Member States to bring their domestic competition law into line with multilateral agreements and minimum norms.
This means that the Millennium Round must not create a global cartel authority.
It must, however, subject domestic competition rules to monitoring.
It would be contrary to the rules of GATT, CFSP and WTO if free and fair world trade between states were valid, but not for private economic players.
Monopolies and cartels damage consumers and societies.
The Microsoft case in the USA clearly demonstrated this.
The increasing willingness for mergers between transnational companies and the impotence of the national state with regard to the formation of monopolies, oligopolies and cartels endanger the objectives of world trade to contribute to prosperity and peace worldwide.
Furthermore, it is also particularly important that we realise that the decrease in growth in the world economy is also linked to the instability of the international finance system, which is characterised by vast, rapid and worldwide financial transactions and which has detached itself from the real economy, yet still affects investments, growth and employment.
For this reason, the Millennium Round must contribute to coherence in the world economy between trade, economic, currency and financial policies.
Mr President, on behalf of the Legal Committee, for which I had the pleasure of being rapporteur, I would like to warmly welcome the rapporteur' s well-balanced resolution.
In my opinion, the rapporteur has succeeded in sending out three signals in the report: to our worldwide partners, a signal of the resolve of the European Union; to our people, a signal for a human face to globalisation; and to our citizens, a signal of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO process.
In this resolution, the Parliament is giving the Commission full backing for Seattle.
Our message to our partners is that we are solidly behind our negotiating leaders in Seattle - as solidly as the European Alps, I would say.
All the participants should be aware of this.
Our second signal is to the people who sceptically oppose globalisation.
We want to give the markets a worldwide framework as well.
We can and we desire to bring about globalisation.
The market system will keep pace with its global development and so we are following a liberal and antiprotectionist tendency.
The losers in globalisation or those who support it should know that they have an advocate.
Finally, we would like to state quite clearly that this Millennium Round also has a parliamentary dimension.
This is indispensable because it is no longer just about the reduction of tariffs and quotas; it is also about elementary matters such as social concern, environmental protection and fair competition.
We should also make this clear to the non-governmental organisations.
The place for political debate on the Millennium Round in Europe is the European Parliament.
The governments are not negotiating this with non-governmental organisations.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, if the Millennium Round and its opening is to be a success, then we must immediately address and pin down some basic problems.
These are of course areas - and I shall mention a few of them - determined by the Environment Committee where, in the past, we have found deficiencies, areas where there are loopholes, areas where we noticed snags and catches.
I will now mention a few of the most important of these areas which the Environment Committee has determined and which it considers to be important.
For example, as regards the precautionary principle, this must be clearly defined and we must have a definition as adopted at the Conference on the Environment and Development in Rio.
This precautionary principle must be anchored in the WTO rules and regulations in a legally binding manner.
Secondly, it must be possible to implement, for example, the Multilateral Environment Agreement without triggering conflicts with the WTO.
Thirdly, the issue of providing information to consumers on preparation and production methods, commonly referred to as PPMs, and the possibility for Member States to take non-discriminatory measures.
These issues must be included in the WTO negotiations.
Allow me to say something on the dispute settlement procedure.
The dispute settlement procedure, with which we have always had so many problems in the past, and many dispute procedures which we did have concerned the areas of environmental policy, consumer protection and animal protection, must become more transparent.
It must ensure that scientific expertise is independent and unambiguous and then it must also be recognised.
It must not be the case, as with hormones, that the European Union is able to provide scientific expertise on the danger of hormones whilst we are obliged to pay compensation.
Such situations must not be repeated in the future.
I have only mentioned a few of the most important points which my colleagues designate time and again as being important, because everyone will keep saying that in the World Trade Organisation environmental issues and consumer protection issues must be cited as a central theme.
I would like to thank the rapporteurs and my colleagues in the Industry Committee, and this does not go without saying and is not always the case, for incorporating many of the points which were determined in the Environment Committee in the final report, for including them in the amendments of the rapporteur and in the compromise amendments so that much of what the Environment Committee considers important for Seattle has been taken up in the report of Mr Schwaiger.
Mr Lamy, I therefore now ask you and the Commission to take up these points which I have mentioned here, and also more comprehensive points, to cement these basic points in the opening round and to ensure that in the Millennium Round in the coming years we can further develop them so that the World Trade Organisation is what we would like it to be - a social, just, environmentally-friendly trade organisation which allows us to conduct trade whilst allowing our people and our environment to exist.
Mr President, the experience of implementing the current WTO agreement for five years and the conflicts and disputes that it has created between countries shows that free and fair trade cannot be confined to straightforward issues of price ratios, subsidies and tariffs.
For this reason, I would like to highlight four points for the forthcoming negotiations.
Firstly, we must preserve the European farm model, which authorises precisely the plurality of functions that agriculture performs for society and which would be threatened if excessive liberalisation of the food processing industry were to take place.
Secondly, we must establish a set of rules which are common to everyone with regard to areas currently not covered or insufficiently covered by the Marrakech Agreement, examples of which are health and hygiene standards, the effects on the environment and on health caused by certain methods of intensive production and the respect for consumers' feelings.
Thirdly, we must ensure that the designations of origin of the Community' s traditional products are respected so that we do not see more of the real piracy that is taking place with impunity with regard to Community brand names, as is happening in South Africa, as a matter of fact, with regard to Port, Sherry, Ouzo and Grappa.
As far as this is concerned, I think that the decision taken on Monday 15 November by the Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs constitutes a dangerous retreat and a dangerous act of hesitation in view of the negotiations that are about to take place.
Fourthly, we need to ensure that all subsidies allocated to the agricultural policies' different objectives are classified according to the same criteria.
A scenario that must not be repeated, for example, is the classification of European export restrictions as yellow box, as a result of which, they have to be reduced in six years, whereas American export credits, which are exactly the same, are not subjected to any restrictions at all.
To conclude, it is important to mention the fact that the Europeans have, for a while, been taking a more offensive stand in the negotiations on the WTO' s agricultural project.
Firstly, because we have implemented two major reforms in the space of seven years - a huge effort - and secondly, because unlike the sacrifices European farmers have been forced to make, the United States of America has increased its subsidies by USD 15 billion in the last two years in blatant contradiction of the line of arrogant propaganda that they are currently taking against the CAP.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Schwaiger for producing an extremely complex report and, in particular, Erica Mann, also for coordinating much of the work in producing amendments to the report.
The Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport takes the view that as regards Seattle we need a holistic approach to audiovisual services.
In Europe, the audiovisual services involve the cultural industries and also have a huge impact on our economy.
Our cultural industries have nevertheless been seen, as I said last month, as an addendum to many of the serious trade issues that are going to be discussed at Seattle.
However, I think that we must grasp the nettle and acknowledge that cultural industries are no longer an addendum to these discussions.
They will in fact occupy a pivotal position, a pivotal role in the world economy and as such should be treated as a driver of the economy rather than as an afterthought.
Now given this, the Committee on Culture thinks it is particularly important that the structural framework in which we now operate should be seriously examined.
It is important nevertheless, given some of the incapacities and deficiencies that exist in the world market, that we maintain the position adopted at the Uruguay Round. This is in order to give us an even playing field across the world market, in terms of the cultural industry.
While we maintain that it is important to look at the intermediate and the long term and to look at the way in which the networks are now impacting across different sectors, the complexity of these networks means that we also need to look at new instruments to deal with the global economy insofar as the structural industries are concerned.
Mr President, as a farmer I declare an interest.
I join in the praise for the rapporteur, Mr Schwaiger, who has put much work into this excellent report.
As draftsman for the Committee on Development and Cooperation, my interest is naturally on the effect a new WTO round will have on developing nations.
A week ago I was convinced that, with hard bargaining, there was some hope a deal could be struck to give a fair balance between providing reasonable protection to the EU industries and agriculture on the one hand and market access for developing countries' goods on the other.
Now that an agreement has been reached between the USA and China, I wonder what chance small nations like Lesotho or Swaziland have in a globalised free trade market.
Only strong regional cooperation will give them a chance of survival.
This round on liberalisation of trade takes place at a time when the gap between developed and less-developed countries is continuing to grow.
In fact, for large numbers of people in the least-developed countries, there are no benefits.
The agenda of the Millennium Round comprises only agriculture and services, but the Commission rightly wants a much more comprehensive round.
As far as agriculture is concerned, the EU will be unable to avoid further concessions in market access.
The EU cannot pay compensation to its agricultural producers and at the same time block market access for third countries.
But, in return, the developing countries must improve their core environmental standards and accept that this is not yet another form of protectionism.
The Development Committee wants to see WTO rules that do not hamper eco-labelling schemes and green public purchasing.
It also calls for a joint standing working party on trade, globalisation and labour issues to be set up by the ILO and the WTO.
It calls for an in-depth revision of the TRIPS Agreement and stresses that the patenting of life must definitely be excluded from the TRIPS Agreement.
It wants to see animal welfare included in discussions.
The EU must not be bullied by the USA into accepting an agreement that is detrimental to the developing world.
US domination of the WTO must end.
Mr President, I am very pleased that, as Mr Schwaiger' s report shows, there is broad consensus among us in the Union on the aims of the forthcoming WTO round.
We want a broadly based round, increased liberalisation of world trade and, in particular, strengthening of the rule-based system.
We want to take the interests of developing countries into account and pay special attention to environmental issues and the fundamental rights of workers.
It is also very important for the Commission and the Council to have the support of Parliament for these aims.
I would also like to say here that the Commission and Mr Lamy have done much excellent work to prepare us for the WTO round.
However, in this connection, I do think that it would be most appropriate to attempt to offer a brief explanation on the current situation in Geneva.
The actual drafting of the ministerial decision for Seattle has at last got under way.
The various sections of the decision are being examined daily in Geneva.
Each subject is discussed at the Directors' meeting chaired by Mr Mchumo, Chairman of the WTO General Council, and at the restricted 'green room' meetings chaired by Director-General Moore.
To speed up the preparations, meetings of technical experts have also begun.
The EU, under the leadership of the Commission, for its part, has had talks in a smaller group which has produced texts as alternatives to the main points in the ministerial decision.
This is a decisive time for the preparations. There are twelve days left until the commencement of the Seattle meeting.
We only have until Friday or the weekend to work on the decision.
The aim is to have a Seattle draft decision with as few points as possible in parentheses or open for discussion.
It is to be supposed, however, that many decisions will remain to be taken at the Ministerial Conference itself.
No significant breakthroughs have yet been made regarding the wording of the decision.
The Ministerial Conference at Lausanne and the meeting between Mr Clinton and Mr Prodi a couple of weeks ago did not provide the political impetus for the preparations that was hoped for.
It must be admitted that, although in general a crisis is needed in trade talks before any significant breakthroughs are achieved, the situation in Geneva is, at present, more difficult than anticipated.
I must say that I am genuinely concerned about the situation as it is at present.
There are still very great differences of opinion regarding the main question: the overall extent of the round.
The EU and ten or so other WTO members are still very much alone in their call for a broadly based round of talks.
Most of the WTO members seem to be satisfied with a more condensed agenda, to include, in addition to issues of agriculture and services, access to the markets for industrial products, and one or two other matters.
Agriculture will be the most difficult area in the talks, and the one that is most likely to end in deadlock.
The Cairns countries and the USA are calling on the EU to show greater flexibility in agriculture for them to agree to a mandate for a broadly based round.
To make headway in the debate on this subject we require flexibility on all sides - including ourselves in the Union.
The second matter that has proved a difficult area of negotiation concerns the implementation of the agreements made at the Uruguay round.
There would seem to be even greater consensus among the WTO members that the proposals on implementation should be divided, on the one hand, into those questions that can be resolved at Seattle and, on the other, those for which a post-Seattle agenda is necessary.
At present the broadest consensus would appear to be on the issue of least developed countries.
Likewise, consensus among the Member States is growing in the areas of trade in services and intellectual property.
Regarding the so-called new subject areas, the negotiation position is still completely open.
There has been an attempt not to totally exclude talks on investment and competition, but instead the working parties set up should, by the next meeting of ministers, determine what opportunities there will be to discuss these subjects.
New subjects would not, however, be included in the negotiations package.
The EU' s proposal for standards for working life did not receive the backing of the WTO members in the General Council.
Only the USA supported it.
A good number of the members want to keep to the decisions of the meeting of ministers at Singapore.
It remains to be seen how the issue at Geneva will progress, and what sort of decision, if any, can be expected at Seattle.
The EU has not finally made up its mind whether to include workers' standards in the decision or in a separate decision at Seattle.
We shall continue with our efforts to convince developing countries in this matter.
Something of key importance to the success of the preparations is how the EU and the USA can achieve better mutual understanding with regard to each other' s goals.
As I have already said, the meeting a couple of weeks ago between Mr Prodi and Mr Clinton cannot be regarded as a breakthrough, although it did show a desire on both sides to try and reach solutions.
What was important for the Union was the wording of the common declaration whereby agriculture and services alone will not guarantee the success of the round.
The work being done at Geneva thus continues at breakneck speed. The EU is still pressing ahead with a broadly based agenda.
Bargaining over aims and goals in all matters we shall leave for Seattle.
It is important that we maintain communications with the other parties - in particular, the United States.
The country to hold the Presidency and the Member States support the work of the Commission to enhance the Geneva process.
Mr President, on Monday the General Affairs Council adopted the short, separate conclusions concerning preparations by the Ministerial Conference.
In the Council, ministers expressed their concerns regarding the state of the Geneva talks and urged the Commission to continue with its efforts to ensure that there is a broadly based round.
In the conclusions of the Council there is a reference to the WTO conclusions adopted on 26 October and a reiteration of support for our aim to have a broadly based round.
Only a broadly based round will guarantee a fair outcome for all members.
In addition, the Council stressed the need to be open to the proposals of other countries, especially those from developing countries.
The Member States also gave their support to the Commission in the last-minute preparations.
Mr President, on behalf of the Liberal Group I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Schwaiger, on his outstanding efforts in forging a broad cross-party approach to this hugely important issue, which will have consequences for us all for many years to come.
The ELDR remains unambiguously supportive of further trade liberalisation, of the strengthening of the multilateral trade system and of a broadly based negotiation covering a wide range of existing and new trade matters.
Our hope is that this report, when adopted by Parliament tomorrow, will serve as a clear signal of our political backing for a comprehensive round at a crucial stage in the preparations for Seattle.
This Parliament also has a central role in allaying legitimate public fears about the consequences of globalisation.
In some quarters a misplaced view has arisen that the WTO is a malign agent for all the negative effects of globalisation.
In truth, without the WTO we would be unable to construct the global legal and regulatory architecture which is indispensable to any coherent political response to globalisation.
Without the WTO the law of the jungle and the power of might over right would prevail - hardly an outcome the critics of the WTO would welcome.
For these reasons we have been active in tabling a series of amendments to the report, pushing for the development of new WTO rules in areas such as the environment, now directly affected by international trade policy.
We have supported all efforts to strengthen the place of developing countries in the world trade system, not least by underlining the inescapable need for continued reform of the EU' s common agricultural policy.
We have also pushed, and will continue to do so, to ensure the WTO is more transparent and the European Commission more accountable to the European Parliament in the conduct of trade policy.
This must include, as a minimum, an automatic Parliamentary right to subject any WTO deal to assent and much greater access to the negotiating briefs discussed within the Council.
At the same time the ELDR has resisted all attempts to burden this report with a shopping list of sector-specific requests.
That is why tomorrow we will vote against those sections of the report which call for exceptional treatment for particular sectors.
We must accept the consequences of our support for a comprehensive trade round.
Comprehensive means all-encompassing; it does not mean riddled with exceptions.
Finally, a word on China.
Late on Sunday night a bilateral deal was struck between the US and China on China' s accession to the WTO.
China' s entry into the WTO will, arguably, have as far-reaching an effect as anything which will take place in Seattle.
It is impossible to separate the question of China' s accession to the WTO from our wider consideration of the EU' s position in Seattle.
The EU is in a delicate position as the last major WTO player not to have concluded a deal with China.
An optimistic interpretation would suggest that Europe is now in a strong position to exploit and build on the concessions already secured from China by Washington.
However, the fact that European Commission negotiating officials were reported a mere week before the US deal as discounting the likelihood of Chinese accession any time soon may suggest that the European Union has not been negotiating as convincingly as might be hoped.
There is clearly a risk that Europe will now be forced into a corner in the talks with China.
The ELDR has always strongly supported Chinese accession to the WTO but not at the cost of legitimate European interests, which do not always converge with American commercial interests.
I therefore call on the Commission to give an urgent account of the Chinese accession talks to Parliament, and particularly as to how they may affect our preparations for Seattle, so that Parliament can vote tomorrow on Mr Schwaiger' s report in full command of all the relevant facts.
With these important caveats in mind, I would like to confirm the ELDR' s broad support for Mr Schwaiger' s work and reiterate our warm thanks to him.
Mr President, in his introduction Mr Schwaiger says that the goal of the World Trade Organisation is free trade.
But trade is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end.
That end must be sustainable development.
So even if the volume of world trade has increased 17-fold, what use is that unless it benefits poor people and promotes sustainable development?
The uncomfortable truth is that there are losers as well as winners from international trade.
Many of the losers are poor people who find their land taken away from them by large commercial firms or their livelihoods destroyed by new and often unfair competition from cheaper imports.
That is why our Group believes that before we rush headlong into yet more trade rounds in Seattle we first need a comprehensive impact assessment of the social and environmental effects of the liberalisation that has already taken place as a result of the last Uruguay Round of trade negotiations.
We also need much bolder action to ensure poor people genuinely benefit from world trade.
Frankly, that is where this report is still inadequate.
We need tariff-free access for least-developed countries, not only for virtually all products - that is a phrase that leaves a giant loophole for the EU to continue protecting its own agriculture - but for all products from those countries.
We need an end to the hugely damaging dumping of subsidised agricultural exports on developing country markets.
We need industrialised countries to make legally binding their commitments to give special and differential treatment to poorer countries.
But, above all, when we see evidence that world trade rules are destroying poor people' s livelihoods or damaging the environment we need to change the rules.
Let me say very clearly that free trade is not the same as fair trade.
Nothing demonstrates that more clearly than the case of the Caribbean banana farmers, some of the most vulnerable producers in the world, whose access to the EU markets has now been ruled against WTO rules, as a result of which they face a devastation of their livelihoods.
So, I repeat, if world trade rules are destroying people' s livelihoods and damaging the environment or animal welfare we need to change the rules.
Mr President, we are all aware that in Seattle the stakes are high and of exceptional importance for the lives of the world' s citizens.
It is not a question of technical matters that might concern groups of specialists from ministries of foreign trade.
This is also evident from the fervour of the debate underway in Parliament, although it is still weak in decision-making power, but there have been new events in recent years that are taking supremacy away from the specialists.
In Seattle, at the same time as the governmental meeting, thousands of NGOs will meet, thousands of men and women from civil society who are calling urgently for the WTO not to become one of the seats of that global government, based on the growth and supremacy of the most unbridled free trade, which does not take into account the growing poverty of the population of the least industrialised and weakest countries, the destruction of the environment, the protection of natural and human resources or the differences and diversities within each country, all in the name of globalisation, which is continuing to create wealth for a few and poverty for many.
It is an exceptional fact of democracy that thousands of men and women have debated together and demonstrated in favour of a different kind of economy, directly linked to daily life and democracy, because the fact that 134 governments are members of the WTO does not in itself guarantee transparency or democracy in decision-making processes because, over and above formal statutes, what really exists is the contractual power exercised by the strongest governments and multinationals.
Because of these fundamental considerations, we do not agree with the Schwaiger report, although we acknowledge his thoroughness.
We would like the European Parliament to adopt a clear, firm stand to the effect that the right to dignity, health, a home, freedom and the elimination of poverty is more important than free trade and profits.
With regard to the United States' frantic rush to defend its own interests, we of course recognise that Europe is maintaining a position concerned with the defence of more human traditions, but we do not feel this is enough: it is not enough to state high-sounding principles - we must put them into practice.
Many things in the Schwaiger report are positive: the defence of our agriculture, cultural diversity and more besides, but I will limit myself, because of time restrictions, to only mentioning some of the fundamental issues.
The issue of agreements on intellectual property rights is very important. We agree with the NGOs and many countries which have suffered through these agreements that there should be a moratorium to renegotiate them.
Just think of India, whose legislation does not provide for copyright on medicines or foodstuffs; yet India produces herbs that are used by multinationals and ourselves to treat illnesses; or Mandela' s South Africa, where, in retaliation for his attempt to make treatment for AIDS victims more accessible, the WTO imposed a withdrawal of cheaper medicines.
We support the south African countries' request not to negotiate whether plants and animals or human cells can be genetically modified and patented, which would take money from the weak and make multinationals bigger.
We also consider the precautionary principle and the principle of food safety fundamental, because we do not want to be overrun with genetically modified food, and we therefore think it necessary to reverse the burden of proof and we consider that the experts must really be independent of the interests of governments or multinationals.
We want to safeguard workers' rights, the right to strike, and apply codes of conduct that this Parliament...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, if the Commission had not already accustomed us to this sort of vagueness conducive to the extension of its own power, the Schwaiger report would plunge us into a sea of confusion.
Of course, the thinking displayed by the Commission and taken up in the report offers no grounds for concern.
There, one can detect only extremely virtuous motives, as on every occasion when general principles and noble ideas are being aired.
However, it is the overzealousness which is demonstrated, and which the Schwaiger report faithfully echoes, which prompts legitimate suspicions, especially if we choose to recall that these same principles have only recently been flouted in connection with bananas, GMOs and hormone-treated beef, on which the European Union, represented by the Commission, suffered a defeat which came about so quickly as to pass unnoticed.
Given this recent precedent, and pending a proper assessment of the previous round, we thought it prudent to wait before throwing ourselves headlong into negotiations whose value still remains to be proven and where the rules of the game are apparently not the same for the European Union and for our main partner and competitor, the United States.
But if the Commission is eager to commit the European Union to these negotiations, it is because, once committed, the Member States cease to be free agents.
The Commission is claiming their support on the grounds that they have already exercised their sovereign prerogatives during the preliminary negotiations.
What is the truth of the matter? The Commission has been granted a mandate which is already the result of an intergovernmental compromise.
Yet it must be able to negotiate, and thus make concessions on that basis. How can agreements be reached?
Is there a list of no-go areas and another of designated victims? If the Commission' s wishes are granted, the WTO' s remit will embrace practically all human activities and will create a world in which everything is an item of merchandise, including our public services and our culture.
Can we seriously ignore the fact that the specific characteristics of our education, public health or welfare systems would not survive this?
If the plan described here cannot be modified now or in future, what strategy is the Commission going to adopt? President Clinton' s Trade Representative, Mrs Barshefsky, who successfully fought Washington' s battles on bananas, GMOs and American beef, has sought the help of the American business community, which has provided her with a 31-page document detailing the desiderata of their industries.
Do we have anything similar to set against this? We believe that only the Member States are in a position to frame appropriate policies which would properly safeguard our interests in this area.
Mr President, we find the report by our fellow Member, Mr Schwaiger, regarding the WTO Millennium Round, completely satisfactory, since it goes in the direction of respect for differences, be they cultural or economic.
I wish to congratulate him on this considerable work on a subject as complex and polemical as the WTO.
In this Chamber we have already clearly expressed our concerns and reservations with regard to this new round of negotiations.
I am, however, pleased that French demands regarding cultural diversity and social standards have been taken into account.
Like the rapporteur, we share the concern of defending the specificity of the pluralist European farm model, based on family farms, which are often subjected to significant geographical and environmental constraints.
In the face of globalisation, it is essential to take account of these differences which considerably change the rules of the economic game, with drastic consequences in social terms.
The urgent need to establish a more democratic negotiating system, operating in a more transparent way, seems justified, in my view.
It is indeed essential for parliaments to be involved in on-going consultation, with real respect for the procedures.
We are indeed very concerned about the Council and the Commission' s remarkable capacity to withhold information.
I also deplore the fact that the recommendations made to the Commission regarding small and medium-sized enterprises were limited to customs duties.
All procedures for these small and medium-sized enterprises should be simplified, since these are the only businesses capable of creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Finally, I appreciate the fact that Mr Schwaiger stressed the precautionary principle, in order to integrate environmental policies into trade policies, and I share his concern regarding the risks of a putative eco-protectionism which has nothing to do with the protection of citizens' health.
Mr President, Mr Schwaiger, I would like to thank your for dealing with this complex matter so thoroughly and for seeking to forge a path towards a broad consensus.
It makes no sense in this WTO Round to negotiate according to the motto "I might not know where I' m going, but I' ll be the first to get there!" .
It is about citizens profiting in the long term from the globalisation and liberalisation of trade.
It is therefore a personal concern of mine that the outcome of the negotiations should be understood and accepted by the people.
In Europe today we have extremely high standards, both with regard to environmental and consumer protection and to social protection of workers.
During the course of the forthcoming negotiations, these must not be dismantled, nor undermined.
Our trade partners must be persuaded of the importance of these matters.
I support the call to apply the precautionary principle and sustainability in all sectors.
In the agricultural sector specifically, the results of Berlin must be the absolute lower limit in the negotiations since the situation of small rural family enterprises and of farmers in difficult geographical areas should not be disregarded.
In the matter of social standards we cannot afford any shipwreck.
I am therefore pragmatic.
I am concerned that in reality the contents of the 1998 ILO Conference will crop up.
We should not make the mistake of alarming our negotiating partners with such massive demands.
I therefore advocate the institutionalisation of the cooperation of the WTO and the ILO.
Liberalisation has clearly had positive effects.
However, it cannot be the case that at the end of the day the rich get richer and the poor get poorer!
In this negotiating round Europe must truly speak with a single voice if we wish to assert ourselves against the USA.
However, this voice must not just be the position of the powerful or of a few globalisation fanatics, but must represent the interests of the small and medium-sized companies which form the backbone of our economic strength.
Vote
Mr President, I have asked for the floor to remind you once more that, since the start of this parliamentary term, the Radical Members have not been taking part either in the votes in the House or in the committees: this is to draw the attention of the Presidency and the Members to the fact that some of the Members are denied the chance to contribute to parliamentary life on the same grounds and by the same means as the other Members.
The indifference with which the Presidency and the Members have been listening, for around four months, to our protest and have been passively accepting the situation is a clear sign of the contradiction between their convictions and democratic practice.
Mr President, once again I support what Mr Turco just said.
I, too, as a member of the Italian Social Movement, am on strike, and will therefore not be taking part in any of the votes.
Yesterday I announced that I will be abstaining from voting for the whole session - and you can read this in the verbatim report of yesterday' s sitting - and this is for the reasons that Mr Turco has explained so lucidly.
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0056/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council Decision adopting a programme of Community action (the Daphne Programme) (2000-2003) on preventive measures to fight violence against children, young persons and women (9150/1/1999 - C5-0181/1999 - 1998/0192(COD)) (rapporteur: Mrs Avilés Perea)
Before proceeding to the votes, in accordance with Rule 80(5) of the Rules of Procedure, I would ask the Commission to clarify its position regarding the amendments.
Mr President, I would like to raise three issues with regard to this report.
Firstly, I have been given a voting list on which Amendment No 9 is not identified as an amendment by the Committee on Budgets.
I would like this mistake to be rectified, at least on the voting list that has been attributed to my political group.
Secondly, there is an Amendment No 31 that only existed in the German version until yesterday afternoon, and the Portuguese and English language versions contradict each other.
The Portuguese version talks of the GNP whereas the English version talks about the GDP.
These are two completely different financial concepts which have completely different financial consequences.
I have no idea what this amendment means.
Thirdly, I would like the Bureau to explain to me why it intends to proceed to a vote on Amendment No 31 when Amendment No 9 is established in our Rules of Procedure, Rule 130(2); in other words, why this amendment is moving further away from the original.
As for your first question, Mr Casaca, I must tell you that Amendment No 9 is a Commission amendment: it appears on the ballot paper and in the correct way.
The base text is in German. The reference text, which we are voting on, is the German one.
As for Amendment No 31, it is a compromise amendment tabled by the rapporteur, and therefore must be voted on first.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, on a point of order, I should like your clarification that when you are looking around the Chamber and judging how many people vote for or against, you are not taking into account any political preference.
I am sure you are not, but I would hate my British Socialist colleagues to be embarrassed by the way they have just voted, in some cases against the UK budget rebate.
Mr President, in my opinion, it was very important for the European Parliament and the Council to reach a decision on the Daphne programme for 2000-2003.
To guarantee compliance with the common Treaty we should take a positive view of this kind of project.
In order to achieve a high level of health we must attend to physical, mental and social needs.
Violence against women and domestic violence are multidimensional problems, which have serious and wide-ranging effects on health.
This is not only about violations of human rights, but about barriers to equality and development.
The fear of violence and harassment is a hindrance to children, young people and women, making it difficult for them to participate fully in normal social life.
Violence is also responsible for considerable economic, social and health costs to individuals, Member States and the whole Community.
We must also remember that yesterday, in this House, an agreement on the rights of children was discussed.
This agreement, too, emphasises a child' s right to a safe life and the recognition of his or her human dignity.
In my country, Finland, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health has launched a project for 1998 - 2002 to prevent violence against women; the endorsement of the Daphne programme was very important also from this standpoint.
The project will focus on violence against women, a reinforcement of the attitudes towards violence, a reduction in the level of violence as well as the development and enhancement of services for victims and the perpetrators of violence.
One way to achieve these goals is to develop international cooperation, relying on an exchange of good working methods and experience, and on networking, especially within the EU.
Weeding out violence will only be possible through continued efforts.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today been delighted to vote in favour of Mrs Avilés Perea' s report on the Daphne programme.
Violence is an infringement of fundamental human rights, which we should oppose.
Efforts to combat violence against children, young people and women ought to have a high priority in our work.
It is an important political signal we are here today to send out.
- (FR) The European Parliament and, more particularly, the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, whose work I wish to acknowledge, have played a primordial role in raising awareness about violence against women and children on the European scale.
This scourge of society, alas, takes different forms.
It goes from prostitution, the trafficking of women and children, which is revolting to most citizens, to domestic violence, a phenomenon which is tolerated or ignored since it occurs within the private sphere!
A great many initiatives have been undertaken already in this field, resulting in creating an increase in collective awareness on the subject.
This favourable background must be exploited and actions must be increased in order to finally eliminate all these forms of violence.
The Daphne programme bears witness to this desire to tackle the problem in a coordinated fashion at Member States level, while integrating candidate countries.
It represents an essential tool in the fight against violence of this type.
While there is general agreement in acknowledging that violence against women transcends all national barriers without distinction as to class, culture and/or age, there is nonetheless no structured mechanism which makes it possible to gain an objective idea of the extent of the problem within the European Union.
Indeed, the systematic recording of acts of violence against women is a very recent phenomenon in some countries, whereas in others there is no systematic record at all.
However, the medium-term action programme will no doubt prove extremely useful to decision makers and will feed into political decisions and practices in this field.
This programme will have the goal of reinforcing the scope of local, regional and national actions by establishing networks, information exchange, best practice and cooperation, and by increasing public awareness.
The Council has included more than half of our amendments in its common position.
We should be pleased with this.
The Council' s text in fact makes reference to health in its physical, mental and social aspects and to quality of life, as well as to violence as an infringement of human rights.
It is explicitly stipulated that victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation shall be covered by the programme.
We must, certainly, deplore the fact that the duration of the programme has been reduced to four years instead of five, as envisaged originally.
The budget allocated (EUR 20 million) is also insufficient to tackle a problem as far-reaching as this.
In spite of these reservations, I shall today be voting in favour of the compromise text proposed by the Council.
If we wish to eradicate the phenomenon of violence which blights our society, we must make a firm commitment right now.
The implementation of this programme must not be delayed further.
- Madam President, I, of course, welcome the introduction of the new EU Daphne Programme.
This Daphne Programme will be put in place for the period 2000-2004.
Its primary function relates to the introduction of measures to combat violence against children, young persons and women.
This commands the overwhelming support of non-governmental organisations and women' s groups within the European Union.
Total funding will amount to £20 million and this will be allocated in two principal areas - the exchange of information and cooperation at Community level and the raising of public awareness.
The Daphne Programme will aim to promote information campaigns on potential risks of violence and ways of avoiding them, encourage pilot projects and innovative measures and help to create a Community information source to assist NGOs.
I support this programme because of its social values.
However, rehabilitation programmes for children, young people and women must be an intrinsic part of this new initiative.
On a broader level, I support the debate taking place today on the need to promote equality in our society.
It is important in the context of the next round of EU Structural Funds 2000-2006 that measures under the various EU programmes be screened so as to guarantee that they comply with all national and EU legislation in the field of equal opportunities.
The enactment of the Amsterdam Treaty on 1 May this year also substantially strengthens the legal basis for Community action in favour of the equality between men and women.
Equality between men and women is also at the heart of new European Employment Policies.
The European Commission, of course, analyses very carefully all action plans on employment which are forwarded to us on an annual basis by the EU Member States so as to ensure that comprehensive and streamlined measures to promote equality in our society are supported.
- (FR) This Daphne programme is one which we, all of us, wished for, we, the Members of the European Parliament, but also all the organisations, both non-governmental and other types of organisations, and associations working in the delicate area of violence against children, young people and women.
The Council has curtailed the duration of the programme - 4 years instead of the 5 originally envisaged, but the budgetary allocation remains the same.
The rapporteur did an excellent job of negotiating with the Council, with the outcome that our three key amendments were accepted both by the Commission and by the Council.
These amendments primarily concern the necessary reference to the concept of the physical and emotional integrity of the individual and thus to the concept of dignity, such that inflicting physical, sexual or psychological violence is tantamount to depriving that person of their human rights. Secondly, the definition of "public health" , as defined by the WHO, i.e. not only the absence of disease or infirmity, but a state of physical, mental and social well being is taken up in the report.
Thirdly, the encouragement to be given to organisations and associations in general working in this sector is stressed. Fourthly, last but not least, reference is made to public and media information and awareness on these painful social matters.
There are, then, great expectations, and it is imperative for our House to vote on this matter and, according to the rules of codecision, we must mobilise the 314 votes necessary for the Daphne programme to be adopted.
This is why I can do no more than urge you to vote in favour of this report, unanimously, to avoid further procedural delays (conciliation), and to enable it to come into force in January 2000.
. (PT) It is well known that in the European Union, there are still high levels of violence against children, young people and women, which is a violation of their rights to life, to security, to freedom, to dignity and to physical and mental well-being, as well as a serious threat to the physical and mental health of the victims of violence.
It is therefore very important that this report has been adopted and our only regret is about the ups and downs throughout the process that have led to its delay, given that it follows the Beijing Conference of 1995.
We hope that the Daphne 2000-2003 Community action programme will at last be adopted and implemented so that we can support measures designed to prevent violence being perpetrated against children, young people and women.
Nevertheless, it is regrettable that the budgetary funds that have been set aside for this are so low.
We hope that they will soon be increased given the gravity of the situation and the fact that there is a vital need to contribute to reducing the suffering that violence continues to cause.
Haug report (A5-0052/1999)
Mr President, Mrs Haug' s report on the European Union' s system of own resources seems rather contradictory to us, and that is why we are opposed to it.
On the one hand, it declares excellent principles of economy, particularly the idea that the Union' s own resources must be limited to 1.27% of the GNPs of the Member States, a ceiling which the Commission proposal rightly sought to circumvent surreptitiously.
This position is perhaps due to the rapporteur' s German nationality and the special situation of Germany but, in any case, she is right on this point and we support her on this.
On the other hand, however, the self-same rapporteur contradicts her own desire for economy by calling, on the lines of the Berlin Council of March 1999, for the creation of new autonomous own resources, i.e. to put it plainly, European taxes.
I recall that the Pasqua-de Villiers list, on which I stood as a candidate, deplored the Berlin conclusions during the election campaign, but that our rivals managed to cover it up.
Thus, according to the Berlin Council, and today according to the Haug report, the resources of the European budget should henceforth be made up totally or partially not of State contributions but of direct taxes levied on citizens.
At the same time, we must expect the power of decision regarding these taxes to be passed quickly from the Council to the European Parliament.
This development would be in contradiction to our vision of a Union which is an association of states, to which the Members freely pay annual contributions.
But this is not just a matter of institutional philosophy, it is a practical matter, too.
Every year we are witness to confrontation over the budget because the Council seeks to resist the extravagant overbidding of the Commission, often with the support of Parliament.
If we create a European tax, the Council will gradually lose its capacity to resist, and we shall be giving the crucial advantage to those institutions which push to increase the budget.
I must therefore appeal to our German friends. Please understand that, in arguing in favour of a European tax, in the long term you are betraying that very desire for economy which you defend so ferociously in the short term.
And since I heard it said in the debate, by Mr Bourlanges, that the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference was to decide upon the creation of a European tax, I would say, on the other hand, on behalf of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group, that if the IGC is to discuss this matter, it must decide upon the creation of a system that is clear, transparent, fair and, above all, closely supervised by national democracies, by which I mean an annual contribution from Member States based on a percentage of their GNP, which is identical for all Member States.
- (SV) We are voting against Amendment No 6 but for Mrs Haug' s report as a whole because we think that the way in which the EU' s own resources are constructed ought to be reformed.
We agree that we ought to have a more direct link between the European Union and its citizens when it comes to financing the EU' s budget and that we ought to be increasing the Union' s economic independence step by step.
In view of the lack of confidence in the European Union, as evidenced by, among other things, the low turnout at the election, and in view of the importance of preserving the EU' s character as a union both of citizens and of Member States, we consider that it would be wrong to aim now for a financially autonomous EU or one which is totally independent of contributions from the Member States.
Nor do we consider that the financing of the EU should lead to an increased burden for tax payers.
- (SV) The EU will be faced with having to make very large financial investments when, in different rounds, ten or more countries from Eastern and Central Europe and from the Baltic region become members.
Against this background, there is occasion for discussing the EU' s financial requirements if this process is to be managed successfully.
At present, the EU is not entitled to raise taxes itself, nor, as we see it, should it be entitled to do so in the future either.
The Haug report does not involve our automatically introducing taxation by the EU, but it opens the door for taxation of this kind, which is bad enough.
How, then, is the enlargement of the EU to be financed? Yes, the alternative to new income from taxation is still that of reduced costs.
This will involve better prioritising and concentrating on the major and crucial questions.
The enlargement of the EU is one such priority.
As long as almost half the EU' s budget goes on subsidising agriculture and as long as five sixths of it, including the structural funds, goes on subsidies of one kind or another, there can be no doubt that changes still need to be made.
We have voted against the Haug report.
We see the report in terms of a desire on the part of the Committee on Budgets to furnish the European Union with its own right of taxation. This is in conflict with the general opinion prevalent within the EU and runs counter to the will of the Member States.
We understand this as another attempt by the European Parliament, characterised as it is by federalist sentiment, to take further powers away from the Member States.
In connection with Agenda 2000 and in the course of the Berlin Summit, the EU had the chance to implement a reform which would have distributed the financial burdens properly and fairly.
However, this chance was missed by the EU, which did not wish to carry out adequate and thorough reforms of agricultural policy and of the contributions to the structural funds. These are a burden upon most of the expenditure under the EU' s budget.
To introduce "autonomous own resources" as the Committee on Budgets wishes to, would also require the EU to establish its own tax administration.
This week, the Court of Auditors has reported that at least 40 billion disappeared from the budget last year.
In light of this, it appears extraordinarily provocative to propose that the EU be given its own right of taxation.
- (SV) The enlargement of the EU in the direction of Eastern and Central Europe brings the European Union' s financial requirements to the fore.
The EU is not at present entitled to raise taxes itself, nor should it be entitled to do so in the future either.
The Haug report does not involve our automatically introducing taxation by the EU, but it opens the way for a debate on the subject.
Enlargement ought to be financed mainly by means of reduced costs.
This would involve better prioritising and concentrating on the major and crucial questions.
The enlargement of the EU is one such priority.
As long as almost half the EU' s budget goes on subsidising agriculture and as long as five sixths of it, including the structural funds, goes on subsidies of one kind or another, there can be no doubt that changes still need to be made.
At the Berlin Summit, the Council reached an agreement on the amendment of the own resources decision.
We agree with the thrust of this decision.
By maintaining the own resources ceiling at 1.27% of GNP, the Council sustains the necessary budget discipline within the EU.
Another major bonus resulting from the Berlin Agreement is the attention that was devoted to the unfair distribution of the load over the Member States.
The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden and Austria are the Member States currently contributing a disproportionately large sum in relation to their national income, in order to finance the EU.
A number of amendments, such as adjusting the financing of the UK rebate and increasing from 10 to 25% the deductions on traditional own resources, reduce the contributions of these Member States to the EU.
Following a compromise which was reached with great difficulty, we can accept these adjustments, but they are certainly not what you would call attractive.
At present, they are accommodating the four Member States in question.
They do not, however, offer structural solutions to the problem of net contributions.
It would have been better if a solution had been found in the form of a generic correction mechanism, for example, by introducing a band for national contributions to the EU.
We were unable to back the Haug report because it proposes a number of essential amendments which are incompatible with our convictions.
The report, for example, advocates rendering the Union less dependent on Member State contributions.
The rapporteur' s ultimate goal is complete financial autonomy with regard to the Member States.
We, however, support a continuous involvement of the national parliaments in financing the EU.
In addition, we voted against the rapporteur' s amendment in which he rejects the increase in the deductions on traditional own resources.
This puts enormous pressure on the equilibrium of the Berlin Agreement.
To the Netherlands, which has managed to secure this increase in order to reduce its net payer' s position, this is unacceptable.
- (NL) In principle, I am of the opinion that the own resources decision should be based on equivalence and fairness between the Member States who all should play according to the same rules.
This is why I am rather disgruntled about the decisions reached by the European Council of Berlin, with Europe as the big loser.
The requirement that the Member States should be treated equally should be embodied in the present proposal from the Commission.
The starting point of the Haug report was that the position of March last, namely that all exemption provisions should be dispensed with, should now be substantiated.
Amendment 31, part 2, and amendment 32, however, mitigate this position with the addition of the term "from now on" .
In other words, the Member States can keep what they managed to secure in Berlin for now.
The purport of Amendments Nos 12 and 33 is to revise the collection costs down to 10% with regard to the amounts established after 31 December 2000, which can be supplemented by a flexible premium as a function of the results achieved by the Member States when collecting the traditional own resources and fraud control measures.
I agree with this, in principle.
The Member States must assume responsibility for collecting their traditional own resources.
What does rather disturb me is the impact that this amendment has on the decisions taken at the European Council of Berlin.
Berlin was a compromise which managed to accommodate every Member State.
In order to compensate both Belgium and the Netherlands for the additional cost which ensued from the gradual replacement of the VAT contribution in favour of the GNP contribution, the collection costs were increased to 25%.
This concession is now cancelled whilst the other benefits are maintained.
In this way, a new inequality is created to the detriment of two Member States, namely Belgium and the Netherlands.
As such, I voted against these two amendments.
- As chairman of the Committee on Budgets, I am duty bound to vote for the amendments from the committee.
In the committee I voted against those amendments which jeopardised the UK abatement.
Had I been voting as a Labour backbencher in the plenary I would have voted in a similar way as I did in committee.
It is my responsibility as chairman to uphold the position of the committee and therefore I voted for the Haug report.
Averoff report (A5-0055/1999)
The Council of Ministers' proposal for a regulation, on which we are to vote today, seeks to implement a number of amendments necessitated by the decision of the European Council of Heads of State and Government in Berlin in March.
The European Commission is, however, taking advantage of this opportunity to introduce new regulations which represent a new vision of budgetary discipline and which extend its administrative powers, and this is something we cannot accept.
It has also been proposed that these regulations be henceforth given the legal form of a decision rather than a regulation.
The French members of our Group are opposed to this amendment of the legal character of the legislation, insofar as a regulation makes it easier to take into account the impact of budgetary discipline on Member States and on Community institutions.
The Commission' s initial proposal indeed met with unanimous opposition within the Committee on Budgets.
In the context of the proposal before us there is another aspect which also strengthens the powers given to the European Commission: the possibility of reducing the amount of direct aid or suspending the payment of monthly advances.
Well, as soon as it is envisaged that the reduced or suspended amounts are to be paid out of the Community budget, in the next financial year at the latest, this intervention will necessarily take the form of yet stricter measures in subsequent years, with the risk of endangering the principles of the common agricultural policy.
So, the French members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group are opposed to the proposal for a regulation, and also to Mr Averoff' s report.
To observe the financial ceilings for agricultural policy, stipulated in Agenda 2000, it is necessary that the regulations on budgetary discipline are tightened.
The draft regulation contains proposals for instruments to intervene if agricultural expenditure threatens to exceed the ceilings.
For example, in these proposals, the Commission is granted the authority to postpone payments to Member States at the end of the financial year.
We largely agree with the proposed instruments.
The rapporteur has drafted an excellent report on this matter. He endorses the necessity for more budgetary discipline.
In addition, the report emphasises, rightly so, that any savings should not affect the principles of the CAP, as they have been approved in Agenda 2000.
The EU has adopted a policy for the next 7 years which has also raised the necessary expectations within the sector.
Departures therefrom may not occur without any valid reason.
Within this framework, we are also in agreement with the amendment which advocates the possibility of transferring unused appropriations to the next financial year.
This may provide the help we need to find the necessary appropriations within the Agenda 2000 ceiling.
However, we did not back the amendment in which the agricultural expenditure for accession is kept outside the agricultural guideline for entry purposes.
There is a wide margin between the agricultural guideline and the financial perspectives for the current Member States.
This margin could be used for accession in due course.
Lechner report (A5-0060/1999)
- (DA) Out of respect for the Danish reservation in the legal sphere, the Danish Social Democrats have declined to vote in the final vote concerning the Directive.
The Nordic Green Left (NGL), which consists of the Nordic members of the Group of the European United Left, has today voted in favour of the report concerning the service of legal documents in civil and commercial matters.
The purpose of the proposal is to ensure the protected and regulated forwarding of legal documents between the Member States' legal authorities, and this is something we can fully support.
The Nordic Green Left rejects, however, the idea that the proposal should be in the form of a regulation. The Nordic Green Left prefers a convention.
In that way, the proposal would not be directly binding in the Member States, but it would be up to the countries themselves to decide whether they wanted to participate in the convention or not.
Gebhardt report (A5-0057/1999)
- (DA) Out of respect for the Danish reservation in the legal sphere, the Danish Social Democrats have declined to vote in the final vote concerning the Directive.
The Nordic Green Left (NGL), which consists of the Nordic members of the Group of the European United Left, has today voted in favour of the report concerning the recognition and enforcement of judgements in matrimonial matters and in matters concerning the custody of children born of the same parents.
We have done so because the aim of the proposal is to recognise decisions by the Member States and to protect children' s interests in connection with divorces across national frontiers, and this is something we can fully support.
The Nordic Green Left rejects, however, the idea that the proposal should be in the form of a regulation. The Nordic Green Left prefers a convention.
In that way, the proposal would not be directly binding in the Member States, but it would be up to the countries themselves to decide whether they wanted to participate in the convention or not.
.
Mr President, I welcome all measures designed to reduce pain and suffering in divorce cases, especially when children are involved.
These Commission proposals help address some of the holes of the Hague Convention, which is badly in need of updating.
As EU legislation makes it easier for citizens to live and work across Europe, so the number of cross-border marriages, and unfortunately divorces, is increasing too.
I, like my colleagues, receive an increasing number of letters from constituents asking for help in divorce cases involving partners from different Member States.
Often there are children involved and a seemingly never-ending custody battle ensues.
Furthermore, rulings, when made, can often be difficult to enforce.
Given the current legal jungle, some parents are even driven to break the law and, deplorably, snatch children from their ex-partners.
These proposals, however, will begin to replace heartbreak with hope.
By simplifying procedures and making judgements under EU agreements on matrimonial matters legally binding and directly applicable in all Member States, justice will be speeded up and an end brought to such long, drawn-out and heart-rending cases.
MEPs cannot pretend they can put a stop to the pain caused by separation and divorce, but they can at least try to put a stop to the legal circus that can often accompany it.
The welfare of children must come first, not the welfare of lawyers.
On one occasion during the last parliamentary term, one of my explanations of vote was not approved because I was not in the Chamber.
It was a question of a written explanation of vote, and the reason for the non-approval was that, if you had explanations of vote to deliver, you should be there in the Chamber, even if the explanations were in writing, so that the President could see that explanations of vote were in fact to be delivered.
I am taking this matter up because I think it is important that we have some accepted form of procedure in view of what happened in my own case during the last parliamentary term. A lot of names have been read out now, you see.
There are a lot of Members of the European Parliament who very often take part in the votes but always, without fail, make explanations of vote.
That is why I am wondering: is it necessary to remain in the Chamber so that you can be seen to be there? Or can you proceed in this fairly lax way and continually add a whole lot of texts to the minutes about what you think or do not think?
Mr Carlsson, Members normally ask if they can make a written explanation of vote, they confirm it at the end of the vote, and once it has been confirmed, most of them leave the Chamber.
Your request is, in fact, legitimate, because the Rules of Procedure stipulate that Members who announce they wish to make a written explanation of vote must be present.
We shall see if we can give you a more precise, written answer to your query.
Mr President, I made a point of order with regard to the Haug report because the original version is in German and, unfortunately, I do not speak German, and the English version said something quite contradictory to the Portuguese version concerning Amendment No 31.
Mr President, when you presented the amendment to the vote, you read out "gross national product" , in other words, what you read out agrees with the Portuguese version.
I had to wait until the end of the vote to ask my German colleagues what was in fact written in the German version and they confirmed to me that "BSP" means "gross domestic product" .
This shows in fact that there is a contradiction, which is why I drew your attention to it.
Given this contradiction, I feel that what you read out, which is "gross national product" must be right and not what was written in the original version which is "gross domestic product" , which is quite different.
In these circumstances, I think that this amendment should not be considered valid, given that it was voted on without knowing about the most essential part of this amendment which is this concept of "GDP" or "GNP" .
This is not a mere technical detail but is something that has extraordinarily important financial consequences.
Mr Casaca, I did indeed read out "gross national product" because the Italian version contained the acronym GNP, which means, as I said, gross national product.
Nevertheless, the services have informed me - and I confirm this information - that the original version, the authoritative version, is the German version, and therefore the versions in the other languages will be brought into line with the German one, with the consequences you pointed out.
This is the response that I have to give you: the original version, the authoritative version, is the German one.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.10 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Mr President, there has just been a very significant piece of news: the peace process in Northern Ireland, despite the difficulties which have surrounded it, has taken a step forward today with the decision by the IRA to hold negotiations with the Disarmament Commission.
The Parliament, which has played an important role in this process, as well as taking pleasure from the developments in Northern Ireland, should involve itself in the efforts to ensure that the other two violent conflicts in the European Union - that in Corsica and, above all, that in the Basque Country - move along the road to a definitive peace.
I would ask all the groups and Members of this House to assist in this effort towards dialogue so that these peace processes within the Union may reach a positive solution, as so fortunately appears to be the case, at last, in Ireland.
Thank you, Mr Knörr Borràs. Your statement has been noted.
Mr President, I also felt you might wish to know of the very welcome development in the Northern Ireland peace process today: the announcement by the IRA that it intends to appoint a representative to coordinate the decommissioning of paramilitary weapons with General John de Chastelain.
This news is very welcome, as it means that the Good Friday Agreement can be fully implemented and government structures or an executive set up.
You know that the European Parliament has, over the past twenty years, given every political and financial support to encourage peace in Northern Ireland.
At last we dare to hope that lasting peace can now be guaranteed democratically.
Thank you, Mrs Doyle, for bringing Parliament up to date.
Situation in Chechnya
The next item is the Council and the Commission statements on the situation in Chechnya.
Mr President, I was just reflecting for a moment on those points of order. I am sure that Members of Parliament can imagine my own feelings about events in the last forty-eight hours in Northern Ireland.
I think we have a better chance for peace than has existed for some time and I for one would salute the courage of those parties and party leaders who have made these encouraging developments possible.
We must all keep our fingers crossed and, where appropriate, perhaps pray.
To move to the debate: I am extremely pleased to be able to participate in this important debate and I must say that I am very grateful to the business managers for arranging the timing before my departure to the OSCE Summit.
I hope the House will not regard it as a discourtesy if I am obliged to leave just before the end of the debate but I have to get to Istanbul, not least for a meeting on the Stability Pact.
The debate provides a useful opportunity for me to inform the House of our most recent contacts with the Russian authorities over events in Chechnya.
At the same time, I shall be able to participate in the discussions in Istanbul on these issues with a much clearer understanding of the views of the European Parliament.
I think it is fair to say that there is general consensus in the European Union - the Council, the Parliament and the Commission - on the following two propositions: firstly, whatever the understandable outrage about the appalling acts of terrorism in Moscow, in the northern Caucasus and elsewhere - which, as someone whose country has had all too much experience of terrorism, I totally condemn - Russian action over recent weeks has involved repeated disproportionate military force, repeated disregard for the need to seek a political solution and repeated disregard for the tragic human consequences.
Secondly, most people (I think this is also true across the European Union) agree that it would be a historic error to begin the next century by locking Russia out of European affairs as we did at the beginning of this century.
Because we want to avoid repeating the mistakes made after 1917, the European Union has been genuinely seeking a strategic partnership with Russia.
The concrete proof is the dialogue that we have built up under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement and the common strategy adopted at the Cologne European Council.
It is equally obvious that the unfolding situation in Chechnya puts our relations with Russia under considerable strain.
The Russian authorities must understand that their present action has an impact on their acceptance by the international community and on Russia' s credibility as a political and economic partner.
They seek to justify their action in terms of domestic public opinion.
It is the same story when they refuse to give ground on the European Union' s legitimate trade concerns despite the EUR 10 billion trade surplus they now enjoy with us.
But we live in democratic countries with democratic institutions like this Parliament.
We too are affected by the strength of public opinion which is understandably horrified by what is happening in Chechnya and worried about simply standing on the sidelines.
So far, our response has been to try to exert growing diplomatic and political pressure on the Russians.
We have taken every opportunity to get the message across at all levels.
I participated in the ministerial troika led by Foreign Minister Halonen in early October.
The subject dominated the European Union-Russia Summit on 22 October and it dominated our discussion at the General Affairs Council on Monday.
At each stage the language has been hardened and the operational proposals reinforced.
The message from the Council this week could not be more clear.
The European Union has condemned outright all disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya and urged the Russian government to observe its commitments under humanitarian law.
There is no alternative to seeking a negotiated settlement based on a dialogue with the elected leaders of the northern Caucasus, including Chechnya.
The Council stressed that imposing a military solution in Chechnya would be a major political mistake.
What will be the situation in one month, two months, a year or two years from now? There is apparently no long-term Russian strategy to ensure lasting peace.
More specifically, the Council urged a role for the OSCE and asked that a branch office of the OSCE assistance group to Chechnya should be immediately opened in Nazran and Ingushetia.
The Council concluded that the Istanbul Summit this Thursday and Friday could be used, inter alia, to drive home these messages to the Russian authorities.
I am obviously willing to return to Parliament after Istanbul to report on the message we delivered and the reaction we received.
Increasingly I am being asked whether the European Union should step up the pressure by moving beyond strong words to more direct action.
What might this involve? Some suggest cutting off financial assistance under the TACIS programme.
Would this, I ask, put a stop to military action? There would be no direct impact on Russia' s public finances because the money is all channelled through contractors mainly in the European Union.
But it would undermine the process of economic and social modernisation that we have been pressing for so hard.
What about suspending food aid? The existing scheme is nearing an end.
By September over 90% of supplies had already been delivered to Russia.
It is now for the Russian authorities to ensure distribution.
The priority for us is to check that the proceeds of the scheme are properly used to repay pension arrears and for other social projects.
As for the future, we have anyway very grave doubts about the need and the economic rationale for any new food aid schemes.
Recent events in Chechnya add a strong political argument against meeting any new Russian request for food aid.
I told Madeline Albright last week that I did not believe that this Parliament would countenance any further delivery of new food aid this winter to Russia.
There have also been suggestions of withholding IMF assistance and EBRD lending.
These are obviously issues beyond the direct competence of the European Union, but would it be in our interests to provoke a political backlash against the international community in the run-up to the Duma elections in December?
The OSCE meeting in Istanbul provides an opportunity for progress, although I cannot claim to be very optimistic.
The Russians have made it plain that domestic public opinion is dominating other considerations in their handling of the crisis.
Our job must be to persuade them their present short-sighted approach will never deliver lasting peace in the Caucasus, and we need to be swift and generous in providing the humanitarian assistance that is so badly needed as winter sets in.
We will be more effective on both these fronts while channels of communication remain open.
I am therefore, like the Presidency and the High Representative, in close contact with Igor Ivanov, the Russian Foreign Minister.
We met in Helsinki last week in the margins of the Northern Dimension Conference and we have since spoken on the telephone.
On the urgent humanitarian situation, I have repeatedly stressed the need to ensure adequate access and security for international aid agencies.
Some progress has been possible through recent assessment missions by outside experts and donors.
This has allowed a better estimate of the extent of humanitarian aid needs.
There appear to be up to 200,000 Chechen refugees now in Ingushetia, most of them staying with families there, the remainder living in tents.
Meanwhile a large number of people are waiting to cross the border and many have returned to Chechnya, either to the area occupied by the Russian military or to that still under control of the Chechen fighters.
In total, we are talking about up to half a million people to a greater or lesser extent in need of humanitarian assistance.
The needs of the local population in Ingushetia who have been hosting the refugees must also be taken into account.
Identifying needs is only one part of the problem.
The physical delivery of assistance is another.
Continuing security worries have limited assistance efforts so far.
From the Commission ECHO has committed close to one million euros to the work of the UNHCR.
The large-scale assistance urgently required in this region cannot be delivered through remote control with donors excessively dependent on the Russian Ministry for Emergencies.
We must therefore maintain pressure on the Russian authorities to do much more to facilitate access for international donors and to look after their safety.
Finally, I should say that Mr Ivanov has suggested in his conversations with me that an intensification of the contacts between the European Parliament and the Duma might be helpful, including perhaps a visit to Moscow by a representative group of your Members.
Obviously you would want to see for yourselves what was going on and make your own judgements.
I know that under the admirable leadership of Mrs Krehl, your Delegation for relations with Russia is among the most active in the Parliament, but I would urge you to consider Mr Ivanov' s suggestion seriously.
The Commission is keen to see a constructive relationship between the Russian Federation and the European Union.
We have a shared interest in the future security and prosperity of our continent.
But I have to say that the present crisis in Chechnya is putting a severe strain on the partnership we have been trying to build.
On the other hand, we all know that it is only by trying to maintain that partnership that we have any chance of getting the Russians to heed our message, that is the awful dilemma that we face.
The Russians must recognise that they cannot dismiss our concerns out of hand.
We want closer friendship and understanding but they must recognise that those things are a two-way street.
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, Commissioner Patten has given a very analytical and well considered presentation on this issue.
We can fully agree with the points he raised.
This autumn we have followed daily, with growing concern, the continued military action in Chechnya.
Of particular worry is the fact that the Russian government has still not - despite its promises - begun to look for a political solution to the crisis but, instead, relies solely on military action.
Moscow' s political goals regarding Chechnya in the longer term are still obscure.
I appreciate the European Parliament' s interest in the situation in Chechnya.
I would now briefly like to tell you of our assessment, firstly of the military crisis in Chechnya and, secondly of the humanitarian crisis there.
Thirdly, I will speak about the action taken thus far by the European Union and the international community, and the aims we have for Chechnya.
Militarily, Russia controls just under half the Chechen territory, and is advancing systematically.
On Friday last week, Russia took the city of Gudermes and may also in time take Grozny.
Russia' s apparent aim is to bring the whole of Chechnya back under Russian control.
For Prime Minister Putin, the war has also so far been an internal political success.
During the autumn the European Union has repeated its concern regarding the disproportionate use of force in Chechnya.
This has caused a number of civilian victims and an ever-continuing increase in the number of internal refugees.
The use of force against civilians is prohibited under international humanitarian law.
Through its action, Russia is in violation of the Geneva Convention and the Additional Protocol.
Indiscriminate bombing has been responsible for many civilian victims.
The European Union has underlined the need for rapid de-escalation of the conflict and urged Russia to commence negotiations for a lasting solution to the problem.
It is clear that a basically political conflict cannot be solved militarily.
Mr Sasi, I must interrupt the proceedings for a few moments in order to check whether or not there is some reason for the alarm which we can hear.
(The sitting was suspended at 3.20 p.m. and resumed at 3.30 p.m.)
Mr Sasi, please excuse us for this technical hitch, and please continue your statement on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, Mr Sasi, Commissioner, it is with relief that my fellow Members and myself welcomed the statement from the European Union' s Foreign Affairs Council the day before yesterday, forcefully condemning the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya.
It is with relief that we heard this morning the very firm position adopted on the matter by Mr Solana and his undertaking to bring his weight to bear, as of this afternoon in Istanbul, in order to ensure that international law and human dignity is respected in this part of the world, and it is with relief that we have just heard you tell us, Mr Patten, that you are shortly to add your contribution to that of Mr Solana in this area.
We were, in fact, in the majority in this House in condemning the methods adopted by the Russian army to quash under fire any sort of potential resistance to its advance without taking into consideration the losses thereby caused among the civilian population.
We were also in the majority in deploring, together with the majority of public opinion in Europe, the striking contrast between the din of the bombing and the sustained silence of the governments of the European Union.
I can bear witness to this because yesterday, I chaired a meeting of all the groups of this Parliament where a draft joint resolution was finalised which, unlike others, will not be a compromise text and will in no way be a compromise between divergent positions, but will indeed be a synthesis enriched by the proposals of each of the political families united in a common desire to offer Parliament' s contribution to a political solution of the tragic situation currently causing bloodshed in Chechnya.
In this resolution, which I have no doubt will be massively supported by my fellow Members, we are adding our voices to those of the Council in condemning the action currently being taken and in requesting that negotiations are initiated directly with the elected representatives of the population of Chechnya.
Together with you, we are requesting that the necessary humanitarian aid be deployed immediately, in order to provide assistance to the hundreds of thousands of people displaced due to this conflict, but we are requesting, Mr Patten, that provision is made for the suspension of economic aid to Russia, initially, if Russia continues with its indiscriminate attacks upon the civilian population and does not seek a negotiated settlement.
I fully understand, and we hope with all our hearts that the task of negotiation which you are going to enter into, together with Mr Solana, will be successful.
We also propose, and we are agreed upon this, I am sure, that a conference should be held, and that Parliament should participate in this conference.
Mr President, I should like to welcome the stand taken by Mr Patten and Mr Sasi and compliment Mr Morillon, Mr Cohn-Bendit and others on this very strong motion we put together yesterday.
It is important to underline what we say in the motion for a resolution, namely that we are committed to strengthening the partnership with Russia because we realise that there will be no stable, peaceful Europe without a stable and democratic Russia.
We also underline the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
But it is the strategic partnership agreement that also gives us formal grounds, apart from our reactions as human beings, to question what is going on.
The Tacis agreement states specifically that Tacis assistance is provided on the basis of certain shared economic and political values and practices.
This is why we have also raised the issue of Tacis here.
We do it against the background that some weeks ago the Russian Duma gave Mr Putin an increase of USD 1 billion for the war effort in Chechnya.
Therefore we also demand the highest degree of transparency on the part of any financial institutions or donors of funds to Russia.
We also urge the Council and the Commission to consider freezing all new contracts under the Tacis programme, except the democracy line.
This is a warning.
We are not only concerned about the question of Chechnya; we are outraged, horrified.
We want to add our voice and express our strong concern about what is going on and use the weight we have in Parliament, which we can do, among other things, through the Tacis programme.
Mr President, the stand on Chechnya drafted by the political groups of the European Parliament is, in my opinion, well prepared.
The clear basis of the resolution is the support for Russian territorial integrity.
The Russian government is also supported to the extent that we condemn terrorism in all its forms.
On the other hand, we also condemn the excessive use of force and we are calling for a political solution to be sought for the Chechen question.
In addition, we wish to emphasise that the civilian population must be protected and the refugees taken good care of.
Our position complies with the resolutions we adopted earlier and it is also in harmony with the policy pursued by Western countries.
On the other hand, the line adopted by Parliament apparently contradicts public opinion among the citizens of the Member States.
The European Parliament' s policy on Chechnya is encumbered by the fact that Western countries have themselves acted in such a way that they have lost the moral authority to clearly condemn the blunders Russia is presently accused of.
This is shown, for example, in the article by Prime Minister Putin, recently published in the Herald Tribune, in which he defends his government' s action with reference to examples offered by Western countries.
The particular burden that the West bears now is the war against Yugoslavia.
The bombing began without sufficient consideration being given to the objectives and consequences.
In Kosovo a war of independence was going on, associated with violence against the civilian population.
The West interposed in this war with a bombing campaign against one side, and on behalf of the other, although they had not approved the objectives of the side on behalf of which they had started the war.
As no one wanted or was able to use ground troops in the war, the bombing meant that a humanitarian and political crisis became a humanitarian and political catastrophe.
If Western policy were consistent, these countries would now be considering the defence of Chechnya, even through military means, but nobody even thinks about it.
Now it is considered that Russia has the right to defend its own country' s unity, even through the use of very harsh measures.
On the other hand, Russia is now appealing to the notion that it has the right to use military force to achieve its own important political aims in the same way as Western countries did in Yugoslavia.
Despite our own moral burden, the European Union must use all its authority to solve the Chechen crisis according to the guidelines the representatives of the Council and the Commission have laid down here.
As we develop a common foreign, security and defence policy for the Union, we must see to it that it has a sound moral basis.
Only in that way will we have the authority to insist that others should act in accordance with these principles.
Mr President, I am extremely worried that worldwide there are increasing attempts to resolve conflicts using military means.
Russia is no exception in this, which is particularly painful for the European Left; it is acting as it sees fit and no differently from NATO in Yugoslavia.
I consider the applause which you gave Mr Solana this morning and now the applause for the speech made by Mr Cohn-Bendit to be opportunism of the worst kind. I simply must say this!
To reverse the trend, that is away from the military and towards conflict prevention and peaceful conflict settlement, is the crucial challenge facing this European Parliament.
We have logically assessed the war in Chechnya and we have also deferred our decision on further expansion of cooperation with Russia.
We expect the same of the Council.
Yesterday' s declaration by the Council is a positive sign but it is too late.
It is to be hoped that the Council does not need as long to follow up our proposal to freeze the expansion of relations and the TACIS programmes for Russia until such time as the weapons finally fall silent.
The attacks on refugees and residential areas, the closing of the borders and the hindrance of international aid organisations providing humanitarian aid not only contravene the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in war zones and other international obligations but are quite simply inhuman and totally unacceptable.
I consider it self-evident and indispensable that the European Union increase its humanitarian aid for the people of this region.
However, we must not release Russia from its responsibility to protect and provide for refugees and itself to care for the people in the war zone.
The same also applies for the reconstruction of the country.
Mr President, discussing Chechnya today reminds us of Kosovo and makes us wonder about that famous duty to interfere on humanitarian grounds, that principle which is, unfortunately, as vague as it is noble.
Indeed, it is used with excessive discretionary power, often owing to specific political or economic interests. The principle of humanitarian intervention has, until now, failed miserably because Milosevic' s regime is still firmly in power in a country that has gone backwards in time and economics by at least thirty years, while the majority of the Albanian people have returned to their land and 10% of Kosovar Serbs and all the gypsy peoples have been forced into exile.
In Chechnya, the situation is even worse.
Two months ago, the Russian army entered Chechnya, a land which had already been destroyed in human and economic terms and drained three years ago with more than 100,000 dead.
Today, we hear of the civilian population being shelled, which has caused over 3,000 deaths and turned 200,000 people into refugees.
And all of this while the so-called "virtuous" international community justifies the Russian intervention on the pretext of fighting terrorism, and the International Monetary Fund bankrolls unsecured funds to Yeltsin, despite the billions of dollars misappropriated by the Russian authorities.
It is true that Chechnya is a part of the Russian Federation, but the Russian troops do not have the authority to legally massacre men, women and children.
The international community, our Union, is duty-bound, if it is truly committed to safeguarding human rights, not to remain passive.
The region has been ravaged by war and, in the meantime, the European Union is increasing its commitment to humanitarian aid and funding for the TRASECA project to link the Black Sea and Central Asia.
And the fuel factor - gas and oil - has played an important part in the Chechen crisis.
American companies are interested in Caspian Sea oil as an alternative to Persian Gulf oil.
They asked the Department of State to draw up a strategic map of possible routes: the most important would be the section between the Caspian Sea and the Turkish port of Ceyhan, which affects the route between Baku and the Russian port of Novorossisk.
Thus, in 1994, the Russian army intervened to show that Russia controlled the operational oil pipelines allowing the Caspian Sea production to be exported so it would not risk being excluded from the power play dominated by America.
The Union must have one single objective: to contribute to re-establishing peace, to find a new status for Chechnya, as laid down in the agreement signed between Russia and Chechnya on 31 August 1996, and it must also remember that if Europe wants to defend human rights, it cannot continue to endorse the fact that Russia believes force and the army to be the only political tools.
Mr President, why is President Yeltsin now repeating what he once described as the biggest blunder of his political career of 1994/1996: a large-scale military intervention in Chechnya? And why does the Russian military apparatus provoke the Trans-Caucasian republics of Georgia and Azerbaijan by making wild accusations regarding cooperation with Chechen "separatists and terrorists" ?
Both operations are pretty disastrous anyway, both for the Russian Federation and the Caucasus.
Under the quasi-legitimate banner of "fighting terrorism and violent separatism" , the Kremlin is itself terrorising the Chechen people and is stimulating the very terrorist, fundamentalist elements amongst them.
It is likely that the Russian punitive expedition in Chechnya is largely founded on internal political and military motives other than the purging of "Chechen Wahabi headhunters" .
To the fraudulent "family" of President Yeltsin, this is a true gift by way of a diversionary tactic.
At the same time, the deeply aggrieved Russian army leadership can undertake bloody revenge for the humiliating defeat against the Chechen freedom fighters of only a few years ago.
Moreover, the horrifying war scene in the Caucasus offers the average Russian politician the chance par excellence to beat the popular national drum, especially in the run-up to the Duma elections.
The trouble-stirring from Moscow in the Caucasus is undoubtedly the result of the competitive rivalry with the West regarding the energy treasures of the Caspian Basin and is indicative of a revival of the imperial idea.
In this light, the Chechen tragedy is merely the overture for a larger, regional crisis.
Does Moscow have as little to fear from the West, including the European Union, now, as it did during the first, degrading showdown with Grozny? Why not block all credit to Russia, for example?!
Mr President, just as the previous speaker stated, the last few weeks have shown that the actual scale of things in the Caucasus is considerably greater and also encompasses the entire Caspian Sea.
Of course, in the current phase of the war in and around Chechnya we need to see damage limitation as the most important issue and to provide the swiftest possible emergency aid for the population.
However, whilst the real interests in the Caucasus are not openly declared and remain undisclosed the attempts at resolution will not work.
Each person interprets the causes of the war using the arguments which best suit his own theory.
There is no admission that this area is one of the largest stores of raw materials in the world and that many multinational interests are focused on this area.
So long as greed for these possessions and for the resources in this area remains unconquered - and this applies equally to Europe and many other states - the conflicts in this region will not be resolved and, long term, we also have to consider finding a major, comprehensive solution to this problem.
Mr President, I cannot share the opinion of Mr Väyrynen that this Parliament does not have enough credibility.
Two months ago we took up a clear position as a single international institution, albeit not every individual in the House.
I am pleased that everyone has now come on board and that the Council and Commission also now support what we in this House clearly declared on this matter with a small majority two months ago.
However, we have now moved on considerably, having come to realise that it is not enough to direct threatening words at the Russians.
Rather, we must reach conclusions.
We must stop financing this war, which is a bloody, colonial war for oil and an especially bloody form of electoral campaigning.
This means, Commissioner, that we must stop financial payments, including TACIS funds.
On the other hand, we must clearly say to our partner that, as far as we are concerned, a partner is no longer a partner when he becomes a murderer.
This should also be obvious between states.
I would also like to clear up a few myths.
No mention is ever made of the democratically elected government of Chechnya.
This is not another internal affair for Russia.
This government was elected under the supervision of the OSCE on the basis of a cease-fire agreement which the OSCE brokered.
We must resolutely support this government against the breach of this agreement by Moscow, which is a contravention of international law and which has come about as a result of the fact that Moscow has restored a KGB puppet parliament, which was in place in Moscow before the agreement, in order to have a comfortable negotiating partner.
We must also clear up the myth that this is a response to terrorism.
Mr Cohn-Bendit is right: we do not know who carried out the bomb attacks in Moscow, which we condemn.
Much points to bogus machinations.
We must state quite clearly that anyone dropping bombs on civilians is not fighting terrorists; rather he is inciting terrorists by traumatising whole generations which will suffer the consequences of this particularly brutal form of colonialism.
We therefore need a wholly clear and energetic policy and not the assertions of alibis which we have had in recent months, including from our governments.
I would like to urge the Council and the Commission to use the same clear language at tomorrow' s OSCE Summit as the European Parliament has used in its resolution.
Mr President, through the disgraceful policies being pursued today in Chechnya, the Russian Government is rigidly following the example set by the governments of the United States and of the Member States of the European Union just a few months back.
It is continuing to use excessive violence and to bomb civilians, both indiscriminately and with impunity, because it has neither the patience nor the stamina to find a political solution to the existing problems.
Just as the others did!
We are not convinced by the criticism being levelled at them either.
We are even less convinced by you saying that you cannot safeguard the rights of minorities in Kosovo, and that you cannot guarantee the integrity of Yugoslavia.
How will you go about convincing Russia that you can guarantee its integrity and how will you persuade it to respect human rights? The whole thing is a shambles, blind hypocrisy.
Only those who uphold the rights and respect the integrity of the states of both the Yugoslavian and Russian Federations can convince us of the rights of those persecuted Chechens who are suffering greatly today.
Only them!
Nobody else!
Mr President, I would like to add just two points to the comments made by Mr Morillon, Mr Cohn-Bendit, Mr Posselt and Mr Schori, which I completely endorse.
We should remember that the Soviet Union of the time stirred up the processes of decolonisation, even when it was not always clear that the populations concerned actually wanted decolonisation.
Today, then, we are facing an empire, the only one, which has saved on the expense of decolonisation.
Historically, there is no doubt that the Russian Empire in fact colonised a large part of the Caucasus, i.e. non- Russian peoples.
This is the first thing.
I say this as a Federalist, and as somewhat not in favour of the multiplication of states.
In the second place, and I am addressing Mr Patten and the Council in particular, the European Union must, as a matter of urgency, have a policy in the Caucasus, the region which Chechnya is part of.
It must, as a matter of urgency, have a policy which guarantees stability, not only for Chechnya, but also for Chechnya in relation to Georgia, in relation to Azerbaijan, in relation to Armenia.
We know the problems there are particularly in this last country. It follows that a real European policy is urgently needed in this region.
Mr President, the Russian government will be tempted to draw parallels between our action against Serbia to end the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and their action against Chechen crime.
This is strangely voiced at the extreme left of this Parliament.
I personally think that this comparison is rather far-fetched, but it is useful to remind ourselves of the discrepancies.
Our action and that of NATO in Kosovo and Serbia was undertaken with an extremely selective application of the least possible violence, sparing the civilian population as much as possible.
Therein lies the huge difference between our action and the action Russia is taking in Chechnya at the moment.
It is useful that the extreme left should remind us of this difference, although quite unintended.
Also, human life appears to be of no consequence and refugees are of no concern.
Long lines of refugees are kept waiting at the border and international aid organisations fail to offer real help due to a lack of cooperation.
This is another clear difference and it is really good that the extreme left have underscored these huge differences between Russia' s action in Chechnya and that of NATO in Kosovo.
Mr President, it is essential that clear-cut measures be taken and that we give the Russian population some sort of message.
Indeed, we received the delegation from the Russian Parliament here and we noticed that there is, in fact, a common opinion amongst the Russian representatives there and they were not all from the same party.
This stood out to us.
We will have therefore have to give the Russian population a message which is loud and clear so that they might start to question the events in Chechnya and their government' s action.
I am sure we will need to bring some pressure to bear in Russia if we are to put an end to these Russian crimes once again.
This is why I think, following on from what Mr Patten said during his hearing, that it is bad doing business with states which violate human rights on a massive scale - he was talking about China in response to a question raised by us - and that it is in fact beneficial to consider financial-economic measures when it comes to giving a clear message.
We may be able to call on our friends from the Council of Europe too to consider a suspension.
Mr President, I think we as a Parliament should take a clear stance and express our support for the Chechen population and, for this reason, it is important to my mind that the President of the European Parliament meet the Chechen Foreign Minister in order to explain our stance.
Mr President, I do not need to repeat what the Commission and the Council have said on the situation in Chechnya.
I would just like to emphasise one area which can serve as a justification for our joint resolution on Chechnya: the suffering of the civilian population; the hundreds of fatalities; the 200,000 refugees and their plight given the onset of winter; the overreaction of the Russian government and the indiscriminate bombing of the civilian population.
I have the impression that this is not a legitimate war against terrorist activity, but a political power struggle at the cost of the population.
For this reason our Parliament must clearly say what it wants and what it doesn' t want.
I shall summarise: firstly, we are not disputing the right of the Russian government to fight the brutal terrorism in Dagestan. Secondly, we in no way wish to jeopardise the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.
Thirdly, however, we cannot condone aeroplanes bombing the civilian population!
I condemn these bombings, just as months ago I condemned the bombings of Novi Sad, Belgrade and Nis, which were described as "collateral damage" .
Mr President, what we are experiencing in the second Chechen war is a double tragedy, firstly because the Chechen people are the victims and secondly because the current Russian policy in the Caucasus will not lead to a solution to the problems, but will only aggravate them.
We are witnessing a destabilisation of the region which will have long-term consequences.
Today, so I have heard, a Georgian village is reported to have been bombed by Russian planes.
This means that there is a danger that this conflict will not remain a purely Russian conflict, but will perhaps extend beyond the Russian borders.
This would then undoubtedly be a problem and a further matter for the world community and, of course, the European Union to deal with.
I believe that in recent plenary part-sessions since the summer, this Parliament has tackled the problem of the second Chechen war in great detail, as indeed it has had to.
We have taken up a very clear position.
We will also, by the mutual consent of all groups, take up a position in the resolution before us today. This is necessary and right!
However, I also share the view of Commissioner Patten that we must not in any way end communication with the Russians.
If we want to persuade, if we want to exert influence, then this can only be done by intensifying discussions with our Russian partners.
We were visited last week, as Mr Oostlander previously stated, by a Russian parliamentary delegation.
I can only say, and this is the major problem with this second Chechen war, that contrary to the first Chechen war the Russian parties in the Duma are nearly all united and, unfortunately, support the policy of the Putin government.
This makes it perfectly clear how important dialogue is and what we need to do.
I think that the idea which was put forward here of possibly improving contact with the Russian Parliament through an ad-hoc delegation is an important one.
And I also think that, since the Russians have asked us to act as electoral supervisors in the elections to the Duma, we must seriously consider whether to satisfy this request from the Parliament because this might be a further contribution to dialogue and to the development of more democracy and perhaps also better politics in Russia.
Mr President, the situation regarding the refugees is intolerable, and it is not Russia' s internal affair.
Russia is creating a massive humanitarian catastrophe with its action against soldiers and terrorists that have carried out inhumane deeds.
However, we must remember that nobody has mentioned here that a separate Muslim state was being created between the Caspian and Black Seas.
That is a much larger issue, and one we have to bear in mind.
Cutting ourselves off from Russia prior to the elections would be very unwise, as we want to lend our support to Russia' s democratic strengths.
When we cut ourselves off before, it led to Stalinism and dictatorship.
I support the idea of a visit to Moscow in December, in connection with the elections, as I have proposed, and that we press for a pan-Caucasus peace conference to solve other problems apart from this particular one, as there are military operations going on in half a dozen states in the Caucasus, and the threat of the operations spreading is quite apparent.
Mr President, I am wondering whether these documents are morally right, especially as I think they are rather useless.
The documents on the Caucasus and Chechnya contain the same elements found in the Council of Europe' s document that was dismissed two weeks ago.
It therefore appears to be a mandatory exercise in rhetoric, with the usual array of fine principles and high hopes.
The European Union expresses its concerns, stresses this and admonishes that, requests a dialogue that it knows is impossible and limits itself to condemning - and this is the first point I would like to talk about - just one thing: the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya.
So you could say then, that a little bit of war is alright, as long as it is not disproportionate.
But tell me, what is a disproportionate war?
The second point is the following: the bombing strategy following NATO' s example is supposedly a response to the terrorist bombs in various Russian cities. Is there any evidence, are there any suspicions that these bombs were planted by Chechens?
What investigation confirms this? Is it reasonable to kill thousands of people and turn 200,000 people into refugees based on a mere suspicion of guilt?
The European Union is asking for a negotiated solution - and if anyone really believes in the possibility of negotiations they are living in cloud cuckoo land - while the Russians in the Caucasus are making a distinction between the bad guys - those who are asking for independence - perhaps making them out to be Muslims, and the good guys, or rather only those people who are collaborating with them.
So where is the dialogue?
I must notify the House that Commissioner Patten has had to leave us in order to catch his flight to Istanbul in order to attend the OSCE meeting, as scheduled.
I am therefore going to give the floor to the Council in order to conclude the statements which, I am sure, will be followed with a great deal of interest by the citizens of Chechnya who are today present in the visitors' gallery.
Mr President, we have had an excellent debate on this matter here in Parliament.
In my opinion, Parliament' s concern is the right message the Union has to send out.
All of us, the Commission, the Council and Parliament agree on this situation.
It is important that we all send Russia a signal, and a clear one at that, that violence perpetrated against the civilian population must stop, that talks with legally elected representatives in Chechnya must commence, that humanitarian aid is needed, and that its access to the region must be allowed, with the OSCE having the main role to play in finding a solution to the crisis.
I can assure you that the Presidency of the Council will act with determination to achieve these aims.
At the same time I wish Commissioner Patten success in the talks at Istanbul.
Mr President, I should just like to ask you to convey our thanks to the President of Parliament for receiving the representative of a government elected under the supervision of the OSCE who is also established in the area of the Council of Europe and who was elected under the Russian constitution.
Your statement has been noted, Mr Posselt.
I have received five motions for resolutions pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 12 p.m.
WTO Millennium Round (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A5-0062/1999) by Mr Schwaiger, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the Communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament: The EU Approach to the WTO Millennium Round (COM(1999)331 - C5-0155/1999 - 1999/2149(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, there is no doubt that the need to develop trade as effectively as possible and the new challenges posed by globalisation, as well as the need to consolidate a balanced commercial system which will contribute to sustainable development and whose benefits will also extend to the less developed countries, require a strengthening of the rules which govern international trade.
Hence the importance of the coming conference in Seattle and the timeliness and suitability of the proposals in the Commission' s communication as regards the upcoming negotiations.
In fact, given the challenges before us, it is clear that the next Round cannot be limited to simply widening the regulatory framework, however important that may be, nor must it only ensure that trade liberalisation contributes to economic and social growth in the less developed countries, although I share fully in that desire. Rather, it must also establish rules which will lead to the opening up of markets and guarantee compliance with them.
We have to bear in mind that for European industry - and I am thinking in particular of the textile sector - access to the markets of the developed countries and emerging economies on reciprocal terms is a fundamental priority.
To this end it is essential that the Commission achieves the harmonisation of tariffs and the elimination of tariff peaks and tariff progression, as well as the removal of all technical barriers to trade, on the understanding that the less developed countries should be guaranteed free access to the international market for all their products so that they can also benefit from trade liberalisation.
And now, Commissioner, I would like to ask you firstly if you can confirm your intention not to accept, on the agenda of the negotiations, any reconsideration of the agreement on the textile sector as regards the clothing industry and, secondly, how you consider that China' s membership of the World Trade Organisation will affect the European textile industry, bearing in mind that that country is the world' s foremost exporter of textile products.
Finally, I would also like to congratulate the rapporteur on his excellent report and his desire to reach the widest possible consensus on a subject as important as the coming Millennium Round, which we depend on to consolidate a balanced trading system which will ensure, on a global level, an economic order based on social justice.
Mr President, Mr Lamy, this morning the President-in-Office of the Council reminded us of the importance of the agriculture portfolio in the WTO negotiations, and I thank him for this.
You already know that farmers in Europe are going to have to make great efforts to adapt in order to apply the Berlin compromise which, last March, represented the acceptable balance for the fifteen Member States of the European Union.
You know that developing countries must be able to count on Europe in order to guarantee the legitimate rapid expansion of their own agriculture which is often the major sector in their economic development.
You know that the United States is demonstrating today that the market alone finds it difficult to guarantee agricultural revenue.
You must also know, then, that we are counting specifically on you to ensure that the WTO negotiations result in the outcome that we expect.
Regarding access to the market, how is it possible not to recognise that Europe is not the well-defended fortress that it is unjustly accused of being, since we are the leading importer worldwide with a deficit trade balance in the food processing sector?
This reality, Commissioner, must make it possible for you to campaign so that markets are opened up and tariff barriers are reduced according to gradual processes, varying according to sector.
As for market protection mechanisms, if they must be adjusted, should they not be retained or reinforced for particular countries, and I refer to developing countries in particular?
Regarding internal support, how is it possible not to make the most of the fact that Agenda 2000 is leading to a significant reduction in the overall extent of support, at a time when the United States are adopting a policy which goes in the opposite direction? This situation must make it possible for you to ensure that the blue box and the green box accepted at Marrakech are retained, and that the peace clause is renewed.
Regarding export subsidies, how is it possible not to capitalise on the strategy of reduction which we are undertaking with the new common agricultural policy? This development must give you the possibility of demanding transparency and handling of the various forms of export aid used by our competitors.
Commissioner, the Berlin Agreement was drawn up in order to give the European Union real room for manoeuvre in the Millennium Round.
We have no doubt that you will be able to make use of this by building on the concept of multi-functionality which makes it possible to meet the various expectations of our societies as regards food quality, employment and sustainable rural development, the protection and conservation of the natural heritage and also regarding the balance between regions.
This approach must afford Europe the opportunity to be open to interesting possibilities of alliance.
This is why we are counting on you to take the offensive in these negotiations, in which you may count on our critical support.
Mr President, I shall very briefly set out the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party' s points of view on agriculture in anticipation of the World Trade Organisation negotiations.
The fact is that it is an increase in demand on the world market which is the most reliable guarantee of profitable European agriculture in the future.
It is a much more reliable guarantee than stubborn persistence with our own protective system.
Moreover, it is a liberalisation of world trade and improved competition which can lead to increased growth in the new industrialised countries and in populous developing countries.
It is this which can mobilise the world' s huge need for food and convert it into a level of demand with great purchasing power.
Naturally, we shall retain the European model.
We shall take account, perhaps to a still greater extent, of the environment, public health, animal protection and multi-functionality - that is to say diversity - in the countryside and in agriculture.
I think it is this and an open-minded attitude to the development of the information society which will be priorities in discussing the future shape of Europe.
It is important, and a responsibility on our part, to pursue the questions of increased growth throughout the world in the World Trade Organisation negotiations.
That is why I think that it is so important to say that demand is a more important consideration than the particular system we have here at home.
Mr President, Mr Schwaiger, true, your report is very comprehensive, but it is rather too non-committal, and there are a number of points it fails to address.
What, for example, has come of the demand for an analysis of the WTO' s influence so far upon, for example, developing countries, the environment, the EU and existing treaties before we get into the next round of negotiations? To say, Commissioner Lamy, that there were no tools or methods for doing this and that these would first have had to be developed is simply laughable.
In revising the uniquely constituted Lomé Conventions, the refrain is always that that these ought not to remain in that form and that they are not WTO specific.
What we should be demanding, however, is that the ground rules governing world trade must be focused upon the needs of people here in Europe and in developing countries.
They must be enlisted in the service of sustainability and of social needs and not of the interests of corporations and their shareholders.
This must be the main requirement and not a new round of liberalisation which serves only to incite people worldwide to compete for the lowest wages under the worst social and ecological conditions.
In our opinion, the WTO needs to be fundamentally reformed before there are any further negotiations at all.
Our goal must be nothing less than a fairer and socially and ecologically more responsible form of world trade which honours the interdependence of nations.
Mr President, on the eve of the Seattle Conference, I still think it unfortunate that we are going into a fresh round of negotiations before making a serious assessment of the one before.
The fact that millions of individuals are affected by the consequences of the decisions which are to be taken there does, however, make this necessary.
Those in favour of the liberalisation of trade as the driving force for prosperity are all the less willing to undertake such a report, since there can be no real denial that the situation has become worse in recent years, and inequalities between underdeveloped countries and advanced countries, as well as the development of inequalities even within developed countries, have intensified.
When wealth is concentrated at one extreme and there is an increase in unemployment at the other, one may well wonder if the WTO has not primarily served to institutionalise the law of the jungle.
As a matter of urgency, a new concept of trade between nations must be promoted, based on solidarity, cooperation, democracy and the promotion of employment and social rights.
However, so that all of this does not simply remain a vain hope, decisions must be taken, I believe, in three areas.
Firstly, formalise the principle whereby these negotiations must be of use to disadvantaged countries and populations, affirming the right of the European Union and the Member States to defend their development policy and specific agreements with the ACP and the refusal to let the Lomé Conventions be challenged by the WTO.
Secondly, insist on the primacy of the interests of peoples in preference to commercial and financial criteria.
I have three proposals relating to this. Of course, they are not comprehensive.
Firstly, subject WTO regulations to the international charter and conventions governing matters of human rights and social, health and environmental issues.
In saying this, I am thinking of Kyoto, Peking and Copenhagen.
Next, refuse to continue to liberalise services and, on the contrary, assist the development of cooperation of public services in education, health and transport.
Finally, maintain the principle of cultural exception, affording the European Union and the Member States the possibility of preserving their capability of freely determining their audiovisual cultural policy in the name of development of a thriving and enriching diversity.
One more proposal: establish the precautionary principle for the environment, health and food safety as an absolute priority.
Finally, the third area. Radical democratisation of the structures of the WTO is essential.
There must be democratic supervision of the negotiations and of the implementation of agreements.
The presence of NGOs, representatives of society and of trade unions, with the status of observers, must be accepted in these negotiations.
What is more, all the points negotiated at the WTO must be ratified by the European Parliament and by national parliaments.
Today the WTO itself is decreeing the laws, monitoring their application, and settling disputes.
I think it is not possible to be both judge and judged.
The dispute settlement body must be radically modified.
I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his very objective report.
In the short time available, I want to add my voice to that of those in this Parliament who insist on greater protection of Europe' s vital interests in the forthcoming world trade talks.
We in this House have put our cards on the table in the Agenda 2000 agreement and must not allow or accept any dilution of that agreement by the United States of America.
I say that in particular from an agricultural perspective.
Part of the motivation behind Agenda 2000 is to conform in a credible way with world trade rules and in the process, of course, to make Europe a key player in world trade - and the Americans will not want that.
We enter this new round of talks with the benefits of hindsight and in the knowledge that the United States, in reaching its negotiating position, will have, as in the past, researched the hidden agenda of establishing ways to deviate from that agreement to help its own producers, while at the same time demanding that Europe adhere rigidly to its requirements.
In this House we have prioritised consumer protection, established the family farm as the agricultural model and the basic unit of production, and made rural development and the preservation of rural communities the second pillar of CAP reform.
This is in sharp contrast with American policy.
The time has come for us in this Parliament, on behalf of the European citizens, to establish our authority and leadership in this vital area of international trade.
Mr President, I am awaiting the meeting in Seattle with mixed feelings.
It is important to further free up world trade but this should be accompanied by pre-conditions at world level.
In their policies, WTO Members should keep open the option of granting priority to public health, animal welfare, environmental protection and solidarity with developing countries.
I would especially like to stress the position of the least developed countries.
Their capacity to participate in the world trade system falls well below the mark.
This is poignantly highlighted by the fact that Geneva has more lobbyists from the American steel industry than government officials from developing countries.
Our negotiators should make every effort to bring about real participation of these countries by granting institutional support, free access to our markets, observing concessions made - when it comes, for example, to textile products - and preventing so-called "green protectionism" .
We cannot offer the western consumer the option of environmentally-friendly products without stimulating environmentally-friendly production processes in developing countries.
I would like to exchange further ideas on this issue within the European Parliament.
Finally, I would like to express my respect for the rapporteur, Mr Schwaiger, regarding his activities and his unstinting willingness to compromise given the flood of amendments.
Mr President, Commissioner, by the year 2005 at the latest the trade talks opened in Seattle will have been completed.
Mr Lamy, you will again be there, in 2005, sitting in the same seat, and you will come and tell us that the European Union has enjoyed worldwide success in these global talks.
In the final text of the regulations you will have achieved some mention of the precautionary principle, of health, even phyto-sanitary matters, an ILO-OMC forum and the recognition of environmental principles, insofar as they have already been recognised at Kyoto.
The dispute settlement procedure will have been improved.
Developing countries will have obtained positive discrimination, financed, indeed, by the European Union, like the ACP bananas.
Chickens will have a few more centimetres' room inside their cages, in the name of the animal welfare which will have been recognised, and the world of cinema and television will have obtained support in the form of a few aid programmes.
In exchange, in order to achieve peace - and, indeed, a new peace clause - you will have made a number of concessions at Seattle.
So, the "European Market" share will go from 5% to X%, there will only be residual internal support, export aid will have been prohibited, customs duties and tariff peaks will no longer be in place, direct investment will have been obtained thanks to Mr Lamy, and no thanks to the MAI, and the world market will have been established, a sort of commercial Fukuyama, and the GATT story will be over.
Then what will we do? The tenth round of the Uruguay Round will have no further business.
You yourself could perhaps always go back to Crédit Lyonnais or to some multinational which hands out stock options.
But what of the farmers, who will have been wiped out, the professions excluded from society, the textile industry, pharmaceuticals, shoes, heavy-duty vehicles, furniture, ships, toys, all that which will have been delivered up to competition from outside Europe, what is to become of them? It is all very well for us to produce reports, books, television programmes and fine speeches.
The children of the Seattle negotiators will have their place in the twenty-first century and the children of the people excluded from society will, in turn, be excluded, since poverty is a socially transmitted disease.
But, in the end, all that is unimportant.
We are still strong enough to carry everyone else' s burdens.
May I begin by congratulating Mr Schwaiger on an excellent report.
The Seattle round is being called the 'development round' for the millennium.
I represent the south-east of England, one of the richest parts of the European Union, having been born in a developing country in Asia, one of the poorest parts of the world.
I hope I can therefore span, understand and recognise the aspirations of the developed world, and of the developing world, recognising the enormous benefits of global free trade whilst also recognising the imperative need to manage the transition, to enable and empower the developing world to be an equal partner in globalisation.
The multilateral trading system was born in Havana in 1948 as the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs.
Eight rounds of trade globalisation have helped to promote global prosperity.
Since 1951, world trade has grown 17-fold, world production more than quadrupled, world per capita income doubled, average tariffs dropped from 40% to 4% in industrialised countries.
Today, a further cut of 50% in border protection, including agricultural subsidies, would add over USD 370 billion to global annual welfare gains.
Sixty per cent of this would accrue to developing countries.
However, globalisation must be a win-win situation.
There should not be winners and losers.
Everyone should win.
It can be made to happen.
How can it be made to happen? The multilateral system should be fair, transparent, accountable and link trade to development.
It should look at the impact of liberalisation on investments, competition rules, unfair subsidies, poor labour standards, environmental protection, intellectual property rights, trade facilitation, government procurement, improved access to agricultural markets, improved access to commercial markets including services, consumer protection and capacity building.
The European Union is unique in terms of the history of its relationships with countries around the world - Britain with the Commonwealth, France with its French francophone countries.
We can send a clear message to Seattle that this is the single contribution that this House and its Members can make to world global trade.
Madam President, as others have said, I welcome Mr Schwaiger' s excellent work on what was a very complex set of issues to deal with.
I also particularly welcome the fact that in his text he describes the forthcoming WTO round as a development round.
It is a fact, of course, that of the 134 members of the WTO, two-thirds are developing countries, with another 32 in a queue waiting to join.
But it remains the case that the exchange of trade commitments favours the bigger traders.
They have much more to offer and their negotiating power is far greater.
Many developing countries feel that free trade has not in fact been as free for them.
Markets in the North remain restricted for many, as the most important developing country exports seek access.
Accelerating globalisation is, of course, a fact of life.
It nevertheless demands analysis and an acknowledgement that international trade is complex and is characterised by protectionism and by a system which fails to address the implications of subsidised agriculture for the poor.
While we need, of course, to support the agricultural sector in the EU, and that is made clear in Mr Schwaiger' s report, we also have to recognise the need for developing economies beyond reaching markets to have access to food security so that people have enough to eat.
And I hope that amendments along those lines will be accepted.
The EU already has binding commitments to developing countries.
These commitments, alongside international development targets, should be a central focus at Seattle.
We are now, Mr Lamy, at a critical stage in the negotiations for a successor agreement to Lomé IV and we will soon be embarking on complex discussions on trade relations with 71 ACP countries.
It is therefore very important now that we are negotiating a multilateral trade framework which respects that very critical relationship with the developing world that we continue to say that we will honour our obligations to the ACP.
I would also urge the Commission and Member States to pursue a WTO binding commitment to allow all exports from least-developed countries duty-free access to European markets by 2003.
There is also an urgent need to make sure that small and vulnerable states - landlocked states - are protected in future deals that are made.
A Director-General of the WTO very recently said that the WTO must be an organisation where the little guy not only has a say but feels that he is protected and defended.
I hope, Mr Lamy, that you will subscribe to that very important sentiment.
Madam President, Commissioner, the liberal group sanctions the agreement reached on Sunday between China and the United States regarding the lowering of bilateral barriers to trade.
However, the European Union now also has to conclude the same agreement with China before actual entry into the WTO can take place.
Mr Clegg has already touched upon this.
There are a few sensitive issues, one of which is intellectual property rights.
The liberal group would bring up another condition for China' s entry.
The European Parliament has emphasised in various resolutions that Taiwan should enter at the same time as China.
Indeed, Taiwan is the nineteenth trading nation globally and has met all conditions of entry for years now.
I would therefore put two concrete questions to the Commissioner.
Firstly, what is the state of play regarding the Union' s negotiations with China, in particular with regard to intellectual property rights? Secondly, is the Commissioner prepared to fully back Taiwan' s entry into the WTO at the same time as China?
Madam President, the previous speaker finished by saying that nature and human beings are being exploited.
I can agree with him.
The new millennium simply represents the free trade ideology.
We have experience of the free trade in capital.
It is called globalisation.
It is electronic capitalism.
In fact, it is not free trade, as the IMF has given American investors guarantees regarding the risks they take, and paid them damages that have been incurred by the free trade in capital.
There are no rules in the capital game and politicians can no longer become referees.
However, it is now possible to negotiate rules for the trade in goods and services, and it is possible to act in such a way that capital freedoms do not spread their exploitative power on such a broad global scale as electronic capitalism.
I defend green protectionism because I want us to eat healthy food and I want it to be produced in a sustainable way.
That cannot be called protectionism, as it is a question of survival.
I also defend red protectionism, which tries to safeguard workers' rights and prevent malpractice, such as the use of child labour.
In this respect also this type of protectionism is, from the point of view of social security, a question of survival.
Madam President, first of all I would like to congratulate the rapporteur for the excellent report that we have all read.
In my opinion, the Millennium Round is taking place at a very special time for the European economy, and the international economy in particular.
Indeed, globalisation is now a subject that is discussed on a daily basis. It has lead to the free market and to victory over any economic theory.
Having said that, I do not mean that we have a perfect market and, precisely for this reason, being aware of both the benefits and the corruption, we must seek to establish standards and regulations by means of agreements such as those proposed by the WTO in order to insure all of us against excesses of any type.
Just think of the financial speculation that can overwhelm entire geographical areas, reducing them to poverty or even causing institutional upheaval.
Having said that, the WTO round of negotiations is not being used to create something that is supranational, as is often feared, something that circumvents international rights or does not want to let the free market fluctuate, but it is being used to set out, in particular, specific rules for all of us, at the same time safeguarding certain fundamental rights such as the right to health, education and social duties in a framework that protects the rights of each individual citizen.
However, as far as the prices of products and services are concerned, we must ask for not only a tariff reduction but, above all, we should also make a request in terms of the quality of the products and services themselves, as a means of protecting small and medium-sized enterprises.
This will be increasingly important in the future, and there is also the increasing need to emphasise the central importance of agriculture within individual economies, and - and this is stressed in the report, but increasingly, each one of us needs to press forward resolutely with this - to protect small and medium-sized enterprises with appropriate legislation.
If we manage to comply with these obligations and improve quality of life with sustainable development, both in economic and environmental terms, we will have laid strong foundations for a better society in the next millennium.
Madam President, I would just like to say two things.
The first is that, too often during the daily debates in this Chamber, we have heard talk of international trade and the Millennium Round as if they were something that we Europeans should be wary of, something to fear.
Over the last few decades, over the recent quinquennia, international trade - Europe is the homeland of David Ricardo - has allowed us to create wealth, thanks to a new international division of labour. It has also brought about social inclusion and has defeated poverty which, given the growth in population, would have been much worse than it actually is today without international trade.
One final point: we are trying to include too many things, too many requests on different subjects in the Millennium Round talks, perhaps to ease our conscience, when - and I am referring to capital punishment - in its own forum and at the UN, Europe cannot manage to put up a united front or find the strength to impose certain things.
And then we want to debate capital punishment and other subjects in fora for trade agreements where it is inappropriate.
Madam President, Mr Lamy, I would like to point out that expanding free trade also opens up scope for Europe.
We should not have any fears in this respect.
However, my concern is that the world, further to a new WTO agreement, may become richer economically speaking but poorer in the area of culture and environment or in terms of agriculture or horticulture, and that we may lose out on business in those areas which are essential for Europe.
It is important to find a balance in this respect.
This is why I am delighted with the Schwaiger report, because this very report indicates that we should hold on to what is essential to us, whilst keeping an open mind towards the world, and because this report links political reality and the issues we can defend on behalf of Europe' s citizens in our capacity as parliamentarians.
It is essential that we voice the issues that are apparent within Europe.
I would also like to make two remarks regarding agriculture and horticulture.
The representative of the Council said this morning that the Berlin Agreement forms the starting point for these negotiations, but he also mentioned that agriculture could well prove to be a sticking point. In this respect, I feel that Europe should be more on the offensive.
May I remind you that as a trading bloc, we are the largest importer and second largest exporter?
At the same time, in a couple of years, out of the total budget for agriculture, horticulture and rural development, a mere 10% will be earmarked for product support.
In other words, if we take into account the national budget, then we note that only 2% of government spending within Europe is set aside for agriculture, horticulture and rural development.
If we refer to the 10% of this amount for product support, this is a negligible amount worldwide.
To all those who advocate the dismantling of agricultural policy within the framework of the WTO, I would like to point out that Europe boasts its own standard in terms of the environment, animal welfare and consumer protection.
Whoever is in favour of scrapping the European agricultural policy, also favours the scrapping of all we have acquired in Europe in terms of rural policy, animal welfare and welfare in general.
This means that I also defend the European standard and we, as a Parliament, have to opt in favour of the Schwaiger report, because it offers guarantees for freer trade but, at the same time, also offers guarantees for preserving what we pride ourselves on, rightly so, within Europe.
Madam President, Commissioner, in a world which is becoming more and more interdependent, in which the problems which affect us usually have their roots in areas poles apart from us, we are obliged to work together with other countries in order to manage the planet' s resources properly, by respecting rules which are common to all of us.
Commissioner, fishing is a sensitive area which must be discussed in the Millennium Round in accordance with its characteristics and through an interpretation which links it to agricultural products, as laid down in the Treaty.
This is because agriculture and fisheries have similar characteristics for us Europeans.
Both activities are linked to the sustainable exploitation of natural resources and both affect the economic and social cohesion of Europe.
Fishing and agriculture guarantee the survival of our socio-economic fabric and contribute in a fundamental way to the supply of our food market.
Mr Lamy, fish are not shoes or screws.
They cannot therefore be treated as non-agricultural products in Seattle.
Agriculture and fishing provide us with food.
The inevitable globalisation of the market must not mean a lowering of our food safety standards nor of the social rights of our workers, nor must it lead us to forget our poorer regions.
Madam President, Commissioner, the next trade round in Seattle should enhance and reinforce the basis for fair and free world trade in the next millennium.
We have to grab this unique chance with both hands to tackle the problems of the future.
This is why it is important not to restrict ourselves in the negotiations to two topics only, namely agriculture and services.
There are other important topics which require a solution at international level.
For example, we need stricter rules for the environment and labour, an effective competition policy should be drafted and it is important that appropriate measures be taken regarding food safety.
This is why I fail to understand why some take such a sceptical, or even hostile, stance regarding this coming trade negotiation.
This may well be down to an inadequate policy which lacks in transparency.
It is therefore time that the World Trade Organisation asserts itself and underlines its significance as the World Trade Organisation.
Free trade is not a dirty word.
Trade liberalisation based on equal and fair conditions gives globalisation a human face.
After all, fair and correct trade at world level implies attention to ecological and social aspects and takes into account all the players involved, thereby including the developing countries.
As such, I only hope that the EU negotiators stamp their authority on the discussions, thus immediately authenticating the WTO' s fundamental right of existence as an international organisation now and in the future.
Madam President, following the agreement between China and the United States on membership of the World Trade Organisation, I ought perhaps, in my capacity as head of the China delegation, to be as jubilant as the international finance markets. "China is becoming a modern country now," it is said.
"Therefore, it is also becoming democratic" . One commentator even believes that the Chinese Communist Party' s monopoly on power will be broken because membership of the World Trade Organisation means freedom of communication, including by means of unchecked Internet contacts.
We can only hope that this will be the case.
But might it not equally well happen instead that the regime will be reinforced by means of a form of economic growth which favours an urban minority but simultaneously creates tens of millions of new unemployed when state enterprises are left to go under, ruthlessly and without any networks of social protection, at the same time as millions of farmers become unemployed because of the new competition in the agricultural sphere?
Now, it is the case that China cannot become a member of the World Trade Organisation without the EU' s also agreeing to this.
I really hope therefore that, in its negotiations with China, the European Commission will take account of all the social and ecological aspects of the issue which the Americans clearly cared not one little bit about when they negotiated with the Chinese.
Mr President, the way in which the global market has been divided up within the WTO is not based on the interests of the people or on the interests of workers.
In the forthcoming round of negotiations, the forces of capitalism are aiming to tear down the final barriers to their freedom of action and their world domination.
Full liberalisation of the market, the abolition of subsidies and the involvement of the WTO in negotiations for uncontrolled investment will make the smaller countries hostages to the larger countries and their peoples pawns at the mercy of monopolies.
The aim of the commercialisation of services, even of education, health and culture, is to deprive the working class and the people in general of many of their achievements gained over the century.
We do not believe that the governments of the European Union countries will defend the interests of their peoples.
They will, on the contrary, endeavour to make European monopolies compete better with the other imperialist interests in the USA and Japan.
The MEPs of the Greek Communist Party will be voting against the Schwaiger report because it sides with monopoly capital in its attack on workers and the people of the world.
Rules governing international economic relations and trade should respect fundamental social rights, serve the interests of workers, promote development in the less developed countries, respect the environment and create the conditions for the development of all peoples.
Mr President, what should be welcomed in the Schwaiger report is the attempt to reconcile what up until now has been irreconcilable, and the obvious efforts of the rapporteur can be seen right from the first recital, where recognition of the significant increase in world trade thanks to multilateral relations can only stand in contrast to the lack of any substantial reduction in the world' s economic inequalities.
Here, it is not a question of expressing our opposition to pursuing greater efficiency in the multilateral relations system, but rather a question of paying the greatest attention to some important aspects.
If the first is the continuation of the inequalities between developing countries and industrialised countries, then there is also the social dumping that is being created within these very industrialised countries.
It is undeniable that the process of European convergence for the launch of the single currency has led to occasions and opportunities for growth and development in all Member States.
Nevertheless, today, we are confronted by a different process of convergence that is underway, in particular, between territorial macro-contexts where Europe seems to present itself in positions that certainly are not strong, with the risk, therefore, that its economic characteristics - founded on small and medium-sized businesses - will be compromised, as well as its cultural and social characteristics.
In this respect, we do not think that public safeguards and duties such as schools, welfare systems - including health - and pension schemes can be part of the services to be regulated.
The second aspect relates to agriculture, for which, along with greater liberalisation of the market in favour of developing countries, there is the request not only for the Community principles to be upheld - support for environmental policy and the drawing up of a food policy for consumer protection - but also for typical national agricultural characteristics and products to be protected.
The third aspect relates to investments and related rules, but also to the local conditions for the implementation thereof.
The condition of tariff and fiscal advantage is one of the first conditions, and the premise should at least be to harmonise the financial institutions, if not the tax rates.
Moreover, the States' recognised prerogative on this policy should also be translated into the possibility of a differentiated application throughout the States' territories, otherwise - apart from the simplification of the processes - the only condition remaining would be the flexibility of labour.
However, we hope that in this regard, the principles of the ILO and related conventions will be taken on board, starting with the convention on the protection of working minors.
Finally, we hope that Parliament will be able to play an active part in the Millennium Round, starting with prior knowledge of the Commission' s study on the estimated impact of the effects of the new regulatory process.
Mr President, the previous speaker pointed out that this report tries to reconcile the irreconcilable.
I think he is right up to a point, which makes the rapporteur' s work all the more remarkable and meritorious and I thank him.
Furthermore it highlights the difficult nature of the task which we will have to face.
A few months ago, in this Parliament, we examined a report on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment which, in a very dramatic way, began by saying that we were discussing a world economic constitution.
If that was true then, it is even more true now, given that we are going to discuss issues such as agriculture, services, intellectual property and direct investment.
It is difficult when, as the rapporteur said at the beginning, it is not a question of simply opting for free trade, but rather opting for a just form of free trade.
And so that this free trade may be a just free trade, it is clear that we have to reconcile trading practices with the rules regarding the environment, workers' rights, the European agricultural model and consumer protection.
To sum up, we are going to discuss practically everything, every sector and every Community policy.
Therefore the important issue at the moment is the method which we must follow.
And in this report the rapporteur - and I am with him - opts for a Commission which will act as a major player.
We call on all the States to back the Commission, we call on the Commission to take account of the sensibilities and needs of the candidate and associated countries and we call on the Intergovernmental Conference to broaden the negotiating capacities of the Commission.
But, since love is rewarded by love, all of this will only be possible if the Commission responds to Parliament by treating it as a partner and accomplice in the negotiating strategy with regard to the recommendations of the various sectors, the negotiating guidelines and the approval of the Treaties.
Only in this way, Commissioner, will we be able to work together over these three years because - believe me - all of us have tables covered in documents and requests from the various sectors involved and we will only be able to satisfy them if the Commission is able to satisfy our demands.
As Tenorio said "If you do it like that, may God reward you or, if not, may he punish you" .
Commissioner, Mr President, I think that Europe must state three main principles in this Millennium Round.
The first is that the aim of this round must be to reduce inequalities in development, unlike what has happened after previous rounds.
Today, the African continent has a less than 3% share of world trade.
The rules of the multilateral trade system must take account of the differences in countries' situations, resources and levels of development.
Free trade which does not take any other factors into account just makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker.
This is why we would not be able to accept a challenge to the principles of our cooperation with the countries of the south, particularly with ACP countries, and of course in this context I am thinking of the Lomé Convention.
I think, on the contrary, that we should restate the commitments that we made at the ACP-EU Joint Assembly which was held a few weeks ago.
Europe must go to Seattle with a concept of globalisation that is opposed to that of a unilateral world dominated by just one power.
Europe must, on the contrary, promote a concept based on a multipolar world and encourage the establishment of economically and politically integrated regional groups, as we have ourselves been trying to do for the last forty years.
How can we refuse others what we granted ourselves after the war, to reconstruct our industry, agriculture and economy?
Secondly, we must confine the WTO, strictly limit its role and keep isolated from the WTO' s sphere of competence those sectors which jeopardise society' s very identity and which must continue to remain the sovereignty of the citizens and of their elected institutions.
Education, health, public and social services, public transport and culture are all examples of sectors which cannot be brought into trade negotiations and cannot be dealt with by an international trade court.
We must refuse to join the race to make every sector subject to the market.
Thirdly, we must defend the principle of a hierarchy of norms.
The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the conventions of the International Labour Organisation, and those on the environment are, by their very nature, superior to the standards that govern trade.
We should not condemn a State on the grounds that it is applying the precautionary principle, that it is protecting its environment or that it is refusing imports which are proven to have been produced by child labour.
On the contrary, we must be able to bring an appeal against a decision by the WTO before the International Labour Organisation or before the competent bodies at the United Nations.
On the eve of this new round, we are struck by the way society at large and international public opinion have forced their way into the debate.
I think that this is an excellent development, because it is the best guarantee that it will not be possible to drop these issues during these negotiations.
Mr President, I too would like to thank Mr Schwaiger for a balanced report.
We are embarking on an important process at Seattle, from the point of view of global development and global controllability.
The world also needs rules and standards; competition alone is not enough, although our main aim with the WTO process is the more efficient organisation of trade.
It is an immense challenge.
The EU is promoting a solution to the challenges of Third World sustainable development and social justices.
We have to remain firm in this objective.
Although the liberalisation of world trade means economic benefits and prosperity, we also have to view it critically.
In addition to a freer market in the production of food, we should be talking not only about the precautionary principle, but also about supporting local production and encouraging regional food chains.
The best guarantee of food safety is transparency of the food chain and clear areas of monitoring and responsibility.
The EU must have a clear idea of priorities in the talks.
In brief, we could say that the viability of European family agriculture is a guarantee of the purity of food.
For that reason, the most important issue in the WTO talks will be securing adequate amounts of aid to ensure agriculture is profitable.
That is also why the existence of the blue box, alongside the green, is essential to preserve the European model.
There is no question of horsetrading when it comes to matters of agriculture and food safety.
Although we are trying to reduce import barriers for industrial products and services, it cannot be done at the expense of health.
The WTO, which was created in order to speed up the liberalisation of trade, has become one of the essential pillars of the new world order.
Not only does it support globalisation, but it is also committed to giving it form and the force of law in order to impose dictatorship by the market.
It actively contributes to the establishment of neo-liberal policies which find their expression in attacks upon public services, the right to employment, health and food safety and upon the environment.
Unfortunately, the European delegation subscribes to the liberal way of thinking.
It advocates an extension of the WTO' s powers, which is completely rejected by the associations and organisations that have become involved, who are instead calling for both an assessment of the WTO' s last five years and a moratorium on the forthcoming negotiations.
We support this approach which is a first step towards radically questioning the capitalist world order.
This is why we cannot vote for the Schwaiger report.
Mr President, a few weeks ago, I argued here that we Europeans should adopt a firm, credible and coherent position in order to give a social dimension to the liberalisation of trade.
And I am delighted at the convergence of views between the Commission, the Council and Parliament on this matter.
This convergence is based on respect for the Declaration on Workers' Fundamental Rights adopted by the International Labour Organisation in 1988.
This declaration takes into account both the interests of developing countries, and that is moreover why they, including China, adopted it, as well as the interests of workers, and that is why trade unions also accepted it.
We must now make this declaration truly effective, by guaranteeing respect for it, and that means in the corridors of the World Trade Organisation, too.
Minister, Commissioner, I do not think that achieving meaningful cooperation between the WTO and the ILO, by whatever means, is an impossible task.
All the more reason to try to succeed.
Mr President, the new round of trade negotiations will take place five years after the conclusion of the Uruguay Round.
And here we MEPs clearly have to communicate the concerns of our electors with regard to this round, which will be very important.
There is an aspect in relation to which we can say that our results are bad.
I refer to the dispute settlement procedure.
We have had two significant disputes - over bananas and hormones - which the European Union lost, and there has been one dispute which we have not even dared to put before the settlement system: I am referring to the American Helms-Burton and d' Amato laws for extra-territorial application to European companies.
I have the impression that this issue will have to be reviewed at the World Conference, at the World Round.
I believe that we will have to see how the mechanism for the settlement of disputes can be adjusted according to the needs.
There are also other legal aspects, because the Treaty of the World Trade Organisation is not a unique treaty.
There are other international treaties, such as those agreed within the framework of the International Labour Organisation, the World Intellectual Property Organisation and the multilateral agreements relating to the environment.
I hope that in the Seattle Conference these issues will be dealt with in such a way that the new agreements will, within the framework of the World Trade Organisation, bring about an appropriate legal framework.
Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, I am taking the floor in order to reiterate some of the points that have already been made here by several of my colleagues from the Group of the Party of European Socialists, to the effect that we are in favour of a round of negotiations, but not just any old round of negotiations.
This can be expressed through our socialist philosophy: we are in favour of a market economy, but we are opposed to a market society.
And this philosophical train of thought is causing us to diverge from two opposing visions that are in play at this Seattle Summit.
The first is held by those who think that the market does not create wealth: we, on the other hand, think that the market does create wealth.
We also disagree with those who think that the market solves all problems.
It is we socialists who uphold the idea that the market helps to create wealth, but that there must be regulation for there to be a redistribution of this wealth which is equitable and which respects sustainable development from which we should all benefit.
This is a different vision that is far ahead of the two I have mentioned.
It is a demanding and critical vision that is at the root of the way we are acting with regard to the forthcoming WTO negotiations.
And this is why we are against sectorial negotiations and are in favour of all-encompassing negotiations.
This is why we are in favour of seeing the WTO and its respective negotiations as an instrument for the creation of a fairer society, of a more sustained development, in which mankind is actually the focus of all decision making.
And from this point of view, we state here once again the need to respect environmental matters, the need to respect the consumer and the need to respect human as well as social rights.
And from this point of view, Mr President, and to end my intervention, we would like to offer all our support and all our cooperation to Commissioner Lamy on the objectives and the strategic viewpoints that he is well aware he needs to uphold in Seattle.
Mr President, three brief remarks about the Millennium Round and cultural diversity.
First of all, the EU is a success story, an economic community which has put its faith in open markets and given people security in the social sphere, together with economic prosperity.
However, the European Union is not only an economic community but also a community of values.
To uphold these values and to secure the cultural diversity of Europe are indispensable tasks at a time when the economies of the world are increasingly interrelated.
I should therefore particularly like to thank Mr Schwaiger, the rapporteur, who has done an excellent job in the way he has introduced the subject of securing the cultural heritage of Europe into the report for the Millennium Round.
In the meantime, there are two goals.
On the one hand, the dynamic development of electronic services ought not to be impeded. On the contrary, it must be facilitated for, like no other branch of industry, it guarantees jobs that are safe for the future, both in Europe and worldwide.
On the other hand, we shall have to be in a position to support and promote the diversity of our European cultural heritage in the future too, and this by means of promotional measures taken also by the Member States.
The Schwaiger report facilitates both goals.
It has therefore earned broad support from us all.
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Schwaiger.
While stressing that we must have a WTO Millennium Round that is as comprehensive as possible so that everybody can get something out of it, there are three issues I would like to draw attention to.
I am very pleased that Parliament, the Commission and the Council have highlighted animal welfare in their presentations.
It is an important issue for citizens, it is an important issue for many of us here in this House and it is important that it is debated at Seattle.
I think we must also learn the lessons of the multilateral agreement on investments.
Yes, it will be possible for competition and investment to be dealt with at Seattle, but it is important that they are dealt with in a transparent and open way.
The WTO must explain to its citizens what it is doing or it will run the risk of undermining support for free trade.
It is equally important that as broad as possible a consultation is actually put in place to enable the different points of view to be heard and to be understood when we deal with competition and investment.
And, thirdly, there is the dispute settlement system itself.
It was an undoubted success of the Uruguay Round, but there are problems associated with it.
Seattle must close those loopholes, again on the basis of transparency and greater certainty about the rights and obligations of all those involved in the dispute settlement system.
That will offer us a key potential for unlocking world trade.
In conclusion we must never lose sight of the fact that globalisation is very much about human issues, it is about standards of living, the environment, cultural, moral and ethical issues.
Some fear the WTO, some fear globalisation, some fear the advance of growth, markets, technology and science.
But I believe by working together openly with the common goal of raising the quality of life for the whole world, we can actually confound the critics of globalisation and show that globalisation and liberalisation can genuinely be a decisive force for good.
Mr President, the world economy is now facing problems similar to those it faced before the beginning of the Uruguay Round 13 years ago.
We are confronted with generally slackening growth, and that in a world with an exploding population There are six billion people in the world; one billion are hungry; and more than 30 million people die of starvation each year, including - horrifically - many children.
And we, the rich of this world, have a duty to try to reduce this misery and hunger.
I am firmly convinced that a further liberalisation and expansion of trade in the framework provided by the WTO will contribute to promoting growth and employment in the developing countries as well.
As general rapporteur of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection for the WTO negotiations, I should particularly like to thank Mr Schwaiger for his clear words on the subject of trade and the environment.
It was not straightforward.
But if, by the end of tomorrow, Parliament has accepted the Schwaiger Report, then we shall have endorsed his words and decided that account must be taken of environmental protection as a condition for all areas of world trade; not a wishy-washy may or ought to be, but must be.
I believe we are heading for very exciting negotiations indeed and, as has been said very often today, we Europeans most certainly have an historic role to play in these.
Mr President, at Marrakech we were promised an assessment of the previous round of negotiations before entering into new negotiations.
Today, this assessment has still not been made and there is a simple reason for that: it would not be a positive one.
It would say that we should kill off liberal dogmas, as well as the old theory which says that wealth is created by developing trade.
In 50 years, the volume of trade has increased seventeen-fold, whereas we have only produced twice as many goods in the world.
It would also kill off the idea which says that the future of third-world countries would be improved.
Inequalities have continued to increase there as they have in our own countries.
It would say that we should change course, and that is what we are asking you to do, Commissioner.
Changing course means firstly obtaining, by means of the existing package, the one that has already been negotiated, real social and environmental regulations, instead of vague references to standards that are never applied.
Yes, that means setting up a logical approach in opposition to ecological and social dumping.
This assessment would say "Beware, so as not to open up Pandora' s box in other sectors and I am thinking here particularly of investments.
This Parliament has said "no" to the MAI for sound reasons and you, Commissioner, must uphold these arguments in order to prevent the investment sector experiencing the disasters we have seen happen in other areas.
Finally, this assessment would condemn the patentability of "living things" and the fact that plants and life itself are becoming saleable commodities.
The 20th century has been characterised by a fundamental crisis of humanism as a result of xenophobia and acts of genocide.
I would not like to see the 21st century also characterised by a crisis of humanity on account of the all-powerful principles of money and the market taking precedence over the development of mankind and over the fundamental values that make human life what it is.
Mr President, I too want to congratulate Mr Schwaiger on an excellent report.
A lot of people are now criticising the World Trade Organisation for looking too one-sidedly at trade, for seeing trade as an end in itself and for failing to see the complex connections between trade, human rights and environmental considerations.
I agree with parts of these criticisms but I do not draw the conclusion that we do not need a new trade round.
On the contrary, I believe that the status quo is not something we can profit by. Instead, we have everything to gain from a new round because there is so much greater understanding today of these complex connections and of the fact that development questions and environmental questions have to be discussed in the one context.
I would remind you of the World Trade Organisation' s latest report which deals very perceptively with just such environmental questions.
Allow me to consider two special aspects of what we are discussing.
The Commission rightly says that the present round is to be a development round.
In a situation in which the level of aid is declining, I find it difficult to see, however, how this is going to be the case if we do not see a radical change.
There are some who see a contradiction between aid and trade.
They say that trade should help the poorest countries to get out of the situation they are in.
I think that the question has been put in the wrong way.
We need both: aid as well as trade.
We must therefore link these questions to our aid work.
Increased trade can, of course, have a positive effect on the environment, for example through the transfer of technology adapted to environmental requirements.
The opposite may, however, also apply, mainly because our economic framework is not good at taking due account of environmental consequences.
That is why it is so important that the trade regulations should take increased account of these factors.
The question, when we now read this report and make every kind of demand upon the World Trade Organisation, is simply that of whether the World Trade Organisation can settle all conceivable disputes in the future.
I believe - and this is an important conclusion - that, parallel to our making the World Trade Organisation "greener" , we must also strengthen the international conventions on the environment. The fact is that they are far too weak at present.
Mr President, I consider the Millennium Round to be an important opportunity to promote the opening of the international markets to competition, to extend the guarantees against anti-competition practices and to finally address the subject of investments as well.
The liberalisation of world trade is a positive process that generates growth and that can be hindered, not only by the protectionist practices of the States, but also by the creation of situations where competition is distorted, such as in the event of the abuse of dominant positions, cartels and dumping - think of the example of the shipbuilding industry - which are so harmful to Europe.
This is something that is largely new for the World Trade Organisation, but I think it extremely important.
Similarly, a new area for talks should be the quest to open up national markets to foreign investments.
It is important that the Schwaiger report and Parliament recognise the World Trade Organisation as the appropriate forum for serious negotiations on investments, seeking certainty and clarity of the law on the protection of investments, but also, obviously, the protection of state legislation in social, environmental and cultural fields.
The Schwaiger report understandably puts more emphasis on safeguards, but I think that it is generally in harmony with the Commission proposal and therefore expresses full confidence in Commissioner Lamy' s work with regard to this sensitive topic as well, in full awareness that the liberalisation of international trade, even in new fields - as with investments - is an important concern for the countries of the European Union and all the countries which have an interest in lasting and sustainable development of the global economy.
Mr President, the commitment of the European Union, repeated in the Schwaiger report, to the creation of a permanent labour forum between the International Labour Organisation and the World Trade Organisation on issues related to trade, globalisation and labour is the only way to accompany the liberalisation of commerce and trade in general with respect for fundamental labour rights, without slipping into egotistical, hypocritical protectionism or unfair, self-destructive competition.
In this respect, the bilateral agreement that the United States has signed with China to prepare the way for China to join the World Trade Organisation must be regarded by the European Union, aside from as an important contribution to the multilateral process, also, and above all, as a fundamental opportunity to monitor the substantial importance that human rights have and will have regarding the opportunities afforded by a market that enjoys such enormous potential as the Chinese market.
Let us remember, in this regard, that the 174 member countries of the ILO which, with the solemn declaration of 1998, undertook to comply with the four categories of fundamental labour rights, even where they did not ratify the conventions, are, in the main, also members of the WTO.
Now, since the international bodies are what the Member States want them to be, it is legitimate to ask these same States to behave in a consistent manner throughout the fora.
The desirable entry of China, which the European Union is also actively negotiating for, will certainly make the WTO more representative and will extend the potential ability to realise global free trade that is also regulated.
Nevertheless, that does not mean deluding ourselves that many of the problems regarding fundamental rights in China have now been resolved or are being resolved, nor ignoring the fact that, in the past, the United States itself has had double standards regarding the request for the social clause to be complied with.
It is, however, better that it is possible for the attempt to affirm these rights to be made within the walls of the international institutions, rather than in bilateral fora, according to what is convenient at the time.
Mr President, as the last in the line of socialist speakers, I would like to draw your attention to one aspect which has not yet been dealt with at length, namely the patenting of live organisms.
Many third-world countries have objected to this, as this practice makes deep inroads into the very existence of millions of farmers.
If applications for patents could be made on existing agricultural crops, this would mean farmers becoming more dependent on large companies.
They would need to pay for sowing seed, which would affect their very raison d' être.
As a result of this, food safety would be in the balance.
A large group of third-world countries, Kenya being the spokesperson, has called for a review of the TRIPS Agreement.
In order to accommodate the developing countries, it would be a good idea to actually carry out this review.
But this is not the only reason.
From an economic point of view, there are major disadvantages attached to the current practice, as this can lead to a handful of companies being in unacceptable positions of power.
There are also ethical objections to the patenting of live organisms.
These objections have also been tabled in the Council when the Biotechnology Directive was laid down.
This is why I would like to ask Commissioner Lamy, and Parliament, to take seriously the objections raised by third-world countries, but also the ethical and economic objections raised within Europe.
An assessment of the present regulation would be a first step.
Mr President, the Seattle Conference is not an invitation from the United States to the rest of the world to impose the vision of absolute and unbridled free trade.
It is exactly the opposite.
The World Trade Organisation is a European idea, one to which the Americans were converted in Marrakech, after having opposed it for a long time.
With regard to Seattle, it is the Europeans, not the Americans who are proposing the greater agenda: the Millennium Round is our idea.
It is the Europeans, not the Americans, who have gained the most from previous negotiations.
Since 1995 the United States' trade deficit towards us has grown spectacularly: almost USD 30 billion last year.
Anyway, the issue is not unregulated trade, but quite the opposite, to ensure that the formidable growth of trade serves everyone' s long-term development and not just the predatory enrichment of the strongest.
We want increased levels of trade and the elimination of the many barriers that still remain in some countries for some goods and for most services.
We want fair trade for everyone and by that I mean equal conditions for competition.
They are not equal in agriculture, or in cultural sectors.
There must be rules for competition and a court to ensure that they are respected, and that means by the strongest, too, with regard to the weakest.
Finally, we want trade that benefits sustainable development, by creating a link between trade agreements and our other major international commitments on fundamental labour rights, on food safety and on environmental protection.
Basically, we have to undertake, on a worldwide scale, the course of action that enabled us to succeed in Europe when we moved from the Customs Union to the Single Area, and that is why Europe has the most to bring to the negotiations and has the right to expect the most from it.
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council Sasi, Commissioner Lamy, I wish to add my voice to the many here who have expressed their thanks to Mr Schwaiger.
He has presented a good report.
The report addresses the important points and says, above all, that we in principle support the Commission and the Council.
However, we are clearer about some points than the Commission and the Council have been so far.
I am speaking, for example, about environmental standards.
What we want, Commissioner, President-in-Office of the Council, is for attention not only to be given to environmental damage caused in Europe by products from other countries. We also want more thorough discussion of processes and production methods (PPM) in other countries and to talk not only about labelling but also about how, through trade sanctions, we can prevent worldwide damage to the environment from taking place.
In fact, the Liberals have submitted a very good Amendment to the Committee, and this may be found as number 47 in the resolution we have before us.
It is a question of being able to impose trade sanctions relating to production methods whenever there is a danger of worldwide damage to the environment.
The WTO' s Shrimps-Turtle judgement at least presents an attempt to argue along these lines, for the Shrimps look alike whether or not they have been caught in accordance with the rules concerning animal protection.
The WTO has said: in principle, this can be discussed.
It is important that we also discuss climate protection in this context, for the world decided in Rio in 1992 and in Kyoto in 1997 that this is a huge problem and that we must tackle it together.
There must, therefore, also be opportunities to implement climate protection measures in the WTO.
To conclude, I should like to support all those who have come out in favour of a courageous position in respect of the least developed countries, the LLDC.
I should like, however, to emphasise that these are not only ACP countries but that there are also many countries outside the ACP area to which we must provide better support.
I am among those who argue that all products should be completely free from customs duties and that we should not be defining so-called sensitive products, only then to make exceptions of them again.
Mr President, the drafting of the agenda for the coming Millennium Round raises quite a few questions with me.
I cannot shake off the impression I have that the desiderata of the developing countries threaten to be pulverised by the desiderata of the major economic blocs.
When elephants fight, the grass is trampled underfoot.
Africa is all too aware of this.
If Europe and the US argue today about genetically modified organisms and the use of hormones and antibiotics in cattle breeding, then improved market access for the developing countries and their involvement in the world economy will threaten to fade into the background.
So it is up to us to ensure that in a world of liberalised trading, there is room for social and ecological corrections and a gradual and guided involvement of third-world countries in the world economy.
Otherwise, we might end up in an American world which only defends commerce with verve, but overlooks the other values of the European dream, namely solidarity alongside competitiveness and responsibility alongside economic growth.
Surely it cannot be our intention to render everything subordinate to the one paradigm, which is to be disseminated from Seattle to the rest of the world?
Europe, and the European Parliament, in particular, must argue in favour of more equality in world trade relations.
The impact of liberalisation of the economy on the development of the third world should be that of the wind that kindles a fire.
The wind should be forceful enough, but not too forceful or else it will blow out the fire.
In Seattle, we will help blow the bellows of the world economy.
In my opinion, the excellent report of Mr Schwaiger indicates very well how we can reach out to the developing countries.
I will therefore give it all my support.
Mr President, I am concerned about the attitude which is in danger of developing in the EU where free trade is concerned.
Attacks against the World Trade Organisation are significant, and the trade disputes we are experiencing and being drawn into are alarming.
To be one-sidedly passionate about one' s own region' s traditions and characteristic ways of doing things by imposing restrictions in the context of trade policy is to risk removing the basis for trade and development and for the dissemination of knowledge, culture and prosperity. In the longer term, it can also lead to suspicion, stagnation and conflicts.
When it comes to the Schwaiger report, which our excellent rapporteur has worked very thoroughly on, many Members of the European Parliament have devoted energy to tackling all the problems and disturbing elements which free trade is alleged to give rise to.
I would therefore emphasise the contributions of free trade to reducing poverty and encouraging growth and the processes of democratisation.
The power for development entailed in free trade and competition is something we cannot turn our backs on in the era of globalisation.
The overriding task of the EU' s representatives in Seattle must therefore be that of continuing with the liberalisation of world trade.
The new industries have relied upon the sets of regulations offered by the World Trade Organisation.
In this way, they have been able to create prosperity in a very much better way than they would have done by means of endless subsidies from the rich man' s table.
Protectionist measures would now prevent imports from these developing countries and limit the latter' s opportunities to contribute to the international division of labour.
A policy of protecting markets therefore leads to a deterioration in working conditions in the poorer countries and runs counter to the kind of development we want to promote, that is to say improved living conditions achieved through growth and free trade.
Mr President, what is especially gratifying about Mr Schwaiger' s report is that it shows that Parliament has, for its part, been able to increase coherence in the aims of the talks.
The Union, through its earlier decisions, has been committed to consistency in different areas of policy.
Thus, for example, trade policy must be in harmony with the Union' s policies on developing countries and the environment.
Both areas of policy are now emphatically raised in the report and, as a new Member of Parliament, I can say that it comes as a pleasant surprise.
Similarly, I could say that the proposed report gives a very balanced account of the position of the WTO in relationship to other multilateral treaties.
In addition, strong support for the cooperation that has begun between the ILO and the WTO promises an even better level of coherence in this area.
Once a working model has been found, it should also be applied to the way the WTO relates to other international organisations, which have overseen the drafting of similar agreements.
It is also important that Parliament now outlines the importance of these multilateral agreements in the WTO' s dispute settlement procedure.
As a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, I am satisfied that we are trying to include the precautionary principle in the set of rules of the WTO.
The Union' s negotiators must be able to convince the other sides that the EU goal is not protectionism but the safeguarding of the welfare of the consumer.
The Union would be wise to invite NGOs to discussions about the WTO while the round of talks is proceeding.
Not only would it strengthen the legitimacy of Union action on our own turf, but the global NGO arena itself could help our negotiators to achieve the goals of the Union.
Experience shows that debate in the NGO arena easily spreads from one continent to another.
As the other sides unfortunately lag far behind, the EU needs the backing of the NGOs in its work to transform the WTO into a sustainable organisation in the areas of the environment, health and social welfare.
At the Seattle round, the scope and power of the WTO will grow significantly, and that is why the EU should ensure that the effects of the liberalisation of trade and the action of the WTO are continually appraised from the point of view of ecology and fairness.
Mr President, I am not absolutely convinced that the developed world needs free trade with the rest of the world in order to make economic progress.
The bigger EU States like France, Germany and the United Kingdom traded about 30% of GDP in the 1960s as against 60% today, but they enjoyed much faster economic growth at that time than they do now.
From 1950 to 1970 world economic growth and the expansion of world trade ran roughly in tandem, but since then economic growth has been increasing at only half the pace of world exports: so again there is no evidence there that increased trade leads automatically to further economic growth.
It is quite obvious, of course, that small countries like Ireland, Belgium and Luxembourg need free trade, but a European Union with a single market or a North American single market is an entirely different proposition.
Nevertheless I believe in free trade.
Because of the way the world is changing, globalisation is unstoppable unless, of course, we erect iron curtains or bamboo curtains, and those too would be blown away by the winds of change.
Globalisation is happening and while there are risks it presents us with immense opportunities.
The first opportunity is to create a partnership for cooperation and the management of the increased trading activities.
Decision making in this way is not to by-pass democracy, it is to extend democracy.
It is a new means by which to organise the activities of mankind.
Behind our trade barriers there is the risk that we will cultivate the seeds of more international conflict.
The rich could dig in behind their barriers, they could buy some essential things from the poorer countries but we would be back to the seventeenth century with the strong exploiting the weak.
Those who are concerned about human rights, animal welfare and the environment have a much better prospect of securing improvements in those areas within a legal framework and a World Trade Organisation than they have in a free-for-all, law of the jungle.
I want to congratulate Mr Schwaiger on putting together what I regard as a decent framework within which to move forward.
There will be risks, but we have to explain to our people why we cannot do other than proceed.
Mr President, I would first like to compliment the European Parliament on its sense of timing.
This debate on the Schwaiger report could not have come at a better time because we are right now in the middle of extremely lively discussions on the preparation of the Seattle agenda.
Next, as the Union' s negotiator, I would like to express my pleasure at the Schwaiger report.
Its adoption will send a clear signal to our partners' , by confirming that the European Union will not be satisfied with a minimalist approach which only aims to improve market access in some sectors.
This would not provide a response either to our fellow citizens' concerns or to the legitimate demands of developing countries.
Going by what you have said today, your vote tomorrow will strengthen our hand and thus the Union' s hand in Seattle.
We are all aware that the debate on trade has changed the approach that we are taking, as the Schwaiger report shows.
It is, admittedly, true that we want to continue to liberalise trade, which has been and still is a strategic factor in our prosperity.
But the next round of negotiations must also address new issues, such as development, the environment, health and food safety, fundamental social standards, competition and its transparency, minimal rules in terms of investment and the promotion of cultural diversity.
The addition of all these elements leads us to recommend a broader round of negotiations, and I am delighted to see the broad agreement on this matter between the Commission and Parliament which is shown in your report, Mr Schwaiger.
Some of you do not agree with this approach and propose a kind of moratorium on negotiations.
I do not think that this is a valid solution.
Firstly because we have commitments that must be respected in the follow-up to the Uruguay Round.
Secondly, we must carefully weigh up the risks of a moratorium.
If we do not advance further along the route towards multilateral liberalisation, that means leaving the way open for unilateral action by the strongest.
Is this really the outcome that those calling for a moratorium want to see?
Thirdly, why should we postpone negotiation on the rules which our society is rightly calling for and that developing countries are expecting in order to integrate the liberalisation of trade and sustainable development into areas such as health, the environment and workers' fundamental rights?
I am therefore convinced that these negotiations are necessary, but I recognise - and moreover I am delighted that this is the case - that the very conditions of these negotiations have changed in relation to the previous round.
Given the concerns expressed by a growing number of our fellow citizens with regard to globalisation, we must have a public debate that is more wide-ranging, more transparent and more interactive.
In this respect, I think that the discussions held when the Schwaiger report was being prepared, both within Parliament and between Parliament and the Commission, have been exemplary.
This is why I feel I must pay tribute to Mr Schwaiger who has accomplished a Herculean task by drawing up, from your many proposals, a compromise version that I hope you will vote for tomorrow.
In order to respond to the debate, I would like briefly to mention a few issues which have come to light in the preparation of this report.
On the subject, first, of developing countries, it has become clear that the countries that have benefited the least from the establishment of the WTO and from the results of the Uruguay Round are also, without exception, those who are the least integrated into the world trade system.
We therefore have to encourage their participation with a view to encouraging their integration, instead of delaying.
Where integration does not go ahead primarily because of a lack of resources or inadequate expertise, then developing countries must be given technical and financial assistance in order to increase their negotiating ability and to apply the measures decided on within the WTO.
On the other hand, when non-integration is a result of domestic policies or of poor development, extending deadlines for implementation or providing more and more preferential measures are not ideal solutions.
Special and differentiated treatment is, admittedly, essential for developing countries, but it must encourage these countries to implement strategies for sustainable development and not exempt them from such strategies.
A new approach is necessary with regard to relations with ACP countries, for example, one that must, in particular, achieve convergence towards WTO rules, because the current system must be reviewed, in any case, even if we have to make the necessary transitional changes.
On the issue of intellectual property, we are convinced that the regulations in this field must enable developing countries to themselves benefit from the resources available to them and that the current measures already go a long way towards achieving this.
A top-to-toe revision of the agreement would not therefore be a good idea.
On the other hand, if we take a coherent view of the link between intellectual property and development, we must, at the same time as extending its guarantees, ensure that we encourage direct investment as the principle means of transferring technology to these countries, as well as developing agreements with them for technological cooperation and perhaps, and this is just a suggestion, thinking about strengthening European investment in fundamental research on living things, in order to share the profits with them.
In the area of the environment, there are many concerns focusing on the applicability of environmental measures in relation to WTO rules.
The ideal solution is to be found, of course, in multilateral negotiations on a hierarchy of norms.
As we well know, it is not within reach.
In the meantime, we must work hard to ensure that each of the new standards is linked to the previous ones so that, if needs be, the judges to whom disputes are referred are not given too wide a scope for interpretation.
One of our goals is to guarantee mutual compatibility in this context, which would allow environmental or other measures to be implemented in accordance with WTO rules.
The precautionary principle is another subject that concerns many of you.
It is obviously up to each member of the WTO to decide if there is a risk or not.
The precautionary principle must then allow that country to take the appropriate measures in order to avoid this risk.
The most important thing for us therefore is the clarification of the regulations and procedures governing the application of the precautionary principle.
As far as services are concerned, I note the concerns that have been expressed.
I would like to reassure you on this point.
In no case do I have the mandate to accept, by means of an international negotiation, a threat to the power of the Union' s governments to regulate these areas or to be active in them.
We recognise the essential and crucial role that these services play in our society.
With regard to agriculture, until now we have faced a position on the part of the Cairns group which aims to put agricultural products in the same category as other goods.
This is not the position we hold.
This is not what was agreed in 1994 by all parties involved and which we have respected.
We will have to start again from the idea that agriculture has other functions apart from producing goods for the market.
Let us finally examine the question of social standards.
In all countries, globalisation makes its effects felt in the social sphere, but it must also be pointed out that in a number of less advanced countries, international labour standards agreed on under the International Labour Organisation are not being sufficiently respected.
The mention of social standards arouses reactions in some of our WTO partners, particularly among developing countries, which are, and I can vouch for this, extremely heated.
It is crucial that, from now on, we begin by restating our opposition to the imposition of trade sanctions in the social sphere as well as to any use of sanctions for protectionist reasons.
To our mind, the very raison d' être of respecting workers' fundamental rights is the fairer distribution of profits from the growth that liberalisation of trade brings.
It is, moreover, bearing this concern in mind, that our plan of widely applied preferences allows us to provide free-standing reductions to countries that effectively apply the main ILO conventions.
The important thing for us in Seattle, and I think that we are all in agreement on this, is to make discussion of the matter possible in the context of cooperation between the ILO and the WTO.
By the way, I would also like to confirm our support for the presence of Mr Somavia in Seattle as a positive sign of the importance given to this subject.
I would like to say a word or two about China, Mr President, before I finish.
I have not spoken publicly on this matter while I have been waiting for this debate.
Is the signing by the Americans and the Chinese of an agreement on access to the WTO, as several of you have asked, good news or not such good news? From the point of view first of those who question the whole WTO, it is not good news.
China, a country whose development is crucial for the future of the world, is giving a clear sign that it wishes to adhere to a multilateral trade system.
From the point of view of our multilateral interests as well as of our own interests, everything depends on the contents of the agreement that has been signed, as the American Congress wanted to be the first to hear the contents of this agreement, a procedure to which your Parliament should have been more sympathetic than hostile, even if it makes my life more difficult.
I am sorry to say that information about the details only reaches me in dribs and drabs. Now the devil, or perhaps the dragon, in this case, is in the detail.
I have no reason today to doubt the good faith of the American negotiators with whom our people have been working hard and to good effect for the last two years on our common interests.
Nor do I have any reason to suspect that concessions on multilateral conditions that are important to us have been paid for in bilateral money that is not legal tender for us.
Supposing that this were not the case, we should still have to negotiate with the Chinese on matters in which the Union has a particular interest.
To sum up, it is probably good news, subject to receiving proper details of the contents, which are being prepared.
I shall conclude my intervention Mr President, by welcoming the members of your institution who are part of our delegation to the Seattle Ministerial Conference.
This is part of a tradition that I am happy to uphold.
Moreover, tomorrow, I shall be meeting those MEPs that you will be appointing as delegates for Seattle, and I hope that you will have done so by tomorrow, and we will be able to discuss in greater detail the courses of action that we shall carry out once we are there.
Mr President, I asked Mr Lamy explicitly what he thinks of Taiwan joining the WTO in the context of the Republic of China' s joining.
He has not given me an answer.
May I have an answer?
Mr President, to tell the truth, I did not answer this question because Parliament had already put it to me a few weeks ago and I answered it then.
We are in favour of Taiwan joining the WTO.
Furthermore, negotiations have not been entirely signed and sealed by all the countries concerned, and news of China' s rapprochement is, in fact, from this point of view, good news.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at midday.
Mr President, this is a question which I will pose under Rule 112(2) in relation to a request for the declaration of an urgent procedure which I tabled three hours ago with regard to the Napolitano report in accordance with Rule 115, in order that the presentation of this request for an urgent debate may be announced to the House and should go ahead accordingly, so that we may respect the timetable for debate and voting which is laid down in the agenda.
Mr Barón Crespo, I still do not have any information at the moment.
However, we are waiting for this, and I think that what you are requesting will happen in the course of the debate which now follows.
At the moment, I cannot tell you anything.
Mr President, in any case I would like to make it clear that I presented this request three hours ago with my signature and that of the President of the Liberal Group and with the agreement of the President of the PPE Group, although he has not signed it.
I would like this to appear accordingly in the Minutes.
I would ask you to request that the services show diligence in the processing of this question.
I take note of what you say, Mr Barón Crespo, and we shall ask the officials to deal with the matter quickly.
Treaty reform/next IGC
The next item is the report (A4-0058/1999) by Messrs Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the preparations for the reform of the Treaties and for the next Intergovernmental Conference (C5-0143/1999 - 1999/2135(COS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to publicly thank my co-rapporteur, Mr Jo Leinen, for his cooperation.
I believe that the report you have in front of you reflects two things in particular.
Firstly, this report is an attempt to condense a range of views of a large majority, not only of Parliament, but of all European citizens, and secondly, it shows how the European Parliament invariably aims to play, and does indeed play, a role in taking big decisions and in procedures to further improve the European Union.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is clear that the next Intergovernmental Conference will become directly involved in perhaps the greatest challenge facing the European Union, i.e. enlargement.
Amongst other things, this means that the Intergovernmental Conference must aim to improve the institutions, the way in which they function and the European Union' s policies, before we can allow new members in.
This particularly difficult process means that the next Intergovernmental Conference must proceed on a two-tier basis.
The first tier, which I shall not say anything about since, when we divided up responsibilities, Mr Leinen assumed responsibility for that, concerns how we should introduce institutional reforms, how far we need to go with the reforms and what the actual goals of these reforms are.
The second tier concerns the equally important issue of European Union policies.
The European Union is having to cope with an increasingly wide range of topics on a daily basis - topics which are particularly important for the citizens of the Union.
Clearly, it would be very difficult in the limited time we have to address them one by one in a parliamentary discussion.
Therefore, the first issue the conference should address as regards policies is the external representation of the European Union.
This is an issue which has quite rightly concerned us on many occasions.
It is therefore necessary for the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference to aim to improve those policies which lead to a more unified European policy on security and defence.
The second issue to be addressed, which is also an important one, concerns the future of Europe on a global scale.
It is quite similar but it has an added dimension involving external economic relations, an issue which we have been discussing a great deal.
The third issue, together with the economy, is that of a "Social Europe" .
It would be tragic if we forged ahead with developing European Union policies without giving consideration to such an important area which encompasses the bread and butter concerns of European citizens.
Mr President, in such a report, we found it neither feasible nor necessary to introduce concrete political proposals.
These proposals do exist but this report is more to do with the agenda of the IGC and how it should be followed, and contains a very specific proposal from the point of view of Parliament.
For this reason, I am calling on you to vote in favour of the report.
Mr President, the Committee on Constitutional Affairs has discussed this report thoroughly at several meetings, and I believe we are presenting plenum with a report of substance concerning the reform of the Treaties.
I have my colleague, Mr Dimitrakopoulos, to thank for collaborating so well and for distributing the work in such a way that this extensive task could be carried out.
We are agreed that, before the European Union is enlarged to include new States, there must be a basic reform to maintain the efficiency of the European Union and also, I would say, to improve the transparency of decisions on European policy and the ability to supervise these.
We in Parliament urge that the reform now pending should go above and beyond the three Amsterdam left-overs.
True, these are important, but they are not enough.
I want to mention five points in connection with which demands are being made in my part of our report.
Firstly: we demand the reform of all institutions and of all organisations including, therefore, the Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
All these institutions must be subjected to scrutiny.
Central to all this is the reform of the Council.
Parallel to the Intergovernmental Conference, the Council of Ministers must carry out an internal reform, as demanded in the Trumpf-Piris paper, and the essence of the reform must be to have majority voting in the Council as the rule and, as a concomitant of this, to have codecision making by this Parliament in the case of all legislative acts.
I believe that Parliament will judge the Intergovernmental Conference according to whether this reform of the Council is successful.
Secondly: the Intergovernmental Conference must make a contribution to the democratic supervision of European politics.
Parliament must have better opportunities to supervise the Commission and to hold it to account.
In this connection, we demand that the President of the Commission should have the ability to ask this Parliament for a vote of confidence and that the so-called Prodi procedure, whereby the President is able to dismiss a single Member of the Commission, should be incorporated into the next Treaty.
Thirdly: we think that the reorganisation of the Treaties, leading to a situation in which the European Union would have something akin to a constitution, has now become a matter of importance. No citizen, and no expert either, understands the Treaties as they stand at present.
They are unreadable. If we are to remain close to our citizens, we need to have the Treaties combined into a single text and divided into two parts - a constitutional part, and a second part which would then also partly have to be subjected to a simplified revision procedure.
Fourthly: reform of the Treaties requires not only that these should be ambitious in content but also that a new method of reform should be employed.
Negotiating behind closed doors should be a thing of the past. Nor is it any longer acceptable.
Parliament must be involved in all phases of preparing for, and holding, the Intergovernmental Conference.
We request that the Community method as per Article 48 be used; we expect a concrete proposal from the Commission which will form the basis for the negotiations; and we also expect to reach a consensus with the Council and the Commission concerning the agenda and the procedure for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
This Article 48 itself belongs on the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference.
We think that account must be taken of the European Union' s double legitimacy as a Union of States, on the one hand, but also as a Union of the Peoples on the other, while Parliament obtains the right, when it comes to future negotiations for the purpose of revising the Treaties, to participate in decision making whenever it is the content of the future Treaties which is being negotiated.
We here in Parliament are prepared to collaborate on a comprehensive reform of the Treaties and to ensure that, even following enlargement, our European Union is still able to take necessary decisions and, at the same time, also remain transparent to our citizens so that the latter understand this Union and also accept it.
The Commission presented its proposals last week, and now Parliament is doing the same this week.
A lot of colleagues wanted to go much further, to the point of demanding that a European constitution be drafted.
We have imposed a discipline upon ourselves and remained within the broad framework of what has been demanded in terms of institutional changes.
Now, it is up to the governments, meeting in Helsinki, to have the insight and also the courage to decide upon an agenda whose subject is that of sound reform.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
(ES) Mr President, please allow me, although very briefly, to protest at the poor scheduling of such an important debate in Wednesday' s agenda.
I pointed this out on Monday and I reiterate my protest.
In this case I am taking the floor on behalf of the Committee on Budgets in order to mention the main points which that Committee considers to be important at the Conference on the reform of the Treaties, based on the principle that, in politics, it is a mistake to ignore budgets.
I will list the points very briefly: the reform of the budgetary procedure, involving its updating; the extension of budgetary codecision; the integration of the peripheral institutions into the Community system; the consolidation of the financial perspective in the form of a genuine medium-term financial programme; the reform of the own resources system with a view to ensuring the financial autonomy and efficiency of the Union, on the one hand, and the transparency of the Community budget on the other, which means that there will be codecision in the determining of the overall level of own resources; the introduction of the possibility of creating fiscal instruments at a European level; the possibility that the budgetary authority may intervene every year in relation to the mix of different categories of sources of revenue; and the extension of legislative codecision and decision making by qualified majority for financial regulations in all programmes or instruments which involve Community expenditure, the CAP regulations and any act which creates an executive agency.
Mr President, with the report of my colleagues, Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, Parliament is delivering a first opinion on the tasks of the next Intergovernmental Conference.
Without going into all the details, the framework has now been outlined for the challenge which the Europe of the near future has to meet if it is to be better understood and accepted by its citizens.
The biggest challenge is undoubtedly presented by the enlargement of the Union, which is something we affirm and want to see.
This enlargement to include more than 20 Member States - perhaps 30 in a number of years' time - could lead to a strengthening of the Union but also, instead, to its weakening; to its strengthening because Europe is reinforcing its identity on the basis of its political and cultural history.
At the same time, however, such an increase in the number of actors on the European stage would throw up institutional problems and produce considerable operational weaknesses if relevant measures and radical reforms of the present system were not implemented in good time before enlargement.
The danger of crippling the decision-making ability of the legislature - of the Council and Parliament - as well as of making the Commission unable to translate the laws into effect is a significant problem.
A further problem lies in the difficulty of knowing how the Treaties are to be adapted to the ever more rapid development of Community realities.
The two rapporteurs have quite correctly set out these problems and linked them to specific areas of policy.
By means of the opinion it has delivered, the Committee on Budgetary Control wishes to answer the question of whether a further development of supervision, together with effective protection of Community finances, should be approached through the creation of a European public prosecution service, established on the basis of corpus juris but according to the spirit of subsidiarity, as also explained and clarified for us last week by Commissioner Barnier at the part-session in Brussels.
Overall, the draft presented here points in the right direction, and I should like to acknowledge my gratitude to both rapporteurs.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the historic opportunity which the coming Intergovernmental Conference is offering us to prepare the institutions and the operation of the European Union in readiness for the 21st century has already been made abundantly clear here.
As such, the European Parliament needs to be able to take part in the preparations from close by and has to get involved in the drafting and approval of amendments to the Treaties in order to reinforce the democratic character of this procedure.
We should also consider a possible simplification of the Treaties.
At the Cologne European Council, it was stated that "during the Conference, other necessary amendments to the Treaties arising as regards the European institutions and in implementing the Treaty of Amsterdam, could also be discussed" .
So this also includes the Court of Justice.
In my opinion, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs, I emphasise that the organisational and procedural framework of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance is due for an overhaul in order to digest the current backlog. This should, in my opinion, go beyond the redistribution of chambers and increasing the number of judges.
After all, the sound and timely administration of law forms a key component in each and every constitutional state and we need to ensure that within the European Union, the essence of the prejudicial procedure and general legal protection continue to be guaranteed.
Other proposals which have been tabled, such as the question as to whether the European Parliament should be involved in the appointment of judges and whether the authority of the Court of Justice should extend to the third pillar, are under examination.
So far, all Treaty amendments have increased the power for Parliament.
This should also be the case now.
The Committee on Legal Affairs proposes extending the codecision procedure to all areas of the internal market, with the Council still deciding by qualified majority.
In these areas, it could even be considered whether Parliament and the Council could acquire the right of initiative with regard to amending existing legalisation.
The introduction of a clear hierarchy of legal standards should, after all, ensure that a clear distinction can be drawn between all the various legislative and implementing decisions.
Mr President, these were some of the first proposals tabled by the Committee on Legal Affairs in its opinion.
The remainder will follow in a more detailed report next year.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, on behalf of the Industry Committee, I would like to congratulate the rapporteurs on their report, but I would also like to voice some criticism.
The Industry Committee deems it extremely important that at the next review of the Treaties, improvements will be made in two areas, namely trade policy and energy.
Regarding trade policy, the Commission' s authority to deal with the WTO or in other forums on behalf of the Community should be extended to all services and rights regarding intellectual property.
In addition, Parliament must be able to monitor the Commission more closely, both before and during the negotiations on trade agreements.
It may be true that the contribution of the NGOs to the negotiation process is steadily increasing, but this could never replace parliamentary control.
Democracy cannot, and should not, be left to NGOs to deal with.
Including sustainable development as an objective in the Treaty of Amsterdam requires an integrated approach to energy and environmental policy.
This is why the Industry Committee is pressing for the inclusion of an energy chapter in the Treaty.
Alongside this, the European Parliament should acquire more influence regarding the Euratom Treaty.
Unfortunately, both rapporteurs and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs refuse to adopt the amendments tabled by the Industry Committee on energy policy and Euratom.
You will understand that I very much regret this as draftsperson of the opinion, all the more so in view of the fact that EUR 1.3 billion of research funding is tied up in the Euratom framework programme.
This is why the liberal group has now resubmitted my amendments.
My group supports the ambitions of the Industry Committee in terms of energy.
Indeed, now is the time for Parliament to give the appropriate signals to the Council and the Commission for an integrated energy and environment policy.
I do hope that the rapporteurs will still adopt these amendments.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the report we are discussing today contains Parliament' s proposals for reforming the European Union.
This is necessary because of the forthcoming enlargement. The reform is also necessary, however, due to the fact that now, for the time being, eleven countries have a common monetary policy.
This necessitates the Member States' at least pursuing their economic policies on the basis of common principles.
The economic system prescribed in the Treaty of Rome has remained the basis of the Community' s economic policy.
It is a system of open markets.
In a number of Member States, one particular concept has been adopted. It bears the name "social market economy" .
I would recommend that this concept of the social market economy be incorporated into the Treaty.
That is also the view of the majority of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.
A significant part of the Member States' economic policy revolves around tax policy.
Here, through Europe' s internal market, competition between the economic systems has arisen which, in the area of VAT, for example, has led to tax rates' converging.
However, the internal market in this area is not complete because the anticipated changeover to the country of origin principle has not yet taken place.
This is one example of why the requirement of unanimity in the Council has led to paralysis in decision making and therefore to a reduction in economic performance.
As a result, our economic growth is lower and unemployment higher.
That is why it is necessary, at least when it comes to the procedures for collecting taxes effective across national borders (VAT in particular), to permit qualified majority voting in the Council.
A further problem area is Parliament' s still inadequate participation in the legislative procedures concerning competition.
Competition is the key to our industry' s competitiveness and therefore a prerequisite for Europe' s ability to embrace the future.
We therefore demand, where legislative procedures in this area too are concerned, that the European Parliament be involved in the decision-making process.
What we request is that, in a number of areas in which, in full adherence to the principle of subsidiarity, the Treaties now already accord Europe a key role, the role of Parliament should be strengthened and the principle of majority voting established in the Council.
Mr President, I would like to thank Parliament for this report.
It will have an important part to play in preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference, and I have to say that I agree wholeheartedly with the general aims set down in the report to make the Union more effective, transparent and democratic.
Let me speak, however, of the progress that has been made during the Finnish Presidency in preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000.
A month ago, Prime Minister Lipponen came here to present you with an account of the outcome of the European Council in Tampere and, in so doing, he also touched on the IGC preparations.
It is now three weeks until the Helsinki Summit conference, and IGC preparations are entering their final stage.
Union enlargement will mean the reform of the institutional system.
The EU must freely acknowledge the fact that enlargement will bring about the need for changes that we have to resolve within the EU.
We must be politically courageous enough to seek far-reaching solutions and institute the reforms the Union badly needs.
As you will certainly recall, at the Cologne Summit at the beginning of June, the next country to hold the Presidency, Finland, was charged with the task of preparing for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
During the autumn, technical IGC preparations have been made at the permanent representative level.
Now we have moved on to the political level, and we are having bilateral discussions at different levels with the other Member States, the European Parliament and the Commission.
Next week, Prime Minister Lipponen is to begin the traditional tour of the capitals preceding the European Council meetings.
Preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000 are one of the main issues connected with this tour.
The resolution by the European Parliament thus comes at exactly the right time, also in light of this tour.
We have based these preparations on the Cologne mandate which, in practice, addresses three points in particular: the size and composition of the Commission, the re-weighting of votes in the Council and an increase in qualified majority decision making. In addition to these three areas, there are institutional matters that are closely associated with them.
The EU debate on reform has got off to a lively start, and this autumn there has been much heated discussion surrounding the IGC in the various forums.
A month ago the Group of Wise Men, set up by Mr Prodi, published a report that called for a broad set of institutional reforms.
On the basis of this report, the Commission last week laid down its own views on the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000, and what areas the IGC should handle.
Here, too, in the European Parliament the Intergovernmental Conference has been on the agenda in many committee meetings.
We are aware that there are plenty of real IGC experts among you, and we value Parliament' s contribution to the debate.
Tomorrow you will vote on Parliament' s position on the year 2000 conference.
I promise we shall look closely at the views you adopt then.
The way the European Parliament participates in the Intergovernmental Conference is a very important question.
I have heard from different quarters very positive comments on the invaluable and constructive cooperation offered by MEPs Elisabeth Guigou and Elmar Brok with regard to the IGC in 1996.
Regarding the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000, the Member States have not yet settled on the form the European Parliament' s participation will take.
Preparations for the conference have included, in particular, discussions on the scope of the agenda.
In addition to the three subject areas mentioned in the conclusions reached at Cologne, various parties have raised the following issues for debate, among others: the European Court of Justice, the Court of Auditors, the distribution of seats in the European Parliament, flexibility and the division of the Treaties into parts.
We will present our own views in our report, after we have had discussions and listened to all points of view, on what we consider to be possible and desirable.
There are many points on which all those involved in preparations for the conference are effectively united.
Firstly, whatever opinion we have on the scope of the IGC agenda, the main theme must be enlargement and the reforms that this necessitates.
Secondly, nobody is questioning the fact that Europe must gain strength through enlargement.
Decision making in the European Union and its potential for action cannot be allowed to weaken as a result of enlargement.
Thirdly, all parties involved wish to commit to a timetable, meaning that the talks would be drawn to a conclusion by the end of 2000, during the French Presidency.
We must achieve unanimity on the reforms whilst adhering to a tight schedule, so that enlargement is not delayed due to internal problems with the timetable in the EU.
I have focused in my speech only on the changes required by the IGC.
We must bear in mind, however, that the institutions can also be reformed without amending the Treaties.
In my opinion, these reforms must be carried forward coherently and effectively at the same time as the IGC.
I venture to hope that modernising the institutions and changing the way we do things could bring the European Union and its citizens closer to one another.
Finland, as the country to hold the Presidency, has emphasised the need to improve the Union' s efficiency in its work, as well as its transparency.
During our Presidency, we have taken a step forward in this area.
Since its Presidency Finland has put into effect those recommendations in the Trumpf-Piris report that do not require a separate decision by the Member States.
We have tried to improve transparency in the Council and make it easier for people to have access to documents.
As an example of concrete action, we have made public the agendas and schedules relating to meetings of both the Council and the working parties.
We have also made a proposal that all agendas of meetings relating to Council legislation be made public.
This, then, has been a brief overview of the situation regarding preparations for the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000.
Next week I will have the opportunity to discuss the matter with you in more detail when I speak in Brussels to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs on the progress being made in preparations for the IGC.
We once again have before us important decisions to take on the future of the Union.
Making these decisions and eventually implementing them will require smooth and selfless cooperation on the part of all the institutions.
For my own part, I can confirm the Council' s desire to cooperate with the European Parliament to make the forthcoming conference a success.
Thank you, President Sasi.
Mr President, I believe that the applause which followed the intervention of the President of the Group of the Party of European Socialists expressed very clearly the feeling of this Parliament.
We feel that this is not the right time to hold this debate.
And this, Mr President, is because this debate is very important, not only for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, but also for the Union in general and for those people who want Europe to be effective, more democratic and more just.
Just the other day, another MEP asked me: "What solutions does the European Parliament propose for the Intergovernmental Conference?" And I answered in the same way as I will today, that this is not the time for solutions or proposals, but rather the time to decide what the Intergovernmental Conference is going to deal with and what method it will use in its work.
And that is what the report drawn up by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen has done, and furthermore it has been a good illustration of how two intelligent people can reach reasonable agreements.
I believe that the resolution tabled by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs is politically intelligent; it deals with the issues and takes a very clear and decisive political line.
And what is that line? Well, Mr President, it is one which is dictated by common sense.
The Treaty of Amsterdam did not resolve the issue of the institutional questions facing us.
And the signatories of the Treaty recognised this since they added a protocol, the protocol concerning the institutions in preparation for the enlargement of the European Union, specifically to see how these questions should be resolved in the future.
That protocol envisaged a dual institutional reform.
The first one for a European Union of less than 21 Member States and the second for when it has more: an initial mini-reform and a second broader one.
The logic of that Protocol on the institutions tallied with the Commission' s Agenda 2000 document, which envisaged an initial enlargement which we will call 5+1.
Now President Prodi' s new proposal breaks with this logic, because there are no longer 5+1, but rather 12 in the race.
This new thinking has now broken with the thinking of the Protocol on the institutions.
Therefore, that first small reform, in which we only had to consider the Commission and the weighting of votes in the Council and to which the Cologne Declaration has also added the possible extension of qualified majority voting, does not make much sense and responds to a different political logic.
Therefore we are talking about the second part of the Protocol on the institutions; we are facing a more profound reform of the European Union, which prepares it for enlargement.
To this end, Mr President, I think that we should combine this demand, which before I called common sense, with what the President-in-Office of the Council said: that which is possible.
But I believe that the Presidency of the Council has a great responsibility at the moment, because assessing what is possible should not prevail over the dictates of common sense.
We already know that, as a general rule, the governments do not want to change things too much; they are happy to make do with what we have.
However, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we must push them a little bit, because otherwise, what I fear you understand to be "what is possible" will be too little for the needs of the European Union.
I think that the report by Messrs Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen is full of good ideas, is absolutely reasonable and establishes the points which, in our opinion, should be considered at the upcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
My group, on whose behalf I am speaking, is very much in agreement with this report, but I am going to mention three amendments which may be added to it and whose vote I will request in this House:
My group' s Amendment No. 18 which requests that Parliament be consulted on the annual economic guidelines, the decisions involving budgetary short-falls and any other important decision which has to be taken within the framework of European Economic and Monetary Union, of course leaving to one side the independence of the European Central Bank.
It seems to me that this is an issue that this Parliament should be involved in.
Amendment No. 26 in which we also incorporate, with regard to the distribution of competences, the principle of subsidiarity.
And finally any of the Amendments, Nos. 47, 26, 27 or 28, which talk of flexibility.
I believe that we should open the debate on flexibility.
But all of this, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, should take into account an essential element: we should not forget what the European Community has meant over all these years nor the thing which is most important to the Community, which is the principle of integration.
That is what we have to preserve and that, if we do not carry out the appropriate reforms, will be very difficult to preserve in a Europe of 28.
Thank you, Mr Méndez de Vigo.
Mr President, first of all, in relation to the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report, I would like to welcome the work of the rapporteurs, who I believe have produced a piece of work which reflects not only our concerns but also an approach which is very pertinent and reasonable with regard to the objectives which the Union must have.
The intention is to set a sensible attitude on the part of the Council, which would try to resolve what remains after Amsterdam, against a sort of Christmas card on the part of Parliament.
I would like to say that Parliament, as it did before the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam, has opted for a line which consists of a short and precise list dealing with fundamental issues.
I believe that our ambition should be, firstly, to create a Union that works well and, secondly, we should be in a position to enlarge that Union.
It is simple: we cannot say that we need a small reform when this Union was designed for six and now, thanks to its success, has fifteen Members and we are willing to allow 25 or 30.
This cannot be sorted out by moving the furniture around. We will have to take a radical approach.
Therefore, I understand that the fundamental questions - and I have listened attentively to the President-in-Office of the Council - will raise other questions and this requires an Intergovernmental Conference, which must be sufficiently ambitious.
The second comment I wanted to make, Mr President, relates to the method.
We talk a lot about transparency and contact with the citizens.
It is difficult enough to explain an Intergovernmental Conference to them, but it is even more difficult to explain it if it is done behind closed doors.
At a time when we are trying to popularise the Euro and gain greater support for the Union, and when the Council - and I welcome this initiative - is embarking on the task of writing up and debating a Charter of Fundamental Rights with the participation of the European Parliament and the national parliaments, it seems rather shocking that a closed door procedure is being considered in which the Council has still not said whether the European Parliament will be represented.
I draw your attention to this issue because it seems absolutely contradictory and opposed to our own interests and needs.
We have to open up to civil society, we have to involve national parliaments and there must be an open debate within Parliament, otherwise it will be very difficult to gain sufficient support.
And the third consideration, Mr President, concerns the tasks which face us, because they cannot be left until the end of the Intergovernmental Conference.
We are carrying out a reform of our institution, for example with the work on the Statute for Members - and I welcome the Council' s good will - and also the reform of our Rules of Procedure.
The Commission is committed to a reform programme.
I believe that the Council - which of all our institutions is, in a way, the one which has been most fragmented by the increase in specialised Councils and a myriad of related committees - must lead by example. But it should not only think of the future but also of the need for a democratic and effective Community.
To this end, I welcome the words of the President-in-Office of the Council and I hope that, while we prepare the Conference, we are capable of advancing along this road.
Mr President, this IGC will be supported by two parallel processes: the brave new world of a European defence policy and the defining of European citizenship within the drafting of the charter.
I trust that these separate but closely related processes will galvanise the IGC, just as the drive towards the single currency stimulated the Maastricht conference.
We certainly need stirring up.
At present, despite the good work of the rapporteurs, Parliament' s draft position is in danger of being more conservative than the Commission' s, and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has tabled various amendments to seek to sharpen the focus of the report and to speed up the development of a parliamentary Europe.
Firstly, we want a real process of conciliation between Parliament, the Commission and the Council in preparing the IGC.
Secondly, we wish to change the Treaty revision procedure in those areas where power is already transferred to the European level.
It is crazy for us to be obliged to undergo this ponderous and protracted Treaty revision procedure when we wish merely to reform a common policy.
It is also wrong for Parliament to be excluded from that process.
Thirdly, we wish to improve access of the citizen to the European Court so that the citizen will be a privileged litigant with ourselves, Member States and companies.
Fourthly, we want a further look at the flexibility clauses so that certain Member States are able in practice to deepen their relationship without threatening the acquis.
I commend the Liberal proposals to Parliament.
Mr President, here we are on the eve of a new round of reforms and the umpteenth Intergovernmental Conference.
Unlike the Millennium Round, we have still not managed to stimulate public opinion, non-governmental organisations or even the MEPs on this subject, which remains fairly far removed from the thoughts of all of us.
However, we have an opportunity and we must make the most of it.
On the other hand - as emphasised in the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen, whom I would like to thank here - we are talking about how to turn this muddled machine into a modern democracy, how rights, policies and decisions can be made transparent to everyone and how this European home can become more open and welcoming.
With this resolution, the European Parliament has decided to embark upon the process of revision and the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference.
Frankly, I do not know if we shall succeed.
Parliament is in a position of objective weakness in the dialogue with the governments, and it is therefore not very easy.
My group considers, however, that some things must be explained more clearly and has tabled some amendments to this end, which I hope will arouse the interest of this House.
The governments must not be the European Parliament' s only partners in dialogue - as they often are for the Commission - and Parliament must therefore try to open and introduce a perspective of a, shall we say, constitutional nature, so that the instruments for an efficient democracy are clear for all and not just for a few specialists.
As for the method, we do not believe that sending two observers is sufficient: two MEPs who observe a diplomatic conference and who, furthermore, are bound by an obligation of discretion, cannot be anything other than an alibi displaying weakness and modest ambitions.
If the objective is to start the intergovernmental process, we must move towards a political agreement on the contents of the reform between Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Secondly, the agenda must not be restricted to technical points and to the issues not settled in Amsterdam.
Codecision with the European Parliament and majority voting must become the rule, even in difficult sectors such as agriculture and taxation.
The citizens must emerge from the fog they now find themselves in.
Besides, I wonder, why mention specifically in the report the need to keep unanimous voting? There is no need.
What we want today is greater democracy, greater codecision and majority voting in the Council.
There is no point in reassuring the governments: they do not need to be reassured because it is they who decide in the end.
Finally, Mr President, even if today talking about defence is very fashionable, my group, albeit with its differing opinions, is convinced that discussing security in an exclusively military context is not positive.
At the Intergovernmental Conference, if discussions are limited to the best way to integrate fifteen armies, then they will hold very limited interest.
We think that we will only be able to talk about security and defence within the context of a general communitisation and democratisation of foreign policy.
Mr President, I should like first of all to thank the rapporteurs.
They have certainly carried out a complicated and difficult piece of work.
I think that Parliament, as the representative of our citizens, will continue to have some intensive work to do within the framework of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference so that it might in actual fact do justice to the high expectations of people both in the European Union and also in the applicant States.
Our Group will actively involve itself in the debate by making a number of proposals of its own.
We are fighting above all for the creation of a genuinely social and democratic Europe, a Europe which retains the European model of the social State, a Europe in which public services are not deregulated away and in which everything is done to prevent social dumping.
It is clear to us that the Amsterdam left-overs ought not to remain the only subjects of the Intergovernmental Conference.
In view of the enlargement which we all want to see, the European Union and its Member States must finally summon up the courage to undertake radical reforms so that a still politically divided Europe might grow together democratically and in terms of the social contract between citizens.
What is unsettling, indeed thoroughly alarming, is what has been set in motion in the field of foreign and security policy and the vehemence with which hitherto civil European integration is being shelved and a military Union is being created.
In Parliament' s report, for example, it is proposed that the European Union must finally acquire the ability to act - an ability to act based upon credible military resources.
I would ask you all, please, what are credible military resources supposed to include. Personnel mines, tanks or even nuclear weapons?
On Monday, in Brussels, the foreign and defence ministers defined where we are headed.
This was an historic step.
By 2003, a rapid strike force is to be created under the umbrella of the EU, in effect a European army of 50,000 men for crisis operations in and around Europe.
Yesterday, the German daily newspaper, "Die Welt" characterised the plans as follows: the traditional defence of Europe would remain solely the responsibility of NATO; the EU strike force is not to compete with it but instead become its new trump card.
Against this background, our Group had already submitted a motion to the Committee to the effect that the European Union should repudiate war as a means of solving international conflicts.
I find it downright incomprehensible that this proposal should not have found majority support in the Committee.
Our Group will again submit this motion tomorrow in the Plenum.
We shall request a roll-call vote for we are of the opinion that citizens are entitled to know who in this Chamber regards war as legitimate.
Mr President, the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference will take a stand on two interrelated issues. One is the issue of the so-called institutional triangle, a question that was not answered in Amsterdam.
The other issue concerns enlargement into Eastern Europe.
Firstly, it is crucial that the reform that is drafted is democratic and that it has a democratising effect.
In other words, that it subordinates bureaucrats to elected officers and subordinates the latter to public opinion in each country, and that its democratic legitimacy is strengthened through the participation of national parliaments and is not replaced by organisations of dubious representativeness or by supposed wise men.
Secondly, we are fighting for an institutional reform in which there is a balance, not just between the Community institutions, but between the Member States, and for this balance to be expressed in the durability of this reform.
We therefore think that adopting new federal powers at Union level will do nothing more than highlight this imbalance and increase the distance between the Union and its constituent peoples, as happens a little with each reform - and the high rates of abstention throughout Europe in the European elections show this to be true.
We are also opposed to the idea of the constitutionalisation of the Treaties as well as to the integration of a future Charter of Fundamental Rights in some kind of European constitutional process because we still think that European citizenship merely complements national citizenship and that therefore, the definition of the duties and fundamental rights of each nation' s citizens falls to the citizens of that nation.
Respect for the European people' s will leads us to state with complete conviction the need to institutionalise the Luxembourg compromise.
We do not really see how we can increase the range of matters that can be decided by qualified majority unless the Member States, especially the smallest, have the means to oppose them by invoking their pre-eminent national interest.
Mr President, we share the conviction that with the forthcoming enlargement into Eastern Europe, the Union can continue to create the right conditions for the States to enrich each other instead of causing the ruin of some in order to give others more help in succeeding.
We think that the economy and the competitiveness of European countries can be developed in a context that favours the modernisation of social systems without giving up the fundamental requirement of solidarity.
We even think that Europe could acquire an external political dimension which matches its economic importance, and that this can be done whilst respecting the national interests of each Member State.
However, the construction of Europe does not mean taking away from peoples and nations the scope for autonomy that enables them to control their own destiny.
By this I mean that we can only undertake this construction if we support respect for national sovereignty, if we support approval by the people, social and political consensus, the openness and transparency of the processes and respect for all the constituent countries.
Mr President, the essence of democracy is being able to go to the polls and obtain a new majority and subsequently a new law.
Laws are not sacred cows.
They are texts which can be changed by a new majority in Parliament.
The voters always have the final say.
That is the case in all our countries but, when we legislate in the Community, democracy goes by the board, so that the voters no longer have the final say where the laws are concerned.
Officials and ministers have taken over from the legislature.
Each new majority decision in the EU is an erosion of parliamentary democracy, and that is why, yesterday, we set up an intergroup for parliamentary democracy.
Its working title is SOS Democracy or Democracy First, and we shall be gathering people together from every group for the purpose of securing democracy in the next Treaty and of bringing about complete openness within the EU.
The intergroup is broadly based, its members ranging from British Conservatives to left-wing socialists.
We have members from all political groups in this Chamber.
We vote differently here on most questions, but we are in agreement about the fact that our differences should be settled in democratically elected parliaments and among the electorate.
Officials and ministers should not decide which of us are right.
We do not accept that a Commission in Brussels should decide whether or not elected representatives of the people can receive a proposal for debate.
We certainly cannot accept that the EU Executive should now be preparing for another Intergovernmental Conference whose essential aim is to shift power from the voters and their elected representatives to behind the closed doors of offices in Brussels.
There is a need for SOS Democracy because democracy comes first.
Mr President, my group welcomes this report, mainly because of two key points that it contains.
Firstly, it makes the case for a wider IGC than the three so-called Amsterdam left-overs.
Although those are key points, crucial points, we believe that it is right that the IGC ranges beyond just those three issues.
This view is indeed gaining ground, thanks partly to the Dehaene report and the Commission' s own proposals - and I pay tribute to Mr Barnier who is here with us - but it is also gaining ground and rightly so among the national governments.
Nobody wants an all encompassing IGC dealing with every subject facing the Union in the Maastricht style, but there is a strong case to add to the agenda half a dozen key subjects which must be resolved if our Union is to work efficiently, transparently and democratically and is to be capable of facing up to having nearly 30 Member States.
The second reason is that it makes the case for more democratic procedures.
Amsterdam was already better than previous IGCs to a limited degree, in that it was prepared by a reflection group in which Parliament participated and which published its full report, in that every proposal tabled in that IGC was published and put into the public domain and in that Parliament was able to send two representatives to at least some of the meetings.
The time has now come, though, to be able to send Parliamentary representatives to all the meetings and to participate in the IGC on the same basis as the Commission, as a Community institution, to make our case, to advocate our proposals and at times to argue against the proposals made by others.
Mr President, my group has tabled only two amendments and two requests for a split vote on this report.
That is because in the main we think this report strikes the right balance between ambition and realism.
One amendment seeks to re-establish in the report a request that the IGC should re-examine the issue of flexible cooperation.
It is unthinkable that we should move to nearly 30 Member States without the IGC re-examining that question.
With nearly thirty Member States we need a clause on flexible cooperation that is actually workable.
The second amendment looks at the issue of having two parts to the Treaty: the constitutional part, looking at the main principles and the institutional provisions, and the small print dealing with policies.
This idea has widespread support.
Views differ, however, as to whether that second part should be amendable by a simplified procedure.
Our amendments suggest that sections of that second part should be amendable by a simplified procedure - maybe not all of it, that may cause insurmountable problems, but at least part of it.
There are many cases in the existing Treaties - different protocols, parts of the European Coal and Steel Treaty for instance - that are amendable by simplified procedure and the IGC should look constructively at this.
Mr President, the Treaties are the European Union' s constitution.
They need to be made clearer, more transparent, more effective and more democratic.
The IGC must take on board that challenge.
Mr President, when, on 9 November 1989, freedom-loving people climbed over the Iron Curtain, history was changed dramatically.
It finally became possible to unify Europe and to create a broad, pan-European partnership, founded upon freedom and democracy.
A week ago, we commemorated the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The tenth anniversary reminded us that it is high time that we got to grips with the enlargement of the European Union and sped up the process.
It has already taken far too long.
For us liberals, there is nothing more important than creating a unified Europe in which we solve problems together in a civilised way.
Enlargement of the EU is a moral imperative.
Enlargement, but also the fact that our citizens have a crisis of confidence in the EU, are factors which demand reforms of, and changes to, the European institutions.
All too many people feel that the EU does not engage hearts and minds.
The mistrust is sometimes almost palpable. We need to take this state of affairs very seriously.
The Intergovernmental Conference ought therefore to have the ambition of thoroughly reforming the EU institutions. Simplification, openness, clarity and public scrutiny must be the watchwords.
If a Union of 30 members is going to be able to function, it must concentrate on the genuinely cross-border questions and only act in those areas where European cooperation produces the best results.
A careful review of the division of labour is required, and this will require courage and a willingness to roll up our sleeves and set to work, in other words vision but also pragmatism.
The debate ought not however to be carried on in isolation behind closed doors.
All democratic forces must be involved and citizens must have the opportunity to participate and say their piece.
They are entitled to expect results and also to demand that they be achieved.
If we fail in this, they may perhaps turn away from the European project, which would be a major catastrophe.
Mr President, is our Parliament really aware of what is at stake in the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference?
Sometimes I doubt it. When I see, in the text of the report, that we are capable of pushing absurdity to the point of deliberately limiting the number of our own representatives at the debating table to two, I say to myself, there are definitely some people in this Chamber who are scared of their own shadow.
This IGC, however, opens up a narrow historical window enabling what is essential to meet up with what is possible.
Because, in the face of the challenges that the new century will present, morally we do not have the right to be satisfied with the off-cuts of institutional reform that are the left-overs from Amsterdam.
Codecision must become the general rule.
Our Parliament must obtain, as in any democracy worthy of the name, full budgetary authority over expenditure as well as over revenue.
We must equip Europe with the tools of equity, security and solidarity.
Let us say it: it is high time that we committed our continent to a constituent process.
The only real limiting factor is not our democratic imagination, it is our House' s political will.
And if we were not really capable of freeing ourselves from the yoke of the current regulations, then any further reform would become impossible.
Without real reforms, Europe, which is often helpless with fifteen Members, will be sterile when it has thirty.
As Commissioner Barnier understands perfectly well, today' s developments must facilitate tomorrow' s developments.
And who else but us, MEPs elected by direct universal suffrage by the European people, could have greater legitimacy for conducting and concluding this tremendous process. Parliaments often vote on laws, but more rarely do they write history.
Because this honour has been granted to us today, I ask that we prove worthy of it. I ask that we show political courage.
Mr President, the turnout at this year' s election for the European Parliament fell in almost all Member States where other elections had not been arranged at the same time.
If seats were to be left empty in this Chamber to represent all those who did not vote, 322 places would be unoccupied.
This just goes to prove that democratic support for the European Parliament is weaker than that for the national parliaments.
In spite of that, the report which we are discussing proposes that precisely these national parliaments are to lose a very great deal more influence over both their own national policies and over the EU' s treaties and policies.
Power is to be transferred to bodies for which democratic support is weaker, for example, the European Parliament, or else non-existent, for example the Commission or the European Court of Justice.
We on the Nordic left are therefore going to vote against most parts of the motion for a resolution which demands, among other things, that more decisions should be made at supranational level, that national influence over the Treaty should be limited and that the dominance of the big States should be increased.
Mr President, the turn-out at the elections in June illustrated that Europe' s citizens are still too far removed from the European Union.
Strangely enough, many still fail to learn any lessons from this.
The greatest enlargement of the Union is pending, but with this report, Parliament is further progressing towards reinforced integration in Europe.
Nobody has given me any arguments as to why a stronger Europe should involve its citizens more in policy.
This report should turn the IGC into a success, but it overlooks the notions which are fundamental to Europe' s future.
A thorough discussion regarding subsidiarity is urgently needed.
This is why we have resubmitted the amendment on this topic.
Only the clear demarcation of the Union' s tasks is a basis for a correct distribution of power.
The policy should be drafted as closely to Europe' s citizens as possible.
We welcome a broad IGC agenda, although it is difficult to tie up the loose ends of Amsterdam.
The right of veto for matters which affect national sovereignty remains necessary.
We find it unacceptable that enlargement would be postponed because the Union has not put its own house in order.
This enlargement is the very reason why a dynamic approach should be adopted.
We do not deem it necessary for there to be a proposal from the Commission for the IGC agenda; they have more than enough to deal with.
Following consultation with the Commission, it is up to the Council to draft this agenda and to make its own preparations.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office Mr Sasi for the comments he made earlier on during this debate.
Firstly, he confirmed the continued cooperation between the Council and the European Parliament and his forthcoming visit to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
But he also confirmed that in the IGC enlargement would remain at the core, at the heart of the envisaged Treaty reforms and, secondly, that the timetable would be adhered to.
I believe both of those are important aspects.
First of all, on enlargement, we are talking here about enlargement of a very different scale and nature to anything that has happened before, and that has implications for the nature of the IGC which prepares for it.
We are talking in the main about countries from Central and Eastern Europe which have enjoyed, as we all know, 40 years of dictatorship when civil society was emasculated, driven underground and destroyed.
Although ten years have elapsed and great strides have now been made, I believe that a good deal of confidence-building is still required and that we need the openness that many of us have called for in the preparation and the implementation of these reforms.
As the IGC takes place there are two aspects, therefore, that we in the European Parliament should remember.
One is that in the past, IGCs have not prepared public opinion until the Treaty reforms had actually been agreed, particularly in reference to Maastricht.
This had unfortunate consequences in a number of Member States.
I believe we should learn the lessons from that mistake of the past and realise that the importance of this particular enlargement, the re-uniting of the European family, is something which our public at home needs to be made aware of while the IGC is actually taking place.
And I believe that openness should also extend to the applicant countries themselves.
It would be most unfortunate if we as the institutions of the EU saw this merely as a bureaucratic or a constitutional exercise to our own interest and our own advantage.
It is specifically for the purpose of enlargement that openness is necessary.
Therefore I believe that, where possible, not only should our own domestic public opinion be engaged at all stages but also the public opinion of the applicant countries in Central and Eastern Europe.
I appreciate that that is a break in tradition from the nature of a governmental conference as we understood it in the past.
But as I say, this is a very different type of IGC and therefore we have to be imaginative in the way that we present ourselves to the public.
Mr President, this report has won the consensus of a large majority in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs.
In my opinion, this is a significant confirmation of those shared Europeanist objectives that have, in the past, characterised the European Parliament in its relations with the other Community institutions, with national parliaments and public opinion.
We have played - and we have shown that we wish to continue playing - an important part in supporting the process of European integration, and its continual and coherent development.
The political tensions that characterised the start of this parliamentary term are therefore not obstructing the necessary agreements between various, important - the most important - parliamentary groups on the subject of consolidating the Union, its institutions and its policies.
It is important to agree, at this time, on the proposal that must be drawn up on the reform of the Treaties, on the convening of the new Intergovernmental Conference and on the drawing up of the agenda and the method.
The positions taken in the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report have been supported by those in the communications by President Prodi and Mr Barnier on behalf of the European Commission, explained to Parliament the day after the vote in our committee.
This is now a sure point, which everyone must take into account: Parliament and the Commission are moving in the same direction and are equally convinced that the Intergovernmental Conference must not restrict itself to a limited horizon, simplified guidelines or a minimal agenda.
The wide-ranging discussion in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs showed that Parliament is concerned with being, at the same time, far-sighted and realistic, demanding and practical.
We should stop seeing Parliament as if it were advancing goodness knows what dangerous demands and impossible requests.
Our proposals are not a reflection of an abstract scheme and are not a luxury, but reflect objective, inescapable requirements for a comprehensive reform of the institutions of the Union.
We need to go beyond Amsterdam and look further in order to be able to realise the historic commitment to enlarging eastwards, and to guarantee further progress in the integration process that is working against the risks of dilution and stagnation.
No one can overlook the problems of strengthening the political side of Europe and institutional change but, in addition to this, we have had to deal with the launch of the euro and the European Central Bank, the lesson to be learnt from Kosovo, the widespread aspiration for a guaranteed area of security and justice and the disenchantment of too many European voters.
This is an appeal we are making, in particular, to governments and national parliaments, with whose assistance we must build a stronger, more united and more democratic Europe.
Mr President, thank you for having given me the floor for a few moments at this point in the debate during which I have been able to listen closely to the rapporteurs whom I had already heard, but also to the representatives and the speakers of the different groups that sit in Parliament, that is to say, many of you.
I hope that the speakers I will not be able to hear due to the way this debate has been re-organised as well as to the constraints of my own schedule, will forgive me.
I can only promise them that I shall remain attentive to what is said throughout the debate today and of course later.
Honourable Members, Mr President, institutional reform is not a political project.
It is a tool.
Our project, as many of you have said, and it underlies our thoughts today, is the uniting of the peoples of European States in a political, economic, social and cultural Community.
The great political project for the very start of the next century is therefore the welcoming of many new Members.
This is why the distinction made in Amsterdam between limited adjustment, minor enlargement and a broader reform is already an outdated distinction.
You are already aware of the Commission' s contribution to the preparation for this Conference.
I am delighted today, as was President Prodi, to see the contribution your Parliament has made and to note, and I would like to thank your two rapporteurs, Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen most sincerely for this, a broad convergence of views, at this stage, between our two institutions.
And I think that this convergence of views is a major trump card that we should hold on to both in terms of the issues at stake in the reform and of the working method that we should adopt.
I would like to say a few words about the issues involved in this reform.
As your two rapporteurs so aptly emphasised, this forthcoming Conference must concentrate on institutional issues, on all institutional issues with the notable and politically necessary exception of the discussions currently taking place on a European security and defence policy.
I think that if institutional reforms are to succeed, they must be placed, and I say this to you, bearing in mind my experience of the last negotiations, in a broader political perspective, and they must together attempt to provide an answer to the fundamental question, "How should we speak to each other? How should we work?
How should we move forward and take decisions in a Union which will contain 27 countries?"
Because that is what there will be around the table. And that is the only question that we should be asking as we seek answers, all the answers, whichever institutions and processes are affected by seeking this answer.
The first issue that we have identified together is that of functioning well when there is a large number of states.
Just now, I heard the President-in-Office of the Council mention enlargement which, he said, means "change" .
And, in direct response, I shall reply to him that what we are dealing with is a major enlargement, not a minor adjustment.
And we must respond to this major enlargement with real reform which must first, therefore, address the decision-making process.
This is why I believe that the majority of us will agree on making it clear that qualified majority voting within the Council should become the rule, with exceptions limited to a few fundamental and very sensitive issues.
As many of you wanted us to, we have also put it in writing that where an issue of a legislative nature is concerned, the qualified majority must be linked to a codecision procedure between the Council and the European Parliament.
The second issue is that of developing the Treaties.
I mentioned this idea during my hearing in your Parliament.
It has been taken up and stressed in the report by Jean-Luc Dehaene, President von Weizsäcker and Lord Simon and it merits being dealt with in more depth.
It consists in fact of reorganising the Treaties by separating the basic texts on the one hand and the implementing provisions on the other.
This reorganisation would allow the Treaties to continue to develop because the implementing provisions could, if necessary, one day be amended by a simplified procedure.
I think that this new revision procedure could contribute towards linking the European Parliament more closely with the revision of the Treaties.
I would like to say however that I do not think that this reorganisation should lead to a change in the Union' s or the Community' s current competences.
Another point is the representation of the States in the Council.
The decisions of the Council should be more representative of the relative weight that the Union' s different Member States carry.
Whilst respecting the spirit and the balance of the Treaty of Rome, decision making itself should also be made easier.
And then there are the other institutions.
With enlargement, we will have to define the number of elected representatives from each State within your Parliament.
The Commission, with its power to issue guidelines, the new authority conferred on its President, will have to preserve - I hope you do not mind if I say that it will not be easy, now that I am a Member of the Commission - its collegial character, its efficiency, and its decision-making process which requires a simple majority of its Members.
The Court of Justice or the Court of Auditors will have to adapt to enlargement.
By mentioning all of these institutions, I am attempting to show that there are many answers to the fundamental question that I raised just now, that is, how we will work when there are 27 of us, and these are answers that must be looked into at this Intergovernmental Conference.
The functioning of the institutions does not necessarily imply a revision of the Treaties.
In their daily work, there are important reforms of internal structures for the European Parliament, for the Commission and especially for the Council, which must be implemented before enlargement.
The second major issue, Mr President, is to prevent the risk of dilution; the risk of dispersion that enlargement entails for us all.
I repeat that when a risk presents itself, it can either be overcome, accepted as if it were inevitable, or prevented.
We hope to prevent this risk of dispersion.
The Treaty of Amsterdam has established the legitimacy of certain forms of cooperation between Member States within the Union' s institutional framework in order to move beyond the level of integration that has already been achieved.
On behalf of the Commission, I shall say quite clearly that the acquis must, under no circumstances, be considered to be a form of strengthened cooperation between the Fifteen Member States.
The objective is really to improve the current conditions of strengthened cooperation and to make them easier.
If we do not achieve this at this Conference, the current right of veto would only encourage the States that would like to achieve a deeper level of cooperation between themselves not to do it within the Community framework but to do it more and more outside this framework.
In order to strengthen the Union' s coherence, the Commission, like your Parliament, hopes that the question of the Union' s external representation will also be raised.
The third issue is that of continuing the political construction of Europe and, when the moment comes, we will then have to accept the consequences for the institutions of the work in progress on the Common Security and Defence Policy.
We are not forgetting that there is also the question of the way the Charter of Fundamental Rights relates to the Treaty.
I would like to bring this intervention to a close by thanking you for your attention and by mentioning the preparations for the negotiations.
Our objective is to bring these negotiations to a successful conclusion and to achieve this before the end of the year 2000 with significant results.
Our objective is not to delay enlargement but to accomplish it successfully.
This is why we hope that the procedure laid down by the Treaty, in Article 48, is implemented as soon as possible after Helsinki.
I would also like to express our agreement to the involvement of the European Parliament taking place in the best possible conditions, with greater participation than there was, as I can testify, when we were preparing for Amsterdam.
I would finally like to say that this reform throughout the year 2000 must provide the opportunity for genuine public debate between us, the institutions, but also with national parliaments and with our citizens.
It is our place, and indeed my own, to see to it that we take part in this public debate.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Commission is convinced that powerful institutional reform, adapted to the requirements of enlargement, can be achieved before the end of 2000.
We know that the Union will emerge from this enlargement completely transformed.
It must not emerge from it weakened.
But we will only succeed if this reform is achieved with sufficient ambition and political will, which means that many of us will have to give priority to the long-term vision over caution or national interests.
Mr President, I would like to raise a point of order.
I heard Commissioner Barnier say that he is intending to leave, that he needs to go early because he has other commitments.
Can I just say that I was minister in my own country for five years but not a single minister in our parliament would have considered walking out on a debate where spokespersons were still waiting to speak.
Mrs de Palacio, who is responsible for relations with Parliament, has also promised - at least in our Group - that Commissioners will remain present in all debates from now on.
The last speakers are just as important as the first ones. They may even have more voters behind them than the first ones.
I urge Mr Barnier to respect Parliament and to stay.
Otherwise I would ask you to write to Mr Prodi to observe the agreements with Mrs de Palacio.
Thank you very much, Mrs Maij-Weggen.
In any event, the Commissioner has said that he will be with us until eight o' clock.
Mr President, the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen does not take adequate account of the fact that the European Union is fast taking on pan-European proportions.
A decision may be taken at the Helsinki Summit to expand talks to include twelve countries.
When official applicant country status is accorded to Turkey too, we may soon be receiving new applications for membership from the Balkans region and elsewhere.
In the plenary part-session in October, I said that the conflict between EU expansion and deepening could only be solved by the internal reorganisation of the Union on the onion skin model, or a system of concentric circles.
I proposed that the whole Union should develop as an association of states, but its core should develop into a full-fledged federation.
I proposed that the outer circle of cooperation and integration would be the European Council, to which we could give new duties.
I am glad that this idea of mine has met with a positive response in principle.
It has not had time, however, to be reflected in the amendments that our Group has tabled for this report.
For my own part, I cannot support the report by Mr Dimitrakopoulos and Mr Leinen. It is an attempt to continue to develop the Union into a federation, and it in no way takes account of how the robust enlargement process should influence the Union' s institutional development.
Mr President, one of the founders of the current European Union said that, if they were to begin European construction again, they would start this time with a consideration of the people and their cultures.
But the European Union, far from rectifying the situation, seems to abide by the theory expounded by Livy, that is to say, it forgets what has happened and therefore can complain but cannot put anything right.
In the texts which have been proposed for the reform of the Treaties and the next IGC, not even with the most powerful magnifying glass can we find a sentence which refers to the European peoples and regions and the role that they should play in the Europe of the future.
It is time for the regional question to occupy the place that it deserves.
The European parties which are stuck in the past have shown that they are incapable of overcoming the short-sightedness which makes them blind to the internal national and regional realities of the current Member States.
When will we talk about nations such as Scotland, Wales, Galicia, Catalonia and the Basque country, which are not even allowed to sit together with the Governments on the Council? What is going to be done about regions such as Andalucia - with 7.5 million inhabitants - which is treated like a second class country, while representatives of Member States which are a twentieth the size sit in the Council?
New countries are going to join the Union, some of which are very small and we are in favour of their accession, but if it were not for their recent emancipation, they would not be candidates for Membership.
The accession of these new countries, Mr President, will mean the under-representation of internal nations and regions of the current States.
García Márquez said that wisdom comes when we no longer have any use for it.
Let us hope that this is not the case with our political vision and sensitivity towards the role of the nations and regions of Europe!
Mr President, in this debate on the agenda and procedures for the upcoming IGC, I would first of all like to express that I, like the rapporteur, would advocate taking a wider approach, at least wider than proposed at the Cologne Summit.
The reasons have been spelt out loud and clear.
During this Summit, the accession, in the short-term, of four or five countries from Central and Eastern Europe was discussed. This number has since grown to ten or twelve.
This has the immediate effect that a root-and-branch reform should be undertaken and this is more than a few institutional reforms.
As far as I can see, there are six points to this argument.
Firstly, there are the institutional reforms as planned in Cologne, the make-up of the Commission, one Commissioner per Member State as far as we are concerned, the weighting of votes, which should be proportionate to the size of population and qualified majority voting.
This should encompass the budget but also agriculture and legislation.
Secondly, there is the integration of the second and third pillars, more integration in the Treaties.
In order to achieve this, more of a Community approach needs to be adopted.
Thirdly, the new Treaty should contain a sound legal basis for a European regulation on the openness of government and transparency.
Fourthly, we also need a legal basis for the European Union itself so that we can act autonomously in bodies such as the United Nations and the WTO.
And I agree with those who say that the constitutional aspects in the Treaty should be separated from those components relating to the executive.
I think this is a sound line to take.
Finally, this Charter of Fundamental Rights, to be laid down in future, should be embedded in the new Treaty.
These seem to me to be the salient points.
As for the procedure, our most important wish is, of course, maximum involvement of Parliament.
Two MEPs seems just fine but they will need to be able to play a full part.
We give our full backing to the reports of Mr Leinen and Mr Dimitrakopoulos.
They did a marvellous job and let us hope that the summit in Helsinki will indeed decide to incorporate the wider agenda we are proposing in the IGC
Mr President, in our debate on the mandate for the forthcoming IGC, I would firstly like to say a few words on an issue which is not on this Conference' s agenda but that, I think, our Chamber will have to consider, when the day comes, in order to study and evaluate the results of the whole exercise.
This is the issue of the reform of the Council, of the whole package of reforms which, we have been told, must and can take place in addition to a reform of the Treaties.
Fine.
Let us set out on this path, but let us do so with a reasonable timetable that is the same timetable that the IGC has.
My group has tabled an amendment to this effect and I hope that, tomorrow, our Chamber will be able to vote for it.
With regard to the three "left-over" questions, do we think today that we are in a position to answer the question to which the Amsterdam Summit could not find a solution? What is this question?
We must have the courage to ask it. It is perhaps less a question of how to function than of what it is that we want to do together when there are sixteen or twenty-seven of us.
If we do not answer this question, we will not find a solution to the three questions "left over" from Amsterdam.
At any event, preparing the Union for the forthcoming enlargement opens up a question outstanding from Amsterdam, and that is the question of strengthened cooperation.
Because, apart from the three institutional questions, which are already part of the IGC' s mandate, nobody in the context of the Amsterdam assessment has been able to tell us if the solutions that we had arrived at concerning the operation of this strengthened cooperation were satisfactory.
We must work towards a reform of this strengthened cooperation which will allow the Union to establish a real vanguard, open within the Union, in order to continue to make progress towards the security, democracy and stability of our continent.
Mr President, you will not believe this, but exactly 200 years ago, namely in 1799, there was the first discussion of a constitution, not for Europe but for Bavaria.
This was partly for the purpose of establishing responsibilities but also because of the radical shifts in territory due to an almost 83 per cent increase in the area of Bavaria.
The person with the big idea of having a constitution was the then Bavarian prime minister, Graf Montgelas, who did himself great credit by establishing a French administration in Bavaria.
However, he was at the same time also the fiercest opponent of a parliament, because this could supposedly introduce unpredictable factors into politics.
The arguments for and against went on for a further 18 years until at last the constitution was established and its opponents were finally quashed.
And there were then already democratic elements in this constitution.
Now, something else that is astonishing: the basis of the constitution was, at that time, a preamble which was drafted in 1799 and which was to set out the fundamental rights, and all this 200 years ago!
I think the parallels between then and now are quite amazing.
History shows that the doubters' arguments, both then and now, are almost the same.
Let us learn from history not to allow further decades to go by before Europe has a constitution.
This is something for the future that we must prepare for.
I should therefore like to encourage the Council not only to respect Parliament' s proposals but also to make them its own.
We need a Europe which is able to act and which can also take necessary decisions.
For we must also take democracy seriously, and the responsibilities which the national parliaments have given away must pass into the hands of the European Parliament, that is to say become part of the process of codecision making.
We need codecision making by the European Parliament, for the European Parliament is the biggest factor favouring the integration of Europe.
Mr President, we already know about some of the issues that will be discussed at the forthcoming WTO negotiations: they are the so-called "left-overs" from Amsterdam.
However, at the moment, we are not fully aware of what issues will feature at the start of the forthcoming IGC and these are issues that must be discussed, particularly with a view to achieving efficiency and with a view to an enlargement that it is thought will happen and which is greatly desired.
I would like to say here that reforming a Treaty with a view to achieving efficiency strikes me as a very unambitious exercise for the European project, and I fear that this exercise may be nothing but a power game which will allow a small group of countries to set themselves up as a board of directors and to lead and direct the European project.
A Europe led by a board of directors would be a negation of the stimulating process of European integration that we have had - it is true that it has its imperfections, but all countries have taken part in it - and, in our opinion, strengthened cooperation must be the exception and not the rule in the European Union. This is because often, the political will to cooperate exists, but the conditions are not right from the economic point of view or from some other point of view, in order to achieve this very will for strengthened cooperation.
Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, let me give you an example of this: if there were a change to the weighting of votes within the Council, which would mean that the countries with a higher population as well as the larger countries would in fact have more power, and if the extension of qualified majority voting, extended to the codecision procedure, meant that this tendency in the European Parliament also became more marked, my question is: what role will the European Union' s small or weak countries have in Europe?
I prefer cohesion to efficiency, and as Commissioner Barnier raised the issue a while ago of there being 27 of us in Europe, I would like to say, Commissioner, that I think that in the decisions of this Europe of 27, it is more important that all countries feel involved in the decision-making process, than discussing whether, when there are 27 of us, it will take us one hour, less than two hours or three hours to take decisions.
Cohesion is more important than efficiency if we are in fact to have a European Union with as cohesive and generous an enterprise as the one that we have seen and in which we have participated.
Mr President, the Ancient Roman jurisconsultants used to say that ex facto oritur jus (the law is formed from events).
I think that credit must be given to Messrs Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen for laying the first foundations of a new foedus (treaty), a kind of pact on European unity which is organised around differences and which attempts mediation and, in particular, to find basic principles and unities.
Europe still has a lot of work to do in order to build a democratic future.
However, some points have now been identified: a foreign and security policy needs to be a truly common one.
Indeed, I think that, in addition to banks, the economy and social and structural policies, the common foreign and security policy will be another driving factor towards true integration.
We need a European Parliament that is the general legislating body of the Union - like the Council - that participates fully in appointing members of the other institutions and is able to establish a relationship of trust with the European Commission, which is no longer weakened by the double qualified majority now necessary for a motion of censure.
We need a Council of Ministers that decides by a majority.
I think that other issues, such as the greater integration of the national parliaments in the Community' s decision-making process, are useless elements that just complicate matters.
Local regions and communities should also participate with more dignity at the stages of creation and implementation of Community law.
The part provided for by the provisions on the Structural Funds could become the basic principle for the new European construction.
The European Parliament must play a truly constituent part, and continue the spirit of Alcide De Gasperi, Schuman, Adenauer and Kohl to stay in the tradition of a people' s Europe - but it has had important supporters in other political families as well, such as Altiero Spinelli, François Mitterrand and Henry Spaak.
We are approaching a time that will be decisive for Europe' s survival as an entity and as a model.
The attacks are no longer military, but economic and political, and the adversaries are no longer those of the Cold War.
If we want to equip ourselves in order to overcome the challenge of the new millennium, then we will have to equip ourselves with the necessary legal and institutional instruments, in the belief that Europe will remain Europe only if it is prepared to carry out self-examination and accept this giant leap towards the future.
Mr President, we are preparing to vote on the European Parliament' s first resolution on one of the great issues of the present legislature: the IGC in 2000.
In accordance with the Treaty, the principal players at this Conference will be the governments of Member States and then the national parliaments.
But the other institutions, the European Parliament and the Commission will not, for all that, be resigned to the role of mere onlookers.
Parliament, by means of its resolutions or through its two representatives at the Conference, will have to lead the project in an ambitious direction.
This influence will only meet with success if the European Parliament concentrates on the essential points, "the priorities" , and if it deliberately refrains from presenting a long wish list of points which are as unrealistic as they are unlimited.
Our two rapporteurs have attempted to avoid this trap, although I must say that they have not entirely succeeded.
As we are developing in the constitutional area and as the Treaty represents the highest standard of our internal laws, in the future, we will have to force ourselves to be more precise in terms of the law.
A constitution cannot be produced on the spur of the moment.
For example, when, on the issue of qualified majority voting, we have to say precisely to which articles of the Treaty the general rule is to apply and for which ones exceptions can be made, you will realise that the current Treaty leaves very little room for manoeuvre.
That is why, once we know the European Council' s mandate, we will have to go back to this document and make improvements to it.
As the President of our Committee, Mr Napolitano, pointed out, it is not a question of dividing ourselves into extremists and reactionaries, but of being perfectionists, whilst remaining progressive as far as the future development of the European Union is concerned
Mr President, Commissioner, I believe that this forthcoming summit can undoubtedly be a success if the factors stemming from Parliament' s debates and which are written down in this report are in fact taken account of.
I should like here to seize quite specifically upon one particular point.
I was particularly pleased to see that the report has dealt not only with the reform of the treaties and of procedures, and therefore was not just worded in general terms, but has in the last analysis declared itself in favour of setting and specifying priorities to the effect, for example, that progress must be achieved in the interests of the security of Europe and its citizens in connection with the further development of the area of freedom, security and justice, and that relevant procedures must be established so that this becomes a reality.
In that way, citizens will be given a signal and main focus.
In the report, a goal is also formulated which I consider to be particularly important, namely that Europe must be seen by its citizens to be transparent and to be conducting a more open debate.
This, too, I consider to be absolutely necessary, as well as being a good opportunity, especially in connection with the development of the area of freedom, security and justice.
We can show here that, in circumstances where the Member States are at their wits' end, Europe can, in the last analysis, be helpful to the individual.
If it is a fact of life that organised crime earns billions which, by being introduced into the legal economic cycle, damages our legitimate systems, indeed society as a whole, then we need Europol and we need European cooperation in the field of justice.
If the drug trade already constitutes 8% of the volume of trade worldwide, then we must develop Europol as a European institution.
If 400,000 asylum seekers are already coming to Europe each year, then we need relevant European regulations.
By that, I mean that this report addresses something very real and contains elements which signify a genuine opportunity for the Helsinki Summit.
We shall see whether, at this summit, Europe' s representatives can in actual fact avail themselves, in the interests of our citizens, of this chance to create more transparency and more opportunities for the individual.
We can only hope so.
Mr President, as the rapporteur, Mr Leinen, explained very effectively, there are many of us who think that the Intergovernmental Conference should begin a genuine constitutionalisation process for the European Union.
In that way we would surely be in a position to deal with the circumstances, with the real demands and we would be able to respond to the challenge of restoring the citizens' interest in the European construction process, an interest which was statistically proven to be low after the poor turnout at the elections of 13 June.
To accompany the undeniable success of Monetary Union, we must also make progress with Political Union and in fields which broaden the competences of the European Union in order to prevent the current imbalances; I would describe these imbalances as enormous.
There is no doubt that the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference must go much further than the fine words of Amsterdam, even though they are very important.
I talked before of constitutionalisation and, personally, I believe in a federal perspective.
The Treaties should also include that Charter of Fundamental Rights which is to be drawn up in the coming months; lay down majority decision making - as a general rule - and, logically, and simultaneously, the codecision procedure. It should also increase the powers of the European Parliament, for example granting it the power to ratify all the international treaties, whatever their type or nature may be, and, of course, ensure that the coming reforms are carried out according to a method which is much more open, transparent, democratic and participatory than the current one.
However, when we talk about methods and institutions, we must not forget politics.
For example, we must integrate the functions of the Western European Union into the Union in order to prevent new Kosovos, but we must also promote the coordination of economic policies, fiscal harmonisation and the creation of employment and a genuine social Europe which will allow us to confront the concerns of the citizens.
The current method is rather worn out but, in any case, it is essential that the Council commits itself to taking appropriate account of the proposals which the Commission and the Parliament make in turn.
Mr President, the main themes are now generally known, and it is not only since the Dehaene report that everyone has been talking about them.
But, in addition to these main objectives, without whose attainment an enlargement of the European Union would scarcely be conceivable, a number of basic questions, relating naturally to policy on fisheries, ought not to be forgotten.
With the Amsterdam Treaty, no satisfactory solution was found for the fisheries sector.
Firstly, I demand - as I also did in 1996 - that fisheries be mentioned specifically in the Treaties.
Fisheries must no longer be regarded as a mere appendage of agriculture.
The importance of fisheries as one of the few existing sectors for which there are Community policies must at last be emphasised by fisheries' being given their own chapter. This chapter must state the goals of the common fisheries policy, its principles and, above all, the legal procedures governing its regulation.
Secondly, Parliament must be more thoroughly involved than it has been so far in defining the most important themes in the fisheries sphere.
I demand genuine decision-making powers in connection with the basic aspects of the common fisheries policy and the regulations governing, for example, market organisation, the preservation and management of stocks, supervisory regulations and the tools of structural policy; in other words, nothing less than codecision making by Parliament.
Thirdly, it is also necessary in the field of international politics to strengthen the role of Parliament and to introduce the procedure for agreeing to the conclusion of all international fisheries agreements.
My final point is that Parliament' s participation is also to be desired at meetings of bodies forming part of international organisations.
The points mentioned, which take account of the importance of fisheries in Europe, must therefore be picked out as central themes at the next Intergovernmental Conference when the role of Parliament is being considered.
Happily, I have just heard from Giorgos that a compromise Amendment is being submitted which also refers to the subject of fisheries.
Thank you for that.
I trust that the House will support this.
Mr President, thanks are due to the two rapporteurs.
Finland' s Portugal' s and France' s Presidencies of the Council are to be requested to comply with the proposals in this report which is quite rightly based upon the criticism, partly by this European Parliament, of the decisions in Amsterdam.
For no other reason than that Mr Tsatsos has again referred to the matter, I should like to emphasise that the proposal in subparagraph 5 is really of central importance.
It is important that we obtain a package proposal for global reform in which the important questions relating to majority voting are dealt with just as much as those relating to reform of the institutions and other important themes.
I think that the most important thing here is that we consider how the European Union might be provided with a constitution.
This demand can hardly be emphasised enough, for Europe can only come of age when it provides itself with a constitution.
The purposes and goals of the European Union are too unclear at the moment.
The European Parliament has quite rightly already submitted several draft constitutions, and I think that these ought to make it clear that Europe is more than a market.
We must therefore be thinking in terms of a Brussels Republic, a unique community of States without historical precedent.
Whether the discussion of a European constitution will imbue Europe' s citizens with more enthusiasm for Europe is unclear.
On account of the problems entailed in legitimising an area or a market without the structure of a State, the attempt does need, however, to be made to inspire such enthusiasm. This must also go hand in hand with the development of a European civil society and of a European public.
We are seeing a change worldwide in the essential character of national sovereignty because States do not have unlimited freedom of action, either at home or abroad, and their ability to form policies and solve problems is limited by the realities of international relations and of trans-national forms of interdependence and interaction.
This is particularly apparent in connection with the economy, trade and competition.
It is precisely in this area, too, that it is very important to move from the principle of unanimity to majority voting.
The European Union must become better able to act and it therefore needs a new separation of powers through a catalogue of competences.
In view of the changed circumstances, a new system for the separation of powers must be devised which augments the classical separation of powers as prescribed by Montesquieu with a new form of separation of powers at different levels.
We need integrated multi-level decision-making processes.
The coordination processes at present prescribed are inadequate to the task of organising European added value.
That is particularly clear from the difficulties between economic union and monetary union and the difficulties between the political union and the economic and monetary union.
Since we cannot boost democracy, through interinstitutional agreements in this area, we also, in fact, require a revision of the Treaty in this regard.
Mr President, the Dehaene report contains a proposal of historic importance, namely the division of the Treaties into two parts: a part concerned with fundamental rights and the institutions which, as hitherto, can only be changed through the unanimous decision of the Intergovernmental Conference and through a procedure of ratification by the Member States; and a special part for specific policy areas which, instead of ratification, would require the agreement of the European Parliament.
In view of the fact that the Commission - and I am very grateful to Mr Barnier for this - has accepted in its proposals a division of this kind for the Amendment procedures too, it would appear faint-hearted if now Parliament' s Committee on Constitutional Affairs were to accept the two-fold division but not the distinction between the procedures.
It is also necessary to introduce different procedures because, following enlargement, the European Union would otherwise lose its ability to act.
To that extent, I would thank rapporteur Leinen for his remark on this subject, but I cannot unfortunately find it in his report.
I am in favour of introducing such a two-fold division of procedures, but only under a specific condition.
It must be guaranteed that the abolition of the ratification procedure for specified areas of policy would not entail any weakening of the rights of the Member States and that the European Union would not acquire for itself a right to extend its powers at the expense of the constituent Member States.
This can be guaranteed by means of a motion submitted by a number of colleagues and myself in which we conclude and demand that a catalogue of competences be incorporated into the basic part of the Treaty, clearly defining the competences of the European Union, clearly limiting those competences as well as encouraging application of the principle of subsidiarity.
Only in this way can the European Union, without at the same time eroding the rights of the Member States, become more able to act and efficiently limit its work to specified policy areas.
I would therefore particularly ask the rapporteurs - partly in order to ensure that their report obtains a broad majority in the House - to examine these two motions sympathetically.
Mr President, this debate has shown that a lot more would be necessary than we have incorporated into our report.
Budget policy, trade policy, tax policy and competition policy have been mentioned.
Everywhere, in fact, there is a need for reform; to that extent, Parliament was very focused.
I nonetheless think that we ought to be as ambitious as the Commission and carry out a further two improvements tomorrow.
The latter I am happy to take up - a duly facilitated revision of the second part of the newly divided Treaties and also a clause concerning strengthened cooperation in a Europe with 27 or 30 States.
I also hope that this will obtain a majority in the House tomorrow.
Lastly, I should like to thank the Commission whose demands are almost identical with those of Parliament.
Now, it is a question of conducting a public debate with the governments but also with the populations of Europe so that we might also implement the results at the Intergovernmental Conference in the year 2000.
I would like to thank everybody who has contributed to this task.
Mr President, Mr Leinen, you now have the misfortune of having to speak between Mr von Boetticher and myself.
I would therefore take the liberty of again reminding you of one aspect of what Mr von Boetticher quite correctly pointed out here, namely that it is also a part of this package that a clear framework of competences of the European Union is to be laid down in the general, basic part of the Treaties.
Perhaps the same is true of yourself as it is of me: through the opening of accession negotiations with a further twelve potential Member States, the scales have, as it were, fallen from our eyes and we have seen what immense consequences and effects the enlargement is going to have on the European Union itself.
Basically, this is not a traditional accession of States.
With the union of twelve new and fifteen old Member States, we are, rather, facing the situation of a re-establishment of the Union.
The necessity of comprehensive reforms has therefore been emphasised quite rightly here.
I should just like to issue one warning.
We ought not now to be tempted to repeat the old demands which we have always made, but now under the banner of the enlargement of the Union, for that would basically prevent us from seeing that we must consider completely new visions of our European Union.
I should like briefly in this regard to consider one idea.
I am convinced that, with 27 Member States, it will be impossible for the European Union to be as active in the same breadth and depth as it is with the present fifteen Member States.
We must therefore also concentrate on the key competences of the European Union and, in this connection, consider in which areas it is indispensable for the European Union to be active.
I am certain that, with some good will, we can find a whole range of other areas where that is not the case.
I want to add one last remark.
I should not like here to associate myself with the general European chiding directed against centralism, but I should like to canvass for a comprehensive, honest critique of the European Union' s tasks so that we do not need to be afraid that our achievements will be jeopardised through enlargement.
Mr President, on closing this debate, this important debate, with an important and excellent report, what could be better than to talk of justice.
Until now, justice has been rather absent from the general debate.
I believe that all political communities are judged by the justice they provide.
The reality is that our justice system is not sufficient for the competences which have been transferred to the European institutions, the Community competences, especially the competences which have to be reviewed from a legal point of view.
Therefore I believe - and this should include the strict current mandate for the Conference with regard to the revision of the institutions in accordance with the Treaty of Amsterdam - that we have to deal with the necessary and thorough reform of our Court of Justice and our Court of First Instance and the reform of the appointment of judges - in which the Parliament should have a significant involvement - as well as the reform of the distribution of competences between the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, so that citizens may have an accurate and clear idea of what this European justice, which is their direct form of justice, really is, and the reform, finally - and this is another chapter - of the actionability of the acts.
I will end by saying, Mr President, that all of this will become all the more necessary in view of the other great mandate, the launch of which will be the finishing touch of the Finnish Presidency - the excellent Finnish Presidency, whose many successes it is a great honour to recognise in this Chamber and which has been a turning point in the behaviour of the Council.
There is a "before and after" of the Finnish Presidency with regard to the daily treatment of this Parliament.
That other challenge is to launch the Charter of Fundamental Rights.
There is also a problem here between the Court of Luxembourg and the Court of Strasbourg.
Mr President, as I said at the beginning, a political community is judged by the justice it provides.
Let us be aware of this and let us deal with this reform.
Thank you very much, Mrs Palacio.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
I think that before Mr Dupuis gets so excited and starts making such exaggerated accusations he should first verify what has actually happened.
The fact is that the Napolitano report was not available in all the languages 24 hours before the debates and before the vote, as required by Rule 115.
In order, therefore, to safeguard the Rules of this House and the Rules governing every Member, to ensure that Members have the rights they enjoy under these Rules, the Socialist Group and the Liberal Group, with the support, as was announced earlier, of the EPP Group, requested that to make sure we were in conformity with our Rules, Rule 112 on urgent procedure should be applied.
This will be put to the House tomorrow morning to vote on.
It will be a sovereign decision of this House to decide whether we can apply urgent procedure to this report.
There is nothing undemocratic about that.
It respects the Rules of Procedure and it respects what the majority in this House wants.
A question I think one could ask is about the motives of those who have tried to filibuster this report from beginning to end, of those who have tried to block it, of those who have tried every trick in the book and everything in the rule book to try and have it postponed.
I wonder what it is that makes them fear OLAF having the right to verify that Members are conducting their affairs properly in this House.
Mr President, firstly, I would like to say that Mr Corbett' s intervention may have been a politically-motivated speech, but it did not refer to the Rules of Procedure either, except to answer Mr Dupuis.
I would like to say...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Dell' Alba, you are not tabling a procedural motion.
Rule 112 must be applied in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
Rule 112 refers to Rule 60.
Mr Corbett knows the Rules of Procedure too well not to know that this rule does not apply to modifications to the Rules of Procedure concerning the Treaties or the interinstitutional agreements.
I therefore support Mr Dupuis' request.
I suggest that we return tomorrow morning having considered Mr Dupuis' arguments and my own with the aim of deeming the request formulated by the three groups unacceptable.
Mistakes can happen.
By the way, the matter is obviously unacceptable because they are not basing their arguments on the Rules of Procedure but on a rather inappropriate interpretation of the rules governing Parliament.
The Presidency notes these procedural motions and the Bureau will decide accordingly.
Question Time (Council)
The next point on the agenda is Council question time (B5-0033/1999).
Question No 1 by (H-0548/99):
Subject: Rail route across the Pyrenees The route crossing the Pyrenees via the Aspe Valley and the Somport Pass has for several years been a subject of controversy within local communities and the public at large and the national authorities affected by the choice of mode.
The road link is being modernised and expanded even though there is still an old partly disused railway line linking France and Spain.
On account of various protests and environmental considerations, the road-works were halted, and the national authorities and the Commission began discussions and to reconsider the strategies in terms of modes, the idea being to treat the rail link as a future key trans-European network.
That notwithstanding, the road-works resumed in the valley on 13 September. The Union, however, is already financing a feasibility study on the rail route, and the programme of the Presidency-in-Office states that revitalisation of European railways must be treated as a priority.
Can the Presidency say why the road-works have resumed?
Has the Union entered into other financial commitments regarding the Aspe Valley route across the Pyrenees, apart from the above-mentioned study? Will not the Presidency take steps with a view to coordinating the positions of the French and Spanish governments so as to permanently rule out any road development project, since that option would remove the future need for the rail route, especially where freight carriage was concerned?
Mr President, I would like to say to the honourable member that the Council does not have the information you are asking for.
Regarding this matter, I should point out that monitoring the trans-European transport network is within the competence of the Commission.
Under Article 18 of the decision taken by the European Parliament and the Council on the Trans-European Network, the Member States regularly provide the Commission with national plans and programmes drawn up to develop the Trans-European Network, particularly regarding projects concerning the common interest, as identified in this decision.
Mr President, thank you for your answer, but I do not find it very satisfactory because the Somport issue is ancient history.
I am therefore astonished that the Council is not up to date on this, given that several questions have already been asked on this subject.
I am equally astonished that you can speak of the trans-European Network whereas the Members concerned, France and Spain, do not consider this stretch of road to be part of the trans-European Network at all.
If it were the case, I would immediately request that a study of the impact of this matter be made.
I asked you this question because works have started again in Aspe valley.
These are huge works just to make a small bypass around the small village of Bedous.
They are having a considerable impact on the environment and we know very well that in the long run in France, the usual piecemeal approach will be adopted, like slicing a salami, and that tiny slice by tiny slice, we will end up with a motorway or a dual carriageway in the Aspe valley.
Today, then, I would like to see the Council ask what France' s real commitments are in this matter and what means for crossing the Pyrenees the authorities really want to put in place, and I am directing these words to the Finnish Presidency, which has committed itself to the rail crossing and which has spoken in favour of it.
If you do not mind, I suggest that you launch an initiative to promote alternative means of transport to the road transport in ecologically sensitive areas, otherwise we will continue to ask you this kind of question and we will only be able to say...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, firstly, I wish to repeat that this matter falls more within the competence of the Commission, and the Commission' s last question time was here in Parliament yesterday.
As the following question referred to a rail connection between France and Spain in the Pyrenees, I would, however, like to say that this rail connection is not at present part of the Trans-European Network, as approved by the European Parliament and the Council in 1996.
For that reason, financing may not come from the budget heading relating to the Trans-European Network.
This issue is of great interest to me, but since I am acting as President for the sitting, I am not going to allow a supplementary question.
Question No 2 by (H-0550/99):
Subject: Council's plans for combating drug abuse in the context of an area of freedom, security and justice During the Finnish Presidency, particular priority has been given to the area of freedom, security and justice.
Within that area, the fight against drugs is especially important in view of the scale of drug trafficking and the drastic social consequences of drug abuse for individuals and society.
Will the Council say what measures it envisages to combat drug abuse in giving priority to establishing an area of freedom, security and justice?
On the basis of the European Union' s strategy for the period 1995-1999, the European Council urged the institutions, in Vienna in December 1998, to further develop an integrated and well-balanced anti-drugs strategy for the period after 1999, taking account of the new opportunities provided by the Amsterdam Treaty.
The Commission subsequently submitted to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, its communication concerning the European Union' s action plan for combating drugs during the period 2000-2004.
On the basis of the guidelines from the European Council, the work carried out by the previous country to hold the Presidency, the communication from the Commission and the contributions which the Member States and different working parties within the Commission have made to the Commission's communication, we have drafted a proposal for the EU's drugs strategy for the period 2000-2004.
In so doing, we have taken account of the views of both the European Parliament and of the above-mentioned institutions and bodies.
This new anti-drugs strategy is needed now because the existing EU strategy will have run its course by the end of this year.
Through the Amsterdam Treaty, a great many new opportunities have arisen which must be examined and utilised, both in the area of protecting people' s health and in the areas of legal cooperation and of cooperation with the police and customs.
The purpose of this new strategy is to confirm that the EU' s fight against drugs in the future will be broad in scope.
The new strategy includes measures to reduce supply and demand, together with measures at an international level.
At the special meeting of the European Council in Tampere in October, on the subject of establishing an area of freedom, security and justice, the emphasis was partly upon the importance of an overarching approach to tackling the drugs problem.
New guidelines were also provided for future work in the fight against drugs.
The European Council encouraged the Council to adopt the EU' s anti-drugs strategy for the years 2000-2004 before the European Council in Helsinki.
The European Council in Tampere urged that, in accordance with the Treaty, joint research groups be established without delay as a first step in the fight against the drugs trade, trade in human beings and terrorism.
It was also considered that, with regard to national criminal law, efforts to come to agreements regarding joint definitions, sanctions and bases for prosecutions should, at the initial stage, focus upon a limited number of sectors of special significance, such as the illegal trade in drugs.
The decision made in Tampere concerning extended powers for Europol, together with intensified measures against money laundering, will contribute to the European Union' s fight against drugs.
I should like to begin by thanking the Council for its answer.
I asked this question quite a long time ago, in fact before the Tampere Summit.
I think that the questions concerning drugs were dealt with at the Tampere Summit in a useful, more integrated way and with a view to developing a future strategy, especially in regard to combating the drugs trade and adjacent areas such as money laundering.
I am satisfied with the answer and can only hope that the process we have now set in motion through the Tampere Summit will continue and result in concrete measures so that we might together be able to tackle criminal behaviour of this kind and the major problem constituted by the drugs trade.
There has not really been a question, but if Mr Sasi wishes to respond, he may do so.
Allow me to say just briefly that, as the Tampere Summit shows, the fight against the drugs trade is one of the priority areas of the European Union' s policy.
There is an extremely long list of objectives and fundamental features for the next plan of operations, covering the years 2000-2004.
I believe that, with these guidelines, very effective measures in this field of work can be produced fairly soon.
Europol, which you mentioned, is only an information collection and exchange centre.
Do you think that it should be given operational powers to follow drug traffickers moving across Europe?
This is a matter which is still being looked into.
However, it is at the same time a fact that cooperation between the police authorities and also between police, customs and legal authorities must be increased.
Clearly, the first step must be an exchange of information between the police authorities and via Europol.
I believe however that, in the future, we are going to see a development of the kind which the Member predicts in his question.
Question No 3 by (H-0557/99):
Subject: Appropriateness of financing UNDCP programmes The UNDCP has published the results of an annual survey of opium production, which show that estimated total raw opium production in Afghanistan has more than doubled in a year, rising from 2,100 tonnes in 1998 to 4,600 tonnes in 1999.
The area devoted to opium cultivation has increased by 43%, from 64,000 to 91,000 hectares.
97% of opium production in 1999 is in areas under Taleban control and the number of Afghan districts where it is grown has risen from 73 to 104.
Global opium production has increased from 3,750 tonnes to 6,000 tonnes B an increase of 60%.
For some years the UNDCP has been engaged in costly intensive programmes to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppies in Afghanistan, which are directly managed by the Taleban, who are known for the violent and segregationist system they have forced on the country.
The EU budget provides funding for the UNDCP and its programmes, including the one involving Afghanistan.
Does the Council not consider that the EU should suspend its support, including financial support, for the >Taleban project= and carry out a thorough investigation into the effectiveness and management of the funds by the UNDCP?
Does the Council not consider that the use of EU funds by the UNDCP for programmes carried out by regimes which do not respect even minimum human rights constitutes a serious infringement of the principle of conditionality which inspires EU action?
Mr President, the European Union is very concerned about drugs production in Afghanistan. Its direct and indirect effect extends geographically far and wide.
The country to hold the Presidency has decided that close monitoring of the situation in Iran and Afghanistan will be the focus point of the action it takes on drugs.
The negative effects on civil society, for example in Europe and Russia, Central Asia and Iran, cannot be underestimated.
The European Union finds it alarming that the majority of heroin used in the Member States comes from the poppy fields of Afghanistan.
The Union has noted the recent report by the UN drugs control programme, the UNDCP, according to which Afghanistan is, at present, clearly the largest global producer of opium.
Its world share of production is 75%.
In 1999 opium production grew by 100% on the previous year, reaching the highest volume so far, with a figure of 4,600 tons, which is partly due to the considerable expansion of the crop-growing sector.
The Council proposed an overall EU policy in an amended EU common position on Afghanistan, which was adopted on 25 January 1999.
The main aims for Afghanistan are inter alia to achieve a lasting peace and promote an internal dialogue for Afghanistan by offering specific support for the key role played by the UN; in addition, to promote stability and development for the whole region through peace in the country, and to make the prevention of illegal drugs production and terrorism more effective.
Owing to the politically unstable situation in the country and the civil war, not one Member State recognises the Taleban government.
A common position by the Union, however, urges Member States to maintain relations with all Afghan groups.
The European Union has condemned the many violations of human rights that have occurred in Afghanistan, especially the continual and systematic discrimination towards women and girl children, executions carried out without trial and a system based on harsh discipline and tyranny.
Because the political situation in Afghanistan is critical, and conditions are not right for the creation of bilateral relations, it is difficult, in the opinion of the European Union, to participate effectively in drugs control activity in Afghanistan.
The European Union has noted that the UN drugs control programme, the UNDCP, began its pilot programme in Afghanistan, one that made slow but steady progress, in 1998.
The programme is based on the UNDCP' s commitment to financing development in special poppy field areas, to which the Taleban have responded by agreeing not to allow the cultivation of opium poppies in new areas, and to permit the UNDCP to control the opium poppy crop and commence action to prevent the illegal traffic of drugs and pull down illegal laboratories.
Mr President, I can well believe that the Council is concerned by what has happened.
My question, however, was different and was about past results.
Past results tell us that production has doubled.
With the commitment of the common position of January 1998, the Council said that the Union would support all the efforts of the UNDCP in Afghanistan, and you have done this with your financing.
The problem is the result of that financing.
The result is that production has doubled.
My question is therefore whether you are going to continue along this same ruinous path, that does not only affect Afghanistan: in fact, the problem is that the European Union is continuing to finance the UNDCP even on programmes such as the consolidation of penal codes in countries such as China and Burma, countries where simple drug addicts are condemned to die, and indirectly, we, through the UNDCP, are collaborating and financing this type of project.
Therefore, faced with a specific failure which is documented in these policies, the question is: are we going to continue to finance this type of project even though it actually makes totalitarian regimes stronger, regimes that are in fact criminal and oppress human rights? That is my question.
Mr President, I will be happy to answer the honourable member' s new question, which concerns UNDCP funding.
The UNDCP is not financed out of the European Union budget.
The European Union supports the work of the UNDCP on a general level, which it does in a well established and effective way in the area of drugs control, and it is also very satisfied with the cooperation that has taken place with the UNDCP in other areas.
As the honourable member stated, operations in Afghanistan are hampered by the lack of any broadly based government and, thus, a suitable and reliable partner in cooperation.
The European Union is working with Afghanistan' s neighbours, mainly in Central Asia as well as Iran, to enhance anti-drugs cooperation conducted with them.
The Union considers Central Asia to be strategically important in the control of drugs and is at present drafting an action plan for the region.
One cause of the critical drug situation is the lack of any proper border control between Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Khirgizia, Uzbekistan and Russia.
The European Union is attempting to resolve the problem by promoting the TACIS projects implemented within the context of customs cooperation and of justice and home affairs.
The projects aim, among other things, to make border controls more efficient between Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, improve the training of customs officials, and increase drugs-related expertise in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Khirgizia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Russia.
Regarding Iran, the European Union has been informed that the UNDCP has just approved a drugs control programme for that country, and opened an office there.
Member States are at present exploring ways in which they can participate in financing this programme.
In the joint action plan for the EU and the United States, signed in Madrid on 3 December 1995, the following are prescribed under the heading "Reaction to Global Challenges" : increased cooperation in the fight against illegal drug trading, measures of cooperation between competent American authorities and Europol, cooperation in supporting the UN' s drugs monitoring programme, coordination of alternative development programmes designed to counteract drug manufacture, and the setting up of channels of cooperation between appropriate bodies, for example the EU' s European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and the Inter-American Monitoring Commission for Drug Addiction.
For the purpose of implementing this action plan, an agreement between the EC and the United States concerning the monitoring of chemical precursors was signed in The Hague on 28 May 1997.
Further opportunities for strengthening cooperation are being investigated within the EU-USA project group.
American authorities have approached the European Union with a view to possible cooperation within the international police college in Bangkok, which is a body like the one in Budapest.
The proposal is currently being dealt with by the Council' s departments.
I have only praise to give.
I think this is very good indeed and I want to thank you very much for your answer.
My only problem is that these questions do not get out to the public.
Just as the discussion earlier today showed, providing information is a part of the development process for creating understanding for the fact that a variety of measures are required.
We must try, I believe, both in the Council and the European Parliament, as well as in other EU bodies such as Information Offices, to make the importance of providing information more widely understood. Our citizens would then have a better understanding of the need for increased legal and policing measures which are necessary on an international basis.
We are certainly in agreement about that. My next question is therefore this: are we going to get any information later on about the results which emerge at this centre in Bangkok?
As I said, there is no decision as to whether we are to participate in this partnership in Bangkok.
This proposal is being discussed by the Council' s departments at this moment.
As I see it, the discussions should take place in a positive spirit.
As the Member says, there are clearly quite a few questions being discussed and answered here today during the sitting, but there is relatively little information about these questions for the public.
Where results are concerned, it is in both the Council' s and the Commission' s interests, as well as those of the EU as a whole, to report on progress in this work because this in itself strengthens measures to achieve better results in the fight against drugs.
Mr Sasi, in the United States the annual USD 18 billion spent in the fight against drugs is increasingly being called into question.
Very recently, the Financial Times invited the European public to reassess prohibitionist policies.
I wonder whether, in the appraisals we have been told the Council is making, a cost/benefit assessment has been included of how much these contributions to the so-called fight against drugs are costing European taxpayers and what practical benefits they are bringing.
I should just like to say briefly that there is an office in Lisbon which deals with questions like that but, as far as I know, no such investigation has been carried out. It is a fact that quite a lot of money is spent on these objectives.
I must say, however, that the fight against drugs is, for all that, so important that it cannot be said that resources invested in this work are too great. Instead, I believe that we must try to work along these lines.
Where drugs policy in different EU countries is concerned, I believe that each individual Member State ought to decide for itself what its policy is to be because we know that there is a wide variety of viewpoints between different countries.
As the author is not present, Question No 5 lapses.
Question No 6 by (H-0555/99):
Subject: Nuclear power stations in territories bordering on the EU In view of the severe damage caused in the EU by the Chernobyl nuclear accident, what policy does the Council propose to follow as regards providing advice to neighbouring countries and cooperating with them in the development of alternative energy sources?
Mr President, the Council is concerned, just as the honourable Member is, about nuclear safety and would like to reconfirm that it follows the situation very closely.
The Council would like to remind everyone of the conclusions reached on 25 May 1994 in this matter, which concern nuclear safety in the electricity industry in Central and Eastern European countries and the newly independent states, and in which the Council defines its approach to this question.
In its conclusions, the Council reconfirmed its commitment to promote nuclear safety in the countries in question, and repeated that it was aware that the improvements spoken of must be implemented by means of reliable short- and long-term energy strategies.
In the Council' s conclusions regarding nuclear safety in connection with EU enlargement, it was emphasised that the countries in question use reactors that are impossible to modernise at reasonable expense to comply with internationally approved standards of safety, and that strategies for the energy industry should include preparations to decommission these reactors as quickly as possible, in accordance with an agreed timetable for our accession partners, and in compliance with the agreements relating to nuclear safety bookkeeping.
In addition, the Council has said it is ready to support the development of alternative energy sources with the means the EU and the Member States have at their disposal in order to replace the more unreliable nuclear power plants, at the same time taking account of the situation as a whole as well as each country' s special situation and needs.
In recent years we have regularly taken into consideration the fact that the European Union' s neighbouring countries, whether they be the associated countries of Central and Eastern Europe or the countries in the European Free Trade Association, and those belonging to the European Economic Area, participate in important Community action concerning the development of the use of renewable energy sources and energy efficiency.
The countries in question may participate in the ALTENER II programme, which is a programme to promote the use of new sources of energy, and in the SAVE II programme, which concerns energy efficiency.
We should also point out that this opportunity has been exploited on a large scale in the SAVE II programme, participation in which has been decided by the competent Association Council.
I am glad that the Council has responded positively to this question, specifically with regard to the countries of the Middle East.
I live in the Canary Islands, 100 kilometres from Tan Tan, a Moroccan location where the Moroccan Government has now begun a nuclear programme.
My supplementary question to the Council asks whether it would consider the possibility of contacting the Moroccan Government with a view to preventing this enterprise which is dangerous for Morocco and, of course, for us, who are its closest neighbours.
Mr President, I would like to say that nuclear power, when used reliably and safely, and when properly supervised, is not dangerous.
As for the associated countries, among others, the threats their nuclear power plants pose have been carefully examined.
Any action the Commission has requested or ordered has concerned plants where safety problems have been discovered.
Unfortunately, I do not know much about the Moroccan nuclear power project, and I cannot judge whether it will present risks or whether it will be implemented without paying sufficient attention to possible risk factors.
We shall try to ensure that such a project fulfils all the necessary demands of nuclear safety and, that being the case, it would not present any kind of danger to the Canaries region either.
Mr President-in-Office, I am delighted to hear that you say safe nuclear energy is indeed safe to use, because it is impractical to expect countries that are currently producing 30 and 40% of their energy from nuclear power to replace this with renewable energies on any financial or economic terms or with the burning of fossil fuels without considerable further damage to the environment in these already polluted countries.
Mr President, it is absolutely clear that we can assess the disadvantages of various forms of energy production.
Obviously, there is no fully standardised method of gauging them, but it is very clear that the greenhouse phenomenon has nothing to do with nuclear power, which does not produce carbon dioxide emissions and, that being the case, it is totally superior to coal or gas, for example.
But I would like to point out that when nuclear power is used, it must be used safely in all respects.
I would also remind everyone that in many EU countries nuclear power is used on a massive scale and, regarding my own country, Finland, I can state that we have two nuclear power stations with Russian-built reactors which, according to statistics, are among the world' s best in terms of efficiency and safety.
Your answer was interesting.
I should like to refer to a debate we had yesterday about nuclear safety in Eastern Europe.
I wonder: do you consider that the Commission has a legal basis for what it has said in its progress reports about, among other things, making it a condition of membership of the European Union that the nuclear power station in Bulgaria and the Slovakian one with the difficult name beginning with a "B" , Bohunice, should be shut down? Do you consider that there is a legal basis for this?
I am a lawyer, but I must say that, as far as I know, there is no legal basis for being able to demand that any reactor be shut down.
Where accession to the EU is concerned, it must be pointed out that this is always in the end a political decision.
Each Member State must approve the accession of new Member States. Each country' s parliament must also ratify any such agreement.
As I see it, there is, however, no special legal reason for requiring applicant countries to take measures such as those described, but political realities may be the basis for making certain demands.
Clearly, the Commission must take account of problems which may arise if, for example, reactors are used which may present a danger to health.
Obviously, the European Union cannot tolerate our having forms of energy production which may cause health problems for citizens within the Union' s borders.
Question No 7 by (H-0559/99):
Subject: Creating openness through a regulation In the Spring of 1999, COREPER urged the Commission to submit the proposal required to give practical expression to the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty concerning openness.
Has the Council also urged the new Commission to do so?
Would it not be most expedient to submit a specific proposal for a regulation and not a communication as planned last Spring? Which working party will draw up the proposal in the Council B an ad hoc working party of representatives from the Ministries of Justice, for example, or the existing information unit in the Council which currently deals with inquiries concerning documents?
As the honourable Member knows, Article 255, formerly Article 191a, of the Treaty establishing the European Community reads as follows:
"1. Any citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State, shall have a right of access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents, subject to the principles and the conditions to be defined in accordance with paragraphs 2 and 3.
2.
General principles and limits on grounds of public or private interest governing this right of access to documents shall be determined by the Council, acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251 within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
3.
Each institution referred to above shall elaborate in its own Rules of Procedure specific provisions regarding access to its documents."
To date, the Commission has not submitted any official proposal for an Act. Nor has the Council under such circumstances yet been able to begin discussing the matter.
In view of the fact that the general principles and limits relating to the public' s right of access, in accordance with Article 255, to the above-mentioned institutions' documents are to be established with the European Parliament in accordance with the relevant decision-making procedure by no later than 30 April 2001, the Council will begin discussing any proposal for an Act as soon as it has received this.
No decision has yet been made as to the working party which is to be responsible for examining the Commission' s proposal.
In his programme document on transparency, the chairman of the working party concerned with making information available presented the idea of an ad hoc group consisting specifically of experts on making documents available to the public.
As you said in your answer, 30 April 2001 is the last date for approving this.
It is a long and difficult process.
As citizens and as Members of the European Parliament, we are extremely concerned that there are no concrete signs of the Commission' s putting forward such a proposal during the Finnish Presidency when we should like to have begun the preparation.
We know, as I mentioned in the question, that COREPER urged the Commission, which is to say the Interim Commission, to submit a proposal.
What do we know about the situation? It is up to the Commission to put forward something.
I think we ought to put some pressure now upon the Commission. Quite a long time has passed.
We know that there has been a discussion document which has been circulated and debated in various quarters.
I am extremely concerned that we shall not be able to comply with the timetable if we do not now urge the Commission to be more pro-active.
As has been said, openness is one of the absolute priorities for the Finnish Presidency We have therefore been in close contact with the Commission in connection with this issue.
As the Member says, COREPER too has urged the Commission to come up with a proposal.
We last discussed this question today with the Commission' s President and the Commission' s secretary-general.
The information we had today was to the effect that the Commission unfortunately could not submit its proposal this year but that it will be doing so in January of next year.
Question No 8 by (H-0564/99):
Subject: Access to Council documents by the public How much progress has been made with the register of Council documents which would be accessible to the public on the Internet B which I believe was planned for January 1998?
Mr President, on the basis of a Council decision made on 19 March 1998, a Council document register was made available to the public on the Internet on 1 January 1999.
During the first half of 1999 the web site was visited by more than 35,000 people.
Within six months it held information relating to 43,000 documents.
The register is proving a reliable and effective tool, which the public can use to acquire information on Council documents.
Consequently, the number of requests for documents has considerably increased.
It is now more than double the figure for 1998.
The document register has thus been on the Internet at the disposal of the public since the start of this year.
At present, the Council is looking into ways of improving how the registers work, for example, so that other than confidential documents would be available to the public directly from the Internet.
Let it be noted that so far the Council is the only institution to have made an open register of its documents available to the public, according to the recommendation of the European Ombudsman.
I am very disappointed by what the Council has done.
If you boast about 43,000 documents I wonder if you have actually visited the Internet site?
This is a very small mouse that you have managed to produce so far.
Forty-three thousand sounds like a lot.
But anybody can produce 43,000 documents.
It is what they say that matters.
They are very slow in arriving.
You cannot find out how votes went in the Council.
That is still secret.
You cannot find a compte rendu of what people actually said in the Council.
That is still secret.
It is deeply inadequate what you have done.
In answer to the last question, Mr President, you said that transparency was one of the great priorities of the Finnish Presidency.
The Finnish nation is famous for its openness but so far we have reached November in your Presidency and this is still a disaster.
Would you please try and improve the register which is, as I said, a very small mouse. There is still a long way to go.
Mr President, according to my information on the present situation there is a monthly summary of voting results available, allowing the public to see how things have gone in the Councils.
I would also like to say that the public can presently consult a directory of Council documents on the Internet containing reference information on them.
I would, however, repeat that the competent bodies of the Council are investigating the possibility of improving public access to its documents, so that all documents other than those classified as confidential will be available on the Internet.
The country to hold the Presidency in any case endorses this position, and I believe that the Council will do its utmost to make its work as open as possible.
I should like to ask the President-in-Office of the Council for confirmation that information on which country voted in which way is not at the moment given when the Council issues its press releases at the end of each Council meeting.
Would the Finnish Presidency not agree that there are still a number of Council meetings to be held before the end of its Presidency and that it could use them as a very useful precedent for establishing its credentials in terms of openness - which at the moment, I am afraid, do not exist - by making sure at the very least that when press releases are published at the end of Council meetings, those press releases list exactly how each country voted on each issue on which there was a vote?
Mr President, it is true that the bulletins issued after Council meetings do not make immediately clear which countries voted which way.
However, I would like to repeat that information on how the Member States voted is made public in monthly reports.
I would also like to say that the press normally carry stories, often before the meetings, on how the various states intend to vote on different issues in the Council.
Question No 9 by (H-0563/99):
Subject: Political prisoners in Burma Could the President-in-Office report on any recent debates and decisions taken by the Council of Foreign Ministers on the subject of the EU's policy towards Burma, and in particular on the possibility of securing from the Burmese government an amnesty for political prisoners?
Mr President, the Council has expressed in many connections its concern to the Burmese authorities regarding the situation in the country, and most recently at the plenary part-session on 11 and 12 October, when it extended the period its common position was to remain in force by six months, once more appealing to the Burmese government to embark on swift and concrete action for the promotion of respect for human rights and democratic and national harmony.
The Council has declared its full support for the UN Secretary-General' s special envoy, Alvaro De Soto, in his forthcoming duties, and decided to review its common position on the basis of the results of his work.
The Council is not doing terribly well, is it? That is a very disappointing reply.
I was asked to raise this question by the Penzance branch of Amnesty International, which has taken under its wing a particular prisoner of conscience, Thet Win Aung.
I mention his name because he is a very good example of what is happening in Burma.
He is a student leader who was recently sentenced to 52 years of imprisonment, and this has now been increased to 59 years.
He was arrested in October 1998.
His place of detention is not known and his family is being put under terrible pressure.
My question to the Council is, given this awful background, is it willing to consider putting pressure upon Burma to declare a total amnesty for such political prisoners and, very much to the point, has the Council ever discussed the possibility of economic sanctions against Burma until it adopts a more humane policy?
Mr President, as I have already said, Burma' s internal political situation is by no means acceptable to the Union, as there is no acknowledgement in that country of fundamental human rights.
At present the Council is monitoring the situation and, as I stated, we have a common position on Burma, which - if I am not entirely mistaken - also includes certain economic sanctions.
I can assure the honourable Member that the Council will do all it can and put pressure on the Burmese government, so that the situation in Burma can be normalised and improved, and so that human rights will be respected in the future.
Question No 10 by (H-0572/99):
Subject: Conditions for the inclusion of Turkey among countries eligible for membership of the European Union The European Union refused to embark upon pre-accession negotiations with Slovakia and the Baltic States because they did not fulfil the Copenhagen criteria concerning democratic freedoms and respect for minorities.
Their impending recognition as countries eligible for accession comes after significant constitutional, legal and political reforms.
Will the European Council meeting in Helsinki also pursue the same policy towards Turkey? Does the Finnish Presidency consider that the basic conditions for recognising Turkey as eligible for membership of the European Union should at least comprise dropping the demand for international recognition of a >Turkish-Cypriot state= in the occupied territories of the Republic of Cyprus in order to launch intercommunal talks, Turkey=s agreement to seek settlements of the differences between Greece and Turkey on the basis of international law and its institutions, and the opening of talks on the democratic and cultural rights of the Kurds?
Mr President, the Council would like to stress that the criteria agreed at the European Council in Copenhagen affect in the same way all countries seeking EU membership.
The Council would remind everyone that the European Council in Luxembourg stated that Turkey would be assessed according to the same criteria as the other applicant countries.
The European Council furthermore reminded everyone that, in order to strengthen relations between Turkey and the EU, there would be a need for political and social reforms, such as respect and protection for minorities, the creation of satisfactory and stable relations between Greece and Turkey and support for the talks being conducted under UN protection on a political solution in Cyprus.
We are aware that decisions on enlargement taken at the European Council in Helsinki, which will be made with reference to the Commission' s annual report will have a powerful impact on relations between the EU and Turkey.
Although we cannot predict the outcome of the talks in Helsinki, and although there is still much scope for improvement with regard to Turkey, it seems reasonable to reflect on the many important areas of progress that have been made, which should be taken into consideration.
The outcome of the informal meeting of foreign ministers at Saariselkä, which was set forth on 13 September in the conclusions of the General Affairs Council, and Foreign Minister Cem' s presence at the General Affairs Council' s lunch are, in the opinion of the country to hold the Presidency, signs of a constructive new beginning in relations between the Union and Turkey.
Improved relations between Greece and Turkey, not just as a result of the earthquakes, but as an issue in itself, and a discernible change in attitude in Turkey with regard to legal and constitutional reform, human rights and the Turkish Kurds are very welcome steps forward, as are also the commitments and recognition of realities contained in Bülent Ecevit' s letter to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder last May.
The representative of the Council' s response is ambiguous and somewhat schizophrenic in nature. On the one hand, he says that we need to implement the criteria but, on the other hand, he says things are running smoothly in Turkey and so we can proceed.
This is clear to us all.
Nevertheless, I would like to take the discussion a little further.
At one point, he referred to a number of things Turkey must still do. "there is still much scope for improvement with regard to Turkey" , the Minister said.
How much scope for improvement is there in Turkey?
Is Turkey really ready to be granted applicant status on the basis of what it has done today and the declarations it has made? As regards fundamental issues such as the Greek-Turkish dispute over the Aegean Sea, should the criteria not be for Turkey to recognise the opinions of other countries, but for it to respect international law, to refrain from using violence or threatening to use violence and to refer any disputes it may have to the International Court in The Hague.
Mr President, this autumn I myself went to Turkey and had talks there on the state of human rights in that country.
I expressed the Union' s clear position on the unsatisfactory situation we see regarding human rights there.
I would like to say, however, that a constructive attitude to Turkey is likely to be a much better policy for the Union than would be the case if Turkey turned its back on the Union entirely and did not even try to embrace those principles that we have incorporated as conditions of membership in the Copenhagen criteria or in other decisions we have taken.
I firmly believe that if Turkey were accorded applicant status in Helsinki, it would increase Turkey' s willingness and its efforts to put its own house in order relatively quickly, especially with regard to human rights and the police.
We must remember that, before a state can join the Union, the human rights situation in respect of those living there obviously has to be impeccable.
I also want to point out that the Cyprus question is naturally an important part of all of this.
I believe that this perspective on membership has contributed to the fact that talks will probably very soon begin on how to solve the Cyprus problem.
It is my understanding that Rauf Denktash has promised he is ready to come to the negotiating table in New York, and this would obviously be a very positive sign.
I believe that we will achieve better results through constructive cooperation than by cutting the ties of cooperation.
Mr President, I rise not because of the topic of Mr Alavanos' question, but to comment on Minister Sasi' s answer and to put a question to him.
Minister Sasi, perhaps you should have said that this was more of a political debate and that a conclusion would be reached in Helsinki.
Instead you addressed many different issues under the same heading and no clear conclusion can be drawn from what you said.
I would like to ask a question.
You made the particular point about Turkey being judged on the basis of the Copenhagen criteria. If Turkey is therefore accorded applicant status in Helsinki, are we then to assume that it has fulfilled those criteria?
Please answer us that. We should not be bothering ourselves with all these other factors.
Instead, we should try to talk some sense here. I am saying all this, Mr President, because I believe that when the Council comes here, it should have more respect for this institution.
We are parliamentarians after all!
Mr President, firstly, I wish to say that Turkey at present does not meet the Copenhagen criteria, but neither do we intend to make a decision in Helsinki on commencing talks with Turkey, which is what is being planned at this moment for Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Bulgaria.
In other words, it is not a question of actually starting talks, but of establishing applicant status and taking subsequent action.
I believe that it is realistic to say that Turkey still has a rather long way to go before concrete negotiations on membership can begin.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, I would not describe the response as being schizophrenic in nature, I would just like to know, as we all would, whether the strengthening of relations between the European Union and Turkey is a high priority for the Council, and whether it is such a high priority that those conditions set by the Council to ensure this strengthening of relations are actually being brushed aside.
You said, Mr President-in-Office, that Turkey' s position had changed.
How has Turkey' s position changed exactly? Turkish forces still occupy the northern part of Cyprus, political rights are still being violated, Öçalan is still in prison and Kurdish people are not even given recognition.
You also talk of some promise of negotiations.
Indeed, there is such a promise, as regards the Cyprus issue, but it would cost Turkey nothing to begin negotiations, to talk for 15 minutes and then to have done with it.
At the same time, this would give the Council good enough reason to say "There!
We have now made some progress on the Cyprus issue" .
Mr President, I would like to say that Turkey certainly has implemented action this year to try and improve human rights, but the truth is that it obviously still has a long way to go in this area, and change does not come quickly in any society.
On the whole, I believe that cooperation is a better way to build peace that an unwillingness to practise cooperation.
Question No 11 by (H-0602/99):
Subject: Restrictions imposed by Turkey on freedom of navigation On 27 May 1997 the Turkish authorities issued Decision No 2646, signed by Mr Nazmi Kumral (Minister of State of the Marine) prohibiting merchant vessels flying the Cypriot flag or belonging to citizens of Cyprus or of other countries, including the 15 Member States of the European Union, from entering Turkey if they are proceeding from or to any port in the unoccupied area of the Republic of Cyprus.
The Republic of Cyprus, on the other hand, which is a victim of Turkish aggression, 37% of it being under illegal Turkish military occupation, has not imposed any limits on entry into its ports by vessels from Turkey.
Does the Council consider these restrictions imposed by Turkey to be in accordance with EU principles and does the Council consider it acceptable for a country aspiring to EU membership to take such action against vessels flying the flags of EU Member States?
Mr President, the Council believes that the Turkish action affects the interests of merchant vessels flying a Member State flag and operating between Turkey and Cyprus, and private vessels owned by shipping companies in the Community.
In addition, these restrictions do not accord with the basic principles of trade and free competition at sea based on integrity and commercialism as accepted by Turkey within the framework of the OECD.
For this reason, numerous official communications have been sent to the Turkish authorities.
Mr President, I consider it a positive sign that there have been remonstrations against Turkey but I would also like to stress my disappointment that what Turkey is doing to the detriment of merchant fleets around the world, including the merchant fleets of the European Union, is being played down.
Since Turkey has taken no direct action, it is in violation of international law, the rules of free navigation and the treaties of the European Union.
What Turkey is in fact doing is prohibiting vessels proceeding from Cypriot ports from approaching Turkish ports.
This does not just refer to vessels which are actually from Cyprus or Greece, which would have roused particular interest, but it also refers to European Union vessels.
I would like to ask what response Turkey gave to the European Union' s remonstrations and if it gave no response at all, why then does it not take the matter to the International Court in the Hague? I also wonder why the European Union is prepared to tolerate such unlawfulness and harm the interests of European shipping for a country which does not even have any qualms about threatening a superpower, i.e. the United States, just to defend its banana trade.
Mr President, the contentious decision of the Turkish Government is yet another example of Turkey' s total disregard for and blatant violation of maritime law following the Turkish Grand National Assembly authorising the Turkish Government to claim casus belli and to declare war on Greece should Greece exercise its rights to extend its territorial waters in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea which only Turkey has refused to sign. In light of this, I would like to ask the Council if it intends to address this particular issue in its remonstrations to Ankara as well as at the forthcoming European Council in Helsinki in the discussions on EU-Turkey relations and the criteria which, as the Minister said, must be fulfilled.
Mr President, as I said, the Commission intends to raise this matter in the bilateral discussions on reaching a preferential agreement on the liberalisation of services and public procurement between the EU and Turkey.
Furthermore, the Council can take up this matter in discussions with Turkey, but there will not be any negotiations as such with Turkey at the Helsinki Summit, so the matter will hardly be brought up there.
Question No 12 by (H-0576/99):
Subject: Substance abusers and methods of treatment An increasing number of substance abusers also have mental problems which, quite clearly, entail difficulties for themselves and difficulties finding effective methods of treatment.
In the Council=s view, how should we tackle this growing problem?
- (SV) There has been no proposal submitted to the Council relating to the question asked by the honourable Member.
Finding suitable methods of treatment is, moreover, a matter which falls mainly within the Member States' area of responsibility.
Thank you very much for your answer.
I am aware of the fact that this matter falls within the Member States' area of responsibility, but we nonetheless know that it is a shared problem which is not just a question of methods of treatment in general but precisely about the combination of substance abuse and mental illnesses.
I know that the Finnish presidency has had mental health as one of a number of topics in its programme.
I am therefore wondering now whether one might contemplate opening the doors to more explicit cooperation in connection with the problematic situation in which many people are diagnosed as having a combination of substance abuse and mental health problems.
As has been said, this matter comes within the Member States' area of responsibility. At the same time, there is no reason why it should not be possible to discuss the issue at the meeting of the health ministers and, in that way, then try to create some type of, not perhaps cooperation, but contacts, and perhaps exchange information from different countries in an attempt to develop the methods concerned in different EU countries.
I must admit that I am no expert in this area of responsibility.
I cannot unfortunately give a clearer answer.
Question No 13 by (H-0578/99):
Subject: Growing federalism in EU decision making Speaking in Strasbourg in July as a representative of the country currently holding the Presidency of the Council, Finland=s Foreign Minister stated one of Finland=s objectives as being to ensure that the Union had a common will, a common policy and a common voice.
On this basis a policy is being developed within the Council which will increase the federalisation of the EU: common decision-making bodies in which supranational decisions are taken.
What is the Council=s position on a federalism which would compel countries to surrender their right of veto and qualified-majority requirements in order to facilitate supranational decision making?
Mr President, the Council, like the other institutions, exercises its powers according to those conditions and for those purposes that are defined in Article 5 of the EC Treaty and in the provisions of later agreements and documents relating to amendments and additions, on the one hand, and the provisions of the Treaty on the European Union, on the other.
The voting rules contained in these agreements apply when decisions are made in the Council.
Extending the scope of application of decisions based on a qualified majority in the Council is one of those issues to be discussed at the conference of the representatives of Member State governments, which is to convene at the beginning of 2000.
The European Council took a decision on the matter at its meeting at Cologne on 3 and 4 June 1999.
In the Protocol relating to the institutions and EU enlargement and which is annexed to the Treaty of Amsterdam, there are provisions for convening this Intergovernmental Conference.
The honourable Member' s question thus does not fall within the area of responsibility of the Council but of that of the conference of representatives of Member State governments.
I would just like to follow up the response from the President-in-Office of the Council to this question by mentioning the Luxembourg Compromise which we do not hear much of now.
The question is asked - the opinion of the Council about federalism - about surrendering sovereignty to majority voting.
Is the Luxembourg Compromise still regarded as being in force and being respected and would you not agree that it should be?
I mean the compromise by which it is understood that the vital national interests of a Member State will not be overruled by a majority vote in Council.
That is my understanding of that compromise.
Mr President, a compromise was made in Luxembourg at the time, and it is in principle still in force, although it might be said that no one has recently insisted that it be applied.
Perhaps we should also mention that after that the Ioannina compromise was made.
Question No 14 by (H-0583/99):
Subject: Brominated flame retardants There have recently been alarming reports in Sweden of high levels of brominated flame retardants in fish in the Baltic.
The Swedish government has promised to ban brominated flame retardants in 2004 and to press for reductions in their use. How does the Council intend to deal with the problem of brominated flame retardants?
Does it intend to seek a ban at EU level, and if so, when? Would a unilateral Swedish ban on brominated fire retardants be regarded as hampering the free movement of goods and thus as an infringement of EU law?
The President-in-Office of the Council has the floor to respond to this question.
We trust in the wisdom of the Council.
- (SV) The honourable Member has asked a question concerning the high levels of brominated flame retardants in fish in the Baltic.
As the Member is aware, the Council has promulgated legislation which makes it possible to assess and reduce the risks to the environment and to people' s health constituted by hazardous substances.
Furthermore, the Council' s conclusions concerning the further development of the European Community' s policy on chemicals were adopted by the Council - that is to say, the Council on the Environment - on 24 June of this year.
In these conclusions, the Council urges the Commission to submit a document concerning the new strategy on chemicals before the end of the year 2000.
This document ought to include an outline of a new strategy for improving the identification and assessment of all chemicals.
Thank you for your answer, which it was also very nice to have in Swedish.
I perhaps understand why the answer was as it was, but this business with fish in the Baltic is just one example of how brominated flame retardants can cause problems for the environment and for people' s health. We know, you see, that these flame retardants have been used quite freely since the beginning of the seventies in electronic equipment, TV sets, computers etc, and they have just proliferated.
This is an enormous problem because Swedish studies, and other studies too, show that we are going to see precisely the same thing happen as we saw happen with PCBs, namely that these chemicals will find their way into the food chains and it will gradually emerge that a big problem has arisen.
I should like an answer to the question of whether Sweden would be able to take a decision to prohibit these substances by the year 2004 and whether the EU would be able to agree to this; that is to say, would the precautionary principle prevail?
- (SV) Since I am not familiar with the investigation concerning the dangers to which these substances give rise, I must say that I cannot, unfortunately, reply directly to the question of whether arrangements should be made to prohibit the use of such substances.
I should like, nonetheless, to refer to the Council' s conclusions, to which I also referred in my first reply and which I can also send to you if you wish.
In accordance with the general programme in Council Regulation no 793/93 concerning the assessment and monitoring of risks presented by existing substances, three brominated flame retardants are at present under investigation.
If required, the Commission will submit proposals concerning Community measures to reduce the risks to which these substances give rise.
Other specific questions which have also been asked in this context fall within the Commission' s area of authority, and the Commission, in its capacity as administrator of the Community' s policy, also has access to the tools and information which are needed if reliable and up-to-date answers are to be given.
When it comes to being able to prohibit these substances, I believe, finally, that the Commission must be asked for its answer to this question.
Question No 15 by (H-0585/99):
Subject: Ban on fuel supplies and looming humanitarian disaster in Yugoslavia The European Union=s opposition, expressed notably at the meeting of EU Foreign Ministers in Luxembourg, to providing fuel and emergency aid for the inhabitants of Yugoslavia to enable them to face the coming winter and the final decision to export heating oil B a plan called Energy for Democracy B to two Serb cities, Nis and Pirot, which are under opposition control, has provoked strong reactions.
This decision not only condemns the inhabitants of Yugoslavia to spend the winter entirely deprived of essential heating fuel, following the massive damage inflicted on state infrastructures by NATO bombing, but it is also an insult to the pride of an entire people who are the victims of extortion and who are facing annihilation because the West does not approve of their political leadership.
The Danish Foreign Minister, Mr Petersen, recently stated that this decision sends the right message that democracy and a desire for reform are rewarded.
Does the Council consider that statements of this kind reflect the position of the European Union and the so-called international community as regards respect for fundamental democratic freedoms and values? Does it consider further that the blackmailing decision of Luxembourg is a message which promotes democracy, in view of the fact that it seeks to bludgeon a people and its political representatives into adopting anti-democratic practices in order to survive, instead of ensuring that the institutions function in a smooth and democratic manner in the forthcoming elections?
Mr President, on 15 November the General Affairs Council declared its support for the democratic opposition in Serbia, and its attempts at unification.
In addition, it said once more that the Union was ready to offer reconstruction aid to a democratic Serbia.
The General Affairs Council noted with satisfaction that the first deliveries of heating oil for the two cities of Nis and Pirot under the "Energy for Democracy" programme would take place before the end of November.
It requires the projects to be swiftly implemented, and the Council reconfirmed its readiness to consider extending the initiative to other communities.
The Council also reminded everyone of its readiness to continue to help destitute Serbs and of the humanitarian aid granted by the European Community and the Member States for this purpose.
The 'self-help aid' granted by ECHO to Serbia will total EUR 62 million, which the Council welcomed at its meeting.
Regarding the elections to be held in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Council thinks that, under the present circumstances, the idea of free and honestly conducted elections is impossible.
Police attacks at peaceful demonstrations, which were carried out repeatedly in Belgrade in October, clearly show that the basic values of democracy, such as freedom of speech and opinion, will not be respected in Serbia as long as Milosevic and his government are in power there.
Mr President, if I am not mistaken, the Council called its programme "Energy for Democracy" .
Now we are saying that it is simply humanitarian intervention.
The phrase "Energy for Democracy" itself denotes shameless extortion of the Serbian people, since in order to get heating fuel, they must accept the ideas of European Union democracy.
Secondly, I would like to comment on and ask the representative of the Council the following: he says that the European Union will not recognise the Milosevic regime and that fair elections cannot take place until judgements have been passed on the political powers of Yugoslavia, of Serbia. So, what are your plans?
Have you reached a deadlock? Do you have any other plans in the pipeline that you are not telling Parliament?
What are we to make of your intentions since, in your view, elections are not the answer?
Even rallies have been banned....May I tell you that in Greece today, with the visit of President Clinton, half of Athens has been cordoned off for two or three days?
Mr President, it is absolutely clear that free democratic elections in Yugoslavia are the only solution to the situation there.
But in reply I would say that, at present, circumstances in Yugoslavia, taking into consideration, for example police action and the aggressive attitude towards demonstrations, as well as the Milosevic administration' s attitude towards the press and freedom of information, are such that the conditions for holding free democratic elections in Yugoslavia do no exist right at present.
The basis of Union policy is that it has no desire to support the Milosevic administration in any way whatsoever.
As the Union considers humanitarian factors to be very important, however, and does not accept that the deeds of leaders should mean that ordinary citizens have to suffer, it has embarked on a trial project, whereby heating oil will be delivered on a trial basis to Nis and Pirot, but possibly later on to other places as well.
We await with interest that the Yugoslavian government and administration approve these aid measures, as at present we do not have any good experience whatsoever of the government.
Passage along the Danube should be freed up as quickly as possible, but achieving cooperation in this respect has not been possible, and Yugoslavia has not embarked on any action to open up the Danube, although it has an obligation to do so under international agreements.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, may I thank you for the clear opinion you have expressed. I can really only register with indignation the fact that Mr Theonas is displaying sympathy here for a war criminal.
I should like, however, to ask you quite specifically what the Council - apart from these sanctions, which I fully and completely approve of - is planning to do in order to provide concrete support to the Serbian opposition this winter.
Is a meeting planned, and are there concrete measures to support the Serbian democratic opposition? For that would be of use to the Serbian people!
I would ask Members to address the Council with questions and not to make statements regarding the likes or dislikes of other Members because these naturally call for a response.
I am going to give Mr Theonas the floor for 15 seconds and I would ask him not to cause a parliamentary incident.
I know that he will not cause one because I know him.
I would ask all Members to adhere to the Rules of Procedure and address questions to the Council.
Mr President, I would like to invite Mr Posselt to retract his congratulations, otherwise I shall be forced into thinking that he despises an entire people for not accepting his views on democracy.
We should not hate the Serb population just because he wants the right to determine who should lead the country.
I am sure that Mr Posselt has no intention of showing disrespect for Mr Theonas' positions and has no difficulty in expressing it.
This is a purely political debate.
Has everybody received an answer and are you satisfied? The Council will take the floor to answer this supplementary question.
Mr Sasi has the floor.
Mr President, the Union has aspired to cooperation with the democratic forces in Serbia.
In October, with this purpose in mind, the General Affairs Council invited representatives of the Serbian democratic opposition to a meeting, and the Yugoslavian situation was discussed with them.
We also heard their hopes regarding what sort of action the Union might take in this matter.
Among other things, sanctions were discussed, but there was also much discussion about freedom of the media and press, which at present is restricted, meaning that they cannot operate in a democratic fashion in the country.
It is also possible that there will be contact between the Union and the Serbian democratic opposition in the meeting that is just starting in Istanbul.
Our bottom line - and there is complete consensus on this, as far as I know - is that a democratic administration should be established for Yugoslavia, and Serbia in particular, as soon as possible, one that the people have been able to elect in their own free elections, without pressure or restriction.
Question No 16 by (H-0586/99):
Subject: Financial Instrument of the OCTs (Overseas Countries and Territories) One of the objectives set by the Amsterdam Conference for the Council was to increase the effectiveness of the financial instrument of the OCTs.
The EDF mechanism no longer seems to be able to meet the needs expressed by the OCT authorities.
The main criticisms voiced are that they do not receive sufficient funding compared with the ACP countries, and that the procedures are excessively bureaucratic and totally untailored to local structures.
Parliament had called specifically for the establishment of a European Development Fund for the OCTs (OCTDF) in its resolution of 11 February 1999.
Does the Council intend to take into account our demand in the new association agreement which is due to enter into force on 1 March 2000?
Mr President, when the Treaty of Amsterdam was signed on 2 October 1997, the Intergovernmental Conference added in its final act a declaration regarding the Overseas Countries and Territories.
This declaration exhorts the Council to examine by February 2000 the association system of the OCTs in compliance with the provisions of Article 136 of the EC Treaty.
One of the aims of this investigation is to improve the effectiveness of the financial instrument of the OCTs.
On the basis of a resolution passed on 11 February 1999 by the European Parliament, the Commission, on 25 May 1999, delivered a communication to the Council, which formulated three possible ways of improving this financial instrument.
They are OCD aid eligibility with regard to Structural Funds, a revised EDF, or a fund specially intended for OCDs in the Union budget.
The Council noted these possible guidelines, but did not say it favoured any one of them at this stage.
The Council will be debating the details of an improved financial instrument for OCDs once it has its possession, in the near future, the awaited Commission proposal on a definition of the new association system for OCDs to be applied on 1 March 2000.
Obviously, the Council will take account of the resolution passed by the European Parliament on 11 February 1999 when it debates this proposal.
I would like to tell the Minister that I do not find his answer very satisfactory.
What we are actually facing is the need to have a new association agreement that must come into force on 1 March 2000 and I am a little surprised that, at this stage, no decision has yet been taken on the three guidelines, on the three paths that have been sketched out.
I would like to ask the Council how, when these paths are sketched out, it intends to link, as it were, Parliament with the definition of this new financial instrument, because there is no doubt that a new financial instrument will be needed because what exists at the moment is no longer suitable for the situation of the overseas countries and territories and does not match up to these countries' requirements.
Mr President, I would just like to say and assure the honourable Member that the Council is fully aware that it is necessary to simplify the financial instrument for Overseas Countries and Territories and make it more efficient but, as I said, at present, we only have a communication from the Commission that proposes three different possible approaches.
For this reason, it will be some time before a final decision is taken on the matter.
Thank you very much, Mr Sasi.
Questions 17 and 18 were not going to be dealt with because they refer to the matter of Chechnya, which was included in today' s agenda.
Since the time allocated to Questions to the Council has elapsed, questions 19 to 41 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Question Time.
Thank you very much, good night and I hope that you will enjoy Strasbourg after a hard day at work.
(The sitting was closed at 10.05 p.m.)
Madam President, I should like to ask you to protest vehemently on behalf of all of us at the savage and brutal public execution on Tuesday of a mother of seven children by the Taliban regime in Kabul.
I will say no more, but I am disgusted - we must all be disgusted - at this savagery.
Please protest on behalf of all of us.
(Loud applause)
Mrs Doyle, I read this report myself and I must tell you I was outraged and shocked.
I believe your applause is a clear indication of the fact that we are all in agreement that I should announce the indignation of this House to Afghanistan.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madame President, I have a problem with yesterday' s Minutes. They refer to me as 'Mr' .
I gave an explanation of vote on Avilés Perea' s report on the Daphne programme, I am referred to in the Minutes as 'Herr' Kauppi, and I would prefer it to read 'Madame' .
Well, I am quite dismayed at all these errors, which are obviously technical errors. All the same, they are not acceptable, and we shall straighten all this out.
Madam President, on page 20 of the Minutes, it is announced that I spoke in support of Mr Dupuis.
Well, we are colleagues, and often agree, but that is not the point.
Both Mr Dupuis' speech and my own were intended to challenge the request made by the chair, Mr Barón Crespo, regarding the application of Rule 112.
Hence the request I made was addressed to the chair so that its validity could be evaluated and we could be told this morning what the state of affairs was.
Very well, Mr Dell' Alba.
That is what I am here for.
Madam President, yesterday's Minutes in the English also seem to indicate that they were the Minutes of Thursday 17 December.
I am sure that Parliament would not be writing today's Minutes before we have actually had our debates and votes.
I hope that will be corrected.
No, of course, I can assure you immediately that that is not the case.
It is indeed an error.
Madam President, I want to refer to your expression of sympathy with the people of France who are affected by severe flooding.
It was very appropriate that you should raise this matter yesterday morning.
But you not only expressed sympathy, you also requested the Commission to provide some assistance.
Sometimes in Parliament the right hand does not know what the left one is doing.
A couple of years ago we took away the possibility of extending assistance to people in such instances in the European Union.
We expressed the same sympathy with the Greeks and requested the same assistance, but there is no money available.
We ought therefore in future to either provide the money and the conditions under which it is paid or cease to ask the Commission to give assistance.
What we gave the Greeks was an empty cup.
We are offering the same thing to the people of France.
Thank you, Mr McCartin.
Indeed, I had to mention the same problem when opening yesterday' s sitting.
Madam President, I would like to table a procedural motion.
I failed to notice that we had moved on from the procedural motions to the report.
I would like to raise a minor motion on something that could be deemed insignificant, but as each day passes, I get increasingly frustrated at the crazy amounts of paper being wasted in this establishment.
It is not just a lot of energy on words that is being wasted here, there is an incredible amount of paper wasted and there is no sign of any kind of recycling scheme.
At the other Parliament based in Brussels, we at least have cardboard boxes where we can deposit the massive amounts of paper which we no longer need.
At this end, despite the ultra-modern and sophisticated design of this building, I have as yet been unable to detect the existence of such practical, inexpensive cardboard boxes which can play a key role in the recycling of paper.
I would like to ask you to make a little effort here.
Surely, the budget could stretch to a few cardboard boxes for the Members where we can stock paper for recycling purposes.
Thank you, Mr Vander Taelen, for this contribution which is indeed not strictly relevant to the Minutes.
But that does not matter.
It is a perfectly valid point which I shall pass on to the College of Quaestors this very day to see if we can find appropriate solutions to the problem you have brought up.
(The Minutes were adopted)
Decision on urgent procedure
Thank you, Mr Barón Crespo.
I think that Mr Dupuis will have the opportunity to respond to you, since he has signed up to speak against this request.
Mr Barón Crespo has just presented the request.
Mr Poettering is asking for the floor to speak in favour of this request.
Thank you, Mr Poettering.
Yes, I believe that if the vote were to take place tomorrow, on Friday, we would have some trouble in mustering the 314 votes necessary.
But you never know!
Madam President, I think that Mr Voggenhuber wishes to speak against this proposal.
I am myself speaking to say that this request in inadmissible, insofar as Rule 112 refers to Rule 60, which is about Commission proposals and legislative texts.
Mr Barón Crespo has a very flexible view of our Rules of Procedure.
Yesterday he spoke of Rule 60, today he is talking about Rule 61, on constitutional matters.
Those present may observe the rich nature of Strasbourg nights and their capacity to cause our internal regulations to increase in number.
In the preamble to Mr Napolitano' s report, there is explicit reference to Article 199 of the Treaty of Amsterdam and this Article refers explicitly to the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament.
This is, then, further evidence that the procedure that Mr Barón Crespo requested yesterday has nothing to do with Rule 112.
I therefore request, Madam President, that there should be no vote and that Mr Barón Crespo' s request is considered inadmissible.
Very well, thank you, Mr Dupuis.
Mr Dupuis has just spoken regarding the admissibility of this request.
Mr Dupuis, you will not be surprised to hear that I spent some time last night studying this matter.
And I came to the conclusion that the request was perfectly admissible according to the Rules of Procedure.
Well, we have heard your views.
I now give the floor to Mr Voggenhuber, to speak against the request.
Ladies and gentlemen, matters seem clear enough, as much as they can be.
Rule 112 of our Rules of Procedure refers to Rule 60(1), "A request that a debate on a proposal on which Parliament has been consulted pursuant to Rule 60(1) be treated as urgent..."
And Rule 60(1) specifies, "Proposals from the Commission and other documents of a legislative nature" .
The problem of interpretation is focused on the nature of Mr Napolitano' s report.
As far as I am concerned, I consider - and once again this is what has influenced my thinking, but I shall ask Mr Napolitano if he agrees with me - that the subject of Mr Napolitano' s report is the application of a text of a legislative nature, since it is to do with the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament and of the Council relating to the inquiries carried out by OLAF.
Considering that Mr Napolitano' s report concerns a text of a legislative nature, it seems to me that we are in the situation covered by Rule 60(1), as referred to by Rule 112 of the Rules of Procedure.
I hope I have made this sufficiently clear.
Mr Napolitano, could you tell me if you share my opinion?
Madam President, I completely agree with the definition that you gave of the mandate given to the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, a very specific and limited mandate.
It is simply a question of inserting the interinstitutional agreement into our Rules of Procedure, and I therefore agree with what you said about the nature of the report.
Agenda
Ladies and gentlemen, we are not going to spend all morning on this.
We have heard Mr Barón Crespo presenting the request, and Mr Poettering speaking in favour of this request.
Now I would like to know if there is any Member who wishes to speak against this request.
If there is no speaker against, I shall put the matter to the vote directly.
(Parliament agreed to urgent procedure)
This item is now entered as the first item on today' s agenda.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that we are going to hear from the rapporteur on the establishment of EURODAC, Mr Pirker, who has asked to be given the floor.
I quite understand what you have said, Mr Pirker.
I think that Mr Watson, the chairman of the Committee concerned, now wishes to make a statement.
This proposal for a Council Regulation is an important proposal.
My committee has worked very hard to prepare Parliament's response to this proposal in time for the deadline set down by the Council and in time for the Council to discuss it on 2 December.
If we have time to debate this report this morning, then we must vote at lunch-time.
This will enable Parliament to give its response in time for the Council to discuss it.
However, if we are not able to have this debate this morning, if there are too many speakers down for the Napolitano report and the Giannakou report, then I would support Mr Pirker's proposal that we not vote on the matter tomorrow.
It is too important a matter to be voted on a Friday, even though I personally will be here.
I am not sure whether those who, as I understand it, have a problem with the report, such as the French delegation in the Socialist Group, will still be here tomorrow - we might ask them that.
However, if it is not to possible to vote on it today, might we ask the services of Parliament whether it would be possible to have the debate this evening and the vote on the Wednesday of the December part-session to allow us to forward the results to the Council by the Thursday; and might we also ask for the assistance of the Commissioner in intervening with the Council on this matter?
Mr Watson, indeed I have been told that the timing is likely to get us into this sort of situation, such that we cannot vote on the report today.
And this could cause problems, tomorrow morning, for many more delegations than you just mentioned.
Indeed I feel this is not a matter for any specific delegation, and I felt I must make that clear.
Madam President, the Commission wishes to stress the importance of the instrument which we are proposing to Parliament.
We would like to have political support that is as wide as possible for it.
From the Commission' s point of view, and as far as the timetable is concerned, in order for the dossier to be examined by the Council on 2 and 3 December, Parliament' s vote must take place today.
If not, we shall have to renegotiate the entire timetable with the Council, and I cannot tell you what the results of such renegotiations will be.
Indeed that is probably the most disruptive aspect of work in the Union: one can never predict the outcome of negotiations with the Council.
Commissioner, would it still be acceptable it we were to vote on the report on 1 December?
Mr Pirker, I feel the best course of action, in fact, is to move on quickly to the report.
The faster we go, the greater the chances that it will be possible not only to debate but also to vote on the report this morning.
I am keeping in mind what the Commissioner has said.
Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, I must come to you. Would you agree to my proposing to the House, if the House indeed accepts, to rearrange the agenda and deal with the Pirker report immediately before your own?
Madam President, I agree, although I hope that there will be sufficient time to discuss my report this morning.
Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, thank you very much indeed.
This is very generous of you.
I now turn to the House. Do you agree to debate Mr Pirker' s report immediately before Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s?
(Parliament gave its assent)
Internal OLAF investigations
The next item is the report (A5-0066/1999) by Mr Napolitano, on behalf of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, on the amendments to the Rules of Procedure following the interinstitutional agreement of 25 May 1999 on the internal investigations conducted by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF).
Mr President, I would just like to remind you that Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure, already used for the Napolitano report, stipulates that "except in the cases of urgency referred to in Rules 50 and 112, a debate and vote shall not be opened on a text unless it was distributed at least twenty-four hours previously" .
Now, I would inform you that the last amendments to the Giannakou-Koutsikou report were distributed yesterday evening.
The last translated amendment, the French version of amendment No 20, was distributed at 9.52 p.m. yesterday evening.
Therefore, the requisite 24 hours laid down in the Rules of Procedure have not passed, either for the debate or for the vote, so I would like to ask the President whether we are going to enforce an urgency that completely violates the Rules this time as well, because, in that case, we can throw the Rules of Procedure away and decide that we can do everything that is urgent as long as we establish that it is urgent.
I do not believe that there have even been any proposals tabled on the urgency of this report.
I would therefore like to know whether this debate and the vote will take place in exactly the same way as the debate on the Napolitano report, in contravention of our Rules of Procedure. This is the issue.
Thank you, Mr Cappato, for invoking the Rules of Procedure, even if we have already discussed the matter and a decision has been made.
I do not think that we can reopen the debate on whether or not the Rules of Procedure are being complied with.
Mr President, two questions need to be answered with regard to the new proposal in the Napolitano report.
The first question is: is the proposal in accordance with the rules of the OLAF European Parliament and Council Regulation of 25 May 1999? And the second question is: is the proposal in accordance with the interinstitutional agreement between Parliament, the Council and the Commission?
The answer to the first question is an obvious "yes" .
The proposal is in accordance with the Regulation.
The answer to the second question is not so easy.
It was the intention of the agreement to find a solution to the whistle-blower problem, that is to say, to the question of what an official should do if he obtains knowledge of fraud or clues suggesting corruption but - for whatever reason - does not want to confide in his superiors.
We have said that he should then approach OLAF directly.
This possibility is now excluded in the proposal before us in the case of Members of this House.
That is justified because the Members are protected in a special way by the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities in the performance of their duties.
This protection goes further than the protection enjoyed by the Members of the EU Commission through this Protocol.
My concern is only that the proposal that officials should approach the President of the Parliament directly, will create more problems than it solves.
It is foreseeable that the press will then regularly ask: How many cases are there and which ones? If there are none, they will say that they have intimidated their officials to such an extent that nobody trusts himself or herself any more.
If there are some, then they will try to drag each of these cases into the spotlight.
I would have preferred to take up the original proposal by the Committee on Budgetary Control in its opinion for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, in which this whole series of questions is ignored and only the rights and obligations of the Members is covered.
That would have left us time to consider other questions in peace.
I believe, nevertheless, that given the difficult circumstances, Mr Napolitano has drawn up a very good report and I should like to support him in the vote this lunchtime.
Mr President, I would like to refer to the closing words of the draftsman of the opinion, Mr Bösch.
I believe he is right, that this is an issue that was difficult to incorporate into our Rules of Procedure and that, in the end, it has been resolved satisfactorily.
Of course, there were perhaps other possibilities, but in this Parliament there was, above all, one concern: to fulfil the objectives which we had set.
That is to say, fight fraud, corruption and any illegal activity which harms our Community.
But we are a political Assembly and politicians - as we know well - are subject to all kinds of influences.
We have tried to prevent a healthy, specific political objective from being misinterpreted and misused.
That discussion which we held in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs on the means by which any possible illegal activity could be brought to the knowledge of OLAF, I believe has led us to a suitable means, because a political body must have a filter which can examine whether this information is well-founded or not and whether or not it contravenes the immunity and inviolability of Members.
Therefore, Mr President, I believe that the amendments which we have introduced in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs fulfil the objective of reconciling the decision of the three institutions with the characteristics of our own decision.
Please allow me to congratulate two people in particular.
One is the President of the Committee on Budgetary Control, Mrs Theato, who is in a way the mother of OLAF and of all these regulations. The other, who I consider to be the father of the current regulation, is Mr Napolitano, who has shown great moderation, intelligence and, above all, courage, in the quest for this difficult solution.
Mr President, the overwhelming majority of my group is fully in support of this report which we consider to be one of the essential building blocks in restoring the credibility of the European Union in questions of how it investigates and deals with allegations of fraud; if it does nothing else it will perhaps prove that many such allegations are often, but not always alas, unfounded.
This report applies within Parliament a text that was agreed by the last Parliament, was approved in principle in plenary when we authorised our President to sign it, signed by all the institutions and now applies within each of them except, until today, within Parliament.
In Parliament it met with unanimous support in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs the first time it was discussed and the first time we debated it here, every single one of the major political groups said that it supported the proposal.
At the last minute there were some difficulties and the matter was reconsidered in the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, but I believe that the difficulties and concerns that were raised have been adequately dealt with.
May I remind you that the provisions which would apply to Members of the Parliament are, to quote the text itself, "without prejudice to the provisions of the Treaties and in particular the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities".
There is a specific reference also in the preamble to the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities and there is a reference to the fact that the relevant article is without prejudice to the confidentiality requirements that may be laid down for Members of the European Parliament.
Our position as Members of the European Parliament is safeguarded in this respect, and Members who had genuine fears that this would be some sort of snoopers' charter or some sort of a new right given to officials to report confidentially on MEPs with wild allegations can rest assured that this is not the case.
The reports would go to OLAF, be properly investigated and would protect the position of MEPs.
If we failed to approve this today, we would be in the untenable situation that only MEPs would be above the law in this respect: a text that applies within the Council to politicians and officials alike, in the Commission to politicians and officials alike, would apply in Parliament only to our officials and not to Members of the European Parliament.
That would be totally unacceptable and would destroy the credibility of this Parliament.
It is essential that this report be adopted today.
Mr President, I have to say that I fully respect the sincerity and the passion of those who find themselves opposed to this report.
Serious cultural problems have emerged inside this Parliament as we have debated the issues involved.
My group has considered it very carefully and we conclude that it is a technical putting into effect of the agreement that the Parliament has signed on parliamentary immunity, and privileges will not be removed without due process.
All the points expressed in the various amendments are already sensibly covered.
Parliament's assent to this agreement is already five months late, and the public simply would not appreciate a further refusal to make progress and to create a strict but fair regime for the Parliament as for the other bodies.
Mr President, if we decide on this Rule of Procedure then it will be easier to combat fraud and to include the Parliament.
That would be good, as we have fought for it.
However, what we have not fought for and are most resolutely against and where we see the position of Parliament and of the independent mandate jeopardised to a great extent, is if investigations can be initiated against freely elected Members of Parliament, not only on suspicion but on mere supposition if a system of compulsory informing is set up here, if not for fraud and corruption but for overall authorisation, and I quote, "to intervene in serious incidents in the performance of one' s duty".
Just imagine, that investigations against Members of Parliament for serious incidents in the performance of their duties - a completely fabricated undefined legal concept that contradicts the constitutional tradition of each of the fifteen Member States - could be introduced, that investigations could be initiated if Members of Parliament contravene duties comparable with the disciplinary law for career public servants, a disciplinary law we do not have and comparable duties that do not exist!
That is an overall authorisation of an authority that not only exposes the Members of Parliament to all kinds of informing but which opens a system of informing and political agitation that makes a mockery of an independent mandate and a free Parliament.
That has nothing to do with combating fraud.
The Council has attacked the position of the Parliament at its core and damaged it!
Mr President, up to now there has been a succession of procedural errors which I hope will not work to the detriment of the Parliament in possible court cases.
I should like to say to Mr Corbett that a Member of the European Parliament has never been above the law, even if these Rules of Procedure are not changed.
We are always subject to the law and also to criminal law.
That must be stressed quite clearly, independently of our internal Rules here.
What we are dealing with here is the method by which the controls, checks and investigations are carried out.
I am of the opinion that we must ensure that the freedom of the individual Members of Parliament, including those who belong to a minority, must be protected from political pressure from outside and from within, so that they are not overrun with proceedings so that they are in the end so involved that they cannot deal with the situation any more.
That is the classic principle of the independence of the mandate that has been fought for over many centuries, particularly as protection from the executive.
Only in this way is the Member of Parliament able to exercise control.
He must have the right to refuse to bear witness, without any 'ifs' or 'buts' .
This already applies to us but the ways in which it applies partially negate it.
A Member of Parliament can then only if he has this right to refuse to bear witness, keep information to himself and only then will people come to him and tell him something if they know that he must not inform on them.
Only then can we exercise control within the meaning of Parliament vis--vis the executive and we should not ruin this by linking everything - whether officials, the executive or the Members of Parliament in one and the same Article.
If this is adopted here today and the anger dies down, we would perhaps then again have the strength to check whether with a proper goal the inclusion of the Members of Parliament in control mechanisms can protect this independent mandate and perhaps lead to some other phrasing.
This is not possible just now in the heat of the moment and I would ask my colleagues to remember this if it comes up again.
Mr President, I just wish to observe for the record that, in addition to the consequences of this scandalous interpretation of the Rules of Procedure, I have also lost my speaking time.
I had entered my name, I had a lot of things to say, but as a result of this outrageous rigging, I no longer have the right to speak.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 12 p.m.
Eurodac
The next item is the report (A5-0059/1999) by Mr Pirker, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the proposal for a Council Regulation concerning the establishment of "Eurodac" for the comparison of the fingerprints of applicants for asylum and certain other aliens (COM(1999) 260 - C5­0082/1999 - 1999/0116(CNS)).
Liberals in this House have a number of concerns about the draft protocol that was put forward in this draft regulation.
It carries a risk that it may blur the distinction between asylum-seekers and other types of immigrants.
It carries the risk that it may diminish the protection of those who need it by mistakenly channelling them through normal immigration procedures rather than asylum procedures.
There are certain "legal grey areas" .
The extension of EURODAC to persons who are not seeking asylum is, conceivably, outside the competence of the Dublin Convention, for example.
There is the risk that this protocol, this regulation, may be unworkable.
Member States will have little incentive to fingerprint third country nationals whom they find illegally on their territory, if there is a risk that they may become responsible for them.
Finally, there is a certain lack of clarity in some of the definitions used, like 'irregular crossing', 'illegally present' and so on.
Nonetheless, we believe that the debates in this House, in our committee, have been such that we have a good report drawn up here with the support of most political groups and I congratulate the rapporteur on it.
The Liberal Democrats will support this report.
We will not support amendments 13 to 20: although we share concerns about finger-printing, we believe that the attempt to stop a register being created will fail to deal in realistic terms with the challenges that we face.
Let me say one thing to Mr Schulz who raised the question of liberality.
This is a time for cool heads and good argument.
Mr Schulz cannot deny that we face a challenge in the Union with the number of people illegally present.
We have to find a way of tackling that problem while at the same time protecting civil liberties.
We believe that this report achieves that, and that is why we will be happy to give it our support.
Mr Prodi, Mr President, with regard to Eurodac and the viewpoint of the Greens and the European Free Alliance, I must say that I welcome the subtle distinctions made by the previous speakers after rapporteur Pirker' s introduction.
There are quite a few reservations and observations with regard to this report, including its lack of a social and human dimension.
Many police staff and criminal investigation services will of course welcome this report with open arms as it simplifies their work.
We need to be realistic and we do not deny that there is abuse.
Neither would I wish to see the Greens held responsible for the organised crime in this world, as people will shortly be saying we are responsible because we are unwilling to do anything about it.
This is untrue.
A house is built on solid foundations.
This report hardly constitutes a foundation, in fact, it is even a little reprehensible, in my opinion, although the amendments submitted make it more acceptable and tone it down somewhat.
However, we should not lose sight of the fact that asylum seekers look for safety, need a roof over their head and money to buy food.
The proposal' s point of departure is that asylum seekers are actually suspects.
It is assumed that they abuse the right of asylum.
And this is not proper.
Asylum seekers are criminalised here but they are not criminals.
Applicants are having a criminal role forced upon them, but are, in actual fact, victims, victims of the situation in their country of origin.
Turning now to minimum standards: a control policy as proposed is only acceptable if minimum standards apply across all states with regard to the handling of asylum applications.
Applications should be dealt with correctly and uniformly wherever they are submitted.
The gap is still too wide at the moment.
Needless to say, someone will apply for asylum where he hopes he will find recognition, a listening ear and humane treatment.
Finally, I would like to touch upon protective measures for personal data.
These measures do not apply to refugees at the moment.
This discrimination also promotes criminalisation.
Within our Green group, a discussion has been opened on the principle of fingerprinting in general.
When investigations are undertaken into organised crime, it is necessary to be completely clear on people' s identity in order to track down the criminals and for the benefit of the victims.
Every effort must be made to stop organised crime in its tracks.
Fingerprinting can help us achieve this.
Asylum seekers look for safety and a sense of security and do not wish their name to be on display across Europe.
Maybe in future, a debate could take place on the role of fingerprinting.
Mr President, in our Group we view Eurodac as a drastic departure from the Dublin Convention.
It is now being proposed that illegal immigrants as young as 14 years of age should also be covered by the arrangements in question, while the Dublin Convention is concerned only with asylum-seekers.
In our view, Eurodac is not a prerequisite for enabling the Dublin Convention to function.
It just gives the authorities increased opportunities for exercising control and, in any state based on the rule of law, very serious attention must necessarily be given to the balance between control measures and the rights of the individual.
This is absolutely crucial.
So let it be stated immediately that our Group is opposed to Eurodac.
We hope that Parliament will again dig in its heels over this frontal assault on the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as on the legal rights of third-country nationals within the borders of the European Union.
Taking fingerprints from people, just because they are not citizens of a Member State, is tantamount to wholesale criminalisation of foreign nationals.
To mix immigrants and asylum-seekers together in a fingerprint register is a departure from the basic idea of the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees.
Asylum-seekers are entitled to ask for protection.
It is not a criminal offence to request asylum.
And the Dublin Convention in fact relates only to the first country of refuge.
If a fingerprint register is to be established, we do not under any circumstances want asylum-seekers to be mixed together with either legal or illegal immigrants, and we want to propose that, under such a system, fingerprints are taken only from people who have been sentenced for having committed criminal acts.
It is proposed that 14 year-olds should have their fingerprints taken and stored in a register.
We think that this is a departure from the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires that we protect children and which recommends 18 years as the age at which, generally, a child is deemed to become an adult.
If a register is to be established, we want it to be possible to take fingerprints only from people of 18 years of age and over.
Fingerprints are something which you take from criminals, and even criminals are entitled to protection.
The rules on the erasure of records and the disclosure of information are far too vague in the Council' s proposal.
If a register is to be established, we propose that it should be possible for a person' s records to be erased as soon as that person has received a residence permit from a Member State.
Let me repeat this once more: we are opposed to Eurodac.
We consider this proposal to be a huge boulder in the wall around Fortress Europe, a wall we want to see broken down.
I can essentially go along with what Pernille Frahm has just said, and we shall also support her amendment which, in spite of everything, does nonetheless mitigate this dreadful piece of legislation we are debating, albeit to no great legal effect, because this is a simple consultation procedure.
I have two points to make.
First of all, I have some questions for the Commissioner.
It is, of course, evident from Protocol No 5 to the Amsterdam Treaty on the position of Denmark, that Title IV of the Treaty does not apply to Denmark, but this is not apparent from the proposed regulation.
I should like to see this matter clarified and would ask that the clarification be included in the proposal.
Next, I should like to ask the Commissioner if this is to be viewed in connection with what is dealt with in Article 5 of the Protocol I mentioned, namely a decision to build upon the Schengen acquis. If so, there is a definite procedure for how Denmark is to be incorporated into the system.
Is it this rule which is to be followed, or others?
And finally: if it is this rule or other rules which are to be followed, what would be the consequences of a Danish accession? Is it the case that decisions by the EU authorities, including the European Court of Justice, are binding upon Denmark?
The second point is the fundamental and most important one.
As Pernille Frahm rightly said, this proposal concerns an extension to Fortress Europe.
It is an effective defence mechanism, and what is being put in place is a complete and consistent absence of legal rights for one large group of people, namely asylum seekers, and for a group of other foreigners without, moreover, there being the right to differentiate between them.
There are no elementary rules concerning legal rights in connection with the registration procedure and in connection with the right to pass on this information held by the Member States and the Commission.
I want to say that this is the most repressive system we have experienced in Europe in this century, at any rate in the perspective of the Nordic legal tradition, and we have had our share of repressive systems.
And what is interesting and sinister is that it is wrapped up in phraseology which would have made the late propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, turn green with envy.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would remind you that this total absence of legal rights is to be established by virtue of conditions in the Treaty which concern and proclaim an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice and which guarantee freedom of movement.
What, in fact, we are dealing with here is the very opposite and, to crown it all, Mr Pirker' s report also attaches importance - and this is the only real amendment proposed - to replacing the concept of a foreigner with that of a citizen of a third country. Is the reason for this that the concept of a foreigner has negative connotations?
What the realities of the situation are is not so important. What is important is the packaging.
You are welcome to it, is what I say.
Mr President, in my own small country alone, we will have between 35,000 and 40,000 alleged asylum seekers this year, in addition to tens of thousands of asylum seekers of the past few of years who are still waiting for their cases to be resolved, and on top of this, there are an estimated 150,000 illegal immigrants, which means that the problem which we are focusing on today can hardly be overestimated.
We therefore give our full support to the Eurodac database for fingerprinting being set up.
We will gladly approve the Pirker report and I would ask the rapporteur to consider the criticism that follows as minor criticism of an otherwise sound report which represents a good step in the right direction.
After all, it must be clear that the Eurodac database should not just serve the purpose of establishing which Member State might deal with a particular asylum seeker' s case, but rather it should make it more difficult or impossible to abuse the asylum system in the future.
I therefore regret that Parliament has further mitigated the already weakened and moderate Council proposals in its various amendments.
It is completely beyond me why both the Council and Parliament are still a great deal laxer on illegal immigrants than on alleged asylum seekers.
After all, the fingerprints of illegal immigrants may not be kept ten but two years, may not be compared with each other - one wonders why - and may only be used for comparison with new asylum applications within the two-year period.
I fear that this illustrates that, according to some, the Eurodac system should serve, perhaps not exclusively but largely, at any rate, to assign a particular Member State the responsibility of footing the bill for a certain level of illegal immigration and abuse of the asylum system, rather than to render such abuses completely impossible.
Finally, I would put a big question mark over the fact that it appears that some sort of office of the European Commission will manage the system.
In my opinion, it should be assigned to a European police body such as Europol.
Mr President, I would like to ask you to take note of the fact that in this building there are meeting rooms with no screen.
And while there are plenary sittings and meetings under way at the same time, it would be a good thing if all the rooms had screens, if that is not too much trouble.
Mr President, our Group has significant doubts, and reasonable doubts, in relation to the EURODAC report presented.
We have already rejected a report which intended, in unclear terms, and for who knows what reason, to take the fingerprints of the illegal immigrants who arrive in the European Union.
We have a new proposal, this time from the Commission, which makes important advances.
This new proposal says that the fingerprints of illegal immigrants - because we are talking about the extension of the existing EURODAC programme to illegal immigrants - will only be taken in application of the Dublin Asylum Convention, that is to say, only in order to find out whether these immigrants have asked for asylum in another Member State of the European Union.
We are not opposed to this idea, on the contrary, we are not against clarifying whether there is a Member State responsible for the handling of the case if it is shown that a person has already applied for asylum.
But we have many doubts about this massive taking of fingerprints - because we believe it will be massive - of people who have crossed borders illegally or who are in an illegal situation in a Member State.
Therefore, we believe that a little more time is needed to carry out the proposed extension of the EURODAC system.
What we are clear about is that it is not acceptable to apply it to minors.
In this respect we will stand firm.
We will demand that this system be applied only to adults, because minors require other legal provisions if they are not accompanied.
And if they are with their family, that family will enter the system.
Thank you, Mrs Terrón i Cusí.
We take note of your request.
There is no doubt that an intelligent building must show intelligence throughout.
Mr President, the whole principle of fingerprinting asylum-seekers, as far as I am concerned, is intolerable.
It is basically criminalising victims, people who are seeking asylum and refuge.
Instead, our priority should be to improve the situation of asylum-seekers in the Member States.
In my own country at the moment the situation for asylum-seekers is completely intolerable.
Just this week the Minister for Justice has announced that he is going to prosecute taxi drivers who carry illegal immigrants.
Basically what we are doing is promoting the whole attitude of xenophobia and victimising people who are already victims.
The report tries to make the protocol sound less threatening, but the principle is exactly the same.
We are criminalising victims.
Fingerprinting is something that is normally done to suspected criminals.
Suspected criminals at least have the advantage that they will have legal representation, they will know their rights.
These people will not know their rights, not have legal representation.
The protocol does not explain where and how fingerprinting will be done.
Will it be on entry into the country, before the border is crossed? If this is the case does that mean that anyone, anywhere, can be stopped?
This is basically in line with the Dublin Convention. It was something set up in secret, behind closed doors, unfortunately in my own country - which I am very sorry about.
It basically promotes the whole idea of a fortress Europe, keeping out the so-called undesirables, whereas we should be looking at why people are seeking asylum, not victimising them.
One of the improvements aimed at here is on age.
The idea is that fingerprinting 14-year-old children is completely unacceptable.
But even at the age of 18 or 21 it is still unacceptable because these people are not criminals.
You are making the assumption they are.
The whole principle of the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty seems to have been done away with here.
The attitude within the European Union towards asylum-seekers has to change.
What we are doing is encouraging the xenophobia that is growing throughout the Member States of the European Union.
That is a tragedy.
Mr President, the Eurodac project shows the true face of liberal Europe.
A fortress of suspicion and police repression aligned against the persecuted people of this earth.
The computer database of fingerprints is an infringement of individual freedom.
It systematically treats asylum seekers as suspects.
It calls into question the inviolability of the documents held by the bodies responsible for handling asylum requests.
It contravenes the legal protection to which refugees are entitled. Applying even to children as young as 14, it contravenes the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically article 10 thereof.
Who here would dare take the fingerprints of a fourteen year-old kid? The Eurodac project makes criminals of the immigrants who find themselves without proper papers, without status, often because of the diversity of laws between countries.
Basically, it contravenes all international conventions for the protection of human rights.
With this, fortress Europe is committing the crime of failing to assist refugees in danger.
Is this so surprising for a liberal Europe which arms the Ankara dictatorship with combat helicopters, while at the same time rejecting Kurdish refugees? Eurodac must of necessity be rejected.
Mr President, the report provides me with the opportunity to comment in this House on the unjustified rebukes against us non-attached Members case by case.
The assertion that we are adopting a restrictive position on asylum, of which the rapporteur was also accused today is simply wrong.
Our position is quite clear.
Although it is not necessary to mention it, I should nevertheless like to say to all those who agree with the criticism without knowing the position, that of course our policy is based on the Geneva Convention relating to Refugees.
Of course we consider it absolutely necessary to provide temporary protection for displaced persons.
Anyone who needs protection should be protected.
What we do say, however, is that the unsuitable migration policy has led to social problems in conurbations, which we as serious politicians should not ignore.
This criticism must be permitted in a democratic structure.
Because we consider that a fair sharing of the burden is an important aspect of asylum policy, we are also in favour of introducing all relevant measures just as for the Dublin Convention and Eurodac.
We shall therefore vote in favour of the report.
The rapporteur in his introduction said that the objective is to implement the Dublin Convention and have a system of fingerprinting.
My group agrees in principle with that, but we want some safeguards.
Mr Pirker also said that the purpose was to ensure that there are no social abuses of the system.
Again, my group would agree with that, but we want to make certain of this, which is why safeguards are necessary to ensure that there are no abuses by the authorities either.
I believe that there are some on the right of this House who wish to muddy the waters and to draw no distinction between asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, third country nationals.
I shy away from the use of the word 'foreigners', or indeed the word that was used in the translation of the English text.
In English 'aliens' are people from another planet and to be perfectly honest we do not have much of a problem with that at the moment.
There seem to be, though, Members of this House who have no sympathy with either group - and if there were aliens from another planet, they would probably have little sympathy with them either.
The safeguards and the amendments that we are asking for are designed to ensure that any data collected is processed properly and that where people are granted asylum or achieve legitimate status the data collected is deleted.
On the age limit, it is sometimes very difficult to tell the age of a young person, but there seems to be a consensus that 18 is a fair compromise.
Mrs McKenna in her impassioned speech a few moments ago said that we must ensure that asylum seekers and others are not treated as criminals.
Certainly we want to ensure that this new system is used to assist the most vulnerable in our society.
I accept, as I am sure we all must do, that people do not leave their homes and families and travel half-way across Europe thousands of miles away for no reason at all.
They do not do just it on a whim, they do it for a real reason and we must accept and respect the fact that they need support and they need help and assistance.
I hope - and I am sure the Commissioner is listening - we can make certain that when this system comes into full operation, it is used positively, humanely and with considerable compassion to help and support the most vulnerable in our society.
First of all, I would like to say to the honourable Members that in the view of the Commission, the EURODAC Regulation is instrumental to the implementation of the Dublin Convention which determines which Member State is responsible for considering an asylum application lodged in one of the Member States.
The Tampere European Council has called for work on EURODAC to be concluded rapidly, and the Commission considers in fact that EURODAC is an important instrument.
If governments and citizens can be confident that we have effective arrangements in place to decide which state is responsible for considering an asylum claim and to tackle the problem of multiple asylum applications, it will make easier our task of promoting high and fair standards of asylum.
Once the EURODAC Regulation has been adopted, it will be incumbent upon the Council to make similar progress in respect of other asylum instruments.
I, myself, will shortly unveil a proposal for a legal basis for the European Fund for Refugees.
This will provide financial assistance from the Community budget for the reception, the integration and the voluntary return of refugees, displaced persons and asylum-seekers which is a relevant instrument to give a human dimension to the asylum policy of the Union, as one Member of the House requested just a few moments ago.
I shall also be unveiling a proposal for an instrument on asylum procedures after we have received the opinion of Parliament on our working document towards common standards on asylum procedures.
I shall also unveil a new proposal on temporary protection which will draw on our experiences during the Kosovo crisis.
Progress on the EURODAC Regulation must be accompanied by real progress in other areas so that we can gradually attain our goal of creating a common European asylum system.
A proposal which provides for the systematic fingerprinting of asylum seekers and certain other categories of third country nationals clearly raises sensitive and difficult issues.
We therefore need to ensure the highest standards of fairness and transparency for all those affected by the regulation.
In particular the most rigorous of data protection standards are required.
When we converted the EURODAC Convention and Protocol into a Community Regulation, we amended it to bring it fully into line with Community law on data protection including the new Treaty Article 286 on data protection arrangements for the Community Institutions.
It is up to the authority provided for in Article 286 to ensure the appropriate and adequate use of these data and the application of Community rules.
We also introduced new provisions on monitoring and evaluation under which the Commission will report regularly to the Parliament and to the Council on the concrete functioning of EURODAC.
I am grateful to the Committee on Citizens' Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and to their rapporteur, Mr Pirker, for the report on the EURODAC Regulation.
The report contains a number of useful amendments which I believe will help us to improve the text of the Regulation.
The Commission can accept amendment No 1 to avoid the term 'alien' and instead refer to third country nationals, although we will have to make it clear that the Regulation also covers stateless persons.
We can also accept amendment No 2 to the title which introduces a reference to the Dublin Convention.
We can also accept the principle of amendment No 6 which makes it clear that there is only a match if fingerprints are identical and not if they are just similar, and we accept also the principle of amendment No 12 which is intended to make it clear that data must never be sent to an asylum applicant's country of origin or used within a Member State for an unrelated purpose.
I take this opportunity to assure Mrs Terrón i Cusí that illegal immigrants' fingerprints are only used for the specific purpose of the Dublin Convention - which means for analysis - if they have requested a demand for asylum in another Member State.
The two issues which have been of most concern to the Parliament are the minimum age-limit for fingerprinting and the rules on erasure of data from the central database.
On the minimum age-limit my approach is to stick to the compromise minimum age-limit of 14 years which was agreed in previous negotiations, but to accept your amendment which makes it clear that fingerprinting must be carried out in compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Migratory movements of people seeking protection unfortunately involve minors.
We need to ensure that our arrangements for determining responsibility for asylum applications take account of this reality.
In addition, the age-limit of 14 years was a compromise reached after difficult negotiations.
I do not want to reopen the discussion and risk ending up with an even less acceptable solution.
As far as the rules on erasure of data are concerned, the amendments approved by the Committee on Citizens' Rights provide for the erasure of data as soon as anyone covered by the regulation has obtained legal status.
I can accept this in relation to people who are apprehended irregularly crossing the external border of the European Union and who are fingerprinted under Article 8 of the regulation.
Indeed, the intention behind the current text is that this data should be erased as soon as the person concerned obtains any kind of residence permit.
This would include someone who has been admitted as a refugee or under a subsidiary form of protection.
I cannot go that far in relation to data on asylum applicants, but I can accept some of the amendments that have been put forward.
If we were to erase all data on asylum applicants as soon as they were granted any kind of legal status, EURODAC would no longer cover situations where an asylum applicant is granted permission to remain in some other capacity for a short time and, at the end of this period, moves to another Member State and claims asylum there.
But I can accept the amendment which provides that data on asylum applicants should be erased when the person concerned is recognised as a refugee.
Some Member States consider that a problem arises if people who have been recognised as a refugee in one Member State travel to another Member State and claim asylum there.
They have therefore argued that data on recognised refugees should be blocked in the central unit so that statistical data can be compiled to measure the scale of the phenomenon.
I believe that we should take a different approach.
If people who have been recognised as refugees in one Member State seek asylum in another Member State this is likely to be because refugees do not enjoy the right to reside in a Member State other than the one in which they were recognised as such.
We should seek to remedy this by including refugees within the scope of an instrument defining the circumstances in which a third country national who is legally resident in one Member State may reside in another Member State.
I therefore agree that we should now provide that data on recognised refugees should be erased from EURODAC.
Finally, the regulation will not apply to Denmark.
This results directly from Denmark's protocol to the Treaty.
The Commission does not consider that EURODAC is a measure to build on the Schengen acquis under Article B of the Danish protocol.
We understand that Denmark nevertheless may wish to participate in EURODAC, but it remains to be seen what legal formula could be adopted in that case.
The amendments which I propose to accept will strengthen the text of the regulation and I am very grateful to Parliament for the important contribution it has made.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m.
EU action plan to combat drugs
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0063/1999) by Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, on behalf of the Committee on Citizen' s Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Internal Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council, the European Parliament, the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions concerning a European Union action plan to combat drugs (2000-2004) [COM(1999) 239 - C5-0093/1999 - 1999/2095(COS)]
Mr President, this debate follows the communication to Parliament of the European Commission' s action programme to combat drugs between 2000 and 2004.
This programme is not of course a magic recipe which will solve the drugs problem.
However, the debate here today may help to raise Parliament' s awareness of the massive threat which drugs represent, on the basis of real rather than imaginary data, and help bring about both short- and long-term improvements to the current critical state of affairs.
Let me say straight away, Mr President, that we approve and endorse the Commission' s programme; however we have formulated a number of reservations, the same reservations formulated by the Commission itself, as regards the inadequate evaluation of programmes and more general shortcomings in relation to the threat which actually exists.
Over the last fifteen years, Mr President, drugs have not just been a vague threat: the number of synthetic drugs has increased, as has the quantity of cocaine imported into Europe, while heroin is still the main problem. They have become a deliberate threat derived from the relationship between organised crime and drug trafficking, the trade in arms and nuclear materials and the emergence of new criminal organisations from Central and Eastern Europe.
Unfortunately, communications and the information society help the drugs trade.
Clearly, there is no unequivocal solution to this tremendous problem.
What is important is that we understand that, if we are to aim for long-term prevention, we must implement policies to abolish the drugs trade and provide treatment for and rehabilitation of drug addicts, so that we can help make prevention a success or at least stabilise the situation.
The proposal of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs is therefore quite clear.
We consider that greater political will is needed, Mr President, and greater political will mean that we declare war on drugs and drug traffickers without compromise.
Secondly, we have noted that there is a lack of fundamental coordination. The Portuguese presidency therefore needs to take the initiative and create an inter-pillar council which will meet on a yearly basis in order to coordinate all the action taken within the Union and establish a climate of international coordination.
There must be full and correct application of the resolutions of the United Nations Organisation and the Special Session and, Mr President, Commissioner, a special anti-drugs clause which commands the same respect as and is on a par with the human rights clause should be included in all agreements with third countries.
Without greater political will, without this type of initiative and without a more general policy at European and worldwide level, there will be no results.
The increase in the drug problem cannot be blamed solely on present economic and social circumstances, poor standards set by parents or television.
It is a far more complex, far more widespread problem.
Any unequivocal solution or any solution of an administrative nature which fails to take account of the full extent of the real public health problem and the medical aspects of the matter would therefore be a serious mistake.
Organised crime, Mr President, Commissioner, is running at a faster pace than its prosecutors nowadays.
It is precisely, therefore, at the political level that we must step up our action.
The policy on drugs must be mainstreamed.
It is not only a policy matter for the Ministers of Health.
It is not only a policy matter for the Ministers of Justice.
It is a major political problem which basically accounts for or is linked to 80% of international crime, while 50% of transactions throughout Europe relate solely to the trade in and movement of drugs.
If the Summit, which we feel should deal directly with this matter, fails to understand that this is a most serious political issue, which stretches far into the future and that our inability to deal with it multilaterally, as we should, has started to become more and more apparent, creating disappointment among our citizens, then we shall be unable to stabilise the situation in due course.
Because drugs, Mr President, will be with us for a long time to come.
What is important is that we improve the indicators, improve the public health aspects and give a larger number of citizens the chance to realise the extent of the threat and stand up to it.
Thank you very much, Mrs Corbey.
The Commissioner has requested the floor now because he cannot attend the debate.
Therefore, Commissioner, you have the floor.
The Commission will of course be present during the debate this afternoon, but I will not be there personally.
Despite considerable efforts to prevent drug abuse and addiction the drug problem continues to pose threats and challenges on the eve of the year 2000.
The most serious health problems are caused by the use of opiates and, in particular, heroin, amphetamines and multi-drug use.
Cannabis is still the most commonly used illicit drug in the Union.
Infectious diseases such as HIV and Hepatitis B and C have reached high prevalence amongst intravenous drug users.
Organised crime plays an increasingly dominant role in drug production and trafficking.
We have to respond to these challenges.
I should also extend my sincerest gratitude to Parliament, particularly to the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs and the rapporteur, Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, for the quality of their work and the speed with which they have commended the Commission's communication on combating drugs for the period 2000 to 2004.
This will allow the Helsinki European Council to adopt an efficient strategy against this disturbing phenomenon.
The main general targets for the European Union's strategy against drugs for the next five years can be summarised as follows: to reduce significantly the prevalence of illicit drug use among young people under 18 years of age; to reduce substantially the number of drug-related deaths; to increase considerably the number of successfully treated addicts and to reduce substantially the number of serious drug-related crimes, including money laundering and illicit traffic in precursors.
In the field of demand reduction, preventive measures and programmes for children and young people should, instead of focusing exclusively on illegal drugs, address addiction in general, including aspects of alcohol and tobacco use.
Training of professionals from social, health, education and law enforcement sectors is a prerequisite for effective action.
In the field of supply reduction, the emergence of new synthetic drugs makes it necessary to find ways to respond quickly to the appearance of new substances and consumption trends.
The establishment of voluntary monitoring mechanisms for new chemicals used in the illicit manufacture of synthetic drugs, as well as enhanced cooperation with trade, will constitute the major priorities in this area.
Efforts to curb money laundering have to be intensified through the rapid adoption and subsequent implementation of the recently proposed amendment to the money laundering directive.
Following the Tampere European Council, priority has to be given to the prevention of juvenile, urban and drug-related delinquency and to the progressive harmonisation of European Union legislation on illicit drug trafficking.
In the past, Member States and the Commission have given insufficient priority to the evaluation of anti-drugs activities.
This must change.
Evaluation must become an integral part of the European Union approach.
The Commission has already begun this evaluation and hopes to do more in the future.
The observatory in Lisbon can contribute by issuing guidelines for the evaluation of demand and supply reduction activities.
The implementation of five harmonised key indicators - demand for treatment by drug users, drug-related deaths, mortality and causes of death among drug-users, the incidence of drug-related infectious diseases, the comparability of surveys of drug use, behaviour and attitudes towards drugs in the general population and finally, the comparability of the prevalence estimates of problem drug use - plays an important role in this context.
Adoption of the European Union drugs strategy for the first years of the new millennium is not the end of the debate.
I understand that the coming Portuguese presidency will implement the European Union drugs strategy through the presentation of more concrete priorities for the years 2000-2004.
We will, as well, have the possibility of working together with European institutions on the organisation of an interinstitutional conference to discuss the implementation of the European Union drugs strategy, possibly at the beginning of next year.
I hope that on that occasion we will be able to evaluate the inter-pillar Council meeting that has been suggested by the rapporteur.
The Commission's communication represents, in my opinion, a good starting point for a global, multidisciplinary and integrated European strategy to fight illicit drugs on the line that was approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1998.
The observatory in Lisbon and Europol in The Hague are two important instruments that can contribute significantly to our strategy.
I am, therefore, confident that we have the potential and will find the political will to respond to the new challenges in the perspective of the 2000-2004 European Union drugs strategy.
Thank you, Commissioner.
We will interrupt the debate at this point to proceed to the votes.
This debate will resume at 6.00 p.m.
Vote
Madam President, I would just like to remind you and the Members that the Radical Members present - Mr Della Vedova, Mr Cappato, Mr Dupuis, Mr Dell'Alba and Mr Turco will not be taking part, although they are present, in the votes today either.
I think that a Parliament that is not brave enough to resolve a situation where some Members and millions of European citizens are patently discriminated against, is a Parliament that cannot teach democracy, as it would like to do and should do, to many countries that, this very morning, we have condemned.
Report (A5-0061/1999) by Mrs Dührkop Dührkop, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on draft supplementary and amending budget 5/1999 to the budget of the European Union for the 1999 financial year (C5-0257/1999)
Madam President, before we proceed to the Schwaiger report vote, could I raise a point of clarification? A split vote has been requested on recital C from our side, but looking at the voting papers, I think that a word may have been included that should not have been.
The words in the English text that we want to vote on separately are "and socially balanced": those are the separate words.
Some versions suggest we should also vote on the word "fair", but that should be in the main part of the text.
I hope that is clear.
Relating to Amendment No 11
Madam President, I have the impression that the vote should first be taken on the phrase "that free and fair world trade" etc. Is that correct?
Have you included that?
Mr Schwaiger, I have received requests for split voting, and for separate voting, and I have been asked to take the words "fair" and "socially balanced" separately.
I am therefore complying with the requests which have been made.
Madam President, this proposal is for us Greens an essential proposal.
If "fair and socially-balanced" is omitted, then unfortunately the majority of us will have to vote against this report.
If it is dropped, then an essential part of the entire negotiations is missing from the whole report.
I just wanted to make that clear once more.
Madam President, since the second part is decisive for all of us as to whether we can vote on the first part, I would ask you to vote on the second part first.
Then we will know whether, as far as the first part is concerned, we can vote together with the large group which proposes this.
Mrs Maes, you will acknowledge that it is rather difficult to vote in order to introduce words into a text on which we have not yet voted.
I feel we must be logical and consistent in our approach.
Mr President, can I make clear that the Socialist Group wants the words "free, fair and socially-balanced" included.
We are now voting on Amendment No 11 which deletes them.
Have I understood correctly?
So we will vote against this amendment and in favour of the original recital.
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, don' t get so worked up!
This is an essential point which is really important.
From the voting point of view, Mrs Maes is quite right.
Mr Chichester, I am surprised that you of all people wanted to have the point "socially-balanced" voted on separately.
We voted for it by a large majority in the Committee.
However, the only thing that I should really like to see is that the voting procedure runs properly.
I would therefore ask you to grant Mrs Maes' request.
Madam President, I believe we are dealing with three adjectives.
Free and fair world trade is the basis for the WTO Negotiations - that was my original text.
A proposal for an amendment was then agreed in the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, where "socially-balanced" was added.
The opinions differ as to which adjectives should be added.
I feel in any case that it should be "free and fair world trade" .
Everyone agreed to that.
The question of "is socially tolerable" or "socially acceptable" was disputed. We should therefore vote on the original text saying "free and fair world trade" and then vote separately on "socially-balanced" .
Then we would have a result on the third point.
I should in any case like to point out that "free and fair world trade" was the basis of all our work and an addition was appended here on which we should now vote.
I think there is some muddle.
The amendment is not the text you read out, Madam President.
The amendment concerned involves removing some words.
What we have to do is make a decision as to whether or not these words are to be removed.
That is the amendment.
And the second part, is the sentence that follows on and not the sentence which was read out.
What we are voting on, then, is whether to remove or keep these words.
President, we can only vote on the amendment in front of us and the amendment in front of us asks for four words to be deleted.
We will vote against that amendment.
No other amendment is possible.
I will explain as carefully as I can.
The original text says, and this is the original text as voted in committee: "Whereas free, fair and socially-balanced world trade must be further developed and consolidated" etc.
Amendment No 11 says in its first part: "Whereas (delete four words)".
We are ready to vote on that.
I have said that we will vote against it.
There is then a further amendment to Amendment No 11, which is in two parts.
But I think we can vote the whole of Amendment No 11 now, which deletes the four words "free, fair and socially-balanced".
No-one has agreed to an oral amendment of any sort.
Madam President, I should like to repeat once again that there was a proposal for an amendment by the PPE.
There was an oral explanation by Mr Chichester, that against the amendment he wished to keep the words "free and fair" in any case and that we should take a vote on that.
The third question is "socially-balanced" , "yes" or "no" ? We should vote on that.
I have now understood what Mr Chichester said to me.
Madam President, my request was a clarification.
If we get to vote on the original text of that paragraph, if we get past the vote on the amendment, at that point I want to propose a vote on the words "and socially-balanced" separately from the rest of the text.
I am not proposing an oral amendment.
We should proceed to vote the amendment first.
Depending on the result of that, my point is that I am proposing a separate vote on the original text.
So I am not proposing an oral amendment.
I think that that clears matters up.
We have this Amendment No 11 from the PPE Group for the removal of these words, and this is what I shall now put to the vote.
This is not the opportune moment, I feel, in the middle of a sitting, to want to put the finishing touches to an oral amendment.
Indeed I can see that Mr Chichester has the wisdom to abandon this course.
Madam President, I am speaking now because I believe that I can propose a solution that is quite correct.
We are dealing with three terms: fair, free and socially-balanced.
Both the words "fair" and "free" are as far as I can see desired by a large majority.
The only disputed point is the term "socially-balanced" .
That was also what Mrs Maes said first of all, so it would be easiest if we voted separately on each of these three words, then we shall have the majority opinion of the Parliament on each of the three words.
The request itself is unclear.
Madam President, our Rules of Procedure do not allow for a secondary market in amendments.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists strongly opposes...
... the underhand introduction of an oral amendment, with the excuse of clarifying an issue.
Oral amendments require the acceptance of the groups and this group is opposed.
Voting cannot be done à la carte.
Mr Barón Crespo, if I have understood properly, there is a request for an oral amendment.
But there is no need for Members to stand up, matters are perfectly clear.
The request for an oral amendment is rejected.
We take good note of this.
I shall now put to the vote Amendment No 11 tabled by the PPE Group. This involves removing the words we have been talking about.
Relating to Amendment No 25
Madam President, this is about Amendment No 25.
I would like to say that the text of this amendment is entirely compatible with the rapporteur' s text, and, for this reason, I think that it should be voted on as a supplement.
And, because it is entirely compatible, we should vote in favour of it.
Relating to Amendment No 18
Madam President, there is in fact a very serious translation problem because the English text says the following: "Believes that the EU should ensure that WTO rules relating to the agricultural sector do not have an adverse effect on the economies of developing countries and that security of food supply should be considered as a multifunctional aspect of agriculture".
You will see that the French version says the opposite!
This may happen more often than we think but fortunately this was noticed on this occasion.
Please vote bearing in mind the English original.
Absolutely, Mrs McNally.
My impression is that the Members of this House are very attentive.
Indeed they often point out problems of this kind, which are of course most regrettable.
Following the vote on paragraph 29
As a point of order, Madam President, Rule 117 stipulates that either one language or the other must be used.
But the French version is peppered with English expressions which make the text quite incomprehensible.
So, admittedly, in the case of an operation such as Seattle, since it is entirely American, it is only to be expected that the language of empire is going to pervade everything.
But if you are going to claim to be using the French language, then French terms must be used.
Mr Berthu, there is no wicked anonymous reviser.
The truth is that two of your amendments were not in fact very clearly expressed, and I shall read them out, when the time comes, so that the Members of the House may see the facts for themselves.
I have been fully informed of this problem, and we apologise for it.
Following the vote on Amendment No 70
Madam President, to save time, now that Amendment No 70 from the Europe of Nations Group has been rejected by an overwhelming majority, could you apply the provisions of Rule 130(7), which states that the President may decide, following the adoption or rejection of a particular amendment, that several other amendments of similar content or with similar objectives be put to the vote collectively.
You may seek the agreement of Parliament before doing so.
Such a set of amendments may relate to different parts of the original text.
This was introduced into our Rules precisely for this sort of situation.
We should now be able to vote en bloc on the rest of Mr Berthu's amendments.
Madam President, this is the fourth time that an amendment from the EPP Group has been voted against by the EPP Group.
I should like to ask that group in future to check how many of individual Members can table amendments in plenary - 15 different Members of the EPP have tabled amendments to this report, supposedly in the name of the group before wasting our time in plenary.
(Mixed reactions)
Relating to paragraph 17
Madam President, before we go on to Amendment No 5, I should like to point out that we have not quite finished voting on paragraph 17.
There was a request from our Group for a split vote on the last few words.
I agree those last few words have now been modified by one of the amendments we accepted, but we would still like to have a separate vote on those last few words of the paragraph.
Madam President, I believe that Mr Corbett, instead of concerning himself with the amendments of the Group of the European People' s Party, should concern himself with clarifying the situation of the members of his Group.
This would surely be a great improvement.
Ladies and gentlemen, this late in the morning, we need a little humour.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Mr Schulz, we heard the Commissioner this morning speak on the subject of Mr Pirker' s report.
As far as I know, this evening and tomorrow too, most certainly, many of the Members of the European Parliament will be in attendance, as we have been able to note in the past.
I shall ask Mr Pirker. You wish to vote this evening of course.
Madam President, the same applies to my report.
We have to go to Helsinki with this.
So, tomorrow, we need to proceed to a final vote.
This is the reason why the committee worked so quickly.
Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, we shall not be voting tomorrow, we shall be voting this evening, but since the debate on Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s report has not yet been concluded, the case is slightly different.
. (DE) Madam President, we asked for a split vote here, on the one hand, with regard to the amendment on raising the age limit from 14 to 18 and for the rest with regard to the expression "national of a third country".
I would ask that there be a separate vote here.
We are putting Amendment No 3 from the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs to the vote, excluding "third country national" and "18 years of age" , and we will re-introduce these, if necessary.
Madam President, we shall now have to work very accurately, otherwise the report will have a completely different meaning.
If I have understood Mr Pirker correctly, he would like to reject the definition of a "national of a third country" and the age of 18.
Is that correct? Please could he just explain that?
Madam President, may I explain? I should like the expression "national of a third country" to remain in the text.
We had it just now in a paragraph.
I should nevertheless like the opportunity of voting in one paragraph on the age limit.
Because we have declared that we support the age of 14, but there are other opinions, namely to retain the age of 18.
That is to say, I therefore request a separate vote.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Mr President, I have been trying since before the last vote to get the attention of the Chair.
It seems I have to come down to the very front to do that.
It is ridiculous.
I wanted to put that on the record because normally, if I make a mistake on a vote, I put it in writing afterwards.
I made a mistake.
My vote registered that I was in favour of the resolution on the Intergovernmental Conference.
I was very much against it.
I would like that put on the record now, rather than tomorrow, because it is of fundamental importance to me, coming as I do from a neutral country.
I find it very difficult to get the attention of the Chair.
When you are up there you seem to just look at the front and the centre.
It is very difficult to get attention, which is quite frustrating.
Thank you very much Mrs McKenna.
We shall proceed in accordance with your wishes.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Report: Napolitano (A5-0006/1999)
Mr President, the result has come about after a whole series of infringements of the law.
The provisions of the Rules of Procedure have been infringed on many occasions by the departments and by the majority of the Parliament.
Moreover, the result is a black day for the Parliament, because through it, what the majority of the Parliament has decided, the Parliament becomes an authority and the Members officials.
I shall, however, not let my own Parliament make me into an official.
If I think about it, the fact that the Members of Parliament according to this text are bound to assist in the work of OLAF and if they are moreover obliged to inform on people, then such a rule affects the independent mandate most profoundly.
I should like to state that such a decision that destroys the parliamentary system can clearly not be accepted but that we, and not myself alone, but many others too, will submit this matter to the European Court of Justice.
- (FR) We have no intention of sanctioning the European Anti-Fraud Office.
Although this office has been established with the excuse of supervising the officials and elected representatives of the European institutions, the way this office has been designated and the lack of any indications as to how the Office itself will be monitored do not inspire the slightest confidence in us.
We are in favour not only of total transparency regarding the operation of all European institutions, but also of the election and the admissibility, at any time, not only of all those elected today, but also all those who have any responsibility at whatever level, from the top of the scale to the bottom, including the Commission in Brussels.
Given the non-democratic nature of the European Union' s decision-making bodies, the establishment of OLAF appears to be a derisory measure intended to provide a semblance of supervision even though there is no real, democratic supervision.
- (SV) If we had had the opportunity to devise the Rules of Procedure and the interinstitutional agreement on our own, we should have tried to create an open and simple administration, for that is the best kind of administration for the purposes of discovering irregularities and acts of fraud.
We should also like to point out that the freedom to provide information which we have in Sweden for civil servants is also a good way of preventing illegal occurrences from being swept under the carpet.
In the situation which has now arisen, we have chosen to vote in favour of the report as a whole in the final vote, for to vote against it could be interpreted in terms of our not wanting to regulate the fight against fraud at all.
- (FR) The Members of the Front National within the European Parliament are staunch in their condemnation of corruption be it corruption of elected representatives, officials or members of governments.
They also condemn fraud or the misappropriation of public monies, the money stolen from European taxpayers.
It is a matter that we know something about, we French, who have to contend daily with the repercussions of the cases involving the Mutuelle nationale des étudiants de France, the Paris Mayor' s office, Elf or Gifco.
This list is, alas, far from complete.
They will, however, be voting against the Napolitano report.
Because they are sick to death of the self-flagellation that this Parliament indulges in, alternating with lessons in morality and a haughtiness that is just as hard to bear.
Because they think that OLAF is an excuse to recruit yet another team of officials, costing more than the cost of the fraud itself.
Because, above all, they consider that there already is a structure capable of taking on the role which OLAF is expected to fulfil.
The solution, obviously, is to give the Court of Auditors jurisdictional power and adequate human and material resources to take on this role.
This is the case of many national audit authorities, not only in France, but in other Member States.
It is true that the Court of Auditors does not get a good press in this House since the President refused it a press conference room, even though he happily gives one to the most eccentric associations, to individuals whose representative nature is highly dubious, or to any old watchdog in favour of the philosophy of the Single Europe on condition that he barks loud enough.
In this matter, as in many others, Parliament has made itself look foolish.
- (DE) The fact that fraud control must be taken seriously is beyond doubt because of recent events and also because the interests of the citizens concerned need better protection.
With this in mind, OLAF should finally be able to commence its work.
We are so concerned about the monitoring of the institutions by OLAF and so little can we identify with the "informing provisions" proposed in the inter-institutional agreement between the Commission, the Council and Parliament and moreover attacking the independent mandate of the individual Members of Parliament.
If it says in Article 2, that "any official or servant of the European Parliament who becomes aware of evidence which gives rise to a presumption of the existence of possible cases of fraud,...shall...inform without delay..." then this compels them to inform.
The planned form of monitoring by OLAF can only be a transitional solution and our agreement will only serve to set the necessary monitoring in motion.
Our agreement does not mean that we approve of the methods criticised, for, as with any compromise, you have to make concessions here in order not to jeopardise the goal.
- (FR) There is indeed corruption.
Both in the left wing in power and in the right wing in government.
The names of the cases tell the whole story: Agusta in Belgium, Urba in France, Palermo in Italy, fictitious jobs in the Parisian public transport network - RPR, the Mutuelle nationale des étudiants de France or Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
But, because we in the Front National do not suffer the anxiety affecting the potential accused in the other parties, we are rejecting the extension of police powers to that tool of the Brussels Commission that goes by the name of OLAF.
Firstly, because OLAF contravenes the idea of the separation of authority, which is the bedrock of Western democracy, with officials who have no legitimacy supervising the representatives of the sovereign states.
Secondly, because OLAF is the thief set to catch the policeman, since the European Commission, at the centre of the suspicions of corruption, is in fact, by means of OLAF, going to be supervising the Parliament, whereas it is Parliament which should be doing the supervising rather than being its target.
Finally, OLAF does not attack the causes of corruption, which lie in the removal of national borders allowing freedom of movement for drugs money, fraud and financial crime.
If we really wish to fight the simple symptoms of corruption, while respecting the foundations of legitimate societies, then there are just two ways:
either the technical route, by transforming the European Court of Auditors into a court of law and a court of budgetary discipline;
or the democratic route, by creating a body at the heart of the European Union, as in Great Britain and the United States, which is the equivalent of the British "National Accounting Office" (NAO) or the American "General Accounting Office" (GAO).
The latter are powerful autonomous supervisory bodies, but are located at the heart of the parliaments, and have a staff of up to 5,000.
So, the expert body does exist, but with a connection to the representatives of the people who alone have the right to ask for explanations regarding the use of their taxes.
Report: Schwaiger (A5-0062/1999)
In our view, the preparations for the forthcoming round of international trade negotiations is not at all satisfactory as regards procedure, and this is due to at least three reasons.
Firstly, we can see the European Union weakening its own position, according to the familiar process, by means of its internal discussions, even before the start of negotiations.
For example, the final mandate granted by the Council on 22 October, makes no mention of defending the principle of Community preference, a principle which had however been adopted by the Agriculture Council of the 27 September, which was itself only partly satisfactory since it omitted the principle of Europe' s autonomy in terms of foodstuffs.
We come down a notch at every stage.
There are many more possible examples.
Thus, regarding our preference system for importing bananas from overseas, the Commission has just made proposals which meet with American demands even before the opening of the Seattle Conference.
In every field, one might say that the internal concessions made in order to arrive at a unified European position, declared beforehand to be desirable, are leading us to reduce our claims even before starting discussions with our competitors.
Secondly, the Commission was given a comprehensive negotiation mandate on a whole series of issues, some of which come under Community jurisdiction, but others, such as services or investment, which are clearly in the remit of national authorities.
Admittedly, it is a mandate for the framing of negotiations and not for the consequences of these negotiations.
Nonetheless, the Council, without explicitly saying so, has just set in train a process which may lead it, if it is not stopped, to an absolute negotiating mandate being granted to the Commission and thus, in application of the new Article 133(5) of the Treaty of Amsterdam, to the ultimate power of ratification being taken away from the national parliaments, but still without clearly declaring this, obviously.
We are currently drifting off our course in the fog, without knowing exactly at what point we are going to go over the edge.
Then we will be told that it is too late.
Such methods are perfectly reprehensible.
Thirdly, despite our requests, we note that the Seattle negotiations are going to be undertaken before a clear, specific and comprehensive report has been made of the consequences of the Uruguay Round.
There too we shall be advancing in the dark.
The Commission did, admittedly, give in on one point, since it is going to proceed to the evaluation of the impact on sustainability, as I was saying, i.e. on the environmental consequences of liberalisation.
That is all very well.
But this study should have been carried out on many other points, such as the impact of liberalisation, in its current form, on the preservation of cultural and social models.
For these three reasons, in these circumstances, we are unable to approve the opening of the Seattle negotiations.
Mr President, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance abstained on the report, which it considered rather wet.
As far as we were concerned, the objective of this report was to give Commissioner Lamy a specific negotiating mandate for the Round due to open in Seattle.
Well, such a specific mandate has not been adequately asserted.
That being the case, we would have liked Parliament to propose a very political specification to the Commission, instead of drawing up a more diplomatic report which deplores, stresses and considers but does not give any sort of mandate.
The tone of the report is still too liberal, then, for us to find any reflection of our own views, especially since none of our amendments is included in it.
The report, thus amended, has significant weaknesses regarding TRIPS.
We can find nothing acceptable to us in it on the subject of intellectual property rights relating to trade.
As regards the MAI, which was rejected by the OECD and which is coming back again, a reinforced code of conduct must be drawn up for investment and strict regulations must be drawn up in this field, and this is equally applicable to the settlement of disputes.
The report does, however, include some fundamental principles which we consider essential such as the precautionary principle, regulations on production methods and procedures. It stresses in particular the labelling of foodstuffs in order to ensure the implementation of food safety, and the necessity of adopting a stance that is more favourable to developing countries.
At any event, we shall follow with great interest the way in which the Commission conducts the negotiations, and even though we still find this amended report too liberal in tone, you will find that we Greens will defend this text most fiercely if Commissioner Lamy should step below the recommendations made here.
- (SV) Free world trade is necessary in order to increase worldwide growth and help reduce the gulf between rich and poor.
However, large numbers of the poor in the developing countries have still not benefited from free world trade.
We therefore share the view expressed in section B that the developing countries' interests and problems must have priority in any extended system of free world trade.
The free trade system is urgently required if we are to reduce poverty and create a more just world.
We therefore consider that the overarching strategies and objectives, as described in the report, for the forthcoming round of World Trade Organisation negotiations are a step in the right direction in relation to the Commission' s communication.
If, however, the objectives are to become a reality, we should particularly like to emphasise section I, to the effect that agriculture must be one of the areas in the multilateral trade negotiations where new possibilities are opened up in Seattle.
We think that what is prescribed in this section must become a reality in relation also to sections 5, 6 and 7.
If this agreement is really to become the development agreement which helps reduce the gulf between the world' s rich and poor States, it is not acceptable to reject, in advance, demands from the other Member States in the World Trade Organisation for a change in our agricultural policy at the Millennium Round
To help achieve this objective of reducing the gap between rich and poor States, frontier defences must be lowered and export subsidies phased out.
The overarching objective in section 37 ought therefore to be that of completely phasing out customs duties on non-agricultural products.
A development like that would be of greater help to the developing countries than the marginal preferences they at present have.
The World Trade Organisation should support the work being done in terms of the global environment by, for example, incorporating basic principles of environmental policy, such as the precautionary principle, into its practice.
It is therefore important that weight be given to section 10 in the negotiations.
- (FR) The European delegation to the WTO negotiations claims to be the defender of the interests of Europe.
In fact, it is merely the representative of the most powerful industrialists and financial groups in the European Union, rivals to the American or Japanese trusts in systematically bleeding the planet dry, but all concerned exclusively with increasing their profits at the expense of the workers in their own countries and peoples in poor countries.
In mentioning the "workers' fundamental rights" and "protection" of these, particularly in poor countries, the Schwaiger report introduces a touch of cynicism to all the rest.
But what of the protection of workers, particularly against the tragedy of unemployment, even in the richest countries of the European Union, precisely those which would easily have adequate means to eradicate unemployment if their governments were not concerned primarily by the profits of big business and by making owners and shareholders wealthy?
As for the claim of being interested in the working conditions and inhuman wages in underdeveloped countries, this is pure hypocrisy.
Any number of multinationals who employ a workforce with a practically zero wage, without the advantage of any form of social protection, in Africa or Asia, have their headquarters in France, Germany or the United Kingdom.
Instead of forcing these multinationals to comply with minimum social legislation, they are going to be content with inviting a few ILO officials as observers to the WTO negotiations.
We shall not vote in favour of the proposed report, nor shall we amend it, since it is the capitalist organisation of the economy, with or without the WTO, which basically is not amenable to amendment.
- (FR) The Millennium Round, which is due to start shortly within the World Trade Organisation, the WTO, must provide an opportunity for Europe, since we are bound by the condition of speaking with a single voice, not only to present itself as unified for the duration of the negotiations, but also to demonstrate the utmost firmness with regard to the outcome, particularly as regards agriculture and the cultural exception.
While, however, the Fifteen have recently adopted a joint negotiation policy in the context of the new round, which promises to be an ambitious one, it must be acknowledged that this basis which looks like the lowest common denominator shared by the Member States, will of necessity suffer a decline in the course of the negotiations.
Indeed, there is no doubt but that this compromise text, whose birth was so painful, will be subject to many pressures from the American side in the negotiations, even though the homogeneity of the Union is only a façade, and the Union has no legal arsenal available to it comparable with that in the hands of the United States, one that is likely, if necessary, to deter the American side.
While the organisation of free and fairer world trade must be encouraged and reinforced within the framework of a multilateral commercial system, it must also ensure that all nations, rich and poor, and I am thinking in particular of the countries of Africa, are guaranteed the possibility of making the most of the advantages which this round of negotiations is supposed to be bringing.
Indeed, although we must wait for the round of negotiations to be completed before passing judgement on the content as far as the results achieved are concerned, the fact remains that, as far as this context is concerned, the overall result could not be deemed completely negative if the nations of Europe were to manage to obtain stricter control of the international regulations regarding competition.
The establishment of universally recognised common minimum standards intended to oppose any action to restrict competition would already represent significant progress.
The European Union' s starting negotiating position, which is ambitious in its objectives, is bound not to emerge stronger from a round of negotiations which is in danger of dragging on and on and getting bogged down, particularly given the foreseeable attitude of the United States, which will not rest from attempting to progressively undermine the mandate which has been given to Mr Lamy and which merely constitutes a unified façade that does not successfully conceal the differences in the interests of the Fifteen.
Furthermore, the content of the final resolution adopted by the European Parliament today includes many points that are not acceptable to France.
- (FR) the debates on the WTO which have just taken place in this Parliament on the occasion of the Schwaiger report have clearly shown that, as far as Europe is concerned, the forthcoming negotiations are concerned with the future of its social model at least as much as its trade.
Similarly for the countries of the third world, the question is knowing whether they will still be able to escape the clutches of the mega-multinationals produced by the mega-mergers and stay in control of their own development.
For the problem is not knowing whether rules are necessary in world trade.
Everyone is agreed on that.
The question is knowing whether the rules promoted by the WTO ever since its creation permit fair and sustainable development for all the regions of the world.
I shall make two observations:
Firstly, the liberalisation promoted in the previous rounds and the increase in the volume of trade have been associated with an intensification of inequalities in development on a world scale.
In theory, the leaps forward achieved by some should drag others along behind, but in fact the opposite has occurred.
The African continent' s share in world trade is less than 3%.
Liberal globalisation has proved incapable of providing a solution to the problem of development and still less of promoting fair and sustainable development.
This is the reason why an assessment of the social and environmental impact of the previous rounds was essential before engaging in a new wave of all-out liberalisation.
If it has been rejected so consistently, it is because the outcome would have been negative.
However, for the European Union, the establishment of an analysis shared with the countries of the third world could have been the foundation for the alliance which we are seeking to build with them on the occasion of these negotiations.
Secondly, the DSB (Dispute Settlement Body), created within the WTO, has demanded that the European Union give up its own standards in fields as fundamental as health and food safety or even its policy of cooperation in the case of the bananas from ACP countries and the outermost regions.
The question from now on is knowing if it is possible to accept a situation where, if one thing leads to another, decision after decision, ruling on everything on the pretext of settling commercial differences, the DSB may end up establishing itself as a sort of world-wide Supreme Court, imposing its views in all areas on elected governments and parliaments.
We would then be witnesses to a real seizure of democratic power.
This is why, in the Millennium Round, Europe must champion another vision of the organisation of commerce and world trade.
To do so it must assert three main principles:
The first is that the objective of this round must be the reduction of inequalities in development between north and south.
In order to achieve this, the rules of the multilateral trade system must take into account the differences between countries in situations and resources.
Free trade without taking anything else into consideration means that the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker.
This is why we cannot accept challenges to the Lomé Agreements and our policy of cooperation in the form in which we have constructed it in the Lomé Agreements with ACP countries, including 39 of the poorest countries in the world.
On the contrary, we must reassert the commitment undertaken towards them during the recent ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
Europe must go to Seattle with a vision of globalisation which is opposed to that of a unilateral world dominated by a single power.
It must promote a vision based on a multipolar world and encourage the formation of regional associations integrated both economically and politically, as we have been doing ourselves for 40 years.
How could we refuse others what we granted ourselves, after the war, in order to rebuild our industry, our agriculture and our economy?
The second principle should be that the WTO must be "confined" to a strictly defined role, and sectors which should only come under the remit of the sovereignty of states and the institutions established by citizens, because they concern the very identity of each society, should be kept out of its area of competence.
Public and social services such as education or health, but also those where consumer safety and collective interests are involved, such as public transport or air traffic control, culture and artistic creation, may not be taken into account as part of trade negotiations.
We must resist the onward rush towards treating everything in society as saleable commodities.
In the agreements on intellectual property, Europe must resist the patenting of living organisms, it must guarantee that derogations to the general trade regulations for medicinal products used to fight AIDS and other serious diseases indicated by the WHO are maintained.
Finally we must defend the principle of the hierarchy of standards.
Fundamental human rights and the Universal Declaration of 1948, the conventions of the ILO (International Labour Organisation) or conventions on the environment, are in essence superior to the standards governing trade.
It must not be possible to condemn a state for applying the precautionary principle, for protecting its environment, or for rejecting imports proved to be produced by child labour.
On the contrary, it must be possible to take an appeal against a WTO decision to the ILO or to the competent bodies of the United Nations.
We must reverse the unbalanced situation arising from the fact that having multilateral commercial agreements alone has led to the creation of a legal-style body, whereas this was not the case either for the conventions on the environment or the ILO conventions.
Some of these concerns were taken into account by the rapporteur at the end of the debates within the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
Unfortunately, in the course of the plenary sitting, the rapporteur and the PPE and ELDR groups introduced a number of amendments into the text which tone down the social and environmental requirements.
Considering, furthermore, the unfavourable outcome reserved for the amendments proposed by myself and my fellow members of the French Socialist delegation and the GUE/NGL and Greens/ALE Groups, I abstained, Madam President, in the vote on Mr Schwaiger' s report.
But I believe that one of the most significant elements, on the eve of this new round, one which distinguishes it from the previous rounds, is the intrusion of society, of NGOs and international public opinion into the debate.
I believe that we should be pleased at this, since it provides the best guarantee that it will not be possible to omit these issues in the course of these negotiations.
For their entire duration, they will remain at the centre of the debates of the European Parliament, I am sure.
- (FR) The new round of negotiations of the World Trade Organisation, due to open in Seattle on 30 November, should provide an opportunity to establish better control of the liberalisation of trade.
But I doubt that this will be the case.
The doubt concerns our capacity, and our real determination, to make the WTO an instrument of regulation in order to make the transition from globalisation sought by the few and inflicted on all to truly regulated world trade which is of benefit to the whole planet.
Indeed it is this doubt which gives rise to my concern that if we do not succeed on this point, then we shall be forced to renege on longstanding commitments to developing countries, particularly towards ACP countries, to which we have been linked for 20 years by the Lomé Conventions.
At the risk of denting our clear conscience, I would at this point like to mention the example of the banana dispute, or the multinationals (Del Monte, Dole and Chiquita) which, with the support of the United States, are flooding the European market with bananas which are the product of slavery, produced, what is more, in conditions of the most dubious food safety and have managed to force us to our knees; a matter in which we are on the verge of unconditional surrender, abandoning hundreds of thousands of growers, not only in ACP countries, but also the farmers of our own Community in Guadeloupe and Martinique, to bankruptcy!
And recent statements by the Commission are not such as to allay this concern, saying, for example, that it is necessary to put an end to the banana conflict since it is poisoning transatlantic relations and because the Union would be sending an unfavourable message to the world as the new trade negotiations are dawning.
Who could possibly be against putting an end to the conflict? No one, of course, but not at just any price, not by surrendering unconditionally.
The same applies to rum, since we have signed a unilateral agreement with the United States on the import of colourless spirits, and that includes rum, which will inevitably lead in the short term to the economic destabilisation of the entire Caribbean!
What will happen tomorrow, unless we are particularly vigilant, in the case of sugar, which is a crucial element in the economic balance of ACP countries such as Mauritius or a European region, such as Réunion, which I know well?
The truth is, I am afraid, that whatever our fine statements, often with a touch of paternalism, we are on the verge of writing off our policy with regard to the poorest countries and to ACP countries, in particular, abandoning the farmers in our own outermost regions in the process.
And yet we have historic links with these countries.
Let me tell you, it is not just a matter of generosity.
For many of our countries, which are in fact former colonising powers, it is a very powerful moral commitment which we are honour-bound to respect!
Therefore, even though the resolution put to the vote this morning is a text which is perfectly acceptable in terms of the general objective which we have set ourselves, particularly thanks to the many amendments proposed by the members of my group, I did not vote in favour of this text, so as to fulfil the commitments which I have undertaken with regard to the voters in the French Overseas Departments.
- In the weeks leading up to the agreement of this resolution, many MEPs have sought to ensure Europe's stance is one which genuinely makes this a "Development Round" in the WTO, that developing countries are enabled to be full partners in the negotiating process, and to underline that the benefits of trade must be focused to combat increasing poverty in our world.
The European Commission and Council should heed our clear intentions in this respect.
On the extension of the WTO too include investment, I welcome the fact that the European Parliament has reiterated it strongly held position that the mistakes of the MAI must not be repeated, that investor responsibilities according to ILO and OECD guidelines must be dealt with alongside investor rights, and - by a clear majority - a European Code of Conduct for multinationals (amendment 15) be established.
I condemn the Conservative group in this Parliament who sought to remove development considerations from the proposed Standing Forum with the ILO, and incredibly sought to remove from our objectives, achieving "fair and socially balanced" as well as free trade.
I am glad they were defeated.
But the fact that they were prepared to vote for protection of "strict legal requirements" met by European farmers, but against the destructive dumping of agricultural goods by us in Europe against peasant farmers in developing countries is scandalous.
I call on European negotiators to respect our resolution in favour of the principle of food security and for no adverse effect for developing countries in the agricultural negotiations.
Protectionism by the European Union against the developing world is morally unacceptable and economically short-sighted.
It is time for it to end.
- The WTO Millennium Round is an opportunity to manage the process of globalisation.
Globalisation must be managed in such a way that global challenges are translated into global progress.
Specific actions are needed in favour of developing countries, in particular the least developed countries, using partnerships to reduce inequalities between rich and poor countries.
Increased coherence between trade, labour, environmental, animal welfare and other internationally accepted regulations and principles of 'corporate governance' through improved cooperation between the WTO, the ILO, the United Nations, the Multilateral Environment Agreements and other international institutions must be mandatory.
I therefore support the view that the Round be concluded as a single undertaking with results being considered globally.
I would prefer no agreement to an unfair agreement.
With regard to the Schwaiger report, a number of amendments have been adopted which condemn the subsidised export of agricultural products from the EU to developing countries.
The VVD (Dutch People' s Party for Freedom and Democracy) recognises that this export can, in some cases, have a detrimental effect on developing countries.
This problem, however, cannot be solved by unilateral restriction of the EU Member States alone.
Other countries also subsidise their export and will immediately take the place of the EU when it discontinues the practice of subsidised exports.
A multilateral approach to this problem is required, whilst nothing is stopping the developing countries from adopting a sound agricultural policy, that is to say preventing or restricting, by means of import levies, the import of these cheap products at the expense of their own agriculture.
- (FR) Like all my colleagues, I voted against Mr Schwaiger' s report.
As our chairman, Mr Pasqua, specified in the course of the general debate which took place during the part-session at the beginning of October, and as my colleague, Mr Berthu, has just mentioned, it is essential, before undertaking a new round of negotiations, to make a clear and specific assessment, one that is objective, and thus independent and takes into account the views of both sides, in order to determine the economic, social, environmental and food safety-related consequences of the previous agreements of the Uruguay Round.
But we observe that, unfortunately, the Council has just given the Commission its negotiating mandate to go to Seattle, and this makes no mention of any such assessment.
When pushed, they are prepared to undertake a study, only a very limited one, on sustainability, but nothing to do with the preservation of our economic and social identities.
The failure to carry out an assessment may be analysed as the wish to hide the very mixed reality of the effects of the deregulation of world trade from the peoples of WTO member countries.
In the course of the years of the Uruguay Round, European agriculture has undergone the most significant reduction in workforce that it has ever known, thus causing the virtual breakdown of rural society.
A number of developing countries are starting to suffer from the head-on competition to which agricultural products of the Latin America zone and of the Africa zone are subject.
In the industrial sector, the concentration of some operators brings about situations of dominance over some markets, and small and medium-sized businesses (most particularly those which form the rural fabric of our country), bear the brunt of the unfair competition produced by the relocation of some multinational, or even transnational, enterprises.
While the need to defend a given European farm model is being asserted, we are avoiding giving it a precise definition by means of Community preference, autonomy in terms of foodstuffs and public health protection.
It is essential to define very quickly a European farm model based on diversified, traditional and healthy food, produced from essentially European agricultural products.
The principle of Community preference must be defended and, by the same token, the system of export refunds including for products described as "outside annex 1" , i.e. food products produced from European agricultural products whose market price is higher than the world rate.
The provision of healthy foodstuffs means that the primacy of the precautionary principle should be clearly established in the context of these negotiations.
This aspect of fair trade based on the absence of dumping for quality, environmental, social and fiscal reasons, if it is mentioned at all among the principles, is not asserted, with all the consequences of this, as a priority objective for European negotiators to attain.
The prime objective for the Europeans, if you listen to the Commission, would be to get ready to make concessions.
And indeed that is what the Commission is already doing, even before the negotiations have started, to the detriment of vital European interests.
I am extremely worried about the European Commission' s attitude.
Indeed, following the Uruguay Round negotiations, we have had a few conflicts with the American authorities.
The three main conflicts concerning the banana sector, the production and the incorporation of genetically modified organisms, and the importation of American beef, have all been negotiated by the Commission itself, against the interests of European and ACP banana growers, against the interests of European consumers and, of course, against the interests of our farmers and producers.
The Commission has acted and is continuing to act in these three case as if it wishes to ensure that there will be no outstanding disputes between the European Union and the United States when the negotiations are due to begin.
This is playing into the Americans' hands.
Instead of proclaiming the need for European concessions from the rooftops, the Commission would do better to forcefully assert the need to set right the errors and omissions of the Marrakech Agreement with regard to fundamental social rights, the environment, public health, in the general interest, indeed.
But this would mean acknowledging that the Commission handled the latest GATT agreements badly, and obviously that is just unthinkable.
The Commission therefore prefers, whether its representative is called Mr Brittan or Mr Lamy, to undermine our positions in advance regarding the precautionary principle, health safety and environmental protection, as well as economic interests in rural areas and, in the case of bananas, to make light of the special historic relations which our countries maintain in the form of international agreements with the ACP countries.
Special, do not even think about it.
The adjective is one that will make Mr Lamy jump with fright!
Report: Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen (A5-0058/1999)
Mr President, in the first draft of the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report on the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, the following preliminary clause could be read, "Considering the rate of abstention from the last European elections, testifying to the growing disaffection of the citizens with regard to the current running of the Union, etc."
The Committee on Constitutional Affairs, no doubt aghast at such an admission, deemed it more prudent to eliminate this clause, with an overwhelming majority.
And my group has not subsequently managed to have it reintegrated.
I feel this anecdote is significant since is clearly shows the spirit in which this report was drawn up.
There is a refusal to see that the more federal Europe is becoming, the more distant it is becoming from the peoples of Europe, and the more disaffected they are becoming from it.
Sweeping aside this niggling detail, and many others too, the Commission feels more comfortable in proposing yet more federalism, extending majority voting to the Council, and constitutionalisation of the Treaties.
It is the same attitude of deliberately closing ones eyes to the facts which prevailed when it came to discussing enlargement.
People are acting as if extending qualified majority voting, i.e. extending the powers of coercion over minority countries, was going to solve all our problems.
This is serious self-delusion.
Standardisation has already gone as far as it can within the Europe of the Fifteen.
This can be clearly seen with the embargo on British beef and it is unrealistic to believe that it is possible to go further, with yet more constraints, within a Europe of thirty members.
Two years ago, the Amsterdam Council already came up against this problem and did not manage to solve it.
The forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference will be no more successful in solving it if it continues to work on the same bases.
The fact is, we need a Europe which is more flexible and accords greater respect to its nations.
I gave the principles of this in a minority opinion appended to the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report, and the Union for a Europe of Nations Group developed the consequences of this by proposing twenty-one amendments, all rejected, alas, by the majority in Parliament.
But the day will have to come when this House acknowledges the impasse in which it is trapping itself by championing a monolithic Europe.
- (FR) We consider that the European institutions are infinitely more concerned with representing the interests of capital than those of the people in general and the working classes in particular.
Consequently we shall not adopt a stance on enlargement.
It is our conviction that the future belongs to a Europe without frontiers between peoples unified from one end of the continent to the other and freed from the de facto power of industrial and financial groups, this being an essential condition for the people to have real control over their institutions.
What is written about the subsidiarity principle in the report could be significantly clearer.
The Swedish Christian Democrats in the European Parliament' s Committee on Constitutional Affairs have therefore, in the form of Amendment No 5, pressed for the inclusion of the following sentence at the end of section 17: "The application of the subsidiarity principle, as formulated in the Treaty of Maastricht, must be evaluated."
We consider that the time is ripe for such an evaluation and that the European Parliament ought to have written this into its resolution and in that way shown its desire to provide the principle of subsidiarity with more explicit content for citizens in the EU' s Member States.
The Swedish Christian Democrats view the enlargement of the EU towards the East as being absolutely the most important question for the European Union and will devote themselves to ensuring that the institutional questions are handled by means of a rapid and flexible process, founded upon participation by the applicant States.
What with the Swedish translations of the amendments only being fully ready on the same day that the vote takes place, we find the handling, including the political handling, of this important report to have been quite extraordinary, as well as unsatisfactory from a democratic point of view.
The matters left unresolved by the Maastricht Treaty and then by the Amsterdam Treaty, despite its mandate, have now come to the fore once again under the Damocles' sword of enlargement. Who stands to gain from further integration of the European Union?
The people of Europe who, with every day that passes, watch their democratic and social rights eroded and their democratic victories corrupted in the name of competitiveness and by pressure to support a more and more autocratic structure? I think not.
With the threat of deferred enlargement or even the withdrawal of the Union behind its original borders and in a bid to win new markets and share the plunder, provided that this can be done without rules, the capitalist system of the monopolies is trying to reconcile its internal differences, which were and which still are significant, in order to serve the common interest: i.e. overexploiting workers and achieving maximum profits.
Both the proposals of the so-called Wise Men and the Commission' s proposals lead in the same direction.
Even greater inequality between the peoples of Europe, between the Member States of the European Union and between the candidate countries.
What other purpose can there be to all these proposals which we hear and which, generally speaking, are incorporated into the report, on voting changes in the Council, on changes to the number or responsibilities of Commissioners, on reduced grass roots representation in the EC following the increase in the number of Member States, other than to strengthen the position of the rich countries of the EU, to strengthen the position of monopoly undertakings, the majority of which are established in those countries and to play down grass roots or national opposition to EU decisions which adversely affect the grass roots and which might even affect national interests?
What purpose can there be to the attempt to generalise the voting rule and the substantive, perhaps even formal repeal of the veto, despite deceptive grievances deliberately expounded to the contrary, other than to restrict the potential for grass roots intervention, at least where it opposes the choices made by the forces of capitalism in "smaller" countries?
How can the people of Europe call for the international role of the EU to be reinforced in the form of a new political and monetary union and a common defence and security policy when the EU is responsible, together with NATO, for the first act of war since the Second World War, i.e. the attack on Yugoslavia, in violation of every concept of international law? Everyone understands that a currency, in the capitalist world, needs an army to defend and impose it.
This is the purpose behind the proposals for a common foreign and defence policy and an armed wing in the Union.
So that arms can be used to support the interests of the monopolies against the people of Europe itself and of non-EU countries.
This was proven by the campaign against Yugoslavia which, in addition to being illegal, was also unnecessary, at least for the reasons quoted, because it was made glaringly clear by the UNO itself, that all the government and mass media claims were shamefaced lies.
The clearest proof of the type of security being promoted is provided by the Amsterdam Treaty itself, the incorporation of the Schengen acquis, the creation of a Community prosecution service and the keeping of records on citizens' political convictions, ideological stance, trade union activity and love life.
We are opposed to this EU, this lackey of imperialism and big business, and we are opposed to the reversal which this autocracy means for democracy.
The EU cannot change with Intergovernmental Conferences, nor do the proposed negative institutional changes represent a change for the better for the people of Europe.
The people themselves will oppose, intervene and change the power ratios in order to bring down this anti-grass roots, anti-democratic, autocratic structure which exists to serve big business and create a Europe of peace and collaboration, friendship and equality between peoples, real democracy and freedom and economic prosperity for the benefit of the workers.
- (SV) We consider that the report concerning the preparations in anticipation of the next Intergovernmental Conference is a welcome initiative by the European Parliament.
The requirements in the report extend beyond what the European Council considers ought to be on the agenda for the next Intergovernmental Conference.
We also consider that it is far-reaching on a number of points.
Section 13 (on providing the EU with a constitution and dividing the texts of the Treaties into two parts): We want to point out and clarify the fact that the only acceptable procedure when it comes to the constitutional part is unanimity.
Section 14 (on the revision of the Treaties): We consider that unanimity shall prevail when the Treaties are revised in accordance with section 13 a.
Section 17 (last part): We consider that unanimity shall apply not only in the constitutional part but also, for example, in the case of foreign and security policy.
Section 26, last part, may be interpreted in terms of the provision of reciprocal military guarantees. We consider this to be unacceptable.
The EU has neutral and non-aligned States among its Member States. For these, it would be inconceivable that resources should be created for reciprocal military guarantees within the context of the European Union' s security and defence policy.
Moreover, we do not consider that a precise and binding timetable for the common foreign and security policy is required over and above what was stated in the Cologne document.
Where section 27 is concerned, we view as considerable progress the fact that the so-called Petersberg Tasks in the Cologne document (humanitarian and rescue tasks, peace-keeping tasks and tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peace-making) are to be incorporated into the EU' s range of tasks.
This demonstrates that the EU is, in the first place, a political, social and economic project, including when it comes to conflict and crisis management.
The Petersberg Tasks mean that non-aligned and neutral States have an opportunity to participate in conflict and crisis management and, for that reason, there is no basis for integrating the WEU fully into the European Union.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted against Mr Dimitrakopoulos' s and Mr Leinen' s report.
The enlargement of the EU is an historic opportunity to create a peaceful, stable and cooperative Europe.
At the same time, it is the EU' s greatest challenge to date.
A change to the Treaties is a prerequisite for preparing the EU to admit the new Eastern and Central European countries.
It is now 10 years since the Berlin Wall came down.
We agree to the timetable which has been proposed so that the Intergovernmental Conference might be concluded by the end of the year 2000.
It must not be formalities such as changing the Treaties which postpone admission of the new countries.
That is why we must also be careful not to place obstacles or stumbling blocks in the way of the Intergovernmental Conference's ending on time and of its results being approved in the individual countries in accordance with the regulations in the respective countries' constitutions.
Mr Dimitrakopoulos' s and Mr Leinen' s report paves the way for a very thorough overhaul which we do not think it will be possible to implement within the established time frame.
We have therefore voted against it. The many amendments and the many different opinions which have been expressed in connection with the vote today illustrate as clearly as one could wish the problems which a very comprehensive agenda would entail.
As members of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, we have voted, together with our fellow party members, for and against a range of amendments. We have done so because we want European development to move in a characteristically social democratic direction.
This does not however alter our general view of the report.
There are however a number of points which we must clearly reject, including initiatives which remove the basic principle that it is the Member States which, in accordance with their respective constitutions, should enter into and amend the Treaty concerned.
We must also clearly repudiate the idea of the EU' s being made into a defensive alliance.
This is not a task for the EU but for NATO.
- (DA) I have voted against this decision for the reasons contained in the minority prior opinion delivered by Mr Georges Berthu of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group.
For technical reasons, it was only possible for Mr Georges Berthus' prior opinion to be delivered in the Committee on behalf of the French members of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group.
However, the minority prior opinion fully covers my points of view, a fact which I should like to be noted in the relevant record and minutes.
- (SV) The Intergovernmental Conference is a conference between the Member States' governments.
It is the Member States' parliaments which are to decide whether its results are to be approved. We cannot therefore accept that the European Parliament should be given any form of right to make decisions on questions concerning the Treaties.
We also oppose the proposal in the report to the effect that the EU should become a legal entity.
In the same way, the report' s ideas about creating a military EU are alarming and unnecessary.
The last election to the European Parliament, in particular, showed that EU citizens are some distance away from sharing many Members of the European Parliament' s ideas about a federal EU.
EU citizens are still focused on the political debate taking place in the national arena.
The EU debate is reserved for a small political élite.
We therefore reject the fundamental features of the resolution.
- (DE) The proposals in the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report with regard to the reform of the Treaties in their institutional core areas provide for an extension of the qualified majority decision in the Council.
Moreover, according to the report, international law as such should be amended, as the Parliament should be granted a right of approval with regard to the conclusion of future Treaties.
This and many other problem issues fundamentally question the role of the Member States of the European Union as "Masters of the Treaties" .
We non-attached Members therefore reject this report.
- (PT) I do not think that the report which has been approved by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and submitted for the approval of this plenary sitting merits a positive response because:
1 - It makes requirements for revision beyond those that are laid down in the Treaty of Amsterdam, in such broad and general terms that it is not clear what a new "full" agenda is.
Particularly because it omits points for revision that I consider to be essential and that were agreed on in the opinions of other Parliamentary Committees, such as a revision of own resources, a revision of social cohesion, reform of the CAP, the extension of first Pillar competences in terms of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, reform of the legal system etc...
2 - The revision centres on an agenda that essentially only concerns issues of decision-making power and a corresponding new balance between Member States, which will reduce, in the name of fairness, the weight of economically less developed States in favour of the more economically powerful ones, to which it is being attempted to give the mechanisms for strengthening their influence.
3 - Consequently, it accepts, by giving the Commission carte blanche to propose it, a redistribution of the weighting that each State holds in the wake of what can already be seen in the administrative and operational organisation of the Community executive, which threatens the historical and constituent principle of the European project which has always successfully stood firm on there not being proportionality between population and the weighting of votes.
4 - Consistent with the positions that I have always maintained in Parliament, regarding a revision of Maastricht and Amsterdam, with the aim of keeping sacrosanct the founding historical balance between large and small countries, I cannot approve this resolution which will open up a "Pandora' s box" for a Treaty that accepts as fair the supremacy of some States over others in breach of the principle of the equality of all European citizens.
That is why I voted against it!
- (PT) The new Intergovernmental Conference which is due to open at the beginning or in the middle of next year' s first term obviously takes on great importance for the Community agenda for the near future.
Not so much because the issues are new - some of them were included in the last IGC and not resolved - but certainly because of the complexity and sensitive nature of the issues that constitute the raison d' être of the forthcoming conference.
With the argument for enlargement, the realisation of which does not present us with any fundamental problems, but which we do not envisage being achieved without consequences at various levels - and in the name of efficiency and democratic behaviour, an amendment to the Treaties, particularly in the institutional domain, is being aimed for. This means giving up unanimity and extending decision making by qualified majority to new areas; it means a new weighting of votes in Council decision making by qualified majority; and it means changing the composition and functioning of the institutions in terms of the number of Commissioners, the Council Presidency, the composition of the EP or even the choice of working languages.
These are, in fact, changes that essentially target issues of power and influence within the EU and, where possible, aim to make viable or consolidate political boards of management around the largest and richest Member States.
The marginal role that, in this context, it is sought to give to smaller, less developed countries causes us, naturally, to take a very reserved position, one of concern and even outright opposition to the solutions that are being recommended.
Our position is further reinforced by the solutions sought by some people in the area of security and defence and which aim for a militarisation of the EU, which would thus be consolidated as a European pillar of NATO, a position that we also reject.
- (SV) I cannot vote in favour of the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report for reasons which include the following.
The report has a clear supranational character.
I support cooperation between States, but not the supranational dimension which the rapporteurs advocate and which was clearly rejected in the latest EU election.
I also oppose the demands for common military defence, especially in sections 26 and 27 which require a "binding timetable" for a common defence and security policy which is to guarantee the EU' s external borders.
Nor can I accept that the WEU should be integrated in such a way that the EU might in the future take measures with the help of credible military resources.
No exception is to be made for Article 5 which prescribes a mutual responsibility for intervening militarily if another Member State is attacked.
Sweden is militarily non-aligned, aiming at neutrality in times of war, and may in no circumstances take part in common military defence.
I consider that it should only be possible to revise the EU' s statute through a unanimous decision in the Council of Ministers.
Finally, I consider that Parliament ought to concentrate on the changes which must take place if we are to cope with decision making in an enlarged EU.
Report: Pirker (A5-0059/1999)
Mr President, I abstained in the voting on the Eurodac report.
I did not vote for it because I do not find the procedure and a number of regulations acceptable.
Of course I regret that people have not seized the opportunity of acquiring a wider consensus on this important issue.
Because it is necessary for us to be able to take action against those who cross the borders of the European Union with criminal intentions and fingerprints may well offer a solution in this respect.
This is why I have abstained in a number of crucial amendments, although I agree with the fundamental attitude of my group, who are unhappy about the fact that everyone is being tarred with the same brush.
- (DA) The Danish delegation wishes to express its full support for the establishment of Eurodac for the purposes of comparing asylum seekers' and certain other foreigners' fingerprints.
Eurodac will be a significant tool for ensuring that the Dublin Convention functions efficiently.
Given the selected legal basis for the agenda, we have declined - out of respect for the Danish reservation in the legal sphere - to participate in the final vote.
We have noted with great satisfaction that, at the meeting in the Council (legal and home affairs) on 29 October 1999, the Danish government announced that it would participate fully in the Eurodac partnership on an intergovernmental basis.
. (PT) With the argument that we need to simplify the implementation of the Dublin Convention, the Council is trying to revive previous attempts to restrict the fundamental rights of citizens of non-EU countries by means of the creation of a mechanism for collecting fingerprints controlled by a central unit, which will cover not only refugees and asylum seekers but all citizens of third countries who are illegally present.
The Council' s endeavour to address fundamental rights by including children aged 14 and above is therefore blind.
But even with the minor amendments that have been approved by the European Parliament, including a minimum age limit of 18 years and a limit on the number of comparisons made of fingerprints to prevent more opportunities for error, this proposal that aims to create a Fortress Europe, closed to other citizens is unacceptable.
As the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market states, in normal circumstances, fingerprints will only be allowed to be taken from criminals or from individuals suspected of having committed crimes and not from asylum seekers, refugees or citizens of third countries who are illegally present within the territory or on a Member State' s border.
Thus, the protection of the fundamental rights of the individuals concerned requires that we do not proceed with the creation of a central control system for personal data because, in principle, none of those people may be treated as a criminal or be suspected of being one.
To make the situation worse, no measures for monitoring and protecting data are being proposed, which leaves open the question of how we can guarantee the implementation of effective sanctions which will serve as a deterrent against actions which are not authorised by the central unit.
This is the reason I have voted against this report.
- (FR) We voted against Mr Pirker' s report for, essentially, three reasons.
Firstly, because the amendments to the proposal for a regulation are far too liberal.
Next, because, at the insistence of the Socialist/ecologist/Communist government of my country, to my great shame, the regulation itself scandalously omits the filing of the fingerprints of illegal immigrants monitored on the territory of the Union.
Finally, because the text entrusts the management of Eurodac to a handful of Commission officials.
You have done away with internal borders.
In building the Europe of Brussels, Maastricht and Amsterdam, you have created an area of high insecurity where illegal immigrants, drugs, trafficking of many different kinds, and crime may circulate freely, any old how.
The steps you are proposing today not only through the Pirker report, but also through the reports on drugs or on the counterfeiting of travel documents are pathetic, given the real extent of the dangers to which you are exposing the citizens of Europe.
The only solution is to re-establish checks at the internal frontiers of the Community; to give the Member State police services adequate human, financial and material resources to fulfil their role of protecting honest citizens, and to cease giving the irresponsible parties of Brussels any sort of jurisdiction over matters of the police, justice, immigration and residence of aliens.
- (NL) The Dutch delegation in the PSE would hereby declare that it is unable to agree with the Pirker report approved today, on the proposal for a Council regulation concerning the establishment of "Eurodac" for the purpose of comparing fingerprints of asylum seekers and of certain other aliens.
We are quite convinced that extending the Eurodac system to cover groups of aliens other than asylum seekers is not the right way forward.
(The sitting was adjourned at 2.35 p.m. and resumed at 3.05 p.m.)
Topical and urgent debate
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Millennium Bug: military, civilian and nuclear sectors
Mr President, Commissioner, only 43 days to go to 1 January 2000. A date which many are looking forward to.
But before we can open the champagne with peace of mind at the turn of the millennium, specific European action in the civil and military nuclear sectors is desperately needed.
Within the European Union and the United States, the problems have been identified in good time.
However, this has been the case to a lesser extent in Central and Eastern Europe.
The millennium problem in the nuclear energy sector should primarily be tackled by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
This UN organisation is the designated body for worldwide nuclear issues.
However, the IAEA has indicated that it has no funding for specific support to solve problems in Central and Eastern European countries. The question remains as to whether these countries are themselves putting enough money into tackling the millennium bug.
Russia, in particular, is teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
Earlier this year, Parliament quizzed the then Commissioner, Mr Van den Broek, concerning the EU' s role in this transnational problem.
His reply was that the IAEA has drawn up an inventory of potential problems.
I now have three questions for the Commissioner.
Firstly, does the Commission have the results of this inventory? If so, I would like to ask the Commissioner to provide an outline thereof.
Secondly, is the Commission conducting negotiations with governments in Central and Eastern Europe? What concrete action has ensued therefrom?
Thirdly, what is the cost involved to the European Union?
I thank you and await your reply.
Mr President, nuclear weapons are the weapons of the Cold War, but in spite of the fact that the Cold War is over, nuclear weapons are still there.
Thousands of these weapons are to be found on aircraft, on aircraft carriers and on land, ready for firing, despite the fact that there are no threats to use nuclear weapons.
To have nuclear weapons ready for immediate firing is a very dangerous situation, mainly because nuclear weapons can be released by mistake.
This has come close to happening on a number of occasions.
As recently as 1995, the Russians mistook a Norwegian test rocket for American nuclear weapons and went onto a full-scale war footing in Russia.
Mr Yeltsin had to be woken up in the middle of the night but, very fortunately, the mistake was discovered before he decided to fire any nuclear weapons.
The risk of nuclear war by mistake was one of the reasons for the Canberra Commission' s proposal that no nuclear weapons should any longer be held in readiness for firing.
This view was promoted in particular by the man formerly responsible for the United States' strategic nuclear weapons, General Lee Butler, who himself literally had his finger on the nuclear button for many years. He knew how near we had been to unleashing a nuclear war by mistake.
The second demand we made in order to reduce the risk of nuclear war was to the effect that all nuclear weapons should be separated from their weapon carriers so that sufficient time might be made for serious political deliberations.
These two demands ought to be put into effect immediately.
The reasons are that computer errors in nuclear weapons systems precisely at the turn of the millennium can by mistake lead to nuclear war.
The early warning systems, which consist of a complex network of satellites, infra-red detectors and horizontal radar rely mainly upon the commercial electricity network.
Even if the Pentagon has double-checked millions of computer components, full safety cannot be guaranteed; nor can it be guaranteed in Russia.
Because of these serious defects in its early warning system, Russia cannot detect American intercontinental missiles for a period of three hours per day.
Nuclear power too relies upon the commercial electricity network in order, for example, to maintain the supply of cooling water and to cool down the radioactive core and the spent nuclear fuel.
If only a part of this protective network is knocked out because of computer errors, an estimated 100 metric tons of heavy uranium core in the reactor will melt down within two hours if the two reserve diesel generators do not function.
Unfortunately, these reserve diesel generators are only 85 per cent reliable.
What must happen now is for the world' s nuclear powers no longer to have their nuclear weapons primed for firing and for them to separate the warheads from the weapon carriers, at least for the period of the turn of the millennium.
Great Britain has already taken the decision to do this.
Nuclear power stations too must be temporarily closed down or supplied with protective mechanisms at the turn of the millennium.
It is this with which the resolution is concerned.
A decision no longer to have any nuclear weapons primed for firing and to remove their warheads (that is to say, to separate the nuclear weapons from the weapon carriers) may at the same time be the beginning of serious nuclear disarmament.
Mr President, when I was asked to take part in this debate, my initial response was to decline, since I considered that the alarms raised were the result of some millennium phantasmagoria blown up out of proportion by lobbies with a lot to gain from it, including, occasionally, by exploiting the credulity of their clientele for financial gain.
If, in the end, I have agreed to associate myself to the resolution to be put to the vote in this House, it is because I have been able to gauge the real feeling of some part of public opinion world-wide. These concerns, combined with the statements of our fellow Member on the subject of the reaction of the Japanese Government, and of other international bodies, inviting people to take precautions and to lay in stocks in expectation of the anticipated end of the world, have convinced me that the precautions advocated by this Parliament are, in their wisdom, likely to soothe fears and may therefore prove useful.
Neither the age of a plant nor its location, nor indeed the state-of-the-art design are any guarantee of Y2K date compliance.
I would not like to be in this building at midnight on 31 December - a mere 43 days from now.
Lifts, fire alarms - what would work, if anything? There is a serious point to my jesting.
We only have to think about it.
This is a modern state-of-the-art multi-million plant.
In Ireland successive governments have expressed their concern to UK governments concerning the accident rate at the BNFL institutions, particularly the accident rate at Sellafield on the UK's least-populated west coast, only a few miles across from our most populated east coast.
You may laugh, Mr President, but I am serious.
It is not a major credible accident I have in mind and I do not mean to be alarmist.
But I have to put on record my lack of confidence in the British nuclear industry's safety record.
As a sovereign, non-nuclear nation, we in Ireland have a right to self-determination in terms of our people's health and environment.
Consultation and communication between our two countries over the years regarding the British nuclear programme have not been good.
A certain high-handed arrogance has been apparent despite public relations by Sellafield in recent years.
I conclude by saying that all nuclear nations need to state clearly and honestly their programmes for Y2K date compliance, to assure their own and neighbouring nations of their readiness.
Even at this late stage it is better we know the problems than adopt a head-in-the-sand approach.
The first thing I want to say is how warmly I welcome this Parliament resolution.
This will send a clear signal around the world about how seriously we take the Y2K issue, and it will hopefully act as an example for others to follow.
Time, however, is clearly running out.
That means however good intentions are now there is bound to be a risk of failures.
In particular, the high level of computer interconnections between countries, particularly in the western world, makes it impossible to predict exactly what the failures might be and where they could occur.
The higher the level of integration, the higher the level of unpredictability.
The situation in Eastern Europe is also far from reassuring.
The lack of information coming from there worried the Commission as late as June this year, and the further east you go, the more worrying the situation gets. The safest approach is to turn off these plants at the millennium, but how does Lithuania turn off 75% of its generation capacity from Ignalia?
By leaving people in the dark without water? The West must offer assistance, so I particularly welcome this resolution's call on OECD countries to provide resources for this.
I will finish very quickly with an anecdote that would be funny if were it not so serious. The US and the Russians recently set up some hotlines them so they could liaise together over Y2K problems, and in all but one of the seven hotlines they set up, they discovered Y2K problems!
Nothing will be certain in the weeks ahead, we must act now to reduce the risks around the world and I welcome the contribution this resolution will make to the process.
Mr President, I shall answer your questions and contributions on those matters which fall within the jurisdiction of the Commission.
The way we see the situation in the Member States, the nuclear candidate countries with nuclear facilities and in the newly independent states is as follows.
Let me first point out that very few nuclear power plants do in fact use a computer-based system for the essential part of their safety system.
The Member States which have nuclear power plants have been working on this question for at least two years, and the information in our possession indicates that the necessary corrective measures have by now been practically completed, as have all works to do with emergency planning.
In this matter, the Commission has promoted exchanges of know-how and of good practice, but we did not consider it useful to intervene further with our activities in the actions of Member States.
The case is rather different for some countries of Central and Eastern Europe and some new Independent States, whose response to the problem has been less prompt.
Some of them, in fact, did not start to concern themselves with this problem until the end of 1998.
These countries have been supported in their work by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which reviewed their analyses of the extent of the problem in the cases of a considerable number of power plants. Mrs Plooij-van Gorsel referred to the operations carried out to date, and my answer to her is this: the operations of the Agency and of countries using nuclear power plants did not reveal any "bug" problems in the essential safety systems.
The Commission provided additional assistance to a number of nuclear power plant operators.
We financed European Union expert missions to 3 power plants in Russia and to 3 power plants in Ukraine.
In addition, we offered our assistance to the nuclear regulation authorities as of the beginning of this year, and we are now supporting projects of this type in Bulgaria, Slovakia and Russia.
Although none of the elements in the crucial safety systems are affected, a number of other systems, particularly the operator display systems, may be affected and failure of these systems may indirectly threaten nuclear safety by increasing the burden on the operators, as has been mentioned.
According to the information available to us, we think that the countries of Central and Eastern Europe have generally made good progress in correcting these systems.
In comparison, the new Independent States of the former Soviet Union are making undeniably slower progress in their corrective operations, but they are all claiming that the work will have been completed by the end of the year.
We are supporting these rehabilitation projects by contributing to the activities of two international scientific and technical centres, in Moscow and Kiev, and we are prepared, if necessary, to provide additional assistance to these programmes in consideration of the fact that, as you have said throughout this debate, we are getting extremely close to the transition to the year 2000 and the main thing has been to begin to address the problem in good time.
This is my answer, and this is our contribution to solving this important problem.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m. today.
East Timor
Mr President, it has, in fact, been possible once again to reach an agreement between all the political groups and to present a single motion for a resolution on Timor.
This motion for a resolution is a clear signal to the international community that, in spite of the fact that news about Timor has disappeared from the major European newspapers and that it is no longer the leading item on the most important European television news broadcasts, the international community and the European Union must continue to be attentive to this problem.
Firstly, because abuses of the human dignity and of the human rights of the Timorese who are refugees in other parts of Timor, particularly in West Timor, and who want to return to East Timor are still taking place.
The Indonesian authorities must, as a matter of urgency, make humanitarian action possible, particularly on the part of non-governmental organisations.
Secondly, there must be greater vigilance by the peacekeeping forces at the border so that those Timorese who do have the right to return to West Timor can do so safely.
On the other hand, those responsible for the massacres and for the attacks on human life must be punished, not just to ensure that justice is done in Timor, but, indeed, to set an example for other parts of the world where, sadly, attacks on dignity and, above all, on life, which we feel is an inalienable right, still exist and continue to take place.
Finally, Mr President, our intention is for the Commission and the Council to match the condemnations and political speeches with an appropriate expression of financial and technical support for the process of independence and the reconstruction of East Timor.
This is why the Socialist Group supports this resolution and this was what I wanted to say.
I would like to support very much what the last speaker has just said.
With regard to the situation in East Timor we really need to put as much pressure as possible on the Indonesian authorities, because they seem to be turning a blind eye to a lot of what is happening there.
The Indonesians must try and halt the militia and their activities in the area.
There is also the UNHCR fear that the situation is actually going to worsen.
It is not just in East Timor, but also in West Timor where there are still a huge number of refugees - an estimated 250 000 refugees.
As regards the international agencies, we have to ensure that the UNHCR's repatriation programme is allowed to continue without any kind of disruption, because there have been a number of incidents in recent times which point to a deliberate attempt to try and disrupt the UNHCR's repatriation programme.
It is essential that this programme is allowed to continue.
Indonesia itself must facilitate the work of relief agencies and the international forces so as to ensure that peace and stability return to the area.
We in the European Union, along with the United Nations, all encouraged the East Timorese to exercise their right to vote in the referendum.
What happened after that was completely and totally unacceptable, though predictable.
In fact it was predicted long before it happened, and action should have been taken much earlier to prevent the atrocities and the murder of innocent people.
Unfortunately, a huge number of people lost their lives because of the irresponsible attitude of the international community.
Since then, some countries have woken up to the fact that they can no longer stand by idly and watch Indonesia with the support of the militia organisations in that area murdering and chasing the East Timorese out of their country.
It is about time that they had the right to independence - it is what they voted for.
Member States of the European Union have to support them - not just with words but also financial assistance.
Mr President, the developing situation in East Timor must continue to enjoy the complete attention of the European Union' s institutions.
In spite of the positive measures that were taken following Parliament' s resolution on September 16 last, specifically the entry of the international peace and security force under the auspices of the UN and INTERFET, the humanitarian safety situation remains serious both in East Timor itself, which it is essential to provide with resources to support reconstruction, and for approximately 250 thousand people forcibly displaced to Indonesia and, particularly, to West Timor.
Therefore, it is crucial that the European Union, the Member States and the whole international community maintain firm pressure on the Indonesian authorities so that they disarm and control the so-called "militias" with the utmost urgency and they create the necessary conditions of safety for the refugees to return to East Timor, whose territorial integrity should be respected in its entirety.
It is equally vital for words to be replaced with action and humanitarian and financial aid to East Timor to actually be provided.
The delay in the arrival of the aid promised by the European Union, despite the promises made by the Council and the Commission, is unacceptable.
And as approval of the budgetary line for the next few years has been positive, it is vital that the necessary sums be provided for economic and financial support for the reconstruction of East Timor and for its transition to independence.
Finally, it is important to reiterate the fact that the decisions on the East Timor independence process are a matter for its people.
This means respecting its sovereignty, so decisions on its present and its future must be taken in close collaboration with the National Council for Timorese Resistance, as it is not for international organisations to replace the people of East Timor but to give them all the necessary support.
Therefore this is an appeal for all Member States, the institutions of the European Union and the whole international community to keep support for the people of East Timor on the agenda and to take the first steps towards the international recognition of the State of East Timor Lorosae and the respective establishment of diplomatic relations.
Mr President, this week sees the start of the United Nations transfer of authority in East Timor to UNTAET.
They do not have an easy task.
The situation of delay, made worse by the vindictive destruction perpetrated by the Indonesian armed forces, the small size of the territory together with the fact that there is another half to the island, the coexistence with neighbours and powerful interests and the lack of an administration are all factors that contribute to the complexity of the task and show the need for the involvement of the Timorese and the importance of international solidarity.
The next two years must be won.
We must build basic infrastructures, establish bases for production, install an administration where none currently exists and do so taking into account the will and the involvement of the Timorese people.
They know what they want and have the right to participate from the outset in their country' s construction.
With regard to international solidarity, it is clear that the joint assessment mission, coordinated by the World Bank and in which elements of the Commission participated, has finished its work in the area.
An estimate of the costs of reconstruction has been made - EUR 250 million over three years - and a conference of donors will be held on 17 December.
The data that has been made available is very useful for Parliament too.
I must point out that after the referendum on August 30 we were already expressing our desire for the European Union to become actively involved in the tasks of reconstruction.
In line with this desire, when, at first reading, we took a stand on Budget 2000, we established a specific point of a multiannual nature with EUR 30 million allocated to the reconstruction of East Timor, an amount that should be increased in view of the information provided by the joint assessment mission.
In conclusion, I would like to highlight the tragic situation of the 250 thousand refugees outside East Timor: the whereabouts of several dozen thousands of people is not known and many of those we do know about are women and children.
The refugee camps are dominated by those militias who, having terrorised East Timor, are continuing to do the same in Indonesian territory.
In the meantime, Indonesia is keeping its land borders closed.
The situation is intolerable and is affecting a third of East Timor' s population, which has the right to a free and informed choice as to whether they stay in Indonesia or return to East Timor.
Mr President, on behalf of my group, the Union for a Europe of Nations, I would like to state that I am one of the authors of this report and to say that this is our best opportunity to keep the issue of East Timor on the international agenda.
There is no doubt at all that there are still many problems, both in the area of humanitarian aid and in that of support for reconstruction, and also because we are still seeing serious violations of human rights, particularly in West Timor, with the activity of the militias which have prevented the refugees from East Timor regrouping and returning to their homes and to their land.
These are the reasons that lead me to agree wholeheartedly with this resolution, and also even to highlight again the need for there to be a specific investigation into who is responsible for the massacres that have taken place and for the appropriate judicial authorities to punish those responsible.
I would also like to highlight the proposal that has been made to send a new delegation from the European Parliament to East Timor precisely to verify in loco how this process of reconstruction is taking place and being handled, and in order to have all the necessary facts to enable us to continue maintaining East Timor as an issue that deserves the unanimous attention of all European Members of Parliament.
Mr President, the situation in East Timor may have taken a turn for the better thanks to the change of power in Indonesia and thanks to the arrival of the peacekeeping force, but for the ordinary citizen in East Timor and also for the refugees still in West Timor, the situation is still very alarming indeed.
This may not apply to the political situation - indeed, East Timor' s independence is now being respected - but it very much applies to the humanitarian and judicial situation, for which a solution has not been found in any shape or form.
Although the UNHCR are making every effort to bring the people back, there is a great deal of opposition.
UNAMET are trying their utmost to protect the people but the militia groups are still active.
What is really required is a swift international inquiry into the past events, an international tribunal to administer justice and, in particular, to punish the killers.
What is also required, is aid for the reconstruction. This is needed quickly as the rainy season is on its way.
Exactly how much money has the Commission earmarked for this situation? Mr President, as we are on the subject of Indonesia and dramatic events there, could I also receive feedback on what was laid down by resolution in early October, namely that the situation on the Moluccas is also becoming untenable.
This area too is having to deal with 70,000 refugees, 500 killed and a judicial system invariably staffed by militia groups.
We have asked for help and we have not really had any reaction to this.
Mr President, the Indonesian government appears to be sensitive to international criticism.
I therefore welcome the fact that both the Commission and this Parliament are taking action in respect of Indonesia.
It would be a good idea for the Commission to pay a visit there to have a look and talk to everyone.
I also agree with what has just been said, namely that a delegation of the European Parliament should also go and visit East Timor once again, and maybe the Moluccas too, to gain an insight into the events in these areas.
At any rate, this item should not be taken off the agenda for a long while, because the people over there are still going through a very tough time.
The redevelopment of East Timor, in terms of its extent and its political specificity, is an important task for us and for the entire international community.
Within the framework of the United Nations, we must all contribute towards finding an overall solution to this problem, including issues relating to human rights and the establishment of a new state.
In this context, I am pleased to see that Mr Sergio Vieira de Mello, the new United Nations coordinator, arrived in East Timor last Tuesday.
I feel we can wish him nothing but success in this difficult assignment on behalf of the Commission, for my part, and on behalf of the Parliament and the European Union.
You know that the Commission is fully committed to shouldering its responsibilities as regards humanitarian and redevelopment operations.
In response to Mrs Maij-Weggen' s question on humanitarian aid, ECHO has to date committed EUR 5 million and there is a further decision concerning EUR 10 million "in the pipeline" , as it were, in order to complete the work we are currently undertaking on the spot.
We have responded to international appeals and have currently made commitments up to the equivalent of approximately EUR 8.5 million in food aid.
This is not a negligible amount, and we are attempting to measure out this aid to suit the local capacity to absorb it.
The priority that we give to aid for East Timor will be clearly expressed, and I believe that this complies with your suggestion, Mrs Maij-Weggen, by the visit which Commissioner Nielson is going to be making at the end of the month to both East and West Timor.
The Commission will be represented on the spot, at the end of the month, by the Commissioner responsible.
According to our information, the United Nations is managing the large-scale operations in East Timor efficiently.
The repatriation of displaced persons is in progress. As of the day before yesterday, approximately 65,000 of all the persons displaced had returned, and the Indonesian Government gave us assurances that the process of voluntary repatriation would be completed within 100 days.
Subsequently, it shall, of course, be of the utmost important for the East Timorese themselves to participate in all aspects of the process of redevelopment and development.
As you have pointed out, in addition to establishing the foundations of the economy, the emergence of a political power that is up to the task and the development of the necessary institutions will be key elements.
After independence, the government will have to determine its foreign policy stance, particularly as regards membership, if appropriate, of the Lomé Convention.
This is the information I wished to give you in response to your questions.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m. today.
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy has not responded yet to what happened to the resolution we submitted in early October regarding the area north of Timor.
There were a few questions regarding this area too.
I would like to know when we will receive a reaction because people are in fact waiting for this.
The situation there is not as serious as it is in Timor but it is getting increasingly worse.
Mrs Maij-Weggen, you have been a Member of this House for a long time.
You know the Rules.
We have a very strict period of time for urgencies.
It is not a Question Time, it is a debate.
The Commissioner can choose to reply to those parts of the debate he wishes to reply to.
I am sure that in private he would be happy to give you an answer to your question.
Human Rights
Mr President, I would like to tell you briefly that I belong to a generation which was fortunate not to live through the massacre of Algerians in Paris in 1961, not to experience, on 9 November 1938, Kristallnacht or the start of Jewish persecution in various European countries and fortunate, above, all to see the end of apartheid in South Africa.
If, at every stage along the way, there are people who rose up and said, "Never again" , it is quite simply because they are convinced that there is nothing worse than physical harm inflicted on individuals.
This founding principle of Europe is today being challenged, indeed, by the application of the death penalty in a considerable number of places throughout the world.
China, the self-styled democratic Republic of the Congo, the United States and Iran have the sad record of coming at the top of the list of the countries which apply the death sentence.
According to Amnesty International, there are 3,500 prisoners waiting for execution in the United States, where 68 prisoners were executed last year.
In these countries, the right of life or death over prisoners is all the more intolerable in the light of the ridiculously limited budgets allocated to crime prevention policies and social matters.
I prefer to think that, as Victor Hugo said, to close one prison, it is enough to open one more school.
There is absolutely no doubt that the seventeen years that Mumia Abu-Jamal has just spent rotting on death row following a travesty of justice are linked to the fact that he is black, to his fight against institutional racism, to the freedom of thought which this journalist practised by having the courage to denounce the corruption prevailing in the ranks of the Philadelphia police.
In the same way, Iran, which executed 66 people last year, would have us believe that the dozens of students arrested and the 13 Jews, were spies.
The mobilisation of international opinion, as we have seen, prevented the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, scheduled for 2 December.
But, for the time being, there has only been a stay of execution.
We must now seek to have the order of execution revoked definitively.
We must widen and intensify our pressure on these countries and hit them where it hurts.
It is important that European businesses should refuse to invest in the states of the United States or anywhere else in the world where the death penalty continues to be applied.
The Member States of the European Union must refuse to extradite any person to a country where it is known that their death sentence is automatically programmed as soon as they set foot there.
Demanding the immediate and unconditional abolition of capital punishment throughout the entire world today does not just mean promoting human dignity but also validating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Mr President, I belong to a generation which thinks that conventions against torture and discrimination should not be signed just for the fun of it.
Mr President, the events that led up to the withdrawal of the motion on the moratorium are described and evaluated, in the resolution we are preparing to vote on, in a fairly neutral and rather polite way.
I am afraid that the reasons behind the withdrawal of this resolution are, at the very least, suspect, and have more to do with a kind of boycott than the defence of principles.
I truly hope that Parliament will be attentive to this subject, because it is clear that the attitude of some of the Member States has been ambiguous, to say the least, and it is therefore logical that Parliament - which from this point of view has always been quite consistent - must continue to be vigilant.
As the Group of the Greens, we have taken note of these events, as well as the somewhat half-hearted wording of this resolution, which, however, we consider it important to adopt, at least in order to indicate that there is a problem that we must continue to be active on.
Nevertheless, I would stress once again that, from this point of view, the European Union' s ambiguity is apparent to everyone, and I therefore think that we should express ourselves in a much clearer way than we have in the resolution.
Mr President, we are always complaining and regretting - rightly in my opinion - that the European Union does not speak with one voice on the international stage.
Despite what our colleague has just said, I think that on this occasion there is more than sufficient reason to congratulate ourselves on the fact that the European Union has unanimously presented a resolution to the United Nations requesting a moratorium on the death penalty.
It is sad that this initiative has not come to fruition and we hope that it will do so during this legislature.
What I would like to say, Mr President, is that we have done this because we are convinced that everybody has the unalienable right to the respect for life and this right cannot go unrecognised or be violated.
We have all seen the horrendous pictures of the last death sentence passed by the Florida Court and it will therefore not surprise any of you that the first person to appear in the text of the joint resolution should be the Spanish - and hence European Union - citizen, Joaquín José Martínez, whose sentence we ask to be reviewed and whose death sentence we ask to be suspended.
In this case there has been a series of coincidences which have inspired an enthusiastic solidarity movement in our country in which the Government, all the political parties and the rest of society have taken part.
I would like to say that there have been a whole series of irregularities in the trial and it appears that the defence lawyer has not fulfilled his commitments.
However, Mr President, what is serious - and his case is serious enough as it is - are not the conditions of this trial, nor the fact that the United States holds the tragic and regrettable record for executing people who are later proved to be innocent.
What is most tragic and regrettable is the fact that the death penalty exists at all.
I therefore believe, Mr President, that as a European Parliament we have to show, in this and all other similar cases, a firm and resolute commitment to the right to life, as we have done in this joint resolution.
Mr President, the death penalty is in fact a repugnant relic of a vanished age.
It is founded upon an Old Testament "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" mindset which is not worthy of humanity now that we are approaching a new millennium.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party has played a forceful role in the fight against the death penalty.
In one after another of the applicant States, it is either in the process of being, or already has been, abolished, which is a very positive development.
In spite of that, the death penalty is still applied in all too many States.
Only last year, 1,625 prisoners in 37 different countries were executed, and there are thousands on death row.
In the United States alone, several thousand people are waiting to be executed.
Some of the prisoners condemned to death throughout the world have committed odious crimes, but that does not justify their being executed.
All too often, the death penalty is used for political purposes, and there can be legal confusion and innocent people can be executed.
That alone is an argument against this barbaric form of punishment.
Nor does the death penalty have any proven deterrent effect.
The resolution we are debating is really quite remarkable.
It names three citizens who, over the next few days, are to be executed in the United States.
Obviously, we are urging the American government not to carry out these death sentences. But what the resolution really ought to be concerned with - a subject which my colleagues too have taken up - is the memorandum concerning the death penalty throughout the world.
The Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party wholeheartedly supports this memorandum, which the UN has initiated.
We would encourage the Commission and the Council to pursue this issue vigorously and to unite the European Union in unanimously condemning the death penalty in every forum so as to give rise to a worldwide moratorium on its use.
The abolition of the death penalty would be a fantastic step forward in the fight for human rights and also a big step forward for the recognition of human dignity.
Mr President, every year hundreds of human beings are executed in the world - often in the so-called civilised world - at the hands of other human beings.
In 1998 it was noted that there were at least 1,625 executions in 37 countries and almost 4,000 death sentences in another 78 countries.
These figures refer exclusively to the information which Amnesty International has been able to collect.
The true figure is, without doubt, much higher.
Every year an unknown number of people are declared innocent after being executed.
According to a report released recently, since 1973 and in the United States alone, 75 prisoners condemned to death were released when it was discovered that they had been wrongly convicted.
We will never know how many innocent people there were amongst the approximately 7000 prisoners executed in the United States of America during this century.
According to Amnesty International, for every six prisoners executed since the restoration of the death penalty in the United States, one innocent person was condemned to death and later pardoned.
Therefore, it seems to me that the Council' s proposal to the United Nations, however important and positive the initiative may be, is very timid because calls on those States which retain the death penalty - and I quote - "to progressively restrict the number of crimes for which it is imposed" .
Does that seem to us to be sufficient?
Do we want to be a diplomatic Assembly or a political Parliament? That is why we ask the Council, in section 9 of this resolution, in the negotiations with third countries, to examine the possibility of incorporating the abolition of the death penalty into the clause on human rights.
Perhaps the Council is not in a position to do any more, but what about us? Should we not be more demanding?
Should we not be more ambitious?
The answer is yes. This is why we are sending this message to the Council and all the nations of the world.
The case of the Spanish citizen, José Joaquín Martínez, is a clear example of justice with no guarantees.
That is why he is calling for real justice, and that is why we support him today.
He wants a new form of justice so that he can demonstrate his innocence, and he has the right to it.
But I declare, we all declare together, that no death sentence is a just sentence.
None is.
I will also end with a biblical quote which is more positive than the one quoted by my colleague.
It is a quote from Genesis.
Cain killed Abel and nobody disputed his guilt in this horrendous crime.
He spilled the blood of his brother and the Lord cursed him and expelled him from his house and condemned him to live as a fugitive and a vagabond: "And Cain said to the Lord: 'every one that findeth me shall slay me' .
And the Lord said unto him: 'Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold' .
And the Lord set a mark upon Cain lest any finding him should kill him" .
May nobody touch Cain, that was the message.
May nobody touch Cain.
That should be our ambition: that nobody can execute any human being ever, in any part of the world, for any reason.
Nobody.
Not even the United States of America.
Mr President, we probably do not always feel comfortable in this Parliament, because what is approved is not what we wanted to be approved.
However, once again, this Parliament is going to speak to the rest of the world against the death penalty.
I therefore feel proud to be here this afternoon and to be able to vote, unanimously, for a condemnation of the death penalty.
The death penalty is barbarous.
As other Members have said, it is a terrifying fact that many innocent people have been executed.
And I do not understand how anybody can live with that on their conscience.
In reality today' s resolution talks about three specific cases: firstly, the case of José Joaquín Martínez, a Spaniard, in whose trial enormous irregularities have occurred.
I have here a copy of a letter which one of the witnesses sent.
He is in prison, it is true, but he sent a letter to the court saying that he had heard somebody claiming responsibility for the murder which José Joaquín Martínez is convicted of.
With this simple source of doubt, it is impossible to condemn a defendant to death.
Therefore we ask in the resolution for a new trial and that under no circumstances the death sentence be passed.
The second case is that of Abu Jamal.
There are many reasons to believe that the trial and death sentence on Abu Jamal were motivated by political factors, above all, because he was a leader.
For the moment he has been spared.
His execution was set for 2 December.
We also demand that this death sentence not be carried out.
And we also take up the case of a person who is mentally ill, who was about to be executed and who has been spared.
It seems to us an enormous and terrifying cruelty that anybody should consider executing ill people of this type and that people should be kept in prison for 21 years, as is the case with a Canadian who was due to be executed and, half an hour before his execution, had his appeal accepted in court.
This is tremendously cruel and the world cannot accept it.
This Parliament must champion the demand for a universal moratorium, if this is not approved now.
And to this end we must display our moral authority.
Mr President, I am in complete agreement with Mrs Díez González on the need to seek to convince the Council to introduce a clause on capital punishment and the abolition of capital punishment into agreements with third countries.
But, no doubt, it would also be necessary to seek to convince the members of the Socialist Group that they should be firm on this point.
This has not been the case to date, and I therefore wish Mrs Díez González good luck.
Having said that, I think that the heart of the matter was raised by Mrs Frassoni and Mr Salafranca.
What we are talking about here is not the issue of capital punishment.
This House has shown on many occasions that it was convinced of the need to establish a universal moratorium.
What we are talking about here is foreign policy and, more exactly, once again, the matter of the European Union' s lack of foreign policy.
I would go further than Mrs Frassoni.
There is no ambiguity.
On Monday, the Council decided to withdraw the motion it had proposed on the pretext that it reiterated a fundamental article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. On Tuesday, it voted in the texts with the same reference to the fundamental articles of this declaration.
The problem clearly, therefore, lies in the lack of political will, and we can imagine the reasons for this: pressure from some major countries, such as the People' s Republic of China, the United States and Japan, who succeeded in ensuring that this policy, upon which the Union had already decided, was literally betrayed at the last moment.
The central problem before us, then, as a Parliament, is the problem of a necessary joint European policy on security and foreign affairs.
One of the first things to ask for is that this dossier is handed over to Mr Solana. It is no longer possible for this dossier to be placed in the hands of presidencies which, as we know, change over every six months; we need a permanent spokesman who can, on his own authority, organise the work of the various Member State delegations in New York so that, next year, we have a position which is consistent from beginning to end, thus avoiding this truly tragic situation, one that has made things difficult for a number of third countries friendly to the European Union, starting with Mexico, which had made a very firm commitment to defending our perfectly acceptable compromise position.
We must therefore amend today' s motion for a resolution in order to firmly condemn the Council and ask it, as firmly, to entrust this dossier to Mr Solana, and to him alone.
Mr President, Parliament has today, for the umpteenth time, expressed its repugnance of the anachronistic, anti-democratic methods of punishment of dubious efficacy which continue to be used throughout the world, including by countries such as the United States of America, which have recently starting championing human rights.
However, even underage children are executed in the USA and, according to statistics, the criminal justice system operates selectively at the expense of the weakest economic and social groups, especially if they are dark-skinned.
We are horrified by the frequency with which the innocence of citizens condemned to death is subsequently proven.
And while all this is going on, the 54th General Assembly of the UN has rejected the motion by the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the European Union for no more death penalties to be carried out.
It goes without saying, Mr President, that the death penalty has no place in a democratic society.
No-one has the power of life or death over anyone for any reason whatsoever.
On the contrary, the death penalty is the preferred weapon of totalitarian regimes because it is a symbol of the power of the state and of the humility of the individual in the face of the power of the state and, as we know, it is often used to annihilate opponents.
This is why, on the basis of our European values and in the name of respect for human rights, we call on the governments of all the countries in which death sentences are pending to suspend them immediately and to repeal the death penalty.
We also call on the USA to allow a retrial of the journalist Abu Jamal in Pennsylvania, of Martínez in Florida and of Robinson so that they may have a chance to defend themselves properly.
Finally, the European Union and the Council need to impose the repeal of the death penalty in the form of a special clause in economic and political agreements with third countries, as called for by other Members. In addition, an immediate worldwide campaign is needed and a worldwide moratorium on capital punishment pending the final repeal of the death penalty throughout the whole world.
Mr President, what has happened in recent years in Kosovo is a profound tragedy.
On many occasions, we have condemned from this Chamber the outrages perpetrated upon the Kosovan Albanian people.
Their suffering is inconceivable, and none of us can ever understand the scale of what they have experienced.
We in the European Union are also guilty of not having succeeded in time in preventing Milosevic' s insane excursions so close to our own territory.
The EU also has an important role to play in the reconstruction process.
All democratic forces must be supported in order to facilitate the reconstruction and create a functioning and democratic civil society.
The collective rape which has been committed against the Kosovan Albanian people cannot however justify the actions which have been reported on against civilians belonging to, among other groups, the Serbian minority, but also other minorities.
If any kind of normality is to be achieved, all affected parties must feel secure in returning or in staying where they are.
This applies to both the majority and the minority.
The persecutions, and in certain cases murders, of Serbs which have occurred are therefore entirely to be condemned and must cease.
They do not carry the peace process forward.
The outrages committed against KFOR personnel are also unacceptable and, on behalf of my Group (the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party), I should like strongly to condemn these.
I should also like to appeal to all parties to cease committing such outrages and to lay down their weapons and together embark upon the long and difficult road to peace. I plead for all parties and organisations to work together for a better and brighter future in Kosovo, a future where all can hopefully live together.
Mr President, it is an insult to our conscience and political ethics that, after the military intervention by NATO and the European Union against Yugoslavia, under a humanitarian flag, as a result of the unforgivable ethnic cleansing by Yugoslavia against the Albanians, we are now remaining calm and accepting the violence against the Serbs, gypsies and other minorities, this time on the part of the Albanians, which, furthermore, is of an even higher proportion.
Therefore, we think that, if the European Union does not condemn and put an end to this criminal behaviour, the conclusions would be clear: firstly, the European Union would become an accomplice in the killings of Serbs and gypsies organised by the criminal and mafia groups of the KLA; and secondly, it would demonstrate that the West has two different yardsticks; and thirdly, the impression would be given that the objective of the intervention was to destroy the Serbian people.
Mr President, at the beginning of this year, anyone who was no longer able to stand by and watch the murders, expulsions, looting and pillaging by the Serbian army and militia in Kosovo and for that reason spoke out in favour of so-called humanitarian intervention, must now wonder whether the war - that was unfortunately not waged against those who committed the crimes, but against the Yugoslavian population, - the war that we conducted for over two and a half months and that cost several billion euros, really brought about the result that we expected.
Have the murders, expulsions, looting and pillaging in Kosovo stopped? Unfortunately not.
Unfortunately the crimes are continuing, with two differences.
First: the victims of the crimes are no longer the Kosovo Albanians, but Serbs, Roma and even Bosnians.
Secondly, it is no longer the Yugoslavian army in Kosovo, but our armies, which on the one hand are completing a fantastic undertaking in reconstruction, in protecting people, bringing law and order, in every respect and on the other hand are despairing because they are not able to really protect the people that they should protect and that they would have wanted to protect.
Who is to blame? Unfortunately those for whom the international community waged a war, the first war on humanitarian grounds.
The former KLA - I say "former" because it supposedly no longer exists, because it was supposedly disarmed - believes that it has won a war and that it therefore has the right to commit exactly the same crimes as those who led to this war.
And that is the disgrace!
The international community has until now just looked on at what is happening.
We would assure the UN representative, Mr Kouchner, and his former colleagues, of our full support, if he would finally begin to set up an administration in Kosovo and not leave that to the bogus and illegitimate government of the KLA, even if the local authorities and the city and local councils were not formed by the KLA, but actually - if not other Kosovans - other UN officials could complete this work and the various different tasks that need to be performed in Kosovo.
Mr President, Mr Sakellariou, I can immediately endorse what you have said.
I was there in October.
I can confirm that the military power could not resolve the problems on the spot.
On the contrary, the old principle is being borne out: violence breeds violence.
The international community in fact has no solution to the Kosovo conflict that exists just as it did before.
The conflict is there as it was previously.
The international community does say that Kosovo is part of the rest of Yugoslavia and we are creating a multi-ethnic society.
But the reality in Kosovo is completely different.
Everyone who is there and everyone who works there knows that, and that includes the EU officials.
The former KLA, Mr Sakellariou, I can stress, feels that it is the victor and, through the mainly economic international aid, feels that this victory is confirmed.
All the parties theoretically declare that the Serbs, Roma and Albanians can live together but in practice the situation in Pristina is different.
You can no longer see the Cyrillic alphabet.
It has all been destroyed, because the Slav language may no longer be spoken.
For all Serbs who live in Pristina this means that they can really no longer take part in public life.
This is Pristina, a city full of international organisations!
In Mítrovica the situation is much worse.
The city is completely divided and is becoming more markedly so day by day.
Why is that? The reason is simply that we only concentrate on economic aid and forget the crucial things, that is to say, the practise of tolerance, the practise of democracy and aid in the social field.
There is no money available for these things on the spot.
Mr Kouchner knows that reconstruction in Kosovo will fail on the very matter of the protection of the minorities.
He is not receiving any help from the EU in that regard.
Mr President, today' s debate has until now unfortunately been really one-sided as we have forgotten to be self-critical.
We have for years ignored the oppression that went on for 10 years in Kosovo.
Doris Pack and others did not do so, but a large majority did.
We are ourselves to blame, at least those who held this attitude, for the fact that Rugova was frozen out, because he was left alone for 10 years with his non-violence.
It is quite clear that in a desperate situation, in which hundreds of thousands of people were driven out by systematic state violence - and that is the big difference with the current isolated acts of revenge that are of course despicable - Rugova lost control of the forces.
We should for a start see clearly that condemning others can be a good thing, but it would also be a good thing to exercise some self-criticism: We have above all failed in this way.
Of course we must send out a strong signal against any expulsions.
I myself come from a family who - collectively innocent - on the basis of state decrees 50 years ago, were expelled.
Any expulsion is an expulsion too many and this 20th century is likely to go down in history as the century of genocide and expulsions.
We therefore have a duty to stop every expulsion, including those in Kosovo, and we have a duty to speak up so that the ban on expulsions and the right to a homeland become the foundations of international law, so that such dreadful events are not repeated.
It is most gratifying to note that all the Groups in this House are clearly in agreement on this subject.
That is certainly a great help.
Mr President, Hashim Thaçi, the leader of the KLA (the Kosovo Liberation Army), recently postulated: "I am the President of Kosovo.
People who support my government are welcome in Kosovo.
Anyone who creates hassle should leave."
This misplaced display of power, deserving of condemnation to say the least, follows in the footsteps of the execrable oppression regime adopted by Slobodan Milosevic.
This political line is just as diametrically opposed to pacification, let alone a social renewal process, within the legendary battlefield of Kosovo Polje and its surrounding areas.
In fact, Thaçi' s words are inviting the remaining members of the Serbian minority to leave if they have not done so already.
Words which have been reinforced in the past couple of months by downright acts of terror, committed by the victims of yesterday, by Albanian Kosovars.
Significantly, Albanian journalist Veton Surroi sharply condemned this reprehensible attitude as being "organised and systematic terror which can only be described as fascist" .
The minority Roma group too suffered badly under a pogrom-like Albanian attitude.
I would like to make a special appeal for the Kosovar Roma, one of the oldest communities there.
Today, it is collectively paying the price for being a so-called accomplice in the Milosevic regime.
After all, Belgrade gave Kosovar Roma the jobs which it no longer gave to the Kosovar Albanians between 1989-1999.
Mr President, thorough, unbiased historical investigation should show to what extent the Albanian allegations of atrocities carried out by Kosovar Roma in respect of their Albanian fellow citizens are true.
One thing is for sure, from both a Christian and general, moral perspective: crimes do not under any circumstance justify new crimes!
Well now, those have definitely taken place since the arrival of the UN and KFOR in Kosovo on 12 June.
What is more, they were already occurring in the Macedonian refugee camps.
The outcome was obvious: an estimated 20,000 Roma fled from Kosovo, most of whom ended up in refugee camps in neighbouring Montenegro and Macedonia.
However, according to my sources, these camps will be closing by the end of the year.
If this information is correct, what does the EU intend to do to help these displaced Kosovar Roma?
In this context, I would also like to raise another pressing question. In Montenegro, large numbers of Kosovar Roma are falling into the hands of unscrupulous people smuggling refugees into Italy.
What can the European Union, in close cooperation with the Montenegro authorities, do to stop this?
Finally, it was recently stated in a report in the Chechen weekly "Tyden" on "the covert Roma exodus" from Kosovo that Roma do not give much thought to their future.
Why should they? After all, they do not have one, not a dignified one that is, "wedged between Albanian terror in Kosovo, dislike and discrimination within other countries and dwindling humanitarian aid within the central Balkans" .
All the more reason why the international community should now join forces to protect the Roma who are still in Kosovo.
Alexander Nikitin
Mr President, on 23 November, Alexander Nikitin will appear in court again.
He still has to face trial on an old case of "spying" .
It became clear a long time ago that he has the information in the Bellona report from sources that are accessible to the general public.
However, his expert knowledge made it possible for us to be made aware of an enormous hazard that is heading for us and is slumbering in the Arctic Ocean.
He acted with a great sense of humanity.
The EU has a special responsibility here because until now it has used the material that Alexander Nikitin compiled.
One of the essential components of the Northern dimension that was decided on in Helsinki is the issue of cleaning the Arctic Ocean and averting the danger that could affect us all.
We must therefore intervene more forcefully here so that Alexander Nikitin can finally be released and so that the accusations are dropped, because we all know that these proceedings are purely political and therefore the laws in Russia will also be infringed by these proceedings, because the old nomenclature will win again.
I believe that Alexander Nikitin has acted with enormous consideration for others and with remarkable responsibility in making this material available to us.
It is therefore necessary for the EU Mission in Moscow at least to observe this case, but also to intervene in the political dialogue, so that it is declared a political case and Alexander Nikitin can finally be released. Alexander Nikitin should be free and honoured!
Mr President, the European Convention on Human Rights that also applies to Russia as a Member State of the Council of Europe, has, as it were, its headquarters here in Strasbourg.
On the other side of the river is the European Court of Human Rights, to which Mr Nikitin has appealed.
That means that what is happening in Russia is not an internal affair of a far-off land but that it is an internal affair of a European institution at whose heart are the fifteen Member States of the EU.
We therefore have an important duty to speak up for Mr Nikitin and his release so that he can finally live in humane and constitutional conditions.
We, as the EU, are also bound under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which not only commits Russia but ourselves too and it contains a human rights clause, to speak out most fervently on behalf of Mr Nikitin for an improvement in his conditions of detention on the spot, for his release and as I said, for fair and constitutional treatment.
It would be a disgrace if we gave way, because - as Mrs Schroedter put it so well - Mr Nikitin also acted in our interests.
We have often dealt with it here in the Parliament.
He acted on behalf of the European environment. He acted for the rule of law on the whole continent.
We should in fact award Mr Nikitin one of our prizes here in the European Parliament.
I should therefore like to endorse this motion for a resolution most emphatically and the appeal it contains.
Mr President, I rise on behalf of my group but also on behalf of my colleague Lord Bethell, who takes a particular concern and interest in this matter.
The fate of Alexander Nikitin is particularly relevant to a topical and urgent debate.
Next Tuesday he is due to appear in court in Russia.
I believe this is the sixth time that he will appear in court.
He is indicted on a charge of high treason, which is a very strong and extreme charge and for what? For addressing a matter of public interest, of environmental interest to the whole of Europe.
Under this charge he faces a possible death sentence.
This is an extreme sanction and this House and the European institutions should send a very powerful message to Russia that it should re-think this issue, the charges should be dropped and it should respect our call for his immediate release.
In the context of the earlier debate on ending the death penalty, it is very relevant that we should call upon the Russian authorities to respect our views, the views of Europe, as to whether he should be indicted and what the sanction should be.
So I very much support the calls for Mr Nikitin to be immediately released and found not guilty of the charges.
I shall answer briefly the three points which have been raised: capital punishment, the minorities in Kosovo and the Nikitin case.
Firstly, as regards the matter of capital punishment, I would like to devote a few words not to the substance of the question, which you deal with in your draft resolution and which, plainly, meets with the approval of the Commission as far as the position adopted on capital punishment is concerned.
This does not, I feel, merit extensive comment, as we are in agreement on this point.
What I wish to bring up is a specific point which was mentioned in the course of the discussion, i.e. the matter of the draft resolution on capital punishment which the Union proposed to the Third Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations.
This is, in fact, a matter of foreign policy.
By means of this resolution, the European Union was proposing to the international community that it undertake to establish a moratorium on capital punishment.
Indeed, as far as we are concerned, the abolition of capital punishment is an intrinsic part of our human rights policy, whereas for many countries this is exclusively a matter of criminal law, or so they claim, at least.
We did indeed withdraw this draft resolution, on mature reflection, and this decision is presented for your evaluation.
We withdrew it because the debates in this Third Committee of the General Assembly of the United Nations were, in our opinion, going badly.
In fact, we felt that some of the many amendments submitted by the countries for whom our position is a problem are, in our view, unacceptable, particularly the amendment to introduce into the resolution a reference to article 2, paragraph 7 of the United Nations Charter, in the terms of which, "Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorise the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state."
This amendment was indeed inconvenient, insofar as it shifted the debate into another sphere, that of the national jurisdiction of a state.
As far as we were concerned, the inclusion in the resolution of a reference specific to the principle of sovereignty of states would have entailed a risk of challenging the body of legislation in the system of the United Nations, and, in particular, of the World Conference of 1993, which said that the promotion and protection of human rights was a "legitimate concern" of the international community.
Moreover, accepting an amendment of this kind could have had a very negative impact on the work of the United Nations in the human rights field.
It was not therefore, as I have heard, in order to yield to some sort of pressure that we preferred to close the debate in this way, at least for the time being, but rather in order to maintain a position of principle.
You must not, therefore, see this decision as indicative of a lack of a foreign policy, or that we caved under pressure, but of the Union' s assessment of the risk, considering the proposed amendments, of finding ourselves, for the sake of the legitimate campaign we share, some way behind the positions we have gained earlier.
This is the explanation I wished to give you.
I shall now come to the second subject, Mr President, regarding the rights of the Serbs and other minorities in Kosovo.
I believe that the Commission and, with it, the entire European Union has made it clear, from the start, that we condemn any sort of ethnic violence, regardless of who is inflicting and who is suffering it.
Such violence is just as unacceptable today against the Serbian and Gypsy minorities as it was when it was inflicted upon the Kosovars several months before.
Thanks to programmes of assistance in democratisation and human rights, the Commission continues to provide support for measures intended to re-establish confidence and to promote dialogue between the different communities.
We were already active in this way, without much success, unfortunately, even before the conflict, and I share, from this point of view, the suggestions that some of you made that we must all meticulously take stock of the situation.
From now on, in the new circumstances, we are nonetheless trying pragmatically to continue to act according to these objectives, particular in selecting aid and assistance projects.
We support fully and absolutely the action undertaken by KFOR to maintain law and order in Kosovo and to protect all the citizens.
In addition, we support fully and absolutely the action undertaken by MINUK in order to set up an operational civil administration, capable of taking on the police functions which are currently handled by KFOR, and to create a peaceful multi-ethnic society, capable of taking on both the reconstruction of Kosovo and the restoration of its society.
MINUK approached the Commission with regard to the financing of the Kosovo protection force and the Member States shall take a decision, in the weeks to come, regarding the programme we suggested in response to this request.
We are also offering our support, in the form of twinning, to the actions agreed by MINUK at local administration level.
In this context, we are asking all people of goodwill in Kosovo and outside, to also work towards these objectives in order to help us to ensure that MINUK and KFOR achieve them themselves.
I may remind you, if you need reminding, that we are opposed to Kosovo being partitioned.
It must become a multi-ethnic society, without distinctions or discrimination for ethnic or other reasons.
And if I may switch to English for convenience without breaching the rules of this House, I will answer that the European Commission has been following very closely and with a great degree of concern Alexander Nikitin's trial.
Representatives of EU Member States attended the court session in St Petersburg in October 1998 and were present when the Supreme Court delivered its latest decision in February 1999 to send back the case to the lower court for further investigation.
In line with previous statements, the European Commission has made it clear that any further judicial proceedings regarding the contribution made by Mr Nikitin to the Bellona report should be in full conformity with internationally agreed principles and standards of justice and human rights.
I am aware that Mr Nikitin's lawyers have lodged an application to the European Court of Human Rights and I am certain the Council of Europe's institutions will pursue this application accordingly.
While respecting the judicial procedures of a sovereign country, the European Commission will remain vigilant to ensure that Mr Nikitin is granted an impartial and public trial based on the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Russian Constitution.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30.p.m.
Rwanda/Burundi
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0267/99 by Mrs Ries and Mr van den Bos, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
B5-0276/99 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
B5-0285/99 by Mr van den Berg, on behalf of the PSE (Social Democratic) Group;
B5-0293/99 by Mrs Maes and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group;
B5-0294/99 by Mrs Maes and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group;
B5-0300/99 by Mr Van Hecke and Mr Khanbhai, on behalf of the PPE (Christian Democrats)/DE Group;
B5-0301/99 by Mr Van Hecke and Mr Khanbhai, on behalf of the PPE (Christian Democrats)/DE Group;
on the situation in the Great Lakes region and in particular on Rwanda and the situation in Burundi.
Mr President, Commissioner, the recent release of Jean Bosco Barayagwiza by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has scandalised the government and population in Rwanda.
Their anger is perfectly legitimate: the defendant was released on a technicality despite the extremely serious charges against him, charges of genocide.
Going beyond this particular episode which the Rwandans see as traumatic, what is involved here is the culture of impunity.
It must be clearly established that all those who committed crimes as heinous as genocide or crimes against humanity, or who were accomplices to these, will be pursued tirelessly.
In order to do so, international institutions, and that includes ourselves, must provide the international courts with sufficient resources to accomplish its task.
Would the European Union be prepared, Mr Lamy, to play a role in this regard, in order to, in future, prevent this type of blunder which is catastrophic in the opinion of the populations who are waiting for truth and justice?
Finally, being particularly attentive, of course, to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, so that the duty to remember this conflict which already seems far off, some people think too far off, is maintained, it is the role of the European Union, I feel, to stand by the people of Rwanda on this occasion.
A people that has today been truly betrayed by the release of Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, who was, need one be reminded, the founder of hate radio, the notorious Radio-Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM).
The reaction of the Kigali authorities is understandable, but I invite them to resume their cooperation with the ICTR which is still, in spite of everything, the best instrument to establish justice and, hence, peace.
It is essential for the international justice system to regain control if it wishes to ensure its own credibility, but we must also give it the resources it needs to fulfil its ambitions.
This is the price of what we owe to the memory of the Rwandans.
Mr President, we visited Nassau in the capacity of MEPs together with some colleagues from the ACP countries and two days prior to our visit, Saskia von Meyenfeldt, a UNICEF worker and a number of civilians from south-east Burundi had been murdered.
We asked for an inquiry to take place following a general resolution; this was originally to be an independent inquiry. A Burundi representative, however, lodged objections and after that, we had to use the term "inquiry" .
Well, in this resolution, we mention an independent inquiry, and this enables us to make it clear that we would like not just the parties involved, so not just the Burundian government, to give their opinion but we would also like to see the actual facts surface.
We would appreciate it if the Commission could ensure that its EU ambassadors in the region could collate information on this matter and duly inform us.
My second point concerns the fact that the conflict in question is far more extensive. Since 1993, some 200,000 have been killed and 800,000 displaced.
Sometimes it is good to quote these figures, because in the light of what is happening on our doorstep in Kosovo, we sometimes forget that a conflict of such dimensions is still taking place in an area of Central Africa.
It remains an urgent requirement to promote a stability pact using all contacts we have through the European Commission' s links with the United Nations and to promote the political awareness and energy of those who work there, so as to arrive at a stability pact.
I hope we succeed in sending out a clear message from within Europe that human rights cannot and should not be split up, and that we do not only attach importance to them in relation to Kosovo, but also where this Central-African region is concerned.
I hope that both resolutions go some way towards achieving this.
Mr President, once again we are called upon to discuss the situation in Rwanda.
Yesterday we were deploring genocide and violations of human rights.
Today, indeed, we can only be outraged at the release of Jean Bosco Barayagwiza, supposedly for technical reasons, even though he was one of the most significant parties in the incitement to genocide.
His release, indeed, is quite symptomatic of the lack of will to make an evaluation of the genocide and, more especially, of the wish to hush up the involvement of European countries, particularly France, where a recent parliamentary inquiry revealed complicity that was, at the best, passive.
Let us also stress that the Rwandan situation, as worrying as it is, more particularly affects the stability of neighbouring countries, and the situation in the Congo is quite tragic from this point of view.
It is essential today for the European Parliament to assert clearly that, in order to ensure stability in this region, the conditions must be created for a peace which is based on justice and the prosecution of those responsible for ethnic violence.
This is why we are asking the ICTR to review its position regarding Mr Barayagwiza' s release, in consideration of the seriousness of the charges against him. Without some action of this sort, the populations of Rwanda are likely to feel they have been wronged and ethnic conflict is likely to start up again with renewed vigour.
We also ask the Rwandan government to resume its relations with the ICTR.
This is why it is essential to put an end to the conditions of impunity which are prevailing in these countries.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would like to subscribe to what the previous speakers have said and at the same time express my indignation at and disappointment with our own attitude.
We wait until a white person is murdered before we take renewed interest in a conflict in Burundi that has taken so many thousands of people into their graves.
I would also like to mention the camps which, in Dutch, we refer to as "hergroepingskampen" (regrouping camps).
This term stands for concentration camps, this is what they really are.
In these camps, they section people off based on their ethnic origin so as to facilitate covert genocide.
I would therefore urge that the European Union take the situation in Rwanda, Burundi and Congo a great deal more seriously.
This week, I heard the advisor of the Council, the High Representative for the common foreign and security policy, and I hope that we will be able, at some stage, to help create for others the stability that we want for ourselves.
Mr President, Commissioner and Colleagues, as someone who has worked in and known Rwanda since 1984, as someone born in Tanzania where I lived for many years, as someone speaking the main African language of the Great Lakes region, I speak on this subject with experience and knowledge.
Genocide in any country is evil and must be condemned without reservation.
Whoever is responsible for such genocide must be indicted, and justice must be seen to be done.
There cannot be any immunity for anyone from such prosecution.
The International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha must do its work efficiently, and we hope that those doing this work will take measures to bring this process to a just and speedy end.
Only four trials have been completed in five years, and this delay has allowed some perpetrators of genocide to go free on technicalities.
This is not acceptable.
We need to evaluate the work of the tribunal to identify the weaknesses so that we can furnish appropriate assistance to ensure high standards of justice without wasting time and resources.
The innocent victims of genocide and conflict cannot wait for ever to rebuild their lives in order to live in peace in their own villages and in their own homes.
This resolution, agreed by all political groups in this Parliament, expresses clearly our concerns, hopes and expectations.
It is now up to the government of Rwanda and those of neighbouring countries to take serious action to bring about genuine peace in the area.
They need to cooperate fully with the EU special envoy, the EU, the United Nations, the OAU and all humanitarian aid agencies in doing what is needed to support peace and stability in Rwanda and the Great Lakes region in general.
Mr President, Burundi, as has been stated earlier, is on the brink of another catastrophe. Rebel attacks, army cleansing, hundreds of thousands of refugees falling prey to starvation and disease and an economy which is ruined beyond repair.
Some even claim that the situation is comparable to that in Rwanda just before the genocide in 1994.
Despite this, Europe is adopting a back-seat approach again.
Because the Member States apparently cannot agree on how to tackle the crisis in the Great Lakes Region, we leave Burundi to African countries, some of which are involved in the crisis.
We link our aid to the Arusha peace process where Tanzania acts as mediator but at the same time condone the fact that rebels carry out attacks on Burundi from the same country.
We refuse to cooperate for fundamental reasons with a government that has managed nonetheless to acquire Parliament' s support.
The question is very much whether, in this way, we are not playing into the hands of the extremists, both amongst the rebels and within the army.
Do we want Hutu extremist movements to seize power in Burundi and commit renewed genocide on a minority? Or are we waiting for a new coup and Tutsi extremists from the army to start renewed cleansing?
If we do not want this, let us then give our full support to the peace process in Burundi. Let us bring the moderate parties round the table and isolate the extremists.
Let us give unconditional aid to the population and kick-start the economy.
Let us finally take Burundi' s problem seriously. In any case, we will never be able to say: we did not know.
Mr President, of the great number of problems affecting Rwanda and Burundi I should like on behalf of my Group to speak about the latest events, that is say, what took place on 6 November, i.e. a few days ago, when the Rwanda government announced that it would refuse further cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha.
We took some pride in the fact that this Tribunal was set up at all - with our assistance too - whether it was adequate is a more complicated matter - in order to clear up these inhuman crimes and to punish the respective perpetrators.
As an initial reaction, this attitude of the Rwandan government is even understandable, but the conclusion that it drew from it, i.e. now to refuse further cooperation with this Tribunal, is entirely the wrong one.
We cannot understand - and I express myself carefully here - that the presumed architect of the genocide, Barayagwiza, on the basis of procedural issues - and this is hard to swallow - was released and not brought before the court at all.
He was, after all, the political director in the foreign ministry of a regime that was responsible for the deaths of 800 000 people - we should really say for the slaughter of 800 000 people.
This person, who has now been released, was a leading official in the state radio at the very time when the radio was urging and inciting people on to racial hatred.
Our Group has a two-fold demand: on the one hand to the Rwanda government, to cancel its decision and on the other hand to the Tribunal to revise this decision.
In particular, it is not acceptable that the Tribunal refer to the fact that a further charge in the same case is inadmissible owing to the "not guilty" verdict.
For charges of this kind there can be no immunity.
Mr President, I shall take the statements that I must answer in order, first on the subject of Rwanda, then Burundi.
As far as Rwanda is concerned, the Commission shares the concerns which have been expressed regarding the effectiveness of the system of justice, if I may use this diplomatic term, to judge those responsible for genocide.
No national reconciliation is possible without proper court procedures, and that involves both the Rwandan national justice system and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
To answer Mrs Ries, regarding the Rwandan national system of justice, the Commission targeted its interventions at institutional support to the government departments in the area of reinforcement of defence rights and civil cases, in the area of improving living standards in prisons and in the area of support for the survivors of genocide, as well as in the area of respect for human rights.
Nonetheless, there are still 130,000 prisoners in prison, accused of crimes related to genocide, awaiting trial.
The Rwandan Government is looking for alternative formulae which do not leave room for impunity, and which go in the direction we would like.
It is working on defining a system of courts of arbitration along the lines of traditional practice, where the courts are made up of citizens elected to the various levels of local administration, and they would be established to judge three categories of defendant: firstly, ordinary murderers, secondly, those who assaulted but did not kill, and thirdly, finally, the looters, leaving the instigators and ideologists of the genocide and massacres to be judged effectively by ordinary courts, which must be organised in some way to be able to take on this task.
With the other backers, the Commission is currently assessing the opportunities and methods to contribute to the establishment of this system within the framework of our cooperation.
As far as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda is concerned, the Commission allocated finance from the very creation of this tribunal, totalling EUR 1.5 million to date.
The Commission is going to initiate an evaluation of human rights programmes in developing countries.
Particular attention will be paid to the countries or projects we have supported, such as the one I have just mentioned.
This evaluation will include support for the International Criminal Tribunal and its conclusions will enable us to identify any new support according to the methods we shall assess in the light of this investigation.
As far as Burundi is concerned, we, too, are extremely concerned at the situation of increasing violence in this country.
What are we doing in response to this? I know and I can see that it is always ridiculous to cite aid figures in the face of such calamities.
I nonetheless believe that these are the only real proof we can offer to show what we are doing to act on these concerns of yours.
The real criticism you might make, which would hit home, is that we are passive in this type of situation.
I believe we are not being passive in this particular instance.
I should like to give you some examples of this.
We have supported the peace process by financing the talks taking place in Arusha, with a contribution of EUR 2 million, which is far from being the largest contribution and which should, along with other external finance, be sufficient for the successful conclusion of these talks.
It is true that the passing of the facilitator, ex-President Nyerere, is one more obstacle to add to the complexity of the process itself.
We think that it is essential for the talks to continue while seeking a new facilitator at the same time.
The intensification of the confrontations, in recent months, has given rise to the displacement of some tens of thousands of people who have, in effect, as has been mentioned in this debate, been forcibly detained in camps by the government since last July.
We intervened immediately to provide humanitarian aid, with aid of more than EUR one million over three operations, and we are prepared to continue to intervene in order to meet the most urgent needs next year.
The total ECHO contribution to Burundi reached around EUR 10 million this year.
At a meeting in New York at the start of the year, the backers of Burundi decided to contribute towards improving the living conditions of the most vulnerable sectors of the population and to target their support at the rehousing of displaced persons.
In the context of these positions, the Commission approved a redevelopment programme of around EUR 50 million, which may be implemented according to the security conditions in the country.
We feel that the complete resumption of cooperation is linked to the results of the peace process, and to the establishment of a political and constitutional framework which will lead, finally, to democratisation.
This is the answer which I wished to give you, Mr President.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30. p.m.
Pakistan
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolution:
B5-0269/99 by Mr Van den Bos and Mrs Thors, on behalf of the ELDR Group;
B5-0277/99 by Mr Vinci and Mr Brie, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group;
B5-0278/99 by Mr Thomas Mann, on behalf of the PPE (Christian Democrats)/DE Group;
B5-0286/99 by Mr Schori, on behalf of the PSE (Social Democrats) Group;
B5-0296/99 by Mrs Lambert and Mrs Lucas, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group
on the declaration of a state of emergency in Pakistan.
This resolution sets out the concerns that must be shared by the world-wide community about the deterioration of stability in Pakistan and in its neighbouring territories.
We are certainly right to regret the military take-over but it would be sensible to recognise that the new military regime is so far extremely popular within Pakistan.
Pakistan clearly expects General Musharraf to succeed in stopping a long series of corrupt and illiberal factions.
The Sharif and Bhutto regimes have misruled their country for many years.
Certainly the military are tackling the financial fraud that exists on a massive scale with vigour.
This motion speaks wrongly of the need for democracy to be reinstalled or reinstated.
It should be a calling for progress towards democracy and proposing a practical programme for the European Union that will facilitate that progress.
Fighting corruption is an essential first step.
I trust that the Portuguese Presidency will use its renowned skills and experience to develop European Union appreciation of the problems that confront Pakistan and I would welcome Mr Lamy's opinion on the current status of the Cooperation Agreement.
Mr President, the military coup that took place in Pakistan in October immediately after the army Chief-of-Staff, General Musharraf was stood down is condemned in the strongest possible terms by the PPE/DE Group.
The constitution was declared to be invalid.
The national parliament and the provincial parliaments were temporarily suspended.
Even if the take-over of power by the military occurred without great protests from the population, there is no alternative to a properly functioning democracy brought about by free elections.
The attempt to prove that the former Prime Minister Mr Sharif had participated in a criminal conspiracy and had built up a system of nepotism, should not become a show trial.
Any legal proceedings must be fair and transparent to the general public.
On meeting the EU' s special envoy, Walter Sari, on 2 November, General Musharraf rejected a timetable for the establishment of democracy.
There is therefore no reason why the EU should be prepared to follow other states, which think that the stability programme that has been announced has a good chance of success. The first signs are quite hopeful: the assurance of a climate favourable to investment, tax relief, the thinning out of the bureaucracy and the ending of the personal enrichment of those in charge.
The national banks must stop the custom of awarding generous loans to officials.
The new, stricter anti-corruption legislation is a step in the right direction.
The loss of confidence and flight of capital can only be stopped if democracy is restored and human rights are guaranteed.
International investment has been suspended until the IMF accepts Pakistan as a full partner.
We therefore demand that the military government return to constitutional rule.
Politics must be taken over by a democratic legitimate civil government.
The suspension of both Commonwealth membership and the European Union Cooperation Agreement can only be reversed when all the conditions for the urgently needed economic, social and humanitarian reforms in Pakistan are met.
I too like many colleagues was interested in the response of many people of Pakistani origin and background to this coup - people who are themselves involved in democratic politics and concerned about good democratic practice.
They were not appalled.
So that reaction adds weight to our awareness of much that was wrong under the previous regime, for example the lack of protection for the rights of religious minorities and the increasing abuse of the blasphemy law which was introduced after the military take-over in 1958.
Under the previous regime we also saw a growing abuse of human rights, of people such as the Sindhi.
We look at what will be happening to political prisoners under this regime as a clear indicator of its intentions.
I am also concerned at reports that the military were motivated by the feeling that the Sharif government was not doing enough to protect and maintain the Federation of Pakistan.
I find that particularly worrying when I remember its developing nuclear capability.
We believe that the conduct of the trial of the former prime minister will also be a clear sign as to the military's good intentions to return to, or rather not to return but to introduce good democratic government to Pakistan.
Mr President, as regards Pakistan, as you know, the situation was discussed in the General Affairs Council on 15 November.
The Union, and I believe this is clear to everyone, is extremely concerned at this coup d' état and fervently hopes for the restoration of democracy in the near future.
The Council is waiting to see that the assurances given by the interim administration, as it is called, relating to respect for human rights and civil liberties, are respected unconditionally, and that all charges against the deposed Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, are heard according to proper legal form in a civilian court open to the public.
As regards the specific points you have raised in the resolutions relating to the Commission' s development aid programmes and projects in Pakistan, it must be stressed that these are directed almost exclusively at the poorest and most disadvantaged levels of the population.
Many of these projects are implemented by NGOs and are intended to improve the scope and quality of social sector services, particularly in the fields of primary education and health care.
The commitments for Community projects currently amount to some EUR 180 million in total and the Commission proposes to continue to implement these projects.
We feel that suspending aid to underprivileged groups would be an inappropriate sanction upon them.
We are perfectly aware of the deplorable situation of a great many children in Pakistan, especially girls, but we feel that the most effective means of improving this situation is to contribute towards ensuring good quality, accessible, universal primary education.
We are also participating in a project with the International Labour Organisation for the rehabilitation of children employed in dangerous work in Pakistan.
Work on the new projects to be financed under next year' s budget has currently been suspended, while waiting for developments in the evaluation of the new situation over there.
We acknowledge the need to assist the NGOs and civilian sector associations in order to strengthen the democratic institutions of the country, and you doubtless know that the capacity for absorption and the size of the many NGOs in this field in Pakistan are, unfortunately, limited.
In addition, we have established contact with several NGOs and associations, but we feel that care must be taken not to overload these organisations with funds and assistance, which may not subsequently be managed in the most efficient way possible.
In order to reply specifically to Mr Duff' s question, following the coup d' état, the Union cancelled the signing of the new cooperation agreement between the Community and Pakistan, and we suspended our political dialogue so as to send a message, loud and clear, to the new masters in Pakistan regarding our concerns about the coup d' état and its consequences.
I believe I have answered your question specifically, Mr Duff.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 5.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.20 p.m. and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
We shall now proceed to the vote on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Vote (continuation)
- (FR) At this time when we are about to vote on the resolution on the rights of the child, I wish to declare the importance which I attach to this legislation.
This vote has nothing to do with any others in which I have participated during this session.
It reminds me of my motive for taking up politics, which may be summed up as follows: to improve, as far as may be possible, the daily lot of human beings!
This may seem presumptuous, given the scope of the task, but it is my profound conviction.
And even though I know that this vote will not radically change the tragic situation of thousands of children here or elsewhere, it does testify to the political will of this Parliament to make progress!
Declaring that it is intolerable for children to be forced to go to work instead of to school, for children not to be able to eat their fill, for children to be sold as if they were marketable goods, for children to be the victims of adult physical or moral violence, already represents a great step forward, one which must of course be put into effect in our policies and our daily life!
Let us act like responsible men and women (politicians)!
The Convention whose anniversary we are celebrating today has made it possible to achieve considerable progress since it places the child at the centre of the debate!
Children are human beings; they are people with rights.
We must respect them, protect them, educate them and love them!
. The Convention on the Rights of the Child represents the most successful Convention in international law, with signatories in all countries of the world except Somalia and the USA.
The aims of the Convention account for the unprecedented international reaction: measures to be implemented in international law to protect the rights of the most innocent, most vulnerable of the world's citizens.
The draft resolution which we have voted today seeks to ensure that the elements enshrined within this convention are protected in other legal bases and frameworks.
In doing this, we are seeking to be a voice for the voiceless, and protect those who are unable to protect themselves.
Children must be protected by those who have their interests at heart.
We must emphasise, therefore, the role of the family in safeguarding children, especially parents.
The state, in its attempt to provide a legal basis for the protection and treatment of children must bow to the pre-eminent right which parents have in protecting, raising and safeguarding their children.
We must ensure that the family, to quote the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is 'afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community'.
Promoting the rights of children is a topic dear to the hearts of all of us here today.
It is at the same time a great privilege and a grave responsibility to work to create legislation and legal instruments for the protection of children.
Ensuring the protection of children must go hand in hand with measures which promote and protect the family.
A strong family unit is essential to ensuring the protection of children.
The preamble to the Convention states that the child, in order to realise 'the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment'.
Articles 5, 7, 9, 14, and others enshrine the responsibilities and rights of parents in relation to the raising of their children.
It is absolutely crucial that parental rights are enshrined and ensured in order to protect the full rights of children.
. I welcome the focus in the House today on the rights of children.
Children, as the most vulnerable and defenceless members of society need extra rights and extra protection.
It is a privilege for me to be part of a process that can begin to ensure that this protection is provided.
The family, as was recognised by the drafters of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, is fundamental in protecting and promoting the rights of the child.
It is in families that children learn the values of 'peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity' (preamble), as well as the skills necessary to implement these values in society throughout their lives.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises the responsibilities of parents in providing the proper care and attention to their children, as well as the child's right to receive this care, guidance, and love.
I am happy to support the motion on the floor today which will ensure that these rights are supported - the rights of parents to raise their children, and the rights of children to that protection and support.
Chechnya
Mr President, those of us who represent the Stateless nations of Europe passionately denounce the latest aggression which, at this turn of the century, is being committed by the Russian army in an abusive manner against the small country of Chechnya.
Russia is causing destruction, and the death of civilians - including old people, women and children - as well as an exodus which exceeds that of Kosovo.
All of this because a new Rasputin wants to gain popularity in Russia and take power as a new President, and to this end he thinks nothing of seriously endangering democracy, the Rule of Law and the economic reforms of the Russian Federation.
We cannot accept it and therefore we condemn it outright.
Mr President, this resolution on Chechnya is the most far-reaching there has ever been at international level and that is a credit to this House, for in the first war too, we contributed decisively to a peace agreement being signed.
However, I am disappointed that our amendment, which on the basis of the human rights clause in the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement of this agreement will be placed on ice in the context of this war, will not be adopted by the House.
I have the impression that we need much stricter measures than in the resolution we have so far shown to arrive at a cease-fire at all and to ensure that the bombing of the civilian population can finally cease and for it to be declared an internal problem.
I believe that today at the OSCE meeting - this subject is being discussed at the same time over in Istanbul -, it is necessary for there to be a real possibility that will lead to peace negotiations, for the problem in the Caucasus cannot be resolved in the way the Russians want and I therefore feel it is very important for us not to just stand still, but that in particular the Commission also takes up this appeal and threatens to take action such as freezing new TACIS agreements so that it actually affects them and is not just something here on paper.
It is a matter of great concern that I should like to make quite clear once again on behalf of my Group.
For us the resolution does not go far enough, but it is a first step - hopefully to a peaceful solution in the region.
- (FR) On the pretext of attacking fundamentalist terrorism, the leaders of Russia are conducting a despicable war in Chechnya.
The Russian army is chiefly making attacks on the civilian population, an increasing proportion of whom are being forced to flee to neighbouring regions, only to be packed together in inhuman conditions.
Once again it is the civilian population which is suffering from the consequences of the destruction of towns, villages and infrastructure of a country which is already very poor.
The war is also a criminal one as regards the Russian people itself.
Thousands of young men are forced to wage this dirty war which can have no positive outcome for either themselves or for their parents and elders.
At a time when the transition to a capitalist economy is having the effect of causing a fall in production levels and the considerable impoverishment of the majority of the population, considerable sums of money are being swallowed up by the war effort, not to mention the cost of the corruption associated with it.
We denounce the Russian leaders who are responsible for this war, but we also denounce the leaders of the Western world who make do with a mild reproach, while supporting Yeltsin and his clan, anxious as they are to protect them.
In bombing the towns and villages of Chechnya, the Russian army is doing what the Western armies did a few months ago in bombing Kosovo and Serbia.
Two wrongs do not make a right, but these crimes do shed light on the deep complicity of the governments, to the detriment of the peoples concerned.
This is the explanation for our abstention.
That concludes the vote.
EU action plan to combat drugs (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the report (A5-0063/1999) by Ms Giannakou-Koutsikou, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the communication from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament on a European Union Action Plan to Combat Drugs (2000-2004) (COM(1999)239).
Mr President, we would have liked the debate and the vote on this report not to have to take place today because - and I should like to say this right at the beginning - owing to the circumstances that led to the agenda being amended today and because of the fact that the voting time took so long because of the long Napolitano, Leinen, Dimitrakopoulos and Schwaiger reports, we will be voting on Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s report tomorrow morning.
Friday morning in Strasbourg is the day when there is the most pressure.
Tomorrow the plenary sitting will be bursting with Members crowding in to vote on the Giannakou report.
If there are fifty, that will be a lot.
I venture to make this comment because it is a glaring contradiction to the other assertion that Mrs Giannakou' s report is so important and it should therefore absolutely be discussed and voted on this week.
There is no logic behind that.
In fact, our colleague' s report is an important report and must be discussed very carefully, among other reasons because the debate on the report has once again shown that drugs policy in the European Union is one of the most controversial subjects that we have ever had to discuss.
I would first of all address a comment to the rapporteur.
I believe that Mrs Giannakou has taken a lot of trouble to give an opinion on the action plan in a form that was geared to a consensus and was determined in such a way as to integrate the different ways of looking at the situation that not only go right through the political "families" but are also characterised by national traditions, by different factors and by partially conflicting interests.
So our Group wishes to thank the rapporteur most warmly.
I will say on behalf of my absent colleague Jan Andersson, who as a Swedish Member of Parliament - I shall speak about that again in a minute - was in a very difficult position, because Sweden is one of the Member States that has a very special approach to drugs policy, owing to its national experience and national tradition and which despite this I believe, as you do, Mrs Giannakou, with the compromise amendments have ensured that this report is actually structured in such a way that it will receive broad approval.
128 amendments were submitted and you finally formulated 17 or 18 compromise amendments that should help to focus this profusion of amendments so that in the end a logical and conclusive report by the Parliament emerges on this action plan. The words "logical" and "conclusive" really mean that three essential aspects have to be taken into consideration.
Firstly, all of us, whether on the right or left of this House must be clear and I do believe that the approach to drug policy must start from one premise: drug addicts do not on principle need punishment and persecution but help and support. That is really self-evident.
Why do I have to mention that again here?
Because the way in which we help these people to reintegrate into society, the way in which we reduce their personal, individual suffering must derive from specific regional, local and national experiences.
So there cannot be an officially prescribed European drugs policy but there must be a European framework within which help can be provided to the people affected who are the focus here, on the basis of the specific experiences of the local and regional authorities.
The second aspect is that in our drugs policy we must bear in mind that in hardly any other branch of crime in Europe is more money earned than in the drug trade.
That means that we can talk about reducing the supply, which is a very important factor but it still means that those people who supply drugs on the market must be pursued regardless.
For this we need criminal law and the police.
But we also need a factor that I feel has not been touched on adequately in the debate. Those people who deal in drugs generally do so if it is on a large scale, intending to make a profit and to enrich themselves.
Everywhere we succeed in preventing illegal income from drug dealing from being converted into legal income, we have made great progress, that is to say, the battle against the drug trade and money laundering are phenomena that are linked.
Policy on combating drugs - I address this to the Commissioner for internal security - therefore means that by reducing the supply there will be the resulting prosecution of the drug dealer, particularly in the area of money laundering.
This is the third and final aspect, with which I will conclude. We all have different experiences.
In one country in the European Union there is a rather permissive approach, in another a rather restrictive one.
Overall if we consider the results of the Drug Monitoring Centre in Lisbon - almost everywhere there is an equally high drugs rate.
This means that whatever the approach we adopt at present we are equally successful or unsuccessful.
This means that we should set the parameters at a European scale and that implementation should be subsidiary and based on the respective national experiences.
Mr President, it has to be said, the European Parliament has been divided over the drugs policy for years.
By and large, there are three shades of opinion discernible in this House. Firstly, the followers of the Swedish model which, apart from treating drug addicts, emphasises the control of narcotics.
Secondly, there are the followers of the Dutch model, which tends more towards the treatment of drug addicts than control.
The Dutch model which allows drug shops, which in the Netherlands are given the unfortunate English term "coffee shops" , presupposes a division between soft drugs, namely marihuana, and hard drugs, such as heroin and ecstasy.
These two groups, the followers of the Swedish model and those of the Dutch model, do not want too much European cooperation in this field because they fear that their national policy might be affected.
Alongside these two groups, there is a third trend represented in this Parliament, namely those who do advocate more extensive and intensive European cooperation in the drugs policy, so that the various approaches which I have described above can grow towards each other.
This means that countries like France and Germany should do more to treat their drug addicts but that a country like the Netherlands, for example, should focus on controlling the drugs nuisance created by the "coffee shops" and on drugs tourism.
These three trends are also represented in the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party.
I am therefore pleased to say that most of my group colleagues can vote in favour of Mrs Giannakou' s report.
We find it an interesting report which fortunately disregards the issue of legalising narcotics and looks at the measures to be taken by the European Union.
On 6 November last, the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, advocated stronger European cooperation in the field of drug control.
He did this further to reports of Italian youngsters using ecstasy which largely originated from my country, the Netherlands.
Mr Prodi' s remarks caused a huge commotion in the Netherlands.
I personally agree with Mr Prodi.
If the European Union is intent on dealing with transnational crime forcefully, then this should also include the control of drug trafficking.
In fact, that is Europol' s first task.
Ecstasy is a hard drug which is lethal, as recent events in Italy have shown.
Those supporting the legalisation of soft drugs should also be open to European cooperation.
Indeed, a Member State could not legalise drugs on its own, this could only be done at European level.
Mr President, if there is one issue for which we should keep our heads cool and our wits about us then it must be the drugs policy.
The present report drafted by Mrs Giannakou is not exactly a shining example of this clarity.
The debate is not being conducted in a very level-headed way.
There is too much bellicose rhetoric and frankly, too much hullabaloo.
We have noticed that slowly but surely this House has made some prudent steps in the right direction when it comes to dealing with this complex issue.
This is certainly evident if we compare the present debate and text with those of a couple of years ago.
At that time, hellfire and damnation were not punishment enough for Members who dared mention the words harm reduction or a therapeutic approach.
To most people in this House, it was completely inconceivable that, apart from a repressive approach to the drugs policy, other, more effective strategies could also be developed.
The Giannakou report represents a clear improvement on a number of points.
It recognises the importance of urban and regional policy experiments, refers to harm reduction and is prepared to evaluate different pluralistic therapeutic approaches.
Not very revolutionary and only a small step forward.
But it gives cause for hope that bad practices can be compared on the basis of accurate data and that a humane and effective drugs policy will become a likelihood in an integrated European Union.
The way in which these positive elements are formulated, however, leaves too much scope for opposing interpretations.
Positive developments evident from the text cannot compete with the repressive mood which is still prevailing.
Think, for example, of the enforced rehabilitation of drug addicts in prisons.
This leads to inhumane situations and is not very effective if not taken on board out of one' s own free will.
The objective of the aid policy should not be restricted to achieving total abstinence in the long run.
One can live with drugs, as is the case - to many people' s delight - with alcohol and tobacco and as is the case with Prozac and Valium.
Does the rapporteur' s ferocious war declaration apply here too? After all, research has shown that a good joint is less harmful and addictive than some socially accepted drugs.
Possibilities other than rehabilitation are still not mentioned in this report, although it is established practice in more and more Member States to supply drugs in a controlled manner, sometimes with very promising results.
The rapporteur is of the opinion that a fatalistic outlook encourages drug abuse.
This is a fallacy intended to sharpen the senseless war against drug abuse. It exacerbates marginalisation and crime and will lead to more crime.
It is a repressive instrument which, unlike the addict, profits from this approach.
Mr President, when I was 18 years old, there were no problems with drugs.
We had of course heard that there were such things as drugs, but they were substances we were unfamiliar with and had never encountered. It was said however that some people got their doctors to supply them with substances they would otherwise not have had access to.
Nor did we have open borders.
We had no traffic from Third World countries, and nor did we have very much money so, even if the supply of drugs had been there, we would not, I am sure, have been able to buy them. The main point, however, was that we did not see any need for them.
Today, the world looks rather different.
It is open, and the Schengen Agreement has opened the borders between our countries to such a degree that we do not have much opportunity to exercise supervision.
The fact which has to be faced is that the criminal forces which are involved in the manufacture and trading of drugs have a network, resources and powers which have far overtaken the constitutional states' ability to stop the drugs traffic.
That is why there is a need for a Community policy for, in the situation in which the European Union finds itself, we must necessarily work together to combat cross-border crime.
The report we have before us is quite excellent in what it says on a number of matters, and it points out with some clarity that, if we do not step up the war against the drug barons and financiers and their money laundering, then the constitutional states, our populations and our youth will lose out in this war.
But the report also contains forms of words which were voted through by the Committee and which must look perfectly harmless, especially to those unfamiliar with these matters. They are concepts like harm reduction.
And who would not want to reduce harm; who would not want to help people overtaken by a form of suffering as serious as drug dependency. Naturally, we all of us want to, and what we immediately think about in this connection is treatment, which is to say efforts involving a variety of social and medical provisions.
But that is not what in fact lies behind the concept.
Harm reduction means something quite different in the mouths of those who do not want to see a strict drugs policy pursued.
May I say that I am completely at a loss to understand that philosophy, for drug abuse is not nowadays an isolated problem, affecting only the socially needy.
I am well aware that it affects people who feel isolated or who are in social need, but these in fact constitute only a few of the people who today are victims of drug abuse.
What our problem today is, is that young people, who may have good home lives, at the same time feel that their lives are so empty that they need an extra lift or trip on Saturday at the discotheque and to have their mood raised with the help of a drug they are lured into believing is harmless.
In this connection, I cannot refrain from saying that I think that the speech which Mrs Buitenweg made here a moment ago is dangerous.
I think it is dangerous for young people because it tempts them into believing - and I quote her - that "one can live with drugs, as is the case with alcohol and tobacco" .
I am well aware that you can become dependent upon tobacco.
It also takes a relatively large number of years before you get lung cancer from it.
I am well aware that you can become dependent upon alcohol, and I also know that there are people who lose their lives through alcohol abuse. However, there is a crucial difference in the case of tobacco and alcohol because, in the vast majority of cases, it is possible for people to control their use of these substances to a different degree than young people who have got mixed up in drug abuse are able to control their use of drugs.
I therefore want to say that it is important that, in the work that is being done within the EU, we give a very central place to having an information campaign for young people, who may today all too easily be enticed by friends of their own age and by others to try substances which are presented to them as being harmless and as things no worse to take than an extra glass of beer or an extra little whisky.
It is in fact something different we are talking about here, and it has not become dangerous because it is forbidden; rather, it is forbidden because it is dangerous.
So let us get away from this nonsense about decriminalisation and this tendency to trivialise the whole problem area by closing our eyes to the criminals who exploit our young people and destroy their health.
My group is a keen participant in the work which has been taking place in the Committee, and I should like to thank Mrs Giannakou for the sterling work she has done in this connection.
We do not consider that, with the report we have before us and with what it contains, the definitive and best outcome has been obtained, and we very much hope that the Commissioner will be able to find still more effective and more powerful methods of combating this alarming misuse of drugs.
Mr President, the report of the rapporteur, Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, describing the Commission' s plan of action regarding drug control is a powerful document in which the European Parliament strongly opposes drugs.
The European Commission does the same in its plan of action.
It has opted for a two-pronged approach: to control and prevent the demand for drugs and call for a hard-line approach regarding the supply of drugs.
Over the past couple of months, the drugs issue has been in the limelight rather a great deal.
The Tampere Summit underlined once more that the problem in Europe should be approached in a comprehensive manner.
The President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, indicated last week that an "internal market for the trade in drugs" has come about in the Union.
He claimed that this clearly calls for coordination of policy, even legislative harmonisation within those countries which, on account of their diverging policy, are playing into the hands of the trade.
Given the many irritated Dutch reactions, this remark really hit home.
Unfortunately, however, Mr Prodi denied that he was talking about the Netherlands.
Alas, my country does not only have the dubious honour of being known as a transit country for drugs, it is now also building itself a reputation for producing synthetic drugs. Several young people have since died of the effects of these synthetic drugs.
This is really scandalous!
I would urge Mr Prodi to call a spade a spade; the Netherlands is one of those countries that play into the hands of the trade on account of its diverging policy.
I can certainly see the benefits of the Dutch policy.
For example, the care for addicts is excellent.
On the demand side, many sound initiatives have been developed.
But this serves little purpose if we continue to be blinkered regarding the supply side.
It is about time that the Netherlands draws up a balance sheet; at international and European level, the Dutch policy does not fit in and creates problems.
So time then for a change of course.
It so happens that cooperation at European level is aimed at constructive confrontation.
For this purpose, the plan of action is offering some useful instruments.
Let us undertake this challenge as a matter of priority!
Mr President, as the rapporteur pointed out, the European Commission affirms that neither the regulatory instruments nor the programmes for the Action Plan on the fight against drugs 1995-1999 have been sufficiently assessed.
It is therefore impossible to determine to what extent the objectives laid down have been met.
Given that we are talking about the fight against drugs, the Commission' s Communication is not included on the agenda of the Court of Auditors or even OLAF, but on Parliament' s agenda.
Therefore, illogically, you are preparing to reconfirm the previous plan' s strategies for the next five years.
You will all agree - right as well as left - because when we discuss drugs you restrict yourselves to having simple differences of opinion, and no group is brave enough to put forward alternative strategies.
Indeed, when drugs are under discussion, the vast majority of you renounce your role as a government Member who, when faced with a problem, takes a lead on the issue and tries to resolve it, and, if the solution does not provide positive results or is counterproductive, as in this case, adopts a different policy.
You do not want to examine the possibility of changing the prohibitionist policy on drugs, because, when it comes to political choices, you impose moral convictions and beliefs which are a matter for each individual' s conscience.
In short, on this subject, you prevent true, scientific, secular debate by choosing an ethical approach which proves to be frustrating, ineffective and disastrous: disastrous because you try to justify things with the lack of financial resources.
But how much would it cost to eliminate drug trafficking, a trade that the United Nations says accounts for 8% of world trade? You refuse to carry out a cost-efficiency assessment because you would have to admit that with your policy you have handed over control of the production and trade in certain substances to a criminal monopoly.
None of this surprises me: during this century crazy and incomprehensible things such as Nazism, Fascism and Communism have managed to gain power.
Prohibition of drugs still remains: ethical, inhuman and anti-scientific madness.
Mr President, the European Parliament is now establishing a policy, that is to say a drugs policy, which has emerged in fits and starts over a period of many years. It is a firm drugs policy.
Thanks are due to all who have contributed to formulating it including, naturally enough on this particular day, the rapporteur Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, but also Sir Jack Stewart-Clark who has worked with these questions in previous years.
May I perhaps emphasise that it is rather striking that I in particular, as a Swede, am very impressed indeed by this Parliament' s ability to produce what I consider to be a firm drugs policy. In fact, we Swedes have a fairly definite view of these questions.
I think we can now count upon seeing good results in the field of drugs policy.
I am particularly pleased that it is the Group of the European People' s Party' s drugs programme which in fact forms the basis of the present compromise.
There are features which will mean that we embark upon a common road towards fewer drugs and with the goal of leading both society and individuals away from drugs and towards the long-term goal of a society without drugs.
Once these measures which are now being proposed have taken effect, I believe that there will emerge in the Member States a greater sympathetic understanding of the differences between their respective policies. It is therefore important that it should be precisely that policy which is the best policy which should stand as an example.
I should therefore like to urge the Commission to ensure in particular that the new Member States also have the opportunity to be present when the project is devised. In my own country, many people, it is true, feel rather discriminated against in this area.
If we are bad at carrying out projects, we should like to improve.
We should, however, also like to be present when assessments of on-going projects are carried out so that we might see which road the European Union will continue to go down.
It is also important that we should comply with the laws of the different countries.
We cannot, in this European Union, step into some kind of grey area of a community governed by law and not comply with our legislation.
If we do not want to comply with our legislation, we must change our legislation and not pursue some kind of policy which does not follow the rules of a State governed by law.
I should like to thank you for the efforts which have been made and urge us all to be very much more committed in the future. We are not there yet by any means.
Rather, there is a very great deal of work which remains to be done. Unfortunately, many of the amendments on the table here in this Chamber place obstacles in the way, so I hope that many of them will be rejected.
Mr President, given the fact that there are so few of us left and given the concerns for tomorrow morning' s vote, we should perhaps think about the significance of Fridays and their future.
Unlike my colleagues from the Netherlands, Mr Wiebenga and Mr Blokland, I am proud of the Dutch policy. A hard-line approach on hard drugs, including XTC, is, at the same time, an effective way of lifting victims from the criminal circuit via a health-care approach and is also a policy which, fortunately, is attracting more and more followers elsewhere in Europe.
What is the logic behind it? The rationale?
One may well wonder following this discussion. What we have before us is the product of a long and emotionally-laden process and we have not finished by a long way because we are about to vote on this, that is tomorrow morning at 9.00 a.m.
What is the issue? The Commission has made an announcement regarding a European Union plan of action concerning drug control for the years 2000 to 2004.
Compared with a previous plan of action, this document is clearly a step forward.
We are now on track for a kind of mainstreaming of the drugs policy with the emphasis on prevention, but hardly any guiding choices are being made.
Instead of making choices, we have mainly looked at the fantasy image of what avenues would be open to us once the war against drugs is over.
Until such time, until we have won this war and our society is free from drugs, we are conducting an uncompromising battle against not only the drugs Mafia but also the poor coca farmers in Latin America and also the poppy planters in Asia.
The militarisation of these societies, together with the fact that these poor people are not being given any effective help, means there are no truly sustainable prospects for the future.
Is it not about time we drew up a cost-benefit analysis of what we are doing, which is in fact at the insistence of the US war on drugs?
Are drugs really at least as important as human rights, as suggested by the rapporteur, and why do we not learn from an effective approach as adopted in the Netherlands, for example? Luckily, further to the Commission' s communication, we are making some room for users and some more room for potential users, young people, by pointing out the harmful effects.
All in all this still has very little bearing on reality.
After all, the Commission has repeatedly highlighted that the plan of action in this respect is merely a supplement.
Perhaps it is so that the call made to the Presidency for an inter-pillar council could be seen as signalling a new opportunity, because this document still feels like a missed opportunity to me.
Mr President, rapporteur, this drug programme primarily concerns people who are drug addicts and their families.
They desperately need help.
I therefore feel that it is very important to undertake an honest analysis of the results of the programme and to draw the necessary conclusions.
The aims of this drug control programme are first and foremost to reduce the supply and demand.
Neither of these aims has been achieved.
Irrespective of the age group, country and drug concerned, drug taking is increasing or stagnating despite the harsh penalties and much greater number of prosecutions at national and increasingly at European level.
The same applies to the reduction in the supply of drugs.
For a long time only 10% of the drug trade has been caught by the police.
These shattering results are hushed up.
Instead, the drug programme before us just contains a copy of the previous programme with cosmetic changes.
Fortunately the Commission is undertaking an evaluation.
However, an external assessment would clearly be better on this sensitive subject.
In any case, the appropriate action will have to be taken.
Despite the lack of success of the programme, a large part of the financial resources in the context of the drug programme goes into combating drugs.
For anything that is aimed at minimising the damage, there is a very small amount left over.
The question remains, however, why this programme is not clearly aiming to achieve the hidden goals.
We cannot escape the conclusion that the very fact of this programme' s existence is all that matters, and that in fact it serves different aims to those that have been stated.
What does this mean? The drug programme is used to increase the legitimacy of the EU.
Drug programmes therefore have a purely instrumental character.
And because that is at the expense of the addicts, we urgently need to think again.
There is no ideal solution in drug policy, we all agree on that.
But action must be taken.
The urgent aim must be to minimise the damage and that must be firmly established in the drug programme.
What that means in practice I shall show in four demands with which I shall now conclude.
Firstly, supply should be reduced to the minimum.
Secondly, methadone programmes should be expanded in the EU and the tried and tested controlled practice of the handing in of heroin should be introduced.
Thirdly, drugs users should be able to test drugs for their content and mixture.
Only in this way can further damage be prevented; we therefore need EU-wide drug checking.
Fourthly, city cooperation should be promoted, taken from the idea of the European Cities Drug Policy as a prime example of a project that recognises - legal and illegal - drugs as belonging to society and lends support to people dealing responsibly with these drugs.
We urgently need such a drug programme.
Mr President, without alcohol, tobacco and drugs, we would live a healthier life and cause each other less nuisance.
But a world without unhealthy stimulants is an unattainable utopia.
Two groups of people are attracted to these: adults who, because of the free market, are at the mercy of social insecurity and tension and young people who want to explore all that is risky and forbidden.
Strict centralised European rules banning the use of drugs and regulating prosecution do not solve this problem.
Small-scale projects for the support of addicts, including training, housing, employment and income and also the provision of information regarding the effects of drug abuse are much more important.
I am somewhat alarmed at President Prodi' s recent announcement that small-scale, customised solutions will be prohibited in future.
In the Netherlands, the use of soft drugs has been permitted for the past twenty years.
This safeguards the users against sliding into crime and hard-drug addiction and offers the best chance of returning to a life without drugs.
This important public-health measure has since been adopted in many towns and regions in other European states.
It would be bad management to ban this policy, which can be held up as an example, in the name of European unification.
As far as I am concerned, Mr Prodi' s statement is actually an important reason why I would reject this proposal out of hand, despite all the balanced views contained in it.
Mr President, Commissioner, I must confess that I am no fundamentalist where this matter is concerned and I respect those who hold different opinions.
I particularly respect the opinion that has just been expressed by Mr Watson, whom I hold in great esteem.
But I do not believe that in the name of efficiency, we can lay aside principles, and I shall start with such just such a matter of principle: we believe that drugs are an evil that must be fought.
They are a vice that weakens the will, which ensnares the individual in a dependency which enslaves and depersonalises him or her, which destroys social bonds and relationships, which creates delinquency and makes society less safe, and which sustains world-wide criminal networks that defy States' power and law.
We think that it is obvious that we have to wage an uncompromising war against drugs.
This message is clearly made in Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s report and deserves our applause.
Indeed, this is a problem of this day and age and is extremely worrying.
We know that drugs affect all countries and all social classes, and we also know that Europe' s enlargement towards the East dramatically shows the urgent need for efficient measures now that monitoring, which is already difficult, is going to become even more difficult.
We know that this is a growing problem.
According to the report by the European Monitoring Centre, cannabis is still the most widely consumed drug throughout the European Union, although it is heroin that causes the most problems in terms of requests for treatment, drug-related deaths, HIV infection and social exclusion.
The same report, furthermore, shows an increase in the consumption in Europe of new synthetic drugs such as ecstasy, as well as an increase in the consumption of more traditional drugs such as LSD and amphetamines.
And all of this becomes more frightening if we consider that, at the moment, drug-related crime and the scale of drug trafficking represent around 8% of world trade.
We agree that this problem must be tackled from three angles: by reducing demand, by controlling drug trafficking and by combating drug addiction.
We agree that public awareness campaigns must be implemented and, at the same time, that we must strengthen prevention networks.
In the area of treatment, we must give support to high-quality programmes aimed at the whole community, using educational methods, including those targeting the prison population, together with initiatives designed to promote the reduction of risk, one example of which is the needle exchange programme.
With regard to reducing the availability of drugs, we must continue and increase our support to producing countries, so that they include in their priorities the reduction of demand and programmes for destroying crops, the destruction of laboratories and the prevention of trafficking.
For this reason, the political will required by this report must become reality.
If we limit ourselves to fine words, the conclusion will have to be that there has not been the political will.
This can be measured by the efficiency of the actions and the public resources placed in the service of this fight.
The report highlights the fact, and rightly so, that the budgetary resources are inadequate.
This Parliament does not have the right to ask the Member States for greater commitment and greater investment in the fight against drugs if it does not lead by example on an issue for which it has responsibility.
The main European instrument in this struggle is the European Monitoring Centre in Lisbon.
We expect a great deal from its work, in terms of a better understanding of the phenomenon, in terms of the existence of data and comparable information, and, above all, in terms of monitoring, identifying and proposals to ban dangerous substances placed on the market.
This is why we proposed amendments to this report. They were, in essence, accepted and seek to strengthen the role of the Monitoring Centre and to provide it with the necessary financial means for its work.
The other thing that our citizens are asking from us here is clarity.
Giving fine speeches is not enough.
We must take decisions and release resources which correspond to the commitment that we claim to have in this vital fight against organised crime for the sake of human dignity.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Commission communication on the Union' s action plan to combat drugs is an important and positive communication.
This plan covers all aspects of the problem and opens new prospects for a more mainstream, efficient approach.
However, and this goes without saying, more resources are needed.
I would like to congratulate Mrs Giannakou on her highly substantive report, especially the emphasis on international collaboration and the introduction of a systematic, yearly inter-pillar Council meeting to improve the monitoring and evaluation of action intended mainly to reduce the supply of drugs.
In the light of the international agreement concluded by the Special Session of the United Nations Organisation in June 1998 for a balanced approach to the problem which aims to reduce both supply and demand, I would like to highlight the potential offered by Article 152 of the Treaty.
This article allows the Union to complement national policies with action directed towards improving public health, preventing illness and reducing drugs-related damage to health.
The European Union action plan for the period from 2000 to 2004 must therefore include, over and above what is mentioned in the report, practices and programmes directed towards breaking the habit and restricting damage to the health of drug users.
Similarly, we need to focus our attention on and give priority funding to programmes to evaluate practices aimed at prevention, treatment and reintegration and in connection with the consequences to society and public health, so that Member States and applicant countries can use the conclusions as a guide when deciding their national policy.
Finally, I would like to point out that the European monitoring centre in Lisbon is carrying out important work and I trust that the information and data collected by it will prove how efficient European and international collaboration has been in this difficult fight.
Mr President, I am speaking in place of my colleague, Mr Hernández Mollar and, on his behalf, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou on the excellent work which she has done.
It is clear that the drug problem, not only on a European level but also on a world level, requires the special attention of politicians, institutions and the whole of civil society.
On 26 October, in this Parliament, the President of Colombia, a country which unfortunately has strong links with the drug problem, told us: "Drug trafficking has been the great creator of violence and has led to assassinations of the highest possible human cost to our country" .
And we are not talking here about an issue which only affects the Member States nor the European Union, but an issue which directly affects human beings in any country of the world.
Our first concern in this Parliament should be to point out that the responsibility is collective, that it requires collaboration, cooperation and coordination between the judicial and penal authorities and between the different continents, whether they be the European Union, Latin America, South East Asia or African countries.
The second concern is that the European Union must play a greater role in the field of reducing the demand for drugs.
To this end, the European Parliament, in this resolution, has highlighted and strengthened the role which the European Observatory on Drugs and Drug Addiction must play by giving it greater means and resources to fulfil its objective efficiently.
I would like particularly to stress the importance of the fight against traffickers who use and exploit illegal immigrants, especially on the Southern border of Europe, in Andalucia, Ceuta and Melilla, which have become a channel for drug trafficking.
I would like to dedicate the third consideration to the group which is most affected by this social scourge; our young people.
A recent survey carried out in my country indicated that the second greatest social problem in the eyes of our young people was, after unemployment, the drug problem.
As the resolution says, drugs give rise to family problems, work problems and road accidents.
If we add to this the considerable increase which has been observed in the consumption of alcohol by young people, which in many cases goes hand in hand with drug-taking, especially synthetic drugs, we can see the need to adopt urgent measures which will reverse this trend.
Action in the field of education and families, economic cooperation with associations and NGOs, especially in the field of leisure and sport, will complement the actions which must banish this "pressure valve" from the lives of our young people which sometimes means that they are destroyed by something which starts out as a means of escape.
But we cannot solve these problems by talk alone.
Resources are required.
Both the Member States and the European Union itself must prioritise, in their budgets, the economic means which will allow the implementation of the measures proposed, including prevention, suppression and rehabilitation.
And unfortunately this is still not the case.
Mr President, congratulations to my colleague on her report.
In my part of Europe 3 million people are on illegal drugs, that includes 28% of 16-29 year-olds and 14% of 14-15 year-olds.
12,000 new, notified addict cases come each year; we have 70,000 drug offenders a year and we lose 1,200 people through drug-related deaths per year.
This is a battle which we may not be winning now, but which we must not lose.
We need a multi-pronged policy, we need to act together to stop the growers and the traders and the pushers, but we also need policies on education and health and we need to encourage research.
If we simply cut the supply and not the demand, then we will end up with a higher price for the drugs on the street and with more crime being committed to pay for people's habits.
Many of the amendments to this report before us are therefore right.
We need to educate young people.
We need role models from music and fashion and film to get the message across to young people: not just by saying "no", that does not work, but by telling them the truth.
The truth is that drugs can bring pleasure but also the truth is that they can damage health.
Damage in the form of cancer and heart disease, in memory and concentration loss, testicular problems and so on, and young people need to understand that, too.
Drug-taking is wrong, but we need to help those who are willing to accept help.
I shall never forget, as a minister responsible for fighting drugs, going and meeting a young man who had lost his health and his friends and his relationships, his family, his jobs, his prospects and his self-respect.
He was being helped to help himself come out of that deep black hole of addiction.
I stupidly asked him "Do you feel you are beating it yet?" and he said to me "I have a lifetime struggle ahead of me - if I ever think that I have beaten it, then I am lost".
He deserves our support.
He needs the research to make sure that we have effective treatments and we need to give him that help and that confidence.
But how much better if we could destroy this evil by persuading future generations of young people that it is simply not for them; it is simply not worth taking the risk.
Mr President, in my intervention I will attempt to summarise the opinions of my Italian colleagues, Mr Costa and Mr Nisticò, too, who were previously down to speak, but are unable to be here due to the postponement of this debate.
As the Italian delegation, too, we wish to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou, on her excellent work.
As many Members have reminded us, we are dealing with the difficulty of finding a balance, which, nevertheless, has been achieved. The difficulty stems from the different experiences and policies of the Member States.
At the same time, we must also initiate different types of relations between the Union as a whole and the activities of the individual states, and between the principle of subsidiarity and the need - which has also, rightly, been expressed - for the Union to equip itself with a common policy on this phenomenon which is a real concern for our present, but also for our future.
From the point of view of values, I am convinced of this and I totally agree with the ideas expressed by Mr Coelho, and therefore I will not repeat them.
Frankly, I am uneasy listening to some positions that send this message to young people: get used to living with ecstasy, get used to living with valium, i.e. get used to a life full of drugs.
I refuse to accept that politics should give way upon this issue.
I said that the report is excellent, not just because it rightly puts the two elements of the matter back into the spotlight - a combined action to reduce demand and to reduce supply - but also, may I say, because of the frankness with which Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou criticises what is still insufficient in the Commission proposal, both from a financial and economic point of view - we cannot state the importance of a battle and then not follow through in financial terms - and from the point of view, shall we say, of the political half-heartedness regarding the initiatives that the States still have not made.
Therefore, this excellent idea to convene an "inter-pillar" Council is one we should support.
In conclusion, I would just like to emphasise two points that, in our experience as Italians, are particularly important and significant: firstly, the importance of supporting basic scientific research as well so that we gain a greater understanding of the phenomenon, and, if possible, receive early warning of what the alleged drugs of the future will be, especially finding out the devastating effects of synthetic drugs; secondly, the importance of involving in these actions those principally concerned, those who are in the front line every day, who help drug addicts, that is, the experiences of treatment centres.
I think that these should be supported and encouraged.
Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou willingly accepted this request from the Italian delegation.
I think that, in future, when we address this subject again, it will be useful to come back to the point of who is managing and helping drug addicts today.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Counterfeit travel documents
The next item is the report (A5-0050/1999) by Mr Newton Dunn on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs on the initiative of the Federal Republic of Germany with a view to adopting a Council Decision on the improved exchange of information to combat counterfeit travel documents (8457/1999 - C5-0011/1999 - 1999/0804(SNS)).
Mr President, Commissioner, I should first like to congratulate the rapporteur. In his request to speak he referred to an important field, that is the institutional field and everything concerned with it.
What I should like to do is to refer to the opportunities that this system offers us.
The paper deals with combating the counterfeiting of travel documents. It is a system for registration and comparison and thus an instrument that also helps to combat illegal entry and illegal immigration or the committing of criminal acts under a false identity.
That means that in order to be able to combat this phenomenon, which is partly a phenomenon of organised crime, we need new and very effective instruments.
One instrument is the system discussed here to combat the counterfeiting of travel documents.
After all, it should also help us to combat the crime of smuggling, which is on the increase.
If the figures are correct, then we have in the meantime learned that almost the same criminal earnings are obtained from smuggling as from drug crime and with considerably less risk than with drug-related crime.
I have been given access to figures that show that of the 400,000 to 500,000 illegal immigrants who come to the European Union every year, at least 200,000 are brought into the European Union by smugglers. These counterfeit documents are very often used in smuggling cases.
In other areas too, where there is asylum abuse, there is counterfeiting of documents that are passed on from one person to another.
Unfortunately this has become part of a system.
In this regard, the system that Mr Newton Dunn described should be welcomed and supported.
I should, however, like to mention one point with which we are not happy.
That is the fact that in parallel we have developed the FADO system that allows us to compare original documents and counterfeit documents pictorially.
In reality, we therefore have two systems that should be amalgamated in one system.
Because rather than coming across counterfeit documents it is of course better if we have previously compared original and counterfeit documents via the FADO system.
That means that the aim should not be to run two parallel systems side by side, but to unite both of them in one system in the interests of efficiency.
Overall this action to combat counterfeit documents by comparing information that is not person-related is to be welcomed.
But we should try to be more efficient so that two systems do not run in parallel but are associated with each other so that something is achieved: so that with the Schengen information system and the EURODAC information system together we can contribute to a safer Europe.
Mr President, allow me to welcome the initiative by Germany to improve the exchange of information on counterfeit documents. This exchange of information is of great importance for the protection and security of people in Europe.
Europe needs a legal area in which its citizens feel at home and protected.
An essential contribution to this is the cross-border regulations and protection systems that make life difficult for criminals.
The German initiative endeavours to achieve such a system.
By exchanging information on counterfeit documents the counterfeiting itself is contained. That is an essential contribution to combating smuggling and other crimes and - I think this is very important - all other kinds of crime.
So it is quite sensibly in the proposal for a Council Decision.
The rapporteur wants to amend paragraph 3 of the preamble and limit the crimes to the offence of illegal immigration. He implies that illegal immigration is the greatest crime that we have to combat.
My dear colleague, where do you actually live?
Have you never heard anything about drug dealers and the couriers of the money launderers with suitcases full of bank notes? Do I really have to make you a list of travellers' crimes?
Amendment 6 is a disgrace!
It mocks our citizens who expect protection and security from the European Union.
We must vote by a large majority against this amendment. We cannot allow ourselves the intellectual freedom to be afraid of a few poor creatures who sneak in with forged documents and at the same time guarantee serious criminals the freedom to travel.
The Legal Committee that has dealt with this matter was also unanimous and, I repeat, unanimous, in this opinion with all the other Groups after an in-depth examination and, as I said just now, I want this measure to apply to all crime.
That is the reason why my Group will vote against all these amendments in the vote tomorrow morning.
Mr President, I too would like to support the substance of the German Council initiative to improve on the exchange of information on counterfeit travel documents and to strengthen the security of the European Union's borders both for Member States such as my own, the United Kingdom, which are outside of Schengen as well as those that are at the EU perimeter.
Recently my country, the United Kingdom, has been subject to an enormous rise in the inward flow of peoples and in my previous job as a Central London hospital doctor I witnessed a significant degree of illegal immigration and fraudulent abuse of our generous asylum policy.
We in the UK are currently witnessing something of the order of 7,000 new applicants for asylum every month and over 80% of these eventually turn out after investigation to be bogus.
This represents some 100,000 people per year including their dependants coming into my country.
I personally have come across a Nigerian asylum seeker being granted asylum on the strength of a false Liberian passport, an Albanian family who passed themselves off as Kosovans, another Nigerian who had loaned his British passport to his cousin who was able to enter the United Kingdom under the identity of his cousin and then commit a crime, and an Algerian who was living under the identity of a French citizen and who had bought his ID card on the Parisian black market.
These are just some of the many abuses of which I have personal experience and we know that for the immigration authorities these examples are a daily occurrence.
How can we expect our own immigration and police authorities to be able to crack down on the systematic abuse of our system? We have a duty to remember that this constant flow of illegal immigration is posing an enormous burden, in particular in inner cities, on our national health service, social services and social security system as well as putting huge pressure on our limited housing stock.
Unfortunately, there is evidence that large numbers of asylum-seekers have been waved through Continental Europe with a suggestion that they head towards our Channel ports in the knowledge that we have a permissive policy with instant rights to housing and social security benefits.
Although the British Conservative Party is formally opposed in principle to commissioning under Article 63 of the Treaty of Amsterdam to the first pillar of policies on visas, immigration and asylum - and I therefore have to disagree with our rapporteur on this issue - nevertheless we welcome intergovernmental cooperation under the third pillar through Council joint action on the exchange of such information, including that relating to forged travel documents in order to crack-down on crime, particularly international crime which respects no national boundaries.
There is evidence that organised crime has spotted a soft and lucrative target in the illegal traffic of human beings who are often prepared to spend their life savings to gain entry to wealthy western countries in the hope of making a new life for themselves.
This initiative is, therefore, in my view, a step in the right direction with the use of modern computer image digitalising technology to aid law enforcement agencies and interior ministries to cooperate throughout the Union.
It is a good example in my view of the sort of European Union venture that my party in the United Kingdom can support so long as it is done on a flexible, intergovernmental basis.
Mr President, the comments by the previous speaker, Mr Tannock, should show Mr Newton Dunn why Mrs Gebhardt rejects his amendment.
The German government has taken an initiative to restrict and gain better control of the counterfeiting of travel documents - and that is in the context of the freedom of movement in the European Union.
Mr Newton Dunn has now, on the pretext that the Parliament could not have such a strong influence under the third pillar as with his legal base, chosen the approach to amend the legal base and in doing so he has limited the target group taken into consideration to those who are affected under the first pillar within the meaning of the security policy of the European Union.
That then led to a Member such as Mr Tannock giving an inflammatory speech about immigration!
That goes together very well if you have the philosophy of a British Tory, which amounts to an anti-European view!
However, this only marginally concerns Germany' s initiative to strengthen the security structures in Europe.
But it does provide pretexts for the politicians who in the meantime colour every debate on security in Europe with the subject of illegal immigration.
I should just like to say something here to our colleague from London: having heard your speech, I must ask you a question in return. Is Europe now really an immigration continent or not?
If you answer in the affirmative with your lively description that Europe is an immigration continent should we not finally take action and create legal structures on immigration? You would be the first to say 'no' , I am quite sure of that!
We are not a continent of immigration and we don' t need any immigration rules!
But what does the whole debate show us? Mr Newton Dunn has perhaps chosen a sensible approach from the viewpoint of the European Parliament in order to increase our influence.
We have already seen the political effects that that has.
Remaining under the third pillar does integrate more groups of people, as Mrs Gebhardt has just said, that is to say, all criminals who forge travel documents.
But we have not integrated the Parliament as strongly as with the Newton Dunn legal base.
Overall, that shows that neither the third pillar nor the marginal transfer of responsibilities to another pillar are sufficient to create efficient security structures in Europe.
Commissioner, you must together with us make that clear to the Council.
You did so in Tampere, you did it before, and you must do it again.
The debate here shows that not all of our efforts bear fruit, because the government cooperation is not sufficient to convert the needs resulting from the internal market structure and the associated speed of integration into new legislation on security structures in Europe and it does not operate in accordance with Amsterdam.
We must draw the necessary conclusions from this, otherwise it will not work in practice.
Because we are arguing here about the legal bases, we are conducting some stupid debates about illegal immigration - that is something for the Tory Party conference, but ineffective for Europe - and we are completely neglecting what we should do, that is, create effective legislation to restrict the counterfeiting of documents, both by those who illegally provide access to Europe and those who, as Mrs Gebhardt rightly said, travel thorough Europe with a suitcase full of heroin but with counterfeit documents too.
Mr Newton Dunn, because we are of the view that in weighing up your proposal, that is a very worthy one, and the intention that the German Council Presidency had in its time, we must decide in favour of the greater target area, we shall reject your amendment, not only because of the legal base, but as a consequence of all the others, which does not alter the fact that you have undertaken a careful piece of work.
You have indeed done that, but on this subject we differ greatly in our political views!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
Losses under loans for projects outside the Community
The next item is the report (A5-0051/1999) by Mrs Rühle on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the Proposal for a Council Decision granting a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects outside the Community (Central and Eastern Europe and Western Balkans, Mediterranean countries, Latin America and Asia and the Republic of South Africa) (COM(1999)142 - C5-0039/1999 - 1999/0080(CNS).
I wish to thank you all for waiting so long as we have been relatively busy today and for a long time we did not know when the report would come up.
However, today and tomorrow I should like to be able to vote on the procedures of guarantees by the Community for the European Investment Bank, the EIB for short, because if possible, we want to decide before the Council and because we also want to make certain changes, which I shall refer to in detail.
The provision of these guarantees concerns the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, Latin America, Asia and South Africa.
It relates to the period up to the year 2003 under my proposal, to be precise until 31 January 2003, then there will be a review half way through and we shall then deal with it again or extend it until 31 January 2007.
It involves a sum of EUR 9 475 million and the provision of guarantees amounting to a maximum of 60%.
There are few inconsistencies in this regard. The inconsistencies are to be found in other areas.
The main problem area with which my report deals, which became clearer as I worked on the report, is that the European Investment Bank, as far as modern business management, transparency and public work are concerned, is trailing rather far behind.
Some of the people I have spoken to have explained that the European Investment Bank is trailing some twenty years behind the World Bank as far as modern business management is concerned.
I therefore believe it is important that we deal with this subject more intensively.
The European Investment Bank is the largest public bank in Europe, its general owners are the Member States and it works primarily with low-interest loans.
Owing to the fact that its shareholders do not expect high interest rates and the thus possible low gearing rate, that is the ratio of the lending volume to equity capital, of 2.5 - market rates are usually over 10 - the Bank enjoys considerable confidence on the capital markets.
This high level of confidence on the capital markets enables it to take up loans under favourable conditions and to on-lend at accordingly favourable rates.
Furthermore, the Bank enjoys tax exemption and not least, guarantees from the EU budget for political risks too.
Despite this direct and indirect assistance to the Bank from the European Union, the EIB is keen to appear to the public as a quite ordinary bank and in the past that was how it justified its relative inaccessibility for cooperation and monitoring to the public compared to other public institutions like the World Bank.
In our view, that should and must now change as a matter of urgency.
My report therefore also deals first and foremost with the subjects of accountability and transparency, that is, modern business practice.
Over the last few years there has been a lot of criticism of the internal administration and business management of the EIB.
Nevertheless, for a long time the Bank refused to allow the Court of Auditors or OLAF to inspect its books, invoking its special nature as a bank.
The particular "constipation" of the EIB in matters of public monitoring and transparency even led the ECOFIN Council on 8 August 1999 to state the following, and I quote: "In view of the important financial task assigned to the European Investment Bank by the Treaty and a series of Community regulations, it must take an exemplary attitude to fraud control and allow OLAF, where necessary, to undertake inspections.
The Council does not doubt that the governing body of the Bank will shortly submit a proposal to their board of governors for a decision in accordance with the inter-institutional agreement."
We are now seeing the first signs that the Bank will open its books.
However, in my view they are not yet adequate and there is still mistrust. This mistrust is increased further by its dealings to date with Mr Blak, the rapporteur of the Committee on Budgetary Control, who has been waiting for a long time to answers to his questions.
I should like once again to thank the Committee on Budgetary Control for its preparatory work in this regard, which has allowed me in the short time available to draw up this report, and I should especially like to thank Mr Blak and Mrs Theato.
In the future we shall also have to watch the development of the EIB with regard to more transparency and for all sceptics, it is also a matter of economic efficiency.
A business that cuts itself off will be taking its decisions on a very narrow basis.
Dialogue with society in general, as the World Bank, among others, has been practising in the meantime, also provides information for investment decisions.
Here, also, the Bank has been criticised in the past, both regarding its investments in the health sector in my own country, that particularly consolidate antiquated structures and in the transport and environment sectors in Eastern Europe.
It cannot and may not suffice in the future for the Bank to restrict itself to the isolated inspection of individual projects - such as, for example a section of motorway -, it must also inspect the projects in context - for example within a transport development plan in a particular country, in order to be able to identify duplication and to develop an acceptable and financially sustainable alternative.
For this reason the Bank should undertake a public relations offensive in the regions that have received assistance.
The European Parliament should therefore in the next few years direct its attention to the development of the EIB.
The bases are set out in my report and I hope that they will be adopted tomorrow.
Thank you very much!
I have overrun a little, but I wanted you to understand what this report is all about because the report is all Greek to most people!
I note, Mrs Rühle, that it is very difficult to stop you.
You have overrun your allotted speaking time by 25%.
That' s a huge amount!
Mr President, Mrs Rühle has produced an excellent report on this subject.
I am the newly appointed rapporteur on the EIB, the European Central Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
I agree with the amendments proposed by Mrs Rühle as they express clearly real concerns about the EIB's transparency, efficacy, accountability and conformity with the Community's objectives and policies.
I will address briefly each of these concerns.
Firstly, there is widespread concern about the EIB's transparency.
My predecessor from the Socialist Group, Mr Freddy Blak, Mrs Rühle, the author of the report, many Members of Parliament and the Court of Auditors have all expressed their opinion about the lack of transparency in the operations of the EIB.
Even the World Bank and the East European NGO called Bankwatch have publicly stated this view.
Secondly, let me turn to efficacy.
Mrs Rühle states the need to evaluate the effectiveness of EIB operations.
I, as the new rapporteur for the Bank, requested Sir Brian Unwin, the President of the EIB, for an initial meeting to set out a framework to assess the efficiency of the Bank.
I am sorry to report to this House that Sir Brian has not even bothered to ring me or arrange to meet despite numerous telephone reminders.
Such disregard for this new European Parliament will erode, yet again, public respect and confidence in the European Union.
Thirdly, what about public accountability? In May 1999, my predecessor, Mr Blak, Vice-President of CoCobu, asked 26 specific questions about alleged fraud, mismanagement, corruption and cover-up - I mean cover-up - in the Bank's activities, including in treasury operations, over the period 1993-1998.
The questions are specific, detailed and relevant.
They require a written response from the Bank.
I have asked Sir Brian for such a response but, once again, he has chosen to ignore my request.
I have been told by Mr Martí, one of his vice-presidents, that the EIB is owned by the Member States and, as such, according to the Treaty, it is not an EU institution obliged to respond to the European Parliament, the Court of Auditors or OLAF.
Only matters relating to loans to non-EU countries where the Community gives loan guarantees can be discussed with Members of Parliament.
I ask this House, what are the Member States?
Are they not the governments of the people who live, work and pay taxes in the countries that we call Member States? Are we not, as the only elected representatives of the people of these Member States, expected to safeguard the interests of the people who live in the Member States?
Does the Treaty specifically forbid the European Parliament from having access to information?
Certainly not. Therefore, if the EIB is confident that it functions well and has nothing to hide, why is Sir Brian Unwin, its president, denying access to Parliament, the Court of Auditors and OLAF?
Clearly, the Treaty needs to be amended to specify such access in bold print.
I suggest that those involved in the IGC take note.
Clearly there is support for this as Ecofin, in its meeting on 8 October in Tampere, reinforced its previous criticisms of the EIB's management and performance by directing it to open its doors to OLAF and the Court of Auditors.
I have seen the decision taken by the EIB concerning this directive and according to paragraphs 5 and 6 of the decision taken by the Bank it will not open its doors to OLAF.
It is about time this House told the Bank to open its doors to OLAF and the Court of Auditors.
Mr President, the succession of earthquakes that have wrought destruction on north-eastern Turkey have led us to consider it crucial to increase the sums allocated to that country, and therefore, we voted, on the first reading, in favour of a revision of the financial perspectives which include emergency support for Turkey on a par with the priority that we gave to the reconstruction of East Timor.
In addition to this budgetary boost, it is also essential to strengthen support for Turkey by means of credit on favourable terms, and we therefore support the rate of risk cover by the Community budget.
At the same time, it was with a certain amount of pleasure that we received the news, recently, that the European Investment Bank has finally accepted the scrutiny of its management by Community institutions.
In any event, we think that it is essential for the forthcoming revision of the Treaty to establish the European Investment Bank as an institution under the full control of the Community, under the supervision of the Court of Auditors and the European Parliament, so that it does not merely answer to a general assembly of Member States, as it seeks to do at the moment.
As soon as all the Bank' s activity is supported by a considerable Community budget effort, which guarantees the risks linked to banking activity, the scrutiny of its accounts must be developed with the utmost rigour and care.
When both Parliament and public opinion were surprised at information published in the press, according to which an institution that we thought was involved entirely in structural investments had lost very considerable sums in short-term speculative operations, it became clear that there was a need to scrutinise the EIB' s investment policy thoroughly.
The multiplying effect of a banking guarantee means that investments resulting from EIB credits are of crucial importance in the context of policies subsidised by the Community budget.
It would not, therefore, be reasonable, through this guarantee, to support different policies from those decided on by the European Union.
This is not a question of interfering in commercial lending policy, a matter which is the sole competence of the EIB' s management, but merely of guaranteeing respect for democratic decisions and for stringent, transparent rules.
The EIB is the trustee of a valuable Community inheritance, both from the point of view of the actions that it has helped to implement and from the point of view of the amounts of money that it has accumulated.
We are sure that the EIB will continue to play this role in the future.
Mr President, this report by Mrs Rühle is excellent, as it underlines the principles which the European Parliament has held as important when we have tried to improve our administration.
The reports by Mrs Rühle and Mr Seppänen both concern the same issue: guarantees against loans granted to the European Investment Bank.
In itself, the European Investment Bank is an excellent instrument for financing specific projects.
As the EIB has a high degree of creditworthiness, it can acquire cheap capital from the markets and target it at those areas the EU considers necessary.
In this way the direct need for financial aid diminishes.
There is a budget guarantee for those loans for which the EIB is responsible on behalf of the EU, which amounts to 70%.
Now the matter being raised is the reduction of this figure.
The Commission is proposing 60%, but the Council has decided on a provisional rate of 65%.
For that reason, Parliament must first determine its position on what the correct rate should be.
In determining the percentage figure our starting point is that the EU should bear the principal political risk relating to the financing of projects.
This means that if the political situation in a country in which a project is to be carried out continues as predicted, there is only a financial risk attached to lending.
That is normally the responsibility of the party granting the loan.
In fact, the EU guarantee has also borne part of the financial risk, as these two different factors cannot be clearly distinguished from one another.
The percentage rate obviously has a bearing on how many loans can be guaranteed by a sum that is contained in the financial perspectives and which is at present EUR 200 million.
In practice, changing the rate may not have an effect except as a means of regulating the overall amount of loans, as the guarantees do not often have to be paid.
Mr President, with these remarks I would like to express my support for the reports by Mrs Rühle and Mr Seppänen.
Mr President, the European Investment Bank' s activities are becoming ever more important, especially now that Eastern and Western Europe are to draw closer to each other.
Bringing new countries from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean area into the EU, like developing cooperation with other neighbouring countries, is not just a question of reaching good agreements.
It is at least as much a question of in actual fact developing these countries' societies and economies so that they can manage the new environment they are to be integrated into.
It is therefore a serious matter that it is now so unclear how much confidence can be placed in the Bank.
The content and consequences of the EIB' s programmes must be developed in such a way that loans vigorously support the European Union' s political objectives.
The rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets particularly point out that the Bank' s projects must support important objectives, including the European Parliament' s decisions concerning, for example, the fight against poverty, the defence of democracy and human rights and the protection of the environment.
Clearly, the European Union must continue to back the EIB and guarantee its loans, especially against political risks.
We take a favourable view of the desire that now exists to carry out assessments in such a way that differentiation takes place on the basis of how risks and financing opportunities appear in different parts of the world.
It is also important, however, not only to make improvements to the programmes themselves. Instead, there must also be improved public scrutiny of the Bank' s activities.
For example, it is important that the Bank should work with clear, assessable objectives so that we might in actual fact ensure that the resources are used efficiently.
This is also important in order for us to be able to learn from the results of the Bank' s activities and use our analyses to develop activities in the future.
Many of my colleagues have spoken of the importance of openness.
I shall just touch briefly upon this issue.
All EU institutions, like the EIB, must now subject themselves to more stringent monitoring and supervision. That is why we are now demanding increased openness.
It ought to be obvious that both OLAF and the Court of Auditors should have access to all documents which are required for the purposes of good supervision.
That is the significance of the important amendment No 5, and something which I understand that the Bank has now in fact begun to consider agreeing to.
Mr President, I would like to make two comments, one concerning the main objective of the subject of today' s debate, the guarantee by Union budgets of the external loans of the EIB, and another on the issues which I know concern this Parliament especially, those of transparency and the efficient use of the Bank' s resources.
First point: In the ECOFIN of 8 November, a political agreement was reached on the Commission' s proposal of 23 April.
It is true that the Member States still have some reservations.
With the favourable opinion of the European Parliament we hope to approve this Council decision in the next meeting of the Council on the 29th of this month.
The issue is especially relevant, given its urgency, insofar as we do not have a lot of time to implement the new procedure, since the current system ends at the end of January and we need to reach a bilateral agreement between the Bank and the Commission.
Therefore I would like to thank you for the work on the budget, especially Mrs Rühle, for her invaluable cooperation on this specific issue of the forecast of the issues.
Having said this, I would also like to tell her that, with regard to the report, many issues have been accepted, while others we have not been able to accept for either technical or economic reasons.
Our positions are perfectly well known and I do not know if it is worth repeating them.
I would simply insist perhaps on the last proposal, which refers to amendment 11.
As we have already told you, we think that it is much better, on the subject of the definition of policies, to speak of a solution by means of a Commission declaration to the Council rather than a modification of the decision.
However the problem which has been of most concern in today' s debate is that of transparency and the efficient use of Community resources.
It is clearly not a new issue and many of you have worked on it for many years, and I would like to be a little less negative than some of you.
Less negative in the sense that the framework of EIB relations with OLAF and the Court of Auditors is beginning to become clearer.
It is true - and some of you have said so - that, with regard to relations with the Court of Auditors, there is a problem of primary legislation which will clearly have to be amended, if the European Investment Bank is receive the same treatment as the Community institutions.
I insist once again that this issue is well-known, but no less important for being so: the Member States are the Bank' s shareholders and the Member States must take some decisions which, logically, do not correspond to other Community institutions.
We are not talking about a greater or lesser degree of representation but rather simply a distribution of competences which at the time were defined in a particular way.
Secondly: Having said that, in what respect do I believe we have moved forward? I believe that we have moved forward greatly in the sense that the European Investment Bank has accepted that OLAF has all the information and means necessary to analyse the loans subsidised with Community funds, which must undoubtedly be our main concern.
It is true that we are still debating what will happen to the Bank' s activities in the cases where it uses own resources.
And when we talk of own resources we are in fact talking about two different realities: loans with own resources and guarantees from the Union or loans without guarantees from the Union.
I would like this principle of openness which has developed in relations with the Bank to move forward and that finally we may arrive at a result which is satisfactory to the Parliament and the European Investment Bank, without forgetting, as I said before, that the EIB is a financial institution which can provide information with no restriction on any kind of issue.
It can provide information, with some restriction, to OLAF and, of course, with regard to the Court of Justice, the final position will have to be that which is decided in accordance with the amendment of the Treaties.
In any case, the debate has been enormously interesting and I hope that what I have heard today will not be an obstacle, however, so that we can move forward with the approval of the distribution of resources, the distribution of loans, as from next year and that Community procedures are not delayed.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Solbes Mira.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
EIB loans to Turkey
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0054/99) by Mr Seppänen on behalf of the Committee on Budgets on the Proposal for a Council Decision granting a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects for the reconstruction of the earthquake-stricken areas of Turkey (COM(1999) 498 - C5-0247/1999 - 1999/0212(CNS)).
Mr President, in August Turkey experienced an earthquake which caused much destruction and suffering.
In fact, we could describe it as a seismic storm, which is still affecting Turkey.
It has been a time of insecurity there since August.
The European Parliament has debated the issue of Turkey a good deal.
At the Helsinki summit in December, Turkey will apparently become a candidate for membership, and it is expected to meet the EU membership criteria laid down at Copenhagen.
We have often criticised Turkey here.
We all know the problem regarding democracy in Turkey, which is the Kurdish problem.
There are millions of people in the country who do not enjoy full political rights, and one of their leaders is awaiting execution in prison.
There are other problems too, such as Cyprus.
While discussing this report we have to set aside all the political problems.
It is a question of humanitarian assistance to Turkey to repair the destruction caused by a mighty natural disaster.
We should only be talking about how Turkey can be helped, and help is urgently needed.
That is why the European Parliament must decide on the issue tomorrow.
The Commission is proposing, at the request of the Council, that a decision be made to grant a loan to Turkey of EUR 600 million out of EIB funds, in accordance with the bank' s normal lending criteria.
The bank has looked into Turkey' s ability to accept the loan and use the money to repair the damage caused by the earthquake.
Turkey has the facilities for doing so.
They are prepared to spend the money specifically on repairing the damage caused by the earthquake.
The European Parliament is being asked to draft a report on the matter fast, as the EIB is ready to lend EUR 180 million this year already.
For the purpose of the loan we have to activate the sum of EUR 16.4 million from the common guarantee reserves and transfer it into the guarantee fund for external action.
The Committee on Budgets, for its part, has prepared the ground for a swift transfer of funds from the guarantee reserves to the guarantee fund headings in the budget according to normal procedure.
In this connection there is a problem with regard to the competence of the various EU bodies, which has nothing to do with earthquake aid for Turkey.
We are all unanimous on the need for humanitarian assistance, and we consider the Council' s decision to designate for that purpose EUR 600 million out of EIB funds to be the right one.
The emerging problem concerns the narrow framework imposed by the interinstitutional agreement on guarantees from the guarantee fund.
The annual maximum amount the guarantee fund can cover is EUR 200 million.
At present, the general figure of 70% is granted to the EIB; in the Council they have already agreed to lowering it to 65%, and Parliament, in connection with Mrs Rühle' s report, may approve its further reduction to 60%, as proposed by the Commission.
For these reasons, I have recommended three amendments to the Commission' s proposal, the first of which concerns the general ceiling for the guarantee fund, and the two others the reconciliation of the guarantee percentage rate with Mrs Rühle' s report.
Over the years to come, we will have a problem if the especially large credit being granted to Turkey that we are discussing accounts for so large a proportion of the guarantee fund that it eats into the fund for loans granted for other comparable unexpected emergencies.
As a result, we should reach an agreement with the Commission so that it would propose raising the guarantee fund ceiling in case there are new, unexpected aid requirements in respect of humanitarian disasters such as the one now being discussed.
I have communicated this by way of a report to the Commission, and I hope they will give their replies today to the questions contained in it.
The Commission is being asked to explain how the guarantee fund is generally used, and give a more detailed prognosis of the future use of marginals in reserves.
Depending on their replies, the Committee and Parliament may deem it necessary to propose an amendment, in which the Commission will be reminded that it may revise the excessiveness threshold in the financial perspectives.
This amendment may be adopted should the Commission's reply prove unsatisfactory.
In my opinion, it is now time for the Commission to respond to the views expressed in the report.
Thank you, Mr Seppänen, for your presentation and your report.
I would like to make a few comments about your report.
Firstly - and here I would like to address Mr Korakas' concerns - we are talking of humanitarian aid, of a process which is different to any other Union aid programme, whether a financial protocol or any other type.
This humanitarian aid was initially granted as a result of the earthquakes which took place in August, but the Commission would also like to extend its scope to the most recent earthquakes which have happened in Turkey.
We believe that the quantity will not be altered significantly, but we do think that it would be difficult to differentiate between the damage caused by one earthquake or another in a programme of this type.
Having made these initial comments, I would like to deal with the two problems mentioned in the report.
The first problem is the risk of exceeding the type or total amount of the loans from the reserves and the loan guarantees.
According to our information, this is not the case.
We have carried out a thorough and detailed analysis, and, according to the information available, on the basis of the maximum use envisaged there is still a surplus in 1999 of Euro 33 million, of 8.7 in 2000, of 7 million -approximately- in 2001 and, although it is clear that in 2002 the situation will be completely different, there will also be surpluses in 2003.
This leads us to believe that there is little sense therefore in modifying the system of reserves at the moment, because this difficulty would only arise in the event that we use the maximum forecast.
Clearly you may ask me what would happen in the event that new situations such as this one may arise and we have to take further action.
For this reason the Commission always has the margin to confront this possibility of an increase in the reserve Fund, although we feel that it is not necessary to do so at the moment.
With regard to the possibility of the 60 or 65%, we could agree with your idea of accepting 60 rather than 65%, which seems to us to be a coherent idea.
This would require a modification of the regulations which are currently applicable, which in turn would lead to a delay in the decision-making process on humanitarian aid, one of the principal characteristics of which is urgency, so that we may quickly relieve the existing problems in Turkey.
Therefore I would hope that my explanations are satisfactory, that Parliament may reconsider its requests, that the acceptance of this decision may be dealt with as a matter of the greatest urgency with the guarantee that, if there are financial problems in the future, the Commission would bear in mind the need to go further with regard to the reserve Fund.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Solbes Mira
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 9.00 a.m.
I should like to thank all of you who have waited so long!
(The sitting was closed at 7.55 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, with reference to the Minutes for the sitting of Thursday 18 November, item 11 "Treaty reforms and the next IGC" .
Amendment No 19 is listed with the amendments adopted under item 11. It consists of an addition to paragraph 19 of the draft resolution.
Well, this addition has not been included in the version of the text adopted as printed in the "Texts adopted" section of the Minutes distributed this morning.
I should, therefore, like to ask you to amend the "Texts adopted" , in accordance with the votes which were taken in yesterday' s sitting.
We shall check the text in all the language versions and, if there is a mistake, it will of course be corrected.
It is not a mistake to do with the languages, since the addition is missing in all the language versions.
It will therefore be corrected, Mr Poos.
Yes, Mr Posselt, I take note of your comment, and I congratulate the brave people who are here this morning.
Mr President, on a point of order, or a point of concern almost, a number of Members on this side of the House have noticed that you may have lost your jacket and on a snowy day can we offer you one of ours just in case you get cold.
I shall check the Rules of Procedure to see if the colour and size of jacket are stipulated and I guarantee that I shall adhere to these conditions in future.
On the subject of yesterday' s Minutes, Mr President.
Yesterday, before the vote on the Dimitrakopoulos-Leinen report, I made a protest because the amendments that I had submitted in French were not identical to the French version which was officially published.
It was not, therefore, a translation problem.
My amendments had actually been reworked by an anonymous reviser.
Well, I read in the Minutes that the President explained to Mr Berthu that two of his amendments had not been very well worded.
It sounds as if I worded my amendments badly.
Well I disagree, my amendments were very well worded, and some anonymous reviser has taken it upon himself to amend the text.
I must protest. It is a matter of principle.
The officials of the European Parliament have no call to be altering amendments submitted by a Member of Parliament.
I take good note of your comment, and the correction you wish will be made.
Are there any other comments?
(The Minutes were approved)
Vote
Mr President, this is an additional amendment which, in our opinion, specifies the role and the help that therapeutical communities can give more clearly.
I will read the Italian text out for the Members: "believes that rehabilitating drug addicts constitutes, in the same way as other areas, a fundamental aspect of the fight against drugs, in that action is targeted at demand; to this end, it supports and encourages the important social contribution as regards rehabilitating drug addicts on the part of the therapeutical communities, whose means should be increased" .
Are there any objections to this oral amendment being included?
(Parliament gave its assent to including the oral amendment)
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0050/1999) by Mr Newton Dunn, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, on the Initiative of the Federal Republic of Germany with a view to the adoption of a Council Decision on the improved exchange of information to combat counterfeit travel documents (8457/1999 - C5-0011/1999 - 1999/0804(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0051/1999) by Mrs Rühle, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision granting a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects outside the Community (Central and Eastern Europe and Western Balkans, Mediterranean countries, Latin America and Asia, and the Republic of South Africa) (COM(1999) 142 - C5-0039/1999 - 1999/0080(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0054/1999) by Mr Seppänen, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the proposal for a Council Decision granting a Community guarantee to the European Investment Bank against losses under loans for projects for the reconstruction of the earthquake-stricken areas of Turkey (COM(1999) 498 - C5-0247/1999 - 1999/0212(CNS))
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in the spring we approved a ceiling for transfers of relevant funds to the guarantee fund.
Later, in the summer, something unexpected happened: the earthquake in Turkey.
We quite rightly decided to grant humanitarian assistance to Turkey via the European Investment Bank.
But that will cause a technical problem with the budget, because now, as a result of this unexpected event, we are approaching the ceiling that has been imposed for such transfers to the guarantee fund.
If anything else should occur unexpectedly, we will either have to exceed the ceiling or make cuts in other areas of financial aid.
We have brought this problem to the attention of the Commission and received a very vague reply from them to the questions we asked, but, despite that, we cannot jeopardise the implementation of this financial aid.
It will be jeopardised if we now adopt the proposed amendments.
For this reason, although the Commission has not given us a completely satisfactory reply regarding the technical aspects of the budget, I wish to withdraw these amendments, and at the same time I would say to the Commission that there is a problem here, which we have drawn attention to, and we hope that in the future the Commission will take account of it and propose the ceiling be exceeded in the event of unexpected situations in which funding is required.
Does the Commission wish to make a comment?
Mr President, I shall pass on Mr Seppänen' s comments to my colleagues, and I assure you we will discuss the matter.
The amendments are therefore withdrawn, at the request of the rapporteur.
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Giannakou-Koutsikou Report
Mr President, in my opinion it is vital to make the prevention of drug dependence a main priority in the EU' s internal and external action.
That must also be clearly evident from Union acts.
The rules will, however, be useless unless they are actually effective.
Therefore it is essential to focus both on cooperation between developing and industrialised countries and on networking among the countries of the EU.
There is no lack of excellent plans and programmes within the EU.
Examples we could mention are the drug prevention group in Finland that operates under the supervision of the National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health, and the Pompidou Group, a European Council cooperation group on drugs that was established in the 1970s on an initiative by the French President and that is planning several projects to reduce the supply and demand of drugs.
Now we also need a strong and clearly expressed political will to render the exchange and comparison of information as efficient as possible.
We will not achieve results merely through acts and plans, but it is through practical action that we can maximise the welfare of our people.
Mr President, following the adoption of the amendment tabled by Mr Lisi from the Group of the European People' s Party, who was elected from the Forza Italia lists, I have greater satisfaction in giving my explanation of vote, having voted for this measure.
Therapeutical communities are certainly extremely important.
As for my reasons for signing this as the pensioners' representative, I have to say that, unfortunately, we rarely find pensioners who are drug-addicts, because young people die prematurely from this terrible scourge.
I would like to emphasise that this measure is very positive, but we must be the first to set young people an example, because only examples that lead them back to the family unit and to the sound principles of yesteryear will overcome the scourge of this century.
- (DE) Mr President, I, along with many of my colleagues, have approved Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou' s report.
It should be emphasised here this morning, though, that controversial discussions on this report have been held in this House for months.
In committee alone, there have been 130 amendments to this report.
Weeks of compromise discussions were needed and such a report is then voted on here on a Friday morning with a relatively modest number of people present.
As I listened to the debates here yesterday, in particular the comments of Mr Poettering, as to how dramatic and important it all now was and saying that a vote definitely had to be taken here this week, that is not now borne out by the presence of his own group here this morning.
I therefore regret that a procedure as important as this should enjoy such limited attention.
What is even more splendid is when the authors of this matter become embroiled in intensive talks afterwards.
In any case, we have given our approval so that Mrs Giannakou-Koutsikou can then see the report home with an extensive majority.
I have voted against the Giannakou-Koutsikou report.
It is a very lengthy document which represents all shades of opinion and contains a multitude of considerations and objectives.
It gives enormous scope.
It is opposed to trafficking and profiteers, rightly so.
It endeavours to help people fight their addiction, again rightly so.
But this means that it is spreading itself rather thinly and the thrust of the document is that with more funding and tougher prosecution, we can knock the problem on the head.
Quite interestingly, Mr Schulz' s proposal to give urban and regional experiments more of a chance, has been rejected.
I fear that this text will now be used incorrectly, namely to support those, in particular, who advocate more repression against drug users and think that they will solve the problem in this way.
As such, the PPE viewpoint has, in principle, dominated after all and this was a reason for me not to go along with it.
- (PT) Each Member State has a crucial role in defining its policy on combating drug addiction.
We feel that we are upholding a policy which genuinely attacks its causes and effectively combats drug trafficking and the associated money laundering.
We are also upholding a policy that does not penalise those who suffer from drug addiction or their families, who should be supported by means of adequate public services, which are free, in terms of treatment and reintegration into society.
But the fight against drug trafficking and money laundering also requires action and coordination at EU level (and at UN level) in the fight that must be developed against powerful criminal organisations which, through illegal activities and money, undermine and tap into the economic and financial system.
In order to achieve this, we need a genuinely "strong political will, expressed without any ambiguity" . We also need to turn words into deeds, by mobilising the necessary Community financial resources to combat this tragic situation that affects thousands of drug addicts and their families.
We cannot continue to reduce "social costs" in order to meet the criteria imposed on national budgets by the Stability Pact, whilst repeating fine words about social support that are then never actually put into practice.
We are convinced that if it has adequate resources, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction based in Lisbon can make a major contribution to deepening the study and the proposals for measures to combat the scourge of drugs.
- (DE)Briefly, I would like to have it put on record that our Group has rejected the Newton Dunn report on account of the fact we did not agree with the legal basis to this report.
What we have here is a classic ruling on the establishment of a process in one of the various pillars of our Treaty principles.
Mr Newton Dunn chose the first pillar whereas we were of the opinion that the procedure should be left in the third pillar. The reason for this is that in the third pillar the group of offenders who are guilty of counterfeiting travel documents is more wide-ranging than in the first pillar where Mr Newton Dunn had established it, where the focus is exclusively on the tracking of the counterfeiting of documents for illegal immigrants.
That may be appropriate from the ideological viewpoint but is politically wrong because someone who, as a drugs dealer, counterfeits documents must also be criminally prosecuted.
In this respect, we did not want to vote against Mr Newton Dunn' s practical proposals with regard to the combating of document counterfeiting - which we support - as far as we are concerned it is exclusively a matter of the legal basis.
Thank you for your attention.
I would also like to thank Messrs Poettering and Pirker for their attention.
Mr President, I would like to explain the vote in favour of the Newton Dunn report by highlighting that, with its provisions, it fits into the fight against illegal immigration and the numerous criminal acts committed by many illegal immigrants, whether purposefully or not, to the detriment of all the citizens in the European Union, particularly the elderly.
I would nevertheless like to draw your attention to the fact that it would be a good idea for all the expenditure, all the personnel and all the means used in the past to supervise the borders within the European Union - for example, between Italy and France, France and Germany etc., that is, between the European States which now have a common border - to be relocated to the external borders of the European Union in order to combat this phenomenon of crime and illegal immigration more effectively.
Mr President, I would like to take the floor regarding the Giannakou-Koutsikou report, in order to remind you that yesterday the Presidency was informed that that this debate would be opened contrary to the provisions of Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure.
I am only saying this so that it will be recorded in the Minutes.
This Presidency does not know what to do with these Rules of Procedure any more.
I hope that, at least in the future, some sort of order can be re-established; if this is not the case, then tell us clearly that Parliament' s work is in the hands of the Presidency and not the Rules of Procedure.
In any case, the fact remains that the debate and the vote have taken place contrary to Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure, in that the last French version was distributed at 9.52 p.m. on Wednesday, and we opened the debate well before the 24 hours had passed.
Mr Turco, your comment will of course be noted, but the sessional services inform me that the deadlines were, in principle, respected, and that all the language versions were distributed in due time, but we have taken note of your comment.
Mr President, I did not ask a question and did not want a reply.
I simply protested that Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure was not complied with.
I do not need a reply because this has already happened and can no longer be prevented.
You did not comply with Rule 115 of the Rules of Procedure, full stop.
This has all been noted, Mr Turco.
Application of Community law to the Canary Islands
The next item is the report (A5-0053/1999) by Mr Medina Ortega, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EEC) No 1911/1991 on the application of the provisions of Community law to the Canary Islands (COM(1999) 0226 - C5-0127/1999 - 19990111(CNS))
Mr President, the Commission has presented a proposed regulation intended to amend another Community regulation, Regulation (EEC) 1911/91, which established a special legal status for the Canary Islands.
Regulation (EEC) 1911/91 is in turn a regulation which amends the statute established for these islands by the Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community in 1985.
The Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal to the European Community - in article 25 and in Protocol 2 annexed to that Act - provided the Canary Islands with a special status which was designed to reflect the fact that those islands were not integrated into the Common agricultural policy and, furthermore, because it was not subject to the Community Customs Union, the Community customs rules, nor Value Added Tax.
In this way, the Act of Accession intended to maintain as far as possible the special status which the Canary Islands had had within the Spanish State since their incorporation into the Kingdom of Castile in the 15th Century.
It was a region which was not subject to the ordinary tax regime nor, therefore, the customs rules, owing to its great distance from Peninsular Spain.
The Act of Accession of 1985 contained a future development clause - section 4 of article 25 - which was aimed at preventing the Canary Islands, as a result of European Union development, from being excluded from European construction.
I would say that public opinion in the Canary Islands was, on the one hand, in favour of maintaining this special status but, on the other hand, had no desire whatsoever to remain outside the sphere of European construction.
When the Single Act was adopted in 1986, it became necessary to amend that special status and this was done by means of Regulation (EEC) 1911/91.
That amendment establishes three or four very important changes: firstly, the Canary Islands were incorporated into the Common agricultural policy and the Common fisheries policy; secondly, they were incorporated into the Community Customs Union, and are therefore subject to ordinary customs duties; and thirdly, it removed the special tax rules which they had, specifically the island taxes - the so-called special licence tax arrangements - which were designed to protect local industry.
Regulation (EEC) 1911/91 has led to the progressive dismantling of the Canary Islands' special tax rules and their incorporation into the Community' s common rules.
But this has caused difficulties, because the problem with the Canary Islands, as with the other outermost regions - the Azores, Madeira and the French overseas departments - is that they are a long way from European territory, divided into small island areas, with very small markets, with enormous transport problems and, furthermore, with problems due, for example, to over-population, very irregular rain patterns and poor soil, which hinder the development of normal activities.
This explains why, in the past, the Canary Islands always enjoyed a special status within Spain.
The dismantling of the Canary Islands' special tax status, in terms of customs duties, would threaten to dismantle a series of small local industries - food, tobacco and small commercial industries - which would disappear if we were to remove that small degree of protection provided by their special taxes, specifically the tax on production and imports.
The Commission has been thorough and has taken account of this, and has therefore begun a negotiation of an adaptation of the tax on production and imports, in order that that tax may not disappear.
There has also been another issue: the Treaty of Maastricht of 1992 included a declaration recognising the special status of the outermost regions - the Canary Islands, the Azores, Madeira and the French overseas departments - and section 2 of article 299 of the EC Treaty, after its amendment by means of the Treaty of Amsterdam of 1997, provides for special status for the outermost regions.
The Treaty of Amsterdam is now in force.
In accordance with the thinking behind the new status for the outermost regions - which was also confirmed by the Cologne European Council which asked the Commission to present measures for the outermost regions before 31 December - at the moment the incorporation of these regions into the European Union does not necessarily require tax and customs harmonisation, but rather allows differentiated treatment, for example the maintenance of the port charges in the French overseas departments and the special rules for the Azores and Madeira.
Although the Commission' s proposed regulation began to be negotiated before the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, in the Committee on Legal Affairs - which in general approves the proposed regulation, since it is aimed at delaying the removal of the Canary Islands' taxes and therefore plays a protective role - we believe that, after the entry into force of article 299.2, rather than a simple easing of the limits of the special treatment, we need to paralyse the removal of this special treatment because it is possible that, in the measures which the Commission must propose for the outermost regions in accordance with the said article 299.9, which provides for special measures in the field of fiscal policy, the Commission may allow a limited reinstatement so that the relevant small local industries do not suffer.
As I said before, Mr President, the Committee on Legal Affairs unanimously approved the regulations, but proposes a series of amendments intended to indicate that article 299.2, which is already in force, establishes an additional basis for the Commission' s proposed regulation.
We are not trying to oppose the Commission' s regulation, which establishes an additional basis.
That additional basis would justify a measure which one could describe as containing and detaining the removal of customs duties.
As a consequence of that reference to article 299.2 and the thinking which I am explaining at the moment, the Committee on Legal Affairs has proposed a series of amendments to the annexes of the regulation to halt the removal of customs duties in any of the areas where they are currently in force.
It is a question of maintaining the current protectionist structure of the taxes until the Commission presents its new proposals in the field of tax policy.
As the Commissioner knows, next week in Brussels a partnership meeting will take place in which the Commission will discuss the proposals with the governments of France, Spain and Portugal, the governments of the Autonomous Regions and the MEPs from those regions.
Therefore, it would seem appropriate that the Commission approve and express its agreement with Parliament' s proposals - the proposals of the Committee on Legal Affairs - which are very reasonable and are in accordance with the Commission' s thinking but reinforce it by referring to the new article 299.2, which will provide for and allow the development of a special status.
It does not make much sense now to totally remove the system when in a few months it is possible that the Commission will have to propose its reinstatement.
This is the thinking, this is the problem, and I hope that Parliament will follow the recommendations of the Committee on Legal Affairs, approve the regulation and also approve the 19 amendments which the said Committee has proposed.
Good morning, Mr President.
Firstly I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and the Members who have presented amendments.
I believe that the words of Mr Medina Ortega have clarified the approach and position which the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has agreed unanimously, on this essential issue, an issue which is important for the Canary Islands, but which affects all the other outermost regions of the European Union.
With reference to the subject of today' s debate, the Canary Islands, I must say that few regions have lived or are living through such an intense process of European integration.
Since their incorporation in 1986, the Canary Islands have held significant and intense debates.
There have been public demonstrations for and against the full incorporation of the islands, there have been governmental crises and even the resignation of the President of an autonomous government, the specific cause of which was the conditions for the accession negotiations.
After thirteen years, it is time to make an assessment.
To this end the regulation which we are debating at the moment in Parliament is very useful, since from this assessment we can reach conclusions which will allow us to determine the position we must take.
The assessment is clearly positive, although we must recognise that there are enormous worries and concerns attached to it, as the rapporteur has explained effectively.
These concerns stem from what we are debating here, but also from other issues which are being studied and dealt with by this Parliament.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that at the moment in the Canaries there is a lot of uncertainty with regard to the future of bananas, since the Canary Islands are Europe' s top producer of that fruit, which is so important from economic, social, scenic and environmental points of view.
However - and I repeat - today we are talking about Regulation 1911/91 concerning the application of Community Law to the Canary Islands.
The arguments and explanations which the rapporteur has given us today are clear and describe the long journey made by the Canary Islands to arrive at the process of incorporation into the European Union.
Nevertheless it is essential in our opinion that this reform is carried out within the time frame laid down.
This is an absolutely essential issue.
We should remember the mandate of the Cologne European Council to the Commission; we should remember that before the end of 1999 there was supposed to be specific and special treatment which has still not happened; we should remember that at the moment we are debating the Commission' s legislative agenda for 2000.
It is important that in this legislative agenda we include the special treatments laid down in article 299.2 of the EC Treaty for the French overseas departments, the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands, because, otherwise, we would reach a situation or position in which these European regions, which are vital to each of the Member States and to the European Union, are put at an absolute disadvantage in relation to the European Union as a whole.
To end, I would like to say that our Group supports the 19 amendments and the legislative text, but asks that we do not proceed to a second reading, but that this regulation be approved within the time limits laid down. We ask the Commission to be sensitive to the rapporteur' s views, to the views of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market and that, please, the regulation be approved within the envisaged time limits because, otherwise, the situation in the Canary Islands would be of great concern.
Mr President, I am taking the floor at this point to express my support, and that of the Socialist Group, for the work and the conclusions regarding the proposals presented today to this Parliament, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, by my good friend and colleague Professor Manuel Medina, in the well-founded hope that this Assembly will fully approve the proposals in question.
Of course our intention is not simply to support a colleague.
In reality our position - now through this intervention and later through our vote - is that of Spaniards and Europeans, and perhaps even more as Spanish and European Socialists, who are expressing their solidarity with the Canary Islands and their men and women.
I am speaking of a solidarity which the Canary Islands require in a specific and particular way, precisely because of the specific and particular characteristics of their geography and history.
Let it be clear therefore that what we want is to give a little more to the Canaries, to compensate for adverse conditions, and thereby prevent a situation where they have a little less than the other Europeans.
The rapporteur, Manuel Medina, has explained in a rigorous and full way the legal arguments which explain how the Canaries has been defended for centuries, within a Spanish context, by means of different mechanisms which allowed those distant islands to overcome the negative circumstances which I spoke of earlier, and, with the skill, tenacity and efforts of their men and women, firstly resist and then gradually build reasonably modern and prosperous societies.
We were aware of the problems of the Canary Islands when we negotiated the accession of our country to the European Community and the successive Treaties, up until Amsterdam, and the constant concern to always take that special situation into account was reflected in the special Protocol 2 of the Act of Accession of Spain and Portugal, back in 1985, in Council Regulation (EEC) 1911/91, which approved the said Protocol, and in section 2 of article 299 of the EC Treaty, which describes the outermost regions of the Union, with special mention of the Canary Islands and lays down the very flexibility in the application of general rules in certain vulnerable cases which we are discussing today.
It was precisely Protocol 2, which I referred to earlier, which, applying traditional formulas to the new rules, established the so-called "APIM" (Tax on Production and Exports), a modest duty applied to certain products entering the Canary Islands, many of which originate from the Spanish Peninsular and others from other States.
At the moment there is a process under way which will lead to the negotiation between the Spanish Government and the Commission, with a view to amending the said Regulation (EEC) 1911/91, which specifically regulates the APIM in question.
The concern which this amendment has caused in the Canary Islands - and which we are recognising here - has increased as a result of a certain lack of confidence in the ability of the government of my country to appreciate the true nature and gravity of this problem and in its desire to tackle that problem in the said negotiation with the Commission.
In reality there are only three alternatives.
The first is the complete removal of the APIM, which would have very negative effects for the many small and medium-sized businesses on the islands which, although they make little profit from their production, survive thanks to the fact that similar products arriving from outside are taxed, and it is therefore still viable to continue producing them in the Canaries.
The second alternative is less harsh but ultimately just as harmful.
It would consist of eliminating the APIM gradually until it disappears completely after a few years, perhaps maintaining them partially for a few products.
The third solution is the one which Professor Medina proposes and which we understand that the Canary Islands requires and wants, the one which this Parliament will probably vote for in a few moments.
Based on the legal considerations of the EC Treaty, we argue that the APIM be kept as it is for now, and that it be consolidated within the obligatory reform of Regulation (EEC) 1911/91.
We hope that this Parliament is up to the job and does not disappoint our fellow citizens ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, Commissioner, for five centuries of European history, the Canary Islands have always enjoyed special consideration in terms of shaping their presence in the Spanish and European worlds.
In fact, when the Kingdom of Spain acceded to the European Community in 1985 the door was left open for an amendment of the status of the European model for the Canary Islands.
In 1991, when Regulation 1911/91 was approved, we experienced Community adaptation with regard to the application of the provisions of Community Law in the islands.
At that point a transitional period of ten years was set so that the integration of the economy of the Canary Islands into the Community would not be traumatic for some local production sectors and, de facto, amongst other things, a tax on production and imports, the APIM, was established with a view to protecting the integration of small basic Canary Island industries into the Community Customs Area.
The said tax, which protected local industry in relation to imported goods, would be gradually dismantled between 1995 and the end of 2000.
Curiously, this removal of the APIM has not had the desired effect amongst the sensitive industries in the Canary Islands and therefore the Spanish authorities, the Canarian authorities and the economic operators affected have requested that the Community authorities amend Regulation 1911/91 in order to stop the removal of the APIM until June 2000, which the European Commission appreciates.
Nevertheless, some of us, as Members from the Canary Islands, as well as considering it reasonable to extend the validity of this tax in accordance with the Commission' s proposal, have requested by means of amendments that it affect the most sensitive products, all the sensitive products produced in the Canary Islands.
We also request that this customs approach be applied to a new tax with a structure similar to the old APIM, with the aim of incorporating it into a package of specific measures of a fiscal nature which the Council, on the proposal of the Commission, must implement next year - as Mr Ripoll y Martínez de Bedoya and Mr Medina Ortega have just said - by means of the proposed permanent statute for the outermost regions - which include the Canary Islands - in implementation of article 299.2, which provides for differentiated treatment, as you know, with regard to the application of the provisions of the Treaty.
This very week the Autonomous Parliament of the Canary Islands, during a political debate on this issue, unanimously approved an agreement which includes fiscal measures and asks Europe to provide for the establishment of a tax similar to the APIM.
Congratulations to Mr Medina Ortega on his report and on his receptiveness to the amendments presented.
I would like firstly to congratulate Mr Medina Ortega on his report on the proposal for a regulation concerning the Canary Islands.
Following its examination of the APIM/Arbitrio on production and imports in the Archipelago, the Commission concluded that even if the majority of economic sectors could adapt to the requirements of the single market, the disappearance of the APIM on 31 December 2000 could irremediably affect certain product sectors.
This point has already been made in this House.
The Commission, in collaboration with the Spanish and the Canarian authorities, has identified the most sensitive products in a number of sectors.
For these products the Commission considers it necessary to suspend the dismantling of the tax for a transitional period which will not go beyond 30 June 2000.
I note with satisfaction that Mr Medina Ortega's report largely supports the approach proposed by the Commission.
However, he considers it regrettable that the measure proposed is reserved to a limited number of products and that it does not refer to the legal basis provided by Article 299(2) of the Treaty.
I can assure you that the Commission understands this position perfectly.
I would like nevertheless to draw your attention to the fact that this constitutes a time-limited adaptation of the current rules.
It must therefore be distinguished from any measure which could be taken on the basis of the new Article 299(2) of the Treaty.
This proposal stipulates that the Commission, in collaboration with the Spanish authorities will examine before the disappearance of the APIM the effects of this tax on the sectors concerned.
The Commission will submit, if necessary, a proposal to the Council based on Article 299(2) on the measures which would be necessary in order not to compromise the existence of certain particularly fragile local activities.
The products included in the annex to this proposal are the result of work by the Spanish and the Canarian authorities and the Commission.
Consequently, any amendment to the list of the products must, on the one hand, be justified economically and, on the other hand, be subject to a study by the Commission services in order to check the consistency of the measures with its other policies.
The Commission has not yet received such justification which would enable it to study an amendment to the Regulation's annex.
It is not therefore in a position to accept those amendments concerning the extension of the list of the products.
However, I can assure both you, Mr President, and the rapporteur that in future negotiations on a proposal concerning the Canary Islands on the basis of Article 299(2) of the Treaty that the Commission will take account of your comments on the matter and the comments of Parliament during the debate.
I wish to thank you for your support for this proposal and I will undertake to draw the attention of the Commissioner responsible to this whole debate.
The debate is closed.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(Parliament approved the draft legislative resolution)
Shipbuilding
The next item is the statement by the Commission on the shipbuilding industry.
The Council Regulation of 29 June 1998 stipulates that: "The Commission shall present to the Council a regular report on the market situation and appraise whether European yards are affected by anti-competitive practices.
If it is established that the industry is being caused injury by anti-competitive practice of any kind, the Commission shall, where appropriate, propose to the Council measures to address the problem.
The first report shall be presented to the Council no later than 31 September 1999" .
In line with this requirement the Commission prepared its first report which concludes that the shipbuilding industry in the global market is facing serious over-capacity problems.
The situation continues to deteriorate as capacities continue to grow, competition is becoming stronger and prices fall.
The report examines in detail nine contracts awarded to Korean shipyards and finds that none is concluded at prices covering full costs and that injury is caused to EU yards.
The report suggests that action should be taken by Member States and the IMF World Bank fora in order to verify whether the conditions and assumptions under which the IMF-led rescue package was given to Korea are fully respected in the case of shipyards.
The industry, Member States and the Commission should collect all the necessary information that could form a basis for the preparation and lodging of a trade barrier regulation complaint and assess the appropriateness of resorting to a WTO action, the Commission should continue its market monitoring efforts in cooperation with the industry and, finally, all parties concerned should make an effort to establish a level playing field for the sector.
The Industry Council discussed the Commission's report at its meeting of 9 November 1999 and issued a Council conclusion on the situation in world shipbuilding.
It shares the Commission's view on the critical situation of the shipbuilding sector worldwide and calls for continuing action to address the situation.
Following the Council meeting, bilateral discussions have been held with the Korean Government at the level of the Korean Deputy Minister for Trade Affairs and the corresponding officials in the Directorate-General for enterprise and the Directorate-General for trade.
A bilateral meeting of the Korean and the EU industry and administration is under preparation for mid-December 1999.
The intention is to organise a meeting on shipbuilding in the context of the OECD.
The Commission will continue its own monitoring efforts with the help of the industry and will collate and evaluate all the information and evidence collected, in line with the Council's conclusion.
If necessary, further meetings will take place.
The Commission will present its findings to the Industry Council and to the European Parliament in the spring of next year.
My colleagues, Mr Lamy and Mr Solbes Mira are cooperating closely with me on this issue.
On the basis of this report the appropriate action will have to be decided.
- (DE) Mr President, Mr Liikanen, please listen to the case I am about to make.
The Council of Ministers for Industry met on 9 November and I made the following comments in this regard at home.
Europe has finally found strong words but deeds must now follow.
We are now giving a clear signal to South Korea to abandon unfair methods of competition in shipbuilding.
We will not accept domestic, i.e. European, shipbuilding being driven out of the market by unfair practices after it has been painstakingly modernised.
In Germany alone, 21,000 jobs are threatened in shipbuilding along with 125,000 more in the supply sector.
The irony of the situation lies, above all, in the fact that the hidden subsidies were facilitated by credits from the International Monetary Fund to surmount the financial crisis in the Far East.
Mr Liikanen, following the interesting report from the Commission of 13 October, the shipyard action day, Europe, through the Council of Ministers for Industry, has given Korea a yellow card.
Any continuation of Korean dumping practices must be punished with a sending off.
The European shipbuilding industry finds itself in a serious crisis, one that has not just come about today.
An urgent decision must now be taken as to whether to support shipbuilding in Europe and in so doing support the preservation of the entire maritime industry or to leave this hi-tech branch of industry to others.
There can only be one answer to this: a clear declaration of our belief in European shipyards.
Anyone who has been closely involved with shipbuilding knows that what we are dealing with here today is high technology, a branch of industry which is very much part of the future.
Europe cannot, and must not, give it up.
There are also critics, however.
Firstly, there are those who consider shipbuilding to still be an antiquated heavy industry, whose artificial preservation in Europe would come at too high a price, although a glance at, or visit to, one of the highly productive and efficient European shipyards tells a different story.
I would be very pleased to arrange visits along these lines because I can tell you that it would be worth it.
Secondly, shipbuilding is sometimes classified as a hi-tech industry, but then it is implied that shipbuilders are over-dramatising their situation somewhat. It is said that they are just after financial benefits at a national and EU level, as happens in other branches of industry.
Thirdly, Who gets the money? The shipowners or the shipyards?
The image of the shipyard has, on the whole, changed dramatically.
The number of people employed in coastal regions or monopolistic ports that are already depressed has declined dramatically as a result of structural change.
New technologies, fields of work and areas of management in particular as well as new tasks have overtaken the nostalgic Kon-Tiki and the warship.
Road to sea transport projects to relieve the traditional road networks require all types of ship, including just in time feeders and modern container ships, rapid ferry-boats and high-speed yachts, multi-purpose ships for the fishing industry and the coast guard service, large and small cruise ships and so on.
Europe' s maritime know-how in traditional roles and new market segments is a reliable, sustainable and natural resource and thus constitutes an added value for Europe.
Europe' s medium-sized shipyards, in particular, have developed a high level of inventiveness in this field, but research and development, not just production and acquisition require money, and this is where aid comes in.
Anyone who knows me knows that I fight furiously against subsidies of all kinds, for distortions of competition follow hard on their heels, as a rule.
It is not for nothing that I am, in addition, a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control.
It is clear that if Korea continues to act in this way, it will undercut itself and will slide into financial ruin, with only itself to blame.
Secondly, the Korean economy is part of the global market. We are on the verge of new WTO negotiations.
Thirdly, Korea needs support to lift itself out of national bankruptcy.
The IMF payments are making a clear statement.
Fourthly, Europe needs Korea.
Just look at the order books and the volume of investment, in spite of the worldwide overcapacity which has been mentioned.
This means that until a trade policy is developed by both Korea and Europe by means of bilateral negotiations and/or multilateral negotiations within the scope of the OECD, IMF and the WTO, as mentioned already by Mr Liikanen, enabling fair competition, we need various measures which are valid for a determined period until the present critical situation has been overcome.
In my opinion, direct but contract-related support could be part of this, temporarily.
This is the only instrument that has a direct effect, is transparent and, furthermore, strengthens competition.
Returning to so-called European individual solutions, on the other hand, can mean that competition inside Europe, in addition, is distorted yet further, as in the past.
We therefore need a strategy of different approaches.
We would like to assist the Commission and the Council of Industrial Ministers in this approach with all our strength and energy.
Commissioner Liikanen, for many years, firstly as a member of the "economic" committee and now as a member of the "industry" committee, I have been dealing with issues involving the shipbuilding industry.
More particularly, over the last three years, I have, on several occasions, expressed concern to the Commission about distortions of competition at world level, made worse by the fact that Europe has always set itself strict standards which our competitors prefer to ignore.
What is more, in many cases the only response I received from the Commissioners and their departments was a blunt refusal to acknowledge the problem.
The Commission seems now to have become aware of the situation, and I am delighted to see this because, while one may regret the thousands upon thousands of jobs in Europe which have been lost in the meantime, as we say in French, "better late than never" .
Today there no longer seems to be any point in going back over past problems and that is why, this morning, I shall ask you some specific questions about the future which are not just concerned with Korea.
The first question concerns the United States.
I have learnt that an American shipyard, one which has not built any vessels for more than forty years, has received the order for two passenger boats intended to serve the islands of Hawaii, since American law reserves the construction of boats serving internal routes for American shipyards. What do you plan to do about this?
What does the European Union plan to do in order to open up the American market to European products in this field?
This is my second question. If my information is accurate, a proportion of the wages of workers involved in the construction of these passenger boats is paid by the United States Navy, on the grounds of the preservation of shipbuilding capacity.
What do you plan to do, Commissioner, on the matter of this American aid which does not seem to be compatible with the regulations in force in this field?
My third question is to do with Korea.
Since 1997, the Korean Gas Company has been restricting tender competitions for the construction of methane carriers to Korean shipyards only, again constituting, in my opinion, an infringement of the international regulations on the opening up of public procurement.
I ask you once again, Commissioner, what do you plan to do in order to open up the Korean market and fight against these decisions which do not appear to me to be legal?
My fourth question relates to the matter you referred to in your preliminary speech.
We have learnt or, to be more precise, we have received confirmation that the European Commission had in hand the first part of the report on the market situation drawn up in application of the Council Regulation which you mentioned.
This report indicates an anti-competitive practice by Korean shipbuilders, of between 13% and 14% of Korean costs of production.
As you mentioned, the question arises as to who pays the differences observed by the Commission between Korean costs of production and sale prices?
The answer seems obvious. It is the Korean banking system, supported moreover by the IMF and the Korean State.
Until now, in spite of a number of reminders in this field, since it is not a new matter, the European Union and the Commission have taken no effective action to put an end to these indirect subsidies in Korea.
What tangible action do you plan to take today in order to act rapidly?
I shall conclude, Commissioner, by telling you that it is true that the European shipbuilding industry still receives aid.
Not a lot, but some.
In any case, it is scheduled that aid for orders will come to an end in December next year and I do not think we can reconcile ourselves to a laissez-faire policy.
That is why I am asking you, Commissioner, to at last draw up a trade policy worthy of the name.
That is why I am suggesting that you do not carry on saying, or having people say, that we do not have the instruments which would enable us to defend European jobs better in this sector.
That is why it is no longer possible to let constraints be placed on Europe which are not placed on our industrial competitors elsewhere in the world, in the shipbuilding sector as in many others.
That is why, finally, it is time to quite simply have done with the laissez-faire attitude which characterised the Brittan era.
Are Europe and the new Commission prepared to do so today? Permit me, Commissioner Liikanen, to ask you the question once again.
Mr President, there has been a lot of criticism here this morning about the fact that contracts have been awarded to Korean companies and the damage that this has done to the European industries.
However, as in many other areas, the reason that contracts have been awarded to countries like Korea is surely because of the conditions that apply: for example workers in such countries get very low wages, working conditions and safety measures are very poor and unsatisfactory, because the health and safety of workers is not a priority.
Like in many industrial sectors, businesses are relocating to countries where they can exploit workers to their own advantage.
This is something that has to be addressed when we talk about, having a level playing field for the sector in Europe; in fact what we need is a level playing field internationally for workers.
We have to protect workers' rights.
We cannot exploit workers in some countries while protecting their rights in Europe.
Someone mentioned the EU imposing stringent measures in this sector in Europe. But what should we do?
Lift those stringent measures? They were applied for a reason.
There were reasons for imposing such stringent measures in the first place.
When it comes to shipbuilding itself, I also think that we need to look at what kind of shipbuilding takes place.
For example, as regards shipbuilding for the fishing sector, we have an over-capacity of fishing vessels within the European Union, so what kind of vessels should be built? I think that emphasis should be put on the building of coastguard or marine protection vessels to control and monitor the common fisheries policy.
The vessels being built must support local industry and local coastal fishing.
Safety must be given priority.
When it comes to the building of vessels, we must ensure that the most advanced technology is used to ensure that they are as environmentally-friendly as possible.
A lot of vessels are used for transporting live animals.
First of all, the export of live animals is unacceptable.
In fact, it is completely wrong, especially when they are going to be slaughtered.
The kind of conditions they have to endure in large vessels are not acceptable, so if new vessels are being built we should ensure that the best standards possible are complied with and that measures are taken to ensure that, where live animals must be transported by sea in large vessels, all measures are taken to optimise conditions for them.
Another issue that has to be looked at in the building of new vessels is the whole issue of waste and waste facilities - and not just the waste derived from the operating vessels but also the waste produced during the trip, because marine pollution is a very important issue and a lot of marine pollution is caused by ships.
To come back to the issue of dumping vessels discarded within the European Union on other countries, we have to be very careful that we are not dumping unsafe and ecologically unsound vessels on countries at cheap prices.
This is unacceptable - it is just shifting our problem to other parts of the world, and the marine environment has no borders so anything that happens in one area eventually comes back to roost here.
The whole issue of unfair competition which people are criticising is caused by the fact that the industry itself is exploiting workers in certain parts of the world.
This has to stop.
Mr President, the European Union' s shipbuilding and ship repair industry is facing serious problems, as has been mentioned here, which shows that the recipes provided a few years ago are not giving the promised results.
The liberalisation of the industry and the policy of privatisation that has been pursued in various countries have not resolved the existing problems.
In the last two years, the situation has grown worse as a result of constant anti-competitive practices - as has already been mentioned here - particularly on the part of South Korea.
Employers' organisations and employees' organisations have both drawn attention to the serious consequences of this situation.
On 5 November, a day of action was held across Europe in which many dockyard workers in Portugal took part.
From Viana do Castelo to Margueira and Mitrena, via dockyards in the areas of Oporto, Aveiro and Figueira da Foz the workers are demanding a policy of upgrading the shipbuilding industry, of protecting jobs that are stable, worthwhile and that offer proper wages and a policy of promoting the exploitation of existing potential.
In order to understand the current situation, we must remember that the 1994 international agreement on the elimination of aid for shipbuilding in the context of the liberalisation of the industry is not being fulfilled.
This agreement should have come into force in 1996, but did not do so because it was not ratified by some countries, notably the United States, which was one of its main proponents but which, in the end, chose to continue supporting its own shipbuilding industry, as has also already been said here.
Contrary to what the European Council said in 1998, when it drew up the new rules on aid for shipbuilding, conditions of international competition did not, in the end, improve.
Support for the industry has ceased in the European Union but it has continued and even increased in other countries, amongst which South Korea stands out.
We know that this country has been concluding contracts at prices that are below the real costs of production, by benefiting from international subsidies via the International Monetary Fund, after the Asian crisis, which is destroying the order books of countries in the European Union, as the industry' s employers' organisations have stated.
The recent position of the Council on 9 November, despite being too little, too late, naturally shows that the fight put up by the shipbuilding industry is having an effect.
It is therefore crucial that the Council and the Member States thoroughly examine the measures that are necessary to protect this very important sector of industry in the European Union.
It is important to promote a policy which will stimulate shipbuilding and ship repair and, as is vital in the case of Portugal, to combine this with renewing merchant navy and fishing fleets and, at the same time, to promote the improvement of the living and working conditions of those involved.
It is also vital that the Commission makes this problem and its resolution a priority, that it recognises the need to review long-held positions and that it provides the European Parliament with full information on the damage that the European shipping industry has suffered.
Mr President, Commissioner, the question of shipbuilding must, quite obviously, be tackled comprehensively, taking one area of production at a time.
The Member States have acknowledged expertise in the field of military shipbuilding.
This is a field in which the Commission obviously does not have to intervene, but in which intergovernmental cooperation should be stepped up, so that Member States can safeguard and increase their expertise and independence, at acceptable cost.
It would be very dangerous to allow disinvestment in this field and one can only regret the recent problems afflicting in particular the Horizon frigate programme and the abrupt withdrawal of some partners, which upset the overall balance of the programme.
As regards the construction of passenger and merchant vessels, both highly competitive, labour-intensive sectors, here too the Member States' remarkable expertise and outstanding capabilities must be protected and developed and not allowed to go outside Europe.
As regards heavy manufacturing units affected by significant technological developments, Member States must be able to implement a policy fostering the technological conversion of their shipyards, so that the latter can become active in market sectors which allow them to exploit their know-how.
The closure of any shipyard represents an irreparable loss of expertise for the Member States and for the European Union.
The Union must not, therefore, on the basis of ill-advised notions of free competition, prevent states from promoting the conversion of manufacturing units with a view to preserving both know-how and jobs.
In this respect, the example of the shipyards on France' s Atlantic coast, whose brilliant recovery following a period of crisis has been particularly spectacular, and the role the French State played in this process, should be pondered.
We must be very careful to ensure that the forthcoming WTO negotiations make it possible to put an end to the unacceptable dumping practised by a number of countries and do not endanger a sector in which world competition is intense, since it is highly labour-intensive, difficult to automate, and therefore prey to strong pressure in favour of relocation to countries where labour costs are far lower than those we have in the European Union.
Finally, Mr President, I wish to mention the subject of the construction of fishing boats.
This sector, which may, in the overall scheme of things, seem a rather marginal one, does however play a crucial role in the balance of the economic and social fabric of our coastal regions.
The European Community plays an essential role in this field.
This sector is, in fact, almost totally dependent on the common fisheries policy.
But for two years now the European Commission has frozen Community aid for the construction of new vessels and, by the same token, that of Member States, until the objectives for the destruction of boats outlined in the multiannual guidance programmes have been reached.
This deadlock, which has serious consequences, was compounded by a refusal to take the sale of boats to third countries into consideration in calculating the reduction in capacity of the European fleet.
In considering only the boats destroyed, the Commission is thus behind a considerable loss of earnings to the detriment of fishermen and ship-owners.
What is more, the Commission is today proposing to prohibit any renewal in the sectors which are not advancing as quickly as others and is making it compulsory to find and destroy any capacity which exceeds by more than 30% the renewed boat capacity in the sectors which are up to date with the MAGP objectives.
This situation and these proposals entail a worrying ageing of the European fishing fleet, discourage young people from investing their energies in it, cause a significant loss of sales for the specialist shipyard sector, making some of them dangerously vulnerable, and entail a clear risk for our seafarers as far as safety is concerned.
We hope that the Council will be able to make the Commission see reason and carry through the proposals which the European Parliament made at the time after close consultation with Member States, in the report by our fellow Member, Mr Arias Cañete.
Whenever a shipyard disappears, particularly valuable know-how built up over time, linked with the seafaring history of a region, disappears along with it.
Everything must be done to prevent this.
The Commission must also show consistency.
After urging the construction of netters, on the grounds of the selectivity of the drift net, the Commission then, under pressure from some lobbies and some Member States, without scientific basis and in a discriminatory fashion, prohibited the use of this same drift net in some seas only.
It recommended experimenting with alternative gear, but did not envisage a specific financial chapter or a specific kilowatt package enabling boats to be built in line with the new regulations which it had issued.
Now, it has been confirmed, after analysing the results of the first experiments, that existing netters cannot be adapted to comply with the new conditions, and new boats will have to be built.
I would therefore be grateful to you, Commissioner Liikanen, if you would point out to your colleague, Mr Fischler, that shipowners are having trouble understanding this logic, or rather this absence of logic.
The Commission shall obviously have to make the necessary arrangements to enable the construction of ships required by the changes in regulations which it has decided on.
In conclusion, Mr President, Commissioner, if the European Commission really wishes to make a contribution to the expansion of the shipbuilding sector in Europe, it is enough for it to clearly defend the principle of fair trade at the WTO talks, to leave Member States the freedom to intervene directly in this strategic sector in order to convert shipyards, by means of technological modifications, for activity in profitable market sectors, to promote cooperation between businesses in order to contribute towards improving the overall efficiency of each type of shipyard and, finally, in the context of the common fisheries policy, to take the necessary decisions to enable the controlled renewal of our fishing fleet, the continuation of the expertise of our shipyards and the vitality, Mr President, of our coastal regions which are dependent on fishing.
Mr President, the shipbuilding industry within the EU Member States has been undergoing an overhaul for many years now.
This has coincided with a subsidy race at world-market level.
Taxpayers and shipyards in various Member States are at the receiving end of this, whilst shipowners who can purchase ships at far below their cost price come out on top.
I think that the Commission, the Council and the ladies and gentlemen here present will all agree that this situation must be brought to an end as soon as possible.
Opinions on how this should be done vary.
Consequently, this debate should not be restricted to the practice of unfair competition, something that the South Koreans are guilty of.
Everyone within the shipbuilding industry knows that there is no level playing field within the European Union either.
The Council is therefore right in deciding, for the time being, not to make any changes to the agreement to end the generic support to the shipbuilding industry as of 1 January 2001.
This request is mainly expressed by the Member States that have been paying out most of the support per order for years now.
As far as tangible support is concerned, this amounts to 3.5 times the amount given by the least generous government.
Subsidy policy is always bad policy because it sustains bad management and often even rewards it.
A far better alternative would be a well-thought out industrial policy for the shipbuilding industry aimed at innovative production methods, which are intensive in terms of the knowledge involved and which enhance efficiency.
The current shipbuilding directive contains various obscure support schemes in respect of research and development, environment, innovation and regional support policy, which result in the "good" shipyards being punished and the "bad" ones rewarded.
Any government should do the opposite in fact.
The OECD agreement, which provides for abolishing order support, in particular, is not a panacea.
South Korea and also the EU Member States are clever enough to keep supporting their maritime industries in a non-transparent manner.
The European Commission should lodge a complaint with the WTO against South Korea without delay and at the same time continue the inquiry into the orders placed with South Korean shipyards.
If ships are sold at approximately 20% below cost price, then this is a sure case of dumping.
Pressure must be exerted at the same time.
The Daewoo shipyard, which has been bankrupt for some time, but is still launching ships, should be dismantled and not resold.
I would also ask the Commissioner to institute an inquiry into the actual subsidy level per order within the European Union.
The transitional regulation to abolish generic order subsidies should also be reconsidered. Countries that make an unlimited budget available for this create a run on subsidies.
The consequence will be that excellent ship yards - these are often the most efficient ones - will go under in the course of 2001-2002 and it will be much harder to compete with Japan, South-East Asia and the United States with the least efficient ship yards which will then be left in the European Union.
A possible delay in the discontinuation of generic order subsidies can be considered if the transitional period is abolished.
I would appreciate it if Commissioner Liikanen were to take this into serious consideration.
Could the Commissioner ask the IMF to investigate where the subsidies to South Korea eventually ended up?
Finally, I would like to reiterate what I said on 31 March 1998.
The strategic significance of the European shipbuilding industry is evident.
We want to be able to continue to build our own ships, even if we are forced to help the sector out due to external circumstances.
But let us not make a mess of it within the European Union by having all sorts of obscure regulations and by blowing taxpayers' money in the process.
I am sure that that would not do the sector any good whatsoever.
The end goal should still be the same: the abolition of all kinds of government subsidies so that each shipyard gets the price it deserves.
Mr President, Commissioner, it is altogether excellent that the Industry Council at its meeting last week unanimously approved a list of measures to eliminate the situation of unhealthy competition caused by Korea.
Hopefully these measures will work, as South Korea' s operations really weaken the prospects for success of European shipyards in the face of already intense competition from elsewhere. As the Finnish Minister for Trade and Industry clearly stated at the meeting, the EU, however, must not give as good as it gets when it comes to South Korea; in other words, it must not return to the idea that it is not prepared to give up its shipyards.
To borrow the Minister' s words, continuing such support would be tantamount to the EU shooting itself in the foot.
This is precisely what the South Koreans must be hoping for.
For a long time now the Commission has aimed to give up shipyard aid in its present form, and this aim should absolutely be maintained.
The idea is to replace shipyard aid with newly designed investment and environmental aid schemes and grant more aid to research and innovation, which is what Mrs Langenhagen so eloquently spoke about.
With the new schemes the Commission aspires to support a more environment-friendly, safer European fleet, as was decided in 1997 in connection with the guidelines for state aid for maritime transport.
I gladly welcome this policy, as long as it is also implemented in practice.
I would especially like to remind the Commissioner that the Union promised Finland, when we were negotiating membership, that it would take account of our remoteness and climate when deciding its aims for navigation policy for the whole continent.
In July 1999, the Finnish Ministry of Transport and Communications notified the Commission of the interest subsidy programme for vessel acquisitions, set up to promote the purchase and basic repair of safe and environment-friendly cargo ships which can sail easily through icy waters, these being essential in Northern Europe.
There is broad national consensus on the issue in the Finnish Parliament, as shown by the fact that, exceptionally, on its own initiative, the parliament increased powers to solicit acquisitions in the 1999 budget.
As a former Minister of Finance, Commissioner Liikanen will understand the significance of this.
Now, however, it would appear that officials in the Commission' s Directorate-General for competition have a firm intention to interpret the programme in question as aid to shipyards, although the programme does not affect the competitive position of shipyards, as a ship receiving aid can be ordered from any country whatsoever.
This is also what was stated in the Commission' s letter of 4 August 1999 by officials in Directorate-General VII when they pointed out that the aid had no connection with shipyards in the EU.
I would also like to take the opportunity of asking the Commissioner how the Commission intends to ensure environmentally friendly developments and greater safety in maritime transport in Northern Europe, if it does not allow the implementation of the action framework it created itself.
Although we have clearly decided to abandon shipyard aid, the recent events in South Korea cannot be allowed to lead to a situation where the Union starts to confuse the old-fashioned shipyard aid with the action based on the 1997 guidelines, which did not relate to competition policy but were purely in line with sustainable development and the 'safety of the seas' doctrine.
Finally I would ask you, Commissioner Liikanen, how it is possible for a Member State to create a policy on navigation if it cannot trust in the directions given by the Commission? How has the Commission in its recent exchange of letters with the Finnish Government taken account of the protocol on navigational policy in our negotiations for membership?
Mr President, I find this debate very depressing because we seem to be covering the same old ground, discussing an issue we have dealt with many times before in this Parliament.
I find it depressing because I was born in a small port town where, at the time, there was a boatyard on practically every corner.
They were wooden boats.
There was a profession, that of boat-builder, which was a proud profession.
I realise that progress is inevitable and that it is not possible for such a profession to be maintained today, but the situation is alarming.
The fact that Europe will end up with no shipbuilding industry is worrying.
It was we Europeans who opened up the world through navigation: the Scandinavians in the North, the Portuguese and Spanish towards America, Africa and Asia, the Dutch, the Danish, the English and the French have sailed all the oceans in ships built on our lands and in our shipyards.
At the moment we live in a globalised economy, which means that rationalisation is needed and that is why a series of restructurings has been undertaken.
However, I believe we are reaching a limit.
Specifically, the disappearance of all types of aid on 31 December 2000 is going to cause a problem.
Although I agree with some of the previous speakers, such as Mrs Kauppi, that it is not good to maintain a subsidy system, in the long run this situation clearly harms the sector itself.
Furthermore, we have been abolishing subsidies in the shipbuilding sector, yet it has continued to fall apart.
At the moment the shipbuilding sector is in tatters.
Wherever you go there is a closed shipyard and thousands of people who have lost their jobs.
For example, since 1984, Astilleros Españoles (Spanish Shipyards) has undergone three restructurings.
Last Wednesday there were worker demonstrations in Spain, in all the shipbuilding cities - Bilbao, Cádiz, Puerto Real, Seville and Asturias - accompanied by a considerable degree of violence, because we are threatening the lives and security of many millions of homes.
There is another problem.
In this globalised economy, it is good that subsidies should disappear, but not when there are some countries which still have them.
This also raises another question - as some speakers such as Mrs McKenna have said: Is it a good thing that some countries such as Korea maintain this policy? I believe that if we look at the figures properly, it is clear that if ships are sold at less than they cost to make, the country is losing out.
Therefore, that policy harms that country and its workers.
Let us remember that a few years ago the Korean workers took to the streets to ask for equal status.
The general theme of globalisation - as the Commissioner knows - is being discussed at the moment or will be discussed in the World Trade Organisation.
I think that this is one of the questions which should concern us.
The European shipbuilding industry is threatened from all sides.
Some of the speakers - Mrs McKenna herself I believe - have referred to the crisis in the fishing industry.
It appears that the ideal is the destruction of the Community fishing fleet.
For transport - including oil-tanker traffic - there are flags of convenience.
But even the few ships which sail under the European flag have to be manufactured outside Europe, because it appears we are not capable of withstanding distorted competition.
Therefore, on behalf of the Spaniards who at the moment are enormously worried about this issue, I hope that the Commission will communicate our concern to the Council, our disagreement with the latest resolutions of the Council of Ministers for Industry - which seems prepared to adopt a meekly laissez faire approach and abandon the little which remains of the European shipbuilding sector - and our hope that either measures will be taken to prevent the unfair competition which is occurring or, if not, that steps will be taken to restore Community aid to compensate for the cases of inequality, incompetence and bad practice which are occurring today in all shipbuilding centres.
Mr President, to follow on from Mr Medina Ortega, I would like to remind you that the Commission and the Council almost always propose employment plans to the governments. They propose that we fight unemployment and say that we must put an end to unemployment in Europe.
Commissioner, employment plans are not much use if, on the one hand, jobs are constantly being lost in many of our sectors and, specifically, in the sector which we are talking about today, the shipbuilding sector, which involves 300,000 jobs in Europe and around 45,000 in Spain.
This seems to us to be an impossible equation.
If you remove the subsidies to our sector, if the Korean sector continues to be subsidised, if working conditions in Europe are to be as they should be, that is very advanced, and in Korea they are terrible, the equation is impossible.
It is going to be impossible to maintain this sector.
And I do not want this to happen in the future.
In Spain there are seven regions with a shipbuilding sector.
Commissioner, I come from a small region of a million inhabitants.
In recent years, as a result of European policies and the policies of successive governments, we have lost 6,000 direct jobs in the steel industry, 6,000 direct jobs in mining, 10,000 small agricultural businesses, we have lost jobs in the arms industry and we have lost jobs in the shipbuilding industry.
When measures are introduced in the European Union - and I know that what I am going to say is out of fashion with many of my colleagues - much account is taken of the laws of the market and of competitiveness.
The human factor is never, or almost never, taken into account.
And the human factor is fundamental in the European Union.
I am afraid to say, Commissioner, that if we continue to lose jobs in the fundamental sectors of our industry, our institutions will no longer have any credibility.
If the aid stops in December, if aid is maintained in Korea, if in Spain furthermore it is proposed that 18,000 million pesetas of aid, which was granted to the shipbuilding sector, be returned, we are destroying the sector.
Let us not fool ourselves, let us not use rhetoric.
I am very sorry to say this, Commissioner, but if we do not adopt urgent and energetic measures, this sector, as well as other industrial sectors in the European Union, is going to go to ruin, to put it politely.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think we must first congratulate and thank the Commission for the fact that we are today holding this debate on the serious situation of the European shipbuilding industry.
After the Council of Ministers for Industry, on 9 November, and the Commission' s report to Parliament on the situation of the world market in the shipbuilding industry, today we have heard this Commission statement to Parliament, which indicates that there is generalised concern within all the European institutions.
But I agree with Mr Medina Ortega that this should not be a "remake" , because the concern and the measures announced, while significant, do not seem to us to be sufficient at this particular moment.
Although this Parliament totally supports these measures, we ask above all for more urgency, more efficiency and more thoroughness.
Free trade, but also fair trade, because everybody knows about the unfair practices in Korea, which make it impossible for our shipyards to be competitive, as has already been pointed out.
The European Union, Commissioner, with all the political, economic, financial and commercial means at its disposal, must ensure that international rules are obeyed and put an end once and for all to Korean dumping, because the European sector can be viable in an environment of fair competition.
Commissioner, we must also take advantage of the current unity in the European sector - I am referring to employers and unions - which has been shown in recent times and in recent days, to relaunch the European shipbuilding sector.
We have to look for and find a European solution.
Please allow me, Commissioner, to say that I believe that the future of the shipyards in Europe is a political question which requires brave, clear and unequivocal decisions on the part of the Commission of course, but also on all our parts, especially after the conclusions of the latest Council of Ministers for Industry.
The aid which we have talked about today is also an instrument which the Commission must clarify, especially if it is a future strategy erga omnes.
Parliament and European industry must know this as soon as possible, since we believe - and after this debate I believe it too - that while the world markets are not stabilised, transitional protective measures are still necessary.
And we ask for these measures - and I insist - urgently, since many of our shipyards run the serious risk of disappearing, despite being technically and economically viable.
Finally, since I am also from a peripheral region, I would like to mention the enormous impact on regional development which the shipbuilding industry has, since that industry is based in many of these regions, many of them also included in Objective 1 of the European Regional Policy, with very significant shipyards which generate much direct and indirect employment, a social equilibrium which the countries undergoing cohesion need so much, which demands European solidarity.
On their behalf I ask, in the case of the shipbuilding industry, for special consideration within the European Union' s regional and competition policy.
I will conclude, Commissioner.
I believe that Parliament' s message today is one of support for energetic action by the Commission in this field.
Thank you for your statement and for the efforts which the Commission has been making, but do not be afraid to apply measures energetically and urgently, as we have asked you today in the European Parliament.
Mr President, the problem we are discussing is a product of globalisation.
The South Koreans have, in six years, trebled their shipbuilding capacity.
They have not done it with their own money, but with loans.
American loans were pressed on them, and the American banks did this in order that they might receive back the largest possible profits.
Later the South Koreans left these loans, which had been pressed upon them, unpaid.
The debts, however, were guaranteed, so that the International Monetary Fund sent South Korea money to pay off the American banks.
In other words, the IMF has itself contributed to the current situation.
The South Koreans were also advised to devalue their currency, as it was a way for them to free themselves from this economic crisis that we have caused them.
They have devalued their currency by many tens of per cent and, as a consequence, their prices have become more competitive.
They did not have to cut wages to reduce their price competitiveness; they only did what we advised them to do, which was to devalue their currency.
South Korea is thus operating in a world that we have made for them.
All those politicians who are now complaining about the problems South Korea has caused us are wrong if they claim that globalisation is irreversible and that we can do nothing about it.
Globalisation is something which politicians can do nothing about if they do not want to.
If pay in South Korea has gone down from six euros an hour to four euros an hour, it is not the South Koreans who are to blame.
We are to blame, because we caused the economic crisis in South Korea.
Now that crisis is simply spreading from South Korea to our shipyards.
I hope that politicians will show more credibility in this matter and look into the basic causes of the problem, and not just those effects which have been spoken of a good deal here.
We have wanted to ease the effects of the problem, but that will not happen if we do not do anything about its causes.
Mr President, in a debate which is as specific and as objective as this one on European shipbuilding, it is not easy to avoid repetition.
As a matter of fact it is impossible to avoid it, but we are talking about an extremely sensitive political issue and that is why it is important that the Commission and the Council know that there is a broad consensus in Parliament on this matter and great concern to find a solution to the problem.
As Mrs Langenhagen said, the crisis in Europe' s shipbuilding industry has not appeared overnight, but has been with us for more than 25 years.
In fact, as the official statistics available to us show, in the last 20 years this industry has lost four-fifths of the jobs that it had in Europe, which is in fact a huge proportion.
And it is becoming particularly tragic because this massive loss of jobs - in an industry that once employed half a million people - is generally taking place on the periphery of Europe, as you can tell from the nationalities of almost all of the Members who have been speaking here.
And it is on the periphery of Europe that, as we all know, there are the fewest opportunities for employment.
But now, in the current state of play, the situation is becoming particularly unsustainable.
Korea is not the whole problem.
As several Members have pointed out, the Korean problem has occurred as a result of a combination of situations and factors, some within our control and others outside it: there was the Asian crisis, hyper-devaluation by more than 30% of the national currency - the won - and there was the concomitant support from the IMF which led to this unique - I would call it bizarre - situation in which Korea finds itself, not to mention the unfair way it has competed with us in recent times.
But we must not forget that this is also the case with the United States.
The United States, whose propaganda image is as the champion of free trade, of the free market, only takes this position because of what it can gain from it: on the audio-visual industry, on the food industry, on anything that is of interest to them.
But when it comes to other industries, such as this one, they are highly protectionist.
We would do well to keep this in mind!
This Council position must be followed up.
It is indeed important for the Council to take a political stand, but it must be followed up.
I think that it is crucial that the European Union exerts considerable pressure in order to have Korea make a voluntary production agreement in addition to everything that has already been discussed in terms of rules designed to prevent this kind of distortion to competition.
For one thing is essential: it is not just the jobs that Europe could still lose in this industry that are under threat.
The problem is that the shipbuilding industry, covering all the kinds of ships that we have discussed today, is an industry of strategic importance for Europe.
And so, of course, it is undergoing a structural change: the type of ship is going to change certainly, but in an industry of such strategic importance, Europe cannot remain in foreign hands in terms of the building and the supply of these ships.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, on the eve of the opening of a new trade round in which everyone will be talking about free and fair trade, what is happening in the shipbuilding industry is really quite ironic.
And that is why I think that we in the European Union must be prepared to remember this industry in Seattle, because there is no reason why this industry should remain outside the GATT rules.
If this does not happen, if this is globalisation, then there is nothing more to say.
Mr President, I want to thank you for the very wide-ranging and serious discussion here today.
As has been mentioned, the whole issue of shipbuilding has a deep impact on public opinion.
We are getting closer to the opening of the world trade negotiations in Seattle and we urgently need the support of the public to be able to go forward with globalisation.
But if our public thinks that there are rules for some but not for the others, this has a devastating effect for these negotiations.
There have been discussions on this matter in the Commission which for that reason alone we take very seriously.
We need free trade but we need fair trade, as has been said here.
I will reply to those points which are directly my responsibility.
There have been others and I will forward those questions to my colleagues.
Mr Caudron asked what has happened so far.
After the Industry Council I invited the Korean Ambassador to the Commission on Wednesday, presented the conclusions of the Council and explained to him our concern about shipbuilding.
We consider it extremely important to have a strong shipbuilding industry in Europe.
We will not accept aggressive measures which would lead to its destruction.
We also informed the Korean side that it is important that their government supports meetings of the industries.
In the shipbuilding context and OECD, the intention is to organise a meeting now between both industries to analyse the situation and to draw the necessary conclusions.
Industry needs to meet but we need public support from both sides for the conclusions reached at this meeting in December.
Here I am working closely with my colleague, Pascal Lamy.
Secondly, on the issue of IMF and the World Bank, I was in contact this week with the President of the Industry Council and he has promised to take the issue up in the Presidency so that ECOFIN, which is meeting in November, can discuss the IMF and World Bank role in the area.
The Finance Ministers in the member countries are, as it were, the counterpart of the IMF and World Bank and it is very important that all the member countries are urged to consider the issue of the possible negative impact of the IMF and World Bank support on the shipbuilding market.
They need to inquire carefully whether support to shipbuilding and shipbuilders has distorted the situation in the world market.
After these issues have been discussed, on the one hand by the Finance Ministers, ECOFIN, IMF and the World Bank and, on the other hand, by OECD, we must assess the situation and take any necessary further actions.
As far as the American shipbuilding issues are concerned, the Jones Act is the famous American legislation.
It requires orders in United States yards for internal navigation.
So under this particular legislation the vessel must be built in the USA.
This Jones Act has been exempted under GATT.
The only possibility is that the Commission and member countries take the issue up in the WTO context.
This has been discussed earlier but was resisted very strongly by the Americans.
The only possibility is that the Commission and member countries take up this issue in a WTO context.
It was discussed earlier but resisted very strongly by the Americans.
On the question of shipyards which partly work for the in defence industry, that area has been exempted.
This issue can be raised if competitors can show that this particular arrangement has caused injury to their shipbuilding market.
I will analyse the questions which Mr Caudron put and come back to them later.
I will transmit the other question to my colleagues and I will keep you properly informed about events in the area.
There are many countries which are seriously concerned.
As Mrs Langenhagen said, we should not only consider the people who are working directly in the shipyards; there is also a huge skilled population working for shipyards in other industries.
The negative impact of this distorted market situation is very serious.
I and my colleagues will follow that very closely.
Thank you very much, Commissioner Liikanen.
The debate is closed.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 11.20 a.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on Friday 19 November 1999.
Tribute
Ladies and gentlemen, many of you are new to this House but I am sure that all the re-elected Members will have a very clear memory of Carmen Díez de Rivera Icaza.
You will remember that she had to resign due to illness. She fought against this illness with great courage but I have to tell you that she died yesterday.
She was a wonderful colleague who opposed conformism and fought for all noble causes, bringing passion to her work and a radiant smile which you all knew.
I would ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to think about Carmen now and to observe a minute' s silence in her memory.
(The House rose and observed a minute' s silence)
Thank you, Mrs Doyle.
I have in fact anticipated your wish. On behalf of this House, I have already written to all the leaders of the major parties in Northern Ireland to express our admiration for what they have achieved and to send them our best and warmest wishes for the favourable continuation of the peace process.
Madam President, much has been said, but as a child who grew up in Belfast and spent thirty of my thirty-nine years in the violent conflict in my homeland, I personally want to mark today' s historic occasion.
It is a historic day.
I am deliberately sitting in John Hume' s seat today because, as a Nobel Prize Winner from this Parliament who has devoted his whole life to securing the peace process, I think it is important that we honour him since he is recuperating at home in Northern Ireland.
It is important to say today that the will of the people has been done in Northern Ireland.
71% of the people voted for peace, the politicians on all sides have been big enough to deliver that will of the people for future generations.
I have to say in my case perhaps it was too late.
I left Northern Ireland because there was no future, no jobs, no opportunities for young people, but I am delighted that today the future generations will have those opportunities, and Europe has played a critical role in that process.
Madam President, I want to add my voice to celebrate this historic agreement.
You have already sent a letter conveying our best wishes to the Northern Ireland authorities.
Could you send another letter to invite our Northern Ireland friends, the executive, to pay a visit to the Parliament.
I feel that it is our duty to mention the role that one of our colleagues, Mr John Hume, has played in this process.
He is in better shape after four operations and a long convalescence and I hope that he will be back among us very soon.
Madam President, may I ask you to take action on an issue which is just as important as those mentioned and which concerns my country, Greece.
As I was preparing my proposal on the Morillon reports yesterday, I was amazed to find in a Parliament document by the Secretariat of the Working Party on Enlargement, from the international and institutional affairs section of DG IV headed by Martine Chariot, the following totally unacceptable reference under point 6 concerning relations between Turkey and the European Union:
It is entitled "The Situation in the Aegean" and the draftsperson of one of our documents, of a European Parliament document, presents the Aegean islands, which are part of Greek territory under international treaties, as a region of disputed sovereignty between Greece and Turkey.
To put it bluntly, Mrs Fontaine, it is akin to describing Alsace and Lorraine to you, a European and French citizen, as regions of disputed sovereignty between France and Germany.
I request, not only for the record and for the sake of historical accuracy, but for material reasons, because you will understand the political significance of such texts, that this unacceptable and extremely dangerous wording be taken out of the document.
Mr Efthymiou, I can promise you that we will look into this very carefully and, if necessary, a correction will be made.
Madam President, I am a Basque and I belong to the Basque Nationalist party.
However, firstly, I congratulate the leaders, political parties, intermediaries and, in particular, the people of Britain and Ireland, on having found a road to peace by all giving ground on their original positions.
I, too, join in the condemnation expressed by this European Parliament with regard to ETA' s abandonment of the truce. I can confirm my total rejection of the use of violence to achieve political aims.
However, I must also say very firmly that we have a problem in the Basque Country for we are in political conflict with the Spanish State.
From this Parliament I call on the Spanish Government and the Spanish political parties to have the same tolerance as the British and Irish so that we can all find the road to peace and a solution to the Basque conflict which is as much a European matter as the Irish conflict.
We Basques want peace and we want to find a lasting solution which is acceptable to everyone.
However, to achieve this, we must all make an effort to find common ground for the future and for peace.
Thank you.
We really cannot start a debate and you must appreciate that all these points of order are turning into one.
Madam President, I would just like to say that it is inadmissible in a democracy to let people of one political persuasion speak about the Basque country and not to allow anyone of a different political persuasion to speak.
That is inadmissible in any Parliament.
It is not a parliament, if that happens.
So I protest very strongly.
I would like to have three minutes, which is a fraction of the length of time this subject has been discussed, just to explain my point of view.
I know many people here are very fond of democracy and the ways of parliamentarism.
Could I speak, Madam President?
No. I really do not think that would be right.
This is not a debate on the issue and you have already spoken for one minute.
We just cannot continue in this way.
This is not a scheduled item on the agenda.
I particularly agree with you, Mr Poettering, because, in addition to that, I have some information to impart and some delegations to welcome which will all take time.
Madam President, I disagree with the Member except for one point on which he is right.
When three or four people have been allowed to express an opinion, basic democracy would say that another opinion should be allowed, even if they disagree with this.
The representative of a large group cannot be permitted to speak for three minutes while the representative of a small group is refused, even if you disagree with them and even if what this person is going to say is deplorable.
Mr Cohn-Bendit, this is the problem, as well you know, with points of order.
When a Member asks for the floor on a point of order, which they are not always - and you may also have been guilty of this - the President cannot guess what this Member is going to say. I cannot allow a debate to start.
If I did, then every single group would have to be given the chance to speak.
Madam President, I wish to raise a point of order under Rule 179 dealing with relations with the Ombudsman.
On 29 July this year the Ombudsman wrote to this Parliament on an own-initiative inquiry on his part calling for a code of good administrative behaviour and asking for a response by 30 November.
Up to yesterday, he had not had a reply.
I understand that you have today written to the Ombudsman but I wish to know when the Members of this Parliament are going to have the opportunity to respond to the Ombudsman' s request for comments in his own-initiative inquiry.
Quite right, Mr Perry.
I have in fact signed this letter today.
A draft has been prepared on this matter and is currently being finalised.
I believe that it will be submitted for approval by the Bureau of the European Parliament in December.
I can therefore fully reassure you in this respect.
Welcome
Statement by the President
Ladies and gentlemen, the Court of First Instance of the European Communities gave a ruling on 25 November which, in the action brought by Mr Martinez and Mr De Gaulle against the European Parliament, closes for the time being the interim proceedings started by these Members.
In this ruling, the President of the court ordered that the Act of the European Parliament of 14 September 1999 adopting the interpretation proposed by the Committee on Constitutional Affairs of Rule 29 of Parliament' s Rules of Procedure should be set aside.
The effect of this order is that the mixed Technical Group of Independent Members is permitted to exist and is acknowledged as a political group in every respect.
With regard to parliamentary activity, the TDI Group shall immediately enjoy all rights accorded by the Rules of Procedure to duly constituted political groups. With regard to finance and administration, this group has the right to sufficient staffing to enable it to function and to the appropriations allocated to political groups according to the current scale.
At its meeting this morning, the Bureau of the European Parliament took the necessary steps to ensure that the provisions of the aforementioned order are correctly applied.
It is quite clear that these provisions are of a provisional nature pending the final judgement of the Court of First Instance on this case.
The Bureau has also decided to ask the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market whether an appeal should be lodged with the Court of Justice against the order.
I have one final piece of information.
Mrs Britt Theorin, chairman of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, has taken an initiative with which I personally fully agree. She has sent all male MEPs a letter encouraging them to wear a white ribbon as a sign of their public commitment not to perpetrate violence or to excuse or remain silent about violence against women.
I believe that we can very heartily encourage this initiative.
Agenda
The next item is the agenda. The following amendments have been proposed:
Regarding Wednesday: Firstly, Mr Karlsson, who is to present the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors, must leave at 7 p.m.
I therefore propose that this item is brought forward on the agenda so that this presentation takes place immediately after the statement on human rights.
(Parliament approved the proposal)
The Di Pietro report, on behalf of the Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs, must be taken off the agenda as it has not yet been adopted in committee. This is because the committee does not have all the language versions.
Regarding Thursday:The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has asked for the inclusion on tomorrow morning' s agenda of the recommendation for second reading on the Customs 2000 programme.
The rapporteur is Mr Moraes.
This recommendation was adopted and tabled yesterday and is currently on the agenda for Wednesday 14 December in Strasbourg. We will therefore include it on the agenda for tomorrow.
The Group of the Party of European Socialists and the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party propose that this recommendation is taken without debate and is included under voting time tomorrow.
Madam President, on behalf of the PSE Group I support this request which concerns a programme which must enter into force on 5 January.
There is agreement between the main political groups on this issue and the Council also seems to agree with the amendments made by the Committee on Legal Affairs of this House. These could therefore easily be approved tomorrow.
So, I propose that this recommendation is included on the agenda for tomorrow.
(Parliament approved the proposal) President.
This item is therefore included under voting time tomorrow.
Finally, in view of the late tabling of the Fraga Estevez report on the COM in fisheries and aquaculture, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, the deadline for tabling amendments is extended until 4 p.m. today.
The Community and sport
The next item is the Commission communication on preserving current sports structures and the social function of sports in a Community framework, the Community support scheme for the campaign against drugs in sport and Commission participation in the World Anti-Doping Agency.
The Member is absolutely right.
I have discussed this with many professional sportspeople and the main reason they give for being virtually forced to take drugs is exactly the reason given by Mr Cohn-Bendit.
However, he should know that, without a legal basis to prepare a directive on sport, we cannot act in the way he wishes.
The only thing we can do, in this round table with the federations, is ask them to bring good sense into play and to re-establish the prestige of sport.
Given the equal representation of the worlds of sport and government in the World Anti-Doping Agency and given all those who will sit on the board of this agency - all the federations and all the National Olympic Committees - who have all undertaken to implement, in their own area, the decisions taken by the agency, there is real hope.
If the agency were to adopt a directive, for example, so that sporting events could be returned to a scale which was humanly possible for sportspeople, this would be a major step forward, but I cannot go further than I am authorised.
It will be up to the agency to act in this respect.
However, I can tell the honourable Member that the European authorities will work in this direction.
Madam President, first of all I want to welcome the communication from Commissioner Reding.
It must not be forgotten that sport in Europe was born of the oldest known truce, namely the sacred truce which gave rise to the Olympics.
This means that it also has a political value of peace.
Hundreds of thousands of young people, both male and female, start and develop their education through sport.
I have a question concerning the last comment made by the Commissioner.
In addition to being a social and training activity, sport is currently part of the world of big business and is actually one of the most important business activities.
My question is as follows: Does the Commission intend the policy which must be developed on sport, particularly in view of the concentration of power which is occurring in the audiovisual media, to lead to a joint action between her Directorate-General and the one responsible for defending competition? I believe that this is one of the key questions for Europe and the world.
. (FR) Madam President, this is a very complex question and the answer can only be given once dialogue has been held between the worlds of politics and sport.
We are keen to see order restored and balance re-established in sport and to ensure that sport as fair play and true competition regains its prestige.
This will not be easy as this is an enormous task, but I believe that, with the help of politicians and through public assistance and pressure, we can achieve these goals.
It is also very clear that we can act on sport only in its social and educational aspects.
When sport becomes a purely business matter, there can be no exceptions.
Sport will, at this point, be dealt with like any other business activity.
That is plain and clear. It is only when sport fulfils an important social function that we can give it a helping hand in order to restore order.
Sport as a business will be regarded and dealt with like any other business.
Madam President, Mrs Pack has spoken from the heart.
Unfortunately, she is right.
My life would be far easier if I were able to construct a sports policy on the basis of an article in the Treaty.
But, unfortunately, I have no such facility.
Only the Intergovernmental Conference could give me this facility if they were to sit down and include an article on sport in the Treaty. Could, if etc. etc.
Will it happen? I hope so, I pray so, I dream so.
But, as things stand, I can only say that most governments are against an article on sport in the Treaty, although there are governments which want to move in this direction.
I would like to see Parliament extend its lobbying activities on sport by helping and convincing the various governments to vote for a legal basis for sport in the Treaty similar to, and this would be most satisfactory for the purposes of subsidiarity, the legal basis for culture.
That would make our life much easier, but it is just wishful thinking and pie in the sky.
Madam President, although I welcome the Commissioner' s statement, there is a contradiction in what she has just said.
She answered Mr Cohn-Bendit' s question by saying that she has no legal basis to act against this over-professionalisation of sport. Yet, in answer to the question of Mr Barón Crespo, she said that she intends to act when it is a matter of business.
The EC Treaty gives the Commission very few means of proposing directives, but it is clear that organisations such as the Tour de France, the Giro d' Italia, the Tennis Masters and many others are pure business.
These are profit-making activities and, seen from this perspective, the Commission could therefore at least try to regulate the sector and its working conditions to a certain extent. As Mr Cohn-Bendit very rightly said, if sportspeople take drugs, it is because the competitions require this.
. (FR) I must clarify my words, Madam President.
I never said that I will not act when sport becomes commercial, in fact I said the contrary.
I said that when sport is a purely economic and business activity, this is when the rules on competition will fully apply to prevent any deviations in sport.
I will indeed act when sport, as a social activity, is threatened by the rules on competition.
This is when the Commission will be ready to introduce corrective measures.
We know full well that sport is being blown off course on account of its business aspect.
This is why we must help sport at the level which is of interest to all the people of Europe, not just as entertainment, but also as an educational activity, promoting solidarity between people, both young and old, and also between the various nations.
At this point we can do something.
When sport is a business, it must be regarded like any other business in Europe.
Commissioner, I must firstly congratulate you on the promotion of sports issues within the Commission.
As you have just said, sport has a very important place in daily life in Europe and must therefore be afforded this same status in the European Parliament, as Mr Prodi said in his inaugural speech.
Congratulations are also in order for your work in setting up the World Anti-Doping Agency. However, as a sportswoman, I must also ask that, as well as taking the positive step of imposing strict rules on athletes with regard to doping, we should listen to them and put their interests above economic and business interests.
This has not always been the case to date.
Furthermore, it seems that the Council wants to eliminate the budget heading on sport at second reading.
As a sportswoman, a European citizen and a Member of this House, I must very firmly indicate my disagreement with this Council proposal. Also, what steps is the Commission intending to take to ensure that sport has a budget in the European Union, so that we can work from here for European sport?
Thank you, Commissioner, and ladies and gentlemen.
The debate is closed.
Preparation of European Council of 10-11 December 1999 in Helsinki
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the preparation of the European Council of 10 and 11 December 1999 in Helsinki.
Without any further delay, I give the floor to the President-in-Office of the Council, Mrs Halonen.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, I hope that Mrs Halonen will have time, before the Summit, to read our motion for a resolution on this Summit, together with the report on the Intergovernmental Conference which we approved in November. I am saying this because I missed some of her thoughts on certain points which are absolutely vital in our opinion.
We are certainly now facing an historic challenge in terms of advancing and consolidating the Union and reorganising it in order to cope with enlargement.
My colleague, Mr Hänsch, will talk specifically about enlargement in detail.
I will restrict myself to the over-enlargement caused by our relationship with Turkey.
I can say that the Socialist Group is unanimous on this.
We do believe it is advisable to adopt a positive position with regard to Turkey.
However, firstly, Turkey must show willing.
It cannot just expect and it is therefore vital how it acts in the Öçalan case.
Secondly, a plan of action must be prepared.
Returning to the very balanced position of this House on the Intergovernmental Conference, the Council must not adopt a low-key approach to this issue.
Enlargement is a major political ambition and we have to know how to respond to this. We cannot simply say that there are some reforms to be made on a few remaining points or that this is an issue to be resolved only in terms of costs.
We have to be capable of providing the major political impetus needed for this process.
I also place great importance on something which has hardly been mentioned. We are carrying out a parallel exercise of constitutionalising the Treaties, by preparing a Charter of Fundamental Rights, at the same time as planning the Intergovernmental Conference.
We have an obligation to our fellow citizens - and note that the President-in-Office of the Council comes from a Nordic country which is always boasting about transparency - to achieve a transparent process in which this House is duly represented. I would like Mrs Halonen to reject the view expressed that the Council Presidency is opposed to full representation of the European Parliament, with two representatives, at the Intergovernmental Conference.
We must also explain to our political forces, to our national MPs and to our people, why we are holding the IGC, why we want a Charter of Fundamental Rights, why we want enlargement and why we have the responsibility of ensuring that the Community operates as a community.
On defence there is one point about which I am very pleased. The President-in-Office of the Council, who comes from a tradition of neutrality, has become an expert on security and defence.
She is to be congratulated on this.
Finally, I must refer to the absolutely fundamental issue of growth, stability and employment.
This is an issue on which the line taken in Luxembourg, and then in Cardiff, Cologne and Helsinki, must be consolidated at the next Summit under the Portuguese Presidency. We realise that, to have a prosperous future in the Union, we must be capable of being more competitive and generating more economic growth, but with the emphasis on employment and social cohesion which are, and must be, our first priorities.
These are the challenges which my group wants the Helsinki Summit to respond to in a positive manner.
Mr President, the President of the Council says that she always appreciates the trips she makes to the Parliament, so it is rather extraordinary that she failed during her speech to respond to any of the proposals of Parliament for the IGC.
This rather reinforces the press reports, which give cause for concern, that the European Council has chosen a narrow agenda for the IGC and a merely voluntary charter.
If that is so, it says a lot about the way the Union is squaring up for the challenge of enlargement.
An IGC that failed to amend the way the treaties can be revised in future and in policy sectors to soften them would be an IGC that threatened to paralyse the Union when it tries to modernise itself following the accession of new Member States.
An IGC that failed to grant the citizen improved access to the European Court means a charter will be more of a public relations exercise than a powerful re-definition of European citizenship.
And a Union that is frightened to reinforce its liberal and parliamentary character will be an unattractive Union for the acceding Member States and an unreliable player upon the world stage.
Where Europe stops should not be a question of geography but of liberal values and democratic practices, clearly defined and brightly illuminated so that the candidate countries know where the European journey will bring them.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, in addition to those issues already mentioned here, we are expecting - and someone has already referred to this - the Helsinki Summit to promote protection of the environment and to at last place environmental protection at the heart of Union action.
We must now take a definite step forward on this issue, as we know how difficult it has been to put a stop to negative developments with regard to the environment, and we are expecting determination and concrete results from you in the areas of business, industry and agriculture.
As regards the economy in general, the current struggle to harmonise indirect taxation is certainly an illustrative example of how we will not make any headway in this area if we insist on unanimity.
I have followed Mrs Halonen' s battle with the City of London bankers, and I believe that there will be no end to this struggle until we can decide the issue of taxation by means of a qualified majority.
This will therefore be an important task for the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
Otherwise we will be leaving questions of taxation for the markets to decide, and that is something we surely do not want.
The subject that will surely live on after the Helsinki Summit is, however, concrete decisions on a common security arrangement.
I would like to thank the President-in-Office of the Council specifically as you very laudably raised the point that civil and military crisis management complement one another and they should be examined and decided on together.
The European Union does indeed have such an advantage, compared, for example, with NATO.
The European Union is, after all, a civil organisation, and if it now develops a military crisis management capacity, we can also trust it to consider the wisdom that says it is always better to prevent crises rather than try to calm things down through the use of force.
We can resort to that when all else has failed.
You mentioned that for civil crisis management we need the police: I would like to add that other ordinary professional groups, such as psychologists and social workers, as well as plumbers and builders, can be needed in non-military crisis management.
Our group was most satisfied when it heard recently that High Representative Xavier Solana had started to look into a parliamentary initiative for the establishment of civil crisis management troops.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you mentioned a Millennium Declaration: it seems the Council has also been bitten by the millennium bug.
You have spoken in favour of transparency, but this is surely one of the most closely guarded state secrets there is.
So perhaps you could give us a tiny hint about what kind of tracks we will be leaving at the millennium celebrations.
Mr President, we have heard a great deal about this new enlargement strategy, which Mr Prodi has also proposed to us in the past.
Some aspects of it are appealing and sound, some are threatening.
Mr Prodi was not in the least convincing when it came to the following question: is political unification the price for the new strategy? We are particularly worried about this.
We are worried that this strategy will somehow lead to a twin-track Europe - i.e. the 15 versus the rest - and that many aspects of unification are being sidelined.
The second reason this worries us is on account of the Intergovernmental Conference: there is an air of vagueness and stubbornness about it and its narrow agenda only addresses procedural issues.
What about the political issues, what we might call the intergovernmental economic management of EMU, Mr President; in other words, what about political intervention?
What about the common policy on unemployment, or on employment for that matter? Are these not issues which are relevant to unification, issues which concern the very people from whom the Union is apparently distancing itself?
The third issue is Turkey.
Do the Council and the Commission know exactly what Turkey wants?
We are convinced by numerous declarations that some people in Turkey just want 'symbolic recognition' , purely for internal reasons, and do not take their future in Europe seriously.
That is no good to anyone, either in Europe or in Turkey.
If we want to make ourselves clear and if we want to stop bandying words and leading Turkey up the garden path, then we should send it a signal which says that, of course, Turkey will not be discriminated against, that goes without saying; however, we need to be clear as to what Turkey' s future within Europe will actually entail.
We need a material policy which Turkey can verify and which allows it to head along the right path: the path towards the rule of law, good neighbourliness and peaceful coexistence, as well as towards a withdrawal from military operations everywhere, especially in Cyprus and on the Kurdish question.
Mr President, all Members of the European Union can take solace from the fact that the European Union economy is performing well and that we have permanent democratic structures operating in all our respective jurisdictions.
This is not the case for all countries in Europe at this time and that is why I welcome the efforts of the Finnish Government to pursue the adoption of a strategy on the Western Balkans at the forthcoming Helsinki Summit.
A permanent stabilisation of the region is in the interests of the European Union as a whole.
The European Union and the Member States together constitute the most important donors in the region and besides humanitarian aid, the region has received this year EU aid amounting to EUR 2,100 m.
We support democratic change in Yugoslavia and the European Union has rightly started to implement pilot projects based on the energy-for-democracy initiative.
EU enlargement will be another central theme at the Helsinki Summit.
During the Finnish Presidency, accession negotiations have been opened in respect of seven more chapters of talks.
These concern EMU, social policy and employment, the free movement of capital, the free movement of services, taxation, energy, transport, all of which are very demanding social and economic sectors.
I am particularly pleased to see that the chapter dealing with energy has now commenced.
I say this because the safety of nuclear plants in Eastern and Central Europe has been a cause for great concern in recent years, and will continue to be.
The Union cannot hide from the naked fact that the EU itself, together with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, will have to play a key role in terms of financial contributions and technical support to make safe all these nuclear reactors sooner rather than later.
We all know that the enlargement process cannot take place unless there is some internal reform in the decision-making processes within the EU.
The Presidency is independently preparing a comprehensive report on questions to be examined at the IGC and on the various options for resolving them.
The deadline being set down for the next IGC is very ambitious indeed.
I support working towards reaching agreement by the end of next year, but equally we must not, and should not, hurry possible fundamental reforms to existing EU treaties without due consideration and evaluation.
Mr President, I am, of course, only speaking on behalf of the Italian Radical Members.
We understand that the Council is disgracefully preparing to exclude the European Parliament from the Intergovernmental Conference and, above all, that it is preparing to ensure that the conference will only tackle three items related to the improvement of the functioning of the institutions, thereby leaving that incomprehensible house of cards known as the Treaty of the Union entirely intact.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Council and the Commission, today the Union is an institution which does not respect the minimum parameters of democracy and the Rule of Law, and for us Radicals, European federalists, advocates of the United States of Europe as envisaged by Altiero Spinelli, it is difficult to consider the minor - and they really are minor - reforms on the agenda as real progress.
Of course, we are utopians and you are realists, such realists that the Berlin Wall has been down for ten years, and ten years on we are still unable to enlarge eastwards, just as we were unable to intervene to stop the genocide, first in Bosnia and then in Kosovo.
This is because the European Union' s strength is increasingly bureaucratic power, a pervasive bureaucracy that desires to take control of everything, under the ideological illusion that the law and the parliamentary process are obstacles that needlessly slow down reform.
I believe that Parliament should not be satisfied with just asking to participate in proceedings at the conference, such as the work on drafting a Charter of Fundamental Rights, but that it should demand the right to be able to act as a real parliament and it should demand that its right to decide independently on its own seat be restored at the Intergovernmental Conference so that it is not forced to work with its secretariat spread between three different locations.
This could be a first tangible step towards allowing Parliament to be a real parliament.
In fact, there is no doubt about the agenda for the Summit.
It will be planning the Intergovernmental Conference with a view to the enlargement of the European Union.
A drastic extension to the Union' s powers is on the agenda.
These are the crucial building blocks for a United States of the European Union, that is to say for a real federal State.
There is one significant point I want to concentrate on in my speech, namely the Commission' s remark in its contribution for the Summit to the effect that, if the political will is sufficiently strong, it will be possible to conclude the planned Intergovernmental Conference successfully before the end of the year 2000.
One wonders whose political will are we talking about? Earlier, I heard one speaker say that we must be careful not to lose our citizens.
Yes, but is that not putting the cart before the horse? Is it not our citizens who govern our society, or is it ourselves, sitting here and fashioning democracy?
What kind of absurdity is this?
If the people of Europe were to be asked whether they wanted the kind of empire-building that is on the agenda, extremely different answers would be obtained.
We have asked this question in Denmark, for example.
On the few occasions we did ask the people - and we also asked the French people in 1992 - we received an answer indicating very serious public reservations about such a development. But our citizens are not being asked, and my advice to this Intergovernmental Conference, before the empire-building gets too well under way, is: ask the people of Europe whether they want developments to take this course.
I personally am sure of the answer.
This is something they do not want.
We have already lost our citizens, as may be very clearly seen from the results and the turnout at the last elections to this Parliament.
Mr President, numerous aspects of enlargement have been raised, together with the economic, social and democratic implications.
I am certain that all these issues will be resolved in the medium or long term.
But one problem calls for immediate resolution.
I refer to the closure of high-risk nuclear reactors.
An accident would affect the whole of Europe and the longer these reactors are working the greater the likelihood of total meltdown.
It is therefore imperative that binding arrangements for the decommissioning of high risk reactors be agreed before accession negotiations begin.
Allow me to give you just one example of the nuclear policy of an applicant country: Slovakia' s technocrats and bureaucrats promised under the Communist regime to decommission Bohunice in the year 2000.
Obviously they recognised the risk.
Now, no-one knows anything about any such promise.
Just as past promises have not been honoured, there is a danger, if guaranteed decommissioning is not demanded in advance, that they will once again be forgotten.
Mr President, Mrs Halonen, Mr Prodi, we Finns know that we do not give thanks when there are good grounds for doing so, but we are quick to criticise.
I will surprise the Finnish representatives of the country to hold the presidency by saying that the Finnish Presidency can already now be termed, in the positive sense, historic.
At the Summit conference in Tampere, we included internal and police affairs among Community issues in an attempt to increase citizens' security.
The fight against organised crime, above all against the spread of drugs, will become more effective as the decisions are implemented.
At Tampere, we decided to draft a Charter of Fundamental Rights, in which the European Parliament will also be fully involved.
The meeting at Helsinki will deal with joint crisis management and the resources to be allocated to it, along with a timetable for this joint action.
According to a new opinion poll, this enjoys the support of a clear majority in my country.
This step towards a common foreign and defence policy, in close cooperation with NATO, is an important part of civil, economic and political crisis management.
The Intergovernmental Conference, at which next year will be decided the institutional changes that are required within the Community as a condition for enlargement, will have its roots in, and receive its agenda from, Helsinki.
At Helsinki, the status of the new applicant countries will also be decided, which means that the artificial division in Eastern and Central Europe into better and poorer candidates will end.
But is our own house in order at present, and what must the people of those countries trying to join the Community think about this patent protectionism, which undermines the basic work of the Community in the economic sector?
What measures might be imposed in time on their relatively low-income citizens and on their companies competing in the Community? For example, Spain still holds back from the all-important creation of the European limited company, the United Kingdom safeguards City jobs by refusing to accept the harmonisation of taxation even as regards the taxation of capital, France would rather go to the Community court than liberalise its electricity market as required by Union legislation, the German Chancellor breaks all the rules of the market economy and rescues a construction company on the brink of bankruptcy in order to gain political kudos in his home country, and the beef war against England continues far beyond the requirements of health.
How can we be contemplating enlargement if we are still fighting in the current EU area in a manner that goes against the rules of the Single Market? European competitiveness is not strong now either, the markets in the Community are not functioning correctly and the process whereby differences in consumer goods prices in the EMU area would be evened out has ground to a halt.
My examples in no way mean that I exclude the possibility of the rules being broken in my country as well.
I only wish to say that the future aims in Helsinki are good ones, but our own European house must also be put in order in accordance with the rules of the Union.
Mr President, there are two particularly important issues to be debated at the Helsinki Summit: Union enlargement and setting the IGC in motion.
As we adopted the broad resolution on the IGC in the previous part-session at Strasbourg, we should have focused this time mainly on Union enlargement.
Unfortunately, the joint resolution drafted by the groups only contains a few paragraphs on enlargement.
The group of the European Liberal Democrats has tabled some amendments that would complement and improve the jointly prepared draft.
We hope that the Commission and the Council will draft an overall strategy, in which enlargement of the Union and its future reforms might be linked to a broader pan-European scenario.
In our opinion, we should consider various models of differentiated integration and try to achieve an ever-developing, concentrically conceived Union, in which there would be a federal core and a less integrated outer perimeter.
We furthermore propose that the Union should use the European Council and the OSCE as forums for pan-European cooperation.
We hope there will be support for our proposal.
Mr President, I welcome the fact that the Commission has made a long overdue move towards revision of the enlargement strategy.
But that should not blind us to the fact that the enlargement strategy has still not actually been revised in certain areas, namely with regard to aid, transparency and parity.
There is still no public debate in these countries, no social dialogue, no involvement at regional or local level; what we take for granted cannot happen there because the EU instruments do not allow it.
I would also like to point out how important it is for the presidency to inject new life into this forum with a new European conference and to involve these future EU members equally in the new configuration of the European Union.
This applies both to institutional reforms and to the common objective of meeting the Kyoto objectives.
Mr President, the European Council of 10 and 11 December 1999 in Helsinki will launch the next Intergovernmental Conference intended to revise the EC Treaty with a view to enlargement. However, a minimalist agenda appears to have been set for this IGC, basically limited to the three points left open by the Treaty of Amsterdam: composition of the Commission, weighting of votes in Council and a further extension of qualified majority voting.
This agenda will not in any way help to solve the EU' s problems in terms of enlargement which is therefore likely to be undertaken under the worst institutional conditions.
We certainly understand the Council' s dislike of the shameless attempts by the Commission in recent months to force through, along the lines of the Dehaene report, the idea of another major federalist leap forward.
On the other hand, the Council is now accepting the inclusion on the agenda of a proposal of the same type, namely the extension of qualified majority voting. This was not even envisaged by the Amsterdam Protocol on the institutions, and appeared only in an annexed statement of three Member States.
This proposal, inspired by the idea of a standardised and standardising Europe, is by no means the solution which will allow Europe to operate with 27 members or more.
In our opinion, if the Council really wants to carry out innovative work, it should ditch the Commission' s proposals and ignore the Amsterdam leftovers. It should put just one subject on the negotiating table, namely decision making in an enlarged Union.
This one subject would mean having to jointly consider three consequences which are logically linked. These are qualified majority voting in certain cases, the enshrinement of the Luxembourg compromise in all cases and increased flexibility in cooperation according to a differentiated scale.
In this way, we would have to consider what really brings us together, without blindly accepting the acquis communautaire as a taboo area, and how the common institutions will operate in a Union which uses this differentiated scale.
If we do not make this effort to change, if we hold on to rigid ideas like limpets to a rock, either enlargement will fail or the Union will be swept away. It is our choice.
Mr President, the Helsinki Summit would like clarity on the matter.
The European Union must ensure that the enlargement process is not slowed down because institutional reforms have not taken place within the Union.
The European Commission' s transparency concerning candidate countries should be adopted by the European Summit.
What will a Union comprising more than 25 Members actually look like? Moreover, Turkey requires special treatment in the accession strategy.
It also remains unclear what will change for Turkey now that this State is being treated as a candidate country, although there is absolutely no question of accession taking place as yet.
The agenda for the IGC in 2000 must list more items than the three leftovers from Amsterdam.
The attitude regarding the accession process displayed by people within candidate countries remains worrying.
In this respect, it is important to develop a clear information strategy.
In fact, the same applies just as much to public opinion within the EU Member States.
Otherwise, the value of an enlarged Union will remain vague to the average European citizen.
The composition of the European institutions must be changed in good time.
It is hoped that the Summit will draw up a schedule for this.
Mr President, as former rapporteur on the enlargement strategy I of course welcome with open arms the new proposals submitted to the Council by the Commission once and for all to eliminate the unfortunate dichotomy between candidate countries, once and for all.
Also, I could not agree more with the reason given in this respect.
We used exactly the same reason for promoting the so-called "Regatta model" which did a great deal more justice to the own merits and efforts of the countries that wanted to join the European Union.
Indeed, if we say to the most developed of the candidate countries: you are already in really, then they will sit back and no longer put in the same effort.
We witnessed this in the case of the Czech Republic: policy stagnated.
Other less developed countries, such as Bulgaria and Romania, will be discouraged and will lose the backing of the people for hard-line measures.
Thankfully, this bizarre division into two groups is also being rescinded.
I highly commend the Council, in anticipation that is, for the fact that it is going to implement these changes and this strategy in accordance with the original Parliament position.
It is extremely important that the European Parliament puts its own house in order too.
We need a swift victory during the Intergovernmental Conference in 2000.
We need to start reforming our institutions ourselves, to democratise ourselves.
We require candidate countries to develop their institutions and ensure that they operate democratically.
Imagine if we did not need to meet these requirements ourselves. I am, therefore, extremely taken aback by what Mr Van den Berg, from the [Dutch] Labour Party, wrote in a letter published recently which stated, in so many words, that the Union' s reform should no longer be a prerequisite for enlargement.
How can it not be? I am extremely pleased that the leaders in the socialist group here do not subscribe to this view.
Indeed, only if one does not operate with the best of intentions for the European Union can one say that we do not need to put our own house in order.
We could easily offer the new Member States a house which will turn into a heap of rubble.
They are entitled to more.
They are entitled to democratically functioning institutions within the EU, of which they want to become members and which can take effective decisions.
We should not offer them anything less.
Anyone who wants to focus only on the EU' s achievements as a free trade zone should just continue making this type of proposal.
The reproach implicit in his letter that the Union actually regulates far too much at national, regional and local level, is also striking.
Only hardened supporters of Mrs Thatcher talk in this way about decentralisation of Union policy.
It is genuinely not the case that we rob national, regional and local governments of duties which belong there.
Quite the opposite, in fact; subsidiarity is held in very high esteem here.
Anyone who denies this is making a mockery of our work.
In my opinion, all Member States should make a proper and sound contribution to the public debate on the European Union and we can bring this about, for example, by ensuring that insignificant issues which take us away from the real issues dealt with by the European Union are abandoned, the type of issues raised by the entire delegation brought by Mr Van den Berg.
I applaud the fact that we are going to develop a European Security and Defence Policy without weakening transatlantic relations and the link with NATO.
I am extremely happy that we both, that is Mr Hänsch and I, also clearly agreed on this point, highlighting nevertheless that the European Union really prefers non-military means.
This is simply a fact.
But we also know that non-military means and diplomatic means often only really work if a credible, military threat is present in the background.
I think that as far as this is concerned, we have learnt our lesson.
The European Union has been dangerous because it was unable to split sovereign power in terms of security and defence policy.
This is now changing, fortunately.
Mr President, I herewith wish the Council the best of luck with the proposals we are submitting and I hope that the Council will, in good time, listen to the European Parliament regarding these other issues as well.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Europe has undergone substantial change over the last ten years.
The development that began with the turning point in autumn 1989 has reached a stage of controlled progress, thanks to the determined policies of the European Union.
We have laid down clear guidelines for Europe' s development, but there is work still to be done.
The Intergovernmental Conference, the reality of a common foreign and security policy and the controlled realisation of enlargement are matters that have to be thoroughly prepared for, both in the applicant countries and in the European Union.
These areas form an important whole on the agenda of the Helsinki European Council and, as has been said here, this whole is so dynamic that if everything succeeds, the Helsinki meeting will be an historic event.
The importance of these matters means that it is vital that Parliament also debates the issue thoroughly.
We are now in a situation where, for the first time, full consideration must be given to the Treaty of Amsterdam in a meeting of the European Council.
The President-in-Office of the Council' s excellent speech fully covered the questions and challenges of a common security and defence policy for the Union.
We should point out that the Helsinki Summit will focus on the European Union' s policy on the northern dimension and hence bring about more solid tools of stability and security for the northern part of Europe.
When we speak of security, peace and stability in Europe, we should not forget, however, the factors that have an impact on internal security in society.
A respect for fundamental rights and aspirations towards social equality are the best defence policy for ensuring social stability.
The European employment policy and the guidelines on employment for the year 2000 to be discussed at Helsinki as a part of that policy still belong at the top of the Union' s agenda.
The defence of democracy and the prevention of extremism are the basis of social justice, which means, among other things, combating unemployment.
Finally, I would like to express my sincere congratulations to the country to hold the presidency for having succeeded, with no amendments to regulations, this has not yet been possible, in clearly increasing transparency in the decision-making process in the European Union and especially, in the European Council.
Hopefully, future countries to hold the presidency will carry on the good work.
Mr President, my remarks will concern security aspects of today' s debate.
Members of the House may not be aware of an ill-judged intervention into national politics by the Secretary-General of NATO today.
Lord Robertson just recently attacked as isolationist the Scottish National Party' s policy concerning NATO membership.
That policy, I should tell you, is equivalent in effect to the stance of Austria, Finland and Sweden, and also Ireland, though the occasion of Lord Robertson's intervention was Ireland's accession to the Partnership for Peace Programme.
I hope that the President-in-Office of the Council would deplore, as I do, a party political intervention by the Secretary-General of NATO, the logical implication of which is an attack on the defence policy of Finland and other Member States.
For the record, I should like to make it clear that, in common with all our colleagues in the Green European Free Alliance, we in the SNP are committed to the idea of collective security in Europe and welcome developments the Council will pursue to this end.
But we are rootedly opposed to the maintenance of nuclear weapons in Scottish coastal waters, or coastal waters anywhere in Europe, or the land of Europe.
This is a determining factor for defence policy as far as we are concerned, and I do not for a moment imagine that Ireland is in the process of developing a policy aimed at giving hospitality to nuclear weapons in their waters.
Indeed, Mr Collins assured me that this has nothing to do with NATO membership.
I hope that in developing our crisis management policy, we in Europe will think carefully as to where, if anywhere, nuclear weapons belong in it.
I do not think they belong at all.
Mr President, here, in this Chamber, I would like to express strong concern and, if I may say so, some pessimism regarding the developments that are taking shape regarding the forthcoming Summit.
Parliament has expressed a very clear position.
It has voiced the hope that some major institutional reforms will be unalterably implemented before enlargement takes place if we do not want Europe to turn into a large area of free trade and nothing more, where regulations and internal rules that are now obsolete leave it distinctly incapable of making decisions; it has also stated that decisions on majority voting and membership of the committees are not sufficient to give fresh impetus and new strength to Europe, but that some other avenues should be taken, such as the Charter of Fundamental Rights and certain other elements that should have united the whole of the great European movement: all this, of course, must be in full respect for the nations, their feelings, their history and their traditions, which I consider to be extremely important.
However, what I think I have understood - since we are not blind - is that at the forthcoming conference, caution and realism are likely to prevail over audacity and courage.
But at an historic time such as this, when we either have the courage to take a giant step forwards or else risk being condemned to a lengthy period of impotency, I think that audacity and courage count for more than realism.
I therefore extend an invitation to all those who believe in these goals, in these objectives, to be firm and determined, and we have here with us President Prodi who has declared this several times, and I know he believes it.
I also invite the European Parliament to meet immediately after Helsinki - if, as I fear, the conclusion will be progress, but too limited - and with a very open mind and great courage to take responsibility for all of its decisions, saying and thinking, as at other times in European history, that Parliament has great possibilities and a significant role to play.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I would like to confine myself to two comments regarding the Helsinki Summit.
The first concerns the Intergovernmental Conference.
It seems clear from what the Minister has said that the Cologne conclusions will not be the only three items on the agenda of the Intergovernmental Conference.
In my opinion, it is only right that issues relating to common foreign policy, defence and the economy should be discussed.
However, it would be wrong just to stick to these few issues and ignore matters relating to the future structure and legal identity of the European Union, or social and cultural issues.
I should like, at this juncture, to point out that the Charter of Fundamental Rights is of the utmost importance, and we should ensure that it evolves into a binding text and does not just remain a simple declaration of intent.
My second comment concerns the position of Turkey.
We must tread very carefully on this issue at the Helsinki Summit, because this ties in closely with the fact that Turkey has yet to demonstrate in its policies that it has understood that close relations with Europe depend on its fulfilling certain conditions, as laid down in EU texts and decisions.
The question which arises here concerns the extension of the borders of Europe, especially with enlargement in the offing, and of whether or not the borders are to be extended to include Turkey.
These are, in my view, important issues which we must bear in mind.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, I would also like to express my satisfaction with the strategy, which is generally sensible and coherent as far as enlargement is concerned.
However, although this vision, which is held both by the Council and the Commission on the issue of enlargement, may be ambitious, the same cannot be said about the content of the forthcoming IGC.
In fact, what we have on the table now is merely a continuation of what could not be achieved in Amsterdam.
I would say there is "plenty of ambition for enlargement and yet very little ambition for a revision of the Treaty of the Union itself" .
There is even greater cause for concern when what we want to revise, that is the famous institutional triangle, is defended on the basis of an argument for efficiency and not on the basis of an overall vision of the European project.
I do not think that anyone will be happy if the Intergovernmental Conference at the end of 2000 results in the Commission or the Council taking decisions in two hours which they previously took in five, six or seven.
The project of European construction does not rest on the criterion of efficiency but on the criterion of cohesion and what we all hope is that, in Helsinki, a political agenda is set, and not a technical agenda with complicated political consequences.
In this regard, I would like to welcome the Portuguese Presidency' s willingness to grant the European Parliament' s representatives at this IGC the same status that will be given to the Commission as far as the personal representatives of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs are concerned.
It also appears important that we take advantage of the Portuguese Presidency' s willingness to have the IGC start not in March but, if possible, as early as January.
As for the Charter of Fundamental Rights, it is important that it is able not only to extend the rights that are already laid down in Charters and Treaties but also that it recognises rights in the social and economic spheres and, above all, that it is able to be innovative and creative in the area of new rights concerning environmental issues and the protection of consumer rights.
I shall now address a third point to which President Barón Crespo has already referred, concerning employment issues.
The Union cannot only attempt to deal with employment issues when we are going through periods of economic slowdown.
Our policies should be active, not reactive.
We must take advantage of the current economic cycle and of the declaration that the Finnish Presidency will be making on the Millennium and the new information society, so that we find a creative way of recording sustained growth and so that the goal of full employment is actually achieved and does not remain a rhetorical phrase.
Finally, Mr President, I also support you in your intention to have the strategic lines that were laid down in the Tampere Council conclusions approved, specifically in the fight against drug trafficking, and I hope that the Portuguese Presidency will be willing to adopt its own action plan in the next six-monthly term.
) Mr President, it is a real pity that the Intergovernmental Conference will not be considering certain essential elements on the area of freedom, security and justice, none of which can be achieved at the expense of the others.
I also regret that our joint motion for a resolution does not mention the problems linked to Eurodac, even though the Council has just announced, contrary to the Treaties, that this body should remain purely intergovernmental.
This would, of course, exclude the European Parliament and the Court of Justice from any control in this area.
Similarly, faced with the multiplication of information systems such as Europol and Eurodac, this House should have repeated its demand for an independent commission on data processing and the protection of privacy in order to preserve our individual freedoms, in addition to democratic and judicial control.
The idea of citizenship is also most notably absent from this text.
Yet this is a subject of vital importance. It is a cornerstone of the negotiations on the Charter of Fundamental Rights and also on the constitutionalisation of the Union.
When the Union is enlarged, it is this citizenship which must be at the heart of our European project in order to ensure human and sustainable development.
To conclude, we must realise that such a pale and insipid text cannot satisfy the people of Europe.
We must take care that we do not distance ourselves too much from their aspirations if we are to build a fairer and more democratic Europe with a greater sense of solidarity.
Mr President, I wish the Finnish Presidency every success at the Helsinki Summit as this will conclude a range of important work undertaken during its term.
With regard to the issues mentioned by the President-in-Office of the Council, the shape of the Union following enlargement raises no problems for this House, for the Commission proposal or for the Council of Ministers.
On the issue of the Intergovernmental Conference, such an optimistic situation is not appropriate in view of the tour by the Finnish Prime Minister. It would be a pity to miss this opportunity of giving a boost to the project of European integration and we will regret not having taken due advantage of this occasion.
I completely agree with Mrs Halonen' s assessment that it is absolutely essential to reaffirm the international presence of the European Union. This is particularly true in the fields of security and defence to which the Finnish Presidency - and this can be said with legitimate pride - has given a decisive boost with this historic meeting of Defence and Foreign Ministers.
This is the first time that this has occurred in the history of the European Union.
Furthermore, we must stress the need to consolidate the achievements made at the Tampere Summit, referred to by the previous speaker, on an area of freedom, security and justice.
As mentioned by the President-in-Office of the Council, it is essential that we confirm and prepare the work of the Portuguese Presidency with regard to employment.
We are at an all-time low in the short history of the euro so the Helsinki European Council should devote some time to the issue of the external representation of the euro zone.
Mrs Halonen, you referred to the need for us to promote a more open, democratic and transparent European integration project.
I noted with satisfaction the comment made by the President of the Commission on the presence of the European Parliament at the Intergovernmental Conference, but I would like you to say this as well.
We cannot achieve a more open, transparent and democratic Europe if the European Parliament is not fully involved in the work of the IGC.
I hope and pray that the European Council in Helsinki can give us a Europe which is more judicious, more united and much more community-spirited, and therefore much less intergovernmental.
Mr President, I have taken the floor to express, first of all, my surprise at what the President-in-Office of the Council said about the Intergovernmental Conference: Mrs Halonen did not even mention the European Parliament' s resolution of 18 November and the proposals it contains on the agenda of the Conference.
They are serious and justified proposals, not escapist flights of fancy or vain utopian desires.
I do not think it is right to take this attitude towards an important stance adopted by Parliament.
We already know everything about the three leftovers from Amsterdam: all that remains is to make the choices that were not made during the previous conference.
We should take a year just to do this.
May I say that it is ridiculous to uphold this.
Take heed: if the Council, if the governments do not open up the agenda of the Helsinki Summit to essential institutional issues that are now more than ready to be addressed, the debate on enlargement will lack credibility and we will show ourselves incapable of having a far-sighted view of the development of all aspects of the Union.
President Prodi, I do not understand what the preparatory work outside the Intergovernmental Conference you spoke of should be.
You seemed to be entrusting to this strange forum some of the issues that were put forward here by the Commission on 10 November.
I hope that you will keep all those Commission proposals on the agenda and the conference approach unchanged, and will contribute in this way to a positive outcome of the Helsinki Council.
Mr President, I think that President Prodi did well in his intervention, all of which we should agree with, to say that enlargement is the main and essential point for Helsinki.
Parliament had already been stressing for some time the inadequacy of the approach adopted by the Commission and the Council on enlargement.
I think it was a question of a strategic and political error, the consequences of which were fortunately limited by the Commission' s change of mind, even though, I must say, it is sad to think that perhaps it was only the war which we experienced on our doorstep that pushed them towards this new strategy.
It is right to begin negotiations with all the applicant states, but there is no doubt that we must differentiate between these countries, given that the levels of adaptation to Europe vary greatly between them.
Of course, it seems difficult to talk about accession dates, even if it would be useful, very useful, in order to facilitate public opinion in the countries concerned, given that it is increasingly obvious that it is a risk: negotiations that are too lengthy may cool enthusiasm, both in Member States as well as applicant states, as shown by the recent opinion polls carried out in Poland and as I personally saw in this country from where I returned yesterday.
We would therefore lose an historic opportunity, to quote President Prodi again.
I am absolutely convinced that the accession of a new Member State must be the result of a broad consensus between political groups but, above all, the majority of the populations concerned should be in agreement.
Therefore, we need - and this is my invitation to Parliament - to draw particular attention to the information campaigns which keep support for the European option in these countries at a high level.
In this respect, I think that the PHARE programme may be the appropriate instrument, and I therefore think that it must be consolidated precisely in this area.
Mr President, allow me to pick up where my colleague Mr Gawronski left off, namely the acceptance of Europe among the people of the various countries seeking to join the European Union.
It is not only Poland; other countries, such as the Czech Republic, also keep their enthusiasm for the European Union in check.
I should like to point out that the Commission' s progress report on the Czech Republic refers to a medium-sized town in the Czechia where a fence has been built down a street to separate the Czechs from the Romas.
That is hardly progress.
I have been there twice, I have spoken to the mayor, I said the fence must go and what happened? The tabloid press of Europe is calling this fence a wall, as if it were not only the Berlin wall but the great wall of China.
It has been so blown up that the people there are, understandably, extremely angry because they assume that there is sauce for the goose and sauce for the gander in the European Union.
We have one set of rules for ourselves, and we are far from whiter than white, and we have another set of rules for applicant countries and we expect everything of them which we ourselves fail to deliver.
When we in the European Union take a look around us, at ethnic conflicts and terrorist attacks, I think that, if the boot were on the other foot, for example, if the Czech Republic were already in the Union, then it would say to a certain Member State: friend, if you do not get your house in order, then you must wait another twenty years before you become a Member State.
I simply mean we should make sure that the people are not put off.
The point is, we do not need to get on with the politicians in the applicant countries, but with the people.
That is all that counts.
Mr President, allow me to begin by congratulating the Finnish Presidency on what has, on the whole, been a good six months.
I should like to thank you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, for enabling the EU' s foreign and security policy, including its military capability, to be discussed so thoroughly today.
The EU can now, within the framework of the Amsterdam Treaty, increase its credibility where commitment to freedom and peace in Europe are concerned.
The Helsinki Summit is, in that respect, a test for Europe' s present leadership.
Is there the will and the courage to get together to formulate, and give depth to, a policy which enables the people of Europe to see that there is force and not only words behind the desire to prevent human catastrophes such as that in Kosovo?
Just as important a test of leadership is that involved in guaranteeing that the enlargement of the European Union can be carried out with the first new Member States acceding to the Union during the present term of office.
In Helsinki, the preliminary values are being laid down for the Intergovernmental Conference which is to solve any remaining questions of power.
We must have a European Union with the power to take decisions.
Wishes for the future ought not, however, to be allowed to outstrip the historic task of taking advantage now of the historical opportunity to unify the whole of Europe.
The Finnish Presidency and the Summit must hand over the baton to Portugal with one unequivocal goal: to conclude the Intergovernmental Conference in Paris with a view to making an open, cooperative Europe, united in a common purpose, into a reality and one which will make place great demands upon leadership, the capacity for change and the willingness to quarrel less over national and short-term interests.
Mr President, the European Parliament will summarise this debate on Helsinki in a resolution.
As always, it will be a compromise resolution.
There is nothing wrong with that, it is the nature of the beast.
But, in this case, I fear that the willingness of the joint authors of this resolution to reach a compromise has gone too far.
I am not referring so much to what is said, although I do have, to a greater or lesser extent, some difficulty with that, such as on the subject of Turkey.
My criticism applies mainly to what is not said in the resolution.
We set too much store by the principle of hope and too little on hard facts as far as enlargement is concerned.
The Commission refers again and again in its status reports on the level of adaptation to the acquis communautaire to the fact that candidate countries, and this includes both the first wave and the second wave, are very slow in transposing and adapting to the acquis in numerous areas, such as social affairs, the environment and energy, as well as in human rights and living democracy.
That is not enough.
We should not be content to hope that a death sentence in Turkey will perhaps not be carried through.
We should not be content to hope that sometime, somewhere, what are clearly unsafe nuclear power stations will perhaps be closed.
We should not pretend that the extremely long transition periods which, in the 1980s, did not cause any real problems, may not cause any problems to the internal market.
Do we really want to accept transition periods of fifteen years or more for basic freedoms in the movement of people and in the service sector and still keep our borders open?
We are in favour of enlargement; it is the answer to the question of the future of Europe, which is precisely why we must speak a clear language, even in compromise resolutions.
Mr President, it is my privilege to speak again in a debate with Mrs Halonen.
In fact, my first ever speech in this Chamber was back in July when I commended the Finnish Presidency on giving priority to information society and its work programme.
Tonight, as we draw towards the close of that presidency, I want to commend the Finnish Presidency for working on this, but also to express some disappointment that it has not made more of the opportunities.
Mrs Halonen only just managed to fit in a mention of information society - I think right in the last sentence of her speech - and yet, according to a paper that I received from the Commission last week, we are to have an e-Europe initiative presented at Helsinki, a paper entitled "Information Society for All" .
So far, we have not seen that.
"All" clearly still does not include Members of the European Parliament, so not many people know about it.
Indeed it barely rated a mention in your speech, but I hope that the Council is going to spend some time on this vital topic.
Could I also say on the broader topic of completing the internal market that, during the Finnish Presidency, we have had some very important strategy papers and they actually require a much higher priority than they are receiving in the Community at the moment.
Indeed, the motion for a resolution I saw this morning contained no mention of any internal market or information society initiatives at all, despite the work that has been going on under your Presidency.
I tabled an addendum in the name of my group this morning to include those items and I hope very much it will receive the support of this House.
In conclusion, I also hope that the Finnish Presidency will remind Member governments at the Helsinki Council that creating a single market requires that cross-border takeovers and the restructuring of key industries must be allowed to proceed without political interference by Member governments.
I am sure that Members of this House will know that there is a crucial takeover battle under way at the moment in the telecommunications sector.
I have to say I am disappointed to see that some of the comments by senior politicians, and even Members of the Commission, suggest that the whole philosophy of an internal market has still to be fully accepted.
Mr President, first I will admit that when we tried to meet both the demands of time and adhere to priorities we chose as the basis of talks certain of those issues which we knew would be the most important topics at Helsinki.
Thus, I have touched less in my speech on certain other matters, attention to which has been drawn here quite justifiably.
However, I can reassure and console the Members of the European Parliament and say that these issues have not been forgotten.
Firstly, as regards the question of employment, we regard this as very important, and we have made preparations, as I said in my speech, to ensure that history' s first Summit conference on employment is a real success during Portugal' s presidential term.
The special theme in matters of employment during the Finnish Presidency has been, inter alia, the status of the aged.
There was an informal meeting of the Employment and Social Affairs Council on this subject, and we have also had a conference at ministerial level specifically on the topic of equality.
In addition, we have raised the issue of the information society in the area of employment.
A Council resolution was adopted on 29 November regarding employment in the information society and the social dimension.
I will give my replies in a slightly different order from the speakers, but as Mr Harbour seems to be here still, I will say to him too that the Commission is presenting its extensive information society initiative to the European Council in Helsinki.
The document will only be published on December 8.
The issue is to be debated properly at the special Summit meeting in Portugal.
The main focus of information society matters at Helsinki will be the consultation between the information society and competitiveness.
This is an angle that has achieved prominence during the Finnish Presidency and will probably now be discussed in connection with issues to do with the economy, employment and competitiveness.
Thus, there is also an intention in the conclusions to speed up the development of a regulated environment for electronic commerce.
During the Finnish presidential term we have made progress in major projects for regulation, but the finishing touches will be undertaken during the next presidential term.
So the results are somewhat better, or I might even venture to say, substantially better than was perhaps evident from my speech.
Then I would like to answer one separate question, which is linked to the subject of enlargement.
With regard to the question of the Roma people, which was raised here, I would like to say for my own part that I think it is right to focus attention on human rights, both generally and, in particular, regarding the rights of minorities, both in the European Union, but especially in those countries seeking membership.
We have had experience of applicant countries during the Finnish presidential term, particularly with regard to the poor treatment of the Roma people, to the extent that large numbers of them have left those countries to apply for asylum.
There are already nearly one thousand of them in Finland, if memory serves.
The country to hold the presidency has not wished to draw the conclusion that the cause of this might only be found in Slovakia, Romania or in some other individual country.
This is a common problem, and, for that reason, we intend to raise the issue, not in connection with enlargement, but as a general part of the Summit conference agenda, that Member States and applicant countries must improve the implementation of the rights of minorities.
The country to hold the presidency is also offering to cooperate in this regard.
Then I will turn to what are actually the main issues.
Firstly, I will say in all honesty, regarding the Intergovernmental Conference, that we are unanimous on the issues omitted from the Treaty of Amsterdam.
Many of us here have tried to suggest that it would take just a little effort to try and solve these problems.
Members of Parliament, they were not omitted from the Treaty of Amsterdam because they would have been minor issues.
They were left out because they were very difficult questions and they have not got any easier in the meantime.
However, a clear definition of the task will give us the chance now to succeed, as will the pressure to ensure the matter is put right.
In addition, I clearly listed for you those issues that are closely connected with these subject areas, and that can possibly be added to the agenda.
The third group is those issues that one or more Member States have raised.
I venture to say that, although Finland is still a young Member State, I am at present one of the oldest foreign ministers in terms of years in office.
There are only a couple of us ministers left who were at the previous Intergovernmental Conference.
At that IGC we gained the support of 12, 13 or 14 Member States in quite a number of areas.
But we did not receive support from the full 15, which would have been required for example for these majority decisions.
In this connection, I am not at all sceptical, but I am realistic with regard to the fact that, if we want to get certain issues through quickly, we have to concentrate on those that are to some extent ready.
Then there is this other process, whereby the big, longer-term plans are addressed.
We can make progress just as soon as we are unanimous on them, but they are not vital with regard to enlargement.
Regarding the participation of the European Parliament, I still cannot say what the solution will be at the Helsinki Summit, but I have said it already once before, and I will say so again, that our experience of their involvement on the previous occasion was a positive one.
This is therefore the position of the country to hold the presidency.
With regard to enlargement, that will be the topic of debate in the last General Affairs Council to be held on 6 December.
At this Council meeting I shall try to put together those elements concerning Turkey that at least will enable us to believe we can make progress.
I have had on-going discussions on this matter with my colleagues.
I am not quite sure whether we will yet be able to achieve unanimity on the subject at the General Affairs Council.
Should there be sufficient unanimity to make a joint decision, the country to hold the presidency can still use the days it has left before the Helsinki Summit to put the finishing touches to the issue.
Our common desire seems to be that the issue should be solved somehow through consensus before the Helsinki Summit and, as the representatives of the country to hold the presidency, we will work hard to achieve a positive solution.
I am grateful for all the comments made regarding the speed of enlargement, the Copenhagen criteria and everything else.
Most of them reflected our opinion very closely when we were preparing the paperwork in the Council of Ministers.
There were fewer remarks about foreign and security policy, but I would like to perhaps comment on one point.
I have not mentioned the northern dimension issue at all this time.
A meeting at ministerial level was held in Helsinki on the issue of the northern dimension, as we promised.
Attendance was poor on the part of the foreign ministers of the other EU Member States - I was the only one there - but certain other ministers were present as well as all those ministers who are involved in the issue of the northern dimension.
The response was very encouraging.
The Commission promised to move things one step further and make an action plan, and thus we achieved what was perceived as the goal relating to the Portuguese presidential term.
I agree with those who have spoken here that, if we increase stability, that, in its own way, increases security in Europe.
With regard once more to enlargement, we have endeavoured to remind the applicant countries, just as has been said here, that we are not accepting new governments as members: we are accepting new countries.
It is very important to say to the governments of applicant countries that they must also involve the opposition and the whole population in their plans, just as has been asked of them.
I have said that the European Union cannot just accept young, well educated males living in cities, but we are taking everyone, including the elderly, those who live in rural areas, the less well-educated and women.
The plans must thus also take account of that.
Hopefully, we shall also be able to speak with them about social cohesion, nuclear safety and security, as well as many other things.
I have tried to convince the applicant countries of these matters by saying that although not all these points will be dealt with at the negotiations, it might just be that they will attract so much attention in the parliaments of Member States that the applicant countries would be assured of swift acceptance if they began to attend to these matters right away, matters that will, in any case, be very important when they eventually become members.
A final word about the IGC: if we acquired a legal character for the European Union at the next IGC many issues would be resolved.
A legal personality, which is a matter that has been raised here in many speeches, was one of the questions that the majority supported but, where, unfortunately, consensus was not forthcoming.
This was just another example of that problem.
Mr President, I have a specific question for the President-in-Office of the Council. What is her opinion on the full participation of the European Parliament at the Intergovernmental Conference?
This is an important question as it is contained in the report approved by this House and is vital to us.
I would be grateful if she could answer this.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, in this Chamber I have heard some pessimistic words regarding the forthcoming Summit.
I do not agree at all. It is an extraordinarily important Summit that we - Parliament, Commission and Council Presidency - have prepared very carefully and vigorously, and the challenge of enlargement is an historic challenge of decisive importance.
At Helsinki, enlargement will take root, get going and completely change Europe' s appearance.
I agree with what many of you have said, that we must proceed towards enlargement with gusto and energy, a process which will look at each country' s case closely but seek to prevent them losing faith in us.
Our programme for enlargement is therefore not at all minimalist.
The theory of the 'regatta' , the image of each country running and improving as it does so, is the concept we have favoured.
Along with this, it is clear that we want to see an effective Intergovernmental Conference.
We therefore believe - as Mr Seguro just said - that we must start as soon as possible.
I think that we can and must start in January because there are many areas to be addressed: Amsterdam, issues arising from Amsterdam, cohesion, codecision, the issue of security and defence, the Charter of Fundamental Rights and also the reform of the Treaty.
It is not a minimalist agenda.
Mr Napolitano, I would also like to reassure you regarding the proposal to carry out accompanying preparatory work, and I stress the word accompanying: since the reform of the Treaties involves extremely detailed and special technical aspects, we cannot let ourselves be accused of not having carried out a thorough study and a complete analysis of these aspects.
This is not a postponement: accompanying means that we will start work ourselves and that technical work will be carried out at the same time. This technical work is indispensable in order to avoid any delay in this area that could reduce the effectiveness of our action.
We are starting by closely following the document tabled previously, with firm proposals and also a sense that, after enlargement, we shall be faced with the real issue that must be carefully and attentively defined, with a very far-ranging debate - the nature and borders of Europe.
Many of you have mentioned this, and I have already asked Parliament several times and I am repeating it again now: I think that, alongside the implementation of enlargement - which will definitely take place, since the enlargement process I hope we will decide on in Helsinki will have no room for doubts, problems or hesitation - we will have to open a debate on the nature and shape of Europe, since we are the ones who will have to shape these borders and decide on the nature of Europe. We cannot simply meet the requests of countries asking to join Europe, however legitimate.
Where would these requests end? Why should countries in Asia, for example, not apply?
We will nevertheless be the ones who decide. I could give you a whole list of countries which, basically, would be interested and eager to join Europe, thereby changing its very nature.
Europe is not a customs agreement; it is not an area of free trade.
Europe is a Union of countries, and indeed we have called it the European Union. It is clear, then, that together we must undertake major institutional reform so that we can make positive decisions, while pressing ahead with this debate on the borders and nature of Europe.
To conclude, I would just like to add, in relation to the nuclear power stations, the efforts regarding the Balkans and the social and cultural questions that have been raised here, that we really have studied and analysed these matters thoroughly.
Agreements are in place that lead should to a strategy being developed to close these plants, which will make things safe, while, at the same time, giving these countries the realistic chance to leave their problems behind together.
This is what we are doing and we are therefore setting off for the Summit with a huge challenge and a complex agenda before us.
I would like to thank Parliament for the way that, in recent months, the Commission and Parliament have been able to act in unison as regards these issues.
What we said on the first day we met still stands: our challenge is not one with zero gain but, by cooperation, both Parliament and the Commission will gain from it.
Indeed, I believe that it is our responsibility to bring continuity to Europe' s development, the development of Europe in the long term, not just on a day by day basis.
For this, I think that, apart from these areas, we will have to undertake a debate on tomorrow' s Europe, its borders and its nature, subjects which I have mentioned many times because I believe that this is a great task that we must perform together.
Mr President, I will say again that it has been the opinion of the country to hold the presidency that our experience with regard to the participation of the European Parliament in the previous Intergovernmental Conference was a positive one.
Since then, the Prime Minister of the country to hold the presidency has toured, and continues to tour, the Member States to ask for opinions with regard to this matter, prior to the Summit in Helsinki.
Currently, opinions appear to differ.
Some think this development should go further while others would keep the situation more or less as it is. However, I think that Parliament will retain at least the same rights as it had in the previous IGC.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Statement by the President
Mr Karlsson, the President of the Court of Auditors, who was to present the Court Annual Report, has to leave Brussels at 7 p.m.
Given the way we are proceeding with our agenda, it will not be possible to take this item before then.
It will therefore have to be postponed to another part-session.
The matter will be discussed later by the Conference of Presidents, when it establishes the final draft agenda for the December part-session.
Annual report on human rights
The next item is the Council statement on the annual report on human rights followed by a debate.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes the publication of the first annual report on human rights.
I think that this publication will strengthen the visibility of the European Union in the field of human rights considerably.
The Commission was actively involved in the drafting of the report and worked closely with both the German and the Finnish Presidencies.
The Commission feels that a stronger balance should be struck between the three pillars of the European Union in future reports, in order to give a more comprehensive overview of the human rights situation at European level.
This report concentrates mainly on questions of common foreign and security policy.
One way of achieving greater balance in the future might be to take a more thematically structured approach focusing, for example, on particularly vulnerable groups, such as women and children, or specific questions, such as the monitoring of elections.
The Commission will, of course, continue to help the Presidency-in-Office to draft these reports.
Finally, I should like to point out that my colleague Chris Patten, who is very sorry that he is unable to be here today due to a foreign policy commitment, and Poul Nielson and I shall issue a communication on the promotion of human rights and democratisation in our external relations.
This communication will be adopted by the Commission in the first half of 2000 and will supplement the Council report on the human rights situation in that it will detail what specific action the Community can take in order to promote human rights in third countries, so that our declarations are backed up by serious, concrete initiatives and support.
Mr President, it is a very great joy that we have at last a report from the Council of Ministers on human rights.
I can remember making this request in December 1979 when the Russian troops were getting together to invade Afghanistan.
For some reason, over these past twenty years the Council of Ministers or the ministers meeting in political cooperation have been unwilling to put together a document.
Now at least we have a document, although I have to say that it is rather thin soup.
The careful balance the Commissioner mentioned needs to be made very carefully, but we need facts and details on how the human rights situation throughout the world is being handled.
I trust that this first document will be just one step along the way towards bringing us together and helping us to tackle human rights.
It has been an abominable year after all.
We have had war, murder, genocide, racism, xenophobia, and I wish we could have had something a little bit more powerful in this document, which was, I have to say, distributed very quickly.
It found itself in our pigeon-holes today and it was there for debate with the human rights forum which the President referred to.
These things are in need of quick action.
At the human rights forum this morning I spoke to one of the President-in-Office' s Finnish colleagues from the Finnish Foreign Ministry, about a particular case mentioned by the European Parliament recently, the case of Alexander Nikitin, a man who is on trial just a few miles away from Helsinki, for high treason.
He is facing the death penalty because he reported on the ecological disaster of nuclear submarines in the Murmansk area.
I take it this matter is of interest to the Finnish Government, but even though I raised this question with a member of the Finnish Foreign Office, we still do not have any information and the man is on trial today, and tomorrow.
I imagine it is familiar to those who are sitting with the Council of Ministers.
I hope someone can tell us something about it.
Mr President, this is, I suppose, the parliament in Europe that takes human rights the most seriously, and we have great possibilities in dealing with countries that violate human rights.
I believe that we have to look much more carefully at this question, to tackle those countries that behave disgracefully; the so-called fingernail-pulling governments need to be taken to task, and the European Parliament must be the institution that takes the lead in making sure that human rights are top of our agenda.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, I too welcome this first annual European Union report on human rights.
Obviously, we have had Commission documents and many European Parliament reports in the past, but this is the first time that the Council of Ministers has given us this type of text.
This demonstrates a welcome desire for transparency. It will, I hope, improve the information given to the public on the specific actions carried out between June 1998 and June 1999 and on the instruments and means available to the EU.
My only criticism is that this report is probably over-optimistic.
Inadequacies and grey areas are hardly mentioned.
However, the publication of this document encourages me to look to the near future and the preparation of an EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This project, which must be part of the IGC' s work and which could be completed by the end of the year 2000, is of major importance for the Union, for all those living within the Union and for the applicant states.
Yet we currently have no guarantee that this text will meet expectations.
In particular, we fear that the European Council and the Council of Ministers have only very limited ambitions, namely to draft a mere declaration without any legal or binding force.
If this were to be the case, the European Union would lose all credibility in its own eyes and in the eyes of the rest of the world.
In addition, there is a concern about the risks of competition and even contradiction between this future Charter and existing texts which have indisputable force.
I am referring, of course, to the Council of Europe' s European Convention on Human Rights.
I hope, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, that the Helsinki Summit will reassure us on all these points.
You are personally well acquainted with these issues.
Mr President, the annual report in question is a welcome and important beginning, and its value is underlined by the fact that independent NGOs were equal partners at the human rights forum which has just ended and which was organised on the initiative of the country holding the presidency.
This is the start of what must become a tradition.
With human rights there is always the question of weighing up different values against one another: 'horizontal tensions' exist between the various human rights.
Since the end of the Cold War they have manifested themselves more dramatically than before in the balance between classic basic freedoms, on the one hand, and collective rights, such as economic, social and cultural rights, on the other.
The development has rapidly taken a direction which will weaken collective rights, which have been characteristic, for example, of the welfare state.
Of all the human rights, however, it is freedom of speech that holds a special position, as without free and independent communication the other human and fundamental rights cannot be established and even serious violations of human rights, such as crimes against humanity, cannot be effectively exposed.
As the President-in-Office of the Council said, reports on violations of human rights are an everyday occurrence.
A free and independent media is also a vital prerequisite of civil society.
For this reason, it would be advisable to accord greater emphasis in human rights monitoring and reporting by the Union to freedom of speech and to safeguarding, improving and monitoring the rights of journalists and their ability to work, for example, by devoting a special chapter or section to this area.
As we develop the Union' s own position on human rights we must, as the Foreign Minister, Mrs Halonen, said, be consistent.
But we must also maintain a balance.
There must be balance between the different types of human rights, the pillars, as mentioned by Mr Verheugen, and the institutions.
The European Union cannot complacently and regardless of others develop its own human rights culture in such a way as to upset the balance.
Mr President, in general terms nobody here dares argue against respect for human rights. We should therefore move from the rhetorical to the practical.
What has happened to the right to work in a Europe with 18 million unemployed and 50 million living in poverty? What has happened to the right to housing, health or education when millions of people are deprived of these?
What has happened to the right of asylum and freedom of movement when countries such as Belgium are expelling gypsies or, just yesterday, fifteen or so Nigerians? The same is true of my country, France, which is refusing to legalise the situation of tens of thousands of illegal immigrants, in many cases packed into detention centres, and which is extraditing Basque refugees.
What has happened to the right to life when the armies of Europe agree to participate in bombardments of civilian populations in Serbia or Kosovo? What response have the Member States given to questions from Amnesty International about having violated Article 5 of the Declaration on Human Rights banning torture and ill-treatment with impunity?
Finally, what has happened to human rights when, as is occurring now, the financial markets are allowed to make people redundant, exclude them and pollute them, all in the name of profit and good returns?
Mr President, I must take the opportunity afforded by the presentation of this lengthy report on human rights to highlight the constant violations of these rights which are being committed, on the basis of Stalinist-style legislation, against intellectuals in all fields who dare to give critical or simply independent opinions of the history of the Second World War. The media and the educational world are increasingly obsessed with the tragedy of the concentration camps in the name of interests that have nothing to do with the defence of the victims' memory.
In Europe, there are currently thousands of historians, sociologists, researchers, experts and ordinary people who are being hounded, persecuted, harassed and condemned. Their only crime is to have assessed, in an independent manner, the ever-changing but sometimes hysterical dogmas imposed on them by hired authors benefiting from full official collusion.
In my home town of Lyons, a young historian with no means of support whom I did not know - Mr Plantin is his name - has been sentenced simply because in the bibliography of a scholarly review which he publishes he included works which correct historical errors which no serious historian of whatever persuasion now accepts.
He has been arrested, his computer has been confiscated and each of the usual associations has sued him and extorted large amounts of compensation from him.
His former tutors at university have had to apologise, in a show of loathsome cowardice, for the qualifications which they awarded him.
His printer, a rural craftsman, has also been sentenced.
He was charged under the act on publications corrupting youth, which could usefully be applied in other areas, and under the legislative act brought in by the French Communist Gayssot according to which, for example, the Germans must still be held responsible for the massacre of thousands of Polish officers at Katyn, even though the Soviets have admitted to this.
The magistrates in Lyons who delivered these judgments have simply participated in a witch-hunt.
This is an issue which should be examined by this House, given that it is so keen to guarantee freedom of expression and civil liberties.
Mr President, I would like to answer the question about Mr Nikitin.
His trial is taking place in Russia and some time before the trial got under way, the European Union appealed that the person in question should have a trial that met the proper standards.
This trial is now also being followed by the Finnish representation in St. Petersberg.
We have likewise tried to have an influence on the proceedings through frequent discussions with the Russian authorities.
The EU practice is obviously that we take a position on the action of the court when a decision has been made.
I would like to point out that we have tried to follow the trial in its entirety.
This is one of those examples of issues which we could monitor more in the future, either in terms of subject matter or on a country-by-country basis.
I thank you for the debate thus far, and I will leave our worthy diplomats to follow the rest of it, in which I too would have liked to participate.
Mr President, like the previous speakers, I was going to start by welcoming this initiative from the Finnish Presidency.
It is therefore a pity that the President-in-Office of the Council left in the middle of the debate.
It does not seem right that we cannot have a proper debate when such an important document is presented. All we are going to get now is a continuous monologue without any response from the other party.
In that respect, my words are rather pointless.
However, following on from what was said by the two speakers who came before me - and with whom I disagree - I must say that the fact that Europe, and the European Union in particular, is making human rights its banner - in fact its only banner - is a marvellous thing.
This does not mean that everything is perfect and that there is nothing to correct; indeed, the report says as much.
The text could be improved upon in many respects - from the internal point of view, for instance -and certain paragraphs concerned with racism and xenophobia provide perfect examples of this.
An improvement could also be made by including in the text the EU' s contribution to the fight for human rights in the international sphere.
We are faced with a number of challenges and all of this is mentioned in this document which, I must repeat, is an excellent initiative and constitutes a remarkable inventory. I am only sorry that the President-in-Office of the Council is not present to hear this.
There are various initiatives which we could comment on if we had the time.
I will mention just one in which I think the European Union should be actively involved, namely the establishment of the International Criminal Court which would end the current situation in which the judicial instruments available to us are quite incapable of dealing with international requests for legal proceedings.
There is no doubt, Mr President, that with the tabling of this report, too, the public' s awareness of the importance of the topic of civil and human rights shows that we have taken another step forwards.
We have been considering, over the course of recent months and years, Article 6 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the reaffirmation of the importance and role in the European Union of the principles of freedom, democracy and respect for human rights, and also the creation of the International Criminal Court and the need we all feel to give greater authority to Article 7 of the UN Charter in order to guarantee respect for human rights, eliminating any humanitarian intervention from rationales which are not based purely and simply on respect for these rights: all of this tells us that a great deal of progress has been made.
Nevertheless, fifty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we know that no rights are won all in one go and once and for all: I am thinking of Tibet, Burma, Timor and Asian countries where child and women workers are exploited; I am thinking of Kosovo, Chechnya and Africa, a continent that is too often far away and forgotten; I am thinking of the 790 million people in the world who are suffering from hunger or the 300 million children who have to work; I am thinking of the 1625 executions carried out last year in the 72 countries whose legal systems still provide for capital punishment.
Finally, I am also thinking of the fate of the Kurdish leader, Mr Öçalan, whose life has to be saved, I truly believe, through all of our efforts.
The very fact that capital punishment is so widespread is one of the most intolerable breaches of each individual' s dignity and right to life: a breach which we feel deeply and which we want to fight, for example, by pointing out that the actual enlargement process of the Union is proving to be not just a factor of peace and security for the continent, but also the way to make applicant states overcome such barbarity.
We know that it will be a long and difficult process; this was shown by the UN' s failure to debate the European Union resolution on the moratorium on capital punishment.
It was a serious and painful setback, and it is up to us, Members of Parliament, and the Commission, not to let this commitment lie: on the contrary, we must take it up with renewed vigour.
Mr President, at the moment, in the United States, in Virginia, the life of a young Italo-American who has been condemned to die but continues to declare his innocence is just one of the many lives which must be saved.
I am taking this opportunity to ask you, the President of Parliament, the President of the Council and the Commission, to take urgent action in making an appeal to the United States to suspend the execution of Derek Rocco Barnabei, because the battle against capital punishment is a battle for civilisation which must be fought every time it is necessary and in every way possible.
Mr President, according to Amnesty International, there are still 142 countries which ride roughshod over human rights, ranging from excessive police violence to tortures and killings.
This sober fact overshadows, I believe, the unmistakably positive developments in some countries.
More than anything, it places in perspective the memorable fact that an increasing number of countries are abolishing the death penalty and are signing major human rights treaties.
Never before has so much lip service been paid to human rights.
Never before has there been so much verbal condemnation without being followed up by sanctions.
Human rights violations are a blot on our civilisation, impunity even more so.
Nevertheless, we see, thinking of Rwanda for example, that the law is very slow in catching up with those responsible for the most gruesome violations of human integrity - if it does so at all.
As such, impunity causes more violations.
The truth is that human rights are still too often subordinated to commercial and other interests of Member States.
Unfortunately, there is no common strategy as yet.
This partly explains why we are so often overtaken by events. Why did disaster have to strike East Timor, Kosovo and Rwanda first before something was done?
The international community often watches helplessly.
Our policy for human rights should be credible.
There is no room for double standards.
China and - to a lesser extent Russia - often remain out of harm' s way a lot longer than certain African regimes.
Some will term this selectivity.
I prefer to call it opportunism and a lack of courage.
The present report, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, the first of its kind, deserves all credit and is a first step towards a consistent and coherent human rights policy to which the Council, Commission and Parliament, in a joint effort, should give their all.
Mr President, this Council report deserves credit and there is every reason to compliment the Finnish Presidency on its commitment, although I have to add that I deplore the fact that the Finnish presidency delegation has just left the Chamber.
There are mainly three reasons why I welcome the publication of this report. Firstly, it is based on a coherent vision, a vision which rejects a hierarchy of types of human rights, but which emphasises their very interdependence.
The report also makes a first attempt to create coherence between the external and internal human rights policy of the European Union, especially the latter being a real innovative step.
It has to be said that, compared to Parliament, the Council appears to be leading the way.
Secondly, the report does not fall into the trap of presenting human rights as a European achievement but presupposes universality and adopts a global approach with a great deal of attention being paid to the EU' s action within the scope of the United Nations.
Thirdly, the report is the product of an organised dialogue with the social organisations involved in human rights issues.
The forum held here in Brussels over the past couple of days deserves a regular spot in the Union' s consultative network.
There are, however, also a few minus points to be noted.
The attempt within the EU to include self-evident human rights issues in the report is very biased to say the least. Why does discrimination on account of race or ethnic origin receive preferential treatment over, for example, discrimination against women and homosexuals, which does not feature or hardly features as an issue at all?
Could this be a taste of how the Council will handle the package of anti-discriminatory measures which the Commission proposed last week? Why is no attention being given to other human rights issues prevalent within the Union, such as abuse in prisons or at police stations, killings by armed political groupings and the situation of conscientious objectors, to name only the most obvious issues?
The Council needs to summon up the political courage to spend more time on the internal human rights situation within the EU in the next annual report.
In this context, the proposal for a so-called "observation centre" must also be kept on the agenda.
After all, experience has taught us that collecting and analysing information is a prerequisite to achieving a sound human rights policy.
Mr President, in Belarus, the Christian Democrat parliamentarians Andrey Klimov and Vladimir Kudinov have disappeared without trace.
What has happened to these colleagues of ours?
One contributory and forward-looking feature of this report is the fact that it acknowledges the role not only of political decisions but also of civil society in creating an environment where human rights have the profound and enduring support of the people.
The value of this insight cannot be underestimated.
The right to life and respect for its inviolability are the basic human rights and therefore both the essence and goal of democracy.
At the same time, they express the Christian view of human life which, for two thousand years, has formed a precious part of Europe' s cultural and spiritual heritage and which, as we confront the new millennium, is a valuable asset for Europe to further build upon in the struggle for human rights.
The fact that the European Union has now started preparing annual reports on the ways in which human rights are respected within and outside the EU' s Member States is something which we Swedish Christian Democrats warmly welcome.
With the right to life as its theme, the EU should continue to maintain a consistent line on the death penalty and, especially via the United Nations, to challenge those countries which consider it to be ethically and morally acceptable to defend the State' s right to take another person' s life.
In the pressing work of extending the EU eastwards, demands for a moratorium on, and future abolition of, the death penalty have, in our own part of the world too, influenced ethical thinking and legislation in the direction of affirming human life.
The present report illuminates the frightening developments affecting the smallest among us, who are also those most precious to us, representing our own future, namely our children.
The fact that one million children on this earth work as prostitutes at the same time as dark forces disseminate child pornography is deeply alarming and causes a vast amount of bitterness.
On the basis of the right which children have to a father and mother and to secure conditions in which to grow up in a family environment, it is our common challenge, in the face of the new millennium, to allow children' s needs to be our guide in all the work that is done in society.
Mr President, of course, like many of those who have already spoken, I welcome the fact that the Council has now submitted a first annual report on human rights, as called for repeatedly by Parliament.
One important point which I would like to raise is the human rights clause in treaties with third countries, which has already been implemented on numerous occasions since 1995.
Human rights clauses are a fundamental part of these treaties.
People and their basic rights are therefore removed by means of a treaty from the powers of disposal of the other party to the treaty, despite the fact that we have always taken the view that insisting on human rights does not represent interference in the internal affairs of a country.
What is important as far as the practical implementation is concerned, is that both the EU Commission and the Member States have the political will in this particular instance not only to identify violations of human rights and hence of a fundamental part of the treaty, but also to apply the legal consequences provided for, which generally start with consultation and may lead to the suspension of parts or even the cancellation of the entire treaty.
But we all know what happens in practice.
Time and time again, human rights issues are pushed to one side or even considered to be counterproductive for irrelevant reasons. Either a lucrative transaction hangs in the balance or the agreement or support of some government or other is needed, for example in a particular committee at UN level.
Luckily, non-governmental organisations working in this area cannot afford to take account of such false considerations and I would like to take this opportunity of thanking them with all my heart for their work.
And we Members of Parliament, both here and in our national parliaments, should likewise shun such considerations.
Denunciations of human rights violations are not merely sound bites in daily politics.
We have seen time and time again that the targets, i.e. the governments which are publicly accused of human rights violations, find such denunciations highly embarrassing and try to prevent them.
If we were to ensure that neither governments nor individual undertakings were willing to jeopardise the solidarity of the democratic community of states for the sake of concluding a treaty, these governments would have no opportunity of playing one off against the other.
A country such as China, to name one example, still needs our technology.
We should not ignore the plight of thousands of prisoners of conscience or suppressed national groups such as the Tibetans just so that we can build a new railway or ensure that a State visit proceeds smoothly.
I, too, therefore support the idea of adding another report to the report here and to the numerous other reports on the same subject.
I would like to see more details on individual countries in the next report, for example, on which occasions the Council or the Commission approached which government on a specific matter.
One might also offer during such discussions to refrain from mentioning the matter if it is cleared up by the time the next report is published.
We can afford to be flexible in form, but not in content!
Mr President, coordination and consistency are essential to a policy on human rights.
The Union should now be focusing on the effective implementation of agreements.
Implementation should cover three important areas: the monitoring of human rights, the establishment of human rights and the structures of a policy on human rights.
The EU must develop monitoring mechanisms to observe the human rights situation both within the EU and in third countries.
Monitoring must lead to a comprehensive assessment of the situation with regard to human rights.
That assessment must include an analysis of the human rights situation, a decision on measures to improve that situation, a programme to monitor the impact of the measures on the situation, an evaluation of their success and a public report on the assessment and its results.
It is important that we report on the problems within the EU as effectively and openly as on those in third countries.
In recent years, the EU has witnessed within its borders police violence, which has often been targeted against persons from outside the EU, cell deaths and discrimination against sexual minorities.
The lack of protection for refugees is perhaps the biggest human rights problem within the EU.
The Union policy on refugees, like that of the Member States, lags behind the standards we could expect from economically developed countries.
Matters relating to refugees and asylum are for us primarily matters of security and control.
The practice clearly contravenes the obligations of the Geneva Convention.
The common EU strategy on Russia should emphasise the importance of human rights.
Establishing human rights is one of the greatest challenges in the attempt to increase Russian prosperity and stability.
The human rights situation in Russia today is alarming.
The aims of security, stability and sustainable development associated with the northern dimension will only be of secondary importance if we neglect the issue of human rights.
It is time we realised the European Parliament' s idea of a monitoring body to be set up within the Commission to promote an efficient human rights policy and report on questions relating to human rights.
A respect for human rights and the protection of the rights of minorities are major requirements for accession to the Union.
Taking criteria relating to human rights and minorities as serious conditions of membership would require that these criteria and the obligations of applicant countries towards their minorities be accorded the same status as other fundamental criteria in the negotiations on membership.
Thank you.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Turkey
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
(A5-0071/1999) by Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation regarding the implementation of measures to promote economic and social development in Turkey;
(A5-0070/1999) by Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation regarding the implementation of measures to intensify the EC-Turkey Customs Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, my reports follow on from the report published last year on Turkey by Mr McMillan-Scott and Mr Swoboda and from the resolution of this House of 6 October which concluded on the importance of expanding the European strategy for Turkey. This House should therefore be able tomorrow to adopt these two proposals for European Parliament and Council regulations on the implementation of measures, on one hand, to promote economic and social development in Turkey and, on the other, to intensify the EC-Turkey Customs Union.
The first proposal involves financing, over the next three years, up to a total of EUR 135 million based on Article 130 of the EC Treaty. This requires the codecision procedure to be used.
The second proposal which, over the same period, provides for a commitment of EUR 15 million, may come under a simple consultation procedure.
The EU is therefore prepared to resume the financial aid decided on in March 1995 under the Customs Union agreements. This aid has been blocked since then due to a lack of unanimity in Council.
I will not expand on the reasons for this blockage other than to say that the crisis in the Aegean played a major part. European concerns in the essential areas of respect for human rights and the protection of ethnic minorities were also very much taken into consideration.
In this respect, the forum which was requested by this House should have an important role to play. It could use the existing structures, particularly within the Economic and Social Committee of the European Community.
The proposals for regulations submitted for our approval will, under these conditions, help to encourage the continuation of the current political development.
They contain a clause authorising the Council to take the appropriate steps if it were proven that the most basic rights were being violated in Turkey.
This clause stipulates that either this House or the Commission could propose suspension to the Council.
I must stress that if we care about the coherence of the strategy adopted and approved by this House in recent months, we should avoid introducing, through our amendments, any measures which would block the process that has been started.
We must not lose sight of the importance of encouraging a fruitful dialogue with Turkey, if only, for example, for obvious geostrategic reasons.
Finally, as a reminder, although the provisions establishing all this aid involve financing over three years of EUR 150 million, the European Union' s trade surplus with Turkey has doubled since the entry into force on 1 January 1996 of the Customs Union agreement, thereby increasing in four years from EUR 4 billion to EUR 8 billion.
I truly believe that the Community must now honour its previous commitments so as not to discourage all those in Turkey who are resolutely committed to the Customs Union route and who have therefore decided to attach their country to the European Economic Area.
On behalf of the Committee on Budgets, I want to recommend the Morillon reports.
The Committee on Budgets' amendments have been integrated into the reports, and one could wish for nothing better.
In the Commission' s proposals concerning resources for promoting economic and social development in Turkey and for extending the Customs Union between the European Community and Turkey, it is proposed that the period 2000-2002 should be covered, because the year is now so far advanced that it is too late to establish new budget headings for this purpose in 1999.
The Committee on Budgets also wishes reference to be made to the interinstitutional agreement of 6 May of this year and for it to be stated that the recommended amounts for the period 2000-2002 should constitute a portion of the multiannual financial framework for the MEDA programme so that it is apparent that we are not concerned here with a new expenditure item.
Ever since the European Council confirmed in December 1997 that Turkey could apply for membership of the EU, efforts have been made to create the opportunity to provide financial aid with a view to promoting economic cooperation and bringing Turkey closer to the EU.
This, then, is the background to these proposals, on the one hand, for a three-year subsidy of EUR 15 million when a start is made on implementing the Community' s regulations and developing the Customs Union between the EC and Turkey and, on the other hand, for the subsidy of EUR 135 million for developing the economically backward regions of Turkey.
These resources therefore have nothing to do with the special subsidy, proposed in the budget for the year 2000, for reconstruction and aid in connection with the earthquakes in Turkey.
In 1998 and 1999, Turkey was allocated grants under the MEDA programme, the European Parliament' s having approved the Commission' s programmes following participation in an interinstitutional working party.
The Committee on Budgets also decided that this working party should be maintained during the reading of the Budget for the year 2000.
I have just one technical remark on Amendment No 15 in the report concerning economic cooperation where it is stated that the Council (with a qualified majority) or the European Parliament can decide to suspend the partnership.
We are talking here about joint decision making, so the Council cannot decide without Parliament' s being heard.
This is just by way of clarifying the interpretation of this proposal.
Finally, I should say that, this year, the policy-making process has been delayed by the parliamentary election and by the special circumstances in connection with the Commission' s departure.
It is good that a resolution can now be adopted to press ahead with the financial aid in accordance with the political conditions linked to the grants.
Mr President, Mr Morillon is to be congratulated for producing these reports in very difficult circumstances and with very little time. We are all in his debt and his reward has been the favourable vote in the Committee on Foreign Affairs.
These reports clearly respond to commitments made by the European Union.
The Customs Union with Turkey has to be accompanied by special budget aid and a series of special loans from the European Investment Bank, in addition to the programmes provided for under the MEDA programme and procedure.
This aid consists of two types of measure.
The first is aimed at strengthening economic and social cohesion and overcoming the regional development inequalities within the country.
The other is intended to help Turkey gradually gain access to the Community market, take on the acquis communautaire and intensify the Customs Union.
For this last objective, a three-year multiannual framework of EUR 15 million is provided.
As no budget cover exists for these amounts in 1999, the multiannual financial framework of the programme will have to be extended by one year to 2002, as mentioned today by the rapporteur. The appropriations for 1999 will also have to be included in the draft supplementary and amending budget.
It is impossible to separate the Morillon report from the general context of relations with Turkey.
We have today debated with the President-in-Office of the Council and the President of the Commission the problems which have occurred, the proposals made by the European Commission in its report on the Helsinki Summit and also the position which the Council of Ministers will presumably adopt.
This House adopted a resolution in October which clearly marks the line which should be followed by the European Parliament. However, as stated today by Mr Poettering, on behalf of my group, there are some disagreements within our group as to the importance, nature and scope to be attributed to Turkey' s application.
I particularly believe, and I said this in the debate in October, that for the first time all the pieces of the Turkish jigsaw are on the table, namely the problems of the Aegean islands, Cyprus, human rights and ethnic minorities.
A major debate is currently in progress on the ratification of the death penalty imposed on Mr Öçalan.
I agree with the rapporteur that the vote on these reports should not now be taken off the agenda.
This House has made an inescapable commitment to a moratorium on the death penalty, as we did in the debate in the last plenary part-session, on which I understand the President has written to the Turkish authorities. I therefore feel that the European Union must honour its commitments and, at the same time, recognise that nobody has been executed in Turkey for fifteen years.
This must not lead us to forget the commitment we have made to the defence of human rights, fundamental freedoms and the ethnic minorities in Turkey.
In my opinion, we must be very clear and send an unambiguous message to the Turkish authorities about what they can expect from us and what their corresponding rights are.
We must be extremely clear in this respect, by stressing that they are entitled to apply but that it is not in our interest to start these accession negotiations until the Copenhagen criteria, and the political commitments in particular, have been met.
The European Union' s commitment must be to therefore very firmly support the excellent reports presented by Mr Morillon.
Mr President, these two reports which the Group of the Party of European Socialists supports - and we should like to thank Mr Morillon for the work he has put into them - is an important contribution to Turkey' s rapprochement with Europe.
I agree, however, with Mr Salafranca Sánchez-Neyra that these reports are part of a larger pattern in our relationship with Turkey.
I think that the most important message which is coming out of the European Union at the present time is that Turkey is entitled to apply for membership of the Union.
It might well be said that this is an opportunity which Turkey has had for almost thirty-five years, ever since the Association Agreement.
It is, however, important that we point this out at the present time.
We need a democratically stable, socially and economically developed Turkey in the European partnership.
That is important for our security and our future in Europe.
For us, the views of the democrats in Turkey and of those struggling for human rights within organisations dedicated to that purpose are obviously very significant. Almost all of these people are in favour of Turkey being regarded as an candidate country.
The Kurdish question, the issue of Cyprus, torture and breaches of human rights are also, at a serious level, European matters which will be discussed, examined and dealt with at different monitoring stations within the European Union. In this way, resolutions and the war of words will be translated into the genuine work of reform involving clear and agreed goals.
At a big international seminar two weeks ago, arranged by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, all the Turkish parties, including the old Welfare Party, declared themselves in favour of applicant states such as Turkey becoming members of the European Union.
For Turkey, this now means that matters have become serious. The move must now be made from ambitions and intentions to the purposeful work of reform in accordance with the Copenhagen criteria.
For our part, we now want to challenge the Turkish government to translate their words into action and show that they are serious in their endeavour to enter the European partnership.
We should then demonstrate that we too are serious about their efforts.
Mr President, it is a pleasure to welcome the two outstanding reports put forward by Mr Morillon, and I turn first to the report which he has prepared on Customs Union to say how much we welcome that report in which we must remind Turkey that she too has to play her part.
The European Union has made major efforts over a number of years to ensure this Customs Union is successful, and Turkey herself must now ensure that she fulfils the role that she is called upon to play.
I also support what is perhaps the more contentious report.
It is a welcome report on economic and social development in Turkey and was supported in the Committee for Foreign Affairs this week.
Here the joint forum has to be of major importance, and again both sides must fulfil their role.
We are, of course, confident that we will do so.
We remain confident that Turkey will also.
In this period of time before Helsinki, it is vital that we look too at the rule of law, human rights, respect for minorities, protection and recognition of their cultural identity and support for measures seeking to abolish capital punishment, one of the amendments that came before our committee to the Morillon report this week.
We have, of course, the unhappy fact of one death penalty upheld in Turkey at this very moment.
But I believe there is good news that we can focus on even in that tragic situation where the possibility of a citizen losing his life at the hands of the State is upheld by the Court of Appeal.
May I remind my colleagues here today that Turkey has not used the death penalty in practice since 1984.
There has been an effective moratorium in place since then with the result that 53 people who were defined as subject to what we would call cruel and inhuman punishment, have had their cases put on one side.
At the moment the Minister for the European Council and Human Rights, is reported in today's issue of Milliyet, the daily paper, as being firmly against capital punishment.
There is a new law coming to the Turkish Parliament in the year 2000, put forward by academics, in which for the first time ever the proposed criminal justice bill does not contain the death penalty.
Let us hope and believe that in this year 2000, Turkey's commitment to our millennium year globally will be the abolition of the death penalty once and for all through the democratic parliamentary process.
Mr President, the European Union is about to take a major decision which may change relations with Turkey radically.
The Commission has proposed that Turkey should be accorded candidate status.
If the Council in Helsinki accepts this proposal, it would lay the foundations in Turkey for a new form of dialogue with the European Union, in that Ankara would then have the prospect of future membership.
It would also mean that the Union would have to keep its promises.
The rapporteur' s proposals allow the mistakes of 1995 to be corrected, when the European Union intensified relations with Turkey, without guaranteeing the necessary financial aid.
Financial aid for Turkey cannot be divorced from obligations in the fields of social development and democracy, rule of law and respect for human and minority rights.
This is referred to equally in both reports because it is important that participation in the European economic system should go hand in glove with democratic development.
Another important point is the involvement of the European Parliament.
Its debates can provide further transparency and raise the political and democratic profile of relations between the European Union and Turkey.
The case of Öçalan - I am referring to the death penalty - raises the question of how we will have to deal with such issues in the future.
There can be only one response from all the political groups in this House and that is the demand that capital punishment be abolished.
It is not a question of making an angel of peace of Öçalan. On the contrary, we need to demonstrate that respect for human rights means much more than empty rhetoric, of course it does, and not just in Turkey.
This House should call on Turkey to comply with the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights, which is incompatible with the execution of Öçalan.
I can read Turkish and I am pleased that, so far, I have seen no reports of negative reactions from the government in Ankara in the Turkish press or in other Turkish media.
That gives me reason to hope.
Despite everything said about Turkey today, it is important for us to pursue the new Turkish policy of the European Union.
In this sense we support the two reports as a contribution to the democratisation of Turkey.
Mr President, as far as the content of the two reports is concerned, I would find it relatively easy to support them, despite certain shortcomings.
They succeed in presenting the political requirements of cooperation with Turkey clearly and consistently, especially the need for compliance with, and development of, human rights, including the rights of the Kurdish people, the demand for the abolition of capital punishment, the strengthening of the civil society, greater involvement by non-governmental organisations and the abolition of social deprivation and regional under-development.
The fact that these changes were necessary reflects badly on the Commission.
The fact that they were possible reflects well on the parliamentary committee and the work of Mr Morillon.
Nonetheless, my decision has been made extraordinarily difficult.
The Commission maintains in its proposal that a process of democratisation and promotion of human rights has been introduced in Turkey and we heard similar words from Mr Prodi this afternoon.
The committee, on the other hand, only talks clearly of the need for such a process, but not of an allegedly positive development already under way.
Not only does that appear to be decidedly more realistic to me; it also tallies with the evaluation which the Commission itself made in a communication to the Cologne Summit on 3 and 4 June this year.
Twice it says that it sees no noticeable improvement, at least on the Kurdish question, and it rates any chance of further improvement as doubtful given the rise of, in the Commission' s words, the ultra-nationalist MHP party.
I am most baffled as to what our optimism is actually based on and why the Commission has circulated two contradictory assessments.
From where I stand, it appears perfectly clear that there has been no real, positive development in the issues raised.
The Turkish Vice-Premier Bahcelý of the MHP stated in connection with the upholding of the death sentence on Öçalan - perhaps it only appeared in the German newspapers - that Europe should not be encouraged to interfere even more boldly in Turkish affairs and President Ecevit expressed the view that a judgement by the Court of Justice in Strasbourg need not be accepted.
That clearly contradicts the commitments entered into by Turkey as a member of the Council of Europe.
Their own international legal commitments continue to be openly disregarded by Turkish officials when it comes to human rights.
I consider the honest offer of membership of the European Union to Turkey to be strategically correct and necessary.
The European Union must have room for and an interest in including Turkey and must clarify that unequivocally once and for all.
However, there can be no cutting back on demands for democratisation of the constitution and political realities, fundamental improvements in respect for human rights, a political solution to the Kurdish question and an end to the occupation of northern Cyprus.
All this is still outstanding.
Tomorrow we must adopt either the Commission version or the committee version of Article 3(2).
Both versions contain terms for suspending cooperation in the event of fundamental violations of human rights.
I see these violations and therefore consider that it is wrong to pass this text at this point in time.
That would push our own paper and our own credibility ad absurdum.
My group therefore is in favour under these circumstances of deferring both reports.
We sent a proper signal to the Russian Government in a similar situation two weeks ago.
We should handle this matter in the same way.
Mr President, at a time when the European Parliament is deciding on new forms of support for Turkey, we would like to point out that we are amongst those who say that Turkey must be helped and deserves to be helped in its process of transition to full democracy.
I would even go so far as to say that the European Union should encourage cooperation between its Member States and Turkey.
The reports that we are debating here today nevertheless give us the opportunity to reflect once again on Turkey' s progress in terms of human rights and the protection of minorities.
In this context, we were extremely concerned to hear of the confirmation by the Supreme Court in Turkey of the death sentence on Öçalan.
I am a Member of the European Parliament for Portugal, a country that abolished the death penalty as long ago as the 19th Century.
We were, moreover, the first European Union country to do so.
Personally, I reject this form of punishment, both out of conviction and because I do not think that it achieves any of the aims that punishment seeks to achieve.
Consequently, we feel that it would now be timely to give yet another very clear signal that the preservation of human rights and the protection of minorities in Turkey are still an essential condition for the European Parliament to show its solidarity in terms of cooperation and support for that country.
Mr President, I would like to point out that just yesterday, here in Strasbourg, the European Court of Human Rights accepted a request for a stay of execution for Öçalan whilst it examines the case.
I was also pleased to read that President Nicole Fontaine reacted speedily to the confirmation of this sentence and I also read that she would intervene with the President of the Turkish National Assembly in order that it should not confirm the carrying out of the death sentence.
I do not know if she was able to obtain any guarantees from him or not.
My feeling is that the European Parliament should look with the utmost caution at developments, not just in this case but also in Turkey' s human rights situation, and in the protection of its minorities, and this caution should be matched with an equal degree of firmness.
To this effect, tomorrow I shall propose - contrary to what others here appear to think should be done - that we postpone voting on the two reports until a later sitting, and I would therefore ask the President of the European Parliament on behalf of the institution over which she presides, to formulate a clear request to the Helsinki European Council that if the decision by the Turkish authorities stands, the Council should adopt a firm position with regard to Turkey' s application to join the European Union.
I think that only in this way will the European Parliament be effectively and unambiguously defending principles and values rather than just stating them.
Mr President, I have spoken out several times in favour of Mr Öçalan, but I have to say that the debate on Turkey must not focus solely on the case of President Öçalan' s death sentence, because Turkey as a whole is undemocratic; in Turkey, human rights are not respected.
I visited Turkey as a member of the Committee on Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and I therefore think I am speaking after due consideration.
It is not only the Öçalan case which leads me say that Turkey is not yet ready to apply: Mr Öçalan, among other things, was practically handed over by the D' Alema Government - a black mark against Italy' s name - but on the other hand, it was precisely from the Italian Penal Code that Turkey borrowed article 155 of its own Penal Code, which permitted Mr Öçalan to be condemned - article 155 of the Turkish Penal Code was copied from article 241 of the Italian Penal Code - and therefore I was not in the least surprised by the position of the Italian Government on this case either.
Be that as it may, Turkey still has the death penalty: well, while it is hard to change the mentality of the police and change the situation in the prisons, a law is, nevertheless, sufficient and a parliamentary vote is sufficient to abolish the death penalty, which is what many countries in the European Union have done.
How one can have capital punishment and at the same time ask to join the European Union is something that still astounds me, but I am even more astonished that there is talk of granting candidate status to a country that has not yet abolished capital punishment.
For this reason too, therefore, I am in favour of postponing the vote.
Mr President, we support the reports drafted by Mr Morillon on the promotion of economic and social development in Turkey and the strengthening of the Customs Union between the European Union and said country, especially in light of the fact that this country was twice struck by earthquakes this year.
Indeed, it is the exactly the latter circumstance which threatens to thwart the Ecevit Government' s opportune intention of starting to eliminate the grinding socio-economic disadvantage of the Turkish south-eastern provinces.
The rapporteur is right in stipulating that EU-financed projects and programmes, in particular, should benefit those sections of the Turkish population who are lagging behind.
However, we do not wish to conceal the fact that we certainly would not want to interpret this helping hand from Brussels to Ankara as a political gesture pointing towards candidate status vis-à-vis the EU.
In our opinion, the agreed Customs Union offers plenty of scope for Turkey to be given opportunities for development.
As far as we are concerned, the highest level of European cooperation with Turkey has been reached with this effort.
Quite significantly, the appeals made to Turkey by the rapporteur and other submitters of amendments, to finally walk the difficult path to becoming a democratic constitutional State, are in line with our fundamental objections to confirming Ankara' s candidate status.
Why does the European Union not speak in plain terms? False hope on both sides would, in any case make us fear for a speedy relapse into the old situation of "cold friendship" .
Mr President, I wish to congratulate General Morillon on his report and also recognise the important contribution made by his predecessor in this work, Edward McMillan Scott.
Let me just take a slightly different tack to that pursued by a number of the previous speakers.
I really believe that we should be talking in more encouraging tones to Turkey at the moment.
Many of us wish to see positive progress in the development of the Union's relations with Turkey, and it is most important therefore that obstacles to the provision of EU financial aid for Turkey are removed as soon as possible.
Not only that, but in recognition of Turkey's candidate status, which we trust will be endorsed and taken forward shortly by the European Council in Helsinki, we should be thinking in terms of a more ambitious programme of assistance.
After all, the measures proposed are aimed at enabling Turkey to put in place the necessary structural adjustments resulting from the Customs Union which operates very much at the moment in the European Union's favour.
Mr Prodi, when he was speaking to this House on 13 October, suggested that an accession partnership similar to the partnerships established with the official candidate countries would also help Turkey move steadily towards meeting the membership criteria.
It is recognised that accession negotiations cannot commence until the political criteria are met but we must give Turkey every assistance to get to this stage.
In Parliament's resolution of 6 October, we resolved to work speedily on the technical and financial assistance necessary to complete the Customs Union; and we called on the Council to support the necessary measures.
We have now reached that stage and trust that Council will be wholly supportive of our proposals.
We should also be prepared to begin consideration of measures that will help bring Turkey closer to our values and our economic approach.
Mr President, I should like, first of all, to congratulate General Morillon on his excellent report.
The Morillon report provides us with a good opportunity to discuss a European strategy for Turkey without beating about the bush.
I am sure we all agree that, in the European Union, no issue has been as controversial and given rise to as much tension and opposition as that of relations between the European Union and Turkey, and this is understandable, because Turkey has nothing in common with any other country involved in the enlargement process.
The other twelve countries together create fewer problems than Turkey does alone: economic and social problems, problems relating to human rights, democracy and respect for minorities.
In short, it has created problems of security and stability in south-east Europe by basing its foreign policy either on open violence, as in Cyprus where it continues to occupy the northern part of the island, or on the threat of violence, as when the Turkish parliament officially stated that if Greece exercised its sovereign rights in territorial waters in the Aegean this would be a casus belli.
The question of a European strategy for Turkey is basically quite simple.
The European Union is not going to change for Turkey' s sake, but Turkey is going to battle to become a European country.
Europe is not going to become Turkish; Turkey is going to become European.
The European strategy for Turkey must make clear to the Turkish political classes and to Turkish society that there is not going to be a separate set of rules for Turkey and that Turkey must meet all the criteria set in Copenhagen and Luxembourg if its European prospects are to prosper.
The Union must make it clear in the run up to Helsinki that it should respect international law on Cyprus.
The Union must make it clear that the integration process for Cyprus will continue, regardless of any form of blackmail by Turkey.
The Union must ensure that all applicant countries, Turkey included, respect international treaties and international law and cooperate with neighbouring countries to promote peace, and that any disputes are resolved through international law and international judicial bodies, such as the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Yes, Turkey should become a member of the Union but it should leave violence, unlawfulness and autocracy outside Europe' s door and enter in peace and democracy.
That is what the Turkish people want and it is what its neighbour Greece and its fellow citizens want.
Mr President, Commissioner, the European Free Alliance has not approved of Customs Union in the past.
The majority in this Parliament did approve following tortuous debates since approval would encourage the Turkish Government to arrive at an acceptable human rights policy, true democracy and a political solution to end the Kurdish issue.
We find that the outcome is not altogether convincing.
With the sentencing to death of the Kurdish leader Öçalan and confirmation thereof, we are once again faced with the tragic consequences of an unresolved request for respect and right of self-determination on behalf of a people, the Kurdish people, in Turkey.
In Turkey, a great deal of pressure is being exerted by various parties and groups on Turkish society to demand the execution of Öçalan.
Turkey is not yet ready to abolish the death sentence by a long shot, even if the death sentence is not actually carried out.
Turkey has to provide us with a guarantee that the life of Öçalan will be spared.
If this is not the case, the hope that a political solution will be reached for the Kurdish issue in Turkey will once again be dashed.
The despair of the Kurds will not do much for stability in our countries either. We know that thousands of Kurds live here.
I would nevertheless like to join in the congratulations extended to the rapporteur, as the text of his report is, in many ways, an improvement on the Commission' s proposal.
One could say that the financial support follows on from earlier decisions reached by us.
But think it through: if we vote on the text, the report stipulates that financial cooperation can be suspended in the event that the democratic principles of the constitutional State, human rights or fundamental liberties are violated.
Does this not imply that, if we grant financial benefits today, the goalposts for human rights, etc. have already been set and that, consequently, only a deterioration of the current situation could lead to suspension? As far as we are concerned, the goalposts of these measures do not go far enough.
We would like to see the situation in Turkey drastically improve in terms of democratisation and human rights and in terms of a solution to the Kurdish issue, but we hope that this is possible without having to exert financial pressure.
Mr President, because of our feelings of solidarity and fraternity with the people of Turkey, we oppose that country' s accession into the European Union because, as the experience of the Greek people has shown, the Turkish people have nothing positive to gain from it.
However, we are being urged to vote in favour of the two regulations and the release of the relevant appropriations to Turkey, both because it has made significant progress towards democratisation and in order to encourage it to go still further in that direction.
Contrary to claims by the Council and the Commission to the effect that democracy is progressing in Turkey, claims which demonstrate that the first to benefit from progress are the multinationals, it is blindingly obvious that the situation has, in fact, deteriorated.
So what is happening today? Turkey is still illegally occupying 38% of Cyprus in full contravention of international law, it is continuing with its provocations against Greece; it is still engaged in barbarous ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Kurdish people; it still insists on resolving the Kurdish issue through military intervention and it is continuing its military operations against the Kurds in Northern Iraq.
Over 12 000 political prisoners are being held in its prisons where torture and murder are an everyday occurrence.
Leila Zana, winner of the Sakharov prize, is still in prison, as are three Kurdish parliamentarians and famous writers and journalists.
Recently, twelve political prisoners protesting against inhumane prison conditions were murdered.
Then there is the case of Mr Öçalan who, aside from the inhumane way in which he was abducted and imprisoned, was sentenced to death in a mockery of a trial, and whose sentence was unanimously upheld two days ago by the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeal. That shows just how sensitive the Ankara authorities really are to appeals for democratisation.
Secondly, we are told that if we accept these regulations and release these appropriations, it will help the democratisation process.
We were told the same thing when the Customs Union was signed five years ago.
However, neither the constitution nor the criminal code has been democratised. The death penalty has still not been abolished, nor has the Kurdish issue been resolved politically and, according to statements by Turkish ministers, the Cyprus question "is no longer an issue" .
So, believe me, if we vote in favour of the two regulations under discussion, despite their positive aspects, then this will certainly encourage the Turkish regime, which claims that Turkey is the most advanced democracy in all of Europe, to tighten its existing policies.
We do not want to hit the forces fighting for true democracy, we want to send a message of solidarity to prisoners and push for real democratisation of the regime, which is why we urge you to vote against these two reports or, at least, to refer them back to the committee until such time as Turkey shows tangible evidence of democratisation and respect for international law.
Mr President, once again, a few weeks after the debate on extending the SOCRATES programme to young people in Turkey, Parliament is going back to addressing the controversial issue of relations between the European Union and Turkey.
This time, instead of culture, the nature of the European intervention is intended to support the social and economic development of the Mediterranean country and, for the umpteenth time, the question that we are all silently asking ourselves remains: can, and indeed should, the European Union in any way support a State that is geographically close, if not contiguous, surrounded by the same sea that washes upon the coasts of Southern Europe, even if that State appears extremely distant as regards respect for human rights? We are disappointed to note that since 1996, the year when the Aegean Sea crisis led the European Community to block the agreement on the Customs Union with Turkey, no headway has been made towards obtaining total respect for civil rights and the protection of minorities.
While the Turkish Government has made some half-hearted attempts in recent years, the recent death sentence placed on the Kurdish leader, Mr Öçalan, has made any possible political rapprochement between Turkey and the European Union more remote.
And yet, as we have maintained several times in this Chamber, the process of a community' s democratic growth also occurs through its economic and social development.
To deny the financial aid proposed by the Commission for the next three years for the development of the Customs Union would, especially at this tragic time when this Mediterranean country is on its knees following a terrible catastrophe, contribute to exacerbating a downward spiral with unimaginable consequences to Turkey.
To conclude, the Italian delegation from Alleanza Nazionale thinks it more sensible to have a carefully considered acceptance of cooperation with Turkey, subordinating it to specific, tangible actions to bring its government into line with western European democracies.
Democracy has a price, Mr President: asking Turkey to pay it is an act not of weakness, but of great responsibility.
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me to start by thanking Mr Morillon for his extremely factual report and his conscious effort to stick to the point.
Commissioner, because we have heard some criticism of the Commission, I would like to congratulate you and your officials, who are with us today, for the committed approach which they take to this issue, and for always communicating and discussing matters with Parliament.
Of course, assessments sometimes turn out differently in various Commission documents and papers.
But perhaps that has more to do with erratic Turkish policy, which sometimes makes more and sometimes makes less progress.
But anyone who sees things as they really are will note that some progress has been made over recent months and it deserves acknowledgement.
We must not fail to take the matter seriously, as some previous speakers have said and done, for to do otherwise would only give succour to the Turkish government!
What I wonder is: how come Akim Birdal is in favour of introducing a new strategy, how come other Kurdish representatives are in favour of our introducing a new strategy, how come the entire opposition to the government and civil society are in favour of our introducing a new strategy if all it does is support the government?
I should like to extend my special thanks to the Greek government and to foreign secretary Papandreou; that was a courageous step, especially in light of domestic political relations.
It was also a highly risky step which was clearly also motivated by the situation in Cyprus and the attempt to bring Cyprus closer to the European Union and find a political solution to the Cyprus question.
So we are not uncritical of Turkey; on the contrary.
I repeat, Turkey would be a lot further down the road to Europe if it had applied fundamentally different measures in the field of human rights and minority rights in good time, at the right time, especially with regard to the Kurdish question, democracy in relation to Greece and a contribution towards solving the problem in Cyprus.
But if the Council decides in the next few days - I say if - to officially recognise Turkey as a candidate, then Turkey must realise that the ball is in its court.
Then it will be up to Turkey to make the next move, because we will have made a move, partly in response to the minor changes which we have seen, partly in anticipation of what might, should and must follow.
But then the ball will be in Turkey' s court and it is up to Turkey to make the next move if further progress is to be made in bringing Turkey and Europe closer together.
We want to have Turkey in the European Union, but Turkey knows full well that only a Turkey which recognises the Copenhagen criteria can become a member of the European Union.
Every candidate country knows that and Turkey should know it too.
I trust that it will soon take steps to meet these criteria.
It will, without doubt, take a number of years, but the more quickly Turkey acts, the more quickly it will become a member of the European Union.
Mr President, I do not know if it is symbolic in any way that the report on these issues was put forward by one of our colleagues, who happens to be a General.
This distinguished colleague endeavoured to improve the Commission' s proposals.
However, we should refer both these texts back, because we are not a schizophrenic parliament which says one thing for Chechnya and another for Turkey.
We cannot afford to be a parliament which is politically dead.
The Helsinki Summit takes place in a few days' time. And what will our message be?
Everything' s fine?
We have adopted the regulations? Never mind about Öçalan?
Never mind, look at it from a tourist' s perspective! In Greece, Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean, we slaughter a cock and daub its blood over the foundations of a new house.
Never mind if Öçalan is sacrificed or is in danger of being sacrificed over the foundations of Turkey' s accession to the European Union?
Is that what we are going to say to the Summit?
And for what?
For two regulations, one of which is illegal and pure sleight of hand. It has made Turkey, an applicant country, out to be a developing country so as to get round the unanimity rule in the Council of Ministers of the European Union.
In my view, the European Parliament should stand its ground and should allow not only Turkey but also the Turkish people into the European Union and, in the process, it should intervene to give the Turkish people the rights they have so far been denied.
Mr President, I would like to thank Mr Morillon, because the Turkey dossier, as we have seen, is not an easy dossier.
We have discussed it a lot lately; today we are debating two proposals for regulations on strengthening the Customs Union and on interventions that aim to improve Turkey' s economic and social development.
We are doing this on the eve of the Helsinki European Council, where Turkey' s possible application to join the European Union will be decided, and we are doing this in a context in which we have seen Mr Abdullah Öçalan' s death sentence confirmed by the Turkish Supreme Court, followed by a request for a stay of execution from the European Court of Human Rights and a declaration by the Turkish authorities, delivered by Prime Minister Ecevit, that they would prefer the legal process to be completed, including the appeal by the defence lawyers, before making the government' s position known and before putting the issue before parliament.
Therefore, the matter is not closed and, once again, it falls to us to choose a strategy.
I believe that Parliament has decided to invest in the democratic growth of this country.
But our alternative is not a choice between, on the one hand, a position where there is a complete refusal to cooperate, as is currently the case, and on the other hand, an uncritical acceptance of events.
I would remind all Members of parliamentary Amendment No 11, which lets us keep control of the way this cooperation will develop.
The fact remains that, together with the wider picture, mentioned by many Members, and Mr Swoboda was the last person to do so, the fate of Mr Abdullah Öçalan is still a pressing matter that must be resolved once and for all.
Today, President Prodi told us that, so as not to sour Turkey' s attitude, its application to join the Union will be legitimised at Helsinki.
This is a major step forwards, but it is a shame that Turkey has not taken any such positive steps.
We are all indignant at the confirmation of the death sentence on President Öçalan, we are all united in asking for a gesture from the Turkish Government, and then there is the moratorium on capital punishment: it is likely that the sentence will be suspended, despite the government' s grave decision not to respond to the request from the Court in Strasbourg.
Of course, this is not without importance, but is it enough to convince us that Turkey has its house in order so it can join the Union? No.
Every day in Turkey human rights are violated: there are thousands of political prisoners, and union and religious freedoms, freedom of opinion and minorities' freedoms are repressed.
In the light of the extraordinary event and unilateral actions for peace, whereby the PKK chose to abandon the armed struggle and implement a ceasefire, and in the light of numerous leaders of the PKK choosing to turn themselves in to the Turkish authorities in order to reaffirm their choice of wishing to negotiate for peace, the Turkish Government gave only negative and scornful responses. Some young Kurdish refugees visiting the European Parliament asked us: will you help us return to our villages?
They have been destroyed - will you help us rebuild them? As much as I welcome and am grateful for the content of the Morillon report, I think that we must send out a strong signal by postponing this decision until the Turkish Government confirms the stay of execution and begins talks to find a solution to the Kurdish question.
There can be no double standards when it comes to the right to live.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although the two regulations being debated here today have in fact nothing to do with the debates which will be held in the General Council next Monday and in the European Council in Helsinki a few days later, I am of course aware of the fact that the political context and timing cannot be ignored here and that we must naturally discuss the overall problem of relations between the European Union and Turkey in conjunction with these two regulations and that is what most speakers have done here this evening.
I am most grateful for the debate which has been held here because it was a highly factual debate which made very valuable and important points, especially for the attention of Turkey, because Turkey will have to gauge the political mood which prevails in Europe towards its application to join the European Union.
Firstly, however, I would like to extend my most sincere thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Morillon, for the two reports which he has submitted and to express my appreciation to him and to Mr McMillan-Scott and Mr Schwaiger for their contributions.
I think the report is so important because the European Parliament subscribes in it to the view that the European strategy represents a suitable way of extending relations between the European Union and Turkey and that financial support is needed in order to implement the strategy.
Allow me to take this opportunity to explain once again the change in strategy towards Turkey, and I certainly do not take what Mr Brie said as a reproach.
If a new Commission is not to be allowed to change the position of previous Commissions which it considers wrong, then we have no further need of a Commission.
We could use robots which just keep on applying whatever was said once at some time in the past.
I think that Mr Brie of all people will understand that you are not always willing to be arrested for something which your predecessors did.
Otherwise we could have an interesting debate on your own predecessors, couldn' t we?
I just wanted to make that clear.
What the change involves is something quite different.
The fact is that we must recognise that our previous strategies towards Turkey have not had any visible success.
We can hold endless discussions as to the reason, but the fact remains that the findings made here, that progress in Turkey is unsatisfactory, are correct.
So the question which arises is: can we do anything to change this?
The proposal made by the Commission, and which I hope Helsinki will support, is to set a parallel process in motion so that the two processes dovetail.
On the one hand, we want to bring Turkey into the European Union using precisely the instruments used to bring other candidates in and, on the other, we want to see, in parallel, a fundamental change in Turkey itself.
I repeat, a fundamental change.
I can report from my discussions with the Turkish Prime Minister and from several meetings with the Turkish Foreign Secretary over the last few days that the Turkish Government is fully aware of the need for this fundamental change in the political, economic, social and cultural areas.
More than that, I am convinced that the present Turkish Government and the parliamentary majority behind it also want this fundamental change.
At some point now we must break the vicious circle.
There is no sense in saying: once Turkey has already done certain things, then maybe we will say yes, because then Turkey will give the standard response: as Europe does not keep its promises, we have no clear European prospects and we cannot therefore negotiate the risk-strewn path to reform.
We could carry on like this for years and nothing would change, which is why the attempt being made now is reasonable, bodes well and is under our control at all times.
That is important because we do not of course want to bring a country into the European Union which, we must one day admit, will not meet the political criteria.
For the rest, it is wrong to say that there have been no interesting developments in Turkey recently.
I would like to quote just three.
As far as foreign policy is concerned, there is no question that we are witnessing a rapprochement between Greece and Turkey which we would have considered impossible six months ago.
That is not only thanks to the contribution of the Greek Government, which I have a very high opinion of and hold in great esteem; it is also thanks to the Turkish Government.
I would like to mention just one of the minor consequences of this rapprochement: when Greek and Turkish journalists work together to stop the propaganda which we have followed for years in the main media in their countries and to stop people from being wrongly informed about what is happening in their neighbouring country, then I call that very real progress indeed.
The second point is that we shall probably witness the passing of a very important law on human rights in Turkey before Helsinki.
For the first time in the history of Turkey, there will be a law which allows members of the civil service, i.e. officials, to be brought to trial for violating human rights.
For example, people allegedly responsible for torture will be brought to trial.
We take that for granted in our countries, but for Turkey it is unprecedented.
The third point I would like to make is that the Turkish Minister responsible for European integration and human rights - an interesting remit, but one which goes well together - has officially stated, following the upholding of the death sentence by the Court of Appeal, that it is not in Turkey' s interest to carry out this death sentence.
Without wishing to betray confidentiality, I can go so far as to say here that my impression is that, while the proceedings in Strasbourg are under way, the Turkish Government does not want, under any circumstances, to take a decision on the execution; their strategy is rather to use the time gained by the proceedings in Strasbourg to abolish capital punishment in Turkey.
I should like at this point to appeal again most urgently to Turkey to do so as quickly as possible.
It is not just a symbolic gesture.
The death penalty is something so final, something so final and so barbaric that we in Europe cannot sanction it.
Turkey knows full well that the abolition of capital punishment must be one of the first hurdles on the road which I referred to.
So I would be most grateful if you would vote in favour of the rapporteur' s report and uphold an old commitment which Europe entered into towards Turkey.
We too are not always in the most credible position, including vis-à-vis Turkey.
I always find it very difficult to demand something of a country, to make demands on a country to which we have made promises which we have not honoured.
A vote in favour of the two regulations would considerably improve our moral position in relation to Turkey and I consider that most important at this stage.
The ideas developed by the European Parliament in the form of the amendments tabled during the discussions tally fully, for the most part, with the Commission and I shall support most of them.
There are only a few minor points on which I cannot accept the proposed amendments as they stand and that is where the institutional balance is affected.
You must and you will understand that the Commission must take care to ensure that the distribution of roles is not changed, that the tasks are allocated as stated in the Treaties and that responsibilities cannot be mixed.
But I think that there is overall agreement on the matter itself.
I again expressly offer to provide the European Parliament with comprehensive information in advance on specific action taken and on the projects which are developed and implemented jointly with Turkey on the basis of the funding regulations, thereby guaranteeing the involvement of the European Parliament in the development of relations with Turkey at all times.
I do not know this evening what the decision will be in Helsinki next week, but I am firmly convinced that the decision which the European Parliament has to take on these two regulations will impact on the outcome of future discussions and on the decision taken by the European Council in a week' s time.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide
The next item is the report (A5-0065/1999) by Mrs Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council Directive relating to limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air [COM(1998) 591 - C4-0135/1999 - 1998/0333(COD)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Commissioner, this directive is the second daughter directive within the framework of the directive on ambient air quality assessment and management and the proposal is part of an integrated raft of measures aimed at combating air pollution.
I think we all agree that the people of Europe should be able to breathe cleaner air and indeed the latest publication by the European Environment Agency states that the level of air pollution in most cities poses a threat to health and that almost 40 million people in the 115 largest European cities are exposed to at least one pollutant which exceeds the WHO air quality guidelines.
Despite political initiatives aimed at reducing pollution and improving air quality, it is assumed that passenger transport needs will increase drastically over the next ten years and that the number of vehicles will increase by 25%, increasing air pollution still further.
In a report this year, the WHO comes to the conclusion that air pollution caused by traffic kills even more people than car accidents and that the economic costs are high.
It is therefore important to reduce the level of air pollution, to limit the consequences for particularly vulnerable groups and to ease the burden on the health systems.
The important point about this second daughter directive is that it is the first time that a limit value has been set for benzene and carbon monoxide in the EU.
This is an important step, I would even go so far as to say that it is a milestone in air quality legislation now that, for the first time, a limit value has been set for benzene, a carcinogenic substance which can cause leukaemia.
We know that petrol and oil are sources of benzene and 80% to 85% of the benzene in the European Union comes from the combustion of petrol by road traffic.
Until now there has been no threshold value as far as health risks are concerned and therefore no level of benzene is free of risk.
The precautionary principle in the EC Treaty makes a limit value with an extremely low risk of illness compulsory, however.
The Commission has proposed an annual limit value of 5 micrograms per cubic metre of air for benzene, to be attained by 2010.
This is fully endorsed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
However, the Committee on the Environment does not support the Commission' s intention to give carte blanche in the form of unlimited derogations by proposing that, in the event of so-called socio-economic problems, countries may apply for a transition period of five years, which can then be extended for a further five years.
The Committee on the Environment expects the directive to be properly implemented and proposes that no more than one five-year derogation should be allowed, during which a ten microgram limit must be observed.
Other amendments have been tabled in plenary, coupling this derogation to other conditions in order to ensure - and this must be made quite clear - that these regulations are not a loophole for non-transposition of the directive.
The Committee on the Environment therefore makes it quite clear that it cannot be assumed that a twin-track environmental policy will be operated.
I think that it is extremely important, also in view of enlargement, that we set a good example and do not send out the wrong signal to applicant countries.
The Committee on the Environment would therefore like to make it clear in its proposal, which is more precise and more strict as far as derogations are concerned, that there can be no question of a twin-track environmental policy and that the aim must be to achieve a high level of protection for everyone in the EU.
The Committee also proposes that the public should be better informed in future and that the proposed measures should be extended still further by other measures.
I think that if we can manage to get the Commission to support the Committee' s proposals, then we will have reached a real milestone on the way to better air quality and we will have helped considerably to make it clear that carcinogenic substances have lost in the environmental stakes.
We want to improve the air quality in Europe, thereby making a major contribution to health protection.
Mr President, let me say on behalf of the European People' s Party (Christian Democrats) and the European Democrats that this proposal for a directive is another brick in the edifice of European air quality policy.
The air quality framework directive is implemented by issuing daughter directives on a series of air pollutants.
This is the second such daughter directive and it relates to the limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in the air and the corresponding control and information requirements.
The purpose of our proposed amendments is not only to stipulate strict environmental protection requirements but to format these requirements so that they can be transposed and complied with by all Member States.
In order to achieve this objective, certain compromises need to be made, especially with regard to our southern Member States.
From this point of view, the specifications of the European Commission and the extensive amendments tabled by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection are very demanding.
The Finnish Presidency is making a serious effort to make use of the new legal possibilities afforded by the Amsterdam Treaty and to bring this proposal into force after the first reading with the amendments of the European Parliament.
We all know how urgent the problem of reducing air pollution is, also with respect to climatic change.
As Mrs Breyer has already pointed out, the real aim is to improve health protection for our citizens.
On these grounds, I welcome the plan of the Finnish Presidency.
But that also means that we in the European Parliament must responsibly create the right conditions.
It is precisely for this reason that I am unable to agree with certain proposed amendments adopted by a majority in the Committee on the Environment and tabled mainly by Mrs Breyer and her group, because some are superfluous and do not help to improve the text while others have no place in this proposal for a directive because they do not concern the scope of the proposed directive.
It is for this reason that we reject a series of proposed amendments.
My proposed amendment of Article 3(2) was adopted by a large majority in committee.
In consultations with advisers, our rapporteur, Mrs Breyer, and experts, we again supplemented and tightened up this amendment.
This is proposed amendment 22, which I would ask you all to support.
I would like to thank Mrs Breyer.
She was at pains to find a consensus and it was not easy, but I think that if we confine ourselves to the basic proposed amendments which improve the Commission proposal, and this refers mainly to Amendment Nos 1, 5, 7, 10, 11, 15, 16 and 22, it should be possible to pass this important directive quickly.
I imagine, hope and expect that, in its reply, the Commission will support this directive and really pave the way for it to be implemented as quickly as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to start by thanking and congratulating the rapporteur on her excellent report.
I particularly welcome the fact that provisions are geared at several points in the report to particularly vulnerable groups of people and the extensive duty to provide information.
The second daughter directive within the framework of improving air quality in Europe must, of course, like previous directives, meet the following objectives, namely to define and stipulate air quality objectives at European level and to create air quality assessment criteria based on standard methods.
Care must be taken to ensure that useful information on air quality is available and provided to the public.
The objective - and I think that this is the fundamental objective - is to maintain and improve air quality.
If this directive is transposed consistently and quickly, I think that we really will be one step closer to this objective.
Of the two air pollutants in the report, you will certainly have noticed that there is less discussion of carbon monoxide.
The proposed limit value of 10 micrograms/m3 over a period of eight hours, which tallies with the WHO guideline, is accepted by all parties.
This acceptance no longer applies to benzene, as you will have gathered from the previous comments.
I think that it is hugely important that, for the first time, we have an EU-wide limit value for a carcinogenic substance and it is precisely because of the high health risk, i.e. the cancer risk, and because of the precedent which it will set for other as yet unregulated carcinogenic substances, that it is important for the limit value set in this directive to be transposed into practice as quickly as possible.
My group therefore supports the Commission proposal, i.e. 5 micrograms/m3.
As far as the content is concerned, we support working towards a future reduction of this limit value, but we feel that a realistic objective will result in faster implementation at this point in time.
The real political priority as far as I am concerned is to comply with limit values in all areas, including so-called hotspots, and we must avoid overly generous derogations which will provide a loophole for non-compliance with the limit values for benzene.
Regional and local agencies must be involved in finding a solution so that air quality can be improved.
Mr President, like many British Members, I live in two worlds.
One is the place that I read about in our national newspapers.
Some of them, at least, feed their readers a diet of lies and half-truths to whip up hatred of all things European.
And the other is here; the place which actually exists, where I find myself working amongst colleagues and others trying to make this continent a better place for its citizens.
This draft directive belongs to the second of these two worlds.
Its simple aim is to cut pollution and improve the air we breathe, which circulates from one country to another without respect to national boundaries.
Who can be against that?
The public information insisted upon in the draft directive is vital and gives the opportunity to back up legal measures with the right of the public to name and shame those governments which fail to take the necessary measures to comply with this directive.
And, if we fail to achieve the targets for reducing benzene and carbon monoxide emissions, it will not be the fault of industry.
They have done their part through technological change.
It will be the fault of governments for not having the political courage to curb the use of cars in our cities.
The Liberal Democrats welcome this measure.
I anticipate us supporting all the amendments which have been tabled.
We are pleased to be sending a strong and practical message to eurosceptics everywhere that we are in Europe to make this continent a better place for us all.
Mr President, Commissioner, I too congratulate Mrs Breyer on her excellent work. We hope that this will be taken up by the Commission so that ambitious measures for fighting pollution can be quickly established.
We know that benzene causes leukaemia and that the incidence of leukaemia among children is increasing.
We also know that road transport causes considerable air pollution and, in particular, that this type of transport is unfortunately on the increase rather than on the decline.
This directive has therefore been long-awaited and must be a priority.
Although we support this report, we have sponsored some amendments, two of which I must defend more particularly.
The first is Amendment No 17 in which we ask for the removal of the derogation which, in our opinion, deprives the text of its substance and which can only delay the application of the directive.
This is the main weakness of this directive.
Also, in Amendment No 20, we suggest that the Commission lowers the benzene emission limit from five micrograms per cubic metre, as proposed by the Commission, to four micrograms per cubic metre.
This threshold must be lowered in consideration of the toxicity of benzene.
We are, of course, still a long way, perhaps a very long way, from the precautionary principle which should be guiding our policies, but I accept that this is progress and it is a start.
Mr President, clean air is a vital necessity for life.
I therefore support a daughter directive being drawn up concerning the substances carbon monoxide and benzene.
Given the high toxicity of benzene, there is a direct link between air quality and public health.
The proposed standards are ambitious: a 70% reduction in benzene emissions and a 30% reduction in CO emissions.
It is hoped that these objectives, as well as the first daughter directive for air quality, can be achieved.
Huge efforts will be required in the process.
Combustion processes in both industry and transport will need to run their course in order to restrict the emission of carbon monoxide.
At power stations, waste incineration plants, cement furnaces and in cars, there are ways of reducing the emission of carbon monoxide.
In the case of forest fires, however, very little can be done.
Preventing forest fires and other uncontrolled combustion processes could, therefore, make up a large component in the policy when this directive is transposed.
In order to prevent the emission of benzene, the use of car fuels, among other things, will need to be handled with care.
I do wonder therefore if the standard for petrol stations will be met.
If no measurements are taken at petrol stations, no action will be taken.
If measurements are taken, on the other hand, it is highly improbable that the standard for benzene will be met.
Therefore, Commissioner, I would urge the European Commission to study the section on measurements more closely.
Representative measurement is necessary here, otherwise air quality will not improve.
Mr President, reduction of air pollution and, in particular, benzene and carbon monoxide is a legitimate objective of the European Union.
Therefore, this directive must be generally welcomed.
Air sampling must be organised to give an accurate assessment of annual personal exposure levels, and I am concerned that some amendments that call for roadside inlets would give a distorted picture of the problem.
Individuals are not exposed to kerb side concentrations continuously.
It is the building line which is important and that may be more than five metres from the kerb.
The unqualified derogation for benzene levels, referred to by Mrs Breyer for socio-economic reasons, at first seems bizarre.
One would have thought that communities living in our disadvantaged areas, with all their associated health problems, would be those most in need of cleaner air.
However, if this regulation were to result in the closure of a major industry in that area, the results would be counter-productive and would exacerbate the social and economic problems.
Although petrol engines are the primary source of benzene, metallurgical coke-works are also implicated.
If the most stringent aspects proposed are implemented, this part of the steel-making industry could be forced abroad, probably to eastern Europe, which brings me to my last point.
The Commission proposal does not specifically address the problems of air pollution in applicant countries; and I think it is irresponsible, given the eminent enlargement, for Parliament not to be given any information regarding pollution levels in countries like Poland and the Czech Republic; and the likely cost and time scale involved in bringing them up to exacting new standards.
Could I suggest, Mrs Wallström, that in future, when environment legislation like this is considered, the full implications regarding applicant countries be taken into account and publicised.
Mr President, Commissioner, I support the report presented by Mrs Breyer which is excellent in many respects.
Firstly, I must stress the positive effect of her public health proposals.
The Commission' s proposal, supported and furthered by this report, establishes the principle of ambient air quality assessment and management with regard to two major sources of pollution: benzene and carbon monoxide. These are both produced by road traffic.
It has rightly been emphasised that benzene is a carcinogen which causes leukaemia and that carbon monoxide can lead to toxic lesions on the heart and brain, and even to death in high concentrations.
We must not make people' s fears worse but we must ourselves realise and make others realise the dangers of not adopting realistic and necessarily stringent measures. These must allow as little derogation as possible so that we can assess, control and restrict to the minimum polluting emissions of these two noxious gases.
This is even more vital as these gases are more dangerous for children, the elderly and anyone suffering from heart or respiratory problems.
Secondly, the Breyer report is of great interest to the consumers which we all are.
Although the initial aim was to ensure that the public has easy access to up-to-date information, the rapporteur has gone further by specifying not only the frequency with which information must be made available, but also the range of media to be used in distributing this information. This is not unimportant.
The people of Europe are entitled to know about the quality of the environment in which they are living.
They must be able to judge the measures taken by the competent national or local authorities to provide the scientists with quantified data so that the air which they breathe can be improved.
These measures constitute a strong political signal about the political choices made on transport.
I would therefore invite you all to support the rapporteur without hesitation. Her proposals are both ambitious and realistic and clearly show the Council how demanding the European Parliament can be on the environment, public health and consumer protection.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to begin by thanking the Environment Committee and in particular, of course, the rapporteur, Mrs Breyer, for her valuable report.
Thank you also for your valuable input into this discussion.
The proposal before us is the second that the Commission brings forward under the Framework Directive 96/62 on air quality assessment and management.
It will set new limit values. These limit values are based on the latest advice from the World Health Organisation.
There are many areas in which the Commission can agree with the constructive amendments proposed by the Committee.
We accept amendments that bring this proposal into line with the final position on the first air quality daughter directive, 1999/30, which was adopted in April this year.
We, therefore, accept Amendments Nos 1 and 6.
I share the Environment Committee's view that the most critical area for discussion is the limit value for benzene and the timetables for meeting it. Benzene is difficult since there is no identifiable threshold for effects.
The Commission can, in principle, accept Amendment No 2, which makes this clear.
We suggest a slight rewording in line with standard terminology; that is: "Whereas benzene is a human genotoxic carcinogen and there is no identifiable threshold below which there is no risk to human health;"
Where the limit value is concerned, the Commission believes that its proposal for an annual average concentration of 5 micrograms per cubit metre is well balanced.
It will provide a high level of protection, but should be generally achievable throughout the Union over the next ten years.
The Commission can therefore not accept the part of Amendment No 20 that would set a limit value of 4 micrograms per cubic metre.
However, it is clear that limit values for carcinogens must be kept under constant review.
The Commission will report on benzene as part of a new integrated clean air programme in 2004.
As the proposal makes clear, we will then consider whether to propose a new limit value for the longer term.
Although the Commission considers that its proposal is generally achievable by 2010, there are some uncertainties.
This is largely due to the fact that at present there is no limit value for benzene and no consistent monitoring across the Union.
It is, however, clear that the ease with which problems can be tackled depend to some extent on climate.
The Commission has, therefore, asked Parliament and Council in Article 3(2) whether this should be taken into account.
Having listened to the debates so far, the Commission feels that Member States should be able to request longer time scales for meeting the limit value for benzene, where the 2010 deadline would cause serious socio-economic problems.
It does, therefore, not accept Amendment No 17 nor the remaining part of Amendment No 20.
We do agree, however, that conditions for obtaining a derogation should be made more clear and be tightened.
On balance, the Commission now considers that it may be feasible to limit extensions to a maximum of five years.
It therefore accepts most of Amendment No 22, which we prefer to Amendment No 5.
It does not, however, feel that it can support a temporary limit value of 10 micrograms per cubit metre without information on feasibility.
The Commission cannot accept that part of Amendment No 22.
Amendment No 11 is partly related to Amendment No 22, and the Commission accepts it in part.
The Commission does not accept the part of Amendment No 11 which would insert a requirement that a more stringent limit value for benzene should be proposed in 2004.
The proposal already makes clear that the aim of the review will be to look at the latest evidence and, if necessary, to improve protection still further.
We should leave such decisions open until we have all the evidence in front of us.
The Commission can accept Amendment No 10 which points out the importance of looking at effects on sensitive populations.
The Commission agrees with the Environment Committee that indoor conditions have significant effects on health, but we do not think this proposal is the vehicle for considering how to tackle this issue.
The subject is much wider than benzene and carbon monoxide and needs, therefore, to be looked at in a wider framework.
From a technical point of view, Directive 96/62 defines ambient air as 'outdoor air' only.
The Commission cannot therefore accept Amendments Nos 3 and 12 nor the partly related Amendment No 18.
Indoor air, as I also know that Mrs Breyer is engaged in this issue, could be taken up within the framework of a new environmental action programme.
Providing good up-to-date information to the public is the key element of the new framework for improving air quality.
The Commission can accept that part of Amendment No 7 which would add to the list of means that Member States might use to inform the public about air quality.
It does not, however, accept that part of the amendment that would require Member States to make lists of organisations that get information and send them to the Commission.
It was decided during discussions of the first daughter directive that such lists would be too bureaucratic and could even be misleading.
The Commission accepts Amendment No 8, which requires better public information on carbon monoxide as an improvement to its proposal.
It can also agree in part with Amendment No 9.
Annex 6, part two, deals with data on pollution levels.
This should actively be made available to the public in line with the Aarhus Convention.
The documentation referred to in Annex 4, part three, is, however, highly technical and potentially voluminous.
It should be available on request but should not be actively disseminated.
The Commission agrees with the rapporteur that Member States should take particular care to provide information to the public in any area with extended timetables for meeting the limit value of benzene.
We can, therefore, accept Amendment No 19 in principal.
We would propose adding to Article 6(2): "Member States should pay particular attention to providing information on concentrations, plans and programmes to the public in areas referred to in Article 3(2)". The Commission can also accept Amendment No 4 in principle.
We suggest, however, replacing the words 'measured data' by the word 'concentrations'.
This shows that information must be forwarded whether it was obtained by measurement or by some other method.
A third objective of both the Air Quality Framework Directive and this proposal is to ensure that Member States assess air quality in a consistent and comparable way.
The Commission does not, however, accept Amendment No 13.
There are technical problems with the amendment as drafted, and it is unnecessary.
Member States will have to inform the Commission about measurement methods, numbers and locations of measurement stations every year.
This is already stated under the general reporting requirements of Directive 96/62 and the related Council Decision 97/101 on a reciprocal exchange of information on air quality.
The Commission also does not accept Amendment No 14.
It is not compatible with decisions of the first air quality daughter directive.
General technical advice is that for annual average limit values, measuring close to the building line better reflects the exposure of the population.
The Commission can accept Amendment No 15 in part.
It considers that this proposal should be brought into line with Directive 1999/30 by inserting the words 'where there is more than one measurement station within the zone or agglomeration at least one should be placed close to traffic and at least one should be oriented to the urban background'.
It thinks, however, that the additional requirement that at least half the stations should be traffic-oriented is over-prescriptive.
Finally, the Commission agrees with the intention of Amendment Nos 16 and 21.
Directive 96/62 allows the use of random measurement if it can be shown to be sufficiently accurate.
These amendments seek to say what that means for benzene.
Amendment No 16 follow closely the first daughter directive.
The Commission considers, however, that in the case of the annual average limit value for benzene, it is possible to demand a higher standard of accuracy equal to that set for continuous monitoring.
It can, therefore, accept Amendment No 21 in preference to Amendment No 16.
I shall close by saying that I hope it will be possible to reach a rapid agreement on this proposal.
At present, there are no Community limit values for benzene or carbon monoxide.
It is essential to get this legislation in place so that proper monitoring can start, and Member States can identify the problem areas.
This is a crucial factor to assure that public health is properly protected throughout the Union.
A final word to Mr Goodwill on enlargement, because you really have a point there.
At the moment, it is difficult to have good information on these matters and good measurement from the applicant countries.
We have to follow this very closely.
We already work together with the applicant countries and we have done screening reports as you already know.
So we have to do a great deal of work together with the applicant countries and you have an important point.
This should be added to our list of work that we have to pursue from now on.
So, thank you for that; and thank you for the discussion.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your full and documented answer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Carbon dioxide emissions from new cars
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5­0064/1999) by Mrs González Álvarez, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the common position established by the Council with a view to the adoption of a European Parliament and Council decision establishing a scheme to monitor the average specific emissions of carbon dioxide from new passenger cars [COM(1998) 348 - C5­0041/1999 - 1998/0202(COD)].
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as indicated by the President, this is the second reading of a common position established by the Council on the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles.
We must remember that the intention behind this second reading is to meet the Kyoto objectives, subsequently approved in Bonn, of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. We continue to feel that these objectives are modest.
Given the Environment Agency' s report which stated that emissions must be reduced by 30%, the proposed objectives are definitely modest.
However, we are pleased with this common position which is heading in the right direction of preventing new cars from emitting increasing amounts of carbon dioxide.
At first reading, 45 amendments were tabled in the Committee on the Environment. They were approved by a large majority.
Of these 45 amendments, 29 were adopted in plenary. The Council should be thanked for having included a large proportion of these 29 amendments in the common position.
However, there are 10 amendments which we are tabling again as they were approved, with just one abstention, by over 40 votes in the Committee on the Environment.
These amendments concern some of the issues which, at first reading, seemed important to the majority of the Committee on the Environment.
Some only involve a change of words, such as Amendment No 1, which states that greenhouse gases, in this case carbon dioxide, should not just be stabilised but also reduced.
Amendment No 2 proposes monitoring on an objective basis.
We have made a small change to this at the Commission' s suggestion.
In Amendment No 3 we indicate the legal framework which should be provided in case the voluntary agreements fail.
I would remind you that this House in general, and the Committee on the Environment in particular, has little faith in effective results being achieved by voluntary agreements.
This is why we propose establishing a legal framework.
We also mention tax incentives and the inclusion of commercial vehicles. The latter must not be omitted from the proposal given that they are responsible for a significant proportion of carbon dioxide emissions.
We propose a change to the method of data collection if results are not achieved within a certain period of time.
The Council' s common position itself mentions that the Member States have a variety of data collection proposals.
In addition, we ask for a report on the operation of this method for December 2002.
At the suggestion of the Commission, we have also made a small change to this.
We would have liked this report by June 2002 but we have accepted December in order to allow more time.
In the report which the Commission must present to the Council and the European Parliament, we also want an analysis of whether the reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is due to the technical measures of industrialists or to consumer habits.
Amendment No 10, which the Commission and Council accept, refers to the weight and size of cars.
We thank the Council and Commission for having accepted certain amendments.
However, we must insist on some of these 10 amendments which we are tabling again because they were approved practically unanimously, with one abstention, in the Committee on the Environment.
Even the Commission and Council representatives have said that they are still studying some of these amendments, for example the one on tax incentives and the inclusion of commercial vehicles.
We therefore feel that these amendments are simply supporting this study process of the Commission and Council on, for example, tax incentives and commercial vehicles.
These are easy amendments for the Commission and Council to accept.
We are perfectly well aware of the difficulties faced by the Council in convincing the fifteen Member States of a proposal of this nature.
Yet we must say that, having consulted practically all the groups, they stress that we must keep these amendments and so I defend the proposal from the Committee on the Environment.
Mr President, I am speaking on behalf of the PPE group and, more importantly, on behalf of my colleague, Marlies Flemming, who is attending the WTO negotiations for the Committee on the Environment and is therefore unfortunately unable to take the floor here today.
The original Commission proposal sought to set up a monitoring system to provide reliable information on CO2 emissions from new cars.
The proposal forms part of the European Community strategy to reduce CO2 emissions and fuel consumption.
Other elements of this strategy are an agreement with the automobile industry on reducing CO2 emissions by a certain deadline and a fuel consumption labelling system in order to make it easier for consumers to choose a new car.
This strategy is certainly a logical one because we know that about half of all CO2 emissions are caused by traffic; however, we should also note that about 12% of all CO2 emissions are emitted in the European Union and about 88% in the rest of the world.
The Council of Ministers has adopted a number of amendments tabled by the European Parliament at first reading which strengthen the original Commission proposal.
These amendments refer, for example, to the Kyoto protocol, the importance of collecting data so that the voluntary agreement to reduce CO2 emissions from cars by 2003 can be properly monitored, the European Commission' s undertaking to report on the monitoring data forwarded by Member States to the European Parliament and, finally, some additions to the information to be forwarded.
We therefore welcome the Council' s common position.
If we are to create an efficient monitoring system without too much delay, we need to adopt this proposal as quickly as possible.
The decision could then enter into force this year.
That would mean that the year 2000 would be the first year for which data then needed to be compiled.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that there are still three controversial points in this directive which we also need to discuss.
In order to do so, we need to consider briefly why this directive has even been tabled. Surely not because it is fun to collect data; enough data is being collected already.
No, it is because we have concluded a voluntary agreement with the motor industry.
That is the first time that we have done so at European level.
We need to have instruments so that we can monitor this undertaking. That is why we have tabled this directive and that is why this directive needs to be a suitable instrument which really can be used for monitoring purposes.
There are therefore three points, I think, which need to be included in the directive and in this respect I support the excellent work carried out by the rapporteur.
First: we must make it clear that if the monitoring data show that the voluntary undertaking does not work, then legislation will follow.
In other words, there needs to be a link between monitoring and legislation if the figures prove unequivocally that the undertakings are not being complied with.
That needs to be added.
Secondly: we also need clear rules on using the data.
It is no good filing the data and leaving the files locked away in a cupboard somewhere. They must be the basis in 2002 for monitoring the voluntary undertaking.
We need an independent data register for monitoring the voluntary undertaking and I feel that this needs to be clearly stated in the directive.
Thirdly: the voluntary undertaking by the motor industry, both in Europe and in Japan and Korea, refers to technical measures to reduce CO2 through better engines, lighter vehicles etc.
That also needs to be monitored.
If CO2 consumption drops due to changes in purchasing patterns, because suddenly we all want to buy three-litre cars, then that is something else.
We therefore need a clear division between technical measures and consumer patterns and this too needs to be integrated into the directive so that this instrument really can be used in line with the intention which brought about the directive in the first place.
So let us add these three points to the directive so that we have a proper, efficient instrument for monitoring this voluntary agreement which, after all, is an experiment for the European Union.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I want to begin by thanking the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and, in particular, its rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, for dealing with this matter so quickly. It is in fact in all the parties' interests that this decision should be taken without further delay so that we might set in motion an objective monitoring of the environmental agreements which have been made with the car industry.
Mrs González Álvarez pointed out in her recommendation that the common position contains many of the points of view which the European Parliament presented in its first reading.
As Mrs Schleicher said, Mrs Flemming has stated that she could accept the common position without any further changes.
It is important that we should be clear that it will only be possible for this decision to come into force during 1999 if the common position is accepted in its current version. Otherwise, we shall lose a whole calendar year in which we could be collecting data.
Where the Amendments which have been submitted are concerned, we can give our full support to three proposals for possible improvements to the common position, namely Amendment No 3, part 1, together with Amendment Nos 7 and 10.
We can also support a number of further Amendments in principle: Amendment No 2 and Amendment No 4, part 2, together with Amendment No 9, even if we consider that they need to be reformulated.
I want briefly to talk about the justifications behind the position adopted by the Commission.
First and foremost, I want to comment on Amendment No 2 about also allowing other motor vehicles to be covered by the decision.
As a consequence of the desire expressed by the European Parliament at the first reading, the Commission is at present taking the first steps to include light goods vehicles' fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in the legislation concerning type approval.
This applies therefore to vehicles in category M1.
The Commission will then see if it is possible to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from such vehicles.
The Commission agrees that vehicles in category M1 are the most important target group for such measures.
There are therefore no plans at present to look into the question of whether other types of vehicle might be included, mainly because vehicles such as lorries are expected in any case to be highly fuel-efficient or because the contribution of, for example, two-wheeled vehicles to local carbon dioxide emissions is not great.
It is the Commission' s intention to take account of these factors and to reformulate the proposed text in the following way: "The Commission is to investigate the possibility of submitting appropriate proposals concerning harmonised procedures for measuring the specific carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles in category M1 in accordance with Annex No 3 to Directive 70/156."
When it comes to Amendment No 4, part 2 concerning other parts of the strategy in respect of carbon dioxide and vehicles, we consider that the first part of that Amendment is almost entirely covered by justification 6 in the common position.
We cannot accept this part of the Amendment because it ought to include a reference to the Community objective of 120 g/km.
The year by which this objective is to be achieved, namely 2010, has however been left out of the European Parliament' s Amendment.
In the second part of the proposed justification, reference is made to the second and third pillars in the strategy concerning carbon dioxide and private cars and, specifically, to consumer information and the employment of tax measures.
The directive concerning consumer information was adopted by the European Parliament at the second reading on 4 November of this year and may therefore be considered to have been accepted in accordance with the common position. There is therefore no reason to refer to this matter again.
Because tax measures are an important factor in the strategy, it may well be worth including a reference to these.
In view of the fact that the Commission is already in the process of investigating the possibility of a frame of reference, the proposed justification ought to reflect this situation in a correct manner.
The Commission proposes another variant, worded as follows: "The Commission is investigating the possibility of introducing a frame of reference for tax measures which may encourage the use of fuel-efficient private cars."
With regard to Amendment No 9 concerning the content of the annual report, the rapporteur wants to add a new Article to clarify what the annual report is to contain. The report is to include an analysis of the extent to which changes in carbon dioxide emissions depend upon manufacturers' initiatives or upon factors which have to do with the strategy concerning carbon dioxide and cars.
An analysis of this kind is important for discovering whether manufacturers are in fact carrying out the tasks to which they have committed themselves within the framework of the environmental agreement.
This is the case, for example, in relation to the partial objectives which have been set for the year 2003 and naturally also in relation to the final objectives for the year 2008.
However, an analysis of this kind requires a major effort in developing relevant methods and technical research, as well as intensive discussions with the manufacturers. It will also take some years before it is apparent whether any developments worth mentioning have in fact taken place.
The Commission will therefore probably not act upon the first assessment until the time limits for the partial and final objectives have expired. This ought to be reflected in the text of the decision.
We therefore propose the following reformulation. I quote: "In the reports for the year by which the partial objective is to have been achieved and for the year by which the final objective is to have been achieved, it shall be stated whether the reductions are due to technical measures taken by the manufacturers or whether there are other reasons, such as a change in behaviour on the part of consumers."
We have difficulty in accepting the remaining Amendments, that is to say Amendment No 1, Amendment No 3, part 2, Amendment No 4, part 1 and Amendments Nos 5, 6 and 8 which neither improve nor clarify the text.
Finally, I want to say a few words about Amendment No 3, part 2.
Here, it is prescribed that the Commission is to compose a legal framework for environmental agreements.
I want to emphasise that the European Parliament' s involvement in the environmental agreements is a crucial issue for me.
As I have already explained before the plenary sitting on 3 November, I do not intend to present any new proposals for environmental agreements as long as the European Parliament' s role remains undecided.
We are therefore now putting together a general document concerning environmental agreements, their legal framework and the institutional procedures relating to them.
When it comes to such agreements as have already been made, or are in the process of being made, for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from private cars, the Commission has, on a number of occasions, pointed out that legislation concerning the limits for carbon dioxide emissions will be considered if the car industry does not fulfil its commitments.
Now would not be the appropriate time, however, to introduce the technical preparations for such legislation. This would be to send out the wrong message to industry.
To summarise, I should like to say that I am very satisfied with the fact that the common position has, on the whole, obtained such a positive reception from the rapporteur and the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection.
I hope now that this House can offer its support so that the decision can be taken as quickly as possible.
We shall then have the opportunity to monitor in sufficient detail the way in which the environmental agreements concluded with the car industry are being implemented.
If plenary considers it necessary to submit more Amendments, the Commission is, in certain cases, prepared to support them, either in full or in principle.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your detailed replies to the rapporteur and speakers in this debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Safety and health of workers at risk from explosive atmospheres
The next item is the report (A5-0074/1999) by Mr Pronk, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European Parliament and Council Directive on minimum requirements for improving the safety and health protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres (Fifteenth individual Directive within the meaning of Article 16(1) of Directive 89/391/EEC) [C5-0221/1999 - 1995/0235(COD)].
Mr President, this is a report on health and safety.
There have been many, but this report stands out because it will be the first report to be adopted under codecision, provided that, tomorrow, the House agrees with our recommendations to indeed approve the agreement with the Council.
I believe that this is what is of such historic importance about this report.
In fact, it is also the first report in the social sphere that has ever gone through under codecision.
Parliament has always made a fuss about the fact that not enough emphasis has been placed on the social dimension in legislative practice.
We did not encounter a great deal of problems with the Council regarding this report.
This is also reflected in the number of amendments which this Parliament brought at second reading.
We do have to note, of course, that all this took rather a long time.
This special directive implements the framework directive which was adopted in 1989.
Our first reading was in 1996.
It is now 1999.
The directive will not enter into effect until 2003.
This illustrates that it sometimes all takes longer sometimes than expected.
If we consider the numbers of people still being killed due to unsafe working conditions, then more urgency is needed.
So what was the key point in the negotiations with the Council? This is when codecision proves so important.
It mainly concerned the publication of what we have agreed upon here.
We at the Parliament requested right from the outset that companies be informed of European legislation.
This legislation is, of course, also included in national legislation, albeit in a covert way.
Moreover, national legislation is far from adequately disseminated.
Initially, the Council was strongly opposed to this.
We went through some tough negotiations.
It is, of course, a little ironic that a provision which may prove important to all companies should be kept more or less concealed.
This brings me to my second point of concern.
We now have more or less an actual framework of minimum directives in terms of health and safety.
This is of great importance.
A number of countries have not yet implemented certain directives.
The Commission should be commended for bringing a number of these countries before the Court of Justice over the past couple of years and also for the fact that changes have been made.
But it appears that it still takes much longer to tackle countries in this sector than it does in others.
This is regrettable.
Practical benchmarking, however, which is very important, is still not up to scratch because, after all, what it comes down to is that more or less the same minimum requirements apply within a company, be it in Denmark or in Spain.
This benefits competitive relationships but it mainly benefits those employed within those companies.
If there is no exchange, if the practical benchmarks are not equal, then something else is still lacking.
We have the strong impression that this still has not been regulated terribly well.
This is the very reason why this vade mecum, as we called it initially, is so important.
It may be of interest that this vade mecum has now turned into a guide. Why is this?
It is because the Council could not come to terms with the word "vade mecum" for some unknown reason.
The term vade mecum is understood in most European countries without any explanation, without a translation and a complex, long, reasonably procedural title will, of course, be less easily understood.
But Parliament made this concession.
We will not dwell on this any further.
It remains important, however, that everyone is informed of these directives and, above all, that they can apply them.
A whole raft of companies do not apply those directives properly. This is not because they refuse to, it is simply because they are not sufficiently aware of the possibilities for applying them.
Such a guide may be helpful in this, and this is how we voluntarily reach not harmonisation but minimum standards.
I think that this is how we will gradually grow closer together.
I would ask the Commission to take a much harder line on this practical benchmarking than it has done in the past.
We have a new Commissioner and I know that she has a great deal of experience in this field.
Maybe we can expect fresh momentum in this respect too.
Mr President, I am a great believer in health and safety, but I am also a great believer that we are not going to change everything by legislation.
If we could legislate away things like poverty, accidents, illness and death, then we should have done it yesterday, but we are not going to do that.
That being said, there are things we can do at European level, which include changing the culture, the culture where we work, the culture we live in.
This report by Mr Pronk goes some way towards doing that and doing it very well.
He should be congratulated on all that, because he has brought excellent conclusions into this report.
He has made history as well, by having the first report to go through under codecision and the first report on health and safety.
It augurs very well for the future of what we should hope to achieve through this process, because Parliament has been very responsible in its approach to using codecision.
Parliament is not always pointed to as being responsible or informed, but in this particular area we were better informed and, in some respects, I feel, more responsible.
It has made spectacular progress in the area of small to medium-sized enterprises, by far the biggest sector we could ever hope to address.
This is where most accidents occur in the workplace and yet there is undisguised dismay amongst myself and other colleagues at the fact that we take very little account of this.
You are 50% more likely to have an accident at work if you work for a small to medium-sized business.
The information which will be provided, which was a vade mecum in this report, to small businesses and which they now have a right to be informed about, will go a long way in helping to change the culture in the workplace.
It should be used in other reports in other areas, and we should learn from that.
On the other hand, as a participant in the conciliation process, I was pleased at the very real response of the Council to Parliament' s amendments and take note for future reference about how we can achieve the various amendments and positions we wish.
Under the former procedure of cooperation of course we had our successes and the Commission was very much a part of that, and we still enjoy that acceptable relationship.
Safety is one of those areas where we can always find middle ground to achieve what we really want.
It is time now for governments to listen to what this Parliament has to say 100% of the time and for those governments to act.
Parliament is not in opposition to other institutions, it is a balance and it is a brake.
It is unfortunately precisely because ministers were too close together, too keen to have cosy relationships away from scrutiny at European level, that we now have this process.
It introduces transparency and clarity, and that can only be good for the trust of the people of Europe.
Many lives will be affected by this report and the work that has gone into it, many businesses will be pleasantly surprised by the balanced outcome, and if there was more work like this, perhaps even Europe would become popular in places like Britain, who knows?
Mr President, I would like to congratulate Mr Pronk on the constructive way in which this report came into being.
It is vital to protect the safety of employees anywhere in Europe, or anywhere in the world, for that matter.
It is regrettable that I did not get involved in this report until later because I was elected for the first time in July.
As Mr Pronk indicated, they have been working on this since 1996.
Why did I say this?
It is an excellent report and we give it our full backing, but it is regrettable that, in my opinion, the warning panel, in particular, is still rather unclear: a triangular panel with a red border and black letters spelling "EX".
To someone like me, a layperson in the field of explosive atmospheres, this could mean anything.
Is it a warning concerning my ex-partner who can be rather explosive? Are they explosives or whatever?
I think it would be a good idea if the same panel, the same warning sign or pictogram, could be used as is used throughout the international world of transport. In fact, I also brought this to Committee, I even sent a letter questioning this very point.
I received a reply, upon which I do not wish to elaborate.
I do hope, however, that in the short term, the same warning panel will be used across the board.
Mr President, I too am new.
I shall stand up anyway, although I am far too tall for this device.
First of all, I would like to thank the rapporteur for the work he has done.
What did occur to me, however, even as a new Member, was that the original proposals have been toned down quite considerably and that he is actually deeply regretful, despite what has been achieved.
Unfortunately, the need for this type of directive is underlined regularly, and especially the fact that it is an evolving process.
In the Netherlands, for example, there have been a number of explosions at the same factories year after year, caused by dust.
The knowledge as to how exactly this happened is lacking.
Another repercussion is that repair activities are carried out by hired companies. As a result, the overall business layout is unclear, especially to these temporary staff.
This is exactly why it is important to characterise and classify companies, workstations and suchlike effectively, and to divide these into areas, etc.
This is included in the proposal.
It is, however, a cause for great concern that, although there are minimum directives, no obligations have been laid down pursuant to the guide we discussed, let alone the provisions to be included therein.
I would therefore ask the Commissioner how the new practices will be developed technically and how the effects of hiring temporary staff will be dealt with.
In other words, have an evolving process but still ensure that there are substantial obligations in respect of minimum directives.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should also like to congratulate the Conciliation Committee as well as Mr Pronk and all those who helped to achieve this agreement.
It is particularly significant and interesting from a political point of view that, as Mr Pronk stated, we have, for the first time since the Amsterdam Treaty, a piece of legislation addressing social issues, in particular health and safety issues, which has been passed through under the codecision procedure.
The directive is extremely important and concerns workers in particularly hazardous places who are exposed to explosive atmospheres.
As you know, this follows a long dialogue and extensive negotiations between the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament on this matter.
Despite it taking so long, almost four years, to achieve this result, Parliament' s insistence on certain amendments has proved to be fruitful.
With reference to Mr Pronk' s report, I too should like to stress that the adoption of Amendment Nos 4 and 5 on information to undertakings and vade mecum, which I agree could be improved and made more binding - not forgetting that these amendments were accepted at second reading - just goes to show the importance of the codecision and cooperation procedures of Parliament and the Commission.
I would also like to mention the matter of the application of this directive.
Of course, it is not the application of this particular directive which raises problems, but of all directives.
Admittedly, the Commission' s control mechanism is not tight enough to monitor all the Member States and all the directives that are passed.
Nevertheless, I did state, and this is a commitment on the part of the Commission, that every effort would be made, in collaboration with the Member States and in collaboration with all the Directorates and Commission mechanisms, to achieve the best results.
As to the question of how it will be applied to companies themselves, whether there will be problems with subcontracting and part-time employment, I should like to tie my answer in with the Commission' s other policies and measures.
Thus, how undertakings are linked and how sub-contracting works is up to each Member State.
Nevertheless, special training for workers and special programmes for the health and safety of workers and employers are included in the employment strategy guidelines and are funded by the European Social Fund and we also have benchmarking between countries in order to improve health and safety conditions as best we can.
In closing, I concur with Mr Skinner that we cannot merely legislate away such a serious problem as health and safety but we believe there can be constant improvement in conjunction with policies, with resources from the social funds and, of course, with the policies of Member States.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Helsinki Convention
The next item is the report (A5-0044/1999) by Mr Sjöstedt, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council decision on the approval, on behalf of the Community, of the amendments to the Annexes to the Convention on the protection of the Marine Environment of the Baltic Sea Area (Helsinki Convention) [COM(1999) 128 - C4-0218/1999 - 1999/0077(CNS)].
Mr President, this report is concerned with developing and improving international cooperation with regard to the marine environment in the Baltic.
In 1974, the States around the Baltic got together to form what is known as the Helsinki Convention in order to safeguard the marine environment.
The Convention was developed further after 1992 following the extensive political transformations which had occurred at that time.
Of the European Union countries, Denmark, Finland, Sweden and Germany at present subscribe to the Convention.
Moreover, the European Union is itself one of its signatories.
The three Baltic countries - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - together with Russia and Poland are also involved in the work.
The Baltic is an inland sea with very significant environmental problems.
The areas in which the rivers that run into the Baltic originate are extensive and are located in several different countries.
The outlets into the North Sea and the Atlantic are small, and discharges from agriculture, industry and private households are significant.
The salt content of the Baltic is relatively low compared with that of other seas.
What is more, there are major problems involving low oxygen content in large parts of the Baltic.
This creates a special environment, and it also creates quite a few problems for marine life.
One example is the very large variation to be found in fish stocks from year to year.
Very extensive work is already being done to clean up various sources of discharges around the Baltic.
In particular, clean-up facilities are at present being constructed in a variety of locations in Eastern Europe.
These are largely being financed by the European Union.
This report is about revising two of the Helsinki Convention' s Annexes, namely Annexes 3 and 4.
Annex 3 concerns agricultural discharges.
The changes which come about through this revision are to be implemented partly in order to reduce discharges of nitrogen, phosphorus and pesticides.
This can have a big effect, especially upon the situation regarding eutrophication and lack of oxygen in the Baltic.
Annex 4 is aimed at reducing discharges from boats and ships.
This part regulates, among other things, equipment for gathering up oil, waste and waste water in various harbours.
Both these changes are very welcome, and it has been self-evident to me as rapporteur that we should support them and say that we should vote for them.
When it comes to dealing with waste from ships, work is in progress within the European Union on a proposed Directive concerning plant for receiving waste in harbours. It is, however, important to appreciate that there remain a very great many problems within the framework of Annex 4.
This especially applies to the monitoring of waste at sea. Even when such monitoring in fact takes place, for example from the air, it has proved to be very difficult indeed to hold those responsible to account and to penalise them for the offences against the environment which are in fact being committed in the Baltic.
Where agriculture is concerned, I have looked for some kind of description of the effects which the new requirements are having upon the European Union' s sets of regulations, partly in relation to the expected enlargement of the EU to include a number of countries bordering the Baltic.
I have not found any such descriptive report at the Commission, but I believe it would have been useful to see one.
The changes to these Annexes will come into force at the end of the year. It is therefore high time to take the decision in question.
It would have been an advantage if the European Parliament had been involved in this work earlier.
Mr President, it has been shown that the amount of nutrients in the open sea area in the Gulf of Finland and in the vicinity of the shore generally increase as one moves eastwards, which is a reflection of the impact Russia has on the nutrients of the Baltic.
Quite recently, however, extensive new data has been collected covering areas right in the vicinity of the coastline, in the shallow coves of the Baltic.
No corresponding eastward growth in the amount of nutrients is discernible, but instead the areas with high levels of nutrients clearly point to local causes: agriculture, industry and the presence of summer cottages.
There are especially high levels of nutrients in the vicinity of rivers flowing into the sea, which shows that large amounts of nitric and phosphoric compounds are being carried from the land to the sea.
Nutrients have a greater effect on the fairly closed ecosystem that exists along the coast than they have in open sea areas.
For this reason, many areas of inland water near the coast need revitalising.
The coastal areas are particularly strategic from the point of view of human activity and enjoyment.
For this reason, it is vital to take action to substantially reduce the volumes of local effluent due to agriculture, housing or recreation.
For the protection of the Baltic we thus need on-going fine-tuning, with smaller-scale measures, which are also dealt with in Annexes III and IV of the Helsinki Convention now being discussed.
The report that has been prepared recommends, in addition, that the Commission should produce an analysis of the possible effects of the changes on Union legislation.
Furthermore, we should clarify whether the legislation that is being drafted, for example Agenda 2000, can have an impact on Union action under the Helsinki Convention.
The harmonisation of environmental considerations, viable agriculture, policies on livelihood, recreation and, for example, enlargement in a manner that is sustainable for the Baltic area, will naturally be a great challenge, both administratively and politically.
We need a conscious attempt at coherence.
Perhaps an initiative on the northern dimension could provide the comprehensive angle on the Baltic region we need to consider all these important areas of policy simultaneously and in a mutually compatible way.
I would also like to believe that, if it works well, the northern dimension would provide a forum to which the EU will find it appropriate to invite other key players as well, for example from the Baltic region.
For example, the Nordic Council has a long history of shaping environmental policy in the Nordic countries and in neighbouring regions.
The Nordic Council is involved in organising a parliamentary Baltic Conference, for all the countries of the Baltic to attend.
It would be natural for the EU to embark on closer talks with these countries.
The Nordic Council has shown initiative and expressed the wish to start such a dialogue with the EU.
I hope that that the northern dimension will prove to be a good, viable model for an ecologically sustainable and comprehensive development of a policy for these areas, which can be used for other areas of the Union.
Mr President, the Convention that replaced the agreement on marine protection in the Baltic region in 1992 was an important step towards improving the area' s environmental state.
The new agreement covers the whole of the Baltic Sea up to the coastlines of those states surrounding it.
In addition, and this is important, the states to sign the agreement are committed to action throughout the entire catchment area of the region, which considerably extends the impact of the agreement.
The Helsinki Convention has been a pioneer in the multilateral cooperation process among the Baltic countries.
At present there are a good number of players in the region involved in a cooperative arrangement that extends to every sector of life, from the economy to culture.
The tradition of bustling interaction that existed in the Hanseatic era is thus being revived, and before long the Baltic Sea will be an internal sea of the Union.
The programme of environmental cooperation in the Baltic region is a part of the Union' s northern dimension policy.
As we are often asked what the northern dimension policy in practice means, it is, for example, taking care of the delicate environmental conditions that exist in the Nordic regions.
The commitment in the Convention to protecting natural diversity is a necessary addition to the Convention on Fishing in the Baltic Sea.
With regard to the future, we should consider how the structures underlying the protection of the environment in the Baltic region could be organised efficiently and simply.
I myself believe that the Helsinki Commission could provide a framework, not only for the main area of focus, the protection of the marine environment, but also the implementation of the Baltic Sea Agenda 21 programme, and the possible coordination of sound regional planning.
The long-term aim on the whole could be to extend the Helsinki Convention to cover the whole of the Baltic region with the objective of applying in practice the principle of sustainable development.
The revised Convention could also serve as a model for other regions.
Mr President, these are true and important things which all the previous speakers have said, to the effect that the Baltic is a sick sea and that the EU has a major responsibility for this.
Every necessary measure needs therefore to be taken in order to improve the situation.
I think that Mrs Myller expressed a lot of points of view in her statement which we must make good use of.
I think it is important for us to see what opportunities we have to renew the Baltic Commission' s work in conjunction with the water planning directive, which we are also discussing here.
I have tried on a number of occasions to bring together these two areas of expertise on the basis that we should be looking at both at the same time and at the ways in which effective use might be made of the Helsinki Commission for this purpose.
My hope is that it might be possible to bring together at least those who are now here in the Chamber in order to look into this.
Annex 3 itself, relating to agriculture, does not perhaps inspire particularly great hope that it might entail anything new compared, for example, with the environmental strategies and programmes we already have.
On the other hand, I hope that, next week in Helsinki, we can, as has been said, approve ambitious objectives for agriculture and the environment.
As we think of renewing the work, it is also important that the Helsinki Commission' s efforts should be open to public scrutiny.
We were therefore very disappointed to see that the results of the work carried out a good year ago on hot spots was not published because Sweden opposed any such publication.
This was a small blemish on what was otherwise very sound work.
I would add that the work on creating plant for receiving waste is extremely important.
I believe that we must watch our step so that we do not jeopardise what we have here in this Convention and that we should not in any way be trying to achieve something else - a 'best' which would in actual fact be the 'enemy of the good' .
Mr President, I can see that we have a Nordic dimension to the Chamber this evening.
Just as the rapporteur pointed out in his report, and also here, the changes to Annexes 3 and 4 to the Convention on the Baltic' s marine environment have already been adopted and will come into force in a month' s time.
Consulting the European Parliament is therefore a procedure which cannot have any real effect.
That is naturally a little odd and also rather annoying.
Fortunately, the changes to the Convention are very good indeed for environmental work.
They are aimed at reducing agricultural discharges of nitrogen and phosphorus and, especially, pesticides and at reducing discharges from ships and pleasurecraft.
We know that some very single-minded environmental work and some purposeful political decisions are required in order to restore the ecological balance of the Baltic.
Changes to the Helsinki Convention contain general rules which will also certainly have an effect on EU legislation, especially with regard to agricultural policy.
It would have been interesting if we had had an opportunity to discuss this issue and express views on it.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like first of all, of course, to thank the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection and also rapporteur Sjöstedt for the work he has done on elucidating the changes to Annexes 3 and 4 of the Helsinki Convention.
As you know, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection adopted the report on 19 October 1999.
I think it is good that we have had the opportunity to discuss this in the House today.
It is with satisfaction, of course, that I note that the rapporteur welcomes the proposed changes to the Convention. The proposal in fact moves that the changes to the two Annexes should be adopted by the European Community.
As mentioned, Annex 3 is mainly concerned with agricultural discharges.
The proposed changes are, in fact, aimed at reducing discharges of nitrogen, phosphorus and pesticides used in agriculture.
The purpose of the other Annex is to reduce discharges from ships.
Regarding Mr Sjöstedt' s concern that the Commission would not look adequately at the changes that need to be made and his concern about the effects which this would necessarily have on EU legislation, he is worrying unnecessarily.
There are no major problems.
The Commission has naturally made sure that we can make these changes and shall do so.
If the Commission signs a Convention, we must also ensure that we can honour the commitments in such a Convention, something which will not cause any problems.
There was also a Finnish front here which I have to say I agree with.
I think there is an important link with the northern dimension and that we should ideally be marrying the Helsinki Convention and the work that is being done under the heading of the northern dimension.
I therefore think that remarks of this kind are in order.
The Commission is also working along those lines, that is to say to ensure that we can coordinate, and benefit from, the work that is being done in different places. This can reinforce the environmental work being done in connection with the Baltic.
In addition, the Helsinki Convention ought to support the work by means of sustainable development for the Baltic.
Discussions to this effect have begun.
We in the Commission are therefore aware of the need for increased environmental cooperation in the Baltic region.
We are convinced that the changes to the Convention constitute an important, albeit small, contribution towards achieving that goal.
The report criticises the way in which the adoption procedure was carried out.
The rapporteur maintains that the changes had already been adopted on 1 January 1999 and that the work carried out in the European Parliament was therefore meaningless.
It is true that the Convention' s executive body, HELCOM adopted the changes on 29 March 1998 and that the parties to the Treaty were given the deadline of 1 January 1999 to produce changes.
However, the Commission lodged an incidental objection to make it possible to consult with the European Parliament and the Council.
That objection still applies.
The Commission' s interpretation of the situation is therefore that, as long as the Commission has not withdrawn its incidental objection, the changes have not come into force.
The consultation procedure is therefore valid, and I should also like to thank you in the European Parliament for your contributions.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Marketing of forest reproductive material
The next item is the report (A5-0072/1999) by Mr Pesälä, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council directive on the marketing of forest reproductive material [COM(1999) 188 - C5-0128/1999 - 1999/0092(CNS)].
Mr President, this directive on the marketing of forest reproductive material is really based on the merger of two earlier directives.
In addition, there has been considerable progress made in research and development over the decades and, for that reason too, it is naturally a good idea to review matters.
Furthermore, the accession of Sweden, Austria and Finland meant that the EU' s forest resources immediately doubled.
On account of all this, it is excellent that these reviews and adjustments are being undertaken.
In addition, there is the matter of harmonisation with OECD schemes.
That is also a good thing and will enable us in future to trade in this material beyond the borders of the EU, which should also be taken into consideration.
The material in question has now been classified into four categories, whereas previously there were two.
This now guarantees there will be a sort of certificate, a guarantee that the right goods get to the right place.
It ensures that no errors - which the large afforested countries of the north have also experienced - occur.
Details relating to the area of provenance must also be defined on a map.
The maps are to be sent to the Commission and a comprehensive list of goods associated with forest reproduction must also be kept.
The Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development tabled numerous amendments, and they were mainly targeted at the timetable for implementation.
The Commission had proposed too tight a schedule and, for that reason, the entry into force of the directive has been postponed until 2003, so that the Member States can revise legislation as called for by this directive. The transition period for some countries was also taken into account and thus the period of transition was increased by a couple of years for those countries whose period of transition would otherwise have expired.
In some countries there are rather large stocks because good seed years only occur at intervals of 10 to 15 years, and so the seeds have to be stored for very long periods of time in order that stocks are not exhausted.
The possibility of utilising and exhausting stocks was a very important issue, as has been remarked upon in this report.
In addition, we spoke a lot about genetic resources. That is a very sensitive issue at the moment and, naturally, we tried to bring this proposal in line with EU practice.
Similarly, this proposal also consider the health of plants and changes in their health.
As I understand it, there will be two more amendments to this report in tomorrow' s vote, if I may be allowed to comment briefly on them.
As rapporteur, I can agree with Amendment No 23 if three words are added to the recital where the amendment will appear: "special climatic conditions of certain regions, such as the Alps, the Mediterranean and northern regions" .
If this is added I will be able to agree to it, as rapporteur.
As for Amendment No 24, which has also been made for tomorrow, I can state that this amendment is now already incorporated into Article 4(3)(a), which is a new subparagraph and which was added for precisely this purpose.
Mr President, I am very pleased about this new proposal concerning forest reproductive material because it offers new opportunities or, rather, gives the old opportunities a new lease of life, above all with a view to there being several categories of material.
The expression of known origin will make it possible to maintain the genetic and biological diversity of the forest in local regions and on land given over to forests.
True, our forests are certainly producers of renewable material, but they are also infinitely more than just raw materials.
The forest is also home to a great diversity of biological life. It is also an important means of trapping carbon dioxide and it is perhaps the earth' s most important regulator of the climate and water supply.
The forest also has a spiritual dimension. It represents peace and quiet, silence and tranquillity for stressed-out urban men and women, especially if they were born in the northern dimension.
It is therefore important that forests be treated as diverse in their own right and as having a diversity of functions.
I therefore repeat that I am very glad that, as the proposal now reads, there exists this opportunity to maintain the genetic and biological diversity of the forests.
Mr President, Commissioner, rapporteur, allow me to start by thanking the rapporteur for his excellent cooperation in drafting the report.
I speak on behalf of my group when I say that we fully support the rapporteur.
Europe is a continent rich in forests and forests are tremendously important.
We should all bear in mind the fact that the use of forests is not only in the economic interest, it is, above all, in the environmental interest of all of us.
What I mean is that forests have a multi-functional role.
I should like to remind you today of the major avalanche catastrophe a year ago in Galtür because it demonstrates how important it is for all of us to treat nature with respect; the alpine area in particular is a very sensitive zone, as people who know the area are obliged to testify time and time again.
Not only the people who live in the Alps, but everyone who likes to go on skiing or walking holidays in the Alps each year, appreciates an intact mountain environment in which the dangers are kept to a minimum.
The reforestation of the Bannwald is particularly important.
That is why reproductive material, which guarantees that forests will withstand the harsh climate, is absolutely essential and indispensable to the safety of the Alps.
I consider it absolutely essential for the reproductive material to come from the very area where the climatic conditions apply genuinely, and for the reproductive material to be appropriate to the climatic conditions.
Member States must therefore have the facility to stipulate the selection criteria for reproductive material in a non-bureaucratic manner, because nothing will be more devastating than when it is too late to prevent damage to the forest land as a whole.
I should like to point out that it is not only the Alps but, above all, the Nordic areas, the polar areas and also the southern areas which have special requirements in this respect.
Mr President, Commissioner, we welcome this proposal for a directive for several reasons, one of which is the extension of its scope.
It now encompasses not only wood production but also other forest objectives such as cork and the protection of genetic resources.
We should also congratulate ourselves because it now identifies different categories and encourages the protection given by reforestation and not just wood production.
It allows maximum variability from the genetic viewpoint, thereby guaranteeing adaptation.
In the main the proposal responds to the differing needs of the Member States and includes the principle of subsidiarity.
The accession of the Nordic and Mediterranean countries to the European Union is the main reason for updating the current directive which regulates the marketing of forest plants and seeds and which has not been substantially amended since 1975.
The text of the directive coincides on the basic aspects of objective, number of categories, definitions of basic materials and so on with the world' s other main system of marketing forest reproductive material, namely the OECD.
Work has been carried out in recent years to update this system and an improved text is now pending approval by the Council.
Coherence between these texts can only assist the marketing of these materials.
I must also congratulate Mr Pesälä on his report.
I agree that the date set for the entry into force of the directive cannot be 1 January 2000 but must be postponed by at least three years to give the Member States time to comply with the directive.
Other amendments by other Members, such as those tabled by Mrs Schierhuber, must also be welcomed. They include an amendment on the strengthening of the control of trade flows by an official certificate of origin.
However, there is one very important point which we must consider. The explanatory statement specified that the external quality of materials was guaranteed, yet point (d) of Annex VII deals with this in a very general manner.
This is not a trivial issue.
Plant quality is essential in the Mediterranean environment where reforestation is carried out under very difficult conditions.
Experience has taught us that plants of certain sizes cannot survive in a particular environment. This is true in many areas of southern Europe where the drought conditions are extreme.
In order to assist their establishment, this means using container-grown plants with good root systems, whereas in other countries plants without any roots can successfully grow.
The external quality of plants has a big impact, not only on the percentage which survive, which can range from 20% to 85%, but also on their future development in the extremely harsh conditions of their transfer to this climate.
External quality is one of the factors which determines the quality of the woodland of the future.
A lack of regulation of the external quality of plants may therefore cause very serious problems as this will allow all sizes of plant to be placed on the market.
You should bear in mind that some Member States already have laws on this subject.
It is in the interests of the whole European environment to ensure that plantations are correctly established so that a large proportion do not fail.
The plants must be suitable and adaptable because, unfortunately, in many corners of the European Union, you cannot plant what you want, only what is practical.
To ensure that adequate consideration is given to this unresolved problem in the text of the proposal, the Council is trying to reach agreement on the incorporation of a new point 7. This will contain the external characteristics which must be satisfied, for their marketing in the Mediterranean areas of the Community, by the forest species best adapted to the difficult soil and climate conditions of these areas.
I applaud and encourage this solution to which I hope the European Commission will agree.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am reminded in this context of the saying: they cannot see the wood for the trees.
It is reasonable that this directive needs to be updated as a result of the accession of new Member States and the development of the single market and forest research.
It is reasonable that EU labelling should be harmonised in order to facilitate trade within the EU and with the OECD.
But the directive takes no account of the differing needs of the Member States.
In the view of our specialists in Germany, in the view of the German forestry industry and the forest nursery industry, this new directive will have a lasting negative impact.
Monitoring should be confined to forest undertakings and should not, as the report provides, apply to all undertakings, as these requirements would then affect undertakings which produce no forest reproductive material at all.
The willingness of successive farmers to plant forests in my region is receding sharply.
This increasing prevalent basic attitude is dictated by financial considerations.
I would just like to say to the House that I know what I am talking about because the forest economy has longed played an important role in our own undertaking and I would like in this context to point out the life-threatening situation in the Germany forest nurseries.
Given the change in forestry in my country towards natural regeneration, massive cutbacks in planting requirements and a lack of public funds, I feel that I really must draw the House' s attention to this.
The monitoring system is now supposed to be up and running by 2003.
Our experts tell me that they think this deadline is too short.
The directive is unacceptable in this respect; it fails to take account of geographical and regional differences within the EU.
In northern countries we have to cope with huge forest areas with a single registration number, so that the new regulation holds no problem whatsoever in store for these areas.
I would like to more or less keep to my allotted time, but we should bear in mind during the overall debate that we must not only take account of the Nordic point of view and we must not only consider the enthusiasm of mountain lovers in Austria; we in the middle of the EU, and this includes Germany, set great store by open clauses, so that the whole system can remain truly practicable.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development and of course its rapporteur, Mr Pesälä, for the very positive approach adopted towards the Commission proposal; and the Commission appreciates the broad acceptance of its proposal.
The present proposal aims to update the current legislation on the marketing of forest reproductive material to take account of the accession of new Member States since 1975, the internal market and scientific advances.
Twenty-two amendments have been proposed.
I can accept the large majority of them as they stand or with minor modification in respect of their drafting or presentation.
The Commission can accept the Amendment No 23 proposed now by Mr Pesälä.
I would like to comment on the four amendments which the Commission cannot accept.
Firstly, I will comment on Amendment No 4.
According to the proposed amendment, an explicit reference to the principle of subsidiarity should be inserted within the recitals.
The Commission is not in favour.
The proposal is based on Article 37 of the Treaty, and therefore falls within the exclusive competence of the Community.
However, the Commission proposal has fully recognised the specificity of the conditions of certain Member States or certain parts thereof and the text explicitly reflects this position.
Then we come to Amendment No 7.
The Commission provides in the first part of Article 5(2)b that the procedures ensuring the environmental risk assessment and other relevant elements should be equivalent to those laid down in Council Directive 90/220.
They will be introduced in a future regulation.
According to the proposed amendment, the generic expression of the relevant elements should be replaced with a positive list of elements.
The Commission feels that this is inappropriate taking into account that any exhaustive list would limit unnecessarily the scope of the provision.
Insofar as the second part of the amendment is concerned, I can agree to the addition of a reference to the European Parliament in the future regulation.
Amendment No 10: according to the proposed amendment, an official certificate of origin should accompany each consignment of forest reproductive material during marketing.
The Commission agrees with the aim to ensure that trade flow should be controlled but the introduction of such a certificate would represent an unnecessary burden for trade.
According to the Commission, it would be preferable to introduce appropriate amendments in respect of the existing master certificate.
Finally Amendment No 17: according to the proposed amendment, Member States shall specify the requirements their reproductive material should meet in order to be considered well adapted to particular climatic conditions or exposed upland situations.
The Commission is in favour of justified derogations when they are well defined in respect of their content, for example, for a Community region with specific climatic conditions and in respect of the procedures to be followed.
The Commission feels that the proposed amendment is too broadly based and introduces the possibility for Member States to unilaterally prohibit the marketing of forest reproductive material.
Those are my comments, and I would like to thank you for your attention and thank once again the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
COM in processed fruit and vegetable products
The next item is the report (A5-0068/1999) by Mrs Ayuso González, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council Regulation amending Regulation (EC) No 2201/96 on the common organisation of the markets in processed fruit and vegetable products [COM(1999) 376 - C5-0140/1999 - 1999/0161(CNS)].
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(ES) Mr President, Commissioner, Regulation (EC) No 2201/96 provides for the payment of aid to the tomato processing industry with a view to compensating it for the difference between the raw material price on the Community market and that on the world market.
This aid is granted for a global EU quota of nearly 7 million tonnes, distributed at five-yearly intervals by product group of peeled tomatoes, tomato concentrate and other products.
It is also distributed at yearly intervals, by Member State, on the basis of the average minimum price over the three marketing years preceding the year of distribution.
Under this Regulation, quotas were allocated for the marketing years 1997-1998 and 1998-1999. These were slightly modified in 1997 in terms of the distribution between the various product groups.
Subsequently, for the next marketing year, the distribution was carried out on the basis of the quantities in compliance with the minimum price over the previous three marketing years, as specified by Article 6.4 of this Regulation.
More than just amending the Regulation, the proposal adopts a Council of Ministers' agreement. This is actually a derogation from the Regulation as Portugal did not produce the quota which it was allocated for the marketing year 1997-1998, apparently due to bad weather.
It is proposed that, for calculation purposes, Portugal is allocated a supplementary amount of 83,468 tonnes for 1999-2000 and, for 2001-2002, the difference between the quota calculated on the basis of the amount actually processed in 1997-1998 and the quota resulting if that figure is replaced by 884,592 tonnes.
This will have no financial repercussions for the other Member States as the Commission has made provision for an ad hoc budget to finance this supplementary amount for Portugal.
However, this Council of Ministers' agreement has caused some concern among producers in the other Member States, particularly Spain, Italy and Greece, which are very competitive in tomato processing and production.
As the President is aware, there have even been demonstrations at the Ministry of Agriculture in Spain by those who feel that Portugal is being accorded an advantage.
A fairer, clearer and more transparent method of contracts and allocations would be the threshold system, rather than the quota system. To a certain extent this would satisfy the producers of those countries which are more competitive.
However, neither the Agriculture Committee nor this House intend to deny Portugal this supplementary amount to enable it to adapt and become increasingly competitive in its tomato production.
Yet this would be a good opportunity to move from the quota system to the system of thresholds for individual Member States. This is the line taken by the amendments which I have tabled on this proposal to amend the Regulation.
The first two amendments are to the recitals and state that the aid for tomato processing is important and that the quota is insufficient. The third amendment states that the Commission will submit, before the start of the next marketing year, a proposal for moving from quotas to thresholds.
I hope the Commission accepts this.
Mr President, Commissioner, allow me first to congratulate my colleague on her first report.
I should like to include a few thoughts in my contribution which, I believe, not only deal with a purely technical matter but also offer a basic starting point, in that I think we should take a much more global approach to agricultural policy from the outset.
European agriculture, and we all support a European agricultural model, must be configured so that farmers throughout Europe have a chance of survival.
Agriculture and the whole of rural society must be viable, so that the generations which follow us inherit a habitat that is intact.
This means that farming must be possible both in favoured areas and in disadvantaged and climatically exposed regions and peripheral areas.
One of the remarkable features of our agriculture is its multi-functionality in the rural society and it must be configured so that farmers find optimum conditions for all manner of crops.
One of the outstanding features of Europe is its variety and I am referring here not only to the variety of regions and cultures but also to the variety of products and foodstuffs which make Europe unique.
Farmers make a huge contribution to the cultural identity of a region or a country because the products cultivated, the primary production, colours not only the cuisine but also the customs and philosophy of life of the people down through the generations.
It also gives us close ties with our homeland.
Without regional roots from which to develop, there can be no foundation and no basis for the future.
Traditional cuisine, which has developed from regional crops, and these crops must of course be suited to the climate, is a delight to the palate, both of the local people and of anyone who enjoys trying different foods.
It is precisely this wealth of local and regional specialities which is unique to Europe and it must be preserved because it is a treasure trove which compares with no other region in the world.
Europe, I say it again, is and must remain in the future distinctive, famous and loved.
So I ask you: have you ever been to southern Europe and tasted the tomatoes which flourish there? They are distinctive.
I think that we should ensure within the framework of European agricultural policy that these tomatoes can continue to be cultivated, harvested and processed in these regions.
Suitable regulations must be laid down so that, when there are crop failures, there are also reasonable, flexible quota arrangements and a non-bureaucratic approach.
One thing must be made clear at the same time, however, and that is that all these actions must go hand in glove with strict control and monitoring measures. I think that this would be a positive starting point for numerous sectors in the future.
Mr President, Mrs Ayuso has carried out an important piece of parliamentary work with this report. I, too, am in favour of the benefit to be gained through this measure by a fellow Member State as dear to me as Portugal.
This is all positive.
On the other hand, I am against and in fact I condemn the way in which the Council has proceeded.
It is reprehensible that the Council of Ministers should have decided on these disgraceful advantages, aimed at softening the blow of Agenda 2000.
I am not surprised that the Council is absent. It dare not show its face for it is ashamed by this grand finale, this final distribution of shameful perks, or should we say this muddle to end all muddles?
For this is the way in which the Council of Ministers has proceeded with regard to the how, when and why of this measure.
We said as much on 14 June when we told President Aznar that he was failing to defend the interests of Spain and that he was damaging Spain' s representation with this attitude.
This is still true.
As far as this House is concerned, these are facts confirmed by the vote in Council and we are left to point out that this measure has caused great concern among producers in the other Member States. We must also stress that this exceptional measure is not provided for in the Regulation and that other Member States have also suffered bad weather at times but they have not had the advantage which Portugal is now enjoying.
This advantage amounts to an increase in the Portuguese concentrate quota of 83,468 tonnes for the marketing year 1999-2000, plus other benefits for the marketing year 2000-2001, including retroactive quota increases, for example those of 1997 and 1998, of 83,468 tonnes as supplementary amounts.
An ad hoc budget is authorised for all this.
For the year 2000 this will amount to over ESP 500 million - ESP 532 million to be exact - which is equivalent to EUR 3.2 million.
So, congratulations to Portugal and shame on the Council.
The rapporteur has been very explicit but has no understanding of why we have a regulation which is a tangle of incomprehensibilities and exceptions.
The Council has worsened it instead of improving it.
Mr President, we support the Commission' s proposal for a temporary increase in the Portuguese processed tomato quota as a means of compensating for the low levels of production in the year 1997-1998 due to bad weather.
It should also be noted that this additional sum does not even compensate for the whole potential production in normal weather conditions; it merely mitigates the loss that has been mentioned, which was incurred when the Member States distributed the quotas.
Concerning the proposals put forward in the report, we also feel that there needs to be reform, given that the current situation has harmful effects - as experience has already shown - but we must bear in mind that any reform will still have to take the results of the current year into account and the potential levels of production in Portugal under normal weather conditions.
We therefore think that it is more sensible to increase and improve the current system for calculating quotas with increases in line with the total amounts of production aid and not to move towards a system of guarantee thresholds that could penalise all farmers and not just those who exceed their quotas.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank the rapporteur for her excellent report.
She was willing to make proposals in the second part and she also formulated suggestions for future policy.
We are discussing production aid for processed tomato products.
This aid is based on processing quotas which correspond to a specific quantity of fresh tomatoes.
The regulation makes provision for quotas to be distributed between Member States every year on the basis of production in previous years.
The weather in Portugal was particularly bad during the 1997/98 marketing year.
This resulted in a net drop in tomato production, which in turn led to a reduction of 83,468 tonnes in the Portuguese tomato concentrate quota when the quotas were distributed for the 1999/2000 marketing year and a concomitant increase in the quotas of three other Member States.
A similar situation will arise when the quotas are distributed for the 2000/01 marketing year.
The purpose of the present draft regulation is to solve this problem; in other words, it increases the Portuguese tomato concentrate quota by 83,468 tonnes for the 1999/2000 marketing year and includes special provisions for setting quotas for the forthcoming 2000/01 marketing year.
What we have is a one-off change to the quota distribution system which is limited in time.
Its purpose is to solve a specific problem which has arisen in one Member State.
This amendment notwithstanding, the Commission intends to conduct a comprehensive review of this regulation.
The Commission will forward the results of this review to the Council during the year 2000.
Any amendments needed to the regulation and subsequent amendments to the regulation could then be applied with effect from the 2001/02 marketing year.
The Commission will look into the recommendations in the three proposed amendments in detail as part of this comprehensive review.
The purpose of the amendments tabled is mainly to replace quotas with a guarantee threshold, to be divided between the Member States, and to increase these quantities.
Until such time as the results are available from this comprehensive review, which will also take account of budgetary constraints, the Commission cannot accept these proposed amendments.
I say this because these proposed amendments go far beyond the very limited specific problem on which a decision is needed today, but I would like to stress that the Commission acknowledges that the proposed amendments are most constructive.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was closed at 10.50 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, I would like to express my extreme disappointment at the fact that the President of the Court of Auditors did not give his report yesterday.
He should have given his report.
He should have cancelled any other engagements he had.
He should have prioritised giving that report to Parliament.
We only ask him to do that once a year, and any other engagement should have been secondary to this very important opportunity to let us know exactly how he feels about the European institutions.
I am very disappointed, and I would ask you to write to the President of the Court of Auditors to express the disappointment of the House.
Thank you very much for your comments, Mrs Morgan.
I shall do so.
I must also say that I have noted your comments and that the Conference of Presidents will also be taking note of this matter.
Mr President, I have a point to make on the same subject.
Time was obviously in short supply, yet the agenda went out on time and we knew how things were to proceed.
I deeply regret that this happened and that the impression has now been given that Parliament was not prepared to accept the report.
I would urge that we take up contact with the Court and arrange things in such a way that there is enough time for the Court' s report at the next part-session in Strasbourg. However, we also need to ensure that the President can attend and present his report.
It is not acceptable for us to be forever postponing this.
I would not wish there to be a major interinstitutional fall-out over this.
It is quite usual for us to receive this report at the end of the year, normally in November.
This could have been done in this part-session.
It is a matter of deep regret to me that it could not be so.
Thank you very much, Mrs Theato.
Your comments are relevant and fair and I think that in the next part-session, in Strasbourg, things will be done and organised in accordance with your protest, or rather, your comments.
Mr President, when a Parliament, in a most irresponsible way, closes the door to political opinions, as happened yesterday among us, it is opening wide the door to armed struggle.
We, Euskal Herritarrok, believe that political conflicts have to be settled by political means, but what we have seen in this House was in fact support for violence.
This Parliament undoubtedly backed the Northern Ireland peace process, and I also wholeheartedly congratulate the Irish people and everybody inside the United Kingdom for their success.
The 1993 Downing Street Declaration, recognising the right to self determination of the Irish people, shows us better than anything else that only through political negotiation can a real and lasting solution be found anywhere.
Could we expect a similar analysis from the European Union to the on-going political conflict existing in the Basque country? Could your European Parliament, Mr President, highlight the example of John Major and David Trimble to show Mr Jospin and Mr Aznar the path they have to embark on immediately?
Mr President, I asked for the floor yesterday but was not allowed to speak by the President at the time.
I simply wanted to say, firstly, that the Spanish Constitution establishes a model of self-government which is infinitely more generous than that achieved by Northern Ireland.
Secondly, this self-government has mainly been exercised by nationalist forces and, at the moment, is exclusively so.
Unlike Northern Ireland, the ministerial posts are not shared between nationalists and non-nationalists.
There are political forces - we have just seen them here - which disagree with the constitutional model given to us by the Spanish.
However, our Constitution allows this disagreement to be voiced by peaceful and democratic means. The parties aiming to destroy constitutional order enter the elections under the flag of independence.
What has to be decided at this point is whether or not it is legal to eliminate those who disagree.
Mr President, I would like to end by saying that, for 40 years, the children of my generation listened wearily to a rhetoric which asserted that ballot-boxes were better off destroyed and that words should be replaced by fists and guns.
The children who left Spain with clean hands will not return to hear this rhetoric again.
Mr García-Margallo, as you know, and however important what you have said may be, this debate is clearly not on the Agenda, and I must keep to the Agenda.
(The Minutes were approved)
Introduction of the Euro
The next item is the report (A5-0076/1999) by Mrs Torres Marques, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the report from the Commission to the Council: Duration of the transitional period related to the introduction of the euro (COM(99) 174 - C5­0108/1999).
Mr President, I have here an illustration on the subject of my report that I would like to be distributed to all those present.
I would be grateful if you would instruct that this be done.
I would like to begin my intervention by thanking Commissioner Pedro Solbes Mira for being here today in the Chamber.
I was told that the Commissioner had prior engagements, a meeting with the Central Banks, but that when he was told this debate was to take place at the same time, he chose to be here in Parliament today.
I would like to acknowledge his choice and to thank him.
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the scope of this report is the duration of the transitional period of the euro.
On my proposal, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs agreed to broaden its scope as the subject that had been proposed had, in the meantime, been superseded by various events, one of which was the European Parliament' s own electoral process.
Now, we have other real problems.
The more hearings I have attended and the more reports I have read on these matters, the more convinced I am that the general tendency is, on the one hand, towards a drastic curtailing of the transitional period for the dual circulation of national currency units and euros and, on the other, towards having a frontloading period which it is anticipated will start from 1 December 2001.
The more we look into this problem and the more we talk to those directly involved - consumers and retailers - the more we see that the predominant idea is that the longer the period of dual circulation, the more complicated things will be.
The idea that 'extending the transitional period will make things easier' is finding fewer and fewer supporters.
The illustration that I asked to be distributed gives a better explanation than many arguments can of the difficulties that we may have to face.
Accepting as we do that the transitional period should last until 1 January 2002, it is now important to raise the other problems, the proper resolution of which is of great importance to the credibility of the euro that we all wish to see.
Therefore, in this report, Mr President, Commissioner, only maximum periods are referred to and preference is given to periods which are as short as possible so that all scenarios might be viable, even the legal 'big bang' if, by 2002, this is accepted as the best solution.
Our main proposals are:
firstly, a period of dual circulation of national currency units and euros which is as short as possible;
secondly, a period of advance feeding or "frontloading" to banks, retailers, public administrations and consumers from 1 December 2001;
thirdly, to set prices in euros with their equivalent in the national currency, preferably by 1 January 2001;
fourthly, information campaigns of increasing intensity until 2002, particularly for the most vulnerable groups, through systematic action together with the education system, NGOs and the media in general; particularly prime time television, television news broadcasts and sports programmes with high viewing figures;
fifthly, the increased use of electronic money, credit and debit cards and the creation of an electronic card or purse which can be used throughout the euro zone as soon as is technically possible and that its use is widespread enough for the cost to be minimal;
sixthly, the adaptation of vending machines for the use of charge cards until 2002 which will enable them, as far as possible, to work with coins and notes;
seventhly, the creation, to be postponed until 2002 at the latest, of an integrated payment system which will enable us to transform the euro zone into a market with the same rules as domestic markets.
Mr President, each one of the issues addressed in this report requires more detailed and deeper examination, as their application needs to be completely secure, clear and fully accepted by our citizens.
We therefore hope that the Commission will introduce the measures that it feels must be adopted in this area.
On account of its implications for the lives of our citizens, this issue must be closely supported by the European Parliament, the direct representative of the electors.
I hope that the Commission, the Council and the European Central Bank only take decisions that are fundamental to this issue, having consulted us first.
Mr President, the third phase of Economic and Monetary Union entered into effect on 1 January of this year, as detailed in the Madrid scenario.
Also, in accordance with this scenario, the Council, backed by this House, has decided that euro coins and banknotes will be circulated as legal tender as from 1 January 2002.
One of Madrid' s key contributions is that it drafted a clear schedule early on, which was preceded by extensive deliberation.
My group supports the Commission in its viewpoint that the so-called transitional period should ideally be maintained, despite the fact that its lapsing coincides with the frantic Christmas shopping period.
Preparations are now too far advanced to be able to successfully implement any changes.
On 1 January 2002, the euro will become legal tender within the euro zone.
National currency units will remain in circulation for a maximum of six months, but national legislators may decide to shorten this period within their territories.
Many will not be fully aware of the advent of the euro and monetary union until they have to make the changeover in their own purses.
Whether or not the general public will accept all the work involved in Economic and Monetary Union will be determined by the way in which the actual changeover around 2002 will pan out.
All predictable and avoidable complications and hitches must therefore be ironed out beforehand.
In my group, many fear the confusion, lack of security, feelings of uncertainty and waste of time brought on by dual currency circulation.
The 'big bang' scenario remains attractive to us, but not all Member States share this opinion, hence our appeal to at least keep periods of dual currency circulation to a minimum.
At any rate, a smooth transition accompanied by a short period of dual currency circulation or not, as the case may be, is impossible without frontloading.
To our great relief, the European Central Bank has abandoned its previous stance against frontloading.
Frontloading is a must in order to make the practical introduction of the euro a success.
In the resolution, we recommend frontloading subject to cautious conditions.
I would also like to comment on two other aspects.
Firstly, we share the rapporteur' s vision that in the case of dual circulation, change in the retail trade should be given in euros.
This will, in fact, help shorten the period of dual currency circulation within Member States.
Secondly, we are convinced that dual price display is a good thing.
Alongside euros, we definitely want to see pricing in national currency for a period after 2002.
This is mainly beneficial to the consumer but the retail trade too realises that it stands to benefit from this.
However, to talk about imposing statutory obligations concerning these two aspects now does not seem appropriate to us, certainly not at this early stage.
You will have realised that, according to the PPE Group, Mrs Torres Marques has done a sterling job and we fully endorse her report.
We will only suggest a few refinements when the amendments are discussed at the vote.
We hope that the Member States and also the European institutions will continue to bear in mind that we are also to be consulted at future stages, so that the introduction of euro coins and banknotes in 2002 will be a huge success.
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Helena Torres Marques on her excellent report.
Mr President, the euro is already the second most important currency in the world.
The actual introduction of the euro from 2002 will dramatically increase the demand for euros.
Although the euro has depreciated over the last few months in relation to the dollar, this is not only due to the current difference in the dynamism and the performance of the American and European economies.
The fact that, for the moment, the euro is only a representative currency and will not become a paper currency until 2002, also explains the certain lack of interest among the European and international public in this new currency that you cannot yet feel or touch.
Nevertheless, the financial markets in general have welcomed the euro.
Since it was introduced at the beginning of this year, the volume of private bonds issued in euros has increased by over 50%.
For the first seven months of this year on the international capital markets, issues in euros represented 27% of international issues.
Meanwhile, issues in dollars over the same seven month period fell from 57% to 50%, which shows that there is already a very strong real demand by the markets.
There is another problem, to which I should like to draw the attention of this House, and that is the huge money supply of Deutschmarks, French francs and other European currencies circulating outside the frontiers of Europe.
According to a report by the German Bundesbank, over one hundred billion Deutschmarks are used as a daily reserve currency by the citizens of Eastern Europe.
There are also billions of French francs circulating in French-speaking Africa and all this money must be changed into euros.
For the moment, the people holding these banknotes are trying to move towards the dollar, which also perhaps explains, to a certain extent, the fluctuation to the detriment of the euro.
I should like to ask the Commission whether it should not take the initiative in drawing the attention of the Central European Bank and the national central banks to this problem, that is to say, the necessary exchange of all the European currencies that will disappear in 2002 with the actual introduction of the euro.
I believe that there is a real problem here which has not been adequately discussed and in respect of which the Commission would be well advised to take an initiative in order to organise this exchange with dignity.
Mr President, Commissioner, we remain convinced that the euro is a good thing.
The euro is not a goal in itself, but a means to serve the European citizen, a strong economy, employment and the international status of the European Union.
It is a means to promote more stability, more transparency, more clarity, more convenience of payment, more saving options and better investment opportunities.
I will not repeat what the honourable rapporteur has already stated as to how we need to tackle the changeover of national currency units to euros in practical terms, but I would like to make two observations regarding her report.
Firstly, the euro probably has only one drawback, namely the inevitable transitional period; that is to say, all the adjustments required to fully integrate the national currency units into the new tender.
If we wish to limit the damage, then it is indeed important to keep the period of dual currency circulation to a minimum.
If it is based on sound framework measures, there is no need for initial hesitation before taking the final and definitive step towards the euro.
I therefore back the technical measures proposed by the rapporteur. I would congratulate her on the level of clarity displayed.
Secondly, we are responsible for keeping the attention given to, and interest in, the euro alive.
The present situation is not conducive in this respect.
The introduction of the euro on 1 January this year enjoyed a great deal of attention, even a certain euphoria, but it all went quiet after that for the single currency.
The euro is still too far removed from the European citizen.
It is still a while before 2002, when the euro will be introduced as actual currency.
This is too long according to public opinion.
The appetite has gone.
Moreover, this interim phase creates far too many insecurities.
In short, we need to be able to maintain our belief in and enthusiasm for the euro during the warming-up stage as well, although ensuring at the same time that people do not lose interest before the euro actually takes off.
After all, the euro needs to remain a success and we need to make every effort to achieve this.
Mr President, the euro has aroused great expectations but it has also created many problems, for example, for businesses in the north of Italy that are being burdened with extremely high taxes and whose competitiveness can no longer be ensured by means of changes in the exchange rate.
Moreover, investors who have decided to convert their money into dollars or pounds sterling have undoubtedly reaped greater rewards up till now than those who invested in the euro.
One final point: today the currencies of the various countries could be viewed as subcurrencies of the euro, but the banks do not see it this way.
Today, even on small amounts there is much more commission when buying and selling lira, Belgian francs or French francs than when buying dollars or pounds sterling.
I think that we should take action on this.
Mr President, the closer we get to the introduction of the euro, the more reasonable the viewpoints and wishes of the European Parliament become with regard to the introduction of the euro in circulation.
Meanwhile, virtually everyone in this House shares the view that 1 January 2002 is really the earliest date and that government offices, banks and mint establishments have to pull out all the stops in order to meet this deadline
Recital K, which contains a complaint to the effect that the electronic euro is lacking in immediate practical benefits, is still a leftover of the unrealistic expectations which were - and apparently still are - prevalent among a majority of MEPs.
The fact that the euro propaganda campaign is not delivering the goods is entirely down to a lack of sense of reality which is playing tricks here.
I strongly object to the proposal to provide the European citizen with euro coins and banknotes before 1 January 2002.
This contravenes the Treaty and also plays into the hands of counterfeiters. They too will then be provided with the material to be copied sooner and will be able to better exploit the confusion easily created among the citizens.
We would much prefer it if the European Central Bank and the European Commission, in tandem with the commercial banks, were to ensure that the general public receives sound, detailed information on the design and security features of the euro coins and banknotes, starting no later than 1 November 2001.
Mr President, except for paragraphs 7, 8, 10, 12 and 16, we can support the motion for a resolution.
Mr President, Commissioner, we are all agreed that the single currency is a prerequisite for a functioning internal market, that the stable currency also contributes to social and economic security within Europe and that the euro is a success story, due not least to the fact that it has led to a reduction of deficits in our Member States and to low inflation.
A new chapter in this story is now opening and must be characterised by the following elements: public confidence in, and acceptance of, the euro must be further strengthened.
The measures taken must result in legal security and must be transparent, the citizens must be given comprehensive information, and a smooth-running changeover is an essential prerequisite for this.
The changeover will only run smoothly if there is adequate frontloading for banks, commerce, citizens and the requisite machines from where citizens obtain their cash.
I would like to pick out one aspect alone.
It seems to me that the concept of commerce has not yet been clearly defined.
For example, will the tourist industry come under the heading of commerce, i.e. will frontloading apply, bearing in mind that a great many citizens of our Member States visit tourist areas and ski resorts during the Christmas and New Year periods in particular.
I would therefore ask that we organise these elements - acceptance and confidence, a smooth-running changeover and frontloading - so as to increase citizens' confidence in the euro in this phase, and this will entail frontloading and ensuring that adequate information is provided in the euro campaign.
If this comes off, then the changeover will be another chapter in the euro success story.
Mr President, the 1995 changeover plan has proved to be worthwhile.
The rapporteur rightly emphasises the careful preparations leading up to the introduction of the euro, and we must ensure that the euro does indeed enjoy the confidence of the citizens and not just that of the markets, where it is now established.
The first year of the euro' s introduction and life with monetary union is associated, then, with a lack of awareness of the euro on the part of the citizens, that is to say the consumers.
It is not without reason that as yet, only 1% of transfers and 4% of credit card transactions are performed in euros.
This would suggest that we really do need information campaigns.
Not only did we need to have these campaigns in the years before monetary union started, we also need to pursue them now that it is in force, and this is not a task that we should just leave to the European Central Bank.
We, too, in our capacity as European Commission, European Parliament, and governments of the Member States, must launch a new initiative in this respect, so that political discussions on the value of the euro do not cause the citizens to suddenly start thinking that, although they may inhabit a monetary union, this has lent no added value to Europe. Rather, they must be made aware of the fact that they are living in an age of new monetary reform.
This false assumption, which is still very much prevalent because the exchange rate between the euro, the dollar and the yen has, I regret to say, developed rather differently than appeared would be the case on 4 January, must not, however, lead to a situation in which erroneous ideas as to the value of the euro hold sway.
The internal value of the currency is decisive and the fact that we can record values for the euro 11-zone that truly inspire confidence is of historic importance.
It is a good thing that it is becoming clear, and is made transparent time and time again in the monetary dialogue between the European Parliament and the European Central Bank, how important price stability is for this independent, monetary authority; and it is a good thing that the ECB should see that this goal is accomplished in a manner accessible to ordinary citizens.
I believe it would be wrong to break out in a panic now, here in this Chamber, on account of exchange rate trends.
I think the exchange rates are exhausted in any case.
The important thing to do in these circumstances, though, is to support the development of the euro by having more coordination of economic policy within the European Union.
Monetary policy will not be in a position to enhance the credibility of European integration for the benefit of growth, employment and also investment, if the Member States of the European Union do not, coincidentally with the harmonisation and centralisation of monetary policy, join forces more resolutely in giving out signals against tax dumping and social dumping, and in favour of increased employment.
Mr President, the excellent Torres Marques report marks the end of a debate which started 10 months ago.
Fortunately, the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament are in agreement about ratifying the timetable for the introduction of the euro agreed at the Madrid European Council of 1995.
This consensus demonstrates that careful management of the various periods is the key to the success of the operation.
Our efforts must be concentrated on ensuring that this transition goes smoothly.
Our role is to protect the interests of the people, particularly those who are disadvantaged.
Respect for the timetable will provide the time needed for the information to reach everyone and may also allow the dual circulation period to be reduced.
The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs maintains that this period should not exceed two months.
The ECB, the Commission and the national authorities will therefore have to adopt a series of measures, some of which have already been mentioned. For example, they will have to provide consumers, traders and banks with the necessary quantity of coins and notes before 1 January 2002.
They will have to ensure that dual price display is in general use for 1 January 2001.
They will have to use this process to modernise our payment systems and they will have to adopt the necessary measures to ensure adequate legal protection against fraud.
If the euro is to bring greater freedom to individuals and companies and increased rationality in their decision making, they must previously have become familiar with the new system.
In this respect, the recommendations on communication and information policies contained in the Torres Marques report have a vital role to play. However, we should not imagine that the euro will perfect the single market or that it will allow, for example, easier price comparison or a reduction in transaction costs.
The benefits of the euro must be more than just material for they must help to strengthen the political union.
Mr President, Commissioner, the most important step with regard to the future of the euro is the moment European citizens start handling euros physically.
We will try to facilitate the switch to the new currency in terms of cash by allowing the euro and national currencies to exist side by side for a few months.
Parliament also supports frontloading and would, in this way, like to remove the barriers to the swift introduction of the currency.
It now appears that the European Central Bank is also gradually beginning to endorse this aim.
We cannot, however, underestimate how important it is for the citizens of Europe to be prepared for the change.
When Germany reunited, the West German mark was introduced into the former East Germany immediately with no major catastrophe occurring, such as those the big bang sceptics are currently describing with regard to the introduction of the euro.
In many countries, the euro, with few exceptions, could be adopted within a short period of time.
For example, in my country, Finland, the number of coins and notes in relation to GNP is the smallest in Europe.
In addition, the ever-growing number of credit cards in relation to the population is by far the greatest.
For example, I would support the big bang model for Finland.
The big bang would actually only cause problems for cash dispensing machines.
It will not be possible to change all the machines in one night, so the old currency should continue to be used as legal tender at least for some period of time, in cash dispensers at least.
Our citizens must have the real feeling that the euro is of benefit to them, and not something that is going to make life difficult.
At present, there is a dearth of direct practical benefits, since, for example, developments in the euro zone as far as cross-border purchases and currency exchange services are concerned have not been to the satisfaction of the public.
The introduction of the euro must be made easy for the public and consumers.
Problems for special groups must be minimised.
Everything possible must be done in remote areas to ease the introduction of the euro.
Supplies of the new currency delivered early on would support these aims.
What is essential for the public is not how long dual circulation lasts, but how long the banks will exchange former currencies for euros without charge.
The banks should offer a free currency exchange service for at least six months, even though dual circulation might have ceased.
EMU is not a construction to be ranked with the seven wonders of the world.
Rather, it is in the running for the title of world' s largest folly, for it is designed to give the world' s largest trading block a single currency built upon a foundation which, until the introduction of this currency, it had only been possible to hold in place for a period of five post-war years in Germany.
In every other year, the rate of inflation has been more than 2%.
To make an idol of this rate is not only stupid but also a direct assault upon the many families in which the father or mother is now coming home with a redundancy notice instead of a wage slip.
EMU' s holy cow is worse than the holy cows of India.
The latter do not in the least prevent opportunities from arising to create growth and employment.
The absurdity becomes apparent when Danish economic policy is compared with that pursued in the eleven euro or EMU countries.
Over the last five years, growth in Denmark has been twice as great: 20% instead of 10%, and the rate of unemployment has been halved.
That should be considered good by any ordinary person' s standards but, in EMU, such a policy would be downright illegal; in fact, more than that, unconstitutional, because it was put in place with a Budget deficit of 3.9%. The policy would have incurred a fine of EUR 500-600 million.
Some people say that the policy can be changed when politicians sit together round the table, but that is somewhat non-sensical because the policy may only be altered by amending the treaty itself, the basic law, the Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam.
This is where the errors arise from.
The Central Bank may be criticised for raising interest rates instead of reducing unemployment, but it is only doing what the Treaty says it must do.
It is the Treaty which should be altered.
The single currency ought at least to be converted into a common currency allowing countries to have their own rates of exchange for the purposes of pursuing economic policies which benefit employment.
In that way, one economic policy or the other might be pursued. The countries themselves should be allowed to decide which.
Mr President, firstly I must congratulate Mrs Torres Marques on her report and thank everyone who has participated in this debate today.
My presence here reflects the importance which the Commission and I myself, as the Commissioner responsible for economic and monetary affairs, continue to place on the whole process of the introduction of the euro.
As emphasised by several speakers, the introduction of the euro has so far clearly been a great success, despite the debates which we may be having on certain specific points.
It is also clear, again as highlighted throughout this debate, that the moment of truth will be when the coins and notes enter into circulation on 1 January 2002.
I must comment on the practical problems which are bound to arise, as indicated in the report.
If we had to describe what is to happen, we would not use the terms 'big bang' or 'dual circulation' .
The proposed shortening of the periods is actually intended to ensure a rapid introduction of coins and notes and perhaps this is the new description which we should be using.
Yet this rapid introduction cannot occur overnight.
There can be no big bang, but neither are we talking about a long period of dual circulation.
We are therefore concerned with the minimum time needed so that the introduction is rapid. This is positive.
This clearly leads to the second problem of frontloading.
This has been debated, as you well know, by both the European Central Bank and ECOFIN.
The latter has already discussed frontloading with coins but frontloading with notes, outside the financial system, poses legal and practical difficulties.
However, these difficulties, particularly where linked to the type of coin or note currently being supplied by cash dispensers, could be solved.
We are therefore facing some specific problems which have been mentioned.
What will happen in the period at the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002 when many people will be travelling around Europe? How will we solve this problem?
This is clearly a specific point which must be carefully considered and for which an answer must be sought. We cannot ask travellers using their national currency to change this in a place which is not their country of origin as this would cause practical problems of all kinds.
With regard to the problem of dual price display, I agree with the idea that we should set a date from which the dual display of prices is absolutely compulsory. This is the only way to start making any comparison.
However, we are all aware that only in the last months of 2001 will people really start to make comparisons. In my opinion, the price difference will involve such a substantial change that the references to the old prices will quickly disappear.
We will all have to adapt to the new prices.
The report raises one particularly important point on the problem of the communication policy and the people who will find it more difficult to adapt to the new situation.
Some speakers have also referred to the need to continue this communication policy with which I totally agree.
The Commission is currently preparing a new plan of action on the communication policy. This plan will, of course, involve this House.
We believe that this operation must be carried out by all the institutions involved in the process, and particularly the European Parliament, as the institution most directly in contact with the people.
We have already discussed this in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs but I will repeat my offer that I am prepared to start examining how to resolve most effectively the communication problems arising between everyone.
We will have to include in this plan the people who will have more difficulty in gaining an adequate understanding of the new currency. These will be the people who, for one reason or another, will have certain specific problems.
The electronic money issue will not cause any particular difficulties.
However, one interesting point to be stressed is the problem of payment systems, particularly in retail operations.
The payment system for major transactions has worked very well but we all agree that the problem of the excessive charges currently imposed on money-changing is generating ill feeling. This is because we expected a reduction in the costs of money-changing during this period and these expectations have not been borne out.
The priority is to set up compensation systems or payment systems allowing us to reduce these costs.
Initiatives have already been taken in this respect which the Commission supports.
However, we have to achieve a system which prevents these costs from being as high as they are at the moment and we must therefore set up common standards allowing us to deal with any difficulties which may arise.
Thank you for this report.
It is an important element in the whole process of the introduction of the euro and I hope to carry on discussing this issue with you as we have done to date.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 11 a.m.
Fisheries
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0067/1999 by Mrs Fraga Estévez, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation on the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products (COM(99) 55 - C4-0141/1999 - 1999/0047(CNS)).
A5-0025/1999 by Mr Gallagher, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation amending for the third time Regulation (EC) No 850/98 of 30 March 1998 for the conservation of fishery resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms (COM(99) 141 - C4-0224/1999 - 1999/0081(CNS)).
Mr President, the current common organisation of the markets has been showing signs of running out of steam. This is due to its inability to meet the new challenges of a highly globalised and competitive market in fishery products, in a European Union very dependent on imports.
This House has, on many occasions, highlighted this problem and called for substantial changes.
We are now finally debating the Committee on Fisheries' report on a proposal for a regulation which does not just reform the COM but establishes a completely new system.
This is not just any old debate but one which affects one of the four pillars of the Community fisheries policy.
It must therefore be as productive and responsible as the debate we had in the Committee on Fisheries because this report, which I ask you to approve, is the result of a hard-won compromise between the political groups and the various sectorial and national interests.
As rapporteur, I believe we should acknowledge that the Commission' s initial proposal significantly improved the current COM.
In particular, it reinforced the fundamental role played by the producers' organisations in the marketing of products. It also granted them increased and improved mechanisms for ensuring correct operation and more responsible fishing and marketing.
However, our committee had to change the text of the proposal on two major aspects.
In both cases this was achieved through the compromises which I have mentioned. The first compromise was reached by including aquaculture products and shellfish gathering for which no marketing aid was provided.
Yet these are both subsectors which, like fishing, must be fully included in a system whose aim is to match supply to demand. They are also developing sectors in which production must be well planned so that crises, such as those which are periodically suffered by salmon producers, can, as far as possible, be avoided from the outset.
The other aspect which we corrected is even more serious, if this is possible.
As I mentioned at the beginning, this type of regulation should be prepared very carefully, particularly when proposing a change from a quota system to a system of indefinite tariff suspension for imports. Yet the Commission acted not just thoughtlessly but even frivolously and irresponsibly.
Please understand that the Committee on Fisheries is not opposed to the system of tariff suspension.
However, we must be certain that this system, which actually involves the voluntary removal of tariff duties, will not threaten Community companies which produce and market the same products.
The Commission' s proposal included several products which are produced in the Community on a large scale. This is proven by the study being prepared at the request of the Council because the Commission' s figures lacked justification.
For example, for one of these products - tuna fillets - this study establishes deficit levels of between 1 500 and 3 000 tonnes.
Without considering any comparative information, the Commission was therefore recklessly prepared to stifle a Community sector which provides thousands of jobs. This would also have blocked its own systems of aid for the development of GSP-Drug and ACP countries just because of an actual import requirement of less than 3 000 tonnes which can be completely covered by the current system of tariff quotas.
Although the compromise reached by our committee on this issue was particularly difficult to achieve, the facts seem to justify this. Following the political agreement achieved in the last Council of Ministers, both tuna fillets and herring now fall outside the tariff suspension system, in addition to another set of corrections affecting other products contained in Annex V.
I therefore feel that the Commission' s proposal was not well prepared. In fact, it was dangerous and we are pleased with the Council' s correction which matches ours in making the compensation for withdrawals more flexible.
With these two major changes incorporated in committee, together with others such as greater precision in labelling and information to consumers, this House is helping to prevent a text which has its good points from being ineffective due to its lack of realism. I therefore ask you all to approve this report.
It only remains for me to thank all the Members who helped to achieve this compromise for their hard work and assistance.
I ask you again to approve this report.
Thanks should also go to Mr Gallagher for his excellent report.
Mr President and Commissioner, in introducing this report on the conservation of fishing resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles of marine organisms, I can be confident that the proposals are based on sound scientific advice.
As my European Parliament colleagues will know, the Fisheries Committee has been a strong supporter of technical conservation measures based on technical and scientific data.
This is particularly so where efforts are made to cross-reference scientific data with fisheries observations.
Fishermen spend more time at sea than scientists and the sea is their natural environment, which they observe on a daily basis.
They have a better understanding of fish movements and factors affecting fish stocks than people give them credit for, quite simply because it is essential for their livelihood.
The House will recall the positive opinion on the substance of the measures and resolution of 25 October 1996, the Gallagher report, and its opinion of 26 April 1998 on the implementation of technical measures in the common fisheries policy.
On 30 March 1998, the Council of Ministers adopted Regulation 850/98 for the conservation of fishing resources through technical measures for the protection of juveniles.
This regulation replaced 894/97 with the exception of Articles 11, 19 and 20 which related to driftnets and which were dealt with separately.
After the adoption and publication of this regulation, data brought to the attention of the Commission necessitated its incorporation into this regulation.
The regulation of 13 March 1998 is due to come into effect on 1 January next year.
However, it is imperative that the additional data and developments which have come too late be incorporated in this regulation and ensure that it is part of the regulation coming into force on 1 January.
The present proposal for a Council regulation provides for changes to the area and timing of restrictions designed to protect the spawning of the Douglas Bank herring in the Irish Sea.
In view of the current healthy state of herring stocks, the proposal changes allow for a reduction in both the area and the time period of fishing restrictions.
This will increase fishing opportunities while, at the same time, protecting the stocks and ensure that there is no repeat of the collapse of the stocks which we recall in 1970.
I am pleased to note that the scientific, technical and economic committee have supported the proposal, having examined the report of the advisory committee of fisheries management during its November 1999 session, in addition to the specific provisions on the use of Danish seine nets in the plaice box.
This merely corrects an oversight in the original text.
The conditions agreed within the international dolphin conservation programme for the use of purse seines which commonly will apply provisionally within the Community incorporate into this regulation a revision of mesh size for two species of spotted dogfish.
Technical conservation measures will play an important role in the conservation of stocks by protecting juvenile fish and will reduce the threat to further yields.
A clear message must go out from this Parliament, from the Commission and from the Council to the fishing industry that honest endeavours will be respected and those fishermen who abide by technical conservation measures that are devised by accredited European scientists in partnership with fishermen will benefit most.
If amendments are necessary in the light of new developments, no doubt the Commission will come back with further proposals and I am quite certain that the Committee and Parliament will respond expeditiously.
I want to thank my colleagues, the officials in committee and the officials in the Commission for their assistance in drawing up this report and I want to congratulate Mrs Fraga Estévez on the presentation of her very comprehensive report.
But I must say that I am disappointed here today that the Council have already decided and that we are debating a report when a decision has been taken.
I must pose the question: are we ordering our business in a correct fashion?
Commissioner Fischler told us we had no co-responsibility, but that our views would be taken into consideration.
How can our views be taken into consideration when we are debating a report which has already been decided on by Council? I would sincerely hope the Council and the Commission have taken note of our views.
They were obviously monitoring the progress of this report through the committee, and I am pleased that they have rejected a proposal to allow unlimited quantities of herring into the Union, quantities of fresh, chilled and frozen herring at preferable rates of duty.
Now it has been restricted from 2001 to 20 000 tonnes. It is still too much in view of the fact that the prices of herring in the Community at the moment are at an all-time low.
This is because of the overloading of the EU market with low-price fish and frozen herring from Norway and the setting up by German companies of low-cost production units in Poland for processing duty-free Norwegian fish for export to Germany.
We must remember, we have a duty and a responsibility to the Community fishermen and we must ensure that their rights are protected.
Madam President, Mr Gallagher, I am only too pleased to second what you have just had to say about the modus operandi.
Something has to change there.
But first I have something to tell you on a more cheery note.
Yesterday, following the trialogue between the Council, the Commission and Parliament, I was reassured in the Committee on Budgets that the financing for the important fisheries agreement with Morocco was secured at second reading.
We have taken a significant step forward and a sound foundation has been laid for the forthcoming negotiations.
It was possible to discern the beginnings of a change of direction in the debate in the Committee on Fisheries on the report by Carmen Fraga, and this change will take hold in the new year.
The joint struggle has forged bonds between us within the Committee, both on general and more specific issues.
It was, and continues to be, about supplying the European market with fish and about targeted production for export so as to preserve direct and indirect jobs at sea and on land.
We are a Community based on solidarity and it should stay that way.
Now there is a new Parliament and a new Commission with many new personalities and new emphases.
The market situation in general, not just in relation to the WTO negotiations, and the different understanding new personalities have of traditional practices, also bring about changes in the issues dealt with in committee, both in respect of content and the weight they are given.
In future, therefore, we must also examine other viewpoints more closely.
The rapporteur has presented a very well thought-out report. It received a majority vote.
However, the outcome failed to satisfy several Members, which means that discussions in committee will now become livelier. The Committee on Budgets has long been asking for this.
At the same time, no one wants to give up the solidarity we have with an endangered but important economic and policy arm of the EU.
Solidarity cannot, by definition, be called for from one side alone, though.
The unanswered questions on the GMO report are as follows: how many subsidies and customs tariffs does the fisherman need and to what extent can the industry sustain a liberalised, global trading zone? To what extent is free competition compatible with fair competition?
Grants give way to helping people to help themselves. But the net must not be closed in so tightly that those concerned no longer have to make any effort at all to maintain their independent position on the market of supply and demand.
Where do we draw the line between private enterprise and planned economy measures? Questions upon questions.
What is more, the EU budget is tight.
Why is it necessary for financial support to be extended to aquaculture as well? It is a new market segment in the breeding sector which, in view of efficient management, is able to guarantee greater stability of planning and supply than the fishing industry is capable of.
Ought it not to be the fishing industry and its market prospects that attract an increased level of financial support? It is understandable that the Member States do not say no to receiving EU subsidies for this sector.
As I see it, the upshot is as follows: the Commission's proposal was amended to a considerable extent.
Votes against and abstentions must therefore be respected for the reasons cited earlier.
The discussion on the common organisation of the markets does not end there.
Madam President, I too congratulate Mr Gallagher on his excellent work.
We have spent two years extensively discussing the Community fisheries market. It is now finally the turn of the whole House to adopt a stance through this report which was approved by a large majority in the Committee on Fisheries.
Our market has a deficit of fishery products.
Some 60% of the fishery products consumed in Europe are imported.
The Community fisheries sector is extraordinarily active and competitive and plays an important role in maintaining economic and social cohesion in Europe.
Our duty is therefore to ensure and guarantee its future.
The European market is not a closed market.
It is open in that products from GSP countries enter free of tariffs or at low tariffs.
We make strict demands on our fishermen in terms of gear, conservation and handling of catches which are not compulsory for foreign fleets.
For us as Socialists, the Community preference is therefore our commitment to the Community fisheries sector, to our people, fishermen, fishing industry workers and shipowners who hope to be able to continue their activities and keep their jobs.
We should not therefore, as proposed by the Commission, replace the current and flexible tariff quota system with the total or partial suspension of tariff duties.
We oppose this removal of tariffs because we believe that we do not need to protect, as Mrs Langenhagen said, but at least defend a competitive and modern sector which is still not prepared for total liberalisation. The same is true of many other sectors.
Many questions continue to concern us. These include the cut in financing which excludes important growth sectors such as aquaculture, the lack of definition of the information to be received by the consumer, as specifically mentioned by Mrs Fraga Estévez, with regard to the distribution of areas proposed by the Commission, and the lack of other relevant data such as minimum sizes.
As Socialists, our priorities include consumer protection. The defence of quality is one way of protecting these rights.
We therefore want to encourage measures which emphasise quality fishery products and, at the same time, we ask for sustainable management of resources to ensure the future of fishing.
Fishing must be allowed, but in accordance with the requirements of the market and the respectful management of the product.
To sum up, we Socialists want to defend European producers, consumers and importers and we believe that with the report approved by the Committee on Fisheries, with the excellent work carried out by Mrs Fraga Estévez - who I congratulate - and with the agreement reached by the Council of Ministers, we can, in the main, be satisfied.
Mr President, our group very much welcomes the proposal on the common organisation of the market in fisheries, because it will improve information to consumers.
It will strengthen producer organisations giving them incentives to better resource management and it will introduce greater stability into the supply of fish for processing.
We also consider that there are many respects in which the report introduces major improvements to the original proposal, and we congratulate Mrs Fraga accordingly.
There are, however, some areas in which we continue to have doubts.
First, there are various articles, notably 11(2), where we believe that the original Commission proposals provide greater security against over-fishing than do the amendments in the report.
Second, we take the view that guide prices should be fixed by reference to national ports rather than to representative ports simply because the latter idea is too lacking in specification.
Third, a number of us consider that the additional costs involved do not warrant extension of some of the measures to aquaculture, though I would add this is not my own view.
Aquaculture is of such major importance to Scotland where many fragile local economies depend upon it.
Finally, we have very mixed feelings about Article 28 and the amendment to it.
On the one hand, we fear that the amendment might delay implementation, and we also have certain concerns about its precise content.
On the other hand, we accept that there should be a rational basis for tariff suspension rather than it resulting simply from a shopping list provided by Member States.
We look to the Commission to provide such a rational basis.
All in all, we believe that the measures being undertaken fit well with the projected regionalisation of the common fisheries policy to which we are firmly committed, and we hope that proposals to this end will be put before Parliament soon.
Madam President, I am delighted to be making my maiden speech today in this House, as I am a new Member of Parliament, and I am happy to do so with regard to fisheries and the excellent report by Mrs Fraga Estévez, because I am the mayor of Mèze, in the French department of Hérault, in the south of France, which is a small town, one of the main Mediterranean coastal fishing ports, near Sète, which is the principal fishing port.
I should tell you that since yesterday and again today, all the fishing ports along the Mediterranean coast have been on strike because the fishermen are protesting against the price of diesel oil and the collapse in the prices of bluefish, tuna, sardines and also eels that are not sold any more.
A real market problem exists and it is the whole of this profession that is being ruined.
And they are protesting against the European directives that they find too restrictive.
In the context of discussions like these, we need to show our support for the fishing trade.
I will raise three points with regard to Mrs Fraga Estévez' s excellent report: firstly, traceability.
The Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance is in favour of detailed labelling on the products, from first sale to the last, so that people know where the product has been caught, how and also whether it is a product of fishing or aquaculture.
We wish to go even further than the proposals made by the Commission.
Secondly, on the questions relating to withdrawal and destruction, a reference price, a guide price, is fixed and subsidies are granted when the fishery products are not sold.
Subsidies are also granted to conserve and store products.
Our group is in favour of this when it is a matter of conserving products and not wasting them, but if it is a matter of increasing the amount of fishing undertaken only to then destroy the fish, we are not in favour.
We believe that the producers' organisations should be made aware so that the fisheries plan is well established throughout the year and so that intensive fishing is not favoured only to subsequently destroy the fish.
It is very important and perhaps requires an increase in the reference price and, in the end, a whole procedure, but we should like the resource to be well managed.
Finally, I will conclude by saying that as far as the customs duties are concerned, we are not in favour of these duties being systematically abolished.
An impact study should be undertaken, as Mrs Fraga Estévez proposes, and objective criteria should be established before deciding which customs duties will be abolished.
Our group supports Mrs Fraga Estévez' s report and Mr Gallagher' s report.
Madam President, the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products is one of the most important elements of the common fisheries policy.
I hope, even with the commitments made by the Council, that the latter takes due regard of the results of the debate and the Fraga Estévez report in particular.
With regard to the contents of the report, I must congratulate Mrs Fraga Estévez.
As usual, she has worked very hard and I particularly want to acknowledge the effort made to achieve compromises.
As is to be expected, compromises do not satisfy everyone and this case is no exception.
I am unhappy with one aspect of the report in that it proposes an extension of the limits set by the Commission for fishery withdrawals.
Faced with increasingly scarce fish stocks, it seems absurd to fish to destruction and immoral to waste quality protein.
This reflects one of the shortcomings of the Commission' s proposal which should have supplemented the COM framework with a mechanism to maintain the income of fishery workers. This would allow the effect of price falls to be limited and would therefore make recourse to the withdrawal and destruction of fishery products unnecessary.
The Commission' s proposal lacks maturity and is dominated by inertia.
There is inertia towards budget restrictions and in the regulation of foreign trade.
This opportunity could have been used to establish a clear and transparent system of foreign trade regulation.
For these reasons, I feel that the Fraga Estévez report is much more useful and my group therefore totally supports not only its efforts but, despite the reticence indicated in my speech, the compromise as a whole.
Finally, we will also support the report by Mr Gallagher who I also congratulate.
Madam President, the new proposal for a regulation on the common organisation of the markets in the fisheries and aquaculture sector puts forward new and interesting aspects that need to be thoroughly considered, which I cannot, unfortunately, discuss in this forum.
Being the representative of the largest island in the Mediterranean - Sicily - and head of the province of Catania, where large numbers of people work in the fishing industry, I would have been in a good position to talk about day-to-day experiences.
Today though, I would like to make some constructive criticisms, which I hope can contribute to improving the proposal for a regulation in question.
As far as consumer information is concerned, I fully agree with the Commission when it proposes compulsory labelling indicating the designation of the species, the production method as well as the catch area.
Nevertheless, with the aim of making consumers more responsible and making the market more transparent, other details should be included, for example, the minimum legal size, which would allow fishery resources to be respected.
As far as producers' organisations are concerned, it is true that we need to make them more responsible, as regards both the organisation of the market and the efficient management of resources; however, it would be appropriate - and in this respect I stress the relevance of Amendment No 67, tabled by my political group - for the Member States to be able to grant additional aid to producers' organisations that develop measures which valorise the species caught and measures to adapt supply to demand through structural actions of the FIFG.
In view of the fact that - and it has been reaffirmed here this morning - according to data provided by the Commission, 60% of fishery products consumed in the European Union are imported, we should support aquaculture, which constitutes a major economic opportunity for maritime communities, in a substantial and comprehensive manner.
Often, people do not enter this sector due to a lack of knowledge.
Finally, I would like to conclude by thanking Mrs Fraga Estévez for upholding the amendments tabled by the UEN Group in the Committee on Fisheries.
Madam President, Commissioner, I firstly want to congratulate both rapporteurs of the Committee on Fisheries for their reports which are before us today.
The Gallagher report concerns a technical amendment to the ever sensitive protection of juveniles which we always support in our committee.
I must highlight the consideration and receptiveness of our rapporteur with regard to the request to the Commission for further information. The delay in this vote on his report was caused by the Commission not having dealt with his request for the most recent scientific reports to assess the coverage of the geographical area delimited in the Douglas Bank Box and the redefinition of the conditions and their scope.
As Mrs Fraga Estévez had also asked for this information, I hope that this has allowed us to completely fulfil the role, reserved specifically for our Committee on Fisheries, of minutely scrutinising the activity of the European Commission and the application of the corresponding scientific reports by the Community institutions.
With regard to the Fraga Estévez report, this concerns a fundamental issue and a pillar of the common fisheries policy, namely the common organisation of the markets. As this clearly covers all fishing activity, this is why this magnificent report has taken some time in its progress through this House and its final adoption in our committee on the twenty-second of last month.
The final result is an excellent report. Many of its important sections were the subject of a consensus due to compromise amendments made by the rapporteur which substantially alter key aspects of the Commission' s proposal.
The removal of Article 5, which was the Commission' s attempt to create new tariff suspensions on products as sensitive as tuna fillets, the request to create reference laboratories, the inclusion of aquaculture, the improvement of the regulation of consumer information on the labels of fishery products, the percentages of the compensatory allowances for tuna and the increased flexibility of withdrawals are, to mention just a few examples, very important improvements introduced in this report. I must therefore congratulate the rapporteur once again.
We must also congratulate ourselves on the development and achievement of this report which lends prestige to the role of the Committee on Fisheries as well as this House.
Madam President, it is as the Commission says in its explanatory statement.
This proposal on the common organisation of the markets in fisheries and aquaculture products is of central importance for the common fisheries policy in the European Union.
If we take a look at the general aims in the explanatory statement of the proposal, then we will see that we can give these our full and unequivocal support.
Responsible stock management, improving the competitiveness of the sector, liberalisation of the market etc.
I am completely in favour of all these statements.
What does give cause for concern though is the question as to which methods the Commission, and in particular the rapporteur, intend to employ in their efforts to maintain these principles.
I would like to comment just on three points.
Firstly, I consider that, in future, one issue to be addressed will be that of establishing extensive, direct grants for the fisheries sector, as previous regulations failed to do.
Now, of course, no one has anything against grants.
But still the question must be asked as to whether this approach will, in the long term, achieve the goal of boosting the competitiveness of the sector.
Even when a deadline is proposed, this always has certain consequences and so we should not rule out maintaining this state of affairs indefinitely.
In my view, we could look to the structural funds policy for a more suitable option.
Secondly, I wholeheartedly endorse the efforts being made to adapt the regime governing trade with third countries.
The only question in this respect is whether they actually go far enough.
After all, the fact of the matter is that we in the EU are highly dependent on imports.
To a certain extent, the fish processing industry is dependent on tariff reduction and suspension arrangements for its survival.
Thirdly, I am unable to support the rapporteur in her desire to include aquaculture products in the intervention regime.
Notwithstanding all the efforts made on the part of the rapporteur, who has, as always, produced a thorough piece of work in order to improve the Commission' s proposal - and I have a great deal of respect for that - I am only able to lend my support to some of her conclusions.
Madam President, as the rapporteur, Carmen Fraga Estévez, has said, the introduction of the proposal for a new Council regulation establishing the common organisation of the markets in fishery and aquaculture products is taking place at a time when the European Union countries together constitute one of the largest markets for fishery products in the world.
As there is a shortfall in our internal supply, we import 60% of the products we consume.
In this context, the regulation of the supply and demand for fishery products must respond to a dual consideration: it must meet consumers' needs and safeguard the development of the fisheries sector itself.
As we all know, the fisheries sector, which is concentrated in certain countries such as mine, is one of the major contributors to economic activity.
The report by Mrs Fraga Estévez responds adequately to this dual consideration and deserves the support of this House.
In any event, it will certainly have ours.
The regulation would doubtless improve if her thoughts and criticisms concerning the limited budget allocated to the regulation and the exclusion from the common organisation of the markets of almost all of our aquaculture, amongst other things, were taken into account. It will also improve if her partial criticism of the standards relating to consumer information and to its defence of tariff suspensions when there is Community production, is heeded.
We also ask for your support for the report by Mr Pat Gallagher.
Madam President, the Commission' s proposal for a new COM for fishery and aquaculture products does not meet the needs and specific requirements of the sector in the various Member States. Nor does it take account of the potential that still exists, which is all the more incomprehensible, as the Commission itself admits that the European Union imports 60% of its consumption of fishery products.
There is, of course, an obvious lack of ambition which is quite visible in the proposed budgetary reduction that has been proposed: with less than EUR 20 million per year, we cannot expect the fisheries sector in the European Union to be able to develop.
Furthermore, this COM does not guarantee fishermen' s incomes, nor does it take into account the fact that in some countries such as Portugal, where small-scale coastal fishing, which supplies consumers with fresh fish caught in their own waters, predominates, producers' organisations are very weak, which means that they cannot be given such heavy responsibilities without considering the necessary financial resources.
Finally, as the report by Mrs Fraga Estévez states, it is not acceptable to change the system that has been laid down for exchanges with third countries because of the implications that this may have for European production.
Madam President, I should firstly like to congratulate Mr Gallagher on his excellent report that he has presented to us in detail.
I will therefore speak here about the Fraga Estévez report.
The Commission proposal on the reform of the fisheries COM was unacceptable as it stood and bordered on the schizophrenic.
In reality, if we are only able to subscribe to the objectives defined by the Commission in its explanatory statement, we must, unfortunately, observe that the mechanism proposed does not provide for the means necessary to achieve them.
On the contrary, the principles of Community preference and the regulation of the markets, as they have existed up to now, are called into question by the Commission' s proposal for reform.
Furthermore, the imbalance is also evident between the unjustified tariff suspensions in favour of third countries and completely inadequate measures to assist Community fishermen in increasing their competitiveness.
Our rapporteur, Mrs Fraga Estévez, in her draft report, incorporated a series of amendments that clearly improved the text, but we nevertheless felt that it was essential, together with Mr Gallagher, to table 31 additional amendments.
I should like to thank my colleagues on the Committee on Fisheries, as 22 of these amendments have been adopted, thus making it possible to re-establish the founding principles of the CFP and the COM and to give the producers' organisations the role and the resources necessary to allow them to regulate and obtain the best return for the fishery and aquaculture products.
I retabled eight amendments in plenary on behalf of my group.
Among them, Mrs Fraga Estévez, I should like to stress the importance of Amendment No 67, which is an addition to Article 11, paragraph 1, of the proposal for a regulation.
This amendment aims to allow the Member States to grant additional aid to producers' organisations that, in the context of operational programmes under Article 9 of the regulation, introduce measures to obtain the best return for the species of fish caught and to equate supply with demand.
This aid should be able to be financed in the context of the FIFG.
I know, Mrs Fraga Estévez, that you approve and will support this amendment.
I therefore hope that it will be adopted by the majority of this House as it can contribute to consolidating and developing producers' organisations which, when they work efficiently, make it possible to avoid short-term over-fishing and, thanks to their efforts to obtain the best return for their fish, to safeguard jobs in fishing-dependent areas.
Madam President, the European Parliament has played a decisive role in maintaining the financial instrument of the FIFG and in defining correctly the areas dependent upon fishing within the context of the new objective 2.
If, in this way, we have been able to contribute, together with the Member States, to safeguarding a legal and financial framework specific to the CFP, it should now be used to the full to serve in the best way possible the needs of the coastal and maritime areas that depend on fishing.
That is what we propose.
Madam President, I want to thank Mr Gallagher for his report and to say that I agree completely with him when he makes the point that we have to accept the scientific information that is provided to us, and that it is on the basis of scientific information rather than political expediency that we must make decisions relating to conservation.
We should remember that we have evidence to suggest that if conservation measures are properly carried out and control is exercised we can increase the take for European fishermen by something like EUR 5,000 million worth of product a year.
At least that would go some distance to compensate fishermen for the loss and fishing areas for the loss of jobs they have experienced.
I want to thank Carmen Fraga for her report: a very comprehensive statement and advice to the Commission and Council on the whole business of marketing.
One of the extraordinary things about fish is that while fisherman have been finding it difficult and jobs have been reduced, the price of fish, almost alone as a food product, has been increasing continually over the years to the consumer in Europe.
At the same time, margins have been squeezed for fishermen.
So, we have to recognise that in the whole area of marketing and processing, there is an important job to be done.
I do not think that the annual allocation is sufficient to undertake that task.
Fishing is very different from other occupations. Nobody produces fish.
The fish are there. They are a public resource.
Why should we over-fish and at the same time contribute to withdrawals from the market?
Why should we over-fish and, at the same time, import a product which creates a price that is unacceptable? The herring sector referred to by Mr Gallagher is worthy of special consideration at the moment.
Herring is being sold at 20% lower prices than last year.
It is about or less than 20% of the price that we consider the minimum price for beef in the European Union; a high-value product, immensely valuable for health and normal maintenance of human life.
Why should such a product be taken out of the seas and then given away? It is a mistake for the Commission to propose that they should readjust the regulation to further exacerbate that particular problem.
Madam President, we voted in committee on the reform of the common organisation of the market in fishery and aquaculture products.
It is a sensitive subject, but this report was especially necessary.
The text on which we voted is a good text and we arrived at a good compromise.
I believe that it is a compromise of the kind that the European Union is capable of achieving when it is able to both transcend national interests and defend the common interests.
We know that the fisheries policy is one of the great European policies, even if it concerns very few Europeans, at least as producers, though many more obviously as consumers.
Since it was established in 1970, the Community fisheries market has changed a great deal.
Its regulation has adapted to this and this report must be defined as an additional stage in building a balanced organisation between the protection and the management of fishing resources.
Today, the report submitted to us strengthens the place of the consumer and the producers' organisations in the organisation of the market.
Let us not forget, however, that this reform will have consequences for the fisheries sector.
I shall refer to two of them briefly.
Where will our auctions fit into all this, in view of the pre-sale contracts included under Article 12? This development should not involve a kind of 'shift' of our territories.
Secondly, what will happen in the event of an economic crisis in the fisheries sector, if no provisions for exceptional circumstances are adopted? It would be better to make provision for all possible scenarios.
This report does not deal with the questions of the future, or at least with some of them, but I believe that our committee has done a good job and your report, Mrs Fraga Estévez, deserves considerable support.
I welcome and fully support Mr Gallagher's report: another good job done by that rapporteur.
In general terms, I welcome the thrust of Mrs Fraga's paper which should help to encourage market stability.
This use of forward-looking methods of adaptation of supply and demand by producer organisations should be of great assistance to the overall competitiveness and efficiency of the fishery sector as a whole.
The recognition of the importance of the processing sector is also welcome.
This is a sector which generates very significant employment and income, very often within otherwise fragile communities.
Stressing the importance of basing decisions on scientific and technical data and studies is fundamental, not just concerning the COM in fisheries, but also in general fisheries management.
Moreover, the fact that the proposal will bring improved transparency and knowledge of the market and products, especially for the consumer, is a positive move.
I also support the committee's amendments which seek to include aquaculture within the support mechanism.
The recent and on-going crises in the Scottish salmon industry as a result of the infectious salmon anaemia virus demonstrates more than amply that the aquaculture sector can also be volatile and unpredictable.
Therefore, careful planning and support is vital.
Madame President, can I congratulate the two rapporteurs, Mr Gallagher on the protection of juveniles of marine organisms, and Mrs Fraga on the common organisation of the markets in fishery and acquacultural products.
Both reports are generally worthy of support, and with Mr Gallagher' s report I have no fundamental problems.
On Mrs Fraga' s report, although I welcome the general thrust of the report, there are a couple of problems.
We welcome the common organisation of the markets and strengthening of the producer organisations, but I have problems firstly where there is a danger that costs are being pushed up unnecessarily and while we recognise that the level of intervention age needs increasing, maybe not in the way it is actually put here.
With regard to tariff suspensions, we believe the criteria are rather over-strict, and we would like a more liberal system.
We want to ensure that we can benefit the processing industry without affecting producers.
With respect to herring, we agree that the tariff suspension should be turned into an annual quota, and we accept the recommendations for cod, Alaska pollack and shrimp.
In terms of the amendments, we will certainly be opposing Amendment No 47 and I have to express some reservations on Amendments Nos 35 and 41, which we may be unable to support.
Madam President, thank you for having invited me today to speak about the two Commission proposals.
As you know, my colleague, Mr Fischler, is at the moment in Seattle and he has asked me to take his place.
We are dealing first of all with the reform of the common organisation of the market in the fisheries and aquaculture products sector.
The Commission is very pleased with the report by the European Parliament' s Committee on Fisheries and particularly with the detailed study undertaken by the rapporteur, Mrs Fraga Estévez, who has made a valuable contribution to the debate.
The work of this Committee, that met for the last time on this subject on the same day as the Fisheries Council on 22 November, directly contributed to the discussions of the Council in this field.
As you already know, the Council reached a broad consensus.
Mr Fischler has only accepted this consensus provisionally. He told the ministers that he could only give his agreement to a final decision after having considered the opinion of the European Parliament.
I have listened with interest to the speakers today and I believe that they clearly illustrate the diversity of the fisheries market throughout the Union and therefore emphasise the need for us to take account of these factors.
We now need to examine the proposal and the opinion by Parliament from the point of view of their effect on all interested parties and not only on producers.
I should like to stress that it is important for this reform to apply to the whole fisheries chain and, consequently, for it to encourage integration in the market.
The main development of the Commission proposal is the fact that the common organisation of the market will henceforth cover consumers and the whole of the fisheries industry.
This Commission proposal is good for consumers, good for producers and good for the processing industry and I shall tell you why.
As far as consumers are concerned, the Commission proposal stipulates that essential information must be provided on the product.
The consumer will know what type of fish he is buying, how it has been produced and where it comes from.
In view of the importance of traceability, in all its aspects, in the food sector, and particularly from the point of view of food safety, these provisions will reassure consumers and allow them to be better informed when making purchasing decisions.
I am very pleased to note, Madam President, that the European Parliament is in agreement on this point.
However, the origin of the fishing boat does not concern the consumers directly and the fact that it is mentioned could be perceived as distorting trade with third countries.
As far as producers are concerned, the Commission proposal aims to redirect the incentives of the common organisation of the market in order to encourage improved supply planning.
The Commission has strengthened the role of the producers' organisations by proposing a new mechanism that encourages the producers to plan their activities in order to improve the balance between supply and demand.
Improved planning should lead to a reduction in withdrawals and thus make it possible to avoid waste.
The Commission can accept the general impetus of Parliament' s amendment in this field concerning the incorporation of the producer organisations of certain aquaculture species in the scope of the operational programmes.
We also acknowledge that some of the advantages of improved planning can also apply to the aquaculture sector.
If we subscribe to the idea of financial support in favour of these programmes, we feel that this support should be granted on a temporary basis and should not be linked to the value of the production owing to difficulties that may arise under the rules of international trade.
The second aspect of the amendments that will affect producers concerns the level of Community support in the form of interventions.
The Commission considers that a high level of withdrawals is not justified in view of the rarity of the fishery resources, both inside and outside Community waters.
If we are endeavouring to arrive at sustainability in the fisheries sector, we should not be encouraging the destruction of our resources.
Intervention should become a safety net for fishermen, that would only be used on rare occasions.
The Commission is of the opinion that we should reduce as far as possible the permanent withdrawals and move to support which is in favour of more active fishermen' s organisations that are better suited to the needs of the market.
The amendments by the European Parliament in this sphere argue in favour of a less radical reduction of the quantities eligible for support and of the financial aid for withdrawal, which is along the same lines as the consensus emerging between the Member States within the Council.
The Commission will therefore not stand in the way of an agreement but would be reluctant to accept all the proposed increases relating to intervention.
As far as the processing industry is concerned, the situation regarding trade with third countries is of prime importance.
Our processing industry should be able to supply itself with raw materials at world market prices in order to be competitive.
Failing this, we risk exporting jobs outside the Community to countries that can easily obtain staple commodities at competitive prices.
There are greatly differing views on the form of tariff duties to be applied to the majority of the vulnerable species: cuts of tuna, herring and cod.
I accept that there is no easy answer.
However, the recommendation by Parliament on laying down criteria applicable to future suspensions, instead of a decision on tariff suspensions in the context of the common organisation of the market, does not resolve the problem.
We should henceforth create a more stable situation for the processing industry.
In its approach, the Commission mainly applies the criterion according to which imported products should be raw materials intended for the processing industry for which the volume of Community production is inadequate.
It is clear that the prospects of the supply of white fish in the short and long term are worrying and the Community cannot allow itself to penalise its processing industry and leave third countries to create the added value provided by the industry.
To conclude on this first proposal, Madam President, the studies by the European Parliament and the Commission agree on some key points of the reform, particularly on the need to strengthen the role of the producers' organisations in the fisheries sector and in aquaculture and to improve the information provided to the consumer.
As far as intervention is concerned, the Commission cannot go as far as the European Parliament would like in relaxing the new discipline in respect of withdrawals, as it considers that this position is essential in the context of our efforts to conserve resources.
As far as trade with third countries is concerned, where we have a different approach to that of the European Parliament, the Commission is of the opinion that there is a considerable structural problem within the European market that justifies immediate action to save jobs in the processing sector.
I should now like, Madam President, to examine the second proposal by the Commission and, with this in mind, to thank the rapporteur, Mr Gallagher.
This proposal amends Regulation EC/850/98 of 30 March 1998 for the third time and this amendment aims to improve the conservation of fishing resources through technical measures for the improved protection of juveniles of marine organisms.
The mechanism proposed is based on a number of new elements that the Commission was only able to set down after the adoption of this Regulation.
This mechanism will strengthen the protection of adult and juvenile herring, while improving the protection of marine mammals.
The Commission proposal is supported by the competent scientific organisations like the International Commission for Marine Exploration and the Fisheries Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee.
The Commission is very pleased that the Committee on Fisheries has adopted the report by Mr Gallagher which approves the Commission' s proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 11 a.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 10.55 a.m. while awaiting voting time and resumed at 11.05 a.m.)
Vote
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, as you can imagine, I followed the debates yesterday very attentively and the unanimous praise of the content and form of this report slightly worried me, as it is impossible, whatever the qualities of any compromise, to please everyone.
Today, as a last resort, it has been proposed that we reject the implementation of these two texts for two reasons that were put forward yesterday in the debates.
The first is that the European Union has not been recompensed for its efforts and that we certainly cannot hope for anything from the Turkish Government on account of the fact that since the implementation of the Customs Union agreements, no real progress has been made, according to some of our colleagues.
I will say to this House that in this agreement on Customs Union, it is the European Union that has been, by a long chalk, the beneficiary of the commitments entered into, since the balance of trade between the European Union and Turkey has doubled in favour of the European Union since the implementation of these agreements.
The second reason is the confirmation of the fact that Mr Öçalan has been condemned to death by the Turkish Supreme Court of Appeal and the fact that some of our colleagues now fear for Mr Öçalan' s life.
I would comment that there has been a de facto moratorium on the death penalty in Turkey for fifteen years and that the aim of the report we are voting on is precisely to urge the Turkish Government to change this de facto moratorium into a de jure moratorium and that, in any case, I wonder what our colleagues' reaction would be if, in their own country of origin, there was, as they desire, interference by the political power in the judiciary, since Mr Öçalan' s case is currently before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
So, for all these reasons, I would say that if you want to hang your dog you give him a bad name first, and I would therefore ask the House not to take account of this request for a referral.
Mr President, I should like to advocate that we defer the decision concerning this proposal.
Unlike the rapporteur, I do not think that this agreement should depend upon whether or not we ourselves stand to gain from such an agreement but upon whether human rights and democracy in Turkey will benefit from it.
That must be the crucial point for us.
Since we began to discuss these matters, the Turkish Parliament has confirmed its death sentence on Mr Öçalan.
We oppose the death penalty on principle.
We think that abolishing the death penalty is fundamental to safeguarding human rights.
I would therefore recommend that we defer the discussion of this point until such time as the Turkish Parliament has shown that it is willing to respect basic human rights in Turkey.
Mr President, in the past, this House has spoken out quite frequently and in no uncertain terms against the death penalty, be it in relation to Mr Öçalan or other individuals.
The death penalty should be abolished, and that goes for Turkey too!
This House has expressed its support for more human rights, for respect for the rights of minority groups, for improved relations between Turkey and Greece and for a resolution of the Cyprus question.
None of that is on the agenda today.
There is a predominant and overwhelming majority in this House.
Two specific reports are on the agenda today concerning the promises and pledges we have made to Turkey and, in particular, concerning the fact that those who incline towards the West, those of European outlook in Turkey, are gaining in strength.
I am therefore in favour of these reports being dealt with.
However, this has no bearing on the heavy criticism we will continue to levy at Turkey and its human rights record!
This is a point of order, specifically to protest at the President for not giving me the floor when I requested it, when I was the only Member to announce yesterday that they would be proposing this request for referral.
I would now like to express my satisfaction with it because it is obvious that the European Parliament must give a very clear signal that it will defend the values in which it believes, particularly to a country which is not just any country, but one that has embarked on the process of accession to the European Union.
(Parliament rejected the request for referral back to committee)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0065/1999) by Ms Breyer, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive relating to limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide in ambient air (COM(1998) 591 - C4-0135/1999 - 1998/0333(COD))
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0070/1999) by Mr Morillon, on behalf of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy, on the proposal for a Council regulation regarding the implementation of measures to intensify the EC-Turkey Customs Union (COM(98) 600 - C4-0669/98 - 1998/0299(CNS))
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution)
Welcome
It is my great pleasure to welcome to the official gallery, the delegation from the Moroccan Parliament led by the President of the Council of the Moroccan Parliament, Mr Jalal Essaïd.
(Loud applause)
Vote (continuation)
That concludes the vote.
Explanations of vote - Pronk report (A5-0074/1999)
- (FR) Despite its very limited nature and the fact that it is clearly inadequate with regard to the problem, we shall vote in favour of the directive on "minimum requirements for improving the safety and health protection of workers potentially at risk from explosive atmospheres" , inasmuch as it could represent progress in countries where workers are least protected.
However, in view of the fact that there is no provision either for real control - that is to say, carried out by the at risk workers themselves and more widely, by the population - or a sanction against employers guilty of negligence, the directive is likely to go unheeded.
The resolution, however, while claiming to place the safety and health of workers above considerations of a purely economic nature in Article 3, contradicts itself in Article 2 by refusing to impose constraints that would thwart the creation and development of small and medium-sized undertakings.
It will therefore remain up to the workers themselves to impose this minimum protection to which they should be entitled and which the directive does not even pretend to impose.
Morillon report (A5-0070/1999 and A5-0071/1999)
- (FR) Turkey' s application for membership of the European Union will probably be on the agenda of the next European Council meeting in Helsinki.
There is a strong movement developing, particularly in France, for Turkey to be recognised as having candidate country status on an equal footing with the other applicant countries for enlargement.
I should like to draw your attention to the risk of finding ourselves in the same situation as with the Customs Union.
According to those promoting it, the Customs Union between the European Union and Turkey should favour democratic reforms, human rights and the rights of minorities.
Against the opinion of our Group and many human rights associations such as "France Liberté" , which is chaired by Danielle Mitterrand, the Customs Union has been ratified and implemented.
Today we are discussing dealing with it in greater depth.
We have no choice but to note that human rights violations have continued.
The problem of the Kurds has still not been resolved.
The fact that Öçalan has been condemned to death has been confirmed.
Leyla Zana is still in prison.
The European Commission itself has been obliged to acknowledge that since the implementation of Customs Union, no significant progress has been made in Turkey in the field of human rights and democratic reform.
Let us learn from the experience of the Customs Union.
Encouraging Turkey' s "attachment to Europe" , as Jacques Chirac put it in Istanbul on 18 November, by recognising Turkey as a candidate country will be taken by the Turkish authorities as encouragement to continue the same policy.
I do not propose to rule out Turkey' s application to join the European Union for good, but we must first require of Turkey firm and definitive commitments and check that they are observed: the recognition of the rights of the Kurdish people, the abolition of the death penalty and a new judgement for Öçalan, the release of Leyla Zana and of all political prisoners and the application of United Nations resolutions to resolve the Cyprus problem.
The report by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy takes care to refer to the matter of human rights, but, after having amended the Commission proposal, it comes out in favour of continuing and increasing the Customs Union with Turkey.
I cannot approve this step because it is time to send a clear signal to Turkey by blocking or suspending the implementation of the Customs Union.
- (FR) I should like to congratulate Mr Morillon on having stated clearly that the aim of these two reports is not to discuss Turkey' s eligibility.
It is indeed a matter of preparing this country, which is an official applicant State, by means of measures that aim to reinforce, on the one hand, the EC Customs Union with Turkey (EUR 15 million over 3 years) and, on the other, Turkey' s economic and social development (EUR 135 million over 3 years).
These proposals for regulations presented by the Commission in October 1998, following a request from the General Affairs Council, aim to release financial assistance from the European Union to Turkey.
If the proposal for a regulation associated with Customs Union, based on Article 235 of the Treaty, requires unanimous adoption by the Council, the second regulation can be adopted by codecision and therefore allows for a majority decision.
The splitting of the regulations is justified by the desire to get out of a "blocked" situation in the Council.
It is not before time!
It is our duty to encourage Turkey to continue the reforms undertaken to improve its economy, to restructure and increase the efficiency of its public service, modernise its economic and social infrastructure, develop its production sector and increase the economic and social cohesion of the country.
What I appreciate in these regulations is the fact that it is intended that cooperation projects and operations, the local and regional authorities, the public bodies and especially society, associations, NGOs etc., will benefit. I consider it essential to involve the Turkish people with the change that is taking place in their country.
At the same time, it will be necessary to monitor the progress of these cooperation projects and operations and, of course, to involve the European Parliament in this monitoring.
There is provision, and I am pleased about this, for the Council to decide to suspend all cooperation if obstacles stand in the way of the implementation of the projects and operations (more particularly in the field of democracy, human rights and the protection of minorities).
In this case it will be necessary to take a qualified majority decision on a proposal by the Commission or the European Parliament.
Turkey should indeed be pushed in the direction of greater respect for human rights.
It is not easy, as can be seen from the fact that Öçalan has been condemned to death, even despite European and international protests.
We should persevere, however, and I would hope that giving Turkey the prospect of membership of the European Union will encourage the Turkish authorities to respect human rights better, to promote democratic practices and to liberate the occupied part of Cyprus.
As the Helsinki Summit approaches, where the status of Turkey will be discussed, our Parliament owes it to itself to send a strong political signal, despite the understandable reservations of certain people.
- (FR) We shall not vote in favour of the resolution by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy as, despite the convoluted wording, the claimed concerns about human rights ill conceal purely mercenary interests.
Moreover, the rapporteur himself emphasises the fact that the balance of trade is increasingly in favour of the European Union.
The reason for our refusal to vote in favour of the resolution is to protest both against the conditions that the workers of this country have to endure, against the oppression of the Kurdish people and against the failure of the Turkish State to respect basic freedoms.
Having said that, it is not only in Turkey that the rights of workers and basic freedoms are trampled underfoot.
In no way do we consider membership of the European Union as an honour that a State should deserve, or indeed a guarantee of democracy.
Also, if the incorporation of Turkey into the European Union meets the requirements of the large industrial and commercial groups, which are European primarily and Turkish only as a secondary consideration, it will in no way improve the fate of the working classes in this country, any more than the European Union has protected workers in the countries already integrated from unemployment and the deterioration of their living conditions.
- (FR) This discussion is the opportunity for us to express our solidarity with the Turkish and Kurdish workers and people.
It is up to them to decide whether or not they join the European Union and if they decide to do so, it is not up to us to oppose their membership.
However, that will not stop us continuing to condemn the repression of this regime, which was inherited from the military dictatorship in 1980 and which today threatens to execute Öçalan and refuses to allow the Kurdish people self-determination.
Before they start preaching about democracy, European governments should set an example and begin by granting voting rights to three million Turkish and Kurdish immigrant workers who live in EU countries.
This is the same EU, which exploits Turkey via the Customs Union without financial compensation.
The aid must benefit the destitute populations in Turkey.
In order to achieve this, the priority must not be economic or customs relations, but relations between the ordinary people and organisations in Turkey and those of other European countries.
It is for these reasons that I shall abstain on the report on economic and social development and I shall vote against the report on EC/Turkey Customs Union.
Breyer report (A5-0065/1999)
. (DA) Air pollution as a result of discharges of dangerous materials into the atmosphere is a cross-frontier environmental problem which has a drastic effect upon public health.
It is therefore gratifying that the Commission has taken the initiative to prepare a draft directive concerning limit values for benzene and carbon monoxide.
It is, however, tremendously important that the proposal also deals with the requirement to provide the public with information about air quality, published on the basis of a very careful monitoring of benzene and carbon monoxide levels.
I also welcome the fact that, in its report, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has tightened up its demand for absolutely comprehensible and easily accessible data so that the public is kept informed at all times about air quality and any pollution problems stemming from dangerous emissions.
Sjöstedt report (A5-0044/1999)
As Member of Parliament of a country that has a Baltic coastline, I want to promote, in every way I can, the protection of the marine environment in the Baltic Sea area.
I regard the amendments on agricultural effluent proposed in Annex III as very positive.
In my opinion, the prevention of pollution by ships is also very important, and it is indeed with regard to that point that a few factors should be taken into account, which I would now like to mention.
There are great differences between the parties to the agreement in the way they comply with the agreement on environmental protection.
This is partly owing to technical resources.
The states of the European Union comply scrupulously with the terms of the agreement, but there are enormous defects in Russia and the Baltic countries, for example, regarding equipment for collecting waste that comes from ships.
Monitoring by the authorities is not as efficiently organised as in the EU countries either.
A reform of the rules means considerable levels of investment for our industry, so it is important that the new rules make it possible for us to achieve tangible results with regard to the protection of the environment.
In the future, we should try to bring pressure on new Member States to adopt the right sort of attitude and procure the correct equipment.
Fraga Estévez report (A5-0067/1999)
Helsinki European Council (B5-0310/1999)
I abstained on this resolution, and I have two points of particular reservation.
The issue of the Euro-bond market is of general concern to all people in Europe; it is not just a London issue.
It is certainly one with which we have concerns in Scotland and I was disappointed in the way that vote turned out.
Last night, in the debate, I referred to remarks made yesterday by the Secretary-General of NATO.
I would like again to draw attention to the fact that he deliberately engaged in party-political debate within the United Kingdom, particularly in relation to Scotland.
In doing that, he appears to me to have misrepresented both the position of Ireland as confirmed by Minister Andrews in this morning' s Irish Times and the position of my own party in this argument in the United Kingdom.
Senior civil servants of international bodies ought not to engage in that kind of party-political dialogue.
On that account, I was very disappointed with the remarks about NATO here.
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats in the European Parliament have today voted in favour of the joint motion for a resolution concerning the preparations for the European Council meeting in Helsinki on 10-11 December 1999, because we are generally in agreement with the motion' s recommendations concerning the important themes relating to employment, the environment, enlargement of the European Union etc. which are on the agenda.
This explanation of vote does not, however, alter the attitude we expressed earlier regarding the European Parliament' s discussion of the report from Messrs Dimitrakopoulos and Leinen concerning the preparations for the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference.
We remain of the view that Heads of State and Government should first and foremost be setting a realistic agenda which will make it possible to conclude the Intergovernmental Conference before the end of the year 2000 in such a way that the Treaties do not present obstacles to the forthcoming enlargement of the EU.
We are also still of the view that the EU should not be expanded into a proper defence alliance. This ought to remain NATO' s role.
The EU should, on the other hand, play an expanded role in connection with humanitarian tasks.
- (DE) The non-attached Members will endorse the joint resolution in the final vote but would like, at the same time, to point out that the position on the question of reforming the Treaties and on the preparation and holding of the Intergovernmental Conference, which your voting behaviour in respect of the Dimitrakopoulos/Leinen report gave expression to, remains unaltered.
- (SV) I have voted against the resolution, mainly because the European Parliament is again offering its support to a militarisation of the EU.
I had wanted to vote in favour of the original text of the resolution from the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance but, unfortunately, that was not possible.
The text reads in terms of emphasising that further development of the CFSP ought primarily to be based upon the principle that conflicts and crises must be prevented and handled by peaceful and civil means, that there should only be recourse to military means as a last resort and that this ought to be adequately supported by a UN or OSCE mandate and not lead to increased defence expenditure.
- (SV) I cannot support the resolution because I do not support the demands for common defence or for a common tax policy.
Torres Marques report (A5-0076/1999)
Mr President, the report by the European Parliament on the length of the transitional period for the introduction of the euro is an opportunity for us to recall some disturbing truths.
Firstly, although there has been a great campaign to promote the euro, particularly at the time when it was launched, although it is now legally in force and it has even experienced some nerve-racking misfortunes on the international markets, people seem to have completely forgotten that it exists.
They continue, in great numbers, to use the national currencies to which they are accustomed and they only use euros very rarely.
What is worse, it seems that they are becoming less prepared to use them in the future.
The opinion polls, at least in France, show that the percentage of people who envisage opening an account in euros in the near future has been falling regularly since 1 January 1999 and today only constitutes a small minority.
That really is the last straw, because the closer we get to 31 December 2001, the more this percentage should, on the contrary, be increasing.
Everything seems to show that our fellow citizens do not see any point at all in actually changing to the euro in their daily lives.
However, the European Parliament wishes to disabuse them of this and once again recommends an information campaign which, according to the resolution, should cover both the practical aspects and the basic significance of monetary union.
Well, there we are: once again, reminding those people who think that it serves no purpose how useful the euro actually is.
For my part I am going to ask a controversial question: what if, by chance, our fellow citizens were right?
And what if they really had got to the bottom of it?
And what if the entering of the euro into daily life really did serve no purpose? Well, the transitional period of three years would have at least had the merit of showing us that we can very easily live, on the one hand, with a euro that is living its own rather chaotic life on the international markets and, on the other hand, with national currencies still in circulation, to the great satisfaction of consumers.
Let us have the good sense to remain in this situation, Mr President, and let us have confidence in the modern means of payment like charge cards or the electronic wallet to make life easier for travellers and those living near borders.
Mr President, I voted against the Torres Marques report with regard to the introduction of the euro because my group, the Dutch Socialist Party, has always campaigned against the introduction of a single currency.
We will remain opposed to it as long as this currency is to the detriment of investment in a sound social policy, sound collective provisions, an active environmental policy and an income policy for the benefit of the lowest income bracket.
The introduction of a single currency is too soon to say the least.
This is why I do not agree with a number of accompanying measures intended to shape and facilitate this introduction.
- (FR) I welcome the report by Mrs Torres Marques with great satisfaction.
She has made a relevant study of the technical difficulties that we still have to resolve in order to prepare properly for the introduction of the euro.
We should not bury our heads in the sand and ignore the problems that are far from being completely resolved and public opinion is far from being ready.
That is why, today, following the example of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council of the European Commission and of our rapporteur, I also believe that the reduction of the three year transitional period could give rise to very considerable technical difficulties that may jeopardise the process of the smooth transition to the euro.
The technical obstacles that would present the greatest difficulties in reducing the transitional period are, in particular: the time limits for manufacturing the notes and coins in euros; the considerable scale of the changes to be made to computer systems and also the fact that the change to the euro for public administrations was planned for 2002 in order to take account of the complexity of the changes to be made in this sector.
Beyond these technical obstacles, making the transitional period shorter would jeopardise one of the strengths of the success of the euro which is the confidence associated with the economic and social factors (whose preparation is still inadequate) around a timetable that is precise and respected.
I even say this myself as someone who was initially in favour of a tighter timetable.
With the same concern for the smooth transition to the euro, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs made a proposal, one that I support, which aims to allow the consumer to start changing his national currency into coins and notes made out in euros from the beginning of December 2001.
In the same way, the supply to the banks of coins and notes should start well before January 2002 and the supply to retailers and public administrations should occur from the beginning of December 2001.
Furthermore, from the second week of January 2002, retail businesses should only give change in euros rather than in the national currency.
I also agree with Mrs Torres Marques when she rejects a legal obligation and only advocates a recommendation in this regard.
As far as the period beginning 1 January 2002 is concerned, where two currencies will be in circulation at the same time, a period which, under the terms of the Treaty could run for up to six months, I share the opinion of the rapporteur and the Economic and Financial Affairs Council that this period should be reduced to two months.
For this, we should step up the active information campaigns for our citizens.
I shall conclude by stressing a problem that is continuing intolerably and which concerns bank charges and exchange charges.
This contributes to creating unease among our citizens as to the actual advantages of the euro.
I have, moreover, warned the Commission and the Council by means of written questions, but I have not received any reply to date.
This is serious at a time when the euro is going through a crisis of confidence.
- (FR) On the pretext of technical measures (the manufacture of banknotes), the report proposes to undertake a campaign to promote the single currency.
It is less a matter of speaking of the 'practical aspects' of the euro than of stressing its 'fundamental significance' .
It is true that the virtues of the euro do not seem to speak for themselves!
Categorising the sceptics in advance as illiterates, partially sighted and hard of hearing does not make the report any more convincing.
This document states that the Central European Bank has been using the euro for its monetary operations since 1 January without ever offering an explanation of the criteria of its exchange policy.
The single currency is therefore not at all a democratic asset for the citizens of Europe, but a powerful tool of monetarism, as can be seen from the recent increase in the rate of interest.
On the financial markets, the euro has been in place since 4 January 1999.
The ordinary people - those who have never speculated on currencies - continue to travel and make purchases while having money extorted from them by bank committees.
It is all the more scandalous as the currency rate will be fixed henceforth.
The real questions are not being addressed: a single currency for whom and for what purpose?
For all these reasons, I shall be voting against this report.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
Adjournment of the session
I declare adjourned the session of the European Parliament.
(The sitting closed at 12.25 p.m.)
Resumption of the session
I declare resumed the session of the European Parliament adjourned on 2 December 1999.
Madam President, I should like briefly to raise one matter which concerns me.
You know that I hold you in high esteem and I also fully supported very many of the points which you made in your speech in Helsinki.
There is one point which could create a misunderstanding.
Twice in your speech you spoke of cultural integration in connection with Turkey's possible membership or candidate status.
Given that this issue is highly sensitive and that a parliamentary delegation has just returned from a short trip to Turkey, I wanted to ask you, Madam President, to clarify this matter, in particular with a view to the fact that official statements have already been made that the European Union is a Christian community.
Did your reference to cultural integration encompass this aspect? Perhaps you could shed some light on this because I have no desire to move closer to the Islamic religion or culture, nor is it likely that we can demand movement in the opposite direction.
In any event, it would appear that for some of us, at least, this concept of cultural integration in connection with Turkey requires further explanation.
I would be very grateful if you could clarify this.
Thank you, Mr Swoboda.
We are not going to start a debate to explain my speech at Helsinki.
I believe I said exactly what you have just said, i.e. that it was a problem for some parties.
I also said, if you read the text attentively - I hope it has been translated properly - that Parliament was divided on the issue, and that there were several opinions, that discussions had not yet been completed.
If you examine my speech carefully, you will see that I did not permit myself to bring things to a conclusion.
I said, besides, that there may also be a problem of boundaries, and that a broad debate is already in full swing within the European Parliament.
That is quite simply what I meant to say.
Madam President, I would like to express in this House my amazement and my indignation at the fact that Commissioner Fischler should find himself, at the invitation of Mr Haider, at the inauguration ceremony of Carinthia House in Brussels last week.
I think the presence of a Commissioner by the side of a man whose racist and xenophobic ideas are notorious is equivalent to an endorsement, and moreover an endorsement that is an infringement of Article 13 of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
I would like to see the Commission providing an explanation of this matter, Madam President, within this part-session.
Thank you, Mr Wurtz.
I note your comment.
Madam President, our regulations stipulate that Members of Parliament must be able to meet freely, within the European Parliament, any person resident on Union territory, and the quaestors are responsible for this, pursuant to the terms of Rule 25.
The fact remains, Madam President, that it is still necessary to actually make it possible for such persons to have access to Parliament.
Last week, a group of schoolchildren from a school in France was unable to pay a visit to the European Parliament in Brussels, as expected, because some of its pupils, nationals of a country outside the European Union, did not receive an entry/exit visa to the area concerned in sufficient time.
Would it be possible, Madam President, for you to refer the matter to the Member States, in order to establish an automatic simplified visa which may be made available within far shorter time limits so that all the schoolchildren invited to meet us when they come on school trips may actually be permitted to make the trip to the European Parliament, be it in Brussels or Strasbourg.
We shall indeed look into this matter in order to find a favourable solution.
Thank you, Mrs Berger, for adding this important detail.
Thank you, Mr Seguro.
I shall do so very willingly, on behalf of the whole Parliament, and I believe that the applause shows that your request is well supported.
Madam President, I should simply like to assure Mr Swoboda that there most certainly is a European culture.
If there were not then there would be no Europeans, and there would be no point in building a European Union.
I should like to thank the Italian MEPs concerned for setting up the wonderful Christmas crib opposite the Chamber and I would invite all colleagues to take a look at this piece of European culture.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot start a debate on the subject, especially if the party concerned is not present.
Mr President, I would very much like to bring to your attention the problems we are facing in Brussels, in particular those arising between the Members' chauffeurs and the security service.
We are currently facing enormous problems in this regard, which are causing a great deal of delay.
The Members have to wait in a basement full of exhaust fumes, which delays them and which does not do their health much good either.
Further to this, I would also like to bring to your notice the matter of the drop-off point next to this Parliament, since I can envisage problems, especially in winter, when one has to walk the 150 metres across the courtyard.
Perhaps it would be possible for the point to be set up on the other side, near the entrance.
We take note of your comment and we shall ask the quaestors to look into ways of providing a favourable solution.
Madam President, a remark on the question concerning European culture.
All Members of the European Parliament have had some very attractive UNICEF Christmas cards handed out to them to use for their Christmas and New Year greetings.
These cards are supplied with a paper insert showing the EU' s blue flag and a text in eleven languages.
This reads as follows: Best Wishes, De bedste ønsker, Frohes Fest, Meilleurs Vux, Migliori Auguri, Beste Wensen, Boas Festas and, in Swedish, Med bäste lyckönskningar, as it has become.
Now, these are not phrases you would normally write at Christmas. So what is going on?
In fact, it looks as if the European Union has become so self-effacing in its response to other cultures that we dare not acknowledge the fact that it is Christmas and our culture' s New Year which we are to be celebrating shortly.
It is obviously considered that we might offend against other religions if we were to emphasise that we are in fact a Christian part of the world and that in Europe we therefore say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année etc.
Madam President, this is not first and foremost a question of religion or faith.
For me, it is a matter of daring to stand by one' s own culture.
A people or nation or Europe which, out of a misguided sense of protocol, does not cherish its own culture is in danger of dying out, so I would call on my colleagues to throw away the EU' s insert and just use UNICEF' s beautiful Christmas cards.
Thank you, Mr Camre. I do not think we can easily undertake a debate on European culture.
It would take us the whole night.
Madam President, as a Member from the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Austrian Freedom Party), I was elected just as democratically as any other Member of this House.
Dr Haider was elected with 42% of the vote in Carinthia in a free, democratic election.
If Members of this House, who are trying to build a united Europe, believe that in this Europe, some voters are respectable and some are not and that, therefore, some Members are respectable and some are not, then they should study the history of Europe this century.
We cannot exclude people from here, because by so doing we exclude those who elected them in democratic elections.
All of us have the right to sit here because we were democratically elected.
Madam President, I would just like to address you on behalf of the Members of Parliament who stay behind on Friday morning.
We have the impression that we are being left very much to our own devices in this building.
Let me give you just one example. On the Friday of the last part-session, I wanted to access my mail.
I tried, but it was impossible.
I attempted to contact an official.
Honestly, I did everything I could, but there was no one who could help me.
I discussed this with other Members who were also still here with me on Friday morning, and the general opinion was that we felt that we had been utterly deserted.
Thank you, Mrs Roure, I take due note of your comment, and we shall attempt to overcome your feeling of abandonment.
Madam President, I myself have two children who are Protestants and I always celebrate Christmas in the proper way.
I wanted to say this to my fellow Members.
However, personally I am not a Christian.
Jews, Muslims and many people of other faiths live in Europe.
For this reason I should like my colleagues to accept, at long last, that Europe is not populated solely by Christians.
Although I am not a Christian, I am still a Member of this House.
Some interventions make me wonder where on earth I am.
Does this mean that I am not a European? Perhaps Mr Posselt might like to answer that question.
Thank you, Mr Ceyhun.
You see, Mr Swoboda, when I said cautiously in my text that the debate was far from over, I believe that ultimately I was quite right, and that this is indeed a major debate.
Madam President, in a short intervention on this matter, I would like to ask Mr Swoboda not to make this kind of racist and xenophobic statement.
It is to the Arab world, to Arabic culture, that Europe today owes its entire Greek heritage; it is to the Arab world that it owes all its understanding of Greek culture.
Mr Swoboda, please stop using this kind of language, because I do not think that it has any place in today' s Europe.
Thank you, Mr Ripoll y Martinez de Bedoya.
Agenda
The next item is the order of business.
The draft agenda has been distributed and the following amendments have been proposed or made (Rule 111 of the Rules of Procedure):
Relating to Monday:
Regarding Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s report, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the verification of the credentials of Members, the PPE-DE Group has requested that this report be examined after the recommendation for second reading, on behalf of the same Committee, on civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles.
Madam President, what the PPE-DE Group has actually requested is, since this is a very short report, if it could go before Mr Rothley' s report on vehicle insurance.
So you would like it to be presented before Mr Rothley' s report.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Still relating to Monday, i.e. today, regarding the recommendation for the second reading on substances depleting the ozone layer and the motion for a resolution on the labelling of foodstuffs produced using genetically modified organisms, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has requested that these two items be tabled at a different time on the grounds that their examination in plenary session would coincide with the committee meeting, which would not be very practical.
Given that these items can not be brought forward on the agenda, I would propose that they be entered at the end of today' s agenda, i.e. after Mr Aparicio Sánchez' s report.
I think that is all we can do.
The committee meets at 7.30 tonight, because we have to deal with a proposal which has come late to us from the European Commission.
We understand that we cannot accelerate the procedure so that we come first on the list of subjects for debate, so we will debate this, as usual in a crowded House, at about 11.15 tonight.
Is there a Member who wishes to speak against this request?
(Parliament gave its assent)
Tuesday and Wednesday: no amendments proposed.
Relating to Thursday: President.
We now come to Mr Chichester' s report, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on units of measurement.
The PPE-DE Group has requested that this should be voted without debate, and the vote should be included in voting time on Wednesday.
This report was adopted in committee by an overwhelming majority of 47 to 1 without amendment.
It concerns a small but important modification of an existing directive which needs to be implemented before the end of this year in order to prevent many European companies from being in breach from January onwards.
The Finnish Presidency would very much like to adopt this proposal in Council this week.
The last meeting of the Council this year is on Thursday and, if the House wills it and is agreeable, I would like to make a formal proposal that, instead of a debate, we have a vote on the report on Wednesday.
This would enable the Council to go through its procedures very swiftly and make a lot of European industries happy.
I understand that it would be something of a first to achieve agreement with unanimity in the Council on the first reading.
I should therefore like to propose a vote without debate on Wednesday.
Is there a Member who wishes to speak against this request?
(Parliament gave its assent)
I must point out that the deadline for the submission of amendments must be brought forward to 10 a.m. on Tuesday 14 December.
Regarding the subjects for the debate on topical and urgent debates of major importance, we have received several requests for amendments.
Firstly, the PPE-DE Group wishes to have the sub-item "Prison conditions of political prisoners in Djibouti" replaced by a new sub-item entitled "Arrest of the President of the Court of Auditors in Nicaragua" .
Who wishes to speak in favour of this proposal?
Madam President, the arrest of the President of the Nicaraguan Court of Auditors is indeed extremely worrying.
This is a case of someone who is currently in prison just as presidential elections are about to be held in Nicaragua.
We feel that the European institutions must now draw attention to this matter.
We will be approving next year' s budget with considerable amounts earmarked for the plan for the reconstruction of Nicaragua after the damage caused by hurricane Mitch, and I think that our role must be to support and uphold democratic institutions, which are seeking to ensure that the rules are properly observed.
Therefore, Madam President, we feel that for all of these reasons, given the situation, we must adopt this matter for a topical and urgent debate.
Is there anyone who wishes to speak against this proposal?
Madam President, I would just like to say that the case brought up by Mr Salafranca is unquestionably a serious one, and that his proposal is one worthy of support, but not at the expense of the case of political prisoners in Djibouti, who are sick, have been left untreated and are detained in utterly inhuman conditions for a very long time now.
I believe that in this matter a great deal is expected of the European Parliament, and we would be giving out quite the wrong signal if we were to strike this topic from our debate.
I shall now put to the vote the PPE-DE proposal with a view, therefore, to replacing one item by another, given that it is not possible to add another item since the number of subjects is limited to five.
(Parliament approved the request)
I have received three requests for additions to the "human rights" item.
As you know, Annex 3 paragraph 4 of the Rules of Procedures stipulates that the "human rights" item may include only five items.
We already have four items entered on the list given in the final draft agenda, which means that we can only add one of the new items proposed.
The requests for additions shall therefore be put to the vote in order of their submission, and they shall be mutually exclusive.
These requests are as follows.
Firstly, the request from the PPE-DE Group for a sub-item entitled "Restoring civil rights to members of deposed European royal families" .
Next, the request from the PSE Group for a sub-item on the "Fiftieth anniversary of the Geneva Convention" and finally the ELDR Group' s request for a sub-item on "Angola" .
We shall now put to the vote the proposal on the restoration of civil rights to the members of former European royal families.
Madam President, you were very kind to receive me and His Royal Highness Prince Victor Emmanuel of Italy this afternoon, so I believe you know the full details behind the case.
But just to refresh the memories of colleagues, the motion which was circulated to Parliament was about restoring the rights of former royal families of Europe, in particular those of Austria and Italy, who are still denied their full civil and political rights as citizens of the European Union.
Prince Victor Emmanuel has been in exile for 50 years now.
He is an old man.
He is asking to be allowed to go back to his country of origin.
Why is this urgent? Because this law to amend the Italian constitution has been before the Senate three or four times and the left have always obstructed it, although they have paid lip service to the idea that it is possible to make a new law to allow him back in.
I want this Parliament to call upon the Commission to look at this issue from a European Union perspective for the first time and reinstate these families' full civil and political rights.
My case rests there.
Madam President, I do not have anything against Victor Emmanuel as such or against anybody from Austria referred to in the motion, although I am old enough to remember the Italian occupation of my country during the reign of Victor Emmanuel.
In any case, this is not the issue, the issue is the extremely general wording contained in the motion, i.e. "civil rights for members of former royal European houses, any former royal European houses" .
We too have a former royal house, whose misdemeanours are a lot more recent. I should like to declare, therefore, on behalf of the PASOK representatives, that we find it totally unacceptable that these issues are being discussed as it is an intrusion into an extremely delicate matter which should be discussed in our country before being brought to bear at European level.
Besides, as regards the basic matter of the status of the ex-Royal Family, the Greek people expressed their opinion quite clearly in the 1974 referendum.
Madam President, I draw your attention to Annex III of the Rules of Procedure which lays down the guidelines and general principles to be followed when choosing the subjects to be included on the agenda for topical and urgent debates of major importance.
It specifies in paragraph 1 that these matters ought actually to be urgent and relate to an event such that the current part-session is the only part-session of the European Parliament at which a vote can be held in time.
This is an important issue.
It has been on the agenda of many national parliaments for many years.
But I fail to see why it is urgent in the sense of our rules.
Madam President, I would like to take the floor in regard to the order of business, and to refer to history.
As regards the order of business, I would like to stress that the matter is, in fact, urgent. And so I am responding to the point of order the Member was making because if we do not consider something urgent after 55 years then there is something wrong with us.
I would also like to refer to history for the benefit of Mr Katiforis, a defender of Greek culture.
I would like to remind him that when Prince Victor Emmanuel was exiled from his native country he was four years old which, in my opinion, makes it unlikely that he could have invaded Greece.
The most he could have done was invade his back garden!
Therefore, I am asking the Members to brush up on the cultural history of our peoples and of Europe.
I think it is important to keep to the subject and not to hold political and ideological prejudices which are so strong that they prevent us from keeping calm when considering human rights in this Chamber.
The request Mr Tannock has made concerns human rights, and, a few days ago, fifty years of human rights in Europe were celebrated.
I think it is quite obvious that this request is relevant, especially for this part-session which is ending a century of war and, we hope, ushering in a millennium of peace.
Ladies and gentlemen, we cannot start a debate on this subject.
Mr Corbett' s contribution was indeed a point of order since it raised the question of the urgent nature of the proposed sub-item, and Mrs Muscardini responded.
Now we are going to put the PPE-DE request to the vote.
(Parliament rejected the request)
We shall now move on to the request on the fiftieth anniversary of the Geneva Convention.
Who is to speak in favour of this request?
Madam President, I do not think that we should miss this opportunity to commemorate this anniversary, which marks a very important milestone for mankind.
We have achieved a great deal.
We could dispense with a debate because we have already achieved everything we set out to do.
However, since much remains to be done both within and outside Europe, we should at least draft a clear opinion on the subject in this Parliament.
Is there anyone who wishes to speak against?
Madam President, a point of order.
It is kind of Mr Corbett to raise the points under Annex III of our Rules of Procedure.
Given that this is a fiftieth anniversary, we could take this at any part-session, rather than at this particular one.
Therefore we could put it under a motion for debate at some point in the future.
I agree entirely with your proposal. I only regret that it should come so late.
I imagine that Mr Swoboda and his friends would have voted differently just now on the proposal regarding political prisoners in Djibouti if they had know that the item on Nicaragua could have been on the agenda.
I therefore suggest that the vote on the Djibouti prisoners be repeated.
But the item on the conditions of detention of political prisoners in Djibouti is still in, Mr Wurtz.
Do not worry.
I must respect the wishes of the House.
I note that none of the three sub-items proposed for inclusion has been adopted.
I therefore take the liberty of asking you, if you approve, to add the Nicaragua sub-item.
I feel this is perfectly in order.
(Parliament gave its assent)
Relating to Friday: no amendments proposed (The order of business was adopted thus amended)
WTO Millennium Round
The next item is the Commission statement on the WTO Millennium Round (Seattle, 30 November to 3 December 1999).
May I welcome Mr Pascal Lamy and immediately give him the floor.
Madam President, the Seattle Conference ended in failure.
Why? I can see two circumstantial reasons and one intrinsic reason.
The circumstances are familiar to you.
Firstly, the conference failed due to lack of time.
Only Friday afternoon remained, i.e. too little time to come to a conclusion within a reasonable period.
This can be explained by the way the conference itself was run, since it did not enable any real negotiation until the last two days.
There was also, another circumstantial reason, a manifest inability on the part of some delegations to engage in a real process of negotiation on the order of business and, in this respect, one has to wonder if the fact that the opening of the conference coincided with the launching of the election campaign in the United States was a good thing.
It indeed appeared that this country was scarcely prepared to shift position on any subject whatsoever, which by definition makes it hard to conclude negotiations successfully.
As for the intrinsic reason, I believe that the failure of the conference can be explained by the gap between the ambitions of the World Trade Organisation and its resources.
WTO procedures proved to be inappropriate to the simultaneous requirement to integrate new parties, i.e. an increasing number of developing countries who are demanding their place around the table, and new subjects, which goes beyond our traditional agenda.
These new subjects are ones that you are aware of: the environment, social standards, for example.
Considering the number of parties and subjects involved and the fundamental differences between a number of participants, the chances of arriving at an agreement were extremely slim.
If we dwell for a moment on this intrinsic reason, I believe it must be acknowledged that the WTO must no longer henceforth supervise the negotiation of liberalisation between industrialised countries and that this order has been changed in two ways: firstly, it is no longer possible to limit ourselves to lowering some tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade.
We must concern ourselves with the impact of this liberalisation on the main parameters of our development models, the fundamental rights of workers, environmental and health protection, cultural diversity, multifunctionality in agriculture and quality of the environment.
Secondly, it is no longer possible to circumscribe negotiation to just a few participants, the Union and its friends, the United States and the Cairns group.
In Seattle, it was necessary, more than in the past, to take into account the chief third world partners, India, Brazil, South Africa, Egypt, plus the emerging economies, particularly in South East Asia, and also our partners, the ACP countries.
Tomorrow, we shall probably also have to take China into account.
The combination of new subjects and new participants opens up very good prospects of progressing towards controlled globalisation, but the difficulty of such an enterprise is readily apparent.
As far as the issues were concerned, the Union had made good preparations for Seattle, advocating a broad agenda which complied with the expectations of society, and which was championed by Parliament, the elected body, the legitimate representative of this society.
In addition to extending the negotiations to all the partners, including developing countries, the European Union also took the initiative to open up the conference by means of an offer to guarantee the least advanced countries broad zero-duty access to the markets of the industrialised countries.
It succeeded in aligning, first, Japan with this initiative, and then also perhaps the United States and Canada.
But let us make no mistake and let us keep our eyes open wide.
In return for their support of our agenda in terms of society, the environment, health and workers' rights, developing countries with average revenue and emerging economies are going to be asking for substantial improvements in access to our markets.
And Seattle has demonstrated that we still had to convince these countries that our concerns, your concerns, are something other than reflexes in defence of our own well-being which often seems so much of a privilege to them.
Let me just briefly mention the European Union' s strategy in Seattle.
The Community is well positioned to build bridges between the positions of industrialised countries and developing countries.
We showed this clearly at Seattle, where we were well prepared both politically and in terms of content and we enjoyed the support, the precious support, I believe, of both the Council and of Parliament.
We remained united and, at the same time, open.
Occasionally, we shifted position if it was deemed necessary in order to move the negotiations on. This was the case, for example, regarding the biotechnology group, which I considered appropriate to accept at a certain time.
This gave rise to sharp criticism from some Member States, and indeed from some Members of Parliament.
I take full responsibility for the risk
taken at this time, given that the European Union was the only delegation which was pushing an ambitious agenda on the subject of the environment.
I remain convinced that a biotechnology group focussed on factual analysis and not on negotiation would have been a small price to pay in order to get a considerable raft of environmental proposals through.
We also made a major effort as regards information and participation in order to put into practice the intentions I expressed before this House during the parliamentary hearings in September.
A delegation of representatives of the European Parliament was part of our Community delegation.
We kept in contact on an on-going basis, enabling an exchange of views and information, which proved to be extremely useful to me in my capacity as a negotiator.
This positive experience strengthens my conviction that we should continue to involve the European Parliament more closely in framing our common trade policy.
In the interests of increased transparency, we also, for the first time, brought in a group of consultants representing management and unions, the Economic and Social Committee and NGOs.
Through them, we maintained contact with society and economic and social interest groups.
Daily briefings were organised for the economic organisations and the NGOs accredited by the WTO.
On the whole, we return from Seattle with the feeling that we did much to make this conference a success.
Now we have to continue the work which has been started.
What direction should we be going in and what do we have to do now?
The Commission considers that initiating a new round on the basis of a broad agenda remains our priority.
We must now, however, proceed with caution.
A second failed attempt would, of course, be disastrous.
It is not clear at present at what time we will be able to recommence the round of negotiations.
You have to realise that there is a real feeling of discontent in developing countries, and that any attempt to restart the process must necessarily involve repairing the damage caused in this area, which may take some time.
What are our options? I can see three possibilities.
The first scenario is to convene another ministerial conference quickly.
The people in favour of this scenario claim that there was, after all, substantial progress in Seattle, for example, concerning questions of market access, the promotion of trade or services.
From this point of view, the subjects which were not successfully concluded in Seattle, such as agriculture, anti-dumping and fundamental social standards, should now be tackled quickly.
The President of the United States has just declared that the round may be quickly recommenced.
The bilateral Summit at which we are to meet this week will afford us the opportunity to check whether this is a sign of flexibility or just a repetition of the well-known American positions which favour a round limited to market access.
The second scenario is rather more gloomy.
It takes account of the hypothesis which says that the United States will not, in any event, make any moves during an election campaign.
If that should prove true, there would be no progress before the year 2001.
The implications of this scenario are worrying ones.
Not only would we lose precious time, but that would also mean that the inability of a single partner to move would be enough to paralyse the entire multilateral system.
There is a third scenario, one I would call an interim scenario.
If we do not wish to wait for 18 months before resuming negotiations, let us try as of now to move things forward step by step.
An interim package might make it possible to restore confidence in the system and to create conditions favourable to the launch of a new round as soon as possible.
It would therefore be necessary to continue the preparations in progress at Geneva, particularly our process of alliance moving towards broader negotiations.
In this context, the following steps could be envisaged.
Firstly, institutional reform of the WTO.
Well before Seattle, we had submitted detailed proposals on the transparency of WTO activities.
We must go further and determine precisely the causes of the practical problems which slowed down the process in Seattle, and then propose some practical solutions which are centred on the efficiency-transparency axis.
As regards transparency, it is clear that decision making and negotiations must be legitimised in the clearest and most consistent manner.
As regards efficiency, the organisation of work, the procedures, the bodies, and the ministerial conferences must be reviewed with a view to obtaining practical results.
One of the suggestions put forward by the Members of the European Parliament present at Seattle and reiterated last week by a number of Member States was to convene a parliamentary assembly.
This idea appeals to me, since it would make it possible to strengthen democratic control over work within the WTO.
The third crucial element is developing countries.
These are among the countries most disappointed and most affected by the lack of results.
Restarting the process leading to a new round must by necessity represent substantial progress for them, if we wish to obtain their support.
One of the ways to obtain this support would be to maintain our offer to the least advanced countries and to examine together the coordination between the action of the WTO and that of other international institutions in order to ensure that trade liberalisation results in sustainable development for all developing countries, beginning with the very poorest peoples.
These interim steps which I have just outlined would enable us to keep the process alive and to be ready, when the time comes, to resume work for a complete round.
We must therefore combine two approaches.
Firstly, regarding the content, in striving to form alliances and to retain support in favour of a broad approach to the round, and secondly, on the form, the institutional plan and the procedures, in order to set in place all we shall need throughout future negotiations.
This is the direction we will work in, if the Council and Parliament are in agreement.
(Loud applause)
Mr President, Commissioner, no result is better than a bad result.
That is the conclusion which we too believe should be drawn from the unsuccessful negotiations in Seattle.
May I thank you, Commissioner Lamy, and the entire Commission Delegation for being so well prepared and for leading the negotiations so skilfully.
By taking such a dynamic lead - in close cooperation with the European Parliament Delegation - the Commission showed, with its comprehensive negotiating strategy, that it had set the course for a possible success.
The poor level of preparation on the part of the WTO, but also the tactics of the United States and other countries, did not, however, permit a successful conclusion.
It is with satisfaction that we also not only take note of your support - which you have just reiterated - for the WTO parliamentary assembly which we have called for, but also express the hope that you will give us practical support as far as those responsible in the WTO are concerned in our efforts to make this a reality.
In this process, cooperation between the European Union, North America, Mercosur, ASEAN and the ACP countries should allow this parliamentary assembly to be organised effectively, with the regional groupings able to play an important role in the interests of greater efficacy.
Now, what needs to be done in the months, and perhaps in the year, ahead?
We too believe that we need to keep the global negotiating strategy and consolidate it further in the coming months.
We need to open and pursue an active dialogue with those countries, including the newly industrialised and developing countries, whose positions still diverge widely from ours.
Our chances of winning over these countries should be all the greater if we remain consistent.
The focus here should be on the following core areas of trade in goods and services: further reductions in tariffs and the gradual elimination of non-tariff barriers to trade; investment; competition and services; intellectual property; public procurement and e-commerce.
They are essential components of further trade liberalisation and will benefit most of our negotiating partners.
In addition, reform of the WTO is urgent and imperative.
Secondly, in this process, European environmental and health policies, minimum social standards and development policy should retain their status.
Thirdly, at the forthcoming negotiations on agriculture, emphasis should be placed on the multifunctional reasons for our European model of agriculture - the further development of rural areas, the provision of high-quality agricultural products and the environment - with reference being made also to Article 20 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture.
In the negotiations with China, which are now beginning, we should concentrate on our own interests, which are in part also contrary to those of the United States.
Reducing the high Chinese peak tariffs, protecting intellectual property and facilitating investment are the most important points here.
Increased market access for the least developed countries - and this is something which we need to consider together - should in any case be achieved very soon as part of the negotiations on the new ACP convention, although I do not know whether this will work on a unilateral basis.
These countries should be granted waivers of between eight and ten years to allow them to adopt the comprehensive WTO body of legislation slowly and gradually, without neglecting their programme of sustainable development.
Mr President, Commissioner, we have listened closely to your intervention on the Seattle Conference and we appreciate your adherence to the debate, to the commitments that you made here, specifically in the November part-session in which this issue was discussed.
It is nevertheless true that, as you yourself pointed out, no agreement was reached in Seattle, and the problems remain.
They remain, and for us Socialists, the failure is not just that no agreement was reached. The failure can be seen in the fact that following the Uruguay Round, the volume of trade in the context of this agreement has increased but unfortunately, so has the gap between developed and developing countries.
For those who see trade as an instrument for making society more harmonious and prosperous, as we Socialists do, this situation can only be of grave concern.
This is why our points of view are still valid in relation to the content, the strategy and the nature of the agreement.
It is worth stating once again that where the content is concerned, we are still fighting for environmental issues, for consumer protection, for social and human rights, for cultural diversity and for the multifunctional role of agriculture.
This is not with a view to indulging in a pretty protectionist strategy where the markets are concerned, but with a view to guaranteeing the kind of global society that we can now glimpse.
In terms of strategy, we would like to see the Council, the Commission and the European Parliament combine their efforts and unite in the same direction.
I also think it important, as your words imply, that we should not be totally dependent on the United States and that we are able to find new partnerships, not only in terms of trade with other regional blocs and with other world trading powers.
Thirdly, in relation to the nature of the agreement: it is true that we all wanted an agreement, but failure to reach one is better than an agreement which will have an unsatisfactory outcome.
This is why we are once again arguing for an overall agreement and not sectoral agreements, which is what the United States is once again seeking.
We feel that the market is not a solution to all problems but neither is it the source of all evil.
The market is essential to wealth creation and it is with this in mind that we want to argue for five more points here:
firstly, a new agenda for Geneva that is not just the "leftovers" from Marrakech;
secondly, to uphold the European Union' s common strategy of seeking out numerous new partnerships;
thirdly, greater transparency and more legitimacy in the decisions, which is why we support the proposal for a Parliamentary body which would monitor the democratic nature of proceedings;
fourthly, that the European institutions understand why non-governmental organisations should be present in Seattle and specifically that the European Parliament should be able to find fora for discussion, debate and ideas so that we can be spokespeople for this civil community whose concerns are exactly the same as ours.
And finally, Mr President, I would like to end by saying that we support institutional reform that enables developing countries to be given greater consideration in the WTO' s decision-making process.
Mr President, I should like to thank Mr Lamy for his interesting and helpful remarks this afternoon and to reiterate on behalf of the ELDR Group our gratitude to him and his staff for the close cooperation which we successfully established in Seattle.
One general remark if I may.
Much has been said since Seattle about the procedural and organisational shortcomings of the WTO.
Whilst all proposals to improve WTO procedures are naturally welcome, there is a danger that we might be embarking on the reinvention of the wheel.
The WTO is an intergovernmental organisation with over 130 members, so it will remain, by definition, a somewhat cumbersome decision-making forum.
That is, unfortunately, the unavoidable nature of the beast.
A concentration on procedural and organisational issues should not blind us to one simple fact: if the political will had existed in Seattle, particularly within the US Administration, the procedural flaws of the system would have been overcome.
Thus our primary task remains a political, not a technical one, namely to rehabilitate the public case for further trade liberalisation, not only for the benefit of European businesses and consumers, but most particularly because open trade offers the only viable long-term solution to poverty in a developing world.
That is why the ELDR Group hopes that the Commission, the Council and this Parliament will embark on a proactive attempt to remake the political case for further trade liberalisation in general and for a new comprehensive round, rather than an intermediate round, in particular.
The EU/US Summit which takes place the day after tomorrow is exactly the right place to start since it is the US which has been found to be most politically wanting in recent weeks and months.
The need for EU political leadership which was amply on display in Seattle in international trade affairs is now more acute than ever.
Whilst to focus on procedural details is essential, no amount of organisational improvements will compensate for the biggest loss at Seattle, a loss of political conviction in the merits of open, multilateral rules-based trade liberalisation.
Mr President, from the outset, I would like first of all to thank the Commission and, more particularly, Commissioner Lamy for the way in which he involved the parliamentary delegation in the work.
I think this is a first, and it certainly proved to be a positive experience for everyone concerned.
There are, nonetheless, differences of opinion.
In particular, I think that the proposal relating to the "biotechnology" working party was not the right one, but it would be truly boring if we always agreed on everything.
Moreover, it is important that we examine the causes of the failure.
Several of these have been mentioned. They seem accurate to me.
I would add one more: I believe that developing countries can no longer accept being treated as they have until now.
Having the representatives of the most industrialised countries meet in a conference room, at the end of the negotiations, while the others wait in the antechamber before having to sign a text prepared in advance seems to me an unacceptable process, and I believe that many of us here would agree with me on that.
Our way of negotiating must therefore be reviewed.
A whole raft of issues to do with the WTO must also be reviewed.
In particular, I think that besides the problems with the decision-making and negotiation mechanisms, the basic principles of the WTO also are in need of a face-lift.
Let us not forget, even so, that it was in the 1940s, after the war, that the first GATT negotiations took place, and that at the time people were still traumatised after the great depression of 1929 and the thirties, and that the priority then was to track down overcautious, dangerous protectionism.
Fifty years on, I feel that priorities have changed.
I believe that this is something which must be reviewed and, above all, the question must be asked as to whether generalised free trade is compatible with States, the European Union in particular, having the opportunity to respond to other requirements, primarily, in my opinion, the requirement for sustainable development throughout the world.
A number of WTO mechanisms and principles run counter to this objective of sustainable development both socially and ecologically.
I believe we must have the courage - now that we have time for this - to analyse these mechanisms seriously and to make proposals, establishing dialogue, as a priority, with developing countries.
My impression is that the European Union is very fond of dialogue with the USA.
I am not opposed to that, of course, but I believe that favouring dialogue with the USA is also likely to backfire on us when, at a later date, we have to discuss matters with developing countries, particularly ACP countries.
I think this must be reviewed, and the legitimate claims of these countries must be taken more seriously.
Mr President, following the Seattle failure, we still have all the same problems, but nothing is the same as it was before.
Our first task, therefore, is to make a lucid diagnosis of what happened in order to assume our responsibilities in full knowledge of the facts.
I have heard the analysis which Mr Lamy has given, as it were, from inside the institution.
I would like to offer an outsider' s point of view.
In Seattle, I had the opportunity to have discussions lasting many hours with these men and women, the representatives of society, as it were, who came from all four corners of the earth.
I was also able to hold talks with some of the main organisers of this mobilisation of forces.
They naturally gauged the influence and the support they enjoyed throughout the world: they were, therefore, enthusiastic and determined, but in no way violent, populist or nationalistic, as some observers saw fit to caricature them.
They were well informed, thoughtful, adult in their attitude.
They meant to be involved in decisions as responsible citizens, and no longer just treated as passive consumers.
They were not challenging opening up to the world, but the globalisation of a mercantile attitude.
Far from identifying with the champions of their own countries in the world-wide economic war, the different people involved were together censuring the capitalism of the multinationals, the relentless quest for profits, treating the natural world as a commodity, going as far as to patent living things, the levelling of cultures, the entrenchment of inequalities practically everywhere, especially between the North and South.
Their ambition was quite simply to make the modern world more civilised, to make globalisation more human.
"People before benefits" was one of their favourite slogans.
We must listen to them, as Mr Somavia wisely noted, the present Director General of the International Labour Organisation, which four years ago was the moving spirit behind the International Conference in Copenhagen, where all the world' s Heads of State undertook to reduce poverty by half by 2015.
Listening to them would involve changing the WTO radically.
This starts, in my opinion, with the current framework of the WTO, a framework which is not really universal but is truly unequal, as Mr Lannoye very clearly depicted.
It also involves the current tasks of the WTO which set the objective of capturing market shares in precedence to absolutely everything, including the commitments made by the international community as regards social, environmental or health matters, or the development of the south.
Changing the WTO, finally, involves its current mode of operation, which is still based on Summit diplomacy and secrecy at a time when citizens are becoming actively involved in world affairs.
This is why I am arguing, Mr President, in favour of a proper study offering a critical analysis of past experience, followed by the Union taking the offensive in favour of a more democratic organisation, open to society, which is truly universal and which steadfastly overcomes the divide between commercial considerations and the demands of sustainable and socially cohesive development.
This would be one more fine ambition for Europe' s emerging policy on foreign affairs and security.
Mr President, Commissioner, the failure of the Seattle negotiations represents a victory for all those who reject free trade, all those who refuse to reduce the activities of the human race, and the human race itself, to the condition of a saleable commodity.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group had deplored in this House the lack of preparation for this conference, the lack of an objective assessment of the Uruguay Round, the sly attempt to reintroduce the Multilateral Agreement on Investment in a roundabout way, the objective of fast-track liberalisation, without recognition of the legitimacy of regional preference areas.
The Seattle demonstrators put an end to this sidelong drift.
They stopped a conference prepared by the powerful chiefly for their own benefit and thereby obtained the moratorium which is precisely what my group was asking for.
We are delighted with this, but now we must use this moratorium to prepare ourselves better for future negotiations.
Firstly, as regards procedure, we want careful thought to be given, in the European Parliament and in the Council, to the democratic supervision of the Commission during such international negotiations.
We cannot forget that Mr Lamy, in a Commission statement not approved by the Council, proposed a working party on biotechnology, risking bringing this subject back into the negotiations as the Americans wanted, even though we rejected this.
The Commission has explained just now, and also last week before the European Parliament' s Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, that he hoped to receive far more in return for making this concession.
This statement is not at all satisfactory to us and, in our opinion, he is just making things worse for himself, since, in our opinion, this point specifically was not at all open to negotiation.
Fortunately, in the end, Seattle was a failure, because otherwise who knows where they were going to take us.
As was ever its wont, the Commission thinks itself above the Council and seeks to do just what it wishes.
This must be changed.
It must be changed all the more in consideration of the fact that the Commission had obtained a broad mandate for negotiation on the agenda, including matters such as investment and services, which are normally the prerogative of Member States.
We consider that this point, too, is one that must be clarified properly in future, since it could have drifted towards a final negotiating mandate which would have reduced or eliminated the responsibilities of national parliaments.
In future negotiations, on the contrary much stricter parallel control by national parliaments and by the European Parliament must be instituted.
Supervision of the Commission must thus be reformed, but we must also take advantage of this time which has been given us to draw up a proper objective assessment of the Uruguay Round.
Above all, in future, the running of the World Trade Organisation must be reviewed in order to establish the fundamental principle that only peoples have sovereign power, that they are free to choose their lifestyle and to express their preferences, and, finally, that multinationals must adapt in order to comply with the will of the people, rather than the people adapting to comply with the needs of the multinationals.
Mr President, if the failure of Seattle really were to lead to a standstill or slow down the trade integration processes at global level, it would be a disaster.
It would be a disaster for the producers and the workers of the weakest countries, and not, as was said, for the multinationals, which would find, as they have always found, ways to penetrate industry and trade more deeply anywhere in the world.
It would be a disaster for the consumers in European countries, in particular for the weakest consumers who would be frustrated in their hope to have a wide choice of products from all over the world at lower prices than those found in the national markets.
It would be a disaster for the environment, as the poorest countries, whose products would be denied access to European and American markets, would continue to exploit natural resources.
Seattle did not fail, Commissioner, because of the WTO' s inadequacy or the United States' electoral campaign, although this did contribute to the failure. Seattle failed because the political desire of the main countries was to slow down, instead of accelerating international trade.
Europe, Commissioner, added its problems, thus overburdening the agenda with subjects unrelated to the specific field of international trade and providing an excuse for those who stood to benefit from applying pressure to slow down the process of integrating world markets, but certainly these benefits - I repeat - did not extend to European consumers or Indian or Pakistani workers.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that Europe, with its age-old tradition of the market economy, free trade and economic freedom - freedom which does not need to be qualified by adjectives - must assert that the objective of integrating the markets and of free trade is a goal in itself, which we must attain for ourselves and all the other countries.
Let us leave the other matters to the competent bodies!
Mr President, I do not agree with those speakers who said that the Commission as our negotiator did us wrong so far as the European Union was concerned.
On the contrary, I would support those who have said that not only did they have a coherent delegation to lead but that the practical arrangements for us - the largest Parliamentary delegation which had ever attended international trade talks - were to our mutual benefit.
It looks as though we will have to wait for the new millennium now for a Millennium Round.
Was it a victory, a disaster or an unexpected welcome break in Seattle? People are right to say that the procedure should have been better.
We need better decision making.
We need quicker dispute settlement procedures.
However, it was the substance which was the problem: an overload of a traditional trade agenda with non-trade issues.
Globalisation has led to a number of issues which touch the sovereignty of Nation States being put on a trade agenda.
President Clinton's call for the enforcement of trade labour standards for developing countries and elsewhere in the world was the death knell of these talks.
But linking these two together - procedure and substance - I welcome the Commissioner's support for a parliamentary body of some kind.
This will not only help the democratic accountability of the WTO, help to provide an on-going interface with non-governmental organisations, but also help the gradual evolution of the non-trade concerns on the agenda.
These are, after all, concerns of elected representatives.
In this respect, it is an unexpected welcome break.
But let us have no illusions.
The US Administration is not going to change its position before the election.
Nevertheless, when we were in Seattle we had excellent talks with US legislators.
I ask the Commission to help us develop our contacts on discussion of specific issues such as agriculture in the intervening period so we can assist this intermediate solution.
I believe they are willing to have dialogue with us on a number of specific issues.
Maybe dialogue between transatlantic legislators can help in this area.
Mr President, I think Members should realise what an excellent negotiator we had in Pascal Lamy.
Of those taking part in the discussions, he was far and away the most skilful and appeared to show the most stamina.
That is important to recognise.
The discussions in Seattle were perhaps more complex than could have been anticipated: they were certainly over-ambitious, and that should have been anticipated.
There was a quite absurd concentration of time limits, particularly since some of the time was lost because of extraneous events.
There was a hysterical press interest, not in what was happening in the discussions, but in what was happening on the streets, which was largely due to complete clumsiness by the local police.
There was a complexity because of the sheer number of participants, not only from the countries concerned, but from NGOs, from lobbyists, from national government delegations and from others.
The issues themselves were complex.
This was not a game of poker, it was a complex game of chess with completely justifiable but contradictory claims taking the stage.
The European Union was, in fact, very well placed.
Over the years of our existence we have managed to put in place environmental and social rules alongside trade rules.
It can be done in international discussions.
It is not easy but it is essential and we are well placed because we have, to a limited extent, managed that.
We were well placed because of our links with the ACP countries, although there was an issue over their waiver which clouded the discussions, and because we have always worked well with NGOs.
We were well placed in having a large parliamentary delegation.
I am pleased that our socialist amendment calling for a parliamentary assembly was taken up world-wide.
The issue of agriculture: The United States and other countries refused to understand, even though it is a very simple notion, the multifunctional reasons for our common agricultural policy.
They refuse to admit that they subsidise their agriculture in a much less transparent way than we do.
As far as environmental issues were concerned, these are not and should not be simply concerns of rich countries, but they were portrayed as such and there is a great deal of work to do in bringing those issues to a State where they are not thought of as protectionism.
Mr Lamy says that the biotech working group was fact-finding, but the widespread perception was that it would interfere with the setting-up of the bio-safety protocol and colleagues will say more about that.
Animal welfare was perceived by poor countries as a rich person's interest which, to some of them, was almost obscene where we are confronted with starving people.
That is something again we will have to work on and similarly with core labour standards.
It is important that the WTO is restored in a reformed way.
The alternative is the United States making bilateral agreements from a position of strength with the poorer countries of the world.
That is not what we want.
We, in the Parliament, must follow this issue along with Mr Lamy and other Commissioners until we get something that is appropriate to the age which we are moving into.
Mr President, Commissioner, the EU did a good job in Seattle. The cooperation was good, which I am grateful for.
The problem is that the WTO basically lacks popular support, and the developing countries, even if they are present there, feel left out.
I therefore believe that it was very important indeed that we agreed to demand greater openness and to make room for popular influence on decision making by means of a parliamentary forum.
When it comes to the failure in Seattle, I do not however believe that we should "cry over spilled milk" , as we say in Sweden. Instead, we should use the time to do some forward thinking.
We have been made aware of the problems and we have also, I think, glimpsed certain possibilities.
Unlike Mrs McNally, I perceive, rather, a slight opening-up on the part of the Americans, not least in the sphere of agriculture.
America has trebled the amount of its agricultural subsidies since the last farm bill was adopted and, although the multifunctional reasons for our policy may not be recognised, large parts of its content nonetheless are in fact acknowledged, which I think is positive.
As a relatively liberal, perhaps very liberal, European politician where agriculture is concerned, I should like to say that we ourselves within the EU ought to reflect upon how we can change the CAP, Agenda 2000 and what follows Agenda 2000 and consider how we might get rid of subsidies which drive down the level of trade.
It would be good to discuss this with the developing countries because these are very dependent indeed upon exporting raw materials.
It would also be good for other exporters.
In fact, an enlarged EU, which we hope we are making great strides towards, will also become more and more dependent precisely upon being able to export agricultural products.
It is in specifically this situation that I think that the present talks and the reflections we can engage in will be extremely useful.
I believe there are good opportunities for making further progress.
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy and others have spoken of the Seattle meeting as a failure but I still believe that, if the EU and the US in particular learn the lessons of the past few weeks, the meeting in Seattle could still go down in history not as a failure but as the moment when world leaders finally realised that they need a radically different approach to international trade.
First, they must learn that rich countries can no longer get something for nothing.
If they want rightly to link social and environmental concerns with trade they will need both to prove that their motives are not protectionist and to deliver substantial gains for developing countries in return.
Those gains could include tariff-free access for all goods from the poorest countries, the abolition of tariff peaks and agreements to stop export dumping.
Second, it is clear that trade deals can no longer be secretly stitched up between the more powerful WTO members.
Developing countries have shown a new determination to resist such marginalisation.
The playing field between the richer and poorer countries is anything but level.
If you look at negotiating capacity alone, the EU and the US were present in Seattle with whole armies of lawyers and advisors.
The poorer countries were there with very few.
I have also heard - and I would be grateful to know if this is true - that 30 countries, members of the WTO, could not even afford to be at the meeting to negotiate.
The WTO process needs to be made far more democratic and transparent.
I believe that we need a forum to discuss proposals for radical reform with the environmental and development groups who have been working on this subject for a great many years.
There is no need to re-invent the wheel.
There are good proposals out there.
We need to learn from them.
Finally, WTO members must at last listen to the 1 200 non-governmental organisations from nearly 100 countries who signed a declaration demanding no further trade liberalisation until the social and environmental impacts of existing liberalisation have been addressed and the problems put right.
The stalling of the talks in Seattle gives us an opportunity to do just that.
Mr President, Commissioner, the most important issue of the negotiations of the Millennium Round were the grass-root reactions.
It was the first time that protests on that scale have been held in the United States since the war in Vietnam.
The awakening of people' s movements all over the world proves the objection to the principles of the World Trade Organisation.
Indeed, trade liberalisation, the abolishment of subsidies, free investments, the commercialisation of services, even education, health and cultural services, serve the major interests of the monopolies to increase their profit margins. However, it is not at all appealing for the workers or the people.
Even the much-publicised complete abolition of tariffs on products from poorer countries will precipitate the pillaging of wealth of those countries, while on the other hand it will deluge the market with cheap products replacing corresponding products from countries such as mine.
The World Trade Organisation was not formed to protect the interests of workers and the people, the proof of which lies in the fact that the main decision-makers are the few wealthy countries and in the widening of inequalities between rich and poor countries, and also within those countries.
The Commissioner made no mention of the grass-root reactions.
Obviously, he wants to downplay them, and tell us that whatever the people do, the American, European, Japanese monopolies and the rest will impose their will and overcome these reactions together.
We are certain that the grass-root reactions all over the world were probably the sole cause of the failure of these talks not just because the demonstrators thwarted the formal opening ceremony but because they created a climate which cannot be ignored even by those who think they control the world.
And we have only just begun.
Mr President, as has already been said, unfortunately, overall, Seattle was not a great success: the only real participants were the protestors, who, while their demands were supported by many extremely valid grounds, wrongly thought that the failure of the Summit itself would constitute a victory, a solution to the serious problems in question.
In reality, the problems and contradictions of the global economy are still there, unresolved and still relevant: doubts about genetically modified organisms, child labour, the negative social effects of unbridled, unregulated globalisation.
But that is not all: perhaps these protests served as a pretext for the official participants at Seattle - those with the right to sit round the conference table - not to have to fully assume the political responsibility to negotiate, which, although certainly very difficult is absolutely necessary, precisely as regards social rights and safeguarding our citizens' health. These are negotiations that cannot wait any longer.
Of course, we are dealing with a complicated process, but Europe has to be equal to the challenges facing it.
Talks within the World Trade Organisation have to start up again, and Europe has to be very aware of its role, a role of balance and responsibility, with a view to globalisation with a human aspect that is open and welcomes changes and acceleration in the economy but is also able to safeguard equal employment opportunities, the environment and health.
Finally, Europe must not forget to defend our own specific differences, not just economic but also cultural and social, because globalisation that leads to uniformity, levelling out and exploitation must have no place at all in the European growth model.
Mr President, the Seattle negotiations enabled us to see a small political opening up of the European Union' s positions on agriculture as is the case with environmental concerns, food safety and the development of rural communities.
This is nevertheless very little when compared with the very negative aspects that our trade partners are trying to impose on us in the text of the Agenda.
I am referring to two points in particular:
The first was an obsessive reference to the substantial reduction of internal aid for agriculture without taking the slightest account of the diversity of different countries' structures of production and without taking account of an objective and consistent classification of the different types of subsidies allocated to agriculture.
Secondly, and most importantly, the rejection of the idea of multifunctionality which is the main pillar of the European farm model and the basis for upholding the principle of the specific nature of agriculture.
In fact, if this deliberate reference is not featured, it means that agriculture will be treated as a normal economic activity, whilst there is ever greater pressure from our competitors to end any kind of aid obtained and I stress "any kind" .
Now we all know that without special treatment for agriculture we will not be able to guarantee a minimum of Community preference nor as a result, the primary producing role of agriculture.
If the producing role of agriculture comes to an end, then all its other functions or multifunctions will end with it.
This is why it was a good thing that no agreement was reached in Seattle.
In fact, the agreement that was envisaged was very damaging for agriculture and would have left us at the outset in a weakened negotiating position for the future whereas we are now in a stronger position than we ever have been to make an offensive stand in the new Round.
I would like to make two final comments.
Firstly, that it is crucial that the Commission and the Council establish an initiative with developing countries in order to make them our allies.
Secondly, that a joint project with the United States would be extremely useful - as James Elles pointed out - in order to clarify the positions of both parties and to be able then to encourage future understanding.
Mr President, Commissioner Lamy, you rightly referred to many points and I am grateful to my fellow Members for saying how indebted we are to you for the way in which you led the negotiations in Seattle.
This was done with consummate elegance, and I must say that I was present at many press conferences and I also went to the events organised by the non-governmental organisations.
You also explained the European Union's negotiating position and its strategy with the utmost clarity.
I believe that you made it clear that the European Union is in a position not only to take on a leading role in this and the forthcoming world trade round - and that we do not come here as poker players to secure our own interests - but also that we are prepared to bring the other countries, in particular the developing and least developed countries, on board with us.
This message has been heard, and I am proud to have been part of the delegation in Seattle.
But we should not labour under any illusions.
Two things have become apparent: one is that this accumulation of interests is something that we will continue to see in international negotiations in the future, and I should like to endorse the position of many leading economists who are saying that this was just the beginning.
We will see that this conflict of national and regional interests will be even more pronounced in the future than it has been in the past.
Here, of course, it will be important for us not to line up against each other in blocs - the European Union against the United States, the European Union/the United States against the developing countries, or perhaps also some of the developing countries against others - as we have seen in Seattle and also in other contexts.
In the future, it will be much more important for us to adopt a more sophisticated approach with greater emphasis on preparation, so as to make it clear which interests we actually stand for together in these world trade rounds and why we need them: namely to bring globalisation under control, taming the rank growth which would otherwise proliferate without a world trade round, in order to implement a sound strategy to overcome global problems.
The second phenomenon which we saw - and here too, I do not believe that we should have any illusions - was that the interest which civil society showed in the proceedings in Seattle was not only an interest in the world trade round, but also a demonstration against all those things which people do not like.
This started with the healthcare system in the United States.
I spoke to many people on the streets.
The issues ranged from future Chinese participation in the world trade round to the policies pursued in Cuba, and there were many other issues besides.
Increasingly, politicians are being asked to explain - and to do so in greater depth than they have in the past - what the World Trade Organisation actually does and why it exists.
Of course, it also needs to be reformed and to be made more transparent, but it must also be explained better.
Here I am particularly glad that parliamentarians have now been included; other speakers have referred to this.
The role which will fall to us, as a parliamentary forum, in the world trade round will not be easy.
However, I believe that this is the only way to introduce greater democracy into such a complex bureaucratic machine.
Mr President, the official European Union delegation to Seattle defended the principle of a broad agenda.
It received a mandate to include an extensive range of new areas in the Millennium Round, but in fact it intended to grant the WTO an increased range of responsibilities and powers.
As far as we are concerned, it is not a matter of organising the continued extension of free trade better, but of prioritising the defence of social and environmental rights and of enabling all peoples to be self-determining and to decide their own future.
The delegation would also have us believe that they fought for the countries of the south.
But they did nothing of the sort.
As regards agriculture, the European Union defended only European agro-industry exporters against their North American competitors and the exporters of the Cairns Group.
They did not stand up for the demands of European family-run or group-operated farms or the demands of the farmers of the south.
The demonstrators from all over the world who hindered the Seattle conference represent the first counterattack by the world against the dictatorship of markets and financial profits.
They represent a hope for millions of workers, unemployed people and landless agricultural workers, and for all the victims of this capitalist world order that the WTO wishes to force on us.
The interests of the peoples of the world are antithetical to the development of liberalism.
Mr President, in Seattle we experienced the failure of the WTO Conference, but not of the philosophy behind it.
What do we learn from this? Firstly, it makes little sense to meet in countries where an election campaign is underway.
Anyone for whom public opinion at home is more important than international agreements should not be surprised when their guests take an invitation as an invitation to go home.
Secondly, it makes little sense to reduce world trade to the concept of fair; the two concepts of fair and socially balanced need to go hand-in-hand.
The international community is tired of protectionism, barriers to trade and being dictated to by a few global players.
Thirdly, on the other hand it does make sense, in spite of all the differences between delegations, to speak with one voice.
I very much welcome the way in which the Commission conducted itself.
Your morning briefings to us Members of Parliament, Commissioner Lamy, were characterised by openness and a willingness to take account of our views.
The result was that this time the EU sat not in the sin bin, but in the mediator's chair.
Fourthly, it makes sense to work more closely with the NGOs.
However, at their day-long symposium in Seattle they hardly had a chance to speak.
I was forced to realise that only a few people are aware of how close Europe is to them.
Whether it was protecting the environment, animals, health or consumers that was being discussed, the dialogue was broken off before it had had chance to start.
The demonstrations paralysed the conference.
What began as a good-natured event degenerated into a state of siege with a high degree of aggression and violence.
Fifthly, it makes sense also to deal with controversial matters.
The taboos of today can be workable compromises tomorrow.
Admittedly the subjects have to be handled sensitively.
The American President's statement that if labour standards were not implemented then sanctions might be imposed was far from helpful.
This reached us conference participants not by chance but by design.
The EU will, however, be capable of winning a majority on the proposal for a permanent WTO and ILO forum, on questions of fundamental rights and on rules of the social market economy.
Despite Seattle, therefore, there are definitely grounds for hope.
Mr President, in Seattle it was not possible to dispel the underlying disquiet with the world trade situation.
Many non-governmental organisations spoke of a victory being won in Seattle.
Many of the ACP countries spoke of a victory being won for their cause in Seattle.
If we are talking in terms of victories then I have only one thing to say: nothing was won in Seattle except time, and as yet it is completely unclear to us how little time we have to devote to this matter.
The issue which we need to address is the underlying disquiet.
The fact that worldwide the environmental and social situation has not taken a turn for the better concerns us.
At the weekend, I attended a symposium with non-governmental organisations, with farmers' representatives from Honduras and employees' representatives from South America.
All of them - all - were extremely unhappy with the situation.
This did serve to show me, however, that what we actually wanted out of this world trade round was not at all clear and transparent either.
Hand on our heart then, if we glance through the newspapers, we realise that even within the European Union our concerns - whether related to environmental policy, social policy or the core labour standards - were portrayed as protectionist; even at home in the European Union we were not able to communicate our concerns, let alone within the group of States of the World Trade Organisation. One lesson which we should draw from this would be to find answers to the following questions: how do we integrate parliamentarianism with the concerns of the non-governmental organisations?
How do we handle the new sensitive situation in which people are starting to fight back? How do we make this work?
What platform can we offer for it? I believe that we have laid the best foundation for successful future cooperation within the European Union, within the European Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, I am not going to reiterate what has already been said.
The WTO is a failure in its present form because the WTO is no longer appropriate nor is it transparent.
The first lesson we must draw is in fact the one the NGOs were demanding, i.e. there must be fair trade, not free trade, and in this respect, we must realise that nowadays no international organisation can escape the watchful eye of the citizen and that this is to be expected.
The next deadline is already quite close.
Geneva must not be allowed to go stealthily by.
We, of course, have Marrakech, we, of course, have no obligation to achieve results, but we must remain vigilant in order to ensure that separate agreements on agriculture and services do not allow the things we shut the door on to get in by the back door.
One of the lessons of Seattle, and Commissioner Lamy started to draw conclusions, is that we must find allies.
We do, admittedly, already have a few allies.
The most important ones will no doubt be, as Paul Lannoye emphasised, the ACP countries.
To take European agriculture as an example, it cannot go on saying that it is doing fine, that it is multifunctional, that it is operating in a positive way, that it will henceforth protect its consumers, while at the same time maintaining a selfish attitude with regard to the countries of the south.
In order to be heard, we must find the resources to enable these poorest countries to also have quality food, and quality products.
The whole world today has the right to show solidarity and to have the resources to live better, to get out of this state of international self-centredness.
Mr President, Commissioner - or should I refer to you, Commissioner Lamy, as the number one negotiator at the WTO talks? - the United States has shown that it was not capable of assuming the leading role at the WTO negotiations.
Europe is the biggest exporter in the world - around 22% of exports traded on the world market come from Europe.
For us this means that we have a clear responsibility to take the lead on world trade.
It is said that without trade there is no prosperity.
To combat world poverty is a genuine and honourable undertaking.
At the end of the day, trade is a source of wealth.
One of our major aims in WTO negotiations is, ultimately, also to guarantee good health into old age.
Health is not unrelated to the life sciences and biotechnology.
I believe that we should not shy away from a debate in this sector; we should not be too cowardly also to discuss the advantages of biotechnology and the life sciences in the WTO context.
We should state clearly what is of use to us and what is damaging.
We should fight against those things which are damaging, but we should also give unambiguous support to those things which are of use to us.
Some organisational aspects also need to be contended.
We need framework rules which do not accord preferential treatment to one side.
The reform also needs to incorporate a change at ministerial level.
In the light of the principle of unanimity, we need perhaps a round of the M7 - the seven most important importing and exporting countries - so that they can sit down together and reach a preliminary decision.
We need a round of parliamentarians, perhaps with a majority voting system, and thirdly we need the non-governmental organisations, who ought to play a leading advisory role in particular in the social dialogue with the Economic and Social Committee.
Mr Lamy, I am glad that you are taking on the position of leader.
Make it clear that Europe is the number one player in world trade!
Mr President, I shall not now echo the compliments paid to Mr Lamy or he will start to blush.
I take it that he is aware that this House is also grateful for the part he played and for the way in which he involved the European Parliament delegation.
With your permission, I shall comment on the consequences of the failure of this ministerial conference.
What conclusions should we draw in terms of continuing the work? One thing is certain: whether there is another ministerial conference now or whether work has to proceed on a step-by-step basis, never again can another working round be allowed to open without there being a clear agenda which has been put to the vote and agreed.
This must surely be one of the consequences.
If we are now to continue the work solely on the basis of Article 20 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, what then are our responsibilities under the agreement? I am convinced that they are perfectly obvious: Article 20 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture contains the condition that, amongst other things, non-trade-related concerns are also to be taken into account.
For this reason, at every step, at all the negotiations, the precautionary principle must be constantly reiterated; it must be put repeatedly on the agenda as if this were a Tibetan prayer wheel.
Each of the speakers here keeps repeating the words: consumer protection, precautionary principle and environment policy, but then we also need to make this clear.
We also need to make it clear that environmental standards and food safety are often hotly disputed here, that it is only with difficulty that we achieve this here in the European Union, that the legislation is controversial, and that if we have adopted it, it is because of our responsibility to the people of the European Union - to whom we are accountable as elected parliamentarians - and not for reasons of tactical protectionism.
We also need to make this clear.
From now on, it must go without saying that extending individual parts of the WTO rules or overhauling them completely can only be possible once this institution is at long last democratic, once it is transparent and once it is less authoritarian.
Perhaps the failure of this first WTO Ministerial Conference is also a huge blessing in disguise because the arrogance and lack of democracy has been exposed and now we have an opportunity to change it.
The time is right to do so!
Mr President, we should not be too worried about allowing a Commissioner to bask in the glory of congratulations from the European Parliament.
It is a rare occasion so he should enjoy it.
As he suggests, we should be looking forward rather than backward now.
We should welcome talk of modernisation and reform of the WTO and the recognition that we need seriously to modify the perception that is held elsewhere of the protectionist stance of the industrialised world.
A key objective for us must be for all 135 members of the WTO to have a part to play in that process of reform as well as what goes on afterwards.
I can confirm that 30 members did not have the capacity or the ability to go to Seattle.
My abiding memory was of the sense of exclusion felt by developing countries.
They all remained adamant throughout that there was a great deal of post-Uruguay Round unfinished business - on textiles and agriculture in particular - that needed to be addressed.
I was heartened by the fact that three-quarters of the WTO members could no longer be ignored.
It was they who were able to call a halt.
Should we be surprised that they wanted to do that on the grounds that they have only 0.4% of the share of world trade? There are choices: either we allow globalisation to roll on without guidance or we rein it in to ensure that it brings benefits to all.
We have an opportunity to address the concerns raised in Seattle.
That means identifying the problems and then acting.
Of course, we did have the difficulty of the 135-page draft you took with you to Seattle, upon which you have no broad agreement, so it was hardly surprising that difficulties were encountered.
At the end of the week, the developing countries were simply not prepared to accept a "done deal" made in secret rooms by the big players.
Of course we recognise the fact that we need a rules-based system to regulate world trade but let us see more openness, let us see more and better ways of achieving and building global consensus.
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank all the men and women among you who gave me their support both during the Conference and today.
I am particularly appreciative of this, since I think it is a method and style of working rather than personality which is involved, and this method of working is one that will prove useful in future.
In any case, the conclusion that I draw is that this is the way forward.
I shall now make a few comments about the essential points.
Firstly, as many of you have said, this failure at Seattle was probably a source of disappointment primarily to developing countries.
If we acknowledge this fact, which I believe is now proven, looking back on it a week later, it is thus once the liberalisation of trade has been decided, managed and brought under control, that developing countries see the value it has for them, and no doubt they consider it better for them than the status quo with the development of bilateral relations which do not work in their favour.
I believe that this is worth thinking about for the future, and is certainly something that we need to think about.
My second comment concerns the institutional business of the WTO.
I do not belong to that group of people which believes that this is where the main problem lies.
I do, however, believe that part of the problem lies here.
We should not be reinventing the wheel, admittedly, but what use is it if it has stopped turning properly? Let us at least take action to get the wheel turning again, or to adjust the load it is carrying.
I think that this is the main thing, while taking account, as I believe the Commission is doing, of the extreme difficulties in getting 135 contractual parties to agree on an institutional system which is different to that which currently exists.
A third comment on the environment.
I have listened to and taken in what you have said.
Let us simply be aware that, in this area, we have considerable ambitions in relation to those of the other partners around the WTO table.
Everyone can understand why developing countries may have a less ambitious environmental agenda to our own.
But that the United States should have an environmental agenda less ambitious than our own, as is the case, is something which definitely presents us with a more difficult problem, for if neither developing countries nor the Americans agree with our agenda, we shall then have great difficulty in moving it forward.
I believe that is something worth thinking about.
I stick to our credo, the Council conclusions, and the mandate which I was given.
We must still, however, be quite aware that all this will not prove easy and that it will be necessary, at some point, either to be more convincing or to be more active.
I now come to my fourth and penultimate comment.
Like many of you, I believe that it is now towards developing countries that we should direct our efforts to convince and our ability to form alliances.
This will require persuasion, political effort and the presentation of arguments. Without doubt, it will also require some additional work which we shall have to think about.
I am not currently in a position right to outline this support, but it is certain that these additional efforts will have to involve the increased opening up of our markets to developing countries.
I believe it is not worth discussing this at length until the details are clearer, but I know too that as soon as the details do become clearer then enormous problems will arise.
We shall have to think about this, and, when the time comes, present our proposals on the subject to the Council and Parliament.
In concluding, I shall mention the issue of transparency.
Yes, Seattle was a transparent event.
One might reflect at length as to whether the fact that intense media activity, as there was at Seattle, always coincides with active transparency.
Personally, I must tell you that just occasionally I feel some doubt and a little unease as to this coincidence, which we all too often try to perceive, between a massive media presence and active transparency.
Leaving that aside, in Seattle the WTO was, nonetheless, subjected to an ordeal of transparency for which it was obviously not prepared.
If that was the case then so much the better.
What we have to say regarding liberalisation, globalisation, our own concept of it and the question as to whether it is good or bad for the citizens you represent and to whom we are accountable, well, that is so much the better.
This debate is one that I am happy to see take place in public.
I think, as a number of you have said, that Europe has a stake in this debate since, as far as it is concerned and in this area, it is accustomed to it: why not share the benefit of our experience?
(Loud applause)
Thank you very much, Commissioner Lamy.
I have received six motions for resolutions, pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 p.m.
The debate is closed.
Annual Report of the Court of Auditors
The next item is the presentation of the Annual Report of the Court of Auditors.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to present today the European Court of Auditors' Annual Report concerning the financial year 1998, one of the fundamental elements of the discharge procedure.
The discharge of the 1998 accounts is undertaken in a context very different to previous years.
Our institutions have been both protagonists in and witnesses of major events on the European scene.
For the first time the European Commission has resigned during its term of office and for the first time management and control of European funds have been put in the forefront of political attention.
The European Union suffers from a fundamental problem inherent to a period of growth.
The Commission structure has not evolved in parallel with the increasing variety of Community policies and funds that have to be implemented.
As the reports of the Committee of Independent Experts clearly state: the Commission's organisation, staffing and procedures have become obsolete and are unable to deliver the policies with the expected high degree of efficiency and accountability.
This failure brings about financial management and control weaknesses which have persistently been reported by the Court of Auditors.
I believe that there is a general consensus on these observations.
The crucial corollary is, in my view, that all European institutions and the Member States share responsibility for this situation and consequently that we have to work together to improve it.
To this effect and as part of its contribution, the Court addressed a letter to President Prodi, when he was still President-elect Prodi, on 15 July this year, drawing his attention to those basic improvements that we, the members of the Court of Auditors, considered to be the most essential.
They involve making policy performance possible to assess, enhancing the structures of control, drawing up simple and more consistent financial and accounting regulations and finally managing staff more efficiently.
The special reports and opinions adopted by the Court during the year in the Court's 1998 Annual Report submitted to Parliament provide additional evidence to corroborate this analysis.
As you have seen, the report that you now have in your hands contains the statement of assurance for the 1998 financial year.
In response to the requests of this Parliament, the Court has expanded its work with the statement of assurance.
It now provides additional information per sector of revenue and expenditure in each chapter, which should make the report more useful in assessing the particular situation in each field.
The global conclusions in the 1998 statement of assurance do not differ substantially from previous years.
Firstly, the court is of the opinion that, overall, the accounts reliably reflect the Community's revenue and expenditure and the financial situation at the end of the year, subject, however, to certain qualifications concerning the omissions of debts and potential liabilities, overstatements of outstanding commitments and the presentation of advances as definite payments.
Secondly, the Court declines to give a positive statement on the legality and regularity of the transactions underlying the Commission's payments.
The audit revealed a material incidence of error which affected the amount of payments made or the eligibility of the transactions financed.
The audit also showed other failures to comply with regulations.
Although these do not have a direct effect on the amounts of the transactions they often indicate a failure to apply control procedures properly.
The Court found a significant number of errors when checking the final beneficiaries of subsidies.
This demonstrates that, not only the Commission, but also the Member States still have problems in the administration and control of the Community programmes.
The Commission and the Member States are now embarked on a reform of the major areas of expenditure, notably agriculture, structural funds and the PHARE programme.
Real progress will depend on far-reaching fundamental changes in the Member States' system also and in many cases, in Council regulations.
The observations concerning the activities of the sixth, seventh and eighth European Development Funds are, in this Annual Report, presently separated along with a separate statement of assurance.
The audit revealed failures to comply with the EDF regulations and errors affecting the amount of payments made.
Apart from these points, however, the Court is of the opinion that the European Development Fund accounts are reliable and the underlying transactions legal and regular.
Under these circumstances, in most of the areas of expenditure the Court has identified Community policies and programmes that are imprecisely designed and cannot be properly evaluated.
Under these circumstances, actions cannot be correctly planned and the resources needed cannot be accurately estimated.
That leads to poor results and the squandering of funds.
For example, in our Special Report No 2/99 on the effects of the Community agricultural policy reform in the cereal sector, the Court observed that there is no evidence that the reduction of institutional prices has brought significant benefits to the consumer nor that the reform has improved the position of small farmers.
Since the policies and programmes lack clear and measurable targets in terms of output and costs, it is not possible to assess the extent to which policy goals have been attained and whether value for money has been obtained.
Faute de mieux, the prime indicator of financial performance commonly used is the extent to which the appropriations allocated in the budget have been utilised and not whether they are efficiently and effectively spent.
That confirms the persistence of the "spending culture" within the Community, more concerned with the volume of expenditure than with its quality.
I underline that this is about the Community as a whole.
At the same time, evaluation is not consistently applied and rarely results in concrete corrective action.
This is the case, for example, of the mid-term evaluation of the structural measures where the methodological framework remains inadequate and relevant indicators are lacking.
The Commission should ensure a proper link between evaluation results and programming.
The 1998 annual report again reveals weaknesses in the three layers of the Community's financial control: at the Commission; in the Member State systems; and in the Commission's supervision of Member States' systems.
The Commission's internal control did not prevent the cases of mismanagement and irregularities that have recently been uncovered.
At the same time the internal audit function is carried out in an uncoordinated way by several bodies.
The Court's audit of the 1998 accounts has found cases where the internal control failures have led to ineligible costs being financed by the Commission, overcharging, backdating contracts or an absence of supporting documentation.
These have adversely affected the Court's statement of assurance, notably in the area of internal policies.
Nor can Member States' control systems be relied on to prevent errors.
In the area of structural measures the Court has detected a high incidence of errors with regard to the final recipients of the Community aid and the public bodies managing the funds.
The most common errors are financing ineligible transactions, overpayments, breaching tendering or state aid rules and insufficient supporting documentation.
They indicate that Member States urgently need to reinforce their control systems.
According to the Treaty, in those areas where management is shared with the Member States, the Commission has the responsibility to supervise and ensure that national control systems are adequate.
The Court's audit in 1998 reveals shortcomings in supervisory activity.
The Commission also needs to step up its supervision of bodies implementing Community funds on its behalf, such as the European Investment Bank and the European Investment Fund.
As noted in the Court's Special Report No 3/99 on the management and control of interest-rate subsidies, on occasions the Commission had little knowledge of the projects or of the final beneficiaries.
The Commission has now embarked on a process of administrative reform which should embrace fundamental improvements in financial control both at the Commission and in the Member States.
As Parliament knows, the Court has already pointed out in Opinion No 4/97, on one of the Commission's proposed revisions of the financial regulation, that the role of the various officials responsible for control should be redefined.
In particular, the authorising officer must be responsible for checking the regularity, the quality and effectiveness of the measures undertaken.
A genuine, independent audit function should be introduced.
Its purpose should be to check the way the control structures set up by the managing departments work and to ensure that they are satisfactory.
Management and control of Community programmes are being decentralised from the Commission to national authorities and other intermediaries.
This should be accompanied by development of management information and accounting systems, which would enable the Commission to exercise proper supervision to detect errors and cases of misadministration promptly.
Where national systems of management and control are found inadequate, the flow of funds could be halted until remedial action has been taken.
Currently, the Commission is preparing a global revision of the Financial Regulation.
This exercise must be carried out with care and vision even if it means extending the duration of related work.
As I have already said, when presenting the annual report to the Committee on Budgetary Control, the Commission should increase its effort to simplify its financial and accounting regulations and procedures.
They should be aimed at facilitating and speeding up operations while maintaining the required degree of control.
Improved management also requires mastery of human resources.
The Commission's staffing is a general problem that the Court has frequently highlighted.
The 1998 annual report again draws attention to shortcomings in this matter.
The Commission, like any other efficient organisation, needs a flexible staffing policy which will allow it to recruit, allocate and redeploy its staff better, taking account of the numbers and skills of staff needed for specific activities.
In the meantime, the Commission should ensure that it accepts no additional responsibilities without sufficient personnel being made available.
As regards the protection of the financial interests of the Community, this year has been marked by the establishment of the European Fraud Investigation Office, OLAF, in which the Court's opinion and reports have played a certain role.
The Court will continue to work closely with OLAF while at the same time continuing to examine the way in which it carries out its duties.
I would like to recall that the Treaty requires Member States to cooperate with the Commission to ensure that funds are used in accordance with principles of sound financial management and to take the same measures to counter fraud against the Community budget as are taken to protect national financial interests.
However, only one Member State has fully ratified the conventions and the related protocols signed in 1995 and 1997 on the protection of the European Communities' financial interests and on fighting corruption.
Only three other Member States have done so partially.
I have now presented to you the Court of Auditors' annual report for 1998.
The audit findings confirm that the financial management culture urgently needs to be changed.
It is indispensable to set measurable policy objectives and evaluate performance against these; to seek for efficiency and effectiveness; to transform the Commission's internal audit function and to reinforce Member State controls; to find better ways of ensuring legality, regularity and value for money; to simplify the financial rules and stick to sound budgetary and accounting principles; to promote accountability; to adopt the necessary measures to allow the recruitment and allocation of staff according to needs; to sustain reform.
Implementing all these measures will take time.
I am convinced that the new Commission is determined to achieve this change, which is needed for the success of future enlargement of the Union.
By speeding up the enlargement process the Commission has given us the task of speeding up reform.
The other European Community institutions and the Member States are consequently called upon to collaborate.
On behalf of the European Court of Auditors, I can assure you that the Court will contribute to this initiative in a constructive manner.
Mr President, I welcome the fact that at last, we are discussing this report.
I would condemn the other groups for not allowing us to discuss this in November: That was a wrong decision.
It was outrageous that we did not allow the Court to have a press conference.
We lost the opportunity of an important public platform.
I was also extremely disappointed that the President of the Court of Auditors did not remain in Brussels earlier this month.
The report proves beyond all doubt that the reform process is long overdue.
We need radical reforms if we are to see improvement of a very serious situation.
This is the fifth time the Commission has not given a statement of assurance and it is clear that the Commission needs to understand that it is engaged in reform and it will be judged not by its words and its reports, but by its actions.
It is clear that in efforts to reform itself, the Commission needs to concentrate not on where the money is spent but the extent to which policy goals are met, and that with a minimum cost.
As Mr Karlsson said, we need to tackle the spending culture.
That means we need clear, precise and measurable goals from the Commission.
In my own country of Wales we receive significant money from the structural funds, but the line between creating a job and safeguarding a job is unclear and therefore it is difficult for us to assess how effective those structural funds have been.
The Commission needs to make fundamental improvements to its own internal control mechanisms.
One of the main problems, highlighted again, is that of passing the buck.
Nobody is taking responsibility and the responsibility for spending money well is shared between too many people.
That clearly needs to be reformed.
We expect to see rigorous new management and control systems in the forthcoming reform.
In particular, we need to see a reform of the Financial Regulation.
But let us not forget that over 85% of the money that comes from the EU budget is spent within the Member States and they need to put their own house in order.
Human resources is also an issue which clearly needs to be addressed.
This report has vindicated the forced resignation of a sloppy, slapdash Commission and revealed a catalogue of irresponsibility by Member States who are prepared to criticise but not act on fraud and irregularities.
The new Commission is heading in the right direction and we hope that we will see an end to these kinds of reports.
We can put them behind us once we see an improvement in terms of the reform process.
I should like to finish by putting a clear question to Mr Karlsson: does he personally think there is anything specific in the 1998 report which should stop Parliament from granting discharge?
Mr President, Mr Karlsson, this Annual Report demonstrates that the supervision of EU expenditure still leaves a great deal to be desired.
To a large extent, the problem lies with the Member States, but the Commission should not hide behind this fact.
The Court of Auditors is right to point out that the Commission must ensure that any shortcomings on the part of the Member States are properly dealt with.
What is more, the Commission' s housekeeping has a lot to answer for too.
It is most revealing that the highest percentage of material incidences of error has been detected within the internal management department.
After all, it is the Commission itself that has exclusive responsibility for financial management within this department.
The Annual Report underlines once again that we must work out, in structural terms, what the added value of the various European programmes amounts to.
Up until now, the Commission has focused too heavily on high levels of expenditure.
There has been little or no testing of effectiveness on the basis of clearly measurable policy objectives.
The Commission must also keep a closer eye on whether individual projects abide by general community objectives.
Accordingly, we must call an immediate halt to financing from structural funds projects that are at odds with objectives relating to environmental protection.
The Court of Auditors is right to put its finger on this serious problem.
Finally, the whole state of affairs with regard to the leaking of the draft report raises questions as to the independence of the Court of Auditors.
It is right that the Commission should be allowed to inspect the Annual Report before publication so as to correct any factual errors beforehand. But did the Commission confine itself to this?
Or is it true that the Court of Auditors toned down the report under pressure from the Commission? In order to clear this up, the European Parliament ought, in the process of the discharge procedure, to analyse the differences between the draft report and the definitive report in detail and assess them on their merits.
Mr President, although I welcome the Court of Auditors' report, which is extremely useful and which this Chamber should support, because in so doing, we will be supporting Europe as a whole, I cannot avoid mentioning the unease caused by the fact that some of the media have recently leaked partial and biased versions of the report. Mr Karlsson, this is something that apart from causing our citizens, officials and institutions unnecessary harm, gives the impression that the Court of Auditors is a political body that is accountable to the electors through public opinion.
These leaks, Mr Karlsson, do not occur in the great majority of the Courts of Auditors in the Member States or in the European regions.
Therefore, it should not be impossible for you to prevent them either.
It shows a lack of respect for this House and for yourselves, because it shows that those whose duty it is to monitor are not actually monitoring the process itself.
Therefore, Mr Karlsson, if these leaks occur again, my group will demand a reform that goes beyond merely postponing this debate.
Secondly, I would like to say that the problem of the irregularities and of the way the budget has been misused is not a geographical problem, but one that cuts across all divisions.
Here there is no North, South, East or West. There are no rich countries or poor countries.
What we have here is simply a problem of the inadequacy and the misinterpretation of national and Community legislation.
I would like the countries who bear the burden of the effort towards internal economic and social cohesion not to use this kind of argument as, of those countries, it is the countries that receive funds from the European Union that have the most to gain from the effectiveness of this effort.
Finally, I would like to stress the fact that the Commission still intends - as the report that you have presented to us states - to use the degree of use of the financial credits allocated in the annual budget as the main gauge of the success of their financial management.
What the Commission must in fact do is to measure its success by the degree to which it manages to achieve the objectives that it has been given, at the lowest cost.
This change of philosophy is what, by supporting the report that you have presented, we demand of the reform that President Prodi promised this Parliament he would carry out.
Mr President, the 1998 report of the Court of Auditors, which has been debated all over Europe except - until today - in this House, clearly demonstrates the need for the Commission and Member States to redouble their efforts in the fight against fraud.
Both have a duty to ensure that tax-payers' money is well spent.
If we are to keep the people's trust and win their support for the ambitious plans outlined at Helsinki this weekend, three steps are essential.
First, Member States themselves must do more to detect fraud.
Cooperation between the European Court of Auditors and its national counterparts must be strengthened, if necessary by means of legislation.
Second, as Mr Karlsson just made very clear, the Commission's financial management must be improved.
The Commission has announced a programme of reforms.
If these are to be successful they must be radical, comprehensive and based on a very clear timetable.
Third, Parliament must put its own house in order.
We can only be credible as the people's watchdog if the recommendations of the Court of Auditors which relate to this institution are implemented without delay.
Parliament must do everything within its powers to demonstrate that it is serious about eliminating waste.
It is for this very reason that, like many of my colleagues, I shall not be attending tomorrow's opening ceremony of this expensive and obviously flawed building that nobody asked for.
Mr President, for us Socialists, the Court of Auditors is basic to the European Union. That may be seen from the large number of Socialists who are speaking here today.
It is also a very important tool which citizens have for scrutinising and supervising the European Union' s activities and holding it accountable.
As has been said here on a number of occasions, that is also why we were irritated by the fact that the President of the Court of Auditors was not previously able to appear here before Parliament.
At the same time as the annual report of the Court of Auditors was being presented, an incident occurred at the Commission' s official office in Stockholm. It emerged that inadmissible wage payments had been made there.
One wonders how it is going to be possible to keep the whole of the European Union in order if a small office of 20 people cannot be kept in check.
That is where the Court of Auditors comes in.
I should like to say that how this small office and the way in which it has carried out its duties and managed its finances is to be dealt with will be a test of the European Union' s credibility in this context, that is to say of its openness and accountability.
I should like to ask the President of the Court of Auditors, who has visited Stockholm, what impressions he has obtained of the incident there and what measures might be expected to be taken.
Mr President, the Court of Auditors' conclusions resemble those we have seen in many recent years.
It is not possible for them to come up with a positive opinion.
There is a need for the Member States to take greater responsibility.
They administer approximately 80% of the budget and they do not do it particularly well.
I am naturally pleased that Denmark is not singled out for attack this year.
I am a little surprised, however, that the Court of Auditors should again have volunteered a remark about the feta issue.
In fact, that matter was closed a long time ago.
In February, Mr Kinnock will be submitting a proposal for a reform of the Commission.
This is perhaps one of the things we are to be tackling.
One of the most important changes concerns the staff culture.
It happens too rarely that employees are suspended or fired if they are incompetent or corrupt.
There does exist the opportunity to dismiss incompetent employees on the basis of Article 52 of the staff regulations.
This Article ought to be made use of, and in general it never is.
This practice ought therefore to be changed.
If we are to stamp out irregularities and fraud, we need to change the staff culture and the tendency for people' s being able to get away with murder if they have the right friends to cover for them.
We should be cleaning up our act after previous scandals.
What signals are being sent out to future leaders of the Commission if those responsible for the scandals can just carry on in good jobs? In this way, we shall never see a positive opinion from the Court of Auditors.
We need to put our house in order following the mistakes of the past, both internally within the Commission and also in the Member States.
Mr President, it is also an historic day today in so far as we for once witnessed one of our colleagues seeing the light, namely Mr Dell' Alba.
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, ladies and gentlemen, to use taxpayers' money in accordance with clear political priorities and in accordance with principles of economy and efficiency are objectives which all those who deal with a public budget should be determined to achieve, and these are the objectives which the new Commission is determined to achieve.
The Court of Auditors has the task of checking to see whether these objectives are met; it has the task of ascertaining whether public funds are being managed in accordance with the provisions of the Financial Regulation, and it tells the Commission what changes need to be made to ensure proper financial management.
In its report on the 1998 financial year, the Court of Auditors has explained in how many areas urgent changes need to be made.
And Mr Bösch, I am not aware of any statement by the new Commission saying that we had found it reassuring that once again the statement of assurance could not be made.
On the contrary, we said that it is disturbing - as has also been stressed here - that for the fifth time the regularity of the payments effected could not be confirmed.
That is why the Commission will, of course, also be setting about implementing these changes with vigour.
In some areas, changes have already been put in train by the old Commission; this is the case with the Structural Funds, for example.
For the new aid period there will be new rules governing the financial steps which the Commission can take if the provisions under which grants are awarded and implemented are infringed.
President Karlsson emphasised in his speech that wide-ranging reforms are necessary in order to achieve better financial management.
I am, therefore, very pleased that the Commission is resolutely planning a process of reform and is committed to pursuing it.
I should like to mention three components of the reform, which are of great significance for financial management.
The first is activity-based budgeting.
In the future, beginning with the 2001 budget, it is intended that when the EU budget is drawn up, it should more closely reflect political priorities than has been the case in the past, and that the decisions on priorities should not only affect operating appropriations but also the required staff appropriations, so that more staff are deployed in the areas of political priority.
The second key aspect of the reform is strengthening the financial responsibility of all the departments which administer EU funds.
The Commission will adopt the approach which has long since been advocated by Parliament, which Mr Karlsson has also outlined once again just now and which I also announced in my written answers to parliamentary questions in August.
This consists of devolving responsibility for financial control to the departments in charge of the spending programmes, thus decentralising and at the same time increasing the level of financial responsibility in the administrative departments which effect the expenditure.
The third important component is amending the Financial Regulation.
A new, extensively amended version is required and work on this is underway.
It will take account of very many of the Court of Auditors' criticisms, including, for example, the issue of recording advance payments and final payments separately in the accounts.
It will be an important step towards greater transparency across the accounting system.
I should also like briefly to comment on the premature publication of the Court of Auditors' report and the anger felt about this in Parliament.
I think that we should reflect together on the timetable for publication and the debate in Parliament.
In my opinion, it is right for there to be an interval of time between publication and the debate here in this House, so that all Members are able to familiarise themselves with the full report beforehand.
I think it is a matter of urgency to initiate a consultation procedure here so that a better solution can be found.
Mr President, Mr President of the Court of Auditors, ladies and gentlemen, it is my intention to go through the Court of Auditors' report sector by sector with the departments, and, above all, with the Member States, and to find out why the mistakes were made in the first place. Who ought to have acted differently?
What instruments are available to avoid mistakes of this kind being made in the future, and how quickly can improvements be achieved?
A systematic follow-up of this kind is essential. I will do my utmost to implement this kind of systematic follow-up and I am very pleased that the Commission has decided - as part of its reform package on financial management - to formalise the structure of this systematic follow-up, so that in the future the observations of the Court of Auditors really can be used to improve financial management, and I would ask the European Parliament to support this comprehensive project of reform.
Thank you very much, Mr Karlsson, President of the Court of Auditors.
The debate is closed.
(The sitting was suspended at 8.20 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
Socrates (second phase)
The next item is the report (A5-0097/1999) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the European Parliament delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text approved by the Conciliation Committee for a European and Council decision establishing the second phase of the Community action programme in the field of education, 'Socrates' (C5-0267/1999 - 1998/0195(COD)).
Mr President, I would firstly like to congratulate Parliament and the Commission for having brought the conciliation to a successful conclusion.
I do not, however, wish to congratulate the Council because I feel that there has been no response from the Council in terms of the generosity needed for future programmes.
Therefore, I would like to congratulate the two main protagonists though because they have furthermore ensured that everything will function normally in January and the budgets are ready for the start of the meetings.
In this context however, I would like to say a few words which should be included in the Minutes rather than disappear into thin air.
I would like to talk about a problem that I observed throughout the negotiation: that of the difficult, complex and rather vague concept of culture and education that most of the European Union' s institutions seem to hold.
I shall highlight some of the contradictions.
Strangely, the educational and cultural programmes tend to be fully agreed on, to be voted for most enthusiastically by all parties, and yet, these are, nevertheless, the programmes that receive the worst treatment in budgetary terms.
This is the first contradiction.
On the other hand, the cultural programmes, and specifically "Socrates" , are the ones that benefit the most people and, moreover, involve few intermediaries.
"Socrates" directly reaches those who gain from it.
We are not talking about lobbies here, but about people who are benefiting from something that is by no means a subsidy, but a life-long investment.
On the other hand, this is a budget that accumulates and attracts broad cooperation from all countries.
For the "Socrates" programme for example, the European Union only pays 10% in my country, Spain.
The rest is made up by the institutions, the Spanish State and the families themselves.
We can see then that there is an 80% increase in all educational programmes in general. What do I mean by this?
Simply that we have wasted a great deal of money on education.
If the Council had been more generous, many institutions and individuals would have put money on the table.
I would like to say something else that I think is important: education cannot be guided by the principle of subsidiarity alone.
Does the exchange of educational methods affect the principle of subsidiarity? Can getting to know another country, understanding it and experiencing it be considered an attack on the principle of subsidiarity?
Countries will never be able to implement the Socrates programme on their own.
This is a programme that transcends and surpasses the stature of individual nations.
That is its greatness, its power and its strength, and that is why everyone believes in it to the extent that we can speak of thousands of good results.
Above all though, there is one result that must never be forgotten: the capability for cohesion and unity that this programme gives us.
Mr President, I think that we have already heard much about the opportunities and possibilities which the Socrates programme will offer us over the next seven years.
I do not believe, however, that we have fully discharged our responsibilities here for the near future.
Precisely the opposite is true.
Now the countries, but also the European Union, are asked to implement this programme so that we can see, above all, how it develops over the next two to two and a half years and so that we can make adjustments to it and alter or reassess various aspects where it proves to be necessary.
I am convinced that it provides an opportunity for young people in Europe and that it is proof that Europe must not only be a Europe of figures and economics, but that education and culture actually form the foundation stone on the basis of which we understand each other and regions - as diverse as their cultures are - complement each other and are tolerant of any differences between them.
In turn, this teaches us to show solidarity with people who are different, who are less well-off and who, above all, have a harder time of it than we do.
I should like to call on all those who have the opportunity to take advantage of the Socrates programme, who are able to use educational opportunities, who are going to be able to continue their education in the future, who contribute to Europe growing together, also to recognise in the course of their education that we are setting a fast pace at the moment in our process of development and in all our programmes, that there are those who cannot match this pace, and that we should take them by the hand and take them with us because quality, standards and education also require us not to sideline those who are weaker than ourselves.
Mr President, Commissioner, the future belongs to the young.
This well-known [Dutch] expression perfectly embodies the spirit of the Socrates programme.
Europe is the future and in order to achieve this future, we need the young.
They need to get to know each other and gain an understanding of each other' s cultures and how better can this be achieved than by studying together, having fun together and by learning each other' s languages. In this way, we can achieve more understanding and solidarity among the young within the European Union.
Mr President, this is important now but this will certainly be important in the future too, with a view to enlargement.
I would therefore like to touch upon two additional aspects which have been highlighted in a conciliation.
Firstly, I am delighted that we have finally managed to convince the Council of the fact that more funding should be made available for such an important and successful programme.
This is mainly thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Pack, who I could not praise enough for her commitment and tenacity, in particular, and also you, of course, Mrs Reding, for the intelligent and frank remarks you contributed.
It was not easy to make the Council see that, in view of the pending enlargement, this programme will be used a great deal more.
But governing is all about anticipation and this means that, if necessary, the programme should be able to be adapted sooner if more countries would like to take part in it.
I would hate to exclude the young from candidate countries.
Secondly, I am pleased that the selection procedures for the projects too have been somewhat simplified, but there is more room for improvement.
I hear many complaints about the fact that the application procedure is both complicated and lengthy.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like firstly to thank all those who have fought so hard.
My personal thanks go in particular to Mrs Pack, who has been the driving force behind the fight for our cause in the Conciliation Committee.
In Germany we have a proverb which says that you live and learn.
I am glad that a few years ago this concept was enshrined in the policy: now we call it lifelong learning.
The importance of education, whether it be quantitative or qualitative, general or subject-specific, is sufficiently well known to us all.
We are also now laying the foundation stones for the future of Europe.
In my opinion, Socrates is one of the most important building blocks.
I only need to mention mobility and European educational policy.
With your permission, I will draw your attention to one module which caters for cultural diversity: Action 4 or "Lingua".
Here, I should like to place particular emphasis on less widely spoken and less widely taught languages.
I call on the Council to take on this responsibility and not to confine its support for attractive policies of culture or lifelong learning to election campaigns, but to assume full responsibility for this task.
Mr President, Commissioner, I think that we need to congratulate Mrs Pack, the rapporteur, for her work on the second stage of the Socrates programme.
I would also like to thank the whole of the European Parliament delegation which, with a lot of patience and determination, secured an increase in the financial provision of at least EUR 300 million.
This is a valuable resource for our young people, who have great confidence in the educational and training potential of this programme.
I will take this opportunity though, to remind the House that whether or not Socrates will be completely successful depends largely on the publicity this programme will be given within the individual Member States and the speed of the selection process.
Indeed, many European young people often complain of the difficulty of finding timely information on the programmes that concern them.
More widespread information and less red tape will certainly ensure real equal opportunities and more democratic access to the programme.
In this way, young people, above all, those least well-off and most disadvantaged will be able to consider Socrates as a chance for integration, for cultural enrichment and professional training, but above all, as a chance to have personal experiences and life experiences, in order to gain the flexibility and open-mindedness necessary to address, in the best way, employment challenges in the world of work: this is why SOCRATES is an important investment for the young people of Europe.
Mr President, the results achieved by the Socrates programme are indeed impressive.
In all, 500 000 students have spent time studying in another Member State as part of their course.
110 000 young people have taken part in exchanges.
Overall, 1 500 universities and over 10 000 schools throughout the European Union have participated in this programme over the last four years.
Parliament and the Commission wanted to build on this success for the years 2000 to 2007.
The younger generation should have the opportunity not only to continue being involved in Europe but to become more involved.
Above all though, young people in the applicant countries should have the opportunity to take part in the new programme on an equal footing from the very beginning.
It is certainly hard to understand why the Council - which extended such a warm invitation a few days ago in Helsinki - denied the young people of Europe the funding which we considered necessary in the Conciliation Committee.
That is why my particular thanks go to the rapporteur, Mrs Pack, and Commissioner Reding, who together with the Conciliation Committee have squeezed EUR 300 million out of the Council.
I think that the Council can be sure that over the next few years the Commission and Parliament will continue to fight for young people in this way so as to obtain sufficient funds.
Can I first of all thank and congratulate Mrs Pack for leading us through this process, and also the Commission for standing by in what was a hard-fought, long and, in Parliament's view, a responsible negotiation, following which we are very happy to vote for the programme.
We all agree that Socrates I has provided us with a vital building block in the lives of young Europeans.
I have seen young people in areas of particular social exclusion in my own Member State, who did not know very much about the south-east of England, let alone the south-east of France or Spain, blossom and come forth in terms in confidence and educational capacity as a result of their interactions with other students from other Member States.
In terms of the ability of the programme to spearhead the values of Parliament, it is a tremendous success.
Socrates is vital to the expansion of the educational capacity of our young people, not only in terms of their cultural capacity but in terms of their economic foundation as well.
We have seen that it is very much at the frontline when it comes to providing a future for a solid European Union.
We will benefit from the experience of Socrates I and the new coherent and comprehensive approach that we will see in Socrates II.
However, our job does not finish there.
In the next few years we have a vital role to play in examining the financial framework and the framework with a view to the enlargement, because that is when we will see the strains on Socrates II and its ability to deal with a new enlarged European Union.
We must provide for those incoming Member States the tremendous opportunities it is currently providing for our students.
Mr President, Socrates II has now arrived, even though it cost a certain amount of effort.
Negotiating with the Council into the early hours of the morning is not always too exciting, but it was worth it this time.
Throughout the process, Mrs Pack has done a lot of good work, and I want to take the opportunity to thank her, just as I want to thank Commissioner Reding for her collaboration.
We have obtained a good Socrates programme containing some sensible initiatives which take account of the fact that the EU is on the brink of enlargement.
As a Dane, I cannot help but comment, in particular, on the Grundtvig initiative.
In Denmark, we have had a distinguished tradition of lifelong learning since the nineteenth century, and it is precisely the poet, priest and co-author of the Danish constitution, N.F.S. Grundtvig, who stands out as one of the founders of the entire folk high school movement in Denmark, a movement which helped educate ordinary people at a time when this was unusual.
The Danish folk high schools also play an important role in offering education to people of all ages.
It is good that we have got ourselves a scheme designed to give a boost to lifelong learning.
It is no secret that, when we insisted to the bitter end in Parliament that the Directive should include a review clause, this was in order to ensure that the programme would also be able to function properly following any enlargement of the European Union.
Mr President, all I can do is warmly recommend people to vote in favour of this report.
In fact, I cannot imagine anyone voting against it.
Mr President, at the outset I would like to commend Mrs Pack and Parliament's delegation to the Conciliation Committee for their dedicated efforts to secure the best agreement on the second phase of the Socrates programme.
But I would have liked to have seen the Council move a lot closer to Parliament's figure of EUR 2,500 million.
I nevertheless welcome the increase on the common position of EUR 300 million.
This means that a total of EUR 1,850 million will be made available over the seven year period of the new programme.
I, like most of my colleagues, am an ardent supporter of the aims of the Socrates programme and have witnessed its benefits to education and to local communities.
Education must always be a priority of spending programmes as it is the way in which we build the future.
If we want the next generation to be enthusiastic European as well as national citizens we must be prepared to put our money where our mouth is and invest in high-quality education.
I particularly welcome the fact that the second phase of Socrates places such an emphasis upon promoting knowledge of EU languages.
As a Member of Parliament representing the largest part of Ireland's Irish-speaking Gaeltacht region I am very pleased to see that this extends to the Irish language which is a Treaty language.
I firmly believe that the granting of financial support for the teaching and learning of Irish and also Luxembourgish sends out the right signals that Parliament clearly and positively supports minority languages.
Mr President, in the end we can thank three people for completing the Socrates programme.
The most credit obviously goes to Mrs Pack.
Maija Rask, the Finnish Minister of Education, also demonstrated passionate feelings during the night' s negotiations to reach conciliation.
And everything was crowned by the diplomatic skills of Renzo Imbeni, chairman of the committee.
It is excellent that we can now adopt this programme, which is so important for the citizens of Europe.
At the same time, I would like to draw attention to the flaws I observed in the handling of multiannual programmes to be approved by means of the codecision procedure.
There was no official cooperation between the Special Committee and the Committee on Budgets with regard to the second reading and conciliation.
This weakens Parliament' s negotiating position, as agreement on the demands of Parliament for the financial perspectives can be called into question.
In my opinion, there should be a review of the procedures with regard to these matters.
Mr President, Commissioner, first of all I should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mrs Pack, and the Members of the Conciliation Committee on their success in the conciliation with the Council.
We have managed to secure an additional EUR 300 million for Socrates.
A further achievement is a review clause which means that in 2004 at the latest, the financial implications of the future accession of applicant countries will be reassessed, and that the Commission will have to submit a report.
Thirdly, we have ensured that the procedure for selecting projects is simplified and shortened.
It has already been said that we wanted more money because we believe that education and continuing education are particularly important for reducing unemployment, creating new jobs and making Europe more attractive to business in terms of its economy, labour market and social conditions, as well as for an effective internal market, a prerequisite for which is a European educational area.
For us, the European Parliament, the creation of a European consciousness - a European identity - and respect for the diversity of cultures, languages, ideas and religions in a unified area are inextricably linked to a proactive educational policy in Europe.
For us, the Socrates programme is a means to add a European dimension to the education on offer in the many different kinds of schools, universities and adult education institutions.
We believe that the mobility measures contained in the Socrates programme foster social skills, language skills and understanding for other cultures.
This programme, though improved in the negotiations, also has weaknesses of course.
One weakness is the low level of funding provided by the European Union, which means that the Member States have to make a significant contribution from national funds if they are to take part.
Applicant countries may take part but often they lack the resources to do so.
Other sources of criticism are the high administrative costs and the lengthy application and selection procedures.
We will make every effort to ensure that more and more young people are able to participate in the Socrates programme, because this programme is an investment in the future.
Mr President, I should like to illustrate the past success of Socrates through soup.
Yes, you heard me correctly.
This was not my idea but the idea of Whitfield Primary School in Dundee, Scotland.
These people came up with a "Soups in Europe" project, working with partner schools in Austria, Denmark, Italy and France.
Their idea was that soup is a common food amongst people and that soup transcends boundaries.
Through this project, which was directly related to the Scottish curriculum, they organised a parents' soup day and, with their other partners, produced a book with 25 soup recipes.
Through soup and the support of Socrates the outcome of this project was more motivated pupils and staff, a greater awareness of their own environment as well as other places, and increased understanding of information communication technology.
I hope that the next Socrates programme produces more projects like that of Whitfield Primary School and maybe the next time you tuck into a bowl of soup, you will remember the educational value Socrates has across the Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Multilateral cooperation in North-East Atlantic fisheries
The next item is the report (A5-0092/1999) by Mr Busk, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation laying down certain control measures applicable in the area covered by the Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in the North-East Atlantic Fisheries (COM(1999) 345 - C5-0201/1999 - 1999/0138(CNS)).
. (DA) Mr President, the aim of the current Commission proposal is to bring Community legislation into line with the recommendations adopted by NEAFC in 1998.
In this way, earlier measures will be incorporated into a comprehensive and reinforced new control scheme designed to ensure respect for the conservation and management policy agreed under the Convention.
The proposal has two main objectives: firstly, a scheme of control and enforcement is to be established for the Contracting Parties; and, secondly, a programme promoting compliance by non-Contracting Party vessels with NEAFC' s regulations is to be carried out.
The recommendations are reminiscent of the rules which are applied within the organisation governing fisheries in the north-west Atlantic, NAFO.
Through consultation and cooperation, NAFO contributes to the optimum utilisation, rational management and conservation of the fisheries resources within this Convention Area.
The Commission has tabled a proposal for converting NEAFC' s recommendations into Community legislation which, in a simplified and coherent way, incorporates all the acquired experience from NAFO and is in keeping with Parliament' s previous position.
The proposal has two aspects to it which ought to be emphasised.
First of all, the implementation of Community policy.
The present proposal contains only the general guidelines for the Community' s initiatives in this area.
It was left to the Commission to adopt the technical aspects after having submitted these to a Management Committee.
Nevertheless, the Commission may be assured that Parliament will closely monitor decisions taken under this procedure, and it will in particular ensure that the same methods for the reporting of catches and fishing effort are applied by all Member States.
Secondly, the financial burden.
When it comes to distributing this, the Commission believes that it is up to the Member States to provide adequate resources to meet their obligations of control within NEAFC.
I would again draw a parallel with NAFO, where inspection and control are funded from the Community budget.
I should like to see increased Community involvement in inspection and control in order to ensure that the rules are applied even-handedly.
Openness and fairness are vital elements in obtaining fishermen' s support, and it is only through obtaining their support that any reinforcement of inspection and control arrangements will really be effective.
Increased Community involvement in the future will naturally have budgetary implications and demand a reallocation of resources.
This ought not however to deflect the Commission from taking the lead in pressing for change or to deter the European Parliament from calling upon the Commission to do so.
Provided that the appropriate increased financial resources are made available, there is no reason why the Community cannot play a much more active role.
The recommendations came into force on 1 July 1999.
They were therefore already binding on the Community before the Commission tabled its proposal on 12 July 1999.
The European Parliament has not therefore had the opportunity to make a contribution to the debate, and I should like, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, to criticise the Commission for this.
This is an outrageous way of going on, to use one of the words employed during the debate in the Committee on Fisheries.
Finally, I should like to emphasise the importance of informing the fishing industry of the purpose of the proposal and of making it clear that the rules are to the industry' s advantage.
Despite the aforementioned reservations and criticism about the timing of the Commission' s proposal, this important legislation should be approved by Parliament without delay.
I congratulate Niels Busk on his report.
Mr Busk is a very sensible member of the Fisheries Committee and I think that Parliament can have confidence in his report.
While I have no hesitation in supporting this important legislation and recommending that it should be improved by Parliament without delay, I nevertheless have two brief comments I would like to make.
First of all the Fisheries Committee was presented with a fait accompli by the Commission in respect of this proposal.
These regulations actually came into force on 1 July this year, although the Commission tabled the proposals before this Parliament on 12 July.
We were therefore left in a position where we had no alternative but to support the proposals.
I find this behaviour extraordinary.
I recall Commissioner Fischler stating during his hearing before the Fisheries Committee on 30 August that he wished to cooperate closely with Parliament and the standing committees of Parliament in a working partnership.
I hope that such a working partnership will indeed manifest itself in future and that we will not again be treated in such a cavalier fashion by the Commission.
We are the democratically elected representatives of the people of the European Community and we are not here simply to act as a rubber stamp for regulations that have already been implemented by the Commission in advance of consultation.
Secondly, although I do not intend to recommend that we vote against Mr Busk's report, I feel it is worth sounding a note of caution that the rapporteur has called for more Community financial involvement in inspection and control of fisheries.
Such involvement implies additional budget resources and, as my colleagues on the Committee on Budgets never cease to point out, the cake is limited in size so that every time we cut off another slice it means less for some other equally important sector.
Only last week, in the context of the report by Carmen Fraga Estévez on the common organisation of the market in fisheries and aquaculture products, this House voted to allocate subsidies to the aquaculture industry for the first time, once again eating into the limited fisheries budget.
We must be financially realistic and prudent and I trust that the House will note my concern at this latest threatened raid on the fisheries budget.
Mr President, there was a report in the newspaper recently - and we examined it in the Fisheries Committee - about the cod catch in the North-East Atlantic and a bilateral agreement between Russia and Norway, two States which - together with other States such as Iceland, Poland and those of the European Union - are equal contracting parties in the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission.
All the States, including Russia and Norway therefore, have committed themselves in this Commission not only to multilateral cooperation but also to obeying a common code.
This is based, amongst other things, on technical data recommended by ICES, the scientific organisation, and now Russia and Norway want to break away and, on the basis of a bilateral agreement, fish possibly three to four times the quantity recommended by the scientists.
This is incredible!
Whenever anything connected with the misuse of resources has gone wrong in the EU in the past, we have always looked admiringly at the Norwegians and their fisheries management, but now we see that the Norwegians are no different from anybody else.
That is why this report by Mr Busk is so important.
It is about a significant legal instrument which seeks to establish a coherent and permanent system of control measures involving all contracting parties in the areas mentioned. The experience of the fisheries commissions in the north-east and north-west Atlantic must be transferred into EU Community law.
The EU can be the forerunner here.
Is it?
Can it sharpen its image as a driving force? If so it would be well on the way to marketing itself and its policy better than in the past.
This is precisely what Commissioner Fischler has in mind; he is calling in general for an improved marketing strategy in the fisheries sector.
Control measures at EU level and at Member State level need to be balanced out.
This buck-passing game has to stop!
We are dealing with cold waters late at night in the middle of December and it seems that only the EPP has the nerve to go swimming.
For that reason there is not very much left to say.
My colleague Mr Stevenson has been complaining bitterly about the fact that we are dealing with something that is already in effect.
Nevertheless, he was not here in the last Parliament and when he has been here as long as I have he will learn to have a little bit more patience.
It was a particularly bad season for the Commission and a particularly difficult time to proceed through all the normal channels since we had elections, Commission difficulties, and so on.
Of course, I am impressed by the quality of the legislation and by the fact that this is the way to solve problems internationally, that everybody sits down and makes agreements.
But, of course, if the Commission, representing all of us in ensuring that this agreement is put into good effect, does not have any resources to do it with, then we are back to the original situation as far as the Member States are concerned.
Nobody has absolute confidence that anybody else is carrying out the supervision and enforcing the law as they should and we will end up in the same situation with this agreement.
If we do not agree, having adopted common policies, to give ourselves the resources to ensure that these policies are put into effect, then we are really stretching ourselves too far and we are only bringing the Community and its laws and regulations into disrepute.
That is the major reservation that I have about what we are proposing here tonight.
May I thank the rapporteur, Mr Niels Busk, and congratulate him on the excellent report he has presented on the Commission proposal with a view to integrating the NEAFC scheme of control into Community legislation.
In the area of control, the NEAFC scheme provides a model, based on the terms of the agreement on straddling stocks and highly migratory fish, or New York Agreement.
It is a model which concords broadly with the viewpoints defended by the Community in the context of this agreement.
The measures on the conservation of fish stocks and the monitoring of fishing activities must be dealt with in agreements signed in the framework of regional fishing organisations, and these organisations must serve as a platform for international cooperation.
The Community has contributed actively to the preparation of the NEAFC scheme of control.
The measures laid down are totally compatible with our point of view and our priorities regarding the improvement of the monitoring of high seas fishing activities.
In this context, it is of the utmost importance that the conditions of the NEAFC scheme of control should be integrated into Community legislation.
The Community must strive to ensure the success of this scheme of control, which will then serve as a model for other regional organisations, and the support which Parliament has given this proposal shows that, in this field as in others, as you know, Mr President, we share the same point of view.
The matter of financing and the distribution of financial burdens must be the subject of a debate in the wider context of the regional fishing organisations.
In order to bring about a debate of this kind, Mr Fischler sent you a communication on Community participation in regional fishing organisations, and this was also sent to the Council.
And Mr Fischler wishes to take part in the debate to be held on these points at the appropriate time, at some time next year.
On the basis of the conclusions which will be drawn from this wide-ranging debate, the Commission will then present fresh proposals, on which Parliament will be invited to give its opinion.
Mr Stevenson made a very pertinent comment, Mr President, and I have to say that the Commission acknowledges the criticism which has been levelled against it.
The fact is, however, that his remarks were directed not at the Prodi Commission but at their predecessors, and I must point out, on behalf of Commissioner Fischler, that we shall be doing all we can to ensure that such criticism is not justified in future.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 noon.
Verification of the credentials of Members elected in June 1999
The next item is the report (A5-0084/1999) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the verification of credentials of Members following the fifth direct election to the European Parliament on 10 to 13 June 1999.
Mr President, I have the honour of presenting this report on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market which appointed me institutional rapporteur.
This report on the verification of credentials has its roots and legal basis in Article 11 of the Act concerning the election of the representatives of the European Parliament annexed to the Council decision of 20 September 1976.
In accordance with this legal basis it falls to the European Parliament to verify the credentials of its Members until the uniform electoral procedure comes into force.
This report on the verification of credentials relates to the outcome of the fifth direct election to the European Parliament, which took place on 10 to 13 June 1999 and is based on the official notifications by all the Member States of the full election results and the names of any substitutes together with their ranking in accordance with the results of the vote.
However, in accordance with Article 7(5) of our Rules of Procedure, any Member may attend sittings of Parliament and its bodies even if his credentials have not been verified or a ruling has not been given on a dispute.
Accordingly, pending adoption of the report on the verification of credentials, - I hope with an overwhelming majority tomorrow in the plenary sitting - all of us, all Members elected in the fifth legislature, have been able to exercise our rights in full and with no restrictions.
The Rules of Procedure also lay down that, should an elected Member resign from Parliament before this report has been adopted in plenary, the vacancy and the name of the new Member shall be verified, pursuant to Rule 8 of the Rules of Procedure in conjunction with the relevant provisions of the Act of 20 September 1976, in a separate procedure independent of this report and which will take place at a convenient time.
Therefore, this report relates only to the acquisition of a mandate as a result of the fifth direct elections to the European Parliament.
The competent national authorities of fourteen Member States sent their official notifications on 20 July 1999.
As far as Luxembourg was concerned, there was a delay in declaring the candidates elected due to the fact that a general election was held at the same time as the European election.
In these elections, some candidates stood for the European Parliament as well as for the national parliament and some were also potential Members of the future government of Luxembourg, which is incompatible, pursuant to Article 6(1) of the Act of 20 September 1976, with Membership of the European Parliament.
Because the Luxembourg Government was not formed until early August 1999, the mandate of the now Commissioner Viviane Reding could not become effective, following notification from the competent Luxembourg authorities, until 7 August 1999.
In turn, Mrs Reding' s resignation will be subject to verification in a separate decision as I previously stated.
On the other hand, Rule 7(2) of the Rules of Procedure lays down that it is not possible to confirm the validity of the mandate of a Member unless the written declarations required on the basis of Article 6 of the Act of 20 September 1976 and Annex 1 to the Rules of Procedure have been made.
These declarations - it is worth pointing out - are to the effect that the Member does not hold any of the offices listed in Article 6 which are incompatible with membership of the European Parliament. They also contain precise information on the Member' s professional activities, any other remunerated functions or activities and any support, whether financial or in terms of staff or material.
I have to say that making these declarations is the sole responsibility of the Member, who must make them to the best of his or her knowledge.
In this procedure and in the report that I am presenting today, what will be verified is only whether the formal requirements have been met.
Therefore, Mr President, this is the background to the report on which we will vote tomorrow in plenary sitting in Parliament and for which, as rapporteur, I have presented two amendments which are justified by my explanation about the elections in Luxembourg and by what I have said.
Mr President, the present report by Mrs Palacio marks the successful completion of a laborious task.
We can adopt it, put it to one side and everything will take its course.
Is it just routine then? Not for me!
Because this report forces us to confront an issue which the European Parliament debated in the last Parliament and brought to a proper conclusion.
I am talking about uniform electoral law in Europe.
Do you remember the Anastassopoulos report in which we laid down a basis for electing Members of the European Parliament in accordance with the same principles in all the Member States? The new Members of this House will have to look it up.
Presumably it is slowly starting to resurface in the minds of longer-serving Members. No wonder, because this tends to be an everyday occurrence where the democratic foundations of the European Union are concerned.
Or am I wrong to say that the best proposals made by Parliament of all the nations of Europe - legitimised by virtue of being directly elected - are all too often of little value? Often they fall victim to the idleness of the Council and the governments of the Member States.
This is the case with the Anastassopoulos report and uniform electoral law.
Parliament has adopted it.
Unfortunately, there is no sign of it being transposed. In my opinion, this is catastrophic.
It is precisely in view of the European Union's enlargement that the public expects its democratic foundations to be consolidated.
This includes uniform electoral law with all the possibilities it has to offer, which we have described in the report.
As we vote for the Palacio report, let us express the hope that after the next European elections the relevant report will be based on uniform electoral law.
This would make the work easier and would be a substantial contribution to greater democracy and transparency in the European Union.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
Civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0086/1999), on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position established by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles and amending Directives 73/239/EEC and 88/357/EEC (Fourth Motor Insurance Directive) (rapporteur: Mr Rothley).
Mr President, it all sounded so terribly technical in your announcement, but in reality this legislation significantly improves the protection of those who are victims of a road accident in another country.
I mention this because we are obviously no longer capable of expressing ourselves in such a way that people can understand what we are talking about.
We can be proud of this directive.
It is a joint effort on the part of the European Parliament, which took the initiative, but also the Commission which improved the original Parliament proposal considerably with the addition of the compensation body.
We can, however, also be grateful to the Council for accepting the essential points contained in the proposal.
As far as the recommendations for the second reading are concerned, I should like to concentrate on two points.
The vast majority of the amendments concern drafting points and the legal text itself.
Parts of the Council's common position are virtually incomprehensible.
I am even convinced that the authors themselves do not know what on earth they have written.
I should like to remind both the Commission and the Council of a very fine quotation from a 19th century German jurist, who said that the legislator must think like a philosopher and speak like a farmer, simply and clearly and so that people can understand.
The artistry involved in trying to find a compromise is usually reflected in the legislation, and the principle of speaking simply and clearly becomes out of the question.
Admittedly, there remains a problem of substance, where we in the European Parliament hold a different opinion from that of the Commission and the Council.
I should like to remind the Commission and the Council that in this matter we have the support of the profession, the insurers, who incidentally are the ones affected by the provisions of the whole directive.
We also have the support of the automobile associations and we have the support of the organisations of accident victims.
The only people in the whole world who still oppose this are the Commission and the Council.
What is it about? It is about this directive also applying if the accident has not taken place in a Member State of the EU but in a third country.
There is not the slightest reason for excluding this case from the scope of the directive.
Let us take the example of a Frenchman and an Italian who have an accident in Switzerland. Why should the directive not apply in this case?
Why not indeed? The insurers shake their heads and say that of course it can be done.
There is one insurance company which disagrees - a British company - but all the others are asking, why not?
By adopting this directive, we are not making any changes to substantive law, we are not in any way changing the court of jurisdiction, we are not in any way changing judicial procedures.
The one and only difference is that the accident victim from France - to use the same example - does not have to contact the Italian insurance company in Italy directly but the representative of the Italian insurance company in France.
That is all.
Wherever the accident has happened - for example in Switzerland - any further procedures, if there is no agreement, are not affected one jot by this directive.
It only regulates the settlement of disputes before they reach the courts, not in court.
Commissioner, that is why I am making this request.
Clearly specific interests have been at work here.
It was even claimed by the Commission in a trialogue that European insurers were against my solution.
The truth is different.
They are in favour of this solution.
Hence my recommendation, Commissioner: I urge the Commission to rethink its position. It is untenable.
I assume that the Council would then also accept this solution.
I wish to emphasise once more that this is not a proposal which has been dreamt up in a bureaucratic ivory tower. This proposal is the result of countless discussions with all of those involved.
That is also why I think that it is practicable, because those who have to deal with it in practice are after all telling us that it works, it works extremely well, and that is what they want.
Usually the Commission takes account of the interests of those involved.
Ask those involved then, and you will see that the solution proposed by the European Parliament meets with their approval.
There is, therefore, no reason for the scope of this directive to be restricted. This is in fact only to the detriment of accident victims.
We should not forget that!
Surely what we want is to improve the protection of accident victims.
That is why I make this plea: we should all reconsider this matter in the forthcoming conciliation procedure.
Mr President, this is an important directive.
It is important firstly because - as the rapporteur said - it is one of these completely successful cases of taking advantage of the opportunities made possible by the former Article 138B of the Treaty of Maastricht, in other words, this Parliament is launching an initiative that will be taken up by the Commission and followed up by the Council.
The rapporteur said that this is also an example of good cooperation between the three institutions.
However, I would like to highlight the hard work, which has been notable and entirely praiseworthy, almost Herculean, of the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, throughout the process, from the conception of the basic idea to the follow-up, full of passion and rigour, of the legislative work that has been carried out.
This is also an important directive, however, because now, when we are so concerned about the indifference of European citizens - who do not turn out to vote, who feel that Europe is very distant from them and who do not know whether Brussels is anything more than a place which produces what they perceive to be obligations - this is a good example of what our citizens really feel and understand to be the case.
This is something that they will notice in their daily lives because any of them may have a car, and any of them, even if they do not travel abroad much, will have the idea that "well, if I do go abroad at least I will be covered" .
It offers some security.
It is important for another reason.
Mr President, I would like to say most emphatically on behalf of the Group of the European People' s Party, that the large majority of us support the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, on the only point of real controversy which, as he has made very clear, is its field of application.
There is a, shall we say, technical problem in the way it will apply but we will have to resolve these issues from a technical point of view.
We utterly refuse to change the philosophy of it.
This Parliament has shown itself to be clearly opposed to moving from the idea of a binding law to the idea of a voluntary pact between people who are insured with a voluntary subscription on their part.
From that starting point, we can discuss the matter.
If it is true - and it is true, and I was the first to recognise this as I was quite opposed to this idea, defended from the outset by Mr Rothley -, that some technical modifications will need to be made, then so be it.
Let us not forget though that these modifications are to some extent an unnecessary clarification - and Mr Rothley is right in this - because in no case can a directive affect private international law or the rules of procedure.
If these clarifications need to be made, we will make them.
If an item needs to be revised, it shall be revised.
If we need to make a modification, we shall do so.
However, Mr President, in any event, the Group of the European People' s Party maintains that we will not change our philosophy.
We are not prepared to replace this philosophy of binding law with another one that is completely uncertain and not very favourable to the European citizen, to a voluntary subscription scheme.
I would like to start also by congratulating the rapporteur on this report.
A motor vehicle accident in any circumstances can be traumatic, all the more so if it involves personal injuries.
If we add to that an international dimension where the victims find themselves in a foreign country, the problems may be multiplied: differences in language, procedure, inability to identify or trace the third party, let alone deal with insurers.
The mere identification of the third parties is often lengthy and time-consuming.
Once the insurers are in touch, matters are often settled by negotiation.
This directive would be a welcome step in ensuring that the respective foreign insurers get in contact quickly and the proposals for settlement are promptly forthcoming.
So far, so good.
But our rapporteur wants to go one small step further and I feel, as others have already said, that we should support him.
This relates to accidents in third countries.
Let me spend a moment to share with you a case I had in private practice as a lawyer before I was elected to this Parliament.
It concerned a German national who had an accident in Turkey, caused by a UK national.
That claim was being negotiated by insurers in two Member States, and if it had been litigated, it would have been litigated in the UK, probably according to UK law.
So tell me where the problem is. This is what happens in practice.
There really is not a difficulty with including the small further step which the rapporteur is asking for.
The difficulties that have been thrown up can be overcome if there is a will to do so.
Lastly, I would just like to say one small thing on the question of damages.
I hope that we will come back to this in the future.
The measures or the methods of calculating damages across the European Union differ vastly.
We would do our citizens a great service if we could move towards harmonising this area as well.
Mr President, essentially I can endorse what previous speakers have said.
We have here a good example of a Europe which is close to the people.
I should like to say quite clearly that the changes resulting from the transposition of this directive will ultimately benefit all the people of Europe and will also be experienced by them firsthand; they will not - as is often the case with other legislation - perhaps constitute an indirect benefit or not be entirely transparent.
This is a problem which it is highly probable that everyone in the European Union will experience once at some stage in their life, and then they will obviously benefit accordingly from the directive.
I think that this also needs to be mentioned explicitly here.
I should like to express my thanks to Mr Rothley, the rapporteur, for preparing this report so thoroughly and for taking the initiative - it was of course also Parliament from whom the initiative came at that time - but I would, however, also like to thank the Commission and the Council for agreeing to this in principle.
I do not, however, understand why the problem which has been mentioned here should continue to exist, because so far I have not heard one single comprehensible argument against accidents involving EU citizens in third countries being included in this directive.
So far every argument against this has been unsatisfactory.
Sometimes it is simply incorrect information - this also became clear in the last debate in the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, as far as the attitude of the insurance industry is concerned.
I would simply ask the Commission and the Council to make an effort in this matter and go along with Parliament's position.
Since the trialogue's preliminary discussion was inconclusive, at present we simply have no choice but to insist on our good and reasonable amendments and to adopt them once more here at this second reading.
This will then give the Council and the Commission the opportunity to be more shrewd in the conciliation procedure.
They should use that opportunity!
Mr President, this directive is the first case where the European Commission is responding with an initiative to a request made by the European Parliament under the indirect power of legislative initiative conferred on it by the Treaty of Maastricht.
It is an important element in the interinstitutional balance because it shows that, when it asks the Commission, in accordance with the usual paths laid down by the Treaty, to carry out one of its well-founded requests, Parliament will find the Commission to be an attentive and willing partner in dialogue.
This is also in line with the demands made by Parliament and the Group of the European People' s Party in particular at the time of Romano Prodi' s appointment as President of the Commission.
I think that Mr Rothley' s report should be adopted in its entirety: it is a high-level compromise, the synthesis of a series of stimuli and innovative concepts, and the result of the cooperation between the various institutions.
I would like to talk for a moment about, for example Amendment No 4, which deletes Recital 26.
It is obvious, in fact, that, if a legal person, in the performance of one of its duties, should compensate a prejudiced party, it may not be denied the right of subrogation in the claims of the injured party against the compensation body.
Also, Amendment No 11 should be emphasised.
It is true, the problem remains of the accidents that occur in third countries: I hope that we can manage to find a solution that safeguards Parliament' s decision, which aims to extend the scope of the of the directive' s application to these cases but at the same time, without prejudice to the Council' s concerns regarding respect for the principles of international private law.
We should all work on this point, primarily the rapporteur, Mr Rothley, and the Chair of the committee, Mrs Palacio.
A future legislative initiative could address the insurance sector once again, in particular, regarding some degree of harmonisation of the regulations regarding the compensation of harm occasioned to persons, which is creating many disparities and injustices in the European Union.
The Spanish example, once suitably adapted, could be an interesting base to work from.
I invite everyone to carefully consider this.
. (NL) Mr President, the fourth directive on motor vehicles forms an important step in the process to fill the blanks in the EU directives on motor vehicle insurance and to reinforce the internal insurance market in this respect.
As you know, more than 500,000 car accidents occur within the Community every year.
The existing system for damages to EU victims of accidents which take place outside their country of residence, is inadequate.
A swift and pragmatic solution is required in order to protect a very large number of visiting car drivers.
I would like to extend a warm thanks to Parliament for having requested this directive.
This is the first occasion on which Parliament has used its new competences pursuant to Article 192 of the Treaty.
The Commission has fully backed this request and has urged swift approval of its proposal.
I would especially like to thank Mr Rothley for all his efforts to bring this debate and this directive to the point it has reached today.
The Commission is of the opinion that the common position established by the Council is well-balanced and coherent.
It faithfully represents the problems which have caused Parliament to press for EU legislation.
It adopts the salient points of the Commission' s proposal and takes account of 24 of the 36 amendments, either wholly or in part, which Parliament requested at first reading.
This is quite something.
In its reaction to the amendments proposed by the European Parliament' s Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, the Commission is mainly led by the ambition to bring about a legal instrument which meets all the requirements of the policy holders of an EU motor-vehicle insurance as effectively as possible.
I would now like to expand on the amendments.
I applaud Amendments Nos 10, 11 and 12, because they reinforce certain principles of the common position, such as the freedom of the insurer to choose a claims representative, the possibility of such a claims representative working for more than one insurer, as well as linguistic requirements.
I can also accept Amendment No 13 which promotes the reinforcement of consumer protection, although the word "immediately" used in this text needs to be elaborated on further in order to avoid discrepancies in the application of this provision by the Member States.
I would now like to concentrate on Amendments Nos 1, 2, 8 and 9 which have been submitted by the rapporteur and which are intended to further extend the directive to include accidents occurring in third countries between two parties resident within the European Union and who are covered by insurance taken out with EU insurance companies.
Allow me to remind you of the reasons which led the Commission to reject these amendments at first reading.
Firstly, the indemnity mechanism laid down in this directive and other directives on motor vehicle insurance is based on the green card system.
This cannot be extended to include third countries which do not take part in this system and which do not recognise the validity of European insurance agreements.
Insurance companies would not agree to cover these risks or would command extremely high premiums.
Whichever way, the authorities of third countries would require vehicles visiting from the EU to conclude insurance agreements with companies based on their territory, at the border.
Secondly, the application of the directive, especially the provision which offers the possibility of lodging a direct claim against insurance companies, may contravene rules of law of third countries concerning legal liability and international private law, particularly when the direct claim is not recognised under these rules of law.
Thirdly, these amendments would lead to incompatibility with Article 5(3) of the directive concerning the information centre and Article 7 concerning the impossibility of identifying the vehicle or the insurance company.
These four amendments concerning accidents in third countries, in my opinion, cannot be accepted at this stage and in their current form.
In the event that a consultation procedure proves to be inevitable, the Commission can consider extending the scope of the directive, taking the above into account.
I would like to make another comment regarding this possible extension.
As already stated, this directive is based on the green card system.
There are 39 countries who take part in this system.
Of these 39 countries, alongside the European Union, alongside the fifteen Member States, there are also six countries which have signed the multilateral guarantee agreement.
These countries are Switzerland, which is of key importance because many accidents occur there, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia.
These are six countries, in other words, which form a sub-group of the group of countries which participate in the green card system.
In an attempt to meet the wishes of the European Parliament, the Commission is prepared to back a compromise proposal, whereby the directive, at least the scope thereof, is extended to include the countries mentioned by myself but not to include other countries.
It will be clear that if a French and a Belgian driver, both from EU Member States, have an accident in Australia, for example, and a dispute arises between the insurance companies which cover these two drivers, it would be extremely awkward to allow direct action at the location where the accident, far removed from the European Union, took place under circumstances which are hard to verify.
As far as this is concerned, the Commission, and I refer to the position also adopted by the Council in its viewpoint, can hardly meet the requirement of the European Parliament as quite remarkably and extremely skilfully expressed by Mr Rothley.
We are not in a position to do this.
But perhaps the MEPs and the rapporteur, in particular, could take my last point into consideration and we could then see to what degree the scope of this directive could be extended to include the six countries mentioned by myself.
At the end of the day, Mr President, the directive as it stands, its current scope being the European Union, already covers 99% of accidents.
If you add Switzerland and the five above-mentioned countries, then I think that we are not far off the one hundred percent mark. I would strongly urge Parliament to consider accepting the Commission' s helping hand and to take advantage of the Commission' s proposal to extend the scope to include the six countries mentioned by myself.
After all, Mr President, each compromise must clearly identify the third countries to which the directive can actually be extended.
Moreover, we must avoid any solution contravening third-country legislation.
Mr President, I would now like to comment on the remaining amendments.
The Commission is of the opinion that the draft amendments prejudice the legal security of the proposal and will have a detrimental effect on those insured.
This is not intended, of course.
I will run through them very quickly.
Amendment No 3 is said to omit references necessary to rule out conflicts with national rules of law.
Amendments Nos 4, 5, 6, 14, 15 and 16 are said to leave out certain considerations and provisions which aim to guarantee legal security, transparency and financial security of the imported redress mechanism.
By incorporating Amendments Nos 7, 17 and 18, a key component would be deleted on which all car insurance guidelines are based, namely the reference to the agreement between national bodies of indemnity as a basis for the redress mechanism.
Finally, Mr President, Amendment No 19 has dropped a general provision which is proposed for reasons of consumer protection and subsidiarity.
I therefore have to inform Parliament that the Commission is of the opinion that the proposed Amendments Nos 3 to 7 and 14 to 19 are a step backwards from the point of view of an effective legal instrument of the European Union.
For this reason, the Commission has to reject these amendments.
By way of conclusion, the Commission wishes to remind everyone how much progress we have made with this proposal.
The common position satisfactorily guarantees that damages are paid for the vast majority of accidents involving EU citizens outside their country of residence.
I have already mentioned this but would very much like to reiterate this.
According to the Commission, the common position, which has come about so thoughtfully, forms an important extension of the protection of insured parties within the European Union.
It is the Commission' s sincere wish to ensure that this proposal be transposed into Community legislation at the earliest opportunity.
Mr President, the Commission would like to assure Parliament that it will play an active and constructive role in facilitating a compromise in the event that the consultation procedure seems inevitable, which I, in fact, hope will not be the case.
I hope we will not have to resort to a consultation procedure. One dreads to think what this procedure might lead to.
Should we fail to reach an agreement, then this entire directive would be scrapped and this would be extremely regrettable.
I would like to convince the MEPs and Mr Rothley, in particular, of this fact.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your detailed answer.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
Heavy goods vehicles in Switzerland
The next item is the report (A5-0075/1999) by Mr Aparicio Sánchez, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation on the distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles travelling in Switzerland (COM(1999) 35 - C5-0054/1999 - 1999/0022).
Mr President, two years after the negative result of the referendum in Switzerland on its integration into the European Economic Area, the Council authorised the Commission to negotiate bilateral agreements with that country in the necessary fields.
The draft regulation which has now been submitted for Parliament' s approval complements one of the agreements that has been reached, specifically the one on the transport of goods and passengers by rail and road.
In accordance with this agreement, a maximum number of lorries from the Community weighing over 28 tonnes will be authorised to transit Switzerland until 2005, when this country, in aligning itself with Community law, will not require permits for lorries of up to 40 tonnes.
Thus, as soon as this regulation comes into force, the current situation, which does not allow lorries of more than 28 tonnes to travel through Swiss territory, will end.
In 2000, 250 000 permits have been allowed for lorries weighing over 28 tonnes with a full load registered in the European Union.
From 2001, permits will be granted for lorries weighing more than 34 tonnes, with free transit for those weighing between 28 and 34 tonnes.
This number will rise to 300 000 per year in 2001 and 2002 and to 400 000 per year in 2003 and 2004.
On the other hand, lorries allowed to transit empty has been fixed at 220 000 per year.
The current regulation - which I think is totally correct - proposes a system for the allocation of these permits between the Fifteen Member States.
Each one will receive 1500 per year and the rest will be allocated according to current, real or theoretical figures for bilateral traffic and transit traffic.
I must express my reservations about two negative circumstances.
Firstly, the present proposal is being debated and voted on in this House before we know the overall Agreement with Switzerland so we are being asked to approve one part without knowing the whole thing.
Secondly, we lack reliable and up-to-date statistics on current flows of goods transport between Switzerland and the European Union even though this study is about to be completed and the same regulation lays down that in 2000, the current allocation figures could be modified if the true figures differ significantly from those that are currently envisaged.
With regard to both of these factors, I think that the desire that this regulation which must be adopted by the codecision procedure should come into force on the same day as the Agreement, is a sufficient argument to explain the need for haste.
I declare my complete agreement with the basic issue, that is, with the proposed method of calculation for allocating the number of permits to the different Member States and that, given the circumstances, it is the most objective, rigorous and fair method possible.
Furthermore, the regulation lays down, as I said, a system for the annual allocation of any permits that have not been allocated.
It is to be hoped that in turn, each Member State will allocate the permits that it has been allocated with equally objective criteria to its hauliers.
By way of a summary, I shall give you some figures.
If we apply the proposed system, the distribution of the 1,650 000 permits allowing the circulation of heavy goods vehicles over the five years gives a result of 36% to Germany, 20.5% to Italy, 15.5% to France, 7.8% to the Netherlands, 6.6% to Belgium, 3.8% to Austria with the remaining 10% to be distributed amongst the remaining Member States.
Mr President, a few amendments put forward by the two Parliamentary Committees that have been debating the draft improve on some details and contribute to the overall fairness of the regulation and to the ease of managing it.
I think that it is very important that, as the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism has decided by means of a vote, we maintain the Commission' s proposed minimum allocation of 1500 permits for each Member State.
I must point out that this number is very low, equivalent to two trips per day for each country, and that the total of all these permits to be allocated automatically over five years does not even represent 7% of the total.
I shall thus end by highlighting once again the overall quality of the draft project.
I congratulate the Commission on it and ask the honourable Members to approve this draft regulation.
Mr President, Commissioner, I would of course also have been glad if the Commissioner responsible for transport policy had been present, but I suppose that this is not possible.
What are we talking about here? We are not discussing transport policy today; we are discussing the worst aspect of a market economy, quotas.
How can we distribute what Switzerland has graciously allotted to us - all because the former Transport Commissioner was careless when he negotiated with the Swiss Minister for Transport on Europe's behalf - how can we share out these concessions amongst the Member States?
We need to be aware of this.
That is what this is all about.
The proposal tabled here by the Commission is actually quite shameful.
I should like to make that perfectly clear. Why do we need basic allocations?
Do we really want the same to happen with these quotas as we have seen happen with milk for at least the last ten years and for them to become tradable assets? I have already heard countries on the periphery of Europe say today that they will be glad if they can enter into quota-trading.
No, of course that cannot be the case!
The quotas belong to the European Union and they must also be returned to it.
Only the European Union has the right to reallocate them.
Surely it would be better to leave them where they belong - that is, where freight transport really takes place - rather than first scattering them in a happy-go-lucky fashion across all the Member States and then engaging in a laborious process of collecting them in again and reallocating them.
We ought to realise that this is not a sensible strategy.
I should also like to state quite clearly that overall the rapporteur has certainly produced a very good piece of work, and I should like to thank him for this.
However, I have to say that I would have been glad if, given the narrow majority - of one vote - which we had in the committee, the rapporteur and his group had shown a little more willingness to compromise because - and I am saying this quite clearly today - if, when we vote on Wednesday, our Amendment No 7 to reduce the basic allocations to 500 is not passed, we will vote against the whole report.
On this point, I would add that if our group, the PPE-DE, had not abstained in the committee we would not be having a debate now.
There was a majority against the report.
That is why I should like to ask that at long last we be prepared to negotiate on this and not dig our heels in and simply refuse to discuss anything with each other.
That is neither in the interests of those who have goods to transport either through or within Switzerland nor is it in the interests of the neighbouring countries.
When I consider that 30% of the traffic going through the Brenner Pass alone is traffic diverted from Switzerland, then surely we really must use the quotas here to ensure that the shortest route once again appears an advantage instead of placing an excessive burden on the surrounding countries, a burden which is far greater than any statistics show.
I should therefore like to ask that the time until midday on Wednesday be used for further discussions on a compromise.
I have abandoned the hard line I took in the committee, I have been willing to compromise on this and would be glad if this willingness to compromise were forthcoming from the other side; otherwise we will vote against.
Mr President, firstly I should like to thank Mr Aparicio Sánchez for the excellent report and also confirm that he has the full support of my group.
Of course, the issues mentioned by Mr Ferber were discussed; we simply reached a different conclusion.
Firstly, Mr Ferber, I should like to say quite clearly that this is about transport policy.
Of course this is about transport policy. You used the adjective "socialist" here and that is precisely the underlying problem.
Thank God the cat is now out of the bag and we know what this is all about.
What is happening here is that whenever a sensible policy is pursued, for example in the interests of the environment, it is simply labelled socialist, and the whole thing is thus discredited.
I believe that this is unacceptable.
This is about drafting transport policy.
Policy-making means taking decisions about the way in which the market can and should work, but of course under certain basic conditions.
This is what has happened here.
Secondly, this is about putting in place transitional arrangements.
As Mr Sánchez has already said, the transitional rules are a difficult phase in the process, in the course of which we have also tried to keep the Swiss on board.
The negotiations were long and hard.
I should like to say - not because it is a Commissioner from our side, I have expressed my thanks to enough Commissioners from the other side - that Mr Kinnock conducted tough and prolonged negotiations and that a good result emerged from them.
It is a good result, and you also mentioned yourself that this is not about making sure that some countries obtain assets, because if the countries cannot use these assets - as you put it - they go back to the European Commission - to Europe - and then have to be reallocated.
Speaking also as an Austrian, I would say that this is surely about reducing the amount of traffic transiting France and Austria.
This is of course not just traffic which originates in Austria or Germany; it is also traffic which has come, for example, from Greece and other parts of Europe.
For this reason I believe that this is a good report.
I should like to thank our colleague, Mr Aparicio Sánchez.
I also believe that the vote on the report here should be handled in the same way as it was in the committee.
Mr President, we have a saying at home that what God has divided by a mountain man should not join together by a tunnel.
I do not doubt that this is far too strict an interpretation of divine will, and the people of Europe agree. Over the course of many years they have removed many obstacles on the routes between them.
This has allowed people to get to know each other, boosted the economy, promoted tourism and given people an opportunity to live together.
The conclusion of this Agreement on transport with Switzerland means that after many years a dividing line across Europe will gradually be bridged.
This is to be welcomed, in spite of the problems which this process of course also entails.
This is good for the general public, who will now no longer, as they did in the past, have to take sometimes extremely long detours on roads which were in any case already congested and for which they also paid handsomely.
The new possibilities are also good for the people who live in the Alpine region and for the environment there, which has been seriously damaged by the so-called environmental transit traffic.
Of course there were, and still are, sensitive Alpine areas in Austria and France as well, not only in Switzerland, although obviously there are some there too.
As the process of implementing the Agreement on transport between the EU and Switzerland gets underway, we look forward to it being easier to cross the central Alpine region in the future.
We hope that the package of agreements between the European Union and Switzerland will perhaps also lead to Switzerland's becoming a member of the European Union.
However, above all we look forward to the proposed regulation making a significant contribution - in the short or long term - to a new, better, more efficient, but also humane and environmentally friendly transport policy in the Union.
Finally, with this in mind, I should also like to make an appeal in support of Mr Ferber's Amendment No 7.
He is proposing to delete - with no replacement - the first sentence of Annex 3, which states that "each Member State shall receive a basic allocation of 1500 permits" .
The geography of Europe is not such that each Member State has the same need to pass through Switzerland on the way from A to B. This solution is a bureaucratic nightmare.
Let us do away with it!
In his report the rapporteur, Mr Aparicio Sánchez, addressed the Commission' s proposal for a regulation which has been largely based on statistical evidence and concessions.
As regards the statistical evidence on which the proposed distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles is based, the figures to date relating to foreign trade cannot possibly be correct since with the existing 28 tonne limit in Switzerland, long haul road transport, for example from Greece, is just not profitable and is therefore not practised.
It is just like distributing visual aids to a group of people, some of whom are blind, according to the amount of printed material they read per annum.
Obviously the blind, who would need visual aids more than the others, would get nothing simply because they do not and cannot read.
The situation is not helped by the fact that foreign trade and the use of transport services do not necessarily go hand in hand. For economic reasons, vast quantities of goods are exported in vehicles from other Member States and not from the Member State which produces them.
Of course, full liberalisation of the internal transport market makes it virtually impossible to keep tabs on all this.
Assessing the needs for transit permits is based on the current traffic flows through the Alpine Region, particularly through Austria, and takes no account of the fact that this traffic flow is largely regulated by the restrictive system of housepoints according to which other allocation quota for Member States have previously been calculated.
Mr Aparicio Sánchez obviously took this factor into consideration when drawing up his report, but, as we all know, the figures are only indicative in nature and are based on available existing figures; they do not accurately reflect the reality of the situation.
We should not forget either that the proposed changes are transitional in nature since the liberalisation of 40-tonne vehicles will only take effect from 1 January 2005.
Furthermore, it seems likely that the EU-Switzerland Agreement will not enter into force before 2001 or even later because of the procedures involved in the relevant areas, in which case the transitional period will be shortened significantly.
Mr Aparicio Sánchez has obviously studied the issue carefully using all the above figures and, together with other members of our committee, has come up with some substantial improvements.
The return for reallocation of any unused permits by 15 September instead of 15 November as the Commission had proposed, will ultimately reduce the possibility of unfairness in the final distribution, which must be based solely on real needs and will help companies plan their operations better.
I would like to thank the rapporteur for his sterling work and we should honour him by approving his report.
As regards the agreement concerning the report under discussion, and any other agreement with Switzerland for that matter, where will they lead? Perhaps when a final agreement for Switzerland' s accession has been ratified, all this will no longer be an issue to us.
Thank you for listening so late in the evening to my maiden speech in this Chamber and I wish you all the best for the new millennium.
Mr President, the transit of goods and people through Switzerland has been a major problem for many years.
Following intensive work by the Commission, especially by rapporteur Mr Aparicio Sánchez whose efforts we have cause to be grateful for, we now have the opportunity of obtaining an agreement for heavy goods vehicles, which is extraordinary progress.
In the future, it will be a question of achieving more such agreements between the EU and Switzerland, and in connection with other types of vehicle too.
However, the agreements on which we can now adopt a position on behalf of the EU concern transit through Switzerland for lorries of 40 metric tons.
It could presumably be argued that the fee payable for this kind of vehicle is high.
Before the year 2000, it amounts to CHE 180.
Clearly, this is expensive, but the cost of instead driving around Switzerland would presumably be a great deal higher.
This would also be a considerably worse alternative from an environmental point of view.
As I see it, there is only one significant weakness in the agreement, namely the allocation of the quotas which have been negotiated and which increase in the course of the years leading up to the agreement' s coming into force.
The proposal, which others too have considered, involves a basic quota which is the same for all countries.
The only problem is that certain countries have no need of such a large quota while others need access to a significantly larger one.
You have only to look at a map of Europe to realise that the flow of traffic from north to south signifies a great deal more for some countries than for others.
For countries such as Sweden and Finland, another system of allocation would be extremely significant.
Mr Ferber has tabled an amendment which involves our looking in a considerably more flexible way at the present allocation, and I support this amendment.
. (NL) Mr President, I would like to start by thanking both parliamentary committees and not least both rapporteurs, Mr Aparicio Sánchez and Mr Brunetta, for their time and effort invested in the proposal.
This motion for a resolution aims to establish a method for dividing two types of licences for trucks from the European Union which use the Swiss road network.
So this proposal encompasses a regulation and a number of licences, the so-called permits for heavy goods vehicles, and will for the first time offer the opportunity to carry out a prescribed number of journeys on Swiss territory using EU lorries of the maximum permissible weight of 40 tonnes.
The other type of permits, the so-called 'empty permits' , entitles lorries with a maximum weight of 28 tonnes to a prescribed number of journeys through Switzerland at a reduced toll tariff.
It gives me pleasure to be able to inform you that the Commission, which holds in high esteem the good work which both parliamentary committees delivered in this field, prepared as they are to compromise, can accept Amendments Nos 1 to 6 and Amendment No 8. This means all amendments but one.
However, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 7.
Mr President, Commission proposal intends to allocate 90% of the licences to the Member States which account for the lion' s share in Swiss traffic and at the same time, guarantee all Member States a basic quota of 1500 licences annually.
The amendment reduces this minimum quota to 500.
It is said that the outcome will benefit the quotas of the three major Member States which border Switzerland; to wit France, Germany and Italy.
So this would be to the detriment of the other Member States.
Since the licensing system contains a mechanism to distribute unused permits across the countries, I can reassure Parliament that there is no risk that permits allocated as part of the basic quota will be wasted or will go unused.
Consequently, the Commission would prefer it if all Member States were allocated the same minimum quota and, as such, cannot accept Amendment No 7.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at 12 p.m.
Substances that deplete the ozone layer
The next item is the recommendation for second reading (A5-0077/1999), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the Council common position with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on substances that deplete the ozone layer (5748/3/1999 - C5-0034/1999 - 1998/0228) (Rapporteur: Mrs Hulthén).
Mr President, even though the time is getting on, I am pleased that we are finally to debate this recommendation for second reading. It is in fact a regulation which really needs to be adopted and implemented, for the situation we are facing is quite serious.
The depletion of the ozone layer is becoming more and more obvious.
The Commission' s first document describes the depletion over Scandinavia, Greenland and Siberia as being a record.
Unfortunately, we now probably have to say that this record has been beaten again.
Last week, measurements were presented which showed that the situation has never been more serious than it is now.
I would especially emphasise this for the benefit of those Members of the European Parliament who have had doubts about the value of hastening the phasing out of ozone-destroying substances.
I would also emphasise this for the benefit of other people who say that it costs too much to achieve so little as a percentage or two reduction in the depletion of the ozone layer.
That is not the case!
The hole in the ozone layer is not an invention. Nor is the fact that it is getting larger!
We therefore now have a unique opportunity with the adoption of this regulation and of the amendments to which the majority of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has said yes.
These measures are not enough to "repair" the hole in the ozone layer, but they are a step in the right direction which it is necessary to take.
We are aware of the causes of the problem, we are aware of the consequences and, in the vast majority of cases, we also have alternatives.
In those cases where there are no alternatives, the regulation provides acceptable margins for industry to succeed in making the required transition.
It is we who are to decide whether this is to become a reality.
I would emphasise that this proposal is not an attempt to prevent alterations to on-going climate change.
Arguments of this kind have been put forward but, as far as I am concerned, these are just attempts to cloud the issue.
We need to solve both problems.
A number of the substances which are nowadays used as replacements for the HCFC substances that the debate has come to revolve around have an effect upon the environment.
So too, however, have the substances we use today, a fact of which we are well aware.
There is therefore no reason for reintroducing the HCFC substances into processes in which they have been prohibited for the last five years.
This is taken up in Article 5(3) in the Council' s common position, of which I am strongly critical.
There is a ban in place, and relaxing this can hardly be in keeping with the objective of the regulation. I would therefore address the Commission and ask if they are really serious about this.
Large parts of industry operating in this sphere have already adapted their production methods and found alternatives, and yet the European organisation for this branch of industry, EUROFEU, is quite unable to see the point of the change.
I would ask the Commission why.
What is behind this U-turn? I hope that, in its vote on Wednesday, the House will comply with the proposal of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection to remove this Article in its entirety.
In this connection, I would also mention Amendment No 34 which has been introduced into the plenary sitting.
As far as I am concerned, this proposal is just as unreasonable.
The other matter I consider to be crucial to this regulation, if it is to be forward-looking, is the continued use of methyl bromide.
We know that methyl bromide is one of the biggest villains where the ozone layer is concerned.
It is also a very poisonous substance which affects those who work with it and which does not only exterminate unwanted noxious insects but also all organisms in the earth.
It affects water, air and people.
The time is ripe for a ban.
Moreover, we have for a long time now had alternatives available in this sphere which are in many cases much more profitable than what we make use of today.
I would therefore emphasise the importance of Amendments Nos 2, 3, 4 and 10 which reduce the opportunity for continued use of methyl bromide, except in certain extreme circumstances.
I would also mention Amendment No 12 concerning quarantine arrangements in connection with shipments.
The regulation does not provide for any clear phasing out of these.
I would also direct the House' s and the Commission' s attention to Amendment No 9 which provides the opportunity to use chloroflourocarbons in certain extremely special cases, for example to offer pain relief to people who are seriously ill.
I should also like the Commission to review the narrow time limits which are given in the regulation.
The discussion of this matter has, however, been delayed. In this context, I would therefore put in a word for the small and medium-sized companies which have done their utmost to comply with the intentions of the regulation but which have nonetheless still not achieved their objective.
A certain understanding of the situation in which they find themselves is to be desired.
At the plenary sitting, further amendments were also tabled which have not been adopted or discussed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection; one of these I have already mentioned.
These are Amendments Nos 30, 31, 32 and 34, which are scarcely in keeping with the regulation.
I would put a question mark over Amendment No 32, which has clearly been mistranslated both in the Swedish version and in other versions.
I would therefore move the rejection of these amendments.
Amendment No 35 is covered by Amendment No 39 and is therefore superfluous.
Otherwise, applause for all the amendments which the majority of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has adopted.
Mr President, Mrs Hulthén has already said a great deal.
I do not wish to repeat it all.
She did not emphasise the fact that the present common position probably represents the maximum which is possible at the present time.
I know from the Austrian Presidency that people fought to the bitter end to ensure that the ozone layer was properly protected.
Mrs Hulthén, you know how strongly I have urged you to withdraw amendments so as to allow the common position to take effect quickly.
I also said to you that amendments would be tabled which did not seek - as your amendments do - to move forward even more rapidly and quickly, but even to find a way back.
As an Austrian, I have no problem at all with moving forward more rapidly and quickly.
But we have to learn that there are other countries which have not come as far as the Nordic countries, Austria and Germany and that we also have to give them an opportunity to move forward together with us on this.
I am sorry that you did not do this because, of course, moves are now afoot which we perhaps do not like at all.
The European Union has always taken the lead on phasing out the production and use of ozone-depleting substances, and in terms of environment policy Parliament has been the European Union's conscience.
This is the only way in which we can exert pressure on other States in international conferences; to show them what works, what is possible and what demands can be placed on industry - and industry in Europe has in many cases switched to new technologies.
With your permission I will examine a small example in more detail.
It is Amendment No 34.
Halons are very dangerous.
HCFCs are not as dangerous by far in terms of ozone-layer depletion.
Nevertheless, surely it would be ludicrous to replace a dangerous substance with a less dangerous one.
We only need to produce this less dangerous substance in sufficient quantities and we have the same potential for causing damage.
Do you not finally see that this is the wrong approach?
You cannot replace halons in fire protection systems with HCFCs!
There are several alternative substances available in the form of natural gases, such as nitrous argon and inergen.
Austria has a very, very valuable library, the Austrian National Library.
We have a fire protection system of this kind there which manages without any of these dangerous substances.
I can only hope that none of the amendments put forward receives the 314 votes.
Because if we are serious about this, if we want to take a quick step forward, then the common position needs to bear fruit very soon.
You see, whether it is CFCs, HCFCs or halons, today's emissions will do their damage up there in twenty or thirty years' time.
In thirty years all of us - or many or most of us - will already be dead.
But the destruction, for which we share the responsibility here today and will do at the vote on Wednesday, will also be our fault.
Mr President, I would firstly like to say how much I admired the work of the rapporteur as regards this report; it was difficult enough bringing it through Parliament first reading.
It has been even more difficult at second reading as we have had a lot of competing views, conflicting scientific opinion and lobbying from various interested parties in the industry on specific substances.
Nevertheless, the rapporteur has done a marvellous job and what we have in front of us now is a coherent set of amendments, a coherent position that goes further than the common position, further than Mrs Flemming thinks we can go.
I am surprised at what she says as we went further than the common position a week ago in Beijing.
We must give it our support.
There are very serious issues at stake here.
If the ozone layer is not repaired as quickly as possible and damage halted, there will be widespread skin cancer, widespread eye damage among the human population around the world.
This is already starting to happen in some places.
We, as Europeans, have to maintain our lead and set an example.
There can be no going back on any particular substances, despite some pleading to do so.
We can only allow the continued use of certain other substances where there is a genuine threat of smuggling into the Union of other supplies that might be used to continue supporting existing equipment.
We must recognise that the Montreal Protocol has progressed step by step.
Last week we saw it take another step in Beijing.
We have moved on to getting rid of CFCs, moving on to deal with the other substances - HCFCs and halons.
We must continue to ensure that process carries on.
In the European Union we must help in assisting Third World and developing countries to move quickly into new technologies that do not harm the ozone layer, that do not use ozone-destroying chemicals.
In that sense, we must support the rapporteur's amendments and look very carefully at some of the amendments which I hope we will see in conciliation in order to achieve further progress.
Mr President, through mankind's own folly we have damaged the ozone layer which protects life on this planet and now we must do everything we can to undo that damage.
There has been very little opposition to the principle of phasing out HCFCs and methyl bromide.
The question in committee has been about the timescales which should be involved.
All Members have been presented with a great deal of conflicting factual information which has made reaching a judgement difficult.
Like the rapporteur, the Liberal Democrats want to ensure that rapid progress is made, that we see the maximum benefits in the shortest possible period.
But the choices are not simple.
There is a real fear that some of the well-intentioned amendments which have been tabled by the rapporteur may actually make the situation worse; in particular, that it will make it difficult for us to phase out across the world, and especially in the developing nations, the harmful CFCs which are so much more detrimental to the ozone layer than the items mentioned in this report.
The benefits to be gained from these proposals are too small for us to take that risk.
We support the rapporteur's aims and will be supporting most of her amendments but we are not convinced that she has addressed our concerns for the environment in their entirety.
Mr President, I would also like to congratulate Mrs Hulthén on her work on this report.
Action to tackle ozone layer degradation is considered to be one of the very few success stories of international environmental legislation, and since the mid-1990s ozone depletion does seem to have slowed down, mainly due to efforts to reduce emissions of ozone-depleting substances.
But there is no room at all for complacency.
We are a long way from achieving our goals.
According to the European Environment Agency, in the summer of 1998 the ozone over Antarctica reached a record low level over an area the size of Europe, and the same thing is happening in the northern hemisphere.
So ambitious targets must be set and they must be met.
The Commission's original proposal is along the right lines.
However, we believe that the Council weakened the text and so I would like to call on colleagues to support the amendments which were adopted in committee to improve the common position.
Mr President, as late as about a week ago, an alarming new report came out about the depletion of the ozone layer.
This time, a study shows that the protective layer of ozone has reached worrying and record-low values over Scandinavia.
We know what we need to do.
Where this particular environmental issue is concerned, we know what is causing the problems.
We know precisely which substances destroy ozone.
We know what the effects will be upon people if levels of ultra-violet radiation increase, including effects in terms of significantly more cases of cancer.
We also know how the natural environment is being damaged.
What is more, there are nowadays perfectly acceptable alternatives to the vast majority of ozone-depleting substances, and these are used in a variety of spheres.
Ozone-destroying substances have a deleterious effect over a very long period.
In spite of the fact that international cooperation in this area through the Montreal Protocol has been successful and that emissions have declined considerably, it will not be possible for the ozone layer to be restored before some time round about the year 2040 at the earliest.
Until this happens, it is estimated that there will also be an increase in the damage caused, for example in the form of new cases of cancer.
There is, then, no good reason for postponing further measures which we can take right now. It is therefore important that Mrs Hulthén' s report be adopted in its entirety.
By means of the proposals submitted in this report, more powerful measures can be taken against ozone-destroying substances such as methyl bromide and chloroflourocarbons.
Our group is therefore going to vote in favour of all the amendments from the rapporteur.
On the other hand, we are not going to vote in favour of most of the amendments which have been put forward by others, because these amendments would weaken the report.
In the Committee, the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats voted against many of the rapporteur' s proposals.
There has also been vigorous lobbying by industry on this issue.
Hopefully, national declarations exist, or else there are individuals within the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats who put environmental considerations first and who will have the courage to vote in favour of the important proposals in the report.
It will be interesting to see the results of the vote.
Mr President, partly thanks to the Montreal Protocol, ozone-depleting substances can be phased out quickly.
This will not take the desired effect i.e. filling the ozone hole until 100 years from now.
We also hope that the number of cases of skin cancer will have dropped.
As was already the case at first reading, the phasing-out process can be accelerated.
There are alternatives available and the benefits clearly outweigh the drawback of transitional costs.
I therefore support the proposals submitted by Mrs Hulthén to improve the common position.
CFCs and methyl bromide can be phased out more quickly.
In the Netherlands, the use of methyl bromide has been banned for years.
This does not pose any problems within the agricultural sector.
Quite the opposite, in fact. There is no loss of harvest and it is better for the health of the workers within agriculture and horticulture.
It must be possible to stop using methyl bromide as from 2001.
Hence, exceptions for emergency situations seem completely redundant.
Mr President, I think that in this final debate, before voting on this regulation, the following points must be stressed:
My country, Spain, fully enters into the spirit of the Montreal Protocol and is committed to fulfilling its terms in a completely responsible and active way.
It accepts, in general terms therefore, the common position and in this sense, I fully agree with the intervention by my colleague Mrs Flemming.
Nevertheless, this is no obstacle to Spain, with its firm desire to carry out the eradication of the use of specific toxic substances that damage the ozone layer, which regards itself as being particularly affected by the banning of one of them, methyl bromide, which was referred to a while ago.
This substance, which is used as an agricultural disinfectant mainly in clearly defined farming zones in the Mediterranean regions is already strictly limited in my country in terms of its marketing and use and has already been replaced in all cases for which suitable alternatives have been found.
Work has been done for quite a while on investigating replacement substances in order to meet the deadline laid down in the Protocol.
Precisely because we want to comply with the standard, we have to be very careful when it comes to weighing up our ability to do so, if Parliament approves a regulation that makes the conditions and the time-scales tougher.
It would be more honest and above all more practical to state clearly that we see that there is a possibility that we will not be able to comply where methyl bromide is concerned.
At the very least this will cause us to suffer serious financial and social consequences and the competitiveness of some of our agricultural products will be damaged in relation to other countries that do not apply the same restrictions.
We will not be able to ensure that the use of methyl bromide stops by shortening the time-scales. Instead, we run the risk of unwillingly failing to comply and the possibility of fraud which will produce the opposite result to the one we all want to see.
Therefore, the Spanish delegation of the European People' s Party feels that it is necessary to uphold in the plenary sitting the amendments relating to the first paragraph of Article 3(2) and the last paragraph of Article 21 in which the exceptions and conditions for the use of methyl bromide after 2006 are specified.
We think that Parliament must set standards that all Member States should be able to fulfil without experiencing serious damage to their economic, social and environmental conditions.
It is this spirit, not an emotionally praiseworthy but unrealistic environmental good will, which leads us to put forward these amendments today.
Mr President, there is no doubt that the regulation in question is extremely important.
With this regulation, the European Union is establishing the means and time periods for the progressive elimination of the substances which deplete the ozone layer, and I can assure you that I do not underestimate the danger of the current situation at all.
The drive to further speed this up, set in motion by Parliament at first reading, has been broadly accepted by the Council.
Despite this, Mrs Hulthén' s report again re-submits amendments which were not adopted, which indiscriminately anticipate the dates of bans on the production, marketing and use of the various substances.
In general, it is a question of an approach, or rather, a commendable intention consistent with the Montreal Protocol which, however, at the same time, does not take some facts into account: firstly, the fact that the other countries that are signatories of the Protocol, including the United States, anticipate longer time periods for ending the production of hydrochlorofluorocarbons; secondly, hydrochlorofluorocarbons are, given the current state of knowledge, the only real alternative in the field of fire-fighting, to halogens, the main destroyers of the ozone layer, which are still widely used in developing countries.
We are not convinced either, by the inflexibility that the report wants to maintain regarding methyl bromide.
I am sorry that the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection did not want to seek a reasonable compromise based on the principle of realism.
At times, we have the impression that, according to one interpretation of protecting the environment, the asserting of principles, if not flying the environmental flag, is ultimately more important than the actual result.
The European Union has to be at the cutting edge, it has even been said this evening, but, as regards restoring the ozone layers in the stratosphere, and similarly, controlling the greenhouse effect, the result cannot be measured on the basis of Europe' s speed, but only by taking an overall view.
For these reasons, the common position of the Council, even if it is not completely satisfactory, certainly seems more balanced.
Mr President, to avoid further destruction of the ozone layer we need above all to restrict our remaining exemptions.
An exemption of this kind is granted for CFC-11 to the firm Du Pont in Luxembourg for the manufacture of polyolefin fibres.
Du Pont itself has developed an alternative to CFC-11.
This alternative is currently being examined by the competent authorities in Luxembourg.
There is therefore no reason at all to continue to maintain this exemption.
I would therefore ask you, in particular Mrs Flemming and the other Members of the PPE-DE Group, to vote for Amendment No 28.
We are not dealing with a developing country here; this is sophisticated technology in a highly developed country.
Environmentalists in Luxembourg have campaigned for this exemption to be abolished. The Environment Minister is behind them.
If we in the European Parliament do not vote for this then the people of Luxembourg will have the feeling that Europe is a step backwards rather than forwards.
Mr President, increased levels of ozone and UV radiation have become risk factors throughout the world in which we live.
I agree with the rapporteur that the effects of this are now clearly visible.
Preserving the ozone layer is one of the main aims of our environment policy.
We are all responsible for preventing damage to mankind and animals as well as to the entire ecosystem.
That is why substances which destroy the ozone layer need to be replaced with alternative substances as quickly as possible.
However, realistic transitional periods need to be set for switching to alternative substances.
I wish to stress the word "realistic".
Where it is clear that alternative substances are available which do the same job, the procedure needs to be carried out within the period prescribed.
However, there are exceptions too and we also need to have a clear picture when we address these.
In the chemical industry certain refrigeration equipment is indispensable for processes of chemical manufacturing.
These refrigeration units are self-contained cooling systems and use a coolant for which no alternative is available at the present time.
The size and complexity of self-contained cooling systems also make it necessary to grant an exemption.
That is why I have tabled Amendment No 30 to the report, and I would ask for this to be taken into consideration.
These cooling systems - I should like to point out once more - are self-contained systems and the coolant does not penetrate into the atmosphere.
Mr President, I would like to express my disappointment and regret, and in saying this, I think I am speaking for the way other Members from the first legislative phase feel.
At the second reading stage, the Members from the first legislative phase cannot make any contribution to improving the content of provisions which will then be adopted by Parliament, which clearly creates a deep sense of frustration.
But this frustration becomes deeper still, more bitter when, in the light of new scientific evidence, such as in the case of ozone-depleting substances, bureaucracy and emotion take priority over politics and science, and do not render admissible amendments that are new and sound from a scientific point of view.
This is why I am asking all the Members to adopt Amendment No 34, already tabled in committee by Mr Bowis and Mr Sacconi and signed today by 32 Members.
The amendment that we intend to have adopted regarding the inflexible and closed position of the rapporteur, Mrs Hulthén, and those who blindly support her, calls for a short postponement, until 1 January 2004, of the ban on HCFCs in fire protection systems.
These substances exhibit a very low potential for depleting the ozone - 1200 times less than halons - and they are much better tolerated by the environment than substances such as HFCs and PFCs, which are unfortunately permitted by Parliament despite the fact that they are more detrimental to the environment because they have a high potential for global warming and linger in they atmosphere, for as long as six to seven thousand years.
These conclusions are shared by high-level scientific bodies at international level, such as the Cairo Conference of 1998, the contracting parties of the Montreal Protocol, the Panel on Ozone Depletion of 1999 and the Ministry for the Environment of Great Britain.
The gradual banning of HCFCs called for in the amendment, along with the well-founded scientific reasons, also recognises social reasons, because a lot of people risk losing their job.
This is why I am asking for your support.
I should like to thank the Committee on the Environment and especially the rapporteur, Mrs Hulthén, for its careful consideration of the common position.
Many of the amendments are designed to accelerate the phase-out schedules for HCFCs and methyl bromide, an objective which the Commission certainly shares in the light of their significant and increasing contribution to ozone depletion.
European SMEs which are leading in the development of the alternatives have proved that rapid phase-out of remaining ozone depleting substances promotes sustainable industries and additional ozone layer protection.
Complex negotiations in the Council led to the adoption of an acceptable common position last February.
Its quick adoption is the Commission's priority.
The Commission cannot go as fast as it would like in some issues, as we are rapidly approaching some of the proposed phase-out dates.
It is important to avoid the introduction of the new ozone depleting substances.
Amendment No 27 would introduce an expedited procedure for adding new ozone depleting substances to the regulation, which would be useful in deferring unwise investments while benefiting the ozone layer.
The Commission can therefore accept this amendment in principle.
Amendment No 9 is also acceptable since it allows time-limited extensions for the use of very small quantities of CFCs in a specialised type of medical devices for pain relief.
Other amendments that the Commission accepts, either totally, in principle or in part, are Amendments Nos 1, 4, 11, 12, 15, 17, 24, 25, 26, 29, 31, 32 and 35.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 2 and 10 as they would bring forward the first cuts in production and use of methylbromide to unrealistically early dates - 1 January 2000 and 1 January 2001 respectively.
This would cause procedural difficulties and problems for farmers.
Similarly, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 3 which would remove any exemptions beyond 2006.
This would penalise individual farmers or certain crops disproportionally.
Strict controls on HCFC production and trade with non-parties to the Montreal Protocol are part of the Community ozone policy.
Two weeks ago, in the Beijing meeting of the parties to the Montreal Protocol, the Community succeeded in introducing such measures into the Protocol.
However, excessively harsh measures going beyond the common position could shift the market to overseas producers.
Amendments Nos 5, 6, 7, 8 and 23 advancing the phase-out schedule and imposing an immediate trade ban cannot therefore be accepted.
There are several amendments that bring forward the controls on HCFC uses.
The current position represents a careful balance between what is environmentally desirable, technically feasible and economically achievable.
The Commission cannot, therefore, accept Amendments Nos 13, 14 and 16 which would tighten the deadlines further for the phasing out of HCFC use in solvents, air conditioning and polyurethane foams.
This could bring increased problems and lead to cash flow problems for companies.
The Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 18 and 34 on the possible use of HCFCs as a replacement to halons in fire fighting.
Expanding it is unnecessary and limiting it is of little, if any, practical consequence.
Such changes would affect a crucial part of the common position compromise.
Amendment No 28 relates to Article 5 and bans the use of CFCs and HCFCs as a processing agent immediately in a specific application.
The Commission cannot accept this amendment because there is a need to provide for transitional time for phase-out.
Nor can the Commission accept Amendment No 19 banning sales of used HCFC-containing equipment within five years after the respective use ban as it would increase the probability of illegal dumping and venting of HCFCs to the atmosphere.
While the Commission has sympathy for Amendment No 20 that would ban the production of HCFC-containing products for export over the three years after respective domestic use ban, we have to maintain the balance between environmental desirability and the risk that manufacturing would relocate elsewhere.
The Commission cannot therefore accept it.
Similarly, while we support the intention of Amendment No 21, it would be incompatible with the exemption in Article 5(6) for specific cases and therefore cannot be accepted.
Furthermore, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 22 as exemptions would in any case be granted in full consultation with Member States, and thus it cannot accept it.
The Commission cannot accept Amendment No 30 which seeks to expand the possibilities to grant exemptions for substances that have already been phased out.
It is important to send the unambiguous message that when a substance is phased out no further exemptions should be allowed except those that qualify as essential uses.
Finally, may I thank Parliament for its work and careful consideration of the common position.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
Labelling of foodstuffs produced using GMOs
The next item is the motion for a resolution (B5-0313/1999), on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the follow-up to Parliament' s opinion on labelling of foodstuffs produced using genetically modified organisms.
I do not know about you, but its seems to me that this evening is rather reminiscent of the Titanic.
I have a horrible feeling that the whole ship is sinking.
I hope that I am not right, but if we go on like this, perhaps we should join in a chorus of "Nearer my God to Thee", standing in the middle and singing it.
I hope, when the Commission replies, that the Commissioner will be kind enough to reply to the debate in English.
It is extremely helpful when he does so, because this is an issue where a number of us have constituents who are very anxious to find out what is going on, and it is extremely helpful if he can reply in English if at all possible.
This is a deeply unsatisfactory issue dealt with unsatisfactorily by the Commission.
Parliament's Environment Committee has put together a short resolution in order that Members can debate it with the Commission and we can attempt to get some clarification from them.
It is unsatisfactory in the approach that the Commission has had to adopt and indeed in the content of the proposal coming before us.
What we are doing this evening is commenting on a draft Commission regulation.
There is no chance for the European Parliament to propose amendments to it through our normal procedures.
We can only object and if we do object, that would hold up agreement.
We do not really want to hold up such agreement, so we are taking this opportunity of having this debate.
We underline in the motion before you that we believe that this kind of issue should be dealt with in future through the codecision procedure.
In fact, members of the committee find that the whole European Union approach to genetically modified food at the moment is in a rather confused state.
Indeed we have a number of Commissioners who seem to be dealing with it, although Mr Liikanen is taking the lead.
Legislation has been brought forward piecemeal.
We have already had the novel foods regulation, but this is another part of the jigsaw.
We feel that consumers may well be very confused about exactly what the European Union is proposing and how it will impact on them and on the food that they eat and the labels that they read.
There is still nothing from the European Commission on the labelling of genetically modified material when it is contained in animal feed and we look forward to proposals on that.
On the whole, the committee received rather conflicting signals about the recommended maximum 1% content level.
I really would ask the Commissioner when he replies to the debate to take this opportunity to clarify as publicly as possible why the European Commission has chosen the 1% level.
I understand that the Commission was under considerable pressure to go for a much higher level, 5% was the level which some American interests wanted the Commission to go for.
On the other hand, there are some members of the committee who argue that a 0.1% level would have been perfectly feasible and pointed out that some supermarket chains around the European Union are insisting on a 0.1% level.
I believe that the Commission's answer to this is that the 1% level is the only level at which we can be absolutely sure that the testing methods are available so that they can be firmly based in Community law.
If that is the case, then how can supermarkets chains argue to us that a 0.1% level is perfectly feasible? Are the testing methods available, and what about the supermarkets claims?
The committee was so unhappy about this that it wanted to make absolutely clear to the European Commission that it wants to review of this proposal in short order.
I hope that the Commission will comment on the feasibility of this.
If the 1% level is found to be perfectly technically feasible, there are many in the Community who want to make sure that it is possible to review that level downwards, and we would like to have the Commission's view on that.
Finally, we turn to the question of enforcement and paragraph 6 of the resolution.
Can the Commission state absolutely certainly that it is going to be possible to apply this maximum 1% content level to very small quantities of ingredients? As we read the regulation, it says that the maximum 1% level may apply to ingredients of a product, not necessarily simply to the product as a whole.
If that is the case, we are looking at very small quantities indeed, and there are a number of members of the committee who feel that essentially this proposal that we are looking at tonight is unenforceable and represents another occasion where the European Commission has produced something which looks good but which will not actually work out in practice.
Mr President, first of all I would say that the Commission proposal is but a small part of the current legislative vacuum on the labelling of foodstuffs which contain or are produced from genetically modified organisms.
The labelling of these foodstuffs is important for two reasons.
Firstly, it is not known just how dangerous foodstuffs containing genetically modified organisms or their products are to public health and so it would be well worth monitoring their progress within the market. Secondly, it is important that consumers know exactly what they are buying.
Only then can we ensure the smooth operation of the market and win consumer confidence. The Commission has only really dealt with the accidental and, therefore, occasional presence of genetically modified foods and has set an arbitrary 1% tolerance level on just two products, soya and maize.
Granted this may be at least some progress but the question is this: is it really possible to measure and determine precisely what compound foods such as hamburgers and chocolates, contain and secondly, is it possible to accurately measure below the 1% content level? In my opinion, the Achilles heel of this regulation, which in itself will open the floodgates to corruption, violations and distortions of the law, is that it is impossible to assess exactly what compound foods actually contain and how much is derived from a genetically modified product.
We would have to think long and hard before adopting the Commission' s opinion. We expect to hear from you that through the codecision procedure you will review the proposal for a regulation as soon as possible in the light of new scientific and quantitative detection techniques so as to enable us to better address issues such as compound foods containing genetically modified organisms or their products.
I would like your opinion, Commissioner, as to whether you are indeed committed to reviewing this regulation soon, within 12 months, in the light of new data.
Only then will the Group of the European People' s Party be able to approve its adoption.
Mr President, I should like to begin by agreeing with Mrs Jackson that we are sinking, perhaps not as fast as the Titanic, but I understand this building is built on very soft ground.
It may happen long after we have left, but I am sure it will eventually sink into the mire it was built upon.
It has already flooded on the ground floor during construction.
I expect that will happen again before too long.
Getting back to the matter at hand, Mrs Jackson has essentially asked all the right questions in the right order.
This proposal was supported unanimously in committee because we believe something has to be done, and done quickly, to meet consumer demands for labelling and to meet consumers' justified concerns about knowing what they are eating.
The consumer has a right to know.
The Commission has made a brave attempt to put something on paper, limited in scope though it is, to help the consumer. I will support that.
But how practical is it?
Is it going to work? The 1% limit on any ingredient - which I and others have been informed is already being exceeded by supermarkets etc. in terms of their requirements for food - is also a limit which I am told can quite easily be met by anyone wishing to avoid having to label foods containing GMs, because of adventitious contamination, whatever that means.
It therefore seems to me that an early review is going to be extremely necessary.
The net result of this regulation will be, when we bring it in, that the vast majority of food in the supermarket will be exactly as it is now - unlabelled - because the vast majority of food may contain a small amount of GM, below the limit.
That will be what happens.
We are making a brave attempt here.
The Commission is making a brave attempt here.
I would like it to clarify exactly what the scope of its proposal is.
I am told that at the moment it only applies to those products derived from soya and maize.
I would like the Commission to tell me just how practical it thinks its measures are going to be and how quickly it will be able to change them if they do not work.
Mr President, it is Parliament' s intention to give consumers reassurance and also to provide a firm and clear legal framework for companies which work with GMOs.
The Commission' s regulation is not clear on either front.
Firstly, I would like to say that, to my mind, there is an injudicious use of terminology.
You are using the word contamination, whilst, in my opinion, what you mean to say is "presence" .
This is why I have submitted an amendment to our text to delete the word contamination.
Then there is also a lack of clarity, as mentioned by Mrs Jackson and Mr Bowe in this respect. Up to one percent is permitted in unforeseen circumstances, so by accident.
I would like to know from you what constitutes these unforeseen circumstances, when it is and is not permitted. How is this evidenced?
You also require proof.
I am wondering how this is done.
Case by case: how should I interpret this? So if, for example, a lorry has loaded 20 tonnes of corn, then 200 kg of this may be genetically modified corn.
This is one percent. Or is this not permitted?
So if a ship is loaded with 50,000 tonnes of soybean - I hear the largest ships can hold 50,000 tonnes - this may contain 500 tonnes, 500,000 kg of genetically modified soybean. Or have I got this wrong?
Do you then say: if there is only 500 tonnes of GM soybean in this ship that this ship is GM-free? I must say, this sounds rather absurd to me.
So I would like to find out from you what you mean by one percent in ingredients.
Where and when will you check this?
Under those circumstances, I do wonder if a label makes sense and the situation becomes completely absurd because the literature and circumstances show that a number of varieties can be imported and others cannot.
How can you check up on this because it may involve hundreds of tonnes of goods which you are unaware are being imported.
The Commission should take measures as a matter of urgency, clarify its proposals and shed more light on the whole matter.
If food companies wish to offer commodities to their customers which are GMO-free, they should be able to do this and this is not possible under the current circumstances.
Mr President, Commissioner Liikanen, the questions have actually been asked, and there are a great many questions about this regulation.
We too welcome the fact that there has been some movement at last.
But it is regrettable that the Commission has only reacted to pressure - pressure from the Austrian Government - and has been proposing legislation piecemeal for years.
Where, for example, is the novel feed regulation? How, Commissioner, can you reconcile this with the new Commission slogan that there should be greater transparency, when for example more than 80% of soya production goes into animal feed?
I would have liked you to tell me this evening whether you are prepared to announce your support for a moratorium until we have a novel feed regulation.
Because anything else means misleading packaging with the result that our consumers are secretly sold quasi-genetically manipulated food under false pretences.
I would have liked to learn from you this evening how long these tactics of submitting to the pressure of the feed industry are going to last, or whether you are finally going to deliver on the promise which Mr Prodi made here of greater transparency for consumers.
Incidentally - but you know this already - we also think that the 1% is far too high.
The level ought to be at least as low as half, as this is possible to analyse.
If you are going to assume that there is unintentional contamination then, Mr Liikanen, you will have to explain to me how, in a shipload of soya, 3000 tonnes - that is 1% - becomes unintentionally contaminated!
I do not believe that this has anything, anything at all to do with it.
We expect you to do what you have already said you would do in the committee, which is to endorse Parliament's vote, finally invite everyone to a round table and propose a new threshold as quickly as possible.
Secondly, I expect a clear statement from you this evening on how long the Commission's delaying tactics on the novel feed regulation are going to last, and whether you consider it appropriate, with a view to consumers finally having a clear picture, to support this proposal - part of which was also of course drafted by the Council of Ministers - to declare a moratorium.
For I believe that this is the only way to achieve some degree of clarity here.
Mr President, this 1% GMO content limit which does not require labelling, presented here from a purely technical perspective, seems to be a very high level compared with the commitments already made by large-scale distributors.
So why is it 1%? In our opinion, the firms involved in the mass production and use of GMOs are seeking to establish a fait accompli by spreading GMOs across the whole of the food-processing market.
They are making it virtually impossible to set up sectors capable of offering consumers GMO-free products.
Next, it is impossible to guarantee that GMOs will not, in the long term, have any impact on public health and on the environment, especially given that mass production causes them to be dispersed throughout the countryside.
The social impact of the widespread distribution of GMOs has been clearly identified: producers and consumers will become ever more dependent on the giants in the food processing sector.
In our opinion, in order to foil the policy of the fait accompli, the maintenance of complete sectors of production without GMOs must be guaranteed.
Both producers and consumers must ultimately be able to identify whether the products they are using contain GMOs or not. Means for control exist.
They can be effective if the public authorities have the political will to use them.
As far as we are concerned, there is no justification today for the existence of a tolerable GMO level within which the risk would be zero or at least acceptable.
Mr President, the threshold value of 1% in the Commission proposal has one advantage: after years of lack of clarity, producers can no longer make their own interpretations.
But I also have some criticism: the percentage is not justified because it is apparently a political compromise.
A percentage to be selected must be achievable and acceptable.
At any rate much below 1, for example under 0.5%.
This is why I would ask the Commission to develop procedures to review the percentage in the very short term.
We have to prevent this 1% threshold value from becoming a precedent and being applied to the labelling of other products in future.
In addition, I find the undemocratic and non-transparent way in which the Commission dictates this standard unacceptable.
This is a topic for fundamental discussion which enjoys a wide popular appeal.
Furthermore, in this field, the codecision procedure must be applied to the introduction of these measures.
Legislation concerning genetically modified products should be transparent, should come about by democratic means and be coherent.
I support a democratic and comprehensive policy for genetically modified products.
With regard to labelling, I would like to note that it is time to give serious thought to the symbols used for GMOs.
Using minute phrases and words does not offer the consumer sufficient clarity.
A practical question addressed to Commissioner Liikanen concerns the recommendation of the Scientific Committee to draft a black list.
Does the Commissioner share the Committee' s opinion that it is impossible to do this?
Finally, I would like to point out to the Commissioner that standardisation alone does not suffice.
The European Commission and national governments should also apply other instruments to maintain the GMO-free chain.
I particularly have inspections in mind.
Mr President, Commissioner, since the coming into force of the novel food directive, the European Commission too has made a bit of a hash of things, to put it mildly.
This is how we would put it informally.
The European food industry is partly to blame for this because they were not prepared to make any concessions in the past.
Mr President, the argument which has led the Commission today to include the 1% level here in this implementation was the fact that that which was held impossible in the past, namely identification and detection under the one percent threshold as well, is now possible.
Mr President, because measuring methods are available.
This means that in fact, anything can be detected at present.
However, the regulation which is now in place means that we will soon have four types of food.
Firstly, GMO-labelled food; secondly, food which is not supposed to contain any GMOs; thirdly, the category with the maximum 1% tolerance level and fourthly, all the supermarket chains which say that they can guarantee 0.1% although with the best will in the world they could not even guarantee this 0.1% because even in the identity preserved-chain foods will always contain more than 0.1% of GMOs.
Mr President, this legislation shows up two deficiencies.
Firstly, regulations are not just in place for maize and soya.
I wonder when the rest will surface.
Secondly, as Mr Sterckx has already mentioned, the term 'contamination' will need to be replaced by 'presence' .
Mr President, I would also like to mention another issue.
Whatever will we be faced with next? At present, we are only dealing with food available to the consumer.
But if, for example, I consider the foodstuffs or the food for our livestock, then we would need to refer to this novel feed directive and I would also mention the comments made by Mrs Breyer.
Mr President, it would thus mean that if you know that all the proteins originate from abroad, say from South America, that you will soon also need to label absolutely everything with GMO identification within the framework of this novel food directive.
Mr President, I wonder if we have to put up with this Dancing Procession of Echternach for much longer?
I should like first of all to say that the proposed 1% limit is actually, in my view, a sign of capitulation.
It is in fact a very striking result of the fact that, for years, we have seen a lack of overview and cohesion in GMO legislation.
We have not made the necessary demands when it comes to distinguishing between GM material and non-GM material.
We are therefore now forced to accept a certain quantity of GM materials in all produce, without our being informed as consumers about these.
For the citizens of Europe, this really is quite a depressing development in terms of consumer policy.
I can support the present motion for a resolution, but I also think it is worth emphasising that the 1% limit set by the Commission is definitely too high.
It opens the way to carelessness and indifference on the part of suppliers and producers. There is every reason for thinking that the limit will be eroded in future.
I should therefore like to request four things of the Commission. Firstly, that a lower triviality limit than 1% be set.
If this is not desired, then a one-year review clause, as proposed here by Parliament, might at any rate be agreed to, in anticipation of reducing the triviality limit.
Thirdly, the claim of adventitious contamination due to GM materials must be carefully defined.
This is a very elastic concept that has been built into the proposal here, and I believe it needs to be defined very clearly.
Fourthly, and finally, I would ask that a very efficient supervisory system be established so that we might counter the worst examples of carelessness in this sphere.
I hope that Commissioner Liikanen will be able to respond positively to these four questions and requests.
Mr President, it is not enough that it cannot be proved that there is any risk from GM foods.
There must be clear advantages for consumers, and there must not be any danger to the environment or to animals' welfare.
It is, and remains, the legislators' task to establish rules and guidelines to ensure that the market develops in such a way that the concerns and requirements of consumers too are taken seriously, and that is not the case with the EU' s labelling requirement.
It has already been said many times now that a figure of 1%, set as the threshold value for the adventitious presence of GM materials in food, is way beyond what can and should be accepted as the triviality limit.
It is possible to separate GM crops both in the fields at harvest time, in the course of transportation and during processing.
This requires a good system of consultation from field to table and, therefore, higher costs too, but it can in fact be done.
If, against all expectations, this is not the case, then this is merely another argument for prohibiting the cultivation of GM crops.
The next best solution, involving GMO-free labelling, I regard as defeatist, except as a supplementary, voluntary option.
Until now, GM foodstuffs have only had advantages for producers.
The costs of labelling and supervision should therefore be borne by the producers of GM foods.
The risk in eating the products and the long-term consequences for environmental and biological diversity ought to go on being investigated.
A direct result of this is the de facto moratorium which five countries have introduced into the EU' s procedure for approving new licences to release genetically modified organisms to the environment and which is to remain in force while the relevant directive is being revised.
I am therefore surprised at the reports that Commissioner Wallström does not want to wait for the final revision but has instead backed industry' s offer to comply with the revised GMO Directive even before it is adopted.
This is a treacherous attack on the Member States' moratorium. Moreover, the Council of Ministers' common position does not go far enough.
All I can do, therefore, is call upon the Member States to stick to the moratorium.
It is imperative that the GMO legislation should be revised and tightened up - and preferably now rather than in the future.
Mr President, this is obviously a very important issue that needs to be addressed with some urgency.
Not only do consumers need to be reassured, but the industry also needs a climate of certainty within which to operate.
May I say that I speak with a background in the industry, though since joining this House I have of course severed all ties with it.
In my previous life I was managing director of a snack food company that made tortilla chips.
It also made an excellent British delicacy called pork scratchings - which I just toss in so as to keep the interpreters on their toes.
Tortilla chips are made of 100% American maize; and certainly when our customers asked for guaranteed GM-free identity-preserved maize, we had very great difficulty in securing that.
All the tests we did, in testing that was widely and commercially available, showed even such maize occasionally contained between 1 and 2% adventitious GM material.
So to those such as Mr Bowe who say 1% is a target that can easily be met, I say from experience that it cannot easily be met.
It is a very challenging target.
I believe that the industry has accepted that target, but with some trepidation.
If that target is reduced, what is quite likely to happen - because industry will not meet it - is that increasingly it will just label everything 'May contain GM material' - which completely undermines the purpose of this labelling.
That is the first point I would make: the target is already tough.
The second point regarding a review is that the industry needs certainty: so constant changes every 12 months are no good for the industry, and indeed confusing for the consumer.
The final point, going back to a point that Mrs Jackson made to begin with, is that we must ensure, when labelling comes in, that equal rules are applied with certainty across the EU.
As we approach a new millennium, maybe we can start a new trend towards ensuring that such laws will be universally enforced and applied.
Thank you for this important discussion even though the circumstances are not the best at the moment.
This subject has already been discussed by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on 15 November.
I stated then that it is not only an issue of whether we like or authorise GMOs or not or whether we label them or not.
We are simply trying to implement the existing legislation and make it operational.
With the proposal amending Regulation No 1139/98, laying down a de minimis threshold for the adventitious presence of authorised GM material, we are responding to the Council's mandate on labelling of GM foodstuffs.
The Commission was obliged to do so at the time of adopting the regulation.
The draft aims to solve the problem of labelling foods when operators have tried to avoid using GM material and can prove this but nevertheless small amounts of GM material are found in them.
This adventitious contamination can occur during cultivation, harvest, transport, storage and processing.
After our consultations with the Joint Research Centre and Member States in particular we concluded that a value of 1% is a compromise that best serves two things: firstly, the purpose of establishing a very low tolerance level which implies an effort for operators; secondly, that it takes into account the necessary feasibility along the production chain.
We will shortly have methods that do not pose competent authorities unjustified problems for implementation.
I would also like to mention that this value is stricter than thresholds applied by other countries like Switzerland, Norway and Japan.
As you know, unlike the EU, the United States of America and Canada have no compulsory labelling of GM foods.
The wish of the committee is that we should reassess this issue.
I am ready, on behalf of the Commission, to make a commitment: "The Commission will review the draft regulation amending Regulation 1139/98 within one year of its entry into force.
The Commission will propose any necessary amendments in the light of improvements in quantitative detection techniques and practical experience gained with implementation of the proposed 1% value.
Moreover, the White Paper on food safety will also allow the opportunity of a wide debate on labelling if it is wished by the European Parliament."
The Commission has not exceeded its executive powers by proposing these regulations.
The two draft measures are consistent with current legislation.
We will use the codecision procedure when the European Parliament calls for the GMO-free scheme.
So far as the novel food regulation is concerned, Mr Byrne's department is preparing a proposal.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Wednesday at noon.
(The sitting was closed at 12.15 a.m.)
Resumption of the sitting
For technical reasons, the Minutes for yesterday' s sitting will not be available until just after noon, and so will be presented for approval by the House at 3 p.m.
Vote on requests for urgent procedure
Last night, the Committee on Agricultural and Rural Development adopted the report by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert on this subject.
I would like to hear the opinion of the committee responsible regarding this request for urgent procedure.
Who will speak on behalf of the committee?
Graefe zu Baringdorf (Greens/ALE), chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
(DE) Madam President, the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development recommends that the request for urgent procedure be accepted.
Firstly, this is an urgent matter which needs to be agreed this year.
Secondly, we agree with the objective.
The great majority of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development is convinced that the use of BST should be banned this year.
(Parliament approved the request for urgent procedure)
Proposal for a Council regulation on Community financial contributions to the International Fund for Ireland (COM(99)0549 - C5-0285/99 - 1999/0221(CNS)) (Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism)
President.
The Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism shall give its opinion on this request for urgent procedure.
Madam President, the request for urgent procedure on this matter can itself be put down to negligence on the part of the Council Secretariat.
We could see this coming for a long time now.
But it is the opinion of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism that the people of Ireland must not be the ones to suffer on account of this and that is why we are in favour of this matter being treated with urgency.
I just wanted to check whether there will be an opportunity to discuss this issue later in the week because one of the things that has not been discussed in this Parliament is the role the arms industries are playing in the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Some years ago in this Parliament, when a report was put forward in committee, I tried to get amendments through to say that the arms industry should not have a role in the peace process.
Yet the only job opportunity that has been provided in Derry so far on foot of the peace process has been by Raytheon, the third-biggest arms manufacturing company in the US.
So I think it is a contradiction in terms to talk about a peace process and to provide jobs in the arms industry for people who have been decimated by violence.
Madam President, I have requested the floor for a procedural motion.
Numerous Members are stuck in their hotels in the centre of Strasbourg, at least in the area where the Novotel and Ibis hotels are located.
When the first car left, half an hour late, they asked me to pass on this protest because at least 15 Members were in the same hotel and will not be able to take part in the vote because of the transport delay.
I am very sorry, Mr Colom i Naval.
We shall see what we can do to ensure that this does not recur, and we shall see how they may join us as quickly as possible.
Madam President, we have discussed this in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Common Security and Defence Policy.
We see no case for urgency and we would prefer to draft a report in which we can work out the accession strategy and state the position of the European Parliament.
We therefore oppose the urgency tabled by the Council.
(Parliament rejected the request for urgent procedure)
Thank you, Mr Galeote Quecedo, I am already aware of the problems that a number of Members are having in getting to Strasbourg.
As you know, I try to do all I can to improve communications. Indeed, it is one of my objectives.
European Council/Finnish Presidency, Chechnya, OSCE
To help Mr Galeote and one or two other Members in the state-of-the-art plenary that we have here, I wondered if it would be possible at some future date for Members actually to be able to keep the same seat.
We seem to be continually rotating and it is often difficult for Members to find their seats.
Even in the old chamber when we did not have places allocated, we were at least able to continue to sit in the same places.
One wonders how long we will have to keep printing new seating orders.
Could this be rectified?
Yes, indeed, Mr Sturdy. The reformation of the Technical Group of Independent Members has caused a few problems, but this is something that we shall solve quite quickly.
The next item is the joint debate on the meeting of the European Council held in Helsinki on 10 and 11 December, and the statement by the President-in-Office of the Council regarding the results of the six-month term of office of the Finnish Presidency, including the situation in Chechnya and the OSCE Summit.
I have had word from Mr Lipponen to say that he has been delayed.
Since Mr Prodi is already present, I shall give him the floor first, if he is in agreement.
My thanks to the Commission President, Mr Romano Prodi, and may I now welcome Mr Lipponen.
We have heard that your car was delayed. You need make no apology.
Prime Minister Lipponen, I shall give you the floor immediately.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, on behalf of the Group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to offer my heartfelt congratulations to the Finnish Presidency on the success of their debut.
It has been a fine debut, because you have been able, at this historic and symbolic moment, at the dawn of the new millennium, to draw up a creative approach for the European Union in the light of the challenges it is facing.
I believe that Prime Minister Lipponen and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mrs Halonen, who is absent today due to other work commitments, have truly worked effectively and seriously.
Our fundamental criticism of the Finnish Presidency and the Summit is that, clearly, and in the eyes of our citizens, their substance has been more impressive than appearances would suggest.
I think this concern should be expressed through our comments and criticisms here in the European Parliament. Why?
Because, with regard to enlargement, an open and political principle has been displayed by offering all countries the possibility of acceding, of competing with us, with a desire to emulate us and of participating in our adventure.
It is also clear that a significant and genuine step forward has been taken in relation to Turkey.
I have to say, on behalf of my group - where we have debated the issue at length - that our positive attitude towards Turkey is unanimous.
And now, at a time when this step has been taken - and we must remember that relations with Turkey did not start yesterday, but in 1963 -, we hope that Turkey will also respond in a positive manner, both with regard to its internal process of democratisation as well as its relations, not only with the Community, but essentially with the country which has taken the most important step and which I think should be congratulated: Greece and its government.
Next, with regard to the Intergovernmental Conference, which is the preliminary step we have to take in preparing our shared Community for enlargement, I believe that we are moving forward significantly, but I am extremely aware that the Council systematically tries to undervalue what it does.
There is always talk about the leftovers of Amsterdam; leftovers are normally thrown in the bin.
These are very important decisions.
Confirming the principle of majority voting as a general rule in the Community, as the basis for the political functioning of the Union (which is very important for the Parliament insofar as we can make codecisions), being granted legal personality, which includes, in the Conference, decisions which the Council has taken, such as, for example, drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights... What is the point of all this if it is not included in the Treaties?
A significant step has been taken with regard to security and defence policy, and in this sense I would like to underline the fact that the Community spirit is winning us all over.
Who would have said a year ago that Finland would be the country which would preside over the European Union at a time when it was taking such a decisive step in terms of security and defence identity? I believe this shows that, together, we are doing things and taking positive steps.
Curiously though, we do not explain them and we do not sell them.
And nor do we accept an important task in this Parliament which is, in the name of transparency and through clarification, to try to create Treaties which are comprehensible to the citizens.
I would remind you that this appears in the Treaty of Amsterdam, but has not been mentioned since. This opportunity, which is so important, has never been taken.
I must also say that the Summit statement with regard to the European Parliament' s participation may well be positive to an extent, but we do not like to be described as parliamentary observers.
We want to have 'representatives' of this Parliament, because that is the role of our institution.
And remembering what happened at the Seattle Summit, I believe that we have to make a considerable effort to explain to the citizens what we are doing.
Otherwise, we run the risk of producing unwanted reactions.
A final word, Madam President, regarding an issue which concerns my group very much.
It seems to us absolutely essential that we are able to move forward in relation to capital-gains tax.
The European process cannot be seen as a process in which there is less and less capital gains tax and more and more tax on wages.
If we continue along these lines, we may find that those in work will react against the European process, especially within a framework of financial globalisation which lacks rules.
Therefore, Madam President, I believe that the Finnish Presidency has taken an enormous step forward.
What is now required is a sustained, hard, arduous and persistent effort to keep things moving forward.
But, above all, we have to carry out the task of explaining the process to our citizens, and I believe that that is our principal mission.
I would like, on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Group, to warmly congratulate the Finnish Presidency.
You have completed a very successful first presidency for Finland but you have done it with a capacity that does enormous credit to the tasks which you addressed.
The Summit has produced a result which is worthy of the times.
We are at the end of a century, we are contemplating a new millennium and it is a time of review, a time of outlook and a time of new optimism.
I believe, in a certain way, the Summit has captured that.
I believe that the major decisions that have been made in respect of enlargement, reform and defence show that there is a sustained vitality in our common European vocation.
That is an important message and the central message that has emerged from your successful presidency and on that you deserve rich and proper congratulation.
I should like to say, in respect of enlargement, that my group, as the others too have expressed here today, is extremely pleased to see that negotiations will open soon with the six additional States of Central and Eastern Europe.
It is important that we inject a new political dynamic into the enlargement process.
The enlargement process itself is essentially a political process and we must not lose sight of that, notwithstanding the many technical dimensions that attend it.
On the question of Turkey: my group welcomes the decision to extend candidate status to Turkey and regards it as positive.
We hope that the modernising influences within Turkish politics and society will now take hold of this opportunity and build on it in a positive way.
But in welcoming the decision as we do, we insist that those modernising forces must make determined progress towards European norms of respect for human rights and of the relationship between civil and military society; towards the abolition of the death penalty; towards a clear respect for minorities, especially the Kurdish minority in Turkey.
The European Union has also made through your presidency a wise choice in insisting that the reform process in the Treaties must be over and operational by the year 2002 so that it will facilitate early accession because it is important to ensure that the reform process should not become the enemy of the enlargement process.
The IGC has the opportunity to enhance efficiency and effectiveness and to deepen the democratic character of the European Union.
However, we are disappointed that the IGC agenda which has been contemplated at Helsinki has been limited to what has been described as the Amsterdam leftovers.
I accept that these are not merely crumbs on the table, they are significant slices of reform but we must grasp this opportunity to do more.
My group, through this House, will work with other parliamentarians and with the Commission to try to convince the incoming Portuguese Presidency to be more ambitious in the reform, all the while respecting the timetable.
I share the view of other colleagues that it is unfortunate to describe the role that this House can play as one merely of observer.
I welcome the fact that we will participate but we participate as equals and not merely as observers.
On the question of defence, we warmly welcome the establishment of the rapid reaction force and its significant and necessary progress - Kosovo has taught us dearly the need for that.
My group, however, again wishes to stress the importance that this should be seen in the context of a strong Atlantic Alliance.
We must not give any succour to the forces in US politics who show a tendency towards isolationism, many of whose voices are now raised in the current US Presidential election.
In this regard, one suggestion is that we contemplate the establishment of a political and security committee and military committee.
Could the Defence Minister of the incoming Presidency come to this House at an early date and make a statement to us? We need to clarify a number of things such as the role of EU non-NATO members in such a force and the role of non-EU NATO members in respect of such a force if they wish to participate.
This and other issues should have a democratic airing and this is the place to do so at a European level.
A final comment: I could not sit down without mentioning our deep concern about Chechnya.
We welcome the fact that this is occupying the attention of Helsinki.
We would urge the IMF also to act vigorously in this regard because, although each State has a right to defend itself against terrorism, what we observe in Chechnya is grossly disproportionate to the scale of the perceived threat and we have to deplore and condemn it at every opportunity.
Madam President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, my group would first like to acknowledge to those representing the Finnish Presidency that you, as compared with the European Parliament, have improved transparency and the flow of information.
The Finnish Presidency has kept us better informed than former presidencies, which is obviously important, as it strengthens relations between the European Parliament and the Council with reference to the Treaty of Amsterdam.
The conclusions of the Summit meeting declare, quite satisfactorily, that the Commission at last intends to issue a proposal in January regarding the conditions on which the public will be able to access the documents of the institutions.
I would like to tell you that this draft regulation has been leaked to the public, and that is worrying.
That does not make for a spirit of transparency; on the contrary, it might even weaken it, so I would ask you to give this matter your attention.
The final proposal can surely yet be amended in such a way that it would really increase transparency.
Regarding enlargement, I wish to say that we are very satisfied that the Council has now finally agreed that each candidate country must be assessed on their own merits.
This is exactly the strategy we proposed from the outset.
Now we have to ensure that we also achieve a balance in the progress we make in negotiations and that candidate countries give sufficient consideration to the issues of social security, equality between men and women, employment and environmental protection.
With regard to Turkey, our opinion is that the European Council should mean what it says, in other words, that the same criteria should apply to Turkey as with the other countries that have been accorded candidate status.
We call on you to look seriously into the question relating to the status of the Kurds.
Islam is obviously already a European tradition, and so we have no fears of the European Union becoming more religiously diverse.
We were not inclined to agree with those in the European Parliament who have been keen to narrowly define the borders of Europe in the belief that Islam is somehow non-European.
On the contrary, we think it can indeed be a part of European culture.
Th majority of our group would seem to agree that the European Union should also develop a system for military crisis management, to prevent humanitarian catastrophes.
We are very dissatisfied with the way in which the European Council and preparatory discussions have paid little heed to public debate and public opinion.
We want to point out that foreign and security policy, as any other, must be democratic, and you must open up this debate, so the public know what the next phases of the process are to be.
We do not want the European Union to become NATO' s European military pillar.
We want you to strengthen civil crisis management, because, as we all know, it is the wisest thing to do.
The non-military prevention of conflicts is always more important, and for every euro invested in military crisis management at least as much must be spent on civil crisis management.
Finally, your position on Chechnya was a step in the right direction.
I am certain the European Parliament' s calls to put economic cooperation on ice have had an effect, and we believe that you will remain firm in your opinion that this is not a situation in which we can act as if nothing has happened.
Mr President, a quarter of a century ago, at the time of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the spirit in Helsinki was one of peace and cooperation.
Now it is a spirit of European militarisation.
At the Helsinki Summit, the EU expanded its role to include the militarisation of the Union.
We are to establish our own European army for the EU, although it will not be called that officially.
The Member States committed themselves to releasing troops from their own authority to form a fifty thousand strong European army and assigned troops equivalent to a whole corps for the joint deployment of the EU.
In addition, they are going to create rapid deployment forces for wars lasting no more than a year.
At Amsterdam a common foreign and security policy was referred to.
At Cologne it was already a common security and defence policy that was mentioned.
Since then, many, following the lead of the Commission, have started talking about a common defence.
The ideas expressed speak for themselves.
The EU has started to become a war alliance and a military alliance.
At Helsinki, the attendance of defence ministers at meetings of the General Affairs Council was officially approved.
The EU will thus acquire a Council of Ministers of War.
In Helsinki a standing committee on political and security matters was set up.
Since Helsinki, the commanders of the defence forces of the various countries have formed an EU Military Committee, which is free of any kind of democratic scrutiny.
It was also decided at Helsinki to establish a Military Staff, which will be an EU military planning body for spying operations and mobilisation.
Consequently, talk has begun of the need to increase military appropriations.
Via the new institutions, a new defence dimension is being created, despite the fact that no agreement has been made in the Treaties that joint military operations fall within the scope of the EU.
These decisions should be taken to the EU Court of Justice.
Can Heads of State and Government extend the role of the EU without the approval of Parliament?
The NATO countries doubtless intend to put the decisions of the fiftieth anniversary conference of the "Alliance" into effect.
Since the decisions taken at Washington the NATO countries have been able to act outside the territories of their Member States. They have assumed the right to attack other countries without a mandate from either the UN or the OSCE.
In NATO this is called humanitarian intervention, as it has no mandate under international law.
In the EU, it is called crisis management, which also includes forcible peace-making.
There was no decision at Helsinki to mandate crisis management or forcible peace-making.
As the EU is being militarised, it would seem to be happening with a mandate from NATO.
The Finnish Presidency has ended wretchedly from the point of view of preserving the non-alignment of a non-aligned State.
If the meeting were historic this was mainly in the sense that the EU is being militarised.
There were no surprises at Helsinki as far as EU enlargement and the Intergovernmental Conference were concerned.
In the opinion of our group, the Russian attack on civilians in Chechnya is to be strongly condemned, and it was at Helsinki.
In the fight against unemployment, we wish Portugal better success that Finland had.
Mr President, the Helsinki Summit of EU leaders has been quite accurately billed as the European Union's enlargement Summit, and there can be no doubt that this European Council meeting has lived up to this particular expectation.
The EU leaders reaffirmed the inclusive nature of the accession process which now comprises 13 candidate States within a single framework.
In essence what this means is that the countries, including Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Malta, will now open negotiations on membership of the European Union in March of next year.
These new countries join with the original six that are already engaged in extensive talks with the Union covering 38 different chapters of negotiations concerning the enlargement process.
All the countries seeking to accede to the EU regard the prospect of membership of the Union as an essential ingredient in achieving the transformation of their economic and political structures.
The leaders of the 15 countries presently comprising membership of the EU believe that there will have to be substantial changes to the internal decision-making processes within the EU if the enlargement process is to take place in a structured and streamlined fashion.
EU leaders have agreed to set the end of the year 2002 as the deadline for the EU's internal preparations, notably the ratification of any institutional changes which are agreed at the future IGC.
We all know that the enlargement process cannot take place unless there is some reform in the decision-making procedures within the European Union itself.
However, the deadline being set down for the next intergovernmental conference is very ambitious indeed.
I support working towards reaching an agreement by the end of next year, but equally we must not and should not hurry possible fundamental reforms to existing treaties without due consideration and evaluation.
Certainly it would be extremely difficult and impracticable to secure the support of the European public to introduce unanimity for tax harmonisation changes or for decisions concerning foreign and security matters at European Council level.
We must tread carefully on the matter of treaty reform for the simple reason that we have to guarantee that we can carry the support of the 340 million citizens in the EU for any such changes.
Turkey has also been designated as having candidate status for membership of the EU although it will have to meet the political criteria laid down for prospective accession, which of course will include proving that respect for human rights is an intrinsic part of Turkish life.
On the issue of Chechnya the European Union leaders were right to bring home to Russia the force of their anger at the brutality of Russian behaviour in the region.
A negotiated settlement is still the only real long-term solution for the securing of a peace settlement in Chechnya.
The European Union must continue to use every diplomatic avenue open to it to help halt the war in Chechnya.
Mr President, I fear that time will tell that the decision taken in Helsinki to accord Turkey candidate status for membership of the European Union is a political miscalculation that threatens to have dramatic repercussions for our Member States and for Turkey.
Whilst acknowledging that Turkey must indeed be accorded respect as an important and culturally-rich nation and friendly neighbouring country with which we want to remain on the best of terms, Turkey still does not belong in Europe.
That is only logical historically, geographically-speaking and from the point of view of common sense.
We must pluck up the courage to tell this friendly neighbouring country as much.
For historical, cultural, religious and political reasons, Turkey has never been part of European civilisation.
Quite the opposite in fact.
In Helsinki, the European countries bent over backwards yet again for American geo-political interests and for nothing else.
Do I need to produce a map to remind you that only three percent of Turkey is on European soil? How can people undermine Europe in this way and strip it of its historical identity by continuing even to consider extending candidate status to a country that lies in a different part of the world.
Finally, I would just like to say something about the logic of common sense, for a number of Member States are already struggling with a massive, almost unmanageable immigration problem.
If Turkey accedes to the European Union then the problem will grow to gigantic proportions.
This will result in an invasion of the kind that the French President Valérie Giscard d' Estaing once warned about.
That is why my party, the Flemish Block, will continue to oppose any possibility of Turkey acceding to the European Union.
Mr President, the Helsinki Summit was an event of historic significance. The EU is to get its own military rapid reaction corps.
The world' s largest trading power is to begin establishing its own military force, and the world is on the way to acquiring a new superstate in addition to the USA.
To be sure, it has been agreed that the EU army is not really an EU army at all because it is not on a permanent basis, but then nor are NATO armed forces or a Eurocorps on a permanent basis either.
The EU army is the same, in having a command structure of troops and hardware to be deployed on a variety of tasks.
Let us call a spade a spade and an EU army an EU army.
With its own currency, police force and military, the EU is to dispose of the resources normally pertaining to a Nation State.
The EU already has more legislative power than other federations, and the essence of the next treaty will be more majority decision making.
We are on the way from a confederation to a federal State, but this is still only the last but one treaty before the drafting of a constitution for just such a federal State, for no-one is going to give up the right of veto in regard to the amendment of the Treaties, the levying of new taxes and the sending of soldiers off to war.
The next treaty too will contain familiar echoes of the nation States of old.
France and Britain will not be submitting their nuclear weapons to EU control.
We are to get a quasi-federal confederation dominated by the three biggest countries, Europe' s former great powers.
Enlargement will not take the form of negotiations concerned with creating a common, democratic Europe.
The first requirement of enlargement is that the Eastern and Central European countries discard everything they themselves have decided and replace it with the European Union' s common legislation, the sacred and universal acquis communautaire.
Their newly won right to deliberate on new laws in elected parliaments is to be transferred to negotiators behind more closed doors in Brussels.
Their electors and elected representatives are to surrender power to officials and ministers.
Democracy, for them, is to become the exception rather than the rule, as has also happened in our own case.
Matters need not reach this pass.
We must hope that there are people who dare to say no to the penultimate treaty before the drafting of an actual constitution and who dare to prepare the ground for replacing regimentation and centralism with a Europe of democracies and diversites.
Following this criticism, I should just like to commend the Finnish Presidency for having promoted the cause of openness by means of the Presidency' s new home pages.
These have been very useful, and I hope that the Portuguese Presidency will take its cue from this initiative.
Mr President. What struck me first as I studied the final document last weekend was its order of priority.
I understand perfectly well that the enlargement of the Union must be given priority in the wake of the upbeat tempo adopted by the Commission for the new accession strategy.
However, I would have considered it wiser for an enlargement Summit to give precedence to the matters facing the intergovernmental conference, thereby emphasising that even the tiniest enlargement will not work unless outstanding institutional questions are solved.
However, I was pleased to see that Helsinki resisted both the temptation and the intensive lobbying of the Commission and Parliament and basically concentrated the agenda of the intergovernmental conference on the famous Amsterdam leftovers.
This should ensure that other topics will not be dealt with until these have been wrapped up.
Improvements on Amsterdam in the institutional area not only concern fundamental matters, they also call for tremendous effort.
Whether or not the decision on Turkey was for the greater good of the Union and Turkey, only time will tell.
We very much doubt it.
By contrast, the progress made with the CFSP was extremely positive, even if it failed to answer a number of fundamental questions, including some of significance to Austria.
The current situation shows how vital progress is in this area. The Union may well be seething inwardly, but in truth it stands paralysed and helpless in the face of events in Chechnya.
As far as employment policy is concerned, I expect more from the promised economic recovery, from the upswing, than from the action plans on paper.
But, all in all, Helsinki achieved an interesting result!
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council Lipponen and Commission President Romano Prodi gave us an excellent summary of the main decisions taken during the Finnish Presidency and of future tasks that lay ahead.
Although I am therefore satisfied with the Finnish Government' s strong grasp of leadership and the fact that either considerable progress was made with the key issues or they were finally resolved, it is clear that the good results of the Presidency stem from the desire by the whole of the Union to develop a common European structure.
If I also mention various disappointments, I am not blaming the Finnish Presidency for them: certain matters simply need more consideration; along the same tracks run trains of varying speed, and the heaviest loads are often the slowest.
I am very satisfied with the progress made on a common dimension for crisis management and defence.
The bases for the security of people in a democratic Union that is committed to a market economy and respect for the principle of the rule of law are economic growth, increased employment, internal security to combat crime, and a common foreign, political and military security system.
The extension of Union enlargement to all thirteen countries ended the artificial split between the applicant countries.
I would say that the decision on Turkish candidacy for membership will furthermore induce this large and important country to determine for itself whether it will ever achieve membership.
The northern dimension was overshadowed by the open crises in Kosovo and Chechnya.
I share with Mr Lipponen' s hope that Russia will become a more successful member of the global community, which would make cross-border cooperation possible on Russia' s northern border with the Union and thus give substance to the northern dimension.
The decision to promote all the possibilities of information technology to improve the Union' s competitiveness and the aim to take Europe to the number one position in the world as an information society player are both essential ingredients in the promotion of economic security.
In this area, Commissioner Liikanen will have both an interesting and mighty task ahead of him.
Among the disappointments we must once again include certain important issues with regard to the development of the single market and the Union' s decision-making system.
The tax package, even a nodding glance at the harmonisation of taxes, failed.
The idea of a European limited company could not be taken forward, and the illegal beef war in Europe continues.
Finally, I would like to raise a small but, in my own area, important matter.
Where did WADA (the World Anti Doping Agency) disappear to, beyond the reach of the Union, and the watchdog on sports-related illness and the doctor, which Commissioner Viviane Reding reported on 1 December, and in which the Union was to have a key role? Do the Member States not fear the present and future skeletons in their own cupboards in wishing to keep the main responsibility for themselves within the territory of the Union?
Mr President, President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, the Helsinki Summit will go down in history because of the decisions that were taken there.
The meeting showed the way for development in Europe far into the future.
The European Union will move beyond its borders once and for all at the start of the next millennium.
The progress made from the start of talks with the six new candidates for membership, and the acceptance of Turkey as a candidate for membership has been an inevitable part of the European policy to reinforce stability and strengthen prosperity in our continent.
At the same time we have to give yet more consideration to how ready the EU itself is for enlargement and what sort of timetable might be involved.
The pace of enlargement has to be in accordance with how prepared both the applicant countries and the EU itself are. Otherwise, we will all be sorely disappointed.
The future challenges of an enlarged EU, or even one the present size, will not be solved at the next IGC.
We have to prepare for a wider agenda now.
However, it was important to decide on a new IGC to resolve the questions which were unresolved at Amsterdam.
The Helsinki meeting also bore witness to the fact that there is a need for a broader adoption of the rules for qualified majority voting.
Despite failures at Helsinki, we have to move on quickly to find a solution to the tax issue.
We will not be able to prevent even greater inequality in societies and among people unless profits from capital are subject to a minimum rate of taxation within the entire single market area.
The European Parliament has continually called for greater transparency for all the EU institutions.
A lack of transparency has been a particular source of trouble for decision making in the Council, and Finland, as the country holding the Presidency, has initiated new practices to increase transparency, practices which we would hope will become established before proper rules are drafted.
We also made headway on environmental matters.
The integration of environmental policy with all policy areas and making it feasible to sign the Kyoto Agreement more quickly were important steps forward.
But one disappointment has to be recorded for this autumn: the failure to review the rules for Members and assistants.
I know, of course, that the Presidency is not to blame for this.
The Presidency has been active and willing to find compromises; the problems and guilty parties are unfortunately to be found in this Chamber.
May I welcome the reform of the Council itself and especially the agreed programme designed to improve the performance and coordinating role of the General Affairs Council.
The extension of European Union competence into the defence field accentuates the need for improvements of the working of the Council.
It also requires the European Parliament to extend its own scope to the defence field, especially when the Western European Union Assembly is closed down, so that proper democratic scrutiny of this sensitive and controversial field will be provided.
What plans does the Presidency have to start a dialogue with Parliament upon security and defence questions, and when will the Presidency's Minister of Defence make a statement upon the development of a common policy for European security and defence? I should be extremely grateful for a response from the Presidency upon these questions.
President of the Commission, I think that despite all the talk about transparency and openness which our Nordic friends are congratulating themselves on, the Finnish Presidency has managed to obtain, in the conclusions, what the governments actually want: to keep the European Union' s decisions and actions completely free from any interference, not only by Parliament, but also the Commission.
Now, I am wondering, President Prodi, how you can be so happy when the Commission is practically being reduced to the role of report-provider on the most varied subjects, and clearly does not have a central role in the decisions or initiatives, in respect of both the Intergovernmental Conference and the CFSP.
I am also very surprised that as someone who has been speaking to us since September about the importance of a comprehensive reform and his willingness on this matter with regard to the Council, today you are pleased that a comprehensive agenda has not been drawn up.
I would like to express my wish that the Members think carefully before accepting Parliament' s opinion on the opening of the Intergovernmental Conference - which is the only, extremely weak tool we have - and that they try, in all ways possible, to convince the Commission that it is necessary to agree to have clear discussions with the Council and its members - including Italian, Belgian and French members, whose speeches on this subject have been, so to speak, a little modest - in order to take the decisions on the future of the European Union out of the hands of diplomats and national governments.
I think that pretending everything is going well, when the choice that has been made goes decidedly in the direction of enlarging the Union without deepening it, is profoundly wrong.
When you read the papers and reports from the Summit, you have to admit that George Orwell did not live in vain.
At any rate, his Ministry of Truth or the principles behind it have survived him.
Now, we no longer talk about war; we talk about humanitarian campaigns.
And an army is not called an army; 60 000 armed soldiers are a humanitarian rapid reaction corps.
In spite of the fact that the Finnish Presidency has been genuinely enthusiastic in its efforts to promote openness, the Commission has produced a document containing its own, Orwellian, notions of openness.
Openness applies only to a very limited extent and not if you ask for it too often, for example as a journalist, and intend to publish the information in question and thus actually sell newspapers. In that case, openness does not apply.
Turkey has also been processed by the Ministry of Truth.
It has now become more democratic, even if the Kurds and Turks continue to be oppressed.
Yesterday' s debate here in the Chamber concerning European culture was quite a disagreeable experience.
It was the debate which arose out of Turkey' s status as an applicant country.
What is our common European culture? I want to say at once that I have very little in common culturally with Jörg Haider in Austria or Mr Le Pen in France or, for that matter, with my own countryman, Mogens Camre in Denmark.
I feel I have much stronger cultural ties with progressive Turks and Kurds who are fighting for justice, freedom and democracy, and I am looking forward to the day when they can be welcomed into a European working partnership.
I am looking forward to Europe' s beginning to take its multi-ethnic culture seriously, but as long as the death sentence against Mr Öçalan is still in force, this is quite the wrong moment to send the Turkish Government a signal to the effect that Turkey is welcome as an applicant country
Mr President, while it is positive that the European Union wants other countries to accede so that it can consolidate the growth of democracy there and reinforce their economic capabilities on the world market - where, let me say yet again, we must defend the distinctive character of national products, by combating type-approval and standardisation, which undoubtedly lead to the decline of individual cultures and product quality - it is just as necessary that Parliament clearly reasserts that a new country' s membership is dependent on the requirements laid down in Amsterdam actually having been implemented in that country.
In this respect, we would point out moreover, that the issue of dangerous and obsolete nuclear power plants is still unresolved. Moreover, Parliament has already taken a position on this.
It is just as obvious though, that enlargement in the envisaged timeframe does not allow either for the immediate creation of a common foreign policy or the drawing-up of an economic policy programme, even though the latter is very urgent, especially in the light of the recovery of the dollar against the euro and the disappointing results of Seattle.
Therefore, it is with regret that we must tailor our former hopes to current requirements, and the only solution seems to be to undertake a new type of agreement, within the Union and before it accepts new members, countries which have the same interest in a Common Foreign and Defence Policy, in common laws that will guarantee the fight against crime, drugs, uncontrolled immigration, countries that want to regain their common right to campaign against violations of human rights by taking active steps to combat cruelty and genocide.
The choice made at Helsinki to set up one of the first units of a European army is heading in the right direction and must be supported by Parliament, in the hope that the initiative will not stop at this first step.
This hypothesis, which we are putting forward in the hope that those who agree with the same objectives are finally starting to discuss possible new agreements, must not be confused with the notion of a multi-speed Europe, but should instead be thought of as a two-tiered Union.
We are proposing a political level for the current Member States which choose to make a great leap forward in this sector, and a second, economic level for the fifteen current Member States and the new members.
Obviously, with time, anyone who makes the request and meets the requirements will be able to take their place at the political level, but today, if we do not proceed quickly in this direction and consider enlarging by almost doubling the number of Member States without well thought out and tested institutional reforms - there is no time left to test them out - we are sounding the death knoll for the dream of a political Union which is able to respect identities, cultures and traditions, but nevertheless contributes to the creation of a new model of European citizen.
It is clear that for some, enlargement does not mean strengthening the Union but watering it down, marking the end of the hopes of our founding fathers.
Finally, I would like to extend an invitation to the Commission so that it avoids continuing to propose measures on asparagus and lupins and instead seeks to give us a political and economic plan before it becomes a laughing stock.
Mr President, firstly a premise which, I believe, is true for every one of us, but most especially for our President, Nicole Fontaine.
I feel the matter of the status that the two Members of Parliament will have at the Intergovernmental Conference is quite intolerable.
We cannot accept it, and our President should make this known.
This is the status of NGO.
Do we wish to be and to continue to be an NGO? We would be, like the NGOs, mere observers.
I think it high time that Parliament knew how to say no to this state of affairs.
More generally, I find your memory rather selective, ladies and gentlemen.
At Amsterdam, the conference concluded with the fact that if we were to number more than 20 members, we should have to implement at least three reforms.
This is no longer the scenario.
The current scenario envisages 27 Member States and yet more in the years to come, requiring much, much more far-reaching reforms.
By accepting these conclusions, we are making ourselves, Council and Parliament, accessories to a policy which will prove to be extremely serious in the years to come, and which will bring the entire European Union to a halt.
This Parliament cannot pretend it does not understand or that it is not aware of this policy.
We cannot, as some of my fellow Members have said, consider that we can discuss matters with the Portuguese Presidency when we already know there is a majority in the Council ready to oppose adding items to the agenda.
We must use the only weapon available to us, and if Mr Barnier does not agree to call it an all out strike, then let us call it resistance.
In any case, we cannot defer until June the battle that we must wage in January.
Our problem is the opinion which we must deliver prior to the start of the Intergovernmental Conference, i.e. as early as January.
We could, of course, act complacently, we could pretend to close our eyes and to believe that we might convince the Portuguese Presidency, which in turn may convince the other Member States. We can delude ourselves.
We have already done so often enough. Now, perhaps, it is time for Parliament to wake up.
As regards enlargement, I think we are insulting a number of countries, without even being aware of it.
We extended candidacy to Turkey. This is fine, even if, as always, it was done too late.
But we are abandoning countries such as Albania, Macedonia and Croatia, even though there is no reason to abandon them, since we decided that each country might enter the Union when it has implemented the necessary reforms.
We must extend candidacy to these countries as a matter of urgency, just as, as a matter of urgency, we must recognise that Chechnya is not located somewhere on the moon, but in a region of Europe, in the Transcaucasus.
It is a matter of urgency that Europe should have a policy worthy of the name in this region, otherwise, just like the Balkans over the last ten years, we shall see it becoming a region of war and destruction, as is already the case in Chechnya today.
Mr President, the Finnish Presidency has, without doubt, taken the development of the European Community forward.
However, European security policy must be seen as one of the failures of the European Community in the light of its reaction to the centres of conflict in Chechnya and Grozny.
We as a European Union will only gain credibility with the outside world and with our own people once we stop making too much of a distinction between various centres of conflict.
One of the problems as I see it, however, is in relation to the human rights of the various minorities within the Union, especially with regard to freedom of worship.
There are still huge differences within the European Member States as far as the recognition of religious minorities is concerned.
For example, it is at present practically impossible for Orthodox Jewish communities in Germany to set themselves up as an independent community.
The incoming presidency will have a special responsibility to regulate the rights of religious communities within the EU.
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, President of the European Commission, I am only too happy to second the positive statements made by our group chairman Hans-Gert Poettering and Mrs Suominen.
I am not going to repeat them.
But, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you also said that the Helsinki Summit did not deliver the goods.
I thought that was a very apt way of characterising the situation.
I shall just cite three disappointing outcomes.
My first example is the IGC.
Mr Poettering has rightly already pointed out that the three Amsterdam leftovers do in fact represent a very minimal package, and in particular, that the question of qualified majority decision making is still a major point of discussion in the Council.
The door is already slightly ajar, but on no account must we lose sight of the fact that the Helsinki Summit failed to adopt the recommendations of the Committee of Wise Men under the direction of Mr Dehaene following the excellent proposals prepared by the European Commission under the direction of Commissioner Barnier.
This was a very disappointing development in my view and so I really hope that the Commission and Parliament are in a position to convince the Portuguese Council Presidency that we need to go a little further than is the case at present.
Of course security is another area that still needs to be properly resolved.
What exactly is Mr Solana' s role and what is the European Commission' s role? If you take a look at the annexes then what you will see are numerous questions relating to the whole issue of democratic control.
What does the European Parliament intend to do? What do the national parliaments intend to do?
The taxation package certainly was not a key issue but then how can you face the citizens with the news that after so many years the slight increase in taxation of capital that we need is still outstanding.
Three thousand jobs are given priority in one Member State but not in others.
That is not what solidarity is all about and neither is it something we can defend.
I therefore hope that Mr Prodi will take the lead during the next Presidency, so as to ensure that the Member States get the message at long last.
Mr President, an historic decision has indeed been taken in Helsinki.
It is a cheque made out to the future and, to be frank, neither you nor we know how we can honour it.
After the unanimous vote on the enlargement process, no further doubt can or will be cast on the seriousness of our intentions and of Turkey' s intention to meet the Copenhagen criteria as quickly as possible.
It is the will of the Helsinki Summit that the European Union should number 28 Member States in a few years' time.
However, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, a number of questions then arise as to the scope of the decisions which have been taken.
Do you really believe that, once the Amsterdam leftovers have been cleared up, our Union will still have the power to act and will still be transparent and democratic with 27 or 28 Member States?
Do you really believe that we can maintain the present language rules in our institutions with 15, 16, 17 or 18 languages? Do you believe that we can maintain the present internal modus operandi of our institutions, of the Council, the European Parliament and the Commission and the balance between them with 27 or 28 Member States?
Do you really believe that Turkey, the European country with the largest population and a long history its own, will merely join the European Union as its 28th Member State rather than changing the very nature of it? Do we not need a plan for moving the Schengen borders to the Euphrates and Tigris?
Do we not need a plan for dealing with accession applications received by the European Union from the States of Eastern Europe and the Caucasus in the wake of the Helsinki decision?
And for dealing with Russia if we receive accession applications from the States of that region?
I trust that we will find the flexibility within the European Union, the flexibility which has so far completely eluded us - what we previously described as flexibility notwithstanding - in order to safeguard the cohesion of the European Union. I trust that we shall, over coming years, find the strength and the courage to answer these questions and to find answers of our own before others find them for us.
Mr President, we hoped that, after the Berlin Wall came down, certain limits could be placed upon the atrocities committed in the world.
That is why we intervened in Kosovo where an odious regime was in the process of driving out a whole people; and that is why we were delighted when Indonesia' s atrocities in East Timor were eventually brought to an end.
But now we are seeing, in Chechnya, ruthless state terror directed against an entire population.
We see an army combating terrorism by razing towns to the ground and causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee.
We see a government and a presidential candidate courting popularity by pounding what they perceive as the Chechen enemy into the ground, and we see how, in the election campaign in Russia, there is almost no opposition to this cruel strategy.
In the EU, we have been too weak in our protests and with our sanctions and, in that way, have betrayed the liberal and democratic forces in Russia.
Thanks are due to the Council for the fact that it is now finally speaking plainly about Russia' s flagrant breach of a whole range of international obligations.
It is now a question of the Council' s honouring its words. Everything must be done to enable us to help bring this barbarism to an end and to ensure that vital humanitarian aid is provided to hundreds of thousands of civilians.
This century has been terrible enough, but the end of the century has also been full of promise.
The issue where Chechnya is concerned is really one of whether this is to be the last tragic convulsion of an unhappy century or the start of a new century which is just as tragic.
I should like to take this opportunity on behalf of Parliament, through you, to express our thanks to your officials for all the good cooperation we have had during the last six months.
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(IT) I will take the floor again very briefly, Mr President, to make some points about the previous debate.
I can see that there is an almost unanimous feeling of disappointment over the failed agreement on tax matters, and I believe that the reasons for this are broadly shared.
There was also almost universal agreement about Chechnya and the need for us not to have double standards in our foreign policy, but to reassert the principles which are the cornerstone of the European Union.
Moreover, there is a generally favourable opinion of the European Union' s rapid intervention force, even if there were some who disagreed over this. It has always been the tradition to disagree, not only in the European Parliament but also in many national parliaments, when it comes to issues relating in some way to military matters, and the possibility of having a European army.
Nevertheless, I would like to comment briefly on the more controversial subject of the Intergovernmental Conference.
I have to say that the Commission is not in any way being excluded from decisions on the Intergovernmental Conference, and I also have to say that Parliament' s role has been increased, with respect to Amsterdam, even if the progress is less than stated by the Commission and the President of Parliament during the Helsinki debate.
But some progress has been made, and we can analyse it objectively: two representatives of the European Parliament will participate in all the talks and will be able to intervene at the beginning and end of each meeting at the Intergovernmental Conference; in addition, in each meeting of this type there will be talks between the President of Parliament and the Heads of State and Government.
This is minimal progress, but I assure you - and this is the important message I want to give you - that in this area, the Commission and the President of Parliament have taken the same line on increasing the presence of Parliament itself.
I think that this is a route we should pursue.
We must therefore say that the direction we have been heading in is the right one, even though the pace is extremely slow compared with the pace we had set ourselves.
However, we must not only look to the past: this is some advice, a lesson with a view what we have to do in the coming six months.
Leaving the door open as regards the agenda for the Intergovernmental Conference also provides an opportunity for the Commission and Parliament to cooperate in bringing in the reforms that we want via that door.
Before the Helsinki Conference, the door was closed; its opening is not, of course, a particularly significant result, but it is a lot more than we had expected and a lot more than was going to be allowed before the start of the Conference.
We must therefore learn a lesson as regards working together over the coming months.
We need to cooperate closely, precisely because it is through this door that the necessary reforms can come.
As for the rest, I will conclude with an observation on enlargement.
It is true, as Mr Poettering said, that time will tell whether or not it will be historic, but the decision is an important one.
As a consequence of this decision, we shall have to change a large number of our rules and current points of reference; we shall have to change a lot about our life, our culture, our budgets, our positions - everything we are doing.
It is a decision which has yet to be implemented.
On the other hand, it is clear that it will take years and a thorough analysis, because we need to reassure the public in the countries that are joining the Union, by showing them the real situation here, and making an accurate and serious comparison of legal, economic, political and transparency issues.
In short, we have started a process that will take us to an historic conclusion.
We have not yet reached it, but what we decided at Helsinki will have an enormous bearing on the work of Parliament and the work of the European Commission.
This is another area we must work on together so that a virtuous circle will come of it, and so that politics as well as the economy - both ours and of the countries that have applied for membership - can grow together and expand in the future.
Annex: Inauguration ceremony for the Louise Weiss Building
Mr President, I am glad that at least Mr Patten is here to follow this important debate, because there are urgent matters which require discussion.
The Council has at last joined the flock and declared sanctions on Russia.
But given the length of time the war has already been waging in the Caucasus, this decision is, of course, far too late to bring any real solution to the conflict. Given the massive expulsion of the civil population, it is far too weak a measure.
We have to imagine what is happening over there.
Ingushetia currently has more refugees than the indigenous population, with no humanitarian aid to compare with Kosovo.
Kosovo had humanitarian aid, here there is nothing.
That is the situation.
Which is why the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement must be suspended immediately.
Russia must be excluded from the G8 Summit and its government must not receive any more credit until a peaceful solution to the conflict has been found.
Exactly what sort of a foreign policy do we have at the moment? It is true that military forces are being planned, but a decision on an early end to the crisis has been delayed for weeks.
Europe must not just be the Europe of oil multinationals; it must also become the Europe of human rights, which is why we in the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance are calling for a conference on the Caucasus in collaboration with the OSCE so that a contribution to peace in this region can finally be made.
We shall continue discussions with human rights representatives from Chechnya, including discussions of projects.
I hope that the Commission will give proper support in this matter by making a contribution to peace and prevention in the region, because that is far more important than the military forces decided on in Helsinki.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Council has taken a significant step towards the militarisation of the European Union with its decision to develop the military crisis management corps.
The European Union has shown just how well it understands these crises by contributing to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, particularly with its barbarous and murderous attacks on the Yugoslav people.
It has shown its understanding by taking part in the occupation of Kosovo and in its continuing efforts to overturn the democratically-elected Yugoslav leadership.
The Council has decided to curtail democracy still further by abolishing the unanimity rule, even on extremely important issues.
The decision to extend candidate status to Turkey is, without a doubt, a political gesture towards the Turkish regime, despite the fact that it has made no move whatsoever towards fulfilling the conditions set by the European Union itself.
The Council is encouraging Turkey to continue with its violations of human rights, its genocide of the Kurdish people, its occupation of 38% of Cypriot territory and its territorial claims in the Aegean.
At the same time, it is thwarting the struggle of the Turkish people, for whom we feel solidarity.
The decisions in Helsinki illustrate quite clearly that behind the show of democracy and behind the lofty words on human rights lurk the creeping fascism of imperialist interests and violence against anybody who resists the new order of things.
However, the people of Europe are gradually overcoming their torpor following the overthrow of socialism in Europe and are preparing for a counter-attack.
Mr President, I think that what took place in Helsinki can be interpreted in a number of very different ways.
For example, in the field of enlargement, some will be pleased that Turkey has been granted applicant status and others will not be so pleased.
But it surely cannot be denied that the Presidency-in-Office of the Council has made significant advances in the field of common foreign and security policy by reorganising the duties of the Council, by clearly promoting non-military crisis management, by adopting a common strategy with regard to Ukraine and also by approving a statement on Chechnya, although we would have liked it to have been a little more forceful and I believe that in time we will be proved right.
Nevertheless, it must be said that, from the point of view of the institutions and the Intergovernmental Conference, the results are nothing to boast about and they prompt us to adopt one of two possible attitudes.
The first, clearly, is, as we say in my language, "to cry over spilt milk" , whilst the second - somewhat more realistic - would be to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the Summit statement and to try to persevere in our objectives.
I would take this approach and, to this end, I think that we should try to re-establish that amicable partnership between the Commission and Parliament, who were unable to secure acceptance of their views at the Helsinki Summit.
I really believe that this Parliament, with the assistance of a slightly bolder and more ambitious Commission and, (to be frank), one which is a little more committed to reforming the institutions, could ensure that the misunderstandings of the past give way to more harmonious relations in the future and that we will all be able to promote the reform of the European Union, knowing, as we do, that if we ignore the concerns of the general public, these reforms will never come about and will never be a success.
Mr President, the logical starting point for the key decisions by the European Council was enlargement. So what did the Council do?
It completely overturned the enlargement doctrine applied hitherto. Now, we no longer have teams of candidates one after the other but just one race for all the candidate countries together, with Turkey as a candidate country now included.
My group, the Coalition, and I personally feel that, in principle, this is a change for the better. Nevertheless, both the Commission and the Council must remember that relations with Turkey are now Euro-Turkish relations and not Graeco-Turkish relations, as they have either hypocritically or maladroitly maintained in the past.
I would also point out, Mr President, that as the Union' s borders are expanding, a large black hole is forming in the Balkans.
This black hole includes both Serbia and many other countries and is right at the heart of the new geographical area you are building.
Is this political short-sightedness or pure vindictiveness? I, for one, do not know.
Finally, yet another intergovernmental conference and reform of the Treaty have been announced to address the issue of enlargement.
Yet another reform, yet another intergovernmental conference, with no Community approach, no role for the Commission and a meaningless role for Parliament, with no consultation with national parliaments and, finally, with no transparency and no accountability towards the civil society.
Is this how we are to increase the prestige and appeal of European unification? Have the Heads of State and Government and the Community bodies not learned anything from Seattle?
Mr President, the Summit was indeed historic, especially regarding defence and enlargement, if not the IGC.
The Union is at last facing up to challenges to security in Europe.
I should like to refer in particular to Turkey.
I now accept that making Turkey a formal candidate will help speed up an improvement in Turkey's record on democracy and human rights, concern about which reflects not hostility towards Turkey but attachment to its future in Europe.
Turkish failure to recognise the rights of the Kurds is the biggest single reason for its breaches of European democratic and human rights norms and the pretext for its military-dominated state.
So it is astonishing that neither the OSCE Summit declaration nor the Helsinki conclusions make any reference to the Kurds.
Turkey cannot meet European values or ensure security while it denies the different identity of its Kurdish citizens.
I welcome signals that Abdullah Öçalan's death sentence may be lifted; but the EU must make clear that if he is executed, accession negotiations cannot proceed.
We must insist the Turkish authorities respond to the PKK cease-fire and make moves to political settlement, recognising Kurdish cultural and democratic rights.
Finally, the UK Government must not give export credit funding to the Ilisu dam, which threatens to be a human rights disaster for the Kurds as well as an ecological disaster.
Mr President, the European Summit was less of a success than has been suggested here this morning.
The decisions on enlargement, the intervention force and Turkey' s application for EU membership are positive, but the words used to describe the IGC conceal a great lack of political will.
The agenda is still open in theory, but there is nothing to suggest that the governments really want fundamental change.
On the contrary, so far none of the Commission or Parliament proposals have been followed up.
I would very much like the Finnish Presidency to explain why this is so.
It is essential for there to be general majority decision making and increased cooperation.
The lack of political will to make this unequivocal choice will paralyse the decision-making process as soon as Europe undergoes enlargement.
Those who block fundamental reform want to keep Europe small, even though they might claim otherwise.
Mr President, the Helsinki Summit took account of the proposal for a charter of rights.
Today President Chirac made clear his view that an enlarged Europe must be built around respect for rights.
We agree with that, but we insist that a democratic European Union must be built on the rule of law as an equal partner with a charter of rights.
My SNP colleague Mr Hudghton and I did not join in the discourteous and petulant walk-out from President Chirac's speech this morning.
As a result, Mr Hudghton was able to put to President Chirac our point of view and get an undertaking for a possible reply to a letter we sent yesterday.
Another issue alive is that of enlarging the Union.
We share enthusiasm for enlargement provided proper institutional reform goes ahead.
It should, however, be remembered that there are not only nations in Eastern and Central Europe seeking entry, there are ancient nations in Western Europe too, represented here by the European Free Alliance, which seek fair recognition as members in Europe.
Our claims deserve better than an embarrassed silence that contrasts with the welcome others receive.
Reform of the institutions must create space for due recognition of existing regions and unrepresented nations.
We used to hear a lot about the Europe of the regions, a phrase less in use nowadays than a few years ago.
Not only did the Helsinki Council make paltry progress toward curing Europe's democratic deficit, but it did nothing at all about what ought to be recognised as a regional deficit.
Our task in the European Free Alliance is to get it recognised and cured with the help of our colleagues in the Greens/European Free Alliance.
Mr President, Commissioner, unfortunately there are no ministers here!
I should like to describe the Summit in maritime terms. The launch was a great success when it came to the major projects which were got under way.
There was no friction in the launch. But even though the launch has been successful, it is not known whether the ship is seaworthy and whether it will survive the storms to which it is exposed.
I am thinking especially here of the enlargement of the European Union.
How will this succeed? In the Summit' s conclusions, clear reservations are expressed about the applicant countries to the effect that several of them do not even fulfil the Copenhagen criteria in the medium to long term and that, in March, an assessment should be made of how the economic criteria are being fulfilled.
I think it is important for the future of the enlargement that we look to how the applicant countries achieve good administration and combat corruption and whether they have stable institutions.
The most important thing is not therefore that we should go through the acquis communautaire in detail. You see, it is not doing this which will decide whether the Union can be enlarged and whether the applicant countries are ready to enter the EU.
Rather, it is the answers to the basic questions I have just listed. We really need a different approach to that which was adopted during the last enlargement when Sweden, Finland and Austria became members.
Mr President, in my view, the problems and issues to be addressed following the Helsinki Summit fall into two basic entities.
The first is the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference and it is particularly sad that, following the Helsinki Summit and following the extensive debates held here in the European Parliament, the Presidency conclusions concerning the Intergovernmental Conference are so brief.
Perhaps they are not quite as brief as we had feared but they are much briefer than what we consider necessary for the European Union to prepare itself sufficiently for the passage from the 20th to the 21st century.
Mr President, it is clear that, this time more than ever, the Intergovernmental Conference and the review of the founding Treaties of the European Union are directly related to another important European Union decision: enlargement.
And since the European Union is about to take on board a large number of States - 13 in total - it would make sense to begin preparations to receive these States.
The question which arises from the Presidency conclusions is whether or not the commitments, yes the commitments, and the opinions in those conclusions allow the European Union to prepare itself to receive these new States.
I am afraid the answer is no.
In a number of resolutions, the European Parliament has already indicated how extensive these changes and reforms of the Treaties would have to be.
And the European Parliament will, of course, continue to indicate the way forward given that, as I said before, the decisions of the Helsinki Summit on the Intergovernmental Conference are clearly, and unfortunately, far too limited in scope.
There was no mention of the direction the European Union should be taking nor of the vision it should have.
There was no mention of the approach it should be adopting.
There was no mention of a number of new issues which are, if you like, the main goals and problems facing us in the 21st century.
As for enlargement, which is clearly a very important process and one which must be continued, integrated and completed, a new candidate country is now involved in this process: Turkey.
At this point in time, Turkey has been granted a new status, that of a candidate country.
However, at the same time, a number of conditions have been laid down which Turkey must fulfil before it can become a member of the European Union.
It is important that these conditions be fulfilled.
It is important that Turkey shows, in its desire to become a member of the European family, that it really does respect human rights, democracy and its neighbouring countries and that it truly wishes to find a calm and peaceful solution to any issues or problems which exist in relation to it.
Mr President, the President-in-Office of the Council has given scant attention to the OSCE Summit Conference that was held recently, this morning.
Other Helsinki matters took precedence.
The OSCE has to operate in the shadow of the EU and NATO, which have a much higher public profile.
The most important person to take the floor - in inverted commas - during the Istanbul Summit was President Yeltsin, who came to explain his policy towards Chechnya.
This explanation was unsatisfactory, it is true, but the Russians appear to regard the OSCE as the only organisation in Europe that they should give account to and which should be given access to the region.
In point of fact, the President of the OSCE has gone to Chechnya today.
The Russians obviously feel that they have equal standing there.
NATO is unpopular in Russia, which means that the Partnership for Peace Programme is too.
Opinion polls would suggest that the majority of Russians do have respect for the EU though.
That will probably change after Helsinki.
The OSCE is based on certain principles that were expanded on in Istanbul.
In some internal conflicts and where there are grave violations of human rights, the OSCE can and may take action before actual violence breaks out.
On this basis the OSCE can start playing a more wide-ranging role as a non-exclusive and civil pan-European organisation, also as a forum for open dialogue with Russia.
The OSCE affords a preventative instrument that can be employed where there is the potential for crisis.
The High Commissioner has carried out a great deal of good work for minorities, the OSCE is mediating between government and opposition in Belarus and is helping to find a solution to the problems in Moldavia. The OSCE is also encouraging further reductions in conventional weapons.
The EU ought to pay more attention to OSCE values.
Together we can achieve a great deal.
Chechnya is an example of a conflict that could spread to the whole Caucasus region.
I believe we are failing to give this enough attention.
The European Union' s policy with respect to the countries in this region is fragmented.
Why does the EU not use the OSCE in order to achieve a stability pact for the Caucasus with these countries, the Russian Federation, the United States and Turkey? If another war breaks out there we must not be able to reproach ourselves for yet again having been too late.
Mr President, hardworking Finnish diplomacy has also endeavoured over the last six months to make progress on the employment and social side of the Community.
The creation of an Employment Committee increases the potential for Member States to improve coordination between their policies in this area.
On behalf of the PPE-DE Group, I welcome the fact that the presidency has prepared proper employment guidelines for 2000 at various councils of ministers and ministerial conferences.
Nonetheless, several national governments and the Council have not come fully on board.
As a result, only a small proportion of Parliament' s proposals on the guidelines was adopted in Helsinki.
Parliament wanted to achieve more in the fight against unemployment among the young and long-term unemployment than the Council was proposing; above all, we wanted to achieve permanent integration into the job market by reinforcing the ratio of active to passive measures, in other words, by increasing the proportion of the unemployed in training, further training or retraining, because a lack of jobs is only one side of the coin.
The other reason for unemployment in the European Union is the lack of professional qualifications.
I should like to thank the Finnish Presidency for helping to improve the coordination of European employment policy.
But the Community still has no long-term employment strategy to develop Community potential in terms of creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, the willingness to invest and the work ethic.
Reforms to bolster dynamic competitiveness and flexibility need to be reconciled with the need both to maintain and to modernise the social security system.
We see the European model as a social order for the social market economy.
Mr President, the economic factor has always taken precedence in the building of Europe.
Without a doubt, its greatest achievements are the single currency and the creation of the European Central Bank.
Aside from their strictly economic significance, which is huge, these institutions are positive proof to the people that the creation of new Community institutions, entrusted with exercising integrated policies in place of the governments or the national bodies of the Member States, is not a betrayal but a more efficient way of jointly exercising national sovereignty.
The lesson learned from the single currency gives us an invaluable weapon for deepening our institutions further, which is essential if we wish to promote enlargement of the Union without endangering its cohesion.
These new and necessary institutional developments or completely new institutions, such as the particularly important military corps that has just been decided on, could lead to dilemmas as to how to divide power between national and Community authorities. But let us not forget the message of EMU: Community institutions are only successful when the principle of subsidiarity is applied and when the power of the larger partners is counterbalanced by protecting the rights of the smaller partners.
All this is arming us for the unusually ambitious enlargement process.
It is not about patching together new pieces of territory, it is about assimilation and transformation under the influence of a Union of truly integrated human societies.
It took a great deal of courage on the part of the Turkish Government to accept the challenge of becoming a candidate country, as a result of which huge social changes are inevitable and will certainly include satisfactory restoration of the rights of the Kurdish nation.
It also took a great deal of courage on the part of the Greek Government and of Prime Minister Costas Simitis to bet on the success of this change, to trust in the possibility of a good outcome and to put out its hand to Turkey and agree to do business with it just as it does business with its European partners, the members of the Union.
Undoubtedly, the fact that Cyprus has been guaranteed unimpeded accession played a large part in the Greek Government' s decision.
All this gives us hope that a new chapter was opened in Helsinki and that this new chapter will be crowned with success.
Mr President, needless to say, I am extremely pleased that the Council has confirmed the viewpoint which was also posited by the Commission, namely that the enlargement of the European Union will be a process in which all Central European countries which have applied for membership will be involved without any discrimination and on the basis of their own merits.
I am pleased that the old biased approach is no longer being pursued.
Although we used to be a European economic community, we now realise that the essence of our alliance is that we are a union of democratic constitutional States.
This is a significant change in our way of thinking and reverts back to the original ideals of European integration.
I think it is important that the Central and Eastern European countries should know that they are joining a smoothly-running Union.
This is why it is so vital that we do our homework and that we cannot get out of it by some excuse like: are we not holding the candidate countries hostage to our reforms? Formulated in this way, it is viewed in completely the wrong manner because those who wish to offer the Central and Eastern European countries a heap of rubble generally tend to object to European integration.
Mr President, Turkey needs a great deal more attention and I am willing to allow for that.
It has now been granted official candidate status.
We have noted this with little enthusiasm.
It appears that it is difficult to change Turkey' s political culture.
The Turkish Government has already stipulated demands before Turkey can accept its Member State candidacy.
This is the culture of brute force, the culture of the big mouth and not the type of culture that we want.
Not from a Member State and certainly not from a candidate country.
In our opinion, the European Union should also make it very clear to Turkey that the treatment it will receive will certainly not be more flexible than that of Slovakia, for example, where the change-over from one government to another was, in fact, a great deal more relaxed.
Turkey will have no choice but to make drastic changes and make steps towards the European Union. There is as yet no evidence of such steps being made.
The European Union should not make the same mistake as the Council of Europe which accepted Turkey some time ago whilst Turkey blatantly contravened the criteria to become a member of the Council of Europe, such as the criteria relating to the protection of minorities and human rights.
Mr President, although it is said that Turkey falls outside the EU borders, in my view, the borders of the European Union coincide with those where democratic constitutional states exist.
It is not so much a new territorial Yalta as an underlining of every effort to bolster the constitutional state.
Mr President, today is a great day for Strasbourg.
I would disagree with Mrs Maij-Weggen.
I believe that Strasbourg is the independent and parliamentary face of a cultural Europe which has freed itself from bureaucracy and, in this respect, I am very happy about events here today.
We could put an end to the travelling circus without changing the Treaty, by doing away with the superfluous mini plenary sittings in Brussels.
We can do so quite independently.
We would start saving money almost immediately.
I invite Mrs Maij-Weggen to support me in this.
As far as the Council is concerned, I take the view that Helsinki was a Summit of peaks and troughs.
One peak was, without a doubt, the clear signal to the second group of central and eastern European countries that they were no longer isolated and that negotiations would be started with them.
I welcome this in particular in the case of Slovakia and the Baltic States.
However, the decision on Chechnya was also extremely important.
Parliament demanded quite clearly two and a half months ago that the Council suspend parts of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement and transfer financial aid and the TACIS programme to humanitarian assistance in order to bring home to Russia that it can no longer continue this genocide.
We were opposed at the time in no uncertain terms.
I am very glad that the Council is now living up to the standard which we in Parliament tried to set two and a half months ago.
I would ask the Council and the Commission to ensure that TACIS aid is transferred at once, because we can no longer back a mixture of bloodthirsty election campaigning and bloodthirsty colonial war.
We want Russia as a partner, but only as a partner which respects human rights.
This Parliament stands for a Europe of human rights, as Mr Oostlander said.
Russia can only be a partner if it ceases this genocide immediately.
Mr President, measures and other resolutions on enlargement, on security and defence policy and on the convening of an intergovernmental conference were taken in Helsinki.
All three together may have an historic dimension; however, they may also jeopardise the political project called Europe if we fail to answer the question of where overstretching may mark the end of political union and when the incapacity to act cannot be rectified.
It is precisely for this reason that the intergovernmental conference is so important because only if it demonstrates that it has the power to act and is transparent and democratic in the eyes of the people will it be possible to overcome both the danger of overstretching as the result of enlargement and the incapacity to act.
In my view, it is for this reason that the intergovernmental conference stands at the apex of the enlargement, intergovernmental conference, foreign and security policy triangle, whereby it must be made perfectly clear that at no stage, be it with 12 or with 13 candidate States, can the Copenhagen criteria be watered down and that this Parliament will not permit any such watering down and will not ratify any such treaties.
I believe that the more the Union is reinforced at the intergovernmental conference, the quicker enlargement will be possible.
But, at the same time, this means that the stronger the European Union is made, the more candidate countries must consider if they are prepared to accept the concomitant waiver of sovereignty.
This aspect must also be stressed in connection with Turkey.
Allow me to make one last comment.
Excellent progress has been made with the foreign and security policy.
But for me, one thing is missing; namely both the real involvement of the High Representative in the decision-making structures of the fora and the involvement of the Commission and the External Relations Commissioner in these structures.
These matters have already been raised in the run up.
We must ensure that this functions in practice, otherwise we will have a new intergovernmental event which has nothing new to offer and which only gives rise to new headlines because something is not quite right.
Parliament must ensure that this is put in order.
Mr President, I shall make three very straightforward points.
The first concerns the European Parliament' s relationship to this forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference and its role therein.
Progress has certainly been made by comparison with the previous Intergovernmental Conference, but the most worrying aspect is that the Council had on the table a proposal which would give the European Parliament a greater role, a proposal which would grant it a role similar to the one the Commission will have in these negotiations, and it did not approve this proposal.
As we know, this is the fundamental problem, because it concerns the very nature of the European Parliament. This is not a parliament that functions within the normal constitutional systems of our countries.
It is worth stating here though that we do not accept that the European Parliament should be given a lesser role in a discussion process as important as such a large-scale revision of the Treaty on European Union.
We consider it vital that there should be two representatives of the European Parliament in the preparatory group but we feel that it is less fitting for the European Parliament that the President of the European Parliament, instead of dealing directly with Heads of State and Governments, should be put into a situation in which she is heard before the meetings of the General Affairs Council Ministers.
This is not treatment befitting the European Parliament.
The second issue concerns the content, and we have had occasion to say this in the Brussels mini-session.
The Commission has shown great ambition where enlargement is concerned and little or no ambition in the revision of the Treaty.
We have the Amsterdam leftovers, we have the Treaty' s implications for defence issues and possibly, for the Charter of Fundamental Rights, although this is an open door - or rather an open window - through which the Portuguese Presidency must perform a miracle.
I would say that it is a miracle that could not be performed after Amsterdam.
And this is what concerns us. If only the leftovers from Amsterdam remain, the discussion will be about efficiency and not about the European Union project.
The discussion could be about political manoeuvring and could lead to rule by a board of management.
From this point of view, the Commission has a crucial role in ensuring that the agenda of the IGC is not dictated by the lowest common denominator of each State' s interests, but rather that it has a global vision of the European Union project.
This is why the Commission cannot abdicate its responsibilities and must present specific proposals to this effect.
Finally, Mr President, I would like to highlight two issues concerning the forthcoming Portuguese Presidency: the Summit on employment, which I consider to be very important and which should have been studied more carefully by this House, and the fact that priority should be given to the protection of public health and food safety.
Finally, I have a question for the Council, although I am not sure if it is represented here today, Mr President, to answer this question: what is the future of the Euro-African Summit scheduled for the next six-month term?
Mr President, the presidency has set out two propositions in the Helsinki conclusions, namely that an efficient and credible enlargement process must be sustained and that applicant countries are participating in the accession process on an equal footing.
When this is set against the fact that candidate status has been granted to Turkey and the simultaneous statement that there will be a conference in the spring of 2000, in which Turkey will not take part, then it is clear that this candidate status has been granted prematurely and is a blank cheque which will come bouncing back.
Even the improvements within Turkey noted by the Commission and the Council presidency must be subject to cautious appraisal when you think about the death penalty being upheld for Mr Öçalan, the fact that the Sakharov prize-winner Leyla Zana is still in prison because she stood up for her right to freedom of speech, the fact that the Kurdish question has not been resolved and all the other aspects of this document in connection with progress in Turkey.
Discussions on stage and in the wings clearly show that Europe is not being frank when it comes to Turkey.
The Helsinki conclusions are extremely positive in other areas, such as foreign and security policy and defence policy; but when it comes to Turkey' s membership, they are contradictory in the extreme.
There is a danger that far too much is being expected of Europe as regards this part of the enlargement process and that too much is being expected of Turkey itself.
Anyone who wants to be a member must be prepared to become a member on our terms.
I read that Mr Ecevit stressed at the conference that Turkey had a fundamental right to membership of the European Union.
I consider that a very risky statement.
I am not sure that the political classes in Turkey have any idea of what is in store for them when they have to waive sovereign rights.
We therefore consider that this decision by the Summit was rushed and inappropriate.
If you read the conditions, which state that negotiations with Turkey will still not begin and that Turkey will just have candidate status, i.e. no separate legal instrument has been opened, then this means - as it says here - that the UNO must endeavour to settle disputes, which should be settled by 2004 on the basis of UNO resolutions.
These are all things which, in our view, do not justify giving Turkey candidate status at this point in time.
Once Turkey joins, Europe will have to undergo a radical change of face and objectives.
Mr Prodi himself said that we must urgently discuss values and borders.
For us, an independent approach is the best alternative: security partnership, further development of customs union and permanent political dialogue, rather than announcing candidate status which, in the final analysis, is worth nothing and is more likely to create than to solve problems.
I have received 14 motions for resolutions, in accordance with Rule 37(2), to close this debate.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12.00 p.m. and on Thursday at 12.00 p.m.
2000 budget
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, it is a great pleasure and honour for me to present to you today the outcome of the second reading by the Council of the draft budget for 2000, which takes account of the amendments by the European Parliament.
I would also like to take this opportunity to explain to you in more detail the Council' s proposal for financing aid to Kosovo in 2000.
We know some of you still think that the financial perspectives for the period 2000 - 2006 are too tight and that the ceiling for category 4 is too low.
We think, however, that the maximum figure is right for the year 2000, which is what we now have to decide on.
For those unprecedented needs, which Kosovo has brought with it, the Council believes we can use an instrument of flexibility for the time being.
We understand very well the concern Parliament feels about this year' s budgetary procedure.
I believe, however, that our common goal is to give the people of Kosovo the aid they urgently require without any undue delay.
Our common goal at the same time is to preserve aid for other recipients, above all the poorest countries in the world.
For that reason, we have been inclined to refer to our original position to a large extent.
One benefit of the new interinstitutional agreement is the opportunity it gives for an extended conciliation procedure, as a result of which Parliament has had many opportunities to set forth its views and, correspondingly, hear the views of others.
We were often in touch with MEPs, especially Mr Wynn, Mr Bourlanges and Mr Colom i Naval in order to find a balanced solution to the issue of conciliation, which would make it possible for us to enjoy a stable economic policy in 2000, one which will help to preserve a good spirit of interinstitutional cooperation in the years to come as well.
Now that these contacts have been established the Council is ready to fully adopt a flexibility clause.
It is precisely in this way that an interinstitutional agreement offers the opportunity to adapt the financial perspectives in unexpected circumstances.
The Council is also prepared to adopt the recitals and statements, which are an essential part of the conciliation package and which leave scope for negotiation, which we will be entering into next year regarding category 4 financing, such as that which affects the Western Balkans.
We do not think, however, that the ceiling for category 4 would need to be amended permanently, but rather by means of a flexibility instrument.
The main reason for that is that Kosovo, which has fewer than two million inhabitants, can accept and use only a limited amount of aid properly, which is a lot less than what was originally anticipated.
The Council agrees with the European Parliament that appropriations, which are to be granted to Kosovo for the year 2000, are much less than what the Commission originally asked for.
However, as the total needed for 2000 is relatively small, i.e. considerably less than the EUR 400 million from the budget, which in itself is worth a good EUR 90 billion or more, and because it has not yet been possible for the Commission to determine the requirements for every year after 2000, there is clearly no technical need at the moment for permanently amending the financial perspectives.
The Council also believes that the institutions of the European Union require a certain amount of stability and seriousness to maintain their credibility.
Any breach of the agreement we sign or any adjustment made to it would immediately cause irrevocable damage to the Community' s external image and its reputation.
We must show that we leaders of the European Union are engaged in serious work, that we take prudent decisions after they have been carefully planned and discussed, and that we keep to these decisions and our agreements afterwards.
I would now like to explain to you in slightly more detail what the Council' s proposal regarding category 4 contains and why it meets the demands of the European Parliament in terms of financing.
The first benefit of the package the Council is proposing is that it offers ways and means to finance aid to Kosovo and East Timor in concrete terms, without it being at the expense of any other recipient of aid.
I know that it goes against all the rules of rhetoric to mention figures, but at this stage I also have to do just that.
We have proceeded in such a way as to establish the budget for 2000, and, unfortunately, the budget is simply about figures.
The European Parliament and the Council agree that EUR 360 million in aid should go to Kosovo in 2000.
The Commission has told us that we could transfer EUR 60 million out of the budget funds for 1999, for use in 2000.
This means that we have EUR 300 million in aid to Kosovo to charge to the 2000 budget.
EUR 60 million from the Obnova programme and EUR 20 million from the ECHO programme was already included in your first reading, however, and that would be used for Kosovo in any case.
We accept that EUR 40 million can in addition be used from transfers in 2000.
We also know that the European Parliament wishes to grant EUR 20 million in aid to East Timor.
180 and 20 make 200.
This is precisely the sum the Council proposed should be spent in connection with the flexibility instrument in addition to the ceiling allowed for category 4 in the financial perspectives.
In other words the Council is proposing to pay for all these new funds itself, funds that are needed in their entirety for vital aid to Kosovo and East Timor in 2000, as far as exceeding the current ceiling in the financial perspectives is concerned. In this way, there would not be any need for the retargeting of appropriations or cuts in aid to other recipients.
This was one of the wishes of the European Parliament, and the Council is proposing to fulfil this wish in its entirety.
Although the current aim is just to draft the budget for 2000, the Commission has already said in a statement published in the Official Journal of the European Communities regarding next year that it intends to propose an aid programme by April 2000 for the Western Balkans for the period 2000 - 2006 in connection with a proposal for an amendment to the financial perspectives.
The European Parliament and the Council agree in another statement that such a multiannual programme should be drafted.
At present such a programme has not been proposed, however.
For that reason, we can for now only deal with the programme for 2000, which is urgent, and examine the Commission' s proposals next year, when they are known.
The Council has repeatedly said it considers cooperation with the European Parliament to be very important when the budget is being drafted.
This has not been just an empty declaration, but it has also had practical consequences.
The Council adopted, for example, almost all the European Parliament' s amendments relating to administrative expenditure, many of which concerned internal policies, which we know are of special interest to you.
We likewise approved the sums that Parliament added to such programmes as Socrates, Leonardo, equality between women and men, Altener, Synergy, Life and all the action programmes in the areas of health and research, and many others.
The Council also adopted the new policy for clearly determining the administrative costs of action programmes and monitoring offices concerned with technical assistance.
This was also one of the priority aims of the European Parliament this year.
The Council furthermore approved the increase of EUR 50 million in appropriations for food safety that Parliament held to be important.
Then I would like to mention OLAF, the European Fraud Prevention Office, as an example of where interinstitutional cooperation can lead.
The regulations and the whole legal framework in general for establishing OLAF, despite the complexity of the operation, became, thanks to the close cooperation between the Parliament and the Council, the first codecision procedure to reach a decision on one reading, and, in addition, in a record time of five months.
In addition to this - also thanks to close cooperation between Parliament and the Council - additional budgets 4 and 5 were promptly adopted in 1999, and the letter of amendment 2 for the 2000 budget is now about to be adopted.
All this will allow us to almost double the OLAF staff within a year.
Finally, the European Parliament and the Council seem to have reached agreement today on a new OLAF director, as a result of which OLAF will become fully capable of fulfilling its functions.
We all know that the path of solitude, and the apparent freedom it offers, might seem more alluring sometimes than the obligations that cooperation imposes.
However, we believe that through strategies of cooperation we can usually achieve better results for the Community as a whole and that they are more beneficial to each party involved than aggressive strategies.
The Council is thus offering its cooperation as a means of financing aid to Kosovo and East Timor in 2000.
This will mean the urgently needed substantial sums will go to Kosovo and East Timor without any unwarranted delays.
This proposal means these needs will be financed entirely by means of the flexibility instrument as far as exceeding the current ceiling in the financial perspectives is concerned, without taking funds away from any other areas.
The Council is also prepared for a solution where payment appropriations may be cut by EUR 2 billion by combining compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
The Council has thus shown it is willing to accept the wishes of Parliament by adopting the new amendments, which are important to you, and by making this proposition concerning Kosovo and East Timor, in which we have tried very hard to take account of your concerns.
The Council therefore hopes that the European Parliament will make its decision on the budget on the basis of the Council' s proposal.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, we find ourselves in a truly strange, a truly curious situation.
We voted on the first reading three months ago.
We negotiated assiduously in the various fora.
The Commission produced its rectifying letter, the Council voted for the budget at its second reading and the Committee on Budgets last week adopted its own second reading.
All the discussions should have been completed.
We were supposed to proceed to the vote on Thursday but, apparently, now that everything is ready to go ahead, the Council is continually determining its position.
I say "determining its position" but this is really just an expression, as in fact it is changing it imperceptibly.
This is in the domain of what Jean Paulhan, the noted French writer, used to call "Progress in Love on the Slow Side" , the title of a very interesting book which I recommend.
Progress in these matters is on the slow side, apparently, and still remains to be completed.
We are waiting for progress with an impatience which is becoming truly alarming, for we do not understand why the Council has, for weeks, been incapable of saying clearly exactly what it is prepared to accept or not.
We see this prevarication as the evidence of the increasing worrying paralysis of this institution, witness the report I made last year on the operational problems of the Council.
We experienced this in some conciliation meetings which were considered highly traumatic by the majority of my fellow Members, less seasoned in battle than Mr Wynn, myself or Mr Colom i Naval, who are familiar with this type of thing and who know it is never very easy.
The fact is, the conciliation procedure has been extremely tough and, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you yourself adopted some overly rash positions.
So, what is the position? I have no idea!
This evening a three-way dialogue is to take place. Will you be making proposals to us?
I do not see how you can make proposals today if you were unable to make them yesterday, or last Wednesday, or a fortnight ago, but perhaps you possess the secret of modifying the views of your members?
In this context, what is the position of Parliament? What are we looking to achieve through the compromise?
Well, we are after five things. Firstly, the second reading vote should be as close as possible to the first reading vote in Parliament.
Our vote reflected our political orientation. What is the state of play?
The various scenarios in this regard are satisfactory.
In the initial phase of the procedure, we received a proposal for a reduction of approximately EUR 500 million from category 4 in relation to the preliminary draft budget.
In the compromise we voted on, we have a reduction of only EUR 150 million, not in relation to the PDB but in relation to our vote at first reading.
As far as the remainder is concerned, i.e. categories 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7, nothing has been changed.
One might safely say that Parliament has been satisfied on this point, subject of course to resolution of the Kosovo issue, which I shall return to.
As the President-in-Office of the Council mentioned, the major commitments which we had, regarding the Fisheries Agreement, Timor and Turkey, have also been taken into consideration, which, again, is satisfactory.
Our second objective was to have Kosovo financed at a level above the ceiling of heading 4.
As it happens, after a difficult beginning, we consider that the proposal to use the flexibility clause, although not the most suitable instrument, intended to provide financial aid for Kosovo of EUR 200 million above the category is satisfactory in itself, and indeed enables us, if we are in agreement as to the remainder, to have a satisfactory approach to providing financial aid for Kosovo for the year concerned.
I note, moreover, that the final proposal is even higher than the initial proposals of the Commission, which it should be aware of.
Our third objective was the review of the financial perspectives beyond the financial year 2000.
Our success in this respect has been much more limited and, in my opinion, extremely uncertain.
We have here a commitment which has two negative aspects in relation to what we actually wanted: firstly, the review is to concern just the Balkans as a whole, whereas we consider that it is the Kosovo issue which justifies it and, secondly, this commitment is a conditional one.
The amounts of the appropriations allocated to the Balkans, resulting from the estimates made by the Commission and accepted by the Council, should be markedly higher than those in existing programmes.
I am afraid that in fact, in the mind of the Council, review of the financial perspectives might be centred on the disappearance of Comrade Milosevic.
I find this point of view worrying for, when I see what has happened to Saddam Hussein, I think that dictators sometimes have a longer lifetime than might be desirable.
So, the question remains.
Finally, our fourth objective: we wanted the measures undertaken on behalf of the Balkans to be based on a serious, multiannual and binding estimate of needs.
In that respect, we are far short of the target.
It was indeed sufficient to hear the speech of the President-in-Office of the Council just now. She had a fear and dread of quoting figures and was speaking a language which seemed to have gone through some double translation process, ensuring that no one could understand a word in the end.
But in any case, this dancing around the figures spoke volumes and indicated that we are in fact building on a rather unsatisfactory foundation.
The estimates are not serious ones.
We have gone from EUR 500 million, a figure adopted chiefly for the number of zeros in it and its ease of pronunciation.
Next, everyone, except ourselves, started making estimates, saying: let us take away EUR 140 million, put humanitarian aid to one side, add the accounts, etc, and suddenly coming up with the figures required.
The fact is there has been no serious estimate of needs founded on a clear distinction between the measures necessary for the repair of war damage, for the modernisation of the country and for the modernisation of its society.
We were awaiting serious commitments, multiannual commitments, binding commitments.
In this respect, the compromise is not satisfactory, in my opinion, if not in the opinion of all the members of the Committee on Budgets.
Finally, the terms of the compromise were for a moderate reduction of payment appropriations.
If we had had recourse to Article 272, then we should have had to make savings of 2.8 billion from the non-compulsory expenditure.
Obviously, this was the reason we rejected this prospect, so as not to make cuts as extensive as this.
Such were the terms of the compromise.
To assess the results, we are satisfied on two counts.
We are only partly satisfied as to the review, not satisfied at all regarding the estimate of needs in Kosovo, and may or may not be satisfied regarding the reduction of payment appropriations, a matter on which I hope you will change position.
What are we going to do now?
What is our scenario? In my opinion, the compromise is not acceptable, chiefly due to the inadequate estimates for Kosovo, which mean that we are acting irresponsibly, squandering taxpayers' money.
This is why, as far as I am concerned, whatever the decision of the Committee on Budgets, if we were to go once again to a compromise, then I should abstain on this budget.
As far as my fellow committee members are concerned, the main thing is to reduce payment appropriations. Will it be done?
Will you do it? I have no idea.
We shall see what you are prepared to say shortly.
What we voted on within the Committee on Budgets, and what we have proposed to you, is simple.
Firstly, we shall not resort to Article 272, to prevent our strangulation on the matter of payment.
Secondly, we shall take category 4 up to the maximum limit.
Without financing Kosovo, except in the amount of EUR 115 million, by adding the accounts which are presented, i.e. with Mr Mingasson and Mrs Schreyer acting as treasurer, on a monthly basis.
We are acting as treasurer for Kosovo, on a monthly basis we are giving them the means to pay for the things they have to have done and we are awaiting a serious, overall estimate of needs in Kosovo and in the Balkans.
And then we reconvene together with the Council and the Commission to finally discuss the key issues, i.e. a satisfactory estimate for Kosovo, an overall estimate for the Balkans and then a review of the financial perspectives, a satisfactory estimate for the Balkans.
This is what we are doing.
It is not a war plan, it is a plan for cooperation.
We need another three months to be able to get estimates which are satisfactory onto the table, and then we shall reconvene.
This is the scenario we envisage.
Madam, do not take it as a declaration of war, but if you respond to our vote in the same way that the Marquise de Merteuil responded to the Vicomte de Valmont in "Dangerous Liaisons" , well then, this war is not one that we would wish but it is one that we would see through.
In that case we would have recourse to Article 272 on reasonable grounds regarding 2001.
But this is not the scenario we envisage.
We are offering you a scenario of cooperation with an agreement which has been postponed for a few months, and in any case with the certainty, for the Commission, that Kosovo will receive the necessary financial aid.
Thank you, Mr President, for your indulgence.
Mr President, the budget for the year 2000 is, for the institutions other than the Commission, very simple.
The Council has adopted all of Parliament' s amendments.
It has also given its approval to Parliament' s own budget through a gentlemen' s agreement, which means they have not interfered in it at all. I would like to express my sincerest thanks for that.
In the reading of next year' s budget, however, a position has to be taken on the change which was not in the original estimate.
I refer to the situation which was caused by the fact that the Court of First Instance approved the TDI group as a parliamentary political group.
According to parliamentary rules, this group has the right to a staff of 14.
The Secretary-General obtained the staffing resources by reallocating twelve of the fourteen staff necessary.
To make good the difference the Council of Presidents finally proposed two new temporary C5 posts and one A6 post.
So that this issue would be debated according to Parliament' s agenda, the Committee on Budgets called for compliance with Article 183.
The President sent a preliminary draft for the budget, which the Committee debated yesterday and adopted by virtue of the report on the proposal.
This report is now being debated in connection with next year' s budget, and we intend to vote on it tomorrow, Wednesday, when it is hoped the Commission will also present its preliminary letter of amendment in accordance with practice. In this way the Council could debate and approve these matters on Wednesday, so that the issue might be dealt with in connection with the rest of the budget on Thursday 16 December.
What has happened does not mean that more money is being asked for next year' s budget, but only to create posts.
However, it shows how ponderous and cumbersome our administrative procedures are.
There is a total of 1700 different C posts in the European Parliament.
Of these, some are vacant and some are to become so.
For that reason, it is urgent that we make the current administrative rules in Parliament more flexible, as they hamper the smooth and proper flow of administration.
The European Parliament is now adding new posts in connection with the budget now being discussed, which is not consistent with disciplined financial administration - not, at least, if we compare the additions to those in the previous five years.
We cannot nor must not, however, leave disciplined budgetary policy to the responsibility of the Committee on Budgets: it is naturally the Council of Presidents and the chairmen of the political groups that bear the greatest responsibility, especially where Parliament is concerned.
Finally I would like to say a few words in general about budgetary procedure.
The biggest problem this year was category 4: external action. During the debate new items of expenditure were added to it.
First there was the EUR 500 million proposed by the European Union Summit conference for Kosovo. Then, later, we had the fisheries agreement with Morocco; and then Turkey and other headings totalling 190 million euros or nearly EUR 700 million altogether, which represents 15% of the financial perspectives.
As the budget for 1999 had already very nearly reached its ceiling, it was really quite difficult to suppose that such great degrees of flexibility might be found in other areas of expenditure.
Among the members of the Council there had been no desire to alter the financial perspectives, at least up till now, and then not even now, not even by means of transfers between categories.
Furthermore, as a counterweight to the use of the flexibility instrument, immense reductions in other areas of expenditure were being and are being asked for.
Thus, the task of the Committee on Budgets was a very simple one: to adapt the budget to the financial perspectives.
As a result, only EUR 100 million were allocated to Kosovo in the budget at this stage.
The Council dropped its earlier estimate of EUR 500 million to 360 million.
From this we may draw at least two conclusions.
Before aid is promised in the name of the European Union, it would perhaps be in order to check whether the promises can be kept.
Such promises, which mean making corresponding cuts elsewhere, have clearly to be considered carefully.
The same also goes for long-term programmes.
If the EU means to spend EUR 5.5 billion on the reconstruction of the whole Balkans area over the next six or seven years, which is to say EUR 800 - 900 million a year, it would be useful to know how the promise is going to be backed in terms of finance.
In this respect, the report by the Committee on Budgets now under discussion is relevant, as it emphasises the need to be realistic.
Secondly, the European Union has two budgetary authorities, Parliament being one of them.
Parliament has not accepted this duty and these obligations: the Member States have imposed them.
As Parliament is one of the budgetary authorities, it also bears a responsibility, and this is a fact that cannot be ignored in the workings of the EU.
During the last few days and weeks, the negotiations have been - at least in my view - talk about very minor matters, as nearly each one of the finance ministers of the Member States and even their state secretaries handle certainly much larger sums on their own.
In so saying, I do not want to criticise the country holding the presidency, which has certainly done everything necessary to achieve harmony.
We need a budget for next year, and it must be achieved.
If we do not get agreement we will have to continue the talks in January.
Finally, I would like to congratulate the main rapporteur, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, for his excellent work, which is obviously still continuing, and thank him and the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Terence Wynn, for their good and constructive cooperation and the diverse range of support they gave.
Likewise, I wish to thank the group' s coordinators, especially Mr Böge of the PPE-DE Group and Mr Walter of the PSE Group for their good cooperation, and all the members of the committee.
My special thanks go to Suvi-Anne Siimes, for her role as person responsible for the Council' s budget, and who has really got to grips with her job and applied herself to it conscientiously.
I would like to especially thank Heikki Joustie, who was involved as official representative, and who made his own splendid contribution in circumstances that were unusually awkward as far as the international situation was concerned.
Mr President, Madam Minister, ladies and gentlemen, the results of the Helsinki Summit were presented and debated this morning.
The decisions to come out of Helsinki have far-reaching consequences for the future of the Union, namely the resolutions on the enlargement strategy, on the intergovernmental conference and on the common foreign and security policy.
The Finnish Presidency dealt with a huge agenda; the Summit was a success, a good conclusion to 1999 and, with the Millennium Declaration, a good start for the future.
It would be therefore be a great pity if we were unable to announce a satisfactory conclusion to the budgetary procedure.
The new budget for 2000 will serve as a clear basis for sound policies.
The budgetary procedure has involved difficult negotiations but I have no intention of reviewing the entire process.
We have now reached the point where there is fundamental agreement on fundamental points.
The Council and Parliament have agreed, as Minister Siimes has just explained, that the entire flexibility reserve may be used for financing expenditure on Kosovo.
Most importantly, it has been agreed - and this was particularly important to Parliament, quite rightly, in my view - that an important political statement is being made, namely that the tasks of the European Union in Kosovo and in the Balkans are tasks which extend over several years and that, in order to honour these tasks financially, we may need to increase expenditure on foreign policy in comparison with the expenditure forecast at the beginning of this year, when we based our assessment on a somewhat different political situation.
In order to be able to finance these additional requirements over coming years and, above all, in order to remain within the overall framework decided in Berlin for coming years, the financial perspective may need to be changed or reviewed. It is precisely the combination of new priorities, together with budgetary discipline, which may mean that we need to change the financial perspective.
At present the Commission - and this has been stressed here - is unable to submit the exact financing requirements for the Balkans as a whole.
The Commission, my colleague Mr Patten in particular, and the administration are still hard at work on this.
However, the World Bank and the Commission have produced a very accurate study of reconstruction in Kosovo, which shows that a total of 2.3 billion dollars or euros will be needed in external aid over the next few years to repair not only war damage but the cumulative damage which has arisen as a result of the fact that the political situation in Kosovo over recent years has led to a disaster in human terms.
There is an immediate need for a large sum of money, because we cannot in fact say that rebuilding houses or restoring schools and the power supply is a task for tomorrow.
No, it is a task for today.
There is an urgent need, and I hope that we are still able to find a solution which does not put these needs off until tomorrow but tackles them today.
Agreement has been reached on entering EUR 300 million under the budget for the year 2000, in addition to the EUR 60 million redeployed from this year, and on considering the EUR 140 million granted at the donor conference as part of the funds promised for the year 2001.
Important decisions were also taken at Helsinki on the enlargement of the European Union.
Negotiations with the six candidate States are continuing and negotiations with six new candidate States have commenced.
The budget includes pre-accession aid which will rise from EUR 1.3 billion this year to EUR 3.1 billion next year.
New programmes are being funded in agriculture, infrastructure aid and transport and the environment, thereby paving the way for the candidate countries to join the Union.
The deployment of these appropriations will be very closely observed by my services in the form of financial control.
The financial control system forms a separate chapter in the negotiations.
In order to be able to estimate expenditure which may accrue for enlargement - the Berlin financial framework includes expenditure from 2000 onwards -, I shall suggest to the Commission that there be permanent screening of the economic situation and the enlargement expenditure needed as a result.
The peoples of the Member States must also be clear that enlargement is not a financial roller coaster.
The budget 2000 includes EUR 32 billion in commitments to support structural policy in the Member States.
The new programming period for 2000 to 2006 can therefore start being funded and it is starting with a new programme which emphasises that aid from the structural funds should, at the same time, help to improve gender equality, environmental protection and the employment situation.
I can assure you that we shall remind Member States quite clearly of their duty to deploy the appropriations so that these objectives can be achieved.
The budget 2000 includes EUR 41 billion for agricultural policy.
I should like to draw attention to the appropriations deployed for the second pillar of agricultural policy, namely for programmes to promote rural development.
The European Parliament fought intensively for this second pillar of the agricultural policy.
I shall do my very best to ensure that the programmes in this area get off to a good start.
I should also like to mention that the number of posts at the anti-fraud office will be increased under budget 2000 - this has already been mentioned - so that the OLAF is equipped to carry out its task.
I should also like to stress - and the credit here goes in particular to the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges - that the Commission is to examine its entire system for outsourcing activities to Technical Assistance Offices.
More importantly, Mr Bourlanges has proposed that a new administrative unit be set up which is similar in structure to the agencies.
The Commission has agreed on a timetable for reforming the system used hitherto.
I should like at this point to extend my warmest thanks to the rapporteurs, Messrs Bourlanges, Virrankoski and Colom i Naval - even if your report has not been tabled for discussion today - and, above all, to the chairman and members of the Committee on Budgets for their intensive work over recent months.
I should also like to thank the Council and to congratulate you, Minister Siimes, on your Finnish Presidency of the Council.
I understand that you proposed a solution to the final differences between the Council and the European Parliament in the overall process, namely that payment appropriations be reduced by EUR 2 billion.
I think that this should be stressed here once again.
The strength of the European institutions lies in finding compromises and in forging compromises.
The negotiations were long, but we are now at the point at which agreement can be reached.
It is now a question of seizing the opportunity to get the budget 2000 and the new year off to a good start and I urge Parliament to do so.
Mr President, could I first of all say on behalf of my committee how much I welcome the remarks by the President-in-Office, which raise the prospect that we might be able to reach agreement on the budget very quickly.
I would also like to congratulate the Finnish Presidency on taking us so far.
At this moment I can only give two cheers for her statement because I do not understand what she said as regards Heading 4.
She said that the Council does not want the ceiling for Heading 4 to be amended permanently.
Does that mean therefore that we will continue to operate Heading 4 on an ad hoc basis, that we will use a flexibility clause every year and therefore have a pretence that we have no change to the financial perspective when the reality is of course different? I would advise caution in this case because, as Mr Bourlanges has said, we are dealing with an unpredictable situation in the Balkans, not only in relation to Mr Milosevic but also the death of Mr Tudjman.
These events raise questions about the long-term feasibility of the course we are pursuing at the moment.
I would like some clarification on that point.
It has been a historic year in many ways, as the Commission, I am sure, would rather forget some of the more dramatic moments back in the spring, in the same way as some of us would rather forget some of the more dramatic election results of the summer!
But let us not forget why the Commission was forced to resign: fraud and mismanagement, those were the main points.
That is why this year's budget really had to reflect the need to tighten up procedures for budget control; and as the rapporteur for the 2000 budget, and on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, I would like to welcome once again the establishment of the new body to fight fraud and the new OLAF posts reflected in this year's budget.
The process of appointing the OLAF director is now well advanced.
The Committee on Budgetary Control held hearings with the candidates and produced a shortlist of three people, and I understand that tonight there will be a meeting to try to thrash out a decision between the representatives of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission.
Let us not forget that the technical assistance offices were also a big problem in the forced resignation of the Commission.
The Commission's strategic issues paper adopted on 10 December concluded that core public service tasks should not be outsourced and that the Commission should have at its disposal a much more flexible set of arrangements for non-core public service tasks.
That is something with which I wholeheartedly agree.
The Commission now performs such a wide variety of diverse functions that non-core public service tasks could be carried out in very many different ways.
There is no point in having a one-size-fits-all model for carrying out such tasks.
What we need to do is to reform the Staff Regulations so we can have flexibility in hiring contractual staff to service these offices.
Mr President, if we have understood the President-in-Office of the Council correctly, then this message, that the Council is moving towards Parliament' s position, is an important one.
After the events of the last few weeks, I am pleased to hear the message but I lack faith.
Which is why we need an exact overview of what this message in fact means.
Parliament has taken great pains to move towards the Council' s position over recent weeks. Until the end, any such effort on the part of the Council was minimal.
And if there is any now, we must ask, why not a moment earlier because, if the situation really is as we have understood it - and I still have my doubts - then we now have problems with how, technically, we are supposed to ensure that everything goes according to plan.
Until that has been clarified, as far as I am concerned, the decision of the Committee on Budgets taken yesterday evening still stands.
Specialist committees are very dependent upon the rapporteur to do their business for them.
I am happy to say that Mr Bourlanges this year has been a reliable colleague and negotiated well on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy.
He has pursued his own ideas and those of the Committee on Budgets at the same time, in particular his wish for administrative expenditure to be clearly identified so that monitoring can be carried out.
We are happy to support him in that.
We are pleased with the compromise on the fifth framework programme which allows us to monitor effectively but does not mean that managing the programmes becomes impossible for the Commission.
As far as energy is concerned, we are disappointed with the relatively small sums allocated for renewable energy and energy efficiency.
We shall be back with suggestions next year.
On the whole we are satisfied.
We will monitor very carefully the money that we shall be voting for on Thursday.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking now as the rapporteur of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I must say that the budget which has now been tabled is indeed a social budget because this time, with our corrections, it takes clear account of employment policy measures.
This means that anyone who wants action in favour of families, anyone who wants young trainees to be able to gain experience abroad and anyone who really wants to combat social exclusion will vote in favour of our proposed amendments the day after tomorrow.
Anyone who wants the European employment strategy to be paid more than lip service and to be more than an item on Summit agendas but who wants the European employment strategy to be anchored at local level will vote, I am sure, in favour of our new employment policy initiatives.
A social Europe also has strong trade union and employer associations in permanent dialogue with each other.
It is never too early to start exporting this model of success to Central and Eastern Europe.
Which is why we have reversed the Council' s cutbacks here.
Mr President, could I first join with some of my other colleagues in thanking the rapporteur for the work that he has done this year.
As someone who was responsible for the budget on behalf of the Committee on Environment for the first time, I found him very helpful and very considerate of the points I made - not agreeing with everything but nevertheless being very fair-minded.
I would also like to welcome the decisions taken by the Council and the Commission.
The decision with regard to the money for Kosovo is helpful and their other agreements have, generally speaking, made the Committee on the Environment relatively happy.
I am glad Mrs Schreyer mentioned earlier the additional monies for the Veterinary Office which are particularly important if we want them to deal with the problems that have arisen because of the BSE crisis, the dioxin crisis in Belgium and of course the continued work in Portugal.
That money is necessary and we are very pleased that you agreed to it.
In the area of health, we have had some very small and moderate improvements.
The budget headings for the Committee on the Environment generally concern very small amounts but they have enabled us to start the preparatory research that will help us develop the issue of health competence under the Amsterdam Treaty.
The sum involved is small but it is important.
As regards consumers, there we are pleased to see that the agreement reached on the Whitehead report and the conciliation on the Whitehead report last year has been honoured and the money will come through.
We are looking forward to that bringing general benefits in the coming year.
As regards the area of the environment, the most important outstanding measure of course is the Lienemann report and the conciliation on LIFE and we are optimistic that we will get a reasonable result there.
I would however make one final plea.
The question of the money for the drugs agency is urgent now that we will approve the orphan drugs regulation in February.
Something must be done quickly.
Could I, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Transport and Tourism, acknowledge the progress that is being made by the Council and in particular by the Committee on Budgets in addressing our concerns.
We, as a committee, fully endorse the approach adopted by the Committee on Budgets in all areas but in particular would highlight their efforts to increase the payment appropriations under the structural funds.
Secondly, we would highlight their attempt to restore the cuts in the INTERREG programme by some EUR 33 million in the payments, restoring that heading to the budget.
Thirdly, we would thank them for their efforts to restore the unacceptable cuts in the transport safety heading; we welcome the progress made there.
Fourthly and finally, we welcome progress in restoring the cuts in the environmentally sustainable transport heading.
We endorse all their efforts so far and would also add our backing to their insistence that 20% of the payment appropriations go into reserve for the Community INTERREG and URBAN initiatives, pending the satisfactory adoption of the guidelines.
You have our full support, Mr Bourlanges, and we hope that Parliament endorses the Committee on Budgets' proposals in the vote this week.
This is the third time I have had the responsibility of being draftsman on the budget for the Committee on Culture and I would particularly like to thank Mr Bourlanges, the budget rapporteur, for his help and cooperation.
I have time to make only two points.
One is regularly made: culture and education are important for Europe, not just for the past but for the future of our continent.
We neglect them at our peril and, by continuing year after year to spend less on our cultural and educational programmes than we spend on growing tobacco, we are not just neglecting them, we are turning our priorities completely upside down.
With so little to spend, it is important that we spend it efficiently and effectively.
Secondly, are you aware that today, 14 December 1999, the European Youth Orchestra, the European Youth Parliament, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, to name just three, are yet to receive the subsidies that we voted for them for this year? They are told the cheques are in the post.
I am afraid their bank managers are not so ready to accept that excuse.
Much is promised but, sadly, not a lot of it is delivered.
This is a comment that I think applies just a shade too often where Europe is concerned.
I urge the Commissioner never to let this happen again.
Mr President, Mr Bourlanges, the proposal you put forward is, shall we say, reasonable.
It makes it possible to release EUR 115 million to finance Kosovo, while waiting for a realistic evaluation of requirements, covered, if necessary, by the vote on a SAB next spring, and this is no bad thing.
We have also had to effect savings of EUR 150 million, i.e. further budget cuts to the lines of heading 4 in order to finance new priorities: Timor, Turkey and the Fisheries Agreement with Morocco, which are not in the exclusive domain of external action of the Union, but which we have accepted.
It must be pointed out that these are heavy sacrifices, especially since this proposal envisages taking EUR 35 million out of ECHO appropriations, a deduction which is presented as a loan, one whose repayment seems highly uncertain.
Nonetheless we shall be fighting for that.
So, of course I support your proposal but, as you will understand, I support it without enthusiasm.
I simply wish to express, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, my concern regarding this budget 2000 which, if the financial perspectives are not reviewed, places the burden of all the sacrifices on the poorest countries.
We join forces, however, with the position of the Committee on Budgets and I wish my fellow Members on that committee good luck in the forthcoming three-way dialogue.
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall adjourn the debate on the budget which will resume this evening at 9 p.m.
Shall I ask the Commission if it is prepared to make its declaration?
Meanwhile, and until the Commissioner arrives, I give the floor to the Council, which would like to speak - I think - about Helsinki.
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, I just wish to refer to the speech I gave.
I actually said that at present the Council believes there is no need to amend the frameworks of the 2000 budget permanently, and we have proposed the use of the flexibility instrument with regard to category 4.
Thank you very much, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
We shall adjourn the sitting for a few minutes while we wait for the representative of the Council to arrive.
Commission communication - Decisions taken at that day' s meeting
The next item is the communication by the Commission on the decisions taken at today' s meeting.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much, and I would firstly like to congratulate the President.
The Commission met here in Strasbourg this afternoon and took the following decisions, which I shall now relay to you.
Firstly, it decided to give France a reasoned opinion with a deadline of five days in which to respond concerning the ban on British beef.
The Commission took three further decisions on the application of Regulation No 4064/89 concerning merger control and on Regulation No 17/62 in application of Articles 85 and 86 of the Treaty, imposing fines ranging from EUR 100 000 to EUR 3 000 for each company that has supplied incorrect information in response to requests for information that have been made to them.
The Commission also adopted a communication which defines the objectives and the principles of the Community medium-term audiovisual policy and which establishes a strategy for the so-called "digital" age.
The communication contains several principles that in the Commission' s opinion should be applied to the regulation of the audiovisual sector and to its support mechanisms.
Closely linked to this communication, the Commission approved another one, together with a proposal for a decision by the European Parliament and the Council and a proposal for a decision by the Council relating to a programme of support for the European audiovisual industry, which is the MEDIA PLUS 2001-2005 programme.
The communication contains a renewed vision and principles for intervention relating to the MEDIA PLUS programme.
The first proposal concerns the formalisation of a training programme for professionals in the European audiovisual programme industry, the so-called "Media-Training" programme, which will be funded to the value of EUR 50 million for the period 2001 to 2005.
The objective of the second proposal is to establish a programme of support for the development, distribution and promotion of unequivocally European audiovisual works.
This is the MEDIA-PLUS programme - Development, Distribution and Promotion, which will be funded to the value of EUR 350 million for the period 2001 to 2005.
Following the Helsinki European Council meeting, on which a debate was held here this morning in plenary sitting, in the presence of the President of the Commission, the Commission approved a proposal for a decision by the Council which seeks the formal adoption of the guidelines on the Member States' employment policies for 2000.
In the framework of the internal reform of the Commission and following its statement of commitment to review the policy of outsourcing services, the Commission also approved a communication containing guidelines and the timetable for the implementation of this outsourcing policy.
Finally, Mr President, the Commission approved a proposal for a decision by the Council that aims to create a European Fund for Refugees.
This is an instrument that aims to last for five years and which, thus, within a framework of multiannual programming, will enable us to give effective support to measures designed to improve conditions of reception, to promote integration and to make voluntary repatriation easier, as well as reintegration into refugees' and displaced persons' countries of origin.
The fund will also contribute to the financing of emergency measures in the event of a massive influx of people who are in desperate need of international protection.
A sum of EUR 36 million has been earmarked for the first year of this fund' s operation: EUR 26 million for the structural policy and EUR 10 million for emergency situations.
On this last point, I would like to add that the tradition of sums being earmarked for supporting refugees was started by the European Parliament in 1997 and annual decisions have been taken on it.
Therefore, the time has come, following the Tampere European Council meeting to adopt a permanent legal base, which will give rise to a multiannual-type programme.
The Tampere European Council asked the Commission to look into the creation of a financial fund aimed at resolving emergency situations.
The Commission worked on the basis of the lessons it learned from its experience of Kosovo.
This fund is therefore both a fund that has an emergency component but whose objective is, at the same time, to guarantee the financing of structural policy measures of support for the reception, integration and voluntary repatriation of refugees and asylum seekers.
There are, therefore, two interlocking budget lines, which nevertheless have different objectives.
Firstly, the structural objective for the next five years is to allow the development by the Member States of policies for the reception and integration of refugees and asylum seekers, policies which must concentrate above all on priority actions of a very tangible nature.
We see the Member States' need to provide themselves with equipment and infrastructure for support for the reception, integration and voluntary repatriation of refugees and asylum seekers as a priority in this area.
The objective of the Commission' s proposal is that the sum of EUR 26 million should be distributed amongst the Member States based on a criterion, on a distribution scale that, above all, takes into account the number of requests for asylum that each Member State has received in the last three years and the number of refugees that have been in each Member States over the last three years.
The first component will make up two-thirds of the fund' s national financing component and the second component will make up one third.
In terms of the management of this fund, the Commission proposes that it should, above all, be co-financed by Member States with the specific aim of committing each State to implementing concrete actions that will lead to improving the situation of asylum-seekers and refugees in the States of our Union.
The Commission is reserving the management of 10% of the funds for itself with the aim of supporting the development of innovative, transnational projects.
In its proposal, the Commission adopts the system of the constant commitology of a consultative committee and aims, with this, to replace the system of the Technical Assistance Offices that was in force during the 1998-1999 period.
I am Mr President, at the Chamber' s service.
Thank you very much, Commissioner António Vitorino.
Firstly, I would like to say that your slight delay is quite justified by the importance of your communication.
I would also like to say that Parliament is delighted that this almost immediate and instantaneous form of debate between this House and the executive is possible and hopes that this new practice will really create a space for topical political debate, which can only enhance this House and its relationship with the Commission.
We shall now proceed to the debate.
Thank you, Mr President.
My question relates to the Media Plus Programme 2001-2006.
The elections for the European Parliament had a turnout, unfortunately, of less than 50%.
This programme should make provision for a focus on information and, more importantly, for a focus on training for journalists on the subject of the European Union.
I think that there is an increasingly urgent need to maintain good contacts with the public.
We have seen from the example of the WTO that European broadcasters could have been represented much more intensively and that it is important for us to be up to date in media reporting if we want to play a leading role in the world.
Which is why I am interested in knowing if it would be possible to invite journalists here from Europe and the rest of the world in order to explain our work to them and show them the advantages of European Union.
Firstly, Mr Rübig, I would like to say that I share the concern you have just expressed about whether the European Institutions as a whole, are able to draft a policy on information and communication which will enable us to provide all European citizens with not just the contents of our debates but also with the added value that the decisions of Parliament, the Commission and the Council itself have for their daily life.
Nevertheless, the context of the Media Plus programme does not apply best to conducting information campaigns or communication aimed at our citizens.
In reality, the central aim of these programmes is to support the training of professionals in the European audiovisual industry and to promote European artistic creation and research in the audiovisual sphere.
They are, therefore, not information programmes in the strict sense of the word, but are rather programmes of support for creative initiatives by audiovisual professionals, which are markedly European in nature.
We are all aware that the percentage of audiovisual products originating in Europe and consumed in Europe is tiny, even if we take the value of the production of each of our national States together as well as those considered to be European productions because they involve the collaboration of more than one Member State.
We hope that through this programme, there will be a significant increase in the worldwide quota of audiovisual products originating in Europe by means of a policy of supporting the creation, production and distribution of authentically European audiovisual products.
My second question relates to employment policy for the year 2000, which you voted on here today.
The same question comes up time and time again: to what extent is the budget of the European Union examined in order to ascertain which budget lines foster employment?
Some expenditure certainly fosters employment by creating new jobs and new undertakings, some budget lines secure existing jobs and some budget lines destroy jobs.
Has any provision been made here for a scientific study or are there any studies which illustrate which expenditure or income we can use to make a positive impact on European employment policy?
I must confess to the honourable Member that employment is not my specific area of expertise. I would therefore not be able to give a straight answer to your question as far as global policy of the Commission is concerned.
What I can guarantee is that the issue of the restructuring of the Union budget concerning contributions to employment policy was not discussed by the Commission today.
What we did approve was the contribution of the Commission to the guidelines for the national employment plans for the year 2000 in the follow-up to the so-called Cardiff, Luxembourg and Cologne procedures.
We consider that a major opportunity to discuss the concrete contribution of the Union to the creation of new jobs in Europe will be provided by the coming Lisbon Summit in March, which will be the time and the place to make an evaluation of the three processes I have just mentioned, Cologne, Luxembourg and Cardiff on one hand; and on the other to define the strategy, the synthesis of macro-economic policies, micro-economic entrepreneurial innovation and the challenge of the new information society.
From the Lisbon Summit I hope we will get a clearer idea as to how the Union budget can contribute to our common objective of creating new jobs in the continent.
Mr President. I do not wish to encroach on members' time, but you reported at the beginning that you are now instituting Treaty infringement proceedings against France.
But the argument does not relate solely to France, it relates to Germany as well.
In the compromise forged between France and the Commission and Great Britain, it was agreed that the tests should also be used for diagnostic purposes and that English beef from this export programme should be labelled.
These requirements were also imposed by Germany.
My question is this: if you institute Treaty infringement proceedings without waiting for the results of the tests, when the tests have not even been carried out - we are still waiting for a proposal from Commissioner Byrne - and if the logistics for labelling have still not been set up, how then can you expect France and Germany to lift their import restrictions with this state of affairs?
Should the Commission not put the conditions in place and monitor them first, so that this can be done? Mr President, we await further explanation from the Commission on the matter tomorrow.
Perhaps then we can go into it in greater depth.
Mr President, I shall be brief.
The issue raised by the honourable Member will be adequately addressed by my colleague, Mr Byrne, tomorrow morning here in Parliament.
I would suggest that he raise the question tomorrow, when he will get a much better answer than any I could give you.
Mr President, since we are holding a free debate, I read Mr Ecevit' s statement following Turkey' s acceptance as a candidate country of the European Union in this morning' s Libération. In it he said, "the borders of Europe will inevitably move more and more eastwards....they will encompass Central Asia and eventually the whole of the Asian continent" .
In his second statement, he brought up the Cyprus issue and stressed that Turkey would not brook any discussion of the current state of affairs in Cyprus, thereby ignoring what was said in the Helsinki decision.
I should like to ask the Commissioner, given that the Commission enthusiastically supported candidate status for Turkey, if these statements are in keeping with the spirit in which the Council and the Commission recommended that Turkey be granted candidate status and if this is an indication of how Turkey will conduct itself in future.
Mr Marinos, just a brief observation.
We all have to adapt to this new and, I think, encouraging method of working with the Commission, - the free debate - but as you know, according to the Rules of Procedure, this free debate is connected directly and in this particular circumstance - and that is why it was created - to the declaration that the Commission has just made and to the issues addressed in it.
Obviously, the Commission has not made a declaration on these matters even though they are, I admit, of the utmost political importance and extremely topical.
However, the Commission has not made such a declaration.
It is up to Commissioner Vitorino to decide if he should reply or not.
Mr President, I would just like to say that I agree with your interpretation.
The Commission' s position on the interpretation of the Helsinki decisions was expressed here, this morning in plenary, by President Prodi and it is to this declaration that I would refer you for the Commission' s position.
I missed the beginning of the sitting, for which I apologise, but I was at a meeting with Xanana Gusmão.
I am extremely curious to find out, as the press has barely covered the matter, how things went in Helsinki in terms of the third pillar, which falls precisely within Commissioner Vitorino' s competence.
At the Tampere meeting, much was said about third pillar issues, about internal security, justice and all the rest, and the Commissioner was supposed to take to Helsinki something that was already tangible.
I would like to know what happened in Helsinki, if he is able to give me an answer.
Mr Soares, the Commission' s commitment was, in December, to present the first version of the scoreboard to the Council of Justice and Home Affairs.
And this is what the Commission did at the beginning of December.
Not to the Helsinki European Council but to the Council of Justice and Home Affairs.
The Commission hopes that this scoreboard will be adopted under the Portuguese Presidency at the Council of Justice and Home Affairs next March in Lisbon.
At European Council level, what was decided was that the Heads of State and Government will once again go into issues of Justice and Home Affairs at the European Council meeting in June 2000, the Santa Maria da Feira Council, in order to study the so-called external dimension of Justice and Home Affairs in greater detail. These are the implications for the European Union' s external policy of the new priorities adopted by Tampere for the area of freedom, security and justice.
Commissioner Vitorino, I appreciated the communication that you just made on behalf of the Commission on the Media II programme for support for the creation and production of European culture.
I simply feel that the funds are too small for the ambition that the Commission has for this programme and for this strategy.
Nevertheless, the intention is good and should be applauded.
I feel however, that the greater consumption of European audiovisual products will occur through educating Europeans themselves, through stimulating their taste and their appreciation of European culture and by rejecting the many poor-quality products that come from other parts of the world.
This educating process is obviously not within the Commission' s competence. It is up to Europeans themselves, in the way they raise and educate their children and in the way they run their media.
Nevertheless, I appreciated your communication and I support it.
What I asked you just now though is this; is this programme positively compatible with the Commission' s other position according to which we should protect European audiovisual products from competition, especially television, which the French call a "cultural exception" ?
Mr President, thank you very much for the question that I have been asked.
I would like to begin by saying to Carlos Lage that what the Commission has approved today - the Media Plus programme - is entirely consistent with a strategy that has been developed by this Commission within the framework of the so-called I-Europe programme. And this will culminate - we hope - in the decisions of next March' s Extraordinary European Council meeting in Lisbon.
What we need to do is to prepare Europe, both in terms of infrastructure and of the content production industry, for the challenge of the information age which means of course that we are assuming that Europe has the ambition to participate in the new digital economy and in the new society of culture and information on a global scale.
As for the specific question that Mr Lage asked, we are not trying to establish a strategy based on the logic of protecting competition.
It is a question of establishing a strategy with which, whilst accepting the rules of free competition, we can support European creation as well as distribution in order to be able to face this competition more successfully.
Therefore, it is not a question of there being less competition, but of fairer competition which is given greater support by the European courts.
Mr President, during Commissioner Vitorino' s hearing, I told him that I was pleased to see that he was the only Commissioner who had taken the trouble to mention education as an important element to be incorporated into the third pillar.
He replied enthusiastically and even with a degree of passion which struck me as extraordinary.
In Spain we are adopting a law on aliens which fully supports integration and the recognition of all rights.
But we also need Europe to take a step forward with regard to education because a new wave of illiteracy is appearing, a new group of marginalised people, as a result of the fact that people are unable to understand the language of the country into which they are being integrated.
These new illiterates cannot even understand safety instructions at work.
They cannot understand road signs.
This is a new type of illiteracy, a new kind of basic poverty which is currently becoming part of the social make-up of Europe.
This problem is getting out of hand, perhaps through lack of information and research.
Would it not be possible to carry out a systematic study of what the conditions and needs really are and where the essential points lie? Because without information it is not possible to draft a policy and without a knowledge of the true state of affairs it is not possible to create proper programmes.
We need to lay firm foundations in this field, since nobody is taking responsibility for education.
I shall gladly reply to the Member by saying that education is a central element in integration policies, and I offer you two examples.
First example: the Commission has proposed a directive for the reuniting of legal immigrants with their families in the Member States of the Union.
Under this directive, children who are reunited with a relative who is a permanent legal immigrant in the countries of the Union will have the right to full education under the same terms as the children of the citizens of the Member States.
Second example: under the EQUAL initiative, research is to be carried out into the use of the education system as a means of integrating immigrants into the host societies.
I can guarantee that both the Directorate-General for Justice and Home Affairs and the Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs are fully aware that it is strategically important for the children of legal immigrants in the countries of the Union to be guaranteed access to education.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
Question Time (Commission)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0036/1999). We shall examine the questions to the Commission.
First Part
Since the author is not present, Question No 33 lapses.
Question No 34 by (H-0689/99):
Subject: EU Charter of Fundamental Rights In the Commission=s view, should the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights being drawn up on a mandate from the Tampere Summit have legal force?
The Cologne European Council decided that a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union should be drawn up in advance of the European Council in December 2000 and that such a charter should be drafted by a body composed of 15 representatives of the Heads of State and Government, 16 Members of the European Parliament including the honourable Member, 30 Members of national parliaments and myself representing the President of the Commission.
The composition of the body was fixed in Tampere and its first meeting will take place next Friday, 17 December.
The nature of the Charter is a very fundamental question, nevertheless the European Council left the question open.
According to the conclusions, it will have to be considered whether and, if so, how the charter should be integrated into the Treaties.
Although it is up to the Heads of State and Government to decide the definitive status of the Charter, in its proposal the body will have to consider how to combine two open questions: a legally binding text ready to be inserted into the Treaty, or a solemn political declaration.
These reflections will also take into account the close connection with the IGC preparatory work.
In the Commission's view, the European Union Charter should respond to two different concerns: visibility and security.
As far as visibility is concerned, one could argue that a political declaration solemnly proclaimed by the European institutions and relayed by all channels of communication will be enough.
On the legal security aspect, we must consider how the European Union Charter can contribute to improving the degree of protection of fundamental rights within the European Union and it is difficult to see how a non-binding text could contribute to clarifying and transcending the current system of protection.
In the Commission's view, the Charter to be presented to the Heads of State and Government must carry real added value and the best way to achieve this is to focus on the fundamental rights arising from the Union itself.
The body will have to find a way to attain a politically significant text compatible with insertion into the Treaty.
There are clear indications that drafting of the Charter is broadly welcomed and that citizens expect it to be a founding text on the matter.
The Commission is convinced that those expectations should not be disappointed.
The Commissioner has surprised me by going as far as he has done and I very much welcome the response that he has given.
I look forward to working with him on the drafting body.
I wonder whether you would agree that if, at the end of the day, we end up with a mere political statement, we will have wasted a year of our activity?
It is not necessary to have 62 people working to draft a political statement.
If this is what we are going to end up with we might as well send away a couple of officials to make a draft of the rights that we currently have in the Treaty.
What we must have at the end of this process is a legally binding set of rights for the citizens of Europe.
I would just add that I am confident we will be able to find the necessary consensus to make the charter capable of having a real influence on the daily lives of our citizens.
There are of course difficulties ahead of us - political difficulties and some technical ones.
We have to address very clearly the question of the judicial enforcement of this charter.
I am confident that in close cooperation the Commission, the Council, Parliament and the national parliaments will eventually come up with a good result if we bear in mind above all the interests of the citizens.
Question No 35 by (H-0670/99):
Subject: Renewal of concessions for motorway companies in Italy The Italian government intends to renew the concessions of the 20 companies which currently manage the Italian motorways.
After approving the concession for Autostrade, a stock company which manages approximately 50% of the Italian motorway system, it is proposing to renew the concessions of the 19 other, smaller companies.
In exchange, the companies propose making enormous investments worth some ITL 20,000 billion in new motorways.
Does the Commission not feel that renewing the concessions is an infringement of the directives on the awarding of public supply contracts (92/50/EEC, 93/37/EEC and 89/440/EEC), given that there was no public European call for tenders and any other EU company was therefore excluded from this important market? Does the Commission not think that the companies' offer to create new infrastructure is a means of defending their monopoly position, and that the construction work runs counter to the EU' s policy of a more responsible balance between the different forms of transport?
In response to the question raised by Mr Bouwman, I would like to make the following observation on behalf of the Commission.
The Commission would point out to the honourable Member of Parliament that there are three infringement procedures currently running concerning these issues.
The procedure concerning Autostrade s.p.a. could well have a positive outcome in the light of the fact that the Italian authorities have expressed their willingness to work together with the Commission in unison and have taken steps towards privatising the company.
Given the major consequences which this case might have, the Commission will, however, continue to monitor the process and the dossier will not be closed before the Commission has ascertained that the principles of transparency and equal treatment are upheld.
With regard to the other concessions, the Commission has initiated two infringement procedures and is investigating the issues related to them.
Given their economic, political and social significance, these matters will also be discussed at a meeting with the Italian authorities which will take place very soon.
In order to tackle this general issue in a more structural way, the Commission has, in fact, recently launched a horizontal inquiry into the current situation within all Member States, to identify common problems and problems which are only specific to a certain Member State.
If this inquiry will bring possible infringements to light, then the Commission will take further steps to solve these problems.
The new investments in infrastructure undertaken by Italy do not necessarily contravene the EU' s transport policy.
Although the Member States are responsible for taking decisions regarding such investments, the Commission is of the opinion that these must be based on the positive outcome of a complete social cost and benefit analysis.
Mr President, Commissioner Bolkestein, I am of course delighted that the Commission is looking into these problems and that these three infringement proceedings are now under way.
We are all waiting for an answer.
But I would ask you to consider in this connection that we should perhaps take this opportunity to provide for dovetailing the Commission services responsible for transport and the services responsible for competition if we are to make progress with transport policy decisions in Europe in general.
We must and we want to shift heavy traffic onto the railways.
The positive example here of the award of the Brenner motorway concession for the purpose of investing in a basic Brenner tunnel could perhaps be used as an example throughout Europe.
I would like to digress briefly to point out that the Brenner motorway concession is to be awarded, but has not yet been awarded on condition or with the promise that money from the motorway will be transferred to the basic Brenner tunnel, i.e. to the railways.
If the Commission services responsible for transport and competition were to work together, we could take an important step forward in a policy to shift heavy traffic from the roads to the railways.
I would like to extend my warm thanks to Mr Messner for the additional remarks he has made which the Commission will take very much to heart.
I do not only say this on my own behalf, but also certainly on behalf of fellow Commissioner Loyola de Palacio, who, as you know, is responsible for the transport policy.
This matter undoubtedly has our undivided attention.
I would very much like to respond to Mr Messner' s question and reiterate that the onus is on the Member State to adopt its own transport policy.
Naturally, we hope that, as far as possible, this policy will be in line with the transport policy of other Member States and that of the Commission itself.
As for the shift of freight from road to rail, I would like to observe that the point made by Mr Messner deserves a great deal of attention.
I can assure him that in various Member States, an opinion-forming process is under way which aims to ensure that the shift which he advocates is carried out.
It is, of course, a fact that the transport of freight by road carries an element of flexibility which rail does not have.
This does not take away from the fact that rail transport is eminently suitable for long-distance transport, also because - and this will be very dear to Mr Messner - the surroundings and the environment suffer less damage as a result.
Concerning the concession regarding transport over the Brenner Pass, as mentioned by Mr Messner, this concession is still outstanding.
The Commission will find out how this concession will be granted because - and this is also the topic of current discussion - of course, concessions cannot be granted until the conditions which should be tied in with the granting of concessions in general, are sufficiently met.
Mr President, Commissioner, in the final analysis, concessions are being used more and more as a way of financing urgently needed projects.
When do you expect to complete a directive on road pricing in Europe which could be used to carry out urgently needed motorway renovations and extensions? I think that, in the final analysis, road pricing might also reduce mobility costs, if the objectives are achieved, namely fewer traffic jams, fewer accidents, and above all, more environmental protection, not only in relation to air pollution and noise but in many other areas too.
Do you think that this sort of directive will be tabled in the foreseeable future?
With regard to this additional question, I would like to remark that the topic of road pricing is a very contentious one in certain Member States.
One could, of course, reason from the liberal principle that anything scarce should become expensive.
In this case, it is road space which is scarce so one could say that this scarceness must be translated into higher prices.
The total cost remains the same, of course.
The total cost is what it is.
But there is a shift from public funding of these expenses towards the private user of this road space.
I can assure the honourable MEP that, for example, in a Member State which I happen to know best, the topic of road pricing should receive a great deal of attention but is politically also very controversial.
In other words, the topic is definitely on the agenda but has not yet reached the stage where decisions can be taken and as far as I know - but the honourable MEP is aware that this is not within my remit, so I am speaking with some circumlocution and caution - such a directive is not in the pipeline at the European Commission as yet.
However, if I am mistaken, then I give the undertaking that further news will follow in writing.
As the author is not present, Question No 36 lapses.
As the honourable Member who has put down the question will know, political cooperation between Member States on quality in education has strengthened during recent years.
The recommendation on quality evaluation and higher education adopted in September 1998 and a proposed recommendation on quality evaluation in school education give evidence of the importance of discussing quality of education at a European level.
At the Council of Education Ministers on 26 November, the theme gained further importance as one of the priorities to be treated during the next years through the adoption of a resolution on a rolling agenda.
Following the Conference of European Ministers of Education in Prague in June 1998, a working committee on quality indicators was set up.
It includes representatives from 26 European countries and it has prepared progress reports for the attention of Ministers - one in June and one in October of this year.
The first European report on quality of education will be presented for the education council for the Conference of European Ministers of Education in Bucharest in June 2000, and for this Parliament.
In the light of the discussions on the report, the Commission will propose how to treat indicators and benchmarks of quality of education within the framework of the rolling agenda and the yearly Conference of European Ministers of Education.
The present working committee has proved to be an important forum for discussion and for exchange of information and experiences about quality policies between Member States and acceding countries.
The Commission intends to propose that the committee continue its work.
The European work on indicators and benchmarks will lead to discussions about reasons for differences in performance between education systems.
Explanatory factors like the curriculum, teacher-training, resources, evaluation and so on are discussed within the working committee on quality indicators and at a ministerial level.
Countries participating in the working committee profit from the exchange of information and experiences on these issues.
The Commission welcomes the active participation of the European Parliament on the issue of quality of education, particularly in the forthcoming discussion on indicators and benchmarks of quality education.
I am grateful for the courtesy of your reply, Commissioner, but I have to say that it does not fully respond to the very specific questions which I have put to you.
I believe that the legal basis of Article 149 provides us with the opportunity to move forward a little more than the cautious Prague mandate.
The concept of quality in education is more than a quantitative measure of the resources of the different systems or an evaluation of performance in certain academic disciplines.
To my mind, the agenda of the Council of Education Ministers of 26 November could have made use of the proposal of a permanent committee on quality in education.
In the light of the results of the first European report on quality in education, which this Parliament will take good note of, would it be possible for this committee or some other form of committee to provide common benchmarks in the area of the curriculum?
I urge the Commission to face this challenge with political courage.
We must go beyond the Prague mandate.
We must go beyond the old debate between uniformity and national idiosyncrasies.
The debate on quality in education must help us to duly open up European consciousness to the younger generations.
The Commission agrees with the honourable Member that women are still under-represented at the higher levels of management in the Commission as well, indeed, as in other institutions.
However I have to say with the very greatest respect to the honourable Lady that it is not accurate to say that women are excluded from those posts, nor is it accurate to attribute chauvinist motives to the Commission.
Since 1988, the Commission has adopted three action programmes with the aim of promoting positive actions and equal opportunities for women within its services.
Special attention has been attached to increasing the proportion of women in management and in middle-management posts.
In 1996 an evaluation of the impact of the two positive action programmes on achieving equal opportunities in the Commission revealed that there had been significant changes in the situation of female staff in Category A and in management posts, particularly as a result of the annual targets adopted by the Commission.
While women accounted for 11.5% of Category A staff in 1992, they represented 19.3% of staff in that category in September of this year.
Women occupied approximately 2% of A2, that is to say director, posts in 1992. That rose to 11% by September of this year.
The third action programme for equal opportunities for women and men at the Commission, 1997-2000, should consolidate what has already been achieved and go further along the same lines.
Whilst noting these advances I emphasise very strongly that the Commission is not complacent.
On 29 September, the new Commission expressed its commitment to taking further positive action to ensure that a higher number of women obtain posts in senior management positions.
Specific proposals will consequently be made in the course of the forthcoming reform strategy.
Meanwhile the honourable Member will be interested to know that last Wednesday the Commission adopted a policy proposal which I put forward on merit, equal opportunities and geographical balance.
That policy includes positive action to be taken to improve the career prospects of women civil servants.
The college resolved that when there are male and female candidates for senior posts the woman candidate will be given preference.
In addition, the Commission will strive to double the proportion of senior posts taken by women by the end of this mandate.
In short, progress is being made.
My colleagues and I would like it to be faster and broader. We are working on that.
We hope that other institutions - maybe including this one - will take a similar course, especially so far as senior management positions are concerned.
I am grateful to Commissioner Kinnock for this reply and the positive attitude which underlies it and also - I am sure - the work which he is carrying out.
Nevertheless, Commissioner, I have to point out that in this area of making women' s representation the norm, the Commission has had a hypocritical attitude for more than twenty years.
Its attitude has been a hypocritical "I would like to, but I cannot" , and this hypocritical impotency sends a very damaging signal to the world as a whole.
My question did not talk of exclusion, as you know very well; it talked of the fact that the number of women in high positions stands at barely 10%.
The figures which you have offered - emphatically - here in the plenum of the European Parliament, are ridiculous and shameful.
An institution such as the European Commission, which has for years claimed to be in favour of women also at the highest levels of administration, cannot be satisfied with that exclusion which the figures demonstrate.
And the photographs of the European Councils are a horrific illustration of the sexism of European decision making.
Question No 40 by (H-0683/99):
Subject: Bridges across the Danube in former Yugoslavia As well as military installations, numerous civil targets were damaged or even destroyed during NATO's bombing raids in Kosovo and/or Serbia, including the bridges across the Danube, the collapsed sections of which are still obstructing navigation on the Danube and thus significantly hampering economic reconstruction.
It is likely that, in the coming winter, the collapsed concrete sections will cause further problems, as they are still resting on the river bed, and many experts fear they could cause accumulations of ice which they have prevented from flowing downstream.
The logical consequence would be for the barriers of ice to cause the level of the Danube to rise considerably, which could cause severe flooding, which in turn would increase reconstruction costs, and this cannot be in the Commission's interests.
Is the Commission aware of this situation and has it already come up with proposals or promised financial assistance to help resolve this specific problem?
I would like to put on record my gratitude to Mr Balfe for his courtesy.
The Commission is aware of the important economic implications of the destruction of the bridges over the Danube for the riparian countries.
It affects not just the bilateral economic relations between Serbia and neighbouring countries, but also other countries along the river, which have traditionally used it as a navigation route between the Rhine and the Black Sea.
Concerns have also been expressed regarding the potential for flooding upstream.
These concerns were recognised by the General Affairs Council at its meeting on 15 November.
The honourable Member is no doubt aware that the authorities in Belgrade are attempting to put pressure on the international community to lift the sanctions against the FRY and rebuild the destroyed bridges by making the re-opening of the Serbian sections of the Danube to navigation conditional upon assistance from the international community to rebuild the bridges.
This is unacceptable.
With the Danube Commission, the Commission is examining the possibilities for clearing the Danube.
We want to be able to help, difficult as the task may be, but we are determined to prevent any clearance of the Danube from being manipulated by the FRY authorities into support for Mr Milosevic.
Mr President, Commissioner Patten, I think that the infrastructure in this area in particular represents a very important opportunity for the future.
We are discussing reconstruction in this area.
We are talking about EUR 500 million or a billion, an enormous amount of money, which needs to be invested. What will you focus on?
On restoring the railways, the roads, air traffic, energy, telecommunications? Does the Commission have a plan, if agreement is reached, on where investments should focus here?
. As the honourable Member will know, there are a number of projects in the Stability Pact which have been identified for substantial investment in the next few years.
The honourable Member is perfectly correct to say that infrastructure - both repairing damaged infrastructure and providing new infrastructure - is going to be crucial to the economic regeneration of the region.
But I should add this: however much one invests in the infrastructure - and we will be looking at specific pledges at the donors' conference early in the new year - however much one spends on infrastructure, what is crucial is to encourage greater and freer trade between the countries of the region, and even in one or two countries within the countries of the region.
So I totally endorse the honourable Member's reference to the importance of infrastructure investment; but I think encouraging more sensible trading relationships between those countries is also absolutely crucial.
Mr President, from what I can gather from the first part of the Commissioner' s answer, the Commission is totally indifferent to the negative impact the damaged bridges over the Danube will have and is only concerned about how it can make use of this natural disaster - which it in fact helped to bring about - to overturn the legally and democratically elected leadership in Yugoslavia.
This does not create a very good impression.
It is in keeping with the more general policy which the European Union has pursued on this issue.
I would like to hear the Commissioner' s views on this or perhaps some statement to the contrary if I have misunderstood what he said.
I will try to make myself a little clearer to the honourable Member.
We want to make the Danube navigable again by clearing the rubble from the damaged bridges, from the river and the riverbed.
If we are not able to do that then there will be real problems, including flooding of surrounding areas, so we look forward to receiving a proposal from the Danube Commission on which we hope to be able to act as rapidly as possible.
I also hope that, in due course, we can provide reconstruction assistance in Serbia and not just for bridges but for other projects as well.
That will depend on free and fair elections in Serbia and, I hope, on the departure of Mr Milosevic.
It is Mr Milosevic whose policies and presence prevent investment in his country, not those who are declining to invest while he is there.
There is an easy way of helping Serbia back into the mainstream of decent life and economic success and that is to get rid of Mr Milosevic.
Question No 41 by (H-0704/99):
Subject: Action by the EU against illegal trafficking in nuclear, biological and chemical materials Despite serious evidence of illegal trafficking in nuclear chemical and biological (NCB) weapons-grade materials, no serious steps are being taken to combat the problem. At the same time multilateral deliberations on this matter and agreements on the monitoring of NBC materials are proving inadequate.
According to many rumours and reports, these networks are situated mainly in the Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Russia and the illegal trading activities are centred mainly in Constantinople and Budapest, while much of the trafficking is carried out through channels in the Balkans many of which go through Kosovo. What view does the Commission take of this major problem and what is its attitude towards those countries within whose territory this dangerous and illegal trafficking is taking place, particularly where there is evidence of a cover-up and especially in view of the fact that some of the countries involved are seeking EU membership or association?
. The Commission does not accept the statement that no substantial initiatives are being taken to tackle the problems of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons smuggling.
A good deal has in fact been done.
But the Commission's legal powers have been limited to civilian aspects of nuclear accounting and control under the Euratom Treaty.
This means that the Commission does not have any mandate to deal with the accounting and control of weapons of mass destruction per se.
It is only under the evolving CFSP that Member States are considering expanding EU action to include some initiatives to reduce stocks of weapons of mass destruction.
Member States and the Commission are currently discussing a joint action due for adoption before the end of this year to implement the security and non-proliferation aspects of the common strategy on Russia.
In this joint action, which includes concrete action to destroy stocks of chemical weapons, the Commission has been asked to coordinate European Union action.
We stand ready to take this important additional task on board in consultation with the Member States and Mr Solana and working closely, we hope, with the Russian authorities.
The Commission is heavily engaged in efforts to combat smuggling of nuclear material and radioactive substances.
The Commission initiated a series of special actions to support national authorities involved in combating illicit nuclear traffic from both EU Member States and candidate States, including seminars, training programmes and technical assistance.
The Euratom safeguards office in Luxembourg, in addition to its specific control tasks on the territory of the European Union, has undertaken a series of related outreach activities since 1992.
There is close coordination under the auspices of the G8 and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Preventative actions in the form of cooperation programmes have been carried out since 1992 with central and east European countries, including Russia. There are areas such as training and strengthening national nuclear material accounting and control systems.
As regards our cooperation with EU candidate countries, cooperation with customs, border control and police institutions is well established under the PHARE horizontal programme on justice and home affairs.
These measures help to reduce the dangers stemming from uncontrolled nuclear weapons material.
However, the Commission recognises the formidable and rapidly-evolving challenge in this field and hopes to be able to address the issue more comprehensively once we have been given the appropriate legal mandates.
Mr President, I used the term trafficking even though it is not quite the right word because there is no trafficking without trade and I do not think that there is any trade in these materials, they are raw materials which go where they can.
However, we all know that, unfortunately, the silk routes were followed by the oil route, then the cocaine route and then the heroin route and now, unfortunately, we are witnessing the emergence of a trafficking route for these materials which are a serious threat to the peace and security of all citizens.
In this sense, and because it seems that these trafficking routes run through countries which have applied for membership of the European Union, the issue has now become a political one and one which merits particular attention.
In this sense, apart from protecting expert scientists with the relevant know-how who must not be led astray due to their specialist knowledge or financial weakness, it is a sine qua non that we adopt a rationale for setting political conditions for applicant countries as to what should or should not happen in their territories.
This has nothing to do with new forms of terrorism, as some people are saying, but rather with new forms of threats and new forms of peace and security for all citizens.
This is a pressing political issue which should be a multinational priority and not just the priority of a few policing mechanisms which may operate within a different culture and which do not understand the new dangers from which Europe must protect its citizens.
I would request that Members wait for me to give them the floor, since this ritual allows the President to direct the debate and also allows the Commissioner to hear the beginning of the question through the interpreter.
This is the second purpose.
.
I totally recognise the importance of the issues which the honourable Member has raised. They are a matter of considerable concern to the Commission and of course they will be issues that we have to pursue vigorously during the enlargement negotiations.
Perhaps, I can just add a couple of points to the rather extensive - perhaps too extensive - answer I gave to the honourable Member's question.
First of all, it is absolutely imperative that there should be the closest possible coordination under the auspices of the G8 and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
It is absolutely crucial that we should work together in this very important area.
Secondly, given that the honourable Member referred in particular to candidate countries, I referred of course to what can be done under the PHARE horizontal programme.
I would like to refer to one particular scheme which promises well.
That is twinning partnerships between European Union Member States and respective national institutions. They represent a valuable way forward.
They too can be backed by PHARE and they should be part of the programme of action we pursue in order to deal with what is, as the honourable Member said, a very serious problem indeed.
For several years Colombia, as the House will know, has been plagued by civil war, by kidnappings, by violence and by drug trafficking which have seriously undermined the rule of law.
I am deeply concerned, as I am sure all honourable Members will be, about the recent murders including that of a young Spaniard who was working on a European Commission-financed project.
He was killed, together with a priest, apparently by a group of paramilitaries.
The Commission has urged the Colombian authorities to carry out urgent investigations into the circumstances of this crime.
President Pastrana is currently engaged in the struggle to find a negotiated settlement to a conflict which, as the honourable Member underlines, is extremely complex.
The Colombian Government is currently working on the details of Plan Colombia.
Colombia will continue to need strong backing from the international community.
The specific areas where Colombia would like support, including financial support from the European Union and others, still need to be agreed more precisely.
The Commission has already indicated its willingness to support a peace process in Colombia within the framework of Plan Colombia, as it has done in several countries in Central America in recent years.
The Commission would of course take all necessary steps before delivering Community aid to ensure that all parties respect their commitments.
At present, the Commission is focusing on aid for internally displaced persons, on average between EUR 7 million and EUR 8 million per annum, and financially supports a series of initiatives intended to promote human rights in the country.
The Commission covers the bulk of the costs of running the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights in Colombia and has just approved a multiannual programme to support human rights in the Andean region with funding of approximately EUR 11.5 million, the bulk of which will be dedicated to Colombia.
Commissioner, thank you for your reply.
I also very much appreciate your statement on funding a plan to support Colombia, provided that the commitments that were made are met.
Unfortunately, according to Human Rights Watch, some high-level military representatives, who are recognisable, whose names are known and who are responsible for military training and have been involved in various massacres, have still not been removed from their posts, while the terrible collusion between the military and paramilitary groups continues.
I therefore think what Commissioner Patten said is important: these things must not be allowed to go unpunished and they must not be shrouded in silence.
I am also very pleased to learn - and I confess my lack of knowledge on the subject - that there are plans, even important ones, regarding evacuees, humanitarian aid and committees on human rights.
I wonder whether, in view of the peace talks, the Commission can massively increase the aid given to social movements in Colombia and to associations for human rights.
. As the honourable Member well knows, Colombia is a country in the middle of an exceptionally damaging civil war.
I am not sure that the government has very much control over more than about half of its territory and I am not sure how much influence it has on the warring parties or on the human rights violations committed by them.
Our aid goes primarily to the people who are themselves the victims of human rights violations, or refugees who have had to flee from their homes and from their land.
It is precisely these people who most need our support and precisely these people whom we are trying to support the most.
President Pastrana was in Europe a few weeks ago.
I think I am right in saying he gave a speech in this Parliament about Plan Colombia and I enjoyed my conversations with him during that visit.
He indicated that he will be putting forward concrete proposals next February for how the European Union could support Plan Colombia.
When we receive those proposals I will be happy to discuss them with Parliament and to do so in the context of Parliament's understandable concern about some of the reports of human rights violations which alas continue and continue to be reported by reputable organisations such as the one the honourable Member referred to.
We will continue to take the most serious account of human rights violations. We will do what we can to help those who have had their human rights abused.
I want to refer once again to those who have suffered or even been killed in trying to implement our own European programmes in Colombia.
We are naturally grateful for the information which Mr Patten is giving us.
It is true that there is an office for the defence of human rights in Colombia.
For several years Parliament asked for it, and finally the Commission, together with the United Nations, finances this human rights office in Colombia.
However, those of us who have been here for years know what the words "displaced" (800 000) and "murdered" mean in relation to Colombia.
As well as the Spaniard Egiluz and the Colombian priest Mazo, two journalists have been murdered in recent days.
150 journalists have been murdered in the last ten years.
In many cases, it is perfectly clear that it is the paramilitary groups who are carrying out these murders.
We know that this is a difficult and complex matter, but, Commissioner, I would like to ask you two questions.
Firstly, do you not think that, as well as talking and maintaining dialogue - which in my opinion should always be done -, we should put pressure on the Colombian Government so that, once and for all, it will try to get rid of the paramilitary groups responsible for these acts?
And secondly, is there any truth in the rumours that, in the name of the fight against drug trafficking, the United States may be planning an intervention strategy in Colombia?
And I believe that the European Union should act decisively in that event, because such an intervention would lead to a spiral of violence which none of us want to see.
On the last point that the honourable Member mentioned, we have in fact taken a number of actions to try to help the Colombian Government deal with the very serious drugs problem, including trade preferences, and we will continue to do so.
On the first point that she mentioned, I do not think that the Colombian Government would disagree with the importance of dealing with the paramilitaries.
It is its capacity to deal with them militarily which has been one of the problems over the years.
I very much hope that the present negotiations will deliver to the people of Colombia the peace which they deserve.
In the meantime, what worries me, and I think worries the honourable Member, is the very serious security situation for human rights activists in Colombia.
They have to be extraordinarily brave to do the important work that they do.
There is a limit to the amount we can do ourselves to increase their personal security though we continue to press our concern about that matter on the Colombian authorities.
We will go on doing so. We also try to monitor the situation very closely with the Member States' embassies in Bogotá.
So we do our best, but it does remain a subject to me of very great concern that so many people, young people for instance, are having to put their lives at risk to try to secure human rights in their country.
Question No 43 by (H-0755/99):
Subject: Stabilisation of Macedonia What steps does the Commission plan to take in 2000 with a view to ensuring the economic and political stabilisation of Macedonia, which has a multiethnic and democratic government, and what is its view of developments in 1999?
Questions to Mr Monti
First, let me sum up what we have done this year.
The European Community has demonstrated its strong commitment to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
In purely financial terms, in addition to technical assistance under PHARE - EUR 22 million - and the financial protocol, an interest subsidy for EIB loans representing EUR 20 million, we have devoted EUR 143 million of exceptional assistance to help the country to cope with the consequences of the Kosovo crisis.
Just as important, FYROM is the first country to become actively involved in the European Union's stabilisation and association process.
The Council should adopt the negotiating mandate for a stabilisation and association agreement in January.
The year 2000, therefore, augurs well for a substantial increase in cooperation between the European Union and FYROM.
It will be a year of negotiation and, we hope, a year which will culminate in the signature of an agreement.
At the same time, the Commission will continue to accompany the political and economic reform process in this country under the existing cooperation agreement and through the PHARE programme or through the new financial instrument that will replace PHARE.
Thank you very much, Commissioner, for your positive and specific answer.
Macedonia was the victim first of the Communists and their successors, then it was the victim of two different boycotts and then it was the victim of the war in Kosovo.
It now has a highly multicultural government which is making a conscious effort to forge links with the Albanian sector of the population.
But it needs economic success, otherwise nationalism will break out there again.
Hence my question: first, do you believe that you personally could visit Macedonia in the foreseeable future and, secondly, do you believe, although you have already almost said as much, that an association agreement could be signed by next year?
First of all, I have already threatened the Foreign Minister of FYROM with a visit. He seemed to welcome that prospect.
So I am looking forward to going in the early months of next year.
I have also said that when I go I want to be in a position to open a European Union office in FYROM, because we need a more substantial full-time presence there than we have at present.
I very much hope that we will be able to launch the negotiations for a stabilisation and association agreement in earnest next year.
The sooner we can complete those negotiations with FYROM the better; the sooner we can then proceed to ratify the agreement with the Member States.
FYROM is just the first country with which, as the honourable Member knows, we are seeking to negotiate an agreement.
I very much hope that not long after we have begun these negotiations we will be able to move to negotiations with other countries, perhaps first of all, Albania.
But I believe we still have more progress to make there.
Earlier on today we were debating the budget for next year and the difficulty of the European Union finding sufficient finance to fund the operation in Kosovo.
I therefore ask the Commission if it has done any analysis on what the cost would be if there was to be instability in Macedonia; and to what extent - to take him up on his last point - it is true that we need to ensure there is stability in Albania in order to maintain stability in FYROM.
What we should have learnt from the fairly grim experiences of the last few years in the Balkans is that it is much better to prevent instability by early political and economic action than to have to pay later on for the costs of instability knocking on into disaster, not just in one country but in several countries.
That is the story of the last few years.
We talk a good deal about conflict prevention and crisis management.
If we want a very good indication of what would have been the benefits of conflict prevention, again we should look at the Balkans.
I have no doubt at all that instability in Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro would have consequences for the whole region.
I therefore want to see us in a position proactively to support capacity-building, to support economic and social development that, we hope, will prevent that instability.
At the risk of being suspected of reverting provocatively to earlier discussions in Parliament, I very much hope that the important programmes that we are trying to launch in the Balkans will not be held hostage as Parliament and the Council argue and disagree about funding for next year.
I can understand what the constitutional arguments are, what the political arguments are; but try explaining them to somebody without a roof over their head in Kosovo; try explaining them to a pensioner who wants to receive welfare benefit in Montenegro; try explaining them to somebody in FYROM who thinks that the difficult steps that have been taken in that country in the last few years deserve rather more support from the European Union.
I understand that these political arguments rage.
I am sure they are way above the head of a mere Commissioner for External Relations; but I hope I do not find myself next year having to explain these complex constitutional issues to people on the ground in the Balkans or elsewhere in the world who are not getting the support they deserve.
We are grateful to Mr Patten for dedicating his time to this Parliament this afternoon.
Since the time allocated to Questions to Mr Patten has elapsed, Question Nos 44 to 47 will be replied to in writing.
Question No 48 by (H-0677/99):
Subject: Gaming houses The Court of Justice has ruled that the organisation of games of chance is an economic activity constituting the provision of services and falling within the scope of the EC Treaty and that the measures adopted by a Member State with regard to the award of licences to open gaming houses must be proportionate and non-discriminatory (Case C275/92, Schindler). The Italian Government requires proof of effectiveness as a tourist attraction and of the sound financial standing of applicants.
It does not however define those criteria, which leads to arbitrary decision making in many cases. Up to now only four casinos have opened as the result of all the licences granted in Italy (in the United Kingdom there are 119 casinos and in Germany approximately 102).
All the casinos are located in Northern Italy.
This clearly leads to discrimination against the regions coming within Objective 1. In terms of tourist revenue and economic expansion, those regions could benefit greatly from the opening of gaming houses.
Does the Commission believe that the conduct of the Italian Government amounts to an infringement of the Community rules against discrimination and on free competition, having regard in particular to Articles 12 and 86 of the Treaty?
The Commission considers that the position of the Court of Justice is clear as far as the special rights in the games of chance sector are concerned.
The Court recently confirmed that, even if a Member State authorises games of chance, it still has the power to impose limits on the availability of these games and this is in consideration of public interest objectives, such as controlling the desire to play games of chance, the prevention of fraud or crimes occurring and using the profits thus obtained in the public interest.
Each Member State has the power to determine the extent of protection in its territory as regards games of chance.
The Commission is therefore unable to object to the fact that currently in Italy, only four gaming houses have been authorised and that they are located in Northern Italy, since there is nothing that leads us to believe that foreign businesses are being discriminated against, with regard to national businesses.
Commissioner, I believe that this issue holds particular importance within the Member State because the Italian Government' s attitude is not fair but clearly discriminatory.
Recently, the Italian Government denied the request made by a clearly tourist-oriented local authority, Taormina, to establish a gaming house and, at the same time, it authorised Venice casino to open a branch in Mestre.
According to the Commission, does all of this not constitute clear discrimination within a Member State, and moreover, does it not force the inhabitants who would like to play in central and southern regions to go to other Member States - there are hundreds of gaming houses in Europe - rather than staying and playing in Northern Italy, which does not hold great appeal?
Mr Musumeci, I can only repeat the context I have just outlined.
In fact, the situation of gaming houses is different in the various Member States.
We have seen that the Court has confirmed the Member States' power to decide in this field, and I must add, as regards the point you stressed on the distribution within a State' s territory, that competition rules and the principle of non-discrimination do not require Member States to take into account regional considerations when awarding licenses for gaming houses or other permits for the organisation of games of chance.
Competition rules do not raise objections to the criteria that a Member State may use and therefore based on those rules, we cannot consider the decision a Member State makes on the distribution in their territory to be arbitrary, and consequently, a violation of these rules.
Despite the mysterious quantities, your question was very clear.
I think I have understood what Mr Beysen' s question is.
The Commission is aware that breweries often provide café owners with financial, material and technical support.
Nevertheless, the Commission does not share the fear, voiced by Mr Beysen, that the proposed new policy on vertical restrictions could harm Belgian breweries or the hotels, restaurants and cafés sectors.
On the contrary, effective competition will guarantee consumers good service in terms of numbers of bars and the variety of beers they offer.
Firstly, the proposed exemption per category of agreements exempts contracts on the supply of beer that contain a clause prohibiting competition, entered into between brewers who have a market share lower than 30% and owners of bar or commercial concerns.
For Belgian breweries, this means that they will all, with the exception of Interbrew, be able to continue to operate on the basis of the current distribution agreements.
Moreover, the proposed exemption per generalised category allows these breweries greater contractual freedom compared with their freedom on the basis of the current specific exemption in the sector.
Secondly, the proposed exemption per category does not presuppose that non-competition agreements, entered into with a brewery with a market share greater than 30%, are illegal.
A brewery that reaches this market share can notify the Commission of its network of non-competition agreements.
The Commission will then, firstly, evaluate the actual impact of the competition agreements; if the impact is considerable, the Commission can in any case take into account the economic benefits of these non-competition agreements in its evaluation of the possible applicability of an individual exemption under Article 81(3) to the agreements.
Thirdly, if an individual exemption is not applicable to the agreements, the Commission will examine the possible solutions within the existing distribution system.
In other words, the Commission will attempt, as a matter of principle, to resolve any competition issues that might occur, firstly by amending the existing agreements, taking into account the economic benefits they bring.
Mr Beysen will certainly agree that because of its role as the European authority on competition, the Commission must assess very carefully the agreements entered into between operators who benefit from considerable market force.
Indeed, because of their possible effects of closing the market, these agreements can jeopardise competition, not only with regard to producers in other Member States, but also with regard to small Belgian breweries.
This is another reason why the Commission recently launched proceedings against Interbrew.
In conclusion, Mr President, the Commission does not believe that the new policy on vertical restrictions is liable to bring about major structural changes, in the beer, hotels, restaurants and cafés sectors in Belgium, which would put the beer culture in that country at risk.
I would like to thank the Commissioner for the thorough answer he was willing to give me and from which it transpires that, naturally, further elaboration was required regarding the policy currently adopted by the Commission.
Nevertheless, I do not fully share the view that competition would therefore not be disrupted, although I have taken note of the fact that you now also provide for a contractual exemption clause.
As far as I am concerned, Commissioner, there is still great concern not only from me but also from within the sector with regard to the lack of clarity which currently - fourteen days prior to the coming into force of this regulation - exists regarding the guidelines on what is and is not allowed.
Although your explanation has shed some light on the matter, I think it is appropriate to also inform the sector of this.
My question in this respect is why should the system be changed if so far, its application has not resulted in any complaints?
Is there too little belief in self-regulation and does one want to push this regulation through at all costs within a sector which, in fact, is already having a hard time?
Mr Beysen, I agree with you that information, in this area as in any other, is important.
For this reason, when drawing up the proposal for a regulation in question, the Commission followed a policy of being open with information.
We are in fact now studying the responses we have received from all the parties concerned following the publication of the proposal in the Official Journal.
Once this assessment has been carried out, we will again consult the Member States and we are counting on adopting the new regulation before the end of the year.
We have communicated fully on every stage, which is the reason why we believe we have performed our duty to inform and consult.
Obviously, the Commission is always willing to clarify any points that might still be unclear.
As they deal with the same subject, Questions Nos 50 and 51 will be taken together.
Question No 50 by (H-0688/99):
Subject: Car prices Thanks to widespread publicity, the Commission will be aware that motor car manufacturers are charging considerably more in the UK than in other EU countries for identical cars.
What action does the Commission propose to take to counter this and similar examples of extortion by large companies?
I am indeed aware of the price discrepancies between the United Kingdom and other Member States and I share the honourable Members' concerns.
The Commission has found that these differences are partly due to the strength of the pound sterling, while they must in part be attributed to low net prices in Member States with high car taxation.
That is the case in particular in Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands.
I consider that a growing price transparency and the introduction of the euro are increasingly inducing customers from so-called high price markets to acquire their vehicles in other Member States.
This parallel trade is an important market-related factor which should contribute to a better convergence of prices throughout the Community.
The Commission has undertaken a number of initiatives to ensure this freedom for consumers.
In its report on the application of Regulation 1475/95 concerning car distribution, due before the end of the year 2000, the Commission will evaluate the impact of the exempted distribution system on car prices.
It will indeed provide an essential basis for the forthcoming discussion about the future legal framework for car distribution after the expiry of the current regulation on 30 September 2002.
Thank you, Commissioner, for your answer.
In my question I referred to similar examples and whilst car prices are perhaps the most widely publicised, there are other examples of companies that are making a mockery of the single market.
The Swedish Ikea furniture company, with which you will probably be familiar, provides two examples in their recent catalogues: a mirror cabinet which costs less than GBP 70 if purchased in Denmark costs GBP 94 in the United Kingdom.
A corner sofa which costs less than GBP 600 in Denmark costs nearly GBP 875 in the United Kingdom.
These are just two examples taken from one company.
There are plenty of others where people in the United Kingdom and, for all I know, other Member States, are being exploited by companies.
I wonder if the Commission can consider some action to protect consumers who are looking to the European Parliament, looking to the European Commission to protect them as citizens.
Can you consider some action in this area, not just limiting it to cars, which is perhaps the most publicised example?
You will see, Commissioner, that they want to ask you about sofas, not only about cars, but I am sure you will have an answer.
Thank you for this supplementary question.
Indeed I believe that serving the interests of consumers is the cornerstone of competition policy in the European Union.
Should we claim that a single market is really single only when there is unity of prices? I would not say so, because there will always be factors explaining certain price differentials.
Indeed, we might even perhaps consider that perfect unity of prices in a given market may be an indication of some sort of cartel prevailing in that market.
Having said that, I agree with you that a lot of price divergences in the present-day single market are explained by the frictions and obstacles that still exist.
Two powerful factors are at play today to help the market overcome those divergences and this will be increasingly the case.
One is of course the introduction of the euro. That of itself is going to make price comparisons easier.
And the second, which is having a powerful effect on the distribution of goods and services, is the Internet.
You ask whether the Commission should not take action vis-à-vis certain instances of considerable price divergences.
Yes, we should and do: in particular if we consider the car sector, you will be aware of a number of actions taken in the past and also very recently in the Commission against limitations imposed by car manufacturers on parallel imports of cars.
The publication of the comparative list of car prices also goes very much in that direction.
The latest edition was published on 22 July 1999.
We agree that the Commission should also use its competition policy instruments for these purposes; and may I submit that it does so.
I am pleased to see that the Commissioner has, along with my own Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Mr Byers, formed the impression that the European car industry has indeed taken UK consumers for a ride.
But I have to say that I cannot agree with you that it is a simple exchange rate issue because it would not account for the fact that some cars cost around four thousand pounds more in the UK than they do, for example, in the Netherlands.
If it were only a question of the exchange rate, then prices should also go down with exchange rate variables. Why then, for example, do imported cars - which now represent over 70% of the UK market - get dearer as the pound is getting stronger?
How do UK car manufacturers export record numbers of cars to the continent at a time when exporting is more expensive? Why are cars built in the UK cheaper on the continent just as our pound is making our exports more expensive?
I am afraid I do not accept the logic of this wholly.
I believe - after an 18 months' investigation by a UK newspaper, following your investigation - that time is running out and the car industry now wants to find a settlement to this issue.
If I were to arrange a round table with the industry - with dealers and manufacturers - would you be willing to come along to it and discuss with them how we can find a way through the problem while, at the same time, resorting to competition instruments if we have to?
Thank you, Mrs McCarthy, and for the emphasis on urgency in using competition instruments, which indeed we do.
May I draw your attention again to the fact that we have opened a considerable number of investigations concerning restrictions on parallel imports and, in some cases, we have already reached a conclusion by imposing quite considerable fines.
Of course it would be inadequate to attribute price differentials, in cars in particular, only to exchange rates.
I mention that as one factor - it is not the only one.
Divergences in the taxation of different types of cars are of course a factor but this brings us to the question of how easy or how difficult it is for the European Union to make any decision concerning tax matters.
I also appreciate your offer of an invitation to a round table.
I will be glad to consider that in the context of the various invitations a Commissioner receives.
You are no doubt aware that we are in the process of preparing a report on the application of the current block exemption regulation which is our main area of reflection at present.
We have received many questionnaires in response to our consultation exercise.
The report which is due at the end of the year will not as yet contain any proposals but will analyse the impact of the exempted distribution system which is due at the end of 2000 and will contain a fully-fledged analysis of the impact of the block exemption and this should be the basis for subsequent decisions.
I wonder whether the Commissioner would agree that the last two questioners who were asking the Commission for action would do better to ask their own party leader, Mr Blair, to get the over-high level of the pound - which has been kept too high by high interest rates in the UK - down to a realistic level; and also try to get Mr Blair to start campaigning to join the euro, when there would be extra transparency. Would that not help?
You will see, Commissioner, that this is a British question, but you have a right to reply if you think it appropriate.
I would be delighted to do so if this important subject were to fall within the competence of the Commissioner responsible for competition which, I am afraid, is not the case.
Question No 52 by (H-0693/99):
Subject: State aid for the German timber­processing industry What action has the Commission taken, or will it take, in view of the increasing amount of state aid Germany is granting to sawmills in what used to be East Germany? The mills in question are small or medium-sized businesses which are very efficient and thus require so few employees that they meet the EU criteria for the allocation of state aid to SMEs, yet this means they are able to compete on unequal conditions and distort competition on the market.
Does the Commission consider it right that German sawmills which are highly automated and particularly efficient should be granted such huge amounts of state aid that other market operators are forced out of the market owing to unfair competition? Will it also say whether it still considers the existing rules on the allocation of state aid to SMEs to be adequate, in particular the 250-employee ceiling?
The Commission is aware that the sawmills in what used to be East Germany are granted considerable state aid.
While it is possible that the aid in question is compatible with the German systems and the Treaties, the Commission is very concerned by the distortion that it causes through the concentration of growing levels of production capacity in this particular industrial sector.
As regards the acceptability of this aid, the Commission is carrying out a particularly detailed study of the compatibility with the common market of a series of aid measures for numerous businesses, in particular KNT, Klenk e Pollmeier.
It must be pointed out that this new capacity is to be found in areas that are assisted pursuant to Article 87(3)(a) of the Treaty, that is to say, in regions where the standard of living is abnormally low or where there is a serious underemployment problem.
The assessment of the compatibility of all the aid granted has not yet finished, due to the information being incomplete.
The investigation addresses in particular, the issue of respecting the criteria laid down by the relevant regional systems.
Moreover, the Commission has adopted initiatives with the intention of clarifying whether the beneficiaries are complying with all the criteria concerning the definition of small and medium-sized businesses, set out in its recommendation of 1996.
In particular, I would like to stress the importance of ensuring that there is no evasion of the regulations.
Businesses which formally respect the criteria for the definition of small and medium-sized businesses - particularly because they have less than 250 employees - but are in fact controlled by a large business, or by a group of large businesses, should not benefit from special incentives intended for small and medium-sized businesses.
Finally, as regards the question of the adequacy of the current rules on the authorisation of state aid for small and medium-sized businesses, an overall study of the subject would be needed.
As for the specific characteristics of the forestry sector, the Commission recently issued a communication on the competitiveness of forestry product industries and related industries in the European Union.
This document, issued in October of this year, states that among other things, with the aim of ensuring the overall, sustainable competitiveness of the European Union forestry industry or related industries, it will be necessary to guarantee an environment that promotes fair competition and to encourage European Union industry to adapt to fiercer competition.
Many thanks to Commissioner Monti for a very thorough answer.
I look forward to the Commission' s continuing, first and foremost, with its investigation into extensive state aid and, especially, to its conducting a general investigation into whether the conditions of state aid to small and medium-sized enterprises should be changed.
I hope to be, and look forward to being, kept up to date on this matter, which means an incredible amount to industry not merely in Denmark but also in other countries, including the western part of Germany.
. This is just to confirm to Mrs Riis-Jørgensen, whose continuing and deep interest in state aid matters is well-known to and appreciated by the Commission, that the investigation is going to continue; that the effective applicability of the provisions concerning SMEs is one of our concerns; and that in all state aid investigations the question of the effects on trade between Member States is at the forefront of the analysis.
Thank you very much, Mr Monti, for being here this afternoon.
Since the time allocated to Questions to the Commission has elapsed, Questions Nos 53 to 107 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Commission.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9 p.m.)
Statement by the President
I would like to make a point of order under Rule 108 related to Rule 112.
In various Spanish and French prisons 18 Basque political prisoners have been undergoing hunger strikes since 1 November.
They are revolting against the denial of elementary human rights by the French and Spanish authorities.
One of the hunger strikers, after 44 days of fasting, has today been transferred to the Hôtel de Dieu Hospital in Paris in extremely poor health after losing 24 kilos.
Eighteen years have passed since the courageous Westminster MP Bobbie Sands and 10 other Irish political prisoners staged a hunger strike to death.
Only when the hunger striker was out of the way did the Thatcherite Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, James Prior, acknowledge that the British Government was ready to accept reforms.
We need, right now, very urgently, before it is too late, a similar statement from the Spanish and French Governments.
We ask this House under Rule 112 to accept this question as an urgent matter.
Mr Gorostiaga, as far as the procedure for urgent debate in Rule 112 is concerned, strict rules apply and the deadline has already expired.
As far as Rule 108 is concerned, you need the backing of one tenth of the members of the House and clearly they have not assembled.
I shall pass your request on but I fear that we can do nothing about this matter at present.
2000 budget (continuation)
The next item is the resumption of the joint debate on the Budget 2000.
Mr President, I should like first to extend my group' s warmest thanks to the two rapporteurs.
If we look back to where we stood at the beginning of the budgetary procedure, then we can see, in our view, just how far we have come during difficult, at times extremely difficult negotiations.
I also appreciate the fact, Commissioner, that you too endeavoured to mediate in the difficult and, in the final analysis, unsuccessful budgetary conciliation, although the conduct of the Commission itself during this whole procedure was not, of course, without its contradictions.
On the one hand, it took too timid an approach to the declaration in the minutes of the interinstitutional agreement and entered into international multiannual commitments while wanting to solve the financial problem for the year 2000 alone during the initial stage.
That was too little as far as we were concerned.
At the same time, we realised that Mr Prodi was already making preliminary plans up to the year 2006 - a decided lack of coordination, Mr President of the Commission.
For the rest, the question naturally arises in the wake of the decisions by the European Council as to what will happen in future with heading 7 of the budget?
Should we not also review the financial perspective, given the option, the option dynamically pursued by the European Council, to enlarge the circle of candidate countries? No, what we in the European Parliament want is to retain international credibility and a serious budgetary policy in this budgetary procedure even when financing the new priorities.
Parliament is conscious of its responsibility as part of the budgetary authority.
President Chirac' s praise this morning with respect to the budgetary and supervisory function of the European Parliament emphasised this yet again.
We do not want to repeat this year' s experience of acting as a repair shop, with a plethora of supplementary and amending budgets and transfers of appropriations!
I therefore say quite clearly to the Council: by failing to act this week, by failing to endorse the proposals tabled by Parliament under option 3, you have put us in a very difficult position and have pushed us almost to the limit of what we can do under the Rules of Procedure.
Please do not do so again.
We stand today by the offer made by Parliament as a symbiosis between budgetary discipline and the readiness to consider precise reductions rather than all-inclusive reductions, as you intended and, at the same time, to enter into and finance the necessary political priorities.
I would also say on behalf of my group that if you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, are able tomorrow morning to table the written declaration which we have demanded, we are prepared to support and implement the compromise.
I want to be perfectly clear on this: with the relevant declarations by the institutions, including on the question of the limited review of the financial perspective which we expect from the Commission by April, and the corresponding statements from the Council, you are all, to borrow an expression from the money markets, accepting a bill of exchange and anyone who fails to honour the bill will lose their credit rating.
Hence, in view of past experience and in view of today' s discussion, a very clear warning to the Council: if we fail in the spring to reach an adequate solution for the multiannual programme for Kosovo and the western Balkans, combined with a corresponding commitment by the Council, you will end up in extremely dangerous waters as far as the budgetary procedure for the year 2001 is concerned.
We here in Parliament want to avoid this.
It is up to you to ensure that we get both the Budget 2000 and a reasonable multiannual programme to finance these priorities under way.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, the Budget 2000 is the budget which will take us into the next millennium.
It represents a gesture. It represents a gesture in terms of political content; but it must also be a gesture of how we should actually have to deal with each other.
I would like to start by saying that we as a Parliament must thank our two rapporteurs in this respect, with respect to the debate of the Budget 2000, for carrying out excellent work, for getting things under way which have been discussed at length in this House.
I remember the new regulation in connection with the Technical Assistance Offices which Commissioner Schreyer referred to this morning.
We had a meeting of the Committee on Budgets last week at which very clear commitments were entered into as far as the future is concerned, so that we can expect to make progress here and exercise control.
We shall support you in a constructively critical manner on this question of the future development of the Technical Assistance Offices.
As far as past experience is concerned, namely the proper deployment of appropriations, we have made a gesture by increasing OLAF staff numbers.
We have made quite unequivocal gestures as far as one of the largest items of budgetary expenditure is concerned, namely agricultural policy.
We want to break away from mere market price support and move towards rural development and additional appropriations will be provided in forthcoming budgets in order to do so.
We have made it clear that only consumers are important in our Europe, which is why we have strengthened the Food Safety Agency, in order to make a gesture at this point, and we have entered relevant appropriations to make up for social weaknesses in the budget, so that progress can be made in combating unemployment.
These are things which have been discussed in this Parliament with great unanimity and on which progress has been made on the initiative and with the support of our rapporteurs.
The decisive point in this discussion or rather the point which caused us the most work and the most worry was of course the question of how to finance properly one of the greatest challenges facing Europe in the coming years?
I refer of course to the Balkans and, more specifically, to Kosovo which will be targeted as a priority next year.
You can rest assured that we in this House will do everything to lay solid foundations.
We made this very clear during the budgetary procedure.
We are interested in having sound foundations so that we do not just lurch from one problem to the next, but so that we can work together on a solid basis for years to come, because the problem in the Balkans is not a problem which can be solved in a year.
We have shown very clearly that we do not just want to demand more here; we also want to do our homework.
We have made transfers in the budget, very specific transfers.
We have not made any general reduction; instead we have said we will make reductions as and where possible.
We have expressly made an exception for non-governmental organisations or aid programmes, such as those to combat AIDS in third world countries, which need all the support they can get.
We have done all this with a great deal of unanimity.
This also demonstrates how important these matters are to us.
You have seen for yourself that there is a great deal of unanimity in every debate and in every vote in this House.
Completely irrespective of our ideological backgrounds, we have conducted ourselves in a manner which must have made it clear to you that we take the matter and the manner of our dealings with each other very seriously indeed.
And this will be our motto for the coming years.
I must support Mr Böge all the way on this.
We shall also endeavour in the future to create a basis of trust in our dealings with each other, a trust which was perhaps lacking at several junctures this year, both on our part towards you and on your part towards us.
So we are holding out our hand, as Social Democrats and Socialists, as a sign that, if tomorrow morning you in fact table the declaration as described, we shall support it. And we shall ensure that there is a proper budget for the year which also offers a perspective.
But we shall also work consistently towards ensuring in the coming years that again we do not lurch from one problem to another but that we have a serious plan on which everyone can build, especially those who really need the money.
In other words those now living inside the European Union and those living outside the Union who have a right to our solidarity.
We shall continue to do our homework in the future.
We shall take our potential as a Parliament very seriously, on that you can depend.
But we shall also make an effort to work more closely with you, so that we do not need, as in this year, to find a solution so close to the end of the year.
When you have trialogues and conciliation, you should use them for their intended purpose so that compromises can be found before the eleventh hour.
We call on you to move towards us and we will move towards you.
But, as we have said, you can be sure that we also know what we can do if we are trifled with!
Mr President, I would also like to start by thanking both rapporteurs for their hard work.
It was not easy this year.
The first lesson we can draw from this year' s budgetary discussion is that the Commission and the Council need to be careful about making statements in public regarding how much money is available for a certain cause without knowing how exactly it will be funded.
This does not seem to bear repetition.
I would like to move on to the budget itself.
Firstly, I would like to focus on the agricultural budget itself.
Category 1 A. I question the benefit of the exercise which we started three years ago, the so-called ad hoc procedure that we would refer to the most recent estimates for the following year and establish the budget for compulsory expenditure accordingly.
I can only note that the Council has adhered to July' s budget.
The Council' s perspective is, of course, unique, but I fail to comprehend why one should always adhere to what one has established in July.
I do admit that some shifting has occurred between different budget headings.
With regard to category 1 B, I appreciate that the Council has adopted Parliament' s amendment in order to achieve a quality policy for European agricultural products.
At a time when consumers are increasingly anxious about the quality of food, I think that this is urgently needed and therefore meets with my appreciation.
As for the other amendments in category 1 B, my group will support these.
At a time of WTO negotiations, when everyone talks about a sound rural policy, it is positive that the European Union pursues an active policy in this field.
Then I would like to comment on category 4 of the budget, including Kosovo.
Firstly, I think that Parliament has shown its goodwill by finding the necessary funding for Timor and Turkey within the budget itself.
This has clearly been down to the Parliament' s goodwill.
Another noteworthy fact with regard to category 4 is that we have established that on 30 September of every year, a project surfaces which ties up about 10% of the money and then miraculously, two months later, around 100% of the money is allocated.
How does this inventiveness come about so swiftly?
Would it not be possible to space it out a bit more and, in this context, to take into account the Court of Auditors' observation in this respect?
The group can agree with the method of financing such as it has been regulated provisionally for Kosovo.
It differs quite significantly from the original amounts specified by the Commission.
We look forward to establishing a new budget as soon as possible, should this prove necessary.
The objective of my group is not to dash the financial perspectives as such.
We are more than willing to discuss any well-defined proposals, provided they are accompanied by sound arguments.
I am also awaiting the compromise which will hopefully materialise tomorrow regarding payment appropriations.
My group is divided on this matter.
According to some Members, the payment appropriation level should definitely be lowered.
If I have interpreted the noises in this respect correctly, then this will also happen.
As far as we are concerned, Kosovo should not be the cause of an inter-institutional war.
We should be able to solve this matter on the basis of arguments.
Peace in the Balkans is worth a great deal to us.
Mr President, we are now into the last stage of the budget for 2000.
It is the first European budgetary discussion in which I am involved, and I must say that in my inexperience, I have grossly overrated the rationality employed to spend taxpayers' money.
The first party at which we can point the finger must surely be the Council of Ministers. They were so much more concerned with their own national purses than about the people in Kosovo that previous pledges were fiddled.
In Berlin, a protocol was concluded, on the basis of which financial perspectives could be adapted if so necessitated by the reconstruction of Kosovo.
At two Conferences of Donors, the European Union committed itself to contributing EUR 500 million.
According to a report by the World Bank, it is possible to absorb this amount.
A frontload approach (a great deal of money in the first couple of years) is said to be the best way of kick-starting the economy.
The EUR 500 million are necessary, they have been promised and they can be found within the current budget.
It is, however, necessary, so as to prevent developing countries from being presented with the bill, to use margins from categories other than foreign expenditure.
There is, for example, a generous margin in category 1 B, rural development.
Proposals to apply this margin and offer Kosovo prospects for the future, were not even considered by the Council.
The hard lesson of the significance of conflict prevention, the Berlin Protocol, ... rational arguments were discounted when the national ministers defended the agreements of Berlin selectively and undoubtedly worked out in the mean time how much unused funding from the margins they would recover at the end of the year.
Surrealism reached yet another level when negotiations were held regarding this couple of hundred million when Commission President Prodi committed the European Union to the tune of EUR 5.5 billion in political terms for the reconstruction of the entire Balkans.
It is to the credit of the rapporteur that these statements did not remain airy fairy but were given substance in a declaration.
I would explicitly like to extend a warm thanks to Mr Bourlanges for this.
This declaration has in the past couple of weeks been much deliberated and has even today created a lot of dust.
I believe that this will be topic of conversation tomorrow and the day after that.
It is a rather awkward situation.
It is not exactly a model of a rational decision but rather a case of panic stations.
I personally, for example, support Ajax but they manage to marry beauty, speed and tactics rather well.
Since it is as yet unclear what exactly we will be voting on on Thursday, I will indicate which issues meet with agreement within my group.
Firstly, until such time as figures are available regarding the needs in Kosovo, I will keep referring to the World Bank' s report and the EUR 500 million which have been pledged.
I am prepared provisionally to discuss a maximum amount which is under this amount, but I would like to receive confirmation that the multiannual programme which is to be drafted in April, is to apply to the entire Balkan region, including Kosovo, and will run from 2000 to 2006, inclusively.
If necessary, Kosovo should receive the whole share, even as early as the year 2000.
The second point is that the timeframe for allocating funds to Kosovo should also make it possible for the entire share to be spent wisely.
To me, this means that April seems to be the ultimate date for reaching a decision.
The timeframe, together with the possibilities of adapting the present budget, should this appear necessary in April, are therefore crucial to the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner. Like Mrs Buitenweg, I too am new to the budgetary procedure but, like everyone else, I know that any budget is, by definition, the expression of political will.
Having seen the final propositions notified to us at the end of weeks of laborious negotiations between Parliament and the Council, I greatly fear that our political will appears, to say the least, blurred and wavering, especially as far as external action is concerned, which is the main bone of contention.
There is a marked gap between the Union' s loud proclamations of its ambition to play a more active role in the settlement of major international problems and the haggling which we are forced to engage in with government representatives when it comes to finding money to fund the new priorities.
My group voted at first reading against any reduction in the appropriations allocated to old but still equally important priorities, especially appropriations allocated to cooperation with and the development of southern countries, in order to fund new expenditure. Robbing Peter to pay Paul has never been an indication of great political imagination.
We therefore voted in favour of a reasonable review of the financial perspectives over several years and the proposal made by our general rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, went in the right direction, calling for a reasonable review of heading 4.
My group therefore supported his strategy to make the Council face up to its responsibilities: either we were to obtain the funding which would allow us to honour our political commitments or we would have recourse to Article 272 of the Treaty, which authorises us to determine non-compulsory expenditure ourselves, albeit within strict limits.
Having made one concession after another, we are now back at square one and, in the name of the cast iron logic of the budgetary stability pact, we now have the following situation: firstly, estimates and financial requirements for the reconstruction of Kosovo which have mysteriously dropped from EUR 500 million - the figure put forward by the Commission, the World Bank, the Member States and the media - to 420 and then to some 300 million; secondly, a reduction in the appropriations which we voted for East Timor and for the victims of the earthquakes in Turkey; thirdly, cuts in appropriations for cooperation, food aid and aid to Palestine and the countries of the southern Mediterranean, the TACIS programme for eastern Europe and support for human rights and, lastly, cuts totalling some EUR 2 billion in payment appropriations.
The result is, without doubt, an improvement on the Council' s initial position but, even so, what would our responsibility be if we were to accept such a compromise?
Let me quote just one example: tomorrow we are going to honour Mr Gusmão the head of the resistance of the people of East Timor.
Shall we, at the same time, tell him that we agree to reduce reconstruction aid for his country by one third? That is why, Mr President, my group feels that this compromise is unacceptable and we are unable to back it.
Mr President, first of all, I would like to say how much I appreciate the report by Mr Bourlanges, who has done a commendable job throughout this period, regarding the budget but also, in my opinion, regarding two of the main issues we are faced with.
The first concerns Kosovo.
Kosovo has become, objectively, an important political message for the Commission - and quite rightly so - with the aim of relaunching the political proposal put forward by Europe on the international stage, in order to show that there is in fact a serious intervention by Europe, a Europe that is not just about the economy.
We have all approved this political message, but right now, we are discovering that the funds, for their part, do not exist.
My disapproval is aimed precisely at this type of behaviour, because the responsibility cannot be off-loaded onto the House for expenditure which should have been budgeted for.
We do not agree, either myself personally or my delegation.
I would like to emphasise this, so that we will not be given this responsibility in the future, a political responsibility that should not be seen merely in economic terms.
Secondly, I would like to emphasise the promise we were made not too long ago, at the start of the presentation of the budget, on administrative reform of the so-called TAOs.
In my opinion, we might manage to find funds to allocate in the future for the various budget lines if we manage to carry out a fair reform meant to support the various departments which provide praiseworthy support, both on a personal level and for research.
The reform must be carried out straight away, immediately following the adoption of this budget, in order to allow us to proceed to fair planning.
If this is what happens, we will have the chance to intervene, to influence our economies and reach one of our objectives as MEPs: relaunching and developing our countries.
Mr President, I should like first to send a message of appreciation to our rapporteur, a message of support and friendship for the work which he has managed to carry out up to this very afternoon.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, you should know that this Parliament, which was prepared to say that the intergovernmental conference should be revised and make a multitude of demands, will tomorrow probably welcome the fact that you decided at Helsinki to allow us two observers, rather than two representatives, and that you wish to confine yourselves to matters which Parliament considered were absolutely out of the question.
It will be the same with the budget, Madam President-in-Office.
Our rapporteur had the vision and the courage to bring us to the point where, for the first time, we were going to have an in-depth discussion of what we would consider fair.
If you want to fund Kosovo, if you want to honour the somewhat hasty commitments which the President of the Commission entered into vis-à-vis this region, then give us the budget resources so that we can be responsible and consistent and give us the chance to revise the financial perspectives.
What you are in fact doing is giving us a little and throwing some ballast overboard.
You agree to give us a few minor flexibility instruments and, needless to say, this Parliament will be prepared tomorrow morning to discredit itself, to abandon the route which it had mapped out and which was the right one, in order to engage in confrontation with the Council on matters of principle.
You stand to gain on this ground too.
It is sad for our institution because once again it has shown that it does not have the other "b" word, it does not have the bravery to make this gesture and stand by it.
Mr President, the budget for the financial year 2000 will inevitably take the form of an increase, and this increase will be higher than the increase in national budgets.
How is it that the Union budget is exempt from the discipline which Europe imposes on its Member States? I am happy to talk about the unusual nature of the European structure, but we must avoid having one sauce for the goose and another for the gander.
Have we forgotten that the same citizens finance both the national and the Community budgets?
As always, the demand for efficiency has again been put to bad use in order to justify action by the European Union. I shall not refer to the political choices which have been made or the haggling which has formed the basis of the budgetary discussion between the Council and Parliament.
We denounced them at the first reading of this budget.
I make this point because we feel that this is a constant factor in Community policy.
Agriculture is a perfect example.
Agriculture was a hallowed common policy; it was the cement which held the European edifice together and today it is the main loser in the budgetary debate. We cannot accept that.
This is the price which Europe is paying, once again, for its lack of consistency.
The race towards world prices and increased yields have jeopardised what was most precious to us: the quality of our food and the survival of rural employment.
Our quality of life is being sold off and this too will have to be paid for tomorrow.
These are priorities which we think should be financed, rather than increasing programmes which some of us at least find obscure.
The President of the Court of Auditors yesterday drew the attention of this House to the, I quote, "persistence of the 'spending culture' within the Community, more concerned with the volume of expenditure than with its quality" .
In fact, by wanting to do too much, Europe does nothing properly, which is why the French members of the EDD Group will be voting against this budget, which does not meet the expectations of the citizens of Europe.
Mr President, the budgetary discussion this year has been so strange that, even during the time which has passed between the speech by the general rapporteur, at the beginning of the debate, and my own intervention, the following have taken place, in chronological order: an informal meeting of the Committee on Budgets, a meeting of the budgetary Council and a meeting of the political groups.
This is happening because the interinstitutional negotiation has been very bad.
We have debated the ancillary clauses while the Council was delaying the basic decisions.
And now, when there is hardly any time left, we are negotiating with the clock stopped.
In May, this Parliament experienced a serious confrontation between those of us who wanted Agenda 2000 and the Berlin financial perspectives, and those who, for budgetary reasons and for reasons of domestic politics, did not want the agreement.
In the end we approved it by a simple majority.
But there was still Kosovo and a Council statement which contained a commitment to review the financial perspectives in category 4 for extraordinary reasons.
A war in Europe is always an extraordinary reason, the most extraordinary of all reasons to justify a partial review of the financial perspectives.
In this discussion Parliament has been more up to the job than the Council.
I am sure that the recourse to Article 272 was excessive, and would even have been counter-productive if it had been brought into effect.
But it is also true that it is the extraordinary rigidity of the Council in negotiation which has led us to take this action.
Finally, and simply, under the pressure of having to confront a high level of payments, the Council has performed a U-turn and now accepts what the Parliament requested in the first reading.
Would it not have been simpler to accept these requests by Parliament beforehand and to have prevented all this last-minute panic, which does absolutely nothing for the serious and efficient image which the European institutions are supposed to have?
I welcome this agreement and this commitment.
Parliament is going to finance all its political priorities, including the fisheries agreement with Morocco, which is of prime economic interest to my country, Spain.
But make no mistake: the commitment which we have all made is very serious and a disagreement on the part of the Council would have disastrous consequences not only for interinstitutional confidence but also for the 2001 budgetary procedure.
It is up to you, Council, to see to it that this does not happen, and remember that not even those of us who defended, defend and will defend the Berlin financial perspectives, could accept the ceiling on external actions not being raised, if the figures require it, in April of next year.
chairman of the Committee on Budgets. Mr President, let me get the customary thanks to the rapporteurs out of the way first in case I run out of time at the end.
It is always the right thing to do but on this occasion it is genuine thanks to Mr Bourlanges, to Mr Virrankoski and an additional one on this occasion to Mr Colom for the work they have done in a very difficult procedure.
I would also like to thank those people within Parliament who helped make this budget a success.
Mr Bourlanges mentioned at our first reading the staff of the Committee on Budgets, the long hours they work, not only at nights but at weekends also, to make sure that we can function.
Also thanks to all the political group staff.
That includes Mr Westenbroek who sometimes gets right on my nerves but thank you to all those who have helped us get this far.
Let us not lose sight of what is in this budget.
We are talking about one issue which is how to fund Kosovo but there is a lot in this budget that we should be proud of, as Mr Walter and others have already reminded us.
The last time we were in a budget debate, I think, I saw the Council benches absolutely empty.
This must be a very serious debate when I see the number of people who are here from the Council.
If we put their numbers together, and the Commission numbers together, they probably outnumber the Members in this Chamber, which signifies that they are looking forward to something being said.
Whether that be from our side or from your side, Madam President-in-Office, I am not too sure, but they are here to keep their eye on somebody.
I intend to ask questions, Mr President, and I hope we can find a solution to them tomorrow.
Yesterday when we voted in our committee we took a position which I, and I think the vast majority of our committee, are quite happy with.
Let me say this: we have no problem.
You do.
And now you are looking to us to get you out of a problem.
I do not blame the Finnish President at all.
You have been quite honourable in your dealings with us.
It is the ones behind you who have been giving you a lot of problems.
We know that.
Quite frankly, we have got into this mess and now we are being asked to bail you out.
Let me try and get some clarification on what you said in your speech, Madam President-in-Office.
I have called a special Budgets Committee meeting for tomorrow at 9.15 a.m. or thereabouts when the votes are finished and we will vote on the Colom report and we will vote, if need be, on changes to Mr Bourlanges' report.
But we need some clarification on some issues.
I turn to the Commission because within the text there are three declarations and the first is a declaration from the Commission.
The original text had the figure EUR 5.5 billion which has been mentioned by Mrs Buitenweg.
The Council has actually taken that figure out.
I am asking the Commission to clarify that it is a figure of about EUR 5.5 billion we are talking about when we talk about the aid that is needed for Kosovo and the Balkans in the light of what President Prodi and Commissioner Patten said.
So, some clarification is needed from the Commission.
In category four, and before I request clarification there, when the President-in-Office mentioned help for places like Kosovo and East Timor, let me remind the Council that it did not put any money on the line for East Timor - we did.
Even at the second reading it did not put money on the line - we did.
If you had not agreed the EUR 125 million for Morocco - even before we had an agreement - we probably would not be in the position we are in now.
But that is another matter.
I need clarification on three things for our committee meeting tomorrow.
We have had a chat about this, but I want to hear you say it here tonight.
When I was noting down what you were saying, in English you said that the ceiling for heading 4 should not be amended permanently.
You clarified that by saying: the words 'at this moment' should also be added. Let me try and simplify it.
Can you confirm that in that phrase you are talking only about the year 2000?
When you talk of no revision for category 4 being necessary are you talking only about the year 2000? That is the first thing we need to have clarified.
The second thing we need clarified is this: on the EUR 2 billion in payments of compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure, can you confirm that this is the position of the Council - meaning the Member States and not just you? Can we assume that will not be challenged before we take our vote tomorrow morning?
Thirdly, can you produce in writing your position for our meeting tomorrow so that Mr Colom i Naval can make proposals? If we get those things clarified I think we can get the solution the Council is looking for.
Let me say one last thing.
We all have to learn lessons from this and the one that the Council must learn more than anything else is, not to take Parliament for granted.
I too should like to start with a thank you to my colleagues in the Committee on Budgets.
As Greens, Mrs Buitenweg and I are both new to the Committee on Budgets and we had some difficulty settling in.
But I must say that, in contrast to national politics, what is striking in Europe is that practical politics are not party political and the European Parliament is aware of its responsibility on material matters, a responsibility which was, of course, heightened or highlighted by the poor turnout at the European elections.
We all know that we must present the citizens of Europe with a solid policy on the budget and on budgetary control and that we must ensure that both are efficient and transparent.
I consider that the European Parliament has been successful on this point in these budgetary negotiations.
I think that we leave these budgetary negotiations a stronger Parliament, in my view a very important point.
The Council must finally get it into its head that there is one thing you cannot do and that is to take on more and more at European level without entering into serious negotiations with Parliament as to how these additional commitments are to be financed.
The matters at issue this year were not only Kosovo, East Timor and the earthquakes in Turkey.
We all know that enlargement to the east was also an issue.
We all know that the conclusions of Helsinki in relation to Turkey, and in relation to enlargement to the east in general, mean that we will be taking on even more sooner or later.
That is why we need to fall back on serious negotiation as far as the budget is concerned and the Council can rejoice in the fact that this European Parliament has grown in stature and political awareness with its responsibility on budgetary matters.
We shall ensure much more emphatically in the future that there is proper implementation of the budget at European level.
Mr President, the European Parliament came out clearly in favour of a review of the interinstitutional agreement at first reading of the budget in order to be able to honour the commitments in connection with the fisheries agreement, aid to Kosovo, aid to East Timor and support for the victims of the earthquakes.
We made it clear by a large majority that new political priorities must not be financed at the cost of other, unfinished tasks.
The compromise negotiated between the Council and Parliament which lies before us today takes no account whatsoever of this basic position of Parliament.
I seriously wonder where exactly the compromise lies, what justification we have for using this term.
We are struggling for social justice in the world.
That does not mean taking appropriations from the poor in one part of the world and giving them to the poor in another part of the world.
Reducing appropriations for social tasks in order to fund foreign policy challenges is not a solution.
A budget which is designed on such lines and which, moreover, does not even provide sufficient appropriations for the so-called new priorities, takes all our political declarations and resolutions to the point of absurdity.
Parliament must therefore say no to this pseudo compromise.
What is needed is the courage to draw the obvious conclusions from the development of European integration and to provide the EU with sufficient funds to carry out its tasks.
It is high time that we really started thinking and acting as Europeans and establishing fully justified individual interests in this context.
It is unacceptable to continue acting in this upside-down way in budgetary and fiscal matters.
Parliament should stand firm on its demand for a review of the financial perspective.
The financial room for manoeuvre needed to do so can be created within the framework of European Union decisions, namely by setting the use of own resources from gross domestic product at a higher level.
If we want to stop patching things up every year, then we must turn our serious attention to the question of the reform of European own resources.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office, between the first and second readings of the draft budget for the year 2000 we have added EUR 3.5 billion, in other words another three and a half billion in taxes.
This would not be much if the money were not squandered in and, above all, outside Europe.
In Europe, appropriations for the reconstruction of Kosovo would have been saved had we not destroyed Kosovo on the basis of alleged massacres ascribed to the Serbs as the OSCE has now admitted.
Especially as we are redirecting EUR 110 billion allocated to rural development in order to finance Kosovo.
In other words, we are robbing our own farmers in order to pay the Albanians in the name of the principle of "you first" .
It is as unhealthy as the fact that half our debates here this afternoon have been devoted to a province of the Serbian State which is not even a member of the European Union.
It is true that, as far as the European budget is concerned, the worst offences are committed when we pour money outside the continent of Europe: EUR 10 million for Central Asia, EUR 14.5 million for the displaced people of Latin America, EUR 4 million for human rights in South Africa and Timor etc., etc.
That would be all well and good if, at the same time, we were not planning to cut EUR 5 million from appropriations for our beekeepers who face competition from adulterated honey from abroad.
While we are spending money here, social austerity is being imposed in our 15 countries.
Doctors and nurses in French hospitals, who are among the most qualified in the world, are today on strike because budgetary austerity has just cut back hospital expenditure and health expenditure.
This situation is all the more disgusting in that, at the same time, we are paying EUR 45 million to ACP banana producers, some of which are American multinationals established in Cameroon and the Ivory Coast and which are being paid EUR 45 million under this European budget.
This, then, is stupid spending on top of customer spending on top of ideological spending. It all adds up to a lot, it adds up to much too much and that is reason enough to vote against it.
Mr President, if there is one issue on which the Council and Parliament should follow the same line of action, then surely it is the reconstruction of Kosovo.
But this is not in the offing as yet.
Parliament and the Council have turned Kosovo into an affair of honour over the financial ceiling of category 4.
This is taken to such an extreme that the rapporteur even threatened to include only EUR 115 million into the budget instead of the EUR 500 million which is required.
If this were to happen, then the Kosovars would be the big losers.
The only lifeline which then remains is a supplementary and amending budget later on in the year.
But the negotiations for this budget will also be extremely difficult, especially if they are linked to a debate regarding a multiannual programme for the entire Balkans.
It is therefore of key importance that a compromise is reached between the Council and Parliament regarding Kosovo before next Thursday.
An agreement is within reach, especially now the Council seems to agree to a smaller reduction in the payments for the structural funds.
Alongside an agreement on Kosovo, the Council and Parliament will also need to agree, in time, on an aid programme for the entire Balkans. How can this be financed?
The extent of the financial package for the external policy, as laid down in Agenda 2000, seems to suggest that the European Union, in this respect, only has a subordinate task.
This is also true of the Balkans.
Consequently, the Council' s attitude is one of ambivalence.
On the one hand, it refuses to raise the financial ceiling for category 4 and this is only right.
But on the other hand, the willingness of the Member States to contribute to financing the Balkans falls far below the mark.
As a result, the European Union budget is stretched, which will have a detrimental effect on the developing countries.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, one may well say, a good thing is worth waiting for, but we have waited almost too long for this still to be good.
I only have to think back to this afternoon and I must say in no uncertain terms that the situation is highly unsatisfactory and that we, the European Parliament, are now being more or less forced to circumvent our own Rules of Procedure in order to rescue and salvage what can be salvaged.
I should like to repeat once again that the situation as a whole is highly unsatisfactory.
It is unsatisfactory because - and this was also apparent at the Summit in Helsinki - we have a Council which blithely makes promises and then the budgetary authority, to which the Council also belongs, after all, then has to consider how everything can again be brought under control.
In addition, it is the first budget which we are required to implement in accordance with the decisions taken in Berlin on Agenda 2000 and we are already in a situation in which these decisions, yet again, cannot translate the Council' s wishes in financial terms.
More and more problems will arise in the coming years when everything decided in Helsinki - and I am thinking in particular of enlargement - finally impacts on the budget.
So what I expect, and this has been addressed by previous speakers here this evening, is a bit more consistency between what the Foreign Secretaries decide and what the Finance Ministers decide.
I think this can be established by each government in its own Member State, and that we can then find a joint solution to the problems.
The second matter which I would like to address is that of the Technical Assistance Offices, which have also played a special role in the past.
We here in Parliament have already clearly shown where the responsibility lies and have proposed clear solutions.
I should like to extend my particular thanks on this matter to the rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, who has been firm in making clear proposals with the support of this House.
If anyone has done justice to their responsibility in the procedure for Budget 2000, then it was the European Parliament.
I should like to stress once again at this point: we cannot keep on moving hand over hand, as it were, from one budget to the next and from one crisis to the next; on the contrary, the Council must pave the way so that we can put an end to such problems once and for all!
As far as the small budgets are concerned, and here thanks go to Mr Virrankoski, we are on the safe side and everything is under control.
I think that Parliament too, with its own budget, must do as it would be done by. That too is a very important point.
I refer in particular to travel costs for officials on active service, another problem which requires an urgent solution, and all the other points which, in my view, we solved at first reading and which we can now clear up once and for all.
Mr President, to be a rapporteur or not to be rapporteur? That is the question, if you will allow my immodesty.
Rarely have there been so many supporters of a Colom report in the Council.
I wonder where I am going wrong.
The Berlin European Council was obsessed with budgetary cuts, and not only gave rise to a reduction in the funds for structural policies compared to levels reached in 1999, but also forgot that there were other Community policies.
It appears that the Council deliberately daydreams about a European Union which will cost them nothing.
After a struggle, in six weeks of Council-Parliament negotiations, we tidied up headings 3 and 5.
But although we were negotiating while Kosovo was being bombed, the Council refused to adapt category 4 to something so obvious as the fact that, within a few months, the Union would be involved in its reconstruction, would have to provide humanitarian aid and would certainly have to compensate Romania and other countries, as well, for the losses suffered in trade on the Danube.
I believe that this a problem of short-sightedness.
Apparently, the Council cannot tell the difference between the financial perspectives, the multiannual framework for the budget and the budget itself.
To my mind, the Council is like one of those people whom you cannot ask to post a letter, because they cannot tell the difference between a letterbox and a drain-hole.
Exact figures are requested for something that can only be estimated approximately.
I took part in the negotiations and the Council' s only coherent argument is that we should not prejudice the Union' s negotiating position in the Conference of Donors.
For this there was a proposal and it seems that we have adopted it and this is the solid position we have taken.
The figures are confused.
The Commissioner spoke of EUR 500 million for 2000, on the same day that the President-in-Office of the Council spoke of EUR 12 billion for a period of seven years.
This clearly has to be resolved.
But we can wait, if necessary, for better figures, although we could make perfect use of the budgetary framework.
I believe that there is a time for everything, but we could deal with this problem perfectly - and much better - by means of an amending budget I/2000.
In that way we would also fulfil the wishes of the Council which aims for permanent budgeting.
Mr President, we endorsed the European Parliament' s strategy at first reading of the budget for 2000 and we now believe that the European Parliament cannot and must not lose face, because that would risk it losing credibility as well.
I say this in the context of the perspectives that are being presented to us in the current phase of the process.
I have no doubt that the latest proposal for a solution adopted by the board of the Committee on Budgets does not carry the negative burden from which the Council' s proposal suffers.
Even so, it does not provide any grounds for enthusiasm and all the indications are that it might even be made worse by new, unacceptable commitments.
In fact, and in the way this proposal for a solution was adopted, it can already be deduced from it that it is dropping the idea of a revision of the financial perspectives relating to heading 4 as well as the principle of new objectives being matched with new means.
It is therefore and inevitably resulting in an extremely arbitrary cut under the same budgetary heading of a sum of EUR 150 million, which particularly affects food aid, cooperation, the Mediterranean and the TACIS programme.
Apart from this, the ECO programme itself will also lose EUR 35 million in comparison to the first reading.
It is obvious that we cannot be satisfied with this kind of solution and our vote will certainly reflect this.
This is not a retreat by the European Parliament, but it will result in some priorities for the present financial year continuing to be paid for at the expense of previous objectives.
I shall also add that this kind of solution will also reduce sums destined for some priorities that have already been stated, specifically for Timor, which has gone from EUR 30 million to EUR 20 million.
We are obviously delighted that the heading that we proposed for Timor has been adopted and provided with appropriations, but as we stated at first reading, and now for even more reasons, we think that the appropriations earmarked for it are clearly insufficient.
These are the reasons that cause us to see the present budgetary process as clearly unsatisfactory.
Mr President, the EU' s Budget for the year 2000 is a genuine step in the right direction.
Let us not forget that the priorities we are setting relate to important matters.
We are investing in environmentally friendly agriculture, in the protection of animals and plants and in safe food.
We are increasing our efforts in support of vulnerable groups and in the fight against poverty in Europe.
We are investing in the fight against unemployment and, especially, in local employment initiatives.
We are preparing for the enlargement of the European Union to include new Member States and we emphasise that this process must be given a broadly citizen-oriented dimension.
The dialogue between the two sides of industry in the labour market must be extended to include the applicant States, and we want the Committee of the Regions to have the chance to develop a dialogue at local and regional level.
I myself have tabled a proposal concerning a means of achieving decentralised cooperation around the Baltic.
In spite of setting these priorities, we have nonetheless succeeded in reducing our budget commitments.
It was therefore naturally depressing that, as late as yesterday, we had not reached a final conclusion, despite the significant degree of essential unity.
I personally have been hoping for a compromise all this time.
We ought of course to be able to reach a compromise because, in my view, Parliament has already moved a long way in order to achieve this.
We have set aside the position we had adopted on principle to the effect that we ought now, before the year 2000, to revise the budget ceilings. This is because the Council wants to add major new items of expenditure in connection with Kosovo, East Timor and Turkey, among other issues.
We have accepted large reductions in payments in spite of the fact that we already have a mountain of payments before us.
It is not possible to decide upon major commitments year after year and then not, in fact, to pay out.
In spite of our opposition to linear cutbacks in aid, we have agreed to make substantial reductions, but of a more targeted nature.
It is important to note here that there is not in fact any prevailing disunity on the subject of Kosovo. I am therefore pleased that the Council now seems to be coming back to Parliament and approving our proposals.
The people of Kosovo ought not to continue to suffer because we cannot agree about the Budget.
Now, there is one more thing that is important. If we are going to cope successfully with the future, with the enlargement of the European Union and with developments in the Balkans over the next few years, then we must find a better way of cooperating.
Let us learn from the debate we have now had.
Mr President, whatever the budgetary sleights of hand to finance aid for the reconstruction of Kosovo, the Council, like Parliament, is refusing to address the real issue, which is that the reconstruction of Kosovo, like Serbia, which is in equal need of reconstruction, should be financed from the military budgets of the countries responsible for the bombing.
The military budgets should likewise pay the sums needed to compensate the neighbouring countries of Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, which all suffered from the war waged in the region by the West.
Even though there is no excuse for Milosevic' s past and present policy with regard to the Albanians of Kosovo or with regard to his own people, the few crumbs which have been thrown to reconstruct Kosovo alone, crumbs which bear no relation to the money spent during the actual war, cannot hide the fact that, once again, western intervention in the Balkans has not only failed to solve the problems in this part of the world, but has made them worse.
The countries in the region which were already poor are now poorer still, the living conditions of their people have deteriorated and the bombs certainly did not put an end to the chauvinism at which they were targeted.
The purpose of our refusal to vote in favour of the Bourlanges report is both to denounce the limited and derisory aid envisaged and, above all, to denounce the policy of the western powers in the Balkans.
Mr President, as European construction evolves, it is only natural that the mechanisms of democratic control should be strengthened.
Some of this responsibility falls to the European Parliament, specifically through the assessment that precedes the approval of the budget.
It is important that we do not limit ourselves to carrying out a series of formalities, without content or consequence, because that would entail the risk of reducing ourselves to a type of democratic alibi.
This would be a betrayal of the citizens we represent.
The message given at the discussion phase for the 2000 budget must then be taken seriously.
The European Parliament wants the assumption of new responsibilities by the European Union to be matched by new financial resources.
This applies to Kosovo, to the Balkans and to any budget heading.
It makes no sense to maintain recourse to initiatives completely lacking in transparency, such as the under-budgeting of new commitments or of payments for them, or both, linked to linear cuts in old commitments or payments, the inevitable consequence of which is delays in both as well as dozens of transfers throughout the year.
If the problem is a result of the European Union system of revenues it appears that the solution must be to change the system of financing the European Union.
I shall finish by referring to three situations which I shall continue to highlight: firstly, the intolerable delays in the fulfilling of payments relating to the implementation of the policy of cohesion.
Some delays I am aware of result in the negation of the principle of economic and social cohesion.
Secondly, there is also the support for the reconstruction of East Timor, because we have to adopt resolutions which draw attention to the situation there. Finally, we are right to award Xanana Gusmão with the Sakharov Prize, but at the same time, let us be aware that the EUR 20 million that the 2000 Budget has earmarked for East Timor merely represent the starting point.
Finally, I hope to see the commitments given to the outermost regions, identified at Amsterdam by Article 299(2) of the Treaty on European Union.
Mr President, we are the only true political think-tank in the European Union and so we ought to safeguard the priorities set out in Agenda 2000 which the first budget endeavoured to override.
It was wrong to introduce cuts in agricultural and social expenditure and in external actions concerning third countries.
New policies need new resources.
A total reform of the financial perspectives is essential.
Sadly, we failed to include appropriations for natural disasters in the budget just as we failed to allocate appropriations for the accession procedures of Malta and Cyprus.
I am not an economist, I am a politician; however, I would just like to make mention of the exceptional work of Mr Bourlanges and the other corapporteurs which I hope will help in reviewing certain issues so that we can assess the extent to which the Commission implements those political decisions in the budget and whether their implementation does in fact achieve the desired results.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, a happy circumstance: two ladies at the head of two institutions deciding a matter of the utmost importance.
For the first time, women are in the majority at European level. My congratulations!
They say that new brooms sweep clean.
We are facing a major problem. The Commission discussed and decided its employment policy 2000 today.
The question which must be asked time and time again in connection with the budget is: how can we ensure that the employment situation in Europe improves?
I think there is an urgent need to consider which budget lines can be used to create employment in Europe, which budget lines can be used to secure jobs and which budget lines destroy jobs.
I think these considerations need to be analysed more seriously in research programmes and the necessary conclusions drawn from them.
A second important confirmation is the confirmation of the posts for OLAF.
The fight against fraud must be a priority for us.
We have noted that our budget is in fact about the same size as the fraud perpetrated in numerous cases.
We are talking here, perhaps in inverted commas, about a few million, while several billions are being lost through fraud, which is why I see the creation of OLAF as being of prime importance.
I hope that, with OLAF, we can manage to ensure that honest and decent people on the market will again be given a better chance, as will those who dutifully pay their taxes and help to ensure that our social system functions properly.
I too should therefore like to thank the members in particular for increasing the budget line for the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises by 15 million euros.
I think it is the right way forward, because this sector creates new jobs, presents the greatest growth and pays the most taxes.
When we talk of giving, we should also think about what we will be taking.
Small enterprises make a very special contribution here, which is why the START programmes and support programmes are particularly important, because they show that we sympathise with small enterprises.
We have also set aside 10 million for digital applications.
This is the sector which will have the highest employment in the future.
Commissioner Liikanen has told us that, up to the year 2002, some 1.2 million jobs will probably remain vacant in the multimedia sector due to a lack of training.
That should give us food for thought.
We should focus on the sectors in which we can earn money, the sectors which guarantee that the European Union too will have enough money in the future to be able to tackle the problems of this planet.
Mr President, Mr Wynn asked me three questions, which I briefly answered.
Firstly, he asked what I meant in my speech today when I referred to the category 4 financial framework.
My almost exact words were that it was the opinion of the Council that the financial framework for category 4 should not be amended permanently at the moment.
I was obviously speaking about the budget for 2000, in which the Council' s proposal for compromise involves the use of the flexibility instrument with regard to category 4.
In the future, obviously, the Council will investigate all the proposals the Commission will make.
Mr Wynn' s second question concerned the two billion cut in compulsory and non-compulsory expenditure.
The basic principle here is that the rules of the Council lay down that the President-in-Office represents the position of the Council and that, as the person to hold that position, I am therefore presenting the position of the Council and replying on its behalf.
Thirdly, the document based on the compromise has now been sent to Parliament' s Secretariat.
Does that answer your question Mr Wynn?
Mr President, it clarifies points 1 and 3 but I am not sure about point 2.
I will settle for clarification on point 2 at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning if that is necessary, but I was not sure exactly what you said on the second point.
Mr President, I did not understand a thing; I especially did not understand about point 1.
Mr Wynn asked a specific question.
You were asked to clarify your solemn declaration at the end of this afternoon' s debate when you said, if I correctly understood the translation which I heard, that the Council opposed a permanent review. (I am not about to say what a permanent review is but as you were the one who said it, you should know what it means.)
You said that the Council opposed a permanent review "at this moment" . "At this moment" does not mean a thing.
Mr Wynn asked you, Madam President-in-Office, if "at this moment" meant that the Council was opposed to a review of the financial perspectives for the year 2000, which would appear to us to be perfectly in keeping with the compromise which is being forged, or if "at this moment" meant something even vaguer?
You were asked to reply, and you said that you would reply but your reply was incomprehensible.
So please clarify, enlighten those of us who are not clever enough to understand when others speak in tongues.
In order to clear up this point, I shall call upon you once more, Madam Minister, and then the Commission.
Mr President, with regard to the declarations which have been spoken of, they have been adopted in just the form that Parliament proposed them.
I do not see anything vague here.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, once again, to clarify the point, the text is ready.
To answer the question, it is the text which was negotiated and which you had before you at the last sitting on Monday.
Mr Wynn asked me a question about the figure of EUR 5.5 billion.
At the OSCE Summit in Istanbul, the President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, addressed the political task in the entire region of the western Balkans for the period from 2000 to 2006, announcing that the Commission was considering a sum in the order of EUR 5.5 billion as the support needed.
You, the Parliament, have now called on the Commission to submit specific estimates for this region and this period in the form of a multiannual plan.
We are working on this.
I would ask you not to make any preliminary commitments but to bear in mind that the Commission must submit a precise and specific estimate for this period and this region which can and, of course, will then be checked by the Committee on Budgets or rather the budgetary authority and Parliament.
Allow me to finish by saying that the debate this evening has illustrated once again that the negotiations were difficult.
The Commission appreciates the efforts made by Parliament, and the rapporteur and the Committee on Budgets in particular, and the efforts made by the Finnish Presidency of the Council.
But I think that, if the result is a good one, then the effort will have been worth it and I hope that a good last-minute solution really can be found tomorrow morning.
Thank you, Madam Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
Appointment of 8 members of the Court of Auditors
The next item is the report (A5-0090/1999) by Mrs Theato on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control on the appointment of eight members of the Court of Auditors [C5-0231/1999, C5-0232/1999, C5-0233/1999, C5-0234/1999, C5-0235/1999, C5-0236/1999, C5-0237/1999, C5-0238/1999 - 1999/0820(CNS)].
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the term of office of eight members of the European Court of Auditors will expire at the beginning of next year.
I am sorry that the Finnish Presidency of the Council is now leaving us because the Finns also wish to reappoint their present member of the Court of Auditors.
Under Article 247 paragraph 3 of the Treaty founding the European Community and other similar provisions in the ECSC and EURATOM treaties, Parliament must give its opinion on the candidates before the Council unanimously appoints or reappoints the members of the Court of Auditors for a period of six years.
The Council asked Parliament to give its opinion in a letter dated 3 November 1999, which also contained the names and curricula vitae of the candidates.
The candidates for new appointments were Mr Reynders from Belgium, Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn from Ireland, Mr Caldeira from Portugal and Mr Fabra Vallés from Spain and the candidates for reappointment were Mr Mohr from Denmark, Mr Salmi from Finland, Mr Clemente from Italy and Mr Karlsson from Sweden, in alphabetical order of the proposing countries.
As required under Article 35 of our Rules of Procedure, the Committee on Budgetary Control interviewed and questioned the proposed candidates individually on 22 and 23 November 1999 on the basis of the provisions of the Treaty which require that candidates must hold or have held or be particularly suitable for an auditing office.
Impartiality is the most important requirement.
We also based our deliberations and appraisals on the guidelines in the 1992 and 1995 parliamentary resolutions by Mr Lamassoure and Mr Bourlanges.
As a result, I am in a position to inform you that, having conducted a detailed examination, the Committee on Budgetary Control has come to the conclusion that the candidates meet the criteria for high office at the Court of Auditors and has returned a positive opinion on all eight candidates.
We particularly welcome the fact that, if Parliament gives its assent, the 15 members of the Court of Auditors will include two women.
I recall that our condition at the last appointment was that at least one of the candidates for appointment should be a woman and that Parliament would not otherwise give its assent to the appointments.
We had one woman then, and another has now joined her.
I think we are making good progress.
If plenary votes as scheduled, i.e. on Thursday, we in Parliament will have fulfilled our duty to state our opinion on time, thereby allowing a smooth changeover in the composition of the Court and ensuring that the necessary collaboration with it continues.
These are the conditions which govern the procedure.
But, looking to the future, there is more to it than that for Parliament.
On Monday we discussed the Court of Auditors' report for 1998. It highlighted a number of very important tasks which we must now tackle.
I refer mainly to the fact that the Court states quite clearly in its report, and I can only emphasise this, that we must change the spending culture.
The Court of Auditors gave some very important indicators here.
Having discussed the Budget 2000 in great detail in Parliament and paved the way so that in crisis areas, such as the Balkans, there is multiannual planning of funding, we must now gear ourselves to that perspective, instead of frittering money away on small, individual programmes and projects, which are not conducive to efficient control and where more is spent on staffing than on the objectives to be achieved.
What we want is to work in a target-orientated and not an expenditure-orientated manner.
I therefore readily agree with the Court of Auditors: we need better financial management.
Some of the Commission' s proposals as to how this should be done have now been tabled and Parliament must also give a detailed opinion on them.
We can no longer afford for large swathes of the people in the European Union to say no to Europe.
We must all work on this; we must listen to what the Court of Auditors has to say and include it in our appraisals so that we again hear a positive response from the people of Europe to what it is that joins us together.
Mr President, as the authority of the European Union increases, so too does the importance of the European Court of Auditors, which has been an independent body of the Community since the Maastricht Treaty.
However, the quality of a body or an institution stands or falls with the people who bear the responsibility in it, which is why it is particularly important that candidates with the right specialist skills who are strong and independent of character be elected as members of the Court of Auditors.
Because the task of the Court of Auditors is not always a pleasant one.
The members of the Court of Auditors must monitor careful spending of European funds and be ruthless in pointing out irregularities.
As far as spending by the European institutions is concerned, the confidence of the citizens of Europe has gradually been shaken in the past.
It is, above all, thanks to the Court of Auditors that shortcomings have been uncovered.
Now, however, we need to restore the confidence of the citizens of Europe in careful spending by the EU.
The work of the Court of Auditors and its members will therefore be even more important and difficult over the coming years than ever before.
All the challenges - enlargement, international competitiveness, sustained high unemployment - are linked to the question of funding and the remit of the Court of Auditors could change as a result.
I think that its preventative work will increase.
In my view, the eight members who were interviewed long and hard in the Committee on Budgetary Control have the qualities needed to carry out this work to the satisfaction of all concerned.
I hope that you have the courage and strength to touch unerringly on sore points in the future, should it prove necessary.
A strong Europe also needs a strong Court of Auditors.
However, I make no bones about the fact that the Court of Auditors is weakened because the proportion of women is not high enough, let alone representative.
This is a considerable fly in the ointment of the composition of the Court, even though the present candidates include a very impressive lady.
The appeal to the Member States to propose women for this job therefore stands.
It must have got out even in Europe that women too can count and they certainly have no problem in pointing out shortcomings!
Mr President, under the Treaties, Parliament has the right to be consulted on the appointment of members of the Court of Auditors.
The Committee on Budgetary Control held hearings on 22 and 23 November and adopted by secret ballot a favourable opinion on each of the candidates.
However I was disappointed, like Mrs Stauner, that we had very few members who were women.
Of the eight candidates put forward by the Council only one was a woman.
That will mean that as of next year, two of the Court's 15 members will be women, which is an improvement but still not enough.
I would therefore appeal to the Member States to put their own house in order.
I would also like to make some broader points about the composition of the Court of Auditors.
The system of appointing one member to the Court of Auditors from each Member State will have to be reformed with enlargement.
In the same way that the Commission and Parliament cannot be allowed to grow indefinitely, neither can the Court.
That will be considered at the IGC.
But in terms of the Court it is important to get away altogether from the system of appointments by nationality.
The role of the Court is to examine all Community revenue and expenditure to see whether it has been spent in a lawful and regular manner and whether financial management has been sound.
I see no reason why that role needs to be carried out by Member State appointees.
That system is simply not sustainable in such an institution.
Members of the Court should be appointed on the basis of their ability and specific skills, not on the basis of their nationality.
There is a danger that Member States' appointees may still feel some loyalty to their national capitals and may be seen as trying to water down criticisms of their own Member States.
What is needed is a court that is, and is seen to be, independent of Member States' interests.
Ultimately that should mean a system where we appoint proper, qualified auditors to the Court.
The events of the past year make it all the more important that we have a Court able to make criticisms where necessary, both of the Commission and of Member States, which, after all, are responsible for the management of about 85% of the funds.
Mr President, the Committee on Budgetary Control has passed all the candidates being discussed here.
And we do mean passed, not just automatically rubberstamped.
There have been candidates in the past that have been rejected by this House because there was some doubt as to their qualifications or impartiality.
Luckily, we have avoided such a turn of events this time even though, and I am betraying no secrets here, ex ante confidence has been placed in two of the candidates passed.
Allow me therefore to make a few basic comments on the Court of Auditors.
The Court of Auditors too is in need of urgent reform as the result of enlargement.
As Eluned Morgan has just said, the clearest way of going about this is on the basis of the number of members, as with the Commission.
At present, the Court has 15 members, traditionally one per Member State, even though the Treaty does not expressly prescribe this.
Fifteen members is five fewer than the Commission but, in the case of a relatively small institution such as the Court of Auditors, any further increase will make the Court much too top-heavy and unwieldy. That the Court is already unwieldy is clear from the overly prolonged procedure preceding the publication of its report.
This needs to be addressed at the forthcoming intergovernmental conference.
I should therefore like to argue for no further increase in the number of members of the Court of Auditors and, in this case at least, for the reverse, i.e. a reduction in the number of members, to be considered.
On the other hand, I take the view that the number of auditors available to the Court needs to be increased.
In other words, to coin a phrase, fewer chiefs, more Indians!
In addition, and this is the second point which I should like to raise here, we must consider if the Court should not be allocated new tasks in connection with budgetary discipline.
The crisis in the Commission now behind us demonstrated abundantly clearly that there is no effective mechanism for calling to account EU officials guilty of serious management errors or worse.
This is mainly because the disciplinary procedure is an internal matter at the Commission, with officials sitting in judgement on other officials.
So we cannot really blame those involved for taking a very, and unfortunately even excessively, lenient and forbearing an approach to cases from the outset.
The only way out of this is to outsource these procedures to an external authority.
What we need is a budgetary discipline division and such a division could well come under the Court of Auditors. It has the necessary competence in financial matters and it has the necessary independence.
Mind you, this sort of reform would entail amending the Treaties.
However, without such reform, all the announcements being bandied about to the effect that stricter action will be taken next time will just be empty words.
Mr President, with the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Parliament' s responsibilities increased considerably, as it assumed new powers of codecision in the area of preventing and fighting the fraud which harms the Community' s financial interests.
The new Article 280 of the Treaty also gives the Court of Auditors new responsibilities by creating a legal body which will afford effective equivalent protection against fraud and any other illegal activity in the Member States.
Harmonisation in the area of the application of national criminal law and of the administration of justice in the Member States presupposes, necessarily, the harmonisation of legislation on fighting fraud and any other illegal activity in the Community budget.
This means that it also falls within the competence of the Court of Auditors to guarantee that the protection of the Community' s financial interests is done on the basis of a single corpus juris and is no longer done, as it has been until now on the basis of vague, disjointed and contradictory legislation, which deals with the various attacks on the Community' s financial interests according to the policy they relate to and not according to fair principles.
It is therefore time to end the narrow divisions between the Common Agricultural Policy, the Structural Funds, the Community' s own resources and the Community' s internal and external policies and to guarantee that there is one weight and one measure for all of these.
It is time to end the administrative and bureaucratic feuds and chapels and show that everyone has the same will to practice justice and rigour.
We think that this is the way to better control and manage the Community budget in an ever more efficient, balanced and impartial way.
Thank you very much, Mr Casaca.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
NIS and Mongolia: economic reform and recovery (TACIS)
The next item is the report (A5-0081/1999) by Mr Valdivielso de Cué on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Council regulation (Euratom, EC) [COM(1998) 753 - C4-0038/1999 - 1998/0368(CNS)] concerning the provision of assistance to economic reform and recovery in the New Independent States and Mongolia.
Mr President, the TACIS programme has dedicated its greatest efforts to supporting Mongolia, Russia and the other New Independent States in the carrying out of reforms and the political and administrative restructuring of their social and economic institutions in order to facilitate the construction of a democratic society which is based on a free market economy.
As we all know, this is an ambitious programme which will require a great economic effort on the part of the European Union, in the order of EUR 4,000 million in seven years.
Consequently, the text of the proposed regulation has taken a long time to draw up, and even then it has been judged to be unspecific and incomplete, since it does not include implementation procedures.
This has been a complex report and it has taken us time to reach an acceptable degree of consensus.
Furthermore, there is no need to stress that, on sending these funds to Russia and the New Independent States, we were not convinced that they would be administered properly.
In fact, we were rather worried about their administration and distribution.
Initially, it was the Committee on Budgets that requested greater control and rigour in the implementation of this aid programme.
Today, more than six months after those first exchanges of opinion, I think that we should be proud of the modifications made to the proposed regulation, mainly by this Committee, which increase the guarantees that these funds will be put to good use.
There was also a problem with the commitology of this programme within the old REX Committee, but, after the Council decision of 28 June 1999, to standardise the different Committees, this obstacle was overcome.
On the other hand, the discussion of the legal basis of this report has also been polemical, although in the end the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market approved it, finally defining it under Article 235, a decision which did not please many of us.
Another problem which has faced us is the fact that, until now, there have been no harmonised implementation procedures in the proposal for a regulation.
I would like to take this opportunity to ask the Commission representative when we will have harmonised procedures, which will guarantee more transparency, and efficiency, as the second report of the Independent Experts recommended.
Neither do I wish to end my speech without drawing attention to the unfortunate events in Chechnya and I therefore propose an oral amendment regarding the suspension of aid to Russia while this conflict continues.
I would like to make it clear that I do not intend to change the basis of Amendment No 39 of my report, but I do wish to adapt it to recent events, to which end we have reached agreement amongst the PSE representatives in our committee, thereby achieving greater coherence, consensus and technical quality.
The text of the amendment which we are proposing would be as follows: "In accordance with the European Parliament resolution of 18 November 1999, the conclusions of new contracts covering measures for the benefit of Russia to be funded in the context of the budget for the 2000 financial year shall be suspended, with the exception of the TACIS line for democracy, until a satisfactory solution has been found in Chechnya, in accordance with the European Union' s recommendations and on the basis of the procedure established in Article 13 of the present Regulation" .
Finally, I would like to ask the representative of the European Commission, with regard to this last point as well as to the report in general, if he is really going to take account of the recommendations made within the framework of this consultation, once they have been approved by this Parliament.
draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Budgets.
(DE) Thank you Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by congratulating Mr Valdivielso de Cué on his excellent and politically balanced report on the new TACIS regulation.
I should also like to thank the Commission for their excellent cooperation in the preparation of this report.
TACIS is an important political instrument of the European Community, not only in Russia but in all the republics of the former Soviet Union, with the exception of the Baltic States and Mongolia.
The philosophy that funds should be used more for the benefit of both sides has finally permeated through to TACIS.
This means that we should shift from demand-driven payments by partner countries to the deployment of funds by both sides.
This deployment will, in my opinion, prove to be much more effective and we in Parliament should also make sure in future that the European side can influence the deployment of funds.
This will give the entire programme the flexibility which it has been lacking hitherto and help to prevent funds being misplaced.
In past years I and many of my colleagues who are active in Eastern Europe have noted that EU budget appropriations for TACIS are not always used as efficiently as they might be.
I do not want to dwell here on our tiresome experiences with hundreds of studies.
This has been due in part to limitations in the regulation itself and to problems in the management area.
The most significant shortcomings in this area have, in my view, been reduced in the new proposed regulation; more importantly, concentrating on two rather than 12 priorities per partner country as in the past will show a greater degree of professionalism and improve visibility.
New provisions on potential investments are geared to the development of either the embryonic or non-existent SME sector.
SMEs form the backbone of the economy in a modern economic system, which is why I have tabled the idea in a proposed amendment that we gear investments to the capacity of the partner country in question, rather than capping them at 25% of the total volume.
I also feel that visibility and hence the widespread impact of our programmes is a problem which we in the EU need to address in areas other than TACIS.
We could learn a lesson from the USA here.
The new TACIS regulation allows us, as did the first regulation, to use appropriations for humanitarian purposes in crisis situations.
That this flexibility is extremely important is demonstrated by the fact that, on the one hand, the EU wants to stop certain TACIS projects in Russia, as decided in Helsinki while, on the other hand, humanitarian aid is urgently needed.
Mr Valdivielso de Cué, I hope that I have misunderstood only as the result of misinterpretation; I consider it imperative that the TACIS Democracy Project should continue, especially in Russia, and that that we should choose the areas in which we really need to stop TACIS.
We did this in the case of Belarus and we should do the same in Russia.
Mr President, this speech is unexpected and comes as a result of non-attendance. I did not have time to write it down, and so I will speak without a text, although it is a subject I know something about.
We are all wondering today what to expect of Russia after this crisis. Wars always end, and I imagine this one will end when the Russian presidential elections are over, at the latest.
But, ladies and gentlemen, the question of whether Russia will cooperate with us in the future, and what form that cooperation will take, will depend on the skills we demonstrate today.
If we chose a policy of humiliation, the outcome may be a bad one, and dangerous too.
The TACIS programme is good in the sense that it is practical and gets close to the ordinary citizen.
I would like to make a few important points.
Firstly, it is important that Russia holds the elections in five days' time.
Secondly, we must continue with the sort of cooperation that aids the development in Russia of democracy and civil society.
That is important both for the Russians and for ourselves.
Thirdly, in my opinion, aid should be allocated more precisely than at present - so that it reaches the ordinary people, the impoverished Russians, rather than Moscow.
Fourthly, we should establish a massive, long-range project within the framework of the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement to create smaller projects to cover a timeframe of 20 years.
By then - irrespective of who is leading Russia or the European Union - we will need Russian resources. The first of these is Russian gas, as Norwegian gas will run out.
In addition to gas, Russia has, for example, the world' s largest forest and mineral resources.
We must take the development of the infrastructure and the environment into consideration.
We should implement projects which look to the future in this area and which will carry us through this present crisis.
Mr President, I wish to make two relatively brief points.
Firstly, a request addressed to the Commission.
I spent some hapless years working as a junior official in the TACIS programme some years ago.
What I experienced, as I tried to interest everything from local transport authorities in Kishinev through to energy ministries in Uzbekistan was the following: just as in so many other EU policy areas, in TACIS projects we perhaps try to do too much across too many geographical boundaries in too many sectors.
I think we are all aware of this danger of the dispersal of EU assistance in far-flung places.
Could I make a plea that when this regulation comes into place the many loopholes which still remain in the regulation and which would allow a continued proliferation of small and excessively multiplied projects are closed and that a real, and perhaps in some cases ruthless, concentration of implementing projects is enforced.
On the second point I address the rapporteur.
It concerns the political issue of the partial suspension of at least the TACIS programme under the budget year 2000.
I am glad to hear that the rapporteur has very much moved towards the amendment which the ELDR group tabled.
Many of us are instinctively still not convinced that any form of suspension is the right way to respond to present circumstances but nevertheless that seems to be the drift of debate.
In those circumstances, I would suggest that we at least make our words on the partial suspension of the TACIS programme under the budget year 2000 entirely compatible with what was decided in Helsinki, mainly and most particularly, that if we are going to save the democracy budget line we should also equally save the budget line which applies to nuclear safety projects.
We are grateful to Mr Valdivielso de Cué for the work carried out in this report.
However, we decided to table a number of amendments, some of which were accepted by the Commission. At this point I should like to stress the points which we would like to have accepted but which have not been incorporated for the moment.
First, we agree fully with Amendment No 51, tabled by Mr Krehl on behalf of the Liberals which, in view of the war which the Russians are waging on Chechnya, seeks to grant aid only for democracy and social development.
Secondly, insofar as we are allocating appropriations for the restoration of nuclear power stations, we would like them to be conditional upon the closure or replacement of these power stations, as we do not wish their lifetime to be extended.
Consequently, we have tabled Amendment No 48, the wording of which, as set out here, has been accepted by the Liberals.
Thirdly, we wish to support integrated projects with environmental implications which are on a more modest scale than national projects and which retain a local or regional dimension, so that the appropriations granted can be better controlled.
Finally, we consider that earmarking 25% of appropriations for investment is excessive and we would like to see this capped at 2% for investments in pilot projects, with a larger percentage going to projects of an experimental nature.
We trust that you will give these proposals your due consideration.
I would like to thank my friend and the rapporteur, Mr Valdivielso de Cué, for the wonderful job he has made of mediating and reconciling the various yet justifiable interpretations of the validity of the new instrument for economic cooperation with the New Independent States and Mongolia.
It was a difficult job but the competence and tenacity of the rapporteur means that we can approve this measure.
The new financial programme for the development of the New Independent States and Mongolia that is replacing TACIS is bringing in mechanisms that are more precise than the previous ones.
Partnership and competition between the partner States in gaining funding encourage them to play an active role and they aim to enhance existing professionalism and therefore to create a ruling class which will be based on meritocracy.
The need to continuously monitor the implementation of the plans, as laid down in the document, protects the European Union from the blatant attempts at fraud noted in the past, and aims to put in place obvious and thus verifiable initiatives.
The choice to undertake visible interventions complies with the condition of emphasising the positive role of the European Union with regard to the wreckage left by communism ten years ago, and puts to the test the effectiveness of the western democratic method with regard to the failed dirigisme of the past.
It will be necessary, as anticipated, to carefully consider interventions in the civil, economic and social areas of the various New Independent States and Mongolia using two parameters: the solution of the issue of humanitarian intervention and social and economic marginalisation, without privileges and ranking, and the assessment of strategic civil, economic and social value with the aim of bringing the peoples of the new Independent States and Mongolia closer to the European Union.
Therefore, we need to proceed with the interventions in order to create a security framework between, on the one side, the new Independent States, and on the other, the European Union, so that we can establish ever greater peace and stability.
An essential demand that the European Union must make is that the new Independent States respect human rights, so that democratic principles and cultural, religious, political and ethnic pluralism will increasingly take root, in order to improve people' s quality of life.
The possibility of suspending the intervention in the unhappy event of a crisis occurring is certainly a strong deterrent which will lead the new States and Mongolia to seek a negotiated solution to disputes, thereby turning them into everyday political dialectics.
The European Parliament should debate and approve the new instrument that is replacing the TACIS programme, even if currently Russia, the largest of the new States, is the focus of a just European Parliament initiative that has suspended the technological cooperation agreement following the war begun against Chechnya.
But the Russia question is not solely about this: it is a large country experiencing an extremely serious political, economic and social crisis and it is preparing for presidential elections.
It is a large country undergoing a difficult transition and, in my opinion, it should not be left to its fate nor should it be isolated in punitive terms; instead, it should be helped and reassured by means of a close political and economic relationship, even if the political relationship is dialectic and the economic relationship is competitive.
Russia needs a lot of help from the European Union, based on caution, encouragement and when necessary, objections, but without the possibility of breaking off relations, which we actually need to intensify, in areas such as the creation of a new legal-administrative system which will do away with any temptation to behave improperly.
It is up to us to create the conditions for peace, cooperation, support, aid and partnership, and we must put the onus on the New Independent States, Mongolia, and above all, Russia, to make sure they deserve our help, by complying with the objective conditions of defending the fundamental principles of citizens and governed communities.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should first of all like to say to Mr Paasilinna that he perhaps ought always to speak without a script.
It would then be easier for the interpreters, because he talks at such high speed when he has a script.
I want to say that it is with great humility that I am taking part in this debate because I believe that there are few people who know what is right in this matter.
We may feel extremely brave when we are about to cut off aid. At the same time, we must recognise, however, although we do not say it straight out as the Council does, that there are many in Russia who want us to stop providing the TACIS aid.
We are perhaps turning our backs on this section of the Russian population, upon those who might need us now, something which illustrates just how blunt a weapon sanctions are in general.
I therefore think it is extremely important that we adopt the compromise amendment which was indicated by Mr Clegg and which means that we can help with a development which begins from below and works its way upwards.
The need to help young people in the future is also emphasised in one of the amendments and, in the longer term, this is the only right thing to do.
We must teach young people who do not know what is meant by a market economy and who cannot in any case know anything about the matter because they do not have any books about it.
The opportunity must be there of learning.
We cannot go in there and just apply US economic models, but I am very clear on this point about helping young people and promoting a better future.
Mr President, because of the events in Chechnya, we have to push for a political decision, but that should not be, in my opinion, at the expense of the TACIS programme.
Putting it on ice or reducing it in some way will hit ordinary Russians and our most important partners in cooperation.
Russian cooperation has to be seen in the longer term.
Russia must not be isolated, nor must it be allowed to cut itself off either.
Through cooperation we must help social conditions to become established in Russia and democracy to gain strength.
The flaws that became visible when the earlier programmes were being implemented have to be corrected.
Now projects have all too often been left half-finished.
There have been few practical results, and the greatest benefits have been reaped by western consultants and local middlemen.
A lack of coordination in the Interreg programmes has also meant poorer results.
We have to choose who we help, through these projects, more carefully and become more effective when implementing projects on a practical level.
Our local partners in cooperation must also be called on to commit to closer cooperation, and the commitments have to be kept on both sides.
The purpose of this debate is to enable Parliament to give its opinion on the new TACIS regulation, and I will respond to the issues that honourable Members have raised on the regulation in a moment - both the points they have raised in this debate and the points they have raised in amendments.
It is inevitable that this evening our minds should be focused on Russia and that our thoughts should be with the people of Grozny as they spend a further night under threat of bombardment.
It is inevitable that Chechnya looms large over this debate.
When I last addressed this House on 17 November, just before the Istanbul Summit of the OSCE, I said that European Union relations with Russia were under very considerable strain.
That strain has grown steadily in subsequent weeks, to the point where the Helsinki European Council decided that it had to take action.
The declaration adopted last weekend could not send a clearer message.
We understand and support Russia's concern about terrorism and about its territorial integrity.
There is no question of that whatsoever.
There never has been. But that does not justify recent or present action.
We condemn Russia's disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force against the Chechen population.
We condemn its failure to abide by international humanitarian law.
We condemn the lack of cooperation with international humanitarian operators; and we condemn as well the lack of a meaningful dialogue with elected Chechen leaders and the unwillingness to countenance external mediation, for example, through the OSCE.
The Commission is now setting about putting into practice the European Council's operational conclusions with the presidency and with the Member States.
First we will work with the Council to review the implementation of the common strategy for Russia.
Second, we have been asked to draw up proposals to suspend some parts of the partnership and cooperation agreement. We are doing this.
At the same time we have been asked to adopt a zero-tolerance strategy on breaches of existing trade agreements, like the steel agreement, with Russia.
To Mr Paasilinna I would just point out that while we are concerned about these issues it is worth noting that Russia exports about 40% of its total exports to the European Union; that the European Union exports about 3% of its total to Russia; and that Russia has a EUR 10 billion trade surplus with the European Union.
Thirdly - and this brings me closer to the subject of today's debate - we need to review our technical assistance to Russia.
I hope that Mr Valdivielso de Cué, Mr Clegg and Mr Piétrasanta will sympathise with the argument which I am now going to develop for a moment.
The European Council has invited the budgetary authority to consider using some of the 2000 TACIS budget for Russia for additional humanitarian assistance.
In a general sense this could mean redirecting funds from traditional technical assistance to the immediate needs of the population of Chechnya, including an element of reconstruction.
The prior condition is to ensure that the necessary security conditions are in place for international aid agencies to ensure effective delivery.
The European Council has decided that new commitments should be strictly limited to areas that have a direct interest for the European Union and do not directly support the Russian Government, including human rights, the rule of law, civil society and nuclear safety.
In all, this could reduce TACIS support for the Russia programme by two-thirds, down from about EUR 120 million to about EUR 40 million.
It is with no pleasure at all that I set out this list of measures.
Indeed, as I said when I last addressed Parliament, they will also have negative consequences for the European Union - a point which two speakers suggested late in this debate.
I would much prefer it to be otherwise.
I hope that the conditions will soon be in place for our relations with Russia to return to a more normal footing.
That is my very strong, committed view.
But that cannot happen unless the Russians heed the European Council's message.
The onslaught on the civilian population of Grozny must cease.
The military action must be replaced by political dialogue and the conditions for safe delivery of humanitarian assistance must be assured.
Russian policy must change.
We can make our displeasure known and our pressure felt by applying firmly the economic, financial and political measures I have just outlined.
But in doing so let us remember, as Mrs Krehl said and as I said at the outset, that TACIS is not only about Russia but about a much wider region.
The regulation before Parliament will benefit 13 countries with a combined population of about 300 million.
It would surely be wrong, in our effort to make Russia recognise that there is an inevitable price to pay for its behaviour, to end up penalising the many other countries that depend on TACIS and with whom we have no quarrel at all.
That is why I hope that Parliament will deliver a positive opinion on this new regulation.
Let me respond to some of the points which have been made, some of which have emerged in this debate and some of which emerged in the earlier discussions.
The new regulation is designed to be flexible; it is designed to respond to changing circumstances.
It embodies, I hope, some of the key lessons learnt in recent years.
These include views from Members of this Parliament.
Your input has proved extremely valuable in helping us to frame the new regulation.
I am pleased that you recognise the innovations included in the new programme such as links with the partnership and cooperation agreements, regional differentiation, concentration, a point made with the benefit of experience - concentration, as Mr Clegg said, on a restricted number of cross-sectoral themes - wider use of investment financing and an incentive scheme aimed at improving the quality of projects through a competitive mechanism.
A particularly important aspect is greater emphasis on dialogue with the national authorities in beneficiary countries to ensure that national programmes more accurately reflect our mutual interest.
Discussions in the Council have been progressing well.
Many issues including tendering and contracting procedures have been debated at length.
We note your proposal with which the Council agrees but existing procedures should be rolled over until new harmonised procedures are adopted.
The Commission can agree to this, I have to say somewhat reluctantly, as the only practical way to have the regulation adopted in good time.
However, given the generally acknowledged need to simplify and harmonise procedures across the board we hope that this transitional arrangement can be kept short.
The Commission will soon be tabling proposals to amend the external assistance chapter of the financial regulation to give legal backing to key parts of the new harmonised procedures.
At this hour - though from my experience as a Member of the House of Commons in Britain a few years ago this would be regarded as fairly early in the day - I do not think that honourable Members would want me to go through absolutely every point that was made in the earlier discussions on the regulation.
But perhaps I can single out one or two particularly important points.
A number of Members have suggested that the proposed ceilings for investment projects and the new incentive scheme and the regulation interfere with the prerogatives of the budgetary authority.
That certainly is not the intention.
We fully recognise the role of the budgetary authority.
However, the proposed ceilings are intended to provide flexibility to develop actions in these areas while retaining the primary focus of TACIS on structured cooperation and technical assistance to the countries involved.
We know the key role of NGOs has caused concern to many honourable Members.
We have to recognise that the capacity of NGOs in the region is not yet as well developed as any of us would wish.
It is therefore unrealistic to imagine their taking on much greater responsibilities at this stage.
In many countries there is not even a legal basis for their establishment.
The priority today should therefore be to help countries develop the necessary regulatory framework.
NGOs in TACIS countries will, of course, continue to be eligible to submit appropriate projects for funding under the European initiative for democracy and human rights.
I strongly agree that delegating responsibility for project management to the field can make our assistance more responsive and therefore more effective.
However, the precondition for a bigger role for European Union delegations is ensuring that they have the necessary staff and the other resources to take on these new responsibilities.
This is something we need to look into in the context of the review of external aid management I announced earlier today.
At the same time we must avoid taking risks in delegating responsibilities to beneficiary countries whose authorities may not be equipped to handle them.
This is probably the case with all TACIS partner countries at present.
I would like to express my gratitude to Parliament for this debate.
The Commission agrees with many of the ideas underlying the amendments that Parliament has put forward and these will be reflected in the text.
Reasons of pure form prevent me from accepting the specific wording advanced in many cases, but the Commission can fully agree with Amendments Nos 4, 5, 8, 22 and 32 as well as parts of Amendments Nos 1, 14 and 19.
I should like to make one last point.
Listening to the speeches this evening, realise that most Members of Parliament, like me, believe it is a historic responsibility for us at the end of this century and the beginning of the next to try to avoid the mistakes which have disfigured Europe's relationship with Russia during this century, to try to develop a strategic relationship and partnership with Russia that will draw Russia into the European family.
That depends on both sides moving.
It is very much a two-way street.
It has been a matter of considerable regret and more to many of us that Russian behaviour in the last few weeks and months in Chechnya has stretched and strained our attempts to create that sort of relationship almost to breaking point.
I very much hope that the decisions taken at the Council and the speeches made in this Parliament today will help to convince Russia that what it has been doing in the northern Caucasus is not sensible, is in breach of the undertakings it has given both to us and to the international community about its behaviour, and is well below what one would expect of a great and civilised nation.
I hope that we can look in the future to a relationship with Russia which allows normal business to be resumed.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
Mrs Thors, a supplementary question, but please be brief.
I noted with regret that the Commissioner did not support Amendment No 7.
Yet we know that this is also a kind of obligation for the Union under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, that you should be able to report what you are doing in favour of children.
Secondly, I was also very concerned that you did not really propose much support for the NGOs, and this is exactly what many people working with democracy projects say, that they go to the budget line for democracy and human rights instead of being streamlined into other projects.
Madam, you have taken advantage of my generosity.
That was not a supplementary question. You tried to take the floor again.
May I say, that is not quite in order.
Commissioner, allow me to make a personal comment.
You referred to the House of Commons.
Permit me to say that experience in the House of Commons cannot always be transferred wholesale to the European Parliament.
My experience after 20 years' membership of this House has taught me that, in the long run, the popularity of a speaker at the end of an all-night sitting increases in inverse proportion to the length of his contribution to the debate.
That does not, of course, in any way restrict the Commission' s right under the Rules of Procedure to speak for as long as it likes!
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
Technical regulations for wheeled vehicles
The next item is the recommendation (A5-0079/1999) by Mr Bodrato on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy on the proposal for a Council decision [10167/1999 - COM(1999) 27 - C5-0073/1999 - 1999/0011(AVC)] concerning the conclusion of the agreement concerning the establishing of global technical regulations for wheeled vehicles, equipment and parts which can be fitted and/or used on wheeled vehicles ( "Parallel Agreement" ).
Mr President, this recommendation invites Parliament to express an opinion in keeping with the Council proposal on technical harmonisation in the automobile sector, by considering it to be an important factor in the development of the global market.
The process of harmonisation aims to attain the highest levels of safety and environmental protection and is an important stimulus for quality, with advantages both for industry and for consumers.
This recommendation originates from the agreement, concluded in 1958 within the framework of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.
This agreement was then broadly amended, and it was extended to States outside the Union.
The European Community has thus become part of an amended agreement which now includes Japan.
Nevertheless, because of a different certification system, but also for procedural reasons, the United States could not adopt a similar decision.
A Parallel Agreement was negotiated to overcome this difficulty, which allows harmonised technical regulations to be adopted, but only unanimously and without the contracting parties being obliged to mutually recognise certificates and permits.
In this way, the European Community has taken on an important intermediate function, insofar as it is a contracting party of both of these agreements.
The rules laid down by the Parallel Agreement coincide with those in the UNECE agreement, but a specific decision-making procedure is anticipated when a draft regulation is not considered within the framework of the 1958 agreement.
In any case, in order to include technical regulations in Community legislation it is still necessary to have a corresponding Commission directive that is adopted by Parliament under the codecision procedure.
Parliament' s role is thereby guaranteed and it is anticipated that the Commission will provide Parliament with the draft regulations it wants to implement on a global scale.
I will conclude by pointing out that an opinion in keeping with this recommendation would put the European Community in a position to fully support the Parallel Agreement, and confirm its position as a leader in the harmonisation and policies of expanding the markets.
I would like to warmly welcome Mr Bodrato's report and the very clear presentation he gave.
This is an important step that matches the regulatory regime with the realities of a global car industry.
I just want to insert a word of caution.
Europe has to negotiate from a position of strength in this global regime.
In the United States the market is moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the world.
American consumers are in love with larger, heavier and more thirsty vehicles.
The European model of lighter, economical cars is becoming more and more significant in the rest of the world apart from the United States.
We have to make sure that global regulation does not compromise Europe's market strength in the type of vehicles that most world consumers want to buy.
I would like to take the opportunity to raise another issue about the global competitive environment in the car industry apart from regulation.
The reality of today's industry is that every operation - every factory - has to compete for long-term investment globally.
In Eastern Europe, in South America, in the United States, aids are being given to encourage local investment.
In that context, I particularly want to ask Mr Liikanen tonight to take up the question of the uncertainty facing thousands of my constituents who work at the BMW-Rover factory at Longbridge in Birmingham, where major investment is planned to produce new small cars for the global market.
I declare with pride a personal interest in this, because I began my career in the car industry 32 years ago working at that factory.
We heard last week that a decision from the Commission on an aid package from the British Government which responds to that need for the plant to be global has been delayed yet again, and that this delay is affecting consumer confidence and the future of the plant.
So in asking you, Mr Liikanen, if you can get that quickly resolved with your colleague Mr Monti, can I also ask the Commission to set up a fast and fair mechanism to deal with these future issues; because until we have that, Europe's global car industry's competitiveness will be affected and we will not be able to take full advantage of the regime that Mr Bodrato proposed.
Mr President, Commissioner, a few comments on the Parallel Agreement.
The assumption that we need to agree on common standards in the face of a globalised economy and globalised environmental protection requirements is correct.
However, and this is perhaps a requirement of this agreement, we need to start from a common political philosophy rather than taking an approach whereby management experts agree on standards beyond politics.
We held a symposium here two weeks ago with American members of Congress at which precisely this question was discussed, namely the development of a common philosophy for harmonising technical standards based on economic and ecological requirements.
As with music, harmony here does not necessarily mean that everyone is singing exactly the same note, but that the overall effect is harmonious.
And, in this respect, harmony also means taking account of the different requirements in the USA and in Europe.
And this has to happen at the political and not just the technical level.
The second requirement is this: we are concluding an agreement which is not in fact necessary because, in theory, everything can be regulated under the 1958 agreement.
An additional agreement is being concluded here merely to accommodate specific interests on the other side of the Atlantic, one which may lead, inter alia, to delays in the process of establishing common standards, for example, because unanimity is required here.
And that begs the question of whether we are paying too much attention to the requirements of a specific country
The third point concerns us very closely. In discussions on accession to the 1958 agreement, we had intense discussions in the Kittelmann report on the extent to which Parliament' s joint political rights, to be specific, its right of codecision, was called into question.
This is, of course, exacerbated by this Parallel Agreement, because the mechanism is taken yet another step away from us, the European Parliament.
Commissioner, your predecessor, Mr Bangemann, assured us at the time that we would be regularly informed about discussions in relation to the 1958 agreement and included in decisions.
So far this process has yet to get off the ground.
I invite you to state clearly how Parliament can be involved in the decision-making process, what can be done to ensure that we are involved in time, what can be done to ensure that there is continuity in reporting, for example by having standing rapporteurs or by having small specialist groups, and how the Commission and Parliament can jointly set themselves the objective of monitoring the 1958 agreement.
In other words, how will the Commission ensure that Parliament' s right of codecision will not be circumvented by this agreement?
. I am pleased to note that the European Parliament has proceeded speedily with the examination of the Community's accession to the parallel agreement and seems prepared to give its assent today.
This will contribute decisively to an enhanced competitiveness of our automotive industry on a global stage while ensuring higher safety and environmental requirements for the benefit of consumers.
In response to the question from Mr Harbour, I would say, as you know, that this concerns state aid schemes which belong to the competence of Mr Monti.
I will inform him of the issues you took up here.
And to Mr Lange: as you know, every new piece of Community legislation to be adopted through the Geneva process must be approved by Parliament, either through assent under the 1958 Agreement or codecision, the Parallel agreement.
I am open to any discussion where you have interests to follow up.
I hope we will find a way to talk informally or in committee later on the proper formula.
Thank you, Commissioner.
One can see that you have been acquainted with this House for quite some time.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 12 p.m.
(The sitting was closed at 11.35 p.m.)
Statement by the President
I would like to notify you that this morning a suspect package was found near the Louise Weiss Building and that the French police, in collaboration with our security services, denied access to the building and carried out a test which, fortunately, proved to be negative.
Those of us who were in the building before 8 o'clock were very much aware that there was a suspect package in the courtyard of the Louise Weiss Building which was the cause of a bomb scare.
Quite rightly, access to certain parts of the building was denied and Members and staff were evacuated from one part to another.
I do not know whether this was a fiendish attempt by my Italian friend Mr Dell'Alba to move us from Strasbourg, whether it was my UK Conservative colleagues who had mistaken the day of President Chirac's visit, or whether it was a Christmas gift of Belgian chocolates now sticking to the walls of the courtyard.
But, whatever the case, there was a lot of confusion and an evident lack of knowledge of the procedures for the evacuation of this building.
I should like to ask whether a note could be circulated to Members and staff outlining normal evacuation procedures and whether, in the case of an event like this, the screens which are dotted all around the building could be used to give Members information on what is going on.
Mr Watson, I think that your request is not only justifiable but sacrosanct and we must ask our services to organise a drill as soon as possible, as soon as we are all here for a plenary sitting.
Hopefully, we need only wait two or three months for the temperature and weather to allow us to carry out this drill in the best possible way.
I would also like to inform you that what was found was not an item belonging to Mr Dell' Alba or his friends, but is definitely a piece of equipment belonging to a photographer.
This was revealed after it was found. However, when it was first discovered, there was some uncertainty and therefore they had to take this unusual step.
Mr Rübig, I think that your request should be carefully considered by our Quaestors so that they can propose measures to the President' s Office and to the Conference of Presidents, if necessary.
Mr President, you are quite right.
The College of Quaestors is due to meet this afternoon and a note on the procedures for evacuating the building will be sent to all Members before the next part-session.
Thank you, Mr Poos.
Your remark has given an indirect reply to Mr Watson and Mr Rübig.
Welcome
Mr President, I have asked to speak because you have already turned your attention to the agenda.
I thought that you would make an announcement about the members of the convention working on the Charter of Citizens' Rights.
I had asked for the names of the Members of Parliament appointed by the Conference of Presidents to be officially announced to Parliament.
I was assured that the President in the chair this morning would make this announcement and that the names of the Members of the European Parliament who are members and deputy members of the convention would be included in today' s minutes.
I am therefore somewhat taken aback to learn that you have not received this list of names so that you could announce them to the House.
An official public announcement of the Members of the European Parliament appointed to the convention must be made because the convention will officially start work on Friday.
Please ensure that an official announcement is made.
Mr Poettering, I will be able to read you the communication as soon as I receive it.
You have been informed before me; however, as soon as I have the communication, I will, of course, make you and all the Members in the House aware of it.
Climate change
The next item is the statements of the Council and the Commission on the results of the fifth Conference of the members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
I invite Minister Hassi, representative of the Council, to take the floor.
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, a policy on climate issues has been one of the main environmental concerns of the Finnish Presidency.
I think it is important to bear in mind that a policy on climate issues will, I imagine, be one of the greatest challenges for the entire planet and all mankind in the next century.
The European Parliament is quite right when it states in its resolution that the commitments that have been made up till now are still not sufficient to limit the rise in temperature to one and a half degrees a century: we need new commitments in addition to the present ones.
Nonetheless, it will be a hard job to realise the present commitments.
Preparing for the COP 5 Conference in Bonn was an important issue for Finland.
Generally speaking, the Union has also been satisfied with the results of COP 5.
Progress was made in a good number of areas.
In addition, an action programme was agreed on, which I believe will enable us to make the necessary decisions at the sixth conference (COP 6) of the parties to the agreement on climate, which is to be held next autumn in the Hague, to make the process of ratification of the Kyoto Protocol possible.
At Community level, Finland has worked to integrate climate policy with other areas of policy by drafting, for example, environmental strategies in the areas of energy, transport and agriculture.
We must remember that these strategies are only the first step in what will hopefully become an on-going process of implementing and developing climate strategies.
One of the most important decisions reached during the autumn was the commitment made at the Helsinki Summit by the Community and the Member States to ratify the Kyoto Protocol before the Rio+10 Conference, which is to be held in 2002, and that the Community should do everything required to make ratification possible.
Finland has also been involved in a wide-ranging dialogue with NGOs and representatives of business.
In our opinion, multilateral commitment to a policy on climate will, in the long term, guarantee optimum results.
Although I said that the decisions that have already been taken will enable us to achieve the results we need at the sixth conference of the parties to the agreement on climate to be held next autumn, there is still much work to be done.
It is particularly important for the Union to build bridges with developing countries and try and find solutions that they also regard as fair: win-win solutions in which both development and the environment are winners.
Important issues for developing countries include how to create facilities to make it possible for them to report on levels of emissions, the development of their facilities in general and technology transfer.
In this we have to pay special attention to the poorest countries of all.
We still have much work to do, furthermore, to develop the rules of the Kyoto mechanisms.
Important questions include how natural depressions and hollows relate to the Kyoto mechanisms and the so-called flexible ceiling, which the European Union has proposed.
Next year, the EU must do all it can to find solutions that are as effective as possible for the environment and the reduction in emissions and which can be widely adopted so that an agreement on the rules for the Kyoto mechanisms and the rules on compliance with that agreement can be reached.
I consider one fundamental issue to be the fact that nuclear power cannot be accepted as a method to be applied in the CDM and Joint Implementation projects.
The Ministers for the Environment that convened at COP 5 had very strong opinions on this, but it is obviously going to be an especially challenging task to arrest the trend in the Community' s own greenhouse gas emissions, which is rising at present, when it ought to be falling.
We still need new measures throughout the Community and the Member States.
For example, bringing in an environment tax would be a major achievement.
The suggestions of the Council for an action programme and the proposal under consideration to develop a system for emissions trading within the Community are steps in the right direction.
Thank you, Mrs Hassi.
I now invite Mrs Wallström, a member of the Commission, to take the floor.
Thank you for inviting me to give the Commission's assessment of the results of the Bonn Conference on Climate Change.
One year ago the parties to the Convention on Climate Change decided on a two-year work programme, the Buenos Aires plan of action.
It should lead to decisions on the outstanding issues under the Kyoto Protocol by COP 6, which will take place one year from now in The Hague.
In this context the expectations for Bonn concentrated on the need to make substantial technical progress.
It was clear from the outset that the major political decisions would have to wait for COP 6.
I believe such progress has been achieved.
The aspect of COP 5 of greatest political importance was Chancellor Schroeder's call for entry into force of the Protocol by the year 2002.
I am very pleased that the European Union, along with many other parties, expressed its support for that idea.
This means that a clear timetable is now set which increases the pressure on all parties to make COP 6 a success.
I urge all parties to ensure that they are able to launch the ratification process immediately after COP 6.
In this context, the decision of the parties in Bonn to speed up the process during the coming years was important.
Allow me to comment on some of the issues that were discussed in Bonn.
The most important unresolved issues under the Kyoto Protocol are the rules and modalities for the Kyoto mechanisms and the design of a comprehensive compliant system.
The Kyoto mechanisms - emissions trading, joint implementation and the clean development mechanism - are a part of the Protocol.
It is generally recognised that they have the potential to make climate action more cost efficient.
Of course, it is vital that such a system is complemented by a strictly compliant system including provisions for cases of non-compliance.
In view of the difficult international negotiation process, it was quite a success that, on the Kyoto mechanisms and on compliance, we succeeded in getting de facto draft negotiating texts.
These will continue to constitute the basis for further negotiation in the coming months.
Without this achievement, the prospects of reaching decisions at COP 6 would have been bleak.
Good progress has also been made on issues such as capacity building, technology transfer and adaptation to the effects of climate change.
The meeting highlighted once again how important it is to make equal progress on issues of importance to the industrialised world as much as to the developing countries.
That is why we need a balanced process between issues relating to the Kyoto Protocol and issues relating to the underlying Climate Change Convention.
We have to keep in mind that COP 6 can be successful only if we can deliver significant results on both issues, building a bridge between the industrialised and developing countries.
Another success was the continuation of the so-called activities implemented jointly.
These projects financed by industrial countries cannot but enhance capacity building and technology transfer in developing countries and economies in transition.
This brings me to a very important matter that Parliament has also raised in a resolution, namely the question of nuclear energy as an option for clean development mechanism projects.
I am of the opinion that the environmental and safety problems surrounding nuclear energy are too important to encourage its proliferation in developing countries under the header of the clean development mechanism.
There are excellent alternatives such as renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures that fit much better with the purpose of the CDM to promote sustainable development.
Let me turn to some of the other divergence issues.
The EU proposal for a concrete ceiling on the use of the Kyoto mechanisms has not been addressed formally at COP 5 but was very much the subject of discussion in the corridors.
The intentions underlying the proposals stand as firm as ever, guaranteeing that every party achieves at least a substantial part of its emissions target at home instead of relying heavily on the Kyoto mechanisms.
This should allow the first behavioural and technological changes with a view to preparing for the much more ambitious emission cuts of the future.
In addition, the Kyoto targets must be achieved through real emission reductions and not by buying other countries' quotas that have become over-generous due to economic decline - the famous hot air.
Hence the need to limit the amount of its quota of emissions that a party can sell.
A decision on how to ensure this environmental soundness must be taken at COP 6 as part of the overall package of decisions and the Community's position on the ceilings issue has not changed.
Another important feature at COP 5 concerned the voluntary commitments of developing countries and it is commendable that developing countries such as Argentina and Kazakhstan are taking the initiative to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions.
In view of their economic growth prospects their involvement in international climate change action is of the utmost importance.
However, it is crucial that we get the process right.
We must avoid inflation of the environmental permits available in the Kyoto mechanisms as this would work against real emission reductions.
I hope to come back to you in a year or so to report positive results from COP 6.
In the meantime the Commission will continue not only its active role in the negotiations but also its work on Community measures.
Under the climate change action programme, which I announced in this House in October, the Commission's work is currently focusing on the establishment of a list of priority measures in the area of climate change to be presented to the Environment Council in March.
I am also working hard to have a Green Paper on emissions trading within the European Community adopted by the Commission in March.
It will allow a wide debate of all stakeholders on an approach which should further reduce the costs to our economies of reducing greenhouse gases.
A tremendous amount of technical and political work still lies ahead of us in putting the Kyoto Protocol into effect as a first step in fighting global warming.
I appreciate your commitment to help in conveying the importance of combating climate change throughout Europe and to your counterparts in other countries, in particular the United States Congress.
Mr President, Representative of the Council Hassi and Commissioner, I believe that most of us were very pleased indeed when, as early as at the hearings of the Commissioners, we learned that one of Commissioner Wallström' s priority areas was work to combat climate change.
I believe that this is an environmental issue of a kind to which the majority of citizens and the broad general public can also feel committed because people do in fact feel real anxiety faced with the climate changes that are under way.
All the environmental disasters that we have witnessed make us reflect more often upon the world we are living in, and also upon our own influence on it.
The problem is scarcely one of people' s not being aware of climate change. What is in fact missing, however, is the concrete implementation of measures to combat this.
We are constantly knocked off course whenever we try to move on in our discussions.
Many are the conferences in which the world' s leaders have convened in order to find a common strategy, but so far relatively few concrete measures have been taken.
This is not perhaps so odd after all, because climate change is not, of course, the only issue in the world which needs to be solved.
Famine, poverty and injustice in the way in which burdens are distributed remain acute problems in many parts of the world.
In other parts - the richer part of the world, our own part of it - we ourselves find it hard to give up our well-being in order to get to grips with the problems.
These become ever more complex, and decisions are conspicuous by their absence.
Just as Mr Liese said, we were not perhaps expecting too much progress at the latest COP Conference in Bonn, but it would still of course have been desirable for the EU, the United States and everyone else to have achieved a more constructive result than was actually achieved. This is also why we are tabling this resolution, by means of which we want to speed up developments.
We are convinced that more must happen more quickly, both in the individual Member States of the European Union, but also of course worldwide.
In the future, we also want to be an instigative force within the Union in order to ensure that more in fact happens. We therefore support the wish expressed by the European Union to the effect that the Protocol should come into force by the year 2002.
We also consider that, even if the decision to ratify the Protocol is a long time coming in certain countries, this should not prevent us from seriously considering the possibility of ratifying the Protocol alongside those who have made up their minds anyway.
We may possibly be in danger of leaving behind someone who does not dare to take up a definite position, but we must nevertheless try to go forwards.
In this regard, I should like, nonetheless, to ask Mrs Wallström and Mrs Hassi, who are present in the Chamber, for their opinions regarding our Amendment No 2 in which we demand that we should ratify the Protocol at the latest during COP 6.
What will this entail? Will it entail the EU as a Union ratifying the Protocol?
Or does it mean that we believe that every individual Member State will also ratify it by this date? I am pleased that Commissioner Wallström and Representative of the Council Hassi emphasised that nuclear power is not a sustainable energy source.
Mr President, Mrs Hassi, Commissioner, the issue under discussion concerns the outcome of the fifth conference on the Kyoto Protocol in Bonn.
As clearly stated in our motion for a resolution, the results of the Kyoto Protocol are unsatisfactory on several accounts.
Climate change is continuing, for which reason further strict measures for reducing greenhouse gases must be taken by 2010.
It is already seven years since the Earth Summit in Rio where firm commitments were made without any really positive consequences having resulted to date.
Regrettably, there is still a major element missing from this motion. This is the people.
We should not forget that, regardless of the measures which may be taken by individual Member States or the European Union as a whole, it is the people as consumers who, through their habits and behaviour, will promote change and impose this on decision makers.
There is therefore a real urgency for wide-ranging measures to now be adopted in order to involve the people in decision making on this subject. In this way, they will feel more responsible for the climate change phenomenon.
This could be achieved, for example, through wider information campaigns bringing pressure to bear on people' s behaviour.
Our resolution on the Kyoto Protocol, adopted in October, was clearly heading in this direction by demanding a coordinated strategy for informing the public in a clear, understandable and accessible manner.
I am thinking, for example, of certain aerosols which we use extensively in our daily life.
It is through these concrete and tangible measures that Europe will enter our homes and our habits.
Finally, I must comment on the subject of a CO2/energy tax which the motion mentions in paragraph 14.
Although I am not against the principle of taxing polluting emissions, I do believe that these measures must respect two principles. On the one hand they must try to guarantee tax neutrality and, on the other, they must cover the whole of the industrialised world, or at least the OECD, so that ecological dumping or competition distortions do not arise.
Climate change is not inevitable, yet it is only by involving the main actors - people and industry - and by making them responsible that we will overcome the obstacles.
Mr President, climate change is one of the most important environmental issues but also one of the most difficult ones to solve.
It impacts greatly upon economic processes.
The breakdown of the WTO round in Seattle has taught us that the EU should be convincing in its endeavours to achieve global environmental policy.
We need to set a good example ourselves.
So far, Europe has made fancy declarations but greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union will be in excess of 8 percent instead of under 8 percent if no additional measures are taken.
This is mainly due to the fact that the transport sector has got out of hand: more cars, more trucks and more aircraft clocking up more miles.
This is why I urge the European Commission, in the next plan of action for combating climate change, to address the most difficult issue, namely traffic.
For example, zero emissions for traffic and a ten percent reduction for households, industry and energy production itself.
EU measures to restrict CO2 emissions by trucks are necessary, as is the promotion of economical cars, such as hybrid and electrical cars, or at last a European energy/CO2 tax imposed by those 12 or 13 countries which want to impose a hefty levy.
Only if the European Union manages to reduce greenhouse gases can we be credible.
Then we will be able to reach a breakthrough at the sixth conference of the Groups in The Hague.
The most difficult tangles in the trade in emission rights and clean development mechanisms can then be cut through.
Needless to say, for the Green group, nuclear energy does not even enter into the picture as far as reaching a solution is concerned.
In Europe, but also worldwide, we need to focus on renewable energy, such as wind energy, solar energy and biomass.
In the case of a windmill, the cost of making and erecting one is covered after only four to six months.
Compare this with nuclear energy where it takes as much as ten years before nett energy finally exceeds the cost of building a plant.
Mr President, I believe that both the Commissioner and the representative of the Council are perfectly aware of the threats hanging over the planet because year after year this Parliament has warned them of these threats.
The increase in temperature by two degrees - as other Members have said - which is expected between now and 2010, if no measures are taken, the rise in sea levels, the disappearance of small islands and many of the catastrophes of the last two years which, according to the experts, are related to climate change, are facts which should oblige us to adopt immediate and concrete measures.
The resolution adopted by the Committee on the Environment moves in this direction, as do the amendments which were presented and approved unanimously.
Amongst these - and we are happy that Commissioner Wallström has pointed this out - is the clear criticism of the pressure exerted by the nuclear industry on Bonn so that nuclear energy may be used in the strategy to reduce CO2 emissions.
It seems to us that industry brings with it risks, as the Commissioner has said, in terms of safety and the subsequent use or recycling of waste. These risks are unacceptable to us.
For this reason, in the Committee on the Environment, we still propose renewable sources of energy and the adoption of clear measures with regard to transport; not only in road transport which is the form of transport which produces most CO2 emissions, but also in air transport which also produces many emissions and which, until now, has not been controlled as it should be.
We also agree with the Council that we should build bridges with developing countries, but building bridges with these countries means two things: not trying to do deals with them with regard to the buying and selling of quotas and not cutting development and aid funds so that they can adopt measures which will lead in the direction which we are proposing.
In one of the amendments we also propose that countries draw up clear and concrete plans for reductions in the different sectors - transport, agriculture, etc. because if no plans or concrete measures exist, then we will still be here talking about the same things far beyond 2000.
Mr President, at a time when globalisation is filling us with uncertainty and everything is in the short term and disposable, it is very difficult to have an overview of the future.
The new millennium is a great marketing product which seems to be concentrated on one night of partying without opening our minds to grand projects and ideas.
Is climate change the major challenge of the next century or a good New Year' s resolution without any significant value? It is difficult for us politicians to sell to our electors political decisions which are planned over ten or twenty years.
Yet have we not agreed to take responsibility?
The debate on climate change is not a trivial affair.
It is our industrialised countries which created this world and we must therefore lead by example. Can Trade, with a capital T, be more reasonable?
Can the countries of the world reconcile economic development with health without seeming naïve or demonstrating worthless good sense? We in the European bubble must not forget developing countries.
We must achieve a balanced partnership between all the countries of the world and between all economic actors. The applicant States must be involved given that they have to conform to European environmental standards.
The question of climate change and the resultant apocalyptic visions are a forceful and global way of drawing attention to the dangers of pollution.
The melting of the polar ice-caps and tropical storms are deemed to be the result of greenhouse gases which, in the main, are directly produced by our factories.
We therefore should have increased people' s awareness.
Floods and storms have been promised for those who are currently sat comfortably in front of their televisions and who believe themselves to be protected by economic development and temperate climates.
Climate change and the reawakened anger of nature are frightening concepts to countries which are now declaring that this situation cannot continue.
In order to stabilise the climate and reassure the world' s inhabitants, without overusing the concept of environmental protection which should be left to the ecologists, the issues of the Kyoto Protocol - mad cow disease, dioxins and the debate on GMOs - are being paraded.
Climatic disasters and food scares are of the same ilk and make societies distrustful faced with uncertainty and events they cannot control.
Business and governments now know that the only way forward is to include the environment and the principle of sustainable development.
Mr President, I would like to start by thanking Mr Hassi and Commissioner Wallström for their declaration.
I share their opinion that the problem of climate change requires a global solution.
It is therefore regrettable that so few countries have ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
In the resolution, the criticism is expressed that the United States is so unwilling.
It is more important to assess our own behaviour.
The EU Member States have not yet ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
If countries at a climate conference reach an agreement, then it is understood that every effort is made to reach sound implementation and execution.
The fact that this environmental problem needs to be solved worldwide does not detract from the huge responsibility incumbent upon each individual Member State.
I fully agree with the focus of the resolution being put on energy efficiency and renewable energy sources.
The measures involved have a beneficial effect on the environment.
However, there are also CO2 reducing measures which, besides said beneficial effects, also cause negative environmental effects.
In other words, a reduction in CO2 emissions can never be a licence to emit other harmful substances instead. Therefore, the EU' s energy policy must specifically embrace all environmental effects caused by a specific type of energy production.
Then environmental policy will actually be integrated into the energy policy, as laid down in the Treaty.
The environment needs to be integrated into the transport policy too.
The transport sector accounts for no less than 40% of total CO2 emissions.
It is evident that journeys and flights should be reduced.
The introduction of excise on kerosene remains a necessary measure, so that flight traffic is no longer given undue preferential treatment in financial terms over other types of transport. Responsibility very much applies to the elected Members of Parliaments.
Yesterday, the new building of the European Parliament was opened.
I, like many others, cannot explain to the electorate that monthly journeys between Brussels and Strasbourg are necessary. This is, unfortunately, a reality for the time being, but the climate in the European Council will hopefully change.
Mr President, everyone in this House agrees that reducing or at least stabilising CO2 emissions is an environmental imperative for our planet.
In 1992, at the Rio Convention, and then in 1997 at the Kyoto Conference, the European Union led the way.
We must now continue to propose a bold and ambitious policy on this subject, and the EU must also remain capable of convincing its partners, which means convincing its own Member States first.
For although Europe is talking about this issue, are the fifteen Member States ready to make the necessary efforts and to respect and implement the numerous directives approved here in this House?
We must therefore raise awareness among the Member States and among our partners.
It has already been mentioned that the United States of America is still reticent about this kind of policy and ambition.
The European Union must therefore be resolute in the face of the US Congress and Japan and it must also be able to convince countries such as Russia.
You can appreciate the enormous task facing us in this respect, a task also facing us in our discussions on enlarging the EU and our need to convince the applicant States that our environmental ambitions must be heeded.
Finally, the people must be made aware for it is through them that progress will be achieved.
I do not really favour energy taxes as I do not believe that environmental problems can be systematically solved with taxation.
The EU therefore has a real duty to raise awareness and provide information so that behaviour in the EU can change.
This is our ambition for the Europe of tomorrow.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, you have made a very positive appraisal of the Bonn Conference which, from your point of view, I can understand.
In all honesty, however, although there has been progress in secondary theatres of war, as it were, for example how negotiations should be conducted, what working parties should be set up, no progress has been made on the main issue, i.e. what should be done about emission rights and emissions trading.
That is a pity because, as far as I can see, that is the main issue, especially in view of the fact that one large country, one contracting partner, is saying we want to be able to buy ourselves out of all our emissions obligations.
That this country is able to use internal political debate, i.e. the imminent election campaign in the USA, to block us and the other contracting States from making further progress on this central issue is scandalous!
As far as I can see, the decisive question is this: how can we inject new momentum into this process and encourage greater involvement on the part of this large contracting State on the other side of the Atlantic? How can we achieve progress in coming years and involve the United States in this?
As far as I am concerned, there can be no question of allowing countries to buy their way out of all their emission obligations, because what that means, in essence, is that we and the USA are able to absolve ourselves from our own obligations at the expense of less developed countries.
We overcame imperialism in the 19th century; surely we are not going to pave the way for imperialism in the 21st century!
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, thank you for your perceptive comments on global warming.
However, like my fellow Member, I do not totally agree with what you said about progress in the fight against this phenomenon.
We keep having conferences on global warming and they all turn out much the same. We should ask ourselves how many more so-called natural disasters it will take before the harmful effects of global warming, and their consequences, particularly on the economic and social development of European and world society, are really taken into account.
You do not need to be a scientist to realise that global warming is a fact.
The floods which are causing increasing amounts of damage are enough of a signal to be taken seriously.
The insurance companies, which obviously are directly and financially involved, have sounded the alarm about these natural disasters which seem to be beating all records this year. We should regard these indisputable signals as stop signs for they remind us daily of the urgent need to act and to adopt specific measures to combat global warming.
Yet it is astonishing how little attention is paid to all these conferences.
Apart from a few environmentalists who are deeply concerned about global warming, total indifference is the norm.
Even worse, under pressure from powerful nuclear lobbies, nuclear energy has nearly succeeded in being recognised as a renewable source of energy. This would be a disaster in itself.
To conclude, I believe we really are a long way off success in the fight against global warming.
This is why we have to set an example in this House, particularly as we appeared to be in the vanguard at Rio.
I would like to reply to Mr Poettering who made a request at the beginning of the sitting: the European Councils of Cologne and Tampere established a body responsible for drawing up a Charter of Fundamental Rights.
This body is made up of representatives of the European Parliament, of Heads of State and Government, of national parliaments and of the European Commission.
Mr President, one of the greatest challenges in the fight for sustainable development is to reduce the all too high levels of CO2 emissions and, to begin with, I should like to emphasise that nuclear power is not a renewable energy source and that it ought not therefore to be included among Kyoto' s flexible mechanisms, such as the mechanism for sustainable development.
The use of nuclear power must not stand in the way of the transition to a more sustainable energy supply.
In order to honour its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol, the EU must, however, be involved in promoting renewable energy and seeking environmentally correct solutions so that the present level of CO2 emissions is reduced.
In this connection, I should like to refer to an investigation carried out by the Federation of European Contractors which shows that total European CO2 emissions can be reduced by a whole 12% by means of improving energy efficiency in buildings.
By insulating buildings, it will be possible, in addition to improving energy efficiency, to also create up to 300 000 permanent jobs in the EU over a 10-year period.
Both the Council and the Commission have previously acknowledged that some of the biggest potential for saving energy is to be found in the building sector.
I am therefore surprised that no-one has since mentioned this fact in the concrete proposals tabled with a view to fulfilling the Kyoto obligations, and I should like to ask the Commission whether this consideration has been quite specifically included among the matters to be deliberated by the Commission.
I can see that the Commission is not paying attention but I hope, all the same, that the question was heard.
Mr President, seven years after Rio, two years after Kyoto, the issue of climate change is today at a critical juncture.
It is true that the hypocrisy of the United States has greatly contributed to this situation as that country emits the most greenhouse gases and thus is least willing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol by 2002.
It is also true, however, that Europe itself has done little or nothing to achieve the targets that were set.
It is unacceptable that in principle, the European Union is fighting for a reduction in emissions and then, in practice, reaches the conclusion that, because the necessary policies have not been implemented, many Member States are already slipping alarmingly in relation to the limit values set in Kyoto for 2010.
We can even state that two years after Kyoto, although there were more than enough good intentions and fine speeches, there was a lack of political will to act.
This is exactly the time to act, and to act by coming up with new solutions; firstly by creating a European programme for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that supports and finances actions in the area of energy efficiency and renewable energies, a programme that proves that, contrary to what many would have us believe, nuclear energy may be the easiest path to take but it is not necessarily the best.
Secondly, we must establish financial instruments which will enable us to introduce CO2/energy taxes in all European countries.
Thirdly, we must launch a large European public information campaign, especially for economic operators, to achieve urgent change in our daily practices and behaviour in terms of the consumption and production of energy.
In order to do this, we do not have to wait for the United States of America, particularly because it is more and more likely that we will have to move ahead without that country for the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol in 2002.
Mr President, Commissioner, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, Kyoto is clearly one of the major challenges for the 21st century, yet the way that we resolve the issue of climate change may greatly affect future civilisation.
Parliament must therefore repeat its formal reservations about the right to pollute system, otherwise known as the flexibility mechanism. If we really want to solve the enormous problem of the greenhouse effect, we cannot operate a system in which everything can be bought and sold, including the right to pollute.
This is not true to our values and it will create profound inequalities.
We could take as an example the situation in the former Soviet Union, in what is now Russia.
This country is in decline and its development is threatened. There is therefore enormous potential for it to trade its rights to pollute.
So the Americans, taking advantage of their status as a rich country, and despite having imposed this mechanism on us, supposedly to ensure the application of the Kyoto decisions, are not only not applying these decisions themselves but are also manoeuvring to trade these infamous rights to pollute with Russia.
The richest countries can therefore pay to keep the rest under-developed so that they themselves do not have to make the efforts which they could.
This is unacceptable and Europe must say so.
Regardless of the Americans, Europe must say that it will ratify the Kyoto Protocol without getting involved in the right to pollute system.
The Commission must talk to Russia to ensure that it does not engage in these talks with the Americans and so that we can find other ways forward together.
Finally, Europe must act within its Member States and at Community level.
I would suggest that Europe and the Commission pursue two initiatives.
The first concerns the excellent work initiated by Jacques Delors on piggyback transport and the major non-polluting transport infrastructures to replace the lorry and the car. This work must finally be taken forward with financing from the European Union.
The second, in the car sector, involves establishing a renewal strategy for old cars, in addition to the standards which we have adopted, given that these cars produce considerably more pollution than newer vehicles.
Mr President, it is of course interesting to listen to Commissioner Wallström and Representative of the Council Hassi.
You express a certain optimism when it comes to the Convention and the Kyoto Protocol, which I appreciate that one has to do in your position.
I personally am not so optimistic.
Greenhouse gases continue to increase throughout the world more than seven years after the Climate Convention was signed.
I have been participating in a worldwide energy analysis which is just now being carried out.
This shows - and, unfortunately, this has perhaps to be emphasised - that there will be plenty of fossil fuels for the foreseeable future.
Even if demand increases in the future, we shall be more or less swimming in oil and gas, and it will be cheap oil and gas. It is therefore absolutely necessary to take political measures.
The market cannot put the environmental consequences in question into the equation.
We must levy taxes and charges, and we must devise norms and standards if we want the alternatives which exist in the energy sphere to have a chance.
The United States' s passive attitude thus far has already been mentioned.
I have come to the conclusion that the European Union must very much take a leading role in this work.
The resolution states a number of steps which could lead to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol if Europe were to take the lead: a reduction of emissions here at home; concrete plans to reduce emissions in the most important sectors, above all within the transport sector where emissions are increasing most quickly; the introduction of economic instruments of control; early ratification of the Kyoto Protocol; and intensified dialogue, both with Japan and with the developing countries.
I realise, like earlier speakers, that we must involve America in this, but we cannot wait for their leadership.
My question both to Commissioner Wallström and Representative of the Council Hassi is this: you have expressed a general optimism; now where is the conclusion? My other question to Commissioner Wallström is this: are you prepared to give pro-active leadership a chance and, if so, how will it be possible for this to develop in the current political climate?
Mr President, in common with other speakers, I should like to begin by emphasising the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to reduce the effect upon the climate.
The present resolution is a good one but, following the discussion by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, two flaws have become apparent.
Firstly, there is a reference to nuclear power which is not directly connected to the resolution' s main purpose.
In my opinion, it would have been better to leave out completely the lines about nuclear power in the resolution but, since this has not been done, I would ask to support Mr Liese' s amendment.
Secondly, the resolution is deficient when it recommends general energy taxes and carbon dioxide taxes.
The majority of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats have their doubts about an EU tax of this kind and, on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, voted against the proposal in this part of the resolution.
General taxes on industry are a blunt instrument for obtaining measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
To present energy taxes as the most important measure is simply to engage in empty rhetoric.
I believe instead that we should be encouraging the individual EU States to take responsibility for achieving the required level of reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.
It is therefore up to the individual Member States to find the most effective tools, best suited to their own national circumstances, for achieving the objectives in question.
Specifically targeted charges on carbon dioxide emissions should be more effective than general taxes, but there are also other options for individual Member States.
If need be, general EU taxes can be given an overarching dimension.
In my opinion, the prerequisites for devising tax instruments and tax legislation differ very considerably from one EU country to the next.
By supporting the proposal for EU taxes in the energy sphere, I do not want to be a party to adopting a principle which limits the individual EU countries' autonomy in tax matters.
There are members of the Group of the European People' s Party and European Democrats who, because of the above-mentioned contents of the text of the resolution, intend to vote against the resolution in its entirety.
I personally am going to vote in favour of the resolution, but with the reservations I have just mentioned.
Mr President, Commissioner, the series of climate summits that began seven years ago with Rio has produced some fine resolutions which have been full of aims ever more ambitious than those that came before.
The time for real action has not yet got under way, however, nor has it even begun.
Achieving demanding aims is not childsplay, as some people in this Chamber seem to assume.
In its resolutions, Parliament should not give priority to certain types of measures at the expense of others. All possible means of reducing emissions have to be adopted immediately.
In particular, this means trading emissions quotas, which is an effective way of reducing emissions, if clear rules based on the mechanisms of a market economy are established.
It is also very important that we do not limit our range of options by excluding the flexible mechanisms of carbon dioxide-free nuclear power.
The argument that says nuclear energy is not a sustainable means of producing energy, on account of the waste it produces, and cannot thus be included in the clean development mechanisms, is simply not tenable.
The nuclear power industry is the only energy business sector that has incorporated the costs associated with the entire lifespan of its product in its prices, and thus takes full responsibility for the safe depositing of its waste.
I would like to remind those Members here who continue to speak against nuclear power from one debate to the next that, but for the current level of nuclear energy being used, carbon dioxide emissions would immediately grow by 800 million tons every year.
We will not mention what sort of effects there would be if the world' s additional needs for energy were fully met without building more nuclear power plants.
Giving up the use of nuclear power may be a subject for populists in the developed countries of Europe, or here in Parliament, where it really is a populist subject, but the realistic alternative is nowhere else to be found, not even in those countries the Union is going to embrace in the future.
Mr President, if the overall social human and environmental benefits of clean air are to be secured, then the standards laid down by the EU's recent directive on vehicle emissions and fuel quality must be strictly adhered to.
There must be maximum cooperation between the EU Member State governments and all interested bodies so that a reduction in the use of CO2 becomes a reality.
I welcome the debate that took place this week in Parliament on the uses of alternative energy resources.
The Irish Government has brought out a Green Paper on sustainable energy, which is to be given special status within our national development plan for the period 2000-2006.
This Green Paper discusses the framework for reducing CO2 emissions within all sectors of our society.
More funding must be put aside for alternative energy resources and there is also an anticipation that there will be a switch from the use of solid fuel and oil to natural gas and renewable energy sources and power generation in the future.
This plan also proposes measures targeted at various consumer sectors which are designed to enhance energy awareness, expertise and practice in such areas as appliance purchasing, use of energy in the home, building installations, heating systems and energy management in industry, the services sector and also the public sector.
The publication of the Green Paper on sustainable energy in Ireland should be viewed as a positive contribution to the debate on how we deal with the climate change threat within the energy sector.
Various Members have asked questions and raised points, to which both the representatives of the Council and the Commission intend to reply.
Mr President, Members of the European Parliament, I have been listening to this debate with great interest, and it must be said that that I have nothing but respect for the high level of knowledge the European Parliament has regarding this subject.
Many MEPs have mentioned examples of problems, such as floods, storms and various meteorological catastrophes, which show that climate change is already happening.
I agree with what everyone has said here.
I also agree with what many have pointed out, that Kyoto is only the first step.
After the commitments of Kyoto we will have to be able to commit to greater reductions in emissions to be able to prevent global warming, which is happening dangerously fast.
There are two main aspects to this as far as the European Union is concerned. The first is the European Union' s action to reduce emissions in its own area, which is also a key issue with respect to the EU' s international credibility.
The Union really still has much to do in this area, which is something many MEPs have also mentioned.
I would like to comment briefly on the question of an energy tax.
It is absolutely right, as Mr Wijkman, as far as I remember, said, that there are too many fossil fuels in the world, in other words, market forces are not sufficient to limit their use.
The consumer behaviour patterns we all show affect the climate, and an energy tax, a carbon dioxide tax, is one way to make the price an eco-label.
We all know that it has been difficult in the European Union to take a decision on an energy tax but, for example, the conclusions of the Cologne Summit state the importance of this issue.
In my opinion, this question should be high up on the agenda of the Ecofin Council.
One step in the right direction is that achieved on Monday in the Environment Council, which is for a Council common position on a 'strategic directive to assess environmental effects' , which will be a good tool to evaluate the impact on the environment, including the effect of emissions on the climate, of different programmes and action.
The other aspect of our huge and difficult task is progress in international negotiations.
As I said in my opening speech, it is now essential to build bridges with the other players; many who have spoken here stressed quite rightly that we must build cooperation with players other than just the United States.
This is absolutely true, but I myself would certainly not see the USA in quite such a gloomy light as might have been inferred from some speeches.
I have the impression that the thinking is also changing in the USA.
Public opinion in the USA reveals concern about climate change.
This is also seen in the changing attitudes in business in the USA, and I myself have noticed this is also having an influence on politics.
Although we as yet have no certain proof that the rules for compliance with the Kyoto agreement and the mechanisms will turn out to be good rules, it is still completely feasible to establish sound rules in the planned timetable.
To the question of why the Union should not ratify the Kyoto Protocol during the sixth conference of the parties concerned, I would say that this will not be possible as we will not have any clear picture before that meeting of what we should be ratifying.
If we were to commit to ratification beforehand, it would also weaken our position in the talks and our chances of successfully addressing those issues which we aim to cover at the talks.
In spite of the fact that I consider ratification to be very important in itself, I still do not think it is yet possible.
In my opinion, the European Union has constantly demonstrated leadership with regard to this issue.
It is not at present as striking as it was, for example, at Kyoto, as we are now at the stage of the operation where we are plodding through the very many technical details.
Outwardly, this may not seem impressive, but it is absolutely essential.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, what made the biggest impression on me during the conference in Bonn were the speeches by representatives of small island States.
The combined effects of climate changes affect, and have already affected, their respective countries in such a way that they are aware that the issue is important to their future and to their survival.
The anxiety about the future which they expressed in Bonn and the zeal with which they urged us to translate our words into actual deeds made an incredibly strong impression upon me.
I also listened to an old man from another island on which I had had the privilege to live for a short time.
He said to me: "I believe it is us ordinary people, who are thinking about our children and grandchildren, who are taking a longer-term view rather than you politicians.
You ought to reflect upon that fact.
Do not just think about your own periods of office, but contrive to raise your sights and look to the future which we ourselves face."
This was also a warning.
I do not, Mr Wijkman, want to be too optimistic and I hope it did not sound as if I believed this would be an easy fight.
An easy fight is just what we do not have at the moment.
We have made climate change into a concept which is politically correct and which is to be found in wordings, in documents and at the top of agendas. Unfortunately, however, we can see how the trends are in quite the wrong direction.
This means that we must act and that we must act now, because the effects will not perhaps become apparent for fifty or even a hundred years.
I agree with a lot of what has been said here about the value of integrating the environmental dimension into the whole of the transport sector and transport policy We in the Commission have also taken a number of important first steps. However, there is still much to be done in this area.
I believe that, if we are to succeed, then we must also provide ourselves with the tools and instruments which will enable us to make a difference.
We shall need more in the way of financial instruments of control.
We must, in actual fact, put a price upon the environment so that we can actually see the alternatives developing.
We must involve all the various interested parties in a much broader way.
We shall need the help and cooperation of industry in order to achieve this. If we are to obtain sufficient political power and support for the purpose of taking the measures required, then we shall need to mobilise our respective citizens in all the Member States.
To reply, nonetheless, to the question about the ratification process: it is clear that the Commission and the European Union must continue to play a leading role. I nevertheless regard ratification by the EU alone as a second-best alternative.
I think we must concentrate on getting the United States to join us in ratifying the agreement and that it should preferably do so at the same time as ourselves and as quickly as possible in connection with COP 6.
I also think that we must state clearly that we are concerned here with obtaining coordinated ratification from the EU. Otherwise, we shall not achieve that distribution of the burden which we have already agreed upon within the European Union.
We in the European Union ought therefore to ratify the agreement on a common basis and with all Member States on board.
We need to put more pressure upon all the Member States as they set about preparing their national plans.
We must show the way and take a more positive lead. We also need more power at our disposal throughout this process.
I hope that the documents which we in the Commission are to present at the beginning of next year will help us obtain the power to drive forward all the work on combating climate change.
I should like to thank you for all your valuable and constructive contributions.
I can also say that, from the Commission' s point of view, I cannot see us doing anything but support the amendments and the progressive resolution which Parliament has tabled.
I would like to notify you that I have received a proposal for a resolution pursuant to Rule 37(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place today at 12 p.m.
Situation in Macao
The next item is the statements by the Council and the Commission on the situation in Macao.
I invite Mrs Hassi to take the floor on behalf of the Council.
Mr President, I am sorry that Mrs Siimes, who would be the right person to speak on this matter, is not here.
She is at present having talks with the European Parliament' s Committee on Budgets.
In any case, she is in the European Parliament building.
I shall therefore read the Council resolution.
On 20 December this year Macao returns to Chinese rule by virtue of the agreement made between Portugal and China.
Talks on effecting the transfer of power have been going on between Portugal and China.
In a spirit of friendship and cooperation the Portuguese/Chinese liaison group has prepared the transfer of power and regular meetings have been held over the last twelve years.
Macao will become a special administrative area, with broad autonomy except in foreign policy and defence.
All the other administrative matters of the area will thus be in the hands of the local people, and will be their responsibility.
The European Union has had a special relationship with Macao, via Portugal, and the Union' s institutions have themselves prepared for the forthcoming transfer of power.
The Commission presented the Council and Parliament with a report on Macao entitled "The European Union and Macao: Relations after the Year 2000" .
The Council approved the conclusions on Macao with reference to the report in its meeting of 10 December 1999.
In addition, the Helsinki Summit delivered its opinion on Macao as part of the Presidency' s conclusions.
The European Union supports Macao' s status as a special administrative area, and will be following developments there closely.
The bonds are old and strong between Europe and Macao, making the relationship a special one.
The legal system, the rights of citizens, freedoms and values are similar in the Member States of the European Union and Macao.
They have important trade and investment connections and they enjoy very strong cultural links.
After the transfer of power, the European Union will monitor the reality of the 'one country, two systems' principle.
The European Union wishes to emphasise the importance of this special identity for Macao and holds it to be important to maintain citizens' rights and freedoms in accordance with the Community resolution of 1987 and the special administrative areas' constitution as laid down by China and Portugal.
The European Union will monitor the implementation of the international conventions that Macao is party to.
The European Union regards it as being especially important that the UN Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and the basic standards established in the conventions associated with the ILO are applied in all their respects in Macao.
Trade relations between the European Union and Macao are important.
The EU is the third largest investor in Macao and the region' s second largest trading partner.
It has been agreed to continue with the agreement on trade and cooperation made between the EC and Macao after the transfer process is completed.
This agreement will create a lasting framework for cooperation between the special administrative area of Macao and the EU, and will help to maintain regular dialogue on economic matters and matters of commerce and cooperation.
This link will be further reinforced by the accreditation of Macao' s economic and trade office to the European Communities and the accreditation of the Commission' s Hong Kong delegation to Macao.
The example of Hong Kong will give us cause to believe that the transfer of power in Macao will proceed without conflict.
Macao' s small size and unity, as well as the international support she receives, will safeguard the future development of the special administrative area.
This weekend I will be travelling to Macao to represent the Commission at the hand-over ceremonies.
As honourable Members might imagine, there is a certain sense of déjà vu for me in all of this.
Some might say that I am becoming rather an aficionado of hand-over ceremonies.
I have been referred to by some as the last Governor but that has never actually been true.
Certainly, my great friend and former colleague, Vasco Rocha Vieira, has more claim to the title than I do.
In making this statement this morning I want to place on record my admiration for all he has done in Macao in his long tenure as Governor.
His distinguished record as a public servant of skill and integrity is, I am sure, recognised in his own country as it is in Macao, and in this Parliament as it is in the Commission.
I am much looking forward to being able this weekend to salute that service as my gubernatorial colleague leaves his office.
Macao, like Hong Kong before it, will begin a new era after 19 December as a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.
It will be different but, in crucial respects, life must and will stay the same.
That is what is meant by the concept of "one country - two systems" under which Macao, like Hong Kong, will retain its freedoms and fundamental rights and enjoy a high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region of the People's Republic of China.
Those rights and freedoms, as the Presidency said a few moments ago, are set out in terms in the Sino-Portuguese Joint Declaration which both parties have solemnly pledged to uphold.
The European Union will continue to take a close interest in Macao after 19 December.
The Commission has recently published a communication entitled "The European Union and Macao beyond 2000".
The Council endorsed the communication last week and welcomed and reinforced the commitments it makes.
In particular, the communication underlines the central importance we attach to the full implementation of the joint declaration.
It makes clear that, as in the case of Hong Kong, the Commission will take a close interest in this matter and - again as we do for Hong Kong - we will publish an annual report on Macao.
We will follow the implementation of international conventions of which Macao is a member, in particular the UN Covenants on Civil and Political Rights and on Economic, Social and Cultural rights.
We also intend to work to strengthen EU-Macao relations, notably by encouraging EU companies to continue to invest in the territory.
The trade and cooperation agreement between the European Community and Macao, signed in 1992, will remain in force.
The Commission welcomes the accreditation of a Macao economic and trade office to the European Communities.
It will help to maintain and reinforce our dialogue on trade, economic and cooperation issues.
I feel strongly, as honourable Members will understand, about our continuing interest in Macao, about our continuing obligation.
We want to have as good a relationship with the future chief executive of the special administrative region as we have had with my friend the present Governor.
I would like to invite the chief executive to pay an early visit to Brussels; and it would also be good to welcome the chief executive of the Hong Kong special administration here when he can manage it or, alternatively, his internationally renowned deputy.
What is happening in Macao next Sunday is an important moment in Portugal's history, in China's history, in Europe's history.
Portugal, like the country I know best - or used to know best - has done its own best to discharge the responsibilities bequeathed by history honourably and well.
We all have to take account of different circumstances, of different challenges; nothing is ever quite the same.
But when I was in Hong Kong I always felt that when I talked to my colleague across the Pearl River Delta I was working with someone who shared my values and who had a profound sense of duty.
We all run our course.
Portugal has run her course in Macao and is fortunate that her honour during this passage has been in the hands of Governor Vieira and his officials in the Government of Macao.
Thank you, Commissioner.
At times I was not sure whether you spoke in your capacity as Commissioner or as Governor, but in this case both problems are very much linked.
Mr President, the European People' s Party has repeatedly stated that it considers the Council and the Commission' s adoption of a public position before 20 December to be of fundamental importance. That is the date on which the transfer of sovereignty of the territory of Macao to the People' s Republic of China will take place.
I would therefore like to show my appreciation and approval of the positions adopted here by the representatives of the Presidency of the Commission and my wholehearted agreement with the tribute paid by Commissioner Christopher Patten to Governor Vasco Rocha Vieira.
The other political Groups have finally accepted the position of the European People' s Party and we therefore consider it essential that this debate takes place here and now, by happy coincidence on the day on which a delegation from the Chinese Parliament is visiting us.
The intervention of the European Parliament, of the Council and of the Commission will not only contribute to providing a more substantial safeguard for a combination of interests that were stated in good time, but will also reaffirm a genuine leading role for the European Union, which will ensure that China continues to see it as a favoured partner in discussions on a global strategy for peace, to the building of democracy, to the safeguard of human rights, to development, to dialogue and to modernisation on a worldwide scale.
For more than four and a half centuries, the presence of the Portuguese in Macao has almost always been peaceful and has almost always been as important for Portugal and for Europe as it has for China.
Therefore, what is about to take place in this quite unique case must involve the European Union in a very special way.
It is worth recognising the importance of the fact that Macao was the first permanent point of contact that Europe established with the Far East, in the middle of the 16th Century.
Macao is therefore a symbol of almost five centuries of peaceful coexistence and of mutual advantages in a framework of the most varied diplomatic, cultural and commercial activities. This has facilitated contact between the European and Chinese civilisations, the promotion and protection of China' s external trade and a significant assertion of European interests.
All of the following has contributed to Macao' s uniqueness - its history, its traditions and cultural forms and the racial mix and coexistence which have held sway there for such a long time and which are an extraordinary asset to the new relationship between the European Union and China.
This is also why it makes perfect sense and presents a major political opportunity for us to adopt a clear position, one which will express the well-founded expectations and the commitment of the Union' s citizens concerning the future of the special administrative region of Macao in the political context of China and concerning Europe' s relations with both, with regard to defence and the promotion of human rights, of other constitutional values and those of the specific legal framework which applies to the region by means of its new statute and of the principle of "one country, two systems" .
Let the same thing also be said for the principle of autonomy and Macao' s current economic and social systems as well as, on a wider scale, for the European Union' s relations with that part of the Far East, once the experience brings to an end certain possibilities, which may be of extraordinary relevance to this part of the world.
As far as these and other aspects are concerned, some of which involve my country more specifically, it is to be hoped that the conclusions of this debate will make an appropriate contribution to achieving the aims that have been stated.
On the other hand though, the proposal to produce annual reports on the European Union' s relations with Macao, which has been put forward by the Commission and which should also be welcomed, should not preclude the European Parliament itself from paying the closest attention to the matter, particularly by following its development from 20 December. It could do this by broadening the exchange of information and interinstitutional cooperation in this area, by creating its own interconnecting contact group, by analysing and debating the periodical reports that are presented to it, in short, by studying the development of all aspects of Macao' s overall situation.
This should be done in view of the transformations in international relations in the Far East and in view of the changes due to take place in this area, not forgetting the new situations which will eventually result from China' s entry into the WTO and by the development and/or qualitative change in its relationship with the United States of America.
Mr President, the motion for a joint resolution, the draft of which has been presented and the substance of which will progress very quickly if it is favourably received, will be able to make a significant contribution to achieving all of the objectives that have been mentioned.
Mr President, on behalf of the European Socialist Party, I would like to say that we are delighted with the declaration by the President-in-Office of the Council and also with Commissioner Patten' s very pleasant and intelligent statement concerning Governor Rocha Vieira.
I have personally been connected with the issue of Macao since the revolution of 25 April.
I remember that, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, I met my Chinese counterpart at the UN immediately following the revolution, and he expressed his feelings by saying "for us, Macao is not a colony; therefore, although you are shedding your colonies, do not touch Macao; it will sort itself out in its own time" .
The process was actually settled in a fairly cordial manner and in line with the friendship that has traditionally existed between Portugal and China.
The joint Sino-Portuguese Declaration - which Commissioner Patten has already referred to here - is a good declaration and contains, on the whole, the broad ideas that should guide Macao for the next fifty years as a special zone, with its own uniqueness in the overall context of China, that is, by respecting the legislation established by the Portuguese in Macao.
Macao, as has already been said, has always been a melting pot of cultures and of new meetings of cultures, of religions too, and has always been a territory where peace, tranquillity and coexistence between peoples of the most diverse ethnic backgrounds have reigned.
This must continue.
The role of the European Union, the Commission and the European Parliament is crucial in this regard, given that, as has already been emphasised, many conventions between the European Union and Macao have been signed, and it is right that over the next fifty years, the European Parliament and our European Institutions should be able to follow Macao' s development, which I think will be a happy one.
I also feel honoured that I shall be present in Macao on 20 December.
I am sure that the ceremony will be exemplary and I must say that, as a Portuguese Member of this Parliament, I am delighted with the circumstances in which, at the end of the century and of the millennium, Portugal' s cycle of imperialism is coming to a close.
Portugal was the first European Empire and will be the last European empire and we might say that the cycle is being closed with a "golden key" , to the extent that, on the one hand, Portugal is conducting a peaceful and friendly handover of the territory of Macao to the People' s Republic of China and, in the same sense, that Timor gained its independence in a fortunate way.
These were the ideals of the democratic revolution, which transformed my country in 1974.
Portugal is a different country today, a free country, a country in which people coexist peacefully, one in which human rights are respected and whose main objective is peace.
It is in the spirit of peace and respect for human rights that we shall be sincere in handing over the administration of Macao to China, as it now falls within China' s competence, in the hope that China will respect the commitments that were signed jointly in the Sino-Portuguese Declaration.
I am grateful for the way in which the Governor of Macao was spoken of, whom, moreover, I had the honour of appointing to this post when I was President of Portugal, and I can say that Governor Rocha Vieira is truly a man who has honoured Portugal and who has enabled Portugal to leave the territory of Macao with its head held high and with a clear conscience.
Thank you, President Soares.
I am sure that you will represent the European Parliament well in Macao, even if, as a Portuguese person, your heart will be slightly heavy.
Mr President, I welcome the Commission's communication and today's statements.
Macao offers an opportunity for trade, dialogue and engagement which is the way to bring freedom and democracy to the Communist dictatorship of the People's Republic of China.
I welcome too Commissioner Patten's honourable personal commitment and record of success in this regard.
However, for the Union to talk of a shared legal system between Europe and Macao stretches credibility.
Recently, a private commercial dispute involving the financial interests of the mainland's political leaders led to the kidnap in Macao of an innocent Australian-Chinese businessman, Mr James Pang, and his jailing on the mainland for seven years on trumped-up charges.
Since China has refused to agree to the establishment of a court of final appeal, Macao has barely even the semblance of an independent judiciary which Hong Kong has.
Today's news from Hong Kong in this regard is not good.
The court of final appeal has reversed the judgement of a lower court and convicted two young men for defacing a flag at a peaceful demonstration, despite the incorporation of the ICCPR into the territory's law.
It shows how supposed safeguards on freedom in Hong Kong are being quickly eroded.
Let us keep talking to China on Macao and other issues but let us not fool ourselves that the Christmas gift we give Macao next week will protect the freedoms of its people.
In the communication, the Commission talks of "a solid relationship in terms of culture and civilisation".
I hope the Council and Commission will assure us that they will not shrink from expressing Europe's outrage at the continued assaults on human rights and human liberties which pose a major challenge to us in the next century.
Mr President, after the transfer of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China, with the admirable leading role played by Commissioner Patten, the transfer of Macao, by agreement between Portugal and the People' s Republic of China, is a necessary and inevitable act that must be welcomed.
However, as the joint resolution that has been presented states, the necessity of this act does not mean that the European Union is no longer interested in the future of a territory which has such close links with our history and even our culture.
Macao is a current symbol of that Portuguese, Hispanic and European spirit of adventure, which led us to establish human and trade relationships on every continent.
Today, Macao can and must serve as a democratic door or window which will enable us to continue a new type of relationship with this huge country China, to our mutual benefit and to that of all humanity.
To this end, particularly on behalf of my Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, and although we agree with the joint resolution, I would like to emphasise the need to safeguard Macao' s autonomy by consolidating its civil society and its democracy with freedom of political association, by keeping the Union open to the territory' s inhabitants and by strengthening trade relations with it.
Taking advantage of this opportunity to speak and of the opportunity provided by the presence here of President Xanana Gusmão, I would like to state my belief that, taking into account its pressing needs and our common identity, the European Union must immediately establish special links with Timor in order to guarantee its economic and social development and independence.
Mr President, we are delighted with the way in which the preparation for the region of Macao passing into the sovereignty of the People' s Republic of China on 20 December has taken place.
We hope that no doubts remain as to the climate of mutual understanding and of political will shown by Portugal and by the People' s Republic of China and that no one still feels ambiguous about the outlook for the future development of the special administrative region of Macao.
We think that conditions have been created for economic and cultural relations to develop on a basis of cooperation and mutual benefit between the People' s Republic of China, specifically through Macao, and the European Union and its Member States.
We agree with the joint resolution presented here despite some differences of opinion, which shows our firm desire to work together in developing these friendly relations at this historic moment, which we welcome wholeheartedly.
Mr President, four days away from the transfer of power in Macao, the resolution, with which we agree, is extraordinarily valuable because it is confident and because it provides guarantees for the future.
Over these few days, there are two other curious coincidences taking place here in Strasbourg.
Firstly, with us here we have Xanana Gusmão, who has just arrived from East Timor.
Although in different circumstances, which are painful and very harsh, Timor is like Macao: it represents another promise of progress for human rights, freedom and for the rule of law in Asia, another beacon of hope with links to European culture through Portuguese culture and experience.
The second coincidence is that the interparliamentary meeting with the People' s Republic of China is being held now, which gives us the opportunity to communicate the depth of our feeling and the strength of our expectations for Macao and its future.
Portugal takes pride in the efforts that have been made in the territory of Macao and in the hopeful signs that several centuries of peaceful coexistence have left there.
One of the lasting symbols that should now be highlighted is the utter uniqueness of Macao, the open cultural tolerance between peoples and cultures, religious freedom, traces of unique symbiosis and a legal culture founded on the principles and values of the rule of law and human rights.
In this peaceful process, one of dialogue between Portugal and China, it was essential that China clearly embraced Macao' s unique nature. It also had to give solemn guarantees that it would preserve and value it in the context of its autonomy, enshrined in law.
For China, this is how its policy known as "one country, two systems" works.
For us, it is the direct expression of the inalienable rights of the citizens of Macao.
I am delighted at the broad convergence that we have been able to obtain on this joint resolution as well as on the positions stated by the Presidency, by the Council and by the Commission.
They are a very positive and promising sign for which the citizens of Macao are grateful and which we Portuguese, still speaking on their behalf, also appreciate.
This collective attention on the part of Europe is the best additional, practical guarantee that we can give, the best way that we have of guaranteeing that Macao' s unique nature is safeguarded, and of continuing to deal with Macao in a unique way, not by putting it into the pot with every other country.
Mr President, like slaves in Ancient Rome, Africans in the plantations in the Americas or, better still, like serfs, the inhabitants of Macao change master without anyone having consulted them, without them having been able to express their views on the subject.
Once again, a people' s right to self-determination is being trampled underfoot, just as it was in Chechnya.
I have heard - and I regret this - Mr Soares and others likening East Timor to Macao.
This is a completely shameful parallel: East Timor is going to become independent, whereas Macao is moving towards a communist dictatorship.
Mr President, I agree with the previous speaker that the people of Macao are the main element missing from the 1987 agreement between Portugal and China, and indeed from this handover.
They have not been consulted. Why not?
Mr Patten, the Portuguese presence in Macao was not the result of an unfair treaty extracted from a weakened China in the 19th century by force or by the threat of force.
It was the result of a properly agreed treaty.
Four hundred and forty-two years of continued and peaceful presence have woven economic, cultural, spiritual, family and political ties.
Even during the hardest times in Portugal, the population of Macao has remained loyal. It is this loyalty which earned its Council the name of "Loyal Senate" .
These are the links which you are preparing to break.
Today at least, Mr Soares, this is not just a lot of hot air.
You are abandoning the 440 000 inhabitants of Macao to communism without allowing them to have a say.
Macao and Timor were in the same situation.
It is ironic that just when the people of Timor are gaining independence, the people of Macao are returning to servitude.
In the words of Jean de la Fontaine, "Thus do the courts acquit the strong" - communist China - "and doom the weak" - Indonesia today - "as therefore wrong" .
You talk about retrocession yet you can only retrocede something which was taken illegitimately.
You talk about the local population but what guarantees do you have about their rights, for example, the religious freedom of the Catholics bound to a Rome which does not recognise the communist government? You talk about maintaining a European presence in Macao.
I am very afraid that this presence will be like the ruined cathedral which overlooks the city and of which only the façade remains. It will only be a remnant of what was, an illusion simply serving as an alibi for abandonment by the West, with gaping holes which, in the past, gave access to a wonderful structure and which will now be open only to the wind.
Mr President, I have nothing else to add other than to say that the Finnish delegation will be led by the Finnish President, Mr Ahtisaari, who will also be representing the country holding the Presidency of the EU, in the ceremony to mark the transfer of power.
I am pleased that the European Parliament representation is also a prestigious one, as the former President of Portugal will be representing it.
The Council would like to add its voice to the hopes expressed here that the transfer of power will be a peaceful and splendid occasion.
First of all I would like to recognise, as I am sure the whole Parliament does, the role that the honourable Member Mr Soares has played, not only in the restoration of democracy, decency and human rights to one of the greatest European countries, but also the role he has played historically in the end of empire, and in the ending of empire as decently as could be managed, not least in Macao.
It is true, as the last speaker Mr Gollnisch pointed out, that Macao represents a free society: a free city on the edge of China, on the edge of Asia, as Mr Graça Moura pointed out at the beginning of our debate; an extraordinary crossroads between east and west ever since the 16th century.
I have enough faith, enough belief, in the values which Macao and Hong Kong represent to believe that, whatever the style of government in the region, those values will survive and prosper, not least because they are rooted in people's hearts.
Mr Gollnisch spoke of his concerns about future freedom of worship in Macao.
Well, if I take Hong Kong as an example, I do not think Mr Gollnisch should have too much to worry about.
I will be attending mass next Sunday morning in the cathedral in Hong Kong with my friends in the parish, as I used to when I was Governor.
There has been no sign of anything in Hong Kong other than the continuing vitality of the Christian churches.
I am sure that will be the case in Macao as well.
But we do have to be concerned about the survival of the rule of law, the survival of civil liberties, the survival of human rights, as Mr Watson pointed out in his valuable corrective.
Issues like the James Pang case did cause concern to the international community.
The international community was concerned about the earlier decision taken by the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong, or rather the reversal of that decision by the parliament in Beijing.
We are concerned to speak out when there seems to us to be actions taken which threaten the continuance of the rule of law; and we would not be true to the promises we have made to people in Macao and Hong Kong, we would not be true to our own values, if we did not speak out when those values appeared to us to be under threat.
What sensible leaders in China will recognise is that the return of Macao, like the return of Hong Kong, did not just mean an extremely rich and prosperous asset returned to the motherland, but represented something more than that.
Hong Kong and Macao are both great international cities; they can play a very important part in the continuing development and successful opening of China to the rest of the world; and in playing that role Macao will have all our best wishes for the exciting period of history which I am sure lies ahead.
I would like to close, as I closed my earlier remarks, by referring to the outstanding record of the present Governor.
I would like to say that I am sure the best wishes of Parliament go to his successor, the Chief Executive, who has a difficult job, but one which I am sure he will carry out to the very best of his ability.
Thank you, Commissioner Patten.
I would like to inform you that I have received six motions for resolutions pursuant to Article 37 paragraph 2 of the Rules of Procedure.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
Beijing Action Platform
The next item is the debate on the oral questions
(B5-0035/99) by Mrs Theorin and
(B5-0037/99) by Mrs Theorin
to the Commission and the Council, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the European Union follow-up to the Beijing Action Platform.
All the European Member States adopted the Beijing Platform for Action.
We committed ourselves to 12 areas.
They are all indispensable for women's full enjoyment of their human rights.
Five years later it is time for an evaluation.
The first area is poverty.
We pledged to adopt macro-economic policies for the needs of women in poverty and to ensure women's equal access to economic resources.
But single mothers and older women remain the main victims of poverty.
The second area is education.
We promised to ensure women's equal access to science and technology and life-long education.
Unfortunately, education of women and men still follows a stereotyped pattern.
The third area is health.
We agreed to increase resources for women's health.
Yet middle-aged and elderly women remain beset, more than men, with health problems.
Maternity and child mortality are still too high.
The fourth area is violence.
We promised to eliminate gender-based violence, yet violence against women remains the single largest injury to European women.
Between 15% and 25% of women are battered during pregnancy and sexual trafficking is increasing, while only 2% to 3% of those men who commit rape go to prison.
The fifth area is armed conflict.
We promised to increase women's participation in conflict resolution and protect women in armed conflicts, yet women still make up the overwhelming majority of those affected by armed conflict but are absent from peace negotiations and peace transition initiatives.
The sixth area is women and the economy.
We pledged to promote women's access to employment and control over economic resources.
Women remain virtually absent from or are poorly represented in economic decision making.
Women earn, on average, 75% of the hourly wages of men and their employment rate is about 20% lower.
Decision making is the seventh area.
We promised to ensure women's equal access to, and full participation in, power structures and decision making, yet nowhere is the gap between de jure and de facto gender equality greater than in the area of decision making.
The eighth area is institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women.
We agreed to mainstream gender in legislation, public policies and programmes.
Unfortunately, the political will has been absent.
Gender mainstreaming and gender impact assessment are far from a reality.
Women's human rights is the ninth area.
We promised to fully implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
Today there is still insufficient recognition of the principle that human rights apply equally to women and men.
The tenth area is media.
We pledged to promote a non-stereotyped portrayal of women in the media yet, as a result of massive male domination of media power, the media continue to project negative and degrading images of women.
The eleventh area is environment.
The European Members pledged to involve women actively in environmental decision making.
Women's experience and skill remain insufficiently used in environmental policy actions.
The twelfth and last area is the girl child.
We promised to eliminate all forms of discrimination against the girl child, yet statistics show that a girl child is discriminated against from the earliest stages of life, through her childhood and into adulthood.
This is the discouraging result five years after Beijing and after 25 years of effort since the United Nations incurred the responsibility for promoting women's rights at national, regional and international levels.
It is high time for the UN "Beijing plus five" special session in June next year to take concrete action to implement the Beijing platform.
An action-oriented plan for advancing the Beijing goals is necessary if all governments are to implement strategies for gender equality in all 12 critical areas of concern.
The European Union must play a truly active role.
The preparatory work at European level is already far advanced.
The European Union work must be speeded up so it can have a real influence before positions are fixed at international level.
Our question is: how will the Commission and the Council ensure that Parliament becomes a real partner, both in the preparatory work on the European Union input to "Beijing plus five", and in the European Union's official delegation to the New York Conference?
Mr President, we thought that the honourable Member, Mrs Theorin, would ask her question in Swedish, and we have therefore prepared our answer in Swedish.
Thank you, in any case, for having taken up this very important question.
As Mrs Theorin is certainly aware, the European Union' s preparatory conference, which was planned for December of this year within the framework of the European Commission, will now take place in February of next year.
The intention is that the applicant countries, non-governmental organisations and, of course, Members of the European Parliament who have already been invited as lecturers and mediators should also take part in this conference.
Since this falls within the sphere of the Commission' s activities, it is only appropriate to turn to the Commission for more information.
To confine ourselves to the latest development within the Council, the Finnish Presidency has prepared a questionnaire addressed to all the Member States and to all the European institutions on the subject of "Women in the Decision-making Process" .
Their answer has made it possible for the Finnish Presidency to prepare a report containing nine indicators, together with recommendations.
This report was debated in the Council (Employment and Social Affairs) on 22 October of this year.
Parallel to the debates based on the Presidency' s above-mentioned report, the Council has adopted a number of conclusions in which account is taken of the Finnish Presidency' s report.
The nine indicators it is proposed should be used when next monitoring implementation of the Beijing Action Platform are included in these conclusions, and a reminder is provided of the Member States' commitment, in accordance with the Beijing Action Platform, to achieve the equal participation of women and men at all levels where power is exercised and decisions taken.
The Member States are urged to take any necessary measures.
Furthermore, the Council is following with interest the debates which are taking place in Parliament, particularly in the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities in which the honourable Member is chairperson
My personal comment is that I agree with Mrs Theorin that violence against women is the greatest individual violation of women' s rights.
When it comes to the conference in New York, it ought to be pointed out that this is an Intergovernmental Conference and that there is therefore no official delegation as such from the European Union but, instead, delegations from the Member States.
Moreover, the Commission has observer status.
Mr President, my answer has two parts: the first part concerns what has been done so far following the Beijing Conference and how the European Commission has supported the action decided on the joint platform, and the second concerns the role of the European Parliament with regard to the United Nations Conference in the summer of 2000.
I agree with Mrs Theorin that the situation is particularly dramatic for women in many places on the planet and is becoming critical.
Unfortunately, globalisation, development, technologies, the free movement of capital, goods and, above all, people often have negative rather than positive implications for women and children in the Third World.
I should like to refer to some of the action taken by the Commission; however, I would stress that there is, I believe, a great deal of room for further mobilisation by both the Commission and the Member States and, of course, a special policy to support these issues is needed, both in the run up to the conference and afterwards, within the fifth women' s action plan.
As you know, the European Commission drafted an announcement in 1995, in parallel to the Beijing Conference, in which it adopted gender mainstreaming in all development policies.
A vote on gender mainstreaming in all individual policies was held in 1995 and guidelines were drafted for the Commission services to follow.
A budget line was allocated to increasing awareness and supporting action for women in developing countries.
It was agreed to create indicators and, in April 1999, the first announcement was made of the results of these joint indicators, which take account of the place of women in the economy, in politics and in society in relation to the development programmes approved. The first two-year report evaluating the results of these policies will be presented in 2000.
I repeat that some action has been taken since Beijing, but this needs to be stepped up and consolidated with much more specific measures.
As far as the participation of the European Parliament is concerned, we must acknowledge that, for years now, the European Parliament has been instrumental in raising public awareness both in Europe and throughout the world and in the decision-making process; i.e. it has affected the decisions taken by the Council and the Commission.
The European Parliament therefore has an exceptionally important role and it will have a great deal of input into this procedure up to June.
As you know, a committee in which the European Parliament is involved is responsible for pre-conference planning.
The Member States are helping to organise the United Nations Conference.
As the Presidency has stressed, we shall be taking part as observers.
We have the previous experience of Beijing but that will not prevent continuous and fundamental cooperation throughout this period so that we can arrive at common positions in the fifteen Member States. This will be particularly important for the positions which we will put forward and in giving us the strength to put these positions forward in June.
Mr President, would it be possible to conclude the debate now? This should last about ten minutes.
Otherwise we shall have to stay here for the whole day.
Commissioner, we have to prepare the room for the formal sitting.
That means that we will continue the debate until Mrs Gröner and then break off.
Mr President, in 1995 at the fourth World Conference of Women in Beijing, organised by the UN, 189 countries adopted a platform for action and a declaration in which the participating governments committed themselves to improving the situation of women.
If we examine the results after almost five years and with a view to the June meeting in New York, we should ask ourselves: What progress have we made? What has improved and what has got even worse?
We are witnessing many armed conflicts, violence against women and extreme poverty in many cases.
On the borders of the European Union, we have endured the wars in Bosnia and in Kosovo, which have still not returned to an acceptable state of normality.
There are currently conflicts in Chechnya, in other regions of the Caucasus, in Afghanistan, especially the Panjshir Valley, in Africa and other regions.
Violence and terrorism have been present in Algeria and still no solution has been found to normalise life and allow progress in all areas.
In many parts of the world, women are victims of violence and traditional practices which do not take account of their personal dignity or their human rights.
They are barred from professional life and even access to health care.
The trade in human beings particularly affects women, who are victims of organised mafias and prostitution.
This particularly affects younger women and, unfortunately, does not only happen in the less developed countries, but also in the wealthy countries.
Women are reacting, however.
They are reacting more and more and they are rebelling against those situations which degrade them and marginalise them.
They want to participate in professional life, in political life, in the education of their children and in the training of young women.
Numerous laws have been implemented to protect women and allow them to fight inequality, as well as allowing them to participate in political activity.
Women are reacting: they make use of the laws in their favour, they organise themselves into cooperatives and manage to bring about a form of development which allows them to improve their quality of life.
They want to participate more and more in technological innovations; they have discovered the opportunities offered by organising themselves and establishing associations in their places of residence, in their work-places and in their regions.
They are getting better and better at fighting the old problems and achieving better lives.
However, despite the progress made, we have to continue working so that many women may have more dignified and fair lives.
The meeting in New York, following on from the conference in Beijing, will be a good opportunity to continue working along this line.
I therefore ask for more participation by the Parliament and support from the European institutions so that our presence there may be effective.
Thank you, Mrs Gröner.
The debate will continue after the Commission' s statement. Unfortunately, this will be after the reports by Mr Papayannakis and Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, but before question time at 5.30 p.m.
Does that perhaps answer your question Mrs Theorin?
I must now suspend the sitting for the formal sitting at 11.30 a.m.
As rapporteur, Mrs Theorin would like to ask a further question.
Mr President, although I fully appreciate that we have to break off in order to award the prize to Xanana Gusmão, whom I fully and completely support, I should nonetheless like, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, to ask whether we are to see as discrimination against women the fact that we do not get to continue our debate at three o' clock on the dot, which I think would have been quite the natural thing to do.
I would appeal to you, Mr President, to alter matters in such a way that you also respect the women here in Parliament and in such a way that we might have the final part of our discussion at three o' clock, with the other subjects discussed afterwards.
Mrs Theorin, that was the arrangement from the outset.
The agenda was set under the auspices of a lady President, so certainly no thoughts were voiced in that direction.
We have indeed often had cases in the past where debates had to be adjourned for formal sittings.
It is normal procedure here in this House and, thank God, has nothing to do with the report.
I should now like to suspend the sitting so that the room can be prepared for the formal sitting for Mr Gusmão, the Sakharov prize-winner.
(The sitting was suspended at 11.30 a.m. and resumed at 12.05 p.m.)
Strictly speaking, that was not a point of order but it was apposite in the circumstances.
In my view, when Parliament undertakes a solemn presentation, it is also engaging in a solemn undertaking at the same time.
Mr President, I just want to have it confirmed to everyone beyond all doubt that the debate by the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities concerning questions of equality and the Beijing Action Platform will continue at three o' clock. I want this confirmed so that everyone knows about it, because it was previously intended to continue the debate later.
However, we must inform all Members of the European Parliament of this so that everyone can be here by three o' clock.
Yes, I am told it will continue at 3 o'clock.
Vote
Mr President, on a point of order, I have tabled amendments to this because it is a very unusual procedure.
The same thing happened four years ago, which is why I protested in committee.
It was suddenly placed on the agenda without proper documentation and without the proper procedures, and in this amendment we have asked the Commission to bring it forward three months before the end of the budgetary period so that it can be discussed properly in future.
It is about the Petten reactor in Holland, which we are always assured is for medical research.
However, we discovered when looking at the Commission documentation, which as I said was provided very late - in fact, only this week - that it actually deals with military-grade plutonium and research into that.
That is a very serious topic and we need to be properly informed on such research within the boundaries of the European Union.
I have tabled amendments to that effect.
We were not able to discuss it or to debate it either in committee or in plenary, which is why I am drawing it to your attention now.
Mr President, the Committee on Industry agreed to vote on this item only on condition that the Commission would come to the Chamber and give an explanation as to the procedure, and would give us certain assurances.
I see that the Commissioner responsible, Mr Busquin, is in the Chamber.
Commissioner Lamy gave that undertaking.
We will not vote until we have had a statement from the Commission, because of the very strange procedure being adopted.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I appeared before the Committee on Industry on 6 December to present the results of the Research Council of 2 December. I informed the Committee that the ministers had agreed to a new supplementary research programme up to 2003, for the Petten High Flux Reactor in the Netherlands.
The Euratom Treaty does not provide for Parliament to be consulted. However, in accordance with the interinstitutional agreement between this House and the Council, the latter undertook to formalise its agreement only after having requested Parliament' s opinion.
This is the procedure which the Council has followed and in which the Commission is not involved.
However, in view of its desire to keep Parliament informed, the Commission was careful to send its proposal to this House at the same time as to the Council.
I now understand that the urgency with which this procedure has taken place has not actually allowed Parliament to satisfactorily express its opinion on this proposal.
However, the Commission, as the body which will be responsible for implementing this programme, can only hope for its formal adoption.
The importance of this research reactor in the medical field in recent years cannot be ignored.
The Petten High Flux Reactor has produced 60% of the isotopes needed for cancer diagnoses and therapies in European hospitals and other medical centres.
Over six million diagnoses are made annually in Europe due to this work.
In addition, the Community is conducting medical research in this reactor, particularly on the development of new brain tumour therapies.
Finally, I must point out that this programme is being financed by three Member States only, namely the Netherlands, Germany and France. Community financing is not being used.
The High Flux Reactor also receives major financing from the European pharmaceutical industry.
On behalf of the Commission, I can only hope that Parliament will add its support to the Council' s.
Having said this, I am happy to discuss this matter further with this House at a future date.
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Proposal for a Council regulation (EC) apportioning the quantities of grain provided for under the Food Aid Convention 1995 for the period 1 July 1998 to 30 June 1999 (COM(1999) 384 - C5-0258/1999 - 1999/0162(CNS)) (Committee on Development and Cooperation)
(Parliament approved the Commission proposal)
Procedure without debate (Rule 114):
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0080/1999) by Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council regulation on orphan medicinal products (9616/1999 - C5-0182/1999 - 1998/0240(COD))
(The President declared the common position approved)
- Report (A5-0088/1999) by Mr Miranda, on behalf of the Committee on Development and Cooperation, on the communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council - Effects of the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty on current legislative procedures as at 1 May 1999 in the field of development and cooperation (SEC(1999) 581 - C4-0219/1999) Confirmation of first reading: COM(1994) 289 - C4-0090/1994 - 1994/0167(COD) - former 1994/0167(SYN)
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
- Report (A5-0091/1999) by Mr Chichester, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive amending Council Directive 80/181/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to units of measurement (COM(1999) 40 - C4-0076/1999 - 1999/0014(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0097/1999) by Mrs Pack, on behalf of the Parliament Delegation to the Conciliation Committee, on the joint text, adopted by the Conciliation Committee, on a European Parliament and Council decision establishing the second phase of the Community action programme in the field of education "SOCRATES" (C5-0267/1999 - 1998/0195(COD))
(Parliament approved the joint text)
Report (A5-0084/1999) by Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the decision on the verification of credential following the fifth direct elections to the European Parliament on 10-13 June 1999
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Report (A5-0100/1999) by Mr Virrankoski, on behalf of the Committee on Budgets, on the supplementary estimates to Parliament's budget estimates for 2000
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0086/1999) by Mr Rothley, on behalf of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles and amending Directives 73/239/EEC and 88/357/EEC (Fourth Motor Insurance Directive) (14247/1/1999 - C5-0027/1999 - 1997/0264(COD))
The Commission considers that the common position is a pragmatic and efficient solution which solves in a satisfactory manner the problems of most accidents involving two European parties, that is to say, those which occur inside the European Union.
I should therefore like to sum up the Commission's position on the amendments suggested by Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, as follows:
Firstly, the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 10, 11, 12 and 13, which will contribute to clarifying the common position.
Secondly, the main problems concern Amendments Nos 1, 2, 8 and 9, which are designed to extend the directive to accidents between two European Union parties insured by European Union insurance companies which occur in third countries.
These are only a small minority of cases and, for reasons explained during the debate yesterday, these amendments cannot be accepted at this stage and in their present form.
However, the Commission may be able to consider an extension of the scope of the directive which takes account of considerations expressed during yesterday's debate.
However, any compromise should duly identify the third countries to which the directive can be effectively extended.
Furthermore, any solution would have to avoid a conflict with third countries' legislation.
Thirdly, concerning Amendments Nos 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19, the Commission considers that the draft amendments detract from the legal certainty of the proposal and will work to the disadvantage of the injured parties.
The Commission is therefore regrettably not able to accept them.
Given that conciliation seems unavoidable, the Commission will play a full and constructive role in facilitating a compromise in order to avoid a failure of the directive which would affect all of us and be of considerable detriment to motorists visiting the EU.
Mr President, I would like to draw attention in Amendment No 13 to an important difference between the German text - which of course is Mr Rothley's source text - and the English and I believe also the French versions.
In requiring response to claims, the German text uses the word "unverzüglich", which means "without delay", whereas the English text uses the word "immediately".
That is a significant difference in terms of how the insurance companies have to respond.
I would ask that in Amendment No 13 - and I have discussed this with the rapporteur and he agrees with me - the English text should read "without delay" and not "immediately".
In view of Mr Bolkestein's statement that Amendment No 13 will be accepted by the Commission, I believe this is a very important clarification and I would ask that it be accepted.
As regards the Commission position with respect to the amendments tabled by Parliament I would like to confirm what my colleagues stated during the debate held in this House on Monday evening.
In particular, the Commission can accept in full Amendments Nos 1, 4, 9, 11, 17, 25 and 29.
We can accept in principle the second part of Amendment No 12, provided that the deadline is set at 30 June 2002, and Amendment No 15, on condition that the date for the ban on the use of virgin HCFCs is set at 2008 and that the ban on the use of recycled HCFCs is set at 2010.
We can also accept in principle Amendment No 26, provided that the text specifies that reports be sent to the Commission by 31 March each year, and Amendment No 27, subject to the addition of a reference to the Scientific Assessment Panel under the Montreal Protocol.
Equally, the Commission can accept in principle Amendment No 32, subject to redrafting of the text specifying that any essential use for a substance banned under the Montreal Protocol will also have to be approved by the parties to that Protocol.
The Commission can accept Amendment No 31 in part and in principle, subject to redrafting that makes the text clearer.
The Commission can accept the first part of Amendment No 12 and the part of Amendment No 24 that makes reference to Articles 12, 13 and 14.
Unfortunately I have to say that the Commission cannot accept Amendment Nos 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 30 and 34, the reference to Articles 6, 7 and 11 in Amendment No 24, and the last paragraph of Amendment No 31.
I am very grateful to Parliament.
Thank you, Commissioner, and we are very grateful to you.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0075/1999) by Mr Aparicio Sánchez, on behalf of the Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, on a proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation (EC) on the distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles travelling in Switzerland (COM(1999)35 - C5-0054/1999 - 1999/0022(COD))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Recommendation (A5-0079/1999) by Mr Bodrato, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the conclusion of the agreement concerning the establishment of global technical regulations for wheeled vehicles, equipment and parts which can be fitted and/or used on wheeled vehicles ("Parallel Agreement") (10167/1999 - COM(1999)27 - C5-0073/1999 - 1999/0011(AVC))
(Parliament adopted the decision)
Report (A5-0092/1999) by Mr Busk, on behalf of the Committee on Fisheries, on the proposal for a Council regulation laying down certain control measures applicable in the area covered by the Convention on Future Multilateral Cooperation in the North-East Atlantic Fisheries (COM(1999) 345 - C5-0201/1999 - 1999/0138(CNS))
(Parliament adopted the legislative resolution)
Report (A5-0081/1999) by Mr Valdivielso de Cué, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council regulation (EURATOM, EC) concerning the provision of assistance to economic reform and recovery in the New Independent States and Mongolia (COM(1998)753 - C5-0038/1999 - 1998/0368(CNS))
Mr President, I would like to hear the opinion of the Commission on the amendments which we have just adopted.
Mr President. I should like to table an oral amendment with regard to recital C on my behalf and on behalf of the Members with whom we negotiated this joint motion.
The German version says "in acknowledgement of" .
We move that this be amended to "in the knowledge of" .
That is the only oral amendment which I wish to table.
Mr President, I raised this issue before, at the other sitting.
I do not think that we have the correct procedural conditions for voting on this motion for a resolution.
The Rules of Procedure clearly state, in Rule 115, that texts must be made available 24 hours in advance.
This is a decision for which it will be difficult to achieve a balance.
I draw your attention for example to clause f).
The very broad deadlines which follow do not allow some Members to make suggestions for amendments and I would therefore suggest that we postpone the vote on this resolution until tomorrow and that a new deadline is set, which would be an attempt at a compromise, just until the end of the day, for the presentation of proposals for amendment.
But the reality is in fact that this 24-hour rule for the distribution of texts is not being observed in many compromise resolutions.
On very delicate matters such as this one, I think that this is extremely serious and dangerous.
The point you raise is a genuine matter but the House is sovereign in terms of its own deadlines.
The easiest way to resolve this is to put, firstly, the principle of whether we move to vote, to the vote.
I would like to ask, as politely as possible, if we may interpret this vote as an irregular amendment to our Rules of Procedure?
The House is free to set the deadlines and timetables as it wishes.
No it is not!
There are procedural guarantees that have...
(The President cut the speaker off)
We are not having a debate on this.
We are moving to the vote.
We have a joint motion by five political groups.
(Parliament adopted the joint resolution)
The House has made its decision.
We are not discussing it.
(Mixed reactions)
Mr President, I wish to raise a genuine point of order.
Perhaps you could start by telling me under which Rule you wish to make a point of order.
It concerns Rule 51 and also Rules 180 and 181, Annex 6 and Annex 15 which deal with amendments to the Rules of Procedure.
Mr President, the point of order I am making is based on Rules 142 and 180 of the Rules of Procedure.
As President, I believe you have the right to interpret the Rules of Procedure, but certainly not to contravene them, yet your decisions must be complied with.
However, I have not found any Rule that says that it is the House that can decide to derogate from a Rule in the Rules of Procedure.
You asked for a vote on the failure to comply with the deadlines and this procedure is not provided for in the Rules of Procedure.
Let me read Rule 19 to you: "The President shall direct all the activities of Parliament and its bodies under the conditions laid down in these Rules.
He shall enjoy all the powers necessary to preside over the proceedings of Parliament and to ensure that they are properly conducted."
Mr President, I too should like to make a complaint.
I have been trying to make a point of order for the last ten minutes. It is not right of you to lump all of us sitting up here in the last two rows together and to refuse to acknowledge points of order.
I wanted to point out that the German translation was, unfortunately, lost in the commotion.
It makes no sense to turn the public address system in the House up so loud that we can no longer hear anything over our headphones.
That is my first point.
On my second point, I should like to ask that the seating arrangements be changed in future.
If you look at the seating plan, you will see that the four members of the PPE group up here in the last two rows are sitting between other groups.
It is not a very happy arrangement and it should be changed, especially in view of what has happened here today.
Mr Zimmerling, I would like to respond to your point.
Firstly, regarding your point about seating, that is a decision between the groups.
The Presidency has no say over the seating arrangements in the Chamber.
It is the groups who decide the seating.
On your first point, I agree with you, but it was very difficult to tell between genuine points of order and false points of order.
In that event I decided to try to proceed with the session rather than interrupt it.
But you are right, it is difficult to discriminate between different people sitting together.
I apologise for not noticing you earlier.
Mr President. I should like to endorse what Mr Zimmerling has just said.
In the uproar, I withheld my vote on proposed Amendment No 3 of the last resolution, whereas I actually wanted to vote against it.
I would be obliged if you could take note of that.
We will ensure that is changed.
That concludes the vote.
EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE - Hungary (C5-0190/1999)
Mr President, I asked to take the floor for the explanation of vote on the Hulthén report too.
I did not hear it announced, and in any case, it does not matter, I can have a reply afterwards.
I voted for this attuning of the institutional aspects of the European agreement between the Communities and their Member States on the one hand, and the Republic of Hungary on the other.
I would like to emphasise that this once again shows that, before proceeding to enlarging the European Union, we need to consolidate existing relations between the Member States, even political ones, after which we can consider extending them.
Even here, we find ourselves in the position of having to revise some institutional clauses in order to take into account the enlargement we have already carried out.
Grossetête recommendation for second reading (A5-0080/1999)
Mr President, the Grossetête report on orphan medicinal products responds to an important requirement. It is to be congratulated for providing an immediate although imperfect solution to this problem.
The absence of proper research into these supposedly rare diseases is prejudicial to thousands of patients.
However, this report has several shortcomings.
Firstly, it takes into account only private research and research carried out by the pharmaceutical industry, as if only these were capable of finding therapies to research medicinal products.
No support is given to public research or to non-profit-making bodies which may also be capable of finding therapies.
The second and most important shortcoming is that, although mentioned in the preamble, the text does not provide a solution for one vital problem. This involves research into diseases which are common but for which there is no market for the pharmaceutical industry, in particular diseases affecting people who cannot pay for their treatment.
This is particularly the case with tropical diseases and even malaria and tuberculosis.
No incentives for research into these diseases and no regulations are suggested which is astounding in view of the millions of deaths caused by these diseases.
Parliament and the Commission must consider this issue in the coming months because the lives of millions of people are just as important as the profit of a few businesses.
Mr President, I voted for Mrs Grossetête' s report, just like very many other Members, because it is important to contribute in every way to ensure that cures for rare diseases are found scientifically, even when the pharmaceutical industry is not involved.
Obviously, it is equally important to increase the Community' s commitment to scientific research to find cures for all types of disease.
Indeed, there are many diseases which affect mainly the elderly and pensioners and which, unfortunately, lead to millions of deaths throughout the world: I am referring to respiratory diseases and heart diseases.
We must further increase scientific research into cures for diseases, whatever their nature.
Pack report (A5-0097/1999)
Mr President, I voted for the SOCRATES programme.
The education of citizens in the European Union is very important.
I would like to stress that in this programme it is necessary to provide for those who have completed their compulsory education, therefore workers too, to have access to education, which is important for everybody' s cultural development.
Moreover, I would also like people to take into account the fact that the behaviour of States, which depend on individuals' willingness to learn and, by extension, their culture, has shown that the more educated a population is, the fewer external wars, civil wars and injustices there are in areas where culture has made headway.
I am pleased to see that we have finally emerged from the impasse reached in the discussions between Parliament and the Council on the Socrates II programme. This House has managed to remain very firm on its position during this long conciliation procedure.
The Commission' s basic proposal on the renewal of the Socrates programme dates from May 1998! It has therefore taken over a year and many meetings of the Conciliation Committee to reach agreement on this programme.
Its purpose is to encourage high-quality, general education by supporting cooperation, strengthening mobility and developing the European dimension in all spheres of education. This will supplement the actions of the Member States in this area.
I do not need to remind you of the enthusiasm generated by this programme!
It has developed the educational mobility of hundreds of thousands of European university students and lecturers, headmasters, schoolteachers, pupils and educational decision makers.
In addition, the programme has supported hundreds of transnational projects developing the European dimension and improving the quality of school and higher education, language learning and so on.
The allocation of an additional budget to renew and develop this programme is therefore justified.
This is what Parliament was proposing when it suggested an overall budget of EUR 2 billion for this multiannual programme, whereas the Council was proposing EUR 1.55 billion.
After long negotiations, the Council has agreed to EUR 1.85 billion over seven years.
The Council has also agreed to insert a review clause on the financial consequences of the accession of new Member States. This will allow the financial effects of enlargement to be defined through the codecision procedure, with Parliament having an equal say with the Council on the matter.
We have also agreed on an assessment report to analyse the specific results achieved by this programme.
Furthermore, it is planned to simplify the procedures for selecting projects.
This is essential as it will prevent programmes from being held up for more than two weeks in the event of an objection being made by a Member State.
The original provisions did not specify any time limit which meant that projects could have been delayed for up to two months.
The Conciliation Committee has also achieved a compromise on how the Socrates programme will contribute to the development of a "European dimension in education" rather than a "European educational area" , as Parliament had requested or "educational cooperation" , which was the weaker wording favoured from the start by the Council.
I must say that I deplore the lack of commitment among our ministers.
This is even more incomprehensible as the concept of European citizenship must be developed among our young people and the educational system has a key role to play in this!
The experiences we have had of the Socrates action programme have been extremely good, especially with regard to the Erasmus student exchange scheme.
There have been practical problems with arrangements for those taking up exchange study places that have been organised on an individual basis, problems that we have managed to avoid with the focused student exchange programmes.
We should be encouraging cooperation among the countries of the EU in every possible way in areas that are important for our citizens, by supporting them in their acquisition of the knowledge and information that promotes active citizenship and, what is more, employment.
In my opinion, many European citizens derived immense benefit when Parliament and the Council adopted the conciliation solution.
Hulthén recommendation for second reading (A5-0077/1999)
Mr President, this time I voted against the Hulthén report.
The European Community has the delicate task of deciding how best to proceed as regards making further progress on the one hand and considering the care, health and environment of our great great great grandchildren on the other.
I therefore think that before adopting any measure, we must ascertain, by consulting scientists and experts who are constantly making scientific progress, whether it is right to continue with the ban on certain substances in the future and whether, on the basis of the research carried out by scientists, every step we take really is important.
What I mean is that we have to realise that we are not as good at predicting the future as we unfortunately think we are.
It gives me great satisfaction to welcome this proposal for amending Regulation (EC) No 3093/94 regulating the production and use of substances which deplete the ozone layer.
In my opinion, it was high time for new measures to be adopted to protect the ozone layer given the alarming figures being reported.
The depletion of the ozone layers in the stratosphere is one of the most momentous environmental problems we are facing.
There has been a 6% to 10% decrease in ozone since 1980.
The ozone hole over the Antarctic covered an area of 20 million km2 for over 40 days in 1996, and the depletion of the ozone layer over Scandinavia, Greenland and Siberia reached a record 45% level.
The depletion of the ozone layer has adverse effects on human health by reducing immune defences and increasing skin cancer. It also affects the ecosystem in a particularly worrying way.
We must react as quickly as possible, particularly as we know which substances deplete the ozone layer.
Firstly, there are the hydrochlorofluorocarbons or HCFCs.
These are used mainly in refrigeration technology and air-conditioning systems, as solvents and in the production of insulating foam. Secondly, there is methyl bromide which is primarily used for soil fumigation to combat pests and plant diseases.
It is classified by the WHO as "highly toxic" .
Thirdly, there are the chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs which are now only contained in refrigeration systems but which were originally used in the production of plastic foam, solvents and aerosol propellants. Lastly, there are the halons which are used in fire extinguishing systems, especially in critical applications, such as aircraft, where there are now harmless alternatives.
We must therefore make every effort to eliminate these substances and to use alternatives.
This is the essence of the proposal under discussion today. However, it is not as forthcoming on the timetable as we might have hoped, as noted by the rapporteur.
This is why amendments have been tabled which, in the main, have been rejected by the Council.
The latter' s attitude is truly regrettable.
The targets proposed by the Committee on the Environment can be achieved because there are alternatives.
For example, the Council proposes that the production of the substances in question should not exceed 35% of 1997 production levels by 2008.
Yet, also with reference to 1997 production levels, the Committee on the Environment demands that production levels be reduced to less than 75% by 2001, less than 55% by 2004 and less than 30% by 2008.
By 2014, the Committee demands a level below 15%, whereas the ceiling proposed by the Council is 20%.
I deplore the Council' s lack of ambition.
This is even more regrettable because it is in an area in which not only the protection of the environment is at stake, but more particularly human health!
The fight against the ever-increasing hole in the ozone layer is of major concern to the people of Europe and the world. The studies provide enlightening reading.
For example, ozone has decreased by 6-10% in 20 years. In 1996, the hole covered an area of 20 million km2 for over 40 days and a record depletion of 46% in the ozone layer over Scandinavia, Greenland and Siberia was recorded.
Yet recent studies show that the efforts made to combat greenhouse gases are far from adequate.
There is no point in compiling figures: these issues are crucial and our health and long-term survival are at stake.
Is there any need to highlight the increasing frequency of cancer and the acute immune disorders caused by this depletion of the ozone layer? This is why we unreservedly support this proposal which sets deadlines for eliminating a range of toxic substances.
To be effective, these measures must deal with two concerns.
Firstly, they must be justified in the eyes of the people. This means that the changes which will occur in our daily life with regard to HCFCs, CFCs and halons must be correctly explained.
We must tell people why and how the EU has come to legislate in this very technical area.
Secondly, we must respect the capacities of our enterprises to adapt.
In the main, these have incorporated the environmental dimension into their product development policies.
However, we must pay specific attention to the small and medium-sized enterprises which, due to their smaller size, sometimes have fewer opportunities or facilities than others for diversifying.
With this regulation, enterprises are being confronted by new challenges which they must meet successfully and dynamically.
Aparicio Sánchez report (A5-0075/1999)
Mr President, I refer to the report by Mr Aparicio Sánchez on the distribution of permits for heavy goods vehicles travelling in Switzerland.
Firstly, I would like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Aparicio Sánchez, on the work which he has done on this matter, and I would like to protest at the fact that we have not received the full text of the agreement between the European Union and Switzerland before the section on the distribution of permits, which is only one part of the whole agreement.
The Group of the Greens and the European Free Alliance has rejected the proposal to reduce the number of permits to be distributed amongst the Member States, which had been proposed by the Group of the European People' s Party.
We support the idea that taxes on heavy goods vehicles should be applied in accordance with the real level of contamination and that this revenue should be invested in the railways and combined rail/road transport and, finally, we agree with the idea of distributing the 91% of the permits which are not distributed according to an equal quota amongst all the Member States, not only in accordance with actual transport needs, but also taking into account the origin and destination, for example, of goods which are passing through Switzerland originating from airports and ports such as Hamburg, Rotterdam, Genoa or Marseilles.
I believe that this would make things easier and make the distribution of permits fairer.
Mr President, I have voted against the Aparicio Sánchez report.
The Treaty remains very controversial within Switzerland.
The chance is great that it will as yet be rejected during a referendum.
In Switzerland, the protection of the environment is high on the agenda and rightly so.
This is why, so far they have opted for the transport of goods by rail and for banning large articulated lorries on transit roads.
This is the only way of preventing more and wider motorways from being built in the Alps and of protecting mountain valley air from further pollution as a result of exhaust fumes.
This has also been Austria' s standpoint in the past.
But since it has become a Member of the Union, the Swiss are on their own.
The Union has exerted a great deal of pressure on a small non-Member State and has, in the process, set aside the internal democratic decision taking in that country.
In this way, more scope was created for a transport method which, if the environment is taken seriously, has no future.
Furthermore, the scale of apportionment is being submitted to Parliament before the latter has been consulted on the agreement itself. In short, this proposal is not yet ripe for discussion and has unacceptable consequences for the environment and democracy in Switzerland.
If I were Swiss, I would vote against in the referendum and as a non-Swiss, I will show my solidarity by voting against.
A few years ago, the people of Switzerland decided to control the heavy goods traffic through their territory.
This kind of traffic is now strictly regulated. This has allowed the people in the Alpine valleys to choose real quality of life and is a positive measure for the environment and for the people.
Far from welcoming this effort to protect the environment, the European Union has only one objective in the bilateral negotiations with Switzerland. It wants to make Switzerland repeal its regulations on the pretext that these form an obstacle to free competition and cause European countries to be treated differently.
Actually, the EU' s goal is for profitability to gain the upper hand over ecological and social considerations.
We examined with great interest the proposals aimed at developing alternative, non-polluting means of transport such as piggyback transport.
In its current state, the report comes out firmly in favour of the use of lorries in Switzerland to the detriment of other means of transport.
As we do not approve of this goal, we will vote against this report.
Recommendation Bodrato (A5-0079/1999)
WTO millennium round
.
(EL) Events at the World Trade Organisation Conference in Seattle confirm the important and justified reactions to the way in which globalisation is being promoted.
The European Union, shaken by the resignation of the Santer Commission during preparations, pursued a policy of seeking compromise with the other major powers which was far removed from the claims of developing countries and the concerns of civil society.
The policy of the European Union needs to be fully reviewed so that it comprises and includes: the democratisation of the World Trade Organisation, support for the family farming model, mechanisms for improving the lot of workers in the Third World without damaging their productivity or trading status, environmental protection, the dissemination of technology to poorer countries, action on the international debts of weaker countries and finally, protection of the multi-cultural identity of the world from the American superpower of entertainment.
I can only agree with what has just been said.
The Seattle fiasco was far from being a victory and we can therefore make only a very modest assessment of these aborted negotiations.
Clearly, we should welcome the emergence of popular concerns in the discussions on international trade. This was due in particular to the mobilisation of the NGOs, trade unions and other associations.
Viewed from this angle, the Interministerial Conference in Seattle was a real turning point in the operation of the WTO.
Previous rounds have been conducted with the greatest discretion between well-informed negotiators taking into account only the trading interests of their countries. However, the next round, whose starting date is still unknown, must now be transparent and include in the debates all trade-related issues, namely social standards, the environment, consumer protection and culture.
In order to cope with these changes, the WTO must be reviewed.
It was not actually formed to manage so many areas but was created by nations to serve their own interests.
The new order requires an assurance that the developing and least developed countries will be able to participate fully. This was not the case in Seattle, hence their legitimate discontent.
The good intentions must now be enshrined in the operation of the WTO.
We must therefore properly examine the review of the WTO.
The European Union must play a leading role in future discussions as it is clear that it was able to act as an essential intermediary between the United States of America and the developing countries.
We must also stress the European Parliament delegation' s initiative to create a parliamentary body within the WTO.
This clearly constitutes just one element of the future reform but is one which will allow the characteristic lack of democracy in the WTO to be tackled.
The European Union must also prepare for other negotiations which will start from next year.
It was very well prepared for the WTO discussions and its position remained very consistent. It therefore did not give any ground on the agenda which it wanted to see adopted, namely a broad agenda going beyond the issues of agriculture and services to which the USA wanted it to be restricted.
However, it is on these two issues alone that discussions must start at the beginning of next year in accordance with the provisions of the Marrakech agreements.
We must therefore be very vigilant with regard to these negotiations which look like being difficult.
A final very positive point is that our negotiator, Pascal Lamy, was outstanding in terms of his clear-sightedness, his sensitivity, his knowledge and his authority.
This is an extremely positive sign for the future.
During the pre-Seattle debates, some of us in this House said that Europe should start by demanding an assessment of the previous rounds and a joint diagnosis with the developing countries, before embarking on a new round of liberalisation.
We were told that time was short and that nothing could delay the start of the Millennium Round.
Yet surely we would have saved time by beginning at the beginning. We should have been slightly more modest and slightly more receptive to the opinions of the people who are not particularly convinced by the results of the WTO or by the results of its work, given the ever-widening gap in development between North and South.
Some of us warned against an impenetrable and over-greedy WTO trying to impose its decisions and its choices on everyone, in all areas, according to its own clearly unjustified criteria.
We warned about the refusal expressed by numerous countries in this respect.
Europe should have started by demanding a revision of the organisation and its operation and a clearer demarcation of its area of competence to ensure respect for other international bodies and conventions, on the environment and social rights in particular. We said that the WTO could no longer simply be followed without understanding the need to place the precautionary principle, cultural diversity, social rights, environmental protection and the reduction of gaps in development at the top of the agenda.
We must now consider these issues.
Seattle was a failure for those who wanted to continue charging blindly towards generalised free trade and global merchandising.
It was a victory for the various branches of the popular movement, similar to the one which rejected the MAI.
A powerful protest movement raised its voice against a WTO which, through its rules and structure, has favoured private interests at the expense of collective interests.
The challenge was not against the existence of rules aimed at organising world trade or the existence of a world trade organisation as such. It was against the fact that the WTO claims to be the source of all rules, the arbitrator of all disputes and the supreme judge of tomorrow' s world.
The social movement formed by many NGOs, civil associations and trade unions has demanded a new type of globalisation, one which is not dominated solely by the logic of blind profit with no regard for people and societies.
Europe must support this movement and this new world public opinion in order to promote a different type of world economic regulation. This should be based on the redistribution of wealth and a new balance between markets and democracy and between free trade and cooperation.
Europe must promote a multi-faceted view of tomorrow' s world. It must encourage the formation of large regional assemblies which are economically and politically integrated and which allow the people to control their future, to influence globalisation and not be subject to the domination of mega-multinationals resulting from mega-mergers.
If Europe fails to become involved in this movement, in this refusal to treat the world like a piece of merchandise and in the hope expressed in Seattle, the only option left to the people who reject this destructive globalisation will be to withdraw into nationalism.
In this respect, the differences of opinion which arose on the subject of biotechnologies and which formed a potential challenge to the protocol on biodiversity are even less acceptable as they in no way corresponded to the European mandate and the position adopted by this House.
A new balance between the international bodies must be developed.
A world environmental organisation must be created with real powers.
The ILO must be made the appeal body for decisions involving basic social standards.
UNCTAD is the most legitimate framework for dealing with the issue of direct foreign investments while respecting the democratic right of countries to legislate on environmental and social matters.
As for the WTO itself, it must be brought under the control of the people. NGOs, trade unions and parliamentarians must be able to exercise this control.
Is it not natural and normal, in view of the ideas and beliefs which we all represent in this House, for the Left and the Right not to be able to completely agree on these issues? What is the point of aiming for convergence at any price when this ends up being artificial and is achieved to the detriment of clarity in our positions?
It would certainly have been preferable for all the left-wing groups to try and speak with one voice, while respecting their plurality, and I am convinced that a united European left, whose voice is needed in Europe, could have been formed on these issues.
Yet I regret the choice of a PPE­PSE­ELDR compromise resolution which allows nothing to be learnt from the lessons of Seattle and which prevents preparations from being made for the future.
I will therefore vote against this text.
I voted against the motion for a resolution for the reasons indicated by Mr Désir.
. (PT) We must draw the right lessons from the lack of results at the Seattle Ministerial Summit, which was supposed to fix the agenda for the "Millennium Round" at the World Trade Organisation.
The failure of the negotiations, which we see as something positive, is not simply the result of chance events that were more or less forced by circumstance.
In good time, we stated the need to provide a balance sheet of the effects of the Uruguay Round.
We even suggested a moratorium on the start of negotiations with a view to being able to produce this kind of balance sheet and to produce a subsequent study of the routes that international trade relations are taking.
We were thinking about the obscurity of the methods that have been followed.
The negative consequences for the world' s poorest countries were - and are - particularly obvious.
We were aware of their concerns and finally, the reason behind them.
We were also aware of the growing concern among world public opinion in general about a form of globalisation that creates inequalities and injustices because it is fundamentally determined by the rules of the market and consequently by the interests that control it.
Today, as we are aware of the failure to which I referred, the study, which we have previously suggested, becomes even more imperative, before any negotiations are restarted.
The WTO must be reformed from top to toe.
It has become crucial to move towards a limitation in the power of its rules.
It is crucial that we build a serious and deep alliance with developing countries, an alliance that respects their right to economic and social progress.
It is also becoming inevitable then to envisage a new trade order - in the context of a globalisation based on progress and solidarity - which respects fundamental political rights, social progress and the environment.
The Bonn Conference was held several days before the WTO Conference in Seattle.
The frantic liberalisation of trade orchestrated by the WTO and the major industrialised countries is in total contradiction to the policies needed to protect the environment.
It is not therefore surprising that, as noted by the motion for a resolution, the Member States of the European Union have not adopted the measures needed to meet their Kyoto undertakings while, at the same time, systematic deregulation is underway in Europe.
The European Union must sort out its own problems first. Although we have regulations on local atmospheric pollutants or even products depleting the ozone layer, there is no regulation aimed at limiting emissions of carbon dioxide.
The opening of rail freight to competition which has just occurred goes against the European development policy needed for this means of transport.
GMO (B5-0313/1999)
Mr President, I voted for the proposal for a resolution and I have nothing against putting a label on genetically modified food products.
However, I would like to ask you if it would not be more correct for the European Union, that is, Parliament, to decide that if these genetically modified products are harmful, their production and trade should be banned, or if they are not harmful, they should be allowed on the market.
Putting them on the market with a label amounts to putting the phrase "harmful to health" on cigarette packets, which does not prevent anyone smoking as they do not attach any importance to what is written on the label.
Mr President, on behalf of myself and the other Labour Members, I want to point out why we voted against today.
It was in no way because of the resolution presented to this Parliament by Mrs Jackson, which we fully supported.
But we have to bear in mind that, although this resolution was only advisory, the Commission had specifically said that it would take careful account of what we said in it.
It specifically said that, whilst under the present modus vivendi this resolution could not have any binding impact upon its actions, it would be taken fully into account.
Regrettably, some Members of this Parliament have not taken up the serious responsibility that the Commission has put in their hands and have not acted sensibly, particularly with regard to Amendment No 4.
This contains labelling proposals for products derived from animals that have been fed GMOs.
This is something which is bound to happen to almost all the animal livestock within the European Union and is happening now.
The consequences would be that the vast majority of meat products in our shops would be labelled as having been derived from genetically modified organisms.
This would not give beneficial information to the consumer but simply cause confusion and create an atmosphere in which the whole issue of genetically modified organisms would take a new and more confusing turn.
It seems to me that, whilst Labour Members are fully in support of the resolution, we have to accept our responsibility and acknowledge the maturity of our position.
- (FR) I voted against the draft resolution on the labelling of foodstuffs containing genetically modified organisms, because its sole aim was to give a green light to the Commission to propose a regulation establishing that labelling indicating that GMOs are present would not be compulsory in the event that a food product contains less than 1% GMOs.
This measure would be contrary to the position adopted by the European Parliament on 14 May 1998, which requested that labelling be compulsory when GMOs are present, regardless of their percentage proportion.
Today, the Council is requesting that the Commission relax the rules on the pretext that, in certain cases, industries cannot prevent a minimal accidental contamination of their products by genetically modified material during transportation or processing.
The problem is a real one, but the solution proposed seems to me to be unacceptable, even on a temporary basis.
The true solution is not to tolerate the absence of consumer information, but rather to increase the efforts to separate genetically modified products from conventional products throughout the production process.
I maintain that labelling should be compulsory, regardless of the quantity of GMOs present in the food, even if it is minimal.
If the producer is in doubt, the following statement should be affixed: "this food product may contain genetically modified organisms" .
I must congratulate the members of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, and particularly its chairperson, for this motion for a resolution on genetically modified food labelling.
I share the opinion given in this text that current legislation within the European Union on this particularly controversial subject does not meet the requirements of consumer protection and information.
Given the uncertainties which surround GMOs, we must be extremely vigilant and use the precautionary principle where necessary at all stages of our action.
On the subject of genetically modified food labelling, the Council has adopted Regulation (EC) No 1139/98 on foods and food ingredients which are to be delivered as they are to the final consumer, produced in whole or in part from genetically modified soya beans covered by Decision 96/281/EC, and genetically modified maize covered by Decision 97/28/EC.
The specified foodstuffs are subject to the additional labelling requirements laid down in this Regulation.
However, foodstuffs which contain neither protein nor DNA resulting from genetic modification are not subject to these requirements.
The new Commission proposal aims to fill in these gaps.
It covers the accidental contamination of a product by DNA or protein originating from genetically modified soya or maize crops.
Labelling should become compulsory as soon as a component of a product contains more than 1% of this type of substance.
As indicated in the motion for a resolution, the text proposed by the Commission is far from sufficient.
It has an overly sectorial view of the labelling of foodstuffs containing GMOs whereas this issue actually requires a comprehensive and coherent approach.
The European Commission must submit new proposals on novel foods for animals and on foods without GMOs, in order to allow the consumer to choose with full knowledge of the facts.
I totally support the demand that this regulation should contain a review clause accompanied by a deadline so that the maximum tolerance level of 1% can be lowered within 12 months.
The European Commission does not actually give any justification for this figure.
At a time when European consumers have been traumatised by food scares, we must adopt all the measures which can reassure them and give them the means to control their food.
Their confidence in the European consumer protection policy depends on this.
- (PT) As the motion for a resolution presented by Mrs Jackson states, current legislation in this field is fragmentary and inconsistent.
Consumer protection demands extremely accurate and complete information on food, including information relating to new animal feed and to the labelling of GMO-free products.
Moreover, we need to review all the legislation concerning food and products derived from genetically modified organisms in order to be able to guarantee an advance assessment of the risks, with the aim of protecting consumer health.
Thus, it is crucial that the Commission proposes new criteria for the testing and labelling of all new foods and processing aids derived from genetically modified organisms, paying particular attention to products obtained from animals fed with products containing GMOs.
It is also essential that the figure of 1% as the minimum tolerance threshold can be revised after 12 months in the light of relevant scientific and technical studies and opinions.
- I believe that consumers have the right to know when GMOs are used in products in all circumstances; this pertains not only to food consumed by human beings but also animal feed.
This requires clear labelling in all circumstances.
Chechnya
The European Parliament must condemn the savagery of the Russian military attack on Chechnya, which does not strike a handful of terrorists; instead it strikes tens of thousands of women and children who have been forced from their homes in the harsh conditions of a Caucasian winter.
The European Union should support efforts by the OSCE to stop the bombing, repatriate refugees and find a political solution.
We should, however, stress that the European Union, together with the USA, are not without responsibility because they set the precedent in Kosovo, with their disdain for international organisations and for the peaceful settlement of differences and they gave cause for concern with aggressive enlargement to the east which is reflected in the rise of nationalism and violence within Russia.
Climate change
This is a major issue but I will not at this stage repeat all the arguments used to demonstrate its importance.
Instead I will just express my pessimism. Yet I refuse to give up hope because in life there is always room to act and to change things.
Today I will just mention two points.
Firstly, the pre-eminence of money is not acceptable as this allows countries which have the means to do so to buy the right to pollute from poorer countries!
This is unacceptable, immoral and criminal for the future.
Secondly, at a time when we are making great efforts to reduce pollution from new cars, we should be developing a proactive European programme for rapidly eliminating old cars which are often major sources of pollution, but excluding vintage cars.
In this area too, I believe that where there is a will, there is a way.
- I just want to say that I strongly oppose the Liese resolution on climate change as it was approved by the Parliament.
Nuclear energy has been, is and will be a very important part of decreasing CO2 emissions.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
(The sitting was suspended at 1.38 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
I give the floor to Mr Gollnisch on a point of order.
Thank you, Madam President, I will be as brief as possible.
In a spirit of appeasement and without wishing to cause any controversy, I want to return to the incident which occurred at the end of voting time. This concerned the point of order which I raised based on Rules 180 and 181 of the Rules of Procedure.
What actually happened? A Member pleaded a provision of the Rules of Procedure.
After listening to him, Mr Martin decided to move to a vote of the House.
I am not questioning Mr Martin' s extensive ability to conduct our business swiftly but, like other Members, I am questioning a general practice which seems to completely contradict the letter of our Rules of Procedure and the spirit of the parliamentary institutions.
The Rules of Procedure guarantee the rights of the minority groups.
An amendment should not therefore be made by a majority of Members present but, under the very terms of our Rules of Procedure, according to extremely strict conditions.
An amendment must be made through a proposal which must be discussed in the committee responsible.
This committee must appoint a rapporteur who must produce a report and the amendment, if adopted, can be approved in this House only by a qualified majority consisting of over half the Members.
Even then, this amendment can only apply from the opening of the next part-session.
These guarantees are absolutely essential to ensure the correct operation of this House in particular and any parliamentary institution in general.
I consider that the rather Anglo-Saxon practice, in terms of legal sociology, of submitting perfectly clear provisions of the Rules of Procedure to a vote of a majority of Members present is absolutely detestable.
This is what I would have said to Mr Martin if he had not immediately decided, without even listening to me, that the comment which I wanted to make under Rules 180 and 181 was not a point of order. I must say that he acted in a manner rather lacking in courtesy and which ignored the requirements of democracy, respect for the rights of minorities and parliamentary practice.
In my opinion, Mr Martin contravened the rules governing his position with regard to myself, the Member who spoke previously and other Members who wanted to speak, particularly Mrs Muscardini whom he refused to allow to speak and even threatened with expulsion.
Mrs Lienemann, I wish to protest very firmly but very calmly to you, and to President Fontaine and, I hope, to the Bureau about what I consider to be an abuse of power.
Mr Gollnisch, I take note of your statement which will be examined by the Bureau and which will certainly appear in the verbatim report of proceedings of this House.
Madam President, I would like to draw the Presidency' s attention to the increasingly difficult working conditions as regards Parliament' s computer services.
For two weeks, the computers and their Internet connections have been incredibly slow and, what is more, a lot of Internet sites cannot be accessed.
This is due directly to the system chosen by Parliament' s computer service, that is, to protect the MEPs and screen their access to the Internet, with the upshot being that it has been impossible to connect for a couple of weeks.
Now we have even heard that the Internet connection of the European Parliament' s computer in Brussels will be down from 22 December to 4 January: this means that the Members will, in fact, be prevented from using it, so it will be completely impossible for them to work in their offices in Brussels from 22 December until 4 January.
I think that the Presidency should urgently ascertain the reasons behind this interruption.
I would like to think that such a long interruption can only be caused by very serious, insurmountable problems. However, I fear that it is in fact down to the bureaucratic stupidity of the computer services.
Unfortunately, since there is no other formal way to request verification, I am asking you to do this directly, in this House.
Mr Cappato, your concerns have already been voiced by other Members and even at times by the services.
Your comments will be forwarded to the IT department and the President will also look at this problem with the Bureau.
Beijing Action Platform (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the oral questions to the Commission and Council, on behalf of the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities, on the EU follow-up to the Beijing Action Platform.
Madam President, I want to begin with six words which in Danish all begin with an "m" , as in men.
The six words are: muren [der faldt i Berlin] (the Wall which came down in Berlin), markedet (the market), mainstreaming (mainstreaming), magt (power), mæslinger (measles) and menneskerettigheder (human rights).
These words are used in the following question: did the fact that the Wall came down, that the market took over and that we, as a result, seriously accepted the word mainstreaming in Beijing, mean that men stepped - if not a little into the background - then at least a bit to the side, so surrendering a little power and being willing to take care of the children when they have the measles? Does it also therefore mean that human rights are respected so that women, like everyone else, are not discriminated against and exposed to violence?
The answer is no.
I would call attention to this situation because women such as ourselves in the rich countries of the world, that is to say also in the EU, should always remember that those who make the decisions and so who also decide the fate of our sisters in the developing countries, in Kosovo, in the Balkans etc., continue to be men and that there is therefore a risk of the results of our work and of the programmes as a whole not representing women' s wishes and needs in a balanced way.
We still need a discussion about equality and change in the EU but, above all, there must be active efforts in respect of the developing countries and in connection with aid to Kosovo, the Balkans etc. to ensure that women are part of the process and are also involved in development and reconstruction.
The stability pact, which has a shortage of women in its leadership and in which women generally are not involved, shows that there is still a lot to be done.
There is a great need for the men and women in the European Parliament to support their fellow Members of the European Parliament, together with the NGOs, in their endeavours to become involved at all levels of the societies concerned.
I would end by thanking both the Commissioner, for a speech which demonstrated her commitment, and the President-in-Office of the Council.
Madam President, the political groups are agreed on the main question here, as are those of us in the Committee on Women's Rights.
The "Beijing plus five" Conference is of major importance and the European Union has to be very well prepared to take part in the most effective way possible if it is going to have the impact that we want.
As a Parliament, we owe that to all women in the European Union and beyond - in fact throughout the world - in view of all the commitments that were made before Beijing and following it.
We need very clear guarantees that we, as Members of Parliament, will be fully involved and be taken seriously in the planning of the pre-conference before the New York meeting.
As Members of Parliament we are the direct democratic link with the people of the European Union, and the Committee on Women's Rights itself is a direct link with many women's organisations and representatives.
As was said earlier, the preparations for Seattle were a good example of the way this could be done, and I hope we will achieve this.
Mr President, we have in fact observed that, everywhere in the world, women are the subordinated sex.
In view of this fact, this Beijing Action Platform was created.
Here in the European Community too, it has been said that the overarching goal is to promote equality between the sexes in all political programmes and areas of policy.
Scarcely a year ago, we were discussing a report monitoring how the concept of gender mainstreaming had been implemented specifically in the institutions of the EU.
We noted on that occasion that the Beijing Action Platform says that a series of measures must be taken which ought to lead to fundamental changes.
We ascertained in February that this had not happened.
It was noted that there must be clearly defined goals and mechanisms of accountability, but we do not have those either.
It was noted that women ought to be actively engaged in applying and following up the Action Platform. Nor is that happening, either.
It was observed that a proper application of the Platform would also demand changes to the inner dynamics of institutions and organisations, including to such values, forms of behaviour, rules and routines of theirs which damage the position of women.
When we in the Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities then looked at this issue, we saw that a lot of small steps forward had been taken in all the institutions of the European Union and that none of these had changed anything overall.
Now we are to see how the Beijing Action Platform has been implemented.
Unfortunately, the European Union is not going to be able to demonstrate any major positive successes, not even if we were to send a delegation of Members of the European Parliament.
What we are going to do is to go to the conference and affirm what was already affirmed in 1995 in Beijing.
I think that is incredibly sad.
We from this Chamber urged the Commission at that time to give priority to overhauling all its advisory and decision-making structures, so as to obtain a proper balance between women and men, and to encourage the Member States to implement fully the Council' s recommendation of 2 December 1996 to the effect that there should be a proper balance between women and men in the decision-making process.
Obviously, this exhortation still stands.
We also urge the Commission to pursue, and to work more intensively on, its strategy aimed at achieving a proper balance between women and men on the staff.
Obviously, this exhortation too still stands.
We urged the EU' s institutions to submit plans for achieving a situation in which equality was practised and pursued in their own particular activities.
This is also a demand from this Chamber which still holds.
To put it briefly, we have not taken more than the tiniest step forward.
This is something we regret but, if we are now to go to New York, we hope that we shall be able to obtain good advice from people there - that is to say, sisters from other countries - and see if anything positive has happened anywhere else.
Madam President, it is regrettable that the EU' s Conference is only taking place after the regional conferences in Europe, especially when it was unfortunately decided at these conferences to only discuss four of the twelve themes included in the Beijing Action Platform.
The four themes were violence, economics, decision making and institutional mechanisms, and this means that one of the most important themes, namely health, will only be discussed at the EU' s Conference.
I therefore hope that, in its preparations for the conference, the Commission will focus strongly upon this subject, and especially upon the issue of reproductive health.
In the Beijing Action Platform, women' s health was singled out as an area in which there is cause for critical concern.
Reproductive health was linked with human rights, while it was stated clearly that, for women, human rights include their right to have control over, and freely and responsibly make decisions about matters related to their sexuality, that is to say to their sexual and reproductive health, too.
The statement from Beijing goes further than that which was employed in Cairo in connection with reproductive rights.
There is a risk, moreover, that this hard-won victory may be jeopardised in the course of the "Beijing plus five" process, even if the pre-conference planning committee has given an assurance that the Beijing Action Platform is not open to renegotiation.
We in the EU ought to be involved in ensuring that this is in fact the case.
The European Parliament' s representative group concerned with reproductive health has repeatedly called attention to the connections that exist between the fight against poverty, women' s equality and reproductive health.
We have emphasised that reproductive health is in fact a prerequisite for the fight against poverty and is to be conceived holistically.
It is also necessary to tackle the question of HIV/Aids.
The proportion of HIV-infected women and, therefore, of the number of cases of the virus being passed from mother to child are steadily increasing.
I therefore hope that the Commission can today assure me that reproductive health will be given a prominent place at the EU' s Conference and that, in one way or another, the European Parliament will be able to participate in the New York Conference, just as it did in the arrangements for the WTO negotiations where we were in fact represented.
Madam President, Beijing 1995 was a special event.
Never before did so many countries, NGOs and journalists take part in a UN Conference.
The Beijing Declaration and the Beijing Action Platform were adopted by 192 government delegations.
The Beijing Action Platform serves as a major catalyst worldwide and in all areas policies have been tightened up, reviewed and renewed.
Despite this, the problems have not yet been solved and the emancipation policy has not reached completion.
In the ' 70s, the European Community and the United Nations placed the topic of 'women' on the map for national governments.
Attention has now waned.
It is therefore up to Europe to generate renewed interest.
I hope that we can accelerate implementation with the same energy and power which typified Beijing at the Beijing plus five Conference in June 2000 in New York.
I strongly urge the EU to maintain the momentum and keep the interests of women at heart internationally.
In this context, I would like to raise the following questions, Madam President.
Firstly, the PPE deems the importance of NGOs and of women' s movements extremely high.
They carry a special significance and strength by their activities at grass-roots level.
Decisions do not take effect automatically.
There are always inspectors required to ensure that decisions are transposed into policy and that policy is adopted.
NGOs play a key role in the mobilisation of the political will to transpose policy.
In most countries, the national emancipation support networks are also formed by the government.
Hence my question: how does the Commission see the role of NGOs, including women' s movements, and the concerted action between these and the national government networks?
Secondly, a European preparatory meeting had been planned for December 1999.
This has now been postponed to February 2000.
There is a great deal of confusion about this at the moment.
The confusion which pervaded the previous preparatory conference should be avoided.
Hence my second question: could the Commission indicate which NGOs will be invited and what will be expected from them?
Thirdly, there is an ECE Conference in Geneva in January. The results of Beijing will once again be tabled there.
Could the Commission give an indication as to what the EU' s input will be in this ECE Conference in relation to the Commission' s opinion of how much we have achieved, what hurdles still need to be overcome and what action is required?
Finally, my fourth question concerns one of the results of Beijing that agreements have been reached regarding gender mainstreaming.
This means the inclusion of emancipation objectives and the implementation thereof in regular policy.
My question is: can the Commission indicate what it intends to do to 'mainstream' the results of Beijing and those of New York in the fullness of time, in European policy?
Madam President, Commissioner, without doubt the fifth UN Conference on women held in Beijing was an important step on the road towards equality of the sexes, culminating as it did with the surprising agreement by the representatives of all the UN countries to a joint worldwide platform for action.
Five years on, we need to take stock, evaluate any progress or reversals which have been made in the twelve areas of action, take any corrective action needed and lay down policies which will allow us to achieve the objectives established in Beijing.
The European Union, or rather the European Parliament, must not just be present during this procedure; it must make a decisive contribution, both to the evaluation of the five years of action and to future plans.
It is a fact that, in comparison with other parts of the world, such as Afghanistan and Kuwait, where millions of women are still deprived of fundamental human rights, women in Europe lead a privileged existence.
It is true that a great deal of progress has been made in all areas in the Union and, if we look back at our achievements during the 20th century, we should perhaps be celebrating the huge victories which women have achieved.
To mention just one of the many victories: education, where women surpass men, both in numbers and in achievement, at almost every university in the European Union.
The European Parliament and the Union have made a decisive contribution in promoting equal opportunities.
The application of the Amsterdam Treaty, action programmes and mainstreaming have strengthened European policy significantly.
However, despite the progress made, serious problems of inequality and discrimination against women still need to be resolved: higher unemployment, violence, sexual exploitation and, above all, the exclusion of women from the centres of policy and decision making.
In view of the forthcoming UN Conference in New York, we need to speed up the European Union' s preparations if we really want to make a fundamental contribution to pre-conference planning and to the conference itself which is commensurate with the prestige of the Union.
I was pleased to hear the Commissioner and the Presidency representative this morning express their intention and commitment with regard to the organisation of the European conference and participation in the pre-conference planning for the Beijing plus five Conference in New York.
Madam President, I am to give the speech which should have been made by my fellow Member, Geneviève Fraisse. She joins the protests made by Mrs Theorin this morning.
I am pleased that the European Commission feels responsible for following up the Beijing Conference.
Yet we need precision in order to ensure effectiveness.
The same applies to the situation of women today, as much in terms of equality - education, citizenship and employment - as freedom - habeas corpus, the fight against violence and the trading of women.
We must therefore be precise.
In order for this European meeting to be successful and not just the scene of some fine words, the following conditions must be met.
A European conference may be held in parallel with a UN meeting if, and only if, this works to produce an internal European policy and demonstrates a common determination within the UN dynamic.
The Finnish Presidency must be thanked for having identified nine indicators for assessing the access of women to decision making.
Would it not be judicious to generalise these quantitative methods? Gender-based statistics must be provided in all areas.
Additional indicators must also be identified to measure the situations of inequality in fields other than politics.
Could we not also comprehensively assess the means which Europe, as such, has had for several decades to develop equal opportunities, particularly in terms of compatibility between family and professional life, and to combat all violence against women? Without any common indicators, no serious assessment can be made of the measures taken by the Member States.
The conference in February 2000 could have this specific and formative policy as its objective.
The future enlargement of Europe, confirmed by the Helsinki conclusions, poses the problem of the applicant States respecting the requirements of developing equal opportunities and promoting women' s freedom.
In these countries as elsewhere, the role of the NGOs, particularly since Beijing, has become indisputable.
The Commission must be a capable participant in the work undertaken by these associations.
Madam President, the 1995 World Conference on Women has given the worldwide fight for freedom and equality for women a shot in the arm.
I would like to briefly outline three milestones.
Firstly, the right to sexual self-determination has been recognised as an inherent component of the human rights of women.
Secondly, it has been established that the argument of cultural identity cannot justify the on-going suppression of women.
Thirdly, it has been stated that women' s policy is not about fancy things for women and a place in the sun, rather the gender dimension should be added to all policy-making decisions.
These achievements, most of which I have listed, must be translated into concrete action.
National governments carry most responsibility here and their commitment must be assessed. But hang on.
What about the European Union?
How is the common position on the follow-up to the World Conference on Women determined? How can the European Parliament carry out its task in this respect?
The conference which the European Commission will organise next February can only help form opinion, it cannot determine policy.
Under the rules of the Common Foreign and Security Policy, under which, indeed, the Member States coordinate their action in international organisations, initiative and power of decision lie entirely with the Council, in practice a small group of specialist officials who have the natural tendency to focus on their own mutual problems.
I dare say this because I belonged to such a set-up myself for years, namely during the Beijing period.
Such bodies move in the twilight zone of secret diplomacy.
Openness and political responsibility, however, should be top of the agenda.
This is why I ask the Presidency, by referring to Article 32 of the Treaty on European Union, to brief Parliament as fully as possible, but mainly also to consult Parliament in time.
"In time" in this case means in any event before the so-called "preparatory conference" , to be held between 3 and 17 March in New York, because we are probably too late already for the ECE Conference in January.
The Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities of this Parliament has the explicit responsibility to monitor the follow-up and implementation of international agreements, such as the Beijing Action Platform.
This Committee cannot wait to give its input.
It would preferably do this on the basis of tangible, current information and in a constructive dialogue with the Council and the Commission.
Talking to a brick wall is, after all, not very productive.
This is why I somewhat regret that, because of the strange set-up of this debate, we are having to make do without the Finnish Presidency.
Madam President, here, at the end of the debate, I just want to say that I do not think it has been negative but that it has been very realistic indeed.
It has been clear-sighted, and we have shown where the problems lie.
There is a clear consensus between the Commissioner, who is dealing with these questions, and Parliament' s Committee on Equality.
The Commissioner has emphasised Parliament' s position and Parliament' s important role and said that the action plans are inadequate, that these must be developed further and that a clear political stance is required.
I believe we should see this as being very important indeed.
May I just warn against the Commission and the Council confining themselves to just four areas when they now produce the concrete programme following the Beijing Conference.
I say this after 20 years' experience of the United Nations.
As soon as you begin to unpick any of the twelve points we laid down in Beijing, you have also begun to dismember the whole of the Beijing document.
It is therefore incredibly important that the EU should have a very clear policy and that all twelve areas of policy carry due weight.
It is all twelve areas which have to be established and for which action plans have to be prepared, and not merely three of these.
Otherwise, the whole of our Beijing document might be forfeited.
I want to say as well that we have also quite rightly demanded that it should be possible for the Committee on Equality and the women in Parliament to also be present at the conference which is to take place in New York in June.
Just as representatives from Parliament participated in the WTO Conference, the women in Parliament ought also to be involved in this one.
Allow me finally to turn to the men here. Do not see this as being something especially for the women.
Do not look askance and with irritation at the fact that women are raising those problems which, right around the world, are problems faced by women.
See it as an important task for you, as our male colleagues here in Parliament and as our male colleagues in the Commission, to accept your responsibility and ensure that these questions are raised to such a high level that they also become real issues in the national parliaments and the national governments and in the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council.
Madam President, I should like to thank all the lady MEPs who took part in this debate.
There is no doubt that the Beijing Conference continues to have a widespread effect, as we see every year.
I think that, when we make our first evaluation in June, apart from the negative conclusions which we will draw on the basis of statistics, numbers and data on the situation of women at worldwide level, we shall also draw some positive conclusions on several developments worldwide.
I shall try to reply specifically to all the questions which have been asked.
Following the Beijing platform and the commitment of the 189 countries to the platform, there have been three levels of action as far as our region, the European Union, is concerned: first, at Member State level, secondly, in the form of political strategy at European Union level and, thirdly, at the level of European Union policy vis-à-vis developing countries.
Conclusions have already been drawn at all three levels and the planning will shortly be presented.
All three are particularly important.
However, I wish to stress, as certain speakers have said, that the commitments to the Beijing platform are mainly binding on the Member States, they are mainly binding on governments, with the European Union coming in at a second level with a horizontal strategy.
What are we doing and what procedures have been programmed? We have three events on the agenda before the conference in June: the Economic Commission for Europe, which will meet in January, the European conference on the Beijing issues, which will be held in February, and the meeting of the Women' s Committee of the UN, which will be held in March.
We must combine these events in the best possible way if we are to have an efficient presence in June.
First, as far as the regional conference is concerned, it is most important that we arrive at specific, unanimously accepted results which will be discussed and taken into account at the February meeting of the European conference.
Who is attending the European conference in February? First, the European Parliament, of course, then the non-governmental organisations and, as the question was asked, allow me to say here that the women' s movement and non-governmental organisations have played, and continue to play, an exceptionally important role and have acted as a real driving force behind the policies formulated at European level, together of course with various services from the Commission, the Member States and the Presidency.
During the preparations - you already know about the committee to which I referred - the twelve areas of interest selected at Beijing will be discussed.
As Mrs Theorin pointed out, we are not able at this stage to select four or five areas, given that we are required by the Beijing platform to give equal priority to the twelve areas but we could, of course, focus our attention on the fifth action programme when we discuss the selection of priorities at European level.
These twelve individual areas of interest will be examined in the following groups under the general heading of "mainstreaming" : gender issues in development policy, in other words, how sexual equality intervenes in all cooperation agreements between the European Union and developing countries, the involvement of women and human rights.
There will be a horizontal and vertical link between these groups and the twelve Beijing areas of interest.
The results and the extent to which we agree and take a common European Union position at the June conference is vitally important.
Since certain parallels have been drawn with Seattle, I should like to remind the House that the institutional framework is not the same, nor does the Commission have the same institutional role in New York and at the Beijing Conference as it did in Seattle. However, provided that the political will is there, nothing prevents the Presidency, the Commission and the European Parliament from collaborating and joining forces during the six months up to June.
I, of course, give my word that the Commission will not only collaborate continuously and provide a continuous flow of information but will also accept proposals and studies from the European Parliament up to the very last day. I believe that by June we will be able to find the final formula which, as you know, is not based on a Commission decision or even really on a Council decision, because it is a matter which comes under the auspices of the United Nations Organisation and participation is at national level.
However, I repeat that there is the political will and the political conditions are in place for us to proceed jointly, given that we have totally concurring views on numerous matters.
Finally, I should like to make one last comment: movements, political initiatives and campaigns can often play an extremely important role.
I would like to single out the last initiative of the Women' s Committee on the strategy against violence.
It is interesting how a simple movement, a simple idea can take on huge proportions and catch the public imagination.
I think that the European Parliament could act in this area and the Commission is ready and waiting to support such campaigns or initiatives at worldwide level, provided that they relate to the matters to which you have already referred.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place on Thursday at 10 a.m.
Ban on British beef and veal
The next item is the Commission statement on the follow-up to the French Government' s decision to uphold the ban on British beef and veal.
I would like to begin with a word of apology on behalf of my colleague David Byrne.
Unfortunately, owing to the cancellation of the morning flight from Brussels to Strasbourg due to exceptionally adverse weather conditions, he is not able to be here in person.
I will therefore speak to you instead on the important issue of the Commission action in relation to the continued refusal of France to lift its ban on imports of British beef.
Commissioner Byrne will, however, be arriving in Strasbourg later this afternoon, and will be in a position to take any questions when he speaks on the draft regulation on the labelling of beef products.
He will also be happy to meet interested Members of Parliament individually or as a group to discuss the issue further.
In these unavoidable circumstances I am only in a position to deliver Commissioner Byrne's script on his behalf.
The Commission yesterday, as you are already aware, adopted a decision to issue a formal reasoned opinion to the French authorities over their continued refusal to lift their national restrictions on imports of British beef.
The French authorities have five working days to reply to this letter.
In the absence of a decision to lift the ban, the case will be filed with the European Court of Justice.
The failure to resolve the dispute in an amicable manner is a huge disappointment to the Commission.
I think it fair to add that it is a disappointment to all the parties concerned, given the huge efforts that went into finding a solution without recourse to legal action.
The Commission has always made clear its preference to solve this dispute without legal intervention.
This approach is in the interests of all parties.
I would add that it is especially in the interests of the parties most affected - British beef producers.
The reality is that legal action to lift the ban is likely to be a lengthy process, very much a second-best solution as compared to an amicable agreement.
The Commission's efforts focused on establishing that the original decision to lift the ban on UK beef posed no threat to public health.
The decision was based on a series of important safeguards which were firmly rooted in scientific advice.
They also followed the orientations of the European Council in Florence in June 1996 on the procedures, timetable and safeguards required to lift the ban.
Unfortunately, the French authorities, on the advice of their National Food Safety Authority, AFSSA, were still unprepared to lift their national restrictions.
The Commission took the precaution of referring to its Scientific Steering Committee these concerns for an opinion on whether they called into question the decision to lift the ban and the terms of the date-based export scheme in particular.
The unanimous opinion of the SSC that there is no need to review the decision to lift the ban on UK beef exports was hugely reassuring in this respect.
Unfortunately, however, this reassurance did not prove sufficient to allow the French authorities to lift their ban.
Efforts have subsequently focused on additional reassurances and clarifications on the provisions of the date-based export scheme.
These efforts led to the agreement between the UK, France and the Commission on a memorandum of understanding on 23 November, which provided the reassurances and clarifications required.
It is fair to say there was an expectation that this memo would prove to be the key to lifting the French embargo.
The opinion of AFFSA on the memo, however, again did not prove sufficient for the French authorities to lift the ban.
On 9 December they officially informed the Commission of this decision.
This, in turn, has led the Commission to adopt a reasoned opinion yesterday.
There have been criticisms that the Commission's efforts to resolve the dispute in a diplomatic manner were a waste of time and effort.
The argument, instead, is that the Commission should have immediately resorted to legal action.
These criticisms are unfounded, and are indeed dangerous.
As I pointed out earlier, they are especially contrary to the interests of the most affected party, British beef producers.
These criticisms also ignore the very determined action the Commission has taken to uphold its treaty obligations to ensure compliance with Community law.
In effect, the Commission has adopted a carrot and stick approach: the carrot was the very intensive effort to bring the parties together and to get them to agree a solution through negotiation.
The stick, on the other hand, was to take action when it was clear that these efforts were not proving sufficient.
It is useful to bear in mind that the Commission's letter of formal notice issued on 16 November allowed a period of only two weeks for reply, rather than the normal two months.
Similarly, the reasoned opinion adopted yesterday also allows five days for reply rather than the normal two months.
In effect, therefore, there has been no slippage in the legal calendar in ensuring compliance with the decision to lift the ban on exports of UK beef.
The intervening period has also served to provide much-needed reassurances and guarantees that the original decision to lift the ban was soundly based.
In particular it has established that the scientific basis for lifting the ban was sound.
I am sure that if we are ever to find an amicable solution to this dispute, which I hope can still be found, it will have been due to the efforts which took place over the past several weeks.
Thank you for your attention.
Once more let me apologise on Commissioner Byrne's behalf that he is not here in person, but he will be available to take questions later.
Thank you, Commissioner.
Madam President, I should like to make a point of order and table a motion.
We in the European Parliament have asked time and again for the debates held here to be held in the presence of the competent Commissioner.
We understand that Commissioner Byrne has been held up by transport problems and that Commissioner Monti has read the Commission' s opinion.
However, I consider it absolutely necessary that the competent Commissioner should hear what Members have to say before being given the opportunity to reply, since otherwise the debate which we wish to hold does not in fact take place.
I should therefore like to move that we adjourn this debate and begin the debate on competition, as suggested, so that the Members concerned with the beef question can speak in the presence of the competent Commissioner.
I therefore move that this debate be adjourned now and that we proceed to the next item on the agenda.
Madam President, I should like to add to that.
I thank Mr von Wogau for his motion on a point of order.
We have learned that the Council passed a decision yesterday evening. I deliberately repeat: passed a decision to postpone labelling for one year, before Parliament has formed an opinion or made a decision on the matter.
I move that the Council representative also be present at the debate.
Madam President, it distresses me greatly to have to contradict Mr von Wogau and it perhaps distresses me even more to have to contradict Mr Goepel, but let me take the formal part first.
The formal part is that we agreed and decided on the agenda this morning.
Mr von Wogau, you are a great stickler for procedure, even more so than I. I am perhaps on occasions somewhat more relaxed, which is why I think it is important that we keep to this agenda.
The second argument is that, apart from the fact that Mr Byrne will probably arrive at any moment, we should be clear Mr von Wogau - and this is a fact, as you well know - that nothing which we say today will come as a surprise to Mr Byrne.
We can always ask Mr Byrne questions afterwards.
As to the first part of what you said, Mr von Wogau, I would ask you to have a little respect for Members' engagements, i.e. the engagements of those of us who have perhaps put off other things in order to be present here and the engagements of other Members who have not yet had time to prepare for a different debate.
Now to what Mr Goepel said.
Mr Goepel, as to what the Council is doing, allow me to say to you quite plainly that that is the second part of the debate which is to follow, namely the report by Mr Papayannakis on beef labelling.
What the Council is doing is a matter of indifference to me.
This Parliament has the right of codecision on this proposal.
This Parliament has the right to decide alone.
If the Council thinks it should be present, fine.
If the Council does not think it should be present, so much the better, because we shall take the decision here which we consider to be right; if necessary, we may even go to the European Court of Justice and then decide.
Then we shall consider how to deal with the Council.
I do not need a Council representative here in order to tell them that I think they are undemocratic.
We can say that afterwards in the debate.
I think it is important that we proceed with the agenda as it now stands.
Madam President, I am more distressed to have to disagree with Mrs Roth-Behrendt than she is to have to disagree with Mr von Wogau.
There are precedents for delaying the debate for some period of time.
Commissioner Monti will remember that on one occasion in the last Parliament he had to come in when a debate had already begun, because of transport problems.
These are problems endemic in our meeting in Strasbourg in the way we do.
It is a good week for this point to be brought to our attention.
I would like to support the suggestion that this full debate takes place in the presence of Commissioner Byrne.
I mean no disrespect whatsoever to Commissioner Monti, but Commissioner Byrne has been the honest broker in this terrible dispute from day one.
We need to have him here when we attempt to reach some conclusion on it.
I too believe that we should not hold this debate without the relevant Commissioner here.
It is far too important.
We want the debate settled, we want the Commissioner to act, but we want him to act having heard all of the debate and not on the basis of information passed on second or third hand.
We must adjourn the debate until the Commissioner is here.
Madam President, I would just like to say that this question of the labelling of beef, in political terms, is one of the most sensitive issues in relation to agricultural and agro-food policy.
Therefore, it is unthinkable to hold a debate on such a delicate issue without the Commissioner responsible being present.
It makes no sense!
It is a question of respect for the issue and for European consumers.
I support the appeal made by Mr von Wogau but I would also like to elaborate on the request made by Mr Goepel, because he has made a very interesting constitutional suggestion, namely, that the representative of the Council should speak in connection with the Papayannakis report.
I would like to support that and I hope that the Council, which, under the Finnish presidency, has professed to be as open, transparent and communicative as possible with the Parliament, takes up this suggestion.
Last night, I understand, the Agriculture Council not only adopted a position on the Papayannakis report resolution, which it was rather beforehand in doing - but it also, I believe, altered the legal basis of the text on which Mr Papayannakis drew up his report.
We would like a full explanation of that, but it makes sense to have it from the Council, which carried out this decision, rather than from the Commission, which was, I suppose, only a spectator.
So please could we put off this debate on the French beef ban, and could we also make sure that the Council speaks in the Papayannakis report?
Madam President, it is never too late, as they say.
I have here the text of a decision made by the Agriculture Council.
The Council is therefore making decisions and, apparently, deftly transferring the responsibility for these to Parliament' s Committee on the Environment.
This is very interesting.
We had a rather confused debate in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and we are having this debate here today.
The Council claims that, as soon as we wanted to make amendments, it distanced itself and went down another route, in league with the Commission.
It even says in its decision that it believes that the Commission has another proposal to make which will circumvent Parliament and lead the Commission and Council to decide on their own.
All this appears in the document which I have here.
We clearly need an explanation because you could say that the debate on my report is pointless if the Council is allowed to decide what it wants.
The Council should therefore be here.
I am not sure whether we have the power to force its presence.
The possibility of an agreement certainly exists, but we need the Council here in order to find out.
I have a proposal to make.
I have just learnt that Commissioner Byrne will not be here for at least another half an hour.
We therefore have two options. We either continue the debate started in his absence or, and this is what I suggest, we adjourn the item we have started to discuss until 9 p.m.
I will put this proposal to the vote and everyone must decide with full knowledge of the facts. Either we keep to the agenda or we resume at 9 p.m. to debate the Council' s statement.
Mr Papayannakis, your report will, of course, follow this statement which will therefore inevitably be later this evening.
Madam President, you are holding my nightlife to ransom! However, as it is for a good cause, I accept.
I am only suggesting 9 p.m. because it is traditional. I believe the Rules of Procedure state that when a joint discussion involves three reports, as is the case with the von Wogau, Rapkay and Jonckheer reports, we must continue to the end of the discussion.
I am in no way trying to cut short the debate, but I must ensure that our Rules are respected.
As my proposal seems to have caused as many reactions as if I had not made one, I suggest that we resume the points of order.
Madam President, I take exception to the fact that a Commissioner arrives late for a meeting in Parliament, never mind where it takes place.
We did not choose to be here in Strasbourg.
In my opinion, if he is half an hour late, the debate should start then.
I find it in any case unacceptable that he is late.
I would like to address my second point to Mrs Roth-Behrendt of the socialist group who referred to the fact that we should start as we would all be making similar points in any case.
I am from the Group of the European People' s Party.
We are not a record which you play over and over again.
We hold original views and our input will bear witness to the fact that our ideas are clear and that we act on current situations.
Madam President, I fear that we may waste a great deal of time on this debate on a point of order.
I moved, quite clearly, to adjourn this debate and to resume it after the debate on competition.
We have heard at least one speaker in favour and one speaker against.
We know the arguments. I should now like to move to put it to the vote.
Madam President, I raised a point of order some time ago.
According to the original agenda, the competition reports should now follow.
The order of this agenda was specifically amended by the Conference of Presidents in order to give Commissioner Byrne the opportunity to attend.
That was why the original agenda was amended on Monday.
As he is not yet here, I urge the House to deal with the competition reports.
Commissioner Monti has been here for some time. He can deal with Mr Byrne' s reports in this regard.
I therefore support the motion.
Ladies and gentlemen, I must inform you that it was the Conference of Presidents which suggested the change to the agenda.
This change was approved by Parliament on Monday.
It is therefore as a result of this vote that we have this agenda for today.
I think if we go on for a few more minutes then these points of order will get Mr Byrne here in time for the debate.
If we have to adjourn and take up another subject, we should have an urgency debate on transport to Strasbourg!
It is quite intolerable that this House should be messed around by Commissioners who are unable to come here to respond to debates, particularly when, as we have already heard, the agenda has been changed to suit their convenience.
That is not acceptable, and with the greatest respect to Commissioner Monti, he is not in a position to answer this debate because, for example, when I asked Commissioner Byrne in the Committee on the Environment whether it would be possible not to waste a lot of time on legal procedures but simply go straight to a legal injunction, he said that would be possible.
That was not in the statement we heard from Mr Monti just now.
I want Mr Byrne to be here to explain the position with regard to injunctions.
That is not possible if he is not here.
We should adjourn - if we have to move beyond the competition debate that is fine, but we should not have to wait until 9 o'clock because of the incompetence of whoever is responsible for the travel arrangements of Commissioners.
Madam President, if this is a question of legal competence, then Mr Monti is as competent as Mr Byrne to give the Commission' s collectively decided opinion.
If this is a question of scientific competence, then Mr Byrne is as incompetent as any scientist who knows nothing about prions.
We know nothing about these particles.
If this is a question of good sense, then it involves French consumers not wanting the few kilos of British meat in question and discussions will make no difference.
So this must be a question of psychoanalysis.
The British Members are upset.
The quicker they are able to vent their feelings, the quicker we can start the psychotherapy by listening to them and the quicker they will be able to calm down.
We should therefore start the debate straightaway in order to calm them.
Mr Byrne has left the airport - I assume that is Strasbourg airport - and is on his way here.
Therefore under Rule 146, 32 Members can set the specific time and date when this debate should resume.
I am therefore proposing that the debate should resume at 4.45 p.m. today, and I would ask 32 Members to support this.
If they do, then that ends the matter until 4.45 p.m.
I suggest that you decide on the proposal which has just been made.
Do 32 Members support this proposal?
(Parliament gave its assent) (The sitting was suspended at 4.15 p.m. and resumed at 4.45 p.m.)
Ban on British beef and veal (continuation)
The next item is the continuation of the debate on the Commission statement on the follow-up to the French Government' s decision to uphold the ban on British beef and veal.
Mr Langen, I acknowledge my mistake.
You can put it down to the fact that this is the first time I have acted as Vice-President.
I should have put it to the vote.
However, it appears that the House would probably have confirmed the decision which was taken.
Nevertheless, I apologise for this flouting of the Rules of Procedure and I will try not to do this again.
Commissioner Byrne considers that, as his statement was read by Commissioner Monti, we can immediately start the debate at the end of which he will answer any questions.
Madam President, it is now 18 weeks since the European Commission ordered the lifting of the ban on British beef; 18 weeks during which time France and Germany have prevaricated while blatantly defying the law; 18 weeks during which naive attempts at appeasement by the Commission and the hapless UK government have been rebuffed in circumstances which have caused deep humiliation to both; 18 weeks during which British beef farmers have continued to suffer catastrophic losses, exacerbated by the titanic efforts of the French government to blacken the good name of British beef internationally.
The time for dithering and delay is now past.
In the face of clear evidence that the French government has engaged in a devious game of cat-and-mouse with the Commission and the UK government and clearly never had any intention of removing the ban on British beef from the outset, they must now be held to account.
They must be made to answer in the European courts and the procedure must be fast-tracked to ensure compensation is paid to the British beef industry, not only for the loss of trade to France, but also for the loss of our trade worldwide as a result of the damage done to the reputation of our high-quality products.
Can I also deal with the red herring that Prime Minister Jospin has introduced into this debate.
He claims that last October he made an offer to Prime Minister Blair to lift the ban on grass-fed Scottish beef.
Let me say this to Prime Minster Jospin: all British beef is safe.
It has been judged safe by the European Commission and by the Scientific Steering Committee.
Under the chairmanship of a French scientist, that committee unanimously approved the safety of British beef and unanimously rejected the French position.
It is preposterous, therefore, for Mr Jospin to endeavour to drive a coach and horses through the European directive and the British date-based export scheme by introducing his own conditions.
It is Mr Jospin who is in the dock and it is not for those who break the law to attempt to revise the rules.
Can I also ask the Commission what action they intend to take against Germany?
The German Government has been content to hide behind the French coat-tails throughout this dispute, blaming the intricacies of their federal system of government for the delays in lifting the ban in Germany.
I would remind this House that the German Government was able to introduce the ban on British beef in a matter of hours.
It is therefore quite unacceptable that they continue to apply this illegal ban 18 weeks following the directive ordering that the ban should be lifted.
On my final point I would point out to this House that on an issue of this crucial importance there are very few Socialist Members sitting here taking part in this debate - and that is a disgrace.
Madam President, at this moment in time, Socialist members have been debating BSE far longer than most of you and, in all events, far longer than Mr Stevenson, but that is just a brief rejoinder to the last comment.
As chairman of the last BSE committee, I have probably spoken more frequently in this House and in other fora on BSE than most of you since 1996/97.
I believe therefore that many of you will already have heard much of what I have to say here today from me on previous occasions.
Permit me nonetheless to summarise the background to the lifting of the export ban.
The lifting of the export ban on British beef followed long scientific debate, long reports and numerous inspection visits to the United Kingdom and was approved by this Parliament.
We now have a legal situation where there is an internal market and free movement of goods.
Only where there is scientifically substantiated and provable cause for concern can the free movement of goods be excluded and suspended in order to protect consumer health.
This applies to all Member States and it also applies in other respects.
However, as this scientific proof always takes the form of an up-to-date expert opinion based on the information available, we must all take an interest in the latest scientific knowledge.
Like most of you, I am no scientist.
I must refer to the expert opinions of the scientists and I am interested in any new information which may cast fresh light on the situation.
I was therefore most interested and curious to know what new information was available. Unfortunately, no new information has come to my attention either from France and other Member States or - and this remark is addressed directly at Mr Stevenson - from Germany.
The reaction is therefore quite clear and unequivocal.
Commissioner Byrne and the Commission have chosen the only correct reaction.
Member States call time and again for legal security in the European Union, Member States call time and again for everyone else to respect the law when their own interests are at stake.
And so there should be no exceptions for them either and there should be no arbitrariness in the European legal systems.
Nonetheless, it would have been nice if the Commission had made the BSE test evaluated several months ago compulsory, i.e. if they had made it a duty incumbent upon all Member States.
That would have given some Member States additional security and additional reassurance and all the Member States would at last obtain a clear and unequivocal picture.
Then we would finally know exactly what the BSE situation is.
My question therefore to Commissioner Byrne is this: when will we have a proposal on compulsory BSE testing in the Member States? Apart from BSE testing, we also need a record of provenance.
We shall shortly be debating the Papayannakis report on beef labelling.
This, too, would simplify and improve the situation of the Member States and help to protect consumers.
Here too, and I say this loud and clear, the Member States have been dragging their feet.
They have been dragging their feet since 1997 and the Commission has also failed to take the necessary action. That is inexcusable.
Allow me to conclude with a few words on consumer protection as a whole. I have been in the European Parliament for 10 years, during which most of my time has been taken up with environmental policy and consumer protection.
I do not always have the support of the Member States, despite hearing so much from them about consumer protection.
May I remind you of the legislation on product safety and product liability, where I tried to obtain legal security.
However, I was ignored by countries such as Germany, France and others when it came to protecting victims of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the longer-term.
I would have wished for more consumer protection and more support than I mustered.
Perhaps there is now a new trend in consumer protection.
I call on the Commission and on you, Mr Byrne, to pass your homework on to the Member States.
The Council is usually pretty dozy.
All the members of the Council are usually pretty dozy.
Make BSE testing compulsory and ensure that beef is labelled with its origin, that would be a major step forward.
Madam President, this is not only a crisis for British farmers, it is a crisis for French farmers as well.
But above all it is a crisis for the European Union.
France has to decide whether it is in the EU or not.
If it is in the EU it must play by the rules.
In the UK our support in the European elections was very shaky.
There was a very low turnout, as was the case in a lot of Member States.
I believe that if we had an election today that turnout would be even lower because of France's refusal to lift the ban and the fact that the European Union is brought into disrepute.
The results of the Scientific Steering Committee back on 1 August ruled that British beef was as safe as any other beef and that was led by a French chairman.
I happen to believe that it is safer than other beef because we have got some of the highest hygiene standards in the world now.
The Food Standards Agency in France did not come up with any new evidence at all.
I believe it was purely a political decision by France but we must now move forward.
I would like to see a fast-track legal procedure.
I would like to see, if possible, an injunction taken out against France before the legal process has run its course.
I would like to see interim compensation and I would like to see when a fine is imposed, that high compensation is given to British farmers.
British farmers are fed up.
The British public are fed up with France refusing to lift the ban and I am sure the Commission is fed up as well.
It is about time that France obeyed the rules.
Madam President, in refusing to lift the ban on British beef and veal, the French Government has decided to face a limited and short-lived crisis with its European partners rather than risk a scandal breaking in a few months or years linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
This decision is based on the scientific conclusions of the French Food Safety Agency which, while acknowledging that progress has been made, has identified continuing and serious potential risks, as demonstrated by the persistence of the disease.
Seattle has also affected this decision, with the growing importance of the precautionary principle and the pre-eminence of health over the market.
There is no point today in making things worse or in exacerbating Francophobe or Anglophobe feelings.
We are right to be careful.
It is the inadequacy of the guarantees on the definition and implementation of testing programmes and, in particular, the lack of European regulation on labelling and traceability, which has led France to this decision.
In addition to these elements, the efforts made in recent weeks, which no one disputes, must be clarified and supplemented in particular by the establishment of a compulsory labelling and traceability system from the producer to the consumer.
This would clearly allow the consumer to be reassured and would also combat the re-routing of products in the context of triangular trade.
Beyond this specific case, should we not be working to impose the pre-eminence of the precautionary principle over all other considerations in trade, both within the EU and with third countries? Are the Commission and Council not using a similar approach to that of the French Government in rightly opposing the lifting of the ban on hormone-treated meat originating from the United States of America, despite the WTO injunctions?
Madam President, my British colleagues must realise that this is a scientific, political, legal and moral problem.
On the scientific level, first of all this disease is due to an unknown agent.
It is not a bacteria and it is probably not a virus, even though the German Professor Diringer believes otherwise. It is due to a mysterious prion.
Secondly, there is no ante-mortem test.
Thirdly, the disease is not disappearing despite the ban on meal.
Fourthly, acarids full of prions are being found on fodder.
This shows that the disease can be transmitted through fodder or grass and might mean that your soil is blighted forever and should not be used for breeding cattle.
For the moment therefore, science cannot settle the matter.
You have played the ball into the political court and it is therefore a question of whether trade or health takes priority.
Is selling or living more important? The majority of the world' s countries, including your American and Canadian cousins and even your Australian and New Zealand friends in the Commonwealth, are saying that they want to live first and then sell.
Yet you are demanding sanctions and creating a legal problem.
Legally, there are two problems, the first of which is the priority among regulations.
Should we give priority to the principle of free movement or to the precautionary principle? On the issue of BST, which does not present any danger to human health, we gave priority to the precautionary principle which we pleaded in Seattle.
The second legal problem is one of legal responsibility.
You are the guilty party because you created this disease from start to finish.
In financial terms, we assumed the risk for two years but we cannot accept this risk in terms of health.
There is also a moral or theological problem, as previously identified by Saint Thomas Aquinas, Antigone and Creon. Should human law come before natural law?
It appears that, using human law, you have created an epizootic disease and a zoonosis.
I would remind you that the latest child to be dying from your disease is only 13 years old.
Well, we do not want to die. Finally, on the religious level, your Agriculture Minister told us two years ago in the Committee on Agriculture that this disease was due to God.
As Christmas approaches, you should pray to God and hope that Father Christmas brings us a diagnostic test. You should try to ask forgiveness from God.
Yet to do this, you need to repent your sins ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Madam President, first of all, I would take exception to the previous speaker who wrongly quoted Thomas Aquinas, but this is just by the by.
We are now in the middle of a crisis which has been going on for eighteen weeks and a beef conflict between France and the United Kingdom which, as I have noticed, has taken on a suspect nationalist dimension.
It appears that we still to this day battle out national conflicts by means of soccer and beef.
Especially the latter aspect is very detrimental as this is on the back of farmers and consumers.
This is simply not acceptable.
The second point which becomes clear is that Member States appear to be unable to handle this sort of issue.
It is completely clear why this is the case because we have one internal market, we have an open market.
If we do not solve this type of conflict at Community level, then this sort of problem will emerge.
When Mr Prodi made his declaration here, he said that a food safety bureau should be set up at the earliest convenience.
I would like to find out from Commissioner Byrne when this will eventually happen so that we have a powerful and independent bureau in the European Union which can actually take action and which can adopt powers from national Member States.
The second point which has struck me in this whole political debate is that, first of all, a solution is being sought between two key Member States and that maybe after that, the Commission will be able to have some input.
I find this a dangerous tendency in EU politics.
It is not acceptable that key Member States are increasingly solving problems amongst themselves.
I also say this as a representative of a smaller Member State.
We have opted for a common market, for a common approach and there is no room for a culture in which major Member States thrash out issues amongst themselves.
In this respect, I am concerned about the Commission' s position and I would like to know where the European Commission stands and if it is actually able and prepared to take the lead in conflicts like this.
Once again, however, in Europe, we live in an era in which food in Europe has probably never been safer and the consumer' s confidence in food is actually diminishing by the day, not only in France and Germany but also in other countries, because this discussion is dragging on due to a lack of political decisiveness.
In this light, I would like to know exactly what the Commission is going to do about establishing a food safety bureau on a European scale which is independent and has far-reaching powers.
Madam President, I want to speak here today as a Member of the European Parliament, and not in terms of nationalist rhetoric.
I do not personally believe that British bluster is as exportable or as healthy as British beef.
I want to look today at the decisions which have been taken in the light of the Commissioner's earlier statement, to which very few have so far referred.
The facts on this matter are quite simple.
The decision to lift the ban followed the scrupulous adherence of the UK to the Florence Agreement.
When that ban was challenged by the French Food Safety Agency, as they had the right to do, I guess, in terms of their own remit, it was referred to the Scientific Committee, which unanimously endorsed the safety of British beef.
That was, as the Commissioner's statement says, "immensely heartening".
So what went wrong after that? With the Commissioner's help - and I pay tribute to him, and I can share his sense of exasperation - we went into a process of negotiation when many said we should not.
The result of that was the memorandum of 23 November, which we believe was the beginning of the end of this wretched dispute.
What happened as a result of that? We got the decision on 9 December by the French Government that it would continue with the ban; and that did come to most of us as a complete surprise.
I want to say a word to Mr Jospin, and I do so in no nationalist spirit.
I believe that his subsequent briefings on this matter have deepened this dispute in the most serious way.
Mr Jospin was a party to the memorandum of agreement, which accepted the date base scheme in its entirety.
Now he says he would take, or would have offered to take, some beef from some herds in some parts of the UK, irrespective of the date-based scheme.
That is a total misunderstanding of the position as he knows it to be.
He has also said that he would rather be crucified by British public opinion than by French public opinion.
That is a ludicrous thing for a statesman whom I have always respected to say.
The former Prime Minister of France, Mr Mendès-France said: "Gouverner, c'est choisir" - you have to make choices.
You cannot always drag behind public opinion.
Mr Blair took a risk, and I think sensibly so, in taking the route of negotiation when others argued for confrontation, crisis, boycotts and bans.
I think he was betrayed by what has happened in the wake of that, and I do not personally believe that is the way to proceed.
The alternative, if you are going to choose not what is right but what is popular, is to pursue a process of confrontation between two Member States which threatens this whole institution.
We have to be based on the rule of law, we have to be based on some form of arbitration, which allows us at the end to say: "There we are, that is the best opinion we can get. It is unanimously in one direction.
Let us endorse it".
If we do not do that we are going back to the kind of rhetoric that we have heard from one or two Members in this debate today.
Surely this Parliament and this continent have gone beyond the days of Henry V and Joan of Arc? What we need now is a sensible way out of this situation.
I would like to end with one question to Commissioner Byrne directly.
We do not want this dispute dragging on in the courts for years.
Nobody, I think, sensibly does.
Therefore, what interim measures can he propose which would make it possible for a temporary lifting of the ban, up to the point where this can be settled between the two governments in an amicable manner? His job is to be an honest broker.
I believe he is trying to do it.
I think this Parliament should support him in that effort and should talk down those who want to widen the division between our two countries.
I very much regret that France continues to maintain its ban on beef from the UK and, as I have made very clear in previous debates here, I expect the European Commission to urgently proceed with enforcement action.
However, I also believe that political representations should continue to be made, and for that reason my SNP colleague Neil MacCormick and I remained in this Chamber yesterday rather than sulking outside in the corridors.
We took the opportunity to personally draw President Chirac's attention to the quality of Scottish beef.
Since the start of the beef crisis, SNP members here have consistently advocated that the situation in Scotland should be assessed separately with a view to a phased re-introduction of export trading.
I am challenging the Scottish Minister for Agriculture to bypass London and support the SNP's request, which I delivered yesterday to the French Government, that the French authorities study in detail and with urgency the scientific evidence, the traceability and labelling situation in Scotland; and I call upon French colleagues in this House to advocate that line with their government.
I propose that we continue the debate. We will ask our colleagues to interrupt their confabulation which is, however, connected with the agenda problems which have arisen due to the adjournment of the current debate.
Madam President, do you want to wait until the meeting has finished here or not? Could I first of all address my comments to the Commissioner?
Commissioner, I have attacked you vociferously on three previous occasions for not taking a decision, because I thought you were weak. I would like now to first of all extend my thanks to you for the way in which you have at long last taken a decision and are going to take the position you are with the French.
We know that it is extremely difficult.
I actually believe that you have been - and I will use British words here, "stitched up"; and "stitched up" not only by the French.
I also think you were used by the British Government.
I look forward to seeing a quick response to your actions.
I might add to Mr Whitehead that I speak here now not just as a Member of this august Parliament but as a farmer.
It is particularly important that people understand that this crisis has affected every individual farmer, not just in France, but right across Europe.
I have with me today - and I risk being arrested, I brought them for you, Mr Byrne - two British prime steaks.
They are from a local butcher and farmer who lives next door to me, who will almost certainly not be in business by the end of the week.
I have to say, after hearing what Mr Martinez had to say, that I am deeply concerned that BSE may now be transmitted to human beings.
I would just like to add, since you are about to announce a White Paper on food safety, that, whatever people say, food right across Europe can never be 100% safe.
I would just like to suggest to Mr Martinez that last year over 20 people died from listeria in France - more people than caught BSE.
Therefore I do hope that you use objective scientific evidence when it comes to food safety, and not just a precautionary principle, which is understood under Article 30 (ex-Article 36).
I look forward to hearing your reply later on.
Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Monti has just told us that the criticisms made of those who sought dialogue were unfounded.
I fully share this point of view.
At this stage in the debate, I want to mention the three parties in this affair, with the first clearly being the British Government.
We should congratulate the efforts towards dialogue made on both sides of the English Channel.
The efforts made on the British side since the start of the BSE crisis to improve the situation and food safety should be welcomed.
Part of the task has been completed but only part.
I would cite as proof the rumour that parents are still being told that beef is not on the menu in British schools.
Confidence has clearly not yet been totally restored.
The action taken by France with others and against others must help to definitively resolve this crisis.
The second party in this affair is my own government.
What principle has France sought to promote? The answer is the much-vaunted and much-discussed precautionary principle which we are collectively seeking to define.
We are also trying to ensure essential food safety which cannot be sacrificed to the market logic.
You may imagine that it is easy to pander to public opinion.
I believe that the decision taken by my government was a decision to be made by politicians and this is how a government must act. I agree that governing means making choices, and so my government has made its choice.
What would all your governments have done if, following an expert opinion, your national agencies had indicated that there was still a risk?
The political authority must choose, so this is what my government has done. It has taken a political decision based on an assessment of the risk.
On the subject of agencies, I wish for one thing. We should have at our disposal the expertise of a proper European agency so that in the future the conditions for conducting this type of debate will be better.
I must inform the previous speaker that we do apply the precautionary principle in France.
Have you noticed that, following the opinion of the French Food Safety Agency, we have withdrawn some cheeses because of the cases of listeriosis? You will remember that we had five points in the negotiations.
We are now satisfied on three of these points but we still need guarantees on the other two.
Others before me in this debate, like Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and Mrs Roth­Behrendt, have said this.
Is there any sense in testing if we do not understand its effective implementation and the application of its results? This is what we demand of you, Commissioner.
I am aware that behind the fight being conducted by France there is also a fight going on in the interests of the British and the whole European Union.
Today in this debate, Commissioner, you are our partner in dialogue and we have four demands to make.
Firstly, you must face up to your responsibilities.
My country did not happily enter into its current position of being condemned and hauled up before the Court of Justice.
We understand.
However, your responsibility is also to effectively implement the testing and labelling without which, free movement is just an illusion.
You must also set up this food agency to which Mr Prodi is committed and which we will support in all the actions which it may take.
May I commence by extending my regret to all of you for not being here at the commencement of this debate.
I know how important it is and I had had every intention of being here.
I had booked a flight this morning, but due to the weather conditions in Brussels that flight was unfortunately cancelled and indeed the later flight I was on was also delayed.
Please accept my apologies for being late and having to have my statement on this issue read to you by my colleague, Mr Monti.
Let me now deal with the many important questions you have raised on this issue.
First of all Mr Stevenson and a number of others have raised the question about the delay in instituting the proceedings that were launched against France on 16 November.
That was the formal notice, the more factual part of the proceedings, and then yesterday the reasoned opinion was agreed by Parliament to be sent to France with a response time of five days.
Let me say this.
I am firmly convinced that the line I followed in attempting to resolve this in the manner in which I did was the correct way to proceed.
I do not have any doubts about that whatsoever.
There are many reasons for this that I have rehearsed here in the committees of Parliament before.
A negotiated settlement that is agreed between the parties is always a better settlement than the one that comes about as a result of court proceedings.
However, the charge has been made that by adopting that course of action a delay has occurred in the institution of proceedings and that by implication the court hearing will take place later than would otherwise have happened.
That is not correct.
The true position is that France's position on this situation was not made clear until 1 October.
At that time I was just short of two weeks in office.
That was the first opportunity the Commission, or rather I, had to give serious consideration to France's response to this issue.
I attempted to deal with this in the manner I believed appropriate.
For instance, having regard to the fact that I have responsibility for consumer protection, public health and food safety, my first reaction was to see if there was anything in this allegation.
Was any evidence available to the French authorities which should be examined at Commission level by the scientists in the Scientific Steering Committee? You will remember that I asked the French authorities if they would send that evidence to the Scientific Steering Committee for further evaluation and to see if there was anything new.
They did that and the Scientific Steering Committee also asked the UK authorities if they would forward such up-to-date information as they had.
They also complied with that request.
This gave the SSC an opportunity to fully review all the evidence in this unfortunate situation.
The result of that was they came up with the unanimous decision that we are all aware of.
With regard to my own responsibilities that I have just identified, I felt that this was an important first step for me to take in this issue.
The advice that I got, which I was happy to act upon, was that the beef exported from the UK under the DBES scheme was as safe as any other beef in the European Union.
Further discussions took place following that.
My belief is that the further discussions and the protocol of understanding that was reached between all parties and experts involved give further assurance to consumers in the European Union - and they are not just French - that the beef exported under the DBES scheme is as safe as any beef in the European Union.
That also was a valuable exercise.
To address the question of whether there was a delay or whether the proceedings will ultimately come to court later than they would otherwise have done in the formal notice proceeding, the first letter sent by the Commission normally requires a response within a period of two months.
In this instance that was shortened to two weeks, extended by a further week at the request of the French authorities.
The reasoned opinion, when that is sent out two months after the formal notice procedure, normally also gives a period of two months in which to reply.
These periods have been shortened by the procedure that has been adopted by the Commission. In many respects we have therefore caught up and are no later in the proceedings than we would have been in normal proceedings.
So not only do I believe that we adopted the right course of action with the good results that came from that, but I also firmly believe that we are not in any delay as a result of taking that particular course of action.
Mr Stevenson also raises the question of the position of Germany.
My understanding is that this will be discussed in the German Parliament on 17 December.
There is every expectation that the parliament will come to the conclusion that the embargo in Germany should also be lifted.
To come to some of the issues that were raised by Mrs Roth-Behrendt and Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, particularly with reference to the tests that are to be undertaken: you will remember that these were among the issues raised by the French authorities and addressed in the protocol of understanding.
I said in my hearing last September that it was my intention to establish a proper EU-wide testing system for BSE to determine the levels of infectivity in various Member States.
It is still my intention to do that.
Progress has been made.
A working party has been established in my directorate-general, working in association with Member States, to come up with the procedures necessary to put this provision into place.
It is my intention to proceed with that.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf and others also mentioned the necessity of putting into place labelling systems and, in particular, mandatory labelling systems.
We are going to discuss this later in the evening.
Let me just say at this stage that labelling is an issue that is focused on consumer information and consumer choice.
It is not a public health issue.
We must focus on the public health aspect of this.
That is why, in my belief, the test aspect of it is important and must be distinguished from the need for labelling.
Others asked questions in relation to the actual procedures in the Court; how quickly they can begin and when we can expect to get a result.
Like all court procedures anywhere in the world they move at their own pace because it is absolutely essential that all parties put their arguments on paper.
In litigation before the European Court of Justice not only do the proceedings take place between the immediate parties - in this instance, the Commission and France - but also Member States are perfectly entitled to intervene in those proceedings: the UK or indeed any other Member State.
The consequence of that would be that further documents would have to be drafted whereby those Member States set out their position.
All of that has to be filed in the Court, it has to be translated.
All of this takes time.
The question has been raised whether there are any fast-track procedures that can be applied in this instance.
There is an interim measure procedure and the criteria that are laid down for the application of interim measures are quite strict and quite narrow.
I have asked the Legal Service in the Commission to advise me whether the circumstances of this particular case fall within those narrow criteria.
In my view this will be, to some extent, an uphill battle but nonetheless I intend to seek advice and if I am advised that it is an appropriate way forward it will be my intention to do that.
In the event that the embargo remains in place, and the proceedings are launched next week, it will, of course, require the launching of proceedings before we make any decision on interim measures.
Equally it will be necessary for me and for the Legal Service to determine the appropriate response, having regard to the response of the French authorities to the reasoned opinion that was agreed to be sent yesterday because that in essence is a legal document setting out the legal position and I expect that the response will be in similar terms.
No final decision can be made on the issue of whether interim measures can be sought until those papers have been filed.
There is one other, very rare procedure, which is the accelerated procedure.
I have made inquiries as to whether this procedure is available.
This is a procedure whereby the Commission could apply to the Court to have the case heard in an accelerated manner - or fast-track manner.
It requires once again certain criteria to be present.
It would also require the abandonment of the Commission's right for instance to file certain documents at certain crucial stages of the case.
I have to make a judgement on whether it is worthwhile seeking to fall within those criteria if we can and, if so, whether it is a good balance to seek an early oral proceeding or whether it is better to have all the arguments on paper before the Court.
That is a judgement call that I will make after I have read the reply to the reasoned opinion that has been sent to the French authorities.
However, I should say that if I feel it is the appropriate way forward, that is the course of action that I propose to adopt.
Let me just go back to the issue of compulsory labelling and traceability that was mentioned earlier by one of the Members.
The DBES scheme itself provides for traceability.
It provides by implication for labelling.
The scheme was not devoid of this requirement and therefore to approach this debate on the basis that the DBES did not require these issues to be put in place would be misleading, because it would be unfair both to the scientists who determined what was necessary to make sure that the exportation of UK beef was sound and safe and it would also be unfair to the Commission in the approach that has been adopted so far.
This scheme provides for traceability and consequently for a form of labelling.
I was also asked by a number of speakers about the progress of the Food Safety Agency and the White Paper on Food Safety.
A number of Members said, and I agree, that this appears to be the way forward in relation to these issues.
I think most of you will agree that to have a situation where scientists are disagreeing with one another on issues so important as food safety is a very unsatisfactory situation.
It is unsatisfactory from a public health point of view but it is also unsatisfactory from the point of view of consumer confidence.
This is an entirely undesirable situation.
From the beginning of this Commission you will remember that President Prodi made this an issue that he regarded as being of the foremost importance.
Before any of the rest of us were sworn in he made this a clear priority.
He asked me to deal with this.
We have been working on this in my DG since then.
The White Paper has been drafted, it has been in interdepartmental consultation in the Commission and it is now just about to be presented to my colleagues in the College of Commissioners.
I expect that to happen on 12 January.
That White Paper includes many of the issues that I have raised here and in the Environment Committee on a number of occasions but it also includes a chapter on the issue of a food safety authority.
I believe that in the establishment of a food safety authority it will be necessary to determine what competences it has.
It will obviously have a competence in the area of a risk assessment and in assessing that risk it will be necessary for the scientists employed in this agency not only to rely on their own opinions and advice, but also to liaise with the scientists in Member States, because an agency such as this - agency or authority or whatever - will have to be not only independent but will also have to liaise with scientists in Member States.
It cannot be established in such a way that its work is going to be in the form of a series of dictates issued from Brussels as to what the appropriate way forward is.
Such an agency will not have the confidence of Member States and consumers unless there is a broad degree of consultation between scientists in the European Union.
But once that consultation process has taken place and once the scientists in the Member States and in the agency have come to a conclusion on the appropriate way forward in any given situation, particularly with regard to a food scare, the opinion of the agency should stand, should be respected, should be followed and should not be challenged.
Once the consultation process has taken place there should be no need for such a challenge.
It is in those circumstances that the authority of such an agency will permeate throughout the European Union and will not only be a good authority in the area of safety and public health but will also provide a degree of consumer confidence that I believe is absolutely essential and will be a bedrock in the way forward.
I might refer just very briefly to the other issue that we have been talking about a moment ago - courts.
The hierarchical system that exists in the court procedures are such that you could not imagine for a moment a court of appeal in any one of the Member States seeking the opinion of the Court of Justice in Luxembourg under an Article 177 reference and then, having got the opinion, not liking it and saying "we will not apply it".
It is an unthinkable proposition.
Such a situation does not exist in the scientific world.
Here are in fact two areas of expertise.
One I accept is more static, or the analysis is of more static facts - that is the law, the legal process.
The other is an examination of a more evolving situation.
The analogy is not a very accurate one but nonetheless it is valuable in the sense that in circumstances where it is necessary to have the evaluation by experts, whether it is in the legal world or in the scientific world, we need finally to have an authoritative voice on the issue and that is where I expect we will get that - from the establishment of this food safety authority.
I have to say that I am heartened to hear so many of you express yourselves on this subject here this afternoon and say that it is also your belief that this is the appropriate way forward.
I have been asked about the structure of this agency on previous occasions.
I am not going to go into it in detail this afternoon other than to say to you that I am aware that concerns have been expressed by many of you on the issue of the relationship between the concept of independence, on the one hand and accountability, on the other.
Of course, such an authority has to be accountable in some way to the political process, to those of us who are engaged through codecision in making laws, because we after all are accountable to the people, the scientists are not.
Risk assessment has to be undertaken by those who are qualified and expert in that area - that is the scientists.
They have to be independent and be seen to be independent.
Once they have made their risk assessment they pass their judgement then to the Commission, when the law-making would be initiated by the Commission.
It would then be discussed in the codecision procedures with Parliament and with Council.
In that way it is our responsibility to initiate and pass laws that give effect to the concerns that are expressed by the scientists.
Let me just say finally that I believe it will be necessary to have an interaction and a relationship between the scientists and the law-makers and between the risk assessment and the risk management so as to make absolutely certain that those drafting the laws understand what the scientists are saying, and that the scientists are satisfied that the law-makers are drafting the laws in such a way as to deal with the concerns expressed by them in their opinion in the area of risk assessment.
I think that they are the issues that were raised and I hope I have dealt with all of the questions satisfactorily.
Commissioner, thank you for your statement.
The debate is closed.
Question Time (Council)
The next item is Question Time (B5-0036/1999).
We shall examine the questions to the Council.
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has the floor for a procedural motion.
Mr President, we have adjourned the debate on beef labelling until late this evening.
I should like an assurance from Mr Byrne that he will be present at it.
We are going to ask the Commissioner whether he can be present at tonight' s debate.
(The Commissioner replied in the affirmative) Mrs Jackson has the floor for a procedural motion.
Mr President, this is a point of order.
It follows from what Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has said.
We notice that the Council is in its place in order to take part in Council questions.
Could we have an assurance that the Council will remain in its place at 9 p.m. in order to take part in the debate on the Papayannakis report? We appreciate very much the huge efforts the Finnish presidency has made to work very closely with Parliament.
We would therefore appreciate the Presidency being present at 9 p.m. in order to explain to us what happened at the Agriculture Council last night on the issue on which Mr Papayannakis' report is based.
Could we please have that undertaking from the Council now, in the interests of the transparency which Finland no doubt wants to be the hallmark of its presidency?
Mr MacCormick has the floor for another procedural motion, which I hope will be the last one.
Mr President, I was interested in what Mrs Jackson said.
I had heard a report that the debate on second reading on the late payments directive would also happen at 9 p.m.
The timetable has clearly become extremely disrupted.
Many of us have other engagements to try to fit in this evening.
Can the President give an authoritative ruling on the timing of events later today, please?
Mrs Siimes has listened to you attentively and to your desire for the Council to be present.
Mr MacCormick, can you repeat your procedural motion in more detail?
Am I to understand that you either will not, or are unable to, tell us what the timetable is for later this evening?
As you know, Questions to the Council will take place next, as it is the next item on the agenda, and the sitting will resume at 9.00 p.m. when there will be an announcement on the issues which you are asking about.
If you come at 9.00 p.m., you will have the opportunity to participate in that part of the agenda.
Mrs Jackson has the floor.
Mr President, on a point of order, we would very much appreciate it if you could ask the Finnish Presidency - which is sitting over there - whether it can be present at 9 o'clock this evening in order to help us with our debate on the Papayannakis report.
The Council, and only the Council, can give us the background to what happened last night in the Agriculture Council.
Could you please, so as to preserve the interests of the Members of this Parliament, put that question to the Council for an answer?
Mr President, I should also like to make a point of order and move that the Bureau consider calling the important debate on the four related reports on competition policy - which was originally scheduled for Wednesday morning, was then postponed to the afternoon and is now to be postponed to late evening - for the Tuesday of the January session if need be.
I would ask the Bureau to examine this motion so that we can duly complete the other items by midnight.
This is a motion which the President can examine.
Mr Langen, the agenda has been set. At 9.00 p.m. we shall resume the sitting, which will begin with a joint debate.
I will now ask the question to Mrs Siimes which was put by some Members: whether she can attend at 9.00 p.m. to inform this Parliament and to guarantee it the greatest possible transparency.
If you wish to speak and reply to these Members, Mrs Siimes, you have the floor.
Mr President, as the Council did not receive a request for this in time, the relevant Minister will not be here, and I myself am prevented from being here at 9.00 p.m..
You have listened, as have I, to the Council' s options.
In any event, at 9 o' clock at night, which is a tranquil hour, and also in a Christmas spirit, surely you can hold this debate without Mrs Siimes.
If you will be so kind as to allow me, we shall begin Questions to the Council, since Mrs Siimes is currently here with her great capacity for replying to our questions.
Question No 1 by (H-0668/99):
Subject: Economic refugees in the EU In recent years the Member States have taken in thousands of economic refugees from central and eastern Europe in addition to the thousands from Turkey and other countries in the Middle East and Asia who have found sanctuary in the EU over the years.
This development is having severe effects on unemployment within the Member States and is a further burden on their already stretched social security systems, particularly in Member States (such as Greece) sharing borders with countries which have recently opted for a free market economy and which are now facing crisis on several fronts with huge numbers of unemployed.
Will the Council say whether it has raised this issue during the EU=s contacts with those countries which have expressed a desire to join the Union and what measures does it propose to implement to stem the uncontrolled flow of economic refugees into the EU, which has pronounced economic and social repercussions (e.g. an increase in crime) in its Member States?
I should like to thank the Council representative for her reply to my question; however, I fear that my approach to this issue has not been understood.
I do not think, at least from the discussions held so far - I am a new MEP - that the economic and social repercussions of illegal immigration or the de facto immigration of the present influx of illegal immigrants and the imminent influx from countries which will join the Community when the European Union enlarges are fully appreciated or taken into serious account, even in a legal procedure.
Allow me to quote an example from my own country: Greece, with a population of 10 million, already has one and a half million immigrants, economic refugees or other types of immigrant, meaning that the working population of the country has increased by 20%.
This is causing huge economic and social problems and crime problems. Think what will happen when Turkey joins the European Union and at least another 20 million unemployed enter Europe.
This is why I wanted to know if there are any Council or Commission studies on the matter.
Mr President, the Council is obviously aware that we have to strive to both improve and guarantee employment in the Member States in Europe, to preserve Europe' s social security systems.
One important issue here is that we should prevent employment in the black economy, which thwarts or weakens efforts to improve the employment situation.
Furthermore, I would remind everyone that at present the rules that apply to immigration on the part of nationals of applicant countries or third countries in the Member States of the European Union clearly fall within the competence of the officials appointed for this purpose at national level.
In addition, border controls and the border police in those Member States having common borders with third countries come exclusively under the authority of the Member States themselves.
I wonder if the Council would agree that the best way to stem the flow of economic migrants is by improving economic conditions in the host country? In other words, if enlargement works, if the Agenda 2000 programme is successful in improving the economic situation in Central and Eastern European countries, this will of itself reduce the flow of economic migrants from those countries to existing Member States of the European Union.
Mr President, this is precisely what the Council thinks.
An important part of EU enlargement is the various current programmes of cooperation with those countries seeking membership of the European Union, and the basic principle is the improvement of the state of the economy in those very countries, leading to the creation of employment opportunities there, so that people would not need to move for economic reasons.
Are you sure, Mrs Siimes? In addition to the arguments raised by Mr Martin, I would say that banning migration adds to the flow and traffic in labour which almost inevitably leads to crime.
Mr President, there are two kinds of immigration: that which takes place legally in accordance with the rules of each country, and illegal immigration. In no way do we regard legal immigration in the territory of the European Union unfavourably.
The problem is precisely the fact that illegal immigration from third countries is taking place and people are even being smuggled in from them, and we have to address these problems.
But there has been no attempt whatsoever to impede legal immigration.
Question No 2 by (H-0671/99):
Subject: Compliance with Community policies and access to information held by the European Investment Bank (EIB) In March 1998 the European Investment Bank granted a loan of about ITL 60 billion to Gardaland S.p.A., for the purpose of enlarging the leisure park of the same name.
The author of this question harbours doubts about the advisability of granting the loan to a company which has substantial assets and is located in a region which is flourishing economically and which is particularly valuable and very important in ecological terms.
When it was asked about the nature of the investment planned by Gardaland, the Bank argued that it was unable to forward the relevant documents on the grounds of the confidential nature of relations between the Bank and its customers.
In view of the links between the ECOFIN Council and the EIB Board of Governors, could the Council state whether it intends to take measures to make information relating to decisions by the EIB more transparent and accessible, particularly where such decisions have major repercussions on a region's development? Does it not also consider that the effectiveness of the EIB's activities needs to be improved by introducing financial accounting and management procedures which will take environmental costs fully into account?
Mr President, the Gardaland project, approved by the Board of Governors of the European Investment Bank in December 1997, is a subject that has already been raised in Parliament in the Commission' s Oral Question Time.
The justification for the project, and its benefits, were gone over in detail then.
It evidently has to be stated again that one important precondition for the approval of project funding is that environmental considerations are taken into account in all projects assessed and formulated by the European Investment Bank. This was the case with the Gardaland project as well.
Again, with regard to the question of transparency in the Gardaland project, as with other project documents within the territory of the Community, it is most essential to bear in mind that the EIB is actually a bank.
Its documents are therefore not public in the same way as, for example, the documents of the bodies in the Council that draft legislation.
To preserve confidentiality on all sides, the EIB cannot make public documents and information it holds on borrowers or other agencies that are involved in the formulation and implementation of those projects sponsored by the Bank without their express consent.
We must also remember that, although the ministers appointed to the Board of Governors of the EIB are normally the same as those who attend the Ecofin Council sitting, the Ecofin Council has no authority in itself to lay down rules for the EIB with regard to its lending policy or information on it.
The EIB Council adopted rules on public access to documents on 26 March 1997, which were published in the Official Journal of the European Communities C 243 on August 1995 on page 13.
The European Investment Bank therefore publicly releases documentation and information within the framework of these rules, although the aim must in general be to maximise exchange of information and the principle of transparency as far as is possible without jeopardising business secrecy.
Again, if the Community grants the EIB a security against certain loans out of the Community budget, for example, to grant loans for projects in third countries, the Council has stipulated that the EIB must, in these cases, produce an annual report to both the European Parliament and the Council on the action achieved with the help of the secured loans in question.
Madam President, if what you say is true, we have been particularly unfortunate because, although we requested these environmental assessments, we have not received a reply insofar as we have only been told that this is confidential information.
It is therefore clear that there is something that does not add up in what you are telling us.
We did not ask for information on the reasons why the EIB granted the funding. We simply asked what the general criteria which justified it were and which assessments were used when considering and granting the funds for the project - which, moreover, affects one of the richest areas in Italy, and which has a delicate environmental balance.
According to what you are saying, these assessments should be public but, according to the EIB, this is not the case.
Therefore, there is a slight discrepancy between your assertions and reality.
Mr President, as the Council stated in its reply, the European Investment Bank is a bank, and it therefore cannot function in accordance with the same rules on public access as the European Union institutions that enact legislation.
There is a lot of business secrecy involved in making decisions on loans and, as I said in my reply, it can be divulged to outsiders only with the express consent of the opposite party.
As regards decisions on loans made by the EIB, the Gardaland project affair has already been dealt with in the Commission' s Oral Question Time in Parliament and it was at that time, according to the Council' s information, that the justification for the project and its benefits were explained in great detail, and I shall therefore not return to the matter.
Question No 3 by (H-0673/99):
Subject: Opening up the Council of Ministers to transparency What is the latest situation with the case taken by Swedish journalists to the European Court of Justice regarding the conflict between the undemocratic secrecy of documents of the Council of Ministers and the open transparency of all documents as required by the excellent two-hundred-year-old Freedom-of-Information law in Sweden?
Mr President, on 17 June 1998, the Court of First Instance abrogated Council Decision 174/95 of 6 July 1995, according to which the plaintiff is not entitled to access certain documents associated with Europol concerning the public' s right to access Council documents, by virtue of Council Decision 93/731/EC.
The Council re-examined its own decision on the basis of this judgement and stated in a new decision made known to the plaintiff on 30 July 1998 that it could release the documents in question with the exception of one.
No legal action was taken as a result of this new decision, and the matter can now therefore be considered resolved.
Under Article 255 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, the Council must establish in a codecision procedure with the European Parliament general principles and limitations regarding access to documents to take account of the public or private interest within two years of the entry into force of the Treaty of Amsterdam.
According to information available, the Commission is to deliver its proposal to the Council in January 2000, in compliance with the provision in the Treaty.
I am sure that the President-in-Office has noticed that five of the first 16 questions on the order paper, the previous question from Mrs Frassoni, and so on, are all about transparency.
Since we represent the public - the people of Europe - I hope that the Council notes that there is a wish for transparency in the Council.
My question is this: is it correct that the decision within the Council on which documents are to be released to the public and which are kept secret is made by a committee of the 15 press officers from the national representation offices by a majority vote? I was told this by one of the 15 press officers.
They sit there, completely unelected, and decide what is going to be published and what is not.
Is that really true because it is very hard to believe?
Mr President, I will state here just very briefly that the Council Working Group represents the Council.
It is a legal body and makes its own decisions.
The legal case which is being referred to here, the so-called Journalists' Case, is of great significance as an issue of principle.
One of the key points in the case is that of whether a Member State, in this case Sweden, has the right to abide by its own constitution and publish EU documents.
I would point out that, in its address, the Council of Ministers disputed that right.
Now, the proposal for a set of regulations in accordance with Article 255 is on the way.
I have a draft from the Commission which is very worrying.
This says that the Commission wants to use Article 255 to limit the right of national authorities to publish EU documents which have not otherwise been made public.
My question to the Council is this: does the Council intend that, with Article 255 as a basis, it should be possible to limit the Member States' right to publish documents in accordance with their own national legislation?
Mr President, as I stated in my original reply, the Commission is actually to deliver its own proposal on this matter to the Council in January 2000, and after the proposal has come from the Commission, the Council will debate it and determine its own position on the matter.
As there is no proposal yet, there is no fixed Council position either.
Mr President, I am interested first and foremost in how relations with Parliament actually stand?
Do you envisage the possibility of allowing Parliament to inspect all Coreper and Council documents on the Intranet?
Mr President, during the Finnish Presidency the decision was taken that the agendas for the Coreper meetings would be made available, and this is a step in the direction that the honourable Member would like to see.
Question No 4 by (H-0674/99):
Subject: Air traffic control in Europe What action is the Commission planning to take in order to put right the chaotic state of affairs prevailing within Europe=s air traffic control systems?
Could the Commission propose that a single body be set up to control airspace throughout Europe?
Mr President, the Council is aware of the increasing delays in Europe' s air traffic.
This subject was discussed in the Council on 19 July 1999, and it was decided to adopt a resolution.
The Council expressed its concern over the problems being caused by delayed flights, which are becoming more serious, and considered that action needed to be taken to find a solution to these problems and in this way respond to the demands by the citizens of Europe for a better service.
The Council urged the Commission in particular to produce a report on recent and current measures in place to try to reduce air traffic delays and congestion in Europe.
The problem was further discussed in the Council sitting of 6 October 1999, and it was decided that a thorough debate should be held on the issue in the next sitting of the Council in December, on the basis of a report currently being drafted in the Commission.
The Council asked the Member States to do their very best before then to reach a positive decision in their current talks on the question of the Community joining Eurocontrol, the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation.
Eurocontrol is a key coordinator in Europe' s air traffic control system.
In its sitting of 9 and 10 December 1999, the Council held a large-scale debate on the Commission' s new report on air traffic control, which was delivered to the Council and the European Parliament on the Single European Airspace.
That report analyses the situation with regard to delayed flights and proposes some short-term measures to address the problem and puts forward some ideas about how the problem should be tackled in the longer term.
The Council noted with satisfaction the Commission' s proposals for short-term action to try to ease the situation that resulted from delayed flights in Europe.
The matter will be addressed by Eurocontrol and the Ministers responsible for civil aviation in their meeting to be held on 28 January.
In addition, the Council noted the Commission' s approach to the structural reform of air traffic, which was broader in scope and which set out to create a single European airspace. At the same time, it noted with satisfaction the Commission' s intention to set up a high level Working Group to look into the matter and report back to the Council next June on the issues involved.
The Council also urged the Permanent Representatives Committee to examine the Commission' s report and agreed to return to the issue at the next meeting.
Thank you very much, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, for the reply you have given me.
It is clear that the Council is currently considering this issue, which is of concern to all European citizens.
In this case, as an MEP, I have asked you a question which corresponds to the worries of my electors.
I come from a country, Spain, which depends very much on air transport and, in recent years, in Spanish airports, particularly Barajas and Barcelona, delays have been extreme.
Is there any possibility of some kind of accelerated aid from the Council to the current Spanish government and the airport authorities to eliminate this horrendous inconvenience to our citizens resulting from the poor functioning of the Spanish air traffic control service?
Mr President, as I have already said, the Council has looked into this problem of flight delays and called on the Commission to act accordingly and, as I said in my reply, we have also already made headway this autumn in this matter.
The fact that congestion and delays are more common in some parts of Europe than others is obviously very unfortunate, and perhaps the quickest way to deal with the problem is for the national authorities to find out what can be done to improve the situation in the individual Member States.
I hope that the national authorities of our shared country of origin, that of Mr Medina and myself, take good note of this advice from the Council.
Mr President, on mainland Europe delays of several hours are quite common, but in the outermost regions such as the autonomous region of the Azores, delays can last days or sometimes even weeks.
This is because there is an obvious shortfall in resources for air traffic control and for aid for airports and aerodromes in the outermost regions such as the Azores.
I would like to ask if the Council, which is quite rightly concerned about the situation in mainland Europe, also retains some concern for the situation of regions such as the Autonomous Region of the Azores, which is currently experiencing major problems, particularly following last weekend' s air disaster.
Mr President, it is certainly true that problems such as these are critical in smaller, outlying areas.
If I can now add something to my previous replies, I might say that one reason for delayed flights is obviously that, with the present system, an aircraft is cleared for take-off only after making sure it can land at the destination airport.
This is obviously annoying for the passengers sitting on board the aircraft or waiting at the airport for the aircraft to be cleared for take-off but, on the other hand, this procedure is more environment-friendly than having the planes take off on time and not being able to land when they get to their destination.
Mr President, may I ask the President-in-Office a question of a different sort on air traffic control.
I appreciate she may not have been briefed on this, so if she does not know the answer perhaps she would be kind enough to write to me in such a way that we can publish it for our colleagues.
It concerns the issue of the regulation which is shortly to come in which will enable airline pilots between the ages of 60 and 65 to fly freight traffic throughout Europe, with one exception.
The one exception is France.
That means, because of the extent of French airspace, pilots over 60 will effectively be out of a job.
Will she take that back to the Council of Ministers, raise it with her French colleagues in particular, and answer me, perhaps in writing later, unless she is able to do so today, about what can be done to ensure that these older pilots' jobs are made safe.
We are not sure, Mr Bowis, that this is a supplementary question.
You have suggested it already.
And there is always the epistolary relationship, which is so interesting, between the Council and the Members, but the President-in-Office of the Council has the floor.
Mr President, it would be wiser to answer this question in writing.
Question No 5 by (H-0678/99):
Subject: Referendum on self­determination in Western Sahara On 3 November 1999 the Moroccan Minister for Internal Affairs, Driss Basri, said in El Aaiún that the referendum on self-determination in Western Sahara, which is due to be held on 31 July 2000, >will be postponed for two or three years= on account of the 71 420 appeals which have been lodged against the provisional list of voters which is being drawn up by the UN mission responsible for the referendum in Western Sahara.
The UN has not recognised the authors of those appeals as being entitled to vote in the referendum.
What view does the Council take of the statement by the Moroccan Minister for Internal Affairs, to the effect that the referendum is to be postponed?
Is the Council planning to make representation to the Moroccan authorities in order to persuade them to stop holding up the referendum?
What attitude and what political initiatives is the Council planning to adopt in order to help ensure that the referendum does indeed go ahead on the date set by the UN, i.e. 31 July 2000?
Mr President, the Council cannot comment on the statement by the Moroccan Minister for Internal Affairs.
However, with regard to the referendum, the Council has noted the report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, which refers to the careful consideration given to all the consequences of the affair, including those relating to the timetable for the referendum.
The Secretary-General of the UN also stated that he would make a realistic assessment of future action when he delivers his next report to the UN Security Council in December.
The Secretary-General has given his special envoy instructions to continue talks with the parties involved.
With regard to the enforced hearing of the 79 000 appeals, the UN Secretary-General cannot give precise details of the timetable or the additional staff needed to bring the hearing to a close.
This will not affect the commitment on all sides to comply with the UN peace plan for the Western Sahara.
The Council has offered its support to Mr Igleton, who is the UN Secretary-General' s special envoy in the Western Sahara, and the Council is prepared to push for a peaceful solution, based on the thorough assessment contained in the UN' s next report.
All sides should work together in an atmosphere of cooperation built on trust and refrain from any action that could jeopardise finding a solution to the Western Sahara problem that is based on a respect for human rights and democracy.
Madam representative of the Council, we have listened to Kofi Annan' s report on the most recent information regarding the referendum and we attended the 25th Conference on the support by European NGOs of the Saharaoui people a few weeks ago in the Canary Islands.
The main complaint raised there was that Europe is not sufficiently involved in this issue.
It is true that it supports the peace plan, it is true that it sends letters and other things, but Europe has a specific responsibility because my country, Spain, and other countries have a close connection with the current situation in the Sahara.
We have listened to Abdelaziz who has described again the unsustainable situation of the Saharaoui people in the Tinduf camps.
It is a situation in which they are making an enormous effort to maintain the education of their children and to feed their population, but which has already lasted more than 20 years.
The referendum should have been held in 1992.
It is not acceptable that now, as a result of 79 000 appeals by Morocco, it might be delayed by two more years.
We cannot judge the parties equally.
The Saharaouis are not hindering the referendum.
It is Morocco that is making things difficult.
We ask Europe to become more involved.
Mr President, the EU has not been particularly involved in the hearing of the case, but it is considering ways of constructively influencing the progress of the peace process in the Western Sahara.
In addition, the Finnish Presidency has been in contact with Mr Igleton to discuss EU participation in the preparations for, and organisation of, the referendum.
Mr Igleton has himself requested such participation, and he has also appealed to the governments of the EU Member States to send representatives to the region.
In a meeting with the Finnish Presidency held on 14 September, Mr Igleton urged the EU to convey a message to Morocco and Algeria that the international community is aiming for a sense of equilibrium in the Maghreb, and to make it clear that it will be difficult to provide financial aid for the reconstruction of the region without this sort of stability.
Furthermore, the Finnish Presidency adopted a resolution on 21 June 1999, in which the EU' s promise of support for the UN peace plan and related action was reiterated.
Thank you very much, Mrs Siimes.
Question No 6 by (H-0679/99):
Subject: Implementation of ECHR judgement against Turkey Last month the Council of Europe's Committee of Permanent Representatives condemned Turkey for failing to comply with a judgement handed down by the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Mrs Titina Loizidou, thereby breaching its fundamental contractual obligation under Article 46 of the European Convention of Human Rights which specifically enjoins the implementation of judgments by the Court.
The ultimate sanction for a state which is a signatory to the Convention but which refuses to comply with Court judgments is expulsion or the suspension of its participation in the bodies of the Council of Europe.
Top Turkish officials have specifically declared that they will not implement the judgement by the Court of Human Rights.
Thus, on the one hand, we have a scenario in which the EU Member States may expel Turkey from the Council of Europe while, on the other, its candidature for EU membership is being discussed in Helsinki.
Is the Council aware of this? Before any further proposal is made to accept Turkey's candidature, will it call on Turkey to provide a specific commitment to implement the judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in the Loizidou case?
Mr President, the Council naturally follows the human rights situation in Turkey closely.
Although the Council is not inclined to interfere in the work of another international organisation, it keeps a close eye on whether Turkey is complying with decisions of the European Court of Human Rights.
The Council is aware that, in the case of Titina Loizidou, the European Court of Human Rights considered that Turkey was in violation of the European Convention of Human Rights when that country was found guilty of depriving a person of the rights to property in Northern Cyprus.
Turkey was ordered to pay compensation. The Council is furthermore aware that the deadline for Turkey to implement that judgement ended in October 1998 and that Turkey has still not paid the compensation specified.
The Council wishes to point out that all EU Member States voted in favour of a provisional resolution on the issue, which the Committee of Ministers in the Council of Europe adopted on 6 October 1999, and which stated that the terms of payment proposed by the Turkish government could not be considered to be in compliance with the obligations in respect of the court decision taken, and forcefully urged Turkey to re-examine her position.
However, nothing in this provisional document alludes to the far-reaching effects that the honourable Member mentions in the second part of his question.
Madam President, thank you for your reply.
The problem is precisely this: nothing has been said as to what will happen if Turkey does not comply with its obligation to compensate Mrs Loizidou.
However, the question which was put to you - to you in the Council - is this: what political response do you, as the Council, intend to make to this conduct since Turkey has stated on numerous occasions that it does not intend to comply?
As we are now entering into new relations with Turkey, perhaps the question of respect for the decisions of the Court could be raised - and I think that it should be raised - within the framework of these relations?
Mr President, as I said, the Council does not wish to interfere directly in the work of other international organisations but, naturally, it will be following the development of this case as it proceeds, and it will then contemplate the possible outcome.
I have already described the current state of affairs in my reply.
Question No 7 by (H-0685/99):
Subject: Humanitarian aid for Serbia With the onset of winter, will the Council take action to ensure that humanitarian aid is sent to the Serbian people, following the reservations expressed by the Stability Pact coordinator himself, Mr Bodo Hombach, concerning the continued embargo, which is causing greater hardship to the Serbian people than to the Milosevic regime?
Mr President, for the sake of clarity I would like to mention firstly that humanitarian aid is sent to the Serbian people via the European Commission' s ECHO programme.
EUR 62 million was set aside for humanitarian aid projects for Serbia in 1999 alone.
In addition, ECHO is at present considering granting EUR 20 million in aid, inter alia, for heating in special institutions such as children' s homes and homes for the elderly.
Furthermore, the Council has made a decision to send heating oil for the winter under the Energy for Democracy programme.
The cities of Nis and Pirot in Serbia are involved in trial projects, and they were the first to take delivery of the consignments of oil.
The Council has also reconfirmed its readiness to consider including other cities in the initiative.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, forgive me.
I ask you about humanitarian aid and you respond by talking about plans of a mainly political nature, such as the famous programme - the last one which you referred to - in certain towns which is, permit me to say, a quasi-political programme.
I am not well versed in religious matters, but I think that humanitarian programmes are directed not at friends but at those who have a problem of a humanitarian nature, be they friends or enemies.
Politically, I have no particular sympathies with the regime of Mr Milosevic - on the contrary - but I cannot understand what the position is regarding humanitarian aid to the Serbian people, the final consequence of which would, of course, be the lifting of the embargo.
You did not reply to that, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, and I would like a clearer response.
Mr President, this year the European Union has given or will have given Serbia a total of EUR 62 million for different humanitarian aid projects.
This is an example of aid reaching its destination.
In addition, it is planned that EUR 20 million in aid could be granted under the ECHO programme to special institutions, that is to say for heating for all those who are worst off, such as those in children' s homes and homes for the elderly.
Mr President, Madam President-in-Office of the Council, all of us here must have realised that we are witnessing an unprecedented act of blackmail against the Yugoslavian people, especially the Serbian people.
To be specific, these people suffered merciless bombing by NATO for 78 days, with the active participation of the European Union; today they are subject to inhumane blackmail on the pretext of the democratisation of the Federal Democracy of Yugoslavia, in other words, they must overthrow their legitimate government in order for the fuel embargo to be lifted and they are to be given the funds to reconstruct what was flattened by NATO and European Union bombs.
As far as we are concerned, this is a policy of de facto genocide.
The issue therefore is not whether a few tonnes of oil will be given to orphanages and old peoples' homes, but whether the necessary funds will be given to Yugoslavia, to its legally elected government - let us once and for all respect international law fully, and not selectively - so that we can restore the damage and stop the political genocide of the Serbian people.
Thank you very much, Mr Korakas.
I do not know if you have asked a specific question.
Mr President, I am asking if the funds needed to reconstruct everything that was flattened will be released and if the embargo will be lifted and the money will be given to the Yugoslavian Government, the legally elected Yugoslavian Government, with the involvement of foreign observers, etc.
Your question is now clearer: whether the money is arriving and whether the embargo can be lifted.
The President-in-Office of the Council has the floor.
Mr President, I have already said that money is being used for humanitarian aid.
That is a different matter from reconstruction aid proper.
In addition, the Council supports democratic forces everywhere, and would point out that the current government in the region has not been democratically elected.
It is still too early to examine the trade embargo; we do not yet know what should be done about it in the future.
Question No 8 by (H-0694/99):
Subject: Overlapping of European Parliament part­sessions and meetings of the Council of Ministers Of the 41 meetings of the Council of Ministers scheduled between September and December 1999, 18 took place or will take place when Parliament is holding plenary sessions in Strasbourg or Brussels.
Important Councils such as the Internal Market, Ecofin, General Affairs and JHA Councils fairly often meet during part-session weeks.
Does the Council not agree that this overlapping is undesirable, given that the Commission has to attend meetings of both the Council and Parliament?
Is the Council aware that press coverage of Parliament=s part-sessions suffers as a result, in that journalists cannot be in two places at once and usually give priority to Council meetings in Brussels?
Dos the Council not share the view that public opinion on Europe in general and the European Parliament in particular would benefit if the institutions took account of each other=s calendar of meetings?
Does the Council intend to take greater account in future of Parliament=s presence in Strasbourg each month, particularly since it is the Council that has obliged Parliament to meet there?
Mr President, according to Article 1(2) of the Council' s Rules of Procedure it falls to the competence of the Presidency of the Council to announce the dates of Council sittings planned to be held during its term of office seven months before that term of office commences.
The problem that arises from the situation raised by the honourable Member could be brought to the attention of the Member States, which succeed each other as countries holding the Presidency of the Council.
However, I shall be more specific and say that the country holding the Presidency generally has little leeway when you consider that 15 ministers convene in the Council, all of whom have very pressing schedules.
Furthermore, the Council' s working efficiency could suffer significantly if it neglected to have sittings each month lasting a week and they were, as a result, squeezed inevitably more tightly into the weeks left over.
Mr President, I have to say that this reply is entirely unsatisfactory because I am not bothered about addressing the Presidency.
I do want to address the Council.
At the end of the day, the current Presidency embodies the Council.
It is also a question addressed to the Council and the issue is that very often meetings take place these days when we are in Strasbourg and that the press cannot come to Strasbourg.
I do believe that the Council will have to realise that the extent of support for the European Union amongst its citizens is of key importance.
Finland too, as one of the 15 Member States, is affected by this.
So as far as I am concerned, this does not answer my question and I hope that this will be discussed in a broader context within the Council at some stage.
Mr President, this bears out once again that it is crazy that we are banished to Strasbourg time and again by the same Council.
Indeed, if this was not the case, this problem would not arise.
I would like to ask the Finnish President to check with her colleagues in the Council and with all 15 Member States whether this could be taken on board in future?
Mr President, it is obviously true that the Presidency represents the Council and that the organisation of Council meetings is the specific task of the Council.
In practice, however, matters proceed in such a way that each successive Presidency makes its own schedule for its forthcoming term.
I understand very well that Parliament' s work here in Strasbourg is very important, and it is indeed to be hoped that the overlapping of meetings can be avoided.
As there are a lot of Councils, and they are made up of 15 members, who should all be present, and as there are many issues to discuss, it is virtually impossible to imagine that some weeks might be left entirely free, as the Councils are quite busy enough as they are.
It is clear, however, that the organisation of Council meeting timetables has to be looked at seriously.
Finland, as the country that will soon be handing over the Presidency, will carry on with the message that we should always try to avoid overlapping, if circumstances allow.
Unfortunately, however, it is not always possible.
Thank you very much, Mrs Siimes.
Question No 9 by (H-0697/99):
Subject: Fiftieth anniversary of the Geneva Conventions In the light of the fiftieth anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, and in view of the armed conflicts that have taken place in the world over the past few years, particularly in continental Europe, what opinion does the Council hold on the level of compliance with the International Humanitarian Law laid down by these Conventions?
Mr President, when the fiftieth anniversary of the four Geneva Conventions was celebrated in August 1999, it was an opportune time for the EU to strengthen its commitment to promoting International Humanitarian Law in all armed conflicts.
In this connection the Finnish Presidency reaffirmed that the European Union considers compliance with the four Geneva Conventions and the two protocols to be important, as they are the general agreements relating to International Humanitarian Law.
The European Union has urged countries, which have not yet done so, to be a party to the Geneva agreements and other agreements relating to humanitarian issues.
The EU, where necessary, has also stated to countries involved in conflicts that the provisions of the Conventions must be fully taken into consideration.
At the twenty-seventh international conference of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent held between 30 October and 16 November, the EU for the first time adopted a resolution which stressed that recent and current conflicts have shown that war is ever more making victims of civilians, especially women and children, or that they have been used as pawns in war situations.
The European Union said it was concerned about how serious the situation had become, and regretted the fact that International Humanitarian Law continued to be violated.
In relation to this, the EU took a positive view of the UN Secretary-General' s recent report on the protection of civilians in armed conflicts.
Many of the major recommendations of the Secretary-General should be looked into right away, as they offer a good basis for active commitment on the part of the Security Council in this matter.
To make the implementation of International Humanitarian Law more effective, the EU gave a general assurance on handheld weapons, light weapons and anti-personnel land mines.
In addition, the Council expressed its grave concern, at a recent meeting on 11 November 1999, over continued military action in the northern Caucasus.
In this connection, the European Union condemned all the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force in Chechnya, which has caused severe suffering to the civil population.
The Council also reminded everyone that all sides in a conflict have to comply with International Humanitarian Law.
Furthermore, the Council urged the Russian Government in particular to avoid civil casualties and ensure that international humanitarian aid gets to its destinations unhindered, including the growing numbers forced to abandon their homes and cross the border into Ingushetia.
The Geneva Conventions have an in-built preventative effect, and any who may be in violation of humanitarian legislation are more aware than ever that it can no longer be taken for granted that transgressors will go unpunished.
The EU has said on many occasions said that the practice of impunity is not acceptable.
If national systems are not effective enough, the international community ultimately has the responsibility to see that the law is enforced.
Trials involving violations of International Humanitarian Law are thus an important means of encouraging compliance with the Conventions.
International courts hearing cases from the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda have emphasised the importance of the Geneva Conventions by increasing credibility in the notions of responsibility for war crimes and personal responsibility.
In this connection the European Union has taken a positive view of the adoption of the statute for a permanent International Criminal Court.
That will go further to promote the commitment to a speedy entry into force of the Rome Statute and the effective and credible establishment of an International Criminal Court.
The EU wants the international community to aim in the future, above all, at closing the widening gap between the existing international standards and compliance with them.
The European Union is determined to include this special angle on humanitarian matters on the agenda at international forums.
The Finnish Presidency, at the fifty-fourth sitting of the UN General Assembly, called on the international community to find the right solutions and answers to the new and unforeseeable challenges of humanitarian law.
Mr President, last Monday the Socialist Group tried to include a motion for a resolution in the agenda of this plenary sitting which would have highlighted the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, demonstrated the commitment of the European Parliament to the principles of international humanitarian law and expressed our support for the International Committee of the Red Cross.
As a result of a mix-up amongst the Groups in this Parliament, and we think that this was more a matter of procedure than a disagreement over the content of the motion, it was not included in this debate.
In later sittings, however, we will insist on attention being given to the importance of this issue, which has been well highlighted in the reply of the representative of the Council.
In fact, the basic principles of international humanitarian law, which are contained in the Geneva Conventions, are values which must be maintained as a basis for European construction and promoted through institutional activities.
In any event, the European Union must be an agent for peace and international humanitarian law and it must assist the ICRC in its task of guaranteeing that this law is upheld.
Furthermore, the European Union must provide as much aid as possible to relieve the suffering of victims and we must, at last, contribute to the education of our citizens in terms of respect for peace.
For all these reasons, on the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions, at a time when we must all commit ourselves - Parliament, Commission and Council - to promoting awareness of international humanitarian law and supporting the organisations responsible for its protection, does the Council propose any specific initiative to promote the knowledge of international humanitarian law amongst the citizens of the Union?
Thank you very much, Mr Martínez.
I hope that there are no more procedural motions, because in the end you have asked a question after a statement of principles.
However, if Mr Dupuis wants to table a procedural motion, he has the right to do so.
Mr President, I wanted to know if this was a real question or a spoof question.
No, in the end, surprisingly, there has been a question, although I did not know initially whether it was a question or not.
In fact, it was a question.
What has happened is that firstly there was an explanation of the question in the form of a declaration.
There has been a question, to which the President of the Council may reply.
Perhaps, the President has heard more of a declaration.
I would ask you to repeat the question since it has been so brief that we hardly noticed it.
I do not know if Mr Dupuis is a parliamentarian or a false parliamentarian, but I would like to say that I ended with a very clear question, which asked whether the Council proposed any specific initiative for promoting awareness of international humanitarian law.
That was my question and I have justified it with arguments which you have all heard.
I repeat that I do not know whether others are parliamentarians or false parliamentarians, but my question was not a false question.
We are all real parliamentarians, Mr Martínez, Mr Dupuis, but this type of parliamentary manoeuvring happens and it is quite normal.
Madam President-in-Office of the Council, there is a specific and clear question and you may reply.
Mr President, the EU thinks that this gap between the standards that exist and compliance with them must be closed in future.
One concrete move in this direction was made when the Finnish Presidency at the fifty-fourth sitting of the UN General Assembly called on the international community to make a real effort to find the right solutions and responses to the new and unforeseeable challenges of humanitarian law, and it is the EU' s intention to raise this issue in different international contexts.
Question No 10 by (H-0699/99):
Subject: Transport of live animals Does the Council support a limit to the transport of live animals of a total journey of not more than eight hours?
Mr President, the Council would remind the honourable Member that it issued Directive 91/628/EEC on the protection of animals during transportation, and its amended version, 95/29/EC, which established rules for the transportation of animals within the territory of the EU, including maximum time limits for the transport of different types of animal.
Furthermore, the Member States are urging the Commission to introduce a proposal for a directive to limit the overall time for the transport of animals to a maximum of eight hours.
Mr President, the Minister has given the right answer.
The problem is that the second part of the answer should be to say what she is going to do to make sure that it is implemented.
Would she agree that a sign of a civilised society is humane treatment of its animals? In Europe today we still see animals suffering agonies and animals dying in transit as a result of the inhumanity of transport conditions.
Too many animals are transported in cramped conditions, without adequate food and water, without opportunities to turn round, to get out, to exercise on their journeys.
Eight hours, as she has rightly said, should be the legal limit throughout the European Union for live animal transport.
It should be the limit, under the directives; it is not in practice.
I ask the President-in-Office of the Council to talk to the Council, talk to the Commission, and say why this is not yet being enforced.
Animals are suffering and therefore Europe is not yet a civilised society in this regard.
Mr President, the reference to the Commission in this question is very much in order since, by virtue of the acts based on the Treaty and its provisions, it is specifically the task of the Commission to see that Community legislation is being properly applied.
In this capacity, the Commission must also make proposals it sees as fit to correct possible distortions.
The Council for its part is prepared to give special attention to any proposals made to it by the Commission that concern the area the honourable Member refers to.
If the honourable Member would like to know more about the actual conditions relating to the transport of animals or bring the matter to the attention of the Commission it would perhaps be better if he put his questions directly to the Commission, as the express job of the Commission is both to monitor compliance with the provisions of directives in force and act if compliance is not taking place.
Question No 11 by (H-0703/99):
Subject: Action by the EU against illegal trafficking in nuclear, biological and chemical materials Despite serious evidence of illegal trafficking in nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons-grade materials, no serious steps are being taken to combat the problem. At the same time, multilateral deliberations on this matter and agreements on the monitoring of NBC materials are proving inadequate.
According to many rumours and reports, these networks are situated mainly in the Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Russia and the illegal trading activities are centred mainly in Constantinople and Budapest, while much of the trafficking is carried out through channels in the Balkans, many of which go through Kosovo. What view does the Council take of this major problem and what is its attitude towards those countries within whose territory this dangerous and illegal trafficking is taking place, particularly where there is evidence of a cover-up and especially in view of the fact that some of the countries involved are seeking EU membership or association?
Mr President, the prevention and control of the illegal trade in substances that can be used in the manufacture of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons is the aim behind customs, legal and police cooperation in the Union in matters of crime, an aim that we are attempting to fulfil both directly and via Europol.
As the problem mentioned is an international one, crossing the borders of the Union, international regulations have also been established regarding this issue.
In 1996 the Council adopted a decision on the participation by the Member States of the EU in strategic action planned by the World Customs Organisation for the Balkan channels to speed up the process of international cooperation and develop the control of illegal commerce, particularly in the Balkans.
The joint operation, called "Roadrunner" , was set up in 1998, and the same sort of operation has also been planned for the Balkan channels in 2000.
In addition, the EU' s customs administration each year sets up joint operations to stop illegal commerce.
Third countries, especially the Central and Eastern European countries, are invited, as required, to take part in these operations.
Furthermore, the Council has agreed on certain joint police operations aimed at the prevention of international crime, which will make it easier to control the routes used by criminals more comprehensively.
One of these operations is a route control project, to prevent the illegal trade in weapons.
To bring control into more precise focus, the Member States of the European Union are working to improve the efficiency of risk assessment methods and the exchange of information process that makes prevention possible.
We are convinced that the more efficient use of computer systems to circulate information will make it easier to identify consignments that constitute a risk, the dealers and the countries of origin and the destinations.
The Member States of the EU are committed to an effective block on weapons policy and participation in operations relating to the control of exports, i.e. action by the nuclear exporters' group, the Zanger Committee, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar arrangements.
Thank you for your reply.
I asked you and the Commission this question purely and simply so that we would all sit up and take note of an issue which has always been dealt with in the past either as a question of crime or as a question of international terrorism.
I want to use this point of view to draw your attention to the fact that, when the political decision to enlarge the European Union was taken in Helsinki a few days ago, the political criteria of the Europe of the 15 were included, the Copenhagen criteria, were included, and rightly so; however, you should take account of the fact that there are problems in the new applicant countries which did not apply in the past to the fifteen.
In this context, when the question includes the matter of what the European Union is doing in relation to applicant countries where these materials are transported through their territory or these situations are covered up, what it means is what policy will it follow or what political commitments will it impose on these countries so that progress can be made with accession procedures.
This is the political issue, over and above any others in relation, for example, to the manpower which has know-how on these issues and which has remained unemployed, in relation to the laboratories of the Soviet Union and certain other matters.
My question referred to this political issue and that is why I asked it.
Mr President, firstly, the problem mentioned in the final part of the honourable Member' s question was that there are many former military personnel who are unemployed, both in the applicant countries and the other third countries close to the EU.
The EU has tried in part to address this problem through its programmes to specifically support alternative models of employment for these people.
With regard to smuggling and the applicant countries, what I said in my reply is clearly the case, that the EU' s customs administration now establishes joint operations, on an annual basis, to stop illegal commerce, and, if necessary, third countries are also invited to take part in these operations.
Through these operations and during the general process leading up to membership, we clearly have to tighten up cooperation and our common ability to also function in those areas that fall within the jurisdiction of the EU.
Question No 12 by (H-0706/99):
Subject: Practice of the European Court of Justice with regard to openness Recent events in the European Union have shown that EU decision making must be public.
The EU institutions have made considerable efforts to create a climate of openness with regard to decision making.
However, unlike the courts in many Member States, the European Court of Justice has a policy of only limited openness.
No statistics are kept of the outcome of votes in connection with its decisions and judges do not express views at variance with Court judgments.
Does the Council intend to take steps to ensure that after a reform of its activities the European Court of Justice complies with this principle of openness by introducing more transparent decision making? Does the Council intend to urge that the outcome of votes in connection with decisions should be published and that judges should be allowed to express views at variance with a given judgement?
Mr President, pursuant to Article 321 of the basic instrument of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, Article 33 of the basic instrument of Euratom, and Article 29 of the basic instrument of the ECSC, deliberations in the European Court of Justice are secret, and remain so.
In its current practice, the Court of Justice is simply applying those provisions.
Pursuant to Article 245 of the Treaty establishing the European Communities, Article 45 of the Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community, and Article 160 of the Euratom Treaty, the Council can amend the rules on secrecy only at the request of the European Court of Justice.
The idea expressed by the honourable Member is naturally one of those approaches that may be adopted when considering theoretically how to solve the problem of openness regarding the deliberations of a body exercising judicial power.
However, as the honourable Member quite rightly points out, this is not a question of a practice that might even be adopted in the internal systems of all the Member States.
The approach suggested by the honourable Member has both its advantages and drawbacks, as does that adhered to in compliance with the legislation in force that applies to the European Court of Justice.
We might, however, imagine that the delicate balance that is being aspired to in this area will duly take account of the different principles to be acknowledged in this case.
Mr President, I might say in response to Mr Bowis' question that not only animals but MEPs also suffer in this Chamber, when timetables change and it is sometimes quite boring to have to wait.
However, my thanks go to the representative of the Council for still having answered my question.
The European Court of Justice exercises power in a remarkable way.
For the public to really be able to see that the Court' s application of the law meets all the criteria of independence and objectivity traditionally associated with a court of law, the application of law must be undertaken openly.
I would like to thank the Presidency of the Council for being of the same opinion as I am on this but how significant would you say the justifications for decisions are, and the fact that the individual opinions of the judges and the bases of interpretation, especially regarding the sorts of cases that have given rise to debate, will remain forever in the dark? Should we not include the future status of the European Court of Justice on the IGC agenda, so that these clauses in the Treaty can be amended insofar as this matter is concerned?
Mr President, I will start with the final part of the supplementary question.
With regard to the IGC agenda, this is something that is still alive and well, and it is obviously possible to return to the question raised by the honourable Member on that agenda.
This secrecy regarding deliberations which exists in the current versions of the Treaties is, in any case, justified to the extent that it is an effective means of preserving the independence of the judges, the adoption of decisions and, furthermore, the consistent interpretation of Community law.
If the varying opinions of the judges were to be made public, that would, at least for the present, be at odds with the structure of the Community' s legal system.
This practice, which exists in some Member States, is accounted for by those countries' legal histories and is the result of the distinctive features of their judicial systems.
The practice, which exists in one or more Member States, would, however, be quite difficult to transfer to a Community court, without making agreement on decisions harder as a result of the change.
Earlier this evening we discussed a concrete case before the European Court of Justice under question 3, the so-called Journalists' Case.
What amazed me, in following the discussion, was the fact that the address by the Council of Ministers too - it was of course the Council of Ministers which stood accused in this case - was classified as secret.
I really do think it is unreasonable for a particular institution' s opinion on a political issue to be classified as secret if there are no very special reasons indeed for this.
I wonder if the Council of Ministers considers that the increased openness which is now hopefully to come within the EU ought also to embrace the Council of Ministers' addresses to the European Court of Justice.
Finally, I want to say that it is especially pleasing to have a minister from the Left Alliance here too.
Mr Sjöstedt, I realise that I have infringed the Rules of Procedure because you had already asked one supplementary question and on Council days you can only ask one.
This mea culpa shows that errors are committed in relation to the Rules of Procedure, but it was a pertinent question and so the Council may reply.
Mrs Siimes has the floor.
Mr President, I believe the Council has already answered the question about the case of the journalist, and I would like to point out that the Council altered its own position in this case regarding public access to documents so that in the end there was just one document, information on which was not to be given out.
In that sense, obviously, the Council itself - how can I say this? - corrected its procedures to make for greater transparency, which has been spoken of here.
Regarding the original question, I would say that the decisions of the Court and the documents associated with them are obviously rather a different matter from that of decisions of a body drafting legal provisions.
In this sense also, the criteria for openness regarding whose varying opinions should be made known and whose should not - as those of the judges are not - are obviously different matters for consideration.
Thank you very much, for your willingness to answer our questions.
Since the time allotted to Questions to the Council has elapsed, questions 13 to 32 will be replied to in writing.
That concludes Questions to the Council.
Mrs Kauppi has the floor for a procedural motion.
Mr President, I am completely satisfied with the Council' s reply but, before this part of this sitting ends, I would like to ask the Bureau when it intends to decide on the issue, as we are having a debate on Mr von Wogau' s report on the important issue of competition policy and state aid policy, which was meant in fact for this morning, but which today was put back by several hours.
Now it has been said that it might even be moved to January.
I would like to know at what time it might be safe to leave if I want to give my opinion in the debate?
Well, I thought I would have to call on the Holy Spirit to guide me, but luckily the officials tell me that the debate will take place tonight.
I did not know, but with full confidence in the team of officials, I can tell you that tonight, in all probability, you will be able to stay because we will be able to discuss it.
(The sitting was suspended at 7.10 p.m. and resumed at 9.00 p.m.)
State aid and competition policy
The next item is the joint debate on the following reports:
A5-0069/1999 by Mr von Wogau, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission White Paper on modernisation of the Rules implementing Articles 85 and 86 of the EC Treaty [COM(1999) 101 - C5­0105/1999 - 1999/2108(COS)];
A5­0078/1999 by Mr Rapkay, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the XXVIIIth Report by the Commission on Competition Policy (1998) [SEC(1999)0743 - C5­0121/1999 - 1999/2124(COS)];
A5-0087/1999 by Mr Jonckheer, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Seventh Survey on state aid in the European Union in manufacturing and certain other sectors [COM(1999) 148 - C5­0107/1999 - 1999/2110(COS)];
A5-0073/1999 by Mr Langen, on behalf of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, on the Commission report on the implementation in 1998 of Commission Decision No 2496/96/ECSC, of 18 December 1996, establishing Community rules for state aid to the steel industry (Steel Aid Code) [COM(1999) 094 - C5­0104/1999 - 1999/2107(COS)].
In accordance with Rule 146(1), I have received a request from the PPE-DE Group to postpone this debate.
Mr Karas has the floor to explain the reasons for the request.
Thank you very much, Mr Karas.
We shall now proceed to the vote on the request of the PPE-DE Group.
(Parliament approved the request)
Late payment in commercial transactions
The next item is the debate on the recommendation for second reading (A5-0099/1999) on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive combating late payment in commercial transactions [8790/1999 - C5-0125/1999 - 1998/0099(COD)] (rapporteur: Mr Murphy)
I would like to commend this second reading to the House.
It is very much about prosperity, and about creating jobs in the European Union, particularly for our small and medium-sized enterprises, by creating a better business climate for those businesses.
Paradoxically, I do not want this report to be used.
In fact I would like to see it go out of fashion very quickly indeed.
This sort of Directive should be changing the climate of our business economy, away from late payment to prompt payment.
We actually want a culture in this European Union, in our single market, of prompt payment, not late payment.
I would like to place on record a number of thanks before I address the substance of our second reading: thanks to Parliament's services for working so quickly on this report; to the Commission for all its support; and to the Finnish Presidency for the courteous and careful advice it has given through this process.
Thanks also to colleagues on the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy with whom I have worked very closely, several of whom I see here in this Chamber this evening.
In particular, thanks to UEAPME who are very much the voice of small businesses in the European Union and who have given wholehearted support to this proposal.
One further vote of thanks is also due, and that is actually to a ghost of this Chamber: that is, to my former colleague and good friend Lyndon Harrison, who was rapporteur at first reading, now Lord Harrison of Chester.
It was Lyndon Harrison who, as rapporteur on 16 September 1998, said to this House: "It is time to outlaw cheating practices and give small and medium-sized enterprises the confidence to go boldly into the single European market knowing that they will be paid on time and in full." I could not agree more.
I have to say, from our position as a Parliament, that the Council's common position was a disappointment - especially when you consider that we share the same aim.
Yet because we share the same aim, and because there is goodwill on both sides, I am confident that we will have an effective and efficient directive that will eventually be adopted.
However, it is important to point out that there are large areas of difference between us.
These include the rate of statutory interest to be charged when a late payment occurs; the length of the trigger period for interest if no contract has actually stipulated a payment period; retention of title in the course of late payment; the role of the public sector and the treatment of public procurement; and compensation claims arising from late payment.
All these areas are very difficult and could cause problems between Parliament and Council.
Nevertheless, it is my belief that they are integral to our aim and are broadly safe and sound, and will help create a better business climate for small and medium-sized enterprises as they develop to realise their full potential within the single market.
Shortly after I was elected to this House, Mr President, one of my first pleasurable duties was to bring to the Parliament representatives from Dudley Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which was then in my constituency.
They came to a hearing on late payments that was being organised in the Parliament and gave some very good expert advice, recognising that we had problems with late payment in the single market.
Those problems have actually got worse, which is why we currently have a directive and a proposal before us this evening.
The importance of this directive is that it will help us address that business climate, to have a cultural change so that we move away from late payment to prompt payment as the norm within the European single market and not, as it currently is, the other way around.
The small and medium-sized enterprises of the European Union are watching very closely to see how we react to this particular proposal and the common position.
They will expect from this House tomorrow a strong vote backing the vote that was carried in the Industry Committee unanimously on Monday of this week.
With those opening remarks, Mr President, I would commend our position to you.
Mr President, at this moment in time millions of small and medium-sized enterprises are watching us and the eyes of even more millions of workers in the European Union are turned anxiously towards us.
We are being called upon to deal with a most serious matter.
I too should like to congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, for the excellent spirit of cooperation which we had and to congratulate the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy for its full and unanimous support for our joint effort.
We must all, Parliament, Commission and Council, reflect on the responsibilities which face us.
We must bear in mind that one in four SMEs which goes bankrupt does so because of late payments.
We must be aware of the fact that 450 000 workers have lost their jobs at a time when the main problem facing the European Union is how to combat unemployment.
We must bear in mind that every citizen in the European Union owes 65 euros due to late payments.
We must bear in mind that we owe it to this society and to the entrepreneurial spirit of the European Union to give them the chance to develop on a sound basis.
We must also understand that we cannot permit the unfair practice whereby companies or even the public sector, which is the worst payer there is in the European Union, are financed free of charge, thereby condemning thousands of enterprises to death, stagnation or entrepreneurial castration.
What we are now being called upon to do is to restore conditions of healthy competition.
We do not intend to protect anyone.
However, we do intend to set up a framework of fair practices, to try and lay down rules of healthy competition so that we can all use our abilities and skills to face the future with better prospects.
I want us all to understand that several more thousand jobs are at stake if we back-pedal on this report which we are being called to vote upon.
I received a call today from an organisation representing thousands of small and medium-sized enterprises to say that they wished to congratulate the European Parliament on behalf of European business people.
That is precisely what we are waiting for here.
That is precisely what we are attempting to do and I call on the European Parliament, where we have the honour of sitting, to vote by a large majority in favour of the text tomorrow, I call on the Commission to do justice to the text which we give it during its evaluation and, above all, I call on the Council to understand that we cannot proclaim left, right and centre that we are above the law, that we cannot proclaim left, right and centre that we are sensitive to the issue of job creation, that we cannot proclaim left, right and centre that small and medium-sized enterprises are the backbone of the economy and, at the same time, refuse to vote in favour of and adopt the positions of this European Parliament.
Mr President, the globalisation of our economy that is underway, and of which completion of the single market is a part, is made up of regional districts and energy centres which, by managing to form a network, become international.
In order to achieve completion, globalisation needs clear, simple and effective rules which, until now, our businesses and our craft industries have not been able to take advantage of in an area as important as commercial transactions.
The Council' s position, which was presented at second reading, is still weak on this point and, in particular, it does not shield small and medium-sized businesses and craft industries from the inefficiency of public machinery and from the excessive power of big businesses.
The amendments that Parliament has tabled are intended to fill this serious gap and have an ambitious objective: the creation of a legislative structure which, while careful not to create pointless bureaucratic complications, will allow the sizeable productive forces of the Union to flourish in the internal market, thereby facilitating their activities on the global market too.
The most significant innovations we wish to introduce are the following: careful consideration of the consequences of late payment for perishable foods; recognition of the right to demand compensation for costs incurred from debt collection too; retention of title clauses by the vendor; to ensure that an enforceable title can be obtained normally within 60 days of the lodging of the creditor' s action; and finally, greater transparency in the relationship between the contracting authority and the contractor, and also in a subcontractual relationship.
This group of amendments may mark the beginning of a real cultural change in the current relationship between debtor and creditor.
My final observation is of a purely political nature.
In the last few days there has been a lot of talk about the role and future of the Community institutions, but I would like to remind you that the credibility of a structure such as Parliament or the Council is closely linked to its ability to resolve the problems that trouble citizens in their everyday life, or to take positive action on these matters.
I would like to compliment and congratulate the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, and the committee, on the work they have done on this.
Although we are a small House tonight this is a terribly important subject.
It cannot be said too often that small businesses do not have deep pockets and so have greater difficulty riding out cash-flow crises than bigger ones.
They often have to wait for money to come in before paying their own suppliers.
If payments are delayed it has a knock-on effect.
Sometimes they are dependent on one large customer.
If this client delays or defaults on payments, that can mean the equivalent of a whole month's work lost, with potentially catastrophic effects.
Worse still there is often no real redress.
Though there is a statutory right, for example in the United Kingdom, to impose interest on late payments, there is practically no way to enforce this and court action is impractical to recover small debts.
We need to have some form of enforcement machinery.
There is also the difficulty of different payment terms across the European Union - 30 days in some places, 90 in others.
The compromise of 60 days seems to me a sensible arrangement.
It is grand that the Commission has put its shoulder behind the wheel of speeding up commercial payments but it is far from the case that the Commission is beyond reproach itself.
The Ombudsman' s report highlighted many instances of late payments to suppliers by the Commission.
This point was addressed in the communication from Commissioner Liikanen and another concerning time limits.
I am glad that the Commission is seeking to improve its own procedures to reduce late payments as I would like to see it put its house in order.
I had a letter from a distinguished academic the other day pointing out that persons coming to give reports are often kept waiting for their expenses money for several months.
This is unacceptable.
We must make sure that the Commission does as well as it expects others to do.
Mr President, when the common position arrived here, as the former shadow rapporteur of my group, I felt slightly abandoned by the rapporteur of first reading who had left this House.
When it also transpired that the file of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs had been passed on to the Industry Committee, then I felt completely orphaned, but the coordinator and the new EPP shadow rapporteur have adopted me in the Industry Committee for a short while, which made up for a lot of things and for which I would like to express my thanks to both.
I would also like to say a word of thanks to the rapporteur, Mr Murphy, who has done a sterling job.
Mr President, the common position is better than the original proposal.
The Industry Committee, however, has incorporated a few more amendments and I hope that they can be conciliated swiftly because the SMEs are desperate for the entry into effect of this directive, but quality should come before speed.
The report meets with my full approval.
I still have questions but only with regard to the bill of exchange, Amendment No 18.
I am aware that the bill of exchange is used in one of our Member States as a means to counter excessive payments.
However, I do think that the bill of exchange is too strict an instrument.
It is an unconditional order to pay a certain sum on a certain day and even if there are serious reasons for challenging the claim, one cannot refer to them as the debtor.
If the bill also needs to be guaranteed and accepted by a bank, then this becomes an expensive business.
Personally, I hold the opinion that we should confine ourselves to judicial review on account of unreasonable terms.
I would like to know the Commissioner' s opinion regarding this Amendment No 18.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
Bovine animals and beef: identification, registration and labelling
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0101/1999) by Mr Papayannakis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 820/97 establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products [COM(1999) 487 - C5-0241/1999 - 1999/0205(COD)].
Mr Goodwill has the floor for a procedural motion.
Mr President, on a point of order, although we are not joined by the Council representative tonight, could I ask whether the Commission or a representative of Parliament's secretariat are aware of press agency reports I have seen which state that the decision to extend the voluntary scheme for 12 months was actually made in the Council yesterday, circumventing the codecision procedure and making this debate and the vote tomorrow irrelevant?
Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf has the floor for a procedural motion.
Mr President. I wish to speak on the same point.
I do not take the view that the debate here and hence the vote tomorrow are irrelevant. Quite the contrary.
What I would like clarified for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, and because the Council is not here I would be happy to hear it from Commissioner Byrne before the debate, is this: how are we to interpret these announcements and the Council conclusions before us.
Obviously the Council has decided that, if we react to the regulation presented by the Commission with proposed amendments, it may not agree to the simplified procedure, i.e. to accept this postponement under the codecision procedure.
It would then approve another proposal from the Commission, drafted in accordance with the old Regulation 820, article 19 of which establishes implementing provisions which allow a postponement of one year.
The Council has apparently decided, should the Commission make this formal proposal, to agree to it.
So, obviously what we have here is a twin-track approach by the Commission and we are naturally curious to know, Commissioner Byrne, now that we are in the middle of a codecision procedure, if the Commission is using a twin-track approach to circumvent this codecision by announcing a different approach to the Council.
I would be most obliged if you could tell me if you condone this approach by the Council, whereby a simplified codecision procedure can only be approved if Parliament does not exercise its right to amend the text presented by the Commission to the Council, in which case we must conclude that, if we exercise that right we are, to all intents and purposes, out of the codecision procedure!
We would like this point cleared up by the Commissioner before the debate.
I am sorry, Commissioner, but I must put this question to you; the Council is not here and we would like this cleared up before the debate and before tomorrow' s vote.
I repeat that I consider that this debate and tomorrow' s vote, i.e. the postponement, are urgently needed.
I disagree in this respect with the previous speaker, but I share his view that this needs to be clarified.
Mr President, I am not quite sure what I am being asked to do at this stage.
If it is agreeable to you and Members of Parliament I could address you on the issues I have come to address you on or alternatively answer the question that has been asked, in so far as I can, by the two previous speakers in relation to the issues raised in the Council yesterday.
As Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf very rightly points out, I am not here to answer on behalf of the Council, but in so far as I can assist Parliament I would be very happy to do so.
I have with me a copy of the conclusions which were suggested by the Presidency yesterday.
Before I read that document I should point out that what I am about to read amounts to a political orientation taken by the Council yesterday.
The Council recognised that this issue was being discussed today in Parliament.
Therefore, they deferred any decision on this issue until after Parliament had discussed the issue.
The matter will then go back to the one of the Councils before the end of the year, taking into account the decision of Parliament today.
However, if it is of assistance to Parliament I would be very happy to read this document which amounts to a political orientation rather than a conclusion or a decision of the Council yesterday.
The Council, after having examined the Commission proposal aiming at postponing for one year (from 1 January 2000 to 31 December 2000) the introduction of a compulsory beef labelling system and maintaining during this period the voluntary labelling scheme provided for in Regulation (EC) No 820/97, has adopted the following conclusions:
(1) The Council agrees on the following common orientation: the Commission proposal is acceptable without any other amendment than the addition of Article 37 to Article 152, paragraph 4(b) as a legal basis;
(2) Should the opinion which will be delivered by the European Parliament within the first reading of the codecision procedure correspond to the above common orientation, the Council shall accept this outcome and therefore adopt the proposed act thus amended;
(3) If this were not the case, the legislative act could not be adopted before 31 December 1999;
(4) The Council notes that in this hypothesis the Commission intends to submit a proposal having the same objective, but based on Article 19, paragraph 1 of Regulation (EC) No 820/97;
(5) The Council has considered a working document prepared by the Commission services in this perspective - 14015/99 - and noted a large majority in favour of the substance of the text;
(6) Should the Commission submit a formal proposal for a Council regulation corresponding to the text of the working document which received the support of the Council, the Council shall adopt such proposed regulation before 31 December 1999;
(7) The Council will do its utmost in order to have a decision on a labelling provision as soon as possible in consultation with the European Parliament.
That is the orientation of the Agriculture Council yesterday.
They have refrained from making a decision in deference to Parliament's discussions here today and the decision is open to Parliament to take tomorrow.
Mr President, having heard the text read by Mr Byrne, of which I have a copy here before me, there is indeed little point in this debate.
Mr Byrne, it is not true that the Council has not taken any decisions.
The Council has decided on a year' s postponement.
It says so.
The Council has decided that it knows that the Commission - in other words you - will present another solution which we know nothing about.
You know what it is, they know that you will present it to them, that it will be a good solution, that it will approve it by 31 December and that it will approve it without codecision.
That too is a Council decision.
Consequently, you are trying to fool us here.
Despite all this, I still have to present my report to you.
We approved Regulation No 820 in 1997.
It makes provision for the identification and registration of bovine animals - this was during the "mad cow" crisis - and it was decided on and entered into force on 1 July 1997.
It makes provision for labelling of beef and beef products: voluntary labelling until 31 December 1999 and compulsory labelling as of 1 January 2000.
I should point out, just so that we are clear on this, that the voluntary scheme in each country or in certain countries will obviously not become the compulsory system throughout the Union.
The transition from the voluntary to the compulsory scheme is effected by approving implementary regulations which should have been drafted by the Commission and which should be approved by 1 January 2000.
As yet, nothing has been approved.
Consequently, as of 1 January 2000 we must expect to have a sort of legal vacuum and chaos and confusion on the market. Why?
Because the Member States have been late sending in the reports which they were required to send to the Commission and the Commission has failed to do its work.
Then the Commission comes along on 15 November and tells us, "We are unable to complete, please can we postpone for a year" , adding that this will be on a new legal basis, Article 152 of the Treaty, which is quite right following the Amsterdam Treaty.
This development puts Parliament in a very difficult position, Mr President.
Either we accept exactly what the Commission tells us, i.e. we postpone for a year and then codecide on the implementary regulations, or we make amendments, in which case, the Council tells us, these amendments cannot be accepted.
It has already told us.
If they cannot be accepted, then again we have a problem.
What did we do in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy? We of course voiced the right criticism which, I believe, should be particularly forceful of the Commission and the Council.
We do not accept a year' s postponement.
We say it should be reduced to no more than eight months and, of course, with the amendments which the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy has approved, we have, Mr President, to all intents and purposes, agreed with the proposals to sideline codecision, in order to save time and ensure that a compulsory agreement is reached quickly.
We have seen what the Council has decided, it has discounted all of this as impossible.
It has already said that it is going to postpone for a year and that it is waiting for the famous proposals which the Commission is hiding up its sleeve and which will solve the problem of implementation.
I think, Mr President, that things have come to a pretty pass.
I do not think that any of the procedures being proposed guarantee that we will proceed more quickly towards compulsory labelling.
I imagine that the Council will soon meet in extraordinary session, probably before Christmas, and will do something to ensure that there is no vacuum, chaos and confusion.
However, codecision has been sidelined and perhaps we are partly to blame.
I think, Mr President, that it is only logical after all this to envisage the possibility of going to Court, because these are clear infringements of the legislation.
I personally think that there is no guarantee that we will proceed more quickly.
However, I recommend the solution proposed by the Committee on Environment and I hope that we will proceed more quickly, albeit using dubious methods, towards compulsory labelling.
We have seen today how important it is in resolving differences between Member States and, above all, and much more importantly, and this is what interests us, how important it is to consumer protection.
If we see that even with this dubious method there is no progress towards an urgent solution, I think it is unavoidable that we shall end up taking recourse to Court, if, of course, there is a majority in the House which has the political courage and resolution to do so.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we discussed the question of beef labelling here in plenary as early as February 1997.
At the time we, as the European Parliament, voted in favour of the immediate introduction of the compulsory labelling system.
However, the Council decided on an initially optional labelling system and postponed the compulsory system until January 2000.
We are now being asked to agree to a further postponement of one year, as there has been a delay in the implementation of the applicable regulation 820/97.
The Member States and the Commission alone are to blame for these delays.
The Commission justifies the delay by saying that the progress reports from the Member States, which form the basis for the general rules governing a compulsory system, were received too late.
In our opinion, the Commission and the Member States did not make a conscientious effort to ensure that the compulsory beef labelling system would enter into force as planned.
The Commission must therefore be prepared to answer the question of why it did not take the Member States to task earlier.
After all, the Member States were obliged to ensure that the conditions needed for complete proof of origin for cattle were in place and that their electronic data bases were up and running by 31 December this year.
The Commission' s contention, that the presentation of its proposal was delayed because the outcome of the case pending against the Council before the European Court of Justice on the legal basis for Regulation 820/97 has not yet been decided, is also unacceptable.
Even if the judgement had been made, it would still have been extremely difficult to complete a codecision procedure on this matter.
We cannot sanction a further postponement of one year without reservation; otherwise we may well be forced again this time next year to agree to a further postponement because some Member States have again failed to do their homework.
We will give the Member States a further eight months to catch up but the compulsory system must be definitively introduced in all Member States and for everyone marketing beef on 1 September 2000.
The Commission has time until then to submit implementing provisions for the compulsory system.
At the same time, the European Parliament and the Council will decide on a new version of Regulation 820/97 under a codecision procedure.
This approach will enable the compulsory system to be introduced earlier than envisaged by the Commission in its proposal and will give all those concerned sufficient time to find a lasting and satisfactory solution.
In conclusion, I should like once again to thank my colleagues in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy for taking account of the amendment proposed by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development; I think it is important, here and now, for the European Parliament to speak with one voice and to send out a clear signal on this matter of fundamental importance to consumers.
I would also like, once again, to thank all those who have worked on this and the services for their fast work and self-sacrifice.
The last decades of the twentieth century have been punctuated by a series of food scares.
In many cases genuine concerns are blown out of proportion as the media indulge in a feeding frenzy, seldom letting the facts get in the way of a good story.
Maybe we do not have enough journalists with a scientific background able to quantify issues like risk or possibly, as I suspect, a sensational front page headline which will sell a newspaper is more important than giving consumers information on which to judge their buying decisions.
Product labelling is one important way in which this misinformation can be countered.
It is, of course, possible to go too far and give technical data that confuses rather than informs.
When the details of this and other directives are considered I hope we can have at the back of our minds the mother trailing two or three irritable children around the supermarket.
She does not have time to read a detailed data sheet.
She needs to see at a glance the information on the origin, production method and other details in a simple, unambiguous way.
At present food labelling is at best vague, at worst deliberately misleading.
For example, one could be forgiven for thinking that bacon labelled "packed in the UK" was produced in Britain under our most stringent welfare standards; not so.
And shepherd's pie labelled "product of the UK" may contain beef from Botswana, Zimbabwe or anywhere else in the world.
This is not good enough.
Labelling rules should address these problems.
I now come to the intolerable situation we find ourselves in today regarding the extension of the voluntary beef labelling scheme.
What would be the attitude of the EU if it were a company, not a country, that chose to ignore legislation which other similar businesses were complying with? The full force of the law would be unleashed of course.
We have the situation that 12 of the 15 Member States have not introduced a voluntary system of beef labelling and are therefore not in a position to move to a compulsory scheme in January.
The Commission blames the Member States for not providing information about the lack of action in time for the proper democratic procedures to ensue.
They should, however, have been aware of how the situation was developing and I am sure a few telephone calls would soon have put the Commission in the picture.
Today, despite the fact that both the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment of this Parliament were asked to consider this extension, the Council has decided to ignore this House and change the legal basis for this decision, despite the fact that the amendments proposed were both practical and reasonable and could have been adopted under codecision.
This is an insult to the Members of the European Parliament.
It is particularly important, finally, that consumers know where the beef they are consuming comes from.
In the wake of the BSE crisis we must make it simple for people to identify the safest beef available, which is, of course, British.
Could I also urge Commissioner Byrne to introduce a compensation scheme for British beef farmers who are being hit by the illegal action of the French Government? The cost of this scheme can be recouped from the French when, as surely as day follows night, they lose their court case.
British farmers need help now, not the promise of compensation later when some of them will be bankrupt and beyond help.
Mr President, we return for the second time today to the grave crisis over beef, its safety and circulation within this Union under the rule of law.
All of us believe that we need the measures which were promised by the Commission back in 1997.
We need them especially because of the crisis through which we are passing.
The issue of the identification of beef products and the certainty that they can be relied upon is as much at the heart of the dispute between France and the European Union as it is at the heart of the concerns of safety which have preoccupied both the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment over the last two years.
I want to congratulate Mr Papayannakis on his patience over the last few weeks.
We are all concerned about the apparent fait accompli in the statement by the Council.
We are having this debate in a legislative vacuum if we have no flexibility of amendment.
We see Regulation No 820/97 slipping away from us into a morass of half-observed voluntary practices with no immediate prospects of the compulsory scheme which every Member of this House knows is necessary.
That is partly a result of Member State inertia, but I cannot exempt the Commission from its own responsibilities.
They far pre-date Mr Byrne's arrival in office.
But now, as he has to clear up this mess, we ought to hear from him how he will do so.
The amendments of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy set out to remedy this with a remission of eight months maximum.
Some of our amendments clarified and strengthened Article 152 as the legal base.
Today the Council is urging that Article 37 be added to the legal base.
This is surely an issue of health and consumer protection.
I want to hear from Commissioner Byrne that he will be the defender of everything that was implied in Article 152 once it is added to the Treaty.
The whole point of this is that it gives us a right to intervene, a right to be consulted and to be participants in the process of codecision.
That right, so recently granted to Parliament post-Amsterdam, is now being snatched away.
That has been the cri de coeur of Mr Papayannakis throughout our discussions in the Environment Committee.
It is an absolutely scandalous state of affairs that we are sitting here in a nine-tenths empty parliamentary Chamber, one week before Christmas, seeing a regulation which will come into effect no-one knows when or how, with a Council which is treating us with an aloof contempt.
I do not believe it is good enough.
I do not believe Mr Byrne thinks so either.
Mr President, it is morally reprehensible and completely unacceptable that the EU Commission is to shelve consumers' justified demands to know about the origin of the foods we all eat.
The EU Parliament ought to put the screws on and ensure that all EU countries label beef and register cattle.
Back in 1997, the governments of the EU countries resolved in the Council to implement labelling and registration.
This has unfortunately only happened in fairly few countries, and there is a tremendous amount of trouble getting the resolution implemented in a number of other countries where not even a start has been made on setting up a labelling system.
For the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party, it is crucially important that consumers' confidence should not merely be preserved but also increased, that public health should be protected and that the quality of foodstuffs should be high.
It is therefore completely unacceptable that the Commission should not have put this important area in order.
Consumers should be able to rely upon the quality of the beef they buy, and they can only do that if it is possible to monitor the animal concerned from its birth until such time as the beef ends up on the dinner table.
That is to say, the animal' s country of origin, the country in which it was slaughtered, the name of the abattoir and the identity of the butchers should be known.
The Commission' s proposal to postpone compulsory labelling and registration is quite unacceptable.
We can support Mr Heinz Kindermann' s opinion and we also expect at least EUR 15 million to be allocated for the purpose, for it is an urgent matter to get these arrangements in place.
Mr President, Mr Byrne, you have presented the Council decision to us here today.
I agree with you that this is really the task of the Council, but I would like to refer to the seventh point, which says that there must be a labelling provision as soon as possible in consultation with the European Parliament.
I consider this passage to be cynical, given that this paper again excludes the European Parliament from codecision.
It is the same approach as that taken in 1997 when the Commission proposed codecision to us and Parliament and the Commission tabled a proposal.
We made a great deal of effort only to see the Council unanimously reject the proposal and decide without Parliament.
That meant that the Council had taken over responsibility. The Council failed to fulfil its responsibility to implement what it itself had decided in Article 19, namely to issue implementing provisions on 1.1.2000.
Then Parliament was again taken to task and again it fulfilled its obligation.
We have not moaned and groaned, we have sat down and got on with the work - on the subject of which, Mr Papayannakis, heartfelt thanks to you as rapporteur and to Mr Kindermann, the rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture, and to the administration and legal service.
Everyone has made an effort!
There was good coordination between the Committee on Agriculture and the Committee on the Environment.
We negotiated with the Commission.
We put our cards on the table and said, excuse me, but we have a contribution to make to this procedure.
The result: do or die!
If you want to be part of the procedure, then you must divorce yourself from it as far as the content is concerned, otherwise we will not accept your case!
Mr Byrne, you said earlier that the decision now rests with Parliament.
This means that if we adopt what you have submitted to us, then it will go through.
If we table amendments which really are justified, over which we have taken time and trouble, then you will decide without us.
This is a snub to Parliament by the Council which we are not prepared to accept.
Now to the role of the Commission.
The Commission has told us that there is no longer any time for implementing provisions. Please, indulge us!
We are indulgent and where does it get us? Since the way in which we have amended it obviously does not suit you, you go on to the next proposal by introducing the compulsory system under Article 19, saying at the same time that the voluntary system will be extended by one year, thereby excluding Parliament from the process.
That too is a snub to Parliament which we cannot accept.
We take the view that Article 19 does not legally allow this postponement.
We have been involved in a procedure since the 1997 decision and we shall most probably find ourselves involved in a procedure again after this decision, which means, furthermore that it would be in the consumers' interest to draw up an urgently needed timetable with us in order to ensure the reasonable and timely application of this compulsory labelling system.
Mr President, I welcome this opportunity to make a brief contribution to this debate and to open with the comment that an early and satisfactory resolution of the controversy surrounding food safety is of paramount importance to consumers, to our farmers and indeed to the food industry.
Already the fall-out from BSE has cost farmers millions of pounds and left consumers both confused and bewildered.
While not detracting from the seriousness of the situation, the impact on consumer confidence has been far greater in my view than the actual threat to public health.
It is for this reason that we must quickly put beyond doubt the safety of all food, including beef, through a credible and totally transparent traceability programme.
Delays at this stage are unacceptable and Parliament must keep up the pressure on the Council and on Member States to conform fully with our revised food laws.
It has been agreed to accept the recommendations of the Scientific Committee as the basis for all decisions on the public health aspect of food production.
To do otherwise in my view would be to politicise unnecessarily what is now a priority EU agenda and indeed would do nothing to restore consumer and farmer confidence.
I sat through an earlier debate relating to this today and one might wonder whether Parliament is united in accepting the basic principle of the recommendations of the Scientific Committee.
From a consumer perspective, labelling is, of course, part of the resolution of this problem.
It must be clear, it must be understandable: a point that has been made here on many occasions, but it is not the answer to the public health aspect of food production.
I believe our farmers - and, if I may say so, particularly Irish farmers - have no difficulty in producing a product of the highest quality and safety.
In many respects they have been made the scapegoats in the present controversy and are certainly paying a high price for a crisis that was not of their direct making.
I very much welcome the leadership provided by the new Commissioner, Mr Byrne, and his commitment to the establishment of an EU food safety agency.
I know, Commissioner, that you are doing everything possible to bring this proposal to fruition as quickly as possible and it is very important that you do so.
The European agricultural model, based on family farms, in my view provides the infrastructure necessary to give our consumers quality and choice.
That particular concept of the agricultural model has been debated and agreed on by our Committee on Agriculture and indeed by Parliament too.
It has been reflected in the Agenda 2000 proposals.
I want to make the point that in our anxiety to protect consumers we must be equally careful not to over-regulate a sector which has the capacity to produce a diverse range of quality food.
In my view there is no substitute for the quality of beef, lamb and pork produced by European farmers.
This fact must be fully reflected in the trade talks still to get under way in Seattle, where our competitors in world trade will have a vested interest in frustrating our efforts to put our agriculture and food sector on a sound and competitive footing.
Mr President, Commissioner, as far as the labelling of beef is concerned, we are not debating the substance here today but the timetable, which needs to be laid down.
We are also debating the highly topical issue of the Council' s approach and the Commission' s behaviour and position.
The Commission has submitted two proposals to us on beef labelling, one which makes beef labelling compulsory in Member States as of 1 January 2001 and one which is drafted as a transitional regulation up to 31 December 2000, i.e. voluntary labelling.
The timetable submitted by the Commission must be rejected in the interests of the consumer.
Mr Kindermann has submitted what I consider to be a convincing timetable.
The European Parliament should agree to voluntary labelling up to 31 August 2000, with compulsory labelling to be introduced as quickly as possible.
Only in this way can we send out a clear signal to anxious consumers.
There can be no question of continuing to allow the slowest link in the chain to set the pace.
Nor can there be any question of the new Commission continuing to hide behind what to me look very like the old delaying tactics.
The delay in the implementation of the regulation cannot be ascribed solely to the Commission and individual Member States.
In other words, this approach would have been totally unnecessary if the Commission had acted promptly at the time.
Then there is the point that the applicable Regulation 820/97 still contains the obligation to introduce the compulsory system by 1 January 2000.
The Commission' s excuse for the delay is that the Member States were late sending in the necessary reports on the implementation of the labelling system.
I really do wonder if the model pupils in the Member States are again being punished here.
We must not tolerate this cat-and-mouse game by the Commission any longer!
You should know, Mr Byrne, that none of us can afford to put on such airs and graces.
You should bear in mind that we really want to decide on this proposal under the codecision procedure. Consumer interests must come first.
Consequently, we should, in my opinion, support the timetable suggested by Mr Kindermann in tomorrow' s vote.
With this timetable we really can send a signal to our anxious consumers and we should all bear in mind that we sit here as the representatives of the people, that we have been elected by the consumers and that it is we Members of Parliament who must lay ourselves open time and again to discussions with our citizens.
I have the impression that the Council has already distanced itself from them by quite some way.
Mr President, the European Parliament is in favour of these measures and has also shown that it is in favour of operating in a flexible way so that these measures are implemented effectively.
But the European Parliament is against the use of deadlines as an excuse for this measure never being implemented.
The manoeuvring of the Council and its secrecy with Parliament, Mr President, are increasing our suspicions in this respect to the point where we almost want to accuse them of having something to hide.
Neither do I share the euphoria of those who think that, by means of labels, we are going to do away with food fraud, nor do I share the fears of those who think that this is a form of renationalisation.
It is simply a measure which will offer the consumer more information, and that is significant, Mr President, at a time when, in the European Union, confidence in food safety has been eroded.
Therefore, we believe that the Council has made a big mistake and must put it right as soon as possible.
Mr President, Commissioner, only last week did the annual BAMST workshop take place at the University of Ghent.
BAMST stands for Belgian Association for Meat Science and Technology.
This year' s theme was traceability, a means to guarantee the quality of meat and meat products.
Professor Jan Van Hoof gave a clear overview of the situation in Belgium in terms of traceability of meat and it should be said: there is finally some good news from the Belgian federation.
Together with France and Finland, we are the only country which has completed the implementation of the present directive.
However, what the Council and Commission are trying to dish up here today beggars belief.
I support the observations made by all those who have intervened in the debate so far.
This joint protest from our Committees on Agriculture and the Environment ensures that we want to put a stop to the Commission' s proposals and rightly so.
A three-year delay for a compulsory regulation is unacceptable to us.
Even a one year delay is.
Let there be no mistake: we want the compulsory regulation in place by 1 September.
Let this be a warning to the Council.
If necessary, we will call on the Court of Justice.
This is a violation of Community Law; a gross insult.
I therefore urge all those present to fully approve rapporteur Papayannakis' report.
We will take a hard line on this.
After all, we want to use compulsory labelling as a means to help those who want to restore consumer confidence in meat.
This should happen sooner rather than later.
Mr President, as I am the last to speak, I shall not repeat what everyone else has said.
I would first like to answer the English Member this evening, as there are not many of us and we are all friends here, without stirring up any controversy.
I have already said in this Chamber that British and Irish farmers are in a difficult situation and we must help them.
We must work out who should pay and we must make the calculations together.
If France has to pay - and perhaps the courts will decide that it must - French politicians will accept their responsibilities, but neither should we forget that those who have not respected the rules on the treatment of meal and who have placed us in this situation must also pay.
We must certainly not forget them.
Commissioner, my only concern is that the 1997 political commitment not be jeopardised. Why is the Council taking a step backwards?
Who are the pressure groups? Knowing, as we do, what has happened throughout the European meat industry and what is still happening in other countries, I wonder.
Are there pressure groups forcing it to move backwards, to go back on what has already been done in this industry in terms of labelling and also in terms of the consumer in order to clarify things?
Can you tell us Commissioner, what proposals you have presented to the Council? Because normally, unless I am mistaken, the Commission makes several proposals to the Council when discussions are held, as was the case yesterday.
How do you expect the citizen and consumer to understand this backwards step? Why is the Council rejecting Parliament' s proposal?
These are certainly not budgetary measures. As far as abattoirs and traceability are concerned, I think that the Council is adopting a contrary attitude, and will have to accept sole responsibility.
I agree with today' s speakers that Parliament must make the Council aware of this.
I am therefore counting on you, Commissioner, to act rapidly - and this will be our New Year present for the end of 1999 and in that way Parliament will not be disappointed at the beginning of 2000.
You can still intervene and you can still change the Council' s mind.
The second point which I would like to draw to your attention before the start of 2000 is this: let us not wait until December, as we have waited this year until November, to put a definitive regulation on the table. This will enable us to apply it as rapidly as possible, for which, moreover, Mr Papayannakis' excellent report makes provision.
Let me begin with a word of apology for my delayed arrival this afternoon.
Unfortunately, weather conditions in Brussels led to the cancellation of this morning's flight and therefore I was unable to be present in person to update Parliament on the BSE dispute.
This has led I know to a change in the schedule of Parliamentary business with this important debate now taking place late in the evening.
I have been informed of all the work of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development on this proposal.
I would like to congratulate Mr Papayannakis, the rapporteur, and Mr Kindermann, draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
The business before us is the Commission proposal to extend the existing voluntary labelling requirements under Regulation (EC) No 820/97 for a further year.
I am very aware that Parliament is deeply unhappy that a compulsory labelling regime is not in place as envisaged with effect from 1 January 2000.
I note that there is a proposed amendment which criticises the Commission and certain Member States for this delay.
However there were good and justifiable reasons for this delay.
Firstly, Member States did not submit the required reports on existing arrangements in sufficient time.
Secondly, not all Member States will be in a position to establish reliable registration and identification systems for all animals.
Finally, the last Commission took a decision, following its resignation, not to present any major new political initiatives and I understand that Parliament agreed with that proposal.
This Commission was therefore faced with a very difficult situation.
There was a very tight deadline, 1 January 2000, within which to agree a proposal laying down general rules for a compulsory system to apply from that date.
Quite simply, with the best will in the world, this deadline cannot be met.
The proposal has been made under the codecision procedure but full agreement between the Community institutions cannot be expected for several months.
This is the minimum time necessary to agree such important issues.
In these circumstances, the Commission also presented a second proposal to prolong the existing voluntary arrangements provided for under Regulation (EC) No 820/97.
This is also in accordance with the codecision procedure.
It therefore is also confronted with the very pressing deadline of 1 January 2000.
The challenge is to reach full agreement within the next week or so.
Yesterday the Council discussed this second Commission proposal for a prolongation of the existing regime.
The Council agreed an orientation on this proposal with only one amendment - the addition of Article 37 alongside Article 152 - to the legal base.
This is, of course, a major amendment which, in my opinion, does not favour a quick conclusion to the codecision procedure.
Any amendment by Parliament to the Commission's proposal, which is contrary to the orientation agreed by the Council yesterday is equally certain to block any progress towards agreement before the end of this year.
This puts both the Parliament and the Commission in a very difficult situation.
You will be very aware of the implications.
In these circumstances, the Commission has a responsibility to act.
As already signalled, the Commission would be obliged, in order to avoid a legal void, to present a third proposal.
This third proposal would be based on Article 19 of the existing Regulation (EC) No 820/97 and would prolong the existing arrangements providing for voluntary labelling.
My intention would be to examine carefully your amendments with a view to seeing in what measure they can be considered.
On this point I must underline that certain amendments which aim to shorten delays go in the direction of improved consumer protection, which of course is an issue that is close to my heart.
I can in this context accept amendments which aim to shorten the period during which the existing arrangements can continue for a period of eight months.
However, I cannot accept your amendments concerning bringing forward the labelling of place of slaughter with effect from 1 January 2000.
I have a lot of sympathy for this amendment and signal to the Council a strong wish to have it considered in their common position.
Indeed, yesterday in Council I drew the Council's attention to the fact that there was an amendment put forward by the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy on Monday.
However, there was virtually no support.
It is also a provision which would perhaps be better addressed in the main proposal on the general rules.
This proposal is also currently before the Council and Parliament.
The Commission cannot accept the proposed amendment to drop the requirement for real debate between Parliament, the Council and the Commission on the main proposal based on Article 152 of the Treaty.
This would be the consequence if this amendment is adopted: Parliament would give up its important obligation to participate in this debate.
I should like to add that the debate is still open in relation to the Commission proposal on the general rules applying an obligatory regime.
It is in this context that the main debate should take place.
It is unfortunate that discussions of these very complex and important issues have had to take place in the context of an emergency decision with a near-impossible deadline.
The Commission is of the view that Article 152 is the appropriate legal base.
This is an extremely important and contested issue which is currently before the Court of Justice.
On this question the Commission cannot agree to the addition of Article 37.
There is little or no appetite in the Member States for a fully compulsory system from 1 January 2000.
We cannot ignore this reality, nor can we assume that we have a better idea of the obligations involved than the Member States.
Member States can choose to impose compulsory labelling for beef cattle born, raised and slaughtered on their own territory.
Only three have chosen to do so.
The Commission is in favour of full, compulsory labelling.
It is therefore proposed that it should take place from 1 January 2001 for place of slaughter and, in addition, from 1 January 2003 for place of birth and fattening.
I can assure you that I am committed to this particular proposal and to the question of compulsory labelling.
It is my intention to pursue that in the period of time I am in office, and to do so quickly.
Turning to some of the questions that were raised by some of you, I will try to give you some answers in relation to these issues.
In relation to the question raised by Mr Papayannakis when he said: "You are trying to fool us here". I am not sure if the interpreters made some kind of mistake.
I would like to place a benign interpretation on those words rather than a malign one, because they are open to the interpretation that I am attempting to mislead Parliament.
That, as you know, Mr Papayannakis, is one of the most serious charges that can be laid against anybody.
If that was your intention I reject it and resent it.
I have always been open with Parliament.
On the first day I came here, when I spoke at my hearings in September, I made it absolutely clear that it was my intention to be open and transparent with Parliament.
I have appeared in Parliament in plenary session on many occasions in the short time that I have been Commissioner.
I have appeared before committees of this House on a number of occasions also.
Never once in that period of time was any such suggestion made to me.
I do not accept it.
Mr President, it would be the easiest thing in the world for me just to apologise.
I think you misunderstood what I said.
It is not in my nature to be insulting when discussing politics.
I do not know what the interpreter said, but under no circumstances did I mean that I had a problem with you, not by any stretch of the imagination.
However, Commissioner, the essence of my political question remains and, if you would care to, please reply to it.
Did the Council decide yesterday to postpone for a year without waiting to see what we wanted, yes or no? Did the Council decide yesterday to circumvent Parliament' s opinion, yes or no?
These are not insults, Commissioner. They are serious conclusions based on the Council' s action.
Obviously, you have no reason in the final analysis to act as Council' s advocate.
I therefore repeat that under no circumstances did I intend any slight on your honour or your reputation and if you think that I did or if you were given any cause to do so, I apologise.
However, I repeat, the problem is how you interpret what the Council did yesterday.
You have no reason to try and defend it.
I am happy to say that I accept the explanation and apology offered by Mr Papayannakis and the gracious way in which he has done so.
Let us put it down to interpretation difficulties.
In response to his question, he is perfectly right.
I am not here to answer for Council and all I can say is that I read out the conclusions of the Council yesterday.
I should say that the Council did not adopt this as its decision, but rather said that this was its view, its orientation, but made it clear that it would have to await the outcome of Parliament's decision tomorrow on this particular issue before finally voting on the issue and adopting a position.
For that reason I understand that this issue is going back to one of the Councils before the end of this year for finalisation, having regard to what Parliament said today and what Parliament will vote on and decide tomorrow.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
The debate is closed.
The vote will take place tomorrow at 10.00 a.m.
BST
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0098/1999) by Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council decision concerning the placing on the market of bovine somatotrophin (BST) and repealing Council Decision 90/218/EEC [COM(1999) 544 - C5-0250/1999 - 1999/0219(CNS)].
Mr President, I am not speaking on behalf of my group.
I will vote with the majority of my group as I always do when they decide in a democratic way, but I am afraid I do not hold the same view as Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert.
She made her case very well and she "threw the book at it".
There was no conceivable argument against use or about the possible dangers that might occur that she did not invoke.
I find myself in the same position I found myself in many years ago when, on the initiative of Parliament, we banned natural hormones in the production of beef.
We cost the European beef producers something like EUR 12 to 15 billion.
In the meantime we did not enhance the safety of beef.
We based our decision on political ideology rather than scientific investigation.
The truth is that we ban American beef today because those hormones are there; but the truth is also that we know that, if we allowed the Americans to sell that beef into our market, at good value to our consumers, and if we were to put a label on it saying those hormones were there, they would still buy it.
We know that.
If we did not know that, why would we ban it? Let them come with their beef and if our consumers are so concerned they would not eat it anyway.
But I do not believe they are so concerned.
It is the same with this product we propose to ban today.
It is motivated by ideology rather than science.
I believe we have a committee called the CVM.
This committee for veterinary medical products which works within the European Medicines Evaluation Agency concluded that BST was safe, efficacious and of suitable quality.
As such, they recommended that the product was suitable for release.
They found that it did not affect the health of animals and that it was a natural product that did not affect the health of human beings.
We had another committee which gave a different point of view.
My understanding is that it is the committee that gave the all-clear which is the committee on which we are relying.
The only thing I want to say to the Commissioner is, could he please tell us which advice he is taking?
Does he regard the committee whose advice he rejects as incompetent, unable to judge what is good for animals or dangerous for human health? Is he going to dismiss them and refuse to accept their advice or opinions any more?
Mr President, today we are at last discussing the definitive ban on the administration and marketing of BST in the European Union and, hopefully, this will mark an end to the ten-year process during which the final decision has been postponed time and time again on the grounds, of course, that there was no conclusive scientific evidence which justified a definitive ban.
We are now in possession of this evidence and it confirms that the use of this hormone pushes cows to their physiological limits.
The consequences are leg and foot injuries, stomach/intestinal malfunctions and impaired fertility, not to mention the increase in mastitis.
Cows are therefore subjected to unnecessary pain.
This is unacceptable for reasons of animal welfare, but have all the risks to human health been excluded?
What about BST residues in the body which have not been broken down, what about the possible change in the composition of the milk, not to mention the increase in the antibiotics administered in order to treat the sick cows.
I would therefore like to support the rapporteur' s request that we step up efforts to clear up the question of the effect of BST on human health once and for all.
On behalf of the group of the Party of European Socialists, I would like to thank Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert as rapporteur for her rapid work and we, of course, emphatically support her report.
Mr President, we are able to support the rapporteur' s opinion, but I should like to make a few comments.
We agree that the investigations which have been made into animals' health are of decisive importance to our resolution and are also of decisive importance to the fact that BST ought not to be used here in the EU.
That is to say, we support Article 1.
When we talk about public health, however, I must however say that we still have a number of problems with the results of the seventeen scientific investigations which were not able to distinguish the naturally produced BST hormones from the artificially manufactured ones.
We ought not to push these scenarios further than can be justified by the scientific evidence.
Articles 2 and 3 deal with continued licence to produce the BST hormone here in the EU.
In my opinion, we are coming close here to practising a double standard.
When I think about everything that was said here this evening and in recent months about BST hormones, of the trade war with the United States and about American beef produced using hormones, I feel we are near to courting a double standard, when these hormone preparations are manufactured here in Europe and subsequently sold to the United States which then uses the BST hormone.
I cannot therefore support the wordings of Articles 2 and 3.
Mr President, I endorse the statements made by the rapporteur and Mr Kindermann and there is no need for me to repeat them.
I would like to express my satisfaction at having reached the point where, after years of discussion, we can consider the matter closed.
I should like to stress once again that we must be very careful when it comes to using genetically engineered drugs for preventative purposes.
Unlike in the health sector, no side effects can be tolerated in agricultural applications.
I should like to make another point as chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.
We have agreed on Amendment No 3.
There was also an oral proposal for an amendment which was agreed with the Commission.
I will not go into the details, but it was not included in the report.
I should like my request for this to be clarified, entered in the Minutes and for us to have the version that we have in fact agreed upon at tomorrow' s vote.
As I have said, it was agreed with the Commission.
Mr President, firstly I would like to congratulate Mrs Keppelhoff-Wiechert on the report and the urgency with which she has carried it out.
I would like to stress to the Commission - which only now is delivering us a document which was drawn up at the end of October - that Parliament has had to work against the clock.
In fact, we only have a few days before the expiry of the deadline for the most recent extension of the deferral of the Regulation whose derogation by the Commission we are going to vote on.
This deadline expires on 1 January of the coming year.
Therefore, I would ask the Commission - so as not to repeat all the arguments expressed by the previous speakers - to send us documents more quickly so that we do not have to work against the clock.
I would like to stress once again that the consumers do not want BST.
Consumers refuse to accept the idea of cows producing milk containing BST. This hormone is never used for medicinal reasons.
It is only used to produce more milk, and this can cause us problems, since we have a surplus of dairy products. Furthermore, problems may arise with regard to our agriculture, as well as negative reactions to it and there may be contradictions in our new Community Agricultural Policy guidelines.
I would also like to point out to the Commission that it must continue to investigate the possible effects of BST on consumers' health.
At the moment they do not seem to be harmful, but nor do they seem to be entirely harmless.
Therefore, Commissioner, Parliament, which is working rigorously and is taking its work ever more seriously, requests that you do not make us work against the clock and that, furthermore, you take account of the reactions and proposals which we make, which often end up in the waste paper bin.
Mr President, the greatest problem I have with the text on which we are going to vote tomorrow - I have just acquired a copy - lies in article 3 of the Commission proposal, according to which we would ban these substances in the European Union. I ask the Commission to listen because I am going to ask for clarification; according to this article we would vote for a ban on these substances within the European Union, but this ban would not affect their manufacture or marketing within the European Union, since we could send them to another Member State with a view to their export to third countries.
Mr President, this is not acceptable to me, since if we ban these substances and their marketing within the European Union, as the agreement says, it would not be legal to be able to send them, within the European Union, to another Member State.
Nor would it be legal, as we are currently doing, to produce them in a Member State.
Therefore, I would ask you to clarify whether this is the case because, according to this text and according to the Commission, this ban would not affect marketing or exporting to third countries.
Mr President, I believe that this would be extremely hypocritical.
What we do not want for ourselves, we allow for others when it is a question of earning money.
I believe that everything has its limit, and if we have principles for ourselves, we must hold the same principles with regard to non-EU countries; and, of course, within the European Union, we cannot produce, manufacture or market these substances.
I should like to thank Parliament for having admitted this proposal as an urgent point so it would be dealt with before the end of this year.
As you know, the Council has already banned - in 1990 - the placing on the market and the use of BST on dairy cows under Council Decision 90/218/EEC.
The moratorium was extended by the Council in 1994 until 31 December 1999 by Council Decision 94/936/EC.
Article 2 of Council Decision 94/936/EC provided that the Commission had to entrust a working party of independent scientists with the task of assessing the effects of using BST.
Before putting a new proposal on the table of the Council the Commission was waiting for the opinions of the two scientific committees which were delivered on 18 March 1999.
The Scientific Committee on Veterinary Measures Relating to Public Health recognised that there could be possible links with prostate and breast cancer and, in view of the lack of evidence, indicated that further studies were necessary.
Secondary risks are possible: allergic reactions and an increased use of anti-microbial substances.
The lack of evidence will oblige the Commission to follow very closely all scientific research into the potential adverse affects on human health of dietary exposure to products derived from BST-treated cows and, if necessary, make recommendations for further preventative measures.
The Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare adopted on 10 March 1999 its report on animal welfare aspects of the use of bovine somatotrophin and stated that BST increases the risk of clinical mastitis as well as the duration of treatment of mastitis, it increases the incidence of foot and leg disorders and it can affect adversely reproduction and induce several severe reactions at the injection site.
Therefore it follows from that opinion of the SCAHAW that BST should not be used in dairy cows.
The protocol on protection and welfare of animals annexed to the Treaty establishing the European Community calls on the Community and Member States when formulating and implementing the Community's agricultural policy to pay full regard to the health and welfare requirements of animals.
By Decision 78/923/EEC the Community approved the European Convention for the protection of animals kept for farming purposes.
All Member States have also ratified this convention.
Council Directive 98/58/EC concerning the protection of animals kept for farming purposes states that no other substance, with the exception of those given for therapeutic or prophylactic purposes, shall be administered to an animal unless it has been demonstrated by scientific studies of animal welfare or of established experience that the effect of the substance is not detrimental to the health or welfare of the animal.
BST is not used in cattle for therapeutic purposes but only to enhance milk production and has detrimental effects on the animals.
In the light of this opinion of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, the Commission - moved by me at its meeting of 28 October - adopted a decision proposing a permanent ban on the marketing and use of BST in the Community as from 1 January 2000 in accordance with the provisions laid down in Council Decision 98/58/EC on the protection of animals kept for farming purposes.
For the purpose of clarification I should say that BST is not for sale in Europe, but it is manufactured here.
There is one company manufacturing BST in the European Union.
It is authorised for export to third countries only.
It is not authorised for sale in the European Union.
I should also say that any further steps to ban its manufacture for sale outside the European Union would not have a legal base and would be something outside the competence of the Commission.
Mr President, I would like the Commissioner to clarify whether a piece of information that I have is correct. It appears that this substance is manufactured in Austria, from there it goes to Holland and from Holland it is exported to non-EU countries.
Commissioner, is it true that it is manufactured in Austria, from there goes to Holland and from Holland is exported?
The Commissioner' s words confirm that this is the case, that within the European Union we are manufacturing it and marketing it.
Yes, for clarification purposes, I can say that it is manufactured in a factory in Austria; that it is, I am instructed, bottled in the Netherlands for export to third countries, but not for sale within the European Union.
I should say that there is no legal base for preventing that particular manufacture or trans-shipment through the Netherlands for sale to third countries.
Award of the Sakharov Prize to Mr Xanana Gusmão
Mr Gusmão, on behalf of the European Parliament and myself, I must say that it is an honour and a very great pleasure for us to welcome you to this House.
We were overjoyed to hear of your release just three months ago on 7 September.
You showed admirable and unyielding courage throughout your detention which began on 20 November 1992.
You managed to retain your inner freedom despite the ill treatment which you endured, particularly in psychological terms, and which was intended to prevent you from making your defence.
During your trial, you had the skill and found the strength to denounce before the world' s press the genocidal nature of the occupation of East Timor.
Despite the extremely difficult conditions of your imprisonment, you found the courage to take advantage of these circumstances to develop strategies for resistance, to study languages and law and also to write wonderful poems and paint pictures which you very kindly gave to me just now.
I trust you will permit me to give a brief resumé of your life for the benefit of the House.
Originally from East Timor, the eldest child of teachers, you studied mainly at the Catholic mission of Nossa Senhora di Fatima.
You started work at a very early age as a schoolteacher.
Before the age of 30, you joined the team of the A vos de Timor newspaper.
At the same time, you became actively involved in the central committee of the Fretilin resistance movement or the Revolutionary Front for the Independence of East Timor.
During the invasion of your country by Indonesia, you went into hiding.
After three years, you became the head of the guerrilla unit Falintin which was the armed wing of the resistance movement.
According to the press, the repressive occupation claimed 200 000 victims, a third of the population.
You worked tirelessly to find a peaceful solution.
You proposed a peace plan to the Indonesian Government and talks under the auspices of the United Nations Organisation.
You wanted to take the fight for a free East Timor beyond party politics and so you brought together the various forces within the National Council of Timorese Resistance.
You can be sure that this House is proud of having helped, by participating in the pressure exerted by the international community, to prompt the Indonesian President, Mr Habibi, to release you on 7 September. This came just after the referendum of 30 August in which 70.5% of the population of East Timor voted in favour of independence.
The European Parliament, in its work chaired by Vice-President Pacheco Pereira, has been delighted with the courage shown by the Timorese people to the whole world.
Like Mr Mandela in South Africa, you are the spokesperson for peace, justice and freedom in your country.
Your compatriots and people around the world know that it was with solid conviction that you declared on leaving prison that as a free man, you would undertake to do everything in your power to bring peace to East Timor and to your people.
You said to me just now that everything must now be built or rebuilt, in terms of logistics and training, in the health, justice and public service sectors.
The temporary administration which the UN is going to establish will form a basis for this.
You have declared that you want a pluralist democracy with open institutions, a diversified economy and a role for the press and non-governmental organisations.
We hope that the experience of 25 years of suffering will enable your people to realise this dream.
I am particularly pleased to be able to highlight the favourable influence which the Sakharov Prize has had on the fate of its candidates.
Among these I can think of Mr Ksila of Tunisia and Mr Birdal of Turkey who were released a few days after having been nominated, as well as Mr Mandela in South Africa and Mr Dubèek in the Czech Republic.
With regard to Mrs Suu Kyi and Mrs Zana, I have again spoken to the authorities in their countries to protest about the draconian conditions imposed on their freedom.
All these illustrious people have taken up the torch carried by Andrey Sakharov in making the defence of human rights and fundamental freedoms their life' s goal.
So, Mr Gusmão, on behalf of the whole European Parliament, I am delighted to give you this extremely symbolic prize.
(Loud applause)
Mr Gusmão, the loud applause from my colleagues shows how much they appreciate your very resolute and responsible words.
This confirms, not that there was any need to do so, the support and solidarity shown by this House for the cause of East Timor.
I can assure you that on the new road to independence now open to you which, as you have said, will be a difficult journey, the European Parliament will be at your side in the future as it was yesterday and as it is today. We will give you every assistance in this exhilarating adventure.
Thank you for coming, thank you for being with us and thank you to the Members.
(The sitting was closed at 10.55 p.m.)
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Madam President, I had asked the administration to ensure that the Members of the Charter Convention be officially notified to Parliament and I was assured that this would be done.
Then, contrary to the information given to me by the administration, the President in the Chair yesterday morning - it was not you - did not announce the Members of the Convention here orally.
I then asked the President in the Chair to rectify this, which he later did, and announced the ordinary Members of the Convention.
However, I felt that it was important that both the ordinary Members and the deputy Members should be announced and entered in yesterday' s Minutes, so that the whole House and the public know who the Members and deputy Members are.
The Minutes today only contain the names of the ordinary Members, as announced here yesterday.
My request is that, as the names of the deputies can probably no longer be inserted, they should be notified to Parliament and to the public in the Minutes of today' s sitting which will be distributed tomorrow.
Mr Poettering, I too have noticed that only the names of the full members appear in the Minutes.
I propose that the names of the substitutes be announced at 3.00 p.m.
These will then appear in the Minutes of the present sitting.
Madam President, I would like to make a comment to the services because of a certain confusion about the seating arrangements for the Chamber.
The plan that was distributed shows that my colleague Luís Queiró and I, Ribeiro e Castro, should be sitting here.
Therefore, in the Minutes and in the verbatim report of proceedings, both concerning my intervention on Macao and also on the subject of the question to the Bureau at the time of the resolution on Chechnya, I was incorrectly identified as Luís Queiró, my colleague who sits in seat 571, and not by my own name, Ribeiro e Castro, and I sit in seat 662.
I would be grateful if these corrections could be made and if the plan could also be corrected because it shows two Members sitting in the same seat, which is obviously not right.
We will put this right, Mr Ribeiro e Castro.
In any case, it is your card which is recorded when voting.
Madam President, in point 38 of the Minutes, which is Questions to the Council, I have noticed that there is an error in the Spanish and German versions, at least, in that Question 9 is missing.
Question 9 has been omitted in printing.
However, it does mention the speakers on Question 9, but we must correct the fact that it passes from Question 8 to Question 10 without mention of Question 9, which I directed yesterday at the Council.
The intervention which appears here by Mr Martínez Martínez is clearly not related to Question 8, but rather to Question 9, which has not been included.
Mr Martínez Martínez, this mistake is in the French version as well as the Spanish version.
We will, of course, correct this and reintroduce question 9.
Madam President, I have noticed that in a number of reports, my name has been consistently mixed up with that of Frank Vanhecke. I would point out that this gentleman, like myself, is Flemish but that this is where the similarity ends.
I would appreciate it if, in future, the correct Christian name were mentioned after the surname.
We will be very careful about this.
Are there any other comments on the Minutes?
Madam President, yesterday myself and other Members drew your attention to the suspension of the computer service in the Members' offices, which is anticipated to last for thirteen days.
Later yesterday, we received the communication that the Parliament in Brussels will actually be totally inaccessible from 27 December to 2 January.
Such a long suspension of the computer service really does seem excessive.
I would therefore like to ask you if it would be possible to get round this inconvenience by working on one sector at a time, thereby making it possible for the Members to access Parliament even during the Christmas holidays.
Mr Cappato, I can only suggest for the moment that if, for specific reasons, Members wish to enter their offices over this period, they must say so and the necessary steps will be taken so that they can have access to the building and their offices.
I will see if it is possible to go further.
However, for the moment, you know that if you wish to come in individually and you have reason to do so, this can be arranged.
(The Minutes were approved)
Vote
We shall now proceed to the vote. However, we will have to postpone the vote on the budget because, as you know, we are still awaiting confirmation of the agreement with the Council which is giving the matter some final consideration.
We hope it will be inspired. We will only be able to vote on the budget once we have the Council' s response so that we can take this into account.
Report (A5-0090/1999) by Mrs Theato, on behalf of the Committee on Budgetary Control, on the appointment of eight Members of the Court of Auditors (C5-0231/1999, C5-0232/1999, C5-0233/1999, C5-0234/1999, C5-0235/1999, C5-0236/1999, C5-0237/1999, C5-0238/1999 - 1999/0820(CNS))
Madam President, I simply want to say that I would like it to be recorded in the Minutes that, for obvious reasons, I am going to abstain from this vote, since it affects me directly.
Furthermore, not only am I not going to vote, but I am actually going to leave the Chamber.
Thank you, Mr Fabra Vallés.
We wish you good luck.
(Parliament adopted the eight resolutions in successive votes)
Recommendation for second reading (A5-0099/1999) by Mr Murphy, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the common position adopted by the Council with a view to adopting a European Parliament and Council directive on combating late payment in commercial transactions (8790/1999 - C5-0125/1999 - 1998/0099(COD))
Thank you, Mr Poettering. Your intervention is totally justified and I am very happy to enter this item on the agenda of the Conference of Presidents' meeting which is scheduled for this afternoon.
Madam President, I have no comment to make.
That was a procedural matter not actually related to the report itself.
We should vote.
I agree.
Mr Poettering was not actually opposing the vote on this report but, as you wished to speak, I gave you the opportunity to do so.
Madam President, following on from Mr Poettering' s intervention, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that, yesterday, on the subject of Chechnya, I raised precisely the same kind of problem and drew attention to the need to strictly adhere to the Rules of Procedure.
I regret that, at that moment, Mr Poettering was not as sensitive...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr Ribeiro e Castro, we will look at all these questions in the Conference of Presidents' meeting.
Madam President, a brief comment on what Mr Poettering has said.
In principle, we take exactly the same view.
I should just like to point out that, if we adhere strictly to this principle, we shall have huge problems at the January plenary because a great deal has yet to be decided in the committees.
I would ask Mr Poettering to use his influence in his group to ensure that the committees are able to vote on time.
However, it is a perfectly tenable principle for the future.
We will consider all these questions in this afternoon' s Conference of Presidents' meeting.
Commissioner, pursuant to Rule 80(5) of our Rules of Procedure, please tell us the Commission' s position on the amendments proposed by the European Parliament to the Murphy report.
Madam President, as my colleague Mr Liikanen explained during yesterday' s debate, the Commission is able to accept the following Amendments: Nos 1, 3, 4, 5, 7-17, 19, 21, 22, 24 and 26.
The Commission can also accept Amendments Nos 6, 20 and 25 in principle.
The Commission does not agree with Amendments Nos 2, 18 and 23.
Thank you, Commissioner.
We shall now proceed to the vote.
(The President declared the common position approved as amended)
Report (A5-0101/1999) by Mr Papayannakis, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Policy, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) No 820/97 establishing a system for the identification and registration of bovine animals and regarding the labelling of beef and beef products (COM(1999) 487 - C5-0241/1999 - 1999/0205(COD))
Absolutely, Mr Papayannakis.
This is an excellent suggestion and I shall give the floor immediately to Mrs Siimes.
Madam President, I can confirm that yesterday, the Council, for its part, formally and finally adopted the compromise package which was offered to COBU.
Mrs Siimes, what you have just said is very encouraging but it relates to a later matter.
Mr Papayannakis' s question concerned another issue, namely his report on the registration of bovine animals and the labelling of beef.
Madam President, if the Council and the Commission are not in a position to clarify this, then I shall endeavour to do so.
The Council did not decide to postpone for a year, but a conclusion was accepted whereby if Parliament accepts a proposed amendment in this report on labelling and does not pass the Commission proposal without proposed amendments, then the Council will not accept any such amendments and will not proceed under the simplified procedure.
If we dare to accept a proposed amendment, the Council will agree to the Commission' s tabling another text which has already been dealt with in the Council.
If it is tabled as an official Commission proposal in accordance with our procedure, then the Council will vote in favour of it.
This proposal will state, in accordance with the procedure in Regulation 820/97, that compulsory labelling is not in fact postponed but that it is allowed, for the purposes of implementation, to continue using voluntary labelling for a further year.
This means that, to all intents and purposes, Parliament has been levered out, although the conclusion is such that we cannot say that they have already made a decision.
A dirty trick has been used to keep us out of the codecision procedure.
This is the second time because this was the case in 1997 when the Council bowled us out of the codecision procedure with a unanimous decision.
We complained about this before the European Court of Justice.
This time, where codecision applies quite clearly under Article 152 of the Amsterdam Treaty, it has used this procedure to bowl us out a second time.
Most probably we shall again discuss renewed recourse to the European Court of Justice to protest against this illegal procedure by the Council.
Thank you, Mr Graefe zu Baringdorf, for this very clear yet very worrying explanation.
Mr Papayannakis, do you consider that we can vote on your report or do you wish to request its referral back to committee? Please indicate your position.
Madam President, we cannot allow my report to be referred back to committee because a decision must be taken by 31 December.
If nothing has been decided by 1 January, there will be a legal void which will cause chaos on the market.
A decision must therefore be made.
It will probably be taken without us but it is right and politically correct, if I may use this term, for Parliament to make a decision.
The Council will likely do whatever it wants but at least we can vote.
I completely agree.
I am sorry to delay things, Madam President, but there is another possibility.
I understand that the Fisheries Council will be meeting tomorrow and that our opinion on the Papayannakis resolution will go to the Fisheries Council.
Now, it is possible for the Fisheries Council, with some goodwill on their part, to take into account our amendments and to adopt the legal text with our amendments.
I suggest that we vote on the Papayannakis report and then you select the most poisonous pen that you have in your armoury and you write on behalf of the Parliament to the Council with the expectation that the Fisheries Council will not simply nod through what was agreed yesterday but will take our amendments into account.
Once again, I can confirm that the Council, for its part, has formally and finally adopted yesterday the package compromise which was offered to COBU.
(Loud applause)
Thank you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council. I now give the floor to our rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges.
Madam President, since an agreement has now been reached with the Council, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance will withdraw its three amendments.
They are Amendments Nos 7, 8 and 9.
Thank you, we will note this.
(Parliament adopted the resolution)
I was not expecting to speak but, as you have asked me, I will do so.
First of all, I am mightily relieved that we have got the vote through.
It has been a tortuous process this particular year for everyone concerned, especially the rapporteurs, Mr Bourlanges, Mr Virrankoski and Mr Colom i Naval - because of the agreements with the Council.
It has been, at times, as Mr Bourlanges said earlier, rather nerve-wracking.
Now that we have got it through I want to thank the Council for the decision that they have taken and thank the Commission for their help.
As a matter of information for Members, with the vote which has gone through now, the total payments will be 1.11% of Europe's GNP which is under the ceiling for the year 2000 of the financial perspective of 1.13% and under the ceiling for own resources of 1.27%.
Thank you, Mr Bourlanges.
Madam President, this budgetary procedure has shown throughout that the European Parliament, together with the Council, can work constructively and observe good budgetary discipline.
The last few days and hours have shown, in particular, that we have a sense of responsibility when attending to the European issues we have in common.
I would especially like to thank the chairman of the Committee on Budgets, Mr Wynn, and the main rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, for their excellent, constructive and patient cooperation in achieving our common objective.
Similarly, I wish to thank Mrs Siimes, President-in-Office of the Council, and Michaele Schreyer, Commissioner responsible for this area, for their excellent show of cooperation with Parliament.
Finally, I would just like to express my thanks also to all the officials on the Committee on Budgets, who have had to work very long hours and, at the same time, I thank Parliament as a whole and my own group in particular for their steadfast and energetic support at every stage.
Thank you, Mr Virrankoski.
The Commissioner wishes to say a few words so I gladly give her the floor.
Thank you, Madam President. I should like to thank the House for its extraordinary staying power.
It still looked on Monday evening as if numerous wishes would not come true.
It was touch and go with a very important declaration by Parliament, funding to reconstruct Kosovo had not been secured and the Council would have had to pay a great deal more.
Now we have a situation where funding for the reconstruction of Kosovo has been secured, where Parliament has achieved a great number of important objectives and the cost to the Member States has been reduced.
So we have a situation in which a no-win situation has quickly turned into a win-win situation and I think that is a wonderful position to be in for Christmas.
Madam President, this is the first time in fourteen years that I have acted as rapporteur for a budgetary procedure.
I shall be brief.
I simply want to express my agreement with the words of previous rapporteurs and remind you of a political rule: prudence will never make us traitors, and therefore I very much appreciate the solidarity and resolution of the Committee on Budgets, which has allowed us to safeguard the interests of this Parliament as an institution.
Madam President, you have just completed your second reading of the 2000 draft budget.
There remain a few differences between our institutions on the classification of expenditure.
However, the Council can accept the amendments you made to the Letter of Amendment No 2/2 000 as well as the maximum rate of increase which results from your second reading.
Thank you, Madam President-in-Office of the Council.
I too very warmly congratulate the Committee on Budgets and our rapporteurs for the excellent work which has been accomplished.
For my part, this is the first budget which I will have signed as President of the European Parliament and I must say that I am overjoyed by the remarkable result which has been achieved.
Once again, I heartily congratulate and thank those who have contributed to this.
Madam President, I do not know if you are aware of it, but this is an historic moment in the budgetary procedure of the European Union.
For the first time, each of the three institutions is represented here by a woman.
Mr President, I voted for the Colom i Naval report as well as the one on the budget.
The Commission representative said in conclusion: "this is a wonderful position to be in for Christmas" .
Well, I hope that next year too we will vote on the 2001 budget a few days before Christmas, with at least an equivalent increase with regard to this year' s budget.
Let us therefore hope that this type of Christmas present will become a tradition.
2000 Budget
Mr President, the signature of the budget was a scene of satisfaction, adulation, peace and joy.
However, because of a small cutback in funds, about which I wish to protest, I am not totally happy with this budget.
I voted against the budget repeatedly during the last parliamentary term because, despite unanimously approved reports on the worrying situation of beekeepers in Europe, the Commission was simply not prepared to provide the appropriations for the measures which we demanded in order to preserve beekeeping.
Since 1998 we have had a mini-heading of EUR 15 million in the budget to finance 50% of the national programme to improve the production and marketing of honey, based on a regulation which we have criticised as inadequate.
Now we have seen this mini-heading of EUR 15 million for 15 countries reduced by a third to 10 million.
I fail to understand how this could happen, given that the Commission itself quoted a funding requirement of 15 million per annum in its justification of the regulation.
I am grateful to the rapporteur for the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Görlach, who also protested about this reduction in his letter to the chairman of the Committee on Budgets.
I should like here to register my protest that the Committee on Budgets has failed to take account of this.
I hope that a way can be found in the Council of Ministers of increasing this budget line to EUR 15 million, as in 1998 and 1999.
I shall, of course, continue to lobby steadfastly until the Commission finally proposes the various measures demanded unanimously by this Parliament to preserve beekeeping in Europe - pollination premiums, inclusion of beekeeping in the structural programmes ...
(Interruption by the President)
... cost EUR 65 million.
That is peanuts in a budget of 90 billion, a mere 0.072%.
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, I am staying here because I have been told that, if one is to hand in explanations of vote, one should be present in the Chamber.
I therefore demand that explanations of vote from those who are not present should not be valid.
Strictly speaking, that is true.
We generally ensure that Members who ask for an explanation of vote are in attendance at the vote.
Normally, provided they have attended the vote we are liberal in the interpretation of the Rule.
Strictly speaking, however, they should be here for their name to be read out.
Mr President, I am presenting a written explanation of vote on behalf of seven Swedish and Danish Members.
We were never told that everyone had to be here when we hand in the explanations of vote so I suggest that this should be valid for all those seven Members.
On this occasion, I am happy to accept that, although I should remind Members that technically they should be in the Chamber to hear their name read out.
We have this procedure at the end of votes where I read out the names of those who have asked for written explanations.
Members do not have to stay through the whole process but they should be here until their name is read out.
Mr President, the President of the European Parliament has just signed this budget for over EUR 90 billion.
It would be good if she could also sign the rather more modest payment orders for the taxi drivers who bring Members here to this House.
I would remind you that these taxi drivers earn about FF 10 000 per sitting or roughly EUR 1 500.
However, they do not receive this payment until three or four months later!
During this time they have to pay VAT at 20.6% and so are effectively giving Parliament a cash advance.
Over three or four months this amounts to about EUR 5 000. By not being able to invest this money, given the free movement of capital which we have authorised, they are losing in the order of FF 1 500 per month.
I am delighted that everyone is rejoicing, including Mr Colom I Naval and Mrs Fontaine, but our taxi drivers and chauffeurs cannot rejoice.
I would remind those who were driven here by these taxi drivers in November that they will not be paid until March.
Mr President, I believe this affects you as much as the rest of us.
It would be good if the taxi drivers, like the beekeepers, could also participate in the joy of Mrs Fontaine and the European Parliament which has achieved what we could call a victory over the Council.
- (SV) We are supporting the Budget adopted by Parliament for the year 2000, the interinstitutional agreement and the Berlin Agreement concerning the long-term Budget.
Following today' s decision in the European Parliament, the EU' s Budget for the year 2000 is an important step in the right direction, that is to say in the direction of the EU taking ever greater responsibility for its citizens.
The Budget provides for significant investments in what are, for us, important areas.
We are delighted to note that our proposal for establishing a separate Budget item for local and regional measures for the areas of the Baltic and the Barents Sea have been voted through by Parliament.
We support the efforts made by Parliament' s Committee on Women' s Rights and Equal Opportunities during the Budget debate when it comes to financing the EU' s equality programme.
Among other things, it is important that non-governmental organisations such as the European Women´s Lobby should not see a deterioration in their opportunities to operate at European level.
We are pleased about the increased resources for dialogue between the two sides of industry, especially with a view to the importance of beginning to construct a well-functioning labour market in the applicant countries, with strong trade-union organisations and good social conditions.
The efforts made in the Budget to reform the common agricultural policy and reduce its costs are a step in the right direction.
We nonetheless call for further efforts to make agricultural policy more oriented to the environment and the consumer, as well as better adjusted to the market.
We call for far-reaching reform, not least with a view to the forthcoming enlargement.
The EU' s agricultural and consumer policies must accord better with one another, especially when it comes to measures in the veterinary area and to measures for the protection of plants.
It must be possible to guarantee food safety throughout Europe.
We are also definitely against the support being given to tobacco cultivation.
Support for tobacco cultivation must be phased out and replaced by support for the cultivation of alternative crops.
When it comes to refunding the travel expenses of Members of the European Parliament, we maintain our view that only actual expenses which have arisen in connection with journeys on official business should be refunded.
We look especially positively upon the resources which have now been allocated to the reconstruction in Kosovo, Turkey and East Timor.
We have worked hard to ensure that it might be possible to procure these resources for the whole of next year.
With a view to financing these initiatives, which are so important, we have in the first place endeavoured to revise the Budget plan, especially in view of the fact that the reconstruction of Kosovo in the course of the next few years will require a lot of aid from the EU over a period of several years.
The Budget process has nonetheless been very complicated and entailed major examinations in cooperation with the Council of Ministers.
In the run-up to next year' s Budget negotiations, it is important that cooperation between Parliament and the Council should be strengthened for the negotiation process.
Better cooperation in the Budget negotiations is a prerequisite of the European Union' s activities being as effective as possible.
With today' s decision, the European Parliament is adopting the EU' s Budget for the year 2000.
This is happening within the Budget framework established at the Berlin Summit in May of this year.
This has been our moderate objective throughout the Budget process.
Had a decision of a different kind been made, there would have been a risk of negative consequences for the EU which would have damaged the EU' s reputation.
If it had been decided to introduce a new financial framework, there would have been a danger of this too proving expensive for the Member States.
With this Budget, the reconstruction of Kosovo will be successfully financed during the year 2000 within the Budget framework.
Before the end of April, the Commission is to come back with proposals to finance the long-term reconstruction work in Kosovo and the western Balkans.
In the first reading of the Budget for the year 2000, the Council of Ministers proposed a 10 per cent linear reduction in category four.
This made it possible to finance the unforeseen expenditure on Kosovo, Turkey and East Timor.
In certain cases, however, there were less than welcome consequences for those Budget items affected by reductions.
In a number of cases, these reductions were subtly modified in the second reading.
This is the result of the Budget authorities' jointly having set necessary priorities.
We view this as something positive.
We are afraid that, at the same time as the needs in Kosovo demand sacrifices and purposefulness, many will want to expand the EU' s Budget and introduce new Budget items.
- (SV) The Budget compromise for the EU' s expenditure for the year 2000 which has been reached between the institutions of the Union is relatively well balanced and therefore welcome.
What constitutes a success, above all, is the fact that a solution has been found to the question of financing the reconstruction in Kosovo.
The previously agreed Budget framework is being maintained, and the same applies to the interinstitutional agreement.
Reductions in Category IV - External Measures (principally Aid) - are now significantly smaller than in the Council' s original proposal.
It is, however, unfortunate that there is an inbuilt rigidity in the Budget negotiations which makes it impossible at this stage to redistribute resources between different Budget categories. This also applies in the case of unforeseen and exceptional occurrences in the world around us.
It would, of course, have been more reasonable to have financed the reconstruction in Kosovo by means of reductions in categories of expenditure other than that of External Measures.
We must ask ourselves what kind of solidarity we have with the world around us when aid to a neighbour is increased by reducing aid to other countries in need.
It would have been possible to achieve significant savings within both the areas of agriculture and of structural and regional policy, as well as within other areas affecting the domestic market, if the preliminary Budget proposal had been complied with to a greater extent.
In spite of this, we see the compromise as a solution which all parties can live with.
We accept that a review of the long-term Budget framework may become necessary during the spring of the year 2000 when a more thorough and stable calculation of the costs of reconstruction in Kosovo and the Balkans will be available.
It is important to combine Budget discipline with a flexibility which allows the European Union to act with solidarity in the case of unforeseen events in the world around us.
Bourlanges/Virrankoski report (A5-0095/1999)
- (FR) For the second time this year, the EU' s credibility is at stake in the Balkans.
The budget for the reconstruction of Kosovo has emerged as the main difficulty at second reading.
The conflict has been extensively discussed in recent weeks by Parliament and the Council but there are certain essential aspects which we must not forget. With regard to the aid granted to Kosovo, it is surprising that this is not conditional on the definitive restoration of peace which has unfortunately not yet been achieved, as indicated by a recent OSCE report.
As for the sums allocated, the members of the Committee on Budgets have participated through the committees in some real bargaining.
The institutions have juggled with millions of euros without anyone really taking the trouble to assess the region' s needs, yet everyone agrees that Kosovo could not actually absorb such sums which are equivalent to half its GNP.
In this respect, we must deplore the lack of rigour shown by the Commissioner responsible for the budget. When questioned by the Committee on Budgets, he was incapable of estimating the amounts needed in euros and could only give these in dollars.
This is not particularly serious and would even raise a smile if, at the same time, the EU' s budget policy and the risk of a review of the financial perspective did not seem to be so contrary to national interests.
The same is true of the rigorous budgetary discipline imposed on the Member States even though the EU is not so strict on itself. This budget 2000 will cost the Member States very dear and the agricultural line is once again the main reason for the increase in external actions.
You can understand the anxiety of European farmers faced with the new priorities set by all the institutions. Who can they turn to?
Certainly not the Commission, as it clearly showed in Seattle, nor the Council, which at second reading trimmed EUR 450 million off compulsory expenditure. Yet, unfortunately, nor can they rely on Parliament which, through its rapporteur, intends to challenge the existence of compulsory expenditure.
The budget is a fundamental act which makes political choices.
We reject these choices and so will vote against the 2000 budget.
I think it would be sensible if next year the financial needs of the crisis in Kosovo are addressed by demonstrating flexibility now, and we should not yet start to amend the financial perspective in Category 4.
The maximum figure for Category 4 does not have to be amended permanently other than by using a flexibility clause to the full.
On the other hand, the position of Parliament that was adopted here today will mean enormous challenges for Portugal, as the final decisions on the financing of external actions are being left until next spring.
Theato report (A5-0090/1999)
- (SV) In connection with the account of the Court of Auditors' annual report, it emerged that the Court of Auditors' current President, Jan O. Karlsson, had taken steps against the person who had supplied the mass media with information about the content of the annual report.
We Swedes have a lot to learn within the European partnership.
The EU in turn has something to learn from the way we handle some things in Sweden.
Openness and public access to official records are one such area.
It is therefore unfortunate that, instead of upholding our traditions, Jan O. Karlsson should have chosen to adapt to what unfortunately applies in Brussels.
There may be different views as to how far it was right or wrong of an official in the EU' s Court of Auditors to reveal in advance the contents of the annual report.
What is really important, however, is that we should together fight for the right to do this.
We are concerned here with the freedom to supply information which the Government so often says it wants to uphold in the EU context.
It is, to say the least, worrying that the Swedish head of the EU' s Court of Auditors should choose to adapt to the worst aspects of the EU administration' s culture, namely secrecy and the desire for revenge upon employees who choose to speak out.
In the Swedish constitution and in Swedish debate, the freedom to supply information is acknowledged as an indispensable part of any effective supervision of the democratic and public system.
We believe that this is important for democracy.
We think there is a need for more EU employees who dare to reveal cheating and irregularities.
For each time an EU official is reprimanded because of his openness, we lose ground in our work for an open EU.
Against the background of the above, we have not been able to support the re-election of those Members who are at present Members of the Court of Auditors and who obviously consider that it is perfectly correct to act in this way.
We have therefore chosen to abstain from voting when it comes to appointing Giorgio Clemente, Jørgen Mohr, Aunus Salmi and Jan O. Karlsson.
Murphy recommendation for second reading (A5-0099/1999)
Mr President, I voted for the Murphy report.
It is right and proper that the European Parliament is trying to avoid delays in the payment of commercial transactions.
As the representative of the Pensioners' Party, I nevertheless hope that one day, Parliament will also address public administrations which must pay pensions to eligible people in the fifteen Member States.
In Italy, for example, 10, 15 or even 20 years go by before an elderly person, even a 90 year-old, receives their due.
It would not be amiss if public administrations in the fifteen Member States were subject to the same attention as private administrations.
. (ES) Strengthening small and medium-sized enterprises and favouring measures which will contribute to improving their competitiveness has been one of the objectives of this Parliament, because of the fundamental role they play in the creation of jobs and because any actions aimed at small and medium-sized economic operators promote European economic growth in general and provide a safe path towards achieving economic and social cohesion in the Community.
The proposal for a directive combating late payments in commercial transactions is, in this sense, an effective instrument in terms of ending the excessive and often abusive time limits for payment which are used in certain fundamental sectors and which are the main cause of bankruptcy and financial and investment difficulties which SMEs have to face.
This is why I have a very positive view of the Murphy report and have voted in favour of it, since it reintroduces aspects which the Council had eliminated in drawing up the common position, but which are of unquestionable benefit to SMEs, in particular the obligation to legislate for the establishment of standardised payment terms in commercial transactions and for this obligation to also be incumbent upon public entities.
Let us hope that the Council listens to Parliament and that we can at last lay down harmonised contract rules at a European level, which will put an end to late payment and the dominant position of some creditors with regard to payment terms, and thereby improve the competitiveness of SMEs.
- Mr President, I strongly support this excellent report by my Labour colleague, Simon Murphy.
It offers yet further proof of Labour's commitment to create an environment across Europe where entrepreneurs and businesses can flourish.
Late payment regularly throttles many viable businesses, especially small businesses.
Many, through no fault of their own, are tragically forced into receivership as a result.
Entrepreneurs are needlessly ruined, jobs are lost, needlessly lost, economic vibrancy is needlessly deadened.
This measure, however, will help allow small businesses to fight back.
Creditors will be entitled to charge a statutory interest rate on their debts, encouraging debtors to pay early.
Furthermore, if debts are not repaid, creditors will also be able to recoup their costs for collecting bad debts.
By introducing greater certainty in business transactions Europe-wide, small businesses will feel more confident to trade not just across Britain but also right across the European Single Market.
Membership of the Single Market, the largest trading bloc in the world, is crucial for jobs in the north-west.
Nearly 40% of small and medium sized enterprises in the region have trading links with other EU Member States.
As a part of the EU Single Market, they have access to over 370m potential customers - over 6 times more than in Britain alone.
In a few years time, following the enlargement of the European Union, they will have access to a potential 500m customers - as big as the American and Japanese markets put together.
The Labour Government is determined to make the Single Market work for British business.
By giving UK businesses the confidence to reach into these markets, this measure will help in this task and increase trade, growth and employment across both the north-west and all of Britain.
Papayannakis report (A5-0101/1999)
Mr President, I am very pleased that this measure on the labelling and identification of beef has been approved, but I hope that the citizens, those poor souls, are labelled too, particularly the pensioners.
I would like it to be known when they were born and what they are like, given that - and this is something I often notice - they are considered as numbers.
Yes, bureaucracy views elderly citizens who want their pensions as numbers - I would remind you that I am the representative of the Pensioners' Party and I have seen this many times - which is why I hope that the photographs of these citizens will be put onto documents and that our citizens will be labelled and considered to be at least equal to livestock.
- (FR) The beef labelling proposal is now before us as the labelling of GMOs was previously.
Labelling has become the wonder tool.
Through it, food safety will reign, the consumer will be protected and our Green colleagues will be satisfied at having ensured the survival of humanity, at least in terms of food ...
In reality, labelling is one of those tricks so well loved by the leaders of Europe for calming people' s anxieties without actually solving any problems.
The labelling of GMOs should already be ringing alarm bells. We have no idea what to put on the labels.
For example, do we put 'product of biotechnologies' ?
If we put both 'bio' and 'techno' on a product' s label, consumers will fall over themselves to buy it.
This beef labelling proposal is therefore revealing the length of the Commission' s nose like a Community Pinocchio.
This is the Brussels institution which, in 1997, decided on labelling for beef. Yet it is only now telling us that it is not technically capable of identifying the origin of bovine animals.
If the origin of bovine animals cannot be identified, how can we be sure that British beef presents no risk?
We have to go one way or the other.
If we know the provenance of bovine animals, then the lifting of the ban on British beef can be guaranteed and these animals can also be labelled.
Yet, if we cannot label these animals because we do not know the origin of the meat, how can we then lift the ban? In other words, in the same week, France cannot be forced to lift its ban because the meat is traceable to a certain extent, while the request for labelling has been turned down on account of the technical impossibility of tracing the animals.
Who can actually believe that in the three years since 1997 we have not managed to label meat by indicating the origin of the animal? Despite the fact that we can already indicate the location of the slaughterhouse, we cannot give the provenance of the slaughtered animal.
The European Commission really does not care about consumers or the people.
Brussels wants one thing only which is to ensure the free movement of products, capital, people and now contaminated British beef, at any price and without any obstacles.
It is clear that labelling would result in the de facto boycott of British beef by consumers who do not want to compromise what remains of their brains after being fried by television news.
In essence, the slogan of the European Commission and of the whole concept of European construction is 'profit before life' and has been so since 'the Europe of our brainless forefathers' .
This is so obvious that the only label which might ensure safety would be one which read 'official from Brussels' .
- (DE) The regulation to be amended at the Commission' s proposal was described two years ago in the wake of the BSE crisis as a central issue and an important decision within the context of European consumer protection.
The stated purpose of the regulation is to protect animal and human health and to increase or restore consumer confidence in the quality of beef and meat products.
What was it that persuaded the Council to adopt this regulation when it did? Was it perhaps a way of saying to the public, look here, we are doing all we can to end the BSE crisis, while never really having any serious intention, either then or now, of implementing the regulation.
Unfortunately, it was just that. The public has been cheated and, on top of everything, a disservice has been done to European consumer protection.
To be sure, some speakers voiced their concern during the first and second readings that the text of the law was perhaps too strict and that there would be problems with its transposition.
So there were signs.
If that was the problem, we had the chance to rectify it but, unfortunately, we did not make use of that chance.
The errors on the part of individual Member States, and I would be most interested to know which Member States, is only one side of the coin; the irresponsible conduct on the part of the Commission is the other.
Allow me in this context to remind the Commission of a few agreed dates: the Commission should be managing an electronic data base on 31 December 1999, i.e. in 16 days' time.
Is this data base up and running?
The same question arises in relation to the Member States' reports on the implementation of the beef labelling system; these reports were supposed to have been sent to the Commission by 1 May 1999.
Are they available?
Obviously the delay with all the stages of transposition has not come about overnight.
The Commission must have been able to see at the beginning of the year that the deadlines set could not be kept.
Why then was Parliament not informed of these developments earlier, as it could have been in July.
Today we are discussing postponing the entry into force of the regulation without really knowing how transposition is progressing in the individual Member States, without knowing how long implementation will still take and, more importantly, what action has yet to be taken.
The original intention of the regulation, which was to generate confidence in European consumer protection, would be reversed by this sort of measure.
The Commission' s present proposal is, in my eyes, confusing and lacking in background information and I am therefore unable to support it.
- Mr President, I am all in favour of the labelling of beef.
Reforms in beef production introduced in Britain following the beef crisis now make British beef among the highest quality and safest in the world.
In time, I am confident that consumers not just in Britain but throughout the EU will recognise this fact and actively search out British beef.
Full labelling will therefore work to British beef farmers' advantage.
If such a confidence-building measure also speeds the end of the illegal French ban on British beef, then so much the better.
EU citizens will recognise good beef when they see it.
They will also recognise law-breaking and hypocrisy when they see it.
The French beef ban, as everyone but the French Government agrees, is illegal and totally unjustified.
The French beef ban is also hypocritical and unworthy of a French Government that claims to be at the heart of Europe.
Hence Labour MEPs dignified walkout during the official opening of the new Parliament building on Tuesday.
MEPs should not make EU laws in a country that breaks EU laws.
In contrast, I can only praise the restraint and respect for the law shown by farmers in the north-west and Britain as a whole throughout this crisis.
I urge them to continue to show such responsibility.
I also urge the Commission to institute fast-track proceedings against the French Government as soon as possible.
Furthermore, I urge the Commission to investigate the possibility of compensation for hard-pressed British beef farmers, many of them driven almost to the wall by the beef ban.
In this connection, I welcome new proposals by my Socialist Group colleagues for a European Small Claims Court to help people facing ruin due to EU disputes in future.
We should never forget, however, where ultimate responsibility for this crisis lies.
It was the Tories who, through lax regulation, caused the crisis.
It was the Tories, who, through their ludicrous beef war, escalated the crisis.
And it is the Tories now, who, through irresponsible calls for illegal retaliatory boycotts, are trying to extend the crisis for their own party political gain.
While the Tories continue to play politics, however, Labour continues to work, with the support of the NFU, to get the ban lifted.
Helsinki European Council
Mr President, the Members of the European Free Alliance have also approved the text concerning the Helsinki Summit.
Nevertheless, by way of an explanation of vote, I would like to make a few observations.
Parliament has taken note of the fact that Turkey has been included as a candidate country.
This turn of phrase clearly hints at the wave of criticism this has met within this Parliament.
On behalf of the European Free Alliance, I would like to explicitly subscribe to this criticism.
We thought it was far too soon, given that the Kurdish issue is nowhere near a stage where it could be resolved in the light of the right to self-determination of the Kurds and human rights are still being violated with no end in sight.
The fact that the winner of the Sakharov prize, Leyla Zana, is still in prison herself, clearly indicates that the right to freedom of speech in Turkey and human rights are still being neglected.
This is why it was not the right time.
We do wonder if there is ever going to be a right time.
My second observation concerns our disappointment regarding institutional reform.
As far as we are concerned, regions which have sovereign power, based on their own constitution, should also be able to execute it within Europe. Europe is not just a sum of Member States.
Democracy within Europe must gain more depth.
Mr President, in our opinion the most striking feature of the Helsinki European Council was the absence of any long-term political vision among the Heads of State and Government. They decided to enlarge the Union to a previously unimagined extent, possibly adding thirteen new members, without giving any consideration to the conceptual tools which would make it possible to envisage the institutional structures capable of coping with this enlargement.
The contradiction has now reached its limit with the inclusion of Turkey on the list of official candidates. The Turkish Prime Minister declared the day after the Summit that membership of the European Union was, and I quote, a "birthright" for Turkey.
This gives us an idea of the restraint which he is ready to show in pushing open the door to the European Union. Yet it is clear to all freethinking observers that the arrival of Turkey will profoundly alter the nature of the Union.
Can you, for example, imagine the free movement of persons between Turkey and the countries of western Europe, virtually without any controls as is now happening within the EU? The Heads of State and Government who are supposed to be responsible must be very far removed from reality to imagine for one instant that this could happen.
Yet they continue to advocate an almost unique solution with the extension of qualified majority voting, as reiterated the day before yesterday by the French President, Jacques Chirac, before this House.
The federalists are simply reeling off the same old recipes by rote, without thinking about what they are saying.
We have the impression of an institutional system that is going downhill and which has no concept of its future, unless the Council has one without daring to tell us. It seems to be a prisoner of the consequences of an enlargement decision which it cannot control.
The Turkish Prime Minister has boasted of having been supported by Washington in his attempt to accede to the European Union, and it is true that this intervention was effective.
He has even added that less time will be needed than was thought for Turkey to become a full member of the Union.
At this rate, it will also take less time than we thought for the Union to self-destruct.
(Some applause)
- (DA) The Danish Social Democrats have today voted for the resolution concerning the results of the European Council' s meeting of 10-11 December in Helsinki.
The most important result of the Summit was that the EU has confirmed the ambitious plans for the enlargement of the EU, meaning, among other things, that an Intergovernmental Conference is now to be called to facilitate the accession of new Member States.
Throughout the preparations for the Summit, as well as with a view to the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, we have attached importance to a realistic agenda being established which will make it possible to achieve a result before the end of the year 2000.
We are therefore very satisfied with the conclusions which were reached in Helsinki in this area.
It is important that, in the course of the Intergovernmental Conference, a lot of new matters should not be brought up which make it impossible to comply with the very tight timetable.
The best example of the difficulties that can be caused by introducing new subjects is probably the issue of the so-called tax package.
It is annoying that a result in this area should not already have been achieved in Helsinki, but it will hopefully be possible to solve the matter no later than at the forthcoming Summit in Lisbon in the summer.
In the period leading up to the Summit, we warned against the EU turning itself into a fully-fledged defence alliance on a number of occasions.
We therefore noted with satisfaction that the European Council resolved that no European army should be established but that the focus should be upon conflict prevention and civil crisis management.
. (PT) We wish to highlight four decisions taken at the Helsinki European Council meeting of 10 and 11 December, regardless of latter considerations, which merit the following comments:
We are concerned to note the definition of the outlines of the next Intergovernmental Conference, which may clear the way for the reality of "boards of management" and for the deepening of the EU' s federalist tendency.
Whilst we regret the fact that the Council decided to accept Turkey as a candidate for accession, we hope that at least no new steps are taken until its government takes the necessary measures in the area of human rights, international law on the fixing of borders, the application of the UN resolutions on Cyprus and a political solution to the Kurdish question.
We criticise the decision to develop the European Union' s resources for military crisis management, in the framework of a strengthened European common policy on security and defence, conceived as the development and strengthening of NATO' s European pillar, as we also reject the militarist vision of resorting to warfare in order to resolve international conflicts.
What was necessary was to have created initiatives for disarmament and the banning of nuclear testing.
Finally, we feel that it is crucial to pay greater attention to the quality of employment, to reducing working hours and to giving dignity to workers and that we do not continue to insist on flexibility at work and on moderation in wages.
We voted against the motion for a common resolution on the Helsinki European Council because it rejected amendments - particularly those proposed by the UEN Group - which would have improved, it in the chapters "Enlargement" , "Intergovernmental Conference" and "External Relations" .
We agree specifically however with paragraph nos 19 to 27 (competitive economy and employment) and nos 29 to 34 (environment, public health and combating organised crime and drugs).
For our part, we take pleasure in the fact that the European Council has maintained and seems to want to maintain the intergovernmental method at the centre of the Union' s international system; and we reject the blindness that has led many to claim all the glory for the European Parliament, scorning the role of national governments and cutting them out of the European process, which is an unacceptable mistake.
We also disagree with the urgency where Turkey is concerned.
In terms of external policy as well, we particularly regret the lack of any mention of the very grave situation in Angola as well as the fact that no reservations have been expressed about the agreement reached with Mexico, which could give a worldwide advantage to NAFTA countries, exacerbate the disequilibrium in reciprocal access to the markets and seriously damage the interests of European industries.
We also regret the fact that nothing has been said about Russia to correct the tone of some obvious exaggerations in the resolution on Chechnya.
That concludes the explanations of vote.
Book prices in Germany and Austria
The next item is the Oral Question (B5-0038/99) by Mr Rothley and others on fixed book prices in Austria and Germany.
I would like to thank Mr Rothley for his question and intervention, and I would like to mention that I have already discussed this subject with him at some length.
First of all, I would like to point out that the Commission started to address the cross-border system of fixed book prices in force in Germany and Austria a long time before the protest made by the Austrian company Libro in 1996.
In fact, the proceedings in question began in 1993, with the Commission being notified of the cross-border agreements between German and Austrian publishers.
This was followed in 1994, 1995 and 1996 respectively, by the protests of two sellers of German books and the Austrian federal workers' association, an organisation which also has the task of defending consumer interests.
The Commission has not yet completed its consideration of the cases in question and therefore cannot bring forward the decision that will be taken on the proceedings currently underway.
It is the Commission' s duty not to discuss, apart from with those involved, an individual case on competition law where proceedings are open, but it can talk about the general points raised in an oral question, which is something I am very happy to do in your presence in this House.
National systems of fixed book prices may be based on national regulations or an agreement between companies, and in the case in point, between publishers and booksellers.
It is impossible to make an exact comparison of such regulations and an agreement between companies: indeed, different provisions of the Treaty are applied.
Systems based on regulations must be considered on the basis of Article 28 of the Treaty, whereas agreements between companies must comply with Article 81 of the Treaty.
In both cases, the case-law of the Court of Justice must obviously be respected.
The Commission believes that national systems of fixed book prices, based on agreements between companies, are compatible with Community competition rules if they do not significantly affect trade between Member States.
In these cases where trade is affected, Article 81 is not applied.
As for systems based on regulations, each Member State is free to adopt regulations as long as they are compatible with the principle, sanctioned by the Treaty, of the free movement of goods.
This choice is left to the national authorities.
More particularly, as far as French legislation is concerned - which Mr Rothley has mentioned - and as it was drafted at the time, in the judgement of 10 January 1995 on the Leclerc case, no. 229/83 "Au blé vert" , the Court of Justice decreed that, in the sphere of national legislation establishing a fixed book price system, rules which establish that the publisher' s fixed price must be observed, as regards the sale of books published in the Member State itself, and which are reimported prior to export to another Member State, constitute measures with an effect equivalent to import restrictions, which are prohibited under Article 28 (ex Article 30) of the Treaty, unless there are well-grounded reasons to believe that the aforementioned books have been exported with the sole aim of reimporting them with the intention of evading the aforementioned law.
Finally, I would like to point out that such legislation, in Germany and Austria, would not contribute to the harmonisation of European law.
Indeed, there are various Member States that have never had a system of fixed book prices and there are other Member States that had such a system and put an end to it, for example Belgium, Ireland and the United Kingdom which, as we know, have the same language as another Member State.
Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to confine myself to three points.
There is much which needs to be said, but my colleagues have already contributed a great deal to the debate on fixed book prices.
As far as I am concerned, the first point is that we need to stress the importance of the specialist book trade, we need to build on quality, not quantity, we are in immediate need of a specialist trade, a supply of specialist literature, as far as the sciences and technical books are concerned, and of personal service and advice.
I also believe that it is in the interests of the promotion of SMEs, the preservation of which is an important factor in the European Union, and which is practised in the case of the specialist book trade in a very positive and demonstrative manner.
Secondly, I think it is very important to refer to the cross-border language area.
We are always talking about the diversity of European culture and about the diversity of languages, which are growing together but which still need to retain their own identity.
It is therefore imperative to be able to sell these books easily across borders.
The most important point for me is the cultural aspect of books and society' s obligation towards literature and art; it is precisely now, in an era of new media, that books need to be specially promoted and supported.
Art and culture are, as we know, a very important economic factor and so therefore are books.
When we look at printers, publishers, translators, the trade and much more besides, then we know how important the book trade is, how important art is, including for employment.
That should not mean, however, that we regard art and culture as purely economic factors.
Art and culture need social support.
They are a necessity, we have a responsibility towards them and we cannot deal with them in that respect under the normal rules of competition.
I should therefore like to urge you, Commissioner, to put the interests of large undertakings after culture, cultural diversity and the specialist trade. Make your decision in the case of books in accordance with the principles of French law and allow the German and Austrian book trade sufficient time to adapt fixed book prices to these principles.
I believe that this will fulfil a very important cultural brief, whereby the economy is perhaps only left standing temporarily.
I think that this, too, is a gain.
Mr President, Commissioner, I very much appreciate the fact that you have joined us here in Parliament to discuss the matter with us.
In my opinion, and I think I can speak on behalf of everyone here present, the availability of information is essential to our democracy and, as has been stated before, to maintain our level of cultural development.
I think that I would especially like to highlight this cultural aspect i.e. the cultural significance of books.
This is exactly the reason why books should have an exemption position in cultural policy.
In most countries, books are not subsidised, unlike other forms of culture, but this is not necessary.
In my opinion, the government should mainly play a stimulating role.
This is why in a large number of countries, including the Netherlands, which I represent, a decision has been made in favour of fixed book prices.
In this way, we can avoid a scenario where mutual competition is so unfair that the wide and varied supply would diminish and that the easy access to information would be lost.
You too have just noted yourself that Member States need to indicate themselves what measures they will take, whether they will conclude agreements or adopt legislation, but, Commissioner, language transcends boundaries.
This is why I would also like to ask you three questions concerning the cross-border fixed book price.
For various countries in Europe, this is an urgent matter.
Some things have just come to light regarding Germany and Austria, but also in the Netherlands, activities in this sphere are closely monitored.
This is important for the Dutch linguistic region but also, of course, for other linguistic regions.
The first question concerns the large-scale mobility of people and new developments via e-commerce, which lead to a gradual fading of the borders.
Do you not share my view that the lack of cross-border price fixing or, for example, its abolition, especially for small businesses - and with this I am back on the subject of employment - entails the risk that national regulations will be cancelled out by extensive importing? There is a risk that small bookshops will disappear, especially in the countryside and in smaller towns, and that with it, accessibility will decrease.
My second question to you concerns the key significance of cultural integration, as is also included in the preamble to the oral questions.
I actually feel that this aspect is given too little consideration.
Cultural integration which transcends national borders is restricted if the fixed book price were to be scrapped and it is of particular importance to promote it in countries which share the same language.
I think that fixed book prices are exactly the right instrument in this case.
I fully agree with the ladies and gentlemen.
The rules which are being drafted now should not be a hotchpotch.
Each country is coming up with something but it would be preferable to find better solutions for this.
I would like to urge you too to take swift action.
This is a very long-winded affair.
In my own profession, I have experienced exactly that for years and years.
I think the time is right to take some decisions.
Thirdly, I would like to express my concern regarding these detours because do you not think that because of these detours, it is easy to undermine the fixed book price from other Member States in the same linguistic region and that it is not a very effective means of safeguarding the special value of the book as a cultural object and the special significance of the book market for culture?
These are three points which I would like to highlight.
I believe that the consumer is not at all interested in lower prices.
The consumer wants quality which should be sound and widely available.
Mr President, in 1998 the European Commission started a procedure intended to conclude a cross-border book price agreement between Germany and Austria.
Through this procedure, which was based on respect for European competition rules, the Commission was actually aiming to challenge the fixed book price system. Among other benefits, this system allows literary production to be supported and the survival of small publishing houses and bookshops to be assured.
The European Parliament reacted strongly by adopting virtually unanimously, on 20 November 1998, a resolution which defended fixed book prices and which called on the Commission to bring its Community policy on book price agreements into line with cultural requirements.
Under pressure from the French and German Governments, the Council used Parliament' s position to adopt a resolution on 8 February 1999 demanding, in particular, the continuation of the existing fixed book price systems.
The steadfastness shown by the Council and Parliament led the Commission to acknowledge that competition rules could not be systematically applied in the book sector.
It therefore confirmed that it had no intention of challenging the contractual agreements concluded in certain Member States or national laws such as the Lange Act in France.
Nevertheless, some months later, and after the installation of the new Commission, the Directorate-General for Competition is once again pushing the Commission to act against cross-border agreements and fixed book prices.
Faced with this new offensive by the Commission, which is bent on deregulation, it was important to react very quickly.
I am therefore delighted about this debate and the new position being taken by the European Parliament on this issue.
In its motion for a resolution, my group stresses that books are primarily cultural assets and must not therefore be subject to the competition rules in the same way as all other goods.
Their unique nature must be fully recognised in the context of the EU' s cultural policy which we are trying to develop.
This is why we hope that Parliament will confirm its position of November 1998 in order to defend cross-border agreements and fixed book prices.
Why will the Commission not take up our proposal to extend the fixed book price system to all Member States? In order to take account of technological developments, the directive on e-commerce should also include the requirements indicated by the various national laws on fixed book prices to prevent this system from being circumvented.
To conclude, I hope that the Council will show the same steadfastness as this House in protecting and promoting the fixed book price system. This system, as noted by our motion for a resolution, is better than any other at improving the production and distribution of literary works without eliminating competition.
Mr President, Commissioner, the Dutch poet Lucebert wrote "Everything of value is defenceless."
These words are of great value in the debate on fixed book prices.
In fixed book pricing, there is certainly no 'sacred cow' for book lovers.
With words to the same effect, former Commissioner Van Miert once lashed out against those advocating the maintenance of fixed book pricing.
He very conveniently overlooked the fact that those against fixed book pricing very probably selected the market mechanism as if it were their "golden calf" .
The instrument of fixed book pricing and the corresponding restriction in exploiting the opportunities afforded by parallel importing reduce competition.
Cross-subsidisation will occur between good and bad expenditure.
The abolition of fixed book pricing results in increased competition and lower prices.
This would be in the interests of the consumer.
This line of reasoning seems to be sound, but it falls short on two important counts.
In the first place, the government is responsible for running society as a whole.
In carrying out this responsibility, it is completely unacceptable to society as a whole if it honours certain specific interests unilaterally and neglects others.
In this discussion, the government cannot just have the consumer' s partial interests at heart.
Secondly, the reasoning is based on the implied assumption that price is the only thing that matters to the consumer.
This is a rather one-sided view.
I have never met a consumer on the street with such blinkered views.
He only exists in theory.
Indeed, the real consumer also takes into account quality, diversity, accessibility and adequate distribution of the total supply of books.
That fixed book pricing only benefits publishers and bookshops is thus a fable and anyone who has read a story in a children' s book will know that fables are not entirely true.
People in favour of the abolition of fixed book pricing should also be aware of the consequences.
It is highly likely that diversity in the supply of bookshops will suffer.
Mass culture will be promoted.
This is, in the long run, fatal for the cultural education of citizens.
In my country, the Netherlands, there is also the consideration that fixed book pricing protects our relatively small linguistic region.
You could, in defence, bring up the argument that it is not up to the government to tutor or stimulate its citizens into cultural education and it therefore has no responsibility in terms of the richness in the variety of books supplied.
The government should abstain from exercising any influence and the market mechanism will balance out supply and demand.
This sounds neutral but it is not.
Implicitly, this point of view sees the effect of market forces as being the only right outcome.
In our society, the introduction of market forces seems to be the highest goal in virtually all areas of policy.
This viewpoint is a direct result of reversing ends and means.
The outcome of a liberal, strictly market-conforming policy is, by definition, not free from value judgement.
With such a policy, the government is making just as much of a value statement of what it believes is right or wrong.
It is especially important in the cultural sector that factors other than financial ones are part of the equation because things of great value also happen to be very vulnerable.
If the free market forces take over, we will soon have to switch Lucebert' s words around to "Everything is once more without value" .
We need to avoid this situation at all costs.
Mr President, in my own country, the United Kingdom, we had a long political debate over the value of resale price maintenance applied to books.
That debate ended with the abolition of the book price-fixing agreement.
There is no evidence from the United Kingdom of less choice, higher prices or of any reduction in specialist bookshops.
Indeed, the number of books sold and the number of publishing houses producing them appears to be increasing.
This is surely a good thing.
At least it seems so to me since I think that books exist to be read, or certainly that was the conclusion I reached when I studied English literature at university.
Certainly, under the principles of subsidiarity, if a Member State wishes to impose resale price maintenance on books, so be it.
Moreover, if two or more Member States wish to create an internal area of joint resale price maintenance in respect of books, good luck to them.
But this has to be compatible with the single market.
Any such statutory system must have no effect as regards books sold outside the limits of the Member States' jurisdiction.
Nor should it affect books brought in or brought back into it, an increasingly widespread and popular means of book-selling developing in conjunction with e-commerce, which is entirely in accordance with the principles of the single market, and provides enormous opportunities for small niche businesses.
Any suggestion that this should take place is illiberal.
It is contrary to the principles of the single market and, in my view, is de facto a form of censorship, and artificially rationing the supply of books in favour of the better-off.
Furthermore, I believe that it prejudices a proper and legitimate aspect of intra-European trade, threatening to reduce the movement of literature across Europe to the level of pornography sent through the post, so I am reliably informed, in unmarked brown manilla envelopes, and in the free world reducing the legitimate trade in books to the level of smuggling in and out of eastern Europe of so-called subversive literature.
I, for one at least, am not in favour of that because I believe it is old-fashioned, illiberal, reactionary and, in its longer-term effect, philistine.
Commissioner, we have often discussed this matter in the past in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Listening to the debate here today, I can see that what was agreed between the Austrian and Germany book trade and the Commission has still found no place in this debate.
I can see, including from the speeches this week, that there is obviously a rapprochement here, on the basis of the recognition of the national book price fixing system and a regulation based on French law, which demonstrates, Commissioner Monti, that you are prepared to weigh the cultural aspect, which has formed part of the EC Treaty since Maastricht, against Article 85 of the EC Treaty, which requires you, as Commissioner for competition, to ensure that there are equal conditions of competition, thereby helping to ensure that consumers do not lose out in this respect.
The question is, how can it be done? I am convinced that we are on the right track here.
We do not need to accuse the Commissioner of philistinism, because he is just doing his job as keeper of the treaties.
I think that if we can find an economically reasonable solution which the publishing houses agree with, if we can find a solution which recognises cultural language areas, if we can find a solution which does not incorporate the maximum limitation on competition within the level playing field required under Article 85, then we are on the right track towards a reasonable regulation.
In principle, therefore, I support the motion for a resolution as tabled here by Mr Rothley.
However, reference to the Commission' s obligation to comply with competition regulations is missing.
This should be added, otherwise we shall lose credibility and we shall put Mr Monti in an awkward position which he certainly does not deserve, because I have confidence in your informed judgement.
Mr President, I would like to thank all those who took part in this debate, which I found worthwhile both from a political and a cultural point of view.
I would like to assure the participants in the debate that the Commission, and myself personally, attach a lot of importance, as you do, to culture and books, and we recognise the cultural importance of books and are ready to take into account these specific features.
Mr Karas mentioned that I have already stated that I wish competition policy to be an element of the social market economy: I confirm this and ask you all not to consider competition as an abstract concept and the citizens' enemy.
Competition is the main ally of individual citizens.
Competition' s main aim is to safeguard consumer interests from the point of view both of prices and quality, as well as to safeguard small and medium-sized businesses against the excesses of large businesses, in many cases.
For this reason, just as I am prepared to give full recognition to the importance of culture, I am asking you not to become intellectual victims of an approach whereby competition is not a major ally of citizens.
The task of competition is to combat cartels, the abuse of dominant positions and mergers, and to create more possibilities for economic freedom, and we know that economic freedom is often accompanied by civil freedom too, as shown by the past experience of countries which did not have economic freedom.
I therefore believe that there is room for a harmonious interaction between cultural policy and competition policy, without creating futile and forced counter-stances.
The evidence provided by Lord Inglewood, which can be found in other countries as well, shows that the abolition of a fixed price system does not necessarily bring about disruptive consequences in terms of prices and quality of books.
Yet I want it to be very clear that the Commission is not working for the abolition of fixed price systems for books as such.
Frankly, Mrs Juncker, I wonder whether you and I were in the same room when I spoke because I am very surprised that you say that the Commission wants to eliminate the price maintenance system.
May I repeat literally what I said in Italian:
"The Commission believes that national systems of fixed book prices, based on agreements between companies, are compatible with Community competition rules if they do not significantly affect trade between Member States."
I also said: "As for systems based on regulations" - that is, the other possibility, not agreements but regulations - "each Member State is free to adopt regulations as long as they are compatible with the principle, sanctioned by the Treaty, of the free movement of goods" .
Therefore, please, let us not depict the Commission as an institution which sets out to do things that in reality it has no intention of doing.
I have repeatedly said that we will not oppose, nor can we oppose, fixed book price systems at national level.
We must only prevent telling distortions arising from the fact that this is a cross-border issue.
I have already said, as regards the specific German/Austrian case, where proceedings are on-going, that unfortunately I cannot discuss it in detail here.
I can, however, assure you that I made an enormous effort, in my first three months in office, to meet the parties concerned and pinpoint prospects for a positive outcome.
In this respect, I found Mr Langen' s intervention constructive, as he seems to recognise that such a prospect exists.
(EN) Finally, Mrs Echerer reminded us all in this room that we have different backgrounds.
She is right.
Unfortunately, my background is not that of an actor.
I would not dare to define myself as a man of culture, far from it, but I spent my life until five years ago as a university professor and my life has been spent between books as an instrument for work and they are something I deeply respect and love.
I believe I am as sensitive as anybody here to the importance of books, of culture.
It is simply my job to try to preserve all the positive values that are embedded in them, avoiding at the same time some excesses that may be to the detriment of the reader.
Thank you very much for your attention.
That concludes the debate.
The vote will take place this evening.
(The sitting was suspended at 12.40 p.m. and resumed at 3 p.m.)
Topical and urgent subjects of major importance
The next item is the debate on topical and urgent subjects of major importance.
Indonesia
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0339/1999 by Mr Titley, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the situation in Indonesia and East Timor;
B5-0350/1999 by Mrs Lynne, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on Indonesia;
B5-0366/1999 by Mr Nassauer and others, on Indonesia and East Timor;
B5-0377/1999 by Mrs Hautala and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the situation in Indonesia and East Timor;
B5-0382/1999 by Mr Miranda and others, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on Indonesia.
I would like to begin on a positive note.
I think we should recognise that there is now a new democratically-elected government in Indonesia and that, for the first time in 40 years, there is now a civilian defence minister.
Therefore, we should, as the international community, be seeking to support that democratic government in Indonesia.
However, in the same week as we gave Mr Gusmão the Sakharov Prize, we must be careful not to drop our guard too far.
We must consider that although there is a civilian defence minister in Indonesia, the defence ministry is still heavily militarised.
Clearly we would want to see greater democratisation of the defence ministry in Indonesia.
We must also recognise that there is still considerable abuse by the armed forces against those who wish to express a desire for autonomy in parts of Indonesia.
Clearly while that persecution is going on by the Indonesian military we would not also be wanting to support that or give any message of support.
We also know that in West Timor, the Indonesian military have not disarmed or disbanded the militias yet.
They are still terrorising something like 200 000 East Timorese refugees who are trapped in West Timor.
They are obstructing UN efforts in order to repatriate these people to East Timor.
We want to see those militias disarmed and disbanded as soon as possible.
We also know that the Indonesian military are opposed to cooperating with the UN International Commission of Inquiry set up to investigate crimes against humanity in East Timor.
We want to see the Indonesian military cooperate fully with UN investigations.
For that reason the EU should be extending its four-month old arms embargo on arms sales to Indonesia because if we were to lift that arms embargo the signal we would give to the military is very clearly that they are acceptable and have been rehabilitated, whereas, as I have just outlined, that is far from being the case.
I recognise there is a strong argument for saying that if we do not provide arms to Indonesia they will go elsewhere to buy them, to China or to Russia, for example.
Nonetheless, it is important for us to make a clear statement that we want to see reform of the Indonesia military.
We want to see greater civilian and democratic control and we want to see greater respect for human rights in Indonesia.
That has not yet happened and now is not the time to lift the arms embargo.
I put this resolution forward on behalf of the ELDR Group because I believe the EU arms embargo should not be lifted on 17 January.
What we should have instead is an extension of that arms embargo.
It would be definitely unacceptable to lift it.
The army have failed miserably to disarm and disband the militia.
They have been terrorising between a hundred and two hundred thousand refugees in West Timor.
They are not allowing aid workers into the camps.
In one camp 160 have died. 90% of those were children under five.
As has already been said, they are not cooperating with the UN International Commission for Crimes Against Humanity and they are also committing crimes and atrocities in Aceh and West Papua.
One case I heard of recently was that the police and the army together beat up a young man.
He was going to look for his mother.
They beat him up and interrogated him and kicked him to the ground.
After that they poured gasoline over him and burnt him alive.
That was in North Aceh.
It is still happening.
The Indonesian Army and the militia and the police are still committing these atrocities.
To raise the embargo would give totally wrong signals.
I heard also recently about a secret defence intelligence report from Australia.
Some of the EU countries did not want to agree to the ban in the first place.
Some EU Member States put financial gain above human rights and I do not believe that that is acceptable.
While the Indonesian army is still engaged in acts of repression, the embargo must stay.
Mr President, the key question is whether or not the arms embargo decided by the Council in September of this year as part of the restrictive measures against Indonesia should be extended beyond January next year.
I think, having weighed up the pros and cons, that the right decision is to maintain the embargo.
This allows us to send out two different signals.
First, we want to bolster the development of democracy in Indonesia.
It has, without doubt, maintained momentum with the democratic change of power in Indonesia and we want to and we must encourage the democratic forces in Indonesia.
We must also recognise that the role of the army continues to be highly problematic, to put it mildly.
There have been atrocities not only in East Timor, which is now to gain independence, but also in Aceh and other parts of Indonesia.
What we have to do is make it clear to the army that it is now being closely watched by the public worldwide, especially in the EU, and that we take the liberty of drawing our conclusions from the behaviour of the military.
At the moment, these conclusions must be that we are not prepared to supply this military with any more weapons, irrespective of whether or not the fear that they will now obtain these weapons from China is justified.
We, in all events, should not render ourselves guilty of this arms supply.
I therefore advocate, after careful consideration, that we vote to maintain this embargo, because it is a signal to the army in Indonesia and we hope that it is also a signal to the democratic forces in Indonesia which, we may assume, will be encouraged by our stance.
Like other speakers, I would like to support the call for the arms embargo to remain.
As has been said already, it would be completely unacceptable that the arms embargo be lifted, especially in the light of the fact that the Indonesian military have failed to disarm.
We should send out a signal that what they are doing is unacceptable.
The only justification for lifting the arms embargo would be in the interests of profit.
Many Member States of the European Union have a lot to answer for as regards their own support in the past for the Indonesian authority while it was oppressing the people of East Timor, and also for the fact that these countries and their arms manufacturing firms have made huge profits at the expense of innocent lives and the wellbeing of people and the right of people to live freely without oppression and human rights abuses.
What is happening in East Timor as regards the aid workers is unacceptable.
What the Indonesian authorities are doing there has to be challenged.
As Mrs Lynne has already said, it is not acceptable that the aid workers do not have access to the camps where people are dying.
We stood idly by for too long after the referendum.
We should have done something long before.
The signal was already there.
Despite our past failure to ensure that people were not killed, the onus is now on us to ensure that in future no message of support goes out to the Indonesian authorities as it stands.
They are showing contempt for the wish and will of the international community as regards the right of people to live in peace, the right of people not to be oppressed, the right of people not to be killed with weapons made by western countries.
If China is going to supply weapons to Indonesia that does not justify the European Union lifting its arms embargo.
Two wrongs do not make a right.
What we should also be doing is challenging the fact that China may in fact provide arms.
This is also unacceptable.
China gets away with a huge amount of wrong-doing and it is about time we stood up to them as well.
A clear signal has to go out to the Indonesian authorities that we are no longer going to accept their contempt for the wish of the international community for human rights and peace.
Mr President, like the previous speakers, I would say that the signs of change in Indonesia are obvious.
The search for new paths, marked out by the universal values that characterise constitutional States, that is being led by Mr Wahid' s government deserves the appreciation of the international community.
It is nevertheless too early to assess how well their intentions will succeed. There are fundamental questions that still need to be answered.
How is Indonesia going to address the problems of Aceh, the Moluccas and West Papua?
How will it resolve the problem of the Timorese refugees who are now just currency in the hands of pro-Indonesian militias? What will be their attitude towards the crimes committed by Indonesian soldiers in East Timor, where they were the occupying force, as well as in some Indonesian provinces?
What role will the Indonesian armed forces play?
Will they be able to adapt to a constitutional state or will they continue to be a force within a force?
In terms of the relationship between the European Union and its Member States with the Republic of Indonesia at the moment, the only sensible course of action is to uphold the decisions of the Council of 16 and 17 October, when restrictions were established that included a ban on the sale of weapons.
Mr President, since his official appointment over one and a half months ago, President Wahid has already made fifteen foreign visits.
However, the Indonesian Head of State did not visit a single one of the many acute hotspots at home until earlier this week.
Moreover, the national political elite had to make a detour in Ambon in order to reach the civil governor' s residence by warship.
It seems that President Wahid travels more safely abroad than in his own archipelago - a fateful sign!
Such an impossible situation requires political decisiveness.
After all, we know what the consequences were: an estimated seven hundred casualties on the Moluccas this year alone.
Add to this more than one thousand victims on East Timor, and this is not taking into account the massive unrest and bloodshed in Aceh, Sulawesi and Irian Jaya.
We could reasonably expect the new Indonesian government to take action in three fundamental areas: restoring public order, prosecuting and punishing those who have blood on their hands and entering into a political dialogue with the opposition.
After all, blunt military repression of opposition forces only leads to a nigh hopeless spiral of violence.
The present resolution thus makes an emphatic appeal to the Indonesian authorities.
This is why we gladly subscribe to the resolution.
We have since received reports that one of the key culprits of the East Timorese tragedy, the militia leader Tavares, has suddenly decided to disband the murderous gangs and wishes to walk the path of reconciliation.
The timing of this 'U-turn' seems highly suspect.
Indeed, today sees the start of the International Donor Conference for East Timor in Japan.
Surely the looters of yesterday could not be the subsidisers of tomorrow!
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes this debate with open arms, as it does the contributions made to this debate so far, for they demonstrate that the European Union is conscious of the responsibility it has for developments in Indonesia and that it wants to continue in its endeavours to bring about a stable and democratic order there.
This is the principle on which our policy is based and nothing will change in this regard.
I quite agree with those who have pointed out that, all problems aside, there have also been some extremely positive developments in Indonesia, which are deserving of support.
The new government has been democratically elected.
It appears to be committed to tackling the urgent problems.
It is endeavouring to resolve the aforementioned regional unrest in Aceh and Irian Jaya and the ethnic tensions in the Moluccas, by means of peaceful dialogue and constitutional reform, and I believe it is crucially important that there is a national commission on human rights that is dealing with human rights issues.
As far as the Commission is concerned, it will only be possible to tackle regional tensions and demands for more autonomy or for independence if a regime, a system, is introduced in Indonesia, that truly guarantees unambiguous political accountability and transparency of statecraft, and lives up to the expectations of the large, democratically-minded majority of citizens.
The Commission is aware that there are still huge challenges to be met in Indonesia.
Firstly, I might mention the fact that the army needs to be reformed, secondly that a stable system of law and order needs to be introduced.
Continuing in that vein, there is a need to put a stop to corruption, to resolve the social problems arising from the economic crisis in Asia and to give renewed impetus to the badly affected Indonesian economy.
Permit me to make a few further remarks on East Timor in this connection, and then I also want to say something about the arms embargo.
I believe that reconstruction in East Timor presents the international community with a very special challenge.
Timor stands out on account of the scale of damage and violence and the singular political situation there.
That is why we want to, and must, help achieve a comprehensive solution to the problems there, under the auspices of the United Nations.
Then there is also the question as to how this state is to be constructed and how human rights are to be secured there.
The Commission has already involved itself here and will continue to involve itself.
Supporting East Timor is a high-priority task as far as we are concerned.
This was illustrated by Mr Nielson' s visit to East and West Timor a few weeks ago.
So far, the Commission has made a total of EUR 33.5 million available for humanitarian aid and reconstruction measures.
The Commission is also to participate in the Donor Conference due to take place in Tokyo tomorrow and which has already been mentioned here.
A concrete programme is to be decided on there.
The Commission intends to see to it that technical assistance is provided in Dili, with a view to ensuring effective implementation of the programmes.
I believe that what we need to do in the very near future in East Timor is to implement the necessary humanitarian measures efficiently.
The repatriation of refugees has begun.
The Indonesian government has assured us that the voluntary repatriation process will soon be concluded.
We intend to keep a very watchful eye on this and, if we detect any hold-ups, then we will bring pressure to bear on the Indonesian government.
In our view, it is up to the United Nations to take the leading role in coordinating all the donors' endeavours.
That is why the Commission believes that all donors should work closely with UNTAET.
The East Timorese should play a part in all aspects of the reconstruction and development process.
The Commission believes that the advisory council, which also contains representatives of various political groupings, has an important role to play.
And so, all in all, although there are positive signs in Indonesia and East Timor, still there is cause for concern and unease.
It is for this very reason that the European Parliament considers this debate to be a necessary one and this is completely in line with the Commission' s intentions and deliberations.
You are aware that the Council has sole responsibility for the arms embargo issue, which has been discussed on a number of occasions here.
Consequently, I only have a certain amount of room for manoeuvre where this is concerned, but I believe that I can say this much: the Commission hopes that the Members of the Council will not only be notified of the arguments that have been presented here but also act on them.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
Peace process in Sierra Leone
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0333/1999 by Mrs Lucas and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on Sierra Leone;
B5-0340/1999 by Mrs Kinnock and Mr Howitt, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the peace process in Sierra Leone;
B5-0352/1999 by Mrs Thors and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the peace process in Sierra Leone;
B5-0367/1999 by Mrs Ferrer and others, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the situation in Sierra Leone.
Mr President, after eight years of infernal civil war, the situation in Sierra Leone is desperate.
Although a peace agreement was signed in Lomé in July, on 22 November, a UN investigation team sadly noted once again a significant deterioration.
The terror against the civilian population in certain parts continues, as do the killings, rape, incarceration and arming of children.
This leads me to raise two specific questions, Mr President, Commissioner, which we need to ask ourselves in all honesty, both as a Commission and as a Union.
Can we allow this arms trade to continue? We know that diamonds - smuggled diamonds, in particular - play a crucial role in this.
Can we continue to turn a blind eye?
Secondly, for the sake of maintaining the peace agreement, a pledge was made to deploy UN peace-keeping troops.
Is the mandate of these troops powerful enough or should we not find out as a matter of urgency what this comes down to in practice other than paying a few mercenaries to be stationed in safe zones?
The situation in Sierra Leone continues to be extremely unstable.
The peace agreement offered improved conditions to only a very small number of the RUF hierarchy.
As the rains in Sierra Leone have come to an end, the campaign of violence and terror against the civilian population has resumed.
To improve things we need to change the quality of government.
It is a country which was highly educated and highly law-abiding.
It is being ruined by international money laundering: diamonds are more easy to exchange internationally than money.
But the poor respect both education and humanitarian values and they respect democracy.
Soon there will be another general election.
We should support that push for democracy.
They have earned their chance to vote.
I call upon the European Parliament and the European Commission to give funding for education, basic justice and democracy immediately.
Mr President, after eight years - as we have been reminded - of a bloody civil war, the peace agreement signed on 7 July of this year provided the opportunity to end this tragic period and resolve, in a peaceful and lasting way, a conflict which has caused immense suffering to the population.
Nevertheless, the hopes which gave rise to this agreement have not been fulfilled and today, five months later, we must note with great concern and sorrow that the rebel attacks against civilians, the killings and rapes, have not only failed to diminish, but have actually increased.
Therefore, we Christian Democrats, who have always defended the use of dialogue and reconciliation, wish to repeat our complete condemnation of the acts of violence and violations of human rights which are still being carried out and deplore the delay in the development of the peace process.
However, above all, we wish to call on the parties in the conflict to abandon arms for good and respect the commitments contained in the agreement.
Since words are not enough, however, and actions are required, we earnestly request that measures be adopted and means provided that will allow compliance with the agreement.
In particular, the Security Council of the United Nations must decide to go ahead with the deployment of international peacekeeping forces.
Also, the necessary funds must be provided so that the agreement may be put into effect; particularly - and this has already been mentioned - with regard to the promotion of development and education, of all those measures which will finally allow the population of Sierra Leone to come together and live in peace, freedom and democracy.
Mr President, I think that the current situation in Sierra Leone sets a dangerous precedent, not only for Africa but also for the rest of the world.
In July, a peace agreement was concluded between the government and the RUF rebels.
This is laudable, if it were not for the fact that we are dealing with one of the world' s cruellest rebel groups, without a political goal other than gaining control over the diamond.
One of the goals of the peace agreement is to provide general amnesty, for crimes against citizens as well.
It offers the rebels various ministerial posts and also the important presidency of a committee authorised to exploit and export minerals.
This is a worrying sign: a sign that terror works; that the mutilation and killing of citizens not only remains unpunished, but even pays; that any warlord could take up arms against a democratically elected government and be rewarded into the bargain.
For the government, the peace agreement is a pragmatic solution.
Indeed, President Kabbah does not have his own army.
He completely relies on the West African peace-keeping force ECOMOG and on the Nigerians, in particular, but they have already announced that they wish to retreat from this bloody war.
This means that the President now has his back against the wall.
This is why the European Union must urge the UN to deploy the peace-keeping force quickly in order to end the terror.
This is why more should be invested in the programme for the disarmament of rebels.
Finally, we need to continue to advocate a form of justice on behalf of the thousands of victims of this terror movement.
If not, a scenario similar to that in neighbouring Liberia is likely to present itself, where people choose a warlord for fear that he would otherwise take up arms again.
This is, I think, totally unacceptable.
Mr President, to term these on-going brutalities in Sierra Leone as bestial is an insult to animals.
After eight years of civil war, the road to peace seemed finally clear but the abhorrent brutalities, in particular those against women and children, carry on relentlessly.
Child soldiers are abused on a large scale to pander to the malafide interests of adults.
It is impossible to stabilise and reconstruct the country as long as citizens continue to be slaughtered.
Europe should make a financial contribution to implement the DDR Programme.
Diamond smuggling must be addressed efficiently.
European support for rehabilitation programmes is also essential.
Indeed, good mental and physical guidance of the victims is urgently required.
It is also vitally important for enduring peace that the guilty parties are brought to justice rather than being appointed to ministers.
When are the animals returning to their cages?
Mr President, as many previous speakers have said, Sierra Leone offers the absolutely worst example of what happens when a country uses child soldiers.
In our Finnish newspapers, we could read a week or two ago about an eighteen year-old girl who had been compulsorily recruited, had suffered an amputation and had been raped.
She could see no future and no hope.
For me, her story represents everything that is so horrific about the use of child soldiers and forces us to think about what we can do about this.
We should also note that a third of the child soldiers who have been recruited in Sierra Leone are still mere girls.
We should demand - and I hope that the Commission also does so - that the President should respect the agreement once entered into with Unicef. This means that Unicef should be allowed to work in the country in order to rehabilitate children who have suffered psychological damage.
I believe that Unicef is the organisation which has far and away the greatest experience of this work.
I therefore believe that, in the future, we should in every way support precisely this organisation, for it is psychological damage above all that the children are suffering from and which makes many of them want to return to the military forces.
It is this that is one of the most serious threats for the future.
Mr President, here too, I should like, on behalf of the Commission, to welcome expressly the fact that the European Parliament has turned its attention to this subject this afternoon.
I think it is very important that we make it clear that the horrific human rights violations such as those which we have seen and which we are seeing in Sierra Leone are a matter of concern to all Europeans because it is our understanding that human rights and human dignity are indivisible throughout the world and we will not tolerate a selective perception which results in our taking a closer interest in acts of violence in our own region than in the eruptions of violence which we have witnessed in Sierra Leone for several years now.
I agree with those who have said that there are few conflicts in the world which are as barbaric, as bloodthirsty and, unfortunately, as hopeless, as far a political solution is concerned, as this conflict in Sierra Leone.
The peace agreement concluded in July was welcomed at the time by the European Union.
We called on all parties to help implement it and stated that we ourselves were prepared to do so.
We could see that it would be very difficult and we could see that, in the final analysis, all the conditions for a working, stable, democratic rule of law in Sierra Leone would have to be created anew and that there was only limited willingness to cooperate.
Like Parliament, we are therefore extremely worried about the latest violations of the ceasefire and we are concerned that the peace agreement is only being implemented slowly, if at all.
Nonetheless, we must ask ourselves what we can do to help the tormented victims of this conflict.
Merely stating that the situation is horrific does not help, which is why we are starting by offering concrete help with reintegration with the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programme.
Since 1997, the Commission has been financing reconstruction of the social and economic infrastructure destroyed by the war through its rehabilitation programme.
With the help of this programme, families settling there and former fighters are obtaining jobs and an income.
We are currently working on a bigger programme to the tune of some EUR 20 million to support reconstruction and reintegration.
This programme should replace the current programme, which expires in the middle of next year.
Further help to resettle rural communities is being given in the form of agricultural resources and is being funded under the food security budget line.
ECHO will also provide further humanitarian aid.
In 1999, non-governmental organisations and UN organisations received EUR 14 million for the benefit of the people who had suffered during the war.
It included aid for Sierra Leone - refugees in neighbouring Liberia and Guinea and, as referred to here, help for NRO, which gives psychological and social support in the refugee camps, has initiated aid programmes for demobilised child soldiers and is addressing the particularly gruelling problem of mutilated children in order to give them some prospects in life.
The lady Member just said that these children had no prospects.
I do not think we should accept that so readily.
I think that we should do everything we can to give these children a dignified life.
I should like to remind you that the scope of humanitarian aid in Sierra Leone does not depend on the funds available but on the security situation in the country itself.
At present, the aid organisations are severely hampered in their work by the insecurity which prevails in the northern and eastern provinces of the country.
Whether or not there is additional impetus in the disarmament process and hence an improvement in the security situation will depend this month on the arrival of the UNAMSL forces, the UN mission to Sierra Leone.
The Commission is currently preparing further help for the year 2000.
We are, in fact, discussing further aid for the children affected by the war with UNICEF, the Ministry of Social Affairs and with various groups from civilian society.
I should like to stress here that the Commission will always be prepared to examine proposals from these groups for action in the human rights sector.
The Commission is also prepared to examine funding for the Truth and Reconciliation Committee being set up under its budget line for human rights and democracy.
Thank you, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place this afternoon at 5.30 p.m.
Human rights
Mr President, I am pleased that we in Europe can say that the death penalty has been abolished.
The abolition of the death penalty belongs, as it were, to our culture.
Unfortunately, however, we did not see the abolition of the death penalty in the UN in 1999.
We all know that the death penalty is still on the agenda in Iran, Turkey, China and Yemen.
I find it particularly tragic that America, the land which champions freedom and human rights, has maintained the death penalty.
At the moment, two European Union citizens are on death row, a Spaniard in Yemen and an Italian in the USA, a Mr Barnabei, who is due to be executed in the year 2000.
Mr Barnabei, who was previously a respectable man, is accused of having killed a young woman.
This is my cause for concern insofar as, like me, he is an Italian citizen.
I urge the Commission and, of course, this Parliament, to do everything it can to get this death sentence commuted to life imprisonment or postponed, not just because leading American legal experts have indicated that there may be a miscarriage of justice, as is often the case, but also because he is an EU citizen.
Mr President, it once again falls to the European Parliament to condemn the death penalty, the greatest violation of human rights which is still being committed in the world, often and to all our shame, under the protection of laws which have been created by men who represent the sovereignty of the people.
Today we are talking about the sentencing of two European citizens, a Spaniard and an Italian, who have been condemned to death, as has already been said, in Yemen and the United States respectively.
In the case of the Spanish citizen, Nabil Nanakli, furthermore, there is no sufficient information regarding the trial, arrest and current situation of the prisoner, which has mobilised the entire Muslim community.
We have stated in this House that they is no such thing as a just death penalty, that no human being may condemn to death or execute another human being, that there is no recourse to any law, to any sovereignty, to the independence of any State, which can justify this violation of life itself.
The defence of human rights is at the very heart of our Union.
To globalise the respect for human rights must be our prime objective.
I am not making - and this Parliament is not once again making - a humanitarian declaration.
It is a political commitment, it is Politics with a capital 'P' , and it is the European Union' s foreign policy.
Therefore, I would like to draw attention to point 5 of our Resolution, which says that we repeat our request to the Council to incorporate into negotiations with third countries - with all of them - "the abolition of the death penalty as part of the human rights clause" .
We expect a response from the Council in this respect; a response and a commitment which is also political.
I have received a book which has been published to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Council of Europe, a book whose title reads "Europe, all of us under the same roof" .
Let us be ambitious, let us extend the European roof, let us extend our civilisation, let us put into practice a phrase which, fortunately, this book quotes.
In the words of Albert Camus: "Neither in people' s hearts nor in the customs of society will there be peace while the death penalty remains legal" .
Mr President, for a Christian, requesting a moratorium on capital punishment and its abolition is not just a duty or a proper act, but an ethical choice made out of respect for people who have done wrong and who can and must redeem themselves.
We are opposed to deaths caused by man' s interference, such as abortion and euthanasia.
A guilty verdict is irrelevant to this request.
We would ask for this moratorium even if the person were a confessed criminal and there is all the more reason for us to do it when there may be reasonable doubt about their guilt.
If, on the basis of formal documents on civil rights, we ask for humane conditions in prisons, there is all the more reason for us to oppose the death penalty and we cannot therefore understand how countries that are recognised as civilised can still have cruel and uncivilised regulations.
Finally, I would like to stress that, taking the modern view of studying the consequences of criminal judgements, the punishment should fulfil a rehabilitative function, enabling the citizen who has done wrong to take up his place in civil society again.
Knowing these values, we are firmly reasserting our request for a moratorium on capital punishment for the two condemned citizens in Virginia and the Yemen.
Mr President, we are not today invoking an abstract principal but are intervening on behalf of a young Italo-American, Derek Rocco Barnabei, 33 years of age, who has been living on death row in a prison in Virginia for six years, with the daily nightmare that he may die for a crime that, in all likelihood, he did not commit.
How many others are in the same position? How many others, like him, do not have the necessary funds to pay for lawyers or the expensive analyses which could, perhaps, completely exonerate them?
It is our duty to continue protesting about the death sentence, and as the Pope did last Sunday, to continue to clearly call for the moratorium proposed by Italy to at least be applied to the member nations of the UN.
We are keeping the hope alive that the third millennium will start with this proposal being accepted.
In the meantime, we are continuing to do practical work, by backing initiatives such as the one in Tuscany which aims to raise funds to allow Rocco Barnabei to carry out DNA tests to prove his innocence, and inviting you, President, to use all the means at your disposal to ensure that the message of Parliament and the European institutions gets through to the American authorities.
Right of women to vote in Kuwait:
Mr President, it is regrettable that, at the close of the 20th century, a century symbolised so positively by the peaceful women' s revolution, there are still countries, such as Kuwait and Afghanistan, where half the population, women that is, is still denied fundamental human rights.
In Kuwait, at the end of November, the parliament rejected the proposal to recognise a woman' s right to vote or to stand for election with 32 votes against and 30 votes in favour. This is not only a violation of human rights for women and an abhorrent political act but, paradoxically enough, it is an infringement of the Constitution of Kuwait, Article 29 of which stipulates that "all citizens are equal before the law, regardless of gender, religion, race or ethnic background" .
What is more, Kuwait is a signatory to the UN' s International Convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.
It appears that the members of the Legislative Assembly - all men of course - are not bound by the country' s Constitution or by laws or international obligations, or by the political will of the leadership of the country which submitted the relevant decree for adoption.
However, this decision, apart from its antiquated misogynistic and deeply antidemocratic nature, is a clear message of resistance against any attempts to modernise and democratise the country.
That is why the European Parliament needs to send a strong message of support and solidarity to the women of Kuwait who are fighting for their fundamental rights.
We also call upon the representative of the National Assembly to make all possible efforts to review the issue and to restore justice for women so that by the next elections in 2003, the women of Kuwait will have full political rights to vote and to stand for election.
Mr President, the state of Kuwait offers many opportunities for able women today.
Dr Rasha Al-Sabah, the long-serving Under-Secretary of Higher Education, is joined by Dr Fayezah Al-Khorafi, President of the University of Kuwait; Her Excellency Nabila Al-Mulla, who is Ambassador of the State of Kuwait to Austria; Siham Ruzuqi, the Assistant Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Oil; another Assistant Under-Secretary: Sarah Duwaisan at the Ministry of Planning; and in civil society: Shaikha Hussah Al-Salim Al-Mubarek Al-Sabah, the President of Dar Al-Athar Al-Islamiya, the Islamic Museum of Kuwait.
It is not surprising with this record of achievement of highly able women in Kuwait that, on 16 May 1999, His Highness the Prince of the State of Kuwait issued an official decree giving the Kuwaiti woman the right of voting and of nomination to parliament, but it is parliament who has turned this down.
Despite this, the Kuwaiti Parliament is different from the other parliaments of the Arabian Gulf.
The 50 Members of Parliament are directly elected, not nominated, not appointed as is the case in other Arab Gulf States.
The Members of Parliament can question ministers in parliament at any time.
That questioning can be so fierce that it can even lead to the resignation of ministers.
Also, the parliament controls the government's annual budget.
I believe that there will be another vote before too long, perhaps within two or three months, because this is a democratically elected parliament.
It is unthinkable that universal suffrage in a democracy will not be achieved in the end.
As a parliamentarian, therefore, I call upon my fellow parliamentarians - here and in our national parliaments too - to urge Kuwaiti parliamentarians to give women that right to vote and stand.
That is an historic step forward and one that I believe they will not regret.
Mr President, I would like to say a few words on the resolution concerning the right of Kuwaiti women to vote, a situation which is extremely worrying.
It touches fundamental human rights.
This right is also laid down in the Kuwaiti Constitution, as is stipulated in the resolution and it is, of course, commendable that the Kuwaiti government and parliament have implemented the same.
It is, however, unfortunate, how this came about.
The bill was not passed for two reasons.
Firstly, it was not submitted correctly as the emir did this during recess and secondly, the rank and file did not subscribe to it, so there is also an issue with the rank and file.
So the emir submitted the bill during recess.
This is why MPs who agreed with the content voted against it out of protest against the procedure.
The same was true for fifteen ministers who have voting rights in parliament.
The second issue which forms part of the larger picture is mainly an issue to do with the local government officials.
They are all men and they have shown little enthusiasm when it comes to women joining them in the local government.
This is why the MPs have voted against, often for fear of their own rank and file - there is no party structure but people are elected directly - and for fear of their own positions.
Hence my plea, Mr President.
If a clause is added to paragraph 4 in the resolution that a delegation is to go to Kuwait, then the issues of local government will also need to be addressed, as well as the procedural issue, because it is extremely awkward if such an important bill were not to be passed due to a procedural error.
I look forward to a positive outcome to the vote on this resolution.
Mr President, every time we hear in this Parliament about the denial of basic human rights, like the right to vote or the right to stand for election, it should serve to strengthen our own resolve to promote and improve democracy in all parts of the world.
So, although the vote of the Kuwaiti National Assembly on 30 November to deny those very rights to women in Kuwait was a deep disappointment, it offers some hope for the future.
The closeness of the vote in November has strengthened the resolve of the women and men in Kuwait who are working for this change in the law.
They have pledged not to give up the campaign.
They have set the 2003 general and municipal elections as their target for the first time that women will ever vote in Kuwait.
They are going to put forward a women's rights bill every year in the National Assembly until they succeed in doing that.
While we condemn the decision of the Kuwaiti National Assembly on 30 November it is also important for us to use our elected positions as parliamentarians to encourage and support those who want to bring about change.
After all, it is not so long ago that women in many European Union countries were engaged in years of campaign and protest to win the right to vote and stand in elections.
This was what brought about that change.
In the United Kingdom, for example, the suffrage movement was set up in 1860.
It was not until 1918 that some women - not all - got the right to vote.
It was not until 1928 that all women in the United Kingdom got the right to vote.
So we have been through these campaigns before in other countries.
If we look at an international level, by 1990 women had the right to vote in almost every country where men could vote as well.
Only Kuwait extended the vote to men and not to women.
While it is difficult for most of us even to comprehend this kind of system, we have a responsibility to the people working there to support them in every way we can.
Situation of women in Afghanistan:
Mr President, I would like to thank the other parliamentary groups for their support and for their contributions to this initiative in favour of Afghan women.
I believe that the whole world is aware of their situation and for this reason has supported this initiative.
By defending their rights we also defend our own.
The resolution which we are debating today must be one more contribution to the ending of the situation of women in a country, Afghanistan, where the Taliban regime, through its authoritarianism, is causing terror throughout the population and international alarm.
The public execution of Zaarmeena, the obligation to wear the burka, the denial of the right to healthcare and education for women are but a few examples of the flagrant violations of human rights committed in that country.
Serious violations of women' s rights are committed every day, unpunished by a government which supports and encourages acts of repression and torture against them.
This Parliament, the European Parliament, has the moral obligation to express its solidarity with the Afghan women, to request that the UN intervene more actively, to ask the Member States to continue to refuse to recognise the Taliban regime until it respects human rights and puts an end to its discrimination against women.
The approval of this resolution may be a step - however small - in that direction.
Women currently make up 52% of the world population and, nevertheless, we are one of the groups which is most discriminated against and marginalised.
The case of the Afghan women illustrates the problem of the lack of respect for human rights which takes place every day in all corners of the planet and also in this Europe of ours.
We all know about the white slave trade, murders and abuse etc..
Perhaps there is little we can do from this House, but we have the duty to put pressure on the UN and the Member States.
I rise to speak about the women of Afghanistan.
At a time when Christmas is approaching, this offers one opportunity, among the multiplicity of human rights abuses globally, for Muslims and Christians to come together against the forces of evil.
For Islam and Christianity both uphold the rights of women, and the abuses of human rights against women that are taking place in Afghanistan, and have been taking place for so long now, are against the ethics of Islam.
No proper Muslim in the world will support the treatment of women that has been meted out by the bestial Afghan sadists and torturers.
It is an unbelievable situation but it is one in which we can join hands, bring forces to bear upon the Taliban society and free those poor women.
Why have we held back? I am ashamed of this.
I call upon us all to intervene in Afghanistan with Islam, with Christians, with Jews, with the entirety of the world.
There can be no hanging back in the millennium: free these poor women now!
Mr President, we are living through an era full of contrasts and contradictions and while, in the European Union, women' s rights are fully recognised, in some countries they are even denied the right to be, the very right to exist.
While this morning a Member pointed out the fact that the three institutions of the European Union responsible for signing the budget were presided over by women and saw this as an illustration of what the third millennium may represent for the consolidation of equality of rights and opportunities for men and women, in Afghanistan we see how the Taliban regime not only denies women - millions of women - their most basic rights - such as rights to education, healthcare and a profession, not only does it commit violence against them for the mere fact of being women but, through the denial of these rights, it is also denying them the freedom to live their own lives, it is denying them their status as human beings.
The European Parliament, which is always sensitive to the cause of human rights, cannot remain inactive in the face of the greatest violation of these rights: the systematic discrimination and violence which women are today suffering in Afghanistan of which the public execution of Zaarmeena is just one tragic example.
Therefore, once again, we want to roundly condemn the Taliban regime.
We want to demand that the international community, in particular the United Nations, but also the European Union and its Member States, intervenes with all the means available to it, to put an end to the extreme discrimination suffered by Afghan women.
And, above all, we want to send evidence of our solidarity with the women of Afghanistan and communicate to them our commitment to continue working with them so that they may regain their full dignity as human beings.
Mr President, I echo the sentiments of the two previous speakers in wholeheartedly welcoming this motion unequivocally to condemn the appalling human rights record of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and in particular the persecution of Afghan women in the name of religion and culture.
Women have borne the brunt of tragedy in Afghanistan through years of war.
They have suffered a multitude of human rights abuses: rape, sexual assault, forced marriages and prostitution.
The intimidation of women has been used as a means of dishonouring and dehumanising entire communities.
Since the Taliban regime took over in 1996, the plight of Afghan women has continued.
A barbaric social code has been imposed, based on intimidation, humiliation and coercion of a female population that has been stripped of all its fundamental human rights.
For Afghan women freedom of expression, freedom of employment, freedom to attend health and family-planning courses, access to education, all those things as we know them simply do not exist.
Yet it was not until 15 October this year that the European Council took action on an air embargo and a freeze on funds to the Taliban.
That was not as a result of the apartheid-style policies of the regime vis-à-vis women, but as the result of the Taliban protection of Mr Bin Laden.
Nevertheless, I believe that this action should continue until the unacceptable discrimination against women in Afghanistan comes to an end.
The first speaker put it very well in saying that this resolution can play a part in that process.
It may be a small part, but we certainly have a responsibility as a Parliament to play some part in bringing this regime and its inhumane policies to an end.
Mr President, Djibouti has a population of half a million comprising two Muslim tribes, the Issas and the Afars.
Djibouti's national assets are its port and its strategic position in the Horn of Africa.
Western powers, including France, exploit its strategic position.
Ethiopia uses its port.
Trapped in the conflict between the Afars and the Issas and the problems of the neighbouring countries, and with the desires and strategic policies of countries which dominate its strategic position, it is caught in a situation where it is desperately poor and, of course, undemocratic.
The leader of Djibouti today is doing things that we absolutely abhor.
The Afars' leader is in jail, without trial, with his supporters in abominable conditions.
He is going blind.
Such conditions exist in Djibouti today that we really have to look at our policy because it is part of Lomé, it receives aid from the EU and one of our Member States, France, is very strategically placed and has considerable influence in Djibouti.
This sort of dictatorship, this sort of terror of civilians and abuse of resources by unnecessary expenditure on arms for a country of that size is totally inexcusable.
It ought to be like the Singapore or Hong Kong of Africa.
It should really be a very prosperous place.
So I hope that you will all support this resolution condemning the abominable conditions of prisoners and civilians in Djibouti.
Mr President, we were all delighted yesterday when the Sakharov Prize was awarded to Mr Gusmão who was imprisoned by the authoritarian regime in Djakarta.
Through him, the Sakharov Prize honours the struggle of all those men and women throughout the world who are fighting for more justice, democracy and freedom.
This is why I am asking you to look closely at the attacks on human rights in Djibouti and specifically at the situation of the political prisoners.
This is particularly justified given that, as already stated, many Member States have very close relations with Djibouti.
Yesterday, several associations in France strongly protested when France again prepared to grant aid to this country.
You should know that for the last nine years the bulk of this country' s own budgetary resources has been devoted to financing the civil war.
Wages and pensions have not been paid for seven months.
Despite the previous resolutions of this House, reinforced by the International Federation of Human Rights League' s report confirming the precarious conditions of detention of the political prisoners, acts of violence, humiliation and attacks on the physical integrity of individuals are still standard practice in the prisons of Djibouti, particularly in Gabode Prison.
Here in May, forty-five hunger strikers were refused access to medical care and some died.
The families of prisoners are subject to constant pressure and threats. Women are raped and tortured.
The army and police are carrying out military operations in the districts of Tadjoura and Obock and are subjecting the population in the north of the country to a suicidal food blockade.
I would remind you that Djibouti is a signatory to the Lomé Convention which stipulates in Article 5 that aid for development is subject to respect for human rights.
Nowadays, aid should also very definitely be subject to respect for freedom of thought and expression, fair trials, access for detainees to basic medical care and the requirement to return refugees and displaced persons to their region of origin.
The Council and the Commission must make every effort to ensure that Djibouti respects the conventions which it has signed.
A peaceful political solution must be found as quickly as possible.
Finally, it is essential that our President forwards this motion for a resolution to the Council, the Commission and the ACP-EU Joint Assembly.
This century started with the Great War and ended with terrifying images of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
I firmly hope that we will now be intransigent towards all these daily attacks on human rights, for it is these small acts of cowardice which lead to genocide.
Mr President, the human rights situation in Djibouti is giving us great cause for concern.
The political prisoners are being held in terrible conditions for they are either packed into cramped cells or kept in isolation.
Hygiene is totally lacking and they have no access to medical care.
A tuberculosis epidemic has broken out on several occasions and two prisoners have already died due to lack of care.
The political detainees have held hunger strikes to protest against the conditions of their detention and to demand access to medical care and their release in the absence of a fair trial.
We should remember that most of the prisoners are being held in preventative detention without having been brought before the courts. Among the prisoners who are ill is Mohamed Kadamiousouf.
He is the European representative of the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy. He was illegally extradited from Ethiopia in 1997 and, in the absence of medical care, risks losing his sight.
As respect for human rights constitutes an essential element of the cooperation and development between the European Union and the Republic of Djibouti, we demand, in accordance with these principles, the release of all political prisoners and access to medical care for all detainees. We particularly want emergency medical care to be given to Mohamed Kadamiousouf to prevent him losing his sight.
We also demand a guarantee of freedom of expression and political pluralism which are essential for any democracy and the end to repression against opponents of the regime. Finally, we ask the Commission to use all the means in its power to ensure respect for human rights in Djibouti.
Mr President, I am incensed by the conditions of detention of political prisoners in Djibouti. Yet I am just as incensed by the hypocrisy of the leaders of France who could, if they wanted, immediately end the authoritarianism and violence of the regime in Djibouti.
Everyone knows that this regime is being kept going, only with difficulty, by the French State.
Without financial help from Paris and without the presence of one of the main bases of the French army abroad, this regime would not last a month.
The leaders of France of all political persuasions may protest loudly in Paris about human rights, but in Africa and Asia they are supporting regimes which are trampling all over the most basic rights and freedoms.
Attacking the government of Djibouti alone will therefore at best conceal the responsibilities of the French Government and will at worst prop up a policy of support for an authoritarian and repressive regime.
We can join in the protests against the conditions of detention of prisoners in Djibouti only by clearly stating that, although the gaolers are in Djibouti, some of those who are really responsible have seats in the French Government.
Arrest of the President of the Court of Auditors in Nicaragua:
Mr President, Commissioner Verheugen, the arrest of the President of the Court of Auditors in Nicaragua, Mr Agustín Jarquín, and the institutional changes which must be seen as undermining the Court of Auditors fill us with great concern.
We agree with the representatives of the Member States in the Council and, if I have understood correctly, Commissioner Verheugen, we are in agreement with the European Commission.
We have just learned that the ambassador of Nicaragua in Brussels has resigned because he no longer wishes to represent this government in Nicaragua following the incidents of the past week.
Mr Agustín Jarquín is an upstanding democrat and has carried out his work as President of the Court of Auditors in a highly efficient and impartial manner.
This view is shared not only by those of us who knew him personally, but also by his colleagues at other courts of auditors in Central America and the Caribbean who elected him as president of the OCCEFS.
Even the representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the Interamerican Development Bank supported his appointment.
Obviously his work was too efficient for the liking of some members of the present and previous Nicaraguan government.
The government has been systematically undermining the Court of Auditors over recent months.
This undermining culminated in a pact concluded between the government and a previous governing party.
This pact resulted in the abolition of the office of President of the Court of Auditors and the installation of a party-politically dominated committee.
On 10 November this year, the former President of the Court of Auditors, Agustín Jarquín, was arrested on grounds which, in our view, do not, under any circumstances, constitute grounds for arrest.
The European Union and the European Parliament in particular cannot accept the systematic undermining of the Court of Auditors.
We in the European Parliament forced the European Commission to resign because it was unable to defend itself against accusations of the inefficient management of funds levied by the Court of Auditors and others in Europe.
Imagine what would happen if the President of the Court of Auditors or a prominent representative of an auditing authority were thrown into jail on such flimsy grounds! I think the outcry would be enormous.
As far as are aware, there is no cause for concern at the moment about Mr Jarquín' s health, but we shall monitor the situation closely to ensure that he is treated properly.
We are particularly worried at reports that his family, and his daughter in particular, have been physically attacked.
I would ask the Commission to monitor this very closely.
I would now like to address the President of Nicaragua, Dr Arnoldo Alemán, in Spanish.
Mr President of Nicaragua, we would like to help your people.
The Nicaraguan people, having suffered so many natural disasters, need help urgently, but European Union cooperation with the Government of Nicaragua is only possible if basic standards in terms of human rights and democracy are respected and if the administration of funds is safeguarded in accordance with the law. To this end, a strong and independent Court of Auditors is required.
Mr President, if the welfare of your people concerns you, please stop systematically weakening the Court of Auditors and its members and reverse the decision to remove the post of General Auditor, the so-called "Pact" .
(DE) Thank you.
(Applause)
Mr President, human rights, freedom and the democratic functioning of a state are fundamental and unquestionable values.
Therefore, we do not accept any limitation of these values by criteria of national sovereignty or respect for geo-strategic balances.
The establishment of international criminal courts, the refusal to allow crimes against humanity to lapse and the refusal to submit human rights policies to a state' s commercial interests are principles and objectives that we consider to be fundamental.
The fact that the possibility of a judicial trial is being used for political objectives deserves our concern and justifies particular attention in terms of the situation in Nicaragua.
We feel, therefore, that the European Parliament must continue to follow this process and that if this suspicion is confirmed, by us or by reputable and credible human rights organisations, we will have to use the full weight of our force to end this situation.
Having said this, and in accordance with the principles for which we are fighting, we must be rigorous and cautious before casting doubts on what is a judicial decision by a sovereign state.
On the other hand, our interference would not be justified by the way in which the system of politicians supporting their own interests and holding incompatible political posts is put into practice in Nicaragua.
We cannot intervene on the basis of the popularity polls of the various Presidential candidates and in relation to the main electoral issues under discussion in a sovereign state on which Nicaragua' s voters will soon pass judgement and on which they, and only they, have the right to do so.
With regard to this, we would like to know what your reaction would be if we proposed a resolution requiring an ex-Prime Minister of a Member State to declare his income with regard to commissions received for arms deals, on the basis of opinion polls and bypassing the institutions of that country.
It would make more sense to pass this kind of resolution on a Member State of the European Union than on a third country, but even in that case, it would constitute an attack on the functioning of that state' s institutions and on the ability of its citizens to resolve the problem internally.
This is why we appeal to the EPP to postpone this vote until our next part-session and that if, in the meantime, the political nature of Mr Jarquín' s sentence is confirmed, we shall act properly.
Mr President, the liberal group had severe doubts as to whether or not to declare this resolution urgent.
Indeed, the issues concerning the treatment of the President of the Nicaraguan Audit Office, Agustín Jarquín, by the Nicaraguan government have been around for over a year.
It is, of course, a very serious matter which deserves in-depth discussion, but as far as we are concerned, we would prefer it if this was dealt with by the competent committee and not in this hasty manner.
It is a political issue.
Indeed, one cannot help wondering whether there was a political motive behind the Audit Office' s accusation that the democratically elected government is corrupt?
Quite possibly. After all, Agustín Jarquín, now under arrest, is a possible candidate for the presidency.
There is also another question.
Does this corruption inferred by Jarquín actually exist within the Nicaraguan government? That too is possible because many say that Jarquín is unimpeachable.
It is not up to us to make a party-political choice in Nicaragua.
Mr President, the matter is now in the right hands, namely the courts in Nicaragua, and should therefore not be dealt with by this Parliament.
Mr President, as a member of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance and as a Member of the Basque Parliament, I must point out firstly that the European Union communicated to the Government of Nicaragua, by diplomatic means, on 18 November, the need for a rapid solution to the issue we are dealing with today and to remove the obstacles suffered by the Republic of Nicaragua' s Court of Auditors and to tell them, very categorically, that if there is no transparency, they may lose European Union funds.
We can clearly question the means which Mr Jarquín has used to an absolutely legal end, that is, investigating the rampant corruption in Nicaragua, a corruption which extends to the very highest authorities and which, for example, has multiplied the assets of the President of the Republic by a thousand.
What is absolutely obvious to any impartial observer, however, is that, in this case, the intention has been precisely to prevent the investigation of corruption with the collaboration, furthermore, of the Sandinistas, and to get rid of the person who was going to be leader of the opposition in the Republic of Nicaragua.
I hope that the European Union will intervene in this matter. That is what is required.
Thank you very much, Commissioner.
That concludes the debate on human rights.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
International criminal court
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
B5-0337/1999 by Mr Wuori and others, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty on the statute to establish the permanent international criminal court;
B5-0344/1999 by Mr Sauquillo Pérez del Arco, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court;
B5-0349/1999 by Mr Malmström and others, on behalf of the ELDR Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court;
B5-0373/1999 by Mr Oostlander and Mrs Grossetête, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court;
B5-0381/1999 by Mr Muscardini, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court;
B5-0386/99 by Messrs Puerta and Di Lello Finuoli, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the ratification of the Rome treaty to establish the permanent international criminal court.
Mr President, it was an historic event when, in July 1998 at a conference in Rome, it was possible to adopt the treaty to establish the international criminal court.
It was a treaty which would make it possible for an independent court to judge people who had committed war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
Unfortunately, we know that there is a great need for such a criminal court.
Ninety States signed the Rome treaty, but so far only six countries have ratified it.
That is precisely the problem.
If we are to progress further and if the Court is really to be able to begin its work, then at least sixty countries must ratify the treaty and hand this over to the UN.
We must all work towards the goal of obtaining a functioning court within a few years.
My group urges the Council and the Commission to do their utmost, politically and diplomatically, to bring this about.
At the same time, one ought not to forget the applicant countries which I believe require a lot of support if they are to be able to be involved in this.
Paragraph 5 of the resolution is, furthermore, a very important paragraph indeed when it says that the developing countries must be given economic aid if it is to be possible for them to be involved in the process of establishing a criminal court.
Mr President, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of aggression involving actions against third countries are the four types of crime which could be tried in the international criminal court.
The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 for the protection of victims of armed conflicts already oblige States to pursue and try the perpetrators of such crimes.
The plan for an international criminal court is another step forward in the creation of an international humanitarian legal system.
I am reminded here that the preparation period for the statute of the international criminal court was long and tense.
I had the honour of participating in that process on behalf of the world parliamentary community in my capacity as the then President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
I can therefore bear witness to the fact that, in that very complicated negotiation, many concessions had to be made in order to draw up a text which, although falling short of our initial aspirations, achieved the necessary consensus and was finally able to come into play as an acceptably effective instrument.
It would be irresponsible today not to publicly recognise our disappointment at the fact that, a year and a half later, only 91 States have signed it and just five or six have ratified it when - as Mrs Schörling has said - 60 ratifications are necessary for the court to come into effect.
Therefore, by means of the resolution we are about to approve, the European Parliament is coherently maintaining the support which it always expressed for this initiative.
However, to sum up, what we are going to do here in these final debates of the year and the century is to publicly and formally recognise that this issue is still outstanding, and that we also have the commitment to persevere with our efforts to fulfil the objective which we set on approving the court' s statute, also urging the Council and the Commission to act to this end.
In all these actions, we Socialists are guided by the awareness that, in a world which is being globalised, it is essential that the Rule of Law is globalised as well and this is what we should work towards.
Mr President, in many contexts the EU is de facto sitting upon quite a lot of countries' ratifications.
I am especially pleased that Commissioner Verheugen is here today and hope that he can use his influence to ensure that we have the applicant countries, as well as other countries which want to cooperate, alongside us on this issue and that we obtain a significant number of ratifications.
It is also a shame that we are forced to note that only six Member States have signed this treaty.
If, however, we involve more Member States, applicant countries and cooperating States in this work, then we shall make some progress along the road. The destination is certainly a compromise, but we have to start somewhere.
Secondly, I hope that we can work for those resources which are needed if the treaty is to be able to function.
This, I believe, will be an important priority for us in this Chamber in the future. I also hope that, in the future too, Members of the European Parliament will have the opportunity to be involved in working parties, as we were at an earlier stage.
Mr President, this is about the reconciliation of nations.
It is also a legal instrument to guarantee this reconciliation.
We know that reconciliation is only possible if justice is done.
This insight helps form the basis for the international tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia: do justice, not as a victor but from a supra-national viewpoint and with a view to living together in future.
Our group, therefore, warmly welcomes the fact that an international court has now been set up with a more universal authority which complements national courts where they fall short.
Member States and candidate countries of the European Union should, of course, lead the way.
This includes the thirteenth candidate country, Mr President, Turkey.
One can hardly suppress a smile if one talks about Turkey in this context.
I hope that the Commission and Council succeed in exerting pressure on other countries in order to achieve ratification of the EC Treaty.
Financial support is needed to enable poor countries to take part in these court activities.
This will play an important preventative role, irrespective of political considerations of an amoral nature and immune to political blackmail.
Big criminals can no longer expect that their crimes will go unpunished.
The Milosevices, the Karadices, the Mladices of this world, they will know.
The international criminal court constitutes a breakthrough in politics.
It confirms that politics is not a question of power where legislation serves to cover our embarrassment, but quite the opposite, that the central role of politics is to create legislation where power is of benefit.
Mr President, this Parliament will need to be acutely aware of this, also with regard to the most recent debate on Nicaragua.
It is downright scandalous if matters which are totally unacceptable in terms of human rights are covered up out of party-political considerations.
Mr President, I hope that this Parliament and the groups which, based on their own convictions, can muster a better position, will take a clearer stance in this respect.
Mr President, I believe that this criminal court is of tremendous importance and I should like to say to Mrs Thors that the Member States of the European Union should do their own homework before asking others to do it for us.
That does not mean that others should not do theirs, it means that we must ensure as a matter of urgency that this criminal court is up and running soon.
There are two reasons for this.
The first reason is prevention.
I was at a conference held by our group a few days ago in Banja Luka.
There was much to see that was encouraging, such as the Serbian opposition, which has got off to an auspicious start.
However, I also met a man who sat trembling with fear as he related all the crimes which he had committed in this period in the Republic of Srpska.
I found the conversation extremely interesting because it more or less proved that, if he had known that he might appear before an international criminal court, he might perhaps have behaved differently.
I think that this preventative aspect is tremendously important, not on account of the criminals at the top, those who possess criminal energy which transcends everything, but on account of the criminals at second or third remove who must know that, in the end, they cannot escape punishment for their crimes, even if they considered themselves as temporary vicarious agents of very powerful figures.
That is why this criminal court is important for prevention, but it is also essential for another reason.
Right is right and wrong is wrong, irrespective of who has committed it, and the problem facing specific criminal courts is that they are always a little on the lookout for triumphant justice.
It is therefore extremely important for there to be a uniform criminal law against genocide and crimes against humanity throughout the world and for there to be uniform sentences and a common criminal court throughout the world, where everyone knows that wrong is always wrong and must be prosecuted, irrespective of the charge, irrespective of the ideology and irrespective of the nationality under which they appear in court. Injustice is still injustice and injustice must not go unpunished.
This will avoid a situation in which the one-eyed is king and will help the concept of the law on which the European Union is founded to take hold throughout the world.
That is why action on this criminal court is one of the most important tasks facing the European Union in the immediate future.
Thank you for that statement, Commissioner.
The joint debate is closed.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
Íatural disasters
The next item is the joint debate on the following motions for resolutions:
France - B5-0334/1999 by Mr Piétrasanta, on behalf of the Greens/ALE Group, on the floods in the south of France on 12 and 13 November 1999;
B5-0338/1999 by Mr Pasqua and others, on behalf of the UEN Group, on the disastrous floods in the south of France;
B5-0345/1999 by Mrs Berès, on behalf of the PSE Group, on the floods in November 1999 in the south of France;
B5-0374/1999 by Mrs De Veyrac, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the floods in the south-west of France;
B5-0387/1999 by Mrs Ainardi, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group, on the serious floods in the south-west of France.
Denmark, Germany, UK and Sweden- B5-0376/1999 by Mr Rovsing and others, on behalf of the PPE/DE Group, on the hurricane disaster in Denmark, Germany, UK and Sweden.
Vietnam- B5-0336/1999 by Mrs McKenna, on behalf of the Greens /ALE Group, on the floods in Vietnam.
Mr President, I want to speak about the natural disasters which hit the south of France in the night of 12 to 13 November 1999. These were totally exceptional in their violence and the extent of the damage caused and have led to 35 deaths and FRF three to four billion worth of damage.
I know that the EU budget does not provide for any credit line for natural disasters occurring in the territory of the Union.
It has also not escaped me that it was this House which wanted to delete this credit line.
However, I must ask you to intervene and ensure that the European Union does something, because it can in two ways.
Firstly, it can authorise France to reallocate the outstanding balance of the Structural Funds not committed from the 1994-1999 programming period.
Much of the funding still remains with 54% of credits not committed under Leader, 38% under Interreg, 49% under URBAN and 88% under RETEX.
In order to quickly intervene, the Commission simply needs today to authorise France to redeploy part of these credits.
Secondly, it can help by ensuring that, for the new programme of Structural Funds for 2000-2006, the zoning for reconstruction is properly in place and the most affected zones are included under Objective 2.
Finally, is it not ironic that our Union can act totally legitimately in countries outside the EU but that it does not have the means or the ability to act within the EU?
At a time when everyone, particularly Mrs Fontaine, is making rapprochement between the people of Europe and the European Union the key issue for this Parliament, I feel it is important for the EU to be able to act in a positive manner when our people are in difficulty.
Mr President, if we want the people of Europe to feel an attachment to the European Union, then the EU must show solidarity with its people when they are struck by misfortune, as in the south of France.
In the night of 12 to 13 November, this region experienced rain and floods which have caused deaths and devastated the daily life, economy and agriculture of the region.
As soon as these events occurred, I wanted this House to show its solidarity with the victims by tabling a motion for a resolution on urgent subjects on 15 November.
As the Rules of Procedure unnecessarily delayed this, I have joined my motion to those tabled in this sitting on the same subject by other groups.
I hope that this motion gains a firm following. I ask the Commission to examine the measures which could assist the people of Tarn, Aude, Pyrénées-Orientales and Hérault.
In particular, the EU aid allocation zoning should take account of this situation.
In the future I will, of course, vote for motions for resolutions on urgent subjects tabled by my fellow Members when similar events occur.
Obviously, I hope that these are few and far between but, in each case, it seems essential that we, as the elected representatives of the people of Europe, should show our solidarity and our humanity.
Mr President, I think there should be proportion in everything.
Natural disasters are occurring around the world.
There have been a large number of these in recent years.
Thousands of people have been killed and been made homeless as a result of hurricanes, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. It is these that are natural disasters!
It is only right that the EU should try to help in these different contexts.
I happened to be in southern Sweden in the course of the twenty-four hours we are talking about here.
It is true that the wind was blowing. It was even stormy.
It sometimes is in southern Sweden.
This is not something the European Parliament can do anything about.
Individual people were affected and there was serious damage to the countryside, but there was no natural disaster.
This is a question for Sweden and Swedish insurance companies and not something the European Parliament should be devoting time to.
Mr President, I want to speak along similar lines to Mrs De Veyrac. The catastrophic floods which have occurred in the south of France have levied a very heavy toll with 39 deaths and widespread chaos in the region.
In the four départements affected by the floods of 12 and 13 November, namely Aude, Hérault, Pyrénées-Orientales and Tarn, the bill will be in excess of EUR 0.7 billion and compensation to individuals will amount to EUR 0.5 billion.
The damage to public services is estimated at over FRF 1 billion because of the extensive damage to roads and railways, power and telephone lines, buildings and public facilities.
All sectors have been affected, with over 200 craftsmen having been caught in the disaster, 260 businesses having suffered serious damage and 1,518 employees having been affected.
I would draw Parliament' s attention to the fact that this is indeed a natural disaster for these floods and this rain were twenty times greater than normal.
This is not therefore the result, as we would sometimes like to believe, of carelessness in local development.
This is truly a natural disaster.
This is why I would urge Parliament to act in this region.
I would like to draw Parliament's attention to the situation of the people in Vietnam as a result of the floods.
The International Federation of the Red Cross has said that hundreds of thousands of people in Vietnam are likely to be short of food over the next nine months.
It has also been reported that there have been violent protests by peasant farmers in the Thai Binh province.
This seems to be very much in relation to the fact that the Vietnamese are trying to modernise and the modernisation costs are being basically borne by the peasant farmers.
This situation has to be tackled because taxes on the peasants have increased dramatically over recent times because of the need to modernise.
The farmers themselves are in a very, very critical situation, where they are extremely short of food and the excess taxes on them makes the situation even more catastrophic.
We should listen to the appeals from the International Federation of the Red Cross and pay attention to the plight of these people who have, in the past, been decimated by such things as the Agent Orange used by the US. Now natural disasters are causing even greater problems for them.
Mr President, Commissioner, I, of course, support the joint motion for a resolution tabled by my fellow Members. I must, however, return your attention to the floods which have occurred in my region, the South of France.
This is clearly a natural disaster which has caused nearly 40 deaths and whose consequences are continuing to severely test some of our citizens today.
One month after the event, the drop in the water level has revealed a scene of desolation and confirmed the extent of the disaster. This, together with the loss of human life, means that prevention efforts must be reconsidered.
In terms of private and public property such as buildings and heavy infrastructure and in terms of the economy, the requirements are enormous and are in the order, as has been mentioned, of FRF 6 billion.
Faced with such an urgent demand, the State, local authorities and community groups are mobilising throughout France.
For example, FRF 42 million in aid has been approved by the Departmental Council of Pyrénées-Orientales, FRF 50 million by the Languedoc-Roussillon region and FRF 400 000 by the Senate. Finally, the French Government has announced aid of FRF 1.2 billion.
You are no doubt aware of the proposals made by Commissioner Barnier in terms of structural policy.
These will help to ensure long-term risk prevention, but I must again ask the Commission to demonstrate its propensity for solidarity on an urgent subject.
This House, too, must demonstrate its legitimacy to the people of Europe, which is a principle we all, including the President, very much support.
Finally, I wish to draw your attention to the pollution which is once again threatening the coast of Brittany and which will also require an additional financial effort to be made by the European institutions through the urgent procedure.
Mr President, Mr Michel Barnier explained here on 16 November that the Commission is following the problems caused by the floods in four départements in southern France very closely, that it deeply regrets the loss of life and that it will do its utmost, as and where it has the authority and means to do so, to ensure that the damaged areas obtain suitable support.
Solidarity will certainly not be lacking.
Nonetheless, we must be allowed and we must be able to exercise it.
The motions for resolutions call on the Commission to intervene in various forms in order to repair the tremendous material damage.
This is also in keeping with the wishes recently expressed by the responsible politicians in the region to both President Prodi and Michel Barnier.
I have to tell you that it will not be possible to provide extraordinary emergency help for families in the damaged regions.
That does not require any special justification here in Parliament, given that no-one except Parliament need defend its budget rights.
As you know, there has been no specific budget line in the budget of the European Community to pay for natural disasters in countries of the Union for years now.
I do not think, given the protection of Parliament' s rights, that we can simply act as if this situation did not exist.
The motions to support farmers in the form of disaster aid can, however, be examined within the framework of Article 33 of Regulation (EC) No 1257/99 of 17 May 1999 on support for rural development from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund.
On the other hand, the deployment of resources left over in the Structural Funds from the programme planning period 1994 to 1999 is hardly worth considering as the available funds have already been allocated to specific measures, in this case in close collaboration with the relevant French authorities.
We have already re-programmed at the request of the relevant French authorities.
In the view of the relevant Commission services and French agencies, this will account for all the Community funds provided.
For the new programming phase from January 2000, the damaged areas in the four départements in question, which currently qualify for support as Objective II or Objective V areas for the period from 1994 to 1999 or which belong to the new Objective II areas, could obtain money from the Structural Funds.
As a result, the Commission can grant financial aid to restore infrastructures and equipment which qualifies for support as well as aid to agricultural structures within the framework of the forthcoming programme planning for the period from 2000 to 2006, which is shortly to be discussed with the French authorities.
Account must be taken in this respect of the fact that aid to build or restore housing will not qualify for intervention by the Structural Funds.
It should also be borne in mind that the provisions of the regulation require an ex ante environmental impact study for all forms of intervention by the Structural Funds.
Here again, Parliament, with its particular emphasis on the environmental aspect, would certainly not understand if we were to waive this.
Allow me to say a few more words about the problem of the risk area.
Once the French authorities have finalised estimates of the damage, the Commission will be able to provide specific support to protect against natural dangers within the framework of the new programme planning for 2000 to 2006 in the form of cofinancing for investments.
That applies in particular to soil protection, the regulation of watercourses and the local water systems.
Allow me to conclude with a brief word on Vietnam because I think that there is definitely a difference when a leading industrial country or one of the poorest developing countries in the world is hit by a natural disaster.
The European Commission is well aware of the dramatic situation in which the victims of the floods in Vietnam find themselves.
They have been the worst for forty years.
The European Union has provided emergency aid.
ECHO is currently analysing the situation in the areas affected in order to assess the extent of additional damage and the requirements of the provinces affected.
Then we will answer the question of whether European aid for Vietnam should be increased.
The European Union is working with all the international organisations dealing with the situation in Vietnam in a spirit of cooperation and trust.
We are trying here to coordinate disaster aid as sensibly as possible.
Mr President, I do not want to prolong this sitting.
However, I must say to the group of very welcome visitors who have just arrived that it is not through any spite on our part that we are suspending the sitting for a quarter of an hour just when they have arrived.
That concludes the joint debate.
The vote will take place at 5.30 p.m.
(The sitting was suspended at 5.10 p.m., and resumed at 5.30 p.m.)
Mr President, may I request, if the Members agree, that we vote en bloc on all the proposed amendments to the resolution on Nicaragua, given that they all go in the same direction.
I should like to say two words about why this is not a joint resolution and why the PPE has tabled proposed amendments to its own resolution.
The reason is that we held a meeting on Tuesday with a view to finding a joint resolution and the other groups, especially the Liberals and the Social Democrats, warned us that they would be unable to support certain clauses in the resolution.
So we said, let us take the controversial points out and just leave the essentials in.
We therefore only have things in it which are unanimously supported by Parliament.
Commissioner Verheugen also clearly stated that Parliament should express a view on this matter.
As the Liberals and Social Democrats were still unable to sign the joint resolution which we negotiated, we said we will table proposed amendments which water down our own resolution somewhat, in order to give Members the possibility in the end of voting in favour.
Thank you, Mr Liese.
Are there any objections to the suggestion that we make this an en bloc vote?
Mr President, I am sorry, but our group objects to an en bloc vote.
I acknowledge your objection and we shall vote on one amendment at a time.
After the vote on the motions for resolutions on the international criminal court:
Mr President, I merely want to say that we Liberals do not want to participate in these votes concerning natural disasters because we think that they do not belong in this Parliament. We also believed that we had reached an understanding that we should no longer discuss resolutions of this type.
Mr President, I did ask for the floor before we proceeded to the vote. I wanted to say that our group tabled a specific motion for a resolution on the natural disasters in France and that we are naturally co-signatories of the joint motion.
You did not mention this.
I would be grateful if the corresponding correction could be made.
Thank you, the correction will be made.
I apologise, as I did not see you. It was an oversight.
Adoption of the Minutes of the previous sitting
The Minutes of yesterday' s sitting have been distributed.
Are there any comments?
Mr President, yesterday, at the end of the vote on the budget, there was a moment when the three institutions concerned were represented by women and the President concluded by saying that the Millennium was ending on a high note.
I just wanted to mention that, as the authoritative Greenwich Observatory has also pointed out, the Millennium will end on 31 December 2000.
International Fund for Ireland
Mr De Rossa has requested the floor for a procedural motion.
De Rossa (PSE).
Mr President, on a point of order, I wish to raise the question as to whether or not the amendments which have been tabled in relation to this proposal are in order.
This is a proposal without debate and we will not have any opportunity therefore to debate the amendments being put forward.
I happen to oppose the amendments but it seems to be that we have been put in an invidious position, asking us to vote on amendments which we have not had an opportunity to debate.
Mr President, on a point of order, I should like to inform the House that the amendments are in order.
They are in line with the procedure.
It is true that it would have been much better had we had an opportunity to debate this in committee and, as was said at the beginning of the week, that would have been a much better opportunity to have the issue debated.
Unfortunately, the decision was taken that this would be put without debate and the amendments are in order.
They are extremely important.
Mr President, like Mr De Rossa I also question the fact of the amendments being in order.
The sensitivities of Northern Ireland are too important for any ill-informed bandwagoning on the International Fund for Ireland.
I would ask you to consider very carefully how we proceed here, particularly as we are not in a position to have a debate.
I share this concern with my colleagues, Mr De Rossa and Mr McCartin.
Raytheon has been welcomed to Derry by no less than Nobel Peace Prize winners, John Hume - one of our own colleagues, and David Trimble.
Raytheon will be funded by the Industrial Development Board in Northern Ireland.
Not one euro nor one Irish pound from the International Fund for Ireland is going to Raytheon.
The amendments are totally inappropriate.
Ladies and gentlemen, Messrs Cashman and Simpson have also requested the floor, but I would be grateful if we could concentrate on the task in hand.
The truth, and this may remove the need for the Members' procedural motions, is that it was Parliament that decided on Tuesday not to hold the debate.
Therefore, this President, although he might like to reverse this decision, is not going to do so.
This is clear.
This is the decision of Parliament, and furthermore, incidentally, Mrs Doyle, I was rapporteur when this fund was approved for the first time and there was a long debate at the time about its creation.
Therefore, I am sorry to say that we cannot make changes now.
Mr Simpson has the floor.
Mr President, it is not my intention to delay the House any longer than we have to.
I do not want to get into the argument about the amendments because that can be sorted out by a vote.
One point should be made, however; the process is not ideal.
Mrs Doyle and other Members are right but the problem we are faced with in the Regional and Transport Committee, which is the committee responsible, is that at the very last minute we were asked for urgency by the Council because somebody, somewhere, realised that we needed a resolution from this House to carry on the particular fund in question.
Therefore, the only way we could do that was by this very quick procedure, through the committee on Tuesday, by a letter from the President.
We thought we had an understanding that there would not be any amendments.
Sadly, that has not been the case.
It is only fair to point out that given the time we had to do this, the committee and the Parliament have worked as effectively and as quickly as we possibly can in what proved to be difficult circumstances so that the money could be released next year for this very important fund.
Thank you very much, Mr Simpson.
Before the plenary session, both the services and the Presidency examined the comments on the admissibility or otherwise of the amendments.
Political evaluation is one thing but the technical possibility of admitting amendments is another thing altogether.
In accordance with the Rules of Procedure, they are perfectly permissible.
Therefore, we shall now proceed to the vote on the proposed regulation.
(Parliament approved the Commission' s proposal) EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
- The amendments are inadmissible on the following grounds: the objectives of the Fund do not include promoting large-scale inward investment.
The Fund exists to promote urban and rural development, community development, to enhance skills and to improve the environment; the justifications cited in the Green amendments are spurious.
The Fund has no role in the Raytheon project, nor could it have.
The amendments simply seek to prevent the Fund from doing something which it could not do anyway; the purpose of the proposed Regulation is to permit the continuation of the financial contribution of the EU to the Fund; it does not in any way seek to amend the substance of the existing Regulation EC 2614/97, which is why the urgency procedure was agreed in the first place.
On the matters of substance, the projects referred to in the Green justification are not military projects.
- The vote on the fund which was tabled late by the Council was facilitated by the EP without debate, on the understanding from all groups including the Greens that there would be no amendments.
It would seem that at the instigation of Ms Patricia McKenna, the Greens broke this understanding.
As a consequence of this I was being asked to vote on amendments which I had not had the opportunity to consult about or research and on which I would be precluded from debating on the floor of the House.
The company criticised in the amendments (Raytheon) was in fact welcomed by two Nobel Peace Prize winners (Hume/Trimble).
In addition, if we are to shut down or refuse investment from every company which may have an association with the arms industry, then we would have to close virtually every American and Japanese software company on the island of Ireland with catastrophic consequences.
I am opposed to the arms industry but we must not put at risk the economic prosperity of Northern Ireland with ill-conceived and badly researched amendments in the European Parliament.
- The EUR 45 million to the IFI is most welcome, and a continuing recognition of the European Union's support for the cross-border communities in Ireland.
Any attempt to sully the reputation of the IFI is totally unacceptable and amounts to ill-informed political bandwagoning on the sensitivities of Northern Ireland and are not worthy of this Parliament.
For the record, Raytheon, a high-tech software plant to which the amendments are directed, is to be funded by the IDB, the Industrial Development Board in Northern Ireland, not the IFI.
Community agricultural statistics
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0089/1999) by Mrs Redondo Jiménez, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council decision amending Decision 96/411/EC on improving Community agricultural statistics [COM(1999) 332 - C5­0042/1999 - 1999/0137(COD)].
Mr President, the Commission proposes extending Decision 96/411 until 2002, removing certain articles in order to simplify its implementation and bringing forward the payment of 30% of the Community contribution to the Member States, and to do all of this in accordance with the codecision procedure.
In 1997 an amendment to this Decision was presented which extended by two years the deadline for Member States to send their reports and the deadline for the Commission to draw up a progress report for Parliament and for the Council.
Given the importance of the common agricultural policy, the availability to everybody of reliable information for the purposes of decision making is essential.
Therefore, it must be a priority for the institutions to provide the means for this information to be ever more complete, reliable and quick, and therefore agricultural statistics must be ever more flexible, harmonious and coherent with other statistical fields with the possibility of incorporating new sources.
To this end, we have to identify, firstly, the areas in which it is possible to implement rationalisation measures, secondly, areas where there are new and increasing needs, and thirdly, general principles in accordance with which actions are carried out.
Having said this, it should not be necessary to point out that all the Member States should act in accordance with these intentions.
However, this is not the case: this is a voluntary programme for the Member States.
I would like to stress that it is not at all easy for this Parliament to understand that any Member State might say "I am not interested, I am not taking part" .
The common agricultural policy belongs to all the Member States. It affects all of us.
Therefore, I would like both the Commission and the Council to reconsider the matter and for the next proposal submitted to this Parliament to establish the obligatory nature of its application in all Member States, with a single legal basis in the statistical field.
There is another aspect which I would like to point out to the Commission and the Council with regard to amendment 5, which I hope will be taken into account, given that the information requested in it, according to Regulation (EC) 1390/99, which entered into force on 23 November 1999, establishes in article 2 that "each Member State will provide the Commission with all the information classified by budgetary items which will be forwarded at the request of the Commission within 30 days" .
Therefore, I request a specific commitment by the Commission that it will define each year, amongst the priority plans for technical action proposed to it by the Standing Committee on Agricultural Statistics, the things requested in our Amendments Nos 4 and 5, since otherwise, the codecision procedure would be delayed and it would become more difficult for the Member States to draw up their statistical reports.
Therefore, I would like to hear the Commission' s opinion with regard to this point in the debate.
Mr President, I want to thank Mrs Redondo for her report and for her excellent explanation of what all this is about and why it is important.
One of the things that I miss from the information we were given is the cost of this operation or what the cost would be if every Member State involved themselves in it.
I do not suppose it is very big.
Nevertheless the information is necessary for a Parliament discussing the subject.
Of course, as the common agricultural policy develops from a situation in which we pay subsidies at the point of export or at the point of entry into intervention into a situation where we pay subsidies for individual animals on an acreage or the hectarage of crop planted, obviously it is extremely important that we know exactly how many animals there are in the Union, how many hectares and how many olive trees and all the rest of it.
All that information is extremely important.
It is extremely regrettable if we, at European level, the institutions who organise the common agricultural policy on which the farmers of the Union depend for their livelihood, cannot obtain correct information on which to base an effective policy.
It is very hard to understand why we do not have better cooperation from all the Member States.
When we expand the European Union, or even without expansion, we will not retain all the provisions of the present policy.
Nevertheless, we will need this information so that we are able to extend some sort of assistance on a reasonable basis to the new countries of the Union where food production and agricultural production will increase by 50 per cent what we have in the Union today.
It is also advisable to remember that in the Court of Auditors' report, which has just come out and which was debated this week, we did not find in the whole agricultural sector any indication of massive racketeering or fraud on a large scale but we notice that there seem to be an awful lot of little problems with the number of livestock and the amount of hectarage for area aid and so on.
There are small errors over a very wide area and that is a serious problem that we have to address.
Finally, I would say that in the new Europe it is going to be important for farmers to base their levels of production on the projected quantities that will be produced in the Union.
That cannot happen if we do not know the statistics of the agricultural industry.
Increasingly, rather than screaming at the institutions of Union to solve the problems, farmers will have to come together and try to calculate what the needs of the market are and produce for those needs.
That does not mean that we want to bring an end to subsidisation.
For example, there is the pigmeat industry where we produce 18 million tons of pigmeat annually and we end up in a situation where there is a million tons in surplus.
Prices collapse, there is terrible hardship and indeed terrible profiteering by middlemen.
If we had good statistics, we would be able to deal with a problem like that before it arose.
Mr President, I would first like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, for this report and her excellent display of cooperation as chair of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development this autumn.
A viable system for statistics is an important basis for making good decisions.
Statistics have to be comprehensive, reliable and consistent.
The report quite clearly explains the legal basis of statistics, especially in Amendments Nos 2 and 3, which specify the Community' s share of the advance.
Politically, the most important message is contained in Amendments Nos 4 and 5, which urges the practice of cross-tabulating subsidies received according to, inter alia, farm surface area.
This information will be especially important when we consider the social side of agricultural subsidies.
It would be difficult to support a subsidy scheme that channelled most of the aid to the large farms in the best agricultural regions.
We have no data on this, but have to be content with the rumours that 80% of aid would go to 20% of farmers.
Amendment No 1 emphasised the importance of statistics in connection with enlargement towards the east.
This is a very important consideration that still means much work for the EU and the applicant countries.
The problems over statistics for the applicant countries will not be resolved through this report.
Problems have continued since the land register began to function.
Embarking on eastward enlargement without any information on its effect on the budget would be political suicide.
It does not help much, though, if our current data on expenditure is based on mistaken or unreliable data.
The most important aspect of statistical data on the European farmer is the reference yield.
When Finland became a Member, as a result of poor yield in previous years, we had to be satisfied with a figure that did not reflect the truth in normal years.
These reference yields should be raised to a realistic level as soon as possible, or we should start to reconsider the whole basis of their use and the idea of a drop in the price of grain as compensation for hectarage aid.
We cannot undertake to subsidise producers in regions of highest yield in Europe for years and years on account of price reductions that have sometimes taken place in the past.
The most obvious answer would be to harmonise hectarage aid as closely as possible within the whole territory of the EU.
Mr President, the ELDR group supports this report.
Mr President, rapporteur, everyone here agrees that we should highlight the need to have statistics for agriculture, at a Community level, that are as precise, as reliable and as coherent as possible, so that we can effectively assess the consequences of decisions taken under the CAP, particularly on rural areas.
European agriculture is not uniform. On the contrary, it is extremely diverse.
It is therefore essential that statistics are accurate enough in terms of land, and compiled in a harmonised way, for us to be able to obtain judicious analyses by production type and by ecosystem.
In 1996, the European Parliament adopted a report by Mr Jové Perez whose proposals aimed to make European statistics much more accurate and reliable.
Unfortunately, the Commission' s rather unambitious proposal that has been submitted to us has taken no account of it.
This is why we shall support all of the amendments put forward by the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development as well as the one by Mr Jové Perez.
Indeed, it seems essential to us that the wealth of information stemming from the implementation of the CAP aid should be made use of as a source of statistics.
The cost to the Community budget would be almost nothing and statistical secrecy would be guaranteed through the data being incorporated.
This is the concern that led our group to table an amendment yesterday concerning the traceability of beef and veal because, as a result of the CAP aid, all animals in the European herd must be identified.
This applies to abattoirs, too, for reasons of food and animal safety.
I have not yet understood why the Commission has not accepted that, as of 1 January, these two facts, which have already been made compulsory across the Community, should be used to enable the operational start of traceability.
It is quite inconsistent to postpone the establishment of compulsory labelling of beef and veal for another year and, at the same time, to condemn France' s application of the precautionary principle, precisely because there is no such compulsory labelling.
If the free movement of products is not accompanied by rigorous labelling, consumers will think it is a confidence trick.
It is regrettable that Commissioner Byrne does not employ his zeal in the service of the health and the interest of European consumers.
Mr President, I too was under the impression that I would be talking about the regulation on hops but, since the issue of statistics has arisen, I feel it is my duty to address it.
As we all know, statistics often have different interpretations which can mean just what we want them to mean.
If this is the case, then inconsistent statistics will only exacerbate the problem.
This is why I also agree that statistics on the movement, policies and trade of agricultural products must be as consistent as possible. It would be ideal if each State did not, statistically at least, paint a different picture of our agricultural economy.
Then, despite any diverse interpretations, we would at least have one true common version of the facts which would help those wishing to examine in closer detail what those statistics actually represent.
I agree, therefore, that we should adopt the regulation, and I also agree with the comments on the amendments which have been made so that the Commission can see to it that the statistics paint as uniform and reliable a picture as possible.
Mr President, technical action plans were established for statistics in 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999.
This is a sign of foresight, but it also shows that developments have been so rapid in recent years that standing still really means going backwards.
This area can justly be described by the phrase 'never finished, always on the way' .
The European Union ought, as quickly as possible, to be in possession of common statistical material which is comprehensive in all areas.
The Commission says that the Community' s agricultural statistics should continue to be adapted in the years 2000-2002.
This means that we are talking here about extending these.
If for a moment we look back to 1957 when the Treaty of Rome came into being, it was in fact the agricultural sphere which was the first big area upon which agreement was reached.
Today - nearly 43 years later - no completely satisfactory statistics have been established for this area.
The debate this week about the registration of animals showed very clearly that 12 out of 15 countries had not even begun preparations for this work.
Things are naturally interconnected.
Without registration, careful statistics cannot be kept and there are therefore, of course, opportunities for a series of errors regarding payments.
The Community makes contributions to offset the Member States' expenditure in connection with implementing the relevant arrangements.
It is therefore necessary that the Commission should now do some tightening up.
It cannot be the slowest countries which are to set the pace.
The Commission ought to set the agenda to a much greater degree and lead the Member States in accordance with the common resolutions.
How can we envisage re-establishing consumer confidence in food following all the scandals when the EU cannot even implement its own resolutions? Food safety, risk assessment and the very concept of safety are such important areas that there is no avoiding them nowadays.
Allow me, therefore, quietly to ask: when are we to put our own house in order?
Finally, ladies and gentlemen, there is no reason to hesitate.
The future belongs to those who prepare themselves for it.
Mr President, a little while ago another speaker again brought up the fact that the compulsory labelling system for beef is not to be introduced until 1.1.2001.
I am able to inform you that the Council has obviously adopted our demand to introduce this system by 1.9.
This represents a small victory for the European Parliament as far as the timeframe is concerned.
However, it did not reach this decision under the codecision procedure.
This would have meant it also having to adopt all the other proposed amendments that we voted on here yesterday in the simplified procedure.
Then all our proposed amendments would have been adopted in the codecision procedure.
Instead of which, the Council decided, under the old regulation 820/97, in accordance with Article 19 of the implementing rules, that the Member States now have the facility to continue with the voluntary system until 1.9.2000. I do not consider this to be the right strategy either.
It does, however, go some way towards meeting European Parliament requirements.
Apart from that, we are now going to continue with the codecision procedure for the other proposed amendments, which we voted on yesterday, for this process will run on after 1.1.2000.
The Council must give its reaction to this.
If it fails to adopt our proposed amendments then we will become involved in a conciliation procedure.
All the other matters that we want to include in this regulation will therefore still be a matter for debate.
I hope that we will be able to persuade the Council to adopt our proposals in this area too, and that it allows reason to prevail.
Mr President, following the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty the proposals concerning statistics, including agricultural statistics, are based on Article 285.
It foresees adoption according to the codecision procedure.
The proposal submitted today for your approval is the first example insofar as agricultural statistics are concerned.
I should like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, for her excellent work and, in particular, for her cooperation with the Council and the Commission on this dossier.
The Commission is very pleased about the global support expressed in the report for the draft Council and Parliament decision.
The background is Council Decision 96/411(EC) on improving Community agricultural statistics.
It has put at the Commission's disposal a flexible tool which allows it to adapt statistical applications to changes in information needs.
This has helped to adapt the system of Community agricultural statistics to changes in the common agricultural policy.
In its report to the European Parliament and the Council the Commission has presented an overview of the actions undertaken during the period 1996-1999 in different areas.
The overall assessment of these actions by the Commission is positive.
However, the process of adapting national statistical systems to the needs arising from the reform of the common agricultural policy has not yet been completed.
The Commission has therefore proposed to extend for a further three years, with some minor changes, the validity of Decision 96/411(EC).
The changes are mainly aimed at either simplifying the implementation of this action programme or at reducing the delay for paying the Community contribution.
It is important to ensure that this new decision enters into force as soon as possible in order to avoid a vacuum in the present legislation.
An effort should be made to adopt this proposal after first reading.
As concerns Mrs Redondo Jiménez's report, the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 1, 2 and 3.
The Commission cannot, however, accept Amendment No 4, even in its new, modified version.
This amendment would still imply some new obligations for Member States which have not yet been discussed in the Council.
This would certainly prevent the adoption of the proposal in the Council at first reading.
Nevertheless, the Commission agrees with the rapporteur that the additional information requested by this amendment would indeed be useful in order to have a better idea of the distribution of aid paid in the context of the common agricultural policy.
The Commission will therefore commit itself to include such actions in the next technical programmes, starting from 2001, in view of encouraging progress in this area.
We hope that this may reassure the European Parliament about our intentions and may lead Mrs Redondo Jiménez to withdraw this amendment in order to allow the proposal to be adopted at first reading.
- (ES) Mr President, I have to point out to the Commission that it is not an amendment by the rapporteur, but an amendment by the Committee on Agriculture and, therefore, it is voted on in committee and, in accordance with the Rules of Procedure, it cannot be withdrawn.
Also, Amendment No 5, which would cause No 4 to lapse - which is the one that I hope the Commission will accept - only affects the Commission, not the Council.
Its content is already regulated by the new Regulation 2390/99, which will be coming into force.
Furthermore, the amendment does not include any additional obligation for the Commission.
Therefore, I hope that the Commission will accept it, because we have provided all the means for this proposal to be approved at first reading.
Mr President, just a short comment on Amendment No 5.
Unfortunately, we are not able to accept Amendment No 5 because we know that the Council would not accept it.
Mr President, as the applause for the rapporteur, Mrs Redondo Jiménez, confirmed, this is one of the most important measures we have voted on.
Indeed, in my opinion, statistics are fundamental and in Italy we are in the most terrible chaos as regards the statistics on milk from our cows.
Therefore, I voted for the report and I would like to express the hope that statistics will also be gathered on the number of pensioners in the fifteen Member States.
Many people say there are too many of them, but I say there are too few: statistics will allow us to ascertain their number.
For my part, I would like there to be more and more of them, because 'it is great being a pensioner' .
COM in hops
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0083/1999) by Mr Xaver Mayer, on behalf of the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development, on the proposal for a Council regulation (EC) amending Regulation (EEC) 1696/71 on the common organisation of the market in hops [COM(1999) 302 - C5­0081/1999 - 1999/0128(CNS)].
Mr Mayer, I trust that after the sitting you will offer us a tasting.
I have no doubt, Mr Mayer.
Mr President, I simply wish to thank and congratulate Mr Mayer on the report he has carried out, which affects all the hop-producing countries of the Community and which, in the case of Spain, affects my region, Castilla-León, in the León area.
I agree with everything Mr Mayer has said.
The report has been unanimously approved in the Committee on Agriculture.
I congratulate Mr Mayer and I hope that he receives the support of this Parliament.
Mr President, Mr Mayer was so charming that I would like to extend the offer by suggesting that we have that beer in Bavaria itself, not here.
I shall now come to the point.
Hops are not a typical enough example for us to understand the importance of the common agricultural policy for farmers in the European Union. They do, however, show the extent to which it actually helps our farmers.
As Mr Mayer said, hops are a traditional product which is particularly important to the quality of beer produced, although production is very limited; some 4 000 hectares of land throughout the whole of Europe.
Yet a sufficient number of farming families in the countries where hops are produced, particularly in Bavaria, make their living from that product alone. These families should not be left to the mercy of continual price falls, neither should they be forced to desert specific rural areas because of difficulties arising from irregularities within the market.
There have been a number of changes to the main regulation relating to this particular product as a result of the market fluctuations and the changing needs of farmers, the most recent being the Council decision to set a uniform level of aid to producers for a period of five years.
This latest decision alters the obligations of the Commission arising from the previous regime, that is of having to grant annual aid, and Members States no longer need to grant aid for setting up production teams.
This development means that certain articles of the old regulation need to be revoked which, rightly so, is carried out in the new regulation for which we will be voting, together with Mr Mayer' s amendments, noting that the proposed regulation will not in any way affect the budget.
Mr President, I should like to congratulate the rapporteur on the report. I can inform you that the Group of the European Liberal, Democrat and Reform Party will support the report when it is put to the vote.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I first of all want to thank the rapporteur, Mr Xaver Mayer, for a valuable report - and perhaps especially for his enthusiastic presentation of the hop paradise of Bavaria - together with the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development for its constructive attitude.
I am very pleased that our proposal for changing the way in which the market for hops is organised has met with a positive reception. The Commission' s proposal is, of course, aimed at removing those stipulations which are no longer valid, either because deadlines have run out or because of previous changes to the common regime under which hops are organised.
These changes must be implemented before the basic regulation is consolidated.
Owing to the fact that the Council has resolved that the level of support is to remain constant for a period of five years, the Commission does not consider that it is necessary to submit a report every year on the situation concerning the production and marketing of hops.
The Commission therefore considers that Article 11 can be removed.
According to Article 18 of the proposal, we shall, however, be presenting, by 1 September 2000, a thorough assessment of the situation regarding the production and marketing of hops.
I am therefore afraid that the European Parliament' s two amendments complicate the text unnecessarily and that the requirement to receive information each year is already covered by the new proposal. This information will also be made available on the Internet.
That is why the Commission cannot adopt these amendments in this situation.
Mr President, firstly, I would be pleased to invite the Commissioner to Kloster Andechs in Bavaria, a place where seven different types of beer are brewed...
Secondly, I would like to make it known that next ...
(The President cut the speaker off)
Mr President, before leaving for Strasbourg, the pensioners who took me to the airport asked me "Is there going to be a debate about beer on Friday morning?" I replied "Yes, certainly."
"Well, you have to give an explanation of vote and say that we pensioners are in favour of the production and development of beer."
We are in favour not just because ten years ago, the Pensioners' Party put forward as candidate for Rome' s mayor the model Solveig Tubing, who was born in Berlin and was a great connoisseur and lover of beer, but also because my own personal studies on beer show that drinking it makes you younger.
I know that welfare institutions and governments are against developing beer, because this means that they have to pay out pensions for longer, but as representative of the Pensioners' Party, I am in favour.
Extension of exceptional financial assistance to Tajikistan
The next item is the debate on the report (A5-0093/1999) by Mr Savary, on behalf of the Committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy, on the proposal for a Council decision modifying Decision 97/787/EC granting exceptional financial assistance to Armenia and Georgia in order to extend it to Tajikistan [COM(1999) 391 - C5­0171/1999 - 1999/0172(CNS)].
Mr President, I thought, since I represent the Bordeaux area, that you were giving me the floor so that I could answer my Bavarian colleague on the subject of Bordeaux wine.
However, it seems that you are asking me to speak on Tajikistan instead and, as I have five minutes, I shall try to be as clear as possible about an issue that is perhaps rather esoteric and complicated.
It concerns exceptional aid to Tajikistan which is, as you know, a small country located between Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, China and Afghanistan.
There is a history to this issue and really what I would like to do today is to close a subject that began in 1991 with a loan of EUR 1200 million to the Newly Independent States when the Soviet Union collapsed.
The loan has been repaid by all of the States apart from three.
In 1997, three States were experiencing difficulties and were seriously behind in their repayments: Georgia, Armenia and Tajikistan.
Thus the Parliament was informed in 1997 of a proposal by the Commission, which aimed to reschedule and restructure these three countries' debts.
It was therefore decided to put in place two types of financial assistance. On the one hand there would be loans - at the time EUR 245 million had been earmarked for loans to these three countries - and on the other hand, a gift of EUR 130 million, whose main objective was to reduce the burden of debt and to improve the ability of these countries to repay.
1997 was also marked, and this is the crux of the issue, by a civil war in Tajikistan, a terrible civil war between the reigning power and the Islamic opposition.
Parliament then proposed, on the basis of Mr Kittelmann' s report, to defer aid to Tajikistan and that is why, two years later, now that the situation has returned to normal, we are being asked today to reopen the matter.
In fact, although the situation in Tajikistan has remained highly critical and worrying, in terms of politics as well as economics, it has gradually become more stable.
There has been an agreement between the different parties, which has been implemented and universally respected, even if security in the country is still subject to caution due to the presence of warlords and the powerful wave of Wahabi fundamentalism in Afghanistan.
In terms of economics, the country has made great efforts under the auspices of the IMF and is benefiting from a structural adjustment facility provided by that organisation.
We, the European Union, are therefore being asked to re-establish contact with Tajikistan and to implement a restructuring of the debt as today, around EUR 73 million is still outstanding.
What the Commission is proposing is actually to repeat what was done for Georgia and Armenia, which was to make provision for a new loan which would enable Tajikistan to repay the previous one but on much more favourable terms in order to give this country some breathing space, and to make provision for a gift of EUR 35 million for the period 2000-2004, in order to reduce the burden of debt.
Unfortunately, I have to say that the Commission' s proposal is extremely contradictory.
We are in fact being asked to make a loan of EUR 75 million and a gift of EUR 35 million and now we see that no more budgetary funds are available for donations and that, in 1999, we only budgeted for the donations granted to Armenia and Georgia, donations which are due to end in 2001.
As a result and quite logically, we, the Committee on Industry, within whose competence this matter essentially falls, have been told by the Committee on Budgets that under no circumstances could we endorse donations which have not been budgeted for today and which have not been provided for in the financial perspective, particularly in Category 4, which, as you know, is already under pressure through trying to finance Kosovo.
Therefore, the compromise which we have reached with the Committee on Budgets consists effectively of only keeping the loan of EUR 75 million whilst agreeing - a position of the Committee on Industry which I think has been understood by the Committee on Budgets - that Tajikistan should also be able to benefit from supplementary aid in order to reduce the monthly debt repayment of EUR 200 000 which it cannot afford.
Tajikistan is, in fact, the poorest of the Newly Independent States and the one that we absolutely have to stabilise because, rather like Chechnya and for other reasons besides, it is a country that could endanger the whole region, particularly because of its strategic position with regard to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which are very rich countries.
We have consequently tabled a series of amendments.
Firstly, amendments that endorse the donation; then amendments which point out to the Council and the Commission their contradictions by telling them that it would be desirable to grant direct aid, but by financing it under another line, and here I am thinking of TACIS; and finally, amendments concerning conditions: monitoring the way the funds are used, the political and democratic conditions and the monitoring of the Parliament.
Mr President, Commissioner, Tajikistan is not only the poorest of all the countries formed from the Soviet Union, it has also been the one to suffer the most on account of the turmoil caused by tribal feuding, which ultimately escalated into civil war.
The country failed to grasp how to employ the financial aid provided so far in a targeted manner.
The situation has only calmed down to some extent over the last few months, once the warring parties had ceased hostilities and resolved that their next step would be to form a coalition government.
General free elections are set for March 2000.
The international donor community, which includes Swiss organisations for the most part, is now prepared to carry on where it left off delivering financial aid, but with certain provisos.
Now that the situation has abated and there are more favourable prospects for future progress overall, the Savary report now attempts to provide renewed support for the macroeconomic financial aid for this country in the form of loans.
We hope that this will make it sufficiently clear to Tajikistan that it needs to improve its state machinery by embracing democratic development and undertaking the necessary reforms.
However, the financial aid in the form of loans should only be granted if there is a real possibility of the European Union being able to properly monitor the situation, if the process of national reconciliation continues and the elections, in particular the parliamentary elections set for March, are free and democratic.
As Mr Savary rightly said, this is also what we aim to achieve with proposed Amendments Nos 8 and 9, to which we give our unequivocal support.
If Tajikistan' s creditworthiness is to be restored, then the proposal in Budget 2000 is also to be welcomed.
The rapporteur, Mr Bourlanges, has just confirmed to me that as far as this is concerned, a commentary is to provide for a particular form of financial aid to be made available again under the TACIS programme.
On a final note, I would like to say that the PPE group supports this report notwithstanding all the associated risks.
It represents a renewed, hopefully successful attempt to resume and promote economic and technical cooperation with Tajikistan.
Mr President, the loan which Tajikistan will receive equals this small and poor country' s share in an outstanding debt to the former Soviet Union.
As such, this will not solve any problems within Tajikistan.
The loan only prevents the outstanding debts from continuing to exist.
Central Asia, the majority of whose population is Turkish-speaking and a small part of which is Iranian-speaking, was conquered in the previous century by the Russian tsarist empire.
This empire did not look for colonies far from home or overseas, like most Western European States, but close by.
Although they were decolonised in 1922, they have remained linked to Russia in the form of Federal States of the Soviet Union.
The boundaries drawn by Stalin between the various linguistic and cultural regions in the ' 20s and ' 30s are now state borders.
This prolonged European influence means that we in the European Union should feel especially responsible for the vicissitudes of the five States which appeared after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The economy and environment are in a sad state of affairs in all fifteen States.
Authoritarian regimes have come to power and leave little or no scope for political opponents.
By means of referendums and intimidation, some presidents have their periods of office extended by ten years, without there being rival candidates.
In this respect, Tajikistan is no exception.
Should European money be spent on a country like this? In general, my group is not in favour of funding undemocratic regimes.
All too often, we have noticed that they receive funding in the expectation that they will regard this money as a reward for taking small steps towards greater democracy and human rights and as an encouragement to take further such steps.
In practice, however, this method does not work, as we have since found out in Turkey and Russia.
The funding is received, but the situation does not improve.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan has reverted to the situation in the nineteenth and at the beginning of the twentieth century.
There are several, regionally powerful families and groups which are fighting each other in a situation where warlords seize upon political and religious differences as an excuse to justify armed action.
The fate of Tajikistan largely depends upon what is happening in its immediate surroundings, such as the hopeless, violent conflict in Afghanistan.
A large proportion of the Tajikistani population lives in north-east Afghanistan, the area which is not in the hands of the Taliban.
The North of Tajikistan stretches out as far as the densely populated Fergana Valley which is partly located in Uzbekistan and is completely integrated into the economy and road network of this neighbouring country.
As a frontline area flanked, on the one hand, by the Russian sphere of influence and, on the other hand, by Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan, the present Tajikistani State has little chance of survival.
The only reason to inject European funding into Tajikistan despite all this is that funding increases the chance of survival of the Tajikistani population and offers more chance of peace than there would be without such aid.
This is the reason why my group can nevertheless agree with the proposals made in the Savary report.
Mr President, for our part, we will not be voting for the Savary report.
This is both for reasons concerning the choice of this country and out of more general considerations involving financial aid.
Although, of course, we have nothing against the sovereign State of Tajikistan, we nevertheless do not think that European States should drop their priorities, or to be more precise, the priority that they set a long time ago on the subject of cooperation.
This priority has now been in force for more than a quarter of a century through the Lomé Agreements.
For obvious reasons, which concern history as well as geography, Europeans felt it necessary to embark, throughout the 1970s, on a major course of cooperation with the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific in a way which is, moreover, highly original, known as the Lomé Agreements, which enable us to offer our Southern partners the benefits of stable prices for the produce which constitute their essential resources, protecting them from all-out free trade. Today we see only too well how this ruins the weakest economies.
Now under the battering, not from globalisation but from the globalist ideology, which European countries have accepted without closer examination, we have seen the ACP agreements being slowly dismantled over several years, their basic principles denied and, above all, we have seen reductions in several European countries' contributions to the EDF.
Now, at the same time, so-called exceptional financial aid to the most diverse countries in the world is multiplying, without any overall plan emerging, which means that our cooperation policy is nothing but a vague, huge scratching of the surface or, to sum it up, it is no longer a policy at all.
To this particular consideration we can add a second.
Tajikistan may have been spared the economic problems described in the report, moreover like so many other countries in the world, but it is nevertheless the victim of an ill-considered opening up of its borders and of the huge game waged by empires.
For our part, the best solution we can see would be to restore a new world trade order, which respects the sovereignty of States, their pace and their modes of development, and which also respects their traditions, traditions which we will not be able to make vanish with a wave of a magic wand just by imposing an election, human rights and what we quite hastily call democracy.
Mr President, the political tide in Tajikistan seems to be turning.
Only last week, President Ragmanov called for parliamentary elections to be held next spring.
After months of tug-of-war between the government and the opposition, agreement has finally been reached regarding the new electoral law.
I should point out, however, that these developments mark only the beginning of the democratisation process.
Tajikistan still shows features which are incompatible with a democratic constitutional state.
Indeed, the downside of the present positive developments is that during the next elections, a number of parties will remain on the sidelines.
They are excluded from participating.
This is hardly surprising as permission to participate in elections is still in the hands of former communists.
This remark regarding Tajikistan' s democratic status does not detract from the fact that quite a few changes have already taken place.
As such, international organisations and bilateral donors no longer see good reason for suspending aid to Tajikistan.
Even the European Commission, with the proposal it is making, seems to think it should put its oar in.
However, the Commission is losing sight of one important factor.
Earlier this year, the three institutions of the European Union concluded the interinstitutional agreement for a period of seven years, stipulating the financial ceilings for the various policy areas.
I would like to remind the Commission of this.
In the proposal to grant aid to Tajikistan, this agreement is not given much consideration.
Neither the urgent appeal by the IMF and World Bank to the European Union to increase aid to Tajikistan nor the argument of moral duty in the light of Tajikistan' s debts to the Union are in themselves good enough reasons to grant aid.
We are first of all faced with the European Union' s financial limitations.
The above agreement does not allow for making gifts to Tajikistan.
Moreover, we have recent experiences of entering into financial commitments which we cannot honour, as illustrated in the reconstruction of Kosovo.
The Commission has pledged a sum of EUR 500 million while the Member States do not want to make the necessary increase in the European budget at this stage.
A vague declaration of intent has since been drafted by the Council to prevent similar problems from occurring in future, but it remains to be seen what will come of this.
Kosovo is no better off at the moment.
Aid has been reduced to EUR 360 million and also spread over several years.
This incident has given me grave concerns regarding the Member States' willingness to make concessions once again within the context of aid to Tajikistan, even if only relatively small amounts are involved.
Member States find it hard to sell the idea within their own countries if the outcome of the negotiations at the Berlin Summit are undermined by reality.
Apart from a limited budget, the European Union has little political interest in Tajikistan.
The geographical remoteness makes it impossible to have any real influence on the democratisation process.
Although the European Union has an interest in being surrounded by large, stable regions, the tools it has available in order to achieve this are still very limited.
All this does not mean that we cannot do anything at all for Tajikistan.
On humanitarian grounds, I do agree with special aid as far as the loan component is concerned, but the gift component should be scrapped for the reasons I have outlined above.
I would also like to urge the Commission to ask Tajikistan' s bilateral donors and the Member States to grant special aid to this country on an individual basis.
After all, the scope of the budget of the national Member States is, politically speaking, less of a sensitive issue.
Finally, I would like to strongly advise the Commission, out of moral considerations, to resume the projects under TACIS for Tajikistan as soon as possible.
In this respect, we have to monitor the situation closely in order to ensure that the money ends up where it is needed, namely with the Tajikistani population, which is suffering under grinding poverty.
Mr President, were it not for the people of Tajikistan I would not be standing here today.
During the First World War, in 1916, my grandfather was a prisoner of war working on the railways in what used to be Russia-Central Asia, and he has often told me that he was only able to survive these difficult years on account of the hospitality and helpfulness of the people of Tajikistan.
But this is not why I am so keen to support Tajikistan' s cause, rather, unlike Mr Blokland, I believe that it is an issue that is of direct concern to us.
Tajikistan is situated in an area enclosed by China and Russia, which are at odds in this region, and by the Islamic world and the Caspian Sea, where there are immense deposits of raw materials.
In my view, this region represents the Balkans of the future, a Balkans in microcosm, and that is why it is in our vital interest, particularly as a number of nuclear powers are established there, to stabilise this region and prevent ethnic conflicts taking place there from having an impact on the entire world.
That is why I believe that we need to help Tajikistan on its difficult way ahead by providing it with a loan, but also with outright grants, it being clear, in this respect, that we will have to call upon the Member States as our own budget will not accommodate this.
Of course, we must demand democracy and the rule of law but, at the same time, we must not apply uncalled-for standards.
For centuries, Tajikistan was subjected to colonial exploitation and for eighty years it was brutally suppressed by Soviet Communism.
Today this small mountain race is making its way with difficulty and must not be made subject to European standards.
We must apply the same standards that we apply to developing countries; after all, we have been supporting the countries of Africa on the road to democracy for decades now, and the situation there still leaves much to be desired.
We have only been supporting Tajikistan for a few years now.
Therefore, whilst we must demand certain rules of the game, we must also be patient towards the people of Tajikistan, heavily promote the elections to take place in the spring and recognise that this is not just an act that will do honour to Europe, rather it is in Europe' s own best interests to bring peace to this region.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, first of all, a warm thank you to rapporteur Savary.
The Commission is very pleased to note that its proposal to grant exceptional financial aid to Tajikistan has obtained wholehearted support from Parliament' s relevant committee.
The Commission is supporting quite a lot of the proposed amendments, especially those relating to stricter Budget supervision (given the possibility of retrograde political developments in the country) and is also supporting the proposal that a final report should be delivered to Parliament in the year 2004.
The Commission cannot, however, accept the proposals regarding that part of the aid relating to subsidies.
It is impossible to implement this part relating to subsidies on existing legal bases, especially TACIS, because the resources included in the aid cannot be related to special projects or programmes. The aim is in fact to reduce the country' s debt towards the Community.
This proposal is also aimed at confirming the subsidy of EUR 95 million available to Armenia and Georgia in accordance with Council Decision 97/787/EC of 17 November 1997.
The Commission finds it difficult to accept a reduction of the subsidy to EUR 50 million.
The reasons for this are as follows. The Community' s financial exposure will continue to be high in an area whose stability has deteriorated, both because of the Russian financial crisis and the current situation in the northern Caucasus.
A significant reduction in the EU' s exposure has already been achieved, with the figure concerned going down from EUR 212 million initially, including interest on outstanding debts, to EUR 123 million at present.
A further reduction may, however, occur over the next few years if the aid is implemented as planned.
Armenia and Georgia will have difficulty understanding the fact that the Community is reducing its aid, in spite of the major efforts which these two countries, with support from the IMF and other contributors, have made to reduce their financial liabilities towards the Community.
This would put the Community in a difficult situation regarding both these two countries and the international community.
The Commission considers that it would be unfortunate if the Community were to refuse to confirm its financial aid to countries whose strategic importance to the Community is obvious.
Moreover, we ought, in the light of the present difficulties in the Caucasus, to send out political signals indicating that we want to continue to support the considerable efforts which are being made to achieve stabilisation and democracy, as well as to introduce reforms.
Mr President, after the voting, I would like to raise a point of order concerning the texts adopted yesterday.
If you would allow me, I would like to take up a few minutes after the votes.
You may do so.
(Parliament approved the legislative resolution) EXPLANATIONS OF VOTE
Mr President, I would like to say how pleased I am to give this last explanation of vote of 1999 on the Savary report, which I voted for.
I am very much in favour of this European Community initiative which aims to grant practical aid to the most deserving regions, such as Tajikistan.
I would like, as Mr Blokland said in his statement, to say to Commissioner Wallström - who is disturbing the sleep of Italian, Greek and Spanish pensioners because of superannuated cars which have to be quickly taken off the roads - that I would appreciate verification as to how the aid is distributed once it has been granted to Tajikistan and other States.
I would be pleased if it was given to people who need it, such as pensioners.
Mr President, very briefly on a point of order regarding the texts adopted yesterday.
During the debate, I was watching what exactly was written down regarding the vote for the Murphy report on late payment.
I would like to ask you to get your department to look at Amendment No 20 again, as I am 99.9% certain that this is not the text we voted on or at any rate not the text which should have been submitted because this is not what the Industry Committee provided.
I have asked to be given the floor officially because I fear that we will be unable to reach the departments during the Christmas break and in order to avoid problems during the conciliation procedure.
Thank you very much, Mrs Thyssen.
We will make the appropriate checks because, evidently, the Minutes have been approved; therefore, there will have to be a technical correction where appropriate.
Mr President, I do not know if this is a technical correction, but I have just discovered that I am not included in the Members from Luxembourg in Wednesday' s Minutes, concerning Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi' s report on the verification of credentials.
Mrs Reding' s name is there instead.
I know that I owe my seat to her being appointed a Commissioner but I do not understand, since I have been a Member of this Parliament since 16 September, why my name does not feature in the Minutes covering the verification of credentials.
Would you please rectify this?
Mrs Lulling, I cannot rectify this because this report does not affect you.
You were elected on 16 September - as you quite rightly said - and this report concerns those who were elected on 13 June.
You replaced Mrs Reding.
There will therefore be another report, which will, I hope, confirm your mandate.
Mr Posselt, I am very pleased, but in any case, I would remind you that, when requesting a procedural motion, you actually have to indicate the Rule to which you are referring.
Having said that, Parliament has reached the end of the agenda.
The Minutes of the present sitting will be subject to Parliament' s approval at the beginning of the next part-session.
Mr Manders has the floor for a procedural motion.
Mr President, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you, the Bureau and all Members, a good transition into the new year.
Ladies and gentlemen, before you leave me alone, I would like on behalf of the Bureau, once again, to thank all the Members, all the services, officials, assistants and other co-workers and, if you will allow me - although all the co-workers work for us - perhaps a special mention should go to the language services which help us to understand each other here.
I would also like, although they are absent, to mention the Commission and the Council.
I am not going to re-open the 'Millennium or not the Millennium' debate, but I am going to wish all of you, and by extension, all the citizens of Europe which we represent, a happy year 2000.
Adjournment of the session
I declare the session of the European Parliament adjourned.
(The sitting was closed at 10.50 a.m.)
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